#handyman verse

[vulturetime]

I do understand why a fair number of books/shows/etc that deal with the intersection of “the real world” and some fantasy element end up including cops. Cause if you look at the structure of the society, who’s going to ideally come and check out complaints or take care of any serious crime that bleeds into the real world? cops (I don’t think this but it is the expectation of a lot of people where if you got a problem, call the cops).

So yeah, from that perspective, I “get it” but have creators considered 1. Not having copaganda if they gotta have cops at all 2. If you’re including cops cause that’d be “realistic” option, at least also make the behavior of cops realistic (this ties to the first point but whatever) 3. Don’t make corruption in the police force the result of some magic thing. I will kill you for this. 4. There are literally so many other more interesting options than cops. Please. Don’t give a shit about your local law enforcement.

[gcldfanged]

@setirophx

Getting from Midgar to Junon had been a stressful endeavor, requiring assets such as falsified documentation and passports- New identities they had to memorize and manage to seamlessly obfuscate. Jae’s cover story had been easy enough, a simple name switch and a fake occupation. Immigrants from Wutai and Haneul typically had dual citizenship, so it wasn’t a massive stretch. Sephiroth and the child, on the other hand, had been more difficult. It wasn’t just a matter of cutting and dying hair, they had uniquely colored eyes to boot- Not to mention the former General couldn’t exactly pass himself off as any other eight to five salaryman.

The worst of it was behind them, they’d managed to get through to Yoon’s nation of origin. Shinra still had its industrial claws sucking the land dry of naturally rich deposits of mako, but they would not be risking a life in the capital city. The Turk took them further in the north along the various streams and rivers branching from the sprawling mountain range. Flat grassy planes and fertile hills began to give way to steppes and rocks. But they remained along the borders at the feet of the jutting dragon’s spine of cliffs along the peninsula, where the forest was dense. Game and flora would be more abundant there.

It took some time even by truck and Al was clearly growing rather disenchanted with how windy it was in comparison to the sunny shores of Junon or mild weather of Midgar. 

“I think this might be it,” Jae finally spoke, stepping out of the pick up. Ancient slices of tree trunks made a meandering pathway to a large house, clearly abandoned and in a questionable state. He was surprised that it was still standing, to be honest.

Al glanced around, looking less than impressed as he clung to Sephiroth’s leg.

“When are we going to go back?” the child asked, fidgeting in an anxious and unsure manner.

“This is going to be our home, Al. I grew up in this house when I was about your age,” he answered, feeling a strange mixture of nostalgic familiarity yet also awareness of the passage of time. It was still on the cusp between the end of summer and the start of fall, so the foliage was alive and vibrant green, trumpet vines and creeping ivy overtaking everything.

“Good thing winter hasn’t kicked in yet, or it’d all be snow.”

The nearest trading outpost wasn’t too far away, a small village a couple miles south. They could rely on dry goods and canned food for now, but when they had to contend with day long blizzards and low visibility, hunting would be their only source of steady food in addition to preserving grown vegetables during the fairer times of the year.

“Just keep your shoes on, I have no idea what kind of nasty bugs have probably been shacking up here. We get everything- Huntsman spiders, house centipedes, geckos- At least the geckos are cute.”

The hanok is mostly wood, stone, and earth, with sliding screen doors lined with additional panes of glass. Most of them were broken or cracked from wear and weather. The floors were heated via water boiler, but there was also a gudeul system for cooking and heating via firewood. There was a bathing area inside the house that required heat as well, but the bathroom was in a shed a couple steps away. A large gas generator was housed in a shed to run appliances and electricity, though they usually saved energy and relied on the gudeul in the wintertime.

“I’ll have find someone in the village to check the ondol system, since carbon monoxide poisoning is an issue if you don’t know what you’re doing… The generator seems okay, just dry. Water comes from wells and the mountain streams. Everything is totally overgrown, I’ll have to start over from the soil up if we want to have a garden.”

It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it wasn’t great, either.

“We could make this work, but I’ll be honest- It’s going to be hard. We’re going to have to do ton of repairs while the weather’s still nice and winter prep is going to be… uh. Maybe we’ll just deal with that after we get the house in working order. What do you think…? No good?” he asks, looking over the place once more.

[karmasainted]

 ❛ when i told you my pipes were jammed up i didn’t mean for you to come over —-  ❜ selina’s eyes dance under the dull lamp of her hallway , the humor in her voice evident as it waivers for a moment. the cavalry has arrived – and okay, sure - he’s her landlord ( it's a technicality - wayne corp own at least half the buildings in the east end ) but still. it’s a little unexpected. a moment passes and her lips curve , a smile appearing slowly as she takes a step back, gesturing for him to come inside. 

❛ —— and in under and hour. you should charge for service like this ... ❜

starter for @rejectory / bruce

[horrifichaunts]

Tom tag dump

[elvisabutler]

down home southern cookin'

fandom: elvis 2022 | elvis presley rating: m pairing: elvis presley ( fameless big daddy electrician/handyman ) x female original character word count: 3069 warnings: housewife kink. big daddy elvis. pregnant sex. minor pregnancy kink and breastfeeding kink. sex around food ( the food isn't harmed ). p in v sex ( unprotected ). minor praise kink. talk of sweat. bags thumping on floors making you feel things. author’s note: welcome to day 14 of ally’s wet hot smut summer, breastfeeding kink with spark elvis and lilly. so, hi. i've been having a rough go around on actually finishing the main fic but i have made a bit more progress after moving past the block i've had formed for a while. that being said, enjoy this little one shot in the meantime. also if you have no idea what this series/verse is, the masterlist is right here. in addition, i truly do thrive on your comments and messages and love reading them.

"Is that meatloaf 'm smellin' darlin'?"

Lilly hears the door open before she ever hears Elvis's voice but at the sound of his voice, she can feel their children inside her move about, kicking and trying to roll around. It's been getting harder and harder to bend to reach the oven but she manages well enough, free hand on her belly as she opens the oven.

Elvis's thudding steps tell Lilly that he's heading to the kitchen to investigate not entirely unlike a bloodhound and she smiles softly to herself even as the twin she has taken to calling Gladys kicks her square in the rib. Her hand rubs at the spot as she stays bent over looking into the oven when she hears Elvis's whistle, low and appreciative.

"Wasn't expectin' that sorta greetin'. Ain't complainin', though." His voice is pitched low as she hears his bag thump on the floor. The thought of moving to a standing position enters Lilly's mind and yet she's just that slight bit curious as to what Elvis plans on doing.

After all, wasn't the proof of his appreciation for her backside growing healthy and strong within her? Wasn't his appreciation for a warm meal evident by the way so many of her dresses are slightly ruined? Wasn't he her husband not just in theory but in name?

It doesn't take long for her to feel the press of his front against her behind, the warmth of his body seeping through her dress. His hand moves to cup her stomach as he guides her into a standing position, nipping at her ear as she does. "They givin' ya trouble? Gotta get a lecture from Daddy?"

Lilly's laughter is always music to Elvis's ears and today is no exception. His lips curl into a soft smile as he kisses down her neck, hands wandering across her body. She makes no move to remove them. "They only started giving me trouble when they heard you."

"That so?" Elvis hums as one of his hands settles on her breast, squeezing it just light enough that Lilly's mouth falls open in a gasp. "They just missed their daddy as much as their mama did, didn't they? Jus' wanted to say hello."

He's not wrong, Lilly reasons. Jesse is the same way, trying to come crawling at the sound of his Daddy's voice as soon as he hears it if Elvis doesn't beat the boy to it. Still, there's nothing that says she has to boost her husband's ego any more than it already is tonight. It makes it easy to just hum quietly with a small grin on her face.

"They missed daddy, I don't know if mama did." Lilly teases even as she feels Elvis's hand tighten on her breast and feels the hand that had been cupping her lower stomach move ever so slightly lower. "I had the best company all day."

A huff of his warm breath tickles the hair on the back of her neck as he starts to use his hand to pull up her dress. "Jesse asleep?"

He knows it's too early for Jesse to be asleep, knows that Lilly keeps his son up just so that he can give him a kiss goodnight and help get him ready for bed even if he ran late arriving home. Yet, he feels the need to ask, to make sure Jesse isn't crawling around underfoot in a way that gets him into trouble. Elvis knows he should be a good husband and take a shower and make it so Lilly can rest her aching little sooties. Even with them not in heels he can see them a little swollen and he's sure if he touched them they'd be pounding. Elvis knows he should be a good husband like he always is and yet he can feel his cock swelling up in his jumpsuit. Seeing Lilly- seeing his *wife* bent over making food for him all while so *full* of him does something to him. It'd do something to any man worth his salt. Maybe he'd ask Charlie or Jerry how they feel about their wives when they've been pregnant. Though, Jerry's answer is damn nearly explained with his new niece or nephew Melly's got growing inside of her.

