#god. i should watch the blade movies again.

[sciderman]

Sony can make masterpieces like Spiderverse, bad movies that are good like Venom, and the absolute dog shit movies like Morbius

god i wanted to get something out of morbius but there truly was nothing there to enjoy... god, i'm sorry marvel but your vampire characters are all dumb as fuck do not make another vampire movie unless it's blade, blade is cool he can stay

[rhaenyratargcryen]

you're my shotgun lover and i want it all | tyler owens (twisters)

masterlist ❈

summary: Every once in a while, the two of you will get a little too drunk, stay until last call, sneak back to your motel room, and fuck. Nobody knows – at least you don’t think they do – and you never talk about it when you’re sober. Tyler will generally stay until you fall asleep, but he’s always gone when you get up the next day. Only once has he woken up in bed with you the next morning, and you’ve never made that mistake again. There isn’t a name for what you feel for him, you don’t think, and you can’t tell what he thinks of the arrangement. Clearly he likes it, or he wouldn’t be making eyes at you from across three people’s laps as you pull these peanuts from their shells. author's note: i...wrote this...in one.......single......afternoon. my fingers hurt anyway he's so hot i have had a crush on glen powell since 2018 (set it up supremacy) but this movie reawakened something in me. i should probably watch top gun now

pairing: tyler owens x f!reader word count: 9,123 (...oopsie) warnings/tags: pWp (with, y'all!), alternate universe: canon divergence, friends to lovers, friends with benefits

also cross-posted to ao3 okay love you bye xoxo your comments and reblogs are appreciated but not required i will love you all the same i hope u like !!!! <3

all characters are 18+ these are 18+ activities minors pls do not interact my eye is twitching as i write this 

It has been one hell of a week.

The tornadic activity has been off the charts – more storms built up under ideal conditions for weather hell-bent on destruction in a multiple-day stretch than you can remember ever tracking before. Your team had obviously been up for the chase, but now that the storms have passed, and the sun shines on the cleanup efforts, you can’t help but wish you’d chosen a different life path. You love what you do, but God, were you tired. Blisters have formed on the palms of your hands despite the gloves you’d donned. You could practically feel the knots forming in your neck. You shovel one more load of leaf litter before heaving the blade into the ground and leaning against it. Across from you, a backhoe is demolishing and excavating the remains of a house.

You close your eyes and try to just let the sun warm your face, thinking about how fast it can all just be gone. Mother Nature’s a beautiful force, but she can be cruel.

“Hey, don’t be slowin’ down on me,” Tyler jokes, clapping a hand between your shoulder blades. You hadn’t heard him approach, and his voice has startled you, pulling you from your thoughts. “We’re ‘bout halfway done with our part, I think.”

“No,” you reply, swiping the back of your arm across your forehead, trying in vain to clear your bangs from your eyes, but they won’t budge. Tyler reaches up and, almost as if he isn’t even thinking about it, takes the unruly pieces of hair between his thumb and forefinger and tucks it behind your ear, underneath the temple of your sunglasses, to make sure it stays this time. The action is so intimate it sends a flush crawling up your neck. You chance a look around to make sure no one else has seen. “Not slowin’ down, I promise. Just thinking about how lucky we are to be alive. How sad it is that all these people just lost everything.”

You’ve known Tyler since the two of you were in college together, fast friends who’d stuck together through a lot that could've put a strain on any other relationship, although you hadn’t studied meteorology – you’d been in school to be a librarian. 

One night, he’d asked you to stay up and help him with a lab he’d missed for one of his classes, and he loves to say he knew it then – that you were hooked – but you were too far along in your degree to do anything about it now. Switching from an arts degree to one in STEM? You’d have had to start over from scratch. 

Tyler had formed his team while you were in grad school and he was working as a cowboy for the rodeo back home, and you’d dropped out without a second thought when he asked you to be a founding member, to travel the country with him every tornado season. Said he wouldn’t – couldn’t – think about doing it without you. You’ve been riding with him ever since.

The two of you share everything, always have, and sometimes you wonder if it might be too much for the professional relationship you’re supposed to have.

“That’s what we’re here for,” Tyler grins, the hand still glued to your back rubbing gently, sending goosebumps across your skin under your shirt. “To help ‘em feel like their luck is turnin’.”

Always the optimist, Tyler Owens. He clears his throat, the hand on your back pulling away, and steps slightly closer to you.

“One of the folks over there gave these to me,” he says, gesturing to a group of people gathering in front of a house that looks like something had tried to suck it into the ground from dead center. “I saved their cat from their screened-in porch, poor thing had been yowling all night apparently. Know these’re your favorite, so, here you go. I think you earned it.”

You take the tin from him and open it, your mouth instantly watering at the sight of the small, round butter cookies inside. “God,” you groan, picking one up and taking a bite, savoring it over your tongue. You can feel Tyler watching you carefully. “Thank you. You get me.”

“Do we get cookies, Tyler?”

Lily’s voice sounds from your left, and you glance over at her. The shit-eating look on her face tells you she did see Tyler fix your hair for you. Your stomach somersaults.

“If you’re good,” Tyler says, smirking, “after the sun sets, we can head back to the motel, find some shitty bar, and drinks’ll be on me, okay? How’s that sound?”

Lily whoops, turning to Dani, who’d since appeared beside her, and the two snicker and fist bump. 

“You need any help over here?”

You look back at Tyler, cupping one hand above your eyes to shield them from the sunlight. Despite your glasses, it shines bright from directly behind him, and you can hardly stand to look at him. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” you murmur in reply, bending down to toss some siding that had been blown off one of the houses on this street into the wheelbarrow you’ve been using. “You should go see what Boone’s up to – I don’t think anyone has seen him in a minute.”

No doubt Boone was hiding somewhere with one of the breakfast burritos Lily and Dani have been rolling since early that morning, seeing how long he can get away with not doing his part. He’s a good guy, but the manual labor side of the job isn’t really his thing.

“Eh, he’s better off wherever he is,” Tyler laughs, and a small smile takes over your face, too. “Hey, you sure you’re okay? You don’t need a break? You can take a minute to yourself, no one’ll judge. I know how this can all get to you a little more than it gets to everyone else.”

You know him well enough to know he’s not calling you weak-stomached, that he’s genuinely concerned for how you feel, but he’s right. It does all get to you. Settling in to help survivors of these natural disasters is just something that comes with the chasing – there isn’t one without the other for you and the rest of the crew. You nod, glancing back up at him. 

“I’m okay, Tyler. Go off and be the face of the operation – you don’t have to worry about me.”

Tyler’s eyes narrow, his gaze shifting between your eyes, trying to find evidence you’re withholding the truth from him, but he seems to find nothing. With a minute tip of his head, he turns to resume working through a long-term plan for rebuilding the town with the mayor and some other members of the local government. 

This is something else you know he loves to do – shmooze with higher-ups, show off his people skills. Not only are they higher-ups, they’re small-town folk. His kind of people. He knows how to get through to them, how to get them to trust him. You love that about Tyler. He’s never condescending – he always has a genuine desire to help. He’s been through this hundreds of times, and these people may only have been through it this one time. You look around at them, at the people of all ages picking up the pieces that remain of their community, then cross your fingers and send a thought out to anyone listening:

Please let it be the only time.

After a few more hours of genuinely back-breaking work, you hear Tyler’s sharp whistle and know it’s time, meandering over to his truck where it’s been parked for almost eighteen hours. Using your teeth, you pull your gloves from your hands and hiss. They’ve been rubbed raw, the skin blistering where each finger meets the palm. You try to ignore the throbbing sensation, leaning against the passenger side door and closing your eyes. The rest of the crew sidle up to you, taking long drags from water bottles and cigarettes and trying to make peace with how you’re leaving this place tonight.

“Does anyone else want to break off to shower first?”

It seems Dani’s the only one, and they shrug, putting their hand out, palm up, to Dexter, who hands them the keys to the RV.

“Meet y’all there,” they say, stifling a yawn, and you know it’ll be a bit before you see them. The rest of you will have to pile into Tyler’s truck, and before you can object, the other three crawl into the back seat and leave you on the front bench with Tyler. You let yourself in and close the door behind you, buckling and watching as Tyler shakes someone’s hand and hustles to meet the rest of you. His Texans cap hits the bench before he does, between the two of you, and he turns his keys in the ignition, buckling his own seatbelt.

“Where we headin’?”

“There’s a place with a mechanical bull nearby. I vote there.”

“How nearby is ‘nearby,’ Boone?”

“Uh,” he pulls his phone from his pocket, does a quick Google to double-check. “Forty-five minutes?”

Dexter leans over and grips Boone’s phone, reading the screen. “In the opposite direction of the motel, Boone.”

Everyone groans, objecting, and you press your hand against your temple to alleviate the pressure there. The noise, God, the noise.

“Could we go somewhere closer to the motel, maybe?”

“It’s got a mechanical bull,” Boone stresses, and everyone rolls their eyes.

“Boone, you know damn well we’re not making it back to the motel if we go that far away.”

He groans, and you pull your own phone out, checking Maps to see what’s around the motel.

“This one’s three minutes from where we’re stayin’,” you say, showing Tyler your screen, and he nods, shifting into reverse, backing out, and starting down the one lane of the street that’s been cleared of debris. 

“Hey Boone,” you toss over your shoulder as Tyler shifts into second gear. “By the way. Long time no see.”

Lily snorts, smacking you on the shoulder to let you know she thought that was a good one. Boone shakes his head. 

“Hey, just because you didn’t see me all day doesn’t mean I wasn’t out there, too. How do I know you were workin’, weren’t sitting on your ass in the shade somewhere, hm?”

You hold your raw, red palms out for him to inspect and that shuts Boone up quick. Tyler whistles as he gets an eyeful of your skin.

“God damn, girl,” Lily murmurs. “That looks like it hurts. I think I might have Aquaphor in my bag back at the motel if you want some.”

“I’ll be alright,” you reply, knocking your elbow against her knee behind you in thanks. “Appreciate you.”

The rest of the drive is taken mostly in silence, everyone in the backseat trying to rest their eyes, but you stay up, your eyes on the road, so Tyler isn’t the only one making the thirty-ish minute drive back to where you’re staying, where you checked in only after it’d been decided which towns had been hit the worst, so you could reach all of them easily by truck.

“What’s goin’ on in your head? Hm?”

You turn to look at Tyler and he glances at you from out of the corner of his eye, then at your lap, at the fingernails you’ve picked down to the quick. “Real quiet over there.”

“Nothing,” you reply, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Don’t let Boone get to you,” Tyler says, tapping his right fist on your thigh once, twice, then letting it rest there. You brush your knuckles against his and he opens the fist immediately, taking your hand in his but not squeezing, careful not to put pressure on the blisters on your palms.

“It’s not that,” you start, then realize your mistake, your admission. “I really – I think I’m just tired. It’s been a long week.”

You’re acutely aware of your hand in Tyler’s. It’s not like you’ve ever been shy around him – your cheeks flush at the thought – but this is…different. Sweet. More.

“Yeah, that it has,” he sighs, adjusting his left hand on the steering wheel so he can drive a little more comfortably, but his right hand stays in yours. 

You settle back into silence, Tyler seemingly having dropped the subject, and your eyes return to the road, but you feel him looking over at you, checking on you, every once in a while. You try your hardest not to meet his gaze. 

Soon enough, Tyler is putting the truck in park, then shutting the thing off. The noise – or lack thereof, you guess – wakes Dexter in the back, then Lily, who snorts when she sees your hand in Tyler’s. You pull away and unbuckle your seatbelt, watching as Tyler, with a hurt look on his face, wipes his hand on his jeans and swings himself down and out of the truck.

“C’mon, Boone,” he shouts, slapping a hand on the door that Boone has his head resting against, and the man sits up straight, wiping sleep from his eyes. “The sun hasn’t even gone down yet. Drinks on me, pal!”

The motel really is that close to the bar, so you all decide you’ll leave the truck parked there and walk home at the end of the night. The unspoken verdict is that you will all be getting shitfaced tonight.

The lingering smell of cigarettes in the air seems to rejuvenate everyone and Lily pumps a fist when she spots the old-fashioned jukebox across the room, then claps a hand over her mouth when she realizes there’s a TouchTunes sitting right next to it.

“Oh, I am so forcing you fuckers to listen to Chappell Roan all night,” she says gleefully, and you laugh along with her, looping your arm in hers and letting her pull you across the room while the boys settle in at the bar.

“So what was that all about?”

“What was what all about?” You play dumb, shrugging when Lily gives you a hard look and unhooks her arm from yours.

“Girl, seriously,” Lily scoffs, bumping your hip with hers and slipping a twenty dollar bill into the TouchTunes. Evidently she wasn’t joking when she meant you’d be listening to Chappell Roan all night. “I saw that thing earlier, the hair thing, don’t think I didn’t. And y’all holding hands in the truck. What’s going on there?”

You shake your head but she grabs your wrist. “I’m serious, Lil. Nothing’s going on. We’re friends – good friends. He noticed I was having a hard time today, and wanted to make sure I was alright. That’s all.”

You can tell she doesn’t fully believe you, and when she opens her mouth to object, you cut her off.

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom, okay?”

Lily watches you, trying to read the small line between your eyebrows, but eventually she nods and lets go of you, letting you turn away from her. You push through the door to the women’s restroom, your nose wrinkling at the smell, but you ignore it. Standing in front of the sink, you watch yourself, hands shaking. This isn’t you. You’re better than this at shoving these feelings for Tyler down, way down – or, rather, you had been, up until this week broke you, apparently. Turning the knob for the cold water to the left, you let it run over your sore hands, hissing at the feeling. Carefully, you cup your palms and watch them fill, then splash the water onto your face, soothing the flush. There. That should help.

There’s a cold bottle of Coors in front of the seat next to Dexter when you arrive back to the group, “Red Wine Supernova” playing from the speakers. You almost snort at all the old men – regulars, no doubt – groaning out their distaste for whoever chose the music all across the room.

“Thanks,” you toss over your shoulder at Tyler, sitting on the other side of Dexter and Boone. He nods and nurses his own. You frown and settle onto the stool, leaning an elbow on the bartop so you can turn and face your friends. The cold beer against the palms of your hands feels so nice.

What’s wrong with him? He won’t make eye contact with you, and you notice his jaw clicking as he grits his teeth. What’s got his panties in a twist?

As the night unfolds, you find yourself laughing more and more, loosening up, letting the stress of the last week fade into memory. Someone has produced a deck of cards from God knows where and Dani – who did join the group eventually – is showing off card tricks you didn’t even know they knew. You feel a warmth spreading through your body, and you can’t stop thinking about how much you love all of these people. Your friends. Your family. Empty bottles are swiftly replaced with full, cold ones without notice, and everyone is languid, relaxed, unburdened by the work that you’re all doing.

You take a pull from your drink, using the cover of the bottle to risk a glance to Tyler three seats down from you to find that he’s already watching you, and the look in his eye tells you exactly what he’s thinking. That somersault-y feeling is lower than your stomach now. You’re only three beers deep, but the air in your head reminds you that you’ve barely eaten all day, so you’re a little more affected by the alcohol than you’d usually be. Impolitely, you reach across Dexter next to you to grab a handful of peanuts from the basket to his left.

Glancing back up at Tyler, you meet his heady gaze again, and he smirks around the lip of the bottle against his mouth. He knows he’s got you right where he wants you. You swallow nervously around another sip of beer.

Every once in a while, the two of you will get a little too drunk, stay until last call, sneak back to your motel room, and fuck. Nobody knows – at least you don’t think they do – and you never talk about it when you’re sober. Tyler will generally stay until you fall asleep, but he’s always gone when you get up the next day. Only once has he woken up in bed with you the next morning, and you’ve never made that mistake again. There isn’t a name for what you feel for him, you don’t think, and you can’t tell what he thinks of the arrangement. Clearly he likes it, or he wouldn’t be making eyes at you from across three people’s laps as you pull these peanuts from their shells.

“Alright, y’all,” Lily says, slapping a hand on the bar, startling you out of your thoughts. You watch her, popping a nut into your mouth. “Think I’m gonna head out. I suggest you all do, too, fuckers, it’s late.”

Everyone starts to protest, but one glance at the clock tells you you’ve all stayed much longer than you thought – it’s a quarter past midnight, and you’ve got to be up with the daylight. You balk, but if you want to talk to Tyler tonight, you know you’ve got to shoulder your exhaustion and stick it out a little longer.

“I think I might stay for a bit,” you murmur, watching everyone stand and gather their things. You glance over at Tyler, who you can see clearly now that everyone’s out of their seats, and he’s watching you, too. The look on his face reads plain, now – he wants you.

“I’ll stay with her,” he says, eyes on yours. The green in them has disappeared almost completely, you notice, his pupils blown wide. “Walk her back. Y’all head back if you want.”

“I might stay, too –” Boone’s voice cuts off, coughing as Lily elbows him in the stomach, maybe a little too hard. “What the fuck was that for?”

“You’re going to bed, too, Boone,” Dani interrupts, a hand on his shoulder, guiding him towards the door. They poke him once when he starts to protest. “C’mon, now.”

Everyone shuffles out the front, Dexter calling good night, and all of the sudden, it’s just you and Tyler. You don’t know why, but your palms begin to sweat at the thought of being alone with him again. He stands, palming his drink, and slides onto the seat next to you, his body angled towards yours.

He’s never made you nervous like this. You don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you.

“So,” Tyler starts, grinning at you. “You come here often?”

You snort, emboldened by the booze, and he chuckles in response. “Idiot.”

“God, but I do love making you laugh.”

You blush under his scrutinous gaze, and take a quick swig of the dregs of your drink, unsure what to say to that. He mirrors you, taking a sip of his own while his eyes bore into yours. Accusatory.

“You don’t do it much anymore, you know that?”

“Do what?”

“Laugh.”

You press your fingertips to your mouth and Tyler’s eyes follow your hand. “I guess I just haven’t had much to laugh about lately,” you start, sighing deeply. “Tornado season’s been hard this year, and you know how much that – it gets to me. As much as I love what we do. You know. Remember that family a couple weeks back whose daughter was stuck under her bunk bed when it pressed on her too long, lost her leg below the knee? That got to me, Tyler. It did.”

“It gets to me, too,” he murmurs, knocking his knee against yours. “I guess I’m just better at hiding how bad it affects me. You can talk to me about it, though. You can talk to any of us.”

“I know I can,” you breathe, trying to keep your hands from shaking. “I know. Sometimes I don’t know what to say, though, you know, what is there to say? It’s not fair to complain about how sad it makes me to watch these people lose everything.”

“You’re allowed to feel sad. And to feel frustrated. It’s not fair, you’re right, but we’re doing good work, yeah? Fighting the good fight. Figuring out what makes these things tick, how to warn people when they’re in the path, get them outta the way and safe. Maybe they lose their house, their car, but they won’t lose themselves, or each other. That’s what matters most. Just remember that.”

You look up at him, set your elbow on the bartop, and prop your chin on your open palm. Your hands don’t hurt so bad anymore, you notice. “Thanks, Tyler.”

“Anytime,” he smiles, but you shake your head. 

“Seriously. You always know what to say.”

A look crosses his face then, too quick for you to read, and he sets his drink down, flagging the bartender over to close out the team’s tab. You frown, wondering if you’d, ironically, said the wrong thing.

“What’s up?”

Tyler looks back to you, and this time, the look in his eyes is unmistakable. It burns. “Taking you home, sweetheart.”

The walk back to your motel is done in silence. Tyler’s hand swings next to yours, and you feel it searching for yours more than once, but you don’t take it. You climb the stairs together, slowly, and he walks you to your door. His room is one more floor up.

You can tell he thinks you won’t invite him in, that you’ve changed your mind – or maybe that you never made it up. He hadn’t, after all, told you plainly that that was why he’d stayed with you at the bar. You unlock the room with your key card and step inside, opening the door only far enough for you to fit through it. You turn back to look at him, his face awash in the street lights shining into the hallway. You flip the lightswitch on next to you, illuminating the room behind you, too.

“Well,” he murmurs, making to head back down the stairs. “Good night.”

“Tyler?”

His head turns back to look at you, watching as you hold out one hand and he takes it, letting you pull him closer to you. You press yourself into him, push your whole face against his chest, your hip keeping the door from closing on the two of you. You inhale deeply, the smell of him overtaking your senses. His cologne, yes, but underneath that, the smell of dirt, earth. Home.

You feel his arms wrap around your back and you turn your head to the side, press your ear to his heartbeat. Your hands come up to scratch down his back and you feel it when he shudders.

“Stay?”

You hear his breath hitch in his chest, then the deep rumble of his voice as he says, “Alright, baby.”

With a short inhale, your eyes flutter, nearly closing at the term of endearment. You step back, pulling him with you, and as you close the door behind you, he pushes one hand up into your hair and pulls your head toward his.

“I, uh,” you whisper against his lips when they get close enough to yours, “I think I might shower first, if that’s okay with you?”

“Alright,” he murmurs, unlacing his hand from the strands of your hair before toeing his boots off and carefully setting them under the chair next to the front door. “You want company?”

You swallow. You’ve never done anything like that before. It’s always been quick. When you do this with him, you hardly ever have time for a chat before he’s got your shirt over your head and his mouth on your skin.

“Sure,” you reply. You feel him watch as you turn around and pull your shirt off, reaching back to unclasp your bra. The modesty feels redundant, but you can’t help it.

“Not gettin’ shy on me now, are you? S’not like I haven’t seen you naked before,” he chuckles, and you throw a look at him over your shoulder just as he’s pulling his own shirt over his head. He left his hat at the bar, you think. You’ll have to go back in for it when you pick up the truck.

“Tyler,” you scold, and he laughs at you, steps across the room to wrap an arm around your torso and press a kiss to where your neck meets your shoulder. The place he knows makes you melt. You sigh and push back against him, the feeling of his hard chest against your bare back a welcome one. This feels more like what you know, what you’re used to.

“Shower,” you remind him, and he nods, his forehead pressed into that spot now, and he pushes his fingers underneath the waistband of your jeans, running them along the bit of skin there around to the front, where the fabric splits at the button. He pops it undone, then uses his thumb and forefinger to grip the zipper and slowly – so slowly – pulls that down. He can’t help himself, you know that, and so you hold your breath and wait for him to push his hand into your panties. Ever a predictable man, he does just that, and you gasp at the feeling of his warm hand against you.

“Are you sure?” Tyler’s breath against your neck makes you shiver, and you press your ear to the side of his chin. He runs his fingers along the seam of you, finding first your clit, your legs twitching at the sudden rush of pleasure when he brushes his hand against it, then pushing down to find you wet and wanting. You cry out softly. “You don’t sound sure. You don’t feel sure.”

You hum, your neck stretching back until your head is pressed to his chest, and he pulls his hand back up to start working small circles on your clit, your wetness on his fingers allowing for smooth movement, with just enough friction to have you panting for more. 

“Sounds more to me like you kinda want me to fuck you with my fingers.”

“Tyler,” you whimper, telling him with just his name that you are getting close. He smiles against the side of your neck, pulling his hand away and shoving your jeans and underwear down just enough that his hand has room to smack your clit lightly. You squeal, right leg kicking out at the feeling, and he continues moving his hand in circles to soothe the hurt.

Your breath is coming out of you in short huffs, and before you can come, Tyler takes his hand off of you and wraps it around your stomach to join the other. You pant and whine, rubbing your thighs together to chase the feeling he’d had you practically pressed up against, now ebbing with the loss of his fingers.

“You said you wanted to shower,” he whispers in your ear, pulling your panties back up, and you scowl, pushing away from him. He laughs and holds his hands up in defense as you pick your t-shirt up off your bed and crack it at him like a whip. “Let’s shower, baby.”

“I might kick you out right now, Owens,” you snark, but the small smile on your face gives you away, and Tyler unbuttons his own jeans, leaving them in a pile on the floor at the end of the bed. Your jeans join his, and you’re both left in your underwear.

“You wouldn’t,” he replies, pulling his briefs off slowly, biting his bottom lip as you watch him. “You like this cock too much.”

You can’t help laughing at him, but the sight of him bare in front of you does have you biting your lip. You step forward to cup his growing length in your hand. Before you can move it, Tyler puts a hand on your wrist.

“How’s your hand?” He makes to pull it away, presumably to turn it over and appraise your blisters, but you shake your head.

