#half of which consisted of bullshit hours

[eldritchmochi]

best thing about living with just my wife is that they will not question it when they walk in after work to find me oozed on the couch with only half my clothes off, and not the usual half

[plotsignificanthaircut555]

Breaking the Surface (Sex Pollen Kishibe x f!Reader) MDNI

Due to dwindling devil hunter numbers, you accompany your former mentor, Kishibe, in a run of the mill Devil acquisition. Upon encountering the devil, you both begin to experience some...side effects.

wc: 12.9k Ao3 Masterlist

Warnings: SEX POLLEN AND THEREFORE DUBIOUS CONSENT!!!! (if that is not your thing, please be on your way and we will see you in the next one, love you), enemies to fucking, mean Kishsibe, smoking, drinking, aphrodisiacs, age gap (like late 20s/30s and 50), kissing, spit, sex in an alley, blood (both Devil and Human, but not that much), hypnosis, sex marathon, doggy, missionary, sex marathon, cum, a lot of smell/scent stuff again.

What a joke.  

The thought hung between the two of you, Kishibe in the driver’s seat, and you in the passenger, grumbling out the window. The disgruntled huff rattled in both of your skulls, throbbing against the increasing headache. Neither of you wanted to be here. Or rather, neither of you wanted YOU to be here. Makima bade you join him on what should be a simple execution with little to no complexity. Kishibe was the top of the top, with literally no need for backup taking down a middling level devil. You were perfectly capable, but not even really exceptional, but not a rookie who needed more demonstration either. But, instead of getting your own assignment or group to lead, you were stuck basically being the audience and late report filer for today’s excursion. Your day would consist of standing around, trying to stay out of the way, while he did all the real work, and you’d have the paperwork while he drunk himself stupid back at home. You sighed out, feeling the tension in your head building, the pencil callus on your middle finger already aching. 

“How much further?” You huffed, glancing at the time, disheartened to find it was already approaching mid afternoon. 

“Why, you got something better to do?” Kishibe’s eyes stay locked on the road before you. 

“Better than watching you kill a devil barely half my threat level? Yeah, anything else.” You roll your eyes, squinting as the late morning sunlight peered over the drop down visor.  

He didn’t respond, just carried on driving as if you hadn’t even spoken to him. 

You roll your eyes again and remember Makima's instructions when you had complained, “You’ll go in as a team, numbers are slim right now so everyone pairs even if their ranks don’t align. No one goes alone.” 

Public Safety was scrambling, for personnel, for intel, for quality hunters. Hours had become brutal, late nights bleeding into early mornings with barely time for a shower at home. The office floor was growing more barren every day. Chairs which had once been home to colleagues now sat empty, pushed into desks with dust collecting personal effects that would eventually be collected and trashed by the custodial crew. Everyone was on a razor edge, feeling the impending fate breathing down their necks. Irritability was at an all time high.  

“—total bullshit.” You mumbled, shaking your head and pulling at the skin of your fingers. 

“I didn’t remember you having such a shitty attitude before.” Kishibe took a smooth right turn. 

“It’s been a long time since you were my teacher, Kishibe. A very long time. And I have a perfectly fine attitude, when my time isn’t being wasted.” 

Kishibe grunted in response, taking another turn and stopping the car. 

“Get out and fill the back right tire. It’s getting low.” He commanded, voice passive. 

You looked around the windows realizing you had pulled into a gas station’s air pump. The dashboard didn't even have a tire pressure warning. Was he just trying to piss you off?

“It’s your car.” You settled into your seat further. 

“You’re under my instruction.” 

“What?” You rolled your neck to face him with lidded cold eyes, “ Your old knees can’t get that low anymore, maybe you ought to take a back seat on this one, huh?” 

“So which is it, am I a decrepit old man who can’t do anything alone or am I too good to be wasting your precious time as my caddy?” He glared at you, watching your face contort in indignation, the squeak of your teeth grinding egging him on, “I’m just confused, your story’s inconsistent.” 

“Fuck, fine!” You took off your seatbelt and got out, circling to the back of the driver’s side and unscrewing the valve cap and attaching the hose.

Air hissed rhythmically into the tire, which inflated itself. It was barely flat to begin with, he was just proving how easy it was for him to do whatever he wanted. He had always been an asshole, even beyond the time you had known him. Your months training under him were grueling. He pushed you hard, kicked your ass harder. But it was effective, you learned to take a hit, how to avoid taking said hit. For a while you found yourself admiring him. His power, his speed, his agility and experience. In your early days as a devil hunter, you had found yourself drawn to him. Wanting to know about whatever tragic backstory had scarred him, damaged him so that he became so callus, so vicious. Secretly wondering if you did well enough, or lingered long enough after hours if he would confide in you. Maybe he would even---- no. You didn't allow yourself to finish that thought, at least not often. He may be handsome and fit and strong, but he was mean and probably certifiable. He was one of those guys who was born an asshole and despite his heavily borrowed time, he would one day die an asshole. 

The day was not starting well, at this rate it would be a miracle if you both held out long enough to actually face the devil. The pump began to beep, alerting you that the tire was full. You reset the machine for the next user and walked around the car and slipped back into your seat. Kishibe looked over at you boredly. You got your hand coated in whatever car road gunk, now turned them ashen and tried to brush off the bulk of it onto your pants, feeling the ickiness of it sink into your palms. 

“Gonna get dirtier than that, you sure you're up for it?” Kishibe mocked your disgust, starting the car and looking just barely backwards to back out of the pumping station. 

“I don’t remember you offering to get your hands dirty.”

Silence settled between the two of you. The drive continued, the car hummed, the radio was barely audible. Some  You turned your attention back to your cuticles, allowing the sound of wind rushing past the cracked windows to fill the silence. 

A dance pop song played on the radio, something about a woman begging her cab driver to get her to her booty call faster, before she changes her mind. Being desperate and touch starved was a feeling you knew well, especially as of late. The late nights had recently cost you your most recent in a string of casual lovers. One too ‘sorry, stuck at work.’ flake outs too many. You couldn’t blame them either, it wasn’t like you were all that present when you did manage to make it to your dates. Dating outside the company would always carry this barrier, between yourself and civilians. But dating within the walls of Public Safety carried all the traditional “don't shit where you eat” consequences, with a perfect cherry of “they, or you, will die horribly and leave the other to mourn” on top. You knew getting into Devil Hunting would make your life harder, potentially even shorter, but not getting laid? You’d rather be torn apart by the next devil you saw than forgo a good, consistent fuck. Or maybe you were just annoyed because your lover ex lover, as of late had dumped you, it meant you wouldn't be having sex this week, making this the fifth week in a row for you. Over a month of no sex. You can’t remember the last time you had gone without this long. The distraction of work kept your day-mind occupied, but when you’d return home, for however briefly, you found yourself starving for the touch of someone else. You were an effective partner for yourself, you knew your body well and particularly how to orgasm quickly and quietly, aiding your slip into sleep. But it wasn’t the same, you couldn’t lose yourself in the same way you could when you were with someone else. The way your mind would be consumed by the wholeness of the act; their movements, their body, the smell, the sight, the sounds. You’d find yourself stuck in your own head, barely rubbing out an orgasm before rolling over and falling asleep. It had been too long. Far too fucking long. 

Even thinking about how much you craved sex began to make you wet. You felt the tug behind your navel, alerting your attention lower. You fidgeted in your seat, the sun in your eyes once again, the heating of your skin making your suit jacket feel restrictive and stuffy. 

Kishibe noticed your wiggling. He watched out of the corner of his eye as you unbuttoned your jacket and tried to shrug it down your arms. Between the seatbelt and the cramped passenger side it was an awkward little dance that finally got it off you. He stayed focused on the road, praying the traffic would lighten so he wouldn’t be stuck in this ever heating box with you. You lay your jacket in your lap and adjust your seatbelt, not realizing how it found its place right across the center of your chest. Kishibe’s eyes didn’t even hesitate before peeking at the cleft between your breasts. Your shirt's fabric pulled tight, making the gaps between the buttons stretch, giving him the faintest glimpse at your skin underneath. A few rapid blinks cleared the image long enough for his eyes to turn his attention back to the road. He swallowed, tilting his neck to onside until it cracked. 

He needed a cigarette, he needed his flask out of his coat pocket, he needed something to stimulate him. Something to consume his mind other than the growing, burning thoughts. It was just the nature of the assignment. It was infecting the air of the car, shaking you both with its humid imagination. 

The Lust Devil. The Devil grown from the fear and shame of sexuality, ranging from infidelity, adultery, sexual violence, to personal repressive shame, etc. attraction and sexuality was a sensitive topic for nearly everyone alive, making its corresponding Devil powerful. Although, from the intel gathered by the information sector, its raw power wasn’t extensive. Its defensive power was harder to get an idea of, the previous reports that had been filed had been vague at the most helpful and fully redacted at the least. Hence why the top devil hunter was tasked with its capture. It had most recently been spotted in one of the shadier clubbing districts that Tokyo had to offer. Not a lot of tourists, nothing flashy, just a strip of bars, pachinko parlors, a few behind-the-false-wall establishments that were illegal, but documented. Likely favored by police or lawmakers in the area who could be bought out to turn the other way. Corruption was rife, making it the perfect breeding ground for devils. The sun was beginning to sink, the early afternoon was stretching, inching toward sunset. Finally Kishibe pulled the car into a car park six blocks from the suspected nest. He turned the key, plunging the car into silence. It felt suffocating, at least the awkwardness of the drive had been somewhat mitigated by the ambient car noise and the radio. You both hesitated for a moment before you moved to unbuckle your seatbelt. The click of the belt covered his sigh as he followed suit. You both exited the car and began to make your way out to the street. 

The air had been sticky but an evening chill tingled the back of your neck, cooling your cheeks, which you realized had been burning. He reached into his breast pocket, retrieving his flask, unscrewing the cap. You rolled your eyes at his dependence, redressing yourself in your uniform jacket. He took a sip, your eyes crept over, watching the way his throat tightened. The stubble running down his neck was getting lighter, as was the scar from lip to ear. When you had met him, it had still been pink at its deepest points, the cross hatches where staples had once been were more pronounced, which now were faded and pale. You watched as his adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed whatever vice he had stashed away in advance. When you looked back up to his face he was looking back at you. He extended the curved silver flask to you. You accepted, taking a sip, trying to ignore the thoughts about the stick of his lips still lingering on the spout. You took another quick one, letting what you now knew was whiskey scorch down your tongue and throat. It was harsh and spicy, scouring down through your chest, spreading its warmth, bringing you closer to your center. You let out a long breath and handed it back and continued walking silently.

The crowds hadn’t yet died down. Throngs of people bustling in and out of buildings, waiting for crosswalks, car horns, wind, the taste of the whiskey, your senses were sharpened by circumstance so it all washed over you. Ordinarily you would have found yourself pushing through crowds, but Kishibe, at his imposing height and build seemed to create space for the pair of you. The uniform helped, that black tie and jacking becoming symbolic for people to know to leave Devil Hunters to their work, not try and engage, and certainly to not get in the way. It wasn’t long before you reached the cross street of the last reported sighting. There was no guarantee the devil would still be there, or even in the area, but you would have to start somewhere. Your left thumb had been subconsciously clawing at the cuticle line of your ring finger, it wasn't until you felt the wetness on your fingertip that you realized you had broken the skin. You pulled your hand out of your pocket and watched the blood on your nail bed bead up until the surface tension broke, making it drip down your finger. It felt auspicious, something about it made your stomach twist. Trying to put it to the back of your mind, you wiped it across your pants and pressed forward. 

Kishibe noticed your delay, and it pushed him over the precipice. The car ride, the attitude, the tire, was whatever, but you were in the field now, there wasn’t room for more of your bullshit. He gripped your arm, pulling you to the side further from the street, a hushed scold coloring his tone.

“You going to make it?” He scoffs. 

“What?” You tried to tug your arm back, his strength making your attempt look foolish.  

“You’re off your game.” He squeezed your arm harder “You can’t do anything if your mind isn’t here. Whatever problems you have with scheduling or pairing, just deal with it tomorrow. But I need you here.”

He was right, you had let too much of your external frustration seep into the task at hand. Letting your personal gripes influence work would get you killed, you had seen it first hand. Before you could tell him he was right, he spoke again. 

“If it’s a problem with me, I don’t care what you think I did. I don’t care that you think is a demotion to work with me. I don’t care. I chose you because I trained you well, you have experience, and I trust you. But it isn’t your choice. You do the job you're given, got it?” 

“You--” Your brows wrinkled, “you chose me?” 

“And regretted it nearly immediately. What the fuck happened to you?” He bit. 

“I--”, you were speechless, your callus complaining in the car ringing in your ears, the selfish indignation with which you had entered the mission, “I didn’t realize, I’m sorry.”

It was such a stupid thing to say, but it was all you had. The truth was you had missed working with him, but the stress of the job had become so overwhelming, and the years had stretched on with less and less contact, it became really easy to forget that he had been a good partner. 

“Don’t apologize to me, just fucking tighten up.” He scoffed, releasing your arm and straightening his back, “Just do your job, don’t die, when we get back and I'll rescind my request.” 

He started to turn to continue the walk but you reached out to stop him. 

“Captain wait,” You started but a crash from the alley closest to you stopped you both in your tracks. 

Stepping in time with one another you rushed to the opening of the alley, peeking around the edge of the bodega on one side and seeing nothing but shadow and the colors of sunset. Deep reds and oranges filtering over the tops of the dumpster, stretching back and back further. Two fire escapes were nearly touching about eight feet above your head. This alley didn't have a dead end, it looked to stretch at least a block and a half back, with two internal alleys stretching perpendicular about twenty feet back. It was a tight fit, but pretty standard. The time for discussion was over, you had to get to work. 

Kishibe stepped into the alley first, his dark eyes sharp and locked on the intersection between internal alleyways. You stepped in behind him, taping off the exit, indicating to any wandering pedestrians that there was a possible gas leak. Why devil hunters needed such benign sounding rouses, was above your pay grade, but still never quite made sense. You followed behind him closely, but far enough back that you could see around his broad frame. For a man as big and tall as he was, his steps did not make a sound. You couldn’t even hear the rustle of his jacket as he pulled a twenty centimeter bowie knife from his chest holster, it seemed to just extend from his hand silently. You pulled your own, smaller, but much thinner blade, from an internal pocket in your coat, along with a spool of razor thin wire. He stopped silently and you stopped not even a foot behind. If someone were to see your bodies in profile, they would see the two of you made the same shape, a light bend in the knees grounding your feet, torsos leaned forward, eyes and ears open, hands tight around your weapons of choice. You slipped on a pair of thin sheepskin gloves, something that wouldn't be penetrated by the sharp wire.  

Kishibe put his unarmed hand behind his back, showing you his palm. A signal he had taught you to mean Target Present. You took in a silent breath, he did the same. Finally you could hear the soft rustling of the devil. No, it wasn't rustling. It sounded almost like it was…talking? Like hearing a whispered conversation happening two rooms away, you can hear that there is talking, but you can’t hear what it is or even make out the voices. This didn’t sound like a voice, more like a collection of voices. It was just barely audible over the road noise and wind. But he could hear it, and now so could you. Whatever you were going to kill tonight was right behind the corner. You pushed your now gloved index finger into his palm softly. Your way of telling him I’m ready. 

There hadn’t been an alley to your right in over a block, so it was likely there was a dead end at the end of this corner.

 What Devil would corner itself? 

Before you could express your concern Kishibe stepped forward again. Then once more with his inhuman speed. Your body followed, attaching one end of your spool to the corner's edge and rushing behind him to line it along the opening, quick to attach the other side and duck underneath. He moved so fast you could barely see the Devil in front of you. It was so much…smaller than you anticipated. Only a few feet tall, thin and lanky. It was a deep grey/blue, shiny and goopy. You couldn't study it too long before you strung another line to the first ducking down to create an identical nearly invisible block a few feet lower. 

Kishibe was making quick work of rushing and slicing where he could. The Devil seemed to be making little effort to fight back, just hopping from one spot to the next. It was fast, too fast, it seemed as though it was apparating in different spots rather than moving. Left and right, behind, in an unpredictable rhythm that had Kishibe pivoting sides more than doing any damage. He was usually silent when fighting, but you heard the huffs increasing in volume as he struck out. You watched closely, trying to decipher some kind of pattern in its movement. 

Behind, right, behind, left, right, behind, left, behind….

When it struck you. Why wouldn’t it just go up?

The alley wasn’t covered, the area had only a single fire escape on the left building’s wall. You estimated it was only nine or so feet above you. From there it would be a swift jump/climb for the creature to escape to the rooftops. 

It doesn’t want to escape. 

“Kishibe!” Your voice clawed out of your throat, with no permission of yours. 

