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autisticlancemcclain · 1 year ago

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“Neither of you are getting it.”

Twin sighs come from his laptop speakers. Lance lifts his head up from where he’s smushed it into his pillow to glare at his two best friends who apparently hate him, for some reason.

“I mean, there’s not much to get,” Pidge says. “You’re a big dumb gay loser and this predicament effects you emotionally.” She looks at Hunk as if to ask, right?, and Hunk, who is a traitor of the worst kind, shrugs in agreement.

“I don’t even get what you’re worried about, man. You have consistently been the one to get him the best gifts for years. None of us even try to beat you.”

“That’s the point!” Lance shrieks. “You’re not listening! I had ideas every other year, Hunk! This year I have nothing!” He taps his head aggressively. “There is not one thing in here! Nada!”

Pidge snickers. “Well, that’s not new.”

“Can it, Pidgeon.”

Hunk holds his hands up placatingly before the two of them can really start to go at it. “Alright, alright. Pidge, have mercy on him. He’s suffering. Lance —” he falters. “Dude, you walked into that one. Sorry.”

Lance will concede to that point. He kind of set his own trap. But still, he’s having a crisis, Pidge as his best friend should be going easy on him, so he sticks his tongue out at her.

“I just — ugh.” He takes a moment to fluff his pillows back up before falling backwards on them and throwing a hand over his face. This is a ridiculous thing to be so bothered by, and he knows it, but he is. Bothered by it, that is. He hasn’t been this lost since the first year they were in space.

“Lance,” Hunk says gently, startling him. “It’s August, dude. Keith’s birthday is two months away. You really, truly, do not need to be stressing about it.”

Lance’s eyes trace the long-faded glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. His gazes unfocuses on the red-orange star that represents Pollux, which has always been his favourite.

“This will be the first time I’ve seen him in months,” Lance says quietly. “I want him —” he swallows. The dryness of his throat makes his voice scratchy. “I want to be perfect.”

It. He had meant to say, I want it to be perfect. Because that’s what he wants — he wants Keith to get here safely and actually be able to stay this time and nothing to go wrong and him to celebrate his birthday surrounded by his loved ones, his friends and family. And — Lance. Wants to be there. Also.

He swallows again. It’s harder this time.

“He’s going to love anything you give him,” Pidge says, uncharacteristically soft. “You know he’s just going to be glad to see you upright and in one piece.”

Lance winces and the strained quality of her voice, the sudden darkness in Hunk’s expression. He knows he’s the cause of it.

It was hard on the team, his death.

He knows it was. That’s why he never talks about it. (They were never supposed to even know about it. When Lance’s soul was yanked back into his body and Allura gasped in relief and hugged him to her chest and sobbed out, I thought I was too late, Lance clamped his mouth shut and kept it that way. When he had rare moments on their long trip home where the adrenaline began to fade and he felt his heart begin to slow, he picked fights. He ran sims. He made stupid decisions. He kept his body distracted and his mind wound so tightly around Red’s that there was no chance for it to slip, to remember what had happened to him, to fade back into that dark and silent place. He kept his mouth shut and kept his quintessence dragged up to the highest level he could bring it.

And when they defeated Sendak, and they had to sacrifice their lions or sacrifice their friend, Lance’s hands shook and he made the obvious choice. And he doesn’t know what happened, when the adrenaline finally faded and the one thing keeping him tethered to their plane disappeared, but he knows when his soul was yanked back into his body, permanently this time, his friends wouldn’t answer his questions or let him out of their sight and all of them had the same haunted look to their eyes. He has never had the strength to ask. But he has been careful with himself, since. He covers his Altean marks — a testament of how much Allura gave of herself to keep him alive — and keeps his feet planted on Earth and out of danger and knows that he owes it to them to keep himself safe.)

“Well, anything I could give him would be better than what you got him last year,” Lance says loudly, beating back the oppressive silence that has fallen over them. It works — Pidge scowls at him, remembering the plant she had got him that had turned out to be highly toxic to any Galra. Hunk snickers at the memory of the bright blue hives that had covered Keith’s skin for weeks.

“How was I to know?” Pidge cries. Hunk and Lance’s increasing laughter only seems to make her angrier “He — ugh! It doesn’t matter, anyway, because you handmade him a leather sheath for his knife so he wasn’t looking at what I was giving him anyway! Shut up! Ugh!”

“It’s true,” Hunk agrees, chuckling. “We should make you gift stuff last. It’s not fair and makes everyone else look bad. He couldn’t take his eyes off that sheath, last year. He still wears it every day.”

Pidge mutters something in her hand that sounds suspiciously like “he couldn’t take his eyes off of someone,” so Lance ignores her in favour of whining again.

“Yeah, well, there’s no point this year because I’ve got nothing. I started making that sheath in June. I started making his jacket from two years ago in March. But this year I didn’t have any ideas and now I don’t have the time, even if I do come up with something. ” He sighs, defeated. “It sucks. I’ve hardly seen him outside of a computer screen and I’m only going to see him less, and I can’t even give him something to remember me by.”

“You’re talking like you’re never going to see him again,” Pidge points out. “There would be way less pressure if you just — saw him more, dude.”

Lance scoffs. “Yeah, right. Lemme just pack up and run off to space with him. Boom, all problems solved.”

He blinks.

He sits up so fast he very nearly brains himself on his bed frame.

“Holy shit,” he whispers. He looks over at his friends, who are smiling widely. His heart pounds.

Holy shit.

“I gotta go,” he shouts, scrambling to grab his laptop.

“Goodbye, Lance,” Hunk says, rolling his eyes fondly.

Pidge makes a crude gesture at him because she’s the worst. “Bye, gay pining loser!”

He slams the laptop lid shut and holds it tightly to his chest. Everything, finally, starts to click into place — Lance smiles; small at first, but quickly his mouth spreads so wide his cheeks ache, and his eyes practically squish shut.

He knows what to do.

———

On the morning of October 23rd, he is stressing.

“You’re embarrassing,” calls Allura, from where she‘s been lazing on the couch and eating pineapples for the last three days.

“I regret asking for your help,” Lance grunts, struggling to lift a sack of flour. He side eyes her. “Especially because you’re supposed to be helping, Miss Superstrength.”

Allura snorts, shoving another chunk of pineapple in her mouth. “I am helping. If I wasn’t here you would have talked yourself out of this several times over. You’re welcome!”

“Ugh,” Lance says, because she’s right and he knows it. “I’m not letting you lick the spoon.”

“What? Hey!”

He does let her lick the spoon. Because he has no discipline. But to her eternal credit she does actually help, too, and in more ways than just picking him up and physically shaking him out of his many freak outs, and he has a lot of them.

He’s been planning this for weeks. There are so many aspects, so many moving parts, that it’s just — stressful. Trying to put together a party that balances all the people who want to come together and celebrate Keith’s 25th with every single time constraint and restoration effort and even Keith’s own discomfort with too much fanfare is…a lot. Plus all the actual stuff that goes into hosting people at a party — Lance absolutely would not be able to do any of this without Allura’s help. She is, after all, his best friend, even though she drives him crazy and always has, in more ways than one.

At eleven thirty, when all the (tasteful, despite what his siblings had insisted was too boring) decorations have been set up and most of the food has been prepared, Allura clasps her palms to his cheeks and says, “Lance, breathe.”

Lance looks at her with wide eyes and says, “I’m cancelling everything.”

“You’re not.”

“I am. I can’t do this. What was I thinking? This is — cringe. Ridiculous.” His chest shakes on an inhale. “What was I thinking, ‘Llura?”

She hums thoughtfully. Her thumbs trace his cheekbones, wiping away the makeup that covers his Altean marks, making Lance twitch but not move.

“You were thinking,” she says quietly, “about how long it has been since everyone has been on the same planet.”

He swallows. “Yeah.”

“And how much we have all missed each other.

His shaking hands come up to grip her wrists, breath shuddering as he exhales.

“Yes.”

“And. Maybe. How much you miss Keith.” She pulls her hands away from his face and wraps them around his hands. “How much you miss the stars, even.”

“I’m scared,” he admits.

She squeezes his hands. “When has that stopped you?”

———

It’s three thirty and there’s still no sign of Keith.

Shiro and the rest of the Atlas crew, including Hunk and Veronica, arrived arrived sometime around one. The Holts came in right on their heels. Kolivan, Krolia, and a few other Blades Keith has kept up with over the years showed up a few hours ago. Lance’s family has been here the whole time, and Coran and Romelle came with Allura. Everyone that Lance had invited to come is here.

Except the one person Lance actually wants to come.

“Lance,” Shiro greets, somehow sensing his anxiety like the guru goody goody he is and popping up next to him.

Lance smiles anyway. He’s missed him too much to do anything else — he hasn’t seen anyone on the Atlas since their last restock, ten weeks ago.

“Hey, Shiro.”

“You freaking out?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. I’d be shocked if you weren’t, you walking Xanax advertisement.”

That startles a laugh out of Lance, and he shoves him, grateful for the distraction. Shiro grins wide and throws an arm around him, guiding him away from the front door — where he’s been biting his nails and staring at the sky in anxious hope for the last twenty minutes — and back to the rest of the party, ducking under flailing limbs and the random football that someone has brought out for some reason (Marco, probably).

“He’s gonna come, you know. He’s been excited about it since you invited him. I have received no less than nine hundred and twenty-two texts about it. It’s all very sweet and embarrassing. He’s coming, Lance.”

Lance huffs. “Unless he’s dead or maimed somewhere. I did some quick stat evals and there’s at 37% chance he was attacked on the flight to Earth and is bleeding out as we speak.”

Shiro stops them. He blinks at Lance several times. He sighs.

“You actually need to see a psychiatrist. Genuinely.”

“Nah.”

Shiro flicks him on the forehead, but the fond smile stays affixed to his face. Soon Lance finds himself relaxing, tucked under Shiro’s arm. He’s probably right — he usually is. Keith is chronically late, just as a person. Lance even told him the party started at ten just to make it more likely that he’d show up before everyone left. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be places — he just struggles with the concept of time passing, and also gets distracted a lot. (There are a lot of people who need Keith’s help, after all, and he’s a bleeding heart if Lance has ever known one. All humans are wired to respond to calls for help, but Keith seems almost attuned to them. If Lance thinks about his crooked smile and kind eyes for too long he gets physically nauseous.)

As Lance’s watch ticks its way to four o’clock, a light streaks across the sky, and before Lance knows what he’s doing he ducks under Shiro’s arm and starts running. He flings open the back gate and slides down the sandy hills, barely managing not to trip on rocks and pits in the sand where children have dug little pools. He doesn’t bother to slow as the aircraft makes its fiery descent, confident the pilot will not hit him, and by the time he makes it across the beach his bare feet burn and he’s stepped on a sharp shell and lost his jacket somewhere near the house. But it doesn’t matter, because the craft lands and seconds later the door flings open and Keith comes sprinting out, still clad in armour, hair long and thick and braided back, and he runs at Lance at full speed and they collide at the top of a sand dune and Lance leaps into his arms and Keith loses his balance and they go tumbling down, laughing, Keith’s hand on his waist and Lance’s fingers clutching tightly at his shoulders.

“You made it!” Lance shouts, smile wider than he ever thought capable.

Keith laughs again, full-bodied and relieved, crooked incisors on full display and long neck pulled back as his head rests on the ground.

“I know! I’m late, I’m sorry, I lost track of time and —”

“You always lose track of time,” Lance says warmly. He traces a strand of hair that has loosened from Keith’s braid, brushing it off his forehead and tucking it behind his ear. He stays where he is, half-pinning Keith into the sand, knees on either side of him, re-memorizing the curve of his grin and the indigo of his eyes and the scars on his face and the softness of his gaze. Suddenly his chest aches, painful in the best possible way, and his stomach pits and swirls and butterflies flutter wildly in his abdomen. Heat zaps up his veins and sparks through his arteries. The slowly setting mid-autumn sun casts golden light on Keith’s face and Lance is reminded, again, how breathtaking things are outside of Earth.

“Happy birthday,” he breathes, choking on the words.

Keith’s eyes crinkle. His hand comes up to cup his cheek, thumb pressing gently on the gold Altean marks. They curve perfectly around the shape of his fingerprint.

“I missed you, Bluebell.”

Someone huffs. “Yeah, and he nearly killed us trying to get here. Some kind of leader you are, Captain.”

Keith flushes, gently pushing Lance up so he can get up and glare at Ezor properly. “We were fine!”

“We crossed nine hundred million lightyears in two days!”

“I took a shortcut!”

“Through weblum mating grounds!”

Lance punches his friend in the shoulder. Keith pouts at him, wounded.

“You flew through weblum mating grounds?!”

“It was fine!” Keith defends. “It wasn’t even an issue!”

Acxa scoffs incredulously. “We were chased by fourteen weblums at once, Kogane.”

“But did you die?”

All three of Keith’s crew roll their eyes. Keith crosses his arms smugly. Lance loves him so fiercely that it hurts.

“Keith!”

With what Lance can only call divine instinct, he has enough forethought to throw himself out of the way before a five foot nothing blur throws herself at Keith’s person and sends them both crashing to the ground, significantly more painfully that Keith and Lance’s whole thing. Keith groans loudly, but Pidge doesn’t even give him half a second to complain, dragging him back upright and hugging him properly. Keith, softie that he is, hugs her back immediately, smiling into her hair.

“Hey, Pidge.”

“Happy birthday, loser! Birthday beats!”

She, immediately, starts to let him have it, impervious to Keith’s yelps. He attempts to squirm away, but Zethrid, lover of violence and also loud supporter of Pidge in general, firmly clamps onto his shoulder to allow Pidge to assault him in peace.

“That was twenty-six!” he says in outrage when she finishes.

She smiles pleasantly. “You were late.”

Hunk, thankfully, chooses that moment to jog over, carrying an ice pack because he’s an angel and also a genius.

“Figured Pidge would come in fists swinging,” he jokes, leaning down to hug Keith tightly. “Happy birthday, man. It’s been too long.”

“It’s been two weeks,” Keith protests, but he looks like he agrees.

It doesn’t take long for the rest of the party to flock over, despite the fact that it would be much easier for everyone to just wait for Keith to walk over to them. Lance isn’t surprised — it’s not like he could wait, after all. When Keith is around, people gather. Such is the way of the world.

He smiles at the crowd of Keith’s loved ones, and especially at the bewilderment on his face. It’s been years, but Lance knows that he still gets surprised when he’s reminded how big his family has gotten. It’s nice to see that reminder written all over his face. He edges out of the smattering of people and starts to head back to the house, figuring he might as well start setting up the table to get dinner started now that Keith’s here. Most of it is already cooked and keeping warm in the oven, but he figured it would be best to wait until everyone was ready to —

“Hey, Lance, wait up.”

He startles when a hand wraps its way around his wrist, relaxing when he recognises the calloused fingers and leather-covered palm. Keith jogs over the rest of the way now that he has Lance stopped, falling into step next to him.

“What’re you doing?” Lance asks, looking at him urgently. “Go say hi to everyone!”

Keith shrugs. “I’ll get there.” He flashes another smile at Lance and it’s crooked and familiar and Lance is weak in the knees. “I started an argument about human versus Altean time measuring systems. Everyone is now picking sides. They won’t notice I’m gone for the next ten minutes at least. I’m all yours, Sharpshooter.”

Lance resists the urge to bury himself in the sand and die of mortification. There’s actually no physical reason for Keith to look the way that he does. It’s — too much. The smouldering eyes and sturdy shoulders are one thing, but with the whole — grin and hair and wide hands and fucking — everything else; it’s too much. It’s a lot. Keith should maybe — wear a mask, or something. Or a hood. Or be more of a klutz, just so he’s humbled slightly.

“Oh,” Lance croaks, trying desperately not to focus on the way Keith’s hand is still holding onto Lance. “That’s — cool.”

“Cool.”

Blue, Red, if your spirits are still kicking around somewhere, send help, he prays at the heavens.

Apparently they are, because the heavens do indeed provide.

The air in front of the sparks and warps, flashing blue so bright Lance had to squeeze his eyes shut. He hears a loud bark, and opens his eyes again just in time to catch the ball of fur and floof that throws himself into his arms.

“Kosmo!” he cries, pulling away from Keith in his haste to hug the space-wolf tightly. Kosmo yips in delight, covering Lance’s face in dog slobber as he wiggles around in excitement. “Oh, buddy, I was wondering where you were! Mwah! Mwah mwah mwah!”

“He saw the crowd on the descent and got nervous,” Keith explains, scratching Kosmo’s fur fondly. “He was hiding in the back, huh, buddy?”

“Like father like son,” Lance teases. He adjusts the big dog into his arms so he’s half on his shoulders, panting right next to his ear and giving him gross slobbery kisses every three seconds.

“I do not hide from crowds,” Keith huffs. “And he can walk, Lance. Don’t baby him. He’s always spoiled after he hangs out with you.”

“You do so. And of course I spoil the little baby!” Lance coos, scratching under his chin. Kosmo howls in excitement, tail thumping hard against Lance’s hip. “Who’s the bestest boy? Who is my favourite in the whole big universe? It’s you! Yes, Kosmo-baby, it’s you! Good boy!”

“He’s not your favourite,” Keith grumps.

“Yes he is! Oh, yes he is!”

He coos over Kosmo for the whole walk back to the house, only setting him down when they make their way to the kitchen. Keith grabs the dog gently under the ear when he finally stands on his own, bending down to look him straight in the eyes.

“Kosmo,” he says quietly, angling himself slightly away from Lance, “remember what we Talked About.” He stares at the wolf for several moments. “You know. About the — thing.”

Amazingly, the dog seems to bark in understand. Keith nods in satisfaction, patting him on the head. “Good. Go do.” With a poof Kosmo disappears again, leaving just the two of them in the kitchen.

Lance pouts. “Aw. I wanted to spend more time with him. I haven’t seen him in months.”

Keith looks affronted. “You haven’t seen me in months!”

Lance turns away to hide his smile, busying himself with the food. “Eh.” He waves an oven-mitt-clad hand dismissively. “I text you all the time.

“You’re a bully,” Keith pouts. “You’re being mean to me on my birthday.”

“At the party I put together for you, dweeb. Don’t you pout at me.”

In response, Keith inserts himself into Lance with the guise of helping him plate and pouts harder.

“Bully,” he emphasizes.

Lance flicks him on the nose. Keith catches his hand and holds it hostage between two of his, rubbing his thumb along the bump of Lance’s wrist. Lance considers screaming.

“Help or get out of my kitchen,” he manages instead.

Smirking, Keith does, loading garlic knots onto a plate and stealing several, thinking he’s slick. He’s not — Lance notices, but it’s Keith’s birthday and Lance also ate like six already, so he lets it slide.

They have everything ready to go in under five minutes, loading up as much as they can carry and heading outside to set it all out. Everyone else is back by the time they get there, and Hunk and Shiro scramble to come help set up. Very quickly the party is in full swing, people eating and laughing and wishing Keith a thousand happy birthdays. Keith has always claimed to hate attention and crowds, but he’s — glowing, really. His smile doesn’t leave his face. Maybe it’s that he’s older and maybe it’s that he knows everyone. But more likely it’s the easy confidence that’s grown in him over the years, sprouting from the knowledge that he is good and he is kind and he is loved, and trusting everyone who assures him this is true. Lance remembers when he hunched his shoulders and scowled at anyone who looked at him too long. Now he smiles when someone calls his name.

There’s no rhyme or reason to the party. Lance had attempted to plan it, but given up quickly — he knows his people. They’ll flutter around something until inspiration hits and they’ll flutter around something else. The only constant has been food and loading Kosmo up with affection.

As the sun begins its journey below the horizon, someone — Adam — forces Keith into a random lawnchair and says, “Open your gifts, gremlin.”

Immediately, everyone else clambers to grab their gifts and gather around, ignoring Keith’s protests of “I’m twenty-five goddamn years old, I don’t need gifts, you people waste your time and money —” and arguing over who goes first.

Adam goes first. Obviously.

Despite Keith’s grumbling, he’s very obviously touched. He gets a range of things, from a fancy knife from his mother (again) to a framed photo from Shiro, with he and Adam grinning widely at a camera as a young Keith snores in Shiro’s lap. Keith starts bawling some time around gift number three and never really stops. Lance tries to hand him tissues, but after he uses up an entire box decides to let him be a big emotional dork in piece.

