#gonna finish up some edits and use my break to continue

[slowdesire]

AND NOBODY TOLD ME.

[ahgasegotarmy116]

Just Take It | Jeon Jungkook | Part One

Summary: Some of your closest friends betray you and somehow push you into the arms of someone unsuspected. Pairing: Inexperienced f!reader x Best Friend's Dad Jungkook (20 year age gap) Word Count: 5.7k Warnings: Mentions of cheating resulting in pregnancy and explicit language...I think that's it lol (Barely edited per usual lmao) a/n: You guys seemed really excited for this fic so I'm gonna make it a miniseries since even the poll results were so close so anyways I hope you enjoy! Requested by the lovely @kkusadmirer 💜

"Is everything ready?" I ask my best friend Jina for the hundredth time today. "Yes y/n calm down. This party is going to be perfect don't worry" she says with a smile that doesn't reach her eyes, making me even more apprehensive but decide it's best to just take her for her word instead of digging deeper. 

"You're right, I should probably just go back upstairs and get ready huh?" I say and start heading upstairs to take the curlers out of my hair and finish up my makeup in her old bedroom. "Let me know if you need help, I'll just be putting the finishing touches on everything in the meantime" she calls after me and I respond with a quick 'okay' before running up the rest of the steps I had been ascending.

I walk down the hallway lost in thought and am stopped in my tracks when I find myself bumping into someone, almost falling over but he luckily catches me before I even have a chance to stumble back more than a few steps. 

"Careful there" he teases and I look up and apologize immediately. "I'm sorry Mr. Jeon I wasn't watching where I was going" I say quickly and he smiles at my flustered state. "It's okay darling don't worry about it" he says in a deep tone that has always gotten to me. I take a quick step back to create some much needed distance and to cover up the awkwardness that had settled in. 

"Thank you again for letting us hold our engagement party in your home. Are you sure you still don't mind?" I ask him as well for the hundredth time as if we had time to change things with mine and my fiancé's relatives already on the way. 

"Y/n if I minded I would've said no a long time ago. Don't worry, I'd do anything for you, since you and Jared have been such amazing friends to my daughter. It truly means more to me than you know" he says placing his hand on my bicep to aide in showing his sincerity. 

"Of course Mr. Jeon. Moving to a new state in the middle of your Sophomore year of  college has gotta be difficult for anyone so I'm just happy we could be there for her" I say smiling up at him. He stares at me for a second, studying my features before breaking out of the slight trace he had caught himself in to continue the conversation. 

"I'm sorry you're probably wanting to finish getting ready and I'm holding you up" he says taking his hand off of me and stepping aside so I can walk down the hallway to my intended destination. 

"Don't worry about it. We've got plenty of time as it is so I'm in no rush. Thanks again Mr Jeon" I say, quickly wrapping up the conversation and walk into Jina's room. Before I'm able to close the door though he makes it a point to remind me of something I've always forgotten.

"Haven't we agreed upon calling me Jungkook? Mr. Jeon makes me feel so old" he teases and we both laugh at his words. "Thank you, Jungkook" I say and he smiles, satisfied with the change. "You're welcome" he replies with an heir of sensuality that leaves my brain buzzing and I close the door before either of us has the chance to say another word. 

He's always made me nervous but why does today feel different? It's not like his playful nature is anything new. He's acted like this since the first day I met him and when I had brought it up to Jina she just said he was being friendly so I never really gave it a second thought. 

There's no denying he's a handsome man and from what I can tell him and his ex wife had Jina when they were quite young so he's not anywhere near old enough to make it seem a bit strange but I tend to just deal with the butterflies by ignoring them as much as I can. 

He makes sure to be respectful when Jared's around and he hasn't crossed any lines to my knowledge so I don't mind it. It makes me feel confident more than anything and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. 

I shake off those thoughts and finish getting ready before I start to panic about being late and end up finishing up a lot sooner than I had planned and as I'm putting on my heels I hear a faint knock at the door. 

"Come in" I call out and my fiancé pops his head in from behind the door. "Aw I thought I would catch you while you were changing" he says with a fake pout leaving me smiling and shaking my head at him. "You'll get to do that plenty of times once we're married you pervert" I tease and he scoffs playfully. 

"You know, now that I think about it I kind of am a pervert aren't I?" he says while stalking towards me, making my breath hitch and my adrenaline start pumping but I have to tell myself to calm down before I do anything stupid. "After the wedding I warn and he backs off like he always does.

I smile and get up from the bed I had been sitting on and give him a quick kiss but he holds onto the back of my neck, keeping me there for a little while longer and deepening the kiss. "You look gorgeous" he whispers against my lips and I smile before giving him a quick peck and pulling back to look at him.

"You don't look half bad yourself" I taunt and he scoffs before granting me a sarcastic 'thank you'. "I'm kidding baby you look handsome as always" I say and he smiles at that and places a quick kiss on my cheek before taking my hand and leading me downstairs to where we're met with a few of our family and friends having already arrived. 

"You should've told me they were here sooner" I whisper to him while I wave at them as we walk downstairs. "I didn't want to rush you" he replies, giving my hand a gentle squeeze leaving my heart fluttering at how thoughtful he had been.

"Thank you love" I say looking at him as if he's the only one I need. "For what?" he chuckles, studying my features almost as if he's committing them to memory. "For wanting to marry me" I say and he laughs at my cute sentiment. "Thank you for saying yes" he replies and at that we start mingling together throughout the crowd and thanking everyone for coming. 

~~~~~

We part ways after a few more groups of people come in and around the time we're going to bring out the champagne I start to look around to see if I can find him so we can both be ready to make a toast once everyone's gotten a glass.

As I look around and ask a few people where he might be they point toward the far end of the house where not many people had wandered to and so I curiously make my way over to the room I had assumed he would be in but before I'm even able to put my hand on the door I hear the voices of not only Jared but Jina as well. 

"We have to tell her" I hear her say and stop short, my heartbeat immediately raising as I hold my breath, waiting for the response. "You told me you were on the pill though. How did this happen?" and at that my heart breaks. "I don't know I guess I forgot to take a couple of them and-" "And so what? You decided that screwing me without protection would work out just fine? Fuck Jina" Jared cuts her off and I hold my hand over my mouth to stop the sobs that I know are sure to come. 

"You were the one that said you wanted to stop using them" she defends. "Oh and so now it's my fault. Jina we both agreed to that and you know it" he says and at that the room falls silent for a moment before he speaks up again.

"What are we gonna do?" he mumbles, leaving the choice in her hands. "We need to tell her because I'm not getting rid of this baby. I don't care if you're going to be in our kid's life or not but either way we're telling her" she says, standing firm on what she thinks is right. 'She should've thought about that before she started fucking my boyfriend' I think to myself and wait for the conversation to continue.

"She deserves to know" she says in a hushed tone and they both agree moments later that they'll tell me after the party to avoid both of our families catching wind of it and at that I walk away as quietly as I can, heading to the bathroom across the house to collect myself before I even try to face anyone. 

'How the fuck could they do this to me? How could they do this to us? Did everything the three of us did together really not matter? All of this love that I gave Jared and he gave me made me feel like we were gonna last forever but I guess my wants and needs weren't enough for him. He wanted what he wanted and found that in my best fucking friend. 

I chuckle dryly at that thought and how ironic it sounds at the moment. The wants to avoid the drama of the rest of the family knowing? Well they don't have that kind of luxury anymore. 

I collect myself a few moments later and make my way out of the bathroom to intermingle again until I happen upon my soon to be ex fiancé in the crowd. 

"Hey honey" I say and I can see him trying to hold back the guilt at my words and I hold back from ripping his head off for the sake of what I'm about to do. "Should we go ahead and bring out the champagne and make a toast?" I ask and he nods his head agreeing wordlessly. 

"Great I'll ask Jina to help us out" I say and I can see how stiff his whole body becomes after I mention her name and he laughs it off and walks closer to me and I hold out my hand for him and guide us both over to where we've placed everything for the toasts. 

~~~~

"Does everyone have a glass?" I call out and everyone says yes and Jina makes her way around, filling everyone's glasses but her own. "Okay great Jina go ahead and grab a glass and then if you guys don't mind we'd like to pose a toast!" I say and everyone places their full attention on both Jared and I who are standing side by side. 

I watch as Jina tentatively fills her glass half full knowing full well that she won't be drinking any of that but I singled her out as a way to make her even more uncomfortable. Serves her right honestly but it's only just begun. 

"Okay everyone, firsts things first I would just like to thank all of you for coming. It is just so wonderful we could all gather here together and the fact that you all made the effort to come and celebrate Jared and I is just something that I won't ever forget so thank you again from the bottom of my heart" I say and hear murmurs of 'You're welcome's and 'Thank you for inviting us' throughout the crowd and I continue on after those die down.

"Another person I would like to thank would be my best friend who I couldn't have any of this without her including being able to host this party in her's and her father's wonderful home so thank you both for that" I continue and I look for Jungkook in the crowd and see him raising his glass to me and I turn my attention to Jina moments later and see the forced smile on her face and I smile back at her and take a deep breath before continuing. 

"You know Jina has been such a great friend to both Jared and I and the countless memories we've made together are something that I'll always hold close to my heart. One memory in particular is one that I think we'll all remember for the rest of our lives is one that I would like to share with you all" I say and I watch as Jared and Jina make nervous glances at each other but I hear the room fill with words mentioning how cute our friendship is and how it's nice to have close friends that get along. Oh boy they're about to know just how well we all get along. 

"This one actually just happened not too long ago, in fact it was just today wasn't it guys?" I say making eye contact with the both of them and I can see as both of them realize that they've been caught. 

"Yeah it's funny I was looking for Jared not too long ago to try to find where he had scurried off to and low and behold I found him and Jina having a cute little chat together just over there" I say and motion to the secluded part of the house where they had been and I see the crowd go from happy to confused. 

"They had been talking about how they had a surprise and they needed to tell me after the party but I figured that I would just give them an opportunity to say it now so all of us can hear it together. Would you guys like to share it with everyone?" I ask the two of them and wait a few moments before Jared tries to shut me down. 

"I think that's probably a conversation we should have in private right Jina?" Jared says, pleading with her to back him up. "Oh are you guys too shy? Don't worry I can say it" I counter, brushing him off. "Y/n I don't really think that's necessary" Jina now tries to reason with me but I'm way too far gone by now.

"Why not? Doesn't everyone deserve to know that you're pregnant" I say, pausing for the rest of the family to smile at the surprise and some of them start to congratulate her but before they can get too far I continue on. 

"Yeah she's pregnant with Jared's baby! Isn't that so sweet?" I say and at that point the room goes so silent you would hear a pin drop and I break it by continuing to rub salt into the wound. 

"I know right? It's so crazy isn't it? It was a surprise to me too. Congratulations to the both of you" I say and down my drink while they stand there speechless as does the rest of the crowd. 

"So yeah anyways thank you all so much for coming and get home safe!" I say and make an exit into the backyard while Jared and Jina chase after me. 

"Y/n, y/n wait. Please" Jina calls after me first, following as I make my way over to the clearing behind the house and away from prying eyes. "Why should I wait huh? It's not like you waited and thought 'Hey maybe it's not the best idea to be raw doggin my best friend's boy friend' or were you guys still fucking by the time you asked me to marry you?" I ask the two of them and they both just stand there in silence. 

"You know what, you guys are perfect for each other. The whore I thought was my best friend and the whore who chased after her because neither of you could keep it in your pants. Thanks a lot, have a nice life" I say and storm off into the small clearing behind Jungkook's house, praying they won't follow me. 

"Oh and another thing" I say before walking too far, "I'm keeping the ring to compensate for emotional damage you bastard" I spit at my ex and his jaw drops, never having heard words like that come out of my mouth ever let alone directed at him. 

"Baby wait I can explain" he says trying a pathetic excuse of trying to get me to get him to hear him out. "Pretty sure I heard everything I needed to hear when you were having your little rendezvous earlier" I say, fully admitting to listening in on their conversation. 

"If I never see either of you again it'll be too soon" I say and continue on into the clearing, walking just far enough to be out of their view. "We really fucked up didn't we?" I hear Jina say and soon hear Jared scoff in return. "We fucked up? No you fucked up! You should've been more responsible" he throws back at her and storms off. "What the fuck Jared don't you dare walk away from me" she yells and chases after him, following him back into the house. 

After taking a few deep breaths and convincing myself over and over again that this is for the best and I'm better off without them I slowly make my way back into the yard and sit on the bench that's furthest away from everything, hoping no one finds me out here. Luckily it does the trick and I'm able to avoid facing anyone from the party and soon hear all of their cars leaving and the place falls silent. 

"They're all gone now if you want to come inside" Jungkook says, walking over to me tentatively, making sure he doesn't do something to make me run off. I look up at him with a tear streaked face and try to smile but ultimately end up hanging my head, hiding what little emotions I've let myself show and he walks over and sits on the far side of the bench I'm on. He doesn't say anything, he just sits with me and lets me ride the wave of emotions I'm feeling but also letting me know he's there if I need him.

I let out a few shaky breath after having let a few more tears fall before collecting myself and drying my eyes. "I'm sorry" I whisper and he turns towards me with a confused look on his face. "Whatever for?" he questions, puzzled as to why I could possibly be apologizing. 

"For the show I put on back there. I was just so mad when I overheard them talking and I don't know, I felt like I wanted to humiliate them since they decided to fuck behind my back like how fucked up can you be to sleep with your best friend's boyfriend?" I spout off and then look over and remember who I'm talking to. 

"I- I didn't mean. I'm sorry Mr. Jeon" I apologize again and hang my head in shame. I'm met with a chuckle as a response and when I look up at him I can see that he's clearly very amused. "What's so funny?" I question and he continues to laugh. 

"I'm sorry darling, just seeing how horrified you looked when you remembered that you were talking shit about Jina to her father was kind of hilarious and honestly adorable" he chuckles and I let out a breath and smile at him, happy he wasn't offended by it. 

"I wasn't thinking straight, I'm sorry" I apologize again, feeling so so guilty for bringing all of this drama to his house. "Hey, you have nothing to apologize for" he says softly, placing his hand on top on mine. The one that happens to be sitting on my thigh and I gulp at the sight of his big hand enveloping the sight of my hand and now has his fingers resting high up on the inside of my thigh. 

"It's not your fault that they're both fucked up and you got caught in the crossfire okay? So please don't apologize about that again" he says and I nod my head mindlessly, my eyes still focused on the hand that is now squeezing my thigh in reassurance but I can't get past the feeling of having his hands on me like this. 

He stands up a second later, taking his hand off of me and I look up at him, almost as if questioning why he stopped and he simply smiles at my cute reaction. "Let's head inside alright? It's gonna start getting cold out here soon" he says and I nod my head, wordlessly following him back into his home. 

"Did you want a drink?" he asks and I jump at the opportunity. "Yeah I'll just take this" I say while grabbing one of the barely opened champagne bottles. "Did you want a glass?" he chuckles, watching as I take a big gulp out of the bottle. "No need, this is fine. Might as well not let it go to waste right?" I say and he hums in acknowledgement while poring himself a drink. 

I walk around his living room and take in everything about it, reminiscing about all the memories and shared laughter there had been here over the last couple of years and find my mind wandering a bit. "I'm really gonna miss this place" I say, meaning to keep it to myself but accidentally voicing it loud enough for Jungkook to hear as well. 

"You're welcome to come back here anytime you'd like" he replies, startling me when I realize he's gotten closer and is now sitting on the couch directly behind where I stand, facing the mantle and looking at the various pictures placed on it. Pictures of Jina, Jared and I over the years, ones that no doubt Jungkook had taken. 

"I always hated this picture" I say mindlessly and I hear him get up off the couch so he can see which one I'm referring to. "Oh the one where I took all of you to the beach house a few years ago for your birthday? Why? Didn't you have fun?" Jungkook questions, genuinely surprised with my reaction to it. 

"No it's not that, I had a great time. I just feel like I look like a wet dog in that picture" I admit and I'm granted with a little chuckle beside me. "Hey" I whine and glance over at him, my breath hitching when I realize just how close he's gotten. 

"You know what? Now that I think about it I don't really like that picture either" he says and I turn my body to fully face him, highly offended and demanding he explain himself. "I didn't like the way that Jared was touching you that day. He couldn't keep his hands off you and I know that it was making you uncomfortable" he says, lowering his voice an octave and causing a shiver to run through my body. 

"How did you-" "When a man really pays attention and cares for you he can tell from the slightest change how their woman is feeling. I guess he just never got the memo" he says, glaring at Jared in the picture and how he unashamedly has his hand placed directly on my ass while I'm wearing a swimsuit that I had already felt uncomfortable in in the first place. 

My mind goes into overdrive with what those words could've possibly meant. 'Was he paying that close of attention to me that he noticed something small like that? Has he been jealous of Jared? Does he care for me?' are just some of the questions that start swirling around in my brain and before I can register what had happened next he's gone and sat on the couch and is suggesting I come sit down as well. 

"You've had a long day don't you think?" he asks and I nod my head and sit on the other side of the couch making sure to keep proper distance between us. "Yeah I guess you could say that" I chuckle dryly and take a drink from the champagne bottle I still have in my hand but end up spilling it on myself. 

