#for a third time apologies
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I agree but Maka has more growth in the manga that doesn’t relate towards Crona and Soul helps her with it
Mmm I hear you, I was being reductionist for the sake of the joke but I agree she has more going towards her than just chasing after Crona. (Also I'm sorry for this long response, I just kept thinking of more points as I was writing this)
Imo she can be a very self centered character and I think that's great for a female character. She extremely stubborn, blinded by her own goals, and doesn't deal well with other people not being the same while Soul is trying to reinvent himself due to his perceived shortcomings in a controlling household.
Both of them are heavily impacted by their family issues; Maka idolizes her mother and demonizes her father (her father mostly deserves it but it's never really addressed how absent her mom is) and Soul felt suffocated by his rich kid house where he couldn't compete with his brother's talent (Presumably he also was the accompaniment to his brother's violin and therefore was basically raised to match 'wavelengths' with another person).
I loved the Eibon arc a lot due to how it uses the deadly sins to explore the main group's values and always wish the Sloth arc had been explored more (Especially the kohai and Soul's popularity with girls). Even their fight with Giriko can be symbolic of how Soul takes more of the hit but is still supporting Maka by the end of it.
On a separate note; for all the hate SEN gets I do think it helps flesh out daily life in Death City. Before it released, I remember hoping it was a slice of life for the main cast and while it wasn't fully that it does show another side of them. Main story Maka often only focuses on her "ambitions" (I'm using that term loosely) but in the side series she's more of a chipper senpai, doting on Tsugumi who she sees herself in, and shows how even before the main series Soul is so protective of Maka she doesn't need to consider dodging an attack while unarmed. It also implies that Soul was renowned enough to be recognized by Agna, a princess. (I just happen to be looking in SEN 4.5 last night and it's cute as hell)
But in particular why Crona becomes the main movitator of the story is because they're quite literally the Sasuke roll, a foil who stirs up a lot of internal and external conflicts amongst the main group but more importantly Maka and Soul. Their first appearance triggers feelings of inferiority in both of them from the loss, introduces black blood as a major issue, and infects Soul with it which becomes a reoccurring problem pretty much up to the final fight. Part way through the story we see them start to process some of these issues, befriending Crona is also partial closure to both of them wanting to be stronger as a pair. However, Crona's poisoning of Stein and disappearance becomes the event horizon where the norm gets disrupted; Joe dies, Stein is exiled, Kim is outed, and Arachanphonia becomes enough of a threat that they're forced to work with Medusa. This can run in parallel to Naruto starting to bond with Sasuke during the bridge and start of the chunin exams arc, training in the second half of the exams, and the norm being disrupted with the arrival of Orochimaru (in this case Medusa's parallel as a corruptor) leading to the Hokage being killed and Sasuke leaving the village. Naruto is the easiest way to explain it but there's similar ways the formula is applied to other Shonen like MHA (Deku to Bakugo/Shigaraki bc of OFA), CSM(Denji to Aki+Power bc of Makima), JJK (Yuji to Megumi bc of Sukuna/Kenjaku), Demon Slayer (Tanjiro to Nezuko bc of Muzan), Shaman King (Yoh with Lyserg as a side effect of Hao) and FMA (This has less literal dynamics for many reasons but you can find the same story beats). This is mostly to say that while Crona might not effect every conflict either internal/external or micro/macro, they more than likely reflect some part of that conflict the protagonist is experiencing. Crona is to Sasuke as Medusa is to Orochimaru as to Asura is to Kaguya/Pain. Naruto's internal conflict is his social isolation that existed before Sasuke but Sasuke is a reflection of that by being someone who has all the attention, Maka's paternal conflict existed before Crona but is reflected in Crona's maternal abuse; that's literally what the final clash between them hinges on (and I hate it personally for all its implications).
Maka and Soul have a lot of history and potential but the call to duty represented by Crona is often the thing that gets in the middle of that same to how Sora and Kairi have a lot of romantic implications but Riku becomes that barrier from the end of KH1 through to KH2(?). Thus we get jokes of Sora's lukewarm response to Kairi while he's falling to his knees for Riku. What sucks is the manga end wrapped up dummy fast and didn't leave a lot of room for them to reflect on their relationship like most stories do when the protagonist isn't overwhelmed by responsibilities/reaches a moment of clarity.
Shonen in general is bad at giving downtime when the story picks up (though I appreciate that's changed a bit with newer series) but with Soul Eater pretty much had nothing after the basketball game. Compared to other [Shonen] fandoms, I feel like we've always have been starving lmao. This is gonna feed into the Soul Eater Brotherhood cope but when I went to the Soul Eater Exhibition earlier this month, there was a special screening that put motion graphics and voice acting to the final few chapters. Between that and the first plush in *checks fictional watch* ~16 years, I'm the smallest inkling of hopeful we might get more supplemental material despite Ohkubo's retirement.
Again sorry for writing so much for an ask that probably wasn't even asking to be responded to, I've just been stuck in this fandom since 2008 and had to live with how unresolved the manga end made me feel for over a decade. Running back to the whole start of my initial post, I've been grateful for the doujinshi artists who built off of the main story to better explore what could have been with Soul and Maka; Kii Kanna (under the name Niwatori), Pan_Ahoi, and Flower of Clover among others. This summer in particular had a huge spike in issue releases with 5+ being made for Comic City Vega in which a stand out was by WakaWaka_0410 who had created a scenario where adult Maka switches places with a 14yo Maka and interacts with 14yo Soul. The western side of the fandom feels like it doesn't explore as much outside of the canon time line where as the JP fandom have made a lot of post end content.
#tomyo says shit#soul eater#for a third time apologies#i am a professional yapper#especially when it comes to soul eater I am not normal
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every binary man does this
part 1
#disco Elysium#fanart#comic#Harry du bois#Kim kitsuragi#disco Elysium skills#physical instrument#electrochemistry#inland empire#encyclopedia#half light#Kim is not equipped to walk Harry through a gender crisis but he can call her miss#my apologies to coach. I’m accepting that I have to slander him a bit to avoid redrawing#I just like him and Echem fighting too much ghsdgjsdf#idk why I have such a hard time writing for comics when the fic just flows#it’s worse now that I’ve got that scarf scene in the fic#bc the subtle unnamed panic feels much more correct. not even worrying about gender. can’t even get that far#rynArts#I really like Harry in the third panel. he looks so sad and wet
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more spelling with ben
"J is one of the most f*cked up letters that there is"
#jet lag the game#ben doyle#jet lag season 12#jet lag spoilers#if you take the r from the other post i guess you could spell 'riot'#i've decided to put all the bits from episode 6 into seperate posts#apologies if you're sick of seeing me in the tag#there are simply too many bits#Also sorry if this is the wrong sock color#his shoes are not actually visible in any of my screenshots and I could not watch this hour long episode a third time to check for socks
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Oh! For those of you who like Lancer, I've made major progress in the campaign I'm writing: Kindness of strangers!
LRBT-III, otherwise known as Blanche to the locals. This sun-baked dustbowl of a planet has the high honor of being one of the few habitable terrestrial bodies that anyone has discovered in the Long Rim, and probably the only one that's actually any use to anyone. Luckily- or not so luckily, if you ask some people- it was Union that found it first. Well, about 70 years ago when they stumbled across this star system they got it in their heads that the Long Rim's days were numbered. There’s untold millions living out there scattered along the emptiest shipping lane in the known galaxy who'd need a way out once no one needed to pass them by, and by Christ the Buddha Union was gonna be there for them waiting with open arms.
All of that is background, though. You? You’re a bunch of mercenaries who got their hands on a couple of GMSes, decided to make your manna selling violence for pay. Worlds like Blanche don't take to colonies very well, so even two generations in there's still plenty of frontier out there being settled and railroad tracks being laid. The people out there struggle day by day to survive, and people like you are there to protect them from those who got sick of the hard life. Not everyone out there has the guts to stand up for the little guy- that's why you're called Lancers.
A setting and a campaign all in one, Kindness Of Strangers and its (eventual) follow-up Dancing With the Devil are a series of Wild West-themed 2-mission adventures intended to take players from 0-12 as they find themselves embroiled in the midst of a corporate conspiracy to overthrow the Union-backed government of the isolated colony of Blanche and a ploy to seize control over a nearly completed Blinkstation. All the while, a strange religious movement worshipping an eons-dead alien civilization grows ever more influential in the background...
This campaign tackles themes of colonialism, nationalism, corruption, and conflict between indigenous peoples, settlers, and immigrants, all in a world where well-meaning intentions have gone sour and the ghosts of the past have come back to haunt it.
Kindness of Strangers, Missions 1-3
Field Guide to LRBT-PN
Exotic Gear Documentation
Variant Frame Documentation
Kindness of Strangers Worldbuilding Short Stories
Kindness of Strangers LCP, Maps, and Assets
This latest update includes the first(ish) draft of Mission 3: The Field of Blue Children, allowing play of the first half of Act 2 and extending the LL range from 0-3. Mission 3 is heavily intrigue and RP focused, featuring a wide suite of characters, relationships, and locations in the Tourist town of Baugh- a thriving immigrant community situated on a soda lake.
The PCs have been hired to investigate a bomb threat at the newly completed Baugh Pumpworks, and water filtration and chemical processing facility that stands to end the water shortage and threatens corporate control over the colony's water supply- but is everything really as it seems? In the process, the PCs will go toe to toe with teenage gearheads, Pinkerton-expies, and a group of Sparri Espadas who got roped into this whole mess, and uncover the mystery behind the threat!
Also, there's a subaltern that talks like a pirate and catholicism.
Anyway this mission also includes a custom NPC Template (kind of, I don't know how to design the LCP for that but i did include instructions on how it works), several new reserves, and several custom sitreps!
So, check it out- I'm always looking for feedback.
#lancer#lancer rpg#lancer ttrpg#lancerrpg#lancer third party content#writers block really kicked my ass for the last half a year ngl#and also i apologize for lack of/inconsistent formatting while i have been editing on my own time its mostly cleaning stuff up#as well as rebalancing encounters as ive tested them#and making sure the existing plot and writing is forwards compatible as i develop and expand things
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I get the feeling that Adeline is the most likely to get therapy.
