#i changed the image because it had some filters on it

[slaaneshisass]

Idk if this is canon but I think fulgrim after his ascension to deamon prince has an iridescent to him like the rainbow boa

[gibbearish]

hey @humans saw yall responded to a post making fun of you for updating the pixel alignment of a dash icon rather than fixing anything important saying "changes like this feel small but can make a big difference for some people" which is a bullshit cop out if ive ever heard one so im here to tell you directly in a way you cant wiggle out: you know what would actually make a big difference for a LOT of people? not being transphobic assholes

[ms-demeanor]

Why reblog machine-generated art?

When I was ten years old I took a photography class where we developed black and white photos by projecting light on papers bathed in chemicals. If we wanted to change something in the image, we had to go through a gradual, arduous process called dodging and burning.

When I was fifteen years old I used photoshop for the first time, and I remember clicking on the clone tool or the blur tool and feeling like I was cheating.

When I was twenty eight I got my first smartphone. The phone could edit photos. A few taps with my thumb were enough to apply filters and change contrast and even spot correct. I was holding in my hand something more powerful than the huge light machines I'd first used to edit images.

When I was thirty six, just a few weeks ago, I took a photo class that used Lightroom Classic and again, it felt like cheating. It made me really understand how much the color profiles of popular web images I'd been seeing for years had been pumped and tweaked and layered with local edits to make something that, to my eyes, didn't much resemble photography. To me, photography is light on paper. It's what you capture in the lens. It's not automatic skin smoothing and a local filter to boost the sky. This reminded me a lot more of the photomanipulations my friend used to make on deviantart; layered things with unnatural colors that put wings on buildings or turned an eye into a swimming pool. It didn't remake the images to that extent, obviously, but it tipped into the uncanny valley. More real than real, more saturated more sharp and more present than the actual world my lens saw. And that was before I found the AI assisted filters and the tool that would identify the whole sky for you, picking pieces of it out from between leaves.

You know, it's funny, when people talk about artists who might lose their jobs to AI they don't talk about the people who have already had to move on from their photo editing work because of technology. You used to be able to get paid for basic photo manipulation, you know? If you were quick with a lasso or skilled with masks you could get a pretty decent chunk of change by pulling subjects out of backgrounds for family holiday cards or isolating the pies on the menu for a mom and pop. Not a lot, but enough to help. But, of course, you can just do that on your phone now. There's no need to pay a human for it, even if they might do a better job or be more considerate toward the aesthetic of an image.

And they certainly don't talk about all the development labs that went away, or the way that you could have trained to be a studio photographer if you wanted to take good photos of your family to hang on the walls and that digital photography allowed in a parade of amateurs who can make dozens of iterations of the same bad photo until they hit on a good one by sheer volume and luck; if you want to be a good photographer everyone can do that why didn't you train for it and spend a long time taking photos on film and being okay with bad photography don't you know that digital photography drove thousands of people out of their jobs.

My dad told me that he plays with AI the other day. He hosts a movie podcast and he puts up thumbnails for the downloads. In the past, he'd just take a screengrab from the film. Now he tells the Bing AI to make him little vignettes. A cowboy running away from a rhino, a dragon arm-wrestling a teddy bear. That kind of thing. Usually based on a joke that was made on the show, or about the subject of the film and an interest of the guest.

People talk about "well AI art doesn't allow people to create things, people were already able to create things, if they wanted to create things they should learn to create things." Not everyone wants to make good art that's creative. Even fewer people want to put the effort into making bad art for something that they aren't passionate about. Some people want filler to go on the cover of their youtube video. My dad isn't going to learn to draw, and as the person who he used to ask to photoshop him as Ant-Man because he certainly couldn't pay anyone for that kind of thing, I think this is a great use case for AI art. This senior citizen isn't going to start cartooning and at two recordings a week with a one-day editing turnaround he doesn't even really have the time for something like a Fiverr commission. This is a great use of AI art, actually.

I also know an artist who is going Hog Fucking Wild creating AI art of their blorbos. They're genuinely an incredibly talented artist who happens to want to see their niche interest represented visually without having to draw it all themself. They're posting the funny and good results to a small circle of mutuals on socials with clear information about the source of the images; they aren't trying to sell any of the images, they're basically using them as inserts for custom memes. Who is harmed by this person saying "i would like to see my blorbo lasciviously eating an ice cream cone in the is this a pigeon meme"?

The way I use machine-generated art, as an artist, is to proof things. Can I get an explosion to look like this. What would a wall of dead computer monitors look like. Would a ballerina leaping over the grand canyon look cool? Sometimes I use AI art to generate copyright free objects that I can snip for a collage. A lot of the time I use it to generate ideas. I start naming random things and seeing what it shows me and I start getting inspired. I can ask CrAIon for pose reference, I can ask it to show me the interior of spaces from a specific angle.

I profoundly dislike the antipathy that tumblr has for AI art. I understand if people don't want their art used in training pools. I understand if people don't want AI trained on their art to mimic their style. You should absolutely use those tools that poison datasets if you don't want your art included in AI training. I think that's an incredibly appropriate action to take as an artist who doesn't want AI learning from your work.

However I'm pretty fucking aggressively opposed to copyright and most of the "solid" arguments against AI art come down to "the AIs viewed and learned from people's copyrighted artwork and therefore AI is theft rather than fair use" and that's a losing argument for me. In. Like. A lot of ways. Primarily because it is saying that not only is copying someone's art theft, it is saying that looking at and learning from someone's art can be defined as theft rather than fair use.

Also because it's just patently untrue.

But that doesn't really answer your question. Why reblog machine-generated art? Because I liked that piece of art.

It was made by a machine that had looked at billions of images - some copyrighted, some not, some new, some old, some interesting, many boring - and guided by a human and I liked it. It was pretty. It communicated something to me. I looked at an image a machine made - an artificial picture, a total construct, something with no intrinsic meaning - and I felt a sense of quiet and loss and nostalgia. I looked at a collection of automatically arranged pixels and tasted salt and smelled the humidity in the air.

I liked it.

I don't think that all AI art is ugly. I don't think that AI art is all soulless (i actually think that 'having soul' is a bizarre descriptor for art and that lacking soul is an equally bizarre criticism). I don't think that AI art is bad for artists. I think the problem that people have with AI art is capitalism and I don't think that's a problem that can really be laid at the feet of people curating an aesthetic AI art blog on tumblr.

Machine learning isn't the fucking problem the problem is massive corporations have been trying hard not to pay artists for as long as massive corporations have existed (isn't that a b-plot in the shape of water? the neighbor who draws ads gets pushed out of his job by product photography? did you know that as recently as ten years ago NewEgg had in-house photographers who would take pictures of the products so users wouldn't have to rely on the manufacturer photos? I want you to guess what killed that job and I'll give you a hint: it wasn't AI)

Am I putting a human out of a job because I reblogged an AI-generated "photo" of curtains waving in the pale green waters of an imaginary beach? Who would have taken this photo of a place that doesn't exist? Who would have painted this hypersurrealistic image? What meaning would it have had if they had painted it or would it have just been for the aesthetic? Would someone have paid for it or would it be like so many of the things that artists on this site have spent dozens of hours on only to get no attention or value for their work?

My worst ratio of hours to notes is an 8-page hand-drawn detailed ink comic about getting assaulted at a concert and the complicated feelings that evoked that took me weeks of daily drawing after work with something like 54 notes after 8 years; should I be offended if something generated from a prompt has more notes than me? What does that actually get the blogger? Clout? I believe someone said that popularity on tumblr gets you one thing and that is yelled at.

What do you get out of this? Are you helping artists right now? You're helping me, and I'm an artist. I've wanted to unload this opinion for a while because I'm sick of the argument that all Real Artists think AI is bullshit. I'm a Real Artist. I've been paid for Real Art. I've been commissioned as an artist.

And I find a hell of a lot of AI art a lot more interesting than I find human-generated corporate art or Thomas Kincaid (but then, I repeat myself).

There are plenty of people who don't like AI art and don't want to interact with it. I am not one of those people. I thought the gay sex cats were funny and looked good and that shitposting is the ideal use of a machine image generation: to make uncopyrightable images to laugh at.

I think that tumblr has decided to take a principled stand against something that most people making the argument don't understand. I think tumblr's loathing for AI has, generally speaking, thrown weight behind a bunch of ideas that I think are going to be incredibly harmful *to artists specifically* in the long run.

Anyway. If you hate AI art and you don't want to interact with people who interact with it, block me.

[prentissluvr]

take my breath away — sam winchester

pairing : sam winchester x gn!reader ➖⟢ genre : angst, hurt/comfort, fluff ➖⟢ cw : features dean x reader (platonic), near death experience, suffocation, other canon violence and death, injuries, blood mention, swearing, so much pining, case fic, stereotypical witch, (not) unrequited love, petty fights/arguments, petty sam, kissing, crying, guilt, reader vaguely implied to be shorter than sam, pet names, food mentions, (baby, honey - from sam, darlin'/kiddo from dean), no use of y/n, mentions of end of season 2-4 spoilers, poorly edited, lmk if i missed something! ➖⟢ wc : 13.7K summary : because of an unexpected witch's curse, it's almost too late for you and sam to confess your feelings to each other.

MOVED BLOGS TO @sammyluvr !! no longer active on this blog! all fics can be found there!

you see sam when it rains. even if he’s sitting right in front of you, you’ll look out the car window and at the rivulets of water rushing down the glass, distorting the image of an empty highway and summer-time trees at dusk, and you’ll see him at seventeen with rain in his hair and running down his cheeks. you’ll think of that smile he gave you as he took your hand and how that look he had in his eyes haunts you worse than any ghost you’ve seen, because you think it could’ve been love. sometimes, you’ll still see glimpses of that sam, but he can be rare. so, you go as far to wonder if maybe he still looks at you like that when your gaze is turned away. 

once, when the windows were down and he was sitting in the back with you for a change, the spring air was nice and clean as it filtered into the sometimes stuffy car, and you felt his multicolor gaze watching you. the look on his face changed when you locked eyes, but for an imagined moment, it seemed that you—your eyes closed against the wind and a light smile on your face that, for once, wasn’t grim—were his everything.

you press your temple to the cold glass of the window, hoping it’ll sober you up a little from your love-drunk state. it’s so goddamn stupid that you’re even thinking about him like this right now, because he’s still sort of mad at you for something rash you did during your last hunt. only you don’t think it was stupid, so you’re half pissed that he won’t let it go. staring at the back of his head and the pretty curled ends of his hair, you sigh quietly. even his shoulders rising up past the seat are handsome. you miss him, and he’s close enough to reach out and touch.

dean’s voice breaks your reverie, and you have to draw in a deep breath. without you even noticing, thinking about sam so hard makes you breathless, almost every time.

“so, why don’t you give us the full rundown, sammy? ‘fore either of you decide to conk out on me,” dean suggests. that means he’s bored, because neither of you will fall asleep for at least another hour or two, and you’ll probably take your turn driving for a few soon.

“sure,” sam agrees, and you hear the shuffle of papers as he digs out a newspaper article and some notes. “three people in the last three weeks all died from suffocation, but with no apparent cause. they just,” sam’s shoulders move a little as he motions vaguely with his hands, “stopped breathing.”

“sounds witchy to me,” dean says, very predictably. you think you could’ve said those exact words at the exact same time if you wanted to tease him about it.

“yeah. what’s weird is that the vics were reported feeling out of breath up to 16 hours before they actually died. says it looks like they slowly died from oxygen deprivation,” sam adds.

“huh. so not hex bags, but another sort of spell?” you wonder aloud, easily talking about the case despite the remainders of tension between you and sam. that’s just how it is, with all of you. even when you’re mad, you still work the case.

“most likely,” sam agrees, “the vics went about their days pretty much normally until they died, so they were in different places as they were dying. seems like a hex bag wouldn’t work unless it was on them the whole time.” you nod, and though he’s not turned around to look at you, you’re sure he knows anyway.

“alright, well. looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us,” dean states, “we’ll be in town in the morning, so we’ll rest up real quick then head to the police station. you two can do your interviewing magic with the vic’s families and hopefully we’ll know more by then.”

this was easily predicted as well. for as long as you’ve been able to pass as an fbi agent, he’s mostly left interviewing the families to you and sam since the two of you tend to be more socially appropriate, and thus, more able to get information without raising alarms. though, the questions you ask never cease to be weird and confusing to the world’s oblivious civilians. of course, dean makes exceptions for pretty girls who he can flirt his way into telling him just about anything. this time, you wish dean would make an exception because it kills you that you and sam aren’t getting along perfectly right now. you know that you’ll work it out soon, probably within the week, but you still hate it.

through the impala’s windows, you watch the sky turn dark and the moon come out. you drive, then fall asleep to the rumble of the engine for a few hours, and wake to see the sky turn light again. keeping it all to yourself, you revel in the sunrise and the way it turns the sky bright and the clouds cotton candy pink around the edges. 

you sink into the sight of sam sleeping in front of you, the early morning light kissing his features and shining through his mousy brown hair. if you lean a little to the left, you can soak up the image of his softly closed eyes, the mole by his nose, and the relaxed curve of his lips. you smile to yourself at the way his hair is all messed up on the side of his head that’s resting against the window until you catch dean’s gaze on you through the rearview mirror. you tear your gaze from both brothers and latch it to the moving countryside out the window. for a while now, you’ve figured there’s no way dean doesn’t see that you’re in love with his brother, but despite such, he doesn’t say much outside of lightheartedly teasing for the both of you. he’s the only one who knows that sam looks at you just like that when you’re the one who’s asleep. he’s the one who sees sam turn, trying to be subtle, just to look at the way the moonlight kisses your lips, wishing it was him.

it’s eight in the morning when you pull up to the first motel you see. you wished sam hadn’t woken up on his own half an hour ago. that way, you could’ve put your hand on his shoulder, shaken him all soft and gentle like you do just for him, and mumbled, “wake up, sammy. we’re here.” then he’d stir, still sweet-looking from sleep and give you a little smile if he’d managed to dream without nightmares before remembering he’s supposed to still be upset with you.

instead, he’s fully awake when he climbs out of the car and pops your door open like he does every time you can’t beat him to it. he doesn’t talk about that habit, because he knows you can take care of it yourself. but if it’s so easy for him to do it as you grab your bag, then he thinks there’s no harm. besides, you’ve never told him off for it, so he does that and just about any other little thing he can get away with for you. and much to your chagrin, he still does it all when he’s pissed at you. he’s too good like that, even if you think he should just get over what happened a few days ago.

the three of you are just about wordless as you check in and pile into the room, all tired and without anything of importance to say. when you catch sight of the couch in the room, you sigh in relief. it would’ve been sam’s turn to share the bed, and you’re not sure you could do that this time around. sometimes it’s hard to breathe when he’s right there, so close after you’ve spent literal hours in the car just plain old pining over him. so, you find an extra sheet in the closet and steal a pillow from dean’s bed, all but collapsing onto the couch with a morning-time “goodnight.”

you don’t care that your feet hang over the edge unless you curl up or mind the way the springs dig into the flesh of your side, all you want is to welcome quick sleep. you’re lucky, and drift off moments later. you barely have time to think about how glad you are that you won’t have one of your nights where you lay awake, staring at the ceiling as you wonder why you would fall in love with someone you can’t have. him and dean are all you have, and no matter how your heart aches to pull sam close, you’d never do anything to jeopordize what you have, here and now. he’s your best friend, that’s all you can ask for in this life, maybe even more than you should.

waking as you normally do to the sounds of sam and dean moving about the motel room, you sit up, a little groggy. you glance at the clock, and you’ve slept for about four hours, just as predicted.

“up ‘n at ‘em,” dean says as he walks past you, giving you a playful clap on the back.

“mhmm,” is all you respond with, swinging your legs off the couch and digging through your bag for your pant suit and toothbrush. dean’s already in his, and sam’s brushing his teeth in the bathroom, still in his tshirt and jeans from yesterday. you don’t even have to say a word for sam to move out of the bathroom as you approach. so he won’t have to wait with a mouth full of tooth-paste and spit for you too long, you change quickly, leaving your clothes on the bathroom floor and opening the door for sam as you begin to brush your own teeth. the two of you maneuver around the cramped space with practiced ease, and when he’s done, he disappears back into the bedroom space without a word. when he’s petty to other people, you think it’s kind of hot. but when he does it to you, it makes you want to ring his neck. 

“asshole,” you mumble to yourself. it’s a classic tango between the two of you; you want him to just get over it, and he wants you to admit that he’s right, or the other way around. and both of you are far too stubborn to be the one to relent first, so you’ll be pissy at each other for a few days until you get bored of it or dean gets too annoyed. all it takes to get past it is you putting your head in his lap after a long day, maybe him resting his head on your shoulder, or the two of you laughing too hard over something together to keep being mad, and maybe just a few mumbled apologies from the both of you. if it’s really big enough for none of those things to work, then you talk about it until things are okay again.

dean drops you off at the first victim’s house, with the promise that the second is close enough to walk to, and the third he’ll join you for once he’s done at the coroner’s office.

sam still won’t talk to you as you wait on the front porch of the house after ringing the doorbell. a young woman opens the door, probably around your own age, and you smile at her before flashing your badge.

“hi. i’m agent green. this is my partner, agent smith. we’re looking for natalie goh?” you greet, comfortable and at ease in your ruse.

“that’s me,” she confirms for you, sounding nice enough. “how can i help you, agents?”

“we would just like to ask a few questions about your late boyfriend, henry,” sam explains, “may we come inside?”

her face falls when he mentions her boyfriend, but she nods her head. “of course, come in.” you follow her to the living room where she motions for you to sit. “let me grab you something to drink,” she offers, disappearing into the next room before you can refuse. “is lemonade okay? my next door neighbor brought me so much when she heard about henry… you know. i can’t possibly drink it all.”

you want to say no, not wanting to make her go through the extra effort, but you accept for both you and sam out of sympathy. she sounds like she needs to keep her hands busy to distract herself. 

she sets the drinks down in front of you, asking as she sits, “what, uhm, what is the fbi’s interest in … in henry?”

“we’re investigating a few odd deaths, like your boyfriend’s, in the area,” sam explains, “now, was there anything unusual the day of or the days leading up to his death?”

“i, um, i don’t– i don’t think so, like what? and, i’m sorry, the police told me he most likely choked on something, how is that strange?” natalie frets. you glance at sam and catch him readjusting his features as a brief look of surprise crosses over his face. it makes sense that that’s what the police told her, but you hadn’t known they’d said so.

“well, natalie, the cause of his death wasn’t entirely clear, and because a few more people have died similarly since, we’re just being extra thorough,” you do your best to placate her before she starts getting too wary of you and sam. “it really could mean nothing, but it’s important for us to cover all of our bases. so, can you tell us if there was anything out of the ordinary? was he acting strange, or did you notice anything unusual around the house, like maybe cold spots or flickering lights?”

she furrows her eyebrows in confusion, “um, no. no, nothing like that. he was just being him, you know, he was such an amazing boyfriend, he made me breakfast that morning even though he said he was tired. i already told this to the police, but he sounded kind of out of breath when we called. that was the last time i talked to him,” her voice begins to tremble, so you reach out a comforting hand and place it atop hers from across the table. “i had to stay late at work, and when i got home, he was … he was gone. i found him in the kitchen.” a tear slips down her cheek, and she moves her hand away from yours to wipe it off. you shift back in your seat and glance at sam, trying to give him the hint to get moving. but, he keeps his gaze trained elsewhere.

you resist the urge to roll your eyes at him, almost ready to pull the “may i use your bathroom” ruse first. it’s almost always sam who does it, and sure enough, he clears his throat to ask.

“would you mind if i used your restroom?”

“oh, sure,” she says, “there’s one by the pantry, through the kitchen and to the left.”

he stands, thanking her a bit awkwardly before disappearing through the doorway to the kitchen.

once he’s gone, you turn your attention back to natalie. “i know that this can be a difficult question, but is there anyone that comes to mind who might want to hurt henry?” absentmindedly, you take a sip of the lemonade after speaking. it’s sweet, but not too sugary. you discover that it’s just about perfect, and you can’t hold back from continually taking a few sips here and there to fight back the heat of the afternoon.

“oh, goodness, no,” she sounds horrified by that prospect, “henry was just the kindest. the best boyfriend i could ask for,” she reiterates. “you think that someone– that someone…?”

“no, no,” you lie, “there would be signs if someone else hurt him, but like i said, we just need to be completely thorough. i’m sorry to even have to ask. now, if you’re okay with it, could you tell me more about henry?”

“yes, yeah, i can do that,” she sighs in relief. it’s clear she wants to talk about him, and probably how much she misses him. you do your best to pay close attention and keep her focused on you and your questions as sam takes forever “in the bathroom.” nothing she says is very useful, it’s all about how loving and kind and just about perfect he was to her. at first, you’re able to listen without a qualm, but the more she rambles about how much she loved him, and maybe even more so how much he loved her, your mind inevitably wanders to sam. sam and your bothersome, bottomless pit of unrequited love.

you kindly cut natalie off and stand when you hear sam’s footsteps approach. “it sounds like henry was a wonderful person. i’m so sorry for your loss.” despite knowing those words don’t mean or do much, you still fill them with as much sincerity as you can. sam is at your side again. “we really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. we’ll get out of your hair now.”

she shows you to the front door out of courtesy, and you give her one last thank you and kind smile before turning your back and heading to the sidewalk, sam just ahead of you. pushing off the ground a little harder for a few steps, you catch up to him and his long strides, unable to resist the urge to let your gaze wander to his face.

“anything?” you ask, hoping he’ll look at you too.

“nope,” he shakes his head, “no emf, no hexbags, nothing out of the ordinary.” pursing your lips, you let your gaze fall to the sidewalk ahead of you when he doesn’t make eye-contact. “anything on your end?”

“not really. she just rambled about how in love they were. said there was nothing strange about the day, or him, and that he had no enemies. she made him sound like a complete angel.” without you realizing, your lip curls a little in jealousy.

sam just huffs in response, likely bothered by the lack of information. “let’s hope we can find something about the other two.”

you repeat the ruse at the next two homes, and sam’s hopes are dashed, because by the time you, sam, and dean are back at the motel room, just about the only thing of value you bring back is a paper bag of takeout.

spread out in the room, with your respective assortments of food, notes, and computers, you share all the details you can think of to hopefully find a pattern. dean’s on his bed, sam on the couch, and you at the dingy table. the biggest discovery is on dean’s part. according to the coroner, each of the victim’s hearts had inexplicably shrunken and shriveled up. this detail was kept out of the public eye because of how strange it was; it happened after each victim died, as it very clearly did not contribute to the cause of death. that, and the coroner is absolutely stumped by how such a thing could possibly happen.

dean asks if the first two interviews were as fruitless as the last, and you sigh as you explain just how unhelpful they’d been.

“the only common threads are that they were young adults, all in a relationship, and all sounded to be just about the perfect partner,” you report. “i mean, maybe the witch is targeting people in loving relationships? jealousy? or maybe they have some sort of secret we couldn’t dig up just by interviewing. the people we talked to were obviously biased. the first victim’s girlfriend wouldn’t stop talking about how amazing he was, the second’s sister told us she was the sweetest girlfriend out there, and you heard how the third’s husband described them.”

“really?” dean asks. “i mean, yeah, i heard the last guy, but i ran into the first vic’s girlfriend’s sister at the station. she was doing something for her sister there, and she did not seem too impressed with the guy when i asked about him.”

you raise your eyebrows, about to speak again when sam beats you to it.

“so maybe we are looking for secrets. did she say what she wasn’t impressed with?” sam says just about the exact thing you were about to.

dean shrugs. “jus’ said he was sort of a lazy boyfriend. didn’t take good enough care of her or show his love all that much.”

“maybe he was cheating?” you suggest.

“maybe,” dean repeats. “how’s this? you can dig into records and see if you can find any dirt on the vics. sam, you can look for a spell that might’ve caused this, and i’ll scout out a few local places. the officer i was talking to gave me a few places the vics probably spent time at.”

“sure,” you agree, a teasing edge to your voice, “just don’t get too distracted. we all know by ‘local places’ you mean bars. no sex unless you solve the case, and if you solve the case, no sex because you have to report back to us.”

“so no sex?” he plays along, acting all offended.

“nope!” you confirm, giving a firm shake of your head. 

dean’s already on his way out the door as he chimes, “no promises!”

“seriously!” sam calls after him, “we need info!” he groans and shakes his head when the only response he gets is the shutting of the door. when he doesn’t make a snarky comment about dean to you, you clench your jaw.

“sam.” it takes a lot of willpower to sound bothered by him, rather than say his name all sweet.

“mhmm?” he’s purposely keeping his gaze on his computer and his response short.

you roll your eyes, “c’mon, can’t you just get over it? it’s not like you haven’t done stupider things to get a case done.”

since you insist on arguing about it, he lifts his gaze, looking unimpressed. “doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have done it. you almost got dean hurt.”

