#feeling at odds with myself - my desires up against my lack of drive

[redspex]

making art save me. save me making art. making art.

[triplexdoublex]

I’ll Try Anything At Least Once

Pairings: Colson x Reader 

Warnings/Tags:  Watersports/piss kink/wetting , omorashi/desperation, biting, praise kink

A/N: Here have another one of my older reworked fics while I finish up the other 3 fics i have going right now. I promise the next one will be brand new.

“Baby, you’ve barely touched your water,” Colson says from where he sits across from you at the table of your favorite casual restaurant, located in your local mall. You’re there celebrating your two-year anniversary.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right, it’s just that this steak is so damn good,” you say as you reach for your water glass. Colson watches intently as you take a large gulp, almost finishing the whole glass. “Guess, I was thirsty,” you laugh. “The food’s delicious, but it’s definitely salty.”

“Aye, after dinner, I was thinking we could go get you some new lingerie and I, uh… I kinda wanna try something new tonight.” He smiles as he refills your water glass from the small, glass pitcher on the table.

“Ooooh, like what?” you smirk. “You know I’ll try anything at least once.”

“You’ll see,” he teases. “Now drink up.”

You’re not sure what his current obsession with your water intake is, but you drink nonetheless. By the time the waitress returns to see if you would like dessert, you’ve finished your second glass. Colson immediately refills it as you look over the dessert menus.

“Colson, what the hell is up with you and the water tonight?” you ask, perplexed by this odd behavior. “For God’s sake, I’m about to piss myself.”

He digs his teeth into his bottom lip, his  blonde eyelashes fluttering closed briefly at your words.

“Maybe that’s the point,” he speaks, his voice low and lust-filled.

“Colson, you can’t be serious,” you practically laugh, taken aback.

“I am,” he admits with blushing cheeks, “but if you’re not into it, just forget I said anything, alright?” he states, sounding slightly defensive.

“Hey… no, look, I’m sorry,” you apologize as you reach out to stroke his arm. “You just took me by surprise, that’s all. I meant what I said earlier; I’ll really try anything at least once.” You smile apologetically and can’t help but to be intrigued by his kink.

You decide to forego dessert and make your way to the lingerie store where Colson picks out a simple, yet sexy, silky, white bra and panty set with lace detail.

“These are gonna look so good on you when they’re all soaked and clinging to your pussy,” he whispers seductively in your ear from behind you, placing them in your hand. You never thought you’d be into this kind of thing, and maybe it’s just the lust in Colson’s voice or the three cups of water weighing heavy in your bladder right now, but something deep in your pelvis stirs at his words.

Colson stays close behind you as you head to the cashier. The line is long, as it always is when the holidays are near, and the need to use the bathroom is getting stronger with each passing minute. Shifting your weight from one foot to the other, you sway your hips in desperation, trying to resist the urge to physically hold yourself in public. Suddenly you feel Colson’s hand on your hips, stilling their movements.

“Baby, you’re killing me right now,” he says softly, digging his chin into your shoulder from behind you. “Feel what your little dance is doing to me?” he breathes in your ear, discreetly pressing his clothed erection against your backside.

“Colson!” you warn, reaching for the various lotions and body sprays that line checkout area, smelling them to distract yourself and ultimately picking out a few to purchase.

When it’s finally your turn to check out, you place your items down and brace yourself with your hands on the counter, crossing your legs at the ankles and squeezing your thighs together, effectively holding back the stream threatening to run down your legs.

After the transaction is complete, Colson takes the bag, strategically carrying it in front of himself. “Let’s head to the bathroom,” he suggests as you exit the store, heading back into the mall.

You’ve never felt more relieved to hear those words, but the feeling is short lived. Once inside the single stall family restroom, you begin frantically pulling down your panties as you make your way to the toilet, but Colson stops you.

“Unh-uh, that’s not what we’re here for,” he teases with a smirk, stepping between you and your destination, palm pressed against your shoulder.

“Colson, please!” you plead, clutching at your bare crotch, panties halfway down your thighs.

“No,” he answers sternly, “but feel free to keep begging. I love how needy and desperate you sound,” he says huskily. “You’re doing so good for me, baby.”

“Then why are we here?” you groan, beginning to pull your panties back up.

“Aye, not so fast,” Colson places his hand on the crotch of your panties, stopping you from pulling them back up. “Baby, these are all wet,” he says, caught off guard by his accidental findings. “It better not be…” he pauses, trailing his hand up your inner thigh and discovering your slick folds. “Mmmmm, good girl. You like holding yourself for me, don’t you?” he teases, bringing his fingers to his mouth, licking them clean.

“Maybe,” you smirk with blushing cheeks, unable to tell where the pressure of your full bladder stops and the pooling sexual desire in your abdomen begins, the two sensations mingling as one. Colson smiles, reaching into the pink striped bag of your purchases and pulling out the matching bra and panty set he bought you.

“Here put these on,” he says, tossing them to you. “That’s why I brought you in here.”

“Now?” you question. “Why don’t we just wait until we get home?”

“Cuz when we get home, I just wanna take them off you… after you wet them for me, that is.” 

You do as you’re told, stripping out of your current undergarments and replacing them with the new ones as Colson watches intently, resting against the wall.

“You should help me with this while we’re in here too,” he teases, cupping his obvious erection, showing off the large outline through his jeans.

You squat down in front of him, not wanting to kneel on the public restroom floor, the positioning making you all the more desperate for relief. Colson unzips his jeans and you tug them down to mid-thigh, followed by his boxers, his bare ass pressed against the cold tile wall.

With one hand on the back of your head and the other grasping his length, he guides himself into your mouth. You bob over his length half-assed and sloppily, too focused on clenching your muscles trying not to pee. Colson notices your lack of skill at the moment, taking over and pumping himself, but he doesn’t mind. The sight of you squatting and squirming, hand pressed firmly to your core is enough to bring him close to the edge.

Assisting the best you can, you lick and suck on the head of Colson’s length as he strokes himself, occasionally slapping the tip against your tongue. The fullness of your bladder is becoming close to unbearable, and you let out a muffled, high-pitched whine as a strong urge to release washes over you, causing you to clutch yourself with both hands. The sound and sight is enough to send Colson over the edge.

“F-fuck, I’m gonna c-cum,” he chokes out in a barely audible, throaty moan as he guides his length to the back of your tongue, spilling down your throat. You do your best to swallow every drop, running the tip of your tongue over his slit, making him shudder before pulling him from your mouth completely.

“Listen, I’m all for pissing myself for you baby, really I am, but I’d rather it not happen by accident in public, so if we could head home now, that would be great,” you practically beg as you throw your dress back on.

“Oh, you’re no fun.,” he teases, doing a slight jump to get his skinny jeans back up over his ass and zipping them.

“Colson, please!” you plead, bouncing in desperation.

“Kidding, kidding,” he laughs. “Let’s go before you make me hard again.”

***********************************

“Are you doing that on purpose?” you ask, ripping your seatbelt off on the way home.

“Doin’ what?” he asks, feigning innocence.

“Hitting every damn pothole so my seatbelt squeezes my bladder!”

“Maybe,” he laughs, “But come on, baby, put your seatbelt back on. I’ll stop. I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he says seriously, reaching across your body to grab the belt, one hand on the steering wheel.

“Fine,” you answer, taking the belt from his hand and buckling yourself back in, all while giving Colson a warning eye.

He keeps his word but the ride seems to last forever, and you don’t know how much longer you can hold it. You spend the rest of the drive with your hands squeezed tightly between your shaking legs, and your head leaned back on the headrest with eyes clenched tight.

“Baby, we’re home,” Colson says, lightly grazing his hand over your lower abdomen, breaking you from your concentration. You moan at his touch, the light pressure causing you to feel like you’re about to piss or cum, you can’t distinguish which. Colson helps you out of the car and into the house.

“Baby please, I can’t hold it any longer,” you beg the second you’re through the front door.

“Fine,” Colson says, quickly pulling your black dress up and over your head, tossing it to the floor and throwing your lingerie clad body over his shoulder.

“Colson!” you shriek, the pressure from his shoulder against your bladder forcing a trickle to run down his chest and darken a large spot on his heathered grey shirt.

“Mmmm, baby,” Colson moans at the warm sensation. “Come on, we’re almost there, you can hold it. You’re doing so good,” he praises, as he carries you up the stairs. You’re not exactly sure what his plan is, but you assumed whatever he had planned for this would take place in the bathroom, so you’re more than surprised when he carries you to the bedroom and tosses you down on the sheets of your unmade bed.

“Colson, I told you I can’t hold it anymore,” you plead, laying on your back with your knees tightly pressed together.

“I know… go,” he smirks, palming himself through his jeans.

“Here?! b-but the bed…” you exclaim, sitting up suddenly, grabbing at the sheets on either side of you.

“Don’t worry about the bed baby, we got one of those mattress protectors when we bought the mattress and I’ll take care of the sheets myself,” he promises. “Now, come on baby, wet for me,” he begs, as he pushes your panties to the side, inserting two fingers.

“Colson, fuck,” you whimper as his fingers curls upwards inside of you, forcing small spurts of urine out.

“Come on, more baby, let it all go,” he says, pulling his fingers from you, licking the wetness that’s gathered on them as he pulls his length from his jeans with his free hand and begins pumping himself.

You close your eyes and relax your bladder expecting a large gush, but only an agonizingly slow stream starts to flow due to the pressure in your overfull bladder. Colson strokes himself, watching and praising you with half-lidded eyes as what’s left of the dry spots on your white panties turn wet and translucent, clinging to the contours of your folds.

After a few moments, the pressure lessens and the flow picks up into a gush, flowing through the white fabric of your panties in a stream, soaking the bed around you. The relief is almost orgasmic, causing you to moan and whimper as your bladder finishes emptying.

“Fuck, that’s so hot. So good for me baby,” Colson praises when you finish, his eyes glazed over by lust in a way you’ve never seen them before.

He turns you over onto your hands and knees, moaning as he runs his hands over the wet fabric, admiring how they cling to your backside before pushing them to the side and entering you quickly. Guttural moans of your name form in his throat as he harshly grips your hips, slamming into you at a relentless pace. The wetness of your panties transfers to the skin of his pelvis with every thrust. He takes notice, gliding his hand over the moisture on his skin.

“Oh, shit!” he cries out, driven insane with pleasure at the feeling and picking up the pace, fucking you harder than he ever has in the two years you’ve been together.

“Yeah, baby, just like that. Fuck me, fuck, me!” you chant, loving his new-found intensity. He continues thrusting at a fast pace, sounds of colliding wet skin echoing throughout the room.

“Oh God, Colson, fuck,” you cry out, gripping the sheets as orgasm nears.

Leaning over your back, Colson reaches around to your clit, rubbing fast-paced circles through your soaked panties. Kissing roughly along the width of your shoulders, he sinks his perfect teeth into the crook of your neck, hard enough to leave marks as he cums. You bounce back on his length as he rides out his orgasm with slow, hard thrusts, achieving your climax moments later which jolts through you like lightning.

“Oh fuck!” you scream as your arms weaken, your face sinking into the pillow.

Colson sings your praises of how amazing you did for him as he peppers your back with gentle kisses before pulling out. You roll to the dry side of the bed and Colson collapses on top of you, the both of you out of breath.

“Oh God, baby, thank you.” Colson expresses his gratitude as he kisses your neck. “You have no idea how much that got me going.”

“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea.” you tease. “Let’s just say we will definitely be doing this again.

[padawanlost]

So I was on Quora the other day, and someone speculated that insecurity was at the root of Anakin's arrogance and apparent cockiness. I thought this through and it makes so much sense. He felt insecure in his place as a Jedi and had this constant need to prove himself. What's your take?

Personally, I’ve never seen Anakin as arrogant. I think he was *perceived* as arrogant by the people around him but, internally, Anakin was also driven by insecurity (not egotism).

Because he was so insecure in a place where he knew he wasn’t accepted as he was, he overcompensated. It’s a very common behavior: I’ll try harder to prove myself. And because he was so powerful, his attempt to prove himself worthy was viewed as an attempt to show off.

The Jedi Council didn’t want me, either. Being the Chosen One didn’t count for anything. Master Yoda wouldn’t train me, or Windu. Every member of the Jedi Council had had something more pressing to do than help him work out what this terrible, galaxy-changing power of his meant, and how he should live in its shadow. He still wasn’t sure. Anakin recalled standing there in that grand, polished Jedi Council Chamber, surrounded by what felt like fear, and disdain, and bewilderment—who were those Masters to feel bewildered, that the only person there who cared if he lived or died was Master Qui-Gon Jinn. And they stopped him training the Chosen One. Qui-Gon hadn’t cared what the Jedi Council said. He’d trained him anyway, a Padawan in all but name. Why am I thinking of all this now? Haven’t I put it behind me? Haven’t I had enough bad memories since then to take their place? Haven’t I vindicated Master Qui-Gon? [Karen Traviss. The Clone Wars]

Anakin enjoyed praise from Obi-Wan, but often became sullen when he was reprimanded. Obi-Wan assured him that he himself had been frequently reminded by Qui-Gon to be more mindful of the Force, but somehow even the slightest criticism managed to leave Anakin feeling stung. First they tell me to do my best, then they tell me I’ve gone too far! ANAKIN SKYWALKER IN THE RISE AND FALL OF DARTH VADER BY RYDER WINDHAM

Because Anakin had not been trained since infancy at the Temple like nearly all other Padawans, various Jedi Masters accepted the fact that he lacked the discipline of his fellow students. They were less accepting, however, of his arrogant behavior when he demonstrated his abilities. I’m more powerful with the Force than some of my instructors, Anakin thought, and they know it! ANAKIN SKYWALKER IN THE RISE AND FALL OF DARTH VADER BY RYDER WINDHAM

Despite Anakin’s desire to distance himself from the slave he had once been, he was unable, or unwilling, to shed the other aspects that had defined him on Tatooine. He still dreamed of glory, still craved adventure, and never lost his appetite for high-speed thrills and the desire to prove himself in competition. THE RISE AND FALL OF DARTH VADER BY RYDER WINDHAM

What evidence to we truly have that Anakin was arrogance beyond people calling him that? And considering most of his peers and superiors didn’t take much time to get to truly know him, I’d say their option can be considered biased:

Anakin was liked by the other students, but he had no close friends. He was not loved. Obi-Wan told himself that Anakin’s gifts naturally set him apart. But in his heart, he grieved for Anakin’s loneliness. JUDE WATSON [JEDI QUEST: THE WAY OF THE APPRENTICE]

Just when Anakin thought he’d passed that elusive finishing line that said adult, experienced, seen it all, he realized he was still twenty, Jedi or not, and the wounded boy in him still rose to the surface—provoked into angry violence, scared of abandonment, and still in need of approval. KAREN TRAVISS [STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS NOVELIZATION]

[Obi-Wan] knew, glancing at his Padawan’s eager face, that Anakin meant well from the bottom of his heart. If Obi-Wan saw a shadow on that heart, he knew it would pain his Padawan to know it. In many ways, Anakin was still a boy. A wounded, loving, anxious boy with great gifts he did not fully understand. Yet he was also a young man, close to maturity, who could do great harm. To others, yes. To himself, most of all JUDE WATSON [JEDI QUEST: THE SCHOOL OF FEAR]

“I just…” Anakin stopped. He took a ragged breath. “I thought you would be proud of me.” I am proud of you. Obi-Wan wanted to say the words. They were true. He was proud of so much in Anakin. But now was not the time to tell him that. Or was it? JUDE WATSON [JEDI QUEST: THE SCHOOL OF FEAR]

Fixing broken machines was like a meditation. Fixing broken machines was an antidote to every pain, every loss, every fear, every defeat. Fixing broken machines kept him from going mad. CLONE WARS GAMBIT: STEALTH

This doesn’t sound like some who thinks that highly of himself.

 “Master…,” he said hesitantly, “I know I’ve… disappointed you in these past few days. I have been arrogant. I have… not been very appreciative of your training, and what’s worse, of your friendship. I offer no excuse, Master. My frustration with the Council… I know that none of it is your fault, and I apologize. For all of it. Your friendship means everything to me.”

Interestingly enough, Obi-wan says it best:

You are very observant, Ferus, but you must accept that I know him better than you,” Obi-Wan said carefully. “Anakin can be arrogant. I know that. But he is also learning and growing. He is respectful of his great power. He does not abuse it. He is younger than you, but he has seen much injustice, many terrible things. I do not think it so wrong that he wants to change things. You must understand that it isn’t ambition that drives him. It is compassion. OBI-WAN KENOBI IN STAR WARS – JEDI QUEST: THE CHANGING OF THE GUARD BY JUDE WATSON

Yes. Anakin can act arrogantly. We all can. It’s part of being human and flawed. but that doesn’t mean that was ALL Anakin was. More often than not, Anakin was motivated by fear, love, kindess and, yes, even hate.

Taking them, she looked up at him and shook her head, even though it still ached. “It’s odd. You’re nothing like I expected.” “Why?” he said, perching on the edge of the nearby chair. “What did you expect?” “I don’t know,” she said, floundering. “I can’t say I’ve ever given the Jedi much thought. I mean, not as individuals. I never expected to meet one—let alone two. I don’t tend to go places where your skills are needed. But—well—you’re gentle.” That made him smile. “As opposed to what?” She swallowed the pain-tabs, washing them down with a mouthful of water. “Oh. You know. The HoloNet news—it portrays as you as this—this—heroic warrior. Larger than life. Charging into battle, lightsaber flashing. Scourge of the Separatists. That kind of thing.” She shrugged. [Karen Miller. Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

Because of Hayden’s Anakin being do disliked and, of course, because of the TCW wonky characterization everyday we are seeing more and more people embracing the idea of arrogant idiot Anakin. even if such characterization is not supported by the movies, the lore and basic common sense.

People use Obi-wan’s words in AOTC against Anakin but the truth is, as shown above, Obi-wan himself later recognizes that Anakin is not arrogant (even if he sometimes act that away). Besides, using AOTC to show Anakin’s arrogance doesn’t make much sense because of Hayden’s acting. Anakin doesn’t act like some arrogant prick for most of the movie. if anything, AOTC is a great of example of Anakin’s submissive and insecure behavior.

At last, let’s not forget that the same people calling Anakin arrogant were also facing the same criticism:

“But he still has much to learn, Master,” Obi-Wan explained. “His skills have made him … well, arrogant.” “Yes, yes,” Yoda agreed. “It’s a flaw more and more common among Jedi. Too sure of themselves, they are. Even the older, more experienced Jedi.” [R.A. Salvatore. Attack of the Clones]

People seem to forget that Anakin was in his early 20s when he ‘died’. Show me a teenager or a young adult who’ve never acted arrogantly and i’ll show you a liar. So why is Anakin the only one getting shit for that?

So, yeah, i agree. Anakin wasn’t motivated by arrogance. He was motivated by fear and insecurity, byproducts of his childhood trauma and years of grooming and emotional neglect.

[skellebonez]

It's MY birthday and if as a gift from me to myself I get to go "hey @strange-lace and @ninja-knox-ur-sox-off you inspired this" then I GET TO DO THAT! You both know what you did with Spider Monkie AU. The fact that I was given VenomPeach by Lace and I am posting VenomPeach that I've been working on for a few days is just. Very amusing to me right now.

Spider Queen didn’t know if she was still an evil genius… or if she had just played herself like a 10 yuan kazoo.

What she did know was that she was on Mount Huaguao. In a forest. With Sun Wukong.

Who was very shirtless.

And pulling trees out of the ground with his sheer strength.

When she'd heard the odd noises that she now recognized as the creaking of tree roots being ripped up she was far too curious not to investigate. After all, this was Mount Huaguo. Whatever it was that was making that sound had to be something that Sun Wukong himself could handle.

She just hadn't expected it to be Sun Wukong making it.

Now she stood at the edge of what was clearly a carefully planned out clearing, an almost perfect circle with am opening to a rough but well loved dirt pathway that lead to the beach entrance that MK and his friends usually took to arrive.

"What’s all this?" She finally asked, stepping out from between the trees and slightly startling the Monkey King in the process. "It's not exactly time for spring cleaning."

"Queenie!" Wukong said, tossing the tree he was currently holding over his shoulder like it was as light as a twig. The motion made a shiver run down Spider Queen's spine, but she wasn't sure if that was because it was horrifying to revel in such sheer strength or just... incredible to behold (it was the later most certainly). "How are you feeling? Did your walk go alright?"