“S’fine,” you whisper, tightening your grip. You tug once, twice, and press a kiss to his bare chest, then tip your head back to search out his lips. He leans down to oblige you, his lips parting against your mouth as you twist your fist. You love these moments you share with him, when you’re both bare, physically, emotionally, away from the real world, and you can pretend this is an everyday thing. When you’re not trying to tell yourself you feel nothing for him. Like this is just how it is between you.

Tyler groans when you pull your hand away from him and you click your tongue, press that same hand against his bicep.

“Doesn’t feel so good, now does it?”

Before you even know what’s happening, Tyler is picking you up, one arm underneath your back and the other around the backs of your knees. You look up at his face and laugh. “Put me down, Owens!”

He grins and carries you the few paces into the bathroom, placing you on your feet in front of the tub. Tyler leans down and pushes his thumbs underneath the waistband of your panties, waiting for you to put your hands on his shoulders and step out of them.

He lets you pull away from him to turn the hot water on, adjusting the cold side until the temperature is perfect, before pulling you against his chest once again. This time, you can feel his hard cock pressed against your backside, and you hum appraisingly. You reach behind you to fist him again, but he shakes his head – you feel his chin brush against the top of your head – and he groans out, “Mm-mm.”

“What?”

“We’re gonna shower, baby, c’mon.”

You glance back towards him and watch as he flicks the overhead light on. “So we don’t slip and die,” he says, and you laugh, pushing the shower curtain to the side. Holding Tyler’s hand, you step over the lip of the tub and under the steady stream of warm water, inhaling deeply when it hits the sore muscles in your shoulders and back. Tyler groans at the feeling, too, when he steps in behind you.

“Here, switch with me,” he murmurs, guiding you by your waist until you’re the one underneath the water. You let it fall onto the top of your head, over your face and down the back of your hair, for a moment, eyes closed, relishing the feeling. Tyler reaches both hands up and brushes the water out of your eyes, runs his hand over the top of your head. 

“Shampoo?”

You open one eye, the other shut against the water, and nod. You gaze up at him, heart squeezing at the way he’s watching you. His smile widens and he takes the tiny bottle in his hand – it looks even more comically small now – and dumps the product into his other palm, setting the bottle down onto the edge of the tub and rubbing his hands together.

“Turn around.”

You do as he asks, inhaling sharply through your nose when you feel his hands run through the hair at the crown of your head. Your stomach aches with longing as you register how unnaturally intimate this is. His fingers feel so good against your scalp, which is slightly sunburnt, you’re now realizing. He massages the shampoo further into your hair, running his fingers down the back of your neck and across the tops of your shoulders. When he’s satisfied with his shampoo job, he steers you by your arms to face him again, then carefully helps you tilt your head back and rinses it all from your hair.

You watch him pick up the other small bottle from the shelf, warm water still running down the back of your head. 

“I’ll do my conditioner,” you murmur, taking the bottle gently from his hands. “It’s a – it’s a science.”

“I am very good at science, if you can recall.”

You laugh, shaking your head. “It’s something I’ve gotten perfectly right. It’ll take just a sec.”

So you work the conditioner through the ends of your hair, avoiding his gaze as he watches your hands first coat your hair in the product, then rinse it out. He reaches forward to run his own fingers across it, as gently as he can.

“Hm,” he makes the noise in the back of his throat, pulling his hand away. “Soft.”

You can hardly look at him, the twisting feeling in your stomach shifting to something warmer, something further from apprehension, something that feels a lot like want. “You?”

Tyler shakes his head. “I’m good. Here,” he says, rubbing his hands across the plane of your upper back. “You’re tense. You worked hard today. Let me help.”

You weren’t going to protest, but before you can, Tyler guides you forward and out of the direct spray of the shower, then presses his thumbs into your muscle. You groan, your head falling forward onto his chest at the feeling, and he chuckles at you, continuing with his hands. “Feel good?”

“So good,” you whimper, and you feel his cock twitch against your stomach.

“You fucking dog,” you joke, and Tyler laughs against you, pushing your hair off the back of your neck and pressing his thumbs in there, too.

“Hey, what can I say? I like making my girl feel good.”

You freeze. His girl? His girl. He hasn’t noticed your reaction, and he keeps pressing his fingers into your sore muscles, pulling one hand away briefly to push the showerhead down and away from the two of you. You glance up, already missing its warmth, but you find that the steam rising around you is doing a good enough job at that.

“Here, baby,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your forehead and guiding you to press your hands against the tiled wall to your left, running his hands down your back.

“What are you –”

Before you can finish the thought, you feel Tyler’s fingers parting the seam of your cunt from – from behind, and you groan at the feeling of his middle finger slipping inside of you.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he groans, his knees hitting the floor behind you. You toss a glance at him over your shoulder and your own knees nearly buckle at the way he’s looking up at you – with hunger, and with reverence, and with something else entirely unrecognizable. He looks wild. He looks in love.

One of Tyler’s hands clamps down around your hips and he leans forward, pressing a kiss to the back of your thigh as his finger starts to shift in and out of you. You shiver and push your face into the cool tile, groaning softly when he finds that rough bit of flesh inside of you, the one that makes you come undone if he works it long enough.

“Yeah?” Tyler sounds fucked out already, his voice breathy against your skin, and you can picture the look on his face, the concentrated expression he gets when he’s trying to make you come. You try to focus on the feeling of the shower’s spray where it hits the edge of your foot rather than how good his finger feels inside you because if you think too closely about how good it feels, you’ll get lightheaded. And nobody wants that.

“Yeah,” you reply weakly, and for a few minutes it’s just like that, the only sound in the bathroom the shower, your panting moans, and the noise your pussy makes as he pulls his finger in and out.

“Sound so good for me, baby,” he says, pressing a kiss to the back of your thigh again, and you whine, trying to protest when he slips his finger from you. He laughs deep in his chest and lightly smacks the swell of your ass.

“Don’t complain when I’m doin’ somethin’ nice for you,” he jok, and you can feel then that he’s shifting himself around. You want to look over your shoulder, want to see for yourself what he’s doing, but freeze when you feel his palms cupping your ass, his nose pressing against the inside of your thighs.

Your mouth forms the word oh, but no sound comes out until you feel his mouth press against your cunt, tongue pushing inside of you, and then you cry out, chest heaving, when he presses a sloppy, wet kiss to your clit. You pull your face from where it’s still resting against the tile and look down at Tyler to find he’s already looking right up at you. His grip on your ass tightens when you make eye contact with him, and he spreads you open wider for him, eyes narrowing as his tongue flicks again, and again, and again.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he moans against you, the vibrations causing your legs to twitch. You already thought you were going to burst, the steam from the shower, the way he’d washed your hair, the fact that he was in your room at all – it all made you feel slightly insane. To add insult to injury, he’s just pushed two fingers inside of you and immediately found the spot that takes you out, and you start to shake a little.

“Tyler,” you whine, pushing one hand down to grip his hair. He groans when you tighten your hold on it, fucking into you a little faster. “Tyler, fuck, gonna come.”

“So come, baby,” comes his reply, and you do, you come so hard that the toes on your right foot curl until you’re on tiptoe and Tyler has to reach up and grip your waist to steady you. You feel it crest, and peak, then subside, but he keeps working you through it, his mouth moving against you still, and a second, smaller – though still good – orgasm wracks your body right after the first.

You breathe through it, push your foot down so you’re standing flat on the surface of the tub again, and wait for Tyler to pull his fingers out of you. 

“Baby,” Tyler groans, squeezing your hips, his fingernails biting slightly into your skin. “You gotta let go’a me, if you want me to get up.”

His voice, fuck, his voice, you think, releasing your grip on his hair and turning to watch him rise from his knees, the tile cold against your back. You surge forward to kiss him square on the mouth and he catches you, smiles against you when you part your lips to taste yourself on his tongue.

“Was that good?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, pressing one, two, three more quick kisses to his mouth, before he reaches behind you to turn off the water. “So fucking good.”

Neither of you bother with a towel, instead opting to stumble toward the queen bed in the middle of the room and climb right underneath the covers.

“Hi,” you whisper when you’re settled in, the duvet pulled up under your chin. Your eyes rove over his face, then glance over to the alarm clock behind him. 1:56 in the morning. “You still wanna fuck?”

Tyler snorts, reaching over to poke you in the side, gripping the skin there until you start to laugh. “You still wanna fuck?”

“Yeah,” you reply, grinning, when you catch your breath. “Wanna?”

He’s quiet for a second, watching the duvet rise and fall with each breath you take, before he peels it off of you, using his elbow to push himself up until he’s leaning over you. There’s a rosy flush on your chest, your breasts heaving and it’s all he can do not to lean down and take one of your nipples in his mouth, the one closest to him. Instead, he runs the back of his other hand across your chest, catching against the hard peak, and watches your breath stick to the inside of your throat. You feel yourself subconsciously leaning toward him as his face comes toward you. You want him to kiss you, but instead, he angles his mouth to kiss the skin below your chin.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes against your neck, pressing his open mouth to you there, and you gasp at the feeling – of his mouth against you, and of his praise. It all feels so nice. He just made you come in the shower, and now he’s going to make you come in this bed, hopefully more than once. 

You wrap your hands around his back and pull him toward you, watch as he settles in between your thighs. You can feel his thick cock, heavy, insistent, where it presses against you, and you want to take him into your hands, but he has other plans. 

With one hand pressed into the pillow on either side of your head, Tyler uses his knees to knock your legs out further, sitting back against his heels when he’s satisfied. He wraps his big hands around your thighs and pulls you closer, smiling down at you. “You’re so beautiful.”

You blush when he repeats himself, suddenly feeling very bare. He’s just as naked as you are, but you can’t help but feel like he’s seen your whole hand, meanwhile you hardly have any idea what cards he might hold. In the dim light from the lamp beside your head, you notice that you can see the green of his irises again. It seems like the shower sobered the two of you up very quickly.

His gaze locked on yours, Tyler takes himself into his hand, groaning at the pressure of his grip after neglecting his own want for so long, but he suddenly curses, pausing just as he’s about to press inside of you.

“What?”

“I don’t have a condom,” he breathes, sitting back again. He runs one hand through his hair, visibly weighing the options.

“It’s okay, Tyler,” you murmur, leaning up onto your elbows. “It’s okay. I have an IUD, and I got screened after the last time I was with someone. I’m good. I’m good if you’re good.”

Tyler heaves a heavy sigh, running his hands up your thighs. “You’re sure? I’m clean, too, cross my heart. But only if you’re sure.”

You nod. “My head is clear. I think I shook off my drunk an orgasm or two ago.”

A grin crosses his face, and you roll your eyes at him before he even opens his mouth. Two? he mouths, then whistles lowly. You smack his stomach, and he grabs your wrist in his hand, lightning quick, pressing a kiss to the pulse point there. Your jaw falls slack, and you go all soft and pliant, letting him pin your hands above your head. His body comes down over yours, and his mouth presses to your cheek, then your forehead, and when your eyes flutter shut, the ghost of a kiss crosses them, too.

“I’m gonna fuck you so good,” he murmurs, and normally if a man were to say that to you, you would immediately regret letting him into your bed. But for some reason, when Tyler says it, it sends that familiar warmth spiraling down into your gut. You know he means it.

Slowly – too slowly – he guides himself back to your entrance, shifting his hips so they’re resting comfortably against yours, and he presses himself inside of you. You hiss; the girth of him, although a welcome stretch, is also a bit of an uncomfortable one. He leans down to kiss you, working you through it with a thumb pressing circles into your clit, sliding himself in bit by bit until he’s fully seated. 

A groan pushes out of him when you clench around him, testing the waters.

“Careful,” he murmurs, easing his hips back. “I’d like it if this lasted longer than ten seconds, please.”

You laugh against the side of his head, pull your hands down from where he’d left them above you and wrap yourself around his shoulders, pulling him flush against you. Tyler grips your thighs and starts to work himself in and out of you, carefully, gently, but you squeeze his waist with your knees. Encouraging him. Asking him to pick it up. You can handle it.

His hips start to pull back and snap against yours quicker and quicker, Tyler panting in your ear, lifting up onto his palms and pushing himself off of you. He sits up onto his knees and tilts your hips up for a different angle, one that sets sparks dancing in front of your eyes. You groan, head tossed back, and dig your nails into his thighs as his pace picks up.

“Fuck, yeah, that it, baby? I can feel you – fuck, feel you squeezin’ me.”

You hardly have a voice with the rate he’s slipping in and out of you, barely enough to squeak out, “Fuck,” before your cunt has him in a vice grip, working through another orgasm.

“Ohhh, that’s it, huh, that’s it.” His mouth is going a mile a minute, neither of you really paying much attention to anything he’s actually saying. You’re both focused on his own mounting orgasm – you don’t feel like your body is capable of much more than that – and you weakly clamp down around him once more. His eyes squeeze shut, his hips stutter, and he grits out, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck fuck,” before he slots against you and you feel him filling you. You run a hand down his back, soothing him as he comes, biting your lip at the feeling, foreign but enjoyable.

Tyler groans and glances down to where his cock is softening inside of you. He eases his hips back, cupping your face and pressing a kiss to your forehead as he does. “Shit, I’m sorry, are you okay?”

You nod meagerly, pressing the back of your hand against your warm cheek. He watches you and, assured that you’re not going to pass out on him or anything, stands and hobbles into the bathroom. The sink turns on out of sight, and you close your eyes, listening to the water run. Tyler returns with a warm, wet towel and wipes the inside of your thighs, swiping gently across your cunt, before folding the towel and letting it fall to the floor at your bedside.

You feel loose, calm. Safe. You hardly notice him turn the light off, but you do feel the bed dip beside you as he rejoins you under the covers and pulls you into his arms. You melt against his sturdy chest, his heartbeat under your face a comfort, the rhythmic tick tick tick of it lulling you to sleep. But there’s still one thing you have to know before you can relax completely.

His breathing has started to even out, but he hasn’t snored yet, so you know he’ll still hear you when you ask, “Are you gonna leave?”

He grunts an acknowledgement of your question, nuzzling down into the top of your head.

“Do you want me to stay?”

You know your answer, but you still bite your lip, considering the question. You hadn’t thought before that maybe he left after every night you spent together because he thought you didn’t want to wake up with him. “Yes.”

“Okay,” he murmurs against your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Then I’ll stay.”

If he’s at all worried about what will happen when you wake up tomorrow, he doesn’t show it, but anxiety courses through you at the thought of anyone finding out. Does he want the others to know? Because that’s what it feels like.

“Stop thinking about it,” he whispers, like he can hear your thoughts racing. “It’ll be fine. Just go to sleep.”

Easy for him to say. He’s out like a light. And you’re left alone with your thoughts until you fall into fitful, dissatisfying sleep sometime around when the world outside starts to turn blue.

A pounding on your door wakes you from deep sleep – the deepest you’d gotten all night, at least – and you try to sit up but find there’s a heavy weight on your chest blocking you. You rub the sleep from your eyes, glancing down at the sleeping body next to you. It takes a second for it to register: Tyler’s here. 

Tyler’s here. Sidled up against you, arm thrown over your stomach like this is where he belongs. He didn’t leave. He stayed, like he said he would. His face looks so peaceful – so beautiful – you almost hate to wake him.

“Come on, sleepyhead! Time to get a move on!”

Almost. You scramble to push Tyler off of you, ignoring his noises of protest, jumping out from under the covers and grabbing various articles of clothing off the floor to pull over your naked form. You plop back down on the bed, this time on his side, right next to where he’s starting to wake.

“Dude, get up, they’re gonna know you’re not in your room. They’re gonna know you’re in here.”

“So what,” he grumbles, rolling over as you push him and settling deeper into the bed. “Let ‘em.”

You sit up straight, one hand on his arm. “You mean that?”

He hums and turns his neck to glance at you over his shoulder. “Yeah, ‘course I do. You’re my girl.”

Your face flushes a deep pink and Tyler grins, reaching over to wrap an arm around you and drag you back down into the bed, pinning you under him and peppering an assault of open-mouthed kisses all over your face. You grin, thinking that you could get used to this – just not right now.

“Seriously, Tyler,” you laugh, pushing a hand against the side of his face. He squeezes your hip. “We have to get up. We gotta get back out there.”

Tyler sighs, loosening his grip on your body and kneeling over you. “Yeah, you’re right. Alright, alright.”

He stands and takes the top sheet with him, wrapped around his waist, and heads to the bathroom. To brush his teeth, you hope. God.

“You know,” he says, head popping back out into the room, mouth full of toothpaste. “Yesterday. I wanted them to see us holding hands.”

You watch as he smiles at you and disappears back into the bathroom, then fall back onto the bed, hands pressed over your eyes. 

Fifteen minutes later, the two of you are dressed, teeth brushed, hair taken care of, day packs slung over your shoulder, and you’re pulling the door closed behind you when you hear a whistle that pulls your attention to the parking lot.

“Damn, Owens!”

The voice makes you jump, and you groan. You thought you were going to get away with the sneaking around, but the rest of your team is watching from next to the RV as the two of you descend the stairs together.

Lily and Dani turn to Boone with smug looks on both their faces, and he rolls his eyes and pulls his wallet from his back pocket. They hold their hands out for him to slap two twenty dollar bills down into.

“What’s that?” You ask when you get close enough to them.

“We had a bet that you and Owens would come out of that room together. Well, that one or his. Didn’t matter which.”

“A bet I just lost,” Boone groans, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “I thought for sure…”

The rest of the crew snickers, including Tyler, who won’t look at you. You poke a finger into his chest.

“Did you know about this?”

“No, I swear,” he says, hands up, and you don’t know why, but you believe him. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t drunkenly confess to Lily weeks ago that sometimes we, you know…”

You scoff, almost mad, but then Boone shouts and the scoff turns into a snicker because, hey, you love him, but you can’t help but relish in his defeat.

“So they knew?! That’s cheating!”

He storms off while the rest of you laugh, Dani clutching their side and following him around the side of the building to try to make amends, trailing off, “If it makes you feel any better…”

Lily looks over at you, then at Tyler, a grin swallowing her face. “So, are you guys, like, together now? Or something?”

You look up at Tyler, who’s smiling softly at you, clearly deferring to you to answer that question. You feel a surge of affection for him swell in your chest. Clearing your throat, you turn to Lily.

“Or something.”

[intoanotherworld23]

Bathroom Break Blowout

Summary: Joel Miller can’t keep his hands off you for another minute, even at his own sons birthday party

Warnings: explicit content, mature themes, smut, unprotected sex, dominant Joel, married Joel, cheating, submissive reader, minor choking, smidge of spanking, dirty talk, praise kink

A/N: comments and reblogs are totally appreciated to show support for your fellow writers! If you wish to be added to my Pedro pascal tag list it’s always open so don’t hesitate to ask so just let me know so I can be sure to add you! Thanks everyone so much! XOXO

Hall Of Hunks

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Tag list for Pedro Pascal: @pedrohoe04 @k-k0129 @livingdeadmaria @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @milly-louise @kittenlittle24 @trisaratops-mcgee @subconsciouscollapse @hooked-on-penapascal27 @red-red-rogue @fellinfromthetop @drewharrisonwriter @vickie5446 @millerfan @lover-of-books-and-tea @bbyanarchist

Tired hands gripping the porcelain sink you were currently bent over with every ounce of strength you had. Feeling a drop of sweat roll down your cheek as you took a relentless beating from the back. Joel’s usually gentle hands now gripping roughly onto your hips. Soft whimpers escaping past your lips.

"You've got to be quieter for me sweetheart." His deep voice whispering in your ear with a soft pat to your thigh.

Right now there was a birthday party going on for his son, and his wife was also downstairs. As soon as Joel and his wife hired you as a babysitter he couldn't get you out of his mind. Always waiting for the right opportunity, but never seeming to find it. It was wrong you both knew that, but right now neither one of you cared.

"Oh my god." A hand covering your moans as he slowed his thrusts down slightly. Closing your eyes as you tried your best to control your noises. It was so much harder than you expected, and Joel was thicker than you expected.

"Such a good girl taking my cock so well in that tight little cunt." Praising you as he looked from your disheveled face in the mirror, and to where your bodies were connected licking his lips at how soaked you were.

"You're so big Mr. Miller." Mumbling loud enough just for him to hear.

"Call me Joel baby, and as much as I want to hear you scream my name you gotta be quiet." His lips warm and desperate as they peppered kisses along your upper back and shoulder blade.

“Joel.” Cooing with such innocence he had to restrain himself from smacking the shit out of your ass. He knew you were just playing with fire, and it was a matter of time before you got burnt.

His hands kept a firm grip on your ass to help him leverage his thrusts. Growling into your ear with such animosity it had a shiver running down your spine. Joel was usually gentle and kind, and right before your eyes he was turning into a wild man.

"Let me see those pretty eyes." His deep voice persuading you as you finally opened your eyes to see his dark and mischievous ones looking at you.

Joel shamelessly bucking his hips into your backside as you watched each other in the mirror. Forcing you to watch his and your facial expressions like watching a movie. It was the hottest thing you had ever seen, and you could feel the heat rising to your cheeks. Joel was biting his lips together when he could feel himself getting closer.

"Wanna have this cunt achin from me for days." It sounded like a promise more than a threat. Both hands spreading your cheeks apart as he angled himself deeper inside of you.

"Oh shit right there." Feeling him hit your sweet spot over and over again, your toes curling against the bathroom tile. Knowing your orgasm was swiftly approaching biting down on your arm wanting it so bad you could taste it.

"Maybe should have ya scream so my wife can hear." He taunted you with empty threats, but still the thought of his wife walking in here and catching you two would be too much. "Don't worry I won't this time."

Reaching a hand to grip your neck and pull it up to look into his eyes directly. Grinding deep as he rotated his hips in a rhythmic motion. Parting your lips open as you cried out only to be stopped by his lips covering yours swallowing every whimper and moan.

"I'm so close Joel." Hearing you call his name out in pleasure was like music to his ears. Your body started to become stiff, as a fire ignited in your lower stomach. Both of you chasing that sweet release.

Joel could sense that you were struggling to release almost like you were fighting it. Reaching his other hand around to your front finding your sensitive clit rubbing fast circles coaxing the orgasm from you. Keeping your feet planted firmly on the ground as he rocked his hot body into yours. Your neck was starting to really ache, but you were so close you were powering through.

"Let go baby I'm right here." Cooing into your ear like he was telling you a secret. His deep and seductive tone sent you over the edge.

Body falling completely limp against the sink hand falling from your neck as your body fell completely numb to your euphoric state. Cunt clenching his cock like a vine as you trembled and shook around him. Both hands held onto your hips as he continued to pump himself slowly and deep.

"Fucked that pretty cunt so well didn't I?" Joel already knew the answer to that question, but he had a look of undeniable pride written across his face.

Your ribcage rising and falling with each quick breath. Hands falling down to your side feeling loose and numb. Stomach trembling from the resounding orgasm you just experienced. Your battered cunt was so sore from being stretched and abused. Feeling his hands gently caressing your trembling thighs as he stayed still inside of you.

"Too bad my wife didn't walk in and catch us." He joked and you couldn't help but slap his thigh at the comment, even though the thought kind of turned you on. His lips finding yours in a tender and intimate moment, only to be interrupted by soft knocks coming from the door.

"Dad it's time for dessert."

[autisticlancemcclain]

Lance brightens at the clank of the old twisting lock, the creak of rusted hinges. He hurriedly wipes his hands on his apron, turning off the burner, and rushes out of the kitchen, beaming.

“You’re home!”

Keith glances up from his unlaced boots and smiles, exhausted. “Hi, sweetheart.”

Lance wastes no time in striding over to him, hand pressed to the centre of his chest as he kisses him softly, lingering. Keith sighs into his mouth, hand abandoning his laces to cup his cheek instead, thumb tracing the curve of his cheekbone.

“Missed you,” Lance murmurs, nose pressed to his husband’s scruffy cheek, breathing in the smell of his hair, his skin. He presses a kiss to his jaw, then another in the centre of his cheek, and then rests his lips at the corner of his eye. “So much.”

