#got stuck behind slow assholes all the way to work

[bedcorpse]

bumper sticker that says “this machine kills tourists”

[sleepysnk]

sorry!! i know you’re not taking requests rn but thoughts on hanma being envious over reader and draken’s relationship and then him comforting (😉) reader after their breakup!!!!!

a/n: i saw this.. and my brain went to work mode. thank you for sending this in!! i hope you enjoy <3!

pairings: hanma shuji x fem!reader

warnings: college au, angst, cheating, mentions of draken x reader, breakups, nsfw, oral sex f!receiving, use of pet names (baby, doll, babydoll, princess), jealousy, possessive behaviors, choking, unprotected sex, breeding kink, some mentions of after care, mentions of cigarettes.

moth to a flame ft. hanma shuji

Hanma Shuji was the kind of man who could wrap any girl around his finger.

In some ways, Hanma was every girl’s dream man. He was standing at six foot four, had golden eyes like the rays of the sun, and gorgeous black and blonde hair that sat atop his head. The addition of the kanji on his hands only gave him more attention from the women he saw at parties or in his classes. He was no doubt a handsome man. Every girl on campus fantasized being in bed with the male. Some even got lucky and spent an evening with him. Their recounts were all the same. He was a blessing in the sheets and he worked wonders with his body to make a woman feel good.

Hanma knew he was an attractive guy. He was often called cocky or self centered by the insecure men on campus who were envious of the man’s popularity. It’d earn a couple laughs from him and he usually shrugged off such comments, because to be blunt, he didn’t have a single care in the world for any guy who came off as insecure. They could dream all they wanted. They would never be Hanma Shuji.

When he began his sophomore year of university, he figured he’d be used to the familiar routine he had his previous year. He would go to parties, indulge in some alcohol, and smoke cigarettes with the friends he had made prior. It was supposed to be an average year of dreaded assignments and waking up at the crack of dawn to get ready for class. He knew the routine. 

However, as with some routines, they begin to get disrupted by things out of their control.

That’s exactly what you did to Hanma’s usual college routine. You destroyed that wavelength he was riding on for the past year, and he was not a fan of that sudden shift. 

Hanma’s very first encounter with you occurred at a fraternity party. His honey eyes were searching for someone to hook up with that evening. He was already so exhausted from his classes that he needed some sort of release from the problems he was facing. There were many options in front of the man, but you were the jewel that shined behind them all. Hanma found it hard to believe that a woman as beautiful as you wasn’t paired with another man. Your glittery skirt that twinkled like stars on a dark night was what really stuck out. Though, it was your beauty that completely cultivated the man who was sitting just one room away from you.

The cigarette between his chapped lips almost slipped away from his mouth from how intensely he was staring at you. Could someone like you really be real? It was almost as if the gods themselves designed you like you were meant to be the perfect human being. 

What a woman he thought to himself. 

However, with that beauty brought disappointment to the man who had desired you. Hanma’s once excited heart had slowed when another man had draped his arm around your shoulders. He had bitter emotions when he realized that it was Ken Ryuguji that had accompanied you. How could that asshole pull a fine dime like you? He was well aware that Draken was a relevant man on campus. He was also known for his looks and his friendly nature towards his peers. Despite that, Hanma disliked the other man. He just couldn’t place his finger on why he couldn’t stand him.

Hanma eventually dropped the idea of trying to make a move on you, and moved on to some other random girl who had caught his attention. He let it go. It’s what he had to do. 

Unfortunately, that didn’t last long for him. 

Hanma didn’t know what it was, but you had infected his brain like a parasite and you refused to leave. He had barely ever seen you on campus except for the occasional chance that you were in the dining hall at the same time he was, but otherwise, you two hardly ever interacted with each other. What the fuck was his reasoning for thinking of you so much? You had a boyfriend. He was never the type to cross those kinds of boundaries, especially with guys like Ken Ryuguji around. He knew that’d lead to some unfortunate events that Hanma wasn’t looking to get involved in.

It didn’t take very long for Hanma to hear about the details of your relationship with Draken. He’d see the two of you all the time around campus. Sometimes you’d exchange kisses before heading to class, or Draken would hold your hand whenever he walked you back to your residence hall. Hanma despised seeing the two of you in such a romantic manner. He never liked relationships to begin with. He had enough sour run-ins with other girls in his past, so the idea of one made him physically ill. He also strayed away from them simply because who genuinely wanted a serious relationship in college? Many people his age were only there to have sexual relationships and nothing more than that. He was just another soul who trailed along with the bandwagon.

He often rolled his eyes whenever he saw social media posts about you and Draken. He’d see you two posing in different photos and your smile would be so wide that he was surprised your cheeks didn’t hurt afterwards. Hanma did his best to filter out those images from his mind, but they always flooded in at the worst moments. He just didn’t understand it. Why was he so perplexed by you? What did you do to him? 

“You like her, idiot.”

When his best friend Kisaki mentioned that to him, Hanma couldn’t help but chuckle. He honestly thought his companion was just messing around, but that laugh quickly faded when he saw Kisaki’s expression remain unchanged. He didn’t think he was genuinely serious, but he was. Hanma would never have thought that he liked you. It didn’t seem plausible whatsoever. He was practically one of the school’s playboys. Why would he of all people begin to fall for a girl that had hardly even looked his way? 

Denial was a great emotion and it was clear as day that Hanma was living through it.

He didn’t want to believe what Kisaki was saying was truthful. Hanma just thought you were a pretty girl, but if you were just a pretty girl, why were you on his mind? None of it made sense, nor did it add up. He wanted to believe he was just going through some odd phase and he’d be over it within a week or two. 

Weeks turned to months and here he was a year later. 

Hanma had completely pushed you out of his mind. He went on with his sophomore year and he ended up finishing it up faster than he had ever expected. He would occasionally see you roaming around campus with your friends or with your boyfriend, but otherwise, he completely avoided your presence. It sort of worked too. He had a completely opposite schedule than you did, and he was thankful that those emotions he once felt had fizzled out. He felt as if he could return to his normal routine he had his freshmen year. Hanma was beyond relieved to feel a sense of freedom.

Now entering his junior year, he had many things to look forward to as a third year in university. 

Being an upperclassman, his twenty-first birthday, and most of all, spending it with the people closest to him. He was beginning to look forward to the new beginnings that his junior year had to offer. He just couldn’t believe that he was already one year away from graduation. 

Though, this brought many stressors. 

Hanma had to figure out what the fuck he wanted to do with his life. He couldn’t keep fucking around and living his life in bliss. His academic advisor had warned him that things were about to get serious for the man, and he was somewhat afraid of that fact. He was growing up. One day, there wouldn’t be any more parties or hang outs with his friends. He couldn’t lie that it scared him shitless at times whenever he thought about it too much. He also had parents to impress while in the process. It took his mother a shit ton of work to even cough up the cost for his education. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone, let alone the one person on this earth that helped him get to where he is now. 

It burdened his mind so much he had to go out and take a breather. 

Hanma had picked up his smoking habit as a teenager. He remembered one of the kids in his high school handing him one inside of their car, and he never stopped since. His mother often scolded him for involving himself in that kind of lifestyle. Smoking sort of killed his lungs and now he can hardly go a day without pulling out one of the cancer sticks from his pocket. It wasn’t made any better when he was stressed from school, or just random shit in general that gave the man a problem.

The situation was no different now. He was roaming the sidewalks of the empty campus that was usually buzzing with life, but since the sun had gone down just an hour prior, it was pretty much a ghost town aside from him. He had one of his cigarettes between his teeth with the end burning, letting the strong stench of smoke fill his lungs with every breath. It was a quiet evening. The moon was bright and full in the night sky with an occasional cotton like cloud blanketing its surface. The lights that illuminated the campus walkways were beaming their usual yellow glow, revealing nothing but the grass or random bushels that were planted along the concrete. It was slowly turning into fall, but the air was sticky with humidity suffocating it. It didn’t seem to bother Hanma much, though. He just allowed the air to envelop his skin. 

Hanma had one of his hands inside the pocket of his shorts. He fished and twisted the lighter between his fingers while he walked the path of the walkway. It was a Friday evening, so many of the students were on the way to parties or they were heading home for the long weekend ahead. Hanma wasn’t doing either of those things. It was kind of a bummer, considering he always looked forward to getting intoxicated until the sun came up the next morning. He was just too exhausted to even think about staying up that late. 

Was this what being an adult felt like? 

He blew smoke through his nose, his eyes searching the surroundings. He could have sworn he saw a stray squirrel running through the trees, but he wasn’t too concerned about it. He just wanted to finish his walk and head back to his dorm where he’d probably just go straight to bed. None of his friends were around to hang out anyway.

Hanma’s body was about to turn down the other walkway, but he was halted when his eye caught the shadow of a person in the distance. To be honest, it scared the shit out of him at first. From where he was standing, it honestly looked like there was a ghost sitting on the bench underneath the light. Hanma knew of weirdos that would camp around campus looking to cause trouble, but that was fucking creepy. Any normal person would have minded their own business, but Hanma was curious. He wanted to know who was there and what they were up to. He was aware of a handful of parties occurring that evening, so he wondered if it was someone waiting for an Uber or someone who wandered away while drunk.

He flicked the end of his cigarette, then began creeping closer to the figure in the dark. They seemed unmoving and quite still, but Hanma could somewhat make out their features. It was a woman, and she seemed to be focused on something. He really hoped that deep down it wasn’t some kind of horror movie scenario where the curious guy gets murdered by the lady under the streetlight. 

As he grew closer, his vision began to become clearer and the cigarette between his lips almost went slack. 

Hanma’s heart quickened inside his chest when he realized that the person sitting underneath the light was you. Many questions bubbled inside his mind. Why were you alone out here? Why did you seem visibly upset? What was going on? He honestly didn’t know what to do. Hanma knew that any cautious woman wouldn’t be so easy going when it came to random men lurking around campus after hours. He wasn’t trying to give off the impression that he wanted to harm you, or do something bad. Hanma had the utmost intentions when it came to you. He’d never do something disrespectful or completely out of pocket to someone.

He hadn’t seen you since last semester. This was his first time seeing you in a few months. Not much had changed really. You still had that jaw dropping beauty that could make even him fall to his knees. It was almost as if those familiar feelings he had prior had somehow resurfaced, hitting him like a tidal wave. 

Hanma hadn’t realized how close he had gotten until you had lifted your head and stared at him like a deer in front of headlights. He wasn’t sure what to say, nor do. The cigarette he had previously lit was now burning, allowing some of the ash to split apart and trickle down onto the concrete near his feet. He was frozen there in front of you. What was he supposed to say? Being honest, it looked kind of awkward to have him standing there with a blank expression on his features. There was so much silence that he could practically hear the sound of cars roaring to life in the distance.

One thing was clear about your expression, and that was that you seemed off. You didn’t have that familiar smile he was so used to seeing on a daily basis. If anything, your mood seemed sour and you honestly seemed full of sorrow. He couldn’t see much detail due to the position of your head, but he knew something was wrong with you. 

“I’m sorry.. do you come here often or something? I can leave..”

Holy fuck. He was at a loss for words. Hanma had heard you speak before, but your voice was much softer now. It sounded apologetic, almost as if you were afraid to speak to the taller man. He had to admit, you had every right to be cautious around him. He was a six foot four man out in the evening with just a cigarette in his hand. That sort of reaction was deserved, but it only made him more curious. You were alone for a reason. You were usually such a social butterfly with someone by your side, so why was there a sudden absence.

Hanma swallowed, trying to find a response that seemed valid. He knew it was best to be as honest as possible with you. The very last thing the man wanted was to scare you or put you in an uncomfortable position. “No..” he cleared his throat, trying to remove that lump that had formed. “I was just takin’ a stroll.. and I saw you in the distance, so I was curious.” 

You remained quiet where you sat. Hanma tried to not stare too hard at you, but he wanted to try and read you. It was incredibly difficult though because he had no idea what your thoughts were or what was going through your mind. He figured he would just leave your presence, but there was another side of the man that told him to stay and watch you. You were by yourself out there. The night always brought out the bad in people and it’s when the creeps usually started lurking. He didn’t want something bad to happen to you out there. 

Hanma was surprised to see you shift around on the metal bench. You maneuvered yourself so your feet were now on the bench, and your knees were close to where your face was. Basically, you were in a fetal position, but you were sitting up. You sniffled, which caught his attention. It wasn’t cold outside, so you must have been crying. “I just needed to clear my head.. that’s all.” you stared at the specks of grass just a few feet before you. “I doubt telling a stranger would do much good..” 

Hanma frowned at your last sentence. He knew you probably had no idea who he was, which was a bit shocking because of his reputation, but that wasn’t exactly important right now. He didn’t like intruding in the business of those he didn’t really know much about, but you were clearly upset about something. He could see it in your body language and by your tone. 

Much to his dismay, he had no clue what to respond with. He couldn’t necessarily force you into speaking about whatever issue was on your mind. 

He took another hit of his cigarette, which was now nearing the end of its life. He released the smoke through his mouth upwards towards the sky, watching it disappear within the night. He just couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with you. He didn’t know what it was. Hanma Shuji had spent his entire life making everyone around him fall to their knees, yet here he was now doing the same exact thing he swore he’d never do for someone else. “I see.. seems we’re in the same boat.” he finally spoke, averting his gaze to the sidewalk. “I hope your troubles get better, though.” 

Hanma flicked the end of his cigarette into the grass, then turned around to head back towards the dormitory he resided in. It was kind of a bummer, to be honest. He thought that maybe he’d have a chance to speak with you one on one for once in his life, but he seems to never reach that side of luck. 

“Wait..!”

His footsteps paused at the call of your voice booming behind him. Hanma’s head turned to look at you. You were still sitting atop the bench he had previously met you on, but your feet were now on the ground. He grew curious at your sudden outburst. Was there a reason for it? He wanted to know what was going through your mind, so he took a step back in the same direction you were in. 

Hanma could tell you seemed hesitant to speak to him. That’s what bothered him the most. The unknown is what made him anxious about the whole thing. He had no clue what might come from your lips. “I know it sounds dumb.. but.. I really need a friend right now. My roommate went home and I just..” you trailed off for a moment, seemingly thinking of your next reply. “I know we aren’t friends by any means, but someone to talk to would help me. I have so much on my mind, and I.. I don’t know what else to do.”

A tug formed in his chest at your voice. You sounded like you were in distress over something. It was almost heartbreaking for the man to hear. He knew what the sound of vulnerability was like, and you were almost a perfect image of that. Hanma knew it all too well when he had hit rock bottom several years ago. Being backed into a corner with zero help whatsoever was one of the most draining experiences he had ever had. It was also one of the loneliest and he wouldn’t wish that upon another human being.

Hanma figured he’d do what nobody else did, and he would listen to you. Even if venting to a stranger didn’t do much, you could at least say someone out there sat down and listened to your problems. 

He slowly walked over to the other side of the bench. Despite the temperature of the air being quite warm, he felt a chill from the metal of the seat he was sitting on. Hanma wanted to keep as much distance as possible from you, because he feared the chance of you growing uncomfortable with him being too close. The last thing he’d want is for you to make a dash back to your residence hall to report him for inappropriate behavior. “Go on, I’m listening..” he placed his elbow against the armrest of the bench, placing his full attention onto you. 

Your eyes flickered from the floor to where Hanma was sitting. Not gonna lie, it was kind of nerve wracking to sit next to him. He seemed a little intimidating by his stature and overall nature. Most people would think you’re crazy for sitting on a bench with a random guy you just met in the dark, but you were willing to take your chances. “Um.. this is odd to ask, but what’s your name? I’m (Y/N)..” you figured it wouldn’t be awkward to ask that kind of question, considering he was nice enough to know what you wanted to talk about. 

“Hanma Shuji.. it’s nice to meet you.” he glanced at you briefly, trying his best to make sure you were comfortable with him.

You nodded. His name sounded familiar. You could have sworn there was a classmate of yours that spoke of a Hanma, but you couldn’t exactly place your fingers on it since it was so long ago. “Likewise..” you softly smiled, but that smile soon faded into a frown when your mind reminded you of what had happened to you just a few weeks prior. 

Hanma toyed with the small box of cigarettes in his pocket. He almost wanted to offer you one in case you smoked, but most people denied him that. Not many people were fans of the toxic sticks that caused health issues in human beings. “So.. what’s bothering you? You don’t gotta say all the details.. but I’m more than welcome to listen to you.” he felt somewhat nervous in your presence. Knowing him, he would probably say the wrong thing to you, so he decided to be fragile with whatever words came out after your explanation. 

Silence wrapped around you two. The only sound that could be heard was the soft breeze that danced through the trees around you. 

You had no clue how to begin with your issue. So much had happened in the last few weeks that it completely messed with your head, and your mental health. To be honest, the kind of story you were about to tell could come off as embarrassing. While people validated your emotions constantly and tried to assist with the pain of your breakup, you still found yourself with somber thoughts that never seemed to end. How could they? You were with Draken for a whole year. That’s a lot of time to date and spend with somebody else. All of that time meant nothing after what he did to you just a few weeks after the semester had begun.

You remembered the details fairly well, considering how crazy that night went down.

It was one of the first parties of the semester. You and your friends decided to go with one another as a group. It was supposed to be a night of fun and drinking for your group. Draken had told you he was staying in that night because he had some extra homework assignments to do, and you thought absolutely nothing of that. It wasn’t the first time he had done that. However, if you knew then what you knew now, you would have called Draken on his bullshit. You wished you weren’t such an idiot for believing him that evening. 

Draken had cheated on you that night.

You weren’t sure why or what his reasoning was for cheating on you, but you discovered it because one of your friends had seen a girl leaving his dorm that night. When you confronted your now ex-boyfriend, he denied the entire thing. He said you were being delusional about it, and that’s what angered you the most. You had genuine proof of this interaction and why would a friend of yours lie? You knew better than to believe what Draken was saying to you, and you eventually broke off your relationship. He betrayed your trust and completely ruined you as a person. How could he do this to you? You gave him nothing but clarity throughout your entire relationship, so why couldn’t he do the same for you? 

You turned your body to face Hanma. He was seemingly waiting patiently for you to begin what you wanted to say. It was difficult to explain it without that familiar lump forming in your throat. You were sick of crying about it, but how could you not? He hurt you. “It may sound stupid.. but I was cheated on by my boyfriend.” you finally broke the silence around you. 

Hanma’s blood went cold when those words left your lips. He could hear the heaviness in your voice once again, and it made his stomach twist with guilt. Someone like you? Cheated on? That’s disgusting and absolutely unnecessary. Hanma could say he understood how you were feeling. He had previous relationships with girls who decided to sleep with others because they weren’t satisfied with what Hanma was offering them. He never usually let it get to him, but to anyone else that’s an extremely sickening experience to live through. Nobody deserved to get cheated on. Sure, there may be exceptions, but for no reason? That was ridiculous. If he wanted to cheat, he’d break off his damn relationship before he’d put someone else through that pain.

It also made him somewhat angry. He never felt the greatest vibes from Draken of all people. He assumed this was the exact reason he had been searching for. The guy just seemed to be too nice for Hanma’s liking. Though it was somewhat shocking, he always assumed that your relationship with him was perfect. Draken seemed to be in love with you, but guys like him could switch up anytime they wanted. It was just unfair to you. 

He started searching his mind for a response. He was very curious as to who and if there were other details you’d be willing to share. Hanma wasn’t going to force you of course, but he was itching to know what other information was there. “That’s not a stupid thing.. no one deserves to be cheated on, (Y/N). I could see why you’re upset about that..” he began. “Do you know who it was? Please don’t tell me you stayed with that asshole.” 

You shook your head. Not knowing who it was kept you up at night, but you didn’t even have the desire to figure out that factor. It’d only make that ache in your heart worsen. “N-No.. and personally, I don’t want to know, and I broke it off when I found out. I just.. I don’t get it. I gave everything to him and he just fucked me over..” you could feel tears welling in your eyes, blurring your vision from the stinging sensation. 

Hanma could see the hurt on your features. It only became worse when he saw tears streaming down your cheeks. He felt so so bad for you. Nobody deserved to go through such a heartbreak like that. Sometimes, a relationship coming to an end hurts more than any physical pain. 

He wasn’t sure if there were any words or phrases he could say to fix what happened to you. Well, to be real, there was nothing he could do. Healing from a breakup took time. You had to be patient with yourself and let the pain run its course. Hanma didn’t want to say the wrong thing as well. Your mind was fragile and could break like glass at any wrong movement. He struggled to find some kind of response, but saying absolutely nothing was worse than saying something that wouldn’t patch the wound in your heart. Hanma wasn’t the greatest with advice. Hell, he wasn’t the best man to tell a breakup about, but he knew if it was him he would want somebody else to offer something.

