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aarghhaaaarrrghhh · 7 days ago

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What Lastochka Left Unsaid/О чём молчит ласточка - Chapter One

Master post here

Chapter One - A Guest from the Past

Late August, 2006, Kharkiv.

Silence reigned in the empty office. Like a graveyard, thought Volodya in passing. Trying to forget even just for a little while why he had had to stay at work until eight o’clock in the evening, he turned several thoughts over in his mind: about the contract with the supplier, about the project budget, about yet another case about which he had had to call the lawyers during the day.

Out the window, the drops falling from the air conditioning unit beat on the awning and that faint sound was the only thing that broke the silence. But then a pen fell out of his diary and clattered against the tabletop, and sheets of paper rustled against the bottom of their box. Volodya placed the last file in there and looked around his cleared work desk. He lifted a heavy gaze around his manager’s office: the beaten-up door was ajar and the jamb was warped; a crack ran through the wood and the lock was broken.

I have to, he said to himself as he pursed his lips. He picked the box up and walked to the edge of the office.

The squeal of his ringtone shattered the silence and made him jump, as though he were coming out of a trance. After returning the box to his desk, Volodya got to his phone and, having looked at the screen, exhaled.

“What’s up, Vov, are we still on?”

“Damn… Yes, we’re still on, it’s just I… got caught up working on something,” he lied. “I forgot to book a room. Can you do it yourself?”

“Alright, I’ll send you the address, we’ll meet there in half an hour. Which room it is, I’ll text you later.”

Volodya nodded mechanically and ended the call. Almost immediately, the phone pinged with an incoming message. He read it and sighed: it would take no less than thirty minutes to get to the hotel - he would be late. But on the other hand, the urgency gave him a reason to quit the office as soon as possible.

As he switched the light off in the open-plan and shut the door behind himself, Volodya once again took a look around his head office.

Tomorrow, he promised himself. Everything’ll be fixed tomorrow and I’ll move my things in there.

***

As he got out of the taxi and took a look at the inconspicuous premises of the mini-hotel, Volodya pursed his lips and grumbled to himself under his voice:

“Uh-huh, not too much to look at.” Then: “Room twenty-seven. I’m expected,” he said to the administrator at the reception.

She did not try and check his documents; the girl simply smiled welcomingly:

“You’re on the first floor, right along the corridor.” And promptly she hid her face behind her computer screen.

Volodya went up to the unlocked door. His concerns were unfounded - the totally neat and fashionable room smelt of hotel cleanliness. The sound of water came from behind the closed door to the bathroom and shoes, a shirt, and a phone were strewn upon the still-made bed.

He went to the window and watched the narrow street, illuminated by a few yellow streetlights. He opened the top window, and the sound of passing cars and the evening air, not yet cool after the hot day, came into the room.

After a couple of minutes, the sound of water in the bathroom fell silent and the door squeaked.

“Oh, finally!”

Volodya turned to the voice. Igor, stood with a towel around his thighs, smiled. Volodya affected a smile at him in return, and scanned the half-naked body before him with an inquisitive look, trying to find something new about it. He failed. And he felt nothing - absolutely nothing.

“Miss me?” Igor came closer and placed his wet palms on his neck. “I’ve missed you - a lot.”

Volodya brushed him aside and headed to the bathroom, throwing back over his shoulder:

“Not today.”

Igor replied:

“Understood.”

In the bathroom, Volodya approached the fogged-up mirror. He wiped away the moisture and saw at least half of his face in the reflection. He looked himself in the eyes and tried to prick his ears up to hear the echoes of the least feeling of any kind. He was deaf.

For the last few days, he had felt like a robot - he did what was asked of him without thinking, but his soul seemed like it had frozen solid. Occasionally needles of fear, longing and faithlessness would prick him sharply or weigh upon his shoulders and make his back crooked. Then they would suddenly disappear. So it was in that moment.

He stood beneath the shower and turned the dial almost up to boiling - and he less so felt, than accepted as a fact, that the water was burning his skin. He added some cold and stuck his face beneath the stream.

He thought about Igor. They had agreed to meet a week ago by that point. Back then, Volodya had genuinely wanted this meeting, he had looked forward to it. He did not care that he knew Igor long ago, did not care that this meeting would bring nothing new. He was almost dear to him, almost a significant other, he knew so much about him…

As he returned to the room, Volodya overheard an excerpt of conversation:

“Yes, I get you, the views are very nice, but could you just be clear if they do children’s cartoons there?”

As he saw Volodya come out of the bathroom, Igor pressed his finger to his lips - “shush”.

“Alright, I’ll call the travel agency tomorrow and find out. Take care of your flowers, don’t stress. Bye, honey.”

He pressed the button to end the call, waited for the screen to flash and only raised his gaze to Volodya once he was certain that the call was definitely over, explaining:

“We’re planning a trip, to Turkey, but you’d think we’re going to space or something. I suggested to Lidka to postpone it ‘til next year, but she groused at me: ‘How come? September is the off-peak season…’ And now she’s raised this whole racket - she found some kind of trip round some mountains, but whether you can get there by car from the resort town, she doesn’t know. And the connection is bad at the dacha, she can’t get through on the phone…”

He carried on saying something else. For a long time - and all about his family: about how Sonya, his daughter, would hardly stand the trip, and about how it would probably rain in Turkey at the end of September. Volodya made as though he were listening to him; he nodded, even replied out of turn, and thought to himself about Igor’s wife. He remembered how once she had almost caught them: she had returned from the dacha earlier than expected and merely by sheer luck happened to call Igor, asking whether she should swing by the shops. Igor then kicked Volodya out the door without giving him a proper chance to get dressed. As he buttoned up his shirt along the way, Volodya bumped into her on the ground floor: a normal woman, well-tanned, exhausted, pretty in her own way. Just like in the photographs in Igor’s apartment. At that point, out of anger and humiliation, Volodya cursed at her to himself: You gullible idiot, why did you call? He wanted her to have caught them and for her to have found out the truth about her husband at long last. But, after he calmed down, he felt ashamed of these thoughts. After all, he knew perfectly well that Lida was perhaps more of a victim than even Volodya himself. Than even Igor.

Volodya of all people should have known what it was to collect from among the shards of your own broken heart someone else’s. To glue it back together with a lie that disgusted even himself, to guard against pain and sleepless nights.

Why don’t you want me anymore? There’s something wrong with me, right? I put on three kilos, it’s because of that, isn’t it?

After Sveta, how could he not know?

Volodya interrupted Igor’s story:

“Let’s get down to business.”

Igor nodded and, abruptly pulling Volodya to himself, tried to kiss him, but the latter turned away.

Volodya took his tie off from around his neck, wound it around his wrist and offered the end to Igor.

“Are you sure?” asked Igor. “It’s been a long time since you asked-”

“Go on,” Volodya demanded and laid on his stomach.

Igor did not argue. He tightened the knot around his wrist and passed the tie through the slats of the bed’s headboard, then wound the end around his other wrist. Volodya gave a tug to check whether it was tight enough.

He heard a rustling from behind him. Volodya buried his face in the pillow and screwed his eyes up shut. Yes, it really had been a long time since they had done this. But right then, it seemed like exactly what he needed. To finally feel something, anything.

A belt buckle rattled and the bed creaked, bending under Igor’s weight. Volodya could not restrain a groan as a burning wave of pain form the scathing blow radiated along the small of his back and lower down. Right away, a second, in the centre of his back.

“Harder,” wheezed Volodya and immediately felt one searing blow after another on his shoulder blades.

His back burnt; he could practically feel the stripes left on his skin by the belt. But he asked for more and more. Rhythmically. And harder. Volodya chewed on the cloth of the pillow as he stifled his moans.

The pain gave him nothing. Repulsive and aching, it was just pain, no anticipation, no lust, not even fear.

When his typical groan had become a scream, Igor threw the belt aside. He laid a warm palm on his back, and Volodya flinched as though he had been touched with red-hot iron.

“What on earth’s going on with you?”

“Keep going.”

“If we go on like this, I’m just going to mutilate you. Has something happened to you?”

Volodya exhaled and wiped his damp face on the pillow - he had not noticed that the pain had brought tears to his eyes.

“Yeah, you’re right, untie me.”

Igor untangled the knots in the tie. Volodya sat up, pulled the covers to himself and drew them up to his thighs. He massaged his temples with his fingers. Igor looked at him fixedly, waiting for an answer, while Volodya did not want to talk. Not that it was with Igor, he simply did not want to talk about it. To pronounce it aloud would be like affirming it to himself, bringing the thought to the forefront. On the contrary, he wanted to send it far away, to not think about it, to not know about it.

“Father died.”

Igor was silent for half a minute as he studied Volodya searchingly. The latter mentally begged him, Just don’t give me a dutiful ‘Accept my condolences’, don’t wind me up, but Igor merely asked:

“When?”

“On Wednesday. The funeral was yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you say anything right away?”

Volodya shook his head.

“I don’t want to, I’m not ready yet. I’ll get my head together and then we’ll talk. It’s useless at the moment anyway. I don’t feel any grief. At all. I’ve done what was needed of me: I organised the funeral, I protected my mother from all of that. But I don’t feel anything myself. I try to force myself to, but I just don’t…”

“That’s normal, Vov.” Igor laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I… And what are you planning to do next? I mean, a lot’s going to change, the firm was his.”

“No, Igor, nothing’s going to change. I’ll move into his office and… and that’s it. The to-do list, duties - everything will stay the same as before. I’ve been heading the firm fully by myself for almost a year. I work like I used to and live like I used to. At work, I’ve long since coped without his help and advice. While in my life… in my life, too.”

Igor nodded.

“How are you sleeping? Badly?”

Volodya rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, I’ve not slept for two nights now. I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep.”

“Anxiety? Nausea? You need sleeping pills. I’ll write you a prescription.”

“Yeah, go for it.”

Igor immediately found a prescription form in his briefcase, filled it out and handed it to Volodya.

“Take them, they should help-” Igor wanted to say something else, but his phone began to ring. Volodya noticed Lida’s name on the screen out of the corner of his eye.

“Shit, what, it’s ten already?” Igor nervously hung up the call.

“Quarter to,” Volodya corrected, having looked at the clock.

“I need to pick up Sonya from my mum’s. You were late and we were… busy for a long time.”

“And in vain,” chuckled Volodya.

“Well… We’ll make up for it,” smiled Igor as he pulled his shirt on. “I’m sorry for dropping out on you like this, we should still talk some more. That’s what you need right now. But you get it…”

Oh yeah, of course, I get it: your family, your kid, thought Volodya. But out loud, he said:

“It’s all fine, go.”

“Call me if you need to talk some more, I’ll always hear you out.” He leant forward and kissed him quickly. “If not for Sonya, I would have stayed with you ‘til morning. Never mind ‘til morning, I’d stay with you forever. There’s nothing to it, in no time at all, I’ll get a divorce and then…” Without finishing his sentence, Igor gave a smile multilayered in its meanings. He stood at the threshold of the room and began to wait for Volodya to make his mind up and get ready to go. At their parting, Igor thrust upon his lips again and whispered, “See you, babe.”

As he went down the staircase, Volodya overheard Igor talking with Lida over the phone while he stood by the lift:

“I’m already on my way, yeah. Alright, I’ll get her a Kinder egg. Yes, and juice. Alright, kisses. Uh-huh. See you, babe.”

Volodya chuckled sceptically:

“‘Babe’ - how convenient. He can talk to me like that as well as his wife.”

‘In no time at all, I’ll get a divorce - Igor’s words from a minute ago came back to him. Volodya laughed. And how many times had he heard that over the past eight years?

But he had long since given up harbouring any offense on account of it. At some point long ago, yes, perhaps he had wanted Igor to belong wholly to him, to not share him with anyone. But all that had passed. The passion had passed, the jealousy too. All that remained were encounters like these in hotels - more for the body than the soul. And conversations too. More important than anything else was that he could speak with Igor without hiding anything.

Still, Igor remained a close person to Volodya. Not close as in ‘dear’ or ‘beloved’, but as in ‘the same’. More than a friend. Someone whom he knew well and who knew a lot about Volodya himself. Perhaps even too much.

True, Volodya had never been in love with him. He knew that love looked and felt differently. That when you love someone, you are ready to do anything for the chance to be near him. But in their case, anybody whosoever could fill Igor’s place, what was important was that he was a man. But it was good that it was Igor - because he had once been able to pull Volodya out of the mire into which he had driven himself. Because it was Igor who had helped him to figure out, understand and accept his nature.

***

The scent of paper, wood, and perfume: old-fashioned, homely - it had always hung in the air in that office. It felt like even when there had been no office there, no home, that scent had been there. Before, Volodya had gone there often, and the aroma calmed him and instilled him with confidence. But he understood that that was an illusion - it was because of the person who used to spend all day and night in that office.

Now, though, spending day and night, resting and working there fell to Volodya.

The office looked like a museum gallery: a massive oaken table in the centre, bookshelves in the same style along the walls, a big leather sofa by the window, but not one personal item, neither papers, nor even a speck of dust - an emptiness particular to uninhabited premises.

Volodya went around the table and sat in the comfortable leather seat, lowered his arms onto the lacquered rests, smooth and cold. He turned to the left and checked for missed calls on the telephone - the only modern object in the office. He looked in front of himself: in the centre of the table, there was a stationery organiser, absurd, decorated with bronze lions, and an utterly useless item in the computer era - an ink blotter. As he looked to the right, Volodya made a wry face. There was a photograph there: against the backdrop of the large window of the office, there stood frozen a short, fragile woman - his mother, and hugging her, Volodya, young, twenty-eight and still in glasses. And next to him stood a man, also tall, also in glasses, also brown-haired - his father.

Volodya recalled that the moment captured in the photo was the office’s opening. Back then, his father had said to him, “Some day, this will all be yours… but until that day comes, don’t you dare touch, much less move, my desk!” Volodya smiled as he remembered how he had tried to talk his father out of putting such a huge piece of furniture in the small office; they had even argued, but, evidently, not seriously.

And here it had come, eleven years later, the day when ‘all this’ because his, Volodya’s. According to the documents, it had not happened on that day: his father had sorted everything out earlier. But it was then that Volodya finally and definitively understood that his father was no more. Right then, when he came in without making a noise, sat in the armchair like the man of the house and, like the man of the house, laid his arms on the huge, cold armrests.

At that moment, there was a knock on the door for him - a new door, refitted that morning. It was Braginsky, an old friend and business partner of his father’s. Back in the mid-Nineties, he had helped move his father’s business from Moscow to Kharkiv literally with his own two hands, his connections, and his intellect. He helped afterwards, as well: all this years, he had been a true friend and mentor to Volodya.

“So, how’s it going for you in your new place?” Braginsky began, but, taking a look at Volodya, he abruptly fell silent.

I’m not in my place, he said in his head, but to Braginsky, Volodya replied:

“Alright.”

“What say you I get some vodka and we drink to his memory?”

Volodya shook his head in refusal.

“I’m driving later, in the evening.”

“Then maybe just some tea? My wife baked some biscuits and gave them to me to share.”

Volodya kept silent.

“Well, alright,” Braginsky sighed heavily, and, coming closer, clapped Volodya on the shoulder. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Right,” the latter replied, rising.

Left to himself, he gathered up his father’s organiser, ink blotter, and photo frame, and took them to one of the bookshelves. Volodya understood that the ‘museum’ feeling of the office would not disappear until all the furniture was changed, but for the first time ever, he did not want to escape from it. He began to get his files of documents, his diary, post-it notes, stationery, and his laptop with its heap of cables out from his box. In the blink of an eye, the desk ceased to look so big.

In his moving box, Volodya found a whole ream of hospital forms and papers; there were more than a dozen cardiograms alone. That meant that his father had known that he was ill - and said nothing to him. Like always, ‘like a man’ he had acted rather than speaking - in the previous year, he had formally handed him the reins of the firm. In essence, they had run it together, but in the last year, his father had more and more often trusted him with making the big decisions himself. Volodya knew it all, he was not afraid of anything, not surprised by anything, and that played a cruel trick on him. If he had been worried about his work and anxious about his managerial duties, he might have had something behind which to hide from thinking about his father and his death.

Strange, but before last Wednesday, Volodya had never once called him dad. Even back when he was a child, it was just ‘father’, at work - Lev Nikolayevich. But on that day, as he hammered upon the door, he had called him it. He could still hear his own shout in his ears: Father. Father! Dad! And then he had called him it again in his mind when he broke open the door and had no breath left to speak.

When the door gave way, Volodya burst in and saw him. He was half-laying in the armchair in an unnatural pose: back arched, leg crooked, face twisted in a terrible spasm. It was a very good thing that they had sorted everything out at the morgue so that neither his mother, nor the partners, nor his relatives had to see his father like that.

And now Volodya was himself sat in that armchair. He needed to get to work.