...She'll probably need it too... (Pausing the fun times for something dreadfully serious) -
"Pieces"
-
[Apologies AU Masterpost] [Noir's Field Trip]
#Apologies AU#Kirby#King Dedede#Magolor#Adeleine#Ribbon Kirby#Noir (human-form DMS)#Dark Matter Swordsman#Going to go ahead and treat this one as a mainline comic!#Read my own title as “Pisces” for a second which made me laugh because despite his birthday being a few days later...#...I cosmologically align Noir with the Pisces sign (Maybe Earth shifted? Or the New World has slightly different dates?)#But the two fish tied together / dual natures / transformation / end of a cycle are all very Noir-thematically speaking#cw: angst#Dess Art Post#One of the bigger tragedies is that Noir - foolish boy that he was - thought he could spare Adeleine the pain of his death#...All he did was delay it...#In other (lighter) news I'm going to need a third master post to keep all this new content I've been drawing XD#Will try to get that done in time with The Dess Cut#So much to do! Responses to get too as well! Busy Dess XD
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okay here me out... i have this plot in mind about theater actor!bts member who recently had a scandal and is now desperate to redeem his reputation by aiming to play the lead in an upcoming korean adaptation of a famous broadway show. he’s confident, he’s positive that he will be cast because his manager seriously knows how to pull some strings to make things work for him (also ‘cause despite the scandal, he really is extraordinary at what he does)—until he discovers that the director of the show is going to be your father, and suddenly all hope is gone.
because unbeknownst to many, you and him used to date (very secretly) at the start of his career, and he does specifically remember you yelling at him to ‘never show your fucking face to me again!’ after he dumped you over call. he wants to believe that considering it’s been a decade since that incident happened, surely you wouldn’t be that petty and immature to hinder the restoration of his career by using your nepo baby powers and influencing your dad’s mind about his decision regarding the final cast.
wrong. turns out you are petty and immature still, and now his manager is convincing (forcing) him to ask you for your forgiveness / be in your good graces so that he can have the part. normally, he wouldn’t have a problem lowering his ego and pride if it’s for the betterment of his career—however, you’re determined to make his life a living hell, and he finds himself wanting to burn himself alive instead of sucking up to you who’s really starting to get on his nerves lmao.
ANYWAYS, i kinda have taehyung or jimin or seokjin in mind for this??? i’m considering jk too but i just posted a fic of him so i kinda want to do this fic for a different member hehe,, please tell me ur thoughts if i should pursue this idea or not bc i want to write it but i have a feeling it’ll take so freaking long to write since it should have proper pacing and all that shit but yeah 😫
UPDATE: this has materialized to this drabble series!
#athena.plots#I CANT GET THIS PLOT OUT OF MY MIND BC I HAVE ONE SPECIFIC SCENE I WANT FOR THE WHOLE FIC#also if ever i dont go forth with this fic or take a really long time writing this... i apologize in advance...#i feel like writing this fic and making it good is going to take a lot of brain power lmao#ALSO AGAIN#GOOD GRACES WOULD BE SUCH A GOOD TITLE THO#idk my love for the sweet n short album must be influencing this aksksjka#OH AND I THOUGHT OF THIS IDEA BC IM WATCHING THE THIRD SEASON OF ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING!!!#i love oliver putnam <3#no spoilers pls if u see this and have watched the shOW I AM NOT DONE
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As we discuss Scarlust dynamic we need to factor in Gluttony. Because where does this weird cannibal factor into this. He’s like Lust’s little brother and tbf, Scar has always been impartial to little brothers (on account of having been one) and gave up his own life to save one with little hesitation.
I’m just thinking of that meme; Me, my GF, and her weird little homunculus cannibal of a little brother. All of them in bed together.
Remember how the last thing Gluttony says to Scar after he paralyzes Lust with the locket was "I hate you! I hate you for hurting my Lust!"
Because I do, and I don't think Gluttony would soon forget either.
#I'M FUCKING DONE#anon your ask made me imagine so many scenarios where gluttony is present while these two try to do lovey-dovey shit#and i couldn't shake the memory of gluttony's animosity towards scar#then i couldn't stop imagining lust still insisting that gluttony get to hangout as the third wheel#while gluttony less than secretly terrorizes scar meanwhile lust is happy as can be#and that was too funny for me to pass on the opportunity to torture myself by making a comic as a response to your ask#i'm a fucking idiot tho because than i languished in weeks of art block and little to no time to work on this ridiculous & unnecessary thin#my apologies for having your ask languish for... holy shit over two months#TT-TT#i am only happy with the final panel. everything else is ass and i can no longer look at this mess#waffled on the format far too many times#also i'm the master of simultaneously over- AND under- rendering (´-ι_-`)#guh#i almost went with drawing the admittedly cute scenario of the meme you mentioned but the thought of scar and gluttony glaring at each othe#the entire time (gluttony out of hate; scar out of a concern for his own survival lol) wouldn't leave me#and then things spiralled into *gestures at this post*#ask#+my art+#lust#gluttony#scar fma#fma 03#fma
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HE'S SO CUTE OH MY FUCKING GOD
#Also not Maki being a hater 😒 /j#BUT I DON'T GET HOW SOME PEOPLE STILL HATE HIM#LIKE HE'S SUCH A CUTIE PATOOTIE#Apologies for posting a Kaito thing for the third time today but I feel sick so I need to share Kaito being adorable with the world#danganronpa v3#drv3 killing harmony#danganronpa drv3#danganronpa v3 killing harmony#drv3#kaito momota#momota kaito#maki harukawa#harukawa maki#<- I mean she also talks in the screenshot so yeah#danganronpa#shitpost
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oh boy! time to post a new fic! I can't believe it's been *checks calendar* ....oh. uh. oops. ignore that! it's the fourth and final installment of (this) aspec reigen series, complete with a lite™ version of a couple different kinks and finally getting to touch the peen! this one's real long, folks, clocking in at about 9,500 words, so you might wanna get a nice beverage and settle in.
content notes: thigh riding, themes of consent, drunk almost sex, a discussion about the drunk almost sex in the following scene, praise kink, a very loose (literally) definition of bondage, and so so many pet names. minors please don't interact!
also on ao3!
It takes more than a couple tries for you to get settled on the bed. You’re too close, then too far, and Reigen can’t get comfy, and your hand keeps sliding out from under you, and he can’t decide how he wants your leg angled, and there’s too many clothes, then all at once so few clothes that it feels like too much at once and you hastily agree to put your shirts back on, not wanting to break the already fragile layer of quiet hope.
Finally, finally, everything is perfect.
Awkward, stilted, and a little tense, and you’re not sure how long your leg will let you keep it just barely raised like this before it cramps up, but he’s here, embarrassed but steadfast, breath coming out in shivery gasps, hovering over your thigh, one hair fisted in the back of your hair. If he tips over, there’s no way you’re not going with.
Perfect.
His thighs shake as he holds himself up, deciding which direction he wants to move. You reach for the small of his back to steady him. "Does this count as keeping my hands out of the way?" He nods, so you test the waters by sliding your other hand up his thigh.
"As long you don’t- just no direct touching. Close to is fine, just not… well." He moves a hand back and forth across where he’s hovering over your thigh.
“Keep off the goods. Gotcha."
"The goods? Awful. You're awful, I swear."
You slide your hand up, just barely skimming your fingernails over his hip when you catch the hem of his shirt, and his cock twitches in his boxers.
"The goods don't seem to agree."
"Oi." Despite his protests, the laughter loosens him, and he relaxes enough to lean back into your knee. “Fine, fine, just stop saying goods.”
“Alright.” He raises an eyebrow. You lift both hands in surrender. “I promise! I will never again use ‘the goods’ to refer to your perfect, gorgeous, suckable-”
“I get it! I get it.” He grabs onto your shoulder - maybe in an effort to distract you, or maybe just to keep his balance - as he shifts closer. You can practically feel the heat radiating from his ears. “Here, actually, can you-? Hm.” He presses a hand against the inside of your other leg, thumb digging in as he gives a shove. He slides a knee into the newly free space between your legs, leaning forward to get a better angle. Your hands settle back on his waist.
“Better?”
“Much.” He lets out a little hum as he pushes his hips forward, and you have to stamp down a whimper at the feeling, his dick heavy and warm even through fabric.
“Didn’t mean to just push like that, though. Sorry.”
“S’okay. I’ll survive a little manhandling, as a treat.” You hit the last “t” sound with a click of your tongue, and he falls into your neck with a laugh. You trace patterns on his hips as he moves, tracking the motion as you press your fingers into his skin. “God, how do you get your hips to move that smooth? It’s sorta mesmerizing.”
“Hm? Oh, I don’t know, I’m just- I wasn’t thinking about it. S’just what f- ha, feels good.” His breath fans out across your collarbone, warm and fast.
“Yeah? You like using my thigh, baby? No thoughts other than what feels good? Your own personal toy to get yourself off against?”
“Oi.” His hips stutter once before he falls back into a slower rhythm. His fingers dig into your shoulder as he pulls you closer.
“Too much?”
“That’s not how I think of you.”
You can’t help but laugh, a light chuckle coming out in a breath against his hair. “I know, ‘Taka, I know.” You slide your hands under his shirt, over his stomach and up to his collarbone. “But would it really be so bad to belong to you?”
“I- fuck.” There’s a moment of worry when he shoves you away, but then he’s scrambling for the hem of his shirt and pulling.
“Are you sure?” It’s a formality, uttered even as you’re already reaching to help slide the fabric over his elbows, but it’s one you can’t even imagine going without.
“Very.” He lifts himself off of you to push his boxers down, shifting his weight from one leg to the other as he shimmies them all the way off. The mattress shifts and pitches him over, and you hurry to grab his arm.
He crawls back over to straddle your thigh, the tip of his cock tapping lightly against your side before he leans back onto his ankles.
“Do I need to get-?” You chuck his shirt into infinity and gesture vaguely to the bedside drawer. He’s technically never told you that he started keeping lube in there, but he hasn’t made much effort to keep the secret either.
He shakes his head. “I’m close. Won’t matter.”
He tries to go back to rutting against you, anchoring his hands on your waist to tilt his hips this way and that, but something about the new angle is off, and he can’t get any good contact.
“Oh no, now horrible, your dick is just so hard it won’t stay down on its own.”
He clicks his tongue at you as he scoots to sit closer, flush making its way from his ears to the edges of his cheeks.
“That gorgeous curve probably isn’t helping, either. In this case, anyway. Be an absolute treat to have inside me, though.” You press your thumbs in just above his knees, encouraging him to spread his legs more, and he jumps with a squeak, hands flying to grab yours. “Sorry, sorry, di-”
“No, it’s-” He pulls your hands together, just in front of his stomach, and the tip of his cock brushes against you. For a moment, you think he’s going to pull down, but he guides your hands back to his hips, pressing them into his skin as he rolls his hips. “Here.”