He knew offering pity wasn’t the greatest idea in the world. Some people disliked the idea of “i’m sorry” but it’s all he could come up with. “I’m sorry.. (Y/N). I’m not sure if you’ll ever find out why, but you didn’t deserve that. Your feelings are completely valid, though.” he finally looked at you for the first time since he sat down. 

Feeling embarrassed, you wiped away the stray tears that rolled down your cheeks. You had heard plenty of apologies from not just Draken, but your friends as well. You were used to it by now. You couldn’t get angry with the man in front of you for feeling remorse. Some guys would probably say it’s your fault and that you should forgive Draken, but you were relieved that Hanma actually had a brain unlike some of the other men you’ve spoken to on campus. “It’s fine.. thank you for letting me vent, Hanma.” you tried to force a smile, but it didn’t really last since you were still facing the emotions still.

There was that silence between the two of you again. Hanma wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to say, but he knew it was starting to become late. It had to probably be around nine o’clock now. 

Hanma didn’t want to stand up and just leave you by yourself. He recently recalled that you mentioned your roommate had left for the weekend, so you were alone. There also wasn’t a single soul out on the streets of campus right now, but he knew that the night brought out some strange people. He didn’t want you to walk home by yourself, so he figured he’d offer you something. “Look.. um, it’s getting late and I wanted to ask if you’d want me to accompany you on a walk back to your dorm? Only if you want.. no force.” he was cautious with his words, because he didn’t want to give off the wrong impression.

You chewed on your bottom lip. You were aware of how dark it was outside right now, and there were probably zero people out right now except for those who were going to parties. Hanma seemed to have a nice vibe to him, so you stood up and nodded your head. “Sure.. thank you, Hanma.” you smiled, looking at him.

Hanma sat up and removed himself from the bench. He was much taller compared to you, so you had to kind of look up when he came beside you. Even Draken could be called short next to this guy. “No problem.. lead the way.” he then placed his hands in his pockets, nodding his head forward towards the residence halls that were along the paths.

The two of you then set off away from your original start point. 

You and Hanma were sort of awkward at first. Besides the hidden fact that Hanma knew you, you didn’t seem to know him. He was okay with that, of course. It gave you both the opportunity to ask questions about each other, and that’s exactly what you did. He was a very curious man and you were a curious girl. It was a nice match. You two asked about each other’s hobbies, your majors, what year you were in, and other things of the sort. Hanma was able to learn a lot about you in such little time. He was even able to crack a giggle from you when he responded to one of your questions about his hobbies. It made him smile. You seemed comfortable and less stiff around him, and that’s exactly what he wanted. 

It felt nice getting to know someone all over again. Lately, you had little to no distractions and your mind was full of chaos. Speaking with Hanma and having the chance to hear something from someone else’s perspective gave you that ease you desired for so long. Sure, spreading your business to others may have not been the greatest choice since he was a stranger, but you could care less. Draken was the one who fucked you over at the end of the day.

The two of you both paused when you reached your residence hall. Hanma stood in front of you underneath the awning. The light above you flickered occasionally, showing the bulb’s age. It was just the two of you now. There wasn’t anybody else near the residence hall, except for the people inside. Hanma was sort of bummed to see that this conversation was coming to an end, but all good things must come to a close. The two of you would probably never speak again, and this would just be a distant memory. It was sort of a sour feeling for Hanma, but he was well aware that he could never force something like that between you both. 

You glanced up at Hanma. A smile formed on your features at the sight of the polite man. You were thankful that he didn’t pull anything that might have made you regret walking with him. He genuinely seemed like he had pure intentions. “Thank you.. for walking me back. I appreciate it!” you reached inside your pocket for your keycard that gave you access to your building. 

Hanma nodded. “No problem, (Y/N).”

Once you found your keycard, you weren’t sure why you couldn’t just let Hanma walk away. He had this drawing aura that led you to him for some reason. You started thinking to yourself if what you were about to ask would possibly leave you with regrets, but your friends constantly told you to take risks. It’d be friendly, nothing more than the two of you hanging out with one another. It was also a Friday evening. Your roommate was gone, and it’s not like any of your friends were around to hang out with you. They were probably drinking and getting high at a party at that very second. 

“Wait, Hanma.” 

He paused in his motions when you called out for him again. He turned his body around to face you, and his head cocked to the side. He wondered what you wanted to say to him. Hanma could visibly see the nervousness written on your face. Was he really that intimidating that he made you nervous? In some ways, he understood that. He was taller than most guys in his grade and he often gave people a scare, but he never liked it when it came from people he was associated with. 

You took a deep breath when you noticed his eyes lingering on you. You figured the worst thing Hanma could say was no, so fuck it. “Do you.. do you want to come up to my dorm? I have no one else to talk to.. and I doubt you do either.” you fidgeted with the card between your fingers, feeling somewhat anxious.

It was his turn to be shocked, once again.

Hanma never imagined you would ask him such a question. The two of you barely just met about ten minutes ago, and you were already inviting him up? He had nothing but good intentions with you of course, but still, he could hardly believe that you wanted to hang out with him. Hanma honestly thought you were too good for him. However, your words were very much truthful. He had nothing else better to do tonight. He’d probably go back to his dorm and just smoke until he was tired enough to fall asleep. Maybe hanging out with you would do some good for him.

He then turned and began to walk towards you where you were standing. “Sure, why not?” he shrugged, taking his hands away from his pockets.

You were quite stunned at how quick of a response you received from the man. Though, you were relieved that he didn’t think of you as some weirdo or something. Some people weren’t the nicest when it came to this kind of stuff, so thank god he wasn’t them. “Okay..” you replied, turning to the small lock box next to the large doors.

Reaching over, you pressed your keycard onto the box. You heard a small beep and the doors in front of you clicked, allowing you to open them up. The two of you entered the residence hall and began to make your way to your dorm room. Hanma thought it was quite ironic, because he had been in this dorm hall a few times his sophomore year. He had a fuck buddy he used to hookup with frequently that year. He was a bit surprised to see that you lived on that specific floor, but he was going to keep his mouth shut about it. It was a year ago, and not really his place to share. 

The two of you paused once they reached the door that belonged to you. Hanma eyed the decorations that were scattered along the material of the wood. There were random pieces of construction paper cut into different shapes, or stickers that were a plethora of colors. He thought it was kind of cute. The girls on campus always knew how to properly style their doors. The guys never really participated and thought it was genuinely stupid. Call him corny, but he'd decorate his door if Kisaki was down for it.

You unlocked the door and pushed it open, revealing your dorm and items inside of it. “Sorry if it’s messy..” you stepped inside, rearranging a few of the random objects you had on your desk. 

Hanma took a second to scan the room. Your living space was quite nice. There was the occasional random food wrapper on the vanity near your bed, but he didn’t see that as much of a problem. He knew guys on his floor that barely knew how to do their own laundry. Your stuff was all organized and well kept. Hanma was impressed if he was being honest. Your roommate also seemed to keep her side of the room fairly nice as well. Her bed was made and there wasn’t a single thing out of place. Maybe he’d consider living in your dorm for a little while. 

Kidding, but a nice thought.

Hanma watched you plop down on your bed. He wasn’t sure where he could sit, but he figured he’d just stand. He learned a while back that just popping a squat in someone’s home without permission would earn lots of side eyes. He wasn’t trying to invade your space, or act like he had some obligation to live there or something like that. 

“Oh! You can sit here.. don’t worry.” you patted the spot on your bed. It was near the end of the mattress, but Hanma could care less about that. 

Hanma sat down just a few feet in front of you. He was combing his brain to try and find something to talk about. He didn’t want this to be awkward, because to be honest, Hanma never liked the idea of awkwardness. It made him uncomfortable and it was always so embarrassing sometimes. “You got a nice place here..” he complimented, shifting his gaze towards where you were.

Despite it being a small one, you smiled at his nice gesture. You’ve had people in the past comment about your dorm and how it was pretty nice. “Thank you! My roommate and I spent a lot of time working on it together.” you crossed your legs, moving a bit closer towards him.

Hanma stared at you for a brief moment. His eyes took in the sight of your beautiful features. He liked your smile, a lot. He had met plenty of beautiful women in his life. Hell, his own mother was a gem, but you were just so gorgeous. It’s no wonder Hanma was attracted to you the second he laid his eyes on you almost a whole year ago. He just had so many questions for Ken Ryuguji. How could you cheat on a woman like that? He hated to be that guy, but he would never ever cheat on you. Let alone any woman he’d be in a serious relationship with. Being unfaithful was such an ugly quality, and it was always the beautiful down to earth women that had to suffer with those assholes who couldn’t stop themselves. 

Hanma may have had a reputation on campus as a guy who had sex with many girls, but he still had a moral compass unlike some people. He’d never play with someone’s feelings, and he was always one hundred percent with anyone he came across. 

He wasn’t sure what made you do what you did next, but before he knew it, your lips were on his. 

A small, but savory kiss was shared between you both. For a second, Hanma had the urge to grab your jaw and deepen the kiss. Your lips were so smooth and soft. It was almost as if he was kissing a nice piece of jelly candy. He could almost faintly taste the chapstick you wore, and it only made him want to do more. However, despite this trance he may have been in, Hanma came back into reality and realized what was happening. You two shouldn’t have been doing this. 

Hanma pulled away, splitting your lips apart from one another. He quickly averted his gaze onto you. He could see a mix of shame and embarrassment rushing onto your features. He could tell that you probably didn’t want to do that. He wasn’t angry, no, he could never be angry about something as small as a kiss, but he knew this wasn’t right for you. “(Y/N).. we shouldn’t do that. I have nothing against you.. believe me, but you’re going through a really hard time. I don’t want you to have regrets.. and I shouldn’t do anything since you’re in a bad state.” he sounded serious this time. For the first time in his life, he was actually placing someone else before himself. That’s never occurred before. 

You let out a shaky sigh. You knew kissing Hanma was a bad idea the second you leaned in to him, but he was staring at you in such a way that made you feel butterflies. You missed feeling those kinds of emotions around someone else, but he was right. You were in a bad state. You were just cheated on not even a couple weeks ago. 

But, god, you needed a distraction from all of this. You were so fucking tired of thinking about Draken with someone else. It drained you all the time, and all you wanted was a little escape. You knew a simple orgasm wouldn’t make up for the endless amounts of tears you wept for Draken, but it was a start. Maybe not the healthiest option, but it gave you temporary relief from all of the bullshit you’ve had to deal with. You wouldn’t make Hanma have sex with you, and you honestly felt like an idiot for trying to initiate it that way. 

You avoided his gaze as much as you could. You then placed your hand on your temple, pinching it in frustration at how dumb you looked. “I’m sorry.. Hanma.” you shook your head. “I just.. I really want this with you, Hanma. I need a distraction from all of this. I can’t stop thinking about him being with that girl.. it eats me up.” 

Hanma understood completely why you wanted to do that with him. That familiar feeling of guilt plagued his heart once again. He had seen this sight before on many people he knew. Using sex as a coping mechanism to fix your broken heart. For some, it did the magic, but other times it didn’t do anything. It did a lot more damage than any breakup ever could. Hanma couldn’t necessarily relate to that, but he knew it was a personal battle that drained a human being. Seeing you suffer in such a way made him angry, but also sorrowful. 

He knew no amount of words could fix you, but if you wanted to go through with it, he wouldn’t deny you of that. 

Hanma let out air through his mouth. He knew the silence was probably killing you inside, so he figured he’d better say something rather than nothing. He needed confirmation of your thoughts. “Are you sure?” he raised his eyebrows. 

You reached forward to touch one of Hanma’s hands. He was a bit surprised to feel your hand against him. “Yes, please, Hanma.” you replied, sounding confident in your response.

He could hear the sincerity in your voice. That’s exactly what Hanma was searching for in your reply. If you sounded unsettled or unsure, he wouldn’t have trusted your words. He didn’t want you making a decision that you still had zero clarity on. He wanted you to be comfortable. He then thought of another idea to make sure you were at ease. “If you want to stop, tell me.” he then placed your hand on his right shoulder. “Tap me here, twice. We’ll stop this and there will be zero questions asked, got it?” 

You looked briefly at his shoulder, then at Hanma. You nodded your head, understanding what he told you. “Okay,” you responded. 

For a few moments, neither of you were sure who would make a first move. Hanma didn’t want to seem so insistent. He thought that maybe you would take the lead, but considering what happened a few minutes prior, he wasn’t sure that would even happen. He decided to initiate it this time. He did inform you of what you had to do in order for him to stop, so he trusted that you would do so if you were uncomfortable. 

Hanma leaned in, catching your lips onto his own. Those same familiar feelings he had a while ago slowly returned. He felt your lips reciprocating against his own, which was somewhat relieving for him. You liked this. He would be more worried if you were unmoving, but you weren’t. He started to slowly deepen the kiss with his tongue. He swiped his muscle along your bottom lip, allowing you to part your mouth so he could slip into you. Fuck, it was too good. He started moving towards you on the bed, which in turn led you to lying down so he was hovering over your body. The kiss between you stayed connected. You placed your hands on his face, then moved them around his neck. His skin was smooth, there wasn’t a single imperfection on the man above you. 

The hand with ‘Sin’ tattooed on the back began to trail down your side. His fingertips glided and touched at every curvature on your body. He almost groaned from how soft and sweet your skin felt underneath his hands. He could feel all the blood rushing to his cock. It was honestly hard to believe that you were getting him all worked up already, but he didn’t have a single complaint about that. It only made him more excited for what was about to come. 

A small moan left your lips when Hanma’s hand ghosted over your breast. Your nipple hardened immediately from the touch of his hand against the flesh. Your body was heating up. It was almost feverish against Hanma’s colder hands. Is this what you had been missing? The touch of a man? Hanma could care less if calling Draken a boy offended others. No “man” would ever cheat on his girlfriend. 

Hanma lifted his head, disconnecting your lips from one another. Your once smooth lips were now puffy and a little swollen from all of the kissing. They were also glossy from the spit. You had this seductive expression on your face. It made him so hard to see it. He couldn’t help but smirk, but he also had other thoughts. How could Draken ever cheat on such a divine woman such as you? You were like a goddess that Aphrodite herself worked on. He wanted to see every little part of you. He knew that you were beautiful inside and out, that was something he was absolutely sure of. 

His fingers wrapped around the fabric of the loose t-shirt you wore. He shifted his golden eyes towards you. “Can I..?” he questioned, searching your face for any signal of hesitation or fear. 

You felt the brief touch of his fingertips against your navel. You nodded your head, feeling relieved at his care for your comfortability. “Yes..” you lifted yourself up so Hanma could remove your shirt from your body.

Hanma did exactly that. He pulled your shirt over your head and tossed the fabric somewhere onto the floor of your bedroom. Hanma stared in absolute awe at your body. It almost made him blush for a brief second. There wasn’t a single imperfection on you. Your pretty breasts, down to your waist, and the curves of your hips. Everything was so beautiful to Hanma. You were beautiful with clothes on, but without clothes you were stunning. “Pretty..” he leaned towards you again, pecking your lips again.

He started to trail kisses along your jawline, then towards your neck. Hanma could feel your pulse against his lips as he nipped at your flesh. Whimpers slipped from your mouth at the sensation of his warm tongue swiping against your sweet spot. God, those noises made him harder than a rock. He liked every little thing about you. There was so much to like and enjoy. Hanma wished that he had made a move on you first. It’d save you from all of the shit that Draken put you through. Hanma could treat you a million times better than he did. He knew relationships were never on his mind, but he knew regardless of having one he’d do so much more than Draken did.

Hanma then began moving downward towards your chest. His lips left wet kisses along your breasts and in the valley between them. You gasped several times when his tongue would stick out, wetting your flesh. It only encouraged Hanma to keep going. 

He paused when he reached the band of where your shorts were. He looked up at you. Your breathing seemed heavier now and you were watching him with desire in your eyes. “Can I..? I promise to be gentle, baby.” he nodded, raising his eyebrows at you. 

You found a sense of comfort in his sweet tone of voice. His eyes were so genuine. It was like you were almost melting in his hands from how good he made you feel. For so long, you were completely under this impression that there was something wrong with you. Insecurity followed you around like a ghost constantly haunting every single thought you had. Hanma was like the priest, banning the ghost away from you and allowing you to live with ease. It was like a weight was being lifted off of your shoulders. Like you could genuinely breathe again.

However, you grew very shy. This was the first time someone other than Draken was going to see the parts of you that were concealed from others. 

There it was again. Those intrusive thoughts that really brought you back to square one. You didn’t want to believe that Hanma would make you insecure. It wasn’t his fault, but you had a hard time wanting to believe that he genuinely liked what he saw in you. Draken told you so many things that turned out to be fat lies at the end of the day. What if Hanma was going to be exactly like Draken? He could very well be playing this facade. You disliked that thought and it almost made you want to stop. 

Hanma didn’t fail to observe that unsettled expression on your features. It made his stomach twist with nervousness. Had he gone too far this time? He was taking his time with you, or so he thought he was. “Is something wrong..? Do you want to stop..?” he looked at you with concern written on his face. He rubbed small circles on the plush of your thigh to soothe you. 

You bit the inside of your cheek. You grew worried that your words might make you look stupid. “I.. I just feel a little shy..” you looked away for a moment. “I don’t want you to not like what you see.. you know?” 

Christ, Draken really ruined you didn’t he? Hanma could understand that you had your reasons for feeling the way you did. Breakups make people question their self worth all of the time, so it was no wonder you were so nervous to be naked in front of him. Hanma didn’t want for you to feel that way in front of him. He truly saw so much beauty in you that it pained him that you weren’t treated properly. You deserved to have the best treatment from someone. 

He lifted his eyes to look into your anxious ones. He had to reassure you. Hanma didn’t want you to feel scared of him, or to feel nervous at what his opinions may be about your body. “You don’t need to feel that way.. you’re already so beautiful to me, (Y/N).” he kissed at your thighs, causing goosebumps to litter your skin. “We don’t have to continue like this.. I wouldn’t hold it against you.”

You smiled to yourself at his gestures. You felt this sense of comfortability washing over you again. It was a nice feeling. Your chest swelled with warmth swirling around through it. “I-It’s okay.. Hanma. I want to do this with you..” you nodded, reassuringly.

Hanma’s worries were washed away at your confident voice returning once again. He was feeling great, knowing that he was able to relax you properly. He found it quite surprising that a woman like you would feel insecure, but knowing you were in a relationship with tons of invalidation, he knew it was understandable for your feelings to be upside down. “Okay.. I’m going to take these off now, doll.” he hooked his fingers underneath your shorts, along with your underwear. Hanma then began to slowly pull them off of you. They traveled down your thighs, then towards your calves, and lastly your ankles where they slid off nicely.

He felt your body shiver as soon as the rest of your clothes came off. Hanma’s mouth instantly watered at your pretty pussy on display for him. Your cunt was visibly wet, almost soaked. He barely did anything to you and you were already a mess? He was going to have so much fun with you. Your puffy clit was practically calling his name and it made his cock even more hard inside his shorts. 

Hanma opened your thighs just a bit wider. He watched you with lustful eyes to see for any signs of discomfort. When he didn’t see any, he stuck out his tongue and began to drag it along your folds. A whine erupted from your mouth at the contact he made with your pussy. Hanma took that as a sign to continue going, so he started to lap at your slick. The taste was just as divine as you were. He rubbed your pretty thighs while he started to suck and lick at the most sensitive parts of your clit. He could do this for hours if it meant he got to hear you say his name like a prayer. Fuck, he wanted nothing more than this for so long. He was almost like a little kid at a candy store right now. You were so sweet.

He started swirling his tongue over your pearl, earning several loud whines and gasps from your throat. Hanma was so turned on. His cock was painfully aching inside his shorts. It felt like his own boxers were beginning to suffocate him from how hard he was. 

He used the hand with sin on the back to rub small circles on your clit. His thumb moved so slowly, yet it gave you so much pleasure. Hanma smirked to himself at your reactions. The heels of your feet began to dig into his shoulder blades, and you could hardly keep yourself quiet. You were such a fucking sight. He couldn’t keep his hands off of you. There was always something new he discovered, and he couldn’t get enough of you. 

Your fingers laced themselves into his wavy hair, nails digging into his scalp. Hanma’s eyes flashed upwards towards where you were lying down at. Your face was twisted with pleasure. Your mouth was also parted open with such needy cries coming from it. “H-Hanma! Ohh! So good..” you whimpered, looking down at him with half-lidded eyes.

