#hope y'all enjoy this one :-)

[finemealprompt]

DP x DC Prompt #42

Billy's pretty pleased with his ability to keep his secret identity a secret from the League. The only ones who might know are Batman and his crew, but that was to be expected.

So, he's a little surprised when he spots a new hero who has joined Justice League: Dark who looks a lot like his cousin. Like, a lot a lot. Give him black hair and blue eyes, and that's Danny ... Oh holy shit Phantom's Danny! When did Danny become a ghost?

Billy hopes Danny won't tattletale to his mom. That'd be a nightmare.

[telekineticseance]

LOSING IT

pairing: matt stone x f! assistant reader

summary: you get ready for your day to work with matt (second part to circumstances)

genre: fluff

word count: 1311

cw: legal age gap although nothing happens....yet

author's note: y'all really liked the first part and asked for it to be a series and although i'm shit with updating i thought i would at least attempt. but thank you for the likes on the first part it makes me happy that you guys enjoyed it!

if you haven't read the first part check it out here: "CIRCUMSTANCES"

The sound of your alarm caused you to wake up and you let out a groan before hitting the snooze button on the analog clock on your nightstand, feeling a sharp pain go through your head as you closed your eyes tightly. You heard movement and soft snoring coming from next to your bed as your eyes widened, forgetting about the events from the night before. You slowly fought against the shooting pain in your head as you looked over the edge of your bed to reveal Matt sleeping on the cushions. His small curls were as messy as they could get and he slept with his mouth partially open as he let out those soft snores you heard before.

You watched him intently, but not in a creepy way. More like a watching in awe way. Like when you go to the aquarium and see the fish swim around in their tank as a child. You'd never seen Matt like this before. I mean sure he'd take naps at the office for those nights when you would be with him until 5 am or so, but this was different. He seemed so calm, peaceful. He took in a deep breath and stretched his arms over his head before his eyes started to flutter open. You quickly leaned back onto your bed, acting like you were sleeping before the snooze from your alarm went off resulting in you jumping slightly and you hit the off switch.

Matt let out a groan causing you to roll your eyes back slightly, Jesus Christ he was hot. He moved around in the blankets before his phone began to ring and he answered, "Yes Trey I'm on my way." You heard a voice coming from the other end of the phone as he let out a couple sighs and he stood up from the cushions and hung up his phone after finishing his conversation with Trey. He put his phone in his pocket and looked at you, you hid under your blanket with only your eyes peering out as he gave you a small grin.

"Good morning. You feeling better?" He asks, using his hand to flatten out his hair as he looks down at you. You nod slowly, "My head kind of hurts but I'll be fine."

He chuckles a little at your response before nodding, "Well uh, my offer still stands. You don't have to come in today if you don't want to."

You shook your head at him, determined you weren't going to cause this to miss a day of your work. He nodded while smiling before looking down at the ground and then looking back at you on the bed, "Alright well then I'll see you in a little bit." He gives you a small awkward wave before leaving the room and shortly after you hear the front door open and shut.

You buried your head into your pillow and pulled the blanket over your head before letting out a muffled scream. You had to stop. You finally had a chance with some guy last night but basically ran away with Matt the moment he told you to. He was your boss. You were his assistant. That's all you two would ever be. But no matter what, you constantly had this hope sitting inside of the pit of your stomach.

You sighed before rising from your bed and grabbing the ibuprofen and water that Matt had left beside your bed before taking both and then walking to the bathroom to take a shower. You let the hot water run down your face and body, letting the energy from the shower take away your thoughts. You planned out your day as you washed your hair and body, it was a Sunday, South Park aired on Wednesday so you knew it was going to be a busy day for everyone at the office including you.

You finished washing up before shutting off the water and dressing in a simple white button down blouse tucked into a pair of light blue jeans with some black heels. You didn't have to dress too formal for your job but it was nice to at least put effort into how you dressed. Especially if you were lucky enough to get a compliment from Matt, even if it's as simple as him saying your hair looks nice.

It was getting time for you to head out as you did one last glance in the mirror before grabbing your keys and bag before leaving, you still haven't found your phone and that was stressing you out even more on top of the day you had waiting for you. You hopped into your little Nissan car before driving to the Starbucks closest to the studio. You ordered the usual Venti Americano for Matt, he didn't like all the flavors despite occasionally asking for a sip from yours if you tried something new, but then he'd shake his head and tease you about it being too sweet and say something along the lines of "Would you like some coffee with your syrup?" You ordered a drink for yourself before heading to the studio.

Once you arrive you walked in through the glass doors and made your way through the offices, greeting the others working in their cubicles before walking over to Matt's office. You lightly knocked on the door and saw Matt sit up more straight as he yelled for you to come in. You walked in slowly and set the drink down on the table and he let out a little chuckle, "Thanks." You smiled in response before sitting on the couch across the room and setting your bag down, "How's everything going so far?"

Matt shrugged as he scratched the top of his head, "I think we're on a pretty good schedule so far. Might get out of here at a good time." He took a sip from his cup and looked at you, his eyes scanning you up and down. "You look nice."

A warmth rose to your cheeks as you repositioned yourself on the couch, clearing your throat, "Thank you." He let out a small chuckle before getting up from his desk and walking across the room grabbing a small box from the cabinet. "I got you something. And before you object, you need it." He said as he walked over to your side, sitting down on the couch next to you.

Your eyes widened as you reached out and grabbed the box from his hands and slowly opened it revealing a new iPhone with a black case on it. "M-Matt I.." He smiled as he shook his head at you, "No you needed a new one so I got it for you. It's a part of your job to have a phone so you can make any calls for me and so that I can get a hold of you. I already got it set up and got everything transferred from your old phone thanks to the phone company so you don't have to worry about anything."

The phone sat in your hands as you turned to look over at him and he had a small grin on his face, as his head was tilted to get a better look at your face. He had set up your lock screen to a picture of you two that you had taken late one night at work, he objected to the photo multiple times but you finally convinced him and it was one of your favorite memories of you two. You wrapped your arms around him, pulling him for a hug and he chuckled as he hugged back. "You didn't have to do this."

He nodded against your shoulder, his thumb lightly stroking your back as he held you tightly against him, "I know but I wanted to."

updated a/n: part three :)

[onthewaytosomewhere]

random shaped hair clips, firstprince :)

ok so this was also requested by @sophie1973 so here we go

Alex is in his element right now. He’s been coming to the shelter with Henry on Sunday afternoons for a while, and it’s become such a part of his routine he’s not sure he knows what to do without it. It has become something that has helped him deal with the stresses of law school and just figuring out their way through life together amongst all the external bullshit from people who think they have some say in their lives. Right now, he’s in the midst of one of his favorite parts of their Sunday afternoons; he’s surrounded by some of the younger kids from the shelter, and stacked in front of him is an array of random-shaped hair clips, various ponytail holders, and other hair supplies needed to complete the weekly makeovers.

It starts one week, what seems like forever ago, but is really just a matter of months; when Alex is sitting with some of the kids and reading to them, one of the youngest has climbed into his lap and starts playing with his hair. She eventually takes some of the clips out of her own hair to put in his, and before she is done, she has accumulated clips from everyone to add to his hair. When he finishes the book, he asks them all if he looks pretty, and to their resounding shouts in the affirmative, he asks if he can help them look pretty, too. He knows some of the staff have been having issues getting some of the younger ones to allow them to help care for their hair, so he jumps on the opportunity to get them more accustomed to someone else helping them out.

He starts small, and before he knows it, it becomes what it is now: a full-on wash and style day with an ever-growing group. Henry helps him recruit a few of the older ones to help out when the group becomes too large for him to do on his own, but right now is his favorite part. Everyone has been washed, detangled, and combed and is eagerly awaiting “their pretties,” hence the small avalanche of assorted hair supplies in front of him.

The circle they form for this stage harkens back to those early sessions, and Alex thinks it makes them all feel a little bit safer. When Henry came home a month ago and told him that all of the younger kids were now allowing the staff to assist with their hair, it made him so happy, and if, later that night, he sobbed while Henry held him in bed when it hit him exactly what he accomplished, well that is something between just them.

So he savors these moments, and if nothing else figures, as Bea pointed out the last time she was here, it’s good practice for in a few years when Phillip and Martha’s daughter gets a little older, and Alex starts vying for favorite uncle. If he also thought maybe it’s good practice if they decide to have some of their own someday, he’s keeping that to himself for now, but it’s not far from his mind. For now, he just enjoys these little moments with kids who are so excited to see him every week.

[lord-angelfish]

Of Hairstyling and Miscommunication, Chapter 2

Hey ho! The second chapter is now out (aren't y' all lucky).

This chapter is ~1k words, rated Gen, still pre-wincest, and full of overprotective Dean.

Thanks to @herefortears and @samsblush for beta reading this for me!

Read on Ao3.

Excerpt (full chapter under the cut):

He eyed the glass next to his hand unhappily. He was tempted to just get up and refill it himself. He hesitated. If he got up, then Dean would be mad about it, but if he never found out…. 

Sam nodded to himself firmly, decision made. He'd just have to make sure that Dean didn't find out. 

Dean hummed thoughtfully, peering down at the display case in front of him studiously. 

After a moment of consideration, he looked up at the worker behind the bar and smiled charmingly. "Excuse me, ma'am," he called, rapping his knuckles on the counter, "could I get the lemon cream pie to go, please? And two slices of banana bread."

The lady smiled cheerfully at him and bagged his order, ringing him up afterwards.