The question brought a smile to her face, the softness and earnestness in which he asked if making it equally soft on her lips. He was so... attentive to her. Not being overly intrusive in checking in on her or pushing her to take it easy with her healing burn scars or her weakened legs after everything that has happened, but also making sure to know if she ever needed anything whenever he could.

How she never realized how much care this immortal being was hiding behind all his bravado for all those centuries she may never know.

"It did, right up until I heard the strangest noise," she said, nodding her head down to the ground. "And it looks like I found my source. Again, what's all this?"

“UH, it’s for you?” Wukong said with a chuckle, gesturing to the field he’d made with his... arms. Very strong arms. All six of them.

Hence the lack of shirt. They don't really make those for people with six arms and any they made would just take far too long to put on.

Spider Queen could only look at him in confusion, one brow raised as she took in the flatter landscape before them.

“... thank you?” She attempted, sounding just as confused as she felt. “But I don’t know what I’d need an empty field for.”

“Well it isn’t exactly... you know, done yet,” the tall spider-monkey hybrid said with a laugh that was as bright as the sun shining off the metal on his outfit. “I built my house myself, actually. And it’s pretty small. Barely fits the two of us, really, with all the monkeys and I know you get lonely and I was thinking I could... build somewhere for your spider crew to actually stay?”

"What?" Spider Queen froze in her assessment of the field, head snapping back over and up at the other in surprise.

"The lab and stuff we have here already is great, but there's nowhere for them to stay and they just keep coming here every day and that takes a lot of time and fuel. And they can't stay at everyone else's places forever!" Wukong said with a laugh, somehow both light and bright and deep and hearty at the same time. "Well. Huntsman probably could stay at Sandy's forever, given the right incentive, but I know he misses spending as much time with you as he used to. Syntax is driving Pigsy and Tang up the wall with his experimenting, tough, and Goliath..."

The Monkey King paused himself, shrugging a bit.

"He really likes it here. And I'm pretty sure some of my court took a liking to him when he last visited. I can't say no to the guy, he's a sweetheart."

"Heh, I had trouble saying no to him too," Spider Queen admitted with a flush of her cheeks.

Truth be told... she missed her trio pretty bad some days. Ever since they'd lost their home in the lair, partly due to the Lady Bone Demon and partly due to bad memories that it brought up now, they'd been scattered a bit more than she would have liked. There was plenty of space on the island, but it wasn’t hers to give to them. It had been generous enough for Wukong to give her a place to stay and offer them free passage onto the island whenever they desired to see them, but he was right.

His house was far too small for the two of them and her trio.

Even if they now freed up some space by... sharing... sleeping quarters.

Spider Queen flushed a deeper color at that thought, still getting used to the fact that she and the man who had once been her greatest enemy now slept in the same room. On opposite sides of the same room but still.

She flushed deeper when she realized she had been staring at him and he was looking at her with an odd flush to his own cheeks.

"Well!" She cleared her throat, gesturing to the field as she stepped further into it to survey the Monkey King's hard work. "We should get planning then. Goliath is certain to want a little place to watch the nature outside, Huntsman will want someplace quiet and probably sound proof so he can sleep properly Syntax, and Syntax will want a smaller laboratory so he could take his work with him..."

Spider Queen trailed off, not noticing that as she started pacing that Wukong was watching her with a soft smile on his face.

That is, until she almost tripped on an upturned root and she found herself caught in all six of those arms she had been watching before she face planted into the ground.

"Maybe it's a bit too dangerous for pacing around as you think," he said as she was pulled against his chest. He was soft against her back, and despite the added hulk due to his transformation that softness was not all fur, voice rumbling through her as he held her protectively close. "Even if you look really cute when you do that..."

The last bit had been muttered so softly that she was certain that he hadn't realized she could hear him.

Before she could react she was airborne, carefully but skillfully tossed up on that she would land to sit on his shoulder with a hand held firmly around (around!) her waist to keep her safely seated.

"Besides, you can get a better vantage point from up here."

And indeed she could.

She could also hide the raging blush overtaking her face that almost made her stutter her words out as she went over the ideas she had for her family's new home.

Home...

She couldn't help but smile at the sound of that.

[wouldduskwood]

Jake's POV 18+ Descendants of Despair Part 5

Contains Smut not suitable for those under 18. Read up to part 52 to know what happens prior to this.

Entering the room, I set about checking my laptop to ensure our safety. I didn't like not having my full set up but one night of comfort was very much in need right now. I checked for any odd notifications. and as I worked, she had a quick look around and then went through to the small bathroom and switched the shower on. Once I knew we were in no immediate danger, I locked the door and closed the curtains, switching a lamp on as I did, trying to create some level of ambiance and privacy. As the steam started fogging the bathroom, I opened the door and watched her in her glorious, naked beauty. She hadn't noticed me arrive which was either a good thing, in that she was so accustomed to my presence, or a bad thing if she was so stressed she didn't notice me. She was about to hop in when I appeared behind her, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing her neck.

“You weren’t going to start without me, were you?” I whispered in her ear. She relaxed against me with a sigh, her body feeling heavy.

“Hey now, it’s okay. I’m here. We will get through this,” I murmured, noticing her tension and turning her to face me, my thumb resting under her chin forcing her eyes to mine. I wanted her to see how sincere I was.

“Just, stay with me?” she asked quietly. I nodded and pressed my lips softly against hers, then stepped back and pulled my hoodie off in one smooth motion. My pants quickly followed and I took her hand and led her into the shower cubicle, shutting the door behind us. As the water fell onto her, it made her hair into a wild mane and her skin shone so beautifully.

“You know, you are so incredibly beautiful,” I murmured, absolutely smitten with her as my hand traced down her cheek and jaw, moving her hair away as I did. She ran her hands over my chest and down my abdomen. Her loving caress made me shiver as her fingers teased my naked flesh. My fingers brushed lightly against her supple lips, causing her to part them at my touch. As my fingers moved to her cheek, I bent down towards her and replaced them with my lips, keeping them soft and light. My tongue moved between her already parted lips, which she accepted and greeted with her tongue. I was quickly spiraling into an intensely loving need for her. She pressed herself closer to me, moving her arms so they were behind my neck. This type of need was so different to me. Where our last time had been passionate, burning and lustful...this time it was vulnerability, softness and genuine displays of love and affection that I'd never had before. I marveled at how enjoyable it was, in an entirely different way that the enjoyment had been last time but no less because of that.

We allowed the water to pour over us as we embraced and kissed. I was getting so lost in just being with her. She drew into me, further as she appeared to melt into the gentle caress of my fingers and lips. As she pressed her hips closer to mine, I was suddenly very aware of just how much I was enjoying her touch. My cock was already straining to be touched. I paused and moved my lips away from hers, causing her to moan weakly in response. To my pleasure, she tried to push herself closer to me once more. “The water is running cool. It won’t be long before it is freezing cold. Let’s make use of the other facilities this room has to offer instead?” I murmured quietly, chuckling at her response. Though I so wanted to stay locked in her embrace, I didn't want her getting sick. “Okay,” she pouted in such a cute way that I had to chuckle quietly again as I switched off the shower and hopped out. Before she could follow, I unfolded a towel and had it ready to greet her. As she emerged, I caught her in the towel, grinning as I held her to me. Standing in my arms with her own pinned by the towel, she struggled to kiss me once more. I relented and met her lips softly once more before letting her go to dry off.

Once we were both semi dry, I led her out to the main part of our room. Smiling, I placed an arm around her back then used my other arm to grab her knees, lifting her into a cradle carry. I looked her in the eyes as I carried her to the bed and laid her gently on top. Lying beside her, I turned to face her and kissed her gently once more. She was still uneasy and seemed flighty. “What will make you forget all the bad things?” I asked, my voice soft and low in an attempt to soothe her. “Touch me,” she pleaded. “I feel wired and my skin feels like it is crawling.” Her admission was another step in the right direction for us, and also meant I was getting good at noticing her needs. I smiled and brushed my lips against hers once again. “It would be my absolute pleasure,” I murmured with meaning, my lips still close enough that they brushed hers with every word he said. The gentle pressure on my lips was strangely intoxicating, sending pleasure signals through my body.

She lay back against the pillow, moving an arm over her eyes. I moved slowly, kissing from her lips, over her chin and down her neck. My fingers caressed her abdomen, causing her to squirm. I began caressing her skin with my lips and my breath, moving over her breasts and down her abdomen then back up again, avoiding her nipples. With every touch, she gasped, which fascinated me. As I kissed my way up her body once more, I breathed onto one of her nipples then, teasingly, let my tongue trace around it, causing her to writhe and moan in anticipation. I lifted my head and smiled at her before kissing around and over her nipples then back down her body and alternating between each thigh. There was so much joy in driving her wild with desire.

As my kisses reached her knees I began kissing back up her inner thighs until my breath was close enough to her pussy that she could feel it. This very action had her bucking her hips in a mixture of pleasure and frustration. Her absolute desire seemed to have taken away the discomfort she had felt earlier. Now she was entirely focused on pleasure. “Jake,” she breathed as I kissed her pussy with the gentlest pressure, then lifted my head and grinned smugly at her once more. I loved hearing her pleas.

She groaned and grabbed my hair with her hands, pulling at it lightly. This new sensation was insanely erotic and had me moaning in response. I couldn't stop myself, as I buried my face into her wet pussy. As the pressure of my mouth intensified, an orgasm that must have been slowly building reached a peak and slowly rolled through her whole body, causing her to arch her back and press her hips closer to my mouth. I moaned once again. As her pussy contracted around my mouth, I began greedily lapping at her juices. Finally, as her orgasm slowly eased, my licking slowed and I returned to gentle and loving kisses once more.

As my lips trailed back up her body, I pressed myself against her. My cock was stiff against her leg. “Please..” she begged.

“Yes?” I murmured quietly and joyfully.

“Please take me,” she pleaded.

I didn’t need to be asked twice as I pressed myself closer to her body, my cock resting against the entrance to her pussy. I thrust in slowly, enjoying the sensation of her pussy clasping around me and her hips bucking to meet mine. I moved slowly, pressing deep into her, my body remaining close and my eyes remaining locked on mine. With each heavy and slow thrust, the pleasure was building so slowly it was overwhelming. My mouth met hers then nibbled at her chin as I continued to massage her pussy with my cock. It was a fascinating mixture of intense pleasure and joy as I denied myself an easy release. Finally, I couldn't hold back any longer and I pulled my head back and thrust deeper and quicker, releasing my load inside her as she came around my cock. The pressure and tightness of her contracting pussy around my orgasming cock was almost overbearing. As I finished, I chuckled quietly to myself. “I’m strangely out of breath,” I snickered and collapsed into her arms, kissing her joyfully.

As I lay close to her, I was shocked in myself. For so long I had been just the hacker. The hacker that took whatever I wanted when I wanted it. I loved that I could be that self with her and she still loved and trusted me, but even more than that I loved that I could be gentle, deny myself instant gratification so we could share it together. She was making me...for lack of better words...human again. Completely and utterly her human...but human none the less.

Part 53

[lizzy-frizzle]

I’m going to start this by saying, I have bias. Everyone does. I do not intend for this to come off as “the thing you like is bad”, but moreso “the corporation that controls the thing you like is manipulative”.

My background; I am a 26 year old trans mom, I have a history with addiction, particularly gambling, and spend most of my time playing video games. I have gone to college for about 3 years for my psychology degree, and while I do not have my degree, I have been studying psychology for roughly 12 years. This is to say, my views will reflect this background. Just because I present this information like I do, does not inherently mean I’m right, though it also doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Try to view things with a critical mind, and know that most topics have nuance.

Ok, so lootboxes, booster packs, gacha games, all of these are gambling. This is not really an argument. You are putting money into a service of sorts, and receiving a randomized result. Be that a fancy new gun, that same boring legendary you have 5 of, or that final hero you’ve been trying to collect. You don’t know the outcome before you give your money. As defined by the merriam-webster dictionary: “Gambling; the practice of risking money or other stakes in a game or bet”

You are risking your money in not getting an item you want. There are ways this is handled acceptably, and ways this is handled poorly. Gambling is also illegal to people under 21 in a lot of places, but places online aren’t quick to tell you why. I don’t have any sources because every source requires a paywall to get any information, but pulling from my own personal experience and what I learned in college, it’s because children are very impressionable. I say “I like pokemon” and suddenly my 2-year old can’t go anywhere without her pikachu. I remember distinctly playing poker with my mom and her friends when I was 12. When you normalize gambling, what it does is lower the risk aversion of gambling. You are less likely to see a threat in playing that card game, because when you are that young you have no concept of money. You don’t know what a dollar is, so why not throw it away so you can have fun. This is...I hesitate to call it fine, but it’s mostly harmless. The issue is with children and their lack of knowledge of money. When I grew up and got a job, it’s a lot harder to tell my brain, “hey, don’t spend that money, you won’t get it back and you won’t get what you want.” Because my brain just acknowledges the potential for what I want. I want to buy the booster pack so I can have the potential to get that masterpiece misty rainforest. I want to buy that diamond pack so I have the chance to get the cute hero. I want to buy that lootbox so I can get the battle rifle that does a cool effect. These are harmless concepts, but very dangerous.

Make no mistake, companies know how psychology works, and will use it to their advantage. MatPat from game theory states that companies have even go so far as to have systems in place that change the odds as you’re losing, and monitor your skill level to put you up against harder opponents, to see the better weapons and go, “Oh I want that!” and entice you to buy more lootboxes. As it turns out I found an article covering what he was talking about, Activision had actually acquired a patent to arrange matchmaking to do just that [x], and the article says it’s not in place, but my trust in companies is not high enough to actually believe them.(honestly, matpat made a 2-part video series about lootboxes, and I’d recommend watching them)

So, companies are trying to manipulate you to buy more gambling products. There’s proof of it. It’s also more blatantly obvious in games like Magic the Gathering, where they release fancier versions of cards at rarer probabilities. To better explain it, from a collector’s standpoint, you want the fancy card cause it has value, it has value because it’s rare, rarer than the other versions, so if you’re on the lower end of the income ladder you buy a pack, or two. After all, you could get lucky and get it. On the higher end of the income ladder, you buy the card outright and hoard it. Maybe sell it off later if you notice the price goes down. From a player perspective, you see a card is being used by tournament players, you want to win more games, so you want those cards, which encourages you to buy products and try to get those cards. That’s predatory behavior. It’s predatory from the company’s perspective because that poor person might not be able to afford the card outright, but $5-$10 isn’t much, plus they always entice you with that Chance. They also further this desire for the cards by making it limited runs, such as the secret lair packs, if there’s a low amount purchased and it’s made to order, or worse, if they limit the order capabilities themselves, that drives up the value, and provides further incentive to buy the cards and packs. This not only creates an impossible barrier between the poor and the rich, but also heavily encourages people buy their gambling pack than people would have in other conditions.

For the record, I love magic the gathering, I’m not saying the game itself is bad, this is just a VERY predatory marketing tactic.

Let’s switch gears. Gacha games. I play AFKArena, because like I said, I have a gambling addiction and cannot stop myself. In AFKArena, you collect heroes, and battle with them in various ways. If you collect more of similar heroes you can rank them up. If I’m to believe what I’ve heard, it sounds like this is pretty common for gacha games. So what makes it bad. In AFKArena you use diamonds to summon heroes, now, you can acquire diamonds by beating specific story chapters, logging in every day, random limited time events, or paying for them with real money. AFKArena hero drops don’t seem that bad compared to the free diamond amount they dish out, which has resulted in me not spending all that much money on it, all things considered ($20 over 2 years). I believe that for a mobile game like this, that’s fair. I get way more enjoyment out of the game than I do most $60 games, so it balances out. However, this isn’t the case for every gacha game, and my trust in companies, as previously stated, is very low. The issue lies in them making the rates for good heroes so low that you HAVE to spend money on the game to really get over a roadblock of sorts. I do think that there is this issue in my game and I just didn’t notice it, someone with a lower tolerance or patience might absolutely have the incentive to drop hundreds of dollars on the game over a month. There are people of all different flavours, and it’s important to keep that in mind when discussing these topics, just because a marketing technique doesn’t work on you, does not mean it doesn’t work on anyone. After all, they have those $100 packs for a reason, you might not be that reason but someone is. That’s predatory.

I feel like I’ve gotten off track, let’s get back on the rails. Where was...gambling...predatory…ah, kids. So my biggest issue, is that Magic the Gathering is marketed towards 13 year olds. Not directly, but the packs say 13+. AFKArena and any mobile game for that matter, can be downloaded by anyone with a phone for free, with minimal mention that there’s microtransactions. AAA title games like Destiny 2, Overwatch, Fortnite, etc. are probably the worst offenders. A kid spent $16,000 of his parents money on fortnite in-game purchases, and that’s not the only time this has happened [x] [x] . More often than not, what happens is, the kid wants to play a video game, like halo on xbox, or destiny, or something, they ask their mom for their credit card, and the system saves it. I mentioned before that kids do not have a concept of money or its value, so giving kids unlimited access to the credit card is going to result in this kind of thing happening. I’m not blaming the parents for not being hypervigilant, sometimes you are really busy, or disabled, or whatever the reason, and you don’t notice the system just saved your card. I’m not blaming the kids cause their brains are literally underdeveloped. I blame the corporations, because they make the process as easy as possible to prey on kids and people with gambling addictions. (as a personal anecdote, I found that if I want a magic card in MtG:O, I’m way less likely to try and buy it if I have to get up and get my card, I’d recommend not saving your card if you suffer from gambling/addiction problems)

So after all of this evidence, how can anyone still view these things as anything but predatory? The answer is simple. You’re told they aren’t. Businesses spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on really good marketing, and public relations. I tried to google why gambling is illegal for people under 21, and got nothing, I got a couple forums asking the question, and a couple religious sites saying it’ll make them degenerates. I try looking up sources to prove the psychology behind these concepts, but they are locked behind paywall after paywall after paywall. Businesses and capitalism has made it so incredibly hard to discover the truth and get information you need, and it’s on purpose. They want you to trust that that booster pack is a good idea. They want you to spend money on lootboxes (look at all the youtubers that shill out for raid shadow legends, or other gambling games to their super young fanbase [x]). They want you to lower your guard and go, “well, it’s a video game, how can it be predatory?” “it’s a card game with cute creatures on it, surely it’s not that bad”

But it is. So why did I make this post? I dunno, my brain really latched onto the topic, I see so many people enjoying gacha games, but I’m worried that it’s going to ruin lives...I just want everyone to be informed and critical of what is going on.

[set-phasers-to-whump]

burned

prompt: burned

whumpee: neal caffrey

fandom: white collar

hi! this fic does kinda mess with the meaning of the prompt...i went with “burned out” as a kind of interpretation bc i wasn’t feeling plain burns...anyway this might kind of suck but maybe it won’t? idk. enjoy??

Neal doesn’t know how long it’s been since he last slept. A few days, he figures, but that’s as precise as his burnt-out brain will allow him to get. He feels dead on his feet, but he’s doing his best to make it seem like he’s fine. 

“Morning, Peter!” he calls out to the agent, hurrying into the elevator behind him. “Beautiful weather today, huh?”

Peter looks at him, eyebrows raised. “Since when do you talk about the weather?”

Since I’m pretty sure if I stop talking I might fall asleep right here, Neal thinks. “Can’t I appreciate a little sunshine?”

He hopes it’s sunny out. Truthfully, he’d paid zero attention to the weather on his way to work this morning. It had been enough of a thing just getting his arms and legs to move when and where he wanted them. 

“You can,” Peter replies, as the elevator arrives. “Just didn’t seem like a very Neal topic of conversation.”

He shrugs, breaking away from Peter to make a beeline for the coffee machine. As he well knows, the coffee is fairly terrible, but it wakes him up marginally, so that he feels almost alive when he sinks down into a chair along with his fellow members of the White Collar division, listening to Peter give a morning briefing about their case. 

Neal doesn’t pay much attention. He knows this case inside and out, has been studying it virtually nonstop for the past...however many days it’s been since he last slept. He can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop working on it. Something about it begs his full attention, and he knows part of it is just the constant desire to have Peter approve of his work, but there’s something else about it, too, something uniquely compelling, and he can’t bring himself to stop working on it, no matter how hard he tries. 

He can, however, not pay attention when there’s a whole room full of people talking about it. 