The way his name rolled off your tongue made his cock twitch. He could feel the pre-cum sticking to his boxers. It was taking everything inside of the man to not completely fuck your brains out. He believed a woman like you deserved the princess treatment, but he really wished he could go all out. Maybe some other time, if you were ever open to that. He was just enjoying the pretty little view he had. He could eat your pussy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You were just too fucking good for him. 

The tip of Hanma’s tongue poked at your entrance, causing you to jolt upwards. He liked that. Your reaction made him smirk as he slurped at your pussy. “Like that, princess..?” he pulled away for a brief second. His voice was quite raspy from how long he had been eating you out. “You taste as good as you look.”

Warmth spread across your cheeks at his comment. You began to giggle at it. It may have sounded corny, but it was probably one of the nicest things you’ve heard in a while. Hanma really knew how to turn your sour mood into a much happier one. He was also very talented with his mouth. It turned you on so much. You didn’t think a simple stranger could do so much for you. “Yes.. I love it, H-Hanma..” you nodded, a smile appearing on your features. 

He chuckled, then returned back to your cunt that was even more messier than before. Hanma took some of the spit inside his mouth and let it coat all over your swollen clit. He loved giving messy head. It was one of his favorite things to do whenever he went down on a girl. You seemed to be enjoying it as well. Your grip on his hair had tightened and your thighs were trembling in his hands. He started running his tongue over your sensitive bud at a vigorous pace. Your head was thrown back in pleasure now, and your breathing became quite rapid from the intensity of his actions.

Hanma kept his hold on your thighs tight as he swirled his tongue. Your voice rang in his ears and he thought it sounded so lovely. He was becoming desperate himself. His cock begged to be freed from his boxers. He had to practically rut his hips into the mattress to feel some sort of relief from the ache. He just couldn’t wait to have himself buried inside of your sweet pussy.

There was a pit forming inside your stomach that was growing larger every minute. Hanma could sense that you were heading towards your climax, but he didn’t want you to fall apart for him just yet. As much as he would have adored seeing such a erotic sight, he wanted you to experience the full thing. He wanted your first orgasm of the evening to come from his cock, not his mouth. He could experience that some other time, but for now, he wanted to take a pause and give you both some of that euphoria you had been desiring the entire night.

Hanma removed his mouth from your soaked pussy. A whine came from your lips at the missing feeling. You wondered what he might have been up to, because it wasn’t fair to you. You were so close. “W-What are you doing..? I was close..” you almost pouted from how upset you were over your denied orgasm. 

He sat up from where he was positioned between your legs. Your slick and a mixture of his spit had covered his chin and his lips. Hanma shifted around so his face was now just a few inches from yours. A sly smirk had written itself on his features. “Because the only place I want you to cum is around my cock, baby..” he then captured your lips within his, allowing you to taste yourself on his tongue.

Hanma then pulled away, untying the loops that held his shorts up. He also took the second to remove his shirt as well. You watched him pull down his shorts, along with his boxers. His cock sprang free, slapping against his abdomen with droplets of pre-cum leaking down his pinky tip. Hanma felt so much relief being out of his boxers for once. He thought he was going to explode if he went any longer. 

Once he was fully undressed, he hovered over you once again. He was a very well built guy. Despite being sort of lanky, he had enough muscle to have you gawk at him. He was handsome, so fucking handsome. 

Hanma realized very quickly that he didn’t have a condom on him. That horror wasn’t great to feel, considering the two of you were just about to get your business started. He figured he’d ask for your permission because he wasn’t the kind of guy to go in raw without the okay from another person. “I don’t have a condom..” he looked down at you. “If you don’t want to.. it’s alright.”

You shook your head, reaching up to cup one of his cheeks. “It’s okay.. I want you, Hanma.” you smiled, reassuringly.

Hanma was relieved to hear such words. He would be okay with either answer you gave, but going home with blue balls would have probably hurt him. He pushed all of those thoughts aside and placed his focus onto you. He positioned the tip of his cock at your entrance. He began to rub himself against your slick. He groaned slightly at the feeling of your pussy gliding against him. You were so fucking wet. He could probably slip inside you with zero effort needed.

He then pushed himself inside your cunt. A sharp gasp filled the air from you as his cockhead split you open. Fuck, he was so big. Hanma groaned from how tight your walls were. You practically sucked him in with such ease that it took almost all of his strength to not start fucking you right then and there. After several seconds, he completely bottomed out. His cock stretched out your pussy to almost its limit. Oh how badly you needed each other. Hanma began searching your expression for possible signs of discomfort or signals that told him to stop, but instead, you were staring at him with these hazy eyes that made his dick twitch. He took that as a sign to move and he began to slowly thrust into you. You were like Heaven itself, so perfect and pretty.

Hanma kept at a leisurely pace. He feared possibly going too quick for your liking, so he wanted to take his time. Besides, he had all of the time in the world to take care of you. He wanted exactly that. He could hardly maintain himself, though. The sight before him was like no other, and your pussy was driving him insane. 

Your moans grew somewhat louder. You lifted your hands away from your chest and placed them on his shoulders. Your touch on his skin made Hanma quicken himself just a bit. It was like silk, so soft and almost addictive. “H-Hanma..! ‘So good.. fuck!” your eyes stared at where his cock was filling you up. It honestly made you even more turned on.

He smirked at your words. Hanma could feel the way your walls fluttered around his cock while you looked at him. He didn’t think he was that much of a turn on for you, but there were no complaints there. “Yeah..? It’s good, princess? We’re just getting started..” he winked, trailing his fingers along your waist.

The pace Hanma was going at was good, but you felt as if you needed more of him. He was sparking so many things inside of you that all you wanted was to burn for him. You needed him. He was by far the best man you had slept with in a long time. In some aspects, you were curious about what else Hanma could do for you. He was experienced, clearly, so what else was he capable of? You wanted to know. “More..!” you gasped, looking at Hanma with desperate eyes. “N-Need more, Hanma..! Please!” 

The word “more” flowed into Hanma’s ears like a nice song he could never get enough of. He was a little taken back at your request. Your voice came off so whiny and full of need that Hanma swore to god he could have cum right then and there from it. He originally wanted to be careful with you. He knew you were fragile, but that idea completely fell out the window at your desire for more from him. Hanma was more than capable of showing you what else had had up his sleeve. He did claim that you were both just getting started here, so why not get things going properly? Who was he to deny such a thing from you? The most pretty girl ever? Heh, he wasn’t going to leave you hanging. 

The hand with ‘Punishment’ tattooed on it went to wrap around your throat. His grip was firm and quite tight. Your cunt lightly squeezed around him. Heh, you were so fucking easy to read. You were a little freak, and he knew that now. Hanma could show you all kinds of things. “Alright, baby.. just hold still and let me do it all for you, okay? I’ll give you it all..” he smooched your lips, then adjusted your legs so they were now around his waist. 

Hanma’s pace quickened, almost relentless against your cunt. Your eyes rolled behind your skull at his assault on your insides. Your body was completely on fire now. There was sweat beginning to form on both of your bodies, giving a small shine to your skin. Nothing else mattered to you right now. You were in complete and utter bliss underneath him. 

He could feel himself getting lost within you. You were so so perfect. He had that thought cross his mind many times that night, and how could he not? It was true. Hanma hadn’t felt something like this in such a long time. Having sex with someone he truly felt connected with was unlike any of the other hookups he had. He vaguely recalled trying to swallow down that envy he felt whenever he saw you with Draken. If he knew then what he knew now, he would have stepped in to warn you. He knew you’d probably never have the heart to believe his words, but if it prevented the heartbreak you had experienced he’d do anything to prevent that. 

The palm that was around your throat squeezed and prevented the flow of blood to continue through to your brain. “You like that, babydoll..? Fuuucckk, yeah, I know you do. Can feel you clenchin’, baby.. you like it when I fuck you? Fuck you better than he ever did, yeah? ‘Gonna make you cream all over this cock.. you want that, princess?” he stared down at you with a smirk.

Your head was dizzy, but you managed to get a nod as a response. Hanma released his hold on your throat, which allowed that hazy feeling to disappear from your brain. He loved seeing you in such a state. “Mmm, Hanma.. need you..” you whimpered, reaching forward to wrap your arms around his own neck. “F-Fuck me good.. please..”

Hanma loved hearing the desperation in your sweet voice. He could listen to it for hours and never get bored of it. He’d grant you every desire you may have. He didn’t care about the cost. You deserved the world and he’d be the one to give you it. Hell, he’d give you a part of his own to make up for the one you lost due to that asshole. He would make you forget about him. He didn’t deserve you in the first place. 

Using sin, Hanma used the pad of his thumb to rub small circles on your puffy clit. Bolts of electricity danced along your belly from the increased pleasure he applied to your cunt. There was so much going on around you. You could hardly handle it. Hanma switched his angle and began to thrust into you at that same quick pace. However, this time, he was able to find that spot inside you that made your vision fill with white stars. Your cries were much louder this time and you couldn’t help but tremble at his actions. Hanma quickly picked up on your behavior. He grinned to himself knowing that he found the button he had been searching for all evening. He continued fucking it and kissing it with the tip of his cock. You were on cloud nine. Every time he hit it, you were almost on the verge of tears. He was too good.

He smirked at the faces you made. Your jaw went slack and those gorgeous eyes of yours were cloudy. You were almost completely fucked out by his cock. “Look at you.. – shit – lookin’ so pretty while taking my cock..” he cooed, his tone smooth like honey. “So perfect.. so good, doll.”

The familiar knot inside your belly began to tighten and make itself known with each rut of Hanma’s hips. Your pussy was fluttering and tightening around his dick. Hanma knew you were close. He was beginning to get excited at the thought of your cunt making a nice mess around him. With each thrust, your pussy squelched and made all kinds of delicious noises that made him only want to increase the pace he set himself at. He wanted to give you the best orgasm you’ve ever had. He desired to be so much better than your fuckhead ex-boyfriend. 

Hanma placed his hand on your chin, forcing you to look up at him. He gritted his teeth as he pounded into your hole. Your moans were almost like screams now from how loud your voice had become. “You gonna cum? Yeah – jesus – fuck! Gonna make you cum for every time he broke your pretty little heart, babydoll.” he started grunting when he realized you finally reached your high. Your walls spasmed around his cock, creaming and leaving a nice ring around the base. Your body was trembling and shaking and all you could call out was his name. “Yeah.. that’s my girl.. good girl, (Y/N)..”

You looked at Hanma through your eyelashes. Your body was completely going through such great ecstasy. You hadn’t expected your high to ripple through you so hard, but he just fucked you so good it was no shocker. “Y-Your girl, Hanma! All yours..!” you blubbered, digging your fingernails into the flesh of his shoulder blades.

Hanma couldn’t help but bear a smile at those words. You were so right about that. You were his now. He wasn’t going to let anybody else hurt you, especially Draken of all people. He was going to absolutely make sure of that from here on out. “Yeah.. that’s right, princess. You’re my good girl..” he glanced downward for a brief moment to watch his cock slip inside you. 

His own orgasm was upon him as well. His cock was twitching and his groans had become much deeper than they did before. The hold he had on your body was tightening. He didn’t want to let go of you. Hanma had the urge to fill you up. He wanted to know if that was something you’d be into. He wouldn’t care if you weren’t, but fuck, filling that pretty cunt to the brim with his cum sent him into overdrive. It only turned him on more when he thought about it seeping out of your little hole. His cum, nobody else’s. He could even massage it back into you so it stayed nice and warm inside your womb. 

Hanma peered down at you. Your eyes were still fixated on him hovering right above you. “Where do you want my cum, baby? Tell me..” he leaned down towards your ear, nibbling on the shell of it.

His words processed through you and you wondered what was the best option. Not gonna lie, you were in the mood to have some more fun, so you figured you’d give him that opportunity to let him breed you. It’d only happen this once, and you were on the pill anyway. “I-Inside me, Hanma..” you whined. “Cum inside me, please.. please..!”

You were so fucking nasty, but he loved it. Your voice begging for his cum was enough for him to start fucking you with that vigorous pace once again. “Fuck.. gonna fill you so good, baby. Don’t you worry about – fuck – a single thing.. you’ll be full..” he pried your thighs apart to have an even greater access to your pussy. 

With one final thrust, Hanma’s cock twitched and his balls tightened up inside you. A groan rumbled in his throat from the effects of his climax washing over him. Thick and hot ropes of his cum began to paint your velvet-like walls, seeping into your womb. He gritted his teeth at the sensation of his high. You let out a few small whimpers when you felt that warmth spreading across your belly. It was so nice. 

Hanma panted. A few strands of his black and blonde hair clung to his forehead from the sweat that had formed on his skin. There was a light pink flush on the apples of his cheeks. The room’s temperature had gradually increased, which was expected. He was feeling the post orgasm effects. Despite that, he didn’t have a single regret about the activities you engaged in that evening. He was proud of you. He hoped that maybe your mind would be taken off your situation for just a little while. It may have been temporary, but it was nice to get away from it all for just a small amount of time.

Your thighs relaxed around him, letting your feet fall flat against your bed. Hanma was still buried inside you, making sure that his cum didn’t leak out and cause a mess on your sheets. He leaned down to your face and pressed a gentle kiss on your lips. The kiss made your cheeks burn, but you gladly put your hands on his face. Your thumbs brushed against his warm skin that was still a baby pink. It was sweet. It made your heart jump for joy. 

Hanma abandoned your lips for a brief moment to stare into your eyes. Your noses touched and your lips were now just inches apart from one another. “You feeling alright, doll?” he breathed against your mouth, his breath tickling your skin underneath it.

You shook your head, brushing a few of the hair follicles away from his eyes. He was so much more ethereal up close like this. His golden eyes that mirrored a sunset were too pretty to look away from. “Yes.. thank you, Hanma.” you smiled, pressing your lips against his once again. This time it was just a small peck. 

Hanma questioned if he should stay with you that night. He wasn’t sure if your intentions were to have him sleep there. Staying for the evening would possibly cause attachments, and Hanma didn’t usually indulge in that. It was always wrong to stay and cuddle up with somebody you had zero intentions of being with. However, Hanma felt as if he could do that for you. “Do you.. want me to stay? No pressure.. I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable..” his eyes flickered from your neck to your face. 

His words stunned you a bit. Usually, hookups never really stuck around and they dipped after having sex like this. Though, Hanma was gracing you with an offer. Maybe this once. “Just once.. I don’t want to be alone tonight..” you felt embarrassed with your reply, but it was true. You didn’t want to be by yourself. 

He chuckled, kissing your lips again. “Fine with me, babydoll.” he then lied down beside you, pulling out in the process. 

Hanma placed one of his large hands around your waist, bringing your body close to his. Your chests were now pressed together and your head was tucked underneath his neck. He smelled good, despite just having sex with you a few minutes prior. Your heart relaxed and you began to find comfort in him. He was someone you wanted to see again. It didn’t matter if it was just a hookup or as his friend. There was something that drew you to Hanma Shuji, and you just couldn’t put your finger onto what that exact thing could be. 

He was like a bright flame, burning in the middle of the night. You were the moth fluttering around that flame, endlessly. 

“Thank you.. for helping me.” you spoke into the silence, not looking up at him.

Hanma’s chin rested on the top of your head. He was just doing what he felt was right. He knew you needed that distraction, and he was happy to be it. “No problem..” he began to play with the strands of your hair with his fingers.

You smiled to yourself, melting into his embrace. You hoped you would see more of Hanma Shuji in the future.

[punkshort]

Chapter warnings: smut (m masturbation), language

Chapter Three

Pairing: Joel x F!Reader, pre-outbreak and post outbreak

AU (the only thing I kept was the outbreak, Joel, and Tommy's characters. Joel's backstory is different, and the way he finds Jackson is different. I may include Ellie one day, I just haven't planned that far)

Fic Summary: You worked for Joel and Tommy a few months before the outbreak. The outbreak happens, and you and Joel get stuck traveling the country and keeping each other safe. Neither of you spoke about the feelings you had for one another pre-outbreak, and in a post-apocalyptic world, it seems like survival should be your only focus. But feelings can't be ignored forever.

Fic tags: Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI), Smut, Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Use, Age Difference (Reader is 10 years younger than Joel), slow burn, mutual pining, angst, trauma, SA referencing later but I will put a big warning on those chapters

You were nervous about the office dynamic once you broke up with Justin. That following Monday, you walked into the department and risked a glance over to his desk. He was hunched over his keyboard, burying himself in some report, looking mildly panicked. You frowned as you made your way to your chair and slunk down, punching in your password while you waited for your computer to boot up.

Colleen popped up quietly behind you.

"Sooooo? How was camping?” she whispered with a huge grin on her face. "Tell me all the details!”

She propped herself against the edge of your desk, trying not to draw Justin’s attention.

“I broke up with him,” you whispered back, eyes wide. You needed to tell someone, your nerves were on fire. You knew you shouldn’t have told the queen of gossip, but people would have figured it out soon enough. Colleen’s jaw dropped.

"What?! Why?” she whispered back, but louder than the first time. You put a finger up to your lips, indicating she was being too loud.

"I don’t know, I just don’t feel the same way he does. He’s a sweet guy, but there’s no spark. I didn’t want to lead him on,” you told her, and turned back to your computer, opening your email program.

“Well, your timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I don’t think he’s got the time to be upset over it. He came in this morning to an email from Joel, with Heather cc’d, wanting a full breakdown on the 401K contributions for the past 6 months. Apparently, he caught some discrepancy, and he wants answers first thing this morning,” she said, raising her head a few inches to glance over the top of your cubical wall in his direction. “He must be shitting his pants; Joel never contacts any of us directly. I don’t think he even knows most of our names.”

You felt guilty as relief flooded through you. At least there was a distraction from the elephant in the room.

About an hour later, Heather came to collect Justin. He followed her out of the room with a folder tucked under his arm and nervously running a hand through his hair. As he walked by your desk, he gave you a tight-lipped smile, which you returned. At least he wasn’t the type of guy to be an asshole about being dumped.

It had been three hours since Justin and Heather left for their meeting. At this point, his absence was painfully obvious to the whole room, and everybody had given up on trying to be discreet.

The whole department had rolled their desk chairs out to the openings of their respective cubes so they could all see one another as they gossiped and speculated wildly. All except for you. You tried your best to stay out of it, but you kept overhearing everyone’s chatter, and it was incredibly distracting.

“They couldn’t possibly still be talking about a minor discrepancy, could they?” one person asked.

“No way, something happened by now. Oh my God, what if he was stealing from our 401Ks? I read a newspaper article about someone doing that last week!”

“Oh come on, Justin wouldn’t do that,” Colleen chimed in. “I bet they finished up their meeting a long time ago, and he and Heather are in her office doing a deeper dive into the numbers together.”

Everyone went quiet for half a second when the electronic beeping of the door keypad caught the attention of the room. Chairs were hurriedly being pushed back up against desks, and fingers furiously typed, trying to log back into computers that had been long asleep during the gossip.

Heather walked into the hushed room with an empty banker’s box in her hands and headed straight for Justin’s desk. She set it down on his chair and turned to address the room openly.

"Hey guys, I’m sorry I didn’t have the time to call a formal meeting, but I wanted to tell you all personally before the email from HR comes out... Justin quit this morning.” She paused when a couple of people quietly gasped and exchanged looks. “Now I know we are going to have some big shoes to fill, I may call upon some of you to help and do some overtime until we can find a suitable candidate to take his position. As always, if any of you want to recommend anyone you know, my door is always open. But for now, we will just have to make do. Does anyone have any questions? You know I like to be transparent with you.”

Heather glanced around the room of stunned faces. Everyone was wondering the same question, but nobody had the nerve to ask it, until Debbie spoke up from behind you.

"Why did he quit? Was it Joel?” She was standing outside her cube, frowning with her arms crossed, no doubt feeling some residual anger from when Cheryl quit just a few short months ago. Your boss sighed, and slowly nodded.

"Yes. Well, yes and no. Joel really grilled him in that meeting this morning, it went a full hour. I did everything I could to take some of the heat, but Joel was just dialed in on Justin today, I don’t know what got into him. He had a million questions, one after another, and it eventually got to a point where he was outright questioning Justin’s job performance and skillset. It finally got to be too much for him, and Justin announced he was quitting.” Heather paused for a moment and looked around the room at the team. She turned and pulled Justin’s chair from his desk, moving the empty box to the floor. She sat down, looking as if she was exhausted from just recounting the events from the meeting. She rubbed her pointer and middle fingers against her temples for a moment, and then continued.