"Bringing home a treat for your boyfriend?" she asked as she opened the register to get him his change.

Dean froze, taken aback. The lady saw his reaction and chuckled, mistaking his confusion for apprehension. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, you know," she said conversationally, smiling gently at him. "I saw you and your young man, the tall one, outside the other day. It's plain to see that you love him very much." 

Dean stuttered and blushed, the bag swinging gently from where it was hanging in his clenched fist. "Ma'am," he began, "I'm not - we're not -"

The lady frowned and tilted her head slightly as he stammered unintelligibly and then her eyes widened as she seemed to come to a realization. 

"You haven't told him yet?" she said in surprise. "Well, that won't do."

Clicking her tongue, she ducked under the counter. After a few seconds of rummaging around, she made a triumphant sound and came up beaming, holding a pink cupcake.

She started boxing it up and said briskly, "You see, young man, these are the cupcakes that I made for my Amelia when I asked her out - although I was a fair bit younger back then," she said with a chuckle. 

"Anyway, I made these for her when I asked her out and when I asked her to marry me. They're good luck pastries, especially for young love." 

Dean sputtered and flushed. 

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

Sam set his book down on the table in front of him and sighed. Looking at his watch, he shook his hair out of his face and leaned back in his chair. 

He checked his phone idly, wondering where his brother was. He'd have thought that Dean would've been back by now, considering how overprotective he'd been acting before he left. 

…..Unless he'd gotten distracted. 

Sam groaned mentally.

He eyed his empty water glass consideringly. If his brother had gotten distracted flirting with some girl while he was out getting pie, that meant that he probably wouldn't be back for a few hours yet, which in turn meant that his plan to wait for Dean to get back to the room and make him fill up the water glass was probably not a good one. 

Sam groaned again, audibly this time, and let his head thump on the back of his chair. 

He eyed the glass next to his hand unhappily. He was tempted to just get up and refill it himself. He hesitated. If he got up, then Dean would be mad about it, but if he never found out…. 

Sam nodded to himself firmly, decision made. He'd just have to make sure that Dean didn't find out. 

He stood up carefully, standing on one leg first and gingerly lowering his other foot down to the floor. 

He winced preemptively as he started to put some weight on his hurt ankle, then breathed a sigh of relief when it did nothing more than twinge. 

He'd filled up his waterglass and made it halfway back to his seat by the time he heard the familiar rumble of the Impala's engine outside, getting louder and louder until it stopped, and was replaced by the equally familiar sound of Dean's whistling, accompanied by the stomp of his boots as he walked up to the motel room door. 

Sam froze, feeling a familiar but always odd mix of preemptive indignation, reluctant fondness, and dread, as he stood motionless, caught halfway between the chair and the sink with no support in sight. 

Dean opened the door, carrying his precious burden (which, Sam thought to himself with no small amount of amusement, almost certainly wasn't going to be shared - Dean was just that possessive of his pie). 

Dean turned around at his quiet snort, visibly drawing himself up and working himself up to righteous indignation about Sam slighting his precious pie - and then he stopped short, door creaking gently behind him as it came to a rest only partially closed. 

Sam winced preemptively, and with good reason. 

Dean growled.

He started stomping towards Sam, who was trying not to falter, and then he stopped and looked down at his hands where he was still holding the bags of groceries. 

He rolled his eyes, and turned around to set them down on the table, then turned back towards Sam. 

"Sam Winchester," he said, still sounding exasperated, but thankfully calmed down from what Sam had thought was going to be an actual blowout. 

Sam blinked, shaken out of his thoughts when Dean got to him and started pushing him back towards the table where he'd set the groceries, and where Sam had been sitting before he'd decided to get water. 

"You should have waited for me," Dean chided him, pushing him down into the chair and walking towards the sink. 

"What, I should have waited for you to get me a glass of water ?" Sam asked, pushing down the warm affection bubbling up in his chest in response to his brother's care. 

"Yes! Yes, Sam! You're still hurt, you idiot, I wasn't even gone for an hour!"

"Well how was I supposed to know you hadn't gotten distracted by some girl?" 

"Are you fucking kidding me right now, Sam. You almost died. "

Sam flushed and argued back, "I did not almost die, Dean, that two-by-four didn't even touch me!" 

Dean's mouth worked for a minute, and he scowled again. He strode forward and set down the glass of water he'd confiscated from Sam on the table with a click, then he turned around and stormed off to sit on the bed. 

Sam watched as he crossed his arms and glared at whatever was playing on the TV. 

He watched his brother sit and stew for a minute. 

"Are you going to eat this pie, or…" Sam couldn't help but ask after the silence got to be stifling. 

Dean whipped his head around and glared. "Don't even think about eating my pie, bitch," he snapped, an undercurrent of laughter running through his voice. 

Sam grinned. "I'm gonna eat it unless you get here first," he teased, sing-song. 

"Hey!" 

[caffichai]

More art for Coldshot's Called Shot by my friend @fishing-lesbian-catgirl! If you like spicy content, go give it a read!

The final piece, at least for now! Somehow I did these in reverse chronological order, but I guess it worked out in the end

Hey, if you're here, check this out!

[swampybogg]

[gutsby]

Cabin Fever

Pairing: Dark!Joel x Dark!Reader

Summary: Joel saves your life, but help comes at a price.

Warnings: 18+. DEAD DOVE: DNE. NONCONSENSUAL. I’m never ever beating the insane bitch allegations, I fear. Protector-turned-pervert-turned-unwilling-captor-kinda. Corruption kink. Daddy kink. Somnophilia. Misogyny. “It’s too big; it won’t fit” + Joel “I’ll make it fit” Miller. Captivity on both ends. Oral (f!receiving). Gunplay. Oversimplified first-time anal. Uno Reverse Drugging. Evil, inexperienced reader meets evil, feral, slutty Joel. Attempted murder x3. Russian Roulette…as foreplay?

Notes: Both characters SUCK. I condone nothing they do. Please do not take any of their behavior or language to reflect my own moral predilections. That is all 🚬😵‍💫

You were hardly shaking at all when he’d found you chained, maimed, and frozen half to death on the plains.

He didn’t see that every day, that was for-fucking-sure.

Joel Miller barely got to see his share of happy, grinning girls on the cold and bitter frontier he inhabited. Ones that were tied to posts and clinging to life were even less common, so the sight of you there had almost frightened him at first. He’d approached you like one might advance upon a sleeping bear: with the utmost caution and a Winchester Model 70 levelled directly at your head.

He’d learned you were unarmed and defenseless in less than a second. He’d come to realize you were largely unconscious—and unclothed—even sooner than that.

He had been industrious in freeing your hands and feet from their restraints but never uttered a word as he did.

Even on the two-and-a-half mile trek back home, he hadn’t spoken once. You’d hung off his left shoulder like a pretty, frosted slab of meat, covered only with the sherpa blanket he’d secured around your neck, and dangled precariously down his back for the entire fifty minutes.

Your toes were two shades shy of onyx with frostbite.

Your limbs were hanging like lead over his chest.

A whisper of, ‘You’ll be fine, darlin’, I promise’ had just seemed ill-suited for the circumstances and his nature. In truth, Joel didn’t know if you’d be fine. You might die. The blood wouldn’t be on his hands one way or the other, but he never had liked burying bodies this time of year. He’d have to wait until April to break ground, at least.

Presently, he dropped your limp form to the floor of his cabin and hoped he wouldn’t be needing to bury anyone.

You sort of looked charming in the firelight.

He stomped off to the kitchen and began rifling for pans, preparing to defrost the icy stranger as best he could.

You didn’t die.

You didn’t wake for forty full hours, but you didn’t die.

When you stirred on the floor with warm sherpa around your shoulders and a rough calfskin rug under your ass, you thought you had died—maybe taken a pit stop in cowpoke purgatory while you were at it—but then you blinked. Breathed. Realized you were still very much inside your body and most likely still in Wyoming.

You sat up where you were and looked around.

“Da-a-d?”

You knew it was useless, calling for your father.

He had been dead almost eight months; you just wanted to double-check to make sure you were still on earth.

When dead dad didn’t answer, you tried someone else.

“Momma?”

Still no answer.

Figured, since she was among the ones that had left you chained outside in the first place. It’d been worth a shot.

You started to rise from your place, when a sharp pain in your side made you plop back down on the rug. You winced and lifted the blanket, then your old nightie.

A neat little taped-down bandage had your ribs encased in antiseptics and gauze. You frowned down at a stain in the centre, which looked to you an awful lot like blood. That circle of old fluids must’ve been twice the size of your fist and currently oozing tiny, fresh beads of blood from the strain you’d just exerted. You pursed your lips.

Least they could’ve done is kill me, not leave me here.

You’d take it up with your old would-be assassins another day, you were sure. Right now, you were parched, starving, in dire need of a piss, and reeling on the floor to grab hold of something sturdy to lift yourself. But you were as much a child then as you had ever been, swaying in place and clawing at air like someone who’d never kept their balance before. Or might’ve been drunk.

You rolled onto your good side and cast a sweeping look around the cabin. You smelled slow-cooked barbecue.

Thank fuck, you thought.

Now, if I were a juicy rack of ribs, where would I be?

The kitchen was dark and empty; the smell was coming from elsewhere. You craned your neck, tilted your chin, spotted a loft overhead but figured it wasn’t too likely to find someone grilling up there, so where the hell was it?

And who the hell was it, smoking meats and mending up strangers in the cold and lonely dead of winter like this?

