#casual work pay was way better for me. I could work less hours and less days and just make enough for rent and not kill my body

[that-cheer-up-anon]

Just life stress rant

So I got a strain injury in my arm, wrist, and hand at work a couple of days ago. Went to the doctor and they basically said just rest, don't use it, gentle stretches, and massage. I'm taking this week off work.

My main concern though is that apparently my blood pressure is bad and if it continues I may have hypertension and will have to take meds to lower it. That super bums me out bc I just got off all meds and don't want to have to take them, bc I'm poor and my pay has been reduced bc I was forced to either quit or go part-time.

As if my stress about work productivity, work hours, lower pay, and not making enough for rent wasn't enough. I know I can't work as fast as they want and I'm constantly feeling like they're gonna fire me.

Just feeling kinda defeated.

[minzart]

Beggars can't be choosers(5)

Ao3 - Prev - Next

Decepticons & Reader(GN), Skywarp & Reader(GN), Rumble & Reader(GN) ,Thundercracker & Reader(GN)

You find an "automatic" tank busted in the middle of the night, and as the good millitar Mechanic that you are, you fix it

Or, the Decepticons don't have a trained doctor(yet), and you just volunteered as a substitute by their leaders' logic and standards

You had to walk over 3 hours to get to your job, but fuck if it wasn't worth it, with a convenient lie here and there you could access the showers, earning a cold bath, but a bath nonetheless, you had to convince Rumble to stay in your bag but better that than the unconfortable chance of him asking why are you ashamed of being nude

The dreadful feeling of how the fuck were you meant to misdirect a parts shipment was momentarily ignored during the morning. You focused on your job, in some moments, when it was you and your colegues, you could pretend everything was normal again... then the second you were alone, Rumble would pop in and start talking smack of what he had heard from your previous conversation, sometimes he was paying more attention than you were at those

His perspective of the conversations are quite funny tho, wich balances the awareness of constant surveillance that he is to you

"I'm just saying, maybe she sould be less of a Glitch if she wants that promotion sooo bad" he says to you as you work on a new tank model, this one not being secretary alive thankfully... hopefully, please don't be alive

"It's been some hard months to her" you roll a big wheel to possition, ready to take the old one out "let her be a bit mean"

"You are just saying that because she is your superior" the caccette snicker "I saw your face contort when she called your work sloopy"

You huff, rolling the old wheel out of the way "shut up"

"See! Oh! Hey human, you busy?" You look at him, in caccette mode at the nearest table, while you were making heavy work of changing a tanks big old wheels

"Guess"

"We are going to have a visitor- HIM?! WHY HIM?!" You see the caccetticon jump angrily from side to side "ughhhh I should've let Frenzy come if this is who I'll be seeing today"

You freeze, gathering all your courage and walk very calmly, ever so casual, to the work table, pretending to be reading the spread street of the model you are working on, ever so aware of the cameras surrounding you now, and says "who's coming?"

"Skywarp, that overcooked turkey" Rumble murmurs annoyed

"He's... a jet or a tank?"

"Jet..."

"Tell him to park at hagar 11" you move your hands over the spread sheet "the cameras are wonky there since last years black-out, it's usualy free for us to take a break now, but every once in a while a pilot will park there and we'll have to move over for the maintainence team"

"Got it"

"I am serious, if he lands anywere else and I get caught or one of you guys do, I will be useless to your cause and you probably captured and studied under a, not so gentle, science team"

"Oh, don't worry about that, Skywarp would be fine... we, on the other hand... I could just blow this place up"

"For more of the technological advantage and size that you have, we humans are like cockrouches, hard to kill, harder to get rid off, you may escape but your existence would become publicly, from what I understand you guys don't want that"

"Fair... here, done, now stop complaining!"

"Thank you"

"Don't mention it..." but you see the little jump of surprise the caccette gave when you thanked him, an amused smile coming to your face "stop looking at me like that!"

"Fine,fine, how long untill our guest arrives?"

"Knowing him? One human hour, a little bit more, an arc"

"That fast?"

"Seekers" you can hear the roll of optics

"Got it" you go back to the tank and finish its maintenance quickly, heading out to hagar 11, and praying no-one is there for now

It was, in fact, not empty, but you had some time to kill, so you gave a warning to everyone and marked the room as "in use," putting cones around the outside area, no-one questioned you, there was no reason to, for now, tomorrow was another story

You hear the familiar turbins of jets and planes while waiting for your new patient, watching from afar as pilots jumped off and in their planes, the place was busy, paint work, maintenance, cargo, a little bit of everything happening today, not unusual

Then you see a black and purple jet approaching quickly, if it weren't for the unfamiliar color scheme, you would have confused him for a usual warmachine, unlike the other seeker you know, this one's turbins don't make a diferent sound

You wonder if it's intentional on his part or not

Picking the sinalizers, you start the procedure for his landing, keeping up the charade, he lands without issue, and enters inside the hangar "bit more to the left!"

You guide, carefully thinking a position where the cameras wouldn't capture you that well, mindful of his emblem in both wings, you had to hide those before someone barges in

"This place looks like trash" you hear the jet complain

"Quieter!" You scold him

"Don't tell me what to do human" you see the two blasters slide to your direction, a purple glow emanating from them "you are lucky our lord thinks you are useful"

"And you would disapoint him if you blew up this cover" you bluff, heart beating fast in face of the charging alien guns "so do as I say, and be quieter"

"..." the weapons cool off "fine"

"Oh wow, I thought you couldn't shut up!" Rumble snickers from your pocket

"Rumble?!" You hear the jet, this time his voice more quieter, someone could belive a pilot was inside him graced with a loud voice from birth, better than the booming from before "you are playing human-keeper now?HA!"

"Oh shove it up your aft Skywarp, would you?" The caccette jumps off your pocket and transforms, hands on hip joints "at least I am not the one having a check-up with the little doctor, what did you broke this time?"

"For your information I did nothing!"

"Go back to caccette mode" you shove the big lavender alien against a pile of boxes "someone could see you"

"This is merely a request from lord Megatron" the caccette shows his silver tongue, they have tongues, alright, fuck, what the hell, why wouldn't they "a test for the human"

You pick Rumble up and leave him on top of the boxes, rolling your eyes at Skywarp answer, you are starting to suspect that whatever test you should be having you already passed, and now the warlord was just using that as an easy way to convince the more stuborn mechs to come to you.... wich seems to be all of them

"Enough with the talk, let me in, I need to do my job" you pull the big metal ladder from it's resting place, tool box in hand

"Ew, you are getting inside of me?" You can see the plane scrunching in itself in disgust "with those gruby hands, fat chance"

You sigh loudly "I'll desynthesize you after, now stop being a baby"

"What's a baby?" Rumble asks from down bellow

"Tinny human that only cries, eat and poops"

"HA! THAT IS SKYWARP- wait what is poops?"

"SHUT UP!" You hear his blasters caring again

"Alright, fine, I won't get in!" You quickly pull the ladder off, ignoring Rumbles' question and paccing around the place "I'll still have to touch you for a check-up"

"As long as you are not inside my cockpit" you hear his guns power down again, great, a trigger happy bitch "I can deal with the rest"

"Deal"

Just like that you start your work, turbins functional, motor in very good condition, estabelizers well fixed in place, joints needing oil but that's nothing compared to what you had to do before

No energon leaks, his landing wheel, however, needed to be changed, you didn't knew if they expanded to a bigger part of his body or not, depending on where they were stored in his other form you couldn't replace them without breaking or denting him

"Your wheels" you stretch out, your joints begging for a break "do they expand when you transform?"

"What?"

You gently kick the landing gear "this part of you, have you noticed if it changed when in your Cybertronian form?"

"Not really..." he thinks

"Alright, this I'll have to check on the base later, because outside of your used up wheels you are good to go"

"That's it?" You hear the disbelief in the mechs voice "no need to open me up and check my circuits? How do you know I'm even sane!"

"You are a bit trigger happy for my tastes, but nothing too out of it from your leader, and I am not a therapist, kidnap another human for that, one that at least has the right degree this time, I didn't do robotics y'know"

"Are you calling lord Megatron crazy?!" You hear for the tenth time his weapons power up, now so used to it you don't cower anymore

"I am saying he has anger issues, and he will need to check that after whatever war is going on pass if he wishes to finally have peace with himself" you clean your hands "not that he is crazy, and neither are you, just traumatized in diferent ways, probably"

"..." again, the weapons cool down "you are weird..."

"I know, right?" Rumble says after a while only observing you work

You roll your eyes and say nothing, guiding your guest out of the hangar, without any more words, he takes off and you watch the black and purple jet grow ever small in the horizon, then he shines purple, and like a trick of the light, he glitches in the same place and suddenly... he is gone

You look at Rumble shocked "what did just happen?!"

"What? Never saw a jet teleport before?" He laughs

"HE CAN TELEPO- warp, of course, of course he can. Why wouldn't he be able to teleport, I should stop questioning things at this point"

..............................

You had fucked up, that's the only thought plagging your mind as you enter your superiors office, the comander ever stoic greets your with a nod and polite acknowledged "do you know why you are here?"

"No sir" you answer honestly, anxiety eating you alive "I was just informed to come talk to you"

"I see, good, it makes this easier" he takes a contract from his desk, and slides it to you "read it and sign on the doted lines, congratulations"

"Congratulations...?" You pick up the papers, the caccette in your pocket swirls in amusement as you gasp, a promotion "I-thank you very much, sir!"

Chief of maintenance and test operations, chief mechanic, a huge pay upgrade, how? You weren't the most competent one, nor the most proactive or suck up, how was this decided, your mind runs with questions as you walk slowly by the corridor, the time to go "home" finally came

And now, of all times too, you couldn't even commemorate properly without fake smiles, playing the part of a lucky and hard earned rewarded worker

"How...?" You murmur walking by the road side to the middle of the deserted area

"Sooo" you hear Rumble say "how did you like the gift?"

"..." You stop, picking the caccette from it's resting place in your backpack "you did this?"

"Eh... yes, while you were occupied, really your human communication conection isn't hard to break in" now that night falls the caccette transforms, and walks beside you "a context here, some names there, a mensage for one then to another and bam, mission accomplished just like lord Megatron desired"

"Why?"

"Something about an advantage to the cause by your missions success"

"..." Oh... it's so you can directly have access to the shipment and personally request the parts "makes sense"

The walk continues, and from a brief second, you think you say something parked up ahead, something shaped like your bike, but it was just your wishful thinking, it was only Thundercracker

"At this point I'll start calling you my designated driver" you wave at him, body tired from work and walk

The blue seeker hufs, no smile on sight, but no frown either "I am the only one open to the idea of it, just don't expect me at your back and call every time you need to go somewhere without previous warning"

He transforms, and you climb inside, Rumble jumping in and waiting for you in caccette mode on the pilot seat , he takes off after you secured yourself and your precious backpack

"So..." You start "how was your day?"

"Smooth" Rumble says, you roll your eyes

"Do you have a better topic than this for a four to three hours flight or do you want to stay quiet during it?" You grumble

"I may not be allowed to disclose details to humans" Thundercracker answers anyways

"I'm not asking for missions report, just, what did you do besides those y'know? Free time or something stupid you saw, those things"

You feel the jet hum rather than hear him "I see... Skywarp was acting strange today, he tried to transform while seeing his own feet several times, it was funny to see him tumble down"

"Please tell Reflector caugh those moments, Please!" Rumble begs

"Ask him yourself..."

"I can't belive he actualy tried to see his wheels change" you hold back a laugh "he could have just waited for me, is he always this impatient?"

"You have no ideia"

"Speaking of Skywarp... he can teleport is that... normal to you guys?"

"Ah... this explains why he went into recharge when he got back" the jet murmurs

"Yes and no" Rumble answers "these guys won't say if they were born with it or acquire it. Honestly, my best guess is that Starscream modified them in their recharge"

"If the comander wishes to keep this between ourselves, I won't divulgue the truth to anyone else"

"So you do have a special hability like that?" You fishiout

"An anoying one" Rumble grumbles "so loud"

"Not my fault that you don't run the second you hear me coming"

"How am I to run when you come already blasting that Primus-forsaken high pithched sound!"

"Like super sonic booms? Fascinating... you use it offten?"

"Those habilities offten costs too much energy to use, not effective for constant battle"

"I thought you wouldn't divulge any information for a human" Rumble teases

"It is nothing any other bot doesn't know already, only fair to share it with our medic"

"Thanks"

"You are too polite fleshie" "you are welcome"

..............................

Getting back on the Decepticon base, you imediatly went to the medical wing, asking Rumble and Thundercracker to pass a mensage to Skywarp that you wanted to see him, Rumble rolled his optics and passed the task soly to Thundercracker, who complied without fuss

Nothing was unusual, your things still clutered by the side on the ground, maybe you could convince one of them to move a metal box and make a better rest area, the exposed feeling that you had when sleeping was not helping you to actually rest at night

You hear the heavy sound of pads approaching and get ready to greet your patient

Skywarp didn't make too much of a fuss this time, transforming twice for you to analyze his form, luckly he didn't expand the wheels, wich means you could change them properly without risking deeper damage

"Good, pass by tomorrow in my work again, I'll be able to change your wheels, and you will have more control over your landing again, no problem"

"Tsk, my landing is perfect"

"But it could feel better, right?"

"... I guess"

"So you are good to go" you gently pat his pads

He sides steps you, like you were a angry dog ready to bite his ankles, somehow you scared him off, odd... better him scared than angry tho, and finaly Skywarp leaves

You can't rest yet however, as you can hear arguing getting closer and closer to you

"I already said I'm fine!" That was Thundercracker

"The deal was to pass in this mediocre doctor or so help me Primus you stuborn jet!" And this is a scratchy electronic voice

On cue, they enter, the blue seeker being forcefully dragged by the red one, Thundercracker is pushed forward into your direction and Starscream leans by the door, blocking the passage and observing the blue mechs actions

"Hey" you wave at your friendly seeker

He sighs "hello... this is a pointless check up"

"You will do as I say" the red seeker says nonchalantly "or you will have to recharge here, without a proper berth, and be too exhausted for tomorrows patrol, leaving our poor base vulnerable to Autobots attacks"

"You are... so anoying when doing your actual job"

"It suits me, doesn't it?" he teases, and Thundercracker transforms

As expected he was far better than before, apparently the last black spots were only from close calls and not direct hits, his leaking pipes were healing, much like Megatrons, but there was no necessity to change or apply more tape, the wholes were small, and almost fully consumed by the living metal, and perhaps these pipes weren't that much stretched and used by Thundecrackers alt-form, making the makeshift bandages you did still looking like new

During your inspection, you felt red optics following your every move and judgment in them, you are pretty sure Soundwave did the same when you worked on Ravage the day before, but you were too focused to notice because of the tension, or he just knows how to stare quietly

Due to that, however, you kept quiet during it all, too intimidated to make small talk

"Done" you announce, closing his cockpit "everything good around here, your wunds are healing nicely and no critical dents, you are good to go"

You jump off and he de-transforms, looking dead panned at his officer "happy now?"

"Hardly, is this what you call a report human?" He sneers at you "I could do better than that when I was still a novice"

You look annoyed at him, taking a deep breath, and pulling your best official posture "of course sir, my apologies, status report: the patient seems to be making considerate progress to be back at 100% health, his wunds are closing nicely and no proeminent malfunction has been detected in his exterior or interior hardware, permission not granted for software evaluation, no need for spare parts in the present moment, may he proceed away from harm his recovery is guarantee in perhaps 3 to 7 days, any questions?"

Both seekers stared at you, shocked by your speech, Starscream engines pick up, and his vents loudly protest, his wings flickering rapidly"no... dismissed"

"I told you, he got a millitar human"

"Shut it, back to patrol with you" they left as they entered, but this time, Thundercracker waved a goodbye at you, a mischievous smile in his face

Finally you dropped in your small pile made of a thin blanket and clothes you found in "lost and founds" today at your job, singing tiredly at the bright ceiling, this was your life now, better get used to it

[yongvillage]

hi slaterrr <3 i love ur works, ur talented bb, i had a thought or two about dejun if ur interested

xiaojun who’s a loser and keeps to himself mostly, nerdy nd gets picked on, but jerks off to your pics when he’s alone, stealing ur sweatshirt that u left in class and stroking himself in his room to the scent of u… stuff like that :3 i just know he’ll be giddy when he gets his hands on u too

(ps, do u do emoji anons? if so, could i be 🩰 anon? if not, that’s perfectly fine too xx)

AHHH hii anon, im so happy u like my works this ask means sm to me tyyyy 🥲💘

also i have been thinking abt doing emoji anons so congrats !!! ur the first one hehe 🩰

this one turned out a little longer than usual but i js had too much fun with this ask LOL i love loser dejun

ⓘ nerd!xiaojun x reader

perversion, mating press, unprotected sex, degradation (m. receiving)

wc 1.6k

you'd always see loser!xiaojun near your locker, peeking over his textbooks as he would frantically push his glasses up and look away nervously when you walked by.

he wasn't the loud or outgoing type, instead, he liked to watch from a distance. he'd savor the moment, admiring how effortlessly beautiful you were before the inevitable happened. before the same group of jocks would come by and knock his belongings out of his hands, yelling out ludicrous and malicious insults as they walked away. you'd always turn your back before you saw, though, paying him no mind as he scrambled to pick up his countless books.

thankfully, you only had one class with him, grateful that you didn't have to spend too much time around that creep. you'd heard rumors, about how he supposedly stalked girls around school and spied through their windows. they sounded a little foolish, but it was better to be safe than sorry, so you kept your distance.

as class finished up, you quickly packed all your things in your backpack, getting out of your seat, and you were in such a rush you forgot your sweatshirt. it sat idly on your desk, and xiaojun almost jumped out of excitement as he saw you exit the room for good, eyeing you, and then the sweatshirt.

he stalled for a bit, taking extra long to pack up his own things as he waited for everyone to pour out. once he felt the coast was clear, he snatched the sweatshirt, the scent of you already making him slightly delirious. he tripped on his own feet as he hastily ran out of the classroom, eager to go home.

he'd waste no time, shutting his bedroom door as he sat at his desk, pulling his pants down all the way to his ankles. his dick was flushed and leaking copious amounts of precum, and xiaojun wondered what you'd say, or what you'd do, if you were here. he pictured you watching him stroke his hard cock as he pressed your sweatshirt tightly against his nose, greedily inhaling the smell of your perfume, bodywash, and everything else your assumedly smoothe and supple skin had to offer his senses.

xiaojun swore he'd came in less than 30 seconds, the quickest he'd ever finished. but he didn't stop there, he didn't stop for the next three hours until his unknowing mother called him down for dinner.

-

it wasn't until two weeks later in the library when your friends dared you to talk to him, proclaiming that he'd "probably piss his pants the minute you came in a 6 feet radius of him." you laughed, shrugging their comments off as you casually walked up to him. his head was buried in a textbook, his hand hurriedly scratching down notes.

"hey."

xiaojun didn't hear you, seemingly too focused on his studying. you tapped him on the shoulder twice.

"hello?"

his head shot up, and his face turned red and sweaty in an instant as he became frenzied, his hands scattering across the table as he began shutting books and putting stuff away in his backpack. he stood up, clasping his hands in front of his crotch.

"h-hi," he pushed up his glasses, yet his eyes never once met yours. you almost felt bad, ignoring your friend's giggling behind you.

suddenly an idea came over you, smirking as you spoke, "would you wanna come over to my place tonight?"

xiaojun's wide eyes finally looked up at your face, before quickly looking back down again.

"f-for what? um, if you'd like homework answers i-i could just message them to you."

you chuckled, "no, i meant, like, have sex."

xiaojun chokes, going into a full blown cough attack. you stared patiently as his coughs died down and he looked back at you, droplets of sweat beginning to form on his temples and neck.

"w-what?"

"i mean, unless you don't want to, that's totally fine too," you tested, bititng back a smile as you watched how xiaojun's eyes grew even wider.

"no!" he yelled suddenly, a few other people in the library whipping their heads around to shush the two of you.

"so, i guess that's a yes?" you asked coyly

xiaojun nodded frantically, "y-yeah, i would like to have, um..."

"it's okay, you can say it."

"s-sex. i would like to have sex with you."

you gave him a proud smile, winking once before whispering in his ear, "i'll meet you outside the library after school. you can walk me to your house."

-

the walk to xiaojun’s house was amusing for you, and painful for xiaojun. you had told him to lead the way, and it was relatively silent, with xiaojun periodically lifting his eyes to look at you and seeing that you were already looking at him, thriving off of his shyness. he held his textbooks tightly over his crotch, hiding how hard he was.

a million scenarios played out in his head of what he would do to you once you two arrived, but when the time actually came, he just stood there. xiaojun had never felt like such a stranger in his own room.

you plopped onto the edge of his bed, eyeing him with your legs crossed as you leaned back on your hands.

as soon as you gave him permission to touch you though, it was like letting a dog out of it’s cage. xiaojun quickly got started on undoing his pants, pulling them down to his knees.

you suppressed a moan at the sight, bringing a hand down to rub at your clothed clit.

“fuck, just let me finger myself first, need to get myself stretched out for you,” you spoke in a sultry tone, sliding your shorts down your legs and spreading your legs open as he resumed to touch yourself.

xiaojun watched in awe, and you stared curiously as he hadn’t seemed to touch himself, not even once.

you giggled airily, “it’s okay, you can touch yourself.”

xiaojun shook his head quickly, “c-can’t.”

you looked up at him, your middle and index finger inching towards your wet hole as you started fingering yourself slowly.