“and i already apologized for that!” you say indignantly, annoyed that that’s his argument. he knows full well, better than anyone, that dean can deal with a measly vamp, even if he wasn’t expecting it. “it’s not like dean can’t handle himself!”

“you should have at least run the plan by us,” he says. you roll your eyes again.

“it was a spur of the moment decision. unless you wanted me to shout it out, compromise my position, and let every single vamp in that nest know exactly what i was gonna do?” you retort. sam sighs, in the way that you can tell he knows your argument is better than his. so, you still can’t figure out why he’s still upset about it, outside of his usual stubbornness.

“it could’ve gone so wrong,” is all he can come up with, “and you know that. it was stupid, and you could’ve gotten hurt. or worse.” there it is. his voice changed when he said you could’ve gotten hurt.

it’s your turn to sigh, this time because you finally understand. it makes your heart flutter a little, and it makes you even more annoyed. “sam, i can handle myself. you know that. sure, it was kind of stupid, and not a fully thought out plan, but i had to figure out a way to get us out of there! four vamps were about to find you, so i had to distract them. easiest way was with my blood. one vamp found dean, but he handled that just as easy as he always does. i knew you’d have my back, so i let the other three come after me. and look! we’re all here, alive and kicking! this is such a stupid thing for you to get mad over.”

“it’s stupid for me to want you to be more careful?” he counters.

“sam, we have to take risks in this job, we do it all the time. that’s just how this works, what’s different about this time?” you question.

“just–” he presses his forefinger and thumb to the bridge of his nose as he tries to come up with a reason that’s good enough. a reason that’s not “i worry about you,” because that’ll make you even more angry, make it sounds like he doesn’t think you’re a good enough hunter. and he certainly can’t explain that that’s not it, he worries because the worst possible thing to him is you getting hurt. because then you’d ask why and he wouldn’t be able to tell you the truth.

“can’t we just be done with this?” you ask, and the tone of your voice is one he can’t deny. you’re upset, bothered, and tired of his pettiness. more so, you’re just plain old tired. it takes too much effort to stay upset with one another. he lets your question sit in the air for a moment longer.

“yeah,” he relents, voice quiet now. he’s holding back words, touches, feelings. he wants to tell you, “just please don’t put yourself in danger, it scares me. i get so worried. it makes me want to pull you close and protect you even though i know you don’t need it. that’s why i’m upset.” he wants to get up from the couch and set his computer across from yours, sit across from you, just so you’re a little bit closer. he wants to touch you so bad that it sort of hurts.

instead, he has to live for the relieved breath that huffs out through your nose, so quiet it couldn’t quite be counted as a sigh.

“good,” you say, voice matching his own quietness. there’s still tension hanging between you, but soon enough, it’ll dissipate altogether, and tomorrow, you’ll be back to joking with one another, brushing shoulders, and hiding how in love with each other you are. maybe he can even convince you to share his bed tonight. the couch is horridly uncomfortable.

only after you’re convinced that sam won’t be all pissy to you until the next time you find something silly to be angry about do you begin on your research. it’s just as fruitless as everything else today, and after hours searching and drawing banks, you go back to the interviews, jotting down all the details you can remember in case seeing it on paper helps something new and useful jump out at you.

all you get is a dull ringing in your ear, probably courtesy of some old motel appliance. but the ringing grows louder, and in your tired state, it becomes completely bothersome. you press your hand against your left ear—it’s loudest there—and shut your eyes. it’s been an hour or two since sam has shifted to sit across from you to escape the digging springs of the couch, so the movement catches his attention quickly.

“you alright?” he asks, already with a little pinch of his eyebrows in worry.

“yeah, ‘m fine,” you say, realizing the ringing must be the beginning of a headache, since sam can’t seem to hear it. “just a headache,” you explain.

“want me to get you some advil?” he offers.

“no, no that’s alright, i’ve got it,” you deny, but you don’t get up. your head doesn’t really hurt, and the ringing fades as fast as it appeared. you’re about to sigh in relief, when suddenly, you’re sort of breathless, and you gasp to take in air. the moment passes, and you shake your head to yourself a little. it’s weird until you remember that sam’s looking at you with that little furrow to his brow, sweet and concerned, like the last thing he wants is for you to be in pain, even if it’s just a measly headache. that look in his eyes as his gaze focuses on you and only you is certainly enough to take your breath away. it just took you by surprise this time.

“you sure you’re okay?” he asks again, worried by your gasp.

“mhmm,” you hum, trying to keep your tone light and trying not to look too hard into his pretty hazel eyes. “jus’ hurt for a second, but i think the headache’s gone away.”

“okay,” he relents, not fully convinced, but willing to take your word for it and refocus on his computer screen. you turn your own attention back to the papers in front of you, away from his face, so close that it sends your heart into wild palpitations every time your mind wanders from the case and to his presence. in other words, it happens often.

you’re determined to find something, some detail that clicks and leads you to anything important. but after another unfocused hour, your eyelids are heavy, almost as much as your head as you wish to just sink down and fall asleep right there on that little table.

“you should get some sleep,” sam says, no stranger to the way you look when you should quit being stubborn and just go to bed. and normally, you’d resist, but the idea of sleep, of closing your eyes and letting your breath even out, slow down, is far too inviting.

so, you relent, and close your laptop. “yeah,” you say as you shuffle the sheets of paper together and set them on a neat pile on top of your computer.

“take the bed, too,” he insists, “you look exhausted.”

“mm, glad to hear it,” you joke halfheartedly, “but, no, sam, that couch is too small for you. it’s small for me, even.”

“and it’s seriously uncomfortable,” he adds.

“so we’ll share. i’ll leave space for you. you should come to bed soon, too. ‘s not like we should wait up for dean,” you snicker. sam rolls his eyes, but easily agrees with your conclusion. as you settle into the covers of the motel bed, you consider waiting up for him so you can feel the dip of the bed, then the warmth that radiates off him as he lays beside you. you want to feel the brush of his long arms, the heel of his foot or nudge of his toe, sometimes you’re treated with the broad expanse of his back. but sleep claims you before you can even make the attempt.

sam’s big hand on your shoulder brings you back into consciousness, and you breathe in long and hard since it seems like you can’t quite fill your lungs. then your eyes flutter open, and sam’s figure is hovering over yours, his hand lingering, then slipping away as he sees you wake. he doesn’t stand fully upright yet, unsure if he should say something or not.

he keeps his voice low, not wanting to alert dean, who’s changing in the bathroom. “are you feeling fine?”

groggy as you sit up, you peek at the clock. 8:43. you slept through the 8:30 alarm. odd.

“uh, yeah, i’m fine,” you answer, voice gravelly from the morning’s first use, “why?”

sam shifts to sit on the bedside opposite you. “nothing just… i don’t know, you were just breathing really light last night. i could barely even tell you were breathing at some points and normally you breathe pretty noticeably while you sleep. and, you know, given this case, i just wanted to check.”

sam notices the way you breathe when you sleep. that’s just about all you can take away from his words. sam pays enough attention to the way you breathe when you sleep to know when your breathing is different. sam thinks about the way that you breathe. maybe that’d be creepy from anyone else, but you think about the way he breathes too. the way it lulls you to sleep when he’s close, the way it catches when he’s surprised, or the way it changes when he’s about to laugh.

then you remember he’s said something you’re supposed to address. “it’s nothing, sam. i feel totally fine, just tired from working back to back cases, is all.” you say this because you’re sure of it; you do feel just fine. and sam makes you breathless all the time, so there's nothing out of the ordinary there.

“are you sure?” he presses, “you slept straight through the alarm, like a rock.”

“i’m sure,” you say.

“okay,” you can immediately tell that he’s not entirely convinced as he says this, “but if anything happens or changes or you feel like you’re out of breath, you promise to tell me or dean?”

“of course.” you may not want to be fussed over, but you certainly don’t want to go out in such a stupid, horrible way. “i promise,” you add, just for his sake. dean’s phone starts ringing, and he appears out of the bathroom.

“either way, let’s get this case done, and quick,” sam insists.

“don’t have to tell me twice,” you agree, throwing off the covers to get ready for the day.

dean’s voice keeps you from lingering by sam’s side. “hey, crazy kids, let’s hurry it up. just got off the phone with the sheriff, there was another death last night.”

“dammit,” you and sam swear in unison. 

on the way to the scene, dean updates you on his findings from last night. he was just as unsuccessful as you in finding major dirt on any of the victims, though he recieved similar testimonials to the sister’s about the first, henry. otherwise, he was able to find the witch’s possible hunting ground in a bar where all three victims have been seen with their partners. sam reports that he’s getting close to finding the right spell after discovering a few similar ones. 

when you reach the victim’s house, sam and dean check in with the police officers, and you immediately head to interview whoever found the victim’s body. he’s obviously distraught, and probably still in shock from losing his boyfriend. you do your best to stay gentle, kind, and understanding as you lead him through the interview, interrupting your questions for the occasional “he sounds like he was a wonderful partner,” or other such comforting phrase as the man, tyler, rambles about how great he was, how guilty he feels, and just about nothing helpful except for adding another data point to the one pattern you have.

“thank you for your help,” you say, giving him a tight lipped smile before standing and drifting over to sam on instinct as you mull over the information you recieved. he’s poking around in the kitchen, subtly searching for anything abnormal and most likely coming up empty as this house follows the unhelpful trend of the rest.

“anything?” he asks once you’re by his side.

you shake your head, “just the madly in love bit. everything was pretty much the same as the other vics as well.” sam sighs like he expected that answer.

“i think we should look more into the first victim,” he suggests, echoing the same thought that you had. “maybe interview natalie again, see if she admits something different about henry if we push it a little.”

“i agree, though i’d say let’s hold off on interviewing her again unless we can’t find the spell soon. even if she admits that he wasn’t as good to her as she said before, i’m not sure how much good that does in comparison to the spell. if you keep looking into that, i’ll check henry’s records more thoroughly. i looked into him less last night since we already had something on him.” you revise the plan a bit, and sam nods in agreement, making that sort of awkward face with his lips pursed and eyebrows raised that he does when someone without the knowledge you have comes in hearing range. you glance behind you to see the figure of a police officer through the kitchen doorway and are fast to quit all talk of spells and witches to avoid sounding insane.

“dean can scout out the bar again to see if this most recent couple frequented there as well,” sam puts the last piece in place for your plan, just as you imagined it. once it seems like there’s nothing left to glean from the house, you grab dean and head out back to the car. the brothers walk a bit ahead of you as sam fills dean in on the plan.

“excuse me! agent,” a voice calls from behind you. the three of you turn, and you wave the two of them away to indicate that you’ll deal with it.

“yes?” you respond as an officer approaches.

“your partner asked for the full coroner’s reports on paper from the first three victims,” she says, holding out a file as she reaches you.

“ah! right. thank you, officer.” you give her a polite smile and take the papers before turning away. sam and dean have made it to the impala, parked a bit away due to the police cars surrounding the house. you jog at a casual pace to catch up, but falter about halfway there as your breaths turn all shuddery and quick. you stop, trying to right yourself and desperate to brush this off, but you just keep gulping in breaths, feeling like you’ve run a mile at top speed without warming up. 

shit. shit, shit, shit, is all you can think. fuck.

as you stare at the car, dean’s already in the front seat and sam is pulling the passenger’s door open, and you will with all your might that neither of them will turn to look for you. you don’t want them to catch you like this. instead, you want to explain it to them, calm and collected and full of breath because your body’s beginning to readjust and you should be fine to walk over in moments and dammit– sam’s twisted around to find you, his hands resting on the top of the car and the door. the second he catches sight of you, just standing there with your chest heaving up and down, he’s launched himself away from the car and towards you. he calls your name, worry flooding his voice. you had tried to recompose yourself the second you saw his head turning, but it was too late, and now he’s jogging your way.

sam is in front of you in moments, his hands on your shoulders and his face fallen in a deep frown.

“you’re not okay, are you?”

“i– i’m–,” you can’t think of what to say, and though your breath is returning to normal, you can’t deny him. “let’s just get in the car. please.” 

his jaw clenches and his eyes flick all over you, from the top of your head to the point of your shoes like he always looks at you when he thinks you might be hurt. he’s taking you in, quick and almost panicked so he can fix it right away. he takes a steadying breath because he’s so ovewrought he can barely think. “fine,” he says, voice carefully hushed. if he doesn’t control it, he might start shouting, panicking even. sam can’t bear to leave you untouched now, so he leaves a hand splayed on your shoulder blade as you finish the short walk to the car. he opens the back door and climbs right in, completely foregoing his spot in the passenger’s seat. you realize he wants to sit in the back with you, and it would’ve been sweet if it wasn’t because you’re probably dying.

jaw clenched, you follow him in, and dean’s already twisted around in his seat, gaze shifting between the two of you to try and read what just happened.

“what was that all about?” he questions, eyebrows raised. you put a hand on sam’s knee to stop him from telling dean.

“the witch got me,” you drop the news without much hesitation, more focused on getting your two cents in before either of them start grilling you with questions and making stupid suggestions to try and fix it, “it’s gotta be someone we met or passed by yesterday. one of the people we interviewed or someone from the diner we had lunch at; these types of spells normally require the victim’s dna. and before either of you do anything stupid or crazy, we’re gonna stick with the same plan. dean, you can drop us at the motel so we can find the spell and reversal, and you find out what you can at the bar. got it?”

dean looks at you like you’re crazy, and you ignore sam’s gaze altogether. 

“got it?” dean repeats back to you, incredulous, “not so much, kid, i’m gonna need you to explain this to me a little better. what do you mean the witch got you? you mean you’re gonna stop breathing in some odd hours that might not be enough time for us to find and gank this witch?”

“yes, dean, that’s what i mean. try to keep up,” you turn a little mean as your frustration takes over in order to compensate for your growing fear. “and i’m not going to die, so quit being so pessimistic. we’ll find the witch, as long as we stay focused on the plan. unless you have a faster way, which i’d be happy to abide by.” neither have a good enough retort to that, so you continue, “can we go now? we might not have that much time.”

with much effort, dean turns back in his seat and starts the engine. his voice is low when he asks, “what do you mean by that?”

“well, i don’t know exactly when this whole thing started!” you answer as he pulls into the street, “sam said my breathing wasn’t totally normal last night. if that means anything, well, i went to bed early last night, around eleven. that could mean it’s been at least, i don’t know,” you check the time, “eleven hours. which gives us five, minimum.” you think you can physically feel sam tense up next to you.

“five hours?” sam repeats, his voice taut, like he’s holding back anger, fear, maybe more. “and were there any times before that you felt out of breath?” 

you think back to yesterday. sure, every time i looked at you, isn’t quite an answer that you can give. “um, i’m not sure,” you say, sounding more cryptic than casual, as you had meant. you see dean’s eyebrow raise through the rearview mirror.

“you’re not sure?” dean asks, unbelieving. the two brothers are starting to sound like a broken record as they repeat every other thing you say back to you.

“yeah. nothing comes to mind,” you say, more firmly this time.

sam sighs. “you can’t seriously think it’s a good idea to hide that sort of thing from us if it happened. this is serious.”

you scoff, “oh, really? i wasn’t aware, it’s not like it’s my life on the line, or anything like that.”

“alright, let’s not get pissy,” dean intervenes.

“pissy?” you scoff again, “right, because this is serious and i’m apparently unaware of that.”

dean says your name, voice a little chiding as he tries to disperse some of the tension that’s building within the small space of the car. “let’s focus on the case here. sam is right, we need to know everything you do. was there anything else weird you noticed last night?”

“i don’t know!” you exclaim before calming down a bit and taking a deep breath. “i had this ringing in my ears for a minute, around ten. i thought it was a headache. and … i did feel breathless, but just for a second. i thought it was … something else.”

“why didn’t you say anything?” sam asks, immediately remembering this. you had pressed your hand to your ear. he believed you when you said it was a headache, but he should have known better. you’re far more likely to rub your temples when you feel a headache coming on.

“i thought it was something else,” you repeat.

“like what?” he presses.

“like–” you hesitate, “like nothing. just nothing, i don’t know.”

dean interrupts again to get things back on track, “so that could mean four hours, not five.” you see sam’s jaw clenching out of the corner of your eye.

“yeah,” you confirm, hoping your voice doesn’t reveal how anxious you really are.

“my question is why just you?” dean asks. “i’d normally figure it’s because they suspect you to be a hunter, but if they were able to get your dna, they probably had access to ours, too. the witch think you’re madly in love with sammy or somethin’?”

you fluster at that, mind scrambling, why in the goddamn hell would dean say that? does he want me dead faster? “uhm, uh,” you laugh a little, completely awkward about it, “why would they think that? we were clearly, you know, in a working relationship, not a, hah– romantic,” you clear your throat, “relationship. i’m sure it’s just the hunter thing, maybe they couldn’t get your dna… or they thought i was more worth killing,” you attempt at a joking insult, but you’re still sort of jerking through your words and reeling from someone saying “you’re madly in love with sammy” out loud.

to your left, sam looks almost as flustered as you feel, which brings you an ounce of comfort.

“whatever you say,” dean shrugs.

when you get back to the hotel, sam’s practically running inside to pull out his laptop, and dean speeds away the second the car doors close behind the two of you. both of you are fidgety and antsy as you conduct your research in silence. you think sam’s even more nervous than you, with his leg bouncing and teeth chewing away at his lower lip. you’re not sure if you should comfort him, or let him be in favor of getting the research done. it doesn’t take too long for him to find the original spell, and as he tells you about it, some nervousness dissipates when the both of you get back into the groove of a normal hunt, trying to pretend that this time, the consequences aren’t as personal as they could ever get.

you can’t find any dirt on henry in any records, so you focus on staff from the bar and diner from yesterday to see if there’s any overlap that could have gotten dna from both you and all the other four victims. something else entirely jumps out at you as you check employment records.

“sam, it’s natalie,” you blurt out into the silence of the room. he raises his eyebrows, and you explain before he can even ask. “she works at the bar. and i drank some of that lemonade she gave us. she had easy access to everyone’s dna, and henry was the only deviation from the pattern.”

sam stands as you explain, “okay, let’s go.”

“no, let’s call dean and finish finding the reversal spell. i’d like to have a backup plan, if that’s alright.” sam purses his lips, looking like he wants to argue. you propose something more rational than his idea, “we’ll call dean and let him know. he can go to her house and make sure she’s the real deal before we go, too.”

“fine,” sam agrees, pulling out his phone, just as it begins to ring. he answers it and puts it on speaker, “dean, it’s natalie.”

“yeah, i know. that’s what i was about to tell you, the idiots from last night didn’t bother to mention it,” he complains. “i’m headed to her house right now.” to prove it, you hear the car door open and close. “how’s it going on your end?”

“we found the spell, we’re looking for the reversal right now,” you answer. “call us if you need help.”

“mm, you just take care o’ yourself, alright? i’ll call you back.” after that, all you get is the hang-up tone. 

a bit later, your concentration is interrupted by the pinging of sam’s phone. you watch him as he checks the messages, then looks up at you with a poorly hidden scowl.

“she wasn’t at her house,” he explains, “dean’s headed to her sister’s to look for her there. but it’s definitely her, he found a secret room full of, y’know, as he’d say, ‘witchy stuff.’”

you try to hide your disappointment and the uneven rise and fall of your chest. sam’s stayed mostly focused on the research, but every now and then, you feel him looking you over, brow furrowed and eyes concerned as he checks for anything abnormal. he’s looking at you like that now.

“damn,” is all you manage in response while still trying to stay casual about it.

“how are you feeling?” he asks. you expected the question, but you still don’t want to answer. you’re about to tell him you’re fine, since you’re not really running out of breath yet, until he speaks again before you can, “and don’t say ‘fine.’”

“i am fine,” you insist immediately, “just extra tired from getting a little less oxygen than normal. but nothing crazy. i can still focus on this research and i can still hold a weapon.” you demonstrate by grabbing one of the knives you keep strapped to your thigh and twirling it a little in your hand. sam’s face spells out the word “really?”

“just– tell me if it gets worse. please,” he’s just about begging, and with a bit of puppy dog eye action, you’re crumbling.

“okay, sam,” you relent, letting your voice go soft. he’s really scared for you, and it makes you feel just about every little thing. you want to comfort him, reassure that you’ll be okay, even when you’re terrified for yourself. you want him to comfort you, for that exact reason, and you want to hold his hand. maybe you can be scared together, a little closer than you are now. you want to kiss him, because what if this is the only chance you get? that thought horrifies you. then you wonder if it’s for the best. maybe you should die as his best friend, because dying as his anything is better than scaring him away first. it’s hard to concentrate on the research, but it’s not hard to find the motivation. the hope is to avoid death completely.

finally, you find it.

“i got it, sam!” you’re excited, then a bit breathless after pushing so much air out of your lungs so fast. the breath you take in is sort of shuddering, and it makes sam frown. he doesn’t even try to hide how worried he is. his face is nothing but unadulterated concern and care and … and something else before that expression melts away and he’s focusing on the computer screen that you tilted towards him. the crease between his brows only grows as his eyes flit down the list of ingredients.

“we don’t have the half of these ingredients,” he worries.

“no,” you admit, “but there’s a witch in town who’s away from home who might.”

to get there, sam doesn’t hesitate to steal a car from the motel parking lot, and this time you can’t even argue given the fact that you’re pretty sure you have less than two hours to live at this point. you promised sam you’d tell him if it got worse, but as it does, you want to say something less and less.

sam picks the lock of the door, entering the house carefully with you right behind. weapons drawn, you walk the route that dean gave you to the hidden room, the door in the wall of the hallway left open for you by dean.

it’s much darker than the rest of the house from the lack of windows and bright lights. this, paired with the eerie assortment of basic herbs to what might be jars of blood, makes it look like natalie really leaned into the witchy aesthetic, which you’d find understandable if she weren’t using her magic to kill people.

sam walks faster than you know is wise to match paces with, so you follow behind him slowly as he rushes to set the computer with the list of ingredients on the table in the center of the room abd begin the spell. you’re a split second too late to shout in warning when you see a figure emerge from behind a shelf of herbs.

sam whirls around at your cry, gun raised, only to be hit on the side of the head, hard, by a wooden bat in natalie’s hand. he crumples to the ground despite his size, and without batting an eye, your knife is flying through the air, straight for the spot between natalie’s shoulder blades. but at the last second, she spins around, and with a flick of her hand, the knife falls to the ground. you reach for your gun, but through your hindered breathing, you’re slow. she has no trouble launching the bat at you at an unnatural speed. the wood slams into your chest, sending you sprawling and gasping in your weakened state. you’re fighting for breath so hard that you can barely register her hauling you up and tying your hands behind your back, then doing the same to sam. somehow, she’s able to get his weight on a chair and tie him to the wobbly piece of furniture. then, it’s your turn, and by the time you come back to your senses, breathing far more labored than before, you’re tied to a chair, back to back with sam.

natalie gives you a horrid smile as she tugs at a knot to tighten it.

“well, isn’t this fortuitous! such a lovely surprise for you two to visit me,” she chimes, just as you feel sam stirring behind you. his head lolls back, brushing against your own. you completely ignore her in favor of calling his name. a rumbling groan escapes his lips as he stumbles back into consciousness.

“that’s right!” natalie grins, “it’ll be much better with pretty boy awake.” she walks around you, and you hear a smacking sound that you presume to be her hitting his cheeks to wake him further.

“don’t touch him,” you practically growl. it sounds far less intimidating than you hoped in your breathless voice. she laughs and sam lets out an audible huff of air as he wakes.

“there he is,” natalie grins. “now i’ve got two love birds at my mercy! much better than i could have imagined. you know, i couldn’t watch the deaths of the others, so this is far more exciting. i thought i’d have to miss yours, too!” she motions to you. “but now i get to watch you die, watch pretty boy watch you die, and then kill him, too! lovely isn’t it? i’ve never had such luck, thank you idiots for bringing it to me.”

“you’re not killing anyone today,” sam retorts, anger filling his voice. with a bit of an uncomfortable stretch, you twist your fingers around to grab a hold of his. it’s awkward, but you take advantage of her horrible ramblings to keep her distracted and try to guide sam’s hands to the tiny blade attached to the seam of your jacket sleeve.

“i’m not?” she laughs, “mmm, you don’t really seem like you’re in the position to determine that, pretty boy.” you hate her calling him that. “well, love will do that to a person. makes you easy targets, blinds you. you two were just too easy, so busy making eyes at each other to pay any proper attention to me.” you conclude she’s crazy, rambling on about what made her angry enough to kill. you’re sure she caught you making eyes at him, but she’s crazy talking like he’s visibly in love with you too. immediately catching on to your plan, sam’s hands are fumbling around with your jacket sleeve, trying to get the knife unstuck so it can slip down and into your hands.

“it’s so goddamn irritating when people are just so in love with each other. makes me want to hurl,” she complains.

“sounds to me like you’re just jealous your boyfriend didn’t treat you like that,” you prod at her weak spot. she whirls on you, grabbing the front of your jacket and yanking you towards her.