"Shit" I say and Jungkook quickly grabs a napkin to help clean up having spilled some on the couch as well. "I'm sorry" I apologize, constantly finding more and more reasons to apologize and he shuts me down again. "A little champagne never hurt anybody don't worry about it" he says, brushing it off and leaving me feeling a little less guilty. 

"Why don't I grab you a glass and give you some of my clothes to wear so if we have another little mishap it won't be as big of a deal" he offers and before I can refuse he's already given me a glass and is halfway up the stairs. Gosh my brain really must be working in slow motion already. 

~~~~~

After Jungkook gives me a big t shirt and sweats I change into them and tie the drawstring tight to aide in keeping the pants up and look in the mirror of the bathroom I had been changing in and realize how much of a mess I look like right now with smudges of mascara under my eyes and my nose all red from all of the crying I had been doing earlier. 

I quickly wash and dry my face and throw my hair up and out of the way since at this point theres no saving this look and just accept defeat, walking out in my now more casual look and find him sporting an almost identical one. 

"Feel better?" he asks and I nod my head and walk towards where he's standing. "Come here" he says holding out his arm and pulling me into a hug. I melt in his embrace and almost start tearing up a bit again, but push back a little and softly break apart from his embrace before the two of us sit down. 

"I don't know how to feel honestly. I feel angry and sad and betrayed and relieved and heart broken and I don't know. I'm just confused" I start and he nods his head, encouraging me to continue and so I do. 

"We've been together since before Jina and I had ever met and things had always been so good between us and then when Jina came along it felt like things had gotten even better if that's makes sense. We had our three amigos group going and whenever we were together it felt like the rest of the world didn't matter. Or I guess at least that's how I felt" I say and take a shaky breath in and out before preparing to say the next part. 

"When Jared and I got together, I told him right off the bat that I wanted to save myself for marriage and he respected that. I will admit that we both had gotten close to breaking that boundary I set  once or twice but he always backed off when I asked him to and I was thankful for that. Guys my age or guys in general don't really respect that sort of outlook anymore so the fact that he was more or less willing to date me after knowing that gave me hope for us" I say, letting everything off my chest.   

I down my glass and pour myself another one before continuing on and I take into account that he's watching my every move. "I figured 'If he had a problem with it and got tired of it then he would've dumped me' or 'He's had really good self control all of these years so that must mean there's something special between us'. So when he asked me to marry him I said yes without thinking twice. I had my knight in shining armor, the one who waited for me and I couldn't be happier" I scoff, taking another gulp of champagne. 

"Looks like he waited to have me but got someone else to fulfill his needs on the side" I mumble and down the rest of my glass before pouring another and I can see the concern in Jungkook's eyes growing but I pay no mind to it. 

"You know after all that I just can't help but wonder 'Was it all worth it? Was saving myself and in the end losing the man I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with worth it?' At this point my virginity is becoming more of a hassle than anything and honestly I don't want it anymore" I say, finally voicing how I had been feeling about keeping myself pure for a while. 

"I feel like it would be best if I just got it over with and went on with my life you know?" I say, finally looking at Jungkook and I can see how dilated his pupils are and how ragged his breath has gotten, doing a horrible job at concealing it.

"Can I ask you something Mr. Jeon?" I question, leaning towards him, a new gained confidence flowing through me from all the alcohol that I had consumed in such a short time. Downing glass after glass throughout our whole evening. "Jungkook" he rasps and I feel a fluttery feeling building in my stomach. 

"I'm sorry, I always seem to forget. Jungkook, can I ask you something?" I repeat placing my hand on his thigh, feeling the muscle tense up at the contact but he nods nevertheless and waits for me to continue. "How old were you when you lost your virginity?" I question, wondering what his experience might've been like. 

"Um, when I was about eighteen I guess. It was right before I graduated high school" he answers truthfully and I nod my head, mulling over what I plan to say next.

"It seems like a man of your age has had his fair share of sex am I right?" I ask and see him gulp at my assumption. "I guess you could say that" he responds and leans back a bit when I get closer. "Mr. Jeon do you have a girlfriend right now? Someone you might be seeing?" I ask, making sure that in my tipsy state I won't make the same mistake my hopeless excuse of a best friend and ex made. 

"No, I uh I'm not seeing anyone" he says quickly and I nod my head and wait a moment to get my words together. "Do you think you would mind taking my virginity?" I ask and at that his jaw drops, not expecting to be asked something like that straight away but in this state I guess you could say I'm full of surprises. 

"I- What?" he asks, confused and concerned as to if I actually meant what I said and not only that but clarifying to make sure he's heard me right. "I'm asking you if you would take my virginity. You said you'd do anything for me remember?" reminding him of his words from earlier in the day. 

"Y/n I think you might've had a little bit too much to drink" he says scooting back from me to create some distance but I close that distance moments later. "No I'm fine, I haven't even had that much silly" I say, slowly starting to slur my words but still conscious enough to make them coherent. 

"Look I think that's something you should keep until you have a chance to give it to someone special. Someone who you care about and cares about you too" he says, trying to softly reject me but it falls of deff ears.

"I care about you though. Don't you care about me?" I pout and he shakes his head and tries hard to hide a smile but fails. "Of course I care about you darling but I think you're too confused and too drunk to be making this sort of decision" he say holding my shoulders at arms length to keep me from getting any closer to him.

"It's okay Mr. Jeon I know what I'm doing. Oh! I mean Jungkook" I say cutely, leaning in a bit more and his arms give in, letting me get a bit closer so as to not harm either one of us. "Don't worry I won't tell Jina" I say and he clears this throat at the sound of his daughter's name. 

"Y/n I really don't think this is a good idea" he says, watching almost helplessly as I place my hand on his shoulder and use it to anchor myself as I climb onto his lap and although his words have said otherwise, his hands are the ones that guide me by my hips to sit on his lap, giving me a boost of confidence in my decision.

"Can you do this for me?" I ask and his eyes ping pong between mine, seeing how blown out my pupils are and notices how hot my skin has become. He stays silent and just takes in all of my features and waits for my next move. I lean in closer to him and run my fingers through the hair on the nape of his neck. 

"Just take it" I say against his lips and without a seconds hesitation he grabs the back of my head and smashes his lips against mine. 

It's a mess of lips and tongue and teeth, accompanied by the sound of him groaning and pulling me closer and me moaning at the feeling of being desired by someone like him. Someone strong and confident and undeniably sexy. Someone who wants me just as much as I want him but before I can fully grasp what's about to happen I feel myself slipping away and lose control of my body. 

"Y/n?" Jungkook questions feeling my body slump against him after I had broken the kiss and rested my head on his shoulder. He smiles at the realization that I had fallen asleep in the midst of it all and wordlessly stands up, carrying me off into the guest bedroom and laying me down to sleep there for the night.

"Goodnight darling" he says, placing a kiss on my forehead before walking out of the room and slowly closing the door behind him.

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[pnfc]

here is some unresolved(?) perryshmirtz whumpfic(?), rated T. i call it “doofenshmirtz talks on the phone a lot”. idk if i’ll put it on ao3, it depends on if i continue.

disclaimer: in this fic the owca agents are brain-modded, for purposes of juiciness. typically i prefer that pnf is just a goofy cartoon world with smart animals.

EDIT: i'll leave this post up but i finished this, on ao3 here

---

“It’s actually a net good for society if you climb the trees, Perry the Platypus,” Heinz is telling Perry as they stroll the orchard path. He’s sagging a little under the weight of a basket they’ve mostly filled.

“See I know there’s that rule, ‘no climbing’. But that’s for the 8 year olds who fall and crack their heads open -- the emotionally unbalanced teens out to break an arm. Not for you, Perry the Platypus. Treehopping is a cakewalk for you. You’re like a ninja up there.”

Perry flips his wool scarf and surveys the lowhanging branches, pointedly ignoring Heinz. He vaults up to snag a Golden Delicious, dunks it square into the basket from over his shoulder, not looking. Heinz whistles, even as the impact buckles his knees. “That’s what I mean.”

He catches up to Perry -- “What about the apples at the top of the trees, Perry the Platypus, do you think of them? Nobody can pick them, so they rot on the tree or rot on the ground. No one comes to an orchard to pick apples off the ground.”

Perry signs: Two-year olds.

“Besides them,” Heinz insists. “That’s like a third of all the apples just going to waste, so nobody can enjoy them.”

Birds and bugs, signs Perry. Can enjoy them.

Heinz ponders this. “Maybe. But I can tell you they’d enjoy my fresh-baked strudel a lot more.”

Perry makes a “yeah, yeah” wave to brush off Heinz’s winning point. Heinz can see the smile curving up his bill from behind, as he walks ahead. “Hold up, Perry the Platypus,” he says. “I think we have enough.”

Heinz sets the basket down, intensely grateful to rest his arms, and Perry skips back over to survey their haul. An even mix of Jonathan, Smeralda, and Goldens. “The best for baking out of the October set, in my experience,” Heinz explains to Perry. “These Goldens look a little young, but I think they’ll cook up okay. Could also use them for a syrup, I’ve been meaning to try that.”

The walk back to the exit is when it hits.

Perry reaches out a paw and pushes it against Heinz’s leg, tentative. Then he wrenches the fabric into both fists, hard, and chirps, frantic. This makes Heinz stop.

“Perry the Platypus? What’s up?”

It’s like a hypnic jerk, the sensation -- a dizziness cresting over him like an ocean wave, a loudening roar of foam. Perry looks up at Heinz, finds his blue-ringed eyes wide with alarm, like his own. And he holds Heinz’s leg like it’s the last stable thing, as the wave swallows him up in a gulp, then silence.

Perry thinks I’m having a stroke, before he can’t think it.

“...Perry? You okay?” Heinz has dropped the basket and is crouching down to Perry’s level. “What’s wrong, did I forget something? We have enough apples,” he says, knowing that’s not the problem. “If you want more, you’re carrying and paying.”

Perry’s still linking his gaze with Heinz’s, clutching his knee like he needs it for balance. He chitters out an anxious exhalation. Heinz taps him on the bill. “Hey. You gonna clue me in here?”

Perry shakes off the touch and backs away from Heinz, pinwheeling his arms and toppling onto the ground. The scarf gets trapped under his forepaw, pulls taut around his neck -- then he’s racing forward in a panic, growling at a high pitch, through the red leaf litter, scarf trailing after and under him.

“Perry!” Heinz exclaims, craning around to follow Perry’s tracks -- he bumbles into the basket, shooting apples out like poolballs. “Settle down -- tell me what’s wrong, okay? You’re scaring me.” He pushes himself up. “And that’s not how you treat that scarf. That’s Merino, Perry, it took me weeks to knit. You’re grinding dirt into it.”

Perry halts, at the tail of Heinz’s upbraiding, and looks at him with saucer eyes. Heinz approaches him slowly, like he’s an animal he might startle away. But Perry doesn’t run, when Heinz leans over him -- actually seems to settle, as Heinz clasps his hands around his shoulders.

“Perry the Platypus.” His brown eyes blink. “What is going on with you?”

Heinz picks him up. “You’re going to have to say something,” he says. “Or I’m going to assume this is an emergency. Are your arms malfunctioning? One blink yes, two blinks no.”

This gets no blinks.

Heinz drops Perry into the basket and runs out to the parking lot -- dropping a 20 on the checkout stall as he does, to cover the apples still in the bottom of the basket. They need to get home.

The OWCA watch beeps while Heinz is driving, Perry basket-bound in the passenger seat. Perry jolts and lifts his paw, looks at the glowing screen -- in the side of his vision Heinz sees Perry press his beak into the watchface. “God, not now, Francis...” he mutters.

Heinz parks right next to the elevators in the apartment garage. His phone buzzes right as he shuts the car door. “Perry the Platypus, we’re going upstairs, okay?” he says. “You want to stay in the basket?”

Perry’s just staring into him as he’s addressed, no reaction to the question. So Heinz exhales and walks to the elevator, basket steady in his arm, and checks his phone. It’s from Carl: Dr. D, this is urgent: is Perry okay?

He freezes in the elevator lobby, and dials.

“Carl, are you there?”

“Yes, Doofenshmirtz, hi. Listen, I need to --”

“Do you KNOW about this? What’s going on with him?”

“I -- oh dear,” says Carl, sounding sad. “I guess it worked. How is he? Can you describe his behavior?”

Heinz balks at that, staring at his phone -- Carl just confessed to screwing Perry up somehow and now he’s asking after him like a caring orderly, shameless.

“Are you kidding me? His behavior? He’s not himself, Carl,” Heinz shoots back. The metallic echo of the boxy room amplifies his voice, so he tries not to yell too loud -- Perry is out of the basket on the floor of the room, staring nervously up at him from a few paces away. “He doesn’t seem to get what I’m saying, he had a major panic attack out of the blue -- and he won’t talk to me. Like, no signs, no nods. He’s walking on all fours, Carl. What did you do?!”

“It wasn’t me,” Carl squeaks defensively. “I mean -- it’s this audit, Heinz, the agent program investigation. They didn’t even notify us they were sending people over today. It’s FBI people, they” -- his voice tightens to a whisper -- “they busted into every office, they found some of our server rooms and -- look, I can’t get into this right now, but I’ll call you back as soon as I can. Just ... just keep Perry safe, take him home. And for the love of god don’t let him escape.”

Carl hangs up in a hurry, before Heinz can yell a reply. He scowls at the red call-end sign.

“What the hell is wrong with that kid,” Heinz asks the room. “Maybe Francis knows. I have to give him a call. I hate when it comes to that, Perry the Platypus.”

Perry is doubling back to the apple basket, slinking close to the floor with visible nerves. He clambers back inside. Heinz pushes the elevator button.

Upstairs, Heinz drops the basket on the kitchen island and budges Perry’s hat aside to place a hand on his head. “First things first, Perry the Platypus. We’re going to give you a checkup. Okay?”

Perry still doesn’t react, but Heinz will keep treating this like a two-way conversation. It’s an old habit that he hasn’t slipped into in a long time. He didn’t miss it.

Heinz leads him to the bathroom -- Perry mostly sticks by his feet, but stops in place once or twice, swiveling his gaze around the spacious penthouse canopy, either like it’s new to him, or like he’s remembering it. He snaps back whenever Heinz calls his name -- there’s that, at least. It’s not much, but it’s something.

Phineas’s housewarming gift, one of them, had been a platypus first-aid kit. He’d presented it to Heinz back when Perry had just told his family about them and Heinz was hosting a “win Perry the Platypus’s family over” lunch (unofficial title that Perry had deleted off the invitation cards). Heinz had read a kind of parental judgment into the gift choice, at the time, like the kid wasn’t trusting him to take adequate care of Perry on his own, without being handheld. Maybe Heinz’s reading was unfair -- he has a chip on his shoulder, when it comes to mom behavior.

He unsnaps it. The case is overstuffed -- it pops open with decollapsing trays of portable disinfectant and numbing wipes, surgical sewing kits, cut-closing gel and fur-safe teal bandages to cover it in all sizes, claw trimmers and medicated toothpastes and endoscopes. An impressive degree of overkill -- he really likes that kid, past misgivings aside.

“I’m just checking a few basic things,” Heinz tells Perry as he rummages through and pulls out a stethoscope. “Fever, stress, blood oxygen. You never know what can affect the brain -- a lot of things, really. Including Carl. Well we already know it’s Carl,” he grumbles. Perry’s irises contract at the flashlight shine, and he blinks and squirms in Heinz’s hold. “I’ll just have to squeeze him for answers later. Knowing the brain geniuses at OWCA they activated some stolen villain tech without back-engineering it first -- a mind-control beam, some harebrained monotreme-dumbdowninizer. Are they still using my memory eraser?” He huffs -- pulse and blood pressure readings are normal. “Why’d I ever make that thing. I can never recall.

“Everything looks fine so far, Perry the Platypus. That’s... that’s good,” he says, not feeling it. Perry is poking his bill inquisitively into the trays of the first-aid kit. Heinz will need to break out the MRInator. Been a while, so he’ll need to tune it first, which could take hours. Better get started on it right away. He needs to be working right now, because if he stops he thinks he will gelatinize into a ball of terror. That wouldn’t help Perry.

He’s 15 minutes into his work, checking that the gradient coils are aligned, when the phone rings. His screwdriver hits the ground as he lunges for it, ready to yell the full story out of Carl. But it’s Peter calling. He stares at the profile photo, which is many years out of date.

“...Hello? Peter the Panda, since when do you call? What’s up?”

“Hi, hi -- Doofenshmirtz?” comes a voice on the other line. It’s pitchy, so he has trouble placing it at first.

“Mystery? Is that you?”

This is weird. Heinz never talks to this guy. He isn’t even up on whether Professor Mystery’s still practicing evil -- just gets the impression from Peter that they’re doing alright together, whenever the two of them cross paths.

“I’m calling because something’s wrong with Peter,” he says, a quaver in his voice that Heinz can hear he is trying to suppress. “And I wanted to ask if you know anything. Did you do something to him, Doofenshmirtz? Or, if you didn’t. Can... can you come over here? Can you help me talk to him? I thought maybe he’d respond if he saw a familiar face, or maybe you’d have one of your... weird machines that could help him.”

“Verdammt noch mal,” Heinz hisses through the hand raking down his face. “That agency. It’s all of them?”

“...What?”

“It’s OWCA, Mystery, they did something to all of the agents. Apparently, if it hit Peter. Perry’s the same way.”