He gives up and puts his hand flat over his dick, pinning it down against your leg. He lifts himself to adjust the angle, just his tip dragging along your skin until he bumps into your hip, precum rolling out in a thin line over your thigh. When he pulls back, he grinds down insistently, coating his length and covering what isn’t already marked of your thigh so he can slide more easily. After a few impatient jolts of his hips, he settles back into a rhythm, smooth and fluid, and lets up on the pressure of his hand. He slings his other arm over your shoulder to pull you closer, and he falls forward to bury his face in your neck, whining into your collarbone.
He wasn’t lying when he said he was close, because it only takes a few drags of his cock against you for him to seize up, body tensing before going boneless, cum rolling over his hand and onto your hip as he slumps against you in a mess of pants and sighs. You slide your hands up his back to support his full weight, pressing kisses to his hair as he catches his breath.
“Just… gimme a second, I can cl- get you- god, my legs.” He rolls off of you with none of his usual grace, limbs falling everywhere at once, lightly smacking your arm as he goes limp.
You laugh and push his hair back from his face. You don’t bother to untangle your legs from his, accepting your fate of needing a shower later in exchange for getting to lean down to kiss his cheek.
“Eh, let it dry.”
“I’m starting to think you like it more than tolerate it.”
“If you haven’t gotten the hint by now that I want you to absolutely cov-”
He gives you a shove, rolling his hand so there’s no real force behind it, but you seize the chance to topple with a dramatic moan, one hand falling theatrically across your forehead as your eyes flutter closed.
“Oh, stop it.” He crawls over and props himself up on his elbows. You can feel his breath fanning over your collarbone, stilted like he’s trying not to laugh. You crack one eye open, breaking into giggles when you see his forced serious expression, eyebrows pinched together and one cheek sucked into his mouth to keep the smile off his face. He breaks at your laughter, breathing out through his nose and pressing his forehead to yours. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
“Oh, you could take me anywhere, handsome.” You waggle your eyebrows suggestively, and he rolls onto his back with an exasperated groan. You laugh again and sit up, pulling a blanket over him so you can settle in without accidentally brushing somewhere he’d rather you didn’t.
“Hey, Arataka?”
“I love you, too.”
“That, too.” You chuckle. “But I have a real question this time.”
“Oh.” He turns his head. “Sure.”
“After you… when you took my hands earlier, were you…?” The fleeting moment of contact between him and your hands floats through your mind. You can’t help but wonder what he was thinking in the moment he hesitated, but it feels weirdly invasive to ask so bluntly. “Sorry, never mind, this is a weird line of thought.”
You lay down beside him, craning your neck to rest your head on his shoulder. His hand finds yours, lacing your fingers together as his thumb smooths up your wrist.
“Do you mean…” He takes a steadying breath, grip tightening almost imperceptibly. “Do you mean after the clothes came off?”
You nod. For a moment, he stills, not even breathing.
“I was… I wanted so badly to let you touch me. I thought if I didn’t have to say it, if I could just… imply, then I could get around it, but,” he sighs heavily, and he sounds tired when he continues, “I panicked.”
You’re both quiet, long enough that you startle even yourself when you finally break the silence.
“It’s not a bad idea.”
“...Panicking?”
“No, angel. Implying.” He presses his cheek to the top of your head. “Maybe you just have to imply for a little longer.”
“I’m not following.”
“What if you left your hand on top of mine? That way it’s like- it’s the same as when you do it, but it sort of, hm, bridges the gap? All the sexy, none of the surprise.”
For a long moment, you’re not sure if he’s quiet because he’s thinking or because he’s falling asleep.
He hums, shoulder rolling under your head, and he pulls you tighter against his side.
+
"Okay." You shift nervously, tucking your foot underneath yourself, then deciding against it and unfolding your legs. "Walk me through the zones again."
"I'm not a city planning map." He rolls his eyes, but he takes your hand. You’re not sure which one of you the gesture is supposed to comfort.
You shift back onto your knees.
"Here up, anything goes." He points at the middle of his chest. "But try to stay- so more like, well, from maybe..." He gestures to his collarbone and wags his finger up and down. "Here to here, really."
When he looks back at you, you can tell he's waiting for something. You settle for a small nod.
"Right. A-and then, here to here," he points from his chest to just above his hip, "Hands are fine. Doing... whatever." He steadies himself with another deep breath and rushes through the rest. "Legs, stay still, and anything... direct we'll do the- on the- yeah, got it, that's all."
You let him sit for a moment to make sure there's nothing he forgot. His grip on your hand tightens, and you swear he moves to pull you closer, but he must decide against it at the last second.
"Whose hand is going on top again? Sorry, we've swapped it so many times I can't remember if we decided."
"Oh. Right. Um." He hovers his right hand over his left, then swaps them, then swaps them again. “Yours under mine.”
“Got it.” You reach for him, letting him pull your hand up to his collar. "And you know you can tell me to stop at any time?"
"You tell me that every time."
"It's important every time."
He swallows thickly and traces a circle on the back of your hand with his thumb. "Yeah. I know."
You shift to pull your legs off to the side, then cross them again, then sit back up on your knees. Gently taking the collar of his shirt in your hands, you trail one thumb along the edge of the fabric until you reach the top button. "And can I do this, or would you like to?"
He nods before realizing there were two options in your question, then points at you, then at your hands, then flashes you a thumbs up. "Yeah. Go ahead."
"Well, now hold on, I have manners. I'm not going straight for the goods." He laughs and shimmies to sit up straighter, letting his legs straighten out in front of him. "How about the pants later?"
"Uh, right, that's, I didn't think about that. I mean it would make sense that you're going to be- I mean it's not like-"
"Arataka."
"Yeah." He swallows.
"I'm not going to be offended if you’d like to take off your own pants."
He pauses, staring down at his knee. Eventually, he shakes his head. "I want you to do it."
"And your-?"
"Just do it at the same time."
"Got it." You take a steadying breath of your own. "I won't stay there, but is it okay if I straddle you for a little bit? I wa-"
His hands are pulling at your waist before you can get your legs properly unfolded, and you almost tumble over him. He laughs an apology as you move on top of him, hovering over his legs to avoid making any real contact.
You brush his bangs back from his face, following through with the motion until your fingers tangle in the shorter strands of hair at the back of his head. He tilts to follow your hand, craning his neck to keep you from pulling.
"Ready?"
He nods slightly.
"I’d like a verbal yes for this one, lovely."
He swallows. You watch his Adam's apple bob.
"Yeah, yes.” He nods again. His hand jerks, taking yours with it, and he awkwardly lets your hand fall into his lap. You do your best not to move. “I trust you."
You drag your gaze back up to his face, searching for any last signs of reluctance. A bead of sweat trails down his temple, and you’re certain if you put your hand to his cheek you’d worry he had a fever. Sure enough, when you slide your fingers along his jaw, he’s hot to the touch, and the tips of his ears are turning brighter shades of red by the second.
He clears his throat, pushing his jaw into your palm. “Are you gonna-?”
“In a minute.” You swipe your thumb across his bottom lip. “I’m savoring.”
He scoffs at that, the same scoff he uses when he sees somebody do something stupid in public, and you take the opportunity to catch him by surprise, surging forward to push him down onto the bed. His hands go to your shoulders on instinct but he pulls them back almost immediately, hovering awkwardly in the space between you. Using your grip on his chin, you angle his head so you can lean down and kiss him without knocking your noses together.
Once you’re sure you can support yourself without falling on him, you allow your free hand to trail down, tracing down the muscles in his neck, across his collarbone and back, finally settling on the first button of his shirt. It takes a little effort to get it undone with just one hand, but you manage it, and you allow yourself to dip down as you settle into a rhythm, lips ghosting along Reigen’s skin as you uncover more of it.
He’s shivering, hand shaking where it hovers over yours on the last button of his shirt. When you slide your hand back up along his side, his hand falls back to the bed, pulling at a wrinkle in the sheets.
You kiss along his jaw, savoring the feeling every time his breath catches in his throat under your lips. Your hand trails down along his side, wrapping around him to hold his waist when he arches up into the press of your thumb. He hums, eyelids fluttering, and you dare to slide your hand down, ever so slightly, thumb brushing over his waistband and back onto bare skin.
He grabs for you, grasp tight around your wrist, almost painful before he slowly relaxes and drags your hand back up toward his chest. You push yourself off him, swinging your leg to kneel beside him.
“Here, let’s try this.” You guide him to sit up. Once he’s situated against the headboard, you settle in by his thigh, your knee pressing gently into his hip. One hand traces circles and patterns as you trail down to his stomach. “Still good?”
He hums, but he scrambles for your wrist again, holding on tighter and tighter the closer you get to the button on his pants.
“You’re allowed to change your mind, y’know. I can let you do it.”
“That’s not- mm.” He relaxes his death grip on your arm but keeps his thumb hooked around it. After a few tries to let go completely, his head tips forward into your shoulder. “I thought I would… I’m sorry.”
You shake your head and slowly pull away. “Nothing to apologize for.” You cup his face with both hands and gently turn him, but he doesn’t hold your gaze for long.
“Do you want to keep going? Should I…?”
He opens his mouth, but says nothing. His expression is pinched, tight with something you’re not sure how to label. His fingers press together, thumb and index, thumb and middle, thumb and ring, thumb and pinky, over and over as you lean back, nodding softly.
“Stay in bed?” Your voice is shakier than you’d like. You swear he flinches, and you clear your throat. “Or move to the couch and watch something?”
“Couch.” He nods once, stiff and harsh, and swallows thickly. “Thanks.”
He presses a kiss to the corner of your mouth, and slides out of bed, starting to button his shirt back up as he wanders into the other room.
You keep nodding as if in a trance, and you follow him out.
+
Despite the now faint memory of some friend of a friend forcefully inviting you, there's not a single soul at the party you recognize. With the exception of a few people dancing by the kitchen, closer to the speakers, everyone has settled for taking a seat and awkwardly bobbing their head. You’ve repeated the same three lines of small talk more times than you can count, it's just cold enough that you've had the chills the whole time while still managing to feel overwhelmingly stifled, and the music is so awful you wonder how somebody hasn’t tried to change it yet. But there's alcohol, the good stuff that somebody is clearly very particular about, and lots of it. You can't remember how much you've had, and that fact is enough to tell you it was probably too much, but it doesn't stop you from taking whatever the host is passing out when they wander through.