His cock had gotten them into this mess, first with her and him against the sink and even know their twins were merely the result of his cock seeing her backside as she bathed Jesse. If he were a different man, if he were the man he was almost two years ago he'd be embarrassed, mortified that his cock's acting like it's attached to a twenty year old. And yet, right now all he can think about is how thankful he is for it. Thankful it's proven its worth to satisfy Lilly in ways he knows now she had craved during her previous marriage. Thankful it's proven its worth by providing him with a healthy gift from God of a son and hopefully healthy strong little ones in a couple of months.

"You know he's awake," Lilly murmurs, moving closer to the sink for some leverage to lean on. "Wouldn't dream of putting our baby boy to sleep without letting him say goodnight to his Daddy." She pauses and leans back against Elvis, his body heat seeping through his jumpsuit and her dress. She can feel the sweat of the day on his skin and it should be nauseating and off putting but as she inhales deeply she merely smells the unique scent of her husband. A shiver passes through her. "What are you really trying to ask, Elvis?"

An idea of what he wants is on the tip of her tongue but she doesn't want to be too forward even after a child was born that was conceived in the strangest of ways or after he pleasured her with a garden hose. No, somehow asking him point blank if he was trying to enjoy what was between her legs was too much.

"If you'd let me- If ya'd mind bendin' over again. Or if ya'd mind if I put ya between the sink and me. Mindin' the yittle ones, course."

Lilly wonders if the way Elvis talks to her and the way Elvis seems to be completely and utterly in love with every part of her is ever going to get old. If it'll ever stop making her heart race and ever stop making her lose her breath. Maybe it's just because she had gotten so used to things with Nathan that it's still novel. The twins inside her do their own separate flips as she licks her lips.

"Minding them, of course." Her voice sounds airy, like it's floating into the air as she tries to remember how to breathe. "Facing you, right?"

Not looking out the window, pleasure crossing her face at every moment as she leaned against him, her legs too shaky to support the weight of her body. Not facing the window, watching the sun go down on another day, wishing this could be her afternoons forever more. No, she'd be able to face Elvis, see his face as it scrunched up when he grunted inside of her. She'd be able to see how he works up such a sweat that it drips down on her as they fuck. It's not that she hasn't since they've been married but this is another thing entirely. This is being able to see how Elvis's face looked like when he pleasured her against the sink almost two years ago. This is a reward for a hard day's work as she cooks their little buns inside of her and cooks a hearty filling meal for him.

His hands finally reach the destination he wants them to, her underwear. A hand slides against her clothed entrance, chuckling at how drenched has already made her. The pregnancy had heightened so many things and yet somehow she surprises him even with this. With a vagina that aches and yearns for him so much it cries out every second it's not filled. He finally speaks.

"Facin' me," his voice is a murmur and a growl as he shifts her underwear to the side just enough to slide his fingers where he knows she wants them. "Maybe I'll even lift ya up on the counter."

Lilly shakes her head, not trusting her mouth's ability to form words. Another time, she figures, when she wasn't carrying these precious little buns inside her. No, she wants to be pinned just as she was that first afternoon. Her hand reaches out to grab at Elvis's wrist, her hand trailing over her swollen stomach, an action watched with rapt attention by Elvis. A quiet but noticeable squelch is heard as he pulls his fingers from her. He opens up his mouth to speak only to watch as he realized something shifted inside of Lilly when she heard that squelch of his fingers. The look she has on her face is one he's gotten to know well both through her pregnancy with Jesse and now her pregnancy with the twins. She wants him and every second that she don't have him she'll get more and more frustrated. His hands move to undo and start to unzip his jumpsuit only to have her swat them away. Lilly's hand are deft little things, suited for sewing and domestic tasks even he struggles with despite his ample skills.

The rush of the cold air against his sweaty chest has him inhaling and has his overheated body shivering just a hair. Lilly's eyes watch the action and take it to mean that she needs to hurry, needs to reach down low enough to free his already swollen cock from the confines of his underwear. Elvis opens up his mouth to speak only to have Lilly's hand finally pull his zipper down low enough to yank down his underwear, his cock bobbing out of them not entirely unlike a goddamn Jack in the Box. Lilly isn't forceful except for these times when she's needy and he's already promised to give her what she needs. How's a man supposed to talk when he sees her hand around his cock, slathering the ample precum across his length.

"Just against it, Elvis. Please," Lily begs ever so softly, though she knows she doesn't need to. Any request she makes of Elvis he does and this would be no exception. She watches as he looks down at her with such a rush of love and clenches her thighs. Her nipples brush against the fabric of her bra and she whimpers at the mere feeling of his hand against her hip as he walks her back against the sink. She needs and wants every bit of him and he's determined to give it to her.

In bed, he would take his time undressing her, watching her dress fall to the floor and watching her ample milk filled breasts spill from her bra. He would suckle at her nipples until he saw her chest heave and her body shake with release. But right now? Right now against the sink he doesn't bother to even pull down her underwear. He should, and yet he can feel how aroused she is and just how she is craving him. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she's reminded this isn't proper, that she should insist he take his time and undress her and yet that voice is smothered by realizing no part of their relationship would be considered proper to her two years ago.

His actions make her happy so why should there be any shame attached to them. Her thoughts swirl in her mind with such force that she is caught off guard by Elvis removing her hand and entering her with very little preparation. A choked off sob of pleasure leaves her mouth as she looks up at him.

"Elvis," she whispers, her hands finding purchase on his chest and down his stomach. The hair on his body that rubs up against her skin every time they make love feels different in her hands in this moment, somehow softer while being just a little bit rougher. One of her hands plays with his chest, laughing breathlessly as one of his hands mirrors her, cupping her breast. "You can go— oh."

Elvis knows Lilly like he knows the back of his hand, he figures. Knows what makes his wife turn to pure putty in hands and knows how to have her pleasured in every way she had always deserved to be pleasured. It's easy to figure out just by watching her face and watching how it shifts when he thrusts just right and cups her breasts just right. "I can what, darlin'? Ya want it faster? Want your husband to move faster? Make it so ya comin' faster than anythin'?"

Lilly's eyes drift to the stove for a moment and then to the clock. She should tell him she wants him to take his time. That she wants to feel every thrust and feel his foreskin as it drags inside of her despite how aroused she is. She knows she doesn't have enough time though, knows that in about ten minutes she has to pull the meatloaf from the oven. Her vagina clenches and earns a slight curse from Elvis as he kisses her softly, waiting for an answer.

"We— the meatloaf. I don't want it to burn." As if she needs to explain why she needs him to go faster. "Tonight—If we can it can be slower."

Her skin is flushed and Elvis just takes a moment in between thrusts to marvel at the way it starts at her cheeks and how there's small splotches of it heading down to her chest. He's done that to her, not just the embarrassment she still holds on to about asking just what she would like him to do to her. His perfect wife, his lil darlin' is worried about meatloaf and can't always put into words what she desires. How had he gotten so lucky? How had God saw fit to put the nearest earthly thing to perfection in front of him? How had he found himself married with a son and young ones on the way to this woman?

"Even if 'm not. Ya— ya always know ya can get my engine revving," Elvis's voice is a murmur against Lilly's neck as he kisses and nips at it, his hips quickening their pace. "How long we got, Lil?"

"Nine," she answers, trying to buck against Elvis as best she can with her stomach and his own in the way. "I'll— I've been wanting—"

The words she wants to say are left in her head as his hand drifts down her chest and down her swollen belly to between her legs. Another time and another place she'd question what he's doing but she knows where his hand is headed. She knows before she feels the press of the calloused pads of his fingertips against her throbbing clit. It's been like that nearly all day and she knows better than to take care of it herself on days like this. Knows that what she needs is the warmth of his hands and the roughness of them to bring her to completion. So lost in her own pleasure she nearly misses the words leaving Elvis's lips.

"My perfect wife. My perfect lil darlin'. Takin' care of our yittle one and growing the other yittle buns. Could be like some of the other women and relax, sh—should be like 'em but here you are makin' me dinner and keepin' everythin' as it should be. Gonna show ya how much I love ya for this. How thankful I am for ya."

He pants it against her skin, one hand gripping at her hip while the other works against her clit as she's pinned against the skin. It should hurt, the way the counter digs into her back just a bit but any pain she feels is overtaken by the throbbing between her legs and the scrape of her nipples against her bra. Everything feels so warm and safe and loving that she feels herself starting to reach a crescendo, clawing at his chest before her hands slide to his lower back and down to his behind, pulling him somehow impossibly closer. An almost inhuman noise leaves his lips, a howl and a growl and a groan all mixed into one as he feels her clenching around him.

