#cause if i make their apartment in the sims and THEN draw over it......

[flyingspicerack]

ok.... hr and half left at work .... kay em ess

[mihii-i]

Hi love 💕 May I request comfort/fluff one shot Arlecchino x fem Reader who developed a terminal illness a few years back and is now often bedridden but is getting better however Arlecchino is still super overprotective of her

white light.

Pairings: arlecchino x fem!reader

CW: sfw, female reader, terminally ill reader, angst, but there’s comfort yay I know yall love this, LOTS of mentions of death, like a ridiculous amount, dw reader doesn’t die but grim reaper bullies us every chance he gets like damn, or is the grim reaper a she, that means my friend is immortal since if death is a woman it’ll never come for them, sorry off topic, very soft arle, yes we love our soft king walskskfj, why is the shower so cold help me, not proofread.

A/N: THIS WAS SO FUN TO WRITE AND IT TURNED OUT SO NICE HOLY also, school is starting soon so I might have to go on break in couple months but no worries I can find some time to write and it’ll be a while into the year until i actually need a break yk <3 🕯️

The fluffy layered clouds hovering in the sky slowly parted themselves to reveal illuminating gleams of sunlight pouring into the room through the window curtains situated to the right of your bed. Slow gusts of wind began to join the warmth of the gold light, brushing along your skin and causing an array of goosebumps to bloom along your arm. You were lucky. Not too long back, your immobile body was enveloped into the same bed, a sickly hue painting your face as your pale tinged lips could only part to cough out a few strained noises.

Perhaps the gods had took pity on you? You supposed you’d never figure out the answer as to how your body curved back from a terminal illness in its final stage. It was supposed to be incurable, and your body back then seemed to agree with what should have been. You were dangerously dangling right above the realm of death, only a hair apart from succumbing to your imminent demise. The doctor who noted your worsening state only had a strike of pity in her voice whenever she’d inform Arlecchino of your current condition, shaking her head as the words: “she won’t make it.” muffled through the door seperating your room from the outside.

It hurt to hear. Not for you per say, but more to hear the emptiness in Arlecchino’s voice when she attempted to dismiss the doctor’s words coldly. She didn’t want to hear that. She didn’t want to hear that your condition was only drawing you closer and closer to death, she wanted to hear that you atleast had a small chance of surviving. As much as she tried to choke back the bitter pain in her unwavering voice, she always clung onto that small sliver of hope deep down, internally calling out to a sea of nothingness in hopes that something would come help you.

Sudden news of your recovery, or rather your condition suddenly improving one day was nothing short of a miracle. It shouldn’t have been possible at all. You were around the final month mark, your entire body burning with an agonizing rush of soreness as you wanted to plead for death to take you away from the unbearable discomfort searing every limb of your ghastly and thin form. That night you had gone to bed, hoping to escape the aching pain of your illness eating away at you. That was when you saw it. You dreamt of a faint glow of white light—or was it a slight pale yellow? The dream was vague and confusing, and held no meaning at all. The light simply danced in circles before you as your life trajectory seared across your eyes.

However, the dream must have meant something.

The next morning you had awoken, your body feeling much lighter all of a sudden, as you had the strength to now sit up completely. Hands carefully massaging the thick blanket draped over your lap, you blinked in confusion upon realizing that you were indeed alive and able to sit up. Sure, you were still incapable of moving around or sitting up for long, but originally, you weren’t even able to raise your body a quarter of the way up, as it would simply result in your spine slamming back into the sunken, comfortable mattress.

When the doctor made her way into the room, performing her checkups which she believed to be futile and tragic, her initial expression of sorrow shifted to one of quick shock. This shouldn’t have been even the slightest bit possible. Arlecchino’s reaction was all the more endearing the moment the newly discovered news made its way to her. You’d never forget the rare smile of pure relief and happiness crossing her usually stoic front, seeming as if Arlecchino was glowing in that moment.

She had attempted to clear her throat and position herself upright, concealing the internal delight bubbling in her mind at that moment. The door had softly creaked open, the sway of the old hinges on your bedroom door being the only noise, along with the quiet howls of wind, resounding within the cell of a room that held your life by a mere thread.

You simply sat there, your scrawny form nearly engulfed by the heavy blankets cascaded onto your lap as the light livened the hue of your face. And when that sweet smile made its way onto your lips weakly upon seeing the harbinger hover before your bed, Arlecchino had to suppress every urge of hers to hem you between her arms in a tight hug and never let go. She wanted to embrace you with every drop of love and affection lingering in her heart as her blackened hands tightened into your back, like a promise to never let you go. Since then, your condition had steadily improved. Months passed, and then years. At this very moment, you now had the ability to walk around and perform minor tasks adequately, yet you still remained bedridden for the majority of your time.

A light pain slowly overtook the side of your chest abruptly, drawing out a few heavy coughs from your throat as your palm pushed against your left breast in an attempt to soothe the throb pushing and pulling against your heart. Quiet ticks of the clock seemed to inch in sync with the rugged beats of your heart, both echoing throughout the room in a sort of twisted harmony. Although your condition had gotten better, storms of weakness and coughs would still persist through, as this was quite a serious illness you suffered from.

The silk white blankets enveloped your limp frame, cascading over your body and situated slightly below your chest, while the back of your head burrowed into the pillows to bask in the favorable comfort enshrouded around every outline of your lounged body. Your chest rhythmically rose and fell as you choked out a few labored breaths, still clenching your fingers against the fabric of your loose shirt covering your chest.

Your vision suddenly started a gradual spin, objects within your range slowly drawn out of focus, and not taking long for the spin to pick up the pace as your vision suddenly shifted to a bleary mess of the room. Head tilting back, you rasped out a line of shaky breaths as the frightening episode of dizziness quickly subsided as soon as it began, causing a sense of panic to rush through you briefly while your chest rose and fell in uneven motions from your initial fright. In that very moment, a small screech of wooden hinges caught your attention, your head carefully raising as to not incite any possible negative reaction from your sensitive body.

Swift and heavy clicks of heels prodded across the room, a sound you’d recognize anywhere even if you were miles away. You raised your head barely even level to the headboard, delivering Arlecchino a feeble smile as her eyes softened upon meeting yours. Slowly, you took her hand into yours, palm resting over the top of her defined knuckles as your thumb circled along the cursed gradient of her hands gently. She could only breathe out a grateful sigh, her head dropping in a restful state as she rested herself onto your shoulder affectionately.

“Are you feeling any better?” She almost immediately questioned, her usually composed eyes having a flicker of concern dashed across them. Her eyes wandered along your frail body, the hints of worry still subtly etched onto her face as her grasp on your hand below hers grew increasingly taut and stiff as she awaited your answer. As much as you wanted to chuckle and tell her you were okay, you clearly couldn’t even say that much.

“Hm. Same as usual. Can’t move my legs well today, but I’ll live.” You casually answered, not taking in the impact your words might have placed onto Arlecchino.

Live.

She was so glad you were able to live.

Arlecchino suddenly dragged her teeth along each other, her mouth remaining closed as the grit of her teeth quietly bounced off of her cheek into her eardrums. It took everything she had to swallow back that wretched feeling boiling up to her throat, her heart wrenching and flooding with discomfort upon hearing the way you threw your life around so casually in your words. She had always been extensively protective over you ever since your condition deteriorated, yet it grew exponentially once you began to recover over the years. She’d always tend to you, sometimes never leaving your side for hours on end as she’d just sit there, head lowered and lips pushed against your frail hand.

Her grip on your hand tensed noticeably, making you shift your eyes up to her lowered dark gaze, staring off into an endless abyss as her expression just seemed…soulless and empty at the mere thought of your passing away. She was afraid. Afraid that just when she believes that her beloved would live despite being in poor condition, she’d walk into your room one day to discover your heart dead still, body completely limp and deceased.

The thought of that made her hand noticeably quiver between yours, disturbing images of your possible sudden death plaguing her mind like a broken subliminal record trying to shatter her soul by tearing away the one person she loves most in this cruel world. It was indeed cruel, as this very world had targeted the reaper to loom over the side of your bed at all times, carefully awaiting the moment to take you away from Teyvat. Arlecchino internally cursed herself at the idea that perhaps this punishment was because of her. She wanted you to be spared. You weren’t the one with blood on your hands, she was.

Despite her agonizing thoughts gnawing at the back of her mind, your sudden firm grip on her hand made her head snap back up abruptly, eyes locking onto your thin fingers cupping her shaky hand in place. If she could, Arlecchino would cry at this very moment, allow herself to shed a couple tears. Yet she knew she couldn’t. She didn’t want to worry you any further, especially in your current state.

“Arle, I’m staying. Please, don’t worry about me. I am better now, right?”

“I know. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. I don’t know what I’d do if you weren’t around.”

It was evident that Arlecchino had a difficult time a few years ago, when you were announced to die in under a couple months. She had to mentally prepare herself to lose you soon. She was used to it, you were just another person in her life that slipped away too soon, right?

But she couldn’t.

She couldn’t bear losing you. It was too much even for her.

Arlecchino needed you in her life, and she’d wipe out the entirety of the world just to keep you safe.

Your hand reached up to graze along the skin of her cheek, smiling as she instinctively leaned into your touch. Her eyes fluttered shut as she held your hand in place against her cheek, opening her eyelids once more to gaze at you lovingly with red x-marked eyes.

“Hey Arle, I’m still not feeling the best today…so do you think you could-“

You didn’t even get a chance to finish your hesitant sentence as she lowered herself onto the side of your bed, squeezing herself next to you as her arms gently circled your torso and grasped you against her. You only hummed out a content sigh as you felt your slouched back press to her upright chest, the difference in your postures just making the moment oddly romantic and sweet. Arlecchino’s face buried into your shoulder, intaking a soft inhale as if she missed your scent clouding her senses every time she was close to you.

It didn’t take long for you to drift off to sleep in Arlecchino’s arms as you curled up into the warm blankets piled over both of you. Arlecchino, still awake, quietly shifted her weight onto her side to glance down at you, smiling softly upon seeing your peaceful rested expression. Maybe finally, she rinsed the lingering blood splattered on her hands that led you to this awful fate. She’d rinse it a thousand times if it meant that you would remain safe like this for as long as you lived.

However in this very moment? Arlecchino had forgotten every sense of dread clawing at her constantly, instead focusing on your huddled up form engulfed between her protective grasp.

She swore that she would never let you go again, and she would treasure every inch of you. Not even death can do you two part.

A/N: omg I kept switching between being proud of this and being not so proud bc I had to stop midway through and I lost my train of thought AUUUSHSHDBFN anyway yayayayashshdhd I loved writing this so much AND CALM DOWN ON THE ARLE REQUESTS HOLY SH-

ok bye I’m gonna go on character ai cause I can’t sleep to bed

[snowfairie]

snowfarie’s manifesting tips for dolls with ADHD ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

disclaimer: i’m just speaking from my own experiences as someone with adhd and this can apply to ANYONE! but speaking from experience it’s nice to have things broken down and simplified cause often times i can over complicate something very natural and easy and it can become a chore so why not both keep myself on track and share my knowledge!

♡ ‧₊˚ ⋅ ౨ৎ ‧₊ .ᐟ

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷   what’s the easiest and simplest way to manifest?

affirming. i am a FIRM believer of that and have been since childhood because it’s something that’s so natural to you that most times you do it subconsciously! as a kid i had certain adults around me make me say affirmations DAILY and looking back i realized why!

repetitiveness will always equal to success, and with adhd it can be daunting and also all around frustrating to focus in on desired thoughts. some tips that i think help is writing and speaking, writing your affirmations down helps engrave it into your skull more in my opinion and speaking things into existence can never go wrong. you do it anyway.

if you’re trying to focus on self concept and one of your affirmations are “i’m deserving of my desires” it can sometimes feel like your brain will purposefully do everything in its power to focus on all but that sentence, telling yourself out loud to stop and then saying the affirmation is something that has helped loads. any this sounds silly but if i’m having a day where i’m really tweaking out i’ll envision my desired thought quite literally beating down the negative thought like… i’ll imagine a fat ass fist pounding down on it and it helps i stg

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷   have direct guidelines and influences!

write down exactly what you want and who you wanna be, and it’s nothing wrong with taking inspo. idk if this is all ppl with adhd but i take things very literal so consuming techniques and other ppls rules can sometimes mess with what i know works for me and i start to go back and forth and confuse myself, and confusion is already common enough with adhd i fear. your aren’t OBLIGATED to take what everyone says into account you’re just observing and plucking what sticks so make your own guide.

i have a journal specifically for this and ONLY this. and i make it as simple as possible, the affirmations are simple, the goals are direct and short, and i make a mini list of my core inspirations and what about them i want to have part of my reality.

ex:

some of my inspirations consist of the following:

london tipton

toni childs

jennifer check

tiffany new york

what are some traits these women have that i want?

- they don’t do any heavy lifting

- make men do all the work

- don’t let others walk all over them but usually will take accountability if they know they’re wrong (ntm on jennifer)

- never leave the house looking a mess (even when jenny did look a “mess” she was still gorg)

what are my goals?

to have 10k in my bank acc

affirmations

i’m so thankful for the 10k in my bank acc

AM I MAKING SENSE? LOL like keep it sweet and cute cause at one point i’d also get caught up in specific wording like twin just vibe, you know what your intentions are.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷   keep it fun, it’s your life not a chore!

this may appeal to a more creative collective but something that i do that keeps me saturated in the head space in drawing/animating and the sims. idk if ppl have spoke abt this before and i wouldn’t doubt it but drawing/animating yourself in your dr is so yummy or creating a damn save file of your dr in the sims? you can make lore, your dream wardrobe, your desired appearance, dream home/apartment, partner, job literally give yourself the clearest and most visual and interactive way of helping you develop and get a clear understanding of your dr. AND you’ll be more than likely be spending long periods of time on it which means you’ll be thinking about it longer so it’ll be easier to focus on.

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷   EVERYTHING starts in the mind

someone had to think of tumblr and focus on the reality of it existing before it existed. it sounds corny but sometimes the most obvious statement is what needs to be heard, that’s why we’re constantly telling ppl to “be yourself” it’s like.. duh? but you’re quite literally conditioned after a certain age to NOT be yourself and sometimes that cliche yet simple reminder is what’s needed.

someone had to think of hello kitty before she became a reality, someone had to think of a building layout before conveying the idea to someone to help them make it a reality, you had to imagine an outfit before you put it together and was able to see it in your 3d. and when your mind is focused on a specific stream of thought patterns new ideas will shove themselves in and that’s what’ll get you to make the next decision to get closer and closer or just having these desired thoughts raise your vibrations making you vibrate on the same frequency as your desires.

the way i’m explaining it may come off as vague i’m not sure but truly simplifying it as much as possible makes it easier to digest bc again, manifesting should be and IS natural and easy. also catching yourself and being aware how you speak can help reshape your mind.

♡ ‧₊˚ ⋅ ౨ৎ ‧₊ .ᐟ

and MOST MOST MOST IMPORTANT ESP W MY NEURODIVERGENT BABES. give yourself some goddamn grace! negative thoughts are gonna pop up i HATEE when manifestation posts talk abt how you shouldn’t have this and that, regardless you’re still human operating under a very powerful brainwashing system that conditions you to be close minded while at the same feeding you a false sense of hope, you’re gonna have moments where a conflicting or negative thought comes in. let that ho pass and immediately interrupt it with what you wanna hear.