You think Reigen might be the only person doing worse than you. He looks... woozy. His face is flushed and his eyes are lidded like he might throw up, pass out, or both at any moment. At one point he took a tumble when he tried to sit down, graciously ignored by everyone else, and you had to throw your arm around his waist to keep him from sliding down the front of the couch again. He's leaning on you for support every time he moves, and if there were anything left in his can you’re sure he would be spilling it on you right now.
He's restless at the best of times, you know this, but even through the fog you can tell something is off. Not wrong exactly, but he keeps giving you this sideways glance, digging his fingers into your thigh to steady himself and then yanking his hand away, knocking his head into your shoulder and muttering something you haven't been able to make out.
He laughs - way too loudly at something you're not sure was supposed to be funny - and stands abruptly. Your hand around his waist falls limp on the couch, and he sways without the support.
"I'm going to the re- the ba- I gotta piss."
Nobody but you pays him any attention. He takes a wobbly step forward, knocking his foot into the leg of the coffee table, but he doesn't seem fazed. His knees bend at a weird angle as he shifts his weight from foot to foot, then he straightens back up and whirls around to face you. The momentum sends him tumbling back down, and you manage to catch him before his nose smashes into your jaw.
"I guess you better help me there."
"Yeah." Your voice crackles from dehydration. You have to clear your throat and try again to get a recognizable sound to come out. "Alright." You do a quick mental scan of your legs to make sure they'll support you before you motion for him to get up so you can stand. He does, grabbing your wrist and pulling with the conviction of somebody who does not need help walking.
The gears in your head start to turn.
He drags you along, glancing over his shoulder as he rounds the corner into the hallway, only stumbling once when he has to screech to a halt and back up to yank a door open. He pushes you inside, pulling the door closed behind him after he follows you in.
It's pitch black, and you're not sure if the overwhelming lemon smell is coming from Reigen or something in the room. You reach out to find him, but your fingers brush against something cold and smooth instead, and it's not until it tilts and hits you in the head that you realize it's probably a handle for something. Reigen's hand whacks into your arm and he holds on tight, fingers digging into your shoulder as he pulls you forward.
"I don't think that was the right door."
"Hm? Oh, sure." You can feel the air beside you moving until eventually his other hand finds your face, one finger dragging across your cheek until it hits your nose. "No, I- yeah, I know."
"Then wh-"
He pushes, hard and sudden. You fight to keep your balance as you adjust to the weird backwards lean you find yourself in. Reigen hisses as he pulls his fingers out from between you and the wall.
"Dumb, that was so dumb. Sorry." He fumbles for your waist to guide you backwards, and you feel his hips press against you when he reaches past your head to lean on the wall.
Everything clicks together all at once.
Your hands fly to where his waist should be. Once you find him, you're not sure if you want to shove him away or pull him in closer.
"You're super drunk. I don't know if-"
"Tha's the point." The hand on your face slides around until his thumb catches your bottom lip. He sways, like talking about it has made him remember how much he's had to drink. When he leans against you, he's heavier than normal, like he can’t support his weight anymore. "Liquid courage."
"I’m drunk."
"Mm. Shit." He pulls away, just barely, and he nods. "Do you mind?"
Your mouth drops open uselessly. All your thoughts feel like static, indecipherable noise screaming for you to do something, if only you could figure out what. He's squirming now, like it hurts to stay still. You realize he's whimpering at the same time you realize he's grinding his hips against your leg.
“M’fine.”
He lets out a sigh of relief and drops his hands as he shuffles around. You take the chance to stand back up. When you finally bump into each other again, he wraps his arms around you and squeezes, his breathing coming out in pants against your chest. He hooks one leg around yours, tapping his foot against your heel to bring your leg forward. You make a strangled humming sound when he grinds against your thigh.
"Hey, where's your hand?"
"My...?" You suddenly remember you have hands. You allow yourself a moment of silence for all the time you could have been holding onto him before you push one hand forward. It smacks into what you think is his stomach. "Sorry. Here."
"S'kay. Stay put." You keep your hand pressed against him as he leans backward. You're not sure when he stopped holding onto you, but one of his hands is suddenly over yours, and a loud zip cuts through the sound of you both breathing. He slides his hand down, dragging yours with it. Your fingers glide along his skin, smooth and soft, until you brush against a patch of hair.
A sobering panic cuts through you.
He must realize what he's doing at the same time you do, because you both freeze. His grip tightens. He guides your hand away from him slowly, stopping when he makes contact with your side.
"Stay... stay put."
He turns and scrambles for the door. Something falls beside you when he misses the doorknob, then you're squinting as light floods in from the hallway. You can make out the silhouette of him sprinting into the room diagonal from where you're standing, and then there's the unmistakable sound of vomiting.
Your place is only two blocks away - no more than a ten minute walk.
You call a cab service.
+
It smells like coffee.
When you try to sit up, the room spins. You end up in a sort of half sit, half lean as you grab onto the side of the mattress, willing everything to stay still. You take stock of the things that are clear enough to look at, slowly making sense of what happened once you got home.
You're laying on top of the covers, still in your clothes from last night. One shoe is in the doorway, and the other is nowhere in sight, probably somewhere closer to the entrance. The coffee smell, growing more enticing by the second, is a good sign Reigen's in the kitchen.
You slide onto the floor beside your bed, not trusting yourself to stand up without falling just yet, to rummage for more comfortable clothes. Once you manage to get changed, you stand up slowly, and make your way to the kitchen.
Reigen must have grabbed a set of pajamas at some point last night, though you can't remember when. His back is turned to you; he's lazily stirring something on the stove. Two steaming cups of coffee sit on the counter beside him. Before you can decide whether you want to say something and risk startling him, he seems to sense you standing there, and he turns around with a weak smile.
"Hey."
"Morning?" It's both a greeting and a question, because you have no idea what time it is.
"Yeah." He lets out a breathy chuckle. "How, um, how you feeling?"
Your head is throbbing so bad your teeth hurt, your legs and back are sore, and you have a looming sense of guilt.
"I think I should be asking you that."
"I'm fine, really." He clicks off the fire and reaches for a bowl. "I told you, I felt basically back to normal after I- well, um, you know. Thanks again, by the way, for car- for carrying me."
You nod softly, feeling a little useless as he hands you what looks and smells like a very delicious soup.
"Reigen, I am so-" "I didn't mean-"
He reaches for a second bowl. "You first." When you start to shake your head, he rolls his wrist in a "go on" motion. "Please. I'm not actually sure how to say mine yet."
"Right." You swallow thickly, fidgeting with your spoon. Deep in thought, you miss Reigen slipping past you. He clears his throat and gestures to the seat across from him. You slide into the chair. Your spoon clanks against the bowl as you set it down. "I, um. Shit, I'm so sorry."
He seems surprised, a spoonful of soup halfway to his lips.
"What for?"
"Wh-" You blink. "Every... thing? I- I know sorry doesn't even cover it, but I-"
"Whoa, hey, okay." He shakes his hand in front of him. "Never mind, I'll go first, because I think you got the wrong idea and I'm not gonna let you apologize for anything that happened."
"But you trusted me, and I-"
"And I still do. That's- that was the whole- look, I-" He sighs. His spoon clanks as he sets it down, abandoned in favor of wringing his hands together. "I set you up."
"You-?"
"I didn't mean to! I thought- It was stupid, and I should have just told you what I was trying to do, I know , but I- I wasn’t exactly thinking straight, and I thought if I could speed up the process, then- I mean, there's only so many times you can put up with almost getting to- if I could- ugh, sorry, hang on."
He pinches the bridge of his nose. You swear your headache is reacting sympathetically, because pain shoots between your temples, dull but persistent. He goes to retrieve the coffees from the kitchen, just cool enough to drink, and you down some as soon as he hands you a mug.
"You've been so patient, and I know you would never do anything I didn't want, but I... I keep overthinking it. And I thought it would be the perfect excuse to... to not have to think about it at all. I mean that's- that's just what people do at parties, right, and- I mean, it was... ugh." He sits back down, his posture unnaturally rigid. He chooses his next words carefully, pausing between words as if he’s testing out different sentences in his head. "I trusted you… to not take it further than I was comfortable with… more than I trusted myself to… not panic over nothing. So, I- I saw the chance and I..." He gestures weakly, hand falling back to the table with a soft thump.
"Liquid courage."
He takes a sip of his coffee and slumps forward, holding his chin with one hand.
"You... got drunk on purpose?"
"Not originally, but, uh."
You nod slowly. Your stomach grumbles, and you realize you haven't actually eaten any of your soup. You take a reluctant spoonful, chewing slowly as you take everything in.
"When you froze up, it- I realized how little I had thought it through. I- it wasn't fair to you. You didn't do anything to- I never should have put you in that position in the first place."
"I... would have appreciated a warning, yeah."
"Sorry." He runs his hand through his hair and leaves it against the back of his neck. "I'm really sorry."
"Apology accepted." Reigen relaxes into his chair. As he stretches his legs out, one of his feet bumps against your ankle, and you laugh softly. "I'm still sorry, too. I should have asked more questions. And I didn't... I think I noticed something was wrong but I didn’t realize it was that frustrating for you. Before, I mean. I never wanted to make you feel like you had to do something like that."
"It's exclusively a me problem, I promise. I thought something would have worked by now. I don't... I don't really know what’s getting in the way." He shakes his head, breathing out sharply through his nose.
“I mean, literally speaking, your hands.” You laugh and take another sip of your coffee. He tilts his head. “Because, you know, y-you always grab my hand before I-?” He stares, unblinking. “Sorry, too soon to joke, probably,” you mutter into your cup, taking another sip just to have something to do.
When he moves again, it’s with a jerky start, sitting up and leaning forward. “My hands.”
“Yeah, I-”
“No, my hands.” He throws his elbows onto the table. The bowls clatter and his coffee sloshes; his chair scrapes against the floor as he stands. His wrists come together in front of you, palms up and fingers curled loosely, as he stares, silent, waiting for a glimpse of recognition to cross your face. It takes a moment, but when he finds it, he grins. “My hands.”
“If you want to stop-”
“Saying so has always been enough.”
You stand, leaning to match his eye level. You consider him, searching for hesitation, but you find none.
You take his hand, and you start pulling.