“Joel didn’t say anything wrong; this is his company, and he has every right to ask those questions… he just has such a harsh way of addressing things. It is a lot to handle. I managed to grab Justin at the elevators and took him back to my office for a while. I tried to convince him to stay but he just wouldn’t hear it, he had his mind made up. I’m sorry guys, I really tried. I know this will put a burden on some of you, I will do my best to fill the position as soon as I can.”

The keypad that operated the door started chiming, and in walked Mike from the mailroom. He had his head down, looking at the pile of mail in his cart, bopping along to the music feeding through his CD player and into his headphones, oblivious to the awkwardness in the room. He stopped at your desk like usual and dropped a big stack of envelopes in your inbox, gave you a quick smile, and turned to leave.

Heather quietly began filling the box with Justin’s personal effects, looking like she desperately needed a cigarette or a coffee break. Or both.

You exchanged a quick glance with Colleen, one that said ‘we are definitely going to talk more about this when she leaves’. Then you noticed the envelope at the very top of your mail pile: Sullivan Agency, LLC.

Your heart thudded in your chest. It was a strange feeling – your body was waging a war within you: relief vs fear. Relief that you didn’t have to pay Mr. Sullivan’s balance out of your paycheck, but fear that you would now have to go to Joel’s office as he requested and tell him about the check.

You shakily opened the envelope and sure enough, as promised, was a check for the full balance due on his account.

You stood up, feeling slightly lightheaded as you made your way over to Heather. She jumped slightly when you quietly said her name.

"I just got the check from Mr. Sullivan. What should I do? Should I just email Joel and tell him it came, or do we really have to go to his office?”

You prayed she would tell you to just email him, but unfortunately, she said “We should tell him in person, I don’t want to make him even more mad.” She stopped organizing Justin’s picture frames and buried her face in her hands for a moment, trying to collect herself. She raised her head up, clasped her hands in front of her mouth in thought, then turned in the chair towards you.

“I really hate to ask you this… do you mind going up to his office by yourself? He’s had enough of me today, and quite frankly I’ve had enough of him, too. He seemed to take a liking to you, it won’t be that bad, it'll be quick.”

She looked at you hopefully, desperately, eyes begging, but followed up with “If you are really uncomfortable, I can go with you, it’s just...” her gaze drifted back to Justin’s desk, and the enormity of just how much work this put on her plate was likely hitting home. Updating a job description, meeting with HR, creating the job posting, screening applicants… the list went on.

You shook your head, always the people pleaser you said, “I got it, don’t worry, I will go up there right now and just get it over with."

You gave her a small smile as relief flooded her face. Heather asked if you were sure, and you promised her you were. Before your resolve broke, you turned on your heel and left, heading towards the elevator. 

The moment the elevator opened and you stepped out onto the 10th floor, your heart lept into your throat. The nerves were finally catching up with you. You looked up and saw a small desk situated between two closed doors. Behind the desk sat a kindly looking older woman. She had hair so grey that it looked almost blue, and it was woven on top of her head into a conical shape. She looked up at you through her plastic pink framed glasses, which were adorned with a chain that wrapped around the back of her neck so she wouldn’t lose them. She smiled at you warmly, her bright pink lipstick somewhat smudged on her front tooth and beckoned you over. Your eyes flicked to her name plate - Ruby Potter - as you returned her smile and walked over.

“Hi there, dear, who are you here to see?”

“I’m here to see Mr. Miller," you said without thinking. Ruby chuckled.

"Dear, they are both ‘Mr. Miller’. Which one?”

"J-Joel, I’m here to see Joel. I have a check for him," you stuttered, your cheeks warming from embarrassment.

She picked up her phone and punched one of the buttons on her speed dial, lazily lifting the headset to her ear.

"You have an accountant here to see you,” she said. She had forgotten to ask your name. You tried to mouth it to her, but she waved you away, as if she did this all the time. You couldn’t hear the words on the other end of the phone, but you could hear the tone – it was sharp and aggravated. Ruby seemed unphased. Once the other end of the line went silent, Ruby said “So do you want me to send her in, or not?” She nodded with whatever Joel said in response and hung up the phone.

“Go right on in, dear. His office is that one.” She languidly pointed to her right, your left, and then turned her attention back to her computer. You took a moment to appreciate the elderly woman’s ease. She clearly dealt with Joel’s wrath countless times, yet she was completely collected. In fact, she sat before you, well past her retirement years, working directly for the man himself without a care in the world.

That gave you a small confidence boost. If Ruby could handle Joel, so could you. Afterall, it’s just words. You had a job to do, you did nothing wrong, you are here because he requested it. 

You approached Joel’s office door and gently gave it three quiet knocks. You waited until you heard his acknowledgement to enter. You twisted the doorknob, opened the door just enough so you could squeeze through, and shut it behind you.

Shit, maybe you should have left it cracked. Too late now.

Your eyes locked onto the back of his tall, broad frame as he stood facing away from you, one of his arms resting above his head against the window. He was overlooking the city through the floor length windows as he finished up a call on his cell phone.

You had no idea what he said on the phone, you were far more distracted with how large and strong his shoulders looked in his white button-down shirt. Your gaze slowly traveled down, taking in his dark grey dress pants and noticing how generously they hugged his backside. You only wished he had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows like before - you wanted to see his muscles twitching under that tanned skin again. You watched in a daze as he lifted his arm from the window and ran his long fingers through his dark curls, wrapping up the phone call.

Get it together, what is wrong with you??

He pushed a button on his cell and began speaking without even turning around.

"What do you need now? I already told you-“ Joel swiveled around to see you standing before him, eyes wide, nervously clutching the envelope in your hands from Mr. Sullivan. He stopped short when he realized you weren’t Heather, and his expression softened a fraction. You must have surprised him, because before he could catch himself, he was raking his eyes up and down your entire frame, sending a shiver up the back of your spine. You were grateful you happened to wear your most flattering light blue sundress today. You thought this morning when you put it on that it would give you the confidence to get through seeing Justin at work for the first time since your break up. You never thought you would need that confidence for this moment.

You meekly cleared your throat.

"I’m sorry, Mr. Miller. You wanted me to tell you when Mr. Sullivan’s check came…” you trailed off, your cheeks feeling warm under his intense gaze. You needed to look somewhere else. You glanced down at the now crumpled envelope in your hand and stretched out your arm to eagerly show him your prize. You were at least 10 feet away from him, barely inside his office at all. It looked ridiculous; he obviously couldn’t take it from you at this range.

He nodded, pursing his lips, and then showed mercy on you when he finally looked away to take the few short strides back to his desk chair. He sat down, glancing back up at you expectantly from across the room.

"Sit.” he ordered, motioning towards one of the two chairs placed in front of his desk.

You responded to his command quickly, and you thought you saw a twitch at the corner of his mouth, but it disappeared too fast for you to be sure.  You sat down in one of the chairs, shifting uncomfortably in your seat as you waited while he scrolled through his emails, looking bored. Looking down at the envelope in your hands, you gently fingered the edges in order to focus your energy somewhere. Why did he want you to sit? This should have been a quick conversation.

Joel cleared his throat, and keeping his eyes on the computer monitor, he began to unbutton the cuffs of his dress shirt. First the left sleeve, then the right, taking his time. He began to methodically roll his left sleeve up, up, up all the way to his elbow, before he leisurely did the same to the right sleeve. You didn’t realize your eyes had snapped up when you saw him begin to uncuff his sleeves, so by the time he finished, you had barely blinked and your lips were slightly parted, breath ever so slightly quickening as he finished his task. You didn’t notice your reaction, but out of the corner of his eye, Joel certainly did. He fought to contain the confident smirk that threatened to spill across his face.

He was right, you had been checking him out in that meeting.

“Give it to me,” he said, turning his probing gaze towards you once again. You looked into his dark, beautiful eyes for a moment, not sure what he meant. Then it came to you. The check.

Wordlessly, you outstretched your hand once again to hand him the envelope. Without breaking eye contact, Joel reached out and took the envelope from your grasp, but in the process grazed two long fingers gently against the back of your hand, sending sparks through your entire body at the contact.  You gasped softly, and clamped your mouth shut. You dropped your gaze, embarrassed, while you waited for him to open the envelope and hopefully dismiss you. The tension was too intense, you needed this to end.

Joel didn’t seem to mind the tension in the room, or even notice it for that matter. He slowly opened the envelope and pulled out the check within. He took note of the amount as a small yellow post-it fell out. You hadn’t seen that before in your rush to get up to his office, you had no idea what it said.

Joel picked it up and read it thoughtfully to himself. When he didn’t say anything after a minute, you finally spoke.

"What does it say?” you asked, your voice almost a whisper.

He swallowed before bringing his heated gaze back up to you.

"It says: Thank you for showing me such kindness during my time of need. I’m sorry for the late payment. It won’t happen again.”

You glanced down at your hands in your lap, a small smile threatening to tug at your lips.

“You were right this time, but don’t be naïve. Not everyone is always tellin’ you the truth,” he warned, sliding the check and post-it note back into the envelope. You nodded in agreement, still sheepishly looking down at your hands.

Joel gazed at the top of your head as you stared at your lap. He didn't want the conversation to end.

"You’re doin’ a good job," he told you, pausing to reflect for a moment. "Thank you for making that connection with my client. I’m not good at all that. Talkin’ about their personal stuff. That’s more Tommy’s side of things.” He reached across his desk and held out the envelope for you to take back.

You looked up at his outstretched hand, and careful to avoid touching him again, took it. 

"Thank you, Mr. Miller,” you replied softly, and stood up from your seat.

You gave Joel a quick smile and turned to head towards the door. Halfway to the exit, you stopped and turned back around, finding Joel’s eyes had yet to leave your body.

“I bet you would be good at it," you said, then your eyes widened as you realized how that sounded. “I-I mean, talking to the clients, learning about them, their personal lives…” you rambled as heat spread across your cheeks.

He stared at you for an awkward moment, considering your words.

“Well, I should be getting back to work,” you said, hitching your thumb to the door behind you, but before you could turn away, Joel stopped you.

"Thanks, sweetheart, maybe I’ll try it sometime,” he said, his expression softer.

You nodded and forced yourself to look away from the uncharacteristically relaxed features on his face. You turned to leave the room, but the door suddenly swung open. You nearly lost your balance, but a strong arm shot out to catch you.

“Jesus, Tommy, would ya watch it?” Joel growled from behind his desk, his expression leaving no traces of the softness you had just witnessed.

“Sorry darlin’, didn’t know my brother had anyone in here.” Tommy eyed you up appreciatively and grinned. “I don’t believe we formally met, I’m Tommy,” he stuck out his hand, which you quickly shook and gave him a polite smile, telling him your name.

You hastily made your exit, squeaking out an excuse about work, and shut the door.

“Do ya ever knock?” Joel seethed, but Tommy was too busy staring at the closed door, still thinking about the way your ass looked in your blue dress.

“I’m happy for you, Joel,” Tommy said, ignoring his question, and strolled over to a small cluster of framed pictures on the wall that haven’t been updated since they started the business. He leaned in to examine them more closely. “You need to be gettin’ back out there. I won't even give you any shit for dippin’ your pen in the company ink, like you did to me.”

“The hell you on about?” Joel replied, taking the opportunity to adjust himself under his desk while Tommy’s back was still turned. The way you were blushing and squirming in his office had a bigger effect on him than he thought. And you hadn’t even been trying. Not like him, rolling up his sleeves on purpose to see your reaction. He shuddered to think what it would be like if you actually tried to seduce him. He would be a puddle on the floor.

“Nothin’ was goin’ on, she just brought me a check.” Joel stood and walked around the front of his desk, leaning up against the edge of it, arms crossed and surveying the back of Tommy’s head.

Tommy chuckled, still examining the photos.

“Yeah, right. She was blushin’ like a whore in church when she left. Ya know, you should really get some new pictures in here. Did ya know you still got this old picture of the bunch of us at that rodeo? It’s got Amy in it.”

Joel sucked in air through his clenched teeth, the rest of his hard on instantly disappearing at the mention of her name.

“Sorry, Joel. It’s been so long, we still ain’t allowed to talk about it?” Tommy walked over behind Joel’s desk and flopped down in his chair, which made Joel have to turn around and sit in the same chair you had just occupied moments before.

“What’s there left to talk about?” Joel sighed, rubbing his face with his hands.

“Do you still talk to her? Keep in touch?” Tommy asked, fiddling with a pen on the desk.

“No.” Joel responded harshly. “Why would I? Last I heard, she’s been shacked up with that prick somewhere in the Midwest.”

“It’s been five years, and I still haven’t seen ya go out on a date, coffee, nothin’. Why are you doin’ this to yourself?”

Joel shook his head and stood up, already missing the warmth your body left in the chair.

“I’m just busy, Tommy. Haven’t met anyone worth chasin’," he replied, grabbing a pen and pad of paper from his desk.

“Well, that little lady that just left is well worth chasin’, if you ask me.” Tommy stood up too, and joined Joel as they headed out of the office to the conference room for their next meeting.

“Nobody was askin’, just drop it.” Joel couldn’t have Tommy egging him on, it was already difficult enough to keep his mind off you.

Joel hardly heard a word all throughout their meeting with the Marketing department. He vaguely remembered the head of the department nervously working through a technical error on his presentation, which made IT have to get involved. But Joel barely noticed. All he could think about was you.

You: in that thin, blue dress. He remembered how your cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and how you bit down on your lower lip when you tried to hold back a smile. He thought about how soft your skin felt when he gently grazed it with his fingers. How your knees pressed together as you squirmed in your seat, waiting for him to turn his attention to you. But you had no idea that his attention was always on you, even when you weren’t around. It was all consuming, at times overwhelming, the way he constantly recalled images of you in his mind. 

Joel was relieved when the IT department could not fix the technical error, and the meeting had to be rescheduled. Everyone in the room held their breath, Tommy included, for Joel’s inevitable outburst, but surprisingly none came.

“Check with Ruby and put it on my schedule,” Joel said, collecting his things and leaving the room.

Tommy stayed behind to chat with the head of Marketing while Joel made a beeline for his office. He shut the door quickly behind him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he leaned his head back on the door.

What was going on with him? Why couldn’t he get you out of his head?

This was Tommy’s fault, had to be. He kept bringing you up and forcing these thoughts into his head.

But it wasn’t Tommy’s fault when his cock jumped after he touched your hand and heard you gasp.

Fuck. This had to stop. He rubbed his hands over his face roughly, then something Tommy said came back to him. It had been a long time since he was with Amy. Tommy was right, he hadn’t been on any dates, he was just sexually frustrated. It was building up, and he needed a release. That would clear his head.

Joel turned and headed towards his private bathroom, which was just a small pocket door in the wall, hardly visible when you first walked in. He went in and locked the door behind him. He unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock, already throbbing from the past hour of torture his thoughts have led him on.

Joel gripped the base firmly in his fist, and he squeezed his eyes shut, dreaming of you wearing that dress in his office. This time, when you squeezed your knees together, he imagined you were trying to create some friction to relieve the wet heat between your legs. You were just as turned on as he was in his fantasy. Joel lazily ran his hand up and down his cock, as his imagination kept carrying him away.

He wondered what kind of panties you were wearing under that dress. Maybe they were lace, or a thong. Maybe you weren’t wearing any at all. There we go.

He started running his hand up and down his shaft faster, his breath quickening as his fantasy took hold.

Now he was bunching your dress up around your hips, hitching your leg around his waist as he grabbed onto the back of your neck, bringing you closer so he could suck on the pulse point in your throat, making you moan his name. He pushed you on top of his desk, and you let yourself fall backwards, recklessly shoving papers and files off his desk.

He could feel his release bubbling to the surface now, as his movements became more frantic, and his other hand grasped the towel bar next to the sink for leverage.

Now Joel saw you bouncing on his cock, still wearing that pretty little dress, but your tits were spilled over the top. He pulled one nipple into his mouth, making you cry out and bounce faster, while his fingers brushed gently against the other one. You grabbed the sides of his face and dragged his mouth up to yours, hovering over each other’s mouths, gasping, but still not touching, as you bounced faster, faster, faster… 

Joel groaned and desperately reached out to grab a tissue from the box next to the sink, right in time to catch his thick ropes of come. His hips gently thrusted forward as he came down from his high, breathing heavily, eyes squeezed shut.

He opened his eyes as his breathing returned to normal, glancing around the room to steady himself.  He looked down, grateful he didn’t make a mess on his dress pants. He cleaned himself up, flushed the tissue down the toilet, tucked himself back into his pants and went to wash his hands.

He cupped some water from the sink and rinsed his face. Drying himself with the towel, he looked up at the mirror and saw a dirty, old man, who had just jerked off to the thoughts of a much younger employee. The shame was setting in now.

I hope you enjoyed it, you dirty fuck. She would never give you the real thing.

Joel dried his hands, and left the bathroom, feeling guilty, but couldn’t deny he had a much clearer head.

He didn’t see you for at least a full week. That whole week, he felt like himself again. He could see clearly; his thoughts weren’t all jumbled up and he was back to barking orders to his teams on jobsites.

He just needed to jerk off. That’s all it was. No big deal.

Early one morning before most of the employees started their work day, he made his way down to Heather’s office on the 6th floor. She had left him a voicemail saying that the company was being audited, and she needed to speak with him right away. This would require a lot of work from her department, and she needed him to approve the overtime, especially since he scared off your pretty little boyfriend, the department remained shorthanded. He walked off the elevator with his hands shoved in his pockets, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. It was quickly becoming his new look, just in case he ran into you.

He turned the corner towards Heather’s office but stopped short when he heard you laughing. He peered around a corner and saw you with some co-workers in the break room.

He was frozen to the ground, taking in your beautiful smile and laugh as you tried not to spill the coffee in your hand. You were wearing a knee-length flowy black skirt, with a V-neck light purple blouse. When you bent over to laugh again, he saw a glimpse of your tits bouncing under your shirt. He held his breath for a moment, trying to will himself forward, when you suddenly looked over and met his gaze. 

Your friends didn’t notice him standing there, and you didn’t say anything. You just ran your eyes up and down his body, pausing on his exposed forearms. You gave him a shy smile and a little wave. Before he realized it, he was slowly lifting his hand up in return.

He was fucked.

Chapter Four

[lovelytsunoda]

chateau ( feel alright ) | kyle kirkwood

summary: powers out in andretti house. stuck working together on a project for their business marketing class, kyle and yn find themselves stuck in his dorm with no lights and no heating

pairing: college!kyle kirkwood x college! reader

warnings: you’ve heard of only one bed, get ready for only one ✨blanket✨ santino slander (and rightly so). kyle is such a himbo my lordy I love him. kinda slow burn since they don’t kiss right until the end (sort like in my other Kyle fic lmao)

there was a certain kind of charm to kyle kirkwoods dorm room at andretti house.

sure, the florida panthers jersey hung above the couch screamed ‘frat boy’ and he had an impressive collection of shot glasses lined up underneath the tv, and since he and his roommate were both hockey players, the main room tended to stink of sweaty locker room as they liked their gear in a corner, but it was proof that people lived there.

kyle never would have been her first choice as partner for this assignment, but she didn’t have many friends left in the program, and they’d all paired up with each other. lest she get paired with santino, who was so much of an asshole that she would rather get hit by a bus than work on a mid term with him, she’d turned to the boy who was sitting behind her and asked if he had a partner yet.

kyle thought he was crazy for saying yes. typically he paired with colton and the two of them somehow wrangled their way to an a-minus. everybody knew that professor rahal was a hardass, so every choice in partner counted.

but when he saw her pretty, pleading eyes behind those wire rimmed glasses, he couldn’t find it in him to turn her down.

“according to the simulation, social media interaction including view counts is higher when we post reel-like content.”

kyle was barely listening, watching as her delicate fingers tracked across the keyboard. her earrings were little gold pumpkins, they complimented her skin nicely. everything about her was warm and inviting.

he’d let her connect to the dorms small speaker system, and she’d chosen a britpop playlist, an early oasis song playing softly in the background. it wasn’t something he’d thought she’d listen to, but now that he could see her tapping her fingernails on the keyboard while she hummed along, it just seemed to make perfect sense, fitting in perfectly with his vision of her.

kyle kirkwood was totally and utterly infatuated with her.

“kyle?” she asked softly “are you listening to me?”

he blinked rapidly, trying to remember what she had asked. “yes, right, you were talking about short form video content and engagement.”

“I’m impressed.” she smiled. “you’re smarter than you look, kirkwood.”

“I aim to please.”

“good. now give me a hand with this next bit.”

she beckoned kyle over with two fingers, making space for him in the rug next to the coffee table. their mismatched dollar-store mugs of coffee were empty on the table behind her laptop, papers and notebooks spread out across the table.