Keith’s breaths are long and heavy. Lance can feel the beat of his heart through his palm, slow and steady and strong. He presses with a little more strength, dragging his hand along his chest plate until his fingers rest on the latches, pulling it up and off. He resists the urge to strip him fully right there in the entryway, to pull off every piece of armour and toss it carelessly behind him, tug down the undersuit until it rests around his hips, pressing his palms to the flat of his chest, his thumb into the divot of his clavicle. To feel the rise and fall of his chest and every beat of his heart in every ridge of his fingertips, no space between them.

He curls his hands into fists, tucking them in his pockets. He lets Keith’s hands come up to cradle the back of his skull, guiding him until his forehead is pressed to his shoulder, moving with every inhale of his lungs. Lance paces his own breathing to match him.

They’ll do that later.

“God, I missed you,” Keith murmurs, thumbs brushing the back of his neck so lightly he shivers. “I hate Blade only missions. I should quit.”

“You should,” Lance agrees, but they both know that he won’t. Not when there’s so much he can do, so many he can help. It’s not even that bad, usually. It can even be fun when Lance is allowed to tag along, when he’s not pulled on some diplomatic mission in the opposite direction, when they’re schedules line up and they’re back to back again, samurai and sharp-shooter, the black paladin and his right hand.

But the separate missions are where it hurts.

“I thought you weren’t due back for another three days.”

“We wrapped things up this morning, but Kolivan let me go home early, said I could do the paperwork at home. Feeling generous, I guess.”

Lance hides his smile in the crook of his neck. Wanted to avoid a Keith-shaped tantrum, more likely.

“I guess.”

Keith kisses his temple, squeezing Lance’s hip before gently pulling away. Lance doesn’t even try to pretend not to pout. The Hunk that lives in his head gags. Lance ignores him happily.

“I’m gonna go shower,” he says, inclining his head to their bedroom. “We can sit together for a while after? Watch a movie, or something. I don’t have energy for much else.”

Lance smiles softly, leaning up to kiss him again. “Yeah. I was making dinner, I’ll be done by the time you’re out. Wanna watch Planet Earth: Antarctica so you can cry about baby penguins again?”

“…Yes.”

“Good.” He pats Keith’s rear playfully. “Off you go, dweebus. Don’t take long.”

He smiles as he watches him rush off, heading back to the kitchen to finish setting them up for the night.

[blueberrypancakesworld]

Coldness is my love for you

Loki x fem!reader

warning : obsession, kiss, Loki using is powers, wounds, hurt/comfort kinda, kidnapping

Summary : What was supposed to be a simple meeting between the representatives of the twelve worlds. But an attack not only changes everything, the King of Jotunheim also strikes and finally takes what is rightfully his.

Info : The first Marvel work here wow finally a little motivation for Marvel eventho I'm not really anymore watching the latest movies and shows and stopped after Loki Season 1. I still wanna write for it so here we are plus the Fandom is still in me somewhere ;) Have fun reading.

Ps : Favorite movies : Thor.1 & Blade

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She had never seen him as cold. She never had. Ever since she had met him, the prince no the king of Jotunheim at a gathering of the worlds.

She, as a human representative of Mitgard, was also present, together with the Avengers, only as a legal representation, even if this seemed almost superfluous in the face of the gods. But then what? Right, the attack by someone unknown, something or someone who did not belong to the twelve worlds, someone from outside.

But the attack, even if the gods could defend them well, she still felt the fear as she faced these hideous figures. Herself without weapons, without strength and without a plan of battle.

She was a human, not a god or a super-trained assassin. She was just a damned substitute. She had seen Black Widow stand in front of her as the Avengers protected her agent and fought the creatures.

She could do nothing but clutch the pen in her hand tightly and hide behind one of the already overturned tables. Clutching her "weapon" tightly, she felt the floor vibrate as the powers of the gods and fighters seemed to break the room.

Her heartbeat was almost chewing the drones inside her as the battle went down. In her trembling hands the pen that had almost made her cry as she realized she should have stabbed the monsters with a pen. But in her fear she let out a scream as suddenly the wooden table was torn away. It wasn't one of the Avengers or well-meaning gods.

These creatures had found her in the turmoil of battle and made her the new target for death. Fear was in her eyes as she looked up and backed away, staggering and barely standing on her feet.

The pen in her hand all the more ridiculous as she held it in front of her. What was she supposed to do? But before she could even use the pen, something else reached her. Ice. Light and dark shimmering solid ice that had placed itself between her and the creature like a wall.

Her breath escaped in a cloud due to the rapid drop in temperature. ,,No monster should hurt a lady in my presence," she heard that voice, the silver tongue, the serpent, the god and king of Jotunheim. She saw the green eyes looking at her with amusement. This god of mischief was having fun with all this chaos as the scriptures and books always said.

His words at that time were still full of goodness, so disturbing that she didn't recognize the lie. But she should have seen it. She was only half aware of the brutal, almost joyful act of killing the creature.

She saw exactly how the warm red blood ran down the ice, steaming slightly, but it was a minor matter in the sight of the god. Because the only thing that mattered was his beautiful eyes, the green that attracted her and slowly turned red, the red of his true form.

The red of the ice giant's true form before she felt his cool hand and her vision blurred. The last thing she saw before he took her in his arms and disappeared was her friends, the end of the fight and the feeling that she would never see them again.

A feeling she was to prove right.

Because even now, weeks later, they had never seen their homeland, the earth, the avengers, their friends or family again. The only thing she saw in this cold great palace was the ice, the green of magic, when she tried to get out his spell simply created a new door, wall or end.

As well as finding him sitting on his golden throne. ,,The throne that belongs to me" she heard his voice in her head, a painful memory as his hand gripped hers so tightly that his ice threatened to pass to her and she was reminded every day by the freezing burn of what that meant.

He was a god and a king of this ice planet, but she was sure he couldn't feel love, he was simply obsessed with her. ,,My dear, you quickly understand that here on this ground... you are my property" he had said to her after a few days when she still thought the Avenegrs would come or he would take her home.

But no. It was more her fear and questioning that annoyed him when he told her this. A fact she knew to be true. For he presented her with a room of considerable size with bookshelves, a bed and although not made of ice it seemed freezing cold.

The walls and floor, though barely visible, were covered by a sheet of ice that he could see. When she moved, walked around or just breathed, he saw everything. Like a bird in a cage. Like his property as he placed more and more precious jewelry on her body.

The gold rings, the dark red gemstones, the green of her rings or the blue on her necklace. No matter what he gave, it wasn't for her, it was for him to make his property even more beautiful. ,,I've brought you something pet," she heard, as she did every day, if you could call it a day on this planet. She was almost grateful for every moment she didn't spend sleeping when he let her sleep in peace. She didn't have his attention.

But even this was only at first. ,,Thank you" came from her lips, a word she had said too often recently. She did almost nothing else but thank him, thank him. Being grateful to him was the only important thing for him.

Because that meant her love it was not a question for him she had no choice and the sooner his darling would accept this the easier he would become for her in the long run. His steps came closer, his magic passed through the ice and a chair formed beside her.

His form, though now human, she knew that when the light of the other worlds shone through the ice, his emotions came out or when he frightened her. Which he did with every second. Ever since he had "saved" her.

She barely felt the cold of the jewelry because nothing could be colder than his love. The love he gave her, she tried to lie to him when he didn't care. But she knew she would be lying if she didn't respond to him. The beginning of the beginning that still made her heart beat.

His touch was warm and not cold, his love in the form of tenderness and understanding was attractive and there was even a moment when she had loved him. But now she was his pretty jewel. Feeling his cold blue hand on hers, she looked up and gazed into those mesmerizing eyes.

He licked around her jewelry, his touch gentle, and yet she felt the warning chill he could freeze her into a sculpture, and yet he didn't. ,,Fear doesn't suit you dear," he said and something stirred in her eyes and she came back from her aversion, her thoughts.

She was with him again and saw from his grin that he knew. ,,I'm-I'm not afraid," she said to him, but she knew that he didn't even hear it, on the contrary. His hand wandered further up her warm body, searching for her warmth, something he didn't have.

She knew she was tense, knew he still needed her as leverage for the other worlds, or at least her earth. His kisses, which seemed nothing but cold, were full of love. ,,Of course you didn't," he smirked, the green of his eyes returning as she saw his true form recede.

He knew that although it fascinated her, it was like an escape reflex. You could burn yourself on any fire and you could also get freezer burn on a cold blue flame like his heart of ice. But despite everything, despite everything, she leaned into his arms, let him hold her, let him kiss her, let him tell her stories.

Because something inside her was afraid that something worse than this would happen if he stopped loving her one day. ,,You know all this coldness is my love for you," he reminded her as he felt the goosebumps shivering a normal stupid human reaction he hated it made him realize they weren't right.

But it didn't matter, it didn't matter that she knew she didn't love him. Once he had the Infiniy Stone, she would be his one way or the other, then everything would be his forever.

He gave her one last kiss knowing that it was all just a game, a trick at the cost of time. But he was the god of mischief, he could play this game for a long time to come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[anticidic]

How many more times must I toss a pebble at your window for you to let me in? 

When all I do is think about our memories and the smile we grin, 

Like a movie scene, let’s explore our time together and wonder forth,

"Do you think God stays in Heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he’s created here on earth?"

Prompt: Movie quotes

THE BLACKEST NIGHT

“Don’t be silly, Dazai,” Chuuya said with a frown. He plucked a feather and held it by the stem, up to the light to examine it. Translucent, almost. “This world exists because of us. Light, life, the people…It's so much better being here than up there.”

Dazai watched Chuuya brush a finger over the tip of the feather. It snapped in half, and he heard a hiss. Chuuya continued to burn himself in the name of a dying love that knew thorns and what it was like to burn, and all Dazai could do was look himself in the mirror at the abomination of a pair of half-shed wings outstretched behind him and apologize for what he did. And Chuuya apologized for being the creator.

Another soft pile sat at the foot of the bed. Calling. Dazai felt the unmistakable itch across his back and down his spine. Then a terrible warmth. It hurt. Chuuya was pain. The bad day. He was the most painful demon of all and hadn’t even sunk his teeth into Dazai. All Dazai could think was how the elders never told him how it really felt to cross paths with a demon. There was no wing-ripping. No fall from grace. No fiery pits of hell.

It was with alarm bells ringing that they continued to meet like this under the dome of the big, blue sky. The time would come for them to part ways and for Dazai to return to heaven as Chuuya waved farewell from his little home in the tiniest district of Yokohama, looking to the sky and feeling horribly small—the reminder that he neither had a place up high or down below weighing heavy in his mind. Home was four walls and a roof.

They would part with regret. As they always did. Chuuya thought it hypocritical of Dazai to continue on his path to ascension: holing himself away in the great library all for the sake of rewriting and preserving Chuuya’s story. One of death. First, life. Then death. Then life again. Then rebirth.

No one had ever heard of a Nakahara Chuuya except for the high court and its elders. They wanted him gone and Dazai could not find it in himself to deal the killing blow. Chuuya already suffered too much hell on earth.

For that, he paid. Dearly. Dazai lost everything fighting for it. The longer he looked himself in the mirror and observed how his wings seemed to shudder at the thought that they’d continue to shed down to cartilage and bone—shedding purity and all that was good and all that he knew for as long as he could remember and growing illness and that which he should shun and violently reject, he accepted readily with open hands. He did it for Chuuya.

Another feather floated to the floor. Another hiss. He felt a hand press against his back between the shoulder blades and grabbed Chuuya’s hand. The skin was broken with tiny gushes and discolored, palm rough and raised from all the burning and scarring and burning and scarring Chuuya did over and over again tending to Dazai’s wings. Constant, never-ending wounds and hurting himself for Dazai’s sake. And Dazai had had enough. His eyes fluttered shut and he kissed the skin gently. Another unspoken apology stuck in the chest. Yet another one laid to rest.

It didn’t have to hurt, but between the sheets half-past midnight when the ache in his back let up enough that he wasn’t squirming in constant agony, Dazai would whisper, “Do you ever miss it—miss who you once were, and who you could’ve been?”

“No,” Chuuya would say without missing a beat. The intensity in his gaze could melt away the last of the feathers desperately clinging to Dazai’s back for dear life. To not be forgotten. They were pure as snow and soft to the touch until they weren’t. Now all Dazai had were leather, veins, and bat wings.

This was the second death. But the rebirth would come for Dazai. Chuuya still thought him an idiot and tried to push him away. He tried so unbelievably hard and Dazai refused even as he lay there limp against the bed, clawing at the sheets to focus on anything but the burn radiating into his back.

“Why do you stay in heaven?”

The words pulled Dazai from his thoughts and he blinked. The ceiling and the aroma of an ignited candle across the room returned. Then Chuuya. His hair fell over his face and down his shoulder as he hovered over Dazai with a questioning, strained look.

Dazai knew that one. Concern eating up Chuuya from the inside out until he couldn’t suppress it any longer and out came a twisted, pained expression from someone who wished they could do more than this.

“Because what I do is important to me.” Dazai breathed out slowly and smiled. “It’s important to me that you aren’t forgotten. You’ve reclaimed your name and that’s what matters to me. Now you are just Nakahara Chuuya: neither holy nor sinful. You are you. You are free.”

However slight, Chuuya softened and shook his head. Idiot sat on his lips—discarded to the air along with all the other unsaid things they buried between them.

As the clock struck nine and the sodium lights upon the city faded, Chuuya set aside the roll of bandages Dazai refused to let him use. He brushed another feather off the bed and smiled through the pain.

[hard-times-paramore]

The Assassin's Creed movie was so bad it was funny.

Like... I don't even know what to do with this. I didn't know if that movie was a canon installment to the franchise, because it contradicted pre-stablished canon from the games.

It looked cool though.

Full ramble under the cut.

It sucks as an entry to the Assassin's Creed universe. It completely messed up the modern lore Ubisoft built for itself. As a movie on itself it was confusing as hell too because it's supposed to be a tie-in to the games. They priorized the visuals over the story, and the poor protagonist didn't know what was happening 90% of the time - just like anyone trying to watch it without seeing the games - but anyone who did play the games knew that most of the exposition and plot and elements directly contradicted canon.

So yeah, it was a mess. It was a beautiful trainwreck.

There were some pros. Listen, Michael Fassbender is a hot dude. I like the hot dude and it did give me great enjoyment to see him all anxious and soggy in hospital-prisoner clothes. There was a lot of whump in this movie with the beautiful man and I can appreciate that.

But we also had a buuuunch of exposition and Abstergo apparently just hunts Assassins to do experiments on them now, and yet, they keep them - people who know how to sneak around and steal shit - in the same building as a bunch of ancient Assassin weapons.

And the whole fuss over finding the Apple, like. Aren't there a ton of Apples? Why were they treating that one as unique? Don't they still have Desmond's remains to find the other one? Was Callum really their last hope?

I also dig the historical sessions. Aguilar de Nerha, Callum Lynch's ancestor (also played by Michael Fassbender) was fucking cool in his hooded robes and hidden blades doing parkour chase scenes around. But yeah, he didn't have that much characterization either. Again, it's like they just priorized the visuals of it. And him speaking Spanish, like 💀 my god.

I'd genuinely have enjoyed just the historical sections aside from their last fucking minute where they revealed fucking CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS was a friend to the Assassin Order and the person Aguilar trusted with the fucking Apple of Eden.

IF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS IS ANYTHING HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A TEMPLAR. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

Also you should see this movie's Animus. The Traumatron 3000. They put him in the GLaDOS

It looked like a fucking GLADOS, seriously, it was a VR spine connected to the ceiling and Callum was AWAKE for his memories instead of sleeping like Desmond's. He was having full Bleeds after ONE session and everyone was like "oourgh he can't go back in there it's too risky"

Y'ALL HAD A PERFECTLY SAFE ANIMUS, WHY DID YOU MAKE A NEW ONE THAT MAKES YOU GO CRAZY FASTER?

Also, Aguilar fucking hated Callum. Like, in his Bleed episodes, his ancestor just fought with him. It's so fucking funny when you compare with Ezio and Desmond, who was like "everything will be alright, your suffering will end someday" meanwhile Aguilar was just beating the shit out of Callum.

And in the end the fucking Oppenheimer quote when Alan Rikkin was asking his daughter for a world domination speech.

What a beautiful trainwreck of a movie. Dude it sucked, you gotta see this.

[darkdevasofdestruction]

Chapter 23 - The Connector

"Ohhh, that's so awesome! Really?" Ohma's eyes widened a little, watching his wife, upside down on the couch, her long hair sweeping the floor as she giggled on the phone. "Even the Russian Mafia joined? No way! Ha, that's so cool!" it must have been Inaba she was talking to, otherwise she wouldn't be giggling and gossiping like that. "And you've got the Brazilians too? The Portuguese? The Yakuza also? And a lot of cults and political factions too? The Worm's gonna get annihilated in no time, amazing!" she's been talking on the phone for at least an hour - On face cam, no less. Ohma couldn't hear anything they were saying on the TV. "Oh, okay, okay - Go say Hi to Uri from me! See ya, Sadako-chan!" finally, Kisara closed the phone after nicknaming the Black Phantom after the ghost girl from The Ring. Very smart.

"You talked through the entirety of the film. Film that YOU wanted me to see." Ohma grumbled, playfully glaring at her. "Well, yeah, I did - But! Inaba told be about their meeting with the big powers and how their Anti-Worm alliance went. I have to call Raian and see what he knows also, but all in due time. The Kure clan is pretty busy lately." the man rolled his eyes, snatching Kisara into his arms and taking the phone away from her. "Shut up and replay the movie from the beginning." the girl giggled, doing just that before relaxing in his embrace. "Say, have you heart anything of Koga lately?" Ohma hummed in affirmation. "Yeah, he's with Kano and Rolon, training. On a trip with the Purgatory chairman or something." "Oh, is that so? Maybe we should go on vacation soon, how's that sound?" Kisara grinned up at him. "We just returned two days ago, you disaster woman." he ruffled her hair, amused. "Nothing's to say we can't have fun whenever we want. Not like there's anything holding us back, anyway."

True, there was nothing holding them back, except a lowkey duty to destroy the Worm, if the time arose. With a well-planned scheme and lots of people involved, Inaba and Himuro found Xia Ji, the one who brought Ohma's cloned heart to save him, and tried to subdue him; They failed. With the aid of Medicine Man's tracking device, Akoya and Ryuki found him and tried to take him down - They, too, failed, but Ohma was there to make a deal with the Chinese leader. If he doesn't run away, he won't hurt him - Otherwise, he won't be able to move ever again. Tokita guided Xia Ji to a warehouse, where not only those who tracked him down were waiting, but the Heavenly Wolves also, but Kisara and, of course, the main fighter, Narushima Koga who was waiting for his rematch after what happened months ago when Ji and his gang almost killed him and Yamashita Kazuo. Were it not for Ohma and Raian, they'd have been minced meat.

If Ji wins, he gets to walk away without anyone trailing him. This was Koga's closure, and Xia Ji seemed to want to fight him also, under who knows what pretext. He looked desperate enough, and bloody and bruised to the core - Yet his pride, most of all, was destroyed. Just as expected, the enemy pulled out weapons, but it took no time for the youngster to beat punch him away, throwing away any said blade. Punch after punch, Koga kept beating the feral man down, until he god up, more desperate than ever, and like a spiky wolverine, he began attacking with a ridiculous amount of force, almost reminding Kisara of Wakatsuki's punched. Hold up - With how easily he gets up, and his weirdly ferocious punches... Could he also have a milder Superman Syndrome? What a joke. Every word out of his mouth is a lie, and every deed is an act, yet in all honesty, Kisara and Ohma agreed to one thing, watching the fight - He's stronger than Koga is at the moment. Those martial art skills were truly wasted on that rat man.

Every time Koga knocked him out, Xia Ji got angrier, spewing shit about being the ruler of the underworld and that he'll destroy everything - Was he connected to the head of the Worm, then? Did he have all his power taken away from him? That wasn't the behaviour of a leader, he was far too emotional and distraught, not to mention, a complete and pathetic failure. He appeared dangerous, practicing some techniques from Chinese Wushu schools, turning his whole body into a whip, concentrating his strength into his fingers so that he may inflict the maximum amount on damage at a rapid pace - Even so, Koga had the upper hand, chopping at his wind pipe, punching away the weapon he tried to use as a trump card, and using his Crescent Moon Kick as a finisher, Xia Ji was on the ground, groveling pathetically, begging for mercy though contradicting himself - Saying he won't kill anyone, but in the same breath, denying the worth of the dead.

Finally, Ohma stepped in, stopping Koga from killing Ji, and letting him go - A debt, repaid in full. A mercy undeserved. But if he ever shows his face again, Ohma will kill him himself. Nikaido Ren mentioned that, although they had orders to eliminate Xia Ji, they have been revoked - Ji was no longer affiliated with the Worm, he has no power anymore - Still, they will continue monitoring him every so often.

Since then, Koga continued to train with Ohma and the others, preparing for the Berserker Bowl that will be taking place soon enough. They've got some big names getting to fight in the Kengan x Purgatory joint project tournament, including Cosmo and Saw Paing, but also, some of the so-called supernovas. As soon as Kisara heard Rihito's going to enter the tournament, she cringed, calling Yamashita Kazuo about entering. She would rather die than allow that idiot the chance of winning. He had enough luck to get the easiest matches and find his way to the top. She was gonna crush that hope.

"You're kidding." Ohma looked at her, incredulous. "I never knew you were so petty." "That's an understatement, love." Kisara's smile was poisoned like Snow White's apple. "I've been hating that guy even more with each time he hit on me like the disgusting pervert that he is." Ohma huffed, amused. "Alright, Your Majesty. Go win that crown."

Though she entered that tournament, she hadn't told anyone, so it was a huge surprise for everyone upon seeing the Queen of the Kengan Matches in one of the eight pools. She only fought twice - A win and a loss, both in high-stakes tournaments - Yet both fights were at least two years apart, it was as though she had retired. Not only that, but she was still the CEO of the Hasashi Company.

Pool A: Furusaki Jinsei, Leonardo Silva, Hong Xiaohu, Albert Hiruma Poo B: Sakuragawa Arata, Yurikawa Taiju, Tsukamoto Seishiro, Imai Cosmo Pool C: Ilyukhin Asimov, Death Crow Jr. , Yuge Tsuyoshi, Rihito Pool D: Mark Myers, Pitali Klitschijo, Kim Jang-Gi, Onoda Ikkai Pool E: Kim Seung-Yuop, Aki Saito, Narushima Koga, Funayama Yoshiki Pool F: Kono Haruo, Himuro Ryo, Luca Tyrant, Adam Dudley Pool G: Hasashi Kisara, Nam Nhat, Sawada Keizaburo, Yoroizuka Saw-Paing Pool H: Gaoh Ryuki, Ushiroda Takero, Chiba Takayuki, Tokeshi Kota

Each entrant will fight one match every two weeks, so a minimum of four weeks to determine which single person from each pool moves on to the championship. What a pain in the ass, Ohma agreed with Kisara's statement. They were used to fighting everything, all at once - This was far too lax a schedule.  Unfortunately, each Pool had fights in different cities, so it was rather a drag. In spite of that, Kisara convinced Ohma to go support Koga, whereas Yamashita Kazuo was in Hokkaido with Ryuki. She was fine with Tsuki-san as her supporter. Her first fight was against Sawada, the fighter using dancing at his core. The red head smirked, knowing she will get an easy win. Coincidentally, just after getting Ohma back, she started taking dancing lessons. Why? Because she noticed her lack of grace, caused by all those manly fighting styles she was using, and how in the world could she be a pretty princess dancing gracefully the bride and groom dance, huh? Clearly, she needed some practice, and what better than to learn those pretty Chinese dances she saw in the Imperial Dramas, alongside with some Wushu schools, to add the cherry on top?

Now, now, Sawada didn't have to see her going all out fighting, he wasn't worth her time, unfortunately, so might as well have a little fun, yes? She fought much scarier opponents before, so this should be a piece of cake.  Confident, Kisara initiated the fight, baiting the opponent with a low palm strike, before dodging a chop with her forearm, followed by a kick attempt. Sawada tried to hit her with some roundhouse kicks, but she easily evaded them, before kicking him in the ankle, to make him lose his balance a little. Just as he tried to lunge at her, she went in for a diaphragm kick, an uppercut, ended by an elbow to the back of the head, and a knee in the face, making him fall backwards painfully. Quickly, he got up, jump-leaping at her with a heel strike, but Kisara ducked, swiftly following close behind and kicking him in the butt; As he was down, she hit his head down to the ground with her heel. Not giving him any time to breathe, she grabbed him up, gracefully twirling with two strikes to his vitals, and another palm to his jaw, and another barrage of well aimed strikes. Finally, Keizaburo used his whirlwind strike, which made the fox girl smirk - As he was rotating her way, she swooped to the ground at the single leg supporting him. As he stumbled, Kisara jump-kicked him to the ground, before doing a backflip, hitting him in the head weird her feet - With a graceful pirouette in the air, she landed gracefully on his head, stomping him into the ground into a perfect K.O., as she did a pretty courtesy for the audience.