“Is this a crystal from the first Balmera we ever visited,” Keith sobs.

Hunk smiles, amused. “It is.”

He makes his way over to Keith’s lawn chair and hugs him tightly for several minutes, muttering something and pressing dozens of kisses into his hair. Keith holds him tightly. Lance himself cries on several occasions, but he’s not alone.

“I just love everyone so much,” Keith blubbers.

“Here we go,” teases Allura, but she’s the one to shoo everyone out of his space to give him a break. “Take a few minutes, darling. Gather yourself. Let me know when you’re up for company again.”

Keith nods at her gratefully. Kosmo makes his way onto Keith’s lap and plants himself there, curling up and laying his head on Keith’s knees. Lance sits on the lawn chair next to Keith, offering him a glass of water that he accepts gratefully.

“I do this every year,” Keith laments, attempting to dry his eyes.

Lance pats him delicately on the hand. “Don’t worry. It’s charming.”

Keith sniffles. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Yes.”

Lance is the only one who hasn’t given Keith his present. Well, and Allura, technically, since she’s part of it. Part of him wants to do it now, get it over with. He even finds the words for it, but then Pidge hollers something about cake, and Keith, who has the biggest sweet tooth in the entire universe, brightens, looking at Lance hopefully, and Lance swallows it down.

“Go sit at the table,” Lance orders. “I’m doing candles and you’re blowing them out.”

“That’s babyish,” Keith protests stubbornly.

“No candles, no cake.”

“Ugh.”

Keith gets up and goes to sit at the table, Kosmo pattering after him.

Smiling to himself, cheeks redder than he would like, Lance ducks back into the kitchen, digging around the cupboards for the candles he bought the other day and carefully pulling the cake out of the fridge.

It’s chocolate-chocolate-chocolate-chocolate. Quadruple chocolate. It’s chocolate cake with chocolate custard and chocolate frosting covered in chocolate decorations. What it is is sugar on a platter, and Keith will devour it. Lance spent more hours than he’s willing to admit on making it. If anyone questions him even a little he is going to die on the spot.

He carefully sticks twenty six candles — one for wishing — on the top of the cake, lighting twenty-five of them. Everyone is already sat down by the time he walks back outside, and the second Coran sees them he starts singing loudly, and everyone else is quick to join in. As much as Keith tries to roll his eyes about the truly startling amount of flame on his cake, nothing he can do can hide the obvious excitement that lights up his face upon sight of the chocolate monstrosity. He takes a deep breath and blows out the candles when the song ends, extinguishing all but one. Immediatey, a ripple of teasing snickers and ooooooou’s fill the air.

“One candle left! You’re gonna get a boyfriend this year!” Pidge shouts, looking directly at Lance.

Both Keith and Lance flush up to their foreheads.

“Cut the cake!” Allura shouts, because she is a true ally and Lance loves her.

Grateful for the distraction, Lance does, nudging Keith out of the way when he tries.

“If you cut the cake then you can’t get the first slice, dorkbrain. Sit down. Let me.”

He does let Lance cut the cake, which makes Lance feel touched for some reason. God, Shiro is right. He needs a psychiatrist. He hates it when Shiro is right.

He’s very smug to receive dozens of compliments on his cake, highest of all from Keith, who scarfs down his first piece in literal seconds (thirty seven, to be exact). He has several more. There will be no leftovers.

But Lance knew that.

It doesn’t take long for people to start milling about again; finishing their dessert and picking at the various fruit trays and chatting and watching the last rays of sun disappear. Lance twitches nervously, stealing glances at Keith, until Allura walks up to him, pinches him on the shoulder, and says, “Get your quiznak together.”

And Lance grumbles, “Yeesh, woman. Alright,” and forces himself to walk over to Keith, who is spinning some hugely exaggerated story to Nadia and Sylvio.

“Children,” Lance says when Keith finally takes a breath, “Tío Lance has to talk to Keith about boring adult things. Go harass your Tío Marco, it will be fun.”

“Quieres tiempo a solas con tu nooooooovioooooo,” the twins singsong in unison, and then run away cackling. Lance flushes bright red and considers pelting strawberries at them like the little shits deserve.

“What was that?” Keith asks, bewildered.

“Probable cause,” Lance mutters darkly.

Keith snorts. “Please don’t murder your niblings.”

“That’ll be my gift to you. Not committing homicide on your birthday.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Well, not really.”

Keith raises his eyebrows. “You mean…” He gestures vaguely at everything. “This isn’t already my gift?”

Lance shrugs.

“Lance, come on! This is more than enough. It must have taken you weeks to prepare.” He shakes his head, looking at Lance with soft, kind eyes. “You always do so much for me.”

Lance shudders, weak under Keith’s gaze.

“I like to.” He pauses. “I miss you. Always. It — fills the time, to do things for you.”

Keith reaches up and brushes some sand from Lance’s hair. He lingers, after, tracing his fingers along the shell of his ear, resting his hand against Lance’s neck. Lance closes his eyes, leaning into it, letting himself have this affection he’s craved like nothing else for months.

“I miss you, too. Constantly. Sometimes you’re all I think about, up there.” He sighs, and Lance can hear the tired, enticing smile on his face. “Wish you were watching my back again, Sharpshooter. No one else does it quite like you.”

Lance forces his eyes open again, although he can’t bring himself to meet Keith’s eyes. He traces the crooked line of his nose, instead, the tilt of his thick brows.

“You going back tonight?”

“Nah, I’ll stay a couple days. I’ve got nothing pressing for another week.”

“Oh, thank God.”

Tell him. Tell him. Tell him, chants the Allura that lives in his head.

Give me a goddamn second, he snaps back at it.

“Uh, Allura and I have been. Working. On a project.”

Keith tilts his head. “Oh?”

“Yeah, she’s here a lot. Obviously.” He gestures to his Altean marks, which he has just remembered are uncovered. He’s fine — all systems are running and he is a-okay. But his situation was a little different than Shiro’s. A little more Frankenstein. Lance depends on quintessence heavier than anyone else — he’s probably fine to make his own and live his life, but…he’s always struggled with depression. And Allura worries. So she wormholes to Earth regularly to hang out and make sure he’s not too low.

They have a lot of time to scheme, the Blue Paladins of Voltron.

“Obviously,” Keith agrees. Unlike everyone else, he doesn’t avoid looking at his marks; doesn’t wince when he’s reminded of them. The only change in his eyes is a look of determination, a renewed intensity in which he watches Lance. It’s a little bit intoxicating.

“I love Earth,” Lance says quietly. “It will always be my home. I will always want to come back here. I want to die here.” He finally meets Keith’s eyes. “But.”

Keith’s eyes are wide. The hand still resting on the curve of Lance’s neck twitches, slightly.

“But?” he asks, breathless.

“I’ve been helping her organize plans for a castleship. A little smaller than the old one, but — you know. Similar. It’s something to do. I’ll feel better knowing you guys are together, up there, fighting as a team together. There’s the Atlas, but it’s not the same. It’s not Voltron.”

“Oh.” Some of the excitement dims from Keith’s expression, although he takes great care to keep the smile firmly on his face. “That’s great, Lance. I miss the castle too. It’ll be a little more stable, and missions will —”

“And I’m coming with you,” Lance blurts.

Keith freezes.

“To space. Permanently. Um, mostly. I still want to come back to Earth and see my mom and everybody but you know. I miss everybody. I’m lonely. And being a farmer is actually super duper boring. No offense to farmers, but I want to shoot shit again. I even miss training, which is crazy, because I hate training —”

“Lance,” Keith says, and Lance says “Yeah?” and then he’s being pulled forward and Keith’s other hand comes to rest on his hip and he is being kissed.

“Oh,” he breathes, eyes fluttering shut and words fading from his brain. His hands slide into Keith’s hair without his conscious thought, and he tilts his head and lets Keith devour him as the butterflies storm in his stomach and kisses Keith back like he will get all the breath he needs from Keith’s lungs. His head spins and his knees go weak and Keith smells like pine and sandalwood and his lips are chapped and his hands are calloused and it’s the most wonderfully strange mix of foreign and familiar, bexause Lance knows all these things, but he has never known them in this way.

“Finally!” someone shouts, and soon there are wolf whistles and catcalls and Keith’s smile is pressed against his and Lance can feel the press of his crooked incisors against his bottom lip and he could live off the sensation.

“Happy birthday,” he whispers, half-drowned out by the noise of their teasing friends.

“Exactly as I wished it to be,” Keith whispers back, and then kisses him again and again and again.

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shantechni · 9 months ago

Text

I noticed this a looooong time ago, but I didn't mention it and sort of kept pushing it aside as an unimportant detail. After coming across this for, like, the fifth time though, something finally strikes me as supremely odd, and it's these two simple lines Leo says in the first episode of S2.

Between the S1 finale and the S2 premiere, Splinter told his sons that he defeated the Shredder when they faced off in the hideout. Not only that, he told them they'd never see the man again because he lost his honor, but both of these statements are immediately proven to be contradictory to what actually took place, as well as to what Splinter believes about the Shredder's way of thinking.

Anyone who has watched the S1 finale, specifically the second part, knows that the fight was brought to a screeching halt when Karai ran in to stop Splinter from finishing off the Shredder. And, after seeing just how deeply influenced Karai has been to hate him, Splinter left in a hurry to avoid fighting who he now knows is his thought-to-be-dead daughter.

Now, it makes sense that Splinter didn't tell the boys Karai interrupted the fight considering she was a touchy subject, one he didn't approach all of his sons with until midway through S2 in The Manhattan Project. He was still coming to terms with the revelation himself, and his avoidance of everyone's questions tells us that he genuinely didn't want to explain why Karai believed he killed her mom. In the process, he'd have to get into the reason Shredder led Karai to believe that lie and yadda yadda.

So, not telling them Karai was there makes sense. But why tell them the Shredder was defeated?

Something like that would be believable if he didn't imply any finality by telling them the Shredder was taken down, because he goes on to wonder outloud if their enemies were truly defeated and even reaffirms that, "The Shredder is a crafty and patient foe who bides his time." But Leo clearly says that Splinter told them they'd never see him again after he apparently lost whatever honor he had left. And we can't point fingers at any potential dialogue or writing error because they make sure the audience hears that Splinter did indeed facilitate this calm behavior of theirs.

One can wonder if he didn't truly intend to flat out lie, but rather to placate his sons by withholding a harsh truth and giving everyone the time they need to revel in their victory. However, that's another odd decision for Splinter to make since he's usually the one to remind his sons that none of their enemies will stay gone for long, the first and most notable instance of this being when they first encountered Bradford and Xever.

Anyways, after Leo says what he says, Splinter takes offense to Raph casually adding that they'll take care of the Shredder if he does come back, and, upon realizing that his prior statement has heavily blanketed them with a false sense of security, he harshly tells his sons the month long celebrating is over.

Honestly, even though I said sugar coating is very out of character for someone like Splinter, it's the only sensible answer for him lying to the guys. And probably himself for a minute there, too.

He knows the Shredder isn't honorable. He's traitorous, underhanded, and full of spite for those he feels wronged him. Oroku Saki is a vengeful man who has been undeniably wronged in his past, but refuses to learn from it and will shift the blame onto those undeserving. He's tenacious in the way he literally left Japan with a singular image of a Hamato clan shuriken as proof that he has another chance to kill someone he used to call his brother.

Splinter knows all of this, but he still went ahead and made the morally dubious decision to construct a perfect, short-lived world where he could tell his sons they wouldn't have to worry about the Shredder again.

And where he doesn't have to face the gravity of the changes yet to come.

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daechwitatamic · 6 months ago

Text

Vice;Grip || chapter 3 || chs

(banner by @itaeewon)

Vice;Grip (masterpost) NSFW - minors DNI Genre: angst smut fluff, fuckbuddies!au Summary: Make it not hurt, you could have asked him. Or, at least, make it hurt in a way I choose. A/N: infinite thank you's to @sailoryooons and @eoieopda for beta-ing!!

Warnings: Frequent depictions of depression, depressive episodes, panic attacks, and substance abuse (alcohol, weed, and pills referenced). PLEASE know that these characters’ relationships with drugs and alcohol are not healthy and should not be emulated. If these topics are triggering to you, please consider sitting this one out. Section Specific Warnings: penetrative sex, language, reader on top, angst, depictions of depression/depressive episodes, edging, dirty talk, emotional constipation, bar scenes and recreational drinking, brief mention that reader had a sick (unspecified illness) parent in the past, sexual acts in a technically public place but they are not discovered, arguments and hurt feelings

wc: 6200

Playlist: you can call me in the middle of the night / you can leave before i wake up in the morning / and it could feel so wrong / but i'll still hold on

11 months ago

Vernon was afraid of drowning. All those rocks he carried - they weighed him down, pulled him under. He considered this as rain beat against the windshield of his car, ran down the windows so thickly that he struggled to see the front door of your building through the onslaught, didn’t even see it open and close, had no idea you were already outside until his passenger side door opened and you threw yourself into the car, squealing, wiping rain out of your eyes.

“Can you drive in this?” you asked breathlessly. Above you, the clouds lit up and went dark again. Vernon didn’t answer you; instead he silently counted the seconds until thunder cracked, sharp and insistent, somewhere behind them. Eleven seconds.

“Buckle up,” he said, no irony in it.

Stopped at a red light, he glanced over at you. Watched as you turned to trace a raindrop down your window with your fingertip as it worked its way through fragmented droplets, cast red by the stoplight, by the brake lights of the car ahead of him. Another flash; Vernon didn’t catch the bolt this time, either.

One, two, three…

Eight seconds until the thunder broke.

“Were you scared of storms when you were little?”

You turned to look at him, something quizzical on your face. He kept his eyes on the road, embarrassed. You and him - you didn’t ask personal questions. You didn’t talk about things. Even now, over a year since you’d started hooking up, you kept things strictly business, but for a few hiccups.

It was starting to wear on him, weigh on him. Neither of you had been with anyone else in a year - so what were you doing? Just spinning your wheels?

It was the first time Vernon realized he was angry. With you.

Lightning flashed as he slowed to turn into his building’s lot, the bolt snaking down so quickly he could have imagined it.

Vernon knew it wasn’t fair to be mad at you for not giving him something he’d never asked for.

Thunder cracked again, above the car. Five seconds.

“Actually, yeah,” you said finally, and Vernon startled a little; he’d already forgotten he’d asked the question. “My sister and I used to hide under the bed.”

He didn’t know you had a sister. He bet you didn’t know that he had one, too.

What are you doing?

Inside, his window flashed white, the whole room going greyscale, and then darkened again. The thunder snapped, furious and louder than before, and you screamed a little, then covered your mouth with your hand to hide your self-conscious giggles.

Vernon laughed, then lowered his body over yours and murmured, ��Let me help you calm down.”

Three seconds.

The rain beat against the windows in waves, the sound coming from beside his bed and the ceiling in tandem, nature’s surround sound. Vernon slid his fingers through the mess between your legs, sinking two of them deep into your heat just in time for a roll of thunder to drown out your wavering moan. He fucked you steadily, the way he knew you liked, then shifted to rub circles on that place on your front wall. Your breath caught, your back bowed, your hands fisted his comforter, your head tilted back to expose your throat. The room went white and dark again in a single second, and the silhouette of your pleasure burned into Vernon’s brain like a photo on film.

He moved to replace his fingers with his cock before the thunder could answer.

Two seconds.

You wrapped around him - your cunt squeezing around his length, your arms looping around his neck, your legs wrapping around the backs of his thighs, trying to bring him closer.

He gripped your hips and rolled, giving you the chance to ride him, his hands caressing the backs of your calves as they flexed.

His eyes squeezed shut when he came, teeth gritted as he groaned out his own answer to the clouds’ cacophony. Your hands, gentle in his hair, guided him back down.

He found your hoodie near the foot of his bed, after. He carried it wordlessly to you, holding it out like an offering.

“Thanks,” you said, your voice tiny. Like you were accepting something bigger than clothing.

“You could stay,” Vernon heard himself say, and something inside him started kicking and screaming, panicked and trying to grab the words and pull them back in.

You looked at him sharply, your eyes a little wide. You didn’t do that, you didn’t sleep over.

“Why?” you asked, the word leaving your body with all your breath, almost a gasp.

Vernon felt his lips part, felt his stomach clench. “I -”

The syllable stretched, loomed, filled the room so completely that it crowded out the flash of lightning and the immediate rumbles. Zero seconds. The pounding rain drowned out the roaring in Vernon’s ears.

Maybe he’ll drown, too. Maybe he’ll let himself.

I want you to. I want to sleep next to you.

I need to know what this is. I need to be closer.

I need to kiss you and mean it.

His stomach sank as he watched the way you waited, breath held, for his answer.

“I just meant, because of the weather,” he said, his voice ringing hollow and flat even to his own ears. “If you don’t want to go back out in this - you don’t have to.”

“Oh,” you said, and he wished he could read it, wished he could translate that single sound. Was it disappointed? Relieved?

He couldn’t fucking tell.

“No, it’s okay,” you said, and you were already moving towards the door. “I think the worst has passed us already.”

Vernon thought that was bullshit; the worst hadn’t passed - he was standing in the middle of it, wind-whipped and drenched to the bone, watching the sky alight again and again, unable to make himself move.

10 months ago

whats up for tonight

idk

want me to come there?

i dont think i want anything

sorry. shouldnt have sent that one. door’s open if you decide to.

Vernon came into the apartment so quietly, you didn’t even hear him until he was shuffling into your bedroom. The cat leapt from the foot of your bed and wove itself around his ankles twice before darting into the living room.

“You good?” he asked, eyeing how you were curled on your side, watching him in the doorway with a small frown.

“Mhm,” you said, nodding a little, even though it was only a little true. “Just. One of those days, I think.”

He laid behind you first, one arm crossing your torso and pulling you tight against his chest, pressing kisses to the bare skin above your shirt collar at the nape of your neck. The sensation tickled just enough that goosebumps rippled down your arms.

“I can make you want something,” he offered. Or threatened. Or promised.

“Cheesy,” you accused, but a smile played on your lips, and you felt his own smile curve against your neck.

“Watch me,” he said, reaching for your hem. He worked you up with teasing touches and kisses until you were squirming, fucked you on his tongue and fingers until you were panting, then pulled away, letting the building crescendo quiet into silence again.

“Vernon,” you threatened, sitting up on your elbows and narrowing your eyes at him.

He cocked his head to the side, all innocence. “Is there something you want?”

“I’m not playing this game with you,” you growled.

He smiled beatifically, then went back to kissing your collarbones, starting at the very beginning again. That time when he stopped, you let out an exasperated shout.

He cocked an eyebrow, as if to ask, yes? but didn’t speak. He waited for you to say it.

It took three more rounds of this - getting you close, waiting you out - before you caved, admitting what he wanted you to admit:

That you wanted it. That you wanted him.

“Please, fine, you menace,” you cried, so frustrated that your chest was hot with it. “I want you to fuck me - I want you, I want to cum, please, Vernon -”

When he gave you what you asked for, pushing into you in one easy motion that made you cry out and squeeze your eyes shut, your tongue tripped up, telling him a truth you hadn’t meant to.

Instead of I want it, as he set a quick pace, burying himself inside you again and again, you babbled, I want you, I want you, I want you.

The sideways glances he sent you while he got dressed had the question all over them. He may as well have just asked - did you mean it? Did you?

In his absence, you pulled the blankets over your head and pressed your face into your mattress, trying to drown out the question in his eyes, trying to forget the feeling of his lips on your neck, the sound of his sighs in your ears, the taste of his kiss. Your bed retaliated, assaulting you with his smell on your sheets.

I want you.

Kicking at the blankets in frustration, you got up and slept on the couch, instead.

9 months ago

wyd?

ah, going out with some friends tonight. sorry.

come over after?

i would, but my friend is here from out of town and shes staying with me

bring her

you’re so gross.

next time then. have fun :)

dont smiley face at me chwe hansol

oh god the government name. fine, i take it back

You hadn’t done a girls’ night in over a year; your friends made sure to remind you of this frequently as the night wore on, as if it was singularly your fault. It was different from a night out with Chan and Soonyoung and Seungkwan - different because the shots being pressed into your hands were pink instead of clear; different because no one was handing you beer bottles; different because they wanted to dance, not talk shit around a table in the corner.

But you leaned into it, sneaking to the bar between songs to order shots that didn’t taste good, dancing with your friends until your feet ached, until your ears rang, until the colored lights bled together above you, until you forgot that you were annoyed about all of this.

