#god they’re so high up on her torso too.

[myrfing]

like where is her small-average boobs to big thighs/ass charm. she looks so emaciated here like her boobs are sucking the lifeforce out of her STOPPP

[apricotgojo]

—★ wrong number ! s.g

summary: an au in which college nerd!Satoru accidentally sends nudes to the wrong person - you!

tags: NSFW, big dick gojo, college au ! , gojo is a hot loser in this, kind of a crack au too, swearing, eventual smut <.<, mentions of substance abuse.

—★

[idiot #1] guys 🧍🏼‍♂️

[idiot #1] i did an oopsie

[idiot #1] HELP

[idiot #1] NOW

[idiot #1] PLS

[idiot #2] ??

[idiot #2] it is 3am

[idiot #1] i fuckwd uppp

[idiot #2] whats new

[idiot #1] stfuuu im serious sug

[idiot #1] imso akmakama

[idiot #2] words pls

[idiot #1] i sent nudes to the wrong person

[idiot #2] 💀

[idiot #2] COMMON SATORU L

[idiot #1] i hate u

[idiot #2] HOW AND WHO

[idiot #1] i was supposed to send it to a number and i think i she gave it to mw wrong idk im freaking ouyt

[idiot #2] so ur telling me

[idiot #2] u sent nudes

[idiot #2] on imessage

[idiot #1] yes?

[idiot #2] youve never sent nudes before have u

[idiot #1] …

[idiot #2] HAHAHHAHAHHHAHAHHH

[idiot #2] bro for a astrophysics major ur dumb as fuck

[idiot #1] I HATW YOU

[idiot #1] *HATE :(

[idiot #2] who were u gonna send them to tho 👀

[idiot #1] Yume 🧍🏼‍♂️

[idiot #2] say sike rn

[idiot #1] bro i went up to her at sukunas party and she told me that if i send her a nude then she’ll go out w me idk i was high

[idiot #1] n i think she wrote her number wrong

[idiot #2] im gonna hold ur hand when i say this

[idiot #2] you got played

[idiot #1] fuck

[idiot #1] fUCK

[idiot #1] i sent a video instead too

[idiot #1] my face doesnt show tho js my dick

[idiot #2] OH GOD

[idiot #2] WHAT DID THW OTHER PERSON SAY ?

[idiot #1] well

a cock was on your screen.

a huge, veiny, somewhat pretty, cock was on your phones screen as it laid across the floor to where you’ve thrown it.

when you saw an imessage notification saying:

[video attached] ;)

from an unknown number - your first thought was that it was some type of scam, since recently everyone and their mom has been receiving shady text messages from unknown numbers.

so you ignored it and went back to bed rotting and binge watching ‘Gilmore Girls’.

You were also still high from the joint you shared with your dorm mate, Shoko, and perhaps that could’ve been a factor as to why all of a sudden a little voice popped inside your head and told you to open the message.

Something told you that this wasn’t a scam - if it was, they would usually use a foreign number or pretend to be a local bank asking you to confirm your card details via fucking imessage.

but this number was a local one, so the thought of it being a scam subsided - although it was still in the back of your mind.

you tapped on the notification and you’ve been faced with a video attachment and a winky face.

The thumbnail was of a males lower torso, wearing a black compression shirt and baggy grey sweatpants. The male seemed to be in a dimly lit room and the only source of light shining on him was either from a computer screen or a TV.

You press play on the video and instantly you realize that this was definitely one of those lame jumpscare videos where as soon as the subject pulls down his pants, some form of demon appears on the screen.

with furrowed brows you watch as the video starts, instantly noting the faint music in the background - the song was familiar to you, it sounded like it was ‘The Weeknd’.

-‘okay, taste’ you mentally note.

Your eyes instantly dart down to the mans lower half, your eyes oogling the imprint of what you assumed to be his dick through his grey sweatpants.

‘fake as fuck’ you mutter out loud.

a pale, veiny hand reaches over to play with the waistband of his sweatpants in a teasing manner - long fingers hooking around it and slowly moving across.

you couldn’t help the little smirk forming on your lips as you prepared for the inevitable jumpscare that was going to display across the screen and you waited patiently - curious to see what they’re going to show.

a deep sigh comes from the male in the video as his other hand moves to palm his ‘cock’.

you could see his muscles twitch beneath his compression shirt and your eyes scanned across his figure.

whoever the guy in the video was - he was really fucking hot.

well, at least his body was.

His two big hands were now on the waistband of his sweatpants and your body tensed up to prepare for the demon to pop out on the screen and ruin the fun.

until it didn’t.

and as he pulled down the waistband something did jump out.

his cock.

it sprung out of his sweatpants.

and you screamed and threw your phone across the room.

you were not expecting that - not one bit.

who the fuck would send you that?

you place a hand on your chest to feel just exactly how hard your heart is beating - practically booming in your ears at this point.

it was a jumpscare after all.

As you calmed your breathing, you realize that the video is still playing and your ears perk up to the sound of heavy breathing and soft moans.

your head slowly turns to your phone - which was face up on the floor. Your head heavy with thoughts of who it could be.

maybe it was a prank? - you did joke with Shoko about how bad you needed to get dicked down today..

but no - it couldn’t be. Shoko was passed out on the couch. You were sure of it.

you walk towards your phone, gnawing on your lower lip as you stare at the screen.

he was going at it alright - and the fucked up thing was that you just couldn’t look away.

You marveled at how his cock managed to stay upright against his stomach - it looked so heavy, so fucking big. You’ve never looked at a dick before and thought ‘wow this is a really nice looking penis’ but low and behold - you were practically drooling at how delectable it looked.

he was stroking his own length, smearing the spewing pre-cum all over it until it was fully coated with his own slick. your hungry eyes were fixed on the movement of his hips, rolling in such an intimate way as he fucked his own fist for the camera.

the faint background music, his labored breathing mixed the sound of squelching were all buzzing through your ears and that plus the absolute sight of him made your thighs squeeze together as you watched him from above the ground.

the somewhat trance you were in was interrupted by the buzzing of your phone on the floor. Your eyes dart up to the top of the screen and you see a text from that same number;

[unknown] ???

[unknown] u there?

a shudder runs down your body and you quickly reach down to snatch your phone from the ground, eyes wide at the new text messages.

your thumbs were shaking as you thought of what to reply with - scratch that, you debated on even replying at all.

after a few minutes of typing and deleting and staring at the wall until your mind stops being blank, you muster up a reply ;

[you] who is this?

after around 3 minutes you receive a reply;

[unknown] is this yume?

oh god-

it hit you like a giant double decker bus.

this mother fucker accidentally sent a nude to the wrong number.

but also - you wondered who the fuck sends nudes on imessage anyways?

[you] no

[you] how did u get my number?

seen

he really took his time to reply - you assumed that it’s probably because he has just realized that he accidentally sent a nude to the wrong person.

any normal person would be freaking out right now - you sure as hell would be.

[unknown] wrong number

[unknown] sorry

that little voice in the back of your head popped up again, 'i think this might've been the right number'

[unknown] ignore the vid haha

[you] ...

[unknown] fuck

[you] its ok

[unknown] im so sorryy that i've traumatized u whoever u are

[you] im an 80 year old woman

[unknown] IM SORRY

[you] better be u almost gave me a stroke

[unknown] NOOOO 😭😭😭😭

[you] jk im not 80 but u did almost give me a stroke

[unknown] oh thank god

[unknown] not THE STROKE PART

[unknown] THE YOU NOT BEING AN OLD WOMAN THAT IVE JUST TRAUMATIZED

[you] nice cock btw

[unknown] thank you? seen

you left it at that. That last message you sent was a result of the marijuana and the lack of sleep in your system - you swore. but you decided to troll the man a little bit for ruining what was supposed to be a 'cute self-care night' before you returned to campus again on Monday.

Shoko swore that she was still high in the morning when she woke up to see that her two best friends blew up the group chat while she was asleep. she barely had the energy to scroll as she sipped her coffee and lit up her morning cigarette on your shared balcony - but she did and she was sooo glad for that.

"fucking dumbass" she muttered under her breath as she read the group chat, shaking her head because she couldn't possibly believe that Satoru was that stupid to send a nude the wrong person. and on imessage too. so she wrote in the group chat;

[MOTHER] @ Idiot#1 L

"good morning." You say from behind her as you plop onto the chair next to her "The weirdest thing happened last night."

She put her coffee mug down and rubs her eyes, "i didn't even realise that i passed out last night - what happened?"

"someone sent me a nude by accident last night - like a whole ass video too"

Shoko's eyes widen at your words. no fucking way. Her lips curl into a small smirk as she took a drag from her cigarette.

"oh really?"

◡̈

a/n - pt 2 coming soon ! ;)

[kendsleyauthor]

#11 anon here again! glad to hear you’re still taking prompts. i love your and mary’s works ❤️ im shy so i stay on anon, but seriously, so much love to you guys! anyway, if youre so inclined, might i suggest prompt #1? keeping it simple. #11->1 lol. all your characters are awesome — i don’t think andreas and lorelei have been prompted yet, so maybe this can be a vote for them? but also, id love to hear more about the godlike trio; they’re so fun! what is their origin story?!! again, dealers choice, and thank you kindly !💕❤️

LIVING NIGHTMARE

TW: Drowning, fearplay stemming from genuine anger

Print / Trinket Universe (Andres and Lorelei)

~1800 words

G/t dialogue prompt list

Thank you so much for the prompt and the love, beautiful! I know it's been a long time, but I am determined to catch up as much as I can!! As far as the Godlike trio, it would be sooo fun to explore their origin story one day! It is dense, but it essentially involves human sacrifice, trickery, and immature nature god politics 😋

As for THIS story-- reader, if you're new to the trinket universe, this interaction may be startling lol. The TL;DR for this particular situation is that Lorelei must live in secret for her and Andres' safety 👀

@marydublinauthor 🌸

Drowning.

Whiskey stings her eyes, blinding her. She can’t blink it away—it’s all around her. Immense pressure sits on her torso. Does it count as drowning if she wouldn’t be able to draw a full breath anyway? Her heels slide against the bottom of the glass, tractionless. She claws at the finger pinning her down.

Each swipe weakens.

The pain begins to fade. It’s almost peaceful.

She hears that’s what happens right before you die from suffocation.

Calm.

Quiet.

Free.

But a peaceful death is too much to ask for.

The finger relinquishes pressure, and she is wracked with agony. She draws in a lungful of whiskey and thrashes. Although she wants nothing more than to fade away, to kiss this hell goodbye, her body fights to survive.

She pops up to stand on trembling legs, leaning hard against an ice cube. The coldness burns. She coughs raggedly. Laughter rumbles from above. Her recovering vision registers the giants around her as nothing more than massive blurs of color.

The shape of a hand hovers over the glass before descending upon her again. She manages a single, pleading whimper before she’s forced onto her back, pinned to the bottom of the glass.

Drowning.

Whiskey stings her eyes, blinding her. She can’t blink it away—it’s all around her.

Immense pressure—

“Lorelei!”

The voice was familiar. Loud, but not at all the same as the booming laughter.

She flinched awake, gripping fistfuls of blanket as she gasped for air. Each breath was a painfully overwhelming gift. She squinted in the lamplight which cast the sprawling living room with warmth. The high windows gave view to an overcast night sky.

Safe.

“Lorelei.”

Blinking, she made sense of Andres’ form leaning over her on the side table. To her confusion, there was no softness in his voice, no suggestion that he intended to soothe her from the nightmare. No, he wanted her attention, and anything else she might feel was secondary.

“Andres,” she said groggily.

“What is wrong with you?” He sounded like he was making a great deal of effort not to shout. She shrank away from the bite in his voice. “What were you thinking?”

Frowning, she sat up slowly. She couldn’t relinquish her grip on the blanket—not with the way he was looking at her. She felt like a child using her covers as a shield against the boogeyman. This had to still be a nightmare. There was no reality where Andres would glower at her like that anymore. If he was especially bitter about losing a game, perhaps—but even then, he scowled with a glint of admiration in his eyes.

For the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what she could have done in her sleep to piss him off.

“Were my screams of terror too loud?” she managed to croak. “Sorry, I’ll try to keep it down.”

He didn’t seem to register nor care what she said at all. “Madison Jones,” he said flatly.

Her heart climbed into her throat. Now she really wished she was dreaming.

“H-how…” But she knew at once. She must have forgotten to log out of the alias account. She wet her lips. “Let me explain—”

“How?” he snapped, voice rising. “There is no explanation that makes this any less idiotic! You are smarter than this, Lorelei!”

Heat flashed through her, vicious and all-consuming. “It’s idiotic to want to check up on old friends?”

“Wanting is one thing.” The ice in his voice threatened to douse her fire. “Doing… Doing this is…” His jaw worked as though he was too angry to speak. 

He brandished his phone in her direction, the screen aglow. She turned her head. She didn’t need to look. He had gone through the chat logs of her alias and found every incriminating conversation of the past six months. Her hands shook on the blanket.

“I’ve been careful,” she said, softer. “They have no idea who I really am. They think I’m an aspiring player, new to the scene. A long-distance friend that they will never, ever meet.”

Tears pricked her eyes. God, she was pathetic.

And Andres wasn’t helping. He shook his head. “This ends now.”

“Please—”

“No. I cannot allow you to put us in danger like this. How could you be so stupid?”

The wildfire ignited again. She stood, shoving her blanket aside. She didn’t care that she had to crane her neck to meet his frostbitten glare. “So that’s it? You’re ordering me to happily isolate myself from the rest of the world—even with a solution right in front of our damn faces?”

“Zorra,” he cursed—a particular insult he’d never once aimed at her. “Your solution is going to get us investigated and caught.”

Her voice came out like a fist was squeezing her throat. “I miss my friends!”

He scoffed. “Am I not enough for you now?”

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” She staggered two steps back, wondering how this could be the same person who cared for her, protected her. Sinking to her knees, she clasped her hands in front of her. “Should I be like this day and night? Thank you so much for being the only person in the world I can talk to for the rest of my life.”

For a single second, he looked hurt. “Stand up,” he gritted out. “I will not talk to you like this.”

But she was just as hurt and every bit as vicious, and she had to stop now before she said something she couldn’t apologize for. Rising to her feet, she turned her back on him and started for the makeshift stairway that would lead her to the floor. Throwing a pity party under a cabinet or sofa for the night would do her good.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To be alone,” she threw over her shoulder. “I can’t be around you right now.”

The last thing she expected was for him to deny her. Instead of sulking away or simply lapsing into disappointed silence, his voice lashed like a whip and made her flinch. “You are not going anywhere,” he said. “You are staying here. And talking.”

“About what?” She didn’t turn back, placing her hand on the railing. “Delete the profile yourself if it pisses you off so much.”

Silence. She thought that was the end of it, but no. “Come back,” he said through gritted teeth.

She said nothing, starting down the stairs.

A sudden tug at the back of her nightgown made her breath catch. She instinctively tried to wrench herself free, even if it would send her tumbling down the steps. In an instant, she was whisked off her feet. She gave a choked shriek as air whipped past her, and she found herself dangling in front of Andres’ infuriated face.

“Forgive me for not being better company,” he said venomously. “But I am trying to keep us both alive.”

Alive.

She was helpless.

She was drowning again.

“Stop!” she howled, half expecting precious air bubbles to rise from her lips. Her voice pitched into a scream that she only ever heard in her nightmares. “I’m sorry! I-I’m sorry!”

As quickly as it happened, it was over. She only caught a glimpse of Andres’ astonished expression before he lowered her into his waiting palm and released her. She scrabbled back, bumping against his fingers and burying her face in her knees. 

“Lorelei?” he whispered. 

He touched her shoulder, and she screamed. The air whirled again, and she dared to peek out. His hand rested on the side table beside her bed, offering escape. She jolted out of her fetal position, falling to hands and knees in her desperation to get away. Stumbling to her bed, she pulled her blanket tightly over herself, shaking too hard to make it to a better hiding place. She didn’t care how childish it was—she needed to reduce her world to a small space of darkness.

“Lorelei.” His voice was reverent, dripping with regret.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, her wail reduced to a whimper.

“No. No, I am.” His voice cracked. Another gentle touch brushed her back through the blanket, pausing to gauge her reaction. She didn’t scream again, dreading that he was about to pull the sheet off of her. But he didn’t. He kept stroking, his breathing unsteady. “Please come out. I never meant to scare you like that. I…” Silence dragged for several seconds, and the touch of his finger pulled away. “Did I hurt you?”

She quietly assessed herself. “No.”

Another pause.

“Can you show me?” His words were a plea, not an order.

Hesitantly, she sat up and pulled the blanket off her head, letting it fall to her shoulders. His dark eyes searched her intensely for any sign that his rough handling left a mark. Even when he seemed sure that she was unhurt, he stayed close, staring into her eyes.

She broke the silence floating between them. “I couldn’t help it,” she admitted, looking down in shame. “I… I can’t just pretend I didn’t have another life. I miss my friends. My family.”

For a moment, she worried his anger would rise up again. But he looked almost as exhausted as she felt. Glancing at his phone, he pursed his lips. “Your family is not in the chat logs,” he noted.

“I…” She sniffled. “I picked people I wasn’t especially close to.”

“Why?”

She managed the smallest laugh. “I know you think I’m an impulsive idiot. And you’re right, I can be. So I gave myself limits.” Her shoulders slumped. “I knew if I reached out to my family, I wouldn’t be able to keep the secret up. Sooner or later, I’d spill everything just so they wouldn’t have to live another day wondering if I was alive or dead or swimming in someone’s drink.”

He regarded her with raised eyebrows like something was dawning on him. “You were tangled in the sheets when I came in,” he said slowly. His expression fell, and she dropped her gaze. She’d opened up about the nature ofher recurring nightmares before. “It was a bad one. I should have noticed I should have waited.” He sighed heavily, and his finger returned to stroke her hair down. “Are you alright?”

She pursed her lips and shook her head.

His finger paused. “Do you want me to leave?” he murmured.

She could tell that her hesitation hurt him more than anything. But ultimately, she shook her head again. Raising her hand, she found his finger and guided it to her side. She leaned against the warmth of his skin.

