#he and dee love those damn stripes

[iasipwardrobe]

Dennis + STRIPED LONG SLEEVES

[kth1]

Get Jinxed [MYG]

beautiful, gorgeous, glorious banner made by the talented queen @dee-ehn​ - thank you so much for making my thoughts come to life in your edit!

Get Jinxed  [Yoongi x Reader] ⟶ Credit: @kimtaehyunq​ ⟶ Genre: Angst | Smut | 21+ | Cyberpunk AU | One Shot ⟶ Warnings: pwp, sorta old lovers to enemies to lovers, cocky yoongi, mentions of weapons, criminal activities, hopeless romantic OC, rough sex, over simulation, multi-orgasms, public indecency, unprotected, creampie, etc,  ⟶ WC: 4.7k+ ⟶ Summary: A rouge ex officer of the law - Yoongi - has twisted his ways into causing mayhem across towns. You are the high and mighty officer who seeks revenge on Yoongi’s ways; considering that he not only turned against the city in which he grew up in, striping all chances of reforming himself, he also stole your heart. ⟶ Teaser: “He hushes you with a hand, his teeth nipping eagerly around your clavicles. “Shh,” he warns with a devilish glint, “We’re in public, Y/n.” He chuckles, mouth coming back to kiss against your jaw.” ⟶ Beta Reader: Thank you so so so very much for taking on this task very very very last minute @chillingtae​ I am so thankful for you to accept this role, and thank you for helping me through this fic! I owe you! ♡ ⟶ Author’s note: Written for @houseofddaeng​‘s Agust D Anniversary Event. Was my first time touching elements of a cyberpunk!au. 

Rain casts a veil over your sight as you stare deeply into the silhouette across the murky alleyway; the figure before you surveys the one-of-a-kind hextech rifle aiming right at their head. Glistening neon lights flood your peripherals, puddles reflecting fractions of radiance between the cracks of the split bricks under your very feet. The chill of cold water drenches your attire, even the cap resting on your head leaks streams down the sides of your face.

“How could you!” You choked out between your teeth; loud enough over the pounding rain, loud enough to cut the man in front of you as if your words are daggers.

The rifle that deemed you the best shot in the city has no comparison to your superior intellect. Your wits earned you the way through the rankings and nobody, no criminal or lawbreaker were foolish enough to cross your path. You are known as Vopamis City’s finest peacekeeper and your oath is embedded deep within your family roots.

You’re the sheriff of a thriving, escalating city where art, craftsmanship, trade, and metamorphosis were built and centered from. Vopamis is and forever will be a reinventing city where dreams are lived to the fullest extent and treasures are found around every corner. It sits on top of the distrusted city of Tapos, an undercity district – which used to be once united but now no more – buried deep within canyons weaved below.

You press your words and force the air to pass through your clutching windpipe, “Fuckin’ answer me you son of a bitch!”

The figure sighs with a step forward, rolling their head out of annoyance but once their eyes meet yours in the light you knew all breath escaped your chest.

“Hi, Y/n.”

The dangerous bright orange hair stands out like no other, just like the cocky grin that emits the same tone as his two-toned eyes does. One is dull brown with crystalized specks of white, the other a piercing topaz yellow; a hard contrast between his natural dark pupil – all of which made those eyes captivating.

You fear this moment every day ever since that terrible day. It haunts you; it scares you; it hurts you. Yet here you are, face to face with the man who solemnly swept the valuable, rich rug right out from under you and ran with it. With betrayal and pain coursing through your veins you sought out his existence every single day to get revenge on the one person you thought you truly once loved.

With your rifle adjusted point blank, with the help of the glowing red laser to the center of his forehead, you show no signs of backing down from your stance. The rain beats heavily though your heart pounds harder inside your chest.

He looks just how you remember him; black under-cut still very much unkempt, a piercing jabbed through one eyebrow and two into the cartilage on the same side of his nose. His oversized cryptic jacket hides his frame well, decorated in all sorts of patches, widgets, and spikes that have their own metallic shine to them. You swear you see the edgings of tattoos creeping up the sides of his neck, exactly how you recall them.

Those unforgiving thick soled boots kick up the water around his steps as he inches out of the shadows, “It’s been a while.”

You ignore him just like he ignores your first sentence, “How could you do this?!”

He shrugs with amusement dressing his face, “Why ask me questions you already have answers to, Y/n?”

With glares meeting another in a standoff stare he halts his walk five feet in front of you. Unphased by the downpour of smogged twilight rain, you twist your finger around the trigger of your trusty gun. “You stole for the black markets, betrayed your city and me, ran off to the unstable technologies and reckless constructions of the polluted and gangrenous Tapos. Why!?”

“You seem to be a bit vindictive.” He snickers, swiping a hand through his soaked locks. “I was bored.”

Bored.

Your grip tightens around your rifle, you can’t tell if you are shaking from the cold of the rain or the anger raging throughout your body. His words made your heart sink to the pit of your stomach.. “Yoongi!” You hiss with a harsh tone, blood boiling under your very skin.

He steps again, hand clutching the barrel of your gun and aligning the end against his forehead. Yoongi looks at you with teasing eyes and a wide, wirily smile. He is testing you - taunting you. “I know you won’t do it. You won’t pull the trigger.” That blunt topaz eye drills back into yours, enticing and enchanting all at once. “How many times have you seen me in the streets? Stealing from this filthy, pathetic excuse of a renowned city? How many times did you watch me walk by doing whatever I damn well please? Why are you stopping me now? What changed?”

To what you believe you are holding out strong, insisting you have the upper hand and all control. But you are frozen, unpredictably iced in place from where you stand. Only to stare back at the man that your heart swells and aches for. Yoongi doesn’t wait for you to answer as he already knows every single move and step you have going for you.

“It’s only been two months.” He states with a soft smile, lowering and pushing aside the gun in your grasp. “One of the most determined and skilled investigators of all Vopamis. Filled with ferocity and a strong sense of justice and resolution. Falls right into the footsteps of each and every one of your family members. They reinforced their ideals of right and wrong on you so much that it’s practically branded across your forehead.”

Yoongi spits to the side, tilting his head to watch your face with all his rambling. He has proven himself in such a small-time frame of how impulsive he can be, going from a trusted high ranked officer of the law to a merciful criminal who now wreaks havoc without care. Buildings burn in his name as he always made sure to leave a massive trail of mayhem and panic in his wake, never seized to end his rampage with the biggest explosions – which soon became his signature.

You loved him ever since the day you two joined the academy together. Yoongi excelled in everything from hextech inventions to architectural research. Vopamis has become a magnet for the most skilled craftsmen from all over the world and the more restricted and dangerous ones fell into the toxic runoff of Tapos. Now, Yoongi’s schemes have inspired copycat crimes among the chem-punks, a movement in which he predicted after labeling righteous wordings on structures throughout both cities. Some followers have blindly followed his persona named ‘X’.  In a crafty way each successful heist has a small piece left for the police to find; a personable note that always says, “get jinxed.”

Standing helplessly at the mercy of your own heart your head drops, eyes casting to the drenched road. Everything in your righteous mind tells you to take him in, lock him up – it is your job and duty to do this as you are one with the law. But your poor, fragile heart is gapping open from the piece that was ripped away by Yoongi.

“You’re right.” You whisper softly.

“I know.”

All the times you allowed him to do what he continues to do because you didn’t have it in you to send him to jail. As you watch him become the criminal he is now, refusing to stop his acts even though the justice and pride within you screams for you to act on your instincts. “Everything you’re saying is right.”

Yoongi raises his hand, palm facing up and holding a chemtech explosive bullet that swirls a cobalt blue liquid inside. Instantaneously you knew exactly what the bullet is – the meaning behind it, and all of the precious memories came flooding back all at once.

The bullet was no longer than two inches and has a hole drilled through the piece to lace a chain through it. Yoongi wears it as a charm to his bracelet and even in the dark of the rainy night with neon lights flashing around you, you can still see the small etchings of both of your initials on the tip of the bullet. It was his first ever fully functional bullet he crafted back at the academy and he had dedicated that piece of craftsmanship to you.

“I still love you, you know.” Yoongi’s voice stills your breath, deep and stern. With all seriousness he openly speaks with a stony face as you look up to him. “I never stopped.”

You avert your eyes away from the nostalgic piece which lies in Yoongi’s palm and the heat of your breath fans out into the open cool air in a puff of smoke. It hurts your heart, all your pent-up revenge brought out a disgusting angry monster from within you. You’re blinded by the law and blinded by the admiration of love for Yoongi.

“You don’t.” You counter with a hiss.

Raindrops hide away the streams of tears that break down the brims of your eyes and you refuse to keep your eyes open in the slim chance of giving Yoongi the satisfaction of your glistening orbs filling with hurt. As much as you secretly hope and want – need – Yoongi to say those words, they still simmer a splitting pain inside of your delicate heart.

Yoongi’s tatted, calloused hand aimlessly raises to your face, his knuckles brushing against the curve of your cheek. Surprisingly, you don’t flinch at the contrasting and unexpected warmth that’s responsible for heating up that side of your face. Instead you find yourself helplessly leaning into the contact, your shaking hand still holding your trusty gun at your side.

“It’s funny,” Yoongi scoffs, forcing your eyes to jolt in his direction of his action.

You burn a glare at him while he inspects your face, your blood boiling underneath all of your drenched clothes and cold skin. Yoongi sounds a quick ‘tsk’ as disapproval while his fingers glide down the column of your neck. “So funny that you question everything I say and do.”

The fact that he has your rendered frozen in place under the heavy weather and his intimidating presence only confirms his suspicions. He wasn’t lying to you and you knew that, right? You swallow thickly at the bright orange haired man in front of you, eyes casting down to shrink your frame.

You sneer back, “Can you blame me? You ruined your chances of being an officer – all that hard work you put in means nothing now. You destroyed all your chances of being a citizen of Vopamis. And all because you were bored.” In the back of your mind no matter how many hours you had pondered his reasonings to derail into a criminal, what hurt you the most wasn’t the fact he chose this path of being a high risk offender – it is the reality of him leaving you behind as if nothing about your relationship between another is important to him as it was to you.

Yoongi cocks an amused eyebrow, a smirk quick to follow. “Hm, yes. I wasn’t bored with you though, Y/n. Truthfully, knowing that you’ll be hot on my trail at all times – no matter where I went – made this new life even more fun. You enjoy chasing me?” He swipes his tongue through the small opening of his lips, two-toned eyes glare at the small line of tattoos up the back of your own ear. He tilts your jaw with his thumb, exposing more of your smooth damped skin.

Under Yoongi’s hand you feel like a marionette; damned against his ministrations and at how weak you feel towards him. You can see your vision blur around the edges, your sight honing on the glowing eye that stares at you with interest. Another puff of fog seeps out of your mouth from a released breath that you held in for far too long. You don’t acknowledge the way your limbs grew numb by the minute or the way your bottom lip trembles from your constant shivers. You are only focusing on the way the warmth of the pads of his fingers emits onto your skin and gives you a sliver of assurance.

“Have I ruined this too?” Yoongi questions in a whisper, eyes projecting down to your cold lips.

Everything in your mind tells you to scream at him, tell Yoongi ‘yes, you completely and utterly ruined every single aspect of my life,’ but the words cannot crawl their way up your throat and form the sounds you need. Instead your face reacts with pain, all of your walls and defenses breaking down around you and your rifle drops to the puddled ground underneath you.

He can read you like a book, study your features, and pull each intricate and thin string of your heart. He plays you like a fiddle with a crooked smile, a knowing look to his face where all his intuitions of you feeling something towards him are all riddled true. It’s dressed all over your face, your body leaning closer to his, the look to your eyes – glistening or not.

His thumb taps lightly against your bottom lip, popping it open from the stern line your mouth was creating. You gulp with anticipation, your surrounding areas become less and less in vision of your peripheral and your eyes can only bore straight back into Yoongi’s; pupils dilating rapidly.