+
“This is… mine?” An old black tie lays across Reigen’s palms, the ends hanging loosely over his thighs.
“Yeah, you left it here. A while ago, I guess.” You shrug. “You never really liked it, though, plus you’re here all the time anyway, so I didn’t get around to giving it back, and it’s just been here ever since.”
As you slide the drawer closed, he catches a glimpse of an old t-shirt he left on his first night in your place, folded neatly in the back corner, under a small collection of his dress socks.
There are signs of him everywhere, really, if he looks. His toothbrush in your bathroom, a blanket he bought you for your birthday draped over the back of the couch, his favorite sweater of yours hanging on the handle of the closet, never out of service long enough to make it in with the rest of your clothes.
He’s struck with the realization it’s not just in your things, your home, but in you, the way you gesture with an extra dramatic flourish that wasn’t there before, the unwavering, tight smile that settles on your face when you talk to clients, the softness in your voice when you welcome the kids into the office, quietly clearing a table for them to do homework on, the flashes of movement in the kitchen as you dash back and forth whenever you make recipes he taught you - favorites from when things were harder and uncertain and cooking was his escape, before even the hardest parts of his life were laced with joy.
He’s wearing off on you.
He’s known it for a while, but he’s never put it all together like this, never seen it all so neatly represented in a single black tie, satin and unassuming and full of possibility. You kick your abandoned shoe out of the way, pushing the door shut with a soft click that startles him just enough to draw his attention.
“Still okay?”
He wonders how you’ve worn off on him, which parts of him weren’t there before that he doesn’t notice, can’t notice.
“Yeah.” He nods. “I’m ready.”
He smooths his thumb over the fabric, watching it wrinkle and crease where he applies pressure. It slides across his palms, dragging slowly as you wrap one end around your hand, until he’s left with empty air, hands outstretched between you.
He feels light.
You take his hands in yours, turning them in toward each other, and start to lay the tie across his wrists.
“Oh, wait!” You pull back right away, and he holds up one finger. “Not- we should take my shirt off first.”
“Jesus, you scared the shit out of me!” You laugh and settle back onto your knees. “Yes, okay, let’s- yeah.”
Reigen stops halfway up. The fabric stays bunched when he lets go, and he pulls your hands to the exposed patch of skin. He can feel the tie, still wrapped around your palm, pressing against his side, cold and smooth, and he swallows thickly. As you drag your hands up, it slides up with you, and a shiver wracks through him when you finally pull the shirt off his arms.
He cups your face, pulling you into a kiss, fingers coming to press at the back of your neck to keep you against him as he topples backward. You catch yourself on one hand, the end of the tie flipping to rest over his shoulder as you climb to straddle him. He’s insistent, both hands tangling in your hair, little sighs and puffs of breath against your mouth as he refuses to pull away for air.
You press a kiss to his cheek to soothe the loss when you lean back. He drapes his arms over your shoulders, locking his fingers together behind your head.
“We could stay like this? My hands are… close-ish together.”
“I can’t see behind me to tie it, but,” you pull his hands around your head, “I’m sure we can figure it out after that.”
He nods. You turn his hands back toward each other and his fingers curl, knuckles pressing together as he relaxes. You drape the tie around his wrists, trying a few different ways of looping it but not finding anything you’re satisfied with.
“Sorry. I just wanna make sure you can get out if you need.”
“It’s alright. I like the attention.”
You freeze, a wobbly grin taking shape as your face heats up.
“‘Taka, I’m supposed to be the composed one!”
“I’m just trying to be honest!” He flexes his wrists, pressing his knuckles together to crack them.
“Don’t worry,” you press both ends of the tie between his hands and motion for him to hold them still, “I like giving you attention.” You fold the middle of the tie over to make two loops and start twisting them in on themselves. “And I wanna hear about it as much as you can bear.”
“You seem plenty composed to me.” He pinches his thumb between two fingers and squeezes.
“Quick recovery. I learned from the best.” You wink and put your fingers through the loops. “Here, hands in here.”
He flattens his hands to squeeze them through, stopping to let you shimmy the tie the rest of the way over. You hold the ends of the tie and give a quick tug before tying them together.
“There, it’ll have to do.” You slip a finger in each loop, making sure there’s enough room to be comfortable without him being able to slip out without meaning to. “It’s a little loose, so don’t pull too hard, okay?”
“Sure.” He folds his elbows down, letting his hands come to rest on his chest. He jerks one hand up toward his hair, pulling his other hand with it, and the tie snaps taut. He has the courtesy to look sheepish. “I’ll try.”
You roll your eyes, smile still wide.
“Hands above your head, please.”
“Hm?”
“I’d like to get at your neck.” You press up on his elbows, and he unfolds his arms. “Those were in the way.”
“O-oh. Right.”
You lean down, tilting his chin up with one hand, and press a kiss to his throat, savoring the way it moves as he swallows. You trail down until you reach his stomach, dragging your tongue along his skin on the way back up. He exhales sharply, breath moving your hair as you get closer to his face. He forces out a laugh, and he rolls one shoulder.
You glance up. The tie is already starting to come loose, untwisting in the middle, but his hands are clasped together, the tie held in place between his wrists, fingers over the ends.
You kiss him, quick and breathless, and slip your fingers under his waistband. When his breath hitches, you smooth your thumb along the bone there, a reassurance you won’t move yet. You can feel him tense under you, pressing up into your touch, then slowly settling back onto the mattress.
You’re both reluctant to acknowledge the fact that you have to get off of him to take his pants off. You do your best to shimmy them under you, and he lifts his hips to help, but you need both hands to make sure his boxers stay on for now, and you want to make sure he can move his legs, so eventually, begrudgingly, you climb off him.
He takes the opportunity to stretch, his back arching off the bed as you throw his pants off somewhere to worry about later.
“Ooh, pretty. Think you can do that for me again?” You press a thumb to the inside of his thigh, at the edge of where his boxer leg has ridden up, and he jumps, hips rolling against your touch.
“Trickery.” He squirms, a whine that refuses to come out shining through in his voice. “Not fair.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get plenty more chances.” You trail your fingers up his thigh, along the “v” of the bone, up his stomach. He shivers when you trail back down, your fingers catching on the waistband of his boxers to drag it over his skin before letting go, settling your hand lightly over the bulge in the fabric. It’s slightly damp against your skin, and Reigen chokes back a moan when you press down.
You pull, grinding your palm down on his cock as the waistband moves until you can see the base of it, then you slide back up, tracing the outline of him with your fingers. When he whimpers, you’re too slow to hide your grin, and he glares halfheartedly.
“Having fun down there?”
“Oh, lots, thanks.” You slip your thumb below the elastic. “Seems like you are, too.”
“Hm.”
“Sorry, what was that?” You lift your hand with mock alarm, and he scrambles to reach for you, slowly lowering his arms to his chest when he sees your smile.
“Yes.”
“So, just to make sure, you are having fun?” It’s just as sarcastic as it is serious, and he seems to take it in equal measures, because he scoffs at the same time he nods. Both hands are on his hips now, both thumbs in his waistband, and you pull up gently to get him to lift his hips.
“Good boy.”
You’re not sure you would have felt it if you weren’t holding him, but he definitely shudders, trembling where your fingers press into his skin.
“Arataka.”
“Hmm?” He sounds breathless, and his chest heaves with effort, the rest of him as still as he can keep it.
“Should I keep calling you a good boy?”
“Um. If you want.” He jerks his hips up, and you take the hint to slide his boxers off, keeping an eye on his face as you do. You climb between his legs and lean over him, wrapping your hand slowly around his cock, firmly but gently, your thumb over the tip.
He squeaks, and he tenses, but he doesn’t reach for your hands.
“You’re doing so well, ‘Taka.” He swallows, and he shifts his hands, twisting the tie so he can lay his arms closer to his hair. “Such a good boy for me.” Precum oozes out of his slit, and you feel it roll down your hand.
“Mhm.” You lean back on your heels. “How about this? You tell me what feels good, and every time you do,” you pull your thumb down, spreading the precum along his length, “I’ll let you know just how much I appreciate it. Sound good?”
He nods, and you stop moving.
“Can I hear you say it?”
“Yes,” he breathes, pressing his wrists together, “yes, sounds good.”
“Good job.” When you lean to kiss him, grip tightening to keep his dick down against his stomach, his knuckles brush over your hair. “So perfect.”
You start slow, focusing more on touching every inch of him then keeping any sort of rhythm. When you trail up the vein on the underside, he shivers, and he gasps when you squeeze the base, and his hips jerk up when you pass over his slit, one leg coming up to press his ankle against your side. It’s not until you slip your other hand around him, though, arm passing through the space created by the bend of his knee to settle on his outer thigh, that he says anything.
“Fuck, that, more of that. P-please.”
“This hand?” You press your fingers into his thigh. He presses back.
“Yeah. I need… just, hold onto me.”
“Okay. Yeah, of course, sweetheart.” You scoot closer to wrap your hand tighter around his leg, spreading your legs to slip your knee underneath him. Once he relaxes, the full weight of his leg on yours, you press a kiss to his knee. “Good boy.”
“Shit,” he laughs, squirming closer to you. “S’not close enough.”
“Let me try something, then.” You slide backwards, reluctantly letting his leg fall to the bed, and you shimmy onto your stomach. When you pull his leg over your shoulder, he immediately hooks his ankle into your back and lets out a breathy moan. The pressure makes it a little harder to reach back around his thigh, but he relaxes into it easier, and the view is incredible. “There you go, perfect.”
You start up a little faster this time, twisting your wrist as you move up and down, and he bucks up into your hand. You risk a kiss to his thigh and his hands fly to your hair, the ends of the tie flowing down against your cheek.
“Sorry, too much?”
“Not enough.” His voice is scratchy now, and he gives a little tug once he gets a hold of you. “Can you, don’t put it- but, closer?”
“You want me here instead?” You press a kiss to the underside of his cock, flipping the loose ends of the tie out of the way to lay across his hip.
“Y-yes. Yes, fuck.”
“Gladly.” Between words, you pepper kisses along his shaft, following the trail of your hand up and down. “Thank you for letting me do this for you. You look so beautiful like this, feeling so good.”
He starts to make a noise of protest, but it quickly shifts into a stifled groan when you press a kiss to his tip, just barely letting your tongue drag across his slit as you pull away.
He whines and bucks his hips to follow you, and you can’t help but let an incredulous laugh slip out. “Alright, love, I’m gonna give you a choice, okay?”
