#everyone to questions or asks others to question get ignored or swiped away

[nutmeggery]

there was no true "phone bad message"

the people live in their own personal bubble, choosing who to interact with, who listen to, they refuse to look outside their bubble, they take directions from their personal bubble, even their city is in a bubble! a 'pure' society. It's about the racism, the colonialism, the indoctrination of the new generation to uphold the beliefs of their society.

[tojisun]

“shopping for your brother?”

you trip at hearing the question, your lips parting in surprise as you whip to look at the clerk. she blinks at you amidst her own shock before turning her eyes down to your hands where a faux fatigued boonie dangled between your pinched fingers.

you watch as she glances back at you before shooting a look towards simon, having seen the two of you walk in together. he’s standing on the far side of the shop, attracting electric looks from everyone – you couldn’t even blame them because even your mouth is watering at the sight that he makes.

still, the insinuation that you couldn’t possibly be simon’s partner stung. forgotten insecurities are rising once again, rippling against the quiet elation that once filled you up.

“um,” you begin, clearing your throat at hearing your voice brokenly taper off. “it’s for, uh, my boyfriend.”

the clerk stares at you for a second before her cheeks fill up with red, the blush descending from her forehead to her neck.

“bloody hell,” she utters. “i’m so sorry.” she scurries away after that, disappearing into their storage room where you think she’s going to stay until you and simon leave.

and you’re willing to do just that. you drop the boonie and walk towards simon, trying to ignore the bitterness that is stinging in the back of your throat. simon uncrosses his arms – tattoos and muscles obscured by the expanse of paper bags that he insisted he pay and carry for you – and holds his hand out for you to take. you look at it, hesitating, before you shake your head and walk out on your own.

you can’t hear him follow you but you know he is there, quiet in his assessment of both the surroundings and of what happened to make you upset. you blink the tears gathering in the corners of your eyes, trying to hide your distress as much as you can.

but it is futile because the next thing you know, simon’s pulling you away from the busy stretch of the mall and into an obscured exit point with dim lights and narrow halls. he drops the bags onto the floor before tugging on your wrists with firm gentleness.

“what happened?” his voice is gruff but worry is evident in his tone.

“it’s nothing,” you say, sniffing. “just tired.”

he hums, and you know that he doesn’t believe you. you sigh, turning away from him as you mutter, “i dunno why you like me.” you chew on your words, hoping he wouldn’t understand. but you feel him stiffen before you, his back tensing like he is preparing for a fight.

you know he is angry – not at you. never at you. and seeing his protective nature spark up just at the mere mention of your insecurity makes your lips wobble, your eyes blurring as tears pool once again.

you hear him let out a sharp curse before he’s pulling you in his embrace, tucking your head under his chin and engulfing you in his arms. he’s so big and all muscles, but he’s so, so warm. you nuzzle your cheek on his chest, letting out a content sigh when you feel his lips press on the top of your head.

“you know that i love you, don’t you, sweetheart?” simon asks, thinly-veiled desperation curling at his words.

you nod, shy all of sudden. he clicks his tongue.

“use y’r words, love.”

you peer up at him, your pouty lips quivering into a small smile at meeting his intense gaze, his beautiful eyes tracking the details of your face like he can’t get enough of you.

you see simon’s reverence and feel your heart melt.

“yeah,” you finally reply, swiping your tongue on your chapped lips and feeling your cheeks warm up at the way his eyes zeroed in on the action. “i know it well, si.”

he grunts before he is bending forward to press his lips over yours, your eyes fluttering close to savour the kiss. he is gentle as he guides you through it, prompting you to part your lips just enough for him to deepen the kiss – tongues swiping against each other and soft moans being engulfed by both of you.

you are panting by the time he pulls away, his eyes dilated in pleasure. you wonder if you look just as debauched, just as desperate for more.

“wanna take this somewhere else?” simon murmurs, just the sound of his grave voice already making you tremble.

you scramble to say yes, your words lilting together in your excitement. simon chuckles and presses a quick kiss on your lips before he’s picking up the shopping bags and herding the two of you out.

[pandorasfavorite]

Maneater Part 3

AN: yall its finals week so its gonna be hard to post for a bit

You should've made him beg longer, but Dominik was getting ahold of you. No matter how hard you tried to stay away from him; he only drew you in further. So you joined the Judgement Day after weeks of him asking and pleading with you. The final blow was Dominik sinking to his knees with his wide eyes, begging you to join him.

Though now you had to cope with other people telling you what to do for the group. That is what you would hate most; you are independent and no one is supposed to hold any power over you. A man most of all, but Dominik is climbing that ladder quickly. So as you both are walking down the hallway you once again remind yourself to not let him win so easily; in other words, 'don't let Dominik get too close'. You were stuck in your own head; unintentionally ignoring Dominik, but you guessed that played to your advantage anyway because he was huffing and annoyed at your silence.

His fingers just barely brush over yours and you stop walking to look at him. Your look is so intense and fiery, Dominik all of a sudden felt stuck in his spot just barely choking out a feeble, "You look good". You feel your lips twitch into a smile, but any other time you wouldn't be impressed with the weak compliment. "That's all you had to tell me?", you put a hand on your hip while giving him that unimpressed look he has grown to hate. Nonetheless, he smiles and looks down at you; quick to give you a witty comeback, "You wouldn't want to hear everything I'm thinking" he looks you up and down. You scrunch your nose in distaste at his admission...you could listen to him talk for hours.

You shove a finger into his chest and you look up at him angrily, "Making decisions for me already?". He swipes his tongue over his bottom lip and tries to not make his racing heart rate obvious, "You'd hate that wouldn't you?". You grab his face to pull him down closer to you; wanting to look him in the eye, "More than anything baby". You had let go of him but he still hovered near. Dominik's face went up in flames but he wiped a hand down his mouth and stopped before you could see the smile. He tried to play it cool and give you a serious look; you blew him a kiss. He dropped the straight face and smiled, a laugh fell from his mouth all the same.

"Alright, love birds keep moving!" someone you didn't care to look at yelled at you both. You shrugged and moved on; walking forward with Dominik a step behind you. The Judgement Day walked out towards the ring. You stood behind Dominik with a hood covering your face, with new all-black and purple gear on for the occasion. You heard the boom of questions in the crowd, most people guessing wrong, but the loyal fans knew it was you by the shiny black and pink high boots. Though getting in the ring was the best, Dominik stood an inch behind you; just barely brushing against you.

And when the spotlights were on you, you finally felt the feeling of power. Dominik took off your hood and the screams of fans could be heard from miles away from the stadium. Spotlights were directly on you just like everyone's attention, you know you looked good the cheers only made it better. You felt as if you were on the highest pedestal. As if Dominik could feel the pride radiating off of you, he rested his chin on the side of your shoulder from behind you. "You like that Hermosa?', he whispered just for you to hear, his breath feeling like ice on your skin. "More than anything baby", you said again and Dominik's smile against your skin was the most memorable moment of the night. Well apart from being the main pin point of everyone's attention.

After your 3 minutes of fame, a bitch had to ruin it; like bitches do. Santo Escobar's group came out to congratulate The Judgement Day for whatever reason, to you it seemed like something way different. But what really pissed you off was that Elektra Lopez skipped over you and went straight over to Dominik, laying a hand on his chest and giving him a cheesy smile. Dominik just watched her, but his eyes flickered over to your angry ones. One thing a maneater is would be possessive. Not a great trait but one you have, either way, Dominik was your's the moment he got on his knees and begged for you. Your hands shook and a smile graced your face at the violent thought. You stormed over to her Dominik's eyes shot open like you were going to murder him instead.

You grabbed Elektra by the back of her gear, and she started to put her hands behind her back to stop you. You didn't hit her but you slung her back, her ass hit the floor and she looked up at you with shock. "Touch him again I dare you bitch", you put your hands down on your knees and got down on her level. She flipped her hair dramatically, "I didn't know". You shrugged and flipped your hair more obnoxiously, "Now you do". You walked towards Dominik and grabbed him by the collar of his black gear. Finn was sitting on the ropes already knowing you were going to drag Dominik away. You pull Dominik with you and you both go under the ropes and backstage.

[suhjihanma]

Burn with you.

Pairing: College!AU Gojo Satoru / Female Reader Content Warning: Use of marijuana, slight mentions use of unscripted drugs, pussy eating, altered-state of reader, characters under the influence, drug intoxication, light OOC moments, light dubious content, mentions of drug sneaking, name-calling. Author's Note: Happy 4/20 to everyone (I'm almost open to 4/20 thirsts in my inbox). I'm high right now, and I literally done this writing piece while blasted so, apologies if some sentences have grammar mistakes. I know this is not the best but, I hope you guys like it. Reblogs and likes are greatly appreciated. Minors, age-less blogs do not interact. Thank you.

The drowning of your senses could feed on your ignorance. A body heightened in a relaxed state would be the least of your worries, then again sometimes those worries get the best of you. 

The beams of the sunset had plastered around the living room as an exhale left your slightly quivering lips. Droplets of perspired sweat rolled down your temples as you squirmed away from a familiar force. This was the same force that had relentlessly taken over every orgasm in your body.  The whispering pleas fall on deaf ears as you forcefully grip his hair, urging the man to break away from the minuscule stream that overflows underneath your shaking thighs. 

You wanted him to stop. Rather, you would like to share a bowl with him and discuss the endless matters of the world, yet this man wanted to pique his interest in something else. A familiar taste known for the male palate. Secretions made up of lust, along with other emotions that formed you, drove a man like Satoru towards the point of insanity. Losing the sense of oneself while lost between a woman’s thighs was more than enough to make Satoru slowly grunt in frustration, making a gurgled cry come from your moaning lips. 

Damn him, to use his vocal sounds for an advantage. College-aged men like Satoru were known to use cunning motives in making women fall to their knees. Even more so when offering weed to this simple, yet complex equation. Nothing was wrong with using a harmless drug in leisure, yet woman’s intuition made its presence known, scolding your impulses of horniness, damning you by releasing soft banters as another orgasm cruises towards its peak.

Fuck, his tongue felt like absolute heaven.

“Does smoking weed make you get more wet?” Satoru grunted out a question before the tip of his tongue traced along the outside of your puffed clitoris. “Maybe I should sneak some droplets in between.” Satoru laughed at himself before swiping his tongue around the dampened entrance. 

“Just kidding.” 

The rough hands that were once mysteriously restraining your soft arms now found themselves caressing thighs covered in sweat. The roughness of his hands sent you almost to the edge as you begged him not to tease you, out of mercy with wanting the release that ached deep within your core. 

“I asked you a question, so I want you to make out an answer.” His front teeth slightly traced again over the sensitive organ as you cried out in frustration. For what reason the frustration came out, a mind doped in euphoria couldn’t comprehend. 

“Are you that stupid, or too high?”

You tried to voice out an answer out of anger until Satoru talked over your pleading. “Then again, with how many times you hit the blunt earlier, I might not expect you to make a full sentence.” An airy laugh came from his chest as he caressed your thighs, feeling the thickness that were grasped inside the palm of his hands. Another whimper of annoyance escaped agape lips as you looked over Satoru with furrowed eyebrows. Eyes glistening with the decorations of snow now pierced your soul, a shade of a familiar pink danced carefully around both eyes of sclera.  His attention with you never went away. The fixation of drowning deep in your pussy while elevated on drugs merely became a fantasy shifted towards reality. Thoughts and sounds didn’t make any sense, but the suckling, wet sounds grew to sound more appeasing.

Every nerve in your body was singing for bliss, yet they became overwhelmed with Satoru’s endless rambling, continuing his lapping across salted lips.

“Then again, your pussy always tastes better high.”

[anemoarchonhoe]

Commissioned by @udretlnea

Request: I'm thinking slice of life, second person, and it takes place in Mondstadt. The reader is well known and liked by practically everyone; they are currently there to observe the Alchemy Event going on right now- This is just set-up. I imagine Venti is there waiting w/ Diona for their potion order; then he sees Reader and he gets intrigued so he surprises them. The two walk out of earshot and have a pleasant chat about what's been going on- Since the fic is only 1k, I'd prefer to keep it short between them. Reader mentions how they're adjusting to their role as "Overseer of Teyvat" (implying this is a Creator!Sagau); they offhandedly mention how Khaenri'ah's been working on dimension hopping tech before Diona drags Venti away. And the fic ends with Reader feeling uneasy about opening Teyvat up, but they choose to ignore it to go and experience the event.

Thanks for commissioning me!

It is convenient; the fact that you obtained godlike power as soon as you stepped foot unto the soil of Teyvat. It had been a tremendous help in navigating these new lands you'd been transmigrated into and made life easier. Just like this time. It didn't really take long until you reached the venue where the Alchemy Event organized by the Knights of Favonius is, all due to your ability to teleport long distances. You shook your head to get out of your musings and began to look around your surroundings.

It was a modest event focused solely on alchemy. Unfamiliar faces from both Mondstadt and outside of it flocked the booths, tents and stands full of test tubes and questionably multicolored smoke to see what was happening. It soothes you to be normal for a few minutes… until people noticed you standing amongst them and bowed in your presence. The scene made you squirm a little where you stand, not totally uncomfortable but still unused to the attention. You raised a hand, as if blessing them, nodding your head to signal that they can resume the event. Which they do, but some approached you to either ask for a blessing, for guidance in their life's path, or simply to greet you. You are liked, perhaps not as loved as the archons despite ranking higher, but you prefer it that way. It's less expectations, after all.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't the Overseer of the world."

"Heya, Your Grace!"

You carefully made your way past the crowd to reach the two people who called out your name. You smiled in relief; finally, people you know! Venti was looking at you with a bright smile with both hands on his hips and Diona is enthusiastically waving at you. You pat Diona, which the bartender swiped at with a playful hiss.

"Venti, Diona, hi!" You greeted them. "What a surprise to see you here. This is the last place I imagined you to hang around in."

"I understand you for thinking that way, but curiosity had gotten the best of me." Venti answered, and then assumed a serious thinking pose. You rolled your eyes playfully with a thinly veiled smile. He's going to ask something ridiculous, isn't he? "If alchemy has the power to transform matter, I wonder if it could also be used to turn water into wine?"

There it is. Diona fumed, but you cover her mouth with your hand and answered. "I could turn water into wine. Easy."

Venti's eyes widened. His smile as bright as the sun above. "Really?!"

"No." You're not sure. You probably could, if you tried.

"My hopes and dreams…" Venti fake-cried and pouted, but he immediately gets over it and smiles. "Anyway, what brought you here, Overseer?" He gestures for you to walk with him, so you follow, steps falling in line with his.

"Oh, you know," you vaguely wave your hand, trying to make sense of what you were feeling. "Just looking around. I got curious myself about alchemy so I came."

"Ah, I see," Venti nodded. You mentioned to him and the other archons on one of the traditional divine get togethers — brought back by Venti and Zhongli — that your world once studied alchemy. Turns out your alchemy is a sham and couldn't turn stuff to gold, but it did make way for the study of chemistry. "I hope you are enjoying yourself."

"Don't worry, I am. Especially since I'm with you."

Venti gave you a soft look."Aww. I'm honored, truly."

You laughed and gave him a push, your cheeks feeling a little warm from the attention. He snorted and retaliated by send a gentle breeze your way to mess your hair.

A companionable silence briefly falls over the two of you like a cozy blanket as you sit down on a bench with the perfect view of the event. A tiny explosion from some failed alchemical experiment echoed somewhere and you thought you heard the Traveler's surprised yelp and Paimon screeching from the same direction. You both ignored it.

"You seem busy these days, Overseer," The Anemo Archon finally broke the silence. "What have you been up to?"

"The usual. Making sure the Irminsul is healthy through checking with Nahida, keeping the Abyss Order in check, rebuilding Khaenri'ah- ah, since we're talking about the place, I should also mention that they're working on some advanced technology. Something about travelling through another dimension."

Venti nodded, but his face looks a little troubled. "Are you sure that's a great idea? With Celestia gone, there's nothing that can stop Khaenri'ah from fulfilling their dreams. However…"

There's just way too many risks. You can hear his unspoken words in your head. As far as you are aware, they're "digging" through time and space to get to the world where you came from. While interdimensional trade can certainly be advantageous for this world in both technological advancement and knowledge, you're afraid of the repercussions of messing around with wormholes and potential war that can erupt due to disputes borne of different culture and lust for more territory.