“now, for this part here-“ she was cut off by an ominous beep, all the lights in the dormitory shutting off one by one.

the clocks on the stovetop and microwave shut off soon after, the living room illuminated only by her laptop, which now proudly displayed the “no internet” message.

“shit.” she cursed, leaning back against the couch. “the outage crashed the simulation.”

“well,” kyle tried to stay positive. “there’s got to be something that we can do in the meantime. truth or dare? never have i ever?”

she laughed, head in her hands. she could smell his cologne from here. well, she was sure it more like aerosol deodorant. something strong, like axe or lynx.

“what are you, five?”

all kyle could smell was her. vanilla and cinnamon. she was intoxicating.

“yeah. five heads taller than you.”

she paused, looking at him with a confused glance before she burst out laughing. god, he loved hearing her laugh. “kyle, that’s so bad!”

kyle laughed along with her until he felt the temperature in the flat had dropped markedly. he could see her shiver, his protective instincts jumping out.

he pushed himself up from the floor, disappearing into his small room. there wasn’t much in there. just some hockey gear, a desk, a twin bed and a rickety bookshelf. there was a plush blanket folded up at the foot of the bed, which he grabbed after pulling a cable knit sweater over his head.

he went back into the living room, gently draping the blanket over he shoulders.

“better?” he asked quietly, feeling some kind of intimacy that definitely wasn’t there before. his hand still rested on her upper back, warm and grounding through the blanket as she pulled it around her shoulders.

“warmer, yeah.” she turned to face him, rubbing at the corner of her eye. “what do we do now?”

“we could watch a movie or something until the power comes back on.” kyle suggested. “logan isn’t supposed to be back until later, you can stay as long as you want.”

he really didn’t want her to leave. in fact, he wanted her to stay forever, turn his silly dorm into a home. he wanted to be with her for as long as possible.

“I suppose so. It’s not like we can do anything constructive, and I don’t want the night to be a total write off. do you have a dvd player?”

Kyle raised an eyebrow. “you do?”

“it’s to watch my criminal minds box set.”

“I was just going to use my cell phone data. I have unlimited.” kyle said, switching on netflix. “what did you want to see?”

“how much do you like matthew mcconaughey and have you ever heard of the lincoln lawyer?” she grinned. “it’s one of my favourite legal thrillers.”

Kyle pulled up the movie as she shut her laptop, propping the phone up against one of the empty mugs. they settled in next to each other, hands resting on the ground with a conspicuous gap between them.

she yearned to reach over and take Kyle’s hand in hers, but the idea of being flirted with just made her fell so awkward and uncomfy. she just wanted a warm, comfortable love, but she supposed she had to start somewhere.

she inches her pink in finger towards Kyle’s multiple times before eventually bringing her hand back and settling it in her lap, pulling the blanket tighter.

Kyle turned to look at her, the way her face was illuminated in the soft blue light. on the screen, tv lawyer mickey haller was meeting with a new client in the county lockup. Kyle was mesmerized at the soft concentration on her face, the way her face was gently scrunched with focus.

a shiver ran through his body, and he found himself reaching for a corner of the blanket.

“Kyle.” she laughed. god, Kyle would do anything to hear that laugh again. “this is my blanket. go get your own.”

he was so fucking whipped.

“what if I miss something important?” he tried to give her his best impression at puppy dog eyes. “you’d have to explain the whole movie to me, I’d be so lost.”

she smiled, rolling her eyes. “fine.” she unwrapped herself, tossing one end of the panthers blanket to the man next to her. “but don’t be a blanket hog.”

“I make no promises.”

they had to move closer together to be able to properly share the blanket with each other. their Jean clad legs were almost touching, a nervous energy surrounding the duo as they kept their eyes trained on kyle’s iphone.

“Kyle?” she asked quietly, voice barely audible. “would it be strange if I said I wanted to kiss you right now?”

Kyle turned to face her, reaching over to pause the movie. “I’d actually like that a lot.” he smiled nervously, reaching out to hold her face.

her skin was soft, and she keener into his touch, biting back a sigh.

when he kissed her, it felt warm and inviting. a comforting addition to her life, rather than fireworks and burst of electricity that would have disrupted it. his lips were soft as they moved against hers, and it felt like coming home.

she sighed under his touch, reaching out to gently run her fingers through his hair.

she didn’t want to stop kissing him.

and he didn’t want to stop kissing her.

Kyle’s face was rosy, or it would have been if she could see anything.

“you’re really good at that.” he whispered into the dark, totally in awe of the woman in front of him.

“I dunno, I think I need a bit more practice.” she joked, hand resting on his knee. “maybe you could help me out.”

“gladly.” he beamed, leaning in to kiss her again.

[skellymom]

"Bring Me To My Knees" PART 1

Crosshair/Hunter x Reader Non Gendered SMUT++

Dividers by the talented: @saradika and @4ngelic-wh1spers

Background: Reader and Crosshair are separated from the group during the rescue of Omega and Tech from Mt Tantiss. Two broken people trying to get by in the galaxy. Then two broken people finally dealing with what happened to their group.

Word Count: 2.3K

Warning: Star Wars Canon violence, angst, sadness, crying, guilt, stuff blowing up, swearing, kissing, intercourse, heavy petting, hair pulling kink, smutty/lemony content, lovers triangle with Hunter and Crosshair.

FOR CLARITY, THERE IS A HUNTER FLASHBACK SMUT SCENE IN THIS CHAPTER. THE CROSSHAIR SMUT SCENE IS IN CHAPTER 2. Broke this up in 2 chapters because I just couldn't stop writing...and 4K might be too much for one sitting.

*YES! I know Mesh'la is Mando'a speak for beautiful. However, I personally think it sounds pretty sexy when someone uses it while going to Pound Town. I like it better than baby, honey, girl, boy, lover, whatever. My personal kink. If you aren't caught up, there's a whole Tumblr discussion about if the Clones would even use this language. PLEASE just let me have this one word. Thanks.

I purposely wrote the reader in this fic to be of no specific gender. Tried to carefully craft the sexual scenes to accommodate either gender/non gendered/trans/genderfluid/non-binary. Everyone has hills, valleys, sexual organs, nipples, and erogenous zones. I wrote them into the story, but it's up to you dear reader to put your imagination to work. Hope I have done a good enough job that you can enjoy yourself with Hunter and Crosshair without breaking immersion!

Explosions and blaster fire filled the air as you, Phee Genoa, and The Batch escaped Mt Tantiss.  Wrecker led the charge, firing away and punching imps.  Phee behind him with a group of prisoners she freed from the facility.  Hunter, his arm around Tech who was barely able to walk, blaster out firing.  You and Omega supported Crosshair bringing up the rear of the group. 

The Empire attempted to lock down the facility, engaging all doors on every level.  Hunter got Tech past them as they started to close.  

He turned with Tech in tow to shout, “Y/N, Omega, bring Crosshair!  Hurry!!!” 

You and Omega would never make it with the slow progress Cross was making.  Grabbing Omega and with a healthy heft, you slid her across the highly polished flooring.  She barely exited past the threshold just as the doors closed.   

The last thing you and Crosshair saw was Omega loudly protesting while Hunter grabbed the back of her tunic to yank her out of the way.  And the look of total panic on Hunter’s face. 

“Leave me.”  Crosshair weakly slumped against the steel hallway wall. 

“SHUT UP!  Too late for that!!!”  You grabbed Cross’ arm and attempted to pull him up. 

He refused to move.  You were warned he might be difficult. 

“GET UP NOW YOU FUCKING MOP!!!”  Viciously kicking his upper thigh in heated frustration. 

That got his attention.  Crosshair’s head flicked up.  Anger in his eyes. 

You grabbed the front of his tunic with both hands, hefting him up, spitting with rage “I’M NOT DYING HERE!  GET UP YOU UNGRATEFUL ASSHOLE!!!” 

He managed to stand with his arm around your shoulders.  Pulling your blaster.  “How do we get out of here?” 

“How should I know?  Been locked up all this time.” 

“KRIFF!  Knew I threw the wrong person under the door!!!” 

“Didn’t ask YOU to save me.” 

You gritted your teeth and shot the control panel to the door the rest of The Batch disappeared through.  The doors managed to only open a few feet.  You literally stuffed Crosshair into the gap.  His protests were muted by the sound of screams and explosions.  He got stuck halfway through, then you put a foot in his ass and pushed.  He popped through falling into a crouch on the floor.  

“You’re INSANE!” 

“YES!  KEEP MOVING!!!” 

Running up to Cross, you grabbed the back of his tunic and pulled him to his feet.  Both of you ran across the hangar bay.  The Marauder and Phee’s ship were gone.  You weren’t upset, they HAD to leave in a hurry.  It was total chaos.  

You both made a beeline for the first empty Imperial ship available.  Entering, you slid into the pilot’s seat and put up the gangplank.  Then commenced firing on every non-friendly that approached.  Some of the other Imperial ships got caught in the crossfire, exploding dramatically.  Crosshair buckled himself into the co-pilot's chair. 

As your ship left the hangar, two fighters followed in hot pursuit.  You kept the craft low and entered the thick forest, shooting down trees in your path.  Crosshair held onto his seat white knuckled. 

“You’re going to get us killed!” 

“Got any better ideas, Fly Boy?  We’re sitting ducks out in the open.” 

He shut up and held on. 

One ship pulled away from pursuit.    

The other followed.  You kept firing, making a path to evade your pursuer.   

He didn’t last long. One tree you felled, dragged another with it as you passed.  It caught its wing, flinging the ship to the forest floor, exploding brightly behind you. 

Pulling the craft up out of the forest, you ascended... 

...where the other Imperial fighter sat waiting! 

Close enough to see its pilot in the cockpit, waiting to open fire. 

The end of the line. Crosshair inhaled sharply.   

The ship exploded suddenly.  And your craft flew through the fiery remains. 

“Didn’t think I’d leave you?” Hunter’s voice came over the comm. 

You nearly burst into tears of joy.  “Oh, THANK STARS!” 

“Let’s get out of here!  Echo’s sending jump coordinates...” You immediately heard blaster fire over their comm. The transmission broke up. 

“HUNTER???”   

Static.  “...ing to...GO!  Can you hea...” More static.  Comm went dead.  Nothing. 

“HUNTER!  HUNTER...COME IN!!!  CAN YOU HEAR ME???” 

Crosshair shot you a horrified glance. 

The little bit you could discern, your Sergeant’s orders were to leave the planet immediately.  What if they needed help?  You couldn’t leave HIM...them behind! 

You brought the ship around and could see a craft trailing fire and smoke behind it.  Looked to be the Havoc Marauder making its way off world.  Several Imperial fighters were gaining on it.  Kicking your ship into gear and taking off in their direction.  You picked off two and allowed the Marauder to make the jump to hyperspace. 

The last ship circled round. 

Panicking, locking up, “Where did they go?  I don’t have coordinates!” 

Crosshair’s terse voice came from the co-pilot's seat, “Pick ANY!  We don’t have time!!!” 

“But...we...” 

“DO IT or we die!”  Dark eyes bore into your skull.  “I’LL DO IT!!!  You make the jump!”  He furiously typed something into the craft’s dash. 

“Jump...NOW!!!” 

The Imperial fighter on your tail, firing. 

You sat frozen.  Your hand a lead weight on the jump lever. 

“DAMMIT!”  Crosshair slammed his hand on top of yours, shoving the lever over.  The black star-studded sky elongated; bright blue light burst through the windscreen. 

You sat staring through the windscreen of the ship, blue blurs whizzing past. 

“Y/N?” 

A hand suddenly on your shoulder. 

“WHAT!”  You jumped and snapped upright. 

“You...went away for a while...” 

Staring at Crosshair’s unreadable expression. 

“We’ll find them.  Take some time, though.” 

Nodding, you relaxed back in the seat.  “Yeah, gonna take some doing.” 

Handing the soup bowl to Crosshair, he sulked...and refused to eat...again. 

“You NEED to eat.” 

He sneered. 

“Don’t make me regret getting you out of that facility.” 

Cross sighed heavily and took the bowl.  He STILL wasn't eating, just staring into it.  This man was driving you insane...if you didn’t kill him first. 

“It’s actually pretty good for a ration packet.  Provided you eat it while still warm.” 

“Why are you bothering?” 

ON YOUR LAST NERVE. 

“Why did YOU bother pushing us into hyperspace...if you want to suffer and die so badly?” 

Silence. 

Suddenly you had the urge to slap the damned bowl out of his hand.  “REALLY???  Let your skinny ass STARVE!  Ungrateful son-of-a...kriffing...GAH!  FUCK!!!” 

Your sudden anger sparked something. 

Crosshair slowly smirked. 

“Knock it off and DRINK YOUR FUCKING SOUP!”  Getting up, stalking off, mumbling angrily to yourself...hoping the tiny food galley didn’t have any knives. 

Checking up later, you found the bowl empty.  Cross slumped in the chair; eyes closed. 

To anyone else, it would look like he was napping.  You knew better. 

You picked up the bowl to take it back to the galley. 

“My compliments to the chef.” 

You rolled your eyes. 

“I meant it.” 

“Whatever.” 

Cross opened his eyes, aiming for an argument.  “It’s a compliment.  Take it or leave it.” 

“I don’t trust you.” 

An unexpectedly hurt expression flickered across his face.  “This isn’t about the soup, is it?” 

“No genius.  I was warned you’re a constant shit stirrer.” 

“Well, Hunter was never my biggest fan.” 

“It wasn’t Hunter.” 

This seemed to surprise Crosshair. 

“Echo...he’s a bit of a shit stirrer himself.  Takes one to know one.” 

Cross raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh...and Wrecker thinks you take yourself too seriously.  I think his actual words were...he needs to unclench his butt cheeks.” 

Raised the other eyebrow. 

“But Wrecker was incorrect.” 

“Oh?” 

“As far as I can tell, you DON’T have an ass.” 

Crosshair leaned forward, slight smirk around the edges of his mouth. 

“Been looking...have you?” 

“I think most people would say you’re just a torso with legs...Toothpick.” 

He genuinely smiled at the new nickname. 

“More soup?” 

“Yes more, Soup.” 

Nights were difficult and Crosshair struggled to sleep through. Awakening to hear him working through a nightmare. Sometimes he would mutter, groan, and thrash about, eventually snoring again. This happened several times a night. Other times he would awaken, panting and sweating, trying to remember he was no longer imprisoned on Mt Tantiss. 

At first, he turned down your attempts to soothe him. That didn’t last long. It became a habit of you sitting next to his bunk on the metal floor, talking him through it. Eventually, you just crawled into bed and laid there next to him. It was certainly more comfortable than that damned hard floor. 

Crosshair’s breathing settled into a regular rhythm. Stars, it was warm and cozy in this bunk. The idea of walking across that cold decking to your own bunk just seemed depressing. Five more minutes and you’d get up.  

That didn’t happen. Two minutes in and you passed out cold. 

(You like a song to go with the scene? Please check out this song. It "literally" FUCKS!!!)

"Mmhmmm...” 

The deep bass of Hunter’s groan making you wetter as his hard cock slid in and out of you.

“Ohh...fuu...mmm...” Words were difficult when he kissed your neck like this. Whispering sweet things in your ear while gently fucking your brains out. 

Laying on your sides, facing each other. One leg thrown over his hips, both of your hands deep in his curls. Grasping them with ferocity. The pain brought him pleasure... 

Hunter slid his hand down your back to firmly grip your buttocks and picked up the rhythm of his thrusts. 

“Kriff...can’t wait to do this...with you...in our home...all...the...fucking...time...” The last four words he spoke with each luscious stroke of his member. 

“Huuunter...” Your eyes rolled back into your head. 

“Got...a nice...little planet...just...for us...” 

Heat and intensity rising in you. 

“You...want...that...too...?” 

...sliding in... 

You gasp...” Yes...” 

“Yeah?” Cajoling you with that sexy fucking voice. 

...sliding out... 

“YES...” 

...sliding in... 

“Tell me, Mesh’la.” He’s shuddering. 

Your back arches “YES!!!” 

Hunter reaches out and caresses your face... 

...and you awake with a start. Crosshair had an expression like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Pulling back his hand suddenly. 

“Wu-what???” He stammered. 

Trying to shake off your sleepy arousal...slurring. “Did...YOU jus’ touch...Mah face?” 

“WHY are YOU still in my bunk?” 

The dream-feeling melting away...your brain having to process the waking world... 

“...because...your nightmares... I’m the dumbass...who makes sure you sleep.” 

Silence. Crosshair studying your face. 

“You’re welcome.” 

“Well, I’m NOT having one NOW.” 

“Ships cold during the night. Ain’t going nowhere.” You rolled over, giving him your back. Maybe...you could pick that dream back up? 

“Fine. You can stay if YOU stop moaning Hunter’s name when you spoon ME!” 

You rolled back over shocked. 

“Yes, you did.” 

“What else did I say...or do?” 

Crosshair grinned like he knew too much and rolled over without answering. 

Weeks passed as you and Crosshair bickered your way slowly through the galaxy.  The Empire tamped down tightly on most of the planets in the system.  The Outer Rim while wildly dangerous, seemed mostly untouched and safest. 

You both did side jobs to keep yourselves fed while trying comm channels and leaving messages with close contacts about the rest of The Batch’s whereabouts.   

Everything seemed to lead to a dead end.  Like they just disappeared. 

In your heart of hearts, you knew Hunter would NEVER stop looking for you both...even if Cross had his doubts. 

The open-air market on some back water Outer Rim moon provided a distraction. The textile stand caught your eye. Beautiful scarves...you picked up a jet black one with fine silver metallic strands running through it. 

"Good choice. It compliments your hair." The elderly shop keep stepped from behind a long quilt hanging behind the counter. 

"Marv! Are you flirting again?" An older woman approached clearly teasing her husband. 

"Now why would I do that when I have you, my sweet Meiloorun? Besides, here's their partner now." 

Cross sauntered up to the counter, amused at the comment. 

"Hello honey" He teased. 

You rolled your eyes, ignoring his "greeting." "Toothpick, what do you think of this scarf?" 

"Hmm, not really my style." Cross reached down to pull another scarf from under the pile. "Now this one..." 

It was rusty red with fine intermittent broken off-white stripes dispersed through it. Crosshair draped it around his neck. "What do you think?" 

The blood drained from your face. 

"No..." You dropped the scarf and hurried away from the stand. 

Cross caught up to you a few moments later...still wearing that damned scarf.  

“Soup!” 

You kept walking, angry...and hurt. 

"Care to explain?" 

Stopping and grabbing the fabric in your fist. "That's HIS scarf...NOT YOURS!  

Cross softened. Not a trace of snark on his face. "You WERE in love with Hunter." 

"We are STILL in a relationship, Crosshair! Just because Hunter and I are apart doesn't mean that ended." 

Crosshair stared into your eyes with such an intensity...it was difficult to keep eye contact. 

"So...I complicate those feelings." It wasn't a question. He didn't need to ask. 

You noticed his eyes changed from brown to grey in this perfect light. The light of the sun starting to set on this backwater moon. Almost the same color as his brother's eyes. 

You sighed deeply, letting go of the scarf. Your hand dropping to rest, open palmed on Crosshair's chest. 

He stepped closer, placing his warm hand over yours. 

“We’ll find them.” 

“How? We’ve been looking...” 

He squeezed your hand. “Marv and Mel...they’re a front for The Rebellion. Gathering intel and recruiting volunteers to fight the Empire.” 

You looked up at Crosshair with renewed hope. 

“They know where we can find Rex. He’ll be able to help us.” 

You nodded. So many thoughts going through your head. 

Cross took the scarf off and slid it over your head, to rest around your shoulders.  

“C’mon Soup, there’s a place around here with those Space Cakes you like. My treat.” 

He led the way hugging you closely. 

PLEASE like, comment, and/or REBLOG!