“...Oh,” responds Mystery. He sounds lost. “So can you come up here? I’ll -- I’ll cover your tickets. Both of them.”

Like he’d fly there commercial. “Mystery, I’m getting details out of the OWCA guys right now. I need more information before I can make any plans. Sorry.”

And Mystery couldn’t pay him enough to take Perry out of the city right now. Perry’s been hopping between the sofa and the carpet, then walking over to Heinz and bumping into his side as he works, before cycling back to the sofa, a knot of agitation. Right now he’s digging his forepaws into a couch cushion, like he’s trying to find something that isn’t there.

On the end of the line Mystery sniffles -- oh, no. “What happened to him, Doofenshmirtz?” he says, voice cracking. “My parents were trying to figure it out, they were asking me how old he is -- but it was so sudden, like something hit all at once. My dad asked if I let him go near any black holes recently.”

“Did you?” Heinz asks, genuine. Mystery got up to some hardcore science in the old days.

There’s an ursine growl on the other end, angrier than Peter sounds. “No. That’s their baggage. But I was worried,” Mystery says, “about the age thing. Because. Well.”

Heinz knows Peter’s well into his 20s, by now.

“There’s only so many more years, for him,” Mystery says, faltering. “And so -- what if this is -- if this is how he is now,” he wavers, “then that means I didn’t even... have the time, have the time I thought.”

This precedes a total breakdown of his speech into wracking sobs, that don’t transmit prettily over the phone audio. Heinz pulls the phone away from his ear, frowning at it with no little sympathy. Mystery’s age, like so much about him, has never been clear to Heinz -- but he can tell the guy’s young, comparatively. Whatever their relationship passes for there’s a strained mentorship quality to it -- Mystery has turned to Heinz for answers, in the past, and has repaid him with petulant resentment every time. It’s very bratty. Like when Vanessa would ask him for help with science projects. Heinz can’t resist another opportunity to help each time he’s asked, even knowing the outcome.

But consoling this man wasn’t on Heinz’s docket for today. “Mystery,” he says, “You’ll get that time. You cannot have so little faith in Peter the Panda, so soon after something happens to him. You’re a scientist -- you’re a master of mystery. Give it a few days, before you have a breakdown, alright? That’s what Peter would want.”

Heinz thought that was pretty good, but Mystery just cries harder on the line. He feels shaken -- he doesn’t want to be hearing this right now. That’s selfish, he knows -- but Mystery has family. Mystery can handle himself, and he can handle Peter. Heinz cares deeply for Peter’s wellbeing, still, but part of caring has meant learning to trust his choice of partner, just like Peter trusts his.

“Look, Mystery, I have to go,” he says -- he looks up, and doesn’t see Perry. Suddenly he meant what he said, with an urgency. “Get your parents to help, and tell them all morbid speculation is banned. Give them a furbrush, tell them go to town on him. They’ll love it, he’ll love it. Bye.”

He snaps off the call and rushes through the house, looking for Perry. The kitchen, the balcony ledge, the pool. This place is too big, when he doesn’t want it to be.

He finds a puddle in the bathroom. Perry knew enough to go in there, apparently, but not how to use the toilet.

Perry is back in the sitting room hiding under the glass coffee table, tail curled under like he’s ashamed. “Oh, Perry the Platypus,” Heinz sighs, kneeling at the table and reaching under to stroke Perry’s head. “What are we going to do with you.”

Mr. Fluffypants’ old litterbox is in the storage room that used to belong to Norm. He sets it up next to the toilet. Their bathroom has ample room. He exits, knowing he has to keep the inertia rolling, has to work, can’t process that he just set out a litterbox for Perry. How is he supposed to process that.

Right across from the door, in the hallway, there’s an elongated picture frame with photos from a family beach trip, when Heinz had more color in his hair. The left side highlights Vanessa, who’d brought along a friend -- she’s laughing in some of them, more unrestrained happiness than she showed in her gradeschool years. There’s the massive sandcastle they’d constructed, Norm using his vacant head to scoop, Vanessa lifting Perry up to decorate the upper echelons with fine detail, the two of them focused on this process for a long time while they’d chatted. And then photos of Perry, the surf breaking over his feet as he poses with a notch-tailed surfboard, cool confidence in the line of his smile. Heinz loves that picture: he looks so handsome, his white beach shirt open and playing in the wind.

He finds himself staring at it. This was Perry an hour ago.

He calls out: “Do you know Vanessa, Perry the Platypus? Va-ne-ssa?”

No response, obviously -- Heinz is convinced he could jostle some kind of reaction out of Perry if Vanessa stopped by in person, like Mystery had been aiming at with him. But he has no intention of letting her see him in this state. Perry would hate that.

Heinz collapses into his folded arms on the kitchen island, amid the newly-purchased bags of flour and sugar, for the apple pie they will not be making tonight. He doesn’t want to eat.

But Perry should, he realizes after a minute, lifting his head. Perry seems less agitated now, has been wandering the floor. Right now he’s peering out at the balcony sky, seated. Heinz walks over to him. “You’re not going to try and run off of that, right?” Perry looks up. “Carl made it sound like you were gonna bolt if I so much as left a door open.” But Perry’s been keeping near to him, following him from room to room. The real Perry isn’t this clingy. “I don’t trust you to operate a parachute right now, Perry the Platypus. And don’t let me see you going in the jetpack closet.”

More empty eye contact. “Let’s get you dinner.”

It’s reheated lasagna they’d made a few nights ago, beef and zucchini. Heinz stares hopefully at Perry as he eats it off the plate, thinking the taste might stir a memory. He noses the fork off the table, jumps a little at its clatter, then starts nibbling bites off the edge of the lasagna block. Heinz is over there cutting it up with a butter knife when Carl’s return call finally buzzes in his pocket -- he puts it on the tabletop set to speaker mode. “Carl. I hope you’re ready to talk.”

“Yes Doofenshmirtz, hi,” returns the tinny nasal voice. “I had to get home -- Monogram’s getting grilled over there, and he wouldn’t stop yelling back at them, at the FBI agents, who were jumping at the bit to arrest him. I managed to broker a peace,” Carl ends, proudly.

“That’s fantastic, Carl,” says Heinz. “How about explaining what you did to Perry the Platypus’s brain? It hit Peter too, by the way, I know this is a bigger problem than you want me to think.”

“I don’t want you to think anything!” says Carl. “This wasn’t my choice, Heinz, or Monogram’s for that matter. They turned off the agent control switch. I kept telling them they didn’t need to do that, they should just leave the agents alone -- it’s more safe that way, honestly, we didn’t even know what would happen if they used it. But they just said if it’s part of the animal program, it needs to go.”

Heinz’s stomach sinks lower than he thought it could. “Agent control switch? You’re controlling them?”

“No!” says Carl. “It’s not a -- clear term. Nobody’s controlling the animals, Heinz. It’s like a remote control hub, with a binary state, on and off. They shut it off.’

“So that’s good,” Heinz falters, trying not to let the ominous weight of whatever this implies overwhelm his thought. “You can just switch it back on. It sounds like you can literally fix this with a button press, Carl, so do it.”

“Well, yes and no,” Carl dithers. “They shut it off. Then they confiscated all our equipment. They said ‘classified’, when I asked where it was going. so my guess is it’ll end up in some storage basement or the FBI dumpster, based on how badly they mishandled it. They split open the casing just getting it out of the room, it was hard to watch.”

That sounds about right for OWCA, 70s-era supercomputers filling up rooms they were never intended to leave. “So the switch controls something in Perry’s head?” Heinz asks, steadily. He’s thinking of the giant magnet he was about to put Perry inside. “Like a metal chip?”

“It’s a bioelectric material, I’m pretty sure,” Carl says. “Part of what makes it so hard to access, once it’s inside. The investigators were going to make us lobotomize all the agents, if I hadn’t told them about the switch, it was the only choice. They’re serious about stamping out this program, Heinz, like they’re trying to erase it from the public consciousness. Because if people see a dog in a hat they’ll mob up and burn the government down, apparently.”

Heinz feels on board with that plan at the moment. “Carl. Professor Mystery’s having a breakdown, I had to talk him off the cliff this afternoon. Neither of us knew about this. You didn’t tell any of us,” the heat is rising in his voice, “that Peter and Perry had something in them that you controlled, that this could happen at any minute. Did they know about this?”

Carl is quiet a second. “... I’m not sure,” he says. “I thought Perry knew. It’s not a major secret, it’s just what we do, to promising recruits. It’s had a less pronounced effect in the newer ones, since we stopped putting them in babies. But Perry’s always had it. That’s why he’s so intelligent. But he might not have known about the control switch -- it’s really a relic, we haven’t run power through it in decades, since we’ve had no reason to deactivate the agents.”

Perry’s nosing around the table, his lasagna half-eaten -- he makes a small noise of complaint. “Oh -- I didn’t give you water,” Heinz realizes. A cup seems too optimistic, so he fills up a bowl.

“Is that Perry?” asks Carl from the phone speaker -- Heinz rolls his eyes. “How is he? I’m really sorry, by the way, Heinz -- there’s a lot on our plates over here, I’m just trying to keep us afloat and Monogram on a leash. You know I care about him, too.”

“Then fix him,” says Heinz. Carl goes quiet, while Perry drinks from his bowl.

“...We’ll figure it out. Good night, Doofenshmirtz.”

Heinz looks out at the silent space of his apartment -- the living room lamp is taking on the brunt of lighting it, now the early autumn dark has fallen. With the phonecall battles over and done for the night, it seems quieter than usual.

This space is normally filled by just him and Perry, now that Norm and Vanessa are out on their own. Perry doesn’t talk, and employs his platypus noises judiciously, only making sound when he really wants Heinz’s attention, or is in a temper. But his presence fills the space, in a way that’s hard to explain, easy to feel.

Normal nights, Heinz gabs his way into the late hours with Perry as his receptive listener, and responder, accompanying Heinz on their end-of-day tidying chores, toweling dishes off for him to stack on high shelves, shooting him dry looks and signing quick sentences that make Heinz scoff. Perry believes Heinz is worth listening to, which makes Heinz want to keep chatting with him, more and more, a self-feeding loop that would overload the casual conversational partner. But Perry is no casual.

Normal afternoons, they work on parallel projects to the sound of old radio serials, to audiobooks of bestselling mystery novels, to the Landmarks in Evil podcast. Perry will grab Heinz’s attention to sign some withering remark on the spotlighted villain of the week, and Heinz will snort into his construction tools. Perry’s presence grants him undesired OWCA updates around the house, that they both groan at simultaneously. Perry grants him gift-laden drop-ins from Ferb and Phineas -- literal balcony visits, often, since those kids and their friends fly around the city in more novel contraptions than Perry once did. Perry gives him looks that say everything.

Now, Perry has hopped off the kitchen chair and is padding around Heinz into the living room space. He turns to look at Heinz, like he keeps on doing, but his face expresses only a primal distress. He chirps a high, querulous note, cry-like, foreign on Perry’s tongue. Heinz could step on Perry’s tail ten times -- he has -- and not hear a noise that heartrending.

“I know, Perry the Platypus.” Such a thing you say to pets. But he shares Perry’s sentiment.

A flash of guilt twinges his stomach, and he pulls out his phone to text Peter’s number: Got the intel - I’m fixing it. Take care of Peter the Panda tonight.

A quick reply: I AM. Heinz’s lip quirks.

Heinz raps on the shell of the MRInator -- its completion feels less urgent, now that he has a better concept of the problem. He’ll finish it after a night of sleep, so he doesn’t risk frying Perry’s neurons. He doesn’t want to sleep, knows it won’t be easy, with this mountainous weight hanging over him. But dire times call for proper rest, he’s learned to accept, after 50-some odd years. He downs a plastic cup of Nyquil.

“I’ll have to fix you tomorrow, Perry the Platypus,” he tells him. “Or else I’ll start owing everyone an explanation. Really don’t wanna give the ‘Carl Scrambled Perry’s Brain’ apology tour to your family. I don’t think they’d talk to me again, even though everything is Carl’s fault. As established by the name of the tour.”

Perry wails again, a haunting trill sent into the darkness of the penthouse.

“But don’t worry,” Heinz adds, hurrying over to Perry -- he bends to pet his head. “I will fix this for you. And for Peter the Panda too, and all the other agents. I promise.

Perry whines again, more quietly, in Heinz’s hold, looking up at him with sad brown eyes. Heinz rubs his old hands through the fur of his head -- Perry looks so different right now, hunched in a dog’s sitting posture. Whatever they did to him, whatever pathways are now shut off in his mind, must have enabled or encouraged more human postures, better standing balance -- who knows.

Heinz isn’t sure what to make of Perry now, this animal shell of him. He wonders if Perry feels the same about him -- what is he to Perry now? His partner, his mere protector? Is he less than he used to be?

Heinz takes his left paw, gently, lifting it in his hand. He thumbs the metal ring on his finger.

“For the MRI tomorrow,” he tells Perry. “In case I forget.” He removes it.

Perry pads after Heinz as he gets a glass of water from the sink, as he walks to the bedroom. He feels odd dressing down to his boxers, in front of him now. Perry doesn’t pay him any mind, though -- as soon as he walks in he jumps his way up to the bedspread, scrabbling at the blankets on the edge to barely avoid falling.

“Not letting you in any apple trees,” Heinz muses emptily.

He slumps back into the pillows, feeling the doxylamine fog roll in. “But I’ll need you back soon,” he says, “so we can do the Haunted Haymaze with the kids.”

Perry trods up to him on the blanket. He makes a quiet noise -- not scared or confused, but a regular krrr, like he used to make. A gentle declaration of presence, a little care-package growl. Heinz lifts his arm, and Perry crawls under it, pushing his head into his neck. This movement isn’t forgotten, to him.

Heinz hugs his other arm around Perry’s body, and he falls asleep.

---

[enchantedrose]

Charlie Gillespie ~ Sex Tape

warning: sexual content. if you’re not comfortable with that, please don’t read. also, this man is so fine toooooo.

————————————————————————

Y/n: “I’ll see you later!” I yell to my best friend Sarah as she drops me back off at my house from work. As i get to my front door, i unlock it and open the door, shutting it behind me. Charlie already told me it was gonna be a late night so i already know he’s not home right now. I go upstairs to our bedroom and change clothes into a pair of shorts and one of Charlie’s shirts before sitting on our bed and getting my phone out. Conveniently enough, as I get it out, my phone rings and i see that Charlie is calling me. I smile before answering the call. “Hey Char.”

Charlie: “Hey baby.” He says on the other end.

Y/n: “What’s up?”

Charlie: “Nothing. I just wanted to hear your voice for a few minutes.” He says making me smile again.

Y/n: “Are you coming home?”

Charlie: “No.” He says before sighing a little. “I’m on a small break right now. I have one more small thing to do after and then I’ll be on my way home. Are you home yet?”

Y/n: “Yeah. I just got home a few minutes ago. Do i need to make you any dinner?”

Charlie: “No. Don’t worry about it love. They have food for us over here. Feel free to make yourself something if you’d like though.” It’s then silence for a few moments before he speaks again. “I love you.”

Y/n: “I love you too baby.”

Charlie: “I gotta go love. I’ll see you later.”

Y/n: “Yeah. Bye Char.”

Charlie: “Bye baby.” He says before we end the call and i look at my lock screen. The one of the both of us. I smile to myself again before opening my phone and laying down a little. I start scrolling on Instagram and checking stories for a few minutes as I see that Owen posted one. I open his story and see Charlie playing around a few hours ago. I smile again watching Charlie being weird and laughing before going back to checking my insta notifications. When i finish checking those, i go to TikTok and watch some of those. I was scrolling for a few minutes when I found a hot edit of Charlie. As i watch it, i can feel myself getting wet. Without realizing, my hand goes down to my cunt and i start rubbing myself slowly. After a few minutes, i set my phone down next to me and continue rubbing myself over my shorts as i moan out thinking of Charlie. “What are you doing?” I hear a voice ask with a small chuckle. I pop open my eyes and see Charlie leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed watching me.

Y/n: “Charlie…” i say moving my hand away quickly.

Charlie: “Ah.” He says stopping me. “Hand back. Now.” He says walking over to me slowly. I then hesitantly put my hand back on my clit as Charlie stands next to me.

Y/n: “I d-didn’t know you were home…” i say as my heartbeat speeds up a little.

Charlie: “Clearly.” He says chuckling a little. I rub myself a little over my shorts again as i moan out again. I barely see Charlie slightly lean against the wall as he watches me.

Y/n: “C-Char…”

Charlie: “Stop love.” He says making me stop my movements whining a little. “Don’t worry love. You’ll get to. I just want to make you do it myself.” He says coming close to me and kissing me, one of his hands on the back of my neck. We make out for a few minutes before he pulls apart and looks at me. “I have an idea.” He says before pecking my lips again and walking over to our dresser at the foot of the bed. I see him take his phone out and go to camera before setting it down.

Y/n: “What are you doing?” I ask him, my heart racing.

Charlie: “You’ll see love.” He says smirking a little as he presses the record button before walking back over to me. “Move over a little love.” He says making me move over a little and he sits where i was laying. He stretches his legs out a little and pats the space in between. I then move to where im sitting in between his legs. He then moves his lips close to my ears before whispering in them. “Show me what you were doing before I showed up.” I look at him in shock before turning my face away from him and hesitantly moving my hand over my clit. I rub it over my shorts again as i feel him slightly stretch my legs out a little more. I see him watching it from the camera and i feel his hand on my thigh slightly caressing it. “You can stop love.” He says making me move my hand away. I lean my back against his chest as i feel his left hand go around my stomach. “Can i touch you love?” He asks making me look at him. I then nod quickly.