“Lera,” he said, pressing the speakerphone button on the telephone, “bring me the week’s reports, please.”

After a couple of minutes, his secretary laid out the papers on the desk in front of him, commenting in passing what was worth his attention in each one. The telephone hummed with a short text; Volodya quickly glanced at the screen and chuckled knowingly.

“Lera,” he addressed her, cutting her off mid-word, “I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t happen to know where in town I could buy a Barbie mermaid doll, would you?” He double-checked the description on the screen and specified: “With a purple tail and sparkly hair.”

His secretary regarded him with obvious disbelief, but almost immediately her facial expression softened and she smiled.

“If it’s a proper Barbie you’re after, then they’re probably only selling them in the Detsky Mir in the city centre. I could phone there and find out.”

“Well…” In a moment, Volodya grew embarrassed - such a phone call had nothing to do with Lera’s duties. “If it’s not too much of a problem for you, I’d be very grateful.”

“It’s no issue. If they have it in stock, shall I ask them to set one aside?”

“Yes, until the evening. Thank you.”

Once Lera had left, Volodya looked gloomily at the stack of reports laying in front of him and sighed. My my, he thought, you can’t just buy any old mermaid, nothing will get past this kid.

***

From behind the door, voices and the gleeful shrieks of children could be heard. Volodya, already anticipating the chaos into which he would be plunged in a few seconds, pressed the doorbell.

Pashka opened the door for him.

“Hello,” he nodded, allowing Volodya into the apartment.

“Heya!” replied Volodya. “Wow, you’ve had a growth spurt, you’re already as tall as me!”

“I’ve been doing sports with my old man all summer!” he shrugged.

Volodya did not even have the chance to bend down to unlace his shoes - something immediately flew at him, hugged him around the knee and began to howl:

“Hooray! Godfather’s come!”

“On God, Olka, if you were bigger and a bit stronger, you would have knocked me off my feet!” Volodya affected indignation as he squatted down.

Pashka gingerly slunk away between them, while Irina looked in from the hall.

“My girl, give your godfather the chance to take his shoes off first, and then you can jump on his head,” she ordered strictly.

Olka took an unwanted step backwards while side-eyeing with suspicion the garish package that Volodya was unsuccessfully hiding behind his back.

“Here you go, my silly goose. Happy birthday!” He offered her the package. Olka immediately spun on her heels to go run to her room and open her present, but she froze stiff when her mum called her sternly:

“And what do we say?”

Sighing, she turned back to Volodya, who was untying his laces.

“Thank you, godfather.” And she gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

He smiled at her and patted her on the crown of her blonde head.

“No problem.”

“Come through.” Irina invited him into the hall. “Did you find a mermaid?”

“Was ‘not finding one’ an option?”

In the hall, around a long table covered with a cloth, fifteen people were gathered. Of course, there were not enough chairs for everybody, so people were sat on everything: on the sofa, on kitchen stalls, and even on a computer chair.

“Oh! Volodya, hey!” Zhenya waved at him from the opposite side of the table - the father of the household. He made as though to get out, but found himself stuck between the wall on one side, and his mother-in-law on the other. Separate greetings resounded from all sides of the table.

“Take a seat,” Irina addressed Volodya, “I’ll just go get you a clean plate.”

“How about over here?” Masha leapt up from the sofa - Volodya had not noticed her at first. She indicated a spot next to herself and pulled up an empty stool and a wine glass.

Volodya waved his hand sit down. To get to Masha, he would have had to disrupt the others and climb through half the table.

The man next to whom Volodya sat promptly shouted loudly in his ear as he grabbed a bottle of vodka:

“Here’s the late-coming godfather! Take a penalty!”

Volodya did not remember what he was called - whether he was a Nikolai or a Vasily. He only knew that he was a trainer from Zhenya’s section who had worked with him previously at the same school.

“No, thank you, I’m driving.” Volodya covered his glass with his palm.

“What?” The guy was outraged. “It’s your goddaughter’s birthday party and you won’t drink?”

“That’s for certain, Vladimir, you have to - it’s a tradition,” the old man sitting opposite, Irina’s father, added in support with an intelligent air.

You have a tradition, while I’ll have a taxi home and a car left in the city all weekend, Volodya bemoaned to himself, but he removed his hand from over the glass.

After one glass, according to the classic ‘between the first and the second…’ he was poured the next. The woman next to him, Zhenya’s sister or aunt, dutifully put two servings of salad on his plate and offered him a dish of herring.

On the whole, this party did not differ from any other - Irina, Zhenya and whoever else’s birthdays were all celebrated in the same way, and also New Year’s, Easter, May Day… Grandmothers, grandfathers, other relatives, close friends, close colleagues and their children, everyone all assembled.

Soon, Olka’s classmates left and the birthday girl was left the only one of the children. She sat in a chair in the far corner of the hall and began to play with her doll.

Volodya dispassionately listened to snippets of conversations, trying not to intrude nor to support any of them.

“...Hey, do you remember Borya Kravchenko? What a wimp he was!” the older man sitting nearby cozied up to Zhenya. The latter was chewing on a piece of sausage and nodded. “Just one year I’ve had with him and what a warrior he’s become! The day before yesterday, he came third in regionals!”

“...Hey Masha, what’s up with the fur coat, do you know? Ira didn’t answer me…” a woman Volodya did not know said to Masha.

“It’s already on its way, it’s at the port in Odessa, we’re waiting for it. It’ll be here next week, I asked Ira and we’ll set one aside for you…”

Volodya could not even pick out the high-pitched child’s voice over the general hubbub until Olka was tugging on the sleeve of his shirt.

“Hey, godfather!”

“What is it?” He half-turned on his seat and bent down to face her.

“Look at her hair.” She thrust the doll at him. “Lo-o-ong! And there’s a comb in the box! And also these pretty little stars, I need to stick them to her hair! Can I stick them on you? It’ll be beautiful!”

“Olya!” Irina raised her voice sternly. “Come on, stop pestering your godfather with your toys, let him eat!”

“Everything’s alright, Irina, it’s her birthday, she’s allowed today.”

“For real, I’m allowed?”

Volodya winked at her and bent further forward, while Olka deftly attached a couple of sparkly little stars to his fringe.

“Do you want to sit on my lap so that you can see everyone at the table?”

She nodded energetically, but Irina got in the way again:

“She’s already sat with the adults today, enough with her!”

Frowning, Olka quietly - so quietly that only Volodya could hear her - grumbled:

“This how it always is: it’s my birthday and all the adults are drinking vodka. I wanted cake by now, actually!” and she stomped off to her room, offended.

After sitting for another ten minutes, Volodya got up from the table.

By the way, Vov!” Zhenya exclaimed at him. “Go to the bathroom and take a look at how your workers did the tiling. It’s not half bad, I’ll say.”

“Alright, I’ll take a look later,” nodded Volodya.

“It’s good to have a friend in construction,” laughed Zhenya. “For renovations and repairs, it’s right to him. I suppose you’re sick of it by now?”

He shrugged:

“It’s not hard for me to make a couple of phone calls.”

“By the way, about repairs, Vova!” Irina, red from the rowanberry brandy, smiled. “When are you going to invite us to your new-build village?”

Volodya chuckled vaguely:

“What new-build, Irina? I’ve been living there five years already.”

“Just so! And you’ve never once invited us.”

“You know it’s not the best…” he tried to evade, but someone called out to Ira just in time.

Volodya went to the children’s room, knocked quietly and peeked inside without waiting for an answer.

Olka was sat on the bed, carefully combing the doll’s hair.

“Hey, silly goose,” Volodya called to her. She turned and burst into a smile as though she had not been upset at anyone fifteen minutes before. “Can I come in?”

She nodded, delighted, and budged up to invite Volodya to sit next to her.

“How about you show me your doll?”

Olka was nine that day, and each time that Volodya came to that home, she never left him alone until she received a scolding from her mum or dad. She wasted no time showing him all of her toys - and she had a veritable sea of them. Further - by all means, she had to hang off her godfather’s neck, play him a little ditty she had recently learnt on the piano, brag about her collection of cartoons… The list could have gone on forever, as she kept coming up with new ways to entertain him. And Volodya was not against spending the time messing around with her. However, he could not help remembering his years as a camp counsellor: if someone had told him back then that in twenty years, he would love spending time with kids…

“Wait, we should put her in the bath!” babbled Olka in delight. “She has su-u-uch long hair, it’ll look so cool…swimming! When I grow up, I’ll grow mine the same!”

“And what else have you gotten today? Anything even better than the mermaid?”

“Well… My parents and Pashka gave me some Lego - it’s over there, look.” She jabbed a finger at the windowsill. “A princess castle! Grandpa Vanya and Grandma Nadya got me a collection of Kinder eggs, but mummy told me not to eat them all at once.” At that, Olka frowned and mimicked Irina: “You’ll get an allergy-y-y! My godmother couldn’t come, but she gave me a watch. Look how pretty it is, with Mickey Mouse! But Grandad Stasik brought me, get this, a massive book!”

Volodya smiled. Yes, Irina’s father taught at a university, and to give a child a ‘smart’ gift was entirely his style.

“And what book is it?”

“It’s laying around over there.” She pointed behind Volodya. There really was a book on her pillow, thick and clearly heavy. The Captain Nemo and The Nautilus Trilogy in One Volume, he read.

“Olya, a book doesn’t just ‘lay around’. It should be stacked properly on a shelf, especially Jules Verne!”

“Bah! Books are boring!”

Volodya lightly prodded her on the forehead.

“Silly. Books are good, they’re knowledge! Come on, why do you think your godfather is so smart? Because he read a lot of books when he was a kid!”

Olka stuck her hands on her hips and said moodily:

“I’m not so sure that you even are that smart!”

“Ah, you little jerk!” Volodya burst into laughter. “Now I’m going to… tickle you!”

Olka, squealing and laughing, ran away to the wall.

Volodya wanted to bound after her and make good on his threat, but he heard a knock at the door. Masha came into the room.

“Volod… I’m not getting in the way, am I? I need to talk.”

Volodya frowned: he had only a vague idea why Masha could need him, so he just shrugged. She sat down next to him.

Olka was running around the room and gathering her toys up in her arms, counting them:

“Let’s see… you, Tyndik, and you, Murka, and you, Kesh, and you, Persik…”

The toys would not fit in her arms and they fell on the floor, but she stubbornly continued to run and count them.

“Alas,” sighed Masha. “Irina’s lucky to have a daughter and not a son…”

Volodya looked at her with suspicion.

“You haven’t forgotten that they do have a son?”

She smirked somehow gloomily:

“Well, yeah, of course… But they have a complete family, Pashka is a good guy…”

Volodya frowned more than before, while Masha suddenly reached out to him and grabbed him by the wrist.

“Volod, I just wanted to ask you-” And she faltered mid-sentence.

“What?”

“Um… I…No, it’s nothing much, just…”

She reached out and took the doll accessories out of his hair.

Olka burst into the conversation, pouring a heap of toys onto Volodya’s lap:

“Here, get to meet them, you’ve definitely not seen these ones yet! Persik and Gavka for sure!”

“Right… And which one of them is Gavka?” Volodya took a lively interest.

“The robot dog, obviously! Here!”

“Oh-hoh!” He turned the transformer robot, which was already missing a leg, over in his hands, but he still did not understand why it was a dog.

Masha continued to hesitate, standing at the threshold of the room. Volodya turned to her.

“So, what was it you wanted to ask? Tell me.”

She gave one definitive shake of her head.

“Oh no, I can’t like this!” And she left.

Volodya shrugged and picked up, he assumed, Persik, although it was a stuffed rabbit. Meanwhile, Olka was already hurtling to the other end of the room and opening the lid of her piano.

“I’ve just learnt a new étude, now you’re going to hear it,” she declared in a tone that brooked no refusal, as she looked at Volodya severely.

“Aye-aye, captain!”

***

The hour hand was getting on for eight in the evening. The office had long since emptied and only three people remained: Volodya was clacking away on the keyboard of his laptop as he wrote a stiffly-worded letter to a contractor, Lera was rustling through some papers in the entryway, and the security guard was downstairs watching the television. The fact that each of the three could hear what the others were doing made it cozy, homelike in its mutual trust. It was very easy to work in such an atmosphere, but it got very hot. The beginning of September in Kharkiv did not hurry to take pleasure in autumn coolness. Even though twilight had already descended upon the city, the temperature seemed not to be planning to fall, and there was no point in the air conditioner. They had had to throw all the doors wide open to allow a draught to waft through.

“Lera, is it not time for you to go home?” said Volodya in the hallway.

The fact that she was still at work made him uncomfortable, as though he were forcing her to stay.

“Yes, Vladimir Lvovich, I’ll finish this plan for tomorrow and leave.”

A couple of minutes later, a ring of someone entering came from the front door on the ground floor, and the security guard grumbled:

“It’s closed already, everyone’s gone home.”

Lera poked her head in the boss’s office and asked whether they were expecting someone? Volodya shook his head. Lera strode off downstairs, while Volodya dove back into his letter. Footsteps made him come back up for air - Lera was coming up the stairs, and not alone. The footsteps clearly belonged to a woman - there was the clack of high-heels.

“Vladimir Lv-” Lera began, but fell short when she saw Volodya in the doorway. He was stood there looking perplexedly at his visitor - an embarrassed Masha, smiling as she glanced out from behind the secretary’s back.

“Hello?” Volodya asked more than he greeted.

Masha did not greet him at all, and the uneasy smile disappeared from her face.

“I really need to speak with you.”

“You could have called…” Volodya remarked, but he stepped aside, inviting her in.

Masha hesitantly passed through the hallway and froze on the threshold to his office.

“It’s not a conversation for the phone. And… I need to speak with you urgently,” she repeated. “May I?”

Behind her, something crashed - Lera had begun bustling about and dropped a hole punch. She was throwing her things indiscriminately into her bag: a stapler flew in after her mobile phone. The situation had taken on different meanings for different people: a woman had come to Volodya’s office, while his secretary was trying to hurriedly get ready for home, in order to leave them alone together as fast as possible. By her behaviour, Lera seemed to be demonstrating what she thought Masha’s role in his life was. In his private life. But the thing was, there was nothing going on there to worry about.

“Come in, take a seat.” Volodya pointed out the sofa. “Only, I’ll warn you: I don’t have much time. There’s still things to be done today… I need to take my mother to the airport.”

“That’s why I came. Zhenya was right when he said that you’re forever busy.”

So that’s who told her where I work, thought Volodya, but Masha cut his thought off:

“I was going to talk to you back there at Irina and Zhenya’s, but Olechka was in the room. And what I wanted to ask was-” Masha sighed raggedly and pursed her lips. The door to the office closed behind her and the lock clicked, barely audible, but Masha still flinched. And burst into tears: “It’s so hard! I’ve got such a big problem at home!”

Volodya rubbed his temples, exhausted.

“What happened? He came close to adding ‘this time’.

If anyone besides her had turned up on the doorstep of his office and talked about big problems, Volodya might have been worried. But it was Masha. All she could arouse in him was disappointment that the time spent with her had gone to waste. This person was as uninteresting to Volodya as people were generally capable of being uninteresting. Over the course of several years meeting her at Irina and Zhenya’s parties, Volodya had only heard ‘men are such asses’ in various contexts. And if Masha was not talking about that, nor complaining about her life, then she was going on some vapid and pointless rant: about boring work, clothes, stupid customers, clothes, low pay, clothes, blah, blah, blah. They never really made conversation with each other. Until that Friday.

“You’re the only one who can help me!” Her face was twisted in despair. “You’re my only hope!”

It looked as though something truly serious had befallen Masha, but why should he, in particular, be her only hope?

“I have a hard time seeing how I can help you,” began Volodya. He faltered - Masha was staring at him so pleadingly, her gaze full of prayer. “But I’m prepared to hear you out. Will you have anything, tea or coffee?”

“No, I don’t need anything,” she shook her head as she sat on the leather sofa by the window and looked around.

Volodya began to feel ashamed of the state of his office: stacks of papers, files, and blueprints were strewn everywhere. It was only evident to him, Braginsky and Lera that everything was in its right place, and only to an outsider would it look disorderly. Masha - not a colleague, not a friend, barely even an acquaintance - was the most likely person out of anybody to be considered an outsider, but she did not even raise an eyebrow as she glanced disinterestedly around the backlog of documents.

Volodya cleared his throat.

“Or maybe something a little bit stronger?” he suggested, nodding to a bottle of cognac that Braginsky had gifted him.

“No, tea… is it in bags?” she asked, but, having received a nod as an answer, rethought: “Then no, coffee. Coffee.”

“Okay,” he trailed off as he went out of the office into the empty entry hallway. “Instant, or should I brew some?”

“I don’t mind,” shouted Masha after he disappeared past the door. “Actually, no. Better brew some.”

She’s playing for time, guessed Volodya, and he set to unhurriedly working the coffee machine.