He swallows thickly, then nods.
“Option one, you can tell me exactly how you want me to make you come. If you want my hand or my mouth or to go faster or slower or anything at all you just have to say the word. But I won’t do anything you don’t tell me, so you’ll have to say exactly what you want.”
His breathing is ragged, and he twitches in your grasp. “And option two?”
You grin and lean over him, propping yourself up on one hand. “I do whatever makes you the loudest, and if you stop making those pretty noises for me, I stop.” He seems to flinch at that, and you brush his hair back. “Just for a little while.”
He takes a shaky breath, eyes fluttering closed, and he pulls his arms in and down to drape one across his forehead. The tie was never really secure in the first place, but after quite a bit of pulling and flailing, it’s fully undone by now, nothing but luck and stubborn determination holding the loops in place around Reigen’s wrists.
“Both options, of course, come with all sorts of praise and admiration.” You slip a finger under the fabric and give a light tug. He lifts his hands to let the tie slide free.
When he opens his eyes, a shudder running down his spine, he sees you absent-mindedly tying the tie around your neck, uneven and loose, hanging down between you to brush against his stomach. He’s sure you just needed somewhere to put it, something to do with your hands, but it flips a strangely possessive switch somewhere inside him. Not because he’s seeing you in his clothes - he’s had the privilege of that many times before - but because you’ve taken the thing that was supposed to restrain his ability to fuck up the situation, taken something he left safe for you to keep track of without even realizing he’d done it, taken the symbol of his presence in your space and your time and your life, and you’ve put it on without a second thought. He thinks of his misguided reasoning that got you into this situation, that he trusts you with him more than he trusts himself, and he knows what he wants.
For once, words are failing him, which just makes the choice even easier.
“Second one.”
Your eyebrows raise a little, like you’re surprised at his answer, and he almost takes it all back, but then you’re grinning and leaning down to cup his jaw, kissing him like he’s giving you the only air you could ever breathe, and he moans into your mouth.
You lean away just enough to pull in a gasp of air, fingers sliding to tangle into the base of his hair.
“Just like that, gorgeous.”
He laughs, sucking in a shaky breath as you wrap your hand around him again. It pinches into a sort of strained whimper as he starts to quiet himself and thinks better of it, and you start moving.
“That’s it, good boy, just let me take care of everything.”
For all he got into his head before, breaking the seal of touching him seems to have removed any last bits of hesitation, because he relaxes into your touch almost immediately. Your experimenting earlier left you with a good idea of what will get the best noises out of him, and he doesn’t hold back. You’re silently thankful, not only because you get to hear him, but also because you’re not sure you could have followed through on your threat of stopping. And if he’s exaggerating for your sake, all clipped moans and raspy mumbling and bucking hips, well, you’re not going to complain.
After a particularly tight stroke up his cock and a brush of teeth up the inside of his thigh, he pulls one arm over his mouth, pushing it against his lips with his other hand. You’re still deciding if that counts as muffling his sounds enough to slow down when he bites his wrist and yelps, a loud, desperate, frantic noise that seizes what little of your attention isn’t already on him. His head tips back as he struggles to prop himself up on one elbow, hand flipping to clamp down over his mouth, and you can see the bite mark, lines pressed into the pale skin just below the jut of bone where palm meets wrist. It takes you a minute to realize he’s saying something, your brain struggling to piece his noises together into words.
“Can I have your hand?” You hum, scrambling to extract your hand from his leg. “I just- I need,” he opens and closes his hands, “something.” When you hold your hand up blindly toward him, he takes it quickly and holds on tight, fingers lacing together with yours. He gives a few tugs, and you hurry to sit up.
“Please, I need- I can’t take it anymore.” He looks frantic, eyebrows pinched together and his chest heaving with ragged, shaky breaths. His hips buck wildly, quick and shallow into your curled fingers. You realize you’ve forgotten to keep moving as you were watching him, and you quickly correct your mistake, reveling in the shiver that racks through him as your thumb swipes over his tip.
He’s begging now, your name falling out in pieces between gasps and cries; he’s still tugging at your hand like you can’t get close enough, pressing his lips to your jaw like he can’t quite remember how to leave kisses there. He pitches his hips up and presses against you, knees coming together to press into your sides, pinning your hand against your torso as he lets out a final shuddering whimper.
He comes across your fingers, his whole body tense as he holds himself up, back arched and head rolled to the side. He moves to wrap his arms around you, forgetting that his elbow is supporting him, and he pulls you down with him as he falls the short distance to the mattress.
You do your best to roll off him without letting go of him during the aftershocks, but you’re not exactly paying attention to where you’re still holding, and he yelps again from the overstimulation. You yank your hand away with half an apology, smoothing your hand up his side as you lift yourself up on your other arm.
“Nono, wait, don’t-” He scrambles to grab you wherever he can, and you intercept him before he can smack you across the face.
“It’s okay, ‘Taka, s’okay. I’m not going anywhere. I just didn’t wanna crush you. Let’s sit up so you can get some water, alright? All that noise can really make your throat sore, I know.” You slip your hands under him, one at the small of his back and one between his shoulders, gently lifting him toward the headboard. “That’s it. You’re okay. I gotcha.”
Once he’s upright, a glass of water in two shaky hands, you lean over the side of the bed to fumble for a washcloth. When he doesn’t slow down on his own, you start to reach for the glass, but he pulls away for a big gulp of air before you can.
“How you feelin’?”
He doesn’t answer right away, leaving you to fidget with the cloth, slowly reaching for his thigh. He lets his eyes slide closed as you start to wipe him off, smoothing an apologetic thumb over his hip when he hisses from the sensitivity. You wipe your hand on a mostly clean corner before you chuck it in the general direction of the hamper, silently relieved when it makes it in.
“I think I died.” His hands are still shaking as he goes to set the glass on your nightstand, and you gingerly take it from him, lifting yourself up to set it on the far corner where neither of you can accidentally knock it off later. “I understand you now.”
“You didn’t die, I promise.” You allow yourself a smirk and pull a blanket up from the end of the bed. “That’s high praise, though.”
“You’re high praise.”
“You’re the one that liked it so much.”
He rolls his eyes, too tired to argue. As you pull yourself up the bed to sit beside him, he leans over, one hand sliding behind you to rest on your hip. Now that he doesn’t have the distraction of everything else, you can tell he’s starting to think, because his ears are tinting pink and he’s fidgeting with a string on the edge of the blanket.
“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy to oblige.”
You scoop his hand into yours, leaving the blanket’s seams to live another day, and examine the bite mark on his wrist.
“I can’t believe I did that.” He scoffs, shaking his head a little as you turn his arm over. “The hell was I thinking?”
“Obviously you weren’t, which is both the point and very hot, so hush.” He turns away stubbornly, but he looks pleased. “You could probably say a spirit did it. Biting seems like an evil ghost thing to do, right?”
“With clearly human teeth?”
“Maybe it… stole them?”
He laughs, pulling away from your grip to get comfortable against your side. Just as you start to drift off, soothed by the sound of his breathing slowing and his weight settling on you as he relaxes, you feel his fingers walking down your hip, making their way to your thigh. You crack one eye open, and he looks away with obviously fake innocence.
“Where you going with that hand, darling?”
He smiles, bright and daring, as his fingers dig in. “Your turn?”
You consider it. You’re not quite capable of fully ignoring how turned on seeing him like this has made you. There’s a bit of nervous energy, buzzing over what’s left of your hangover, excitement, the joy that bubbles up in your chest at seeing him smiling at you like that, everything coming together in an overwhelming, swirling feeling of wanting whatever he will give you. But there’s something else, a calm undercurrent to it all, coating the emotion in quiet and directing it all back to a single point, solid and unwavering and right .
More than anything, you are content.
He sees your expression and laughs, must know what you’re going to say the moment you decide, because he mouths the words along with you as he pulls his hand back up to your hip.
“Maybe next time.”
#reigen arataka x reader#reigen x reader#my writing#it's been so long i forget how i tag things lol#hey bestie you're for sure gonna get a notif for this and i apologize in advance lsjkdfk#thank you so so much to everyone that stayed through the hiatus#i have been reading all the kind comments and asks and even though i don't respond they absolutely make my day#i was trying to avoid the internet as much as possible and it kinda... just stayed that way for a long time#if you're worried about this being the “last” aspec reigen pls don't panic#there's a more detailed ramble on ao3 but basically there will be more of these two goofs in love#(and probably a third goof in love)#but i wanna change some stuff and it'll be easier to do that in a new series#since this wasn't really meant to be a series in the first place weirdly#so basically it may be slow going but this isn't the end#i'm dropping this and then going to bed so i'll see y'all in the morning i hope you enjoy!!#i have.... so much to catch up on.....
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You know that quite kid that everyone is scared of and think they gonna kill someone? That's evan I dear you to tell he wouldn't take out a pen and write someone's name if they annoyed him just to see them freak out and he'd have random peoples names written on that list just to scare people
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone be more right about anything, actually.
Like Evan’s just sitting at a desk in… I don’t know, potions or something, and someone sitting close to him says/does something he doesn’t like, so he just stares at them, picks up his quill and dips it in ink, then holds eye contact with the other person as he writes down their name. And the other person has completely stopped whatever they were doing and is looking at him with their mouth open, definitely fearing for their life, and Barty notices what’s going on and looks over Evan’s shoulder to see what he’s writing.
And then, with no reason given for why, he says, “You should put So-and-so’s name on the list.”
And of course Evan writes it down with no questions asked and everyone around them is extremely concerned, but Barty and him just go back to what they were doing without saying anything else.
I just love imagining that go down, it’s so funny to me.
#i think one time Barty did something to annoy Evan#so Evan wrote his name down on the list#and Barty was just so sad and immediately tried to fix it#and when he’s in the middle of apologizing for the third time#Evan just crosses his name out without saying a word#and of course Barty’s like :D#he likes me again :D#i love them#rosekiller#evan rosier#barty crouch jr#slytherin skittles#rosekiller headcanon
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average day in the life of
#there's like five specials that just start up immediately shoving shit like this in your face. its great!!!#every time i see that bigtop burger clip i think of them. even if goe makes more sense cuz of the sword but yknow#lupin iii#lupin the third#apologies to zenigata for enabling the looney tunes horseshit :(#cherry art
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#antonio salieri#wolfgang amadeus mozart#fate grand order#fgo#my art#once again i apologize to anyone looking for actual composers and getting anime gender bent composers instead#to everyone else: this was a great idea to draw and i was cooking i think and i need to draw more women#you can guess what i voted for my fave koyan outfit a;faafhkdkljhg this is like my third time drawing it on characters i like
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Decided my proposal for a We Are Series ghostship is Beer and Kleun. They could make a very chill couple.