Kishibe lunged to the right, finally catching the end of the gelatinous tail, lobbing off a few inches. The Devil, now trimmed, jumped to the left. Kishibe’s eyes were fixed in the way the tail’s nub was stuck to his blade. Only for a moment, a split second of distraction considering his arsenal. Deciding between using a different blade or sticking with this one. You rushed the creature as soon as you saw his stutter step, closing in on the fighters. Just in time for it to unfurl a long, proboscis tongue. It uncoiled itself vertically like a butterfly would, taking only a fraction of a second before expelling a fine mist over the both of you. Kishibe squinted, not wanting to close his eyes completely in case of a follow up attack, but you couldn't help it, the sting in your eyes, making you squeeze them shut. It made you cough. It tasted like nothing, but the inhalation was jarring. It felt like steam, it smelled like…ambergris, or sweat or lilac. Something warm and rich and deep. Not bad, just full. And organic. 

“Don’t breathe in.” Kishibe commanded, breaking his own instruction by extension. He could feel whatever the liquid was on his lips, on his tongue, tingling the buds as the sank in. 

Finally the amalgamated voice joined into language, or perhaps the mist granted you a level of understanding you didn’t previously possess. 

Too late. 

Kishibe didn’t allow it to continue its speech, bringing his blade down through the eye of the Devil, further and further until the thing was nearly bisected. It twitched briefly before stilling itself, blood pooled around its body. 

You both had the same realization. 

“This wasn’t it.” You vocalized for both of you, no Devil would have gone down that easily, or cornered itself. 

“No it wasn’t.” Kishibe sheathed his knife, his flask found his hand, “This is just a piece of it. Probably not a very big one.”

You sighed, looking down at what remained of the bait that you had so easily fallen for. A Devil that could split itself into smaller, independently functional parts. It was horrifying to imagine the magnitude of what a power like that could do. The thing looks even smaller now split and limp on the ground, it could be useful  to try and bring it back with you, give the lab team something to study. You saw plasma or some kind of internal fluid spreading out further, faster and thinner, than the blood was. You crouched closer, trying to examine the opalescent liquid. 

“Don’t get too close.” Kishibe warned, using the upper arm sleeve of his coat to wipe blood from his face. 

You felt the dew on your own face, swiping one finger across your cheek, looking at it. Shiny, thin, with a small iridescent sheen. It was the same. Whatever sap was leaking out was the same thing the Devil had sprayed you with. 

“Flask please.” You asked. 

Kishibe handed it to you wordlessly. You dumped its remaining contents onto the asphalt. 

“What the fuck—“, he started but you tuned out. 

You tried to scoop as much of the fluid up as you could into the now empty flask. You couldn’t really get that much but even a few milliliters would be enough to study. Your heart began to pound, thoughts of poison and infection raced through your mind. If whatever that was was going to try and kill you, gathering some of the source would be the quickest way towards inoculating yourselves. 

“We have no idea what that shit was that it sprayed at us. We need a sample.” You stood up from your crouch handing the flask back to him. 

“You could’ve let me clear it first. That’s just wasteful.”, he took it back snappily, shaking his head. 

You rolled your eyes, of course he would find a way to complain about you potentially saving both of your lives. 

“Whatever. If you get sick and need this, I hope you live long enough for me to say I told you so.” You removed your gloves, “We have to be close to the nest, why else would it send out a scout?” 

Kishibe cleared his throat and blinked a few times. His head was starting to spin. That swimming, swirling feeling he usually only allowed himself once he was back home and there were no more devils to fight, no more choices to be made, only thoughts to silence and sleep to wait for. He hadn’t drunk nearly enough to be that drunk already. Usually when he was drunk his mouth felt dry, but now he was close to drowning. Swallowing down excess saliva over and over. This was something else.

Your heart was still racing, your mind chasing it down. You were starting to sweat, clammy hands and cheeks chilled by the wind that leaked into the alleyway. You felt on the verge of a panic attack, you were starting to panic when you felt it. A lick of yearning pulling at you. A pulse emerging from your clit. Your panties all too quickly became wet. Your nipples peaked and strained against the fabric of your bra painfully. Your mouth whetted itself, your tongue feeling loose and floppy among so much moisture. You no longer cared to examine the body of the Devil crumpled beneath you, you looked up to Kishibe. His eyes were darker than you had ever seen them, they seemed to be endless pools of abyss, begging, pulling, thralling you into them, into him. You had never noticed quite so closely the details of his face; high, pronounced cheekbones, hollows so symmetrical that even the long healed gash on his left cheek couldn’t take away the beauty. 

You had seen a picture once, of him in his 30s. It was buried in some file, it wasn’t a great picture, he was bloodied and bruised, you hadn’t read the whole report attached but you could assume it was some kind of incident report. In this moment, in this alley, with whatever drug was now being carried by your bloodstream, you saw him for the younger man he was once. The same man he had always been. Only for a moment, his hair fluffy and dark, skin supple and bouncy, lips not yet wrinkled by time, full and wet. Those same lips faced you now, years of smoking seemed to have skipped aging this part of him. The eyes never change, the ones in the picture had been just as cavernous, just as unreadable. Like a shark, catching the wounded, wiggling fish it had traced for miles. The black iris and pupils bleeding together, stark against the white sclera. No wrinkle or bag in their periphery would ever make those eyes less terrifying to be caught in. Those shark eyes held you steady in their gaze. 

“What?” You asked, panted, actually. 

He didn’t answer, just looked you over, taking in every inch of your body. 

“Kishibe, what?” 

He cocked his head just barely, that god awful neck crack sending a jolt straight to your flooding panties. 

“Stop looking at me like that. What is it?” Your cheeks burned, everything burned, you needed to loosen your tie or take your jacket off or fuck take everything off. 

“Do you feel it too?” His voice was different, rough, strained. 

Your blood fell cold again, despite the burn in your cheeks. Piece of the puzzle were falling together, but fuck you didnt have it in you to dare look at the whole picture yet. Your brain was starting to fuzz, boundaries of station and taboo blurring together. 

You looked up at him with concerned eyes, pulling your jacket down your shoulders and dumping it onto the dirty ground without a second thought.  “This isn't good. I feel…sick…”

But that wasn't the right word, you felt your body aching, heating and cooling too rapidly to maintain, shivers and sweats commingling into an internal hurricane. 

“What do we do? Do we just---” You couldn’t speak the lewd ideas out loud, shame clogging your throat, making it hard to breathe. 

He took one carefully measured step toward you. He wasn’t sure what to do either, he didn't have enough blood in his brain for reason, too much of it had fled to his cock. Which now strained against his pants so hard that he worried for the integrity of the button. You looked so concerned, but so good, the grime of combat appeared a better enhancement than the finest makeup in the world. Your eyes were large and wet, not crying but filling with moisture the same way his mouth was still drooling. You saw how you shifted your weight, a small gasp escaping you as--he speculated-- the inseam of your pants pressed too closely against  you. Fuck he wanted to give in, to take it away, he wanted you, he wanted you so badly he thought this might actually be the thing that finally kills him. 

You shifted again, uncomfortable under his gaze. You pulled at the knot of your tie, tugging it loose, praying it would give you some kind of relief. It did not. You undid your top buttons, hoping the evening air would cool your neck. He could see the sweat beading along your neck, for a moment he tasted the salt and sweetness on his still stinging tongue. Kishibe groaned, this was not helping his situation at all. His dick strained further, his heart wasn't even aching any more, it was spasming. Painfully. Was he having an actual fucking heart attack? 

“Okay fuck it.” He gasped out, he felt lightheaded, this was happening too quickly“This will get worse before it gets better, I need to fuck something, now, and I don’t know how long I can hold out and I know you feel it too.”

He said it. It was actually out there, hanging in the space between your two overheating bodies. Even just hearing him speak those words aloud you felt a microsecond of repose, only to bring the intensity of sensation all crashing down on you once more. It was too much to bear, you sunk to the ground. You thought you might vomit, or faint, not from repulsion, obviously not, just from the overwhelming feeling of your own blood pulsing against your ears. You keeled over onto your knees, trying to fight your body. 

Kishibe’s bad knee cracked as he crouched down to your level, one tentative hand finding the space between your shoulder blades. You moaned at the firm, warm pressure of him touching you. A broken, weak moan. One that sent him ailing once again. 

“It’s some kind of aphrodisiac…”His hand moved up and down the line of your spine, not daring too low, or too high, staying contained in the benign, sexless rectangle of your shoulders, “But a strong one.”

You nodded, his words sounded like you were underwater, you could barely make them out, the sensation of his hand on you was too distracting. 

“So what? Is it some kind of trap? A distraction?” You pled. 

“Maybe.” Kishibe’s hand stilled, he moved to sit beside you, no longer able to keep himself on his knees, “pretty good defense. Keep your opponent…” his eyes flicked down the front of your shirt, then back out quickly, “occupied. Then attack.”

Your eyes flashed open, hoping to find his face again,“So we have to move. We can’t stay here.” 

“Can you even stand?” Kishibe avoided your eyes, leaning his head back to the night side, showing you the full length of the side of his neck. 

Drool fell from your lips, you could feel the sensation of his stubble against your tongue, the thin skin under your teeth, the muscles against your lips. Your pussy pulsed again, reminding you of the cause of your wandering mind. You looked down where your spit had pooled and saw it was laced with blood. Not a lot, but more than none. Whatever this was, it was doing something to you internally. Something bad. Kishibe’s hand, once on your back, gripped the back of your neck and turned you to face him. His face was deadly serious. A blood vessel had popped in his left eye, a small red moon surrounding the dark planet. This wasn’t some avoidable awkwardness, or some traversable terrain with no consequences, this was becoming life or death.

“Do you trust me?” He had brought your face so close to his own, you could smell the tobacco on his breath, the whiskey, something sweeter. 

“Yes. Kishibe please…make it stop.” You finally begged. 

He kissed you hard, the traces of blood in your mouth invading his own. You pulled him in by his shirt, scooting yourself closer to him, the gravel underneath you digging in its teeth, making holes in your pants. He was already undoing the fly of your pants when you took your first breath. You wanted to feel him, his body, his heat, anything, you ripped through his buttons, a few of the poor bastards making their new homes amongst the garbage surrounding you. If your younger self could see you now, in the arms of your mentor, surrounded by filth and death, about to cross every boundary she knew kept you apart, she would…honestly, you probably would be elated. Pervert. 

“Open your mouth more.” Kishibe bossed. 

He spoke in sharp, clear commands when you would work together, but still you were shocked his voice in this situation would feel so familiar. You followed suit and obeyed, opening wider, welcoming in his tongue. You grabbed at his chest, his side, his back; you didn't hesitate before digging your fingers into his skin, feeling the muscle, the skin. You pulled him closer. He had one arm wrapped around your back, the other finally unfastened your pants, making no delay in slipping two of his thick fingers inside and under your panties. 

“Oh….. fuck…” He shuddered, pulling off your lips, his head and eyes rolling back in time. 

You were so wet, if your pants had been any color other than jet black, how wet you had become would be so visible it would look as though you were incontinent. He felt your sticky arousal coat his fingers. Slipping into the wrinkles of his knuckles, where the skin made room for joints to move, part of him hoped they would never leave. He hadn’t even thought about how careful he should be with you. You were strong, an excellent hunter, great speed, regularly taking devils and beasts twice your size down in a single afternoon. But this was different,he knew that and he still couldn’t stop himself from plunging both his middle and ring fingers into you hard. You cried out, your recent break in sexual contact leaving you unprepared for such immediate insertion. In a flash the hand that had held you up by your back had dropped you, and now covered your mouth, pressing you against the pavement. Your eyes flew open, pebbles and debris digging into your back. But nothing was worth feeling except for him inside of you. His thumb brushed against your clit and your hips jerked up. He fed your pussy his fingers again and again, keeping a steady pace. You pushed your pussy harder against his hand, grinding your clit against his palm. 

“Fuuuuuuuck, Kishibe.” You crooned against his hand.

“That’s it baby, open up.” He spread his fingers inside of you, “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

You opened your eyes, surprised at the affectionate name, but were stopped when you found him watching the place where his fingers entered you. After a moment of blissful watching he looked back up to you, his mouth hung open in a permanent state of breathlessness. His tie hung loose but still knotted around his neck, his lips were already swollen. Pink and perfect, your spit and his combined reflecting the moonlight back at you like a blue light.  You pulled him down to kiss you again, this time moving your tongue into his mouth. With your free hand you unbutton your own shirt more, stopping at your navel when you feel pressure start to build behind your womb. You tried to pull off his lips to warn him what was to come, but he held you in place. 

You came with no warning, quicker than you may ever have, a hearty whine ripping from your throat. He gasped, looking down again and seeing your cum trickling down his wrist. He looked back up to your eyes, a smile on the corners of  his open mouth. Before you could speak he kissed you again, moving his body over yours, before pulling you up to your feet. Your legs shook like a foal, but you didn’t need to count on them because Kishibe turned you and pressed you against the brick closest to you. The corners of the grout lines dug into the skin of your chest and your face. Kishibe’s lips had moved to your neck, teeth and tongue joining to worship your skin. One hand dug its nails into the brick in front of you, the other reached backwards to try and touch him. You felt the fabric of his shirt, hanging loose to one side, you felt part of his belt, he wouldn’t stop fucking moving. 

“I want to touch you, stop.” You wanted to sound stern, but his lips behind your ear made you whimper your instructions, “oh kishi…”

Your eyes rolled back and you pressed yourself against the wall harder, sticking your ass out. Kishibe blindly found your hand between your bodies and guided it to the front of his slacks. You gasped, he moaned into your neck. 

Finally. 

Your hand mapped his length, and his…girth. It wasn’t the longest dick you had ever encountered, but jesus christ it was the thickest. That was why he had said he didn't want to hurt you, you realized. This thing could do some real damage. You could feel his heartbeat through his pants, he shuddered against you, pressing you into the wall further, as your hand found the end, circling over the tip of his cock. 

“You’re not going to make me cum in my pants like some teenager.” He gripped your hair.

You gasped at how rough he was being. You usually had to beg for this kind of treatment. His breath was hot and damp on your neck, you circled his wet tip again. 

“You sure about that?” 

He released your hair to rip your pants off your hips, down to your knees, “Positive.” 

His belt jingled and you heard the unzip of his fly, a moment later you felt the engorged tip pressing between your legs. Fear flashed through your body, making you gasp again, tears slipped from your waterline, but your body pushed your ass further into him, sliding his cock further, so it was nestled perfectly against your folds. You shivered, the anticipation of the real point of no return, coning at you fast. You whimpered out a small, scared cry. 

“Please Kishibe, please…” you begged, “be gentle with me.” 

Kishibe stopped, the pulse in his heart lurching at how pitiful you sounded. A twinge of…maybe remorse(?) causing hesitation. He never intended for this to happen like this. You didn’t deserve to be rushed through fucking in some back alley, just steps away from an open metropolis. You deserved a bed, and privacy, and time. He would be lying to himself if he had never imagined a night with you. He knew better, he knew the nights he had spent alone, imagining just how to draw out these exact sounds from you. How he would find you alone at the bar, after some not technically mandatory, but certainly expected social time with coworkers, bring you back home and finally have you all to himself. He would indulge himself in fantasies of your body, how it would feel under him, how your hips would strain to straddle his lap, how your breasts would look freed from all bindings, no clothing to keep him from the decadence of your figure. He would have been kinder, he hoped at least.  This wasn’t anything like he had imagined. Maybe it was loss that pulled at him now. Mourning for the first night he hadn’t even realized he valued so heavily. He chose then that, despite the circumstances, and despite his arousal plagued mind, he would try his hardest to give you something closer to what you deserved. What he deserved. 

Despite the burning desire taking over his body, he slowed, moving your hair off your neck, laying tender kisses among the still indented bite marks and blooming bruises he had already laid. 

“I’ll be gentle. I promise, I’m going to take it away, okay?” He didn’t have to turn your face this time, you craned your neck to meet his lips again. 

This kiss felt different, kinder, more unified. But the bliss was supreme only momentarily, when he finally began to enter you it was immediately surpassed. You weren’t sure if it was the effects of the aphrodisiac or if it was just him, but the pleasure overwhelmed your every sense. The moon bloomed, taking your vision over completely, pleasure blinding you. A long, howling moan was released into the night sky. It was unclear who sounded it, but it didn't matter. He pushed further into you, until he was fully inside, his hips flush with your ass. You were panting, gasping, no longer kissing him, desperately trying to relax to allow him inside of you, you were gripping him too tight, he couldn’t move. 

Kishibe was struggling, you had a hold on him so tight, too tight. His back was hunched at an odd angle because of his height, he couldn't have access to your neck or lips and stand up straight. He couldn’t stay immobile like this, the strain was already becoming too much. 

“I’m sorry, I have to.” He grunted, pulling his hips back, forcing your muscles to let him go. 

Your body shook, choppy whines came from you as he thrust into you again. You were gripping the wall as hard as you could, digging your nails into any textural abnormality you could find. Your cheek stung against the brick as your face scraped against its rough surface. 

“I know. I know. Breathe, baby, breathe.” Kishibe couldn't stop his hips, which carried on finding their pace, but he tried to give you soothing words to take some of the pain away. 