“so i killed him. and everything he was supposed to be,” she hisses. “and know i’m going to kill you two pining idiots. you know, you don’t have very long,” she feigns sympathy in the condescending tone of her voice. when she slams you back against the chair, it takes your breath away for a frighteningly long time. sam’s so worried, calling your name out over and over again as you choke on nothing, that he almost doesn’t realize that the movement also helped dislodge the knife and let it fall into your hands. it slices a thin line down your arm, but you couldn’t care less as you begin to work on cutting through his bonds.

“oh, shut up, lover boy,” natalie growls, hating the way he says your name with so much care as she stays leaning over you, a sick smile on her face. why the hell is she calling him lover boy? you know that’s not what you should be so worried about in this moment, but it’s the one thing that you can think about. “i’m busy watching your little lover die! i think you’ll look so good crying over them, won’t you?”

when sam’s ties snap, he stays in place, holding onto the rope so it doesn’t drop to the ground and alert her. he just shimmies the knife from your hand to his and begins working on your own ties. through it all, he pretends to struggle helplessly, cursing at her wildly.

natalie rolls her eyes, then stands straight. “if you don’t shut it, i’m going to make you,” she snarls, stalking around to stand in front of sam. in an instant, he brings the knife to the rope binding him to the chair, snapping it and lunging towards her. judging from the choked cry that escapes her throat, sam’s already plunged the knife into her neck. you hear him grunt, then the sound of her body hits the floor before he’s turned back to you, quickly freeing you all the way and pulling you to your feet. he’s halfway to the door with his hand gripping yours when you tug back.

“wait… sam, wait!” you gasp, and he’s immediately face to face with you, sweet eyes looking you up and down with confusion and worry. “it’s not– it didn’t work. the spell, we need to do the spell.”

“what do you mean? that’s impossible, killing the witch who performed the spell always–,” he fully takes you in for the first time. your chest is still heaving, your breath rattling, and it’s undeniably getting worse by the minute. “okay, okay. just sit down.” he guides you back to a chair, turning it to face the table so he can keep an eye on you as he works. this time, you’re having a hard time hiding the fear from your eyes, and he reads that loud and clear. he lets you have his strong hands cupping your face for just a moment. “you’re gonna be fine. i’m gonna fix this.” he says it with such conviction that you’d do anything to believe him. then his warm touch is gone, and you’re again hit with the reality that it’s getting harder and harder to breathe, to get any satisfactory amount of air.

your eyes follow him desperately as he rushes about the area, checking and rechecking the spell as he adds ingredients to a small cup he finds. his movements become more and more panicked by the second as he notices your breathing getting worse, more fluttery and gulping. sam’s muttering to himself as he works, too scared to look at your face for too long. unable to find one of the ingredients, he curses loudly as he searches, shoving a whole rack of ingredients to the ground. glass shatters and the metal rack clangs against the ground, the sound echoing throughout the space.

flinching at the sound, you cry out his name, struggling to speak, “you have… you have to.. to calm .. calm down.”

“i can’t!” he practically shouts, and you think you’ve never seen him this distraught, this helpless before.

“why?” is all you can manage between gasps.

“because you’re dying! and i can’t let you die, i won’t.” he’s still rummaging through ingredients as he speaks. he’s still refusing to look at you.

you want him to say it, the truth, so you repeat the question, “why?” you wheeze out, desperate to hear it in case he can’t finish the spell on time.

“because i love you!” he’s no longer shouting when he says it. his voice is all desperation and helplessness and utter sincerity, said like all he needs in the world is for you to understand that. you’re not sure if the shuddering breath you let out could count as a sigh of relief, but it’s the closest you’ll ever get.

you take him in. tears running down his cheeks, lips pursed and eyebrows pinched like he’s holding back from crying out. he’s pretty like that, you think. maybe that’s a cruel thought, but you love him too much to think otherwise. he’s always pretty; when he’s mad at you, when he’s bleeding, when he’s stitching himself up, when he’s biting his lip in concentration. when he talks about something that makes him excited or when he’s crying. when he’s oblivious of the way you look at him while he sleeps, and when he makes you love him so hard that it hurts worse than anything a monster could do to you.

you’re lightheaded, and taking in so little air that you can’t say it back. all you want to do is say it back. you slide out of the chair and onto your hands and knees, shaking so hard you can barely hold yourself up. from the ground, you can hear sam, moving around, letting jars fall and shatter to the ground, crying.

when you collapse to the floor, writhing and gasping for any semblance of air, sam snaps. he can’t find the goddamn rosemary, such a simple and common herb, even for a normal kitchen, especially compared to all the other ingredients, but he knows it’s essential for its protection, purification, and healing properties. he can’t give up, he can’t let you die, but you’re writhing on the ground and crying inbetween gasps and all he wants is to hold you close, brush your tears away and tell you it’ll be alright. he barely catches the sound of your voice over the noise of his searching.

“please…”

“what? what is it, honey?” he asks through tears, unable to look at you as his eyes scan a new shelf for the basic pine-needle shape of the leaves, maybe even the little purple flowers to help it stand out.

“hold me,” you wheeze, afraid of dying alone on the stone cold floor as you feel your consciousness slipping through your fingertips like the sand of an hourglass. sam feels like he’s had his heart cleaved in two by a blunt ax coated in the world’s most vile poison.

he chokes on a sob before he can speak again, “i can’t. i’m so sorry, baby, i can't. i just need the rosemary, it’s so close, please, baby.” he’s not sure who he’s begging to. you, to stay alive? god, to intervene? himself, to finish the spell on time? anything and anyone who will listen, most likely. you don’t have the energy to ask him to hold you again.

that moment of silence is the most horrible of them all, then the door swings open with a bang, letting the bright lights from the rest of the house flood into the dark space. dean’s eyes zero in on you on the floor, grasping helplessly at your throat, and he’s on his knees by your side in a second.

he scoops you up in his arms and to his chest. “hey. hey, hey, hey. it’s okay,” he comforts, his eyes wet because he doesn’t know if he believes himself, given your state. “sam’s gonna fix it, darlin’. you’re gonna be just fine.” he’s holding you too tight to wipe away the tears that helplessly stream down your face and he clings to the fact that your hand is gripping his wrist tight.

“dean, rosemary!” sam barks. dean looks up from you, eyes scanning the mess around you; natalie’s dead body and the blood from her wound seeping slowly over the floor, the shattered glass and clutter of dried herbs along with other magical ingredients. sam realizes dean probably won’t recognize it on his own. “dried bundle, purple flowers, thin leaves,” he instructs as best as he can as he continues his own search. dean feels awful as he lets you fall back to the ground and your weak hands fingers scrape at his arms, but he thinks he sees it, rolled far away and invisible unless you’re crouched to the ground. he scrambles across the floor to grab it and tosses it to sam, who barely manages to catch it with his shaking hands.

sam rips at it with thick, clumsy fingers, crushing the brittle leaves between the pads of his forefinger and thumb into the mixture. he’s silently praying it’s enough as he mixes it in, letting a few drops slosh over the side of the cup in his rush. dean’s back with you, holding you up in a sitting position for sam with a hand smoothing up and down your arm in his best effort of a comforting gesture. he presses a kiss to your temple as sam drops down in front of you. sam uses one large hand to cup the side of your face, and the other to bring the cup to your lips. for a moment, he’s terrified beyond comprehension when the first bit of the liquid he pours into your mouth just dribbles right back out and down your chin.

you’ve gone nearly completely still; your eyes are barely open and your breathing so shallow that only dean knows you’re still inhaling because he’s got you so close.

“please,” sam begs, whispering your name with such conviction, such desperation, that it pulls you away from the claws of unconsciousness just enough to get you to swallow weakly. sam tilts the cup up, just a bit more, and the rim knocks against your bottom teeth as more foul tasting liquid seeps into your mouth. you swallow again, then gag a little when he pours too much for you to handle in your current state. sam’s hopeful when half the mixture is down your throat and he tilts the cup for you again, but the liquid falls down your chin this time, and your eyes are closed. you’ve gone totally still in dean’s arms.

“no, no, no, wake up. c’mon, we’re almost there. you gotta wake up,” sam begs again, more tears spilling onto his cheeks after his hope is stolen away, more cruelly than ever. “please, please, please, honey. please wake up.” his voice breaks as he calls out your name again, setting the cup on the floor and taking you from dean to pull you into his own arms. dean lets him, swallowing hard and not daring to move an inch as he takes in the sight, maybe just about the most horrible thing he’s seen in his fucked up life. that’s the second family member he’s had die in his arms, and the first is holding your limp body as he shakes, cries, and begs, beyond distraught as he denies the fact that he couldn’t save you. dean curses his life. he wishes it was him, thinks about the fact that he’s always too late to make a difference. he’s ready to sell his soul again, ready to go to hell and back.

you’re dead weight against sam’s chest, your clammy forehead and tear-sticky cheeks pressed against the sweaty skin of his neck. he gathers you closer, his hand tugging at your jacket and rubbing up and down your back, begging for you to wake up.

dean’s about to interrupt sam’s mourning to tell him he’s gonna look for the nearest crossroads, that all sam needs to do is keep your body safe. then you shudder in sam’s arms and he’s calling your name again, far beyond desperate that you’ll hear him. he says your name like a prayer, with so much reverence, far more than he could ever muster up for the god he wants to believe in.

you take in a sharp breath, your eyes fly open, and you’re gasping for air, grasping at sam’s sturdy arms like you’ve almost just drowned. sam just about sobs in relief, comforting you through his own tears, “oh, you’re okay, honey, you’re alright. i’ve got you. just breathe, baby, just breathe, that's all you gotta do.” his voice instantly calms you, and you wrap your shaky arms around his neck to show him you understand. he’s got you. he buries his face into your neck, trying not to hold you too tight for fear of restricting your breathing. you feel the wetness of his tears on you, warm and so tired. you don’t want him to cry. he loves you.

his hands smooth up and down your back, helping you set a pace to calm down your erratic breathing as you let a fresh wave of tears fall on his hot skin. they’re tears of relief, most of all. of exhaustion and leftover fear, and oh, glory, tears because he loves you. he said it, and now he can’t take it back because you love him far too much for that.

“sammy,” you breathe out. he just holds you tighter. “don’t cry, sam. it’s okay. i’m okay.” you slip your fingers into his hair, your hand so gentle as you run it through his pretty locks. you just want to comfort him, take away all the fear from the last few hours that he's been holding onto, letting pile up and up into an unmanageable, unruly, ugly tower. you suppose him crying so much is him letting the tower topple over, almost as simple as a toddler’s chubby, innocent hands to a wooden block castle. but it still tugs at your heart, pulls at you so hard because you hate to hear him cry, feel him shake and stiffen up around you, too scared to let you go for even a second. “i’m okay,” you repeat, voice fragile from the whispering brush of death’s fingers to your palm, but you try to make it strong and confident for him, “you saved me, sammy, i’m alright. it’s alright. it’s over. you don’t need to worry anymore.” 

you think he relaxes just a touch at your words, but he doesn’t move an inch from his spot on the ground, or say a thing to interrupt the sound of your breathing. all he does is cradle you close, one hand to your back so he can feel it shift when you take in or let out air, and the other splayed from the curve of your neck, up to the base of your head. without moving too much, he presses a long kiss to the ambiguous space above your ear. that’s not enough, so he tilts his head more to press his lips to the skin of your forehead.

dean hates to break the silent reverence between the two of you, and it means more than the world, the whole goddamn universe or anything else he could ever think of, to see this instead of you dead in sam’s arms. you might be the love of sam’s life, but that just makes dean all the more protective of you. to dean, you’re family, and you have been for a long time. that’s why he needs to get the two of you away from here, before anyone finds you and the dead body.

“sam,” dean interrupts, voice somehow both gentle and extra gruff, “we gotta go.” he knows sam can get you up on his own, but he still places a firm hand on your elbow as the two of you stand. he doesn’t want to let his hand fall away from you, but he does anyway. on the way out and to the car, you’re tucked safe into sam’s side, and dean’s got his gun in hand, ready to protect the both of you need be.

dean expects it when sam climbs in the backseat with you, just thankful to get away from the damned house and back to the motel. the ride is mostly silent, save the rumble of the engine, and sam’s hand stays securely wrapped around yours, itching to pull you even closer. you yawn and sam tugs at your hand, then drops his gaze to his lap when you look at him, offering to let you lie there. you can’t resist, because historically, your head in his lap has been heaven, and you figure that this time, after having heard him say “i love you,” it’ll be something better than heaven, something undiscovered and infinitely more precious than all the gold and silver in the world. so you drop your head to his thigh, and his hands are immediately on you. you’ve got the warmth of his palms on your head and your shoulder. your own hand is on his knee, taking in the feel of his time-worn jeans, and the muscle, sinew, and bone underneath.

you fall asleep, just 10 minutes from the motel, and sam doesn’t want to wake you, but you always do anytime he tries to carry you to bed.

he calls your name, all tenderness and sweet as he rubs your shoulder. you stir easily, only having fallen into a light slumber. the sigh you let out when you sit up is soft, and sam thinks it’s cute. then he thinks about the fact that, when you both settle down, he won’t have to hold that thought back. “you’re cute,” he can say, and make you both a little flustered before pressing a kiss to your lips. until then, he’s getting out of the car with you, only letting his hands stray from you when dean pulls you into a hug, right then and there. he holds you tight, showing you how scared he was too, so you squeeze back with extra care.

“don’t scare us like that again, kiddo. you got it?” he mumbles into the embrace. 

you nod, “i got it.” he lingers for a moment, then presses a quick kiss to the side of your head before parting and letting sam take over again.

he’s got a hand stuck to your back on the way into the room, all the way to the bed you shared last night. you don’t hesitate to peel off your dirty shirt and go to put on a new one, but sam’s already holding one out to you. dean disappears into the bathroom, despite not wanting to let you out of his sight.

you tug on the shirt, then collapse into bed, taking sam with you.

“you stink,” you complain lightheartedly, looking at him with honey-sweet love in your eyes. he wants to joke back, but he’s not quite there yet.

“i’ll shower after dean, if you want,” he offers, nothing but sincere. you smile at him, his nose inches from yours.

“but then you’d have to get up,” you say.

“sure, but if that’s what you want,” he repeats. he’d do anything for you, you think.

you shake your head. “that’s not what i want. i don’t want you to go. but i also want to fall asleep in your arms, and it sucks that you smell like blood, sweat, and nasty potions.”

“so what do i do, baby?” he asks, voice light, but you think he really means it. you melt at the pet name.

“hmmm,” you consider, truly not sure. you’re all quick in the shower after years of experience in motel bathrooms, but that still feels like such a long time to be away from him, especially since you should probably shower, too. you decide to suck it up. “you shower, then me. dean said the water was still hot yesterday, even when he went last.” you’re not sure when your voice dropped to a whisper, but it’s quiet now. he sighs, half disappointed, but knowing it’ll be much more comfortable that way.

the second you’re out of the shower and dressed, sam’s tugging you back into bed with him and tucking you into his chest. his hold is still protective and a little wary. you want to make him relax, so you wiggle away just a bit to look at his face.

“sam, i’m so hungry,” you complain. he smiles at you, thinking you’re too cute to resist when you whine just a little. and he just loves it when you say his name.

“you’re gonna make me get up again?” he asks, and you hold back a triumphant grin because his voice has turned pleasantly lighthearted.

“you’re gonna let me starve?” you tease back.

“fine,” he huffs, “we can go to the vending machine together.” he really doesn’t want to be far from you.

“no,” you protest, dragging out the ‘o’ just a little. “we had that earlier. and chips don’t count as a meal. poor dean probably hasn’t eaten at all today! we deserve a treat,” you argue.

sam can’t deny you anything you want in this moment. “we do,” he agrees, “what d’you want? maybe we can convince dean to pick it up for us.”

you smile. “mmm, that’s not fair. dean deserves a treat, too. i’ll satisfy myself with vending machine food for a few hours, then we can go out to an early dinner.”

“are you sure?” sam asks. you smile more.

“mhmm,” you nod. “i have the excuse to buy a candy bar too now.”

dean, splayed out on his own bed, has likely been listening in on this whole conversation, and graciously chosen not to interrupt. he smiles at you as you exit the room.

with a glance that no one’s around, sam slips his hand into yours as you make your way to the vending machine down the hall. your heart blooms at the feeling, at the way he’s been looking at you without shame and suddenly you realize you never said it back. sam punches in the number for an excessive amount of snacks, getting all of yours, his, and dean’s favorites, waiting til they all fall down to collect them. he bends over, gathering them all in his big arms and wide pockets and handing a few to you. the crinkling of plastic fills the quiet air as you watch him with a sort of worship and adoration dripping from your eyes. you take in the curve of his back, the peek of his spine that you get from his tshirt riding up a bit, and the pretty brown hair on the back of his head. when he stands, he catches that gaze, and for once you don’t hide it away or tuck it into that corner of the drawer where you keep all the little trinkets you don’t need, but can’t bear to get rid of. because you need this, and you can have this.

“i didn’t get to say it back.” your voice comes out hushed, reverent.

“say what?” he asks, matching his voice to yours without even trying. you take in all the subtle ways that his face changes, as he thinks about what you could mean. the left side of his mouth quirks down, just a bit, and his eyebrows pinch together. it’s not quite the expression he makes then he’s worried or upset, just thinking.

“i love you, too.” when those words finally escape, finally make themselves known and heard, everything is different. it’s like you’ve never really breathed before this, because the simplest of things, like an inhale that fills your lungs with stale motel air, is so good, so satisfying, so much better when he looks at you like that. “for as long as i can remember, sam, i love you. when we were kids at bobby’s, seventeen and getting soaked in the rain, every moment before then and every moment after, and–”

his lips are on yours and there’s a messy ruckus of plastic wrapped snacks being dropped to the floor, because he couldn’t care about anything except kissing you. his warm, rough hands are so gentle cupping your cheeks and pulling you into him, and you follow suit in disregarding the food in your hands to place them firm on his waist, almost squeezing his sides because you need this to be as real and as solid as it possibly can be.

some might question the merit of this being your first kiss with each other. but it’s so you and sam, standing in an empty motel hallway next to the vending machine and it’s crappy food scattered around your feet. plastic crinkling and rustling when you get closer, and a hunger so insatiable that it makes it hard to breathe.

when you finally break away, panting just a bit, sam’s eyes swim with concern as his mind flashes back to you just an hour ago.

“i’m okay,” you interrupt his paranoid thoughts and loop your arms around his neck, “i’m okay, sam. ‘s just you. baby, i know this is a horrible time to say this, but you always take my breath away, in the best way. you’re so pretty, and i’m so in love with you that when i look at you for too long, i forget to breathe, and–”

his lips are back on yours, telling you me too, me too, me too. saying as they push and mold against yours, you take my breath away and i love you for it.

[silent-stories]

𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 - 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄

Pairing: Noah Sebastian x reader

Summary: When Noah was left alone to take care of his daughter about two years ago, he never thought he would find someone else he would trust enough to include in his little family. But things can change.

Tw: parent abandoning their child, fluff, angst

Series masterlist

The afternoon sun filtered through the living room window and cast a swath of gold over Noah's house. You were sitting crossed-legged on the couch, watching Luna play silently, her small hands precisely set her favorite toys in a small, neat row, where Mr. Flop, her favorite bunny, had proudly taken the central point, guiding whatever game was in her head.

You smiled at her concentration, something warm blooming in your chest.

She was a perfect blend of Noah's features, a mirror image of him in her own way. She had his warm, deep brown eyes with his same subtle almond shape, dark hair, with a way chubbier face.

Noah leaned against the counter in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee. Some brown locks fell over his eyes as they darted between you and his daughter in quiet contemplation and hesitation.

You could tell something was on his mind. It had been incredible between you and Noah in the past few months, but there was one part of his life he'd held carefully at arm's length: Luna.

That wasn't because he didn't trust you, you knew that. It was deeper than that, more complicated. He was protective of her in a way hard to explain unless you knew the full story, which he had only recently begun sharing with you.

It had been late one night, just the two of you curled up on his couch after Luna had gone to bed, when Noah first opened up about the relationship with his ex. In the beginning, it had been passionate-whirlwind-type love, felt like the kind that could move mountains.

But once Luna was born, everything shifted. She was never ready for the reality of being a mother, and slowly but surely, it dawned on him that with each passing day, she actually resented it. Noah tried to understand her, tried to support her in whatever way he could, but nothing seemed to help. The more he tried, the more she pulled away.

One night, Noah had come home to an empty house. No note, no explanation, just Luna, not even a year old yet, lying in her crib, and complete silence in every room. His ex was gone, had walked out on both of them, and though Noah tried to reach out, tried to get her to come back, she never did.

From that moment on, he'd vowed to protect Luna from anything or anyone that might hurt her. Or perhaps that was his way to protect himself, too.

You both were up late, the only sound in his living room coming from a small lamp in the corner of the room, its dim light.

Noah was sitting next to you on the couch, his back hunched and his elbows to his knees as he stared into the floor for thought collection. You knew he had been carrying something heavy in his head for quite some time.

"I never thought that I'd ever be a single parent," he said gruffly, as though the words hurt him to utter. "But then again, after what happened …I don't really see my life in any other way anymore. She is everything to me."

He stopped, rubbing a hand over his face, and in those eyes you could almost see his tiredness, not physical, but an emotional toll, when one carries so much on his shoulders alone. You said nothing, just let him work through the words at his own pace. You could feel his vulnerability hang between you like some fragile thing he was just willing to show you.

"I didn't have time to process what happened," Noah whispered. "One day I'm in this relationship and we're trying to make it work for Luna, and the next… she's gone. Just like that. I came home and she'd left. No explanation. No good-bye."

Your heart ached with the pain in his tone, even now raw with emotion.

“I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,”, he admitted, shaking his head. Just like that, it was him and Luna against the world.

"I was fucking terrified" he said, the corner of his lip curling up in a self-deprecating smile. "I had to figure out how to be a dad by myself, how to balance that with the band, how to be there for her when I was barely holding it together myself."

He glanced up at you then, his eyes warm with appreciation and a little fear. "She's the reason I'm so careful, you know? With relationships, with people in general. I don't ever want to bring someone into her life unless I am really sure."

He paused, his throat swallowing hard as his eyes drop once again to the floor. You could tell there was more he wanted to say, but it was hard for him to speak.

"I'm scared that…," he started, then had to force himself to continue, his voice faltering. "I'm scared that you're mad at me. Or disappointed, maybe. That I'm taking things too slow with you. That I haven't fully… let you in yet. It's not because I don't care about you, because I do. A lot. It's just—"

"Noah," you said softly, leaning in closer to him. "I'm not mad. I'm not disappointed. I get it, why you want to be careful. It's okay."

His eyes finally met yours, surprise flickering in them. He had been so consumed by his fear of messing things up that it hadn't occurred to him you might actually understand where he was coming from.

"You've been through much," you went on, your voice soft but clear. "And I get why you'd want to protect Luna. I'd be more concerned if you were being anything less than careful, honestly. It says how much you love her, and how much you want to do right by her. And I respect that, Noah. I'm not going anywhere."

He blinked, like he was trying to absorb what you were saying, his shoulders loosening as your words soaked in. You reached for his hand, threading your fingers through his. His hand closed around yours, clasping at it like he was holding onto something solid for the first time in a long while.

"I can wait," you said with an even voice. "You need more time, I'm waiting. I do care for you, for both of you. And I don't want to make anything if you are not ready yet. What matters to me is that we're moving forward, even if it's slow."

Noah's breath slightly caught, emotion swelling up in his eyes as he continued to carry that weight for such a long time, terrified that by taking things slow, he was pushing you away, when all you wanted was to meet him where he was.

"I don't know how to do that," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "I've been so scared of screwing this up, of screwing us up. But you… you've just been there."

You smiled softly and squeezed his hand. "You've been hurt, Noah. And it takes time to heal from that. I'm not here to hurry you or push you into something that you're not ready for. I am here because I care about you. And I care about Luna. I want you only to know that I'm in this for the long haul whenever you're ready."

He breathed shakily, his forehead leaning forward to rest against yours while his hand remained tightly wrapped around yours. You could feel the tension start to seep from him, replaced by a silent sort of relief that he didn't have to bear the burden of his fears alone anymore.

"Thank you." he whispered, his voice full of gratitude. "For understanding. For being… you."

You pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his lips, silently communicating that he had nothing to thank you for, that this was where you wished to be.

You saw Noah in all his completeness: a good father, a man who had been wounded but kept trying, learning how to trust once more. You were more than ready to wait for him to fully open up that part of his heart.

You sat in that silence, the weight of the past there still, yet lighter now. You knew Noah still had a really long way to go before letting go of all the pain he had been carrying with him, but you knew he was on his way. You would be here every step of the way, to build something real, something lasting, with him and with Luna.

Now, months after you and Noah had started dating, you were sitting in the middle of that guarded space he had created around her.

Now you knew why he was being so careful, why he had not pushed for more interaction between you and Luna.

