#i could go.....on a lot more about him but i'm keeping it brief bc my laptops about to die

[moonshapedbox]

modern!au truck driver arthur headcanons

fluff, elements of arthur morgan x fem reader, very brief suggestiveness

a/n: AHHH i'm nervous ok i’ve written fics and drabbles & stuff before but i have never posted them…so this is my first time posting. big shout out to @rdr2enjoyer for her scrumptious modern au fic that started this idea in first place !!!! and to @cassievanlauritzen for even more ideas and inspiration, i’ve written this with her in mind <3 haven't written in so long so it feels like warming up. pouring my all of trucker knowledge into this + did tons of research just in case. sorry in advance if it's not super accurate or accidentally out of character. enjoy!

- he’d be a snack lover. when he stops at gas stations fuel up he stocks up on a ton of snacks, chips, candy, jerky, you name it. also drinks lots of coffee, sodas, really anything to keep him energized.

- additionally I feel like he’d be big on Buc-ee's. loves how clean the bathrooms are, he’d go in get washed up a bit (wash his face and forearms, combs his hair, etc). then he’d get a huge bbq brisket sandwich and a dr. pepper and eat it in his cab. probably has a small Buc-ee’s cup or thermos.

- on the same note abt eating habits-- would hands down eat while he's driving. type of guy to dip in his fries in a milkshake and devour it, his unwavering attention still on the road.

- would definitely have one of those hanging rear view mirror ornaments of a like deer or a horse.

- collects little trinkets from all the states he’s been to (keychains, shot glasses etc.) would buy you a small plushie and surprises you with it when he gets home.

- the type to call you on late nights and puts you on speaker phone when he’s tired. makes you to talk to him to keep him up until he can get to his next rest stop, “darlin’ you gotta keep me up for a lil while longer…tell me ‘bout ur day”

- the only phone he's got is a flip phone. he runs out of minutes a lot and he can’t get service most the time bc of rural areas he’s traveling thru, so he calls from a pay phone. he leans against the pay phone and pulls a drag from his cigarette while he listens you on the phone, “i’m okay hon, cellphone died again i’m sorry” he flicks the ash and waits for your response, “...what’s wrong baby?…. you ain’t gotta worry ‘bout me i’m fine. i can take care of myself don’t worry….”

- if there’s not a payphone available he’ll stop by a diner and use the landline, fidgeting with the cord while he talks to you, he hums and sighs to himself listening to you talk, “mhm, I know baby I miss you too…just wanted to hear that sweet voice of yours…been thinkin’ ‘bout you a lot…” he smiles to himself and looks down at his boots. “don’t cry sweet girl i’ll be home soon…in a couple days, ok?”

- when he finally does get home he’s handsy. he’s grabbing you every chance he can, he holds you in his big arms and pulls you close, snuggling into your neck and shoulders. “you have no idea how lonely it gets out how there sweetheart...” he pants into your neck, pressing warm open mouthed kisses on the underside of your jaw. “if only i could take you with me, you’d look so pretty sittin' in my passenger seat”

- he's a patient guy so he's not the type to road rage but i think he’d be a vocal complainer with the stupid ppl on the road. he's out on the road for so long that he can't help that his patience runs out sometimes. will throw up his hand in annoyance when ppl cut him off. he rests his temple against his hands in irritation, leans up to the wheel to get a better view “what the hell are we doin’...you gettin' over or not?” he grumbles to himself, “use you’re damn signal!”

- but it's quiet in the cab for the most part, it's just him and the soft hum of the road-- aside from answering the calls on the CB radio frequently.

- although it’s lonely out on the road, he gets homesick and he thinks about you a lot. the nights are even longer and more painful. some nights he doesn't mind the quiet but other nights it makes his soul ache a bit.

- the song “wichita lineman” by glen campbell….yeah it’s like that

- when he sleeps in his cab he’ll look out at the stars, it's really his only moment of the day he can truly zone out for a moment. he never gets tired of looking up at them. sometimes he'll allow himself one smoke before bed, he'll stand outside at night and breathe the fresh air, looking up at the night sky.

- similarly he loves all the scenery. one of the best parts of driving to him is traveling around, seeing how the sun sets and rises differently in every part of the country--but still equally as beautiful. it makes his heart soften, but he'd never tell anyone that

- always keeps his journal with him, writes down things that interest him. places he's been, people he's met, and so on.