“ah, and why’s that?” you moaned through your words, your fingers picking up the pace.

“i-i’ll cum too quick,” xiaojun gritted out, his hands balling up at his sides. you laughed at his self restraint, being quickly interrupted by a moan as you tipped your head back when your fingers curled inside you.

“mm, s-so well behaved,” you panted, peeking at xiaojun. your words and actions clearly took a toll on him, his red and sweaty face bringing you near your orgasm.

it only took a few more seconds before you came. your hips spasmed and legs trembled as you gave your clit one last, soothing rub, before reaching up to tug on xiaojun’s cock.

he grunts, his hands hesitantly resting on your knees as you did all the work, aligning his leaky tip to your entrance. xiaojun lost all self control in that moment, just the simple touch of your hot hole causing his hips to slam forward, knocking the wind out of you.

“shit,” he whispers out, almost strangled as he stared down at where the two of you met.

“m-move, xiaojun, please,” you panted out, hands coming to grip onto the back of your knees.

your words set off like a trigger to a gun in xiaojun’s mind, his hands suddenly slapping yours away and putting you into a mating press, his hips snapping into you at a brutal pace.

you looked up at xiaojun’s face, beads of sweat traveling down his cheeks and sideburns. the both of you were breatheless, hyperventilating at xiaojun’s newfound, animalistic thrusts.

“fuck, s-slow.. slow down, ah!” you moaned, your nails ripping at xiaojun’s navy sheets. his dick poked you in all the right places, and his crushing weight left you choking on your moans.

it looked like xiaojun wanted to say something, but all that came out was incoherent murmurs of curses and proclamations of how good you felt. his glasses fogged up and began sliding down his face, one of his hands coming off of the back of your knee to quickly slide them back up to the top of his nose bridge.

“you think about this? think about fucking me like this?” you managed to choke out, a lazy smile plastered on your face as you brought your hands up to xiaojun’s shoulders, nails raking up and down his back.

“fuck, s-so much,” he panted, mouth hanging open as his hips crashed onto the back of your thighs, hands grasping and kneading the plush of them, “y-you don’ even know…”

you whimpered at xiaojun’s words, your stomach beginning to twist and turn as your moans got especially loud, signaling that you were close.

xiaojun’s stutters and spurs, the only words you were able to make out being cum. you hummed contentedly.

“please let me cum in you, p-please, need to, need to cum i-inside,” he rambled unintelligibly, his thrusts growing sloppy and untimed.

you nodded wordlessly, too weak and spent to give him a spoken answer. you were on birth control anyway, and the thought of xiaojun pulling out now made you unsatisfied.

suddenly, all at once, both you and xiaojun cum at the same time. your eyes rolled to the back of your head, back arching off of the bed as your limbs trembled. pants and moans echoed throughout his room, and you whined at the sticky, hot cum flooding your cunt. but before you had any time to recover, xiaojun turns you over on your stomach, his ruthless pace picking back up, giving you no time to even breathe.

a black, stained sweater at the front of xiaojun’s bed catches your eye, and you can’t shake off the feeling of how familiar it looked.

@yongvillage | ໒꒰ྀིᵔ ᵕ ᵔ ꒱ྀི১

[elliesngirl]

X Games

Ellie Williams X Reader, squid game au!

Red Light, Green Light - Prologue/Part 1/Part 2/Part 3...

So there will be more parts to this then i intended, + lmk if you wanted to be added to the taglist :)

I am using aud for this to make it less confusing, example 

45.5 billion won = 50.2 million aud

908 won = 1 aud 

--

Life had a way of kicking you when you were down. Missing your train after running for it at full speed—your chest heaving, your legs burning, and your bag nearly slipping from your shoulder—was just the cherry on top of a week that couldn’t get any worse.

You stood there, watching the train vanish into the darkness of the tunnel, the doors snapping shut just before you reached them. The people inside didn’t even bother hiding their judgmental stares. You slumped onto a bench nearby, dropping your bag on the ground and pressing your face into your hands.

It was hard to pinpoint the exact moment everything started going wrong. For a while, you thought life had handed you a string of bad luck. But deep down, you knew better. It all came back to Ellie.

You loved her, maybe more than you should have. Ellie had been your anchor, the one constant in your life when everything else felt chaotic. For years, it was just the two of you, and you thought nothing could come between you. The way she’d hold your hand in public, run her fingers through your hair at night, or whisper about all the places she wanted to take you someday—it was the kind of love you thought could last forever.

But love wasn’t enough to compete with gambling.

It started small. A trip to a casino during a weekend getaway. She laughed about how she’d almost won the jackpot, brushing off your concerns with a casual “It’s just for fun.” You didn’t think much of it. Everyone deserves a little fun, right? But then the nights at the casino became more frequent. The “fun” turned into hours spent staring at slot machines, betting on cards, and chasing losses she’d never recover.

When her money ran out, she turned to you. At first, it was fifty dollars here and there. “Just to get me through the week,” she’d say, flashing that smile you loved so much. But it wasn’t long before she stopped asking and just took what she needed.

You begged her to stop. You pleaded, cried, shouted—but nothing worked. The nights got longer. Sometimes, she wouldn’t come home until early morning, and when she did, she smelled like cigarettes and cheap alcohol. You told yourself you could fix her, that if you loved her enough, she’d change.

Then came the day she sat you down and told you, with a straight face, that she was fifty thousand dollars in debt. She looked at you like you were supposed to fix it. Like it was your problem to solve. That was the moment you realized you couldn’t save her.

You broke up with her on the spot.

She begged you to stay, swore she’d change, but you didn’t believe her anymore. You walked away, thinking you were free of her. But what you didn’t realize was that her addiction had planted a seed in you.

The first time you gambled, it was out of spite. You wanted to prove to yourself that you weren’t like her, that you could stop anytime you wanted. But gambling has a way of digging its claws into you. It only took a few weeks for you to spiral into debt yourself. Twenty thousand dollars gone, with no way to pay it back.

Now, you were here, sitting on a cold bench at a train station, your cheek pressed into your hands as you counted down the minutes until the next train. Forty-five minutes felt like an eternity.

The bench shifted slightly as someone sat down beside you. You didn’t bother looking up. The station was always busy.

Then you felt a tap on your shoulder.

You flinched, startled, and turned to see a man sitting next to you. He was sharply dressed in a dark suit, his hair neatly combed, and a briefcase resting on his lap. He didn’t look like he belonged here.

“Hello,” he said with a small smile.

You stared at him, unsure how to respond. Something about him felt… off.

“Can I talk to you?” he asked.

You hesitated but nodded. You didn’t have anything better to do.

He opened the briefcase, revealing two coloured cards—red and blue. You recognized the game immediately: ddakji.

“I’d like to play a game with you,” he said. His voice was calm, almost soothing, but there was something unnerving about the way he smiled.

“What kind of game?” you asked, your voice wary.

“It’s simple. If you can flip my card with yours, I’ll give you one hundred and ten dollars. If I flip yours, you’ll owe me the same amount.”

You frowned. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

It sounded too good to be true. You hesitated, but the thought of winning easy money was tempting.

“And if I lose?”

He tilted his head slightly, his smile widening. “You could use your body to pay.”

Your stomach dropped.

“What the fuck?” you hissed, standing abruptly.

“Relax,” he said, his tone unbothered. “I’ll deduct one hundred and ten dollars with every slap instead.”

Your hand instinctively went to your cheek, but you didn’t walk away. Against your better judgment, you sat back down. The man’s calm confidence was unnerving, but desperation clouded your instincts.

You picked the blue card, threw it down, and missed.

He smirked, picked up the red card, and flipped it effortlessly. Before you could even react, his hand came down hard on your cheek. The sting was sharp, and tears sprang to your eyes, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Another round?”

You lost again. And again. Each slap was harder than the last, until your face was red and numb. By the time you finally won a round, you were too stunned to even celebrate. He handed you the money, his smile never faltering.

“You know,” he said, pulling a small black card from his pocket, “there are other games where you can make even more money.”

He held the card out to you, and you hesitated before taking it. A circle, triangle, and square were printed on it.

“What is this?” you asked.

“Ms [name] [last name], 22 years old. You attended [school name] earlier this month, you broke up with your long term girlfriend which led to you 20k in debt, owing it all to the bank. Straight after work today, you spent your whole check and lost everything” He said, without taking a breath. “How do you know all that? Have you been stalking me?” You asked, his eyes moved down to the card in your hand, then said “Think about it.”

You stared at the card in your hand, your heart pounding. By the time your train arrived, you’d already made up your mind.

When you got home, you held the card in front of you, dialing the number printed on it.

“If you wish to participate,” a voice on the other end said, “state your name and birthdate.”

You hesitated, but only for a moment. “(Name), (Birthdate).”

They told you where to meet and gave you a password.

At exactly eleven p.m., you stood shivering at the meeting point, hugging yourself for warmth. The winter air was unforgiving, sharp gusts of wind biting at your exposed skin. Your jacket, barely thick enough for the season, clung to you uselessly, soaked through from the relentless rain. Water dripped from your hair, running down your face in cold rivulets, and your jeans were plastered to your legs, heavy and uncomfortable. You didn’t even bother to wipe your face anymore—what was the point?

The street around you was eerily quiet, save for the occasional squelch of your wet shoes shifting in the puddle beneath you. You checked the card in your hand for the hundredth time, your fingers trembling from both the chill and nerves. You glanced down the empty road, half-expecting this whole thing to be a cruel joke.

Just as doubt began to creep in, you heard the low hum of an engine. A gray van emerged from the darkness, its headlights piercing through the sheets of rain. It slowed to a stop in front of you, the tires splashing water onto the curb.

The door slid open with a sharp metallic sound, and a figure stepped out. He wore a bright pink jumpsuit and a mask that completely obscured his face, his presence looming and unnervingly calm. He stood stiffly, the rain pooling on his shoulders and sliding down his uniform like he wasn’t even human.

“Password?” he asked, his voice muffled and emotionless.

You swallowed hard, your breath visible in the frigid air. “Red Light, Green Light,” you said, your voice trembling slightly.

The pink-masked guard stepped aside without a word, motioning for you to enter. You hesitated for a moment, your stomach twisting in knots, but the freezing rain and the weight of your debt left you with little choice. Taking a deep breath, you climbed into the van.

Inside, the atmosphere was unsettling. The dim light revealed rows of passengers slumped in their seats, heads tilted awkwardly to the side, completely unconscious. Their breaths came slow and steady, fogging up the cold windows.

You forced out a nervous laugh, your voice breaking the heavy silence. “Looks like everyone was pretty tired,” you muttered, hoping for some kind of reaction.

The driver didn’t respond, nor did the guard who slid the door shut behind you with a final, echoing thud.

Moments later, you noticed the faint hiss of gas filling the van. Panic seized you as the air grew thick, your breaths becoming labored. Your limbs feel heavy, and your vision blurred.

The last thing you remembered was the soft hum of the engine and the steady rhythm of the rain as everything went dark.

You woke up to the soft hum of classical music, the delicate notes contrasting harshly with the sharp, fluorescent lights that flooded the room. Blinking rapidly, you tried to orient yourself, your head throbbing from whatever gas had knocked you out. As your eyes adjusted, the room came into focus—a vast dormitory with rows upon rows of bunk beds stacked high, filled with people.

To your right, someone sat on the edge of their bed, staring blankly ahead, wearing a green tracksuit with a number stitched onto the right side. You squinted at it—217. Turning to your left, another person in the same tracksuit sat rubbing their temples, their number reading 042. Confusion washed over you, and you instinctively glanced down at yourself.

Your breath caught when you saw the number stitched onto your own green jacket. 349.

Before you could even process what was happening, the room began to stir. People shuffled off their beds, stretching, yawning, and muttering amongst themselves. A loud commotion drew your attention to the center of the room, where two people were now yelling at each other.

A man with a snake tattoo curling up his neck—101—stood over a woman with sharp features and short hair—067. His voice was sharp, accusatory. “You think I don’t know what you did? You little thief!”

The woman didn’t back down, glaring at him with cold defiance. “I don’t owe you a damn thing,” she snapped back.

The tension was palpable, the entire room falling silent as the argument escalated. You wanted to help her, to say something, but fear kept you glued to your spot on the stairs. The last thing you wanted was to get involved and end up a target yourself.

Suddenly, another man—456—rushed into the fray, grabbing 067 by the arm and pleading desperately. “Where’s my money? You promised me you’d pay me back!”

Before she could respond, 101 shoved 456, his voice rising to a threatening growl. “Back off, old man. She’s my problem!” He raised a fist, clearly ready to strike, but before the punch could land, the sound of heavy boots echoed through the room.

The pink-suited guards entered in perfect formation, their presence immediately silencing the chaos. Everyone tensed, the air thick with unease.

A man in a pink suit, distinguished by the square on his mask, stepped forward. His voice was cold and mechanical, amplified by a speaker. “I would like to extend a heartfelt welcome to you all. Everyone here will participate in six different games over six days. Those who win all six games will receive a handsome cash prize.”

Murmurs spread through the crowd, disbelief and suspicion painted on everyone’s faces. “What is this, some kind of joke?” someone shouted. Others began to protest, demanding answers about their belongings and questioning how they’d been brought here.

In response, the guard gestured toward the massive screen on the wall. It flickered to life, displaying a montage of footage. You froze as images of the pink-suited man slapping various people appeared, each name and debt amount displayed on-screen.

You held your breath as your own face came up on the screen: [Name, Last Name], $20,000 in debt. You shrank back, trying to avoid drawing attention to yourself, your cheeks burning with humiliation.

But then, the next face appeared. You froze. Ellie Williams, $100,000 in debt.

Your stomach churned as memories of your ex flooded back. You rolled your eyes, scanning the room, but she was nowhere in sight. Maybe she hadn’t made it. Or maybe she was hiding just as you were.

The guards handed out consent forms, instructing everyone to read and sign. You grabbed yours hesitantly, scanning the terms carefully. The rules were strict and unyielding, but what choice did you have? You considered signing with a fake name but quickly dismissed the idea. They already knew everything about you. There was no escaping this. With a heavy heart, you scribbled your name on the dotted line.

Afterward, the group was led into a brightly coloured hallway. The walls were painted in vibrant, almost childlike hues, reminiscent of a playground. Spiral staircases twisted upward, and the floor was a checkerboard of cheerful pastels. The oddity of the setting unsettled you—why did it feel so playful yet so foreboding?

As you walked, the line came to a halt at a small station with a camera mounted on a stand. A robotic voice from the machine chirped, “Smile.”

Caught off guard, you hesitated before forcing an awkward smile. The camera clicked, capturing your face before the line moved forward. You fell in step with the others, glancing back at the machine. Your unease grew with every step.

Eventually, the guards led you through a set of double doors and into a massive, open field. The floor was covered in artificial grass, and at the far end stood a giant, childlike doll with an eerie, painted face. The walls were painted to resemble a sunny sky and a peaceful meadow, but the air was heavy with dread.

“This first game will be Red Light, Green Light. You are allowed to move when ‘it’ calls out ‘green light’ and must stop immediately when ‘it’ calls out ‘red light.’ If your movement is detected afterwards, you will be eliminated,” a calm, mechanical female voice announced over the speakers.

The word "eliminated" lingered in your mind, unsettlingly vague yet heavy with implication.

“Red Light, Green Light? Seriously?” you muttered under your breath, trying to keep your nerves from taking over. The absurdity of it all was almost laughable—until you felt the suffocating weight of the situation bearing down on you.

“[Name]!” a voice called out, sharp and familiar. Your heart dropped at the sound, your body stiffening instinctively. You turned your head slightly, hoping you were mistaken, but the voice grew closer, more insistent.

“[Name]!”

Before you could move away, a hand gripped your wrist tightly, and your stomach sank. You turned to face her. Ellie Williams.

Her eyes glinted with a mix of surprise and amusement, her crooked smirk only making your stomach churn. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her tone carrying a hint of laughter. “You’re in debt now, huh?”

“Get off me,” you snapped, pulling your wrist free from her grip.

“Guess we’ve got more in common now, huh?” she teased, her giggle low and careless, like none of this mattered to her.

You groaned and stepped away from her, trying to put some distance between you both as the doll suddenly came to life, its massive head swivelling toward the group.

“Green light!”

The moment the doll spoke, the crowd hesitated. No one wanted to be the first to move. But as the silence stretched on, a few brave players began to shuffle forward cautiously, their footsteps soft and deliberate. You took a deep breath and moved, each step feeling heavier than the last.

“Red light!”

The doll’s head spun around, its eyes scanning the crowd. You froze in place, holding your breath. The room was eerily silent—until a loud mechanical sound echoed, followed by a calm announcement.

“Player 343, eliminated.”

Your heart dropped as you heard a loud bang reverberate through the space, followed by a sharp scream. Your eyes darted to the source of the noise and immediately widened. A man crumpled to the ground, blood pooling around his lifeless body.

The realization hit like a punch to the gut. “Eliminated” didn’t mean disqualified. It meant dead.

A wave of panic rippled through the room. Someone screamed, and suddenly, chaos erupted. Players broke into a mad sprint toward the finish line, ignoring the game’s rules entirely.

The doll’s head swivelled violently, locking onto the runners. Bang. Bang. Bang. Each shot rang louder than the last, bodies dropping one after another.

You stood frozen, your body trembling. Your ears rang, your mind screamed at you to run, but your legs felt like lead.

“[Name], move!” Ellie’s voice snapped you out of your daze as the doll called, “Green light.”

You forced yourself to walk, each step shaky and uncertain. The path ahead felt endless, every second stretching into an eternity.

“Red light!”

You froze mid-step, your arms stiff at your sides. Someone next to you wobbled, their balance faltering. You didn’t dare to turn your head to look, but the sound of another gunshot told you they hadn’t made it.

The carnage around you was unbearable. People sobbed, begged, and screamed, but the doll was unrelenting. Each misstep was met with swift and brutal punishment.

When the doll called “Green light” again, you forced yourself to walk faster, keeping your head low and your focus sharp. Suddenly, your foot caught on something—a body. You stumbled, your arms flailing as you teetered on the brink of falling.

A strong hand grabbed your arm, steadying you before you hit the ground. “I’ve got you,” Ellie whispered, her voice surprisingly soft.

You looked at her, stunned, but she didn’t let go. “Come on,” she said firmly, pulling you forward.

The two of you moved together, her grip on your arm grounding you as you navigated the chaos. The doll’s mechanical voice called out “Red light” and “Green light” over and over, each cycle feeling like a lifetime.

With the finish line in sight, your legs burned, your lungs ached, but you refused to stop. Ellie’s grip tightened as the doll called out its final “Red light.” You both froze, standing just feet away from the line.

You could hear the cries of those who hadn’t made it, the gunshots ringing out like a grim metronome. You closed your eyes, waiting for the doll to speak again.

“Green light!”

Together, you and Ellie crossed the line, your knees nearly giving out as soon as you were on the other side. The moment you were safe, Ellie let go of your arm, stepping away as if nothing had happened.

You turned to look at her, your chest heaving as you tried to catch your breath. 

Around you, the field was littered with bodies. The vibrant, childlike setting felt grotesque now, the bright colours clashing violently with the blood and horror.

The guards began to collect the bodies methodically, as if it were just another part of the game. You looked down at your shaking hands, the reality of what you’d just survived settling in your chest like a heavy weight.

-

Hope you guys like it so far

Taglist: @vahnilla @radioheadfan699 @defnoteleonor @robinphobia @liztreez @deathbydollz @hemmo01 @soodle-noup @reneesub @ellensmithxo @lamorenita @kissedberries @liasxeatt @smiths-fan--13 @0phantom0 @ellieslittleslutt @aliceellieswife @mrpeanitsbutter @asothinking

[lightwing-s]

hmm... jason getting to know coworker!reader after landing a part-time job at a local supermarket to support his college, might as well to create another alter ego for red hood?

The night shift was over, and for the first time in years, not the night shift he was used to. Jason didn't know if he liked it or not, but he did prefer the company.

It took him some time after moving, but he eventually found work at a supermarket just five minutes away from his home and just flexible enough to fit in his class schedule and his continued nightly routine. It paid fine, it was easy, and it had you.

Slowly, you became his favorite part of the day, even if all interaction you two had was greetings, goodbyes and you catching him staring at you from a distance more often than he’d proudly admit.

You thought it was cute though, especially when you could see his cheeks burning red from far away. So you took it upon yourself to talk to him more often. “Hellos”, “how are yous” and “nice jeans” were thrown around, and conversation casually moved to mindless talks about favorite pasta brands, books and white chocolate while you two restocked aisles together.

He started to slow down his work whenever the ending of his shift was close just so he could finish with you and get to walk you to your car. Anything for five more minutes of conversation.

Then one day he heard from another coworker that your car had broken down and you’d need to take two buses to get home. Perfect, it was all the excuse he needed.

“Listening to that Jane Austen on the way home?” he asked, joining you in placing Oreos on the shelf.

“Sorta blew a few tires and had other issues with my car, so I’m taking the bus and I can’t focus on audiobooks with too many people around.” you told him, eyes not leaving the boxes of cookies beside you. “Don’t ask any questions.”