You put a pin in that thought as you searched for a place to pee.

By the time you’d hobbled out of the bathroom, the smoky smell had grown even stronger. It was so pungent it bordered on vertiginous, invading every inch of the cabin with a force. Then it was leading you, teasing you by turns to venture outside. All you had on your feet were some oversized socks and two strips of medical tape.

Against your better judgment, you continued to hobble.

Out the door, down the steps, slowly, then following your nose and the first whiff of smoke you smelled to make it to the place you were almost certain you needed to be.

You trudged around a corner of the cabin’s exterior and stopped. Turned around. Cursed your own senses for being so stupid to miss the huge fucking shed spewing smoke out front—or was it the back?—and plodded on.

Your feet might have carried you a third of the way there before your powers of sight and sound eventually failed you again, and you missed another big something.

Big and beige and coated in snow—baring its teeth and snarling at the unfamiliar presence as soon as it saw you.

The next thing you knew, sixty-two pounds of Belgian Malinois had had you knocked to the ground in less than a second. You hardly understood what had hit you until it was barking and chomping away an inch from your face.

You fought hard and frantic to shove the ugly fucker off, but your bandaged hands were no match for its paws. The dog continued to tear at your blanket, nip at your ears, claw at your neck, and all around snuff out any sense of peace you might have acquired in the dozen-odd minutes since you’d first woken up. You screamed.

You yelled as loud as you could and felt yourself cower and sink lower into the snow as you fought.

Just when you tried to raise a knee—to kick the animal in the ribs or else protect your own—a sound broke out above the buzz.

A voice, clear as day:

“CUJO!”

The dog stalled on top of you a moment, just to be yanked off the next, and the closest thing afterward was a face—kinder than Cujo’s but not by very much.

It was a broad, bearded, pock-marked head with more soot to recommend itself than skin. Lips smeared with ash and grime and curved down in the single most decisive frown you’d seen in your life, the man looked to be beside himself seeing you tits up in the snow.

He gripped one arm of yours, then dropped it.

Picked a leg up, paused, then hauled you into a cradle carry as graceless as you’d ever felt it done before.

“Come!” he snapped, and it took you too long to realize that he was talking to the dog. You’d already wrapped your arms around his neck in abrupt complaisance.

He carried you back into the cabin and kicked the door open in front of you. He held you firm for a second, then, just as he had outside, changed course before you knew what to do and was shortly depositing you on the sofa.

You winced when your ass hit the cushion.

You started to sit, grab a pillow for your back or just bring your knees to your chest, when suddenly a palm was pressing flat on your front. Forcing you to lie down.

“Hey, hey!” you cried when the man started lifting the hem of your nightgown.

If he’d heard you at all, he didn’t show it. He just worked his thick, dirty fingers under the fabric and raised the white satin like he might the hood of a car. He frowned.

It was then that you noticed a blooming red splotch on your side, slowly overtaking the terra-cotta color of dried blood on the bandage and spreading out. Then a pain.

Instead of pushing the man’s hands away, you were holding them tight, wrestling that same touch which was trying to keep you from poking around the area now.

“Quit,” the man said, sedate as could be.

“Hurts,” was all you could think to tell him—and you guessed he’d already had that part down by the outpouring of blood. He shoved your hands off.

The brand new crimson hue had already soaked through the bandage. He pulled it off. You caught a glimpse of a wound that seemed to be weeping through its stitches—oozing pus and blood and a gore you could’ve gone your whole life without seeing. You would’ve liked to run a couple gentle, awed fingers over it, but as it was, your coarse and tight-lipped medic wouldn’t let you.

“Hold still,” he commanded.

“Heystopstopstop!” you implored him, feeling a streak of pain up your side as his calloused hands delved deeper.

At your latest flinch and plea, the man seemed to have had enough. Or just needed to angle your body in a different direction for easier access to the site. He gathered you back up in his arms and walked over to the kitchen, where he set you down again on the counter. Hands moved to your hips, briefly, to push you back on the surface and allow him to stand between your legs. Again, the man frowned as he peeled off your pyjamas.

Two warring fears of pain and overexposure fought like wild beasts in your brain for a second—you yelping and trying to cover your breasts in a hurry, then realizing how much it hurt to lift your arms that way when your ribs were dripping blood, then the man making the decision for you both as he pushed your hands behind your back and said a simple ‘Fuck’s sake’ to keep you pinned.

You didn’t like it.

You didn’t like it, and you let him continue, because you knew that you didn’t know shit about doing this yourself.

Joel must’ve fixed your dressings fourteen times before turning you loose. He’d had you perched atop his counter like goddamned Prisoner-of-War Barbie, all riddled with bumps, bruises, and lesions galore, looked your body up and down just once, and nearly grew sick at the sight.

He’d disgusted himself by feeling as aroused as he was.

Shortly thereafter, he’d toted you off—before the blood could rush down to his dick and start to swell—shrugged your gown over your torso, and stepped away. Simple.

Then you’d had to go and throw a wrench in his plans.

“What if I need to pee?” you’d said as soon as Joel started up the stairs with you in his arms again.

He had meant to drop you off on the bed in the loft, out of sight, but it seemed you were more concerned about the prospect of traversing the steps up and down for potty breaks. Joel had audibly huffed above you.

“I can leave a bucket.”

“Yu-uck.” The latter word had been given two syllables to show the full extent of your disgust, like a child might do.

And that was how you’d ended up here: snug in his bed on the ground floor, curled up in more layers of flannel and wool than you could count and staring blankly up at the man who was standing cold and aloof off to the side.

Your eyelids were growing heavy with sleep.

He figured they would be.

Joel picked up the glass that sat beside your empty one on the nightstand and drank, watching you all the while.

“D’you know my momma?” you asked, voice sounding extra small coming from the depths of your cocoon.

Joel finished his drink in four big gulps.

“Sure hope not,” he said once he’d set it back down.

By the sight of the scars he’d found littering your hands and back alone, Joel was able to surmise you’d come from a pretty rough, ragtag group. Maybe even Raiders. Knowing folks like that simply never struck one’s fancy, so he’d been honest. You might’ve argued, or laughed, if you hadn’t been nabbed so tightly in the grips of those first stages preceding sleep, so instead, you nodded.

“Figured,” you mumbled.

7:11, Joel read on the clock. You’d finished your drink at seven, or somewhere thereabouts. Judging by your size, it wouldn’t take long at all for the medicine to take effect.

‘Medicine,’ Joel thought, sounded a whole hell of a lot better than ‘drugs.’ One was meant to rehabilitate, rejuvenate, bring new life to your worn and weary bones. The other would just knock you cold and keep you there.

On second thought, those were definitely drugs Joel had just slipped in your water before giving it to you to drink.

As your eyes blinked from closed, to open, to closed, then open but slightly less open than the time before, and closed again, he felt a sick sense of accomplishment twist in his gut. If only his former-nurse friend could have seen what he was doing with those morphine sulfate tablets he’d traded for—he likely would’ve slapped Joel across the face. And Joel would’ve smiled all the same.

Yeah, okay, drugging the unsuspecting and defenseless female he’d just saved from death’s doorstep two days ago didn’t look great on paper, he would fully concede.

But this was all in good fun.

Great fun, even.

For him.

“Sick fuck,” Joel muttered as he started to undo his belt. The button and zip were taken apart just as fast, and with two steps, he was standing at your bedside—his bedside—and tugging his trousers down his legs. He took his cock in his hand and glanced over at the clock.

7:15.

He nudged your shoulder.

7:16.

Peeling layers of blanket away from your body.

7:17.

“Hey…honey?”

A lot more nothing from the girl sleeping in front of him. He shrugged his jeans to the floor, kicked them off at his feet, and moved onto the bed. You just looked so sweet.

Joel tried working around the fabric of his boxers but got impatient pretty quick. He hauled those off, too.

Soon, his beefy, bare, and surprisingly tan legs were bracketing your hips as he stroked himself above you. His eyes roamed the lax and tranquil features undeniably characteristic of sleep, and he pumped himself faster. Really, there was no need for theatrics or enhancements now—he was already hard as three tonnes of steel—but Joel would be lying if he said he didn’t like the build-up.

You were no longer in danger of dying, thanks to him. You were slowly but surely on the mend, no thanks to Cujo at all, but many thanks to him, Joel Miller, the man who had pried you off of that post, pulled you out of your chains, ushered warmth back into your limbs, and stitched up your side out of the goodness of his heart.

Any objective onlooker could see that you’d availed yourself of his medical attention and aid without ever asking, so why should he request access to you now? This was the way of the world these days, anyway. Sex was no longer so much a question as it was an answer in most scenarios—a mere transaction, wherein the physically weaker of two parties was forced to capitulate. Not within the four unsullied walls of Jackson and a few other pockets of homestead communities here and there, but on the whole, absolutely. Jackson was down the road a ways away and sufficiently far enough from Joel’s cabin for him to be disentangled from their rules. What mattered now was obtaining what he was owed.

Still, the man hesitated a half-second longer above you. He jerked his cock even faster and felt his stomach start to clench. Was that? No—nerves were fucking juvenile. Getting close to cumming from just the sight of you alone was for chumps. Joel Miller was no chump.

He lifted your nightie and lowered the head of his cock to rest between your folds. Then he shifted his knees so that he could rub himself gently against your warmth.

Joel Miller was a monster, but he was no brute. He also understood female anatomy well enough to know that, well…wetter was better. He started moving his hips.

You exhaled through your nose. Nothing major; you probably hadn’t even felt him long enough to whine.