- he’s always changing radio stations when it fades into static as he crosses county lines, has lots of CDs or cassettes just in case the radio doesn’t have anything good on or he can’t get rid of the static

- as for the CDs and cassettes— definitely classic rock guy and like old country/folk music (you know johnny cash, willie nelson, john denver type of stuff). is a sucker for ballads bc they express emotions he feels yet can’t explain in his own words :’)

── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──── ♡ ─── ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ ──

if there's anything u think i should add let me know and i might make a part 2 !!! thank u sm for reading :)

[prentissluvr]

OKAY HERE ARE SOME SAM THOUGHTS BEFORE I CLEAN MY ROOM (some platonic but mostly romantic)

loves getting his hair played with (romantically and platonically)

main love language is quality time

could have this giant on his knees if you compliment constantly (his looks or his personality) (mainly his personality) (he knows and is aware of how conventionally attractive he is but isn’t cocky about it) (like another winchester LOL)

runs warmer than the average human being so he’s your personal heater in the winter

but in the summer you make sure he stays far away from you bc man sweats A LOT in his sleep 😭😭

I HAVE MORE BUT I GOTTA CLEAN MY ROOM

ILL BE BACK LATER WITH DEAN AND MORE SAM 🤭🤭

djhJHFSKDJ SAMMMMM AAA okay okay bear with me while i go absolutely insane LMAO. like this is long LOL so i am gonna add a cw for anyone who stumbles upon our time of feeding each others delusions <3 i got carried away ahahahaha hehehehehe i'm normal about him tho!

wc: 1.6K. cw: kissing, a bit of swearing, brief mention of things trying to kill you bc that's the life lol, unedited

⟢ playing with his hair : do NOT get me started on sam's hair <3 it's always so pretty, and you have to make that known! sure, you do it out loud, but we'll get to the complimenting in a bit hehe. your favorite way of making it known (and definitely his) is by playing with it. constantly. and he can never get enough. sure, he gets embarrassed or picky about it around dean, like he does with just about anything romantic or sweet (mostly because dean won't ever let that sort of thing go un-teased). but he just loves so much to lay his head in your lap and let you thread your fingers through that pretty brown hair <33 it makes him feel so relaxed, and cared for in a way that doesn't feel overbearing or overly obvious.

and he loves it especially it because he knows that you do. he can feel you physically relax from under him when you sweetly run your hands through his hair, gently pulling apart any small knots and taking your time to take care of that gorgeous head of hair. he will also certainly melt and try to hide the pink tint to his cheeks when you reach for his hair unexpectedly, like when you lean in to fix a fly-away strand or full on card your hands through his hair when he's in the middle of research and didn't notice you approach.

also!! put your hands in his hair when he's kissing you!!! please!!! he's begging on his knees!!! god, he loves that so so much and he gets a secret ego boost because, once again, he can physically feel how much you love it too. he'll always kiss you harder when your hands move to tangle themselves in his hair.

gets embarrassed if you put little braids in his hair, especially as he grows older and it grows longer, but he can't resist how much it makes you smile, so he lets you get away with it if dean isn't around. and just imagine putting pretty clips in his hair LOL he pouts and asks you to take them out immediately, but not before kissing the smug grin off of your lips. will die and try his hardest to delete them if you ever get pictures of him like that, but you keep your blackmail well protected hehe.

as for platonically, that is facts! he thinks its very sweet if you're his best friend or sibling! it's not as big a thing as it would be in a romantic relationship, but he'll love to have his hair played with by anyone willing <33

⟢ love language; quality time : this is like almost sad and especially sweet at the same time because the poor boy has no time to spend much quality time with you. but again, this kind of makes this whole thing sweeter because that means each moment is just that much more precious. obviously, he'd love to be spending quality time with you by going on dates in the park, taking you to a nice restaurant that's not too stuffy, or something even as simple as taking you to the movies. but those things are hard to do, so to him, any time spent with you without the presence of something trying to kill you can be turned into that precious quality time.

for him, it's about sitting on the couch with your legs strewn over him or his head on your lap or yours on his shoulder (really any sort of thing keeping him connected to you) as you pour over lore books. it's about the seamless exchange when the two of you figure out how to kill your monster or save the world together. it's about posing as fbi to get answers and slipping his hand into yours when no one's looking or grabbing a decent breakfast together before the start of a busy day. all he cares about, the things he treasures, are you falling asleep on him in the back of the impala because he gave up shotgun to sit next to you, taking months, maybe longer to get through one season of a tv show together, and always taking even just a small moment out of a busy day to be together.

⟢ complimenting him : it's true that he needs less assurance about his looks because he certainly is aware that he is fine as fuck. but let's definitely establish that he adores to hear praise about his looks specifically from you because duh! he's in love with you and you're the only one he cares about!!

but yeah, when you compliment his personality, his sweet, loving, courageous hot sometimes completely idiotic and frustrating self?? oh he's done for. he's honestly far less used to that. when you're half asleep, and you murmur into his chest that you think he's so smart, kind, funny, loving, and brave and that you couldn't be more proud to be his? he's complete mush in your arms, he can't believe it.