Y/n: “Please Char…” i say making him chuckle a little. He moves his right hand slowly down to my clit slowly rubbing me over my shorts for a moment before bringing both of his hands up to my boobs and cups them over my shirt. He then moves to take off my shirt, well his shirt, and throws it somewhere in the room before playing with my boobs. As he kneads them, he kisses my neck and shoulder blades making me moan out from the pleasure. “Char… please…” I say making him chuckle a little against my skin as he moves his right hand over my shorts again. He just rests his hand over my clit before speaking again.

Charlie: “I want you to look into the camera and watch me rub you baby.” He says whispering in my ear before rubbing my clit over my shorts. As I watch Charlie in the camera, I moan out from the pleasure and I can feel myself getting wetter again. After a minute, Charlie stops before speaking again. “Take your shorts off baby. I want to feel your panties.” He says, his voice husky. I comply and lift my hips a little to slide my shorts down my legs before throwing them in the room somewhere. “Good girl.” He says before moving his hand to rub my clit again. “Fuck. You’re so wet love.” He says his left arm wrapping around my waist again. After a few minutes, Charlie can sense I’m getting close so he moves his hand away.

Y/n: “C-Charlie…” I say breathing heavily.

Charlie: “What is it love?”

Y/n: “F-fuck me… with a vibrator… please…” I say making him chuckle a little before giving a small kiss to my shoulder blade.

Charlie: “If that’s what you want love.” He says slightly sucking and kissing on my shoulder blade. “What do you want? A dildo? A bullet?”

Y/n: “A wand…” I say moaning in pleasure from his kisses.

Charlie: “Okay. If that’s what you want baby. You’ll get it.” He says giving one final kiss to my shoulder before reaching over to the bedside table and grabbing one of the vibrating wands. “Ready love?” He asks making me nod and I see him grin in the camera before turning on the vibrator and softly sticking it on my clit above my panties making me moan out.

Y/n: “Oh fuck Charlie!” I moan out as I feel the vibrations. I grip onto Charlie as I buck my hips against the vibrator.

Charlie: “That’s it love.” He says groaning out. As I can feel my high coming again, I speak again.

Y/n: “Charlie, stop for a minute.” I say breathing heavily. Charlie takes the vibrator off of me and looks at me worriedly.

Charlie: “Everything okay baby?” He asks making me nod a little. I lift up my hips to take my panties off as I slide them down my legs before throwing them somewhere in the room and getting comfortable again.

Y/n: “Okay… You can keep going.” I say smiling to him making him smile back. He then pecks my lips before moving the vibrator back over my clit, just this time, directly on it as my clit is fully exposed to the camera. “Fuck!” I yell from the vibrations. I feel Charlie move the vibrator in little circles making me writhe a little.

Charlie: “That’s it love.” He says softly caressing my stomach with his left thumb while his right hand is busy with the toy.

Y/n: “Charlie-“

Charlie: “I know baby. Let go.” He says giving a gentle kiss to my shoulder as he roughly puts the vibrator against my clit to help me cum. I scream out Charlie’s name as I come undone for the first time tonight and he leaves the toy running for a little longer before turning it off and setting it aside.

Y/n: “C-Charlie… finger me…” I say breathless.

Charlie: “You’re needy tonight aren’t you?” He asks chuckling a little before putting his fingers back on my clit like he did earlier. He starts rubbing his fingers against my clit for a moment before pumping a few fingers in.

Y/n: “Oh god Char…” Even with his arm around my waist, I’m still grabbing to try to steady myself.

Charlie: “You like that baby?” He asks as his fingers pump inside me. I moan out a quick yes as I lean my back against his chest and lean my head on his shoulder.

Y/n: “Char… I’m close…”

Charlie: “I know baby. I got you.” He whispers to me as he continues pumping his fingers. After a few pumps, I come all over his fingers and he moves them not long after and brings them up to my mouth. I open my mouth and suck his fingers, sucking up my cum. When he brings his fingers out, he speaks again. “God you’re hot.” He says catching me off guard making me look at him shocked.

Y/n: “W-what?” I ask him shocked. We’ve been dating for a while and had sex before of course but he’s never told me I was hot.

Charlie: “I mean it love. You’re so fucking hot it’s unbelievable.” He says smiling to me making my smile fade just a little as I slightly look away a little. It’s then silence for a moment before he speaks again. “You… think I’m lying to you, don’t you?”

Y/n: “It’s not that I think you’re lying it’s just… unexpected I guess… I’ve never thought of myself that way…” I say before I feel Charlie softly caress my hip with his thumb.

Charlie: “You should love. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Inside and out.” He says before moving my face so I look at him again. “I just want you to see yourself the way I see you.” He says softly before cupping my face a little. “You’re perfect.” He says sincerely looking into my eyes.

Y/n: “You think so?” I ask my voice barely above a whisper.

Charlie: “I know so.” He says before pecking my lips a little again before we start making out a little again. As we make out, Charlie speaks again. “I want to show you just how amazing you are…” He says before kissing me again. “Just how hot you really are.” He says pushing my back flat against the mattress slowly as he kisses me. He caresses my hips as he softly moves his kisses down. He kisses my cheek, my jaw, my neck, all the way down to my chest making me moan out a little. “My babygirl.” He says kissing my chest. “So naked under me. So pretty.” He says kissing my chest again. “So hot.” He says before sucking on my chest a little, definitely gonna leave a hickey, as I moan out again.

Y/n: “Charlieee…” I say making him chuckle a little, making me feel the vibrations against my skin. Then, I feel his right hand’s fingers against my clit making me gasp a little.

Charlie: “Oh god you’re so wet again.” He says groaning a little before rubs me and fingers me a little as he nips at my neck.

Y/n: “Charlie…” I gasp out as he puts a little pressure to my clit as he starts kissing down to my boobs again.

Charlie: “So fucking sexy.” He says sucking on my boobs a little. I wrap my arms around his back as he pleasures me, occasionally messing with his hair. He moves his hand away from my clit and back to my waist, caressing it as he kisses my boobs. “So beautiful.” After a minute, Charlie gets off of me and sits up a little as he takes off his shirt and throws it somewhere in the room. He then goes back to kissing me again as I wrap my arms around his neck. “I am so glad the camera is catching all of this.” He says in between kisses.

Y/n: “I forgot all about it.” I say before moaning again.

Charlie: “You want the feeling of a vibrator against you again?” He asks me as he’s kissing me. I quickly nod my head yes as Charlie reaches over to the nightstand and grabs a purple silicone vibrator. He turns it on and sticks it against my clit before pushing it in. He kisses me again as he pumps the vibrator in and out. “God I love you.” He says in between kisses.

Y/n: “I love you too Char.” I say breathlessly as he continues pumping the vibrator. “G- Fuck!” I moan out throwing my head back. After a few more pumps, I can feel it coming. “Char-“

Charlie: “Cum baby.” He says before I come undone and he pumps a few more times to ride out my high before pulling the vibrator out and setting it aside. Once he gets it set down, he puts his mouth over my clit and licks it a few times to get some of the cum before lifting his head up and standing up. I watch him as he undoes the button and zipper on his jeans before sliding both his jeans and boxers down. “Think you can cum for me one more time?” He asks getting back on the bed.

Y/n: “Yeah.” I say smiling as I still try to catch my breath. I then see Charlie smile again before speaking again.

Charlie: “Good.” He says hovering over me. He then kisses me for another moment before he speaks again. “I want you to watch the camera as I fuck you love. I want you to see just how hot and beautiful you are.” He says before he goes to my sweet spot on my neck and sucks on it as he pushes his dick in me. I watch the camera as Charlie thrusts in and out and sucks on my neck. I turn my head back to Charlie above me and watch him, admiring him. He thrusts a few more times before moving his head to look at me and smiles as he thrusts. He turns his head to look at the camera before speaking again. “Look how hot we are together love.” He says turning to look at me again to motion me to look back at the camera. I chuckle a little watching it before I cup his cheek with my right hand and speak.

Y/n: “I love you Char.”

Charlie: “I love you too babe.” He says and we kiss again, and, without warning, I break again and not long after, Charlie does too before pulling out and laying next to me. We lay there catching our breaths for a moment before I hear Charlie. “Best. Night. Ever.” He says making me chuckle again as I move to lay my head on his chest. “Oh I can’t wait to watch that when I’m away from you again.”

Y/n: “You’re such a goofball Charlie.” I say chuckling.

[lysol1201]

💘💤The Eccentric and The Sloth💤💘Belphegor x GN!Reader (Part 15)

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5 , Part 6 , Part 7 , Part 8 , Part 9 , Part 10 , Part 11 , Part 12 , Part 13 , Part 14

The stairs to the attic. How were you supposed to go about this? Just… walk up it or something?

Yeah, you should start there. Walk up there.

You took small and soft steps up the staircase to where the attic should be. Belphie was going to be up there. You knew he was. He had to be.

What would you do if he isn't? Would it hurt? Your pride or your heart? Admitting that you were tricked, admitting that you can be tricked with just the thought of a little cow boy, admitting that Lucifer was right, or admitting to yourself that Belphie really wasn’t here?

You needed this. You needed him. He had to be there. You knew he was. No question.

And you were right.

There’s a door. You walked up to it and saw it. Saw him.

“Cow boy!” You grabbed onto the bars of the door as you saw him sitting there.

His body froze. That voice. He knew that voice. Why… why was he hearing that voice? Oh no. Oh no no…

Belphie’s head spun around slowly. He saw what he wished he wasn’t going to see. He saw you.

“MC… don’t tell me-“

“I’m the exchange student! Oh my God, I knew it was your voice, I knew you were up here, I knew it! I knew it!” You celebrated, trying to do so quietly as to not alert anyone.

Belphie felt one thing. Guilt. He lead you up here, with plans of your demise. This was what he wanted, wasn’t? To kill the human exchange student? He wished to kill you once, too, so it kills two birds with one stone, right? So why did he feel so… lost?

“I… I didn’t know that… it was you…” Belphie stuttered as his heart beat at a thousand miles per hour. Was he supposed to go through with the plan? Was he supposed to continue what he wanted to do with you? Was he? Was he?

Was he?

“How do I get you out of here?” You broke him out of his thought process as you inspected the door that had him locked in the attic. His brain malfunctioned as he wondered what to say.

Does he say what he had rehearsed? Or…

“MC…” he sighed. Then he made his decision.

“In order to break the seal, you need the consent of Lucifer and the others.

You need to make pacts with all of them.

I have faith in you, MC. I know you’ll get me out of here.

So then, we have a deal.

I’m counting on you, MC.”

So, you invoked on your journey to get your little cow boy out of captivity.

You already had the pacts of Mammon, Levi, Satan, Asmo, and Beel. So, really, you only had one more left.

Lucifer.

You already had a grudge against Lucifer, solely because of the stuff Belphie used to tell you and his hatred for him. You were biased. But, you had to go and get that pact from Lucifer no matter the cost.

Even if it got you killed.

Well, preferably not.

But why would that ever happen to you?

++++

this isn't late you are

Apologies for those who have asked to be tagged in previous chapters and not added in this one, it's been a lot of work and I've decided not to add more to the tag list and I can't find any notes on who I was gonna add to the list but I will add to this one if I find that I didn't include all I had previously, but I won't be adding more from here on out </3

edit; we’ll see tho, i noticed most of my tag list are now inactive accounts (shows how mf bad i was at updating this on my part, some havent been active that i saw since 2022… i’m so bad at this)

Thank you for your patience, goal is to finally finish this fic up this year!! <3333333

Tag List: @demetria-yuki @levisbunny @azucarian @lloydlovebot @ayoitshayden @mxdory @blulust @thegoldencatscafe @mikctp @msinkwell @mariusvonhangme @infidelio @lupagrimm @mentxlity @reiikonee @bensbae @reshi-galaxy @iivvvii @leastfavoritechild09 @gallantys @flaringfoxsoul03 @stupidwingboy @dangan-nana @zenbutnotreally @10paradox10 @firefox2215 @ehneh @banshee-darling @slugbugg @mariswife @nocontextquote

[yuri-is-online]

Sorry if this ask makes absolutely no sense I just need you to know the absolute emotion I feel because of this Ayuu.

I need you to know just . how close to tears I am . I just reread your Azul meeting his Yutu and I am. IM CRYING. THE “Your daddy’s here” IS TAKING ME OUT AND SHOOTING ME DEAD . IM GENUINELY TEARING UP. I think I’ve read every part so far twice over, barring the Yuu specific ones cause they Hurt Me. Speaking of hurt, Deuce!Yutu and Riddle!Yutu hurt me so so bad . All of the Yutus do, but they’re the ones that just came to mind rn and it’s so so sad. Especially Riddle! Yutu because he hates his dad :( Idek why I might’ve blocked out why LMAO,,, I love all the Heartslabyul characters and their kids it makes me cry. Especially Trey. He’s such a weirdly domestic freak that the idea of him being denied the family life he’s always been content with is so so sad. ALL OF THEM . THEY MAKE ME SO SAD BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE WITH YUU!! They want to be with Yuu, and most of them are obviously happy to have a kid, but to know that that’s been taken away from you by circumstances that are literally destroying the world you live and love in? Yeah. That’s Rough!!

I would love to see Jamil!Yutu and how Jamil reacts to his child feeling guilt for something he never did, was never responsible for, and again has to suffer through because of the family theirs has been forced to serve. I think he’d be so mad, so so mad this boy has grown up thinking he’s the biggest blight of his father’s life, the cause of his death, when in reality he’s probably someone Original Timeline! Jamil would have cherished.

I LOVE YOU RUGGIE BUCCHI!!! Sorry I needed to cry that out this made me love him so much more!!! And Rook!! I love you Rook Hunt you weirdo. Ruggie being like “Idrk what to do… but I can bug Leona about it” is so so real. Him not caring if his son is charismatic as long as he knows his cards and is able to survive. Rook as a phantom is genuinely breaking my heart idk why. All of the phantoms break my heart. I don’t want to imagine anything abt them if I do because if I imagine them having even a fraction of sentience I’m heartbroken. Imagine being unable to prevent something from possessing you. Imagine your body and soul being used to tear your home apart— imagine seeing any of that through your own eyes. Imagine seeing your own kid after years of thinking them missing. I would genuinely not be able to handle that. It’s giving the Last of Us zombies where they’re completely aware and conscious throughout the first phase. Scared . Heartbroken .

Anyways, this au is 100000/10 I need you to know this. YOUR MIND IS SO SO BRILLIANT!!! I’m probably gonna keep rereading everything you’ve written so far about it because I’m having so many brain worms . So so many. Sorry for this ramble!! Please ignore this ask if for any reason I might have said something you didn’t like >:]]]] I HOPE YOU HAVE A WONDERFUL YEAR!!!!

;-; ty so much for your kind words anon I am injecting them into my veins to continue writing. You have said nothing wrong, rambles are nice to receive, though my ask box is a bit cluttered at the moment and I am super busy so getting to things in a timely manner is not something I am able to do.

Riddle! Yutu was the first one to get a post, and I am tempted to re do it as I was still figuring out the format. He hates his dad because he wasn't there for him when he was a child and he doesn't know why. In the good timeline he's something of a daddy's boy; he really wants Riddle to be proud of and praise him

After I finish editing the second part of Rook's post you will be pleased to know the next post is about Jamil. I'm still formulating the outline of it because I've been thinking some thoughts about stars and unique magics

The way I write the phantoms they posses the instincts of their former selves but the individual lacks the input you might associate with consciousness. I'll get more into it in the second half of Rook's post... but there is a degree of awareness of their actions.

There's a lot of tragedy in this ayuu, I'm glad I'm hitting my stride with it c: it's nice to know people are liking it

[tenderfxck]

Can you write for submissive alhaitham? Imagine arguing over something trivial and just pinning him down and breaking him :D but ofc the onion boy would not go down without a fight, and that's where the fun begins <3

this got longer than i expected. um.

this is switch/bottom al haitham. sorry if that wasn’t what you were looking for but uhhhh. inspiration struck my dick and here we are.

contents: switch! al haitham, bottom! al haitham, gn!reader, no reader genitals mentioned, can be read as strap or not, he gets pegged/fucked :P, overstim, brat taming, light orgasm denial, begging

edit: i woke up this morning and found some issues. i went ahead and fixed them and last night’s me will be appropriately drawn and quartered for not proofreading closely enough

it all started when he mumbled a snide remark under his breath.

you had just finished chiding him for being too brusque with some poor akademiya students when you turned to take leave of his office, determined to decompress after dealing with that proud scribe.

it seemed to have been building, this tension between you two, and al haitham was irked enough to push it a just a bit more.

“well maybe you should stop with the niceties and people might actually respect you.”

he watched as you froze in front of him, a faint smirk crossing his face as he saw your perturbed look as you turned back to meet his gaze.

“mr. scribe, do not confuse kindness for a weak will.”

this was rare.

he’s only seen this look that’s currently overtaking your facade a few times before; only when he’s really struck a chord in your arguments.

he laughs quietly, mockingly as he crosses his arms and rests his back against the grand bookcase behind his desk. “well maybe if you knew how to assert dominance instead of resorting to being an absolute pushover you could—“

he feels the push of something before he's pinned between the wall and you.

he never knew you were capable of being assertive, let alone this. his chest tightens, breath catching as he stares back into your darkening eyes.

"assert dominance, huh?"

your knee finds its place between haitham's legs, drawing the open so easily in his paralyzed state.

"dominance. . ."

. . .

“ah- ah- ah- ggh!”

archons. his voice is hoarse, yet he still can’t stop it from rhythmically crying out, a chorus of moans punctuating each harsh meeting of hips. his cock is starting to feel numb. you already rode him twice until he completely emptied himself in you, yet now your thumb still rubs at the tip, taking in every broken little sob of him saying it’s “too much.”