Jason smiled at your warning, happy you knew full well he’d have many questions about what happened and would probably make fun of you and your so called “driving skills”.

“I can drive you home, if you want.” he tried, silently praying you would say yes. “It’s late and I don’t want you going home alone at this hour.”

Stopping your fast-moving hands, you finally looked back at him, catching his eyes locked on yours. “Here is not Gotham, Jason.” you joked.

“I know,” he said, and looking deeper into your eyes he concluded: “but I’d sleep better tonight knowing you arrived safe at home.”

The cold air hitting your face made your nose grow red and you thanked the universe for the warmth of Jason’s black pickup truck. Turning the engine on, Jason wiped the sweat off his hands on his jeans and held the steering wheel as tight as he could.

“I live forty minutes away from here.” you broke the silence, noticing his uneasiness.

“Down the main road, two blocks past the old museum.” he stated, and catching your wide eyes he added. “You told me one, remember?” and I followed you there a few times, too.

The ride to your home was quiet at first, but filled with a good silence. Once you grew comfortable, you asked him about Gotham, his previous life. He told you about his brothers and his estranged adoptive father, he mentioned a dark year in his life briefly before telling you how happy he is to be here.

You enjoy listening speak, and he’d tell you a very funny story involving his youngest brother, Damian, a pet cow and a bouquet of roses. You also didn’t notice Jason’s taking turns she definitely shouldn’t, or driving past your street a couple times, too immersed in the conversation to pay it any attention.

And Jason didn’t want to let you go either. Ecstatic to see you so eager to hear him, like no one ever did. And when he finally came to a stop in front of your building, his hand started to sweat once again.

“So it ends here.” you tried to joke, sounding less excited than you expected. Than you tried to sound. “Thank you for driving me home, Jay.”

“My pleasure.” he said, immediately.

“Well, see you tomorrow.” you said as he watched you open the door, and before you could leave, you turned to him and left a quick kiss on his cheek, dangerously close to his lips.

He couldn’t hold the smile spreading on his face, and as you closed the door to your building he screamed.

“See you tomorrow.”

[le-fruit-de-la-passion]

Two Hours - Chapter 2 - Shigaraki x Reader

After a little over three months, you had gathered a significant amount of information on Tomura Shigaraki.

He was smart, incredibly so, and an absolute genius with computers. He was probably the most hardcore gamer you had ever met and simply refused to lose a single match of any game. And, most importantly, he was kind of an asshole.

"Seriously? That's all the content you prepped for today? What am I even paying you for?"

He toyed with the greyed-out strings of his hoodie in boredom. "They were basically the same as the ones from two weeks ago," he grumbled.

"Well," you said as calmly as you could, "I could have prepared more if you actually did the lectures I asked you to do last week."

"They were useless."

"How could you know that if you didn't read them ?"

"I don't need to do something useless to be able to tell it's useless."

So maybe the jawline he hid under his layers of oversized black clothing was as sharp as it was delicate. Anyone could recognize an attractive jawline without making it weird. You certainly could.

"The idea is that we both work to help you, Tomura," you replied with much less bite than you would have liked. The look of superior smugness on his face didn't disappear.

Maybe the little mole under his lip looked lonely there. Like it needed to be kissed. That was a totally normal, platonic thought to have about someone you saw once a week and who did nothing but complain.

"I don't know," he grinned in a mocking sing-song tone, "I think you like helping me."

Ever since the afternoon you had spent playing video games with him, something had changed in your perspective of him. And he certainly wasn't the one who had changed: he was still very much a pain in the ass to work with.

No, the change was from you.

You couldn't remember the last time you had let anyone take a peek under your prime scholar's persona, much less someone who enjoyed it as much as he did. When was the last time you had gamed with someone? Told them about all your nerdy little interests without feeling rejected? Joked about something other than your thesis topic?

Poetry wrote itself in your mind every time you'd think of him. His skin was like cracked porcelain, pale and white, the marks marking his face doing nothing to dampen his beauty. If anything, it only made him more interesting, more enticing, and you wanted to trace each of his scars with the tip of your fingers.

You were going insane for a guy who had visibly never kissed anyone in the 3D realm, and you couldn't even find the will to care about it.

He stretched lazily, a sliver of skin showing an impressively toned stomach before it was covered back with black fabric. What else was he hiding under there?

Obviously, you hadn't gotten laid in too long. There was no other explanation as to why you'd feel so attracted to him. You tried to shake off the thought, reminding yourself that it was just a momentary lapse in judgment. But everything about him seemed to pull you in, a magnetic force you couldn't resist. Did you even truly want to?

"You know," Tomura said, his voice low and casual, "if you keep staring at me like that, people might start to think you're into me."

You blinked, snapping back to reality, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "What? No! I was just... thinking about your midterm paper. That's coming soon, isn't it ?"

He sighed loudly, slouching back in his chair, giving you the perfect opportunity to at least try to regain your composure.

"I don't know what I'm even supposed to write about. The teacher is so bad at his fucking job half the time I wonder if he's not some homeless guy the university pays to stand around and do nothing," he complained, and you couldn't help but let out a small laugh. After a second, like he had hesitated before saying it, he casually added: "You'd be way better at teaching the class."

You tried to hide your surprise at the unexpected compliment, failing miserably the moment you heard your voice come out as a shaky squeak: "Well, um, thank you. That's very nice of you to say."

"I don't say things to be nice. I say them because they're true," he retorted bluntly.

Damn it, you thought as you felt another pleased smile tug on your lips. Damn it all to hell. You couldn't let him dig his way deeper into your stupid little heart.

"You know," you said, desperately wanting to change the topic, "I could pull out my own paper I wrote back in the day for the class. I'm sure I have it somewhere back at the dorm. Maybe that could give you some inspiration!"

"Sure, just text me some pictures later," he replied, seemingly uninterested.

"Or we could go get it at my dorm now, and look at it together."

The weight of your words seemingly hit you both all at once like a 20,000-pound truck.

"Me," he stated, his thin eyebrows shot up in surprise. "At... your dorm?"

You had fucked up. You had fucked up so badly that perhaps your only choice now was to run out of the library, change your name, and leave the country.

If you took it back, and laughed it off as a stupid slip of the tongue, Tomura would no doubt take it badly. Very badly. And he was not the kind of person you wanted on your bad side.

If you rolled with it, pretended you had actually meant to invite him to a place with a conveniently lockable door and a soft pillowy bed, he might catch on as to the very bothersome feelings that you held for him. That wasn't a very good option either, but the lesser of the two evils was obvious.

"Well, guys aren't usually allowed in, b-but the security guy will let you through if I tell him you're with me !" you explained quickly, trying to sound confident.

The embarrassing truth was, you had never brought a guy back to your dorm. Fool around at some dude's apartment or in the back of his car, sure, but never inside your own private little space.

Tomura, on his end, looked like you had just asked him to go into an active war zone. "I-I don't know..." He hesitated, glancing around at every item in the library to avoid looking you in the eye. "Maybe just like five minutes? I have shit to do after, so..."

"Don't worry, we'll be in and out," you reassured yourself more than him, eager to be done with the entire situation, "It'll be fine."

---

It was definitely not fine.

The game was called Kira Kira~☆! Stories of Dormitory Love, which was a stupid name for an equally stupid game. Tomura was fifteen and he had discreetly bought it online using Kurogiri's credit card, because he had learned the hard way Sensei checked his account statements. If Kurogiri had noticed, he never said anything about it.

The synopsis of the game, if anyone could really call it a synopsis, was that you, the protagonist, were called to do repairs in an all-female dormitory. You'd go about screwing all the girls one by one as they'd throw themselves at your feet, begging to be taken with their round tits and perfect asses. Tomura spent that entire summer locked in his room playing it over and over again.

As it turned out, that scenario was much less pleasant in real life.

He felt the eyes of every girl they passed, judgmental and disgusted at the mere sight of him there. They huddled in little groups like scared chickens, muttering between themselves as they threw him worried looks. He glared right back at them, and one of them let out a small gasp like she would faint out of fear. Good. He hated it, he hated them. But to some extent, he couldn't fully blame them; he didn't belong here in the slightest.

Tomura's fingers held onto his neck protectively, his uneven nails digging as deep as they could into the skin. The pain didn't help; he was still definitely there.

And you.

You made it all so much worse with how nice you were to him, and how you laughed at every dumb thing he'd say, and how you licked your lower lip in focus every time you'd try to explain something-

He hated you for it.

"If you want, when we're done looking over my paper, we can play some Plus Ultra 2 on my computer," you smiled hesitantly at him, completely oblivious to how badly you were messing him up.

"I don't really feel like gaming anyway," he muttered between his teeth. It was a lie, an absolute fucking lie: he never felt like not gaming.

From the moment you had told him to fuck off under the rain, he had liked you. But you weren't any different from any of the dumb pretty girls he'd jack off to at night; at least not at first. You glared at him with fear and disgust, like you knew he'd spend the rest of the afternoon picturing you pinned under him and choking on his cock. And why wouldn’t you? No woman in her right mind would look at him and think he was anything other than a creep.

Until you did exactly the opposite.

You started smiling when you'd see him walk into the library. You'd laugh at his dry sarcasm and bad attempts at humour. You'd hang on to his every word when he explained the secret behind mastering a peculiarly hard combo, eyes filled with wonder. You'd look at him with pride and genuine joy when he finished all the lectures you had given him.

And suddenly, it wasn't just about how tight all your shirts looked on your chest, or how well your ass would fit against the palms of his hands. It was about everything else, all the cheesy shit he never understood and skipped in dating sims to get to the sex scenes. He despised how easily you had gotten him under your thumb, ready to do anything for you without even realizing it. He wanted you to think of him as much as he thought of you, more, even. You were an obsession he couldn't get rid of, and it itched, it itched, it itched- but not at his skin, no, much deeper, into the depths of his entrails and in a heart he didn't even realize he still had.

You turned back to look at him as if you felt his inner turmoil, a small pout tugging at your lips. He wanted to rip it off you with his teeth.

"C'mon, just one game? Last time you said you’d teach me how to triple combo with Present Mic."

"Whatever," he said instead, staring holes into the floor. Why was the floor so goddamn clean? Did girls clean their floors every day? Why was everything about you so picture-perfect?

Fuck you, he thought.

"Oh hey, Neijire!"

His head snapped back up. Oh no.

A few girls were sitting on an assortment of couches, watching some kind of stupid TV show. One of them replied to your greeting with a smile so bright it hurt his eyes. He wondered if all pretty girls gravitated around each other naturally.

The girl he could only assume was Neijire excitedly jumped off the couch, tightly wrapping her arms around your body. His lips tightened at the sudden sting of jealousy, at the fact that she could so easily touch you while the idea of holding your hand made him delirious.

"Hey, oh my gosh, you're here!" the overly energetic girl squealed. "Wanna watch some Love and War? We just started season 2 and the plot is so crazy-"

Then, she noticed him, and her bright demeanour fell slightly.

"Oh, is he... is he with you ?" she gently asked you, like she wasn't sure if it was safe to address him directly.

"Yeah, this is Tomura, one of the guys I tutor !" you replied.

'One of the guys ?' Tomura bitterly thought. Was he nothing more to you than one of the other NPCs you tutored? Did you bring the others to your dormitory too?

If you noticed how quickly his mood had soured, you didn't show it: "Maybe we could borrow the common room for a couple of minutes? I just need to go over some material with him really quickly!"

Neijire turned around to look at the other girls, the unspoken hesitation written all over their faces as they glanced at him.

"I don't know," Neijire softly started, "we just started watching TV. Maybe another time, if he comes back ?"

Please don't come back, was the implicit message under that sentence.

"No worries! We'll just go in my room," you said, and he noticed the worried fidgeting of your hands. There was no way you could feel as stressed as he did going into your room. You probably had guys in there every week, hell, every day for all he knew. What did you have to be nervous about?

As you both headed up a flight of stairs toward the second floor, Tomura couldn't help but feel some excitement in between the overwhelming sense of dread. Being in such close proximity to you, entering your personal space, stirred something within him that he couldn't quite comprehend. He had never, in his entire life, even gotten close to the inside of a girl's room.

'Toga doesn't count', his mind supplied unhelpfully. 'Toga would let a raccoon inside her room if she could.'

The moment you opened the door, it was dizzying: the flowery smell, the pastel pink walls, the books neatly organized together in shelves worthy of a magazine spread. It left a sickly sweet taste in the back of his mouth, and he tried to nonchalantly observe the room to savour every inch of it. It was probably the closest he'd ever get to tasting you.

The room was small, much smaller than his own back at the bar. A simple bed, a drawer, a suspended shelf, and a work desk with a foldable chair were the only furniture of note. As simple and boring as one could do.

But then as he walked in, Tomura noticed a few things much less visible from the doorway. Various trinkets laid around the room; a bag of takeout was haphazardly thrown into a small trashcan; a pair of mismatched socks were left on the windowsill, seemingly forgotten. On the furthest wall, there was a small but obviously cared-for poster of All Might, half of his classic I AM HERE catchphrase hidden by a laundry basket.

It was like all the girl's bedrooms he'd imagined but... different. Like someone actually lived there.

"Let me try and find that paper," you hopped away to the suspended shelf, taking out various coloured folders filled to the brim with papers. You clearly weren't kidding when you told him you saved every single one of your essays.

"You can just sit anywhere while I find it," you said without looking back at him, and his thoughts immediately went to the bed. The bed that you had slept in. The bed that you were sleeping in every night. The bed that you probably touched yourself in, and that he could justifiably sit in without looking like a creep.

He was going to go insane.

"I-I should probably just wait downstairs," he managed to stutter out. He could feel his face heating up; he had to get out of the room, and fast, or you would definitely notice.

"No no, wait, I found it !" you triumphantly exclaimed as you pulled out a stapled document from one of the many files. "There's not a lot of space on my desk, so we can just... sit next to each other on the bed and look it over?"

You smiled brightly at him, a tinge of red on your cheeks, unaware of the nuclear bomb you had just sent off in his brain. He had to say something to get out of there. Anything.

"People are going to think we're having sex," he blurted out.

Fuck.

That was unequivocally the dumbest thing he had said in his entire life. He was going to dump university and never leave his room again. He'd live as a hermit and survive off Mountain Dew and Lays chips until the ends of time. It didn't sound too bad, actually; at least that way, he wouldn't have to see your face ever again.

The look on your face stayed blank for a few horrifyingly heavy seconds. The silence felt deafening, ringing in his ears like the "GAME OVER" theme in an RPG.

And then, you laughed.

You fucking laughed at him.

Anger bubbled up inside him faster than he could control it. It itched. Everything itched.

Of course you laughed. You didn't like him, and you never had. You probably laughed at his jokes to get him to shut up. You brought him to your room out of pity, to mock him. All the girls downstairs were probably on it too, cackling in laughter at how stupid he was for thinking you saw something more than a scared-up freak when you looked at him.

"I'm fucking out of here," he spat out, storming around to open the door. The feeling was crawling up his arms, up his neck. It itched.

"Wait, Tomura!"

You grabbed his arm and he roughly shoved it away, almost making you fall down. Your eyes were blown in surprise, and perhaps, a little fear. Good. You should fear him. He'd never make the mistake of trusting anyone again. How had he even let himself trust you?

"I get it, I'm the joke. Ha, ha, you bring up the freak to your room, make him think he has a chance with you, and laugh in his face, everyone claps," he jeered.

"That's not what I meant, I-" you started.

"Is the idea of being with me that disgusting to you ?" he harshly cut you off. It came out sounding more hurt than furious. I'm so pathetic.

"Shigaraki. That's not what I meant," you said softly, as if trying to calm a wild animal. He wasn't having any of it.

"So now, you're back to calling me Shigaraki," he bit back bitterly. "The whole buddy-buddy thing was an act too, huh."

"Tomura, stop."

He looked at you now, properly looked at you, fury burning in his eyes, and you flinched.

You didn't look like you were having fun.

You looked... hurt.

"Tomura, I brought you here because I like you. As in, I really like you."

You were trying to bait him again. You wouldn't fool him twice.

"Yeah, sure," he snorted, voice dripping with irony. "That's why you laughed, right ?"

"I laughed because I was stressed out, I-I didn't know if it was appropriate to bring you here, because I'm tutoring you, and I didn't know if you actually liked me-" you rambled like a deer caught in headlights.

"You seriously expect me to believe that? That you were worried I liked you?"

"I laughed because I've been thinking about nothing but having sex with you for the last month and you're worried about people thinking we're having sex!"

The blunt admission caught him off guard. His breath hitched in his throat, his mind struggling to process your words.

"So you... think about me," he rasped out, a glimmer of vulnerability in his tone.

The weight of what you had just said seemed the catch up to you. Your cheeks tinted a deeper shade of pink, and you made an expression you had never made before in front of him. You were embarrassed. Genuinely, honestly embarrassed.

"And? So what if I do?" you mumbled, desperate to avoid his gaze.

"What do you think about me doing to you?" Tomura insisted. He was pushing his luck, he knew he was. But he had to know. He had to know if this was real.

Your lack of answer frustrated him, and he tsked in disappointment.

"C'mon," he taunted. "Where's the girl who told me to fuck off when we first met? Was that all an act too?"

Silence. I knew it, he thought bitterly.

Then, in a moment that defied all logic and expectations, you closed the distance between you both, and you kissed him.

---

It was messy, full of wet tongue and clashing teeth; it wasn't hard to guess it was the first time he'd ever kissed someone. But what he lacked in experience and technique, he made up in sheer passion, his body holding your own so tightly you felt like he wanted to swallow you whole.

You gasped for air when he pulled away, a single thread of saliva connecting your mouth to his. His eyes were blown wide, pale cheeks a deep crimson, mouth agape as if he had just witnessed an otherworldly miracle. Had anyone ever looked at you that way, so desperately raw and honest?

"Again," he let out a low, broken whisper, "do that again."

You couldn't tell if it was a request or a command, and it frankly didn’t seem like he knew either, but you immediately complied, pulling him back against you.

You guided his mouth to your bottom lip with your tongue, hoping he'd get the message. With precision, he copied the movement, watching you carefully for any reaction. You let out an approving moan and he seemed emboldened by it, deepening the kiss and wrapping his body over yours, trapping you against the wall.

When had his hand found its way under your shirt? You felt rough fingers drag along your skin, curious and possessive, grabbing at the flesh like he wanted to take parts of you back with him, like he wasn't sure this was real.

Knock knock.

"Anyone home?"

You both froze. Shigaraki looked at you like an animal caught in a trap, eyes wide and mouth still slightly agape.

"Move, move!" you hissed at him, pushing him off you. "Just a second!" you shouted at the door.

Shigaraki was still looking at you with the face of a confused child left alone in a supermarket. He wasn't going to be any help. You straightened your shirt and quickly combed your fingers through your hair before opening the door.

"Ah, Miss Kayama!" you smiled tightly at the dorm's resident advisor. "I'm sorry, is the TV too loud? I can lower the volume,"

"No, no, the TV is fine," she replied, peeking through your doorway. "In fact, I don't think your TV is even on."

You could have died right on the spot.

Miss Kayama tucked a strand of her dark hair behind her ear, straining her glasses. "I was just made aware you brought a guest over, so I came to remind everyone that there are no visitations allowed after seven."

"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't realize it was seven already !" you stammered hurriedly. "I was just telling Tomura he should pack up." You turned around to give the man a look: "Right, Tomura ?"

Tomura was still standing against the wall, as unmoving as a rock. He looked as though he had been frozen in time after the kiss, like his mind had short-circuited trying to process it.

"Tomura," you repeated more pressingly.

The sound of your voice seemingly pulled him from his trance, and he nodded slowly, walking towards the door like an automaton. He bumped against Miss Kayama's shoulder, and disappeared without a word down the wooden stairs.

"I'll see you next week," you weakly called out.

He didn't answer.

Miss Kayama slowly closed to door behind her, her usually delicate features were scrunched in worry. "Sweetheart, what you girls do in your dorm rooms isn't my business, as long as you're being safe about it. But who you bring here is important to me," she added, her tone more serious than you had ever heard before. "Make sure you don't mingle with the wrong kinds of people."

You opened your mouth to answer, then closed it.

Was there anything you could even reply to that?

---

The next few days were not fun ones.

[You: Hey, sorry about the whole kicking you out thing, Ms. Kayama really means well but sometimes she's strict with the rules]

There was still no answer three hours after you sent the text, which did not bode well at all. Any time Tomura's hands weren’t on any kind of gaming console, they were on his phone. He didn’t go anywhere without it, and you'd gotten used to getting replies to your messages within mere seconds. You sent a second attempt:

[You: My TV excuse was pretty lame right]

You laid on your stomach as you kicked your legs against the bed, glaring holes through the phone. Maybe your Wi-Fi was unstable?

[You: We actually call her Midnight in the dorm, cause she gets REALLY cranky when anyone has lights on after that]

Still no answer. You felt absolutely ridiculous, a lovesick teenager waiting for her crush to give her any attention. He had kissed you. Or rather, you had kissed him, and he hadn’t exactly pushed you away. That had to count for something.

You sighed, turning off your phone before huddling in your covers and closing your eyes. He'd definitely answer by tomorrow morning.

But when you woke up, there wasn't a single new message from Tomura Shigaraki.

[You: Hey, I sent you pictures of the paper I told you about, hope it helps with your assignment!]

