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impromptu-sketches · 2 years

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𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟘 ✦ 𝕎ℝ𝔸ℙ-𝕌ℙ ~ ℝ𝔼𝕎𝕀ℕ𝔻

Hi everyone! So, I started reading BL for the first time in 2020 but didn’t start doing annual wrap-ups until 2021. So because I feel like I’ve left out a ton of my favorite stories and because I’m a bit of a perfectionist... here’s my 2020 wrap-up rewind!

Out of all of the BL stories -ongoing and completed at the time- that I read, I have a winner in ten categories and four ‘best of’ winners!! Enjoy the 2020 throwback!!

✧ - FUNNIEST

And the nominees are...

- 19 Days

- Someone Else’s BL Manhwa

- Sign

- On or Off

- My Purrrfect Boss!

And the winner is…

SIGN

Sign was such a sweet manhwa, but the first 10 or so chapters got me laughing so fucking hard!! I will always remember the secondhand embarrassment, shock, and overall hilarity of these two (˃̣̣̥ ▿ ˂̣̣̥)

✧ - MOST INTRUIGING

And the nominees are...

- Dear Door

- Killing Stalking

- Red Candy

- Blood Bank

- December Rain

And the winner is…

KILLING STALKING

All of these had me immediately hooked, but I’d be lying if I chose anything but Killing Stalking. Such a wild psychological thriller that had my anxiety through the freaking roof the entire time. I remember reading this for literally two days straight on a certain website that I didn’t have an account with so I clicked through each individual panel (which is why it took so long to get through) and honestly that probably exacerbated the suspense. Either way, there was no way I was putting this one aside until I finished.

✧ - BEST KISS

And the nominees are...

- Incorrigible

- Fools

- December Rain

- Blood Bank

- Cherry Blossoms After Winter

And the winner is…

BLOOD BANK

Blood Bank was such an amazing manhwa!! I loooooved it the first time I read it two years ago and it easily stays with me as one of my all time favorites ♡♡♡ There’s a particular kiss I’m thinking of near the end that I just love so much (⋈◍＞◡＜◍)。✧♡ I was so happy at their happy ending and how it all came together, I just love Shell & Eric so much!! ♡♡♡

✧ - BEST SEX SCENES

And the nominees are...

- Dear Door

- Room to Room

- Liquor & Cigarette

- Unromantic

- Shame Application / Dirty Vibration

And the winner is…

DEAR DOOR

I didn’t want to pick Dear Door because it also won in 2021, but fucking hell I remember the first time I read it and that first scene on the couch... ///o_o/// I cannot lie, Dear Door is on another level ok... y’all know.

✧ - FAVORITE FLUFF

And the nominees are...

- Guang Xiang

- Never Understand

- Cherry Blossoms After Winter

- Path to You

- Fools

And the winner is…

FOOLS

I -love love love- all of these so much, it was so hard to narrow down this list to five, but I have such warm feelings whenever I think back to when I read Fools for the first time! ( ˘͈ ᵕ ˘͈♡)˚๐*˟ ♡ A little sad that the reboot is still on hiatus but tbh we didn’t need one in the first place ♡ But if it does come back I’ll be reading it immediately.

✧ - FAVORITE BOTTOM

And the nominees are...

- Jungwoo | Fools

- Nathaniel | Path to You

- Yu Yang | Here U Are

- Na-kyum | Painter of the Night

- Shell Overlord | Blood Bank

And the winner is…

SHELL OVERLORD | BLOOD BANK

Ahhhhhh Shell captured my heart as soon as he asked to be stepped on hahaha (๑˃ᴗ˂)ﻭ such a powerful vampire and a complete masochist I love it!

✧ - FAVORITE TOP

And the nominees are...

- Yohan | Sign

- Eunho | Lover Boy

- Taehee | Banana Scandal

- Yoon Taejun | Unintentional Love Story

- Tsuchiya Hazuki | Kiraide Isasete

And the winner is…

EUNHO | LOVER BOY

Eunho ♡.。₀:*ﾟ✲ﾟ*:₀。For real, Eunho fought for their relationship so hard and for so long, I really loved that. This manhwa was really special to me when I first read it ❤

✧ - FAVORITE COUPLE

And the nominees are...

- Conor & Simon | Dark Heaven

- Suchae & Gusam | December Rain

- Yiyoung & Director Kang | On or Off

- Giovanni & Felix | Hold Me Tight

- Cho Ayeo & Woori | Incorrigible

And the winner is…

CONOR & SIMON | DARK HEAVEN

Without a doubt it’s Conor & Simon!! ♡＼(￣▽￣)／♡ They were freaking ride or die, so in love, so good together ♡ I absolutely LOVED the flashbacks to when they were kids growing up and forming their band together. Just amazing. Just two boys in love! So many hardships, but they got through it ❤

✧ - FAVORITE SIDE COUPLE

And the nominees are...

- Chanwoo & MD | BJ Alex

- He Tian & little Mo | 19 Days

- Zhong Qiu Jie & Pan Shu | Here U Are

- Donghee & Hotae | Unintentional Love Story

- Haruki & Akihiko | Given

And the winner is…

DONGHEE & HOTAE | UNINTENTIONAL LOVE STORY

I was waiting so long to get more of Donghee & Hotae!! And they finally gave us their backstory in the later chapters... but I wanted more!! And I was so relieved when they finally did get together (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ Something about these two I really loved.

✧ - FAVORITE BOY

And the nominees are...

- Taehee | Banana Scandal

- Baekyung | Scandalous M

- Na-kyum | Painter of the Night

- Shell Overlord | Blood Bank

- Yoon Taejun | Unintentional Love Story

And the winner is…

TAEHEE | BANANA SCANDAL

( ＾◡＾)っ ♡·ﾟﾟ·*: To nobody’s surprise, Taehee had my whole heart from the very beginning!! I simply love this boy!!

✧ - FAVORITE NEW BL

And the nominees are...

- Love me Dramatically

- Nomi x Shiba

- Red Candy

- Semantic Error

- My Purrrfect Boss!

And the winner is…

SEMANTIC ERROR

Also probably to no surprise, Semantic Error had me engrossed in their enemies to lovers, back and forth, the flirting!!!!! From the very beginning └(=^‥^=)┐ the dynamic between them was just so hilarious and I could not picture how they were going to get together but I needed it!!!!

✧ - FAVORITE ONGOING BL

And the winner is…

KING’S MAKER

There were so many amazing BLs I was reading at this time, but King’s Maker was elite for me. I love a good slow burn childhood friends time skip and I just needed them to be safe and happy together o(≧▽≦)o .。.:*☆

✧ - FAVORITE BL THAT ENDED IN 2020

And the winner is…

INCIDENTALLY LIVING TOGETHER

Straight up, this manhwa was emotionally damaging but therapeutic at the same time. Especially because I read it in fall of 2020 when I was at home a lot a a bit isolated, I really felt for these characters. I re-read this again in 2021 when I was going through a sad time and it kept the tears going, but that’s what you need sometimes ✿

✧ - BEST BL OF 2020

And the winner is…

HYPERVENTILATION

❀❀❀ Hyperventilation became my one of my all time favorites right away!!! It was so, so short, but it was beautiful and emotional and relatable. Everyone has regrets, things in the past they wish they acted on, and this gives hope to those ♡ It’s also pretty freaking adorable and I love a well done childhood friends to lovers, especially in flashbacks, so this was an easy one for me to love!! ( ＾◡＾)っ ♡ Check out the anime too!

Thank you for reading!

#bl manhwa #bl manga #yaoi #wrapped #killing stalking #dear door #banana scandal #semantic error #king's maker #hyperventilation

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sbrown82 · 7 months

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Marianne is a hot mess and a constant liar! She constantly says that her and Mick were “in love” but then go to different interviews saying that he was dirty, she was cheating on him with Spanish Tony (their drug dealer), Keith was the real love of her life, or say she was with him for the money. First she slept with Brian and got with Keith, then when Keith rejected her she goes to Mick and say they “fell in love” during their first trip together. She also said she knew about Bianca and that they were still messing around when he first got with her and that’s when their relationship ended completely. This bitch was delusional and it makes me laugh reading about all the bullshit that was happening surrounding her. Also Bianca is a hot mess too, she also was a compulsive liar! She lied about her age saying she was 21 when she was 25, also lied about her parents background, lied about loosing expensive gifts from Mick and his stupid ass would help her “search” for them until they couldn’t find them which he would buy her more stuff. Their relationship was TOXIC and interesting. It started off with drama because Mick got Marsha pregnant then abandoned her when she didn’t have a boy (which I assumed since he was so attached to Nicholas), made her sign a prenup, cheated with Carly Simon which resulted with his shit ripped up and thrown outside and when he came home she had a revolver pointed him, had groupies calling the house constantly, Anita sending Tony to look into Bianca’s background to make sure she wasn’t a man and when Anita learned that they was writing a song about Angela Davis she tried to find Angela so that she could meet Mick and possibly they would start an affair (as if Angela would go for him), also Bianca was stealing out of his bank account (but he was worried about Marsha 🤔). Marianne and Bianca was one and the same they was both gold diggers but he chased after both of them. Also Jerry was treated like shit for no reason! Her and Marsha was easily the most beautiful and sweet women he had. He put Jerry through HELL. He didn’t even try to hide his affairs when it came down to his marriage with her, he bitched about not having a son because they only had daughters, had a public affair with Carla even though Eric Clapton was dating her at the time and Jerry confronted her face to face calling her a tramp and told her to stay away from her husband and Carla said her husband needed to stay away from her. He’s a bitch at heart with mommy issues and maybe that’s why his momma liked Chris better.

Marianne was a cokehead and a ho, Bianca was a gold digger and b*tch, but explain again how Marsha got those labels from the public when all she ever did was ask Mick to help her. Sis never fucked any one of his friends, never betrayed him, took his money, she didn't even tell people they were dating. She even said it herself, she never once tried to hurt him (even though he deserved it). The motherf*cker probably does have mommy issues. Not sure how or why. Mick seems to come from a nice, middle-class family with two loving parents, yet he grew up to be a sexist and misogynist.

#marianne faithfull #bianca jagger #marsha hunt #mick jagger #the rolling stones #anon #ask #old school tea #sbrown82

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horce-divorce · 8 months

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just thinking about that time i was going to uw oshkosh,and they had done a real bang-up job of letting me "fall thru the cracks" during my transfer, so i had no advisor to speak to and had never been given an orientation or anything of the sort and had to figure out EVERYthing, from campus maps to their fucked up nonexistent parking (that was also under construction at the time, and I was commuting!) to titanweb, on my OWN. like, alone. i never even got an ID.

and THEN i had the GALL and AUDACITY to get sick midway thru the semester, and when i went to medically withdraw the dean of students' office did NOT inform me of the ramifications and fees, did NOT refer me to the head of financial aid for a consult as was standard, and in fact did not refer me to anyone else or any other materials/resources that could help. he just tried to talk me into signing up for different classes and got annoyed when i kept saying "i'll still be sick even if I change my major." he handed me the paperwork begrudgingly and without additional comment.

so anyway i go thru all of that and then immediately get a notice from uwo, during my first ever 2 weeks of homelessness, that i owe them about $1700 for withdrawing after the deadline and if i don't pay it asap i'm going to court. that was a really normal amount of stress to be under for a guy who had just withdrawn from school for being too sick to stay awake in class anymore and then immediately got kicked out for it. good times, good times

i've never paid it and they did eventually send me to the DOR, who put a lien on my bank account (for all the good it did, I've never had any income coming in, anyway). but also, my transcripts will be forever withheld as long as i owe this balance, and i'm gonna die drowning in student loan debt for... what! nothing! an education i was not able to complete. resources i was never given, connections i never even had the chance to make. I paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of having UWO fuck up my life for me. I could've done that on my own, for free!

oh, also, just thinking about how, yknow, years after all this went down, we found out two heads of administration were fucking embezzling from the uwo foundation. they 'were never accused of personally profiting' from this theft, despite the fact that NO ONE can seem to answer as to why they used uwo funds to help renovate things like an off-campus hotel. (I also heard rumors- like, actual IRL hearsay, nothing I can link to- that they bought a house or two during that time. idk how substantiated that gossip is, though.)

they took upwards of $11 million, bankrupted the foundation, and were sentenced to pay back $70k each in restitution. UWO's reputation has been forever and even further damaged, which is hilarious to me because it already wasn't great before this, at least not with anyone millennial age or younger, and not with anyone marginalized who's attended for even a few weeks. everyone my age knows it's one of the most physically unsafe UW campuses; a bunch of us also found out that hard way that they are financially unsafe, as well!

i'm FAR from the only person who had issues like this btw. in addition to the above, they did all kinds of unprofessional shit CONSTANTLY, like repeatedly "losing" my financial aid paperwork, and then magically finding it all of a sudden when my dad would call and get stern with them about having made/sent in copies in triplicate. My old roommate went to UWO briefly and they outright LOST something like $7,000 of his tuition. I don't remember exactly how it went down but I think it was at the beginning of the semester they kept telling him he still owed a bunch when his loans had already gone through, and they kept having similar "issues" of "losing" his documentation. (yes, this WAS, coincidentally, I'm sure, also during the time that the foundation was being ~improperly managed~)

I'm looking into the borrower defense loan discharge in the hopes that I can at least get my loans from UWO discharged. The time I wasted at UW-FDL and Milwaukee was my mistake, but I think I have a lot of grounds here to say that UWO misled me in multiple ways, especially about the nature of the money I owed and the withdrawal deadline I was supposed to know about. maybe if I had ever been assigned an advisor or given an orientation that wouldn't have happened?

unfortunately, the "judgement" subheader doesn't apply here, I don't think-- the criminal charges and judgement that were issues were against the former chancellor and cbo as individuals, not against the university, and I don't think university students were listed as victims here, somehow. in fact, I think uwo itself as an entity is the primary victim listed, as again, their foundation was bankrupt and it damaged their reputation so much etc etc.

Hilarious btw. I always hoped someone would pull a Papas Fritas on UWO, but if I got to see them die slowly that might be just as good. I'm not anti-university or anti-education or any of that. I've just been eagerly awaiting this particular school's downfall for over a decade. they ruined my fucking life, embezzled from me, told me to my FACE "whoopsies!! oohh sorry that shouldnt have happened to you ;( anyway, pay up," and have been holding my transcripts hostage while demanding I pay them back for the privilege ever since :) 👍

yknow just. having my little morning thinky thoughts!!! tee hee!!!

#me #prsnl #uwo

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rifasya · 11 months

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Reclaiming My Peace

Hi, Allah. Hi, Universe! It is Sunday (15/10) at 07.31 in the morning here as I begin sharing this story. This might take a bit to complete because I've got a busy day ahead with plenty on my agenda today.

Waking up on this Sunday morning, couldn't help but feel a bit empty. I can't stand this kind of mood.

Well, here goes the story. I have been getting close to a guy named Lino for about a month now. We initially crossed paths on the Clubhouse app in the house of Kelana.

I don't know much about this guy, to be honest. He was the one who reached out to me first romantically and shared some bits about himself. He mentioned that he lost his dad a couple of years ago, he dropped out of Bandung Technology Institute (ITB), and later graduated from Art Jakarta Institute (IKJ) with a degree in visual communication design. He also opened up about his past, saying he had some struggles with addiction and went through drug rehabilitation back in the day.

There was absolutely zero initial attraction to this guy in the first place. I didn't feel any chemistry whatsoever, mainly because he overshared his negative habits, like daily alcohol consumption and other things I'd rather not mention but can remember quite vividly.

I remember it clearly, during our third private room chat on Clubhouse, he dropped the bombshell that he liked me. I was genuinely shocked and thought he was joking, but he was dead serious. In our fourth conversation, he even pushed me to say that I felt the same way, but I couldn't because that wasn't how I felt about him at the time.

Bela, a bestie whom I met on Clubhouse, pointed out that he went overboard with expressing love right from the start. Regrettably, I fell for all his sweet talk. I can't argue her on this.

If someone were to ask me what I like the most about him, I'd say his openness (even though I'm aware that he's also a liar, a really terrible one). He wouldn't hold back when it comes to sharing his feelings during the times we're not in contact.

For example, he'd say things like how he keeps an eye on my Clubhouse activity, even late at night, just to see when I sign off from the app. He also revealed that he confessed his feelings to his mom about liking a Rifa, a government employee working in the Presidential Palace environment.

It might seem like a rather nonsensical and quirky reason to like someone, doesn't it? I know, I know.

Anyway, he asked me for a favor two days ago on Friday (13/10). Guess what? He borrowed Rp180,000 from me, urgently needing the money to purchase a roaming cellphone package since his m-banking app got accidentally blocked.

It did strike me as a bit suspicious. I mean, why couldn't he just borrow the money from his coworkers who live in the same apartment building as he does, instead of coming to me?

I did ask him the same question though. He explained that everyone was at the bar because it was the weekend. I trusted him and went ahead, sending the money to that 'seller' (I'm not entirely sure if it's real or I'm just being fooled).

Hello again. Today is Tuesday (17/10) at 11.13 am. Apparently, it took me two freaking days to finish this story hehe.

Btw, after I sent the money everything seemed to fall back into place. Our playful conversations resumed, and he was his usual playful self, showering me with attention, etc. Before he went to bed, he even said he'd make an Instagram account for me so we could keep in touch there. And that was it. That was our very last conversation.

Later on Saturday (14/10) night at around 08.30 in the evening, I tried to get in touch with him. I waved at him on Clubhouse, he didn't accept the wave. I made a second attempt around 11.00 pm, but he didn't respond to that one either.

On Sunday evening, I held my breath that he'd accept my wave and had some talks with me. Yes, I waved at him again, this time twice at night when I noticed he was online on the platform. And yes once again, I got nothing.

I thought he could’ve been just explained things to me. I thought he could’ve been opened up about what was bothering him recently, particularly right after I sent the money. I thought, at the very least, he could’ve been just given me some clarity, or a proper closure.

Unmasking Deceit

Bela was right, I eventually happened to fall for his bullshits. That was the fact that I really hate. Falling for a man's sweet talks? Nah, that's just not like me at all. I need to find myself again.

I came across an idea to do a background check on him. Out of curiosity, I dared myself to check his mobile phone number through the Get Contact app. There, I managed to uncover his real name.

I discovered many different aliases associated with him on the app. But what caught my attention was the fact that he had deleted around 197 saved names. That seemed quite suspicious, I must say.

It almost feels like I've become a part of the HR team, given that I went a step further and looked up his full name on the Ministry of Education and Culture's website. In this digital age, many people and companies use online resources to verify the accuracy of resumes, to make sure the information is truthful, right?

Anyway, I was deeply shocked that he never went to ITB or didn't even graduate from IKJ. I mean, he was studying visual communication design, but from another college. He didn’t even graduate from that college either. Doesn't he even think that people might figure out the truth about him so easily in this digital era?!

You know what? I also found out that his mom passed away in December last year. It is puzzling because he used to mention his mom regularly during our conversations.

Little imbecile bastard.

I know his real name is not Lino. I assumed he named himself after a punk rock band or song. Whatever.

I also found it quite funny that he claimed to be on an eight-month business trip in India when, at one point, he sent me a screenshot of his mobile phone and the clock in the top left corner displayed the same time zone as Indonesia. Lol. Go fuck yourself.

One thing that truly upsets me is why on earth he didn't have genuine intentions toward me or maybe with anyone else? Is it that hard for him to just have pure intentions to everyone? Like, please stop shitting people.

On another note, I still think that I don't deserve to be treated like this, yet I still think that we could’ve been just maintained a friendship.

I must be out of my mind. But I genuinely wish him a good life. I hope he finds a stable and fulfilling job that enables him to better take care of himself and his siblings or any remaining family members. I hope he will meet a wonderful woman to share his life with. I hope he is surrounded by good people in his social circle. All of this, simply because I know exactly how it feels to lose a God-sent mother.