Humans are greedy creatures, after all.

But before you could answer, Diona is already running towards where you were both seated. She pants and places both hands on her knees. The girl huffs one last time and looks at the green-clad bard, irritated. "Where in Teyvat have you been?! Your potion is complete so come get it already!"

"Okay," he replied, standing up. "I hate to cut this conversation short, dear friend, but I must leave. I hope you enjoy the rest of the event."

You nodded with a tired smile, watching Venti follow Diona, who's doing her best to keep walking ahead of the bard in spite of her shorter legs. You feel a little uneasy about the future, your heart being seized with fear for this world you swore to protect.

For now, however, you want to enjoy this peaceful day. Perhaps you'll go greet the Traveller.

Word count: 1,000

Character count: 5,692

[certifiedlovergirlsstuff]

i have a request! can u write a fic where r just feels like crap like she has no motivation to do any work or study for uni and maybe steve just helps her out? ly <33

i’ve been in these similar situations where depression or a funk is soooooo bad i just rotted in bed in the dark. if you’re ever feeling alone you could always come into my inbox/dms to talk.

steve harrington x gn!reader

masterlist

everything feels drab. draining. grey. there’s not an ounce of energy in your body to even lift your head from your pillow. the little shimmers of light filtering through your shut blinds felt blinding on your heavy eyes.

work sucks, taking every single piece of your soul everyday. school is stressful, having a breakdown after a three hour study session in the library. you want to drop out, you want to be unemployed- you just want to barely exist.

there was a gentle knock on your bedroom door, you couldn’t even mange a simple hum or “come in”, you just stayed silent. a faint creak of hinges signaled that your guest was peeking into your room.

“honey?” it was steve. his tone was soft, not wanting to disturb, “you awake?” you just did a light shuffle, moving your head from under your blanket. a nonverbal invitation to enter further.

steve closed the door behind him and made his way to your curled in side, the bed dipping with his weight. his palm rested on your covered hip, a comforting back and forth swiping. “how we feeling today?” a question steve asked when you were in a funk.

left cheek pressed into your pillow caused your lips to pucker and butcher your answer. steve leans in closer, asking for you to repeat yourself. even that felt like too much work.

“empty.” the one word pushed from your mouth, heavy on your tongue. eyes staring a hole into your wall, smile and laughing faces mocking you.

steve rubbed a line over your hip, “okay.” said in a tone a sad mother uses on their kid. you felt like you just disappointed steve. it’s not like you want to be down, it just happens and is a bitch to deal with.

a blur started to cover your sight, “i’m sorry.” throat getting choked by the oncoming tears. you wanted to bury yourself away.

“hey, no, no. it’s okay to feel this way. everyone feels this way at times.” hand leaving your hip to caress at your cheek, wiping away the few tears beginning to drop.

“it’s- it’s different.” “i now.” you both know that’s not the whole truth.

steve tucked a few greasy hair strands behind your ear, “why don’t we get a bath? feeling clean is always a nice step for a better mind. i could change your bedding as well, also make a snack to eat. what you say?” his thumb a simple weight on your cheek, his fingers pressing lightly into your neck.

a bath does sound nice. you were starting to feel the oil clogging your pores and you had a inkling that your room was starting to develop a smell that you were ignoring. you know what they say, a clean space helps a clean mind, or something like that.

“that… that sounds nice.” making eye contact with steve for the first time today.

his smile was beautiful. “okay, i’ll get it ready then come back.” before leaving he pressed a love filled kiss to your forehead and another before walking to the bathroom down the hall.

less than five minutes later steve reappears in your doorframe, a new glow following him. “your bath, ma’lady.” standing before you with a hand stretched out in waiting.

“will you stay with me?” pushing your comforter away and swinging your feet to the floor. steve took your hand, holding you delicately like glass. “for a little. i gotta do my other stuff. i can wash your hair if you want.”

“please?” already feeling your shoulders loosen at the feel of steve’s fingers messaging your scalp. he smiled, sickly sweet before presenting a kiss into your crown, “anything for you.”

[sastielsfandom]

Sam leaned on the Impala, opening a piece of gum and popping it into his mouth, squinting at the sun. Castiel was watching him carefully, "What is that?"

"Gum," Sam said, taking another stick out, "want a piece?"

"It's not food, is it?" Castiel questioned, taking the wrapped stick of gum, smelling it and frowning. 

"Not quite." Sam said, laughing through his nose, "You just chew it."

Castiel opened it, tilting his head, continuing his inspection, "And then what?"

"And then you spit it out when you're done with it." Sam said, and waited for Castiel to try it, but the angel was more focused on the wrapper than the gum.

"Here," Sam said, taking it out of the wrapper, tucking that bit into Castiel's trench coat, "just try it."

Castiel slowly brought it to their mouth, and mimicked Sam by throwing it into their mouth. Just as quickly as it went it, it went out, landing on the ground, "That was disgusting."

Sam tried to refrain from laughing, instead cleared his throat, "Um, most people chew it before they get to that part, and I guess I should've specified you throw it away in the trash. Not the floor."

"Do you like your gum?" Castiel asked, watching Sam chew. 

Sam raised an eyebrow and shrugged, "Yeah, I guess-" Castiel pulled Sam down into a kiss, swiping the gum from his mouth, and chewed it just as Sam did. 

"I prefer the gum like this," Castiel said, nodding, looking at the gum that had landed on the floor, "not like that."

Sam's face was beyond red, he rubbed the back of his neck, and turned the other way, "Um, yeah, uh, if you chewed it enough, it would've done the same thing."

Castiel frowned at Sam's reaction, "Do you want it back?"

"You keep it, Cas." Sam reassured, and relieved as Dean came out of the gas station, even though he was waving around beef jerky, again. 

---------

Sam had just returned from the convenience store, two bags full of everyone's weird lists, Dean had taken both bags out of Sam's hands, digging into them, "Sam, you just got gum,  have you been chewing your toenails again?"

"No, is that something you do often, Dean?" Sam shot back, as Dean tossed it to him, Sam tossed it to Castiel. 

Castiel smiled, holding it to their chest, "Thank you."

"Why'd you get Cas gum?" Dean asked, rummaging through the bag that was most likely Sam's, but he was intrigued, "That's the benefit of having an angel around, no extra expenses."

"It came from my money, not yours, so shut up." Sam said, taking the bag back and shoving Dean's towards him. Bobby already got his stuff, because Sam knew Dean. And so did Bobby. 

"Bobby!" Dean called in a whiny tone. 

Bobby wanted to ignore him, but that tone told him to just answer, "What?"

"Sam told me to shut up!" Bobby rolled his eyes, "So why are you still yapping?" He got no answer, and was quite satisfied with that. 

Dean turned to face a smug Sam, and shook his head, and pointed at him, "Wow, just turning them all against me, Sammy."

"Uh-huh, clearly that's what I'm doing." Sam said.

"It is," Dean said, nodding, and Sam could see his brain turning, "it's your masterplan."

"Yeah, you got me," Sam shrugged, "I'm sure when Dad said to watch out for me this is what he meant. Do we wait until I give him a lollipop and then bring out the shotgun or is this crime enough?"

"That's not funny," Dean said, which made Sam laugh, "It's a little funny."

"What's a lollipop?" Castiel asked, and before Sam could answer Dean jumped in, "Do not give Castiel lollipops."

"I won't." Sam said, unconvincingly, but Dean took his bag, and did the universal, I'm watching you sign, which Sam ignored as he waited for him to walk away fully. 

Once he disappeared around the corner, Sam pulled out a bag that may or may have not nothing but lollipops... Just as he handed it to Castiel, Dean popped back out, "A big bag, really?"

Sam tried looking empathetic but his mischief shone right through, "So is it my gun or yours?"

"Sam!" Dean shouted, and the two were off running, Sam laughing loudly as he ran outside. 

Bobby walked in, hearing the chaos existing the house, "Do I want to know?" He asked Castiel. 

Castiel had no idea if Bobby did, but decided to answer anyway, "Sam gave me gum and lollipops, Dean disapproves, and now Sam is asking if Dean should kill him. I can't tell if it's a yes or no."

Bobby looked outside and back at the angel and the bag he was currently holding, "They'll tire themselves out. What flavors you got?" Castiel lifted up the bag and Bobby grabbed the treats before he went outside to watch the show. Might as well get some entertainment out of it.

[farity]

Obsession, part 5

"Leaving is easy," she said harshly, her voice shaky with anger.

He searched for something, anything, to show her that he not only wanted her, but that he wanted more. "Ask me anything," he said, finally.

She pulled back at that, "and?" she asked.

"I will tell you anything you wish to know," he replied, "unless that knowledge puts someone in danger."

She gave him a look, swiping a hand across her cheek, where the tear had left its track. "Isn't that just about everything to do with your family?"

He could only look at her, and she took a breath, closing her eyes for a second. "Fine. Who cut your face?"

Straight to the heart of things, he thought, and nodded. He could do this. He could relive the hell that had taken his eye and damned him to everyone. "My nephew, Luke."

Her eyes went wide. "What the fuck?"

"It's a long story." Thank the Seven for small favors.

She scrutinized him for a moment, weighing and considering, before she stepped back. "Then get comfortable, and I'll get some wine."

* * * * *

Aemond was offering honesty and you prized that. You'd push him, seeing how far his loyalty to the family went versus his attraction to you. And then you'd see.

You took a sip of the red wine you usually kept on hand and opened a package of striped fudge cookies. Wine and chocolate. Nothing better for a heart to heart.

"My father was married before. His first wife had a daughter, Rhaenyra, but he wanted a son."

Of course he did.

He was sitting on the sofa, facing you at the other end, where you'd draped one of the throws you kept around over your legs. "She lost a couple of pregnancies and then finally got pregnant with a boy. Then she died during birth, and the baby died a day later."

You couldn't help but close your eyes. "That's awful."

He nodded. "Mom had the four of us, but-"

"Four?"

"My brother Daeron is the youngest, he is studying near my mom's family so he lives with them for now."

He'd asked her for some water along with the wine she'd poured for both of them, and drank some. "Anyway, Rhaenyra always did as she wanted, while we had to go by the rules. She married the guy dad chose for her, but then had three kids who all suspiciously looked like her bodyguard."

Bitterness had started to peek through in his posture, his voice, the tension in his shoulders. You knew this wasn't getting any better any time soon.

"Dad decided she'd take over for him when he retired, and thought throwing her kids in with us would make us all like each other."

He pressed his lips together, shook his head. "It didn't work. They hated us, we hated them. Dad thought he'd just ignore everything. Until one day there was a fight, like many before, but this time, Luke had a knife."

"How old were you?"

"I was ten."

You looked at him, "and Luke?"

"Seven, eight?"

The kind, empathic part of you wanted to reach out, to touch him. Like you wanted to befriend Helaena. But you kept your hands where they were and listened.

"I called them bastards," Aemond smirked for a moment, "and then Luke slashed my face." He looked down at the couch, at the space between you, as if seeing it happen all over again.

"I am sorry," you whispered. "I can't imagine."

He looked up, and you nearly pushed back at the anger in his gaze. "And nothing was done about it."

"Wait, what do you-"

"Luke wasn't punished. In fact Rhaenyra wanted me 'sharply questioned' for saying her kids were bastards."

"But your father-"

"Did nothing." He had leaned forward, one hand on the cushion between you. "My mother tried, demanded one of Luke's eyes be cut out. Father just wanted it all swept under the rug."

Against your better instinct, and tired of the strain of holding back, you closed the distance and wrapped yourself around him. He didn't move, stayed still while you felt the tears begin to fall again.

"Do not pity me."

You pushed away from him. "I don't." You felt rage, incandescent and liquid, flowing freely through you. "I want to murder someone."

"You can't."

You grabbed your wine glass and downed the rest of it in one go. "Why not?"

"Because when I'm done telling the story, you may change your mind."

"Okay, then. Continue."

He drank more of his water. "Years later, I was moving to one of the houses on the property, taking some of my stuff in my truck, and I saw Luke, driving his convertible, top down, not a fucking care in the world."

His eye landed on you and one eyebrow went up. "I started chasing him. Just to scare him. He'd barely gotten his license a few days before, and his mother had bought him the red car of his dreams."

You felt your pulse quicken, anticipating how things were going to end.

"I lost control of the truck during a turn, overcompensated, the truck was loaded with furniture. Luke's little red car didn't have a chance."

Your hands had gone cold, fingertips icy. "Did anyone believe you had lost control of the truck?"

He blinked, as if surprised at your train of thought. "No. Aegon threw me a party. Father raged at me no matter what I said, mother said nothing, never has."

* * * * *

He didn't tell her that in his family, to be called a Kinslayer was the worst kind of insult. He didn't tell her that the only one who had held him when he finally broke down, had been Helaena, who caressed his hair while he wept and told him all about the insects she loved. He'd woken up at dawn with his head still resting on her leg, and she'd fallen asleep sitting against the wall.

"Did he die immediately?"

"Yes."

She looked at him and he felt his heart go still. She was going to tell him to go now, now that she knew, because she could tell that some part of him had wanted Luke dead.

"Too bad."

She poured herself more wine. "I wish he'd suffered. You're not going to drink your wine, are you?" she reached over and grabbed a cookie from the table, bit into it.

When he was finally convinced she didn't quite hate him for everything he'd told her, he spoke again. "It was war for a few months. Several things happened, people were hurt. All because of me."

"Fuck that," she snapped.

"That's how everyone saw it. Things are different now. I got into computers, security, and I became the best."

She grabbed another cookie, snapped it in half, extended one piece to him.

Aemond looked from her face to her hand, and leaned in, taking the cookie from her fingers, then pulling it into his mouth. She placed the other half in her mouth, looking away from him, her face flushed.

After washing it down with some more wine, she looked back at him. "It's like you were set up to end up like this," she mused, then looked around her living room, "I sure hope this place isn't bugged."

"It isn't."

"In that case," she smiled softly, "your dad fucking sucks."

Aemond looked down for a long time. "Thank you for listening."

"I asked the question," she shrugged, "I owed it to you to listen to the answer." She grabbed his untouched glass of wine, downed that as well. "I have one more, if you're willing."

He looked up, "I'll answer as many as I can."

"What does 'calling the banners' mean?"

He couldn't help but smile. She remembered. "It means that you have asked your allies to join you in some kind of enterprise."

"Enterprise."

"An attack, or retribution. Or war."

She tilted her head slightly. "Retribution. For Helaena?"

He nodded, then rubbed his face, mindful of not moving the eye patch. "It has to be done."

"Do you know who it is?"

"Yes."

"Will knowing put me in danger?"

"Not just you."

"Will you be okay?"

He felt a small frisson of delight at her question. "Are you worried for me?"

She blushed and looked away from him, her fingers playing with the edge of the blanket on her lap.

"I know this world isn't for everyone," he added quietly, "but I will not ignore the fact that I want you, or that I know that you want me."

"It's not that easy, Aemond. I don't belong to your-"

"The only people who get to decide if you belong with me, are you and me," he said sharply. "And I've already made my decision."

When she looked up, eyebrows raised, he stood. "But now, I have to go." He rubbed the back of his neck as he walked to the door and she reached him just before he opened the door, her small, cold fingers grabbing his, and he pulled her against him, bringing her hand to his lips. "Your hands are cold," he said, kissing across her knuckles.

"I am."

"What?"

"Worried for you." Her cheeks turned pink again. "I think-"

He stopped listening and wrapped his arms around her, his mouth now on hers, her little gasp letting him slip his tongue in her mouth as he pressed her against the wall next to the door.

He felt her other hand reach up to cup the back of his neck, her short fingernails raking across his skin and he almost moaned because it felt so fucking good. She was kissing him back, her tongue sliding alongside his. He could feel her breasts as she shamelessly pushed them against his chest, could imagine tasting them, scraping his teeth across the tender flesh. He could sink to his knees, pull her leggings down and spread her legs open, and he'd bury his face between her thighs, taste even more precious flesh, make her come on his tongue before he fucked her for hours on her bed.