When the lights flashed in warning - the overhead lights, the go away now it’s 2 am lights — you went to close out your card, casting a glance over your shoulder to make sure your friends were all accounted for. They were - mostly still dancing, but a few headed to the table to gather coats.

You were heading back across the dancefloor when you saw them. You spotted Mingyu first - one of Chan’s friends, one of those cross-over friends that knew both Chan and Vernon.

Your stupid heart jumped. Had he come out? Had he somehow ended up at the same club as you? You wouldn’t be able to leave with him, but you’d see him.

That wasn’t something you should want. It shouldn’t excite you that you might get to smile at him across a crowded dance floor. You didn’t like him, this wasn’t a crush.

Besides, crushes happened at the beginning; you’d been hooking up with Vernon for over a year now.

You scanned the crowd near where Mingyu was standing, waiting for the moment that your gaze snagged on a spark of familiarity. It didn’t come, so you pressed into the crowd; at this point in the night everyone was pretty faded, dancing with abandon, unaware and uncaring that anyone could see them - you’d all be leaving in minutes anyway. This one last song should matter, this one last song should seal the envelope on the night with a lipstick kiss.

The spark of familiarity eventually struck, but it came with a flash of warning. It wasn’t Vernon’s big smile or his conversely stoic expression that you recognized, it was his jawline - snapback twisted around, his lips close to some girl’s ear as he leaned in to talk to her.

You looked away quickly, as if he’d feel your gaze and you’d be caught staring, but you couldn’t help but peek again as you kept walking. The girl was laughing, tucking dark hair behind her ear, her eyes eagerly on Vernon’s face.

Your stomach heaved. You wanted to go over there - to slide an arm behind him where it belonged, to smile in this girl’s face because Vernon was yours. Because he was going to text you before he texted her and she needed to know it. Because he let you in when he shut everyone else out and she was everyone else.

Your friends found you then, saved you from yourself, pulled you back to the table to gather your shit, trouped outside to find the Uber home.

In the car you all fell quiet, tiredness creeping up on you. Your thumbs tapped anxiously on the dark screen of your phone, and then you opened your messages.

you gonna leave with her?

The lack of response radiated through you, and you felt sick as you wondered why - because he was pissed that you’d even asked? Because he was already busy with her?

Then -

lmao were u at dark horse?

You didn’t answer, too embarrassed, the shame flying overhead to catch up to you for the first time in a while, its wings spread and claws stretched as it prepared to land.

Your phone lit up again.

i honestly wasnt gonna but now youve got me curious

would it be a problem if i did?

No, you thought defensively, a reflex. But he didn’t give you the chance to answer.

and if it IS a problem… why?

“Who are you texting?” your friend asked, craning her neck to peek at your phone. You turned off the screen.

“Chan,” you lied.

Then why?

Because he was yours and he belonged with you - not with whatever random girl he found at the club. Because you wanted to be enough for him, wanted him to be impervious to anyone else’s advances because you were all he wanted.

Because you did like him. Because you felt something for him - something that might have been a crush eight months ago, but was certainly a bigger beast now.

Fuck. Fuck!

Your feet felt like they were plunged in ice, and you closed your eyes, swallowing back panic and nausea.

At home, you lay across your bed while your friend used your shower, turning your phone screen on and off, typing and erasing, your mind dizzy with the war it was waging against itself.

Vernon was a wildfire, catching and migrating, drawing closer and closer. Something in you screamed to take action - start digging a trench, start running if nothing else, just get away get away get away before you’re not just burned but reduced entirely to ash. Something else argued that Vernon’s fire was the only thing that kept you warm, vital for survival against the icy nights that overtook you at their whim.

How to protect your dignity, deny that you need him, deny that you’re trying to keep him all to yourself, without losing him completely?

You imagined him at his place, rereading these messages. You wondered if he was mad, frustrated. You wondered if he felt suffocated by your display of possessiveness.

You’d never answered his why.

You never did. You left it unanswered, and his next three wyd’s went unanswered as well.

Then he stopped trying.

8 months ago

sorry. i - - can we just go back to normal - - wyd later? - - i’m sorry - - hey - - it’s not a problem, you can do what you want - - it is a problem because i - - sorry for not answering, hru? - -

Unsent, each. Deleted.

You had Bestie Night with Chan during a deep freeze, your radiator working overtime as you split a bottle of red.

You sketched absently on your napkin as you caught up.

“I dunno, Chan, the co-worker thing always scared me a little. Mom always says don’t shit where you eat and I think she’s right.”

Chan, who was head over ass in love with Jinseo in marketing, scoffed at you heavily.

“A romantic situation scaring you means nothing to me,” he said, dead serious. “I think someone asking for your number would scare you.”

You scowled at him, defensive. “We haven’t had enough wine to start the personal attacks.”

He laughed. “Okay, okay. I’m just saying. You spook easy. It’s not a secret.”

You stuck out your tongue, went back to your doodle.

“It’s nice to see you drawing,” he said, casually, and you narrowed your eyes at him.

“Are you intent on being a busybody tonight?” you asked, and he laughed, holding his hands up in surrender.

“I’m just saying!” he cried, still chuckling a little. “It’s nice to see! It’s a healthy outlet for you!”

“I’m kicking you out,” you deadpanned, then reached to refill your glass, because if he was in this kind of mood, you were going to need it.

In all honesty, sketching wasn’t really your thing - you weren’t drawn to pencil or charcoal or ink or even digital sketches the way you were drawn to painting. But you hadn’t in so long now you felt almost stubborn about it, like starting again would be the same as admitting something. Like starting again would mean admitting that you were dumb to quit in the first place. It would mean admitting that you’d fucked away every good opportunity you’d had, and for nothing.

Nothing had even happened - that was the part that kept you up at night, gave you a stomachache. You’d fumbled your entire future, a few years ago, and you didn’t even have a good reason for it - no major trauma, no life-altering crisis. Just your own worthless brain doing everything in its power to bring you low.

You’d graduated from undergrad already knowing you’d been accepted to a great visual arts school - prestigious, even. You’d had to submit a portfolio, had forgone sleep for months trying to make it perfect. But every time you’d tried to move on it - send in paperwork to register or officially enroll, forms for financial aid, any of it - you’d frozen like a rabbit in headlights, too scared to push a single button unless it was the X in the corner of the screen.

Your dad had been sick at the time, that was true. But he’d been okay in the end - just a few touch-and-go months, some hospital stays, nothing worse than that. He was fine now. You weren’t even living at home, didn’t have to deal with it - it didn’t factor in. It didn’t matter, it wasn’t enough to take the blame from you.

And, true, you’d just come out of an episode right before graduating, and found yourself standing among the rubble of what your life had been before the episode started noticing that your two best friends were no longer present - hadn’t waited around for you. But that wasn’t a good excuse either. Friendships faded all the time. Life went on.

“So, are you gonna ask her out?” you asked, hoping to turn the conversation.

“I would love to, but I think if I tried, I would throw up right there in front of her,” he said, and you were pretty sure he wasn’t kidding.

“Text her,” you suggested.

“That seems… so sad,” Chan admitted. “I’ve got to have the balls to just do it. Right? Aish, Lee Chan.” He buried his face in his hands, frustrated with his own cowardice, and you reached out to give his arm a reassuring pat-pat.

“Did you talk to her this week?”

“Yes,” Chan said emphatically. “We took our breaks at the same time on Thursday, and we talked about the cold snap!”

You leveled him with a look. “Have you talked to her about anything besides the weather?”

He pointed at you, expression darkening. “I will not be judged by the likes of you. When was your last date? What year?”

“Wow,” you said flatly, and he began cackling, delighted with himself. “Wow. Just… wow. I truly have nothing else to say to you.”

“Ask her if she’s watched any good shows lately,” you offered. “Then you have something you know she likes to talk to her about.”

“Eeeehhh,” Chan said, which meant I don’t think I like your idea.

You shrugged. “Stay lonely, then, I guess.”

You should have enrolled in the grad program. You should have pursued painting.

Instead, you’d convinced yourself it was stupid - not lucrative for a real career, just hobby-chasing, and you weren’t good enough anyway.

The deadline had passed. You got a job in an office, an apartment, the cat. Life went on. Your bunny-rabbit brain had said hide scared hide scared hide scared and you’d listened, had pushed away the scary thing until it was too late to grapple with it at all.

It was the parallel to now, and maybe the wine, that pushed you to look steadfastly at your kitchen wall and admit, “Actually, there’s something I haven’t been telling you.”

Chan’s smile dropped quickly, and he leaned a little closer, ready to listen.

“I’ve been hooking up with this guy,” you admitted. “For a while.”

Chan’s gaze sharpened and you wanted to flinch. “Only him?” he asked. And then, “How long is a while?”

Shame beat on the window, scratched its nails down the panes line a chalkboard, the screeching sending shivers down to your toes.

“A little over a year,” you mumbled.

Chan’s silence rippled out like you’d thrown a stone into the quarry. He said nothing, just watched you carefully, swirling his wine around in his glass just for something to do.

“That’s a long time,” he said. A long time to keep the secret from me, he meant. A long time to be with one person, you heard behind it.

“I know,” you said, deflating. “I’m sorry. I really am. I just… I knew you’d romanticize it, try to talk about it like it was a thing - and I… I really, really wanted it to stay just hooking up. None of the other stuff.”

He very nearly grimaced when you said this, and it made your stomach sink even further. You knew you were broken, unable to connect, unable to give or receive anything close to love - but to see your best friend react like he knew it too? It sucked the breath out of you.

“And he’s okay with that?” Chan asked, instead of addressing your allergy to feelings. “For a year, just sex?”

You shrugged. You were the one who’d gotten possessive. Vernon had never asked you for more, had never indicated that he might want to shift your boundaries. “Seems like it.”

Chan shifted in his seat, frowning a little. “Well, if you’re on the same page, then I guess… I’m happy for you?”

“Eh,” you said. “Don’t be. I screwed it up. As usual.”

He gives you a look that says don’t do that. You drink the rest of the wine in the glass and reach for the bottle again, but it’s empty.

“Can you fix it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you admitted. “I haven’t tried.”

“Okay,” Chan said easily. “So try.”

When Chan left, you stayed at the kitchen island, pulling out a notebook and pen. You sketched across four pages - flowers, faces, the clock on the wall, the frost patterns on the window.

It wasn’t a paintbrush, sliding through a shade you’d worked to make just right. But it wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t terrible.

You picked up your phone.

hey. sorry for the silence - really. that was shitty of me. you been okay?

You passed your fingers back over the last page of sketches, feeling the tiny ridges where the pen had pressed. You traced back over a flower - hyacinths, just like your mother used to grow under your bedroom window.

You were prepared to receive no answer; you would have deserved a taste of your own medicine, and you knew it. But it wasn’t much later when an answer came through.

no worries. my place is freezing, our boiler broke. can i warm up there?

You thanked every star in the whole sky that Chan wasn’t there to see your smile at Vernon’s answer. You could never have denied it - the smile said I am feeling something, allergy be damned.

And just after the smile came the bunny-rabbit instincts: hide scared hide scared hide scared.

of course. i’ll be here.

7 months ago

“I think I’d be happier as a cicada,” Vernon mused, squinting at Seungkwan through the half an inch of vodka rolling like a sea in the glass he held aloft.

Seungkwan’s face dropped into a frown. “Is this, like, would you still love me if I was a worm?”

They were on opposite sides of the tiny, wooden table he usually ate at, the bottle open between them and sweating a circle onto the wood. Vernon dragged a finger through the condensation until the streak ran dry.

“Nuh-uh. I just think I’d be happier.”

The frown deepened. “I can’t tell if you’re being ironic or if I need to be concerned about you.”

Vernon dodged, said something that might make more sense outside of his own head. “What if I dropped out of grad school?”

The vodka in the glass did nothing to blur the flat expression Seungkwan leveled at him. “Now what in the fuck would you do that for with only four months left? That’s just financially stupid. It’d be like running a marathon and giving up on mile twenty-two.”

“Counter-point,” Vernon said, lowering the glass as far as his mouth, teeth clicking on the rim of the glass, “I fucking hate it and I don’t see the point in finishing.”

“Money down the drain,” Seungkwan intoned.

“Years of my life down the drain,” Vernon grumbled.

“That actually adds to my point. You’ve invested time and money. Might as well see it through.”

“But for what?” Vernon demanded, finally getting closer to the truth he’s been circling.

“The job opportunities?”

Vernon drained his glass, waited for things to soften just a little around the edges. “I don’t know if I want them anymore,” he mumbled, then made an escape into the kitchen to put another few ice cubes in his glass, to get away from the way Seungkwan’s gaze sharpened as he caught on to how much Vernon meant what he was saying.

The problem was that he had to leave the kitchen eventually, and Seungkwan was waiting, his face carefully blank.

“You don’t want to -?”

“I don’t know,” Vernon interrupted with a grumble. And that was the truth - he just didn’t know. He didn’t know if he’d like his field, didn’t know if he’d be good at it or if he’d find it fulfilling or if he’d hate it and regret his choices and wake up every day feeling just as bored and - frankly - unenthused about his life as he did these days.

And he was tired. He woke up tired every day, fought exhaustion the whole time he was awake, went to bed tired. His eyes ached from wanting to close, his heart screamed for a chance to rest. He was tired of it - of fighting the exhaustion, the apathy. He wanted sometimes (often) to just give in - sleep however long it took. Months, maybe.

“Gonna have to pay your bills somehow,” Seungkwan reasoned. “See? Cicadas don’t have bills,” Vernon argued, and Seungkwan rolled his eyes so hard that Vernon couldn’t help but laugh, leaning sideways against the kitchen’s doorframe as his body shook with it.

Later, after Seungkwan left for the night, Vernon squinted at his phone until the letters held still.

wanna be a cicada with me?

vernon what the fuck

its a serious question

i mean, maybe??? sleep for seven years, come out and scream for three months, then die? i could get behind this plan

i knew you’d get it. seven years of sleep? bet.

personally i think screaming for three months straight would fix me

exactly.

[ ]

wanna come over?

yeah. omw

“You’re so drunk.”

Vernon squinted at you, unsure if he was hearing judgement in your tone (which would be rich) or if he was projecting (much more likely). “‘S ‘Kwan’s fault,” he muttered, still squinting, even though it really wasn’t Seungkwan’s fault. In fact, Seungkwan had been the one to twist the top back on the vodka bottle and walk it gingerly to Vernon’s freezer, claiming he was just helping tidy up when they both knew he’d thought Vernon had had enough.

Vernon was still seated at his little table, body turned so the wall behind him held him up as he leaned back against it. When you dropped into his lap, his arms came around you automatically, pulling you in tight. You leaned into him, brushing your lips gently across his cheekbones, down his jaw, and then resting your head against his shoulder so that you were almost burrowed in the nape of his neck.

The room swam around him a little, but Vernon flexed his hands against your waist every time it spun too much and it helped him ground himself, helped him remember that if you weren’t spinning then he couldn’t be either.

“They molt, too,” you said, and for a long minute Vernon thought he’d blacked out and missed part of the conversation. But then you ran a hand down his chest, letting it land on his forearm, and clarified, “Cicadas. They shed their skin. I like that part, too. Getting to step out of a self that doesn’t fit now, leave it behind - leave behind physical proof that you aren’t that, now.”

Vernon’s hands flexed around you for a different reason.

He liked that, too - the idea of leaving himself behind, a self he didn’t want to be anymore.

His eyes slipped shut, but he heard himself say, “So, it’s settled, then. We’ll be bugs.”

Your giggle, the light sound of it as well as the feeling of your body moving against his, brought him back a little, and he cracked his eyes open to see you smile.

“Yeah,” you told him, sitting back up and smiling lightly. “We’ll be bugs.”

6 months ago

going out with seungcheol-hyung later. u gonna be out?

yeah - going to maestro with some friends

i dont think hyung would step foot into maestro but i’ll try

Vernon is sharp. Sharp wit, sharp eyes, sharp angles, sharp smile twisting into something leering.

You were chasing lights, trying to track pink beams as they carved paths across the club’s dark walls, when you caught his gaze across the crowded dance floor. He leaned against the bar, watching you, still and jagged, a serrated edge.

You held his gaze long enough for him to know it was a message, then you began pushing your way through the mass of people around you - not towards him, but away, towards the barely lit back hallway that led to the bathrooms.

You knew he’d follow. You didn’t have to check.

When he pressed you into a dark corner, you wrapped an arm around the back of his neck for stability and let your eyes slip closed, let the colors you’d been chasing flow around you as you floated.

“Where’d your hyung go?” you breathed as Vernon traced your silhouette with heavy hands.

“Don’t care,” he muttered.

He tucked his chin low, focused, slid one hand up the trembling inside of your thighs, slipped his fingers past the thin layer of your panties, pushed two fingers deep inside you and sucked in a breath when you moaned out loud, your head falling back against the wall.

“Already fucking wet for me, so wet for me,” he growled, fingers working you in even, steady pumps that made your walls flutter and your legs shake. “Didn’t even do anything yet.”

You whimpered his name, the muted bass from the club’s main room settling around you like a fog, syncing up with your pounding pulse. You said it again, a little louder, desperate. Somewhere in your mind, you were aware that you could be found, and that piece of you urged him to be quick.

“Hurry -” you gasped, “-before -”

“Hurry?” he laughed, the sound almost mocking. “Why would I hurry? Want to stay knuckles deep in this pussy all night -”

You gasped, your hips bucking, and he groaned out loud, unashamed.

“Fuck, you fucking gushed when I said that, christ,” he whined, voice suddenly thinner, like it might crack. Like he might shatter, leave more sharp pieces behind.

You shattered before him, trying desperately to keep the long, keening noise buried in your throat as he pushed the pads of his fingers against your front wall, urging out every last shudder.

When he slipped his fingers from you, he paused, face freezing with his mouth stretched into an exaggerated grimace as he tried to work out where to wipe them. It surprised both of you when you surged forward and grabbed his wrist, bringing his sticky fingers to your mouth and licking a stripe from the edge of his palm to his fingertips before taking them between your lips.

You thrilled when his eyes rolled back, when he slapped his spare hand against the wall next to your head to brace himself, when he rutted against you furiously as if you weren’t in plain view of anyone who decided they had to pee right now. He pressed against you, so hard you could feel the heat of him even through his pants, as you laved his fingers with your tongue, mimicking what you’d be doing on your knees if you were in private.

“If I cum in my pants in the fucking club, I’m going to be so mad at you,” he gasped, and it made you laugh, giving him the chance to pull his hand away, to back away from you desperately, chest heaving. You laughed again, feeling a little victorious.

You straightened yourselves up and made your way back to the bar; you ordered shots and took them in succession. Then, one eyebrow raised, you asked him, “So - want to finish what you started?”

He laughed, teeth flashing. You ordered a ride on your phone. You stood and he trailed you closely as you made your way unsteadily through the crowd. A group of girls tried to pass the opposite way and you had to pause, stopping short as they wiggled past you, sending you grateful smiles. Vernon bumped into your back, his hands finding your waist.

You stayed there, even when the path cleared, feeling his body solid against yours, his hands tight on you, losing yourself in the tidal pulsing of the room, as if the whole club inhaled and exhaled each time the beat changed up.

“What?” Vernon asked behind you. “What is it?”

Everything in your bloodstream - from alcohol to adrenaline to oxytocin to you weren’t even sure what else - spoke for you. Turning just slightly, you asked him something you’d kept caged for months on end.

“When are you gonna leave?”

Shock crossed his face before he could school it. Then, confusion, or something like it, his brows furrowing. “You want me to go?”

“No,” you said quickly, knowing what you’d already said was a mistake, knowing anything else you said could only make it worse, but unable to stop the words that your mouth provided. “No, I didn’t mean tonight. I just. I meant… in general.”

Something cold slid over his face. “That’s not better,” he said, his voice suddenly so even that it sent shivers down your arms. You turned to face him fully; around you, bodies moved, voices shouted, and the music was almost deafening.

You barely noticed any of it.

“I meant -”

“I know what you meant,” he interrupted, angry. You could see it all over him - his shoulders tight, his mouth turned down. “You meant you’re just riding out your sentence with me until I inevitably leave you. Right?”

“I -” No, you meant to say, but he was kind of right, and it was confusing.