Nevertheless, I keep believing that Allah SWT will always protect and accompany me in every step I take, on every occasion in my life, and in every breath I breathe. That's why I'm living a truly good life He gave me right now ♡

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nityarawal · 2 years

Text

11/14/22

Bribe Mill-

Obama Care

Morning Songs

Stop Blaming Me

IEHP

Inland Empire Health Plan

Obama Care

I Filed Over 1000

Grievances

David, Samantha & Joanna

No - I Won't Stop

Got A Class Action

Against Blue Shield

Insurance

But County Options

#ObamaCare Was Worst

They Wouldn't Sign Me

Up The First Year

The 2nd They Cackled

And Wouldn't Change

My Address From Detention

When I Called 911

For Free Obama Phone

To Stay Connected

Verizon And

BBVA Bank Dropped Me

Gay Manager Charles

Had Me Raped And Beat

Slumlorded

From 911

Sargeant Protero

United Way

Lexus Lemon

California Rental Car Fraud

With DMV.org

Triple A

Gay Militia

Daniel Crabtree

Officer Enoch

Defense

Didn't Seem To Matter

If I Paid Cash Or Not

Spent $5,000 Dollars

On The First Year Of

Therapy For Courts

Spent Thousands On

Private Forensic Dr's

Forensic Psychologists

Forensic Accountants

Doing Tax Returns

The FBI Swallowed

My Money For Lexus

Lemon Lawsuit

I Got Sold Out On Bribes

To Amex

Wells Fargo

Fidelity

And #BBVA (Bought Out By #PNC Bank )

#Verizon Pimped Line Of 20 Years

Encinitasbeachhome.com To Cricket

760-470-7562

#TMobile Blocked

Me From Medical

With Congressman Ken Calvert

DA Michael Hestrin

And Oathkeeper Sheriff Pathologist

Chad Bianco

Judge Clark

Atty Clark's

Idyllwild Newspaper Clarks'

Broker Shane Stewart

Fidelity

Plus Insurance Fraud

2.5 Months Of Covid19

Broken Ribs

Another Year Of Abuse

Hostage on #TMobile Bribes

For Courts

Slumlorders

Is That The Health Insurance

You Want Guys

Years Of Court

"I Care Alot"

Psychological Attacks

Neighbors Murdered

Landlords

Property Managers

United Way Doesn't

Want To Pay Rent

County Took Bribes

Brokers And Attys

To Shoot Us Down

With Lies

Plea Bargains

We Don't Want To Be Part

Of Your Bribe Mill

Saw 100's Of Court Dr's

They Were The Worst

Loved Dr. Adam Cash

My Latest Forensic Psychologist

But He's Scared Of Court

And Therapist

Tima Ivanova

Who Can Blame Him

For Not Returning

Her Calls

She Obviously Had

A Hiding Agenda

For Emily Pearson's

Demise

Hope And Healing Sent

Two Therapists

In 2021 After IEHP Blocked Me

From Own Providers

For Two Years

The First Con Was

Tanisha Thompson

She Quit Within Days

I Called Ken Calvert

Our Congressman

Needing A Ride To Court

I Begged Scott Peters

Sandiego Congressman

To Help

Stop The Legal Abuse

With Aid

He Promised 211

Would Assist

None of Them Did

Not Even Therapist

Julie Anne Steiger

From Calm And Ground

Counseling

Or Carmel Benson

My Boss At Idyology

Who Promised Me A Ride

To Court

Nor Ken Carlsson

My Real Estate Atty

Of Three Years

Who Ate Their All The Time

She Wouldn't Let Me Talk To Him

She Wouldn't Let Me

Give Him Check

She Wouldn't

Help Pay On His Website

With My Small

Small Pittance Of

A Paycheck

She Threw Away My Keys

And My Social Security Card

My Hydbrid Battery Was Dead

After 10 Months

Of Raped

Caged

I Need Unemployment Comps

So Does Steven Lee

We Didn't Like The Way She

Suggested

Sexual Assault

With Police

And The Way They Abducted Me From Work

Her Loyalty Was To Her

Little Boytoy

Cop

Daniel Godsnick

Instead Of Me

Her Loyalty Was To Oath Keeper Jeremy Parsons

Instead Of Me

Her Loyalty

As A Psychologist

A Jaded Woman From New York

Whose Been Thru The Courts

Was To The Bribe

She Sold Me Out

I Almost Died

And She Threatened

Our Celebrity Chef

Steven Lee

The Master Class

On TV

The Same

If He Came And Got His

Pots And Pans

And Knives

And If He Wouldn't Sleep With Her

She Called Me All The Time

Looking for Him

He Was Camping

And Didn't Want To See Her Face

Even In The Pretty Little

Airbnb Guesthouse

She Had No Respect

For His Marriage

Said It Was Open

Anyway

I Called Him Pappa Bear

Was A Chef Maestro

You Had No Respect

For His Talents

Boiled Him Down

To A Gigolo

Then Andrea At Hope And Healing

Quit A Day Before Court

And Birthday In September

When TMobile Cut Lines

For 3 Days

September 16th

Mexican Independence Day

Couldn't Get Calls

Get Payment To Airbnb

And My Host

Therapist Amy Bell Reccomended

Designer SSIs

In 2016

Everyone In California

Is On Antidepressants

It's in The Water

Zoology

Lexipro

Does It Work

Why Do They Alternate

With Drugs

Why Was My Atty

Ashby Clark Sorrenson

Appearing To Be

Tweaking

On Speed

Lying About Being An

Real Estate Attorney

Lying About Getting My

Kids

Under Delusions

He Was Just A Public

Defender Scammer From The

Same Office Of Vista

PDS Mathew Robert's

Christopher Stapleton

Sherry Stone

Kristin Scogin In Sandiego

Whitney Ryan

In Riverside

Southwest Murietta

All Taking Bribes

For Our Homes

Kids

And Businesses

They Beat Me With

A Marine Officer

Investigator

Mark Milton

In 2017

When My Divorce

Was Finalized

With Verizon Phone

In Hand

From Lexus

In Pitch Dark

At 5AM

Courts Stole My Home

Stole My Retirement

Funds

Stole My Kids

With Restraining Orders

Attacking My Right

To Bear Arms

And Defend Us From Rapists

Ask for Legal Aid

On Social Media

And With Phones

Estranged By

Mathew Brower

A Marine Judge Vet

From Afganistan

Bribed

Alienated By

X Husband

Attempted Murder

On Bribes

Endless Bribes

Yeah

There's Been A

Dr. Gardner Agenda

To Groom My Kids

#FreeBritney And I

Some Of The Shrinks

And Property Managers

Landlords Didn't Make It

Dr. Anthony

Died At RPDC

Mission Valley Hospital

Kills 70 Moms A

Year

Officer Hanby

Mariano

Lopez

And Lardaby

Begged Judge Clark

To Stop The Honor Killings

For Divorce Court

Leslie Wiedner Died

My Landlady

Within Months of Reccomending Congressman

Scott Peters

Ken Calvert

And Their Atty Nick Depinto

Her Daughter Actress Tina Molina

Capitalised

On Slumlording

On Tollgate

By Idyllwild Arts

Hoarding Art

Jackets

Oils

Medicine

And Ipad

Fur Coats

Embroidered

Johnny Was

EveryThing Any Rockstar

Needed

With Thousand Dollar Boots

You Ask If I Want

To Appeal This

Yes- I Do

I Need All My

Assets Back

From Dr's Since

2016- Lying And

Taking Bribes From

Court

We Went To Joey

Delia's Marriage

Counselor- She Didn't Work For

Them Or Us

Joey Tried To

Sleep With His 15 Year Old

Daughter And Friends-

On An Overnight

Party

Mamma Robby-Jean

Said No

Won Custody

Her Teens Didn't Want

To Ever Stay

At Pervy Daddy's Again

Momma Won In Court

Momma Got All

Sunshine, Moon, Star

And Tatiana

With A New Latino Dad

Sometimes Moms Win

Against Abusers

But It's Rare

And No One Should've

Called Us Crazy

For Being A Realtor

Journalist

Mom

Or Teacher

Who Cares

Robyjean Was Shocked

To See My Ex Dr. Rawal

Standing Behind Joey

Losing At Court

Looking Like A Pedophile

Before His Family

No One Should Call Us

Crazy Because We Write

Homeschool

No One Should Call

Us Crazy Because

They Have ADHD

And Think We Ramble

No One Should Call

Us Crazy

Because We're Natural Moms

Or Have High Pitched Voices

Like Michael Jackson

And Britney Spears

Have Faith

Don't Do Drugs

And Don't Appreciate

Being Raped

By Your Staff

No One Should Call

Us Crazy Because

We Didn't Like Your

Zoo- No One Should

Call Us Crazy Because

Your Insincerity Is

Killing Mammas

No One Should Call

Us Crazy When You

Stole Homes

Tried To Kill Us

In Hospital Cages

On "Mental Health" Care

Rapes

Warrants

When Really Dr's

Amped Meds

So High We Could Barely

Walk

Talk

Or Function

Restless Leg Syndrom

Ensued On The Next

Bout

My Brother Haydn Called

Me On A Recorded Line

To Let Me Know

The Children Were Raped

By 12 Officers

On Wellness Checks

For An Atty Dime

This Has Been Going

On For 6 Years

Leave My Kids

And I Alone

Your Attys Restraining

Orders And Whole

Defense Team Failed

Took Bribes And Murdered

Alot - Retrace My Tax

Dollars - I Don't Want

Those Officers To Work

For Us Anymore

Send Them Out Of

My State

Back To UK

Maritime Law

Prevails Elsewhere

Back To The Law

Of The Land

And Real Estate

Matters

My Kids And I Need

Attorneys And Our

Assets Restored

No More Shenanigans

No More Bored Therapists

Wasting Our Time

No More

Gaslighting

With Defense Calls

Recorded Lines

Hundreds of Letters

Child Psychologists

Shrinking & Drugging

Our Kids

We Know You Got Your

Sick Dr. Gardner Method

From Osho

And The Smachtenbergers

Pedophilia

We Don't Want Any

Thing More To Do With

Your Courts

Ashby Clark Sorrenson

Restraining Order Is

Expired

Lori Clark Viviano

Restraining Order Is

Expired

Grant Funk- Pedophile

Paralegal Trafficking X On Heroin

To Steal His Daughter-

With An Officer

Has An Expired

Restraining Order

Atty Christopher Sunnen

Who Had Me Beat

For Court

Has An Expired

Restraining Order

My X-Husband's

Shouldn't Hold Up

For All These Attys

Promised Us

Family Law

0 notes

citrineghost · 3 years

Text

Avoiding Scams on Freelancing Sites

Hi there! I almost just got scammed today, and I’m going to take the LITTANY of red flags from this interaction and use it to teach you all about how to avoid scams.

I am not making very much money right now. I just lost one of the accounts I was writing for, so I am not not even making enough to pay my rent. So I am desperately looking for work. And, like many people desperately looking for work, my panicking subconscious is willing to see a red flag and brush it under the rug because

“I’m probably being paranoid.”

So, to all of my lovely artists, writers, editors, and other types of freelancers who are desperately looking for work, I would like to create a comprehensive list of things that you should NOT FUCKING IGNORE while looking for a job. Actually, the list will be formatted as things you should expect from your employer/interviewer and if these things are missing, get the fuck out of there.

1. Reputable Platforms

The first thing you should be expecting is to use reputable platforms. If you’re being asked for a virtual interview, you should expect your interviewer to invite you via Skype, Discord, (Maybe slack if they’re middle-aged), perhaps Whatsapp, or whatever website you’re using to find your job.

DO NOT go for interviews on Telegram. This app has been reported as very commonly being associated with scams. This is where my recent experience took place.

2. Willingness to Verify Legitimacy

The first thing you should do when being in contact with an interviewer or HR is ask them to verify their identity.

This may not be necessary if doing a video call with someone pictured on an official company website, receiving emails or texts from addresses/numbers that are listed on an official company website, or if the job you’re being interviewed for was applied to directly on the company website. In these cases, you are not likely to be scammed, as you’re working with verifiably information.

If you meet someone on Indeed, Fiverr, Upwork, or any other freelancing/job site, keep your contact within the website’s chat system, email system, or whatever. This is how you remain protected under the hiring site’s TOS/Legal whatever. If you get scammed because you took your hiring process elsewhere, they will not help you.

That being said, if you DO take your interview off the site, it should be somewhere reputable and you should ask for your interviewer to verify their identity before doing literally anything else. The best way to get them to verify their identity is to ask them to email or text you from an address or phone number listed clearly on the official company website, by asking them to show you their state ID and checking it for photoshop influence, or by asking to do a video call for the interview and seeing for yourself that you’re being interviewed by someone who is pictured on the official company website as an employee.

3. Clear and Professional Procedures

Any professional working as an interviewer or human resources personnel will have a skillset related to communication and organization. When being interviewed you should expect a number of questions about your skills and how you’re valuable to the company, etc. However, this is easy to fake, as a scammer. What you need to look out for is that they show a clear amount of structure.

If you’re asked for an interview, no real company will demand you be quick about responding. If they’re interested in an interview, a legitimate company is not likely to ask you to do the interview immediately. They will ask you to schedule an interview time with them. They may ask if you have availabilities that day, but they will not just start interviewing you immediately.

After the interview, any professional company will tell you that they will get back to you when they’ve made a decision about your interview. No professional company will tell you to wait for an indefinite amount of time while they talk to HR peers. If a company Does want you to wait, because they intend to make a quick decision, they will give you an expected wait time, as that is the courteous and professional thing to do. They will not expect you to be on-call for this period of time. A time projection is simply to give you an idea of what to expect. For example, “I’ll be in touch within the next 1-3 hours about the results of your interview. Thank you for your time.”

Furthermore, if you are accepted for a job, any professional company will make a clear outline of exactly how they plan to introduce you into company life. They will respect your time and ask you to schedule things with them. For example, “Is there a period of 2-3 hours within the next few days where you would be available for an orientation?”

No professional company will demand you do anything at any particular time. That is not how legitimate professionals treat new employees. You will be asked to schedule things with them. Even when you’re assigned work hours, if the exact hours you’re applying for are not listed in the job description you applied for, they will ask you to fill out some kind of time sheet to outline your availabilities, then schedule you for times within that outline.

4. Doesn’t Show Signs of Money Scamming

There are two major red flags when it comes to money scams. Your interviewer should never ask you what bank you use and your interviewer should never ever tell you they’re going to send you a check, unless they send your paycheck as a check.

One of the more common scams at the moment is run by people pretending to be members of legitimate companies, hiring freelancers for things like proofreading and editing. These remote positions may require home office hardware, right? The interviewer will tell you you’re missing some hardware and software that are required for the job. Then they’ll tell you that they will send a check that you can cash and use to buy the required materials.

This is even sketchier if they email you front and back images of the check and tell you to print it and then deposit it through mobile banking. The way this works is that, if you cash the check successfully, you will then buy the list of software, which is usually completely unrelated to the job you’re being hired for, then they will cancel the check, which hasn’t cleared completely. That leaves you with ~$2k dollars less in your bank and their money right back where it started in theirs. Presumably, the scammers are the ones selling the software. So, that $2k dollars you just spent is also going into their bank account.

Professional companies will never offer to send you checks to buy products. If they have official hardware or software that they want you to use, they will buy it themselves and then send it to you. There is never a reason why a new hire should buy hardware or software out of their own bank, whether they have been given money for it or not.

Furthermore, a legitimate company will never ever pay you before you have signed and sent your contract to them. One of the obvious giveaways of the scam I was almost caught in was that I was sent the contract last night and I asked if I could send it in today, since it was getting late. The interviewer agreed. I signed it in the morning and then asked him if I should send it in a reply to the email I got the original contract from or if there’s another email I need to send it to. He completely ignored my question, asked me how I was doing, and then went into the check-related information so I could buy software.

The issue was bothering me ALL DAY. I knew there was something extremely weird about that, so I asked again a few hours later. His response? “You have nothing to worry about.” ?????? I was aghast. I wasn’t worried at all! I just wanted an answer! If he had simply told me to respond to the email I’d gotten the contract from, I might have fallen for his scam! What a terrible scammer smdh

A Non-Exhaustive List of Other Red Flags

Your interviewer shows a poor grasp on the language

If your interviewer is making frequent grammatical errors that are glaringly obvious to any native speaker, that is a huge red flag. HR reps and interviewers are hired because of their communication skills. It is highly unlikely that someone who makes non-native-like errors is legitimate unless they are actually openly non-native, in which case, it’s not so alarming.

Your interviewer is showing impatience or demanding you at certain times

If your interviewer is telling you to “report back by 8am tomorrow” without any kind of prior agreement that this is an acceptable time for you to meet, that is extremely unprofessional and shows a lack of patience. Scammers want to get to the meat of their scam quickly and will use an air of professional superiority and authority to scare you into moving faster than necessary.

Your interviewer shows a lack of opening and closing statements

Along the lines of the clear processes that I mentioned above anybody who is initiating you in the job you’re taking should show clear opening and closing statements. What I mean by this is: professionals in human resources or management positions will not keep you as a social hostage. If you’ve been discussing how you’ll begin training or somesuch, they will not just leave you hanging. You should have a dedicated time slot where you will have your discussion and, at the end of it, your supervisor should make a closing statement. For example, “It looks like our time is running out for today. What would be a good time to pick this up tomorrow?”

If you feel like you are “on-call” and unable to leave the room because the interviewer or supervisor keeps messaging, has not outlined a time slot for you to talk in, won’t seem to let you go, or shows no indication of stopping, that is a really bad sign. Either the company is legitimate and TERRIBLE at professionalism (a great sign you should run anyway), or this is a scammer intent on getting you to follow their instructions as soon as they can.

Your interviewer ignores time zones or gets them wrong

When I was contacted about doing an interview yesterday, it was 4:30pm. I did the interview and was told I got the job. Immediately after, without asking if I was free, he began listing off instructions and things I was to expect. It wasn’t until 7:30pm that he sent me the contract and asked me to review it, sign it, and send it back that I finally asked if I could do that tomorrow. The interviewer was supposedly on the west coast and knew that I was on the east coast. He agreed by saying “Alright” and then told me to report to him “by 8am your time.”

There are 3 things about this that are weird. The first is that he demanded I show up at 8am to continue where we left off. Any professional would have asked when I’m available the next day to continue. the second is that he said “your time” instead of saying EST, as most professionals in the US would be apt to do. And, lastly, I showed up at 7:50am, ready to continue, because I’m that desperate that I’m willing to be pushed around, and he showed up at 9am on the dot. He had gotten the time wrong. Nobody who works professionally on the west coast is incapable of adding 3 hours to their time. It was a rookie mistake, or a mistake made by someone in a completely different time zone than they say they are.

When asked to verify their identity, your interviewer attempts to reassure you or refuses

When I finally was fed up and knew this must be a scam, I politely asked my interviewer to verify his identity by either showing me his US ID or by contacting me from his email or phone number listed on the official company website. He sent me a photoshopped nametag with a completely different person’s name and photo on it and said it was the company ID of the HR director.

I have never seen a facade fall so pathetically. Why would literally any even remotely legitimate person do such a thing? It was sad, really. He deleted the message in less than a minute - no doubt to keep me from looking at it long enough to see how badly it was photoshopped - and then aggressively reassured me that the company meant me no harm and would pay for everything, etc. Any real professional would have simply sent me an email from the legitimate address, stating that they’re legitimate, and then continued on with the initiation process.

Learn from My Mistakes

I hope some of this was helpful for all of you lovely freelancers trying to find work. I thought I would know a scam when I saw one, and I did have a Bad Feeling about this whole thing, because it did feel too good to be true, but I was desperate enough that my judgement was heavily clouded, and that could happen to anyone.

Don’t ignore red flags - especially these ones. Stick up for yourself. Avoid confirmation bias. I looked things up repeatedly to confirm that the company was legitimate and that it’s normal to do things like mobile deposit a printed check and so on. Every time, I found an explanation that suited me. I even tried to cash the check. The only reason it didn’t work was because there was an error with the name on the check because I recently legally changed my name and PayPal was having some kind of issue updating in some areas of its website. It was after that that I realized this was all crashing down and I needed to reassess it all. Don’t let yourself get that deep into it.