Joel planted a hand beside your head—a preemptive warning.

“There…” He liked to talk as though you could hear him. Like you might be semi-conscious and dimly aware of what he was doing to you then, “Right there…ah, baby.”

He never did catch your name.

That was no matter. So long as you stayed put and made a nice, wet, pretty little hole for him to fuck, you would be fine. By the feel of your folds alone, he could tell you’d be a fun thing to use. Soft and snug and plied with drugs, you could do, and be, anything he damn well needed.

Or maybe nothing at all, he thought without humor.

Joel brushed your cheek with the knuckles of his free hand and watched you turn away, making a face. He snagged your chin and tilted it back to him, sharply, before gliding those fingers down your chest, then your tummy, then your hips, then dipping between your legs. He found your clit and pressed it with a deliberate touch.

“Hey,” Joel whispered, again, as though you might hear, “You’re gonna stay still and let me do this.”

Your nose scrunched in response, thighs clamping together. Joel pried them apart with one push and continued sliding his cock back and forth. He grunted.

“Gonna let me take what’s mine, hear?”

You didn’t hear much of anything, he suspected, but he asked the question all the same. At least now your legs were staying open and he could rut himself gently into that space without having to keep them spread. A first, gentle ‘mmph’ sounded from your lips, and he was glad. He kept thumbing that spot he knew you would like and rubbing along the seam of your cunt with his erection.

Then Joel felt a weight on his shoulders. Remorse? No. Anxiety? Perhaps. This felt more like a fog, though, seizing his muscles and seeping gently between the grooves of his brain. He gave his head a fierce shake.

“Hold still,” he said, more to himself; you hadn’t moved.

Joel fisted the base of his cock and angled the tip toward your entrance, caring much less whether you were ready or not now that his desires had grown stronger.

He was met with resistance on trying to push in. He dug his fingers in the pillow beneath your head and scowled.

“Quit…clenchin’…like that. Ain’t…fair to me,” he huffed.

He was one to talk.

Now, he’d been with a staggering number of women, experiences ranging all across the spectrum, but even the tightest, most untouched pieces of ass he’d ever tapped had given way more than this. Your walls were unyielding, refusing to give him entry. Joel cursed and rutted his hips in a rough, entirely unsuccessful, thrust.

You hummed in response, eyes still closed, one hand fumbling mindlessly for something to hold. Joel seized it.

“Not lettin’ you off that easy, darlin’, I—”

“Fuck,” you breathed, followed by a low whimper.

Joel froze. Had you heard him? Felt him just now?

Something about the uncertainty laden in those questions sent his mind into overdrive, heart beating a wild cadence in his chest. He realized then that his mouth had gone dry, his vision was skewed just slightly on the outskirts. And his cock was throbbing.

“Ya like that?” Joel seethed, not thinking, still rubbing, “Like givin’ daddy a hard time before lettin’ him in?”

“Uh-huh.” Softly.

You little slut. He knew it all along.

Whatever it was that kept your body from being coupled with his was almost immaterial to him now. Joel’s mind was swimming with desire, cock dragging in desperate, fitful bursts between your legs, never penetrating but still wringing massive jolts of pleasure from that place.

With the way he was feeling now, Joel could cum from just fucking your thighs. And that was alright.

You were moaning underneath him. Even…smiling?

“Fuck, baby, you look so pretty.”

Joel had never called a girl pretty before and meant it. But he hardly knew how else to describe you now with how good and sweet and fine you were making him feel. A strange warmth sank into his chest, making it harder to breathe, and then he was panting above you, as if he were really inside that dripping wet spot. He was close.

“Such a pretty…sweet…fuckin’ thing for me.”

That red, raging, leaky cock of his was almost a blur between your legs, he was thrusting against you so fast. Joel thought for one frightening second that it might be his skull that would explode instead, so high was that pressure between his ears, but his fears were promptly put to rest as the first rope of cum came stuttering out. Then another. Then another. Then another.

By the time he finished, he could’ve sworn he’d left a hundred spurts on your tummy. When Joel glanced down and saw a sea of opaque, sticky white, he groaned.

Then he fell. Fully collapsed at your side with his brain in a tizzy of wild, heady feelings and sank into himself.

He hadn’t even fucked you, and he felt like he had.

He lifted a hand to wipe away his spend, but he couldn’t.

He would get to it in the morning, before you stirred, he thought. He thought. He didn’t have the chance to think much longer at all, as darkness started hedging him in.

He slept.

It was 7:57 when he woke.

The man had no real way of knowing that, though, seeing as he was greeted with a nickel-plated revolver between his teeth the second he opened his eyes.

You were straddling his torso, gun pinched between two calm, bandaged hands. You frowned when he jumped.

“WH—” he started.

“Shut up.”

“ST—”

“I said shut,” you cocked the gun, holding it tighter, then shoving it even further inside his mouth, “the fuck. up.”

The man obeyed.

‘Joel M.’—you’d read the name etched on the butt of his pistol before picking it up some twenty minutes ago.

“Pretty fuckin’ thing,” you mocked the man’s Texan drawl as you wiggled the barrel even deeper along his tongue, “Like givin’ daddy a hard time before lettin’ him in?”

The man’s eyes widened.

How dumb did he think you were?

Offering a semi-clear liquid that should’ve been water; he hadn’t even waited for the morphine tablet to fully dissolve before handing it over to you. Fucking idiot.

You were more disturbed by the fact he’d thought you stupid enough not to notice than him actually trying to drug you. The latter was almost to be expected from predatory, execrable men like him, but the insult to your intelligence? Unacceptable. You’d remedied that affront fairly quickly, though, swapping his glass with yours the second he hadn’t been looking, then nestling into his bed and playing pretend for what had felt like an eternity.

You’d been awake the whole time the man touched you, not knowing what the hell was going on but feeling like you had to stay still. Let him finish. Out of fear, at first, then curiosity, then some strange and unfamiliar sensation that you couldn’t quite describe as anything but a pleasurable itch between your legs. You let the man continue, hearing him grunt and groan and swear up a storm before he shot something hot all over your tummy. By the end of it all, you knew it was wrong, and you knew it was dirty—though you weren’t sure exactly what it was that he had done—but you wanted to learn more.

Which was probably why you hadn’t just shot the old pervert right between his eyes the second he’d stirred.

You shifted atop this ‘Joel M.’ and frowned once more.

“Why’d you stop?”

Gun still wedged in his mouth, Joel’s voice sounded garbled as he spoke, “Wha-agh-at?”

You retracted the metal just long enough to pose the question again. When you had, he still looked stunned.

“Answer me,” you barked, and feeling your patience lapse, got straight to pistol-whipping the motherfucker upside his half-grey head, “You DUMB, or somethin’?”

The man sputtered again.

“No, no— I don’t— dunno what you mean.”

He sounded dumb. You would need to spell this out.

“Why did you stop rubbing me like that?”

If anything, the clarification only seemed to baffle him further. He opened his taut, bearded mouth, then closed it, then eyed you up and down with a look that said he was considering something. Then he stared at one spot.

You glanced down at it too.

“And what is this, anyway?” you asked, swiping one finger at the mostly dried moisture on your stomach, “Why’d you spit this stuff up all over me, huh?!”

“I ain’t—”

You raised the gun as if to hit him again. He jolted back.

“I didn’t mean— shit. Shit, I just…came on you, ‘s’all.”

“Came?”

The word hung in the air like a grenade, waiting. Mr. M was already bracing himself for the impact, it seemed.

“Came?!”

That bracing served him well, because in the next second you were lifting the weapon even higher and eyeing him with the most pointed, putrid look of disdain. You’d never been one for letting grenades go untouched.

“Ejaculated!” Joel hissed, lifting a hand to shield himself, “Felt— felt so good I just couldn’t stop and I-I-I came.”

You paused.

Came. Felt good. Couldn’t stop.

You had felt good when he’d rubbed you. You had not wanted him to stop. But then he had. And you were mad. You’d never been touched that way in your life, and now you were feeling fifteen hundred emotions at once.

Were you supposed to ‘come,’ too? Why did he stop?

“Why didn’t you let me…ejaculate, too?” The words felt foreign and strange on your tongue.

For the first time, you saw one side of Joel’s lips twitch. Evidently fighting the urge to turn them into a smile.

“Girls don’t really…do that,” he said. Then, after a beat, “Why? Ain’t ever had your pussy rubbed on by a man?”

You shortly landed the blow you’d been holding over his head, splitting the skin along his brow with one hit from the butt of his gun. Joel jumped again, then moaned.

“Crazy bitch!”

“Creepy fuck.”

Your eyes narrowed with loathing, unable to comprehend how a man so vile had just made you feel so good. Your stomach was twisting in knots while Joel rubbed his forehead, pawing helplessly at the gash you’d just left.

“I saved your life,” he grumbled, low, “You owed me.”

“Did I?”

Abruptly, and without really thinking, you were sinking the muzzle of the gun into the spot you’d just cut, mouth kicking up in a smile at the sounds of pain it elicited.

“Did I, Joel?” you cooed.

“How the— the fuck do you know my name?”

Momentarily, you yanked the revolver from his face and tilted it to show him his name carved into the bottom.

“What’s the ‘M’ stand for? ‘Molester’?”

“Means ‘mind’ your fucking business,” he spat.

You probably would’ve hit him again had it not seemed as though he were trying to sit up just then. You slid swiftly from his frame—just to take a step off the bed, gun still pointed at his head. Then you backed away.