AND ALSO those posts that are like “you gotta put in the hard work and it may take years but it’s part of the process.” it’s not if you don’t want it to be. life can be as easy and effortless as you want it to be if that’s what you believe you deserve.

like the icon ms.montana once said “life’s what you make it so let’s make it rock”

[cringefail-clown]

so tired. i play the sims like once every blue moon mainly to build stuff, and looking for inspo pics - especially on pinterest - became nigh impossible because of the ai slog that keeps getting uploaded there by peabrained techbros. like 70% of results from searches are infested with those illogical, physically impossible, shitty looking images. today i needed to find some reference pics of sci-fi spaceship bridges for the artwork im working on and, once again, everything is just artificially generated trash

and its not good and never will be because those ai engines techdudes get their dicks wet over simply cannot comprehend things like perspective, or basic composition - its a fucking program that bases its results on a bunch of ones and zeros and gets to the answer in the most straightforward way possible, making a shitton of mistakes anyone can spot easily

and on one hand its annoying as fuck and i roll my eyes so hard i can almost see god when i spot yet another piece of shit ai image in the wild, but i am also filled with this grim satisfaction, waiting for this whole thing to fall apart. cause it will. the more ai images get shit out into the world wide web, the more ai programs which scour websites add those already artificially generated bullshit into their databases, the more it becomes obvious what is and isnt gen ai. same mistakes get made, same words and phrases get used in essays. its a beautiful cycle of artificial intelligence cannibalising itself ouroboros style, and im patiently waiting until there are only ashes of anime waifus with three boobs and two fingers too many left

in the meantime, what can we actually do to find good references? simple, truly - follow real fucking creators. look at their portfolios, personal websites. there are a ton of folks putting out pose packs for you to use, even completely for free. you can try posing yourself! put your phone in a position you want the perspective of the pose to be in, start recording a video and just do a few poses - references like that are honestly even better than still images you can find online. look through sites like artstation for concept artists who do background work, 3d art etc and get inspired by those folks. maybe purchase artbooks that might interest you, if youve got the money for it. hell, find creators on youtube who actually do things that youre interested in drawing, be it archery poses, or hairstyles, watch and study their videos!

sites like pinterest are convinent, thats true, but at this point in time they become more and more unreliable. find creators you can trust, follow them, study from them. we have to support one another. decentralize your own online experience

[thedawningofthehour]

didn't you say you were making Draxum's house in the sims? Did you ever finish? :(

So I whined about this on my main blog, but I'm having issues with my computer. The power port, and I've noticed this for a while, gets extremely hot whenever I try to run anything more intensive than Powerwash Simulator, and the past few months it's become harder and harder to get it to charge. (I'm not overclocking or anything-I bought this computer for gaming and made sure it had the specs to run shit like my heavily modded Skyrim and Fallout, it should be able to run Sims) I contacted Acer about a repair and they quoted me over eight hundred dollars. The actual computer was about 1200-1300, for comparison. There's other issues with it as well-there's a chip on the screen that's really obvious on a white background, and they advertised that it would support a second hard drive, but it's never recognized the one I bought. The power port is the most grievous though, and power ports on laptops are notoriously hard to repair.

And this computer isn't old. I bought it last spring. Less than a year and a half-and I've barely been gaming on it because I've been writing this, so I spent over a thousand dollars on a turtles fanfiction machine essentially. (there's been other reasons, depression funk caused a complete disinterest in gaming and after so many mass shootings I've started feeling guilty whenever playing games with guns, but writing is mostly what I've been using this expensive gaming PC for) I only had the one-year warranty that came with the computer, but honestly I can't find it in myself to regret that too much because I have never once had a company actually honor a warranty. It's like safety deposits on apartments or insurance claims-they'll do everything they can to weasel out of doing what they're supposed to.

So back to your question-I currently don't trust my computer to run the Sims. Or anything else. And I can afford to buy another gaming PC right now, but it would be financially pretty irresponsible. I returned the tablet I bought to draw with, and I think I'm going to get one of those two-in-one laptop/tablets so I can use it for drawing and writing. Maybe I'll be able to run the Sims 4 on that-it doesn't have to run great, I use it mostly as a building simulator. Kind of sucks though, Crusader Kings 3 came out with another expansion pack and the new Cities Skylines is coming out this fall, plus I've been getting a hankering to play Skyrim again.

But enough about my computer woes, I do think I have some screenshots I could show...

First floor, I apparently took these during the first round of building because I made a lot of changes. The lab is way bigger now, and I have the rest of the house shell done. The blank space in the back right is where I was going to put in the multi-story room where the turtles find the weapons-which is probably the least completed part of the entire house because holy hell the building controls do not want to work with me.

But in the back left you can see Cass and Gale's rooms! :)

I do like how the main hallway turned out. I know it was mostly destroyed on Creation Day, but let's just say Draxum redid it in the same style. The middle picture, that's the little storage room that hides the door to the part of the house where Gale's room is. If you know the Sims you can tell where the secret door is.

And yes, I know the half-walls under the stairs look ridiculous, I've fixed it since then. I couldn't just extend the half-wall all the way back because it would delete the upper staircase, for some reason.

I'm pretty proud of how the living room is turning out. Could be a little bigger, but the symmetry of the bookshelves are just too perfect. (also the curved walls get fussy, FUCK CURVED WALLS) Needs some clutter on the mantle though.

The kitchen no longer looks like this, I moved around a lot of the pictures and added another layer of cabinets, because Draxum probably has like six sets of fine china he's received as gifts throughout the years and refuses to part with. I added more retro-looking décor, because the last time he remodeled this room was in the sixties and I wanted it to look a little old-fashioned. I also imagine he refuses to get an electric stove, saying his mystic wood-burning stove works just fine. I tried to work a pantry in, but it didn't really pan out. (lol) And the more I think about it, he probably has a legit larder somewhere in the basement, since Draxum is from a time before refrigeration and would have grown up storing food in underground cellars. (and he deffo has like several years worth of food stored away, he's pretty much a doomsday prepper)

This is also incidentally the layout of the kitchen at my old house, hence the weird octagon dining area. Except we had windows. With no curtains. In the woods. It was unsettling to cook at night.

Draxum's study is bigger now, and I think I added a fireplace? He absolutely has eight bazillion degrees and awards and he puts them ALL on his wall. He earned that shit, dammit.

His bedroom's nothing to write home about. It's comfortable, not luxurious. There's no electric lights because he prefers candlelight.

Just imagine that white bathroom counter stained with pink splotches from Draxum's hair dye.

I had BARELY done anything with the pool, but as you can see it is indeed a tank. Draxum was planning to keep a mutant or something in there.

I was actually in the process of redoing the entire greenery lol, but I think I did an okay job on 1.0. Not the mason jar lamps though, I'm not sure what I was thinking there.

Some pictures of Lab 1.0. The ooze-vine-thing looks terrible; I straight up haven't even started to recreate it in 2.0. I pushed back Draxum's alchemy area and gave him an actual medical bay in the back, which is where The Table would have been located.

That's mostly Gale's area on the left, I think it still broadly looks this way? I didn't put in stuff like the robotics table because it just looked silly-and besides, we're not actually playing this build. We know Galois only needs two hands and a welder to make a robot.

I will leave you off with a slightly more clutterfied Gale's room! Oh, but also, I GOT PURPLE CC CURTAINS FOR HIM. :D After I took this picture, but just know he has them now. He has no reason to have them because he does not have a window, but I'm happy for him.

[bisluthq]

You probably hit the nail on the head with Lucinda Riley, cause I have The Girl on the Cliff on my bookshelf even though I haven't read it yet 😂 good to know, it's likely I like it. I also have Afterlives on my wishlist, but haven't bought it just yet

I'll be sure to check the other authors, cause I have heard them by name but not sure if I explored in detail if their books interested me. I legit have a wishlist/want to read eventually, some I might buy others download of more than 600 books 🤡 I used to follow book Instagram accounts just to add new books and it got a bit out of control there

Also for a second there, I thought Mary Chamberlain could be related to Diane Chamberlain which I know off.

I always loved to read, but unfortunately over the last few years it has been kind of up and down. The thing is I have a bunch of things I like to do as hobbies and I get a bit obsessed and tunnel vision with one thing at a time. I kinda stopped reading for the most part, because I was more into series and anime for a while. Then in 2022 I read a bunch. Then in 2023 it fell apart again (it got worse because I wasn't invested in Taylor's fandom before that and I chose the worst time to get into it. So my focus in 2023 was very much on that whole trainwreck ngl. You know it's going to be ugly, but you just can't looks away). I'm trying to pick again this year (because I also don't want to be invested in Taylor as much anymore), but I think I'm a bit late already 🥴 but yeah I used this very healthy habit of reading atleast one hour a day and now I'm like I read once I remember and am in the mood for it. Which younger me would be deeply ashamed off 😂

I think it’s okay to get more/less into hobbies tbh! I also hate people who “read” as their personality ykwim? Like I read a lot generally and rn but I also fuck around a lot online and I listen to music and I cook and I do various kinds of exercise (I tend to get bored of doing one kind of thing after a while lol so I change those too), I try do my little drawings/sketches and stuff, I did drama/musical theatre when I was much younger and sometimes I think of doing like amateur productions (one of my sorta exes did that and she was encouraging me to join but I never did lol) or trying standup but then I think like that’s a big time commitment and kinda a bit lame idk, obviously I do writing (I do want to take it more seriously in terms of creative stuff I do again but eh I’m lazy), I like watching things lmao, I like doing little - sometimes big also - DIY projects, I really like playing Sims 4 and sometimes I like playing other video games with friends/siblings/my bf, I really dig board games idk man. There are so many fun things to do in the world that I just can’t imagine making one thing my whole personality and I don’t think any of us should. It’d be cool to have more hours in a day to do all the things we like doing more but also idk it’s fine to just do… what we like doing 😂🤷🏻‍♀️

[prokopetz]

I haven't played a game through since Witness, but the specificity of your recs made me feel interested and safe enough to try again, and I'm really enjoying Refunct and the Pedestrian! I was wondering if you had some recs for my 11 year old. He's REALLY into games where reality/physics work oddly - Recursed (which we got because of your rec!) and Portal. Monument Valley, Eva Explores, and some phone merge games. He also loves Minecraft and Witness, though the 'it's fake' ending makes him MAD.

I can see from your follow-up message that you already found a previous post of mine on the subject, so I'm going to focus on titles mentioned neither in that post nor in your request.

The first recent game that springs to mind for that particular set of criteria is 2019's Outer Wilds. (Not to be confused with the similarly named The Outer Worlds – the two were published less than six months apart, which sometimes leads to mixups!) It's a time-loop walking sim, similar to TIMEframe (recced in the linked post), in which a solar system is caught in a 22-minute loop where each each planet undergoes its own unique form of apocalyptic destruction, followed by the star itself going supernova. Because each planet's terrain changes over time due to its ongoing apocalypse, what you can access on that planet depends on what point in the loop you visit it.

The game’s ultimate goal is to figure out what’s causing the time loop, so expect to do a lot of reading ancient alien inscriptions and such. There's some orbital physics involved in travelling from planet to planet, but don't let that intimidate you – it's a lot more forgiving than it looks, unless you're keen to try out some speedrunning tech; as the game's 100% world record holder at the time of this posting aptly put it, gameplay in a casual playthrough consists principally of picking things up and putting them down.

I’m also going to plug The Talos Principle, which was mentioned but not discussed in the linked post. With respect to your son’s criteria, the operating principles of the game’s reality are fairly straightforward, but the nature of that reality is a delved into a fair bit. It’s sort of an inversion of The Witness’ big twist in that it’s made obvious right off the bat – at least to the player – that the reality you’re presented with is in some way artificial, and the mystery is more about who set things up this way and why, with a particular emphasis on how to reason and draw conclusions about such a world when you’re looking at it from the inside. I’m not sure if eleven is too young to be engaged by long-winded philosophical maundering about the Simulation Hypothesis and related topics, so I’ll let you be the judge there!

A few other, possibly somewhat less suitable candidates off the top of my head:

Antichamber – I don’t have much to say about this one; the trailer is self-explanatory, and anyone who enjoyed Disoriented and Portal will probably love this, too. Just watch out for motion sickness; if Manifold Garden didn’t make you queasy, you’ll have nothing to worry about here.  

The Gardens Between – A short point-and-click puzzler where you have very little direct control over the player characters, instead playing and rewinding a fixed sequence of events while making small changes to each iteration and watching how things play out differently in response – sort of like coming at a puzzle platformer from the opposite direction. No content warnings to speak of, though I find that younger players often find the story a lot sadder than I think the writers intended.  

GRIS – If side-scrolling platformers aren’t a dealbreaker, this may be one to check out. Beautiful artwork paired with a textless narrative that might best be described as “gently surreal”; in spite of the threatening appearance of certain creatures you encounter, it isn’t actually possible to die (though you can get roughed up a bit, so it’s not entirely non-violent). What the story is aiming for may be somewhat obscure to anyone who’s never experienced a death in the family, so I’d recommend it for younger gamers with that qualifier in mind.  

OneShot – Sort of like an old-school JRPG with no combat, this one’s premise is that the player character is the Messiah, which means they can talk to God, who is of course the player themselves. The puzzles take that fourth wall break as far as they possibly can, with solutions that variously involve restarting your save file, manipulating the size and position of the game window, reading and editing text files the game drops in different places on your hard drive, and at one point even running two copies of the game simultaneously.  

Perfect Vermin – A short, free-to-play first person title that initially appears to be about hunting down alien creatures that mimic office furniture and killing them with a sledgehammer. I probably don’t need to tell you that Shit Gets Weird. The subject matter may not be terribly relatable to an eleven-year-old, but a. it’s free, and b. a complete playthrough only takes about 20 minutes unless you’re achievement-hunting, so it’s no big loss if it misses the mark – maybe play it yourself first before passing on the rec. Content warning for heavy (albeit stylised) gore.  

Please Don’t Touch Anything – The player character is left alone with a mysterious control panel and sternly admonished not to touch anything; shenanigans immediately ensue. This one is focused almost entirely on achievement-hunting, with no overarching story to speak of (unless you count the 100% ending where it’s jokingly revealed that the panel is actually just a fancy coffee machine, anyway). It’s a great one if you just want to click stuff and see what happens. Content warnings for jump scares, the repeated extinction of all human life, and mild gore.  

The Swapper – A side-scrolling puzzle platformer from the same writer as The Talos Principle. This one’s a bit like a 2D Portal, except instead of a portal gun you have a cloning gun that can produce copies of yourself and (apparently) swap your consciousness among the clones. Another one that leavens relatively conventional gameplay with heavy philosophy, this time with a focus on the continuity of identity. Notable for having an ending that manages to be a total brainfuck in spite of carrying the story’s premise to its obvious and rigorously logical conclusion.

(Also, based on your described preferences this one’s more of a rec for you personally than for your son, so I’m not including it on the main list, but if you got a kick out of Refunct you definitely need to check out EQI, Self-described as “synthwave parkour”, with just enough of a physics-warping puzzle element to keep things interesting!)

[enhyupn]

paring: jake x gender neutral reader

disclaimer: this isn’t proof read so there might be som mistakes here and there :[

word count: 2.3k+

genre: fluff, just pure fluff + crack!?!? reader and jake are insanely oblivious

a/n i kinda realised this was centred around jungwon and sunoo messing around but! there is kinda some romance… anyways i wrote this on my other account and and this is pretty bad since i feel like the ending is rushed too T___T

yang jungwon and kim sunoo were taught to never, big emphasis on never, meddle in things that weren’t their business. however, it’s safe to say that the two threw away that lesson for something they found more important. and that was y/n and jake sim, their loving but yet so so oblivious friends. at the start, the blushing and giggling at each other’s terrible jokes were tease-worthy, maybe even cute? but now, it’s so unbearable and exhausting that even their homeroom teacher can’t even understand why they aren’t dating.

that’s why the two friends devised a plan, actually multiple plans. plan a, for when things will go smoothly. plan b, for when there’s a tiny bump in the road. plan c, for everything above have failed. three plans filled with clichés to get their friends to finally ask each other out, what could go wrong?

i. PLAN A

the plan was simple, a (fake) love confession placed inside the locker of an unsuspecting y/n. the contents of the letter were laughable, the pair having a good time trying to make jake sound childish and silly in his love letter.

“you’re making him look like a seven year old jungwon” sunoo told him in between laughs. “why did you draw this in crayon? you and i both know jake’s a muji pen user”. the two were standing right in front of y/n’s locker, both keeping an eye out to see if one of the two oblivious idiots were passing by.

“it’s all i had on me!” jungwon cried out as he eyed the end of the hallway, ‘okay hurry! the coast is clear no sign of dumb and dumber’.

sunoo, not really trusting jungwon’s eyes, takes a good look of their surroundings. he made sure to look out for sunghoon too as he tells jake everything, and that means everything. the boy will never forget about the time jake had teased him for telling a cashier to ‘keep the change’ when he still owed them thirty more cents, something only sunghoon was present for.

“okay” sunoo carefully slid in the love letter into the thin opening of y/n’s locker. “it’s in, hurry and hide! i swear their class ends in- ”.