“Lorelei…” His eyes flicked up and down, drinking her in with fondness steeped in loving fear. She braced herself for the inevitable—the gentle but firm order to never pull something like this again. But he was full of surprises tonight. “I trust you. Please—give me another chance to be the kind of man you are not afraid to keep secrets from.”

Her tears spilled over, and she pressed a kiss to his knuckle. “I think I can do that.”

(A/N: I've had this on the backburner for so long, I'm glad to finally post it! I'm sorry that my first short story in a while is a gut punch lol 💞)

[roseharpermaxwell]

RWRB FirstPrince Sports (AU or Otherwise) Recs

Hockey, Lacrosse, Rugby - you name it, I'm here for it. Click below for some of my faves!

your future history (it's time) by kjbee81. T, 739 words. Alex and Henry, both rugby players at the Olympics, take part in the tradition of switching shorts after the game. Henry wants to start a different tradition.

OR me getting inspired by a tweet about the Olympic rugby players switching shorts...

Eye On The Prize by milowren. NR, 1.3k. Announcer 1: Alright, here we are at last, we’ve come to final event for mixed teams in archery, and this one’s all for the gold, Lisa.

Announcer 2: That’s right, John. I’m sure these last two teams aren’t feeling any pressure at all.

Announcer 1: (chuckles) Well, we’ll be able to see for ourselves in a minute here, when we get the readings from their heart rate monitors. As you know, the technique for archery at this level is so precise, any fluctuation in the competitors’ heartbeats can affect the outcome.

***

Henry and Alex are archers at the Olympics.

Born To Make History by @everwitch-magiks. T, 1.3k. This season, Henry has a new free skate. It's sassy, flirty, and actually genuinely fun, and somehow, it's taken him all the way to the Grand Prix Final. Still, even though Henry has perfected his lutz since his last competitive season, and gets that all too important second-half multiplier for every quad in his arsenal, he knows he isn't half as good as most of his competition. There's no way he's actually getting on the podium.

Except, one persistently curious and curiously attentive pair skater, with a distressingly attractive smile, gorgeous brown eyes and very interesting ambitions for the post-competition gala, seems to think otherwise.

'Coast-to-Coast' by @cheesecurdsgravyandfries. E, 1.3k. Lacrosse slang - when a player nearest their end-line takes the ball all the way down the field to the opposing team's end of the field.

Alex finds his old high school lacrosse jersey. Henry wears it.

The jersey is tight across Henry’s broad shoulders, the polymesh sleeves pulled by the tension, making Henry’s biceps pop, and if the hem didn’t reach the waistband of Alex’s underwear, it doesn’t stand a chance on Henry’s long torso. There’s at least two inches of skin visible between the top, and the band of Henry’s red D&G briefs - so selected tonight, because the red matches that in Alex’s high school logo on his chest. Henry looks sexy as hell, and he knows it.

i could be a better boyfriend by bananzie. T, 2.4k. It wasn't that Alex didn't like telling people about Henry—quite the opposite, actually—it was just that no one ever believed him when he did.

An AU in which Henry is one of England’s most famous rugby players, Alex met him during an exchange year, and they’re so in love it’s sickening, but no one believes him.

who are we to fight the alchemy by @coffeecatsme. T, 3.1k. INTERVIEWER: Kiss, marry, kill, between Taylor Swift, Beatrice Fox of the Tortured Poets, and Dua Lipa.

ALEX: Oh God, I’m gonna get so cancelled. Uh… Well, my sister would absolutely kill me if I killed Taylor Swift so I guess I gotta kiss her? I mean, she’s hot. And I guess I’m killing Dua Lipa? That leaves… Can I, like, take her brother instead of Beatrice Fox? He’s more my type.

Sets on the Beach by @happiness-of-the-pursuit. M, 3.6k. 95% of the able-bodied New York City queer population sign up to play intramural beach volleyball in the summer (this statistic is not supported by Nora). Unfortunately for Alex, this number includes Henry Fox and his very broad shoulders. Despite Henry’s unsportsmanlike recruiting and stupid genetic advantages, Alex is determined to take him (and the rest of Queerly the Best) down.

Or, Cowboys star Alex crashes out of the closet in an interview. This is how everyone reacts.

bed with your name on it by silver maples. E, 3.3k. “Are the beds really anti-fuckable ‘cause, if so, that’s gonna be an issue for me.”

These are the first words Alex says to Henry after throwing open the door to their shared room. Henry blinks, sitting cross-legged against the headboard, rereading The Little Prince - it felt apt to bring - when Alex’s eyes settle on him.

“Oh fuck,” Alex follows up with, and, “Oh, you’re not Liam.”

go the distance by @indomitable-love. T, 3.7k. His legs are like jello. He’s not entirely sure how he’s still upright. He’s running on fumes and the energy gel he’d been handed about forty minutes ago by one of the secret service as he’d passed by. Fumes, energy gel pouches, the roar of the crowd against New York streets, and pure adrenaline because he can see the finish line. He knows what’s there: June and Nora and Henry.

Henry. The reason Alex is doing this whole damn thing in the first place.

Alex decides to run a marathon. It's all Henry's fault, really.

Red, White & Navy Blue by @jedusaur. E, 4.4k. "Fine," says Alex. He clenches his jaw and his fists. "Great. Watch me. I'll bromance the shit out of the motherfucker." 

Twenty Seven Batters by @historicallysam. T, 4.6k. A ballplayer will refuse to stop playing because they want one more hit, steal, strikeout. One more homerun. One more win. So they get old and they lose their skill and embarrass themselves long after they should have hung up their spikes.

If that’s the rule, then Alexander Claremont-Diaz is the exception.

Because today, at age 38, Alexander Claremont-Diaz is six outs away from a perfect game.

Catch and Release by @welcometololaland. T, 4.8k. Henry isn't good at many things, but he is fairly good at rowing - something which is very deeply fine, until a transfer student from America turns up.

When Henry winds up being Alex's roommate on a training camp, they don't get off to a great start. Fortunately, their coach has other ideas.

A slice of the rowing AU involving midnight training sessions, extreme physical exertion and just a little bit of Only One Bed.

You Spin Me (Right Round) by @myheartalivewrites. E, 5.4k. “...he signs up for Henry’s evening class again, and if he comes in wearing a cropped sleeveless t-shirt with a bi pride flag on it and skintight burgundy leggings, well, that’s just a coincidence. He doesn’t necessarily mean anything by it.”

Henry is a spinning instructor and Alex is attending his first class after being ill. The whole thing is unexpectedly moving. And horny. Everyone is WAY TOO horny.

Tonight, You're Gold by @cha-melodius. E, 6k. “You could stay with me,” Henry says before he can properly think it through. Across from him, Alex raises his eyebrows. Christ. In for a penny, in for a pound. “Only, my roommate’s already done competing, and he’s moved out. So I have an extra bed.”

Alex laughs, his curls bouncing as he shakes his head. “I’m not sure I’m allowed to just move into Team Great Britain territory.”

(When Alex's room in the Olympic Village becomes uninhabitable, Henry acquires a new roommate who, it turns out, he's maybe, sorta, possibly falling in love with.)

your court or mine? by @silvermaples. E, 6.4k. When the guy bends to grab the ball, his little, white shorts lift, and all Alex can focus on is the way those thighs move and the sheer power behind them. He’s focusing so hard he doesn’t notice the incline of the sidewalk, nor the rock in front of him. And then, naturally, he’s bowling over and falling on his ass before he even realises what’s happening.

He may as well just die. Lay here and succumb to his wounds. Here lies Alex Claremont-Diaz, twenty-two and useless. Cause of death? Hot guy in slutty little shorts.

“Oh dear,” He hears, exceedingly British and posh and deep, and he lifts his head. Maybe death was a little premature of an idea after all. “Are you alright?”

you know i love a london boy by @coffeecatsme.  T, 6.5k. “A very special friendship bracelet,” Bea corrects, with such a delight in her voice that Henry is immediately suspicious. He grabs the darn thing and twists it around, glittery beads shining under the lights of the room. A phone number, if Henry is counting them right. Despite himself, his heart skips a beat. “From the one and only Alexander Claremont-Diaz.” She grins, bouncing on the balls of her feet—the day she stops playing matchmaker for her brother will surely be a cold day in hell. The sole excitement of her life since she doesn’t do romance.

Henry twists the bracelet in his hands, counting the numbers again, and then looks up. “Who?”

Or, 5 times Alex and Henry keep their relationship a secret and 1 time they don't. 

let's get lost (and let the good times roll) by riversdeep. M, 6.5k. “Fuck, sorry,” The man says, distinctly American, holding a hand out to right Henry where he’s fallen. His face comes into view as Henry lets the man pull him up, worried eyes and furrowed brows, and he’s utterly mortified to realise that the man isn’t just any random man, he’s Alex Claremont-Diaz, June’s volleyball playing brother. Her very attractive, very concerned looking volleyball playing brother.

There's No Problem That San Diego Can't Solve by @historicallysam. T, 6.7k. Alex doesn’t even bother knocking; he simply twists the knob on the door and shoves it open. His eyes narrow as the door bangs against the wall and he sees Henry on the phone. Maybe (definitely) it’s rude but his blood is fucking boiling so he doesn’t really care.

Because I’m A Scoundrel by @inexplicablymine. E, 8.3k. Alex Claremont-Diaz has exactly thirty minutes to make himself look as slutty as possible for this Halloween Gala. At this very moment he looks a little bit like a sexed up pirate, but with the addition of his small black vest - rest in peace to the Patagonia packers and finance brethren- and a low slung belt with a “blaster,” a very sex-on-legs Han Solo is looking back at him.

Henry Fox, who is both a double scull rower with enough Olympic medals it would make anyone other than Alex sweat, and the definitive arch nemesis of Alex - is wearing a white sylvette Princess Leia costume, hugging his curves in all the right ways, the clingy fabric draping to the floor.

When you and your arch nemesis show up to the most important gala of the year in a couples costume you either play it up or shut it down. Alex has a decision to make, but the way that dress is hugging Henry’s ass isn’t making that decision any easier.

(la)cross(e) my heart by weather_stained. E, 8.6k. Alex is determined to start a lacrosse team at his college. It's his junior year, and he's closer than ever. That is, until he finds out someone else is trying to start a rugby team, and there's only enough funding for one additional sport.

Clubs Day comes around, and he finds that his rival is no other than the insufferable Henry Fox. Alex definitely doesn't spent more time staring at Henry instead of running his booth, but if he does, it doesn't mean he's obsessed with him or anything.

Thin Ice series by @priincebutt. E, 8.8k. Alexander Claremont-Diaz, charismatic center for the NHL's Dallas Stars, is completely and utterly smitten with the posh British librarian he met by complete accident. Tonight is the night, and he's got a plan to completely woo Henry and get his man.

Don't Quit It by @inexplicablymine. M, 9k. “And goddamn last but not least on my Hit It and Don’t Quit It list would be the Saracens rugby player Henry Fox. That man has great depths, and he could so easily plumb my depths, if you know what I’m saying. An all-around fantastic player, but also someone who is ridiculously smart off the field. And we all know by now that everyone on this list features my mile-wide competency kink. Henry, if you are seeing this, we could play around with some balls that aren’t just in play.”

Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck.

Alex has just accidentally outed himself to 6.7 million people. And according to the comments section, they seem to be all too aware.

Or... Announcing your crush via viral TikTok... that's one way to get his attention ;)

Puck It by @kiwiana-writes. E, 9.7k. “I’m English, dear,” Henry tells him, and fuck if the nickname isn’t doing something to Alex too. “Our national sport is rugby, and we play it with a lot less protective gear. Though,” he adds thoughtfully, “rugby players do wear mouth guards, which means they have the significant advantage of generally keeping all their teeth.”

“We wear mouth guards.” It’s a common misconception, and one that annoys the shit out of him. “And I’ve still got all my teeth. Wanna check?” 

Love-Love by @smc-27. T, 10k. “I hear Alex Claremont-Diaz is available,” she says, and while the idea is terribly appealing, he knows that it is incorrect.

“Alex is an incredible tennis player. If he wanted to pair up, I’d be open to that.”

It is not often Henry’s mouth gets him in trouble. Years of media training and growing up with a celebrity for a dad have left him very practiced in the subtle art of the spin.

Apparently the mere mention of Alex had all that leaving his head entirely.

lacrosse, my heart by indomitablelove. E, 10k. Logically, Henry should have known to expect this. He’s aware of how lacrosse works. Or, at least, he’s developed enough of an understanding of how lacrosse works through Alex. He’s seen photos of Alex in his lacrosse uniform before, and yet somehow that still doesn’t prepare him for the sight of seeing Alex actually playing lacrosse.

Alex returns to his high school to play a charity lacrosse match. Henry joins him and sees Alex play lacrosse for the first time.

You didn't tell me you play rugby by Moony_Reggie_stars_1003. E, 10k. Alex finds out that Henry plays rugby, and has some very specific feelings about it.

Tread Lightly by @smc-27. E, 11k. Alex notices this guy the moment he walks in. Which implies that he hasn’t noticed the guy before now, which isn’t true at all. He’s seen him around. He - like everyone else - has stared at the guy’s eyes and waist and thighs and fucking Disney prince swoopy hair.

Alex is really used to hitting on people and getting the outcome he wants.

Or: Lax bro Alex wants Henry

How to stay with you by lovergalore. E, 12k. Alex feels like he hasn’t slept in weeks, which is essentially ever since he got his new roommate, Henry. Alex doesn’t have anything against his roommate—or his sexual proclivities; obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it gets to a point where almost every other night Henry has a ‘friend’ over and Alex has to pull out his noise-canceling headphones to be able to endure another minute in their shared dorm.

CHECK(MATE) by ma_lark_ey. T, 14k. "It's such an unexpected pairing, a hockey player and a punk star. How'd you too meet?"

"Oh, well, it's really silly. It actually started when Alex's fans started..."

"I met Henry because my Tumblr followers started this elaborate hoax about us being best friends."

"And, let me guess, you ran with it?"

"Oh, June, you know I commit to a good bit."

Pumped by myheartalive. E, 22k. Recently moved to London, Alex meets Henry at a climbing wall, where accidental rudeness and misunderstandings keep them apart, until they don’t.

There's pining, there's climbing, there's stupid boys falling for each other, and smut towards the end.

Show Me What You’re Working With by @clottedcreamfudge. E, 23k. He doesn't want to think the words "monster cock" but frankly, it's too fucking late, because they're now living rent-free in his brain in twenty-foot high neon letters.

How does that even work? Do the women he sleeps with come out changed? Does he have the goddamn ER on alert every time he goes on a date?

Alex isn't into dick, except maybe he is, and maybe this one specifically. 

the winner takes it all by @dumbpeachjuice. E, 24k. In theory, this shouldn’t be a thing. Alex has spent his whole life around other cyclists, on the track and the road and off both, and he’s never had this sort of visceral reaction to any of them.

(Well. Kind of. Maybe he let his eyes linger on a teammate once or twice. But like—Alex is an athlete. He appreciates the human form.)

But the way the muscles in Henry Fox’s thighs stretch and ripple as he urges his bike up the mountain—

Yeah.

It’s a lot.

And if Alex weren’t so determined to steal that yellow jersey off his back he’d fall off his bike.

Made the Right Selection by clottedcreamfudge. E, 27k. "You don't take 'no' for an answer, do you?" Henry says curiously, and Alex cocks his head to the side; his hair falls into his eyes just a little but he doesn't bother to brush it aside. Henry's fingers itch to do it for him.

"I do when it's the actual answer," he says eventually, and Henry's face twists into a smile.

"Right," he says.

"Alex, come the fuck on," Nora calls over from where the squad has started to wander off into whatever day there is left. Henry suspects, looking at the sun, that there's rather a lot of it to go.

"See you later, H," Alex says with a grin, and then he's gone, leaving Henry with his helmet in his hand and his heart in his throat.

Alex is a cheerleader. That's the premise. 

catch my breath to breathe your name by goingmywaydoll. M, 29k. “So,” the person says without pause, “I heard you like soccer butts but not the people attached to them.”

Where Henry’s family owns a (fictional) football club and Alex is fresh from the States and the new star addition to the team and it's all entirely predictable.

Stupid Games, Stupid Prizes by JustAnotherWriter_93. E, 38k. The College AU where Alex is a football player, and Henry has had a secret crush on him for two years, attending every football game possible. Henry thinks that getting involved with Alex will be nothing but a disaster, Alex thinks that maybe he isn’t as straight as he thought, and they’re both a little bit right.

Faster, Higher, Stronger by everwitch. E, 64k. When Alex fails to qualify for the 2022 Winter Olympics, it’s all too easy to blame Henry Fox, the dual citizen who’d switched from Team GB to Team USA and snagged the last spot for men’s figure skating. After Alex is abruptly thrown back into the games, he forms an unexpectedly deep connection with Henry. But no athlete who aims for the top of the podium can afford any serious distractions. Will Alex be able to keep his flaring emotions in check and take home the Olympic gold medal he’s always aimed for?

Baseball Boyfriends series by bleedingballroomfloor. E, 121k. “It’s just — I’ve had such a hard time feeling like I really belonged. I think that’s what got me in the slump in the first place. But coming back here, seeing all the love I still got even though I’m not on the Rangers anymore… that really helped. And being on the Mets, being in New York — you helped with all of that. More than you’ll ever know.”

Or, Alex and Henry are dumb, horny disasters. With an added bonus of baseball.

A Sporting Chance series by clottedcreamfudge. E, 236k. "Marry Henry - destination wedding. Combine all of our names so paperwork is a fucking nightmare." Henry stares at him and Pez rolls the dice, and-

"Congratulations to Alex and Henry Claremont-Diaz-Fox-Mountchristen," he says with a bright grin, and Alex punches the air and makes a 'whooping' noise. "Your wedding is attended by the Beckhams, the President, and several key members of congress. Henry is very gentle on your wedding night." Henry is going to fucking kill Pez.

"Fucking sweet," Alex says, because Henry is apparently the only one here trying not to have a coronary about all of this.

It had just been a party game, except now Henry is in way over his head.

I only tag an author once per post, but I'm still figuring out firstprince author handles. If you see one I may not know or find a broken link, please give me a heads up!