“wasn’t it you who said i needed to- what was it?”

you thrust into him sharply, uncaring for his worn and overstimulated body. all he can do is gasp out, cock throbbing in your grasp.

“assert dominance?”

fuck. he feels so full. his face is buried in one of the pillows on the chaise lounge of the study, no doubt probably stained with his drool by now. his knees dug into the soft, green velvet, ass poised up high, being fucked so earnestly by you.

"i'm simply demonstrating my aptitude."

you continue this steady, constant pace, fucking him flat into the sofa while all he can do is sob out such cute, broken little moans and grab helplessly at the plush upholstery.

who knew you kept something like that hidden away, ready to be used like this.

“please, t-too—ah! much. . .”

“hush. no more whining, now, just take it all, mr. scribe.”

you gave a particularly harsh thrust after, punctuating your teasing nickname before setting that harsh pace again.

he felt like he was losing his grip. his normal sensibilities were now nowhere to be found, replaced with the mind-numbing sensation of you filling him up and the urge to beg you for more, more, more.

and he hated it.

“haah. . . stop—ggh! using me you p-please, asshole. . .”

it was just too much. the hand digging into his soft hips, the other that teased his spent cock, the brutal pace of you pounding into his ass, so completely at your mercy.

“fuck. . . g-gonna cum again!” he gasps, tongue lolling out of his mouth as he sees stars cloud the edge of his vision.

your hips still and your hands are suddenly no where. the sensation abruptly dulls, leaving him unsatisfied. but the burning urge remains, twitching helplessly at the loss of stimulation.

“nonono- fuck! why. . .” he huffs sharply, thoroughly pissed off.

his cock throbbed between his legs, laying swollen and neglected against his thigh. he was leaking from the relentless teasing of your hands, only pushed farther by the lewdness of your pressing so deep into him. he was so certain he had nothing left to give but fuck did he want—need to cum again.

“we’ll i’m just a pushover to you, aren’t i? so i did just what i was told.”

you shifted ever so slightly, slipping that much farther out of his hole, al haitham sobbing at the loss of sensation.

“and stopped.”

archons, no. he was so fucking close to the edge. he needed that release. needed to be roughly fucked to completion. needed to call out your name as he came all over his spent body as you used his hole as you pleased.

fuck his pride. he needs you.

"i-i'm sorry" he keens, shame forgotten, instead heaving and writhing before you. "i'm sorry, just please- archons, ggh. . . please just-" he looks up at you above him, lashes decorated with desperate tears, wiggling those divine hips against you as he pitifully, submissively, finally begs-

"fuck me!"

a sinful smirk spread across your face as you reach you forearm around al haitham's neck, pulling him up into a headlock, his body flush with yours. his back arches so sweetly against your form as you harshly thrust yourself back in, all the way to the base. al haitham chokes out a surprised moan, eyes rolling back as he melts, completely surrendering to you.

"glady, mr. scribe."

[uptoolateart]

Thanks to @hailqiqi for tagging me about ten thousand years ago. I just have so much to do 😩 Anyway! The original post said:

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers (except me because obvs I have done it). Spread the self-love ❤

Here we go!

Breaking Free - the whole series

I'm cheating here, because I'm listing a multi-book series, but I can't help it. I'm super proud of it. It started as a one-shot of Adrien and Marinette finding Gabriel's basement, and then it spiralled hard. It begins right after Strike Back. From there, it's a complicated, twisted and very bumpy ride.

'How did you think this up?' my BF beta has asked me many times. I don't know, guys. It just seemed obvious at the time 😆

This was my 'getting back into writing' book, after a lengthy creative hiatus / identity crisis. I churned out chapters because I needed to get back in the game and rediscover myself artistically. Then I went back and edited the whole thing a couple years later, to make it better (and expand it by about 20k words).

It became a series because I had requests for sequel scenes. Again, a couple one-shot ideas spiralled, and I merged them with another premise that had been kicking around in my head - Adrien, years later, trying to heal from everything as an adult and find himself as a father with his own teenage son.

That then spiralled again, and I ended up exploring Felix in depth, too, and pushing all the sentibeing stuff to extremes. The whole concept for Book 4 intimidated the hell out of me as soon as I thought of it. I was so worried I wouldn't be able to do it justice. Writing it was sometimes physical torture. But in the end, I think Book 4 contains what might be the best chapter I've ever written for anything in my life.

Still, the saga continues! Book 5 starts posting in 4 weeks. I've set myself another crazy challenge with that one, but I am determined to pull it off. I also have ideas for a few one-shots to collect in a volume I'm calling Book 6. The series is going to be like 700k words by the time I'm done. Maybe more. Will I ever truly finish this thing? I don't know. I fell so hard into the universe I created, and it's going to be hard to let it go. I fully expect to cry when I post the epilogue to Book 5.

Book 1 was also how I really got into this fandom and started making friends. Honestly, that book changed my life. Yeah...I'm gonna cry.

Dreaming Wide Awake

This was my follow-up to the S5 finale. The show is now going its own way, but I'm still so proud of how all the tension and emotions turned out in this fic. Again, the story is complex. It's also really surreal, and I think the battle scenes are some of my best. I was soooo nervous about the reader response to one of the big moments in it, but the unanimous reaction was everything I'd hoped for.

How the Heart Learns to Beat Again

A backstory from Nathalie's POV. It starts with her at age 25, as the sole survivor of an old magical order, going on extraordinary adventures seeking legendary artefacts. Then she meets the Agrestes, loses her magic, and gets roped into a new crazy world.

The story also explores Gabriel and Emilie, Colt and Amelie, and Adrien and Felix's creation / infancy. Book 2 (covering Emilie's death and how Gabriel and Nathalie start using the butterfly and peacock) starts posting on Monday. I think these fics are possibly the most mature writing I've ever done. There's a certain 'voice' to them that stands out from my other writing.

Finding a Way (Jurassic Park AU)

This is my most successful fic, so far. It's half goofy / romantic and half tense / action - with a lot of gore. I thought it would be total crack, but it took on a life of its own and became much more serious. There was something magical about how it all came together. I'm planning a sequel, but I need to get through a few other big fics first.

Voyage! Tales of the USS Miraculous (Star Trek Crossover)

This is so far from finished, but I'm having a blast writing it. It's basically all planned out and going to be mammoth when it's done. There's a little of everything in it, and you don't need to know Star Trek to understand it. I'm loving the reader speculations over what might be going on.

Okay! That's my list. Tagging @raspberrycatapult @kuromori4 @cardiac-agreste @mysticraven20 @trinketsinthesun @hamsteriffic @jigglypuff1994 @fandomofone

[ppeasants]

I have been dealing with some major writer's block recently while trying to write the latest chapter for my Time Hollow AU.

I've managed to write out almost the entirety of the chap by now, somehow, but now I have to edit basically the whole thing. Fun.

In the meantime, here's a WIP of a scene from the chapter! It's a flashback to about a week into their time in the Mindscape - not a lot of time at all in the grand scheme of things, so the two aren't super close yet.

Lemme know what y'all think of this! Lemme know if I captured Luz and Hunter well, their characters and their dynamics!

(scene under the cut)

“Hunter? Can we – can we please slow down?”

“No! Not yet! We can’t stop yet?”

“But we’ve been running for – for hours now! Surely we – haah – we’ve gotten far enough away by now!”

“Look, human. If you want to stop, so you can be captured by Unc-Belos, then be my guest!”

“Ay, dios mío…” Luz continues to grumble under breath as Hunter drags her along, weaving between the trees of Belos’ Mindscape, holding her arm tightly as they run, obviously never actually going to act on his threat of leaving her behind. 

They’d been running for a few hours now, jumping between memories and forests, trying to escape from Belos.

It’s been about a week since Luz was teleported here alongside Hunter. About a week since they’ve been running, never taking a break for longer than necessary until they ran again. About a week since the two of them were trapped, forced to live through the torture that Belos had put The Isles – put Hunter – through. About a week since they learned that Hunter’s entire life was a lie. 

About a week since Luz learned just who Emperor Belos really was. About a week since she learned what Phillip Wittebane was planning to do with the Day of Unity. About a week since she learned that she helped him. That she was complicit in genocide – it’s already been a week they need to get out of here to stop it she needs to fix hermistake itsherfaultherfault –

Luz is pulled out of her thoughts by Hunter, who jerks her arm forward again as she begins to flag, forcing her to keep pace with him. She tries to tell him to slow down once again, but is unable to actually get the words out, her own heavy breaths cutting her off, her legs like jelly as she stumbles through the forest.

She doesn’t know how much longer they’re forced to run – minutes and hours blending together – until she suddenly stops, nearly crashing into the back of Hunter, the former guard standing still as he takes a look around at the clearing, his eyes freezing between various picture frames.

“You could – you could warn me if you’re – ” Luz has to take a moment to catch her breath, unable to finish the sentences through her exhaustion – how is Hunter barely even panting? “If you’re gonna stop in the – middle of nowhere!” 

“It’s not my fault you weren’t trained properly.” Hunter scoffs, tearing his eyes away from one of his memories to look down at Luz’s hunched over form, returning the glare she sends his way – the way Hunter is still holding her arm, holding her up as she recovers, clearly having stopped so she can get breath back betraying his seemingly uncaring words.

It takes a few minutes, but Luz is eventually able to bring herself out of her exhaustion, her breaths getting steady as she takes in one last deep breath before straightening out, bringing her hands off her knees to take a look around at the clearing they’ve stopped in. 

Luz has been getting used to clearings like this, gray trees surrounding gray grass - darkness enveloping them becoming an unfortunately common sight for her. Wooden frames hang from various trees scattered around them – so many terrible memories built up from centuries of stolen life. 

These memories seem more recent, images of the dull halls of the castle filling the background of most of the images surrounding them. Various figures stand in them – images filled with Coven Heads getting crowned their positions, with prisoners standing trial before their petrification, with Hunter kneeling before his next mission, his next scolding, his next beating, his next –

Luz forces herself to tear her eyes away from the memories, the thought of anybody being abused like that almost too much to bear, the images replaying in her head as she turns to look at Hunter, his gaze frozen once again at one of the memories of him begging for forgiveness – and only getting more wounds in return.

She wants to reach out, wants to pull his head away from whatever torture he’s putting himself through, but her hand freezes just above his arm, not knowing how best to help him, not wanting a repeat of the last time she touched him without warning – the bruise on her ribcage still healing. Instead she just looks around again, wanting to find anything else to distract him, to distract both of them, when her eyes catch onto a memory, and she squeaks in delight.

“Hunter, look! It’s a party! Or a banquet! Or ball or – or something! Whatever, just – come on!”

“Wh – hey!” 

Hunter’s yelp is cut off as Luz grabs him by the arm and drags him – how does he like it? – towards the image hanging behind them, jumping into it, nearly falling flat on her face as she stumbles into the hall, the artificial light of the room nearly blinding her as she stands up again.

The banquet hall of the castle is absolutely enormous, with golden walls stretching out farther than her field of vision, never able to see both ends of the room. Ceilings just as golden raise high – higher than even the roof of the castle looks from outside it. Tall, thin windows are spaced out evenly along the walls, reaching out to the ceiling above them, the darkness outside the only reprieve from the blinding chandeliers hanging above them.

The room, as big as it is, is somehow filled with guests, as if everybody living on The Boiling Isles is gathered in this one place. Coven members and heads, teachers and students, families and soldiers – squished together as if they couldn’t be anywhere else but here. Knowing Belos, maybe that was true. Luz looks in awe anyways, taking in the sights and sounds as if this party was meant for her.

“This place is huge!”

“It is a big castle. I doubt you’ve seen every part of it.” Hunter stands up beside her, dusting himself off as he stands up next to her, trying his best to look aloof at being dragged around and falling flat on his face, but his annoyed pout betrays him. Luz just smiles back, glad her distraction worked, but her attention is taken once again by the sounds of the other guests around her.

“I wonder what this party is for?” Luz questions as she takes another look around the room, picking up various conversations around her, mutterings of parties and invitations, witches and prisoners, food and drink – when’s the last time she was able to eat something? – floating into her ears, not quite telling her what this gathering is about. “I mean, it seems pretty big, but I don’t know what it could be about. What do you think?”

“It was a celebration of a successful raid.” Hunter answers, his own eyes scanning the room, looking around for any exits should they need to escape. “Coven heads Eberwolf and Darius found and arrested one of the biggest holdings of wild witches in years. Belos wanted to hold a banquet in their honour, a day before their petrifications.” He says it so casually, like he’s reading off a report, and not speaking about the murder of dozens of innocents.

“Oh.” Luz’s voice is quiet, processing the thought of so many people coming together to celebrate the death of others. She can see the way Hunter’s face falls again, his own mind rewiring itself once again, changing what he once believed was just, mourning these witches as if he was the one who captured them, who damned them to this – before another thought crosses her mind.

“Wait, you know what this party was about? Were you here?”

“Yeah. I was.” His voice is still low, but he tilts his head to one of the room’s edges. “Stationed at the west exit.” Luz looks to where Hunter is pointing, seeing a youngest Golden Guard standing watch. 

A yellow mask covers his face, the cowl over his head blocking everybody from seeing under it. The cape behind him drags along the ground, his fourteen-year-old body still too short for him to year. He stands stock still – one could almost mistake him for a statue if it wasn't for the steady rotation of his body as he scans the hall over and over again, artificial staff in one hand, a sparkling glass of something in the other.

“Looks boring.”

“It’s my job, Human. Was. My job.” Hunter exhales before he continues. “Doesn’t matter if it was boring, it’s what I had to do.” He pauses before he tilts his head to her, a teasing glint in his eyes. “Not everything can be all sunshine and painbows like your Azila books.”

“¡AY! Azura is a renowned series, and deserves to be treated as such!” Luz indignantly sputters, trying to shove him, but stumbles as he dodges out of the way, both of their smirks growing wider – wasn’t Luz supposed to be comforting him?

“Besides, there’s nothing wrong with wanting a party to be grand!” She continues, looking back up at him. “The second volume had a party, after Azura had saved the dragon from a tyrannical prince. She saw Hecate there, and they shared a dance! It was beautiful! Magical! And it! Was! Not! Boring!” 

“Hey, don’t you have any good stories about parties?" Luz interrupts herself before Hunter has the chance to insult Azura again "Before you were just ‘doing your job’?” She puts that last part in quotations, and Hunter looks off to the side, seemingly lost in thought.

“There was one party I can remember going to – before I was the Golden Guard.” He responds, a slight smile on his face. “When Belos still wanted his nephew to make some public appearances. I remember meeting the Blight twins for the first time then. I thought they were so annoying.” Despite the harsh words, Luz can see the light in his eyes – Hunter never being able to hide emotions when he isn’t wearing his the mask.

“The two dragged me away from Unc – Belos’ side, asking me all sorts of questions about what it was like in the castle, what it was like being a prince – they never shut up. The only way I could get them to stop was by answering their incessant questioning.” Hunter turns to his side – the side of the room where his past self isn’t – presumably tot he spot where the twins brought him all those years ago.

“Eventually, they seemed to get bored and pulled me over to the punch bowl and put in a few drops of something.” Hunter’s expression turns mischievous as he continues. “I tried to get them to stop, but honestly the way Darius screeched as he dropped his cup and stained his shoes made me glad I didn’t.” nLuz can;t help the laugh that escapes her throat.

“Sooo you do know how to have fun.” Luz wiggles her eyebrows as Hunter sputters, shaking his head vehemently at the very insinuation that a prank could ever be fun. She giggles again, her face softening before she continues, poking his skull. “You know, I’m glad there are at least some happy memories in there.” Hunter scowls, before letting a smile appear on his own face.

“Yeah. I had fun.”

-----

Lemme know what y'all thought! Hopefully the chap will come out soon - depending on how much I can push through this block <3

[presidenthades]

Once again, I am doing a series of my behind-the-scenes thoughts for The Golds while I do light edits for formatting, typos, and continuity. Here’s Chapter 1!

DO NOT read these commentaries until you have finishes reading the entirety of The Golds! These commentaries have many spoilers for future chapters.

First I’m gonna talk about why I decided to write this fic in the first place, because it wasn’t part of my original roadmap for the series. After I finished writing Daemon’s Handbook, my plan was to write an epic longfic with POVs from all the Targkids that encompassed a multi-year timespan a la the ASOIAF books…and then I realized if I did that, I had high odds of burning out halfway through 💀.

I’ve discovered that I do better at writing fic if I have an ending an mind when I start writing it, and the story needs to be something I can finish writing in several months so I don’t lose steam or get distracted/go on hiatus too long. That meant I needed to focus on a specific story with 1-2 protagonists/narrators that had its own complete story arc within the series’ larger arc.