She meant the world to him, and after all she had been through, he would never risk anything that could disrupt her life. But still, you waited. You had cared for Noah, and by that extension already cared for Luna, too. So you gave him the time he needed to let you in.

Today, though, there was something different in the air, something to let you know Noah was about to take a step forward.

"Hey," Noah finally said, breaking the comfortable silence that had overcome the room. He set his coffee cup down and rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous quirk you'd come to know well. "Can I ask you a favor?"

You raised an eyebrow. "Of course. What's up?"

He turned to Luna, still deep in her toys, and back to you again. He paused a beat, you basically saw the cogs turning as he picked his words with all care.

"The band's got a thing later today, just some planning stuff for the new album. I was supposed to go meet the guys, but…" He trailed off, gesturing toward Luna with a helpless look. "Usually, I ask one of them, but they are all busy today."

You chuckled softly at that, imagining Luna in the hands of Noah’s bandmates. As much as they loved her, you knew they weren’t exactly all equipped for child care even if you were sure they all deeply cared about her.

"So… you want me to stay with her?"

Noah nodded, his expression softening as he met your gaze. "Yeah. If you're okay with it. I mean, I know it's last minute and I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, but—"

"Noah," you interrupted softly, standing up and walking over to him. You reached out, resting your hand on his arm. "It's okay. I'd love to stay with her."

He exhaled, the relief washing over his features, but there was still that damned hesitation in his eyes. You knew how big of a deal this was for him, trusting someone with Luna, especially after everything he'd been through.

"Are you sure?" he asked more quietly now. "I mean, she's really shy, with most people and with you too, and I don't want any of you to feel uncomfortable."

You smiled, leaning up to press a kiss against his cheek. "I'll be fine. We'll be fine. She just needs time, that's all. And I think she got her shyness from her dad."

Noah closed his eyes for a second, his head slightly leaned into your touch before pressing a gentle kiss against your forehead. When he pulled back, his eyes were different, warm and a deep well of silent appreciation.

"Thank you," he whispered. "This… this means so much."

Now, you were sitting on the floor, after Noah had gone off to his band meeting. At first, Luna had been quiet, keeping to herself to play with her toys, but bit by bit, she'd started to warm up toward you, like you'd wanted.

You leaned forward for Mr. Flop, the stuffed bunny, and held him out to her with a playing grin. "You think Mr. Flop needs some tea?"

Luna's eyes sparkled, a shy smile overspreading her face as she nodded vigorously. "Yes! He is very thirsty."

You laughed softly, watching her scurry over to her tiny plastic tea set. She first poured an imaginary cup of tea for Mr. Flop and then one for you. As she handed you the pretend tea, your heart swelled with affection for this little girl who was letting you into her world slowly, piece by piece.

"Thanks, Luna," he said, making a big show of taking a sip. "This is the best tea I've ever had."

She giggled, her cheeks blushing with pride. For several moments, the two of you played in comfortable silence, with her showing you through the rules of the tea party.

"You think Mr. Flop would like to go on an adventure?" you asked after some time, breaking the silence as Luna finished pouring more imaginary tea.

With eyes aglow with excitement, she said, "Yes! He loves adventures!"

"Okay, where shall we go?" you asked, leaning in conspiratorially.

Luna tapped her chin, and then a huge grin spread over her face. "The jungle! I love jungle! Dad loves jungle too! We have to find the lost treasure!"

You gasped melodramatically. "The jungle? Wait. Noah made you listen...nevermind. That does sound dangerous! You think we can make it?"

She laughed again, her head bobbing up and down quickly. "We can do it! Mr. Flop is very brave."

And then you both launched into your make-believe jungle adventure. The shyness had left Luna by now, replaced by a bubbly, fearless energy that took your heart soaring.

The front door creaked open a couple of hours later when Noah returned home, but you didn't notice him first, too caught up in the game with Luna sitting next to you on the floor.

Noah stood in the doorway, watching the both of you, and his heart swelled in his chest. He had always known you were special, knew from the moment he met you that there was something different about you, but seeing you now, playing with Luna, made him feel something he hadn't felt in years.

Love, not just for you, but for the idea of you becoming a part of him and Luna's lives in a deeper way.

When you finally saw him standing there, you smiled. "Hey, you're back!" you said. Noah nodded, stepping closer, his eyes soft. "Yeah, I'm back."

Luna ran to him and wrapped her arms around his legs as he scooped her up, holding her close to his chest for a moment before turning back to you. "You two seemed to have fun."

Noah had Luna in his arms, babbly excitedly about some "jungle adventure" and lost treasure. He listened intently, though his eyes never left you. There was something there in his gaze, something so raw and deep, that made your heart go racing. It wasn't the usual softness, the usual affection, it was heavier, like something nestled between you when nothing was said.

"We did," you said, smiling at Luna as she continued her excited recount of the day. "We found the lost treasure, and Mr. Flop was the hero of the day."

Luna giggled, snuggling into Noah's chest as she added her own details. "We were very brave, Daddy! Mr. Flop was so good at being quiet, and we didn't get eaten!"

Noah chuckled, brushing a hand through her hair as he kissed her forehead. "Sounds like you had quite the adventure."

"Yes! We had a lot of fun. And your friend is amazing. I want to play with her again. I think she is my friend too now."

Noah smiled, his brown eyes full of affection for the both of you. "I'm glad you made a new friend. We'll ask her again, okay?"

Luna nodded, her eyelids drooping as the excitement of the day finally started to catch up with her and she rested her head against the soft fabric of his dad's hoodie. Noah glanced at you over her head, a soft smile tugging at his lips once again.

"Would you like to help me get her ready for bed?" he whispered, and with Luna nuzzling her head into the crook of his shoulder, half-asleep.

You nodded, and your heart fluttered with the thought. This felt like some sort of minor but meaningful step in being included in the nighttime routine, part of something as personal and intimate as this.

All three went into Luna's room together. It was not a big room, but it was cozy with soft toys, bookshelves, and a little carpet that glittered from strings of tiny fairy lights.

Noah was soon to gently lay Luna down into her bed, and you sat down beside him, watching as he tucked her in, his hands moving with the sort of practiced ease that came from more than two years of being a single parent. You leaned over, setting Mr. Flop down beside Luna, who smiled sleepily as she cuddled the bunny close.

Noah leaned over her, placing a gentle kiss against her forehead with tenderness that would ache your chest. "Goodnight, sweetheart," he whispered into her hair. "I'll be right outside if you need me."

"Goodnight, daddy," she muttered the tone in her voice drowsy. Then her tiny eyes flickered open just enough to glance at you. "Goodnight Y/N."

You smiled warmly, your heart swelling in the simplest of words. "Goodnight, Luna."

After several minutes of quiet whispers and soothing reassurances, she fell asleep, her breathing evening into the quiet rhythm of her sleep. Noah leaned forward and pressed another soft kiss to her forehead before he eased himself up, motioning you to follow him from the room.

As the door is shut quietly behind you, he let out a very, very long breath, running his hand through his hair, leaning against the wall.

"Thanks," he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion. "For sticking with her. For being so… incredible with her."

You shrugged. "She's a pretty amazing kid. It wasn't hard."

Noah turned fully toward you now, his eyes searching yours with a sort of intensity that hitched your breath. His hand rose and delicately swept a strand of hair back behind your ear, where it lingered on the side of your face. His thumb tracing the line of your jaw sent you leaning into his touch, your heart beating with each passed second a little faster.

"I never knew whether I would find anybody that could fit in this part of my life," he whispered, his voice not a decibel over a whisper. "With Luna, after what happened… I felt I needed to keep her world small, you know? Keep it safe. I didn't want to bring someone in that might hurt her."

His eyes welled with that same vulnerability you had seen before, and you knew how hard this was for him, to open up, to let you into this part of his life he had guarded so much.

"You don't have to worry about that," you said softly, laying your hand over his. "I would never hurt her. Or you."

Noe's thumb stroked over your cheek, his eyes sealing to yours in an tight seriousness, as if you were the only person existing. "I know. That's why I love you."

The words hung between you and him, heavy with tension. You couldn't breathe for a second, heart pounding in your chest as you tried processing what he just said. He loved you.

You hadn't expected it, not so soon, not in that moment, but the way he looked at you, the way he had been with Luna, it made sense. It wasn't just the two of them anymore; it was all three, the small family that had formed.

A soft smile overspreads your face as you looked up at him, your hand clenching a little tighter around his. "I love you too, Noah."

The relief in his expression was genuine, and for him at least, it was as though the weight had finally been pulled off his shoulders. He pulled you into his arms, and you wrapped yours around him, holding close as he buried his face in your hair, breathing you in like he couldn’t believe you were real.

And for a long time, neither of them said anything. They only stood there with each other, wrapped in their own warmth, and the silence just told it all.

Then Noah leaned back, just a little, just enough to look down at you. And then his eyes were deeper and surer.

"I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't met you," he whispered huskily. "I don't think I even knew how much I needed someone like you, not just for me but for Luna, too."

You reached up and brushed a thumb over his cheek. "You're an amazing dad, Noah. You've done everything right for her. But you don't have to do it alone anymore."

He closed his eyes, like almost to let your words sink in. Opening them a second later, there was something soft, something vulnerable, that made you want to pull him closer still.

"I don't want to do it alone anymore," he whispered with his forehead against yours. "I want this. Us. You and me, and Luna. I want a family."

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you nodded, your voice barely louder than a whisper. "Me too."

Noah's arms tugged closer, his lips finding yours in a gentle unhurried kiss that felt almost like a vow, like a start, the type of kiss that spoke of love, of trust, of a future that finally was starting to feel real.

He drew back and his eyes shone bright now with a happiness in them that hadn't been there before. He reached down, took your hand in his, and guided you back onto the couch. You sat together in the quiet glow of the livingroom.

You knew you would have one of those movie nights where you definitely fall asleep in his arms on the couch.

Noah for once in a long while felt something he hadn't dared to believe in, peace. Peace in knowing that he didn't have to protect himself and Luna anymore. Peace in knowing he was finally able to let you in, fully without any fear.

You sat there, his arm around you, knowing this was only the beginning of something beautiful: a life no more his or yours, but one which both of you had started building together.

hello friends in my phone! would you like more parts of this? (｡◕‿◕｡)

Tags: @anything-more-than-human @ladyveronikawrites @iloveyoutodeathbutimdrowning @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard @fadingangelwisp @xmads-omensx @iwasntstable @thisbicc @pathion @mathfairchild1 @flowery-mess @into-the-grey @lma1986 @tosoundlessdarkistare @stardustsirenmelody @thewrstinme

TBAF Tags: @aubrey-melinoe

[enteroctopusdarkysilis]

✨More Clones Brickheadz !✨

Since I acquired the Small Cody (40675), I found that there was an untapped mine. Why would they only make one ? Well. I don't have an answer to that, but I decided to take matters into my own one; so behold : 11 more. I went mostly for commanders here, but then I went a bit astray and so I added some captains to the mix.

In order, row by row :

Tukk (Not cannon but the colours are so beautiful)/Vaungh (died too soon-)/Rex (obviously)/Fordo (I did Rex, so I had to)

Gree/Doom/Thorn/Neyo

Bly/Cody/Fox/Wolffe

It was a really fun project, and I hope to do more of them in the future - maybe even phase 1s, some day~); supposedly not commanders because I did most of them (except Bacara, I know...The helmet was too tough).

And because I really like challenges, if you want to see another clone turned into one of these (Be it cannon or one of your ocs) feel free to send requests in my aksbox !)

Anyway this post is already far too long for anyone's dashboard, so closeups and details will be under the cut !

Let's start with the easy ones : Cody, Doom, Fox, Thorn

Obviously, Cody was easy, I just rebuilt the original one virtually - Nothing too hard. The printed pieces here are not the right ones, because Cody's are not available on STUDio yet, but the storm trooper ones were relatively similar, so I used these for most of these models. Of course, it means I'm lacking the sun bands, and a few other distinctive elements, but it works well enough for now.

Now, Doom is essentially a colour variation (minus a few antennas). I also used an old space piece, which has this big yellow arrow printed on it. I's not exactly what Doom has, but I feel like it's close enough for a first attempt.

Then, Fox is relatively similar to Doom, but with two DC-17s. I also moved the printed torso brick up to get that red line he has.

Thorn works in a similar way to Cody too, except I removed both accessories on the side of the helmet. I also added this tile with diagonal lines to figure the wings he has. One day I'll slap some real wings on there, but I haven't found the right image yet. I also gave him a Z-6, obviously. I really like it, so I might actually make that one physically, because the way it's build (with old binocular pieces) is pretty nice; although I doubt the pieces are available in black.

Moving on to two captains : Vaughn and Tukk !

Admittedly, not really that different either, except for one thing : I learnt to do custom prints now ! Yay ! Well, these are really basic : the blue line for Vaughn, and some trapezoids for Tukk's helmet (which are, indeed, not visible here - shame, I spent so long making these fit). The Ahsoka pattern was already in STUDio (because Ahsoka already has her own brickheadz, which I'll get my hands on someday~)

I must also add that having some cyan in this whole thing added some much needed colours in here, I'm grateful some people give their clones amazing colours (If somehow someone doesn't know who Tukk is, well just check High Ground Animation. Right now. It's really cool, trust me). Anyway.

As for design changes, I modified the faces slightly by adding 1x1 tiles, to allow for different colours variations on the face. It makes them look slightly blockier, but given the overall size of the head, it doesn't do much.

I also gave Vaughn a DC-15A. It's a bit messy, but it works out well enough. Past me forgot to render it, so here is a raw, in-software picture of it (from Fordo(s hand, but it's the same design for both) :

BARC helmets ? Wolffe, Fordo, Neyo

As I've been told, these look a bit wonky, and I'll admit its wasn't exactly easy, but in my defence, it's relatively hard to get such round shapes with bricks (lego cheated by adding the visor). Anyway, given that doing that with a printed piece was out of the question, I tried to replicate the filter's shape with actual bricks, and I used a printed piece which, technically, is Lando's moustache, but downward. I'd say it does the job relatively well.

I also added a rangefinder to Wolffe, which is a little big compared to everyone else's antennas, but It's still relatively to scale with the head itself. No custom prints for him (not sure where I would find the correct pattern images ?), but I've done it for Fordo and Neyo. Fordo obviously has his well deserved Jaig eyes (and who knew it would be that difficult to find a picture of that on internet ?), and Neyo has his symbol on the helmet, chest plate, and the shoulder not shown here.

The really tinkered ones : Gree, Bly, Rex :

Here, it was a matter of trials and errors to figure out just how to get the shapes right.

I actually started with Bly, by removing the previous visor and adding the macrobinoculars first, then I tried to shape the helmet around. Truth is, it doesn't make sense technically : the two separated parts of the helmet do not connected at all, if you remove the equipment. Luckily, no one has to know that.

Next is Gree. It took me some time to figure out how to properly get a round feel, but I feel like it's as good as I can make it like this. Colour-wise, it was surprisingly difficult to find how to balance the different shades of green, and equally hard was to figure out which silvery colour would render well in STUDio. The answer lied, as it always does, in Bionicle. Of course, none of these pieces exist in this colour, but it's not really my main problem (because none of the coloured printed pieces exist either).

Finally, Rex...He gave me some trouble, I have to admit. Firstly, the part-designing software decided to have some trouble with custom prints, which was problematic, because I simply couldn't do Rex without jaig eyes (and Fordo already had his). Then, I started with Gree's base and tried to go from there to fit Rex's custom helmet. I ended up using Boba Fett's printed visor piece for Rex, because these were all triangles. I also got rid of the printed chest piece and used some black plates to simulate the pouch he has; while also adding a a few more custom printed pieces for the arms and pauldron (barely visible, but they're here. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I don't see much other solutions than more and more custom prints, which isn't my goal, so it'll stay like that for now.

Anyway, that's way too much rambling for one post, so I'll just end by saying that next week I'll post an alt version of this whole build [here !], with some 'slight' colour alterations. Definitely nothing big.

[levandright]

BEST FOR YOU ✦ P.SH

pairings : ex! sunghoon x fem reader ୨ৎ content / warning(s) : hurt with comfort, sunghoon gets closure ୨ৎ word count : 1.5k ・ archive

synopsis. sunghoon reflects on his past relationship with you, feeling the weight of your breakup and the distance that has grown between you. as he sees you move on, he is reminded of your shared memories and the love you once had. coming to terms with the changes in your lives, sunghoon finds peace, wishing you well as he lets go of the past and the connection you once shared. lev notes : this is inspired by the song best for you by slchld <3 i actually cried when i first finished writing the draft which was shorter (around 700 words) and this is my first ever angst!! hopefully it doesn't dissapoint >.> i genuinely had such a hard time writing some parts but i pulled through with the power of friendship!!

sunghoon sat in his room, the dim light of his desk lamp casting shadows against the walls. the air conditioning hummed softly, the only sound filling the silence of the quiet evening. he leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his hair as his gaze drifted to the window. the stillness in the air matched the quiet that had settled within him—a feeling he couldn’t shake, no matter how many times he tried to distract himself.

there was something about the loneliness tonight that felt different. it wasn’t just the silence that made it seem so heavy, but the creeping ache in his chest that had been growing for months, ever since your breakup. sometimes, in the middle of a busy day, he would forget that the person who used to be at the center of his world was no longer there. but in moments like this, when it was just him and solitude, the reality of it all hit harder than he cared to admit.

the soft glow of his phone screen illuminated his face as he unlocked it, absentmindedly scrolling through his instagram feed. it wasn’t like he was looking for anything specific—just trying to fill the emptiness in the room with something, anything. his thumb paused when he saw your post. you were smiling brightly, laughing with your friends at some outdoor café. the image felt almost surreal to him.

he had never been the type to go through his ex’s social media, not anymore. but today, something had drawn him in. he couldn’t help but wonder how you were doing, how you were living your life without him. it had been a while since you breakup, and he had been trying his best to move on, to accept that things were over between you two. but seeing you this happy, living the life you’d always dreamed of—it hurt.

your smile was the same as it had always been, bright and effortless. but now it wasn’t for him. it wasn’t because of him. that realization hit harder than he expected. his heart clenched, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

he continued scrolling through your feed, stopping at another post—a picture of you and him, taken months ago at the park. he remembered that day so clearly, the way the sunlight had filtered through the trees and made everything glow. it had been a perfect day, one that had felt like it would last forever. how naive he had been, thinking that nothing could tear you apart.

but everything had changed.

back then, you and sunghoon had been inseparable. high school sweethearts. you had shared everything with each other: dreams, laughter, and even the inevitable frustrations of growing up. you were each other’s safe haven. but life had a funny way of pushing people in different directions, of breaking apart the very things that once seemed unbreakable.

he remembered the late nights he’d stayed up studying, only to have you call him crying, talking about how much the distance between you two was weighing on your heart. and then there were the times he was too exhausted from his part-time job to really listen, too caught up in his own world to hear the desperation in your voice. he was juggling university, work, and trying to hold onto a relationship that was slowly slipping through his fingers.

sunghoon had never been good at balancing everything. he had never been great at handling the outbursts or the tantrums that sometimes came from the overwhelming pressure of your long-distance relationship. back then he had only been able to offer quick reassurances, tired words that meant little in the face of your pain. and when the break-up came, it felt like a punch to the gut.

the reason you drifted apart was simple, yet so complicated at the same time. you both had grown, and in that process, you had grown away from each other. the person he was back then, caught between uni and a part-time job, he had failed to truly see the depth of what you needed. and now looking back, he wished he could have done better.

"i should have tried harder," he whispered to himself. "i should have been there more."

but that didn’t change anything now. he couldn’t go back in time and fix his mistakes. all he had now were memories, and the reality that those memories would never become anything more.

the pain of that realization had hit hardest after the breakup, it felt like the ground had shifted beneath him. for so long, he had imagined his future with you. suddenly, he was adrift, lost in a world that no longer made sense. he remembers nights lying awake, replaying the last few months of your relationship, questioning what he could have done differently, feeling anger, confusion, and heartache twist together inside him.

eventually, he learned to let go of the resentment, to see things with a little more clarity. you both had grown, and sometimes people simply grow in different directions. even now, he knows that his feelings for you haven’t faded, that part of him will always love you in some quiet, unspoken way. but he’s come to accept that you’re better off without him, that he needs to let you go fully.

and then, one night, it happens. he’s scrolling mindlessly again when he sees it. a new photo—one that’s different from the rest. you’re standing next to someone, a guy with an easy smile and a warm, gentle presence. jay.

jay, sunghoon had heard about him from mutual friends. he was kind, thoughtful, everything sunghoon wished he could have been for you back then. and now, it was clear: you had found someone new. someone who made you happy. someone who could give you everything he couldn’t.

sunghoon sat back in his chair, feeling a lump rise in his throat. it felt like the final confirmation that you had truly moved on, that his place in your life was nothing more than a shadow now. he’d always imagined a future with you. he’d imagined growing old together, supporting each other through everything life threw at you. but now, all he had were his memories—and even those felt like they were fading, slowly but surely.

he looked at the photo again, your smile still as bright as ever, but this time, it wasn’t for him. it was for jay. and a strange peace settled over him. you had found love again. you were with someone who made you feel the way you deserved to feel.

sunghoon took a deep breath and opened your chat. he had been avoiding it for so long, unsure of what to say, but now he knew. he wanted to reach out one last time. he didn’t expect anything in return, but he needed to say what was in his heart. after all, he had never been good at letting go, but it was time.

his fingers hovered over the keyboard as he searched for the right words. they trembled slightly as he types:

“hey y/n… i saw your post. i just wanted to say, i’m really happy for you. you deserve all the happiness in the world, and i know jay will treat you the way you’ve always deserved to be treated. thank you for everything, for all the memories. i’ll always wish you the best.”

he paused, staring at the message for a moment before pressing “send.” a weight lifted off his shoulders as soon as he did, his heart heavy yet at peace. by saying goodbye in that simple message, he was letting go, wishing you well—even though he knew he’d never see your smile in person again.

sunghoon sat back in his chair, his eyes drifting back to the photo of you and jay, the one that had started all of this. for the first time in months, he wasn’t angry or sad. he wasn’t resentful. instead, he felt an odd sense of closure, a peaceful acceptance that the two of you were no longer meant to be.

his mind wandered back to the first time he saw you, in the school library. you had been sitting at a table, a pile of books in front of you, your head slightly down as you concentrated. when your eyes met his, you smiled shyly, and something in him had shifted. it was as if the world had slowed down just for that moment. that smile had been the first spark, the first flicker of something that would grow into an overwhelming love. that first smile had stayed with him, a memory he carried through every moment you shared.

“i fell for you right then,” sunghoon whispered to the empty room. “and i think, a part of me will always love you.”

he closed his eyes and leaned back, letting the memory of that smile wash over him. it was bittersweet, but in that moment, he finally understood. you had been his first love, and though that chapter had closed, it would always be a part of him. and that was enough.

he whispered a final goodbye to himself, letting the memory fade into the stillness of the night. with it, he carried a silent promise to move forward, even if it meant holding a small piece of you with him forever.

as he drifted off to sleep that night, he silently wished you well, hoping that wherever life took you, you would find everything you were looking for and more.

perm taglist. @honeychocos @honeybelleee @manaah02 (open!)

©levandright

[devilw-rites]

Behind Closed Doors and Paper-Thin Walls

Tags: switch!Matt Murdock x switch!Reader, Reader is being horny and fantasizing a lot (bondage & pegging), Matt is a voyeur, Foggy is an innocent bystander. (2,767 words).

Being a paralegal under your husband's and his best friend's law firm seems like a dream come true, but sometimes the close proximity gets to you and Matt. (Read on ao3!)

The only thing that separated you and your husband, Matt Murdock, was a papery-thin wall and a cracked window.

You sat at a desk in the main room in the office, prepping Wednesday’s case file for Matt and Foggy. With every trial the law firm only got bigger and bigger, and they desperately needed help planning cases. In the other room, Foggy’s office, the duo were on the phone with some-such or another. It apparently wasn’t going well because you could hear Foggy slam close his desk drawer. You huffed yourself, not exactly in the mood to deal with two very grumpy men, no matter how professional they maintained.

Matt walked out of the office, hands running through his hair. He made a beeline to the coffee pot, hoping to drown his woes into a cheap brew. Of course, it had been emptied by the three of you in the morning, so he went to work looking for the ground beans.

“Sounds like you guys are dealing with a nightmare,” you said. You stood from the desk to help him find the coffee, fetching the bag from one of the top shelves. “Let me make your coffee so you can breathe for a minute.” You knew you didn’t have to do this, Matt was capable of making his own drink no matter his mood, but you wanted to alleviate his stress in any way you could.

“You don’t have to do that, honey, I got it,” Matt objected, going to take the bag from you only for you to snatch it from his reach.

“I know, now go sit down. I love you,” you said, throwing out the old filter and putting a new one in the brewer.

Matt obeyed, quickly accepting a chance to be doted on. He sagged into one of the chairs by the entrance door, loosening his tie and leaning back with a sigh. You glanced over for just a second to check on him, but stopped all movement when you saw him. Disheveled hair from running his hands through it, loose tie, head leaned back… it was a position all too familiar to you. You coughed to keep yourself from whining, a blush rushing to your face and running down your neck.