“Neal?”

He’s thinking about the strange lack of suspects, the high-profile witness…

“Neal. Neal. Hello? Neal.”

Finally, he snaps out of his thoughts. “Yeah?”

Peter shakes his head. “Never mind.” 

Neal tries his best to pay attention to the rest of the briefing, but it’s nearly impossible. The coffee is already wearing off, his eyelids feel like they’re made of lead, and his sluggish mind is currently only capable of focusing on one thing, which happens to be his own thoughts about the case, and not whatever it is Peter’s saying. 

The briefing ends, and Neal moves to stand up, sitting back down into his chair when a wave of lightheadedness hits him, at the exact same moment that Peter says,

“Caffrey. You stay back a minute.”

Neal looks up at Peter, who is now standing over him, looking very menacing. 

“What did I talk about in that briefing?”

He rubs a hand down his face, tries to focus his eyes, tries to focus his brain. He has absolutely no idea what Peter had been talking about. 

“The case?” he suggests, yawning with a force that makes his ears pop. He wishes his coffee cup wasn’t empty, wishes he had the strength to go refill it. 

“Nice try, Neal. What about the case?”

“I don’t know,” he mutters, sensing there’s no way around this. 

“Why not?”

He doesn’t want to admit it’s because he’s too tired to think. Doesn’t want Peter to know how much he’s been focusing on this case, which in the grand scheme of cases isn’t even that special. He doesn’t want Peter to know that he’s beyond exhausted, completely burnt out, and seemingly incapable of stopping to rest, for reasons unknown even to himself. 

“I was thinking about something else,” he says.

“What were you thinking about?” Peter asks, and sits down in a chair next to him. 

He shakes his head. “Nothing in particular. Just not very focused this morning. Sorry.” It’s as close to honest as he thinks he can get. 

“Can you look at me?”

What?

“Neal. Look at me.”

He raises his eyes, staring at Peter’s chin. 

“In the eyes, Neal.”

Very slowly, he meets Peter’s eyes, which scan his face with an intensity that really makes him want to look away. 

“Did you sleep last night?”

Neal looks away then, embarrassed at having been read so easily. 

“Neal. Have you slept at all in the past 24 hours?”

He shakes his head, blinks hard to force away the tears that, for some inexplicable reason, are forming in his eyes. He is so unbelievably tired, and he wants to sleep, kind of, and if he says that, Peter will just ask, why don’t you sleep? But he can’t sleep, he’s thinking too much to sleep, needs to solve this case too much to sleep, has to solve this case to prove something that he doesn’t have a name for, to himself, to Peter, to someone…

Peter’s hand is on his shoulder, steady and warm. Neal wants to lean into it, wants so desperately to stop, just for a moment, and rest. But he can’t. He pulls away, stands unsteadily, hand braced against the table when black spots dance in his vision. 

He makes for the door, at what he assumes is a normal pace, but by the time he gets there Peter is blocking the way. 

“I can’t -” he starts. “Can you move, Peter, please?”

Peter shakes his head. Neal wants to push him out of the way, but senses that’d be a bad idea. “Please just move.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on with you. Why haven’t you been sleeping?” Peter asks, and his voice is horribly gentle and concerned and it makes the tears rise in Neal’s eyes all over again, and he can’t do this, he can’t - 

Peter’s hands are touching his arms, and there’s a silent kind of question there that Neal can’t bring himself to answer no to. He takes a shaky step forward, and then Peter’s arms are around him, and he can’t remember the last time he was hugged like this, and before he can stop himself or think the better of it he’s crying, really crying, face buried in Peter’s shoulder, and Peter is letting him cry, Peter is holding onto him, and then he’s gently sinking them to the floor, which is very welcome to Neal’s exhausted body. Peter’s hand moves in gentle circles on his back, and he’s saying things that Neal can’t quite hear, but his voice sounds kind and comforting, and Neal focuses on it for all he’s worth.

He has no idea how long they stay there, but at some point, he just stops crying. Peter lets him pull away, until Neal’s sitting back on his heels, feeling strangely more awake. “‘M sorry,” he says quietly, voice still thick with tears.

“What are you sorry for?”

He almost doesn’t speak, again. But he’s already cried on Peter’s shoulder, and it doesn’t get much more embarrassing than that. 

“I...haven’t slept in god knows how long. A few days? At least? And I don’t...don’t know why, it’s this case, but it’s not even that special, but something about it...I don’t know, I just...I just have to solve it, and I can’t stop thinking about it and I can’t sleep until we solve it…” he trails off, lost for anything else to say. 

“Neal,” Peter sighs, equal parts exasperated and fond. “We can solve this case.”

Neal shakes his head. “I need us to solve this case. Not just have the possibility to. I don’t know why, I just...need us to solve it.”

“And we will. But how are we supposed to do that if you’re too burned out to even pay attention during my morning briefing? I need all the members of my team at 100%, Neal, and like it or not, we’re only going to be able to solve this if you get some sleep.”

He...hadn’t really considered that. Hadn’t considered that his well-being might affect the other members of the team, might affect the outcome of the case…. He’d thought it was worth exhausting himself, if only to let himself figure this case out faster, but he has to admit, Peter may be onto something.

“I didn’t think about it like that,” he confesses. “I was just so focused on solving this case myself...I didn’t think about anything else.”

“You can’t let yourself do that, Neal,” Peter says, standing up. He extends a hand down to Neal, who takes it gratefully, leaning on Peter for support when they’re both back on their feet. “Not just because it makes our work harder, but because it’s hurting you. Regardless of whether or not having you exhausted makes us a worse team, it means you’re hurting. I don’t want you hurting yourself for a case, no matter how important it might be for you.”

Neal feels himself hovering on the edge of tears again, a combination of his reaction to Peter’s words and an effect of the sheer exhaustion weighing down on him. Before he lets himself get all weepy again, though, he takes a deep breath, and focuses as best as he can. 

“Thank you, Peter,” he says, hoping that his sincerity comes through the tiredness in his voice. 

“You can thank me by letting me drive you home,” Peter says firmly, checking his watch. “El’s at work, but she’ll be back around four-thirty. I’ll be back after five. And in the meantime, you can lie down on our couch and sleep.”

Neal is slightly baffled by this, but too tired to question Peter as the agent leads him out of the room. The Burkes’ couch sounds nice, if a little odd - why not his own couch, at his own house? But the Burkes’ couch is easy to fall asleep on, anyhow, and in a place that makes him think of family and safety and warmth...if Peter wants to take him there, he’s not going to object. 

Peter drives them to his and El’s house in a comfortable silence. Neal leans his head against the window, breath fogging up the glass, mind for once not on the case. There will be time to solve it later, he thinks, and wishes he had realized that sooner. He’d just been too caught up in it, too focused, to let himself rest. But now that that rest is being forced upon him, he’s realizing how badly he really wants it. 

A few minutes later, he’s lying on the Burkes’ couch, a warm blanket thrown over him and Satchmo asleep on the floor next to him.

“El will be home -”

“Around four-thirty,” Neal interrupts Peter, words slurring as sleep begins to take him over. “And you’ll be home after five.”

His eyes are closed, but he imagines Peter waving goodbye from near the front door. “Sleep well, Neal,” Peter says, and the door closes and locks. 

For the first time in days, Neal sleeps.

thanks for reading this!!! like i said i have no idea if it sucks ass or not but idk i cannot deny it was like real cathartic or some shit like that to write...whatever lmao. hope you enjoyed anyway!

[oh-theres-a-woman]

I Only Wanted You; Part Two

A/N: I was really surprised to see the out pour from the last two arts, since they were posted when I was actually asleep. Thank you! It was a huge surprise how well both parts have done over the cost of a few hours. With things as they have been recently I’m working on trying to get things working and my writing to feel a little better in myself. It’s a sense of vent in a way for me. So, it’s been nice working on the layouts for more stories to come. 

If you are new to my blog and love what you’ve read I’d strongly recommend my Masterlist of goods.  

Requested By: @captivatedbycillianmurphy​

Taglist: @zodiyack​ @hesagod-notyet​ @itsfrancisneptun​ @amys-small-world​ @fandom-fucking-shit​ @amirahiddleston​ @a-dorky-book-keeper​ @theamuz​ @hinagiku0​ @captivatedbycillianmurphy​ @rosiemaisworld​ @queencoraline3​ @midnightstarlight02​ @smallheathgangsters​

Parts: [ Prologue ], [ 1 ] 

Word Count: 1469

Tommy’s POV

He stood behind his desk looking at his family with a cold setting in his eyes. Lit cigarette in hand. There was no use in interrupting them. His family very much needed to get whatever out before he could utter a word and they would listen. Eyes hovering around the room of disapproving family members against the very desire and wishes he had to marry the woman that made him a better man. The person that would have made mother proud to know he was marrying such a kind-hearted and sweet woman. Tommy knew what [Y/N] was like—she was no whore, or gold digger. [Y/N] was a good woman that liked the simplest things and was such a hard worker. She worked with a life of strong morals. Perhaps, she was a bit stubborn. Some would say that is her sign, however, Thomas Shelby just chalked in down to her becoming a mother to her younger siblings as an equally young age. It happened caused any issue for him. In some sense of madness, it made him love her stubborn streak—it more than made up for the lacking confidence and self-worth she had. But Thomas Shelby promised himself that he would spend every day trying to bring her up and make her feel beautiful. Make her feel loved. Flicking in the accumulation of ash on the end of his burning cigarette into a simple ash tray. Frowning a little was Linda finally spoke up—in his eyes she did not even have a place in this meeting. Her opinion did not matter to him at all. Checking the clock overhanging the door the office door, a trance of worry creasing his brow when he noticed the time. [Y/N] had not come… She was late… That never happened unless there was a problem with her siblings that morning and he did not know about since she hadn’t had the time to phone. “Right…” Thomas finally cleared his throat looking between his aunt and brothers. “Are you all done with your complaining then?” He asked with an anger held on his Brummy accent. “I’m marryin’ [Y/N] and that’s that. I shouldn’t need to defend myself nor her to my family if they invested the time to get to know her. Pol, I thought you’d like her, she’s a mother to her younger siblings. Much like you were to us when mum died. Stepped up when she was a girl,” He sat down in the seat behind his desk, nestling his chin in his two hands. “How is it the only one that hasn’t spoke is Esme? Do you have anything you want to add? Since everyone seems to have a problem with my fiancée?” Tommy asked in a matter-of-factly manner, looking to the very pregnant wife to John Shelby. A Romani through and through. Much like them. A Horse Girl. One that was never afraid to speak her mind if she didn’t like anything. So, it was odd to have her so silent. “No, I like her plenty. Has a good heart—would do anything for those kids, I can understand that. Its good to have someone else that would do anything for her family.” Esme spoke up simply; stalling the air and movement in the room. After all, she spoke the truest truths about the other woman that couldn’t defend herself. “As far as I’m concerned, Thomas can take care of ‘imself and what’s it be different when it came to a woman.” She sighed, resting her hand onto her swelled stomach, bringing the back of her knuckle down in John’s thigh. Giving her husband a warning look. “Wot was that for?” John grumbled at his wife who soon repeated the action. “For you being a simple mind. You wouldn’t like it if they run me down, now you do it was Tom’s girl! Its proper shameful,” Esme scolded her husband. Before looking to others around the room that lowered their heads. The silence hung for the moment. Before John was the one who finally opened. “You think mum would have liked her?” He didn’t need to be answered by Thomas. Polly answered. “She would have loved her,” Pol admitted finally, hand running down to her cigarette case thinking about her sister-in-law. The type of person she was. A mother that was a mother to all the kids around her. She loved children and was a beaming kind-heart that settled even the likes of her brother down. In honesty, Polly had seen that in the early days of the girl cleaning the beautiful manor that Thomas has acquired through a rich boy who couldn’t pay his debts. It was like the calming tide after endless nights of torment and roughness. Finally settling. Ringing through the line in the office, Thomas picked up the phone. “Hallo Lizzie?” It could not have been more than an hour since all the carrying on and madness had settled. Everyone now seemed to be on the same page. For once, Tommy wanted to thank Esme for that. All she had done. It was an amazing help. Eyes observing his family for a moment before he lowered his head hearing Lizzie’s words. [Y/N] had come and gone without a word. Never setting foot into his office. It was a moment his heart was sinking, rising from his seat putting the phone down. “I need to go find [Y/N], she was here. Probably heard everything you lot had to say about her.” He muttered rushing for his coat. Not before suffocating the last of his filter less cigarette that had burnt so low it licked at his fingertips. It didn’t bother him. He needed to get home, find [Y/N]. Dashing into the street, he reached the car bringing life to the engine he swung the car into gear. The walk home was a distance so it must have been some time since she’d been there. Had she arrived when it all started? Thomas wasn’t sure how long had passed when Polly first started that conversation. It was a cruel thing to here. He didn’t think about what it could have meant to her hearing those things. “Fock!” Thomas yelled slamming his palm against the steering wheel. Wanting for traffic was like watching the final grains of sand fall away from the hourglass. Stalking back into the place he intended to make a home out of. His eyes landed on the key on the table. Sighing with the slightest trace of hope in his breath. “[Y/N].” He called out throughout the small townhouse, stalking through seeing the litter of nice pins he’d given her to put in her hair. Then both stockings. Scooping them up into his hands. Thomas checked the kids bedrooms, nothing seemed overly out of place. Before halting at the youngest’s bedroom. Her little sister’s bed didn’t have the dolly or bear that the sister adored. Causing a sinking feeling in his stomach. Rushing to bedroom. Eyes falling on the open wardrobe, every nice dress tucked away in there. But the clothes that she excused as cleaning clothes. The ratty old stockings and boots gone. A shallow breath left him. Turning to the pillow. His pillow. Picking up the little note, a shaky breath leaving his lips. Lips went dry and felt chapped as he licked them trying to moisten them. Thomas felt the squeeze of his heart. Picking up the ring from its place, he tucked it into his coat pocket. Rushing to the phone in the house, dialling for the children’s school hoping to hear that she had not collected them. He wasn’t that lucky… Standing there in the living space, he huffed back the feeling tears. “Fock!” Thomas threw the phone to the ground, driving the heel of his shoe into the receiver. Ditching his coat, he didn’t care for his dishevelled appearance. He needed to find her. Running into the street, remembering to shut up behind him. Refuelling the car. He moved down the streets, headed for the little village where their beginning was. Wondering if she had returned to that place. The little shithole that he wished that wouldn’t return there. In the little square it pissed down with rain as he stepped out into the clearing. “[Y/N]! Clementine! Jerimiah!” He cried out for [Y/N] and her siblings in the rain. Looking like the perfect madman. Stepping back, the trace of utter grief streaking his face. Palm running down his face.

So, this was what true heartbreak felt like… Thomas thought turning his gaze to the sky. Blinking through the rain droplets hitting his eyes. It was perfect illusion of a crying man.

In fact, the local pub artist had turned away from his scene and such a heartbreak. It’d become the known Portrait of Heartbreak.

[josie-effortposts]

The Woman Who Fell to Earth

I stopped watching Doctor Who in 2013 after the 50th anniversary special. Up to then I was deeply obsessed by its reams of stories, hidden subspaces and detailed production histories. It wasn’t just entertainment, it was a case study in a massive shared universe, and a direct function of the times and places it had been written. 

It’s never been very controversial to anyone I know to dislike Moffat’s run of the show, and as it drew to a close everything that followed seemed pretty well-telegraphed: Chris Chibnall would become the head of the show, it wouldn’t be very good, reactionaries would blame bad writing on a female Doctor while plenty of others would just lost interest, the ratings would drop and the whole show would become less culturally relevant. It was a Cassandra truth.

But that said, I still wanted to try it. I watched a bit of the Twelfth Doctor and had mixed feelings, and when I watched the first episode of the Thirteenth I found myself taking notes on it. So, without a lot of structure, here are my thoughts.

1. New Who treats first episodes as very important, the first moments that we see new Doctors and their statements to the world. Call it a modern tradition - where “Robot” and “Time and the Rani” play the change for comedy before jumping into the week’s adventures, “The Christmas Invasion” and “The Eleventh Hour” are primarily statements of continuity. By Twelve’s first outing the villains themselves become metaphors for change, and now Thirteen delivers a brief speech about deciding to become different while paying respect to the past.

2. Speaking of that speech, I feel like there must have been an earlier draft that connected the plot to these metaphors a lot better. The villain of the story keeps pieces of his past triumphs with him at all times, but these trophies are body parts taken from the dead, and they disgust the Doctor. At least Twelve’s flesh robots were stumbling towards eternity.

The villain as a whole is just what you’d expect from a low-grade Doctor Who monster, I guess. He’s supposed to be on a hunt, which sounds really cool, but this consists entirely of him walking places and murdering random bystanders by touch. He’s not keeping the masquerade up or succeeding in his goals by doing this, and the rest of the story implies that he’s at least shrewd about getting what he wants. The Doctor’s complaints against him center on him being a cheat who can’t do the hunt fair and square and on his desecrating corpses, but she never seems very angry at him over murdering people. 

The idea of the Doctor stopping a proper hunt actually sounds interesting to me, especially as someone who sat through all of DWAD’s The Most Dangerous Game. There’s a lot of suspense in dealing with an intelligent, directed killer with a small number of targets, be it in Predator or Day of the Jackal, and a villain that stalks, hides or sets up ambushes could be easier on the budget. Or you could keep the villain the same but add a second member of his species to the setting and have them in competition, conflict on conflict. (That sounds like it’d make a good module for TIMELORD, actually...)

3. The Doctor feels simplified. I don’t mean the new personality of this incarnation, although I think the slight amnesia-until-climax is a bit forced. There’s just stuff that comes off wrong. For instance, things are outlawed in “every civilized galaxy” and the villains traveled from “five thousand galaxies away”. Despite ostensibly going anywhere and anywhen, the show’s always respected some species of distance, in that going far enough away or leaving the universe itself is a pretty big deal (especially since so much of it sticks to Earth). This line could’ve been any distance and nothing else would’ve changed, but it kills the idea of space - how can galaxies be civilized? It feels like the setting is shrinking - the word just sounds big and spacey, and this is the part where the Doctor says that something’s out of place, so big, spacey words go there.

This probably sounds nitpicky, but it feels lazy. Where Davies and Moffat both repeatedly made the Doctor or companions into the Most Important People in History, Chibnall seems to take it as read that the Doctor can just do stuff as the plot demands it. The climax involves her making a jump over a dangerous drop to the gasps of all assembled, but her first appearance is after an even longer fall where she breaks through the ceiling of a train car and isn’t even scratched. She "reformats” a phone into some kind of tracking gadget with six seconds of thumb typing and builds a new sonic screwdriver out of random scrap, which then solves basically every issue in the story. And, naturally, she can pinpoint things from a billion light-years away.

My favorite Moffat story is probably “The Eleventh Hour” because it presents the Doctor with a genuine challenge at his most vulnerable. If he had his regular tools handy then it would’ve been a much more straightforward Doctor Who story, but there’s no time to stop and build a new sonic screwdriver, because people are going to die by the time he’s finished. I wish more modern stories had that.

4. I can’t tell how I should feel about the side characters here. Not the companions, although it feels like Chibnall looked at RTD’s companions and thought “why not bring the entire family along?” There’s just this odd tension in characterization between comedy and drama for them, and without a very detailed soundtrack it’s hard to tell what emotions the script’s trying to go for.

One of the hunter’s victims has spent years trying to find his missing sister after another hunter abducting her. Instead of any resolution coming to that story he just gets murdered without ever knowing what happened to her and then the Doctor commandeers his workshop. (It’s even made clear that these human trophies are all still alive, just “in stasis”, so there’s no reason to think they couldn’t save her and presumably several others.) Meanwhile one of the main characters suffers a short fall and dies, taking up most of the final act with a funeral despite us hardly knowing her.

Other victims are worse. A man throws pieces of his salad at the monster for no discernible reason - he doesn’t even seem drunk, and then he dies as the hunter crushes that salad underfoot. A security officer gives a heartfelt goodbye to his family and tells them what a lucky granddad he is, then walks offscreen to be murdered. Neither of these scenes had to happen, and both together don’t even fill a minute of the runtime, so what was the motivation? The first is at least charmingly odd, but both of them feel like bizarre, extremely cheap set-pieces.