“hurry!” the sound of the bell causing the two to run off in opposite directions, their hiding places letting them get a good view of the show they (technically) directed. the pair watched as y/n left their classroom, unsurprisingly with jake following closely behind them. the sickly sweet smiles plastered on their faces? the heart eyes? the giggling at every single word being said? they were in love, but the two fools were so oblivious to it.

eyes followed them as y/n headed to their locker, sunoo and jungwon couldn’t understand why they were sweating so much. was that a sign that their plan wouldn’t work? nah, it was bound to work. only someone incredibly stupid would not see the huge letter right in front of them-

“ready?” jungwon overheard jake speak. jungwon knew that sunoo was just as confused as he was. did they not see the love letter? it was so big and stupid looking that they couldn’t have missed it. maybe he shouldn’t of doubted the two, maybe they were as incredibly stupid as he had doubted them to be.

“yup!” y/n said cheerfully. sunoo could feel his forehead wrinkle in annoyance when he realised the two didn’t even acknowledge the letter, in that very moment he knew he had to make the next step.

“y/n! jake!” the boy walked up to the pair, jungwon’s eyes widened when he realised his partner left his hiding place, what is he doing? he watched as sunoo glanced over at him with a look that basically said ‘leave this to me!’.

“sunoo!” jake greeted him warmly, “i thought you had algebra now?”

“nope! i have a free period right now”

“oh, then why are you here?” jake sounded and felt confused, sunoo never visited him during free period unless he wanted something or he needed something. “i don’t have five dollars by the way”.

“i don’t need money! it’s kinda harsh that you think of me like that jake” sunoo pouted through his words. “i just wanted to say that i’m inviting everyone to my house tonight! since it’s a friday and we haven’t all seen each other in a while”.

“oh! that sounds fun” y/n replied with a cheery smile, “i’ll be there, well jake and i”. sunoo couldn’t help but notice the growing blush on the boy’s face at the sound of his name, gross.

“great, see you two tonight”

sunoo smirked as he waved the two off as they headed towards their next class. not forgetting jungwon, he signalled the boy towards him to tell him the rundown of what had just happened.

“so plan a was thrown away after a mere three minutes?” jungwon looked at sunoo confused.

“stop thinking it failed!” he rolled his eyes, “it didn’t! it just, helped us get on the next step”.

“so basically plan b is a go?”

“plan b is a go”.

ii. PLAN B

what could get more cliché than a movie night date? a scary movie night date. sunoo and jungwon both knew that this was the plan that was going to start the blossoming relationship of jake and y/n. the plan was simple, jake and y/n will obviously be sitting together and when a jump scare shows up, y/n will jump into his arms! sunoo bets that they’ll look at each other in the eyes and confess their feelings right then and there. jungwon bets the opposite, he thinks that they’ll awkwardly pull apart from each other, the rest of the night they won’t stop think about each other and when they walk home together that’s when they’ll simultaneously confess to each other!

“y/n! sit beside me!” a voice across the room caught the attention of the two boys. they knew for a fact it wasn’t the voice of jake, meaning it could be the only other person glued onto the other hip of y/n.

“ riki!” y/n flashed another smile, “of course”. the two boys watched as they left jake’s side to sit in the empty space beside the fifteen year old.

“what do we do now…” jungwon whisper shouted in sunoo’s ear. the boy flinched at the loud noise before swatting the boy away. the pair could tell that this plan wouldn’t work as well as they thought, maybe it was the dependance they had on clichés? maybe it was that the two were unpredictable at times? they didn’t know, all they knew was that they wanted all the credit for the (almost) new couple.

“don’t worry my good friend, i have the perfect plan” sunoo’s annoyed expression morphed into a smirk.

“you said that last time! now riki’s the one that’s gonna be in y/n’s arms during scary jump scares while jake is sitting crisscross applesauce right in front of them!” jungwon’s frowned, “if anything let me handle it”.

“do whatever you want but i’ll- ”

“riki!” a sudden voice in the room causes the bickering boys to turn their heads, “don’t you need help with your world history homework? you asked me if i could help you while they watch their movie”.

“i did?” riki replied in a rather confused voice.

“yes, you did” heeseung said through gritted teeth. the group of boys watched as the oldest lightly dragged the youngest into sunoo’s kitchen. y/n watched in concern, not knowing if they should help riki or scold heeseung for being so uptight during a movie night.

“can i sit here?” jungwon and sunoo squinted when they realised jake was asking the question. the two didn’t know why they felt butterflies over the simple question.

“sure!” another one of y/n’s signature smiles blinding the boy in front of them. “i mean now that riki’s been taken away! wait no- i didn’t mean it like that. obviously i want you to sit beside me- ”

“y/n it’s okay” y/n’s embarrassingly long spew sending a second hand embarrassment shiver down the two boy’s body. jake laughs quietly as he place’s himself down beside them, a growing blush placed on their ears and cheeks.

“do they both not realise the whole room is watching them?” jungwon whispered into sunoo’s ear. sunoo looked around and it was true, the scary movie was quickly replaced by the bashful (almost) couple.

“what are you two doing?” sunghoon joined their conversation. the boys jumped in surprise, not expecting him to even talk to them. everyone knew that sunghoon took movie night seriously, he would watch the movie without making a comment unlike his talkative friends and finish his night up researching the movie’s end and plot.

“talking about the movie obviously!” sunoo smiled innocently.

‘“liar” jay whispered, “we all know your little scheme, you never invite us over”.

“hey” jungwon whisper shouted at the group of boys surrounding him, interfering so the two wouldn’t start bickering. “wouldn’t jake and y/n get suspicious over the fact we are grouped together in the corner of the couch whispering to each other?”.

“dumb and dumber wouldn’t even notice if we threw a rock at their heads right now” the group glanced over at the pair, their stiff positions and the small i’m-in-love smiles plastered on their faces were enough proof that the two were in la la land.

“you guys meddled too?” jungwon tilted his head in confusion.

“why did you think riki was so confused when heeseung said he’d help him with world history?” sunghoon sighed, “he doesn’t even do world history!”.

“you could of told a better lie” sunoo rolled his eyes, ‘jungwon and i had an amazing plan- ”.

“but heeseung! i don’t even do world history, why do i need help with homework?” sunoo couldn’t understand why he kept getting interrupted.

“i guess it would of been smarter to let riki into our plan” jay rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“riki, i’ll explain! now get back in the kitchen, don’t you want to know who anne frank is?” riki and heeseung entered the room, heeseung with a frantic look on his face while riki looked annoyed.

“i know who anne frank is!” riki frowned, “you weren’t even asking me about world history anyways! you kept asking me about our dance club, the one we are both in”.

“i’ll talk about world history now! um, world war one?”

“wait” riki squinted his eyes at the jake and y/n, who were sitting rather close. ignoring the oldest’s question, he walked closer to the pair.

“what is he doing…” jungwon whispered.

“are you two dating?” the sudden question from the youngest’s mouth caused y/n to flinch in their seat.

“oh my god” sunoo blurted out.

“did he just start plan c without even knowing what plan c was?”.

iii. PLAN C

plan c, or what the two boys would like to call it, plan confirmation. the final plan if all things went wrong, in all honesty nothing in plan b went wrong. however the curiosity of nishimura riki quickened the pace up. the contents of the plan were simple, straight up asking the pair if they were dating. it was a simple but not so romantic way to start dating, and that was the main reason it was the ‘if all else fails’ plan.

“no” the group of boys didn’t know that one word could shock them, i mean they saw it coming due to the fact they were completely oblivious but they didn’t know it would shake them up this much.

“no it’s okay you can tell them y/n” jake’s words only shocked the boys even more, their eyes widening in surprise to hear the almost confirmation of their relationship.

“what do you mean? you said the letter in my locker wasn’t from you?”

“it doesn’t mean i don’t don’t like you?” jake said confidently.

“wait…” jungwon stared at the two, “you found our letter?”.

“jungwon! you weren’t supposed to say it out loud” sunoo scolded him through gritted teeth.

“shut up” jay whispered in their ears, “something’s gonna happen i can feel it”.

everyone could notice the red tinge on jake’s ears. they watched as he rubbed the back of his neck while y/n stared at him in utter confusion.

“i like you, y/n” the blushing boy said quietly but just loud enough that they could hear it. “i swear i was going to confess in a better way but i’m kinda under pressure right now…”

“oh?” y/n tilted their head to the side, “i thought you rejected me?”

“i did?” jake looked as confused as everyone else in the room.

“you told me on new year’s eve to wait and i thought that was you letting me down easy”.

“you did?” the bewildered look in jake’s eyes confused y/n even more.

“that’s why you left early?”

“i feel like they needed to speak about this a while ago” sunoo whispered into jungwon’s ear.

“it doesn’t matter now! what matters is that i like you too” y/n smiled happily.

“oh” jake let out in surprise.

“this is way more sickly than i thought this moment was gonna be” jay mumbled bitterly.

“so you two are dating?” riki asked, not really processing what had just happened.

“are we?” jake turned to y/n.

“yes”

maybe the plans a to c did work? i mean if it wasn’t for the help of the meddling jungwon and sunoo did, the almost couple turned into a real couple. the pair in all honesty really didn’t care that much, they were just happy they got the real thing they wanted.

the satisfaction knowing that they were the ones that played wingmen.

“thanks riki, i couldn’t of done it without you” jake smiled at the youngest.

or maybe, this was gonna be a long night.

[thran-duils]

Lost In Zero Gravity (P.12)

Title: Lost In Zero Gravity (Part Twelve) Summary:  Fem!Reader x Mob Boss!Tony Stark x Mob Boss!Steve Rogers.  Reader is a call girl who runs high end parties. She catches the attention of Tony Stark who invites her back to his room with his friend. She might have performed too well because she becomes their new favorite play toy and they don’t like to share. Words: 5,997 Warnings (for the fic in entirety): Smut, prostitution, infidelity, angst, domestic violence, stalking, possessive behavior Author’s Note: This is longer than normal, my b. And did I also just watch Iron Man 2 recently? Maybe. Also, I can’t help but to mention Pepper because I love her so much. Even if it’s off to the side. She’s still a queen. I also apologize for the French because I used google translate.

Part Eleven || Part Thirteen || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

One of their guys – Dasco, you had been briefly introduced to, you had not seen him before tonight – was waiting outside the car since he was sitting in the middle row of seats and had to put the seat forward to let you into the back. You had no desire to sit in between Steve and Tony again after what they had just subjected you to. As you approached the car, you did not break stride as you shoved the seat back so you were able to maneuver your way into the middle set of seats in front of them and you settled into the center one.

Dasco made no move to get into the car beside you you saw out of your peripherals as you reached to grab your seatbelt. You heard movement from your left side where Steve was sitting but it stilled all of a sudden.

“Y/N,” you heard Tony start dangerously from the right. “You’ve got ten seconds to rethink that and get your ass back here.”

You considered ignoring him and buckling your seatbelt. But you thought of Dasco – or even worse, one of them – dragging you from the car in front of your grandma who could still plainly see the SUV in the driveway. Exhaling annoyed, you stiffly got up and got back out of the car. Dasco flipped the seat forward again and you peered into the back where Steve and Tony were waiting. Steve’s hand on his knee was taut, his stare hard; your first obstacle into the back seat was getting past him. You crawled in, him not moving an inch, causing you to have to drag your ass across his legs in the process. You plopped into the center seat between them, snug as a bug.

Tony patted your leg, “Good choice. See? Goes so much better when the rules are followed.”

You said nothing not trusting yourself to be calm, digging your hand down by Steve’s thigh to grab the seatbelt clicker. He was still unmoving, and you held back a scowl having to dig deeper, brushing his ass. Clicking your seatbelt in place, you sat back, staring at nothing. You wiped at your eyes again, trying to clean up your mascara.

Tony was already on his tablet, working on something. You could not make heads or tails of what he did, so you did not even bother trying to pay attention. You snuck a look and saw Steve was looking at his stocks. Typical. Bending forward, you grabbed your purse and got your phone out. Opening up your décor app, you set to trying to distract yourself with it.

“Y/N, I think you also owe Terrence an apology,” Steve told you firmly. “Just so you make all the amends you need to for your stupid actions as of late.”

Your gaze snapped to the review mirror where you saw Terrence peering at you from the driver’s seat. He was not going to move the car until you did as you had been told.

“I’m sorry for drugging you,” you said stiffly. “You were an innocent bystander.”

You noticed Tony’s lips twitch like he was going to smirk, amused. He hid it though when he saw he had drawn your attention.

A few moments of silence passed before Terrence replied, “At least you gave me some good vodka to bring me down.”

<><><>

You fell asleep along the drive, waking up with your head resting on Steve’s shoulder, much to your annoyance. You had purposely fallen asleep with your head back on the seat, but you must have rolled to the side. You rolled away from him, trying to make as much space as possible which was virtually impossible, but you tried, nonetheless. Steve cracked his eyes open to side eye you, having dozed off himself.

Looking out the windows, you noticed you were back in the city, very close to home.

Picking up your purse, you dug in. Your brow furrowed as your hand searched not finding what you were digging for.

“Looking for something?” Steve asked dryly, eyes fully open now.

Settling back into the seat, you asked tightly, “Can I have my phone back?” On cue, Tony handed you a phone, but it was not your phone. Irritated, you said, “This isn’t mine.”

“It is now,” Tony answered. “Your SIM card is in this one now, it’s just under my plan. It was hell tracking you down with your other one. Thankfully, Tatiana doesn’t like her shit being broken and your grandma was nice enough to tell Daryl what club you were at. But I will not be wasting my time or energy like that again even with that help.”

You rounded on him as much as you could in the confined space and demanded, “What did you do to Tatiana?”

Tony shrugged, “Nothing to her. Just broke some shit. Like I said.” Clenching your teeth, you stared down at the new phone. Tony reached over tapping it, “Like I said, everything’s in there from your old phone.” Tears stung your eyes and you sat back defeated. “Love, come on. It was just a phone.”

“I liked my old phone case,” you said pathetically. That was true and it would not fit this new phone. But it definitely went deeper. Your phone was one thing that had been yours and yours alone. You had paid for it yourself, you had your own plan, it was something independent.

“Then order it again but sized to this,” Tony said flippantly. “It’s not that hard, Y/N.”

“I don’t want to do that! I want my phone!” you exclaimed, on the brink of absolutely losing it. You tossed the phone past your legs onto the ground in frustration.

“Stop being a brat. It’s not cute,” Steve snapped from beside you, his hand coming to your thigh and his fingers digging in painfully. “Now pick up that damn phone and stop with the dramatics. I’ve frankly had my fill of them. You’ve reached your quota, Y/N. Reel it back in now.” Steve was burning a hole through you with how he was staring at you and you tore your gaze away from him, bending forward and swiping the phone off the ground. His voice was taut when he spat, “Thank you.”

Tony picked up your purse for you from the ground and held out his hand. You handed the phone to him and he placed it inside and tossed the purse onto your lap.

Thankfully, Daryl pulled up along the sidewalk outside of the apartment building to end the situation.

Steve let go of you as the doors to the sidewalk opened, Dasco and the other, Raphael, getting out before Raphael let the seat up to let Tony crawl out. You began to follow him, but Steve grabbed you roughly again, stilling your movement before you could get fully out of the seat.

“Lucky for you and that pussy of yours, I’m needed back at home,” he fumed.

You were silent, seeing the anger swimming in his eyes. He was furious about the whole ordeal, that was apparent.

“Behave for Tony.”

You only had a moment to ponder what that meant before the back opened where your bag was and Daryl dug in, invading the bubble Steve and you had been holding. He let go of you and settled back in the seat, his glare still directed at you. You inhaled sharply before resuming your exit of the car.

Tony led you inside the apartment building past the doorman and the front desk to the elevator. He was carrying your bag, Daryl stopping in the lobby at the desk to flirt with the front desk receptionist as he usually did. You were sure he was banging her. Terrence got into the elevator with the two of you. Again, Tony’s hand was at the small of your back leading you down the hall from the elevator to the apartment, keeping you on the path. His keys jangled as he let the two of you into the apartment, pushing you in ahead of him. Your eyes scanned the room – nothing had changed. It had only been a few days, so that should not be much of a shock. But you certainly felt trapped again, knowing you were stuck back in here. There was no way they were going to give you your apartment key back.

Luna meowed from one of her cat towers at you, drawing your attention. Tony was at your back and he said, “Oh yeah, got her back. That cat is also mine, so maybe consult me next time, yeah?”

He left your back, moving down the hallway towards the bedroom. It was early in the morning and you just wanted to go back to sleep. You turned, following him down the hallway to the bedroom lethargically.

There was a travel bag on one of the side chairs by the window and you furrowed your brow because it was not yours. Tony was holding yours as he placed it on the other chair.