IF YOU WISH TO BE ADDED OR DROPPED FROM MY TAG LIST, PLEASE MESSAGE ME! Don't just comment as I might miss it. Thanks!!! <3

To read Part 2:

https://www.tumblr.com/skellymom/744276448825769984/bring-me-to-my-knees-part-2?source=share

[yrsdf]

Shut up

18+ (charlie is seen as an asshole)

charlie dompler

charlie was your neighbor, you've known him for years and not in a very nice way. ever since highschool charlie has always been an ass to you, and only you. there were times where he would act nice toward you but only in moments when adults were around and such, he was a bully, a targeter, a toxic no good asshole. but that only made you want him more..

you worked as a bank teller and you have been for years now. the job you held had you on edge at the ends of your day already due to the pains or wearing heels for hours and dealing with slow customers who can’t remember their ages half the time. you had parked in your reserved spot and turned your car off, you let out a sigh before grabbing your small purse and your car keys , you opened your car door and settled your feet on the floor shutting your car door behind you and pressing the button on the fob to lock it. you walked toward your apartment doors, the click of your heels was evident as you opened the doors walking toward the elevator, and of course the fucking loser charlie steps in the elevator and you roll your eyes at this.

he went in his pocket and grabbed out a cigarette and lighter, his eyes panned over to you and his back pressed to the opposite side of the elevator as he peered over at you from time to time, he knew you'd say some snarky comment, and you knew it would get under his skin

“your taking up half the elevator with your lard charlie.”

you hissed as he blew a cloud of smoke through his lips from a cigarette, you can’t help but notice his fluffy hair, and his tall demeanor, his large build near your smaller one, your staring caused you to accidentally press all the buttons in the elevator by accident with your bag due to you not paying attention. the air in the elevator smelt of nicotine and sexual tension.

“shut the fuck up man- yknow i don’t think i’ve heard a nice word out of your stupid mouth.”

he spat back with as his eyes locked with yours, which caused you to scoff as the elevator doors shut, as the elevator moved up it jammed getting stuck, charlie turns to face you with a clear look of frustration and annoyance

“oh yea and look who got us stuck in a elevator - that would be your dumbass”

he spat

“oh fuck off charlie, i mean look at you, your hotboxing this elevator with your nicotine and not to mention you smell like sweat and-“

before you could slip another insult out he hand a hand around your neck and had your back pressed completely against the elevator walls, his other hand held a cigarette which he inhaled a smoke in before puffing it in your face, your face scrunched as your coughed, the smell burning your nose

“you do an awful lot of bitching, do you ever just shut up?”

he said with a low yet assertive tone, your eyes remained on his and he could read them like a book, he knew the arousal that pooled on you, and he could feel the tremble of your skin due to the intimacy of the situation, as you remained quiet his grip tightened, he noticed how your legs squeeze together as he tightens his hold on your small throat.

“not much to say? or are you just stuck? because a few minutes ago all i heard was your bitching, maybe i should do this more often if it shuts your snarky mouth up.”

as the elevator sprung back to life his eyes lingered on you for a moment longer before letting go causing you to fall to the floor, he dropped his cigarette pressing his foot on it "next time. shut up when i tell you to." he turned his back to you leaving the elevator once its doors opened, you heard his apartment door open and slam shut, you sat there for a minute regaining yourself as you hadnt expected something like that to ever happen, you eventually stood grabbing your belongings and going toward your apartment door, you unlocked and opened the door entering your apartment and shutting the door behind you, you kicked your heels off and sat your belongings on the counter.

[abbonation]

Do Things Right

Joel Miller x Fem!Reader smut

18+!

A/N: Joel jacks off to the thought of you, that’s pretty much it. Unedited, unfiltered, unholy! I love writing dudes masturbating, is that weird?? Idc! Enjoy this filth, lovlies! 🫶🏼

————

He supposed that it was watching you describe to the young boy how a bow and arrow works that really did him in. You kneeled next to him, both bundled in your gloves and scarves and boots, perched behind him; observing his aim towards the small squirrel a few yards away. Like a strike of lightning, it hit him, and you were scalded into his flesh from then on. He arrived home that night feeling like he could vomit, the lust and want and pain of it all thick in his throat.

Weeks pass, he avoids you. Waits for this to dissipate, but it doesn’t. The string which connects you to him is pulled taught, reeling him towards you at a hundred miles an hour-

“How goes it, cowboy?” He jolts from his thoughts, looks up at you from his seat on the steps outside the mess hall.

A grunt of acknowledgment escapes him, “Fine, s’posse.”

You kick his boot with your own, sounding back to him in agreement, and sit down on the step below his.

“You got watch tonight?”

“Yes ma’am, me ‘n you. Nine O’Clock. Why?”

“Just wonderin’ if I have time to put Charlie to bed before we gotta leave.” You push the gravel around under the toe of your boot.

“You can be a few minutes late, I ain’ gonna snitch on you.” He looks down over at you now, he can tell from the way you squint your eyes that the cold air is freezing you. He wishes he could wrap you up in himself, keep you safe from it all.

“Thanks Joel- see ya tonight, then,” you make to stand and leave, bumping your shoulder against his without removing your gloves hands from the pockets on your coat.

—

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go out on patrol with you, in fact, that was one of the only things he had to really look forward to these days. It was more so that if he wasn’t focused, completely keyed in, he could miss something- and he couldn’t take losing you.

So he rushed home from the mess hall, a few spare hours before your watch began, the smell of your hair stuck in his nose fuckin’ suffocating him like you were some kind of angel.

He runs a hand through his hair once he makes it up the stairs to his room, slow down now. He couldn’t help but pretend it was you saying it to him, telling him just how you like it while he pushes the worn denim down over his thick hairy thighs. Propped up on the bed, he can’t wait another moment to pull his boxers down over his dick and rest them under his balls , half-hard just from sitting next to you, god- he’s so fucked.

Keeps his left hand down on his thigh, cupping himself almost; just teasing, and moves the right up over his belly, and chest to spit into his hand. He quickly moves it back down, now using the left hand to hold his cock up straight while the right pools the spit down onto his tip and frenulum.

“Fuck baby, little hole’s tight for me.” He squeezes the fat tip under the bulb of his cock tight, maybe too tight- staving off cumming for a few more minutes.

He’s got this sick image in his head of you, bent over a table somewhere- maybe his house, maybe the watchtower- whatever. Your jeans are haphazardly pulled down and resting on your knees, boots still on, shirt too, and he’s on his knees behind you eating your cunt. He’s gotten off to the thought of it every night this week, and he might die if he doesn’t get to see it live soon.

The way you say his name is twisted up into a moan in his fantasy, and you reach back to grip his hair, to make sure he doesn’t stop licking at your clit.

He beats his dick fast now, this is his favorite part. He pops a thumb into his mouth, then, all at once, he slips two fingers inside to fuck your pussy while lining one up to tease inside your asshole, all while he continues to slurp at your hard little clit.

“Fucking fuck, Joel- just like that, make me cum,”

He’s right on the edge now, waiting for your command to spill and finally you do, your moan ringing between his ears “Ngh- yes I’m comin’ baby-” you cry to him while you twitch and flutter all over his fingers. The slick of your orgasm seeps down his face and drips onto the table below you, evidence of the pleasure he gave you.

He lets go, cock spitting seed over his knuckles and dripping down into his pubes, pooling on his balls, he groans for you in the silent emptiness of his bedroom.

“Fuck.” Always such a mess when he’s by himself. The cool air against his sweaty sticky self is enough to make him get up and ready for patrol, praying you aren’t wearing his favorite jeans of yours tonight- or he’ll be doing all this again before the night is over.

[footprintsinthesxnd]

Who Hurt You

Pairings: Bradley Bradshaw x f!reader (80s au) Summary: this was a request from @roostette with the prompt ‘who hurt you?’ for my 1K celebration. They kindly let me choose the time period so we are rocking 80s Bradley today. Thank you @callsign-phoenix for proofreading Warnings: cheating, heart break, Bradley being the guy every girl needs, implied sex, minors dni

Bradley groaned, leaning against the counter of the video store, running his hand through his brown locks. Sundays were always slow. No one wanted to rent movies on a Sunday. The sun was shining, the warm summer breeze blowing the front door open occasionally, bringing with it the hope of a customer as the bell above the door clanged.

Bradley looked up at the clock, the time reading half past three. Another groan left his mouth when realised he still had two hours to go. He’d always hated picking up shifts, he didn’t know why he did it as no one ever swapped shifts with him, but when she’d come to him and beg to swap their Sundays he just couldn’t refuse. (Y/n) in Bradley’s eyes was the most beautiful girl in town. She was smart, funny and perfect in every way. The only problem was that all the other guys thought that too. Bradley had been nursing his crush on (y/n) for years, and when she’d come to work at the movie store with him, he’d thought this was his chance. It was not, and now while Bradley was stuck at work the girl of his dreams was off on a date with none other than Jake Seresin, the town's golden boy. He was a jock having been captain of the football team and class president during his high school days. He got good grades, not that Bradley didn’t, but he’d spent most of his senior year caring for his sick mother. While Jake had gotten a high up job at his father’s expensive car dealership, Bradley had jumped from job to job, from comic book stores to the supermarket to the video store.

Looking back up at the clock and realising only five minutes had passed caused Bradley to groan again in frustration. He picked up the box of returns that the Saturday workers hadn’t reshelfed and busied himself, walking down between the isles of videos and records before placing each into its respective section. He grinned as he picked up his favourite movie from the box, running his thumb over the cover of the all too familiar cassette of ‘Back to the Future’ when the bell above the door chimed and the noise of loud footsteps followed.

“Hello?” Bradley made his way back up the isle to the counter to come face to face with a teary (y/n).

“(Y/n)? What are you doing here? What’s wrong?” He asked worriedly, he reached out to her but she backed away behind the counter, sinking down next to the cobalt records with a whimper.

“(Y/n)?” He called softly, raising his hands as a sign of surrender as he took a seat on the floor beside her. “Who hurt you?”

(Y/n) mumbled something into the sleeve of her jumper that Bradley couldn’t quite make out.

“Who hurt you, (y/n)?” He asked again, this time laying his hand reassuringly on her arm, she didn’t flinch away this time.

“Jake,” she choked out, rubbing her hand over her cheeks. “He cheated on me.”

Bradley sighed, if he had it his way he’d be straight over to that asshole's house giving him hell for hurting (y/n), but right now she needed him more. Shuffling over he pulled her into his arms, wrapping her in a tight hug. They remained silent for a few moments before (y/n) spoke up.

“Why are you so good, Bradley? After everything you’ve been through and all the shit everyone gives you and yet you’re still so good.”

Bradley shrugged, he didn’t really know if he was good, he just tried to help other people out when he could. He’d never consider himself good though.

“I don’t know.” He replied eventually after contemplating his answer.

(Y/n) shuffled around in his arms, cupping his cheek in her hand, “well I sure am glad that you are, Bradshaw.” She leant in placing the smallest kiss to his cheek and watching as a deep blush grew over his cheeks.

“You get off at five thirty, right?”

“Yeah,” Bradley whispered, not daring to say too much considering their close proximity.

“Well I can’t see many people will be coming in now. Wanna close up and watch ‘Back to the Future’, I know it’s your favourite?”

Bradey was stunned. He never really thought she noticed him let alone took an interest in something he liked. He quickly agreed, afraid that if he waited she’d change her mind.

“Good,” she reached down her hand to pull him up. “Come on then, Bradshaw. Let’s give you a night to remember.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Tag list: @callsign-phoenix @imjess-themess @averyhotchner @mayhem24-7forever @green-socks @alexxavicry @a-reader-and-a-writer @topguncortez @maggiescarborough @callsignmaverick5 @ssprayberrythings @smoothdogsgirl @xoxabs88xox @luckyladycreator2 @abaker74 @elenavampire21 @classyunknownlover @okiegirl24 @flashyourgreeneyesatme @sunlightmurdock @airedale17 @callmemana @shadowolf993 @t-nd-rfoot @topguncultleader @flyboyjake @soulmates8 @desert-fern @roostette @marchingicenotes7 @mayhemmanaged @shanimallina87 @jstarr86 @starkleila @bradshawseresinbabe @wkndwlff @shadowsintheknight @cherrycola27

[woniechronicles]

mystery boy

context: the same man always shows up at your job during the week. comes at the same time, leaves right before closing. he doesn’t speak much, not until your one closing shift, that is.

pairings: shy student, figure skater! sunghoon x g.n. reader

word count: 3.3k

a/n: not proofread

every thursday to sunday night was the same: doing school work behind the counter of your minimum wage job at your local ice skating rink. people came and went, some regulars, some school field trips, some who come in every now and then to hang out with their friends. but there was one man who came in, supposedly, everyday to practice his skills. on your shifts, he would come in every day at the same time: 5PM. then he would leave at closing time and come back the very next day at the same time and do it all over again. every so often he would bring a friend or two but very rarely would he do so- maybe once or twice a month at most.

every so often you would peek through the glass and scan the ice rink. he always stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the families and younger crowd, even those who you assumed were his age. the way he moved so elegantly across the ice looked effortless to him, but when you imagined yourself even attempting to pull off a move such as one of his you knew you would fall flat on your ass within a matter of seconds. but you never lingered for long, your attention moving back to your school work or one of the other customers.

according to your coworkers, he doesn’t say much. everyone’s curiosity is strong with him in particular, especially the younger women who attempt to send him flirty eyes his way but are met with blank stares. even your manager elli, who co-owns the rink with her husband, has tried sparking up conversations with him before. but from what you’ve been told, he just answers in one word or short sentences with dead ends. half of the staff think of him as an asshole while some think of him as just shy or mysterious. you, on the other hand, didn’t care much to ponder about him.

during the last hour of work, elli comes in from the manager's office in a hurry with her purse and a worried look on her face that starts to match yours. “my granddaughter is in the hospital, i have to leave for the night.” she says in a rush, quickly looking around to make sure shes gathered all her items.

“will she be okay?” you ask, eyes widened with concern.

she nods, getting out from behind the counter and standing in front of you as she rummages through her purse for her car keys. “she’s fine, just a broken arm. but i’m still worried.” finally finding her keys, she turns to look at you. “would you mind closing up for the night?”

you shake your head, motioning for her to leave. “not at all, i got it covered. now go, i got everything covered, don't worry.” you smile at her reassuringly as she mouths a ‘thank you’, rushing out the door and leaving to her duties as a grandmother.

the next hour was slow, people were leaving and no new customers came within the last hour. every so often people would come to the counter next to for free hot chocolate as they left and said goodnight, but that was about it. five minutes before closing, you noticed the mystery skater still trying to nail a spin he’s been attempting for the past thirty minutes. normally he would be getting ready to leave by now, but he was still stuck on the move. being the only two in the rink, you decide to start locking the doors of the lobby and putting away any skates laying around as you allow him the extra time. by the time you finish cleaning up the lobby, it’s ten minutes after closing and he’s still going at it.

you quickly move into the manager's office and turn off the music to signal him it’s time to wrap up. once the music stops, he snaps back into reality and realizes that it’s probably closing time. walking off the rink, he moves towards the lobby and his eyes catch the time. he looks over at you with an apologetic look, rushing to take everything off so as to not inconvenience you.

chuckling, you start to pack your items up as you speak to him. “it’s okay, you don’t have to hurry.” you glance up at him, realizing he was already putting his sneakers on. “i gave you extra time since you looked like you needed some. it’s okay.”

you hear him mumble a quick ‘thank you’ before grabbing his bag and walking towards the door. before you could warn him that the doors were locked, you see him walk straight into the door as they don’t open for him. quickly covering your hand with your mouth with a gasp, you begin to walk towards him.

“are you okay?” you ask concerned, his head tilted downwards in embarrassment. “i was going to warn you but you walk really fast.”

he nods as he rubs his forehead. “i’m okay, sorry about that.”

shaking your head, you rush to grab your bag from the counter and the keys to lock up. “it’s fine, don’t apologize. as long as you’re okay that’s what matters.” you unlock the door and motion for him to walk out, following behind him as he does so.

as you lock up the doors you expect to hear him walk away, but in the corner of your eye you can see him standing still. as you finish locking every door, you turn around and see him looking at you blankly.

quickly realizing how creepy he was seeming, he speaks up for him. “sorry, i just realized it’s dark out and since it seems to be only you i didn’t want you to walk through the parking lot by yourself.”

you nod, smiling politely at him as you make your way towards your car. sure this man seemed harmless, just an awkward person, but you also were cautious. looking around the lot, you notice only one car in the lot. “where’s your car?”

he points at the bus stop across the lot, then realized you probably couldn’t see him motion towards it and mentally slapped himself. “i take the bus. my car is in the shop right now.” noticing his bus in the distance, he starts jogging to catch it but not before yelling to get some safe.

you watch as he gets on the bus, taking a seat in the back near the window. he takes his headphones out of his bag and slips them on, turning to his phone as the bus pulls off. from inside your car, you start to wonder about the awkward guy more.

xxxx

the next day is the same. you arrive at three, clock in, and begin doing your everyday tasks before sitting behind the counter and checking people in in between your class work. at five is when a taller figure approaches the counter, the voice deep and familiar.

“sorry again about yesterday.” he says, his deep voice causing your head to shoot up.

it’s him again, like clockwork. you shake your head in disagreement, taking the money that he slid on the counter and getting ready to give him his change back. “don’t apologize, you have nothing to be sorry for.” taking the change from the drawer, you start to count it over to make sure it’s the right amount. “i’m just glad you’re okay. and thank you for walking me to my car, i appreciate it.”

he holds out his hand for the change, taking it as you place the quarters and dimes in his rather large hands. you notice a shy smile on his face as he says ‘anytime’, a dimple popping out as he makes his way towards his signature locker and slips on his skates. you didn’t notice, but as you continued on with your work he kept glancing at you. he was curious about you, more than you were curious about him.

throughout the night, you would glance the mystery man’s way at times to see him practicing the same move as last night. occasionally he would move onto a different one, but not spending more than a couple of minutes on it and then going back to the previous one. as the last hour closed in, almost everyone seemed to leave except for him. just like the previous night, you allowed him to stay past time. you allowed him to finish up his move until you cleaned everything up, then turning off the music at fifteen minutes past closing to signal him it’s time to leave.

you see him let out a sigh, walking off of the ice and to the lobby to change back into his sneakers. as you shove your books into your bag, he goes to grab the lobby door until he realizes it’s locked again. looking up at the clock, he realizes the time and looks at you as you close everything up.

“you didn’t have to do that again, i-“

“feel bad?” you interrupt, turning around from locking up the skates to unlock the lobby door and let him through. “it’s fine, really. you get extra time to practice and i’m able to clean up everything. it’s a win-win situation.”

as he steps out, he sees his bus pull away and lets out a sigh. looking in his direction, you see a bus pull away and look at him. “was that your bus?” you question. when he nods, you automatically feel terrible. “i’m so sorry, i can give you a ride home? if you’d like? or does that make you uncomfortable? i’m so sorry that wasn’t my intention-“

he lets out laughter as he runs a hand through his hair, shaking his head. “it’s okay, i don’t want to make you uncomfortable. i can just call an uber or something-“

“no no! let me drive you, it’s okay. just don’t kill me or anything and there won’t be an issue.” locking up the doors, you make sure it’s all secure and grab your car keys. as you look up at him apologetically, you start to plead more. “i’m so sorry i swear i was just trying-“

“it’s okay, it’s okay. if i accept your ride offer will you feel better?” seeing you nod, he smiles and agrees to the ride. the smile on your face makes his heart flutter, following beside you to your car.

the walk to the car is quiet as you rush to open the doors. you don’t know if he has a curfew or if his parents are expecting him so you don’t want to be the reason he gets in trouble. or if he even had plans and he could be missing or be late to them- that was your main worry. he notices you became quiet but says nothing, just slips into the passenger side and puts on the seatbelt as you begin to pull away.

as you wait for your turn onto the street, you ask him where he lives. “i’ll guide you.” is all he says as he tells you where and when to turn. the entire time you’re praying he doesn't take you to some creepy road with a malicious plan but as you turn down a road with large houses accompanied by even bigger pools with waterfalls, that negative cloud dissipates. when he says “here”, you pull into an empty driveway of a large home. it wasn’t a mansion, but it was definitely bigger than the studio apartment you were renting and even bigger than your childhood home. through the metal fence you can see a pool and a hot tub, both empty but very obvious.

noticing your awe expression, he chuckles and unbuckles his seatbelt. “thanks for the ride- i’m sorry i don’t know your name, i feel like i should.”

breaking out of your curiosity daze, you turn to him. “y/n. what’s yours, rich boy?” you tease, the smile on your lips playful.

his nose scrunches as he smiles, opening the door as he throws his legs over the door frame. “sunghoon. it’s nice to officially meet.”

xxxx

for the next week, a routine builds up between you two. he comes in at five, stays till after closing, and you drive him home. gradually you begin to learn more of each other. you learn how he’s practicing to become a professional figure skater while also taking a few college courses at the university across town to earn a degree in radiology. although still soft spoken, you can tell he’s opened his shell to you a bit.

during the week you can’t help but wonder how he is. while in classes, your mind wanders on how his classes are and if he’s learned this new spin he recently told you he wanted to learn. once thursday finally arrives again, you happily wait around for 5PM and smile up at sunghoon as he enters with his one friend you see every so often.