#job hunting #job #interview #hiring #scams #advice #psa #important #upwork #freelancing #writing #writeblr #editing #ghostpost

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mythiccheroacademia · 4 years

Note

Hey!! Could we please get more sugar daddy fics with a black reader ofc 😋 idk if you've done shoto already but that'd be nice or hawks and deku💕

A/N: “wrist on glitter, waist on thinner, imma show you how to bag a eight-figure nigga” 👅💋 I enjoyed this way too much

All characters are 18+

Warnings: it got a lil spicy so imma put the line

Todoroki Shouto:

this mf has money to burn

we all know todoroki came out the womb w cash from his hair to his ass

he’s on some “yes, jeff bezos knows me” type shit so if you’re tryna end up with someone that’s gonna possibly buy you a house, he’s your guy

he slid into your dms after you posted a pic with your skin moisturized and glistening under golden hour and your body had him wanting to run laps

he had been plottin on you for a min but never got the motivation to do something about it until then

he’s a no strings attached type of sugar daddy

todoroki is a big name even outside of hero work and he’s well aware of all the people that have tried to use him. so instead of letting that happen, he’s decided to do things on his own terms

when yall first started talking, he questioned you like this was managerial position at apple 💀

best believe he ran an in-depth background check and made you sign an NDA 💀💀💀

he was a tough one

but you passed w flying colors and y’all settled on an arrangement

you have a weekly allowance that hits your bank account every saturday with some bonuses that he’ll give you depending on how the week goes

todoroki isnt needy nor is he one to be all up in your business

it’s actually weird in an endearing kind of way?

he only wants to have conversations with you

i mean, dont get me wrong, he’s up for anything you are

todoroki would be a liar if he said he never ended some nights with a picture of you and a hand down his pants

but that’s not what he’s mainly looking for

you figure out very quickly that shouto just wants someone to talk to

he’ll randomly hit up your phone and have a 30 min convo about something like the weather or hero politics, and then he’ll dip

next thing you know, you got $1000 in your cashapp

you kind of panicked bc like...wtf?

your dumb ass messaged him: “did you mean to send $1000?”

sis, dont put a question mark where God put a period

him: “Yes.”

and that was the end of that

you dont question anymore

he’s not doting in any kind of way, and sometimes you lowkey think he forgets about you, but you still get your allowance

doesn’t send a lot of gifts unless you explicitly state you want something

he doesnt text back a lot, but he tried to respond when he can

but i do see him liking it when you send him mundane things you do throughout your day, like pics of cookies you baked, or a cool plant you saw at home depot

and he enjoys the times you and him end up just trashing his father for nearly an hour. expect to find flowers, with some expensive ass coats or something at your door the next morning

he really fucks w your laid back vibe

sometimes he forgets you guys arent really supposed to be friends

Takami Kiego (Hawks):

this is not hawks’ first time being a sugar daddy

he’s hot, rich, and one of the most eligible bachelor’s in japan with a life that prevents him from having anything too serious

so, long story short, he’s a veteran at this

he used to be the type to reach out to instagram baddies but he had a couple bad run-ins and decided to stick with the official sites because it was a lot more secure on both ends

the funny thing was, you set up your account a long time ago as a joke. though at one point, you did take it seriously, but you came in contact with a lot of super creepy men that sexualized you for your skin and ethnicity.

you were tired of the “chocolate king/queen” and “amazonian god/dess” comments,so you took a break. you didnt have much activity since

so imagine youre surprise when the #2 hero hit your line talking about some

“Hey~ I’ll get straight to the point. I think you’re beautiful and I’d like to talk with you about an arrangement”

you thought this was a fake account, but after he chatting for a little and sending some pictures, you knew he was the real deal

hawks is your standard tit-for-tat transaction sugar daddy

he’s the type to hit you up at night with a “how ya doing, dove? got any pics for me?”

he’s good about his respect ad won’t do anything out of line

it’s the bare minimum, be he doesnt fetishize you so that’s always nice

however, he does make you call him daddy, sir, etc. whether it’s through text, call, or when y’all get together for...reasons

ngl his dicc game is fire

he might ghost you for a week or so but he’ll always come back with a nice check to make up for it

just be careful about catching feelings bc he’s so fucking smooth. he makes you feel like you’ve got his heart, but dont fall for that shit

if you think you can “change him” or fuflfil whatever wattpad romance fantasy lives in your head, he is not your guy. you better get on w your life before you get your heart broken

he’s here to suck, fuck, send pics, do a little phone call here n there, send some money, and go

if you’re not with all that, you might as well dip

but if you’re cool with that, rest assured, you’re gonna be living your best mf life with this man in your wallet

and good news, you might not be his only, but you are his favorite

there’s just something about you that’s got him giving you a few extra thousand than he normally does

he doesnt take his sugar babies on proper dates bc he’s gotta stay away from media outlets, but he will invite you to his office for a “lunch break”

if you ever surprise him with a cute but sexy hawks cosplay, you won’t have to work for two whole weeks bc you cant walk

overall, he’s a good sugar daddy. defintely good for your pockets and any other non-romantic desires you want fulfilled

Mirodirya Izuku:

the way you two met and came to this arrangement was more or less an accident

the life of the number one pro-hero was lonely and stressful

he’s tried to dip his toes in the water here and there, but it never worked out because not many people could deal with the fact that he’d always put hero work first

he was teetering on the edge of signing up for one of those sugar daddy/baby websites until he met you at some cafe he passed by

it’s cliche really. you were his server and, honestly? he was hooked on day one

he watched you intently as you pranced around in your cute uniform. he couldnt stop admiring your brown skin and eyes and how cute your hair was. you spoke with such enthusiasm and cheerfulness that he couldnt help but swoon. and it didn’t hurt that you were very easy on the eyes

he listened to you as you went on a spiel about how college was a fortune and how you stayed up last night for a project bc you had to pick up extra shifts

that’s when he made his decision

by the time the hero is out of the door, you collected the reciept and almost fainted when you realized he left you a $500 tip and his personal number

“i enjoyed talking to you today and i hope we can continue that...here’s something small to help with your bills. and i hope this isnt too forward but you’re very beautiful. stay safe. deku.”

and what did you do that night?

you called his ass right back

you were nervous as hell bc you still couldnt believe this was real, but after talking on the phone with him for two hours, an arrangement was set

midoriya is the most gentlemen like sugar daddy out there

you wake up to good morning texts and a few hundred in your bank account almost every two days

he goes crazy over your insta posts. and if you wear something green? expect a bonus

takes you out shopping unprovoked

izuku: “are you busy? i saw you were having a rough week and was wondering if you wanted to go to that new outlet mall downtown”

you: 🏃🏾‍♀️💨

you most certainly had homework due that night but what tf you look like missing out on that offer?

it’s after so many “dates” that deku realizes that he prefers hanging around you more than he should but he doesnt wanna ruin anything so he keeps that underwraps

he’s the idiot that goes into this thinking he won’t fall in love

deku defintely has some dirty thoughts about you but he doesnt try to bring it up unless you do first

if you’re comfortable with anything nsfw, you gone see a whole different side to izuku

he’s a giver, giver, giver, but when he recieves, he just about loses it

send him “innocent” pics of yourself matched with a string of filthy texts and he’ll combust

when you send him pics of yourself in deku-themed lingre, he deadass sends you a whole black card with your name on it as a thank you

you guys get very comfortable with each other very quickly

soon enough, DA’s start turning into y/n stayng over for a week

you both realize this relatiosnhip runs a lot deeper than an arrangement when he accidentally let it slip that he told his mom about you

he’s profusely apologizing but you shut him up with a kiss and tell him that you’ve kinda caught feelings yourself

your next conversation works out well for the both of you

#bnha headcanons #mha headcanons #deku x reader #izuku x black!reader #hawks x black!reader #hawks x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #shouto x black!reader #takami keigo #todoroki shouto #midoriya izuku #bnha x poc!reader #bnha x black reader #mha x poc!reader #mha x reader #mha x black reader #bnha x reader

1K notes · View notes

justthehiddleswrites · 4 years

Text

Accidently Married | Tom Hiddleston x OFC | Chapter 1 | Living Well is the Best Revenge or Just Trip Her on the Red Carpet

A/N: Tom makes certain comments about an ex (who is unnamed). It is a fictional girlfriend, take from it what you will. Keep your hate to yourself.

SERIES MASTERLIST HERE

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x OFC (Molly Bishop)

Summary: Tom is stuck in a news cycle from hell; Molly is stuck in the dead end job of bartending with a pile of student and credit debt. Tom has an idea to solve all their problems. Get married, get the paparazzi off his back, divorce after a year and Tom pays off Molly’s debts. Tom has everything figured out, that is until he sees Molly as more than a just a friend and so does someone else. In this vying for affections who will win, the handsome Brit or the boy from Boston?

This Chapter: Tom is in Vegas to present at a music awards ceremony and what do you know his high profile ex girlfriend is nominated for two awards. And the press are having a field day. Molly Bishop is grateful for the awards show because it means extra tips and getting her closer to paying off her student debt. An offhand comment by Luke coupled with an encounter with his old girlfriend has Tom’s mental wheels turning. Perhaps he and Molly can solve each other’s problem. All they have to do is get married.

Warnings: fake marriage, smut (vaginal sex), mentions of: child abuse/neglect, foster care, substance abuse, cheating.

TAGLIST IS OPEN! PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO BE TAGGED! THANK YOU FOR READING!

Tom dreaded turning his phone back on when the plane landed at McCarran airport. He knew what waited for him on the other side. Tom wondered if his publicist would buy the story he left his phone back at the bar in Heathrow. Probably not, he had tried that earlier in the year and Luke went ballistic until he came clean. He did not want a repeat of the earful he got back then. With a sigh, Tom switched on his mobile and shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans, vibrating as messages and emails came in.

Tom never imagined the relationship would end like this. He thought he was in love. He thought she was in love. But it had all been what were the words she used “escape hatch”. Tom had been a means to an end. And the punishment for his naivete was a news cycle that would not die. And that photo.

He waited until he was in the car on his way to the Bellagio before checking his messages. There were a series of several text messages from Luke.

Call me when you get to your hotel room.

Don’t read the papers.

Don’t talk to any reporters.

Don’t do anything until you talk to me.

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose underneath his sunglasses.

“Fuck!” he hissed under his breath.

This meant only one thing. Another story. Maybe more pictures. He shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, she was attending the same awards show. It ventured to guess the papers would play that up. Tom slumped against the car seat for the rest of the ride.

Check in went fine at the VIP check in. One perk of not only being a celebrity, but a presenter at the awards show. The bellhop delivered Tom’s luggage and garment bag. He pulled the outfit for tomorrow and hung it up, just like Illaria told him to. It was only when he flopped onto the sectional couch, Tom called Luke.

“I’ve been waiting for your phone call.” Luke deadpanned. “I started to worry you would pull that ‘I left my phone at the airport bar’ story.”

“I did cross my mind.” Tom let his head hit the back of the sofa. “Do I want to know?”

“Not really.” Luke winced. “They used the photo again.”

“Of course they fucking did!” Tom punched a nearby pillow. “I look like a twat. Luke, I need this to stop.”

Luke sighed. “Until something comes along that is better than this, expect it to hang around for a while. Unless you are planning on getting married in the next two days.”

Tom chuckled darkly. “Not bloody likely.” He sighed again. “Thanks for everything Luke.”

“It’s my job, mate. But you’re welcome.”

After Tom hung up, he stared first at the phone in his hand and then at the ceiling. He wasn’t sure how he got here, and he sure as hell didn’t know how to get out. Tom decided instead to wallow in self-pity and eat a ridiculously expensive room service steak.

Weekends were always busy when there were special events over at the MGM arena. This weekend was no exception. And while it may not be good for Molly’s back, her bank account greeted every penny with a smile. Vegas may be a cheap place to live, but it still costs money. And her college did not accept IOUs for student loans. She shoved more tips into the jar behind the bar and helped the next person.

“What’ll be?”

“Whatever you have that is strong and on tap.” Tom’s smooth voice cut over the din of slot machines and video poker machines.

“Coming right up.” Molly poured him a beer, and he signed the receipt with his room number before sliding to the end of the bar.

Three hours later, Tom still sat at the end of the bar, nursing the same beer. Most of the crowd dissipated at this point. Celebrities needed their beauty sleep. Or at least most of them.

“Would you like to switch that one out for a cold one?” She leaned over, smiling. “On the house.”

“Sorry.” Tom blinked and glanced around, looking for a clock Molly imagined.

“No clocks.” she commented. “Or windows.”

Tom’s brow furrowed. “Really?”

“The whole point of casinos is to keep people inside. Clocks and windows help people realize how much time has passed.” Molly replaced his beer. “The whole place is set up like a maze.”

Tom took a long draw of the fresh beer. “You seem to know an awful lot about casinos for a bartender.”

“You seem awfully forward for a movie star.” she snapped back. Tom’s eyes met yours. She shrugged her shoulders. “I have a friend who works at Regal Cinema, they let me in for free.”

“I’m having a bad day.” Tom muttered back. “You still didn’t answer the question.” He took another long draw, leaving the glass half empty.

“Oh, so we are adding pushy to your resume. I thought Brits were supposed to be charming. If you must know, I have a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Tourism from Arizona State.”

Tom opened his mouth to comment, but Molly cut him off.

“Funny thing about the tourism industry. You need experience to get a job, but you can’t get experience without having a job. Classic catch-22. Which does not pay my bills. So I bartend until I get hired somewhere.”

Tom felt like a prize idiot moping about his problems. He cleared his throat. “Apologies for my earlier behavior. I have been in a poor mood for the last several weeks and it has made me a terrible companion and customer.”

Molly smiled at him. The first truly friendly face in a while. “It’s fine. And you are entitled to a bad day.” She filled up his glass. “Once or twice. Share your troubles with me. Unless it is about which supermodel you should date next, then I don’t want to hear it.” she joked. Tom’s face fell. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t…”

Tom held up a hand. “Please don’t apologize. I take it you don’t read the magazines.”

“As a matter of course, no I don’t.” Suddenly a lightbulb went off. “Oh…”

Tom twisted his face into an exaggerated expression. “‘Oh’ is right. Usually followed by the words ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’.”

“And is she…”

Tom drained the glass. “Yep. Nominated for two awards.”

“Yikes! Well, if there is anything I can do, I am here all weekend.”

Tom stood up and left several twenty-dollar bills. “I might take you up on that. Thank you again for the conversation… I didn’t catch your name.”

“Molly Bishop”. she said, clearing his glass.

Tom offered his hand, and she shook it. “Tom.”

“I know.” she leaned in, her dark brown hair falling to the sides of her face. “Remember, you’re a movie star.”

Tom laughed. A real belly laugh. So loud that it jolted the old man at the other end of the bar awake. “I needed that. Thank you again. Have a good evening, day, morning.”

“It’s evening. Goodnight, Tom. Sleep well.”

Tom headed back towards the bank of elevators. He glanced over his shoulder to watch Molly wipe down where he had been sitting, shove the twenties into a tip jar, while tucking her hair behind her ears and help an obviously drunk couple. Tom made a mental note to find her again before he flew back and leave an even bigger tip.

Tom woke up the next morning and headed down to the gym to run on the treadmill. He would have preferred running outside but wanted to avoid people. After running five miles, he switched the machine off, wiped it and him down and headed upstairs to shower and change for the day. Tom wandered back downstairs in search of Molly, but the bartender on duty, a guy named Seth, mentioned she wouldn’t be back until the evening. Tom thanked him and headed back upstairs.

He was restless until it was time to get ready. After dressing, he took a selfie in the mirror and sent it to Illaria who confirmed he did it right. Now came the waiting game. Tom wanted to time it to avoid having to see her at all. Finally deciding he had wanted long enough, Tom called for the car and headed downstairs. What Tom forgot to account for was his incredible bad luck.

He arrived right after her and was forced to walk the red carpet, watching her out of the corner of his eye, with her arm linked around whatever man, boy, prey she ensnared for the evening. Tom plastered a killer smile on his face and continued to repeat the mantra in his head “Living well is the best revenge” when all he wanted to do is either trip her or return to his hotel room and eat an inordinate amount of chocolate cake.

The rest of the awards show blurred together into moments of white hot rage masked by a cool exterior and numbness. Thank god for the teleprompter or else Tom wondered if he would have made it through his presentation. But he did and thought he made it through the entire event without running into her and then…

“Tom!” her voice called out.

Tom froze and stiffened. What a difference a few weeks can make.

“Darling!” He spun on his heel to face her, smile firmly in place. He leaned forward and kissed her cheeks. “It’s good to see you. You look good.” he lied through his teeth.

“You too. I thought I might miss you. I just wanted to say—”

Tom waved her off. “Water under the bridge.” Another lie. Perhaps he missed his calling as a barrister or even a publicist. “Your date seems nice.”

She smiled. That smile that once melted his heart. “Thanks. He is. Where’s your—”

“Back at the hotel.” He checked his watch. “Which reminds me, I should head back. Big plans for the night.”

She blinked, and stutter stepped back. “Oh. Right.” She composed herself. “Well, it was nice to see you again. I hope we can be friends.” She held her arms open.

Fucking friends! Tom howled inside his mind. What was she playing at? More fodder for her songs? Tom seethed on the inside. He stepped forward to awkwardly hug her, praying there was no one around to snap a photo. Knowing her, though, she probably had someone in the balcony with a zoom lens.

“Of course, love.” He squeezed her a little too tight until she let loose a small yelp of pain. Tom allowed a genuine smile to come across his face. “I won’t keep you any longer. Enjoy the after party.” He walked away before she could continue on the conversation.

He waited until he was well out of earshot. “Bitch.”

The crowd started waning around 9:30 as the awards show let out. Molly figured most of the attendees would hit the after parties and things would pick up around 1 or 2 a.m. Until then, it would just be the regulars. She turned around to arrange the glasses she just cleaned when a now familiar voice rang out.

“Marry me.” Tom asked, his tie loosened.

“I don’t know you.” Molly teased back. “Now what will you have?”

“You as my wife.” Tom repeated, his palm flattened against the bar.

“Be serious.”

“I am serious.”

“Are you drunk?”

Tom shook his head. “Stone cold sober. Hear me out.”

She glanced around, seeing no plausible escape. “I’m listening. But if another customer comes up, I’m walking away.”

“I need something to move the paparazzi off this current news cycle with me.”

Molly smirked. “You ran into the ex. Did she have a new boy toy on her arm?”

“Yes, but that is beside the point.”

“It is entirely the point.”

Tom slammed his hand against the bar, rattling the container of nuts nearby. “Can I continue or are you going to keep interrupting?”

Molly crossed her arms. “Go on.”

“I need something to move the press off this story. You need money. We are the solution to each other’s problems.”

“You may be gorgeous, but if you think I am sleeping with you for money…”

“I never said sex. I said marriage. The last I checked, they could be mutually exclusive.” Tom’s expression softened. “Listen, you are clearly unhappy here. I am unhappy too. If us being together could alleviate a bit of that unhappiness, why wouldn’t we seize the opportunity? We get married. Get the paparazzi off my back. I would pay off your student loans and credit cards. And then after a year of living together, we quietly divorce. No sex. Just a business relationship.”

Molly chewed over what Tom said, while chewing on her bottom lip. He wasn’t wrong, she was unhappy. Vegas was supposed to be a brand new start, but it was more of the same. Dead end job and no career prospects on the horizon.”

“Did you say live together?”

“In London, yes. I have plenty of room. Your own space. You have a passport.”

“Yes.”

Tom’s face broke out in a wide grin. He couldn’t believe this was happening. The blood pounded in his ears and adrenaline coursed through his veins. He looked up at her with his bright blue eyes.

“Will you marry me, Molly Bishop?”

“Yes.” she smiled back.

Tom leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Then let’s get going, because the licensing bureau closes at midnight.”

Molly headed over to the manager, Nick.

“I quit.” she shoved her apron at him.

“What? You can’t quit, Molly. The big rush is coming.”

“You heard the lady.” Tom called. “She quits.”

“And who the hell are you?”

“Her fiancé. Come on, darling.” Tom held out his hand. She lifted up the bar at the entrance and took his hand.