“No…”

Your solo word shakes out with a heavy breath at the same time Yoongi’s other hand comes to grab your elbow and pull you closer to him. The heat radiating off of him is met between you with a strikingly fast kiss, but the kiss was tentative at best. Even reading all of your body gestures, the way your posture changes when it comes to his proximity invading your territories, Yoongi still approached with cocky confidence. He knows he has you around his finger, around his hand and more.

‘You weren’t ruined, yet,’ he thought. But Yoongi is all too excited to violate whatever purity of the law that is still laced within your morals.

He’s eager to shove his deadly tongue into the first parting of your mouth, a gasp of excitement releasing through a moan. You forget about the downpour of rain around the two of you, the chill of the air cutting through your clothes, even forgetting the blaring neon signs illuminating the paths around this alleyway. Your mind is intoxicated with the savvy orange haired, corrupted, and dangerous man who has swindled his way within the burrows of each city and the cavities of your heart.

A single tear traces down your cheek as your arms link around Yoongi’s neck, your body completely caving into the man before you. With the motion Yoongi backs the two of you up until you're hidden well enough in the darkness. His hand cocks your head to the side as he leaves wet open-mouthed kisses as he pushes you against the side of the building. His lips heat your skin up and send an involuntary chill of goosebumps down your body.

You breath out into the air while your senses adjust to the new sensations of want and need being applied to your form. “Yoongi –“

He hushes you with a hand, his teeth nipping eagerly around your clavicles. “Shh,” he warns with a devilish glint, “We’re in public, Y/n.” He chuckles, mouth coming back to kiss against your jaw.

You muffle a noise of acknowledgement, or a moan of pleasure from the sharp suck Yoongi plants against the sweet spot under your ear. Your arms grip him tighter, pulling him flush against your front to be as close as possible. Without hesitation your hands link up the back of his head, fingers carding through the disheveled drenched locks for a nice pull.

Both of your clothes stick to you like a second skin, suctioned to your own bodies and you desperately want them ripped off. Yoongi hisses at the yank of his head. Sensing your actions as an emergency he huffs a laugh your way, “Yeah? What do you want?” He removes the hand across your mouth only to shove his thumb into it, pressing down against your tongue. “Is this righteous mouth going to tell me something?”

You comply by action with the decision of closing your mouth around his finger and sucking it with delight. Yoongi praises you with words of assurance, biting down on the flesh of his own bottom lip. He leans into you, hips grinding instantly against your frontside. The uneven gyrating of wet fabrics causes a rough and uncomfortable friction, but it was something that helped direct attention toward your neglected core.

Yoongi lifts up your slicked shirt just enough to fondle around the waistband of your pants in search of unhinging your duty rig belt. “You’re going to be a good girl, right?” His eyes give you a knowing look as his thumb detaches from your trap. Nodding, you seek his mouth once more to savor the warmth between you two. “Vopamis’ finest,” he quotes in a mocked tone.

“I love you.”

Your confession halts Yoongi for a brief moment between kisses, his hand stalls as it breaches a few inches inside the front of your pants. He has you pinned against the rough brick of a building in the outskirts of the city with your freezing, aching body under his frame. Your mouth and legs so willing to open up for him.

This is the very first time he’s seen you so ‘not yourself’ in all the years he has known you, even when the fondness blossomed more between the two of you. Whichever relationship the two of you were in – it wasn’t exclusive but it surely is implied – has become completely manipulated to the public eye. Yoongi’s urgency falters for a moment, a flashback to a simpler time where the underlying love and sweetness emitting from the two of you has no boundaries. But as fast as that memory exposes itself, it was easily covered in his future thoughts. His enjoyment of being who he is now, what he wants to achieve, obtain, and take.

With your face plastering across all walls of his mind, he smirks excessively as if he is pleased with himself. He has everything he wants, and he’s greedy for more. No matter what Yoongi does with himself he knows he’ll have you regardless – and right now is proving that theory.

He leans forward to plant another kiss to your appetizing lips once more, “I know you do.”

Quickly, Yoongi flips you in your place in one quick motion, yanking down a portion of your pants once you catch yourself against the wall. Your eyes scan frantically to the opening of the alleyway, silently praying nobody stumbles upon the two of you in this indecency act – especially how your rifle lays still on the ground in the opening.

The air breezes across your now exposed cheeks, and with a firm hand Yoongi shoves against your lower back forcing you to bend forward enough to reveal your core. Gasping, you shudder under the sudden invasion of his cold clammy palm molding on top of your cunt. Your hands held you up against the wall, pants pulled only to your lower thighs preventing the spread your legs most desperately needed.

Slowly, Yoongi’s fingers prod along your slit, dipping directly between your folds the moment they come in contact with your dampness. He shushes you once again with the ruggedness of his voice while you hear the clinking of what you assume to be his belt buckle.

He wastes no time sinking a finger straight into your entrance, only after giving your clit a moments time of blissful pleasure – gone far too quick for your liking. His digit glides easily, enticing him with the next stroke to join a second. Your mouth hangs open with heated pants, your lower stomach jumping excitedly at the intimacy of your loved one, and your hips chase the stride of his fast pace.

“Shit, Yoongi!” you curse under your breath, feeling his free hand now snaking up your side under your shirt. His fingers alone create such friction that has your head lolling to the side and your inners clutching erratically. You don’t question your urgency, the impatient nature your body so willingly falls into, not when Yoongi is inches behind you lining up his engorged head to replace his fingers.

The two of you don’t care about the surrounding areas, too filled with lust. Too drunk on the idea of Yoongi coming back to you – and he is too excited knowing he has you in his clutches.

Heat courses throughout your core and abdomen, running down each of your limbs the moment his hips are pressed against your backside, dick submerged in one swift jolt forward. You lose your footing, falling further into the wall as your forearms plant into the building. A guttural moan leaks out of him the moment you yelp and squirm under him. His fingers desperately hold around your waist as he straightens his back, giving the next few experimental thrusts the slower motion your pussy needed from his harsh action.

Yoongi’s hip snaps back into you, bringing the flesh of your ass into the seat of his lap. He seethes through his teeth, “Fuckin’ hell!”

You’re restricted from widening your legs no thanks to your pants locking you in place, but this also gives a tighter sensation against his swollen cock. He doesn’t give you too much time to recuperate and catch your bearings, too honest with his mission and surging forward to bring the two of you to the brink.

“Stand,” he grunts with an arm circling around your waist. With his help you’re press flush against the wall and his chest, completely stuck between two hard places. Yoongi’s pace is rapid, the slaps of skin melt into the sounds of the fallen raindrops. It’s not long for his cock to jam pleasantly into the sweet spots within your silky walls, his thrusts determined to continue their gyrating motion deep inside you.

He chuckles at the lewd moans you release, head tilted back against his shoulder as you breath for air. “You really don’t care if someone hears you, huh? What do you think they’ll do, seeing the best shot in town being railed by a rogue criminal?”

Yoongi’s words course through your ear, his teeth coming to bite the flesh behind it. Your mind is too cloudy to think straight, not when he was inside of you both physically and emotionally. “T-they’ll hate me.”

“Is that so?”

You hum because that’s all you can do. The knot tightens in your stomach, the dull ache between your legs distorting itself into an electrifying spark has you cursing Yoongi’s name to go faster, harder. Yoongi feels you tightening around his prodding cock, only causing him to buck into you rougher.

Orange locks find their way between your fingers, tightening your grip on his hair the faster that band within you reaches towards its peak. “Yes! Yes, yes, please –“

The moment your body feels his inked fingers sneak their way to your clit, pinching it harshly, pulls a shriek of pleasure from your throat. Your body snaps under him – back arching as your walls clasp around his cock. “A-ah!” you shout while your orgasm rushes to all corners of your body, a tingly sensation vibrating through every fiber of your being.

Yoongi smirks as his pace doesn’t halt, now latching both of his hands to your hips he directs all movements. He enjoys your dispute of over-sensitivity, knowing how much you secretly like it from all the times in the past.

“One more, I know you have it in you. I’ve seen it before.” His voice is rough, any tang of sweetness swept away. “I’ll continue to fuck into this pussy until you cum again.”

Without stopping for a breather your body rushes into overdrive, it continues to squirm in his grasps and your legs shake dangerously underneath you. All thoughts of remaining quiet have gone out the window. Your second orgasm is set to fire, ready to be kicked off the edge into infinity, and with one quick shove of Yoongi’s cock that sinks all the way to ram into your cervix has you keening over and over.

Your pussy pulsates around his dick inconsistently, holding onto the appendage like a vice. It triggers his frenzy, his release spilling deep inside your well spent walls with dirty grunts. His arms hold around you tightly, helping you stand straight and to assist himself at the same time. Together both of your breathes are resounded, heated air escaping around the two of you in puffs of smoke.

You wince when his softening cock slips out of you, leaving gravity to aid in the way his cum drips casually out of your hole. Yoongi doesn’t allow you to turn and face him before he’s hoisting up your bottoms, the fabrics too annoyingly drenched to feel comfortable against your skin.

When you finally turn to speak to him he’s already readjusting his pants up along his hips, securing the button to his pants as he eyes you for a quick second. His hair is even more of a mess than before, no doubt you looked remotely better.

Dropping your mouth to talk, Yoongi averts his gaze to your rifle laying to the side. “Yoongi, I –“

“Don’t.”

His eyes narrow at the device that labels the reality of everything, where the two of you stand no matter how much you tango with another. A snort leaves him as he finishes off the buckle to his belt and you can tell by the way his facial features flicker than he’s having a complicated inner dialog going on inside his mind.

“Yoongi!” You press, grabbing hold of his shoulders to shake him slightly. “Yoongi please look at me, please don’t walk away from me.”

After a deep breath he exhales slowly, blank eyes now directed at you. There’s confusion painted over your face from the way you aren’t understanding why Yoongi suddenly steps even closer to place another kiss onto your lips, but it causes you to stop thinking momentarily. His lips, plump and plush, are the only things you can think about – until he’s pulling away too fast.

Back now facing you, he strides down the alley in which you found him. As if this heated interaction, and everything it consisted of, seized to exist anymore – the time has passed.

You take a wobbly step in his direction, hand reaching towards the figure that distances itself further from your grasp. “Yoongi, please!” You cry.

Behind you is your rifle, only feet away, and in front of you is the man you continuously chase. You’re torn between the two, the feeling of your mind splitting in half causing you to have a mental debacle with yourself. You scream with frustration; tears stream down your face at what your heart truly wants.

To stop the criminal at large or to join him?

You didn’t notice how Yoongi stops in his tracks, head tilted to look behind him with his piercing yellow eye standing out through the darkness. He watches you curiously, the environment around the two of you officially draws itself back into reality. Once he hears your scream of defeat he completely turns to face you with the widest grin smeared across his mouth.

“Hey, Y/n...” He pauses to wait until he knows you’re listening to him – and of course you immediately do so. Yoongi cocks his head to the side with a sense of arrogance radiating from the way his body stood. You desperately look at him with a plea, but your facial features harden at his next words. And they lace, deadly, within your mind.

Yoongi sighs, running one of his hands through his hair. Again, he knows he already has you, ruined you, and now he completely and absolutely owns you whether you like it or not. Yoongi playfully lifts his fingers to cross them together, a sign of a heart sent straight to you, “Get jinxed.”

© All rights reserved under @kimtaehyunq​ - do not copy, repost, modify, edit, or translate any of my work without my direct consent. This tumblr is the ONLY place my fics are posted.

[hankwritten]

Long Time Listener, First Time Caller

Demoman/Soldier, 2k

Request for @tokyotrain, Music

1. Reveille

There had never, ever, in the history of time or space, an instrument Demo hated more.

The bugle reverberated through the open window that someone had conspicuously left open, just in case the man in bed wouldn’t have been awakened by its bellows piercing through the glass. Not that that would ever happen. Demo was pretty sure he could’ve heard that damn instrument all the way in Hell, and grasped blindly for the pillow he could smother his own face in. It didn’t help. He shouldn’t be able to taste the cacophony the bugle was making, but there was the sting of copper on his tongue, as though his gums were bleeding in revolt.

“I’m going to kill him,” he muttered into the three layers of feathered pillows.

By the time he stumbled down to breakfast, there were bags under his eye, diluted homicidal intent on his face, and his fluffiest robe around his shoulders.