[You: Sent 4 images]

The day passed as it usually would. You washed your face and brushed your teeth, got dressed, grabbed a quick breakfast, and made your way to your morning lecture. The hours seemed to drag on as the teacher talked, his words going through one ear and out the other. And still, no text from Tomura.

The next day had come and gone without any more communications. Your messages sat alone in your discussion, unread. Soon, the weekend passed too, and still, no word from Tomura.

[You: Are we still on for tutoring on Wednesday? I can move it if you need me to]

To say you had been freaking out would have been an understatement. For as much as you tried to control it, you felt like a mess, barely able to go fifteen minutes without checking your phone for messages. Was he that mad you had to kick him out? Did he still think the kiss wasn't genuine? Did he leave the country to join a pro gamer team, just to get as far away from you as he could?

The questions ran through your mind like an endlessly spinning record.

[You: Just tell me whenever you can!]

Would he even show up on Wednesday? Would it be like the first time you had met him, waiting hours for him to come, except this time, he never would?

You grabbed your face between your hands. Enough. You couldn't let one kiss send you through a never-ending spiral of doubt. If he was there on Wednesday, then great, you would talk. If he wasn’t, well, you'd deal with your feelings then and ask the faculty for someone else to tutor him.

And if you left the volume for your notifications on at maximum for the next few days, well, that was nothing more than a coincidence.

---

"Hey."

The familiar yet unexpected raspy voice almost made you fall out of the library chair, the sound of your book dropping on the table echoing through the building. The librarian threw you a dark look you barely registered, your mind focused on the tall man with dark red eyes standing next to you.

"Hey," you hesitantly said, awkwardly fidgeting with your hands. When had you gotten so self-conscious? "I wasn’t sure if you would come."

He answered with a small grunt, still not sitting down next to you. Deep, dark circles sagged under his eyes, and you wondered if he had also spent his week barely sleeping every night.

"Well," you said in the happiest tone you could muster, "we can start by checking your draft for the midterm, and seeing what we can add-"

"I already finished the midterm," he interrupted drily. "I sent it in last night."

"Oh," you swallowed slowly. Your throat was starting to feel itchy. "I guess we can... start looking at your next lectures then."

"I don't want to," he objected. "Let's just go somewhere instead."

Out of everything he could have said, that was one of the sentences you least expected.

"Tomura," you answered with uncertainty, "I'm still supposed to be tutoring you."

"And I'll tell the advisor you're the best fucking tutor there ever was and this session was great, now, will you just shut up and follow me ?" he groaned impatiently, his right hand wrapping around his neck and scratching at the fragile skin. He was anxious.

"Alright," you said softly, gathering your things before getting up and silently following the man out of the library.

The walk there was not the comfortable, calming silence you had gotten used to around him. It felt clunky, awkward, the unspoken weight of last week's kiss like a dark cloud above your heads, ready to erupt in thunder at any moment.

Once again, he led you off the beaten path and into alleyways you had never taken before. What did you truly know about him, after all? There had been so many unanswered questions about who he was outside of university. What insurance did you have that he wasn't leading you to an abandoned lot to snap your throat and sell your organs off to the highest bidder?

He stopped walking so abruptly that you bumped into his back, immediately backing away in fear of angering him. But he said nothing, staring blankly at the sign above the building, the neon light of the word "ARCADE" turned off. A huge padlock rested heavily against doors that had once been painted into bright, colourful motifs that had faded into an unreadable mess over time.

"Tomura, it looks closed," you remarked slowly.

"That's because it is," he answered drily, pulling out what looked like a bent paper clip from one of his pockets, hands instinctively going for the lock. After a few seconds of fidgeting, you heard a distinctive click, and the lock fell to the ground with a sharp metallic sound.

He smirked at your obvious surprise, welcoming you in with a flourish on his hand:

"Come on in."

You followed him in with as much confidence as you could project, which was not much considering the probability of him murdering you in an abandoned building had just significantly gone up.

The arcade was much larger than it had seemed from the outside, and had clearly been marked by the passage of time. Though there was no light on or a single window, you could make out the shapes of turned-off gaming arcades placed haphazardly throughout the room, as if the owner hadn’t been sure where to put them. The walls were covered with wallpaper that had seen been days in the eighties, old water marks deforming the large flower pattern.

Suddenly, your foot caught into something, and you yelped in surprise as you felt yourself lose balance. A surprisingly strong hand caught your arm, steadying you back on your feet. You stared at Tomura with your eyes wide, heart skipping a beat when you realized he was still holding onto you.

"Thank you," you said gently, and he let go instantly, like the touch had burnt him.

"Be more careful," he mumbled under his breath, quickly putting his hands back into his pockets. "I can't always be there to save you if you're that clumsy."

Suddenly, somewhere in the darkness, a man's angry voice rang through the arcade:

"If you goddamn kids are trying to break in again, I swear to God-"

You froze in fear as a large figure emerged, dressed in a bright purple suit and holding what looks like a metal pipe in his hand. You screamed, paralyzed into place, but as soon as the man saw Tomura, he lowered the makeshift weapon, squinting as he adjusted the small round glasses on his nose.

"Oh, it's you," he said with disinterest. You tensed as he dropped the pipe to the floor to take a puff of his cigarette, the metallic sound confirming just how heavy the thing was. "The usual?"

"Yeah," Tomura confirmed, impatiently putting his arms on the admission counter. "Hurry it up."

The older man hummed, unperturbed, like he hadn't just almost killed you for breaking in. He walked to a larger machine in the corner of the room, and inputted a few numbers on the keypad. Suddenly, the lights turned on, their artificial glow blinding. Heavy wiring sounds echoed through the room as the arcades individually powered up, chirpy 8-bit music starting to pour out of various sound systems. The whole room had suddenly taken life, like an old beast waking up from a thousand-year slumber.

The man reached into one of his deep suit pockets, pulling out two dozen shiny silver tokens before slowly counting them, cigarette still tucked between his lips. He handed them to Tomura who immediately pocketed them, not throwing a single glance at the man in the suit. The man sighed, blowing another puff of smoke, before seemingly noticing you for the first time. His lips widened into a mellow smile, revealing a missing front tooth.

"Why, Shigaraki," he purred, running a hand through his short gray hair, "you've never brought company here before. Will you introduce me to the lovely lady ?"

"Keep it in your pants, Giran," Tomura grumbled, the warning clear in his tone. "Leave us alone."

The man sighed in disapproval: "Snappy today, aren’t we? Then again, when aren't you..."

Tomura went past him without a word, and you hesitantly followed, throwing an unsure look at the older man.

"Well, I'll be in the back if you need me, don’t forget to close up when you're done," he called out, picking up the metal pipe from where he had left it on the floor.

"Yeah, whatever," Tomura replied without looking back.

You followed him through the strange maze of glowing screens and bright cabinets as he moved forward with a clear goal in mind.

"So, um, who was that ?" you asked with uncertainty.

"Some guy I know," Tomura replied. "He owes me one, so he lets me play in here for free when the arcade is closed."

That answered absolutely none of your questions. If anything, it added more. Why would this shady-looking man in this barely still standing arcade let him roam around and do as he pleased, with nothing in exchange? What kind of weight did Tomura have in these backstreet alleyways?

"Oh... alright," you replied miserably, not wanting to press the subject harder.

"Stop thinking so hard, I can hear it all the way from here," he complained.

"Sorry," you almost whispered, feeling the embarrassment creeping in. Had you always been so easy to read, or was he just that good at seeing right through you?

"Whatever," he replied with disinterest, "look at this instead."

He had stopped in front of a peculiarly large machine, in a significantly better state than anything else in the arcade. The bright yellow of the cabinet, the familiar little tune that rang from the vintage loudspeakers unmistakable.

"No way," you gasped, in awe of the inconceivable treasure that stood in front of you, "that's an original 1991 Plus Ultra arcade cabinet..."

"With the original paint job and controllers," Tomura completed, absolutely glowing with pride.

You approached the cabinet slowly, admiring it like an ancient artifact from a museum. It might as well could be one: out of a hundred produced, only three were known to still be up and running around the entire globe. It was the stuff of legends, the kind of priceless gem most people would have to settle with only ever seeing in the confines of a laptop screen.

"That's so cool," you whispered, running your fingers over the worn-out buttons with reverence, feeling the age and wear of the machine. What was it even doing in this dump?

"You haven't seen shit yet," Tomura said with a mischievous grin. "Wanna take her for a spin?"

If you could have kissed him right then and there without making things more awkward between the two of you, you would have.

---

Unsurprisingly, Tomura was good at every game he touched: from shooting games to rhythm ones, it was like he understood the secret behind every machine, long fingers nimbly moving at the speed of light. He took great pride in every win, grinning smugly for each ass-kicking he handed you. And yet, you couldn't resent him for it; you were having the most fun you had in years.

It wasn’t just the games, either. It was him. It was the way his eyebrows furrowed in concentration when he shot 2D zombies, the way he'd mock you for getting a low score at the racing simulator yet always took the time to show you how to ace all the difficult maneuvers, the way he made your heart bump increasingly against your chest every time his arm brushed yours. It was all maddening, and yet you would have exchanged it for nothing else.

"Ah, shit, it's already eight," he said, bringing you out of your reverie. You looked in the same direction as he did, surprised to find a working clock suspended on the dilapidated walls. How had time passed so fast? "We gotta go," he added.

You couldn't help but let the disappointment slip through your voice.

"Oh, alright..."

Tomura didn't answer, long legs already heading towards the exit. You followed him like a lost puppy, looking around for the man in the suit you had met earlier.

"Shouldn’t we thank the owner for letting us play ?" you asked.

Tomura looked at you with confusion, seemingly perplexed at the very concept.

"Why? I told you, he owes me."

Without another word, he walked out the door, leaving you alone in the derelict yet brightly lit arcade. You couldn't help but yell out a "Thank you!" towards nowhere in particular, hoping your words would reach the elusive man. When no one answered, you walked out to join Tomura, throwing one last look at the strange room before the door closed behind you.

"Took you long enough," Tomura mumbled, putting the forgotten padlock back into place and snapping it shut. Just like that, it was back to being an abandoned building like any other, none of the lights or sounds escaping through the thick doors. There was something nostalgic about it, as if the arcade existed somewhere outside of time and space.

"Thank you for today," you said genuinely, locking your eyes into his. He obviously hadn't expected your earnestness, his pale skin quickly turning red as pointedly stared at the floor. "I had a lot of fun."

"Whatever," he replied in a way that made it painfully clear it was not whatever, and that was quite pleased with himself. "We need to hurry up, we're already late."

Late?

"Late to what ?" you asked.

"Stop asking so many questions all the goddamn time. You'll see when we get there."

"You're just bitter because I kicked your ass on the last round."

"I went easy on you because you're not used to arcade controls. Don't let it get to your head."

You could add ‘sore loser’ to the list of things you knew about him, you thought with a smile.

Whatever awkwardness had been there earlier had completely vanished, and you felt at ease walking next to him and letting your fingers brush against his. Of course, the kiss hadn't fully left your mind, but you felt like you could breathe around him again, like he had brought you both back to the way things were before the dorm incident. Maybe a friendship wasn't exactly what you wanted, but if it was what he wanted, you could respect that.

"It's here," he said, interrupting your reverie.

Much like when he had brought you to the arcade, at first, you thought there had been a mistake. This time however, it wasn't because it looked like an abandoned warehouse.

It was because it was the exact opposite of an abandoned warehouse.

The building was positively lavish, decorated from top to bottom with delicate mouldings and golden ornaments. The red marquis at the door shone with bright, warm lights, the entryway surrounded by a perfectly cut hedge and vases filled to the brim with red roses.

It screamed of luxury, opulence, and most of all, money.

"Tomura,” you started uncertainly, feeling fidgety at the idea of even standing in a 10-mile radius of something so expensive, “I can't afford this."

"Me neither," he shrugged, seemingly totally unbothered by the situation, "but I'm not paying."

He walked in and you had no choice but to follow, feeling somehow more nervous than when you had both broken into a building barely a few hours earlier.

If the outside of the restaurant had seemed overly extravagant, the inside was unfortunately much worse. The walls were all covered with those abstract paintings that cost an arm and a leg; the floors seemed to be made out of real marble, the kind with delicate gray veins and a pearly shimmer; in the middle of the room stood a large chandelier, from which dangled hundreds and hundreds of tiny diamonds. It was out of a fairy tale.

"Reservation ?" the maitre d'hotel asked, cocking an uncertain eyebrow at your duo.

Embarrassment shot back up into you as you realized what you both looked like. You weren't wearing anything peculiarly provocative, per se, but you looked so out of place when put next to the sea of suits and sparkling dresses that you might as well have been wearing a full clown get-up.

"Shigaraki," Tomura said plainly, like he was annoyed the man would even ask him that question. You were surprised a security guard hadn't kicked you both out yet.

The man's eyes widened. He muttered a few words of apology before turning around and almost running into the backroom. From the oval windows on the doors, you could see him hurriedly grab another man by the shoulders and ask him something. After a few seconds of back and forth, the man came back out, looking slightly nauseous.

"Of course, my deepest apologies for the wait," he stammered with a deep bow before motioning you towards the dining room. "Please, follow me."

The table he brought you to had obviously been carefully selected. The glass wall it was next to gave a beautiful view of the outside street and the setting sun. It was close to the live musicians, without being too close, and a little further away from other diners, like it was its own little world. It was impossibly… romantic.

The maitre d'hote pulled your chair for you to sit; you felt like royalty, if royalty wore shoes that had been 60% on discount during last year's spring sale.

The man left with another curt bow, and you attempted to open your mouth to ask Shigaraki just what exactly was happening. But seemingly out of thin air, another well-dressed man appeared, holding a large bottle of wine.

"You should have told me we were going somewhere like this," you whispered as the waiter poured you two glasses from the bottle, which, upon closer inspection, looked to be worth about your entire college tuition. "I feel… underdressed."

And entirely out of place.

Tomura seemed unimpressed, shrugging in disinterest as his lithe fingers toyed with the perfectly folded mouchoir on his plate, effectively ruining its shape. "You look fine. Who cares what some random NPCs think?"

"Still, this is...", you hesitated, glancing at the seemingly unending parade of crystals from the chandelier on the ceiling. Was that an indoor water fountain in the middle of the room? "...A lot," you concluded.

"You don't like it," he flatly stated.

"No, that's not what I'm saying !" you hurriedly answered. "It’s gorgeous, it's just... I didn't expect this for a… first date?"

A moment of silence passed, crimson eyes observing you with an unreadable expression, before Tomura said:

"Who said anything about a date ?"

Your heart dropped.

You swallowed with difficulty, finding that all your saliva had mysteriously vanished from your mouth. "It’s... not?" you hesitantly asked.

"I mean, it's not like it isn’t, but it's not a date either," he explained vaguely, looking away from your face, "it's just us, going out somewhere. To do a thing. Like the arcade. There's no need to make it weird."

"Ok," you replied, trying to hide your disappointment and the bundle of conflicting emotions this night had built up in you. One thing at a time. "Well, I like this... thing. Even though that glass of wine probably costs more than my entire salary as your tutor," you commented with the most honest smile you could try to muster.

Thankfully, the playful, snarky expression was back on the man's face: "All the more reason for you to drink it, then."

There was something pompous yet bored in the way he drank, like he had been raised on some sort of wine etiquette and still unconsciously followed its rules. You sipped the wine politely, afraid of angering some sort of wine diety by not properly appreciating what was clearly a great vintage.

"So, what made you choose this place ?", you inquired. "It's not exactly the type of place I expected you to frequent a lot."

"I asked a friend," he replied with little interest. "He said girls like that type of shit.” He licked a few drops of his lips, and you couldn't help but immediately remember the feel of them against yours in your bedroom.

Focus, you scolded yourself.

“Was it the guy from the bar? Dabi?" you asked, remembering the encounter with the ominous-looking man.

"Hell no, I wouldn't ask that guy for advice if my life depended on it," he scoffed. "He's some guy I know online. We play League together sometimes. He's alright."

"So, you asked a random guy online where to take girls on... things that aren't dates ?" You raised an eyebrow, feeling a smile tug at your lips.

"Stop saying it like that, and no, Spinner isn’t some random guy, I know him," he clarified defensively.

You couldn't help but let out a laugh: "His name is Spinner ?"

"His gaming handle is Spinner, just-" he interrupted himself, lips thinning into an accusatory pout. "You're doing this on purpose, aren’t you."

"Yeah, kind of," you admitted.

His lips stretched into a small smile, like he couldn't make himself stay mad at you for more than a few seconds.

“I can play that game too,” he replied with a half a grin.

Before you could say anything, a hand made its way to your thigh, and your leg bumped against the table in surprise. His palm was cold, refreshing against your skin which felt like it was warming up by the second. You barely managed to suppress a squeal when he squeezed his fingers into your flesh.

"Tomura..." you whispered, a mix of desire and apprehension in your voice.

The look on his face had gotten more smug, his eyes dark, cleared emboldened by your reaction.

“Relax, you're moving around too much. They'll notice,” he admonished you in a falsely sweet tone. His hand went up a few inches higher, sliding closer towards the inside of your thighs.

The chatter and music inside the restaurant had turned to pure white noise. His nails dug gently but firmly into your skin, his long fingers massaging the meat of your thigh. It was like you were back with him in your dorm room, your body burning like wildfire with the way he seemed to revere touching you. Time stood still for a moment, and you let yourself drunkenly sink into the feeling.

A foreign voice broke you out of your stupor and of the moment you were sharing, alarm bells going off in your head at the idea that someone had noticed you both. Tomura very reluctantly moved his hand away from its dangerous position, staring daggers at the intruder.

“Sir, Madam, would you like me to introduce tonight's menu?” the unsuspecting waiter asked, totally obvious as to what he had just interrupted.

“No,” Tomura replied, cold as ice. The waiter's eyes widened slightly; was it out of surprise, or fear? “Can't you see we're busy?”

“Of course, of course,” the waiter apologized hurriedly, taking a step back, and now, you knew for sure the man was scared. His body was rigid, holding onto the printed menus for dear life. You could fully understand someone being nervous when faced with a disgruntled Tomura, especially if they didn't know him, but this was something else. The man was scared shitless.

“My most sincere apologies. I-I would never have interrupted if I had known- Please do tell your father that-”

“Leave.”

You knew that tone. It was the one he had used when talking to Dabi the day you had met him. It was like the growl of an animal warning its prey of the incoming attack, giving it one last chance to run before it would pounce.

The waiter swallowed with difficulty, his terrified gaze stuck on the floor, and after muttering something that sounded like five different apologies strung together, he left the table so fast he might as well have vanished out of thin air.

The tension could be cut with a knife. Tomura's pale brows were furrowed in displeasure, the hand that had so fervently caressed you now wrapped around his neck. He scratched at his skin, rough and unforgiving, and you noticed you hadn't seen him bruise himself that way in quite a while, now.

You cleared your throat.

“So, your father-”

“Don't.”

His lips had thinned into a line, his crimson gaze lost somewhere beyond the window you sat next to. The scratching continued, practiced and mechanical, and you could see his pale skin turning an angry red under the pressure of his nails.

“Tomura…” you sighed. “I'm just trying to get to know you. I don't understand what you want from me.”

His eyes flickered back to you.

“One minute I'm kissing you,” you explained, “and you're kissing me back, but then you don't answer my messages for a week. And then you bring me to the arcade, and to the fanciest fucking restaurant I've ever been to, but you won't say it's a date, and when I ask anything to know you more you shut me down!”

You hadn't realized you had raised your voice before you finished your rant. You realized with embarrassment the two tables closest to you had paused their conversation to look at you. You could have dug a hole into the ground to bury yourself if you could. Why did you always end up feeling that way around him?

Tomura stayed silent.

Now, you were starting to get a bit more than frustrated. His eyes were fixated on your face, like he was trying to gauge something, but he still said nothing. You had poured, shouted your feelings out, and they had fallen on deaf ears.

Before you could gather the shreds of dignity you had left to get up and leave, Tomura finally spoke, voice raspy and deep.

“You want to know me?”

You could have thrown your hands in the air in exasperation.

“Yeah, I thought I made that pretty obvious,” you replied drily.

“Fine, then,” he said, leaning forward. “See the water fountain in the corner?”

You turned your head to face the direction he was looking towards, easily spotting the imposing water feature.

“There's some restrooms right behind that. The men's are fine, but the women's are better. Cleaner. More space.”

You wanted to ask how he knew that the women's bathroom was better than the men's, but you had more pressing questions.

“I don't get where you're going with this.”

He grabbed his glass of wine, finishing what little liquid had been left before shrugging, the hint of a smile dancing on his lips.

“Haven't seen anyone walk in there since we got here. I think it's empty.”

Why would it matter if the bathroom was-

Oh.

Oh.

"Tomura, we can’t," you protested immediately, thoughts in your mind racing.

"You do what you want," he replied dismissively as he got up, his eyes never looking away from yours. Why was his stare always so intense, so enticing? "I'm heading over there. You can decide if you want to come or not."

Without leaving you time to say another word, or even formulate another thought, he was walking away, disappearing out of sight behind the fountain.

You couldn't tell if you were mad, confused, frustrated, or horny.

Tomura Shigaraki was a roller-coaster, and you didn't know how to get off it.