The two of you were full of nervous energy the entire cab ride to the licensing bureau, fitting right in with the other couples waiting to get a license. While you waited in line, Tom made some calls to several chapels until he found one open and able to squeeze the two of you in.

“Now all we need is to get you a dress and some rings.”

“Oh!” Molly dug through her purse. “My friend’s kid gave these to me.” She pulled out two plastic rings. “I think these will do in a pinch.”

Tom closed his hand over hers. “I’ll buy us proper rings tomorrow. Now a dress.”

“There’s a mall on the way. I can grab something on the way.” Tom kissed Molly’s forehead.

“You are brilliant.”

“Thank you.”

Within an hour, Molly was wearing a simple white slip dress, Tom still in his suit from the awards show, although he did straighten up the tie. She smiled like a fool, holding onto a fake bouquet and Tom’s wedding ring, complete with a plastic spider in her hand.

Tom slipped on the plastic gem ring when the minister told him to, and she did the same with the spider ring. Tom giggled and so did Molly .

“I now pronounce husband and wife, you may kiss the bride.”

Tom leaned in and pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. His lips were warm and soft. It was… nice. Under other circumstances, she imagined Tom would be an excellent kisser.

Tom gazed down at her. “Hello, Mrs. Hiddleston.”

“Hello, Mr. Hiddleston.”

#tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #tom hiddleston fanfic #tom hiddleston x ofc #tom hiddleston imagine #tom hiddleston fluff #tom hiddleston smut #tom hiddleston angst #accidently married

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warrioreowynofrohan · 3 years

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Today in Tolkien - October 6th

This is the night of the attack at Weathertop, when Frodo is stabbed with the Morgul-blade.

In the morning they found, for the first time since they had left the Chetwood, a track plain to see. They turned right and followed it southwards. It ran cunningly, taking a line that seemed chosen so as to keep as much hidden as possible from the view, both of the hill-tops above and of the flats to the west. It dived into dells, and hugged steep banks; and where it passed over flatter and more open ground on either side of it there were lines of large bolders or hewn stones that screened the travellers almost like a hedge.

Aragorn tells the hobbits that the path was made by the men of Arnor to access their forts along the walls when they were fighting Angmar, but that long before they had a great watch tower called Amon Sûl on the summit of Weathertop, and there Elendil watched for the coming of Gil-Galad in the days of the Last Alliance. Sam sings a portion of the song of Gil-galad that Bilbo translated.

It was already mid-day when they drew near the southern end of the path, and saw before them, in the pale clear light of the October sun, a gre-green bank, leading up like a bridge on to the northward slope of the hill. They decided to make for the top at once, while the daylight was broad. Concealment was no longer possible, and they could only hope that no enemy or spy was observing them. Nobody was to be seen moving on the hill. If Gandalf was anywhere about, there was no sign of him. On the western flank of Weathertop they found a sheltered hollow, at the bottom of which there was a bowl-shaped dell with grassy sides. There they left Sam and Pippin with the pony and their packs and luggage.

On the top of Westhertop they find the sign Gandalf left three days ago, and Aragorn interprets it. The rocks and grass are all scorched with fire from Gandalf’s fight with the Ringwraiths. Aragorn says he expects it will be at least 14 days from here to the Ford of Bruinen. The fact that they still manage to make that time even after Frodo is severely wounded - they reach the Ford of the 20th - is impressive on the part of them all. Frodo sees black specks on the road, two coming from the east and three from the west; Aragorn agrees that these are Black Riders, and they conceal themselves and go back dien the hill. Sam and Pippin find a Ranger camp, but there are also footprint of other boots from a day or two ago. Aragorn agrees with Sam that he dies not like the dell they are in, but there is no time to find anywhere better before nightfall. They make a fire as a defence, and at night Aragorn tells them old tales, including the Tale of Tinúviel. I wonder if, in Aragorn saying that the ending of that tale is not known, Tolkien is poking fun at his unfinished manuscript of the poetic Leithian.

Shortly after Aragorn finishes the story, the moon rises, and they see and sense the Ringwraiths outside the dell. The Ringwraiths approach, and Frodo under their influence puts on the Ring; what he sees of the Ringwraiths is matched by the movie depiction very closely. Frodo is stabbed by the Witch-king. Aragorn orders them to put Frodo by the fire, then disappears for some time, reawakening Sam’s suspicions; when he returns, Sam draws his sword and stands over Frodo. Aragorn has been trying, without success, to find out why the Ringwraiths have left rather than attacking again; he is very concerned by Frodo’s account, and then takes Sam aside and tells him he concludes that Frodo’s wound is intended to place him under the Ringwraiths’ control. Aragorn goes off to find athelas, which is uncommon and little-known in the North.

Frodo feels pain from the Morgul-wound on the same day in the two following years. One year later, he and the other hobbits and Gandalf have just left Rivendell the previous and are crossing the Ford of Bruinen:

When they came to the Ford of Bruinen, he halted, and seemed loth to ride into the stream; and they noted that for a while his eyes appeared not to see them or things about them.

“Are you in pain, Frodo?” said Gandalf quietly as he rode by Frodo’s side.

“Well, yes, I am,” said Frodo. “It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.”

“Alas! there are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,” said Gandalf.

“I fear it may be so with mine,” said Frodo. “There is no real going back. Though I may come to the Shire, it will not seem the same; for I shall not be the same. I am wounded with knife, sting, tooth, and a long burden. Where shall I find rest?”

Gandalf did not answer.

Then, a year later, in Bag End:

One evening Sam came into the study and found his master looking very strange. He was very pale and his eyes seemed to see things far away.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Frodo?” said Sam.

“I am wounded,” he answered, “wounded; it will never really heal.”

But then he got up, and the turn seemed to pass, and he was quite himself the next day. It was not until afterwards that Sam recalled that the date was October the sixth. Two years before on that day it was dark in the dell under Weathertop.

This is also the day that the story ends, the day that Sam returns to Bag End from the Havens.

The three companions…spoke no word to each other until they came back to the Shire, but each had great comfort in his friends on the long grey road. At last they rode over the downs and took the East Road, and then Merry and Pippin rode on to Buckland; and already they were singing as they went.

I only just noticed this on this reread; and I find it particularly moving. Merry and Pippin do not feel any special need of silence themselves; soon after they part from Sam they are singing. But they recognize, without anything needing to be said, that Sam needs silence in companionship; and they give him that, though the whole of a week-long journey together (Frodo departed from the Havens on Sept 29th), and it is a great comfort to them all. (And for someone like Pippin, who is not particularly noted for his tact, it also shows how he’s grown over the course of the story.)

But Sam turned to Bywater, and so came back up the Hill, as day was ending once more. And he went on, and there was yellow light, and fire within; and the evening meal was ready, and he was expected. And Rose drew him in, and set him in his chair, and put little Elanor upon his lap.

He drew a deep breath. “Well I’m back,” he said.

The final thing that I think we’re supposed to draw from this ending being on Oct 6th, the anniversary of Weathertop, is to conclude that by this time Frodo has reached Eressëa, and this year will no longer be pained by his old wounds.

#today in tolkien #tolkien #the lord of the rings #frodo baggins #sam gamgee #pippin took #merry brandybuck

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maraudereestauderelb · 4 years

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Touched

A Duff McKagan smut One Shot

Prompt: You go to a concert with one of your friends and band mates, who's having a thing with no other than the band's guitarist Slash. After the show you get to meet Duff McKagen and somehow end up having your first time with him.

MASTERLIST

Warning: sex (duh)

"They're good aren't they?", Y/F/N shouted over the loud music. "Amazing!" "Told ya!"

We were dancing along to the loud music and enjoying ourselves. It had taken her quite some time to convince me to come with her instead of heading for the Troubadour with our other two band mates. Apparently coming with my bassist had been the right choice though.

After a world tour, a successful album and quite a bit more money in my bank account than before we had left LA, I still felt more at home right here. In a rundown club on the strip with a still upcoming rock band on stage.

Y/F/N and I had fit in perfectly. Nobody would recognize just the two of us having a great time and getting drunk. Except maybe the group of aspiring musicians and rising rock bands of the strip. In this circle everyone knew everyone, knew in which bands they had played, who they were associated with, had partied together before and so on and so forth.

That was exactly the reason why we had ended up here. The lead guitarist used to play in a band called Road Crew and had surely attended one of the parties at our trailer before. Y/F/N knew him and she had told me he was in a new band that was very close on getting a record deal. "You gotta check them out! Heard they're fuckin good", had been the argument that had won me over in the end. Not so much her initial reason to come here. That being the fact that apparently the guy had been an awesome fuck and she wanted to get laid by him again.

Now being here, I didn't regret it. I was having fun! And I was back in my usual habitat and in a situation that was familiar. If after the concert she wanted to leave with her black haired curly-head she was free to do so. Either I'd bump into someone I knew or would simply head home and call it a night.

The singer seemed familiar as well and if I remembered correctly Nikki had left his ass outside at one of their parties.

"Yo, what's the lead singer's name again?", I asked Y/F/N. "Oh that's Axl. Hollywood Rose, remember?" "Oh yea, right!"

I got why those boys were apparently very close to making it. Shit, was Guns n' Rosesgood!

Y/F/N had successfully gotten us all the way through the crowd to the stage, where we danced and sang along some more until the band was finished.

A few moments after the last song had ended the club put on some generic rock music and blasted them through the speakers.

"You gonna head backstage or wait here?" This wasn't the type of club in which the band would go off stage and head backstage never to be seen again. They had a small room for all of them to change and would then most likely come out to party. I knew, because we had played here before.

"He saw me, so trust me, he's gonna come to me", she grinned, and I once again admired her confidence.

It didn't take too long before Slash really showed up. He greeted me as well and congratulated on our album, so I told him what a sick guitar player he is. I give credit where it's due.

But I also understood that it was probably best for me to piss off now. So that's what I did. I figured I'd get one last drink and keep my eyes open in case of seeing anybody I knew. And for real I spotted a few people I knew from college who quickly waved me over.

After telling them the generic shit everybody wanted to know coming back from tour, it actually turned into a lot of fun to party with them. No coke but sure as hell a lot of alcohol.

It was hours later when they decided to leave and I had actually planned to leave with them

when I spotted a barkeeper, I knew. He had also attended a bunch of our parties and was a cool guy. So I sat down at the bar and joked around with him some more as the club kept getting emptier.

The club surely was anything but empty at one point, neither was it packed. It wasn't so crowded anymore, and I had completely lost track of time when someone sat down on the barstool next to me.

I didn't pay much attention and simply took another sip from my vodka lemon until he said: "You know, your friend's already gone, right?"

I turned to face him and recognized him as one of Slash's band members, right after I had been speechless for a moment because of how handsome he was.

"Yea, I know", I nodded and added grinning: "So is your guitarist, right?" "Obviously", he answered laughing: "Should've seen him backstage after the concert, couldn't get to her fast enough!" I joined his laughter, finished my drink and looked around. "Your remaining band member's left with a groupie as well, huh?" "No, fuckin idea where they are", he smiled and waved over to Jimmy, the barkeeper: "Another one of these for the little Rockstar here and I take whatever she has."

"Thank you", I told him with a soft smile. He waved it off: "I'm Duff McKagan by the way." "Y/N Y/L/N", I replied. "I know, was at one of your trailer parties before ya guys became famous." "Oh were you?", I asked surprised. I would've bet I'd recognize such a pretty face. Blond, tall, bassist. I was in fuckin heaven.

"You then ones with the trailer with the IV in the living room, right?" "Yupp, that's us", I nodded with a smirk: "Then I'm sorry for not recognizing you..."

"Don't worry bout it", he smiled: "Doubt we got the chance to talk...not that I wouldn't have wanted to..."

"We should have! Then I probably would've listened to you guys sooner! And Oh. My. God. You're amazing!", I gushed excitedly. "Thanks! Hoping it'll get us where you are now." "You'd have to be a complete idiot not to fuckin sign you!"

"I fucking hope so", he sighed and took a big gulp from his vodka: "You the song writer, right?" He suddenly changed the topic.

"Yes, why?" "I dunno", he shrugged: "When I first saw your music video on TV I couldn't help but fuckin wonder what complete asshole hurt this beautiful girl..."

His words hit me like a fucking train, because they reminded me of my former best friend Nikki Sixx, whom I had been stupid enough to fall for, but soon my drunken brain focused on something else: He thought I was beautiful...

"An asshole that's no longer a problem", I laughed. "Well cheers to that", the blond guy smirked and clicked our glasses: "Lucky me."

I returned his smirk and soon felt his hand on my thigh.

"How come you didn't leave with a groupie?", I tease him and sip on my glass. "Not my thing..." "What an utter liar", I thought. "And also", he went on: "I saw you in the crowd dancing next to your friend and knew exactly who to go for."

The way he looked into my eyes send chills through my body and I quickly took another sip from my drink.

"You alright?", Jimmy asked from further away to make sure I was fine, and I quickly nodded.

"You're pretty confident, huh?", I asked Duff. "Why?" "Well, what if that one girl you decided to go for wasn't interested?", I teased him.

Was I interested? I mean...damn he was hot and watching him on stage had been hot! His touch on my thigh made me feel hot! But for fuck's sake I didn't knowhim!

"That would be pretty sad for both of us", he shrugged and winked at me before looking at his glass and away from me.

Was he right? God, I could already feel the heat inside of me rising and a quiet voice in the back of my head reminded me that I had seen him shirtless on stage and wondered what it would feel like to touch him.

But damn it, I was drunk!

He lit a cigarette and I gave my everything not to stare at his lips for longer.

"I liked you better when you were funny and not seductive", I shrugged as well with a smirk and made him laugh. "Ouch, thanks!", he replied smiling: "In that case you'd have loved to see me lookin like an idiot when I got to Slash and your friend hours ago just to realize your gone."

"Maybe you should've hurried more, you know, the way your friend Slash did", I teased him more and calmed my nerves.

"He's just a funny guy", I told myself: "Joke around with him some more and then get your ass back home."

"Well, in the end you waited here for me anyway." "Rockstars don't wait for anyone", I joked and took the cigarette from him to take a drag as well. I could tell he was staring at my lips this time but was ripped out of his thoughts when I handed it back.

He cleared his throat and said: "Always wanted to fuck a rockstar."

I almost choked on my drink. That was my sign. The cards were on the table. I should tell him that this certainly wouldn't be the night he'd get what he wants and leave! But I was curious... so damn curious...

I couldn't deny that I was attracted to him! Maybe I could at least make out with him...find out what his lips felt like...there was nothing wrong about that.

"That's what the girls always tell you?", I tried to mock him but was too nervous to sound convincing. "You're quite a joker, huh?" "At least tryin to..."

"It's cute", he admitted. "Good, because I never run out of stupid jokes..."

"Trust me, I'd know a way or two to shut you up", he grinned to himself and took a last drag before he stubbed the cigarette out.

God, his words went straight to my core and put pictures in my head I hated but at the same time desperately wanted to happen. I wanted to find out what he wanted to do!

"Ya know what I always wanted to find out?", I asked without thinking about it twice. "What is it, gorgeous?" "If it's true that bass players don't just have skilled fingers when it comes to playin instruments."

I cracked the joke before I had thought about it. Why? Because I always had to listen to idiots tell me that and because I somehow really wanted to find out.

His smirk grew winder than I had seen it all night and it made me knees weak. "I can definitely show ya that."

"How about you first make me shut up?"

I had barely finished my sentence before I felt his free hand in my neck and soon enough his lips on mine.

I felt like melting right then and there! His lips moving against mine felt so good! But what started as a rather innocent kiss quickly became more heated. I grabbed the hem of his leather jacket, not to pull him closer but because I needed to hold on to something, anything."

His lips were moving against mine before he gently captured my lower lip with his. It was hard not too moan on the spot! And even harder when I tasted his tongue.

I damned those stupid barstools! I wanted him closer, needed him closer.

When we finally separated again my entire body was totally antsy!

"Speechless?", he asked teasingly. God, he was so damn hot!

I tried to think of something witty and fun, but I couldn't summon a single proper thought.

"You know...to prove the other thing we should probably move this somewhere more private...", he whispered into my ear and hadn't goose pumps already covered my entire body they definitely would have after he seductively kissed my neck.

I should tell him no. I should move my fucking ass back home.

But when he leaned back again and all I could think about was how I buried my fingers in his blond hair, I just nodded...

He had his arm around my waist when he let me out of the club and down strip. It was still dark and it wasn't hard to tell that there were still a bunch of parties going on in other places as well. Like I said, I had long lost my sense for time.

"My place ain't far from here", he told me and I nodded. Excitement was bubbling inside of me and gosh, I couldn't wait to kiss him again!

All worries and negative thoughts had been long gone as we walked through the cold night. I kept looking at him from the side and tried to hide the excited smirk on my lips. But

damn, he was even taller than I had guessed and looked so handsome in the dim glow of the streetlights.

I didn't know what to say. Where words needed?

I realized how he eyed me as well and a smug smile appeared on his lips. Shit, I wanted him. I had never felt this need for someone before, but I had also never allowed myself to get this carried away.

I bit my lower lip and tried to clear my thoughts but that attempt was quickly thrown completely over board when he suddenly pressed my back against the closest wall and kissed me. The kiss almost took my breath away.

Here I was standing on the strip with my back against the wall of some club and making out with a complete stranger. And it felt so right.

"Duff", I whimpered against his lips in a needy tone. "We should probably keep going, huh?", he smirked a little out of breath himself. "Except you consider this somewhere more private", I said with a grin on my lips but felt how he led me on with his arm around my hips once again.

"Wouldn't mind", he shrugged and lit another cigarette: "But I wanna take my time with you."

I swallowed hard and accepted the cigarette he wanted to share with me.

The next five minutes of us walking passed mainly without much talking but then I found myself in his one-bedroom apartment.

Alone with him now I felt the nervousness set back in.

So this was how it's gonna be?

"You want somethin to drink or anything?", he asked from behind me and I shook my head. Soon I felt him against my back with his arms around my body and his lips on my neck and shoulder.

I suppressed the low moan that had wanted to escape my lips and simply leaned back against him.

He had soon gripped the hem of my dress and pulled it over my head. A shiver ran through me but his warm hands that travelled my body soothed me and quickly found the clasp of my bra and opened it.

He was still kissing my neck when he whispered: "Turn around to me." I obeyed immediately.

The sight of my bare breasts exposed before him made him fight to contain his arousal as he hardened in his boxers. He lowered his head and wrapped his lips around my nipple. He sucked gently and I failed to find something to hold onto.

It was weird to be almost naked in front of him while he was still fully dressed, at the same time it made me feel excited.

"Get on the bed, I got something to prove", the blond haired told me smirking and I nodded. I tried not to run to the bed and could barely believe how caught up in the moment I was. My entire mind was foggy!

I watched him take off his leather jacket before he walked over to me and moved my thighs apart so he could lay down between them.

I could feel him hard against my center through our clothes but before the nervousness consumed me he had his lips on mine again and consumed my senses instead.

His body was pressed against mine and he traced his fingers down my body. He stroked over my thighs and spread them even more before moving to my panties.

Through the fabric he pressed his hand against me and gently rubbed me. A soft moan left my lips and I stirred underneath him and spread my legs further. Duff smirked against my breats and took my nipple in his mouth again as he began to rub me through my panties. His fingers ran over my slit as heat began to pool and I whimpered.

"Duff", I moaned softly.

He pulled away from my titts and brought his lips to mine while his fingers rubbed at my clit.

My eyes were closed, and I was lost in the moment, but I managed to bring my hand to his head and tangled my fingers in his blond, long hair. My lips parted as another soft moan left them and Duff pushed his tongue inside my mouth, massaging my tongue with his own.

His fingers were moving in circles over my clit and I whimpered against his lips as my panties became more soaked with each move he made.

I moaned and writhed on the bed as his hand travelled beneath my panties. Both of us moaned as he ran his middle finger between my folds, feeling how wet I was.

I whined his name again and lifted my hips to meet his hand.

He pushed his erection against my thigh and instinctively I reached down and stroked him through his pants.

"God you’re so wet for me", he growled in in my ear.

I bit my lip and raised my hips when suddenly he pulled away from me.