Tony turned around, spotting your confused look. He cleared his throat and then said, “Oh, right. Sorry. I’m staying here for a while. Giving the missus some space until she decides to stop being a bitch. Looks like we are bunking together.”

The last thing you wanted to do was to sleep next to him.

“I’ll take the couch then,” you muttered, turning around tiredly.

You heard him coming up behind you quickly and his hands closing in on your waist and arm stopped you, pulling you flush to him. Nuzzling into your neck he said, “Come on, love. Cross my heart, won’t touch you once we are in there settled in. We can both sleep in the bed. Soundly and sweetly. I won’t even complain if you wake up in the middle of the night and turn the TV on because you can’t sleep.”

You hated he knew you so well.

He laid a soft kiss on your cheek and you went rigid. He noticed, sighing heavily. His hand at your arm left, but his one at your hip lingered, his fingers circling softly.

“You’re upset. That’s okay. But you can sleep in the bed with me. There’s enough space. Right? It’s a king.”

Remembering Steve’s threat, you gritted, “Yeah.”

“Good girl,” Tony praised softly, letting his other hand fall. He moved around you towards the door. “I’m going to get ready for bed. I’ll join you shortly.”

He left the room and you turned back towards the bed, staring at it. He must have been already staying here because the bed was unmade – you had left it made, a habit. His wife must have kicked him out the day of and he had come here for safe haven. Your eyes fell to the end of the bed, thinking of you cowering there when his wife had assaulted you. You could not think about that. Tearing your eyes away, you moved towards your dresser, going to fetch some clean boxers to change into.

You got onto your side, your back to him trying to be as far away from his as possible whenever he got back from the bathroom.

When he walked back in, he turned the light off, shrouding the room in darkness. The bed dipped with his added weight on the other side, the comforter shifting as he covered himself. He was keeping his word though, staying on his side of the bed, adjusting the pillows. You relaxed only slightly, hoping it would stay that away, that he was not going to force anything onto you. Especially not after all the shit that had happened earlier tonight.

The room was quiet, the two of your breaths filling the space. You shifted, burying yourself further into your pillows, trying to will yourself to fall asleep. For how tired you were, you had worked yourself back up again.

Tony broke the silence, “I am sorry.”

Your eyes popped open at the sentence, your brow furrowed in confusion. Unable to help yourself, you turned your head to look at him. His hands were folded behind his head, his upper chest exposed. When he felt you move, his head turned to meet your gaze. “About my wife being a psycho and having you in that position. And with your grandma. That went… a little far.” You refrained from saying anything despite all the expletives you wanted to hurl at him at the emotions all of those memories brought up. He respected your silent treatment and did not press you to respond, “Just thought that needed to be said. Feels it was owed if you know what I mean.”

Not knowing how else to respond to it, you said quietly, “Thanks.”

He nodded, turning his head back and closing his eyes.

Confused immensely by that turn of events, you slowly turned back over, tucking your pillow back underneath your head. Silence blanketed the room again and you knew that was really the good night.

<><><>

Groggily, Tony walked into the kitchen, shirt still missing and in his boxer briefs, finding you working already on food for dinner. You pointed at the counter and said, “The jam and peanut butter are already out if you want to make yourself some toast.”

“No, too early,” Tony grumbled walking over to the counter. He furrowed his brow and asked, “Where’s the coffee?”

“In the bag.”

“Then what roused me from sleep?”

“Probably the cold bed,” you quipped not turning around as you poured more spices into the bowl you were using to collect them all.

You felt his eyes burning into the back of your head as you moved to pull the chicken from the fridge. As you approached the island again, you looked at him, finding him staring at you as you suspected. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said before moving to go make himself coffee.

He poured out his serving into the coffee filter and pressed start. Coming back over to the island, he watched you put the chicken breast into the bag and pour some soy sauce, fresh garlic, and vegetable oil over it.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a marinade.” Tony looked surprised and you said, “You tell me to buy groceries and then are confused when I do something with them?”

“Love, attitude,” Tony tsked. He peered towards the spice bowl you were working with. “What spices are you using?”

“Cloves, fennel, cinnamon, anise, cayenne, nutmeg, salt, pepper, thyme. It’s not the exact recipe but I like it more.”

He rose his brows and muttered, “Jesus. Who knew you were a little chef?”

“Happens when you have a parent who has cooking for a hobby. Rubs off on you. Do you want me to thaw you a piece in the microwave – cause sorry, I thawed mine in the fridge overnight – and add it to the bag for dinner?”

That comment amused him and he cracked a smirk, leaning on the counter. “You sound like a proper housewife, dear.”

“Well, it would be rude of me to not offer to make you some when I’m already making it for myself,” you told him honestly as you moved the wet ingredients around the chicken already in the bag.

His fingers traced your hip lightly watching you. “Are you going to poison me?”

“What good would that do me to poison myself as well in the process?” you deadpanned, looking at him.

Tony’s lips stretched into a smile and he chortled. “You’re lucky I’m not as high strung as our friend Steven.”

Swallowing your pride, you turned your body more towards him, pressing against him. “Is that a yes or no? Just so it can all marinade together in the same bag. I wanna throw the spices in over all the chicken I’m going to be cooking with.”

Tony’s gaze fell to your cleavage exposed through your silk robe before trailing back up to your face. He smiled again, leaning in and giving you a slow kiss. You were tense but tried to force yourself to relax.

“Impress me,” Tony winked before pulling away to go pour himself some coffee.

“Where’s Steve?”  you asked, your curiosity getting the better of you as you moved the spices around now.

“Busy wooing his wife. He took her on a trip,” Tony answered you honestly.

So, the trip he had mentioned to your grandma had not been a lie. You were just not invited. That made you even more upset with him if possible. You made a disgruntled noise as Tony poured his coffee.

“Well, I’m gonna wanna grill these upstairs tonight. So, when are you going to be home or can one of the guys take me up to the roof to do so?”

Tony took a drink of his coffee and shrugged. “If you’re actually going to make me dinner, I’ll be home whenever you tell me to.”

“Seven then.”

He winked again, “Seven it is” before he turned, taking his coffee back down the hallway. “I’m gonna lay in bed and watch the news.”

You watched him leave, your eyes narrowing. He was acting normal… like nothing had happened. That set you on edge, but you decided it was better to play along with it. Maybe he was really trying to make amends.

<><><>

The following evening, you heard the bathroom door open as you were showering, and saw Tony enter. The shower was an open one, only a pane of glass on half, the opening walk in. The glass pane was fogged up but you could still see him as he began to strip as soon as the door was closed behind him. You walked over to the opening, running your hands through your wet hair to greet him but you stepped back seeing the blood on his shirt as he took it off.

He noticed you were staring, and he shrugged the shirt off, tossing it onto the ground.

“That was a long time coming for that complete waste of space,” Tony told you, sounding unperturbed. He offered, “Would it make you feel better if I washed my hands first before getting in?”

“Yes,” you said warily.

He shrugged and turned towards the sink, turning the water on. You watched his back muscles work as he scrubbed at his hands, washing them not twice but three times for you. Your eyes fell to the shirt again, taking in the blood splattered across it.

“I’m gonna burn it, don’t worry,” he told you catching your attention again as he wiped his hands on his trousers to dry them. Those went off next and he kicked off his socks. He must have left his shoes at the door. He gestured at you to move back and you did, allowing him access into he shower. He hissed against the water temperature and said, “Do you like to feel like you’re in hell?”

He pressed flush against you, his gaze burning into yours as he reached behind you to adjust the water temperature.

“That’s better. Jesus,” he muttered, lingering against you. “It was like you were trying to melt away.”

“I like it hot,” you retorted.

“Me too,” he chuckled, leaning down and kissing you. “Just in different ways.”

You rolled your eyes and turned away from him, but his arms wrapped around you, pulling you back to his chest.

“You were made to be worshipped,” Tony husked, his lips trailing along your shoulder, ending at your neck. His hands ran up between your breasts, cupping them tightly. He squeezed at your nipples as he sucked at your neck.

How hands that had murdered someone were so compassionate with you was beyond you.

“Tony, I need to condition my hair—” you started to argue, trying to free yourself from his grasp.

“You have dry conditioner. And don’t lie to me, I’ve seen it in the cupboard above the sink,” he argued back, his hand slipping down to your sex, his fingers pressing past your folds. “And if it’s that important, you can finish cleaning up after. I know I’m going to have to.”

Knowing he was not going to relent, you yielded to his touch, falling back into his embrace. He hummed in approval, his fingers diving deeper, squeezing at your clit gently. You pressed back against his pelvis and he chuckled, his lips trailing soft kisses up your shoulder. He played with your sex, dragging his fingers up and down, working you up.

“Gotta get you good and wet for me, right, baby?” You nodded in approval and he laughed, nipping at your neck, his other hand taut around your throat. “But not too much. I want that pretty pussy clenching around my cock, not my fingers.”

Tony shut the water off. “Don’t need any slipping hazards here.”

Pressing back, you presented to him, hating giving into your desire so soon, but also wanting the release he had started to press you towards. Tony let out a throaty chuckle, his hand trailing up your ass before he smacked, causing you to gasp. He smacked again and you let out another noise. “You’re so adorable, love.”

His cock dragged up your ass, pressing your cheeks against his cock. He slid up and down, exhaling shakily. “How are you so perfect?” he breathed, his hand coming back up to snake around your neck, the other at your hip.

He entered slowly and you breathed steadily as his hand flexed on your neck as his cock slid deeper. He was fully seated inside you and you shuddered, dipping your head. You clenched around him, trying to will him to move but he ignored it. He was still, holding you in place as you held him inside you.

“You like that? Being full of my cock?” he husked, his hand tightening on your hip. You nodded fervently, just wanting him to move, to do anything. His chest pressed against your back and his lips brushed your ear, “Say it.”

“Yes, I love it. Tony, Jesus, please just fuck me!”

He let out a laugh before he pulled out, his head almost leaving you before he slammed back in, jolting you against the wall. Your fingers dug into the tile as he drove up into you repeatedly with all his force. You were not quiet, falling into the rhythm of him thrusting into you and feeling his cock brush your g spot. You adjusted your hips trying to get him to hit it more and he laughed, getting the gist of what you were doing.

“Oh baby, you know the best angle for that is you face down.”

In a fluid motion, his hand fell from your throat and he pulled out of you. You whined in disapproval.

“Don’t be disappointed yet, love,” he told you, his hand coming to your shoulder and forcing you to your knees. “Get that ass up for me.”

You immediately did as he asked, and you felt him prodding at your entrance before he slipped back in. You cried out as he hit you full on and he groaned in approval hearing your praise. His hands were gripping your hips as he plummeted, impaling you against the tile of the bed of the shower. He was unrelenting, as if he was letting out the last week’s of pent up lust right into you. And you were relishing in it, racing.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you gasped feeling yourself spiraling quick.

“Come for me, baby,” Tony demanded, his hip snapping quicker.

That was all the permission you needed. You did as he ordered, your walls constricting and animalistic cries leaving your lips. Tony growled in approval, his thrusts becoming shallow. And he released, holding up your limp frame as he emptied inside you.

His grip laxed and you collapsed further into the tile, still trying to bring your own heart rate down.

“Shit,” he breathed after a minute, fully pulling away, leaving his cum dripping out of you. He stood up, stretching his body out.

You followed his lead and he helped you get to steady grounding. His nose nuzzled into your neck again and he walked with you towards the front of the shower, you letting him guide you. He pulled the handle, turning the water back on, thankfully at a reasonable temperature.

“Let’s clean ourselves up,” he murmured, kissing at your cheek, still holding you tight.

Tony pulled you back into the line of water, still holding you close. He reached behind him, grabbing the bar soap and he foamed his hands in front of you with the soap before placing it back. His hands ran up and down your frame, cupping and dipping, lathering you up. You relaxed, letting him clean you. His hands snaked between your legs and he cleaned himself from between your thighs.

Turning around, you looked up at him and he smiled, his hands coming around to massage at your ass. The water dripped around you, cleansing the soap from your frame. He rinsed his hands of the soap.

He broke the silence by saying, “The trip got moved up. We’re going to leave tomorrow.”

“Excuse me?” you asked confused.

He wiped at the water running down his face and said, “The trip. The one Steve told you about at your grandma’s – sorry, I know, still a sore subject. But the one planned for you.”

“But… he’s on a trip. Without me.”

Tony cocked an eyebrow and asked, “Yeah, he is. Which is why you’re coming with me on mine. Just to keep an eye on you and all, love.” He did not trust to leave you here by yourself apparently. So, not only were you not allowed to have your key again, you could not spend copious amounts of time here alone if they were not in the city. He grabbed the soap and lathered up his hands again, for himself now you guessed. “It’s gonna be four days. Although, about 26 hours will be spent on a plane. But Monaco.”

“Monaco…?”

Washing his chest, Tony nodded. “Mhmm.”

“Where is that?”

“Oh, southside of France. Little country.”

“For what?”

“That’s not anything you have to worry your pretty little head about,” Tony purred, his lips meeting yours again sensually. He pulled away and started washing himself down. “When we get back though, I will be going on another trip but that’s with the kids. So, you’ll stay here but Steve will be back by then. And I’ll tell him to be nice to you like he should be. He’ll behave himself, trust me, love.”

He winked at you before adjusting the shower head to aim more towards his body.

<><><>

You walked through the bar, Tony stopping you to pause at the camera. “Smile, baby,” he ordered you through his teeth and you did as he asked, trying to be natural. He guided you along further and whispered, “Well, that’s not going to make the missus happy. But, I should have assumed paparazzi would be here. I mean it is a highly publicized race.” Your eyes moved to the windows, looking out over the racetrack. “I did come here to speak business though.”

Since you had arrived in France, it had been getting off Tony’s plane, into a car, driving here, and sleeping. When you had been roused, it was to get ready and get yourself preened for this event. Tony had given you a bodycon red dress to put on for the event and he had winked at you when he said it was his color.

He brought you to the bar and his hand was flat against your hip, holding you to his side.

“Mimosa?” he asked quietly. “It is only 10:30 and that won’t draw too many suspicions.”

You met his gaze and said, “Vodka.”

His face broke into a smile and he chuckled, “That’s my girl” as the bartender came in front of him. “A screwdriver for my lovely date here and bourbon straight.”

When the two of you turned around, there was a man standing there with two men behind him.

“Laurie, I didn’t expect to see you but what a wonderful surprise,” Tony said politely, not being one to be caught off guard so easily. “You do have a racer today though, do you not? What a coincidence, so do I.”

The man he addressed, Laurie, shot a look at you before meeting Tony’s eyes again. He said something in French to Tony that you could not understand. They had a small conversation that got tighter the longer it went on and you were growing uncomfortable with each passing second with the growing tension. You took a long drink of your screwdriver.

Laurie’s eyes ran over you again lewdly and he said something to Tony that had Tony smile but there was no humor in his eyes. His fingers held tighter at your hip at it. His tone was frigid when he responded, “Vous pouvez parier que je ne perdrai pas car c’est mon jouet préféré.” (You can bet I won’t lose because its my favorite toy)

In response to Tony’s cold response, Laurie’s lips stretched across his lips in a challenging smile.

Turning his gaze back to you, Laurie said, in English, “You should hope Stark wins.”

Shooting Tony a dangerous look, he snapped his fingers at the men behind him before walking off, them following him.

Tony let out an annoyed breath and took a long drink of his bourbon, smacking his lips. “Fucking prick,” he muttered.

“Something wrong?”

“No. Nothing. Rival boss. He owns Blanchet Industries.”

“You’re lying. Something went wrong,” you accused him.

Tony turned his head to look at you and you stared back expectantly. He could not lie to you about that, it was plain as day something had transpired.

Seeing your defiance, he shrugged. “He’s mad I’m meeting with the man I am meeting with later. And he wanted to bet on the race.”

“Okay?”

“It’s not a big deal, love,” he said. “I’ll win. I’ll make sure of it.”

You did not like the sound of that but you followed his lead as he began to walk. He took a long drink of his bourbon again. The two of you approached a table with three people you had not seen before. You looked over your shoulder, not seeing any of Tony’s men in the room anymore. They had left the two of you at the door; were you to be that protected in this room? You felt some relief though the moment you saw Daryl coming through the crowd towards the table.

Pulling one of the chairs out from the table, Tony gestured for you to sit, tapping your ass.

“Nice of you to finally show up,” one of the men said, sitting rigid in his chair.