He was so profoundly different from anyone you had met, let alone romanced before. He was unpredictable, his mood swings constantly keeping you on your toes, but there was undeniably something you liked about that. About how unapologetic he was to be himself.

But you? You had spent your entire life building a fortress of perfection to hide behind. You got As on every assignment you were given. You finished on top of your class, in every class. You graduated with honours and three scholarships to boot. But was that you, or the person you wanted everyone to believe you were? When was the last time you did something stupid, for the hell of it? When had you been to an arcade with a friend and fooled around for hours without worrying about anyone else's thoughts?

You glanced back at the bathroom at the far end of the restaurant; no sign of Tomura. You knew he wasn't coming back.

You looked at your table, staring at your half-empty glass of wine, the liquid the same colour as his eyes. He was brash, and impulsive, and never let you catch a break. You thought back to Ms Kayama's words, back at your dorm. Everything about him screamed ‘bad idea’.

The choice became clear.

You chugged the remains of your glass, and, lightheaded but not hesitant anymore, you made your way to the bathroom.

—-

It took a grand total of three steps inside the women's restrooms before you were unceremoniously whisked away into one of the stalls, two hands crashing on the wall on both sides of your face.

"Knew it," he smirked wickedly, "you're a pervert like me."

For as much as he made himself look unbothered, you could see clear relief in his features. He was scared you wouldn't follow him.

"It's not like you gave me many options,” complained mockingly, his crooked smile contagious. “What was I gonna do, get up and pay the wine myself? I would be in debt for the next forty years."

"You always talk too fucking much. You need to learn to shut up.”

Dry yet increasingly familiar lips crashing into yours, closing the gap between your bodies. He was already a much better kisser than he had been a week prior: he was making full use of his tongue and teeth, tasting every inch of your mouth and possessively biting on your lips. You responded in favour, wrapping your arms around his shoulders to bring him closer. The ends of his hair tickled your fingers, soft and curly. When you pulled away to catch your breath, his pupils were blown wide, a drop of saliva making its way down his chin.

Beautiful, your brain supplied. The word you're looking for is beautiful.

"Can I…" he hesitantly started, and he was back to being the lost little boy who ran away from your room without a word, like he fully expected you to reject him. How could one man go so fast from self-confident and controlling to awkward and unsure?

"Tomura," you said, pressing yourself ever closer to him. His eyes darted to your cleavage pushing against his chest, and right back up, as if he wasn't sure if he was allowed to stare. The temperature in the room had gotten so warm it was dizzying, but you wanted to be closer, always closer. "I would not be in a restaurant bathroom stall if I didn’t like you.”

He swallowed with difficulty, one hand hesitantly gliding down your shoulder and stopping at your collarbone.

"I'm not going to warn you again, alright?" he muttered. "You can't just back out after this."

You grabbed his arm, firmly laying his hand on one of your breasts, before kissing him deeply. He let out a small sound of surprise, frozen in place. Then, it was as if he had awakened all at once, his fingers grabbing all they could hold onto. You moaned encouragingly in his mouth as the digits got rougher, possessively latching onto the supple flesh with the desperation of a starved man. When you pulled away for air, his grip on your chest did not lessen, instead being joined by his other hand. You muffled out a moan as he sharply massaged your breasts, the slight pain of his forcefulness unbelievably intoxicating.

"Fuck, your tits are so soft. I could shove my face in there," he rasped out. He was drunk off the feeling, off his own words, and you couldn't blame him, because you weren't faring much better. “No wonder that fucking waiter couldn't stop staring at them."

He pinched your nipples with the tip of his fingers, and you moaned. He looked positively delighted by your reaction.

"The waiter wasn’t staring," you protested weakly.

"Of course he was," he dismissed, twisting your hardened buds again to watch you squirm under him, "but it's too bad for him. I'm the one who gets to touch you today."

He pulled off your top so fast you wondered if he had ripped it. Nimble fingers took off your bra in a single try, and if you hadn't known better you could have believed he had had practice with this. You thought back to your afternoon at the arcade, how agile he was with his hands. How good they would feel grabbing your body instead of a controller…

Tomura watched the jiggle of your freed breasts with so much intensity and reverence you covered them with unexpected shyness, feeling your cheeks redden.

He frowned, grabbing both your wrists.

“Don't fucking do that.”

You let him guide your hands back around his neck as he bends down, and without warning, he wrapped his mouth around one of your tits.

"How are you so warm…" he mumbled against your skin, more to himself than you.

Through the thick fabric of his sweatpants, you could feel his erection rubbing against your leg. He was as hard as a rock, rutting more and more rapidly, and you wondered if he would cum untouched. While there was certainly something very flattering about that idea, that wasn't the way you wanted your first time to go with him. You wanted to show him you cared. You wanted to show him just how much you wanted him.

You pushed him gently, and he looked at you with dazed confusion, and a little annoyance, like an animal whose bowl of food had been taken away.

You gave him a small kiss on the top of his head to appease him before bending down and falling to your knees. You gently pushed his pants down, exposing boxers with a large stain of precum, the outline of his dick pressing against the material with desperation.

"Hey, wait, what are you..."

"Shh," you smiled up at him, "you talk too much."

If the restaurant patrons hadn't heard your hushed and whispered moans, there was absolutely no way they hadn't heard the ungodly sound that came out of Tomura's mouth when you wrapped your mouth around his length.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuck-"

The taste wasn't as bad as you would have expected for someone who changed clothing as little as he did. The smell of musk and sweat wasn't pleasing, and neither was the lemon-scented cleaning product they seemed to have scrubbed the entire bathroom floor with, but god, was it worth it for that face. The skin down to his collarbone was bright red, his eyes rolling into the back of his skull, his lips opened into the first syllable of a curse he couldn't manage to push out.

His thighs started shaking uncontrollably, and even if you were certain this was the first time someone touched him this way, you couldn't help but feel some sort of pride at the idea of unravelling him so quickly. Unintelligible strings of words were the only thing that escaped his lips between raspy breaths, and he let out a deep groan when you licked across the thick vein on the side of his cock.

"H-how many times have you done that before, shit-"

You could already taste fresh precum on your tongue, and you doubled your efforts, determined to make him see stars.

"I'm gonna cum," he barely panted out, grabbing the back of your head savagely, "don't you dare fucking move away."

He was in too deep, the rapid movement of his hips making you gag, but before you could pull away he came, the warm liquid filling your mouth. You coughed, ready to spit it out, but he put his hand on your mouth, his eyes glowing under the fluorescent light of the bathroom stall.

"Swallow" he simply said.

He watched the movement of your throat with utter fascination as you obeyed him, the salty taste burning. He was already getting hard again, the idea of holding so much power over you clearly arousing.

He fell to his knees and kissed you deep, his hands back all over your skin, flickering his tongue against yours as if chasing the taste of his cum in your mouth. Maybe he was right calling himself a pervert. But then, you were also one for liking it.

“Can we… do that again?” he mumbled after a few minutes against your lips, voice strained. Strands of white hair had stuck to the sweat on his forehead, and you pushed them gently to the side. You wanted to say yes. You wanted to stay here forever.

But as the fog of sex dissipated from your mind, you were starting to remember where exactly ‘here’ was.

And exactly how loud you had just both been.

"Tomura…" you swallowed with difficulty, putting a hand on his chest to put some distance between the two of you, "there’s absolutely no way the entire restaurant didn't just hear that. We're in huge trouble. They're going to kick us out as soon as we step out of here."

Oh, God, forget kick you out, what if they were calling the police? Could you get arrested for having sex in a restaurant bathroom? Surely a place like this one had connections all over the city, hell, all over the country! What if they kicked you out of school? What if-

"They can't kick us out if we're gone" Tomura interrupted your rapidly derailing train of thought with a smirk.

"What?", you replied, stunned.

Wordlessly, he pushed the bathroom stall open and headed towards the furthest wall, bare except for a few ornate mirrors and one small window. In one surprisingly agile jump, he grabbed the ledge of the window, pulling it open enough for his body to slide through. He looked back at you from outside, a smug expression on his face.

"We can't just leave without paying for the wine !" you hissed, looking behind you in fear someone had heard the sound of his acrobatics and opened the bathroom door. But there was no one.

"Let them worry about that," he shrugged, "the reservation isn't under my name anyway. At least, not exactly."

"But-" you protested.

"Trust me."

It wasn't a question, but a statement. And deep inside your heart, no matter all the warning flags and unanswered questions, the abandoned arcades and fancy restaurant bathrooms, you knew it was true.

You took his hand.

[lvmimis]

malevolent enterprise ch. 4

cw: ceo!au. in which you, the reader, meet ceo itadori for the first time. reader wears a dress and heels. header by @/cafekitsune! masterlist

“A pleasure to meet you finally.”

Yuuji’s smile is wide and friendly as he rises out of his seat upon his interviewee’s entry. You, having just been led into his office by a rather flustered appearing secretary, the type that is doing her best but her best is at best subpar, are still trying to control your expression when you  meet face to face with him. You do your best to offer him a smile, taking advantage of your disarming features, and in a few measured steps, stride across the room to your seat, taking his hand in a gentle handshake before having a seat.

“Thank you for having me, sir.”

You smooth out the back of your skirt as you sit, thanking the heavens that you haven’t had some mishap with your pantyhose, as is the tendency. You usually prefer a pantsuit, but you’ve been told that Itadori Enterprises is on the conservative side, so you’re clad in the only suit-skirt combo you own paired with sensible pumps instead of loafers, hoping that you make it through the day without mishap. The young man in front of you does not appear very conservative, you think, and in fact something about his relatively cheerful expression and pink hair gives him an air of childishness. Keeping your own countenance just shy of neutral yet warm, you focus your eyes on him. 

“I’m happy you were willing to interview me this early. I was very excited to see that you reached out for an interview in less than 48 hours of my application, and I would like you to know that I’d be honored to be considered for such a coveted position.” You begin.

Yuuji nods, but says nothing else. He appears to be studying you, which is surprising but preferred to the outright ogle that you’ve had in your past couple of interviews this week, so rather than dwell on it, you consider an opportunity to continue speaking. 

“As mentioned in my cover letter and resume, I’ve had years of experience at Gojo Corp., and while I’ve left amicably in search of other opportunities, I am very capable of transferring valuable skills learned there to your organization,” you finish. He’s let you speak for long enough, and asked you very few questions, and you decide you  might as well end your monologue strong and hope for the best. 

Amicable is somewhat of a stretch, but you continue to say it without hesitation. What really happened is you’d slapped a resignation letter on your desk after weeks of responsibilities being heaped onto you at increasing intervals, in the midst of increasingly long vacations from your womanizing boss and more and more casually disrespectful speech. Satoru, for some reason, had decided that you were the one to play games with somewhere in the last three to six months of your tenure, and you frankly had run out of the coins to continue. When you’d finally quit, Satoru had nothing to say but finally, and before you could really take your time and lay into him, threatening a workplace harassment lawsuit, he’d clapped his hands together, thanked you for your time, and told you he was hoping you’d finally know your worth. 

Leave, he asked, a glint in his eye. You genuinely deserve better than to be here, working with a peon like me. 

The sarcasm stung until you realized he wasn’t being sarcastic in the way you expected. Gojo offered you enough severance pay to last you practically a year, knowing it was far from enough for what you've done for him. 

I think you undervalue yourself, he said, an unsolicited piece of advice included with the hefty sum of money stuffed into a neat envelope. You never asked for a promotion, and took more and more work, to the point that you might as well have been running this place on your own, doing the job of ten people.

Angrily, you reminded him that he could have just treated you like a human being and you’d never have resorted to resignation, but he laughed, swinging his legs on the desk and leaning back into his chair, head resting on his palms.

You wouldn’t have been forced to know your worth, he’d said.

You didn’t like this type of support, but here you were, being considered for an executive position, something you would have never considered a year ago.

And this wasn’t the only one. 

“From what I’ve seen of your application, you are absolutely impressive. I’m surprised Mr. Gojo had you doing middle management for so long.”

You resist the urge to make the joke, “you and me both,” but Yuuji seems to pause to expect it as though he is reading your thoughts. Instead you smile, and look down at your open portfolio. Then you look up and see that his mouth seems to have opened slightly in a small ‘o’ as though he’s surprised in anticipation of what you’ll say before you say it. 

“I absolutely have the skills to be an executive at this company. I understand if you’d prefer someone internal and appreciate the opportunity to be considered. If I must be so bold, I would like to share that I already have been offered a similar position at another company, but I’m very particular to your company’s mission, and would much prefer to be here.”

Yuuji perks up in a way that makes you practically imagine dog ears on his person. He’s far too… cute, wet around the ears appearing to be in this sort of position, you think for a moment. Too easy to read. Too sincere.

“Where?” he asks, eyebrow raised. His light brown eyes seem to betray a premonition of the answer. You wonder if the brothers talk - you had spent enough time searching for any backstory to supplant what you’ve heard through the grapevine about the corporation’s split, but often financial matters and family matters do not completely align. You have heard that the two are not fond of each other, and that simple knowledge encourages you to move things in your favor.

“Ryomen Industries.”

Yuuji frowns. He pauses and mulls over this information and for a moment you wonder if you’ve overstepped, shifting in your chair and masking your discomfort with a quick cross of the legs, and folding your hands in your lap to prevent yourself from looking seductive. Yuuji however is not looking at you, his chin pressed to his fist suddenly as he thinks, staring at a fixed point at the wall, slightly off from you.

Then his eyes snap back towards you.

“Whatever they’ve offered you, I can offer you double or triple.”

Your eyes grow wide.

Unable to help it, the first thought that crosses your mind is No way he knows what he’s doing.

To quell your disbelief, you let your lips curl into a smile.

“Forgive my candor, but are you simply that impressed by me or do you simply refuse to lose?”

Yuuji blinks, taken aback by your speech, but you’ve realized by now that Yuuji has already hired you in your mind. You are not at any risk. 

“Don’t mind that.” Yuuji smiles, this time the corners not reaching his eyes to the same extent, and he takes your portfolio. 

“Are you willing to start tomorrow?” he asks. He clears his throat, and you know it to mean that the current subject has been tabled for later.

“Yes.”

Yuuji rises, and you rise as well. He rounds the desk to meet you, and now that he’s closer, you take a better, more focused look at him. Sweet-faced but quite handsome, you admit, with broad shoulders, and you spot a wrinkle in his suit that you’d consider smoothing out if you weren’t a stranger. His walk is more confident than it should be for a man you feel like you just conned. Something about all of this is far too easy, you think. You are suspicious.

Yuuji leads you out, walking a bit too quickly ahead of you, and while you keep up for the most part, you find yourself staring at the back of his head, then your eyes travel further to his backside, admiring the cut of his suit, the shine in his shoes. He’s tall, and he speaks softly to the confused secretary, reminding her to do her job and make sure to send you an email of your formal contract. He takes you on a very brief tour of the building, talking animatedly as you take the elevator with him. He smiles far too easily, too much, and the middle managers speak to him casually. You’re not sure if you like that. 

He introduces you by your new title and you bow. They will not speak to you casually, is your first thought. At least, not at first.

You make a circle with him, and he shows you your supposed office. It’s a 2 minute walk from his, and appears similar, just slightly smaller, with one armchair placed in the corner, instead of a small sofa. It’s bare, and does not have your name on the plate on the door or on the desk. Somehow that is reassuring.

“Please let me know if the specifications are alright,” he asks.

That’s not his job, that’s his secretary or assistant’s job, you say in your head, but offer him a polite nod. He offers you another handshake.

“Glad to have you on our team.”

You haven’t signed the contract yet but he’s so earnest, you find yourself saying,

“Thank you for having me. I’m excited to work with you, Mr. Itadori.”

[hourcat]

i would read entire VOLUMES on only fans pierre and obsessed charles my god those few paragraphs ruined me so very much

(continued.)

They meet for dinner for the very first time on a Friday night.

It's supposed to be casual, Charles knows--Pierre had reassured him that it wasn't some tier-specific privilege he was getting but an actual dinner because he wanted to, but it doesn't exactly mean that he's any less stressed about what to do. It's funny, in a twisted sort of way: Charles has gotten off harder to Pierre's content than he's gotten off to anything in his life. Pierre has talked him through a handjob, once came all over his phone for Charles to watch through FaceTime, and yet still he's nervous about...whatever is going to happen.

It's dinner, he reminds himself faintly. It's dinner with the man who singlehandedly got you through a god damn pandemic, but it's just dinner. He's been texting Pierre for months, now, anyway - if anything, it's almost a natural conclusion to make that this would be the next step. Dinner. A face-to-face conversation that's not over FaceTime or Zoom. Time together where Charles isn't paying to get off, although if he's really honest, he could do that just thinking about Pierre.

The restaurant is surprisingly busy by the time he arrives, dark jeans and the last clean white shirt he has before laundry day apparently compliant enough with the unspoken dress code. Everyone else is apparently just getting off of work too, which is at least one thing working in his favor. Their reservation is for 7, and he's still a few minutes early so maybe he can get the table for the both of them--

"Charles?" Pierre's voice is right behind him suddenly, and Charles freezes. It's the moment: where he's going to turn around and see Pierre for who he really is outside of his phone screen. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

"Hey," is what comes out first as he turns around, not even entirely sure what he's expecting because he doesn't really know a thing about who Pierre is, or how he dresses, or how tall he is...

But he's beautiful. Like, of course he's beautiful, he's an OnlyFans superstar, but it's more than that. He's wearing a navy button-down with several buttons undone, revealing something gold glinting against his chest, and his white jeans are form-fitting enough that Charles can tell he works out. They're about eye level--Pierre is maybe an inch shorter than he is, but it's nothing he's really concerned about because his smile is crooked and familiar and so much better at life-size than it is on his phone.

"Hi," Pierre greets him back, and doesn't hesitate in leaning in to press a chaste-but-lingering kiss to both of his cheeks. When he pulls away, his grin widens. "You're early."

Charles' brain stops. "I--" he looks around, swallows thickly. "You're here, too, so doesn't that mean you're earlier?"

Pierre laughs. "Baby, I've been here for half an hour. I didn't want to be late like I always am, so..." he bows a little, gestures towards the other side of the restaurant. "I got our table, so if you'll just follow me." He winks the way he does after he makes Charles...

No, no. That is not what they're here for tonight. "Yeah," Charles laughs nervously, shoving his hands in his pockets and shuffling after his date, who's apparently familiar enough with the restaurant to wave at some of the servers he's passing by. Pierre has always been a great chatter whenever he's on with Charles, so it's not really a surprise to see that he's even more in his element when out in public, but it...makes his stomach twist a little from some uncontrollable nerves.

"Do you take all your top subscribers here," Charles jokes as he slides into the booth seat opposite Pierre. The comment earns him a raised brow and a mouth that's gone from a smirk to a thin line. Ah, jesus. "I mean--the staff, you were talking to--I'm sorry, that was--"

"It's fine," Pierre interrupts softly, reaching across to...cover Charles' hand with his own. "I used to work here ages ago before I started my, ah, on-screen career." He shrugs. "There are still some people I used to know from when I was seventeen and desperate for money in the back of this place washing dishes." Then, as he squeezes Charles' hand, he continues, "and no, Charles. I don't take my top subscribers anywhere. This is only for you." The smile returns to his face, one that's softer and less teasing and more...earnest in a way that makes Charles' chest tight.

Maybe Pierre is just good at acting. Maybe he tells this to everyone he brings out, but Charles finds that he doesn't care. Not right now, anyway. Not when Pierre's hand is so warm and comforting resting on top of his own, gentle like this is more than just their first in-person date.

[snake-and-mouse]

I'll be honest tho... I'm not upset to have one less reason to open youtube.

I am upset one more bit of joy is ending. I can't afford the subscription, not that I'd have gotten it if I could. Leaving because they don't "fit youtube", which is more hubris than truth, and with three shows made with fan submissions that I don't find appropriate to paywall and charge 6$ for...I'm not sayings it's good Watcher has decided they don't need or want their poor and international fans. But ignoring the debate of it all for a sec-

The very first time youtube tried to make me watch a forty five second unskippable ad, actually four ads in one, just the first ad roll of many for a twenty minute let's play, plus more ads slipped in after the video ends hoping I don't notice and exit fast enough, watched on a tv I can't put adblock on, forty five seconds and unskippable, as someone who remembered being pissed over a decade ago at the very first time I saw an ad on youtube, the only ad I saw the whole fucking day, which became multiple unskippable ads Every Fucking Video-

I knew my days of using youtube for entertainment were officially over. It was the last forty some straws on a camel that should have probably been dead years ago, but had stubbornly held on for convenience and habit until that moment.

Again, putting to side the various debates. The current business model is one that is very common, that I don't pretend to be above or immune to (or I wouldn't pay for spotify so I could stay sane in the face my day to day commutes) which is "Boil the frog; Over time the free version of your service becomes unpleasant enough to use that everyone eventually caves and pays to escape the constant torment of ads and locked features, because making a site as shitty as possibly is more effective than offering additional services."

And it works. Except for those of us who don't have the money. And for us? Youtube is just not a viable way to casually watch media anymore unless you have very thick skin and endless patience, the days of easy idle hours browsing long gone. Except people with adblock, youtube is dead to us, or at least dying. Which, I'm sure youtubers are aware of. The frog has noticed and is way too boiled. But you're not getting soup from us.