The stupid vibration on his watch broke him out of his thoughts, and he pushed back. Her mouth was swollen from his kisses, her hands on his arms as she steadied herself.

There was business to take care of, and so he took a deep breath and let go of her. "I have to go," he said again, annoyed that she could push him to lose control like this. "Let me know when you make your decision."

Without waiting for her to reply, he left and closed the door behind him, ignoring her parted lips and flushed cheeks.

* * * * *

I stood against that wall for half an hour because I wasn't quite sure my legs could support me if I tried to walk.

Holy hell, the man can kiss. I'm sure there are other things he's good at, too.

I finally make it back to the sofa and finish off the bottle of wine, stuffing my face with cookies for the next hour.

What kind of father sees his kid get his goddamn eye cut out and does nothing to punish the little shit who did it? I don't trust myself to be nice to Viserys Targaryen if I am ever in the same room with him. And the wife, she's like the Mafia version of Lady Macbeth.

I have no business getting involved with Aemond. Absolutely none. I have my quiet, boring life, my quiet, boring job, my quiet, boring place. And compared to what goes on in his family, it feels like paradise.

The thought of not seeing Aemond again, and I know that if I tell him I've decided I don't want to be with him, he would respect that and I would never, ever see him again, makes my head hurt. So I reach for more cookies and pretend it's just another boring night at home.

* * * * *

"He'll kill me if I tell you."

Aemond leaned in. "Oh no. I'm going to kill you. Your only choice is whether it will be a quick, painless death, or days of being hacked to death, one inch at a time, starting with your feet."

The man, tied to the chair, let out a sob. "I was just studying, and this guy asks me to let him know when she comes in. See if it's the same time, asks me to flirt with her so she'll want to come back. His email is in my phone, the bank app has the deposit info. I didn't touch her or anything."

Aemond smiled gently, "thank you. You have been very helpful." He stood and pulled out a gun as the man screamed for mercy, aimed and sent a bullet through his forehead. There was a red mist as it exited the back of his head.

He'd already found the emails and the financial stuff, although he expected it to lead nowhere. He nodded to the two guys to clean up the place and left with the phone in his gloved hand, ready to go home and work through the night.

* * * * *

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[xtaketwox]

I'm Betting It All On You

Summary: Lucien is tired of living in limbo. He has a proposition for Elain. One kiss and if she still doesn't want him, he'll leave her alone forever.

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: None

Read on AO3

@elucienweekofficial

“I have a proposition.”

Elain looked up from the rosebush she was pruning, a basket of flowers at her feet. Her heart—the traitor—sped up at the sound of his voice, the familiar swooping sensation hitting her stomach the moment she looked at him. He took a stepped closer when she held his gaze, and her breath caught as the sunlight glinted off his hair.

“A proposition?” she asked, ignoring her body’s response to her mate.

Lucien took another step towards her, and if she hadn’t seen him clench and unclench his fist, she might have thought he was perfectly at ease. 

“I—we can’t continue to live in limbo like this.” Lucien stopped two feet away, forcing Elain to tilt her head up. “We need to settle our bond, one way or the other.”

She froze, shock beating like a pulse through her body. In the years since the bond had snapped, they had both abided by an unspoken agreement to pretend the bond didn’t exist. Lucien had stopped giving her gifts, had stopped seeking her out at all. Elain didn’t know what prompted his hesitancy to get to know her, and she hadn’t questioned it. Out of all the bad luck their bond had brought her, at least Lucien had felt as disinclined to pursue her as she was to pursue him. She couldn’t fathom what would prompt him to disregard that unspoken agreement now. 

“What are you proposing?” It was all she could think to say, though she was already prepared to turn down whatever suggestion Lucien made. She wasn’t being intentionally cruel by neither accepting nor breaking the bond; she might not want Lucien, but that didn’t mean she wanted to risk him going insane from a broken bond. 

Lucien’s gaze dropped to her lips for a prolonged moment, stealing the breath from her chest.

“We kiss.” 

Whatever Elain had expected him to say, it hadn’t been that. 

“No.”

Lucien sighed, as if she had reacted exactly as he expected. “It will help us decide if we’re even compatible.”

“I already know we are,” Elain said, crossing her arms and looking away. It was Lucien’s turn to be surprised, reeling back as if she had slapped him. “Everyone knows mating bonds manipulate people, making people who don’t even like each other unable to keep their hands to themselves. A kiss between us would do nothing.”

Lucien mirrored her stance, crossing his arms, his lips pressed into a firm line. “If the bond manipulated people, then we wouldn’t have spent years ignoring each other. Your logic is flawed.” He tilted his head, considering her. “Or are you afraid?”

Irritation burned hot in her chest, and by the gleam in his eye, Lucien knew it. She refused to rise to the bait, clasping her hands in front of her. “I’m not afraid. I only know that kissing won’t prove anything.”

Lucien took yet another step toward her, hardly a foot separating them. She tilted her head back further, but her wide-brimmed hat kept her from seeing his eyes. Lucien reached up and pulled the hat from her head, letting it drop into the ground beside them. Elain started to reach for it, but Lucien grasped her wrist to stop her. 

It was all she could do not to shudder at the feel of his skin against the sensitive underside of her wrist. The bob of his throat signaled Lucien was equally affected. When he spoke, his deep voice was hushed.

“If we kiss and you still don’t want anything to do with me, I’ll leave you alone forever.”

Elain’s mouth popped up as she sucked in a breath. She could hear how quickly Lucien’s heart was beating. He was gambling big on a single kiss. 

“Forever?” 

Lucien’s thumb swiped over her wrist, sending goosebumps up her arm. “For as long as you never want to see me, you won’t. I’ll refuse all of Feyre’s holiday invitations, report to Rhysand in the Illyrian Steppes, and you’ll never have to feel me again. You can even reject the bond if you choose.”

The thought of never seeing Lucien again immediately filled Elain with dread, but she forced the feelings down, sure that it was just the bond’s emotional manipulation. She wanted to make decisions about her own life and who she loved. She didn’t want a bond telling her who she was supposed to love. If it were known that she and Lucien had decided to reject their bond, perhaps she could still find love some day. As it stood, the fae held too much respect for mating bonds to agree to courting a mated female. 

Elain lifted her chin. “Very well.”

The corners of Lucien’s mouth drew up in a cheshire grin, prompting Elain to put a hand on his chest to stop his immediate descent. 

“Wait. We need to establish the rules.”

Lucien’s eyebrows rose. “What are you suggesting.”

Elain took a deep breath, immediately regretting it when the scent of spiced apples and cypress nearly overwhelmed her. Her face heated at having to speak so frankly about kissing, but she wanted to make sure Lucien took no liberties. 

“Closed-mouth only and your hands do not stray off my waist.”

Lucien snorted. “No.” At her affronted look, he clarified. “I will keep my hands from straying, but I refuse to agree to nothing more than a chaste kiss.”

“Why?” She stepped back, trying to remove his tantalizing scent from her nose. She needed to keep a clear head.

“A peck on the lips isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

Elain crossed her arms, her suspicions confirmed. “Accomplish? I thought this was purely educational, but it seems you came with an agenda.”

Fire burned behind Lucien’s eye. “Yes, I did. I came to prove to you and me both that we’re meant to be. I’m tired of living my life not knowing if or when this bond will be resolved, and if I’m going to spend the rest of my miserable existence without my mate, then I’m going to at least know what she tastes like.”

Suddenly the sun felt too hot, her clothes too tight. As if he could see the effect his words had on her, Lucien stepped back into her space. “I’ll keep my hands to myself, but if you truly want to convince yourself of your indifference, then you’ll let me kiss you how I’ve been dreaming of it.”

Elain knew he was mocking her, but again, she refused to rise to the bait. Let him think what he wanted. If it accomplished a lifetime free of this bond, then she could ignore her baser urges for a few moments.

“Fine.”

Lucien blinked, clearly not expecting her to agree. 

“If you keep your hands on my waist—”

“Or your face.”

Elain huffed. “What?”

Lucien raised his hand and cupped her jaw, his thumb brushing against her cheekbone. “I want to be able to touch your face.”

Elain’s breath caught, her gut clenching as desire nearly overwhelmed her at his soft touch. 

“Fine,” she rasped. “You keep your hands on my waist or face and I’ll agree to let you kiss me—on the lips—however you want.”

Lucien’s eye gleamed as he nodded, lowering his mouth to hers. “Agreed,” he murmured, just before brushing his lips against hers. 

Elain knew it was a mistake at that first touch. She nearly moaned, her breath catching as warmth spread through her, sending a pulse straight down between her thighs. Lucien used his hand to tilt her head, his other hand grasping her waist to pull her closer as his tongue brushed against the seam of her mouth. Elain opened for him, nearly melting into him at the first swipe of his tongue into her mouth. 

This was nothing like kissing Graysen. There had been love between them, and even a modicum of passion, but it paled in comparison to the raging inferno that now tore through Elain, chanting for her to grab the front of Lucien’s shirt and press herself closer. 

Lucien groaned, the sound vibrating through her, telling her he was just as affected as she was. This knowledge drove her even closer to the brink of insanity and she did fist his shirt and press herself fully against him. Lucien’s hand slid from her jaw into her hair, and Elain was so focused on what his tongue was doing that she didn’t even realize he had already broken the rules. His other hand slid to her lower back as he deepened the kiss, pulling a groan out of Elain. 

She should have realized that a male who had been alive for centuries would know how to kiss. She should have remembered Lucien was known for his cunning. He had known his experience far outweighed hers, had probably known he could sway her with a kiss. 

She should have insisted it remain chaste. 

When Lucien pulled back, Elain whimpered and tried to follow, her eyes widening in horror when she realized what she was doing. Lucien smirked down at her. 

“Well?” His voice was low and gravelly, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Am I spending the rest of my life alone?”

Elain closed her eyes, trying to keep herself from staring at Lucien’s face while she gathered her thoughts. The scent of spiced apples and cypress were heady in her nose, her nostrils flaring with each inhale. She heard two hearts racing and was unable to distinguish hers from his. 

Gods, that had been better than she could have imagined. All she wanted was to keep going, but she didn’t trust herself to know whether she truly wanted it or if the bond was forcing her to feel things. She didn’t want regrets in the morning. 

Without opening her eyes, she whispered, “How do I know it’s real? What if it’s just the bond?”

Lucien’s hand slid back to her jaw, his thumb brushing her lips. “I suppose there isn’t a way, but I think you’re misinformed over how mating bonds work.”

Elain opened her eyes, confused. 

Lucien’s gaze was on her lips as he spoke. “A bond can’t manufacture feelings. It can perhaps push people into feeling sexual attraction, but I think you’re forgetting that the bond is woven into the fabric of who we are. We’ve been mates since before you were born. I had to wait, but the bond was always there. It doesn’t appear out of thin air. Just because it snapped after you were Made, doesn’t mean that’s when it was created.”

Elain could only blink at him as she digested this information. He waited patiently, though his stare grew more heated as time went on. Finally, Elain grasped his wrist, pulling his hand from her face and taking several steps back.

“This isn’t a no, but I would like time to think about what you said and decide what I’m feeling.”

Disappointment and a sadness that tugged at Elain’s heart flashed through Lucien’s face, but he nodded. “Of course.”

He turned to leave, but Elain grabbed his arm to halt him. When he looked back, she said, “I’ll meet you tomorrow at your apartment here in Velaris for dinner.” She phrased it as a statement, but there was a question in her tone.

Lucien nodded, his relief palpable that she wasn’t going to make him wait indefinitely. “Very well.”

Elain dropped his wrist, ignoring her desire to stop him from leaving as she watched him walk away. She would spend the next twenty-four hours thinking about what she wanted, and one way or another, tomorrow things would be settled.

* * *

It took Elain twice as long as it should have to reach Lucien’s apartment the following evening. She had changed her mind halfway there several times and then again on her way back to the river house. 

She had slept very little the night before. Lucien’s words played on a loop in her mind and when she did finally sleep, her dreams had followed that kiss to an erotic conclusion. She had woken both exhausted and body throbbing. It had taken only a few swipes of her fingers for an orgasm to shatter through her. Then she had made sure to scrub every inch of herself thoroughly in the bath, well aware that everyone would be able to scent her arousal. 

Standing in front of Lucien’s door, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and knocked. The door opened immediately, as if he had been waiting right beside it. 

“Hello,” Elain said, nerves making her voice breathy. 

Lucien stepped aside and gestured for her to enter. “Please come in.” 

Elain twisted her fingers together as she stepped through the door into the space. She had never been—though she had always known where Lucien’s apartment was located—and looked around, impressed with the space. She followed Lucien into the living room, the kitchen overlooking the room. It wasn’t large, but it had a cozy feel to it. She couldn’t help but notice the Autumn influences throughout the space, decorated in shades of orange, brown, and green. 

A small table, just big enough for two, stood in the space between the kitchen and living room. There were two place settings and as she noticed them, the scents from the kitchen hit her nose.

“You cook?” Elain asked.

Lucien huffed a laugh. “No. Not well anyway. I picked up something from a restaurant near here. I hope you like fish.” 

It struck Elain then how little they knew about one another. “I love fish.”

Lucien’s shoulders sagged in obvious relief and Elain realized then how nervous he was to have her here. 

“Would you like to talk before or after dinner?”

Elain forced herself to stop fidgeting as she squared her shoulders. “I think it’s best to get it over with.”

Lucien froze, horror dawning on his face. Elain immediately took a step forward, reaching for him. “My answer is yes.”

His mouth parted and he blinked several times at her, as if needing a moment to process. “…yes?”

Elain took yet another step towards him, tilting her chin up. “After you left yesterday, I requested information on mating bonds from Nesta’s friend Gwyn. I also talked to Rhys. I would have talked to Feyre as well, but I didn’t want her to get her hopes up.”

Lucien was hardly breathing. “What did you discover?”

Elain shrugged. “More or less what you told me. I’m not one hundred percent sure I agree that mating bonds aren’t manipulative, but it’s also not quite as mindless as I assumed. Rhys also pointed out that strong sexual attraction happens to people without mating bonds.” 

Lucien closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring. When he opened them again, his gaze was so hot that Elain’s stomach flipped. 

“What do you want to do then?” he asked. 

Elain dropped her gaze to his mouth. “I think…I’d like to kiss you again.”

Lucien immediately yanked on her hand, pulling her flush against him as he dipped his head, pressing his lips hungrily against hers. He dropped her hand, sliding his hand to the small of her back, his other hand tilting her jaw.

Elain whimpered as he slid his tongue into her mouth. Without realizing what she even planned to do, she reached under his shirt, needing to feel his skin against her hands. 

Lucien shuddered, breaking the kiss and leaning his head against hers to whisper, “Fuck.”

Elain couldn’t help but agree in her head as her fingers climbed the ridges of his abdomen. “Kiss me,” she whispered, needing his mouth on her again. 

Lucien complied, and Elain gasped when he placed his hands on her waist and walked her backward until her back hit the wall, his tongue doing delicious things in her mouth as he did so. 

Elain thought she might spontaneously combust. Lucien brushed his thumbs along her ribs, but kept his hands from straying anywhere else, per their agreement the previous day. 

Elain broke the kiss only long enough to say, “Please touch me.”

Lucien growled into her mouth as his hands slid up, gently squeezing her breasts through her dress. Her knees nearly gave out, a jolt of arousal hitting her clit at the contact. She could feel his smirk against her lips as he wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her upright. 

Gods, he barely touched her and she was about to lose her mind. 

Elain slid her hands under his shirt again, raking her nails lightly down his stomach and then around and up his spine. Lucien groaned, pulling Elain closer so that she could feel the hard length of him against her stomach. He kissed his way from her mouth, along her jaw, to her ear. 

“What are you doing to me?” he whispered, his voice sending shivers down her spine. 

He continued kissing a trail down her throat and across her collar bone, sucking gently. Elain felt feverish, her clothes suddenly too tight. Lucien kissed the tops of her breasts and she wanted to scream at him to hurry up. 