 His increasingly powerful thrusts made it hard to get a steady breath, but you focused on breathing deep and not holding it or hyperventilating. After a few deep breaths, you could feel your pelvic muscles softening, the lubrication of your previous orgasm, the mess of arousal brought about by the Devil’s poison, and his pre cum soothing the stretch. The pain wasn’t gone, but it was being overshadowed by the bliss of being full of him. You weren’t even out of your clothes, your pants were around your knees, your shirt hadn’t even been unbuttoned completely, the fabric of your bra caught on the texture of the brick, your jacket had been discarded…somewhere… but it didn't matter. You were full of cock, his cock, and suddenly it was clearer to you than ever before that this was where you belonged, wet and oozing, limp and drooling, ready for him to use you how he pleased.

Once you had relaxed, Kishibe could finally get some real rhythm going, finding his hips pistoning on instinct rather than by his input. The friction, the wetness, the sweat, the smell, the sound, he was hypnotized. He no longer cared about a passerby hearing you, or if the real Devil was waiting in the shadows to ambush you, he didn’t care about anything. Anything except feeling your pussy around him every second for the rest of his life. He needed this, he needed you. He had always needed you. He bit hard on the back of your shirt collar, trying to stop the moans and grunts from escaping him. His last fuck had been some random pickup two weeks ago, she was fine, sexy, didn’t ask a lot of questions, and that was pretty much all of his criteria these days. But sex with her felt like a sneeze compared to this. He began to wonder if he was actually a virgin all the time, and this was what sex actually was.

“Harder Kishi, harder….please.” you begged, deepening the arch in your back, begging for his fat tip to kiss the wall of your cervix. 

You weren’t as tense now, still tight, but not dangerously so, he could go full force and not hurt you, and fuck was he ready to. Kishibe bent you further, one hand on your hip, the other on the back of your head. He pulled all the way back so that just the very tip was pressed against your hole. In the same moment, he gripped your hair, pulled your head off the wall and snapped his hips forward, your hands kept your shoulders from hitting the wall too hard, his hold on your hair kept your face safe. But nothing could have prepared you for the burst of pain/pleasure that filled your nervous system. Without any time to prepare, he repeated this action. He found a new rhythm, brutal and fast. Out to the tip, in to the base. You didn't even realize the volume of the choked cries you were letting out until his hand found its way to your mouth again. One finger pulling at the corner of your mouth, making your gag. 

“Shut up.” His stern voice was back, the gentility had vacated when he felt himself bottom out,“you want anyone off the street to come back here and see you like this?”

Both you and he didn’t miss the way his hypothetical made your pussy clench around him. 

“Or maybe you would?” He snapped his hips again, deeper, sending you gasping, “You want everyone to see what a slut you are, huh?”

He was a man possessed, nothing that came out of his mouth had crossed his mind before, and yet it felt truer than saying his own name. He continued:

“Everyone should see me fucking you, so they know. Your perfect little hole is all for me. I can’t believe you had this the whole time and you kept it from me.” He brought his hand down on your right ass cheek, “How dare you. This pussy was made for me.” another spank, “This pussy belongs to me, understand. Your body belongs to me.” he spanked you again, on the same exact spot. 

You screamed at the third spank, the skin was so hot, you could already feel it welting. Your wetness was spilling down your legs, his harsh hands and possessive words making you wetter with every syllable.  

Another spank came, “Say it. Who does this pussy belong to?”

“You!”

A kind rub over your cheek brought down your defense, before he spanked again, even his own palm starting to sting, “and who does your body belong to?”

You cried out again, his hips relentless as he tortured you, “You! Kishibe, you!” 

“Mmm, good.” He smoothed a hand over your wounded cheek, only to dig his nails into the sensitive meat, lean into your ear and speak again, “and who do you belong to?”

“You! Kishibe you, I belong to you.”

He dug his nails in harder, “Who?”

“You Kishibe, you!” You tried again, only to see him raise his hand out of the corner of your eye. 

“Captain!” You tried again. 

The hand cracked against your skin, “Wrong again.”

Your legs were barely hanging on, the assault on your ass making your knees shake and your arms scrape down the wall.

“Who am I?”

It hit you. 

“Master.” You sighed out, knowing you had gotten it, the name he felt most suited him when he had this much power over someone, “I belong to you, master.” 

Pride blossomed in his chest, he brought a non threatening hand down across your aching backside, petting your hip softly, feeling the down hairs at the base of your pelvis grow coarser as he parted your center, his middle finger finding your clit. 

“That’s right, baby. Good.” He circled your twitching clitoris. 

Your legs shook harder, ‘Master…master I can’t I ca--”

But you did, you came again, spasming around his cock, which he buried deep inside of you for you to ride out your climax, still petting at your clit. He continued until you gathered the strength to pull his hand away. 

“awh..”He cooed in your ear, “can’t take it anymore, can you?” 

You shook your head. He began moving his hips again, pumping into you again and again, “Poor girl, can’t keep up with the old man, huh?” 

These taunts seemed not of his own creation, but he still couldn't stop them.

“How long have you dreamt of this? Years? And look at yourself, was this what you imagined? Pants around your ankles, surrounded by trash, falling to pieces after barely getting started?” He mocked, “How disappointing, all that time to prepare and still you can barely keep up. Looks like I got to you too late.” 

But that was when you heard it. He heard it. The words were not his own. The voice, it was covered, influenced…filtered in some way. Coming from his desperate mouth, but not his. He noticed it too. It was getting closer, the real Lust Devil, not one of its parts. There was no telling how little time you would have before its arrival. He stilled his hips, against every screaming cell in his body that wanted to continue. 

“Stand up.”he ordered, and despite your trembling legs you did, “we have to move now. Break the wires.” 

In a Devil hunting first for you, you pulled up your pants, lamenting the amount of liquid arousal that would now find its home in your panties, and donned your gloves to remove the razor wire from the alley’s opening. Adrenaline and endorphins keeping your hands steady, you felt empowered, more so than you had crumbled on the floor in pain prior to this whole endeavor. Maybe the two orgasms had worked some of the effects to the back of your mind, hitting snooze on the incline, however brief. Your watch read 7:58 pm. 

“Should we—?” You started, feeling like maybe this was your chance to take this thing down for real. 

Kishibe, who had now tucked himself back safely inside his slacks, still achingly hard, rushed past you, grabbing your hand and turning the corner towards the exit. 

“Nope. We are in no condition to fight.” He pulled you along, you could barely keep up with his leggy gait. 

“But I feel like—…”

“Fine! I’m in no condition to fight. Come on.” He tugged you further towards the street. 

You kept your eyes on his back, the street lights in front of him giving him a corona of light, making him seem deific. You heard scuttling, shambling behind you, growing closer. The voice returned, or maybe it had always been there? But now you heard your own voice, and Kishibe’s, your pants and grunts together, his nasty taunts, your pleading begs. You had joined whatever collection this thing was creating. You didn’t dare look back. You knew about Sodom and Gomorrah, about Orpheus and Eurydice, you knew better than to look back when you were so close to salvation. 

Kishibe pulled you both out of the line of the alley, and you both burst into the night street. He stopped a few steps from the alley’s entrance, in the open light of the street, you bumped into his back, but he was quick to physically guide you to his side instead, keeping one arm around you, still desperate to have you close. The beast didn’t venture into the light. It stayed eight or so yards from the entrance, away from prying eyes. It made no sound or retreat, but it made no charge either. And that was good enough for Kishibe. He tugged you along, pulling you past the much smaller crowd, and back in the direction of the car. The ache was building again inside of you, how could it be asking more from you already. He hadn’t even cum once yet, by your own mental calculations he was probably running on pure adrenaline. 

“Kishi?” Your voice was still hoarse. 

He kept walking. 

“Kishi, baby?” You tried again, slowing your pace just slightly. 

He tugged you further, still not waiting for your question. 

“Kishibe, what’s the plan?” You got tired of waiting for his permission, you stopped, “you can’t drive like this, I can’t either. It's at least thirty minutes back to the office, and I don’t think we can do much there!”

“Fuck!” He stopped and turned to face you, coming close, his voice threatening, “I’ll fuck you right here if we don’t find somewhere else. 

His other eye had a small hemorrhaged vessel as well. Two identical spots in either eye. Your heart burned at the sight, at his desperation. He needed you, he needed you to find somewhere where he could relieve himself, where he could have you at the fullest with no interruption, either from peril or from prying eyes. You flashback through your entrance to the area, what had you passed, what had you seen? There was something, there had to be, or else you wouldn’t feel so sure of it. You just had to remember. Fuck! Your mind was still scrambled. He was growing restless, his grip on your arm growing tighter and tighter. He inched closer and closer, you became aware of the passersby, witnessing you bruised and scratched in the grip of a much larger, desperate man. It wasn’t a good look. 

Wait..

“A love hotel! We passed one on the way here! It had a lit up sign in the front window!” You finally remembered. It couldn’t have been more than a block away. 

He groaned, picturing the check in process and the seedy room,. But fuck, if he was ever desperate, it was now. 

“Find it.” He ordered, letting you lead the way. 

You took his hand and led him down the sidewalk. You were right, it wasn't even three full blocks away. A tall building, a large neon flower in the window, a white awning hanging above.. 

“Just, don’t talk, okay?” You told him as you walked inside he rolled his eyes but followed you.

A bored looking clerk sat at the desk, he had a pair of bulky headphones plugged into a walkman on his desk. A chime rang out as you entered, but the music must have been too loud, he didn't flinch. He didn't move until you approached the desk. He ripped off his headphones as though you were his boss catching him slacking off, but his frightened eyes grew suspicious as he took in the pair of you. Your shirt was buttoned wrong, your tie was lost somewhere, as was your jacket. Your cheek was bleeding, bruises on your neck unhidden by the haphazard collar. Kishibe looked no better, blood on his shirt, which was missing quite a few buttons, tie still on, but barely, his hair was a mess. His usual stoic scowl had been replaced with a harsh glare trained directly at the clerk, his foot tapping like a caged animal.  

“Excuse me, hello. We would like to check in.” You tried your best to sound casual.

“Um…” The clerk hesitated. 

“We’re…”You thought on your feet and said the first thing that you could think of, “Engaged! We just got engaged, I mean. And our..in laws! Yes, our in-laws are in town and we don't have a lot of privacy and we just want to…celebrate.” 

The clerk eyed you both again, analysing you and Kishibe individually and no doubt trying to parse together how you would fit as a couple. 

“We would like an overnight room.” You continued, trying to remind him of the actual task at hand. 

Kishibe was stunned by your plan, by how bold it was, and how poorly you were pulling it off. You worked at a secret (ish) organization, for fuck’s sake. But he was amused by your efforts, so he doubled down with you. 

He wrapped a big arm around your shoulder, leaning over the desk, “Maybe something with a tub.” 

The clerk nodded, whatever was in front of him was none of his business, he saw plenty of strange pairs come through the lobby. And anywhere there was no way he was getting his ass kicked by this guy at his current pay rate. 

“Yeah…okay,I just need a credit card to put on file.” He finally explained. 

Your wallet was safely tucked in the car, you didn’t have anything. You hadn’t even considered this part, how could you have not thought about this? Kishibe pulled a leather card carrier from his coat pocket, not a credit card but his Public Safety clearance badge and slapped it down on the counter. 

“How’s that card work?” He hissed. 

The clerk scanned it briefly, sighing, probably lamenting the admissions given to government workers and retrieved a key from the corkboard behind him and handed it over. 

“Whatever man, just don't break anything.” He had checked out of the conversation the moment Kishibe had approached, he put his headphone back on, “Fifth floor. Check out is at 10am.” 

Kishibe took the key and his badge and pulled you toward the elevator. 

“Thank you!” You waved to the clerk, just barely getting it out before the elevator doors closed. 

You had half expected Kishibe to pounce on you the moment they did, but he stayed still. Watching the numbers above the door illuminate and dim. 

“So when’s the wedding?” He finally spoke at the illumination of the third floor. 

“Shut up, it got us here, didn’t it?” You laughed. 

“Right, it was your stellar in-law cock block story that got us up here, and not the government issued free pass badge.”, He cracked a smile. 

You both laughed, the chime of the elevator alerted you the doors would open on the fifth floor. The tag on the key was for room 5102, close to the elevator. Kishibe pressed you forward by your waist, leading you out of the elevator and down a few doors to the room. He unlocked the door and you stepped inside. The room was fine, a large king bed placed in front of a boxy, but relatively new tv. A radio clock on one night stand, a lamp on the other. The door shut and locked behind you, Kishibe fasted the chain lock, the dead bolt, and the handle lock, then turned back to you. He saw the abrasion on your cheek, the blood beginning to dry. He took your face in his hands, running his thumb along the outside of it. Guilt pulled at the back of his brain, but fuck he couldnt hold out anymore, he circled his other arm around your back and pulled you in to his mouth. Without the urgency, without the danger, he could kiss you and feel like he earned it. He kissed you deeply, tilting your head back, tasting your mouth, pushing you back toward the bed. You melted in his arms, finally feeling them for how sturdy and safe they could be. Your tongue pushed against his, his hand frond your hair, you found the front of his pants, unbuttoning them quickly. Where his belt had gone was a mystery, but none of your concern. You pushed them off his legs until your knees met the edge of the mattress. You tugged at the rest of your shirt buttons, pulling it off of you and tossing it aside, your tie followed. He finally let you leave his kiss to pull his own shirt over his head and off, his coat seeming to have disappeared. You both shuffled out of your pants and underwear, You reached behind to unclasp your bra, shrugging it down your arms. The process taking only seconds but feeling like a frigid, isolated eternity separated from him. It was like you were magnetized, pulled together by a gravitational force that took everything in you to resist. He stood in front of you, bare, studying your figure, trying to commit every inch of your body to memory. Every freckle, every scar, every bend and shadow of muscle, every fold, everything. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was, to see you in your truest form, wanton and waiting. He thanked whatever evil caused this Devil’s creation, and cursed himself in the same breath for doing so. But trailing his hands up your curves, to take hold of your full, perfect breasts, he found himself brought to his knees before you, a zealot at the altar of you. You let him push you back onto the bed, the cushioned mattress underneath you was nirvana compared to the grit and gravel he had taken you on before. Your legs spread themselves, no longer needing your guidance, no longer held together by your barely removed pants. Kishibe’s wet tongue moved up your leg, he could taste your sweat, and he reveled in it until he found his next vice, your legs were still coated in the arousal that leaked from you, sticking to your skin under your pants and now coating his tongue, destroying his mind. Or what was left of it. 

Tasting you brought him higher and higher, cleaning your soiled thighs, swirling his tongue over the top of your knee, flattening the soft hairs with his tongue, spit laying them flat in his wake. Your hips jerked up as he joined you on the bed, agile body moving between your legs. He pulled your legs further apart, not bothering to look at your face. No, his eyes were fixed on your pussy as you spread open for him. Your perfect, drooly, needy cunt parting itself, drawing him forward. He made no effort to stop the line of saliva that dripped from the corner of his mouth, he didn’t even feel it. He didn’t feel anything, anything except hunger, except want, except need. Perfect folds and layers, ready for him, begging for his touch, you really were made for him. In a single look he forgot every piece of fine art he ever saw, every inch of his earth that any numb skull could have called glorious, he knew glory now. True glory. And he needed it to be his, to claim it for his own. 

Kishibe had moved to his knees, hands firm on your legs to either side of him, hunched over your body, you felt shy under such an intense stare, right to where you were most vulnerable. You reached up and brushed your fingertips over his cheek and back around his ear bringing his attention back to your face. 

“Kishibe…”You moaned in a whisper. 

You looked so desperate underneath him, the pillow lucky to be graced with your hair, him, even luckier to bear witness to such beauty. Your mouth hung open slightly, pupils blown out under heavy lidded eyes. Your breasts rising shakily with panting breaths. 

“Please, I can’t wait anymore, Kishibe please,” You begged, tugging him by his neck, “Fuck me.” 

The jolt that sent through his body could knock out every electrical grid in Japan. He pulls your hips down to him, then lifts them to be level with his own. Holding you up with one hand, his other aligns his cock with the hole he could now picture with perfect clarity. His dark eyes caught yours, he watches them fly open as he penetrates you. Finally able to take you how he needs, he is able to slide into you deliciously, pressing against your g spot. Your back arches up under his hand, but he follows, not able to stand being parted from you. It would take an act of God to remove him, at this point. Your tight walls tremble around him, working their hardest to allow him inside. It was bizarre, impossible, inhuman. You subconsciously press against his stomach. Pushing him away, unable to handle the deluge of pleasure and pressure he is causing.

He grips your hips harder, bruising them, and presses into you more, “where do you think you’re going.” 