“And he’s finally up,” Mum said, and sipped her tea. Usually she’d be giving him an earful about his lazy behind tarrying in making her morning cup, but since she was smirking at his disheveled state, Soldier must have brewed it for her.

“Grrnn…” her son replied.

Coffee was the only thing that would make this morning better. Thankfully, there was a pot already brewing; Soldier wasn’t that heartless.

“I see you have acquired your morning cup of Joe!” Soldier said when he finally retired from his routine, sweeping into the kitchen on a wave of wholly unwelcome cheer. Beyond him—since the mansion didn’t have a flagpole, he’d found ways to make do—a rake was shoved into the lawn with a Stars ‘n Stripes bandana tied around it. This he erected every day at dawn. “Excellent! Now that you are refreshed and full of energy, you are capable of participating in post flag ceremony drills!”

Demo skipped the not on your life and went straight to, “I’m going to take that bloody thing and re-twist it until you can hang yourself with it.”

Mum laughed, and Soldier grinned jubilantly, confident in the knowledge that he would always win mornings.

2. Taunt

“Whomp whomp whaaaa,” the stupid bloody trombone played at him.

Half delirious from blood loss, Demo bared his teeth at the smug BLU above him who, as soon as he finished taunting, promptly executed his unwilling audience with a shotgun blast to the head.

This was the fifth time this had happened today, and Demo was pissed. Where was Soldier even keeping that thing? Every bloody time there was no sign of the instrument whatsoever, then as soon as victory was assured he reached into hammer space and pulled out five feet of tubing! It was ridiculous to drive a man crazy under the best of circumstances—but having it be your partner was something that garnered a certain degree of necessary revenge.

Demo had had enough. It was about time he did some stooping to Soldier’s level.

The next day, Demo managed to shove Soldier off Upward’s scaffolding with a well-timed shield bash. He couldn’t have hoped for a better opportunity, perfectly executed so Soldier hadn’t even gotten a kill on him that day, which might have ruined the ‘surprise’. He stood, one foot on the Soldier-shaped hole in the wood, and leaned on his knee.

“Nice of you to drop in!” he called.

“Eugh,” Soldier grumbled, impaled haphazardly on various bits of wood.

“As long as we’re both taking a breather, mind if get a bit of piping practice in?”

Not waiting for a reply, Demo pulled out the bagpipes that had been eagerly awaiting their time in the sun. Sitting as they had been for the past five years in the attic, derelict ever since he’d purchased them on a lark, he didn’t blame them. When he flexed the bag, dust came out the mouthpiece.

“Oh no,” Soldier said.

“Oh yes!” Demo disagreed, and began to play.

Soldier was in a very unfortunate situation, arm broken the exact wrong way to keep him from covering his own ears. Thus he was forced to listen as Demo played out a belching and eardrum-bleeding anti-tune, rippling the open air above the drop off with painful ineptitude.

“Never played a day in me life,” Demo said cheerfully as he ceased blowing into the bellows.

“And you should never do so again!” Soldier accused. “The only positive thing I can say about your first attempt is that thank God it is over!”

“Over?” Demo smirked. “Nah, there’s another four movements to get through.”

Soldier’s head flopped back in defeat, helmet rolling off into the abyss and eyes pointing at the sky. “Jesus and Thomas Edison, please give me strength.”

This was not heard over the resuming of what only the foolish and the damned would refer to as ‘music’.

3. Radio

“Do not touch that dial, maggot!”

“I’m shotgun, I get radio privileges.”

“Guh,” Soldier complained as Demo flipped until the NMDX began to flow from the box, polluting the airwaves with its electronic beats. “What even is this hippie garbage?”

“It’s disco, laddie!”

Demo was already grooving in his seat, dead set on enjoying the new wave in direct defiance of his partner’s annoyed twitch. Or, perhaps, maybe because of it.

Soldier grumbled. “Doesn’t make any damn sense! What’s a duck doing at a disco in the first place?”

“He wasn’t a duck when he went there,” Demo scoffed. “It’s like you’re not even listening to the song.”

“I’m trying not too.”

“Fine then! What do you like to listen to in the car?”

Soldier hummed quietly for a second, the fading carols of Rick Dees and His Cast of Idiots catching on the notes and escaping into the hum of the highway. After a moment of contemplation, Soldier peeled his eyes from the road and began to rummage about in the center console. This caused him to swerve wildly along the highway, other cars blaring their horns as the blue Camaro glided over the dotted line. Demo watched these events with mild interest.

“Aha!” Soldier exclaimed, emerging with an 8track clasped triumphantly in one hand. “This’ll get us to Springerville without all that play-it-backwards-to-alter-your-brainwaves nonsense!”

He slid the track into the Camaro’s player.

“…Welcome to the audio edition of the Farmer’s Almanac, for the year of our lord, 1972.”

“Oh god…”

“Hah!” Soldier brightened. “Now this is what I am talking about!”

It was going to be a long four hours.

4. Folk

Demo didn’t mind Soldier’s record, to be honest.

It seemed to be about something at least, more than he was used to the things Soldier liked being ‘about’ anything that wasn’t unquestioning patriotism. Sometime he wondered why, of all the folk records in the world, Soldier had decided to settle on Dust Bowl Ballads as his fixation in the realms of music. Americana of all kinds of blended together in Demo’s opinion, but despite the repetitive twang of the banjo and the stifling trite melody, even he could tell there was a story of deep melancholy to be found between the harmless little tunes.

So it wasn’t the fact that Soldier had a record. It was the fact that Soldier had a record, singular.

The idea that a person might purchase multiple albums over the course of their life and play them at different times when the mood struck them never seemed to have been explained to the Soldier. His concept to the record player was this: play the first side. When it was finished, flip it over and play the second side.

Repeat.

For hours.

No matter how sweet Woody Guthrie’s crooning was, having it repeated over and over again day in and day out could give anyone’s otherwise delightful performance all the dulcet notes of prison moonshine. It didn’t bother Soldier one bit it seemed—he would hum to himself merrily as he sat on the chaise, perfectly content to dissemble his shotgun on the coffee table while the same fifteen songs played.

“Y’know love,” Demo tried. “The reason records don’t come glued on to their players is because you can put other ones on. Look.”

He delicately switched out Ballads for something from his own collection, setting the needle so it could fall where it willed.

Soldier eyed the player dubiously as an entirely different style began to fall from the trumpet’s maw, grease rag in hand.

“I don’t get it,” he said as the first refrain came to a close. “You can’t understand a word she’s saying. What’s the point if you don’t know what’s going on?”

“You can’t understand it because it’s in Gaelic, lad.”

Soldier furrowed his brow. “Are you being vulgar at me right now, maggot?”

“Ach, no! I…” Demo sighed. Sometimes why he wondered why he even bothered. “Gaelic’s the language. It’s rare that anyone’ll make records in traditional tongues, but I had a few and I just thought…ah never mind.”

Gently he slid the record back into its sleeve and put Ballads back on.

“…Okay,” was all Soldier said, still frowning as Demo exited the room.

Demo wasn’t so callous to admit he hated the damn thing aloud, not when he could tell it made Soldier honestly, genuinely happy. They’d rib each other for their interests all the time, but not for something this important, and he resigned himself to having Woody as an unwanted houseguest for the rest of time.

That was, until a dreadful cold found him alone in the living room and unwilling to move.

The sickness (and Mum) had demanded he get plenty of bed rest, but he was just so bloody tired of spending all his time between the same four walls and occasionally the bathroom. He’d thought, well, there’s no harm in a quick trip downstairs, only to discover that once he’d gone horizontal on the couch, he lost all motivation to go back up those stairs.

That was how Soldier found him, cocooned in every blanket in the living room, blinking up pitifully as sniffled at his partner. To his credit, Soldier didn’t chastise him for sneaking out of bed; he simply sighed, moved the tissues box closer, and got Demo a cup of tea.

This was all unsurprising, if sweet. What was surprising was—as Demo lay with his back to the majority of the room—the sound of a record sliding into the player. A moment later the room was reendowed with Fear a Bhàta, the song flowing over his senses as he huddled for warmth under his blanket pile. He lifted his head to look at Soldier, who merely shrugged. That was all. Then he sat down on a chair near his Demoman and opened up an issue of Guns & Haircuts.

After that, sometimes Demo would come home to find a piece from his library playing, wafting through the mansion’s halls with no objection from its audience. If Jane had truly changed his mind, or was just doing it for Demo’s benefit, Demo couldn’t tell, but he appreciated the gesture all the same.

5. Piano

“Nothing?” Demo asked as his hands stilled across the keys, the last notes echoing in the music room to the resounding absence of symphony. The only thing left to fill it was the painfully normal sounds of two people simply being alive. “Not a single word of complaint?”

Soldier grinned, and shrugged. “Maybe we found something we can agree on.”

“And that something so happens to involve me doing all the work.” But despite that he grinned, taking Soldier’s hand and rubbing a thumb across the bones along its back, a private concert undergone and concluded. “You should help out. Grab a microphone, lay sultrily across my piano. That’d jazz up the performance.”

“Sounds like a good way to break a piano.”

“Excuses excuses.”

Soldier leaned down, capturing Demo’s mouth in a kiss, knees pressed against the back of the bench, hand still in Demo’s. When he they parted, Demo thought of how he always tasted like gunpowder, no matter how long it’d been.

Soldier smiled against Demo’s lips. “Play us another?”

“So demanding,” Demo smiled, and put fingers back to ivory.

[supposed2bfunny]

2doc Week Day 5-Quarantine

This one’s a tad longer, so putting it under a ‘read more.’ Just some really insipid shenanigans for this day’s prompt!

“You ready, Muds?”

“This is an astonishing waste of time, Stu—”

“On three, then?”

“…fine.”

“Great! One, two, three…go!” 2D jumped out of his room, a little confused to find that Murdoc was already standing in the hallway, staring at him. “Hey, you cheated.”

“I came out on three, you came out on go. You just said ‘on three—‘"

“Well yeah, but you count to three and then you—”

“Nevermind,” he cut him off, smirking. “Mate, you look ridiculous.”

“You’re one to talk!” 2D clamped a hand over his mouth to stifle the giggle that threatened to end the sentence in a highly undignified high pitch.

Murdoc was dressed in the clothes 2D had worn in their “Saturnz Barz” video, complete with a pair of blue trousers that looked uncomfortably tight, belted way above his paunch, and a black button-down, opened to reveal a tempting tuft of coarse hair. His chest looked alien without his usual upside-down cross. Without thinking, the singer reached up to his own chest, where the cross sat between his skin and the worn material of Murdoc’s striped jumper.

“Those pants look more like capris on you!” the bassist cackled, pointing at his bare ankles.

“Shut up! The jumper suits me quite well, don’t you think? The color brings out my hair. Least I don’t look like the male whore in some B-movie!”

“Mate,” Murdoc was still laughing, and having a hard time getting his words out. “You can’t say I look like a whore when I’m dressed as you!”

“I wore that outfit better than you!”

“Great, so can we agree that we both look completely mental?”

“I don’t think that’s entirely fair; I think I pull off your frumpiness like a model!”

“That jumper was designed for someone with a complexion more like my own.”

“Green, you mean green skin?”

“Well, I guess green is a state of mind,” he grumbled, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “So slip into that mindset, turtledove, because for the rest of the day, you’re me.”

“Oh, I’ve had two decades to observe you, Muds,” he replied casually, leaning against the doorframe. “All I have to do is act drunk, shout every hour or so about how great my band is, and go out of my way to grate on everyone’s nerves. Easy. Think that mastering the nuance of my enigmatic personality will be way harder for you.”

The bassist-turned-frontman rolled his eyes and moved to brush past him. “All I have to do is not think for the rest of the day. This’ll be a bloody vacation, pet.”

“Hey wait, before we start officially, give me a kiss,” he requested, catching the shorter man by the simple gold necklace—his necklace—around his neck, dragging him in closer and pausing as their lips hovered over each other.

“Am I kissing you as Murdoc, or as 2D?”