Five minutes later, he placed a mug on the coffee table in front of Masha and took a seat in his armchair. Masha stared at the floor in silence.

“You have my full attention,” said Volodya to pull her out of her stupor.

Masha took a deep, full chest of air and rattled off, almost without pause:

“I’m here about my son, Dima. He’s in his first term of tenth grade, and I’m working almost without weekends. So, last week I fell ill, and asked Irina if I could go home. I arrived and there was music in my apartment, loud music, at full blast, and shoes strewn on the floor - and not just ours, someone else’s as well. I saw them and thought ‘that means Dima’s not alone’. I wanted to ask him to turn it down a bit, I went up to his door, it was ajar, and I accidentally saw him- that he was making-” Masha froze and made a face and tears began to stream, “making out with a boy!”

Masha’s tragedy seemed far-fetched to Volodya, but his heart clenched in genuine sympathy at the sight of eyes, red from crying. That along with her pose made Masha look truly tormented and pitiful: she was sat hunched over in the midst of his spacious office, decorated with items displaying the pride of the firm and proof of Volodya’s achievements - diplomas and photographs of successful projects. Small, fragile and distraught, with her mascara running and a button hanging by a thread off her wrist, she shuddered as she tried to suppress her sobbing.

“Uh-huh…” said Volodya, adding as delicately as he could, “So that’s your problem, right?”

Masha sobbed and nodded. Evidently she had followed his gaze - she grabbed her cuff and hid the button, then awkwardly wiped her face.

“Will you help me?”

“With what?” Volodya prompted, confused.

“But you… You’ve gone through something similar, you know what to do in cases like these…”

“No, I don’t. I truly don’t.”

Masha leapt up, almost knocking her mug to the floor and cried out:

“But you can’t say no to me! You can’t! It’s fate! God helped me see that poster! You turned out so… ideally. Without it, I wouldn’t even have remembered!”

Volodya was finally thrown for a loop. He frowned, crossed his arms and cut her off:

“What poster?”

“Huh?” As though in surrender, Masha sat back down on the sofa. “Poster? Oh yeah, it was about pioneers. It made me remember that you and Konev had something going on and-”

“Did you tell your son about me?”

“No, no, of course not! He doesn’t know that I saw them! I was left in such a stupor, and then shock, and I immediately ran out of the apartment. I was upset, I wondered how it could be. I wanted so badly to catch them, to tear the eyes out of that ‘friend’ of his, but in my right mind, I knew that it wasn’t worth it to make any hasty conclusions, much less to do anything. Because… because I already made that mistake once. It was almost like an episode of déjà-vu. You remember, at Lastochka-”

“I remember,” Volodya cut her short. “Alright. Let’s go through this in order: you remembered that Yura and I used to have something once. And what of it? What came of it? What, specifically, do you want to hear from me?”

“I want to know whether maybe Dima’s just mucking around? Maybe for youths of his age, it’s normal? He’s still only sixteen.”

“Well, no,” Volodya laughed, “two guys kissing isn’t a joke. If they were heterosexual, they wouldn’t be making out, so it follows that your Dima is most likely gay or bisexual.”

Volodya expected that after what he had just said, Masha would fall to pieces, but it seemed like she had been swapped out for a different person. She straightened up, wiped her face, looked Volodya in the eye bravely, defiantly even, and loudly, distinctly pronounced:

“No! That can’t be! Dimochka is a good boy, he’d never-”

With a sad smile, Volodya shook his head:

“Never say never. You might think that you know him inside-out, but he’s a separate person and you can’t get into his head.”

But neither his gestures, nor his words convinced Masha; she continued with even stronger insistence:

“That means he was forced into kissing him, he’s not a homo! That could be the case, right?” Masha’s voice took on a hard edge, such as Volodya had never heard before that evening. The only thing that gave away her uncertainty was the button hanging from her wrist, with which she was nervously fidgeting.

Homo, Volodya repeated to himself, his lip curling, but he replied calmly:

“It could be, it could be, it depends on how DIma reacted.”

“How am I supposed to know how he reacted, I left before-” the thread that she had been harassing snapped and the button struck the floor and rolled beneath a shelving unit. “-Before they finished.”

“And anyway,” Volodya put out there reflectively, “his first reaction doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Even if Dima pushed him away, it’s not a certain fact that he really was against it.”

I once pushed him away myself…, he almost said out loud as he recollected how he had once been in Dima’s position. His memory blazed with the smell of apples, the sight of the big brown eyes in front of him, full of fear, the touch of cold lips upon his own, the sound of blood thumping in his ears.

“Exactly!” exclaimed Masha, scaring off the flickering memory. “It’s his friend that’s got something wrong with him, not Dima. I have to split them up!”

“Don’t even think about it! Dima can choose for himself what kind of friend he needs and what he doesn’t.”

Masha burst into life and exclaimed:

“I won’t let that pervert come even one step closer to my son!”

“Gays are perverts to you, then?” Volodya laughed contemptuously. “You’ve not changed one bit.”

“Well-” Masha immediately faltered and went red. “Not at all, I just meant-”

Her incomprehensible babbling was interrupted by the ringing of Volodya’s mobile. He raised a hand, asking Masha to be silent, and answered it. His mother’s tired voice came through the speaker:

“My boy, are you on your way? I’ve been ready for half an hour already. Maybe I should call a taxi anyway?”

“No, there’s no need, I’ll drive you myself,” he said calmly, but internally, he was effing and blinding at himself. Masha had distracted him. Caught up in the problems of a different mother, he had forgotten about his own.

“You have to get there three hours before the flight, and it’s already-”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he interrupted her. “I’m on my way, hang on.”

“Alright… I’ll sit in the drive until-”

Volodya pressed the end call button and swore through gritted teeth without restraint. He closed his laptop with the letter still unfinished and looked at Masha.

“This conversation is certainly captivating,” hissed Volodya as he got up from his chair, “but I need to say goodbye, I have things to do.”

“No, Volodya, wait. I didn’t mean you!”

Volodya chuckled sceptically as he put his jacket on:

“Whatever you say…”

They left the office and, while Volodya turned the key in the door, Masha was justifying herself, looking over his shoulder:

“You’re not a pervert. It’s Konev that led you astray - that’s what I wanted to say.”

Volodya said nothing in reply.

When they had descended to the ground floor, Masha turned her head to the security guard and added quietly:

“Besides, I have no right to judge you.”

“But you do have the right to judge Yura?” asked Volodya once they were outside. He anticipated a new flood of explanations and reassured her: “Fine, I understood you Mash, forget about it.”

“No, you’re still… Anyway, I’m sorry,” mumbled Masha, abashed. “We’ll stay in touch, yes?”

“See you, Masha,” said Volodya, immediately regretting that he had not said ‘farewell’.

***

Despite the fact that Volodya had been kept behind, they made it on time for the flight. The road to the airport felt interminably long - all because of his mother’s conversation, because of the topics she raised. But Volodya did not try and close the conversations down; he knew that his mother was unable to keep quiet about such topics.

“Are you sure you need to go? Perhaps you’d be better off at home? Familiarity is good for you…”

“I can’t stay here anymore,” she sighed heavily. “Before, when someone died, even if it were a relative, I didn’t think about what a shame it was that they were no longer there. I didn’t grieve with their loved ones. I was scared that it could happen to me - that, at some point, someone truly close to me would die. So close that I couldn’t live without them. What would become of me when Levushka, my husband, half of my life, left me? And now that day has come.”

She spoke quietly, but it was frightening for Volodya to listen to her words, her voice even more so. Usually so high, girlishly musical, now it sounded dry and lifeless. Volodya wanted to ignore her, but how could he? Of course he could not. Therefore, he drove without taking his eyes off the road and listened to her patiently. In the corner of his eye, he saw that his mother was also looking straight ahead. That was probably why she continued to speak without noticing the pain distorting her son’s face:

“That’s why I want to go. It’s too much for me here. I feel his absence too strongly here. I walk around the apartment and I don’t want to live by myself. But I can at least change the scenery. I’m unused to living alone.”

They fell silent. But the silence weighed down even more oppressively, it became thick and icy. Quite literally icy - goosebumps ran down Volodya’s back and he went as far as turning off the air conditioning.

“Is the price of a life with someone you love not too high?” he said, the first thing that came into his head, just so as not to be silent. His own voice sounded impolitely loud. “Isn’t it easier to live alone?”

His question was rhetorical, but his mother found something to say. In the second’s pause before her reply, Volodya had time to reflect and understand that he did not have, and likely never had, someone as close to him as his father had been to his mother.

“It’s the only way life’s worth living. Otherwise there’d be no point in it. You probably think it really is easier to live alone, but I don’t understand how a young man such as yourself can be alone for so long, without a family. How many years have gone by since you split up with Sveta? Almost ten? She was the only girlfriend of yours that I ever knew about.”

Volodya laughed to himself, You’re not alone. I also haven’t known about any others. And really, how do you know how many years it’s been so well? Have you been counting?

Then his mother added:

“Or are you just not telling me that there is someone for you?”

The conversation had swung in the opposite direction, and perhaps his mother had intentionally changed the topic. Volodya did not notice when the stupor brought on by the thinking about death had passed, but it had shifted into a no less unpleasant feeling - as though he were pressed up against a wall.

“No,” he forced out.

“How is that possible? Look at yourself, the girls must be tripping over each other to get at you.”

“I’ve just not met the right person yet, and going after the first person who comes by is a thankless task,” he replied as unaffectedly as he could, feeling his hands begin to get sweaty on the steering wheel.

“I do understand, my boy. You think that since you’re a man and giving birth’s not your problem, there’s no need to hurry. But old age creeps up on you before you know it, you don’t feel it coming. You’ve been getting worn out more often, haven’t you… but you do work a lot, though, right? Or something starts to hurt - well, fine, when didn’t it hurt?” The smell of his mother’s perfume wafted in tiny, barely noticeable currents beneath the roof, over the dashboard, the steering wheel, his hands, connecting them, tying them together. Volodya kept silent, but his mother continued: “But then old age just lands on you all in a moment. And you think, it’s like you’ve lived and lived, but for who? You know, I’ve only just now realised that nobody needs me: you’re already all grown-up, your father’s not here anymore-”

“Weren’t you just telling me about the ideal love, the whole meaning of life?” He had finally thought of how to reply. “Then don’t hurry me along. And don’t try to manipulate me.”

“I’m not manipulating you, I’m just sharing with you what I’ve been thinking about because of your dad,” his mother justified herself and then fell silent. Volodya followed her example.

They only started speaking to each other again once they had reached the airport.

“You need to sort out your father’s things,” said his mother, having paused in front of the metal detector.

“I already have,” responded Volodya reflexively.

“I meant at home. We need to get rid of all his clothes before the fortieth day. I didn’t want to force this on you but… They’re everywhere I go and I can’t even hold them. Take them, please. So that I can come without bumping into them everywhere.”

“Alright,” nodded Volodya.

“You understand, I can’t bring myself to do it. You understand, I want everything to stay the way it is, so I can still feel like he’s-” Her voice broke. Volodya gave his mother’s hand a squeeze. She gathered her strength and continued, by then calm and clear: “Give his friends to people you know and whatever they don’t take, give to the poor or the church. Burn the rest.”

“What about his personal things? His books, his phone, souvenirs…”

“Don’t get rid of them. Put them in storage somewhere. Or take them home with you. You have the bigger place, that’s where you should take them.”

“Understood. I’ll do that.”

They were a long, painful time in parting. His mother cried, stood on tip-toes and stroked his head, his shoulders, his chest. She did not let him out of her embrace and kept repeating, “Forgive me, my boy, if I hurt you somehow, if I said something wrong. It’s probably my fault that you’re alone.” Volodya muttered, “Don’t be silly. It’s all okay.” He worried for her: for how she would find her way around, for how she would do on the flight, for how she would be received, and most importantly - for how she would live there without him. But the voice of reason calmed him: Mother’s not going to be left alone. She was flying to her sister in her home city - Moscow. And besides Moscow, she was headed to Tver, to Volodya’s uncle and cousin, Vova, who had not been able to come to the funeral, but still insisted that she come to visit.

The whole way home, he turned their conversation over in his mind several times. It was a rotten thing: her tears clawed at his heart, the pit of his stomach ached with pity and sorrow, his conscience was tortured because of how he had managed to speak rudely to her. It only eased up once Volodya saw a mention of home by the road - a sign with the name of his cottage village, ‘The Swallow’s Nest’.

“A very unfortunate name,” criticised his father as he accepted the project six years prior. “It’ll be associated with the castle on the crag in Yalta, but is there even anything here that resembles that? No, not the architecture, nor the landscape, nothing has anything in common with the real Swallow’s Nest. And you still insist on calling it that. Why?”

His father had been right: the village was spread among fields and copses that stretched as far as the eye could see. No crag, no mountains, let alone the sea. The two-storey wooden homes in the Scandinavian style with their panoramic windows did not even roughly resemble that specific castle. The village was not named because it stood upon an elevation. Swallows no longer flew there, nor did they make their nests. The river had run dry and the pioneer camp Lastochka had long since lain in ruins. But it was because all that had once been there that Volodya named the village - named his home - thus. But his father had agreed to go along with it with difficulty - and that only after long convincing.

Volodya passed through the barrier into the village’s territory and began to meander his way along the familiar route amongst the identical cottages. His house was at the very outskirts. Identical to the rest, it was differentiated only by its very wide yard, several times larger than those of his neighbours, and by its fence, the tallest of them all.

As soon as Volodya got out of the car, the air shuddered with Gerda’s high-pitched bark. Volodya whistled and she flew to meet him at the gate, trying without success to knock it down. He prepared to open it. It needed to be done with caution, lest the dog knock him off his feet - she was already jumping around like she was possessed. Volodya whistled again, she whined and fell quiet, and when the door was opened, she laid flat on her back, her belly up in the air. Volodya squatted down and began to fuss over her like a child:

“Good girl, go-o-od girl. Did you miss me, my girl? I missed you too.”

As he stroked her furry stomach, he took a habitual look at his house, stood like an unwelcoming hulk against the backdrop of the blue-grey sky.

“We’ll turn the light on and it’ll look better, right?”

After crossing the threshold, he went across the small hallway and into the wide, bright living room, which shared a space with the kitchen. He went to the bathroom, undoing the knot of his tie along the way, took out his contact lenses and rubbed his eyes with satisfaction - they had been tired for the whole day. He put his glasses on.

In the living room, Gerda hurtled like a bullet towards the vast window, stuck her nose behind the curtain and began to howl in despair.

“What is it?” Volodya approached her and looked out into the garden.

It looked as though there was nothing there out of the ordinary for him or upsetting for Gerda. Everything was like always: sky, stars, the broad glade, the little copse in the distance.

“Oh…” sighed Volodya when he noticed what was disrupting the peace. In a spot of light on the back of a garden chair, there sat, observing them, a graceful swallow.

#о чём молчит ласточка #translation #my translations #russian #lgbt

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emotionally-destroyed-soldier · 1 year ago

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“Shh. Deep breaths. It’s alright, I’ve got you. I’m right here.” Be a rock, be a shelter. Be something infallible and invincible. Not just unbroken but unbreakable. The safest of shelters and strongest of shields. You are a Soldier, protector of your Team. You are a knight, sworn protector of beautiful princes. Jane smiled softly, one hand finding its way to Fritz’s cheek, thumb nudging the lower rim of the Medic’s glasses as it smoothed over anxious lines. “God, I’m so proud of you. You’re really strong just for trying, you know. It must be hurting you, what’s really making you sick. But you’re trying anyway. That’s amazing by itself. It... it isn’t your fault though. The future... it’s not all on your shoulders.” Advice he should learn to maybe take himself. “I...I wish there was more I could do. I wish I wasn’t being yanked around through time. But if there’s anything I can do, please, tell me what that is and I’ll do it. But it won’t go bad. If you just make your way to me somehow... everything’ll be alright. Even if you’re in rough shape, we can put you back together in time. There’s nothing I will not do to help you be alright, Fritz. No matter how long it takes or how hard it is. Even if you slip. I promise.” we’ll take care of each other. it’ll be just like old times. No. No. Let it alone for now. Don’t think about it. Unbreakable, invincible knight, remember?

(cloning-blus) ...babe? You okay? You sound a little sick.

Fritz gripped the edge of the desk to stop the shaking, lifting the phone reciever close to his ear. He forced a smile, even though the other man wouldn't be able to see it.

"Ah, ja, I'm fine, I... I think I may have caught something, going out in this last storm. Herr Scout's mutter made another house call for him, you see." The scenario was true enough, but something was still obfuscated.

All he needs to do is see this through, then he can say something. G-d forbid he ever gave Jane false hope. What if it didn't work?

He glanced around the room, trying to avoid looking at the one box that called to him, still full of medicine.