You tried to keep your thoughts from trailing off the task, telling yourself that you were at work, Matt was in a bad mood, and Foggy is literally right there. Like playing tug-of-war with a team of oxen, you quickly fell down the horny rabbit hole. Your mind flashed with images of all the times the two of you had fucked at work–when you were still the newbie, after a date night that turned into a work night, the week before your wedding–there were definitely a dozen more examples, but those stood out to you the most. Your thighs squeezed together, suddenly so desperate to touch yourself. You hoped Matt would be too distracted to notice your sudden change in mood.

Matt didn’t notice at first, too caught up in his own whirlwind of thoughts, only none of them were anything like yours. It was only when the coffee pot beeped, alerting that it was finished, that the two of you were ripped from your trances. With shaky hands you filled a mug. Still oblivious, not paying attention to anything beyond how the hell he was gonna get his client to cooperate, he took the cup from your hands. It was when he felt the small tremors in your fingers that he perked up.

At first he thought you were upset, considering that he’d let his bad mood rub off on you, but that possibility was almost instantly eliminated when he took in the rest of you. Your hands had been abnormally warm, your heartbeat stuttering and speeding up, and that smell he knew all too well. You were needy, for whatever reason, and he knew you were already wet.

You gulped, fiddling with your skirt. “Anything else I can do to make it easier?” You asked, trying your hardest to keep your tone appropriately concerned and not desperate. Matt’s eyebrows were furrowed together–god fucking damn it, he was so hot–like he was still frustrated from what happened earlier. No, little did you know, he was trying to figure out how you got so aroused in between the time he left Foggy’s office and now, unless he’d somehow missed it even earlier.

Matt hummed an indication of no, taking a drink of the coffee to ground himself for totally different reasons. “Thank you, I really appreciate this,” he said.

You bit your lip, deciding to lean down and give him a chaste kiss to his lips. Just a taste, that’s all you wanted, all you needed, you told yourself. He eagerly returned it, reaching up to rest his hand on the side of your neck to let you know he didn’t want you to pull away. He was trying his hardest to control himself, but you were so tempting, and you always knew all the right ways to destress him.

An awkward cough echoed in the room and you jumped, pulling away from Matt despite a quiet huff from him. There Foggy stood, clearly still annoyed, but definitely not at you two. “Sorry to interrupt, lovebirds, but I heard the coffee. Matt, hands to yourself, buddy,” he said lightheartedly. He’d walked in on much worse in his three years of knowing you.

With a blush, you licked your lips, trying to savor the lingering taste of your husband. You glanced one last time at Matt before you walked back to your desk and pretended to get back to your work. He definitely knew.

“How you holding up, Fog?” You asked, flipping between the same two pages in the case file like that would exorcize your brain.

“You do not want to know, this guy is probably as big of a nightmare to work with as Castle. He’s not telling the truth about something, I just know it, and it’s making this a whole lot harder than it has to be!” Foggy freely ranted, pouring his coffee much closer to the top than was safe for your floors.

You tried to be sympathetic, you really did, but your will was not that strong and your cunt was soaking your panties. You thought back to last night, when Matt’s cock hitting the back of your throat satisfied every part of you. He was so thick, stretching your lips more than you ever thought you could handle before you met him, and the feeling of him throbbing against your tongue had you whining around his cock. When you finally had him cumming down your throat, it was your turn, Matt throwing you back on the bed so he could worship you between your legs until you couldn’t stand to cum anymore and then some.

“Okay, I know the first two pages aren’t that interesting,” Foggy teased. “If you’re bored you can do something else, you’re not bound to this case forever.”

God, he really should’ve said anything else, because now you were picturing tying Matt’s wrists together, riding him and taking care of him after a long day of bullshit. Leaving scratches down his chest, feeling his hand wrapping around your neck, and forcing his cock as deep as it can go inside of you... The warmth in between your legs exploded into tingles and your face got hotter with each passing fantasy.

Matt tried his hardest to keep himself together, focused entirely on tuning in to your body. He sensed every little reaction, could hear your thighs rubbing and squeezing together behind your desk. He wished Foggy was anywhere but here right now so he could touch you in all the ways you so desperately craved.

“Uh, yeah, sorry, guess I’m not all the way here right now,” you said, brushing off Foggy’s comment, “maybe I need some of that coffee for myself.”

“I got it!” Matt rushed, all too eager to serve you. Foggy rolled his eyes at how lovestruck Matt always seemed to be for you, but deep down he found the pair of you adorable. You were like the power duo, a classic Romeo and Juliet–minus the family feud, the weird age gap, and the suicide.

You slyly stared as Matt poured you a cup. Your eyes trailed up and down his body, taking your time when they landed on his ass. A shiver ran up your spine as you pictured him bent over for you, maybe over your very desk, presented and waiting for you to fill him up. It was a fantasy you’d discussed before, even planned to try out soon, because recently he’d been obsessed with the idea of you fucking him. Using one of your dildos, stretching him out, and filling him up in ways no one else ever had, touching him in ways he’d never let anyone else even think about.

“Thanks, hon,” you said when Matt brought you your coffee. “I’m gonna go finish these up in my office, okay? Let me know if you guys need anything.” You were hoping with a little more privacy you could ease the ache a little bit. You pecked Matt on the cheek and entered your little sanctuary, adorned with a cat calendar and a couple dying succulents.

You closed the door and plopped the small stack of files on your desk. You sat in your rolly chair and leaned back with a sigh that was somewhere between relief and frustration. You pushed your lap all the way under the desk to ensure a little more modesty. You ran your fingers over the front of your skirt at first, letting the small tingles run their way through your body. There was no way Matt couldn’t hear you right now, but part of you was hoping that he was getting as riled up as you were.

Meanwhile, Matt was trying his best to split his attention between you and Foggy, with you clearly dominating. Even with Foggy’s loud ranting and raving about the woes of their client, all he could hear was your shuddering breaths and the rustling of your skirt. The picture was almost crystal clear: you leaned back against your chair, skirt hiked up to your waist, and hand shoved down your panties. He could feel a warm flush of his own traveling lower and lower.

“You know what I mean?” Foggy finished, almost out of breath after his long winded soapbox. Matt quickly snapped out of his trance.

“Hm? Yeah, this guy’s a nightmare, Fog. Hey, why don’t you go on a walk to clear your head?” Matt suggested. He was hoping and praying to every Saint above that he would just leave the office already so he could get his hands on you.

“Maybe later. Let’s just get this done today, I’m sick of this case,” Foggy said.

Deep down, Matt was crying on the inside.

You were too, but for a totally different reason.

Your skirt was well up past your hips and your panties pulled down to stretch across your thighs. Your fingers are slowly stroking the length of your clit to really tease yourself. A shiver reverberates across your body and you let out a small moan. It doesn’t feel nearly as good as Matt’s fingers, but you’re still left melted against your chair.

Matt’s legs are crossed in a desperate attempt to hide his erection from his best friend. He gulps when he can hear a shaky whine slip past your lips. He has to grip the arm of his chair to keep himself grounded.

You’re not oblivious to the effect you’re having on Matt, though you can’t actually see or hear him. Instead you use your imagination. He’s probably fiddling with his tie, one of his nervous habits. His breathing is probably getting heavier, sweat dripping down the back of his neck, and hard cock straining against his dress pants–you throw a hand over your mouth the stifle a moan. Your fingers start rubbing tight circles against your clit, sometimes dipping down to tease your hole every once and a while.

Matt felt like his skin was on fire at this point. How Foggy hadn’t noticed him dying in his chair was beyond him. He was barely able to grit out brief answers to whatever bullshit was being discussed. He could practically taste you from across the office.

You were using both hands at this point, one hand fingering your cunt and the other stroking your clit. You could feel the orgasm building up as your clit pulsed and throbbed from your touches. Flashes of Matt danced across your closed eyelids. Memories of him fucking you up against these very walls, his cock impossibly deep inside of you while you scratched at his back. Him dropping to his knees to tongue fuck your pussy from under your desk while you completed work. You teasing your poor husband as he begged you to finally let you cum after denying him for the third time.

Your heart was pounding against your ribs and you could hardly catch your breath. Your fingers pounded against your spot relentlessly. You were surprised you could stay as quiet as you had been, yet Matt could still hear everything. Your labored breathing, your racing heart, the wet noises of your cunt. He was gripping his knee, so desperate for you, he could hardly stand it. He could tell you were close and that made it all the more painful. He should be the one driving you to the edge, not your hands.

It hit you suddenly, the first wave of your orgasm. The hand rubbing your clit flew up to cover your mouth once more while you fingerfucked yourself through each and every wave of euphoria. You whimpered Matt’s name under your breath as quietly as you could, knowing that it would rile him up even more. It worked, Matt’s cock leaked precum into his boxers.

Once the final wave passed, your muscles collapsed and you sagged against your chair. You pulled out your fingers and limply laid your hand against your thigh. You took deep breaths to ground yourself. You wished Matt was here to help you clean up.

Matt could hear that your breathing had slowed and the wet sounds of your fingers slipping in and out of you had ceased. He matched your slow, deep breaths to bring himself down as much as possible. His cock still painfully throbbed and the flush on his neck refused to go away.

The sound of your clothes rustling, then your office door opening, alerted Matt that you were going to the bathroom to clean up. He lamely excused himself from Foggy and rushed to meet you on your way there. When he stepped out into the main room, you stopped just at the bathroom door and waited for him. He made his way over to you and stood close, nearly right up against you.

“You know I heard that,” Matt breathed into your ear. You couldn’t resist shivering.

“I know, baby. I’m surprised you were able to keep yourself together,” you teased back.

“You know you’re paying for that when we get home, right?”

Your heart jumped at the implication. What did Matt have in store for you? Would you fuck you the minute the two of you passed the threshold, shoving you against a wall and taking what was his? Or would he take you to bed and tease you, going tortuously slow. Would he deny you, making you wait to cum the way you made him wait? Would he refuse to stop, making you cum over and over again until you were shaking and couldn’t cum anymore? Your cheeks burned bright red from all the possibilities.

While you were stuck in thought, Matt gently took the hand that had been inside of you. He raised it up to his lips and slowly took them in his mouth. His tongue swirled around each finger to catch any of your cum that he could. You whined without thinking, definitely too loud to be discreet. Matt slowly pulled your fingers out with a quiet ‘pop’ and dropped your hand back down.

“Just needed a taste, sweetheart,” Matt teased through his grin. “Go clean up and I’ll let Foggy know we’re going home early.”

“Fuck, okay Matt,” you replied. You rushed into the bathroom and all but slammed the door behind you, nervous and excited for whatever your consequences might be.

[babybatscreationsv2]

Grindr

Marvel | Starker

They're working in the lab when Tony hears the Grindr chime on his phone. Only, his phone is on silent and Peter is the only other person in the room.

Rating: Explicit

For my H <3

Warnings and tags below

Warnings/tags: embarrassment, light daddy kink, possessiveness, rough sex, face fucking

Tony flinched at the familiar notification chime. He was sure he put his phone on vibrate before Peter came in. Of course Peter probably had no idea what that sound was, but he still jumped up and grabbed his phone. He keyed the volume down only to frown at the device. The volume was already off. He put the phone down and even in his brilliant mind it still took about three seconds to click.

He looked across the lab to see Peter, hard at work. His phone peeked out of the back pocket of his shorts. Tony left his station and crossed the floor.

He swiped the phone out of Peter's pocket to a surprised, "Hey!"

There on the screen was a familiar icon.

"What are you..." Peter said. His face turned a deep red. "Give it back." He snatched the phone back from Tony's hand.

"What's that you got there?" Tony raised his eye brows.

"I'm just working on-"

Tony held up a finger. "Ah," he silenced. "Don't play dumb. The phone."

"You uh... you heard that?"

"I'm not that old, kid. I can hear a noise from a few feet away."

Peter stood frozen, seeming to struggle to find an excuse. Then some sort of revelation crossed his face.

"How do you know what that sound is?" Peter crossed his arms over his chest.

Tony blinked. Somehow he hadn't considered being cross-examined. "Because I am an adult. What are you doing with a hookup app on your phone?"

"I'm also an adult," Peter pointed out.

"You're still a little young for Grindr. You don't have the experience to be hooking up with random men you met on an app."

"How do you know what sort of experience I have?"

"Stop trying to turn this back on me. You should be more careful. Hookups like that can be dangerous. For your life and your health. And what about Spider-Man, huh? You can't be reckless."

Peter pulled out his phone while Tony lectured. He opened the notification to see the suggested profile that had caused all of this. 'TS - Online now - 0 feet away' the screen said. Peter swallowed as he looked at the profile.

"Hey, listen when I'm speaking," Tony said. He snapped his fingers over the top of the phone.

Peter turned his phone around. "I've seen you changing before, but somehow I don't think I've ever seen that much of you."

Tony stared at the image of his own bare chest, arch reactor edited out, jeans unzipped and pulled down almost too far. It only took a second for his mind to process enough for him to know that he needed his phone right now. He ran for it. He heard the sound of a webshooter and dove for the workbench. His hand landed on the phone just in time for Peter to yank it out from under him.

Peter stared at him, mortified, clutching his phone in both hands. "Mr. Stark..."

"Give me that phone." He pointed his finger threateningly.

"I can't." Peter shook his head.

"Why is your filter even set old enough for me to see you?"

"Why is yours set so young?"

"Peter," Tony growled. "Stop hooking up with random New Yokers!"

"Make me!" he shouted back.

All at once, Tony arm wrapped around him and pulled him close. He crushed their mouths together way too rough. Peter moaned much too enthusiastically. It was all too much and they both were greedy. Tony's phone thumped against the ground as it slipped from Peter's hand. He was too busy running his hands over Tony's chest. They kissed until it was too much for them to breathe, but Tony's mouth followed the line of his throat. Peter gasped and tipped his head back. His hands pulled Tony closer.

"We should slow down," Tony panted into his shoulder.

"Can't keep up, old man?" Peter teased.

Tony picked him up and set him down on the workbench. One hand grabbed him by the hair while the other pulled Peter's hips forward. He was off balance with little leverage to do anything about it, but Tony was grinding their hips together while he kissed him again so he wasn't really trying.

Peter's mouth was soft and sweet. Little whines traveled up his throat whenever Tony's tongue met his. It only made him wonder what sort of noises he'd make getting his mouth fucked. He was so easy to manhandle despite his superior strength. Which only meant that he liked being manhandled. He was letting Tony do it, eating it up too judging by the way he obediently stayed right where Tony put him even as he tugged at the roots of his hair and all but fucked him through his jeans.

Just the thought that Peter was out fucking old men his age, he wanted to bite and mark every inch of his skin. Tattoo his name right on his ass. But he had to earn that didn't he? He had to make sure the boy came back to him and forgot that stupid app. He had to have him.

Tony ran his hand up Peter's thigh. He spread his legs pushed his hips toward him nearly falling off the table. Tony chuckled as he moved him back into place.

"Do you need something, Pete?"

"Please," he gasped. His eyes were glazed and his lips swollen. Tony suddenly couldn't bare how tight his jeans were.

"How about you get daddy's cock wet and we'll see you can earn something more."

Peter nodded, already sliding down off the workbench. He dropped to the floor and started on Tony jeans, ripping his belt free and opening up the zipper. He felt fabric tears in his carelessness. With Tony's cock in his hand, he didn't even hesitate. His lips around the head while both hands held him at the base.

"Fuck, kid," Tony swore, forbidden pleasure curled in his stomach. Peter either didn't hear him or didn't care, he was too busy polishing the head of his dick with his tongue.

Tony grabbed a fistful of his hair. "Open," he ordered.

Peter let go of his cock and opened his mouth wide. He looked up at him as Tony pushed his cock deeper into his mouth, finding the back of his throat. Peter moaned as his mouth was filled up. His tongue kept moving around the bottom of his cock as much as it could.

"Fuck," Tony swore again. "That's a good boy. Your mouth feels so good, baby."

Peter hummed happily, still looking up at him. Tony pulled slowly back, then pushed back inside. The way Peter moaned as he fucked his mouth had him teetering on the edge. He pulled him off of his cock and held himself tightly at the base to save himself the embarrassment.

"I want that ass," he said. He picked Peter up and set him back on the table. The boy hurried to get his own pants off. They stripped off his clothes and Peter laid back on the table. He held on to Tony's shirt, pulling him closer. He looked so pretty all desperate for Tony to fuck him, spreading him legs.

Tony ran a hand over his ass. He spread him open and spit, rubbing it into his hole with his thumb.

"Please," Peter moaned.

"Please what, baby?" Tony teased.

"Fuck me, please." Tony pushed his thumb inside and Peter whined like a slut.

"Are you sure? We could call one of your grindr daddy's instead?"

"Please, Tony," Peter begged. He looked gone, wrecked, like he could barely understand what Tony was saying.

He replaced his thumb with the head of his cock, pushing in, making them both moan. Peter grabbed his shoulders, whining desperately.

"That's my good boy," Tony breathed. "Take daddy's cock."

"Yes," Peter gasped. "Please daddy." He whispered as Tony gave him more, burying himself in Peter's little ass, trying desperately not to cum too soon but the boy was too pretty to hold out.

"You gonna be mine, Peter? Gonna let me fuck you whenever I call?"

"Yes, please please." His head fell back against the table and his hand wrapped around his cock. He stroked himself furiously, on the edge and drunk on Tony's cock.

"That's a good boy," Tony purred. "Gonna cum for me?"

"Yes-" Peter panted. "I'm- gonna cum-"

"Look at me," Tony ordered. Peter lifted his head. Their eyes met and a whining moan broke from his swollen lips. He came, splattering cum across his belly, his chest, a few drops landing on his own cheek.

"Fuck, Peter," Tony moaned. He squeezed hips, fucking into him deeper and finally letting go, letting himself cum in his ass.

Tony bent down. He ran his tongue up his belly, cleaning up the cum on his skin. Peter laughed and Tony smiled. He leaned down to kiss him. Peter's hands held the back of his head, holding him close. His knees squeezed Tony's hips.

Tony looked at him, face warm and pink, eyes wide, lashes wet. Peter bit his lip.

"You should uninstall that app..." Tony said innocently.

Peter gave him a smile that was all mischief. "You'll have to make sure I don't need it."

[topzsun]

I HAVE LOST IT ALL (HELP ME BREATHE)

── ♡ QIU LIN & TAMARACK BAUMANN

qiu contemplates the present. tamarack thinks about the past and what was lost along the way. you believe your future will be bright.

If Tamarack could be compared to a tornado, you would be a hurricane.

It’s an odd thought Qiu Lin ponders at age fourteen. It’s been four years since they had gained two new neighbours. In those early days, riddled with misadventures and emotions, they felt a connection to the pair of you that was hard to put into words. They reminisce over an old myth their mother liked to tell them during rainy evenings inside, her crocheting and them absentmindedly tossing a handball at laminated floors, watching it come back into their waiting hand listlessly.

The red thread of fate. An invisible string around the finger of those destined to meet. Perhaps that felt like an accurate way to describe it. Something about their neighbours did feel pre-destined. An inevitable that couldn’t be fought against. Yet, the myth was about lovers. Did they love you and Tamarack? It was cruel to speak it into the world, but they weren’t sure of the answer.

After all, things have changed since the three of you were ten years old.

They had adopted a mask of apathy. It was a slow change, carefully planned and executed, as it was in their nature. Even with their burnout, they still took precautions for their image, and this instinct only displeased them more. It was an ironic cycle of dissatisfaction. Tamarack had lost her cheek, her usual assertiveness now disguised behind carefully thought-out words and cautious eyes. People walked on a tightrope around her and she merely returned the favour. There is no permeance when it comes to Tamarack Baumann.

You were much more difficult to describe on the account that Qiu can’t decide if you changed as a consequence to them. Your eyes are clear, you walk with a secret purpose, and they still see the same person they had met in their backyard. Being fourteen didn’t stop you from looking at the world with the same reservation, curiosity, disdain and love as when you were ten. Yet, there is no longer anyone around you. Despite their isolation, Qiu had managed to keep those who had been “in” their circle since the beginning as companions. Even Tamarack had found friends.

Yet, for some wild reason completely incomprehensible to them, you decided your circle would still be limited to Tamarack and Qiu, who could hardly call themselves your friends anymore, but neighbours at best. Despite this, you never gave chase. You didn’t push for their company. You didn’t push for conversation. You simply sat there as if their time and care were a given, as if you deserved nothing less. Perhaps your entitlement should irritate them, but it doesn’t. You liked to act as if you could see something they didn’t, every time your eyes met Qiu’s in passing, it was as if you could already see years into the future. It’s unsettling. It makes them wonder if you also believed in things like the red string of faith. Maybe if the both of you were still friends, they could’ve asked.

Their handball, now slightly tattered with age, rebounds into their gloved hand.

Your mother used to intimidate her.

It was a secret Tamarack had intended to take to her grave. Not out of consideration for you (she hardly had any filter when she was ten years old), but because she was embarrassed that the lady next door was what managed to spook her before the idea of bears or thunderstorms.

Your mother, Opal, was kind. She was nowhere near mean. Yet, she talked like an adult. She talked like an extremely mature and smart adult, even to little kids who are barely gauging the world. Tamarack knew a lot of people tend to talk to their kids as if they were grownups, something about building confidence and intelligence. However, she, whose grandparents spoke to her like the child she was, didn’t understand why your mom used such big words and became super serious out of seemingly nowhere. The unpredictability of nature didn’t scare her. It’s the unexpected behaviour of adults that made her nervous.

However, her opinion of Opal has shifted since she turned fourteen. It’s likely because she can now understand most of what the older woman says, so conversations with her felt less daunting. However, interactions with her have also dwindled majorly over the years on account of the both of you drifting away from each other. Tamarack wishes she could have pinpointed the reason why you both no longer sat together in class, or why she stopped coming over.

(Well, even if she did know the reason, would she have made the necessary chase to be your best friend again?)

Usually, Tamarack’s grandmother preferred to hand over any meals to the neighbours on her own. It gave her both the opportunity to soak up praise first-hand, and an excuse to linger for conversation. However, today she requested Tamarack to send over Apfelkuchen to your household since she had a doctor’s appointment she was running late to. So, in what seemed like a long while, she rapped her knuckles against the mahogany of your door and stood with clammy hands holding tightly to the circular dish. After exactly a minute, the doors open to reveal Opal. Her round eyes widen for a split second at the sight of the golden-haired girl, before swiftly offering her a pleased smile.

“Tamarack? It’s been a while,” She greets conversationally, even if she’s looking down at her from her height. Tamarack returns her welcome with less confidence and enthusiasm, before launching into a quick explanation about what brought her to standing on the porch.

“I see,” Opal takes the dish from her outstretched hand, gently but securely holding it in her grasp. “Please send your grandmother my thanks, and I greatly appreciate her sending over her delicious baking.”

She nods along to the older woman, but she cannot stop her eyes that linger behind Opal. Perhaps, deep inside, she wishes you were lingering downstairs, eavesdropping on the conversation before making your entrance to interrupt your mother’s flow of conversation.

(It’s what you would have done back then.)

Of course, you do not show up and soon Opal bids her farewell, with the obligatory show of gratitude for coming to deliver the cake, and that she was welcome at your house at any time. It’s an offer she’s heard countless times but hasn’t accepted in years. She’s sure Opal would have been floored if she actually kicked off her shoes at that moment, and welcomed herself inside.

She makes the short trek back to the comfort of her own house. However, in that minute-long walk, she swore that with every crunch of boots against dried leaves, she could hear the bells of your gleeful laughter beside her.

All good things come in threes.

The first time you heard that saying was back when you lived in a small apartment with your mother. You had no backyard and no kids your age to play with outside of school. Your mother was often swamped with work, and due to the irregular times she would be home, your elderly neighbour offered to take care of you until she was back from work.

Thanks to this, you had become familiar with the smell of strong incense and sandalwood, and of porcelain cats in display cases. You had also picked up the faint scent of tobacco, which was desperately covered by air freshener and open windows before you arrived at her door. Of course, at that age, you didn’t know what it was and assumed it was one of those heavy and weird perfumes adults tended to use.

Even if she was a bit odd with her patchwork skirts and collection of dolls with glassy eyes, she was not a bad person. She let you watch TV whenever you asked, listening in to the static voices of a smooth-sounding woman with the thrumming of her sewing machine in the background. Usually, she let you do your own thing, whether it was sitting on the floor and colouring in a picture book, or watching whatever channel you flipped through. Sometimes, she’d sit on an aging armchair, watching as you coloured out of the lines of a picture of Barney, and preach to you whatever happened to cross her mind. Many things slipped from one ear and out the other, but one saying from her managed to stick to the metaphorical walls of your brain.

All good things come in threes.