#they might seem boring as a concept but that is why i love the idea of them getting together#imagine with me:#we all agree beer deserves good things#through his his screentime kluen was shown to be a green flag but he had a crush on the wrong person to have a crush on#so beer and kluen meet again independent of the group similarly to the beer and peem interaction#beer makes a comment on kluen disappearing after the volunteer camp and kluen awkwardly says he joined to hit on peem and beer sympathizes#they eat together and talk about the volunteer camp further and beer comments on how jealous phum was of kluen#kluen is in disbelief phumpeem aren't together yet and beer laughs#they have a good time and exchange numbers so periodically in the show beer would be on his phone giving kluen live updates#the two resonate over having braincells and meet up for lunch more and more frequently as tan and phum are enraptured#eventually mick catches them together and jokes he feels like he is third-wheeling a date#beer and kluen both say it is not a date and mick makes a face before going back to his video games#mick is so absorbed in his video games he doesnt witness beer and kluen agree to try and go on an actual date right in front of him#cue we are series typical nonsense as the cast keeps catching beer and kluen on dates without realizing they are on a date#until beer shows up with kluen to a gathering and reintroduces him as his boyfriend#everyone is surprised they got together so quick and beer has to explain to them not every relationship is a bl#then beerkluen becomes everyones relationship counselors because they hold the sacred braincells#at some point phum asks beer how he feels about kluens former crush on peem and beer stresses it was a former crush and relatively minor#and phum realizes he was really shitty and unreasonable to kluen and apologizes and they become friends#just the ghostship of beerkluen#we are the series#we are series#beerkluen#fuck it ill make it a tag
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Absolutely obsessed with the clunky cut Grian used to edit out Scar talking about how huge BigB's hole is
Once you know, it's so obvious:
#apologies for my clunky editing#apparently you can only upload one video per post so I had to edit everything together and it's only my third time doing something like that#it's so funny how unclean Grian's cut is#like it's so obvious something's missing#and it's waaaaay better once you know what it is#secret life#secret life spoilers#trafficblr#grian#scar#gtws#goodtimeswithscar#bigb#bigbst4tz2#bigbstatz#tango#tangotek#desert duo
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Untitled Roxy x Reader fic (hurt/comfort)
EDIT: A more polished version is now up on ao3. If you're re-reading it or sending it to someone, then the ao3 version is preferred, but it's not changed enough that I would necessarily suggest re-reading it again if you weren't already going to. <3
For some reason, last night, I decided that it was imperative I write and release a Roxy x Reader oneshot before Ruin. (ETA: To be clear I mean I wrote this before Ruin released, therefore it contains NO SPOILERS. <3) It's an idea I've had for awhile and was going to do as a comic but decided to expand it and write it out instead. I may post a more polished version to ao3 at a later date.
Fun fact: Roxy was my first FNAF crush, before SB even came out. So Ruin will have many chances to break my heart.
Word count: ~3200
----
When the Pizzaplex burned down, none of your colleagues had seemed particularly interested in returning to the ruins. You could understand…some of the techs arriving for the morning shift had been caught in the blaze, and while there were no casualties, there had been some injuries. Yourself included.
After a few weeks in the hospital, the burn mark across your face was just an angry red scar, and the singed hair you’d had to cut off had regrown enough for you to wear a slightly uneven pixie cut.
The other techs said you were crazy to want to go back. The future of Fazbear Inc was uncertain, and the animatronics themselves were just that. Animatronics. Machines. Not worth putting yourself in danger for.
But you’d come to consider Roxy a friend. Sometimes you thought she considered you one, too. She didn’t seem like she would readily admit such a thing even if it were true.
She had at least liked you as a tech, if not as a person. You were the only one who could do her pre-show checks and weekly maintenance without ruining her hair, at least according to her. According to the other techs, Roxanne’s hair was always fine.
You quickly learned that to Roxy, “fine” was equivalent to a reprehensible failure. A disaster. A complete horrific mess.
You didn’t think your experience with costuming (specifically wigs) in your college’s theater club would ever be something you used after you graduated, but life is full of surprises.
You wander through the corridors of your ruined, burned out workplace, flashlight in hand. You have a few guesses as to where Roxy might be. You desperately hope she’s okay. The structure is mostly intact, but there are a few collapsed portions and fallen bits of decor. You think as long as Roxy had been able to avoid the worst of the heat, she’d be mostly alright.
You make your way to Rockstar Row, your workboots crunching on the debris as you walk.
As you approach Roxy’s room, you hear something that makes you freeze.
Crying.
For a moment you wonder if another tech, or perhaps some urban explorer or rubbernecker is in here with you. Then you recognize the voice behind the sobs.
Roxanne is crying? You’re more surprised than you probably should be. But you’d seen behind her mask a couple times. Behind the vanity, haughtiness, and borderline entitlement, you had occasionally glimpsed a profound insecurity. Beneath it all, you don’t think Roxy actually likes herself very much.
You swipe your badge on the door, and it actually dings and slides open. Or tries to. Something jams it halfway and you have to wedge yourself into the doorframe and push the door open the rest of the way.
Roxy, who had been sitting at her vanity, head in her hands, perks up. Her ears twitch as she glances around. “Who’s there?” she calls out.
You open your mouth to speak, only to leave it hanging open in surprise as you see how badly she’s damaged. So much of her exoskeleton is missing, exposing the endoskeleton underneath. Her hair is a tangled, singed mess and her tail isn’t much better. But most horrifying, her eyes are completely gone.
“Who’s there?!” Roxy repeats, a growl in her voice as she stands up and starts stalking towards you. You can hear the servos and joints in her body creak in protest as she moves.
“R-Roxy, it’s me!” you say before hastily blurting out your name.
She stops, her ears twitching and her claws grasping at the air. At first you think she’s baring her teeth at you, but you quickly realize her broken faceplate has put one side of her mouth in a permanent snarl.
She huffs, turning away. She skulks back to her vanity, plopping down in her chair and burning her broken face in her shattered hands. “What do you want?” she mutters.
You tense, taken aback. “Wh-What do you think I want, Roxy?” you ask incredulously, slowly moving towards her. “I-I wanted to know you were okay. I wanted to help you. I was…terrified you’d…been destroyed,” you say quietly, putting a hand on her shoulder.
She pulls away with a growl. “I have been destroyed! Just--Just look at me!” The rage in her voice doesn’t fully mask her despair, nor does it completely hide her fear. Fear of what? Of what could have happened? Of how close she came to being permanently deactivated?
Her command was clearly rhetorical, for she lowers her head further, digging her claws into what remains of her scalp.
“Roxy…all this can be fixed…” you say gently.
“No it can’t!” she snaps. “I already checked. Parts and Services is a pile of rubble now.”
“Well…what about the loading docks? Maybe we can at least find some new eyes for you…”
She scoffs. “Oh good. Then I can see myself. Because feeling all this isn’t bad enough,” she sneers, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Roxy--”
“FINE!” she growls, pushing back from her vanity abruptly. If the chair weren’t screwed into the floor she surely would have toppled it over. “Fine. Let’s just go.”
You flinch nervously, nodding. Remembering her blindness, you quickly say, “Okay. Here,” you say gently putting a hand on her arm.
“Don’t touch me!” she snaps, though she sounds somewhat less defensive and a bit…nervous? Embarrassed? With a huff, she adds, “I’ll just follow your footsteps.”
You bite back a sigh. “Alright,” you say patiently.
You lead the way out of her green room towards the long stairway down to the loading docks. You’re not about to risk trying to take the elevator.
“Here, careful on the stairs,” you say, gently taking her arm again. This time she allows it, albeit with some reluctance as she gives you what probably would have been a withering look if her faceplate had been intact.
It’s a long way down and neither of you want to rush. The sound of your softer footfalls and her heavier ones as you both pick your way down the stairs echoes through the stairwell.
Thud. Clunk. Thud. Clunk. Thud. Clunk.
You watch her carefully. She seems too focused on making it down the stairs to be too sulky for the moment. Small blessings, you suppose. Still, the silence is only stretching out your descent.
“It sounds like one of your knees is out of alignment,” you say eventually.
“The left one,” she confirms a bit gruffly. “I can manage.”
“I can see that,” you say gently. “It took me awhile to notice something was even wrong. You carry yourself well,” you say, smiling a bit.
Roxy grunts in acknowledgement, but doesn’t preen even a little at the praise. That’s unusual for her…compliments usually cheer her up.
“Maybe I can find a new hinge while we’re--”
“Why are you doing this?” she cuts you off.
“W-What do you mean?” you ask, stopping in the middle of the flight of stairs.
“Don’t play dumb. You know what I mean,” she says. Before you can speak, she continues, “This whole place is finished. Nobody’s coming back to rebuild. What’s the point of you patching me up?”
“I told you, Roxy…I was worried…” you start as you resume your climb down the stairs.
“Why?”
“Because I care about you!” you say, exasperated as you reach the bottom of the stairs. You keep your hand on her arm as you make your way down the corridor, and she doesn’t protest.
She snorts. “You care about a pile of scrap?”
You wish she could see the glare you give her at that. “You are NOT a pile of scrap! You’re just a little scuffed.”
“More than a little,” she huffs.
You sigh. “Okay, maybe a little more than a little,” you admit. You force a smile. “But hey…I’m the perfect tech, remember? If anyone can get you fixed up, it’s me, isn’t it?”
You weren’t normally any kind of braggart. Roxy had been the only one to ever call you the perfect tech, though you feel like that was almost more a point of pride for herself rather than for you. As if she were praising herself for being deserving of the best tech more than she’s praising you for being the best tech. But you still liked hearing it…and sometimes it really did seem like she was directing the praise at you.
Roxy turns her head towards you, her ears swiveling forward. It’s hard to read her expression with her broken faceplate, but eventually one side of her mouth ticks up into a small smile. “...Yeah…” she admits softly.
You squeeze her arm gently, careful to not touch any of the sharper broken off bits.
Once you get to the loading dock, you guide her to sit down on a crate while you look through some of the recent part shipments.
The fire had somehow spared much of this place, but the collapse of P & S had rippled partially through the area and several patches of ceiling had fallen, knocking over piles of crates and leaving the whole place in disarray.