As if he had heard her plea, he pulled the fabric of her dress down. He leaned back, his gaze hungry as he stared at her breasts. Just when Elain was contemplating shoving his face against her, he lowered his head, his tongue laving across one nipple before sucking it into his mouth. 

Elain gasped, her knees actually giving out now. Lucien deftly caught her, scooping her into his arms and walking toward his bedroom, dinner forgotten. Elain plunged both hands into his hair, grasping tightly as she kissed him again. 

Lucien set her on his bed and laid between her spread legs, immediately returning his mouth to her breast. He knew what he was doing, every touch sending jolts of arousal south, until Elain thought she might combust. 

Now that he had her in his bed, Lucien seemed in no hurry, his mouth teasing its way from one breast to the other. His hands dropped to her legs, bunching the material of her skirt before slowly pushing it up. Elain shivered when his fingers skimmed across her hips. He pulled back long enough for her to sit up so he could undo the buttons of her dress and pull it over her head. 

Lucien’s pupil blew wide at the sight of her in nothing but underwear, his breath ragged. Elain grasped the edge of his shirt and pulled up. Lucien helped her, pulling it off and tossing it away. Elain’s mouth watered as she took in his bronzed torso, the dips and valleys of his abdomen begging for her tongue.

Before she could act on that desire, Lucien gently pushed her back down. He towered over her, his eyes moving rapidly over her, as if he didn’t know where to look first. Elain, not used to being so on display, crossed her arms over her chest.

Lucien shook his head, gently grabbing her wrists. 

“Please let me look at you,” he breathed. He waited until her soft nod before pulling her arms away. His breath caught and she watched, fascinated, as he shuddered above her. 

“You’re so beautiful.” His voice was so low, she wondered if he had meant to say the words out loud. 

She didn’t know how to respond, so she simply said, “So are you.” 

His eye snapped to hers, and she smiled at the shock on his face. “Surely, you’ve been told before how beautiful you are.”

Something that looked like grief crossed his expression before he shook his head. “Not often since I lost my eye.” 

Elain sat up, Lucien leaning back to give her space. She reached up to caress his face, brushing her fingers lightly over the scars running from his brow to his jaw. He closed his eyes, his hands grasping her waist, as if he needed something to steady himself. 

“I didn’t know you before,” she said, glancing towards his good eye, “but the moment I first saw you, I thought you were the most handsome man or fae I had ever seen.” Lucien swallowed, seeming unable to talk, so Elain continued, tracing the scars up and down his face. “It scared me, how much I wanted you, especially—” she cut off, not wanting to mar the moment with the reminder of her ex-fiance. She grabbed both sides of his face. “I need you to know, I didn’t stay away because I wasn’t attracted to you.” His breathing grew more rapid. “I stayed away because I couldn’t stand to be around you and not touch you. I…I didn’t trust that what I wanted was real, but I always wanted you, Lucien.”

Lucien immediately pulled her close, crushing his lips to hers. This kiss was like a firestorm, full of heat and a swirl of emotions flowing through the bond. Elain wasn’t sure which were her own and which belonged to Lucien. They had occasionally felt each other’s emotions through the bond, but had both learned to build a wall to their mind. Now, it would seem those walls had been crumbled to dust. 

Elain pulled away with a gasp, Lucien trailing kisses back down her jaw, neck, across her collar bone. He laid her back as he kissed and sucked his way down the valley of her breasts. She fisted the sheets at her side and shoved her chest up, silently begging him to show her breasts attention. Lucien smiled against her skin as he ignored the silent plea and continued kissing lower. 

Elain’s dream from that morning flashed briefly through her head, and her whole body jerked at the memory. Just when he was almost where she needed him, he pulled back, a feral grin on his face when she whined in protest. 

He skimmed his fingers down her leg, leaving a trail of goosebumps in his wake, lifting her ankle and pressing a kiss on it. He trailed kisses up her calf, the inside of her knee, gently sucking as he did so. Elain started shaking when he reached the inside of her thigh, silently begging him to give her relief. 

Once again, he pulled away before reaching where Elain wanted him. He pulled her underwear down, tossing it aside and pulling her leg over his shoulder before shimming his fingers down the other leg and repeating the process. By the time he was sucking on the inside of her thigh, Elain felt taut as a bowstring, her legs already shaking. 

She was just about to resort to begging when he finally lowered his mouth, swiping his tongue up through her folds and sucking her clit in his mouth. Elain bowed off the bed, releasing the sheets in favor of gripping Lucien’s hair to hold him in place. He placed a hand on her abdomen to hold her down as he licked and sucked. 

It took almost no time before Elain pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream as she came, stars bursting behind her closed eyes. Lucien pulled her hand away, kissing her though her orgasm. She didn’t know how he knew that’s what she needed, but she immediately gripped his hair to hold him there. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. 

It wasn’t close enough. Elain wrapped her legs around his waist, irritated when she realized Lucien still wore his pants. He pulled away without her having to ask, shoving his pants and underwear down and kicking them away before laying back between her legs. 

Elain immediately wrapped her legs around his waist, a satisfied sound leaving her as she felt the length of him against her skin. 

“I need you,” she whispered, kissing him desperately. “I want all of you.”

Lucien shuddered, pulling away just far enough to line himself up before slowly pushing in. 

Elain gasped at the stretch, closing her eyes. Lucien stilled, his thumb brushing against her cheek. “Let me know if I hurt you.” 

Elain shook her head, unable to form the words to tell him it felt wonderful, right, like this was how they were meant to be. “Go,” was all she managed to say.

Lucien kissed her again as he pushed further in, going too slowly. Elain wrapped her legs around him, pushing her heels into his ass and tilting her hips to drive him completely in. He cursed and Elain smiled at the wave of satisfaction that coursed through her. 

Fire stared at her from Lucien’s eye as he ghosted his lips against her and whispered, “You’ll pay for that.”

“I certainly hope so,” she whispered back with a boldness she didn’t realize she possessed. 

Lucien crushed his lips back to hers as he snapped his hips, swallowing Elain’s gasp. He was everywhere, his mouth on hers, his hands roaming over her skin, his hips snapping a fiery pace. Just like his kissing, Lucien’s centuries of experience were evident, and rather than jealousy at the thought of females of the past, Elain wanted to find them all and thank them for their service. 

She had never felt so unhinged, her emotions completely unbridled. The bond hummed between them, emotions flying back and forth so quickly that it was impossible to distinguish who was feeling what, or if they were both feeling exactly the same thing. 

He shifted his angle and Elain cried out as he hit a spot inside that made her vision blur. She felt another orgasm coiling in her stomach, drawing tighter with every thrust, until she thought she might snap in two. She whimpered when Lucien changed angles again, leaving her on the precipice. 

He leaned down, his breath hot on her ear as he whispered, “What do you want, Elain?”

She struggled to form words, her brain too full of the sensations he was dragging out of her. 

He kissed right below her ear and his voice sounded strained. “Tell me what you need.”

“More,” she finally managed to say, her own hands roaming over his skin, wanted to be closer still, wanting to fuse their bodies together. 

Lucien obliged, skimming his hand from her face down between them, lightly circling her clit. 

It wasn’t enough. “More,” she gasped.

Lucien smiled as he sped up his fingers, pressing harder. Elain began shaking again, every muscle in her body pulling tight as he wound her higher and higher, his hips snapping in time with the swipes of his fingers. Just when she thought her muscles might snap, Lucien hit that spot inside her and she screamed, her orgasm rolled over her. 

She just barely registered Lucien’s own scream as he went rigid above her before he collapsed, only barely managing to keep himself from crushing her. He wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her close, his head on her chest. 

They laid in silence, both gasping for breath, Elain still twitching from her orgasm. She idly ran her fingers through his hair while his arms squeezed her close almost to the point of pain. 

“I—that’s never happened before.”

Lucien raised his head, his eyes wide as he stared at her. She almost laughed when his mechanical eye started whirring.

“What do you mean?” she asked. She marveled at how comfortable, how right she felt. There was no post-sex awkwardness, no self-conscious desire to cover back up now that the act was over. Instead, she felt like she might never want to move, to spend the rest of her days doing nothing but comb her fingers through her mate’s ruby-colored hair. 

“It’s never been that intense, that—good.”

Elain couldn’t help her smile at hearing that. “Oh?”

Lucien laughed at the look of pride on her face, reaching up to flick her nose. Her smile dropped, replaced by awe.

“What?” Lucien asked, his gaze traveling between her eyes frantically. 

“I’ve never heard you laugh before,” she said. 

Palpable relief swept over him and he chuckled, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. 

“When I was around you, I was usually too busy trying to give you space to hear anything anyone said to me.” He flashed a grin. “I’m actually quite charming.”

Elain rolled her eyes, biting her lip against her return grin. 

She panicked when he pulled away, but relaxed when he lay on his back and pulled her half on top of him. She laid her head on his chest, wrapping her arms around his chest. He slid his leg between hers, one hand resting on her hip as the other gently skimmed up and down her back. She wondered if he needed the closeness as much as she did. 

They lay there silently, soaking up the silence and each other’s presence. Eventually, Elain sat up, biting her lip as she looked down at Lucien. 

“Now what?”

Lucien raised his eyebrows. “You’ll have to be a little more specific.”

“What are we?” she replied. “Does this mean we accepted the bond? Are we courting? Are we going to remain apart and occasionally sleep together?”

Lucien snarled at that last remark, and something in Elain’s chest eased. She watched him swallow, noting the way he tensed up, as if preparing for her rejection. 

“We can be whatever you like.” 

She watched him through narrow eyes. “What would you like?”

He was unable to hide the panic in his expression fast enough. Elain cupped his cheek. “I’m not going anywhere. I just want to know what you want.”

His gaze felt like it was peering into her soul, trying to figure out if she was telling the truth. “I want everything,” he finally whispered. “I want to be where you are or have you where I am. I want a mating ceremony. I want a wedding if that’s what you want. I want a house to call our own. I want—” he stopped short, deciding against whatever he had planned to say. 

Elain smiled. “I want children someday too.” 

His eyes widened at her response. “You—”

Elain kissed his peck, setting her chin on his chest. “I want all of it. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

Lucien’s breath whooshed out and before she knew what was happening, he had her on her back. “You’re going to pay for that.”

Elain grinned as a thrill of excitement made her shiver. 

“Do your worst, mate.”

Lucien’s answering grin was feline.

[namorslutfanfiction]

Tenoch plays with you in a room full of people and enjoys every minute of it.

I sweat all you anons are horny as hell

Summary: He bought you a new toy and really wanted to see how you could handle it. Who cares if this was an important dinner?

Dripping Smut

You were trying to keep your cool as you sat at the table. You nodded along to the conversation at hand, barely registering the words being spoken. Tenoch had his arm slung over the back of your chair and the other was hiding beneath the table, subtly swiping at his phone screen.

The dinner included some of the producers as well as directors involved with the diversity project you were both part of. It was a casual dinner with very important people. But you were focused on the toy between your legs, muffled by your underwear, that was buzzing away at the command of the Mexican actor next to you.

You nudged him with your elbow, as you answered a question that was posed to you. But that just made him turn up the intensity. You covered your moan with a coughing fit, which backfired a little as you clenched down. You covered your mouth and turned into Tenoch.

"Babe, are you okay? Drink some water," Tenoch feigned ignorance and concern, grabbing a glass of water from the table and encouraging you to take it.

You shot him a glare as you sipped the water. He had turned the intensity down for now but you knew he wasn't done playing with you, "Thank you, mi amor. I'm fine. Must be something in the air."

The dinner continued as usual, at least from the outside. Beneath the table you had a death grip on Tenoch's thigh, digging your nails into him whenever he flicked the toy to a higher setting. You were a puddle, quite literally from the dampness of your underwear. If you didn't do something, you would get your dress wet and that would be embarrassing enough without having to explain yourself.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to the restroom," You announced to the table, standing up gingerly while trying not to appear like a wobbling lamb. Tenoch smirked at you as he turned back to the table.

As you made your way across the bustling restaurant, Tenoch started turning the intensity up and down in a rhythmic pattern that made you stumble and catch yourself on an empty chair. One of the women from your table that had also excused herself to go to the restroom, rushed over to your side.

"Y/n, are you alright?" She asked, taking your arm and helping steady you. You glanced back at the table, waving everyone off with a smile. Tenoch was covering his laughter behind his fist.

"I'm fine, it might have been the 3 glasses of wine, or maybe these damn heels," You joked as you made your way to the restrooms with the woman.

Once in the bathroom you found the farthest stall. You sat on the toilet, muffling your moans as Tenoch put the toy through its paces. You covered your mouth with both hands as you came hard. You bit your hand to distract yourself from the pleasure while pulling your phone from your purse.

YN: I came already. Please turn it down.

The toy turned down in intensity almost immediately; now a low hum that you could barely feel after the overstimulation of your orgasm. Your phone chimed with a notification.

TH: Don't take it out. I'll let you rest for now. :)

Part of you was thrilled by this ridiculous display but also frustrated with how he had to choose tonight of all nights to play with you. Well if you were going to be frustrated so was he. You pulled your underwear down your legs and shoved it into your purse. You cleaned up the evidence of your arousal, hoping that a somewhat clean slate would protect you from ruining your dress. You contemplating taking the toy out and throwing it into your purse but you decided against it. He was right, it was thrilling to play so publicly.

Once your dress was righted you made your way back to the table. The woman you were with earlier had already found her seat again.

Tenoch greeted you, "There you are. I thought you fell in the toilet."

You smacked his shoulder lightly, "Oh shut up, you."

Once seated you set your purse down between you, covered by the high table. You engaged into the conversation while guiding Tenoch's hand to your purse and closing it around your damp underwear. You saw the corner of his mouth upturn, and his eyes darken as he glanced at you.

The night continued and it was a battle of wills. You had pulled Tenoch's hand between your legs. Barely touching your bare pussy. He had tried to play with the toy more, but the loss of your underwear made the buzzing noise a little too loud for him to risk turning up the intensity. Then the toy died and you felt triumphant. Under the table, as you continued to laugh and joke with your peers, you guided Tenoch's hand to remove the toy from your pussy.

The sensation of him removing it was enough to make you turn into his shoulder and feign laughter, as you forced back a moan. He dropped the toy into your purse and tried to reach between your legs again, but you had snapped them shut, pulling your dress back down toward you knees. His eyes held a question but you just smirked at him, wiggling in the seat to get comfortable.

Tenoch said something to the table about how lucky he was to have you, taking your hand and kissing it. It didn't escape your notice that he sniffed at your joined hands, his being the one that had just been teasing between your legs. He pulled your hand into his lap, holding the back of it to rub against his crotch where you could feel his arousal.

Tenoch did not falter in his enthusiastic conversation with the table as he pressed your hand firmly against his crotch. It seemed that the actor was the one frustrated and needing some release. You smirked to yourself as you wriggled your hand out of his grip. His jaw clenched slightly as he relinquished his hold.

When the dinner finally died down and everyone went their separate ways, you found yourself sitting in Tenoch's passenger seat as he drove one handed. His free hand was between your thighs, thrusting his fingers into your wet pussy. You were moaning into your hand, as he easily and quickly drove you to orgasm.

When you got to a stop light, he pulled his hand away and turned to you with a charming and lascivious smirk. "Come here,"

He quickly undid his pants and released his hard on. His tip glistened with precum as you shifted and moved your head into his lap. Once you found a comfortable position you took his cock into your mouth. The actor held his hand to the back of your head guiding you as he continued driving.

"Fuck," Tenoch cursed under his breath as you devoured him. His hips thrusted lightly as you gave him road head. "If this is what happens when I tease you all night, I might have to do it more often."

You moaned around him in response then bared down deeper, feeling his tip hit the back of your throat. The actor let out a strangled moan at the sensation. You felt the car turn and Tenoch squeezed your shoulder. "Get up, baby."

You sat up and Tenoch lost no time as he shifted the car into park and pulled the parking break.

"Stay right there," He ordered as he pulled you in for a passionate and rough kiss. Before you could respond he was making his way to your passenger door and pulled it open. "Turn around for me."

You did as he said, seeing that he meant to take you here in the driveway. It excited you to learn that he was just as eager as you were. You felt him flip up the skirt of your dress, pulled your hips back and then thrust inside of you, balls deep. You let out a yelp at how suddenly he took you, but you were more than prepared for him.