You aren’t sure why, but it became your anchor in your childhood. It bled into your everyday life; this belief that happy days are sure to come your way as long as it all happened in threes. You kept three different types of socks for every colour. When you went shopping with your mother, you made sure to put three bars of chocolate in the cart instead of the one you were allowed (and your mother discreetly put it back before you noticed). You kept three glitter pens in your pencil case.

When you first met Qiu and Tamarack, it was the third of the month. You became a trio on the third of the month. You moved to a three-house cul de sac on the third of the month.

Golden Groove was your fortune, you were utterly convinced of this fact. Qiu and Tamarack were your destiny. Even when with age, you began to stop buying and keeping threes of everything, you still did not let go of this notion. Even if conversation had begun to dwindle and invites to hang out had slowed to a stop, you were undeterred. They were your constants, and whatever path of life you all walk will inevitably converge and become one again.

You reflect on this as you lay in bed, hot tears gathering at the corner of your eyes. In your open palm lies a polaroid of Tamarack and Qiu, much younger, squished together at each of your sides. They smile at you as if in love.

[ghost-proofbaby]

EARLY MORNING (a barista!eddie x barista!reader au)

summary: new routines are formed between you and eddie, and a code-word is formed for the bad days.

warnings: fem!reader (use of she/her pronouns), mentions of financial struggles, mentions of weed, eddie is just having a rough time (just like me fr)

wc: 2k+

the full menu

Eddie doesn’t process he’s not the only one in the parking lot until your palm is smacking against his window.

He had been too wrapped up in his music he currently has blaring, the heavy bass and guitar riffs of For Whom The Bell Tolls shaking his van’s foundation as he let his eyes close for just a second. He wasn’t sleeping — he wishes he was sleeping. It was early, still four something in the morning, and he had hardly slept at all the night before. 

That slap of your hand against glass startles him, breaking whatever trance he had put himself under.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, blinking drearily as he rolls the window down and reaches to turn down the music, glaring at the image of you standing there with your arms crossed like a mother rearing up for a scolding, “Can’t a man have some relaxing alone time with Metallica before he slaves away for the siren?” 

Your demeanor cracks a bit, corners of your lips twitching to expose your amusement. You’d taught him that ridiculous joke — slaving away to the siren. That sly grin you were currently biting down on is the same one you wore when he’d been scolded for saying it in front of management.

“Dude, I could hear your music from across the parking lot. There’s nothing relaxing about it.”

Dude. He pretends like he won’t overthink that term, tries to focus on the endearment behind it rather than the sinking feeling in his gut. It’s hard to do that when you look so damn pretty, though. Bare faced, hair messily styled for the shift ahead of you two, those staple black jeans that always drags his jaw along the floors. 

“Shut up,” he doesn’t even have to ask, already leaning over to unlock his passenger door before you’ve started the journey around the front of the van. It’s a normal routine at this point for the two of you to sit in either his van or your Jeep together before opening. Enjoying a moment of silence with each other before you spend the next five hours and some change navigating the chaos that is the morning rush. Once you’re planted in the seat beside him, door securely shut and a shit-eating grin you don’t try to hide, he finally continues, “It’s relaxing to me. Not all of us start our day with that Taylor Swift shit.” 

Your grin widens, and so does the cavern in his heart that strangely resembles the shape of you, “You secretly love that Taylor Swift shit, don’t lie.” 

And you’re right. Of course you’re right, but for all the wrong reasons.

He loves it because you love it.

“I believe company policy is we can lie until we’ve had our first shot of espresso,” he grumbles, still trying to act unimpressed as he crosses his arms and shuffles deeper into his seat. He pinches his eyes back shut, this time just to avoid staring at you.

His mind and heart alike can’t take the way you look in the lavender dusk that still lingers in the parking lot, the soft light filtering through his van’s windshield. 

Metallica continues to play in the background, much lower than it was previously to your arrival. He’s content to sit here, the sweetness of your perfume hanging heavy in the air and just knowing your presence exists beside him now. To hear your breathing if he focuses hard enough. To listen for if you begin to pilfer through his glove box, to listen if you begin to tap along to any melodies on your knees. Small things. Things you don’t think about, and things that occupy his mind in a suffocating fashion. They have for the last several months now; you’ve managed to occupy his mind quite consistently, even on his days off. If he’s given a day of leisure, all he can do is consider what you’re doing. If he’s scheduled a shift without you, all he does is compare the other baristas to you. It’s poisonous. It spells out trouble. 

But in this moment, it more so whispers comfort. He knows there’s nearly thirty minutes until the key holder for the morning will arrive, and he lets himself lean into it. For the first time in nearly twenty four hours, sleep and rest alike are gunning for him with ease.

He’s got one foot in the door of falling asleep when you break the silence, “Hey, can I ask you something?” 

“You just di-“ 

“Shut up,” you huff, and he cracks open an eye, “I just… Okay, you can tell me to fuck off if you want.”

That catches his attention. Both eyes are wide open now, boring into yours. 

“Well?” he hums. You’re nervous. And it’s cute, and it’s normal. These moments are always quiet between the two of you. He hardly even remembers how this first became the normal routine for you two, but he’s grateful. He looks forward to it so much that his mind has spent the last two weeks trying to formulate ways to extend the tradition to after your shifts together to finally solidify that offer of friendship he’d accepted so long ago, “Don’t just leave me hanging in anticipation, babe.” 

The nickname rolls off his tongue with no effort. It’s different — with other coworkers, with customers, with everyone. He hasn’t picked up the habit of dropping nicknames with these strangers, but he has with you.

You, who has coined him as dude. Again, he tries to not overthink it.

“Have you not been sleeping well?” you blurt out, starting to fidget with the edge of your shirt and not looking up at him, “I just- I’ve noticed you’ve been more tired this last week, and I get it — we’re all always tired in the morning. I mean, it’s early as fuck. But I just noticed you’ve been more quiet and you’ve got these bags under your eyes and you’ve been sneaking more cold brew shots and-“ 

You don’t take a single breath as you rattle off your list of observations, seemingly petrified to reveal to Eddie that you see him. You notice him. 

It’s an unfamiliar feeling; to know someone has a watchful eye on you and, furthermore, cares about the changes they pick up on. 

Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever experienced it before. Or the warmth that floods his chest.

“Oh, hey,” he finally sits up. Your mouth is still moving, ready to continue on, “Hey, sweetheart.”

His hand reaches out and lands on your knee. It effectively leaves both of you speechless. 

“I…” How does he tell you? How can he best reveal the truth? 

I am tired. I’m not sleeping well. Bills are piling up and life is kind of shitty right now, and nothing really makes sense. Except you. You make sense, by some odd chance. You make it better.

“I’ve just had a lot of trouble sleeping recently. Don’t worry about me so much,” he settles on instead, the only words not too heavy to force out of his mouth. 

His hand is still on your knee. 

And suddenly, your hand comes down over his hand, palm a few degrees cooler than his own knuckles. 

“I’m sorry,” you say, “That… that doesn’t help, but it sucks and I’m sorry. And if I can help in any way… just say the word.”

The word — what is the word? He wishes he knew it. He’d blurt it out in a heartbeat. 

His hand squeezes your knee, and in sync, your fingers return the gesture to the top of his hand. 

It’d just been a lot, recently. He’s tried to take some of the burden off of Wayne at home, he’d been looking into taking night classes at the community college back in Hawkins, he’d been considering a second job to help claw their way out of the current sea of debt they were drowning in. He was always in his head, he was having nightmares when he’d try to get to bed at a decent time. Panic attacks were occurring that even the weed couldn’t take the edge off. Questions of his future, questions of his worthiness of the people in his life — they’d all started to haunt the quiet corners of his room in the middle of the night. 

But they didn’t haunt these roads, this parking lot, this time spent with you. You’d enter his line of sight, and it all just shuts off.

“Is everything okay at home?” you gently press at his silence, eyes flickering up at him for only a moment before a finger mindlessly traces over one of his rings. 

No. “It’s… fine.” 

Last night, he’d nearly put a hole in the wall before he’d settled to curling into the center of his mattress until his knees and chest were familiar companions. Until the tears he’d tried to ignore turned into silent sobs and he’d eventually cried himself to sleep a mere hour before he needed to be awake again for work. 

“Just say the word,” you repeat yourself. He wants you to look at him again; it’s easier to breathe with your eyes on his, “Say the word, and… Fuck, I don’t know. We can both call out, just take a nap in the back of your shitty van.” 

And oh, he smiles at that. The thought of the two of you in the back of his shitty van, as you had so lovingly called it. He thinks if you two did that, he might just sleep well for the first time in weeks.

“We’re already here,” he shrugs and finally lifts his hand, patting at your jeans before he entirely retracts his touch. He tries to not ponder on the falter of your own hand, the way you had hesitated in letting him pull away, “But, for future reference, what is the word?” 

“Huh?”

“The word. What’s our code word for… just saying fuck it and taking a day for ourselves,” he explains. 

He hopes he isn’t overstepping a boundary. He hopes you weren’t just being polite.

You smile softly this time, something genuine shining through as you think for a minute before looking at him. This time, your gaze doesn’t falter as you whisper, “Mordor.” 

He can’t help it, he snorts. “Mordor? Have you even read Lord of the Rings?” 

“Nope,” you shake your head, still focused on him, still encouraging the air to enter his lungs finally and not even knowing it, “But I saw your copy on the back desk. Maybe that can be one of our fuck it activities — you read it to me or something. Make me into a nerd.” 

That imagery gets to him. Nearly makes him tear up. You and him, in the back of his van, your head on his chest as he reads his favorite book to you. He nearly screams mordor right then and there. He knows he’s getting ahead of himself, and that’s probably not what you meant, but he wants it. With each passing day that he spends around you, he finds himself wanting things like that more and more. 

You treat him differently than everyone else. You don’t climb into the car of the other openers, you don’t seem to let that painfully polite guard down with everyone else in the same fashion. Even Nicole had noticed it.

“She’s awfully soft for you,” she’d commented one morning as Eddie and her had been left alone as you went to the back to clean dishes before the store was open, “Out of all the people she could’ve gone mushy for, it’s you. Can’t figure out why for the life of me.”

He couldn’t either. But your tenderness you'd extended so easily to him fuels him, makes him yearn for it when you’re not around, makes him think maybe there’s a bigger reason for all of it. Or maybe, that’s just what friends are for.

“Maybe I’ll take you up on your offer one of these days,” Eddie finally muses, leaning his head back and trying to smile with the same type of softness you offer him. Tries to make sure you know it goes both ways. Tries to communicate the fact that one of these days might just come sooner than either of you expect.

Your smile tells him the message is well received.

taglist: @emmaisgonnacry @figmentofquinn @bebe07011 @barbedwirebats @ayooooo0 @neverlearnedcivility @munson-enthusiast @digwhatudug @wow-cam @daddysmodifiedprincess2 @cancankiki @gothmingguk @josephquinnsfreckles @kimmi-kat @thisisktrying @corrcdedcoffin @rip-quizilla @euphoric-rush @eddiemunson95 @kennedy-brooke @mmunson86 @siriuslysmoking @chrissymjstan @live-love-be-unique @chaoticgood-munson @micheledawn1975 @daydreaminglisa @mrsjellymunson @emma77645 @blushingquincy @shadows-echoes @chickennug90 @coley0823 @munson-blurbs @d64d-n0t-sl66p1ng @masochisticlion @hexqueensupreme @capricornrisingsstuff @nix-rose @oeuryale @renaissan-vvitch @corpse-bridex @water-loos @aropodcastfuck @winchester-angel @vivacioussaint @chaussetteblanche @kirisuteg0men @saltmannequin

taglist is now closed.

[traceyc-uk]

Hiii tracey!! You know I absolutely adore your arts!! Seeing your comics made me wanna try drawing one too, but the idea scares me. I feel like i have to know how to do compositions, backgrounds, effects, choose the right panels etc etc (tho ofc i really just have to try it). Do you have any tips or resources on how to make it less intimidating 👉👈

What?! no way because I can have a rant about how much I love yours! You better keep an eye on your ask box because I’ve got questions for you too missy, ok deal? DEAL 🤝

I find backgrounds and panel layouts tough too and effects takes me longest but there’s no right or wrong way to approach it and all I can suggest is go easy on yourself and just go for it! Honestly there’re some pages in my past comics that are painful to see because I’ve forced panels around to fit in exposition or set up for something later but who’ll know apart from myself

Your figure drawing is so gorgeous too! So good at illustrating movement! just being able to tell a story through body language I like to do too and just doing that is a great way to start. Forget about backgrounds and everything else if it’s putting too much pressure and go at your own pace. Like Calvin and Hobbs if you’ve ever read any of that?

I don’t often draw backgrounds either, I’m not sure how much detail you want to go but my last comic I drew an establishing environment to set the scene and that’s it

One saving grace in making HL comics is it’s already set in a well established world and most would instantly recognise places if given the right prompts (four long tables = great hall) I play on PS5 and I’ve got so many screenshots of place references 😅

Some panels are literal trace overs of screenshots and I do anything and everything to make life easier (the Beast class bullies had the most backgrounds as it jumped around scenes so much) i find filtered images too jarring against my drawing too

My comfort approach is rule of thirds for composition and is I think a great way to start establishing frames and once you get more comfortable you can start playing around with it

Effects I’ve copied from comics I liked as I had no idea where to start too, I have no consistency either it changes because I’ve forgotten what I did before 😅

Panel layout I’m still finding my way too, I often don’t plan linearly, I’ll have keyframe panels (in green) and is finding the rhythm getting point A to B is loose and fun to navigate. and there’s so much of my earlier comics I’d like to change with what I learned now but I digress

This is just my approach and I’m definitely no expert but am happy to help anyway I can. I’m always copying or taking reference from films and comics I like too, taking elements that I like so much about it and let it influence and inform my own style.

If anything I’m nervous for the next one I’m working on now, emotional angst is definitely out of my comfort zone 😭 and I’m no writer like you are

[bestanimal]

Round 2 - Chordata - Petromyzontida

(Sources - 1, 2, 3, 4)

Petromyzontida is a class comprising one order, Petromyzontiformes, commonly called “lampreys.”

Like their closest living relatives, the hagfish, lampreys bear a cartilaginous skull and rudimentary vertebrae. Adults lack a jaw, and are characterized by a toothed, funnel-like, sucking mouth. They have elongated, eel-like bodies reaching up to 1.3 metres (3.9 ft) long. They have one nostril atop the head, seven gill pores on each side of the head, two well-developed eyes, and two parietal eyes. Only 18 species are predators or scavengers, the rest (all freshwater species) do not feed as adults, instead living off the reserves gained as juveniles. Carnivorous species are marine, though 9 of them migrate into freshwater to breed. They use the suction cup around their mouths to cling to rocks or prey, using their tongue to either rasp blood from prey or algae from rocks. They also use this suction cup to climb up rocks when migrating upstream to breed.

Adult lampreys spawn in nests of sand, gravel and pebbles in clear streams. After hatching from their eggs the larvae, called ammocoetes, will drift downstream with the current until they reach soft and fine sediment in which to burrow, taking up an existence as filter feeders, collecting detritus, algae, and microorganisms (image 4). Their eyes are underdeveloped, only capable of discriminating changes in light. Lampreys spend the majority of their lives as these filter-feeding ammocoetes. Most species spend up to 8 years, though some may spend as little as 1-2 years. The ammocoetes will then undergo a metamorphosis which generally lasts 3-4 months, during which they do not eat.

The oldest fossil lamprey, Priscomyzon, is known from the Late Devonian. Other stem-group lampreys, like Pipiscius, Mayomyzon and Hardistiella are known from the Carboniferous. While they appear relatively unchanged, stem-lampreys lack the specialised, heavily toothed discs with plate-like laminae present in modern lampreys, and their larvae resembled the adults, rather than having a distinct stage. The earliest lamprey with the specialised toothed oral disc typical of modern lampreys is Yanliaomyzon from the Middle Jurassic.

Propaganda under the cut:

Many species change color as ammocoetes, becoming dark during the day and pale at night.

Lampreys have been extensively studied because their relatively simple brain is thought to reflect the brain structure of early vertebrate ancestors, thus providing insight into our origins.

Lampreys are valued as food in the Northwest United States, throughout Europe, in Russia, Japan, and in South Korea. King Henry I of England is claimed to have been so fond of lampreys that he often ate them, late into life and poor health, against the advice of his physician concerning their richness, and is said to have died from eating "a surfeit of lampreys".

In the county of Nakkila (Finland) and Carnikava Municipality (Latvia), the European River Lamprey (Lampetra fluviatilis) is the local symbol, found on their coats of arms.

The legend of the Lambton Worm from County Durham in North-East England concerns a lamprey being fished out of the River Wear by a young boy skipping church. He declares that he had “caught the devil” and disposes of it down a nearby well. Over the years, the lamprey grows into a giant, poisonous Worm, wrapping itself around a local hill and terrorizing the village. Hijinks and witch-curses ensue.

Lampreys were highly appreciated by the Ancient Romans, not only as food, but also as pets. Lucius Licinius Crassus was mocked by Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus for weeping over the death of his pet lamprey, who he was said to have adorned with earrings and small necklaces, training it to respond to its name and swimming up to eat what was offered. Crassus retorted that Domitius had lost three wives himself and Crassus had never seen him shed a tear.

Publius Vedius Pollio was reportedly an exceedingly cruel Roman soldier who kept a pool of carnivorous lampreys to which he would feed slaves who had displeased him. This went on until Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus was visiting his mansion and witnessed Pollio about to dispatch a slave who had broken a crystal cup. Augustus had all of Pollio’s cups destroyed, as well as his mansion, and filled in his pond. This is likely an urban legend, but honestly, I feel like it should have ended with Pollio going down with the lampreys.

Dams and other human development have made it hard for lampreys to migrate upstream to breed. Some scientists are hoping to design ramps that will utilize lamprey’s climbing ability so that they can bypass dams.

[nadianova]

how i do my visual novel filtered photo backgrouds

ive had some questions about this so i figured i'd put together a quick post on my process and what goes into it.

this isnt really a tutorial and instead is just a ramble of how i do stuff with a ton of examples and pictures lol

read more below. this is a long post and you probably want to be looking at these images on your computer instead of your phone

step one is that i find CC0 photos or otherwise easy licenses to use because I'm lazy and don't want to have a list of credits of random photographers caue i used one of their images but also i don't want to use stuff without crediting

because they have a general lincese that just wants you to mention the site i prefer unsplash or pixabay but there's other public domain type photo sites too obviously

so like okay heres a random picture

i have a photoshop CS5 from 10 years ago. but these can be done with gimp or krita and whatever. theres even photopea that has photoshop in the browser

basic stuff is that i start by cropping my bg into my renpy resolution (i use 1920x1080) this is also the part where sometimes i might rotate a bg. it is a good way to add some chaos vibes to a scene

i tend to add some mild blur effect since i find that having too sharp photos as backgrounds clashes with the artstyle of my sprites. like just a couple pixels worth of blur tends to do it

the next part is called fuck around and find out

i like to play with the values to just get random results. hue/saturation for tinting the picture, messing with the curves to get some really sharp effects, or channel mixer to add more of a color

this part is just purely vibes based but i personally think reducing the colors of the background is the simplest way to create something that feels coherent. especially if you make backgrounds based on moods. like having a blue tinted bedroom vs a red tinted one really changes the atmosphere

you can get some pretty intense effects but its always important to remember that its meant to be a background and there's a risk it distracts from the sprites

in this case im not including the effect for the curves. after the colours look fine the final step i tend to have is apply some sort of effect.

i really like changing the colour mode to indexed colour since i like crunchy pixels. (had to zoom in to 100% to show the actual effect) downside of indexed is that it doesn't look ideal unless its displayed in the exact resolution it was made in but i like it

here is the images before indexed mode:

after indexed mode(i think you have to click the image and open it in full to see the actual effect):

another thing ive been playing with recently has been grain+chromatic aberration combo. it makes things feel surprisingly lively with just this simple thing so you'll probably see me overusing this effect in the future

you have to mess with the numbers to get the effect you want but for me these were the parameters I've been using

ignore the preview missing idk why it does that.

heres the image (the non indexed version) after these krita effects

one random special mention i have is that playing with layer blend modes is great

in this example i just copied the same background, mirrored it horizontally and set the layer blend mode to color and it lowered the layer opacity slightly. it just adds some.... idk what to call it visual noise? itj just fucks it up a bit. i used overlapping images and screen modes in some of the hopeless junction images i did for some pretty nice effects

i dont really know waht the blend modes do i just scroll until something looks good lmao

theres a ton you can do with these. like for example just adding a single air brush dot of a bright color on a separate layer and setting it to some blend mode to add a tint to a background

i used these both in malmaid and in the second one i just brushed on some color on a separate layer to give it a moodier vibe

i think having variations of the same background is an extremely easy way to add some life to the bgs without having to do new stuff. like here was the hotel lobby when entering, and here is the hotel lobby when they ran away from the place. i added a radial blur with photoshop

i think theres some beaty in artifacts that come from low resolution images too. sometimes i intentionally use images that have clear compression artifacts cause i think it looks neat. i don't really worry about the details too much as the vibe is the most important thing

its honestly just a matter of knowing these tools exist and just fidgeting around with combinations to find what you want. it also helps to look at other backgrounds or images in general that you come across and just be curious. how was this done? how could i recreate it? that's the type of experimenting that has led me to these.

idk thats all i have to say. ty for reading and play malmaid on steam like and subscribe for more gay puppies

[themissingnumbers]

WARNING: FLASHING/GLITCHING IMAGE UNDER THE CUT. This also contains descriptions of gore and body horror.

[ @pkmn-monochrome - Previously... ]

Red narrows his eyes as he stares down at Cody, shutting up and listening as they explain. The corners of his lips twitch as they finish, the shadow cast over his eyes falling ever so slightly heavier.

"... So, that's how it is, hm?"

"Barely... any different..."

"... Exactly what I..."

"..."

"I've gotta say, you've really got a way with words! You're so articulate when you're scared, Cody."

He snickers to himself, hopping off the grave and pacing around, looking between the other and the Ghosts.

"Observant, too~! You're right, I really couldn't be bothered to care what you think of me. I'm not exactly here to make friends. I'm sure that'd the last thing you'd want, anyways! See, I'm just here to satiate some curiosity."

He leans in front of Blastoise, tilting his head.

"I would like to formally apologize to the oversized Sobble-in-a-shell for my language. I'm not exactly used to being around others... Twenty-six years of imprisonment wouldn't really teach a guy to have a filter, heh."

He waves a hand nonchalantly, completing the circle.

"And as for your marketable figurine of a rat, well... I'm not interested in being a snotty kid forever. Unfortunately, I don't need any hacking done to screw up my game badly enough to change some things around.

But, hey... I'm not here to make chit-chat with a couple of one-note monsters. It's all about you, the most REAL one in this room. Cody, Cody, Cody, star of the show~! Let's get back to the point. I know you don't exactly think highly of... things like me. What was it you told that one poor girl- 'You've had more than a decade to get over yourself,' right?"

He throws his head back, cackling as if the old remark is the funniest thing he's heard in his life.

"I meant it when I said that I don't CARE. But I AM nosy, and your vitriol towards REDs in particular is just so interesting... Even seein' the face clearly strikes a nerve. So honestly, I'd LOVE to hear EXACTLY what you're thinking..."

"If only you were willing to spit out any fighting words, that is! But you've been so much more polite than I expected, after all the reading I've done..."

He passes by in front of the other, looking off into the distance.

In that moment- a moment of passing footsteps, of the blink of an eye, of a lack of care... something heavy fills the air.

A damning presence looks down on Cody with a dozen eyes, countless mouths, gnashing teeth and twitching claws, two hundred and fifty-five whispering voices. It's a disgusting and shambling creature, a sick and unholy patchwork of amalgamated hearts and yellowed blood, wrapped up in tattered flesh and backwards fur, mismatched feathers and scales and blubber and skin. Writhing, wheezing, bleeding, rotting, every misplaced piece existing out of sync.

Something impossible. Unknowable. Invalid.

The feeling it imposes upon them is suffocating. Like not breathing for years, like something vile filling their lungs, a sickness that is rising, thrashing, tearing, desperate for a taste of "fresh meat" if one could even call a dead trainer that anymore.

"It almost seems like there's something you're worried about," the voices from within it hiss, layered countless times under the casual and teasing tone of Red's own that is lost under the madness...

... Yet the instant the words spill from his lips, that awful sensation is gone as quickly as it arrived. Everything is as it should be. Despite how intense it was... It was little more than two seconds of some sick kind of illusion.

Was it even real? Was that pain all false? Red hasn't lifted a finger, no less even looked Cody's way.

It's as if nothing even happened.

"I wonder, I wonder, what it could be~?" the man babbles on as he walks away, feigning ignorance- because he must be, he must be screwing around with them at this point, right? How could he NOT be?

And now he's laughing- giggling to himself under his breath, like this whole ordeal is some joke that only he's in on.

"After all, I'm just some harmless little video game character. I'm not even real, right?" he chides, "Certainly nothing like one of your big bad players who could crush your shoddy little cartridge cause you decided to be a little bi..."