Master List of RWRB FirstPrince Recs

Master List of Recommendations

[lesbianrobin]

lesbianrobin fic scraps #2: the saltwater room

Steve feels warm.

He doesn't feel much else. Just warm. Like somebody's tucked him in, maybe a little too tight, or a lot too tight, because now that he thinks about it, there's a lot of pressure on the right side of his body.

He blinks his eyes open. It takes a surprising amount of effort, but he does it.

Wherever Steve is lying, it’s comfortable, but it's not home. It's not Tommy's place, either. All he sees is wood. Wooden beams, wood paneling, a wood bookshelf that nearly blends into the wall. The air is crisp and cool, and he feels a breeze. Steve means to keep looking around the room, but when he turns his head to find the source of the breeze, he feels something shift on his chest, and looks down to find a head of tangled light brown hair.

Huh.

That doesn't look like Amy. Or Laurie. Or Becky. It doesn't even look like Nancy Wheeler, which was a long shot anyway seeing as Steve's barely even worked up the nerve to talk to her, but Steve can’t figure out where the hell he is or why the hell he's here, so a bit of wishful thinking can’t hurt. Whoever she is, she's snuggling him pretty fiercely. Her face is pressed into his chest, arm wrapped snugly around him, her whole body half on top of him and their legs intertwined. They’re in bed, both tucked underneath a red patterned quilt.

Why can't he remember this girl? Steve's never done anything like this. He's had relatively brief relationships and one or two friendly hook-ups, but never with some girl he didn't even know, and he'd never gotten so fucked up that he couldn't remember anything in the morning.

Steve tries to shift her gently off him, and immediately lets out a high involuntary keen as burning pain shoots through his torso.

His body is screaming, stop, danger, wrong, something is wrong. The girl is shifting around now, but Steve can't even begin to speak to her, because his mouth won't form words. All he can do is gasp. It's like someone's taken a burning poker and jabbed it into his chest, then stuck another three or four into his stomach for good measure.

“Steve?”

She sounds hoarse. Her voice doesn’t spark any recognition. Even when she sits up and Steve meets her eyes, sees so much emotion in them that it frightens him almost as much as the pain, he doesn’t recognize her. She’s pretty, though, really pretty, and he tries to focus on her wide blue eyes and precious little freckles because they’re a better thing to focus on than the burning tearing screaming sensation slowly consuming his entire body.

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here,” she says, like that should be enough in itself to calm him down. She runs a hand through his hair, speaking so quickly that she nearly trips over her own words, “It’s okay, Eddie is okay, Max is okay, everyone is okay! Well, you’re not okay, obviously, uh…” She swallows, glances away, and calls, “EL! HOPPER! SOMEONE!”

The only Hopper Steve knows is the police dude who directs traffic sometimes at school events and tells them not to do drugs. Are the police here? That would make sense, seeing as he feels like he’s been stabbed or maybe shot. But then why isn’t he in the hospital?

“You’ve been out a whole day, Steve, God, I was so fucking scared and I kept thinking you had brain damage and you know you can’t afford any more brain damage or you’ll just turn into a vegetable and I thought that I had lost you and they kept saying we couldn’t take you to the hospital because they wouldn’t know what to do and I thought at least the hospital would know something more than we would, like they could give you food through a tube or whatever if you didn’t wake up, but then I thought about how much you hate the hospital and you hate your house too and I thought that if you had to die you would rather die here because if you turned into a ghost then—”

“Buckley,” a gruff voice interjects, and the girl flings herself back, standing above the bed and chewing on her thumbnail. Steve misses the weight of her next to him.

Somebody leans over him, brushing his hair off his forehead with a large, warm hand, and it looks a little bit like Hopper the cop, but, like, older and balder. Maybe it had been longer than Steve thought since their last “don’t drink and drive” assembly.

“Sorry,” the girl, Buckley, mumbles around her thumb, “I didn’t actually think you were gonna die, honestly, I knew you would be okay because you’re you and you can’t die without me. I’d kill you.”

Hopper the cop frowns above Steve. “You in pain, kid?”

Steve tries to nod. He isn’t sure if he succeeds, but he definitely gets out a pathetic whimper, to which Hopper nods.

“We’re gonna get you some meds, alright? Just relax.”

More voices float in from… somewhere.

“He’s awake!”

“Oh, shit, is he alright?”

“Steve!”

He doesn’t recognize any of them. Not a single fucking one. Steve screws his eyes shut, and he can feel his breaths coming faster and faster. Each one seems to increase the pain, make his body shake apart at the seams, and then there’s a hand in his hair again, stroking, and it helps, just a little bit, just enough that he feels human again.

“Shh,” he hears, that same charming voice that goes with the blue eyes and little freckles. “You’re okay, your kids are alright. They were just worried about you, idiot, and now they’re going to go back into the living room like good little children so you can rest in peace.”

“He’s not fucking dead,” a male voice says with disgust.

“Rest without a bunch of children in the room,��� Buckley says, “Whatever, scram.”

“You’re barely older,” a different male voice says, and then Steve hears Hopper say, “Everybody but Buckley out. Now.”

Buckley. Steve likes Buckley. He likes the way her hand rakes softly through his hair. She seems a bit manic and overly friendly, and maybe they had a one-night stand that he can’t remember, maybe she threw a party and Steve just got stabbed in her house, but something about her is comforting, her frantic energy overlaying the fire in his skin and cooling it a bit, pulling him out of his own head just enough that he can’t get lost in it.

“Your dealer friend is trying to get you something good for those bites, kid,” Hopper says, “But in the meantime, we got some Tylenol crushed up for you.”

Dealer? Steve isn’t friends with any dealers. He isn’t friends with any of these people.

“I’m gonna help you sit up, alright?”

Hopper helping him sit up basically just means that Steve does his best not to sob while Hopper lifts him into a sitting position. He lets the man manipulate him like a rag doll, because what else can he do? Each movement sends shockwaves through his body, sharp bursts of pain that leave him dizzy and panting by the time he’s upright.

“Here,” Buckley says, and there’s that comforting weight on the bed, against his back this time, coaxing him to lean back against her. “Here, I even got it in a sippy cup with a straw for you, little Stevie.”

Eyes still squeezed shut, because acknowledging that he has no goddamn clue where he is right now does not help with the spinning in his head, Steve feels a straw press against his lips, and he lets it happen. Sips the Gatorade with crushed Tylenol through a straw, leans back against Buckley, focuses on her hand in his hair and her chest against his back and her breath on his ear.

“There you go,” she says gently, soothingly, and she’s a random stranger but Steve thinks that he might love her more than anyone else in the world. “You’ll be back on your feet in no time, buddy, we got you the extra-strength Tylenol.”

Steve laughs. It sends another wave of stabbing pains through his body, but what doesn’t?

“Just rest,” she says, “Just rest, okay?”

So he does.

He keeps his eyes closed while Buckley rambles. She seems like she might have a few screws loose. He lets her talk, though, because her voice is nice. He doesn't listen to the words. Sometimes she says his name, says Dustin and Eddie and Max and a dozen other names he doesn't recognize, but he doesn't say anything and she doesn't seem to expect him to.

She does make him finish his drugged Gatorade. He doesn't notice much of a difference.

After what must be at least fifteen minutes, she says, “Steve?”

He tries to speak, but all that comes out of his mouth is a pathetic wheeze.

“Sorry, don't try to talk,” she says, “Your throat was crushed by those vines and then you just kept talking and I should have thought to tell you to stop, especially when you started coughing 'cause of all those weird extradimensional spores we kept breathing, but I was—”

Steve tries to turn and his sides scream, but he manages to crane his neck awkwardly and look at her in disbelief.

“What?”

He tries to communicate what the fuck are you talking about through his eyes.

“Do you…” Buckley frowns at him furrowing her eyebrows. “You remember being in the Upside Down, right?”

Huh?

“The… the lake? You remember diving in the lake?”

Steve shakes his head. He hasn't been to the lake in… well, he isn't sure how long, but it's been a while. Right? Has it been awhile? When is it, anyway? It's… shit, Steve can't even think of a month.

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Oh.”

Steve tries to communicate I don't know what's happening and I'm really fucking scared through his eyes, and he isn't expecting to get much from it, but Buckley immediately begins stroking his hair again like she understood.

“It's okay, it's okay,” she soothes, though her tone seems somewhat frenzied, “It's gonna be okay. Uh, let me just… I'm just gonna list some things, and you shake yes or no if you remember them, okay?”

He nods. Yes.

“Okay, uh, shopping at War Zone?”

No.

“Going to the Creel House?”

Huh?

“Uh, the murder on TV?”

What?

Buckley seems agitated. “...Working at Family Video?”

No.

She screws her eyes shut and takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly before opening them. Her eyes seem bluer than before. Maybe because they're wet.

“Scoops Ahoy?”

No.

Buckley lets out a small wounded noise, then, claps a hand over her mouth like he's just said something terrible. Maybe he has. The things she's listing don't make sense, but when Steve reaches out past the pain, focuses on his body, it doesn't feel quite the same. Something has changed, and all of these people seem to know him, and he's starting to think that he's missing something big.

“What's my name?”

Buckley, Steve mouths, and he can see her heart break.

“Robin,” she croaks, “I'm your… My name is Robin.”

Robin. It suits her. Pretty name for a pretty girl.

“Thank you.”

What?

“You don't know this yet, but I can read your mind. Not in, like, a superpower way. In a best friend way. Usually you can read mine, too. You were thinking it suits me.”

Oh. Yeah.

“I'm about to yell, alright?”

Why would she—

“ELEVEN!”

Steve flinches.

“I warned you.”

She did. In a best friend way, she said. Best friends. Steve's stomach feels weird.

A teenage girl with a buzzcut suddenly enters his field of view, frowning. Her eyes are dark and intense, focused on him even as Robin says, “Something is wrong.”

The girl (Eleven? That doesn't make any sense.) squints at Steve. “Wrong?”

“He doesn't know me. El, he… his memories, he doesn't…” Robin trails off, getting choked up. She sounds genuinely devastated. If Steve didn't know any better he'd think she was in love with him or something, but he would know, right? Even if he was in some terrible accident and got amnesia, he would remember falling in love.

El stares at him, appraising for a moment, and then: “Close your eyes. Sleep.”

Something about her presence is commanding. Not intimidating, not like his father, but powerful, like he imagines a famous person might be. She seems like she knows what she's doing.

Steve closes his eyes.

He dreams.

At least, he thinks he dreams. He could be hallucinating. It feels like he's floating through a kaleidoscope, broken bits and pieces of things that feel important swirling around and inside of him. Everything is bathed in this pretty shade of orange and the air smells like an ice cream shop, sweet and light and comforting. The sounds surrounding him keep changing. A hysterical laugh. The screeching of brakes. Soft moans. The squeak of rubber against a hard floor. “Girls on Film” thumping underneath small voices, something like beads clinking together, a strange thrumming buzz worming its way inside his head as images float in and out of his vision. Dark curls. Freckles dusted on the bridge of a small nose. Neon lights. Flashing, then, not neon, they're Christmas lights, lighting up a dim floral wallpaper. Light dancing through the water, one solid beam of red. Light everywhere, around him, inside of him, and it's red, flashing, solid, flashing, red.

Eventually the red gives way to green. It's blotchy, blended. Camouflage. Steve swears he can feel a hand in his, but he doesn't think he even has a hand right now. He isn't a person anymore, he's the kaleidoscope, like he's one of those little teddy bears at the state fair where you pick up the skin and then stuff it yourself. He's stuffed with shiny bathroom tiles and thunder and a gummy smile and deep voices speaking in an angry language that he can't identify, with the gleam of nails against solid wood and smooth skin underneath his fingertips and leaves crunching underfoot and small yellow wheels rattling against pavement and the taste of butterscotch mixed with something bitter and metallic.

One second he's a kaleidoscope and the next he's Steve. All he sees is the familiar reddish-brown of sunlight filtered through closed eyelids.

A young girl's voice. “El?”

A man this time. “What's wrong?”

“His mind is… broken,” a different female voice says hesitantly. El. Eleven. “I tried to find the memory. Like Robin said. The bathroom. But I got lost.”

“But that doesn't mean his mind is broken,” Robin says behind him. He's still pressed against her chest, her arms still holding him securely. “He's just… you just got lost.”

“I could not find the train tracks or the Christmas at Mike's. I found basketball, but it was… old. Steve was young. Not what Lucas said to look for.”

“Well, maybe he just forgot,” a boy says, “Maybe those things… maybe they just weren't important enough.”

“They were,” Robin says, “I know they were, but that… how could they just be gone?”

“Not gone. I think Steve is lost,” El says. “Things…went. With the goo. Henry. One. He made them.”

“The bats?”

“Yes. They are part of him.”

“Oh,” somebody breathes, “And then the bats got the goo inside of Steve.”

“Eugh,” a man says, “Can we not say it like that?”

“I… I thought I fixed him.” El's voice wavers.

“You did, El, you saved—”

“No,” she insists. “Not all of him. I think he is missing parts. He is… small. Broken.”

“If he doesn't remember Christmas…” a female voice says, and that one's familiar, it's… “That was back in 1983.”

Nancy Wheeler. Why is Nancy Wheeler here? None of this makes sense, not a goddamn word of anything they're saying, back in 1983 like it isn't 1983 anymore, but for some reason Nancy Wheeler's voice makes it real. This isn't a dream. If he was dreaming of Nancy Wheeler, it wouldn't be like this. God, Steve couldn't dream of something so confusing and terrifying if he tried.

“Dingus,” Robin whispers suddenly, “You're pretending to sleep, right?”

He must be Dingus. Steve cracks one eye open. Robin smiles down at him, but it seems strained.

“Got any questions?”

He opens both eyes, hoping that Robin can still read his mind. Are you kidding?

“Yeah, stupid question,” Robin says. “Uh, the gist is that it's 1986 and you're my best friend and we cuddle like this sometimes but we're platonic with a capital 'P' and you and Nancy dated but it's over but she maybe still has feelings for you—”

“Robin!”

Nancy Wheeler looks different. Her hair is different, and her clothes are weird, the colors too bright and the lines too sharp, but her face is different, too. Steve can't put a finger on why, but she almost looks old. She also looks extremely alarmed.

“—and she's dating Jonathan who's right there so I shouldn't have said that, I'm so sorry, but in my defense you guys broke up after she had already slept with him so really it's sort of like karma if you think about it which sounds mean, but I'm really not judging anyone involved, it was a complicated situation because monsters are real.”

Before Steve can even begin to process that statement, there's a loud BANG from outside of the room, and a male voice triumphantly calls, “I got the drugs!”

[thewhumpcaretaker]

✦ 𝐖𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐈𝐕: 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 ✦

Sources: One | Two | Three

Event Host: @wickblr

Summary: After faking his death at the duel, John has gone into hiding deep in the desert to preserve his peace. Sofia Al-Azwar begs him to come back to the everyday world...and confesses her love. This is my first time writing John x Sofia! I hope it seems like them...

CW: Kissing, and that's about it. It's just angst and fluff.

The air is perfectly still, and dry with oncoming winter. But here, it’s always dry. It’s the richness of burning wood that truly makes the moment feel like autumn.

Night is making its way down in a blue-black gradient, the lowering of a ceiling rather than a sky. There’s nothing but sand for so many miles. And everything has already happened. What future is there? The space feels eternal. An epilogue.

“John. How long will you wander alone out here?” Sofia’s fingers weave deeper into his hair. His head is in her lap, both of them staring into the campfire, and she’s just…petting him. He needs touch so badly, after some seven hundred lonely nights. It’s been two years now, since he faked his death. And Sofia is the only one who knows where he is.

He doesn’t answer for so long that she thinks he’s fallen asleep. Then, “Long as I live.”

In front of her crossed legs, Dog whimpers and licks John’s forehead. Then he moves off to curl up with Lerna and Orthus, the three of them forming a cozy, tangled pile on the other side of the flames.

Sofia shakes her head, even though John’s not looking at her. “You fought so hard to survive. Why don’t you fight the same way to get back to a normal life?”

“It’ll all just happen again. I’m tired, Sofia.” He sounds that way. His voice is even rougher than usual.

“Dog’s tired. He’s tired of getting sand in his paws every time we visit you. Come back to the hotel with me.” She knows it’s futile. They’ve had the conversation dozens of times. But every time, she says it anyway.

“Give it up.”

“You know I’m too stubborn for that. It’s how I survived: being too stubborn to give up on myself. You deserve the same persistence. Hell, you were so persistent for…well, for Helen’s sake.” What did she almost say there? For the sake of his friends? For her sake? She knows that’s not why. Sofia frowns deeply. “She wouldn’t want to see you living like this. It’s no way to honor her memory.”

That strikes a nerve. His voice has a little more edge to it this time. “She wanted me free. Out here I’m free.”

He’s pissing her off by this point. Her hand stops moving over his hair for a second. Let him feel the weight of what he’s doing. “You’re alone, John. I'm surprised you haven't lost your mind out here. This is solitary confinement. It's torture. Stop it.”

His answer is the same as ever. “Yeah. I’ll think about it.” As if he already knows his answer. But unconsciously, he curls closer against her body, hugging her knees.

The silence reigns again. Sofia leans down over his body, embracing his whole torso to give him as much contact as possible in the little time they have before she’s back in the world of struggling against the High Table, of day-to-day life. He should be there too. Anything, anything to reach him… “People love you. Living people.” It’s a second before she realizes what she’s said.

But he knows. Of course he knows. “…I love you too.” John shifts onto his back, where he can reach up and hold her in kind and god, it almost breaks her. She feels like she’s holding his body back from a motionless river, the waterless, unforgiving current of the dunes. A stagnation, instead of motion, but he could sink and drown in it just the same as water. She won’t let that happen to him. Let his life be a life, not just a haunted survival. Please…

His breath against her lips is proof that his head is still above the waves. And then they’re breathing into each other, biting at each other’s lips, stubble and teeth and refusal to let go, his hand tangled in her hair now too. They get primal so quickly, they understand each other’s vicious energy and bring it out of one another. Fists on each other’s backs, pulling each other closer. Sofia topples over, and now they’re laying side by side. She pulls his head back for a second by the hair, staring fiercely into his eyes. “It’s too dusty for sex out here. Come home with me and we’ll fuck on a nice plush rug in front of the fire.”