You glanced back as he started to pound into you. He had his hands braced on the door frame as his hips moved furiously. You thanked god that your house was down a long driveway, and an acre in each direction to the nearest neighbor. The sounds of your hips slamming into each other was loud enough, coupled with both of your wanton moans of pleasure was practically a cacophony of eroticism.

Tenoch leaned forward and gripped your shoulders as he drove his hips into yours. You reached between your legs to rub at your clit, chasing the orgasm that was nudging at your peripheries.

"Tenoch," You moaned, turning back to him to watch his pleasured face. He had his head thrown back, his suit disheveled, and his eyes closed in ecstasy while keeping his punishing pace. He moaned your name as his movements grew more erratic. The sound of his voice tipped you over the edge and you felt your self clench down on him as the orgasm ripped through your body.

The guttural groan he released as he hit his peak with you was primal and deafening. The slapping of your hips as he spilled inside of you were like thunderclaps. Tenoch slowed to a stop, panting and leaning his head against the door frame of the car. You were equally out of breath, practically collapsed against the center console.

Tenoch pulled away from you and righted his clothes. He flipped your skirt back down and pulled you up into his arms. The actor cupped your face and kissed your cheeks as you looked up at him with a lazy and contented smile. The man chuckled as he gazed at you, "And you said it wouldn't be as fun as I said it would be."

You pushed your lip out in a pout, still unwilling to fully admit that he had made you submit to your lust for him. Tenoch just smiled his boyish smile and nipped at your lip. "Come on baby. Let's get you inside and cleaned up. You deserve a nice bath and a massage after playing along with me so nicely."