He trails off, managing to catch himself.

"... Decided to misbehave. What, you don't think I hold any real power over this place, do you~? I can't cause..."

"... Permanent damage."

He slows to a stop several paces away from the monochromatic trainer, spinning on his heel to look at them with a smile that could be described as warm, but...

From heart, to flesh, to grin- there's not a single warm thing about this man in this moment. Only proven further by a final remark, laced with a threatening kind of curiosity.

"So would you like to stop trying to play nice and tell me what you really think of me... Or are you gonna let me get bored?"

[badbatchsprincess]

Heated ~ pt.6

Pt.1 ~ Pt.2 ~ Pt.3 ~ Pt.4 ~ Pt.5 ~ Pt.6 ~ Pt.7 ~ Pt.8 ~ Pt.9 ~ Pt.10 ~Pt.11 ~ Pt.12 ~ Pt.13 ~ Pt.14 ~ Pt.15 ~ Pt.16 ~ Pt.17 ~ Pt.18 ~ Pt.19 ~ Pt.20 ~ Pt.21 ~ Pt.22 ~ Pt.23 ~ Pt.24 ~ Pt.25

Masterlist

Summary: This is an ABO Bad batch!Poly x Omega Reader smut with a plot. This takes place as an AU before order 66. Y/N previously served under the 501st before being transferred to Special Forces 99. This is her adventure with these rowdy Alphas in a quickly changing universe.

THIS IS AN ABO AU ABOUT THE BAD BATCH (NO CANON OMEGA!) Due to the unfortunate situation of her name being Omega… Omega the child from the canon series is not going to be apart of this fanfic/porn with a plot. I feel obligated to put this warning in because it makes my skin crawl thinking anyone could make that mistake. 

Warnings: Canon typical violence, sex!pollen trope, some injury, sexual themes, masturbation, heat cycles, rut

Finally I got his chapter done lololol there's 4k extra words in this one so please enjoy haha!

─ ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

"We're under attack!" Wrecker pointed to the sky as more Separatist bombing droids came whizzing by, firing at the Venators in orbit.

"I'm getting Y/N," Hunter started, taking off running towards the growing commotion, but he was suddenly taken off balance when Tech tripped him with his own foot, causing the Sergeant to go tumbling into the grass. He looked up at Tech with a glare.

"You cannot go," Tech said, looking at the camp. "With your heightened senses, it may kill you. From what I can see, those wearing helmets are okay due to their air filters, but those who were caught off guard are starting to display signs of infection. Rescuing Y/N will only risk our own infection, and then it will be irrelevant."

Hunter looked back at the camp, distraught.

"We can't just leave her," Hunter growled, standing back up again.

"What if she's infected?" Crosshair asked, looking down his scope at the medical tent. "The Omegas on the science team died."

Wrecker growled.

"The Omegas died because they had no Alpha to cure their induced heat," Tech read through the researcher's report. "The heat symptoms progressed too far unnaturally."

Suddenly, their com channel cracked. "Hunter?"

"Wolffe?" Hunter responded, looking back at the chaos across the clearing.

"I got her, Hunter!" Wolffe radioed in. "Are you at the Marauder?"

"Yes, we're up here," Hunter said, relieved he could finally take a breath. He grabbed his scope and looked down the rolling hills, trying to see through the foggy red dust.

"We're on our way," Wolffe turned his com off, leaving the 99's in anxious silence. Hunter could pick up the stench rolling off Wrecker and Tech. While the scent was significantly less, even Crosshair was getting nervous seeing the rising tensions in the crowd of 104th regs.

"I see them," Tech said, zooming in his lenses. "1 o'clock."

"What happened to her?" Hunter tried zooming in closer to their silhouette. Y/N was thrown over Wolffe’s shoulder, dangling limply, while Echo followed behind, holding a bloody rag over his face.

"Is she hurt?" Tech asked, trying to get a clearer image.

"I can't tell," Crosshair hissed.

Wolffe and Echo ran as fast as they could, dodging regs and shoving their way through the chaos. When they finally made it up the hill, Wolffe was panting and rubbing at his eyes, trying to wipe the dust from his skin.

The others backed up, not wanting to get any closer.

Wolffe set Y/N down on the plush grass, letting Echo kneel down and press his hand to her forehead. He adjusted the little filtration mask pressed to her face, letting her head lull to the side. She was knocked out cold.

"What the hell happened?" Crosshair couldn't believe it.

"I don't know," Wolffe rasped. "But you gotta get her out of here!" He was panting, starting to feel the effects.

"Tech, power up the ship, we're leaving now," Hunter placed his helmet on, securing the filtration system. The others did the same, running to get the ship primed and ready.

"Radio the General, please!" Wolffe was tearing at his armor, starting to feel the unbearable itch of a rut forming. "Fuck!"

Hunter bent down, picking up the tiny Omega and turned towards the ship.

"What about the other Omegas?" Echo asked, looking back at the camp. The infected regs were raising their noses in the air, seemingly trying to tail a particular scent.

"We can't save them all," Hunter decided, saving Y/N was the top of his priority. "We're not risking it."

Echo just nodded and followed him onboard the ship, letting the door close behind him. 

When Tech started to pull the Marauder up into the air, they could see the Commander crawling in the grass, fighting the effects of the drug, but in the distance, they saw the beady eyes of the infected following Y/N’s trail. 

They seemed to fall into rage when they realized the Omega had gotten away; their howls could be heard from the ship.

"Maker…" Echo was in disbelief. It was hoards of feral Alphas, hundreds of them.

"What happened to Pip?" Wrecker was nudging her limp body, pathetically trying to wake her up.

"Is she infected?" Tech asked.

"No," Echo confirmed. "She got the mask in time."

"Are you infected?" Hunter looked at their co-pilot.

"No," Echo shook his head. "I'm barely human, nonetheless an Alpha. I don't think it affects me the same way it does all of you."

"We should still check," Tech put the ship into autopilot and went into Y/N's bunk to grab her med kit.

"What happened to her?" Hunter asked, setting her down gently on the floor.

"We just got to the triage tent, she was clocking in when Wolffe came to speak with her," Echo noticed the way Hunter’s eyes narrowed, possessively he might add. He was going to love rousting Y/N when she finally wakes up. "They were talking when the bombs dropped. She saw the red and knew exactly what it was. She grabbed a respirator and tried to save her friend, that little skinny Omega."

"Taran," Tech chimed in.

"Yeah, sure, anyways," Echo looked over to his longest-known friend. "She got knocked over in the chaos and hit her head. Almost got trampled but Wolffe found her and got her out." Echo wanted to smirk so badly, knowing it was going to drive his unit up the wall to know Wolffe saved the day once again. 

They had been pining for her ever since they met her, but Y/N was too oblivious to notice. But the arc trooper noticed everything. His sense of smell may have been demolished, but he could see it in all of their eyes.

Echo also may or may not have caught Crosshair rutting with an Omega that looked nearly identical to Y/N the last time they were back for quarterlies. Echo didn't say anything though, but he was always watching.

"What do we do?" Wrecker took off his helmet and sat on the floor next to Y/N.

"She'll need bacta for the head injury and probably pain management when she wakes," Tech informed.

"I'll do it," Crosshair knelt down, taking the pack. "I did it for her once on Crait."

The others just watched as he found the liquid bacta and placed it into her injector. He cleaned the site and pressed the mechanism close to her neck. He pressed the button and watched the dose administer. Her head lulled back into his hand, and he gently removed the respirator from her face.

"Ad’ika?" Hunter cooed, running a gloved hand over her cheek.

Crosshair kept his hawk eyes carefully trained on her eyelashes. She tried to flutter them open, but they were too heavy it seemed. Instead, she just clutched onto his chest plate weakly and groaned in pain.

"It's okay," Hunter whispered, watching Crosshair help her sit up. "You're safe."

She turned into Crosshair, feeling dizzy.

"Get her the painkiller," Tech fussed. Hunter loaded the new cartridge and handed it to the sniper. He pressed it to her shoulder and pushed the button, hearing her wince as the medicine entered her system.

"She's too weak, get her something to lay down on," Crosshair motioned to their bunks.

Wrecker disappeared into her bunk and came back with her cot mattress. They made room on the main cabin floor where Crosshair gently set her down on the mattress, letting her lay down comfortably.

She rolled onto her side, keeping her eyes closed, waiting for the medicine to kick in.

Hunter just looked to Echo, who was concerned, watching his friend in pain.

"What do we do now?" Wrecker asked, watching the Venators approach.

"We let them know what happened, and then I guess we go to Coruscant for quarterlies," Hunter crossed his arms, peering down at the little medic. "We're not going back to Kashyyyk. Not with Y/N."

"It’s been three months already?" Wrecker groused, he hated getting his implant replaced.

"Shockingly yes," Tech replied. "We'll be coming up on seventy-five rotations, give or take a few days." He settled back into his seat to send the transmission to General Plo’s ship.

Up ahead, the darkness of space was lit up with blue and red laser beams as the Republic forces engaged the Separatist warships. Tech stayed far enough away to not be noticed, but close enough to get the message out.

"Well then let's set a course for—" Echo was cut off when their ship was suddenly rocked violently.

"Separatists!" Tech pulled back the controls and started making a beeline away from the planet to make the jump to hyperspace.

"They're on our tail!" Echo exclaimed, watching the red blast fly past them.

"I know…" Tech tried to snake the ship hopefully to throw them, but the droid ship just locked on.

"Make the jump!" Crosshair bit out.

Tech flicked the switch on the console, hearing the hyperdrive power up. Tech set the course for Coruscant, and Echo pushed the lever. Just as the Marauder made the jump, there was a blast coming from the back of the ship.

Just as they jumped, the ship made a loud rumble before falling out of hyperspace. They all lurched forwards as the Marauder was beginning to lose control.

"We've lost left rear engine and hyperdrive," Echo was scrambling to gain the controls back.

"We're heading straight for Mimban," Tech pointed out, seeing the brown planet approaching quickly.

"We're going to have to make an emergency landing," Echo grabbed his steering and tried to pull up to slow the ship.

"Brace!" Tech yelled, pulling up the nose last minute.

The crash was violent and rough. The entire ship creaked as its hull bent under the impact. The lights overhead flickered before permanently shutting off, throwing the whole crew into total darkness. Everyone on board was flung forwards as the Marauder skidded to a halt into something soft.

The emergency lights turned on with a red glow, signaling a total system failure.

~~~

Everything was fuzzy and dizzying the longer you tried to refocus your vision. The pain killers were swirling in your system, making you feel good… really good actually. This was probably the best crash landing you've ever been a part of now that you're thinking about it.

"Y/N?" Echo's face was suddenly in yours. "What is wrong with her?"

You heard yourself giggling. Echo suddenly had two heads, only making you giggle more. Reaching out, your hands felt strange, like they had grown scales or something. You just looked at them, watching your fingertips change colors with an amused gasp.

"Crosshair gave her too much painkiller," Tech brought his flashlight to your eyes, watching them dilate. You placed a hand against Tech's helmet lens, blocking his view, making him swat your grabby hands away.

"What do we do?"

"We just gotta wait it out."

"Well, I don't think that will be a problem. I don't think we're getting out of here for a while."

You could hear their voices talking. Hunter's smokey voice was like honey to your ears. You chewed your lip, looking down at your boots, feeling your cheeks heat up. You felt a tingly warmth start to fill your tummy the longer he talked, and the feeling only seemed to move lower as he continued. You looked up and stared at his criminally slutty waist and fit ass from your jump seat with a longing stare.

You barely registered when he turned to face you with a raised brow. Caught, you turned your gaze up to meet his pretty face and pretty eyes. You bit your lip and blinked owlishly as he studied your face.

"That's freaking me out," Echo grumbled, watching you go out of your right mind.

"Well, let's get to work trying to repair the ship. I don't want to find out what's out here come nightfall," Hunter ordered, "and don't let her wander.”

Soon, you found yourself alone, happily swinging your feet from the jump seat without a care in the world. Echo arrived and adjusted your seat straps so you couldn’t dawdle off like a lost pup. You just giggled and poked at his head ports, making him scowl.

He forced you to drink some water, mumbling something about flushing your system.

You felt the warm Mimban breeze blow through the ship as the boys opened the hatch and got to work digging the ship out.

Tech came to feed you some ration bars and give you more water before checking your vitals. When he determined you were able to hold yourself up without falling over, he unclipped the jump seat straps and helped you get used to your feet again.

“I would suggest you just lay down for a while until you’re functioning properly again.” You clutched his arm while he helped you walk to the mattress on the floor. You plopped down on your bum before flopping over on your side.

“Alright then.” Tech pushed his glasses up and went back to tinkering in one of the side panels.

You pawed at the sky, trying to feel the breeze with your hands, which earned you a few glances from your concerned pack. You nibbled at the food they left for you, but it started to taste funny, and you only giggled more.

“I couldn’t have given her that much,” Crosshair watched you play with your food with an amused look on his face.

“She’s small, even for humanoid omega standards,” Tech ripped out a clump of fried wires and began cutting through the damage, “The dose you gave her was most likely for a full-grown alpha, such as Wrecker.”

“Kriff,” Crosshair whispered and turned back to help Tech.

~~~

Night was coming fast, and you had now come down from being stoned beyond your wildest imagination. You stared at the wall, suddenly remembering everything and realizing the dire situation you were all in. You were beginning to miss the delirium of the painkillers. Luckily, your headache was gone, and the bacta seemed to heal the head injury.

However, you were still royally pissed at your unit.

You didn’t forget what happened, and how they had treated you. You tucked your knees into your chest and decided zoning out into the wall would be better than feeling the rage boiling in your chest.

You noticed they were starting to call it quits making their way back inside the ship. You decided you wanted to be alone and grabbed the corner of your cot to drag it haphazardly through the nearly sideways ship. With a struggle, you got the mattress back into your bunk and hauled it up onto the metal slab. With one final grunt, you shoved the mattress back into place, giving yourself a rest.

You decided to change into something a little cooler. This planet seemed to be a lot warmer than Kashyyyk. You haven’t been able to see outside, but you could taste the humidity in the air and feel the warming breeze. You yanked your long sleeve off and swapped it out for a cropped tank. The tight cargos got swapped for loose ones, and you kicked off your boots, opting just for your socks.

You heard a knock on the door and expected it to be Tech needing something from his bunk, but it turned out to be Echo.

“Hey,” he said, closing the door behind him.

“Hey,” you replied, folding up your dirty clothes. Your nose immediately scrunched, “You reek.” It wasn’t his normal smell; it was something gross and terrestrial.

He sniffed his armpits, “I didn’t even think I still had sweat glands.”

You shook your head and pointed to his shoes, “Stinky!”

He looked down at the reddish mud caked onto his boots, “Oh… yeah, it’s nasty out there.”

You just made a face and covered your nose.

“You feeling okay?” He asked.

You nodded, “Yeah, but I don’t really know what’s going on. One second I’m on Kashyyyk and the next I’m higher than a hayroot, and then we’ve crash-landed on some stinky planet.”

“Well… you pretty much nailed it,” Echo scratched his head, “You got knocked out in the triage tent after separatists dropped the spice bombs. Then Wolffe carried you all the way back to the Marauder despite being dosed himself and handed you off to Hunter who tried to get away to keep everyone safe and get the message to the General, but we were shot down making the jump to lightspeed and then crash-landed here on Mimban.”

“Mimban?!” You screeched, “That’s in the middle of nowhere!”

He nodded solemnly.

“Did you guys send a distress call to the Republic fleet?”

“We tried… then Tech realized our comms have been squished.”

“Squished…” You narrowed your eyes.

“That was the word he used.”

“I see,” you crossed your arms, “So what I’m hearing is, we have no ship…”

“Correct.”

“No comms.”

“Correct.”

“No fleet.”

“Correct.”

“No one knows where we are.”

“Mhmm.”

“The entire 104th was chemically attacked.”

“Yes.”

“And we’re stranded on Mimban… with no way to leave.”

“Correct.”

“Are you all aware we are supposed to be on Coruscant in eleven days for quarterlies?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Mhmm,” you nodded, feeling the anxiety creeping in. Great, this is just perfect.

“Are you… alright?” He asked, watching your eye twitch slightly.

“No.”

There was a bout of silence…

He smacked his teeth, “It’s an unfortunate situation.”

You nodded vigorously, “One might say that.”

“An extremely awful and awkward situation…”

“Yeah… it is,” you pushed your tongue into the side of your mouth.

“Well… do you want dinner?”

“I think I lost my appetite,” you gave him a plastered smile.

“Let me know if that changes… I’ll leave you to it.” Echo turned on his heel, leaving your bunk and closed the door behind him. It was only a few seconds before he heard you scream violently into your pillow, making the others jump.

“I take it she figured it out,” Hunter uncovered his ears.

Echo shook his head, “Yeah, I’d say she figured it out.”

“FUCK!” Your muffled scream made Hunter cringe again.

“I think she’s taking the news quite well,” Tech poked at his food.

“Was that you making a joke?” Crosshair raised a brow.

“I thought my sarcasm was obvious,” Tech bit into his warmed food.

“How was that obvious?” Wrecker grumbled.

“We have to get off this rock,” Echo chewed his dinner, “Stating the obvious, but your implants are going to wear out. If we don’t get an evac or somehow manage to fix the ship, we’re going to have a big problem.”

“Our first priority is to fix the com system and try to contact the nearest fleet,” Tech replied, “That would be the most promising scenario given we have no other hurdles.”

“And if we can’t?” Echo raised a brow.

“Then we’ll deal with it when the time comes,” Hunter was trying not to think about the fact that they could be dealing with an omega in heat with alphas in rut in a very confined space. The potential for a mess was likely.

“That gives me a lot of confidence,” Echo snarked.

“It’s all we can do.”

~~~

Day two on Mimban consisted of you coming out of your bunk earlier than the others to eat your breakfast. You looked outside the cockpit window to see nothing but orange fog clouding any terrain. You sighed and prayed to the Force that it would guide you back safely.

The rest of the day, you helped Echo, trailing him, trying to help in any way possible. You quickly realized that the soil on Mimban was reddish-brown clay and it was soft. That was probably the reason the ship hadn’t snapped in two on impact, but the nose of the ship was buried into a thick pile of the stuff. The boys were busy trying to dig out the hull while you, Tech, and Echo fixed the interior damage.

Day three, you were starting to get a little weary. Sleeping on an angle was a bit rough, and Tech decided rest was beneath him. He stayed up all night trying to repair the comm system but didn’t seem to be making any good progress. Echo had you carry around all of the spare parts he needed to try and fix the left engine. Hunter had elected to venture out with Crosshair to see if there were any towns that might be able to help. Wrecker was on shovel clay duty.

Day four, you realized your unit was totally alone in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. There wasn’t anything within remote traveling distance, and when Hunter and Crosshair came back in the morning with the news, you left to lock yourself in your bunk and cry.

Day five was much of the same. You leaned your forehead against the side of the ship while Echo abused your laser suture to weld some pieces of metal to the engine core. You were starting to feel the weight of the situation as the emotional exhaustion was starting to settle in. You missed Kashyyyk. You missed the food, and the fresh water, and the clean air. You missed talking to your unit. They still haven’t apologized, and you’re still giving them the cold shoulder even though they clearly cared enough to protect you from the attack on the war camp. Eating your meals in the bunks was the only time you got to yourself.

Day six was when the others started getting a little agitated. It started with Tech fussing about the mud caking on his boots and ass. He tried shaking off the thick clay but ended up getting so frustrated he screamed and kicked the Marauder with full force. It was so out of character everyone stopped what they were doing to look. No one said anything, but they watched their pack mate rip off his shoes and throw them violently into the cabin with a loud splat followed by very creative cursing.

Wrecker was starving as usual, and his food-related complaining was starting to make your stomach growl too. You had to resort to rationing your rations as you all were not prepared to be stranded for days on end.

“Someone had to have seen us get shot down, right?” You asked Echo, handing him his screwdriver.

“I don’t know, pip,” he sighed, scratching his head, “I don’t think this planet is very inhabited. And if it is, we don’t know if it’s advanced in any way.”

You sighed, taking the screwdriver back and handing him a wrench.

“I think the others are starting to lose it,” you whispered and peeked around the corner to see Tech angrily messing with the console with his mismatched socks on display.

“I’ve certainly never seen Tech yell before,” he snickered.

“I miss Kashyyyk,” you sighed.

“Do you miss Kashyyyk or a certain alpha on Kashyyyk?” he joked.

“Echo!” You whispered.

“What?” he laughed, “I’m thinking about that omega back on Coruscant I had before Skako Minor.”

You gasped, feigning scandal.

Echo smirked, “Whatever gets you through the day.”

“Guys, come out here!” Hunter’s voice echoed throughout the ship.

The three of you came out of the ship to see that they had cleared most of the clay away from the ship.

“We need help pushing her over so she’s back on her feet!” Hunter said, ushering you all to help. When you all were in position, you pushed with everything you had (Wrecker did most of the work), but you all watched in awe as the Marauder was finally on all four landing pads.

“We did it!” Wrecker hooted and picked you up spinning you around before depositing you back in the mud. You gave him a little laugh which made his eyes light up. If he was happy about the ship, that was nothing compared to hearing your voice again. 

They all got back to their tasks while Wrecker lingered a bit trying to figure out how to hear that pretty sound again. 

You just followed Echo back into the now level ship. 

“She laughed.” Wrecker mused, “I haven’t heard her laugh in so long.” 

Hunter just gave him a saddened look. He knew him and Crosshair still had to apologize for their behavior back on Kashyyyk. But so many things that happened since then he didn’t have time to think about what to say or how to even approach you. It was killing him that you didn’t want to be around them anymore. He was angered by the fact that Wolffe has offered to take you in, and you hadn’t denied him. Had they really pushed you so far? Your cries when Crosshair forced you to submit out of fear haunted him. It made his inner alpha cringe. He regrets not stepping in but he knew his jealousy had overtaken him. Hearing you giggling with Wolffe and coming back wreaking of him like a mated pair made his blood boil. He was far more territorial than he had ever given himself credit for even though he didn’t actually have a claim on you.

You on the other hand, had no desire to talk to either Hunter or Crosshair, even in this desolate situation you’ll never forget the feeling of Crosshair forcing you to do that. 

Day seven then turned into eight, which morphed into nine and ten. By the eleventh day, you knew your time was becoming limited. The past few days had everyone’s sense of smell acting up. The pungent odors from the planet’s atmosphere were becoming stronger and you knew the implants were wearing out. 

You knew you couldn’t beat around the bush any longer, by dinner time on the eleventh night, you emerged from your bunk full of anxiety. You walked through the galley and faced your pack who conversed over their food. 

“So, whats the plan?” 

They all whipped their heads around shocked to hear your voice. You stood there raising a brow and crossing your arms waiting for the shock to wear off and someone say something. 

“I’m assuming you’re referring to our implants dissipating.” Tech spoke first. 

You nodded. 

“Well that means we have an undisclosed amount of time before we all inevitably have a rut and you a heat. That puts us in a precarious situation that I think-”

“We know!” Echo snapped. 

“We can turn Wreckers bunk into your place for the week.” Hunter started, “You can stay there and we can rig the lock so only Echo can open it. The rest of us will just deal with it out here.” 

“Sounds like a plan.” You retreated back into your bunk. 

“Y/N! Wait.” Hunter stood up and followed you. He stepped inside your bunk to find you nervously chewing on your lip. You turned around to face him looking like a kicked pup. 

“I-I…” He stuttered wanting nothing more than to reach out and embrace you like you had allowed before this whole fight. 

“What Hunter?” You were getting agitated with his silence. 

“I…I’m sorry, I’m bad at communicating my feelings.” He sighed knowing he was starting to sound like Crosshair, “I don’t know how I should approach you or… I…” 

You just help up your hand stopping him, “Come back when the words find you.” 

He sighed, “No I-I just need to tell you… how sorry I am. I was wrong. I should have stopped Crosshair and I shouldn’t have punched Wolffe. I just… something came over me and I lost it. It wasn’t okay and I should have protected my pack…I should have protected you and I’m so sorry we’re in this situation again. I don’t know what to do, I-I-“

“Hunter.” You stopped him, “Thank you for saying something.” 

He shook his head, “No, you should be angry with me… with us. This isn’t how a pack is supposed to be. At least I don’t think. I’ve never actually been apart of a real one given I don’t have a family.” 

“Hunter…we are your pack.” You sighed. 

“I just… wait what?” His face suddenly lightened, “y-you’re staying?” 

You raised a brow confused. 

“It’s just I thought you were starting to court Wolffe, or rather he was courting you and then he offered you a spot in his ranks…” Hunter babbled.

“Hold up.” You shook your head, “Commander Wolffe?”

Hunter looked at you and blinked. 

“Courting me? Me courting Commander Wolffe?” You couldn’t hold in the laugh anymore, “That’s what this is about? You thought I-… oh my god!” You were howling. 

“He- you-“ Hunter crossed his arms confused now. 

“Me what?” You giggled. 

“You came back… from being with him.” He mumbled. 

“Did you not hear me when I got back to camp?” You were amused at his confusion. 

“It was kinda hard to listen when you came back covered in his scent.” He said pointedly. 

“Hunter… I almost drowned in the river.” You scoffed, “Wolffe had to pull me out before I got swept down stream.” 

He just let his mouth lull open. 

“And yes, while we may have been naked, nothing happened…”

“You were WHAT?” Echo screeched from the main cabin. 

“You were what?” Hunter repeated with a growl. 

“Chill,” You warned. 

“You didn’t tell me that!” Echo yelled. 

“I may have left that detail out.” You yelled back. 

“Look,” You smiled up at Hunter adjusting your crossed arms, “Wolffe has a good ass but he’s definitely not an alpha I’m interested in like that. Now what I cannot figure out is what the hell happened that made you all hate him so much. You didn’t have a problem with him hitting on me on Coruscant.” 

Hunter just reached back and scratched his nape, “I uh…” 

“Tell her Hunt!” Echo chided from the other room. What a little eavesdropper. 

Hunter shifted uncomfortably, “He-he asked if I had claimed you on Crait…”

Butterflies fluttered violently in your stomach. You tried your hardest to steel your emotions but he continued, “I said no. That was the truth, but then he made it pretty clear he was interested in pursuing you. I guess I-”

Suddenly the pieces clicked…

“Hunter, are you jealous?” You put your hands on your hips. 

“W-What?” He sputtered and you watched his un-tattooed side of his face turn pink. 

“And Crosshair too?” You raised a brow. That would explain his sudden aggression towards you. 

“I-I uh,” He genuinely didn’t know what to say but you knew the truth. 

Suddenly you remembered the way they all started acting weird after Wolffe talked to hunter. They were all starting to get territorial. They thought Wolffe was taking you from them and they started changing their behavior trying to get your attention. 

“I’m coming to save Hunter before he implodes.” Echo stepped into the bunk and let Hunter walk out redder than Mimban clay. Echo gave you a playful look before disappearing back into the cabin leaving you alone to think about everything. The one thing you desired was at least some kind of olive branch from Crosshair, you knew you’d never get a heartfelt apology, but until then you’d wait. He owed you that at least. 