Instead youtube is now merely a source of annoyance and bitterness I can only bear exposing myself to for the very very few creators I'm too loyal to abandon being a fan of. I loosely keep up with a handful of youtubers, and only watch new videos as they are posted with maybe three.

And now that handful is a little smaller. Sad but convenient. I'm sure, despite the fact youtube used to be my main source of entertainment that I'd spend hours a day watching, one way or another the next few years that will dwindle to zero.

Back to Watcher, part of the shame here is, I'm honestly desperate for an option to watch and support youtubers I enjoy away from that site, as are many people, but a sustainable and accesible option that is realistic about the fanbase's needs and wants. Not that. That wasn’t a way to enjoy Watcher's content away from the dumpster fire. It was saying "If you can't pay or don't get our Vision™ then stay in the dumpster fire, which we're leaving, because we're Better, and those with taste and money will follow us, and those are the only fans we need."

Okay. Fine. Was nice knowing you, I'll miss Are You Scared, but I'm sure I can spend that time on something else now that won't show me six Arbys ads in a row.

[olderjodijournals]

Friday, November 2, 2007

To say that October came in like a lion and went out like a lamb is an understatement! I’m so excited that I can barely compose my thoughts in order to write! I think I know why I had that 50K dream! Nothing’s etched in stone yet, but given the dream, the fact that Susie was only wrong once, and knowing Satish, the maintenance guy from the beautiful Fiji Islands, it sure seems quite promising. Especially since Satish isn’t “thinking” about buying a new house, but is buying one. There’s also the fact that I never vibed us being here in ’08, and haven’t had dreams where we were actually living in an apartment. This pretty much stamps out any remaining doubts I may’ve had as to whether or not prayer works, too! And did God do us a favor in denying us that Citrus Heights apartment? Yup! Especially if this works out, and if it does, there’d also be no doubt that this is the best motel!

Just when I thought he’d totally forgotten, Satish came to do the door a few minutes after I got up just before 11:00. We made small talk as usual and at one point I casually mentioned that we were looking to rent a house, preferably in the Roseville/Rocklin area. This is when he asked how much we were willing to pay. I said that, of course, the less the better, and that while we’d prefer to pay around $800-$900, we knew we may have to pay over $1000. I explained we were looking to rent from an individual we knew since management companies can be a problem, and since we’d absolutely hate to end up in an apartment. He said he’s never lived in an apartment and would never want to with all the noise, lack of privacy, vehicle worries, etc. He also agreed that no matter how good you leave an apartment you’re moving out of, they always rip you off.

So it turns out that he has a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house that’s about 1300 square feet heading towards Roseville in a beautiful neighborhood that he says is quiet. He says the house isn’t set too close to others, and that he hates those tooth houses, too. He said the only reason he bought another house was that he wanted a bigger place with a bigger yard. He said it’s an early 80s house. Brand spanking new compared to the 40s dump in the Klam.

He asked if we were looking to rent long-term, and I assured him we were. I told him the idea was to buy a house in a retirement community when Tom’s 55 in 5 years, but that until then we were hoping to find an affordable, peaceful house.

I told him Tom worked at Comtek and he knew where that was. I pointed out that since he’s new here and is only making $10 an hour, and I’m home entering contests, we couldn’t afford anything too expensive, and were in the process of saving up for a place since we figured the person would want deposits and all that. He said he wasn’t worried about deposits, and that he’ll call us once he’s worked out exactly what his own payments are going to be with his loan officer. He doubts it’ll be over $1000 a month, though, and said something about throwing in a few hundred himself, if possible. Also, two months would be the most it could take, but it would more than likely be one month.

To think that I not only saved us by calling my folks but that I may get us home too is a way awesome feeling! Maybe I’m not so worthless after all.

Saturday, November 3, 2007

God, they just can’t take a day off around here to save their lives! It’s so typical of apartments and motels of the West, too. Always gotta be mowing, blowing, painting, cleaning, etc. Even if it doesn’t need it. I guess they wouldn’t feel like a real Western motel if they took a day off to sit on their asses and do nothing.

I just hope Satish comes through for us and that the place is as good as it sounds!

I’m glad we haven’t had to go camping so far. I not only hate to camp, but to me, it’s just a fancy state of homelessness, and well, glorified vagabonds are nothing we need to be.

Our worst fears of losing everything like we nearly did happened to Paula, I was dismayed to read. She sent a letter about a week ago saying that in late August her apartment building burned down. She said they thought it was the neighbor, but didn’t say if they thought it was arson or not. Then the place got looted afterward. I tried to find information online about it, but couldn’t. She said her son was taking it really hard, that he cut himself, is threatening suicide, and so she may have him committed. She said all the dolls I sent got burned, but she did manage to salvage her wedding dress. On top of all this, she had a staph infection under her arm and misses her husband. She’s now in a new apartment which I guess is also in Chicopee. I wonder where she stayed until she could move into the new place. She says she’s on the second floor and that the landlords live on the first.

Both Tom and I feel bad for her and her son. That really sucks to lose your stuff to a fire, or to anything. I remember her telling me she wouldn’t move to Florida for fear of losing everything to a hurricane, too. I’ll be adding her to my prayers.

She also lost the bracelet I won and sent her because it was so her in shades of green and frost white. I’m going to one day surprise her with not only some porcelain dolls I’ve been sick of for quite some time but with a necklace she’d no doubt love with jades and clear beads.

Fortunately for us, we’ve been doing much better. I ended up getting over 10,000 points on Netwinner a few days ago, and next week he’s going to be getting a $600 check with all the overtime they’ve had him doing. If things could continue to go well with the truck and we could get into Satish’s house and find it to be all he says it is, then we couldn’t get much better than that! That’d be one hell of a stark contrast to how hopelessly miserable we were a month ago.

He doubts they’ll hire him on when he’s been there 3 months on the 14th because all the people that started off as temps say it takes 18 months to get hired on, and all they got were little piddly raises along the way. I’ve been uninsured long enough, and he doesn’t think this place has much potential for him, so as soon as we get settled somewhere and he can get a new birth certificate, he’s going to look for something better.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

Today’s annoyance was one of the housekeepers taking a broom and swatting spider webs outside the rooms. And of course this meant swatting the doors and windows as well. It’s a good thing I wasn’t asleep, although I don’t expect to sleep well tomorrow. The guy on the end is on for cleaning tomorrow, someone’s below us, and we have new people next to us who also aren’t going anywhere too soon. I could tell by the drawers I heard opening and closing. People don’t usually fill dressers if they plan to turn around and take off in a day or two. Oh, how I hope Satish comes through for us! Jessie said her house is a small two-bedroom house built in 1930. She said she really likes not having a nosy landlady knocking on her window every time she walks by. I’ll bet!

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

And the annoyances go on! At least we’re not homeless, but even so, Netwinner’s having technical problems like crazy. Big changes bring big headaches. I’ll be going through that with OLS soon enough, too. Why can’t people leave things alone for more than 5 minutes?! Although I do love their multiplier. It’s what’s been upping my points like crazy lately.

It’s also been a zoo here in the mornings. They did the door on the end today. Hopefully, that’ll get him out of there more often. He seemed to be hanging around more often because as I’ve noticed before, he obviously doesn’t want anyone in the room when he’s not there, and he must’ve known they were coming soon. He hasn’t been “noisy,” but I’ve heard things that do get a bit annoying at times. The main annoyances are still all the damn door slamming. That’s 95% of what I hear around here.

It was a zoo this morning from 6:30 - 11:30 but has been dead quiet ever since. Wish it could be that way all the time!

I was stressing out again cuz the truck leaked some water yesterday. Tom epoxied it but wasn’t sure how it would hold up. I started getting all paranoid again, wondering if our being close to death as we were a month ago was actually to prepare us for having to kill ourselves for real. It’s just scary to know that if something craps out with the truck that we couldn’t afford to fix, we’re totally screwed and as good as dead. We’d be like cars without gas, and without gas, you simply can’t function. Whoever said money isn’t everything is a fool. Being rich isn’t everything, but having money for the necessities is definitely everything or else you can’t live.

Oh, to have peace and security! Why are those two simple requests such an impossible dream? Just a peaceful place with two vehicles and 5 grand saved up for emergencies, and if he ever did get the luxury of working for himself before he retired, then we could have just one vehicle to go with the peaceful place and the 5 grand.

Tom might start 2nd shift on Monday. He says he won’t be working as much overtime, but with the 5% bonus, it won’t make much difference pay-wise. He’s been working an incredible amount of overtime to get us into a place if we don’t get into Satish’s house. I just don’t know if it’ll be someone else’s house or that dreaded apartment. Not that Satish is lying, but what he told me sounded too good to be true. At least for us personally. It just sounds too much like what we want, and we’re not in the habit of getting what we want when it comes to where we live.

I was surprised there was nothing but junk at the mail place when he stopped today after work. I’ve been sweeping more and more, but you’d never know it. I’m surprised there was nothing from Mary, and still surprised there was nothing from my folks, either, if only to tell me not to bother to pay them back. Maybe they really are hurting financially, although $500 is a lot to shell out for someone when you’re hurting. Tom thinks they’re just waiting till we get settled. I think either something came up or they’ve decided that returning to silence is better, something we can agree on for once.

Thursday, November 8, 2007

There are these huge wild turkeys running around here, strangely enough. Tom said he’s seen them beating their heads in people’s cars. He’s seen dead turkeys and raccoons on the roads on the way to work early in the mornings. Today we’re having our coldest day yet. It’s to be in the mid-60s all week. I’m surprised we’ll have the same lows in the 40s as we had when we were having highs in the 70s. At least it’s not going to drop to the 20s like it will in the Klam and where Jessie is tonight! I had what felt like the start of a cold trying to grab me by the throat, so I burned it away with hot tea.

Friday, November 9, 2007

The lady who was out having foot surgery hasn’t returned to work, so Tom won’t be starting 2nd shift next Monday. He said it won’t make much difference either way. He’s still working tons of overtime and making tons of money. More so than in Oregon, but it doesn’t feel that way when all the money’s going to this damn motel! It’s like in Maricopa where we were rich, but we were broke, cuz all the money went to the house. Still, we’re in the position to pay for two weeks here for the first time ever, but we’re not going to.

I just wish I knew when we were leaving and where we were going! I’m sick of not knowing. This is the glorified version of being unsentenced inmates, we just have a fancy, more luxurious cell in which we’re free to come and go as we wait out our sentence.

At least Tom was right in saying he’d make more money faster if we came here rather than to Merced. I really thought he’d make shitty money for quite a while. Now if only he could be right about fine-tuning those horse numbers, too!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Still no call from Satish, which sucks. Tom said he wouldn’t assume he’s not going to rent to us unless we don’t hear anything for 3 weeks, since he said a month or two.

I still fear we’re still not going to be allowed to live in a peaceful place and that we’ll get stuck in an apartment. This motel and an apartment may be better than the streets, but both are still bad enough. All I want are these 3 things: A peaceful place to live, a reliable vehicle, and 5 grand saved up for the emergency we hope to never have. Maybe there’s a chance we can get the last two.

I still intend to use our clogged shower drain as an excuse to lure Satish up here to see if I can see if he’s still serious and to get a better idea of when we could move into his house if he still is. If he doesn’t happen to be here that day, then I’ll have the office have him contact me in a couple more weeks if he hasn’t called us first.

I’m still not sleeping well when trying to sleep during the daytime. They failed their inspection so now I gotta deal with a repeat episode of that shit waking me up, along with the housekeeper, door slamming, plus all the other shit they do around here. The inspector will be here within the next few days.

I’m pretty sure the guy on the end is gone. Someone checked in on the other side and so far they’re wonderfully quiet. I’d rather quiet neighbors than no neighbors, since it couldn’t stay vacant on either side of us forever, and since having good neighbors keeps the bad ones away. But the good ones don’t last long, so I’m sure they’ll check out tomorrow. I didn’t hear any telltale drawers opening and closing.

Despite wanting out of this room so badly, Tom started coding his racing program again in a different way that seems to be working well so far. He thinks that by the end of the week, he’ll have a better idea of how effective it’ll be.

They’re talking about opening an email account for him at work, but he still doesn’t think they’re going to hire him on. He thinks they’re cheap and will keep him forever as a temp without ever giving him any raises for as long as he’s there. They do this so they don’t have to insure people.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

The guy on the end hasn’t left yet after all but plans to tomorrow. So after 10 long, but miserably interrupted hours of sleep like I had today, I’m sure I’ll get even less tomorrow and be tired as hell by the weekend. The inspector still has to come tomorrow or the next day, the housekeeper’s coming Thursday, and I’m sure the guy will let me know it when he moves out. I’m also sure the housekeeper will let me know it too, when she comes to clean, which will probably take quite a while as long as he’s been there.

I had opened the door to see how the weather was when he was coming up the stairs. I commented that we made it through the storm after all and was sorry to go begging for his help as I did. He smiled and said it was ok and that he was sorry he couldn’t help. Then he said something about not being able to make it here and going to live with relatives.

Fortunately, the quiet people on the other side are still here. They came in shortly after midnight. I heard a few subtle bumps and bangs, then nothing.

It sucks that Satish still hasn’t called, and Netwinner is late on sending me my cash card with $50 on it, saying that they’ve moved and all that and are oh-so busy. This is no excuse, and I’d like to move too, and so I could really use the damn money! We’ve agreed to have Netwinner be more or less the “furniture and appliance supplier” for now. The $50 that’s on its way is for the incense I got a while back, and the $50 I’ve got accumulated right now is waiting to be put on the card once it arrives. So I’ve got half a new microwave. Meanwhile, we still need a new hot/cold water dispenser and desks. Lower on our list of priorities are things like a new bed for him, a long dresser for me, shelves, and I really like these cool new digital photo frames they have now. They’re like portable screensavers, and of course you can use your own pictures to display. If we do have money again it’d be nice to send one to my folks, preloaded with pictures I’ve taken over the years, as well as Webshots photos.

My birthday coming up in a few weeks will be a good test as to where they stand. They’ll either send a card saying not to pay them back, or just send a card, or send nothing at all.

On the bright side, Tom’s been working like crazy and so we’re doing ok financially. The lady who had foot surgery isn’t returning for another week or so, so they can’t start 2nd shift till then.

For now, I have been praying every day for God to let Satish come through for us, along with his racing program. I also ask that He safeguard us from problems with our health, truck and money. If He hasn’t been keeping a fine ear tuned to my requests so far, then it’s a hell of a coincidence!

Monday, November 19, 2007

OLS is down right now for the upgrade I hope won’t fuck things up too bad. I made a point of backing up ‘my sweeps’ at the end of each day.

To give a general update, things are still going well. Our shower drain is clogged again for the second time since we’ve lived in this little room, thanks to my hair which now stretches just past the middle of my ass. So hopefully things will be even better when I call Satish up to fix it later on today. I’m hoping I can get a better timeframe from him as to when his house will be available. I’m going to at least get the street it’s on so I can check it out by satellite, even though the picture may be old.

With the horseracing program looking more promising than ever, we’re hoping all the more not to have to settle for a rowdy apartment until the money builds up enough to buy something somewhere, so it doesn’t make us act in haste. If we’re truly going to be given another chance to own something, we want to take our time and do it right. But living where I get woken up constantly and can’t hear myself think when I am awake would only make us desperate. It was our desperation to escape Phoenix that helped us make the poor choice we did in Maricopa, and our having to leave there in a hurry helped lead us to screw up in Oregon, too.

The programming has been going slowly but well, which is better than fast and bad. Tom said he doesn’t know why he didn’t think of this before, but he got the idea to split the files containing all the information about individual horses. When he had everything in one giant file and it would get confused for some reason, it would automatically insert a bunch of garbage which was too hard to weed out being such a huge file. Now he can debug things easier in the smaller files he’s creating. He thinks that if it can have a 50/50 accuracy rate while it was confused, it ought to be much better if it’s not nearly as confused. Of course, I don’t know what causes it to be confused in the first place or how it all works. I don’t know programming like he does, and wouldn’t write about it if I did. The fewer people that know about this, the more money it can make us.

As an influencer, the success he’s been having with the programming has got me racking up points like crazy at Netwinner cuz I’ve been more hopeful. I got a record 14,000 points yesterday. I also won a $100 Best Buy card in an instant. Tom pointed out that the reason I’m not winning as much is that the piddly wins are still going to Oregon since you usually don’t get your prizes for a few months after the sweep ends. At least we know they aren’t getting anything big at my expense since they notify you of big wins via phone or express mail.

Tom just got up to tell me there was a setback with the way the program communicates, but he should be able to get it ironed out. He should also have more time this week to work on it with my schedule being on days again, and with Thanksgiving giving him a day off.

The guy on the end did move out, and the rooms next to us were vacant all weekend and so it was wonderfully quiet. Someone in back got a little bangy at times, but that was about it, other than when they were cleaning on the end.

I got a letter from Mary who was as glad as I figured she’d be to hear that I finally got the message where God’s concerned. She also called my parents helping to save us a miracle. Yeah, but while I’ll be forever filled with profound gratitude towards them for rescuing us, miracle or not, I mostly hope they blow me off on my birthday.

I ended up renewing my Webshots membership after all. As pissed as I am that they went from giving us 4 new photos a day to 2, I do love all the cool pictures. Most of them anyway. I also like the storage space for my own pictures, plus there are a lot of cool community pictures as well.

The weekend before last I heard a bunch of sirens approach that cut out close by. I figured it was either an accident or a hold-up at one of the convenience stores. Then yesterday when we were on our way to Walmart, we saw a cross, flowers and notes attached to a utility pole at the Northgate intersection. After Tom looked it up, he found that a 28-year-old guy was killed instantly when his pickup hit the utility pole.

It was incredibly foggy yesterday, but at least it wasn’t snowing like where Jessie is, or down to 15º like it’s been getting at night where Liz is.

Later…

Satish fixed the clogged drain. Although he promised to let me know either way by the end of this month, I can already tell the answer’s going to be no. I don’t understand the housing market, so maybe you can make sense of what he told me. He said something about being undecided because his realtor said that the cost of houses is dropping, so he should hold out a bit longer. Yet he’s already in the process of buying this other house which he says is just 7 blocks away. So what’s he to hold out for?

I told him I didn’t mean to sound pushy and that I understood he had to do what he had to do, but explained to him that living in one room with most of our stuff stuck in storage and having the outrageous costs we have is rough. He seemed sympathetic, though I don’t know if that’ll change anything. Especially since he wouldn’t say what street it was on. Just that it was in Sacramento and off of Diablo. I didn’t think to ask if that was a street or avenue or what. When I checked the map I got a street and a drive. The houses and neighborhoods in both areas looked bigger and ritzier than where we lived in Phoenix. It sort of looked like Carmichael, yet they were also tooth houses. Without knowing exactly where his is, since lots of streets are off both Diablos which means devil, I can’t see if there are any exceptions space-wise.

The big question is where to go if he doesn’t come through for us. Do we try to find the time to get another house? An apartment, hoping it won’t be any worse than here? Stay here and maybe even jump into the end room if the horses really do work out? Either way, those horses have got to come through for us. They’ve got to. If they don’t we’re gonna be where we’ve been for years now – where we don’t want to be.

Hmmm… are the prayers really working as well as I thought they were?

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

And so begins another day of alarms blaring, mowers whirring, doors slamming, and God knows what else around here.

I’m also beginning to wonder if we’re being teased yet again with money and a peaceful place to live. I mean, it’s a hell of a coincidence that the housing market had to change right as we were so close to getting what sounded so ideal. I should’ve known better, too. After all, it just sounded way too good to be true. When am I going to learn that I’m one of those who just aren’t meant to live where she wants to, and just settle for an apartment? An apartment would have blaring TVs and stereos and rowdy kids which aren’t a problem here (yet), but other than that I don’t see how an apartment could be much worse than this. So we may as well get it over with and learn to settle. An apartment would be the quickest, easiest thing to get into. Then maybe – just maybe – we can escape the chaos in 5 years when he’s 55. Of course, if the horses could just come through for us we could go just about anywhere, but I can’t believe that without seeing it first, despite how knowledgeable Tom is. It’s just that the poor guy only has so much time he can work on it.

So since Satish is obviously going to come back in a week or so just to tell me he won’t rent his house to us, we’re not sure what to do about a place. Tom said he should have a better idea of where the horses will take us by the end of the weekend after the latest kink has been ironed out.

If the horses don’t come through for us our only choices are going to be to either stay here, get an apartment, or try to find another house somewhere, but that would be so hard to do and would take so much more time than he has. Especially while he’s still on 1st shift.

At least Subway screwed up in our favor. Or Tom’s anyway since I don’t care for deli-type places. They accidentally sent two $10 gift cards when I was supposed to get just one, as far as I knew.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The housekeeper, whoever she is, is next door right now. So someone was in that room last night and I slept through their arrival. They sure let me know it when they left today, though. And while they were packing earlier, too.

I hope the housekeeper isn’t that Indian bitch I’ve come to dislike, but whoever it is will be joined by someone else at some point which I hate because they distract the first housekeeper. They always seem to forget something and I have to check their work and ask for whatever they forgot. At least I’m here to catch whatever it is so Tom doesn’t have to make extra trips to the office.

Anyway, there are only 5 housekeepers here. So it’s gonna be either the tall Asian one, the short Asian one, this other really short one who may be Indian, the bitchy Indian, or Josephina. I hope it’s Josephina, but we’ll see.