You let him lead you away from the car and toward the front door.

```

SO that was another fiery one. Yall are relentless.

[prouvaireafterdark]

Practical Ethics || Chapter Three

In which Armand offers Lestat an olive branch and Lestat proceeds to light it on fire.

| One | Two |

Also on AO3! (you may want to check the tags btw)

***

As Armand steps inside the small lecture hall the following day for Louis’ class, he finds Lestat already in his seat, leaning casually against its cushioned back. His usual veneer of coolness, however, is ruined slightly by the nervous way he’s biting his manicured nails, the black polish already chipped at the edges. 

Armand finds his own seat beside him, and once his papers and his iPad are arranged to his liking, he reaches into his pocket and takes out Lestat’s gold lighter. 

“I think you misplaced this yesterday,” he says as he turns to Lestat, the lighter held loosely between his fingers. After weeks of sniping back and forth at each other, it’s the closest thing to an olive branch Armand can think to offer.

He isn’t sure what he expects Lestat’s response to be. To thank him, maybe, for returning his property or perhaps to prove to him in some small way that their interactions don’t have to be so unilaterally unpleasant.

What he certainly isn’t expecting is for Lestat to yell at him.

“You took it?!” Lestat asks, sitting up so quickly his sunglasses fall back down over his eyes from their precarious perch atop his head. “Give it back, thief.”

“I found it,” Armand clarifies, bristling at the implication and feeling eyes on the back of his head. “After you threw it halfway across the quad.”

Lestat tries to swipe the lighter out of his hand, but Armand pulls it out of his reach before he can, petty anger getting the better of him.

“Give it back,” Lestat demands again, pushing his sunglasses back up so he can glare at him properly. His piercing blue eyes look particularly stormy.

“I will,” Armand replies, mimicking his tone, before a wicked smile tugs at the corner of his lips as he gets an idea and he adds, “After you say please and thank you, of course.” 

Armand momentarily delights in the shade of red Lestat turns at his request, a little thrill going through him at the reaction he’s gotten out of him. If Lestat is going to accuse him of being a thief, he may as well be a bastard too. 

“Armand,” Lestat snaps, his voice rough, his open hand expectantly outstretched. 

“It’s four little words, Lestat,” he says, unmoved. “I think even you can manage that much.”

Lestat curls his fingers into a tight fist before he looks away to collect himself, a myriad of emotions passing over his face. He looks back at him a moment later, a hard, determined look in his eyes.

“Please,” he says at last, the simple word taking so much effort you would think Armand had just raked him over a bed of hot coals. The sound of it is so desperate and pathetic that Armand takes pity on him.

“There,” Armand sighs and extends the lighter once more. “Was that so hard?”

Lestat ignores the question and snatches the lighter from his fingers instantly, unwilling to be parted with the trinket for a moment longer. 

Armand tracks the movement of Lestat’s thumb as he smooths it almost reverently over the engraving. Whatever that series of letters and numbers mean, they clearly hold great sentimental value to him.

“Thank you,” Lestat says as his eyes stay fixed on the lighter, so quietly Armand thinks he may have imagined it entirely.

“You shouldn’t throw away the things that mean something to you, you know,” Armand tells him in flawless French. “I may not always be so willing to give them back to you.”

Armand watches Lestat’s jaw drop in surprise as he speaks to him in French, looking up at him as if seeing him for the first time. A moment later, a veritable cackle bursts forth from his mouth, a loud and jarring sound that has everyone in the lecture hall looking right at them. It goes on and on and on, as if uncontrollable, each passing second making Armand regret his choices more and more.

“What is wrong with you?” he asks, in English this time, but it only sends Lestat into another fit of laughter that has tears spilling over his cheeks.

If spite had not already glued Armand to this seat, he would move to sit somewhere else. 

Just as he’s considering it, Louis walks in the door carrying a thick stack of papers.

“You doing alright there, Lestat?” Louis asks, eyeing him curiously as he sets the papers down onto the podium at the front of the room.

“Oui, Louis,” Lestat chuckles, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I am simply so thrilled to be here that I can hardly contain myself.”

“Sure you are,” Louis says in a dry tone, predictably unconvinced, before he grabs a piece of chalk and begins to write something on the board. 

What is a power differential? Armand reads as Louis steps back to the podium. 

His brow creases in confusion. According to Louis’ syllabus, they were meant to be discussing Utilitarianism today. He’d read over fifty pages of theory on the subject for homework last night.

He turns to Lestat and opens his mouth, about to ask whether he’d somehow made a mistake with the homework last night, but then realizes who he’s speaking to and thinks better of it. If anyone in this room knows what’s going on with their course schedule it is most assuredly not Lestat. He sets his sights on Louis instead.

Armand maneuvers carefully out of his seat so as not to disturb his annotated articles and walks over to Louis where he’s now organizing the papers he’d carried with him into smaller stacks so they’re easier to pass around.

“Excuse me?” Armand asks as he approaches, causing Louis to look up at him. “I thought we were talking about the Utilitarianism readings today. Did I read the syllabus incorrectly?”

“No,” Louis assures him. “We’re taking a detour for the day. We’ll be discussing the readings you prepared for today next class, though, don’t worry.”

A detour? Louis has been rigidly faithful to his course schedule thus far. He wonders what’s changed.

“Oh… okay,” Armand says, and makes his way slowly back to his seat, confused, but intrigued.

Louis begins his lecture the way he always does—by giving his students a few minutes to journal a preliminary answer to his question for the day while he takes attendance. 

A power differential is when one party has inherently more power and authority than another, Armand writes, wondering how exactly all this fits in with the discussion they were meant to have this week.

It isn’t until he begins reading the case study Louis hands him next after their initial think-pair-share activity to discuss the power differential question that he realizes it doesn’t have anything to do with what they were meant to learn this week. 

It does, however, have something to do with the discussion he’d had with Louis yesterday.

Ellen is a new graduate student in the History department. She is thrilled to hear that she has been assigned to serve as a teaching assistant to Dr. Pierce, a top scholar in the field. 

In the first few weeks, Dr. Pierce is very friendly, even offering to take Ellen out to lunch to welcome her to the department. Over time, though, invitations to lunch become invitations to dinner and drinks at a local bar, which makes Ellen uncomfortable. When Ellen politely declines, Dr. Pierce becomes angry, insisting Ellen should not turn down opportunities for networking this early in her career.

What should Ellen do?

Armand flips through the packet to read the second one.

Matthew, a 2nd year MA student, finds a member of his cohort, Sarah, crying in the library. When he stops to comfort her, she confides in him that she was rejected by all the PhD programs she applied to except the one at their current institution, which is very far from her home. She is convinced that one of her professors sabotaged her application to keep her there because she has heard rumors of this sort of thing happening before.  

What should Matthew do? What should Sarah do?

He finds another one.

Annalise, an ABD PhD student, is running late for a very important meeting with her advisor when she sees a member of her cohort forcefully grab the arm of an undergraduate student to keep him from walking away. The undergraduate student seems distressed, but if Annalise is late for this meeting, her advisor might be upset with her.

What should Annalise do?

The examples go on, but Armand stops reading them. He is silent for a while, his mind blank as the class moves around him, dutifully discussing each scenario Louis has provided. 

To anyone else, this must be nothing more than an innocuous thought exercise meant to stimulate discussion on how unequal power dynamics complicate a graduate student’s life and make their pursuit of ethical relationships—personal and professional—difficult at times. 

To Armand, however… their subjects and the reminders they bring hit a little too close to home.

He sits there for a long moment, paralyzed by a sudden presence he feels looming behind him. He knows, distantly, that there’s no one there, that Marius is in his office, hard at work on his new book on the cult of the emperor Hadrian’s young male lover Antinous. 

Nevertheless, he swears he sees a flash of red fabric out of the corner of his eye, and the terrible weight of dread sinks into his stomach. 

He manages to pull himself free of his thoughts eventually, and when he does, he notices that even Lestat is reading the packet and jotting down his own answers to the prompts, for once motivated to actually apply himself to something in this class. 

His classmates soon begin to discuss these scenarios with their typical voracity, eager to show Louis their understanding and find ethical solutions to problems they themselves might one day be faced with. Armand absorbs these arguments and suggestions with a sense of careful detachment, shutting Marius out of his mind as much as he can, but does not move to offer his own insights. 

Louis seems to notice this, his eyes passing over him every now and then as if expecting him to break his uncharacteristic silence and volunteer his thoughts. 

Armand avoids his gaze, pretending to take notes on his iPad, until he registers movement to his left. He turns to see Lestat quietly raising his hand.

Armand blinks at the sight. It’s been well over two months of this class and Armand has barely seen that man move a muscle except to twirl his pen between his fingers.

“Lestat?” Louis calls on him.

“I have a question for you, professor,” Lestat announces, as if that were not plainly obvious from the fact that he had been raising his hand. “A philosophical conundrum, you might say.”

“Alright,” Louis says, his tone as surprised as it is suspicious. “What’s your question?”

“You have established that relationships between professors and students are unethical because of this ‘unequal power dynamic,’” Lestat says, making scare quotes with his fingers as he stretches his long legs out before him and crosses them delicately at the ankle, “but is such a thing always the case? Are there no circumstances that might change this?”

“How do you mean?” Louis asks, and it might be Armand’s imagination, but he thinks Louis’ voice sounds almost cautious.

A smile begins to overtake Lestat’s mouth, but he manages to reign in the full force of it before he speaks. 

“Well there can be exchanges of power in sexual encounters, can there not?” Lestat begins, his voice somehow sounding even deeper than usual. “One party may gladly cede their control to the other, joyful in their act of submission.”

Louis shifts from one foot to the other. “I’m not sure I see the relevance of that.”

“Well, it is as you say—teachers have power over their students,” Lestat continues. “But what if a teacher was to submit himself to his student in such a way? Assuming all parties are consenting adults, would the reversal of their usual professional dynamic in their sexual relationship negate the power differential?”

A murmur runs through the crowd of students. Louis is silent for the briefest moment, choosing his words carefully.

“No, the teacher taking on a submissive role would not negate the power differential,” Louis tells him, crossing his arms over his chest. “Other factors ought to be considered. You’ve already brought up the main one, which is the consent of all involved. The real question, though, is whether the student is actually able to freely consent or if there are pressures such as grades or letters of recommendation influencing their decision. These complications are exactly why our institution forbids romantic and sexual relationships between professors and their current students.”

“What if I begged you for it?” Lestat asks in French. “Would it be ethical then?”

An involuntary shiver runs down Armand’s spine at the low, seductive pitch of his voice, and if he was drinking his water, he surely would have choked on it. He categorically ignores his own body’s reaction and looks at Lestat in disbelief, utterly floored that he would be so bold as to say that to his professor, but Lestat only has eyes for Louis.

“Alright, that’s enough,” Louis snaps, pulling Armand’s attention away from Lestat. He notices with fascination that Louis’ cheeks are darkening with a blush. “See me after class, Mr. de Lioncourt.”

“Of course, professor,” Lestat purrs, his mouth widening with his smile.

Class ends shortly after that—a few minutes early, in fact, which never happens if Louis doesn’t have an assignment to hand back—and Armand is quick to pack up his things, eager to get some distance between himself and the thoughts this class has provoked in him. Perhaps Daniel won’t mind him visiting the paper’s cramped office space if he brings him that expensive coffee he pretends not to like. 

Louis seems to have other plans for him, however.

“Armand, could you stick around a minute?” he asks just as he’s about to leave.

“Of course,” Armand pauses, halfway between his seat and the door.

Lestat is already standing in front of Louis, and when he sees Armand isn’t leaving just yet, Louis turns back to face him.

“If you want to continue sitting in on my class,” Louis says, his tone quite serious, “you need to show me some respect.”

Lestat seems to pantomime contrition, the authenticity of the gesture ruined by the way he’s holding his hands behind his back like a guilty child feigning innocence. “Of course, professor.”

“I mean it, Lestat,” Louis says firmly.

Lestat sighs, his arms dropping to his side. “Alright. I’m sorry, Louis,” he says, and Armand is surprised to hear he sounds genuine about it. “You know how I get carried away sometimes. It won’t happen again.”

Louis’ eyes soften, his fingers twitching at his side.

“Alright,” he says quietly. “I’ll see you—” His eyes dart back to Armand. “—next class.”

An odd smile breaks out onto Lestat’s face as he nods. “Yes,” he says. “Next class.”

Lestat meets Armand’s blatant stare as he turns to leave and winks before he slings his bag over his shoulder and heads out of the room.

What the fuck was that? Armand wonders, his head spinning from the trajectory this afternoon has taken.

He doesn’t have long to ponder it, however, as Louis is now beckoning him closer.

“Are you alright?” Louis asks him as he steps up to the podium.

“I’m fine,” Armand replies. “Why do you ask?”

“You seemed much quieter than usual today,” Louis says, looking him over carefully. “I just wanted to check in with you.”

“Oh,” Armand says, forcing his expression into his best approximation of an easy smile. “As I said, I’m fine. Just not feeling very well today. I apologize that my participation was not up to my usual standard. Next time I will—”

“No apology necessary,” Louis cuts him off, his own smile a little thin around the edges. He stares at Armand for a second before he adds, “Just take care of yourself, alright? And let me know if you have any questions about the lecture.”

“Of course,” Armand assures him. “I’ll see you next week.”

Armand does see him next week—and the week after that, and the week after that—in class, in office hours to talk about their upcoming paper, even at the campus Starbucks once waiting in line behind Lestat of all people.

But no matter how much time passes, no matter how positive his interactions with Louis are, he still hasn’t found the right moment to broach the subject of working with him next semester—or even figured out how to do so without revealing more than he’s comfortable with about his situation with Marius. His attempts to learn more about Louis’ current research have also been less than fruitful, which Armand finds strange given he’s just been on sabbatical, presumably to write a book. 

There must be something else I can do to get close to him…

“What’s wrong?” 

Armand looks down between his thighs at where Daniel is looking up at him, his brown curls askew from the fingers Armand had run through them, his lips attractively pink and slick with saliva where they hover above Armand’s half-hard cock.

“Nothing,” Armand dismisses automatically. 

“Are you sure?” Daniel presses, his bright green eyes searching. “You seem—“ 

Armand cuts him off with a hand in his hair, pulling firmly on his curls the way he sometimes likes.

“The only thing I’m sure of is that you ask too many questions,” Armand tells him, though his tone is not unkind.

“Occupational hazard,” Daniel retorts, his voice strained. He reaches up to wrap a hand around Armand’s wrist, wordlessly urging him to let him go. 

Armand does as he asks, loosening his hold on Daniel’s curls so he can cup his cheek instead. He hasn’t shaved today and a thick blanket of stubble scratches Armand’s skin where he touches him. 

“But come on,” Daniel continues. “I’m not gonna keep sucking your dick when you look like you’re a thousand miles away so either tell me what’s wrong so we can talk about it or I’m going back to my dorm.”

Armand lets out a long, resigned sigh. “Come here.”

Daniel crawls up the length of Armand’s body until he’s lying in the cradle of his thighs. Armand guides Daniel’s head to his neck and wraps his arms around him, enjoying the way Daniel sinks into him, eager for any warmth and affection Armand is willing to give him.

It’s easier to speak this way, with the weight of Daniel’s body tethering him to his own, his head tucked under Armand’s chin so he doesn’t have to meet his eyes. 

He thinks back to his recent conversations with Louis, the concern he saw in his expression—Not quite the admiration and respect he’s been after these last few months.

“I need him to want me,” Armand says at last, giving voice to the thought that’s been dominating his mind of late. 

Daniel goes very still on top of him, the gentle tracing of his fingers over his skin ceasing altogether.

“Dr. du Lac, I mean,” Armand clarifies hastily. “As a research assistant.”

Daniel relaxes, letting out a slow breath.

“To get away from de Romanus,” he spits the name like poison from his mouth.

“Yes,” Armand confirms, his voice scarcely above a whisper. 

The silence between them is deafening as Armand braces for the inevitable.

“I still don’t get why you won’t let me write an exposé on that creepy fucker,” Daniel complains. “I’m a goddamn journalism major and the editor of the school paper for fuck’s sake. It’s literally what I’m trained to do.”

There it is.

“We’ve been over this, Daniel,” Armand sighs, exhausted from this conversation already.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, he’s an important scholar, he has tenure, you don’t want to rock the boat since you’re new to the department, I get it,” he says, agitation clear in his voice as he leans up so he can see Armand’s face. “But he shouldn’t be allowed to pull the shit he’s pulled with you with no consequences. I mean, shit, you had bruises on your arm the last time we hooked up and I know you didn’t get them from falling into a doorknob.”

“You were high,” Armand shoots back, almost automatically. “You don’t know what you remember.” 

He regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth.

Daniel sits up abruptly, tearing himself out of Armand’s embrace. 

“Don’t do that,” he snaps, glaring down at Armand with betrayal in his eyes. “Don’t try to fuckin’ gaslight me just ‘cause you don’t want me to be right. I know what I saw. He’s hurting you.”

Armand’s heart clenches painfully in his chest, at both the reminder of his fraught encounter with Marius and seeing Daniel so upset about it. He sits up, pulling his knees to his chest so he can wrap his arms protectively around them. He feels like an insect, suddenly—a fly hopelessly caught in Marius’ web—and as he looks at the hurt in Daniel’s eyes, it feels pointless to deny it.

“You’re right,” Armand tells him finally, looking up at him with wide, sad eyes. “That was an unkind thing to say, I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”

He watches Daniel’s shoulders sag as his resolve melts to nothing. He feels the tender brush of Daniel’s hand against his ankle next, the closest part of him he can touch. 

“Of course I can,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting upward ever so slightly. 

Armand reaches for Daniel then, wordlessly extending his hand. The younger man lets himself be pulled back into Armand’s arms, the two of them falling back against the mattress, side by side this time. 

Armand leans away from him just long enough to pull the blanket which had been kicked to the end of the bed over them both, creating a cocoon of warmth that Daniel sinks gratefully into. They lie there for a moment, sharing a pillow as they stare at each other, faces so close Armand’s vision begins to blur.

“So what are we gonna do about this?” Daniel asks him, the arm he has wrapped firmly around Armand’s waist pulling him that little bit closer.

A soft smile breaks across Armand’s face. Daniel is so sweet when he wants to be, naive in a way that Armand finds endlessly charming.

“We are not going to do anything, beautiful boy,” Armand tells him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I am going to get close to Louis. If I can get him to take an interest in me and my work, perhaps I can extricate myself from Marius without causing any scandals for the department.”

“How are you gonna do that?” Daniel asks skeptically. 

“Well, you’re the one who interviewed him for his faculty spotlight,” Armand points out. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call that an interview,” Daniel grumbles. It isn’t hard to figure out why—Daniel has been complaining about this assignment for months since one of his column writers unexpectedly quit over winter break and he’d been left holding the bag. Writing university-approved puff pieces about notable faculty achievements was not exactly how he’d imagined spending his final semester of his undergraduate career and he hasn’t been shy about letting Armand know it. “He evaded nearly every question I asked him about his sabbatical and just kept diverting the conversation with pretentious philosophical observations about the nature of mankind. I didn’t even end up publishing it. Short of breaking into his office and snooping through his stuff, I don’t know how you’re gonna get more out of him than that.”

Well. That’s certainly an idea.

Daniel must sense his plotting in the silence that follows because he suddenly lifts his head from the pillow to look down at him.

“Armand, no,” Daniel groans. “That was a joke.”

“Not your worst idea, though,” Armand tells him.

“Wh—“ Daniel begins, but Armand interrupts him with a kiss, one hand cradling the back of his neck to keep him still. He’s grown weary of the conversation and prefers to divert Daniel’s attention lest they end up spending the whole night bickering back and forth about a matter Armand has already settled.

Daniel melts into the kiss as he always does, weak for the pleasure of Armand’s touch. Some possessive piece of Armand’s heart rejoices at this, at how easily Daniel yields to him, his mouth parting under the first stroke of Armand’s tongue against the seam of his lips. He finds the taste of himself lingering on Daniel’s tongue as he deepens the kiss, and he feels his cock begin to stir once more where it lies trapped between their bellies.

Armand rolls him onto his back, smiling into their kiss at the way Daniel’s legs fall open to make space for him to settle there. He does, and gladly swallows the moan Daniel makes as he lifts his hips to grind against him and get some friction on his cock.

“This conversation isn’t over,” Daniel argues, his voice shaking with desire as Armand breaks away from his mouth and begins pressing hot, wet kisses along the column of his throat.

“Of course not,” Armand placates him, sucking the beginnings of a bruise into his flushed skin.

There isn’t much talking after that, and Armand is content to let his troubles fade from his mind as he focuses instead on the warmth of Daniel’s body beneath him and the tender touch of his mouth against his skin.

[duhragonball]