He knelt on the bed and smirked at me before ripping my panties down my thighs and tossing them to the floor.

My heart felt like it was about to pump out of my fucking chest.

He moved between my legs and crashed his lips against mine.

His fingers made their way back to my core and he pushed his middle finger inside me with ease, making me gasp.

"You want me to fuck you?", he pulled his finger out teasingly slow.

I bit your lip and without thinking I nodded as he pushed his finger back in.

He added a second finger, stretching me slowly: "But not yet."

He pulled his fingers away and I whined at the emptiness. But before I could protest Duff spread my legs apart and laid between them.

He ran the flat of his tongue along my slit, making me gasp and clutch at the sheets.

His tongue ran over my clit in two slow strokes.

I quickly covered my mouth with my hand and let out a moan.

His tongue ran over my clit in slow circles and he reached his hands up to squeeze my breasts. When he sucked at my clit I let out another moan into my hand and Duff pulled away.

"Oh No, baby", he told me and moved my hand from my mouth: "I wanna hear you."

I bit my lip and watched as he went back to his slow licks and his eyes never left mine as he ran his tongue over me. I felt like I was burning.

I squeezed my eyes shut and reached down, wrapping my fingers in his blond hair and raised my hips to meet him. He pulled back, only slightly and ran his fingers over my slit. He let out a growl as he watched, pushing two fingers into your throbbing pussy.

"Duff", I gasped and already felt extremely full. "Don't panic", I told myself and threw all worries away when he began to pump his fingers in and out of me, slowly at first before he increased his speed.

"You like that, baby girl?"

I moaned in response and he stopped his movements. He sucked at my clit and the change in pleasure made me squirm.

I whined and lifted my hips to meet the strokes of his tongue.

He moaned against me and the vibrations sent pleasure soaring through my veins. He began pumping his fingers once more, curling them against my wall and rubbing against my gspot.

I writhed on the bed, clutching at the sheets because of the amount of pleasure.

"Fuck..."

"You gonna cum for me doll?", he growled against me.

I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip as my orgasm coursed through me. MY walls clenched around his skilled fingers and his tongue didn’t stop running over your clit, making my legs tremble.

When my orgasm started to slow down he got up and took his clothes off, throwing them anywhere. Before he sat back down between my thighs, I watched him put on a condom through barely open eyelids.

Without a warning and therefor without giving me the time to over think this he plunged his cock into me. I gasped at his size and raked my nails down his back.

The pain was sharp and unknown.

"God you feel so good baby."

He crashed his lips against mine, stifling my moan as he pulled out of me slowly.

"So tight." He pushed into me again. I was frowning and pushed my eyes closed as I was trying to adjust to him. Fuck, he felt so good at the same time this hurt so bad but in the best way possible.

I moaned and ran my hands over his back as he set a pace with deep and slow thrusts. He wanted me to feel every inch of him entering me and he lost himself in the little whimpers I made as he pushed into me. After a few more thrusts when the pain was starting to die down, he pulled out of me and knelt on the bed.

"Rollover", he ordered.

I bit my lip and obeyed, kneeling in front of him on all fours. Duff let out a breath as he looked at my ass.

I felt him run his cock over my center before he pushed into me once more.

"Duff...", I hissed.

His change of angle set a whole new sense of pleasure and he set a faster pace. It hurt but felt so good... His cock slammed into me and I collapsed against the mattress, falling onto my elbows, arching my back more in doing so.

He brought his hand down swiftly, slapping my ass and making me gasp.

Duff gripped my hips and I moaned between breaths as he picked up a fast and hard pace, slamming into me hard and fast. He leaned forward and pulled my hair into a ponytail, his thrusts never slowing down. With a gentle tug at my hair he pulled me back onto all fours and with his spare hand he reached under me.

His fingers found my clit and he rubbed clumsy circles. I bit my lip, trying to contain my moans and arched my back. He leant over me, his breath on my shoulder and hearing his staggered breathing sent me into overdrive. He released his grip in my hair only to wrap his hand around your throat gently and pull me back enough so he could turn my head around to kiss him. Just what I needed.

"You gonna cum for me?"

I attempted to nod, which proved difficult with his grip on my throat. He didn't wait for an answer though and rubbed his fingers over my clit faster.

"Cum for me, babygirl."

I lost all control, my eyes rolling back as the waves of pleasure rolled through me, sending shivers all over my skin. His pace was sloppy now and I knew he was almost ready as well. He slowly pulled away and turned on his back so I knelt down on wobbly legs. I removed the condom and licked along his throbbing cock and he let out a low moan. I took him as deep as I could and began to suck him off until he grasped his cock and pumped it a few times before coming in my mouth.

I swallowed his load and his deep moans send a few last chills through me.

Both of us collapsed against the sheets, a sheer layer of sweat covering my skin as I tried to catch my breath.

"Shit that was good", he exhaled and placed a lazy kiss on my shoulder. "Yes, it was", I thought and grinned to myself, trying to process what had happened.

#guns n roses #smut #duff mckagan #duff mckagan imagine #duff mckagan smut #duff mckagan x reader

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gumnut-logic · 3 years

Text

Census

After my little hissy fit last night about not being able to write, I spent all day today doing exactly that. 5000 words later and we have this rambling fic. I had to fill in our Census today, so I figured the Tracys could too. It went places I did not expect.

There are a couple of anachronisms in this fic. It is based in 2060 for census reasons, but I mention at least two characters interacting with the Tracys from later seasons. Please ignore and enjoy anyway :D

There are also a couple of vague references to ship, but no real ship, I promise.

Thank you in particular to @katblu42 and @willow-salix and the other members of Thunderfam who kindly checked on on me last night while I was bemoaning my inability to write. Sorry if I was exasperating. I have a degree in that. If it helps, no one gets more annoyed with me than I do ::hugs you lots::

Rambly, mostly brotherly conversations and doesn’t really go anywhere, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

-o-o-o-

How Gordon got there first was no mystery. Virgil was just too damned tired after three rescues in a row and Scott had been tied up with Tracy Industries for most of the day. Grandma could possibly have been on it if she hadn’t been filling in for John who had broken out his exo-suit to yank a couple of free floaters out of the sky.

He was still muttering about idiots and safety. His mood was not improved by the fact Grandma insisted he come down for the night so he could be counted.

Consequently, his muttering also included cursing bureaucracy even though Virgil knew census night was a favourite of the astronaut.

Perhaps Gordon got to the form first because he knew everyone else was tired and grumpy and needed a kick in the pants. Virgil had to admit with a fond thought that his little brother was prone to throwing joke bombs amongst them when the mood was through the floor.

Virgil had no issues wondering why Alan wasn’t the one poking at the form. Their resident teenager wasn’t interested at all.

“Okay, guys. What is our address? What did we put last time?”

Alan didn’t even look up from his game. “Tracy Island.”

Gordon, who was sitting at Dad’s desk, staring at the holographic form, hesitated. “Did Dad register that with the powers that be?”

“What?” Alan really wasn’t paying any attention at all.

Virgil sighed. He was sitting on the couch with one of his uniform boots on his lap attempting to pick out several penetrating objects out of the sole. His last rescue had been a collapsed factory and he was still trying to work out what exactly it was that they made that could penetrate his specialist footwear.

Fortunately, despite multiple incursions, he only had a scratch on his left foot, more an annoyance than anything, but these objects were frustrating and suspicious.

“Dad did all the right things. Tracy Island is the official name now.” The pliers weren’t quite gripping the piece of metal properly. The grip slipped and Virgil swore.

“Now? What was it called before?”

“Deserter’s Rock.” Scott strode in from the kitchen, a coffee in hand, and grimace on his face. His usually perfect hair was scruffy, as if he had been running his hands through it.

Virgil frowned up at him. “You okay?”

His brother took the steps down into the lounge and sighed. “Nothing a holiday won’t fix.” It was Scott’s turn to frown. “What’s with the boot?”

“Deserter’s Rock? Really?”

It was John who answered, very much like Alan, staring into his tablet and barely paying attention. “Really. Three sailors were stuck here for months. Only one survived. That’s why there is a cairn on Tracy Peak.”

“I thought that was a pile of rocks put there by Dad.” Gordon seemed genuinely surprised. “You mean there are two dead guys on the Island?”

“Along with their ghosts, yeah.” John still didn’t look up.

“Ghosts?” Alan did look up at that, eyes wide. “What ghosts?”

“The one’s who keep stealing my Bailey’s ice cream.”

“Oh.” Alan went back to playing his game, his eyes definitely not darting between John and Gordon at all.

“Okay, moving on…so where do I put ‘Tracy Island’ in this thing? It’s not a suburb, state or territory…do we have a postcode?”

“It’s a locality. Shove it in there.” Virgil grit his teeth and yanked hard at the piece of metal embedded in his boot. A grunt and a flex of heavy lifting muscles and…it didn’t move at all. What the hell?

“Okay, whatever.” Gordon half sung ‘Tracy Island, Kermadec Ridge, South Pacific Ocean’ to himself as he entered it into the form. At least he was being specific. Virgil glared at his boot.

“Next. Who gets to be head of household? Oh, the Householder?” A pause in which Virgil poked at his boot, Scott sipped his coffee with closed eyes, Alan killed three zombies with a grin and John sat motionless still staring at his tablet.

“Okay, then. It’s me.” Gordon grinned to himself.

Nobody looked up, but all four other brothers said simultaneously and in chorus. “It’s Grandma.”

Virgil flexed his hand and picked up his pliers again. Peripherally, he watched Gordon’s shoulders drop. Even the Fish couldn’t argue with that.

“Fine. It’s Grandma.” He reached up and touched the box to open that section of the form. “Where is she anyway?”

Virgil tried to get a better grip on another chunk of metal in his boot. “Yoga. Don’t disturb her.” Yoga was Grandma’s mindfulness time and after today, it was well overdue. “Leave her be.”

“I wasn’t going to. Sheesh. So, name. Sally Tracy.” He typed in her name. “Person two?”

“Scott Tracy.” Okay, so Virgil had a bit of a thing about this. His brother deserved acknowledgement for everything he had done.

Gordon glared at him. “And so I guess the rest of us are in age order?”

Virgil flipped his boot over. “Whatever floats your boat, fishboy.” A glance in Scott’s direction and he had to wonder if his brother had fallen asleep, he was that still. The coffee mug in his hand was the only proof of consciousness.

Virgil fought the urge to save it. “Scott, you wanna go to bed?”

“Wha-?” His brother sat up. “I’m fine.” Fortunately, he put the coffee mug down. The chances of Virgil having to treat burns tonight dropped significantly.

“How do you spell ‘Hackenbacker’?”

Virgil did not grace that with an answer as it was obviously a stupid question.

John was apparently on auto as he spouted off the required letters anyway while still staring at his tablet.

Gordon poked at the form in silence for a little while and Virgil wondered what on Earth he was entering. He trusted his brother. This was an official document, after all, but he was still Gordon.

“Okay, guys, I need your information.”

Beside Virgil, Scott ‘woke up’. “What, no questions about Grandma?”

Gordon frowned at his eldest brother. “I’ll have you know that I know our grandmother very well. We have a special kind of relationship.”

Alan snorted.

“What? You got something to say, sprout?” The fish glared at Alan enough to torch him on the spot.

“I’m just saying that after that time with Grandma’s diver’s license, you should know Grandma’s details very well. Her birthdate, her ancestry, her suit measurements…”

A starfish plushie suddenly had a very short career as a ninja star and bounced off Alan’s head. “Shut up, Alan.”

Their little brother only giggled more.

John, still staring at his tablet, raised an eyebrow. “Allie, Grandma baked some cookies yesterday. I think there are still some in the cupboard. Would you like some?”

“Okay, okay, I get it.” Alan threw the plushie at his fish brother, missing completely, and went back to playing his game. There was muttering about Gordon making jokes but Alan not being allowed to.

Virgil sighed to himself.

“Scotty, what’s your age? It’s 2060 for reference. Oh, and your gender.”

All signs of sleep fell away and Scott sat up. “Gordon…” It was all warning.

“Hey, I’m just giving you the opportunity to offer an alternative. After all, tonight you look at least fifty-six.”

“I’m thirty-one and you know it.”

Gordon poked at the form. “Thirty-one years young. Got it.”

Scott grunted at him.

“Virg, are we telling the truth this time?”

“Depends on whether you want me to leave you in the ocean next time.” Why the hell couldn’t he get this out of his boot?

“To threat level already, you are grumpy tonight.”

“Gordon…” Virgil echoed Scott from earlier to the note.

“Johnny?”

“No one named ‘Johnny’ lives here.”

Gordon signed. “John Glenn Tracy, how would you like me to record your age?”

“Accurately.”

“Fine.”

“If I say I’m thirty-two, do I get to go higher up on the form?” Alan looked hopeful.

“If you like.” Gordon moved things around on the display.

Virgil gave up. The locality of Tracy Island was destined to be a statistical anomaly anyway. At least it would be an interesting one.

Besides, John would probably hack it later and fix it. The fact he had hardly protested so far was eminent proof of that security factor.

“Scotty, are you the husband or wife of Grandma?”

Scott rubbed his face and didn’t bother to answer, picking up his coffee again and burying his face in it.

Virgil just wished he would go to bed. The man was a zombie.

Gordon took the hint and was quiet for a little while. Virgil went back to tugging on his boot. Maybe he should take this down to his workshop.

The thought of actually working more had his shoulders slumping enough to alert Scott. The concerned and questioning look shot in his direction had Virgil sitting up a little straighter to fend it off.

“John, where should we put your usual place of residence?”

“Here.”

“But you live in space.”

“So do you.”

“Pedantic much?”

“As necessary. Tracy Island is home. Thunderbird Five is merely in our astronomical backyard, not to mention secret.”

Virgil looked up at that. It was a simple statement, but it was good to hear that John still considered Tracy Island home despite his multiple protests over the years.

“Fine. Secret space station wasn’t an option anyway. I could flub it and use Global One but then that would spark all those rumours about you and that captain all over again.”

“Gordon, I can hack your bank accounts.”

“Go for it.”

“I can also hack your fish tanks.”

The aquanaut shot to his feet. “You touch my tanks and you’re dead, spacehead.”

John didn’t react other than to smile just a little.

Their space brother could be a right royal ass when he wanted to be. Virgil sighed. “John, you know the rules.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t break any.”

“You touch my tanks, I’m spicing up your atmosphere on Five. I’m not kidding. I have fart gas resources even you can’t find.” Gordon was still on his feet and actually appeared angry.

John shuddered. “TMI, Gordo. Not interested in your gas capacity, honestly.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Calm down, Gords, John’s not doing anything to your fish tanks. He knows the rules, don’t you, John.” He arched a prompting eyebrow at his brother.

“Never said I didn’t.”

Definitely an ass.

“Gordon, calm down. You can put John’s relationship to you in as ‘nemesis’ if it makes you feel better.”

“I can only put in our relationship to Grandma. I wrote favourite grandson in yours.”

It was Virgil’s turn to shrug. “I’m not going to complain. Sit down and finish the form.”

His brother didn’t answer, but he did sit down, albeit still glaring at John.

John had gone back to his tablet, doing who knew the hell what.

Definitely an ass.

Virgil turned back to Gordon. “What’s the next question, Gords?”

The glare switched to Virgil for a second before turning to the form. “Where were we born?”

“Kansas.”

“I know that. What about Grandma, Brains and Kayo?”

“Space.” Alan said it with triumph.

“What?”

“Where John lives. Isn’t that what the question was?” Alan stared between his brothers.

“Go back to sleep, Alan.”

“Grandma was born in Kansas, Brains was born in India, and Kayo was born here.” Scott proved he was still awake by suddenly providing information enough to make Virgil jump.

Gordon poked at the form, but nothing further was said on that front. Everyone knew Kayo was sensitive about her past, and while she wasn’t in the room, she would find out and partially kill anyone responsible.

“Kayo is here tonight, isn’t she?”

Virgil yanked on his boot again, slipped and managed to elbow Scott in the ribs. His brother grunted.

“Oh, shit, sorry. You okay?” He shoved the boot aside and the pliers along with it.

Scott eyed him and rubbed his side. “That answers your question, Gordon. Kayo is on a conference call with Captain Rigby.”

Virgil glared at Scott.

Gordon eyed the both of them. “Is there something you two aren’t telling the class?”

“Shut up, Gordon.” Virgil glared at Scott a moment longer, enough to have his brother’s expression fall into one of concern. Grabbing his boot again, Virgil went back to wrestling with embedded metal. Damned specialised rubber was amazing when it protected him but when its tolerances were overrun, it was a pain to fix. Maybe he should ask Max to give it a yank. “What entertaining religion are you using this time, Gords?” Any attempt to get the conversation off this topic.

Gordon stared at him a moment, obviously still trying to work out what the hell happened there.

Scott was dead later; Virgil was going to make sure of it. Tired or not, he had crossed a line.

A sideways look in his eldest brother’s direction and it was obvious Scott realised that. Okay, maybe he could let it go. It had been a long day and they were all tired.

Probably should go to bed.

He went back to fighting with his boot.

Gordon was still staring but even the fish knew when to shut up apparently, because the next words out of his mouth were entirely religious.

“I’m worshiping Neptune this year.”

Alan frowned. “I thought you said that last time.”

“Dad wouldn’t let me.”

That brought the whole room to a standstill. Last census was ten years ago. Flashback to that time brought everything that had changed into the bright glaring light. The biggest change being Dad’s absence. But even more, ten years ago they were still based in Kansas, IR was in development, but not yet a reality. Alan was only six, Gords eleven and with his body still intact…it was a completely different time. Virgil was still in college and had to fill in his own census form in Denver.

Gordon broke the looming silence with a determined smile. “This time the government gets the truth. Scott bows to the sky gods, Virg worships molemen, Johnny is a god, and Alan is Satan.

“Hey!” It was said by multiple brothers at once.

Only John remained calm. He even had a smile. “In that case, I want bagels every Sunday.”

“You get bagels every Sunday. Virg sends them up all the time.” Alan glared at his space brother – Alan did not like bagels.

John grinned wider. “I’ll take that as proof that I have at least one faithful worshipper.”

“Next time you can get your own bagels.” Virgil glared at his brother.

Gordon snorted. “Yeah, right, you old softie. John could blow up Two and you’d still send him his bagels.”

Virgil found himself glaring at Gordon again. It seemed to be a theme tonight. “Short pier, long walk, Gordon, go for it.”

He got a smirk for that. “Don’t mind if I do. A little night diving is quite spectacular around here.”

Virgil ignored him and went back to his boot…which he had made zero progress on for all the time he had been sitting here, damnit.

“Does Virgil ever ‘need someone to help with or be with him for self-care, body movement, or communication activities’?” Gordon typed into the form. “Before coffee.”

Virgil ignored him some more as Alan took the bait and snickered. “Better watch it, Gords. Won’t be long before ‘before coffee’ time kicks in. Look at him, he’s already brewing.”

The piece of metal in his boot finally shifted a little. Thank goodness.

“Long term health conditions.” Gordon slumped in his seat. “Well, isn’t this cheerful.”

“Just fill it in, Gordon.” Scott’s words were little more than a sigh.

That left a gaping silence. Gordon tapped a lot at the keyboard filling in far too much. More for himself, obviously, but then there was John and his space issues, and they all had been diagnosed with something on the list hanging above their father’s desk.

Except Alan, who could not be left out. Virgil pretended to not be able to read the word ‘zombification’ next to his little brother’s name.

“Schooling? Oh man, John, you can write all the letters after your name. I can never remember them all.”

“Not a problem.” The astronaut poked at his tablet and the hologram in front of Gordon sprouted half the alphabet.

“Really? Did you get a new one?” He stared at John. “When did you get time for that?”

John shrugged. “Made time.”

“What’s this one for?”

“Oceanography.”

“What?”

“You were in the ocean. I didn’t know enough to help. So I fixed the problem.”

Gordon just stared.

Virgil, of course, knew. He had been the one to field John’s version of panic the day he didn’t know enough to help Gordon. John was practical. He saw a problem, he fixed it. Oceanography wasn’t an obvious topic for the starman, but he was a genius and that genius could be applied where he wished it to be.