"That's it, Lilly. That's it my lil darlin'. God— Like a vice—" His words are lost in a haze of her orgasm and his own following closely after. Somehow both of their grips on each other get tighter as they try to catch their breath. Elvis makes sure to not lean too hard on Lilly, careful to protect their children inside of her. Time doesn't have a meaning for either of them until the shrill ring of a timer sounds signalling the fact that the meatloaf is finished.

"I— I need to get that, Elvis." Lilly whispers, still trying to remember how to breathe and walk properly. His only answer is a slow nod as he steps away. It's easy for him to watch Lilly's hips move as she walks the short distance between the sink and oven. A part of him thinks he should turn away when she starts to bend over but then he thinks of how she's leaking his release standing there and how she still likely has to finish one thing or another on the stove. He licks his lips and with a speed that surprises even him, he finds himself on his knees in front of her once she's pulled the meatloaf from the oven and set it down.

"Elvis, what are you— what are you doing?" Her voice is light and her eyes sparkle in a way they only do when she's amused at him and his antics.

In lieu of answering, his large hands grab at the edges of her dress and start to pull it up and up and up until her underwear is exposed to him. It's then and only then that he answers her, looking up through his eyelashes with a practically devilish smirk. "Felt like havin' dessert while you're doin' your work."

taglist: @ab4eva, @blurredcolour, @butlersxbirdy, @precious-little-scoundrel, @eliseinmemphis, @prompted-wordsmith, @missmaywemeetagain, @lookingforrainbows, @thatbanditqueen, @ellie-24, @be-my-ally,  @austinbutlersgirl67, @heartbrake-hotel, @ccab, @18lkpeters, @slutforsomegoodlettuce, @dkayfixates, @kendralavon7, @chasingwildflowers, @notstefaniepresley, @wanderingelvis, @kxnnxy, @powerofelvis, @stylespresleyhearted, @marriedtopresley, @memphis-menace, @steph-speaks, @doll-elvis, @vintageshanny, @j-v-9-2, @sexystarfish, @jessicarcates, @chirssycrumble9456789, @shantellescrivener, @yomammalolha, @honey6578, @urmom11111111111119, @myradiaz, @elvispresleyxoxo, @joegramoe, @rainblue-art, @fav-fanficssss, @misspresley, @fallinlovewithurlove, @ash-omalley, @yynneessmons if you're missing from this list, you either changed your username or tumblr is tumblr.

[issylra]

issylra's dreamling fandom content list

writing: the trouble with talking - series - complete - explicit - 19k - canon verse - Dream learning to communicate while Hob is the most patient man in the universe.

warning sign ⇾ mercy ⇾ the list

someone to stay - series - compete - explicit - 55k - alternate universe - tag - tattoo artist Dream and florist/handyman/professor Hob meet and fall in love.

spilled ink & daffodills ⇾ bloom ⇾ feel something ⇾ reciprocation ⇾ steady hand

take it easy - series - wip - explicit - 18k - post-canon - tag - Dream retires and moves in with Hob. Fics focused on Dream experiencing things for the first time.

breathe ⇾ remedy ⇾ slow hands ⇾ practice ⇾ drunk (in love) ⇾ stripped

by the minute - complete - explicit - 11k - alternate universe - tag - Dream takes a job as a phone sex operator so he can win a bet with Desire. Hob can't stop calling him.

nightswimming - complete - mature - 3k - canon verse - Dream and Hob go swimming together in the middle of the night.

blood in the water - series - complete - explicit - 7k - alternate universe - tag - Hob and Dream are criminals with a lot of history and a lot of feelings.

break me shake me ⇾ the hand that feeds

golden days - complete - teen - 21k - canon verse - In which Dream agrees to visit Hob more often and neither of them quite know what they're getting into.

distraction (reaction) - wip - explicit - canon verse - Dream stumbles on some suggestive photos of Hob and becomes hopelessly distracted.

visuals: gifs | au gif sets

[gabessquishytum]

Wandering jack of all trades Hob (minstrel, storyteller, bard, handyman) wanders in to a village that makes sacrifices to the Terrible & Great Spirit of the forest. Hob can hear the all caps, even tied up as he is to this altar.

It seems, so the village wouldn't have to sacrifice one of their own this time, they choose (secretly,,, to Hob anyway) to use Hob as this years sacrifice. They might feel sad about it, because Hob seems like a nice guy, but him or them.

Dream (or Great Forest Spirit, "terrible" seems a bit much) has decided to visit the towns that he protects. It been eons seemingly since he walked among humans and his sister poked at him for being so removed -- yes, even Eldritch spirits have family.

Dream has never rightly cared how the villages under his "protection" work to secure that protection -- honestly it's been ages since Dream even cared about such "formalities," but he's on walkabout right now and encountering all the village rituals.

Dream can't say he likes humans any more than he did before, but the mead and dancing rituals in his honor are nice....(he might give those villages a little extra zhuzh.). The villages that choose blood rituals are less fun, but Dream gets it.

💫💫💫💫

When Dream first got to this new village it seemed nice and he met another traveling visitor Hob, please call me Hob, who seemed to make it his mission to make Dream smile (and laugh) with his ludicrous "stories" and silly songs. Dream was not used to a human who wasn't off put by his natural weirdness. More over, Dream didn't sense any bad intentions from Hob, just interest in Dream. Dream was charmed, despite himself.

💫💫💫💫

Dream stepped away for like a minute (it was more like a month or two), and comes back to find Hob naked, tied to an altar, about to be sacrificed to, well, him.

Unacceptable.

Certainly, Hob was Dream's! But not in a stabby way.

Aalsjdjdshahaj I have this mental image of Dream just. Growing. Taller and taller and more eldritch by the second. The villagers are flattening themselves against the ground in fear. Hob is watching and trying not to be horny about it (he's still tied to the altar and he's only 90% sure that Dream isn't going to like. Eat him).

Eventually once he's been rescued, Hob is like "so you're the Great and Terrible Spirit, huh? That's kind of a fancy title. Am I still allowed to call you Dream?"

And Dream (still eldritch as fuck, around 8 feet tall with long claws and huge black eyes and teeth) leans down and regards Hob’s still naked form: "you are mine, and thus may call me whatever name you like."

Hob gives up trying not to be horny. It's not like he can hide anything from this awesome, beautiful creature anyway. God, he can't wait to write a ballad all about Dream.... with a verse specifically dedicated to his massive magical dick.

[xxgoblin-dumplingxx]

OH HECK what are weirdkid!bruce and reader going to do now?? I absolutely love fics that address the challenges and strain that come with being and being close to vigilantes (I also loved your handyman verse!!!) and this one is FASCINATING. Wishing you joy!

Bruce dodged out of the way and rolled to his feet, thankful for the modifications that you'd made for him. But he was still annoyed at you.

He'd gone to your apartment and it was empty. Meticulously cleared out. All that remained was what Selina had broken in to take. The Olympic gold medal you kept wrapped in an old Hawaiian shirt. And a letter. Left in the open on the counter.

He hadn't read the letter.

Instead, he put it in a box With the medal and the shirt- for safekeeping. And tried to ignore the pang in his chest. It felt- odd being here. No music. No copper pans. No posters. He'd spent hours here as a kid. Made home made pizza at this counter. Watched his first scary movies. Listened to pop music. Ate fruit snacks.

Thought he was in love with you.

But- it was a crush. He had a crush on you. Because you never made fun of him- not to be mean any way. You brought him books you saw he might like- you. Well. You were there.

And then when he went away- to train- he realized there wasn't space for crushes. Or love. Not the little boy love he wanted.

He was too old for that. And maybe he was... too old for you.

[rwrbficrecs]

WIP Wednesday

happy wednesday 🎂

Me and Sisyphus by foux_dogue (book-verse)

@na-dineee: If you enjoyed the first, outstanding part of 'A cloud on fire', part 2 is an absolute must read! After a long, hard journey to their happily ever after, Henry encounters Alex's exes, which challenges him quite a bit. An excellent character study from an equally superb AU. Chapter 3 is absolutely hilarious, I can't stop thinking about it.

At the end of a bar by @hgejfmw-hgejhsf (book-verse)

@heysweetheart-writes: Henry co-owns a little bar with Pez. Enter Alex Claremont-Diaz looking to take the edge off of a hard day at work to find his life changed entirely by blue eyes at the end of a bar. Loving it so far!