He shook his head, took a step away from you. Miraculously, the crowd let him. “This is bullshit,” he told you, his voice low and brittle with hurt. “You don’t get to fucking put that on me - you’re the one who runs in this - in whatever this is.”

He took another step back, shaking his head, obviously disgusted.

“Vernon, that’s not - I do not run -” You couldn’t choose what to argue first; your head swam, and you pressed a hand to your eyes for a second, hoping to clear them. “Why are you so mad?” you asked plaintively, looking at him again.

He laughed, just as mocking as he’d been when he was toying with you in the back hallway. “Why am I mad?” he repeated. “Go fuck yourself.”

Vernon was always sharp. He left you standing there, bleeding on the dancefloor.

<- Prev | Next ->

thank you so much for reading!!! i'll update again next friday :)

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skyward-floored · 5 months ago

Text

Swapped (part 2)

Incredibles au power swap pt. 2! Checking in on some of the other boys, who are... struggling lol.

Part 1 | Next

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Hyrule woke up feeling cold.

A shiver went through him as he slowly came back to awareness, the cold feeling sinking into his very bones, and he wondered why whatever he was lying on was so hard and uncomfortable.

Why did his chest hurt? Why was he so cold? He hadn’t woken up like this since...

Since...

Panic smacked into him, and Hyrule‘s eyes flew open, his heart thudding as he looked around. He took in the unfamiliar walls around him, piles of rubble and dirt, and right as his heart began to pound with fear, he saw Time waking up, a hand held to his chest.

Hyrule sighed in relief, and carefully sat up himself, immediately feeling better. If dad was here, he wasn’t back on the streets, or... worse.

But... that didn’t really answer the question of where he actually was.

Before Hyrule could try and figure it out though, someone let out a panicked gasp. Hyrule jumped and turned around, and saw Wild sitting on the ground a few feet away, looking on the verge of hysterical.

“I’m— I’m slow,” Wild choked out, and Hyrule blinked in confusion as he watched Twilight stumble to his feet beside him, a hand held to his head.

“Wild, it’s all right,” Twilight said, taking a step, then yelped as he somehow went running across the room and straight into a wall. “Ow!”

“You took my speed!” Wild wailed, and Hyrule stared, watching as Twilight tried to get to his feet, but fell over again when his legs went too fast for him. He did a quick glance around the hallway, not seeing anyone else apart from his two brothers and dad. If he had to guess, the rest of his family was probably blocked off by the wall that had collapsed.

...Which had collapsed because of a weird explosion that had also knocked them all out. Right. Now he remembered.

Time properly sat up and looked at Wild and Twilight, his face creased with concern... and a little pain, Hyrule thought. Wild stopped yelling when he saw their dad move, but he still looked panicked, and it seemed like Twilight was afraid to move, his expression confused and fearful.

“Boys what is going on?” Time asked, and Twilight wrapped his arms around himself.

“I don’t know, I woke up and couldn’t hear barely anything and then Wild started yelling and somehow I have his speed and I can’t turn into a wolf,” he said rapidly, clutching at his hair.

“And now I don’t have anything!” Wild added, looking on the verge of tears.

Hyrule blinked, and an even colder feeling ran through him as he digested that. It looked like the explosion had done more than just collapse the wall and knock them out... it had also messed up Wild and Twilight’s powers.

...were they the only ones?

Hyrule quickly drew on his own powers, just to reassure himself nothing was wrong with them. He tried healing first, summoning a blue glow to his hands, but then the icy feeling that had been with him even since he’d woken up suddenly intensified, and Hyrule‘s stomach lurched.

The blue glow was the wrong color.

He tried again, more frantically, but the blue continued to be the wrong color, cold instead of the usual warm, and ice began to spread out from where Hyrule sat, only increasing his panic. Trying to shield brought up no results either, and Hyrule drew desperately on the strange cold power he could feel inside of him, trying to make it heal, to make it shield, do anything it was supposed to be doing.

All he could produce was ice.

Hyrule gasped, trying to stay calm, but not succeeding in the slightest at keeping back the wave of panic that was crashing over him.

What was happening? Anything he tried just kept turning into ice, shielding didn’t work, healing didn’t work, his...

His powers were gone.

The one thing he’d been able to rely on his entire life.

Hyrule felt his breath pick up, his heart pounding as more ice spread out from him. He wouldn’t be able to shield people anymore, protect himself and others from danger, he couldn’t heal, he wouldn’t be able to do anything if he or anyone else got hurt, all he could make was ice and ice and ice—

“Hyrule,” a voice said, and Hyrule looked up and saw his father had joined his side, a worried look on his face.

“Dad— I can’t— I can’t get my shield up,” Hyrule managed to choke out, clutching at his hair. “And my healing, it’s not working, it’s just ice—”

“Hyrule calm down,” Time reassured, holding out a hand.

“Why— why is it doing this, I— wait, don’t touch me! I’ll freeze you!” Hyrule choked as his father kneeled beside him, and Time ignored his words, taking his hands in his own.

They felt... warm.

“Hyrule, I’ve dealt with Warriors’ powers more times than I can count, you won’t freeze me. Calm down,” Time continued, and Hyrule’s brain stuck for a second on the phrasing. Warriors’ powers? “Focus on reining them in. It should be like your own powers, just a little different. Relax.”

Hyrule sucked in a deep breath, thinking slowly through Time’s words and trying to do what he said. He carefully pulled on the strange powers he had, trying to make the cold ease back and stop escaping from him like a leaky faucet, and the ice began to slow in its spread.

Encouraged by the results, he focused a littler harder, and the ice stalled as he took in more deep breaths, finally tamping his panic down to something more manageable. The ice had stopped, and he felt a little less cold as his hands stopped glowing.

The lack of warmth in his middle from both his powers was still terrifying, but Hyrule thought he could... work with it now.

...Maybe.

Hyrule let out one last shaky exhale, and Time squeezed his shoulder, Hyrule leaning into it and feeling much calmer.

“...thanks Dad,” he sighed, and Time nodded.

He stayed next to him for another few moments, letting him continue to calm down, but then Twilight yelped again, and Time drew back with a sigh. He pulled his hand off of Hyrule’s shoulder, but as he drew back, Hyrule let out a startled squeak.

Everything below his father’s elbow was missing.

Time jumped, a truly shocked look on his face, but before he could do anything, his fingers flickered back into view like they’d never been gone at all.

Hyrule and Time both stared at them, and Hyrule watched as Time’s arm abruptly faded out of view again, appearing and disappearing at random.

“You... have Legend’s invisibility?” he said hesitantly, beginning to get an idea of what might be going on, and his father slowly nodded, staring intensely at his hand. Whatever he was trying to do didn’t seem to work though, and he sighed, standing up and helping Hyrule stand as well.

“It looks like it. And you have Warriors’ ice, and Twilight has Wild’s speed,” Time said, and winced as Twilight tripped and landed on his face. “Twilight?”

“Fine,” his son called back weakly, and Time led Hyrule over to where Wild was still sitting in a mild panic.

He patted the both of them on the shoulder, looking into their eyes for a moment, then walked over to Twilight. Wild looked nearly as shaken as Hyrule felt, if not more, but he merely leaned against Hyrule’s arm, Hyrule leaning on him in return.

Looking at how unsettled Wild appeared, Hyrule wasn’t sure if he’d prefer having the ice he currently had, or the nothing Wild seemed to posses.

“Come on Twilight, you can stand,” Time said as he walked away, and Hyrule and Wild both watched him. Twilight was sitting up, but he still looked afraid to move, his face anxious. “You can do it.”

“I’ll just trip again! Why am I so fast all of a sudden? I don’t want Wild’s speed, I can barely hear anything like this or smell anything and I can’t turn into a wolf!” he said rapidly, and Time slowly helped him up.

“I believe our enemy decided to test something on us,” Time said, and Hyrule thought back to what the voice on the intercom had said. That would explain the test subject thing. “And if I'm right... somehow he switched around our powers.”

“But that’s not possible,” Wild spoke up as Time carefully guided Twilight over to them, “you can’t just... switch powers! That’d be like me and Hyrule randomly switching heads!”

“Well somehow he’s done it,” Twilight grimaced.

“And we’ll probably have to stop him to get our proper powers back,” Time sighed, watching as his fingers disappeared from view again.

Hyrule looked around at his family, more then half of them missing from the room, Twilight pale with anxiety, Wild still unhappy about being slow, random bits of their father occasionally disappearing from view.

This... just got a lot more complicated.

Wild looked at Time’s arms, watching as they randomly faded in and out of view, and a grin suddenly stretched across his face, wide and mischievous.

“Dad, did you get both of Legend’s powers?” he asked, and Hyrule and Twilight both turned to look at him as well, Hyrule unable to stop his smile as he realized what he meant.

“I have no idea. And even if I did, I’m not testing it right now,” he said dryly, and Wild and Hyrule both made disappointed noises. “Sorry boys. We need to focus on fixing this mess.”

“Have you tried to contact anyone yet?” Twilight asked, and Time shook his head, pulling out his communication device.

“That’s what I was on to next. I think it’s safe to say everyone’s powers got messed up, so it’s unlikely Artemis is going to come find us.”

“Unless whoever got her powers does,” Wild pointed out, and Twilight shook his head.

“I doubt it. We can barely control the ones we got. I mean, if I’d gotten intangibility, I don’t think I would want to test it by trying to walk through a collapsed wall.”

Hyrule winced. That was a good point. It probably wouldn’t end well if whoever got Artemis’s powers couldn’t use them very well, and accidentally came back in the middle of the wall.

Time busied himself with trying to get his radio working, and Twilight did his best to help him, his leg jittering so rapidly it blurred a bit. Hyrule looked back at Wild, his brother looking miserable, then ignored the urge to shiver as he drew his knees up to his chest.

Why did Warriors’ powers have to be so cold? He thought his uncle had said that the cold didn’t even bother him, why was Hyrule so freezing?

Why couldn't they just be straight-forward like mine?

Hyrule sighed and glanced back at Wild again, frowning when he saw his expression had dimmed even further while he watched Twilight’s leg jitter rapidly in place.

“Are you alright Wild?” Hyrule asked, and Wild shrugged, making the face he made when he was trying to appear unbothered.

“Yeah. I’m fine. You’re... kinda pale though,” he said, looking over Hyrule. "You okay?"

Hyrule shrugged, trying not to look as shaken as he still felt. He knew Wild probably just wanted to help, but he was pretty sure if he thought about his switched-up-also-missing powers too long he’d cry.

Wild somehow read his expression though, and after a moments hesitation, put his arm around Hyrule’s shoulder, giving him a little squeeze.

“It’ll be okay,” Wild said. “We’ll figure it out, Roolie.”

And for some reason Hyrule believed him, the words like a warm blanket on his still-shaky nerves. He near-immediately relaxed, and Wild looked at him in surprise as he leaned on him more, before realization flirted across his face.

“Oh. I got Mom’s,” he said, and Hyrule looked at him weirdly.

“Huh?”

“I got Mom’s powers. You know, she has her whole horse-soothing voice she uses, it’s really good at calming down horses and other animals. I... guess it also works on people?” Wild said hesitantly. “At least I think that’s what that was.”

Hyrule blinked, not sure how he felt about that. But for some reason the thought didn’t seem too worrying, so he shrugged, and set his head on Wild’s shoulder. He was nice and warm, and helped chase away some of the chill.

“Guess so. We’ll have to find a horse so you can test it,” Hyrule murmured, and Wild let out a quiet laugh.

A sigh caught their attentions, and the two looked over at Time and Twilight, both of their face grim.

“No luck,” Time said as he put his radio away with a frown. “It's being blocked. Looks like we’re on our own for now.”

“We should try and find the others then, right?” Twilight asked. “Because not to underestimate us right now, but uh... I don’t know if we can take on this scientist guy in the state we’re in.”

“I could,” Wild said with a bite to his voice. “I’m going to punch that jerk right in the mouth for taking my speed.”

“We were all headed for the top floor when we were ambushed, we’ll continue heading that way,” Time decided, rolling his shoulder. “The others will doubtlessly be working their way that direction as well, so we’ll try to meet up with them on the way. Are you all good to go?” he asked, looking at Twilight and Hyrule especially.

Hyrule nodded, and Twilight glared at his feet, then sighed.

“Yeah. I can walk.”

“Good. Let’s get going then,” Time said with a nod.

And as he took a step forward, he was suddenly doused in shadows.

Everyone jumped, and Hyrule stared as the shadows grew smaller, condensing most intensely by the floor. He had a brief moment of panic before he recognized what the shadows meant, and he froze, exchanging quick glances with his siblings.

The shadows faded away mere moments later, and a small, one-eyed rabbit was left sitting dazedly on the ground.

Hyrule, Wild, and Twilight stared.

Then Wild fell to the floor laughing, and Hyrule bit his lip to stop his own from escaping, the rabbit that was now their father twitching his nose in alarm. He shouldn’t laugh, he really shouldn’t, but Time was so small, and fluffy, and seeing his father as a rabbit of all things was just...

Hyrule couldn’t help his giggle, and Twilight knelt beside Time, their father swiveling his ears in his direction and giving him a wide-eyed look.

“Are you, um, okay Dad?” Twilight asked, his mouth twitching, and Time blinked once or twice, before letting out a rather squeaky sigh.

“I’m fine. Come on, the sooner we fix this the better,” he grumbled, voice slightly squeaky, and began hopping in the direction they’d planned to go in.

Wild finally stopped laughing, though it was a close thing when he saw Time hopping determinedly across the floor. Twilight followed after their father, and Hyrule and Wild trailed behind, Wild still letting out an occasional giggle.

"I guess that answers the question of whether he has both of Legend's powers," he snickered, and Hyrule shook his head in disbelief. This day couldn't get any weirder.

Twilight lifted Time up to sit on his shoulder after only a minute or two of walking, their father's face surprisingly grim for a rabbit, and Hyrule glanced at them, anxiety still churning in his stomach.

He still felt a little shaky and unsure from the shock of his powers being gone, worried for the rest of their group, and Time being a mostly-defenseless rabbit only added another layer to that. But Wild seemed confident, and Twilight and Time were both putting on brave faces, so Hyrule decided he would be too.

They could do this. They’d stop the scientist guy, and make him fix this.

Screwed up powers or not.

And Hyrule kept telling himself that, even when Twilight lost control of his legs again and smacked into a wall mere moments later.

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scrubbinn · 4 months ago

Text

_____ HRT: 15 months: “Human”

“Hey Mayday. How's my girlfriend doing today?... I hope you can hear me in there. I'm recording another tape for you in case you forget everything again. I just got back from the doctor, they ran some tests, still couldn't figure out what's up with my knee. I think maybe I'm just cursed, with this broken human body. I guess you don't have to deal with that now huh? Lucky.”

“It just sucks, you know? Not a single medical doctor in Canada can tell me what's wrong and then when suddenly, magic exists, it gets regulated so you can't use it for medicine! Ugh. Rules are dumb, why do we even have them. Also sucks that I have to walk here every time I miss you. Which is a lot. Why does everything have to be so shit?”

“Speaking of shit, you should have heard me go off on that doc when you first started… cocooning? I’m blanking on the word. But I just went off on that man, It felt so good just to throw everything back in that pompous jerk's face! He had it coming, you have no idea how long I've been waiting to go off on a medical professional. He does have his uses, I suppose. You weirdly seem to like him, and at least he can put in enough effort to care about your physical health. But you should have seen how he reacted to you, he makes me so, so, so, AAAAARG! Sorry, you don't like yelling right?”

“You know, when I heard about you passing out nearly half a year ago, I thought, this is it, I'm going to lose her forever. I guess I did, when she decided to forget me. That's not fair, I just, I can't help still being mad about it. After everything we went through, and everything you went through with our friends and family. This really meant more than all of those memories put together? God you're such a dummy. I wish I could understand you.”

“Getting to meet you all over again, I didn't hate it like I thought I would. No matter the memories, it really was still you. Just, a little different. Sorry I kept pushing you to remember something… Maybe it was wrong of me. But every time I saw your face, your eyes looked back like they were trying to remember anything. It made me kind of happy, like I was important enough that some small part of you didn’t want to let go of me. I thought we were making progress. But if we have to do it again when you come out. I might actually start to hate it.”

“...Hey, you are happy right? This is what you wanted, yeah? You know I'm ok with you not being human. When you told me you were thinking about this, I supported it. Though, I'm still having trouble getting used to it. I don't really know how to feel now that you're like this. I just, I want what makes you happy, and I know you want the same for me. It's just been difficult right now. To keep smiling. I… I went to that sushi place we were going to go to. They had really good unagi. I ate so much I could barely afford the bill, haha. I know if I go there again without you, it's just going to taste like nothing. If you're not there with me, what's the point? This moment. The world has color again, I can taste things again when I'm in this room, and it hurts so much because you're not here. I'm sorry I… I'm trying not to cry in front of you hun. I'm sorry.”

* * *

“You don't mind if I stay here tonight do you hun? I don't really feel like walking back home right now. When I’m with you I- um, hello?”

“Oh didn’t realize anyone else was here? You’re Abigail right?”

“And your May’s mom right?” Are you here to see her?”

“Yes, I haven’t actually checked in since I heard the news. Is that. Her?”

“Pretty sure yeah. Unless there’s another girlfriend shaped cocoon that I missed. D- Do you need a tissue?”

“No, I’ll be fine, thank you… Pardon, but would you be able to answer a question? I don’t really understand this whole therian thing. I’m still a little shocked when Mich- Mayday said she was doing this sort of thing in the first place. I’m fine with it, I support her. But, did she need to do this?”

“Huh, what do you mean?”

“Well I mean, did she need to change? Isn’t it just safer to hide? She’s doing such a brave thing but there are so many people that might hurt her. It's my job to worry about her, and I know this city is better and all with this sort of thing, but what if she gets attacked when she visits, what am I supposed to tell my sister if she asks what Mayday is up to. My family doesn't even know her name is Mayday now.”

“...Oh. Oh, this is weird seeing it from an outsider perspective.”

“I'm sorry? What do you mean?”

“It's that you don't get it, I mean I forgot it until now, but you don't understand. It would have been more dangerous if she didn't do this. She's in pain, her gender, Her body, her species. They don't match her brain. It's not like it's a choice either. She's hurting. Her staying human, she might have made worse choices. Ugh, I'm sorry hun. I should have realized how much this means to you, I'll be here, for real this time. I'll be here for y…

Oh my god, it's tearing. G-g-go! Get a doctor!”

“What? Oh! Uh, right!”

“Hun! Can you hear me? It's me! Follow my voice!”

“A…b…i…

Mimic HRT: 15 months: “no longer”

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Mention list: @a-shramp, @calliecwrites, @be702, @respectfulevil, @hyacinthdoll1315, @aster-is-confused, @bloodandbrandywine

#trans #transgender #monster girl #slime girl #slime hrt #animal hrt #species hrt #therian hrt #otherkin hrt #therian #otherkin #fiction writing #original writing #creative writing #Mimic hrt

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dietmountaindewbae · 1 year ago

Text

xvii. kill kill

alex turner x reader

piled up anonymous requests

word count: 12k

summary: part two! of velvet crowbar

warnings: ch*cking, sp*tting, v*olence, ab*se, hitt*ng, spank*ng, slapp+ng, dumb*fication, c*ck warming, edg*ng, g*n ki*k, bl*od, bru*ses. ag* g*p.

song recommendations: kill kill by lizzy grant

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"Hello Alex" It was him.

Alex's blood ran hot, pumping blood to the veins on his head, he was completely exposed to his dad who smoked a cigarette alone in the dark dramatically, "Long time no see... son" David said, but he never saw him as a father, he never took care of him, he was never there for him, he left him alone, vulnerable and unprotected, he never saw that man as his dad, he saw that man as the one who made his mom's life a living hell, at least she didn't have the luck to see what he had made of his life, "Sit" He kicked a chair for him.

"You have some massive balls to come here in the middle of the night David, but it's over for you," Alex said with confidence, standing up for himself, he palmed the bottom of the table looking for his gun.

David put out his cigarette on the floor, stepping on it and smudging it on the ground, "I've come to tell you everything Ally, so if you wanna know why I'm doin' what I'm doin' shut the fuck up and listen... there's nothin' down there, Ally, actually there's nothin' for you" Alex froze, "Yeah... you heard me, there's no money for you... there was never anything for you" His harsh words fractured his whole plan, and Alex questioned what he meant by that... what he meant by nothing.