“As hot as a little 2D-on-2D action sounds, I want a kiss from my boyfriend.”

“Needy bitch,” he chuckled, but he obliged, pressing the taller man against the wall and kissing him languidly, reaching underneath that hole-filled sweater to trace the cross against his boyfriend’s chest. “Let’s stick a pin in that idea, huh? Now then, shall we pop off? There’s a certain drummer I’m dying to pester with my extensive knowledge of zombie flicks.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll go see if Noodle notices the difference—oh, careful!” He reached out quickly and caught the shorter man as he tripped over his slightly-too-big shoes. “Watch it, luv. Being me is a right safety hazard.”

Grinning mischievously, the two parted ways, and the man formerly known as 2D made for the living room, where Noodle could be found flipping through a magazine.

“Noods!” he crowed, doing his best to sound gruff and Stoke-on-Trent-y. “I’ve got some grrreat news! I tried a new skin-care product and it took decades off my skin. I’d say I look at least twelve years younger: what do you think?”

She glanced up and frowned. “What fresh stupidity is this?” she asked.

“Stupidity? Don’t be so rude, poppet, I look good don’t I? Don’t worry; there’s no shame in admitting that a bloke so many years your senior is more attractive than you, really.”

“2D,” she sighed. “Why are you impersonating Murdoc?”

“Impersonating? I am Murdoc!”

“Sure you are. And is Murdoc also Murdoc, or is he 2D?”

“Um…wait, I’m confused…” he paused to try and track what she’d just said, and he realized that  he had completely broken character. “Sod this! Your questions just show that you’re…you’re confused by my superior genius!” Yeah, that sounded about right.

She tapped the magazine on her lap impatiently. “I’m trying to gauge my astrological compatibility with Tessa Thompson right now,” she said. “Can you come back to be annoying and strange later?”

“Er…but I…”

“Get lost, Murdoc.”

She’d done it! She’d acknowledged his acting skills! Satisfied, he pumped his fist in celebration. “Right, enjoy flipping through that trashy magazine telling you what nail polish color will make Tesla love you! I’m going to sit here and watch my soaps!”

“It’s…nevermind.” She sighed, looking like she had a lot more to say, but no energy to say it, and ‘Murdoc’ cheerfully flounced across the room to grab the remote, moving with more spring in his step than he’d had in decades.

Meanwhile, Russel was in the kitchen, preparing himself a hoagie of epic proportions, having been inspired by one of his favorite cooking shows. Just as he was debating whether to opt for dill or bread and butter pickles (or both? life was short), a nicotine-laden pair of lungs cleared themselves right behind him.

“Oh no,” he said, spinning around. “I’m having ‘me time:’ whatever stupid scheme you’re up to, it can damn well wait, Murdo—” he froze, pickle jars in hand, and after a moment, he bent over in a ground-shaking belly laugh. “You look ridiculous!”

“W-wot d’yew mean, Russ?” he asked, pressing a finger to his lips in an attempt to look juvenile. “It’s me, 2D, innit?”

“Murdoc, that belt looks like it’s constricting your ribs, and your belly is about to pop out. What gives?”

“Nuffink gives, just fought I’d try on my old cloves from ‘Saturnz—”

“Man, if you don’t stop talking like that immediately, we’re going to have bigger problems than whatever wardrobe malfunction this is.”

“Easy, easy, big guy! I’ll cut back on the Cockney accent! Fortunately I’ve picked up the ability to speak a bit better in recent years. Can you understand me now?”

“Not at all,” he said dryly. “Why are you dressed like 2D?”

“Mate, I am 2D! The adorable and absentminded singer for our band!” the dark-haired 2D insisted stubbornly.

Russel stared at him, ready to launch into yet another insult. Then he considered the two pickle jars in his hands. “So uh,” he shrugged. “What day of quarantine is it?”

“Oh, seventy-three or seventy-four, something like that. But who’s counting?”

“So you two are just messing around because you’re bored.”

“Well, it’s more fun than making a sandwich, wouldn’t you say?” he asked, smirking, realizing 2D wasn’t really the smirking type, and settling on a softer smile.

Russel weighed his options, and decided the prospective entertainment value was too good to pass up. “Well then, ‘Dee,’ do you want to make this monster sandwich with me? You can regale me with stories of what it’s like in your head the whole time.”

Murdoc—no that wasn’t right—‘2D’ beamed at him and nodded. “I’d love nothing more! Could probably use some extra calories, frail little waif of a man that I am.”

“Oh yeah,” Russel agreed, playfully patting his middle-aged potbelly. “You’re a real waif. Now grab the mustard.”

“You got it, Russ! Yellow or spicy?”

“Yes!”

Several hours later found the singer and bassist reunited in 2D’s bedroom. They sat together, swapping their clothes back piece-by-piece: first 2D pulled the striped jumper over his head, then Murdoc unbuttoned the black shirt as though he were giving a strip tease. They giggled the whole time, each looking particularly relieved when their pants came undone and they could step into comfortable sweatpants once again.

“I’d say outfit-swap was a roaring success!” Murdoc said cheerfully, grabbing a sip of a lukewarm beer sitting on the bedside table.

“I don’t know about that…I think Noodle and Russel were just humoring us.”

“Well at first, sure,” he conceded, gracing the singer with a kiss as he reverently returned his cross necklace to him. “But I think that as we really got into character, they forgot that we were simply acting. Once this quarantine ends, we should head back to LA and reconsider the whole movie star thing!”

“I’ll pass on that,” he replied, pulling a face, then falling down onto his bed, motioning for Murdoc to finish his drink and join him. The older man happily obliged, and the mattress creaked slightly at their combined weight as they cuddled together. “So…what are we going to do tomorrow to annoy the others?”

“We could speak only in riddles the whole day!”

“What if I’m not smart enough for that?”

“Was that a riddle?” Murdoc asked, cackling as he got a poke in the ribs for the comment. “Gentle, gentle! I’ve got it: let’s speak the way people write your dialogue online.”

“Not the super Cockney?”

“That’s right! Let’s speak like Dick Van Dyke attempting to sound like a proper Brit! That’ll be a right laugh!”

“You’re so cruel: what did Noodle and Russel do to deserve you as their bandmate?”

“Hey,” he teased, “you were in on today’s game.”

“Fine, I’ll consider the Cockney schtick, but I think you can do better. Keep working on it.”

“Yes sir,” he agreed, nuzzling into the singer’s neck. “So, we still have the night ahead of us: what did you want to do?”

2D was quiet for long enough that he began to get a little suspicious. “Stu? Simple enough question, luv. What’s on that pretty mind of yours?”

“I was just thinking, Muds…” another long bout of silence.

“Yes?” he prodded.

“Would you still be up for that 2D-on-2D action we were joking about earlier?”

Murdoc pulled away from him abruptly, and he scrambled to follow the bassist, to apologize for the stupid suggestion. As he opened his mouth to voice his mortification and backtrack, Murdoc caught his eye with a playful smirk and slowly pulled his necklace off. “Mate,” he said, voice unusually high, like he was trying to imitate someone else, “I fought yew’d neva ask!”

[rosesisupposes]

Hey I saw you were offering fluff and I'm a hoe for Prinxiety, only if you feel motivated too though! Love your writing xxx

So, this may not be what you meant, but… I watched The Unicorn Store the other day and I loved it, and one of the characters’ names was literally Virgil. So in a slight mix-and-matched fashion, here’s that :D

The Store

Pairings: Prinxiety, Moceit (Paternal Royality, Paternal Roceit); brief moment of analogical if you squint.

Warnings: Self-doubt, reference to possible hallucinations; reference to abuse and miscarriage; also, minimal editing

Word Count: much longer than intended 4,434 words

Read on ao3

Roman, dearest Roman, grew up with a deep love for unicorns, and rainbows, and all things glitter. His imagination let him have wild and beautiful adventures with his pet unicorn. His name was Steve.

He drew him, over and over, hoping that if he just nailed it perfectly, his parents would understand, and finally see himBut while Pat and Dee indulged his stories and encouraged his art, it was clear they’d never really understand.

They did send him to art school though

He wanted to love it, wanted to meet all those people who thought like him, who saw the world like him

Unfortunately what he found was a mentor who’s best-known work was a photography series called Stick in a Box

In the final evaluation, they were asked to make a self-portrait

Roman’s classmates had beautifully composed but tiny charcoal drawings of themselves, lined up in neat 8.5x11 boxes

Roman’s drawing was technically perfect, too. But it was a charcoal of a unicorn on a hill, surrounded with stripes of purple, yellow, pink, green, red that stretched off the box, off the canvas, and onto the wall itself. As a final touch, he said a wish to himself and blew on glitter

Unfortunately, his mentor was… unimpressed. And Roman became an art school dropout, back in his dads’ house, shifted to the basement because his room had become a home gym

His dads were still supportive, though. They knew he’d bounce back. But it didn’t always help when they’d talk about “now that you’ve tried that” and “finding a new path”

Also, they kept bringing over their neighbor, Emile, who was Roman’s age. Emile has just started working with them at their retreat service for troubled and at-risk teens. And it’s not that Roman didn’t like Emile, it just felt like… they were prouder of him than their son the failure.

Okay, maybe Roman did dislike Emile.

So in a fit of… jealousy? Desperation? Roman announces he’s joining a temp agency. He’s going to have an office job. So, Dad, Papa, please make sure to purchase plenty of pens and graph paper as he will need them now. He even borrows Pat’s old office clothes. A bit outdated perhaps, but he’s professional now.

He starts at the ad agency/communications firm and damn does he look the part, he’s sure. Even if his work is boring. Even if the people are very caught up in very small concerns.

In the middle of the very, very beige cubicles, and the very, very dull conversations, Roman finds a letter. It has his name on it, spelled in glitter and rhinestones. And it invites him to The Store.

But he’s… he’s being professional now. He’s a businessman. He doesn’t care about frivolity like glitter. Right?

When the second letter arrives, still with his name, still with the same address, still with no signature… well, it might not be smart but he can’t help it

He goes to the address to find a lone, flickering neon sign that says The Store. He walks in to an elevator that has no buttons, but descends on its own. He walks through a pink-lit hallway to a curtain of rainbows, and finally emerges into a grand old room that’s been…. transformed. 

On one side: a gate closes off a clear space. On the other: several grand tables are arranged with fruit and hay bales. The back wall has a long bar and freezers of ice cream. And in the middle, a man stands with a slight smile and adjusts his bright purple tie and the shiny satin matching suit jacket.

“Welcome, Roman!”

“How do you know my name?”

“I’ve been expecting you, of course. Though you are late, by several days. It’s rather impolite not to respond to an invitation immediately, you know.”

“What is this place?”

“It’s the Store. And I am the Salesman.” Roman notices what definitely looks like long strings of tinsel in the man’s dark hair.

“What kind of store?”

“The kind that sells  that and only that which you need”

“Which is?”

“Roman, don’t be ridiculous. You know what it is. You’ve known your whole life.”

The Salesman flicks on the huge screen above the door. Footage of graceful horses under rainbows, horses in meadows, horses sleeping… except they all have a beautiful, spiral horn in their foreheads.

“Unicorns?! You have real, actual unicorns?”

“Yes we do. And I contacted you specifically to make you this offer: we have a unicorn, just for you.”

Roman starts to tear up.  "Really? You do? For me? I was right, all this time? Oh my goodness, can i see her? Him? Them? Do unicorns have genders?“

“They do, if they want them. Yours isn’t here yet: you need to prove you’ll take good care of them first. A unicorn isn’t just a pet, you know. They’re a commitment. They will love you forever. Can you keep one safe forever?”

“I think I can,” Roman responds, though he’s still jittery and very glittery.

“Excellent! Here’s the first requirement, then,” the Salesman responds. He pulls out a shiny folder.  In it is a description of “Sheltering and Feeding Your Unicorn”

“Do you have space to accommodate a unicorn? Can you feed one? To qualify for unicorn ownership, you must first demonstrate that you’re able to provide for them.”

Roman thinks of his basement room with a wince. “Uh, not yet. But I will!”

“And can you demonstrate that you’re stably employed, able to continue providing?”

“I will do that too.”