@cloning-blus

#emotionallyunwellmedic

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runawayonryo · 3 years ago

Text

Squidgame fem! reader insert part 2 (part 1 of ep 2)

sorry for my inactivity lately, i’ve been sick and not even feeling the strength to get up for a glas of water. buuut, i’m back again and ready to invade your inbox! In this part we’ll continue to episode two (which will cover two parts)

Warnings: explicit language, angst, ptsd, mention of death, graphic depictions of violence, reader is hurt

((yessss i’m working on a male version))

“this is, just a game”

“just a game?? you guys killed hundreds of people out there!”

A random player shouted from the huge assembly of players, waiting for their freedom from these deadly childrens games.

“consent clause paragraph four, a player cannot leave or refuse to play. if they do so regardless, they wil be eliminated”

Sangwoo’s head shot up, he thought for a quick second before responding:

“consent clause paraagraph 6, if the majority of players wish to terminate the games, so shall it be!”

The masked guard hesitated for a second before nodding.

“you are correct”

“so go ahead! let’s vote-”

Gi-hun responded, looking amoungst the group for any feedback.

A few moments later, the guards set up a panel with two glowing buttons.

“if you wish to continue, press the green button with an “o”-”

“if you wish to leave, press the red button with an “x”-”

You glanced over to ali and gi-hun standing beside you, 456 sighed before glacing over to you aswell. You quickly broke eye contact, trying not to be extremley akward. The situation you were in was sticky, not the right time for any unnecessary eye contact.

“player 456, please cast your vote”

His walk was calm, yet his facial expression depicted his panicked state as he carefully stared at the two options before him.

You glance fell to the ground, silently praying he’d press the “x”-

“everything’ll be alright-”

Ali said, carefully nudging you. He realized your fear, and tried his best to relieve the pain within. You nodded, glancing back up at the unsure man.

As a loud deep buzz filled the roo, the first vote was casted.

“1 X - 0 O”

You siged in relief, he did indeed have the same will to live as you did.

Then, the next player followed. As a gigh pitched beep filled the room, you looked up at the large TV-board on the wall.

“1 X 1 O”

and gi-hun looked at the player, she was a older looking woman, round glasses and blonde hair. He was shocked to see people STILL wanting to participate in these “games” after all that just happened-

Minutes passed as the current voting stood at a

“17 X 12 O”

when you were woken from your day-dreaming state.

“player 457, please cast your vote”

You turned around, looked at all the players, before slowly making your way towards the guards, and the buttons.

“make the right choice-!”

someone shouted from the right side of the large hall. The right side held the players that already have voted. Turning around, you glanced and gi-hun, ali and sangwoo who had already voted. Their facial expressions were mixed. Gi-hun seeming concerned, ali’s was quite impossible to read, it still depicted his kind and caring natrue thoúgh. Sangwoo, sangwoo depicted fear- fear-

A deep buzz filled the room as you voted against the games that might cause your future demise. Your heart stopped for a second, as you turned around, hastely making your way towards the others.

“you made the right choice player 457″

a player said as you passed them, trying your best not to have a complete meltdown at the extent of the situation you were nearly forced into.

“y/n-”

sangwoo nearly hissed as you arrived. you glanced onver at him, confused.

“the money y/n- you can’t give up now”

he mumbled, shifting his way next to you.

“isn’t it her choice sangwoo?”

Gi-hun asked scrunching has eyebrows at his childhood friend.

“all i am saying is... don’t ruin it for the others- got it?”

This was your first treal reaction with sangwoo, before oyu just heard of him through his friend gi-hun. You also saw him here and there, but nothing noteworthy. Now, his first impression on you was negative.

“just because i still have some worth to my life?”

You snapped back, turning away from the him.

Now it was time, the final vote to decide if you deserve to live, or fight for your existense once again. You prayed silently once again, it was player 001. The older gentleman with dementia.

As another loud buzz fillder the room, many players sighed. Others, were aggrovated at his choice. They hoped for the fat check of 456million WON.

“fuck yes... we’re going home”

gi-hun mumbled, letting his shoulders that were tenced, drop.

Your eyes filled with tears, finnaly... finally you felt some comfort in this dark hall

What would follow however, you didn’t know.

#squid game #Netflix Squid Game #Squid Game Netflix #squidgame #Gi-hun #seong gi hun #gi hun #Sangwoo #cho sang woo #sangwoo x reader #gi hun x reader #ali abdul #k drama #lee jung jae #park hae soo

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svnflowervol666 · 5 years ago

Text

An interview during self-isolation with Zane Lowe (Harry Styles x fem!Reader)

Word Count: 2.2k

Author’s Note: I’ve gotten a ton of asks to the tune of this scenario - about what a quarantine video with Harry and his family would look like. I put as many of them together as I could for you all! Hope you enjoy and it’s not too confusing, as this isn’t my typical writing style, but I tried my best to make it worth your while! Take care and TPWK.

“Harry, can ye’ hear me alright?” Harry heard Zane Lowe’s voice fill his right ear as he readjusted his headphones.

“Yeah, I can hear ya,” he responded, running his fingers through his hair once everything was situated and his laptop was balanced perfectly on his knee.

“I’ve just been video calling and chatting it up with everyone on how they’re navigating the pandemic, so I’m very thankful you’ve agreed to join in.”

“‘S no problem. Thank you f’ having me.”

“Oh!” Zane interjected his own strain of thought, “I see you’ve brought a special guest for us today,” he said when Harry’s screen finally focused and he was able to see everything on Harry’s end.

Harry chuckled, the dimples on either corner of his mouth growing wider at the mention of the sleeping body on his chest that’s got a fuzzy blanket tucked into their sides and draped over Harry’s upper half.

“I have,” Harry agreed, “Though he’s not gonna be worth much. Being a two-year-old is exhausting apparently.”

He gave the toddler a few gentle pats on the back and continued to look at Zane through the webcam.

“This is your son, right?” Zane asked.

“Who? Him?” Harry asked, nodding his head in the direction of his child, “Nah. Found him on the street.”

Both men laughed, but Harry tried to lower his volume as to not wake up his son.

“Well, he looks an awful bit like you t’ be a stray, don’t ye’ think?”

“I suppose the curls are quite convincing, aren’t they?” Harry sighed, playfully rolling his eyes.

“What’s brought your bubs along with you for this interview?”

“Erm,” Harry thought, wondering if he should be talking this much about his personal life but ultimately deciding it wasn’t too invasive, “Y/N’s been pretty tired lately, so I’m just trying to keep him out of her hair so she can rest. He’s going through a phase where he’s very clingy right now so he’d probably be crying f’ me at some point if I left him in his room.”

“Oh, that’s right!” it suddenly dawned on Zane, “You two are expecting again, aren’t you?

“We are,” Harry smiled softly yet proudly into the screen, “‘s kinda scary for us right now, but we’re hoping everything is cleared up before it’s time.”

“Yeah, yeah. I was just about to say right now’s probably not the greatest time to be havin’ a baby.”

“Well, the baby’s not due for a few more months so I think everything’ll be alright, but it’s still just kinda nerve-wracking ye’ know?”

“Absolutely,” Zane added, “This has all got t’ be tough on your guys; having to self-isolate with a toddler plus having one on the way.”

“Ehh, it’s not so bad,” Harry countered, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles as he spoke. “We’ve been spending a lot of time t’gether, which is pretty great. I just got done with all of the album promo, so I’d already been gone for a while. Plus, I was about to leave for tour for like a month so we were kinda sad about having to say goodbye before, but now I don’t have to. We talk to our families a lot and keep in touch with everyone pretty regularly so we don’t feel like we’re going too crazy.”

“Good! That’s good.”

Harry nodded in agreement.

“I was going to ask you about tour actually. You’ve pushed the European leg of your Love on Tour to next year, is that correct?”

“Correct.”

“That must be hard for you, I’m sure. I bet you were so ready to get back on the road and to have it all pulled out from under ye’ was probably not the greatest feeling.”

“I mean, it’s obviously disappointing, but like, in the grand scheme of things, it’s not the most important thing in the world. But I think everyone kinda understands that there’s not anything you can do about it and ye’ have to do what you can to keep everyone safe, ya know?”

“For sure,” Zane nodded, readjusting the hat on his head.

“Plus, it gives you time to practice doesn’t it?”

Harry’s belly shook as he laughed softly.

“Definitely gives us plenty of time to be prepar-”

Harry stopped in his tracks and looked down at his son who was still napping away, lifting his hand up from where it had been rested on his tiny bum.

“Everything alright?” Zane asked Harry after he was still quiet for a few seconds and his eyes were as wide as saucers.

“Uhh, yeah,” Harry stuttered as a noticeable heat climbed to his cheeks, “Think m’ son’s just farted on me in his sleep.”

This made Zane laugh even harder than he had before, clutching his chest while Harry remained embarrassed that his son had just passed gas on him during his first interview.

The commotion seemed to stir Harry’s son from his sleep. His pudgy legs began to stretch against Harry’s chest and his balled-up fists reached up to rub at his closed eyes. Harry seemed to sense some trepidation, like his son was going to start fussing at any given moment, so he quickly began bouncing his small body against his knee to soothe him and shushed him quietly in his ear. Zane didn’t draw much attention to it, but he couldn’t help but swoon over how easily Harry’s son settled back down.

Harry whispered, “’s alright, bubby. You’re alright,” before kissing the top of his curls gently, no doubt making the viewers lose their minds at home with how gentle he was being towards his boy.

“So your boy farts himself awake, huh?” Zane joked.

“Wouldn’t be the first time. He’s an absolute mess,” Harry added.

“Does he take after you or Y/N?”

Clearly, neither of them were interested in talking about music or tour anymore. Harry’s son had stolen the show, and he wasn’t even conscious.

“A little bit of both I’d say. He’s extremely kind and caring like Y/N, but loves to mess around like me. Can’t really say he got any of Y/N’s looks, though.”

“Absolutely not,” Zane chuckled into his mic, “That one’s all you.”

Harry laughed again, rubbing the tip of his nose with the palm of his hand out of habit.

“Is he excited to be a big brother?”

“Ehh, I think he kinda gets the idea, but not really,” Harry tilted his hand back and forth to symbolize the fact that his toddler could just barely come to grips with there being another baby in his mum’s belly.

“He knows there’s ‘something in mummy’s tummy,’“ Harry noted using air quotes, “And he like, gives Y/N’s stomach kisses all of the time because we tell him to and he sees me do it, but I don’t really think he’s come to grips with it.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Zane responded, “He’s only two.”

“Right, right,” Harry agreed, “But he’s, like, super cuddly and loves his stuffed animals and stuff, so I don’t think he’s gonna have a hard time at all really.”

Just when Zane was going to try to get back on topic with his prepared list of questions he had written up for Harry that didn’t involve his son, there was a commotion on Harry’s end that occurred somewhere beyond the view of the camera.

It was the sound of a door shutting a feet padding against hardwood steps.

“Harry!” a voice called out.

“Have you seen my laptop charger? I’m trying to FaceTime Gem- Oh,” the voice stopped.

“Sorry, baby,” Harry spoke above the laptop screen to whoever had just walked into the room, “Couldn’t find mine and I had t’ talk t’ Zane.”

“Which Zane?”

“Is that Y/N I hear?” Zane asked Harry.

Harry laughed at his wife’s words, quickly specifying that it was Zane Lowe and not his former bandmate.

“Yes, it is Y/N. She’s awoken from her beauty sleep it appears.”

The camera wasn’t able to pick up the way Y/N rolled her eyes at Harry.

“Gimme one of those,” Y/N demanded, holding her hand out for the other earbud that Harry wasn’t wearing so she could join in on his conversation with Zane.

Harry swung the free earbud around his chest with his free hand as to not disturb their son, smiling smugly at his wife while she settled onto the sofa next to him and cuddled into his side.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Zane greeted her.

“Hello, handsome,” Y/N responded, “How come you never call to talk to me anymore? Why do you only care about this nobhead?”

She playfully shoved Harry’s shoulder, but not hard enough to actually knock him sideways.

“He does have the number one album in the country right now. Kinda makes sense to check in on him now, dunnit?”

“And I’m his baby mama, so where’s my praise for carrying his little spawns?”

“You truly are a saint for tha’ one. I won’t lie.”

Harry feigned offense but failed to hide the smile that tugged on the corners of his lips.

“I’m sitting right here!” he scoffed.

“We know, love,” Y/N cooed him as she looked over at him and brushed his curls that had fallen onto his forehead back into his mess of hair.

“How are you doing, though, Y/N? We talked a bit about you while you were away. Harry said you’re strugglin’ a bit?”

“Umm, I mean, it’s just normal pregnancy stuff,” she dismissed his qualms as she absentmindedly stroked her protruding belly that was just barely in the frame, “I’m at the point where everything hurts all of the time and everything Harry does annoys the piss out of me, but other than that I’m pretty much normal.”

“Goodness. He didn’t tell me that part,” Zane chuckled, “Please elaborate.”

“Okay, well first of all-,” Y/N started.

“Why are you acting like you were just waiting f’ someone to ask you that question?” Harry forced through laughter.

“Because I’ve got a lot to say!” she exclaimed.

“You don’t pick up your dirty clothes, you leave your tea mugs all around the house, and you and your son eat all of my bread!”

“I do not eat all of the bread!” Harry started to playfully argue with his wife.

“I caught you sneaking into the pantry at midnight eating bread right out of the bag, Harold.”

“Well, what were you doin’ awake in the kitchen at midnight anyway, hmm?”

“I’m pregnant. I’m allowed to be hungry every twenty minutes. You’ve got no excuse.”

Harry sighed in defeat, meanwhile, Zane sat back and enjoyed listening to the two of them bickering like children.

“Sounds like the quarantine might getting t’ the both of you, huh?”

“Oh, no,” Y/N dismissed Zane, “We’re always like this.”

Just then, Harry felt the weight distribution on his chest shift, and saw a pair of emerald green eyes identical to his open and look back and forth between him and Y/N. His pudgy cheeks were flushed a warm, crimson color and the t-shirt he had taken a nap in was tugged over to the side from how well he had slept.

“Well, hello there, bubby. Nice of you t’ join us,” Harry spoke calmly to his son that was in the middle of waking up, gently brushing his fingers along the side of his face.

“Dear god. He looks just like you, Harry,” Zane said in disbelief.

This made Harry blush and hide his face in his son’s plush blanket, and Y/N looked lovingly down at her two boys.

“I know he does,” Harry confirmed, “Poor thing.”

Y/N rolled her eyes at Harry’s comment. As if that was meant to be an insult.

“Hung-y,” the three of them heard the toddler mumble.

“What’s that, lovie?” Y/N perked up.

“I hung-y” he repeated, his arms outstretched for his mother to which she happily accepted.

The boy crawled right over Harry towards Y/N, his foot sinking deep into Harry’s gut and making him grunt in reaction.

“You’re hungry?” Y/N asked, “You want some lunch, bubs?”

He nodded into Y/N’s shoulder where he had tucked himself away, clearly still in the mood to be loved on and cuddled.

“Well, let’s go make you something to eat then. What do you want? A banana?”

“Bread!” cheered the two-year-old, which earned a laugh from everyone in the room and an eye-roll from Y/N.

“Of course, you want bread. Wouldn’t expect anything less from your father’s child.”

��Why are you bullying me?” Harry fired back.

“Because you’re eating all of my damn bread!” Y/N yelled before scooping their son up from the couch and teetering out of frame into the kitchen.

“Alright,” started Zane, “Seems like it’s time for me to leave you three alone. Thanks for stopping in t’ chat.”

Harry chortled, readjusting his headphone one last time to sign off.

“Thanks again f’ havin’ me. Sorry my family crashed your interview.”

“It’s no bother at all, mate. ‘S actually quite refreshing seeing ye’ like this. I’m sure everyone watching would agree. Reminds us all that you’re human and not some robot with perfect hair and the voice of an angel.”

Harry hid his face in his hands, blushing for what felt like the thousandth time during this video call.

“I hope you lot continue to stay safe and healthy through all of this.”

“Thank you so much. You as well,” Harry added.

“Of course. Tell Y/N I’ll ring her up soon.”

“Will do,” Harry nodded, “If she doesn’t kill me f’ asking her t’ make me some toast first.”

#harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #harry styles x pregnant!reader #dad!harry #dad!harry x reader #dad!harry x pregnant!reader

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aohendo · 2 years ago

Text

Deleted scene for today!

Reason for deleting? I realized it would work better if Kiris found Thaav dead to begin with. Quicker will work better for this, since it’s going to lead into a Riasil + Kiris conversation and the repercussions of Thaav’s death. Also, it was beginning to feel melodramatic, and that was irritating me despite it needing to be a fairly intense scene.

Taglist: @whimsyqueen, @cactusmotif, @on-noon, @paradisiacalshroud, @houndsofcorduff. If you’d like to be added to the taglist, let me know!

Excerpt is 508 words, CW: blood.