He just laughs, and kisses her again. Goddammit. Well. At least that wasn’t a no. Sofia settles against him, staring up at the stars and allowing herself the recklessness of hope.

Night has fallen entirely. The sun is dead beyond the black horizon. But a light still glows: the flicker of her campfire. It will come to him in a cycle of months instead of days, but it will always come back. There’s still light at the end of the world.

[averagejoesolomon]

Listen—LISTEN. Don't look at me like that. It's LITERALLY Sunday night. This is a perfectly normal time for me to post a Full Circle chapter. Ignore the fact that I've already posted two other chapters this week. I am simply having the most fun of my life. Here's the kids, being real cute. If you're new here, you can read all of Full Circle on Ao3. CW: Rachel is stitching up Matt in this one. It's all fairly tame as far as cuts and blood go, but you do definitely see some of the action.

Chapter Twelve

Rachel sees the blood before Matt feels it. 

He’s running on some strange cocktail of adrenaline, exhaustion, euphoria, and bliss, which means he can’t trust his usual signals. Can’t tell where his pulse is supposed to be and where it’s not. All the sensations he’d usually sort into good or bad now fall into a single shared bucket—intense—so when Rachel’s thumb brushes across the Band-aid on his temple, he can’t tell if it’s tender to the touch, or if it’s only tender because she’s the one doing the touching. “Your stitches,” she says, appraising the damage. “They came undone.”

Right. The first option, then. “Well,” he says, hands gliding thoughtlessly up and down her thighs, “at least they didn’t come alone.”

She huffs. A remark like this would normally earn him a chiding hit to the torso, but Rachel can’t seem to find a safe place to land among all his new cuts and bruises. She settles for an equivalent look instead, but it can’t fool him. He spots the amusement playing at the corner of her lips, which reminds him what a shame it is to waste such soft lips on all this not-kissing they’re doing.

Before he can make good on any efforts to rectify this situation, Rachel starts to peel the Band-aid back, which is another one of those intense sensations he can’t quite sort out in his mind. That is, until she grazes the cut itself, sending a starburst of clear pain across his forehead, his eye, his inner ear. There’s no hiding the wince that comes with it, and all of her scattered attention clicks into place with a doting tsk. “I just finished putting you back together.”

“For the record,” he says, “I really, really didn’t mind getting taken apart again.”

“I have to redo these.”

“Stay.”

“And the ones on your cheekbone.”

“Stay.”

Despite his grounding grip on her waist, she ignores his pleas and unwinds from his lap. Her warmth lingers on top of him and Matt lets his head fall to the pillows at his back, downright defeated. 

If he can’t admire her up close, he at least enjoys the view of her at the edge of their bed as she searches for discarded clothes. Her exposed back sends a hot, catching little thrill through his chest, satisfying some need put there by the dress-covered version that’s been running through his thoughts for a full day. He takes in the shape of her. The way each muscle stretches, tenses, releases. The rise and fall of every last breath. He almost protests when she throws something over it, until he realizes she’s found his gray hoodie, and somehow he likes this sight even more. “God, ain’t that somethin’ to see.”

She glances up at him with a knowing smile, and he realizes this is another tactical move on her part. He’s being toyed with, and he’s enjoying every moment of it. “This old thing?” she teases, plucking his socks from the pile, too. She slides these nearly to her knees before standing to make her way across the room. “Just a little something I threw on.”

“Yeah…” he answers, dragging his eyes along her poised outline, tucked inside his slouchy silhouette. “That’s yours now. All of it—on one condition, which is that you only wear this, exclusively, for forever.”

From the other side of the bed, she scoops up his boxers and tosses them to him. “Doesn’t seem very practical.”

He catches them one-handed, then wriggles them up his legs. “Reckon I’ll have to take it all back, in that case,” he says, but he steals another glance at the way his hemline hits her thighs, just low enough to keep her covered, but just high enough to give him hope for a fresh glimpse at more. “But, nice guy that I am, I suppose I can let you borrow it for now.”

She collects a handful of supplies from the nightstand—gauze, bandages, her suture kit. “How generous of you.”

“I’m a generous sort of guy.”

“I know you are.”

A subtle flush crawls up her neck and into her cheeks, which sends his entire center buzzing, his spine acting as a lightning rod for the striking, sparking memories of Rachel’s hands in his hair, Rachel’s legs against his cheeks, Rachel arched toward the ceiling, Rachel calling out his name. All these flashes of her, still humming against his skin. Plus, the real-time gratification of watching the same flashes play out for her.

She chooses this moment to climb back into bed, returning to the easy straddle she left behind. “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Matt warns, hands falling into place along her hips. “Unless you’re looking to go again.”

She sets her supplies down on the sheets beside them, laying out each individual piece with the kind of precision he’s come to expect from her after all these years. Her eyes are big, and brown, and zealous when she leans closer to him, voice low. “Who says,” she mutters, “that I don’t want to go again?”

She ought to be careful saying things like that when she ain’t even wearing any pants to protect her when he decides to follow through. But, seeing as he’s ninety-nine percent sure this is some sort of test, he bites back a grumbling sigh and tries, “The nine stitches in my face, maybe?”

With a soft, patient smile, she closes the short distance between them to leave a kiss on his busted lips. “Good answer,” she says when she pulls back. “Especially since, right now, you only have four of them.”

That’s probably a decent measure of something—the more stitches pulled, the better the sex, maybe—but now doesn’t seem like the time to say so and anyway, they don’t need nonsense like that to know they’re good together. They’re good because Rachel is attentive and Matt’s eager to please. They’re good because they know how to read one another, listen to one another, understand one another. They’re good because they care. Matt and Rachel work in bed for all the same reasons they work everywhere else, complementing one another in ways that don’t seem practical on paper, but wind up working out in practice.

Her weight shifts smoothly, warmly across his lap as she reaches toward a glass of water on the nightstand, wetting a wad of clean gauze. With her other hand, she takes his chin in that way she does, holding him steady. Carefully, meticulously, she wipes blood from one side of his face, lipstick from the other, and whatever it is she finds on his lips that justifies another few swipes. Good, he decides. This sensation is good, starting with the warmth of her touch and leaving behind cool, dewy streaks in her wake.

For his part, Matt ain’t left with much to do except watch her work. Watch her hands move with purpose. Watch her top teeth bite into her lower lip. Watch her eyes carve into every last curve of his face. She goes on like this for a good while, discarding and dipping another three pads, tending to all the places where his pulse beats the strongest. There’s a word for when she gets like this, but the fatigue is starting to catch up with him. His eyelids grow heavy by the time he thinks of it—divine, but not in its cliché, romantic form. Divine in the biblical sense. As in, God’s divine power, or a diviner’s wisdom, or to divine an almighty truth. Beautifully capable. All-knowing awe. Divine.

He doesn’t realize he’s said the word out loud until there’s a skip in the rhythm of Rachel’s hands. The slightest pause. He wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t so keyed into her, but as things are, he blinks slowly back into the moment and glances heavenward until he finds her face. The sight of her only confirms the thought, so he reiterates, “You really are divine.”

She must hear it the way he means it, because her hands stop altogether this time. She looks at him like she wants to kiss him and then, all at once, she seems to remember that she’s allowed to, more than allowed to, and she makes it happen. He makes a solid effort to match her enthusiasm, but the ache in his ribs holds him back. His muscles are all mixed up in equal parts fatigue and satisfaction. His body’s slowing down on him, adrenaline finally fading.

When she draws back, she swipes her thumb across his lips, clearing her workspace once more. “And you,” she says, setting aside the final pad of gauze, “are exhausted.”

“You keep kissing me like that, and I’ll be wide awake.”

“That’s a shame, because you’ll probably wish you were asleep for this next part.”

Sure enough, she unclasps her suture kit and pulls out the hooked needle, wiping it down with an alcoholic pad. It comes back with blood from the first time she stitched him up. Dread builds in his gut as she threads it, but the feeling doesn’t hold once she leans into him, stomach-to-stomach, chest-to-chest, leveraging one arm against his shoulder and holding another above his head. “Sorry,” he teases. “Am I in your way?”

She turns his head to the side. “Hold still.”

Rachel’s no stranger to backroom first-aid and she’s even stitched up Matt on more than one occasion. But the fact of the matter is that she used all the good, taught skin on the first round of stitches and she’s forced to improvise on the second. It takes longer than it should, even with her expertise, and everything is more sensitive than it ought to be. This sensation is bad, bad, bad a dozen times over, poking and tugging straight down to his nerves, and it’s balanced only by the comforting feel of Rachel’s weight pressing him into the mattress.

She must not need such a severe vantage point for the last two stitches, because she sits upright and turns his head to face her once more. His cheek is meatier than his temple and gives the thread more to hold onto. It should make her job easier, but she’s still got that same focused look she started with. That's odd. Exhausted or not, Matt can spot when one of his people ain’t right.

So he goes off a hunch. “What are you thinking about?”

She pulls the first knot tight. “Infection,” she says, not missing a beat. “Paperwork. Getting tickets back home.”

These are all fine answers for the circumstances, but not for the person. Infection can be managed back home. Paperwork, too. And even with his extended detour, Rachel knows how to exchange any plane ticket without paying a dime in transfer fees. For someone like her, these are small logistical details that she could hash out in her sleep. They’re not worthy of the harsh lines carved into her brow or the tight purse of her lips. “You wanna take that horse down the road?” he offers. “Because I certainly ain’t buying it.”

Her eyes flit up at him, but return to his cheek just as quickly. With two small loops around her needle, she settles back into the automatic, familiar movement of her hands. “Stop talking,” she says. “It’s scrunching up your face.”

The needle is high enough on his cheek that his words don’t matter, and they both know it. “I gotcha,” he says. “So you’ve got no problem letting me run my mouth over every last inch of you, but you draw the line at any real intimacy—is that it?”

The second suture puncture hurts worse than the first. Matt’s not sure that’s an accident.

“That wouldn’t happen,” she tells him, “if you would just hold still.”

With the threat of her needle still looming, he bites his tongue, giving her time to loop the second knot, pull it tight, and cut the thread short. Though not explicitly written out in any agency handbooks, it goes against conventional wisdom to piss off the person stitching him up, which brings him back to watching all her detailed divinity. It really is something, the way her thoughts play out on her face, if only a fella knows what to look for.

She examines her work before setting the needle aside and reaching for another Band-aid patch. Just like before, she peels the wings apart one at a time and presses it to his tender temple. Slowly, gently, Matt reaches toward the same spot on her, mirroring her touch. She pulls away as though it hurts, just the same as his, but he persists. “You can’t solve everything up here,” he reminds her. “And you definitely can’t do it alone.”

This softens her, just slightly at first, then more and more until she’s leaning heavy against his hold. Before long, she takes his hand in hers, guides it to her lips to kiss his palm. “I’m not very good at this next part,” she admits.

Her breath slips into every last line on his hand. “And what part is that?”

Her chill soothes his bloodied knuckles. “The part when I ask you what we’re doing.”

Rachel is a genius. A master strategist. A planner, down to her core. She’s trying to open up this moment, reach inside of it, and understand how it works. Matt’s of the opinion that these situations don’t lend themselves to logic and reason, but he’s willing to let her try. “You mean to tell me,” he starts, “this wasn’t in your fifty-point-plan for the Moscow mission?”

“It was a hundred-and-thirteen-point plan,” she corrects. “If you’re going to tease, at least get the numbers right.”

“My apologies.”

She says, “I’m serious, Matthew,” and he can see her usual severity taking over. Her playfulness, lust, serenity—the further they get from needy kisses and clothes thrown across the room, the more it all fades. “I’m not sure we should be together. Not like this.”

He lets out a low whistle, which provides the levity he’s looking for, but at the cost of a sharp twinge in his cut lip. “Wow, you are efficient, aren’t you?” he says. “It usually takes girls at least a few months to break up with me.”

This is meant as another joke, but she takes it in earnest. “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she says. “Am I breaking up with you? How serious is this? Are we even…break-up-able?”

And if he can’t draw her back onto his level of ease, he’s going to have to meet her in the solemnity. “Rachel, listen—no teasing, just really, honestly, listen to me. If we’re gonna do this, then we’re gonna have to do it, because there ain’t a chance in Hell that I am ever, ever gonna be just a little bit in love with you, for just a short amount of time.” He laces his hands behind her tailbone and gives her a reassuring squeeze, hoping it all comes across as truthfully as he intends. “And if that’s too much, all at once, then I dunno—”

“It’s not too much,” she cuts in, and she spares an urgent touch on his stomach just to prove it. His insides flutter at her fingertips. “But I think this is all going to get too complicated.”

“Too complicated for Rachel Cameron?” he challenges.

“No, don’t do that. This is really complicated, Matt, and I’m not a miracle worker.” All of her reasoning builds behind her lips, and he just has to let her go. Say it all aloud. Be heard by someone who isn’t the voice in her head. “Half the time, I don’t know where you’ve traveled or why you were there. And even if I can trust you, I don’t know if I can trust your network”—he opens his mouth to protest, but she beats him to the punch—“and I’m not just talking about Joe. Joe’s the one I know about. Who else are you working with that I don’t know about? How can I trust that you won’t put yourself at risk for them, too?”

Catherine comes to mind, reminding Matt that he doesn’t even know everyone he’s working with, but Rachel’s right. This ain’t the Boy Scouts. After years of chasing the Circle, he’s learned that finding one bad guy usually requires help from a lot of other bad guys, and he wonders if he’ll ever reach a point when his alliances are more Circle members than not. What’s that going to do to him, running with a crowd like that? And what would it do to Rachel if they got together? He doesn’t have a plan for when something unexpected in one life starts to bleed into another.

“And let’s not forget,” she says, “that less than twenty-four hours ago, you broke away from your crew to sell US identities in Moscow. You can’t expect me not to report that. I can't look the other way, and even if I could, there were witnesses—and you got injured. I had to extend our op, because I couldn’t put you on a plane with confidence. This is going to get back to Langley and when it does, it’ll be paperwork, and court hearings, and investigations. It’ll be jail time, Matthew, and you’ll be lucky to ever work in this business again.”

There’s no judgment in her tone. Just inevitable fact. A truth she can’t shake, with the information she has at hand. “And where does that put me?” she goes on. “Even if I do decide to trust that you had good and moral reasons to trade those passports—a decision I’m not sold on, by the way—what is it going to look like when we get back to the States? Like I’m associating with a double-agent? Literally sleeping with the enemy?” There’s a spark of those same, frustrated tears she always seems to get around him, but this time they’re accompanied by her touch, absentminded fingers tracing old scars in his torso. “It really isn’t fair, because I want you and I want to try, try to make this work. But I will not give up my career, my life, myself just because you took too big a risk and got caught.”

He waits her out for a few extra seconds, leaving space for any addendums or postscripts she might want to tack onto the end. But then her eyes flash to him, signaling that it’s his turn now, and it’s second nature to follow her lead. “Well,” he says. “if that’s all…”

She drops her face into her hands and groans—and not one of those delighted, indulging groans he’s gonna be thinking about for years to come. Just the opposite. This is a rare show of embarrassment from a woman who just laid her entire heart bare. “I told you I was bad at this part.”

“Hey, hey, hey, none of that now.” Without hesitation, he reaches for her hands. Pulls them away from her face. Wraps them in his palms and locks them into the spot where her lap meets his. “This is exactly the kind of thing you’re great at—though, clearly, you’re not known for your optimism.” 

“What are you—?”

“Rachel,” he says, stopping her before she can get going again. “You won’t catch any grief from me, trying to figure out how our lives fit together. You’re the smartest person I know, and the fact that you’re even entertaining the idea is—no kidding—all the proof I need to know it’s worth a shot. I like that you’re thinking about this. And I might even be able to help.”

She actually, physically grimaces at the suggestion, trying with all her might not to point out that her plans are calculated, efficient feats of spycraft, while his plans landed him in a river just this morning. “Help?”

His laugh falls out of him without effort, bless her heart. “While I’m absolutely flattered by that show of confidence,” he says, “I’m not looking to run the show, here. Just provide a little more intel. It’s like you said—you don’t need everything, but you deserve something.”

Visible relief crosses her features, and her uncertain shoulders settle. “Okay,” she says. Then, with a touch more caution, “And you’re allowed to pass along this intel?”

“Oh, no, definitely not,” he says. “But truthfully, I’m not sure what happens if you commit this incident to paper. Nothing good, that’s for sure. So I’m going to tell you something, and then we’re both going to meet with the Director of Operations about it later.”

“Director of…?” She tries the title out on her tongue, testing the weight of it. “You’re talking about Alexander Smith? Director of Operations for the CIA? That Director of Operations?”

“The one and only.”

 “Matthew.” She’s sighing his name again, but not in the fun way. Instead, she’s all wrapped up in a tired disbelief, leaning slowly into his shoulder as though she might understand better, if she can just get a little closer. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

He takes all of her weight, happily, and slips a hand under his borrowed hoodie to leave soothing circles along her back. It’s easy, drawing his fingertips up and down the muscles he’s already committed to memory.

He says, “It’s not too late to stay in the dark.”

The words are just above a whisper, right in her ear. For a split second, he prays she takes him up on the offer. Begs her, silently, to choose ignorance while she still can. And to Rachel’s credit, she doesn’t take the decision lightly. The two of them sit like this for a long time, his hand looping along her back, her breaths expanding against his chest, both of them knowing that this is the moment that changes everything.

But Rachel has been chasing this information for ages, and he can’t expect her to turn it down after all this time. “No.” She unwraps herself from his hold, trading a seat in his lap for a spot on his good side, right in the crook of his arm. “Tell me.”

He’s never really registered how small she truly is. Rachel always stands so much taller than her actual height, taking up more space in a room than her body calls for. But beside his farm-raised frame, she’s downright petite. The words small but mighty come to mind, as he works up the courage to tell her, “Joe and I—we’re going after something. And it ain’t a usual threat, so we’re not going about it in the usual ways.”