Brooklyn in the Summer (series wip) by @porcelainmortal (book-verse)

@na-dineee: Henry's purchase of a brownstone in New York sets the stage for an unexpected encounter with Alex, a law student-turned-handyman for the summer. As the heat intensifies in Brooklyn, so does the undeniable attraction between them (couldn't help the pun). Sparks fly and fluff ensues, followed by some smutty bliss. This fic is just incredibly sweet and leaves you feeling good!

check out our past WIP recs here ❤️

[rodolfoparras]

Had a vivid dream and woke up at cold sweat to write this can I be 💫 anon? I don't remember if I already used this emoji but would love to use in your blog too, (hi gnomelord I'm cheating on you 🫶)

Tw for suicidal ideation ig? Not well versed in tagging

Imagine old man Price, way too physically unfit with the multitude of injuries his earned in his decades-long career or receiving a life threatening one, and booted honorably discharged out of SAS.

His life is thrown off balance, unable to function normally in his old hometown, friends and family seemingly moved on in their lives, attending to monotonous tasks day by day, children from relatives he never knew existed now full-grown adults and he is stuck.

He's ashamed, deeply so, self doubt seeds his mind, suicidal ideation becoming his go to each sleepless night and he just says fuck it

Packing the clothes on his back, like he would back in the military he drives off without telling anyone, landing in the middle of nowhere, landing a job at a shitty restaurant and an even shitier motel to stay in.

It's hard place to live in, but no one knows him and the weight of expectation from anyone is lifted. Comes reader, ever so kind and compassionate local handyman, town's people love him.

He helps Price in anyway he could, always making a stop at Price's smoke breaks after their faithful encounter on the motel.

He's the only person in the town that chats him up, hell the one that makes an effort to get to know the old mysterious sod that appeared months ago.

And oh does Price, swoon for the man. Taking more smoking breaks than usual, breaking the showerhead with a quick simple fix, just for a glimpse of this dilf reader trying to ignore the wetness in his thighs whenever he sees the man work ....

Idk if reader is a dilf, I'm just a sucker for old man yaoi, this is GOODNIGHT for me.

-💫

SUGAR WHY DID YOUBLEAVE TBIS MASTERPIECE IN MY INBOX PPLS PLS FINISH THIS AND POST THIS I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING LOVE THIS.

SUGAR THERE ARE TEARS PROCKLOMG MY EYES PLS FOMT LEAVE ME HAMGING GOING TO LOSD M MIDM

[intheorangebedroom]

Pleased to meet you, a drabble

Summary: Frankie's a handyman.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Gabrielle Tourneur (OFC)/French fem!Reader.

Set within the PTMY universe but can be read as a one-shot stand-alone.

Rating: explicit 🔞

TW: improper use of zip ties

A/N: Happy ❤️‍🔥Frankie❤️‍🔥 Friday, orange besties 🧡 This is the first, and probably not last, zip ties-inspired drabble, so be warned. Because I have a lot of thoughts. 🥖Anon, thank you again for the encouragement. As for you @dreamymyrrh, you know what you did. I love you. More. I literally wrote this shit in two hours in lieu of my usual two and half months weeks, it's unbeta’d, unchecked, uncalled-for. You’ve been warned twice. Please be kind.

Word count: 1.8k

[series masterlist]

Drabble: The ties that bind is

The first time is sheer happenstance. 

A late Friday afternoon, sometime in September. You join him by the toolshed in the garden, where he’s working on a new headboard with simple, elegant slats, supported by two trestles. You want to make sure he’s wearing his dust mask –he’s not.

You step inside the small wooden shed to grab the cumbersome contraption where it lies unused on the workbench, and you notice a small stack of black zip ties, tied together by a wide orange rubber band. 

“Hey, what are these for, Frankie?” you ask naively when you step back outside, holding the bundle of ties in your raised hand.

He tilts up his head, eyes lingering on his work, brow pinched in concentration, sweat dampened curls stuck to his forehead, and he has to squint to see what you’re talking about, but when his gaze focuses on what’s in your hand… a slow smirk lifts the corner of his mouth. 

That smug smile hasn’t changed, not in sixteen years, not ever, it’s the same enthralling curl of his plush lips, followed by the same question, which is never really a question but rather a promise, an invitation to follow him, a little further every time, you wanna try this?

He lays down his hand plane and goes around the trestles, takes a couple of slow steps toward you, until he can husk in your ear in a voice so low it dives down all the way to your core. 

“Want me to show you what it’s for?”

Comprehension dawns on you. The dip between your collarbone deepens as you silently gasp. His smile deepens too. 

He’s gentle and careful, that first time, the black plastic tie that binds your hands together hanging loose around your wrists. Repeatedly, he tries to bite down his smug smile. When he lifts you up and props your ass on top of the workbench inside the crammed toolshed, when he prompts your knees open, when he slides your tied hands behind his neck. 

It’s fucking useless. And you’re smiling too, with delight, nervousness, anticipation, giggling quietly until he thrusts into you, and you’re not giggling anymore, you give him that sound he lives for.

–

The second time is not exactly premeditated yet. 

You’re coming home from Santi’s birthday party, and he’d be lying if he tried to argue he hasn’t been thinking about it all evening, with the sheer black tights you’re wearing, but he still loses it completely. 

He wraps one end of the tights around your wrists and the other end to the leg of the bed, and you let him. 

You let him. 

It’s intoxicating, your complete abandon. Your trust, your faith.

And if you could find the words, you’d tell him. You would explain what it does to you, the way he never takes more than what you’re able to give, the way he always knows how much that is, the way he seeks you out inside your darkness to offer you his love, unwavering, uncompromised, undying. 

If you could describe how it feels to be wanted by this man, his raw power barely restrained, his patience and his strength, the kindness in his eyes… you would.

But you can’t put it into words, so you hope he knows, and you find other means to express the certitude that you’d follow him anywhere. 

You thread a new language between your two bodies for him to write his own verse. And wherever he leads you, it’s always through blinding pleasure. 

In the weeks that follow the party, and what ensues, he becomes obsessed with a thought. An idea invading his system, pervading his mind. He grows restless, which you notice, of course, but don’t immediately question. 

Until this one evening, when you come home from the bookstore to find the zip ties waiting for you on the fucking kitchen table. 

You freeze, the key still in the lock, and suddenly everything clicks into place: his increasing agitation over the past few weeks, the sideways glances, dark from under the brim of his cap, the intense tick of his jaw. The shadow of a smug smile lingering on his lips. 

In your haste to hang your coat on the rack, you miss the hook and it falls in a heap to the floor. It’s a clumsy fumble to untie the shoelaces of your Martens, your fingers numb from the November cold, grey and humid. 

A few hasty strides, and you're in the bedroom, where you know you’ll find him waiting.  

The eagerness that widens your eyes, widens the dimpled smirk on his pretty face. 

“Show me, Frankie,” you ask, handing him the zip ties, “show me what you’ve been thinking.”

Now, the plastic bites into the soft flesh of your wrists, tied separately to the slats of the headboard. The mattress dipping under your knees, you push your forehead from the smooth wood and arch your back until it hurts, seeking the contact of his burning mouth. 

His soft chuckle makes you moan, and he rewards the sound with a hard swat on the swell of your ass with the flat of his palm. Then he spits on your folds, and this one’s really just to please you, because you’re soaking wet already, your come dribbling down along the inside of your thighs from your previous high, when he ate you from behind. 

Messy broad licks, his tongue diving inside your cunt, curling around your clit, teasing, swirling, his plush lips pursed around your tight ring, sucking in. You came violently all at once, in your chest and your belly and your legs trembled. 

They’re still shaking now, and you struggle to keep your balance but you know he’s not done, nor do you want him to be.

He straightens up and you threaten to fall on your side, the ties biting harder into your skin, but he catches you with a large hand gripping your hip. 

The black, starless sky peers in through the orange curtains. It’s late November, but the heat is stifling in the bedroom. Beads of sweat are rolling down his spine; locks of your hair are glued to your shoulders and your nape. 

Later, he will brush them and braid them. Gently kiss the secret birthmark in your hairline.

But right now, his hand slides down to your folds, spreading his spit over your lips, pushing it inside you with a thick finger, then two, and he’s about to add a third when you moan louder, arms pulling against your restraint. His gaze is drawn to the red indentation on your thin skin and he frowns, shakes his head. 

“Want me to cut it off?”

“Fuck no,” you grit back in a beat, and you let out a heavy sigh of relief when you feel the round tip of his cock lining up at your entrance. 

He thrusts in so ruthlessly you cry out and nearly hit your head on the headboard. He catches you again, of course he does, a bruising, splayed fingers clutch on the swell of your ass to slide you back on his cock. 

You want to turn your head to the side, try to catch a glimpse of him, of his large frame, his broad shoulders, his messed-up hair and his pitch-dark eyes. But your bindings won’t allow you that much amplitude, and all you can do is reach your shoulder to wipe the sweat beading on your temple before your mouth goes slack. He’s drilling in so fast, sliding in and out easy with how wet you are, and your mind is reeling. 