You whimper as he presses against your cervix, grabbing at the bed sheets, trying to leverage your hips back, but finding the bed is blocking your escape. And still your legs wrap around his hips, torn between trying to pull him inside further, and trying to free yourself.  One of his rough hands leaves your hip and he takes your hand in his, interlocking your fingers. You melt back down into the bed, giving him the room to pull his hips back. Kishibe leans over you, laying you back on the bed, blocking out the still illuminated overhead light with his shoulder as he thrusts into you again. He squeezes your hand harder with every thrust. His lips find your neck again, your hands wrap around his neck, tangling in his soft, white hair. He fucks into you fast, pushing himself, and your poor body to their limits, you have no choice but to hold on and succumb to the waves of pleasure. 

He kisses you again, lips hot and swollen, “So good.” 

He repeats it like a mantra, again and again as he bottoms out inside and pulls back. He can’t do anything but repeat it. The friction, your lips, finally having you for himself since this whole ordeal began, he can’t last. 

The praise, the feeling of him inside, the relief of a bed under you, the feeling of his pelvis rocking against your clit, it all becomes too much and you feel yourself tighten around him. You know he feels it too because he grips your hand and breaks the kiss to cry out in delicious agony. 

“Don’t--.”Is all he manages to let out before his climax blinds him, the lamp light blooming white and over taking all his senses. 

The obscene sounds he makes and the sight of his pleasure scrunched face push you to follow him, cumming for the third time. 

His cock pulses inside of you, painting your insides with his cum. He feels like it will never end, he doesn’t want it too. Kishibe wants to see your tummy swollen, a trail of cum dripping out from between your legs, your face covered in it, your tongue full of it. He wants you full, inside and out, marked as his, full of him, for all to see. He wants you round and pregnant, showing off everything he has done to you. He wants to see you helpless and bred, full breasts ready to be fed from. 

He’s losing his fucking mind. 

He had never wanted children in his life, he made medically sure of it nearly two decades ago, but right now if he could stitch it back together himself he would. Coming back to himself, he sees you panting below him, and nearly cums again. Your mouth hinges open, and your tongue flops out. 

“Spit.” You huff. 

His face must have betrayed his surprise. 

“Please, I need it, please,” You please, “Spit in my mouth, please, Kishi.” 

He takes your face in his left hand, tilting it back, extending your mouth even more with his thumb on your chin. He lets a full, slow string of saliva fall from his mouth into yours, watching it slip down your tongue. You lap it up eagerly, leaning up to lick some stray fluid off of his chin. Your pussy squeezes him again as you move. You keen back happily, the taste of him in your mouth, and the feeling of him inside of you bringing you a blissful feeling of balance. 

“Nasty girl…”He chides, leaning back onto his knees, watching your eyes flutter closed. 

A smile upturns your perfect lips, “mmmmmhm.”

“I have to pull out now.” He warns, you let out a long, displeased whine as he does. 

Coming down from your own high, you catch your breath on the bed, only reopening your eyes when the bed sinks next to you, you turn your neck to him. His flushed, bruises on his neck, his chest, scratch marks on his arms and chest, the two red bursts in his eyes, you hadn’t realized you were so rough on him. He looked over your figure, seeing the abrasions on your chest from the brick, the marks of his teeth, the bruises his hands left on your body, the cut on your cheek. A Pair. 

You brush a disarranged hair off his temple, gentle fingers feeling the sweat cooling on his brow. 

“How do you feel?” You whispered, voice hoarse. 

He moves onto his back beside you, taking your hand in his, kissing the back, and bringing it down to his chest, over his heart. You could feel the rhythm steadying itself.

“Coming down.” He studies your face, “How do you feel?”

You nodded, “Good, a little sore.” 

“Do you think it’s over?”

You shrugged, “I feel better? Less like I am going to die, which is good.” 

He nodded, his mind was clearing, the virus releasing its hold on him. He tried to remember his usual bedside manner,“You should probably…you know…”

You smiled again, moving carefully to sit up, “I didn’t expect you to be so diligent about UTI avoidance.” 

He leaned up on his elbow, “You don’t know me as well as you think.” 

“I like what I’m learning.” You flirted, standing and walking to the small bathroom. 

Kishibe watched your behind sway as you left him. Once the door was shut behind you, he fell on his back staring up to the ceiling. Everything that had transpired tonight flashed through his mind, his cock had hardly softened but now it ached again. Would this ever be over? And when it did, what would become of you two. The poison still plagued his mind, it was a logical jump to assume it was still affecting you too. He didn’t know how to be around you after this, he couldn’t even begin to picture the logistics of bringing you back to work, seeing you everyday and knowing everything he knew now. He wanted to know what you thought, if you felt differently about him, if this was a bizarre, horrible accident that ruined any kind of real feeling that could have existed between the two of you. He couldn’t bear waiting anymore, he had to be close to you again before this ended. He stood, joints clicking, dick hard, and crossed to the bathroom door. He knocked.

“Yeah?” your voice rang from the other side of the door. 

He hesitated, pressing his forehead against the wood, fighting back the words that were about to come out, “Can I come in?” 

You were silent behind the door for a few seconds, he wasn't sure how he expected you to respond. 

“Sure, it’s unlocked.” Your voice came again. 

He turned the nob and opened the door, you were standing at the sink, cleaning the cut on your cheek. 

“Got lonely in there?” You smiled at him through the mirror, and it warmed his fearful chest.  

Kishibe wrapped his arms around your waist, holding you from behind as you carried on dabbing a cool cloth on your face. He hummed an affirmative response, against your neck, smelling deep the smell of your skin. He occupied himself pressing kisses to your neck and shoulder while you finished. His eyelashes tickled behind your ear and you caught his eyes in the mirror as you giggled. 

“You’re clingier after sex than I expect.”

He kept your gaze in the mirror, “Expected, huh? Thought about this before?” 

Why lie, call it exhaustion, or maybe the poison was still working on you, “Yeah.” 

He didn’t flinch, still looking at you through the glass, “Me too.” he confessed. 

You turned in his hold, the reflection no longer enough of a view for you, you had to look at his face, his real face. 

“So why didn’t we ever…?” 

He shrugged, “Didn’t seem right,” but that wasn’t the full truth, “Didn’t want to lose you.” 

You were touched by his admission, his vulnerability. Certainly the influence of adrenaline crash and hormonal endorphins racing through both of you. You felt your throat tighten, your tear ducts start to burn. Sex always complicated things, especially when jobs and feelings were involved. Depending on how the morning played out, this could be the last time you had the chance to be exposed and alone with him. 

“I don’t want to lose you either.” One hot tear fell from your eye, stinging your freshly cleaned cheek. 

Kishibe wiped the tear away, his face still as unreadable as ever, “then you won't. Not yet.”

“What do you want? From all of this, I mean.” You asked him, not accusation or malice in your voice. 

Kishibe sighed, smoothing your hair and holding your face, “I want to enjoy being here with you, while we work this out of our systems. Tomorrow morning I would like to drive you home, so you can rest. We will file the report, be only as honest as we want to be, give the sample to the lab, clock out, and then figure it out from there.” 

Then he moved his hands down to your shoulders, pulling you even closer and kissing you hard. A kiss that was devoid of the Devil’s influence, no hungry, tasting tongue, no hot, fevered breath.  Just his lips sealed to yours, your body pressed against his, and a promise to try. When he pulled away he spoke again, 

“But right now I want us both to get in that tub.” 

The night didn’t end there, the waves of fervent arousal lapped over both of you again and again, but the tide had gone out. The coast was cleared, leaving a sparkling landscape on which the both of you could relax.

Epilogue

The bath had been the perfect remedy for your bruised and abused body. It soothed Kisibe’s aching joints. He washed and rinsed the debris out of your hair, you cleaned the blood off of his hands and neck. His fingers worked over you, bringing you a slower, gentler climax. Back in the bed, clean and dry, you reciprocated his generosity. Sucking, kissing, swallowing everything he had given to you so brazenly before. Laying together in the dark, sleep was hard to find. Whenever you thought it would overtake you, bringing you back into an embrace to pleasure yourselves and each other. Eventually, morning came. Whether you had woken up to the sunlight, or you were too engaged to realize it had come up, was unclear. 

You left the hotel in the early afternoon, returning to the car which had a citation for exceeding the parking meter. Kishibe drove you back to your apartment, pulling up and parking outside. 

“Okay.” He turned to you, the light of day illuminating complexities that hadn’t yet been considered, “They won't be expecting us back until tomorrow, anyway. So you should try and get some sleep.” 

You nodded, “Yeah. Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime.” 

“I meant the car.” You teased. 

He chuckled. You didn’t want to get out, you weren’t ready to be done. Tomorrow would mean talking about what happened, reports had to be filed, incident reports, lab tests, possibly declaration of relationship forms. You gnawed on your lip. Kishibe watched you closely, seeing you weigh out each thought, waiting for the perfect way to phrase what you were after. 

You met his eyes, the devious flicker in your eye that he now knew the motivations of intimately shining at him once again,“You wanna come upstairs, take a nap and fool around a little?”

Kishibe sucked in a breath through a sly smile, his exhausted cock already jumping forward at the chance. 

“Absolutely I do.”

Thank you for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed, I really enjoyed writing this piece and I hope that comes through!! Fuck I want this man so bad. literally so bad. Let me know your thoughts, I always love hearing what you do/dont like. Anyway, thanks again! See you next time! - Doodle <3

[hellfirenacht]

This Machine...

Summary: Your birthday is coming up, and Eddie makes you a present. 

Tags: sfw, friends to lovers, slightly possessive Eddie and Reader if you squint, Eddie Munson x Reader

Word Count: 3.3k words

Master List

There were certain perks to being the school’s resident dealer. For one, Eddie had made very good friends with the old janitor that kept to himself, flying under everyone’s radar, including Higgins’. The nice perk that came with being friends with ol’ Mr. Greg was the fact that he had the keys to every single room in the school, which meant that Eddie’s lock-picking days were lowered considerably. 

These were good perks to have, especially since your birthday was coming up. Eddie had convinced the art teached at the beginning of every year to allow himself and his club to use the art room to make their Hellfire shirts. The art department had managed to get funding four years ago for a screen printing kit, convincing the board that having the ability to make shirts would create unity within the school. 

Frankly, Eddie thought that was a load of bullshit. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to use it to his advantage when he could. So every September, Eddie would gather his little sheepies for an afternoon of arts and crafts, creating the shirts and ruining the ones they were wearing in the mess. Eddie would always try and make a few extra, just in case there were stragglers that needed saving from the conformity of Hawkins High school. Not once did he consider the irony of having his sheep in uniform.

In most cases, the art teacher was willing to work with him and let him in without much fuss. Of course, that was when Eddie was still a student. He had now been a proud high school graduate for seven months and the shock of not being in school had him spiraling for the first month before he found himself working at the Hideout again. Work, rehearsal, work, rehearsal, a thirty minute set at the Hideout if he was lucky, work, rehearsal. 

God, he missed Hellfire. That was the only part of school that he missed; a consistent Dungeons and Dragons schedule. 

Still, it wasn’t all bad and monotonous. Turns out that if you aren’t stuck at school 8 hours a day, 5 days a week you can go other places when children are at school. And when you go to places where kids aren’t, you tend to meet adults. 

Enter you. 

You had been working at the record store on morning shift, and had been for a few months now. Although you had more often than not worked weekends, somehow you and Eddie had eluded each other in the two years of you sorting through the various artists and ringing up customers. 

It had been a Thursday when Eddie met you, a fact he only remembered because the previous night had been the day that Bev allowed him to go on two nights in a row at the Hideout, which had been unheard of for Corroded Coffin. 

“Ain’t no one barely here anyways, Eddie.” she’d said, having long since stopped calling him Junior. 

He had been flying high, and an old drunk had even left him a tip on the bar, enough to drop by the record store and pick up an album he’d been eyeing for a while. You had been standing at the boxes, resetting them and reorganizing them for the hundredth time that week. It had been so slow that day that it was all you could do to keep yourself busy. 

W.A.S.P had been playing at a near whisper quiet volume, and when Eddie asked you about it you had just smiled, shrugged, and said that the owner only allowed you to play them on Thursdays when it was dead, or Sunday morning when anyone who’d get offended by the lyrics would be at church. 

The two of you had been friends ever since. 

A half hour of idle chat about music had turned into five months of late night talks on the phone, hanging out in Eddie’s van, swapping music back and forth, visiting each other during your shifts, and a tentative bi-monthly D&D session with you, and Corroded Coffin. 

Eddie would never know how badly he messed up your sleep schedule, going on late at night with Corroded Coffin when you had a morning shift, but it was always worth it to give him a sober audience member. 

The best nights though, were the times where you’d come over and just... hang out with him. You’d come over to Wayne’s trailer after your shift, or he’d pick you up from your place, and the two of you would just sit and talk. 

You never bat an eye at how messy his room was, and he made sure there was no food left out and would at least make an effort to clean out all of the beer cans in his room. Mostly you’d just sit on his bed and watch him play guitar, or spend hours talking about everything and nothing. 

As much as you enjoyed hearing him practice the same riff on his electric guitar over and over again, you had admitted to him that you always had a soft spot for the acoustic guitar that collected a little more dust in the corner that he’d pull out on rare occasions. 

THIS MACHINE SLAYS DRAGONS

You’d voiced your fondness for the instrument several times, enjoying the combination of Woody Gunthrie’s iconic guitar adjusted for your friends’ eccentric taste. 

Five months of friendship. Five months of hanging out with no pressure, no needing to look after each other, five months of feeling like a fucking human in this damn town. 

And one month of having the most embarrassing and awkward crush on you. 

Eddie had dated before, and he’d been interested in girls and some girls had even shown some interest in him until they realized that Eddie wasn’t someone to be fixed or saved. Eddie had even had sex before, but not to the extreme lengths that he’d found had been circulating in high school. 

Seriously, who had the time to come up with half the shit that this town thought he’d allegedly done? 

You found great joy in hearing about his spin in the rumor mill. Whenever one of you heard a rumor about the Freak, you’d compare notes and laugh about how stupid it was. Of course, Eddie put little effort into actually stopping the rumors, and now that he was no longer in high school it didn’t seem to matter as much anymore. He’d still get dirty looks from people in town but he found that more often than not people would just leave him alone now. Jocks, nerds, freaks, cheerleaders; outside the halls of Hawkins High those words didn’t hold half the weight they used to. 

“So they’re saying that now you spiked the punch at homecoming?” you asked, laughing. “I must have missed that dance.”

“Yeah, so did I. I only went to homecoming once in school and that was Sophomore year.” Eddie replied, his fingers tabbing out a melody that he had been working on for a new song. “And there was no way I was able to get my hands on any alcohol that night.”

“Why would you waste perfectly good alcohol on a high school dance, anyway?” you laughed.

Eddie could listen to you laugh for hours. 

And it was because of this, that Eddie was now back at Hawkins High, while Ol’ Greg unlocked the art room on this fine weekend. It didn’t take much convincing, Ol’ Greg didn’t give a shit about Eddie’s reputation and never had, and for that Eddie had slipped the janitor an extra joint for his trouble as payment for letting him in. 

The room looked about the same as it had the last few weeks of school, aside from some new art projects. Other than that, everything was in about the same place. Eddie wasted a little time wandering around the room, looking at the different projects and taking in the scent of old clay and dried paint. Aside from the old drama room, the art room was the only other place in the school where he felt okay in this hellhole. 

It didn’t take much to get your shirt size. You always had a bad habit of leaving your sweaters in his van, so going to grab a blank hoodie in your size was the easy part. The design he was using was easy as well, and after so many years of making Hellfire Club shirts he could probably make this in his sleep. 

But he wouldn’t, because he wanted this to be perfect. So for the next few hours he carefully pulled out the equipment, found the right shade of red he wanted to use and painstakingly created the stencil, adding his own personal flair to it. The finished product was probably nicer than any Hellfire Club shirt he’d ever made. 

By the end of it, your new hoodie was done and he was sure that you’d love it so much that you’d never forget it in his van. 

With the finished product in hand he was able to lock up, thank Ol’ Greg, and make his way home. 

Now all Eddie had to do was give it to you for your birthday. The two of you had made plans to hang out that morning together at Benny’s for some birthday waffles or pancakes or french toast or whatever you wanted. He’d treat you, he’d been saving for this. 

Then he’d give you the gift, and you’d love it and then he’d suck it up and ask you out. He could do this. Jeff swore to Eddie up and down that you clearly had feelings for him. Eddie wasn’t stupid, he’d noticed your flirting and had flirted back so many times. This dance between the two of you had been going on for weeks now, but it didn’t make it any less terrifying. With any luck, the note he had tucked into the pocket would also help him out. 

You were already at your usual booth when he arrived that Sunday morning. It was supposed to be a very quiet morning, Benny’s was never busy first thing on Sunday. So when Eddie walked into the diner to meet you, his stomach dropped as he saw the rest of his band already sitting with you. 

A chorus of his friends called him over, and Eddie, dejected, slid in the booth on the opposite side of you. You were on the end of one booth, seated next to Jeff and Zack, while Eddie took the spot next to Gareth. 