"This was never about the money or the power, this was always about takin' everything away from you" David lit another cigarette and stared bluntly at his son, suddenly Alex was dumbfounded as he looked at his father's frown, he recognized that face he made, chin up, eyebrows pushed together, the corners of his mouth subtly smiling, and his eyes set on his, this was a posture he took whenever he outsmarted somebody, in this case, his own son, it filed his ego to be right, to prove someone wrong.

"Don't you think I know that, already?" David answered, "I'll be dead soon... and all of my money, my fame, my sign, my franchise, absolutely everything is gonna be for your brother, there were many other women before and after your mom," He chuckled, "I have no interest whatsoever in living but I had even less interest in knowing your favorite color, or your favorite cartoon, Matt..." Alex froze, when he heard the name of the boy who he shared his most cherished friendship, at that moment everything was blurry, unclear, broken, "I never did anything to him, an exceptional young man like him could be used for something bigger than you or me, see Ally... your mother was nothing without me, a simple woman that worked as a teacher with a fatherless son... I thought I could give us everything, your mother could give me a perfect family, I loved you as my own but... I lacked this feeling of being wanted, cherished even adored, and that's what Matt's mother did because your mother never did since the day that I met her, after Matt turned 18 I took him away and made his mother my wife, you knew him as your neighbor, the nice lad next door, but he's your stepbrother and let me tell you, he's nothin' like you, he's everything I wanted you to be" He smiled when he thought of him, "Your mother, she.... she was everything to me until she wasn't, she threatened to expose me and take her son with her, I didn't care about that... I cared about my reputation, so I locked her up, raised you alongside Matt this whole time... then I vanished and here we are, it's easier said than done" He kept chuckling at how easy was to tell you everything, and now slowly that was turning into ashes.

He looked at Alex, his eyes bloodshot, threatening to kill him with his hands, but first, he had to let him finish.

"Now that my will is done, and everything's in its right place, I will finally complete my life's purpose and I can become a ghost, I'll still run my hotels, Matt's just another puppet I can control, he always wanted daddy's approval, even before he found out I was his dad, he never had one living with him but that doesn't mean he never existed, I was there watching him become a bright man, just like his father and I watched you get off the rails, just like your mom, Alex, tell me how were you planning to destroy a dead man, huh? Your plan was never going to work since the beginning"

Alex sat in silence, his thoughts growing louder and louder, his rage expanding like fire and flames, he sat silent, too angry to speak, but he had just one thing to say, "If you're gonna die, I might as well kill you anyway" He choked his own father with his hands, watching his life slip away from his eyes but he still was strong enough to fight one last time pushing Alex far away.

Alex punched him with a left hook, throwing the old man's body to the floor, "I know everything about what you did to the girl" Alex froze when he mentioned the name of his most prized possession, someone that was irreplaceable, "I know every single little detail of your life Alexander, I'm taking away everything you owned after I die including the girl..." Alex closed his hand into a tight fist, punching David's face until his knuckles were bleeding, Alex stood up and watched his own father spit blood on the floor and laughing like a psychopath, "Auf wiedersehen" Time froze since the moment David took out his gun from the pocket of his black coat and fired, knocking Alex to the wooden floor, his body falling flat of the impact, he saw David standing up from the ground, bleeding and beaten up, but with his head up high heading out thru the door, his heart threatened to stop at any second, he tried to fight the uneven beating of his heart, and the sudden vertigo, but most of all, he was worried about the girl upstairs peacefully sleeping like an angel in the clouds, that was the only thought that brought him peace.

The light shines through the face of the girl, he thinks it is the most heavenly way to die, she truly is an angel that helped you go through hell, his own Virgil.

"For fucks sake..." Your eyes welled up with tears but before you could say anything else he shushed you up with his index finger, he signed you to follow behind, and he put a record to play, going around in circles, the first note hit and he felt ready to talk to you pulling you in, grabbing both of your arms and whispering on your ear.

"Listen to me" His breathing trembling, "We're not safe here, we need to go, I have another place we can stay in for a couple of nights, pack your things and we'll head out soon, don't worry about the noises that you hear, I need to do something first" You held him tightly, gripping his blood-stained shirt, holding onto him trembling like a little kitten, he soothes you rocking your bodies left to right kissing the top of your head, hearing his heart pound against your ear. You broke the hug even if it hurt and you rushed upstairs without saying another word.

Last night was an eye opener night for him, to sharpen up, keep his enemies closer, watch out for the people he trusted, to be on the lookout because somebody was slowly hunting him down, he knew by now his father was five steps ahead but he had a pawn, a card that could draw back everything and make him start from zero, and it was all in a Marlboro cigarette, he contemplated the cigarette bud, wrapped in white thin paper, the timeless brand written in gold letters, with just one fingerprint and his fresh blood, he was now on top, even if it almost costs his life, he was back, now it could be a matter of time until everything was set up.

Alex began to flip the house upside down, making sure to leave it a mess, breaking papers filled with evidence, and pictures, throwing the couch backwards, screaming and grunting, firing his gun, breaking his sculptures and his art, glass shattering, confessions, and blood, a lot of blood, if one thing should be certain, someone was murdered, and it wouldn't have been David. Alex went back upstairs looking for you, you were in a hurry stuffing Alex's clothes and putting them in bags, Alex waved his hand at you, and you quickly ran behind him back downstairs with the bags, wearing one of his sweaters, your black knee socks, and dirty converse.

"It's time, go to the car" Without looking back you quietly ran to the back of the house swinging open the garage door and throwing the bags in the car, the chauffeur dressed in black waiting for his instructions patiently, once you jumped inside you saw Alex staying back, the chauffeur locking the doors, "Wait... no, no!" Your hand slammed against the window, "Alex, what are you doing?!" You desperately tried to open the door, tears stinging your eyes.

"Take her to the ranch, be ready for the next instructions when I call you" Your eyes began to water as you heard his orders.

You climbed to the front, "No, please! Take me with you! let me stay with you, I'll follow you anywhere, I'm begging you" A knot had formed in his throat as he saw you like that, crying just like the first time he saw you, your big eyes glossy and red, he couldn't forgive himself as he told the driver to leave, he took a step back, not being able to say anything else, it broke his heart, he didn't know who to trust anymore, he only knew that you were pure and innocent, his own savior, his intentions were good and both of you knew it, but it didn't justify the fact that he was pushing away. The moment the man unlocked the doors you jumped out of the car falling, bruising your knees and arms but you went running back to the house, watching Alex wrecking it completely.

"What the fuck are you doing here?!" He yelled at you like a monster, gripping your shoulders until they were bruised, "I told you to go, I don't want you here!" He ordered.

"I don't care, I'm gonna stay with you" You hugged him tight, clinging on to him.

"No, babe," He went outside to the garage, "Listen to me" He got down to his knees, "You can't be here, I need you to understand... it's too dangerous for you to be here and you've already hurt yourself for me... I don't want you to get hurt any longer, please just go"

"But I don't wanna go anywhere else, and this little scrap doesn't hurt as much as me not being here with you, please" You begged him, suddenly the chauffeur got out of the car, he was a tall man with a big beard, his hands covered in tattoos wearing his all-black suit.

"Sir, I can take care of this" He firmly stated.

"No, Cameron I-" The man, stopped him.

"Sir, I'm not only your chauffeur and bodyguard, I owe you everything, consider this a favor in return for all of the many ones you did, I'm in deep debt with you... for everything you've done to help me and my family..." He looked at you and back at him, "Leave, I can finish up here, don't worry about anything else, your rifle is in the back" Alex shook the man's hand and grabbed yours, getting back inside the car, he took off at a high speed burning the tires, but he never once let go of your hand, the feeling of frustration had you on the verge of tears, you didn't understand anything. He almost died last night, but from now on you wouldn't let anyone or anything separate you from your one and only, it all seemed faith, but people seemed to get in the way trying to break you apart after you wanted to run away from him, now you want to run away with him wherever he took you, it was only you and him, with a rifle and a few bags in the back.

It took you almost 30 minutes to get to San Bernadino, a small almost empty city, like a ghost town but it was beautiful, going past the woods and through a lakeside, driving on a dirt road until Alex parked his car outside a big old ranch, he kindly opened the door for you and took out the bags letting your way in thru the comfy house, suddenly you heard the engine of a motorcycle start.

You went outside, covering your eyes from the light, mouthing "Where are you going?"

He got out of the bike, the wind blowing wild, lifting up his shirt, his dark glasses didn't allow you to define what was he feeling or thinking at the moment, "I need to be certain that no one is following us, please stay in the house, I'll be back in 20" He pecked your lips before he took off in his black bike.

Once inside you glanced at the bags, you didn't want to unpack them, you didn't want to give in to the thought that maybe you would stay in this ranch locked up for more than you estimated, so you cleaned it up as you babble to a song you couldn't get out of your head, you didn't want to think about the risks, what was at stake, what could happen, because anything could happen and Alex was out there, alone and unprotected, while you were sheltered, you didn't want to think about it more, you just made time cleaning, made food for whenever he arrived, you wanted to be present, show him that no matter what, you will be his own little shelter.

You tried to find comfort in organizing the house, it was beautiful with an at home studio, you wondered how Alex found this place, by the time you finished you went inside the bathroom, you had never seen a ranch quite like this before, so luxurious but vintage, the bathtub was comfy, small but two people could fit in there comfortably, it was cober, and thankfully the water was warm, you dipped your whole body inside the tub, drowning the loud and overwhelming silence, you closed your eyes and tried to picture a better life with Alex in the backyard of your own house, him playing his favorite songs on his old record player smoking a cigarette as he watches you decorate the garden with flowers, picking lilies and peonies, you found comfort in those thoughts, you bathed your whole subconscious in those ideas and you went back up to the surface, just as you were raising above you heard a noise that fractured the silence, the water splashes from the drain to the tub, you were quiet, only the sound of the water drops could be trusted, maybe that noise was in your head, but nevertheless you waited until you heard footsteps coming your way, in sync with the water drops, your breathing got stuck, and you froze when you saw him.

Bathed in a cold sweat, with every old bruise on his thick skin there was a new open one, you didn't speak, you didn't cry, you stood up and watched him so dazed and numb, bleeding, and filled with violence, you could see it in his eyes, he was sick, this revolting feeling that twisted his stomach, he was worn out, you got up from the tub, water running down your body, stepping out and approaching him, no questions asked, he tore off every other thought from his mind the moment he saw you in the tub, your hair wet and slicked back like a siren, he was a lost sailor in the deep sea.

You closed the space between you, he hugged your naked back, his hands dropping to your hips, your arms wrapped around the back of his head, his heart beating fast as you pressed yourself closer to him, you held him tight, you could feel it somehow, you broke the hug and took his hand walking him to the tub, fixing him out of his blood-stained shirt, taking it off button by button and sliding it down his bruised arms, your fingertips traced the veins that ran thru his purple bruises and the new open scars on his knuckles, now that you could see him closely, his bottom lip was torn, his left eye was punched, a little bit swollen and red, he was in a bad state, you zipped out his jeans and pulled them down along with his boxers, he kicked his shoes off and went inside the tub with you, he rests his body on top of yours, wrapping your legs and arms around him, cleaning the blood out of his body softly, "I'm glad you're here with me babe" He said, your heart warmed up, you felt that knot on your stomach detangle, now you were holding him, and he was alive, bruised up but you would take care of him.

"You don't know how much-... I was so scared" You whipped your nose, holding back the tears as best as you could, "You don't need to tell me what happened, just tell me it's gonna be ok for at least tonight, that you'll be here and we'll wake up together" You whispered to his ear.

He held your hand and nodded, "Everything's gonna be ok, I promise" You ran your hand down his arm and you looked closely at the flower tattoo on his inner arm, you traced it with your fingertips.

"Tell me about your tattoo, I love the shape of that flower," You said to him, that hint of excitement in your voice made him smile.

"It's the natal flower of my city, Sheffield... I got it in 2012, a little bit pissed but at the time I thought it was sick tha knows... like it made me a real tough mother fucker with a flower tattoo" You both laughed in unison, "But now it's just pure nostalgia, but it makes me feel close to the memories of my adolescence"

"Which is your favorite memory?"

"The day I lost my virginity" He quickly answered, you smacked your lips and he chuckled, "To be honest it was embarrassing... but it was the same day that I played a gig with my mates" You gasped.

"You were in a band?!" He hummed a yes with the cheekiest smile on his face, "So that makes me a groupie?"

"Mhm, yes babe, but you know we had a few gigs in pubs, I worked on one of them actually but our first one was in a pub called The Grapes, amazing, so exciting but I was nervous at the moment but I still wanted to do it, we weren't the best but I knew that it wouldn't kill me to try and do it," You hummed playing with his hair.

"What was the band called?"

"Arctic Monkeys, I played the guitar, Andy the bass, Cookie the rhythm guitar, and Matt..." He stayed quiet for more than a minute, gathering his memories and trying not to let his emotions get the worst of him, "He... played the drums, and he played the hell out of them, I wish you could've seen us" You could hear the nostalgia on his voice.

"I think I was in primary school at that time" Both of you laughed loudly when you reminded Alex of that age gap, but if you didn't mind it he didn't either, "I bet you guys rocked,"

"That's right, all of us grew up together, and played in the same soccer team except Jaime, I was really good at basketball as well, but you know I wasn't really a good-looking guy"

You hummed disagreeing, "I think no matter how old you are, you'd still be breaking hearts"

"Nah," He said, "I took it slow, one girl at a time, I never really knew how to express love, I knew what it was, but I wasn't sure if I could handle it, or if it would be enough, and yeah... I don't know... I never really told anyone that" You massaged his hair with your fingers.

"It's alright, baby," You said kissing his cheek, "I think I was saying that more of me than you, I'm an asshole when it comes to love, deep down I know that I'm not good enough for anyone, so I broke plenty of hearts... before I cling onto people, I know I'll disappoint them, so I much rather hate myself than making them have the wrong impression of love,"

"You know what... we could work with that," He said hopefully, "Tell me more about you, was your first time good?" He asked, making you blush with embarrassment and cover your face with both of your hands.

"It was... um... in 11th grade, I think... I met the guy outside a party, smoking some shit and he gave me some, we liked each other and we went with it, but I didn't really enjoy it, it was funny, he was sloppy but careful... and I thought I would just be straight up bad but he showed me the opposite, after that I just repeated the process, talked and once they quiet down I look at them like this" You turned his face, deeply staring at his eyes, your eyes turned from dark to doe and he smiled, kissing your lips lingeringly.

"I see what you're up to" You smiled, and changed the conversation to him.

"And you?"

He cleared his throat, "Well... after the gig we went to crack a few at Cookie's and we had a blast, at the time I was in the middle of starting a relationship with this girl that I had a crush on, neither of us wanted to admit it, but when we set it on stone, we began to date... I think it wasn't that bad, I did all of the job, trying to please her more than meself, and to impress her even if I didn't know much, she said it was good but nobody's first time is amazing" You agreed with him.

"Have you ever fallen in love?" You asked him, he turned to look at you, tracing his thumb and index down to your chin, he looked at you in the same way he looked at you when you first kissed him.

"I think I'm beginning to know what it feels like" For the longest time you had waited for those tingles in your tummy, and your cheeks to feel warm and hot, you visibly blushed and your mouth curled into a smile, because you felt it too, there was nothing more beautiful and pure than the nakedness of the heart.

"Fuck you," You said with a smile, hiding your face. He teased you trying to make you laugh by tickling your sides until he pulled your hands down, it was the first time you blushed, your cheeks painted crimson, "Don't look at me like that!" He pinned your hands down switching places to be face to face with you, "Tell me more about your little girlfriends" You switched the subject.

"Mmm, tell me about yours"

"Why would you wanna know about mine?" You crossed your arms while he stared at you darkly, knowing you couldn't be able to win the staring contest that he put you in, you began to talk, "Never had an official boyfriend, you know? it was kinda like a few months thing, flirting and you know, eventually, we just agreed to say goodbye, but the sex... what more could you ask for?" He moved closer to you, tilting his head to the side, trying to find another angle to get to you.

"Teenage angst?" He questioned.

"Yeah..." You giggled, "Being curious about the things that you like... if you like your hair to be pulled, chocking, tongue kissing, you know... that" You giggled awkwardly while he kept looking at you with a smirk.

"And what else?... did you like the stuff that you did with them? was there a guy that was remarkable?"

You hummed and smiled as you remembered, "Actually... yes," You lift your eyebrow, "He was something else, the best I had in the time, fun and adventurous, he had no shame in asking the things that I might like, asked me if I wanted to be chocked while he had his hands around my neck if I liked being called names..."

"Better than me?" His fingers trailed up your body so gently, from your knees up to your inner thigh, "Answer me"

You drew your leg back, pushing him to stay still as you crawl on top of him, "Don't act like that, he was only fun because I made him fun, I only used him because he fitted me so well..." Your tongue attacked his ear, sloppily kissing him with your open warm mouth, Alex began to feel himself giving into you, your back so soft and your kisses so wet, he could feel himself getting aroused but he didn't want to, he wanted to have complete control over you and your body, he smacked your ass roughly abruptly taking the control.

"Dirty fuckin' cunt" You smiled as he spat, your eyes made him melt when you posed them so innocent and cute.

"Did I upset you... Daddy?" You purred with a pout on your face.

"Mmm, it don't matter to me... who he was, or what he did with you, you had your fun... now it's my turn" You smile widely when you felt his head on the entrance of your cunt, you could feel it in your tummy, that same spark starting to flutter and expand all over your body, like electric shocks, "'Cause I know that deep down, you wish to be somebody else's toy" You moaned with pleasure when you felt the tip of his cock inside you, your walls contracting at the urge of more of him, "Say it," He said, looking at you with that mischievous smile, and his eyes turning evil and childish.

"Say what?" You asked, just to get him to pull your hair or choke you with his hands, but it made you earn a smack on the ass, in his hand he could fit half of your face and he squished it pulling you closer to his face, "I'm daddy's toy" You whispered very quietly.

"Again" He ordered.

With a grin, you pecked his lips and said, "I'm daddy's little toy" You wave your ass out crawling on top, "Won't you play with me?" You put his finger inside your mouth biting it.

"You're adorable" He pushed his hips, sliding all the way inside you, you gasped as chills ran up your spine, "Especially when you open your mouth just like that, to moan whenever I'm inside you, whenever daddy's cock is fucking your tight pussy, I wanna hear you gagging for just a little bit of my cum, I know how wet it makes you think about me filling you up till the very last..." You groan, your movements starting to build up, setting a pace that was harder, rocking your hips more aggressively, "You want more, you greedy fucking whore, wanting more of me cock, don't you? playin' around with me... this is what you get..." He wasn't even trying to please you, it was enough the pleasure that you gave him, you could feel his cock hardening with each time you rocked your hips, and that was enough pleasure for you.

"Mmm... Daddy please, I want you..." Watching his tough gaze was making you wetter, the danger that surrounds him, the violence, the bruises, it just made you want more even when he was cold as ice, he felt so amazing, the water turning warm as he picked up a harsh pace pulling your body forward, his face between your tits as your ass bounces against his cock, water splashing, meat crashing, your body grinding asking for more contact with his body, his bottom lip caught in between his teeth, you closed your eyes enjoying the feeling of how much he needs you, he needs you so badly that it consumes him completely, carnal lovemaking.

His movement decreased as he felt you slowly reaching your end, so he put off the flame, you whined and pulled his hair back, "Are you in touch with your darkest fantasies... desires and thoughts?" You gasped, that question made something in your heart skip a beat, and your brain clicked the pieces together, you smiled pulling your body forward, wrapping both of your arms around him.

"Why? Are you gonna make them come true?"

"Tell me what you want and you can have it" He answers fast without stuttering, looking directly into your eyes, "I wanna know what you're thinking, what's in that little head of yours" He caressed your hair with the palm of his hand, you wanted things to move quickly, just having him inside you filling you up was enough to keep you on the edge.

"Degrade me," You said a little doubtful, you didn't know how much could he be ok with, even the thought of saying certain things that you were interested in trying made you doubt a little if you could even like them.

"I already know that... but you didn't even have to tell me that, I saw it in your face, a corrupt angel" He whispered to your mouth, kissing you passionately so you could feel the love.