He heads off in a whirlwind of giddy and righteous energy. He’s getting a unicorn. He’ll do whatever it takes!

First stop is the hardware store. He finds a man in the lumber section.

“Hello good sir! I am in the market for lumber.”

“Whatcha building.”

“A stable.”

“How big’s the horse?”

“Uh, not quite a horse, but um. Bigger than a pony, but you know, they can probably become whatever size I need them to be. Um, just your average small horse, I suppose?”

“Where you buildin’ it?”

“My bedroom”

The man stares, then picks up his radio. “Virgil, please report to the lumber department.”

“Will he be able to help me?”

The man doesn’t answer, just rolls his eyes and walks off

Roman wanders until he finds the worker with the nametag “Virgil”

“So, are you the builder?”

“Uh, what?”

“The man said you could help me.”

“Yeahhh, he definitely just said that to fuck with me. I’m not really a carpenter, I just do stock.”

“Well, you know more about it than me! Maybe you could try?”

Virgil stares down at Roman earnest smile, then finally sighs. “I mean, I’m gonna get paid, right? Might as well.”

He’s then the first to point out that Roman’s… ‘pony’ won’t want to live in his basement.

But in the backyard, there’s the slightly-rotted ruins of Roman’s childhood castle. It’s not structurally sound, but the space is good. And maybe some of the wood is salvageable. Roman starts kicking in the walls for good measure, and Virgil, with a strange fascination bordering on entertainment, joins in at his urging.

The hardest part is keeping his parents from asking about Virgil’s visits. Roman is very tired of being reminded that among his many failings, he doesn’t even have a partner. And the eagerness with which Dad and Papa ask about the ‘young man’’ who keeps visiting kinda makes it obvious they hope that’s why. In Pat and Dee’s defense, they’re not trying to be pushy. They just saw the conspiratorial smiles Roman kept flashing Virgil, and the bemused but amused smiles Virgil returned.

But Roman’s getting a unicorn. Who needs a boyfriend when the unicorn will love him more than any human ever could or has.

Roman returns to The Store. “I’m building a stable, and I have an appointment to go buy hay. What’s next?”

“Ah, good. Now that you’re building a home worthy of a unicorn, you need to ensure the full environment is appropriate. Here, hold this.”

The Salesman hands Roman a spiraled cone. It feels like ivory, but is far too heavy.

“Is this…?”

“Yes, a horn. They’re fragile creatures, but the weight of caring from one is all too real. Will your unicorn be surrounded by support and love? Is there a healthy family environment for them to come home to?”

Roman realizes that he’s not been on… particularly good terms with his dads. And it’s probably not all their fault. So he volunteers to join a weekend retreat: rafting and camping with the kids. And Dad, and Papa. And Emile

If there’s one thing Roman can say for Emile, it’s that he’s a really great trier. He’s not particularly good at paddling. He volunteers to pitch a tent on his own and…. Well. It got up eventually.

Roman’s helping two of the teens assemble their own tent when Pat calls out to get ready for Truth Circle. The girls snort  under their breath but call back to say they’re coming. 

“What’s truth circle?”

“Ugh, it’s so lame. It’s going around and sharing and they want it to be some deep shit. But I make up something every time and they can’t tell.”

True to her word, the young woman, sitting around the campfire, tells a tearful story of how her mom cut up all her tube tops and she just misses them, so much. A young man says he’s "so tired of assumptions just because i like loud music, and like knives, doesn’t mean i’m gonna attack my English teacher! I like my English teacher." 

To each pronouncement, Pat and Dee nod seriously, occasionally offering "Thank you” and “Good share”

Roman just feels worse and worse, knowing that all of these kids are probably laughing at his dads on the inside, so when they ask if he’d like to share anything…

“I’ve been working really hard lately, trying to improve my life,” he starts, and Pat and Dee are beaming, holding hands. “I really want to make it all worth it, you know? Because growing up, people kept wanting to not play with me, and every birthday I wished for the same thing: someone to love me, unconditionally. And I know I’ve been flighty, and selfish, but I’m finally at a turning point where all my hard work feels worth it. And It’s because I’m finally about to get the one thing I’ve always wanted: a unicorn.”

His dads’ faces drop. “Uh, kiddos, we’re gonna have a quick lil mini family circle over here, okay? Emile, you want to lead some campfire songs?”

Pat is the first to speak. "Ro, I was so happy when you told us you wanted to come, but this is just rude. This weekend is for the kids, why can’t you pretend to take it seriously?”

Dee puts a calming hand on Pat’s shoulder. “Roro, your dad’s right. If you wanted to make jabs at us for not getting you a puppy, you could have done that at home.”

Roman tries to explain. “No, I mean it, I’m working on getting one. I’m making a good home for it and everything. I wouldn’t lie about this!”

“Oh, and you didn’t lie about 'Steve’ eating all the cotton candy all those years?”

“That doesn’t count, I was a child!”

“And yet you’re still acting like one”

Roman is practically crying with frustration. “You know they’re the ones lying, right?” he whisper-screams. “All those kids. Just making up whatever bullshit they think you’ll accept. And I sit here, actually telling the truth, and you don’t believe me!”

Dee sighs. “We know they lie, Ro. Of course they do. Her mom beats her,” he gestures with his head to a girl. “His father passed away suddenly. Xe had a miscarriage. They just got out of an emotionally abusive relationship. They all lie, outrageously, and then suddenly one day they’re telling the truth because they trust that now no one will believe them when they’re actually vulnerable. But we know, and we’re there when they do.”

“Is that the problem?” Pat asks softly. “Were we just bad enough parents that you’re doing the same thing to us?”

“No, of course not!” Roman insists. He’s properly crying now. “I’m trying to tell you…” He trails off, seeing their disbelief. “Fine. I’ll just… go. You guys can adopt Emile instead.”

In the background, Emile pops his head up. “Did someone call me?”

All three shout back, “NO!”

Roman stares at his dads for another moment, helplessly, then stomps off.

He fucked up. Now there won’t be a loving family environment. Now he’ll never get his unicorn.

He gets home and glares at the rainbows and Care Bears and streamers in his room, then starts bagging them up. All of them. All of the old drawings, and paints, and especially the glitter. Plus the hay he’d lovingly dyed rainbow, and the huge amount of carrots.

He throws them all in bags and goes to toss them in the backyard, when he can no longer hold it back and starts to cry. All these hopes he’d been building. All his childhood dreams coming true. All for nothing.

He hides in the grey basement all weekend, staring at the dumb assignment about a dumb vacuum for his dumb job. He was urged to make a pitch for the ad campaign, unless he wants to stay a temp forever. And even if he can’t get his unicorn, he’d like to create something again. But a vacuum? a “mystic” vacuum? What even is that.

On Sunday afternoon, he hears power tools from the backyard, and drags himself outside to tell Virgil he can stop working on the dumb stable now. But Virgil hasn’t just finished the stable. He’s decorated. 

And it is an explosion of color.

“Oh my goodness gracious,” he breathes, looking at all the rainbows painted up and down the walls. Drawings are pasted all around, with strings of tinsel everywhere. “Are these… my drawings?”

“Uh, yeah, you put all the materials out here, isn’t that why?”

“Did I put all these in those bags?”

“Well, no- your dads saw what I was doing and brought out their favorites of your art to add”

“They… like my art? But it’s all the unicorns, I thought…”

He brushes away a tear. His original drawing of Steve is here, a big red heart with a very spiky stick figure. And so is his high school masterpiece, a photorealistic unicorn rearing in the sunset.

Virgil scuffs a sneaker against the ground. Like the stable, he’s a little technicolor, splats of paint on his pants and shoes and face. “Do you like it?”

“Like it?”

“I… you made an art show of me. Of all I’ve done over the years. And you didn’t give up on this ridiculous project. Thank you, Virgil. I love it.” He stares, and suddenly grins. “Hey, any chance there’s some glitter left over? I have an idea.”

He prepares a gorgeous, glitter-filled presentation for the damn vacuum, and even makes it a demonstration of how well it works in one go. It’s the Mystic Vacuum. It’s dreams coming true. It’s an experience. 

But the working world does not care if employees are going through a coming-of-age realization. Cubicles are immune to your thinking-outside-the-box thinking. The 'safe’ presentation of terribly restricted gender norms gets the ad.

He comes home, a little crushed, but Pat’s there waiting for him.

“Papa, I fucked up. Again. I just… really suck at being a grown-up”

“Did you go for it, though? Did you try?”

“..yeah”

“Did you care about doing it?”

“…yeah”

“Then you’re doing great, kiddo. The most grown-up thing you can do is fail at something you care about.”

Roman sniffs, and hugs Patton tightly. “Thanks, Pop Star”

“Now, do you want to hear what Emile did?”

Roman struggles for a moment. “I’m trying very hard to be grown-up, but I really don’t.”

“No trust me. You do.”

Roman eyes him warily.

"When we were coming back from the campsite, he got tangled up in his own life jacket. And fell into the water because of it.”

“…really?”

“Mmmhmm. And… I may have taken longer than I should have to get him out because I had to not be laughing when I pulled him back into the boat.”

Roman chuckles, then laughs, and Pat’s laughing too.

And suddenly, Roman notices something.

“What are those on the wall? Are those my paintings?”

“Oh those? Yesirree!”

“Did you just put them up?”

“Of course not. They’ve been up since you sent them home in freshman year, sweetie.”

“…you didn’t help Virgil just because you felt bad?”

“Oh honey, no. We’ve always loved your art.” Patton ruffles his hair. “We just want you to be happy.”

Thanks to Pat, Roman shakes off his setback, and when he sees a call from Virgil, he picks up eagerly. They go out for dinner, Roman still in his glitter from the presentation. And it is… wonderful. Virgil is sarcastic and witty, and only ever seems to mock Roman with the same level of skepticism he gives literally everyone else.

Until he finally asks, “So, now that it’s done, when are you getting the pony?That’s the big secret, right, you’re actually buying a pony?" 

And Roman smiles and says, "Almost.”

“You see, I’m getting a unicorn.”

And Virgil stares a moment. Then he cracks a smile. “Cute, I get it. Like the pictures.”

“No, for real!” Roman tells him. “I’ve been working on this so that I can get a unicorn. I mean, I don’t know if I’m back in the running, but I think I fixed the family environment too so, hopefully.”

And now Virgil goes still. He’s concerned. 

“Um. So, where is this unicorn coming from?”

“The Unicorn Store,” Roman responds matter-of-factly.

“Uh-huh,” Virgil nods slowly. “And that’s definitely a real place.”

“Yeah, I’ve been there several times. It’s lovely, and the Salesman is wild.”

Virgil’s eyes are a little bit bugging out of his head now. "The Salesman?”

“Yeah, he gave me the steps I need to get my unicorn. Place to live, nice environment, prove i can support them, you know. Like pet adoption, but better.”

“You gave him your financial information? Ro, I know you’re really excited but… this sounds like a scam.”

“Why does no one believe me? It’s real, I swear. There’s even a hay-staurant.”

“…you say you’ve been there? Can I come see?”

“I don’t see why not”

But when they get there, nothing seems right. The entryway sign is gone. The elevator still moves, but it doesn’t open to a pink hallway. And in the room… the decorations are gone. The Salesman isn’t there. The screen is missing. And Roman… starts to doubt. Virgil isn’t surprised, but he’s worried. Roman looks so heartbroken… did he really believe in this? A grown man, thinking he’d actually get a unicorn?

“Ro, we should go. If you need help making sure that guy hasn’t used your info to, I don’t know, buy random things, withdrawing money… I can help.”

“No,” Roman insists. “No, he’ll be back. I’ll stay.”

“Roman, c'mon, don’t do this…”

“I know what I saw!” he shouts. “It was real!”

“I don’t doubt he did a great job with the showmanship, Ro. I believe you. But he’s clearly gone now, and… it might be time to assume he’s not coming back.”

Roman doesn’t turn, and Virgil sighs. He keeps hoping Roman will relent, but if there’s one thing he’s already learned about this man, it’s that he’s stubborn. So he leaves alone. And Roman waits until he hears the elevator leave to break down.