Hasashi Kisara won.

As expected.

Still, it almost amused her how they still referred to her by her maiden name. Not that it matter, she was still the one and only Kitsune Queen.

Kisara grinned, jumping up and down like a child in front of Takeshi, gleaming with cheerfulness. "Was I cool, Tsuki-san? Was I? Was I?" The man pat her head, humming in amusement. "Of course you were. I told you, you had a real career as a fighter - Not that it's any of your priorities." he said. "Were you so bored that you entered this low-stakes competition? It's not like you." Kisara's smile turned into a mischievous smirk. "I just didn't want to let that blond idiot, Rihito, win." Takeshi's eyes bulged open in shock, only to start laughing.  "You're ridiculous." he shook his head at her.

The outcome of the first match was as follows: In Pool A, Leonardo Silva and Hong Xiaohu won. In Pool B, Sakuragawa and Cosmo won. Pool C, Rihito won, unfortunately, and the Russian guy too. Pool D, Myers and Kim won. Pool E, Koga and Aki Saito won. Pool F, of course, Adam won, and unfortunately, Haruo won against Himuro, only to forfeit because of an injury - What a pity.  Pool G, Kisara won against Sawada, and Saw won against Nam Nhat. At this rate, she's going to have to fight that hard-headed dumbass puppy. Awful odds for her. Lastly, in Pool H, not only did Chiba win, but shockingly, Ryuki lost.

Two weeks passed by past, and Kisara now had to face none other than Saw Paing - And honestly, what a drag! That guy was as though as it gets, and even crazier than the craziest weirdo in the world! Who the hell could break the ground with their head, anyway? Should she use speed, like Rei? Should she use Aikido? No, most of her Aikido moves involve throwing and head or face hits, that's not going to work on his ironman. Agito's style, maybe? But she'd rather not show everyone her Dragon Shot again, just like in the Kengan vs Purgatory tournament. After two years, people might have forgotten she even knows the Fang's fighting style, so better to use that in the later rounds, and keep diverting now - But Saw was not a person worthy of underestimating, he was incredibly strong, and Kisara feared him. She was sure punching a brick wall hurt less than punching him.

"Haha, sorry, Kisara! Can't believe the first time we meet after your wedding is in the fighting ring!" he laughed, pumped up for the fight. "Forgive me but I'll go all-in with our fight!" "And I promise I'll do the same, Saw!" the girl promised him as they both took their stances.

Saw took his usual Muay Thai stance, whilst Kisara got in a basic Kenpo low stance, hoping she was capable of learning enough Wushu techniques to beat him. Saw charged in, delivering two alternative punches before doing a roundhouse kick to her head and a knee to her jaw, as the height difference permitted, and a kick to her ankle - Though it hurt, Kisara managed to block all attacks, using Indestructible. In retaliation, she got in a crouch, sweeping at his feet and charged with a butterfly twirl kick, only to block again two punches coming her way swiftly. Damn, this man is hella strong, she tsk'ed, aiming a jab move similar to Gaolang's, though she knew very well he knew how to counter it.  She couldn't continue blocking his hits, she would soon get too injured to carry on - She had to get on the aggressive at once. 

She quickly did a high kick, followed by a few feint jabs at his jaw, an elbow to the diaphragm, and a fast donkey kick with both feet, driving him further behind. She rolled to the ground, jumping up and uppercutting him, continuing with a chop to his wind pipe and a quick fall to the ground, scissoring his feet into stumbling away. As he got up, she jumped and heel-kicked him twice before hooking her foot to the back of his neck and slamming him into the ground - She followed by grabbing his wrist and elbow similarly to what Hatsumi taught her, and falling to the ground, she destroyed his joint so he'd have less use in his right arm.

Facing again, Saw continued using even that injured arm, fighting through the pain, and they hit each other with new techniques, either blocking them or baring through the brunt of the jab - Either way, Kisara knew she must not allow him the chance of using the Hammer of Burma, or she was dead meat. She had to hit his windpipe somehow and knock him out, and fast, otherwise she doubts she can win with her force.

In a quick sequence of movements, Saw managed to score a punch to her abdomen, knocking her backwards, following with a few more well aimed hits towards her head, a shin kick and an uppercut with all connected, leaving the woman gritting through the pain. "Damn it, Saw." she wiped the blood from her chin, jumping up, only for the Burmese to spring at her immediately with high kicks and an attempt at grabbing, which thankfully failed - Her Aikido was always going to save her, it seems. She quickly grabbed Saw's wrist, rotating with him to change the flow of the motion before pushing him away so she can get going and finish this quickly. 

Kisara got in a low eagle stance, spring up with two strong palm his to the diaphragm - As she was rotating, she grabbed his other wrist, using her elbow to hit him hard, which she repeated as she faced him again, with an uppercut. Still holding onto his wrist, she dove behind him low, kneeing at his lower spine, swiping back at his feet, dragging him to face her, kicking him in the abdomen and palm-striking him away. Instead of falling back, Saw grabbed tightly onto her arm - He was ready to use the headbutt on him, but he didn't have a good enough grip on her. Before he could charge, Kisara held on his forearm, tripping him and getting to his side before instantly karate chopping at his windpipe, making him fall to the ground - To make sure he would get up, she quickly kicked him in the ribs to roll him on his belly and slammed her knees onto his back, immobilizing his joints again.

"KISARA WINS!"

Oh, thank fuck, Kisara breathed out in relief, shakily getting up to her feet. Somehow, that fight was worse than the one in the Purgatory. Maybe. Whatever.  She stumbled slightly walking back to Wakatsuki once again, who gently put a towel on her head, wiping away the sweat and blood. "I never want to fight that monster ever again. How did Gaolang keep up with him all these years, anyway?" Kisara groaned dramatically. "Nah, well, I suppose Gaolang is Gaolang. I doubt I could do that every again though. I'm just glad Hatsumi taught me well enough to do cheap, dirty tricks like that." "A win is a win, don't think too much of it. It was a great fight." he handed her back the phone. "And I filmed everything, as promised." "Sweet! I can't wait until Ohma starts picking apart every mistake I made!" she laughed mirthfully, evidently joking. "Hey, Tsuki, let's go grab Cos and go for a drink, yeah?" "Sounds like a plan." the man smiled simply, waiting for her to get showered, get the medical attention required and change to her civilian clothes before leaving the arena.

From Pool A, Leonardo Silva won. Pool B, of course, Cosmo won with no problem. From Pool C, annoyingly enough, Rihito won. In Pool D, only Mark Myers remained to advance further into the competition. Pool E was easily won by Koga and Funayama. The brawl between Himuro and Adam in Pool F was won by the American who trained hard with Kureishi and Cos. Kisara won and advanced further into the competition from Pool G. And Pool H, well... Ryuki won against Chiba after almost assassinating him. Poor man, he might not be a brilliant fighter, but he's doing well enough for himself. They had to do something about Ryuki before he does something irreversible.

Late into the evening when Kisara finally arrived home, Ohma was already there. He seemed pretty content - Had he just finished a sparring session, maybe? Regardless, she made a beeline to change in her sleepingwear and let herself fall on top of him, exhausted after such a long day. "So, what did you think about my fight? Worth writing in the book of records?" "Hell no." Ohma chuckled. "But considering who your opponent was, you did pretty damn well." he praised her.  "Ha! You're getting mellow. It's almost like we're married!" Kisara grinned, nuzzling in the crook of his neck. "So, three more fights, huh?" Ohma hummed. "You really want to win, don't you?" "Oh, I don't care about winning - But losing means getting beaten up to a pulp and getting knocked out. I don't want a reminder of what happened in my fight with Takeshi, y'know? So - By default, I gotta win to avoid pain. That's enough of a motivator for me." Ohma actually chuckled at her hilarious resolve. "That, and I get a rush of dopamine when I beat Rihito." "You're a menace."  "You won't be coming to the drawing ceremony, will you?" she asked, raising her head to kiss him. "Nope." he smirked. "I and Yasuo are gonna watch from the comfort of our home, stuffing our faces with a ton of food." "Yeah, that does sound like you, alright. You're such men, it's unreal." she laughed softly. "Don't worry, I'll write my autograph on your forehead after I win this." "And Her Majesty's ego is bursting through the roof again." Ohma rolled above his wife, trapping her face between his hands.  "Not only that, but this Queen deserves a little bit of royal treatment, don't you think?" she smirked, her arms wrapping around his neck, pulling him down into a deep kiss. "So demanding." 

With the tournament beginning, Kisara dressed in her most beautiful green hanfu dress, flowing around her as if she was a Spring Nymph, with her hair filled with flowers. She might not be Chinese, but considering the amount of things she learnt from that culture, from fighting style, dancing, history and what not, to the time she spent learning from Agito in the years they were away; There was nothing more beautiful than the awakening of one's soul and the happiness achieved through enlightening. Or whatever Buddha Gautama said - He's the top guy, he knows best.  Might as well become a princess! Buddha might have renounced his titles and luxuries, but she was far too shallow to let go of her hard-earned possessions. And she liked being pretty! Though she'll have to wipe off her make up before her fight, she wouldn't want to look like a Kiss member after a concert, or a wet, trashy raccoon.

"It's time to begin the draw for the Main Tournament!" Sayaka called out from the stage, next to Alisa. "And now, introducing the Eight Berserkers vying for the top!"

One by one, the champion of each pool walked forward on the stage. Pool A: Leonardo Silva Pool B: Imai Cosmo Pool C: Rihito Pool D: Mark Myers Pool E: Narushima Koga Pool F: Adam Dudley Pool G: Hasashi Kisara Pool H: Gaoh Ryuki Everyone was dressed their best, all of them beautiful and shining - Of course, Kisara, the single woman there, was the most glamorous. If people thought the only woman fighter might have stood out the most, they were wrong. Koga, dressed like a fucking pimp, was the single sore spot on the roster. Poor boy truly needed some female influence in his life. With the draws done, the matches were as followed:

Match 1: Imai Cosmo vs Hasashi Kisara Match 2: Mark Myers vs Rihito Match 3: Narushima Koga vs Leonardo Silva Match 4: Gaoh Ryuki vs Adam Dudley

Finally, everyone could relax and enjoy the banquet at their leisure, for on the morrow, the tournament will be taking place.  Regardless, Kisara had a lot of fun with Cosmo and Adam, taking their sweet time laughing and gossiping, catching up and what not. Koga was at the table with all his other supernova friends, Rihito was flirting as always - But Ryuki was all alone, in a corner. Kisara felt like she should try and comfort him in some way, or maybe encourage him, yet she had no idea what to do, so she continued her own fun. After enough pictures taken to commemorate a lovely evening spent, and a flooded social media, they returned home to rest until the tournament.

The Tournament was taking place in the Purgatory-Owned Coliseum, called "The Core", a hundred meters underground. Unfortunately, Nogi wanted to add the pathetic Ringout rule, so Kisara had to pay extra attention to what she was doing. Before the first match could take place, Kisara quickly paid a visit to the manager who was watching from one of the best stands up in the audience. "Hey, hey!" Kisara smiled brightly, flinging around her arms to play with her long sleeves. Though she couldn't wear a pretty dress anymore, there was nothing to say she can't continue wearing her pretty haori or hanfu coats over her equally pretty gym clothes. Gotta be a fashion icon even while sweating to hell! "Oh, Yamashita Kazuo, you've got a friend! You are so sociable, I envy you!" she grinned, turning her gaze to the man who was drinking canned beer with the old man - He was tall and well built, just like a fighter. He had a calm yet almost apathetic or bored look on his face, and he had his messy blond hair kept in a tail. "My name is Hasashi Kisara - Oh, actually, I suppose Tokita Kisara, considering I got officially married recently." The man looked her straight in the eyes for a few seconds, almost making her feel uncomfortable, before he spoke. "Jackie Lee." he said his name. "It's lovely meeting you, Miss Kisara. Your match is coming up soon, isn't it?" Kisara smiled, as if she was sparkling. "Are you Chinese?" she asked. "Oh? How did you know I am a foreigner?" Jackie tilted his head a little in surprise. "Yamashita-san also guessed well. Is it my accent?" "I'm not sure! It's just - I've gotten acquainted with the language over the past five years or so, and I think it has a certain melodicity that Japanese doesn't have. It's like... Like a honeyed mead caressing your soul. Does that make sense? No, of course it doesn't, that was stupid, forgive me." Jackie smiled at the woman, shaking his head. "Don't apologise. I'll take that as a compliment." he said. "I actually think it's remarkable how you picked it up so easily." "O-Oh, I'm glad you think so!" Kisara smiled cutely, bending a little to his level, only for her eyes to widen a little. "Oh, you have such beautiful eyes! I've never seen anyone with Polycoria before! And your shade is truly unique!" "Ahh, you flatter me, Miss." he smiled friendly. "Can I treat you to anything? I wanted to go get more beer for the two of us." the man asked gracefully. "Oh, no, I couldn't ask that of you!" she stammered quickly, not wanting to inconvenience. "Besides, I have to rush to my match. I hope I'll live up to expectations!" Jackie look at her again, almost as if he was analysing every inch of her body, before he smiled again. "Don't worry, it's on me. Good luck with your match, Miss Kisara." "Xièxiè!" Kisara attempted to thank him in his own language, offering a peace sign before rushing back down to the arena so that she can begin her fight. 

To think, out of all the possible fighters, she had to be pitted against the one she was most afraid of! Well, Adam was rather fearsome also, not to mention, they both trained with Kureishi. But Kisara was good at taking down huge guys like Adam. But people her size, specialised in grappling? She was screwed. Her joints and limbs were weak, and she has a low pain tolerance. If she lets him grapple her and gets a solid hold on her, she's as good as done for.

"Pity the two of us have to fight, huh? Frankly, you're the one who scared me the most - Such luck I get, huh?" Kisara chuckled softly, looking at the confident Cosmo in front of her. "I thought the same, Nee-san." Cos rose his hand for her to shake. "Remember years ago, when you saw my first fight? Remember how I said I wanted to spar with you one day?" "Your dream came true, Cos." she chuckled, shaking his hand. "Let's have fun, yeah?" "Hell yes!"

The two stepped away from each other and took their stances - For the first time, Kisara actually did a stance - Cos saw her fight before, there's no use bothering to play the stanceless non-fighter card anymore... At least, not against him. Kisara was the first to throw a lazy feint kick, getting him on high alert before stepping away. Just like in a UFC fight, they assessed each other's every twitch of the body, only for Cos to quickly need to block a fast kick to his head, followed by a feint jab to his chest. "Damn, you're fast, sis!" Kisara attempted another blow, only for Cos to duck and grab her arm, pulling her towards him so he could side-step behind her and punch the side of her face.  "Not faster than you, it seems." Kisara had a pained smile on her face, stepping away from him and keeping her feet first as Cos kicked at her ankle, but couldn't make her stumble. They had an equal exchange of quick jabs to the face before the boy feinted a jab to her diaphragm before crouching for a low-grab, his hands trying to grip tightly on the back of her thighs, but his had got hold in between her arm and ribs and managed to wrestle him away, leaping backwards. Cos might not be an enemy she's used to, but it was the first time she fights someone close in weight with her - She couldn't believe she could actually fight him, what a revelation. Still, her master plan was to throw him out of the ring - There was no other way around it, and with her Aikido, she might just make that happen.

As Cosmo was doing his footwork, he rushed right in front of her, aiming two straights to her face - Unbeknownst to him, as he was attempting a grab, Kisara fell low to the ground, her arms around his thighs, going for a similar grab as him previously, and as he tried to get out of her grip, she used her weight to throw him to the ground, on his back like a turtle on his shell. She was on her feet, between his legs, trying to land a strike but also guard against his kicks - What a fucking standard UFC moment, she thought, remembering all the fights she saw with Ohma when he taught her how to fight against grappling, her biggest weakness on Earth. She landed a sweeping kick to his thighs, looking down at him, before scaring him with a fake attempt at jumping down on him, as though she was Seki doing a fascinating Pro-Wrestling move. As if!

Sike.

She jumped again, one leg carefully in front of her so her knee and thigh would get caught between his legs and she could hold all her weight concentrated on her knee, down on his abdomen, while she landed a nice punch to his face, and rolling away to safety. She watched the boy pant, evening his breath, his back slightly hunched on the ground and his legs up - She remembers a Baki episode, when Yujiro Hanma proposed that the invincible move.  But she had the perfect counter.

Kisara waited for Cosmo to kick his legs in retaliation to a feint from her, so she did a cart wheel, grabbing his legs and rolling him with her - But she couldn't get on top of him, for he wrestled away perfectly. Damn grappler king, his reputation preceded him. "I hate grapplers." Kisara breathed out, making the boy grin and jump to his feet, lunging at her with another few strikes - Once again, Kisara forced another grab by kneeling and grabbing at his thighs and waist from the side, similarly to what Agito was doing, and managed to get him on his back again, her torso against hier crossed shins, and she tried to punch him somehow, but he grabbed her arms and hand. They were in a tight lock and struggling for domination by holding tightly onto the joints.  "Where'd you learn to grappler so well?" Cosmo gritted through his teeth as the woman managed to slip from his grip - That sweat was making her slippery. "I have a husband, you know." she grinned at the implication. "The least Ohma can do to be useful is to be a good practice dummy." somehow, she managed to get up and grabbed at his ankle, dragging him around a little, as if to play and taunt him. She was subtly dragging him closer to the edge, whilst also making her unnervingly close. What a gamble. She only bet on people, not on situations like this.

She allowed Cosmo to get up, not wanting to deal with that annoying ground grappling anymore, only to block a few punches with her arm, using Indestructible - But her thigh didn't work as well for that blocking. When he aimed a kick, she grabbed his ankle, throwing herself to the ground, but Cosmo grabbed her head, aiming a hard punch, getting each other in a tight lock and standing up. He landed a painful knee to her diaphragm and a jab to her face, making her gasp, breathless, and be forced to retreat immediately. That hurt like hell. She had to end it immediately.  

With a few steps took forward as if to scare him, Cosmo stepped back before grounding himself steadily on his feet. Cosmo lunged and attempted a punch to her face, but just like before, Kisara ducked and grabbed at his knees, trying to wrestle him down - She got her head in a suffocating headlock and Cosmo kicked her feet, making her fall down to the ground. Immediately he got behind her, his arms around her waist, getting her up, holding her so tight that she feared losing her breath altogether. Her nails were digging desperately into his hands, trying to break free in some way - The line was so fucking close, if only she could... If only...

As she was stumbling around on her feet, feeling her vision blur rapidly, she fell to her knees, her forehead planted on the ground with Cosmo still holding her, kneeling just next to her. This was it. It was do or die - Whether she wins or loses, it's in this last move.  With her last strength, from that uncomfortable position, she got up, clawing at his hand so hard that she managed to snap away the grip of his intertwined hands, and grabbing his wrist, she dove under his arm, tripping him forward and throwing the both of them to the ground, rolling with him like two children and making Cosmo touch outside of the ring.

"MATCH OVER! KISARA WIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS!!!"

Cosmo's eyes shot wide open, and he looked down at the bloody grin of the woman underneath him. "Sorry, Cos. It was the only way I could win against you." "I can't believe I forgot about the Ringout. How annoying." despite the disappointment, Cos smiled and offered his hand to help her up. "Five years ago, you ran away from Senpai after getting him to the ground. To think you'd trick me like that - What a Kitsune!" "That's the only thing I'm good at, after all." she chuckled, getting up and hugging the boy.  "You better with this, okay, sis?" they fist bumped, making a promise. "You've got it, Cos!"

She left for the showers and was ready to look for her darling, but for some reason, she found herself returning to the manager. Why, she wasn't quite sure - On the other hand, she knew that multiple rounds were definitely not her thing... Not in fighting, at least. For other things, well - It's not like she's the one doing most of the work to begin with.

By the time she got up the stands, she saw that Koga's uncle, Joji, also joined them in drinking. Those three seemed to be having lots of fun and were getting along well. "Hi, again." she gave a brief wave of her hand, and the trio, as if sharing a single braincell, waved back in unison. Jackie, who was towards the edge, patted the empty seat next to him for the girl to join, before handing her a can of coke. "You fought well. Thought you might need some energy to keep you going." Kisara smiled gratefully at Jackie, sitting next to him and enjoying the cold beverage.  "Thank you, Jackie, you're very sweet. I hope we hang around again someday!" she said. "Somehow, everyone becomes friends with Yamashita Kazuo. It's really cool, right?" Jackie nodded in agreement, handing her a plate of sweets. "Enjoy." "Hey, that's too much! You've already got me so many things, I can't --" but the casual look on his face showed her he wouldn't accept a negative answer, and to leave the formalities. "Fine, fine. I'll treat you to something later then." she said, munching on e pocky stick. Coincidentally, Joji and Jackie did the same thing, at the same time. Were they kindred souls?

She took out her phone, taking a winking selfie with the pocky between her lips and sending it to Ohma, texting him about random things as she listened to the old man telling them that Myers was a serial killer pardoned by Idemitsu from his 3000 year prison sentence. He won over two hundred matches with his physical abilities alone, and just in his third year in Purgatory, did he start learning martial arts. "Oh, come on, I don't want to fight a serial killer. I've had it with that." Kisara groaned, leaning back on her seat. "If I knew Rihito would get the short end of the stick and face off against that guy, I wouldn't have bothered entering the competition." she ruffled her crimson hair, pouting in annoyance. "You seem pretty confident that he's going to win." Jackie pointed out. "Yeah, well - I don't give two cents on Rihito. I firmly believe he's the biggest shame of Kengan." she shrugged, bored, looking at his stupid coat with << I'M A SUPERMAN >> embroidered in the leopard patterned material on his back. "The only reason I entered the tournament was to make sure he doesn't win. I couldn't live with the idea of the biggest loser in the world winning out of sheer, dumb luck." "Fascinating resolve." Jackie looked at her with wide, surprised eyes. "You must mean - Ridiculous. Petty. Stupid." she chuckled playfully. "I know, I know. But what can I do? I guess I was a little bored, that's all." "I don't think that matters. As long as you're having fun and enjoying yourself, I think that's all." Kisara looked at the man and smiled, happy that someone was so understanding of her weirdness. "That's a positive outlook, I love it! Thanks!" she hummed, leaning on the side to clink her coke can to his own beer can.

That Myers guy pumped his muscles up with Indestructible and engaged in a barrage of punches, but nothing he received seemed to affect him. There was no way Rihito's finger slicer were going to affect this though guy, Kisara thought, and the two men next to her were munching aggressively on the chocolate glazed sticks. Rihito seemed to be doing well dodging all hits. He must have realised already that the Indestructible, especially used by a newby, was heavily flawed a technique - The sturdier he was, the more rigid - Rihito was attacking his knees until Myers gave out - And he slashed at his face - Uh, mask - With his Razor's Edge technique, making him bleed heavily, and fall to the ground, needing a medic urgently.

"You canNOT be serious! That was ridiculous!" Kisara groaned, slapping her forehead.  "Look at the bright side. You'll get to defeat him in the semifinal." Jackie pointed out. "Well... Yeah, true, but..." she muttered softly. "But Ohma got a scar from him, you know? It's pretty bad, and it still hurts him, with the change of the weather. I'm a girl, I don't like scars. That guy's a menace to fight." "If you know where to strike, you won't need to worry about that." Jackie said. "You've got a good handle on Aikido and Wushu. Grab his wrist after he tries to slash you and knock him out with a good hit to the face." "Glabella, philtrum and chin." Kisara gasped in realisation, earning a nod from the man. "Jackie, you're a genius! If you're not a fighter already, you should be! You'd be the new star of Kengan!" she grinned, newfound vitality energizing her again. "I'm not that good." he dismissed her claim. "But I'm glad I give off that impression."