“Nice to see you too, Rhodey,” Tony responded as you sat down. He pushed your chair in and finished off his bourbon before placing it on the table. “I need to use the restroom. Love, this is Rhodey, Pepper, and Happy. Just sit tight with them. I’ll be back before you know it.”

He kissed the top of your head and strode off before you could even get a word out. Gaping like a fish, you watched him walk off. You felt the air shift beside you and Daryl was sitting down at the table.

“Daryl,” the other man – Happy, you assumed – greeted him.

“Happy,” he said in return.

You looked around the table and found Rhodey was the only one giving you a friendly smile out of the three. You settled back into the chair, putting your clutch on the table. You took another deep drink of your screwdriver.

“How are you enjoying Monaco?” Rhodey asked you, trying to make small talk. You leaned into it, trying to find some comfortability about being thrust at this table with people you did not know.

And it went well enough until Pepper gasped from across the table, leaning onto it. You followed her gaze to the TV, seeing Tony was on the TV. Your eyes bugged seeing he was in a racing suit. He had not told you he was going to be racing and you watched in shock as the roster flew up on the screen and the original driver’s name was replaced with his.

“Did he tell you he was going to do this?” Pepper demanded at Daryl.

Daryl shook his head, “No, ma’am.”

On the TV, Tony was telling the interviewers, “What’s the use of having and owning a race car… if you don’t drive it?”

“I’m gonna kill him.” Pepper breathed from across the table. “If he doesn’t kill himself, I’m going to kill him.”

You sat there in shock watching him getting geared up and into the racecar. Spotting a waiter, you reached out, stopping their movement. “Um, can I get shots for the table? Two for me, actually.” The waiter nodded and walked off. You looked back at everyone and saw their expressions. “What? He drives me insane too. Just let me handle it the way I do best.”

You looked back at the TV seeing him pull away from the pit stop.

Laurie’s words from just a handful of minutes before came back to you.

You should hope Stark wins.

Your fingers were digging into the back of your chair as you were glued to the screen. You only turned away when the shots came back and you rifled one down your throat. Your knuckles were pale the whole race, your hands gripping the chair. You only relaxed when you saw him come in third, two cars before Blanchet Industries’ car.

Tony hopped out of his car, waving at the cameras, looking triumphant. You turned back to the table and took the other shot. You noticed everyone else’s original shot glasses were empty too and at least you had done them that solid of giving them some liquid relaxation even if they had not taken the shots with you.

When he came back up to the table, he was back in his suit.

Pepper hopped from the table and got in his face, hissing at him, pushing him away from the table, and he was talking quietly back to her. The two of them were suspended in argument and you watched curiously.

Daryl leaned over and said, “She’s CEO now of Stark Industries. She’s gonna have to do some PR on this.”

Tony did not seem to calm her down, but he found an avenue to get out of the conversation which looked like basically just walking out of it. He came over to your chair and said, “Come on, Y/N. We have a private pool back at the villa. I need to relax. I got pretty tense during that race.”

Stumbling out of the chair because he was pulling you, you steadied yourself, throwing a look back at Daryl who shrugged as he got out of the car to follow the two of you. You matched Tony’s stride, moving past the paparazzi.

Out on the patio, you demanded, “You really threw everyone off guard and for what? Why did you have to win so badly? Why did you race?”

“Because he wanted to win you if I lost,” Tony responded out of the corner of his mouth as you walked down the stairs.

You stopped, causing him to stumble for once. He turned back to look at you as it clicked he had put your ass on the line because of his fucking ego? He could have told the guy to fuck off but he had accepted that bet? And then just raced?

Scoffing, you pushed away from his side, glaring up at him, rage tearing up inside you.

Tony’s expression melted to vexation, knowing the contempt rising up in you, “Y/N, sweetheart…”