Now that you pretty much wrapped up the Baby Saga, I have to ask a question. During your original Dragon Ball GT Retrospective in 2019, you said that Baby is actually a good villain once you ignore that nonsense with the Machine Mutants and the Luud Cult and it seems like you changed your mind on that. Is Baby really a good villain or is he only a good villain in comparison to the other GT villains?

Let me put it like this: Baby is a good villain in the sense that he's thoroughly evil, and he has a consistent motivation to do evil things, and he also represents the opposite of what the hero represents.

I mean, he basically hijacks the whole world, and turns everyone into a population of slaves who adore him. He takes Goku's relationship with the Earth and flips it on its head. Now Baby is the Earth's hero and Goku has to fight against his adopted planet to defeat him. Baby doesn't train to get stronger. Instead he uses the strengths of others, like how he took over Vegeta's body and used the others' powers Bulma's scientific genius to enhance it.

There's also no depth that he won't stoop to. He fights dirty. He picks on defenseless enemies like Pan. He attacks, betrays, and abandons his own followers without a second thought. Baby is either a perversion of everything the Tuffles stood for, or he's actually what the Tuffles stood for, which is pretty chilling to consider.

And he's basically in a position where he has to be this vile, despicable menace. The Tuffles created him to take revenge and Tuffleize the universe. He can't just blow that off and become a farmer. He has to control other people's bodies and infect people with his eggs, because that's the only way he can achieve his goals. The closest he ever comes to doing anything noble is when he decides to kill Goku face-to-face, instead of taking over his body like he did to the others. And that turns out to be a huge mistake, since it allows Goku the opportunity to defeat him.

So he's a solid villain. He is not one of these mythical "good ideas" that GT apologists like to talk about. Baby's whole deal is just a mashup of past Dragon Ball villains.

He's a Tuffle doomsday weapon, like Hatchiyack.

He mind controls the entire population of Earth like Garlic Junior.

He's a Saiyan-hating autocrat, like Frieza.

He was created in some sort of incubation tank, and had to develop into his "perfect form", like Cell.

He uses Vegeta to achieve his goals, like Babidi

He uses the Oozaru form to turn the tables on Goku, like Vegeta.

He absorbs the powers of others to get stronger, like Majin Buu.

A lot of the Machine Mutant stuff is very reminiscent of Meta Cooler from Movie 6.

Again, it's not a sin to re-use ideas from other characters. I'm a firm believer in "Talent borrows; genius steals." The trick, though, is that you have to repurpose the ideas you take and disguise them like something original.

For example, the Androids Saga in DBZ was heavily inspired by the Terminator films. That's no secret; one look at Trunks' haircut and 16's everything should give it away. What makes it unique, however, is that Toriyama didn't just do a shot-for-shot retelling of the Terminator movies. His villains were created by a human scientist (Dr. Gero) instead of a supercomputer (Skynet). While the Terminators were relentless killing machines skilled in infiltration, most of Gero's assassins weren't even interested in killing their target, and they didn't even try to be subtle. All 17 wants to do is joyride in an ice cream truck.

Then you have Cell, who seems like he has more to do with Cronenberg movies than the Terminator franchise. He's an unexpected bad guy from an alternate future, kind of like Biff Tannen in "Back to the Future II," but he has all the powers of strong characters from the past, kind of like Serpentor from G.I. Joe. Did Toriyama swipe ideas from those stories as well? Maybe, but somewhere along the way, he ended up combining so many things together that he wound up with something original. The parallels are still there for critics to notice, but no one's filing lawsuits over 17 and Cell, because it's understood that they're distinct, unique characters, even if they were inspired by other works.

Baby's problem is that his creators just swiped ideas from just one property: Dragon Ball. And that's a terrible way to go about it, because the target audience is already familiar with Dragon Ball, so every time Baby does anything, the viewer is going to recognize it as something they've seen before in the same show. It makes Baby look rather authentic. You see him do stuff and he looks like he belongs in this franchise, because it's consistent with what you've seen before. But none of it is innovative because he's not doing anything new.

Now, if they had cast a wider net, and been a little more clever about it, Baby could have turned into something truly special. Suppose the writers had borrowed ideas from the 90's Batman movies, or "Knight Rider" or literally anything else. You'd have to do a lot of tinkering just to make it fit in to a series like GT, and that's where the creativity comes from. Then, when Baby does something, it's not going to be exactly like a time Frieza or Vegeta did something similar. He'd bring his own unique flavor to it. He'd whip out a gadget from his talking utility belt, and it'd be totally fresh.

I think this is why I like the concept of the Tuffles in general a lot more than I like Baby specifically. When I saw Kamin and Oren in Super Dragon Ball Heroes, I was thrilled, because it looked like someone had taken the Baby IP and done something genuinely fun with it. I think there's a mission in one of the games where Kami and Oren Tuffleize the planet Sadala in Universe 6, and you have to fight all the mind-controlled Saiyans to liberate the planet. It's basically the Baby Saga on a different location, but it still sounds a lot more appealing, because it's not saddled with Baby himself.

I sometimes think of trying to do stuff with the Tuffles in my fanfic, but I've never been able to come up with a good angle for it. There's a good story to be had from the Baby lore, but it's not the Baby Saga itself, because I just finished watching it, and it's a mess.

And I guess that's the trouble with Baby. Is he a good villain? Yeah, I think he clears the bar. Is he a great villain? I don't know if I'd go that far. But good? Sure, especially if you separate him from all the bullshit before his debut. But he's a good villain based on unoriginal ideas, and the execution was thoroughly botched. It's like if Tommy Wiseau put Dracula in "The Room". It doesn't matter how good a villain Dracula is, he's not going to come across well.

[wiihtigo]

26 28 37, all for booster

26. What’s the worst costume design for [x]?

I know ted made him these out of the love in his heart but WHY IS MY BOOSTER SO FUCKING UGLY

28. What’s a popular fandom take you disagree with about [x]?

literally asked you out loud about this question and juts decided to steal your answer because i agree with it. Comic writers do this too but when ted is made out to be the straight man in their relationship....remind yourself on whose idea club jli was....i miss when ted was the major sillyguy and booster had a mild anxiety disorder.

37. I wish fandom/official writers understood ___ about [x].

this question stressed me out because theres so much i love about booster i got overwhelmed. Uaammmmm. Ok a lot of writers who dont see into boosters soul can fall for his shallow persona and depict him being like stupid and ignorant of peoples feelings...just one specific example is that moment in dc vs vampires when jayna is crying and worried about her twin brother being missing and possibly died and hes like :) lol what if he just ran away from you because he doesnt like you? and everyones like DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and hes like WHAT!!!! WHATD I SAY!! ...and its like..ok..i get when booster isnt a main player in a story idgaf if hes flattened to his surface traits. but when youre a boosterhead like me its like >THEY DONT KNOW BOOSTER IS A TWIN AND WOULDNT BE THAT THOUGHTLESS ABOUT JAYNAS WORRYING!!!!!

booster is an incredibly emotional and empathetic person to the point of even fucking him up and i think a good example of that is when he hung out with superman in his 86 solo and they went to go mess with alien politics. he was able to be tricked because he fell for a sob story and made some impulsive decisions superman had to slap him on the wrist for but as soon as he saw he was wrong he apologized and made things right (cry)

i mean i think most people (i hope) know that booster doesnt REALLY only care about showing off but it goes deeper than that....the quarterly with him and Geraldine...the entirety of booster gold 2007 being that he has to come to terms with losing his best friend to live for his family...he has such a big heart when he loves someone he loves them to DEATH!!!!! I think thats a big reason why everyone was disappointed with blue and gold...huge part of ted and boosters relationship is that theyre mutually obsessed with eachother like to a crazy degree. but in blue and gold and in all their current dc appearances since theyve just been fist bumping and calling eachother Bro and its like whatever. but its crazy because theirrelationship has never been that way before..? theyve never been depicted as being so bro-ey....in fact they were so attached at the hip that people looked at the two of them and went "are they....you know" (remember "people will talk" "yeah ok as if they dont already"..WHAT WERE THEY THINKIIING)

sorry again for swiping other peoples commentary to cite here but kiara posted these months ago and theyve stuck in my head because #co-signed

in blue and gold they just feel so hollow...i know this has turned from "what happened to boosters whimsy" to "heres how we kill blue and gold" but it ties together in my mind. my bottom line thoughts are that i hate when hes written like an asshole because hes too self absorbed to think about anyone but himself. but i do like it when hes an asshole because he thought so hard about world hunger he punched the first person he saw. what am i saying my thoughts on booster gold are just this

[automatismoateo]

Using dating apps in a Muslim country as someone who isn't religious...is something everyone should try via /r/atheism

Using dating apps in a Muslim country as someone who isn't religious...is something everyone should try

I live in the Middle-East. Raised Muslim, and left a few years ago.

Let me clue you in on my dating life in a predominantly Muslim country, that is pretty much an alt right kid's wet dream, but also extremely prude since dating is a sin. I'm a pansexual dude, I think everyone is gorgeous, but I definitely won't use dating apps when I'm looking for men, or make it evident that I'm LGBT, because cops hunt people like me through catfishing them on dating apps. Fortunately, not a problem for me. I prefer women anyway, they're cool. Of course... can't say I'm non religious in the bio because it's just not safe for me.

I know it's dumb as someone who's non-religious and queer to try and find someone like-minded here, but I was too curious to ignore what this exotic "Tinder and bumble Muslim dating" had to offer. My strategy was to look for people that have the slightest hint of liberalism, open-mindedness , people that had bios that were interesting, and people that weren't looking for anything long-term (meant they're probably not dating to marry). My goal here was to find a needle in a haystack basically, so I kept my expectations very low and had to be very picky.

I spent a lot of time swiping left. Every-one was the same, every profile looked bland, and every fake profile can be spotted a mile away. Most bios had the same disclaimer : "no sexting, no harassment, no hookups, please keep it halal". It was sad but not surprising. A prude and sexually repressed society breeds depraved men that can't control themselves, and a religion like Islam would only make a woman look like a sex trophy, an object successful men claim. Also wym keep it halal? You're on a dating app honey, dating is a sin and your hijab is not hijabing lol. Anyways, I went out on 4 dates after having many one-sided conversations with other matches. It felt like I was trying to work on a group project with a partner that's lazy.

Girl 1 : (my first date ever at 21 years old) went surprisingly well. I don't get nervous or awkward or cringe ever, which could mean that I'm a sociopath, or that I have a super power. Whatever it is, it definitely helped me and my date out because she was really nervous, she even pointed out how nervous she was in the beginning. I cracked jokes to get her to chill, I speak slowly and calmly to get her to mirror the calm behavior too, a few compliments here and there, only subtle flirting so I don't overwhelm her, and I distract her from the tension by asking her a few questions about herself and letting her do the talking for a little while. We were both interested in philosophy, so we talk about it, and I tell her I'm not that religious when we talked about Nietzsche, the conversation gets a little shallow, I change the subject and we move on. Rest of the date was great, she was interactive, she flirted back, and she wasn't nervous any more. I text her after the date saying she was lovely and that I had fun, she says she thought I was great too, but she didn't want to go any further. I tell her it's totally fine, and I wish her luck. (This was the best scenario I could ever ask for, she was great)

Girl 2 : We message each other. It was smooth, and we set up a date. Date also goes well, except she threw me off a little because she didn't like that I'm a smoker (it obviously was clear in my bio that I'm a smoker, so she didn't pay attention 🚩). It's understandable, I chill out, and put the cigarettes away. When it was time to pay for the food, she asked me if I'm going to pay. I tell her something along the lines of "in this economy?". We split the bill in the end, and she gives me a lecture on how that's not what a man should do. Yes she lectured me like a mother would because she's and I quote "34 and I'm 21". She said I should take her advice as someone who's more experienced than I am. Now....Her bio said she was 25, and she looked 27. What the fuck. I had to drive her home in silence, while getting this talk about how much "potential I had", and that she's willing to give me a chance and guide me through my adulthood until we get married in the next few months. It was pretty weird. When she messaged me that night, I told her that I wasn't interested in going on a second date. She still persisted so I ghosted. To be very honest here, she was kinda attractive , and my inner coomer was whispering in my earholes telling me to go for it, but I still got weirded out.

Girl 3: We messaged each other, she was pretty dry, I shouldn't have kept going with someone not reciprocating the effort, but I did. I point out that don't pay for first dates, she asks why. I say "well, I don't really know you that much yet.". In reality, I prefer splitting the bill because you're not my fucking princess to spoil, you're a big girl now, get a job, pay for your own shit, and let me pay for my own shit. She said ok, and we go on the date. Date turns into an interview. She asks me what I do for work, without answering what she does for work, she asks me questions about Islam, dodges my questions about herself. My favorite part was when she asks "what would you do?" Questions. Like "what would you do, if another man started sexually harassing me right now in front of you?" Or "what would you do if my father doesn't accept your dowry". We kept talking about gender roles and I tried to be as conservative and macho as I can just to end it quicker. Date ends, I expected that we split the bill, and guess what? She didn't bring any money, and I had to pay for it. I drove her home, and that was it, she called me the next day and told her I'm not interested.

Girl 4: Very upbeat and lively, she was into Roblox and read a lot of romance novels. I'm also a huge fan of corny clichès and high quality smut, so it looked good. I bring up a book that had queer main characters in it, just to see her reaction, and she was Pro-LGBT! This was huge. I immediately ask her out, we go to a coffee shop, and the date was fun as hell. Up until the moment I talked to her about the book I told her about. I asked her if she thinks the LGBT community would ever have rights in our country. She says "I hope so, but not the they/thems and trans people"..... I was on a date with a TERF. I was so lucky I didn't tell her I'm pansexual, because if she found out I liked enbies too , she would've snitched 100%. She also got pissed when I told her I wanted to split the bill because she thought I was kidding. It was heartbreaking, she was really cool.

So yeah. These were all the dates I've been to over the course of half a year swiping left and rarely swiping right on dating apps. My parents are starting to convince me to have an arranged marriage, which is a huge fucking no no for me. I already expressed to them that they don't have any influence in my life decisions anymore, as I'm my own person now, but they can't comprehend that just like all Muslim parents. I mean I literally would be disowned if I moved out on my own before being married, but because I'm a guy they're eventually easing up to the idea. If I was a girl that would be blasphemy though...so. let's hope I don't get a blind date with my parents being active members in it.

Submitted July 19, 2023 at 05:38PM by blizzard_of-oz (From Reddit https://ift.tt/0kEt43m)

[sastielsfandom]

The Impala was locked, but Sam didn't mind, the sun felt nice as he leaned on the Impala. He opened a piece of gum and popped it into his mouth, squinting at the sun. He needed sunglasses, or he'll just steal Dean's again. He was honestly leaning towards the latter. Castiel watched Sam, their attention always seemed to fall upon Sam for some reason, "What is that?"

"Gum," Sam said, taking another stick out, holding it between two fingers offering it towards the angel, "want a piece?"

Castiel took the wrapped stick of gum, inspecting it, "It's not food, is it?" Castiel questioned, smelling it with a frown. Sam stifled his laugh, laughing through his nose. 

"Not quite." Sam said, pointing at his mouth, chewing admittedly obnoxious and exaggerated, "You just chew it."

Castiel opened a flap, tilting his head, wondering if the color was significant, continuing the inspection, "And then what?" 

"And then you spit it out when you're done with it." Sam said. The angel was more focused on the wrapper than the gum.

"Here," Sam said, rolling off the Impala, standing close to Castiel, holding his hand out for Castiel who put the gum in his hand. Sam took it out of the wrapper, tucking the fascinating wrapper into Castiel's trench coat, handing back the gum unwrapped, "just try it."

Castiel accepted it, slowly brought it to their mouth, wanting to question it further but decided to trust Sam. They mimicked Sam by throwing it into their mouth without a second thought. 

Just as quickly as the piece went it, it went out, landing on the ground, "That was disgusting."

Sam tried to refrain from laughing, instead clearinghis throat, "Um, most people chew it before they get to that part, and I guess I should've specified you throw it away in the trash. Not the floor."

Castiel looked between the gum and at Sam who was still chewing away, "Do you like your gum?" 

Sam raised an eyebrow and shrugged, "Yeah, I guess-" Castiel pulled Sam down, crashing their lips together. In the whirlwind of confusion Sam found himself kissing Castiel back. Castiel deepened it, before pulling back. 

Staring at Sam, Castiel began chewing Sam's gum, exaggerating it like Sam did earlier, "I prefer the gum like this," Castiel said, nodding, looking at the gum that had landed on the floor, "not like that."

Sam's face was beyond red, he rubbed the back of his neck, and turned the other way, "Um, yeah, uh, if you chewed it enough, it would've done the same thing."

Castiel frowned at Sam's reaction, "Do you want it back?" Sam shook his head, too many questions flooded his brain but he looked at Castiel and they all ceased. 

"You keep it, Cas." Sam reassured, and relieved as Dean came out of the gas station, even though he was waving around beef jerky, again. 

_______________________________________________

After a grueling game of rock, paper, scissors, Sam which Sam miraculously lost. Having no ulterior motives at all, Sam had gone on the supply run. Collecting everyone's… interesting, or rather concerning lists that he chose to ignore. 

He went through the back, figuring he'd run into Bobby first, which he was correct about. He handed over one of the bags to him, and headed to the living room. 

He didn't take a single step into the living room before the bags got swiped by Dean. He opened one, taking gum out and shook his head, "Sam, you just got gum, have you been chewing your toenails again?"

"No, is that something you do often, Dean?" Sam shot back, as Dean tossed it to him, Sam tossed it to Castiel. 

Castiel smiled, holding it to their chest, “Thank you,” Sam had offered to get them a pack after sharing another piece with Castiel, without lip action this time. 

"Why'd you get Cas gum?" Dean asked, rummaging through the bag that was most likely Sam's, but he was intrigued, "That's the benefit of having an angel around, no extra expenses."

"It came from my money, not yours, so shut up." Sam said, taking the bags back and shoving Dean's towards him. 

Dean shook his head, in utter disbelief, “Bobby!" 

Bobby sighed, as much as he wanted to ignore him, that tone told him to just answer, "What?"

"Sam told me to shut up!" Bobby rolled his eyes, "So why are you still yapping?" He got no answer, and was quite satisfied with that. 

Dean turned to face a smug Sam, and shook his head, and pointed at him, "Wow, just turning them all against me, Sammy."

"Uh-huh, clearly that's what I'm doing." Sam said, shaking his head. 

"It is," Dean said, nodding, and Sam could see the gears turning in his brain, "it's your masterplan."

"Yeah, you got me," Sam shrugged, "You know, that's exactly what Dad meant when he said to watch out for me,” Sam paused, “Do we wait until I give him a lollipop and then bring out the shotgun or is this the perfect time? I think it's evil enough."

"That's not funny," Dean said, which made Sam laugh, "It's a little funny."

"What's a lollipop?" Castiel asked, and before Sam could answer Dean jumped in, "Do not give Castiel lollipops."

"I won't." Sam said, unconvincingly, but Dean took his bag, and did the universal, I'm watching you sign, which Sam ignored as he waited for him to walk away fully. 

Once he disappeared around the corner, Sam waited a little bit longer, seeing Dean's head popping out. He did the watching you sign again, Sam rolled his eyes as he disappeared again. 

Looking down at Castiel, Sam pulled out a bag, one of which may or may not have nothing but lollipops... Just as he handed it to Castiel, Dean popped back out, "A big bag, really?"

Sam tried looking empathetic but his mischief shone right through, "So do we use my gun or yours?"

"Sam!" Dean shouted, and the two were off running, Sam laughing loudly as he ran outside. Dean shouting his name as he began to catch up. 

Bobby walked in, hearing the chaos exiting the house, "Do I want to know?" He asked Castiel. 

Castiel had no idea if Bobby did, but decided to answer anyway, "Sam gave me gum the other day and today. And lollipops. Dean disapproves, and now Sam is asking Dean if he should kill him. I can't tell if it's a yes or no. I hope it's a no."

Bobby looked outside and back at the angel and the bag he was currently holding, "They'll tire themselves out. What flavors you got?" Castiel lifted up the bag and Bobby grabbed a handful of treats before he went outside to watch the show. He motioned for Castiel to follow. 

The two commentated as Sam did zig-zags through the yard, every time Dean nearly caught up, Sam would do a sharp turn. Causing Dean to faceplant more times then he'll ever admit. Truly great entertainment. 

Bubble Gum Bubble Gum

Summary: Castiel has never tried gum until Sam offers a piece to them. And of course Sam indulges more than he probably should.

[the-moonlightwitch-official]

chapter 3

summary: y/n l/n is a 18 year old girl that struggled in school a lot. It all started in kindergarten when her soul marks never appeared, becoming the class joke. But trust me, y/n’s life never got any easier when the marks did finally appear.

SERIES WARNING: MINORS DNI 18+, student x teacher, mentions of burning, scars, bullying, polyamorous, yandere, yandere themes, kidnapping, murdering, nsfw

“Oh sweetheart! You’ve found your soulmates!” your mother swarmed you in a hug. “We should celebrate, bring them over!” you looked nervous and shook your head. “Maybe some other time”. You brushed her arms off of you and walked away, placing your bag down on the kitchen chair, and headed towards your room. She followed you, asking 20 questions of “are you alright”, and “what happened?” You shut the door in her face and flopped on your bed, staring up at the ceiling, ignoring her pleas and knocks at your bedroom door. 