When I finished writing the Handbook, I read a lot of books during my break. Several of those books were about fashion history, and one was the official GOT costumes book. I got really obsessed with fashion in the HOTD world, and I temporarily thought about writing a Rhaena POV fic because in my verse, she’s really into fashion and I wanted to put my newfound amateur knowledge to use 😅. But as I brainstormed what her story would look like, I realized it was super adjacent to Jace’s story because Rhaena is her lady-in-waiting, and eventually I shifted over to a Jace-centric story.

While I was brainstorming the Rhaena fic, I thought of a pregnancy subplot where Rhaena has to create Jace’s pregnancy wardrobe, and that pregnancy plot ultimately became the central story in The Golds. I was originally going to make Jace the sole narrator as she deals with the pregnancy, but I realized Aegon would have some really entertaining thoughts so I made it dual POV. This is when I started thinking about the Bridgerton approach, where each Targkid gets to be the star/costar of their own story in roughly chronological order.

The title “The Golds” is a reference to the canonical Greens and Blacks. There’s a theme throughout the story of Jace and Aegon accumulating popularity and soft power at court and among the smallfolk. This growing faction will unofficially be called the Golds because Jace and Aegon are strongly affiliated with that color, due to Sunfyre’s scales, Jace’s preference for gold, and all the symbolism that gold entails.

Most chapter titles are lyrics from the in-universe lullaby “The Song of the Seven.” Since the fic is about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood, I thought a reference to this lullaby was appropriate. My original outline had 7 chapters for the fic so I was going to title each chapter after the first line of each stanza in the lullaby. As I wrote the fic and realized it was going to be more chapters, I had to get creative. For Chapter 1, I picked the Maiden lyrics because the Maiden is associated with innocence and young women. Aside from this chapter including the wedding night (and thus Jace’s last night as a maiden), this is also the beginning of Jace’s character and emotional journey, during which she becomes less innocent/naive and, as you know, encounters a lot of darkness in the real world.

Ok now for the actual chapter commentary lol

I started showing during the Handbook that Jace is a responsible, dutiful “eldest sibling syndrome” kind of person, and I wanted to really highlight that in this fic. In the beginning of this story, Jace is the neurotic workaholic while Aegon is hedonistic and urges her to relax. Throughout the story, Jace does learn to relax and delegate better, but Aegon also starts picking up responsibilities along the way. By the end, my goal was for them to meet in the middle, where Jace learns that she has to take care of herself if she wants to take care of others, and Aegon learns that he needs to put in some work in order to secure the things he really wants in life.

There’s also a theme of private vs. public. Jace starts as having a very public life (she’s the heir to the throne, her life is on display at court) while being very private about things like her body and personal wants. In contrast, Aegon is very public about his body (the casual nudity is canon, don’t blame me) and personal wants (“I love my wife and everyone must know it”), but he wishes he could have a private life (be his own person and do what he wants, rather than be the prince and politician his family wants). Again, they kind of grow to meet in the middle by the end. Jace learns to be more selfish about her desires and fight for them (she also becomes more comfortable with her body around Aegon, although the self-consciousness never entirely goes away). Aegon learns to put aside his hangups about “I don’t want to be a player in the game” and steps into the arena so he can ultimately achieve what he wants, which is to protect Jace and their child.

We see the beginnings of Aegon’s powers of observation this chapter. He notices the Bracken/Blackwood exchange (these are the same lovers that Daemon spies in the tunnels in Chapter 9 of the Handbook) and deduces a likely explanation. This trait was inspired by a TGC quote about how Aegon is very observant and knows people’s weaknesses. I loved this idea that Aegon observes a lot of what’s happening around him, but canonically he’s too drunk and apathetic to do much about it. Here, Aegon is not an alcoholic and he’s a lot more grounded, so he actively registers a lot more details.

I mention in Chapter 2 that Daemon is part of the reason Aegon doesn’t drink so much, but that’s definitely not the whole story. Aegon seems very driven by the pursuit of dopamine, things that give him pleasure. In canon, he achieves this through whoring and alcoholism. Here, he has Jace, who has always fulfilled many of his emotional needs and now his physical needs. His life is a lot happier, so there’s no need for him to drink himself into a stupor. He did still have a youthful period of debauchery, but it’s not an outrageous amount of debauchery for a spoiled prince—although still in an upper percentile.

Aegon remains impressively chaste during the Stepstones because he realizes his youthful debauchery was a big reason Rhaenyra disapproved of him. And by the time he leaves for the Stepstones, he’s realized (thanks in part to their forced separation, thanks in part to Jace being the prettiest girl he can ever imagine existing) that no other woman is ever going to compare to Jace, so why bother? (He definitely had a locket or something with Jace’s mini portrait and lock of hair lol)

Aegon’s attitude toward dancing (he’s good at it but he hates the formality) is similar to his overall attitude toward court life and politics. He can do it if he wants, but he just doesn’t want to—unless it makes Jace happy.

Confession: the Tyroshi subplot wasn’t supposed to happen the way it did. I’ll explain more in future chapters, but for now, I’ll just say Floris and Sara weren’t always intended to die. But they did die in the final draft, and in hindsight I’m glad I included the Baratheon scene this chapter. Originally the scene was supposed to showcase Jace’s politicking and diplomacy, as well as lead up to her eventually picking Floris as a lady-in-waiting. Now it has extra meaning because it shows how sweet Floris was, how she fit in with her sisters, and how her mother doted on her 🥺.

I actually kind of like Maris, she’s funny in a mean girl way 😂. But she canonically has a tendency to run her mouth and say nasty things. Here, I think she feels jealous that Cassandra is getting so much attention from potential suitors, and that contributes to her rudeness. Jace could have publicly shamed Maris for being so rude to a Targaryen bride at her own wedding, but she decided to be sneakier about it and not cause a scene. Jace wants to maintain a good relationship with the Baratheons while making it clear what Maris said is unacceptable, so she extends the private tea invite to the other Baratheon women while deliberately omitting Maris from the offer. Now Lady Elenda feels honored by the invite and relieved to not have disfavor, and she’ll probably give Maris a terrible scolding in private.

The bedding tradition seems awful and potentially traumatic, especially for the bride (but that’s ASOIAF for you!). I can’t remember what’s canon or fanon, but I went with the interpretation that the bride and groom are supposed to be stripped naked or close to it. I feel like the royal family ought to be exempt from it (in a privileged “nobody else is allowed to behold our naked bodies” kind of way), but I know Alysanne made a point of having the bedding ceremony so nobody could question her marriage was consummated. The ceremony also seems horribly wasteful because all that expensive material and labor that went into the wedding clothes is just trashed, but I guess it’s a status flex. Only the super-rich can afford to deliberately destroy all those resources after one use.

I wish I wrote more scenes where Jace and Aemond hang out 😭. They have a lot of similarities: dutiful, studious, responsible for their siblings. I imagine their relationship being super chill. Then again, they’re very proper so they probably have hangups about spending alone time with someone of the opposite gender for extended periods of time 🙃. Anyway, their relationship is much less antagonistic than in canon. Fem!Jace thinks bullying is wrong and tones down Aegon’s mean streak, while Aemond has a chivalrous and gentlemanly attitude toward women (contrast with book!Aemond, who seems pretty misogynistic). Since a lot of the friction from canon is removed, they get along much better, and this Aemond is more comfortable with the idea of fem!Jace being queen one day because they start from a better place, and he’s her good-brother.

You can see my newfound fashion history geekery showing itself during the scene where Jace gets ready for bed. (Also, take note of how meticulous Jace is. It highlights her general cautiousness, and it serves as a contrast for Chapter 3). I try not to get too flowery with description, but I decided it was relevant to highlight key fashion choices like her wedding dress because it is an aspect of Jace’s influence at court, and she is concerned about appearances. I incorporated a lot of design aspects from GOT, which are much less medieval than the HOTD gowns. I had this idea that the older generation (Alicent and Rhaenyra) stick more to traditional cuts and designs, while Jace and the other girls are starting a new fashion trend akin to what we see in GOT, where styles are more flattering and multicultural.

Jace’s wedding dress is strongly influenced by Margaery’s Purple Wedding dress. The backless part makes it rather daring, and it’s part of Jace and Rhaena’s goal to depict Jace as a leader among the younger ladies at court since matrons are far less likely to wear something so revealing. Also, in GOT, Daenerys’s dresses tend to be much more revealing than anyone else’s, so I deduced that the fashion culture in Essos is overall more daring than in Westeros. Rhaena grew up in Pentos, so I decided she brings that influence into Jace’s wardrobe, which then spreads through court. Jace’s jewelry (heirlooms owned by Valaena Velaryon, mother of the Conqueror and his sisters) is also a statement to highlight that she was born a Velaryon but now she’s a true Targaryen in name.

Jace’s lingerie is definitely Rhaena’s (and Baela’s) influence. Otherwise she would have zero clue what’s fashionable in Lys. 😳

Jace deciding to work on her wedding night is very in character for her. And Aegon making her stop to enjoy herself is also very in character for him. Definitely a recurring pattern for these two.

Like any scene I write, I try to make sure the smut has a purpose in the story. I don’t usually write PWP but I think smut scenes are an excellent way to demonstrate dynamics and emotional connections between characters, so that’s how I typically use them. Here, we see Aegon is devoted to Jace: makes her feel comfortable, ample foreplay, even cracks a few jokes because their relationship is familiar enough for that sort of thing. He literally “lets her hair down” so she can shed her usual inhibitions.

True to character, Jace overthinks the process. She knows the theory of how it works (Rhaenyra would ensure her daughters are informed of the mechanics, and Jace has been living with Baela for three years). She also knows Aegon enjoyed his time on the Street of Silk and she desperately wants to meet his expectations. She doesn’t realize that she could do literally anything (or nothing) and Aegon would still think she’s perfect.

Since Aegon hasn’t had sex in three years, he’s trying very hard not to finish too early 😅. It’s OK though, Jace has no idea how long a guy is supposed to last and they have the whole night to make up for it 😂.

In the Handbook, I hint at Aegon’s artistic tendencies when he doodles in his letters. Here, I expand upon that so he’s sort of a Renaissance man: he sings, he plays lute, he dances, he draws, etc etc. All the skills he enjoys are skills not conducive for a politician/king. In this verse, Jace encourages him to sing and draw, so he pursues it further than he would’ve in canon.

I like to think of the morning-after smut scene as when Cheeseball is conceived 😂. It’s when Aegon dirty talks about making heirs for the throne, and Jace thinks about how much she would like to have children with Aegon. It just makes sense lol.

GRRM makes his female characters give birth way too young. Some people argue it’s historically accurate, but it’s really not. Other than Margaret Beaufort (who gave birth at 13 and never had any other children, probably due to complications), royal and noble women generally married in their late teens and early twenties. But this is the world and culture GRRM created, so I’m trying to work with it. I still headcanon that in normal peacetime, highborns try to wait until bride and groom are at least 16 to marry because they are aware that giving birth too young is dangerous. It’s during wartime or when politics require an earlier consummation that we see things like Sansa marrying at 13 💀. So I made Jace realize, after she’s had time to stew, that being forced to wait three years was best. (Especially since she IMMEDIATELY gets pregnant.)

I had to research whether people with a broken nose (or recovering from rhinoplasty surgery, which apparently has similar side effects—the more you know!) could have sex. Apparently one of the concerns is causing blood vessels around the nose to expand/contract/whatnot, and arousal impacts blood flow so that’s why Orwyle bans any nookie 😔. No wonder Aegon bribes Alyssa to wake Daemon early lol.

A side effect of broken noses is bruising around the face and black eyes, so Jace looks like she got hit very badly. The ensuing gossip about how she got injured ties into the recurring themes of a) Jace’s concern with appearances and b) that courtiers can and will gossip about anything, and the more salacious the better.

Jace is pretty peeved that Luce was so reckless re: the tunnel incident, and probably upset that it inadvertently led to her broken nose. But as soon as Luce needs help, Jace stops caring about her injuries 😭. Another recurring part of Jace’s personality: she’ll do almost anything to help her loved ones but she’s much harder on herself. (Note Luce’s little question, “What do I do now?” which is a question she always asked Jace when she was in trouble as a kid.)

Aegon is closer to Aemond than in canon, since a) they went to the Stepstones together and b) Aegon had far fewer options for male companionship in this genderbent world so he had to lean on Aemond a lot more. The brothers aren’t the kind to have heart-to-hearts, but Aegon knows Aemond well enough to know that Aemond is really into Luce and is probably going to try to marry her.

With Larys dead, there isn’t a very good option for master of whisperers. The council keeps trying to fill it but the candidates never last for long. I like to joke that they’re holding the seat open for when Joff is old enough, but finding a good spymaster seems pretty difficult. Daemon would probably be good at it but he’s already flamed out of several council positions, and he would hate working with Otto.

A little more fashion history! A surcote is that quintessential medieval gown for women, which I decided is very traditional in Westeros. This is Jace’s first day at her new job, so she wants to dress extra conservatively. Color is a big deal in this world of Black versus Green, so she deliberately picks very neutral and inoffensive colors. She also styles her hair and wears gold jewelry from Aegon to emphasize her new marriage, which shows she’s a mature woman and is forging harmonious bonds with her husband across the Black/Green divide.

In canon, Corlys resigns his position as master of ships around Episode 2. Tyland is canonically master of ships during this time, but I made an error in the Handbook and turned him into the master of coin. So I decided to just force Lyman Beesbury into retirement, and this can serve as an in-universe explanation for the change in roles: Viserys (or somebody else) wanted Corlys to have his position back, so they reshuffled the council a bit.

Aaaaand Jace officially has a “first day at work” horror history. Vomited, fainted, and cried in quick succession. And for someone who values privacy regarding her body, this was an awfully public way for her to find out about her pregnancy (and have it announced) 🥲.

Chapter 2 commentary here

[newty]

🌙 a teredio playlist

also i totally grabbed those words in the edit from meditation by richard aldington go read his poem here.

anyway. some selected Thoughts:

canta per me - Yuki Kajiura

The life of the love beloved in my heart oh be happy, you, my soul sing farewell

strong voice and strong violin. it has a proud tone even through what it asks, but it's also asking bc it won't say goodbye itself.

Before We Drift Away - Nothing but Thieves

And as we sing this familiar song I thought I'm gonna miss your love when it's gone Will it flow into the river Or will it go to waste?

the uncertainty that separation/death is going to happen but with no idea how or when. use of the ocean bc sanbrequois shoreline but also the funerial river in twinside

Free If We Want It - Nothing but Thieves

I walk beside myself To see what's left Of you and me And what it means If it goes wrong (don't look back) At least it was real

reflection on a past that feels meaningless but still had a loved one in it. having the ability to move on but also the choice to continue as things are. but mostly just let that shit go and keep going

see also: stand by me - florence + the machine / tsuki o miteita - kenshi yonezu / let the starts fall down - yuki kajiura / walking the wire - imagine dragons / dance me to the end of love - douglas dare

---DION

Pianissimo - Agent Fresco

Could this be All there is Will this shame have a name Only for this night Calm me for this night Oh this shame has a name

dread, uncertainty, danger, desperation. shame is the name of the love that doesn't speak. relying on smth once and then needing it again and again.

Pyre - Agent Fresco

We both belong to longings of past Can you see the pyre below? We both belong to longings of wrath Can you feel the fire grow? Loneliness has only shown me I can't let you go

pairs w pianissimo. the expectation of punishment and the tone of danger. having no time and finding extensions of smth by carrying it in the body, even if it hurts or it's haunting.

IL DONO DELLA VITA - Måneskin

The sound of your ugly laughter Has opened the way for me to the right path I breathe in clean air And I let it kill me But my heart still beats A light that rips through the ground

defying the ppl who are guiding you by doing what they want and not being destroyed by it. part of me thinks this one is a bit too self aware for dion tho LOL

Achilles Come Down - Gang of Youths

Where you go, I'm going, so jump and I'm jumping Since there is no me without you Today, of all days, see How the most dangerous thing is to love How you will heal and you'll rise above Ah, it's more courageous to overcome

i mean. achilles. convincing someone who did great things that they're worthy of more than nothing and death. the length and how many pleas it takes to finish, but achilles' choice is still left unanswered.

also see: the dragon sups - takeharu ishimoto / too much is never enough - florence + the machine / never let me go - florence + the machine / rest up, ignis - yasunori mitsuda / wait for me - agent fresco

---Terence

The Driver - Måneskin