“You’re an asshole!” you snapped at him before turning sharply and storming away from him towards the car where Terrence was waiting.

~~~

Forever tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld

Fic tags: @icant-hangout-imdrumming @oceaniamaddness @multifandom-superlover @imsonick @holl2712 @here4thefanfics

[luvhypen]

wingmen!

paring: jake x gender neutral reader

disclaimer: this is my first fic in a while and also this isn’t proof read :[

word count: 2.3k+

genre: fluff, just pure fluff

a/n i kinda realised this was centred around jungwon and sunoo messing around but! there is kinda some romance... anyways i hope this isn’t too bad :)

yang jungwon and kim sunoo were taught to never, big emphasis on never, meddle in things that weren’t their business. however, it’s safe to say that the two threw away that lesson for something they found more important. and that was y/n and jake sim, their loving but yet so so oblivious friends. at the start, the blushing and giggling at each other’s terrible jokes were tease-worthy, maybe even cute? but now, it’s so unbearable and exhausting that even their homeroom teacher can’t even understand why they aren’t dating.

that’s why the two friends devised a plan, actually multiple plans. plan a, for when things will go smoothly. plan b, for when there’s a tiny bump in the road. plan c, for everything above have failed. three plans filled with clichés to get their friends to finally ask each other out, what could go wrong?

i. PLAN A

the plan was simple, a (fake) love confession placed inside the locker of an unsuspecting y/n. the contents of the letter were laughable, the pair having a good time trying to make jake sound childish and silly in his love letter.

‘you’re making him look like a seven year old jungwon’ sunoo told him in between laughs. ‘why did you draw this in crayon? you and i both know jake’s a muji pen user’. the two were standing right in front of y/n’s locker, both keeping an eye out to see if one of the two oblivious idiots were passing by.

‘it’s all i had on me!’ jungwon cried out as he eyed the end of the hallway, ‘okay hurry! the coast is clear no sign of dumb and dumber’.

sunoo, not really trusting jungwon’s eyes, takes a good look of their surroundings. he made sure to look out for sunghoon as well as he tells jake everything, and that means everything. the boy will never forget about the time jake had teased him for telling a cashier to “keep the change” when he still owed them thirty more cents, something only sunghoon was present for.

‘okay’ sunoo carefully slid in the love letter into the thin opening of y/n’s locker. ‘it’s in, hurry and hide! i swear their class ends in-’.

‘hurry!’ the sound of the bell causing the two to run off in opposite directions, their hiding places letting them get a good view of the show they (technically) directed. the pair watched as y/n left their classroom, unsurprisingly with jake following closely behind them. the sickly sweet smiles plastered on their faces? the heart eyes? the giggling at every single word being said? they were in love, but the two fools were so oblivious to it.

eyes followed them as y/n headed to their locker, sunoo and jungwon couldn’t understand why they were sweating so much. was that a sign that their plan wouldn’t work? nah, it was bound to work. only someone incredibly stupid would not see the huge letter right in front of them-

‘ready?’ jungwon overheard jake speak. jungwon knew that sunoo was just as confused as he was. did they not see the love letter? it was so big and stupid looking that they couldn’t have missed it. maybe he shouldn’t of doubted the two, maybe they were as incredibly stupid as he had doubted them to be.

‘yup!’ y/n said cheerfully. sunoo could feel his forehead wrinkle in annoyance when he realised the two didn’t even acknowledge the letter, in that very moment he knew he had to make the next step.

‘y/n! jake!’ the boy walked up to the pair, jungwon’s eyes widened when he realised his partner left his hiding place, what is he doing? he watched as sunoo glanced over at him with a look that basically said “leave this to me!”.

‘sunoo!’ jake greeted him warmly, ‘i thought you had algebra now?’

‘nope! i have a free period right now’

‘oh, then why are you here?’ jake sounded and felt confused, sunoo never visited him during free period unless he wanted something or he needed something. ‘i don’t have five dollars by the way’.

‘i don’t need money! it’s kinda harsh that you think of me like that jake’ sunoo pouted through his words. ‘i just wanted to say that i’m inviting everyone to my house tonight! since it’s a friday and we haven’t all seen each other in a while’.

‘oh! that sounds fun’ y/n replied with a cheery smile, ‘i’ll be there, well jake and i’. sunoo couldn’t help but notice the growing blush on the boy’s face at the sound of his name, whipped.

‘great, see you two tonight’

sunoo smirked as he waved the two off as they headed towards their next class. not forgetting jungwon, he signalled the boy towards him to tell him the rundown of what had just happened.

‘so plan a was thrown away after a mere three minutes?’ jungwon looked at sunoo confused.

‘stop thinking it failed!’ he rolled his eyes, ‘it didn’t! it just, helped us get on the next step’.

‘so basically plan b is a go?’

‘plan b is a go’.

ii. PLAN B

what could get more cliché than a movie night date? a scary movie night date. sunoo and jungwon both knew that this was the plan that was going to start the blossoming relationship of jake and y/n. the plan was simple, jake and y/n will obviously be sitting together and when a jump scare shows up, y/n will jump into his arms! sunoo bets that they’ll look at each other in the eyes and confess their feelings right then and there. jungwon bets the opposite, he thinks that they’ll awkwardly pull apart from each other, the rest of the night they won’t stop think about each other and when they walk home together that’s when they’ll simultaneously confess to each other!

‘y/n! sit beside me!’ a voice across the room caught the attention of the two boys. they knew for a fact it wasn’t the voice of jake, meaning it could be the only other person glued onto the other hip of y/n.

‘riki!’ y/n flashed another smile, ‘of course’. the two boys watched as they left jake’s side to sit in the empty space beside the fifteen year old.

‘what do we do now...’ jungwon whisper shouted in sunoo’s ear. the boy flinched at the loud noise before swatting the boy away. the pair could tell that this plan wouldn’t work as well as they thought, maybe it was the dependance they had on clichés? maybe it was that the two were unpredictable at times? they didn’t know, all they knew was that they wanted all the credit for the (almost) new couple.

‘don’t worry my good friend, i have the perfect plan’ sunoo’s annoyed expression morphed into a smirk.

‘you said that last time! now riki’s the one that’s gonna be in y/n’s arms during scary jump scares while jake is sitting crisscross applesauce right in front of them!’ jungwon’s frowned, ‘if anything let me handle it’.

‘do whatever you want but i’ll-’

‘riki!’ a sudden voice in the room causes the bickering boys to turn their heads, ‘don’t you need help with your world history homework? you asked me if i could help you while they watch their movie’.

‘i did?’ riki replied in a rather confused voice.

‘yes, you did’ heeseung said through gritted teeth. the group of boys watched as the oldest lightly dragged the youngest into sunoo’s kitchen. y/n watched in concern, not knowing if they should help riki or scold heeseung for being so uptight during a movie night.

‘can i sit here?’ jungwon and sunoo squinted when they realised jake was asking the question. the two didn’t know why they felt butterflies over the simple question.

‘sure!’ another one of y/n’s signature smiles blinding the boy in front of him. ‘i mean now that riki’s been taken away! wait no- i didn’t mean it like that. obviously i want you to sit beside me-’.

‘y/n calm down!’ y/n’s embarrassingly long spew sending a second hand embarrassment shiver down the two boy’s body. jake laughs quietly as he place’s himself down beside them, a growing blush placed on their ears and cheeks.

‘do they both not realise the whole room is watching them?’ jungwon whispered into sunoo’s ear. sunoo looked around and it was true, the scary movie was quickly replaced by the bashful (almost) couple.

‘what are you two doing?’ sunghoon joined their conversation. the boys jumped in surprise, not expecting him to even talk to them. everyone knew that sunghoon took movie night seriously, he would watch the movie without making a comment unlike his talkative friends and finish his night up researching the movie’s end and plot.

‘talking about the movie obviously!’ sunoo smiled innocently.

‘liar’ jay whispered, ‘we all know your little scheme, you never invite us over’.

‘hey’ jungwon whisper shouted at the group of boys surrounding him, interfering so the two wouldn’t start bickering. ‘wouldn’t jake and y/n get suspicious over the fact we are grouped together in the corner of the couch whispering to each other?’.

‘dumb and dumber wouldn’t even notice if we threw a rock at their heads right now’ the group glanced over at the pair, their stiff positions and the small i’m-in-love smiles plastered on their faces were enough proof that the two were in la la land.

‘you guys meddled too?’ jungwon tilted his head in confusion.

‘why did you think riki was so confused when heeseung said he’d help him with world history?’ sunghoon sighed, ‘he doesn’t even do world history!’.

‘you could of told a better lie’ sunoo rolled his eyes, ‘jungwon and i had an amazing plan-’.

‘but heeseung! i don’t even do world history, why do i need help with homework?’ sunoo couldn’t understand why he kept getting interrupted.

‘i guess it would of been smarter to let riki into our plan’ jay rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

‘riki, i’ll explain! now get back in the kitchen, don’t you want to know who anne frank is?’ riki and heeseung entered the room, heeseung with a frantic look on his face while riki looked annoyed.

‘i know who anne frank is!’ riki frowned, ‘you weren’t even asking me about world history anyways! you kept asking me about our dance club, the one we are both in’.

‘i’ll talk about world history now! um, world war one?’

‘wait’ riki squinted his eyes at the jake and y/n, who were sitting rather close. ignoring the oldest’s question, he walked closer to the pair.

‘what is he doing...’ jungwon whispered.

‘are you two dating?’ the sudden question from the youngest’s mouth caused y/n to flinch in her seat.

‘oh my god’ sunoo blurted out.

‘did he just start plan c without even knowing what plan c was?’.

iii. PLAN C

plan c, or what the two boys would like to call it, plan confirmation. the final plan if all things went wrong, in all honesty nothing in plan b went wrong. however the curiosity of nishimura riki quickened the pace up. the contents of the plan were simple, straight up asking the pair if they were dating. it was a simple but not so romantic way to start dating, and that was the main reason it was the “if all else fails” plan.

‘no’ the group of boys didn’t know that one word could shock them, i mean they saw it coming but they didn’t know it would shake them up this much.

‘no it’s okay you can tell them y/n’ jake’s words only shocked the boys even more, their eyes widening in surprise to hear the almost confirmation of their relationship.

‘what do you mean? you said the letter in my locker wasn’t from you?’

‘it doesn’t mean i don’t don’t like you?’ jake said confidently.

‘wait...’ jungwon stared at the two, ‘you found our letter?’.

‘jungwon! you weren’t supposed to say it out loud’ sunoo scolded him through gritted teeth.

‘shut up’ jay whispered in their ears, ‘something’s gonna happen i can feel it’.

everyone could notice the red tinge on jake’s ears. they watched as he rubbed the back of his neck while y/n stared at him in utter confusion.

‘i like you, y/n’ the blushing boy said quietly but just loud enough that they could hear it. ‘i swear i was going to confess in a better way but i was kinda under pressure right now...’

‘oh?’ y/n tilted her head to the side, ‘i thought you rejected me?’

‘i did?’ jake looked as confused as everyone else in the room.

‘you told me on new year’s eve to wait and i thought that was you letting me down easy’.

‘you did?’ the bewildered look in jake’s eyes confused y/n even more.

‘that’s why you left early?’

‘i feel like they needed to speak about this a while ago’ sunoo whispered into jungwon’s ear.

‘it doesn’t matter now! what matters is that i like you too’ y/n smiled happily.

‘oh’ jake let out in surprise.

‘this is way more sickly than i thought this moment was gonna be’ jay mumbled bitterly.

‘so you two are dating?’ riki asked, not really processing what had just happened.

‘are we?’ jake turned to y/n.

‘yes’

maybe the plans a to c did work? i mean if it wasn’t for the help of the meddling jungwon and sunoo did, the almost couple turned into a real couple. the pair in all honesty really didn’t care that much, they were just happy they got the real thing they wanted.

the satisfaction knowing that they were the ones that played wingmen.

[19thcenturyedgelord]

TW: Transphobia, Homophobia, abuse, neglect, p3dophilia, s3xual assault, su!cide, alcohol

~Vent~

My mother is constantly saying that they is only two gender and is always dead naming me, the one time I get her to say my preferred name she rolls her eyes and scoffs as she says it.

My mother has told me my whole life that she owns me and that I don't get to make any decisions for myself, she was dressing me until I was disowned at 14.

My mother would threaten to k!ll herself is I ever did something she didn't like, this includes: having a panic attack, dealing with over stimulation, trying to dress myself, telling her to stop walking in on me while I was showering/changing, going to bed early, going to bed late, saying I was hungry, asking to be allowed to go outside, wearing my headphones, not being strictly christian/not eating kosher, ect.

My mother got rid of my pet hermit crabs without telling me and was constantly trying to release my turtles even though they would die in the wild and they were being taken care of very well with a large, clean tank and plenty of food and hiding places, a special light that was good for their shell, and a great water to land ratio.

My mother slut shamed me because I was wearing shorts that went above my knees (they were perfectly appropriate btw).

My mother would scream at me for hours if I got anything less than a 100% on a test and even if I did get a 100% she would ask me why I didn't get any extra credit even if there was none available and even if I'd did get extra credit she would ask why I didn't get MORE extra credit.

While I lived with my mother I had a diet of nothing but microwave meals and chips and chips because she spent all of her money on vape, cigarettes, and alcohol. I would constantly be near unconsciousness due to my low blood sugar because I had nothing to eat.

She has slapped me across the face multiple times, one time with sharp plastic that cut my chin, she did this as a punishment. One time she slapped me because my blood sugar was low and I was grumpy, this is how it went down:

Me: Hey I know you wanna talk right now but can I make some food first my blood sugar is low this should take me 20 minutes max"

Her: No, I'm you mother and your going to talk to me right now

Me: Can I please just get something to eat

Her: *yells at me wich causes me to get distracted*

Me: *spills uncooked mac&cheese because distracted*

Her: *yells at me then slaps me across the face*

My mother nearly beat me to unconsciousness because she was very drunk, I had bruises all over me the next morning but I was to afraid to say anything because I new she would scream at me and hurt me more.

She molested me daily, forced me to change in front of her, forcefully spooned me in bed for hours even after I said no, and would "playfully" spank me.

She was constantly talking about how sexy a 17 year old at her work was and even bought him vape. She would also talk about some of my friends like that and even tried to internet stalk two of them, we are all minors.

She would lock the door to the apartment and wouldn't give me a key and would force me to wait outside in knee deep snow for hours without any warm clothing because she stole it all. She also refused to drive me to school in -8 degree (f) weather because she didn't want to loose her parking spot. I was also forced to bike to and from band practice (with she forced me to to do because she wanted to live through me) in 30 degree (f) with heavy rain because she didn't want to loose her parking spot.

She would consistently make fun of me for reading or doing anything that I enjoyed because I was a "nerd" and a "looser"

She disowned me after she stole my phone, went through it and found out I was a lesbian.

I couldn't even go into my yard without telling her where I was going, if I didn't tell her I would be screamed at and not allowed out my room, for a day and then not allowed out of the house for two more weeks.

She routinely went through my phone and my belongings without my permission, knowledge, or consent, in case I had anything "suspicious".

I tried moving in with my dad and she sued him.

She stole my most prized pokemon cards, a bag, most of my clothes, all of my old toys, and over $200 from my in the span of two weeks.

My room didn't have a door and she positioned herself so that she had to go through my room to get anywhere else in the house.

She would frequently lock the bathroom door so that it was only accessable from her room.

I told her I like pop music and she called me a failure then continued to play her extremely s3xual, vulgar, music about dr*gs, alcohol, and r@pe.

From the time I was 8 she tried to force me to drink alcohol because its "cool"

She forcefully pushed me against a wall because I refused to give her a hug after she made an offensive joke and I called her out for it.

She screamed at me because I corrected her after she misgendered me.

I had to learn morse code just so I could speak to my friends without her knowing what I was saying.

When I started counseling because I wanted to k!ll myself and because I was having upwards and 15-25 panic attacks per day, she forced me to tell her everything that happened in counseling even if I didn't want to.

She always gangs up on me in fights but if I try to get back up she just yells at me more.

She refused to take me to the hospital when I had a concussion and forced me to go to school all week even though I could barely stand or speak and now I have verbal and motor tics which she makes fun of.

She would scream at me because I sit down in the shower even though I have arthritis. (Yes I have arthritis at 15, it runs in the family and before to long I might develop psoriasis, I have shitty genes)

I wasn't allowed to wear anything that revealed my shoulders, that was low cut, shower any part of my stomach or back, short that went above my knees, ect.

I wasn't allowed to get my hair cut below my chin because it " wasn't feminine enough"

I wasn't allowed to have anything that was "for boys" this included clothes, toys, books, stickers, blankets, posters, movies, ect.

She forced me to watch R rated movies with her even if I didn't feel comfortable watching them.

I wasn't allowed to have any friends over and I wasn't allowed to go to any friends house, the one time I did have friends over she judged all of them and tried me to stop hanging out with them after they left. My friends are all very good people and are the only reason I'm still alive rn, she was just mad that I was talking to people who weren't her.

She screamed at she because I got one (1) drop of dark green ink on her black coffee table that she got for free.

I wasn't allowed to draw any male characters because she was afraid I would get off to them or something idk (this was before I was forcefully outed)

She bought me a triple chocolate cake for my birthday once. I'm allergic to chocolate. She forgot my birthday the next year.

Anytime I would tell her about the terrible bullying that was going on she would tell me to get over it, even after I had been thrown to the ground and strangled by one of my classmates.

If I got into a new game or hobby she would either take it away or shame me for playing it.

She spent all day on the computer playing Sims 3 to the point where I had to feed myself, take care of myself, and play by myself as young as 5.

She screamed at me because while talking about Pokemon lore I mentioned how Arceus is the god of the Pokemon world and she said I shouldn't say that because it would "make god mad" ( I have nothing against christians or christianity btw, just the people who shove it down your throat like she does)

I wasn't allowed to eat or drink the last of anything (finishing a bag of chips, taking the last soda, ect.) If I did she would scream at me and slap me as punishment.

She threatened to forbid me form seeing my cousin (who for the first 11 years of my life was my only friend) if I ever "talked back" to her.

She wod frequently strangle me as a form of "tough love".

When I was 2 she tried to teach me how to swim by holding me under water over and over again, drowning is now one of my greatest fears. Luckily I did learn to swim with the help of cousin and granny and even enjoy swimming but it is hard for me to do things like wash my face in the shower or stay under water for more than a few seconds without panicking.

She never taught me how to cook but then would scream at me because I didn't know how to cook.

Her smoking inside and while driving has caused me to have some lung issues, she denies that she ever smoked near me.

She tried to take me away frome everyone in my life including my family and friends so that I could only spend time with her.

When I was in fifth grade she homeschooled me and forced me to do college lever reading, learn how to code, learn at least two other languages that weren't english, learn how to play guitar, do gymnastics, do jujitsu (japanese), do soccer, learn to sing (keep I mind I had no interest in music, but she did), do a digital homeschooling program set at a highschool level, and learn a bunch of useless skills like knot tying and making friendship bracelets because it was "feminine". This was in FIFTH FUCKING GRADE.

We didn't have a washer or dryer and she would never go to to town to get laundry done so I never had clean clothes.

If I had more that $10 I had to give the rest to her.

She tried to kidnap me once.

One time on accident I stood in a bull ant hill and got stung all over (if you don't know ants all sting at once), I was swollen all over and screaming in pain and she did nothing, not even give me ice or ointment, she just told me to be more careful.

[marshmallowprotection]

hello. i am here. i am interested in the inner world and headspace. please infodump.

thank you <3

Remember, the linked post at the top of the blog can help explain everything about the SE System. If you need a refresher to know what they look like in the inner world, please click this.

There are different areas in their headspace, for sure. Putting under a cut cause this is super long. 

Like, there is that blackened area that is like the void, it's sort of in the corner of their mind, and it's like a very dark forest once you step into it. They’ve mentioned that in canon to some degree and I build using that. When SE Ray wakes up, he was dormant for two years because of what happened, he woke up in that void and stumbled out of there. 

So, that's the area where a lot of the nastiest memories are, nobody goes next to that area apart from Grave who is there quite a lot since he has his own little house right there by it. He helps sort out their memories and lock away some of the really bad ones until someone is ready to see them more or less. He can tolerate it, for the most part, but others can’t.

His little house is like, puts the Addams family to shame. It's dark, it's dreary, and it's seemingly always raining. But, he likes isolation. He keeps to himself for the most part. It’s kind of hard to describe how I see it but it’s very dark. It should be like a cartoonish manor in your head. 

It's in very stark contrast to the area that Ray claims for himself which is a manifestation of the garden from Mint Eye, just with some differences because he can't quite remember all of it, and some of it is from him just... gauging what it should be like. It’s a nice little garden area. It’s very bright and cheery, but there are portions of the garden that are... wilted and worn. 

Those are closer to the void area and Ray stays far away from that. Think of a little hedge maze with flowers and delight. 

Which is connected to the main house where you'd find SE Ray's room, SE Saeran's room for when inside, and Su-Jin's room as well. Ray’s space is basically this mess of feeling like the princess suite and the barren room that he hardly used at Mint Eye. Parts of it feel like it’s this desire to be... more than a broken man, and the other part is just... worn and frayed, aged, and forgotten, kind of like how he feels. 