His hand moves to your hip again, using the grasp for leverage. This is just a fraction of what he wants to do to you, of what he’s got planned, what he kept playing in his head over and over again when he should have been focusing on work, on driving, on eating… But there’s time. And isn’t that the sweetest thought?

His knees push your knees further apart on the mattress, legs gliding against yours with your mixed sweats. His thrusts deepen, the fat head of his cock bumping into your cervix, and when his thumb comes to rest over your asshole with just the right amount of pressure, you don’t even get the time to warn him. 

Your orgasm seizes you like an earthquake, like fucking lightning, blazing through you from your core, overwhelming, meteoric. You’re mewling, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before, so brutal Frankie feels it too, the strong clutch of your collapsing walls pulling him in, and he bends double over you, hissing his pleasure through clenched teeth. 

“Jesus fuck, Gabrielle–” 

Chest heaving painfully, you’re about to slip out of consciousness when you feel his breath burning your skin. He straightens up and sits behind you. You whine, struggling to keep your balance on the unstable surface of the mattress. 

The sensation of the cool blade sliding against your wrists makes your jolt, and suddenly you're free, your arms weightless, like helium balloons drifting away from your body, but it’s over in a heartbeat. He’s grabbed them, flipping you around like a rag doll. 

“Can you take some more, baby?”

Tears have smeared mascara on your cheeks, you can’t seem to catch your breath but you nod, exhaling a feeble “Yeah.”

You weigh nothing between his hands, you’re limp, boneless, and his splayed fingers bruise your skin in their firm hold above your elbows as he positions you over him.

His movements are precise, quick, and deft, trained hands linking your arms behind your back, and the zip tie digs into your flesh when it slides shut around your wrists with its telling slithery sound. 

Just like last time with your tights, his eyes are drawn to the odd angle of your shoulders, to the dip over your collarbone and the way it pokes out in the shadows of the night. 

“Good girl,” he grunts, lying back between your folded legs, “you’re a good girl, Gabrielle, you know that? You’re my good girl,” he adds, lining himself up. 

He shoves himself into you to the hilt, and in this straddling position, the air is punched out of your lungs. Without your arms to keep you balanced, you can’t control anything, certainly not the depth of his thrusts, and he’s ramming into you deeper than he’s ever been. 

“Wanna see your pretty face when you come on my cock again,” he says, and you snap, you surrender, limp and boneless. You let him fuck up into you with his feet planted on the mattress and his strong arms shoving you further down onto his cock, your tits bouncing, your eyes rolling to the back of your head. 

“Gonna pump you full of my come, baby.”  

Limp, boneless, exactly how you want to be. 

****

[beechersnope]

omg trick or treat red light spells danger 🏮

regretfully i do not have anything new from that verse prepared, but i do have a few other anons clamoring for max or maxiel content, so i shall offer a ghost town fic that is a bit longer than most of the stuff that i've posted for the trick or treat fills

***

The sun had already set behind the black ridge of the mountains when Daniel finally pulled onto the stretch of rough dirt road that led into the town of Coldspring.

Calling it a road was a kindness it didn’t deserve, Daniel decided after bouncing along in his truck for nearly half a mile before a haphazard collection of buildings in varying states of disrepair came into view. He felt practically an expert on the subject after spending the last fifty-odd miles on a relatively well-maintained gravel road that ran north-south between Highways 6 and 50. If he’d known what he was in for after that, Daniel might have taken the long way around—but eager to get to Coldspring before dark, he’d opted for the more straightforward route.

Daniel didn’t know much about Max Verstappen or her ultimate plans for Coldspring even after countless emails exchanged over the last three months in addition to a handful of curt, to-the-point phone calls in the last two weeks. But he did know that she would be driving a truck almost identical to the one he’d picked up in Vegas after he’d landed a couple days ago, and when Daniel pulled up alongside the only vehicle in town—a rusty pickup with a bed cap that might have been white, once upon a time—it became immediately clear that Max wasn’t here.

As soon as Daniel hopped out of the truck, his boots crunching loudly through the clumps of gravel and sand, the door to the building he was parked in front of swung open to reveal a grizzled old man in plaid and overalls, a cowboy hat adorning his otherwise bald head. His beard was halfway down to his gut, and everything about the man’s appearance set off alarm bells in Daniel’s head. He didn’t have much Este that Max had done her due diligence in making sure the former owner of Coldspring wasn’t a serial killer. At least he’d had the presence of mind to buy a gun before hauling his ass out to the middle of the desert, though he hadn’t ever really planned on using it.

But surprisingly enough, the man paid Daniel barely any attention at all. “I was expecting a lady,” he said in a gruff voice with a similar cadence to the way country folk spoke back home. His eyes moved straight past Daniel and off into the distance, like he was expecting to see Max’s truck trundling up the road any second now.

“I know her flight landed in Reno this morning,” Daniel explained, “but I haven’t had any cell service the past couple hours, so I’m not sure where she is. She should have been here by now. You haven’t seen her?”

The man shook his head. “I’ve been waiting here nearly all damn day, and I ain’t seen a soul.” Finally, his eyes drifted back to Daniel with a suspicious glint. “You the handyman she mentioned?”

“Yeah,” Daniel replied, nodding. He wasn’t sure where the man was headed with that line of questioning, but he was starting to wish he’d put on his holster as soon as he’d stepped out of the truck, just so everyone was on the same page.

The man seemed wholly unaware of the effect his presence was having on Daniel as he responded. “You’ve got your work cut out for you,” he said with a derisive snort. “That’s all I’ll say.”

Daniel had figured that, seeing as Max had bought the place for a fraction of what the land should have cost—regardless of the level of disrepair the buildings appeared to be in. Evidently, the man in front of him had been desperate to rid himself of whatever burden owning this ghost town had become.

The man seemed just as eager to get the hell off the property now that Daniel had shown up, despite the fact that Max was the one who should have been there for the passing of the torch, as it were. But after fifteen minutes of the two of them standing there in uncomfortable silence, waiting, as the sunlight rapidly waned, it became clear that something was gonna have to give.

“All right, why don’t you show me around,” Daniel finally offered. “I’ll go into town tomorrow and make some calls if Max doesn’t show later tonight.”

“You know where town is?” the man asked in a skeptical tone.

“Keep going north, right? Until you hit the highway, then west for a few miles.”

The man nodded, seemingly impressed. “Y’all did your research, at least. Don’t see how it’ll help you much with this dump, but God bless you for taking it off my hands.”

Daniel was tempted to ask why the man was so desperate to sell, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to open that can of worms with a stranger who seemed like he wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of dodge.

The man—whose name Daniel still couldn’t remember from the sale documents though he’d been wracking his brain trying to recall it since the second he’d pulled up—took Daniel’s silence for the cue it was and started to walk up the dusty road that used to be the bustling main street of a turn-of-the-century gold mining town.

Daniel was surprised by how many structures were still standing even though practically every building was crumbling at the foundations, so ill-cared for in the century since the town’s abandonment that it was a wonder there was anything left. There was a bank, a schoolhouse, a jail, a handful of residences, and a brothel, all nestled within the narrow valley that sloped up toward the crown jewel of Coldspring: its namesake—a deep limestone pit with clear blue water that lay at the base of the mountain in the north end of the valley.

The man stopped where the road had been overtaken by sagebrush just a few hundred yards from the limestone caldera of the spring. Behind it, Daniel could just make out a dilapidated wooden path that meandered up into the mountains, where the great yawning mouth of a mineshaft stood starkly amongst the vegetation even in near darkness.

“Well, that’s the lay of the land,” the man told Daniel, his eyes flitting toward the mineshaft up on the mountain for just a brief moment before returning to Daniel’s face. “If you or Ms. Verstappen have any questions, you’re welcome to call and ask, though truth be told, I’m rather relieved to be done with this place for good.”

Once again, Daniel made a conscious decision to keep his mouth shut, instead of asking the question the man almost seemed to be daring him to ask. “Where do we sleep?” he inquired instead. He’d had a long drive after all, and for all of Coldspring’s charm—or lack thereof—Daniel wanted nothing more than to crawl into his sleeping bag so he could get some rest. He didn’t harbor any delusions about sleeping in an actual bed.

“The saloon,” the man said before starting a quick pace back to their trucks, both parked in front of the building in question. “It’s really the only building still fit to live in. For now, anyway.”

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

Once the former owner had raced down the valley toward the main road, leaving Daniel on his own in the growing darkness, the magnitude of his decision to take this job finally started to set in.

When Daniel had first responded to the listing, which had asked for someone with a litany of skills better suited to a contractor and his entire crew, he hadn’t taken more than a few minutes to look up where the hell Coldspring was before deciding that the job was his.