“long time, no see.” he speaks first, smiling at you as his friend just watches the interaction.

you greet his friend as well with a smile, taking his payment and giving him the remainder of the change. “you don’t need a ride tonight?”

he shakes his head as he puts the change in his wallet, telling his friend to start getting ready with his skates. “not tonight. but hey,” he looks around as he builds up courage for his next sentence. “i got my car back from the shop the other day and wanted to offer you a ride home tomorrow, if you’re okay with that. just, as a thank you for the past week.”

you nod, your smile widening. “sure, i don’t mind. thanks, sunghoon.”

throughout the night, whenever you looked over at sunghoon he was already looking over at you. when your eyes locked, he’d look away with a shy smile before following his friend around the rink. at the end of the night, sunghoon and his friend left right as elli was closing for the night and he waved goodbye to you.

when elli locked the doors, she turned to you with a curious grin. “what?” you said, holding back a smile from her. you knew where she was headed, but you didn’t want to give her the details just yet.

“are you seeing the mystery boy?” she asks in a teasing tone as she cleans up the empty cups and sprawled about napkins off the floor.

you shake your head, stuffing your items in your bag quickly before doing your closing routine. “not really. i’ve just been giving him rides and we’ve been bonding, i guess. just friendly stuff.”

she scoffs, making you turn your head to her direction. “not with the way he looks at you.” you raise a brow at her, motioning for her to continue her sentence. “the way he smiles at you from across the rink is telling enough. take it from me, i would know.”

you take her word for it but don’t ponder on it until your drive home. does he really look at you a certain way? does he really smile a lot around you? regardless, you try to not think too much about it but can’t help but imagine his face when you close your eyes. as you’re drifting to sleep, you can’t help but look forward to tomorrow.

xxxx

today you even finished your coursework early, meaning all you did was study and occasionally procrastinate. when five o’clock rolled around, in strolled sunghoon with his skates by himself this time. his face lit up upon seeing you, his nose scrunching up in this adorable way that causes his dimples to pop out at you. you would be lying if you said it didn’t cause a butterfly to flutter around in your stomach, especially after your conversation with elli last night.

“hey stranger.” you say, returning his smile. “fancy meeting you here.”

he hands you his money, chuckling at your greeting. “yeah the outside caught my attention so figured why not.” as you hand him his change, you lock eyes for a few moments before he continues. “the cutie behind the counter drew me in a bit, too.”

the blush spreading across your cheeks catch his attention, mentally making a note to flirt with you more. “just a bit?” you retort, catching him off guard.

“more than a bit, actually.” is the last thing he says before walking over to his locker and getting ready for the evening.

as the night comes to a close, elli leaves early again to attend to her granddaughter again since she is still healing from her injury. five minutes before closing and everyone is gone except you two, so you close up the lobby again and begin cleaning. but before you can turn off the music, sunghoon walks in and begins helping you clean up the empty cups and trash around the waste bin. when you notice this, you begin to protest but he shoo’s you away, insisting he helps you since you help him. you let him continue because at the end of the day, who are you to object to extra help? you both take your time cleaning, just talking with one another.

“how’s your routine coming along?” you ask as you clean up the last of the lobby, putting away the skates as sunghoon finally changes out of his own. “from what i saw it looks like it’s coming along great.”

“you’re watching me skate while at work?” he asks, making you glance at him with a grin. “how creepy.”

you laugh, throwing an empty paper cup at him as you come out from behind the counter with your bag on your shoulder. “and you stare too much.”

leaning against the counter, you watch as he grabs his bag and starts walking towards you. “it’s not my fault you’re so pretty.” he comments, making you roll your eyes with a tint of blush appearing on your cheeks.

you both are just mere inches apart, eyes staring into one another’s as the silence drowns out the world around you. his hand brushes against yours for a moment, sending a shiver up your spine as his eyes gaze from your eyes to your lips then back to eyes once more. taking this into notice, you do the same as to reciprocate his feelings. and luckily enough, he understands. bringing his hand up to your cheek, he cups it with a shy grin and leans his forehead against yours. bodies pressed together, he snakes his arm around your waist to pull you closer. for a few seconds you stay like this, waiting for someone to make the first move as your arm rests on his bicep and the other on his neck.

“so can you kiss me already?” you break the silence, laughter filling the room before his lips meets yours.

and once they do, you can feel those previous butterflies erupt into a zoo. it’s not long before you both are smiling into the kiss, lips molding perfectly together as they move in unison. as the kids deepens, you glide your tongue across his bottom lip for access and he happily allows you in. sunghoon tastes just like vanilla, making you want more of him. it isn’t until you momentarily snap back into reality when you realize where you are: at your job.

you pull away from sunghoon’s lips, both of you attempting to catch your breath as his thumb grazes the apples of your cheek. once you pull away from his forehead to take a look at him, you smile at the sight. his lips are plump, saliva at the corners of his mouth. you swipe away at them, cleaning it up with your thumb with a genuine smile. he watches you intently, catching you off guard by pecking your lips before grabbing your hand and pulling you towards the exit.

you stop him in his tracks, making him turn around to face you. “so are we dating now?” you ask, taking a step forward.

he chuckles, pulling you towards him to press a small kiss to your forehead. “let me treat you to dinner first and then we can make it official.”

[jonlybonlyfromboldlygo]

Standing at the corner and waiting for the light to change so I read Bukowski on my phone. Not for any particular reason, just I know this crosswalk is slow and it's either this or I keep refreshing Am I The Asshole for the umpteenth time. You're the asshole. You're not the asshole. Maybe I'm the asshole. Bukowski writes about working in a factory. About being trapped in hell. The lady standing next to me presses the button and presses it again and presses it a third time muttering to herself that will make it change faster. It won't. They don't. But if it helps that's fine. I have a head ache. I didn't take my meds or set my alarm, spent most of the night in pain and terrified of oversleeping so I just didnt... really sleep. Got up for work anyway. It's officially spring now and my bus crosses one end of the island to the other as the sun rises overhead. It's another beautiful day in paradise and I'll see it all through dirty windows. There's a corporate park between where I am and where I'm going and white fairy terns nest in the trees and ducks swim in the fountain and at night rats have their way with the garbage left behind by a thousand thousand corporate drones. Reading poetry makes me want to write poetry, makes me want to commit something to paper that pulls at my readers, that makes something inside them twinge and snap and resettle into a new position. The songs stuck in my head call out for love, tell me to run, ask me to dance. The light changes. My phone back in my pocket, I cross the street. It's Tuesday.

[c0ry-c0nvoluted]

The early morning air was still thick with humidity, like a clammy memory of the night before - a night I spent cold under a blanket stiff with the hardened residue of spilled liquor and cheap beer. I've got one chance to get the hell out of the city, and it's on that goddamn train...but I don't have a ticket... I can't afford one. But it was either try or wait around to die -- or, more accurately, wait around to be killed... Those bastards aren't gonna let me just walk away with this thing; I barely made it this far, and only have because the goon they sent after me was an overweight smoker well into his fifties. Too old and too damn slow to catch me. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the chase killed the bastard. I heard three shots before I ducked behind a dumpster, then a thump preceded his ornery ass groaning in obvious discomfort. It took me about thirty seconds to work up the balls to take a look at what the hell was going on, and when I did? The giant human lump of shit was clutching his chest on the ground at the mouth of the alley. If I had more time I might have gone back and kicked his head in while he struggled to breathe, hopefully sending him on his way to Hell with the last thing he saw being my deranged face, drooling in anger while savagely stomping him into the afterlife. How's a size ten-and-a-half taste for your final meal, you asshole? But he wasn't the only one they sent after me... If I would have stuck around I might not have gotten away. The other one one searching my place, ransacking the shit out of it and all for nothing. What they want I still have with me. I slept on the fucking thing and now I have its angular impression imprinted into my thigh. If only I could use it to get a goddamn ticket... But...actually...maybe I can... -cm

Any ideas on what it might be? Put your guess in the comments -- no wrong answers, serious or comedic. Have fun. And get your eyes on a high-quality version of this image with a premium download from my deviantart.com account -> AnomalousDesigns

[coffee-or-murder]

So I found a song (Anna Bates - “He said / She said”) that gut punched me with how perfectly suited it was for Lemon/Lonan if they’d gotten to be friends and form romantic feelings naturally. Instead their parents went “hey get married we want connections/money and you’re our only kids…..also you gotta make an heir after you get married them’s the breaks get to it”, so that slow burn progression from friends to lovers didn’t get to happen. Basically I’m just rambling about how well they actually could have worked together if things hadn’t turned out the way they did because I have some severe Lonan brainrot again lol. 

No crazy spoilers really except more info on Lonan as a person and his “friendship” with Lemon before the events of the MiV session AND some sandboxy thoughts about where it could have gone if they’d had the chance for their relationship to grow naturally outside of their arranged marriage (ie. current sandbox thought is him showing up at the tower also having run away and both of them hiding from his family, staying in Lemon’s room and maybe helping with arcnane RnD lol).  

LYRICS: 

He said  / I’ll hit a man if I have to honey / But I faint at the sight of blood / So I’ll protect your sweet heart darlin / But you might have to pick me up 

Canon - Lonan is a socially inept shut in academic, boarding school his whole life type of guy. He does not do well with the sight of blood and tends to just outright faint or get very woozy. He was bullied a bit by the others in his wizard schools, but mostly he kept to himself and just tried to avoid people. He got a bit roughed up at school, but he’s never really been in an actual fist fight before

Sandbox - After he and Lemon had bonded if someone did try to hurt her, he just might throw a punch first and think later. He’d get his ass handed to him, since he for sure is not a physical fighter at all, but he’d sure try. Lonan would be…kind of painfully aware that Lemon does most of the protecting, and wants to help but has zero idea how. So he’d see red, throw the punch, and think that was a dumb choice later. It would still fluster Lemon seeing him fight for her though lol

She said  / I am small, but I’ll carry your body  / After you’ve been seeing bright red  / And I’ll feed you bread and strong hot coffee  / And we’ll put your mind to bed 

Canon - Lemon in canon still has so much guilt about leaving Lonan behind. They’d only just started to be friends before she was sent away, and even though she’s glad to be free and away from her mother she is still very worried about him. He may have been an ass when they first met, but after a bit of time Lemon came to find out his situation and realize he was just as stuck as she was. They commiserated a bit over that and got to bond a bit as friends, but then things came to a head with their engagement party and Lemon was shipped off before they could really come together. 

Sandbox - If Lonan had gotten hurt trying to protect her he’d get fussed over so much by Lemon. Lemon is very aware that she is only three feet tall, but she physically outclasses Lonan by a decent bit (he’s got 9 she’s got 13) and she’d be just as overprotective of him as she is any of the people she loves. Lonan would get healing, and fed, and then she’d end up having to make him lay down and put his research down long enough to rest. I can very easily picture Lonan sleeping on his back closest to the wall with Lemon sitting up against the headboard with a book and her hand in his hair, like a physical wall between him and danger. 

He said  / I am gentle, yes I swear it honey / I will be gentle till I die / But oh bless the face of a cold cold man / Who goes and makes you cry 

Canon - Lonan looks like an asshole. He was just born with a broody mean mug, and his upbringing in boarding schools with strict teachers along with either distant or outright mean classmates didn’t polish his social skills well enough to compensate. He is actually a very gentle sweet boy, but he is so very bad at social cues and has very tall walls built up to try to protect himself from the inevitable disappointment of getting close to anyone. It’s easier to be alone so that’s what he says he wants. Lonan tends to come off as a know it all slightly prissy asshole, and that’s normally enough to put people off enough to leave him alone.

Sandbox - Lonan and Lemon to start would have one of those “I can be mean to them but don’t you dare hurt them or I’ll ruin your life” friendships, but the second it tips over into romance Lonan would put himself in time out the second he accidentally makes Lemon genuinely feel even slightly bad. He would never intentionally hurt her, the banter isn’t supposed to hurt after all, but they both would end up accidentally emotionally bruising each other a bit. After they’d cooled off they’d come back together to talk about how not to have it happen again. They’d be weirdly good at talking things out together, because they’re both scientists at heart and would tackle laying out their problems in very similar ways. 

She said  / Don’t go getting yourself in trouble now  / I need you home alive  / But to be fair I ain’t felt so safe here  / In a long long time  / It’s been a long long time

Canon - Literally this line. Lemon does worry about Lonan, he was forced into the whole arrangement just like she was, and his relationship with his parents is clearly so strained it’s barely existent and not healthy. Between her mother emotionally abusing her and the minimal physical abuse with the whole kneeling on grits thing, Lemon hasn’t felt safe at home for years. Having her engagement arranged to Lonan and dealing with the Harlow’s in court only exacerbated that. Once she’d gotten to know him a bit she felt like he could be a safe person to be around, especially considering what happened during their engagement party when he did keep her safe. By the end they were so close to being actual friends she was not happy they couldn’t take him with her, but that would look enough like eloping to the courts they’d have ruled in her mother’s favor and that just wasn’t possible. Lonan said it was fine, but lemon hated leaving him to the wolves like that. 

Sandbox - Lemon is a fairly clingy person once she’d dedicated herself to someone. Not suffocatingly so, but she is incredibly physically affectionate and takes so much comfort from returned physical affection. She may be the more dominant personality in their relationship, but the amount of comfort she would get from curling up with him at night would be so very welcome. It may get to the point where she couldn’t sleep well without him or at least a reminder of him with her like a scarf or stuffed animal.

[marylandlifecoaching]

The Red Light Stare

Have you ever been driving behind some slow ass mother fucker? Then you get a chance to pass them, only to end up at a stop light, when they pull up next to you. You know you have. Then you get that red light stare. We all know it means, "What's the rush, asshole?" Of course we do. Let's get into it...

Fours days a week I commute an hour each way to get to my job. My personal best is 43 minutes. I admit it, I drive fast. {I can already feel my wife's eyes rolling.} And on more than a few occasions, I have been on the receiving end of the red light stare. What are you going to do? I got places to be. But there is beauty of being mindful. I have gotten really good at recognizing when the universe is trying to save my ass. The first 15 cars that I went flying by, only to get stuck behind that Sunday driver, on a Tuesday afternoon. You can't force where you don't fit. So I embrace it. Red light stare no more.

So what are we really talking about? We are talking about being in tune with the natural flow of life. I know, you know, what I mean. When every little thing is working against you, that's a clue that it is not for you. Honor that. Why risk a major setback when a minor inconvenience is being served? Take the L. Lose little or lose big. Maturity opts to lose little.

The weekend is upon us. And most of us will not be rushing. Do yourself a favor. Take this weekend pace into the work week. Besides, not all losses are losses. And many times, a setback is really a setup or a save. Don't believe me? Google 9/11 passenger missed flight. He missed his flight by 10 minutes, due to a hangover. An hour later while in the airport, his plane flew into the north tower. What looked like a loss, was in fact another chance at life.

Those two cars that are driving side by side and blocking traffic for miles....yeah, that's pretty much a bitch move. But learn to take it in stride. The red light stare is nothing, compared to what the universe is trying to save you from. Sure, I could be wrong. But I choose to see what can't be seen. After all, the real magic is looking for magic. You can thank me later.

[brilliantpride]

Stupid fucking Magecraft stupid fucking Baobhan-Sith stupid fucking get her out of here. She feels like she's been wandering forever. Of course it's always the Chaldea hallways, too. Always the ones covered in ice, can't even be the empty ones back at Novum Chaldea, or the ones from the old Chaldea before they got iced. Always has to be damn cold in here. Yako punches a wall and sighs, but keeps walking, hoping at some point she'll come across a door or something.

"Damn, when will you just give it a rest?"

Yako glances to her side, and sees another self walking beside her down this endless, empty hallway. She scoffs. "Finally! I was starting to get lonely. So, what, you're here to bother me until I break down emotionally and give up, like Aphrodite and Mnemosyne?"

"Woooow, straight A's! She can use that brain!" The smile on the other Yako is toothy and insincere. "And you know what? I cooould take it slow and gentle, but why don't we cut to the chase? You like it rough anyway, right?"

Before Yako can answer, she finds herself in the clinic. Asclepius throws a pile of papers at her, his face as cold as ever. "That's what the data says. You've burned out your magical circuits too badly to use magic anymore. Your Servants have been dismissed. It took all of my genius just to keep your idiot self alive, let alone conscious, so be grateful you're even standing here to hear the news."

Ah, hey, that's unfair. Yako takes the papers and stands up, tossing them in the trash as she goes. "So what? I still have…" …No, she doesn't. She reaches for her side, but Calesvol isn't there. "Nevermind. I gotta get going." She slams open the clinic door - to see Ritsu and Mash's waiting faces outside. "Uh, 'scuse--"

"Are you all right? You really pushed yourself in that last battle," Mash pipes up. "It was pretty reckless to do what you did."

"And what did I do, exactly?"

The Mash-alike pauses, searching her brain. Ritsu pipes up. "It was reckless and irresponsible." Their words cut right to the quick. "Yako, I just can't have you on my team if you're going to put everyone in danger like that again. Including yourself."

"…" Yako clenches her jaw. Not like they're never doing reckless shit themself. Have they forgotten about the gun that eats away at their life-force to function? --No, hang on, don't get worked up. It's a misery dream, remember. And they still haven't said what she's actually done… though she can fill in the blanks for herself.

Ritsu turns their back on her. "I didn't want things to turn out this way. I thought I could give you a chance, but clearly, I was mistaken."

"Hey, wait a--" Ritsu's already walking away. Yako reaches out a hand, but flinches back at the last minute. "Right… Illusion. It's not them. But… I guess… I can be pretty reckless."

"Damn right you are." Oh, now that's a familiar voice. Your worldbuilding is breaking down, buddy. Yako turns to look at Kama with a nonplussed expression. "I'm always cleaning up after you. And you know what? I'm damn tired of it. I didn't ask to be a Servant in the first place, then I get stuck with an idiot like you, and then I'm forced to be your fucking babysitter? It's torture."

…There's nothing she can say to that. It's completely true. As much as she hates it. Yako's hand curls into a fist, nails digging into her palm, her tail frustratedly swishing behind her. (Why is she getting so worked up? It's a fake. But… it's not like it's a lie.)

Kama glares at her with the fury of a god. "You act like a child, and then get frustrated when people treat you like one. Pick a fucking side. No wonder everyone thinks you're a hassle."

"Ouch."

"That's all you have to say? You're a selfish asshole, you know that?"

"…I'm sorry."

"It's like pulling teeth with you." The scene melts away again - no clinic, no hallway, just the bleached-white earth and its crumbling ruins. Kama grips Yako by the shirt collar. "Always 'sorry' at the last minute after nothing can be fixed, because you're too cowardly to apologize when it's actually useful. Always 'sorry' after you've been backed into a corner. Do you even hear yourself? Have you ever thought about another person besides yourself?" They shove Yako away, and turn away with a disgusted expression on their face. "Do you even care about me, or do you just want to use me like everyone else does?"

Yako opens her mouth, and closes it again. Will talking make it worse? Will not talking make it worse? "I-I do care. I really do! You're important to me! I didn't realize how much until you used up your name for me, and--- and I know I won't ever be able to repay you for that, and I was scared of losing you, and I just…"

"This isn't about you!" a thousand voices scream at once. Kama's gentle galaxies turn burning-bright and all-consuming. "…Deal with this shit yourself. I'm tired. Bye." With that, Kama rips open a hole in space and disappears.

And Yako is on her own, once again.

She brings herself to her feet and wanders around. Her heart feels like it's breaking. With every step, she feels further from herself, lost in her own thoughts again.

"Nobody listens to me," her voice echoes. She didn't say that. "Nobody tries to understand me. I mess up everything I do, no matter how hard I try. Especially if I'm trying not to mess up. Why won't everyone get off my back?"

"Who's there?! Stop reading my mind!" Yako whips around, looking for anyone else. "Shut up! Just shut up! I don't want to hear any more!"

"I don't want to hear that I'm not trying hard enough. I don't want to face the reality that I'm not. I don't want to face the truth."

"Please, stop! I don't… want to hear this anymore…" She covers her ears, her heart aching and throat tightening.

"Whenever people ask me why I want to be a hero…"

A figure steps out from behind a wall. It's… herself? "I answer, 'Because I want to help people!' But it's not true, not really. I want to be adored. I want people to think I'm cool. I feel like if I burn myself at both ends for other people, I'll be loved - because I don't really understand what real love is like. As much as I want to tell myself that I'm human, is it really true? Was I ever human to start with?"