Next was Koga's fight against Leonardo Silva, and as expected, Silva lunged first ready for a low grapple, only to miss and get  a hard punch to his face. Instead of stopping him, Silva continued him torso-grapple, throwing him to the ground - Only for him to be forced to let go of the clutch. Good work, Koga. Your Redirection Kata worked wonders. Your hard work and dedication bore fruit, after so long.  Koga tried to punch his with the Ironbreaker, but got redirected, thus had to engage in a rush of hits with his opponent. Parry and counter, parry and counter, until Silva found his hand aching like hell trying to hit Koga's forearm. Once Leonardo stopped countering and began ducking, it was Koga's time to realise that his Adamantine technique expired, and his fist was twitching - He got distracted, allowing himself to get tackled to the ground. The two grappled and wrestled, his head kept in a tight rear naked choke.

The only way for Koga to get out of that hold was to bite down on his arm while breaking it with the Ironbreaker, causing Silva to leap away - His bone was cracked and in agony. Ohma was very proud of his student. Koga used his finisher on Silva before following close behind with a flying knee, and punched his down with Ironbreaker once again.

Koga won.

"He's a wonderful fighter." Jackie said. "That's my nephew. As in, my relative." Joji spoke blankly, while Yamashita was cheering, excited. "You might just be fighting him in the finals if he continued fighting like this." Jackie turned his gaze at Kisara. "I like the confidence you have in me." she teased him. "I wonder if I can beat him. I'm already feeling as if a panzer tank ran me over... Though, I don't think he's doing much better anyway." she chuckled lightly. "Still, he's been training hard every day for the past years. I've just been dancing and traveling." she laughed leisurely. "What's life without some fun, huh?"

As Koga existed the arena, he was met with Ohma who praised his wit and craft, even going as far as to suggest teaching him another move before his match against Ryuki. Hopefully, he won't use it on Kisara though, should they meet in the finals - Though, Ohma has the feeling that his wife could easily defeat Koga, considering she is the most familiar with his Niko style and all the people that helped train the boy. That tricksy little vixen always ended up surprising, one way or another - Though, he was very proud of her ground grappling. His husbandry work was well done. How funny. 

Jackie came over with a whole bag of cans and sweets, wearing the same apathetic look on his face. "Thank you so much, Jackie! You can sure poind these back, can't you?" Yamashita was blushing with glee and a little drunk. "I'm just, how you say... Boozing and Schmoozing, you see?" how could he say that with such a straight face? "Jackie, nobody says that anymore. It's not Hip." Joji informed him seriously. Out of nowhere, Yamashita's other CEO friends, Yoshitake and Ken came over with more booze, just as hammered. "Narushima, that's pretty old-fashioned too! Hey, Kazzy! I brought us some good sake!" Ken chirped. "Oh, my word! Who's that dandy over there~?" Yoshitake flirted with Jackie, most likely. "Kenny! Mr. Yoshitake! Let me introduce you! This guy came all the way from China." Yamashita explained as Jackie bowed to them humbly, telling them his name and everyone started drinking. Only Jackie made sure Kisara had a nice and cold coke to drink, as she had to fight again soon, in the semis. Men and their drinks.

The fight between Ryuki and Adam began soon and Ryuki started swinging in a way similar to that of Agito's Formless stance, and in the blink blink of an eye, he was on the ground, attacking Adam - But unlike his past mindless brawler style from before, he was much better prepared, especially in fighting theory, and he hit with a high stick shot, and many other hits and kicks, even easily managing to evade an eye gouging attempt by throwing himself shoulder-first into Gaoh's pelvis, making him fall down. When Adam tried to kick at his fallen opponent, but Ryuki got in a handstand, kicking him away, getting his ankle caught in a tight grasp and twirling him around like he was a toy, and from the friction with the ground, his back was bleeding heavily. "Ah, damn, I know those moves. That damn Setsuna... No wonder Ryuki's so hell-bent on killing. How frightsome." "You seem to know quite a bit about this." Jackie noted. "Oh, yes, well - I got in quite a scary encounter with the man who taught him these moves, you see. Quite very scary. If it weren't for my husband, I don't know what would have happened. He was rather mentally unstable also." Kisara shuddered softly, remembering that day when Kiryu took her away, saying he wanted to save her or something. "At the end of the day, I'm still a girl, you know? I don't like fighting that much, but I like knowing I am safe even if there's no one protecting me all the time." she smiled softly. "You, men, are something else, you know? Going out of your way to get hurt, and all that, just for some adrenaline rush. It's kinda adorable." "Interesting. You say all that, yet you're going to fight again soon, under the pretext of boredom." Jackie could feel a smile tug at his mouth. "Ah, well - You won't see me fight again. I've had it with tournaments, officially." she declared. "But I can't deny, I like learning all sorts of things. And encouraging my friends. I don't like watching them lose, but I like seeing them win and be happy." "And if they die?" his question rang somber. "Jackie... I don't want to think of death." Kisara shuddered, uncomfortably. "I... My husband died in my arms. I mourned him, almost three years." she spoke softly, looking down with a sad smile. "I thought life ended for me also. Well... In a weird way, I've got someone to thank for saving him. He might be an enemy, but he brought my husband back to me. Xia Ji might be a pathetic rat man who killed hundreds of people, but for that at least, I can thank him." "Xia Ji, huh?" Jackie muttered under his breath. "You heard of him? He looks like a weirdo, and he doesn't take care of his hair. It looks like hay." she chuckled at him. "No, never heard of him." he shrugged carelessly. "At least you are happy." "Yeah, you're right." Kisara smiled at him kindly. "I am happy."

Adam continued to punch and kick Ryuki, easily tanking his hits, and even if they did hit, he wasn't all that shaken up. Adam was so used to Cosmo's speed, Ryuki was in slow-motion for him, hence why it was so easy to predict his moves and kick him to hell, following up with a rush of heavy punches to the face and even a stomp to the belly, and kicked him into rolling to the other side of the ring like a soccer ball again and again. 

Adam didn't beat down a fallen enemy - Instead, he waited until Ryuki stumbled to his feet and tried to block a hit, only for Adam to play with him like a rag doll, slamming him into the ground. When he wasn't looking, Adam got a small Setsuna-like attack on his forearm. The flower of carnage has blossomed, and Ryuki was ready to kill. Ryuki wasn't broken yet - He knew was being beaten to hell meant, he was trained by his grandpa after all, and just like Ohma, he had to almost die, to become this strong and resilient.  The young boy took more and more hits, like a Kamikaze soldier, and before he knew it, Adam's latissimus dormi muscle was completely twisted to hell my Setsuna's Rakshasa's Palm technique - It only left the hockey master lack-luster in his attacks.  Ryuki used his assassin fingers to shrike at Adam's neck, knocking him out - He was in a critical condition and needed emergency care. 

With all the drama from the last fight, the four went down to congratulate Koga on his win, and wish him good luck on the semis - Unfortunately, by the time they arrived, the two friends were in a deep argument, with Ohma hiding behind a wall, motioning for them not to interfere. There was no chance to save Ryuki while he was still under the clutches of Setsuna - Surely, Ohma realised that too, as he comforted the depressed manager.

As soon as Ohma saw Jackie however, he looked weirdly at him. "Have we met?" "No..." Jackie almost seemed to hesitate. "This is my first time talking to you." "I see. Sorry, I must've been mistaken." Ohma shrugged, unbothered. "There are a lot of lookalikes out there." as the old man pointed that out, Kisara felt a weird, uncomfortable pang in her heart, as though there was something odd, not only about Ohma and Ryuki and their cloning, but of the Worms, the Connector and all these coincidences going on. "This is Jackie Lee, Ohma. He's Yamashita Kazuo's and Joji's new friend. He's been getting us drinks and snacks all day. He's really cool!" Kisara skipped to her husband, getting on he tippy toes to steal a kiss, her arms wrapped around his torso. "He even gave me an idea on hos to defeat Rihito without getting injured at all. Girls care about scars, you know?" Ohma nodded, smiling down at his wife. "Glad to hear you're having fun." he said. "The intermission is about done. Isn't it time for your match? Why are you loitering about, you little dumbass bookworm?" "I wanted to see my stupid gym rat for a lucky charm kiss." she smiled innocently at him, before stealing another kiss and rushing towards the prep room to change in her fighting clothes.

"The first match of the Semifinals - The Trickster Kitsune, the Queen of the Kengan Matches, Hasashi Kisara! - Versus, The Superman, Rihito!" Sayaka called out loudly. "And, in the second match, The First Eye, Narushima Koga! - Versus - The Dragon King, Gaoh Ryuki!" she continued, waiting for the chanting and cheering to subside. "All four are powerful fighters, but two will be eliminated! Their chances are half and half! Who will be in, and who will be out?!"

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[zkoh001]

"If you think it is my husband you should fear, you are nothing more than a fool."

Im dubbing this the tigermom au, where Misako had a legit reason to leave Lloyd, and it was to put fear of god in the hearts of destinies writers the moment they hear the Garmadon name. (In the meanwhile getting stuck in a time loop/trap)

Honestly I just feel like she COULD be a really cool character, if her abandoning Lloyd with no fair explanation didn't weigh her down. She pretty effortlessly rizzed both sons of god, and is one of the few non EMs shown doing spinjitzu. Also was quite good at it, if we can believe Wu. Tho I think she could do a bit more sass. (She was sassy like twice, and I live for it. Also sassy Lloyd, but that doesn't belong here)

Here are a few scattered ideas:

° When she hears the prophecy, she realises the only way to save her family is to rewrite destiny. Good thing she knows where to do that

° Using her archeology/history background she begins looking for ways to move amongst realms

° She leaves Lloyd at Darkleys (only for a few weeks, she swears) temporarily. Why Darkleys? Well, he probably would be safer with his father idolized rather than despised (see the movie for example)

° I'm not sure of the deets, maybe Travelers tea or some other method, but she leaves for Cloud Kingdom (or perhaps Time blades shenanigans, but honestly, I want her to punch Fenwicks jaw trough his skull.)

° Not looking for a nice chitchat with the people who broke her family, she wreaks havoc amongst the denizens of CK, looking for two specific scrolls

° Eventually they kick her out with joined efforts, and she returns dejected. The worst she expected was Lloyd starting a Garmadon cult amongst the students, not her son all grown up, hanging out with a bunch of teens in pajamas.

° I want to make her showing up more impactful. I want Wu and the ninja to be surprised, I want her to be devastated when she puts two amd two together (she doesn't know about tomorrows tea, so it seems even worse). I want her to mourn the time lost, but still be determined to make it up somehow.

° Note, that while it's not nearly as bad, she still had the attitude, of fighting her way out of her problems over trying to raise Lloyd into not killing his dad. This could be a character flaw to explore, and it could make Lloyd more drawn to her, since her attitude is quite a bit similar to Kai's

Sidenote, I know that sounds like Maya over again, but it does't need it to be similar really. I like to actually make Ray and Mayas kidnapping make sense, with Krux knocking them out with the tea, kidnapping them, and THEN forcing them to stay with the "I know where your babies live" threat.

So while Maya was kidnapped, Misako would have left willingly, albeit, for longer than she meant to.

But let's get to the mom part shall we?

° Honestly, outside of making Misako more interesting, this is a bit self indulgent, because I think Lloyd should have a healthy outlet, since trauma dumping Akita is not really an option now

° Lloyd would be conflicted, not being able to hate her, but still, she was never there

° "You don't have to forgive me"

"It's okay, you didn't mean to..."

"But it still hurts doesn't it? You can let it out"

° I know, it's harder to manage more characters, but I want her to BE there for her son, also let's scrap Wusako, I wanna make her love Garmadon, to the very end, even if it's tragic.

° She won't leave when going gets tough, and she would offer her own fighting skills to help too

Just some fun extras:

° She showed up to the Monastery after some rumors about demigods living there, to examine the place. The spinjitzu brothers found her, she used some incredibly stupid pickup line with fingerguns, and procedeed to steal both their hearts

° She's got rizz that literally only works on these two.

° The spinjitzu brothers would stare down any EM who dares question her presence, and she fucking knows it.

° Will watch with a shit eating grin as Wu lectures, and Garmadon threatens the poor sap

° Since Maya is the overenthusiastic mom, I will make Misako the bad influence mom, who makes her son do dumb shit kids his age should do (and 100% joins in, cause, whose gonna tell her she can't?)

° Lloyd inherited his grandfathers hair, his father's eyes, and his mom's face.

° I just find it funny if Lloyd showed up to CK, and everyone was hostile/angry towards him. And Lloyd being Lloyd would assume it's about his dad, since it always is. Except not now.

° "YOU! I know who you are! You are that woman's son!"

° "...Yeah, he is my fa- wait, what?"

° "Hey, look, looks like your mom made quite a mess for ya"

° " Which only means even more people hate me so thanks MOM."

° Lloyd is the house cat, if he doses off on you, you are not allowed to get up/disturb him (I like to think it started when he was little, but since he is still the youngest mentally, it stuck). The ninja (and his family) strictly enforce this, even on random visitors who fall under the cat-curse. This is not even really Misako related just Cat Lloyd? Cat Lloyd.

° ... Also, I think he should have a ponytail. (Seriously, that hair would be realistically such a hassle while fighting. Pull that hair back, so you can SEE you dingbat)

Just... I mean, Lloyd and Garmadon are already cat coded according to the fanbase, why not give them a feral wildcat mom/wife? She will hiss at anyone who messes with them, don't worry.

[tobiasdrake]

Alright, we've gathered the keys and have an hour left to go. Where do we go from here?

Okay. So. Before reality was rewritten via whatever the fuck just happened, Yuki coded the "emergency escape program" which will let us set everything back.

I. Feel like. We need to have a group discussion here. Once the choice has been made to use it or not to use it, the program will be erased. Yuki wanted the group to decide for themselves whether to stay in this reality or return to the old.

Obviously Haruhi would want to go back to a world of magic and aliens and shit but. Like. There are very good reasons for why we should let this pass us by.

Remember how we fucking killed Ryoko? Like. She is for realsies dead now. Are we really about to return her to her grave?

Remember Haruhi nearly deleting the universe because she was jealous of Kyon?

Remember when we had to cheat at a baseball game so Haruhi wouldn't destroy the city with closed space?

Remember 15,000 time loops because Haruhi wanted to help Kyon with homework?

What about Mikuru nearly decapitating Kyon with a photon laser?

The old timeline was a horror movie. I mean. Obviously he makes the choice.

We're supposed to want this. We're supposed to want Kyon to go back, I know, but. I. Don't? The only good things that happened in the other timeline were the relationships he had with other people, and he can make those again. Hell, Haruhi's literally gung-ho right this second about reforming SOS Brigade.

I have not heard a compelling argument for why Closed Space and Mikuru Beams and World-Cramping are things we should want for the world we live in. This world is much better for the people who live in it.

And just like that, we're world-cramping again. Here we go. Let's make mistakes.

Never mind. Time travel. Gotcha. I get it. The escape program is a time travel device because Haruhi having met John Smith in this time period proves that these events were insulated from the change in history.

Uh. Somehow.

That doesn't sound like changing history. That sounds more like someone cosmically reshuffled reality, similar to the world-cramping.

Haruhi's awakening was previously described as a massive time-quake. So. Is there another Haruhi out there now?

Guilty look away from Kyon makes it sound like it's Mikuru. Maybe she did something to time so she'd finally be free of Haruhi's torments. Maybe she ate Haruhi or something so she could prove her thesis correct and make Itsuki lose the schism.

That can't be it. If anybody's suspicious here, it's Itsuki. Itsuki ate Haruhi so he didn't have to deal with closed space anymore? I dunno.

I do not buy that for a second.

They're still trying to convince us that the way the show treats Mikuru is Fine Actually because she secretly loves it and is enjoying every moment of it. This is so post-hoc justification it hurts.

Why? Did she eat Haruhi?

Watching this and expecting shadow blades to erupt from her like Pride from Fullmetal Alchemist Mangahood. This is weirdly tense just... knowing that one of us ate Haruhi and we don't know which.

Yuki sitting here wondering how many Kyon-With-Bookmarks she is going to send back to herself at this exact point in time. Her day has been full of Bookmark Kyons. This is the 17th! She is drowning her past in Bookmark Kyons.

She wishes she had someone to complain to but unfortunately she did this to herself.

This is so confusing.

So, on December 18th Present Year, somebody ate Haruhi and then used her powers to begin shifting time starting at some point in the three year interim and taking one year to take full effect.

Gonna say Mikuru is off the suspect list 'cause this is way too complex for her. That leaves either Itsuki the Plot Explainer or Yuki herself, the god-tier robot who understands all the things.

Mmm. Not liking that Past Yuki's been shut out from synchronizing with her future self the way she did in the Tanabata episode proper.

Did Yuki eat Haruhi? Why? I mean, I can believe Yuki eating Haruhi. Yuki's been wanting to study Haruhi's capacity for auto-evolution. She let the time loops fly without making any effort to stop them. She's morally ambiguous. I absolutely believe that Yuki would eat Haruhi.

It's the "using Haruhi's powers to rewrite the universe so none of the Haruhi Stuff ever happened" bit I don't understand. Did she just want to give everyone a happier life or something? We know she has a capacity for sentimental value.

Kyon: That's the restoration program!? Yuki: No. Tetanus shot. To stave off Time Diseases. Kyon: That's not a thing. Mikuru: Oh, no, that's a really big risk of time travel. Have you not been vaccinated? I thought everyone at least got the Time Rabies Shot. Kyon: OKAY WHEN ARE YOU FROM!?

You're really going to tell Kyon and not me. You prick.

What, did Kyon eat Haruhi? I am so mad right now at the selective information-delivery.

For real, though. It's gotta be Yuki. Right?

[mistninja]

do you like reading fantasy? do you like magical swords, wizards and dragons? do you want to get into anime/manga but dont know how? well im a weeb and a fantasy nerd who has nothing better to do so here are some recs ig

Do you like the Cosmere for the convoluted magical systems and the creative ways the magic is used in fights? Watch Jujutsu Kaisen. First season has 24 episodes, there is one prequel movie (good place to start too) and a second season coming soon. You could also read the manga, but I personally think the anime is easier to follow and overall more enjoyable to me (on the other hand, the manga comes with Extensive notes on how the magic works so you might prefer that). Another good show is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (on Netflix, 64 episodes).

Do you like the Cosmere for the interconnected large universe and The Lore(tm)? Get into Fate. You know how Cosmere fans loooove talking about timelines and where to start with the Cosmere? You can do that again with Fate, even more complicated this time! A good place to start would be either Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works or Fate/Zero. Both are on Netflix, UBW has 26 episodes and Zero has 25. You could go straight to the source material, the visual novels, but I haven't played them so I can't talk about them.

Do you like Realm of the Elderlings, or historical fantasy? Watch Vinland Saga. The first season has 24 episodes, second one is currently coming out weekly (close to finishing), and it is on Netflix. Haven't read the manga but it seems to have some really good art. Another option would be (I think) Berserk, but since I haven't read/watched that, I can't really say. SIDENOTE but if you like Black Sails you should also check out Vinland Saga im so serious. BS isnt fantasy but i needed to get that out there.

Do you like The Locked Tomb? This one is quite obvious but watch Revolutionary Girl Utena, it inspired the books *a lot*. It has 39 episodes, a movie and a manga, general consensus is that the manga is not very good so just watch the show. Look up trigger warnings. And you might also want to check out Puella Magi Madoka Magica (the original show has just 12 episodes, theres a lot of extra content but I have not seen/read the rest so i would say its not necessary).

Do you like an epic adventure and a giant world filled with amazing places to explore? Completely unironically you SHOULD read or watch One Piece. Fantasy fans already get into gargantuan book series with thousands of pages what is a thousand episodes to you? I assure you it is worth it. Hunter x Hunter is also good, I can't say much about it because I just started it recently.

More general recs under read more.

Little Witch Academia. Cute fluffy show about teenage witches. Some similarities with The Owl House on Disney.

Witch Hat Atelier. Manga only for now, follows a young girl who gets taken in as a witch's apprentice, has some darker elements.

Re: Zero. Guy from our world gets sent to another world and then dies a bunch of times. Psychological horror in a fantasy setting.

Akatsuki no Yona. Princess goes on an adventure to find legendary dragons and save her kingdom. Some romance.

Vanitas no Carte. Vampires in a steampunk setting. Gay (?)

Black Clover. Basically whatever you think Naruto is about, but shorter and more goofy. Boy with no magic wants to the greatest wizard of all time, gets beefy.

Ghibli movies: Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, Princess Mononoke, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, The Castle in the Sky, The Cat Returns, Spirited Away. These movies are more on the magical realism / low fantasy side.

Noragami. Supernatural. Gods and spirits are real and walk among us, the story follows a god who has no followers and a girl who accidentally becomes half-spirit. Some cool fights. Really great music.

Shadows House. Creepy house where shadow people live, along with their "living dolls".

Dungeon Meshi. Manga with upcoming anime, havent read it but seems like a fun adventure with some horror elements (?) but mostly about cooking and monsters.

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Roses Are Falling

Time for another installment in the Orville Peck Cinematic Universe! (With bonus accompanying art from @littlesmartart for today's Drawtober post!) Our boys go on a few romcom-worthy dates ❤ (and those dates are heavily inspired by these two videos, highly recommend watching those for context ;) )

--//--

As it turns out, Meng Yao’s initial musings on the purpose of the chairs on the front porch had been absolutely correct. Mingjue and Xichen have pushed the chairs close enough to each other for the armrests to function as a surprisingly sturdy seat and Meng Yao sits perched on them tailor-style, Xichen’s hand rubbing gently back and forth between his shoulder blades like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, and around them evening has begun to fall in a pleasant haze of deep violet shadows and a cool breeze is skimming along the fields just enough to make everything feel fresh.

The sun is setting beyond the mountains in a blaze of orange, the undersides of the evening clouds every hue of pink and purple he can imagine stretching for miles and miles up into the unbroken sky overhead. Three forgotten glasses of too-sweet lemonade sit on the wooden planks of the porch, sweating condensation in the evening heat, and Meng Yao’s mouth is still tingling and pink from the kisses they’d traded between them rather than sipping at the drinks.

They sit in comfortable, mutual silence for a long time, longer than Meng Yao can ever remember himself being comfortable with before. There’s always something to say, some way to ingratiate himself, some compliment to give, a question to ask to prove that he’s present and paying attention like he should be…there’s always something to say. But something about his companions, and something about the open silence around them, stays his anxious tongue and he’s shocked to realize he’s relaxed. He doesn’t ever relax, but then again he doesn’t ever have this either. This is still very new less than a week after his and Nie Huaisang’s arrival, but he already sort of feels like maybe it’s not that new after all. It’s far too comfortable to be new, but that’s also absolutely ridiculous so he keeps that thought to himself.

“A-Yao?” Xichen eventually murmurs, too soft to startle, and Meng Yao hums in the back of his throat, a wordless acknowledgement that he’s listening. “Mingjue and I have something we’d like to talk to you about.”

Hm. Alright, well the relaxed atmosphere was nice while it lasted.

Mingjue snorts and reaches up to practically scruff him, gripping the back of his neck in one enormous hand and squeezing (lightly) in a way that has no right to be as grounding as it is.

“I told you not to say it like that, A-Huan, look how tense you made him. No one likes hearing ‘we need to talk’.”

“It’s fine,” Meng Yao protests like he doesn’t desperately need the impromptu slightly-too-rough massage Mingjue is giving him. “What’s up?”

“Well…we really like spending time with you and we were hoping-”

Oh god this is it, the ‘you’re fun and all but when does the sex start?’ talk. Meng Yao has heard it before, more times than he’d like to recount, and his stomach drops with an unpleasant swoop, disappointment already dragging his heart down with it. He’d thought Mingjue and Xichen were different, somehow, but he should have known the men who would ever be interested in him are all the same –

“-that you’d let us take you out on a date or two?”

Meng Yao’s racing thoughts screech to a stop and he blinks at the golden sunset in front of him, uncomprehending.

Dates?

Do…people still do that? Yes of course he knows that people go out for drinks, or to dinner, or maybe the movies, but those are all such blatant preludes to sex that Meng Yao privately doesn’t think they count as dates. Not the way he thinks of dates anyway, outdated as he knows his own secret fantasies seem. And he supposes that Mingjue and Xichen could still mean the former — taking him somewhere to butter him up, making him more likely to give it up to them, wanting his body more than they want him…but his traitorous heart whispers that he still thinks they’re different.