The soon-to-be-trophy himself listens to positive affirmations in a crane, then shouts them as he’s being chased. “I’m important! I matter!” The implication would seem to be that this is goofy behavior, and yet the things he shouts are in some ways the themes of the show. Is this self-critical deconstruction, unabashed humanism poorly delivered, a running gag?

5. The other half of a new Doctor, classic or modern, is this shedding of old things. Not always in terms of showrunners, but sometimes in attitudes or fans. The change from Six to Seven was motivated by a desire to change the tone of the show, for instance. Nowadays this is reflected a lot by the fandom - every Doctor has newcomers who jump back out because they don’t want their hero to be replaced, but the jump to Eleven confronted a lot of younger fans with this for the first time. Then Twelve culled some fans who couldn’t stand the Doctor being old and unkissable, and now Thirteen’s wiped out her own contingent of grognards who think the Doctor being a woman is a radical idea invented in the last three years.

That said, I’m not a fan yet. Some Doctors I don’t like as much for aspects of their characters, particularly Five, but Thirteen just doesn’t feel Doctorly. (To be clear, neither did Twelve.) I grew to enjoy Matt Smith’s performance where I thought I wouldn’t, and I’ve found a lot to like in every Doctor, but for some reason both of them still feel like actors playing the role to me, where Unbound Doctors and Mark Kalita have captured whatever the core is.

6. I feel like I’m getting old. So much of the beauty of Doctor Who just feels transparent now. After Moffat the maximalist decades of worldbuilding can never convincingly pretend to add up to a coherent universe and they can’t escape into the freedom of canon-indeterminacy any more than they already have. Even Big Finish, which I used to adore, feels strangled by a mandate to realize and box-set every possible combination of whatever actors they can summon from the show, no matter how many tedious hours they have to fill with cardboard characters and back-of-the-napkin monsters.

There’s no excitement in the adventure for me, because I know the route and the destination. And I don’t know if that’s Doctor Who being formulaic or disenchantment from seeing the patterns too much, or some personal lack of spark and imagination. I feel like there must be some drive I don’t have, one that would re-energize my own perspective in the face of concrete understanding, that would see it as a good thing that I understand another layer of what I enjoyed so much without sacrificing that enjoyment. But if it’s there, I just don’t see it.

But hey. While there’s life, there’s...

[sohin-ace]

Dio - Feed

This is cross-posted from Wattpad and available on AO3.

Enjoy~

Sick. You felt sick.

You were currently laid on your side on the bed you shared with Dio. It was like your body was dying. You spent your days like this, unable to move, restless and with no strength to do anything.

You only stayed like this, lips and throat dry, skin pale, breath heavy, eyes stinging. From any exterior perspective, it would just look like you had a fever, or a bad case of the flu.

But it wasn't even close to that.

After protesting for so long, Dio turned you into a vampire to live eternity with him. You loved the man, but you didn't want nor were you ready to give up your humanity yet.

You were forced into this new life and you couldn't bear it. No matter what you did or what he told you, you just couldn't feed on humans, as you still felt like you were human yourself.

Vampires couldn't die, or at least, not easily. But depriving themselves of blood stopped the process of regeneration, thus explaining your current state.

You were dying, but you wouldn't die.

Dio did everything he could to make you eat, but everytime he brought someone to feed on, you just couldn't.

He brought men, women, children, criminals, old folks, sick people, dead people, anyone to make you feel better about feeding on humans. But in vain.

The blonde man entered your bedroom and came towards you. He leaned over the bed a put one hand over your covered figure.

"How do you feel today, my love?" He softly asked the same question he asked everyday.

"... A little bit tired..." you hoarsely whispered, barely able to look up at him.

You heard him sigh in desperation. You didn't want to feel like this either. You knew you were a burden to Dio, but Dio brought this burden to yourself too. It was a vicious circle of blaming each other.

"Dio... Please kill me already... I can't take this anymore..."

The man flinched at your attrocious words. Kill you? The love of his life? That wasn't even an option. He swore to find a way to make you accept your newfound lifestyle, even if it took centuries.

"In no way in hell am I killing you Y/N. You know this."

"Dio..." you weakly said "I can't bring myself to do it... I am human..." your breathing was more and more laboured as you spoke and Dio noticed.

He sat at the edge of the bed and pushed your shoulders slightly to make you lie down on your back and look at him.

"Y/N, weither you want it or not, you are not human anymore. You are way more than that. We are better than that. We are another form of life, way stronger than humans."

You closed your eyes. He was right, and you believed him, but you still felt your humanity deep inside you, blocking you.

He took your hand in his and pulled the covers off of your body.

"Get up, I brought you someone else today."

You weren't confident at all, you knew you wouldn't be able to do it either today, but you felt bad that Dio tried so hard to help you, so you didn't fight and got up, but not without difficulty as your lover helped you up.

He put his arm around your shoulders in support and slowly lead you to another room where a young woman was waiting, kneeled down next to Vanilla Ice.

"Thank you Ice. You can go." Dio ordered.

The loyal man bowed to his master, and went on his way, leaving you three alone and closing the door behind him.

You stared at the woman in front of you with sad empathy. Dio put you in front of the woman, pressing slightly on your shoulders in an attempt to relax you.

"This one is a bit different. I asked of Vanilla Ice to look for someone who actually desired to be bitten by a vampire. You don't have to kill her, but even if you do, she wouldn't mind. Isn't that right, Melissa?"

"That's right, Lord Dio! I don't mind at all! It's always been my wildest dream to be bitten by a real vampire! I don't care if I die if it's by you Milady Y/N!" The woman squealed with stars in her eyes.

You weren't completely convinced, but you thought about how much trouble it must have been to find such a specific person for you to feed on. What were the odds of finding a person who actually wanted to be bitten by a vampire.

You walked towards the woman and kneeled in front of her, taking in her features. She seemed lost in your vampiric red eyes, almost eager to what was going to happen next.

Dio was confident. This time, it would work, you would finally feed on someone and get some well deserved energy.

You were nervous, scared even. You couldn't look at the woman's eyes in shame, and only stared at the exposed skin of her neck and chest.

Your heart beat faster inside your ribcage and your throat felt even drier by the second. Your natural instincts started to kick in.

'It's okay,' you thought to reassure yourself. 'She wants it, and you need it. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong at all.'

You slowly leaned over her neck, resting one cold hand on her shoulder, and the other at the base of her jawline. With sharpened senses, you could smell and hear her warm blood pumping through her veins and you gulped.

You felt your stomach churn, almost nauseous at the sheer craving. Your hands were shaky and your fangs were out and ready to destroy any piece of flesh that came in the way of your longed meal.

You leaned even closer to her neck, and before you could finally give in, you whispered against her ear.

"...It's going to hurt... Are you sure?" you asked, secretely wanting her to protest and flee.

But she only put her chained hands over your front and clung to you, shaking slightly. You paused at this. Feeling her breathing quicken and the way she gripped on your chest for dear life.

You abruptly let go of her and got up, running to Dio's chest, yet again disgusted with yourself. You wanted to throw up.

"My head hurts Dio, I can't do it, If I start I won't stop, I won't hold back, this is driving me crazy I-" you shrieked through heavy breaths, hasty and panicked, but the man in front of you cut you off by grabbing your arms.

"Y/N, calm down! Look at me." You stopped yourself and looked up at his handsome features.

As intimidating as he looked, his charming expression calmed your nerves and you felt sad and disappointed. Again, after all he went through for you, you couldn't give in to your vampire instincts.

Tears welled up in your eyes. This was just not possible. You couldn't be a vampire. You couldn't force it inside you.

"Please Dio, end this. I know you're tired of it, I have no self-control, I'm not strong like you. I love you but-"

"Melissa, we'll get back to you later. For now, you can retire."

The woman got up and went out, joining Vanilla Ice and letting you alone. A deafening silence set itself in the room as you looked down in shame.

You expected Dio to yell and show his impatience. Even you were tired of yourself. And you were tired of living like this. As the pressure of his silence was starting to get unbearable, he said.

"Just as all things, the hardest part is the start. Do it once, and all the following times will feel natural." he spoke surprisingly softly. You looked up at him.

"The first time is the hardest...?"

He caressed your hair gently and it put you at ease. As bad as he could be, you didn't deserve him, or deserved to be treated this nicely by him.

"I have a solution, but I wanted to keep it as a last resort. Y/N, do you trust me?"

You looked into his deep amber eyes with confusion. There was a solution? You nodded, telling him that you of course, trusted him. His lips curled upwards.

"I actually, wanted to keep this for the bedroom, but you are hardly giving us any choice."

He leaned down to your level and cupped your chin in his huge hand. You blushed at the sudden contact.

"My poor Y/N, look at you, so frail, and ill, and so delicate..." he paused and leaned close to your ear, proudly exposing his powerful neck to you.

"Do it." he whispered against the shell of your ear.

Your eyes widened, and before you could answer in any way, he wrapped his strong arms around you, locking you into place.

"If you won't feed on any humans, at least for your first time, I will allow you to use me. You won't kill me, and I am not just anyone to you."

"I-is this okay...? You... Want to?" You hesitated, not believing his words.

That was it. Dio was the only one you trusted with this decision. If it was him, you could do it, at least this once. Maybe after this, you'll be able to control your thirst, not kill humans, and accept your fate as an eternal being.

"This is the most intimate way to show a vampire's love besides intercourse, so this is why I wanted to wait for a more appropriate time, when you felt better but..." he planted a soft kiss on your jawline. "It seems nothing else will unlatch you."

You melted in his embrace and nuzzled his neck sighing, taking in his scent.

"Thank you, Dio. What would I do without you?" you softly breathed against his skin and he shuddered.

Finally you felt ready. You brought your hands upwards, caressing him from his chest to his neck where you finally rested them. You peppered his neck with butterfly kisses to which he chuckled.

What you lacked with the human strangers he brought you was the passion. If it was with Dio, you could do anything. Right now you could only feel love and gratitude towards the man, not nausea or animalistic hunger like earlier.

You opened your mouth and ran your warm tongue over his skin in order to prep him.

"Higher." he huskily ordered as he shivered at the pleasurable feeling and laid one hand behind your head.

"This is where you'll get the most of it. Remember this." You complied, listening to him as he guided you towards the perfect spot. "Good."

You stopped yourself before you planted your sharp fangs in his smooth skin to whisper.

"I love you."

I'm sorry if your name is melissa lol

[aceofwhump]

Submitted by anon:

Hey! 

Sorry if this is all just a rambling mess or too personal to even be asking you in the first place (if so, please feel free to ignore away) but I’ve been questioning a lot lately whether or not I might be asexual & I was just curious about how you knew you were? I keep going through moments (especially after reading about other people’s experiences in the whump community) of thinking for certain that I am but then I end up thinking things over and doubting it.

I can say for certain that I do find people hot/handsome/attractive/sexy/yada yada but I can’t really tell whether that’s in a sexual way or not? I don’t really ever look at a person & think ‘god they’re hot, I’d love to f*ck them’ but then surely nobody does that without establishing a relationship with the person first, right?

Most of the time I’m not really ever instantly attracted to a person (if you showed me a photo, for example and asked me if I found that person hot I’d probably be pretty indifferent) but (and this is mainly in regards to celebrities) once I’ve been familiarised with them and their personality and seen them in a few things, say interviews and movies or stuff, I may develop an attraction to them (this is particularly true when it comes to seeing actors getting whumped, I find that most of my attractions form that way tbh).

Of course there’s the odd occasion where a person may be undeniably attractive & aesthetically pleasing and I’ll be attracted to them on the offset but it’s rarely the case.

Other than that, despite maybe a couple of people that I’ve found kind of  pleasant to look at, I don’t think I’ve really ever been attracted to anyone I’ve known in person, at least not in that way.

Also, whilst sex scenes themselves don’t neccessarily make me uncomfortable (can’t say I get the appeal but it doesn’t really  offend me in any way), if there’s a scene involving the nudity of an actor that I’m attracted to (as in full frontal) it makes me extremely uncomfortable. I guess that could just because it feels like an invasion of privacy as opposed to anything else though. I’ve been occasionally known to watch certain things to deal with particular urges and nudity doesn’t bother me then so I have no clue why it does in other situations.

I’ve also never had a relationship or been intimate with anyone in any way, nor can I say that I’m particularly interested in having one/doing so. I’m kind of introverted & socially awkward so maybe that’s a factor but I also don’t know if my disinterest in relationships is related to the whole concern & expectation of having to have sex with someone. I also don’t even know for certain that I’m 100% against the idea of sex. The thought of sex is not really something that appeals to me & I feel like I would happily die without ever experiencing it but I also wouldn’t say I’m entirely repulsed by it? I’ve occasionally daydreamed about characters doing the deed (never myself with anybody else though).

Also, this final part may will sound extremely cheesy so I apologize in advance but sometimes I see characters being all soft and adoring and affectionate with eachother and I kind of think f*ck man I want that. That could just be the whumper in me always seeking that comfort side of things that is so lacking though or maybe it’s just me thinking I want it because it’s supposed to be what everyone wants in life.

This was only supposed to be a short ask and instead you got an entire essay of me rambling about myself ahsgshsh, I’m so sorry! My mind is literally a mess😂.

TL;DR Idk I’m just very confused 🤔

Mod reply below:

Hi hun!! Don’t worry about a long message cause my reply got just as long lol.

I'm really glad you felt comfortable coming to me with this and I'm more than happy to help if I can!

First let me tell you a bit about how I worked out that I am both asexual and aromantic (this might be a jumbled mess so I apologize in advance for that)

So I found asexuality in 2014 and pretty damn quickly accepted and knew that I was asexual. I went through the tumblr tag (back when it was full of people’s experiences and feelings and so much positivity) and related strongly to other asexual people’s experiences. Some of those things included:

Not wanting kids

Having absolutely zero interest in ever having sex. Can go my whole life without and be just fine thanks

Not once have I seen another person and thought about having sex with them

Thought sexual attraction was either a myth/made up or only developed after you knew the person for a long time

Don’t understand why people on tv break up with each other over sex. It’s not that important, right?

Thinking people are “hot” or “sexy” but that just means aesthetically pleasing. Like a painting.

Having a sex drive but would rather take care of it myself than have sex. It’s like an annoying itch. I get annoyed, I scratch it, it goes away, I’m good.

Avoided sex ed whenever possible because I was uncomfortable with sex.

Don’t read smutty fanfic.

Sex on tv makes me uncomfortable not aroused.

Why are people obsessed with butts??? I don’t get it.

Hate when main characters get together in tv shows because that usually means they’re going to have sex and WHY DO THEY NEED TO HAVE SEX?? Isn’t love enough? I don’t get it!!

The idea of getting married and having to have sex with that person that night is horrifying.

All the universal asexual symbols and things that the community has. Like the playing cards, the black ring, the aces love cake, aces love pizza, that stuff. I loved and agreed with every single one. I know the other sexuality do this do but I never saw those, laughed, and went “yeah that’s me!” Just asexuality.

It only took a day if researching before I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was asexual. All these experiences and feelings my fellow asexuals felt really fit with my own experiences.

HOWEVER

My aromantism was a lot harder for me to pin down. I think I went through 4 different romantic orientations before working out how I felt. It was all so confusing and I couldn’t tell what was romantic, what was sexual, and what was neither. I didn’t understand it at all and I spent a long time confused. With sexual attraction I knew I didn't feel that. Never once felt that desire to have sex with a specific person. Not ever. But romantic? I thought I had felt that. Couldn't be sure though. I'm sure now but back then I was very confused. I started thinking I was hetero-romantic because I was only every "interested" in guys but it didn’t quite feel right. Next I found the word cupioromantic which was you don't feel romantic attraction but you still desire a romantic relationship. I wore that label for a short time but once again it wasn’t quite right. Every time the possibility of a relationship into my life I ran cause I didn’t want it. Next I found lithromantic which is you feel romantic attraction but as soon as its reciprocated it goes away. I thought hey that’s it! But I finally I took a very hard look at myself and my interactions with people and what it was I actually did feel and decided that I was truly aromantic. I just didn’t want to be labeled as such because I was a huge romantic and I felt like this label meant I couldn’t have one. It took a while but now I know that isn’t true at all. I know now that I don’t actually want a relationship but I want the closeness with someone that being in a relationship entails. I can get that with friends. I went through the times I thought I had felt romantic attraction and tried to fit them into the attractions above. What I felt for that one girl in my English history course? Yeah that was platonic? That actor I think is super hot? That's aesthetic. I'd love to just cuddle with and be touched by my one friend? Sensual. The one guy I dated? Yeah I only dated him because he liked me not because I felt anything for him.

Other things that helped me realize I don’t feel romantic attraction:

I have had one boyfriend my entire life (high school, lasted 10 months) and I hated it. I didn’t like holding hands with him. He asked to kiss me and I told him no. I thought (still do) that kissing was gross and no way did I want to do that. I hated when he kissed my cheek or held me too long. I didn’t understand his strong emotions toward me nor did I understand why people dated. I didn’t get it. I didn’t like it.

I have had fake crushes/faked “they’re hot, would totally hit that” because I thought i was supposed to feel that way about people. Everyone had crushes or wanted to kiss and have sex with someone else. I never did. Didn’t get it.

I thought a crush was someone you chose. Like, I thought you went “That guy/girl is funny and nice. I now decide to have a crush on him.” But apparently that is not true at all.

I have no desire to get married or date. In fact I prefer to live my life without it.

I’ve never looked at someone and felt or developed what can be described as romantic feelings.

Those times I thought I did were really just platonic feelings. I wanted to be their friend. Not their girlfriend.

I think whumperflies are the closest I’ve ever come to feeling something akin to sexual attraction but I personally don’t classify it as sexual attraction. I also get that feeling seeing someone get comforted and being soft and affection and wanting that. For me, I think that’s me being touch starved af. I’d love to have someone to cuddle with and have it not be sexual or romantic. Sounds like maybe you do too. And that’s okay :)

Based on your words and feelings I'd suggest you take a look at the following terms. They might help you pin down how you feel. They certainly helped me

Demisexual/Demiromantic: where people only experience sexual attraction to folks that they have close emotional connections with. In other words, demisexual people only experience sexual attraction after an emotional bond has formed.

Gray Asexual/Gray Romantic: in which a person may only experience sexual attraction on occasion

Sex repulsed/neutral/positive: How you feel towards sex and/or having sex. You can be positive about it, feel repulsed by sex and sexual acts, or be completely neutral about it

Sexual attraction: looking at someone and wanting to have sexual content with them.

Romantic attraction: wanting to have a romantic relationship with a certain person.

Aesthetic attraction: thinking someone is pleasing to look at. Appreciating their appearance.

Sensual attraction: wanting to touch/cuddle/be physically close to a person.

Platonic attraction: wanting to be friends with a person

To me it sounds like you could be demi or gray but it’s ultimately up to you. If you feel like any of those terms fit you then don’t be afraid to accept that label. And if you change your mind as you learn more about your self and want to use a different label then that’s totally cool! Like I said, I went through 4 different romantic labels before finding one that fit. Try things on and see how it feels for you.

I also suggest checking out some of these blogs because I found them really helpful. @asexualityexists @asexualfacts @asexualawarenessweek @acejokes @thehumorousace @outer-space-aro-ace @a-spec-tacular @life-of-an-asexual

You can also feel free to scroll through my main blog asexual tag if you want. http://thewanderingace.tumblr.com/tagged/asexual

I don’t know if any of this was helpful or not but if you have any other questions don’t be afraid to message me! I’m happy to help where I can!