Bare your soul 'till it's naked Bite my lip 'till you break it If you're gonna set fire to the night Baby, let me be the lighter If there's nowhere to go when you wanna go wild I wanna be the driver

enabler terence!!! also lot of feelings abt power. speaker is ordering the subject to rule over them. the subject is the one doing things, but the speaker is a necessary part to all of them. a driver is in charge of the vehicle but not the destination

De Selby (Part 2) - Hozier

What you live in Darling, it finds a way to live in you I wanna run against the world that's turning Let all time slow, let all light go I wanna kill the lights

aka 'terence doesnt actually show any resentment for bahamut for cursing dion into this bs life but for the next 3 minutes 47 seconds he does.' and hes gonna go against the world if dion wants it done

I, Carrion - Hozier

I do not have wings, love, I never will Soarin' over a world you are carryin' If these heights should bring my fall Let me be your own If I should fall, on that day I only pray, don't fall away from me

laughs in dragoons in the sky and bolting straight back down to earth. also bahamut holding the earth. also god this is so saccharine i almost hate it

also see: lover, please stay - nothing but thieves / ghastly medley acoustic - masashi hamauzu / shield of the king - keiichi okabe / the battle is to the strong - kajiura yuki / francesca - hozier / umi to sanshouu - kenshi yonezu / keep me in the open - gang of youths

also terence & kihel tagteam times are the beginning - one ok rock / blood upon the snow - hozier / lost in the snow - yoshitaka suzuki / tendou-sama is smiling - KOKIA / my hands - leona lewis

[highhhfiveee]

fucking finally!

hi hi all [: i’m sorry it’s taken me a bit longer to get this message out, i’ve just been overwhelmed by life and other things, but i finally feel able and ready to put out this message! i’m so excited to share with you all the things i’d like to do with the rest of this year!

safety net, part five

the news that everyone’s been waiting for: safety net part five will be out on june 25th! i’ve been editing it over the last few days and while editing makes my brain sound like a fucking helicopter, i’m setting a deadline so that i don’t just push it off when the material is there lol. i’m happy with the little portion i’ve edited so far, so i’m excited to continue with the rest of it. if i finish editing earlier than that, it’ll be up earlier! The 25th is just my hard deadline. [:

the future of safety net (plus a disclaimer)

with that said, i’ve decided to forgo a set amount of parts. i originally planned to tell the full story over 8 parts, but taking that long break helped me step back and really think about what i wanted to get across with y/n's story.

i also wanted to mention that safety net isn’t meant (and has never) to glamorize or romanticize sex work! i am overwhelmingly supportive of the sex work industry and those that take part in it, and i wanted to steer away from making it seem that i was anti-sex work while on the other end, making sure that i didn't paint sex work as this perfect thing (there's more exposition to this in coming parts).

to me, the story is an examination of the impact of sex, wealth, status, and romance on a girl who had been expecting anything else from her journey. i chose to make mike a pornstar not for flashiness or a “thrill”, but because i think his journey through his career and its impact on his life reflects y/n’s in a way. i hope this makes sense lmao. i just wanted to be very clear and direct that “pornstar” is more than just mike’s role in the AU, but something that means something to him, his identity and those around him. [:

with that said, i decided that i’m gonna leave the number of parts a little more flexible, but capped at 12 parts MAX. when i first started planning and writing safety net, i did not think you all would love it as much as you do 😭 your enjoyment made (and still makes!) me so so happy, but it also made me re-evaluate the progression of the story, so i’ve decided to expand on some things [: the tone and language of these next chapters may be different as well, as i’ve had more time to outline, plan, and think about every word.

i've also planned a few "behind the scenes" fics, but more on that when the time's right.

the future of faire's fics

i have not abandoned any of the other mike AUs! i still have so many ideas for all of them, but at the forefront is the next part of the drinks series, taking us through y/n’s pregnancy and what not. i was wondering, though, would you all prefer fics/ficlets or headcanons for that? i’m fine with either, but i’m just interested in what format you all would prefer!

extra, exciting, interactive things!

lastly, i loveeeeee connecting my writing to music and visuals, so i’ve made both a pinterest and a spotify playlist!

the spotify playlist includes songs that i write safety net to, as well as songs that remind me of the characters and its namesake [': i'll be keeping it updated, so make sure to check back in for new stuff! [also, i couldn't hide my name on spotify so you get a slight face and name reveal haha. faire is a nickname, though i wish it was my actual name lmao. i'm raj (spelled on there as 'rawj' lmao), i'm faire, i'm everything ✨

the pinterest is so that you all can get an idea of what people, places, and things are modeled after. so far, i've only been saving pictures of josh but i will be filling it in the coming weeks (especially as i update!).

fin

...and that's all she (me) wrote. i'm so excited to get back into everything [: i've been missing this platform, and all of you who are so kind and sweet to me. thank you for not leaving, thank you for supporting me, and thank you for reading. every reply, reblog, and like means the world to me (i do not give a fuck about spam....spam to your heart's content!).

you're all so worthy and loved; if by no one, then by me [: 💜

sneaky little safety net, part five snippet 🤫

you’d been given that. a fresh start of sorts. how could you paint your newly-gained privilege and prosperity as a pain instead of a prime?

your mom would’ve told you to pull your head out of your ass and look at the bright side. “you’d finally get to see something other than that goddamn bus stop. take any way out that you can. god knows i should have.”

love was the way out.

you resided in a comfortable, love-fueled bubble now, something you only believed possible if you'd come out of your mom looking a little different.

though, if that were the case, you wouldn't have been whimpering out, "oh my godddddddddd" as you came against mike's face, your back arching off of the silk below you.

*faire, out 😘

[itzpris15634]

In the Park (LPS fic ft. Blythe and her friends)

"I'm working on this new design…" Blythe cried out, flipping through pages of her sketchbook, looking for the right one to show to her friends, "But I just cannot figure out for the life of me what to do about the ribbons. And it's driving me crazy. I can't figure out if blue or red looks better! Should I go with both? But then that would catch attention away from the top, which is what I want people to really look at."

"'Working on a new design…' Aren't you always, Blythe?" Sue commented from the other side of the picnic table, stirring her smoothie with her straw.

"Yeah, we're here to enjoy ourselves," Jasper, seated next to Sue, added, "And you don't seem to be…"

"I AM ENJOYING MYSELF, thank you very much!" Blythe protested, crossing her arms and pouting.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see Youngmee's soft gaze on her.

"Blythe… you're not. We can tell. You're stressed, you're tense, and uh… your hair is… a bit of a mess from all the tugging at it you've done."

"Is it?" Blythe raised an eyebrow. She opened her phone's camera app to use as a mirror. Not only was her hair all tangled up and messy like Youngmee mentioned, her glasses were crooked, and bloodshot eyes were staring back at her from her reflection.

"Oh, yep. Yeah, I see now. I'm a mess."

As Blythe quickly adjusted herself, her friends continued talking.

"I mean, come on. We're out during nice weather, the birds are chirping, the kids are playing all around us in this park…" Jasper said, "Let's take a little break! Plus, if you're not gonna eat the last grilled cheese sandwich…" His arm started stretching towards the basket, containing all the food they had packed for the day's picnic.

Blythe faked an offended gasp, "You wouldn't dare…"

"Oh, would I?" Jasper raised an eyebrow.

Blythe pulled the sandwich out before Jasper could, "That wouldn't be fair! You've all already had yours!"

"Hmm, and I wonder why we've all already finished our food and you have not…" Sue said.

"Oh. Right. Ranting about fashion…" Blythe sighed, "Yeah, I guess I've been a little worked up about that. I guess I'll just worry about it later."

Her friends smiled, now that they finally got Blythe to take a break.

The rest of the picnic continued with conversation and chatter, catching up on each other's lives.

-

"Oh, yeah, now I see what you mean," Youngmee said on the call, as the camera was focused on the sketch Blythe made. "Blue would be lovely, but so would red. But then they would pull your eyes away from the top's design."

"See? You can see why I was so worked up about this at the picnic." Blythe redirected the camera back to her face. She paced around the room as she held the phone in her hand, talking to Youngmee.

"Well personally, I think yellow would look best on the bows. But you should probably consult Kora about this one, Blythe. I'm sure input from another designer means way more than my own opinion…"

"Oh, Youngmee, I always want your opinion!" Blythe said, "But... if you say so. I think I'll take your suggestion about Kora."

===

Day 5: picnic

Smth with Blythe and her human friendos. Plus a mention of kora

edit: yeah i made some edits. i love how i can only notice the mistakes in my writing only after i post it online :))

[starry-mist]

Have I done a “here’s where I think this bullshit might be leading to this season plus also some alternate options that I hate” post yet?

Anyway, here’s where I think this bullshit might be leading to this season plus also some alternate options that I hate.

It took me three tries, as per usual, to remember how to spoiler cut on my phone. Tumblr, I hate you sometimes.

Okay. Sarah. Taking Ph.D classes in behavioural science in Halifax. This is either setting up a) Mayko actually leaving or b) Sarah pulling a Julia Ogden from Murdoch Mysteries with the multiple role changes. I prefer the latter. The former is because I’ve had trust issues since season 3. (Also if Sarah nopes out to Halifax I’m gonna headcanon that she’s run away to be with Karma, fight me.)

Charlie being distant with Sarah (and also everyone.) I hate this. However, the parallel between Sarah taking classes and Julia going back to school before promptly cheating on him has to weigh on his mind. I have written a bit of an angsty fic that touches on this. Not sure if I’m ready to edit and post.

I also think Charlie is intentionally being written as a little more “rough around the edges” and I’m not a fan. And I think they’re purposely separating him and Rex from the rest because iT’s ThE hUdSoN aNd ReX sHoW.

Jesse. Joe is clearly training him in some detective skills, despite his being at a desk. I need him away from that desk. I need Sarah out of the lab. I neeeeed them to keep continuity with s5.

Charah. There is a possibility they’re taking a break. There is a possibility they just don’t have as much time together right now. Also, the promo for episode 4 100% feels like shipper bait. But I’d be happy to be pleasantly surprised.

Random hints I’ve noticed being dropped: Jesse perhaps taking another job (episode 1.) Sarah considering a new house/eventually “officially” moving in with Charlie, or they buy a place together (episode 2.) Sarah considering leaving (episode 2.) Charlie on the outs with his family (episode 2.) Charlie finishing his motorcycle because…reasons? (episode 2.) I’m wondering if episode 4 he goes in to renew his insurance and then ends up in the hostage situation. Which is quite silly but also high stakes so, there’s potential. Some of these hints feel like they could be setting up this season being the last, and they may have planned the arcs for a satisfying finale. (Look, I’d love lots of seasons too, with the caveat that they bring back the familiar format, but Diesel won’t live forever.) I haven’t watched episode 3 so I don’t know if it dropped hints.

There’s a lot riding on this week’s episode, which I may end up watching and regretting. If it confirms a Charah breakup, I’ll be back after episode 16. If it elaborates on what their current status is, and what the deal is with Sarah taking classes, I’ll accept that. The thing is, this episode is supposed to be a one hour real time episode, so I’m not expecting it to answer a ton of character questions in that hour. Though as I write this, the thought has popped into my mind that if Sarah is taking classes in psychology she might play “hostage negotiator”. Could be cool. But given they’ve so far reduced her screen time, I won’t hold my breath.

Anyway. My thoughts so far, based only on two episodes.

Also, it amuses me to no end that any time the show accounts post literally anything, the majority of comments are “tell us what the hell is happening with Charah.” Give the fans what they want, production team. We’re literally begging you.

[gvtted-ratz]

read all our tags/ratings. they r important n give u all u need 2 decide if u wanna actually read or not. do not like the tags/rating? do not read.

FEM ALIGNING/IDENTIFYING PPL (unless mutuals/friends) DNI WITH OUR MLM WORKS. fem ppl can still request tho. respect our wishes or get blocked. yes we do read/check everything. we tag appropriately/use tags that go with our posts.

want 2 request? find the rules: here!

want 2 see all the fics? find em: here!

Freakiest Freak

Hannibal Lecter x Billy Lenz

Last Edited: 02/20/2024

TW: stalking, sexual talk, foul language, breaking and entering

Requested: no

Word Count: 3,885

AO3 LINK -> HERE

Notes: no gay sex but knowing billy? Plenty of his swearing n sexual words.

@rppik (editor/co-writer): Rat went "does anyone want me to make this crackship" and didn't wait for an answer. Alternative title for the fic: "The drooling is coming from inside the house". Also,  SHAFT♡

He’s cold and hungry. The last time he remembers eating was sometime before he began jumping from car to car. He’d been hiding among people’s belongings in the backseats and trunks to arrive in some new place he’s never been. To think some people didn’t lock their cars’ trunks or back doors was odd, but ultimately this works in his favour. Up until it doesn’t, that is.

The screaming of the young couple in the front seats causes him to start yowling like a dying cat in return. He claws his way out of the pile of their belongings that they somehow spotted him within, trying to get unburied as quickly as possible. The woman driving swerves the car off the road in her panic, landing them in a ditch. With no weapon but his own hands, Billy chooses flight over fight and tries his best to throw open the door.

The man in the passenger seat unbuckles himself and tries to climb into the back to grab the yowling intruder . After another attempt on Billy’s part, the car door opens, and he flings himself out, landing in a heap on the cold ground. Upon hearing the man's yelling continue as he exits the car next, the hysterical fugitive clambers his way onto his feet before taking off down the road. The cops will surely be called and on their way. So, with no better course of action available , he changes his course to the woods.

Between walking and running, his progress occasionally punctured by wheezing cackles, Billy makes his way deeper and deeper into the wilderness of Maryland. In his adrenaline filled state, he trips and falls into shrubs, their leaves and twigs getting his hair tangled. It doesn't take long for him to get small scrapes on his hands from the multitude of falls within the unknown terrain he’s found himself in.

“Hungry… Billy’s hungry ,” he mumbles to himself, chewing on his fingers as he walks farther along in the cold weather. Some odd humming here and there leads to incoherent ramblings , combined with a few pig noises and meowing, as he travels onward.

“Little baby bunting… Daddy’s gone a-hunTING!” A screech follows the last syllable. A few giggles from his mouth keeps him from finishing the lullaby for just a few moments. “Gonna fetch a rabbit skin… To wrap my baby Agnes in.”

 Any sort of happiness he derived from the lullaby he sings disappears in the blink of an eye, his attempt at self entertainment short-lived and ineffective . Gurgles mixed with groans leave his throat; his hands claw at his face and hair as the stress from the multiple days pile on him. Screams echo off of the trees around Billy, all of it coming from the man himself, but none able to drown out the screaming within.

“Dead! Bleeding! PIGGIES! FUCKING CUNTS!” Over eight hours, Billy’s been fleeing, running from what he did in Canada. He warned them! He really did! But did they listen? No! None of them did! Just like little Agnes.

With a sore throat, runny nose, and aches covering his entire being, he spots house lights between the trees. With a sense of burgeoning hope for a chance at reprieve, Billy quickens his pace and enters a clearing with a grand home in the middle. It’s quite large, much larger than any of the homes Billy’s used to, even the sorority house he'd last snuck into. Back in Canada, the only homes approaching this size he’d seen tended to be grouped together, almost like a cul-de-sac. This one stands by its lonesome, making it that much more intimidating by contrast, giving the impression that some wealthy fellow must live here. In Billy’s mind, it translates to more places to curl up and hide away in, as a large home has a multitude of hiding spots.

A quick glance over the outside shows many entry points he could take advantage of. With more windows to choose from than teeth in his mouth, Billy grabs a rather large stone from the surrounding area—  originally meant to be used for decorative purposes— and lobs it at one of the large windows on the first floor.

As loud as thunder, the sound of the glass shattering destroys any semblance of peace in the clearing. Just as quickly as it happens, however, the cover of quiet falls over the clearing once again as Billy climbs through the shattered remains of the window. The alarm that is tripped upon his intrusion is just as silent, no one but the proprietor of the home made aware of his crime.

A few more cuts appear on his hands, broken glass still clinging to the window cutting into the meat of his extremities. Some blood smears along the window pane during his entrance, although he pays no mind to the bodily fluid being spread around the home.

Billy finds himself in a large living-room. It reeks of wealth , the quality of items held here making it obvious. He ignores it all in favour of stumbling his way to the kitchen, having some difficulty navigating the huge floor plan of the building.  

With his parched, sore throat, he hasn’t yelled nor screamed after his trek in the woods. His fatigue, alongside hunger, only adds to the aches and pains he feels. As a result, when he falls into the kitchen, tripping over his own feet, he's almost desperate to get some proper sustenance; the deafening silence around him and lingering panic in his veins making him feel further on edge Rummaging around in the cabinets, he finds a bread container and a few bottles of wine. The loaf within the container appears to be homemade and has yet to even be sliced before Billy starts to shove it down his gullet. In his eagerness he chokes on the starchy goodness, hacking it up, and proceeds to pop the cork off the wine in hopes of washing it down properly. A large sip of the bottle's contents, however, prompts Billy to chuck the bottle at the wall, shattering it.