“What kind of date?” he asks, wary, and closes his eyes against the view of the mountains deepening to the deep purple-blue of evening as the red disk of the sun disappears behind them.

Immediately, Xichen replies, “Nothing untoward, I swear,” because he talks like a Jane Austen novel sometimes and Meng Yao finds it painfully charming. “There’s a rodeo coming up in a couple of days a few towns over and I’ll be riding in it, so we thought we’d ask you to come along with us. We’ve also got a place we like to go out dancing sometimes…or anything else you’d like, really…Though I’m sure options here are much more limited than you’re accustomed to in New York.”

Meng Yao turns at the waist to find Xichen smiling up at him, innocently expectant and not at all looking like he’s hoping any of these options will coax Meng Yao into opening his legs for them. He twists a little further to gauge Mingjue’s feelings on the subject but he’s much less easily-read than Xichen’s open friendliness. Still, it’s hard to imagine Mingjue being…pushy, and so far he’s seemed to have little to no expectations, simply accepting whatever affections Meng Yao wants to give him with pleased surprise.

“Yeah,” Meng Yao says, matching Mingjue’s raised eyebrow with one of his own along with a shy smile slowly growing wider. “You can take me out on some dates.”

“Gracious of you,” Mingjue grumbles, teasing sarcasm, and Xichen’s laugh is warmer than the fading sunlight when Meng Yao sticks his tongue out at Mingjue for lack of any better way to retaliate.

--//--

“And hot outta the gate here’s Jackson Walker from Billings hangin’ on for dear life — and it’s lookin’ like he’s got a good sturdy seat there–”

Mingjue takes a long pull off his beer and glances sidelong at A-Yao sitting beside him, further away than he would’ve expected. He doesn’t feel like he had an unfair expectation, either, considering how A-Yao has apparently decided to take up nearly-permanent residence in his lap on the rare occasions Mingjue is actually sitting down for any significant length of time, and he’d sort of (desperately) hoped that the same would prove true now that they actually have hours of free time in which to sit and hang out with each other in the stands of the one of the rodeos A-Huan rides in every summer.

But no, A-Yao’s sitting a solid foot and a half away — his back ramrod straight in a way that no one but a Lan would actually find comfortable — and staring pointedly out at the packed dirt arena like bull riding is the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen, despite the way he winces every time someone gets thrown and chased back to the gates.

“A-Yao,” Mingjue calls over the cheering from the crowd as the run finishes with, he can see from the corner of his eye, a rather spectacular throw at least a good 4 or 5 feet into the air and the announcer hops back onto the crackling loudspeaker to call for another round of applause for the longest ride of the afternoon so far.

“Mhm?”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

Mingjue glances down at A-Yao’s white-knuckled grip on his glass bottle of Coke and would very much like to call bullshit.

“Bullshit.”

When A-Yao turns an affronted look on him he glances down at his hands again more pointedly, his obvious tension a direct opposite of Mingjue’s own much more lax position, leaning back on one elbow propped against the unoccupied riser above them and his boots resting on the equally unoccupied riser just below them.

“If you want to leave we can,” he tells him when A-Yao just shuffles his weight a bit and looks back out at the arena just in time to wince again as the latest rider goes flying off after hardly three seconds on the bull. “We’ve got some friends here too with extra space in their trailers, someone could give A-Huan and Shuoyue a ride back to the ranch.”

“Absolutely not!” Mingjue tries his damndest not to snicker at the sheer offense in A-Yao’s voice. “We’re not leaving Huan-ge here, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then did I do something to piss you off? You were all over me in the truck like an hour ago.”

Granted, it’s not as if his truck leaves much space for A-Yao not to be all over him when sharing the single bench seat with both him and A-Huan, but there’d been a good four or five inches of free space that meant A-Yao hadn’t needed to spend the entire drive tucked up tightly under his arm and letting Mingjue kiss him whenever the mood struck (which was frequently). He’d liked that quite a bit actually, considering that usually when he and A-Huan drive to rodeos his partner is so busy worrying about driving slowly and carefully enough not to spook his ridiculous high-strung beast in the trailer that he doesn’t let Mingjue do anything fun to keep from getting bored. He’d been looking forward to not having to sit through the entire rodeo pretending to be completely entertained just watching that either, which makes the abrupt change in A-Yao’s attitude all the more upsetting.

“No!” Well, at least A-Yao’s protest is quick and vehement enough that Mingjue believes him, though that doesn’t really help with figuring out just why he’s acting so weird then. “Everything’s fine!”

“Don’t make me say you’re bullshitting again, obviously you don’t like it.”

This time A-Yao’s jaw clenches along with his grip on the bottle in his hands and Mingjue wonders if he should stop pushing him. But he’s really not that interested in bull riding and it’s bothering him to sit here knowing A-Yao isn’t having a good time but not knowing what to do to make it right, so if he has to be irritating to get down to the bottom of it then he will be.

A-Yao holds out for another 10 seconds (the announcer is helpfully counting out the latest ride time) before he huffs out an angry sigh and shakes his head. He downs the rest of his Coke like he wishes it was something much stiffer before he turns and brings his legs up to sit tailor-style sideways on the metal bleacher, eyes flinty with determination.

Mingjue freezes with the mouth of his own bottle pressed to his lips and raises his eyebrows, a silent question because he knows already that if he actually says anything then A-Yao will take the excuse to not voice whatever he’s just decided on.

“People are staring.”

Oh. Is that it? Mingjue takes the waiting sip of his beer and glances around to find that’s…sort of true? A few people are looking at them, sure, but it’s not like it matters, and he wouldn’t exactly call it ‘staring’ either. More like glancing, like they’re curious. Mingjue’s pretty damn used to it at least, since his height alone usually makes people do a double-take when he goes somewhere new, and he would’ve thought someone as gorgeous as A-Yao would be pretty used to being looked at, too.

“Okay…so what?”

“What do you mean so what?? Aren’t they…judging?”

Ah.

Mingjue sighs and sits up straighter to set his beer aside with a little clang of glass-on-metal so he can reach over and tug A-Yao closer with one hand on his waist and the other hooked over his knee.

“Wha-Mingjue!”

Mingjue lets go, giving A-Yao more than enough of a chance to slide away again if he wants to, but after a second he settles in, grumbling, and lets Mingjue draw his legs across his lap and tuck him neatly under his arm again like they’d been sitting in the truck. He just fits so nicely there, small and warm and as sharp as he is soft, all pointy elbows and pinching fingers when he’s annoyed and soft kisses when he isn’t. Mingjue likes him enormously.

“I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” Mingjue tells him, muttering it into his hair. “No one here actually cares if you sit next to me. You could straddle my lap and no one would really give a shit.”

A-Yao makes some vague noise of protest in the back of his throat but after a moment he nuzzles closer, hiding his face in the crook of Mingjue’s neck to pause and take a deep breath. Mingjue’s noticed him doing that a lot, the deep breath thing, but he hasn’t really been able to pick up on the pattern of why or when he does it, and it feels like it would be kind of rude to ask. Maybe he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it, and if it’s to help him deal with anxiety or something then having it pointed out would probably just make it worse. (A-Huan, he thinks, would be proud of this evidence of his developing sense of tact.)

“Aren’t people…not in a city kind of…backwards though?” A-Yao finally asks, still hiding, and Mingjue just barely manages not to laugh. It’s a valid question, he tells himself sternly, and A-Yao hasn’t met their queer friend network yet, he has no idea that there’s more of them in the middle of fucking nowhere than anyone not already in the know would suspect.

“Sure, some of them. There are plenty of backwards people in cities too, they’re just more diluted by general population density,” Mingjue says with a shrug that jostles A-Yao enough to make him pinch his arm lightly in warning not to move so much, or maybe not to be quite so flippant. “Yes, fine, there are people here who probably don’t want to see two guys all over each other for whatever bullshit reasoning they have. But who’s going to look at me and decide it’s a good idea to come say that to my face? So long as they don’t make trouble, who gives a fuck? And trust me, no one’s going to want to make trouble for me.”

A-Yao goes extra still for a moment and Mingjue can practically hear the cogs in his head turning as he thinks that through. He has to bite down on another laugh when A-Yao starts essentially petting his chest, running his fingertips idly over the curve of his pec and down to his abs, though he at least has the good sense not to lift up the hem of his t-shirt to do it. (Not that there’d be much to see, in Mingjue’s opinion, since his body’s built for work not for show, but A-Huan likes it anyway and he doesn’t think A-Yao would exactly be opposed either.)

“You know, you make an excellent point, ge,” A-Yao finally says and Mingjue loses the battle with his laughter, though he does at least muffle it behind his fist and attempt to turn it into a cough halfway through, with dubious success.

“So are you going to stop sitting over there like someone’s going to run up here and demand we leave room for Jesus between us?”

A-Yao leans back to wrinkle his nose at him, dark brows scrunched down in obvious distaste and this time Mingjue laughs for real, a deep belly laugh that turns more heads for a brief moment than anything else about their presence has yet.

“What, isn’t that what you’re so afraid of? I promise to keep you safe from the bible thumpers and the backwards idiots, alright?”

“Not in those words specifically, ugh,” A-Yao grumbles as he makes a little show out of standing up and brushing himself off, settling his clothes to rights before he puts his hands on his hips and, imperiously, adds, “So how do you want me to sit with you then, Mingjue?”

Mingjue grins up at him, completely charmed by his put-on huffy little attitude. “I thought you’d never ask.”

A-Yao submits to being manhandled (gently) where Mingjue wants him with lots of grumbling Mingjue doesn’t buy for a second. Once he’s got A-Yao sitting on the riser in front of him between his feet, he coaxes him into leaning back and resting against his chest so Mingjue can wrap his arms around him and prop his chin on top of his head; A-Yao relaxes almost instantly, which Mingjue is pretty sure he’ll be feeling smug about for at least the next two days. A-Yao leans back without an ounce of hesitation and rests his weight against Mingjue with a little sigh so Mingjue rewards him with a few slow kisses to the top of his head and a tight, squeezing hug.

“Well this position has at least one benefit — no one can even see me past your stupid biceps anyway.”

Mingjue snickers and pops his feet up onto the metal bleacher on either side of A-Yao’s knees, completely boxing him in as he curls over him to kiss his cheek instead. “You know, I always want to sit like this with A-Huan but he’s too lanky to fit up against me like this. You’re so conveniently pocket-sized – hey!”

A-Yao laughs, a little vindictive but mostly just happy, as Mingjue reaches across him to rub at the brand new pinched-red spot on his arm.

“Don’t be rude, Mingjue, don’t you want to make a good impression on a first date? And no, the party doesn’t count.”

“Are you not having fun?” Mingjue teases back, only it’s a bit too sincere to really come across as teasing. A-Yao doesn’t reply immediately, but when he does he’s definitely also too sincere to be teasing anymore.

“I am. I’m having a really good time.”

“Folks, let’s hear another big round of applause for all our daring riders this afternoon; we’ll be back in 20 minutes for barrels, you won’t wanna miss it! During the break don’t forget to check out a couple’a today’s generous local sponsors, Big Papa’s BBQ and—“

--//--

As per Xichen’s insistence, they wait to celebrate his rodeo victory until they have another free evening the following week to head out for a bit of drinking and dancing at a spot he and Mingjue swear Meng Yao will like. Meng Yao — who had thoroughly enjoyed watching the incredibly fast and skillful maneuvering of man and beast together at the rodeo — has already given Xichen many, many rewards beyond his blue ribbon and doesn’t quite understand why they have to go dancing to continue to celebrate, but he’s already learning that Mingjue is incapable of saying no to anyone he likes, so here they are.

Meng Yao hops down out of the truck after Xichen and looks somewhat dubiously up at the bar they’ve wound up at, very creatively named ‘Bar’ in red neon letters haphazardly attached to the front of what could very easily just be a barn. Perhaps even a shack, if he’s being uncharitable.

Mingjue’s already loping towards it, enormous ground-eating strides that’s just how he walks because he’s a fucking giant who exclusively surrounds himself with other giants and therefore expects everyone to be able to cover the same distance; so far Meng Yao has thoroughly enjoyed the way he gets kind of embarrassed when he gets where he’s going alone and only realizes his mistake when he looks around and can’t find Meng Yao at his side anymore.

Mingjue reaches the door just as Xichen presses a hand to the small of Meng Yao’s back to gently usher him forward, and — yep, there it is, a brief little apologetic grimace and a slight reddening of Mingjue’s cheeks when he swings the door open for the pair of them still a good handful of yards away.

“Eager?” Meng Yao teases him and earns himself an eye roll that would put some of Huaisang’s best ones to shame (which rather neatly answers the question of who he’d learned them from once upon a time).

“Don’t sass me, A-Yao, or I’ll step on your feet once I get you out on the floor,” Mingjue grumbles, good-natured under the gruff rasp in his voice, and if Meng Yao were in any doubt as to whether or not he was teasing then Xichen’s warm chuckle from behind him would clue him in.

“Be nice to him, ge, or he may not dance with us at all.”

Despite his misgivings, the interior of the bar is…fine. It’s cleaner than he’d expected it to be anyway, and he’s just going to pretend he doesn’t see mounted animal heads up near the ceiling in a couple of corners not otherwise plastered in old beer or tobacco ads, tastefully interspersed with the occasional poster of a scantily clad woman that may or may not have been ripped out of a vintage Playboy once upon a time. It screams ‘Man Cave’ in a way Meng Yao has never had the opportunity to fully appreciate before, and his misgivings go approximately nowhere fast. Forget the potential for unpleasant confrontation at the rodeo — if anyone’s going to sneer at them for being queer it’ll be in a pit of sweaty, stale machismo like this.

“Just trust us, come on,” Mingjue ducks down to mutter in his ear on his way past them to head for the bar. Xichen’s hand on his back slides down so he can link their fingers together instead, and when Meng Yao looks up at him he finds the other man already smiling down at him a little dopily, like he can’t believe Meng Yao is actually standing right there with him.

“Did I tell you you look lovely this evening?” Xichen asks him eventually and Meng Yao has to bite the inside of his lip hard to keep from snorting. He had not, in fact, said that, but it’s not like it’s the kind of compliment Meng Yao had been expecting, either. It’s sweet, though, and laughing at him would be rude, especially since it’s kind of giving him butterflies to be watched with such clear adoration.

“You didn’t. Thank you,” he manages and Xichen’s smile somehow grows just a shade brighter.

“A-Huan, A-Yao, get over here,” Mingjue calls over the general chatter from the other patrons; the bar’s not particularly crowded by Meng Yao’s New Yorker standards but it’s not deserted either; a fairly healthy population for a Thursday night in a town with no more than two decent hang-out spots, Meng Yao would think. He lets Xichen tow him between the tables to the actual bar and he hops up on a stool next to where Mingjue’s leaning so hard against the countertop he’s practically all the way over it, like he knows exactly how good it makes his ass look in his work-worn jeans.

“Hey Lily! Come over here and meet our new boyfriend!” he calls to the bartender just finishing up sliding a beer to a guy who openly ogles her up and down in clear appreciation. Meng Yao starts a little at being referred to as anyone’s boyfriend when they haven’t exactly had that conversation yet, but he’s not opposed so he doesn’t bother to correct Mingjue (though he also doesn’t stop Xichen from swatting his partner on the back of the head with a hissed, “Ge, I said we have to talk to him about that first!”).

“New boyfriend, huh? How on earth did a cute little thing like him get mixed up with you two?” the bartender asks, leaning over the bar close enough that Meng Yao can smell her perfume and the faint sugar of her pink bubblegum even over the general miasma of beer and hay dust and stale sweat poorly masked by cheap cologne. He’s too busy cataloging all of that and attempting to come up with an answer to her question to immediately notice the pins all over her denim vest, but when he really looks at her his properly huffy reply dies in his throat.

“Told you there’s more of us out here than you think,” Mingjue mutters to him out of the corner of his mouth. “Yes darling, I see your point,” Meng Yao replies, still staring at the sheer volume of enamel pins and old round plastic buttons so densely coating the front of Lily’s vest that there’s hardly any denim to be seen. To be fair, he’s more than a little surprised to find that every single one of them is a pride flag or a vintage queer pride slogan (though he certainly notices that more of them are trans-themed than anything else). 

Xichen leans across the bar to kiss Lily once on each cheek, saving Meng Yao a bit of face for an extra moment at least. “Hello sweetheart, good to see you. He got mixed up with us the same way good things always happen to Mingjue — his brother packaged him up all pretty with a bow and brought him right to our doorstep.” 

Meng Yao finally snaps out of it and looks Lily in the face only to sheepishly realize that she’s snickering at him, her arms crossed over her ample chest and her hot pink lips pursed like she’s trying not to laugh outright.

“No no honey, I paid good money for those, you look all you want. And I don’t mean the pins.”

Meng Yao is pretty sure he blushes up to the roots of his hair. He definitely had not been staring at Lily’s chest (not like that) but there’s no way to refute it now without sounding incredibly guilty. She takes mercy on him though, finally giving into her laughter properly with a wave of her hand to stop his apology before he can even figure out how to voice it.

“Stop, stop, I’m teasing!” Lily chuckles with a little flutter of both hands as she dutifully turns to his companions to say, with a slightly rehearsed air, “Hi Huan, hi Mingjue. Am I gonna have to get coached on how to say your new boyfriend’s name too?”

He cuts in finally before either of the other two can to tell her, “It’s Yao.”

“Oh hey nice, that one’s easy!” Lily laughs as she starts pulling a Heineken from the tap. “Well it’s nice to meet you, Yao, but you still haven’t answered my question yourself. What’s a pretty thing like you doing with these meatheads?”

“I take offense to that,” Mingjue retorts and takes the glass Lily passes to him, raising it briefly in a toast enthusiastic enough that he sloshes a trickle of foam over the rim. “Just because I raise meat doesn’t mean that I am meat.”

“Baby, do me a favor and take a good look in a mirror next time you get naked then get back to me on that one. You’re barely one step above your herd and trust me, I know men. You’re the beefiest beefcake I know, and I’ve got a couple cows of my own for comparison.”

“Lily’s owned and run the Bar for about 20 years,” Xichen stage-whispers to Meng Yao with a conspiratorial smile. “She takes absolutely no shit, and ge loves her.”

“I take offense to that, too,” Mingjue huffs, kicking half-heartedly at Xichen’s shin. “Just order your drink already, we came here to dance.”

“Meatheads, I told you,” Lily leans over to say to Meng Yao with a wink and a bubblegum pink smile. “They won’t dance until they’ve both had at least one beer. You need some liquid courage, too?”

Meng Yao raises an eyebrow at his…boyfriends(????) and leans his elbow on the bar to clearly draw a line in the sand, himself and Lily in cahoots on one side, Xichen and Mingjue on the other.

“Do you really have to drink to loosen up just to dance?” he asks (like a hypocrite, because he will absolutely be needing a cocktail).

Surprisingly it’s Mingjue who shakes his head. “Not me really, just this one,” he says with a jerk of his thumb at Lan Xichen still waiting patiently for the beer Lily hasn’t pulled yet. “He’s all…Lan-ish until he has some alcohol, and then he’ll let me have a few turns.”

“Scandalous,” Lily fake-gasps, pressing a hand to her chest with the clatter of her extensive collection of plastic costume bracelets. “Mingjue this is a family establishment, talk about your turns out back with the rest of the degenerates.”

“Oh cut the bullshit, Lily,” Mingjue grumbles; Lily just laughs as she pushes up off the bar top again to start working on Xichen’s beer with deft hands, a few rings flashing in the neon lights of a few of the more elaborate beer ads lining the walls.

“This is usually the part where she makes fun of Mingjue for the things we like to get up to out behind the bar,” Xichen says and side-steps Mingjue’s next kick aimed for his shin rather neatly. “They’re far from family appropriate.”

“Degenerates,” Lily whoops with a cackling laugh, turning a few heads nearby and making Meng Yao suddenly wish to melt into the floor. The last thing he wants is attention from the rest of the bar, he just wants to hang out with his…boyfriends(!!!!).

Mingjue grumbles something inarticulate into his beer but he’s grinning around the next sip and Xichen looks like the cat that ate the canary, so really..it might not be so bad, a bit of teasing. Not when it makes them so happy.

Lily finishes serving their first round with a Manhattan for Meng Yao and then waves them off to find a place to sit while she moves on to the next customer. Meng Yao trails behind Mingjue and Xichen to a corner booth under a burnt-out lamp, the spot dim and inviting even as it offers a perfect view of the only-slightly-better-lit dance floor. Meng Yao settles in, happily tucked up right against Xichen’s side to sip at his drink and enjoy the weight of his arm wrapped snugly over his shoulders.

Mingjue settles in across from them with what is definitely a dad noise that Meng Yao very sweetly does not point out to him. Around another sip of his rapidly-disappearing beer he asks, “Alright — do we really need to have the label talk? We’re, y’know…us, and A-Yao can be whatever he wants. It’s not really worth a whole discussion, is it?”

“Well love that’s really up to A-Yao, don’t you think?” Xichen chides, sounding fondly exasperated. “You can’t just spring being our boyfriend on him like that, maybe he doesn’t even want to be our boyfriend.”

“I do,” Meng Yao cuts in before Mingjue can continue to argue. He feels his neck heat under the press of Xichen’s arm but he forces himself not to hide behind his drink and instead face Mingjue’s frank gaze head-on. “I want to be your boyfriend, if that’s what you want to call me. But I have a condition.”

“Alright,” Mingjue offers as he leans back against the cushion of his booth, gesturing with his glass for Meng Yao to continue. “What’s your condition, A-Yao?”

Demanding that they wait to have sex until he’s ready (if he ever is) feels…silly, considering it hasn’t been an issue at all so far. A niggling little voice at the back of his head is trying to tell him that he should set that boundary now anyway, that plenty of people think that a change in labels or relationship definition means that certain things are now on the table when they weren’t before, but…he’s pretty sure Mingjue and Xichen don’t even have sex together as often as one might assume, just the two of them. Bringing it up now feels…presumptuous.

Instead, he clears his throat and sits up straight, taking an extra moment to put himself in visible order as if gearing up for something deeply important. Nie Mingjue raises an eyebrow at him and takes a long pull that nearly drains his beer without breaking eye contact, practically daring Meng Yao to say whatever it is.

“My condition is this: one of you needs to teach me how to ride a horse. If we’re going to fully embrace this utterly ridiculous romcom situation that A-Sang has dumped us into then we are going to do it right.”

Meng Yao takes a pleased sip of his cocktail as both Mingjue and Xichen burst into laughter, the pair of them sounding startled and delighted in equal measure.

“Well I think that’s something we can make happen,” Mingjue eventually chuckles. “It’ll have to be Xichen though, I’ve got a new batch of guys coming in to help me with a roundup this upcoming week and they’re almost more trouble than they’re worth if you don’t keep them busy, but Xichen’s not tough enough to ride them hard like they need.”

Meng Yao blinks and tries desperately not to make an innuendo when Mingjue is so clearly talking about work. He doesn’t have to though; Xichen snorts into his glass and clears his throat a few times like it’ll hide that he’s trying not to laugh. Mingjue grins because he’s an asshole who knows exactly what he’s done, and Meng Yao thinks maybe romcoms aren’t so bad, actually. Maybe they kind of know what they’re talking about. Every once in a while.

Xichen and Mingjue finish sipping on their beers slowly, seemingly content to hang out and chat about anything and nothing, and Meng Yao is as surprised as ever by how comfortable it is to be with them like this. Sure they’re busy, he won’t deny that; the ranch is hard work that wakes them before dawn and keeps them going until sunset most days. But there’s just something about the ranch, this town, this place that makes it all feel much less urgent than the type of ‘busy’ Meng Yao is used to. It’s tough to put into words, but despite their schedules it feels like life overall simply moves slower here, with them. He’s not only allowed to slow down to match but expected to, to fit into the rhythms of, for lack of a better way to put it, the earth itself, rather than the hectic man-made pace of home.

He hadn’t really known that was an option, before now. He hadn’t known how much he would crave it, either, until he was presented with the possibility.

“Alright, you’ve had your beer,” Mingjue says as Xichen drains the last sip. “Whatever the next song is, you’re dancing to it. No matter what.”