One by one, rapidly, you unloaded the bullets from the cylinder, maintaining a safe distance from the man all the while. You watched him blink and try to get some thing from his eyes, but he didn’t seem keen to move.

You left just one live round inside. You made a point to spin the cylinder and, again, aim it straight at his head.

The man was blinking even harder. Rubbing now, too.

“I feel…” Joel murmured.

“Drugged?” you returned, “Yeah, that must suck.”

A set of wide, irate, and horrified eyes met yours. His mouth hung open in a stupid look of shock. Trying to piece the last bits of this fucked up jigsaw puzzle together and growing angrier by the second.

“You fuckin’—”

Joel’s words were cut short by the weight of your body barreling back over his. Graceless, you imagined, but still nothing close to something you cared about now. You planted your knees on either side of his ribs and grazed the tip of the six-shooter down the length of his nose.

“Tell me,” you said, “How’d you make it feel so good?”

Your hips twisted for effect, jostling the man’s own parts beneath yours and clearly causing some effect in him. The muscles in his jaw jumped up as he gritted his teeth.

“You know damn well, slut,” Joel griped.

Without another thought, you squeezed the trigger.

Click.

The man’s whole body lurched underneath you. Trembling with the realization that you’d left just one lone bullet for him—and he didn’t know which chamber.

As far as foreplay went, Russian Roulette was probably a first, even for a man as wanton and depraved as Joel. You smiled sweetly and made another gyration with your lower half, which prompted him to grip you. Tight.

“What? Ya want me to fuck you, is that it?” he growled.

“I thought it wouldn’t fit.”

“I’ll make it fit.”

“How?”

Try as you might to conceal it, your gaze likely betrayed a hint of sincerity as you made that last inquiry. Joel’s eyes flickered between yours, searching for something there, and just when those glossy brown irises had found it, they stopped. Blinked. He shook his head, incredulous.

“My mind ain’t…right,” he said, slowly, “But I— I know you know what I mean by that, sweet pea.”

Something in your tummy fluttered at the sound. You gripped the pistol tighter to get rid of the feeling.

“I don’t,” you answered.

Again, Joel was stumped. For the first time, though, there appeared to be some sympathy behind his eyes. Or stupidity. Or just a shit ton of morphine coursing through his veins as he tried to make sense of this situation.

As if to confirm an idea in his drug-addled brain, he lowered a hand between your legs and hovered there a second. He watched you; you watched back but didn’t move.

Then slowly, almost clinically, Joel slipped two fingers underneath you and found a soft, pulsing warmth—far wetter than the last time he’d touched down there. When he pulled his hand away, both fingers and half of his palm were glistening with a fluid. You let out a startled cry at the sight of it and nearly dropped your gun.

“What is that?!”

Joel looked to you, equally awed—for different reasons.

“What do you mean?”

“Why’s it all…sticky?”

You couldn’t even try to hide your horror at the thought of that weird, syrupy stuff leaking out of you. It was strange enough feeling it come out of a freak like Joel, but from your own body? He had to be fucking joking.

“It’s normal.”

“Like hell it is— you— STOP!” The last fragment of your sentence was swallowed by a scream, leaping back when Joel moved his fingers toward your face.

“What? You’ve never seen this?” He sounded like he was teasing. You could shoot him for how smug he sounded.

In very small amounts, you’d seen stuff. Blood every month. Bits and pieces of bodily secretions that, to you, had always seemed gross. But never this. Never big, sticky globs of…whatever the fuck this was. You continued to back away on the bed, gun still tipped toward Joel but now trying to put some distance between your bodies. You didn’t know how else to act.

You did know you wanted to scream when Joel stuck his fingers in his mouth. Bile might’ve jumped in your throat.

He sucked the dew clean off the digits, then wriggled them to show what he’d done. You felt the urge to vomit.

“That came from— from— why are you eating it?!”

Joel grinned. Big.

You weren’t sure why, but he looked psyched to be alive in that moment, and not just because of the narcotics.

Before you knew what was happening, he’d pushed you flat on your back, hips pinned underneath his hands as he moved over your body. He didn’t even try for the gun.

“And here I was thinkin’ you were just fuckin’ with me,” he chuckled, palms sliding under your nightdress. When you felt the residuum of wetness from his spit and your slick stuck together on his fingers, you wanted to squeal.

But you didn’t. You tried propping yourself up on elbows until Joel was sliding your one and only article of clothing over your head, then beckoning you down on the bed in front of him. You watched his gaze flit down to your side.

“Still hurt?” he murmured, tracing over the bandage.

You shook your head no, though it did, a little. At the moment, it seemed the pain was the furthest thing from your mind as you saw Joel slide down your body and try to take up residence between your thighs—with his face planted right there. You kicked his shoulder in protest.

“Quit!” you cried, pulling your legs up to your chest.

“You quit,” Joel returned, yanking them back.

Then you felt you had no choice but to brandish the gun, taking the thing between two palms while you pointed it again—as if he needed the reminder.

“Fine. Why don’t you keep that thing aimed at my head while I give you some?” he muttered. The subsequent ‘See if I give a shit’ was silent.

“Give me some what?”

“Head.”

Head. You’d never heard something phrased that way. Joel’s head was down there, sure, practically grinning from ear to ear as he hooked your legs over his shoulders, but certainly he didn’t mean to do a thing as drastic and dirty as—

“JOEL!”

“Hm?” His voice was muffled by your thighs.

You tried to shy away, but he held you down.

“Joel, I— I pee out of there,” you hissed, “Why the fuck would you wanna put your mouth on that?”

As if your groans of disgust and vehement attempts to get away weren’t enough to deter him, you watched Joel’s tongue dart between his lips and down to yours. The sick fuck was actually licking your folds, tracing the tip across that warm, sticky place and moaning into your skin. Holding you tighter when you pleaded for him to stop. Then, with the hand that wasn’t prying your legs apart, he reached down and started stroking his cock.

Again, it felt dirty and wrong. Beyond the fact that this man was a perfect stranger and easily decades your senior, you were repulsed by the sight of his lips and his tongue and his spit mixing up in that messy, wet place you still didn’t quite understand yourself. You didn’t know much about your body, but it had never once occurred to you to be kissed down there. Joel was roaming every contour and crevice with his tongue like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he liked it.

“I hate it,” you whined, feebly.

You knew you could’ve easily blown the man’s brains out, but some small part of you was still plagued by curiosity. ‘Hate’ was just the first word that came to mind when you were faced with something that made you scared.

“It’s weird,” you tried again. This time pressing the gun to the top of his bobbing head while you grit your teeth, “And wrong.”

At that, Joel stopped.

His eyes flickered to yours, all glass-like and hooded.

“Why? Practically lickin’ ya clean here,” he said, starting to grin to himself as his words came slightly slurred, “There’s nothin’ wrong about this, sweet pea.”

You felt something flutter between you. He felt it, too.

“Like when I call ya that? ‘Sweet pea’?” he said, pausing to flick his tongue over the spot that had just stirred at his words. He watched you fight back a whimper.

“No,” you choked. You pinched your eyes shut, unsure whether it was pleasure or pure revulsion overtaking you—or both.

Suddenly, you felt Joel’s hand smooth over your thigh, still warm from when he’d been stroking himself below. He placed an affectionate kiss to your belly and grinned.

“Is that what this is? Feel guilty about feelin’ this good?” he murmured, “Think it’s…dirty, what we’re doin’?”

At length, and just barely visible to him, you nodded.

“It is dirty,” you corrected him quietly.

Then you saw that stupid pseudo-sympathetic smirk tug at the corners of his lips, and just when you thought he might nudge his way back up your body—to do what, you weren’t sure—he sank between your legs. This time, he made sure to hold your gaze as he re-assumed the position. His palm continued to rub at your thigh, as if to distract you from the rough brush of his stubble or the fact that his mouth was hovering so dangerously close.

“Sweet pea,” he rasped, “Ain’t nothin’ dirty about this.”

As if to punctuate his words, Joel dragged his lips down your slit to press a kiss to your centre, eyes never leaving yours.

“Not here…”

He pointed with his tongue, moving it deftly between your folds. You gripped the sheets, trying to ignore the pleasure that the simple act wrought through your body.

“Not here.”

He kissed your clit. You squeezed even tighter.

“Not on my tongue, on my fingers, anywhere, y’hear?”

You were about to answer—maybe tell him he was supremely full of shit, then flash the gun in his face—when Joel shifted onto his knees on the bed. He moved slowly and as calm as he ever had, motions languid while his mind was likely steeped in the morphine by now. He snagged one of your ankles. He slid his hand up the back of your calf and tugged you down to the edge of the bed. Then he stood up, right between your legs. The warmth radiating from his bare lower half was immediate, almost suffocating from where you lay. You didn’t like it at all.

You refused to meet his gaze, grip tightening on the gun.

“Joel…”

When that warmth at your front shifted inward, though, you hardly had a say in what your reflexes did or didn’t do. You jumped when you felt the head of his dick slip past your pulsing core, closer to the other hole below it.

“Not here, either,” Joel continued, grin still evident from his tone.

Before you could even think to ask what he meant to do ‘here,’ Joel moved one of your legs up, tilting your hips, and pushed ahead with just the tip of his cock. Not breaching it fully, but nudging—prodding at that hole.

For the first time, you let out a moan.

You hastily clamped a hand over your mouth to stifle it.

“Aw, honey,” Joel murmured, “Did that feel good?”

His words reeked of condescension. You scowled at the ceiling.