Thaav’s quarter’s were laid the same as Kiris’ own, but he paid no heed to what few differences there were. Kiris skidded to his knees and hovered over Prince Thaav. They lay on the ground, half propped against a chair, gasping, lungs sputtering, in a pond of red. A hole traced through their abdomen but did not quite disembowel them.

Kiris tore off his overtunic and threw it aside, and then he ripped off his undertunic. He wadded it into a ball and pressed it down on Thaav. The old prince gasped and heaved against him, their eyes drifting open.

“You’ll be okay,” Kiris said, instantly. “You’re not gonna die. I’ve got you.”

Slowly, their gaze found his, old grey eyes watery but as fearsome as always. “Yphant.” Their voice was a breeze’s whisper.

“Yeah.” He switched his undertunic over, not caring how his hands became soaked in blood. “You’ve just got to hold on, okay? Hold on for me, and I can—I can get Riasil.”

They raised their hand, shaking terribly, as if to caress his face. Instead, it found his arm and traced down until it caught on the distorted skin from the shackles. Kiris pressed the undertunic tighter into Thaav’s side.

“These are old.”

“Hm-mm. Riasil will—” there were no guards. No servants. No one around. No one Kiris could ask to fetch the Scholar. Thaav’s fingers held onto the scars as if handholds. “I’ll—I’ll summon Riasil right now. You’ll be alright.”

“Yphant—”

“Shh. I’m not going to let you die.” And he wasn’t. However Thaav would think of him after this, he didn’t care. Kiris thinned the Realms and found Empathy, and then he found Empathic Projection, and with the Realms thinned before him, Thaav a glowing point of burnt yellow beneath him, Kiris searched the fortress for Riasil’s all-too-familiar stark green. He found it several floors removed. This was for Thaav.

Kiris thought the sound of urgency. He thought the pitch of suggestion, the clamor of help and pain, and set it amongst the folds of Riasil’s unsuspecting orchestra of emotion. When the brass winds of alarm hit his ears, Kiris painted blood into his melody and sent forth the impression of ‘Thaav.’ It was sickeningly familiar to how he had begged in Cym, Riasil and all Riasil’s friends only several walls away. Too far to listen. Too far too understand. He forced thick the Realms before he could linger.

“You’ve sinned,” Thaav said, mouse-paw silent.

Kiris laughed, anxiety bubbling out of him. “Yeah. And you’re going to tell me off, because you’re going to live. Riasil’s coming. He’ll be here soon, and he’ll fix you, and then you can tell me how selfish I am, and everything’ll be normal, alright? You’ll be okay.”

“No one can deny the Prophet’s futures.”

“People deny Avkonin all the time, Prince Thaav.”

They smiled. It twitched on their lips even as their eyes fell shut. “It is to keep you humble.”

#princeforhire #kiris is having a really shitty tuesday #straight to the 'stuff I deleted' document #writing #wip #writblr #writeblr #writerblr #fantasy

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killjoystuff · 4 years ago

Photo

Some of these may have been edited/had words changed around for ease of roleplaying. Feel free to change pronouns/wording to suit you!

BUMMERLAND:

❝ Better nix my summer plans. ❞ ❝ It’s my all time low. ❞ ❝ Here I am! ❞ ❝ You’re only going up from here. ❞ ❝ I’ve been alone for too long. ❞ ❝ I can’t afford no nice things. ❞ ❝ When I buy that first beer, I’ll be a goddamn hero. ❞ ❝ And there ain’t no funner-land! ❞

3 O’CLOCK THINGS:

❝ I promise everything’ll be alright. ❞ ❝ Your eyes are tired but keep ‘em open. You wouldn’t wanna miss a thing. ❞ ❝ When the hell did advertisements get so good? ❞ ❝ It’s kinda funny how I keep debating if somebody’s shy or if they hate me.❞ ❝ Maybe sex is overrated but we’re too shy to ever say it.❞ ❝ It’s 3AM. I should be sleeping. ❞ ❝ It’s too hard to tell if anything’s real or not. ❞ ❝ Let’s blame our parents because they taught us their ways. ❞

MY PLAY:

❝ Haven’t seen the old house lately. ❞ ❝ I don’t want my own love wasted. ❞ ❝ If love dies, do I fucking bother? ❞ ❝ I don’t wanna do it twice ‘cause it’s not the same. ❞ ❝ If we don’t hold out then we’re cowards. ❞ ❝ I put on a play in my basement. ❞ ❝ Guess everything is complicated. ❞ ❝ It’s gonna get really really really really bad before it’s okay. ❞

JOE:

❝ Remember when you laughed at my last name? ❞ ❝ I don’t ever think of you. ❞ ❝ Do you think I’m cool? ❞ ❝ Every time she laughed it would feel fake. ❞ ❝ I don’t even mind, this is so dumb. ❞ ❝ I got friends all up the coast. ❞ ❝ It comes with me where I go. ❞ ❝ You’ll tell me how cool I got. ❞

ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE:

❝ I keep losing my socks. Where the hell do they go? ❞ ❝ Holy-moly, it’s a real do-nothing day. ❞ ❝ Adventure is out there. ❞ ❝ Adventure is out there, so why am I in here today? ❞ ❝ Think I’m losing my mind. ❞ ❝ I won’t lose them, I’m sure. ❞ ❝ I’ll slip away and they’ll lose me. ❞ ❝ I’ll be seeing the world. ❞

THE TRICK:

❝ I got a dog and my dog can dance. ❞ ❝ I can be anything that I pretend to be. ❞ ❝ We’ll get out of this too. ❞ ❝ I’m not proud of this but I’m not proud of the truth. ❞ ❝ If you run from me, I’ll use my trick on you. ❞ ❝ The truth is that I’m screwed. ❞ ❝ My dad doesn’t lie, so you can’t meet my dad. ❞

ORDINARY-ISH PEOPLE:

❝ Your happy friends call you depressing because you wonder why we’re all alive. ❞ ❝ Your downer friends say you’re too happy because you still celebrate sometimes. ❞ ❝ I guess the last time you had any fun was way back when you weren’t anyone. ❞ ❝ You’ve gotta be somebody sometime. ❞ ❝ If you’re nobody, nobody minds. ❞ ❝ You’re not stupid, you’re just special. ❞ ❝ Please yell if you’re paying attention. ❞

HUMPTY DUMPTY:

❝ Screw it, Ima smile right through it. ❞ ❝ I’ll scream when no one’s around. ❞ ❝ Something’s wrong but I’m scared to look it up. ❞ ❝ If you get sad, then I’ll feel bad I told you at all. ❞ ❝ I could fake it, move away, or I could suck it up and face it. ❞ ❝ You know you can’t be seen. ❞ ❝ I got friends in a lot of weird places. ❞ ❝ I can’t take another panic episode. ❞

WORLD’S SMALLEST VIOLIN:

❝ I think I bored my therapist while playing him my violin. ❞ ❝ Next to them, my shit don’t feel so grand. ❞ ❝ I kinda feel like two things can be sad. ❞ ❝ The world’s smallest violin really need an audience. ❞ ❝ I’ve got so much left to prove. ❞ ❝ They’re so good at making friends. ❞ ❝ Somewhere, someone’s got it worse. Wish that made it easier. ❞ ❝ I know I’m not there mentally but you could be the remedy. ❞

WAY LESS SAD:

❝ I don’t wanna hurt no more, so I set my bar real low. ❞ ❝ I’m a-okay! ❞ ❝ You say it but you just don’t mean it. ❞ ❝ I ain’t happy yet - but I’m way less sad. ❞ ❝ Living sucks, but it’s sucking just a little now. ❞ ❝ It’s stupid but it’s all I have. ❞ ❝ I’m trying too hard, but I can’t not try. ❞ ❝ I’m not dead yet so I guess I’ll be alright. ❞

CHRISTMAS IN JUNE:

❝ I owe you one, yes I do. ❞ ❝ I try so hard to be so happy. Are you happy too? ❞ ❝ You’re no longer gonna be the plan I miss. ❞ ❝ I won’t ever let you down. ❞ ❝ Can we do Christmas in June? ❞ ❝ You won’t be laughing soon. ❞ ❝ I know you try too. ❞ ❝ Now I’m sitting here thinking about what else I’ll miss.❞

#rp memes #rp prompts #roleplay starters #roleplay sentences #sentence starters #lyric prompts #music prompts #ajr prompts #ajr #music ;

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twstarchives · 5 years ago

Text

Ruggie Bucchi・Voice Lines

Additional Voice Lines: Gala Couture Event Card

School Uniform - R

Unlock Card “The secret to feeling good is eating! As long as you eat, everything’ll be OK!”

Groovy “My studies, huh...? This is what’s gonna put food on my table, so I’m taking them seriously.”

Home Setting “They say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, you know?”

Home Transitions “I’m busy cleaning up Leona’s room right now. What? You wanna help? Man, thanks a bunch!”

“Mages who grew up in the slums like me are pretty rare.”

“Are you sure you should be spacing out like that? Time is money, you know.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Do you need somethin’ from me? I’ll listen if you say you’ll treat me to something.”

Home Taps “My uniform? It’s a hand-me-down from Leona. It’s a little big, but I can still wear it so it’s fine.”

“I wouldn’t mind looking after Grim if you ever need me to. How does 1000 madols an hour sound?”

“You’re hungry? If you get some ingredients together, I can whip something up for you.”

“I gotta think about what I’m going to do after I graduate and start working towards that. ‘Cause life is really long.”

“Hm, what’s up? Does Leona want something——Oh, he doesn’t? You scared me for a sec...”

PE Uniform - R

Unlock Card “I’m really good at sports. At least, better than you.”

Groovy “Alright! I think I should show my cool side to the lower grades every once in a while~”

Home Setting “Getting to run around so nimbly really is the best.”

Home Transitions “Move it, move it! We’re in the middle of cleaning out the whole dorm! ‘Cause Leona never cleans this place up himself...”

“I’m considered pretty small in my dorm. But that just means I’ve got a lot of advantages in magift.”

“I’m really confident in my endurance. If I got my eyes on my prey, it’s not gonna escape me!”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Magift has a completely different feel when you see it live. Wanna come watch our practice sometime?”

Home Taps “Ahh, I’m hungry. I’m feeling like a whole pile of sugary donuts to dip in some milk.”

“I really respect Jack for how much physical strength he’s got. But he still has a selfish playing style.”

“Building up your strength is really important to survive a brutal environment.”

“Coach Vargas got angry today? Just compliment him on his muscles and that’ll put him right back in a good mood.”

“Now’s your last chance to enjoy yourself. Let’s hope you don’t lose all hope in everything when Coach Vargas goes and pushes you to your limit though. Shishishi!”

Lab Coat - SR

Unlock Card “I don’t care that much about looking professional, but I kinda like these snazzy lab coats.”

Groovy “You’re really clumsy. Here, hand that to me.”

Home Setting “Dirt would really stand out on this kind of white.”

Home Transitions “You should probably stay away from the Botanical Garden. If you irritate Leona during his naptime... Oo, it gives me chills.”

“Ahh, you’re using up so much good lab materials! Man, what a waste...”

“I love alchemy. But I tend to make lots of mistakes if I get too greedy. Hehe.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “Aah? I wouldn’t be able to help you with that work even if you asked me.”

Home Transition (Groovy) “You can still eat weeds if you cook them right. Huh, you actually wanna try ‘em? ...You’ve got weird taste.”

Home Taps “Jack grows a lot of cacti in his room. Maybe they could be emergency rations.”

“I can only throw together a meal with what I’ve got to work with, but I guess it’s fine as long as Leona eats it.”

“A lot of the plants they grow in the Botanical Garden could sell for really high prices. ...I don’t mean anything by that; I’m just sayin’. Shishishi!”

“I don’t really get how Riddle just dumps in spoonfuls thinking it’s ‘the right amount’ he needs.”

“Don’t touch me when your hands reek of chemicals! You’re gonna get the smell on me!”

Home Tap (Groovy) “Want me to tell you what was covered on my tests last year? I’d even give you a special friend discount.”

Ceremony Robes - SR

Unlock Card “These robes are so fancy. They really do have the feel of this school.”

Groovy “Even I look the part when I’m wearing these, don’t I?”

Home Setting “So? These actually look pretty nice on me, huh?”

Home Transitions “You’re a student at this academy but you don’t even know the history behind it? Gathering intel should always be a priority.”

“Want a keepsake photo of you in your ceremony robes? Just 1000 madols a pic! It’s a great deal!”

“Hah, I’m tired... I can’t help feeling stiff in clothes I’m not used to. How are you doin’ in them?”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “This high-quality fabric with gold embroidering, plus these decorations... How much would they all sell for?”

Home Transition (Groovy) “The ceremony today is gonna be in the Mirror Chamber. Shishishi! You look nervous. It’s cute; it’s fitting for a first-year.”

Home Taps “I’m not rich, but I’ll always like this better than being a spoiled brat who doesn’t have a problem in the world.”

“The chance of Leona coming to a ceremony is... about 50/50. But he’ll still come to the entrance and graduation ones.”

“The Headmaster takes really good care of the apple trees that grow on campus. Those apples all look so good.”

“Mages were pretty rare where I grew up. I bet they’d all wanna see what I look like now.”

“You don’t need to rush; we’ve got plenty of time before the ceremony. You’re so impatient.”

Home Tap (Groovy) “Your makeup’s all smudged. Alright, guess I’ll fix it for you. ...It’s fine, I’ve done this as a job before.”

Dorm Uniform - SSR

Unlock Card “Who stepped into my territory?”

“Oh, wow, what a cute little kitten. Did you come here to be our prey? Shishishi!”

Groovy “I could tell you how to survive at this school if you want.”

Home Setting “I feel like somethin’ fun’s gonna happen today.”

Home Transitions “The deserted feel of the Ramshackle Dorm is kinda nice, but... Savanaclaw is still my favorite.”

“The dorm uniforms really are so easy to move in. They’re not too fancy either; it’s perfect for me.”

“We’re about to have a dorm meeting right now. What, you wanna come check it out? I mean, Leona’s kind of... It depends on how you ask him.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “I’m heading to the cafeteria with Leona. Wanna come too? Having more people to run errands saves me some.”

Home Transition (Groovy) “Sure, I came to this school without a madol in my pocket... but you can always find a way to handle anything as long as you’re alive!”

Home Taps “The strong and the smart are the ones who rise to power in Savanaclaw. I like how it’s an obvious system.”

“This necklace is supposed to represent different parts of nature. Red for the sun, blue for the sky, green for the land... It reminds me of my hometown.”

“It’s important to not let your guard down in the savannah. If you’re not careful... bam! You get killed.”

“Leona works me hard, but I’m always paid the appropriate amount. It’s a give-and-take.”

“You’re really just like a puppy with how playful you are.”

Home Tap (Groovy) “There’s still so much you could do even if you can’t use magic. Want me to give you a lecture on them?”

Duo Magic Ruggie: “Use your head, Jack!” Jack: “Right! Ruggie!”

Birthday Celebration Outfit - SSR

This card was only obtainable during Ruggie’s birthday event (Apr 16 - Apr 22, 2021).

Login on Birthday “Today’s my long-awaited birthday! Course that means you’ve got a present ready for me, right? ...Wait, huh? You actually do? ...Hmm, you were so straightforward, it kinda threw me off... Well, thanks! Hehe.”

Unlock Card “I’m the king today! Is the celebration all ready to go?”

“There’s really no one worth giving presents to as much as me. I’ll be happy with anything I get!”

Groovy “Thanks for celebrating! Can I expect another fancy party next year?”

Home Setting “I’m going to make it loud and clear I’m the star today.”

Home Transitions “Jack was so annoying telling me ‘The birthday boy needs to just kick back and relax!’ It was hard shaking him off.”

“Cake tastes so good and sweet~ But as long as it keeps me filled, I don’t really have anything else to say about it.”

“I can’t believe Silver was so quick to buy me that premium pudding when I asked him for it... I’ll go crying to him next time I’m short on food money.”

Home Transition (Login Greeting) “The birthday parties at this school are the best! I mean, there’s so much fancy food! I’m going to stuff myself like mad.”

Home Taps “The neighborhood kids always come to visit on my birthday. ...No, not to celebrate; they’re after the food.”

“Jade gave me a high-quality towel that’s so soft to touch... I might change my mind about being okay using it.”

“Lucius showed me somewhere where lots of dandelions grow. He’s a thoughtful cat!”

“This donut pin looks so yummy. But I wish they would’ve gotten some actual ones ready.”

“Hey, I know you just pulled my tail! You’re wrong if you think I’m going to allow that just ‘cause it’s my birthday.”

Home Tap (Groovy) “Some people don’t like getting older, but I’m happy about it. Don’t take your birthdays for granted.”

Duo Magic Ruggie: “Sebek, let's hear ya shout it out!” Sebek: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RUGGIE!!!”

Tutorial “Delays never bring you anything good. Let’s go.”