Eddie wanted to be pissed at the guys for ruining his plan, but then he saw the look on your face. You were thrilled to be around everyone and were excitedly talking to Jeff about the new song that he was learning. It was your birthday, your day, and if you were having fun, that was the important part. He did make sure to put your food on his tab though, he wasn’t going to let anyone else have that satisfaction. 

As the morning went on, Eddie had completely forgotten about the hoodie currently sitting in the small bag by his leg. He was only reminded of it when Gareth got up to go pee and Eddie was forced out of the booth, as his foot kicked the bag and you noticed it. 

Your eyes immediately lit up when you noticed the red gift bag and your smile widened. 

“Eddie, is that for me?” you asked, batting your eyelashes. “Did you get me a present?”

He didn’t want to give it to you in front of everyone, that hadn’t been part of the plan. But he sucked it up and pulled the hoodie out and tossed it to you. Eddie could worry about asking you out later when the rest of his friends weren’t around. He’d never want to put that pressure on you anyway. 

“Yessss!” you grabbed it eagerly in your hands and unfolded the hoodie, noticing the design. 

This Machine Slays Dragons was splashed across the front, and on the front pocket was a small colony of bats, just like the ones on Eddie’s arm. He watched as your eyes widened, in surprise and delight, and felt a wave of relief wash over him as you eagerly put it on. 

“Holy shit, Eddie, I love it!” you said, and got out of the booth to throw your arms around him. Your lips pressed against his cheek, and for a moment Eddie felt like he was on cloud nine as he hugged you back, giving you a slight squeeze before you pulled away. 

“You always said you liked my guitar.” He said, shooting a look to his bandmates who were making kissy faces behind your back. The glare only egged them on. 

“It’s got your bats on it.” you said, looking down at the design, smoothing it out. “This is so fuckin’ cool!”

As you ran your hands down the design, you heard a faint crinkle in the pocket. When you reached inside, alarm bells went off in Eddie’s head and he quickly muttered something about needing a cigarette before turning on his heel and walking straight outside to his van. 

He’d completely forgotten the note that he had slipped into the pocket. You absolutely were not supposed to open that in front of everyone. Eddie leaned against the back of his van, lightly smacking his head against the door, the barely touched cigarette in his hand. 

“Eddie...?” Your voice made him go stiff, his head still against the fan. He took one long drag of the cigarette and exhaled the smoke before standing up straight to look at you. You were holding the note in your hand with a sheepish grin on your face. 

“Hey.” He said, not sure how to proceed. He couldn’t read your smile. Was it a sad smile? Were you going to awkwardly tell him that you didn’t feel the same but you could be friends? He could live with that, but it would really sting. 

“So....” you looked at the note and read the two words printed there in his handwriting. “‘Date me’, huh? I’ve heard you come up with the wildest descriptions for things when we play D&D, but the most you could jot down was... ‘Date me’?”

It was. Eddie had racked his brain for hours on what to say to you, but he couldn’t find the words he wanted to. Everything felt either too cheesy, or too stiff, or not him, or too casual. He was really banking on the hoodie to be more of a selling point than the note. 

“I thought it’d be cuter if it had just been the two of us this morning.” Eddie admitted. “Look, I get it if you’re here to respectfully decline. We can just be friends, I swear I won’t make it weird-”

“I’ll date you.” The words were firm and steadfast. There wasn’t a single waiver in your voice as you said those three words. You took a step closer to him and shoved the note back in the hoodie pocket. “Eddie I... I want to date you. I’ve wanted to date you for about 10 minutes after we met.” 

Eddie’s head lowered slightly and his eyes widened as he stared at you. “Are you serious?”

“Well, yeah.” you said. “A cute guy walks into a record store, knows about good music, invites me to play D&D and then becomes one of my best friends? Yes, Eddie, I want to date you.” 

Eddie snuffed out the barely touched cigarette and leaned in towards you. God, he was fucking clueless sometimes.

“You know... that hoodie looks good on you.” He said, trying to sound smooth. “It’ll look better in the back of my van.” 

You stared blankly at him for a second and then burst out laughing, your head thrown back. “No, no, nevermind.” you cackled. “I changed my mind. I’m done. We’re done.” 

Had Eddie not known you as well as he did, he might have taken that as a real rejection. But he knew that laugh, he’d heard it a hundred times over the past few months. 

He reached out and grabbed your hand and pulled you closer to him, you were still smiling wide when you looked up at him. “Seriously, Eddie? I agree to date you and you pull out that line?”

“Don’t get mad at me, Sweetheart.” He said. “You’re the one constantly leaving your clothes in my van. I don’t know why you’re laughing at my perfectly innocent statement.”

“Oh fuck off, Eddie.” You laughed. “You know exactly what you said and how you meant it. And maybe I wouldn’t have had to leave my clothes in your van all the time if you had asked me out earlier.” 

“And would you care to share that logic with me?” Eddie raised an eyebrow. Had you really been leaving things in his van on purpose?

“I had to mark my territory.” you said with a smile. “Can’t let anyone in your van think that you’re seeing someone else.”

It was Eddie’s turn to laugh and you wrapped your arms around his neck. “Ah yes, the most popular freak in all of Hawkins definitely has a line out the door of people wanting to date him.” he said, his hands finding your hips. 

“You’re laughing. I’ve seen you flirting with Ms. Robin’s at The Hideout and you're laughing at me?” you tried to pout, but you were holding back your own giggles. 

“Ms. Robins is a 75 year old woman who can drink everyone under the table.” Eddie pointed out. 

“See? How am I supposed to compete with that! I had to sacrifice my jackets to make sure no one would be asking you out.” you protested. “What else could I-”

Eddie had originally planned on asking if it was okay for him to kiss you first, but he knew that if he didn’t do something now you’d keep cracking jokes and this conversation wouldn’t go anywhere. You tasted faintly like your birthday breakfast, but Eddie quickly decided that it wasn’t a bad thing. He felt the faint push of your lips back against his, and he mentally kicked himself for not doing this the first time you two hung out.

“Happy birthday.” Eddie said, as he finally pulled back. 

“Guess I got my wish, and I didn’t even have to blow out any candles.” you replied, just a little bashful at the admission.

“You aren’t allowed to leave this hoodie in my van.” Eddie said. “You can leave any other jacket or sweater in there but not this one.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.” you said, “But why this one specifically?” 

Eddie touched the pocket that had the bats that matched his tattoo. “Because how else will other people know that you’re seeing someone?” 

“Oh, you little shit!” you laughed. “Really? You think I’m weird for what I did when you basically put your logo on a hoodie that you know I’m going to wear every day?”

“Guess that makes us both freaks now.” He replied, with a satisfied grin. 

“There are worse things to be in a small town.” you decided, taking his hand. “So I guess this means you’re my boyfriend now. No take backs.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Sweetheart.” Eddie crossed his heart.

You leaned in and gave him another quick kiss. “Come on. The sooner we go back in there, the sooner you all can sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, and the sooner that’s done, then the sooner we can leave. And if you play your cards right, Eddie, you might get lucky and see this hoodie on the floor of your van anyway.” 

“So, the line worked?” He smirked. 

“Come on, Zack is hiding a box of cupcakes.” you laced your fingers with his. “Dessert first and then second dessert.”

“And then elevensies dessert?” Eddie teased. 

“It’s my birthday and I will change my mind, I swear.” you cackled, walking back into the diner with him. 

And because he knew your laugh so well, he had a very good feeling about how he’d help celebrate your birthday when the two of you would finally be alone. 

Thank you @hellfiredarling for the hoodie! They made it for me for my birthday last year 💜

Divider by @strangergraphics

[puckingeccedentesiast]

Prompt Poll - One

Jack Hughes x sister!Y/N

Prompt: “You don’t have to tell me anything, we can just sit here”

Description: Jack’s sister has relationship troubles, Jack knows what she needs.

A/N: I hope you enjoy! Would be greatly appreciated if you could reblog. I love talking to people so say 'Hi' if you want to. Feel Free to send in requests as well. I'm happy to write for most hockey players.

Warnings: Crying, swearing, thats probably it! Mainly just good brother Jack fluff.

-Sincerely thedevilrisen.

-:-

Wet sniffles and the front door opening and closing with a quiet click an hour before it was suppose to is something that concerns three exceptionally protective brothers very much.

Quinn was the first to launch into action, tearing off the couch and toward the sound that scares them all half to death. Their sister, crying.

Before he could even leave the room in walked a sodden, puffy cheeked, red eyed girl. Her dark hair was plastered to her forehead and across the sides of her neck.

"What the hell happened?" asked Luke, half hysterical. Turning around on the couch, bug-eyed at sight of his normally well-put together sister a wet shivering, mess?

"Nothing Luke."

"Well that's bullshit." the troubled boy shot back.

"Lukey, just calm it for a second." Jack asked, significantly calmer than both of the other boys.

"No, Jack, Luke's completely correct in his statement!" Quinn, normally level headed, fired off. "She's crying and home way too early aren't you meant to be at Jessie's?"

"I'm not crying Quinn! I'm cold and Jessie is at her dad's!" the young girl warbled. "I'm going bed. Goodnight."

"Like hell you are!" the oldest shouted. "You're going to sit and tell us the truth."

She hated the way Quinn spat the word truth like he knew she'd been lying to them. She hadn't been lying per-se, not to all of them and not in great amounts, just leaving out certain details.

"Y/N, it's okay go upstairs and sleep if you would like to." Jack spoke sternly, more so at Quinn then at then now shivering girl standing meekly at the bottom of the staircase.

"Jack! Are you with us or against us?" Luke stated betrayed, the slight recognition in his features as he slowly realises his older brother's nonchalant-ness.

"I'm on neither side. If she doesn't feel comfortable talking then I don't think we need to pry." Jack continued, trying to diffuse the situation.

"What do you know." Luke's eyes narrowed along with his accusatory remark.

"Nothing more than you do." Jack stated calmly. He wasn’t fond of hiding information from his brothers especially when it involved their sister. He had his reasons though.

-

Jack’s Friday night plans did not consist of comforting his devastated sister.

A quiet shuffle of footsteps along the carpet in the hallway was barely noticeable amidst the cacophony of a summer storm. Light crept slowly into Jack’s room.

“Jacky?” an unreasonably timid voice asked into the darkness.

“mh- ompf.” he had grumbled, back digging into his phone which had been lost when he drifted off. “what’s up kid?”

"can i talk to you please?" she had mumbled through the small gap.

"yeah," he hoisted himself up from the bed. "come in kid, what's going on?"

"ihaveaboyfriend." she spoke at lightning speed. standing by the door apprehensively almost like she was ready to run if she needed.

slowly comprehending jack blinked drearily. "im sorry what?"

taking a deep breath she took a few steps and sat on the end of the bed. "i have a boyfriend," she spoke solemnly.

"shouldn't that be a happy thing?"

"he stood me up three nights in a row."

"ah, a not so happy thing." jack mumbled now realising the gravity of the situation.

"no.”

“what can i do to help?” Jack sighed. at this statement the smaller girl launched into his arms.

“don’t tell Quinn or Luke.” she cried into his chest.

“is there something else you need to tell me?”

“I do, but not now.” the girl crawled up closer to the head board with her brother and tucked herself under he arm.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, we can just sit here.”

“Thanks Jacky.”

-:-

This is probably the most half-assed thing ive ever wrote. im terribly sorry. 👍

if anyone cares i will be putting out the next prompt post later today and something about the au im creating!

find the prompt list for requests here.

[prettypinklass]

Persona 3 and Persona 4 are funny to sort timelines for because there is a one(1) year gap between the games. Now if you push p4 back by one year and put Minato in Inaba-

Im putting a cut here because spoilers for both games

Nyx gets chased off and not even a year later Izanami goes "its free real estate" lol

So Minato lives for unspecified reasons and (reluctantly) moves back to Inaba after the events of P3. He takes Koromaru with him (you can pry them as a duo from my cold dead hands) and attends Yasogami for his final year of high school. Which sucks because a. all his friends are at Gekkoukan and b. Yasogami is a terrible school and Inaba is a small town. He's losing his mind out here gang

Anyway then the midnight channel shows up and it hasn't even been a year since the dark hour vanished so you can imagine how upset he is about this. But he's way too nice so of course when he finds out a group of underclassmen have taken it upon themselves to fight shadows and solve the murder case he and Koromaru end up involved.

Dynamics with the investigation team include:

Yu Narukami - consistently on the same bullshit wavelength and nobody knows how (its the Wild Card Wavelength)

Yosuke Hanamura - punches him at least once for the internalized homophobia but they bond over music

Teddie - he reminds him of Aigis a bit. Trying to teach him to be Better then what he learns from Yosuke

Chie Satonaka - she reminds him of Yukari and its terrifying

Yukiko Amagi - you never fuck with the healers (also a bit scared of her)

Kanji Tatsumi - thinks hes cool. likes his dolls. would also like him to leave Koromaru alone

Rise Kujikawa - MUSIC BUDDIES!! Rise makes fun of him but she gets away with it (he is nothing if not respectful of the navigators who can make or break a fight)

Naoto Shirogane - siblings. arisato/shirogane family au my beloved

Entertaining scenarios include

"Why does your dog have a knife" "He likes them" "arf!"

"What do you mean I dont need to shoot myself in here"

Minato participating in the drag pageant

Elizabeth and Margaret sharing a velvet room for an extended period of time

Mitsuru in the background getting gray hairs because "minato what the fuck do you mean theres shadows in inaba"

Social link to explore Minato's character more

The exchange with Gekkoukan is 10x more entertaining if Minato is there to both comment on the love hotel he almost died in once and be friends with half the students at Gekkoukan

Anyway thats my au proposal

[nicromancytarot]

RECONCILIATION WITH MY TWIN FLAME 😔😔

Rip for the girlies who know what this bullshit is like, good god, someone save me.

Hello and welcome to Nicromancy’s talk on the magnetising grab, and trapped sensation of having a twin flame. So if you guys remember, back in April I had a situationship, well this was my ex situationship from literally three years ago. Personally, knowing who my future spouse is - that’s the one I want (big sigh) however, this stupid man has a hold on me that I will never be able to deny.

How I know he’s my twin flame (some small examples cus I’m not getting all into that lmao)

- First time we met I had that “lost in his eyes” moment, I WISH I WAS KIDDING. And I don’t even do eye contact, he’s like the only one I can do it with without wanting to die.

- I swore I was over him two years ago, but consistently dreamt about him for the next three years.

- Insatiable connection, I cannot describe how this shit feels, besides the fact I hate it.

Now I know it’s up to personal opinions and preference, but I do not want to end up with a twin flame, if you asked 2023 me, then maybe. But this version of me is improved and slaying. Well that’s what I thought.

The guy and I spoke for a month, he embarrassed himself countless times, tried to impress me with knowledge he stole from ChatGPT, was incredibly speedy to asking me to date him, all that jazz. I rejected each and every one of these advances, and unintentionally ghosted him at the end of the month. Which brings me to four days ago.

I’d ghosted him for three months, occasionally checking his reposts and dreaming about him consistently for two and a half of those months. I posted something on TikTok, and he immediately popped up. The next day he then said he wanted to reunite our spark (“build a bond” in his words)

So, tips on how to get over a twin flame and separate our connection would be great 🤭

I take 5-20 hours to get back to his messages on a good day, and I am incredibly blunt and boring. Rejection scares me since this man is depressed as hell and I don’t wanna cause any setbacks or anything.

Advice is appreciated 🫶🏻🫶🏻 kiss kiss, mwah mwah

[caprisunnydays]

Adventures of a not so average Voxtech employee : Chapter 1

You're an average corporate slave in hell to the most popular place of Voxtech. However, will you continue to be a basic worker when you slowly are entangled in your boss's personal situations?

Most of these chapters will be kinda stand alone, though connected through an over arching story, more on my ao3 when I can!

Word count : 1.7k

Life in hell wasn’t THAT bad. Well, it was still hell, but you’d come to appreciate the afterlife you’d made for yourself. Considering the unfortunate circumstance, you were able to find comfort in the twisted familiarity. It felt like being trapped in a tidepool, where the ebb and flow of the water brought fleeting moments of relief from the frigid depths. Yet, in this hellish existence, there was no escape from the relentless cycle. At times you weren’t drowning in the anguish of your existence, but just like the ocean's chill, you felt a constant, dull pain. But things had been worse before you got this “job”.

You had no purpose for quite some time. Running around in search of suitable shelter each night, scavenging for food, and busting your ass to avoid bigger, more powerful demons was no way to live. Even now, you were new to hell. It had only been about a year since you died and fell into this horrid place, and for a few months, you were scrambling for a scrap of stability. Then in a turn of luck, you landed a job as a janitor in a Vox tech store, then worked your way up the totem pole (which wasn’t too hard when the boss of that store fired and killed people left and right if they looked at her funny) to where you sat today. 

A cubicle in Voxtech’s news script writing department for!

MUCH better than when you had no job and no place to sleep! Now it was just a 5-minute walk to the Voxtech building from your apartment every morning, work until you’re done, and hopefully get back home before 3 am! You weren’t so lucky this time, but you had accidentally fallen asleep on your 30-minute lunch break and turned it into an hour and a half, so maybe the overtime was karma. 