[grim-faux]

17 - Prometheus Lies

More of the floor had fallen due to rot or fire higher up on the stairs.  I nearly missed it in my climb, I was still taking the steps as I flicked the nightvision on and stumbled upon the gaping tear.  It was a large jump and I had my doubts about being able to drag myself up on the other side, given the slick tile, but no other options were available. This time I made sure the camera was secure in its pack before I put my back against the cool plaster and steeled myself for the short sprint.  Focus on the leap, on footing, don’t hesitate—

I hit the edge of the floor with my middle and gagged, I couldn’t see in the shadows where I would collide with the splintered wood.  I recovered and was able to get my elbows under my chest and hoist up.  My chest ached, as did my bad arm, nothing new.  Had to keep going, couldn’t stop, never again. Soft glowing candles decorated the broken shelf across from me.  The usual message Follow the Blood was painted on the wall above them.  I leaned through the gate examining the closed in surroundings, a gate on my far left looked locked.  Probably was.  A lone battery had been left to me between the candles wax drippings.  I took it feeling very little gratitude to my ‘benefactor.’ It was like being given a brick in this place.  Or a flashlight.  Didn’t help much but to keep me going. I paused as I glanced to the darkened hall at my left.  I thought…could’ve been ‘Farther’ Martin.  But I didn’t linger to certify this, blood was marked to the dark hall ahead.  I adjusted my hand under the cameras strap and took my time, in no hurry and with no drive for my current objective.  I wasn’t certain where I was headed, only that I was in another one of the numerous and indistinct corridors.  In a room someplace nearby, someone was shrieking as though their skin was peeling off.  I shuddered, but felt no other sentiment toward the matter.  Too preoccupied with that tingling in the back of my skull.  I was anticipating the horror that awaited my presence but it never ceased to terrify me. Blood was brushed across the floor curving to the right.  Follow the Blood. However, there was still a stretch of corridor to check ahead.  It wasn’t worth the trip at any rate, the corpse of another patient with his head nearly twisted off his shoulders, the air rich with copper, and a door boarded up.   Disquieted, I returned to my marked path and found the floor there wrecked by the fire, a light hung from above enabled me to store my camera away.  I inched closer to the wall, the boards underfoot reduced to charcoal and dusted with white, creaked as I moved to the edge.  A door sat nestled in the wall on the left, with the faint traces of blood marked on its sides.  There was very little space to press my heels back onto, and maybe I just didn’t give a damn how dangerous this stunt was on the unstable remains of floor.  But it was my path and that was all my mind had locked onto.   The light overhead flickered occasionally, but its illumination remained steady.  As I inched along, a shirtless patient began to patrol on the floor below bumping into walls despite the light and smashing his fist against doors.  I grimaced as I moved, the path was not as stable as I had hoped and shifted under my weight.  I didn’t need to fall down there with him. When I was directly across from the door, I braced for impact and leapt, hitting the ledge and freezing when the splintered wood punched into my chest.  My coat absorbed most the impact, but I still lost my grip and slipped backwards.  I barely snagged the edge with my hands and dangled, below the patient sobbed something about his shadows, I really couldn’t jot it down.  The wood lamented my weight and creaked, I held on for dear life trying to decide what to do. It wasn’t really up for debate.  I growled between my teeth and pulled my body up as much as my arm would allow, then swung my leg up over the burnt timber.  I fit my heel onto a little notch that held my weight, enabling me to lift myself parallel with the side, until I could get my elbow over.  I scooted the rest of the way up until I had cleared the edge, and rolled far-far from it.  I had to pause and catch my breath and let my muscles a moment to loosen.  I felt the familiar spreading warmth in my backside.  Damn. Maybe next time I should just drop and run like a bitch. I jerked up when I caught a flash of static, light flooded the next room.  I regretted it and winced as my ribs pulsed.  Damn it.  I heard thunder and chalked it up to the fierce weather that raged on outside. The room was large but cluttered by all manner of bed and furniture, most stacked in the center as well as along the walls.  I paused when I cleared the doorway, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.  It felt like someone was watching me, though I couldn’t – could not detect a physical presence of any sort.  The room was empty aside from me, and silent, the soft patter of rain outside hammered on the thick glass as my heart thudded in my chest.  The feeling wouldn’t leave and I was wary to travel further within the labyrinth of disorder, fearing something inhuman would lunge out at me and shriek as my brain erupted inside my skull. I moved towards an open area on my left, crouching low and peering over the confusion of beds and mattresses.  My battery was already getting low on power, I had to watch it and would probably need to change it soon anyway.  Nothing was on this side, the shadows the nightvision couldn’t penetrate revealed no hidden eyes, no shifting shapes.  Absolutely nothing living. I moved around the support pillar off center of the room, rising to my full height and slipped forward, ready to bolt at the first hint of movement. The floor shifted beneath me, I turned the camera down as the boards gave a horrendous groan and I fell.  My spine jolted between my muscles when I hit, and I twisted in a stunned mess on the floor.  Right in my ear something shrieked and I turned over in time to see that hazy form dart overhead, at the outskirts of the NV.  I rolled aside and crawled behind a pillar, before I peeked out to watch it glide out of sight. It was gone.  Whatever the fuck it was, it was gone.  It could come back.  I had no sick desire to move around too much and draw attention, but I was becoming aware of the small room I was in and its lack of doors.  And escape. I moved away from the pillar scouting the open area visible.  It was identical to the floor above, I’m sure, but less clutter, more boarded up doors and windows.  A few items had been abandoned, a table cart and some bed frames stacked.  I pressed my palm to the side of my head while examining the blocked double doors.  This was one of many I had passed in the burnt out corridors, either those that had been locked inside had escaped, or there was nothing here to begin with. On the floor around a sequence of stacked bed frames, lay rotted wood and masonry.  I lowered my arm to peer up the way the shape had flittered, and saw a large hole where the floor had collapsed.  Maybe patients had been trapped in here, and they found a way out? The NV was dimming, I had to stop and change that before I could secure the camera and climb up.  I was detecting a pattern here. It was nice to actually grip something smooth for a change rather than the splintered and rough floor surfaces of lately.  I hopped up to the ragged floor boards and pulled the camera up before climbing onto the floor.  The camera wasn’t necessary, light flittered through the murky windows, allowing my eyes to perceive some of the dark edges.  More beds discarded, empty of mattresses and patients.  I kept low as I slipped towards the obstructions, trying to see the odd flickers just beyond the perception of dark, lights that flashed behind my eyes without the storm.  That odd vibration in my muscle.  Maybe I just wanted the paranoia, maybe I wanted the delusions to be true.  It felt more real than my current predicament.  Most of all, I feared what I was thinking. I stopped when that churning sound occurred and felt myself quiver.  There was nothing, I told myself.  The room was empty as far as I could see, I was seeing things.  I wasn’t seeing things.   Or was I? It sounded like scratching, or subtly rubbing.  Over and over, in a constant rhythm until I wasn’t sure if I was still hearing it or if it was the sound in my ears.  I let it drone on and ignored it as I ventured around the thick pillar near the hole, and scanned the cameras visor for movement, eyes.  A lone wheelchair sat beside the gaping hole I had fallen in.  A few feet beyond it was a small connecting hall, with light cutting through the dark shapes I imagined shuffling around.  Blood had been splattered along the floorboards, I shut off the NV to confirm the crimson hue before pushing the next door open. Somehow this room seemed darker, the shadows pressing on the NV range and giving me a feel for claustrophobe I was not accustomed to.  I took a few tentative steps forward testing the depth of my view, the black veil gave and retreated as I pressed further into the room.  Beds upturned, blotched with dried blood.  Overturned desks and rushed shelf stacking; I took the open path along the wall at the left.  On one of the beds beneath a shattered window, boxes had been dumped, more scattered files lay about the crusty mattress.  I gave my perimeter a short glance before poking through what remained of the damp pages.  I pulled out one file with two names that seemed familiar, couldn’t remember where I might’ve read about them. (Excerpt from the diary of Shirley Pierce, Mount Massive Mental Hospital Patient, 1952-1964) How can I not remember where the cuts are coming from?  They hurt so deeply, even days later.  Doctor Newhouse tells me that it’s my fault, I’m subconsciously resisting the hypnotherapy.  But I want so much to get better, I don’t know how I could be doing this to myself, Dr. Newhouse says it’s another condition of my bedroom-inspired hysteria.  Poor Bruce, I make him suffer so. I’ve tried, subtly, to ask Mrs. Jackson if she’s had similar “issues” with her husband, but she is loathe to talk about it.  Her husband, too, has found comfort in a younger woman. I know the doctors mean well, and with the help of the government men who’ve joined the staff, I am in the very best hands possible.  I should just take my pills and sleep, and hope for more pleasant dreams tonight. I was unmoving for a time, unaware that I had been standing a full minute holding the side of my ear.  The date on the page.  That date barely came to me.  That was long ago.  Long-long ago.  I reread it a few times before it finally began to sink in.  God, I’m an idiot. Mount Massive was shut down in the early 70s.  Miles, you fuckin idiot.  How did I not see this sooner?  It was staring me right in the face.  Right in my face.  Murkoff came along and ‘reopened’ it.  What was I reading again? She was committed to the Asylum from 1950 to 1960, before Mount Massive was shut down.  But they were doing experiments before then.  I didn’t need to linger on the subject any longer. I lost my train of thought as I knelt beside the bed, staring at the page.  I was certain of what was in this note, but I couldn’t focus. Was that what the patients meant when they talked about sleep therapy?  I thought this over carefully, ignoring that buzz in my head.  The Whistleblower said ”Sleep therapy going too deep.” The experiments were happening before Murkoff came along, the government was involved before Murkoff commissioned Dr. Wernicke.  Was I just blocking this information out?  Everything that was started here.  Could this go any deeper?  The Hypnotic transgression to alter individuals thought patterns, and the Project named Walrider for those side effects?  It seemed to lock together, yet the same old holes remained in my theories.  Murkoff never started this.   I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  One mass hallucination.  Nothing more.  And I was buried deep in the center of it seeing what the patients saw, feeling what they felt.  For them it was real, and for me it felt real.  Too real. I lowered the camera and pressed my forehead into my palm.  A massive hallucination.  That was all it was.  But… hallucinations didn’t tear people to pieces.  Had I really seen the MHS cops murdered?  I was drugged at the time, my recollection wasn’t the most credible. I stood off the bed and continued around the room, passing between stacked beds and mattresses.  They must’ve been storing all this away when Project Walrider took its wrong turn, they butchered up most the patients and needed to put they vacant beds someplace.  What a grotesque thought. Even though some of them did NEED to die, they were still human beings.  I think.  I had no idea what the female patients were like, aside from the one transgender I had come across.  I hadn’t had the privilege thus yet to run screaming from a woman.  I’m such a man. Another small connecting hall appeared to my left, but the door that would lead to the next room was blocked by something large and unmovable.  I couldn’t budge it with my weight and gave up to resume my path to the front of the room. The sunken outline of smashed out double doors loomed ahead, and a corridor beyond that.  I hastened my steps, but jerked to a halt when that dark shape drifted by.  I recorded that - I SAW THAT!  That was no hallucination!  NO!  You can’t tell me I didn’t see that! I backpedaled around the corner, until I toppled backwards over a table cart and lay staring up.  That buzzing in my head was getting obnoxious.  If I didn’t think about it, it would dissipate somewhat, but it was there at the back of my mind scratching at my thoughts. I sat the camera on my chest and pulled up the most recent recorded file and played back the last few minutes. Yes!  A clear shot between frames, as it was at the center of the door.  I stared at the image trying to make sense of what I was looking at.  It looked….almost skeletal and corporal, at the same time.  Like black dust, or a statue carved from obsidian.  I could almost describe it as beautiful, if my mind were not so fractured. Time to go.  I pulled my legs off the overturned cart and stood.  It was going to the right, maybe I should try the left.   The hall extended a distance and took another left.  Double doors sat in the corridor to my right, but as with many doors they had been boarded up tight.  I blinked as I turned, and felt a searing blaze of light behind my eyes as though I’d been hit.  I didn’t understand it, I knelt to my knees and waited for the pain to subside, it didn’t actually hurt.  Felt like the memory of a hard punch, like when Trager beat me out of the dumbwaiter, I was shaking all over again and my breath came labored. Anxiety attack.  Just an anxiety attack.  Not shock, just relax, deep breaths, get it under control Miles.  I was in a bad place for this, I was totally exposed and if a patient happened upon me I would be done for.  Get it together, deep breaths, rhythmic breathing.  My chest felt like it wanted to splint open, and I dropped the camera beside me as I fell over.  The dust tickled my nose but I kept trying to drag myself back into focus, my left leg went numb.  Just anxiety, not shock, not heart attack.  I’d know if I was having a heart attack. The pain in my head died somewhat and the feeling slowly returned to my leg.  Good, good.  Get up and move, walk it off. I fumbled in the dark for my camera and picked it up.  I half expected a face to be staring right in the visor, it was almost a shock that there was none.  I pushed myself up and resumed walking. Chairs, broken beds stacked, more doors tempting but going nowhere.  On the wall there was the occasional dark arrow, still seeping with the fresh lines of its making.  I took another left, coming to realize I was going in a circle if this route endured.  Some open double doors, at least I was still headed somewhere, and apparently I could not have gone in the wrong direction.  A few feet away the flicker of candles caught my attention, yes, I was going the right way.  Though I think I could’ve come the other way, and still reached this place. This door would still be here when I came back, the blood stained arrows were still running thick lines down the plaster.  The door left ajar, inviting me. It could wait.  I crept slowly down the corridor, always aware the thing could be at any turn and suddenly spring from nowhere as though from thin air.  The hall took a right and a ways down I could see light, wavering from an open door. Inside was the mother load of files.  Shelves stuffed with boxes, and binders full of notes.  Boxes stacked around the room, many had been torn to pieces, some still had scraps of folders and pages littered everywhere.  None of them looked complete, exerts from Frankentein’s Monster, and more letters from family to patients and vice versa.  Some of the pages I handled felt brittle and were yellowed with age, a few dates on letters read as far back as 1950.  On the wall was a cross painted in blood and the familiar word in bold LIE The red was fresh, it still trickled down around where a trash chute was set into the wall.  My shoes squeaked on the tile as I checked down the opening, then proceeded to go through the boxes. “I recognize the handwriting.  Father Martin killed a man here.  Are the “LIES” he’s talking about all the files missing from these boxes?  The facts?  The records?  They look like government agency material, at least thirty years old, probably older.  I start thinking MKULTRA, CIA.  Mind Control.  The buzzing won’t stop.” There was a file about patients claiming to see a Dr. Wernicke in their dreams, though they had never known a man by that name.  There was a file of one individual that screamed so much his tongue and throat had swollen, and he had perished.  Another about a violent individual that had eventually died from blood loss when he had worn the skin from his fingers away, and tore his entire face off. I started feeling sick, I wanted to stop and sit down, rest a moment.  But I couldn’t.  There was no telling what lay ahead, everything was coming together now.  Or maybe it was the feeling I was having about this place, the hallucinations.  The whispers. I returned to the marks on the wall, the door left ajar encouraging my progress.  As I moved forward to push it open, someone shut it from the other side.  I drew my hand back.  Was the door now locked?  No, it couldn’t be, this was where I was supposed to go. That just sounded insane. I took the handle, it turned easily in my mutilated hand, and I pushed the door open just a bit.  My movement wasn’t unheard by the occupants of the room, and I cued in on soft foot falls just before they entered the range of the nightvision. The twins! I slammed the door shut and pulled the little cart with the candles on it and put it between the door and I.  Why I did this, I’m not sure.  I took a few steps back as the door opened and the first twin gave the small cart a baffled look before he scooted it aside with his machete. I took the hall I had first come down, through the double doors and paused to look back.  The twins stepped into the hall, glancing one way then the other.  I crept behind the corner and watched, they couldn’t see me I was certain but they knew I was here, or someone was here.  The candlelight, they might have seen me standing in the doorway! One twin began down the opposite hall, while the other turned and moved in my direction.  They were going to corner me like they tried in the caged hall, but this time there was no window for me to use to get around them. They were counting on me coming this way, with no other option but to follow the Priests blood trails.  This didn’t hardly seem fair, but I wouldn’t get a word in edge wise if I was caught.  I might still beat them back to the other room, but it didn’t change the fact I had to get by them to that door and with the two of them patrolling, it was only a matter of time before I was caught. I ducked aside when the twin reached the open double doors.  I needed a way to get around them, someplace to hide and double back. The stacked beds I passed.  I dropped down and scooted under them until my shoulder was to the wall.  My camera was getting low on power again, damn.  Why now? I held still as the bare foot falls grew louder with each step.  I shut the camera off and tucked it into jacket, gritting my teeth hard when the fibers caught on the remains of my index finger.  At least the bone was exposed only on that finger, the camera and loop somewhat protected it in my travel.  I shut my eyes and focused on the sound of the brittle wood as the twin stalked past.  Couldn’t see me, couldn’t know I was here.  I exhaled a low breath when his steps faded down the hall, and I began a count once I could hear them no longer. One-one thousand.  Two-one thousand.  Three one-thousand.  I was still counting as I slid out from under the bed and moved towards the door, and the candle light.  Four one-thousand.  Six one-thousand.  A sharp pain filled my skull as the candlelight clashed with the NV.  Couldn’t pause.  Keep moving.  Eight one-thousand.  Nine one-thousand. The door to the room was left open, I could barely make out the extending edges through the failing nightvision.  I entered and flung the door shut, all the time keeping by the wall and straining to pick up early warning I heavily relied on.  I couldn’t gamble that the other twin was unaware of my intentions, and would still be out to corner me off at his brother.  With the door shut I was more likely to hear of their return. Now it was impossible to see through the visor, I had to fumble and get the batteries switched out before proceeding.  It was another room identical to the previous ones I cut through, the few items of furniture scattered about, broken night stands, beds along the far wall.  I crept around the thick pillars, wary of what might be lurking. A door to the side of the room was jammed in its frame, another on the opposite side gave false hope.  Through the window I could see broken wood and the dusty tile on the floor far below.  I tried the handle out of habit, locked.  It didn’t matter, there was no visible way to climb down.  I pressed my palm to my head, the stress caught up to me as the revelation hit.  I could easily die if the twins returned this moment, and I had still not gotten my shit together.  Keep moving, keep moving.  Where didn’t I check yet?  It was obvious enough. The back of the room?  I moved close to the wall and the windows.  It sounded like the storm had lessened for a short while, but boards nailed against the wall made it impossible for the meager amount of light through.  The joining corridor was on the right side, and the door beyond open.  Boards had been torn away allowing chunks of light through, enough to pick out the jagged floor where the fire had eaten through the wood.   The wood protested my weight but the structure seemed stable enough for my weight, at least where the damage was not as sever.  Each gap of ruined floor was a distant, I couldn’t tell from a glance what sections were solid enough.  I tried not to think of it either. I sprang forward clearing the gap easily, the floor creaked under me and I tottered as wood snapped and clattered somewhere below.  Needed to stay sharp, none of this floor was stable.  For now it held. I crossed to the corner where the fire had done ‘less’ damage, and maneuvered around a bed as the wood groaned, warning its lack of patience with my weight.  The wall beside me had burnt out, leaving the skeletal remains of the framework within.  I leaned against it certain I saw something at the edge of my vision, something there without the NV.  There was comfort in my dependence of the camera, a trick of the light.  A voice reverberated from the floor below and I moved the camera over the demolished room, seeking its source. A bright beam flashed over me and I met eyes with ‘Father’ Martin.  “Only God needs be so mysterious.  Be patient, hold faith.”  As he spoke he turned away, looking across the edge of a gap of where he stood upon.  I couldn’t be sure, but I doubted he was speaking to me.   I moved on, reinforcing my resolve.  I needed to get out of this area, with the twins geared to hunt me down.  They wouldn’t hesitate to gut me on the spot, and I felt in my deepest fears that they wouldn’t kill me before they went to work.   Shuddering, I edged myself onto a thin path that ran flush with the wall, I had very little room for my feet but the edge felt stable enough.  The ruined timber moaned as the structure shifted under the malicious storm, it sounded like the whole place could topple at a wrong move, yet still it stood.  I used the NV to make sure that I was scraping onto a solid surface, the charcoal was black and blended with the shadows.  The floors center between the support pillars was still intact, not a big surprise.  Another break in the floor separated me from the next door, by a distance I was leery to attempt jumping, but I was certain that I had leapt farther previously this evening.  There was no easier way over. Lamps undamaged by the fire gleamed down, revealing the tile floor of the room below.  I focused on the door trimmed by light, wide open and inviting with only the ominous abyss of dark beyond.  I would have a moment to gather myself before I pushed resumed.  The floor didn’t seem stable enough on my island, I shuffled near the edge and tested the thin boards.  It made quite a bit of noise, but it felt solid.  Maybe made from a different wood, from whatever comprised the asylums charred sections?  I clicked off the NV and put some distance between myself and the edge, then dashed forward and threw myself out over the fissure. I hit the other side with more force than anticipated, the wind gushed out of my lungs and my arms hit the boards.  Hard.  I didn’t have a chance to inhale, my body began to slip backwards.  I panicked and slung the camera out of my grip a safe distance and braced my hands and elbows against the splintered wood, sweat trickled into the corner of my eye obscuring my sight.  I think I might’ve snapped a rib. It sounded like it.  Or was that the floor creaking against my weight?  As I pulled myself up, the board snapped and I fell catching the next piece with my hands.  A streak of light flashed through my eyes as my ragged finger tips locked into the timber.   The whole floor was falling! I clambered up, kicking and clawing for a stable grip, and finally got my torso over the edge in time to witness— My camera!   My camera was skidding backwards, off the slanting floor!  No!  I shuffled along trying to reach it before it fell.  Visions of it hitting the black tile, dashed into a million pieces of plastic and metal.  All my evidence!  My only source of light in this shit hole!  I reached, scratching it with my remaining fingertips as it tipped, then flipped jolly like over the edge.   Down, down, and down it went.  Everything in slow motion as I was stuck up here, watching it get smaller and smaller, the further it descended.  Any minute now, a millions pieces scattered everywhere.  You wouldn’t be able to tell what it was in the first place.  Scattered to the far corners.  I’d never be able to find them all and put it back together. But it didn’t scatter.  I watched as it bumped against a board, and held my breath, right before it hit the other side of the floor above a thin black hole.  Then, vanished into the dark abyss.  I reached for it.  I could still feel it in my hands, solid and comforting.  This couldn’t be happening.  It was in one piece but it was gone.  Fuck!  Why didn’t I secure it?  Why didn’t I remember to protect the damn thing?  It was gone forever and I was the one to blame.  Fucking idiot, Miles!  Your life is over!  The damn camera was the only thing keeping you— The floor whined as the boards gave out, and a piece clattered hollowly in the open room.  I shifted, dragging myself up just as I saw the door to a room below swing open and a dark figure creep into view.  Shit! Another panel snapped away before I had latched onto the next, and I was hanging by my hands snarling as hot needles pulsed through my fingertips.  GET UP THERE MILES!  I clawed my way up as the floor crumbled out from under me.  I dug my fingers into what I could reach and braced myself, launching forward as everything under my feet snapped free.  I was running on literal open air as the ground dissolved under me, I dove into the awaiting doorway and locked my hands on the frame as I spun about, to witness the last of the floor break away.  I took a few deep breaths, and gazed at the open door with light pouring through.  No evidence of the prowler below, I’m not sure if it was a twin or someone else hunting me. I was still shaking when I turned to the dark corridor awaiting my trespass.  I had become so dependent on the camera, the total blackness was like a wall I could never pierce with my conviction.  Memories of those inexperienced cavers returned to my thoughts, how they had been lost for days before they succumb to hunger and thirst. How do you get lost in a cave?  The darkness is disorienting, and even when you feel you must be turned in the right direction, it is impossible to be sure.  You can run in circles for days before you realize you’ve been in a room of nine by nine. I didn’t stand a chance navigating the dark totally blind, while the patients strolled about, conditioned to the dark halls that was their world.  Aside from all the evidence I could not afford to lose.  It would be better if I died trying to find it, rather die getting beaten to death by something I couldn’t identify. The ruined floor echoed a strange sound as the wood settled, almost like the shriek of a dying man.  I pondered it, as I pondered how to go about locating my camera.  I reviewed my recent progress through the asylum, deducing if I returned the way I came I would not be able to access the floor below where the camera should be.  That was not considering the twins, I didn’t doubt they were still hoping to stumble upon me in that section of the hall.  I wiped some sweat from my eyes, and recoiled at the blood soaking my palm. Oh god! After scrapping some of the fresh blood from my hands, I picked my way down what remained of the floor.  At least ‘if’ I returned, I could still climb up easily.  Small miracles.  There was no sign of the creeper, this made me uneasy.  He could as easily have been a spy for Father Martin, as he could have been one of the violent lunatics that’s only purpose was to shatter skulls.  He had to have come from somewhere, I doubt he came from the floor above or had a way up there.   This was all speculation, I had no reason to believe there was a way to access the lower floor through here.  I planned to turn back if it became too dangerous, or if there was no visible way to progress.  I don’t know which way I preferred more. The room was dim, light pouring through broken windows offered miniscule guidance, cutting dark lines over the beds and furniture that looked jammed into the space.  I heard no sound, nothing to indicate a living body present.  The path on my left was packed high with bed frames, to my right was a space I could slip through.  I didn’t want to attempt climbing over anything unless I absolutely had to, my hands were shaking against my sides.  They felt hollow and light without my camera.    A flash of lightening pulsed from the windows, I crouched down when I though there was a shape peering over the shelves on my right, but it was already gone before my eyes adjusted.  It felt like the ringing was getting louder, maybe my heart thudding harder in my chest.  I crept along listening to the sound, trying to blot it out with thoughts of the mountains.  How calm the night had seen before the storm.  I climbed over a bed and scanned the front of the room as it brightened with a blaze from the windows. Shadows raced back into place as the light died, I thought eyes were staring back at me but I didn’t have the NV of the camera.  Couldn’t be anything there.  Just the noise in my head making me feel like there was something that should be there, but couldn’t be. My camera.  Think about that for a bit.  Where would it be?  Fell through the floorboards, would be on the floor below here if it didn’t shatter into a million pieces.  My quest seemed lost, everything I had been through, everything that I had witnessed was on that camera.  I would go completely insane, and they’d find my body with my last words scrawled into the notebook and they’ll scratch their heads, no clue of what the hell happened here.  What horrors were witnessed. The camera will be there, in one piece, because I will it to be so.  With my fuckin mind! Bed frames and shelves.  They filled the gaps on either side of me as I moved towards another set of open doors.  It amazed me how comforting furniture could be in a place like this.  It looked like the doors had been blown apart, I couldn’t find where the other had fallen.  A sound startled me, the clatter of timber as something came down hard on the floor above.  I knelt down and listened to the noises of footfalls overhead, silt trickled down getting into my eye.   I blinked it out then checked beyond the doorframe, a soft whimper wheezed out of me at the black veil that greeted me.  I would get lost forever and die of hunger, or get beaten to death by someone in the dark.  By a shape in the dark. My spirits were lifted when the frail light spilled from a crack in the wall.  I crawled to it, on my hands and knees, and peered inside hearing water running from somewhere.  Another shower room.  Lockers had been torn from the walls and stacked in odd areas, some were left along the floor.  I tested the stability of the plaster that blocked me, and found I could tear the chunks out.  Enough that I could easily slip myself under. I entered and stood up and made my way along the side of the room that was open, and into the shadows that devoured my form.  I used my less torn up left hand and set my fingers on the wall feeling where I was going and tried not to get turned around, but my fears were unfounded, the wall gave way to the other side of the washroom and a light blazed from the ceiling. I checked a few of the stalls that would open, confirming there was no one hiding, nothing to surprise me.  The drum of the water intermingled with the buzzing in my head, my body quivered despite how dry the top layer of my coat had become.  It was bone quaking trembles, stemming from my muscles.  I needed to shut the water off, stop the insistent white noise.  I tried to figure out how to work the faucet, but the valve was snapped and spun uselessly in my grip. Beneath the spout was a tear in the floor, the wood exposed under the tile and something under that.  I went to the next stall over, the door taken somewhere left the access open for full view.  Inside was a large hole to the level below, and where my camera must be. I dropped down onto a plank of wood, and felt the hollow vibrations of lockers through my feet.  For a moment I listened and waited, that had been loud.  The drum of water above enveloped my senses, I few droplets of icy water splattered my neck.  Along the ceiling the thick pipes transporting the water crossed, thick calcite had formed along edges where water seeped.  Rather wait and confirm my isolation I crawled down onto the next floor. It was a sizable closet to store supplies and some furniture.  Everything had been dragged out into halls and used to board up doors, it was empty but for the lockers gathered into the center of the room.  I walked around it before I located the door, it was a relief to escape the consistent sound rattling my mind.  I gave no consideration to someone waiting outside, how reckless I was being.  I didn’t care.  I peeked out into the dark hall. The edges of a broken bed came into focus, the light from the closet didn’t tread far but the glow of another lamp did reach around a corner some distance away.  It was impossible to tell with the wall of black.  I opted to follow the light for now, until I needed to get lost in the dark.  I’d save that as last option if I could.  The hall that cut right was too bright for comfort, I lingered by the wall briefly, the light didn’t extended far.  Beyond the shadows bars were stacked, or bed frames, silhouetted against soft light a large window.  I really wanted to know that lights origins. I climbed over a broken bed frame and listened, as the crackle of thunder and the flash of static illuminated a figure darting across the room far ahead.  It looked like he had some destination in mind, but I wouldn’t just stand at the edge of the shadows and wait for him to come this way.  Couldn’t be certain of what I saw, I wasn’t confident in the stability of my mental faculty. A door boarded up on my left thudded as something hit it, or fought to get through.  I picked up the pace before they could get through while I was there.  Those boards had held all through the shit storm, there was no reason for them to give now. Light pulsed through the bars of the beds stacked at the end of a hall, cutting me off from the room.  But I was certain the figure I’d seen had been there as well.  A hall was to my left with light spilling like cold silver between the bars of a gate.  It was too far up out of sight, I couldn’t see where the light filtered down from. I hesitate when I thought there was a voice, or someone mumbling.  I listened, trying to get past the ringing in my own head.  The silence without the constant drum of rain on windows to drown out my thoughts, made the walls vibrate with a resonance of silence that was almost as thunderous as the sound of clatter.  No longer could I hear the voice, but it was probably my paranoia diluting my senses.  I was on high alert and couldn’t shut myself out. As I neared the corner, leaning forward— A man lunged out at me snaring my neck and bad shoulder.  I gave half a yelp as the air was cut off in my throat, the man yelled in my face and shook me.  My vision buzzed with static as he applied pressure, I couldn’t decide which was hurting worse.  The blood flow had been severely hindered by his grip on my neck and my ears started ringing.  I slapped my hands down over his elbows and struggled to pull his arms off, get them unlocked as he pushed forward nearly causing me to topple.  When I fell it would be all over, I wouldn’t have the leverage to throw him off.  I didn’t have it now. When I reached my limit, I knew I couldn’t take much more of this, I dropped to my back on the hard tile and somersault backwards.  The patient, placing all his weight against me fell forward.  I jammed my foot into his stomach and propelled him along as he tumbled over me.  Weak and stunned, I rolled aside not prepared for what would come next.  I only heard the man climb to his feet and dart off screaming about the coming and Billy.  That went well… I coughed into the floor until my throat reformed, the cold and dusty air of the Asylum a welcomed return. I was still rubbing the soreness out of my neck as I CAUTIOUSLY ventured into the next room.  I felt the walls as I went, making sure I wasn’t missing any doors that could lead to the room my camera was in.  I had no idea where it might have fallen, I would just go through the rooms I could find and then go into more detailed search once I was comfortable with the layout. The patients spent all of their time in this place, skulking through the dark, hiding in the shadows.  No wonder they could track me in the dead black.  With no other option, they had adapted to this way of life.  A scary thought. A wild blaze burned through the room, and for a brief moment I could see figures, men shaped.  One crouched on a table holding bars, fully focused on the world outside, a far away world.  I slunk forward, the second one seemed to be staring across the room directly at me but made no action.  I kept along the side of a bar, or some sort of countertop on the opposite side of the room.  I lost track of the other figure that had been in here, but as the windows pulsed with storm I located a door to the side of the room.   I lurched back and dropped to my side when something flashed in my vision, what exactly I couldn’t be sure.  But I felt nothing, no punishing blow and heard no sound of feet.  I couldn’t even be certain I had seen anything to frighten me, only that I had fallen on my side and felt the warm spot on my back.  I just wanted my camera.  It didn’t matter if I made it out alive, I just wanted my camera back. I crawled pathetically through the double doors that awaited, there was one tall window at the end of corridor, but the oppressive shadows huddled at the very breath of its light.  It appeared to be the connecting hall, where I saw the figure dart through.  I lifted to my feet and held my arms out, unable to see an inch in front of me.  I kept on my toes ready to run at the sound of movement, anything that indicated I was not alone.  I didn’t feel alone, but I couldn’t believe I would miss another living presence in the small space I now occupied.  The concept that this was an error of my thought, terrified me.  I was probably not alone, just kidding myself again. I took a shallow breath as I felt around the edges of another door, a lamp from outside glistened off the metal bars of shelves.  I blinked, and saw red, blood vessels in my eyes as the storm blazed.  My breath was labored and dots evaporated at my vision, contrasting with the shadows.  I blinked but I still couldn’t see. I moved around the shelves trying not to linger long in the light.  Another doorway opened in my path, on the other side windows cut long shapes on the tiled floor.  I crouched down and put my face just far enough past the opening to see what lay ahead, but was met with the invading veil of black.  I thought I heard movement, a voice, but as I bided my time and listened trying to perceive what my eyes failed to, it felt like my mind was playing tricks on me again. Something glint in the corner of my eye, and I drew back to spin on it but saw nothing.  Just the beads of the metal shelves as the light hit their sides.  I took a deep breath, I was shaking badly and my head pounded with the soft prattle of rain.  Or was that the humming in my bones?  Why’d I keep thinking of these things? I forced myself to leave the doorway and scoot away from the wall, into the indiscriminate shadows.  It was some sort of commune room with tables bolted to the floor.  Maybe the patients cafeteria, or some sort of indoor recreational area?  Being in this room right now unsettled me, like being in an orphanage after some sort of catastrophe killed all the children there.  Almost the same difference, if you considered the less violent patients.  Just mentally wrong, and locked away from their families that might’ve been trying to do the right thing for them. The cold seeped through my coat, I had not nearly dried out yet, even so it just seemed to burrow into everything.  It was getting darker as I moved from the windows, into areas of boarded up doors and the suppressive veil tightening over my shoulders.  I slipped over a broken counter, a frame with glittering glass sat before metal slats for trays.  This might’ve been the patients cafeteria, or where medicines was dispensed.  It was the same thing, wasn’t it? I saw something in the furthest distance flicker against the black wall.  I paused to stare and barely believed my eyes.  I blinked.  Was it possible?  On that table beside a large cooking pot? I let out a small whine, it was!  My camera!  Right there, not no more than a few feet away. Okay Miles, keep it together.  There’s the camera, don’t go running over there and tripping and tearing your fingers open again. But…My camera!  I edged towards it, pushing my senses into the wall of black, working to determine if there was anything I could stumble over, anything left lying in my path.  Something clattered to the floor, echoing off the walls in the next room.  I had no idea what that was from.  Might have been the floor above, the broken room my camera fell from still settling in my absence.   I could sense movement.  I couldn’t be sure if this was my paranoia or the unnatural state this room was in, where I was accompanied by a threat.  The big fucker?  I wouldn’t know until I picked up the camera, and by then it might be too late.  It sounded like something was being smashed on hollow metal, or someone was trying to flush something out. I dithered for a moment, debating what I should do. It was getting me nowhere, so I continued forward trying not to imagine what was beyond the black lurking at the edges of my senses.  I was distracted in my elation, finally the comfort of the camera back in my hands.  But I had not reached it yet, I was still vulnerable.  Too vulnerable.  Keep calm, deep breaths.  I was shaking, the nerves in my muscles buzzing into my mind.  Get the camera, it’d clear things up for me. I began to pick up on something else as well.  The typical rot of the asylum, of old bodies left to decompose into the carpet and wood, which was constant in the back of my mind.  But I was sure I smelt the patients.  Don’t think I’m being weird, you can go fuck yourself – but, it was that musty smell they had.  The baked on sweat, filthy clothing and the disregard for hygiene they shared, with this place going to hell.  It was the smell of something alive, and it was getting stronger. I put my hands on the pale light of the desk, where the NV poured out of the visor.  I couldn’t quiet my breathing, I had to get the camera and turn it, locate what it was in the dark.  My hands quaked on the cool wood, and I shuffled around to the backside and set my hands over my camera.   It was like reuniting with an old friend that I thought was lost forever.  Such a strong feeling for an inanimate object, but it still brought tears to my eyes.  I gently picked it up and fitted my ruined finger under the strap, then fixed the visor; it had been jarred before it dropped through the floor.  Slowly, I brought it to my eyes, reveling in the familiarity of seeing the distorted green hue of my surroundings.  The buzzing in my head was thunderous now, and I slowly turned from a solid wall on my right, to the large room revealed through the visor.