Eventually you find a crate that has the P & S stamp on the wooden slats, and figure that’s a promising place to start. You grab a crowbar and begin trying to pry it open in any way you can.
Roxy’s ears perk and she turns towards you. “What are you doing?”
“Trying--urg--to get this crate open,” you grunt.
She stands and walks towards you. “Let me,” she says. She reaches towards you, trying to determine your position.
You take her hand, your fingers weaving in hers for a moment before you guide her hand to the crate.
“Thanks,” you say, stepping aside.
“Well…pretty silly to make a human do all the heavy lifting,” she says, digging her claws into one of the planks. The wood splinters and creaks and is readily ripped free.
You smile weakly. “You’re right…these arms would never have a fraction of your strength,” you say. Jokingly, you lift your arm and flex…only to realize Roxy won’t be able to see it.
Probably for the best. It was a dumb joke anyway.
She snorts, actually preening a bit as she pulls another board free. “Even busted…” she agrees softly. Her tone is slightly melancholy…as if she doesn’t fully believe it.
She pulls another board free, and you put a hand on her shoulder. “I think that’s enough for now,” you say, guiding her back to the crate she had been sitting on before.
You begin pulling the smaller boxes from the shipping crate, cutting them open and rummaging through them, looking for anything usable.
Once again, the silence stretches on.
After finding nothing useful in the first two boxes, you glance back at Roxanne. Her hand is over her face, her middle finger slowly tracing the cracks near where her eyes had been. The quiet isn’t doing her any favors.
You shove the box you were looking through aside and pull out another, cutting it open. “Roxy?” you break the silence.
“Mm?” she grunts, still more focused on her faceplate than you.
“You…d’you um…remember that time we ran out of driver bots and that angry dad yelled at me?”
She pauses briefly, turning her head towards you. “What about it?” she asks before going back to feeling her faceplate.
“You remember what you said to me?”
“I called you an idiot.” Was that a touch of guilt you detect in her tone?
You laugh weakly, nodding. “Yes. But you remember why?”
“For letting a loser like that get under your skin,” she says plainly.
“Right,” you say, smiling. “I think about that a lot, you know.”
Roxy scoffs. “Really? Freddy said I was too rude,” she says. If she had eyes she would have rolled them.
You let out a gentle chuckle. “Well…maybe a bit,” you admit, earning a slightly sulky huff from her. “But there was truth to it, y’know? And I think about it a lot. It uh…it’s…helped me. Deal with people like him.”
She cants her head, one ear flicking curiously. It’s a cute expression even with her broken faceplate. “It…did?”
“Yeah,” you say, pulling out another box and opening it. “I-I mean…you were right. I knew he was a loser but I still told myself his opinion meant something. But it doesn’t, y’know?”
“Yeah,” she agrees quietly.
The conversation lapses again, and you try to resist the urge to slow your search in order to come up with a new topic. Luckily, it is Roxy who picks the next topic.
“You remember that time a birthday party ran long, and I was late getting back to the recharge station?”
You freeze. Oh you do remember. You remember that evening well. The animatronics tend to get a little quirky when their battery dips below five percent. Something about a power save mode cutting power to random systems. Usually mobility, but somehow, their…inhibitions, for lack of a better term, also seemed to go by the wayside. As far as you know nobody ever quite understood why, but it was a little like getting loopy from lack of sleep, or even a bit tipsy.
Roxy smirks, hearing your stunned silence. “You do.”
“Y-Yeah…I…I wasn’t sure if you did, though.”
“I remember the important parts.” Before you can start to wonder what the “important parts” are in her mind, she continues, “You’d finally used that salon voucher I gave you for your birthday. Gotten your hair done. Actually wore it down. I never understand why you hide such long pretty hair up that bun.”
You fluster a bit. “Th-The dress code--”
“Oh, you do it without the dress code,” she scoffs, flicking a hand dismissively.
You clear your throat awkwardly, pausing to rub at your cheeks as if you can wipe the blush away. “W-What’s your battery at, by the way?”
She snorts. “Just an idle wondering?” she smirks. “It’s twenty-two percent.”
So it’s not her low battery talking…
Roxy continues, “You know…if you can find a set of replacement eyes…I wouldn’t mind seeing your hair down again,” she says, actually sounding wistful, of all things. You don’t know if you’ve ever heard her sound wistful.
You sigh softly, running a hand over your chopped off hair. “Y-Yeah…” you say, noncommittally.
She glances at you questioningly, sensing something in your tone. But before she can comment, you cut open another box, and find it has the spare eyes you’ve been looking for.
“Found the eyes!” you say. Some of the happiness in your tone is genuine. You grab two amber ones, going over to her. “They’re just standard optics, so you won’t see as well as you’re used to, but…it’ll do for now,” you say, guiding her to lay on the floor.
Her smile fades slightly and she nods, reality setting back in. Despite your claims that you could repair her, she wasn’t convinced she’d ever be as good as she was before. “Guess it’ll have to,” she mumbles.
You put a flashlight in her hand and position her arm to shine it down on her faceplate, giving you light to work with. Your toolkit is beside you, with some extra lengths of wire and soldering iron to work with. As you cut away the burned wires, murmuring apologies whenever Roxy flinches, your mind drifts back to that evening.
Her power had been at one percent when you finally coaxed her into her recharge station. Before you did, though, she had leaned down and pressed her lips to yours. You think she had been trying to nuzzle your cheek. Even “drunk” you don’t think she wanted to kiss you like that.
Neither of you had ever spoken of that night again, until today. She must not remember the kiss, you decide. She wouldn’t bring up that night at all if she did.
The truth is you’ve carried a small flame for her ever since then. Or perhaps a little longer, if you were more honest with yourself. Nothing you couldn’t ignore most of the time, of course…but something that had occasionally managed to put a bit of warmth in your heart when you allowed it to.
But none of those silly little what-ifs you’d allowed yourself to daydream of would ever come to pass now.
You wire in the eyes, then carefully fit them into their sockets. As they come online, the attached eyelids blink shut against the light.
You quickly turn away, keeping your back to her as you pack up your toolkit. “Th-They working okay?” you ask. It’s silly to turn away like this. You can’t possibly delay her seeing your scar for more than a couple minutes. Why even bother trying?
She moves the flashlight out of her eyes and sits up, looking around. “Yes,” she says. She pauses. “...Better than I thought. I forgot the standard optics still have night vision.”
You laugh weakly. “Another thing you have over me, then,” you say in what you had meant to be a good natured tone, but you couldn’t quite keep the melancholy from your voice.
Roxy catches it and glances at you curiously. She stands up, then reaches down a hand to help you up.
Well. No more putting it off.
You bow your head slightly as you turn to take her hand, letting her pull you to your feet. When you stand before her, you finally lift your head to look into her eyes, giving a small, tentative smile that borders on apologetic.
Roxy stares down at you, her mouth opening slightly in surprise. “Wh-What…happened…?”
You sigh, glancing away slightly. “I-I…got to work early, and…I was upstairs when the fire started. It…spread so fast I…had to cut through some pretty bad areas. I-I mean. I guess, something like that…I-I don’t really remember…” you say, your voice starting to shake.
Roxy’s hand is on your cheek, turning your face back towards her as she examines your scar.
You feel your face growing warm. “I-I don’t know how I got the scar, really…The EMTs found me passed out in the employee parking lot.”
Roxy smiles sadly. “You were strong enough to save yourself.”
You blush deeply at the compliment, lowering your gaze. “I-I guess so…”
She runs her thumb over the scar, tracing the ridges of the shiny, discolored skin. “Can it be repaired?” she asks, her tone more gentle than you’ve ever heard from her.
You shake your head, resisting the urge to nuzzle into her palm as you do. “Not…really. My hair will grow back and the scar will probably fade a bit, eventually, but…it’ll…probably be pretty noticeable for the rest of my life…” You feel tears brimming at your eyes and force out a weak laugh. “C-Can’t really…uh…s-switch faceplates on a human…y-y’know?” you say in a wavering tone.
Roxy hums quietly, bringing her other hand up to cup your other cheek. “No need,” she says, lowering her head and gently nosing at your scar.
Your breath stills at her words, your eyes widening in surprise. You’re almost not sure you heard right.
She pulls back, smiling down at you tenderly. “You’re still beautiful,” she murmurs, leaning down and pressing her lips to yours.
#fnaf#fnaf roxy#fnaf roxanne#roxanne wolf#roxy x reader#roxy x y/n#fnaf security breach#my writing#apologies to everyone waiting on the next chapter of stereo souls#my brain just does this sometimes#i can only focus on the third item in my todo list#sometimes i can glitch tasks into third place to work on them but other times i just start a random new project
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"Like Brother, Like Sister"
Gonna try for 1-2 short, last minute Apologies AU side comics before I drop The True Ending and declare this AU (mostly) finished.
This one (the "beginning" of the White-Haired Noir AU) was already semi-complete (I had originally intended to color it) so here you go!
Noir wasn’t the only one willing to stoop to criminal acts to save them. Alas, they are doomed to never leave the planet together…
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This is basically how the Dark Matter Painter stuff comes about.
For a bit of clarity - while there wasn’t a full script for this - in the AU AU reality, Adeleine was the one responsible for “killing” the sibling’s mutual best friend, Raquelle (whose soul would go on to feed/host the future Dark Rimula) by over excitedly sharing the paintbrush’s magic with her and, in playing around with it, accidentally turned her into a (living) painting, a process she found she could not undo...
Her tormented attempts to do so anyway, pushing the paintbrush’s abilities to create/duplicate life, plus the innocent girl’s shame and desperation to hide her responsibility for taking the life of the girl who was a combined parent-sister-friend for her AND the closest person Noir had to a friend outside herself (with the gift HE got her) was too much for her, allowing Dark Matter to get a firm grasp in her.
She had just enough time to finish her picture perfect forgery pass for Noir (her own smeared into illegibility) before it consumed her.
...Noir's date of birth is March 21st, btw. (Being Dark Matter Swordsman's birthday and all)
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[Apologies AU Masterpost]
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...Man, between this comic, the last story, and the one coming up, it's "Not Very Fun to be Adeleine Week" on Desultory Novice. ^^;
#Kirby#Apologies AU#Adeleine#Noir (human form dms)#cw: body horror#cw: angst#cw: character death#...kinda?#Not to say that I'll never draw Apologies after the True Ending#Just that it won't be so urgent (third time's the charm right?)
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