"Shut up…" Her voice is breaking. "Shut up, shut up, I don't want to hear this anymore… I hate this. Why is it a bad thing if I want to be loved? I'm sorry I didn't get the handbook when I was born! I'm doing my best! I don't know how to do better!"

"Aww, I know." Her mirror's voice is so gentle. "Even if everyone gives up on you, I know you did the best you could." She can hear the sneer to it. "Don't worry, nobody's ever going to hear about your journey. Even if they do, they can't tell anyone, or you'll get hit with a Sealing Designation by the Mages Association faster than you can say 'Oops'. Nobody's going to know about the sacrifices you had to make or how hard you pushed yourself, or about your time in Tartarus's maze, or about how you were personally trained by several historical figures, yes, personally, don't you believe me? And nobody's going to know about all your mistakes, either. It'll all be just a dream come morning, and you'll wake up in your bed wondering what the hell to do with the rest of your life. Your parents will wonder why you don't just get a normal job like everyone else your age. Sure, they gave up on their dreams for you to strike it rich where they couldn't, but you could still make a modest living in a cubicle somewhere, right? It's not the worst way to live. You'd still be able to do some LARPing as a part-time hero in your spare time."

Yako sinks to her knees. Her mirror crouches down next to her and puts a hand on her shoulder. "So, really, it's in your best interest to call it quits now. It's a sunk-cost fallacy that's kept you in it this long. Ritsu doesn't need you. Mash definitely doesn't need you. Kama, Connla, and Cú Chulainn? They won't even remember you. Everyone can save the world without you. …If there's a world left to be saved, that is. I mean, it'd suck if you were doing all this and then were left with a bleached-white Earth and no future ahead of you, right? All those worlds and their people, that you just…" she snaps her fingers, "…out of existence. While they were sleeping, too! But, mhm, yep, Ritsu can definitely take the blame for you. It'll be like you weren't even there at all.

"So why keep going?"

…That's the real question, isn't it.

Are you waiting for an answer? Do you really want to hear it? Obviously, you already know everything! But…

"Move."

One foot in front of the other.

Yako stands back up. Slowly, deliberately. "…It's okay to hesitate. It's okay to be afraid. But don't stop." She steadies her breathing and lets her hands fall down to her sides. "Don't ever stop. Don't ever retreat. Don't ever go back. Wherever the living go, that's where Humanity goes."

Yeah. Okay. She can do this. She takes a deep breath in, and exhales slowly. "You know, this is one of the nicer mental manipulations I've been through. I mean, you're not trying to overwrite my personality, or erase my memories, just… make me give up. But the thing is, I'm just too dumb to know when to give up." She puts her hand out to her side… and feels someone holding it, though it's only for a moment. "You did give me some stuff to think about, so thanks for that. But you left out some other stuff, too. It's not just me and Ritsu out here. It's not just our Servants, either. Everyone in Chaldea is working together to save our world, and there's a lot of people in there way smarter than me. I know they can figure it out."

"But what if they can't?" her mirror laughs. "You've cried yourself to sleep thinking about it!"

"We will."

Her voice reverberates sharply across the dreamscape. The bleached-white surface begins to crack open; the structures around her start to crumble. Beyond her vision, a star shines bright. Her mirror regroups herself. "If you think things are going back to normal once you're done, you're only kidding yourself. There's no going back for you. The blood won't come off your hands. The stench won't leave your body. So why keep fighting?"

Yako pauses.

Yes, it's true that the blood will never come off her hands. She accepted that long ago - told herself never to turn away from the reality of her role. She's taken lives - human lives, when you include the Olympians - and stained her armor with their blood. She delights in battle, craves the sport of it, the moment when everything is on the line and her life flashes before her eyes. Someone trying to interrogate her fears should know better than anyone… "I already told you I'm too stupid to give up. I want to keep going as far as I can go. So long as I'm alive, I'll never stop walking towards that light… Towards my ideal. I'll never be a hero - I'll never even get close - but that doesn't mean I should stop trying to be one. No, it's because of that ideal that I've been able to make it this far, and while I'll keep going, and why I'll never, ever stop trying to reach it. The future I'm fighting for is one where even some nobody like me can have that chance - the chance to be better than they were yesterday."

The rumbling grows louder. Even the sky is crumbling. Everything is falling away as something cracks, cracks, breaks.

"…Well, I'll be damned." The scene finally falls away, the curtain closing on its actors. The one using Yako's voice mumbles to himself. "Were humans always this resilient?"

[xodiumdotnet]

I'm just gonna vent for a bit because I'm absolutely tired.

Putting it behind a break because I may go kinda unhinged in this. It's a mental health thing. Scroll on by if you don't want to read it. I won't be offended. Promise.

I am just so tired of the internet feeling like it's just getting ever shittier and there's just nowhere to run anymore. I mean, there's here, now that here is owned by a company that actually gives a damn. But I'm just tired of these dumb billionaires just buying their way into relevance and then absolutely tanking the thing they've been charged with running.

Hell, one of my favorite artists released a new album very recently, and the chorus of one of the songs on said album resonate hard with how I'm feeling right now:

Passions rise and a voice cries out inside When what I know and love is gone Where should I go, where should I run? The flag I carried, I held high… …over earth and under sky When what I know and love is gone Where should I go, where should I run?

First, it was Twitter. You can feel however you want about Twitter, but what I really liked about it was that it was really the melting pot of the internet. It was also where everyone played. Friends? Yeah. Companies? Yeah. Twitter was just as useful for posting random stuff as it was for hailing companies to get through customer service hell when you really didn't want to place a phone call.

Sure, there were some shitty people on there, all platforms have that. But for my time there? I didn't really run into anyone truly shitty.

Twitter was just a dumb site up until 2022, when I started getting deeper into retro tech and actually built up a really healthy following. The momentum was awesome, and it was nice to just throw some random crap out there and have someone actually like it.

Then Musk happened. I had hopes that he would have actually pulled out of buying Twitter, but nope. Twitter's shareholders all wanted their payday so they pursued Musk and made him hold up his promise (because he wanted to overpay grossly for it, so shareholders got a nice payday for it, fuck the long term health of the platform am I right?!) and now Twitter is circling the toilet.

This meant trying to find refuge on another twitter-alike site, of which there were a few. I tried to settle on Mastodon at first, but the instance I joined didn't really fit me as well as I thought it would, and I got discouraged. Tried another and fared much better off, though rebuilding my following has been slow progress.

As much as this all sucked, at least it was only Twitter, right? Nahhhh.

Not sure how you could see what Musk is doing to Twitter and think "golly gee, that sounds like a good idea", but that's exactly what reddit is doing as we speak, and that just...launched me down a depressive hate spiral that I'm currently stuck in.

It's playing out almost exactly like Twitter is. Some rich asshole (or set of assholes) is mad that they're not making enough money even though they have enough money in the bank to arguably be set for life, so to make even MORE money they're going to go run off and tank a service that they're in charge of.

Or--because we live in this capitalist hellscape--it's considered a bad thing when you're making just enough money to pay your bills, pay your employees, and just exist, comfortably, as a company. No, you must always be growing, or you're a failure. Approaching saturation? We don't care, fuck over your current customers to extract more dollars from them, too!

sigh.

Because Twitter making sudden changes at the snap of Musk's fingers is working out so well for them, reddit's CEO decided he was going to wake up, choose violence, and do the same thing. Despite reddit telling developers of 3rd party apps that hey, everything's cool, we're not charging for our API within the next year...one day they did a complete 180 on that and are now saying "pay up".

Which in and of itself is not the problem: Developers are more than happy to pay into this! But reddit is asking far, far too much, on a way too aggressive timeline. You could say this is intended to just outright kill 3rd party apps without explicitly saying so, and you'd very likely be right.

Reddit's mobile presence was built on these apps. Hell, reddit themselves bought out Alien Blue to use as a base for their own app, so spez's charge that "reddit was never intended for 3rd party apps" is an outright lie.

(Isn't even the worst lie he's spouted. When Christian Selig--the dev behind Apollo--brought out receipts to call out reddit's admins claiming he was blackmailing them, he doubled down and tried to play the victim and continue to say that he was extorted.)

We're now at the point where reddit's many communities protested this, and reddit went union-busting to break up said protest. The whole thing is absolutely wack. They're actually threatening to replace mod teams to force subreddits that went dark back open.

Given how vehemently they're burning their bridges, I don't anticipate they're going to back off and reddit is in the same state that twitter is in: It may live on despite billionaires and venture capitalists trying to kill it, but the soul is gone. There's no joy in using it anymore.

And all of this started because spez saw what Musk did and thought "damn, that's a good idea!" As if that wasn't bad enough, we have some small side things happening, too. Like the Apple Card launching a cruise missile right at me (and people like me). If you want to finance an iPhone (which is really--sadly--the way to go these days, phones are NOT cheap) you have to do it via the Apple Card if you're not on the big 3 carriers.

Not anymore! Apple's removing the financing option for Apple Card users on MVNOs, so you have to be on one of the big 3 carriers with a postpaid plan to finance an iPhone via the Apple Card.

Yes. The Apple Card. A line of credit that I qualified for outside of any kind of carrier bullshit.

This almost feels like Apple feeding into this trope that MVNO users are all broke and don't deserve nice things, but the fact is that if you're a single person who only wants a single line plan, MVNOs are really the way to go. You're getting absolutely ripped off for a single-line plan on postpaid carriers. It's ridiculous.

(But yes, I know, this is likely the carriers themselves pushing Apple to make this change. Still. Sigh.)

I'm sure there are other things going shitty too (like uh, Discord's username changes) but in interest of keeping this post somewhat shorter I won't launch into those. I'm just tired because it feels like we're in that period where like, everyone knows we're headed for a recession and they're trying to squeeze as hard as they possibly can before we physically can't give anymore.

Probably a majority of the reason why I suffer with executive dysfunction as of late and just don't want to get out of bed. Why do so when everything outside your door sucks ass?

[ellephlox]

frivolity

Summary: You go to a playground with Matt in the middle of the night — which leads to kissing, monkey bar expertise, getting stuck on the roof, and more kissing.

Pairing: Matt x fem!reader

A/N: I did some research and there's not really any large playgrounds in Hell's Kitchen... so let's just pretend that there is?

(reposting this AGAIN because for some reason the tags didn’t work and the piece didn’t show up anywhere that i tagged it??)

The sun had set hours ago, courtesy of the shorter days as September melted into October, when you finally left work. It was a clear night — there was a new moon, so in the areas where the street lamps were more sparse or broken altogether, you walked through pitch black shadows. Hell's Kitchen was surprisingly quiet and there was a peace to the air.

Nonetheless you jumped when footsteps approached behind you, fast and light. You whirled around, praying desperately that today wouldn't be the day you actually had to use the mace you kept in your purse, to find yourself face-to-face with a dark figure, masked and holding billy clubs.

"Matt," you said, relaxing. "I've come to the conclusion that you enjoy giving me a heart attack."

"Just wanted to see how alert you are."

"Any big bad goons to take down tonight? Or not much going on?"

"Nothing." You could've sworn Matt sounded petulant, like a disappointed child who didn't get what he wanted in the grocery store. "It's a Tuesday night, though. Less people drinking means less crime, in general."

“You’re like Sherlock. You know how he gets all restless when there have been no murders? That’s you — ‘Oh, it’s Christmas! Y/N, I’ll be late’ and all that.” You halted suddenly, grabbing Matt’s hand. “What if I told you that I have a really, really, really fun idea?”

“I’d probably be wary that you’re going to drag me to the nearest bookshop, which would mean we’d have to break in since it’s closed.”

“Nope.” You pointed towards the park. “Playground. Dead ahead, empty, just waiting for us.”

Matt’s lips tilted upwards wolfishly, a neon sign that he liked the idea. “I haven’t been on a playground in years.”

“Race you there,” you said, taking off immediately before he could process what you said. It didn’t take long for him to easily catch up, jogging beside you.

“You’re unfairly fast.”

“You’re pitiably slow.”

“I might not be a sprinter but I’ll warn you that I’m a master on the swings. I used to be able to get higher than anyone else at recess. Let me guess — you’re a monkey bar expert?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, it’s been a long time since I’ve been on a playground. Not since before the accident.”

Your stomach dropped. “Matt, I’m sorry. You never got a chance at the orphanage?"

He shrugged. “No one had time to guide a blind kid on the monkey bars. I mean, I did the swings and stuff, but that was it. Besides, it wouldn’t have been very fun. Pretending to need someone to lead me in situations like that pissed me off when I was a kid, because I knew I could do it fine on my own. And of course I got in all the exercise I could ever want when I was with Stick.”

“Stick’s an asshole. You cannot ever compare monkey bars with the acrobats he forced you to do. What about before the accident? Were you... gymnastics-ish back then, too?”

“Not so much. I only really cared about boxing back then.” Matt grabbed ahold of the bars. “These are a lot shorter than I remember them being.”

He began to swing with ease, his abs practically rippling under his tight black shirt. It was admirable the way that he maneuvered, as though he defied gravity. The entire time he kept his legs tightly tucked up so that they didn’t graze the sand. At the end, he launched himself off the bars and into a neat front flip before landing on the ground with finesse. “Do I get the Monkey Bar Master title?” he asked, spreading his arms outwards.

You snorted. “You went above and beyond. Next time you go to beat someone up, you should announce yourself as the Devil of Hell’s Playground. Come on, let’s do the merry-go-round.”

“That’s the spinning thing, right?”

“Yep.” You hopped on. “Want me to spin it first or you?”

He grinned. “Hold on, sweetheart.”

And if what you were expecting was for Matt to spin it a couple times and then jump on with you, you were sorely wrong. He ran — damn well sprinted — with the merry-go-round until everything was a blur, and then leapt on. The flashing lights of the street lamps blurred into a steadier ringlet as you whipped in circles, laughing while simultaneously cursing him, and finally jumped off as it began to slow.

“You’re ruthless,” you said, laughing, and falling into his arms as the ground lurched under you from dizziness. Somehow you ended up in the sand, Matt’s left arm around your waist and his right arm cupping your head so that it didn’t knock against the ground. He was warm, much warmer than the cold air, and you inched yourself in closer to him, pressing your chest against his. The mask was still pulled over his eyes, so you reached over and lifted it up. It was a crime for his eyes to be as beautiful as they were. They reflected the dim light of the nearest street lamp, dark in the night and somehow warm at the same time.

“Getting distracted?” he teased, and using his hand that was cupping the back of your head, he pulled you in roughly, kissing first your mouth and then making his way down to your neck. You shivered as his lips grazed your collarbone, and his hand reached lower, lower down your waist, tracing the tip of your hipbone and sending sparks through your body.

“Your turn,” he said abruptly, keeping his head tilted in towards yours so that your noses were almost touching.

“My turn?”

“I did the monkey bars. You’ve got to impress me now.”

Mustering the motivation to leave Matt’s arms, you got to your knees and dusted the sand off of you. Swiveling to scope out the playground, your eyes landed on the the large playground structure in the center. It went up quite high, and there was a small, domed roof at the top. Determined, you marched forward, and started by climbing up the slide.

“Trying to be a rebel?” Matt called, sitting languidly on the base of the merry-go-round.

“I was denied climbing up slides as a kid. So now I’m being rebellious,” you told him. It didn’t take long to make it to the top of the slide. Above you, the domed roof seemed much taller than it did from the ground. You pushed yourself onto the side rail of the structure and then grabbed onto the roof with both hands.

You glanced down at Matt. He’d moved from the merry-go-round to a spot a bit closer now, where he stood in the sand, head tilted up at you.

“Why are you just staring like that at me? That’s a lot of pressure,” you said, returning to your task of getting a grip on the roof.

“How could I possibly be staring at you?”

“Fine. Why are you just listening like that at me?”

“Because I have a terrible feeling that you’re going to fall and I want to catch you if you do.”

“I’m going to tell—” You paused to hoist yourself on the roof, precariously gripping a broken plastic shingle that was jutting out and hoping it didn’t break off while you were clutching it. “—Father Lantom that you have no faith.”

“If you could hear the amount of slippery footholds you’ve made for yourself and the way that your fingers are sliding against the plastic, then you’d have little faith, too.”

“Oh, please. I’ve got a grip like glue.” To prove yourself you reached forward with an enormous effort to tug yourself to the pointed top of the roof, where you had to perch like a gargoyle, clutching at the spire in the center so that you didn’t slip backwards. “See?” you said triumphantly, glancing down at the sand. Oh. Don’t glance down, that makes it worse.

Matt was now hovering directly at the side of the structure, the exact location that you’d probably land if you were to lose your footing. “Fantastic.”

“You don’t sound very happy for me,” you commented, purposely releasing one hand from the spire to wave down at him. “Look, I’m a rooster. You know, the ones on weather vanes?”

“Except if you fall, you don’t have wings to flap. And then I’d be taking you to the emergency room for broken legs.”

You grinned; his anxiety was unexpectedly delighting you.

Until it came time to actually climb down the structure.

You experimented with your left foot first, trying to slide it back down to the railing. There was no reaching it, though, and you didn’t dare release the spire in order to slide down a bit, because you’d probably end up missing the railing and end up as a pancake like Matt was predicting. Instead, you tried the other side, scooting on your butt in an attempt to hop from the roof to the bridge that connected two of the playground platforms. It was still too high, though, and if you jumped from there, you were fairly confident that you’d break an ankle.

“Having fun, Curious George?” Matt said dryly from below.

“Shut up,” you said. “I’m just exploring my options here.”

“I didn’t know it was possible to explore zero options.”

You ignored him and rolled onto your stomach, lowering yourself into the position you’d been in when you climbed up. It was bemusing, though, as to how you had actually gotten up in the first place, because your toes still couldn’t reach the railing, no matter how much you strained.

“I wish I could see this,” Matt put in, and you turned your head over to scowl at him. He raised his hands defensively. “Come on. You’re stuck on the top of a playground.”

“Yes, I’m laughing very hard right now.”

But Matt didn’t answer. You craned your neck again to see him; he was cocking his head to listen to something intently.

“What? What do you hear?” you asked.

“Sweetheart, there’s an attack a few blocks over — I’ve got to run.”

“What?” you cried out. “Seriously?”

“Someone's in trouble,” he said, donning the black mask. “I’m so sorry. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”

“Wait! How urgent is it? Can you help me first?” you said, squirming on the roof. Matt simply ran off, fading into the shadows without another word.

“Dammit,” you said aloud, contemplating the height from the roof to the sand. Was it cushioned enough for you to jump? It definitely would be for Matt, who could do his fancy tuck-and-roll maneuver. You, on the other hand, would land like you were doing a pencil dive.

“So you do want my help, then.”

You yelped at the voice that came from the shadows. “Matt!” He emerged, grinning and removing the black mask again.

“But... what about—?” you began, bewildered, and then the realization hit you. “You were lying.”

“It was a test.”

“I can’t believe you had the audacity to lie to me.”

“You begged me to help you get down,” he said with satisfaction, climbing up the structure with ease. “Well, all you needed to do was ask, sweetheart. Ask and you shall receive.”

“I didn’t beg.” At Matt’s raised eyebrows, you looked away, fiddling with the top of the spire grumpily. “Yeah. Okay, fine. I begged. Please help me get down?”

“The things I do for you,” he said, as though to gripe, though the grin was still wide on his face. “Okay, lower yourself on your stomach, like you were doing.” He climbed on top of the rail with an impressive feat of balance, then leaned over. “I’ve got you.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’d never let you fall.”

Gingerly you lowered yourself, feeling for the rail beneath your feet. Matt held you up until your toes met solid metal, and then he hopped down, hands sliding down to your thighs to ensure that you didn’t lose your balance. You jumped into his arms, wrapping your legs around him tightly. “My savior.”

“I should’ve taken a picture of you, for blackmailing purposes.”

“It was all intentional,” you told him. “I planned to get stuck up there. That way, you’d have someone to save tonight and your time spent in the black costume wouldn’t be wasted. All hail the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, hero of playgrounds.”

“Keep telling yourself that.”

"Let’s go home now?” you asked, sliding out of his arms. “Maybe we can make macaroni and cheese?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Matt’s head tilted slightly. “Wait. I hear someone. And I’m not kidding this time.”

“Go do your thing, Devil Man.”

He kissed you. “You won’t get stuck on any roofs again while I’m gone?”

“Unlikely. And there will be a big pot of macaroni waiting for you when you get back. I’ll stay up.”

He kissed you again and your heart raced faster at the way that he pressed hard into you, as though the world were ending and you only had seconds remaining with one another. You watched him leave, disappearing down the street with his billy clubs in his hands, and your smile didn’t fade until long after you left the playground.