You sat hunched in your chair, a fluffy blanket from home wrapped around your shoulders, and the taste of cold coffee was on your tongue as you typed corrections on the last of your assignments. When you discounted the burn of the blue light in your eyes, you entered a meditative state that combined focus and dissociation into the killer combo known as your “work mode”. It got you through the days, nights, and mornings you spent doing overtime with no extra pay. Your eyes wandered to the clock in the corner of your screen.

3:15 am

Eh, not as bad as it could be.

Even once you finish this, you’ll probably end up sleeping in your makeshift office bed, which consists of your blanket and a flat-ass pillow being shoved under your desk so you don’t have to deal with going home just to come back in 3 hours. You stretch, pushing your rollie chair away from the desk and groaning at your stiff joints. You stood up and looked over the rows of dividers to see empty cubicles. This was probably the first time in forever that you had been the only one in the office, even at this late hour. The glowing of your singular computer screen and the hum of the AC bordered something you’d see on a Lofi study video, bringing a sense of comfortable isolation to your dead heart. That was until you heard the clicking of shoes against the office floor and doors being slammed.

“Mother FUCKING useless pieces of shit! The one day they say they can come in for maintenance checks and their sorry asses flake AGAIN?! I swear to Satan I’m sending someone to burn down that company for making ME do this bullshit myself because like hell am I gonna deal with shit in my company not working and costing me money-”

 You froze at the aggressive rambling as it approached your station. You slowly sat back down and turned off your computer, sitting silently. Your fingertips brushed the handle of your bat, which you kept under your desk for cases like this. In case one of those nut jobs with much less sanity than you decided to throw themselves in the building and go on a rampage. You gingerly picked the weapon up as the angry ranting got closer. The footsteps crescendoed until a figure was nearing the opening of your cubicle, and you shot up, bat drawn back ready to swing.

The TV demon screamed, jumping back in a laughably cartoonish way, arms over his face and one leg off the ground. His screen buffered, his scream lagging while a code ‘HOLY SHIT’ flashed across his screen.

“AH SHIT! What the fuck are you doing here?” You stood there in the dark for a beat, before putting the bat under your desk and turning your computer back on.

“Work.” You yawn and sit back down. You accessed the man, your brain slowly catching up to reality despite its drowsy fog. 

TV demon…loud…angry…oh shit this is my boss.

In your entire time working for this man, you seldom saw him in the flesh…or, circuits rather. That made sense, he’s VOX. Owner of Voxtech, one of the most powerful overlords in hell, and from what you could tell, a workaholic. He built this empire that you only played a minuscule part in. It was something to marvel at, if you thought about it deeply enough, but you also knew he had a habit of slaughtering anybody disrupting the machine he kept so well-oiled. Maybe that’s why the manager of your department was such an asshole all the time, but you’re sure that she was born to play the role of a narcissistic, cold-hearted bitch. All that aside, you didn’t want to set off the big man who controlled your life standing right next to you, so you just sat in your chair, awkwardly waiting to be spoken to again.

“And your “work” has you sitting in the dark with a bat like a lunatic?” He groaned and rubbed his face. “I mean seriously, I’m surprised you’re still here when I specifically told everyone to get their asses out of this office before 3am.” You squinted in confusion. You were never usually told to leave by a certain time. Everyone above you 

ALWAYS wanted you and the other corporate slaves working around the clock to keep making money. You quickly opened your email.

Nothing about that in there.

Maybe they had an announcement that you just didn’t hear? But you’d been working your ass off the whole day and didn’t-

They had a meeting while I was asleep on my lunch break and NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT IT?! These people really are fake as hell.

You knew not getting screamed at and almost killed by your boss for your unprompted nap was strange. She must have just let it slip so you’d have to deal with someone much worse. Vox was looking down at you with a furrowed brow and tapping foot. You considered your options, and the most rational thing you could think of was just to try and slowly extract yourself from the office. You grabbed your phone and turned off your computer, keeping your gaze down as you attempted to creep away.

“I am looking right at you, stop trying to sneak away as if I can’t see you.”

Well, there goes that plan.

Halting your movements, you began mentally preparing to be maimed. After all, it wouldn't be the first time that happened to you in this office. Your manager handed out physical punishments like candy, and while she had never killed you and forced you to respawn, you had been given horrific injuries countless times. You turned back to Vox, studying his form in the low lighting. He didn’t look THAT mad, more like he was contemplating something. His scrunched expression morphed into a charming smile, the one he’s known for. Was he about to use his eye on you?

“I could use your help with this inspection I’ve gotta do. You know this place best after all.” It was not a question, and since you were just preparing for a second death, you’d take this option with no complaints. You gave him a nod and he clasped his hands together, before grabbing one of your shoulders. “Greaaaat,” His smile dropped, “Let's get this shit done with.”

You proceeded to show him around the office, stopping at places that could be hazardous and require maintenance. The lights, electricity, and everything else that made this unit function was in order. You were only checking the places that made this place run smoothly, but that was to be expected. You ended off your maintenance tour by turning on every single computer to make sure they were functioning. You had only gotten through three when suddenly the office exploded with white light. Vox shot you a cocky smirk.

“It’s much faster that way,” He held out his hand, blue claws sparking as tiny bolts of electricity danced between his fingers, “but your manual technique was cute enough.” He stomped and let electricity surge through the floor again to shut off all the computers. Then he scoffed and pulled out his phone, texting someone aggressively. “Thank god that’s over with. I’m out, you should be too.” He pocketed his phone and began striding out the door. “Oh, and thanks for the help or whatever.” 

Just like that, he was gone. A breath of anxiety pushed out of your lungs, one you weren’t even aware of until the pressure of Vox’s presence was lifted. You had expected much worse. After all, the consensus among you and your peers was that he was a massive prick. But at least he didn’t grab you by the horns and throw you around till they cracked like your manager.

“…mission successful.” As you mutter under your breath some passive-aggressive comments you'd like to say to your colleagues, you gathered your belongings to head back to your apartment. Nearly stumbling over your improvised bed, you briefly consider just crashing there for the night. Mentally though, you’re so far gone that you might end up doing yourself even more of a disservice by staying. “Fuck it, I’m going home.” You chug the rest of your watered-down coffee and throw the mug in the office kitchen sink. 

As you stepped out into the vibrant streets of the entertainment district, you savored the moment when you closed the back door to the Vees' headquarters. There’s nothing like the sound of the lock clicking when you turn your work key in the knob and head off for the night.

I'm gonna make multiple chapters and post em on Ao3 whenever I get around to working on it. Will post the link here!

[dami-is-delusional]

Fighting or Flirting?: A Series of Confusing Events (seriously. someone stop them.) - Steve Rogers x ExHydra!Male!Reader

Summary: You used to be an experiment, curated by Hydra to be a living weapon. Somewhere along the line, SHIELD saved you and decided to place you with the Avengers. As the superficial leader, Steve Rogers tried his best to welcome you. Somehow it all went downhill from there... until it didn't!

(enemies to lovers, might not be the most accurate Steve, my second fic ever so i apologize in advance.)

PART ONE: Introduction

You remembered the exact day that SHIELD freed you from your "room" (even prisoners had better facilities). It was an odd sort of feeling. You had been at HYDRA for so long that most of the staff were almost kind to you. You made small talk to them while they ran their tests. You almost couldn't remember what life was like on the outside. So when a bunch of SHIELD agents broke down the door to your room and found you reading a comic book, you just shrugged. You went with them and did as they said. It was weird, hearing them talk so softly and act so gently. You wondered if this is what normal people were like. They took you to SHIELD's main facility and assessed you. They figured out your powers and realized that you were a bit different from the other HYDRA experiments. You had managed to not go insane (which was debatable if they had asked you) by retaining your absolute "no shits to give" attitude. It baffled them but they couldn't really complain. It meant they had one less Bucky Barnes to deal with...

After about half a year of living and working with SHIELD, Nick Fury called you down to his office. You made your way there, ignoring the looks that always seemed to linger on your skin. You knew that people still thought of you as an experiment. You didn't care much, you hated socialization anyways. You also knew that they were wary of your powers, which was understandable. Your powers consisted of the ability to steal the energy of those around you. The energy you stole could then be transformed into your own energy that you could use to fight. You never knew how to explain it since you never bothered to listen to all the scientists yapping for hours about your abilities. But self exposition aside, you finally found yourself in Fury's office. Never being one to follow social cues, you waltzed in there carelessly.

Fury, irritated with your manners but too tired to say anything, looked up from his screens.

"Hello Y/N, thank you for coming." Fury began as he watched you mindlessly look around his office. "I know you have the attention span of a two year old on a sugar high, so I'll keep this short. You will become an addition to the Avengers."

At that, you paused in your internal critique of his interior design choices. You processed what he said and your face contorted into what could be described as disgust.

"Me? You want me to join the Avengers? As in, a team??" you looked at Fury as if he had gotten brain damage from the fumes of bullshit he dealt with everyday. Fury just rolled his eyes and quickly counted to ten in his head.

"Yes to all of that. We think you would be a great addition. We did it for Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton. SHIELD agents seem to do really well with the Avengers. And plus, didn't you say you wanted to try and do some good for the world?" Fury asked, looking at the ex-HYDRA soldier pointedly. you simply shrugged.

"I just said that because my favourite comics showed cool heroes. Also, I was hoping for more of a 'vigilante' kind of gig. I don't really do... teams," you explained, talking about teams in the same way one would talk about a piece of gum on their shoe.

"Well isn't that too bad." Fury looked at you with a deadpan expression. "The decision has already been made. Pack whatever you need, someone will drop you off at the Avengers tower tomorrow morning."

You tried to protest but immediately shut up when you saw his face. You walked out of Fury's office backwards with an awkward, tight-lipped smile. Not like you were scared of him or anything. And it definitely wasn't because you saw him reach for his gun. Nope, Y/N was not scared of anything.

[phoenixyfriend]

The Myth of the Rational Actor

Ko-fi prompt from @vincentursus:

the myth of the rational actor please?

The myth as such: people will act in a perfectly rational manner, and the economy will respond in reaction to that.

So... the idea here is that emotions will never influence someone's actions in making economic choices.

Which is, as we can guess, bullshit.

To quote Medium,

Mainstream (neo-classical) economics idealizes human beings as perfectly rational actors when it comes to making decisions. This concept, known as rational choice theory, is based on three assumptions: 1. People have complete and consistent preferences (which can be assigned quantitative values called utilities) among a set of decision outcomes 2. People act independently based on full and relevant information 3. People always select the decision option that maximizes their utility.

So. That's absurd. Let's start from the bottom, utility.

One of the first things you learn in any marketing class is that half the industry is run on an appeal to emotion.

(The other half of it actually is an appeal to logic, like 'you can use this tool to compare your insurance costs,' which is the aforementioned rational action.)

The most obvious example of that utility element being wrong is: Food.

For a completely rational actor, the food purchased would be the most nutrition for the least cost. Taste is irrelevant. Ambience is irrelevant. Occasion is irrelevant. You fill out the food pyramid for whatever you can pay the least amount of cash. Buy a fifty pound bag of rice, wholesale canned tuna, and frozen veggie mixes that you only need five minutes to heat up and consume.

Chocolate? No. Salt or sugar? Only enough to fulfill your need for water absorption. Spices? Waste of money!

This sounds extreme, because a complete lack of emotional impact on your purchasing habits is extreme. You seek things that make you happy or pleased. You search for sweet tastes that cheer you up, for fatty tastes that satisfy you, for spicy flavors that you can eat in a competition with your friends to prove who's the manliest.

That's not rational! But we do it! Food is an inherently irrational thing to purchase, unless you are so strapped for cash that you cannot afford to be anything other than fully dedicated to the highest calorie:dollar ratio that you can find.

The other thing that the utility factor disregards is charity. On the standard 'rational' definition used in economics, charity is completely irrational for anyone who doesn't get a tax cut from it.

But people engage in charitable actions and donations anyway.

Full and relevant information: Uhhhhh no

I think we can all agree that full and relevant information is not actually a reality for most people.

Manufacturers bend the truth. Marketers omit things. Word of mouth is unreliable. Influencers lie. Online reviews are fake.

Some don't! But you don't know who is or isn't lying unless there is a law that controls what information they can put out. Researching takes time, and figuring out which lies are actually lies is difficult.

There are a lot of videos all over YouTube talking about scams, both the obvious, and the more subtle. There's a reason that misinformation is such a huge industry these days, and hey! A lot of misinformation relies on those aforementioned appeals to emotion that are both a marketing device and a rhetorical one.

Complete and consistent preferences: Sometimes?

I mean, some people have complete and consistent preferences. I have a favorite Starbucks drink that I get most times (technically I have four and it depends on the weather). I have stylistic preferences for my clothing. I have musical preferences.

But it still takes me time to make decisions when at a restaurant, you know? My little sister likes a lot of foods, sure, but if you ask her to pick a place to eat it can take literal hours. Hell, there are entire phenomenons named after the fact that people don't have preferences and have trouble making decisions!

And on top of all that, you have people whose 'preference' is spontaneity. They pick whatever they haven't tried before, because it's new, and exciting, and that's cool!

Which really harshes the mellow on that whole "clear and consistent preferences" thing.

Where does that leave us?

Well, the rational actor is clearly a majorly inaccurate standard to hold individual consumers and the market to. That said, I don't think more than a handful of very extreme people would ever claim that the rational actor is an absolutely perfect predictor for the market.

Rather, it's used as a starting point. If the market reacts to forces in a completely rational manner, here is what we would be expecting. Then, upon projecting the actions of the market under the most rational and perfect conditions, we can apply other possible factors. The possible success of a marketing campaign. The risks of weather or politics impacting supply lines. An unexpected trend rising up from a comedic social media moment among teens and young people.

Imagine you have a catapult. Imagine you know what the catapult will do under perfect conditions, with consistent rope length and artillery weight and weather conditions. The numbers you run your basic physics class formulas with are the rational actor.

The market trends that cause that rational prediction to have error margins is the equivalent of "the wind's been varying between 3mph and 9mph, and from NW to SWW."

I'm not sure how safely I can get away with embedding images that I don't personally have the rights to when they're actually relevant to the education portion of this, and not just a silly joke like the TGP inclusion up there, so I'll just tell you to go look at the first graph at this link, and you'll see what I mean about the 'best, most predictable case' line vs the 'actual possibilities' forecast.

Hope that helps!

(If you wanted me to go more into the history of this concept than its actual uses, uh... whoops?)

[mariamariquinha]

Some thoughts on Frank Castle (since he came to my orbit quite recently)

"Cut it out."

"I said I don't need help."

"You say a lot of bullshit. Now shut the fuck up and lemme work here."

Being totally honest, you and Frank were just an acquaintance. Same line of work, the undertone of living for the kill, you know.

You're pissed. Your own last recent job was harsh, leaving you with nothing but bruises all over your body and face.

He kept swiping his eyes over your form, making mental notes, probably understanding that you were also pissed to have to deal with him at that moment.

"There you go," You said, the wound on the side of his head now clean and covered. "Is there anything else you need?"

"I didn't need anything else in the first place," He grunted, which made you roll your eyes.

You two looked at each other for a beat.

"... Looks like you had a lot of fun, so Curtis will call soon. If you want me to say you didn't stop by, work something out so I can use it as an excuse."

"You can think of something."

"Wasn't you saying you didn't need anything in the first place?" You provoked with a raised eyebrow. "It needs to be consistent or so he'll worry. Be creative."

He didn't say a word, so you let it go. Getting out of the bathroom, you'd heard the door close while walking away.

Frank took a 15 minute shower, but he stayed in the bathroom for half an hour.

You watched from the kitchen the way he looked around when he entered in your eyesight, glanced at you, then sat on one of the chairs.

"You hungry?" You asked lazily, sipping on a lukewarm beer (the same one you'd been nursing before he stumbled inside your apartment).

He grunted. Again, you rolled your eyes.

That was a silent dinner, then a silent night.

"What happened with you?"

The two of you were sitting on the couch, even if in different corners, and the question he threw your way made you squirm a little.

"Work. You?"

He averted your gaze, turning his eyes back to the TV even if it was off.

It was never the end of the discussion with Frank, though. He always kept stuff in mind to basically interrogate you later, and then you would argue that you shouldn't open your mouth if he never shared his bullshit with you.

And that was what he did.

You were in the bathroom before bed, trying to change the bandage on your ribs, when you saw him in the reflection of the mirror.

With nothing but a bra and shorts, you didn't mind having him seeing you like that. You minded when he saw you like that.

"I'll do it."

You didn't protest. Frank walked closer and started to examine the wound, probably analyzing the other bruises on your back, arms and legs.

"I'll stay here for a few days if you don't mind," His voice was a murmur, his gaze tucked in your wounds instead of your face. After a beat of silence, you nodded.

"Laying low?"

"What I'm going to do can wait."

"... And what is it you're gonna do?"

No answer. You sighed in frustration.