If Virgil had found himself helping John at a few points that intersected with his specialities along the way, he was just going to take a little comfort from being able to return the favour after years of borrowing his brother’s brains for other topics.

And besides, it had meant he had been able to spend a little extra time with John. Always a good thing.

Despite him being the occasional ass.

Gordon was still staring. “Is that why you bugged me to take you out in Four?”

John shrugged. “Partly. Didn’t mind spending a bit of time with you either. Good experience to familiarise myself with Four as well.”

The stare continued.

“Be careful you don’t catch any flies with your mouth open.”

The stare became a glare. “We’re talking about this. You and me.”

“Sure.”

Gordon looked like he didn’t know whether to yell at him or run over and hug his brother. Virgil was voting for the latter.

But everything was interrupted by a sudden snore and snort.

Virgil turned to Scott and found his brother startled awake, likely by his own snore.

“Wha-?”

“Scott, you need to go to bed.”

“I’m fine.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Do I need to pick you up and carry you?”

“I’m fine.” He waved Virgil away, sat up straighter and attempted to guzzle whatever was left of his probably cold coffee.

“Idiot.”

“What?”

“Go to bed.”

“No. We need to finish the census.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

“Because I want to.”

“Why?”

“Can you stop that?”

“Can you go to bed?”

“No!”

“You need sleep.”

“I can manage my own health, thank you, Doctor Virgil.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I am an adult.”

“Sometimes.”

“Virgil!”

Gordon let off a loud snort. “That’s it. I’m putting you two in as married.”

“Gordon!” Both of them, in chorus. It was apparently a theme tonight.

“Well, you both argue like an old married couple, what can I do?”

“You can shut up and move onto the next question.”

Gordon poked his tongue out at Scott, but he didn’t stop grinning and Virgil was forced to hold back a smile himself.

Bratty little fish.

He was still smirking when he said, “Employment.”

“Oh god.” Scott sank back onto the couch and rubbed his face with his hands.

There followed a book’s worth of employment activities.

“Rocket surfing is not an occupation, Gordon.” Virgil sighed.

“Why not? Both Scott and Allie surf rockets.”

“Alan rides a rocket sled and Scott is just trying to give me grey hair.”

“Has he succeeded yet?” Bratty fish.

“None of your business.”

“So is International Rescue paid or unpaid work?” Gordon was frowning at the form.

“Unpaid.” Scott’s tone was sharp.

“So are we unemployed, employed or self-employed?”

“Self-employed.”

“How much do you earn a year, Scotty?”

Their eldest brother paused as if calculating, but then threw up a hand. “Stuffed if I know.”

John snorted and rattled off a number.

“There isn’t enough space for that many zeros here, John.”

“Give me a moment.”

The display in front of Gordon flickered and each of their names received a variety of numbers…except for Alan.

“Hey, how come I don’t have any earnings?”

“You are a minor.” John spoke calmly, as if speaking to a minor.

“But I do stuff for Tracy Industries, I do.”

“All your income is held in trust, you know that.”

“Then who is paying for all that popcorn I bought this morning?”

Scott sighed. “Don’t worry, you’re not going to bust the bank.”

“We own the bank.”

Scott stared at John. “When did we buy a bank?”

“I bought it for your birthday last year but forgot to give it to you.”

“Oh.”

“I’m writing obscenely rich next to all our names. Oh, except for you, Allie. You’re a pauper.”

“Hey! You suck, Fishbrain.”

“Remember who might need to lend you money in the next couple of years…”

“While Gordon remembers who lent him money in the past, who still helps him with his finances, and who also is the one to fish him out of the ocean after every mission.” Virgil pinned Gordon with his eyes.

Gordon blinked. “You have a point.” A pause as a smile crept over his face. “Who was that again?”

The hologram of the census form wobbled as a lounge cushion flew through it and hit Gordon squarely in the face.

“Right on target. Hmm, I’ve still got it.” Scott blew imaginary smoke off a finger gun.

Unfortunately, Scott may have still had it, but he wasn’t the best marksman on this census form. The cushion rebounded via aquanaut and hit Scott squarely in the face with an oomph.

This forced both Virgil and Alan to come to his defence and for a full ten minutes after that, it was an all-out pillow fight between the brothers. Even John was drawn in as Gordon came up behind him and tried to stuff one down the back of his shirt.

Which wasn’t advisable since his gravity support was still in play. But then John was king of the noogie and immediately grabbed a head full of strawberry blond hair, dragged it down onto the couch beside him and made sure it received the full-on noogie treatment.

Gordon did squawk quite a bit.

An extreme one-on-one joust erupted between Scott and Alan. It was that determined that Virgil had to back out. Alan, being the terrier he was, managed to get Scott on his back on the lounge and sat on him pummelling him with pillows.

Virgil had suspicions that the game was rigged.

In any case, he had to find somewhere else to sit and tinker with his boot.

Eventually, Gordon found his way back to the census form. Scott was still on his back and apparently Alan had decided he preferred that his big brother stay that way by sitting on him and playing his computer game. Scott at least had a remaining cushion under his head, but one foot had taken out a pot plant and the other was hanging over the back of the sofa. His brother really was too tall for lying on the seating arrangements, but he didn’t seem to care.

With a bit of luck he might fall asleep.

“Okay, let’s finish this. How did you get to work today?” Gordon grunted. “This form has no rockets, planes, submarines or space elevators on it.”

“Tick the ‘other’ box and let them work it out.” John let out a yawn.

Virgil eyed him.

John screwed up his face and poked out his tongue.

Wha-“ Virgil blinked.

“Hey, Virg, how many hours did you work last week?”

That distracted him enough to turn to Gordon. “How the hell do I know?”

“You worked them. I bet you know your flight hours.”

“Today’s. Not last week. That was last week.”

“Eos, send Gordon last week’s record?”

The AI chimed in at her father’s request. “Yes, John.”

Another document appeared in front of Gordon. “Wow, that much? Really?”

“The documentation is correct as recorded.” Eos sounded a little miffed. But then she never particularly liked Gordon on the best of days.

His fault, of course.

“Virg, you win, but only by a bit over Scott and that was because he twisted his ankle on Monday.”

“Sprained, you mean.”

“Twisted.” It came from the couch and was strangled by a little brother.

“Sprained. He should have been off for several days, but he’s an idiot.”

“You can’t talk, Mr Bruised-not-cracked.”

“At least I’m not Cracked-not-broken.”

“Sure.”

Scott might have said more but Alan whacked him with a pillow. “You guys are idiots. Gords, John and I are lucky our grey hairs don’t show.” Alan growled. “I’m sixteen, for crying out loud, and I know more about hospitals than I ever wanted to. Look after yourselves, you morons.”

Silence hit the room again.

“Way to go, Allie. You tell ‘em.” Gordon’s words were honest.

Of course, Scott was devastated and immediately questioning all his life choices. Virgil wasn’t far behind, but Scott, in particular had a sensitive spot where Alan was concerned.

“Hey.” He reached out a hand and rested it on their little brother’s arm. “Talk to me, Allie.”

Alan growled again. “I’m fine as long as you two look after yourselves. We kinda need you, you know.”

Scott grabbed his little brother and dragged him down into a hug. “I’m sorry.”

Virgil sat with his boot in his lap needing to grab both his brothers but not wanting to interrupt their moment.

He shouldn’t have worried. A second later Gordon jumped over the back of the couch, landed beside him and grabbed him, dragging him sideways into an oomph of a hug. “Don’t worry, my dear wingman, we still love you even if you are an idiot.”

“Gordon…”

“Admit it, you want a hug.”

“Shut up.”

Gordon didn’t say anything further, but he did squeeze tighter.

“When you get to the questions on whether any of us looked after children, Gordon, tick yes for all of us.” John’s tone was as dry as a desert.

“Will do.” Gordon grinned at him.

Scott actually fell asleep after that. It was about time. Apparently, Alan made a great teddy bear.

Alan grumbled about that for days, but Virgil knew his little brother treasured his relationship with Scott and the fact he fell asleep as well was rather telling.

But that fact pretty much ended the census form filling for that night.

The next morning saw all of them out on an earthquake and it wasn’t until two days later that Gordon realised they hadn’t submitted the form.

Grabbing Scott and Virgil, he ran them through the last of the questions, landing on the definitions of their dwelling.

“How many registered motor vehicles do we have at this dwelling?”

“Er, none? We have no roads.” Virgil frowned at the obvious answer.

“Three rockets, two planes and a submarine don’t count?”

An arched eyebrow. “Does it say anything about planes? Tracy Two and Three are registered in Aotearoa.”

“Aotearoa is not the United States.”

“But they are still registered.”

Scott sighed. “Read the form properly, guys. It says exclude heavy vehicles.”

“Well, that strikes Virg off the list, but your ‘bird’s a pansy.”

That earned Gordon a mocking whack up the back of the head.

“Gords, just write zero. The intent is there.”

“Fine. We have no motor vehicles. Stupid form.” A sigh. “Okay, how many bedrooms do we have?”

Scott answered that one. “Ten.”

“I thought it was twelve.”

“One went to an art studio and the other to a music recording room.”

Gordon glared at Virgil. “Way to take over the house, bro.”

“And how many fish tanks do you have in how many rooms? Not to mention the chunk of vegetable garden we had to sacrifice for Rover’s pond?”

“Leave Rover out of this. That wasn’t his fault.”

Virgil snorted. “Not his.”

“Shut up.”

Scott sighed again. “We have ten bedrooms.” He scanned the rest of the form, which thankfully wasn’t very long. “We own the place outright, and yes, they can archive our information for our grandkids to access. Tick the boxes and get this sent so I can go get some lunch.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Scott growled but Gordon ignored him.

Boxes all ticked, he hit the submit button.

“This form has already been submitted. You may not submit it again.” Underneath was the date of the day before census night. “What the hell? How could we open it if - ” Scott hit his comms. “John!”

John’s hologram flickered up beside the misbehaving census form. “I’m between a hurricane in Bermuda and an avalanche in the Pyrenees. How may I help you?”

“What?!”

“Oh, the census form. Eos submitted that three days ago.” Their space brother was distracted a moment out of pick up range as Scott’s jaw dropped. “Needed to get it done before Gordon got his hands on it. Besides, we can’t guarantee we wouldn’t have been called out anyway, so I got it done beforehand.”

“Then why the hell were we going through the damned thing on census night?”

John blinked. “You had fun, didn’t you? We shared an evening together.”

Virgil joined both his brothers at staring at John.

The astronaut just smirked back at them. “You did a great job, Gordon. Thanks.” The smirk turned into a grin. “Thunderbird Five out.” His hologram disappeared.

Scott’s face curdled. “I’m going to kill him.”

Virgil let his shoulders drop and sighed. “You said that last time he did something like this, and he’s still kicking.”

“I’m soaking his underwear in saltwater.” Gordon had that fire in his eyes that usually preceded a Tracy Island Armageddon.

“Gords…”

“He played me, Virg. He knew what I would do and played me. He thinks I’m predictable!”

“Yeah, but he obviously did it for the right reasons.”

Virgil found himself the target of two glares. “What? You want a group hug or something? C’mere.” And he grabbed the both of them, wrapping his arms around them. “Happy Census Night.”

The grumbling was worth it.

-o-o-o-

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #Virgil Tracy #Gordon Tracy #John Tracy #Scott Tracy #Alan Tracy

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quicksilversquared · 4 years

Text

Superhero Salary

It all started with a joke. It ended with Ladybug and Chat Noir finally getting some of the compensation that they deserved.

After all, fame isn't going to pay the bills.

links in the reblog

It all started with a (mostly) joking comment from Chat Noir, blurted out in a moment of frustration.

"I hate it when that happens," he had grumbled after Ladybug knocked him free from the akuma's control. "Stupid, stupid mind-control akumas. Tell Hawkmoth that if he's going to insist on akumas like that, he's gonna have to pay for my therapy after this is all over!" he hollered after the akuma, who was clearly hopping mad about no longer having a superhero under his control. "A superhero salary doesn't exactly pay enough for it!"

He had been kidding, at least mostly. Kidding or not, though, the complaint was out there.

The moment had been picked up by the Ladyblog, of course, just as part of the bigger fight. But it wasn't long before it absolutely exploded over the internet.

Sure, maybe in comic books it was implied that superheroes always worked for free. But was that really fair? After all, Ladybug and Chat Noir were providing a service to the city. They were taking the time out of their normal lives to save Paris and put things back to rights, and they were doing it often. They had to come out whenever Hawkmoth sent out an akuma, not just when they had a spare bit of time that they could use to fight crime. Just like policemen and firefighters, they were putting themselves in danger by fighting on the front line. And if they were in jobs, or were in school- well, having to duck out regularly had to be affecting them, and not in a positive way.

If they had jobs, they could very well be on the edge of losing them because of all of the times they went missing. Even if they were self-employed- well, then they would still be losing out on some serious work time and having to work late into the night instead. And if they were in school...

Then they would be in danger of falling behind and need help to keep on top of their schoolwork. Tutors and online courses both cost money.

And on top of all of that, there was superhero merchandise being made using their colors and images, clothes and dolls and souvenirs and toys. Surely they should be getting a cut of the profit from that.

With only a few exceptions, Paris was soon in agreement: their superheroes needed to be earning a salary.

Marinette wasn't quite certain what to think of it all.

"Tikki, what do I say if the mayor decides to give us a salary?" she implored, slumping back in her chair. "I mean, even if it would be possible to safely get the money, I just don't know."

Part of her wanted to do the noble thing and say no to a salary. After all, she was Ladybug because she wanted to help! Plus, would public perception of them change if they were technically city employees? The mayor might think that he had the power to call them up on command, which would really stink.

But- well, Marinette was a teenager, and no sane teenager would turn down money, particularly when it was money for work that she had done. Even though she wasn't exactly struggling- she got an allowance, plus money from babysitting Manon and of course commission money, and besides she was a teenager and not an adult with a million living expenses- having more money in her account for fabric or design classes or her future career wasn't a bad thing.

"Well, Plagg and I could certainly set things up so that all of the money you get would be funneled through us and our magic," Tikki told her. "And we would be careful about not matching up the amounts or making them regular! There's ways that we can do it without attracting attention."

Marinette nodded. That was one question answered, but the other?

"As for if you should take the money..." Tikki considered that. "I mean, there's a lot to consider. But I'd like to point out that you don't know how long you'll be fighting Hawkmoth, or if there'll be any other threats after he's gone to deal with. That could interfere with you having a regular job. And if the akuma attacks keep disrupting your school day and you need to hire a tutor to help you keep up but you don't want your parents knowing, having the extra money could help. Or if you decide to sign up for an online school so that you can look up lessons that you missed in class, you could pay for that! But people might have strong opinions about superheroes taking money, too."

"That's a lot of positives and only one negative," Marinette pointed out. "I mean, it could be annoying to listen to people judging, but unless they're in the majority..."

Either way, it was going to be disheartening to hear people judging her for taking the money. But as long as they weren't in her face or spreading lies about her and Chat Noir now not being motivated to take down Hawkmoth because that would mean an end to the money or something ridiculous like that, she could probably ignore it. Maybe she could make some donations with the money she was getting to dispel those rumors.

Honestly, she'd probably do that anyway. There were so many organizations and people in need in Paris, and if Marinette was earning money then of course she would want to support them.

Of course, that all depended on if the officials even offered the salary in the first place, which was honestly looking really likely. It looked like public opinion was strongly in their favor, and the mayor was seriously easily waived by public opinion most of the time. And anything to do with the superheroes- well, it was publicity gold.

And in the end, it only took a week of deliberations- entirely about how much Ladybug and Chat Noir should be making, and puzzling out how much of the profit from sales of their merchandise they should be getting on top of their salary- before the announcement went out that the superheroes would be offered payment. A day after that, Ladybug and Chat Noir accepted their salary and gave the city's head payroll officer the information their kwamis had given them for the kwami bank accounts, so that they could get their paychecks without risking their secret identities.

"I didn't expect things to blow up like this when I said that, about not earning enough for therapy," Chat Noir admitted after they had left. He had seemed put-together and confident when they were in the office- which Ladybug had appreciated, because the sums that were being discussed were absolutely intimidating and having Chat Noir being so confident next to her helped her not get flustered. "I mean, yeah, down the road, I wouldn't be surprised if I get nightmares about fighting all the time and need to get help with that, but- well, I don't think I'd be able to, not unless I sign up as Chat Noir instead of my civilian self. And I don't know if I would necessarily want to do that, in case too much civilian stuff comes out."

Ladybug winced. Yeah, that was a real concern. And- well, she didn't ever admit it to anyone other than Tikki, but she sometimes had nightmares about the fights, too. And Chat Noir was right- a therapist could probably help.

But the identity concerns...

It was more than likely that some personal information would come out if they were talking to any sort of therapist, and that was dangerous. Maybe the chance of their therapists stumbling on their identities was low, but she still couldn't risk it.

Maybe they could go out of Paris to find someone, using the Horse to jump. Then their therapist would be even less likely to make the connection between Ladybug and Marinette, and with the distance from Paris, having the superheroes in their office might be less exciting than it would be for someone who saw the superheroes on a daily basis. But even that wouldn't really be a possibility until Hawkmoth was gone, when they actually got some semblance of free time back.

"I can't deny that the money could be helpful, though," Chat Noir added after a moment. "I mean, depending on how long the conflict drags on, or if we need anything that Tikki and Plagg can't provide to help us, or- well, when I get old enough to move out of my father's place, I want to. There's way too many people who think that they can just barge into my room without warning and poke around, and- well, it's not safe."

Ladybug glanced over at her partner again. He looked like he was her age- in fact, they had shared enough information inadvertently that she was positive that they were probably a year apart at most- which meant that he was facing years of people disregarding his privacy and potentially discovering his secret. "That's ages away, though."

"I know. I can't do much about it right now, though, besides just paying attention to where I'm detransforming." Chat Noir sighed. "I guess the money can't really help with that, not right now."

"Yeah. And that's not great." Ladybug tapped a rhythm against her leg, trying to come up with a solution and finding none. She just didn't have enough information about the situation to find places where they could do something. "I mean, the most I can come up with is a camera that you could connect to and move around to see if anyone is in there before going back in. And you could see if anyone is coming around and poking around that you don't know about. But- well, the problem is that cameras can be hard to hide, and if your father finds out and decides to review footage..."

"It could backfire on me, really fast." Chat Noir glanced around, then back at her. "Yeah, I know. I guess- well, for now, I won't change anything. Maybe something will come up in the future."

"Yeah, I'm not going to be changing much either, I think. But it's nice to have that money there in case I need it." It made her feel a little weird, honestly- after over a year of volunteer superheroing, accepting money for that was just strange- but maybe eventually, it would sink in that she was doing a job and deserved pay for it.

Chat Noir nodded. "Just in case. And, well- if we don't use it, it'll be a good start for my retirement account!"

Ladybug laughed at that, the awkwardness and concerns that she had had earlier flying away in an instant. "Teenagers with retirement accounts. Who would have thought?"

"Well, you can never be too prepared, right?"

Ladybug giggled again, imaging the looks on her parents' places if she sat down for dinner and started asking questions about retirement accounts and for their advice in setting one up. Maybe it wouldn't be completely out of left field- after all, unlike most of her classmates, Marinette did earn money with commissions, and enough that she would not be spending it all- but it was also a strange thing for a teenager to ask about.

Well. At least it wasn't a bad problem to have.

A week later, Ladybug and Chat Noir officially received their first paychecks, with back payments pending. And by that time, the two of them had figured out where those payments were going.

Most of the money, of course, would be held in the kwami bank accounts until it could be trickled into their civilian bank accounts. How much, exactly, could be deposited without being noticed was still being decided- Ladybug could definitely get away with more than Chat Noir, though she figured that varying amounts and not at regular intervals would stick out less than regular payments. They were still trying to figure out how they might get retirement accounts going- even as much as they joked, it wasn't exactly a bad idea.