Lv Up “Shishishi! This is good.”

“You’re kinda weird, trying to take care of me.”

“I think I’ve gotten stronger!”

Max Lv Up “I feel like I could do anything now. Trying hard every once in a while actually might not be that bad. Hehe.”

Episode Lv Up “You really are such a softie. You might get scammed someday, you know? Well, come talk to me if that happens and I might help you out.”

Magic Lv Up “I always thought my magic would stay sucky my whole life, but... it’s kinda turned out.”

Limit Break “I think my progress is still far from over. Guess I gotta stay around you a little while longer.”

Groovy “See? The skilled ones always survive in this world. You’ve got nothing to lose being around me.”

Select Lesson “There aren’t classes on haggling or anything? This place really is a prestigious mage-training school.”

“You don’t have to get so stressed about it. You take things so seriously.”

“Which one are you gonna do? If it were me I’d pick one that’d be useful for survival.”

Lesson Start “Alright, studytime, studytime!”

Lesson End “Hah... I gotta stay caught up.”

Battle Start “This is my territory!”

Battle End “Looks like I got myself some mouth-watering prey.”

Other

Profile Quote “This world is a survival of the fittest. If you don’t eat when you can, you’re not gonna survive.”

January 2020 Trailer “Even a hyena can become king at this school.”

Countdown Poster “You’ve got some nerve stepping into our territory. Shishishi!”

Login Bonus Greeting “Oh, you made some money! Shishishi! Getting this just by coming to school everyday really is the best, huh? Make sure you don’t forget to come tomorrow either.”

Player Birthday Wish “You’re eating good food, getting all these presents, and everyone’s being so nice to you today. So you don’t really need me to send you birthday wishes on top of that, right? Kidding. Shishishi! I swear! Happy birthday!”

#twisted wonderland #ruggie bucchi #voice lines

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yandere-daydreams · 5 years ago

Note

A darling shared by Shoto, Izuku and Bakugo, but one day Izuku is incapacitated and in the hospital. The other two take this opportunity to be with their darling because Deku is the clingiest and they never have the strength to ask him to make room... Major cuddles and maybe they're still in U.A.? Perhaps there was another villain attack and the darling kicked ass, and the others are just like "see that was a one time thing because we were caught off guard, you're lucky you didn't get hurt"

They’re so soft… For clarification, Izuku’s in the hospital after him and their Darling were caught in a villain-attack. They’re all Pro-Hereos, at this point, so… yeah, have some soft boys.

TW: Emotional Manipulation and Implied Controlling-Behavior.

“How many bones do you think the dumbass broke this time?”

Katsuki’s voice was quiet, the question more for himself than for Shoto or yourself. But, you both already knew who he was talking about. Izuku was at the hospital over-night, everything that could possibly be casted covered with gauze and splinted until the following morning. You’d already been to visit him, but after realizing how cuddly Izuku could be when he was on more pain-killers than a hardened athlete, you’d retreated back into the safety of Katsuki’s apartment, and into its owner’s equally clingy arms. He didn’t try to smell your hair, though, which you appreciated.

“A lot,” Shoto answered, never glancing up from the book in his hands. While you laid on the blonde’s chest, Shoto’d merely propped himself against your back, free arm casually resting on your thighs. You never thought either would be a fan of the touchier parts of a relationship, but judging from the soft growls of protest and sharp glares trying to move had earned, you’d spoken much too quickly. “Like… eleven, probably.”

“There are two-hundred and six bones in the human body,” You mumbled, if only out of habit. “The nurses said at least one-fifteenth of them were fractured.”

Shoto blinked. “He might’ve even broken twelve.”

Katsuki snorted, and you fought the urge to giggle, Shoto sending both of you a weird look over his shoulder. You took the opportunity to sit up, the taller boy draping himself over your shoulder as you straddled Katsuki’s chest, who didn’t seem to have a problem with the new arrangement. “Which is why all of you should be thankful I was there. Midoriya would’ve just kept fighting if I hadn’t been there to actually restrain the attacker. I only got a little bruised up, too! We have to go out, after he’s better.” Shoto let out a disgruntled noise, somewhere between a purr and a whimper, but you only ignored him. “I think I’ve earned a real date-night, this time.”

You’d expected refusals, hesitant agreements, some sort of acknowledgment, but neither spoke, simply looking past you, seeming to hold a discussion with their eyes. You were used to dealing with their special brand of communication, the way they seemed to talk with only a series of shrugs and scowls, but that didn’t make you any less frustrated when Shoto opened his mouth. “I… we don’t think that’s for the best, angel.”

You opened your mouth, ready to tell him all he’d have to do was put on his good suit while you and Izuku danced, but Katsuki beat you to it, speaking over you despite the absence of another voice. “Listen, what Low-Budget-Zuko is trying to say is… we just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to do things so thoughtlessly, anymore. I mean, you were just walking home, weren’t you? It wasn’t a patrol or anything.” Reflexively, you nodded. You and Izuku had similar schedules that day, so you decided to walk home together when someone attacked the two of you. It was a simple as that, just random, petty violence. Violence that no one could’ve prevented. “See? You didn’t think, and something bad happened. Something that could’ve gotten you fucking hurt.”

You shook your head, smiling nervously, a gesture neither of your companions returned. “No, that’s… what do you mean?” The assumption died in your throat, every possibility that crossed your mind too controlling to be what they really meant. With an awkard laugh, you forced yourself to continue, straightening your back a little more, trying to distance yourself from Katsuki. “Are you trying to say I’m not allowed to go outside?”

“It’s a possibility,” mused Shoto, playing with the collar of your shirt. “We haven’t come to any firm solutions, yet, but we don’t want you working, anymore. It just too risky, what if something happens? The city’ll be fine with one less Hero, especially with the three of us picking up the slack.” You flinched away when cold fingertips pushed into the nape of your neck, but Shoto only moved closer, nuzzling his cheek against your back. “Everything’ll be fine, especially if all of us can agree that this is the right decision.”

Now, you couldn’t help but draw back. You were more surprised than you were afraid, too… shocked by what they were saying to register the levity of the situation. With another breathy, forced chuckle, you tried to move away, but Katsuki only looped his arms around your waist, pulling you a little too forcibly against his chest, Shoto swiftly spreading himself out over your back, his weight stopping you from trying to get up again. Still, you pushed at Katsuki’s chest, your hope that they were making some terrible joke dying with every passing second. “No, no, you can’t make me stay here. I don’t want to quit… and what if Midoriya doesn’t want to do something so crazy? He couldn’t be alright with this.”

As soon as you stopped talking, Katsuki laughed, kissing the top of your head before he responded. “Who do you think came up with this? The fucker’s been begging us to lock you up for weeks, he’ll be more excited than anyone, when we tell him. Got real creepy about it, too. We had to stop him from ordering a collar or any of that ‘pet-play’ bullshit.”

Again, you tried to get away from them, to say something that would make them understand that none of this was normal, but Shoto only pushed himself against you, Katsuki silencing you with another sharp, strong tug. It was uncomfortable, bordering on painful, but any words that could’ve made it out of your lips were drowned out by Shoto’s content hums and Katsuki’s oppressing warmth. Hell, Izuku wasn’t even in the room, but you could feel those eyes boring into you, that smile you’d never gotten used to biting away at your confidence.

Luckily, Shoto brought you out of your thoughts, pecking at the crook of your neck between words. “You’ll come around to it,” He reassured, his voice happier than you’d ever heard it. “We’ll help you, and eventually, you won’t even remember you were ever a Hero.”

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illfoandillfie · 5 years ago

Text

Countdown To Christmas

Pairing: Lucy Boynton x Reader x Gwilym Lee

Summery: When Gwilym reveals he has no plans for Christmas Day, you and Lucy invite him to spend it with you.

Warnings: SMUT (18+), Christmas themed girlfriend fluff, orgasm denial/edging, threesome (obv.), dom/sub/dom dynamic, oral sex (m and f receiving), spanking, sex toys - vibrator and strap-on, a teeny tiny bit of cumplay

Words: 9020 (jesus)

A/N: This is my secret santa gift for @laedymoon for @dtfrogertaylor ‘s Thank God It’s Christmas event! El, I got very excited when I found out I was going to be writing for you! You are my tumblr daughter/wife and I love you so much. I had a lot of fun writing this (I really don’t write either Gwil or Lucy enough) and I really hope you enjoy it!!

Taglist: @laedymoon @dtfrogertaylor @ezmina98 @vee-ndetta @atomic-watermelon @kellypenac @labessieisallama @deakyclicks @jennyggggrrr @drowseoftaylor @hannafuckingsucks @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming @queenmylovely @supersonicfreddie

THREE DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS

Normally you didn’t leave gift buying so late but this year things just seemed to have slipped away from you. To be fair, a lot of the big things you’d already bought. Your parents were taken care of, and Lucy. And besides, you didn’t really mind heading into the city so close to Christmas. It made you feel festive, especially as the sun faded and the strings of lights decorating each street and shopfront came to life. Aside from the crowds of people hurrying to finish their shopping, it was quite lovely. Light snowfall, a line of kids waiting to get their photo taken with Father Christmas, a choir huddled together singing carols. It just made you more excited for the actual day. You shook your head and squeezed Lucy’s hand as you tried to remind yourself that you weren’t there for the festive ambience, you had things to do.

Together you and Lucy entered Harrods, heading straight for their Christmas display. You were mostly looking for smaller items, fun and maybe a little gimmicky, for the friends you were likely to see over the holiday season and your neighbours, a thank you for collecting your mail while you and Lucy had been away earlier in the year. “D’you think Pam and Harry would like a cookbook?” you asked Lucy as you browsed one of the tables of “Gifts For Her” the store had laid out. “I don’t think they’re that big into cooking. What about this cocktail set? See it’s got a shaker and a couple of flavours,” “Isn’t Harry a teetotaller?” “Oh, shit you’re right, okay forget that. Maybe a puzzle?” Lucy laughed as she pulled the suggestion out of thin air, giving you a look that plainly said Lord I don’t know. You were about to suggest searching in a different part of the store, hoping something would leap out at you as the perfect gift, when a voice caught your attention. “Lucy? Y/N?” “Gwil!” Lucy smiled as the tall, bearded man came over, “Fancy running into you here.” “Finishing your shopping?” “Yeah” you said, “thankfully almost done. What about you?” “I’ve been given a slight reprieve this year. Not doing the whole big family thing we had planned.” “Oh no, what happened?” “Oh it’s not that bad Luce. My parents decided they wanted to spend the holidays somewhere warmer so they’re on a cruise in the pacific right now. And then my brother’s family have all come down with some sort of cold or flu or something, so we’ve all decided to save our festivities until new year's. It’s great though, means I haven’t had to rush buying presents or anything, only looking for something for my niece and nephew now.” “So you’ll be alone on Christmas? Why don’t you come over to ours instead?” “I couldn’t intrude like that,” “Don’t be daft, not intruding if we invited you,” Lucy laughed, “Seriously, it’s just going to be me and Y/N all day. We’re going to my parents for Boxing Day lunch but other than that it’s just the two of us and we’ve already bought more food than we could possibly get through on our own.” “You really don’t mind?” “Of course not Gwil! You’re practically family anyway. We’d have invited Ben too but Y/N spoke to him last week and he’s already got plans.” “Alright, you’ve twisted my arm, I’ll be there.”

You chatted to Gwilym for a little longer before he left you to wander around in search of suitable presents once more. Both you and Lucy agreed you should get him something too, although, distracted by other people’s gifts and a little worn out from having to navigate the crowds, it ended up slipping your mind. It wasn’t until you were at home, sitting on your living room floor wrapping your haul that you realised. “Hey what happened to that book about the Welsh rugby team? The one we were going to give Gwil?” you asked as you finished writing on the gift tag of the present you’d just wrapped. “I thought we decided he’d already read it and left it behind.” You looked over at the small Christmas shrine you’d created. With only the two of you, and your house being more cosy than spacious, you’d decided not to worry about the whole big tree thing. Instead you’d bought a kitschy fiber-optic tree that was small enough to sit on a little table and surrounded it with tinsel, a few cards you’d received and a candle that smelt like Christmas pudding. There was enough space under the table to stack the few presents you’d be opening come Christmas morning. Each of you had two to open, something naughty and something nice, a decision you’d made as soon as you realised you’d not be seeing anyone else all day. “We have to get him something.” “Okay but I’m not going back into the city two days out from Christmas. It’ll be mad and everything’ll be sold out.” “Well what do you suggest then Luce?” She furrowed her brow as she thought for a moment and then she looked at you. “I know that look Lucy, whatever your idea is it’s dangerous.” “Not dangerous. Risky maybe.” “Spit it out then,” “What if we gave him a threesome?” You laughed but stopped when you realised she wasn’t, “Bullshit, you’re not serious are you?” “Well I’m sure he’d like it. Isn’t it every guy’s dream to have a threesome with two girls?” “I wasn’t saying he wouldn’t like it. Just didn’t expect that to be your first idea. You really thought threesome before you thought of the weird little shop up the road?” “That shop wouldn’t have anything Gwil liked, it’s all incense and crystals and hippie stuff. And you have to admit it’s a hot idea. He’s hot. Can’t say I haven’t thought about it before and I know you have too.” “Okay true I have.” “Good, so we’re doing it?” You considered for a moment, “Fuck it why not. It would be the best type of present since it’ll be as fun for us as it is for him. So then how to we give it to him? Like just blurt it out when he arrives or, a piece of paper that says redeem for one free threesome or something?” you laughed and shook your head at the slightly ridiculous turn the conversation had taken. “What about a little coupon book? Then we can give him some other things too in case he doesn’t actually want a threesome. Wait here,” Lucy pushed herself to her feet and ran off down the hall. You listened, bemused, as she opened and closed cupboards, rifling through them and pulling various things free, only returning when her arms were full. She dropped back to the floor next to you and laid everything out. Scissors, a stapler, a stack of paper, coloured pens. “Love, your artsy farsty, you wanna design a cover for the coupons? And then maybe write some things out in nice lettering?” Lucy pushed the pens towards you with her toes as she began mocking up a template to use as a size reference. You plugged your phone into some speakers and shuffled your Christmas playlist, both of you singing along as you set to work creating Gwilym’s present. By the time you were done you had a very cute little book of coupons, suitably decorated with festive colours and a little bit of glitter you’d remembered you had. Inside were ten coupons ranging from One Free Hug to One Free Threesome. You stood up and stretched as Lucy wrapped it and added it to the pile under your little tree.

TWO DAYS UNTIL CHRISTMAS

Lucy had splodges of batter over her shirt, a mishap with the electric mixer, and flour smudged across her nose and cheek, entirely your doing. She’d got you back, a smear of brown sugar over your forehead though you rubbed it in and thanked her for the exfoliant. Her attempts to act unimpressed, making a big show of rolling her eyes and telling you to get back to work, were admirable but the giggle gave her away. The kitchen itself wasn’t faring much better, splatters of butter and flour and sugar littering the bench and a few spots of the batter that covered Lucy’s shirt also decorating the walls. It was a shame really since you’d spent most of the day cleaning, intending on having the place spotless for when Gwilym arrived. “Is it meant to be that sticky?” Lucy asked over the Christmas playlist you’d once again put on, trying to compare the recipe on her phone to the concoction currently sitting in a blob on the bench, “I thought it was supposed to be firmer?” “Maybe it’ll fix itself as you knead it,” you shrugged, “just put down some extra flour.” “Maybe Gwil will bring some store bought gingerbread with him and save us from ourselves,” “It’s not that bad, look,” you grabbed an extra handful of flour, scattering it over the dough and bench, coating your palms in the remnants. Lucy took a step back, “those come no where near me Y/N, I swear,” You held your white palms up to her innocently before taking to the dough, pushing and pulling it until it began to form a smooth ball which you placed on the beeswax wrap Lucy laid out, “see, nothing to worry about.” “S’pose we’ll find out for sure in half an hour when we roll it out.” She took the wrapped up dough from your hand and placed it in the fridge, “Siri, set a timer for thirty minutes.” While her back was turned you began tidying up the sack of dirty dishes, collecting a little of the mixture that still clung to the edge of the bowl on your thumb, “You don’t have to wait that long,” “Wasn't it half an hour? I’m sure that’s what the recipe said.” As Lucy turned eyes on her phone, trying to find the right part of the recipe, you caught her, sliding your thumb across her bottom lip and spreading the sticky batter there. She looked shocked for a minute before her tongue darted out to taste it, “okay, that’s really good,” a grin spread out across her face as she took a step towards you, and then another, and another, backing you up against the bench. One of her hands fell to your waist as the other cupped your cheek and she brought her lips to yours. You hummed, sucking some of the sweet spiced mixture off her lip. “What do you think?” “Yeah we nailed it,” “Mmhmm, good,” Lucy reached behind you, running her finger along the side of the bowl, collecting more of the leftovers. Slowly she slipped the finger between your lips, biting her own as she watched you suck it clean.