Back home, her gracious listening would be seen as polite, but Matt knows better. He sees her answering silence for what it truly is—an interrogation technique, and an effort to make him say more. It works. “We’ve got a long leash,” he explains. “You don’t know where I’m traveling because, most of the time, no one knows where I’m traveling. Not the record keepers. Not my case officer. Sometimes, not even me. We go, we do what needs to be done, and we report back when we need to. But nothing makes it to paper. There are no travel logs, or expense reports, or ticket stubs on file for any of these ops.”

He can see her mind working, right before his very eyes. “No paper trail,” she says, in the manner of a woman who’s tried like Hell to find one, but always came up short. “Why?”

A hard lump of hesitation clogs up his throat, a stopper for something he can’t take back once it’s said aloud. Rachel’s smart enough to crack this whole thing with the smallest scraps. She already has once, back when they were Townsend’s age and sharing an armrest at Wrigley Field. A mole, she had realized, without him even saying so. Once he says it, she'll draw her own conclusions, and she'll be right. She will, officially, know too much.

And once she does, there’s a chance this information gets her killed, someday down the road. A chance it gets her hurt, court-martialed, jailed if any of this ever gets out. A chance—absurd and slim, but well within the realm of possibility—that she’s the mole he’s spent years looking for, and this has all been a long game.

But he’s spent this entire evening, this entire mission, their entire relationship telling her to trust him. He’d be a fool and a hypocrite to doubt her after all that. Rachel was born into espionage and, according to Henry, trained in the craft from her earliest years. Intel is her livelihood, the same way it's Matt’s, and he has to trust that she knows what to do with it. That she knows how to keep it, and them, safe once she has it.

“Everything is off-books because it has to be,” he says. “I’m not hiding anything from Langley, but Langley has plenty of reasons to hide what I’m doing.”

She studies him at the microscopic level, running his story through that infallible mind of hers and trying to find holes. Matt’s telling the God’s-honest truth, but he’ll admit—if all of this were a lie, it’d be damn hard to disprove. It’s going to take more than a little trust on her part. Maybe even a little faith.

She doesn’t dismiss him outright, which is a promising start. Instead, she prods him for just a little bit more. “But you have friends,” she clarifies. “High up the ranks.”

“You didn’t think I was keeping this up all on my own, did you?” he says. “I’m good, Rachel, but I’m not that good. If I didn’t have someone helping me, some analyst would have pegged me as a risk a long time ago.”

“The Director?”

“Smith’s the one who put us on the case.”

“Which means,” she concludes, “no jail-time?”

“And no double-agent status,” he confirms. “We’ll meet, we’ll explain what happened, and he’ll take care of it. He always does. He’ll want to hear about this op anyway—it’ll save everyone the work of redacting half of your mission notes later on.”

The Director’s involvement seems to ease some of her uncertainty, providing a concrete possibility that she can fact-check when she gets home. Still. There’s something to the way her look lingers, like she’s not quite satisfied with the answers she’s got. Gently, he says, “That’s really all I can tell you.”

“That’s more than you can tell me,” she reminds him, and it’s the truth. His heart’s still racing from the admission, and he’s certain she can hear it. “And I want that to be enough…”

He can hear it, right on the tail end of her words. “But...?”

She bites her lip. “I’m sorry.”

“Ain’t nothing to be sorry about.”

“I want to trust you.”

“I know you do.”

“But I’m just so”—she tries to find the word, and picks one that sits right at her uncensored center—“scared that I’m wrong. Everything in my training is telling me to keep my guard up. I’m on edge, all the time, and I just can’t seem to shake it.”

Once again, he decides to meet her where she’s at, rather than fight her into understanding. “Let’s talk training, then. In this business, you’ve got to find your allies, right?” he tries. “People who know all of your intel who, when the chips fall, you still trust to land on your side. Well, I reckon love is pretty similar. You give someone all this inside information, and maybe you even arm them with a grenade or two, and then you have to trust that they won’t throw them in your direction. That they’re going to work with you, instead of against you.”

When it’s laid out in her language, something in her lights up. Finally, he’s got a logic she can follow. But it doesn’t last long. Rachel’s been at this work for a while, which means she’s got the insight to know, “Sometimes alliances go bad.”

Matt shrugs, which settles her deeper at his side. “Sometimes love does, too,” he agrees. “But we trust it anyway, at least while we can. Then we figure out what to do when we can’t anymore.”

Her hand slides across his stomach, until her entire arm is wrapped around his torso and she’s looking up at him like she never has before. Like she sees a way forward, when everything until now has been stuck on the secrets kept between them.“You weren’t part of my plan, Matthew.”

This sort of thing never is, and maybe that’s what Matt likes most about it. “Then let’s keep talking about how I fit into what you’ve already got,” he proposes. “Tonight, tomorrow, a week from now. However long it takes.”

“It might take a long time,” she warns.

“I don’t mind the wait,” he says. “Talking to you is the part I like most, anyway.”

So they do. They talk, they laugh, they kiss, they debate, and then they talk some more. They talk about serious things and they talk about silly things. They talk about things neither one of them will remember in the morning, then they talk about things they’ll think about for the rest of their lives. They talk until the day catches up with both of them, Matt fading first, then Rachel. They fall asleep as they are, all tangled up together, and then Matt keeps talking to her in his dreams. For the first time in the last two years, he's feeling good, good, good all over.

[stories-by-an-anxious-ice-dragon]

[Horror] Necromancer - 01

I've noticed a lot of memes saying that necromancy isn't as scary as it seems, and while I sometimes agree, I wished to try my hand at it.

CW: Gore, Bugs, Death

--------------------------

The sound of the footsteps tells you that the floor is wood, though to you, it feels like long-since-dusted stone. Or perhaps, it feels like nothing at all. Perhaps it was the mantle, upon which you’d be judged by… whoever you were meant to face after their death. 

Who… are you? It’s so hard to recall anything. There’s a buzzing noise in your head that reminds you too much of the printing machines you used to work with at Marigold’s shop, and it fills your prefrontal cortex with too much white and gray noise to focus on anything. When you do focus, the only thing that sticks out to you is the cavity in your chest, where you can feel specks of flesh dripping where your ribs should be. When you curl up, and put your head to the cavity, the smell is noxious and makes your eyes water. If you could open your eyes… would you want to know what’s happening down there?

Would you want to see the cockroaches and fat beetles skittering around inside of your stomach?

The footsteps are slow, and methodical. They arrive with the swing of a door whose hinges might not have been oiled in decades… or maybe centuries. The gust of wind causes the bugs to jump. And then the door closes. Something drags beside the footsteps, scratching and sliding over the floorboards, clinking off the nails embedded in them like it was meant to be some kind of demented musical instrument. Tapping closer and closer to the pile of grayed flesh that are your remains.

Whatever it is, it nudges you. The tip of it is glassy, and it chills your spine as it drags down it. Eventually, it forces itself into the fetal curl you’ve found yourself in, and forces you out of it. The rod gets under your chin and pushes it back, until the back of your head hits the skirting of the wall. The skirting’s just as rotted as… your stomach.

Who are you…? What are you doing here?

Wait, no… it starts to come back to you. The last moments that replayed in your mind, over and over like a broken record, before you woke up in this place. You remember the hospital bed, and the white - too white - walls all around you. You remember holding your wife’s hand, how soft and gentle it’d been, kissing her for the last time before the… doctors put you to sleep. You remember telling her that it’d be alright, that you’d always be with her.

Something of the stomach, it had been, right? You remember the pain being numb after a while… though with the way you’re feeling now, you would never guess that. You can barely feel your own heart. You don’t wanna look. You don’t wanna look. Where the hell are you?

The glass rod nudges you again. “Rise,” a voice rings through the small room. And then there’s heat, welling up inside the glass like it’s an electric stove. It seers into the dry flesh along your chin, and you open your mouth to scream, but you can’t even manage that. Just a pathetic squeak.

And then - gods, *how!?* - you sit up. As if an invisible force grabs your hind end, it drags up against the wall, much to the complaint of your insides, which drip even more sagging flesh as you lean upwards. You feel a centipede squirm up between two of your guts. The feeling is even worse when your arms push against the splintery wood, to force you as high as you can go.

Once you’re up, your torso lulls forward across your outstretched legs. Oh, you’re in it now. You can feel your cracked ribs, how a gust of air goes into your chest and whistles out the opposite side. Is it possible to want to wretch when… you aren’t sure if you have a stomach anymore?

“Come on, my thrall. I know that you can sit up better than that.” The rod is pushing at your chin again, and forces it up no matter how much your eyes and cheeks want to melt off your bones. They’re crusted up and dry, conceding to their death.

Eventually, you sit straight up, much to the dismay of your ribs. With your lips nearly stuck together, you find something creeping out of them, sneaking up a tightened throat from distended lungs. “Where… am… I…?”

“There you go. No more time to laze around, my thrall.” That voice… you’ve heard it before. It’s foggy, and snappy, but you remember it being softer than this. You remember hearing it… sometime before you made it to the hospital. “Gaze upon me.”

One of your eyes open, and that’s about all you can manage. You see the brown, dusty swirls of the room around you, and the pricks of the nails poking out of the floorboards. In the midst of it, there’s a bright red, glowing rod of glass that still threatens to seer your chin off. It shines so bright that it almost looks superimposed on top of the rest of the room, which is so dead-looking compared to it. With your pupils low and exhausted, your iris climbs the rim of the rod, up the ancient tree branch that it must have been made of, all the way to the smooth fingers gripping it at the other side.

A *staff*. That’s the word that comes to mind. You remember once reading about wizards and witches who dominated the world before the modern age, but you thought it was all… all… Christ, is any of this real? Does it really matter if any of that insane stuff is rooted in reality when you’re sitting there, feeling your guts *melted*? Feeling ants nibbling at your insides?

“I *said* to gaze upon me, thrall.” The voice snarls, and the staff gets hotter. Either as a tear, or condensation, a drop of water streams out of your crusted eye. You recognize the voice now. Oh god, you recognize it. Out of all the voices in the world to violate your ears when you’re meant to be sound asleep in your coffin, there are few that could be worse.

“Why… why am I…”

You, who must be the “thrall,” gaze upon her, as commanded.

You remember speaking with your wife, a few months before the extended hospital stay interrupted, about how the entire atmosphere around Marigold’s printing press was starting to scare you. It started as something small: Marigold, the royally-dressed woman who ran a printing business, had pushed you when you showed up late, and crossed her arms at you. “I didn’t buy you for $500 a week just for you to steal five minutes of my time,” she had said. You only brushed past her then, apologized, and clocked in, avoiding her fingers.

And then, it was the way that her hands glided down yours while you were working. As if the sound of the clunking printer was an invitation to her. The raw tension in her fingers, the sweat they sent down your spine and the way they made your then-existent stomach turn. She mentioned your wife, and how she must be a lucky woman. A lucky, lucky woman. “Is she fulfilling all your needs?” she asked. “Ever want someone else to suck your soul out?” That soft voice, like the surface of a Marigold flower.

And then, on the hospital bed, where you were writhing and trying to keep your composure in front of your wire, as she ran her fingers through her hair in the way that made you wish to sit up and kiss her, you thought that you saw Marigold again. She’d been outside the window of your room, but it was dark out at the time, and rainy, so you convinced yourself that it was just the flash of a tree branch. Just an ordinary tree branch. Or, when you were feeling superstitious, it was a ghost ready to guide you to the afterlife. You were ready, and quite honestly, of all the things in your life to reminisce on, your job was far down on the list.

You hadn’t thought of Marigold in days. You could’ve gone all of eternity without remembering the name of the boss who once leaned in to kiss you on a Thursday afternoon, leaving the remaining 2 hours of your shift an awkward ordeal for you to shimmy through. You could’ve left her as a footnote of your life. Would you even mention the printing place to the angel tasked with weighing your life?

“In the eye, thrall,” she says now, and you want to vomit. No - why her? Why is she here, when you can’t talk back to her?

“Wh…what… have you done…?”

You look her in the eyes, the shining green eyes that had been a dull blue before. You study her face all the way down to the grin. A few more scars have made the way across her face since you last saw her.

“I was dead,” you continue. “I kissed my wife goodbye and I heard the… the heartbeat monitor stop,” you grit your teeth, though your head still lulls. Out of ink, no more miracles, your free trial of life ended - you were dead, dead, dead!

“Oh, you are dead, my thrall…” she says, leaning close to you. You expect her to stop, but she doesn’t, and soon her chapstick is violating your mouth. She sucks out your rotted breath from your plaque-covered teeth, and you lack the strength to pull away. It’s only once she does, that you once again relish in the permission to breathe, through lungs filled with bugs. “Dead as dead can be… dead, dead, dead…”

“W…was happy… being dead…”

“That’s not your choice to make, my thrall. You’re but a corpse. Do corpses get to make choices about how their owners play with them? No. And you’re a corpse. A dull, smelly corpse for me to animate as I please.”

She puts her stuff into your chest… how big is the hole? How much of you is dripping away?

“Just, a fucking, corpse. And not even one of the more useful ones under my command.”

“...why?”

“You thought that you could skip out on work by taking an unannounced vacation to the afterlife? No, no, no my thrall… think again. I invested too much training time into you to let you go to waste. I expect you to be back to work in minutes, thrall. Rise…”

You feel the joints in your legs start to light up… and you move.

No, no, no, you whisper to yourself. Not like this. You remember joking about how necromancy isn’t as scary as it sounds, how all that talk of disrupting the sanctity of the dead was hogwash. And now the wind through your chest tickles the sides of your exposed organs, teasing them, causing a beetle to flicker its wings against a drooping artery. You think of the trillions of infections creeping their way into your vessel right now.

But you stand, head lulling, eyes sagging. Something flakes off your cheek. Your hair is full of blood and loose flesh. You fail to lift your arms.

“Necromancer…” you mumble under your breath.

“That’s right, my thrall,” she bats her hair, and sticks her staff under your shoulder. “And you’re now my dull, reanimated property. It’ll be a long, long, long time before I let you return to the ground.”

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[the-dalseum-duet]

shocker! it’s more gay people

@svwhssftr mako coparent tag bc lord knows noeul and kai ain’t taking care of his ass

more funny guys. more fangstitch and kohls shenanigans. inspired by a dumb yet charming smiling friends comic panel I found. also a variety of real world influences. i miss the gsp experience 😔

also this has not been edited in the slightest. the pacing is so fucked up and it doesn't hit the beats that I want but it’s okay. it’s not that serious. they’re goofin.

“You know who the lady working the counter looked like?” Mako asked as he pushed open the door to his hall.

“Charlie!” Mako and Gale shouted in unison, Mako slinking back onto the door to let Gale enter. 

“Yeah, that was scary,” Gale said. “It obviously wasn’t her, but damn, she looked just like her.” 

“She really did,” Mako agreed, but not before Gale tripped over his chestnut loafers and spilled his leftover broccoli cheddar soup right down Mako’s hoodie. Gale stumbled back, his mismatched eyes as wide as his mouth. 

“I’m so sorry!” Gale shrieked, “God, I’m so uncoordinated.” 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Mako said, stiffly posing with his arms to his side as the broth soaked through his thin button-up shirt underneath. “I can wash it. It’s no big deal.” 

“My room is, what, two doors down? I can help you clean up,” Gale offered. 

“That’s not necessary,” Mako said. 

“No, I insist!” Gale said. “You paid for my soup. It’s the least I can do.” 

Mako absentmindedly mumbled to himself as Gale dragged him by his wrist into his dorm room. Kai judgmentally stared at them from his bed, red yarn strewn onto the floor. 

“Hey, Kai,” Mako awkwardly hummed as Gale practically shoved him into their bathroom. 

“Hey.” Kai didn’t look up from his needle. 

“Hey, Noeul.” Gale pressed his fingertips to his palm as a pathetic excuse for a wave. 

“Fuck you, Porter,” Noeul hissed, his voice muffled by Kai’s comforter. Kai rolled his eyes as Noeul’s dark eyes peeked out from underneath it. 

“That never works on me,” Gale laughed. “You don’t have to be ashamed.” 

“Yeah, at least my fucktoy’s hot,” Kai said. “Wish you could say the same, Gale.”

“You can insult me all you want,” Gale said, “but leave Mako out of this.” 

“Mako has fucking soup all over his hoodie. I can say whatever I want about him,” Kai sneered. 

“And you’re crocheting after sex,” Mako chimed in. 

“He’s not wrong,” Noeul murmured, resting his head on Kai’s shoulder. 

“God forbid a man have a hobby around here.” Kai shook his head. 

“I’m sorry, but the smell of broccoli is seriously making me want to vomit right now. I need to change,” Mako whispered, yanking Gale into the bathroom and slamming the door. 

“Did you just call me your fucktoy?” Noeul said, his voice carrying beneath the door. 

“Yeah,” Kai confirmed. “I thought you liked that.” 

“That’s so dehumanizing.”

“Oh, would you like ‘doll’ better?”

“…Go back to your knitting.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Bitchass.”

Mako peeled his sweatshirt and button-up from his torso, and he started to pat himself dry with a towel.

“Here, let me help,” Gale offered. He shoved Mako’s stained clothes into a nearby hamper, doing his best to avert his eyes away from Mako.

“Are you okay?” Mako asked, tilting his head as Gale continued to push the clothes infinitely down the hamper. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Sweat built on Gale’s forehead. 

“You can look at me. It’s okay,” Mako laughed. “This isn’t like Twilight— my skin won’t blind you with majestic sparkles.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Gale stammered, staring at the various gold rings on his fingers. “I mean, we just had our first date, and I don’t want to move too fast.” 

“Oh, God forbid you see your boyfriend shirtless, lest you have impure thoughts about him,” Mako said in a high, mocking British accent. “They’ll burn you at the stake, surely. No one shalt know that Gale Porter is a filthy homosexual, no no no!” 

Gale burst out laughing as he hesitantly lifted his eyes to meet Mako’s. “I don’t know,” Gale breathed through choppy laughter. “After rooming with Kai for so long, I feel like every act of intimacy will lead to someone getting rammed raw and me hearing all the unnecessary details afterward.”

“Shit, I’m glad Crow is my roommate,” Mako smoothed out his hair in Gale’s mirror. “I don’t think he even knows what sex is.” 