Virgil, walking out, feels something in his shoe. He checks - it’s hay. Rainbow hay. But he expected that - it was a scam, right? A well-done scam. He walks on.

Roman goes home and finds himself just sitting in the stable, dejectedly. It’s so lovely, and it made him so happy but… He knew he was a daydreamer. Had he really fallen for such a ridiculous thing?

Dee and Pat find him together, and sit with him in the stable. 

“It’s really well built,” Pat comments.

“And your art is lovely,” Dee says, fondly tracing a unicorn horn on the wall.

Roman sniffs. “It’s just a catalog of mania at this point. My slow descent into madness.”

Dee hugs him around the shoulders. “Roberry, you’re not crazy. You have a spark that is just… so unique. No one could hope to match the way you view the world. Hell, even I can’t. Neither can your Papa. But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. It means we’re just limited.”

“Is this some of that feel-d trip stuff you tell the troubled teens?”

Dee grins. “Nah, they never believe the sappy shit. This is just for you.”

Roman wipes his eyes. “I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment.”

Dee and Pat object in one voice. 

Dee continues, “Hun, you are so loved. By us, by the people who meet you… You’re joy, Roman. You remind people of joy.”

“And that boy seems to really like you, too.”

Roman groans. “He definitely thinks I’m crazy.”

“Give him a chance, okay?” Pat asks, patting Roman’s shoulder. “He might surprise you.”

“He built this, didn’t he?” Dee asks, gesturing around. “He’s gotta like you at least a little.”

The next day, Roman goes back to the hardware store, looking for him. He searches every department, and all the back rooms he can sneak into, but nothing. No Virgil. He ends up sitting in the backyard, glaring at the stable, but still… hoping.

He’s interrupted one day by a very tentative knock on the back gate. And Virgil comes out, looking sheepish. 

“Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean to disappear…”

“I was looking for you at the hardware store?”

“I got transferred, actually. Turns out having a full construction project to my name means your boy got promoted. I’m… sorry, about the store. I shouldn’t have left you so abruptly.”

“It’s okay. And congrats.”

Virgil sits in the stable next to Roman, and smiles when Roman leans over on his shoulder.

He’s about to suggest they get coffee when Roman’s phone starts ringing.

“Hello?”

“Congratulations, Roman! He’s arrived!”

“Who is this? Who’s arrived?”

“The Salesman, of course. And your unicorn. He is here in the store, waiting for you.”

Virgil stares at the phone. “That’s him?” he mutters. “Here, if he’s a scammer, let me talk to him, okay?”

“I… you’re sure? He’s there?” Roman asks. His heart is in his throat. What if it really all had been true? What if Virgil scares him away? “I came by, and you were gone…”

“We don’t set up the full store for just anyone, Roman. It’s not for him. It’s just for you. But you need to let me know if you’re serious about this unicorn. If you don’t want him, there’s a woman who’s qualified who needs him just as much.”

“I’m coming!” Roman interjects. “Don’t give him away, please! I’ll be there as soon as I can!”

He jumps up and is practically sprinting to the car, Virgil barely able to keep up. 

“Roman, can I at least come with?”

“Yes, sure, just don’t tell me not to go,” Roman says, practically vibrating with excitement.

The decorations aren’t fully back, but the sign outside is, at least. They descend through the elevator, and this time… the hall isn’t empty.

“Ah, Roman! You made it! And I see you brought… a companion,” the Salesman says, eyeing Virgil suspiciously. “He will, of course, have to stay out here while you meet him.”

“He’s really here?” Roman asks breathlessly. “My…?”

“Your unicorn, yes. I called you to say so, did I not? He’s right through those doors.”

“And I can meet him?”

“Yes, of course. You don’t have to take him home - as I said, another woman also needs him if you don’t want to anymore”

Virgil outright staring at the Salesman’s outfit. It’s blue today, all satin and rhinestones and tinsel. But still with a nicely-tied tie. The Salesman looks back, and adjusts his glasses. “Salutations.”

Roman approaches the doorway slowly, and eases it open. Rainbows spill out as he walks in, letting the door close behind him.

He is…. beautiful.

He’s there, in real life. A huge, graceful horse with a pearl horn and a shimmery mane. He wickers at Roman’s approach.

“Hi,” Roman breathes. “You’re… oh my god, you’re here. It’s Mr. Unicorn, right? Do you care?”

The creature nods.

Roman feels tears rolling down his cheeks as he reaches out a gentle hand to caress the beautiful thing’s nose.

“I’ve waited for you for so long. I wished for you every birthday. I would close my eyes and think 'send me someone to love me, unconditionally, for me.’" He smiles wetly. "I called you Steve.”

“And I…  I worried so badly that you weren’t real, because I needed you to be real. I needed you to really, really love me. But…” Roman looks into a pair of soft brown eyes, huge and understanding. They feel… familiar. 

“But I can’t bring you home with me. Because there’s a woman out there who needs you more than I do. And you are going to love her, okay? You’re going to love her and support her, and never judge her dreams. You’re going to make sure she knows you love her. And… and you make sure she never feels alone, okay?”

The unicorn nods, and nuzzles Roman’s chest. He wipes his eyes. “I’m going to hug you now, is that okay?” Another nod.

Roman throws his arms around the equine neck, breathing in the strange mix of lavender and sugar and sunlight that is the unicorn’s scent. A hair from the mane gets stuck to him, and easily breaks off. He tries to give it back, but the unicorn shakes his head. A memento. Just for him.

He turns to go, and sees the Salesman has entered, and brought Virgil with him. Virgil is staring, open-mouthed.

“Mr. The Salesman- I can’t take him. Please give him to the woman you mentioned, okay? She earned it, right?”

“She did. And since you no longer are a client, you can just call me Logan.”

Roman wipes his eyes, but holds tight to the single hair. “As long as he’s happy.”

“Will you be?” Logan asks. His face doesn’t betray any emotion.

Roman walks to Virgil’s side, and takes his hand. “Yeah, I think I will.”

fin

taglist:  @residentanchor @royally-anxious @bewarethegrammarpolice  @jemthebookworm @arandompasserby  @sparkly-rainbow-salt @astral-eclipse​ @thelowlysatsuma @adorably-angsty @max-is-tired @almostoveranalyzed

[golden-geese]

mac and dennis are sleepy bitches ch. 3 repost; read on ao3

2007 4:15 p.m. A Sunday

As he folds his laundry, Mac goes through the list. Dennis and Dee’s mom is dead. Their real dad is crazy or something (Mac never got a straight answer on that one) and the next best thing is Frank. Charlie’s mom is overbearing. He grew up without a dad, and then recently found out that his dad is probably Frank. Collectively, the gang could count all their living parents or parent proxies on one hand: Mac’s mom, Mac’s dad, Charlie’s mom, Bruce Mathis, and Frank. Mac is the only one with two confirmed living parents. He goes through the list again and again and again, much like he spent all last night doing-- except this time, he’s dealing with a pile of laundry on his unmade bed, not tossing and turning and flipping his pillow over.

 He’s been letting his laundry pile up. He only even started doing it today because he realized he was literally on his last pair of socks. He let it pile up for so long it turned out to be like four loads-- and then he washed the towels too, because if you’re already doing laundry, you might as well wash the towels too. It’s an unkempt mountain on his bed; tee shirts and pants and underwear and socks and towels. He’s just been adding to the pile all day, never stopping to fold between loads.

 Anyway. Dennis and Dee’s mom is dead, and their fake dad is Frank, and their real dad is apparently some weirdo. Charlie’s mom is bonkers and his dad is probably Frank too. Mac has two living breathing parents.

 So, he wonders bitterly as he shakes out a pair of jeans, why does he feel like he has the shittiest deal of them all? Dennis and Dee might as well be orphans, and Charlie’s mom is even crazier than Charlie. It doesn’t make sense, he tells himself. It doesn’t make sense that he’s so damn ungrateful and mushy about all of this.

 Anyway, Mac is the one responsible for his dad getting locked up again. He’s probably the worst son in the whole world, he figures as he folds a pair of black pants.

 (remembers, when his dad got out of prison last week, how he went in for a hug and his dad said “don’t touch me”)

 (yeah, mac figures; he’s definitely the worst son in the whole world)

 Because what kind of son gets their dad arrested? All he’d wanted was to take Mac and Charlie to the baseball hall of fame in New York. He’d even bought them all tickets. And now this. Brows furrowed, jaw set, Mac folds a tee shirt. Adds it to the uneven stack.

 His dad doesn’t love him, though. Couldn’t possibly, what with the whole “I’m going to kill you” fiasco.

 (i have mom though, he reasons)

 (and charlie and dennis)

 (and poppins)

 Now that Mac thinks about it… Charlie might not actually love him. He did sabotage the whole dinner party thing. And Dennis is always so wrapped up in his own shit, who’s to say if he loves anyone. Poppins is the only one Mac is sure loves him, and Poppins is a street mutt who’s missing half the time.

 Sighing, he folds the next shirt. He loves Charlie and Dennis and his parents and even probably Dee. He loves all of them, even though they probably don’t love him back. Has so much goddamn love for them it’s bursting out of his chest-- and he shows it, too. By bringing Charlie a Red Bull when they were in high school, or complimenting Dennis when he’s being grumpy, or even just by paying attention and understanding. He’s told them he loves them, too, every so often. Wonders if he’s ever heard it back once. Probably not.

 (whatever.)

 Sulking a little, he reaches for the pile and picks up the next shirt. Starts to fold it; frowns, realizing it isn’t his. Turns it around in his hands. It’s a soft button-down, striped with white and light blue. Nicer quality than any of Mac’s clothes. A size bigger to accommodate broad shoulders. Dennis.

 He straightens the sleeve out. You don’t fold button-down shirts, right? You have to hang them up so they don’t get wrinkled. He straightens his shoulders. Makes the executive decision. Heads to Dennis’ room.

 “Hey, Dennis?” Mac asks, knocking.

 “What,” a muffled voice comes.

 He nudges the door open. Catches sight of Dennis, shirtless-- Dennis, standing in front of his dresser mirror, a weird frown at his lips.

 “Your shirt got into my laundry somehow,” Mac explains, tossing it to him.

 Dennis doesn’t catch it. Watches it billow its way to the floor. Mac watches too, before turning his eyes back to Dennis. Droopy eyes. Pale skin. Messy hair.

 “You okay, dude?” Mac asks cautiously.

 “Fine,” Dennis responds, barely audible.

 “You… sure?”

 “Fine,” Dennis insists.

 Mac watches him a moment longer. Nods once. “I’ll… leave you to it, then, I guess.”

 He takes a step back; re-installs himself in the doorway-- but doesn’t leave the room.

 Footsteps in the hall. Yelling outside. Always yelling outside.

 He stands there for probably an hour. “Have you eaten?”

 “Dinner? Have I eaten dinner? No, I’m not hungry,” Dennis says emptily.

 “No,” Mac says-- “I mean, like, have you eaten… today?”

 Dennis swallows. Meets Mac’s eyes for a tenth of an instant. “Why do you care?”

 “I mean-- you gotta eat, dude. Or you’ll, like, die,” Mac says dumbly.

 “Oh, is that how science works? Is it? Are you a doctor? Is your name doctor… science?” Dennis sneers, his voice cracking.

 Mac blinks. “When’s the last time you ate?”

 “This morning.”

 “For real?”

 “Yes.”

 “Okay,” Mac says, deciding it’s probably just easier to believe Dennis and keep an eye on the situation. “‘Cause I know you were being weird about… y’know, the whole thing where you looked like that pedo…”

 “I don’t look like that pedo,” Dennis insists. “He’s fat. I’m not. I’m chiseled.”

 “Yeah,” Mac says quickly. “You’re super chiseled, man. You’re so chiseled it’s ridiculous. You’re hot.”

 Heat immediately smoke-bombs in his chest. The last two words fell out of his mouth without his brain’s consent.

 Dennis is staring at him now, eyes somewhat narrowed. “You think so?”

 “Yeah,” he says. Clears his throat. “You know. In, like, a totally platonic bro kinda way. Like, objectively, do I think you’re attractive? Yes. Objectively, yeah, I do.” He gestures vaguely.