The strain of the pandemic that had led Daniel to move back in with his parents now had him desperate to get as far away from Nashville as possible. Running away to the middle of the desert and getting paid to do it had seemed like the perfect solution. It wasn’t until after he’d actually gotten the job and signed the paperwork that Daniel even bothered to research why this particular ghost town had died.

In Coldspring’s case, it was literal. The entire town had perished without warning in the late 1800s from an apparent mass poisoning. The prevailing theory was arsenic contamination of the groundwater supply caused by a mining accident, though no definitive evidence to that effect had ever been found.

While that hadn’t been enough to scare Daniel away when Max had booked him a one-way ticket to Vegas, it was the only thing he could think about now as he unpacked all his necessaries from the truck and brought them inside the dusty saloon, which didn’t appear to have a single working source of light. Thankfully, Daniel had come prepared.

Daniel set up camp behind the bar, his lantern perched on the countertop near the windowsill as a beacon of sorts, though he wasn’t expecting Max to come strolling in any time soon. There was a deadbolt on the inside of the saloon door and a more elaborate padlock on the outside. Daniel removed the padlock and secured the deadbolt once he’d retrieved everything that he thought he might need, and then tucked himself into his sleeping bag, the lantern still sitting on the bar top casting the rest of the space into shadow. Daniel stared into the patch of darkness in the corner for a moment before finally sitting up to turn off the light entirely.

It wasn’t until he was lying there surrounded by the pitch black and the overwhelming quiet that he realized he’d never asked the former owner where he was supposed to go if he had to take a shit.

Daniel woke up bright and early the following morning from a sleep that had been fitful at best. It was difficult to get used to the change in the ambient sounds. Gone was the frog-song that had lulled him to sleep since he was a baby; in its place the rhythmic instruments of insects hiding in the brush, their melody muted now that fall was in full swing.

Daniel’s mind was busy as well. Max still hadn’t shown up, which meant that he had a long drive ahead of him before reaching the nearest town, Austin, and even then, there was no guarantee he’d have cell service. Or that Max would, for that matter.

But luck was on his side. Daniel made it up to Austin just in time for mid-morning breakfast, and his signal made a reappearance almost as soon as he crossed into town. Max answered on the first ring and out came a long, rambling explanation for her absence which boiled down to her car breaking down somewhere just outside of Fallon, where she’d spent the night, and that she was on her way to meet him in Austin as they spoke.

Satisfied with her assurances (for now at least), Daniel strolled into the little diner on the side of the highway in the center of town and sat down for a bite to eat.

There was a waitress at the head of the table almost as soon as he slid into a booth, a broad bucktoothed smile on her face as she greeted him. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Just water, miss, thank you,” Daniel replied. He didn’t like to rely on caffeine to keep himself going. “Do you have any breakfast specials?”

“Eggs and bacon with toast or a short stack with fruit,” the waitress recited easily. “But if you’re looking for something a bit more substantial, Pierre makes a mean chicken-fried steak.”

Daniel thought it over a minute. “Yeah, all right,” he decided. It would give him a reason to hang out in this diner a little longer, at least. “Side of scrambled eggs with that, also.”

“You got it, boss,” the waitress replied with a flirtatious little wink before sauntering back to give Daniel’s order to the cook.

Daniel watched her walk away with a bit more interest than he’d shown before and made a mental note to try to get a look at her nametag, assuming this place had the budget for something like that.

It did, as it turned out, and when the waitress came back with Daniel’s glass of ice water, he discovered that her name was Este. When Este came back with Daniel’s chicken-fried steak, slathered in thick white gravy that had his mouth watering before the plate reached the table, he also discovered that Este liked to gossip.

“You planning to stay in town long?” she asked, nearly leant up against the table while Daniel cut his steak. He couldn’t really fault her for hanging around, seeing as he was the only customer in the whole place, but he had to wonder just what she meant by it.

“In the area, yeah,” Daniel replied.

Este scoffed. “There’s not much else ‘in the area’,” she countered playfully.

Daniel took a careful bite of his steak, chewed, and swallowed. “You know where Coldspring is?” he asked her.

All the color drained from Este’s face. “You work for Don Stevens?” she asked in an almost breathless rush, her tongue stumbling over the words. “Don’t tell me he’s planning on fixing up the place.”

“Was that the guy who owned it before?” Daniel clarified. “No, I work for the person who just bought it.”

“Someone bought it?” Este sounded utterly incredulous. “You’re not staying there are you?”

Daniel nodded. “Through most of the winter,” he replied, “long as the weather’s mild enough to work.”

A taut expression took over Este’s face as she drew back from Daniel’s table, her eyes darting toward the door, where another customer had finally come in. “Well, I’d rethink that plan if I were you,” she snapped before rushing away like her ass was on fire.

Daniel had to suppress the urge to laugh out loud.

He thought Max might find the anecdote amusing as well, but when she finally showed up a few hours later, it was clear that the young woman was in no mood for ghost stories. She looked uncharacteristically frazzled when she burst through the door of the little diner, her long blonde hair knotted up into a messy bun atop her head, and she blew straight past Este without a word, her fiery gaze fixed solely on Daniel.

“Nice to meet you,” was the first thing she said, her consonants sharp and carefully enunciated, though beneath that Daniel could still detect the remnants of a lisp. The second was: “I didn’t get ripped off by that Don guy, did I?”

Daniel shook his head. “Long as you knew you paid for some rundown old ghost town in the middle of nowhere,” he told her.

Max rolled her eyes. None of his previous interactions with her had been what Daniel would consider the height of professionalism, so he wasn’t really taken aback by her attitude, but it was a whole other thing in person, that was for damn sure.

“All right, let’s hit the road, then,” she said, gesturing for Daniel to follow her back outside.

Daniel climbed to his feet a bit reluctantly. He was sort of hoping to grab lunch before heading out to the boonies. “You don’t want to grab a bite first?” he asked. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t exactly stock a gourmet kitchen when I packed.”

“If gourmet’s what you’re looking for, I’m pretty sure you’re in the wrong place,” Max replied with an unjustified sneer before storming out the front door.

They caravanned back to the saloon in Coldspring at a slightly quicker pace than Daniel would have liked, though even Max for all her impatience couldn’t maintain the same speed once they reached the rugged trail that led up into the mountains.

It wasn’t until they parked in front of the saloon and Max hopped out of her truck that Daniel finally took real stock of her, realizing almost immediately that this woman did not seem well equipped for living off-grid over the next three to six months, or however long she expected this damn project to take.

But he had to give her credit where it was due: as soon as her designer leather boots hit the dirt, she was already rolling up her sleeves and getting right to work.

That work consisted mainly of surveying the entire property from top to bottom and making a list of everything that needed to be done. Daniel followed along, letting Max know exactly what was required for each task in the way of supplies and manpower, and the whole time, watching the grimace on her face deepen ever-further with each new item added to her notebook.

“What exactly are your big plans for this place, anyway?” Daniel asked after they’d combed practically the whole town top to bottom—with the exception of the mineshaft looming high above them and the spring below.

“Tourism,” Max replied vaguely. “People love ghost towns.”

Daniel wasn’t sure that even the most hardcore would-be ghostbusters could be convinced to come all the way out to Coldspring to get their rocks off, but he just nodded and let Max keep believing that all of this wouldn’t just be one massive money sink in the end.

“First snowfall could be right around the corner,” Daniel pointed out to her as Max leaned down over the bar top to jot something else down in her notebook. His eyes dropped to where the first few buttons of her shirt were undone. Her fair skin was already starting to burn. He forced himself to look away. “We might not have much time to work on the exteriors before winter makes things harder than it needs to be.”

Max glanced up sharply, but if she’d intuited the focus of Daniel’s gaze, she didn’t make any indication of it. “I guess we better get started, then,” was all she said in reply.

Over the next week, Daniel managed to make significant headway on repairing the foundations of the major structures in town, though he still wasn’t convinced some of the smaller residences could actually be saved. Max was a surprisingly big help throughout the whole process; Daniel had anticipated more traditional foremanship on her part, but when it came right down to it, she didn’t seem at all afraid to get her hands dirty.

With another human being sharing the saloon floor—albeit on the other side of the bar, out of view—the town didn’t seem quite so threatening at night. Daniel slept well after each day of strenuous manual labor, and with Max keeping them supplied with fresh food from town, Daniel was missing a lot fewer creature comforts than he’d expected.

By the end of the first week, the days started to blend into each other. Without being able to rely on his phone, which had been tucked into his backpack turned off since the last time Daniel had gone up to Austin with Max for gas and propane, there wasn’t much to keep him tethered to the trappings of the outside world as he worked. It was everything Daniel could have hoped for and more. Complete and utter freedom.