[crystalsexarch]

Sway - E

“You're quite talkative for a pillow."

"And you, quite alluring for a blanket."

-

Explicit. Ambiguous female WoL. Has a tail. Haurchefant and the Warrior of Light spend a lazy morning working very hard.

Also on AO3.

Part of the 2020 FFXIV Writing Challenge

Haurchefant was lying on his bed with his arms cradling his head, a muted smile on his face, and not a shred of clothes on his body. Upon his chest was a freshly showered Warrior of Light. “You’re not cold?” she said. From her lilting tail, to her tiny hands folded at his collarbone, she oozed comfort. The picture of relaxation and love, but for a sinister glint in her eye.

"Hmm?" he said. "I'm content where I am."

"That's not what I asked."

"And where you are." Like he was stretching, he spread out his arms before setting them at her hips. Fingers traced vertebrae, pink scars, tough constellations lined out on her skin. "Now that you've got me like this, I'm not eager to move."

"You're quite talkative for a pillow."

"And you, quite alluring for a blanket."

She smiled and closed her eyes. Banter aside, he was hard and had been for quite some time. Her hips sat a full length above his, meaning she felt every few seconds the bob of his arousal at her bottom. She knew it wasn’t something they had to address—that was the beauty of it—but they had time to kill and every right to spend it holding each other and whispering of warmth. Or fucking.

She eased back a few ilms so his erection was flat against her slit instead.

"Oh?" he said with an instinctive press of his nails into her skin. "Has my love given me a sign to read? Some manner of signal?"

A breathy laugh. "Do you consider yourself literate?"

He slipped his hands up her back and set one at her neck, the other at her chin, which he tilted higher. Had to make sure she could see the affection in his gray eyes. When he knew she was looking, he blinked like a happy cat. "I do."

All was thumping hearts and early birds roosting near his quarters at Camp Dragonhead. Bits of sunlight had danced into the room, but it landed on the back of the Warrior’s head. Somehow, in her shadow he still had sparkles in his eyes, and that’s what she watched before committing to turning the page. “Very well.”

She wrapped her arms around him and set about kissing his lips, his cheeks, his nose. When she rose for his head, he opened his eyes to see a wall of breasts before his face. Quite pleased with the development, he set about kissing them.

Cooing, she adjusted. "I like that…"

He alternated his focus from her left to her right, now bringing his tongue into the mix. Gentle as he always was with it between her legs, he brought more a graceless vigor to her nipple, sucking first, biting second, tongue teasing the tip all the time. His large, careful hands wrapped around her ribs, rubbing.

She felt worshiped already. What would his chosen god think of her? "It's a shame you can't do that and...and have at me at the same time."

"Mm?" With a tiny pop, he removed his lips from her silk-soft skin. "I'm surprised, my darling. By now you ought to know not to underestimate me." In preparation for what she knew would be an ambitious maneuver, he wiggled his hips beneath her.

"No, no," she scolded. "No amount of contortion will change the fact that you're nigh three heads taller than I."

“Ah, but that inherently means I’ve more length to work with.” He started eyeing her underside with the look of an eager engineer.

She reared back in laughter. “Insufferable.”

“Work with me?” He scooted back on the bed, bringing her with him. “If I place myself here—”

“Your poor back, in that position.”

“Then set you—” He grabbed her hips and lifted.

“Oh!”

“Here…” They were both sitting nearly upright, but she was on her knees with her arms on his shoulders. If she relaxed her thighs, she’d land right on his dick.

Before letting nature take its course, she had to laugh a little. “This hardly seems like a sustainable solution.”

“Consider it a starting point.” Without breaking eye contact, he cupped her breast with his index finger and thumb. Again, his hardness was knocking at her door. “So shall we? Start?”

They started. Haurchefant spent the first few minutes blinking up at the Warrior with his pretty lashes. While she rode him slowly, he doted on each of her breasts obediently. In the end, she lacked the stamina to maintain her position and opted instead to collapse upon his chest and focus on fastness. Whenever she took the lead, there was always a certain point at which she couldn’t lead—she just did what came naturally. And that happened to be something faster than what he had in mind.

“Ah ah ah—” He squeezed her hips harder and straightened his back, grinning through his teeth.

She had no choice but to stop moving, but she didn’t stop panting. “Too much?”