 “Thanks,” Dennis says, nodding a tiny amount. “You know, your opinion means a lot to me.”

 “Really?”

 “Oh, yeah.”

 (maybe dennis does love mac)

 “Cool.”

 (maybe dennis just shows it weird. he totally loves mac. yeah. mac was stupid to ever think otherwise)

 Dennis yawns.

 Mac catches it.

 “Sorry,” Mac says, even though Dennis yawned first and apologizing for yawns isn’t really a thing people do. “I didn’t sleep, like, at all last night.”

 “Me neither,” Dennis admits.

 “Think I’m gonna take a nap, actually,” Mac adds. Yawns again, now that he’s thinking about how tired he is.

 “That’s a good idea. Maybe I will too.”

 “Oh, shit-- my bed is covered in laundry,” he sighs. “Nevermind, I guess.”

 Dennis’ jaw tilts a little. He half-shrugs. “You can use my bed, if you want.”

 “Really?”

 “I don’t see why not.”

 His voice is still all weird and quiet. But at least he’s talking.

 “Okay, dude,” Mac says, nodding. “Thanks.”

 It’s an awkwardly choreographed shuffle, to casually get in the same bed as your best friend, but they do it. It’s a big bed, at least-- they can both settle in comfortably without even feeling that the other is there. A soft bed too, Mac thinks as he nestles into it-- soft and warm and inviting. Probably because it was expensive. Mac bought his mattress at Kmart. It was on sale.

 He hears Dennis’ breathing change. Tunes into it as he drifts off himself.

 +

 Dennis wakes up ten percent. Feels arms around him, warmth against his skin-- becomes another ten percent more alert. A hookup. Some girl he met at Paddy’s or some other bar-- no doubt a big-breasted woman with glossy lips, wearing one of those silky pink and black spaghetti-strap tops girls are always wearing with their low-rise jeans. But why is she all wrapped around him instead of vice versa?

 He wakes up another thirty percent. Now he’s fifty percent awake, for anyone keeping track. It’s Mac who’s snuggled around him. Right.

 Whatever, he thinks, resigning himself. He opens his eyes for a second just to make sure it is in fact Mac. Relaxes his muscles again. If he lets on that he’s awake, if he disturbs Mac’s sleep-- Mac will leave. The warmth is nice. Whatever.

 +

 It’s not like Mac meant to wrap his entire body around Dennis’. It’s not like you can help what you do while you’re sleeping.

 But, considering he’s already in this position, it would be rude to move now. Dennis is still asleep, after all, even though Mac woke up. It would just be inconsiderate.

 Anyway, Mac’s mind is finally quiet. He finally feels relaxed. It would just be stupid to ruin that.

[thehomierobbstark]

Movie Night

Ramen Recipe

Pairing: Erik Killmonger x Reader [#TeamErikDon’tDateWhiteChicks]

Prompt: A typical movie night turns into anything but.

A/N: Don’t ask me where I come up with this shit 😂😂😂 I just be horny as hell daydreaming and be getting creative AF. Been holding onto this idea for a few months now.

Warnings: 👇🏿👇🏿👇🏿 At the bottom

This is for all my lil cute ass black gorditas out there rockin back fat, belly rolls and thick ass thighs that touch!!  x Reader is always gon be black, chubby, and sassy if I decide to continue writing.

*Edit* This story belongs in the Teach Me AU after chapter 5 (chapter 4 & 5 have yet to be posted but there’s your timeline).

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

Ya Out Fit

“You… you made this?” she asks incredulously, face full of shock and disbelief, her cheeks poked out from the mouthful of ramen she was covering with her hand.  It was absolutely adorable, the way she looked right now.

Erik groans, dramatically palming a hand over his face and dropping his head back in faux annoyance. This was her fourth time asking him, AND she was just finishing her second helping. If she didn’t believe him by now, he didn’t know if she ever would.

“Yes, babygirl! This all me,” he laughs, watching her munch away on noodle and egg.

It was movie night at Erik’s tonight, except he usually never cooked; they always ordered out. This time, he’d insisted they sit down and eat an actual dinner, even going so far as to give her a scheduled time to arrive. Usually, she’d just show up whenever.

“Hey,” She says, throwing her hands up in defense. “All I know is, last time I saw you in the kitchen, Auntie Dee had just walked out with half her eyebrow missing.”

She steels her face against the oncoming grin, looking away to avoid his eyes.

Erik kisses his teeth, side eyeing her from his end of the table.

“Man, whatever! You always gotta bring up old shit. She ain’t even notice it.”

She drops her hands as the smile breaks through, nodding her head in concession as she remembers how unaware poor Auntie Dee was and how much shit they used to get away with when they were younger.

“You is mutha fuggin RIGHT!” she sings, laughing at her own joke before she’s able to finish telling it.

“You so fuckin wack,” he rolls his eyes at her, chest bouncing from his suppressed chuckles as he gets up from his chair. “Come on and put ya stuff in the kitchen cornball.” He commands, scooping his bowl and chopsticks up before grabbing both their cups.

“How you know I was done tho,” she verbally argues, but follows suit right behind him.

“Cuz, you are.” He states plainly, as if it was obvious.

“CUz yOU aRe,” She silently mocked him, mouthing the words and making a face at the back of his head while she padded into the kitchen. He was right, she was done, but he ain’t need to know all that.

“Don’t get your ass whooped, little girl.” He warns her, glancing back with a knowing face while he places the dishes in the sink.

Yeah, whateva nigga. She thinks, eyebrow twitching from the mental eye roll she does. She places her dishes in after him, flipping on the tap to start some dish water while she tucks her loose braids behind her ear. He turns it off immediately, shooing her away.

“Don’t worry about allat, I’ll handle this later.” He ushers her out of the kitchen, knowing how helpfully domestic she was whenever they hung out together.  

“Go pick out a movie and put it in, I gotta go grab something from upstairs real quick.” he says, leaving her in the living room near the couch while he dashes up the stairs to the second floor.

She waits a few beats, idling by the foot of the stairs while she listens to the sound of him moving around. She hears a door close, and slowly moseys her way back into the kitchen, turning the tap back on.

She never did like to listen much.

Once the sink was filled with soapy water, she busied herself, letting herself fall into the monotonous but comfortable task of washing the dishes.  She was so distracted and in her own head by the fifth dish, she didn’t realize that Erik had come back down stairs and propped himself against the wall, watching her.

“So I see we just out here doing whatever we feel like, huh?” His voice announces his presence, startling her a little bit.

She recovers smoothly, her answer rolling off her tongue easily.

“Always,” she says, rinsing a pair of panda decorated chopsticks off before smirking over at him, grinning wickedly.  Nobody could ever keep her from doing what she wanted, a fact they both knew.

“Well, since you wanna wash dishes so bad,” he says, taking slow steps towards her, face focused while a hint of something sinister lurks somewhere behind his eyes. “Go head and finish then.”

She studies his movements cautiously from the corner of her eye, knowing that he was notorious for surprise attacks of either tickling her until she collapsed or tossing her over his shoulder to body slam her on the couch.

He quickened his steps, and before she could fully remove her hands from the water to shield herself, he slides up behind her, wrapping his hands around her waist.

She reaches for him, but he grunts in disapproval. “Uh uh, put them wet ass fingers back in that sink. You not touching me with them hands.”

Y/N scoffs, grabbing the side of the sink while she shifts her weight to one foot. “Really, Erik.”

He ignores her, wrapping his fingers around her tighter and pulling her closer to him while his head slides in place next to hers.

“I said,” He leans in close, his lips grazing the skin in front of her ear, “finish those fucking dishes.”

Her heartbeat stutters in her throat, mouth going dry from the sudden intensity of his words. She looks down into the sink, seeing the remaining pot and cup left to wash.

Looking back up, she turns to face Erik when his head buries in her neck, pinching the thin skin behind her ear with his teeth, making her take in a sharp gasp.

“What I just say?” he asks darkly, and she freezes as she feels his rough fingers travel up to the dip in her back, pushing her forward gently to lean her over the sink, a silent command to do as she’s told.

She picks up the sponge, lathering it with soap as her mind splits focus between her task and Erik’s hands on her.

As she cleans the pot, he starts to knead small circles into her back with his thumbs, palms rubbing lovingly over her love handles as his hands travel up her back.

It was a comforting massage, helping to release tension she didn’t even know she was holding, and she slowly melted into his fingers.

When he reaches her shoulder blades, he leans down to place a soft kiss on her back, tugging the material of her dress down slightly with his index finger. With the little bit of access he gained, he sticks his tongue out and licks a delicious stripe up her spine, his fingers lacing into the braids at the base of her head to push them aside.

She tenses up again, back involuntarily arching as the cold air hits the warm trail of spit he left behind, making her shiver.

She’d stopped cleaning at that point, far too distracted with what he was doing to her to give a damn about the last cup in the sink.

Reaching the nape of her neck, he ends the lick with a firm bite on the space where her shoulder and neck meet, growling around a mouthful of skin at the breathy moan that escapes her lips.

Detaching from her, his hands find their way back around her hips, squeezing there before he speaks again, lips pressed against the shell of her ear.

“Meet me in the living room when you’re finished. Don’t keep me waiting.”

He lets go of her and steps away, reaching back to give her a swift pop to her ass.

He disappears around the corner into the living room, and Y/N takes a second to gather herself.

Tilting her head back, she blows out a shuddering breath, closing her eyes to reason with her body to come down from the intense rush of hormones that just spiked all over.

Looking back into the sink at the remaining dish, she turns on the water to rinse it off, not even caring if it was thoroughly cleaned or not. She didn’t even want to play with the idea of being late if it meant Erik had any more tricks up his sleeve similar to what just happened. She wasn’t sure if her underwear would make it.

She quickly placed the cup on the drying rack and dried her hands, taking a moment to smooth out her dress and ruffle her braids for a messy but cute look. She had an inkling that her look would probably be ruined by the end of the date anyway, but she could at least attempt to sustain it.

She rounds the corner to the living room, feeling her uncomfortably wet panties moving against her center as she does. Seeing Erik on the couch, she makes a mental note to sit on the opposite end and keep her legs crossed to keep the smell of her arousal from leaking out. She’d be mortified if Erik ever discovered just how turned on he’d made her with his little show in the kitchen. His ego didn’t need any more feeding than it already got on a regular basis.

She plops herself down on the couch, but she isn’t seated two seconds before Erik’s doling out commands again.

“Uh uh. Get your lil ass over here and come pick a movie out like I told you.” She rolls her eyes, kissing her teeth and popping back up to make her way over to the coffee table. He was being stupid bossy, and he had about one more time to be talking to her like that before they had a problem.

Y/N was so busy fussing in her head over Erik’s trifling ass that she didn’t realize the coffee table was weirdly pulled close to the couch, the six movie choices arranged in the center directly in front of where Erik was sitting.

Walking over, she stands perpendicular to both him and the table, looking at the small space in between where she was apparently supposed to stand to make her selection. If she did, her ass would be directly in his face, and with the short dress she was wearing combined with the current state of her cheeky underwear, that was the last thing she wanted to be doing.

Crossing her arms, she peeks over her shoulder to take a look at the options, but the table is incredibly low and her blind ass didn’t have her glasses on, making the titles on the DVD cases difficult to read.

She glances over at Erik to see that he’s watching her intensely, smug smile hidden behind his bottom lip tucked between his teeth.

“I ain’t got all day beautiful. Bend that blind ass over and choose one. I’m not gon say it again.”

Alright. This nigga was getting way too comfortable ordering her around and she was Over It ™.

She drops her arms and steps to him, ready to start cursing him out when he grabs her hips and spins her around, holding her with a firm grip right at the top of her thighs. Leaning forward, he nips at the back of her thigh, rubbing away the sharp pain with his thumb before kissing the sensitive area.

Dropping one hand down in between her legs, he lazily draws his fingers up the inside of her ankle, delicately digging his nails into her so she could feel them scraping against her skin.

When he reaches her knee, her mind snaps back to reality, and she opens her mouth to say something but he cuts her off.