But Daniel couldn’t quite seem to shake the sense of unease that came over him every time he caught a glimpse of the abyssal void of the mineshaft in his periphery. Sometimes he forced himself to stare up at it for minutes at a time, squinting against the wind that howled through the valley in the late afternoons, trying desperately to convince his subconscious that whatever movement he’d thought he’d seen in the darkness was just a trick of the light.

The next time Daniel went up to Austin on a supply run, he bought a calendar from the gas station and started marking the days.

It was a Tuesday when something finally happened that Daniel couldn’t explain, nearly two weeks after his first arrival in Coldspring. He was doing measurements in the old jailhouse, flummoxed as to how to begin restoring the damn thing without just knocking it down and starting all over, when he heard it.

“What?” Daniel called out frustratedly. It was the fifth time Max had called his name in the last twenty minutes with no additional response. After the sixth, Daniel finally threw down his measuring tape and notepad and stalked out of the building to see what she wanted. But when he walked outside, Max was nowhere to be found.

It was only after he turned a full one-eighty degrees that he spotted her, sitting out on the porch of the saloon where she usually hung out when she was thinking over a problem. The only thing was, Daniel could have sworn he’d heard her calling him from the opposite side of town.

Daniel slowly turned his head again, his eyes drifting upward to the mineshaft that Max still hadn’t made any mention of in her grandiose plans for restoring the town. He squinted hard as he stared up into the darkness, half-convinced that if he tried hard enough, he could make sense somehow of the disquiet that fell over him every time he remembered the source of Coldspring’s demise.

“What are you doing?” Max asked.

Somehow, she’d managed to come up behind him without making a sound. Daniel whirled around to face her, and then glanced over her shoulder at the place where she’d just been sitting to find the chair on the porch empty, though he wasn’t sure what to make of the relief he felt at the sight.

“Were you just calling my name?” Daniel wondered.

Max shook her head. “No, why?”

“Nothing,” Daniel replied. “Don’t worry about it.” Then he put the whole thing out of his mind and got back to work.

By the end of the third week, Daniel was positively certain he was going stir crazy.

He hadn’t had any more auditory or visual hallucinations, or whatever the hell it was that he’d experienced the week before, but he was waking up every day painfully hard in his sweatpants with no hope of release. It didn’t help that he was spending each night in the saloon just a few feet away from Max, who hadn’t shown the slightest bit of interest in Daniel since they’d met—and honestly, Daniel was kind of grateful for that, but it didn’t help him address the more immediate problem he was facing, and that was that he desperately, urgently needed to get laid.

Per their agreement, Daniel was entitled to a full two days off of his choosing every week. Today was a Friday. Barely five minutes after waking up, Daniel had decided that he was going to make a trip up to Austin that afternoon to see if Este was maybe a little bit interested, even after their sour farewell at the diner that Daniel had been carefully avoiding since their first encounter.

Este wasn’t interested. Georgie, a tall English tourist who was dressed more appropriately for mid-July rather than late-October, was.

“Please tell me you have a hotel somewhere around here,” Daniel muttered against Georgie’s sweat-soaked skin as he pressed her up against the cab of his truck. He had a knee wedged between her bare thighs, and he almost felt like he would die if he didn’t get inside her in the next five minutes.

“I have one of those van conversions,” Georgie replied with an awkward giggle. “Got a whole mattress in the back. We could really make my bed rock, you know?”

Daniel nodded, barely registering a word she was saying. He was pretty sure he would have followed her off a cliff if she asked nicely enough in that moment, but when he finally pulled away from her so they could do just that, it wasn’t Georgie’s face looking back at him. It was Max’s.

Then Daniel blinked, and like that, whatever he’d seen was gone. But the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach was only growing stronger.

“What’s wrong?” Georgie asked, reaching forward to pull Daniel back in.

He dodged her and stumbled back a few feet. “I have to go,” he said, mouth dry as he fumbled through both pockets before remembering that his keys were attached to his belt. “Sorry, I—”

Daniel didn’t finish the sentence before climbing into his truck and speeding away, leaving Georgie and the rest of Austin behind.

But when Daniel finally made it back to Coldspring about an hour later, Max’s truck was gone. She hadn’t said anything to him when he’d left that morning, but a cursory examination of the saloon revealed a note hastily written and taped to the bar top. Went 2 Fallon for more supplies. That was it, no further explanation of when she planned to be back or why it was so urgent that she’d left midday for an errand that would take her at least six hours of driving to complete.

Frustrated with Max, but more-so with himself for letting this damn place get the better of him, Daniel buried himself in his sleeping bag and screamed into his pillow until he tasted copper in the back of his throat.

It was dark when Daniel woke up on the floor of the saloon, and it took him a moment to realize what it was that had woken him. Usually, on nights where the moon was full, as it had been the past two nights, the light shone straight through the saloon windows, illuminating the entire space with an eerie glow. But when Daniel’s eyes opened, all he could see was blackness, and there was a disorienting period of half-awake confusion before it finally dawned on him that the shape obscuring the moonlight belonged to a person.

Daniel’s blood ran cold. Instead of opting for fight or flight, his body simply froze.

Daniel watched as the shadow moved, completely silent, with none of the tell-tale creaking of the wooden floorboards underfoot that had become the de facto confirmation of either his or Max’s presence within the saloon. He held his breath as the shadow drew closer, and then—

“Max?”

She put a finger over her lips and moved closer as Daniel sat up in his sleeping bag.

“What is it?” he asked, in a whisper this time.

Max answered with a press of her lips against Daniel’s, surging into him, forcing his mouth to open to the insistent pressure of her own. She tasted metallic, but her hands against Daniel’s thighs were electrifying, distracting him for the moment from the strangeness of the encounter.

Then he remembered himself—remembered that Max was his boss and that there couldn’t be a worse idea.

Daniel pulled away sharply, and as he did so, he caught a glimpse of a face that wasn’t Max’s face, desiccated and bone white. But when he blinked, the apparition was gone, and it was Max staring back at him again, though there was still something about her that seemed…off. Different, somehow.

“If we’re going to do this,” Daniel started to say before just as quickly backtracking. “We shouldn’t,” he finished, though it felt like he was trying to convince himself more so than Max.

Once again, Max didn’t respond, but when she leaned forward to kiss him again, this time, Daniel didn’t put up a fight. He tangled his hands tightly in her long blonde hair as she laid a trail of bites along the hollow of his throat and down his chest, his other hand struggling to find a way to take off whatever it is that she was wearing. A nightgown? Bloomers? Before this, Daniel had never seen her go to bed in anything less than a crewneck and sweatpants, but maybe that was the reason she’d gone to Fallon, to plan for this—whatever this even was.

 Finally, Daniel managed to literally tear the undershirt off of her. With it gone, he drew back to appreciate the way her breasts were illuminated by the moonlight. Under other circumstances, it might have all been very romantic, but as it was….

Daniel quickly flipped Max over onto her back, temporarily getting himself tangled in his own sleeping bag before managing to break free. She stared up at him quietly, her expression calm and supplicating. The silence was a bit unnerving, but it wasn’t hard to ignore now that Daniel had his thumbs tucked into the waistband of her lacy bloomers. He slowly pulled them down, savoring every centimeter of skin revealed to his eyes. He was surprised to find a full thatch of dark blonde pubic hair between her thighs, but he certainly wasn’t disappointed.

When he ducked his head down to press his mouth against her cunt, Daniel was startled once again by the sharp metallic taste, the same as her tongue. It took him a moment to get used to, but then it faded quickly, and all Daniel could taste was a familiar mix of sweetness and salt.

Max sighed quietly when she came with her thighs flexing against Daniel’s face. He sat back, fingers shaking to unknot the front of his sweatpants, his cock so hard it almost hurt. Condoms, he remembered belatedly. There was a stash in his backpack on the other side of the bar.

“I’ll be right back,” Daniel reassured Max before running around to the front of the saloon to grab his bag.

The condoms weren’t in the pocket he remembered putting them in, which led to a frustrated scramble as Daniel searched every pocket and seam for them before finally finding them tucked between the pages of his notepad. He breathed out a quiet sigh of relief as he tore one away from the rest before hurrying back to where Max was waiting for him.

Only she wasn’t there.

Daniel stared down at the imprint in his pillow where Max’s head had just laid, his mind conjuring up a vivid memory of her moonlit blonde hair standing out starkly against the black fabric. He stood up slowly, examining every corner of the saloon for any sign of her, but she was just…gone.

“Daniel.”

He turned his head to find the door to the saloon hanging open on its hinges. Through the darkened entryway, he caught a glimpse of something out in the sagebrush, a distinct silhouette with bright eyes, reflective like an animal’s, but whatever it was he’d seen, it disappeared too quickly for Daniel to get a good look at it.