~~~

That night, your anxiety was at an all time high. Sleeping in the newly converted bunk the boys had made was making you a bit uneasy. Wrecker’s alpha scent was calming, but you were used to having Tech near by, instead the square box was feeling a bit prison like. The knowledge that you were locked in too didn’t help. You would have preferred to have slept with the door open but Echo insisted that this be how it is. 

You curled up on your side holding Lula trying to close your eyes and let sleep take over, but your elevated heart rate disagreed. 

You picked up your com and pressed the button, “Echo!” You whispered. 

The line was quiet for a moment before he responded, “What?” His voice was raspy with sleep. 

“I’m literally fine can you please let me out? I can’t sleep.” You spoke softly into the device. 

“No.” The line went dead and you rolled over onto your back with a groan. You picked up your data pad and decided to read one of your smutty holobooks instead. 

~~~

“What did she want?” Hunter rasped waking up from the noise. 

“She wanted out.” Echo set the device down and curled back up onto his side. 

“She’s not an animal Echo…” He sighed rubbing at his eyelids, “It’s not a cage.” 

Echo just blinked up at the bottom of Hunter’s bunk, “…No.”

~~~

The mafia boss thrust his massive length into the sweet little omega’s pussy. Her soft mewls filled the gold lined dinning hall with her sweet sound. This only seemed to spur him on. 

“Yeah?” He thrust a little harder, “You like when I maim the men who hurt you? You like feeling their blood on my hands?” He nuzzled into her neck lightly teasing her mating gland with his fang. 

Elina suddenly clenched down at his words and he smirked knowing thats exactly what his little princess liked. 

“Mmm I like that too Caspian.” Y/N chewed on her finger nail finally getting past the enemies to lovers portion and right into the good stuff. Reaching down for her water mug, Y/n suddenly felt a painful knot form in her abdomen. 

With a grunt you put down your holonovel and rubbed at your stomach feeling the pain settle. With a deep breath you tried picking up your book again, but the movement caused another one to tear right through your muscles. You yelped and forced yourself into a sitting position. 

“No. No. No.” You whispered trying to massage the pain away. 

“Please no.” You begged but the dull pain was starting to become something more sinister. The heat started to emanate from the pain and spread throughout your body giving you a flush. You suddenly were uncomfortable in your little sleep set. You couldn’t get further enough away from the blankets on your cot and opted to curl up on the floor absorbing the cold steel floor desperate for relief. 

~~~

Hunter was having a relatively boring dream when his senses started to draw him back to the land of the living. 

He couldn’t help but raise his nose in the air while he blinked awake trying to follow the deliciously sweet scent. He barely had his eyes open when a gut wrenching yowl rattled the entire ship. 

Suddenly Crosshair was shot up in the darkness holding his blaster trying to figure out what startled him. 

“What was that?” Wrecker’s voice croaked from the floor. 

Crosshair rubbed his eyes looking around. Everyone was sat upright listening carefully when another more pained warble made the hair stand up on the back of their necks. 

“Y/N…” Hunter said looking at their closed door knowing she was just on the other side of the hall surely in pain. 

“It started.” Echo laid back down using his pillow to cover his ears. 

“It seems she’s… in heat.” Tech searched for his glasses. 

“What do we do?” Wrecker asked concerned. 

“Nothing.” Hunter groused and laid back down, “Go back to sleep.” 

Another whine echoed making Wrecker tense, “She sounds like in pain shouldn’t we help her?” 

“That’s the point idiot.” Crosshair snapped while he relaxed back down on his side staring at the wall. 

Wrecker just grumbled to himself and forced himself to ignore pip’s desperate cries. 

~~~

“Kriff.” You hissed and writhed on the floor feeling the unbearable heat terrorize your entire body. In this moment you cursed the GAR with everything you had. You missed Layla, she wouldn’t have ever let this happen to you. Instead the universe just had to crash land you on this hellscape of a planet with 5 devastatingly attractive Alphas whose scent was beginning to permeate the blast door’s seal. 

You moaned smelling the delicious alpha pheromones as they all danced around your little cage like the worst form of torture. The smell immediately triggered your slick response. The wetness soaked your panties and little sleep shorts ruining them totally. 

You cried out praying one of the men would snap and take pity on you. 

This was significantly less luxurious than the heat house on Naboo. What you would give to have knotting toys and a vibrator right now. You shoved your tiny hand into your pants bringing them to the source of your wetness and dragged them through your silky folds. 

You bit back a moan when you found your clit and started to circle it just how you liked. Just like the last time, you came fast, but the burn didn’t ebb. You just growled wanting nothing more than to be stretched from the inside. You wanted a thick knot to cure your pain. 

You writhed as another wave of cramps hit and you let out a scream. 

~~~

Hunter had held out longer than he thought we could have. He at least made it to sunrise before he couldn’t take listening to her suffering anymore. It was literally his biology to service an omega. Listening to her helpless sounds was making him feel ill and the rock hard boner in his pants wasn’t helping either. Her cries were so tempting. He tried to cover his ears but it was like a siren’s call. He knew that was the point, but it didn’t make it easier to hear especially because he could hear way more than the others. He could hear her panting, her silenced moans, the way her fingers squelched as she tried desperately to fill herself to dull the pain. It was a torture like no other. 

“I can’t take this.” Hunter said throwing himself over the side of his bunk and exited the ship. He noted how the others hadn’t gone back to sleep either. How could they? 

When he passed by the door, he heard the way she gasped and crawled over to the door trying to listen to his footsteps. Her desperate whines turned into sultry cooes trying to lure him closer to her. She was lost to the heat. He could tell from her cute little sounds, and the way he could smell her slick from the hatch door. She was slipping deeper and deeper by the minute. 

With a bit of willpower, he continued outside hearing her crying fade and turn back into suffering wails. 

He huffed and sat down on the hatch steps feeling on edge. He shoved his hands over his ears trying to down her out. He knew the others were starting to be affected, even their scents started to spike in response to the distressed omega. It wouldn’t be long before they were in rut too. 

~~~

It was time for Echo to feed you. He seemed to be the only one not affected by the now pungent smell. The others resorted to fleeing outside the ship like Hunter had hours ago. Echo was obviously the only one permitted to open your door to make sure you were eating and could use the fresher. 

“Hey Y/N?” Echo knocked on the blast door. 

He just heard a small sound letting him know you were in there, “I got you some dinner and thought you could stretch your legs?” 

“Alpha?” She rasped coming nearer. 

Echo used his special pass code to open the door letting it slide open to reveal you absolutely drenched in sweat and shaking on your knees on the bare floor. He knelt down holding your food tray setting it down gently in front of you. You peered up at him with your massively dilated eyes. He sighed knowing how painful all this must be for you. 

“Please Echo.” You whined reaching out for him grabbing his arm. He looked down at your flushed wrist feeling its heat on his skin. He leaned forwards to press his palm to your forehead making you preen. Your skin was hot making him a bit hesitant. He was really hoping you weren’t in any kind of health predicament because of this. He’s personally never seen an omega suffer through a heat alone. His partners had always been cared for and it had never gotten to this point. He was a little distressed looking at your current state. It felt wrong. What little part of him still carried the Alpha instincts, felt for you. He wanted to comfort you but knew it couldn’t do any good. 

“I’ll take you to the fresher when you finish eating.” He said backing up making you drop with wrist with a pout. 

“I’m not hungry.” You sulked. 

“I know hun, but you have to eat something or you’ll get sick.” He reasoned. 

“But…I-I…” You chewed your lip anxiously. 

“Y/N,” He sat back with a more stern voice said, “Eat your dinner.” 

“Can I use the fresher first.” You tried to negotiate. 

“Fine.” He sighed standing up to assist you in standing, “But then you’re going to eat right after this, you haven’t eating anything in 24 hours.” 

You just nodded and let him assist you to the fresher. Once inside, he left you to your devices to use the toilet and turn on the shower to cold. Once inside the shower, you keened feeling the freezing water soothe your burning skin. You tried your best to wash the suds over your hair and skin trying to clean yourself to the best of your ability despite the grogginess. 

Echo handed you a fresh towel from a crack in the door letting you dry off and pull on fresh clothes he had set out. 

You wobbled back to the room seeing the plate of food on the floor you had neglected and internally sighed. You didn’t want to eat. It didn’t sound good. Instead you wanted an alpha, a really really strong alpha. One that would scent you and fill you up so good. Better than that dumb food. 

“Y/N?” Echo eyed the tray, “Remember what you promised?” 

You pouted, “Echo please I’m not hungry.” 

He just rubbed his face getting frustrated and grumpy. 

“Can I have something to nest with?” You asked giving him your best begging eyes, “The floor is cold.” 

He sighed and got up leaving you to glare at the steaming rations. When he came back he had every cargo/moving blanket he could scrounge up along with a few pieces of your clothing. He set them down presenting them to you and you chirped happily taking the fabrics from him with greed. 

“Now will you eat?” He was getting annoyed. 

You ignored him and started fussing around with the blankets rubbing the slightly rough material on your face trying to place them just right. It was making you a bit feral trying to place them correctly in the corned furthest from the door. 

You heard the door slide shut behind you letting you know that Echo had abandoned his attempt to get you to eat something. You smiled finally feeling like you were getting somewhere. You wiped your sweat from your forehead and continued rubbing your scent all over the new nest. 

Unexpectedly, the door slid open again and you spun around at being disturbed. This time, Echo wasn’t alone. Next to him stood Crosshair, who looked a bit crossed. 

“Alpha.” You stood to walk over to him. His delicious smell was making you hazey and you practically tried to throw yourself at him. Crosshair came to save you…

“Stop.” His tone made you freeze on the spot. Your body started to vibrate the longer you scented him and stared into his piercing eyes. 

“Echo said you aren’t eating, ad’ika.” His voice was making more slick produce in your panties. You swore you saw his nose flare at the smell that was radiating off of you. The only thing you could process in your dumb omega mind was how good his knot would feel like inside you right about now.

“Omega.” He snarled. You whined. Alpha is upset. 

“I’m not h-hungry.” You whispered casting your eyes down to his boots. 

“You will eat and you will finish that entire glass of water do you understand?” He commanded with a stern voice you weren’t used to. But man, did it do something to your instincts. You nearly fell to your knees pulling the tray into your lap. His alpha tone was like nothing you had ever heard before, and it sounded so so good.

“Yes, Alpha.” You said picking up the spork and shoving the first bite of food into your mouth, when you swallowed you took the tooka mug of water chugged the liquid not realizing how thirsty you had actually become. You looked up at the two Alphas desperate for their approval. Crosshair just gave you a little nod wanting you to continue. 

“Thank you.” Echo whispered. 

Crosshair grunted trying to keep himself in check. Even though he was engineered to have inhuman levels of self control and patience, somehow seeing you kneeling on the floor desperately trying to finish your plate to please him was making his pants tighten. The alpha in him was desperate to take your pain away. Echo had worried them when he said you were refusing to eat, he asked Crosshair to give the command knowing he’d be able to control himself for at least a little. He still was upset about your weight when you had come back from Naboo. Those karking droids couldn’t take care of you as well as a partner could. He knew he had no other choice but to step in. 

“I’m done Alpha.” You said sweetly placing the tray down hoping he’d give you a reward. 

“Good girl.” Crosshair praised watching your eyes light up as Echo took the tray away, “Now you’re going to eat everything Echo gives you, do you understand?” 

She suddenly pouted realizing he wasn’t staying.

“Omega?” He raised a brow. 

You nodded letting him know you understood.

Then to your chagrin, they closed and locked the door once again. You gave an anxious whine hoping they’d come back, but when the door remained closed despite your hopefully thinking, you resigned to the nest on the floor. 

~~~

“She ate.” Crosshair joined the others in the makeshift tent they created outside. The others visibly relaxed. 

Crosshair noticed Hunter’s cheeks turning pink as he seemed to be locking his vision onto the floor… the little omega must be trying to get herself off again he thought. Hopefully she’d settle down soon and sleep leaving them all to toil in the increasing rut symptoms. 

“Is it getting hotter?” Wrecker tried fanning himself. 

“You’re in rut Wrecker.” Tech bit out yanking at his own collar. 

“Argh!” The giant groaned. 

Hunter shifted uncomfortably noting the near painful bulge in his pants. That damn omega was making his entire system feel like it was on the brink of short circuiting. He was starting to get a little anxious on top of his agitation. It had never felt like this before…granted he didn’t ever let it progress like this…

“I’m so…” Wrecker stood up and pushed his fist into the nearest rock, “Argh!” 

Pieces of red earth went flying everywhere. 

“Wrecker!” Hunter snapped, “Go rub one out, thats an order!”

The giant just stomped away out into the distance to relive himself. 

“I’ll admit, this is beginning to feel unbearable.” Tech slumped against the rock he was leaning on to stare up at the night sky. 

“Imagine how Pip feels.” Echo sighed hoping to get some shut eye. She was being uncharacteristically quiet. 

So much so, that after a bated breath, the others perked up their heads including Hunter trying to figure out why it was so silent. 

Then there was a loud moan breaking the silence and they continued on knowing she was fine. 

“This is cruel.” Crosshair crossed his arms looking at Hunter, “You didn’t see her.” His disapproval had been known since it had started. 

“You don’t think I know that?” Hunter snarled, “But what the fuck are we supposed to do?” 

“Go fuck her!” Crosshair leered. 

“We cannot do that.” Hunter shook his head despite how much his body agreed with Crosshair. 

“So you’re going to let her suffer like this for six more days?” Crosshair rolled his eyes at his stupidly moral brother, “This is cruel to her and you know it.” 

“Since when do you give a fuck about her?” Hunter narrowed his eyes challengingly. 

“I’ve always given a fuck about her.” He bared his teeth, “Like you said, she’s pack!” 

Hunter just stared at his little brother. While Crosshair may be harsh and unyielding, Hunter couldn’t ignore the tiny soft spot Pip had carved out into his stone cold facade. It was the smaller things, Crosshair brining her stuff, keeping an eye on her wherever they may be, the gentle way he holds her when she’s in need, the bastard still treated her like shit out of jealousy, but that didn’t change the fact that Hunter did in fact see it. 

“Alright everyone calm down.” Echo put a hand up in the air, “You’re hormones are taking over.”

Tech decided to stand up to stretch, the clay earth was dampening his trousers making him cringe. He really would prefer to be on Kashyyyk right about now, at least there they had wood for a fire and fresh meat. He decided it would be best for him to also find a secluded space to relieve himself before the frustration became too much. 

“Then there were three.” Crosshair closed his eyes again trying to focus on anything else besides the throbbing in his pants. 

Echo cleared his throat, “I agree with Crosshair.” 

“What?” Both the Sargent and the sniper said at once. 

Echo just looked at Hunter, “I already feel guilty about leaving her at that heat center, granted she had way more available to her, but this is wrong. You didn’t see her Hunter, she’s delirious.” 

“No! We’re not subjecting her to that.” Hunter growled. 

“What if she chooses?” Echo said diplomatically. 

“It doesn’t change the fact that eventually she’s going to not be in heat and have to live with us. Then she’s definitely going to transfer to the wolf pack. She’ll hate us.” 

Crosshair growled menacingly at the mention of the 104th. 

“I don’t think thats the case.” Echo tapped his chin. 

“What do you mean?” Hunter questioned. 

“I just… look she hasn’t said anything to me, but I have eyes. She’s not oblivious to the way you four have been slowly courting her. She knows none of you are going to make a move without threatening to upset the others so she ignores it.” Echo sighed, “I just don’t think she’ll be as upset at you think Hunter.” 

“I still don’t think it’s the right thing to do. She said she hasn’t had a heat in two years. Clearly she’s not interested.” 

“Well… that’s not entirely true.” Echo smirked. 

Hunter raised a curious brow. 

“She had a bit of a thing with the captain stationed on Ryloth, before she transferred to you.” Echo continued, “It was after she was stranded in that village with the droids. The captain had been the first to find her with the pup. Everyone swore he fell in love at first sight. The lovesick idiot couldn’t stay away from her.” 

“They were in a relationship?” Hunter prodded he fought back the jealousy flaring in his chest… with a reg?

“No, no.” Echo shook his head, “Just an arrangement. When she had a breakout heat, he’d be the on she went to.” 

“Which captain?” Crosshair snapped. 

“Howzer.” Echo hid a cheeky smile. 

“Was he assigned to helping Cham Syndulla?” Hunter asked. 

“Thats the one.” Echo confirmed. 

They sat there in contemplative silence. Wrecker and Tech were making their way back at this point, pink cheeked, and sweaty. 

“So, how would this work?” Hunter thumbed his chin, “How does this work without causing a massive problem?” 

“Are you worried about her or the others?” Echo asked. 

“Both.” Hunter answered, “I think it’s obvious we all like her.” 

“We let her choose.” Crosshair repeated Echo. 

“Then whoever it is, helps her, and everyone else agrees to be civil.” Echo added. 

“And what about you?” Crosshair raised a brow. 

Echo chuckled, “I don’t know if you noticed but…” He gestured down at his body, “Not an alpha anymore. Barely a human at that. I’m not affected by her smell or noise.” 

“What are you guys talking about?” Wrecker had an idea but he wanted to make sure he wan’t imagining it. 

“We’re putting Pip out of her misery.” Hunter shook his head unable to shake the feeling that this was a bad idea. 

“Are you suggesting what I think you are?” Tech was a bit in shock that his brother caved like this. 

Hunter just looked to Crosshair who spoke up, “Let’s get this over with.” 

They got up, and made their way inside the ship all filing into the main cabin where Echo scooted past them to start entering the access code to Wrecker’s bunk. 

The Alphas were squirming in their shoes in the presence of such strong pheromones. Her scent was everywhere and it was thick they could practically taste it on their tongues. 

The door unlocked and slid open causing Echo to turn his eyes up to the ceiling. Inside, Y/N was nearly naked writhing on the floor as more cramps coursed through her little body. 

~~~

“Alpha?” You whispered feeling how hoarse your voice had become. 

“Just me tiny.” Echo folded his arms looking away trying to give you a little dignity. 

“Are you making me eat again?” You asked sitting up to look at him. 

“No Ad’ika… can you put on some pants?” He cleared his throat. 

You got up on wobbly legs and grabbed a pair of panties and pulled them on with an agitated huff. Had he been still a normal reg, he wouldn’t have ever been able to resist such a pretty thing like you. He was starting to wonder how Howzer didn’t seal the deal and claim you when he had you like this. 

“Thank you.” He sighed and looked back down at you. You noticed him looking to his side and wondered what he was seeing. “I’m going to let you out. The others have agreed to help you on one condition.” 

“An alpha?” Your eyes suddenly lit up and excitement boiled in your tummy. 

“Mhmm.” He nodded, “They’ve agreed to play nice, but you have to choose okay?” 

“Okay.” You slowly made your way out of the confinement space raising your nose in the air smelling the delicious scent of purebred alpha. When you turned into the galley your scent spiked in excitement. Echo helped you stop swaying as you entered the main cabin. You let out a gasp seeing your pretty alphas all in one space. 

“Alright, you got your pick of the litter.” Echo nudged you forward. 

“It’s okay Ad’ika.” Hunter invited you to come closer. 

You couldn’t help but feel the thrill of seeing them having to adjust themselves at the sight of you. You stepped closer taking Hunter’s sturdy hand. 

“I have to choose?” You asked with doe eyes. He nodded. 

You leaned forwards bravely placing your hands on his firm chest. The warmth was making you shiver. You brought your nose forward and pressed into his neck. He smelled as good as he did back on Anakin’s Venator. You shamelessly crawled into his lap straddling him. He let out a surprised yelp feeling your warmth on his crotch. He nearly collapsed when you affectionately rubbed your cheek up against his feeling his stubble along his chin. You repeated on the other side scenting him, you were getting frustrated with how he kept his hands off of you respectfully. You wanted him to grab at the tiny scraps of clothing you were still wearing and tear them off already. 

“Alright sweetheart come’re.” Crosshair was getting jealous and lifted you off of his brother. You purred liking his dominance. He towered over you as he leaned against the dining table. You fisted his shirt in your hands as his hands wandered your back letting you explore him. You really liked how his presence dwarfed yours. His smell was similar to Hunter’s but just slightly different making him uniquely Crosshair. You stood on your tiptoes to reach his neck, he took pity on you and leaned down slightly to help. Your mouth instantly started to water and you opened your mouth to stick out your tongue to get a taste when his hand immediately fisted into  hair to wrench your head back. 

“Ah ah ah.” He chided, “Be good and follow Echo’s rules.” 

You pouted before relenting, ignoring the rush of slick sliding down your thighs.

Next was Tech. He shifted slightly when you approached. You stood between his parted legs and bent over giving Hunter a perfect view of your dripping core and soaked panties. The poor Alpha gripped his chair so hard the metal probably bent. 

“Hi Tech.” You smiled sweetly bending one knee to place it between his legs thinking he’d let you. Instead he took you by surprise and grabbed your neck keeping you from making your move. He raised a brow and tilted his head slightly in a domineering way you didn’t expect from the pilot it sent a rush through you.

“You heard Crosshair.” 

Crosshair snorted watching Tech control your movements, it shocked him too. 

“Yes sir.” You whispered letting him guide you to his scent gland. You shifted to get a good smell letting your hands wander his shoulders a bit hoping he’d let you run your fingers through is hair. When you tried, he leaned into your touch giving you the cue. You greedily let your nails scrape against his scalp and you felt the way he was fighting back a groan. When you were satisfied, you then turned to Wrecker who was watching every single micro movement you made. 

“Wrek.” You smiled and crawled over Tech to sit in his lap. They didn’t stop you when you climbed over Tech to straddle the giant. Wrecker placed a massive hand on the small of your back making you shiver with his warmth. His scent was similar just like his brothers, but each of them had tiny notes of something different. They were equally delicious and you could help yourself but to grind down on his lap making him smile and moan. 

“Omega…” Hunter warned. 

“She’s a greedy little thing isn’t she?” Crosshair raised a brow. 

“So?” Echo asked looking at you. 

“I can’t choose.” You pouted pushing yourself into Wrecker who happily let you. You rubbed your forehead against his neck liking his scent. You hadn’t really been able to smell any of them before, not with your implants intact. But now, ugh it was so good. Your entire body trembled with excitement being around so many perfect alphas. 

“What?” They all asked. That’s never happened before. Usually omegas can pick out one scent that they prefer. 

“I don’t wanna- ah!” You clenched weakly around Wrecker as another wave of cramps pushed through. You let out a pained whine, “Help me. Please!” You begged to the room. 

“Y/N we can’t help you until you tell us what you want.” Tech said struggling to control himself. Wrecker rubbed soothing hands up and down your back in an effort to relax you again. 

You squirmed against Wrecker and tucked your face into his neck again mumbling. 

They just looked confused before turning to Hunter. 

He looked up at Crosshair then Tech, “She said she wants… all four.” 

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