"I know you're not the one to take advice, but you need to be more cautious. You may not be irreplaceable, but Curtis can find someone else who does what you do."

He wasn't looking at you when he said so, giving you nothing but his profile while he started to work on the new bandage carefully.

"Like you."

Not a question, but a statement. That made him share a glance with you over the mirror.

"... I'm not you."

"I know," You said.

"And he knows it too. Be careful anyway."

When he finished his work, you two called it a night, laying together on the matress but not quite touching each other. No one really were in condition to use the couch.

"Jersey."

You turned your head at him, his eyes on the ceiling for a bit. Sensing your confused expression, Frank mirrored your gestured and eyed you back.

"Tell Curtis I'm in Jersey. Contacted from a public phone."

"I don't know if there's public phones in Jersey."

"There isn't. He knows it."

You frowned even more.

"He'll get it. Give us a break."

"Us?" You raised an eyebrow.

"Mm-hm. I still need to know who did that shit with you," He adjusted himself to be closer.

Since he left the last time, it was quite a pleasure to have him in your arms again that night, bruises and all.

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

special shout out to @thoroughlymodernminutia because we're holding hands in the meanings of having it bad for jon bernthal.

[tragicallycrispygirl]

It's been a few days of Slayer.

Fuck this guy.

Genuinely.

I think it took everyone (myself included) a few days to realize the bullshit you can get away with with him but like.

Fuuuuuuuuck

Here's a character with very very little movement! But we gave him a 14f forward lunging punch that covers most of the screen and will usually trade positively. Also he can break the wall on counter-hit with said punch at a little closer than MIDSCREEN.

Oops! Did you end up in the corner because you were forced to respect the moves that WILL lead to a 200 HP punish if you get smacked with one, or you got smacked and he got full screen carry? Fuck you! You will have to fight with everything you have just to GET OUT, and if you fuck up ONCE you are going through the wall and losing 200hp. Don't try to jump either, It's Late has a hitbox that reaches into the stratosphere and leaves him about +100 on air block.

What's that? He has 50 meter? you lose. you just fucking lose. the Mappas that are supposed to end pressure? RC them. Did he hit you with a Mappa? RC that shit for a guaranteed wallbreak, and potentially a Pilebunker loop. Did you get him blocking? YELLOW ROMAN CANCEL ITS HIS TURN NOW AND HES +10. (I have general problems with YRC, but Slayer really highlights them for me) I'd be fine with the meter thing if he didn't build meter so fast, but FUCK ME it's like he has a generator hidden in his coat or something that increases the bar when you aren't looking.

Full screen whiff punish that leaves you point blank at advantage. Fuck. You. Also it has a sweet spot, which is hard to consistently route into and feels a LOT like just a random "oh shit I won the round on that wakeup super lol"

Last Horizon is kinda cool, but it exaggerates the problem of "oops I got touched oh shit I'm dead" because you can get it off of ANY FUCKING NON-P NORMAL.

Its so weird that he's like this, though. I put in like 100 hours on XRD Slayer, and Strive feels extremely similar. What HAPPENED? XRD Slayer didn't do this! He didn't shut everything down! He ran some nasty fucking mix, sure, but he had very defined weaknesses. And sure, XRD Slayer gets preposterous damage with meter on stray hits, I'm not going to argue that, but it really didn't seem to happen as much as it used to.

I think the biggest problem, really, is Pilebunker. Pilebunker was never really a combo tool in XRD, unless you had meter or got very specific hits. But now? You can confirm that shit off of anything! Like, literally almost any hit!

Masters. Fucking. Hammer. +26 on block. Safe on whiff. Hitbox like a Behemoth typhoon. Ambiguous cross-up. I don't even care that it has a long startup, GOOD LUCK ACTUALLY SMACKING SLAYER OUT OF THE AIR! HES IN THE FUCKING STRATOSPHERE!

To be a little calmer, I feel Slayer's biggest problem is that he forces the opponent to take huge risks for little reward, while himself not being at a lot of risk for high reward. If he were to stay in his current state, with all the damage and everything the same, I think that every tool in his arsenal should be unsafe on block. That's probably very harsh, but something needs to be done. At the VERY LEAST make all of his moves borderline unsafe, like -4 -5 or something idfk man he's ridiculous

It sucks. I was so so excited for him, so excited to get to do cool stuff with him, and the stuff he does is cool! But he's just, so, so strong. So fucking strong. I said a few days ago that he was "lower-mid top tier," but I was just clearly not thinking straight. Slayer is potentially the strongest character in the game. Sure, whatever, he has lackluster defense, but good luck actually getting him in the corner, WHERE HE CAN STILL GET A STRAY HIT FOR AT LEAST 150DMG AND ADVANTAGE.

I don't even know how you'd fix him, honestly. Half his damage numbers or some shit idfk man

[theoneofwhomisblue]

Maybe following 3,000 people isn't great

Because I fucking hate scrolling through this fucking site now

I'm not even joking, I fucking hate this shit

This site sucks ass

Also if this post has less than 10 notes in 3 hours I'm deleting it

I know this is completely my fault. I also don't give a fuck

I'm too tired to curate my page to be decent for me

I'm so fucking tired

This site sucks ass

Reddit sucks ass

Tumblr sucks ass

The Internet fucking sucks

Google is constantly bitching at me to pay for more space in my account cause I habitually download every Tumblr and reddit image resulting in 13 gigabytes of bullshit

I fucking hate this

Anyway

I'll find better stuff to post tomorrow

Or not

I don't know

I'm so fucking tired

Kill myself

What the fuck do I do with my time now? Is there another site or app worth my time?

Tumblr's ass, I'll still use it but it's dogshit

I'm too tired to even do reddit anymore

Twitter is fucking disgusting and gets worse by the day because of dipshit mcmusk

And that's all that comes to mind

YouTube is constant background noise, but the algorithm there is fucked up too

I hate every video thats recommended to me

I'm not doing fucking tiktok

I don't care about my standards anywhere else, but no fucking tiktok

What else is there now?

Oh yeah, I can't comment on webtoon because I accidentally said fuck in a comment, so all the fun community stuff there is gone now too

All the webtoons suck ass anyway

The only fucking app that hasn't disappointed me is cookie clicker

Been playing it for like 400 days

I make continual progress

I just check in every two days to pop the wrinklers

Then after a month or two on a run I check in after a week

Until my legacy points start to plateau, then I reset

And get all the upgrades I can afford

Buy 5 grandmas, then 90 more, then as many more as I can afford that'd a multiple of 100

I do the same on everything else

Except the fractile engines, which I buy as many as possible, no matter the multiple

And buy all the items

Then at that point I start the research facilities, then start one, and check back in 30 minutes until I've researched them all

Then I top off the fractile engines and leave for a day

Then check every day, popping the wrinklers until a week in, then every 2 days. Then after a few months once every week

Then I do it all again

And spend all the legacy points on the upgrades I can afford

It's rewarding you know

Consistent anyway

Unlike reddit and Tumblr and Twitter and YouTube and everything else, it doesn't fuck me over on the algorithm whatever the fuck

Reddits decent for the porn, that's all

You know, I used to use a lot of sites for porn

Dozens and dozens of sites bookmarked

Then at some point I started to only use r34 reddit nhentai, and occasionally the good ol hub

I didn't use to have accounts, I'd depend on my memory for different images and accounts and artists and comics and shit

Then I made accounts on r34 phub reddit e6 gelb nhentai and half a dozen others

And started saving things

It used to be a fun game to try to remember

Now it's gone

But I'm too tired to continue that anyway

Anyway, same shit everything else as with the porn at this point

No variety

Nothing fun

It's all annoying bullshit

With the Advent of machine learning chat bot whatever the fucks, there's a little bit new

But aside from that, it's just the same thing every day

I'm so fucking tired of living like this duxe

The fucking internet used to mean something

Now it's just the boring status quo bullshit

And I know that it's because of me

But still

It fucking sucks

I don't want to do this shit

And I spend like 10 hours a day on the Internet too

More than ever

But I'm not happy

Barely entertained

But it kills time

If I need information, porn, music, videos, whatever elze

Entertainment

I get it

But I'm not happy about it

It's shitty

I feel like shit

Like, my life outside the internet is decent. But the Internet consumes so much of it, and I don't even like it anymore

I don't know if there's a fix

Or if I should just stop being so online and shit

I'm too tired to do anything anyway

I don't know

I take pride in what I achieve for some reason

But as soon as I get the imaginary goal point, I don't give a shit

Over a year I got a shit ton of reddit karma on a new accoutn

A specific number, that I won't say to keep myself from seeming like I'm trying to brag

But once I got it, I no longer cared to comment or post

Over 2 or 3 months, I don't remember, whenever 196 shut down, I got a relative shit ton of followers

Again, a specific number, but I won't say

I'll keep that number secret, cause I can

But once I got this imaginary amount that I thought I'd never reach, I didn't care anymore

I still posted as much as I did before

But I got no joy out of it

I just post, wait a few hours, then check to see how many notes

If it's an amount equal to what I think is average for the amount of followers I have, I feel kinda good, then post again

But that's it

I don't scroll anymore, except occasionally on my followers profiles when I accidentally click on them while looking through my new notes

And I enjoy that

But other than those fleeting moments, and the small satisfaction I get from high note counts I don't care

I don't care for Tumblr or anything else on this shit

I don't know man, is this how other people do stuff on the Internet?

I don't think so, people always have strong emotions on the Internet

I emulate my internet behavior to match, which makes me think that maybe more people do the same as me

But I have no evidence

I don't know, I'm too fucking tired of this shit

I just got an apathy about the Internet at this point

Apps, sites, everything

I just don't care

But I'm always on it

It makes no sense

I should probably proofread this post as I go

This is just a stream of consciousness at this point

I won't check it as I go

Maybe I'll make this a thing

Just typing my unfiltered thoughts for like 30 minutes then posting

Depends on the notes I get

If the notes are bad I'll just delete it and forget about it

Who knows

I guess I keep trying to do that

I'll do something new on Tumblr like this

And think "oh, maybe this'll be a new thing I do" then it dies

At first it was my consistent posting of reddit shit for like a year ago

Then I stopped posting that consistently

Then it was random screenshots of mine

I even made a tag for that one

Then it died

I keep thinking of myself as someone important because of my follower count

Which doesn't make sense as it's not even a lot

But still

I don't know

My delusions of microcelebrity status are the only thing keeping me on this site/app at this point

If I didn't have that, and the fuel for the delusion that is notes I'd be gone

I did already fuck my recommended tab

And following tab

And tag tab

It's already all bullshit

I guess I can keep my narcissism about my status in this site because of the top post by notes tab on a blog

I just click into someones

And 9 times out of ten, they don't have top note counts even comparable to time

Which fuels the delusion

It's the same thing I'd do on reddit

"oh this person only has [x] karma, when they've been on reddit for 3 years. And I have triple that, and I've had this account for 6 months. I'm better"

Shit like this is what makes the internet garbage

I don't let it bleed into the theme of my posts and comments tho

I let it make me feel superior than everyone else

But if I made that obvious in any post it'd be for naught

For that reason I'm considering not posting this anymore

Whatever, this post is already super long rambling bullshit

If it gets good notes a single anecdote in it won't matter

And if it doesn't get good notes I'll delete it

Then there's no harm

I just thought of that reasoning now to keep doing this post

Cause I got sunk cost fallacy on this at this point

It was a vent thing at the start

Now it's just me trying to think mildly interesting shit to add

I guess I can use that other reasoning to post anything

If it goes bad, delete it, and no one would have saw it, and no one will, so I matters naught

And if it goes good, who gives a shit

Nothing I post would be bad, maybe cringe, maybe rambling bullshit, as this js

But not bad, so it'd be fine

I lost my train of thought

I think I was gonna say something else about what I'm posting, and how it would be fine

That's gone now

Poof, into the abyss that is lost thoughts

This does kill time tho

It's been like 40 minutes since I started this

This is basically what I do in my mind if I just let my mind run, uninterrupted

But here it's written down, with line breaks, and exact words rather than a mix of words and images and concepts

So it's more digestible

I suppose it's not completely true to say this is my pure train of thought, not just because of the exclusion of images and concepts

But also because I'm listening to music

Just enough to mild my mind so to speak

My mind is always going man, and if I don't have something to dampen it

Like music, or weird fidgety things I do with my hands (I don't know the word), or exact things to focus on, I think way too much

And spiral and shit in stress

But then my thoughts are too frantic and fast to write down before they disappear, so in a way this is as pure a log of thoughts as anything could be

You can tell the theme of how I sound now, vs at the beginning

If you don't want to scroll up you can just look at the tags

I typed them near the beginning

And haven't added to them

Nor deleted them

So you can just look slightly down to see the notes

It's not even the right topic anymore. It's still on reddit

And Tumblr and internet shit

Oh yeah, speaking of

I've just said my Tumblr scrolling is bad without specifying

But to specify now, it's like scrolling through Twitter

Weird serious discourses

Arguments

Peculiar topics

Shit like that

You know, not the Tumblr I had before

And if I don't like scrolling through Twitter, why would I be here? And that's the bind I'm in now

I only stick around anymore because of the notes, as I said

I'm back to using punctuation occasionally

Not too much, but at least some commas

No periods though, they seem too intense for a stream of consciousness thinf

Question marks too, but that's about all

Oh yeah, stuff I was talking about before

Webtoon

I shit talked webtoon

It's not too bad

I just fucking hate slice of life shit, dumb "funny" shit, and worst of all romance

I fucking hate romance webtoons

I can't stomach them

And webtoon is constantly shoving exactly those down your throat

And when my tolerance is low to begin with, and I enter webtoon, and it throws a fucking popup in my face for a dogshit new romance thing, I damn near snap my phone in half

But it's not too bad

I just read the fantasy/action/thriller/horror/drama (ones without romance shit) ones

But I can't navigate the canvas section decent at all

By design obviously, canvas doesn't make webtoon money, the originals do

But I'm too tired to work against them

So I only read originals

But at least they post regularly

I read around 70 webtoons now

Which is to say, I read the new episodes of them when they come out

With such a large selection, I have like 4 webtoons minimum updating every day at 7:00 pm

8:00 when there's time change

But 7:00 most of the timr

It notifies you at 7:30 but they update at 7:00

Except for the goblin one, which updates at like 7:20 for some reason

And the daily pass ones, those update at 8:00 for some reason

But they notify you directly at 8:00 for those if I remember correctly

Even still

I remember roughly which days are best

Tuesdays have the most, like 15 updated at once

And ones I really like too

Fridays have a handful, and the one daily pass that I read as they come out week by week

Saturdays have like 4 I really care about, then like 5 I think are mediocre, but they kill time so Saturdays are good

Mondays are ok, but that's about it

Wednesdays are kinda ass, but they're decent

Thursdays used to be amazing, but after like 3 I really care about went on hiatus, Thursdays don't matter anymore

But having like 60 (because 5-10 are on hiatus at a time) new episodes a week, divied up across the week pretty well

Is nice

Now, I did accidentally say fuck in a comment, because there was a guy shipping children and saying sexual stuff about it, then there was a reply on it from another guy defending it. So I got mad, and typed a paragraph saying why that was fucked up

But I said fuck

So I can't comment anymore

I don't know, webtoons ok tho

I was just pissed off earlier

What else was there

Oh yeah reddit

I've actually been temp banned from Reddit (like my entire account) twice for using up too much server space on bullshit

There's this thing where you type u/profanitycounter [self] and it tells you how many times youve said certain swears in like the past 500 comments

So, for a joke, twice I've copy pasted "cum cum cum cum cum cum cum cum...", The max amount of times you can in one comment (a few thousand, I can't remember), then do that in a comment chain with myself for like 150 comments in a row

And it takes me several hours, but it's funnt

But it resulted in a temp ban for 2 days

Then like 4 months later, a temp ban for a week

Cause I used too much space, or bandwidth or whatever the fuck doing that

Also I got banned from r/Barry for saying the last season was ass

And I got banned from r/notinteresting for a reason I don't fucking know

But aside from that, my accounts clean

With a shit ton of karma too

Oh yeah, I use the same username (or a derivative of it) for every porn site account I make.