"I have tried somethings but... never this and this is something I always wanted to do," You referred to the shower, "But more than just thoughts, I think you're my darkest fantasy, I like how big you are, how you fit me, how you hold me and hurt me, how much it lingers in my body, I love how you push me down and fuck me until my vision is blurry and the air is too thick to breathe, I love the sharpness of your jaw and your knife, the spanking and your punishments, I love everything about it" You smiled leaning for a big kiss, the kind that made you smile widely.

He slowly began to thrust his hips, pushing his dick inside you, your walls contracting desperately for more friction, the spot getting tighter as his hand dropped in between your legs, circling your clit in gentle circles, you whimpered moving your hips to his rhythm, your fingernails caressing the soft hairs on the back of his head.

"Do you like how daddy fills you up?" you hissed, your head arching back, nipples getting hard, "You look so pretty when you take daddy's cock" You blushed at his words, feeling your entire body being covered by this sudden heat wave, but it got washed away the minute he slipped out of your entirely.

"Wait, what are you doing?" you whined, "Please Daddy don't take it away, I need it" you begged him, without saying another word he stood up, taking a step out of the shower, while you sat there, you could see him all, that piece of meat that hung between his legs, hard and swollen red.

You tried to stand up but he stopped you, his hand on your shoulder, "I wanna see you"

"What do you mean? you can see me" he said no with his head as if he really couldn't see you naked already.

"I wanna see your hands in between your legs, touching yourself so nasty, right in front of me" You didn't understand from where he got this but you obeyed, that tone of his boys and his killer glare told you to not say more, and just stare at him.

You put your hand in between your legs just like he wanted, it was all up to you, but after feeling Alex yesterday you knew touching yourself wouldn't feel as good as him, none the less you began to rub yourself in a gentle calm, and teasing circles, staring at him, biting your bottom lip and closing your eyes as you let your mind drown in the thought of yesterday.

"Don't..." he raised his voice, "I want you to tell me what are you thinking about, I want to hear you, everything I wanna know you everything, keep your eyes on me and you'll get it" You smiled, a little bit coughs off guard by his request.

"Daddy..." You sigh with your sweet voice, your fingers slowly gathering up a gentle pace on your swollen clit, it hurt a little bit to rub it down but it turned you on more to see him in all of his glory, you glorified his body, every inch of it, every muscle and vein that ran above his skin, everything about him was pure ecstasy, "I remember last night so vividly when you kissed me..." You exhaled, "And I was sat down on your leg, I could feel you... I could feel how hard you were getting for me, for my lips and the kiss I gave you, I knew it since then... I could feel how badly you wanted to fuck me"

"Keep going" He gulped, slowly beginning to stroke himself right in front of your eyes, that now didn't want to blink, you didn't wanna miss the way his hand grabbed his dick and began to jerk it.

"I-..." You bite down on your lip, "I can feel you inside me, you fuck me up so badly... I just want it back inside me again, it's as if I was drooling for you to be back in it, to have me all bruised and sore, I just need to feel you again, I can't do this by myself I need you..." You whine, stopping your fingers, "Nothing I could do to myself would ever be as good as you, what did you do to me, what did you do to me?"

"I showed you who you really are, the real you, not what everyone sees, I have seen you, I have tried you... been inside you, and I love every part of you, and I will love even the ones I don't know just yet" You looked at him, and you knew you were gone, you didn't want to be free anymore, didn't want to be away from him, because you love that man, he grabbed your hand, kneeling in front of you, guiding your fingers in big circles on your cunt.

"Tell me you love me"

"I love you, I love you..." Your moans started to get out of control, "I love you! I love you!" His fingers pushed yours back, you bucked your hips forward trying to get them to sink deeper but you couldn't, nothing could be as deep as he is, he was an ocean that washed you away, you tried to keep reaching deeper, trying to find your ending but you were no way near of finishing, even if he was the one that kept your fingers inside you, he watched you twist and scream for more, trying to provoke it but nothing happened, "I can't-" You chocked out, his thumb rubbed your clit in teasing gentle circles.

"You can't?... I'll stop then" You grabbed his wrist before he could take it away, digging your fingernails into his skin, "Tell me what do you want?" He demanded

"I want you to pound me until you leave me red and bruised until it hurts but I won't stop you, fuck me" You spat, the palm of his hand grabs a hold of your chin and squishes your cheeks together.

He smiled to himself, humming as he picks you up from the ground, wrapping both of your legs around his hips, "That's exactly what I wanted to hear, such a good little slut, my good little whore" He slides himself inside you, feeling him reach a new level of deepness inside you, it made your cheeks burn as he makes your body jolt up and down, you could see your face in the mirror, how you took him in deep, thrusting his hips up slowly making you sigh, you loved his body, his big back and even his round ass, you giggled by the thought, "What's that?" He asked, picking up on you and watching yourself in the mirror.

"Don't stop, it was nothing" You said, but he turned and looked at your eyes thru the mirror.

"So you want a close-up look at your pretty face when I make you cum all around me, right?" You gulped, and that little hint of excitement could be seen through your eyes you nodded, and he slipped out of you just as easily as he got inside of you, walking you to the mirror, he turned you over, pulling your hips forward, "Arch your back..." You did as you were told, sticking out your ass for him, he hummed in satisfaction as his hands ran down your hips, fondling the roundness of your ass, he smacked it, living his hot hand print on your red ass cheek, and you didn't smile to the pain, you smiled to his face, you liked being held down, and the way he pushes your hips to his body, the way his neck arches and his throat stretches as he gulps because he loves how tight and warm you feel.

"You like my pussy, Daddy?" You whimper as he buries his dick deep, he looked at you thru the mirror, your pink cheeks and glimmering doe eyes had him on the verge.

"I love it, honey" He replays, his fingers tracing up your spine to your head, playing with your wet hair, messing it around, he gasps and thrusts inside you, slow but rough, electrifying, you nudge your head to the side, and he wraps your hair around his hand, drawing your body against his, he watches you thru the mirror, your eyes swelling up in tears, you needed more than just that slow pace, you loved it but you were desperate.

"Alex... please" You whined, "Gimme more Daddy please" You begged him, he noticed how your voice sounded more high pitched as you were about to cry, "Destroy me" He smiled, increasing his pace, "I know you want it" He pushed your body up to his, you watched and heard how his hips came in contact with your body, smacking and hitting it hard, your skin became raw and tender, his hair falling on his face as he speeds, his breathing shortens into a gasp with each time your walls contract around him.

"Oh, babe..." He whimpered, "You're- fuckin' hell," He lost control of himself, on how rough he was being with you, his arm wrapped around your neck, while his other pulled your hips forward, jolting your body up, your cheeks turning red, gasping for air, he wasn't going to stop any time soon, now it was all about him, he had lost control the moment he saw you take him so well, profoundly obsessed with the way your eyes glimmered whenever he was inside of you, how soft they become, how weak and easy you became to manage, how wet you got by just a simple graze or touch of him, you were it for him, he loved the way your pupils expanded, or when your chest became red, and how greedy you were.

"I'm gonna... please don't stop Daddy" You cried, your vision turning white, he watched you get out of your body, your mouth wide open, and your eyelids roll back when he pushed himself inside you, feeling you come around him warm and messy, you had lost your hearing for a moment, but he saw and heard it all, and you were unleashed completely, he pulled out of you second before he came, only for you to drop to your knees and open your mouth as a reflex, he came warm in your face, and your tongue.

"I'm so proud of you my little princess" You smiled, not only pleased on the outside but on the inside too, you could hear how happy you made him, satisfied, and you had a sense of fulfillment.

"Thank you, Daddy" He grabbed a towel for you to take out his release from your face but you didn't accept it, instead you took it away from your face and licked it off your fingers, "Yummy," You said with a smile. He picked you up from the ground with no struggle, you felt so light, and then he wrapped you up in a towel, grabbed your hairbrush, and slowly brushed away your hair, he was so gentle, it relaxed you to the point you didn't notice when you fell asleep to the feeling of his hands massaging your scalp, and your shoulders.

"My beautiful girl, it's time to rest" You saw him cover you up in the soft sheets, pulling your warm body to his, drifting to sleep with no more thoughts, no more distractions, no more worries, he had thrown them out the window the moment he saw you in the shower, now it was only you he could think about, and how happy he is in that moment, his eyelids felt heavier and heavier as the place got darker, his eyes were shut now, and that moment of happiness was over.

In his dreams he found no comfort like you, he only found despair and paranoia, he felt as though someone was watching him, he was all alone in his childhood room, and his mother's music could be heard from afar, echoing in his ears, he got up, it felt as though everything was spinning, everything slow, and far, he let his way down the stairs of his old house, nothing had changed, everything was in its place, the pictures were hanged, the flowers hadn't died, and his mother was fine, he hugged her from behind, the familiar sound of his favorite video game caught his attention, he walked to his living room, watching you play his video game on the floor with a smile spreader across your face.

"You can't have them both" His father's raspy voice broke the silence, he was in the old settee with the suit he always saw him in, drinking bourbon, he stood up, pointing the gun at your head, watching his mother enter the room slowly, "What's it gonna be?" Alex froze, his heart sinking to his feet, he couldn't move, couldn't fight back, the gun went off and his eyes opened.

He jumped, and you woke up next to him, sweating cold, looking pale, his breathing agitated, "What happened?" He heard your voice echoing, and you eased him, grabbing his hand with both of your hands, and smiling, he looked at you, and saw from your shadow walk out his father, "I'm watching you..."

The third time he woke up in a cold sweat, you were still asleep, laying on your side, your naked back soft like silk, he had to stand up for a moment, sitting by the window to feel the fresh and cool air of the night, he watched you, how your chest rises and falls serenely, your pouty lips and long eyelashes, shining in the moonlight, he was frightened by the shadows in the night, he felt like a child again, relying on his night lamp to keep him safe from the monsters underneath his bed, and the ones that hid in the shadows.

In the morning you woke up to the sound of the birds on your rooftop, happy and dreamy, but alone, you rolled on the bedsheets, using them as a big gown, you watched him in the frame of your door, walking around tense, with his silver gun in his hand, sipping black coffee like a maniac.

"Alex..." He stopped, putting the coffee away only to hug you tight, but this was a very tight hug, as if he was relieved of something, "Is everything ok?" You asked.

"I'm sorry" He replayed.

"But... why?" You cupped his face with both of your hands, his eyes softened when he looked at you.

"Because I promised you that everything was going to be ok," He said sounding very disappointed in himself, he was being very harsh on himself, and you didn't get why, "I brought you into this mess, when I shouldn't have done this to you, this is something that I have to take care of, and you shouldn't be here"

Your heart dropped, "What do you mean I shouldn't be here?" He was quiet, and you walked up to him, "Look at me and tell me you want me to leave" He stood still looking down to the floor, "You're beating yourself up, killing yourself from the inside, you need to stop that" You ordered.

"What if I can? What if you don't love anything at all? There's nothing else for you to love" He walked away from you, grabbing his gun.

"I died a few days ago, and you brought me back to life, what makes you think I won't do the same for you? I'm in love with you" You said desperately, the sheets dropping to the floor as you held him.

"You're in love with a dying man"

You grabbed his wrist, aiming the gun at your heart, "There's nothing for me left, there's nothing I would want more in this life than you... if you stay... I stay" You were crumbling down his walls one by one.

"You're crazy," He said with a smile, "The Bonnie to my Clyde" You couldn't let go of him, pressed against him so tightly, "You're my little bunny, you know that?" H gave you a light smack on your ass.

You smiled and nodded, "I'm gonna get changed"

"Thought you didn't bring any clothes?" You chuckled, cheeky son of a bitch, you walked to the room making a ponytail for your hair, even if he loved how his navy blue sweater fitted you, there's nothing that he could love more than watching you naked.

"Your sweaters dummy! What do you want for breakfast?" You walked over to the kitchen, "I can make some..." You looked at the eggs and butter, "Omelettes or... french toast?" He nodded, going back to being a vigilante, you put the brown sugar and white sugar in a bowl incorporating them with some cinnamon, cracking the eggs, splashing vanilla and milk, and mixing them together, you turned on the stove, cutting up some butter to grease the pan, soaking the bread in the mixture, and letting it cook slowly as you chopped some fruit.

Just in a few minutes, the house began to smell like cinnamon, warm black coffee, and cigarettes, you served the breakfast and sat on the settee with Alex, he smiled as you covered his toast in butter and maple syrup, he took a big bite, chewing it slowly in front of you, he swallowed, "This is lovely, the best french toast I've ever tried" You smiled and pecked his lips.

"My sister could be many things, but I was gifted with the kitchen, except for the dishes, after this I'm not lifting another finger" You joked, and he smiled at you, his mouth full.

"There's more right?" You smiled and said yes, getting up to give him what was left from the toasts you made.

"How long are you gonna be there playing Batman?" He smiled and nudged his head, "Maybe I could learn" You said.

"How to shoot? You're crazy, woman" You rolled your eyes, "I think it's best if I'm the one who holds the rifle"

"You know I'm a good girl, I can learn it fast, come on!" You begged him putting your hands together, "Please, please, please?"

"Let's go" You grabbed your shoes jumping as you put them on and he grabbed a few apples, stripping up his rifle in his back with his gun on his belt, and then he took you to the back of the house, close to the woods, he lined the apples, he walked back to you, grabbing your hand and walking further away from the target, "You're about 10 ft away from your target, not very far but good for your first try, first you load the gun" He grabbed a box of bullets from his coat, taking only two rounds "This is a magazine" He pointed it out, pressing a release button on the side of the grip taking it off from the pistol, "As you add rounds the spring gets compressed, that's why it's hard to close it"

"But thank God I have you here Daddy" You kissed his cheek and he smiled, trying to hide the small blush that crept to his cheeks, you noticed, but you didn't say anything.

"Load the flat side of the cartridge to the flat side of the magazine and the round side of the cartridge to the rounded side of the magazine, almost like batteries, right?" You nod, humming a yes, "Then you put it back in place, hold it strongly, you must have a very strong grip, rest the magazine here" He puts it in the palm of your hand, and you push it in until you heard a click, "Perfect, then you charge it" He clamshells your han over the rear sight is of the slide, you pulled the slide back to the rear until it stopped and he released your hand, allowing it to slide and slam shut, he puts himself behind you, aiming the gun at the target, "There, focus..." He whispered into your ear, but it was very hard when he was so close to you, pressed up against you, just like in the bathroom, "Breathe..." Your chest rises and falls calmly as your finger hooks into the trigger, "Shoot" He says, and you shoot, hitting the apple perfectly, "That's my girl!" He cheered and picked you up from the floor spinning you around.

"Can I go again?" You asked him sweetly, and he nodded, you followed the same steps, Alex watching your every move, putting his rifle on his shoulders and his arms above it, you could hear his raspy and deep voice in your ear again, breathing in and out calmly, and shooting perfectly.

"I'm impressed, you're very good at this, doll" You smiled and pecked his lips.

"I had a good teacher" He pulled you in with his hand on your lower back, kissing you passionately until your lips were swollen and pink, taking advantage of the moment to grip your ass tightly, you moaned and he slipped his tongue inside your mouth, and then he shut you off, tearing the kiss apart.

"You wanna see how I do it?" You nodded, but before he could shoot you ran to fetch an apple, putting it above your head, "What are you doing?!"

"I trust you, you can do it!" He sighed, aiming the barrel of the rifle at the top of your head, and cleanly shooting the apple away, you were amazed by him, running back to him and hugging him tight, the thrill of everything had you so euphoric.

His hand gripped your neck firmly but not tightly, "Don't do that again, alright?" He softly said, and you nodded grabbing his fingers with your hand.

"Nothing was going to happen though... I knew you wouldn't fail the shot" You said to him, "I was just playing around," You said, but he stopped you.

"I don't wanna play like that with you, you could've gotten hurt..." He said, you cheekily smiled at him, "What?" You grabbed the gun in his hand, sticking out your tongue and licking it, he was speechless.

"Where's the fun in that?" You said to him, you didn't know what got into you when you saw him shooting, so strong, and manly, you knew those weren't the right words but you still struggled to find some that even got closer, something got inside you wanted more of him like that, you were the center of his universe levitating around you, a strange type of magnetism, drawn to each other, something unstoppable, "I'm ready for you, daddy" You whispered, lifting up your sweater, pushing his hand in between your legs, as you played with his gun, licking it like a toy.

"You're a perverted little slut" He slide his fingers inside you, "Got you obsessed with me cock, didn't I?" You nod as a yes, shivering but not for the cold, for the way his hand gripped your neck tight like a perfect collar, "Precious girl, what got you like that?"His fingers ran down your folds, wet and so tight for him, needy for something to fill them up.

You giggled as he pushed your cheeks together squishing them, "Find out inside maybe?" You pulled his fingers away, and he kneeled on the ground throwing you over his shoulder, you tried pushing your sweater down but he spanked you instead, quickly getting inside the ranch and throwing you to the couch.

He stood up, pointing the gun at your head, your face inching closer to his slowly, his eye examining your face carefully as you closed your eyes to kiss him, softly, heavenly, falling deeper and deeper to a never-ending loop of you and only you, of your sweet smell of vanilla with a note of cinnamon, your sweet maple syrup mouth, and lovely coffee brown eyes, his lips open yours to push his tongue inside your, tasting your warm and sugary insides, something he loves so much makes him have this feeling of wanting to consume you entirely, he pushed you down to the couch, crawling on top of you, his knee in between your legs, holding his gun to the side of your forehead, his hand slowly reaching in between them.

"I'm gunna blow you away babe doll" His fingers roamed your clothed pussy, the excitement making you smile, his gun aimed at your face, "Come on now, don't look so scared, You know where I want you..." You smiled at him, "Don't smile at me like that... get down on your knees you fucking cunt" He pressed it to your chest and you slowly kneeled on the floor, you stared at him with wide eyes, "Why are you lookin' at me like that now, huh?" You stayed quiet and began to fiddle with the hem of his jeans and just as you were about to pull his dick out of his boxers he threw your hand away, looking at you disappointed, "God... you never learn, you're so dumb..."

Your eyes wide open, your heart skipping a beat at the look of his eyes on you, it hits you like a bullet, right into your heart, "But what did I do wrong?" His hand grabs and pulls your hair making your face tilt up and your mouth groan in pain.

"Nah... you know exactly what you got yourself into, stop acting like a dumb fucking whore" You simply smiled, not really knowing how to react to his words, not knowing where your smile would get you, you've never been called dumb in this way, but nevertheless, somehow you liked it, he inhales sharply, contemplating you, contemplating all of his ideas, examining your bottom to top, just like that on your knees, with your hair resting on your shoulder, he wiped out his gun, "Blow it," He says, your face suddenly changes from preoccupation to pleasure, with a grin, you approach closer to the gun, licking the metal barrel with your pink warm tongue, he watched in awe every move, with a grin on his face he didn't notice he had, he just watched with his pupiles dilated as he grew uncomfortably hard, he wasn't just hard, it was even harder to control his impulses, you were so gentle with his gun, kissing the hole, opening your mouth and taking the gun inside your mouth, with your eyes closed, picturing it really was his dick but still being aware of the danger, and that keeps you on the edge, spreading your legs open, your hand sliding down your stomach, your finger tips lightly grazing your cloathed clit over your underwear, fuck, you were soaked and so needy, your lips let out a quiet moan but that's enough reason for him to push the gun down your throat, making you gag around it messily.

"I-... I'm gonna die if you don't fuck me now, Alex..." You were breathless, in a hurry to get something else to fill up your own hole, he was so moved by the way you were sucking that gun, and your hands run down between your thighs.

"Proof me that you want it, don't act like a stupid fucking cunt" You moved your hair to the side, looking at him right into his eyes as you sucked with passion and need as if your life truly depends to get fucked over by Alex, because in this moment, it is, "D'ya like it?... 'Cause I think somebody is more than just wet... I think your pussy is all bathed in your cum, you don't even need your fingers, you just finish by just picturing my cock, you love it don't ya?" You hummed as a yes, "This is why I call you a stupid cunt, a dumb fuck, you're starting to get me tired by just humming your answers, you know that, right you stupid-"

"I know" You interrupt him, slamming your voice at him.

"Oh... now you feel like you have the right to use that tone with me?" He breathes in harshly, squishing your cheeks together as he presses down the gun at your forehead, "You don't like it, right? This was your idea, but it wasn't my decision to make you act like a dumb bitch... if you want me to call you something else, earn it, change my mind" He dares you, your getting more agitated and irritated by the second, your knees getting tired from always being down on them, so you decided to change everything around.