“It feels...quite nice, my love. Perhaps too nice.” He wiped a bead of sweat from her brow with his thumb. “Unless you've committed to a hastened finale.”

She swept her hand across his pale abdomen, muscled but soft. “Hm? Would you prefer to set the pace, then?”

“I have no qualms about doing so.”

“Well, can you roll me over without—”

Gripping her body tight, he rolled her over, making sure they never came apart. They landed at an odd angle a quarter of the way off the bed. Chuckling proudly, Haurchefant embraced the circumstances and placed one leg on the floor to make good on his promise. He certainly didn’t slow down. On the contrary, he was driving so fast she started to wonder whether his earlier complaints had been a ploy to get on top of her. She wasn’t going to call him out, certainly not when she was seeing stars.

“Does it please you, Warrior?” he said.

“It...it does. Rather, you do.”

He lapped up that validation with a hearty sigh, all the while keeping up his business, whether he was looking toward the heavens or down to her heavenesque eyes. She couldn’t wait for him to come inside her. More that morning than most nights, the idea lit an aggressive craving in her gut. Blasphemous, she thought with her mouth wide open, that his seed would make her feel holy and chosen. She’d have let him fuck her in the Basilica, right in front of Halone Herself if he promised not to pull out.

Grunting, he started drawing farther back before each crest. Then came a thought she’d be embarrassed to think of later—the thought that the rhythm of his balls pressing at her center was nearly enough to send her over. Just enough contact in just the right places. Blushing, she pressed the side of her face into the pillow.

“Everything all right?” Dark and husky, his voice at her neck, his pace unyielding.

“Yes,” she said. No other thoughts made it out.

The left corner of his lips ticked up. “Having trouble making words?”

“Can still...get my point across…”

“Tell me.”

Oh, how she had wanted to tease him. But she couldn’t. Not with sincerity falling from his mouth into hers. “Love you...want you more than anything.”

He groaned.

The next moment she felt her climax coiling at her core, tightening around him. “Harder,” she managed to cry. Ever pleasure-loyal, he struck her true, breathing hard with his lips tucked in.

It felt good. It felt damn good. But he kept his composure.

"Haurchefant," she said, arching her back so far she was nearly crooning into the headboard.

"Yes my love?" A loving sound, not a lusty one. Desire weighed his eyelids down. He squeezed her thigh with one hand, pinched a nipple with the other, drove himself deep and held the position long enough to feel the ebbing of her pleasure. The warmth of each pulse seduced him closer to climax, but what he really wanted was to please her time and time again—to hear his own name whittled down to something so delicate and small, something that could hardly balance at the tip of her tongue before dripping out like honey.

"Haurchefant," she said again, this time with her eyes open.

“Yes?” Whispered and severe.

“Give it to me.” She wrapped her legs around his waist and held.

“Yes,” he said, this time at her command. And it wasn’t long after that when he finished inside her, fulfilling a prophecy of her design. A knight of her church. Was this the tithe she would have chosen?

_

 No longer feeling freshly showered, the Warrior waited in bed for Haurchefant to return with coffee. He’d done his best to clean her up before kissing her forehead and dressing himself in loose clothes to pick something up from the kitchen. A little bird at the window caught her attention. Its yellow eyes peered in like it was looking for something. She couldn’t help but smile at the creature, and thought she might chance a closer look.

She slipped her legs off the bed and stretched her arms high. Haurchefant was coming up the stairs and she didn’t want him to scare the creature off. She tiptoed over to the door and cracked it open with a warning finger at her lips. He cocked his head and entered the room again with caution, two warm cups in his hands.

“Look,” she said, pointing at the window. “Stay quiet so I can get closer.”

“Happily,” he said. But no sooner than her third step did he issue a poorly stifled laugh. The bird went flying with a whistle.

“What!” She clenched her fists and turned around accusingly.

“Forgive me,” he said, setting the cups on the nightstand and leaning on the bed to catch his breath. “Your gait is...most unsteady, you see.”

She blushed. It wasn’t the answer she had expected. Crossing her arms, she pouted. “Well thankfully the only straight line I must walk is the one that leads to you.”

“Nay, not even that.” Beaming, he kneeled before her. “For I shall ever be here to carry you.”

[jovialyouthmusic]

The Many Lives of Drake Walker

A Royal Romance multiple AU Fanfic

I go back to the virtual world to assist Drake and Riley. Can we help her become self aware?

Word Count 3214

A/N It’s about time Drake got a break with Riley.  NS*W No under 18s

Wake up, my love

Again I found myself going through the screen to meet Drake, and take up where we had left off with Riley. He was a little morose and his greeting was a little lacking

‘What’s the matter, Drake?’ I asked, and he shrugged

‘Oh I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like we’re getting anywhere. She still just sits and looks blank, or sleeps.’ I squeezed his arm

‘Don’t lose heart Drake, maybe something will happen soon’ I tried to reassure him. He just shrugged again. ‘Now come on, Riley wouldn’t want you to be unhappy’ I said, and he sighed. I put my hand on his shoulder ‘Chin up, let’s start the scene, better to keep moving forward than stand still’

 Riley’s POV

I felt like I had dozed off by the time there was a knock on the door, and Drake got up to answer. He came back with a pizza box and a bag with a big bottle of soda and some chips (that’s crisps for us folk in the UK) I laughed and clapped my hands

‘Drake that’s genius. I feel so naughty – and a little guilty too’ He smiled reluctantly.

‘I got a couple of types, I didn’t know what you like, but then you said you’d eat anything so I got what I like – a meat feast and a mushroom and pepperoni’

‘Sounds good to me. Where should we eat them? We could sit at the table or…’ I waved my hand to indicate the rest of the room

‘Definitely on a fancy couch and put the box on this marble coffee table’ Drake grinned but I could tell something was wrong, his heart wasn’t quite in it.

‘Hey, what’s the matter Drake?’ I said ‘You seem a bit down’ Drake put the box down and looked at his feet.

‘I – Riley, it’s difficult to explain. I’ve waited for you for a long time. I’ve been lonely, and I’m scared of losing you’ I went over to him and threw my arms around him, kissing his cheek. He held me tight.

‘Why would you lose me?’ I said ‘I’ve made my decision, and once I make up my mind I don’t easily change it’ I felt him take a shuddering breath

‘You never know what might happen’ he said, and drew back from me ‘Riley, do you ever have times when you forget things, or feel like you’ve done things more than once?’ I shrugged.

‘Everyone gets déjà vu’ I said ‘and my memory is kind of odd. Why – how about you?’

‘Never mind’ he said ‘Let’s eat this before it gets cold’ I looked at him, worried about his state of mind, but couldn’t think of anything that might cheer him up except to go along with his plan. We lounged about on the fancy upholstered chairs and ate pizza with our fingers and passed the bag of chips and bottle of soda between us

‘Won’t I get cooties if we drink from the same bottle?’ I teased

‘I’m fairly certain we already got them from kissing’ Drake said drily with a mouthful of pizza. Finally there was one piece of pizza left and we sat with full bellies. I looked at the empty boxes and crumbs and bits of chips on the carpet.

‘Well I think I’d be thrown out of House Beaumont if Bertrand saw this’ I said ‘We’d better make sure housekeeping stops by before he comes back’ Drake made a hollow laugh

‘I feel guilty for making work for the staff’ he said ‘Dad taught me you should be able to do stuff like that for yourself. It’s been weird growing up in a palace.’

‘You know, it’s odd’ I said, trying hard to remember ‘I must know how to – you know clean up, do housework, but I really can’t remember ever having done it’ I looked over at Drake to see an odd expression of sadness on his face. He took my hand

‘Let’s not worry about it now – it’s overrated. You asked me to stay with you tonight, is that offer still open?’

‘Yes, I don’t feel like being alone – and I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have with me’ Drake smiled at last.

‘Thanks Riley. Why don’t we go for a walk first, settle that pizza – and maybe watch a movie after’

‘Sure, that sounds good’ We wandered the grounds for a while, Drake telling me more stories of getting into mischief with Liam, Leo, Maxwell – and Olivia. He showed me to the centre of the maze and we sat there for a while until it started to get dark. I yawned

‘I’m not sure about watching a movie’ I said ‘I think maybe I need to sleep.’

‘Okay, your room or mine?’ I thought for a moment

‘Your place is cozy, and you said you never brought a girl there before, so let’s break new ground’ Drake grinned – he was relaxing more now.

‘Sure, sounds good to me. Want to drop by your room and get some things?’ We walked back hand in hand – it still gave me little tingles sometimes when we touched.

‘You can go on up, I can remember my way’ I said as we got to the door, but Drake shook his head

‘No can do, I’m not letting you out of my sight’ I narrowed my eyes at him

‘Did Bastien make you promise?’ I teased. He looked surprised

‘Well, kinda – but I would have anyway, I don’t want you to feel…I mean I want to…’ He was flustered, and I gave him a kiss on the cheek.

‘Sorry Walker, I know how you feel, it’s mutual, remember?’ He gave a big sigh of relief

‘Don’t scare me, Brookes. Now get your stuff and we can go and christen my room – uh, I mean…’ he blushed furiously. I laughed at how awkward he was

‘Drake Walker, I still don’t believe you were ever a player’

 Drake disappeared into his bathroom when we got back, to give me some privacy to change, and to freshen up himself. He opened the door a crack before coming back in to the bedroom

‘Is it okay to come in?’

‘Yes, I’m decent’ Drake appeared in a t shirt and pair of pyjama bottoms. I had to laugh as it was a Superman t shirt.

‘Ha, I thought you were Clark Kent’ I joked, and he rolled his eyes

‘I normally sleep naked’ he said bashfully. I felt a stirring at my core.

‘So do I’ I said huskily ‘And I’m feeling a whole lot better’ I saw him swallow, and he came over to me shyly. He stood in front of me, searching my eyes and taking my hands.

He’s looking for my approval. He knows I can stop this if I’m uncomfortable – but I need to let Riley take over. I hope he can feel that. He knows I can step out if I need to, shut her down – but I don’t want to give up the chance of her waking up properly, realising who and what she is.

‘Do you mean – you’d like to go further?’ he asked. I could see a spark in his eyes, a shifting of gear, a glimmer of hope.

‘Why are men so bad at reading the signs?’ I laughed ‘short of lying naked on the bed with a neon sign above my head, the answer is y…’ I never finished the word as his lips crashed onto mine. He pressed his body to mine and his hand searched under my nightdress for bare flesh, settling on my buttock, fingers clutching and drawing me close to his rapidly growing excitement. My heart did a little flip – his touch was electric yet strangely familiar. We parted and stripped quickly, never taking our eyes off each other – Drake spent a few scant moments scanning my naked body before grabbing me again, kissing me messily, his lips hot, his body burning with passion.

Okay, this is happening – it’s Riley doing this, not me. It’s not like I’ve not been intimate with Drake before. I’ll take a back seat, let her drive… he must be okay with this otherwise he’d hold back. And maybe it will push her toward waking up…

I myself only had a few moments to take in his broad muscular chest and narrow hips, the generous scattering of dark hair, flat belly and strong muscular thighs. Again it felt familiar as if I had dreamed of him. My soft curves somehow fitted his flat angular planes. Again he drew back and looked at me searchingly, brushing my hair back from my face.

‘I need to be sure’ he said huskily ‘I want to make love to you badly, but you should tell me if it’s too much, because I don’t think I can stop once I’ve started’ His words stirred me deeply and I knew I wanted him and always would - and I knew he needed a clear message.

‘I want you Drake’ I said shakily ‘All of you, all the way’ and he backed me up to the bed, kissing me again and again as I scooted back and he followed, keeping contact, pushing me gently back on the bed and hovering over me, one knee between my thighs. Again our mouths fused together and our tongues danced. I held on to him, hovering just off the mattress until he followed me down and I sank into its soft embrace. Somehow he still smelled of whiskey and smoke, and his hand stroked along my side, setting my senses on fire. I let my hand wander over his back, feeling the tension in his shoulders as he kept his body inches from mine.

Breaking the kiss, he nipped along the line of my jaw and trailed hot kisses down my neck, making me writhe with delight. He moved down my collarbone, down over my breastbone, groaning as he reached my breasts. He let himself down on the bed beside me, lying on his side and cupping my breast, stroking the nipple, lips again coming back to mine, this time softly for butterfly kisses. Desire surged inside me and I turned toward him, throwing my knee over his hip.

‘Riley’ he growled ‘I want to kiss every inch of you, but more than that, I want you. Next time I promise I’ll take my time – but dammit I want you so bad…’ I responded by pushing my sex against his erection, satisfyingly big, hot and hard against his belly. This was no slow exploration – this was the explosion of passion.

‘I’m not a virgin’ I said bluntly ‘show me what you’ve got, Walker’ He surged into action, pushing me over onto my back and pushing my thighs apart to kneel between them, a look of triumph on his face as his lips came down onto mine again. His hand came flat against my belly and moved down over my mound. My body rose to meet him as his fingers deftly searched and swiftly found my swollen nub. I drew my knees up around him as his fingers explored and assessed and probed for that spot inside. It surprised me how accurate and swift he was, and I was soon writhing underneath him.

Drake please’ I whimpered ‘I want you inside me’ He growled and shifted his hips to line up, and tentatively nudged against me. I was wet enough for him but he slowly worked his way in – deeper and deeper until he filled me completely, stretched a little but still comfortable, and again it somehow felt familiar ‘Oh yes’ I breathed, and shifted underneath him, rolling my hips, feeling my entire body firing up, every neuron lighting up under his touch. He groaned and started to pull out, almost reluctantly, then plunged back in again. Every move made me tingle and burn.

As he thrust I rose up to meet him and we worked together making a mutually acceptable rhythm, our moans and gasps punctuating our movements. My senses were overwhelmed and I know my climax was inevitable. I felt it grow and surge and build, but I held back from the brink, feeling Drake trembling, shaking, aware that he was holding back too, prolonging the moment when we would fall together, clinging on to each other as the world slid away underneath us.

‘Drake’ I cried, and his name fell from my lips, and as he answered, I heard other names – along with Riley – simultaneously – Kate, Lucy, Camille, Alyssa, Paisley… and I was pulled into a vortex as we peaked together and rode the wave for a few brief but neverending seconds. Then it broke and we shuddered together, moved together and became still together. We lay tangled together, spent and sated and complete. I felt light headed and for a moment I knew we’d been here before, though it was impossible. I could barely move, and Drake lay gazing at me, lazily stroking my ankle with his foot – just the smallest of movements, but I knew he too felt heavy and immobile.

‘Drake’ I whispered again and I drifted off to sleep.

 I wasn’t sure how long it was before I woke again - but it wasn’t like waking up usually was. My body lay heavy and immovable, and I could hear voices – Drake and a woman’s voice. I tried to move but I felt like I was underwater, and my body refused to obey me.

‘I thought for a moment she remembered’ he said. I couldn’t turn my head to see who he was talking to – could not even open my eyes.

‘I can’t tell you if she did’ the voice came ‘Our minds are always separate, and the link is faint. I think she hears me sometimes, but only if I concentrate hard’

‘I’m sorry you were – were still there. How was it?’

‘We’ve done it before, in a way, but I’m usually the other side of the screen. It was odd being present – but I promise you, it was all her, I was totally passive.’ I heard Drake sigh

‘Thanks Les’ I heard him come closer, and the bed dipped as if he sat on it. I felt his hand ghost over my cheek. ‘She looks so peaceful. I wish she’d remember’ I tried again to open my eyes, tried to move – an eyelid, a finger, a toe…

‘Drake!’ came the woman’s voice ‘She moved!’

‘What?’

‘Her – her foot moved’

‘Really?’ I tried again.

‘Heck, you’re right’ I felt him grasp my hand, and it made me feel stronger ‘Riley, if you can hear me, do it again – move your toes’ I made a herculean effort. Just to curl my toes seemed to take a lot of energy, but I managed. It was like reaching through fog – the connection was fuzzy but it was working. I felt him move closer. My heart beat faintly and my breath was shallow.

‘Riley, keep trying’ he said ‘you’re waking up. You need to know some things, but it’s going to be hard for you to understand’

‘I’ll get Bastien, he may be able to help’ the woman – Les – said

‘Sure, if you think it will help’ Drake replied. I rested, gathering my strength, and after a few moments I heard Bastien’s voice.

‘Drake, Les – how can I help?’

‘I think she may be waking. Les isn’t driving her, and we’re not playing a scene – and she moved’ Again I felt the bed dip, and Bastien’s voice came on my other side

‘Holding her hand or touching her may help, she may get a little energy from it. Don’t be afraid, it’s like a loop, we feed off each other’ he said, and took my other hand. Now he said it, it did feel like energy was flowing into me from both men, and I moved my foot again.

‘Listen to me Riley’ Bastien said ‘Try to open your eyes, it shouldn’t be difficult now.’ He was right, my eyelids felt heavy, but I managed to pry one open, and rolled my eyes to look from side to side. Drake beamed at me and Bastien looked solemn. Drake spoke.

‘That’s my girl – my Riley. Keep trying, we’re here to help you. When you can move a little more, we’ll explain’ After some more effort, I could move my head from side to side with both eyes open. I could open and close my mouth but speaking was impossible. My throat felt dry but I couldn’t do anything about it – not even try to clear it. I started to choke. The sensation of smothering terrified me as I tried to draw more breath in. Bastien put his hand on my chest, and motioned Drake to put his hand on my belly. All of a sudden I was able to take a deep breath in, and I did so, taking in a huge lungful of air, coughing and spluttering as I exhaled.

The two men pulled me upright as I gasped to control myself. I found myself shaking and coughing, tears flowing from scratchy eyes. Bastien disappeared briefly and came back with a glass of water, lifting it to my lips as my hand shook.

‘Sip, don’t gulp’ he told me, and I took the cool water in to moisten my dry mouth, then more to soothe my sore throat. Drake pulled me to him and laid my head on his shoulder, stroking my arms as I started to feel other parts of my body come under control. Finally I felt more normal.

‘What’s happening to me? Am I sick?’ I asked. Bastien regarded me calmly and I could see the woman sitting nearby, her eyes full of wonder and a faint smile on her lips

‘On the contrary, you just woke’ he assured me ‘Let us explain…’

Minutes later my head was spinning from what the two men had told me.

‘Let me get this straight – I’m a fictional character from a virtual game, but Les over there is different’

‘Yes, she writes fanfiction featuring us all – there are others but one or two of them are able to visit us for a short while.’

‘And I’m not the only Riley?’

‘No, there are different versions of you who may look different or have different names, but they started from the original game. There are so many versions that you didn’t have enough energy to be self aware – until now’

‘And you’re self aware because your character is more consistent?’ Drake smiled and squeezed my hand

‘That’s right, Riley. When I said I was lonely and didn’t want to lose you, it’s because you forget who you are from game to game’ He drew me close ‘I’m so pleased. I hope it’s not too difficult for you to understand’

‘Well it is kind of freaky’

‘I’m going to look after you, Riley. I may have to disappear from time to time to play out a story – otherwise I’d run out of energy – but Bas here can be with you when I’m not, and you can meet some of the others.’ I drew a deep breath

‘Thanks Drake. I have the feeling things aren’t going to be simple’

@emceesynonymroll @sirbeepsalot @cora-nova @stopforamoment @drakeandcamilleofvaltoria

@drakesensworld @katedrakeohd @pedudley @indiacater @texaskitten30

@be-still-my-aching-heart @hopefulmoonobject @dcbbw @classylady1234 @fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore

@bbrandy2002 @rainbowsinthestorm @nomadics-stuff @gardeningourmet @furiousherringoperatortoad

@kimmiedoo5 @bascmve01  @ibldw-main @burnsoslow @addictedtodrakefanfic

[poisxnyouth]

neighbors. chapter 5. (d.d)

A/N: pls don't kill me. i swear. i had to do it. -hailey (also i'm on mobile i'll put in a read more once i get home)

WC: 3.1K

Warnings: smutty ig

He fucks you before he lets himself tell you the truth. You let him fuck you before you let yourself tell him the truth. There was one, teeny, tiny, unexpected, maybe-shouldn’t-be-called-an-issue, but it is one: issue. You can’t take it back, either, because you want it too much.

David had played a sneaky game, stepping away from dinner under pretense of using the bathroom before locating the nearest bodega in search of condoms. He condemned himself for it his entire walk and purchase, softly cursing at himself under his breath. He, of course, quickly obtained them, opening the box on his walk back to the restaurant and tossing the evidence, sliding its contents into his back pocket. David thinks he’s slick as he arrives at the restaurant and places himself in the seat next to you, cheeks pink. You immediately look at him skeptically.