“Those are the rules,” Xichen agrees sagely. Meng Yao smirks and tips his head to the side when, immediately after, Xichen ducks in to pepper his cheek and neck in swift little kisses, punctuating them with a nuzzle of the tip of his nose against his ear and a hand creeping up to stroke at Meng Yao’s opposite ear.

“Sorry, he’s a handsy drunk,” Mingjue sighs as he tries to kick Xichen’s feet under the table.

“Is he drunk? He had a beer,” Meng Yao laughs.

“Oh yeah, that’s all it takes. Gotta love that he’s a cheap date, though. Xichen c’mon, get up. This song’s almost over.”

Meng Yao turns his head to give Xichen a conciliatory kiss when he mumble-whines, “But a-Jue!” and then he can’t help but give him another when he pulls back to pout, ever so slightly.

“Go on, you promised him,” Meng Yao tuts with a gentle push against Xichen’s chest. His boyfriend goes easily, grumbling good-naturedly but smiling a bit as he does it. He’s loose-limbed when he clambers to his feet but not swaying where he stands; that doesn’t stop Mingjue from curling both hands around his trim waist to hold him up though, and Meng Yao certainly can’t fault him for being such a clever opportunist.

As predicted, the song currently pumping through the speakers comes to an end with a too-twangy strum of guitar, and in the pause between it and the next Mingjue and Xichen make their way to the edge of the dance floor currently playing host to just a few other people, an older couple and, at its fringes, a group of people chatting and laughing, doing nothing so much as just horsing around.

Meng Yao doesn’t spare anyone else more than a glance; Mingjue and Xichen look good together in the combination of yellow lamplight and the glow off the neon signs around the walls that end up turning the space some indeterminate shade of purple. Mingjue’s ass looks incredible in his tight jeans, Xichen looks as polished as ever in his usual sort of outfit topped with what he dubbed his ‘fancy’ hat — a white Stetson that Meng Yao is pretty sure looks nearly identical to the hat he wears for working on the ranch, but far be it from him to question.

Meng Yao would not, in any universe, claim to be a connoisseur of country music. But he thinks that anyone would recognize Shania Twain, and he bursts into laughter behind his hand as the next song starts with a very distinctive horn riff and a sultry, “Let’s go girls~” that Meng Yao swears he sees Mingjue mouth to Xichen around his own laughter.

Xichen leads. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise him, but it does, and Meng Yao feels something he can’t define at the moment clench in his chest as he watches Xichen grin while he guides Mingjue into spins and dips that feel almost like swing dancing more than anything else in between the smooth back-and-forth circling of their feet, boots shuffling easily across the polished wood floor around and around, always in time, and always in sync.

“Those boys are really somethin’ else,” someone says at his elbow, and when Meng Yao tears his gaze away from his boyfriends just long enough to glance up it’s to find Lily standing beside the table, a tray of empty glasses on her palm and her elbow resting on her hip to relieve the weight of it. She isn’t looking at him but rather out at the dance floor, where Mingjue is lifting Xichen’s hand to his mouth for a quick kiss to his knuckles in the instant before Xichen spins him again, back to front, to hold his hands out to the sides. They stay there just long enough for Xichen to tuck up behind Mingjue’s back and kiss his shoulder before they spin away from each other again connected only by the curl of their fingers around each other’s, smiling all the while.

“They’re wonderful,” Meng Yao says like it’s a secret, bashful and a little afraid that saying it aloud will jinx it, that if he acknowledges how happy he is some cosmic force will take it all away from him again.

“Yeah I’ll bet they are, hon. Two of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, I can tell you that. I’d say you’ve gotten pretty lucky gettin’ their attention, and I can also tell you they don’t just bring anyone around to my bar. If I know them at all then I know they’re pretty damn into you.” She sighs a little and blows a bubble, gum popping as Mingjue finishes a little body roll against Xichen’s front that’s just suggestive enough to make Xichen swat at him with a laugh to coax him into another quick spin that he ends with dipping him again. “You want another drink, sweetheart? Someone looks a little ~thirsty~”

Meng Yao laughs at the familiar flavor of teasing (something tells him Lily and Huaisang get on like a house on fire) and accepts, asking for another Manhattan; he’ll need to loosen up a bit more if they’re expecting him to dance like that, considering he has no idea how to swing dance at all and certainly not in the way they’re doing it. (That being said, it’s not like he’s at all opposed to being taught by large, warm hands on his waist and kisses for rewards when he gets it right.) 

Xichen reels Mingjue in one last time as the song draws to a close (“I feel like a wo-man!” He can hear Mingjue singing along from here, loudly enough that he must be doing it to embarrass Xichen, who promptly laughs and covers his face with both hands now that he doesn’t need them to guide Mingjue around the floor). Four minutes was not nearly long enough, in Meng Yao’s completely unbiased opinion, but at least it means that his boyfriends are flushed with pleasure and perhaps a little giddy when they come back to him, which in turn means he’s treated to enthusiastic kisses from both of them before they settle again for the next round of drinks Lily brings to the table.

She plunks down a stack of quarters next to the tray with a wink; “You boys wanna control the jukebox for a while?”

Mingjue leans in so sharply to slap his hand down over the quarters that Meng Yao jumps a little — a necessary intervention at just the right speed, judging by the way Xichen’s palm slaps down over his a millisecond later.

“I would love it, thank you, Lily,” Mingjue says with a shark-like grin; Xichen groans and slumps back, defeated. In consolation, Meng Yao doesn’t bother resisting the urge to lean up and kiss Xichen’s cheek, still pink with exertion and embarrassment and/or a little hint of an alcohol-flush.

“You’re going to play more Shania Twain, aren’t you?”

“That’s between me and the jukebox, my A-Huan,” Mingjue says through another certified Dad Noise™ as he stands again to scoop up the quarters and trundle off towards the front door, where from here Meng Yao can just barely see the pink neon strip that frames the jukebox.

“He never used to be like this, you know,” Xichen leans in to tell him (and, naturally, to kiss him on the cheek, but that’s really just par for the course by this point).

Meng Yao smirks a bit and leans into the kisses, as expected, and teases, “Like what? A menace?”

“Mn. For a few years I nearly forgot how happy he could be; he spent a long time angry and miserable, it’s always nice to see him having a good time these days.”

Oh. Well that’s just…more emotional than Meng Yao had expected. The squeezing in his chest comes back tenfold and this time, no longer distracted by watching his boyfriends goofing off, he can properly identify it as want. Not necessarily in a physical way, either; he just wants to be part of this, part of them. He wants to know them in every way, he wants to keep seeing Mingjue laugh, and he wants to learn what embarrasses Xichen so he can do it too, and he wants them to know him, despite the fact that the thought of being known (being seen) is also mildly terrifying.

He just wants to be near them, that’s all. He wants to be allowed in their life.

“Xichen, A-Yao, get up! Your turn next!”

Meng Yao has approximately half a second to panic before Xichen is hauling him to his feet, maudlin mood apparently forgotten as quickly as it had descended in favor of excitement. He doesn’t resist as he’s towed to the dance floor (gently) by the hand, and he at least breathes a little sigh of relief when Mingjue adds, “It’s a slow one, A-Huan.”

This is apparently important, as Xichen says, “Ah!” with a happy sort of realization and readjusts their stance and the grip he has on Meng Yao’s hand easily into something that wouldn’t be out of place at a high school prom. Or at least that’s what it feels like until the song (that’s definitely not Shania Twain, he thinks) starts with some gentle steel guitar and the soft rasp of a brush on a drum keeping easy time. On some instinct he would have never guessed he had, Meng Yao steps further into Xichen’s space to rest his head on his chest and fits himself into the long, lean lines of him with ease.

Xichen curls around him, right hand in the small of his back and the left cradling Meng Yao’s hand between their chests as he starts to gently lead Meng Yao into a simple rotation, hardly more than swaying in time. Xichen’s chest vibrates a little against Meng Yao’s cheek as he starts humming along with the singing when it starts, his voice just as rich, just as warm as the man’s voice crackling a little through the speakers overhead.

Meng Yao is sure his face is on fire, but at least like this it’s perfectly acceptable for him to bury it in Lan Xichen’s chest to hide from everyone for a little bit so he can appreciate these few minutes properly. Xichen just slides his hand up the length of his back to cup against the back of his head instead, holding him right where he is so he can press kisses to his temple, each one a delicate little pause in his humming.

The song isn’t long, a mere few minutes of listening to Xichen’s steady heartbeat and his soft bass hum, and as it trails off with a slow steel guitar riff Xichen brings them to a drifting stop. They linger there in the hush between songs, just breathing through Meng Yao feeling like Xichen’s hands on him are the only reason his feet are still on the floor, but of course it can’t last forever.

The next song starts and though he doesn’t recognize this one, Meng Yao knows within the first few words that it is, as threatened, another Shania Twain song. Xichen’s exasperated, “Mingjue!” would be a clear enough sign even if he didn’t recognize her voice, and before he can even start laughing Xichen is whisked away by Mingjue’s hands on his waist for another round of quick-footed turns and what can only be called (oddly graceful) goofing around.

“Don’t laugh at us,” Mingjue shouts over the music, “You’re next!”

Meng Yao has more than half a mind to ask Lily if he can just hide with her behind the bar instead, flex his old bartending muscles from years ago, pretend that he has no idea who Mingjue is while he’s apparently on a warpath.

But…it looks fun, what they do. He’d like to learn how, and if the only way to do that is to allow his boyfriend to embarrass him a little then, well, that seems like a trade-off he can probably handle. He very graciously lets Mingjue take him by the hand when his and Xichen’s song finishes and the next is even faster, but all that means is that Meng Yao gets lost instantly in the sheer joy of letting Mingjue guide him, laughing, into what he’s pretty sure is truly swing dancing with the way he’s getting tossed around.

“You’re a natural, A-Yao,” Xichen tells him when Meng Yao gets passed to him for the next round, and Meng Yao rides the high of that simple praise for the rest of the night, well after they’ve gotten back to the ranch and parted ways to go to their beds, flushed and happy.

--//--

‘Take A-Yao to the Roadhouse,’ Huaisang had said.

‘Oh that’s a great idea, that’ll be fun,’ Mingjue had said.

Xichen, currently sitting alone at a little table for three, doesn’t know whether to thank his partner and his didi-in-law or to shake them down for answers as to why they think this was an acceptable torture to visit upon him.

As if teaching A-Yao how to ride a horse hasn’t been inciting enough.

As if his easy competence in anything he does and his sly smiles and his enormous eyes aren’t all inciting enough–!

Xichen clenches both hands into fists on his knees, feet planted properly on the floor and his back ramrod straight in a way that even his uncle’s high standards would likely find no fault with, because that is the only way he can possibly resist making a Scene in the middle of one of his and Mingjue’s favorite date spots when they want to get out of town.

It’s a nice place. The staff are good people; a lot of them have worked for Mingjue at some point over the last few years during roundups for some extra cash, and the ones who have are always happy to see them in. It’s pretty clean, as far as these things go, and the bartenders all know how to make really nice mocktails for when Xichen doesn’t want to end up crying on (and/or groping) his partners in public.

Oh and there’s a mechanical bull. That fun fact is, in fact, a vital part of why Xichen is more than a little conflicted about the possible motives behind Mingjue and Huaisang deciding this date night was such a great idea.

Of course Mingjue is on the bull. There’s no question about that. He doesn’t ever want to do it for real, and Xichen wouldn’t allow him to anyway considering the whole point of living out here is to, well, live, rather than dying young of a heart attack (or getting trampled to death, potato po-tah-to), but a mechanical bull? He’d be hard-pressed to keep Mingjue away from it. That part’s fine. That part he can (mostly) handle.

What he absolutely cannot handle is that not only is Mingjue on the bull, but so is A-Yao. Sweet, delicate little A-Yao who’s been showing him all week long just how good his balance is, his incredibly advanced body-control, his flexibility, and just how naturally he adjusts to communicating with a horse using little more than readjustments of his weight and delicate pressure from his knees and heels in the exact ways Xichen has been teaching him. He is, as with everything Xichen has personally seen him try, a natural at horseback riding.

He is also, apparently, a natural at mechanical-bull-and-boyfriend riding. Simultaneously. At the same fucking time. Because Mingjue had so cheerfully suggested, “A-Yao come up there with me, yeah? Just for the first one to get used to it, I won’t let you fall off.”

A-Yao had smiled that sweetly evil little knowing smile up at him and said, in honeyed tones so thick it’s a shock Mingjue hadn’t picked up on the fact that he was being deeply ridiculed, said, “Oh of course — thank you, da-ge.” Because he’s a menace and a tease and Xichen likes him so much.

Naturally Xichen knows, as A-Yao’s riding tutor every day this past week and a half or so, that it would take more than an easy ride on a mechanical bull to unseat him. Still, in the interest of only adding to his own misery — because he might as well, they’re already here — he’d kept silent and just shared a conspiratorial look with A-Yao as he’d shrugged out of his jacket to leave draped over the back of his chair before trailing after Mingjue and doing an admirable job of looking a little lost so Mingjue would put his hands all over him.

Xichen can respect that.

Finally though they’d settled on the damn thing and in the moments before the ride started, judging by the look on Mingjue’s face, Xichen thinks he had realized his first mistake which was, to wit: forgetting for just long enough to see A-Yao settled in straddling his lap that they both find him devastatingly attractive.

For A-Yao’s first go, Xichen is certain Mingjue programmed the machine to its easiest setting. It started off with a gentle rocking, a simple back and forth, and Xichen had watched in real time as Mingjue realized his second mistake which was, to wit: underestimating how skillfully their boyfriend can wield his good looks and their mutual infatuation with him for his own amusement.

But it had been too late to turn back, and so now here Xichen sits, watching A-Yao deepen the rolling of his hips to grind against Mingjue’s lap in time with the slow, deep rocks of the machinery underneath them. There’s a rope overhead to grab for stability (he assumes), but A-Yao uses it like a damn pole, one hand over his head to grip the knot at the bottom tightly and use it to pull himself upright as the other hand runs up the length of Mingjue’s chest to coax him into leaning back from where he’s curled over to bury his face in his neck and instead give A-Yao more room to work.

With fumbling fingers, Xichen finally pulls himself together enough to get his phone out of his pocket in the interest of recording this for posterity and potential spank bank material later on down the line, and he’s so glad he hits record when he does. Within moments, A-Yao smirks down at Mingjue lying nearly flat against the bull and steals the Stetson right off his head to put it on himself with an obscene arch of his back, an extra-slow roll of his hips, and Xichen swallows. Hard. (He’d just known that letting Mingjue borrow his nice hat for the night would pay off somehow. He’d just had a feeling.)

Who could possibly blame Mingjue for grabbing A-Yao’s ass with both hands as soon as he’s recovered from that devastating attack? Xichen can see how hard he’s gripping him from here, the muscles in his forearms sharply defined as he gropes at their boyfriend who looks more than happy to play along for as long as Mingjue wants to feel him up.

The mechanical bull slows to a stop before they can take things any further and A-Yao slows down with it until he simply leans down to kiss Mingjue, holding the hat on until he sits back upright and takes it off to return it to Mingjue with a deceptively sweet smile.

Xichen stops the recording and, before he can think better of it, fires it off in a text to Huaisang with the simple caption: This is the most homoerotic thing that’s ever happened to me.

A minute or two passes in which Xichen watches Mingjue help A-Yao down off the bull with his hands curled almost entirely around his waist and the pair of them do something he can’t see safely hidden behind the bulk of the machine (though whatever it is leaves A-Yao flushed and smiling and a little rumpled around the edges when they step back around to come back to the table, and he has a pretty good guess as to what it could be). A-Yao sits down as Xichen’s phone buzzes in his hand, and within seconds of each other, Huaisang replies with a string of cry-laughing emojis, an incomprehensible jumble of letters Xichen is pretty sure is called a keysmash, and lastly, in all caps: YOU’RE SO WELCOME ER-GE!

Xichen pockets his phone again without answering in favor of leaning around the curve of the table to pull A-Yao in for a kiss deep enough that their friends behind the bar wolf-whistle; Xichen’s just glad they arrived early enough that no other patrons have come in yet, and he can get a little needy without worrying that A-Yao’s going to be made uncomfortable by how little Xichen cares about having an audience.

A-Yao humors him, kissing him as thoroughly as Xichen could possibly hope to receive in public, but there’s a familiar itching under his skin even when he allows A-Yao to pull away that he doesn’t think he’ll be able to take care of in public; certainly not without causing a scene, anyway. Mingjue must be able to tell, at least, as he reaches over wordlessly to slide a hand over his thigh and squeeze, a silent promise. He’s been more exhausted than usual this last little while and honestly Xichen has too, and it’s not as if their sex life is exactly an every day sort of affair anyway…but it’s been a while since they’ve done more than some casual making out in their shared bed. They haven’t had sex at all since A-Yao and Huaisang arrived, and if he’s remembering correctly their most recent time had been at least a few days if not a week before that, and, well. Sometimes he finds that what he can do on his own in the shower or next to Mingjue while he either watches or sleeps just isn’t quite enough to tide him over indefinitely.

Mingjue gives him a Look that promises at least a few hours later tonight spent making sure he’s taken care of, and that’s good enough for now.

“Is now the right time to tell you that A-Yao’s riding lessons are going extremely well?” he asks into the relative silence with an innocent smile. Mingjue switches abruptly from squeezing his thigh to swatting at him instead as A-Yao bursts into sparkling laughter poorly hidden behind one hand.

“You fucker — you knew he’d get up there and be totally fine?”

“Of course,” Xichen purrs with another smirk at A-Yao, a mirror of their conspiring glance mere minutes ago. “A-Yao is wonderfully skilled in so many things, why not this too?”

“Asshole,” Mingjue mutters with no heat into a kiss against his cheek as he stands to head for the bar, and Xichen raises his eyebrows safely hidden behind a sip of his mocktail. One look at the tension in Mingjue’s shoulders, at the carefully controlled way he’s moving, and Xichen believes he can safely readjust his expectations of later tonight towards something more involved and…vigorous than simply being taken care of. Mingjue doesn’t always want the pleasure to be reciprocated and that’s perfectly fine, but when he does?

Perhaps it’ll be more than a few hours. And perhaps he should go ahead and warn A-Yao that their riding lesson will not include him riding Shuoyue beside A-Yao on Hensheng as it has every other day so far.

A-Yao glances between him and Mingjue’s retreating back and sips at his drink with a knowing gleam in his eye.

“So. You’ll be busy tonight?” he asks with delicate neutrality. They haven’t really talked about this yet, all together, and somehow this doesn’t feel like the right time either. But A-Yao has brought it up of his own accord and Xichen doesn’t want to simply brush him aside, especially considering he was trying to find a way to bring it up himself without pressuring him or making him feel like he wouldn’t be more than welcome to join them, a fine line to walk and disastrous if he gets it wrong —

“A-Yao is perceptive,” he demurs, accidentally slipping towards formality in his nervousness.

A-Yao chuckles around the next sip of his drink. “I am, but that’s not how I know. Mingjue said coming here always gets you worked up and I could, quote, ‘help me with him if you want to, but you’ve got your own space for a reason, you know?’ Does he always talk about sex like he talks about getting help around the ranch?”

Xichen lets all the tension leave his shoulders along with the breath caught in his chest, escaping as a huff of helpless laughter. Of course Mingjue already brought it up. And of course he did it as bluntly and as practically as he does everything else. One would think Xichen would be used to it after so many years as his best friend and then his partner (in every sense of the word) as well, but apparently it can still catch him off guard.

“Usually, yes,” Xichen replies, reassured by A-Yao’s little affectionate smile. “Though I assure you, he approaches the task as anything but a chore.”

A-Yao snorts at that and hastily tries to act like he didn’t just do something so undignified. “Good to know,” he says and it comes out a little tight, like he’s trying desperately not to laugh. “I think I’ll uh…see for myself some other time?”

“That’s fine, A-Yao, whatever you’re comfortable with,” Xichen says, and while yes he’s still a little bit warm under the collar from watching his partner and his boyfriend together he still means every word of it.

Mingjue returns with a fresh round of drinks — a sweating bottle of Coors for himself and refills for both Xichen and A-Yao as well as some water bottles tucked under his arm — and he dumps his bounty on the table with all the grace of a bull in a china shop.

“I think if I ask Xichen to get up there with me we’ll do something rated X and never be allowed back in. You two mind if I go take a turn on my own?”

“Oh I think we’d both really like an opportunity to observe you from here, ge,” A-Yao smirks with a little glance up and down the always-impressive figure Mingjue cuts.

Xichen smiles and leans his elbows on the table to rest his chin in his hand as Mingjue darts a hand across the table to attempt to ruffle A-Yao’s hair in retaliation, though A-Yao is a little too good at dodging and Mingjue’s heart clearly isn’t really in it.

“Mm, seconded,” he hums as they subside. “I should probably stay where the table provides me with some plausible deniability, but you go have fun.”

Mingjue ducks down to kiss his forehead first and then A-Yao’s before he heads over to tinker around with the settings on the bull again, no doubt increasing the difficulty at least a bit.

“You know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such uh…elaborate foreplay,” A-Yao comments idly as he stirs his new cocktail with the maraschino cherry garnish.

“Oh this is nothing. Just wait for baling season.” A-Yao’s eyebrows crinkle ever so slightly in the middle, and Xichen saves him the embarrassment of having to ask what that is. “Just imagine Mingjue, shirtless and sweaty, hauling bales of hay out in the pastures and then into the barn for about a week in August.”

A-Yao’s eyes go properly glassy and Xichen indulges in the opportunity to fantasize for a moment as well. It really is a sight to behold, and he’s been trying for years to convince Mingjue that the loft full of fresh, sweet-smelling hay is perfectly fine for fucking in so long as they lay down a blanket or two. (Mingjue’s argument, that wins every year by the narrowest of margins, is that hay is not only scratchy and pokey but that it also gets everywhere no matter how many blankets they could use to cover it, and he’s got no interest in getting the stuff in even more places than he already finds it. Unfortunately, Xichen can’t fault his logic.)

“…I see.” Xichen doesn’t think the flush in A-Yao’s cheeks can be blamed entirely on his drink. “Fuckin’ intricate rituals,” he mutters next into his glass, and when he turns in his seat to watch Mingjue start showing off Xichen pulls out his phone to fire off another text.

A-Sang, what are ‘intricate rituals’?

The answer is, once again, immediate and full of far too many laughing emojis, though it is at least followed up with actual words: I’m assuming Yaoyao said that. Think ‘every excuse you use to feel up da-ge’ and you’ll be close enough

That is unfortunately a very vivid explanation, no further clarification needed.

--//--

Meng Yao sits once again on the arms of Xichen and Mingjue’s chairs, balanced neatly between them to watch another stunning sunset paint the tops of the mountains gold.

Mingjue’s Baxia is grazing nearby, patiently waiting to be taken back to the barn for the evening for her dinner. Mingjue had been combing her down when Meng Yao and Xichen had stepped out to join him for their nightly sunset-watching ritual, her saddle and blankets thrown haphazardly over the porch railing and her reins hanging straight down to the ground as she stood stock still except to give Mingjue the occasional nudge with her nose or stamp one dinner-plate-sized hoof.

The boards of the porch creak a little as Mingjue shifts his weight enough to sling his arm around Meng Yao’s waist, his skin still tacky with sweat and a little too warm through the thin cotton of Meng Yao’s t-shirt, but he wouldn’t dream of trying to squirm away. Mingjue has been…handsier, since the mechanical bull incident a few nights ago, as prone to pulling Meng Yao close for a quick, almost perfunctory (yet still plenty passionate) make-out at any moment of the day as he is Xichen. He wouldn’t have thought that it was possible for Mingjue to get handsier considering the way he’s been all over Meng Yao since that party his first night here, but, well, here they are.

And he knows that his boyfriends don’t expect anything from him. He knows that, because Mingjue has told him that, and that means that it’s nothing but the unvarnished truth, plain and simple —

Still. It feels like he’s quickly losing his chance to set that boundary for himself, and so he takes a deep breath in, sharp enough to make him sit up a little straighter and for Baxia’s ears to flick in his direction while she grazes.

Feeling strangely clumsy, he clears his throat and says, “So. You’ve taken me on some dates.”

Warmly, Xichen hums and agrees, “We have.”