“No.”

You felt him push a little further—this time making the head of his dick notch into that tight ring of muscles.

No, the word rang through your skull once more. Your curiosity was shortly supplanted by disgust—how the fuck could you let this creepy old man, this stranger, press into you like that? Talk to you like you were dumb? You seized hold of Joel’s pistol with both hands and aimed directly for his chest.

“Stop doing that,” you growled. When the man’s grip on your leg only tightened and you couldn’t writhe away, you lifted the other and tried kicking him in the gut. Of course, Joel caught your foot midair, and it never landed.

“Just givin’ ya options, darlin’,” he said, easy-going. Not seeming to care about the firearm pointed his way.

Fuck it.

You squeezed the trigger again.

Empty chamber.

If Joel flinched, you didn’t see it. He did, however, knock the gun right out of your hand the next second, sending it tumbling with an unceremonious thump on the bed behind you. You tried to leap back for it, but your arm was quickly pinned. Joel cocked one silver-flecked brow.

“You done?” he asked, almost bored.

Your last—and only—leverage taken away from you, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of anger. And desperation.

“I don’t wanna do this,” you cried, trying to squirm away.

Joel didn’t move his cock, but he did hold you still. Blinking with indifference and a fair bit of drug-induced dissociation, it seemed, from the far-away look in his eyes. He pushed both of your legs so they were folded up to your chest, and ignored your whimpers when he did. At length, he pulled out just enough to smear some of your wetness down to the hole he was trying to fuck.

“You want this,” he countered gently.

“I DON’T!”

Joel continued as though he hadn’t heard you, and moments later, you sensed another slick something pooling against you. From your position beneath him, you could see a bead of spit slip from Joel’s mouth and stretch into a thin, glistening string all the way down to the space between your thighs. You watched him rub the saliva in with his fingers, almost meticulous as he did it.

Then he eased his hips forward an inch, wedging himself back in your ass. He groaned when he felt resistance—and a sharp clench of your muscles.

“I can teach ya…show ya everything…there is to know.”

His words somehow made it out through ragged breaths. That broad, tan chest was heaving with every labored pull of his lungs, and you could tell he was feeling good.

You might’ve been able to say the same for yourself, were your mind not singly occupied by the desire to escape. Still at war with yourself, wondering how it would feel or what you might see that first time, all the while despising the man who seemed hell-bent on forcing it.

He might’ve saved your life, but there was no fucking way he’d get to use you like that and stay breathing.

You were raised better than that.

You could do better than anything this man had to offer.

You resolved to kill him as soon as the drugs knocked him out—just like you’d had planned from the second you woke up on the floor of his cabin that afternoon.

Of course being chained, maimed, and frozen half to death on the plains for some well-meaning stranger to find you had always been part of your mother’s—and the rest of the Raiders’—grand plan. Having this stupid, horny sap take you into his home with the hope of claiming you as his own was just the icing on top.

Now you had a reason to kill Joel and steal all his shit.

At present, he fed another inch of himself inside you and grinned when you let out a startled cry.

“Atta girl,” he said, smirking, “Feelin’ okay?”

“Fuck you.”

“Will do.”

Then, as if to prove a point, he bottomed out, sheathing his cock to the hilt in spite of your cries. Your hands fisted the sheets, and you tried to pull off. It didn’t work.

In fact, all it accomplished was giving Joel more room to thrust back into you. And pull out. And shove back in. The snap of his hips was like cruel and excruciating clockwork, completely unhindered by your words or your gestures or your pleas to stop fucking doing that Joel, it fucking hurts! If anything, the sounds of your censure only got him harder, and with it, made it that much easier to fuck you rougher. His eyes shone with pride.

“What’s’at, sweet pea?” he hummed, strokes coming into a steady pace.

“It’s too…big…doesn’t fit,” you whimpered.

In response, Joel glanced down to see the spot where your bodies were joined. He pushed even deeper.

“Yeah?” he said when you yelped, “I think it fits just fine.”

Motherfucker, you wanted to wail, but then your neck craned sideways—your mouth trying to find purchase in anything you might grit between your teeth—and the only thing that escaped your throat was a sob. You tried burying your face in the comforter, only for Joel to yank it back.

Cupping your chin and pinching both your cheeks in a single, punishing squeeze as he continued to fuck you, “What’s the matter, darlin’? Too much?”

You groaned and clenched your jaw, head jerking away.

Per usual, Joel was undeterred. Even smiled.

“My pretty girl need somethin’a bite, huh?” he hummed.

He probably knew you wouldn’t nod, so he went ahead and decided to oblige that one need he saw anyway. Snagging your nightie, Joel raised a hand to your face and proceeded to push the fabric inside your mouth.

Just as he started to lift his hips to deliver another thrust, he had to stop. A sudden, sharp ‘FUCK!’ left his mouth, then a groan, and his hand retreated fast.

You’d bitten him.

You were grinning just a little, and you’d bitten him.

Joel promptly slapped you across the face. If you weren’t so fucking amused by the sight of his bright red fingers, you just might’ve winced. Instead, the smile stayed on your lips, the slap barely registered, and, to your utmost disbelief, something else had just then started to form.

Pleasure, in the pit of your stomach.

“Fuckin’—” Joel snarled.

“Shit,” you finished, eyes rolling back.

You couldn’t help it. Joel was rutting into you relentlessly. That brief hand bite detour had only stoked the flames of his hatred—and arousal—and now he was practically splitting you in half with the force of his thrusts. He slapped you once more for good measure.

“Oh, that you fuckin’ like?” he seethed, cheeks flushed, “Can’t get off with my…tongue on your cunt, but a slap— and my cock buried deep in your ass gets the job done?”

“Uh-huh,” you answered softly. Mindlessly.

Really, there were no two people more fucked up than you in this moment, you thought. Joel growing harder with each desperate objection of yours, you going all soft and hot and bothered the second he slapped your face and fucked you rougher, and together, the two of you letting out grunts and moans of pleasure while the bed shook like an earthquake just shy of a 9.5 on the Richter scale. Were you not already planning to slit the man’s throat after all of this was over, you just might’ve wanted to marry this Joel M for how wonderfully he fucked you.

You let him know as much when you seized his forearms.

Bouncing into his thrusts, you bit your lip and finally met his gaze. Joel’s eyes were trained in somewhat of a daze, pupils all but swallowing his irises as he fucked you.

“Like being daddy’s little cocksleeve, huh?”

Only the sentence was slurred so bad you could scarcely make out half the words. You nodded just the same.

“Like it when he fucks you in the ass?” Joel panted.

You nodded again.

That pleasure in your belly had worked its way up to a full swell—and whatever it was, you couldn’t bear the thought of losing it now. You gripped Joel’s arms even harder as his chest swayed into you, then sank further and further until your fronts were pressed flush to each other and your ankles were hooked tight around his back.

It almost felt intimate. That coarse, weathered, sweat-coated face spattered with patches of grey seemed to you nearly handsome as his lips hung limply in an ‘o.’

Joel’s cock dragged back and forth between your walls at this new, snug angle, and moans fell out of you both.

“Baby.” His voice was hoarse. Strained.

You couldn’t quite make sense of the expression above you, but there was an unmistakable, muted desperation lurking somewhere beneath it. Joel rutted into you quicker, balls leaving rapid smacks against your ass with every thrust. His hair was disheveled, and his hands were making fists in the sheets on either side of your head.

“Joel—”

“Jus’ lemme use you.”

Words so low they were barely audible as he panted.

“But—”

“Daddy’s…almost done, sweet pea. Just take it.”

You were surprised he’d had it within himself to be so soft. A peculiar sort of haze hung over his face, the pace of his hips picked up even more, and suddenly those plush pink lips were hovering a mere hair’s breadth away from yours. Mumbling. Rambling on and on about how wet you were, how perfect you fit him, how nice and sweet and tight your body felt as he fucked you stupid.

That sensation in your own stomach grew even stronger.

Unsure of what to do, you pressed a palm to his chest.

“Joel, I…I feel funny,” you whispered.

Joel hummed. Didn’t slow.

“I know.”

He knew?

“What’s it—ah, fuck.” Your words broke off in a whimper.

Instead of proffering a verbal response, Joel just slipped a touch between your bodies—thumbing sloppily between your folds to earn a couple more high-pitched moans. Your legs tightened around his middle.

“Joel, s-stop!”

It felt so good it almost hurt. He didn’t stop.

“S’just an orgasm, baby,” Joel panted, “You’re okay.”

And, in spite of his own impending climax and the effect of the drugs likely reaching a fever pitch inside him, Joel managed to slide his other hand beneath the back of your head. Cradled you to him while he fucked you into the bed and made you come unraveled with his touch. You tried to writhe away, but he was used to the drill by now—he just fucked you harder and rubbed you faster.

Whatever he wanted would come soon. You doubted there was anything you could do to stop it, but you tried.

Without thinking, you grabbed hold of the damp locks of hair at the nape of his neck and yanked on them hard.

“Joel, I can’t— I can’t,” you keened.

The hand at the back of your head held you firm.

“You can,” Joel returned, tough but surprisingly calm, “Give it to daddy, ‘s’all ya gotta do.”

What exactly ‘it’ was was still unclear. You just knew you felt good and warm and full—about ready to burst. When you felt tempted to give his hair another tug, Joel’s eyes met yours, and they were soft. Insistent, still, but soft.

Dilated as all hell and probably swimming in clouds of a delirious, bleary haze, but always soft. Almost tender.