If you can find it out somehow I'll give you the passwords to the accounts

I doubt anyone could, it's a different username than I use for anything else

But there's hints

If anyone cares I'll even give you a few more hints directly in a DM if you ask

Though I will be vague as fuck

Been doing this for over an hour now

I wasn't paying enough attention to when I started

I'm pretty sure I heard someone say that Tumblr has no character cap

Let's hope so

I'm too tired to continue this shit

I guess this ends it

Let me know if y'all want more bullshit like this

I, personally, always like an unfiltered look at someone mind

But that's me personally

Maybe my mind is bland and uninteresting

Who knows

I'll stick with what I said at the beginning tho

Less than 10 notes in 3 hours and this post going bye bye

I got a headache from this shit

I thought way more than I usually do

Now that I'm more chill, I don't hate tumblr

I fucked it up for me

But y'all are good

Tumblr's good

[gibblegabber]

2o24 recap! ...sorta

all previous years got deleted for location concerns and i won't say much from this year. half of the year was Not Good. but the other half was Pretty Good?

stayed very close to my favorite cartoon for the first half of the year. i was very, VERY sick for a good chunk of it, and genuinely having online friends around often and having cartoons to focus on is what got me through it. and my husband, who put up with A LOT of bullshit dealing with a sick wife for months. also Kick Buttowski's attitude is infectious, you feel like you can do anything when you're in that mindset, and it helped lots! joined a KB:SD server and made some new friends. i met Kick's VA at a local convention too!!

an arcade opened up near us and i spend, uhhh,,, a lot of time there. usually once a week, sometimes more if people are around, but i have a consistent DDR schedule now both on cab and on home setup, and it slaps. it SLAPS. i fucking love DDR and when i get too old and my legs stop working i might as well just drop dead tbqfh.

met Khaliar and Ginger this year! i gave them drawings and letters written in Irken and we fooled around in a bookshop for a few hours, i was too sick to stick around in the city very long so my other plans fell thru but i'm happy the stars aligned to let me meet them at least!!

in the spring i got SO sick that i stopped eating, sleeping and driving far. almost lost my job from being unable to work. it was a virus at first and then anxiety took the reigns and things just got? really bad? i still can't travel because of it. BUT i love food again and can sleep easily and all things considered, we have to look at the bright side and take victories where we can. they're small for me compared to my peers. but i'll keep building on it in 2025.

over the summer we had ARTFIGHT!! and a sudden (?) WOY obsession!! joined another server and watched all of season 2 with Vermi and Hux and a bunch others, it was SO fun! affected who i attacked in AF for sure lmao, sorry to most of my Irken and Vortian bookmarkssss aaaaa (but still got a Vort Mass attack in >:3!)

the fall was probably when i got back to feeling mostly normal again. we had just closed on a new condo, so there were pressing matters to deal with and it helped shake me out of my own head and focus on those things. lots of construction and 700 things going wrong later, and we moved in! it's awesome, we lived in what was basically a single room before, and this is sooooo much more comfortable and it's been so fun to decorate and make our own.

the fall has also been a mini Weeb Phase(TM), i fucking guess. got really into Dandadan thanks to my wonderful friends, but i was PAINFULLY into it to the point that waiting for updates was just sooo hard. so i asked for recommendations for anime/manga to fill the void and instead of TAKING those SUGGESTIONS and WATCHING/READING THEM i instead went back to my favorite anime of all time. which is. regrettably. Osomatsu-san. truly the garbage dump of anime. but i missed the boys so. here we are. i um, bought a hoodie (got 3 of them now), and figures, and DVDs, and i can't fuckignnnnn stop, and uhhh aaaaaaaa anyway. also played lots of webfishing and minecraft with friends, it's been A Lot of fun and feels a lot less, idk. alone? than the beginning of the year felt.

goals from 2023 for 2024 included find a new place to live (done!) and travel around the northeast more (not done!)

definitely need to push the envelope for 2025, or i'll be stuck physically in the same place forever. i was happy in my job last year but not now, so i've been casually applying. bigger place means higher bills so, aughghghh. i still want to learn Japanese, which is extremely difficult with zero self-discipline and eternal distractions. i started in 2022 and then got distracted by like, World's Longest Invader ZIM Obsession and dropped it. so i'll try but it just is what it is unless i can get into local courses with grades on the line.

uhhhmmmm appreciate my friends more. i love them soooo much. have fun. be less afraid of sharing my writing. stop being worried about getting cancelled over fictional characters, they are god damn fictional. HAVE. FUN.

[catchyhuh]

WHO WOULD BE BEST TO GO ON A 6 HOUR CAR TRIP WITH!!

THE ANSWER? IT’S COMPLICATED! car trips are such a delicate science that when i did this ranking in my head it fell apart almost immediately so instead i will present the information and YOU, yes YOU get to decide who you’d be able to put up with and who you’d murder before you even reached the highway

suggested reading for you: unbearable habits. keep this in mind as you go and venture safely 

lupin:

well. it wouldn’t be boring at least. he can make conversation out of almost anything. you pass a weird tree and ten minutes later he’s going on about how one time he had to learn about some tree info to get this rare sap thing (fujiko said she heard it tasted yummy-- it didn’t btw it sucked but he just had to see y’know) and he found out that there’s like thirty types of maple trees, one of which is actually invasive in north america, which is weird because it feels like north america is the area that’s the BIGGEST on tree tapping so why would it be a problem if they had so many norway maples-- hey are you listening to m

actually not that bothered if he’s not the one driving. might poke at you about things like “obeying the speed limit” and such but he’s perfectly content to kick back. uh oh, did that lull you into a false sense of security? don’t sigh in relief yet, you have mr. passenger princess as your copilot. fucks with the radio, the ac, constantly adjusting his seat, messing with windows, all to HIS comfort level. after all, you’re only the person driving.

insists on stopping at a convenience store. if you try some fast food drivethru bullshit he’s gonna be like “what schedule are we on! why are you in such a rush? fucking-- live a little, man. there’s a sheetz here”

jumping off that last bit the payment method AT the store will change entirely depending on what type of comment you make to him beforehand. if you say “in what world is it worth it to steal a 5 dollar slushie” he’s stealing. if you say “in what world is a slushy worth 5 fucking dollars” he will be paying in full with his own money. guarantee

jigen:

reclines his seat WAY far back. like crushing the person behind him’s legs, far back. like, would probably be a safety hazard even if he was in the car by HIMSELF far back. the reason airplanes have a locking mechanism to stop you from turning the seat into a twin bed far back.

not a horrible conversationalist but it will entirely rely on how much he “likes” (read: is kinda okay with) you and his mood. he won’t push you to talk, but if you want to talk and he DOESN’T, you are getting the driest answers. however if you are anything like me and only need minimal engagement to take as a sign to keep talking endlessly, he will whittle down to the point where he starts TALK talking to you a bit more.

can easily keep himself occupied regardless of mood. just grabs a crossword or some shit. miraculously doesn’t get a headache, but if you even make one remark about the fact that reading in the car gives people headaches, he’ll INSTANTLY remind you nothing could make his head hurt more than his current company. even if he doesn’t mind your company! it’s a reflex.

if you don’t let him drive he’s going to be a bitch. i promise. if you don’t let him drive he will grumble about every little thing so you know what. just make peace with it and hand over the wheel. pop it off the little stick thing and hand it right over to ol’ smoky. at the very least he’ll shave off a half hour from the ETA, somehow. it’s jarring because he doesn’t actually seem to be going faster but surprise! we’ve reached our destination.

goemon:

well. if you were stressing over lupin never shutting up i have good news for you. it doesn’t matter who his company is, he’s just consistently a man of very few words, unless you get him off on some specific thing he’s passionate about (which is very, very niche, and will be harder to trigger than you’d anticipate), but hey, he’s okay with that. unfortunately if silence is torture for you i have equally bad news,

honestly cannot understate how likely it is you’ll forget he’s in the back if you’re both silent for more than a mile stretch of road. he doesn’t shift around a lot. when you first get in he might take about 5 or so minutes to really get comfy but he prefers the back seat. every time goemon has had a choice, he goes right for the back. more legroom. so, yeah, very easy to forget he’s present

going to act like he can keep himself entertained just tuning out his surroundings and meditating but that’s just. not true. he’s going to last an impressive amount of time, maybe three and a half hours? but he is ultimately human and when you have to make that first gas station stop the gross ass smell of gasoline is going to knock him RIGHT out of it. 

really the only way you’re pulling any significant interaction out of this is if someone ELSE is manning the car and you can either turn completely around to interact with him or if you’re both sitting side by side. mostly the latter, as he’ll be less tempted to kind of emotionally shut you out if you’re right beside each other. just don’t expect him to move to give you much more space to yourself lmao

fujiko:

unique problem where you might EXPECT her to be somewhat talkative (like a reasonable amount) but no. she’s not talking to you. she’s not even ignoring you with headphones or anything she’s just content in her own world. unless of course you made one comment that just barely slightly annoyed her, in which case she pulls out the biggest, shiniest, most obnoxious headphones and tunes you out entirely. tread carefully

if you get hungry you’re eating at a SIT DOWN DINE-IN MEAL. NO fast food NO convenience store and ESPECIALLY no 3 dollar mini dorito bags, not on miss mine’s watch. don’t even fucking pretend it’s an option. but of course, this adds like an hour to your drive time, so… half and half. you Will be dining and dashing

probably has some kind of car trip kit. firstly, the fact she’s actually taking a CAR trip must mean you need to be afraid of something, because that’s gotta be her last resort. she could fly, take a train, fucking fly a helicopter herself, fly ANYTHING herself she’s UNSTOPPABLE and she wants to kick her feet on the dash for a fourth of a very valuable day?? but beyond that. has a nice pillow (NOT a neck pillow. hurts her neck. just a real full pillow. she doesn’t nap anyway idk why she’s got that) some kinda heating thingy to keep her back from getting sore in that uncomfy seat, large cup with a delicious bev of choice, just anything you could imagine being convenient. oh my god remember the tiddy bear? google tiddy bear. she’s got one of those

very creative when it comes to filling up time without getting VERY silly. now, make no mistake, if you’re both exhausted enough multiple hours in, she MIGHT be ok playing some car color counting game (especially if the winner gets 20 bucks) but usually she’s gonna just come up with some shit like “everytime you complain about x i’m going to cut this blank check into confetti and when the ride is over i’m dumping it on you.” isn’t she such a catch!

zenigata:

well. it definitely won’t be the same moment to moment. either you’re about to be miserable for multiple hours or somehow accidentally unlock the most bizarre yet interesting information about him. no inbetween. maybe even both!

probably the only one who has even a tiny chance of falling asleep, and even then that’s gotta be a hiiiighly specific setup. most possible if you just shut up for long enough and then he’ll kinda doze, but don’t bring UP the fact that you’re trying to get him to chill the fuck out and nap for a bit, don’t even joke about it, because then if you try to employ the long period of silence he’ll just go “... wait a minute I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING” and it’ll be a whole thing

the most adamant about getting the damn thing over with. he’s not going to be a BITCH about it per se, but he IS going to be like “no no not that gas station look at that line. if we just wait till the next one it’ll save us like 15 minutes” and you look at the gas mileage and go “uh” and he goes “no we can make it. trust me.” and cut to 30 minutes later you’re both trying to push the truck to the closest pump which is STILL a good 700 feet away. save time my ass. because of this insistence he will be the one that takes the LONGEST to get from point a to point b, just because he WANTS to be the fastest and god is cruel

goes through like fifty highs and lows throughout unrelated to anything. traffic, the weather, fuck man the ac could be busted, and he’ll be fine, but then 20 minutes later he’s snippy about EVERYTHING. you are microdosing having him as a roommate. stay sane to the best of your ability because god knows he won’t

they ALL get bitchy about music, god help you if you try to fuck with the music

[myapathyhaspeaked]

Platonic Sides Week Day 3: Cards

It was a rainy afternoon, and Patton decided that it was the perfect time for some family game time. He managed to coax Roman, Logan, and Virgil into the Mindscape common room, where he had pulled out a plethora of games, from Monopoly and Scrabble to Battleship and Exploding Cats. They eventually settled on Uno, and sat in a circle.

Logan held the instructions in his hand, poring over them while Roman did some obstentations shuffling tricks for the others. They were going to follow the rules. If that made them the only Uno players in the history of Uno to actually follow the rules, so be it. 

“Everyone draw a card, and whoever gets the highest number deals,” he stated, then reached for the deck. He drew a six and sighed. Not a guaranteed win, so the others would have to draw, which wasn’t as efficient as he would’ve liked.

Virgil got an eight, and Patton got a four. If Roman wanted to deal, which he very much did, he would need to draw a nine. When he saw the card he had pulled, he cheered.

“Yes, Wild card! That’s gotta be like a ten or something, right?” He grabbed for the deck, ready to deal the cards out.

“Actually, in this situation Action Cards count as zero. So Virgil will be dealing.”

Roman dramatically slumped against the couch like his bones had disappeared and sighed. “But I wanted to make it rain!” he complained.

“It’s already raining, kiddo,” Patton pointed out, bless his heart. Even in the Mindscape, the raindrops drummed outside, creating consistent background noise. If he hadn’t invited the others to hang out, he probably would have been cozied up in a blanket with a hot drink and an old cartoon.

“That would likely expose half of the cards’ faces before the game even began.”

“Don’t worry dude, we can make it rain after you lose,” Virgil teased. Before Roman could start making offended Princey noises, Logan tapped the instructions to gain their attention.

“As the person to the left of the dealer, you will have the privilege of starting the game.”

Safe to say he was appeased.

It had been two hours, and they were, despite all odds and what they all had previously thought was possible, still on their first game. They had gone through the deck three times, and they were halfway through their forth.

Logan was stewing with a hefty handful of cards, mainly because it only took fifteen minutes for “stacking Draw Twos is a human right” to win over following the rules and the universe was apparently intent on giving him an aneurysm. At least he had managed to convince them to keep stacking Draw Fours illegal. He couldn’t handle what would happen if someone was hit with a Draw Twenty-Four.

The others were doing a lot better, with no more than four cards each. Usually this meant the game was about to end, but they had gotten to this stage several times, and each time some bullshit happened to give everyone a full hand again. Still, they were optimistic.

Roman proudly placed down a red two. “Uno!” Virgil followed with a green two, and Logan submitted a green eight. Their eyes turned to Patton, who was looking a little nervous.

“Now kiddo, please know that this is nothing personal,” he cautioned, his cards held close to his chest. The cause for his concern was soon revealed when he hesitantly added a Draw Four to the pile. Roman let out a dismayed shout as victory was pulled out of his grasp before he had the chance to embrace it. 

“Patton!” he gasped in overacted betrayal.

“Sorry, sorry, but I didn’t have another card I could play. And blue.”

“I suppose, under those circumstances, I have to forgive you,” he sighed, then drew his new cards. Logan continued the game with a seven, and Virgil chose a Wild Card, changing the color to yellow. Patton looked sheepishly at Roman, then pulled out another goddamn Draw Four.

“Oh my fucking God,” Virgil snickered behind his hand, watching as Roman clutched the fatherly Side’s shoulders, begging him to chose literally any other card. All he got was the same “it was my only option.”

You’ll never guess what card Patton used to end the game. Actually you probably can, quite easily even. But I’m going to let you imagine the others’ reactions, because nothing I could write could possibly capture the amount of defeat, devastation, and befuddlement that you can picture more clearly in your brain.

---

@platonicsidesweek

[seat-safety-switch]

When they started automating my job, and fired all my coworkers, and replaced those coworkers with robots, I didn’t complain. I said, “good idea, boss,” and bit my lip until it bled. That’s how I got promoted. Now I manage an entire division of robots, which is honestly a pretty sweet gig. Lately, though, my relationship with my android coworkers has deteriorated.

Normally, my job consists of showing up sometime around noon, marking all the emails in my inbox as “read,” and then leaving a half hour later. Sometimes, during the silly season, I’ll have to oil one of their joints, or open them up and re-seat a peripheral interface card that’s wobbled loose out of the socket. That doesn’t happen very often, even though these suckers work 24/7 without pay. Anything bigger, the repair robots come and cart away my stressed-out subordinate, never to be seen again, immediately replaced by a new one with a fresh coat of paint and a younger serial number.

Unfortunately, it turns out that those bigwigs at the United Nations figured out that this level of dehumanization and separation from the consequences of my work does something bad to my brain. In fact, it does the exact same thing that it did to my boss when he had a bunch of human subordinates: it turned me into a sociopath. I began running red lights, throwing lit cigarettes at orphanages, and making fun of the elderly for not being smart enough to get a gang of robots to do their work for them. Don’t worry, though, the super-geniuses figured out a way to bring me back to Earth: they decided that it would now be law for the robots I manage to have individual little personalities. Now, I’d feel bad when one of them broke, and the experience of caring for another sentient thing would, in theory, make me less of an asshole.

It only half-worked. See, the thing I liked most about this brave new world of post-human work is that the robots never dropped by my cube to shit-talk about a reality TV show I hadn’t seen. Or make me sign a birthday card for another robot. Or ask me what I thought the weather would be like later today. Sure, they also didn’t engage in ribald office drama culminating in emotional breakdowns around Valentines’ Day, or get mad enough about parking restrictions to storm into the office and kick a four-colour plotter. All of this messy human bullshit was kept to where I preferred it: in my personal life. Now, all that was going to change.

“So, what do you think about the Yankees this year?” asked a robot. A blinking OLED screen on his(?) chest indicated that he was now in “COMFORT MODE” and would not leave until I answered the inquiry and filled up the little socialization meter. I’d have to put up with this bullshit for the rest of my working career, or at least until I figured out how to make a more lifelike, human-like android to replace myself. All I’d have to do is stop by that orphanage on my way home, and see if they had any leftover human skin they weren’t needing.