Think half regal, half worn down. Like how his eyes are dual-toned in this system’s headspace. It’s like he’s living in his past and his future. His eyes, his room, all of this is a reminder that he feels lost in when he was the host and now that he’s not the host, he’s... he doesn’t quite know. His room is just... this pure manifestation of that. 

Su-Jin being the system's only little that’s here, his room actually is a manifestation of their childhood home for the most part because that's all he knows. But he's not alone there, Ray is always looking after him in the inner world. It’s gotten a little bit brighter as of late, but his room really does look like how it did when they were kids. He tries to not go into his room much these days. There are other little areas in their house that they can prefer, honestly. 

Like, how Ray prefers to stay outside as much as humanly possible. Or, how Grave stays locked away in his sullen area. Or how Su-Jin will stay next the little balcony or on the porch because he likes the feeling of being “outside” instead of being trapped inside. 

There are other spaces in that house but I haven't sat down and designed everything the way that I see it, a lot of it feels like twisted portions of places they've been as well as places they'd rather not be, if that makes sense. They can't quite control how it looks per se, but some of the portions can be changed a bit with time. If that makes sense. If I still have Sims, I would try to draw this stuff out. 

Saeran has a hard time explaining it because he didn't realize just how immerse it was, honestly. He never spent any time in there until everyone returned as he was going to therapy. His room in the headspace is just kind of... he avoids that because it’s just the room back at Mint Eye. It brings back of a lot of sour times and memories. Even if someone of them were okay. He feels like that’s another slap on his wrist.

If he’s around in the headspace, he just... stays outside. If Su-Jin is around, he’ll sit with the kid. If not, he’ll just lay down and stare at the sky. Inner world is just like having their own world, frankly. 

Now as far as the world itself looks, it can feel like they're in a storybook at the same time, like the world itself is colored and styled in such a way that it feels... not wrong, but it's not quite like being on the outside. It's not bad. It’s definitely different. Like, things feel bright, to an animated degree and cartoonishly out-landish. 

If this makes sense to you. 

It’s a very immerse thing. It’s two little houses, a garden, surrounded by a void that feels like a thick forest that keeps getting darker and darker around them to a dangerous degree. This is how I envision it looking taking cues from what I’ve seen in the game and what I feel like would manifest for them. Inner worlds can be subject to change and deviation over time. The mind really has no limit to some degrees. 

[yunohawkeye]

New Year HCs (SFW + NSFW)

Here’s my 600 follower special~

This isn’t betaread yet because the people that normally betaread for me are busy celebrating New Year the irony lol I’ll update it as soon as it’s betaread :3

General:

Diavolo caught wind of another human holiday and was more than eager to celebrate it

So of course he arranged it that the feast was held at the brothers' mansion, much to Lucifers disdain

When it was time, everyone came together, including Solomon, Simeon and Luke

In the beginning Diavolo held a speech, thinking it was a custom to do so… He's trying, okay? 

As everyone was free to do their own stuff, Lucifer's work began. He kept everyone in check and making sure no one gets eaten or dies another way

To his disdain Mammon and Satan had other ideas. They're doing their best to make Lucifer's life hell. While Satan did it more intentionally, Mammon did it by just being his usual self. 

Levi was forced to sit with them. His original plan was to stay in his room, watch anime and meet with his guild in Endless Fantasy. 

Asmodeus spends most of his time teasing Luke, calling him a dog again, but is also a big fan of the champagne. It was a gift from Diavolo which he brought with him, that is also one of the most famous and expensive brand in the whole devil Dom, and who would be suited better of such luxuries than him? 

To no surprise, Beel spends the time almost diminishing the whole feast on his own, tasting as many specialties from the demon-, celestial- and human realm that were laying in front of him. 

He also spends a lot of his time talking to Belphegor, catching up on anything that happened while they were being kept apart. He even offers his twin a bite once and then. 

Diavolo is delighted by the whole display before him and spends his time talking with Lucifer, when he isn't busy scolding anyone. But he also picks up conversations with others, you being one of his more favored talking partners.

Lucifer:

SFW

He won't be able to enjoy the fireworks without worrying about anything that could go wrong when he leaves his brothers alone, especially Mammon.

But if you clasp your hand around his  and smile up at him he starts to relax and let go of his worries for a moment. That way you'll get a smile from him and see his soft expression for once. 

To be able to keep it that way you'll have to lead him to a secluded balcony, then you'll be able to also feel him relax around you, as he embraces you from behind. Depending on your height he'll lay his head either on top of yours or onto one of your shoulders. 

You'll stay like that for a long time, even after the firework is over, just basking in each other's presence. 

He'll leave a kiss on your head as a cue to head inside after he felt your hands grow cold against his, "Let's get you heated up again." 

Just one look after you turned around made you realize that his offer wasn't completely innocent. 

NSFW

He’ll spoil you rotten that night. Just tell him anything that you think of and he’ll give it to you without question.

There’s no doubt he’ll go down on you for hours if you wish it of him, with a simple explanation, “The New Year holiday isn’t something we celebrate here. But you do, so I want to make it feel as special of a day as it’s special to you.”

He actually won’t let you do much, just because he wants to be the one to give pleasure to you all night long while expecting nothing in return. But he’ll still obey every order you give him.

Mammon:

SFW

His eyes lit up the moment you've told him there'd be fireworks and and he was excited for it the whole time during dinner, making him more insufferable than normal. 

But as soon as it started he went quiet, completely focused on the display before him. 

After some time you'll feel his hand searching for yours. When you turn around you can see his crimson colored cheeks as he's trying to look look away while letting out a fake-cough. 

The shade of his cheeks deepens when you giggle and squeeze his hand in return. 

After the firework ended he won't let go of your hand, although denying it, "You're the one holding on! I'm not the one at fault here!" 

NSFW

He’ll try to initiate things but gets all blushy and starts to stutter, “I-I-... I mean, the great Mammon invites you to-to share his bed… tonight… if you want to...” He gets really shy at the end and his voice cracks through the whole thing.

In the end you’ll have to be the one to take charge because, as much as he tries to, he just can’t take the risk of doing something you don’t like. So he rather leaves that up to you.

But he’ll try everything you ask of him. So you can top him and have your way or have him on top and guide him through it, showing him exactly what you want from him.

Leviathan:

SFW

When you ask him to watch the firework with you he’ll actually agree, although with a lot of bickering. He writes his guild that something came up and he can’t join them.

While you watch the lights dance across the sky, he’ll try to lay his hand on top of yours while you’re distracted. Levi’s very shy about it and doesn’t actually see a lot of the fireworks around him, his whole focus consumed by your hand and his own that’s still hovering above yours while he keeps debating with himself if he should actually do it.

While he thinks he’s being sneaky, you noticed it from the beginning, giggling to yourself and taking his hand on yours, smiling at his baffled face, “Seems like your sneak-level isn’t high enough yet.”

He blushes hard, looking away but giving your hand a little squeeze, the warmth spreading through him intensifying further as you lean your head against his shoulder, causing him to tense beneath you.

But you’re trying your best to soothe him, letting your other hand trace patterns over his chest.

It didn’t really help with the blush on his face and his body was still a little stiff, but he couldn’t deny the feeling of happiness consuming him all over.

NSFW

Like Mammon, he tries to initiate things by a technique he saw a lot of men use in his dating-sims, called kabe-don. As the men in the game seemed to have a high success-rate he wants to try it out, too.

Turns out he starts to blush immediately after looking into your eyes and starts to babble nonsense, causing a giggle to escape your mouth.

You decided to put him out of his misery by cuppink his cheeks with your hands and kissing him. But you don’t let it stop there as you push him onto his bed, making him look up at you with a mix of confusion, anticipation and passion lingering in his eyes.

You crawl on top of him and start to tease him, making him squirm beneath you. You don’t end your ministrations until the end of the night, coaxing many different kinds of sounds out of him and in the end you’ll both be spent as you fall asleep in each others’ arms.

Satan:

SFW

He’ll be standing outside with you, gaze fixated on the fireworks while his hands rest in his pockets, giving you the perfect opportunity to sneak your arm through his and intertwine your fingers with his. He’ll look down at you, surprise visible on his face, before it was replaced by a warm smile.

Without a word he’ll draw you close, wrap his arms around you and make sure you’re shielded from the wind and able to take in all of the lights above you.

After the fireworks end he’ll kiss the top of your head and ask, “Do you want to go inside or are you still up for a little stroll?”

Even though the cold was already getting to you and you would give anything for a warm fireplace and a hot cup of tea in your hands, you agree.

The smile you’re greeted with is worth all the suffering as he answers, “Thank you. I’ll make sure you’ll be kept warm thoroughly when we get back.”

NSFW

Staying true to his promise, he started to warm up a pot of hot water, but also made sure to keep you company until it’s ready.

And with keeping company I mean busying himself with his head buried between your legs, praising you for being so strong to fight against the cold just for him. So he already started to give you your reward by warming you up.

He made you come as often as possible until the tea was finished before coming back with two hot, steamy cups and a blanket for the two of you.

You cuddle together, sipping tea while having a conversation.

But as soon as the tea was finished and your body heated up again, he almost tackled you, starting to make slow and sensual love to you on the couch, coaxing as many moans out of you as he can.

Later in the night you change locations, as his bed was a better fit for your activities. There he leaves the decision up to you. You can decide of you want to it slow or rough until the end.

Asmodeus:

SFW

He’s just a little tipsy from the champagner but it doesn’t change much of his usual demeanor.

You’re both sitting on a bench while he’s nestling himself onto you with his head on your lap. He even allowed you to play with his hair a little, basically a love confession and marriage proposal in one in Asmodeus’ world, and all of that just because it’s you that does it.

Both of you watch the firework, but he couldn’t just look without some commentary, “I mean, it does look beautiful. But not as beautiful as me, don’t you agree?”

You always just smile down at him, either nodding or answering with a “M-mh”

Normally he would expect some more enthusiasm from you, but as he saw your face lighting up as soon as the sky started to light up he thought that he could hold himself back for you… for a little while at least.

NSFW

When it comes to intimacy, there isn’t a wrong time for Asmodeus. He’ll drop hints that he’s in the mood but will wait for you to initiate things because he doesn’t want to rush you into something you’re not ready for, even though every fiber of his being is aching for you to touch him.

But the moment you as much as hinted that you’d be in the mood he’s ecstatic!

He’ll hug you tight and start kissing you until you have no air left to breathe, lift you up and lay you down on the bed, wasting no time to undress you both.

Because he knows this is a holiday for you, he makes it his task to spoil you rotten, although he won’t stop you of you want to give something back.

The night probably ends with some mutual masturbation after both of you are already overly sensitive from reaching your high often that night. You’re both looking into each others’ eyes while breathing heavily, letting moans slip here and there.

Beelzebub:

SFW

You would think he wouldn’t care much for fireworks and would rather spend his time eating. Well, on a normal basis, yes. But not when it comes to you. As soon as you walked out to see the fireworks he laid down the tableware and joined you outside. He still brought a plate full of food with him to munch on, but that doesn’t diminish the feeling of joy you felt when you saw him joining you.

But what really makes you smile the most is as he stays even after he emptied his plate a while ago and offered you to lean against him. Of course you accepted the offer without any resistance.

He’s so warm, you almost forgot the icy wind playing with your haid as his massive body engulfed your form almost completely, shielding you from the cold.

After some time his stomach started to grumble, making it sound like an earthquake as you lied against it with your head. But all he did was tighten his embrace and say, “Don’t worry. I’ll stay. I can get some food later.” 

NSFW

It happens after Beelzebub didn’t go back after your firework-watching to get some food and instead joined you in your room.

First you didn’t know what would happen or the reason for his decision to stay, but you would find out soon.

Beel looks at you with a blush on his cheek, standing there like a lost lamb as he stuttered out, “I-I… Would you… like to… you know?... Be my meal?” The second he says that he averts his gaze, too ashamed to look you in the eyes but you have other plans.

Without a word coming over your lips you smile at him, walk over and take his hands in yours before leaning in, almost kissing him, and answering, “I’d be honored.”

He spent most of the night with his mouth on your womanhood, in many different positions. Doing whatever you want, how often you want, in any way you want.

Belphegor:

SFW

You have to convince him to go outside with you and watch the fireworks, as he was planning on sleeping through everything.

After some persuading he reluctantly agrees to join you on a balcony, but not before making sure there are some pillows and a blanket for the both of you. You don’t expect him to stand through the whole thing, do you?

You two end up with both of you snuggling into the blanket, him leaning on your shoulder, complaining about the noise but secretly loving the lighted up sky, buzzing in many different colors.

After it was over he sighs, before letting out a, “It wasn’t as bad as I anticipated.”

NSFW

As soon as you’re in your room again he lays down on your bed, making himself comfortable before looking at you with mischief in his eyes, “Why don’t you join me? We could have all kinds of fun.”

After some debating with yourself you join him and his fingers make quick work of slipping inside your trousers and underwear, running through your folds. Although his ministrations are slow, combined with his intense stare they feel as intense as if he’d be ravishing you with all his might.

You spend the night mostly laying on your sides, pleasuring each other slowly and sensually, making sure the other gains at least as much pleasure than yourself.

Sometimes you change position, but it always ends up like it started until both of you are too exhausted to continue and fall asleep in each others’ arms.

[maydaymemer]

Ultimate Spider-Man (2005) - Short Review

Just replayed Ultimate Spider-Man for PS2. And ive got some thoughts on it

Overall it’s still really fun to me, I think it’s way ahead of its time graphically, it looks amazing with the only problem being terrible draw distance. the city design is super underrated, theres lots of landmarks and little areas you’ll find swinging around that are detailed. The city doesnt feel copy paste like spider-man 2. the combat is kinda button mashy but i like that alternating between attacks causes more damage, but when the combat asks you to go up against groups of tough enemies like the combat tours do it kind of falls apart. It feels more luck based because you do more damage alternating between enemies and that can be used to break thru blocks. But if you are constantly hitting kick and punch and moving the stick you dont always switch to another enemy and just button mash at one guy. Luckily the combat doesnt ask you much in the main campaign so no worries there

Swinging is momentum based which i prefer over the more automated feeling of the new games. Not that the new games are bad, theyre an improvement on for example the TASM games but what i like about these old games is you handle spider-man sort of realistically it you had his powers. You’d fumble about and get caught on things at the start and then slowly get used to it and as you got a handle on your powers and became familiar with the city youd get really good at it. tho its not as good as how sim-like the swinging felt in spider-man 2 but i feel what usm does better is great missions and a great campaign. Especially the bosses I found really enjoyable for their variety, uniqueness and how they used good picks from classic and some more obscure villains. Also you get to play as venom. Hes not got much depth but the novelty is excellent

The story is really good, it’s penned by an actual spider-man writer and it has a good sense of universe thats intriguing as someone whos never read ultimate comics and heard bad things about how edgy the non spidey books could be. I actually did laugh at one of his quips too, about the parking attendant during the rhino mission. spidey humor is the only superhero humor that i get a kick out of

Where the game falters is in its structure. The game is short, i beat it in two hours and 22 minutes but ive beaten it loads of times already mind, and i dont falter the length at all as i dont think you could stretch this story and gameplay over eight hours, but the way they lengthen the time is by forcing you to do some of the side stuff like races and beating up muggers and stuff in order to unlock more missions. Now i like that the game makes me feel like a superhero, of course im going to help people it makes sense. I especially like that they do it within missions in certain scripted moments which is very spidey as hes always getting inconvenienced. But I dont think the way they encouraged it by making it necessary was a good choice. I think the way spider-man2 did it by having it so helping people gave you points to use for upgrades was better. I also think it was just there to prolong the game’s length because i was able to beat it in two hours with experience and i bet half an hour was just waiting for crimes to appear and doing those and then having to swing from Manhattan to Queens or vice versa to get the next mission. I also have a bone to pick with that. Most of the time you swing over to manhattan, do a mission, then if youve reached the requirements the next mission is in queens and thatll happen for the next mission but the opposite too. Seems padded

Theres also two moments i want to point out where i got the requirements to unlock the next “story mission” in the games own words but as soon as i went to the marker i had to do a combat tour, which is one of the game’s many side activities. Then after finishing it i get told to do more side content to unlock the next mission. So i unlocked a tutorial that i had to do before i could do another mission. This same thing also happened again but this is funny and a better example of the game’s padding. I met the requirements and went to a mission marker. A cutscene played and then i was told to do more things to unlock the next mission. So i unlocked a cutscene

Id still recommend it to anyone. It’s fun to play and the short length and its loads of side distractions does make it replayable

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Tying up the loose ends'

Summary: After the battle of Solovetsky & tying up a loose end, Adler realized that another loose end needs to be removed to ensure the greater good.

To read it on AO3, click here!

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That was his specialty, he was the man of the job.

Russell Adler...' America's Monster', the man never actually appeared inside the official's archives of the CIA and he prefers to keep it that way, the agency giving the hardest missions to make sure that the work is done perfectly without anything wrong and when Perseus come back to play after that pursuit in Turkey, it was sure as hell that the CIA would let him take the lead, knowing of his past & his actions against Perseus.

Of course, he wasn't alone in his fight: Helen Park, Eleazar Azoulay, Lawrence Sims, Frank Woods, Alex Mason, Hudson & then, Bell. Bell was different, she wasn't one of them, she never was, he thought to himself each day despite the devotion that Bell was giving to the mission, having taken it at heart and her words proved to have been crucial for the greater good. It was her who told everyone where was hidden Perseus: Solovetsky, the monastery at Solovetsky...few minor words and Bell told them, making them so important as it was still echoing inside Adler's head during the whole preparation phase of the mission.

She did allow the CIA to put an end to Perseus's actions with Greenlight but she wasn't one of them, she never was. He never saw her as her brothers-in-arms, he put inside of her his own memories along with Sims ones, she was remembering her days in the Khe Sanh Valley, riding in a Huey with Adler & Sims during Fracture Jaw but she was never there, everything was fake, nothing was real, she was lied to...and Adler never regretted it, his actions were necessary, he couldn't let Perseus win and for that, a sacrifice has to be made. Taking a subject's will is hard & extremely painful but it was the necessary sacrifice. She was just a Russian with his & Sims memories running.

There were never any questions that Bell was going to leave the island alive, he was ordered to dispose of her during the battle to make her death look a normal one but it was the first thing he couldn't do, Bell was needed, and...he was a gentleman, dying like that ain't nothing. So, he knows that her death needed to happen in a secret spot, on a cliffside. He wanted to give her a beautiful place to die as the part of gentleman he had...and he did, he was a man of his words. Letting her go like that? No chance in hell, what if she goes tell everyone of what happened to her? No, that wasn't going to happen, he knows that well.

He did a great speech about how her actions were important but were he meant it? No, she was just a Russian...he couldn't trust her since she knows. Of course that it was sure that she would draw her gun alongside his as she too wasn't stupid of what Adler would do with her but unfortunately, the 'America's Monster' pulled the trigger first and a bullet flew, hitting on the right side of Bell's head, instantly making her fall on the ground but it wasn't enough for him, he wanted to giver her another bullet but as he thought, the sea was a better way to make someone disappear. So, without remorse, he made her body roll on the ground with his feet before her body falls from the cliffside, a fall of 50 meters in the cold water of the Barents Sea.

It was one less loose end for him, Bell wasn't going to speak anymore and Adler was feeling better, his dirty secrets now buried in the deeps of the Barents Sea and his eyes behind his usual sunglasses were still looking down at the sea before he released a long & relaxing breath, seemingly happy with his choice to do the dirty work, it was his specialty. He wanted to go now, joining back the others with the story he was fabricating in his head about how Bell 'died bravely' but now, he needed something: a simple cigarette. He already smoked one when he arrived here with her but he wanted another one, he was surely a big smoker.

He took a cigarette from his pack he was always keeping in his blue jacket and his lighter that he was always used since Vietnam's War, the only thing that he kept with him of that time...including the scars at his jaw but those were giving to the other a feeling that he wasn't the man to fuck with, a fear of fighting him in hand-to-hand combat but at least, it was helping him a lot. Now, he just wanted to take a break but the short loneliness wasn't going to continue any longer as he was hearing footsteps coming from the path he took with Bell to get here.