Daniel slowly stumbled over to the open doorway. He peered outside cautiously, taking note of his truck, which was parked on its own next to the vacant spot that Max’s vehicle had occupied before he’d left for Austin yesterday. It didn’t make sense. He should have heard her pulling in, loud enough to wake him, or at the very least, driving off again. Had she parked further down the road? How had she gotten out of the saloon without him seeing her?

Daniel swallowed, trying to clear his throat so he could call out to her, but as he stared out over the lonely valley, his vocal cords seized up, a paralyzing fear suddenly washing over him like a tidal wave. Daniel stood there just a moment longer, and then reached forward to slam the saloon door shut. His fingers were trembling as he secured the deadbolt. It was a long time before he managed to fall asleep.

Daniel woke the next morning to the sound of tires crunching against the gravel outside the saloon. He ripped himself from his sleeping bag immediately and stumbled out into the daylight, his eyes slitted against the sun’s late-morning brightness as he watched Max hop down out of the cab of her truck, looking for all the world as though she’d had a perfectly peaceful evening.

“Where the hell did you go?” Daniel demanded as she walked over to the front door of the saloon.

Max paused, looking a bit startled by the venom in his tone. “Didn’t you see my note?” she asked.

“I mean last night. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Max countered. “I left yesterday right after you did. I just got back. And good morning to you, too, by the way.” She stormed past him into the saloon with a quiet ‘asshole’ muttered under her breath.

Daniel remained standing there on the front porch for a minute or two, he wasn’t quite sure. When he finally came back inside, he walked straight past Max and into the backroom, which might have served as living quarters once upon a time before the gaping hole in the wall had rendered it unusable. The mirror still worked, though, for all its spiderweb cracks and layers of dust, and Daniel approached it with a trembling hand pressed to his collar.

Daniel stood in front of the mirror for a few seconds, just staring at his own reflection as if to reassure himself that he was still real, and then at last, tugged down the neck of his t-shirt to reveal a pattern of pale white marks that trailed down the side of his throat to his sternum, tracing the exact path of Max’s mouth the night before. They weren’t bruises—the exact opposite, in fact, as though the pigment in his skin had literally been leached from the places where she’d marked him.

All Daniel could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears as he stared at the marks. Then something—a face in the mirror that wasn’t his own. Daniel whipped around to find nothing waiting over his shoulder, just the same gap in the wall that had always been there, opening up onto the sagebrush-covered landscape, illuminated fully under the bright sunlight.

But Daniel could have sworn he’d seen something.

When he finally emerged from the backroom a few minutes later, Max was standing at the bar, her eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked him.

Daniel nodded. “Fine,” he lied. “Just a little….” He paused and swallowed hard. “Have you noticed anything strange lately?”

“Strange like what?” Max asked.

Daniel just shrugged.

Max laughed. “You should really stop letting the locals tell you ghost stories about this place,” she advised.

Daniel forced a smile and nodded. “You’re right,” he told her.

“Come on, then,” she said. “Let’s get back to work.”

[starlightiing]

any longer fics you're working on right now?

Yeah, I have a few actually.

I have a stardew valley au I'm working on where George is a posh city boy that inherits his grandad's farm. He knows nothing about manual labor or farming or any of that. He shows up in $400 shoes and $300 sunglasses and just sort of grimaces at everything. He's really nice to the townspeople but he doesn't care much for the lifestyle. He finds a spider in his new home the first night and runs off to bother Alex, the town handyman and carpenter, to take care of it for him. It will be Galex with background pairings as I build the world. The two of them also sneak out late at night to do illegal street racing on the empty roads outside town.

I have an original AU I'm working on. It's post apocalyptic and there's a genetic mutation going around where humans are being born with wings. It's very rare. Also, the feathers are worth a shit ton of money in this ruined world, and they also have properties in them that make them excellent for brewing specific drugs of choice. So humans are naturally hunting down these poor 'Angels' as they're called (no super powers or anything, just wings) and cutting their wings off, ect ect. Alex is a human and a doctor in this verse, and he runs a sanctuary for Angels to come and hide and be safe. George is an angel that has an incredibly horrific and tragic backstory that ends up at the sanctuary. Charles is human and so is Lewis, together they make up the head of the away teams that go and find angels to save. They basically hunt hunters. Pierre, Max, Carlos, Lando, and Oscar are angels. Lando is the only one that still has both wings, the others have had one or both cut off. Carlos is actually the only one so far that's lost both. it's really gritty.

I was working on the inception AU but it performed horribly on Ao3 so I deleted it. I might rework it and repost it after I've figured out what to do with it, but I personally thought it was interesting. George was new in the dreamshare business, and he was trying to prove himself to Max and Lewis, the best in the business, by testing out a new compound of somnacin that their chemist Lando made. It...goes very poorly for George, unfortunately.

Those are the big ones at the moment. I'm constantly looking into AUs to adapt as well. For right now, though, I'm happy doing shorter requests until I can drum up some interest in the larger ideas to put the time and effort into them <3

[rosetyler42]

While in WIR-Verse, @lovelylivelyv 's Jack Nephalem is the direct bio offspring of Bendy the Ink Demon and Alice Angel, he has a DIFFERENT backstory in canon-verse.

According to MK, Jack was designed for a planned Halloween special prior to the studio's closing where Alice and Bendy got married and had a kid. While Jack's Halloween special never made it to the public, he was still created by the ink machine like all the other ink creatures...from the soul of Handyman Wally Franks.

Putting under a read more since this got LONG

Since nothing's been done with the Jack/Wally connection, I thought it might be fun to draw Jack with some of Wally's character symbols and saying his catchphrase...but changed to "I'm (NOT) out of here!" Since in our version...he DOESN'T get out.

The hat and knife comes from the Bendy Royale April Fools trailer (though I think The Illusion of Living confirmed Wally did canonically wear one,) the cake is from one of the audio logs, and Jack has Wally's hall closet keys on his tail.

Bonus thought: While it is sadly ironic Wally DOESN'T "get out of there" in our version with Jack, it makes our version of Dark Revival even funnier that Wilson Arch, posing as a "lowly janitor," has a Cyclebreaker enemy who's born from the soul of the funny chaptic comedic relief janitor.

It also gives Wally the last laugh since he goes from being a disrespected and underestimated janitor to the 2nd most powerful being in the Cycle, one of the most stable ink monsters there is, and the successor to the Ink Demon as it's deity after Bendy escapes with Audrey.

And since it makes it better, from @lovelylivelyv : My boy!!!!!!!

I love the spin on Wally’s catchphrase, considering the lore I’ve written for him in the Bendy duology it’s a great statement of strength/loyalty. He ain’t leaving Henry’s side in Ink Machine, and he ain’t leaving Bendy’s side in Dark Revival

@lovelylivelyv @black-ak9 @wingingfromthezing @heartsong1994 @howling-nightmare @inkiedraws @inkhyaena @inkspottie @inkwelldevil @thedobermutt @thedopedemon @thedemonsurfer @sammy-lawrence-my-beloved @serial-serializednovelreader

[nightshcderp]

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

Here is where I'm going to compile all of my main verse connections! If a spot is filled, I can still rp with you. I'm not picky. This is mainly for organization and lore purposes! ♡

While Morrigan is LOV/PLF centric, I'm open to hero connections!

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐕𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬/𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐥 𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐭

Tomura Shigaraki - @dusty-handyman

Kurogiri - @mistdad

Himiko Toga - @little-sis-toga

Touya Todoroki (Dabi) - @endeavorsbiggesthater

Atushiro Sako (Mr. Compress) - @marbled-magician

Shuichi Iguchi (Spinner) - @spinner-the-gecko

Kenji Hikiishi (Magne) - @magnetic-sister

Jin Bubaigawara (Twice) - @duality-in-spandex

Mustard - @must4rdmha

Goto Imasuj (Muscular) - @bl00dymerder

Kagero Okuta (Giran) -

Daruma Ujiko (Kyudai Garaki) -

Lady Nagant - @the-lovely-lady-nagant

𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐢

Kai Chisaki (Overhaul) - @kaichisaki-rp

Hari Kurono (Chronostasis) - @kurono-stasis

Shin Nemoto - @shinnemoto-rp

Others can be added!

𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐚 𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐲

Rikiya Yotsubashi (Re-Destro) - @theliberat0r

Geten - @geten-iceman

Chitose Kizuki (Curious) - @yourcur1ousrep0rt3r

Tomoyasu Chikazoku (Skeptic) - @skeptic-inc

Koku Hanabata (Trumpet) - @inciting-trumpet

𝐏𝐫𝐨-𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐞𝐬

𝐎𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬

Carmine & Rockstar - @teamdesertflower

Getaway - @just-getaway

Static -

Kageno - @kagenoakirp

Yumiko - @yumikoshigarakirp