By the time the alarm went off Lucy was sitting on the clean part of the bench, your hands resting on her thighs as you made out. The rude beeping blasted through the jazzy rendition of White Christmas, and your moment, making you spring apart in surprise. Lucy, face flushed and demeanour flustered, giggled as she reached to turn off the alarm, “effective way of killing time,” “Could keep killing time, perhaps in the bedroom,” you trailed your finger over her thigh as you spoke. “But the dough’s ready, we can roll it out now.” “The dough will still be there in a couple of hours.” Lucy raised an eyebrow. “An hour? Half an hour? Fifteen minutes?” “C’mon,” she slipped off the bench, “grab the cutters, would you?” “Not even fifteen minutes?” you waited but Lucy didn’t say anything, “Fine, s’pose baking is almost as fun,” You turned to dig around in the draw for the cutters Lucy had bought. You managed to find them as Lucy lay out more flour and picked up the rolling pin, two cutters shaped like men, one like a Christmas tree and one like a heart. Together you pressed them out and lay them out on the baking trays, occasionally sneaking bits of the raw dough into your mouths. “They look really good,” Lucy said as she placed the last one on the tray. “They’ll look even better when they’re cooked,” “Ha ha ha. Just for that you can stick them in the oven and keep an eye on them while I go have a shower.” “Sure you wouldn’t rather I join you?” you traced your fingers lightly along her shoulder, hooking them under the strap of her bra. Without warning you pulled the strap away from her and let it go, making her squeal as it snapped back against her skin. “You’re a shocker, Y/N.” “You’re the one who put her fingers in my mouth so really I think this is on you.” “Just don’t let them burn.”

For a few minutes you stayed in the kitchen, scrolling through your Instagram feed, liking a few friends' posts about their own holiday activities, as you absentmindedly hummed along to the music. But that got old fast. Figuring you’d smell the biscuits burning if anything went wrong you left the timer ticking in the kitchen and headed out to the lounge room. The Christmas shrine caught your eye. Surely it wouldn’t matter if you had a little peek. Not even a peek, just a rattle. Just to see if you could guess what Lucy had got you. It wasn’t like you were going to unwrap it early, just play a little guessing game with yourself. You tiptoed a few steps closer to the bathroom door, listening to make sure the water was still running and then, having decided the coast was clear, you scurried back towards the tree. Carefully picking up the smaller of the two gifts baring your name, you examined the tag. A red dot. The naughty present. It was in a box, that much you could tell, but it didn’t help you narrow it down much. The size of the box didn’t really give anything away either. It was just an average sized box that could hold any number of naughty items. You gave it an experimental shake. And then, when you didn’t hear anything move, another shake, harder than the first. Still nothing. Perhaps that meant it was made from a soft material, or perhaps Lucy knew you’d try to figure out what she got you and intentionally packaged it so as to limit its movement. Either way, there were too many possibilities for you to work out what it was, so you put it back and reached for the nice present. “And what are you doing?” Lucy’s voice startled you. “Just rearranging, making sure the pile was steady.” “Sure, that’s believable.” “Oh come on Luce,” you turned around on your knees, “not like I was doing anything bad,” “Trying to work out what I got you for Christmas isn’t bad?” “No, it’s not. I’d say it’s perfectly reasonable.” “Well I’d say it’s impatient. Little bit bratty,” You bit your lip, your breath hitching with the word. You knew what bratty meant. “But you’ve been a little impatient all day haven’t you. Wanting to get me into bed before we finished baking. So maybe you need to learn how to wait. And you can start by waiting for me on the bed. No clothes and no touching.” You made to stand up but Lucy just tutted at you. “Didn’t say you could walk, you know how much I like looking at your bum.” With an eyeroll you dropped back to your knees and began crawling towards the bedroom door.

Lucy made you wait for fifteen whole minutes before she followed you into the bedroom. “Luce, what the hell took you so long?” you asked, leaning against the headboard. It had taken every ounce of self-control you had to not touch yourself and you were already feeling antsy, ready for more. “Had to pull the biscuits out since you decided to misbehave before they were done,” she crossed the room, heading towards your cupboard and dug around inside for a moment. When she turned around she held a vibrator in her hand, “And you’re learning a lesson about patience, lucky I didn’t make you wait even longer.” You groaned, suspecting where things were headed. Lucy just chuckled as she moved towards the bed, dropping the vibrator onto the sheets as she kneeled beside you and pushed your legs open. Slowly she ran a finger through your folds, “Already wet for me. Good girl. You ready?” “Yes,” your voice sounded airier than normal, even to your own ears. With one hand she tugged on your hair, making you tilt your head back so she could capture your lips, continuing the kisses from earlier. Her other hand remained between your legs, fingers dragging through the slick and spreading it over and around your clit. You whined at the contact, hoping that if you sounded enticing enough Lucy might forget her plans to punish you. It didn’t work. Her fingers pressed against you firmly, drawing you closer and closer to the edge, leaving you panting against her lips, and whining when she pulled her hand away. “Patience, my love.” “You’ve got that look again. I’m not going to get off tonight, am I?” “Clever girl. Don’t think you’ll be getting off before Christmas Day.” “Lucy,” you whined, but she just laughed, leaning back to remove her own shirt. “Weren’t you wearing a bra before? Distinctly remember snapping the shoulder strap.” “Couldn’t be bothered after the shower. Figured you were going to take it off anyway but then of course I found you being so naughty,” Once more her fingers found your clit, “and my plans changed.” You could feel the familiar tingle creeping up, your hips shifting automatically in an attempt to find more friction. Christmas Day suddenly seemed an age away and you weren’t sure you could wait that long. Perhaps if you distracted Lucy enough, she wouldn’t realise how close you were getting, and you’d be able to steal an orgasm. Licking your lips, you directed your attention to her chest, dragging your tongue along one of her breasts before sucking her nipple into your mouth. Her fingers faltered for a split second and her breath hitched but she didn’t stop. Christmas music floated from the kitchen where it was still playing, but neither of you were in any frame of mind to think about changing the playlist. The sound was punctured by your muffled moan as Lucy pulled you towards the edge, followed by a soft squeak from Lucy herself, as you reach up to tweak one nipple, and drew circles with your tongue round the other. For a moment you thought your plan had worked, that Lucy was distracted enough, but then she pulled her hand away, making you whine and release her breast. “Awww, baby thought she’d get what she wanted?” Lucy mocked, taking your chin in hand. “Maybe,” “Baby was wrong,” she let go of your chin, tapping your cheek twice, “Think we’ll do one more for now.” Before you could say anything in return Lucy had picked up the vibrator and pressed it to your clit. You hissed as she turned it on low, your clit on the verge of being sensitive. It took less time for you to reach the edge again, a combination of the vibrator’s stimulation and how much you’d already endured. She waited until the last possible moment before she pulled the vibrator away, leaving you panting the word please as you tried to grind against thin air. “You’re done, for the moment at least. Might give you a few more before I let you go to sleep,” as she spoke Lucy stood and kicked off her pants and underwear, “But now it’s my turn. Here, hold this.” You took the vibrator from her, tempted to quickly use it on yourself, consequences be damned. Instead you waited. “Oh, good girl. You’re learning,” “Does that get me a reward?” Lucy laughed, “Bold. But yes, alright. It’s not the reward you want though, just a kiss,” she tapped your leg, indicating you should close them, and straddled your waist. You let her pull your arm into position, so the vibrator pressed against her pussy, and turned it on. She hummed as it came to life and brought her lips to yours. Each moan and whine she made was swallowed by you, the kiss only getting deeper and sloppier as she rocked her hips against the buzzing machine. It was close enough to your own skin that you could feel it’s pulsing, but nowhere near close enough to give you any real pleasure. Instead you had to be content with Lucy’s fingernails digging into your shoulder, her teeth scraping over your lip, her legs beginning to tremble as she hovered over you. Her lips parted from yours as she repeated the word yes over and over, her breaths gasped in between, culminating in a long moan as she hit her climax, shuddering through it. “Oh god,” she whined, grabbing your wrist to push the vibrator away. You turned it off as her head fell to your shoulder, still panting as she came down from her high. “You sure you don’t want to watch me cum like that?” “Positive,” she giggled into your shoulder. “Damn.” “Come on, we should get up, gotta finish tidying the kitchen and then I think it’s cheesy Christmas movie time.”

ONE DAY UNTIL CHRISTMAS

You weren’t entirely sure if the morning started off good or bad. On one hand, you woke up with Lucy’s fingers sliding through your slick folds. On the other, she edged you twice, resolutely sticking to her plan to keep you denied until Christmas. You considered that morning to be when she broke you. Of course, you’d played with denial before but for the most part it only lasted however long it took for Lucy to cum two or three times and then she’d take pity on you. The most you’d done was one day and that wasn’t even by design, just an accident while you’d been staying with your parents for a weekend. So the previous evening it had all seemed like a game, a joke even. Surely she was stringing you along. You’d not worried if you came across as bratty, confident that by the time you were hoping into bed she’d give in. Now though, after she’d sent you to sleep with another edge and then woken you up with two more…perhaps she was serious. You were rapidly losing confidence that it would end on Christmas Day, half convinced she was having too much fun to actually let you cum ever again. The idea that she was going to keep you wet and desperate for days rather than hours was scary and overwhelmingly erotic. Knowing that no matter how many times you asked, no matter if you got down on your knees and begged for it, she wasn’t going to give in, only made the need grow. When she was satisfied with the way you whined please she lay down and spread her own legs, telling you it was time you repaid her generosity. “Could have edged you more, kept going until you were so sensitive you were begging me to stop. But I didn’t. So how about you show me some gratitude,” Perhaps it was because a part of you hoped good behaviour would earn you a shorter punishment, or perhaps you just wanted something to take your mind off the way your clit was throbbing, but either way you were laying between her legs within seconds, without so much as a muttered comment about unfairness.

Despite the uncertain beginnings, Christmas Eve went well. The morning was spent decorating the gingerbread you’d made the previous day, a process just as sticky as the actual biscuit dough had been, especially since there was a small mishap with the red food colouring that left a stain on the benchtop. But eventually you had a decent selection of coloured icings set out in piping bags as well as decorative sprinkles and the like. You and Lucy let your artistic sides take over as you gave the gingerbread men faces and buttons and sometimes hats or scarves. Silver and gold balls adorned the trees like little baubles and Lucy used the sprinkles on a few of the hearts to spell out yours, Gwilym’s and her own initials. When you were done you carefully packed most of them away into a Tupperware box to keep them safe, though you picked out a few of the funnier looking ones to snack on while you watched another cheesy movie.

Halfway through the movie the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” you said, pushing yourself off the couch. Lucy’s hand had been wandering higher and higher up your thigh for the last few minutes and you had already begun to feel the heat in your cheeks rising. The phone call was a good excuse to calm down a little before she could have you begging again. “Hello?” you said into the receiver. “Y/N? Hi, it’s Gwilym.” “Oh! Gwil, hi! You’re not calling to cancel tomorrow are you?” you turned to lean against the wall as you spoke, watching Lucy as she watched you. “No, no, the opposite actually. Wanted to make sure you’re still okay to have me,” You held back a giggle at the unintentional double entendre although you gave Lucy a look, pumping your eyebrows, “of course we’re okay to have you,” “Excellent, really looking forward to it,” “So are we. It’s going to be fun,” Lucy laughed, and you had to cover the receiver so Gwilym wouldn’t hear you struggling not to join her. “I should have asked this when I saw you the other day but do you want me to bring anything?” “Oh um, I think we’re all good for lunch. We’ve got turkey and a few different sides. Plus a Christmas Pudding and we’ve just finished decorating some gingerbread biscuits. If you want you could bring another bottle of wine or two, or maybe some mince pies, but if you can’t be bothered don’t worry about it.” “Wine and pies, think I can handle that.” “Seriously, only if it’s no trouble. We’ve probably got way too much food and drink as is and you will definitely be leaving with some leftovers.” “What’s Christmas without plenty of leftovers? I’ll be happy to take as much as you want to part with, anything if it means I don’t have to cook or go grocery shopping for a few more days.” You did laugh at that. “Anyway, I should let you get back to whatever you were doing,” “Watching Christmas movies,” “I caught Love Actually on TV Last night, still holds up.” “So did we! Absolute classic,” Gwilym’s laugh crackled through the receiver, “Definitely a classic. Oh! Almost forgot, what time do you want me there?” “How about elevenish? Should give us time for a pre-lunch drink.” “Sounds great. Thanks again for inviting me, I’ll see you tomorrow,” “It’s our pleasure! See you then,” you hung up the phone and turned back to the couch, “Gwil just wanted to know if he should bring anything.” “Yeah I gathered,” You dropped back into your seat and Lucy’s hand went straight back to where it had been before you answered the phone, as if there was a magnet pulling her towards your thigh.

By the time the credits were rolling you’d lost track of which movie you’d been watching, too preoccupied with how badly you wanted to cum. “Please Lucy, please.” “Stop asking, it’s not going to happen.” “Can you at least fuck me properly? Keep edging me, I’ll be good and I won’t complain, but I need you to do more than rub my clit, please.” “You want me to finger you hard and fast? Or maybe you want to be fucked with my stap? Wanna feel me deep in your pretty little pussy? “Yes, please,” “You’re really desperate, aren’t you?” she sounded almost surprised by the turn of events. All you could do was nod your agreement, “C’mon Luce, please? You’ll have so much fun and I promise I’ll behave,” Lucy giggled, “I’m already having fun just knowing what a whiny little slut you’ve turned into. And as much as I’d enjoy fucking you, I’m not going to. I want Gwil to see how pathetic you are right now. Besides, you’re way too close and I don’t want to risk you going over.” You whined and let your head hit the back of the couch as Lucy laughed.

CHRISTMAS DAY

You woke before Lucy did, grogginess gone the second you realised what day it was. A glance at the clock told you it was just after 9.00. Carefully you slipped out of bed, pausing when Lucy made a snuffling sound, holding your breath as she snuggled deeper into the warm covers. Careful to skip the squeaky floorboard outside your bedroom door, you tiptoed from the room, thankful you’d had the foresight to slip a pair of socks on as you changed into your pyjamas the night before. As quietly as you could you made your way to the kitchen where the speaker was still set up and grabbed it. Then, just as quietly, you made your way back to the bedroom. With one eye on Lucy’s peaceful figure you set the speaker down and turned the volume up high. You were ready to run the second you hit play on the Christmas playlist, an entirely too loud rendition of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer suddenly filling the room. Lucy damn near screamed in shock, yelling your name as she sprang out of bed and chased you from the room. “Y/N you bitch! I’m so going to get you for that!” You were cackling as she chased you through the house into the living room, stopping with your arms outstretched when you ran out of escape routes. “Wait wait wait,” you said hurridly, almost needing to yell to be heard over the music. “Better say something good or I’m going to have to end you,” “I love you?” Lucy lunged forward and you took a step back, hitting the arm of the couch. On most days you would have been able to duck under her arms and continue running through the house but not today. Today your knees gave way as they hit the arm sending you toppling backwards onto the cushions. Before you could even think to roll off the couch Lucy took the opportunity the universe presented her with and climbed onto your lap, effectively pinning you down. You squealed as she began tickling you. “Luce, god stop, I’m gonna pee my pants,” “You deserve it! That was so mean!” “Bu- ah! - But I’ll ruin the couch,” She stopped suddenly, “Fair point,” You were still panting as you grinned up at her, “Merry Christmas, by the way,” “Merry Christmas,” She said, leaning forward to peck you on the lips. “You gonna let me up?” “Okay but you have to make tea,” “Sure, as long as I can go pee first. I was not joking about that.”

You were just bringing the tea out of the kitchen when Lucy, having turned down the music and brought the speakers out to the living room, called out to you from where she sat on the floor, “Hey, we should open our naughty presents before Gwil gets here,” “Ooo yes, definitely. Here, take this,” you handed her mug down to her, followed by your own mug, “you want some gingerbread?” “A heart please,” “So picky,” you shook your head but collected the requested biscuit anyway. When you returned and took your own seat Lucy handed you the box you’d examined two days previously. You pulled out the gift you’d wrapped for Lucy from the small pile and handed it over. Together you unwrapped your presents, wrapping paper flying as you tore into yours though Lucy was a little more careful. Your gift was a set of silky-smooth lingerie in Egyptian Blue. “Do you like it? I thought the colour would match your eyes,” You ran your fingers over the floaty babydoll, “It’s gorgeous, I love it,” Lucy broke out smiling as she finished unwrapping her own gift, “Well this is interesting,” she began pulling items out of the hamper you’d created, “A candle. Didn’t know you were interested in wax play.” “Not what I had in mind. Mostly just a mood setting thing, but I s’pose your idea could be interesting.” “What else have we got, hot rocks, massage oil,” “Actually, it’s a massage oil slash lube that heats as you rub it in.” “So this is for a sexy massage then,” “Mmmhmm. That’s also why there’s a bullet vibrator is in there.” “Does this mean I can expect you to treat me to a massage sometime?” “Absolutely. I’d say let’s do it right now if Gwil wasn’t coming over.” “Definitely don’t want to be interrupted,” Lucy leaned over to kiss you, “Thank you, it’s lovely and I can’t wait to try some of this stuff out. Maybe I’ll keep you denied until you show me how it all works.”