And then part of the money would go to charity. It was just a nice thing to do, after all, and since they had spare money- well, it would just be a good idea to help out a little bit more. They didn't want to make too big of a deal out of their donations, since it was very possible that people would judge where they were donating, how much they were donating, how often they were making their donations, and how their donations did or didn't change over time. There would no doubt be people petitioning the superheroes to support their favorite charities, which- well, maybe it would be a good way to learn about new causes, but it sounded like more stress than it would be worth. Besides, Ladybug and Chat Noir were private citizens behind the mask, and they deserved to have some privacy about their finances.

All they needed to tell the public was that they were donating anonymously and wouldn't be disclosing the places or amounts for those reasons. It was a simple answer, and should satisfy most of the population. There would no doubt be a few naysayers- there almost always were a few people who just had to be difficult- but it was a reasonable answer.

Thankfully, the person who had interviewed Ladybug and Chat Noir about what they were going to do with their first paychecks- a kind man from a mid-sized newspaper, who had earned the spot of first interview entirely because he hadn't been pushy about asking- had thought that their reasoning was plenty sound. They were hardly going to be millionaires, and so expecting them to donate large amounts on a regular (and frequent) basis was completely ridiculous. Keeping things private- well, that meant that people who were out of touch wouldn't be moaning about donations that they were perceiving as too small.

Just because Ladybug and Chat Noir were famous didn't mean that they were rich.

Marinette hummed quietly to herself as she skimmed the article that the reporter they had talked to had written. While the interview itself had taken place several days prior, the article had just been released that morning to coincide with both their first payment and the start of the month. It was very nicely written, and framed their reasoning in an even more clear and articulate light than they had managed themselves. She didn't doubt that it would get noticed soon, and then the speculation about whether or not Ladybug and Chat Noir would donate some of their earnings would be put to rest for once and for all-

"Wait, Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't donating any of their salary? That's so unlike them!"

-or maybe not.

"I was surprised too, they just completely brushed me off when I suggested that they donate part of their salaries," Lila told her audience as they swept into the room as a- well, as a flock, really, that was the only way to describe it. "It's what I would do if I was a superhero, of course, so I thought that they would feel the same! It's such a let-down, I really thought that they were better than that..."

"I would say that maybe it's because they've donated so much of their time to the city already, but I know I heard something at some point about backpayments to cover their time from the start," Alya commented, her eyebrows furrowed. "So that's not really donated time anymore, is it?"

"Maybe they have bills to pay," Rose piped up, clearly ever-hopeful. "And they need to get caught up with that first, of course. That would make sense!"

Of course, Lila was shaking her head as she headed up to her seat, with the rest of the group following not far behind to keep listening. "They're too young for bills. I met up with them again this morning and was trying to talk some sense into them because really, they could just do small donations, even a little bit helps- I would know, I've seen how far money can stretch and help in a charity! But even now that they have the money in their hands, they just want to keep it."

There were murmurs of disappointment all around the group gathered around Lila at that. Even though donations clearly weren't mandatory- well, they thought that the superheroes should be better role models than that! If they didn't have bills to pay, surely...

"And it's not like they're not getting enough to have both spending money and do a little charity," Lila said, shaking her head sadly. "Plenty of spending money, even! And I pointed that out, but they got really upset with me. I'd hate for our friendship to be destroyed over this really, but it's just- I feel like I don't know them at all now!"

Frankly, Marinette had heard enough. She wasn't going to let her reputation as Ladybug- or Chat Noir's reputation- get slandered by Lila's nonsense.

"Funny thing," Marinette commented in the most deadpan, disinterested voice that she could muster, not even taking her eyes off of her tablet as she talked. "You say that you met up with the superheroes this morning and they weren't interested in doing donations, and yet there's an article in La Trib this morning about an interview they did with the superheroes days ago that say otherwise. It says that donating was in their plan from the start."

The group in the back of the room went quiet.

"Marinette is correct," Markov commented after a moment, breaking the silence. "The article was posted one hour ago, though the paper copy presumably went out earlier. The superheroes stated that they have been looking at charities since they first heard that they might be getting money for their superhero work, as they wish to continue to help Paris. Their donations will be anonymous and private to protect their privacy and to prevent unwanted commentary on their choices."

Marinette glanced back. All eyes were slowly turning from Markov to Lila.

"There is also a video of the interview linked on the online version of the article," Markov added. "And the metadata confirms that it was filmed several days ago."

Several of the eyes pointed towards Lila were getting narrowed and suspicious.

"Oh, that- that's lovely!" Lila exclaimed, somewhat belatedly pressing her hand over her heart. "Maybe they were just trying to wind me up to tease me, then! And I misread the situation and took them seriously. Or they were trying to give me a pleasant surprise! It happens, sometimes- I'm not always great at catching sarcasm-"

This time, not everyone looked entirely convinced.

Smiling to herself, Marinette looked back at her tablet, closing out of the article and opening up their reading for Literature so that she could review it- or, well, finish reading it, because an akuma had interrupted her the previous night and it had been too late to pick it up again once the fight was over. If she hurried, she might be able to finish it before Ms. Bustier called for a start to class, and then she wouldn't get in trouble again for not doing her homework.

Honestly, if Lila's track record was anything to go by, she would probably wriggle her way out of the lie by the afternoon and the whole incident would be forgotten. But maybe this time would end up different- after all, Marinette had never seen that doubt before- and Lila's tower of lies would finally come toppling down. It was long overdue, really, but Marinette wasn't going to hold her breath.

If it happened...well, if their superhero salary was like a surprise cake, then a Lila downfall would be the cherry on top.

#Miraculous Ladybug #my writing #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #superhero retirement fund

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tothemeadow · 4 years

Text

A New Year’s gift from me to you!

~*ᑕᕼᗩᑭTEᖇ TᗯO*~

warnings: NSFW, semi-public sex

words: 5.1 k

Prologue | Chapter One

“Not interested.”

All it takes is those two words, two dreadful words, and Kyojuro’s groaning in disappointment. Tapping his fingers against the chair’s arms, he pushes his lips out in a pout. Giyuu merely rolls his eyes at him, gaze flicking back to whatever is displayed on the computer’s screen.

It had only been a mere suggestion, nothing more. Go out, get some drinks, maybe find someone to take home. Lord knows how much Giyuu needs to get laid; the guy’s stress is palpable, and Kyojuro wants to help his friends however he can. Maybe all it takes is to get his dick sucked, nice and fucking hard. And, if he plays his cards right, have someone clinging onto his arm by the end of the night.

Kyojuro isn’t an idiot, nor is he blind. Giyuu is beautiful, looking like he stepped right out of the pages of some goddamn fairy tale. Hell, even his bank account is real pretty, every single zero making it even more dazzling. What he means is that Giyuu can have anybody if he truly wanted to. The problem is, however, is that a sack of potatoes has more charisma than the poor man. Giyuu isn’t much of a social butterfly, unlike Kyojuro.

It kind of sucks.

“Aw, come on, man,” Kyojuro groans, “let me take you for a night out. You need some time to sit back and relax. Let someone else take care of you.”

“You’re being awfully persistent about this.”

“That’s because I want what’s best for you, duh. You run some bigshot company and need me to explain that to you? What was the point of you traveling overseas for university if you don’t put that knowledge to use?”

With a sigh, Giyuu turns away from his computer and rests his elbows on his desk. Like the rest of his office, it’s a solid piece of modern, expensive style. The wood gleams with the rays of sunlight pouring in through the windows, looking almost too neat to be believable. There’s not a speck of dust in sight. It’s not the first time Kyojuro’s visited Giyuu’s office, but it always amazes him just how clean and immaculate the space is. It really reflects its owner, his simple yet sleek style.

“Kyojuro,” Giyuu starts, threading his fingers together, “you literally told me you wanted me to take someone home.”

At that, Kyojuro smiles. “And what’s your point? You go to some Ivy League school and not partake in some parties? No keg stands? Beer pong? Fucking the brains out of some busty blonde?”

“Not everyone is a certified sex symbol,” Giyuu states coolly. “You don’t see my face on the cover of magazines advertising an article about some upcoming film where I blow everyone to bits and take a dame to bed.”

“Ohohoho, somebody’s getting frisky, I see. That is a sign, my dear friend. You need to get your dick wet and pronto.”

“Don’t belittle me.”

Raising his hands in mock self-defense, Kyojuro flashes Giyuu a knowing smirk. “You’re only proving my point. And if you don’t want to meet somebody random, why not let me hit up someone I know? I can set you up.”

Giyuu scoffs. “No thanks.”

“Oooo, what about Mitsuri or Shinobu-“

“Don’t ever suggest that,” Giyuu hisses. His entire face scrunches, much like he just tasted something incredibly sour.

Bursting into a fit of laughter, Kyojuro leans forward in his seat, hands gripping onto his sides. “Shit, man, I forget how funny you can be sometimes!” Wiping away at his eyes, he sits back, a spare giggle or two escaping from his lips. “Speaking of Mitsuri… I guess she really hit it off with Idris’ girl’s friend.”

Instead of saying anything, Giyuu merely raises an eyebrow. However, he still looks incredibly disinterested.

“Oh, you remember her, don’t you? The one from the party last week? Long legs, nice ass? I think her name was (y/n)?”

At the mention of your name, Giyuu visibly perks up. Heh. Hook, line, and sinker.

“It’s a damn shame, don’t you think? Somebody so fine got nabbed before I even had the chance to make a move,” Kyojuro continues, willing his voice to take on a wistful tone. He sends Giyuu a wink. “She’s a solid ten, don’t you think?”

The movement is so, so subtle, but Kyojuro knows he’s got Giyuu right where he wants him. Giyuu clears his throat, then – a poor attempt at trying to come off as disinterested. “It’s a good thing Mitsuri found someone she likes so much,” he says, completely bypassing the question.

“Mitsuri likes her, alright; likes her even better in bed.”

It takes all of Kyojuro’s willpower not to laugh, it really does. He can practically see the gears turning in Giyuu’s head, the slight tinge of red blooming on the tips of his ears. Jeez, if it takes this much to get Giyuu flustered, then he’d pay to see what would happen if he took Giyuu to a strip club.

“And I’ll tell you what,” he continues, crossing his legs and cocking his head. “Mitsuri’s willing to share her with the rest of us, but only if she wants it.”

“What… What are you talking about? What do you mean by sharing?”

Clicking his tongue in amusement, Kyojuro uncrosses his legs and shuffles forward, just barely sitting on the edge of the chair. “Exactly what it sounds like, Giyuu. Doesn’t that sound nice? Imagine having a pretty thing like that sitting on your lap.”

Again, Giyuu scoffs. “You’re starting to sound like Tengen.”

“But you didn’t say no to what I just put in your head.”

Giyuu grumbles something under his breath, but it’s too low for Kyojuro to understand. No matter; there’s a knock at the door, then, and in pops Giyuu’s personal secretary’s head. A cute boy – Kamado Tanjiro – with honest eyes and a genuine smile. The earrings he wears swings in his lobes. “Tomioka-san, you’re three o’clock appointment is here. Shall I tell them you’re busy?”

“Don’t worry about it, Tanjiro,” Kyojuro says. Drawing himself up to a stand, he smooths out the wrinkles in his pants and salutes Giyuu with two fingers. “Think about what I said, Giyuu. There’s fun to be had.” With a final smirk, he brushes past Tanjiro and leaves.

It’s only been a few days since that experience with Mitsuri, but you can already tell that something’s changed. Granted, you still feel a bit odd about the whole situation, but another, darker side of you is pleased. Daki is more than ecstatic to have you as a sugar sister; before, whenever you’d go shopping with her, you’d only help pick out clothing for her since everything was way too damn expensive. Now, though… Now things are different.

“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Daki gushes from where she sits. Perched on a fluffy stool in front of her vanity, she carefully applies a set of false eyelashes. “Like, think of all the fun things we get to do together! Don’t get me wrong, Idris is great, but some of those parties he drags me to can be an absolute bore. If you’re there, well, it’s bound to be more fun! Besides, think of all the yummy treats you’ll get to have…”

From your spot on the couch, you guffaw at your friend’s attempt to hype you up. Carefully, you dip the brush back into the bottle; the nail polish Daki picked out is a shade of pastel pink with pearl undertones. She said Mitsuri really had a thing for pretty pink things, so it was only natural for you to fit that bill, obviously.

“Yes, because stuffing my face with macarons and bubbly is how I want to spend my time,” you say, sarcasm dripping heavily from your words.

“Oh, like you wouldn’t love that,” Daki throws right back at you. “Besides, you wanna be extra sweet for Mitsuri, don’t you? Don’t act like Mitsuri didn’t already have her head stuffed between your legs.”

“Daki!” you shriek. You scramble to catch the bottle of nail polish before it spills all over the place. “Don’t say things like that!”

“Pffft, what for? It’s true, you sneaky bitch! You’ve been glowing ever since your date with her! Did I not tell you that sex with Misturi is the bomb?”

“Okay, okay! You were right!” you exclaim, bursting into round of giggles.

Putting her mascara away, Daki gets up from her spot and moves to where you sit on the couch. Lifting your legs, she slithers in next to you and props your feet on her lap. “Give me that,” she says, taking the nail polish away from you. “Are you and Mitsuri going on a date anytime soon?”

As you nod, a sheepish smile grows on your face. “Yeah – she’s taking me to a theatre tonight, actually. I guess there’s some play she wanted to watch with me.”

“Aww, well isn’t that cute!” Daki chirps, not looking away from the task at hand. “Wait,” she says, suddenly looking up at you, “that means I get to play dress up, right?”

Since being Idris’ sugar baby and all, Daki is no stranger to the luxurious lifestyle and the vast amount of clothes and accessories that comes with. Furthermore, Idris even bought her some swanky apartment, filled with top notch appliances, spacious rooms, and yes, you guessed it – a walk in closet. It’s where you sit now, gazing at the numerous wracks of clothing, the shelves of shoes and purses. It put you in mind of Barbie’s closet, actually, with just how many articles of clothing Daki owns.

You guess you could consider yourself lucky that you and your best friend are the same size. Sure, you’ve shared clothes with each other throughout the years, but once she started her “collection” of designer products, it was game over. You became her personal doll, then, and Daki loved every second of it.

The smile on your face grows at Daki’s excitement. “Who else would I have to pick me out the perfect outfit?” you coo. Daki giggles, then, her green eyes sparkling with mirth.

“Chop, chop,” she says, pushing your feet away and standing up. You take a moment to admire the neatly applied nail polish adorning your toes. “I have the perfect outfit in mind for you, and it’s bound to have Mitsuri drooling all over you!”

“Are you sure about that?” you tease, lolling your head to the side.

Scurrying over to a wrack of dresses (all of which are designer, you’re sure of it), Daki pushes some to the side and grabs one that has you gasping. Powder blue in color, the bustier top and layered tulle skirt almost seem more befitting of a princess rather than yourself. Standing up from the couch, you walk over to her, eager to get a better closer. Lacey pastel flower decorate the top layer of tulle and travel up the bustier, all looking so delicate and sweet. It’s a beautiful dress, that much is for sure.

“I’ll do your hair and makeup, too, okay!” Daki exclaims. She really is too sweet for her own good sometimes.

Later that very evening, you’re sitting in the back of a sleek, luxurious car. Mitsuri sits next to you, looking as perfect as always; with her curled hair pinned high on her head, you’re graced with the elegant slope of her neck, the diamond choker wrapped around her throat. A few curly wisps of pink and green hair frame her face, give her a youthful look. She’s so breathtakingly stunning that it’s leaving your throat dry.

Mitsuri busies herself with messaging someone on her phone – she’s already apologized for letting her work get in the way of your date tonight – but you don’t mind, not when you get to gaze at her lovely being. You’ve already began to familiarize yourself with her brand and the creative looks she specializes in: sultry, elegant, and enough to bring a person to their knees. Perhaps that’s what you tell yourself as your eyes scan over her bare skin; it’s for fashion, of course, not because you’re a shameless pervert.

Still, the choker adorning her throat is a bit too enticing, especially with its delicate chain hanging from its center, nestled between the valley of her voluptuous breasts. Why does she always have to have her cleavage on full display around you? Doesn’t she have any idea how much it makes your brain melt?

“You’re staring,” Mitsuri murmurs, her attention still on her phone. The corners of her mouth curl into a smile. “You’re not distracted, are you, sweets?”

“I’m sorry, Mommy,” you whisper. “It’s not my fault that you’re too pretty.”

A pleasant blush blooms on her face. Sparing a moment to glance at the chauffeur, Mitsuri clicks her screen off and puts her phone back into her purse. “Come here,” she says, her voice dripping with honey. Wrapping an arm around your waist, she pulls you closer, barely brushes her glossed lips against your ear. “You don’t want to start something like that, do you? I don’t want to be rude and ruin the back of this car.”

The giggle in your ear is enough to send shivers down your spine. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean, sweets, is that I don’t want to have someone clean your cum off of this leather.”

You gasp as a wave of heat strikes your very core, wraps around your insides and gives them a good squeeze. “Mommy,” you plead, keeping your voice quiet.

“And your hair and makeup look so nice,” Mitsuri continues. “It’d be a shame to ruin it before you get to show it off.”

Shit, Daki was right. Turns out she knew exactly what she was doing.

“All that matters is that Mommy got to see it,” you purr, leaning more into her warm body. Your eyelashes flutter when her soft breast makes contact with your arm. “It doesn’t matter who else gets to see it.”

The grip around your waist tightens. “(y/n)…”

“Kanroji-san, we’re here,” the chauffeur’s voice suddenly cuts in. It’s enough to snap you back to reality; glancing out the window, you’re greeted with the sight of a brightly lit theatre and a line of patrons waiting at the ticket booth.

“My, my,” Mitsuri says, “looks like it’s going to be a packed house tonight. It’s a good thing I booked some tickets ahead of time, huh?” Turning back to you, she flashes a lovely smile and caresses your cheek. “Have you ever sat in a balcony seat before, darling? You’re going to have a great view.”

“Wait, seriously? Aren’t those super… expensive…?” as you trail off, realization dawns upon you. Of course Mitsuri would buy out some of the most expensive seats in the house – it’s only natural of her to do so. Still, the mere idea of how much they even spent throws your mind in for a loop.

“And your reaction makes it even more special,” Mitsuri purrs. “Come on, let’s go get seated while there’s still time.”

Opening the car door, Mitsuri steps out, and then she promptly turns back to you to help. Linking her arm around yours, she leads you inside the theatre; taking some twists and turns, she leads you up a secluded staircase that, in turn, takes you to the proper balcony. A gasp escapes from your mouth before you can stop it. It’s utterly breathtaking from where you are, the large stage set below you, the sea of people swarming to find their own seats.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?” Mitsuri asks you as she joins you by the ledge. Setting her elbows on the wall, she looks around the theatre, a thoughtful hum vibrating in her throat. “And just think, sweets, that this is all for you.” Turning to you, she perches her chin in a hand. “I’ll show you so many things that you’ll love, darling. It’s the least I can do.”

“Mitsuri,” you murmur. Swallowing thickly, you push back the creeping urge to cry. How did you get so lucky meeting someone so genuinely sweet?

“Hey now,” Mitsuri continues, still using that honeyed tone, “don’t get sappy. If you start to cry, then I’ll start crying as well!”

Beckoning you over, she takes her seat and watches as you take the one next to hers. The balcony itself is small, with enough room only for three seats. And, as far as it seems, you’ll get to spend the entirety of the play alone with Mitsuri, away from wandering eyes. Hands intertwined with hers, the two of you fall into easy conversation and mild flirting to pass the time. Both of you are practically petting each other’s thighs through your dresses when the door opens; snapping hands away from each other, you turn to see who the unexpected newcomer is.

“Giyuu?”

Coming to an abrupt stop at the sound of his name, Giyuu’s eyes widen. Once he sees it’s only you and Mitsuri, he visibly relaxes, his shoulders slumping. “Um… Hello, ladies. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.” Drawing around the corner, he stands awkwardly before the empty seat. He offers a polite bow, but you notice right away that his eyes refuse to meet yours.

“This is certainly a pleasant surprise!” Mitsuri chirps, a dazzling smile spreading on her features.

“Tomioka-san,” you say, trying to put his nerves at ease, “please, sit down. I don’t bite.”