“Erik -”

“I’m not stopping until you find something for us to watch. So get busy.” he says plainly, shutting down any argument she was about to make.

His nails scrape up past her knee, and Y/N reflexively closes her legs, the tickling sensation starting to become too much for her.  

His hand was trapped between her thighs at that point, and thinking him to be defeated, she bends over, placing both hands on the coffee table for leverage, leg muscles still constricted as she tries to scan over the movies.

She gets to the third title, looking it over when Erik pulls his hand from between her legs, moving quickly to flip up the skirt of her dress and grip both her ass cheeks to spread them apart.

She doesn’t even have time to reach back to push him away when he buries his face into her clothed crotch, nose digging sweetly right into her opening. He takes in a deep breath, inhaling everything she has to offer, and her knees go weak making her grip the edge of the table more firmly.

It lasts a few seconds, and when he’s done he opens his mouth, bellowing out a deep and satisfied groan as his hot breath centers right over her pussy, making her squirm around and clench, still helplessly locked in his grip.

Delirious now from the ecstasy of what just happened, she slaps the table, her hand landing on the cover of a random DVD she no longer cared the name of and holds it up, waving it blindly behind her to signal to him that she finally made her decision.

He gives a small grunt of acknowledgement, almost sounding disappointed, and darts his tongue out, sliding it through her slit to rub at her clit a couple times before retreating, tucking it back into his mouth and pressing a sweet wet kiss to the seat of her soaked panties, tasting her through the fabric.

Pulling back, he flips her skirt back down and take the movie from her, giving her a minute to catch her breath since she’d been panting and whining the whole time.

When she’s able to stand again, he smacks her on the ass with the DVD case, handing it back to her.

“Good girl. Now go put this in the DVD player and come sit in my lap. We ain’t finished yet.”

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

I can actually give yall a bomb ass ramen recipe if you want it XD. I fuckin love ramen yo lmao.

Also RIP Blockbuster, we bringing them back for this fic :’D.

Warnings: Pre smut? Fondling, (Slight) Spanking, Above Clothes Touching

Tags:@kxnfuzed-blog-blog @sweet-epiphany85 @blackpantherismyish @huuniii  @wawakanda-btch @ljstraightnochaser@bearhuggingbaby@drsunshine97@hearteyes-for-killmonger@maliadestiny @lucidaquarian@theunsweetenedtruth@sicksadgen@louisdimuccis @blackchunkyqueen @ash-moneyy@blowmymbackout @buttercup812 @minkyomom  @softnani @curls-and-crosses @lunaerly @lovemekaycee @uhlxis @blackgirloneshots@thecaptainofamerica @wakandas-vibranium @teheeboo @scrumptiouslytenaciouscrusade@whorderofthepheonix@youreadthatright @killmongerdispussy@cawifornia @tchallamakesmeh0lla @siriuslycollins @panthergoddessbast  @blue-ishx@shesfromwakanda@hearteyes-for-killmonger@amethyst1993@bartierbakarimobisson @whoramilaje @muse-of-mbaku@eriknutinthispoosy@wakandas-vibranium @wakanda-inspired @thickoreo@allhailnjadaka@wifeyofnjadaka @hidden-treasures21 @killmvnger@sicksadgen @tgigoldie@killmongersgurl @princessstevens @beautifulqueenflaws @cocooned-butterfly@chaneajoyyy @ange-sensuel@laketaj24 @chasingsunlight @vikkidc@shadowkissedprincessofheart @wakanda-inspired  @taint3dvirgin @blackpinup22

[victorluvsalice]

Forgotten Vows Friday: Forgetting You Chapter 5 -- Director’s Cut Edition

NOBODY PANIC I’M NOT ABANDONING EVERYTHING TO GO ON A WILD EDITING SPREE AGAIN. This is simply the addition of a single scene to Chapter 5 of “Forgetting You.” So why am I going back and sticking new scenes into an old story again?

Well, you can blame my new fan/buddy MartyrFan, an Iced Tea (Alice/Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians) fan who recently got into my Valice stuff and started binge-reading a lot of the Forgotten Vows Verse. He recently wrote a slew of reviews for “Forgetting You,” and one of them contained this quote:

It's a little late for me to be asking about this, but what about Hysteria? Alice uses it for the first time after the first memory of the fire. I think that being to do THAT was definitely worth writing about, no offense. 

Seeing that made me remember something -- I actually HAD written a scene showing off Alice’s first use of Hysteria, which also introduced the “burning Liddell doors” memories (aka the plot-important memories you have to see to progress). For some reason I don’t remember, though, I never put it in the finished product. With MartyrFan asking about, and me knowing that it was probably WAS a little weird that Hysteria and mentions of it appeared later in the fic as normal, I figured it was worth going back, rewriting the scene up to my current standards, and slapping it in Chapter 5. It comes between Alice collecting the Victor memory and Alice finding the Hatter (as Alice gets the tutorial on Hysteria right before she meets up with him again). I’ve touched nothing else save the first couple of lines of the “meeting the Hatter” scene to help it merge in a little better.

Chapter 5 on FF.net

Chapter 5 on AO3

Chapter 5 on my website (formatting went funny there though, and I still haven’t managed to change my theme)

One of the things Alice hated about the human brain, and her brain in particular, was its tendency to associate certain innocent objects and events with rather less-pleasant ones. White sheets with her bed in Rutledge, for example. Old keys with Bumby's hypnosis sessions. Red-and-white stripes with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.

Or, like at the current moment, the front door of her house with her first fight with the Jabberwock. She glared at the portal before her – familiar white wood tarnished with gray ash, flames leaping behind the decorative iron flowers in the window, LIDDELL written in charred letters across the top. What it was doing here, set into a pile of old junk cogs and springs in the depths of the Lost and Found, she couldn't say. But it was there nonetheless – and, annoyingly, appeared to be the only way forward in this maze of clockwork and steam. "Come on, Alice," she scolded herself. "You mustn't dillydally. You saw the Jabberwock's skeleton blow away on the breeze. He's not a threat anymore. And this – it's just a door. It can't hurt you."

Her right hand ached from a long-healed wound, reminding her that yes, when the door was on fire and the knob blazing hot, it could hurt you, and very well. She sighed. "I'm wearing gloves this time – well, most of a glove," she corrected herself, wiggling her bare fingers. "And there's metaessence galore in all those boxes and barrels scattered about. I can heal myself in moments. We've barely started our journey – there's no point in stopping now."

Evil yellow eyes, thick sharp claws, a boiling furnace that poured out streams of flaming death – Alice shook the image away. "He's gone. I can't spend my life afraid of something I've already defeated." She squared her shoulders. "And if anything like him lurks behind that door, it'll have to face my Blade and my Grinder, and fall like all the rest." As encouraged as she could possibly get under the circumstances, she stepped forward and grabbed the knob, twisting it quickly and wrenching it open to reveal –

The library.

Alice stared as she stepped inside. The room was just as she remembered it, back in happier times. Shelves on almost every wall, filled practically to bursting with books old and new. Papa's photography equipment, lovingly spread out over a nearby table, filling the air with a chemical stench. Toys scattered across floor and chairs (including a jack-in-the-box – that explained a lot about where the Jackbomb had come from). The family portrait at the head of the room, showing all four Liddells in their Sunday best. And beneath that – the fireplace, blazing away to chase off the early November chill. Alice swallowed as she took it all in, only too aware of how little effort it would take to turn pleasing heat into a raging inferno. A single malignant spark, as her mother had said. . . . "Our lovely library was a fire trap. A conflagration waiting to happen!"

. . .Which I already knew, so why on earth are we belaboring the point?

Alice put her hands on her hips, letting out a frustrated growl as the memory faded back into darkness, leaving only the flame-licked door behind her. Wonderland was playing games, and she didn’t like it. Why dress up such a simple reminder so? She'd just had a memory from Mama about how dangerous her father's "unnatural devotion to printed paper" was to them. Granted, Lorina's tone had been more jocular, equally a playful complaint about her husband's hoarding habits and a hidden warning to be careful when in the room, but still. It had delivered the same message. What had been so special about this brief image that it warranted further dressing up from the little crystal house? Was there a clue she was supposed to have seen – a little thing out of place that hinted at the true cause of the fire? But everything had seemed in order. . . . If you want me to get to the bottom of things, Wonderland, you have to give me more than that!

Well, at least she hadn't had to shed any blood in her family home this time around. She turned and opened the door again. More heaps of rusty junk greeted her eyes – but they were different heaps this time, at least. Apparently she'd been taken just that bit closer to the Hatter. Which is the absolute least Wonderland can do to help – oh damn!

She burst into butterflies, just barely avoiding the steaming, oozing hand. The Insidious Ruin flapped its china jaw and waddled after her. Alice turned and sliced it to ribbons with the Blade, but more were already forming, thick black puddles rising up through the junk. . .she darted around the trash piles, trying to keep track of them all without taking a hit. Two – three – four – five – “Ah!”

She stumbled, pinwheeling her arms wildly as she teetered at the edge of a sudden drop. The Ruins (two more, seven now, she'd never faced so many at once) took advantage of her distress and charged. Alice butterflied out of the way again, but a straggler managed to sear her side as she reformed. She went to slash its hand off, only to be knocked off-balance by one of its friends scorching her back. And then another rammed into her, sending her to hands and knees. . .she butterflied once more, looking for free space, but they just followed, an inescapable black wall of pain. . .she got her feet, but another hand came out and she was stumbling backward again, terrifyingly close to the edge. . .a leap took her over them, but they turned with distressing speed. . .one tore at her hair, another grabbed her arm, and she couldn't get to one without opening herself up to another. . .it hurt, it hurt, it all hurt so much. . .so much pain, so much fear, so much – so much –

So much anger. Her jaw clenched as the Ruins kept up their attack, chipping away at her life bit by bit. She could have returned to the Home by now. She could have just gotten the stupid pills and been back in time for lunch. She could have found a book to read, or told another story to the children, or gone for a walk with Victor. She could have even been doing more chores like a normal person. But no, Wonderland couldn't let her have that, could it? It had to drag her away from reality and torture her with happy memories gone sour and never give her a straight answer to any of her questions and try to bloody goddamn KILL HER EVERY TIME SHE TRIED TO PROGRESS – Her entire body throbbed with pain, and it was too much, too much, too MUCH –

The scream exploded out of her throat, a shockwave of sound that sent the Ruins flying back. Moments later, her Blade was in her hand, and she was slicing and dicing with a fervor she hadn't felt since the last time she'd been hit with a Ragebox. "How fine you look when dressed in rage," Cheshire purred across her memory, and she did, she was a goddess of destruction in black and white and red and the Ruins were screaming, doll heads tumbling into the abyss, pipes and pulleys crashing to the ground, and it was all glorious she could do this forever kill and kill and KILL –

And then, suddenly, brown and gray and brass were back in her vision, and she had no idea how she was even staying upright.

She braced herself against a junk heap, looking around. Not a Ruin to be seen, but a whole field of metaessence roses, glittering in the dim light leaking through the ceiling. Alice collected the nearest, shaking as it broke apart into red mist and soothed her pain. She was glad that the threat was gone, but – how was she capable of such intense fury? Had some somehow managed to internalize that horrible sprayed poison from the boxes? Or was that rage just an essential part of her being? I know I can be moody, and snappish, and just plain mean, but. . .oh God, I hope I haven't hurt anyone in reality. She wiped the sweat from her forehead. Probably just proved all those doctors who liked to call me "hysterical" right. . .actually, thinking about it, "Hysteria" wouldn't be a bad name for that. . . .

She took a deep breath and steadied herself. It's over with now, she thought as she circled around the battlefield, touching each rose in turn to regain her strength. And to be fair, it got me out of a very bad situation just now. Hopefully it only triggers when I'm that near death. And, doubly hopefully, only here in Wonderland. Otherwise. . . .

She didn't want to finish that thought. She picked up the last rose and brushed off her skirts. "Over and done with," she repeated. "And I don't think Wonderland would keep me if I'd actually killed someone. Just have to keep a close leash on it." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Come on. You'll feel better when you find Hatter." I hope.