When Gwilym arrived the presents were safely shut away in the cupboard in your bedroom, the turkey was cooking, and you were on your second lemon, lime and bitters. You opened the door to find him wearing a dorky Christmas sweater and carrying two bottles of wine, a box of Mr Kipling’s Mince Pies, and two packages wrapped up in paper decorated with snowflakes. “Hello hello. Merry Christmas” Gwilym kissed you on the cheek, a few flakes of snow clinging to his beard. “Merry Christmas to you too! Let me take those off you,” you took the wine and led Gwilym through the house to the kitchen, “Can I get you a drink? We’ve got all sorts, bitters, gin, whisky, a bit of champers, some mulled wine going on the stove,” “I’ll start with some of the wine if that’s alright,” “Work your way up to the strong stuff?” “Precisely. Lucy, Merry Christmas,” “And to you Gwil,” she said as he dropped a kiss to her cheek too. “Where can I stick these?” “Presents? Gwil you didn’t have to,” “Oh hush, it’s Christmas, as if I wasn’t going to.” “Fair enough, well, I’ll take the pies, add them to the rest of our goodies. If you take the presents out to the living room, you’ll see where a couple already are. Give me a second to grab a drink and I’ll be out.”

You handed Gwilym his drink and led him out to the small tree, both of you taking a seat as you chatted. Before long Lucy joined you, drink in one hand, box of gingerbread biscuits in the other. As soon as she was seated you got stuck into the presents, torn wrapping paper and excited exclamations flying. The larger present from Lucy that you’d been caught trying to peek at turned out to be a new record player, and the one of Gwilym was a fancy notebook and fountain pen. Lucy loved the vintage hand mirror and set of blush and highlighters you got her, almost spilling your drink as she tackled you with a grateful kiss when she realised it was the mirror she’d seen in an antique store and regretted not buying. She’d gone back for it a week later and found it had been sold. “God I am so glad you finally know!” you laughed as she sat back down and examined it, “You kept going on about it but I’d already bought it and hidden it and I had to stop myself from laughing or spilling the secret every time you brought it up.” Gwilym bought her a book about fashion and style in the 1960s which, while it didn’t elicit quite the same response, was enough to earn him a bright smile and a tight hug. Finally, there was one present left. “That’s yours Gwil, from both of us,” Gwilym wasted no time in unwrapping it, dropping the paper to the ground as he looked at the cover, “Coupons?” “Look inside,” Your stomach felt tight with nerves and you glanced over at Lucy who was subtly shredding a scrap of wrapping paper. With a curious glance at both you and Lucy he began flicking through the pages, “One free hug, nice, a free meal. Do I have to use that to get lunch today?” “No, we’ll give you today free anyway, but you can come back and cash that in any time you like.” “Cheers,” he laughed and kept flicking though. You knew he’d reached the last page by how wide his eyes went. “Does this mean what I think it means?” “If you think it means Lucy and I are inviting you to sleep with us both then yes it does. Do you like it?” “Yes, Christ yes. Do I have to spend it today or is it like the meal one where I’m guaranteed a threesome because it’s Christmas?” “No, that one has to be cashed in I’m sorry.” “Then I’d like to cash it in now, please.” “Right now? You only have one, you sure you want to use it so soon?” Lucy asked. “Positive.” “Don’t want to save it for later tonight,” “Surely we’ll be too full and tipsy to move later,” “Good point.” “So, um,” he seemed a little unsure of how to progress, “how is this going to work?” “Just like sex normally does but there’s an extra person?” “More meant what are your limits and that sort of stuff, Luce” “Yeah I know, was pulling your leg.” She looked over at you as she spoke, “I mean, I think we’re both fine with most things. Nothing too BDSM-y or whatever but Y/N does tend to run more submissive.” You nodded, “Yeah, uh, I guess I like being told what to do, called names, stuff like that. My safeword is red just so you know, not that I think we’ll need it but, better safe than sorry.” Gwil nodded, “And,” his cheeks seemed a little more flushed than before, “this feels kinda weird to talk about but, how….uh, how involved do you want me to be?” “It’s your present Gwil, so as involved as you like.” Lucy seemed a lot more comfortable with the discussion, “ If you’d prefer to watch us that’s cool or if you wanted to fuck us both we’re into that too.” “Okay then, sounds good to me,” “Y/N, love, why don’t you go change into the thing you unwrapped this morning and wait for us in the bedroom. Got some other stuff I want to talk to Gwil about.” With a grin and a racing heart you scurried off to do just that, able to hear Gwil quietly asking what thing?

When you heard the doorknob turn you stood up, the soft material of the baby doll floating around the top of your thigh as you moved. “That’s pretty,” Gwilym said softly, stepping closer to you as Lucy followed him into the room and shut the door behind her, “suits you. Lucy’s got good taste.” “She told you she bought it for me?” “She told me a few interesting things. Like how you’re an impatient little brat who had to be put on denial to be taught a lesson.” Gone was the slightly uncomfortable Gwil from your discussion, now he was all confidence and control. It was a marked difference that made you clench your thighs together. “Oh, that,” “Yes, Gwil knows all about how I’ve been edging you for days now and how pathetically wet it’s made you. I also told him he now gets to choose if and when you cum today.” “What?” you were aghast. With Lucy you’d been maybe eighty-five percent sure she would be true to her word but with Gwil you had no idea what to expect. “That’s right. So you’re going to be a good girl for me, aren’t you?” “Yes,” you nodded emphatically to show how much you meant it making both Lucy and Gwilym laugh. “I told you she was desperate.” “Desperate enough to suck my cock?” Gwilym had spoken more to Lucy than you but you dropped to your knees all the same, beyond caring how eager you appeared or how much they’d mock you for it. “Christ,” Gwilym muttered under his breath and then, addressing you, “When was the last time you sucked dick?” “Umm, depends. I’ve sucked on Lucy’s strap a couple of times but the last time I did it with a real dick was before me and Luce got together, so over a year. But I got good feedback from him.” “You okay to do it now?” “Sure. Just like riding a bike….probably.” Gwilym laughed and waved his hand in a go on motion. From the corner of your eye you saw Lucy take a seat on the end of the bed, watching. You shuffled forwards on your knees until Gwilym was in easy reach, eyes trained on his belt as you undid it and then his zip. As you pushed his pants down his long legs, he pulled his sweater off over his head. “Thank god. Not sure I could have blown you properly while I was looking at Rudolf’s googly eyes.” “Sure you could have. Because if you don’t impress me you don’t cum. How’s that for incentive?” You almost whimpered as you pushed his underwear down, eyes going wide at what you were met with. He was bigger than you’d been expecting, certainly longer than you were used to. You started slow, grasping the base of his cock, and pumping your fist over him a few times before you began kitten licking around the head as you let instinct take over. You could feel your heart pounding against your chest, and took a deep breath, exhaling in a long stream, the air wafting over Gwilym’s cock. He hummed as you wrapped your lips around him, one hand dropping to rest on top of your head as you adjusted to the feeling. You began bobbing your head, slowly taking more of him in your mouth, stroking what you couldn’t reach. “Good girl,” he said, almost breathless, “look so good on your knees, eyes up.” You shifted your gaze to his face, and hollowed your cheeks, a soft groan his response. Being able to see and hear how much he was enjoying it made you feel bolder so you took him deeper still. You gagged. A string of saliva broke and dangled from your lip as you pulled back, gasping for air. “Sorry, you’re bigger than Lucy’s.” “Don’t apologise. I’m not expecting you to deepthroat me or anything like that.” “Am I doing good?” “Better than good, Y/N,” he groaned as you dragged your tongue down his length and then back up, sinking down onto him once more, “Feel incredible. And Lucy’s having fun too. She must like seeing you being a good little cock whore because she’s touching herself right now.” You whined around him and felt his hand tighten in your hair for a second. “She looks so hot like that. Pulled the top of her dress down so she can squeeze her tits, the skirt all bunched up around her waist. That’s it, just like that.” You tried to take him deeper again, squeezing your thumb in your fist and doing everything in your power to supress your gags. “Jesus, gonna make me cum so-“ he broke off with a gasp as you fondled his balls with your free hand, “oh fuck, soon, gonna cum soon.” Lucy moaned from where she was sat on the bed, as if to prove Gwilym had been speaking the truth about her. You squeezed your thighs together as best you could, needing any friction you could get as your own moan broke free. His fingers once again tightened in your hair, his hips bucking forward slightly with the stimulation, making you gag again. “Sorry, I’m-” he moaned as you picked up the pace, bobbing faster, “god, just like that. Y-you gonna be good and swal-low for me?” “You didn’t bother responding, just squeezed his balls a little as you sucked on his tip.” “Fuck, I’m cumming,” he groaned just before he released his load into your mouth. You kept sucking, making sure to get every drop before you let him go, sitting back on your heels as you caught your breath. “Show me,” You stuck out your tongue, earning his praise when he saw it was clean.

“What should we do with her next Luce?” Gwilym asked, towering over you. “Only seems fair that you get to watch her eat me out,” “That does sound fun. Alright, slut, up on the bed.” You hurried into place, kneeling before Lucy, waiting for her to lie back and get comfortable. She pulled you into a kiss for a moment, tongue sliding along your lip and then into your mouth. Gwilym quickly stepped out of his pants which had been pooled around his ankles and pulled off his shirt, settling himself at the end of the bed behind you. “Lie down,” Lucy said softly in your ear. It wasn’t what you expected but you were too far gone to argue. When you were settled Lucy quickly shimmied out of her dress and swung her leg over you, hovering over your mouth facing Gwilym. “Show us what a good slut you are, Y/N.” Your wrapped your hands around her thighs as she lowered herself onto your mouth, dragging your tongue along her pussy before latching onto her clit. For a moment they let you be, Lucy moaning as you slid your tongue into her entrance and she rocked her hips against you, but then you felt a light touch on your hips which made you squirm. Gwilym slowly dragged your underwear down your legs. “You weren’t joking about how wet she is, were you Luce,” he said, holding your underwear up so she could see the wet patch you’d left. The next thing you felt was his hands pushing your legs open and then his beard scratching against your skin as he lowered his lips to the inside of your thighs, sucking marks that made you whine. “Don’t cum,” he warned you before his mouth finally met your throbbing core. In that moment you were suddenly glad you had Lucy to focus on, sure you wouldn’t have lasted long without the distraction. Each time Gwilym made you moan Lucy was sure to moan too, grinding herself onto you with abandon. You let go of Lucy’s thigh, moving your fingers to her core, pumping them into her as best you could. “Wait Gwil, s-stop or she’ll go over,” Lucy said, tugging on his hair to pull him away from you. He retreated, once again giving his attention to your thighs as you whined in frustration. When you’d sufficiently calmed down Lucy gave the word, and he focused back in on your cunt, adding two of his long fingers to the mix. He avoided your clit for the most part, occasionally nudging it with his nose to keep you on your toes. You could feel Lucy’s legs beginning to tremble and tightened your grip, pulling your fingers free as you focused on her clit, her moans getting louder with each passing second. Gwilym left you again, shifting onto his knees as Lucy caught his attention. You could hear him talking to her softly, encouraging her to let go. She shuddered as she came, riding it out as Gwilym held her up. Finally she climbed off you, leaving you panting and squirming, trying to get Gwilym to finish you off.

“Don’t you look so pretty like this,” he said softly, stroking himself slowly, “you ready to be fucked, pretty girl?” “Please,” “Not yet. Don’t know if you’ve done enough to earn it yet.” “You could fuck me,” Lucy said, eyes glinting mischievously. “No, please, please, I need it. I need one of you to fuck me.” Both of them laughed as you sat up, still begging. “What if I fucked Lucy and made you watch and then we went and had lunch. What if we left you like this all day?” “That’s not fair,” you whined, “please, it’s Christmas, it’s a time for giving, please give me your cocks.” “Well,” Lucy said through a laugh, “can’t deny her logic. Alright, love, up on your hands and knees. Gwil’s gonna play with you while I get set up. The second you were in place Gwilym sunk three fingers into you, “There you go you needy slut, finally getting what you want.” He pushed his fingers into you a few time before he replaced them with his cock, making you mewl and fall forward on your arms. He held your hips tight as you adjusted to him but as soon as you indicated you were alright he began fucking into you, laying a few spanks to your arse just because he could. “You’re close already aren’t you?” “Yes, fuck, so close,” you whined, the days of denial catching up with you. “Cum for me then,” he dropped his fingers to your clit, which was all you needed to finally fall over the edge, crying out as you did. “God such a tight cunt,” he panted as you clenched around him. Yet he didn’t stop. Just held you tighter as he continued to pound you roughly. Barely recovered from your first, you could already feel the beginnings of a second orgasm starting to build in your gut. You gasped as another spank landed on you, surprised by it because Gwilym’s hands hadn’t moved. Lucy chuckled at your reaction and did it again. “Give me a go, Gwil,” His thrusts slowed and then he pulled out, shuffling to the side so Lucy could kneel behind you. “Turn over, love,” she said softly, tapping your thigh. You were happy to collapse on your back, sure your legs would have given out as soon as you came again. If you came again. God you hoped they’d let you cum again. Lucy leaned over to kiss you as she lined the dildo up and sank into you. “Good girl, taking both of us so well,” You whined at the change of position, Lucy leaning down to tug at your nipple with her teeth. Suddenly she let you go, gasping as Gwilym sank into her from behind. He paused for a moment, letting her adjust and then, when he was sure she was fine, he thrust harshly into her, pushing her deeper into you. There was nothing you could do but hold your legs up and moan, able to see Gwilym, holding Lucy’s hips and grunting as he ploughed into her. The sight only turned you on more, every one of his movements hitting you through Lucy, the feeling in your stomach only getting stronger. “Can I cum?” you panted, tugging on Lucy’s hair out of a need to do something with your hands. “Ho-hold it. Fuck Gwil just like that,” You whined, watching as Lucy’s eyes rolled into the back of her head. You used your grip on her hair to tilt her head, attaching your lips to her neck. “Yes, yes, yes, god don’t stop,” her eyes slipped shut. It didn’t take much more before she was moaning through her release, Gwilym grunting as he held back his own. As soon as he slipped out of her, he kneeled beside you. “Fuck her Luce.” His hand came down on her arse, jolting her into moving, “dirty slut wants to cum again.” “Please,” you whined as Lucy found her rhythm again. Gwilym snaked one hand between you and Lucy, rubbing your clit, “Cum for us Y/N,” You obeyed, thanking him through your moans. Lucy’s fingers were digging into your thighs as you rode out your orgasm, Gwil’s fingers still on your clit, until you became too sensitive and had to push him away. “Doesn’t she look so good right now Gwil?” Lucy asked as she carefully pulled out, “Leaking onto the sheets, face still covered in my cum. So fucking messy.” “Mmm, makes me wanna add to the mess.” Before you could register what he meant he was kneeling in front of your face, pulling your head up. Lucy moved behind you, holding you in place as he tapped his leaking tip onto your lips. You hummed as you were pushed down his length, Lucy controlling your pace, as you pressed your tongue to the underside of his cock, a few gags escaping, tears running down your cheeks. It didn’t take long, Gwilym’s groans getting longer as he got closer. He pushed you off him at the last moment, stroking himself until white ropes painted your tits. “Fuck you look like a such a mess,” “A hot mess though,” Lucy said, trailing her fingers through the splatters on your chest. She sucked them into her own mouth, swirling her tongue around her digits. When she was satisfied that they’d been thoroughly cleaned she leaned over you and kissed you again, a sticky white string connecting you when she pulled away. “Fuck,” Gwilym lay beside you, propping himself up on one elbow, eyes glued to your lips, the space Lucy had just inhabited, “Might be the best Christmas present I’ve ever got. Certainly the best I’m likely to get this year.” “Good,” Lucy said, standing and beginning to undo the strap around her waist, “I’m glad you liked it.” “Me too,” you smiled over at him, “It was fun.” “A lot of fun,” Lucy laughed, “Maybe we could be persuaded to give you another round later, after lunch. It is Christmas after all, and what’s Christmas if not a time to be generous?”

#my writing #lucy boynton x reader #gwilym lee x reader #lucy boynton x reader x gwilym lee #lucy boynton smut #gwilym lee smut #and my streak of writing threesomes for these events continues #this one was a lot of fun #although finding a photo of gwil and lucy together was so hard #tgic #tgic gift

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