"Ok, Daddy, I will change it," You said with a smile as a bright idea pops into your head, you got up from the ground, slowly getting on top of him, knees on either side of his round thighs, "You know exactly what I love the most about you, I know exactly what I want to do with your cock, do you wanna see?" You asked him, and he silently nodded, you grabbed his wrist, rubbing yourself against his gun, "I- fuck..." Your nails dig into his shoulder.

"You what?... keep talkin' to me," He said, he sounded excited, like a 14-year-old boy kind of excitement.

"I need it right here in between my legs, way deep inside me, getting deeper and deeper with every move of your hips, I don't know what buttons you press Daddy, but I just now that I need you right here" You began to rub yourself harder, rocking your hips back and forward with your back arched, it was so strange, the fact that something so dangerous could make you feel this type of way. His eyes focused entirely on your pussy, he watched as those little and thin pair of panties became wetter and wetter, into a puddle of wetness, you lose control so easily, getting taken away by the pleasure, eyes rolling to the back of your head, your breathing getting shorter, drenched in ice cold sweat but your skin felt warm, slowly building up the pleasure until Alex moved his hand away, your legs shaking by the surprise, your walls clenching around nothing, you were starving for him, "Please Daddy, just please..." You opened your mouth to kiss him, sliding down your tongue to his mouth, and biting down on his bottom lip, "I know you need this too, let me make you feel good, please... I want to please you"

Those words put him in a place, a place that he hates to be, a place where he feels weak, your hand slowly reaches in between his legs, feeling his pulsing dick, you've never felt a man get this hard, it was so different, you stroke him slowly but your hand gripping him tightly, "Fuck..." He breathes out harshly, you didn't understand how he does it, how he has so much control over himself, he didn't want to let go.

"Come on, baby... just relax..." You whispered softly against his ear, as his head lay down on the couch, but he abruptly opened his eyes, you knew it was the end of you, he gripped your wrist tightly, throwing you to the side, hands, and knees, down in all fours. He rips off your panties from your body, scratching your skin like a lion, and you wine but he ignores you.

He gripped your hair back, leaning forward to whisper to your ear, "Are you tellin' me what to do?" He breathed in harshly, you felt him fiddling with his belt, you kept your eyes closed exactly knowing what was coming for you, your body was shaking, gathering up all your strength to endure the pain of his thick letter belt, he breathed in closer to your ear, "I don't know what scares you more, me or the gun I'm holding against your head?" You exhale sharply, panting as you try to come up with an answer, "You don't even have to say it, you're not scared of it, you're scared about how much you like this, how much harm I can do," You felt his dick hard against your inner thigh, your bit your lips to the thought of the feeling, your eyes rolling back, walls clenching together.

His nose digs into your hair, landing a small kiss on it, "Stay like this... don't move" Your face digs into the cushions, your wrists being gripped and tied together by his belt, his tip sliding slowly inside your pussy, you moaned so loudly, finally, you had something to decrease that hunger, that need to be filled up, without you noticing, you began to push your hips back, fucking yourself entirely on his dick, you heard him laughing so evilly while you struggled to move your hips from having your hands tied behind your back, "You're so needy, yeah?" You whined and sniffed your nose, he spanks you hard, "Go on, fuck yourself on me fuckin' cock" You kept moving your hips, panting and trying to reach for air as you kept fucking his dick, and his hand kept smacking your ass, each slam of his hand felt like little electricity shots, your pain began to be a feral hunger for him to be as rough as he wanted, so you let him keep spanking you, you kept moving your hips, your walls grasp his cock to stay buried inside you, you couldn't resist it anymore, couldn't hold it in for another second.

"Oh Alex.... please" Your muscles contract, your legs begin to shake slightly, your moaning so loud it sounds like murder.

"I know you want to cum... I can feel it" He whispers in a cold tone.

"Please Daddy, let me... please" He sighs, as you let go all around him, making a big mess on his cock, your creamy release coating his cock, and you cried, in anger, in sadness, because you knew he wasn't going to forgive you and yet at the same time that made you angry.

"Are you done?" He asks, and you furrowed your eyebrows, "I can't with you" He pulls his cock out of your cunt, but quick enough you straddle him between your legs.

"Alex, you can't-"

"No, you don't get to tell me what the fuck to do, you're acting like such a fuckin' cunt I-" You shut him up with a big slap on his face, he looks at your face up and down in awe, and he slams you back, you pushed him away, and tried to hit him again but he grabs your wrists and pushes them down, he pulls you in by the hair and you tried to resist kissing him but he just did, he kissed you, and it feels like true love, his arms wrapped around your waist, as your hips rock back and forward, "You're so fucked up"

He raised his hips up and put his hands on your hips pushing your body down to his cock at the same time he pushes his hips up, it was unholy, your heart was about to burst out of your chest, your ears popped, and your mouth was dry, just as if you were dying, completely being consumed by him, you didn't want to let go of him at all, you looked thru his eyes, deep down there was a deep sweetness to him, one that sometimes surfaced, he was really in love with you, you could see it right thru his tender warm brown eyes, his hands clamp your flesh and you groan in pain but it didn't matter, the tears didn't matter, all it was now was him.

"I love you..." You mumbled, snuggling to his neck, your mouth against his ear, your moans getting stuck on the middle of your chest, your whole body tensing as your wall clench around his cock, Alex kept slamming his cock in and out of your pussy, both bathed in sweat, your face stained with tears, you took one last look at him, his eyes fixated on yours with his mouth opened, his jaw locked, and his hair sticking to his forehead as sweat runs cold down his forehead, something different happened when you had finished, you closed your eyes and just hear him cuss all over your clogged ears.

"Holy fuck babe" He hums, rubbing his tip against your clit, you kept yelling from the pleasure, "Yeah! Fuck yeah... you're- oh... gonna make me fuckin' cum too..." He pressed himself up closer to you, the space between you too so tight your heart was beating thru his chest, he felt so warm inside your milky insides, so tight around your pussy, it was also time for him, he turns you over, so now your back was against his chest, he grabbed you tightly by your upper arms surely leaving bruises on them, and once more he grabbed his gun, he wrapped his arm around your tummy, and laid you down gently against his chest, kissing your ear as the cold metal of his gun is pressed against your lower chin.

"Would you kill for me?" He asks, you were a weeping mess, your mind too foggy with lust, nevertheless, you didn't have to think of your answer.

"Yes," You firmly replayed.

"Promise you'll love me forever, even if I do things that don't seem right, trust me...everything I do is for you" He whispered against your ear, your heart melting as his sweet voice showed for once how caring he is.

"I promise, I'll never stop loving you"

"You could be just saying that 'cause I could just easily blow that little pretty head of yours" He presses it harder against you, making you tilt your head slightly to say, "But I much prefer fucking your pussy and cum inside it real deep" He began his assault once more, this time you didn't think it was possible to keep going, he was being so rough with you, it was beginning to hurt a little.

"I can't Daddy... p-please I can't handle it" You moaned, his fingers came down to rub your pussy in broad circles making you cry out of pleasure and pain, a very dangerous combination for you because slowly you began to like it, "I can't- You're hurting me" You beg him with tears in your eyes.

"Shut the fuck up" He covers your mouth with his hand, and rubbed your pussy harder pressing his fingers down on your pussy, making your walls tighten, your breathing stuck in your throat, "You beg me to stop but you can't stop getting wetter and wetter now can you?" You couldn't keep up with Alex's rhythm, your body was worn out, you wanted more but your bruised knees and legs couldn't make your body move.

"Stop Daddy... please!" You sigh as his cock finds a new sweet spot inside you.

"Mmmm.... sounds like my little girl wants some more" Fingers pulling on your flesh, and you put your hands on his knees as he fucks your body with passion and frustration, "I love watching this... love watching you take every inch of me cock, everything just disappearing inside that little hole" He takes the chance to spank your round ass, and you didn't even make a sound, you felt as if you were floating out of your body, being too high up in the clouds to even feel any pain, but slowly you were falling back to earth, as everything began to build up in your stomach, "I can feel you're ready... tell me you want it... beg me for it"

"It's everything I ever wanted, all I want... I want you to finish inside me, cover my pussy with your cum..."

"Yeah? You want my cum to drip out of your pussy like a fucking whore, that's what you want?" He pushes his hips up, staying way deep inside you, pushing his cock in all the right places, you were tense, your whole body getting rigid as you suddenly had lost control, and something different was happening, Alex noticed and let out a deep sound from his throat, he stayed silent as he fucked your brains out, the noise that his body made as he thrust his cock inside you and your brain didn't capture what happened after that last thrust, you were screaming in pleasure as you felt you were cumming and his moaning got raspier, he was panting for air as he saw you cumming so hard, splashing his cock and wetting the couch leaving a damp stain on it.

"Fuckin' hell babe, oh- keep going" You pushed out the rest of it by making pressure on your lower abs, and he came twice inside you, one after the other, his mouth dry by seeing you cum all around him like that, wet the couch and the floor with your release, he pushed his cum inside your pussy, thrusting out of you, watching your milky insides drip out his cum and your wetness, you let yourself go on his arms, blacking out completely, as if you were drunk, your body too heavy but you felt so light at the same time, you heard him gasping for air against your ear, both of you trying to catch some air. He whispered something to your ear you didn't quite hear well, but you answered.

"Yes... I'm so full Daddy" Making him giggle along the way, carrying you to the shower like a baby in his arms, and cleaning you down with warm water, kissing your forehead and neck, behind your back as you lay down next to him in bed, he says he likes you more naked than dressed, he loves you more when you're honest, he says he's deeply in love with you right before bed, and you love him too with depth.

"I love you, honey," He repeats right before you sleep, till the sun hits your skin.

A/N

hi <3

sorry for disappearing and leaving you on the edge for months, I've been really fucking busy, stupidly busy, trying to finish this chapter was like trying to finish a whole book with the schedule I have now, I'm still trying to figure out a way to keep writing but I do have other priorities, I'm sorry, this not going to end any time soon but I'll be more on and off than I would normally be, which i hate but I'm still going to be here and Christmas is almost here sooo... don't worry, you'll always have me, i love you and thank you for being so patient and caring and so lovely to me. take care, i always have you on my mind too.

#alex turner #arctic monkeys #alex turner fan fic #anonymous requests #alex turner smut #alex turner one shots #lizzie grant #alex tuerner is daddy #arctic monkeys one shots

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ripleylove · 5 months ago

Text

Solo tu y yo,y nadie mas.

pairing: santos escobar x fem reader.

genre: suggestive,not any actual smut tho

summary: seeing Elektra being all over Santos,ignited a feeling of jealousy inside you,and you wanted to have your revenge.

A/N: couldnt find any santos escobar content so as always i took the matter in my own hands. (as always)

⋆ ˚｡⋆𔓘⭒๋࣭

You were fuming.

You were just one breath away until you destroyed anything that came into your vision from the jealousy.

Your beloved (hell nah) Elektra Lopez was just hugging and touching Santos,and the worst thing is that he isn't even saying or doing anything about it.

And you,his girlfriend,were right in front of them.

You weren't sure about how smoke didn't come out of your ears like in cartoons,because you were mad.

But,you wanted to endure it.

Your revenge would be served on a silver plate,so you let him enjoy the moment,before everything would be done your way.

What does that mean?

Oh,you wanted to give him silent treatment.

While Elektra was still all over him,you put an indifferent espression on your face to fool people,while you were burning from jealousy inside,and you made your way to the catering,where you saw Angel.

"Oh,hi Angel! How are you doing?" You asked,while picking up a bottle of water inside the little fridge in the catering.

"Oh,now that I got to see you,I'm definitely doing better than before." He said with a flirty smirk,and you awkwardly nodded with a smile.

Before you and Angel had the chance to talk more,you heard Santos entering the catering room.

"Dios mio,ma. I thought you disappeared! Why didn't you tell me you were here?" He said with heavy breath,since he ran all the way here.

You didn't tell him anything,and you just walked past him,making your way to his locker room to grab your things.

Obviously,Santos was confused as hell, and he looked over to Angel,who just shrugged his shoulders.

Your boyfriend followed you like a lost puppy.

That's why you decided to give him silent treatment: because he's the clingiest person you've ever met,and he couldn't survive without having you close. So,ignoring him would hopingly teach him a lesson.

"Mi amor?" He asked,hoping that you would answer,but you didn't. You just kept on walking,your destination soon approached by the both of you.

You pushed the door open,making Santos flinch.

What happened? Why didn't you talk to him? Did he do something wrong?

Those were the questions that spiraled in Santos' mind,but he couldn't manage to give himself any answer.

While he spaced out,you started to put your things in your black bag. You put your hair in a ponytail, ready to change your clothes before leaving.

You turned around facing Santos,and you gestured him to leave the room. "Go outside,I need to change." You said,your tone cold without any expression or without any sweet word.

This made Santos feel worried: him bring in the same room you were changing in never bothered you.

He frowned,and he walked towards you.

"Mamacita,why aren't you talking to me? What did I do? Please tell me,baby,I can't stand being ignored by you." His tone was pleading,while he turned you around to look in your eyes.

You chuckled, "Oh,you really don't know? You didn't notice the way your dear 'friend' Elektra was being all over you in front of me?"

'oh shit' Santos thought.

"C'mon,ma. You know I love only you. She won't stop even if I tell her." Santos said while wrapping his hands around your waist.

"And you think this is a good reason? Oh,Santos you're so wrong."

"Mi amor,please forgive me. I know that it isn't a good justification, but I promise you're the only one in my life. Let me show that what I'm saying is true." He said while kissing your sensitive neck,and you couldn't not give in his antics.

"You better show me I am,papi." You smirked,pressing gently your hands in his muscular chest,while ha picked you up,giving your neck some red and purple marks with his skillful mouth.

"Oh,claro que si,mama. Solo tu y yo,y nadie mas."

taglist: @stellakiddsblog @bibibi-tchx @p-mp

#santos escobar #italian moment #Santos escobar x reader #Santos escobar oneshot #Santos escobar imagine #He's so fine god damn

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maccreadysbaby · 7 months ago

Text

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: angst

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

terrible bad plan number 19284728 is brewing (and so is something else)

part thirty-five

❝ ARSONIST ❞

THURSDAY — SEPTEMBER 3 — 7:00AM

ASTEN WAS… REALLY, REALLY, REALLY SICK. Just within four hours of arriving at the Manor, he’d thrown up three fever medicine attempts, gone up to a hundred-and-four temperature, and hadn’t been able to say a coherent sentence the entire time.

Bentley and Nico had taken up residence on a loveseat situated in the corner of the dim guest room, and Nico was curled up across it, dead asleep with his head on Bentley’s lap. Alfred kept checking his temperature frequently with a forehead scanning thermometer. The screen always turned green, which meant good. Asten’s always turned red.

Surprisingly enough, Jason had taken it upon himself to stay in the bedroom basically the whole time. Bentley wasn’t really sure why — maybe he cared about Asten because they were both from Crime Alley? He didn’t really know, and he wasn’t going to ask and ruin it. He liked having Jason around so much, even if it wasn’t for him. Dick and Bruce kept going in and out to fetch things they needed and to give Nico’s parents updates. (Asten’s uncle, Sam, didn’t seem to care much about updates. He never picked up Dick’s calls.)

It had taken a while for Nico to stop crying. Everything seemed to be taking more of a toll on him than Bentley realized. Especially distancing himself from his parents; that was the worst part. With the whole adoption surprise and now the superpowers, he wouldn’t even begin to let himself near them. And for a kid who had never really been away from them to start with, it was pretty hard. Sleeping was the most peaceful Bentley had seen him in a while, so he stayed dutifully still as to not disturb his slumber.

The guest room had been silent for a while, apart from Alfred checking Asten and Nico’s temperatures every now and then. Currently, he was out of the room, searching with Bruce for a medicine Asten might be able to stomach better, and Jason went with them to get more liquid for the drip, leaving Nico and Bentley the only two in the room.

It seemed like absolutely everything that could go wrong, was going wrong. And Bentley was always to blame.

“Remember Titus?”

Bentley flinched with a gasp when Nico spoke, very nearly whacking him in the face. He glanced down, and Nico was looking up at him, blue eyes glazed over a dull. “I didn’t know you were awake.”

Nico sat up with a small, forced snicker that didn’t really reach his eyes. He ran a hand through his fluffy blonde hair and sighed, rubbing his face. “Sorry. Apparently I’m so tired that sleeping is hard.”

“I’m sorry,” Bentley mumbled, glancing over at Asten. “And yeah. I remember Titus.”

Nico pulled his knees up on the maroon loveseat, rubbing at his eyes with his hands. “He ran… or, teleported away after Asten told him about his parents. Never showed back up. Didn’t this happen to him before he got superpowers? The sickness?”

“Uh…” Bentley glanced over at Nico, who was waiting expectantly for an answer to the question he already knew the answer to, and then back over at Asten’s limp form. Only his head was visible beneath the beige quilt. “I guess so…”

“It’s all there. Fever, throwing up, delirium, vertigo, fatigue, sweating, loss of consciousness. The only thing Dr. Keene talked about that we haven’t seen from him was burning pain,” Nico explained in a whisper, fiddling with his pajama pants. (Bentley’s sailboat pajamas, actually. They had him change after he admitted that Asten had indeed thrown up on him.)

Bentley blinked a few times. “But Titus was sick as soon as he came out of the synchronizer. It’s been over two weeks since we were there.”

Nico shrugged, resting his head on his knees. “I dunno. It was just something I thought about.”

“Didn’t Titus’s sickness just go away after five days?” Bentley questioned, glancing over at him, and Nico replied with a simple nod.

“It’s starting day six for Asten.”

Bentley turned back toward their sick friend. He watched in silence as Asten turned his head with a groan, making the cool washcloth Dick put there flop off onto the mattress.

With a soft exhale, Bentley stood, stretching and making his way to the edge of the bed. Asten still looked terrible — his face was fever flushed and he was sweating like no one Bentley had ever seen. That and the wet washcloth made his black and blue hair soggy and stick to his face. His lips were pale and Bentley didn’t think he’d seen his eyes open once since he’d arrived. It reminded him of when Tim was sick — scary.

With a pang of pity that moved through his veins, he dipped the washcloth in a bowl of cold water, squeezed it out, and put it back on Asten’s forehead.

An extremely dramatic groan was the first real reaction they got out of Asten all day. He didn’t say any words, but turned his head to the side to make the washcloth fall off again.

“I know it's cold,” Bentley started, grabbing the cloth and putting it back, keeping his hand over it so it wouldn’t move even if Asten did. “But it’s helping you.”

Asten turned his head from side to side trying to get it off, and Bentley apologetically held it there. Nico drifted up next to him with a quiet sigh.

“I wish he would be better already,” He muttered, huffing and crossing his arms. “He’s going to hate me.”

Bentley momentarily glanced at him, catching the calculating way he was looking at Asten. “Why would you say that?”

Nico shrugged, his dull blue eyes bouncing around the room. “On the third day, when his fever was really bad, I said we should probably call you or my parents or an ambulance or something, but he wouldn’t let me. He said he didn’t want any help. And now I brought him here.”

“You… did the right thing,” Bentley replied, looking back at Asten, who was still moving his head side to side. “The best thing for him.”

Nico nodded in silence.

Asten groaned unintelligibly, and one of his hands came up from under the quilt and pushed weakly at Bentley’s wrist.

“I know it’s cold,” The redhead repeated. Asten began to squirm slightly on the bed, his eyebrows pinching together in discomfort.

“G’off,” He halfway grumbled. Nico shifted by Bentley’s when an actual word came out of Asten’s mouth for the first time in a whole twenty-four hours.

“Not until your fever breaks,” Bentley replied, holding the cloth firmly in place. “I’m sorry.”

Asten didn’t like that.

“G’off!” He begged in his not-awake-but-not-unconscious limbo, and he pinched his face together in a way that Bentley knew all too well — that he was about to start crying. “Please… please…”

Bentley sighed lightly. “Okay. Just for a minute,” And then he lifted the cloth off of Asten’s forehead again. The older boy’s features softened, and he fell peaceful.

There was shuffling by his side, and before Bentley could turn to see what was happening, Nico scanned Asten’s forehead with their thermometer. Bentley counted to ten and then put the cloth back, to which Asten groaned dramatically again. Only a few seconds later, Nico moved Bentley’s hand and scanned Asten’s head again. And then again.