“He’s probably too busy trying to solve a Rubix cube or whatever he plays to care,” Gale said. To his surprise, Mako was no Greek god come to seduce him. He was a regular teenage boy who worried about regular teenage boy things, unlike his perpetually slutty roommate. 

“I’m jealous of him, in a way,” Mako said. “He doesn’t really pick up on social cues, so he just does whatever he wants and has fun doing it. I wish I could have that confidence.” 

“I wish Kai would pick up on some of my social cues,” Gale groaned, rolling his eyes.

“Gay horniness is an unstoppable force compared to an occasional side-eye,” Mako joked. 

Gale stared blankly at the door in front of him. “I have an idea.”

Mako slowly turned to look at Gale, glancing up and down at him.

“It’ll be funny, I promise,” Gale whispered. 

“Why are we whispering?” Mako asked, lowering his voice.

“You’ll find out. Are Kai and Noeul still out there?” 

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Perfect.” Gale maniacally grinned. “This is going to sound weird, but just play along.”

“What the fuck are you planning, Porter?”

“Sshhh. I’ll do the embarrassing part, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Pretend you’re fucking me.”

“What?”

“No, just— just, make some grunting noises and bang your fist on the door or something.”

“What is the purpose of this, exactly?”

“To show them how it feels to be me!”

Mako deeply sighed. “It would be funny.”

“It won’t take long, I promise,” Gale said. 

“Alright.” Mako curled his fist into a ball and positioned it on the door. “Tell me when to start.” 

“Go,” Gale whispered, holding his hands to his chin to cover his red face. Mako repeatedly pounded his fist into the door, too embarrassed to make any noise. 

“Oh, Mako!” Gale dramatically moaned, draping himself against the wall like a damsel in distress. “Oh, great heavens!”

Mako hung his head as he clearly suppressed a laughing fit. “Yeah, you like that, don’t you?” 

Gale slammed his hand over his mouth, his heart beating a million times a kilometer. “Oh, yes!” His voice cracked as he nearly broke his contained laughter. “Keep going, keep going!” 

Kai whistled from the other side of the door. Mako couldn’t contain himself and wheezed as he keeled over the sink. 

“No, no, we’re getting a reaction!” Gale whispered. “We can’t stop now.” 

“You’re my little whore, Porter!” Mako yelled in a nasty, gritty voice. He slammed his body into the door, the thud echoing. Gale quietly cackled as he sat himself on the counter of the sink. 

“I am your filthy little whore, Mako!” Gale kicked his legs and batted his eyes at his boyfriend, causing Mako to hold his stomach as he leaned over. Quiet laughs escaped between stifled breaths. 

“God, they suck at dirty talk,” Noeul whispered, shaking his head. “So basic. So heteronormative, even.” 

“Really,” Kai agreed. “I just hope he took my sweatshirt off somewhere safe. I don’t want British DNA on my clothes.” 

“I’m so close!” Gale shouted. Mako buried his face in his arms to stifle his laughter. “Oh, God, I’m coming!”

“Shit, that’s my vintage Alexander McQueen!” Kai exclaimed. “I’ll be right back, fucktoy.”

“I told you to stop calling me that!” Noeul complained. 

“It’s funny.”

“It’s about as funny as a Vivziepop bit. The only funny part is the word ‘fuck,’ at this point.”

“It’s funny because it pisses you off.”

“Whatever.” Noeul pawed at Kai’s dangling red yarn. “Wait, are you seriously barging in on them?” 

“Watching them hitting it from the back could not possibly be worse than them ruining my vintage McQueen.” Kai slung open the door, bracing himself for the worst. Instead, he was greeted by Mako holding Gale, them both in an outrageous fit of laughter. Mako wiped a stray tear from his eye. 

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Kai snapped. “You had me all worked up about my sweatshirt for nothing?”

“You’re the victim here?” Gale said. “I have to hear you explain your sex life in detail on the daily! This was vanilla compared to you, man.” 

“That ‘Oh, great heavens!’ was scarring,” Kai said. “Don’t get me started.”

“Oh my god, that part was hilarious,” Mako said, gently slapping the back of Gale’s neck. 

“It was supposed to be traumatizing,” Gale explained. “I know how much you love my British tendencies, Kai.”

“Get out of this bathroom before I shove fish and chips up both of your asses.” Kai blinked, his expression remaining stoic. 

“I do need to get back to my room,” Mako said. “I’m sure Crow wants to hear about our eventful evening.” 

“Do you need extra clothes?” Gale offered. 

“Eh, it’s fine,” Mako said. “My room is just down the hall.” 

“If you need anything, you know where to find me.” Gale stood on the tip of his toes to lightly peck Mako’s lips. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Mako kissed Gale’s forehead before leaving to find his own room. 

“That was gross,” Kai sneered. “I would have rather watched you two fuck than your little fairy sesh.”

“I, for one, greatly enjoy having a healthy relationship with my boyfriend,” Gale said, hopping onto his bed. “Maybe ask Sonnet what it’s like to have a healthy relationship with yours.” 

Kai glared at Gale as Noeul nonchalantly stretched. “I think that’s my cue to leave,” he said, sliding his faded Deftones shirt over his head. 

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Kai said, awkwardly clapping. “I’ll see you later, fucktoy.”

“Stop!” Noeul howled as he dramatically leaned his head back. 

“He loves it,” Kai said, pointing back at Noeul as he nodded at Gale. “He just likes to lie to me.” 

“I’m sure.” Gale clicked on his white noise machine and rolled his shoulders back. After such a long evening, he fell asleep immediately. Thankfully, he didn’t have to hear Kai and Noeul argue about the use of the word ‘fucktoy’ for a solid fifteen more minutes. 

[ace-writer-lani]

Since I'll be updating The Children of Spring and Destruction a bit late, here's a snippet of Chapter Three:

As it turned out, it was Apollo who was giving them a ride to camp. And it also turned out that he was much cooler than his Mythomagic counterpart.

The Hunters had already packed up their campsite by the time he arrived in a flash of light so bright that it would have blinded Nico if his sister hadn’t reached out to cover his eyes with her hand. When it eventually dimmed, Apollo stepped out of his shiny red car with a wave, a beaming smile, and a terrible poem that flowed from his mouth in awkward syllables.

The poetry, unfortunately, was the only thing that wasn’t cool about him. Which Nico felt didn’t really make sense considering poetry was supposed to be under his domain. But everyone had to have some sort of flaw, even gods.

“How are we all going to fit in that?” Bianca asked, eyeing the car warily.

Much to the relief of everyone else (mainly Artemis and her Hunters), Apollo paused in the middle of another haiku and turned around. He assessed his vehicle with a frown, probably only realizing it couldn’t fit more than five people. “Huh. Forgot about that.” Then he reached into the pocket of his jeans to pull out a small remote. “I usually prefer this mode because of the vibes-”

“Please never say that again, brother,” Artemis sighed, rubbing her temples.

“-but since I’m so generous and accommodating, this will have to do,” he said and pressed a button. This time in a less incinerating glow, the car transformed into a huge van. Every inch of it was colored in a shimmery shade of gold, from the windshield wipers to the headlights. Even the tires had a coat of metallic glitter and Nico had to blink a few times for his eyes to fully adjust to it. “Alright everyone, hop in.”

The inside of the van was just as big as the outside when Nico stepped inside behind Bianca. The Hunters had already claimed the back few rows and seeing them made his sister hesitate. There was an odd expression that flitted over her face for a few seconds before it disappeared and instead, her attention zeroed in on something else.

“Where are the seat belts?”

“The what?” asked Apollo after calling out a last goodbye to Artemis and closing the doors shut. “Oh, those. In my opinion, they’re just kinda tacky. Ruins the vibes I mentioned before. So there are none.”

Nico almost jumped when his sister immediately snapped an arm across his torso at the words, as if she could substitute as a makeshift seat belt. She mumbled something about safety precautions while Apollo revved up the engine. Once the van purred with life, he stood up and smiled.

“Anyone want to drive?”

Nico shot his hand up into the air. “Me!”

Apollo laughed, reaching over to ruffle his hair. “Nope. Sorry, too young.”

“But I’ve driven a motorcycle before!”

Bianca rolled her eyes. She pressed her arm more firmly against him. “You mean you crashed a motorcycle before.”

“Nobody was hurt.”

“You ran over five people.”

“…nobody was killed.”

There had just been a few broken fingers and a mild concussion. Nothing serious. And it also wasn’t entirely him who was at fault for those injuries because there had been clear signs signaling the edges of the racetrack. Those idiots had just been too drunk and too stupid to realize that.

But it was futile to try arguing against Bianca (because even if she was wrong, she was always right) and in the end, Apollo chose Thalia to be the one to drive, despite her stuttering protests. He motioned for her to get in the driver’s seat with a grin. When she did, he began to steadily guide her through the controls and the steps to get the van to take off.

With a few rumbles and shudders, they had somehow managed to eventually launch into the air, shakily ascending until they were so high that Westover Hall became nothing but a tiny fuzzy dot in the distance. Nico wanted to press his face to the window of the glass and truly admire the streaks of colors that painted the sky in brilliant oranges and purples but instead, he gripped Bianca’s sleeve tightly because Thalia was a terrible driver.

He had never flown before. Lecto had strictly told him and Bianca that they were forbidden from riding any planes. Why? She had never explained (because when did she ever?), but he definitely would have listened to her if he knew this was what it felt like.

They were constantly either jerking to the side or lurching forward. Someone screamed at one point while beside him, Bianca had a hand over her mouth. She was barely keeping herself from keeling over and Nico really wished she wasn’t sitting so close because he did not want to be the person she possibly threw up on.

Suddenly the van was yanked back. There was another yelp and Apollo was abruptly knocked off his feet. He was probably regretting his choice not to have seat belts now.

“Pull up!” shouted Percy.

“Lord Apollo, please take back the wheel,” pleaded Grover.

“Oh my gods, we’re all going to die,” cried one of the Hunters.

“Everybody, chill, chill, chill,” said Apollo. “Look.” He pointed. “That’s where Long Island is. Dead ahead. All you need to do is slow down a little and we’ll have the perfect landing.”

Through the front window, the image of a beach came into view. It was bordering the edge of a snow-covered forest and the crystal waves of the sea. It looked beautiful. However, it also looked like they were approaching it way too fast. If they didn’t stop now, they would all end up getting either smushed or broken to pieces.

“You should…probably start braking now,” Apollo wisely advised.

But Thalia only muttered to herself under her breath as she stared blankly ahead.

When Apollo realized she probably hadn’t heard him, he yelled. “Brake!”

The van was then pitched forward in a violent jolt. More screams, mainly from Grover. There were a handful of curses from the Hunters. Nico shut his eyes closed as Bianca’s arms wrapped tightly around him, covering his head as they landed straight into the water with a massive splash.

When they finally floated to the surface, surrounded by bubbling steam and burnt canoes that were halfway melted, Nico made a face.

“I should have driven.”

(Full chapter will probably be posted on my ao3 tomorrow night)

[trollbreak]

FOURTH time is the charm lol

[“An ex-goddess, hm? Is that why you’re wasting your time drinking cheap vodka in a locker room, when you know it’s not going to do much? Or are you hoping for the blood loss to carry your weight, here?”

The woman bares her flat teeth at them, and Pyrric tilts their head. It’s hard to find someone intimidating when she lies in pieces before you. Harder still when you know that neither of you can do too much damage to the other in any reasonable amount of time.

“Is it the reason you’re getting yourself killed weekly, because the crowds pay better at the end of the week? Or maybe it’s the reason you’re baring your teeth like they could actually do anything that matters. Please, talk down to me some more while you’re still halved. I’d like to see how much you can try to puff up like this.”

The woman rolls her eyes and grabs her pants by the belt loops to pull her torso closer together, and the flow of blood only slows a little. Pyrric is almost certain those pants are going to be ruined. A shame- that orange would make for a lovely dress color, if Dari would consider dying her own clothes. But she’s made it clear enough that she’s not looking to make friends. Another shame.

“…Are you the yellow who’s fuckin’ the freak? Keeps killing you for the shits and giggles? ‘Cause gee, what a high fuckin’ horse you’re on, bleeding for some rich someone or other… gods. Leave it to the bug people to make the weird ones.”

Pyrric leans down, turning her head to be eye to eye with Dari.

“Is that my reputation now? I’d have hoped it was something kinder… but if that is the case, I’ll not have you ruin Daemia’s for it. She’s divine, in a way you’re never going to know. Not anymore. You did say you used to be a god, yes? Who do you pray to, when you die? At least the things that made me were kind enough to take my scars, to dull my p-“

They have more to say, but Dari spits at them, and they’re sputtering, staggering to catch their balance. Whatever landed in their eye doesn’t burn, per se, but they don’t want to leave it there. They might have to ask Daemia to help them with that, at the end of the night.

They’re already going to need some time with her to feel at home in their own form again… they hate when someone gets under their skin like this. Anger doesn’t suit them.

“Fuck off. You said you wanted to make friends, yeah? A fat fuckin’ success that was- do me a favor and get the fuck out. Bet I can get Junie to get you banned, if you wanna push your fuckin’ luck.”

Pyrric doesn’t know why they had expected anything less abrasive… Dari has a reputation of trying to get on people’s nerves. But at least this wasn’t a wasted trip, they have some information that a few friends will be more than happy to have, in case the empire ever reaches her home.

They stand back up with a deep breath, smoothing out their skirt and adjusting their hair around their shoulders.

“Fine. Have fun stewing in your misery, Dari… and if you want to try to find a way to cope better, I’m sure Junie can get us back in touch.”

Another breath, and they put their smile back on. It’s so much easier to be cute than to be angry… they’d like to lean into it until it feels right again.

“And have a lovely rest of your night!”]

[unknownjpegs]

secrets

“Xavier —”

“C’mon,” he whines, leaning across Benji’s lap with an elbow on the top of his head, reaching for the paper. Gangly fucking thing.“I wanna see what embarrassing secrets you share with her.”

Anybody else, crawling all over him, in his fuckin’ space, and they’d have a fist coming solely at their stomach. 

It’s Xavier, though, so he sighs and pulls away further. Fights a laugh. Fails.

“Would you — ow, you prick, m’fucking hair —”

“You— like… it,” Xavier huffs, struggling, and leans further. The tips of his fingers brushing the edge of the letter and he almost gets a grip on it. Benji drops back, pulling both of their weights purposefully off balance. Xavier yelps as he crashes, high-pitched and actually concerned. The noise makes Benji giggle — laugh. He catches Xavier with his free arm under his torso before his face can hit the ground. 

“You’re totally hiding something,” Xavier accuses, muffled into his thigh. Benji tucks the letter away into the pocket of his vest, smacking away a pale hand, which is half-heartedly crawling up to finger across the same pocket’s button. He seems a little more interested in pawing at Benji’s side, his chest, than any actual letter retrieval attempt. 

“Oh, I am.” Benji admits haughtily, huffing another laugh when Xavier starts squirming again. “Stop it.”

“No, oh my God, I gotta know what goes on in that beautiful fucking head of yours. Secrets,” Xavier hisses, properly trying to get himself upright. He’s tossed over Benji’s thighs, knees scrabbling as he tries to get enough angle to get all of him up, but it’s a lot, and Benji just kinda — puts a hand in the center of his back and pushes. Keeps him down.

“Sssssecrets,” Xavier hisses again, like a snake, and then bucks unsuccessfully. “Okay, Christ, that’s hot. But I wanna read.”

“No.”

“Yes. Secrets.”

“No, Xavier, take it for a fuckin’ answer,” Benji leans forward because he’s moving a lot now, cackling like a maniac, and it’s hard to sound serious at all, except those long fucking fingers get under the flap of the pocket and he just — 

Well, he reacts.

Lifts his hand from the center of Xavier’s back. Brings it down very hard, kind of aiming for a side-swipe, except Xavier moves and it lands funny. It lands on the back of his thigh. High, kinda. Actually, it just comes down hard on his arse.

Audibly, too, even through the layers. 

“Oh,” Benji starts to say, like he’s gonna follow it up with sorry, but. It slips away from him.

 Xavier jerks and goes still. And Benji’s so aware of how they’re positioned now, not that he wasn’t before, and there’s a beat.

Even though Xavier has already completed the task of filling that silence with a loud whimper, Benji has to, as well. 

“We gonna talk about this one?” 

“N-nope,” Xavier grunts, and Benji lets him move a little bit now. It’s only an inch or so off his lap, because Xavier’s not trying to get up. He just needs the room to get a hand between their bodies, down the front of his pants.

“Nope, we’re not, just —“ he whines, drops his forehead back down. Biting at his sleeve, Benji can see. “Just do that, like, three more times, okay?” 

Benji bites his lip, holding back more laughter. Maybe a noise of his own. It’s so easy to get the two mixed, when they’re together. Like he doesn't know whether to give voice to the longing or the happiness. 

So he brushes his hand over Xavier’s hair, right down his spine, and gives him a teasing squeeze. 

You’d like him, the letter had read, amongst some other things. He’s proper fucking weird in the best way.

[thelivingmemegod]

What are your thoughts on the Rainbow Vision dolls? (There's like three different bands in it)

I don’t know why but Dollect separates Shadow high from Rainbow high completely but it does so the Rainbow Divas and Royal Three will be first, then Neon Shadow.

Royal Three: Tiara Song!

I don’t entirely love her base outfit. It’s again, the fault of RH’s super short torso’s but her bodysuit and skirt look awkward. Her cropped jacket is cute though. Lover her boots, mic, nails and tiara though, all fire.

Her second outfit is so fucking Kpop I love it.

That half blazer, turtleneck bodysuit and skirt combo feels like irl kpop girlies have worn it and it’s perfect. The only thing I’d change is, once again, make them short boots. Both because I’d like them better and because it’s more actuate to kpop girls shoes. They’re rarely ever performing strappy heels like this.

Her third outfit feels like a personal style one, so it’s pretty simple and nice, and the strappy heels work!

Royal Three: Tessa park!

Love her stage outfit. She looks a lot like K/DA Akali (both the Popstars and All Out eras)

I love her leather half pants (especially with the print down the side), long sock, sneakers and crop shirt, sunglasses and mic but the real show? RACING 👏 JACKET 👏 ITS SO COOL I also seriously love her sneakers they’re soooo good.