Still, Giyuu refuses to meet your eyes, but he does as you say and takes the seat next to you. It may be the dim light of the theatre, but you swear there’s a faint blush on his cheeks.

Okay, time to try this again. “Tomioka-san… I wanted to thank you for last time. For trying to comfort me when I was so obviously out of place at that party.”

At that, Giyuu clears his throat, and then he finally looks at you. Instead of saying anything, though, he merely grunts and nods his head. You offer him a small smile.

Just as you remember, he’s devastatingly handsome, his gaze a cold, steely blade. On the outside, he seems incredibly intimidating; dark hair, black getup, sharp eyes. You know there’s more than what meets the eye, and Giyuu is the epitome of that very concept. The aura surrounding him is calming, reassuring. You barely know the guy, only met him once, but you already like him.

“My, Giyuu,” Mitsuri speaks up, leaning forward in her seat so she can look around you, “don’t you look nice! I always told you that you would look great in black on black, but you never listen to me! Now look at you! You look like you just came straight off a runway! Don’t you think so, (y/n)?”

Mitsuri has a point, of course. Dressed in a black suit, black button up, and black shoes, Giyuu is the textbook definition of tall, dark, and handsome. He almost seems flustered by Mitsuri’s comment; he looks to you, an unreadable glint in his eyes. Slowly, you nod, humming your agreement.

“I think he looks absolutely dashing,” you say, a small giggle following afterwards.

Giyuu’s eyes drift down, skim across your pretty dress, but you notice the way they linger over the bits of your bare skin. Hastily clearing his throat, his eyes flicker back up, the blush on his cheeks darkening the slightest bit. “You look beautiful,” he murmurs. “That color really suits you.”

With a smile, you look away, trying to ignore the excited thumping of your heart. Unbeknownst to you, Mitsuri sends Giyuu a glare, but then it melts away into a knowing look. Giyuu catches her eyes, and a silent conversation passes between the two of them.

Perhaps you should’ve paid more attention to them. You should’ve noticed Giyuu’s lingering stares, the way Mitsuri’s hand stayed on your thigh the entire time. But no, you were so enraptured by the play on the stage, stuck in a state of constant awe by the performer’s exquisite ways.

It’s about three fourths of the way through when Mitsuri finally places her lips against your ear, her warm breath fanning across the delicate skin. “Sweets, don’t tell me you haven’t noticed, hmm? You’re ruining the experience for Giyuu.” Confused by what she meant, you begin to turn your head to her, but she quickly stops you in your place. “Now, now, don’t make it so obvious. Instead of watching the show, he’s been watching you. I wonder why that is?” She breaks into a low, sultry laugh. You’ve only seen her act this one once, and that was when the two of you…. Well, you know…

“I noticed the way you were looking at him earlier,” Mitsuri continues. “He really is such a pretty man, isn’t he? Especially dressed in all black like that… It’s almost kind of exciting, isn’t it?” Again, she chuckles. “Now, this is entirely up to you, sweets, but I don’t have a problem sharing.”

What? What was that supposed to mean?

“I know, I know, this is all too sudden, but think about it. He’s a pretty man, wouldn’t you agree? I’m not saying you have to, but wouldn’t it be nice to see him in between your legs?”

This time, you snap your head to her. “Mitsuri!” you whisper-yell, “What the hell are you trying to do?!”

“Don’t act so prudish, sweets,” she purrs, her fingers trailing over your jaw. “Just look at him.” Taking your chin in hand, she directs you to look at Giyuu instead. Only one half of his face is illuminated from the light coming from the stage, but you can see the hungry glint in his eyes. “He’s practically undressing you with his eyes, sweets. How does that make you feel?”

“Tomioka-san…”

“Please don’t consider me lewd,” Giyuu starts, his voice just above a raspy grumble. “But I… I’ve been thinking about you a lot,” he confesses. “It isn’t fair to you of me thinking that way.”

Swallowing thickly, you release a shaky breath. “And what were you thinking, exactly…?”

Closing his eyes, Giyuu takes a moment to collect himself. “I want what you and Mitsuri have.”

On your other side, Mitsuri giggles. “Hear that, darling? Isn’t that so endearing? Giyuu practically just confessed to you!” Leaning in close, she presses her soft breasts against you. “And I’m perfectly okay if you want to say yes. Everyone deserves some happiness, hmm? Don’t be shy, now. Neither of us are foolish.”

This really is all too sudden. You never your night to head in this direction, nevertheless hear Giyuu tell you that he wants what you and Mitsuri have. Does that mean he also wanted to have a certain arrangement between the two of you? It’s not like you’re against it – Giyuu is certainly handsome, after all – but wouldn’t that make you seem desperate?

“If you’re on the fence about it, why don’t you give a go, just for tonight?” Mitsuri suggests. “We can forget all about it if you want. And if you don’t, well… Things should be fun, shouldn’t they?”

“I… I guess.”

“Wonderful. Giyuu, I give you my blessing to make an impression on our sweet little darling here,” Mitsuri purrs. “Don’t mess it up for yourself.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Giyuu grunts. He holds out a hand, then, a silent question displayed on his face. You glance between his face and his hand; your mind is rapidly going in loops, wondering just what he had in mind exactly. Gingerly, you place your hand in his, gasping when he suddenly yanks you up as he stands. “We won’t be gone for long,” he mutters at Mitsuri.

Mitsuri waves a dismissive hand, an uncharacteristic smirk playing on her pretty face. “Take your time. I know that you’ll need it.”

Giyuu pulls you away, leaving a giggling Mitsuri in your wake. The door to the balcony closes with a click that echoes down the silent hallway. Now that you’re completely alone with him, the realization of what this whole ordeal means comes crashing into you. Giyuu is being dead serious about this, and, well, you are too, apparently.

The two of you remain quiet as he pulls you down the hallway, his grip on your hand both gentle yet strong. He stops outside of a bathroom door, glancing both ways before dragging you in; after he’s checked for any potential bystanders in the bathroom, he locks the door. It’s then that you realize that this is the first time seeing him in bright lighting, but damn he looks just as fine. This is the first time that you’ve also stood directly next to him as well. He’s a lot broader than you anticipated, his shoulders tapering into slim hips.

“I meant it when I said it,” he tells you. The sheer sincerity of his voice strikes something deep within you, leaves you rooted to the spot. “This isn’t the way I wanted things to play out, but I uh, had someone put this little idea in the back of my head and it won’t go away.”

“You… really couldn’t stop thinking about me? I’m flattered, Tomioka-san. I didn’t know I left such an impression on you.”

“Heh. You’d be surprised.” Your breath catches in your throat as takes both of your hands in his, his thumbs drawing soothing circles into the skin. “Listen… I’m not… I’m not really good at this thing,” he says, voice low. “Relationships have never really been my forte.”

Ah, so that explains a lot.

“I don’t want to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

“I never pegged you for the sweet type,” you tell him.

“It’s called being considerate. I know plenty of people who wouldn’t hesitate to screw someone over.”

“You’re so serious, Tomioka-san. I can… Let me help you relax. That’s what you wanted, right?”

Giyuu hums, pulls you closer. “It’s not too late to turn back, but I really want this,” he murmurs. “Humor me?”

Before you know it, you’re backing up, the back of your thighs colliding with the counter; Giyuu lifts you with ease, setting your ass on the counter, and slipping between your legs. His mouth descends upon yours, touch almost featherlight as he kisses you. You urge him to press harder, your hands abandoning his hold and grabbing onto the lapels of his jacket instead. Giyuu grunts as you pull him even closer; sinking your teeth into his bottom lip, you pull it outward, relishing in the hiss that escapes him.

You shouldn’t be surprised with the way things go; time blurs, yet the moments seem so sharp. The pretty tulle of your skirt gathers around your hips, Giyuu’s strong hands gripping onto your thighs in such a way that it seems like he’s afraid to let you go. His mouth bleeds gold as you take kiss after kiss away from him, tongue sweeping into his mouth and licking away at the insides.

Things only grow more intimate from there; soon enough, you’re unbuttoning his shirt, hands pressing in and drifting across his skin. He’s surprisingly fit, but then again, it only adds to his godly visage. He’s openly moaning into your mouth at this point, hips bucking forward and seeking out that delicious friction. You choke on a moan as his clothed cock drags across your slit. Your panties are beyond ruined at this point, soaked all the way through and leaving a mess on the front of his slacks.

“Mmph – I bet you feel even better inside,” Giyuu breathes. “I want to… I want to see you wrapped around my cock.”

“Yes, Giyuu, yes,” you plead. Frantically, you undo the pants of his slacks, slip your hand inside his boxers.

“Ah, fuck,” he hisses. His hips absentmindedly buck into your touch, a groan rumbling deep in his chest. His voice is so low, so fucking gravelly – it’s wonderful, and fuck if you wouldn’t want to listen to it on loop.

Your insides tighten at the schlick, schlick, schlick noise that fills the bathroom, echoing all around you. Your pussy clenches around nothing, another drop of arousal seeping through your panties. “You said you wanted what I have with Mitsuri, right?” you purr. “Let me… Let me call you Daddy.”

It’s clear that the name causes something to snap inside of him; a growl rips itself from his throat, and his eyes flash with a darker, more animalistic gleam. Urging your hand off of him, he promptly pushes your panties to the side; your body tenses with excitement, your teeth sinking into your lower lip. Giyuu moans as he sheathes his cock inside of you, his hands gripping onto your legs and wrapping them around his slim hips.

“Oh, baby,” he purrs, his hands slamming down on the counter either side of you, effectively caging you in. “Feels so good… so tight…”

“Daddy, come on,” you whine, “we don’t have all night. You wanted this, remember? So fuck me, already. Fuck me like you mean it.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Giyuu murmurs into your ear. Sliding his hips away, he snaps his cock right back in, your velvety walls eagerly sucking him in. “I plan on doing so much more. You won’t regret it, baby. Not on my watch.”

“Just don’t ruin the dress,” you mutter, placing your lips against the pounding vein in his neck. “It’s not mine and I really don’t feel removing your cum from it.”

Giyuu sucks a breath in through his teeth as you suck a mark into his flesh. “Then I guess I’ll just have to cum inside, huh…?”

“I fucking dare you.”

“That sounds like a challenge, baby. Don’t mind if I do…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, they’ve been gone for a while, now,” Mitsuri says quietly into her phone. “Giyuu really needed to let loose, huh?”

“That sneaky little bastard,” Kyojuro says. He sighs. “And I invited for a night out, too. Dammit. Why does everyone else get to have fun while I don’t?”

Mitsuri giggles. “You’re really that jealous of Giyuu, huh? It’s actually really funny. Maybe I should tell Tengen, just to see what his reaction is like!”

“What, so he can join in on your little ‘arrangement’ you’ve got going on? What about me, huh? I thought we were friends!”

“And we are! If (y/n) wants anything to do with you, that’s entirely up to her. Wait, hold on – the door just opened. Talk to you later, Kyojuro!”

“Wait, Mitsuri-“

Click.

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #demon slayer #kny x reader #kimetsu no yaiba x reader #demon slayer x reader #kny pillars x reader #kny hashira x reader #kny pillars #kny hashira #diamonds are a girl's best friend series

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vergess · 3 years

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@autismserenity said: Your tags are the most American thing I’ve ever read, we are truly so screwed here

May I interest you in a more complete, and more excruciating, explanation of what I spent the last 18 months doing?

It is, I need to emphasize, fucking nasty. Don’t feel obligated, especiallly if you’ve already had A Day(tm).

There’s a lot of disease, a lot of worker abuse including sexual and racial abuse, a fine portion of letting people die for not being white enough for real medical care, all leading to homelessness.

For NDA reasons, because my former employer was just as vile as any tech company has ever been, I cannot be super specific about who I worked for. However, I can say that we handled the records and patient contact for all COVID testing for several states, as well as 2 of the 5 largest metros in the US, and several dozen smaller ones ranging from the approximate population of San Francisco, down to little towns, as well as the testing for several public school systems and at least two government agencies that I am not at liberty to disclose.

I tell you this for a sense of scale. When I say shit like, “my boss was more than happy to let thousands or hundreds of thousands die” I am not exagerrating for effect. We handled hundreds of thousands of tests a week.

Again, I need to emphasize, government agencies. Ones you would know if I named them. Ones everyone in the country knows.

And we were in charge of getting their test results from the already over swamped labs back to the patients, who often were not allowed to quarantine while awaiting results.

The fastest we got our turnaround time to on any consistent basis was about 30 hours. Often it ballooned well into weeks.

There were a number of factors for this, but the big one was always understaffing.

The staff we did have were treated like trash. One of the big selling points of this company is how “trans friendly” it is to work there. That is a lie. Every trans employee on payroll had their dead name displayed to all other staff, and until I personally changed the system setup on my arrival, patient facing trans people’s dead names were displayed to patients.

Remember that thing about “hundreds of thousands of tests a week”?

I was able to change the way patient-facing names were displayed. I was not allowed or able to alter the way internal systems displayed trans people’s names. But I was assured that it’s fine, because once you get a legal name change, you’ll be given new system accounts with your new name!

Your old accounts with your dead name would still be displayed and associated with the new ones though.

This is the “trans friendly” working environment. We were allowed to be out of the closet, as long as we were willing to put up with that. And any attempts to get it altered were the result of those nasty little transgender ingrates not being thankful enough.

Meaning that by asking to use our own fucking names we were already in the disciplinary shitter.

Another big selling point is the ~racial diversity~. The CEO was a man of colour, and so were like four other people on staff!! Wow!!!!!!!

This, too, was laughable.

Once numbers started coming in about the care gap for COVID between English and Spanish speakers, and our Southwestern US service area began to have a separate and brutal backlog just of Spanish speaking patients, my employer encouraged me to interview potential hires who speak spanish.

Fair enough! We all wanted to do our part to help close the already massive mortality gap.

So, I found candidates, did interviews, hired them, trained them, etc. But I don’t speak Spanish. As a result, I appointed 2 assistant managers who do speak Spanish to assist me in managing, you know, like the job name.

So when my super contacted them directly, completely skipping me on the chain of command, and told them to stop all of our Spanish speakers from translating helpful simple messages to send to patients, and instead start translating medical and legal documents, they very reasonably assumed I was in the know and went ahead with it.

TO BE CLEAR, that could have ended my life, theirs, basically everyone involved. Everyone in the company would have been completely fucked. At that point, my subordinates, the people for whom I am wholly responsible, were doing everything from practicing medicine without licenses, to encouraging spanish speaking patients to enter contracts that no one on the fucking executive tier could even read.

The moment I found that out, I and the A.M.s immediately started trying to get actual medical translation services to do our documents. We collected them in a neat folder. We queried translation services. We got quotes. We contacted my super and the CEO, about this over and over again for months. In the late autumn, we received approval for one of the translation services.

The CEO decided at the last minute that having people with no medical or legal training draft medical and legal forms was fine and good actually, and refused to sign the contract or send the documents for translation.

The excuse I received was that the COVID emergency HIPAA relaxations would protect us.

That’s not how that works.

Throughout all of this, Spanish speaking employees were told to either keep doing medical and legal translation work, or lose their jobs.

Oh, did I mention everyone was working between 30 and 80 hours a week, and all of us were marked as “contractors” so the employer could tax evade? Don’t worry, we filed complaints with the labour bureau.

So the entire department was let go, and “rehired” as temps through a temp agency, which because it was a temp agency could keep them marked as contractors regardless of the facts.

This change was presented to all of us, myself included, as the company getting a new accountant to handle payroll.

So if you’re keeping score, we’ve covered racism, queerphobia, medical negligence, fraud, and a frankly uncountable number of deaths.

Let’s talk about the sheer negligence towards employees ourselves. If you’ve worked in near-death medical care before, or any number of emergency services really, you know that the standard benefit suite includes either a dedicated therapist for your staff, or access to peer support groups with other emergency and medical servants through your employer’s benefits program.

Do you know what our mental health benefits were for this company?

The CEO got on a fucking zoom call with us all one (1) time, and said that if we were feeling suicidal or traumatized by the work, to talk to him about it, and he would be our therapist.

Do you know how many people per fucking day we had to contact only to be told they had already died because our understaffing delays killed them? He doesn’t. He never listened when we told him.

But let me put the cherry on the “Oh baby, you can talk to me, oooh” sundae.

Anyone who “looked” or “sounded” female, regardless of actual or assigned gender, was subject to constant flirtations and slimy, overly personal compliments about our appearances. Fortunately, at 3 levels removed from the CEO (Executives > Department heads > Managers > Employees), most of the people under my management had relatively little contact with him.

I was not nearly so lucky.

The CEO of this company has a watersports (urination) fetish. I know this, because he told me so and attempted to get me to join him in it. I have no idea how many other people in the company he did this to. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do, risk losing my job to find out? I have a fucking family to support, people.

Not that it mattered.

Eventually, all of these abuses became too much for my subordinates. Productivity fell off a cliff. Delays were getting worse and worse. In a medical emergency like this, delays=deaths.

So, like a fucking idiot, when the department heads reached out to me to ask what they could do to improve productivity, I shot down their frankly insulting suggestion of raffling a $20 amazon gift card to patient facing employees, and instead suggested a very simple, “enroll us with a peer support group, every single person in this department has PTSD from working in this pandemic.”

They were confused by my assertion of PTSD. I was asked to compile a document of complaints, concerns, and weaknesses in our patient facing services.

I and the A.M.s did so. It was roughly 40 pages long, with each page given a known problem, the reasons why it was a problem, and some potential solutions that might inspire further solutions or be able to be implemented. We submitted it. There was no response.

A week passed.

I had been working 80 hour weeks for most of a year. I hadn’t even been able to take weekends. I took my first sick day, in a company with “unlimited vacation days.”

I received a call at 3PM.

I had been fired for “differences in communitcation.” If you’ve ever seen that “Problem Women of Color in the workplace” chart? Yeah.

So had most of my department, including every transgender member of the department, and several of our extremely limited in supply Spanish speakers, who were presumed to be “on my side.”

Some of them, I barely even knew beyond the formalities of the job, and they were punished anyway.

I lost my insurance, and as a result I lost access to my medications.

But the real problem? I lost my house. And not due to lack of payment.

I lost my house, because when I got the job we waited 6 months for stability’s sake, and then readied to move out of the area. I got a mortgage on the basis of my employer’s written guarantee to the bank that I would continue to be employed for the next year at a minimum.

With the mortgage approval in hand, we entered a sales contract on our existing home.

We got and accepted an offer just days before I was fired. To keep our house meant paying a 25,000 dollar broken contract fine. We didn’t have that. We had a 10% down payment for a modest fucking place in a cheaper area, which is less than half that.

But without a job, my mortgage approval was also voided, meaning we couldn’t buy a house either.

All of a sudden, we were homeless during the plague, because my employer wrote and signed a letter to a bank guaranteeing my future employ, and then changed his mind when too many people died due to his own negligence.

Oh yeah, one last thing: the job paid less than Pandemic unemployment Assistance.

...After that, well, it’s homelessness until just last month. I... if you’ve never been homeless it’s.

It blurs. Everything is happening constantly, except for all the ways in which you are endlessly, mind breakingly bored. Bored, overloaded, and always uncomfortable.

Obviously my health would have declined regardless. Malnutrition, stress, everything.

But I was also unmedicated.

It was hell. I was in hell. I don’t know if I can recover from it, to be honest.

I bounced back from being homeless as a child. Children are as resilient as they are stupid, and the monstrosity of homelessness was little more than a vaguely remembered loathing and a panicky fear that it would ever happen again.

A child who is dying is worthy of sympathy, even if it is meaningless coos from passers by. If they have family, they may be able to rely on them too.

An adult with the indignity to die homeless and crippled, according to the average passer by, is worthy only of disgust and perhaps even punishment for being such a worthless waste.

My reward for nearly killing myself in a desperate bid to help stem the tide of COVID was the destruction of not only my life, not only my entire family’s lives, but the lives of every single family of every single employee who worked with me.

And you know what’s worse?

Each one of us still did more to limit the lethal impact of COVID than the entire united states government.

It breaks something in you, going through that.

It makes you realize that hope is a fool’s game.

But, I have ever been a fool, and so, I continue to play.

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