“They were..really nice dates,” Meng Yao says and ignores the way the sharp, craggy outline of the peaks so many miles away suddenly turn into purple smudges. He’s not going to cry over how good these men are. He’s not.

“Yup.” Ah Mingjue, a man of few words whenever possible. God Meng Yao likes them both so much.

“What next?”

The silence feels…contemplative, nothing to break it save their breathing and the switch of Baxia’s tail as she flicks a fly off her leg.

“More dates?” Xichen finally offers, hesitant. “We could do some less..public ones? Mingjue and I usually try to go camping for at least a day or two around mid-July, we could show you some of our favorite trails.”

“Could show him the lake,” Mingjue muses. “Good swimming this time of year, and we’d probably have it to ourselves right about now.”

Meng Yao shuts his eyes against the dusky blue sky just beginning to light up with some stars high overhead and smiles, so full of fondness he feels like he’ll burst.

“Those sound good, but I meant more…you know. I um…I’m still not really ready for sex?”

It shouldn’t be as hard to say as it is; it shouldn’t make his neck burn under the collar of Mingjue’s flannel that he stole two days ago, and it shouldn’t make him want to crawl into one of his boyfriend’s laps to hide his face in a warm, inviting crook of a neck. But it is, and it does, and he just barely resists the urge to cover his face with both hands.

“A-Yao,” Xichen tuts. “Sweetheart, we’re not expecting you to be, it’s alright.”

And that’s..Yeah alright, he knew that already. He did. But also they don’t have all the facts, namely: “But what if I want to sleep with you in your bed anyway? Without sex?”

Mingjue snorts and Meng Yao knows better by now than to be offended. “A-Yao — we barely have sex, pretty much all we do in our bed is sleep. Of course you can too, if that’s what you want.”

Oh.

Xichen leans forward to kiss the back of his shoulder and Meng Yao turns to look down at him and meet his devastatingly beautiful smile head-on.

“No strings attached,” Xichen murmurs; the intensity of his gaze this close is almost unbearable. “Anytime you want, alright? Trust us, we want you to be there if you do.”

And he does trust them. He doesn’t know how they managed it so quickly or what he’s done to deserve their affection but he trusts them, and really what else is there to say?

They sit together until the light is nearly gone, and Meng Yao goes with Mingjue to put Baxia in her stall for the night, brushed down until she gleams and keeping pace between them with her reins looped over her neck so she won’t trip over them. When she’s backed into her stall she graciously lowers her head for Meng Yao to be able to carefully pull the bridle off over her warm, velvet-soft ears, and when he passes the clinking contraption to Mingjue he gets a kiss for his trouble before his boyfriend sets the tack aside for the night, in easy reach for the morning.

There’s nothing really all that different about the rest of the evening. Mingjue heads upstairs for a shower as soon as he knows he’s in for the night, and Huaisang whines all the way through helping clean up the dishes from dinner. Xichen sits down at the piano in the living room to play through some simple exercises and Meng Yao lays on the couch to read and listen to him, only moving when Mingjue comes back downstairs to join him and let Meng Yao use his incredible thighs for a pillow.

Tonight, though, he heads upstairs when Mingjue and Xichen do, and he very pointedly ignores Huaisang’s raised eyebrows and suggestive grin in the process. Their nightly routines vary in length such that by the time Meng Yao is done brushing his teeth and doing his skincare the other two are already in bed, Xichen barely awake but striving valiantly to wait up for him and Mingjue sitting on the edge of the mattress, shirtless, to rub IcyHot balm into the ball of his shoulder. Meng Yao takes over for him without a word, kneading and massaging the cream in until Mingjue’s head droops forward and he seems to startle a bit when he sits straight again; drifting off then, Meng Yao figures, and kisses his boyfriend’s clean shoulder to let him know he’s done and they can finally go to sleep.

He doesn’t bother replacing his shirt before he lays down and leaves an obvious gap in the middle of the bed between himself and Xichen. Meng Yao settles himself into it with a pleased little smile that only widens when they both immediately move to squish him a bit between them.

Their goodnights are quiet, and when Xichen turns off his bedside lamp the room falls into warm shadow, the sky still glowing ever so faintly out the window. Meng Yao closes his eyes to truly appreciate the sleepy kisses he receives from both boyfriends, chaste things pressed to his cheek, his temple, the top of his head before they kiss each other once and settle in. They both drop off to sleep within minutes, and Meng Yao isn’t far behind.

He’s never been so relaxed, after all, so at ease; held safely between Mingjue and Xichen and confident in their respect and regard for him, how could sleep not find him quickly?

[lilisouless]

OK, I remember you once either said or maybe rebloged something that said, inej wouldn't simply walk into the menagerie without being triggered and how her not being able to get revenge on Heleen is a disregard of her trauma.

But, inej is aged up in show, it is possible that, she can control her triggers better now. And killing heleen was necessary to set up the pekka rollins' downfall plotline. Yeah it's messy but, it's not that bad.

I imagine the writers weren't happy with it either, but alas they had to combine the stroylines, cuz netflix didnt think anyone would watch SoC/SaB stand-alone shows/movies

And it's not like inej doesn't get to show any rage, she kills that taxidermist in that fight scene, it was really good and satisfying to watch. She fights alongside aline, who went from being her god to being her friend, she gets to go on her own journey to find her brother and avenge him.

I like 2 think that the show has decided to focus more on inej's growth and overcoming trauma, in a more, self-healing (?) Way. One that isn't related to anger or revenge or violence.

Let’s not pretend Inej’s storyline being toned down isn’t a consequence of Netflix’s massive Kaz preference. Inej’s villain gets killed in favor of KAZ. You exchange her big moment, the equivalent of Kaz vs Pekka with…a mook? A character we just meet? How is that satisfactory compared to Heleen herself?

Sure in CK she gets a glorified mook with main character syndrome as well but by that time she already had her shot against Heleen

“Killing Heleen was necessary” no it wasn’t, the Pekka Rollins storyline didn’t have to be like that, the writers were just too lazy to think on something better than Walmart Crooked Kingdom, i would have been okay with an original storyline like in S1

Speaking of which, the crow’s storyline on the first season was far from good considering they accomplished barely anything but at least there was an attempt to connect it to the main storyline and actually Inej is the only relevant crow (maybe Jesper too, if only as a wild card) on that season, because she does represents people that still have faith in the saints, it matches with Alina being used and having people trying to control her power while Inej needs to create her own power because people had tried to control her before.

In fact let’s check how much the crows actually contribute to the final battle, which ultimately defines their purpose to exist in the show

Season 1

-Inej, trowing a knife to Alina (something)

-Kaz , being there (so, nothing)

-Jesper , a secret weapon aka, gets rid of Ivan (so, it manages to be something)

-Nina & Matthias (nothing)

- Wylan, saving Kaz’s ass indirectly (so, if Kaz does nothing, his thing automatically traslates to nothing)

Season 2

-Inej passing the blade to Alina (something…exactly the same as season 1)

-Kaz , NOTHING

-Jesper & Wylan, secret weapon again (so, like S1 Jesper it manages to be something)

- Nina , red herring (so, nothing)

-Matthias, wasting valuable screentime (aka nothing)

So Inej, relatively the crow that does the most for the main plot, the one that should matter, ends up giving up her main villain for a guy that on a wider view…Adds nothing at all! What was even the point on making Kaz the most centered crow if by the end of the day he ends up having the exact same relevance as freaking Matthias in hellgate?

On that season it’s actually Kaz who gets quite butchered for Inej’s sake, there were critism for both Kaz and Inej’s writing and here’s the diference :

The show crew heard what people said about Kaz and did their best to correct it , they didn’t do shit about the complaints about Inej

Now season 2, they already had a soc spinoff in mind so there’s already a work where Kaz can be the main character, because he is on the book. He has little to nothing to do with the main storyline, but Inej (by being who has the most connection to Alina) and Nina (actually knows and belonged to the first army and on the adaptation is told to know the villain himself) so making them front and center on the crows storyline seems to be the logical choice…but the Kaz boner is stronger than logic because otherwise i don’t get why he has to be the main here, specially if you are already planning a work where you can just put the whole Kaz things there where ,btw doesn’t take valuable time from Alina.

And yes, not every adaptation needs to be the same, but the thing is that the changes have to be equally good or better if you can, otherwise is just like “why did you tried to fix what was never broken?”

Season 1, on the subject of the original Alina storyline i consider was actually better than on the books, before s2 made him a redundant boring crybaby i actually liked the darkling more than on the book, Alina is very diferent too and i liked her better than in the book, and i don’t care if people disagree with me on this one : s1 Zoya is better than the misogyny bait Leigh made her on the first book.

So as you can see it’s not just “changed from the book” it’s the implications and the blatant preference for Kaz , the original author never let her own liking for Kaz (he is clearly her favorite) to get in the way of building Inej nor the other crows

This whole “the crows were aged up” excuse only serves so far, because Inej aged up implies she spend more time on the menagerie than book!Inej did , being older doesn’t mean you magically will heal from trauma. You have the whole picture of Kaz on season 2, you are shown the source of the trauma and the consequences, you don’t get it for Inej. If you don’t believe me, go ask how many people who only have watched the show doesn’t know Inej has very serious problems with touch like Kaz (she is even said to get nervous from having men smiling at her) because the writers certainly don’t

Doesn’t mean Inej is a bad character on the show, she has a lot of saving graces and for what’s left it’s a good character because she still has Inej’s good traits, unlike let’s say Nina (she is the only character i considered to be completely ruined) who is just awful and only gets saved for some comedic bits and the actress but complaining about Inej it’s not being a purist, because mostly it’s about how the preference of Kaz affected her (it affected Alina too but that’s another subject)

The only reason i am not making it a sex thing it’s because 1) some female characters like Baghra,Genya and freaking Sankta Neyar were given more to do and i consider their thing quite satisfying, 2)there were male characters like Mal,David and Adrik that also took a hit, so while there were more women who got hit in favor of men ; Inej , Alina (Kaz) Tamar and Nadia (Tolya) and Nina got it for free, i choose to point out that this was in consequence of having more important female characters than males.

Sorry for the long text, but it was needed. It’s not “it’s bad because it’s different from the book” just for the sake of it, it was because on the book it was like that for a good reason, the show didn’t have a good reason, their reason was elevating Kaz at the expense of Inej.

[chaos0pikachu]

38, 40 & 41 for the movie asks! 💕

38 > in your opinion what is the most overrated movie?

idk what I think "thee" most overrated movie is like, there's just to many movies to narrow it down but one of MY most overrated movies will always be An American in Paris fucking waste of my god damn time like older films have a different sort of flow and pace compared to modern films and that's not the issue I can watch an older film and still vibe - I actually liked Judy Garland's A Star is Born even with all the obvious issues, Philadelphia Story wasn't bad either, Gentlemen Prefer Blonde's is delightful, etc - but like nothing fucking happens in An American in Paris worst is that the last 20-ish minute of the film is just Gene Kelly flexing just one long run-on dance scene that's not even like connected together??? It's just in his head with different set pieces and a means to flex Nina Foch as his dance partner

The only other film that inspires that much this shit is so fucking overrated to me is Singin in the Rain which I also didn't like. The songs were okay and yeah everybody in the cast can dance like whoa but the story is boring - I'd rather watch a documentary on actors being dubbed post silent era tbh it'd be more interesting - and Debbie Reynolds has no chemistry with Gene Kelly.

Maybe I don't like Gene Kelly movies lmao I find these two specifically "overrated" b/c they're considered "classics" in cinema and like I get why but also I hate them

A more modern day overrated pick is Captain America Civil War, fuck that movie oh and Blade Runner fuck that movie too

40 > a film you think everyone should see at least once

Fuck this is DIFFICULT so I'ma cheat lmao

Titanic - if only for the sheer power and brilliance of Cameron's direction like if you're a fan of film making I think you should watch this movie. The scene where the ship sets sail and the head on shot is so freaking well done it's phenomenal. Cameron is a good direction, I've seen a lot of his films and what I like about him is he makes good films that are well made but accessible.

Princess Mononoke OR Ponyo - I think these two are two of Miyazaki's best work in terms of animation. Storywise I prefer PM but Ponyo has just some absolutely amazing animation. What I really love about Miyazaki's direction is the still moments he has in his films, there's a lot of shots in PM where nothing is happening except a butterfly landing on a tree branch, or a character looking at the moon.

Tale of Princess Kaguya - speaking of Ghibli I feel like when it comes to Isao Takahata's work everyone recommends Grave of the Fireflies which is totally fair and I def think that film is 1000% worth watching but I think ToPK is his crowning jewel the animation is BRILLIANT and the story is heart wrenching. It really combines everything Takahata's work was so good at - tragedy, beauty, stillness, how the lack of community hurts us all ugh so good

NGE End of Eva - honestly this film is my Clockwork Orange in film bro terms lmao like I don't know if I "recommend" this b/c it's confusing - you gotta watch Death/Rebirth to even understand it at all and even THEN it's confusing - but it's so VISCERAL like def one of the most visceral experiences I've had watching a film and for that I think it's 100% worth watching

I also think it's worth checking out Martin Scorsese and Hayao Miyazaki's recommend films list

41 > name three movies you consider “classics” (yeah I cheated again sue me)

Ghost in the Shell (1995) for the sheer insane influence it had on cyberpunk and sci-fi

Metropolis (1927 and 2001) the OG film is really if you want to see how classic movies worked and if you like history, the 2001 is animated and not a remake but is beautifully animated and has one of the BEST climaxes of any film I've seen

Pretty Woman

Evil Dead

Princess Bride

Hero

🎬 movies/film ask bait

[loveabledirtbag]

Sheridan 1.05

i feel like the show starting right off the back with sydney in bed tells us, the audience, “oh, this is gonna be different”.

the quick cuts! seeing meal inspo, flashbacks to syd’s failed business. done so well to show us how protrusive the thoughts are

i love the sort of storied, layered tension of syd’s bedroom. because it’s obvious it’s her childhood bedroom, but also…how much of it has she updated as an adult? some of it? none of it? it feels like a child’s room. i also remember the first time seeing syd’s bedspread and thinking, “OH, is syd queer!?!?!?” remains to be seen, but at this point it’s probably rainbow because it’s her childhood bed. not because she’s queer

SO MANY DRUGS IN HER BATHROOM CABINET

i love that the two posters we see really clearly are: speed (which came out in ‘94), and jumping jack flash (which came out in ‘86). who is sydney? when was she born? why are these two movies on her wall. it clearly means something, the creators chose these posters so it has to mean something…but what???

i remember hearing from someone that the train station where syd gets on is really close to where the Mr. Beef (the exterior used for The Beef, and inspiration for it) is located. couldn’t say if that’s true or not, but if it is that’s kinda disappointing. obviously tv and movies have to do what they can with time and shooting locations, so maybe they had to shoot there. but the shows tries so hard to submerge us all into a sense of reality in the show that knowing sydney is a two minute walk from work as she’s boarding a train is disappointing.

the quick little camera work of carmy’s hands up to his face. just to prove that jeremy allen white is actually cooking

“a play on ‘Tongue & Cheek’” “ox tongue?” “or braised beef, maybe short rib…risotto?”…but then how is it a play on tongue & cheek, and not just…a dinner menu/dish?

here’s the beginning of the risotto storyline. and all the misery it entails!

carmy tells marcus to use scissors to cut the tape….but the tape dispenser has a blade. why was marcus ripping it in the first place? why does carmy say to cut it with scissors? the BLADE IS RIGHT THERE

idk why, but the toilet exploding is SO relatable to working at a shitty restaurant. why do so many toilets explode? i’ve never experienced a toilet exploding anywhere else in my life

“what is up you fucking replicants” richie’s phillip k. dick references are strong

ebra telling carmy there are many components to the new dish he’s showing them is really fitting with ebra’s storyline in season two (but more on that later)

there’s something pleasing about carmy saying “monter” and then realizing that his classically trained chef lingo isn’t going to be understood so he says “whisk in”. because carmy is coming down to their level, but is also proving you don’t need a fancy french education or need to know fancy words to make good food. “whisk in” works just as well. the class dynamics in this show are so on point.

the calmness shown in the kitchen now that everyone is on board with the new system that carmy is so good. where we’ve seen chaos and overlapping anger, now we just see calm, peaceful, quiet cooking. the only holdout is richie

“yo, should we do a bakery?” god, i love chester. and i’m so serious; everyone needs a friend like chester, and every kitchen i’ve been in has a chester. just someone’s friend that pops in all the time for no reason and who everyone knows

the back and forth as chester asks if he should watch the bachelorette without marcus is so sweet. and again, it added to the “is marcus queer?” debate in my head. but also, having a bachelorette night with your bestie also sounds pretty dope, and two straight dudes can tear that up. i just want marcus to be happy.

tina went to mikey’s and mikey/carmy/nat’s moms for christmas. just further deepening that relationship of the family and tina. tina wasn’t phased by carmy’s mom going “full psycho”.

it’s so hard to see the undercurrents of carmy’s anxiety come out when talking about his mom (even more so since watching season two), especially with his emotional support spoon (which we all need)

“never fuck my vibe!” “i swear to god i will fuck anything that i want to fuck” “you are not being nice and you will not fuck me” as richie and fak got closer and closer to each other. once again……..kinda queer vibes? i mean, yes, richie is homophobic, but psychologists teach us that the biggest homophobes are projecting their own internalized homophobia. i swear, 20% of me thought they’d kiss. sure, they ended up fighting and “wrestling”. but isn’t wrestling also a way for “straight guys” to get oiled up and roll around with each other?……maybe i should write the bear through a queer lens after i write the bear through a class lens

matae: basically “uncle” from the movie bloodsport with van damme. because of course it is

carmy’s lack of surprise is truly so funny

ope, richie is selling coke!

if i know one thing about baking (and i know very little) is you don’t want to rush that shit like marcus is doing. especially when you are working in a space with some jank electrics and equipment

the shows one and only “covid” mention. which is perfectly placed and isn’t in bad taste or poorly done. plus, it’s also pretty fair with a lot of places on the edge during the worst of covid lockdown; you gotta make money somehow

the earned, relational aspect of richie being peoples cousin. pete calls him cousin and richie says “i’m not your cousin”. yet, we learn that beyond just the berzattos call him cousin later on. it’s kinda beautiful.

the fast turnaround of nat calling carmy a “soft shitty bitch” who only calls when he needs something from her to her melting and giving him a big hug when she learns he’s going to Al-Anon All Family three times a week is maybe the purest form of showing they are family i’ve ever seen on a screen in such a short amount of time

the transition of the early scene with syd telling carmy they should close when the dining room is flooded and carmy saying missing one service could kill them, to tina saying they can’t open because there’s no electricity, the walk-in is broken, and there’s no gas in the ovens, so syd improvises an outside grill is just fantastic use of character development and showcasing syd’s skills

marcus sitting in a spot where next season another memorable moment will happen with marcus and another line cook is kinda funny. probably not overtly planned by the writers or directors, but kinda fitting

marcus saying heard as carmy tells him that the job is insane and it can go from chill to unchill in a second and so that’s why he’s gotta stay up on his work. but we know (who’ve seen it) that marcus did not actually “hear” what carmy said.

carmy saying that he started a fire the night he won food & wine’s best new chef, and then says “you have a moment where you think ‘if i don’t do anything this place will burn down and all my anxiety with it’” is more indication of carmy’s twisted love of his own misery

“one last drug deal” to get them out of their money hole would have been a bigger storyline in lesser hands. but the nuanced, B storyline it has, allows it to just be a reality that happens in the background of a lot of shops around the US to stay afloat

the amount of chefs i know who at one point went into catering instead of staying in a kitchen is kinda wild. it seems like an alternative of a food truck. the “i don’t have enough money to open a brick and mortar spot, but i want to do my own thing” path. and the right caterer can be fire

god, syd waking up in the middle of the night with an idea for a dish so she writes it down because she has to is so….just so….true. i have so many notebooks filled with shit that has absolutely no value outside of a shop.

but it is the origin of the cola braised short ribs that will go alongside our risotto! the origins of the cursed dish is growing!

i love this episode so much! and i love how this later half of the season spreads itself around the members of the kitchen more than just carmy. he’s the anchor and the focal point, but there’s so much depth to explore the rest of the crew of the beef. i’m excited for next episode and the rest of the season!

Season One: Episode One | Episode Two | Episode Three | Episode Four | Episode Six | Episode Seven | Episode Eight

Season Two:

[tokuteasings]

this insane justice, waving in the air

 guess who watched the mbjr movie (again) and had Emotions?

This is going to be part of a series simply known as S.O.S and idk how many parts will be making this up but expect me to write about MBJR because i love them more than life itself.

Warnings: angsgt, maybe a lil OOC, spoilers for the MBJR V-Cinema but I’m taking some creative liberties bc I can. This can be seen as platonic or romantic. Reader is also hinted to be a Rider.

He shouldn’t be here.

He shouldn’t be here. 

He knew and yet he walked. 

He knew and yet he finds himself here. 

The human looks up from their phone - eyes bright and wide, shimmering with a light that he was always envious of, a light of life and existence that he could never compare to. “Horobi?” they question, the device returning to their lap and their head cocked to the side. “What’s wrong? I didn’t expect you here.”

The Humagear does not speak as he stands in front of them, still as the day he was born into this world. Gears, words, neurons, scenarios, cacophony reigning within his mind - an unholy war. 

“Horobi?” they question him again, concern laced within their words as they scoot over on the bench. They pat the gilded wood, fragile fingers grazing smoothened frames. “What’s wrong? Did you want to talk?” 

Their kindness knew no bounds. A bond unlike any other.

It’s something that one such as he, did not deserve. Not an inch. Not an inkling. 

It hurts to glimpse at them, a bright light that could never be turned off. A paragon of strength, a different degree than his own. 

It’s a flower growing out of concrete, beautiful and everlasting. 

“If we bore our fangs at you, at the people you love…” he trails off, words poisoning his tongue and watching as the acid burns the ears of the human. Their eyes widen, and a hand reaches towards an inner pocket of their jacket, a familiar bulky shadowy weight against their hand and within his view.

His eyes bore into theirs.

They are clear, vivid, a utopic light against inky murky violent violets. Purpose against doubt. Fight against flight. 

“Would you stop us?”

“I would stop you.” their voice rings in his ears, not even a moment later,  it digs into the synapses of false neurons and zeroes and ones. 

I would stop you.

I would stop you.

I would stop you.

I would stop you. 

It bubbles at the pit of his imaginary gut, amusement fumbling at his pursued lips and he laughs. 

It’s a short chortle, a small scoff, a noise he did not know that he could make. He merely shakes his head, false air puffing out and dissipating into the ether. “I should have known,” he whispers their name from his lips, he should have known what they would say.

His back is to them now, violet fabric encasing their eyesight right under a cascade of sunshine locks. 

“Then I do not need to worry.” the emotion of “relief” flows into his mythical veins, granted unto him by false gods.  But they have him a “heart” where his human is kept, and he is thankful for that.

Even if the heart will disappear once the sun sets. 

A step forward, then two, then three. He cannot look at them any longer. He cannot turn his head, to feel their disappointment rot away his entire form. 

If he looked back, he may lose his resolve.

“Come back safely, Horobi.” 

His eyes meet theirs, one last time, one final time and they speak in volumes.

Violent violets, pulsing purples, collide with theirs. Acrid, pungent, threatening to sizzle and sear through theirs.

But they look back, as they always have. 

They stand as a giant, a towering figure, a person with a will that triumphs his own.

It makes him wonder how they can go on...and if he could learn from them. 

He smiles, softly, and a chuckle leaves his lips. Again he turns away, nothing past his lips and simply walks off with his haori fluttering behind him - waving in the air and never to be grasped again.

-

They stand in front of them now, blade in hand and driver in theirs. 

That same look in their eyes. 

It is beautiful

It is justice

Horobi closes his eyes as they armor up, the human’s weapon placed in front of them and feels the others move. He wants to tell them, a final swan song.

Thank you.

Their weapons digs into his chest, and he opens his hues once again, and witnesses their tears. 

The pain is gone now as they reach out to him, gloved hand stretching out as much as they could.

“Horobi-!”

He doesn’t reach back, even as his hand twitches, lifts ever so slightly against the drag of death and the pull of the ether.  He cannot reach back.

He can never reach back.