“What did you do?”

“I just, um-,” he scratches his head, voice low, “you wanna have sex tonight? ‘Cause I-,”

“David! You did not!” you gasp, hand covering your mouth as you try to stifle your laugh. Your giggles make him flush a deeper red, palm pressed against his face. He only nods in response.

“I mean, I guess. Only this once.”

He nods again, changing the subject and continuing business as normal. Dave eventually becomes impatient, feeling as though the dinner is purposely being dragged on longer than usual. It gets the best of him, mind swirling with thoughts of you, feeling thirteen again as he attempts to scoot closer to you in the shared booth. You and the girls are paying no attention to him, sipping on wine and carrying a casual conversation. Your hand finds his shoulder, not thinking twice as you have a side conversation with Francine before you feel his hand slide up your thigh, stopping halfway up. You clear your throat in response, crossing your legs in an attempt to hide his hand from Francine.

You finish your sentence and turn to him, “What are you doing?” you whisper, removing your hand from his shoulder and placing it over his. He shrugs, face in his phone as he scrolls through his Twitter feed.

“You wanna go to the room?” he asks, avoiding your question, eyes not leaving his screen as he moves his hand again. He makes a point of lacing your fingers together, hand still on your thigh.

“No. You can wait,” you roll your eyes, turning away from him and back to Francine. You hear him huff like a 5 year old, his thumb rubbing affectionately at the skin under your dress. David feels himself getting more and more impatient with every moment after you remove your hand from his, allowing his hand to drift further and further up your thigh before it gets smacked and relocated.

He groans lowly in frustration, feigning boredom as he sits up in his seat, adjusting his dick discreetly and asking politely, “Y/N, can we go to my room? I have to work on something.” You look up at him from your wine glass, eyebrows raised before you give in, nodding. He attempts to hide his relief, sliding out of the booth before taking your hand in his, aiding you as you stand. He pulls his wallet out, handing Natalie one of his cards and his camera, bidding the girls his goodbyes. You insist you’ll meet them back at Francine’s apartment and follow him out of the restaurant.

He holds the door open for you, immediately groaning, “Holy fucking shit, I’ve been hard ever since I got back and that’s the one time you guys decide to talk for 5 more hours?” You laugh at him as you begin to walk, pointing out his exaggeration of time.

“Literally, Y/N, if I don’t cum within like, an hour tops, I’m going to die of blue balls,” he complains as you flag down a cab.

“Well, pretty sure no one told you to go out and buy condoms in the middle of dinner,” you retort as he holds the car door open for you, taking your hand in his. He climbs in next to you as you inform the driver of Dave’s hotel address. Once you pull off and into the street, you push up the partition.

“We’re getting fucking tested when we’re back in LA,” Dave promises in a whisper, pulling you closer to him in the backseat as his hand slides up your dress again.

“Absolutely not. Don’t you remember the words, ‘just this once,’ coming out of my mouth?” He wraps his free arm around your waist, leaning his head into your neck.

“You’re trying to kill me, Y/N, I swear to God. Can’t we just fuck on the side?” He mumbles, teeth nipping at the skin by your collarbone. You tug him up by his hair as his hand continues to travel further north. You don’t stop his hand as he jerks your underwear down your legs and throws them haphazardly into your purse.

“Stop thinking with your dick; you know that’s not a good idea.” He nods, muttering a wimpy I know as you pull him into a kiss. You let your hands search his pockets for his wallet amid the kiss, pulling away to see how much cash he has on him.

“Look at you,” he observes almost too affectionately, pushing your hair out of your face, “What happened to not wanting me to pay for anything?” David moves his hand from your thigh to the side of your neck, sliding in between your hair as he kisses at your cheek and down your neck sloppily. Part of him cares about being so public in his desire, but he can’t bring himself to do anything about it. The aged man driving is probably used to it (at least that’s what David tells himself).

“I will do anything if it means you buy shit for me. Stop paying attention to him, he can’t see us. Pay attention to me,” you plead, leading his face down your neck.

“Good to know,” he hums in response, pushing your hair past your shoulders for easier access, “So, does that include bribing you into doing this with me again?”

“Don’t be a smartass,” you reply, “I’m not trying to be your sugar baby. I can support myself.” Dave groans against your skin in frustration.

“So you’ve said,” he responds, voice dripping with sarcasm, “But that’s not what it’s about, is it? You liked when I bought you that dress last night, that expensive dinner, the heels, this dress…It’s not about what it is or you being able to buy it for yourself, you like it because I bought it for you.” He’s prying.

“Come onnnnn. You don’t like the sound of me dropping five thousand dollars in your bank account and telling you to go shopping for me? I can PayPal you a few thousand right now and we can go to Bergdorf’s tomorrow morning before our flight. You can try shit on for me. Suck my dick in the dressing room?” David is in front of your face now, almost in a kiss as both of his hands slide up your thighs and under your dress once more. You shiver against him.

“Cartier? Get you rings of your own?” He adds unnecessarily, his point already having come across.

“I am not having this conversation with you right now,” you whisper.

“You’ve lived your whole life in luxury, designer everything, and it takes me to get you all breathless over it? What does that say about you, baby?” Dave takes your chin between his index finger and thumb, forcing you to look at him. It’s the first pet name he’s called you.  “Answer me.” You don’t.

“Tomorrow. Bergdorf’s, Dolce, Cartier, Tiffany's, Versace, Fleur du Mal, and we have a deal.”

“Fleur du Mal?” he cocks his head to the side.

“Lingerie.” He doesn’t give you a full reply as a delicious moan works its way out of his throat and into your mouth as he kisses you, both hands finding your waist. He pulls you closer to him as he leans his body weight against the interior of the car door, arm rest digging into his back. Dave doesn’t think about it as you climb into his lap and grind your hips into his. He tries to ignore your lack of undergarments.

“Does this arrangement include me calling you Daddy?”

He ruts your hips into his again, letting out a groan, “Oh, fuck, I didn’t even think about that. You want to?” You shrug in his hold, indifferent. You weren’t going to try it out now. Maybe once you’re in the room.

“What the fuck is taking so long?” He mumbles against your lips. Dave feels 16 again as he becomes aware of how desperately he’s grinding into your hips.

“Baaaaabe, we were in Jersey City and you’re staying in the Upper East Side. We’ve got like, 15 more minutes at least.”  You emphasize the pet name. He’s getting needy and whiny, attaching your mouths once more to try to subdue the thoughts stemming from the lack of friction his dick was receiving.

“I did not work as hard as I did, graduate from Yale, or move across the country to be a sugar baby for a dude I’ve known for two days.”

“You know that you didn’t have to work that hard. What schools did your parents go to?” This is odd dirty talk.

“Harvard and Princeton.”

“Yeah, you didn’t need to work that hard. Fancy Manhattan private school, parent alumni,” he kisses down your shoulder, “you were practically born with an Ivy admission. You could’ve gotten in with a 2.0 GPA-,”

“Fuck you,” you breathe, wanting to push him away as he moves to kiss down your chest.

He pushes your dress out of his way as he continues, “You worked that hard because you wanted to feel like you did it, you didn’t wanna be some weird shadow of your parents. ’S that why you’re in LA? New York rich kid complex, I guess.” He mumbles against your skin as you tangle your hands in his hair, pulling him up to your mouth.

“You think you’re in charge now, but if you say one more word about my life - ,” he doesn’t let you finish, murmuring a half-hearted mmhmm as you muster a small, I am so much richer than you.

It takes him off guard, slightly pulling back and saying, “So we both know money doesn’t actually mean shit in the long run.” You nod in his hold, hands against his chest.

“But you still wanna do this with me?” You look up at him, nodding slightly again as you run your hands over his shoulders. It’s a double entendre; he’s asking for solidified consent, but also pointing out the hypocrisy of what both of you agreed to.

“Oh, so you’re a whore,” he pulls you into him, “I’m just kidding, baby. Don’t get so tense.” At this, he adjusts you in his lap, purposely sliding his hands up your dress as he attaches your mouths. He wants to hear the noises that slip out of your mouth every day until he dies.

“Mmm, babygirl, stop,” he gently pushes you away after a while, pulling out his phone. You’re almost offended, still sitting in his lap, underwear still off, before he opens the PayPal app. He passes you the device and watches as you quickly type in your username and hand it back to him. Your head is resting on his shoulder as he sends you ten grand at the drop of a hat. Your eyes widen and you choke, clearing your throat as your phone chimes with the notification.

“Is that enough for you?” He asks, hand on your hip as he texts Natalie and tells her to not worry about the ten thousand dollars he just sent you. He knows she’ll bombard him with questions about it later. Dave makes sure to add on a Don't come to the room just yet. We're gonna fuck.

“We’ll see.”

“Just because you’re rich too doesn’t mean you can be a brat for me,” David says too nonchalantly, shoving his phone back in his pocket as the sentence sends shivers down your spine. He digs his fingertips into your hip, hard enough for bruises to remain. You’re pulling up to his hotel as Dave pulls out two twenties and tosses them through the now open partition. He opens the door too quickly, taking your hand in his as he helps you out onto the curb and tugs you inside of the lobby. His fingers are itching to touch you as he presses the elevator button.

David even gets impatient waiting for it, sighing as the doors ding open. He immediately presses his floor and the button that closes the doors, kissing you again as soon as it complies with his orders. He had dressed up for dinner, wearing a black button down, whose collar is now tight in your hands as you pull his mouth somehow even closer into yours.

The elevator dings again, forcing you apart, reaching for each other’s hands and hurrying down the hallway quietly. David, as always, fumbles with the key card and lock.

“Daddy,” you whine, “hurry up.” He stills at the name, biting at his lips as he flushes red and clears his throat. His Adam’s apple bobs nervously as he opens the door for you, hands still intertwined. Dave spins you into his hold, letting go of the door and pushing you against it as his free hand goes to double lock it.

“Second time in this situation in twenty-four hours. I think we have a problem,” he says, now pulling you off the door and leading you to the bed, not wanting to waste any time. You don’t answer him as his fingers find the zipper of your dress, sliding it down while you kick your heels off. David gets increasingly impatient as you undress each other; you quickly unbutton his shirt and cuffs, pushing the article of clothing off of his shoulders and down his arms. He's hurriedly able to unclasp your bra once your dress is off, the thousand dollar garments haplessly thrown on the floor.

"You want this? You want me to fuck you?" He's searching for consent a final time, a sweet thing to do but something you don't have time to think about as he pushes you into the bed, sliding his belt off. You whimper a yes.

So he does.

++

You're both half asleep in each other's arms as his phone begins to ring at midnight on the dot. You're both still buzzing from your orgasms, skin still sweaty and sticky as he moves, getting up to slide his boxers on and answer his phone. He presses accept as he crawls back into bed with you, fingers carding through your hair as you lay your head on his chest.

"Are you guys done yet?" you hear Natalie's voice on the other line, "'Cause I'm super tired." You look up at him, concerned, before he gives you a reassuring look.

"Nat, she's asleep, can you just like, sleep at Francine's? I feel really bad waking her," he lies through his teeth, hand now sliding up and down the sides of your bare torso.

"Yeah, I can, I guess. What's up with the ten grand?"

"I'll tell you later. It doesn't really matter. Do you need to come by here for stuff? Like, for your contacts?" She tells him yes, that she'll be by soon, and for him to put some clothes on. Dave hangs up, placing his phone on the nightstand before pressing a kiss to your forehead.

"Speaking of ten thousand dollars, we need to talk about that," he says, "Do you actually want to? 'Cause I mean, I'm down -,"

"It's not that which concerns me," you reply, drawing circles into his chest with your fingertips, "It's just like, I don't - I don't wanna get hurt." You feel like a child giving a wimpy confession, but he doesn't pay any mind to it.

He scrunches his eyebrows together, pulling you closer into his torso as he processes it, "I won't - like, that's not an intention of mine-,"

"Yeah, but it happens. It's why I wanted you to get over whatsherface first." He shrugs under you.

"I haven't even thought about her all day. I probably wouldn't have. I don't know, Y/N," he changes the subject and strokes his hand down your arm, "I think it'd be fun. I've never done it before."

"And if we start dating?"

"Then I will be a very, very generous boyfriend who you just so happen to call Daddy, 'cause holy fuck that was hot." He tips your head up from his chest so he can kiss you properly, pulling you closer by the back of your neck.

You pull away and out of the kiss, "If we do this, I'm expecting to end up in a relationship with you. I really like you." Your admission makes him smile and his heart flutter, his hand on your cheek as he murmurs his reciprocation and kisses you again.

You continue that way for a few minutes, hands delicately feeling each other's skin as you kiss softly. It's sweet, slow and lazy, minds somewhere else as you hear a key swipe through the reader on the door. The handle turns and Natalie is unable to open it; David had double locked it. You hear her mutter a Damn it, David before David's phone chimes with a text from her.

He groans softly, pulling away from the kiss. Dave whispers an order for you to pretend you're asleep, pressing a kiss to your cheek, but you peek at him as he pulls a shirt and sweatpants on before opening the door.

Natalie creeps in, attempting to be quiet as she unzips her suitcase.

"Did you guys just come here to fuck?" She asks him as he shrugs in response, moving to slink back into the sheets next to you.

Natalie eyes him, gathering her belongings, as he embraces you in his arms.

"Her friends like you, you know. They think you'll be good for her. You like her?" David keeps his hand on your waist, nodding at Natalie.

"Yeah, I do. A lot. She's great."

"I knew you would. She's cool. She really likes you, too," Nat smiles at him, filling her purse with items required for her stay at Francine's.

She's heading for the door before stopping, turning to Dave and admitting, "Be careful, David. I think this'll be good for you, but I don't want you hurting her or her hurting you. It sucks to see you like that. I love you. Text me in the morning when you guys are up." He doesn't have a chance to respond before the door shuts.

[nobletoatea]

☯ + retaking the great bridge of myrddin, golden deer route (as in lorenz tells his dad to back the truck up)

Count Gloucester himself wasn’t at the actual fight unless I’m sorely mistaken so I’m writing this as Lorenz goes home right after to go and negotiate on Claude’s behalf

-~-

His father was not happy with him. Given the situation, Lorenz couldn’t blame him. He’d never done something of this magnitude before. He’d also never been kept waiting for a meeting with his father. He made an effort to keep his expression neutral, seated outside his father’s main parlor as though he was waiting in line for an appointment, but he knew he was the only one there. This grand house which had been his childhood home and playground had never felt so cold before. He’d crossed the threshold and for once wasn’t relieved to be home, normally happy to spend time in all the splendor the family had to offer. Even his little siblings young enough to still be around at home had made themselves scarce, perhaps anxious over the potential crossfire.

He’d faced worse opponents before. When he was finally summoned inside he rose up with a confidence he didn’t have a strode inside.

Lorenz shared many similarities with his father. They were both fond of the sweetly scented rose tea that was set out on a table with all the fineries nobility could afford, and for so long had been almost identical in conduct- not anymore. Such was the price of growing up. Lorenz kept his head held high, primly standing by the offered chair with his hands behind his back, eyeing his father who was already seated and pretending to be relaxed.

“I am here on behalf of Duke Riegan to discuss negotiations for the allocation of Gloucester resources and political stances at the Roundtable conferences to efficiently unite the Alliance under one cause and banner. If this meeting will only serve as counterproductive to these objectives I desire to be notified so I may expend my time elsewhere.”

Count Gloucester sighed, sipping his tea. Their hair and eyes were the same violet hue but that’s where their physical traits ended. He had broader shoulders than Lorenz and despite being a couple inches shorter, struck a much more intimidating figure. Lorenz would never have believed six years ago he’d ever be so openly opposing him. “Sit down, Lorenz. Our, or I suppose my, troops were soundly defeated. I do not have a choice but to stop fighting the tide for our survival.”

Lorenz sat but didn’t bother even looking at his tea, forcing himself to appear at ease as he perched on the edge of his seat. Perhaps he’d expected an outburst. He hadn’t seen his father for many months since defecting to Claude’s side. Lorenz folded his hands in his lap. “In addition to severing ties with the Empire, we are requesting your full cooperation in-”

“I wonder where I went wrong with you.”

Lorenz blinked but kept his face blank. “We have a great deal of official business to discuss. Is this the time?”

Count Gloucester ignored him, feigning to be lost in thought. Lorenz knew he was too shrewd to ever be truly lost in thought. “I wonder if it was sending you abroad for too many years during your education, letting foreign values contaminate you at such a fragile age. I wonder if shielding you from everything that’s been required to keep our power as potent as it is was a mistake. I think I may have made you too soft.”

“You will find that nothing about me is soft. Father.”

Lorenz expected to be snapped at, to spark an argument. He’d betrayed him, raised his own magic and lance against soldiers he’d once helped recruit. His father only looked amused. “Hmm. You’ll do anything for what you want, is that it?”

“No. It isn’t a matter of want.” Lorenz dug his fingertips into his skin. “It’s a matter of what’s right. I wish you had seen my point of view before aligning our House with the Empire.”

His father hummed again, his lack of reaction internally driving Lorenz mad. “What’s done is done. I too, would have wished to avoid losses to our own House.” He looked Lorenz in the eye. “If you had any qualms over whether you’re disowned, I can put those to rest. Your status is intact. In fact, I half expected you to waltz in and try to dethrone me.”

Surprise finally registered on Lorenz’s face. “And why would I do that?”

Count Gloucester huffed. “It’s how I gained power earlier than my predecessors. My own father was procrastinating on his retirement. I proved myself worthy, he handed over the reigns. That you do not have the same ambitions is a surprise to me.” 

Lorenz finally gave in and took a sip of tea to stall. Overthrowing his father post defeat hadn’t even occurred to him. It made his heart ache that the tea was prepared exactly as he loved it- had always loved since he was a boy. The sheer familiarity of the setting wasn’t helping him. “I have nothing against you. I wish to work with you and channel your influence while I’m needed elsewhere. A title is not what I desire right now.”

“You were always ready to lead our country. What happened, that you will let that illegitimate Riegan boy take it from you?” The first words to be colored with any sort of passion from his father made Lorenz’s stomach tightened with anger.

“Claude is Duke Riegan’s grandson.”

“You know damn well he’s half something else.”

“That’s how it goes. When someone is born, they are half one family half another,” replied Lorenz frigidly, setting his cup and saucer down with a sharp clink. “You asked me to monitor Claude and I have given you my findings time and time again. He is charismatic, resourceful, cunning, and every bit as able as I am to lead. Sometimes, I think perhaps even moreso. He streers away from bloodshed. His tactics as a diplomat has kept even you in check. I have found no faults that would invalidate him as my Duke who I willingly, gladly follow.

“You asked me to question his personhood too much for too long. It nearly cost me an amicable relationship with our current Duke in both personal and professional matters. I went against my own morals for you back in my school days, and I’ve had enough! You are surprised that after pushing me to take nothing at face value, I would someday find myself at odds with you? You are my family but you are not above the standard you drilled into me!”

Again, Count Gloucester’s lack of external reaction made Lorenz anxious. He nodded slowly, appraising Lorenz again. “Very well. I see I may not have made any mistakes in raising you. You are headstrong, confident, and bow your head without question to no one- not even me. The side you align yourself on is wrong, but-” he shrugged. “-someday you’ll learn.”

“I am not wrong. I have, and will stand by my beliefs.”

“You are on the verge of changing things for the worst, Lorenz. All I can do now is warn you.”

Lorenz held his head high, using his slight height advantage to let his voice ring out. “Warn all you like! I am proud to be a better man than you are.”

It was a touch too strong of a thing to say, but it did get a laugh out of his father. “I am forced to hope you are, with this path you’re blazing for yourself. Come on then, your Duke is expecting some sort of agreement out of me.”

When Lorenz went to bed that night, it was with an odd feeling in his chest.

He sat on the edge of his bed with the view he’d adored since before he could remember, of the sprawling rose gardens and surrounding landscaping of the estate. His bed had been warmed with a pan of coals by a servant and his belongings kept in pristine condition, as though all this time he’d been due back any minute. It was his home but there was something different now.

In all the years of knowing his father, he realized what had been missing until that night, what he’d finally earned by way of rising up against him and starting on the path to forge a different legacy than Count Gloucester.

Respect.