“Nasty! Nasty, Billy! WHAT DID YOU DO, BILLY?!” He screeches, coughing afterwards from the ensuing raw ache in his throat. With the wine discarded, he shoves the rest of the bread into his mouth, cheeks puffed out as he tries to shove it all down into his stomach faster than he can chew. It takes a bit before the remainder of the bread has been consumed, drool dripping down from the edges of his mouth. It coats his lips, some of it having dripped from off him and onto the counter below.

With his meal done, he goes for the fridge, rummaging around to find something to drink. He pushes around jars and bottles, searching for anything that he knows is both safe and familiar. In the back, a jug of milk is found. He turns the lid, letting the opening line up with the spout. From there, Billy proceeds to drink straight from the opening; some milk leaks out from his mouth, trailing down his throat. He stops drinking like a dying man for only a moment to take in a large gulp of air before continuing to chug more of the milk.

Distantly, he hears the sound of tires on gravel. Freezing, he listens a tad bit longer; the car stops, the engine cutting off. Billy drops the jug, spilling the remainder of the milk all over the nicely tiled floor. With his heart thumping like that of a rabbit’s, Billy takes off and out of the kitchen. He’s quick, wasting no time climbing the staircase. Finding a bedroom, he enters it and grabs a few blankets, yanking them off the well-made bed. On the bedside table, he finds a small hand-held phone and grabs it to take with him, too.

Blankets in arm, he goes back out into the hall, searching along the ceiling for a door. At the very end of the hall, he finds it: a small rope dangles from the hook holding it in place. He grabs ahold of it, pulling it down with all his might, and a loud thump rings out around him as the ladder slams down onto the floor. Without hesitation, Billy clambers up the ladder and pulls it shut behind him. With the door closed, he can feel himself relax— as relaxed as an unmedicated, delusional man on the run can be.

Journeying farther into the attic, he finds a vacant space behind many stacked boxes . He arranges a few to completely cover the spot from view in case the person living here does search for him up here. After a bit more shuffling about, Billy makes a small little resting spot out of the blankets he took from the bedroom. Right beside it, he places the phone on the floor for later usage. With all the stress from the day catching up to him, Billy allows himself to finally curl up in the nest of blankets he’s created. It doesn’t take long before he’s out like a light.

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

Waking up, the man is a bit disorientated, making his heart drop for a moment as he fails to recognize his surroundings. It takes a minute before memories of the previous day finally surface in his mind, helping his nerves settle— hearing no activity in the floors beneath him, he decides to relieve his remaining tension by lashing out at some unsuspecting victim, as always .

Wiggling out of his nest of blankets, he grabs the little hand-held phone. Turning it on, Billy starts to file through the phone’s contacts. Here, he finds a contact that interests him more than the others. None of the other contacts have a suffix in front of them except for this one. Clicking it and letting the phone start to ring, he puts the device to his ear to listen to the ringback.

It rings. And rings. And rings .

“Dr. Lecter speaking ,” an accented, smooth voice enters Billy’s ear. In response to his words, Billy lets out a loud, manic chuckle.

“Pretty Piggy… Such a pretty piggy!” He squeals, oinking at the other man. Moans, gurgles, and gargles escape from deep in his chest, laughing and yowling. He goes on for minutes before slowly quieting down into a fit of soft giggles. There’s silence on the other end. For a second, Billy thinks he’s been hung up on, despite the lack of a beep to have signalled the end of the call.

“I assume you’re done then? It’s rude of you to call only to make such obscenities,” Dr. Lecter tells him, not sounding the least bit fazed. Billy’s giggling has stopped, frowning intensely at this off-handed scolding. “Now, I have a strong suspicion that you’re the man responsible for the wreck in my kitchen? Not to mention the explosion of glass in my living room.”

Billy simply gurgles at him, not intending to answer the guy’s questions but finding it amusing that he's once again managed to phone the resident of the very home he's taken refuge in . A sigh of exasperation is the only answer Billy gets to his nonsensical response. The line goes dead afterwards, showing that the man truly isn’t interested in entertaining a criminal .

Billy turns the phone off, moving to sit cross-legged, letting himself flop back on his blankets. He stares off, slowly starting to zone out. Mumbles leave his mouth as he rocks himself from side to side to pass a bit of the time. Doing this is calming, helping him reflect some of the things he’s done recently. While he doesn’t particularly have an issue with his memory , he does tend to find it easier to recount things in a safe environment while feeling somewhat calm— and up until now, he's felt anything but.

In this state, he lets the events from the sorority house play over in his mind. He hums, remembering the first to go in that house. Claire seemed just like Agnes… They all seemed like her in a way. But the more he thinks about them all, the harder it is to determine what exactly it was about them that he found to resemble Agnes at all.  The more he tries, the more his thoughts are derailed by memories of Agnes. Soon enough, the sorority girls and Agnes start to blur together in his mind, just as they had that night, making his lips curl up in revulsion. His mind races, voices unlike his own clawing their way up his throat, repeating words that he can never unhear.

“Disgusting… DISGUSTING! NASTY BILLY!” He cries out, voice high and shrill.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE BABY, BILLY?! WHERE’S THE BABY?!!” He smacks a box of items from its spot, letting it crash to the ground.

“BILLY! BAD BILLY! DISGUSTING PIG!” A lamp goes flying across the attic, shattering upon impact on the wall. A screeching wail explodes from his lungs, bouncing off the walls of the small enclosure he’s taken as his own.

It takes half an hour for Billy to calm down, panting and wheezing. He allows himself to crawl back into his nest of blankets. Whimpers and whines leave him as he shakes from the after-effects of his fit. He’s tired, so very tired.

“Claude… Meow… Meow!!” He lets himself remember Claude, the one creature that seemed to care for him in a genuine way. Regret churns in his gut at leaving the poor thing behind, the feeling fading along with his consciousness as  exhaustion overtakes him. 

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

Waking up once more, Billy is left reeling in the feelings of the past day. Has it been a day? Maybe days have passed. Or could it be weeks? Time is incomprehensible to his messed up mind, much less in the windowless attic.

Not to mention, t here’s too much stimulation going on around him to think. How is he supposed to process anything with all the screaming, crying, begging, and yelling happening? At this point, Billy himself can’t seem to tell if all those sounds are from him, within his head, or occurring outside in reality; it’s too jumbled up, mixing and distorting his senses beyond comprehension. For all he knows, up is right and left is sideways.

He claws at his blankets, chewed-down nails sliding across the sheets. Is he even sane any more? Or maybe he never was. He’s unable to understand those simple things these days. Everything is too much; it’s drowning him.

A sound from down below makes him freeze up , breaking through his disorientated distress. While an odd noise usually wouldn’t have given Billy pause, it’s the fact that it’s right beneath the attic door that scares him— a scrape against the wood, a clink of metal, he can't be sure what exactly. He holds his breath, trying to keep himself from so much as twitching. He listens as the sounds continue before they cease and footsteps retreat down the stairs. With the space beneath him now silent , Billy lets himself uncurl from the fetus position. Slowly, he crawls out of his blankets and towards the attic’s door. Smooshing the side of his face into it, he listens for more sounds.

With nothing reaching his ears, Billy tries to open the door quietly. Despite his efforts, the ladder slams down onto the floor below once again. The bang it makes rings out, making his pulse jump in his veins, but no one comes to check out the noise. Slowly, he creeps down the ladder, leaving it open in case he needs to scurry back into his hiding hole. As such, he fails to notice the new addition to the trap door.

Moving as silently as he's capable of being, Billy makes his way through the hallway and down the stairs. He hasn’t seen this Dr. Lecter, yet , and plans on getting a little sneak peek. It’s when he’s creeping down the stairs that he notices, at last, how expensive everything is: while it’s not flashy, it’s good quality and nice on the eyes, befitting for a wealthy doctor's home. The surrounding items are truly cared for and made from the best products available. Running a finger across the banister, he spots no dust nor dirt. Everything is spotless besides the attic. To think that the one area that isn’t tidy would be the place he's taken as his own; it’s the perfect spot for the Canadian to hide, with it being about as clean as he is .

He looks through the rail pegs as he continues his descent. At the bottom of the stairway, he can hear someone in the kitchen. There’s a whistle of a kettle, sounds of chopping on a cutting board, and bubbles popping like that of something boiling in a pot. Billy finds himself inching closer to the kitchen, hoping to catch a glimpse of this lavish home's owner . Convincing himself that it is worth the risk, he lets himself have a gander.

There, he sees a well-dressed man. With a blazer, dress pants, and shiny dress shoes, he stands in the kitchen preparing a meal for himself. An apron is tied around his waist, shielding his front from any grime he may splash on himself. His hair is nicely combed, with not a wrinkle in sight on his prim clothing. Just by peering at him, Billy knows he’s something to be watched closely. Even while presumably thinking himself to be alone, the man holds himself as someone to listen to and to fear.

While Doctor Lecter is himself a feast for the eyes, the smell of the food he's preparing is just as delicious. Billy can feel a small bit of drool leak past his lips, making him cover his mouth to keep the giggles and spit from spilling out. He knows, by simply staring, that there will be plenty of leftovers once the man finishes… But Billy hardly has the patience to wait that long for scraps.

Thinking quickly, he slinks off to where he remembers the living room being. Scanning the shelves when he arrives, he spots a fine vase, clearly delicate with its shiny glass. It's a pretty thing, and he has a penchant for breaking those, fingers twitching eagerly as he reaches for it. In the next moment, he chucks it towards the fireplace ,the loud sound of its shattering bursting well past the room. In the kitchen, the sounds of chopping cease .  

Billy’s quick to hide in a tight spot by the stairs, waiting with bated breath for the doctor to investigate his distraction. As the man walks into the room, the Canadian killer slips out of his spot,  slipping into the kitchen. Once inside, he messily grabs some of the cooked meat the wealthy man had been cutting. Another grab and his hands have got ahold of some oranges as well, proceeding to bundle it all up in his shirt, holding the hem up like a makeshift basket.

With his food secured, Billy turns to make his way out of the kitchen, only to freeze like a deer in headlights as he sees Dr. Lecter standing in the doorway.

“So, you’re the rat running amok in my home.” His proper demeanour doesn’t disappear as he talks. Even when faced with an intruder and vandal; his voice has an accent that Billy cannot make out, and now that it isn’t being filtered through the receiver of a phone, it sounds unnervingly smooth to his ears. It makes him want to slam glass in his ears, if only to keep the too-perfect sound from bouncing around in his skull for the remainder of the day. Beyond that, the lack of screaming in terror or any sort of anger gives Billy great pause, not knowing in the slightest how to proceed, allowing Lecter to continue. “With all the destruction, I was quite sure I was dealing with a pig.”

At the mention of a pig, Billy's mind starts back up, the man starting to make oinking sounds mixed with breathy giggles. The calmly stated insult is one that’s familiar to him, leading to him latching onto the word.

“Pretty Piggy… Preeeeeety Piggyyyy,” He drags out ‘pretty piggy’ with his laughing and sounds. The other man hardly seems bothered; it’s almost like he expected this reaction. “Pretty Piggy wants to suck his juicy, fat, COCK!” A sound between a wail and a cackle erupts from his throat.

“Now, Mr. Lenz, there is no need for this foul language. Come, take a seat. I have prepared you a meal.” While he moves with confidence, there’s a cautiousness in the way the ex-surgeon moves, almost like he doesn’t want to spook the unwell man into fleeing. Through his giggle-infused haze, Billy follows the other at the promise of food, while staying a few steps behind in case he feels like he needs to run.

The smell of cooked meat fills up Billy’s senses; it makes the man’s mouth start watering in hunger. Bread and milk are enough to keep one from dying for a month or so, but not enough to keep them from wasting away completely. With that in mind, Billy knows that he has to eat some of the offered meal as he’s eaten very little else during his time on the run; he’s lost quite a bit of weight, losing much of his energy and strength from the lack of nutrients.

When he sees the hunk of roasted pig flesh sitting on the plate, he doesn’t hesitate to grab it in his vibrating hands. The next thing the psychiatrist sees is Billy trying to shove the entire thing down his gullet, having been practically starving from his poor diet. It takes a bit of choking, gurgling, and excess spit, but Billy does manage to eat the entire plateful of pork.

“I do hope it was satisfactory, Mr. Lenz. I can see that your diet has been lacking. For as long as you remain here, I can promise you that I will keep you well-fed.” It’s stated as a promise, though Billy isn’t certain if it will be carried out , why would it?

“Piggy’s name… Tell Billy Piggy’s name,” More odd sounds ring around them as Billy delves back into his usual noises, eyes intent on the doctor as he seeks to understand his strangely accommodating host better.

“My name is Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist and ex-surgeon. I do hope you’ll enjoy your stay here, as you seem peculiar.” Hannibal’s words sound more like static as Billy starts to feel even more weak than usual. Eyes darting from Hannibal to the kitchen’s exit, he finally darts out and away from the other man.

Hannibal doesn’t follow Billy as he turns tail, knowing he’ll be finding the ward escapee in his attic. If only Billy had accounted for the fact that said attic could easily be locked up if one wanted to keep another captive there, the new locking mechanism on the trapdoor going unnoticed once again as he struggles to even lift the ladder back up.

It’s only as Billy dazedly collapses, beginning to lose consciousness inches away from his make-shift nest , that his rattled mind comes across a peculiar realization- he'd never told the man downstairs his name before.

[kennathegaefrog]

Where I’m Most Vulnerable (WIMV)

Warnings: none? Lmk

Word count: 750

Blurb

Chapter Two

Blurb:

True has always wanted be a rapper and she’s finally made it but the limelight isn’t all as it seems when she meets well known rapper, Young Remi and is dragged down his crooked path.

Chapter One

“You done already?” She asked with an amused look on her face.

“Yeah, I was really feeling the beat,” I said as I edited the song together.

“You gonna post it on your socials as soon as you finish?” Mini questioned as she walked around her apartment.

“Mmhm and I’ll send you the finshed song, so you can too,” I offered whilst tapping away at my keyboard.

A couple hours later, Mini had come over to chill and we sat on my sofa mindlessly watching some show.

“You know it was really good,” she said breaking the silence.

“Couldn’t have done it without your beat though,”

She laughed before getting up and walking over to my kitchen.

“What you looking for?” I asked, a grin dancing over my face. Our simple lifestyle as teens was going good, we were just about to finish high school and things were looking promising.

“Ice coffee, you want one?”

I nodded as I opened tiktok on my phone and started scrolling. I decided to post another video with our song, so I did just that.

Mini walked over, two glasss in her hands. Passing one over to me she smiled.

I looked at her with a confused smile on my face.

“You know Zeni texted me this morning,” Mini said with a small smile on her lips. I patted the space next to me on the sofa and Mini obliged.

Zenith had been the girl Mini had been talking to lately. She definitely had a crush on this Zeni and I could tell by the way she was smiling they would be more.

“She asked if I wanted to go out for a dinner date the day after tomorrow!” Mini squealed before continuing “So i was wondering if you get help me get ready?”.

“Is that even a question, of course!” I said grinning. I gave Mini a little side hug on the sofa as we continued to watch the show.

After a couple episodes more of the show, we got up off the sofa and started getting ready for bed. Whilst Mini was brushing her teeth I got out pajamas for both of us. When she walked out of the bathroom I chucked hers at her before walking into the bathroom myself to brush my teeth and get changed. When we were both changed, we got into my bed and we both started scrolling through tiktok on both of our phones, sometimes hearing our songs.

With a little gasp, I ask Mini :

“Did you hear Young Remi dropped a new song today? It’s called ‘crazy’,”

“He talking ‘bout how he’s crazy for another girl?” Mini asked sarcastically.

Young Remi was a well known rapper for his playboy type reputation. And honestly he probably was one of my favourite artists at the moment. So I scoffed before I continued to scroll.

After about an hour we stopped scrolling, just when I was about to close my eyes Mini asked “Do you think Zeni would say yes if I asked her out to prom?”

I turned over and laughed “Of course she would, anybody who has eyes can tell you both like each other,” I said reassuringly before mumbling about sleep. It wasn’t long before we both huddled together asleep.

I woke up to the sound of notifications on my phone. I rubbed eyes before grabbing my phone to silence them but instead I had accidentally pressed one. It sent me to tiktok showing our song with over 3 million views and videos and both me and Mini had gained a couple hundred thousand followers.

I shook Mini awake, grinning from ear to ear whilst she looked at me like I was a rabid animal.

“What,” she said her voice sluggish from sleep.

“Our song’s gone viral!” I squealed whilst flipping my phone screen to her.

My mama walks into my room with a stern expression on her face.

“True why are you screaming?” She asked her Spanish accent thick.

“¡Ay! Mama, our song’s gone viral!” I said before a garbled mess of Spanish exited my mouth explaining everything to my mama.