Her second outfit, I’d like much more if it didn’t have. The weird thing on it. I have no idea what that is. But I love the pants with the underwear band showing and the short, sports bra like top. The strappy heels don’t look bad but I’d probably keep her sneakers on for that. Her third outfit is mostly the same, but the top is swapped for a plane tshirt and I like it!

Royal three: Minnie Choi

CUTE. GOD. My favorite stage outfit by far.

Her pearl top and jacket and zip pleated skirt are SO cute topped with those BOOTS I love it here. I especially love the paneling of the boots, kinda draws back up to the skirt. I also really, really love her heart mic.

Her second outfit I like…a bit less. Because it feels like the black and pearl accenting gets a little too busy for the doll scale. If it was full size I think it would be just fine.

Third out is why I think it’s that. Cuz pair that skirt with a normal tshirt and it’s just fine, the skirt is really cute actually.

I do have one question: If you’re gonna make molded socks AND shoes. Why not just make them boots then? My only gripe for her anyways let’s go!

Rainbow Divas: Meline Luxe!

God just. Look at her. Look at her she’s so-

*Scream*

EVEN HER SECOND OUTFIT LOOKS LIKE SHE’S ANSWERING THE DOOR TO THE POLICE AFTER KILLING HER RICH HUSBAND???

The brown eyes check, the golden curls, check, the EXTREME high low skirt and half shoulder top. With the chains and sequins and tule I just AH-

I crave and need a slip dress like the second outfit and those CHAIN STRAP HEELS I AM-

Rainbow Divas: Ayesha Sterling!

SAME VERSE SAME AS THE FIRST BABEY.

The extreme high low but in a different way from Meline and it also has floof all around the hems, that’s 1. What’s two is that dark skin, silver outfit and hair CONTRAST IM GONNA-

Second outfit, beautiful wonderful. I adore this sequin two piece and the FEATHER BOA AHHHH-

Rainbow Divas: Sabrina St. Cloud!

UNEVEN HEM MERMAID DRESS YESSS

Once again, the sequins and the top bit and the belt and the heels I just UGHHHa

Then mis ma’am in her skirt and top set with that cunty ass fur coat and. For once. I like the sparkly socks and shoes. I like it here. Plus the gold and pink accessories??? GIRL GN IM PASSING AWAY.

In summery:

Neon Shadow: Harley Limestone!

I love her stage outfit, this huge hoodie and shorts that almost touch her socks that are only a little longer than her knee high lace up shoes. I love her like greeen sleeves and the chunky Japanese characters on her hoodie. I love her barbed wire cat ears too.

(Fun fact I used to have converse that tall and I LOVED THEM. I grew out of them and I’d kill to have them again but they’re super expensive now)

Second outfit is fire. The printed top, white and green jacket and the almost…cargo color jeans with the cat heads on it? It’s very hot topic and I love that for her. Her steel toe high tops are amazing and I love all the studs.

Neon Shadow: Uma Vamhoose!

She looks good! The blues and purples work pretty well together, mostly with her hair. I like the sequin top and net one underneath. The spit pants are cool but I do wish the actual pattern was the same on both legs. Like that is…the same pattern. Heels are cool, I like the hat.

Second outfit is hella cute! Cute tshirt, cool trench coat with the leather-y sleeves and the rhinestones on them. Skirt is really cute, the purple and blue are really nice. Love the shoes.

Neon Shadow: Mara Pinkette!

Firstly, I think Mara’s skin wasn’t a great choice color wise. Because everything but her eyes washes her out really badly.

Love the like…Disney hat-but-cat hat she has on? Then the pink crimps are nice, her short sleeve jean jacket rocks and I love her t-shirt dress and the sock type-boots. Her outfit is great honestly it’s just her skintone.

Next up, I love this outfit! Dress is cute as hell, studded boots with pink soles and the jacket is super cute.

The band is distinctly very hot topic and I love that for them

[cjsmalley]

Ayumi Meets Shippo:

Ayumi headed up the stairs to Higurashi Shrine, heart pounding.

Today she was going to meet a kitsune.

A real, live kitsune.

Not just a real, live kitsune but her friend’s son.

It still made her head spin; her friend, nominally a sick high schooler, had a youkai son.

And possibly a hanyou lover but they were still dancing around each other. Supposedly platonically parenting.

Their kitsune son.

Missus Higurashi met her at the door with a smile but then she frowned.

“I wasn’t followed,” Ayumi assured, knowing how dangerous the present was to youkai, “the others think I’m home sick. Mama thinks I’m bringing notes to Kagome. Hojo doesn’t know a thing. I swear.”

Missus Higurashi nodded and ushered her in.

Sota was standing there, waiting for her; his arms were crossed and he was frowning also.

“If you hurt Shippo,” he said lowly, looking to the ceiling meaningfully, “if you’re mean about him not being human, I won’t help Kagome try to save you. I’ll be on InuYasha’s side. He’s…not happy about this…”

“Someone…over there tried to kill Shippo,” Missus Higurashi admitted, “just because a hanyou claimed him as his son. That a Priestess claimed him doesn’t help. InuYasha and Kagome got him before too much damage was done but they’re…on edge. Especially InuYasha. I think it brought back bad memories. From before he was adopted.”

The hanyou appeared at the foot of the stairs and Ayumi went to him silently; he searched her eyes, looking for any deception, before nodding shortly. He led her up and with each step Ayumi felt she was intruding somewhere…intimate.

InuYasha led her to Kagome’s room and opened the door.

Kagome was sitting up against a stack of pillows, a small child, though not too small, in her arms.

The child was cuddled to her, bandages visible around his torso. They had a tail. A fox’s tail.

Kagome looked up; there was worry etched into her young face, worry and fury and grief.

The child, Kagome’s child, awoke and stiffened in her hold, “Kagome?”

“It’s okay, Shippo,” Kagome soothed, rocking him slightly, “you’re okay. She’s a friend. My friend. Ayumi. Ayumi, Shippo. My son.”

She sat Shippo up and Ayumi gasped; not because he wasn’t human, but because of his injuries.

He was a mummy from neck to hips. Wound and bound tightly.

Teal eyes looked at her worriedly.

Ayumi immediately went to her knees, “Hi, Shippo. It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you,” Shippo whispered.

“C’mon runt,” InuYasha lifted the boy, “time for your medicine and bandages to be changed.”

Once they had left the room, Kagome got up from her bed, “Hi, Ayumi.”

“Oh my god, Kagome! What happened to him?”

Kagome slumped, “We got separated in another village, not ours. He was lured by a kid. ‘Come play with me’ they told him. They lured him to the village center, we were camped on the outskirts, and the men started beating him. I…I’ve never seen InuYasha so angry, Ayumi and I almost joined him…Him and Anakin…”

“Anakin?” Ayumi questioned.

“InuYasha’s brother, teaching me about using my spiritual power,’ Kagome waved, beginning to pace, “but…I wanted to kill them. The men beating Shippo. I’m supposed to be a priestess, someone good and I wanted to—”

“Kagome,” Ayumi said sharply, grabbing her friend by the shoulders and shaking her slightly, “Kagome, they were killing your son, okay? Any mom would want to kill for their kids—”

“Miroku had to talk us down,” Kagome denied, “we were gonna slaughter them. Every one of them. Miroku had to remind us that Shippo needed help. Gods, Ayumi! The only reason he survived—a human would have died!”

“And you got him help instead of killing those people,” Ayumi argued, “you and InuYasha and his brother. When it came down to it, you stopped and saved a life instead of taking some.”

“He was…gods and…and Ancients, we needed to get him back to InuYasha’s and Anakin’s family,” Kagome explained, shakily, tears in her eyes, “Anakin stabilized Shippo with his…power and we had to get him to Medical…touch and go for hours…his lungs were…his ribs were broken, Ayumi, stabbing his lungs…his back…we had to—”

“And he’ll be fine,” InuYasha was back, carrying Shippo. The boy was now wearing a modern shirt, overly large on him, almost a dress, covering his bandages.

Kagome reached out for the child and InuYasha handed him over; she clutched him to her, sniffling into his hair as she began rocking him like a much younger child.

InuYasha joined them, arms wrapping around them, and he stared down Ayumi.

The message was clear; anything she heard or saw that day was never to be spoken of outside the Higurashi family or elsewise he’d silence her himself.

Ayumi nodded and plastered on a smile for Shippo when he turned in Kagome’s arms, curious about his adoptive mother’s friend.

Ayumi spent a couple hours talking with the little kitsune, learning about him and his kind and youkai in general. Opening her eyes to exactly what sort of world her friend was now part of.

Eventually, so as not to rouse suspicion, Ayumi had to leave. InuYasha escorted her from the room as Shippo yawned and mumbled into Kagome’s neck.

“If you say anything…” the hanyou warned as they neared the front door to the house.

“I won’t, InuYasha. I swear it.” Ayumi promised.

She walked back home and went over the cover story she had been fed.

“Ayumi,” her mother greeted, “how’s Higurashi?”

“She’s okay,” Ayumi reported promptly, “her boyfriend and his cousin’s taking care of her.”

“She’s so lucky to have such a devoted boyfriend,” her mother said.

“Yeah, she is.”

Wished Away 9

Tylers meet Phantoms:

“Christ, Mum,” Rose said as she took in how Jackie, Pete, and Tony were dressed, “we’re just meetin’—”

“Royalty!” Jackie squeaked. They were all done up like they were meeting the Queen at Buckingham Palace itself!

“Honestly, Mum, they don’t care,” Rose rolled her eyes, grabbing her mother’s wrist and tugging her through the console room and to the wardrobe room, “I told ya ta dress casually. Let’s just hope the Ol’ Girl has clothes fer ya.”

It took about an hour to get everyone redressed, in things much more casual but still nice, before Rose led them back to the console room.

Jackie was clearly anxious, “Are ya—”

“’m sure, Mum. Danny an’ Sam don’t do formal unless they have ta. Unless you’re an annoying subject or someone threatenin’ war, ya don’t even have ta call ‘em by their titles. They’re just Danny an’ Sam ta family.”

“Lookie what I found,” Jenny bounded from the innards of the TARDIS, holding a tiny bike helmet.

She went to her toddler uncle and put it on him, making sure it fit right, “Landings in the Realms are worse than normal ones. The TARDIS does Her best but the Realms give her…nausea? A headache? She just doesn’t do good.”

“Oh, goody,” Jackie said lowly, hugging a strut for dear life already.

“Let me protect Anthony,” Bad Wolf came out, holding out her arms; without hesitation, Pete handed his son over.

Bad Wolf settled Tony in her arms, against her chest and shoulder, and then spread her feet and crouched slightly, clearly bracing for impact; she stayed steady even as the TARDIS began Her flight.

Everyone else was thrown about the console room, the Doctor and Jenny barely holding on to work the console, but Bad Wolf and Tony did not move an inch.

The landing was rough, just as Jenny said it would be, throwing even the Time Lords to the grated floor before the TARDIS stopped quaking.

Jenny recovered first and stood up, rubbing her shoulder, to peek out the doors, “We’re in the Palace. Uncle Danny and Aunt Sam are waiting…”

Slowly, everyone picked themselves up and Rose reemerged, straightening with some popping from her knees.

Jenny led the procession out, racing to hug a man and a woman, “Uncle Danny, Aunt Sam! How’re you?”

Danny and Sam chuckled and hugged her as one, “Good, doing good. You?”

“Perfect!”

She let go of them to drag Jackie, who was hesitant, forward, “This’s my Gran, Jackie. Mum’s side, duh. Completely human. He’s my step-granddad, Pete, and Mum’s holding my uncle, Tony.”

“Yer Majesties,” Jackie tried to curtsy even though she was in trousers, “an honor ta—”

“Oh, enough,” Sam chuckled, “didn’t they tell you? We don’t do formalities with family.”

“Family?” Jackie’s eyes were wide, “I know Rose said—but—”

“We count Clockwork as family,” Danny explained, “and he’s claimed the Doctor as family. The Doctor and Jenny. Rose’s basically married in by this point. Common-law, you understand. That makes her family our family. Welcome to the Palace, your home in the Infinite Realms.”

“My god,” Pete muttered, somewhat disbelieving.

“Not a god, not yet anyways,” Danny winked.

“Where’s Dani?” Jenny burst out, “Is she still in school?”

Sam grinned, “With Anakin, in the nursery. We let her stay home today.”

“Oh, Gran! Can I introduce Tony to Anakin? Please!” Jenny nearly begged.

“Anakin’s our youngest,” Danny explained kindly, “around Tony’s age, actually. We also have a nanny looking after them, Nanny Clara. He’d be perfectly safe.”

“Well…” Jackie looked to her husband, who nodded, “if you’re sure.”

Jenny cheered and took Tony from Rose, dashing off with him deeper into the Palace.

“Jenny knows the Palace as well as anyone,” Sam assured, “and if she gets lost, she can flag down a servant for help. She’s heading directly for the nursery. It’s the most defensible part of the Palace.

Danny stood up, helping Sam, “C’mon, we can talk over food; stay close, Tylers. Doctor?”

“Rose and I can bring up the rear,” the Doctor agreed, taking Rose’s hand as they began walking.

The Palace was a gothic masterpiece, in a very literal sense, though even Sam had wearied of all the gloom and had sought artists and artwork to fill the halls, soft, plush carpets and tapestries to keep the warmth, glassworks to fill the once barred windows. Statues and busts dotted the hallways, some classical, some avant garde

Masters had given their masterpieces, their magnum opuses; they were paid handsomely of course, in either coin or material.

Oils, watercolors, acrylics, textiles, glass, all created for Her Majesty the Ghost Queen. For His Majesty the Ghost King.

It wasn’t yet a riot of color, nor would it ever be, but it was more alive.

Jackie gasped and the group stopped, turning as one to see what had captured her attention.

“When they said the family was huge…”

Ah, it was the most recent family portrait; all the children were gathered around Danny and Sam, all in formal wear.

“We…sometimes people sell the souls of children to me,” Danny started, causing her and Pete to whip around to him in horror, “I know, it’s horrible, isn’t it? But anyways, we adopt the kids. Only Dani—Danielle—isn’t adopted.”

He pointed out each child and gave their backstory.

“Good Lord, you were young!” Pete said at Damian’s story.

“Old enough to be king,” Danny shrugged helplessly, “it…it wasn’t easy, we had help, so much help, and we made mistakes…”

“All parents do,” Jackie told him softly.

“So we’ve been told,” Sam smiled just as softly, “and we’ve learned and made new ones with each kid.”

Danny coughed and continued to point out kids and tell stories, until all had been covered and then they moved on.

As they neared the dining room, Danielle and Jenny joined them with each holding a toddler.

“Oh my,” Jackie said, taking in the Anakin Skywalker; she knew who he grew up to be, or would have if he had not been adopted.

“We’re hungry, Dad,” Danielle said.

Danny waved them into the dining room where the smaller table was already set for a meal; there were two chairs with booster seats and Jenny and Danielle put Tony and Anakin in them before sitting beside them and helping them get food.

The group chatted over the meal, Jackie and Pete slowly relaxing at how easy going the Royals were, and generally had good cheer.

After the meal was done, Jenny asked, “Do we put their photo up on the family wall now? I know you’ve got me, Dad, and Mum…”

Danny chuckled, “We can, if they’re okay with it.”

“Family wall?” Pete questioned.

“We keep walls of pictures of the extended family,” Sam explained easily, “you know, like Rose, the Doctor, and Jenny. Harry’s and Neville’s parents. Damian’s paternal birth-family. The Royal Portrait is just the immediate royal family. The walls are for everyone and everything else.”

Danny and Sam led the group out of the dining room and down another hallway; the walls were plastered with photographs. Some were professional, most were candid and amateur.

A common camera sat on a small round table; a high-end camera but nothing too expensive or professional.

Danny picked it up, saying, “If Jackie, Pete, and Tony don’t mind—”

Jackie decided it would be a family photograph and dragged the Doctor in; Rose and Jenny came without complaint.

Danny took a set of pictures.

After that was done, it was decided it was time for the Tylers to leave, taking pity on the still disgruntled TARDIS.

They were, however, invited to the next family gathering.

[absolutepokemontrash]

What’s Yours Isn’t Mine, But What is Mine?

Yes, I do love me some young rage baby Satan, and that’s what you’re getting tonight. Little Satan is going through some stuff, and Lucifer tries his best to comfort him.

Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Angst (nothing too severe)

Warnings: Mentions of chronic pain, minor self deprecation (sort of)

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Satan.”

The little wrath demon did not reply. He sat scrunched up in one of the library couches, his nose buried in a book. Lucifer tsked under his breath. It was well past two in the morning and Satan knew damn well he shouldn’t be up so late.

“Satan.” Lucifer said again, leaving the doorway of his study and clasping Satan’s shoulder from behind the couch. The child sat bolt upright and whirled around, his eyes were wide with momentary terror, then his face melted into a tired scowl.

Upon seeing the expression, the bags under the child’s eyes, the slight tremble in his lip, Lucifer had to refrain from wincing. “What was it this time?”

Satan gnawed on the inside of his cheek, he sharply turned back to the book he was reading, holding it up to his face to obscure Lucifer’s view.

“I’m sending you back to bed if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.” Lucifer said, his voice holding that clipped parental tone that Belphie and Mammon had taken to teasing him for. Satan loudly sniffled, then snapped the book shut.

“She fell again.”

No matter how many times Lucifer had to hear those words, it never didn’t feel like a punch hammered into his gut. His entire body tensed as what felt like all the air was squeezed out of his lungs.

“A-ah.” Lucifer stiffened as he tried to take a proper breath. “I… I see.”

“You jumped after her… you didn’t catch her… Diavolo showed up and-”

“And what?!”

Satan flinched at the harsh snarl that escaped Lucifer’s throat. As Lucifer registered Satan’s panicked stare, Lucifer forced his hackles to smooth.

My… how the mighty hath fallen. The great Lucifer Morningstar, desperately praying for someone no more than a child to not know his greatest shame.