I hit two instants in a row this morning. Coke and Pepsi have codes under their caps that you can input for prizes. I got a shirt and a DVD.

I’m also getting free books in our names, but slightly misspelled names, from a few clubs that give you some free books just for signing up. I used to do this like crazy when I lived on Oswego St. in Springfield. I can’t believe they set themselves up to be ripped off like this. But I also can’t believe I’ll get all the books, either. We’ll see.

Although it sucks that we won’t be getting Satish’s house and could be trapped here for still some time to come, it eases my mind to know that if the truck’s engine failed, we could now grab another junker for as little as $500. He’d probably still have to miss a few days of work to do it, so we hope we won’t have to and that the truck will hold out till we can get something better for around 5 grand.

I just peeked out and saw the tall Asian one going to lunch. She’s nice and I like the way she does the floor because she sweeps it first. I never heard her vacuum next door, so maybe she’s not even finished over there. I didn’t think it was Josephina or the bitch. They clean rather aggressively compared to both Asians.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

I did end up hearing from my folks after all. I guess I’m not surprised. It was a blank card written by Mom. She said she hopes we’re on the path to success and that she and Dad were married for 56 years. Tom and I must seem like a weekend fling in comparison! As she forgot to tell me, Boo and Max are also gone now. She wished me a happy birthday and us a happy holiday season and said to forget about paying them back and that the money was their gift to us, which was very nice of them. Also, she promises they won’t divulge our address to anyone.

I’ll probably give it till just after the new year then I’ll send another letter.

It’s been colder here. Still ok during the afternoons, but down in the 30s at night. It actually froze once or twice.

No one came to join Thay, the tall Asian housekeeper when she cleaned on Wednesday. She works nights at the casino we go to. I guess she’s a blackjack dealer. We went there early Thanksgiving morning but didn’t win shit.

Also, we still don’t know when he’ll have the giant file split into lots of tiny ones for the horses. He’s been trying to think of a way to speed things up. As I told him, though, as long as he’s still sure it’ll work, then speed isn’t as important. I don’t care if we have to play rental until we can own something, just as long as it’s not attached to others. That’s the problem, though. I still feel as if something’s trying to either trap us here in this room or steer us right back into an apartment or duplex. If we could find a duplex with garages between the two and without a shared yard, that should be pretty comparable to a tooth house.

Right now I just hope there won’t be any problems licensing the truck and that it’ll pass emissions ok. If not, that could be as bad as it crapping out altogether. But California’s tough on smog cuz of all the people and pollution here.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Paula called and left a message yesterday evening and I called her right back. She sounded a little down, understandably, but was still her usual self at the same time.

She said she had to stay at a motel for a week before the housing people placed her where she is now, which she says she doesn’t like either. I guess the people below her get noisy. Getting a quiet place outside of an adult community is getting harder and harder to find. There are more and more rude people obsessed with getting attention, more dogs, more stereos, etc. We got someone next door last night who can’t sit still for long, so hopefully they’ll leave today.

Anyway, she said Justin’s been depressed, has dropped out of school now that he’s 16, and is spending most of his time shut up in his room. Her sister Brandy wants to get him a puppy. I hope for his sake he at least gets his GED.

They still don’t know who started the fire, but it was definitely arson. It happened in the middle of the night.

She said my old building on the corner of Locust and Woodside is gone, but when I checked via satellite, I found that it’s still there, but the building on the opposite corner is gone. The satellite pictures are never up to date, though, so it could be gone, too.

Her husband left her and is filing for divorce. She said his new girlfriend called her claiming to be pregnant, which she doesn’t believe (or want to believe). She also wonders if she’s in jail.

Whatever. That girl is forever cursed in that department!

Things are as bad in the East as in the West with those of color getting special treatment on the job. Jessie hadn’t gotten a promotion in the 5 years she’s been where she works. She told them she was going to leave and take a job that offered her 6 more Gs, even though the benefits wouldn’t be as good. That’s when they said they’d match that pay and give her a position as an analyst, but she has to wait till her position’s filled first. In other words, as soon as they find the perfect little black or Puerto Rican, she can finally move on.

I hope Tom can finally move on himself to second shift soon since they’re not going to hire him on or give him a raise. But he’d prefer second shift till he got something better (or the horses raced us rich) for the bonus and the fact that it’d free up some time during business hours. Like today he had to go in an hour early so he’d have time to play truck later on. He’s been searching for this part which he needs before he can take it to emissions.

I still worry that we’re just being teased yet again about having money and that the horseracing thing isn’t going to work out. He’s always getting “closer than ever,” but I haven’t seen any money yet. It’s not ready to be raced for real, though, and the question is when? When is it going to be ready? I really think we’re heading for an apartment and that we’re still not meant to live where we want to. I don’t think we ever will either. It hasn’t happened yet. That was a hell of a coincidence that the housing market changed right after I first spoke with Satish. Obviously, that would’ve been a hell of a house for us. Probably as close to perfect as we could get for being in the city.

Maybe Mary’s only half right. Maybe alienating God makes things worse, but praying really isn’t that helpful. At least not to Tom and me.

So Satish and others will live where they want and we’ll get into an apartment if we can ever get the truck taken care of first, and I’ll listen to their TVs and their stereos and their slamming doors and their pounding footsteps and whatever extremes are around us, but I’ll enjoy the security while I’m at it, cuz I’ll hate it too damn much to be evicted!

Then again, we may be forever trapped in this room. We may never ever make get out of here.

I saw Josephina and the Indian bitch both as Tom and I were returning from Carl’s Jr. the other day, but the bitch was smiling brightly and was just as polite, so maybe she really was just in a bad mood the last time she did this room which was quite a while ago. Josephina said she thought we moved. “Maybe some century,” I told her.

We’re on for housekeeping tomorrow. Hopefully, it’ll be Josephina or Thay.

For just $25, Tom got a computer stand and it really comes in handy in this little room. When he’s not using it, he stores it in the closet area. When he is, he wheels it over to the recliner. He always thought the chairs were so uncomfortable anyway, and having the stand frees up half the table space for eating and writing.

Since we’re doing better and since he thinks the horses are going to spit out money while I think we’re going to end up saving money in an apartment, I did a little incense order. I wanted to get some old IG favorites, but they still can’t get their shit together. I guess their main server crashed, so I ordered from Silksplash. I’m trying some newbies too, to add to the variety and make it more fun. I got 54 10-packs, 9 of them being newbies.

Later…

They’ve been banging on and off all day next door. Yeah, I figured they weren’t checking out today. They’re noisy, so why would they check out anytime soon? You know the noisy ones always stay. Usually, if they’re still noisy after 20 minutes or so, then that’s pretty much how they’re gonna be the entire time they’re around. That’s the pattern I’ve noticed anyway. The quiet ones stay quiet and the noisy ones stay noisy.

Satish still hasn’t come to tell me what I don’t want to hear, but he may never. Some people have a hard time saying “no” to others. And as Tom pointed out, he probably feels bad. It sure would be nice, though, if he could at least point us in some other direction, even if it wouldn’t be as ideal. God may’ve let us escape with our lives a couple of months ago, but that still doesn’t mean He’s ever going to let us go where we want to, and if He is, I have yet to see it. So I know I really need to start focusing on the good in having what I don’t want and being where I don’t want to be. How could I have to worry about ending up in an apartment like I have been if I’m already there?

Friday, November 30, 2007

Life in this little room is basically the same. Sometimes the noise is annoying, other times it’s quiet. Nothing utterly maddening so far, thank God. Same with the car stereos. They get annoying, but not as maddening as up in the Klam, the freezing, cold, snowy miserable Klam. It’s pretty cold here at night too, though.

We like the money all the overtime brings, but it sucks too, because he has so little free time to “horse around.”

Although I’ve been continuing to pray for the things we want and especially the things we need, God obviously isn’t going to let us have Satish’s house. Is He doing us a favor somehow? We’ll never know. I can’t believe, though, that He did us a favor by denying us the Citrus Heights apartment we initially tried to get into since it would’ve saved us a ton of money. Not unless one of those extremes we always seem to get (with the exception of Kim) would’ve been waiting next door for us.

The next prayer we hope He grants is letting the truck pass emissions. Tom got the part he needed today and also had the truck weighed. I have no idea why they require this. What, do they think the truck will break the roads? He has a permit to drive to the place on Monday after work. Let’s hope it passes! Tom thinks it will since the carburetor has improved. Before it was too smoky. Because of the California smog, they’re really picky about that.

I won 5 Playtex bras, but don’t know if I’ll receive them. I don’t even know if I’ll really like them that much since I prefer sports bras cuz of the way the straps of regular bras slip off my shoulders. It’s just that I can’t remember whose name I entered! I asked them but never heard back from them. Therefore, I went ahead and emailed back the form, assuming I entered in my name.

I heard from Mary, just to wish me a happy birthday and a happy holiday season. She says she’s doing well.

[fledglingmaster]

Clairaudience

Bonjour! This might read a tad janky, but this feels like the place to post this as it concerns my host and his demon. This is Bleu by the way. Hi!

I'm going, "how does he do that?" As if a demon/vampire (not sure how he'd identify these days, given how my host is I'm leaning towards demon) that is in spirit form (for lack of better words) couldn't drop a few signs here and there.

My host, more so than I, tends to notice things in songs. Or meaningful songs come on at the exact right moment and play in the background. He's into that psychic stuff. Not that I don't believe in it myself, I mean I've witnessed things...it's just not my cup of tea. I didn't inherit that gift from my mother. But my host will hear a song and a certain line might stand out as if it's louder when it's not. Or he'll hyperfocus on a song because something is urging him to listen. It's like someone tapping him on the shoulder insistently and going, "hey pay attention right now!" I believe it, I know how it is for him, but I don't usually experience such things.

As I say this, when Sebastian has a message, even I feel like I'm being beamed in the face with it. The first time it happened was when I was co-fronting and my host was drawing. I asked him then, "is this what it's like for you?" I don't think it was coincidence that when he was working on a piece that dealt with his past, we both heard, "I'll be there as soon as I can. But I'm busy mending broken pieces of the life I had before." My host was so casually, "yeah that's Sebastian." Umm...I'm sorry this is fucking weird. It was like someone screamed those words in my ear. I mean the presence I felt, the line, I think I had my first ghost experience while (co)fronting.

I don't know how to interpret that message. Does that mean he's still stuck in the time loop? Does that mean he will manifest at some point in this life? If he manifests...I'm assuming he will come into someone's system. It would be really cruel for him to be human born and what? When he finally gets to be my host's current age my host would be in his 60's? No, we had two tragic lives, third time's a charm, right? I would think ideally, he'd manifest in our system. But I'm not sure if there would be issues with that. I know my host already has stated he'd rather not bind Sebastian to a human vessel and this one...it's not in the best shape. But enough on that...

I've been fronting since the whole dog thing yesterday more or less. I have random music on, kind of letting it do its own roulette sort of thing. We've been listening to Sleep Token since the beginning of the month. They were a band that happened to play, and we liked them. One of those 'suggested for you' type of things. My host really felt 'The Apparition' fit his situation well. Had a good cry about it and everything. So, this band neither of us knew existed until around a week ago, this song has my host an absolute mess. That is his new song. He loves it, it feels like his heart is being ripped out, lovely. (Oh my god...I can't some days with him...at least he's letting himself cry.)

There are probably many songs we haven't heard from the band but a new one, for us, came up today. 'Are You Really Okay?' This time I'm fronting but I felt how my host was feeling before that, and I know his mental state is poor. This was one of those stand out songs in a personal way. I did a look around the room and asked if it was Sebastian. Right after that song 'The Apparition' played and that felt like Sebastian confirming it. Now, me being the healthy skeptic I am, I had to look up albums and that is the order of the songs on the album. One could say logically that's why it played in that order. Though I find it interesting that we've listen to this band as well as other bands mixed for hours, probably a few solid days' worth and the first song never was played. As I'm attempting to be hopeful but I'm still doubting Motionless in White's 'Eternally Yours' plays next. Okay, I get it, it really is you. This is so freaky.

Anyway, host, Sebastian says you can't harm yourself. So, listen! You'll get over this rough patch. By the way, our likes are at 555, I know you like those angel numbers.

[beaubambabey]

I literally feel like I can't breathe and I don't know what to do anymore. All I know is I feel like I want to die. Like, seriously genuinely die not the everyday suicidal jokey "lol my life sux" shit I do

My life is over its fucking over and I'm never gonna be able to get out of this situation unless I die

My dad lost his job at the start of the year. I agreed to try and find a higher paying job to help out. That didn't pan out. I tried to do two jobs. Hated every second I was at the other jobs. Quit them. Couldn't get the hours I had prior to searching for a new job back. Didn't know what to say to my boss because all that was in my head was my dad telling me how I needed to get a better job. At least I had a fucking job.

Both my parents have been disparaging the part time jobs I've worked while living with them. They complain about everything, from it being "too far away" (it's less than 10 miles away) to how much I get paid (minimum wage but it's increased. And is much higher than the national average even though the cost of living here is astronomical) to what I bring home (food I want to eat and store in the house/smells/attitude). I wouldn't be working these part time jobs if they'd helped me make college work better for me. Or, if my mom's story (casually dropped years ago, no way to get the truth out of her because I don't know if she's ever told the truth about anything) about how she could've put me on medication as a child, I would've actually gotten a college degree by now.

They say they're proud of me but it always feels superficial. My brother has a master's degree and a good job. I never moved out and have credit card debt.

They complain that I never show them my art, but then when I try to open myself up they either brush me off or completely change the subject.

I don't have a place in this house. I am seen but not heard. I'm a child and will always be a child but at least I'm making them money, huh.

When I was a child I wanted to dance. Not Indian dance, like my mom did. Jazz dance. Tap dance. I loved dancing, and it made me happy. My mom hated that she was paying money for something that wasn't helping me lose weight. Hated that she was paying for something that wouldnt make me into a tiny version of her. I quit dance to focus on acting, because at least I wouldn't need to be skinny and act, right? But then I quit acting to focus on school. I barely graduated high school, and most of it was because my dad screamed me through writing essays for school. "We loved you so much and wanted you to do everything" You didn't love me. You don't love me, you love the idea of me and abhor the creature you created and can't face this reality. To this day, I can't bring myself to write anything academic without self-harming.

If I wasnt going to act or dance, I thought fine art could be something. I drew, I honed my craft, I learned, I studied. It used to be something I was passionate about. I fucked up along the way. I can't let myself pretend that I finish things. I delude myself into thinking I can do so much that when reality hits and I'm suddenly locked in mental loops that leave me stuck I've already fucked up and let people down. I lost the passion for art during lockdown. Less because of circumstances, more because I fucked up and fucked over other people. The obligations to those people and righting those wrongs held me back from drawing, because I couldn't allow myself to move forward without finishing out those obligations. And yet, it took me so long to find the wherewithal to get it done that years had gone by. Being diagnosed with ADHD was too little too late. I should've either been given Ritalin as a child or euthanized.

I tried streaming again in the hopes it would motivate me to draw more. Hoping I could design some new stuff to put on my store. It did help, while it lasted. My internet was shit the entire time I tried, so I gave up since the only time I had the energy to stream was the same time my parents were watching shit on streaming services. I only learned a few days ago that we don't even have unlimited streaming bandwidth and everything I've been doing has just cost my family more money.

Maybe I shouldn't have taken a vacation. Maybe I should've just worked through the month. Maybe I never should have even thought about having fun. Maybe I should never have fun or give myself a break. Maybe that would work for them. Maybe they want to wring me out of every cent I make. If I can't afford to eat food that I actually want to eat then I'll eat less and get skinny. If I can't afford to do anything then I'll never leave. If I can't afford to leave then I'll keep making money for them.

I want to jump out of this fucking window that they never bothered putting a screen on. Maybe if they found my body in the dirt on the side of the house rotting in the freezing cold with the neighbor's lemons it would knock some sense into them. Nothing I've ever done or said ever has. To them, I'm just some little retard child they brought into the world and kept as proof that they're capable.

There is no joy or passion in my heart anymore. Everything is a desperate delusion to escape this hell I live in. I'm a burden to myself and others. I will never be free.

[mathewryf]

Playing Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth for a while and learning the optimal grinding method makes me look at grinding in Pokemon games so much differently.

The big thing about DSCS is that, before I went out of my way to look into grinding better, I was absolutely ignoring game mechanics that would have helped me play the game better. Now that I have learned how to proprely grind both EXP and Money, I'd still only consider myself to be mid-range with a mild understanding of the mechanics. That said, it made me think of all the ways Pokemon has given out tools that I flat out ignored because it wasn't spelled out for me how to use them. Or even what they did. At least with DSCS it's on me for not taking the time to read my Digimon's abilities properly. The game will give you the tools to succeed, and succeed better at that. But with Pokemon a lot of it is obfuscated. I think part of it is a commitment to keeping the casual experience in-tact for the casual players. It's like they're hesitant to bridge that gap in a direct manner.

Alternatively, there could be an expectation of trial and error. DSCS has this expectation of the player choosing to properly engage with the mechanics of the game and experimenting. Early on the player isn't punished for choosing not to do so, even if not doing so makes things needlessly complicated. BUT. I'm one of the lucky few that chose to look into learning those mechanics before I was forced to. Late game battles can be extrely difficult for the player that chooses not to engage properly with those mechanics. I noticed before I looked into grinding properly I was starting to struggle with boss fights. The next group of bosses I did during and after properly grinding, tho... my god they would have been a wall and a half for the teams I had pre-grind. If I didn't go out of my way to learn when I did, I would have been forced to spend time doing so in order to make progress. It highlights a sort of difference in philosophy. Where Pokemon is hesitant to force players to engage with advanced mechanics outside of optional content, Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth takes the risk to put less experienced players in a situation where they learn the mechanics or get walled by a challenge they can't overcome. Honestly I dig it, if for no other reason than it makes players shake up their teams and do a sort of reconstruction of their approach.

That also extends to the Digifarm in DSCS, which doesn't really have a comparable equivalent in Pokemon. Early on I just used the farm as storage for Digimon I liked, and didn't really pay attention to how the training/investigating/development worked. Grinding properly forced me to actually sit down and read up on how the farm works (note: the farm does have instructions in-game, but reading outside of the game has slightly more in-depth talk of how). I already understood that Digimon could develop items in the farm or find quests, and I knew they could train up their stats. Plus there's a passive experience gain. What I didn't understand was how to shorten the time it takes, or how much farm goods actually did affect the quality of the farm command you pick.

The whole reason I bring this up is to hightlight how engaging with one set of mechanics lead me to engaging with a different set of mechanics, and how doing better with one set REQUIRES the other set.

One feeds into the other, and after a few hours of just focusing on grinding I'm walking around with 7 Mega level Digimon with a selection of strong moves. The next step is, of course, making a team of Digimon with actual synergy. Cuz I'm still kinda brute-forcing it otherwise.

[experimentalfma]

"Go easy on you? I wouldn't dream of it." An amused smirk curled the corner of Roy's lips. He'd never been the type to hold back, even over a friendly game of pool, but even if he was actually considering it, he doubted either of them would enjoy it as much if he threw the game like that. The challenge was part of the fun, after all. "We'll consider the first round practice, and then we'll see if you can get a free dinner out of me. I may be a little rusty, but make sure you've got your wallet ready if it comes down to it." He doubted that he'd be as easy to beat as Ed seemed to think, but the other man had surprised him before, and it was better not to discount how quickly Ed was able to catch on.

With that settled, he let Ed get up from his seat with the promise of meeting again in a few hours. After Ed walked away, Roy waved over a waitress to pay for his coffee, then followed suit and returned home to finish some of the papers he'd been working on until six o'clock rolled around.

When the appointed time finally came, Roy met up with Ed at the hotel and led him toward the edge of town where the festival was being held. He'd changed out of his uniform to a casual white button-down and jeans, with a slightly amused thought in the back of his mind that this was the only time he could remember being out of uniform around him, but it felt fitting considering the less formal occasion.

As they approached, the sounds of the mingling voices of the crowd and lively music began to energize the air. A small group of children ran by them, shouting to each other a little more loudly than they needed to in their excitement. The first booths began to line the streets, and on the corner, a tall, thin man with a wide smile caught sight of Roy and Ed and immediately waved them over. "Hey, you! Blondie! You look like you've got a good eye. I've got just the game for you. See if you can toss a few rings onto the pegs back there and win yourself a prize. You score big, you get yourself a meal ticket good at any of the food booths. Just fifty cenz. What do you say?"

Roy raised an eyebrow at just how quickly they were being pulled into the festivities, but Ed had said he'd wanted to play some games, and the prize was actually something useful instead of a cheap plastic trinket. There was no guarantee it wasn't rigged in some way, but he was sure Ed would know what he was walking into if he decided to do it. "What do you think? Do you want to try this one or see what else there is?" he asked.

Ed would make sure to get a wake-up call from the hotel around eight thirty to make sure he was awake in time to call Roy. He didn't exactly trust himself to be up and around by then so it would be better to make sure he could keep that meeting since he had been the one to suggest nine in the first place. "I'll make sure I call you at nine then," he said with a grin. Already he was excited about talking to Roy again. Ed couldn't explain it exactly except he was really fascinated with what kind of man Roy Mustang was outside of work.