"that's all you, baby," he'll refute, and you'll certainly grow bashful under his compliment, but you want him to accept it, at least a little bit. "i mean it, sammy, i really do." your voice is all soft and sleepy, and oh so earnest that he can't help the aching of his heart. "i know you do," he'll whisper, suddenly emotional and not wanting you to hear it. "i'm just glad you think so. i'll always do my best to be those things for you," and that's the kind of thing he only admits when the sole light in the room comes from a dim, clouded over moon and your head is tucked under his chin so you can't see his face. he means it, of course, but he's not used to such vulnerability and blatant adoration.

he'll clench his jaw when you tell him you know that, but that it's true that he's all those things and more for so many people, the few close ones, and all the ones he passes by and does his best to save. he doesn't fully believe you, he's got a lot of guilt built up in that sweet mind of his. and it's true he's not perfect, but you never said that. all you're trying to tell him is that you love who he is, so much, and he can never thank you enough for that.

bonus, he really really loves when you tell him you think he's funny. it's definitely an ego booster, plus he loves loves loves to know that he can always make you smile and laugh.

⟢ your personal heater : this is literally sooo true. he's so big with so much body mass that he'd have so much body heat to give off. but i so agree that on top of that, he'd also totally be on the warmer side. if you're naturally warm as well, then you two are an unstoppable force in the winter time (the both of you are lulled to sleep by the other's body heat in a matter of minutes). either way, he'll always envelope you in hugs when it gets cold because he knows it'll warm you up right away. he doesn't have to ask to know when you're cold, because you'll always press yourself to him, maybe grabbing his arm and pulling it around yourself before even saying a thing to him.

"you cold?" he'll ask sweetly, and after feeling your nod and hearing your muffled "mhmm," he's quick to wrap his other arm around you too and pull you closer.

for the folks with cold hands like me, he's always trying to warm them up with his own. whether you've slipped your hand in to his just to be near and they're particularly chilly, or he can see you trying to warm your hands up yourself, he's quick to take up both of your hands in his to warm them up. when he grabs up both of your hands, he'll pull them to his chest and hold them there until he's satisfied they're warm. he'll look into your eyes and talk about something completely unrelated, all casual as if he's not making you flustered. other times, he'll warm up one hand at a time, encasing it in both of his own, rubbing it and blowing warm air on it before gently slipping it into his warm, warm pockets and moving on to the other.

also, if he finds out your face is cold, he'll cup your cheeks with his large, furnace hands or full on just pull your face into his head or neck to warm you up that way.

but yeah😭😭 summer can be a lot less pleasant. if you manage to have cold hands even in the summer (i could never i wish), he'll try to steal the coolness from your hands and you'll be like oh my god please stop i'll die LOL.

and you're like nooo babe of course i want to sleep with you, you just have to stay as far away as possible and never touch me because it might burn me to death. if he's tired and touch-starved younger sam will pout at you and tell you he just wants to cuddle. later seasons sam just won't take no for an answer and will just pull you to him until he gets too hot himself lmao. he'll make sure there's a fan on you first and a glass of ice water on your bedside. basically he loves that he's warm in the winter because it brings you closer to him, then gets pissed about it in the summer because you don't want him too close unless there's sufficient a/c or some other form of ventilation to make it cooler lol.

[vees-scribbles]

When They're Sick

Ever since I did the post about Bo and Vincent with a sick S/O I've wanted to do how the characters act when sick so. Enjoy.

CW: Murder mention, drug mention, very brief sex mention

Characters: Luigi Largo, Amber Sweet, Blind Mag, Nathan Wallace, Otis Driftwood, Baby Firefly, RJ Firefly, Bo Sinclair, Vincent Sinclair

Luigi Largo

Doesn't get sick very often

The Luigi in my brain does not like germs

And was also a sickly ass child

So he's very careful about illness

Insists that when he IS sick, he's very manly about it

I do think he'd push through a headache or some small symptom (though several GENterns do not make it through, such is life)

But when he gets sick sick?

Oh BROTHER

Man baby alert clean up aisle GeneCo

Very grumpy and insisting this is the WORST ailment in the history of ailments

He has the common cold

Demands nursing but is a pain in the ass about it

No he doesn't need you to feed him soup but since you're already here...

I don't think he'd let many people see him like that tbh

Which mostly just means that as his partner you should be prepared to handle the brunt of it

Good luck catching it!