“Sorry, Satan.” Lucifer sighed, he moved to the front of the couch and sat next to the young Avatar of Wrath. The boy stiffened, his blue eyes narrowed and Lucifer subjected himself to the child’s analytical glare. “I’m just tired. I’m not angry.”

Satan held his glare for a moment longer, before sighing and nodding. He rubbed his eyes and seemed to almost fold in on himself. Normally, Lucifer would lecture him on poor posture, but at this point, the Avatar of Pride was sure his own posture was no better.

“I don’t remember anything after that… it’s too fuzzy…”

Lucifer let out an involuntary sigh of relief, which thankfully, Satan didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s so weird…”

“Hm?”

“It’s weird, Lucifer.” Satan began, his fingers slightly twitching as he spoke. “I see these dreams… These memories… they’re you, but it feels like it’s me.”

The silence that hung in the air was as thick and suffocating as molasses. Lucifer felt himself tense again as he dug his nails into his legs.

“I’m an Angel… but I’m not an Angel. I’m you, but I’m not… I’m me…” Satan looked up at Lucifer, then tilted his head. Like looking in a god damned mirror… “We were a really high ranking Angel, huh?”

Pride twisted Lucifer’s gut into knots as he digested the question. We? Oh no, there was no we.

“I was a high ranking Angel, Satan. Not you.”

The hint of a growl on the end of Lucifer’s voice was enough to make Satan lightly growl back. He bared his tiny fangs and narrowed his eyes again.

“How can you be so sure? How much of me is me and how much is… how much is just you? I was a part of you first, wasn’t I?!”

“Yes.” Lucifer said through gritted teeth as he felt his chest tighten like a python was wrapped around his torso, slowly squeezing any air out of him. Nearly every part of Lucifer’s brain screamed for him to lash out. Your achievements are not his. How dare he ride on your coattails? Were you the best and brightest of your father’s angels? Are you the greatest and most powerful fallen Angel? Or are both of you?

“You were born of my wrath, but you are not me.”

Satan leapt of the couch, pointing an accusatory finger at Lucifer. His eyes shone a brilliant and dangerous green as his fangs began to sharpen and grow.

“Then why do I feel sad about her?!”

The two demons stared at each other. Lucifer watched as Satan’s face went from defiant, to almost… grief stricken. The child’s vision seemed to gradually turn glassy and unfocused, his lower lip went from curling into a snarl to trembling. It was an expression Lucifer knew all too well. The expression his brothers had worn for years after their fall.

“Why do I… why do I miss her..?”

Lucifer watched as tears began to well in Satan’s eyes before the dam broke. Heavy sobs wracked his tiny frame as his clawed hands flew to his face to wipe away the onslaught of tears. Through the hiccups, Satan repeated the question, over and over.

“Why does my back hurt from things that didn’t happen to me?! Why do my hands begin to shake when I see those stupid angels?!” Satan dug his palms into his eyes and attempted a weak glare at Lucifer. “Why do… Why do I feel like I couldn’t save her..? Why do I feel like I ruined everything everyone had?! Why do I feel like such a stupid failure?!”

Before he could even think, Lucifer lunged forward, wrapping his arms around the little Avatar of Wrath and holding him close. After a moment’s hesitation, Satan’s shaking arms wrapped around Lucifer, clinging to him like if he let go, Lucifer would vanish.

“These feelings aren’t entirely your’s, Satan.” Lucifer said quietly as Satan’s sobs dissolved into quiet sniffles. “They’re mine. I’m sorry you have to feel them too. If it were my choice, they’d be only my burden to carry.”

Lucifer gently pulled away, and placed his hands on Satan’s shoulders. He willed the child to look him in the eyes as he spoke. “You aren’t me, Satan. We are very similar, yes. We share memories and pain sometimes, yes. But we are not the same. You make your own achievements, you’ll make your own mark on the worlds.”

Satan stared at Lucifer, his body occasionally jolting with a hiccup, before shakily nodding. Lucifer tilted his head and sighed.

“You’ve already done so much on your own,” Lucifer began, attempting to make his tone more gentle. “I’m not the one who tore apart Asmo’s sweaters, we both know full well it wasn’t Cerberus.”

A sudden bout of shakey laughter replaced Satan’s sobs as the child wiped the last of his tears from his face. “Are you ever going to let that go..?”

Satan let out a yawn, and Lucifer took that as his cue to scoop him up and carry him back to his room.

“No, I don’t think I’m going to just let that little piece of information go, Satan.” Lucifer teased as he quietly walked down the hallway and up the stairs. “After all, I was the one who got yelled at for it, and had to pay for the replacements.”

The Avatar of Wrath covered his mouth and giggled, his big blue eyes twinkling with mischief. “Well, I know that you threw a wooden sword at Michael and blamed it on Raphael~!”

“Let’s… keep that a secret between us.”

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Satan was his own demon, he made damn well sure everyone knew that.

As the years flew by, any comparisons to Lucifer went from being met with bashful thanks, to tantrums, to near-homicidal rage. The Avatar of Wrath was not Lucifer, and the Avatar of Wrath was going through a 300 year long rebellious phase.

Any similarities in interest the two had shared and even bonded over were shoved into the dark corners of Satan’s mind as he carved out his own path in the world. At first this was met with a measure of pride. Ah, what a strong willed independent demon Lucifer had managed to raise. Oh what a good job he had done.

But when Lucifer’s precious bundle of rage turned his rebellion on him was when the Avatar of Pride took issue.

Satan was his own demon, now. Any offers of help or guidance was met with a death glare.

Anyone with a brain could tell Satan wasn’t the only one to blame for this, as Asmodeus and Levi were oh-so fond of pointing out.

“You smothered him.”

“You tried to raise a miniature you, and now he’s pissed about it.”

Lucifer knew they were right, but oh how he loathed to admit his mistakes.

These were the thoughts that plagued Lucifer’s mind as he sat at his desk one particular evening. He absent mindedly clicked his pen open and shut as the soreness in his lower back began to spread. He shut his eyes and gripped his pen tightly.

Oh father, why now..?

Pain like he had been stabbed in the back exploded from the base of where his lower wings once were. Old injuries like that weren’t easy to heal…

Lucifer clenched his pen in a white knuckled grip until he felt the thing snap and fall apart. Ink spurted from both ends of the pen, bleeding onto the papers scattered across his desk, and eventually seeping into the wood. Barely able to conceal a snarl of pain and frustration, Lucifer shakily got to his feet. He needed a hot drink to deal with this…

As he made his way to the kitchen, he heard the shriek of the tea kettle. Lucifer couldn’t help but scowl as nausea creeped into his gut. Whoever was boiling water was going to have to boil more because he was-

He rounded the corner and stopped dead in his tracks. Satan, clenching the ends of the counter in a vice grip, his face twisted in sharp discomfort.

“…Satan?”

The Avatar of Wrath’s eyes snapped open, he shot an ice cold glare at Lucifer as he poured the boiling water into two mugs, then dropped in the tea bags.

Fast as lightning, Satan shot one of the mugs skidding down the counter towards Lucifer, who shot out his arm to catch it.

Lucifer and Satan stood at opposite ends of the room, eyes locked to the other. No one dared move a muscle.

Satan’s face twisted into a snarl as he grabbed his mug and stormed out of the kitchen.

“Fuck you, Lucifer.” He hissed under his breath as he stormed upstairs.

Bewildered, Lucifer looked down at his mug, a familiar aroma made its way into his nostrils. A hint of peppermint, but not too strong…

Satan didn’t like this kind of tea…

A smile creeped across Lucifer’s lips as he took a sip of his drink.

As different as they were… they were still as tightly woven together as they were all those years ago…

——————————

Author’s Note

Ah, child Satan my beloved… I just have a lot of feelings… okay????

I went into this not fully knowing what I wanted it to be, but I think I hit my stride ;) enjoy, you angst hungry little devils!

[hhawks]

!! welcome to sintober film festival day nine !!

✰ now screening: take care of me...

✰ starring: toji fushiguro + daddy kink ✰ synopsis: you've had your eyes and your heart set on toji for forever. he's got a wife and kids, but does that stop you from climbing into his bed when they're away, just asking for him to take care of your lonely body? ✰ content warnings: daddy kink, infidelity, impact play, degradation, light brat taming, breeding. ✰ word count: 2.0k

his wife drives you crazy. fucking nuts. toji’s kids are your sun and moon; you love them half to death but there’s just something about their mother that irks you. you pretend you don’t hear the snide comments she passes to her friends during high tea, about how her new nanny just doesnt seem to get her work right. you roll your eyes when she critiques your pancakes, saying there’s too much syrup on them or they’re not fluffy enough.

toji treats you well at least. or, at least, nicer than his bitch of a wife. he never complains about your work, always insists you sit at the dinner table with them during meals even if mrs. fushiguro rudely remarks about your broccoli. “just ignore her, honestly,” he snickers to you one day. “i’ve been doing it for years.”

you dont really question the sincerity of their marriage. toji seems to avoid her pressing questions with a small grunt or an affirmative nod, so you do the same. the kids are angels, at least, and that’s the only thing that keeps you around.

well, not the only thing.

you realise this when you see toji step out of the shower one morning after you’ve sent the kids to school. he’s not usually home at this time, either already in his home office working or at the gym, so it catches you off guard. he’s barely clothed, just a measly towel wrapped around his waist as rivulets of shower water drip down his torso. you yelp, turning away. “s-sorry, mr fushiguro— i didn’t know you were home,” you stutter, shielding your eyes, making yourself busy dropping the keys into the bowl.

but he just laughs. “don’t worry ‘bout it kid.” and then he’s gone, but you can still smell him, feel him lingering even with his bedroom door closed. you clench your thighs together— no, no, you can’t think of him like that. he’s your boss, he pays you, so why is your cunt aching at the image of his body?

he’s so… well built. pretty, thick eyelashes, slate grey eyes that seem to know everything. you wonder if he’s noticed the change in atmosphere since then, the way you avoid coming close to him. you hope he doesnt; but even if he did, he doesn’t show it. he hardly shows any emotion as it is now, you doubt this has any effect on him.

but, god, the effect it has on you. has his muscles always been this prominent, thick sinew up his arms, pressing against his black t-shirt? you cant seem to think of anything else, not even when mrs. fushiguro is yelling the house down at you for mixing the teaspoons with the dessert spoons. “are you even listening to me?” you hear her shrill voice and you’re yanked out of your reverie. “god, you’re fucking hopeless. i don’t get why toji insists on keeping you around.”

“she’s good,” toji remarks from the dinner table, balancing each of his kids on either knee. “the kids love her.”

“well, i don’t. i want someone who can actually do this dishes right.”

you snort. “well, mrs fushiguro, if you paid me for doing the dishes maybe i can do them to your liking. i’m your nanny, not your housekeeper.” you watch her roll her eyes at you, muttering something under her breath.

“i’m out for the night,” she reminds you. her weekly night out with her colleagues, you remember. “i’m staying at mitsuki’s, since it’s closer to the restaurant. toji, dear, put them to bed soon, will you?”

it’s quiet once she’s gone. it always is. you relish in the little moments you have alone in the fushiguro house. it’s pretty, ornate japanese furniture blending in seamlessly with the modern style of the penthouse, floor to ceiling windows overlooking the skyline. you like to watch it twinkle as you clean up the living room after you put the kids to sleep, or dry the dishes and put them back in their drawers. but now you have nothing to do. you should go home, but there’s a small inkling, the thinnest thread telling you to stay.

“it’s late.” oh, there it is. “shouldn’t you be heading home?”

toji’s voice makes your thighs rub together just slightly, a small gasp escaping your lips. “yeah,” you manage. “i was just about to.”

he nods, a hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “do you… need anything?”

you smile. “i need a lot of things. not sure you could fulfill any of them though, mr fushiguro.”

something dark flashes across his face, and you almost miss it if it wasn’t for the fact that you’ve been around him so much you could read him like a book. “you’re a sweet girl, baby. what do you want with a man like me?”

the petname has you weak at the knees, but you steel yourself. “i didnt say i needed anything from you, mr fushiguro—”

“toji, please.” he steps closer to you. “we’re around each other too much for you to still be calling me that.”

“toji,” you try it. it feels weird on your tongue, but you decide you like it. “toji.”

he’s silent for a second, before reaching his hand for yours. “come here.” you obey, tentatively placing your hand in his. it’s warm, softer than you imagined. he’s pulling you close, almost too close. you collide with his chest, neck craning upwards to look at it. “you really think you can get away with it? the way you look at me, the way your thighs rub together. i know, baby. you don’t have to hide it from it.”

“i-” it’s lost in your throat. “toji, i just–”

“you’ve been thinking about me, haven’t you?” he smiles, and you realise how pretty he looks in this dim lighting. “that’s why you keep staying. that’s why you’re still here.”

you whimper. how did he know? you’re pressed against him, powerless in his strong arms.

“you want it?” nod. “beg for it.”

your jaw hangs open. beg? beg for what? “toji— i—”

“i’m not gonna ask twice.”

and you fall apart. “fuck me, please, please,” your fingers twist into his shirt, pressing yourself flush against his front. “i’ve been thinking about you, waiting f’you forever, forever, toji, just wanna feel you—!”

he smiles. it’s half predatory, half adoring. you drink it in, whimpering for him. “please,” is hanging on your lips as he picks you up with ease, fingers digging into your plush thighs. “want me to fuck you, huh? want a married man to fuck you? dirty fuckin’ girl.”

and then he’s pushing the door to his bedroom open, guiding you to his bed. he’s gonna fuck you in his bed, in his wife’s bed. guilt flashes at the forefront of your mind but you can’t seem to let it stop you. you’re quick to pull him over you, let him clamber between your parted legs. “kiss me, kiss me,” you’re babbling, looping your arms around his neck. he obliges, slotting his lips against yours and you fucking moan. it’s everything you’ve dreamed of, warm, honeyed. he’s holding you like porcelain and you want him to shatter you.

toji’s a menace, cooing at your disheveled form under him. his hair falls into his eyes and your brush it off, and he grips your wrist, pressing a small kiss to your palm. “i’m gonna make you mine, promise,” he whispers. “fuck, i’ve been dreaming about you too, you know? always wondered how good your pussy would feel around me. i bet it’s heaven.”

you giggle. “why don’t you find out?”

you don’t know how it happens. he barely has to prep you; fully soaked and whimpering his name, begging him to just put it in, toji, i can take it, promise only to regret it later when the massive cockhead is pushing against you. “you still sure about that?” he licks the shell of your ear.

“y-yeah,” you stutter, shivering at the feeling of his plush tip mashing against your slit. “holy— fuck, need it, need you—!”

“i got you, i got you.” and then he’s pushing, pushing against you until your slit crumbles around him, letting him in. you gasp, and so does he. it slides in slowly, the sheer girth of it stretching you to your fullest. you’re trembling, fluttering around his length. it’s fucking you dumb, pushing every thought out of your tiny pretty head. your breath leaves you in a shudder. “look at you. i’m not even moving and you’re already falling apart.”

you dont have the brainpower to retort, just whimper. “‘s-so good, so b-big,” you murmur, eyes rolling to the back of your head as he thrusts shallowly. “h-holy fuck, i– i…”

“yeah? yeah?” he sneers at you, thrusting faster. “tell me, pretty baby. like being fucked like a whore? like my big fucking fat cock in your tight little pussy?”

your eyes widen at his words, but it makes you whine, heat sent straight down to your cunt. you nod dazedly. “mmhm, mmhm, love it, l’uh, l’uhv it.”

“mmhm? cmon, tell me. whose fucking pussy is this?” he grins sadistically, hooking your knees over his elbows to push deeper into you. you yelp, hands scrambling in the sheets. “who’s making you feel this good?”

and you have to muster all of the will you have in your power not to melt into his arms, not to let your tongue loll out of your mouth and drool over his pillowcases. “y-you! you are, your pussy, toji— fuck, ‘s all yours, daddy!”

you hear him scoff. “daddy, huh?” he coos. “i like that sound of that. daddy’s precious little girl getting fucked so good, right?”

oh god. he’s fucking you faster, deeper, almost as if the honorific made him just that little bit harder. “daddy,” you whimper out. it’s all you can say at this point, your mind melted into a pile of goo on the pillows. “daddy, daddy, harder, wan’ it harder daddy!”

“so demanding.” you feel a sharp smack on your ass, but youre so detached that you barely honour it with a whine in reaction. “this what you wanted? wanted your daddy to fuck you? pathetic little slut just needed to be dicked down.”

“w-wanted you,” you stutter out. “deserve better than- than her, daddy.” you’re barely registering what you’re saying, but toji loves it, loves your youth and your innocence.

“ah. wanted to replace her, huh?” he’s whispering into your ear, hand gripping the headboard to rock deeper into you. “wanted me to make you a mommy, wanted daddy to give you your own cute little babies? is that it?”

and you’re whining an affirmative, voice cracking and hiccuping sobs. “‘s too much, s-slow down, please—“

he hums softly, cupping your cheek, thumbing away the tears you didn’t notice spring into your eyes. “but you can take it, can’t you?” toji muses, hips snapping faster. “gonna make your pretty pussy my breeding bitch, yeah? make you such a pretty momma.” he grunts, and you flutter around him as you cum unexpectedly, pushed over the edge with his words. you’re whining, cunt gushing and your belly feels like it’s being torn open. “i bet,” he whispers. “i bet you’d be so much better than her. so sweet, so kind. wanna make you my wife. gonna let me?” he’s pressing his forehead to yours, catching your lips softly. it’s a rarity, seeing toji this soft, this vulnerable. you can’t tell if he’s pussydrunk, mumbling nonsense in the crest of his orgasm, but you drink it all in. you nod, whispering how much you want it, how much you trust him.

he’s falling in love with you, your youth and your sweet voice. of course, nothing’s ever as easy as that. he’s fucking you in his wife’s sheets, his wife’s pillows. but for a moment, just a little bit, as he whines as he cums inside you, the world blurs, and it’s just you and him. for a second, you’re holding on to him, murmuring, thank you daddy, i love you daddy, and he thinks he could live in it forever.

taglist: @hannie2kay @starwberrymilktea @getdevils @kruptchildren (if your name is crossed out, it means i could not find your blog.)