"I said that I wanted to be alone," Adler reminded the person that was coming here, his cigarette right between his lips as the footsteps stopped near him, not bothering at all to look at the person.

"Where's Bell?" That person...was none other than Helen Park herself, she wasn't supposed to be here as she was still wounded & needed to go back to London but she insisted...Adler insisted, knowing that she would miss the chance to beat down the Perseus Collective. "Adler, where is she?" She asked him again.

"Why bother with it anymore?" He mumbled, taking his cigarette off his lips before he decided to look at her, her face still having the marks of Cuba, some bruises & cuts half-covered in dressings. "She's dead, Park," He simply said like that before he turned around again to look at the horizon.

"How?" She demanded, her voice a bit broken as that news wasn't the thing she wanted to hear at all. "Adler, HOW?" She yelled at him after seconds as he wasn't opening his mouth at all, she just wanted to know, why it was so hard for him to speak.

"I killed her, it was the job," He sighed, proving not a single remorse in his voice.

"No...no...no!" Park, she was literally taken aback by that, letting Bell staying with Adler was the stupidest idea the world could have, she knows the man well. "Why did you do this?" She questioned him, feeling the rage in her voice & body.

"She couldn't live, you know that," Adler replied, his eyes posed on the cigarette between his fingers, looking at it with great interest before he took a breath and throw it sightly in the sea. "Bell was a terrorist, I see no problem with it," He affirmed, apart right on it.

"Maybe...but do you remember what I told you?" She started, pointing him with her index finger, hidden by her light black gloves. "We could have helped her about her past, maybe she wasn't a terrorist, maybe that we just fucked over her life," She stated, Bell's old life was a mystery, the prejudices of Adler made her for the others, a terrorist but not long for some...including Park. "We had a deal, Adler, I was going to let her join the MI6..."

"Deals are meant to be broken, Park!" Adler raised his voice against her, fully turning his body around to look at her again. "Bell maybe helped us but she was irredeemable," He told her, his hands along his body, staying near his holster in necessity. "It's not your love for her that was going to help her," He added, remembering the time of seeing Bell & Park discreetly...the two with each other, that was almost making him angry, that wasn't something he wanted.

"It was going to but you & your fucking ideas, she was one of us," Park shouted, his index finger tapping over her heart. "She was mine," She continued in a low voice, her voice almost on the verge of breaking.

"She was never one of us and if she was living, she will never be one of us," Adler insisted, clenching his right fist, not in anger but just because he wanted to. "She was a loose end to neutralize, deal or not deal...one of the things I needed to dispose of," He sniffed, thinking of things and what he did, not ashamed by those before his eyes behind his sunglasses checked her up. "Bell wasn't the only loose end here," He said.

"What do you mean?" She raised an eyebrow to him but inside of her, she was starting to process what his words were meaning...and it wasn't going to please her at all.

"Do you think that the CIA will allow an MI6 agent to walk around, knowing about Greenlight and what I did?" He asked her obviously, his right hand slowly moving towards his holster as she was looking down at her feet. "Because of what you did, you became a target for the CIA, having painted your own target on your back," He told her, taking the advantage that she wasn't looking but she knows well.

"And I presume that...Hudson ordered you that? Or was it your other boss, Black?" She guessed to him, Adler's orders were surely coming from the two as her mind was trying to figure out what to do now. "You surely want me to get on my knees?" She demanded.

"I can make things easier if you do," He exclaimed as he finally reached the handle of his gun, ready to draw it out.

"In your fucking dreams!" She shouted before she got her head up, finally ready to do what she wanted to do for a long time to Adler himself.

Adler's first reaction was to quickly draw his gun from its holster and fire a bullet in her direction but she was moving too fast for that and in just 2 seconds, she was already in front of him, her both hands on the gun to throw it away from his hand as his finger start to pull the trigger, firing multiples bullets in the sky until the sound of clicks were heard, the gun now fully emptied but the two were still struggling for it, Park filled with rage, Adler...with nothing but only a desire to get the job done.

He took the first real move by clenching his left fist and striking her right into the chest with it, causing her to lose slightly the control over his gun but her response was to knee kick at his belly...one time...two times...three times and Adler get his hand off the gun, throwing it at the ground before Park grabbed him by the collar of his blue jacket, and then, make him roll over her with all her might before she made him land on his back on the dirt, getting herself in top of him at his chest level.

"That's for Lazar," She clenched her both fists, having Adler's head at her mercy before she starts to punch him with the best she could give. "That's for Bell," She continued in her words, each punch was from someone she loses, Bell & Lazar been the person she lost...they weren't here anymore and Adler caused their deaths. "That's for making me a monster," She shouted, striking him in the face with a punch so powerful that Adler's sunglasses broke at the impact in half. "And that's for....Bell...ag-" She tried to give him another punch but he managed to free one of his hands blocked by her legs to hit her in the face before moving his legs to push her away.

He got up at his feet, passing his hands and feeling the pain & blood across his fingers, each punch she gave made him angrier than before, never someone managed to give him a taste of his own medicine during that type of situation. He then looks at Park herself, also going up on her feet, slightly seeing her bloodied face too, her nose bleeding.

"I've got to admit, you do very well," Adler scoffed to her, spreading his arms to signify that it wasn't finished yet. "Too bad that she didn't do it," He joked about Bell's inability to actually do something instead of simply draw her gun, and that caused Park to enter a full instance of rage, more powerful than before.

She took a deep breath before she charged at him again, putting everything she's having into her shoulders before she threw herself away on Adler's chest who in a second moved his arms around her as she was having her arms around his waist. This charge could have made someone fall on the ground again but not here, Adler managed to hold on at his feet, only making a few steps behind him, not so far enough of the cliffside.

Seeing that she was trying to make him roll over her again, he decided to use his both elbows to nudge her violently at her back and what he could hear during those was Park's screams of pain as her hold against him was getting firmer, trying, in fact, to choke him and let him lose controls but he was holding on. She knows that she needed to stop, her moves weren't doing anything and it was only causing her back to receive a lot of pain.

The punch that Adler was giving stopped when Park moved away from him by herself before landing another punch on Adler's bloodied face, so much that Adler actually got almost knocked out by it, succeeding to hold on with his right hand on the ground, he was in pain but he wasn't going to give up even if she was going to kick him in the guts while he was trying to get up but then, he knew that his hands weren't going to do the job.

As she was going to strike him again, his right hand moved quickly at his jacket, grabbing his own knife strapped to it and with his might, he countered Park's knee before he stabbed her kneecap with his knife, causing a cry from her that could petrify anything around in a radius of 2 kilometers and he was insisting, turning the knife in the wound before he stopped it...to stab her right into the right shoulder, and then...her cries stopped, her face looking scared, at Adler who was emotionless at her.

Her hands were trembling as her eyes were on the knife that Adler planted at her shoulder before she decided to kneel on the ground, exhausted, wounded as Adler was getting in front of her, staying normal to her despite her state, he would have healed her but not here, she became a loose end to neutralize since she got her eyes on Bell since she touched closely her in her intimacy, she loved her...and that's why Adler needed to tie up another loose end.

"Why...why?" Park asked as she was breathing to keep her calm, knelt on the ground as behind her, it was the sea and its birds singing.

"Even if you weren't loving Bell, you were a loose end, Park," Adler replied as he got to sit, looking at her in the eyes. "You weren't the only one in here, Lazar was too," He revealed but Park was too much hurt to actually have anymore rage & anger inside of her, just having her hands down on her lap, waiting. "She died as Lazar did in Cuba,"

"You're an asshole," She cursed, tasting the blood inside her mouth. "I should have never worked with you," She continued as Adler was reaching out with his hands, his broken sunglasses. "You made me into a monster," She proclaimed to him, who wasn't looking at her, her mind wanting to shut him up for good but her body wanting to give up.

"You helped me to brainwash her, you're more guilty than I am," He claimed loudly, the two sharing the blame of that but if Adler thinks it was necessary, Park was mixed in reality, feeling regrets and hatred for herself. "And now, I'm cleaning up the loose ends...you were the last one," He added, his eyes peaking on his pistol on the ground a few meters from them.

"You never cared, you're worst than Perseus," She stated and these words caused him to move his hands towards her, holding her by the chin.

"Listen to me, I'm not worst than Perseus as you just said," He threatened her, holding her jaw firmly with his right hand and his left hand, going to make a bad pressure on her stab wound at her shoulder, causing a scream to come out of her mouth before he moved his hand above it, shutting her. "It was always for the greater good, you are dangerous to live on and I can't let that happen," He added before he removed himself from her, looking at her with disapproval.

"The greater good...was it something that we are or something we want to pretend?" She asked him but her words fall in the sea without any response from him as he got up on his feet before he put his right feet above his chest, ready to push her off the cliffside. "You know...I'll be waiting," She whispered, looking at his feet on her.

"We'll see about it," He told her.

"See you...in Hell, Adler," She taunted him before Adler finally decided to push her over from the cliffside.

He looked at her falling into the sea, spreading her arms during the fall before she disappears into it, the waves washing away the scene, and now, Adler was alone again, having done his work. Bell was a loose end, Lazar was a loose end, and Park, she became one too. She was like Lazar & Bell: they knew too much about what Adler could do and his actions and even if he wasn't ordered to do that, he was willing to make them disappear anyway.

Adler was still emotionless at having killed his former friends and the person that helped him with the brainwashing, she wasn't loyal to him but to that Crown and the MI6, not to the president and the CIA. She was a loose end like the others, she couldn't leave the island too and now, the sea was burying Park's & Bell's bodies together but that wasn't something he wanted to know, he didn't care about them at all, not having a single second of compassion towards the two. He only shook his head before he could finally start to walk away from the scene, having got the job done...and tying up the loose ends...

That was his specialty, he was the man of the job!

[what-big-teeth]

Reveal (Cambion Boyfriend, pt. 3)

Gender Neutral Reader x Male Monster [Part 1] [Part 2]

Slight lime ; NSFW-ish

The drive to Cam’s apartment complex is silent, save for the smooth jazz pouring from the radio. You know that not even the masterful tones of John Coltran will be enough to soothe him. The way he grips the steering wheel tersely with paling knuckles is proof. But you choose to remain quiet, watching the familiar scenery glide by until you reach one of the complex’s gates. 

You can’t even fathom what to say in this situation. Not after everything that happened.

With the press of a button on Cam’s fob, the iron is pulled away, allowing the car to drive through. He pulls up right in front of his apartment, located on the first floor. With the awkwardness from the car’s interior still lingering between you two, you’d rather not have to rely on Cam to help you inside. So you call upon your stubbornness and manage to haul yourself up using the handle above the passenger side window. Your legs are still horribly weak from whatever your captors injected into your system. But you don’t want to trouble Cam any further—

A gentle hand braces against your lower back. 

“Need some help?” 

You honestly wish you didn't, but the sweat beading your forehead is obvious proof you do. You nod and lean on his side as you two slowly walk indoors. Everything is as you remember it, even with the few empty water bottles piled on the coffee table and the textbooks littering the carpet. But knowing what you do now…

Cam leads you to the couch. You gladly plop down onto the cushions, wincing from the painful twinge in your back. He swiftly sits by your side, hands hovering at the ready.

“What’s wrong?” 

As the dull throbbing dies down, you huff out a laugh.

“Just thinking how support beams aren’t the greatest form of spinal support.”

Instead of lightening the mood as you hoped, your words only deepen his frown. When you try and meet his gaze, he presses to his feet.

“We should take care of those scratches,” he says, walking away.

And just like before, the same awkward air settles around your shoulders, a growing obvious weight. 

When Cam returns with the first aid kit, you close your eyes and swallow any attempts at small talk. Hesitance wins out. The only sound that emerges from your mouth are hisses as Cam dabs at your sensitive facial wounds with an alcohol wipe. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks. 

Your conflicting thoughts give way to a churning mixture of emotion. Anger, at being kidnapped. At being lied to for so long by your closest friends. By the Moores. Fear from not knowing whether you’ll see Jacqui again; from wondering if any other Hunters know about you. But there’s happiness as well, mainly at being saved. Your mind is too addled, too tired, to formulate any words regardless of how much you want it to. 

You aren’t surprised when you end weeping in reply. 

The careful touch of a q-tip stills for a few moments before resuming. Once finished, you expect Cam to get up and leave. But he stays seated, the heat of his body radiating towards you. From the corner of your eye, you see a rich, golden brown hand reach towards your face. It stops short then falls away. 

You don’t try to stop Cam when he gathers the used supplies and the kit, standing to his feet. Not even as he heads further down the short hallway. He returns a few moments later, carrying a few items. A pillow, a blanket, an oversized shirt, and a large pair of sweatpants. He sets the pile beside you, just a bit too far away to actually feel his presence.

“You’re more than welcome to use the bathroom tonight if you want,” Cam murmurs. He gathers the used materials, the first aid kit, and stands. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

When he walks down the hallway this time, he ducks into his room. The door closes with a soft click.

You’re left sitting on the couch, staring at the provisions he left behind. The idea of taking a long bath or shower greatly appeals to you. But with no energy to start the process, it’s a lost cause. So you settle on peeling off your sweat-tinged clothes and trading them for the clean pair. But you can’t bring yourself to lie down and sleep. 

Part of you doesn’t want this gaping discomfort between the two of you anymore. The other mockingly asks how you even plan to fix...this. The doubt grows louder, telling you that now isn’t the time. That if you sleep, things can go back to normal if only for a while. But a small part of you whispers in reply: when will things be normal, if ever?

The two streams of thought war with each other, back and forth. Until one finally wins out.

It leads you to Cam’s bedroom door and gives you enough courage to raise a loose first. Your knuckles rap against the thick wood three times. No answer. You steel yourself before your bravery wanes and enter his room. 

Cam lies in bed, his back facing the open doorway. For a moment, you almost believe he’s asleep. But the subtle way his shoulder blades tense tell you otherwise. And of course it would. You’ve known Cam for years. Even after learning this new development about him, you still do.

It’s why you’re able to to sit beside him, somewhat closer than you were back on the couch. Why you reach out and gently place a hand on his raised shoulder, giving it a small squeeze. 

“I’m not scared of you, if that’s what you think.” You lick your dry lips and swallow down your building nerves. “You’re still the same dork that loves mythology. The same kid who was horribly protective of his copy of the Matter of Britain. No wonder you were such a huge fan of Merlin while growing up.”

Cam shifts, rolling over to meet your gaze head on. 

“This coming from the same person who asked me to read from that book when we were kids. I’d say that makes you as much of a dork as—oof!”

You smack him with a pillow a few times. 

“That’s total heresy and you know it, Cameron Sims.”

His laughter is contagious as you keep up the attack. But one of your swings misses, and Cam strikes, grabbing at your wrist. With a startled “hey!”, you attempt to wriggle free but Cam’s grip is iron-clad. All your struggling does is draw you closer until you’re straddling him. 

He sits up, still holding your wrist captive with a grin.

“You give?”

“For now,” you say, narrowing your eyes. “But just you wait.”

Cam chuckles deep and low. It’s a sound you didn’t realize you had taken for granted. One you want to keep hearing because this is your childhood friend. And someone you feel more than friendship for. 

You reach out and cup his face, silencing his soft laughter. He stares at you with wide, dark brown eyes made visible by the bright moonlight outside. You smile.

“Can I see the real you? Please?”

Your heart pounds heavily in your chest, the sound flooding your veins and echoing in your head. You think Cam can hear the sound, too. He keeps his eyes trained on you as his appearance shifts again. This time, his black, bat-like wings are tucked against his back. But his scales are just as apparent as they were back at the warehouse. 

Red-slitted eyes surrounded by black sclera regard the way your gaze widens. And you reach up with your other hand, letting your fingertips graze the odd yet faint blood red marks underneath his right eye.

“Are these letters?” you ask.

Cam leans into your touch with a soft breath. 

“Yeah. They spell my demonic name: Caimellus.”

You say his name, repeating the three syllables a few times. You rather like how it sounds on your tongue. 

“They’re faded,” he says, “because my mother was human while my father was an incubus. She was an ex-Hunter, to be more precise.”

Your mind recalls the robbery that took the lives of Cam’s parents. His mother, kind and gentle, and his caring yet stern father were never seen again after that night. The authorities cited the intruders as the cause of their deaths, which makes horrific sense. As does his sudden adoption by his godfather.

“It was the Conclave, wasn’t it?” you murmur. “Is that why you were taken in by Dr. Lane?”

Cam nods.

“He was my father’s trusted ally and another incubus. Once he heard about what happened, he immediately claimed me as my father wished in case he died. Dr. Lane is the reason I’ve been able to lay low and hide my demonic nature for so long.”

The moment of silence between you two is bittersweet in many ways. But you refuse to let it deter you from learning more about Cam.

Feeling emboldened by what’s been shared with you, you keep asking questions. Yes, he can feed off of human energy through sexual contact, but chooses not to. Thanks to Dr. Lane’s careful tutelage, Cam learned how to feed through platonic touch instead. The pinch you give to his side for realizing how he was able to lull to sleep as kids is only acknowledged with a chuckle.

You keep going, letting your fingertips trail and touch parts of his body. He confirms his scales are for defense while his claws are weapons in their own right. So are his fangs and tail, if he so chooses. The horns are more of an intimidation factor than anything else—

A dampened moan interrupts his explanation. Your fingertips have barely grazed the area where his horns and his scalp meet. 

“S-sorry,” he says, sounding a little breathless. “Sensitive area.”

You don’t apologize. Because you aren’t sorry. And while holding his unsure if embarrassed gaze, you can’t help but want more. 

“Can I...I want to thank you for saving me,” you whisper. “But only if you want me to.”

As if reading your mind, his slitted gaze flits down towards your lips before finding your eyes again. 

“Please,” he breathes. 

You lean down and press your lips against his. The kiss is chaste, as much as you wish it wasn’t, because it’s taken all of your nerves just to do this much. You can be satisfied with just this, even if he doesn’t return your feelings. You begin to pull away, only for a warm, steady touch against the nape of your neck to stop you. 

Cam slots his mouth against yours, groaning at the contact. His claws gently scrape against your scalp, making you shudder and gasp. He uses the moment to press his tongue against yours, which you’re more than receptive to. There’s a sharp nip to your lip that you return with a huff of laughter. You “accidentally” let your fingers curl around the base of his horns and slowly rub the black keratin. He growls, a low yet deep sound, as he pulls you close so there’s no space between your bodies. You feel something wind around your waist and give it a brief squeeze.

Eventually, your lungs begin to burn. Just enough to cause some discomfort. You pull away from Cam with one last moan. Heat sears your cheeks from seeing the thin trail still connecting your mouths. It’s broken when Cam smirks up at you.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for years.”

You’ve barely registered his words before his lips find yours again. It takes all your focus to not give in to the softness and warmth of his mouth. 

“S-since when?” you manage before he silences you.

“Senior year.” A scrape of fang. “High school.” The slightest squeeze from his tail and his claw-tipped hands. “Night before prom.”

You force yourself to pull away and bite your bottom lip to ground yourself. When Cam attempts to follow, you press your fingertips against his mouth. But he kisses them, undeterred. You use the moment to catch your breath.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Your fingers are left a little cold by his retreat. 

“Growing up, you only knew me as Cameron: a black, nerdy kid with coke-bottle glasses that was way into mythology and reading. As much as I wanted to tell you while growing up, I didn’t know if you would be okay with knowing me as Caimellus.”

So that’s the reason. This whole time, and even before, he’s been just as unsure as you. But not anymore. You hope he understands when you cup his face in your hands, and skim the pads of your thumbs against his cheeks. That when you press a kiss against the faint demonic lettering staining his skin, he knows. Witnessing the glassy shine to his eyes, you know he does. But hearing the words can’t hurt, either.

“I love you and I want to know both parts of you. Cam and Caimellus. Everything you have to offer, I want, for as long as you want me.”

Your body tips over, landing against the bed leaving you to stare up at Cam. He brushes the back of his knuckles against your cheek and smiles. 

“Will forever work?”

You grin. 

“Of course it will—”

You gasp as his clawed hands dip under your borrowed shirt, trailing up to your chest. All while his tail winds up your clothed leg and gently squeezes. 

“Because I really like hearing you say my name,” he breathes against your neck. 

Your fingers dig into his shirt and pull at the worn fabric. 

“If you want to hear it again, you’ve got a couple of years to make up for. Think you can do it?”

One of his hands slips past the elastic of your sweatpants and you can’t help but lift your hips. 

“In spades,” he promises.

“Sounds good to me.”