“Be a good girl and give it to daddy,” Joel slurred, slow, “C’mon, sweet pea…cum for daddy, please.”

For the first time in that short, rough, utterly deranged time you had known this man, he was begging you. Pleading with you, now, as his body grew overwrought with pleasure and just needed release. You needed it, too, not even knowing how you would get it, but the force of his thrusts, the warmth of his body, the look in those warm, bare, powerless eyes—you fucking loved whatever it was that could make a man like that so weak.

You had to strike while the iron was hot. You slid back.

Joel didn’t notice, too focused on your face and the feel of your body to see when you’d reached for the gun.

Just as you took hold of it, a jolt of pleasure tore through you. Your heels dug into his back, and you nearly lost control of the pistol. Joel groaned in your mouth, begged you once again to cum all over this cock, make a fuckin’ mess of it, baby, please, and you could only whine, grip the metal tighter, and raise it slowly to the side of his head while he buried his face in the crook of your neck.

The peak of your pleasure had come into view. You felt it.

You nudged the muzzle through those soft, slick, salt-and-pepper shaded tufts of hair near the edge of his temple right when the first throes of euphoria seized you.

“FUCK!”

You squeezed the trigger.

[14dayswithyou]

💖 EVEN MORE DAY 4 SNEAK PEEKS! 💖

[shevr]

good news : i might try to draw some more again this month bad news? : its mostly from trying to 10+ years later join the Equestria Daily NATG so its really just gonna be horses. might not share it all

also as mentioned this is drawn after the very very good picture from this post

[fishsinsareacknowledged]

Its been done, he's resigned. Theres nothing else for him to do. No more missions. No more.

His eyes are sunken and his bones are heavy. He knows he'll be taken care of and thats the greatest privilege he could ever get. Never guaranteed, but with you. He knows.

For his life, his sins, would they matter more when he is in your arms? Warm and alive, no longer a cold corpse.

Revived by your care. Once a lifeless body turned into the man you love, its the only thing he could ever want. To live without want and dreams. Its the best ending.

Lost to the sea of his consciousness, theres no more use for him. His job is done and he'll be back into your arms, he'll be where he belongs. He has never been happier, even as the tears stain his mask and your clothes. He's in the only place he'd want to be. 

He's back home. Back home with you. There's no better place to be one with himself.

Back with himself.

"I'm home moya lyubov'", his voice cracks when he weeps with joy because he's alive. He's alive and he's with you. His knees fall from weakness but he doesn't care to reprimand himself. He doesn't care anymore. He's back in your arms forever. Its the only thing he wants. A life with you.

"Welcome back Nikto."

He's back. He's back.

[gale-force-storm]

Devoured

Rating: E

Pairing: Gale x female!Reader

Additional Tags: Overstimulation, cunnilingus, praise kink, cock warming, aftercare, second person POV

Word Count: 1.8k

Read it on AO3

You thought it would be a great anniversary gift, letting Gale tie you up and do whatever he pleased with you. What you didn't expect (foolishly, in hindsight) was for "whatever he pleased" to mean spending literal hours using that practiced tongue of his to take you apart.

Inspired by this post from the always delightful @naughtybg3confessions

“You're sure you're alright with this?”

“Yes, Gale,” you insist with a small laugh. “I am the one who suggested this, remember?”

“I know, I know. I just want to make sure.” He finishes tying the soft length of fabric around your wrists, securing them to the headboard above you. “How is that? Comfortable? Not too tight?”

You pull at the restraints, testing them. “Feels good,” you confirm. “Secure, but not too tight.”

“Good.” He smiles and leans down, kissing you gently.

“Well, your anniversary present is all tied up in a bow for you,” you say with a devious grin when he pulls away. “I’m all yours, sweetheart. Do your worst.”

“Be careful what you wish for, my love. I just might grant it,” he teases. He kisses you again, but his mouth quickly strays away from yours, moving over your jaw, down your neck, to your chest. He teases at your nipples, mouth on one, fingers on the other, lingering briefly before continuing his path down.

“Gale,” you sigh, half pleased and half exasperated, “this is supposed to be about your pleasure.”

“Trust me my love,” he replies, smirking against your skin, “it will be.”

You huff out another breath, letting your head drop back. You’ll indulge him for now. Besides, you think at the first warm press of his mouth to your center, you would never truly complain about getting to have his mouth on you.

He pauses briefly to grab a spare pillow and position it under your hips, raising them higher for easier access. He pulls your legs up, resting your thighs over his shoulders, and kisses one of them before turning his attention back to your cunt, where your arousal is already obvious.

“Always so wet for me,” he sighs appreciatively. “So eager.”

“Always for you, my love.”

He beams up at you, all love and wonder and pride. “Truly, I could ask for no greater gift than you.”

He leans in, licking from your entrance up to your clit, humming his pleasure. He licks a few more times like this, broad strokes of his tongue, savoring you, and you settle back into the warm, familiar pleasure. You moan in encouragement as he slips his tongue into you, his nose pressing against your clit. Yes, you can certainly let him do this for a while. Since he’s insisting.

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

You fear you’ve miscalculated. You really should have known better than to underestimate Gale. There are tears running down your face. Your throat is raw from screaming and moaning. You would try to squirm away from the inescapable, overwhelming pleasure of his tongue, his lips, his fingers, but you’re too tired at this point from doing so for the last... how long has it been? Two hours? Three? More? You’ve lost track, just like you’ve lost track of how many times you’ve come against his relentless mouth. He gives another calculated thrust of his fingers, another hard suck to your clit, and you cry out, overstimulation bringing the pleasure near the edge of pain.

“Please, Gale, please, I can’t,” you pant. He looks up, but doesn’t pull his mouth more than an inch away from you.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Gods, but his warm breath against your soaked flesh makes you shiver. You can only bring yourself to whine.

“I need your words, love. Do you want me to stop?” he asks firmly.

You work to catch your breath and try to remember how to form words.

“No,” you finally manage to whimper. “Don’t stop.” You see the corners of Gale’s eyes crinkle with his smile.

“Good girl,” he murmurs before diving back in. You sob, overwhelmed, as he continues his sweet torture, lapping at your cunt like a man starved as though he hasn’t been devouring you for hours. Your hips twitch weakly as you feel the pressure impossibly begin to mount once more, building under his skilled attention. You flutter around him and he moans, the vibrations pulling another sob from your throat.

“That’s it, lovely,” he murmurs as he works you. “One more. You can give me one more can’t you?”

You shake your head, but the rest of your body tells a different story, your legs twitching beyond your control where they rest over his shoulders, hips bucking without rhythm.

“I think you can,” he continues. “I think you can have another for me. Let me taste the sweetness of your pleasure once more.”

You moan, high and strained, as your body moves ever closer to that precipice. You feel delirious, on the edge of madness as much as the edge of pleasure. Gale is ruthlessly efficient as he pushes you on, sucking and licking your clit eagerly as his fingers rub precisely at the spot inside you that makes your head spin. The choked sound you make as you finish once again is somewhere between a whimper and a sob. Gale groans deeply as you clench weakly around his fingers, muscles too tired for more than a weak, fluttering orgasm. He laps at you softly, working you through it with loving tenderness. Finally, he pulls away. You whine helplessly at the feeling of his fingers sliding out of you. He sucks them clean, then presses a few kisses to your shaking thighs before moving up your body to hover over you. His face is soaked from nose to chin, lips and beard glistening with your slick. He kisses you hotly, and the usual taste of him is completely drowned out by the taste of your own arousal. He runs a warm hand up your arm and rubs gently at your wrists.

“How are your hands?” he asks gently. “Still alright? Can you move them for me?”

It takes a long moment for your addled brain to process his question, but with some effort you manage to wiggle your fingers.

“F-fine,” you stutter weakly. “They’re fine.”

He pulls the fabric up slightly, inspecting the skin. You don’t know what he sees, but he seems to be satisfied with it because he nods once, then turns his attention back to your face. He kisses your cheeks with a gentleness that nearly makes you cry again, and wipes the remaining wetness from them with his thumbs.

“You’re so lovely,” he murmurs. “So beautiful. You’re doing so well. So good for me. My good girl. My sweet, wonderful girl. Taking everything I give you so perfectly. Letting me drink my fill of you. Making such pretty sounds for me while I taste you to my heart’s content. Falling apart so beautifully for me, over and over. Do you think you can take a bit more for me, my good girl? You can say no,” he says, seeing the hesitation in your eyes. “I would love to be inside you, but we can stop if it’s too much.”

You swallow hard, considering for a few seconds. Slowly, you nod.

“I can take it,” you rasp. “I can take you.”

The heat in his eyes causes your already shaky breath to catch.

“So good for me,” he whispers. “I don’t know what I could ever do to deserve you. I love you so much.”

He shifts, his hardened cock — gods you imagine it must be aching at this point — sliding through your soaking folds and catching at your entrance. You try to breathe steadily as he pushes forward, sliding into you without resistance. He moans as he buries himself in you to the hilt, nosing into the crook of your neck and breathing you in.

“You feel divine,” he praises against your skin. “Better than divine. You are perfection itself. I could stay like this for hours.”

He sighs contentedly, and doesn’t move. Your mind, sluggish as it is now, kicks up a gear. It has to be a turn of phrase. He can’t actually mean...

You feel him shift slightly. He props himself up with one arm, while the other slides between you. He presses his thumb against your lips and you let it in on instinct, sucking lightly on the tip of it. He grins.

“Such a good girl.”