You let out a long sigh that you didn't even know you were holding. You're absolutely exhausted. The whole day was spent dodging teachers, such as Mr. aizawa, yamada, and all might. It got to the point where you packed your shit and skipped class. You just went off campus and enjoyed your day away from school. Of course, many emails from the teachers blew up your phone and even got to the point where they even called your number from their personal cell. It all went ignored as you sat in a coffee shop. Quite small, but very peaceful, wasn't very busy since everyone was at work and school. The walk home wasn’t very peaceful. You lost track of time. People started shuffling into the shops and the streets began to get busy. Pretty much, you didn’t head home until UA dismissed its students and people got let out of work. 

Constantly looking over your shoulder as you pretty much speed walked down the street. Someone was watching you, or at least it felt like it. ‘That's crazy, though, right? There are crowds of people here.’ you thought to yourself as you pushed through the crowds of people. Looking around, you see that no one was paying attention to you. They were all minding their business and had places to be, people to see. But you couldn’t shake this feeling. The feeling of a pair of eyes glued to you. You ran through the crowd in hopes to get home sooner. Colliding with someone, you both fell. “I'm so sorry!” you exclaimed while helping them up. They rolled their eyes and told  you it was alright and carried on with their day. You watched them walk away, and in the corner of your eye you spotted someone in the crowd watching you. You turned to look, only to watch them quickly disappear. Weird. It looked a lot like aizawa. That's how you got home today, a lot of paranoia and running. 

You lay on your bed, breathing deeply and pretty much just waiting for the parent phone call to happen. Not even a few minutes pass and low and behold, it’s happening now as you hear your mother angry on the phone and bringing up your name on the other side of the door. Huffing and sitting up, you prepare for the worst. The door opened abruptly and in came your mother with a look of anger and confusion. “Where were you today?” you looked at her and blinked. “I just got a call from your teacher, Mr. aizawa saying that you were absent for the rest of school after lunchtime.” you nodded in agreement. “Why?” you looked up at her again and said, “I don't want to talk about it, right now.” She huffed in annoyance and left your room with a look of disappointment. 

Looking down at your phone, you noticed all the phone calls and messages from your friends and teachers. As you were scrolling through the messages that were sent by midoriya, and all the voicemails left by the callers, an incoming call came in. It looked like aizawa’s because the number matched his voicemails. You reluctantly swiped the answer button and put the cell phone up to your ear. “Hello?” you hear shuffling on the other end that sounded like paper work before you heard a voice. 

“Hi, ms. l/n, glad you finally picked up. Where have you been today?” you rolled your eyes and “why are you calling me, you just got off the phone with my mother,” you heard a sigh on the other end “yes, that is true.” before he could say anything else you hung up. Right as you were about to set down the phone, another phone call came rolling in, except it wasn't aizawa it was mr. yamada. You put the phone on DND and went to sleep. Welp tomorrow’s gonna be fun. 

Hizashi and shota accepted that you're their soulmate and are going to try to get to know you and love you. Meanwhile, All might isn’t having very much fun. He's confused. He shuffled through a crowd of people and entered a grocery store. All the memories went through his head. All the women he slept with and desperately tried to keep. Desperately tried to find a spark between them and him. He’s been looking for his soulmate for years. Often getting into relationships and sleeping with people. Getting them to say the words on his chest, so they can light up. But to no avail. He just kept digging himself a bigger and deeper hole. He lives alone now. Likewise, he doesn’t try to go after anyone. He just minds his own business and moves on with his life. The more he thinks about you, the happier he feels. He picked up two sodas and checked them out, putting them in bags and leaving.  He can't let this pass. Likewise, he has to have you. He’s been looking everywhere for you for years, his soulmate. And now he finally found you. 

The next school day was tiring. The morning was spent avoiding everyone and hiding from teachers. You were also wearing earphones and listening to music, so you have the excuse to ignore everyone. The buzzing in your pocket was a sign that someone texted you. Taking the phone out of your pocket and checking, you have seen that it was midoriya. 

(midoriyas texts are green.) 

“Hey, you should come hang out with me. You’ve been distant, are you alright?” 

“fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Where are you?”

“Hanging out in the cafeteria, where are you?”

“The library.”

“You should come get something to eat.”

“K. Be there in a minute.”

And with that, you put your phone back in your pocket and put your earphone back in your ear. Now heading to the cafeteria, which was in another building. You began your journey out of the library and still being weary of your surroundings. Soon you began to approach and teacher lounge and the door was open. Quickly walking by it, you noticed a figure wearing all black leaning against the counter holding a cup of coffee. Soon the figure perked up as it noticed you walking by. It didn’t take a genius to know who it was. Aizawa. 

“Wait” you faintly hear through your earphones. Shit. You picked up the pace and looked over your shoulder only to notice not only aizawa but yamada as well. You looked ahead, and before you could start running, a hand landed on your shoulder. You flinched and looked at the hand on your left shoulder and then to the person the hand was connected to. Light green orbs peered at you through orange shades. “Where have ya been, listener?” you looked ahead and tried to keep walking. But the hand on your shoulder tightened its grip. “Come on, let's hang out, yeah?” he guided you to turn around, and there was aizawa standing there. They guided you to the teacher's lounge. Aizawa closed the door behind all of you and pulled open a chair on the left side of the table for you to sit. Next to you, you noticed a laptop, headphones, cell phone, and iced coffe, sitting there on the table. That must be where Mr. yamada was sitting. Hizashi popped a squat right next to you, in the very seat with all the personal belongings. 

He opened his laptop and continued to work like nothing happened, while also trying to start a conversation with you. You kept quiet. Hizashi pulled your earphones out. “Hello, earth to y/n?” you glared at him. “Cream or sugar?” you looked past mr. yamada’s shoulder to see that Mr. aizawa was making you a cup of coffee. “I'm good.” you responded as you took out your phone. Hizashi took it from your hands and sat it on the other side of his laptop, out of your reach. “HEY!” you shouted. As you were about to get up. Shota’s hand fell to your shoulder and sat you back down, as he sat a cup of freshly brewed coffee in front of you. “Relax” was all he said as he sat across from both you and his husband, hizashi. “Call me shota outside of class, and call my husband mr. yamada, Hizashi outside of class.” You looked shocked and turned to Mr. yamada next to you. Looking down, you noticed his wedding ring, as both of his hands were on the table. You looked up and seen that he was looking at you with a hopeful, and gleeful smile. 

“Husband?” you looked back at aizawa. 

He took a sip of his coffee. “Mhm.” Hizashi looked at his husband, aizawa and interlaced his fingers with his. Aizawa held his coffee in his other hand that wasn’t occupied with his husband's fingers. Hizashi spoke up. “Yep, this is all mine right here.” you looked at them both as they shared little dating/wedding stories. You tuned out, not hearing anything that was being said. Until a gloved hand waved in your face. “Hello there, earth to my little listener?” you snapped out of it and stood up, grabbing your phone. “Congrats.” you said nonchalantly. Hizashi stopped you and set you back down. “Listen. We love you. And we would want nothing more than to protect you and have you a part of our relationship.” he said calmly. “We’ll move slowly.” aizawa added in. you shook your head. “No.” getting up again, only to be sat back down. “Songbird, baby, please.” 

“Give us a chance.” aizawa stepped in. with one final sigh. You relented. “Sure. You guys are my soulmates. So why not.” hizashi jumped up with glee and took you into a hug. “YES! We’re gonna love you, cuddle you.” before he could go any further. You jumped in. “What about your reputation. Y’know. Present mic. Eraserhead?” hizashi nodded in agreement, but quickly dismissed your worries. “It doesn’t matter. I love you. And I’ll disguise myself.” you shook your head. “What about my mom?” he looked down at you. “What about your mom?” you looked at aizawa. Who then stepped in. “She has a point. Her mother probably won't like that we’re both gonna be with her daughter.” hizashi thought for a minute. “We’ll hide it.” shota rolled his eyes. “We’ll figure something out, baby.” he said as he rounded the table and kissed your forehead. He yawned and declared that you all split up and head to class. He kissed hizashi and declared his departure, grabbing your hand and heading out of the room with you. “Bye, babe!” you heard hizashi shout behind you. Shota waved and headed to his classroom with you. He led you to his desk and he sat down in his. 

It still fells odd to have your desk literally so close to his. Your desk is literally on the side of his. He can see everything you do know. What you're working on, what you're hiding, who you're looking at, if you're paying attention, etc. Honestly feels like a violation. Your phone buzzed, and you took it out of your pocket. Shit, you forgot about midoriya. 

“y/nnnnnnnnnnnnn, where are you?” 

Before you could answer, shota reached over with his hand open. Expecting you to put the phone in his hand. It took all of three seconds of your hesitation before he just snatched the phone from you. “HEY!” he looked at the phone and then you. “Texting boys are we?” you rolled your eyes. “That's my privacy, it's none of your business.” he turned off the phone and put it in his desk drawer, and locked it. “It’s causing a distraction, you’ll retrieve it during dismissal at the end of school today.” you gave him the look of shock. “Not fair at all. Class didn’t even start yet.” he just glared at you for a moment before continuing to type on his computer. The warning bell rung and kids began to flood the class, with the scary occasional glare from shota when any of the kids interact with you. Jeez, possessive much?

He lectured the class as per usual and gave out the worksheets. While everyone else was working, he helped you the most with the questions. Looks like you get special treatment. He plans on keeping the soul bond stuff on the down low. After class dismissed, you headed to miss midnights class. She knew about the situation and she was ecstatic. Treating you like royalty in her class. Looks like you get special treatment from her as well. The third period with hizashi was literally no different from shota’s class. You were sat near his desk and he gave you special treatment. Winked at you and made kissy faces when no one was looking. It made you extremely uncomfortable. 

Lunch sucked. They reserved a teacher lounge all to themselves and forced you to eat with them. Well, shota didn't really eat. He just drank coffee and jelly packs and worked on paperwork. Hizashi was demolishing some ramen, with the occasional offer for a bit to shota. He mostly declined and the eventually caved. He dropped his pen and leaned over the table and took a bit of his ramen. The broth getting on his face and lips, and hiashi wasting no time to lean over the table and lick it off his face. You just looked away and stared down at the table as you slowly ate your curry. “It's good baby, do you want a bite?” you looked over and noticed hizashi looking at you with a bright smile and holding some ramen in between chopsticks out to you. Politely declining, you resumed your lunch. 

He shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat. His noodles looked fire hot red. He apparently loves spicy noodles, especially 2x spicy. It was hard to eat when you had no appetite. It’s so hard to continue on with the day, when you can process what’s happening. You only agreed to this shit to shut them up. “I-i have to go to the bathroom.” you quickly got up and shota offered to come with, but you declined and continued on your way. There was really no point in declining because you already know, that one of them is going to be standing outside the restroom anyway. They only allow you to use the teacher bathroom. You tried to sneak your way into the student bathroom. But hizashi was apparently following behind you. “Nah uh” you looked behind you and seen hizashi snap his fingers and point to the teacher bathroom. 

You went to where his finger was pointing and headed into the bathroom. Before you closed the door, you noticed him leaning against the wall, signaling that he was going to keep guard over you while you used the bathroom. You closed the door and looked into the mirror above the sink and questioned your life decisions. You turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on your face. The knocks on the door snapped you out of it. “Hey, songbird im gonna head back to the lounge real quick, I’ll be back in a few minutes, ok?” 

“Ok.” you said to acknowledge his question. You heard heavy footsteps walking away. You took this as your chance to leave. You opened the door and looked both ways before walking away. Only to collide with someone. You looked up and seen the big buff all might. “Oh my! I'm so sorry y/n” he said. “It's fine.” you waved as you walked around him. He turned around and grabbed your shoulder. “Where are you going?” you looked at him and said, “downstairs to the vending machine.” he smiled. “I’ll come with.” you shook your head. “You don't have to.” he only ignored you and grabbed your hand, walking with you. He noticed you were in a hurry. “In a hurry, I see young y/n.” he chuckled. You looked nervous. “Is everything alright?” you nodded and kept going. 

You reached the vending machine, and he interrupted you as you pulled out your money. “Allow me.” he said as he put his money into the vending machine and picked out what you wanted. “Pretty girls like you shouldn’t have to pay for things by yourself.” he smiled brightly as you and bent over to grab the snack that fell to the bottom of the vending machine. He handed it to you, and you smiled nervously, taking the snack from his hands and thanking him. You just can't escape these soul bonds. Before you could walk away, he lightly grabbed your shoulder and looked into your eyes. “You're so pretty, you know that?” you nodded. “So fucking pretty y/n, I'm glad that we’re soul bonds.” you were speechless. “How about I take you out to your favorite place to eat, after school, huh?” he said with hope in his eyes. Before you could say anything, you were interrupted. 

“HEY!, what the hell are you doing?” you both looked over and seen hizashi and shota walking over, and looking absolutely pissed. All might put both of his hands up and smiled. “Just buying something for her at the vending machine is all.” shota raised a brow and walked towards you, grabbing your hand and guiding you away. As you were going upstairs, hizashi voiced his disappointment and his worries. “You should have said something to me before you left, songbird.” you nodded and walked back into the lounge. You sat back down and hizashi grabbed your curry and popped it back into the microwave. “Curry went cold, baby. Gonna warm it back up, for ya.” you thanked him. “What did he say to you?” you looked in front of you to see shota looking at you curiously. “Nothing much, just called me pretty and bought a snack for me.” shota huffed and grumbled in annoyance under his scarf. “Relax babe, I doubt he knew she was ours.” hizashi said as he sat your food down in front of you. 

After eating, you carried on with your day. School went smoothly. With the occasional event of all might “accidentally” running into you multiple times. Shota stalked you from the sidelines and noticed all might strange behavior towards you. He’d have to confront him soon. 

After school dismissal, you collected your phone from shota and headed out. The walk home was pretty good, except for the feeling of being watched. Normally, shota watched you, because he didn't want his husband doing it due to him being too recognizable and famous. Every sound of footsteps or rubble being stepped on behind you only encouraged you to walk faster. Shota noticed in the corner of his eye, all might as well was stalking you. Shota swiftly and quietly made his way to all might. All might noticed and quickly hid in an alleyway. “Toshinori what are you doing?” he jumped and rubbed his neck furiously. “N-nothing, just scanning the streets for villains.” shota didn’t believe that for a second. “You're in your skinny form. You normally scan the streets in your big form.” he shook his head. “Just trying something different.” shota was fed up. 

“Spill it, what do you want with y/n?” all might looked shocked. “I don't know what you mean.” shota’s eyes lit up and his hair levitated above his head. “Stay away from hizashi and I’s soul bond.”  toshinori looked at him confused. “Wait she’s your soul bond too?” shota’s hair dropped and questioned him. “What do you mean?” toshinori lifted his shirt and showed your soulmark on his chest.” shota was taken aback. Well, he’s going to have alot of fun explaining that to his husband. “She’s mine.” shota said before walking away. “She’s mine as well shota, she’s ours.” shota stopped and turned around, listening to toshinori ramble on about how long it took to find you. Shota decided to be reasonable. 

“Fine we’ll figure something out.” Shota began to walk away when toshinori jumped back in. “my place? You can come over to my place and bring hizashi.” shota contemplated for a second before answering. “Sure.” toshinori brightened up. “6 pm?” shota nodded at his question. Toshinori rubbed his hands together and pulled out a notebook from his back pocket and grabbed the pen that was in it, clicking it multiple times before writing down the plan. “ you're following her home?” shota looked at toshinori one more time before answering. “Yes, I have it handled. I’ll protect her well. Why don't you go rest and get ready for the 6pm plan.” toshinori nodded and thanked him before walking away to his car and driving off.  Shota followed through with his plan and followed you home, making sure you weren’t in harms way. 

Meanwhile, toshinori was nervous. Staring straight ahead as he drove. No music played on the radio. Just silence. Toshinori is well aware that hizashi and shota steer clear of him, and are not really big fans of being around him. He accepts it, it’s well deserved.  He thought about the past when he was in school. He was a third year when hizashi and shota were first years. It all started at the U.A sports festival when they first met. The event is only meant for first years. The only reason why Toshinori was allowed in was because he was at the top of his classes and was in the big three. They wanted him to encourage the first years and set a wonderful example. The fights happened first. The one v one’s. All might was going against another 3rd year, to show an example to the freshman’s what one of the big three were capable of. “TEXAS SMASH!” was the moved that ended the match. The other person went out of bounds. Resulting in Toshinori being the winner. Afterwards, the games began. The headband game. Toshinori teamed up with shota, hizashi, midnight, and oboro. 

“Your really powerfu with a quirk like that.” he said to shota. Who sheepishly looked at him and said a quiet “thanks” The first soulmark on toshinori’s chest lit up. Before he could say anything, hizashi jumped in. “Texas smash, huh? That's creative!”. That's when toshinori’s second soul mark on his chest lit up. He decided to ignore it. He looked at his team members and said, “we’ll make an awesome team!” and with that. shota’s second soul mark on collar bone, lit up. Before anything could start, the loud sound of the horn being blown interrupted him and the games began. After the games, Everyone was worn out and needed a break. “You make an amazing teammate, hizashi!” toshinori said after catching up with him, after the team split ways. Hizashi’s second soul mark on his hip lit up. 

“Hey you ignited my mark.” hizashi said, showing toshinori in surprise. He looked surprised and then showed hizashi the soul marks that ignited on his chest. Hizashi was ecstatic and grabbed toshi by the hand and ran to shota. “Look, look, he’s our soulmate!!” shota looked over at the two and said nothing. “Wait, you two are already soulmates?” toshi asked. 

(FLASHBACK)

Hizashi was known as the loud extrovert of the class. Talks way too loudly and too much. Hizashi made his way to the back of the class. Where shota was located. Target acquired. 

Shota was sitting at his desk in the back, quiet as a mouse. “You’re looking mighty lonely over there.” shota gasped in pain as the words on his collar bone lit up. “Do you ever shut up?” he responded. Hizashi also took a step back and gasped in pain as the words on his hip bone lit up. From there on out they, were friends and eventually fell in love.

(END FLASHBACK)

“Yeah, we’re soulmates.” hizashi said. “We’re in loooooooooove.” he added in making kissy faces at shota. Who only dodged it. 

After the school day ended, they brought toshinori to a small café and hung out. Discussing relationship planes and soul mate things. “We’d love for you to join our relationship. You're our soulmate after all.” hizashi said. Shota nodding in agreement. The pair were honestly hopeful. Toshi declined, stating that he doesn't want that, he wants to focus on hero work and becoming the number one hero. He doesn't have time for this stuff. Hizashi tried to get him to change his mind. But he just yelled at them and stormed out of the café. 

That was the last time he’s seen them. Even as adults, when they met again, the pair didn't want much to do with him unless they were assigned to something with him. Other than that. They just steer clear of each other. 

Toshinori kept his eyes on the road and eventually pulled into his driveway. This, this could be a huge change. He went in, took a shower and prepared for the event later today. He started brewing tea, when he heard a knock at the door. He jumped in surprise and looked at his watch. “Shit, 6pm already.” he scurried to the door and opened it. There stood shota and hizashi wearing casual clothing. “Come in!” toshinori said nervously. Closing the door after the two came in. “R-right this way.” he said, guided the pair to the dining room table. It was awkward. The three being near each other again, let alone in toshi’s house. 

“Nice home……it’s very homey.” hizashi said, trying to lighten the mood just a bit. Toshinori sat tea in front of the pair and sat down. A few moments of silence and the sounds of tea being sipped on before toshinori spoke. “Listen. I am truly sorry for my past actions and the way I spoke to you and treated you both.” Hizashi looked at him before taking off his glasses and folding them. “Listen, it's fine. You had goals that you wanted to reach. I respect that.” he said, putting his hands in front of him to dismiss toshi’s apology. “I wanted to make up for it, since you're my soul mates, and figure something out about y/n.” shota nodded at what toshinori said and added in. “I gave it some thought and I think adding you into our marriage is the best plan for this.” Hizashi nodded in agreement. Toshi smiled, “are you sure?” shota took a sip of tea before answering. “Hizashi was skeptical about it, since he didn't really wanna fuck with you, but after some convincing, he’s willing to forgive you and move forward.” Hizashi nodded. 

“The marriage would have to wait a few weeks, due to money and having many plans.” shota added. “Of course, thank you so much. I won't disappoint the both of you. I will be the best I can be and provide for you both and y/n.” They nodded in agreement. 

“We’re going to kidnap y/n, and hopefully add her to our marriage at some point.” 

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