“What are you doing?” Bentley questioned, glancing over at him. Nico was staring at the glowing red thermometer screen like it had a picture of a unicorn on it, his blue eyes blown dinner-plate wide.

“He should be dead,” Was Nico’s muted mumble.

Bentley furrowed his brow and stepped closer to Nico, peering down at the thermometer.

The screen was bright red, displaying a large hundred-and-eighteen-point-four.

Bentley blinked, and then rubbed his eyes. Bruce had talked about Tim’s hundred-and-four being bad…

“Do it again,” He ordered. Nico reached forward and repeated the process, swiping the thermometer across Asten’s forehead. A hundred-and-eighteen-point-seven.

“This thing has to be broken,” Nico suggested, lifting the thermometer up and scanning Bentley’s forehead with it. It came back green — ninety-eight-point-four. He reached over and did Asten’s again.

A hundred-and-nineteen-point-six.

“You better put that cloth back on him. This is insane. Impossible, really. He should literally be burning alive inside his own body. Like, vegetable territory,” Nico muttered, scanning his own forehead with the device. Ninety-eight-point-seven.

“He can hear you,” Bentley muttered, dipping the cloth in the water bowl again.

“He shouldn’t be hearing anything! He should be dead!”

Bentley said nothing, wringing out the cloth. Nico checked Asten’s temperature one last time. A hundred-and-twenty-point-one.

“It’s literally getting higher by the second!”

Bentley pressed the cloth back on Asten’s forehead, to which he protested by screwing his face up and squirming around on the bed some more.

“The highest internal temperature a person has ever survived is a hundred-and-fifteen-point-seven!” Nico exclaimed, tossing the thermometer on the table and staring at Asten with a strange look on his face. Bentley glanced over at him without a word. “What? I looked it up when Asten started getting sick.”

Bentley said nothing, but continued to hold the cloth down on Asten’s forehead. He could feel the heat radiating from him through the cloth. If a hundred-and-four was bad, how was Asten still alive at a hundred-and-twenty?

Asten groaned dramatically again, pushing at Bentley’s wrist with more force now. He grumbled, “Get it off,” coherently, like he was actually starting to wake up.

“I know you don’t-“

“Get it off!”

“But you-“

“Get it off!” Asten’s eyes snapped open that time, but they weren’t green anymore. They were…

They were…

Glowing orange.

Bentley and Nico both jumped backwards, and the cloth slid from Bentley’s fingers and splatted on the floor next to his feet. Asten blinked a few times and looked around the room, a bit disoriented, his orange irises bouncing here and there.

“Hey,” Bentley greeted nervously, sending a quick glance to Nico. Asten looked over at them, eyes flicking between the pair incredulously. “It’s okay, you’re at my place.”

Asten said nothing, but kept blinking like he wasn’t sure what was going on. Bentley bent down and picked up the washcloth from the floor, dipping it back in the water bowl and wringing it out. “And your fever is really really really high, so I need to put this back on you.”

Asten blinked, the glowing in his eyes unrelenting, the orange pulsing and moving like flames. “But I feel fine.”

“But you-“ Bentley started, but Nico elbowed him lightly. Their eyes met before Nico whispered: “He’s delirious. He was saying the same thing the other day, but he couldn’t even tell me his own name.”

Don’t argue with someone who is delirious, Bentley knew that much from helping with Tim. He nodded to himself and then glanced back over at Asten, who was now sitting up straight, looking around like he’d never seen and bedroom in his life.

“That’s great. I’m glad you’re feeling better, but your fever is still really really high. The cool cloth is good for you,” He reasoned, wringing it out again and folding it in half to fit on his forehead.

“No it’s not,” Asten argued, shifting away from Bentley on the bed. “It hurts.”

“It’s just cold, buddy. Lay back down,” Bentley tried, holding the cloth up. Asten pushed himself farther away until he was on the far edge of the bed, glaring at the cloth like it had assaulted him.

“No! Stop it! Get it away! It burns!”

“Shh, shh, stop yelling,” Bentley muttered, glancing at the door in a spurt of panic. If someone heard them, they were screwed. “It's okay, Asten. It’s just a little cool.”

“No it’s not, it burns!”

The washcloth in Bentley’s hand burst into flames with a loud whoosh when Asten said it burns. The redhead cried out in terror, dropping it on the floor with another strange splat.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Nico shouted, spinning around in a circle for reasons unbeknownst to Bentley. “Put it out! Put it out!”

Bentley, in a blind panic, grabbed the water bowl from the nightstand and dumped it all over the cloth (and the floor.) The fire went out with a low sizzle.

No one spoke for a solid five seconds. Bentley looked at Nico, who glanced at him with his blue eyes blown wide, a terrified but awestruck look on his face. Then he looked back at Asten, whose eyes were slowly turning from orange back to green.

Had he just…

Set that on fire?

With his mind?

With a grimace of discomfort, Asten laid back down in the bed, satisfied that the cloth would no longer be attacking him.

“Asten, do you-“

Before Bentley could finish speaking, Asten’s eyes rolled backwards into his head, and he fell unresponsive again.

“Oh my God! He is a metahuman,” Nico mumbled, glancing around the room warily. “We… we should clean this up before your family gets back. Like, now.”

“If they didn’t already hear you screaming,” Bentley muttered, grabbing the singed and blackened cloth out off of the floor. He sent a quick glance to Asten, who was unmoving.

Nico hurried over to the bathroom and opened the sink cabinets. “I thought it was crazy that I had superpowers. And now he does too?!”

Bentley said nothing, but instead, grabbed the empty water bowl and carried it into the bathroom to refill. He tossed the old rag in the trash and covered it with some toilet paper.

“You know, if he has fire based powers, maybe the cold really does hurt,” Nico suggested, grabbing a towel from the cabinet and heading back into the bedroom to mop up the floor as Bentley filled the bowl in the sink.

“Maybe,” Bentley replied. Everything comes with a downside, doesn’t it? Everything good?

Bentley brought the full bowl back into the room and put it on the nightstand. Nico handed him a new washcloth, and he dipped it in the water just in time for the bedroom door to swing open.

Jason was wearing a blue hoodie and gray sweatpants now, his hair slightly messy with the white part hanging down toward his eyes. He was carrying a few fluid bags in his hands for Asten’s IV. He paused abruptly after he closed the door, glancing between the three children (one unconscious and two rooted to their spots.) for a few seconds with his greenish-blue eyes narrowed. “What’re you up to?”

Bentley blinked, and with a cringe and a quick glance to a terrified Nico, replied: “Nothing, he just… woke up for a second. He… said a real word, too. A few.”

Jason, after a moment of silence and a few way too detective-ish glances, nodded in approval, making his way to the drip stand and unscrewing the old bag from the IV tubes. “That’s good. Will you hand me the thermometer?”

With a grimace, Bentley grabbed it from the bedside table and handed it over.

He and Nico watched in quiet terror as Jason finished changing out the IV bag and scanned Asten’s forehead with the thermometer. The screen turned red, and he looked at it inquisitively, then set it down on the bed with a sigh. “Looks like the fever might be going down, too.”

Bentley blinked once. Twice. Glanced over at Nico, who looked completely bamboozled but was trying not to. There was no way… what?

“What was the temperature?” Bentley questioned, dipping the washcloth back in the water bowl as a way to look like he wasn’t excruciatingly confused.

“A hundred-and-three-point-nine,” Jason replied. Bentley nodded slightly and wringed out the cloth, folding it and placing it gently on Asten’s forehead. He scrunched his face up, but didn’t wake.

And now the question was: had his temperature actually gone down that far that fast, or was Jason lying so he didn’t freak them out?

“Hey, Bentley,”

Bentley and Nico glanced over at the door that was sitting only slightly ajar, and Bentley shifted awkwardly at the voice that had come through it. Damian hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, why would he be calling for him now?

“Yeah?” He questioned.

He waited for Damian to open the door, but he never did. Jason didn’t say anything about it — probably because the assassin actually wanting to talk to somebody was a sign that he was finished hibernating.

“I’ll be right back,” Bentley said to Nico, who nodded.

Bentley moved from Asten’s bedside to the door and swung it open, glancing out into the hallway. It was completely empty, but Damian’s bedroom door was cracked open. No one else’s was.

“Damian?”

“Bentley,”

His voice was echoing from down the stairs, the foyer. Bentley gently swung the guest room door closed behind him and made for the stairs, thumping down them softly. He couldn’t see anybody at the bottom.

“Damian?”

“Bentley,”

When he reached the bottom of the stairs and could see the entire foyer, there was no one in it. The pale sunrise was illuminating outside the windows, making the whole house glow dimly, but there was no Damian anywhere.

“Bentley,”

The redhead turned on a dime, glancing down the hallway that led to the library and den. That’s where the voice was coming from.

His heartbeat was picking up. Why was his heartbeat picking up? Why was he sort of freaked out? “Damian? Are… you okay?”

“In the den,”

Bentley hesitantly made his way down the hall. He checked each room on the way — the office, the library — and they all came up empty, just like the family had left them. When he finally turned into the den, Damian was standing in the middle of the room in a green hoodie and black pants, looking completely and utterly normal. The room was normal, too — messy from movie marathons with an ever-burning fireplace that gave the whole thing a warm glow. Not a pillow was out of place, everything was just how it was the last time Bentley saw it.

He sighed in relief at the sight of Damian, stepping inside and glancing around. His fear quieted, replaced by something like, maybe, happiness? Shock that Damian was actually talking to him? “What is it?”

Damian looked down at his own socked feet for a few moments, fiddling with his hands inside his hoodie pocket. He looked alright. Good, even. “I just wanted to make sure you are aware… that… I do apologize for my previous behavior towards you.”

Bentley blinked, his eyes wandering around the den awkwardly. Right; Damian didn’t like apologizing in front of people, just like when they were in the car. “Uh… it's…”

“I… have to get used to how words affect you. You are different from my brothers. Richard and Drake and Todd — they can threaten one another and say the most crude things all day and still be friends at dinner. I… am still not sure how to effectively communicate with you,” Damian admitted, glancing down at the carpeted floor. “I am sorry for all those things I said. I did not mean them.”

Bentley breathed in and out, blinking. Damian wasn’t really one to go changing his mind, so maybe he actually hadn’t meant it in the first place? But it had sounded so sincere…

Bentley inhaled, muttering softly: “Do you really think everything would be better if I was gone?”

“No,” Damian sighed, shaking his head. Bentley glanced down at his own socks. Why did he feel like he was about to cry?

He heard Damian shift. “I think everything would be better if you were dead.”

Bentley glanced back up at him, and he had a strange, twisted smirk on his face that looked forced, mangled, even. So grotesque that it reminded him momentarily of the joker. Damian’s eyes weren’t blue — they were amber.

Bentley inhaled sharply. “You’re not Damian.”

He took a few steps back. The fake Damian cackled strangely, and in a blink, it wasn’t Damian anymore — it was The Secret Keeper, standing in the den, in the Manor, right in front of him. Her crooked stitched smile was bleeding, and the tips of her platinum hair were stained crimson. Bentley shouted in fear and stumbled backwards, fell over his own two feet, and hit the floor of the den with a dull thud.

“I can make you see what I want you to see!” The Secret Keeper shouted in a somewhat manic manner, spinning around, her stringy hair whacking her in the face. The den around them melted away into a stretch of the white hallways from Dr. Keene’s lab, sterile and bright and terrifying. Davis was laying at the end of the hall, straight in front of Bentley, covered in something scarily crimson.

His heart jumped. “Davis?!”

“I can make you hear what I want you to hear!”

“Bentley!” Someone screamed — a girl. Bentley turned around on the cold white tile and, at the opposite end of the hall from Davis, stood a small girl with long red hair. She was wearing pink overalls, holding a purple teddy bear. She was crying. “Bentley, help! He’s coming!”

“Vivienne?” He whispered. How did he know her name?

The Secret Keeper laughed, but he couldn’t see her. “I can reach into every future in every universe and show it to you. Your past, present, and future are mine!”

Bentley’s father suddenly appeared behind the redhead girl, running at her and scooping her up from behind. Vivienne screamed, dropping the bear and kicking and flailing as he carried her away.

“No! No, father, I don’t want to go to the closet! No! Please! Bentley, help!”

Was Vivienne Bentley’s… sister?

The white hallways faded and melted into a white room of nothing. Bentley had been there before.

“I can make your family hear or see anything I want. Why else would they ignore Nico’s windstorm? The screaming? Because they didn’t hear it,” The Secret Keeper stepped out in front of Bentley from nowhere, smiling twistedly at him, her eyes wide and wild. “Their minds are mine to guide. I’m building the foundations of a future where we’re guaranteed to win. Your family won’t know what happened to you until it’s too late, and if you try to tell them?”

She smiled at him with serious, dead eyes. “I’ll kill you. And all of them. And everyone.”

Bentley breathed in a shaky breath. “Please-“

“I can see everything that’s going to happen tomorrow, the next day, the next day. And if I play my cards right, if I keep the Wayne’s in the dark, Batman and his whole team will be gone in a few short weeks. Days,” She spun around again like she was talking to herself, tugging at her hair like she was going kind of crazy. “I can see everything that’s coming and it’s all mine!”

Bentley’s heart was pounding out of his chest, and he breathed in shakily. “Charlie-“

“I’m not Charlie!” The Secret Keeper screamed, and suddenly, she had Bentley by the throat. She slammed him into a wall he couldn’t see, his toes barely brushing the ground. She was only inches from his face. “I’m not Charlie!”

Bentley gasped for air, tugging at her hand with both of his. Why was she so strong? “You… were.”

The Secret Keeper stared at him blankly for a solid ten seconds, silent, squeezing his throat. Her amber eyes went unblinking for so long they began to water. She was shaking. “Help me.”

Bentley tugged and scratched at her hand. “Let… go,” He gasped, struggling against her strength. “Pl…ease.”

“Help me,” She whispered, but it sounded like her voice was doubled. Bentley’s eyes began to blur from the lack of air. Someone popped out from behind The Secret Keeper — someone purple. Bentley saw that their hands were encased in metal capsules, chained to the ground by huge, thick chains. He blinked twice, and the image cleared.

It was Charlie. The real Charlie, with blonde hair, with blue eyes, in the royal purple dress she wore the day she was turned into the Secret Keeper. She had a huge metal muzzle on her head that kept her mouth locked away like a dog. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face red from crying.

“Save me,”

In a literal flash of yellow lightning, Nico blipped into Bentley’s vision and slammed a metal fire poker into the Secret Keeper’s head like he was hitting a home run. The white room immediately turned back into the den, the voices faded, and Bentley hit the carpeted floor with a thump.

He fell into a coughing fit, his hand floating up to his throat. He was shaking, he could feel it — and his heart was pounding out of his chest.

Nico dropped the blood-splattered fire poker with a clang. The Secret Keeper wasn’t there anymore. Had she vanished into thin air?

“Are you okay?” Nico questioned, grabbing Bentley’s arms and tugging him out of the floor. He was breathing really fast, too, and he touched various places on Bentley’s shoulders and head. “Did she hurt you? Is your throat okay? Where did she go? Did I kill her?!”

Bentley stayed silent, focusing on getting air in and out of his body. His throat was going to bruise — how would he hide that?

Nico pulled Bentley into him, hugging him tightly. “Where did she go?”

“I dunno,” Bentley mumbled.

Nico sighed. “That was so weird. Charlie, she…”

“You could see Charlie?” Bentley questioned, and he felt Nico nod.

“After you came downstairs, everything turned white and I saw her. Like, really her, before the Synchronizer. She told me that the Secret Keeper was attacking you,”

Bentley sighed, his mind struggling to keep up with everything. “But… what?”

Nico pulled away with a sigh, running a hand through his fluffy hair. “I don’t know. All I know is that I saw her, not the Secret Keeper, and she warned me.”

A moment of silence passed where they just stood there. Was Charlie inside the Secret Keeper, like a passenger along for the ride? Doing everything against her will? Was she trying to get out?

“We have to tell your dad,” Nico finally muttered, shaking his head. “This is insane.”

“No,” Bentley ordered, shaking his head urgently. “We can’t- we can’t tell anybody.”

Nico cringed, furrowing his brows, turning to leave the room. “She’s just trying to scare you into silence. We have to tell them.”

“No!” Bentley grabbed his shoulder and tugged him backwards. “We can’t. She’ll hurt them.”

“We can’t just keep letting this happen!” Nico exclaimed, locking eyes with him. “She’s harassing you.”

“I’m not going to risk their lives. I’ve seen her kill people with one look,” He replied, exhaling heavily. He drew his hand back and looked down at the floor. “This is all my fault. The least I can do is stop getting other people involved.”

Nico blinked a few times. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. Their life was fine before I got here,” Bentley muttered. He sighed and walked over to the couch, plopping down on it and running a hand through his hair. “I should just go back to my dad. This is what the whole war is about anyways.”

Nico said nothing, but made for the couch, sitting down beside Bentley. He could feel Nico’s eyes on him but he didn’t look up from his socks.

“I… I’ve seen… some memories. Of your father,” He said softly. “You can’t go back to that.”

Bentley sniffled. When had his eyes become so watery? “I’d rather go back to that than watch them suffer for me. I survived ten years of it.”

“You can’t do that. They love you here,”

Bentley groaned, dropping his head down into his hands. “This is a disaster. She was right. Everything would be better if I was just dead.”

The den fell eerily silent and still. After a long while of nothingness, Bentley glanced up at Nico, who was staring at him in a mixture of shock and despair, his ocean blue eyes gleaming with crystal clear tears.

“Please don’t say that,” He whispered, almost inaudibly. A pang of guilt rang through Bentley at the sight of him, and he sighed.

Not a single thing that Bentley ever did went right, did it?

He cleared his throat softly. “Nico, I…”

“Stop. Talking. Just stop for a second,” Nico ordered, looking away and breathing deep, gathering his composure. He looked back at Bentley with glossy eyes. “The Secret Keeper is and has been tormenting you for weeks. Weeks she’s spent on you and the people around you. Ruining them to ruin you. And you’re letting her. You’re letting her ruin you.”

Bentley opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“You know what I see when I look at that? When I see her trying to keep you in this constant state of terror and anxiety and loneliness?” Nico questioned, a hand floating up to land on Bentley’s shoulder. “She’s scared of you.”

Bentley blinked. “What? No she’s not. She can kill me.”

Nico squeezed his shoulder. “They said in the video diaries we saw in that morgue that the whole goal of this operation is to destroy Batman — Bruce. Your family. Damian, Robin. Dick, Nightwing-”

Bentley’s mouth fell open. “You- I- what?”

“Don’t worry, Asten doesn’t know, just me,” Nico continued with a shrug. “It’s not that hard to figure out. If you look at the number and ages of the main superheroes in Gotham, they all line up with this family. Not to mention that Dick Grayson goes between here and Bludhaven, and so does Nightwing. And the connection between your father and the Secret Keeper and Batman — it just makes sense. Not to mention you look really awkward whenever we mention superheroes at all.”

Bentley exhaled. So, he put the whole family in danger, got himself kidnapped, lied about a billion times, and now his best friend knows Bruce is Batman. “Bruce is going to die.”

“I won’t say anything. Promise. Anyway, here’s what I was getting at-“ Nico moved his hands around in the air. “They could do this entire evil diabolical plan without involving you at all. They could go straight for the throat and take out Bruce and the family for vengeance and revenge and blah blah blah and never spend a second on you, but they’re not. The Secret Keeper is going through hell to keep you on your knees. You know why?”

Bentley blinked.

“Because there’s something in you that can beat them, and they know it,” Nico said. “They’re expending all this energy toward keeping you down when they could be using it on Batman and his crew. You’re not the same kid that bowed at his father’s feet and they know it.”

Bentley looked down. “But-“

“The Secret Keeper can see the future, and the only one she’s completely hellbent on keeping quiet is you.”

Bentley said nothing.

“And maybe you don’t want to tell your family. That’s fine. But I still believe that you can get the upper hand if you take it. You said it yourself, this whole war is about you. So climb out of the hole she’s trying to bury you in and end it,”

Bentley breathed in and out, glancing around the room. He could hear something moving, above them, in the ceiling, like water in the pipes. He could feel it pumping like blood in his veins.

“I might not be the best at using superpowers yet, but I’ll do anything you need me to do. We’re a team, and Asten is part of it too, okay? You’re not alone,”

Bentley swallowed thickly and nodded to himself.

How many ten year olds could say they’d started and stopped a war?

—

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