"It's definitely something to think over. Keep my options open." Ed laughed a bit over Roy's comment about him never being one to take orders. Though, he did mature a bit in that area, but Ed couldn't deny he was very much still a free spirit. Adjusting to military life would be hard for him. But he would still think it over considering he didn't have much else lined up. With his travels he had been too busy to give a career much thought, but with their research winding down, he did need to come up with a plan once he was done traveling around the world.

"Oh you're that sure you're going to beat me, huh?" Ed said with a laugh. Though he had no doubt Roy might beat him at first, but he had no intentions of giving up that easily and planned to give Roy a run for his money. "Don't be so sure. I catch on quick. It might be you buying me dinner." He had never been one to back down from a challenge, especially one that sounded like a good time. "It's up to you, but you don't have to go easy on me, though I guess it's only fair to at least let me learn the rules of the game first."

Ed couldn't help but smile again. He didn't know how it was possible for him to get this much of Roy's time in such a short period, but he was glad he did. "It's a great day to take a walk." The weather was nice and warm and sunny today. "I'm looking forward to seeing what they have." He hoped there would be some acts at the festival he could see, like fire dancers. Ed had seen some in Xing and had been hooked ever since. The way the dancers bodies moved while manipulating fire had captured his attention in a way he hadn't expected. Ed had never forgotten that experience. He also wanted to play some of the games even though most of them were stacked against the player. It was another challenge he looked forward to. "Then it's settled. We'll meet at six." Ed reluctantly stood up. "If we're going out tonight, I should probably go and head back to the hotel. I have some things to take care of before we meet up. But it was great seeing you. I'm glad we bumped into each other."

[photo1030]

Leather and Lace - Chapter 10: No

Summary: Arthur is in a bad mood. By giving him something else to be focused on, you're hoping he'll forget all about the ugliness of the the afternoon.

Warnings: Swearing; Shorter than some of my earlier postings

A/N:  From a writing stand-point, this is not my best work. But, I thought it was a cute idea to further develop their relationship.

*This fantastic image does not belong to me. This comes from @alexj2539. Check them out! 

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Arthur is in such a foul mood. Apparently, everything that can go wrong, did go wrong today. 

He rode four hours to meet a man about a tip, only to find out it was a dead-end. Frustrated, he stopped for a drink at the saloon in the first little town he crossed on the way back home. The barkeep there was less than cordial with him, calling him all sorts of unsavory names and telling Arthur that he needed to leave and that they "didn't want to serve the likes of him". This, of course, lead to a bar fight when two men tried to escort him out. "Tried" being the important word. (Arthur can certainly handle himself in a fight, especially when he's already irritable.) After he left the saloon, he made his way back to camp, running into Herr Strauss upon his return. The little weasily man immediately sent Arthur back out before he could even catch a rest. This time it was to collect from some man who over-extended himself to start up a mining business. Of course there was no gold where this fool was panning, so the venture was a bust. Upon hearing that the equipment was being sold off, Strauss sent Arthur to collect the debt before the man tried to bolt and run before paying up. Sure enough, once the man caught sight of the burly outlaw approaching the shack of an office and heading his way, he dropped whatever was in his hands and tried to take off. This, of course, annoyed Arthur to no end, as he was already having a shitty day and was in no mood for a chase. Arthur caught up to him pretty quick, though, but in a feeble and desperate attempt to get away, the man threw a fairly large rock at Arthur. His aim was none too accurate and the rock veered drastically to the left and hit Arthur's horse, Buck, in shoulder instead, causing the poor animal to spook and rear up. Now, Arthur will put up with a lot. But do NOT mess with his horse. Ever. Fully pushed to his limits and beyond now, Arthur stalked angrily towards the man, who cowered in fear, realizing the grave mistake he had made. "You could've made this so easy. But no, you had to go and really make me mad!", Arthur shouted, his fists clenched at his sides. A quick and massive fist to the face put the man flat on his ass, knocked-out cold. Huffing in annoyance as he made sure that the man wasn't going to be a problem anymore, Arthur quickly searched his pockets and bags to collect whatever money he could find and called it a day, leaving the poor fellow sprawled out unconscious in the dirt.

And thus, the reason for the mood that Arthur Morgan is currently in.

Once he gets back to camp, Arthur tosses the canvas bag with the money at Strauss without a word and quickly sets off to get a bottle of whiskey and something to eat, firmly planting himself down at the table where you happen to be reading. He mumbles to himself about "idiots" and "wasted time", rolling his eyes at no one every time he lifts the bottle to his lips. You sit quietly at the table and observe Arthur carry on for awhile about everything and nothing. Every little thing is annoying to him at this point. He even complains about the sun being "too bright" today, causing you to chuckle silently to yourself. You really shouldn't laugh, but it is kind of amusing at this point. Nothing is going to put him in a better mood when he gets like this. So you decide to push your luck and create a little fun of your own and mess with him.

As he sits there ranting, you casually start to collect the leaves and little pieces of twigs from the overhead trees that have fallen onto the tabletop where the two of you are sitting. You roll the fragments around in your fingertips, making a small pile in front of you and then proceed to flick them across the table at him with your fingers. The little shrapnel pieces sail through the air and begin to pelt him in the arm and occasionally in the chest. Your face twists slightly as you concentrate and focus all of your attention to line up your ammunition with its target. Arthur doesn't seem to notice at first, as he's so wound-up in his own misery. Until a small piece of a twig hits him square in the nose. Your eyes go wide as you freeze, biting your bottom lip to stifle a smile, waiting for his reaction.

Arthur instantly stops his own antics, speechless for a split second as he looks over at you. "What the hell are you doing?!" Arthur snaps, his face one of confusion and exasperation. "Cut it out!" he barks at you sharply.

"No", you say simply and calmly, an ever-so-slight mischievous grin on your lips. He stares you down for a moment, his face hard as nails, eyebrows drawn together. Ah, the challenge is on now! As you are not going to let him brood like this for the rest of the day if you have any say in the matter.

Next, you look him straight in the eye and stick your tongue out at him. Arthur says nothing at first, turning his head slightly and giving you the side-eye glance, not sure what in the hell you are doing before he utters a "What the-?” When your first face registers with him, and you now have his attention, you start with making a succession of silly faces at him, rapidly changing your expressions to a series of exaggerated angry and mean faces. You jut your lower jaw out like a bulldog, and curl your nostrils up like a pig. You cross your eyes and let your tongue slack out to the side of your mouth. This causes him to stop-dead, looking at you like you're crazy.

"Knock it off, (Y/N)! I ain't in the mood," he warns sternly. His eyes are heated, burning a most intense hue of blue-green. And this isn't even Arthur's angriest state, yet he is still most intimidating. Of course he realizes, deep down, that he can literally just get up and walk away from you at any time if he wanted, yet he still sits there. And this is where you have the advantage:  you know that he will never, ever hurt you, despite how angry he may get.

"No", you reply with another impish grin.

Arthur abruptly takes his hat off his head and pulls his other hand over his face in frustration. When he does this, you take advantage of his distraction, reach over and quickly snatch his hat out of his hand, and place it on top of your own head, smiling back at him triumphantly. Arthur halts in his movements, a clear and menacing vibe bouncing off of his tense body now.

"Give me my hat," he growls out slowly, eyes locked on you intensely.

"No."

"(Y/N), I ain't gonna warn you again. Give me my hat." His blue eyes are dark and flashing.

You abruptly stand up and start to walk away from the table, leaving him sitting there. "No", you tease over your shoulder, with half of your face covered by his hat which is too big for you.

"God damn it!" he yells and springs up from the table to chase after you. "C'mere!" he yells at you. He quickly stalks after you, reaching out to grab your arm, but you quickly evade his grasp.  

"No!" you holler back. And you spring away from him again, changing directions to place yourself out of his arm's length once more as he keeps grappling at you.  "Son of a-" he huffs out angrily. And he rushes at you yet again, but you are too small and too quick for him, leading his large hands to grab nothing but air. Like a puppy running around crazily, you keep darting around just out of his path and dodging behind chairs and crates. Now, of course, it hasn't occurred to you until this moment what you will do if, and when, Arthur does catch you, as you know it is inevitable. You admittedly didn't think this through too well. And, he is pretty riled up now. Crap. Now what? Maybe you'll kiss him? That'll distract him for sure. He can't very well beat your ass for kissing him, now can he?

You bolt out into the clearing, looking over your shoulder to make sure Arthur is still beyond arms's reach. If you can make it to Hosea, he'll surely help shield you from Arthur. But what you don't see, is that you are about to run right into the wall that is Bill Williamson.

“Bill! Don’t let her get past you!” Arthur shouts out suddenly, pointing at Bill. Confused, you turn around, but not before Bill's arm shoots out from his side, snatching you up by the waist and pulling you to his chest. His barrel arms fold you up and effortlessly pin you to him for safe keeping. "NO!" you shout, struggling and pushing back against the man behind you. "Bill, you let go of me right now!"

Catching his breath for a second, now that you're contained, Arthur smugly saunters over to you and Bill. "You lose something, Arthur?" asks Bill, lifting his chin in acknowledgment with a grin.

"Well now, ain't so smart now, are you, Miss (Y/L/N)?" Arthur teases as he stands in front of you, feeling all superior, with his thumbs tucked into his gun belt. You just stand still, mouth closed and glaring at him defiantly as he tilts his head to the side just slightly as he looks you over, debating about what he's going to do with you now. And quicker than you realize it can happen, the world turns upside down - literally, as Arthur grabs your arm from Bill's grasp and tosses you over his broad shoulder like you're little more than a sack of grain, causing a surprised shriek to escape your lungs.

“Arthur! Put me down this instant!” you shout at him, your legs kicking as you try to maintain your balance as you perch precariously upon his shoulder.

“No”, he replies smartly, giving you a taste of your own medicine.

"I mean it! You put me down! Now!" you shout again, still trying to wiggle yourself free.

"No", his voice calm and a sly grin creeps across his handsome face as he clearly has the upper-hand now.

Seeing the opportunity to step in and add to your torture, John walks over, grinning ear to ear, from where he and Abigail were watching the scene, eager to play along. "Um, hey Arthur?", he asks with exaggerated innocence. Arthur spins around excessively to face him, swirling you in the air. "Why, yes, John?" "Did you happen to see where I left my canteen?" asks John. Arthur spins again, this time 180 degrees to face the horses, forcing a yelp to escape your lips with the motion. "I think its over there, John." "Are you sure?" asks John, rubbing his chin with his thumb and forefinger, as if in deep thought. Arthur spins yet again, this time towards the tents. "Well, hold on now, maybe its in the tent?", he offers. Each time Arthur moves, you spin wildly with him, making your stomach lurch and the blood rush to your head. Your hair keeps falling into your face, quickly becoming a disheveled mess and obscuring your vision.

"Arthur, come on, now. You really should let her go," giggles Abigail, covering her mouth with her hand, making an attempt to convince the man to show you some mercy. "Hell, no!" affirms Arthur. "This is a result of her own doin'."

"Arthur!" You continue to shout as you try to hold yourself up by pushing your hands against his back. "I’m gonna get sick all over you!”

"Go ahead. You’re the one who does the washing,” he says flatly, completely unaffected by your threats.

The entire camp is enjoying the show, as playfulness like this is seldom seen. Even Dutch walks over to participate as well. He pauses to take in the compromising situation that you find yourself in. He crosses his arms over his chest and bends at the waist, turning his neck so that he can look into your face with a big smile on his own. “You see, Miss (Y/L/N), this is a lesson that we all must learn: Arthur is not one to be trifled with,” says Dutch with a falsely chastising tone. This causes you to just huff back a growl in frustration as you continue to squirm to try to free yourself of Arthur's iron grasp, as it appears that no one is going to help you.

And suddenly, like thunder piercing a quiet night sky, you hear Ms. Grimshaw's voice cut through the noise that is starting to muffle from the blood rushing into your ears. The matron has had enough at this point and has decided to put an end to this nonsense.

"What in God's name is going on here?!" You hear her before you can see her and you try to turn your head to see which direction she is coming from. She is marching over to you and Arthur at an alarming pace, her arms swinging sternly at her sides in hard determination. While you are relieved at the the prospect of being released from Arthur's grip, you still cringe a bit at the idea of her wrath being unleashed upon you both. (The only person that you can say who is as intimidating as Arthur Morgan is Susan Grimshaw.) “What in the hell are you doing, Arthur?! Put her down!” she yells at him, getting up in his face and back-handing his chest in annoyance. But he only stares her down, not moving, but not saying anything back, either.

"Put. Her. Down." Ms. Grimshaw threatens Arthur in a low voice. "NOW!"

Arthur huffs as he quickly plunks you down on the ground, causing you to stumble a bit backwards ungracefully on your feet. But once you sweep your hair out of your eyes and regain your footing again, you immediately rush back at him, punching him in the arm in retaliation with a deep scowl set upon your face. "Ass!"

"Knock it off or next time I’ll drop you in the rain-barrel!" he glares at you, stepping closer and towering over your much-smaller frame as if he's going to grab you up once again.

“That’s enough! You people got time for this foolishness when there's work to do?!” Ms. Grimshaw gets between the two of you.

"She started it!" Arthur yells, pointing a finger at you in defense of himself to Grimshaw. "Oh, get over yourself, Arthur!" you shout back at him.

“I don’t care!", Ms. Grimshaw snaps back, putting both of her hands up to silence you both, her face now flushed and red in irritation. "And you," she says spinning her head and pointing at you now. "Quit getting people all riled up. You're just as bad as he is!" she points out as she waves her hand dismissively at you. "In fact, get over there and make yourself useful and help Mr. Pearson out!” she nudges her head towards the cook's area.

“Fine!” you snap back childishly and turn on your heels with a flourish of your hair as you march over to the food wagon.

“Children! I deal with children all damned day around here!" Ms. Grimshaw shouts at no one in particular as she plants her hands on her hips in annoyance. "Jack has more sense than you people!”

--------------------------------

Later, after everyone has calmed down and gone about the rest of their day, the gang gathers around the tables for dinner. And something in the air smells absolutely delicious, too. Ms. Grimshaw has made sure to keep you and Arthur separated since your squabble earlier. While you were directed to Mr. Pearson's company, Arthur was sent over to take his frustrations out on the fire wood, which yielded enough cut timber to last the camp for four days. He eventually makes his way over to the tables to join everyone, trying to inconspicuously watch for you out of the corner of his eye. He cautiously sits down next to Charles and John, who are also warily watching, as they do not want to get in the cross-fire of any retaliation between Arthur and you. They know you by now, and know that you are not going to fold so easily after this afternoon. And it doesn't help that you have been mysteriously absent for a few hours. Abigail and Jack take a seat across the table from John, Arthur and Charles, and Abigail shakes her head at the whole lot of them, observing their nervous twitching and shifty eyes. "Shame on you, all, being afraid of a little woman," she chuckles. "Oh sure, a little woman wrapped up in a wolverine's pelt", mumbles Charles in defense.

As everyone gets settled, you eventually make your appearance, coming around the corner from behind the food wagon with a single plate in your hand. Everyone in camp takes notice and keeps an eye on you as you walk, wondering what you're up to now. You smile innocently as you walk straight over to where Arthur is sitting, eyes locked on him like a rope pulling you over. Your calm presence is more than a little unsettling, considering how you both left each other last time. As you reach the table, you pause, looking down at Arthur.

"Y/N", he greets you cautiously with a raise of his eyebrow.

"Arthur", you respond calmly. "I made something...special...just for you for dinner tonight. You know, after earlier and all." Your voice is calm and even, and you smile at him with a wickedly sweet grin. You carefully set the plate in your hand down right in front of him. Everyone else is having the usual stew for dinner. But for Arthur, you have prepared roasted pheasant, with potatoes and gravy. The aroma is heavenly, with the hint of various herbs drifting through the air. Arthur's eye go wide in surprise of such a treat, his mouth already watering at the sight and smell of the custom-prepared dish.

You stand with your hands folded over your stomach, watching him with earnest. "Wow...uh...thank you, (Y/N), Arthur says slowly, not really sure how to respond to such a gift.

"Uh, Arthur?" warns Charles. "I don't know if I'd eat that if I were you," as he motions to the plate.

"Why not?" he asks, looking at Charles with confusion.

John also looks from the plate, to you, and back to Arthur, and even he is smart enough to question it. Why would you make him such a lovely meal after the fight you had earlier? Either you are trying to apologize and make up for it, or... "Yeah, I agree with Charles there, Arthur," says John skeptically. "You may want to skip dinner tonight."  

Arthur looks at the plate of delectable food, contemplating his choices. You wouldn't...would you? He eventually looks up at you, as you continue to stand there, staring silently and smiling oh-so innocently, watching his internal struggle. And his torture is just so satisfying to you.

“Go ahead…eat it," you encourage sweetly. And then you lean over to get closer to his face. "I dare you…"

[iguessthisisanewobsession]

It Takes a Mob pt.6

Previous

First

“I still don’t get why Bill gets the kid. He didn’t even want him if the first place!”

Bill sighed he absentmindedly put a hand across the giggling mound on his front.

“Yeah yeah, you forget you’re a crackhead without an’ addiction. Can’t hide shit on you.”

Locking the door behind them, Bill checked that Danny could still breathe under the jacket Marv shoved over them.

Bill, quite frankly, felt like a child messing around in his father’s closet again.

The jacket was big on Marv, so Bill looked was drowning in the thing.

“You act like you aren’t happy that I’m the one doing the heavy lifting.”

Marv let out a guffaw from behind him,

“Heavy lifting? Bill, he’s a baby, weighs less than a handful of grapes.”

“Yeah, well how about we switch, and you say that after afterwards? I have a newfound respect for women.”

Danny poked his head out and seemed very entertained by the commute.

Happily babbling away an swiveling to and fro'.

‘Good instincts,’

Bill mused,

‘Keep them up kid. Watchful eyes, saves your guys and all that.’

The three thugs were walking together in a rough diagonal line with Bill in the center. It was casual enough not to draw attention but if needed they could have the kid covered. Maybe they were being a bit paranoid, but that pays in crime ally. The rest of the walk for what it was worth, was thankfully quiet.

Well, as quiet as Gotham could be. A couple of meagering drunks and some of the nosy ladies of the night withstanding.

A couple light jokes with the ladies and a look from the others got to the guys and they got were they needed to be without any fanfare.

No, problems only arose when they got to work.

It started at the door.

Danny was gently tucked away as they walked to the door.

“Hey fellas, I know we have no official dress code ‘round here but you’re pushing it with that dress.”

“Stan, if I wanted your opinion on my clothes I’d’ve asked ahead of time. Just check us in.”

Stan leaned against the door before dramatically lifting his clipboard.

“Alright, your names?”

“What?”

“What? Need a name to sign you in. Would hate to have all those hours to go unaccounted for.”

Oh, Bill hates Stan, pompous because got a job through daddy dearest. He would blame his upbringing, but Bill knew the Brat’s father. Gabe did his best with that one, just unfortunate that his kid took after his Ex-wife more often than not.

Any normal given night, this would be the moment that someone would have to descale the situation. Bill felt the urge to grab his knife in the back of his mind.

But this was no ordinary night. He was carrying something a lot squishier and more precious than his bruised ego at the moment.

“Bill.”

Was spat through gritted teeth. Stan clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Don’t see a Bill here.”

“Man, just let Bill in, you know him! He’s been working here for two years!”

“Well, I’m just doing my job Marv, you don’t have to be so feisty.”

Bill released out a deep breath be for uttering,

“William. Overbeck. Junior.”

“Ahh! Yup! There you are Junior! Making’ your old man proud, right?”

“Listen here you tweaky little fuck- “

“Stanley? you better not be messing with Bill out there! If you need to learn a thing or two from a senior than I can gladly-“

“No madam! Right this way.”

Bill always had a soft spot for Ken’s Me-mah. He made sure to step aside as Ken ran too her voice.

“Me-maw!!”

“Hi sugar, you’ve been keeping’ out of trouble now?”

Ken was grinning like a mad man as held the elderly lady.

“Only the stuff I’m not given permission to do!”

“That’s my boy.”

“What are you doing in our neck of the woods this evening?”

Marv asked as she walked over to the others.

“Oh, you know how it is in the kitchen, all the hard things to carry I just thought I was best I didn’t bother trying. We got enough flour and rice to feed all of crime alley that needs to be unloaded. Bill, Marv, do you mind helping a weak old woman?”

“Hardly weak, Me-mah. Everybody knows you have just as much sway as a general around here.”

“And don’t you forget it sonny! Now you two, come! We got work to do for tomorrow and the night is young.”

Bill shifted awkwardly on his feet,

“Well, you see- “

“Don’t you start with me William! I still know your daddy’s number! Now get!”

~~~~~~~~

Bill and Marv stepped into the old kitchen single file. The smell of spices and heat of the oven filled the air.

Bringing out a large cutting board Me-mah gestured to Bill with a knife.

“So, before we begin, do you boys want to tell me what you dragged into my kitchen?”

‘Shit,’

The men shared a glance, and Bill raised a hand to try to come up with something plausible.

“Don’t you think about lying or running, we all know I’ll eventually find out. The only question is am I finding out by you or by word of mouth. Now off with the coat Bill, unless you’re finally eating right.”

Bill put down his finger.

Danny let out a sneeze.

Letting out a sigh Bill reached for the zipper on his front and gingerly pulled it down before handing it to Marv.

“Oh.”

Me-mah gasped,

“That’s not a puppy.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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