He pulls his thumb out and brings the hand down, down, down your body. It slides briefly against your entrance where he’s stretching you open, and he groans. Then it slides up and starts rubbing softly, maddeningly over your clit.

“Gale?” You can’t manage more than a whisper.

“Shhh... Just a few more, my love,” he soothes. “I want to feel you come around me at least thrice before I’m done with you.”

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

You open your eyes, blinking a few times as you try to get your bearings. Gods, you must have actually blacked out for a moment. Gale is still above you, panting heavily, his face pressed against your shoulder. You whimper as you feel him twitch inside you, the feeling well and truly overwhelming at this point. He groans and pulls out of you as gently as he can. He presses a kiss to the mark he’d apparently sucked into your shoulder and turns to look at you, one hand coming up to brush a sweaty lock of hair from your forehead.

“Alright my love?”

You nod weakly.

“Are you sure?”

You nod again. “Y-yes. Good.”

“Good,” he breathes. “You are spectacular. Wonderful beyond words.”

He moves to untie your wrists. Once he does he rubs them gently, then down your arms, massaging the sore muscles.

“Do you need some water?”

You nod, more emphatically this time. He helps you sit up and takes a glass from the nightstand. He holds it to your lips, helping you to drink. Once you’ve had your fill, he reaches over for a soft cloth that was next to the glass. He moves to clean you, but you flinch when the cloth touches your thigh.

“Too much,” you manage.

“Ah. Of course. Apologies, my love” He puts the cloth away, instead muttering a quick prestidigitation, cleaning both you and the sheets with a wave of his hand. He looks as though he means to say something else, but you yawn, and he simply smiles fondly.

“Need some rest?”

“Gods, yes.”

He chuckles and helps you lay down, pulling you into a warm embrace. He rubs your back soothingly and nuzzles into your hair.

“Such a good girl,” he murmurs. “My good, sweet girl. I love you so dearly.”

“Love you too,” you mumble, already halfway back to unconsciousness. You feel him smile against you and place a kiss to the top of your head.

“And I’m so grateful that you do. Now, get some sleep, my love.”

You sigh in agreement, and it takes no time at all for his steady breathing and comforting warmth to lull you into what just might be the deepest sleep you’ve ever had.

[pixels-art-stuff]

It is FINISHED :D

You can find the process here. :D

[mozzygan]

blue hour ladrien 🩵💙

[rocketonthemoon]

I'm kinda new to the fandom and you seem to rec fics that I don't see around a lot. Any older SC fics I should look up?

Well I dunno how much I can vouch for my taste but SC fics I really like that are more than a few years old:

Where Lamps Go to Die by WastedOn - Kara pretends to be in a relationship with Supergirl and Lena gets jealous (probably my absolute favorite SC fic. One of the first I read and genuinely a lot of fun)

lena dies on a wednesday by @karalovesallthegirls - Lena is trapped in a loop, reliving the day she dies over and over again. She just doesn’t know it. (I think this was one of the first SC fics I ever read? absolutely fantastic)

in the shadow of that green light also by @karalovesallthegirls - Kara wakes from an accident with no memory and a mysterious caretaker who creates more questions than she answers. (I'm not normally one for horror but this is SO good and makes me want to rattle the bars of my enclosure it's so good)

1,370,911 by @pippytmi - Soulmate AND Singer/Songwriter AU (I reread this on the regular you don't understand the grip it has on me)

We Deserve Only Good Things by @thornedrose44 - Kara and Lena are working through how to be friends again and an alien has them meet the younger versions of each other (yeah this one wrecks me in the best ways honestly)

quiet when i'm coming home (i'm on my way) by @valkyrieskwad - Kara's a retired smoke jumper and has to figure out life afterwards (Kara learns how to fucking heal and I'm in love with this honestly)

and of course I gotta plug @i-am-robie's you're gunna find yourself someway, somehow - Morning Glory AU aka one of my favorite Kara fics ever

And then of course I gotta plug my own work.

These are only a small handful of course. This fandom is so talented there's so many good one's to choose! So like just go through my bookmarks and have a good time. Don't forget to leave comments!!!

[tagarilaghost]

I SWEAR CELEBI'S THINGY IS COMING SOON BUT I REALLY WANTED TO POST THIS ALRIGHT

yeaah... future trio got me too...

and Darkrai is there too, because of course he is.

hey look i drew a cute Drifloon :D

...ignore the rest

whatever started at Darkrai doodles ended in brainrot of future trio + darkrai and I'm blaming @scribz-ag24 for this

[thelonelyshore-if]

Croft Drabble

Or, Croft wakes up next to MC for the first time.

Yellow-tinged dawn light leaks in through the gaps in the blinds. 

The bedroom is warm, much warmer than they’d like, and something sharp is digging into their eyebrow. Croft sleepily reaches up, slowly drawing awake as they fumble for their piercing there, worried it’s gotten caught on something.

Instead they find a paw reaching out and poking them.

“Bones, lemme be,” they mumble, still mostly asleep. They turn their back on their cat, ready to burrow deeper under the covers. Maybe if she can’t reach them she’ll leave them alone.

They manage to roll over without issue. The problem comes when they bump into something warm and solid and altogether surprising. Their heart leaps into their throat as they feel your weight shift against their torso. 

Right. You stayed over last night.

The proximity between your two bodies is small enough that Croft can feel the warmth of your skin. They lay pinned between your sleeping form and their hungry cat. Shit, shit, shit.

Croft needs to figure out what the hell their next step is.

It's still early enough that the room is bathed in darkness. The morning glow from the window outlines you in dull light. They watch the slow rise and fall of your chest, mind spinning and mouth dry. You appear to be soundly asleep.

Which is good, because Croft is freaking out. 

They need to think about this, but they’re struggling to make sense of anything when you’re so close to them that any shift of their body shrinks the space between you. Bones mews in their ear and they want to push her away, but they don’t dare risk waking you. They’re completely paralyzed.

Where are they supposed to put their arms? Can they wrap them around you? Are they allowed? You stayed over, and their body buzzes with the memory of the night before, but this feels so intimate. So close. It’s been years since they’ve woken up beside somebody, and they’ve forgotten all the rules.

Bones hmmphs, halfheartedly pawing at their face one last time before hopping off the bed. Thank god. They need a minute to think, and her begging for breakfast isn’t making this any easier.

Their eyes trace the backlit lines of your body with an interest that isn’t nearly as detached as they’d like. An anxious, fluttering sort of feeling blossoms in their chest. 

Butterflies in the stomach is an apt description, but so cliché. A torso full of insects is a concept made for horror, and yet it's a descriptor so often used in romance. They’re briefly distracted when they wonder at the origin of the idiom. A familiar annoyance unfurls when they remember they can't just look it up. 

Focus. They need to think. You'll wake up eventually, and they need to figure out how to be normal when you do. 

Croft’s breath hitches when you roll over. Panic sets their thoughts unraveling when, for a moment, they’re worried you’ve woken. They’re not ready, they don’t know what to say. They scoot backward in the bed, trying to put more space between you for no reason other than their own uncertainty. Thankfully, you remain asleep.

Your eyes are closed, expression lax. Peaceful. Your lips hang open, the soft curve of them a siren's song. Croft remembers how those lips felt against theirs, hot and eager, and–

Wait. Frustration flares and they’re sidetracked again. Another cliché. A siren's song. Basic and unimaginative. Can they really come up with no better way to frame their own desire? Especially when it consumes them so thoroughly that just the thought of last night sets their cheeks on fire. There must be something better. They lose themself for a moment in trying to find the right words.

Croft closes their eyes, silently chiding themself. Their thoughts aren't a narrative, a garden of words needing to be pruned down to the roots with shears until they resemble something half passable. 

It's just…they're so nervous. Easier to berate themself for thinking in clichés then focus on the pit of dread in their gut. 

No, not dread, this isn't one of their novels and they don't dread this. It's the wrong word, it's more like terror and fuck that isn't right, either, and they're doing it again. Spiraling into the word choice for the book they're writing in their head rather than dealing with the storm of emotions pinning them to the bed like a butterfly being pinned under glass and– 

You move closer, shifting your body until you’re nuzzling into them. 

Croft stops. Stops thinking, stops breathing, stops being. 

They don’t dare move. You’re so close. They still don’t know where to put their arms, but apparently you want to be close to them. They hesitantly wrap one arm around you and you make a noise, a pleased little sigh that makes them want to cry. The way you press against them shuts off their brain.

You stir.

“What time ‘s it?” you mumble. 

“No idea,” they answer, voice breathy. Uncertain. They can hardly believe you’re here.

“‘Kay.”

You smile against their chest. Your breath is hot. It tickles, and Croft’s breath hitches when you press a kiss to their sternum. 

Croft feels like they're going to throw up. Or cry. Or maybe both. 

You just feel so fucking good. You slot together perfectly, like you were made to lay interlocked in each other's arms. They lay frozen, but steadily they find themself relaxing again. You’ve drifted back to sleep. Minutes drag past and the tension in their muscles bleeds away. 

Focusing is impossible when you’re pressed so tight against them. It’s like their thoughts want to race, like they always do. The panic wants to reappear, to send them in a flurry of anxiety and uncertainty. But instead all they can think about you.

And it’s beautiful. Wonderful. Croft shifts until their face is pressed in the curve of your neck. They breathe in the scent of you. Marvel in the feeling of you. Slowly, slowly, sleep starts to overcome them.

They don’t fight it. Why would they? You’re here, and this is exactly where they want to be.