Amber Sweet

Probably doesn't know she's sick tbh

She's lounging about high off her ass

Nothing is different from a normal day

Does need pampering but it's the normal amount

Tbh I think she's toughing it out better than Luigi

I don't think she's often sick either

If you ask she'll tell you she can't remember the last time she was sick

Could have the bubonic plague and be treating it like mere allergies

This one is short uhhhh Amber Sweet is more of a badass than she gets credit for pass it on

Blind Mag

Sick the normal amount for a person

Very graceful about it

Like she feels like shit but she's not really mean

Does take a day or two to recuperate

Bring her soup but she's going to worry about you catching it

Not very chatty, because she doesn't want to risk her vocal chords

Might take some convincing but yes, she would like some cuddles

Reciprocates if/when you catch it

Or if you're sick at all

Remember when ppl really wanted tuberculosis bc they thought it was romantic? Mag embodies that

She has the flu but she still manages to look stunning all pale and sickly

The author's barely disguised love for Mag

Nathan Wallace

I KNOW I DON'T LIKE HIM BUT

In his defense

He's a parent

He is absolutely trucking through it

Unless he is literally unable to stand he's not acknowledging that he's sick

"But Vee, isn't he a doctor?" That doesn't mean he follows his own advice

Gets through cold with a pack of cough drops and a prayer

Any partner of his would have to really wrestle to get him to take a break

I think how often he gets sick directly correlates to Shiloh's age

Little children are illness machines

Toddler Shiloh definitely wreaked havoc on that man's immune system

"She was locked away from the world how would she get sick" Never underestimate a toddler's ability to bring sickness upon a household

Otis Driftwood

Never sick

That guy has an immune system of STEEL

Bacteria tell their children about him to keep them from misbehaving

Otis Driftwood is a germ

BUT IF HE WAS

He's not admitting it

He is acting it

On his death bed talking about 'I'm fine'

Does still get pissy if you don't dote on him

Another guy you have to just accept catching the illness from

Still trying to fuck

Don't get too tender about it or he'll be mean

He'll be mean either way actually

Baby Firefly

I don't think she's sick a lot either

She's subjected to just as many germs as Otis

Fairly normal? For her anyway

She wants your attention about it

But she's not mean like Otis

Will admit that she's sick and just go lay down

But she wants you to come cuddle her

I'm getting very 'sick day when you were a kid' vibes

Watching TV and drinking 7-Up kinda deal

Like she's not exactly stoic but she's not being a giant baby

Naps through it

Still cracking jokes when she is awake

Generally not a bad time

RJ Firefly

See Otis and Baby

Stoic

He's everything Otis thinks he's being

He clears his throat like. Double the amount he usually does

Probably you have no clue he's sick until you get sick

Then he's like "oh my bad"

Doesn't actually say it like that

I don't have much to say here

I want to nurse him back to health

He would never let me

Someone write a fic where he's sick and someone takes care of him

Bo Sinclair

Sick an average amount I imagine

Probably has allergies real bad

Like anyone in the US South I feel

MAN BABY MAN BABY

On his death bed with the common cold poor thing

Very resistant to any kind of help

"I don't need you babyin' me"

Yes he does

Keep at it long enough and he will give in I feel

This guy has mommy issues in his deepest darkest heart of hearts he wants to be taken care of

He just also has daddy issues and will refuse to accept being taken care of

He didn't know you were supposed to dilute those cans of soup with water

You can change his life with a single can of Campbell's chicken noodle prepared correctly

Another guy who tries to get horny with it

Less aggressive about it than Otis

Because he really just wants to take a nap

Lowkey annoyed when you inevitably catch it

Vincent Sinclair

Also sick a normal amount

What can I say the Sinclairs fall pretty close to the 'just a normal ass guy' end of the Guy to Freak spectrum for me

Less of a man baby

Will admit that he's sick, but is also capable of realizing a sniffle won't kill him

Will BECOME a man baby if you're not very, very careful

Open to being taken care of

Probably really sweet if you bring him something, squeezing your hand or kissing your fingers

But if you're too good at it he starts milking it a little

He's like a cat when they learn you give them extra attention when they limp a little and suddenly they have a mysterious injured paw

Let him tbh he deserves it

You down for fever cuddles? Better get down with them

[puppyluvfics]

NSFW Alphabet | Gaon/Kwak Jiseok

Gaon/Kwak Jiseok | WC: 1.8k Genre: smut Summary: nsfw alphabet game thing Warnings: this is just. PURE filth. I'm sorry. (No im not). NOT proofread, just straight up rambles. BRIEF mentions of degrading... I think that's it.. lemme know if I missed something! A/N: X is excluded bc i will Not be writing about him in that kind of detail <3 Thank u anonie for requesting this one toooo <3 The rest will come soon, I promise! Also... funny how my tumblr is Mostly jiseok content when i'm joo/seumi biased... LOL i'm having a lot of fun tho so it's all good <3

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Sweet hyper boy finally relaxes. He’d absolutely collapse next to you and breathe heavily, little chuckles leaving his lips while he pushed his hair away from his face. He is SO the type to reach out for you and just pat whatever he touches first, as long as it’s you - be it your still-shaking thigh, your stomach, hell, even your face, just so he could give you praise while you both caught your breath. 

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

I don’t know if I’d call it his favourite per se, but he loves using his lips for sure. Dragging them up and down your body slowly, teasingly, leaving small kisses and hickeys on your body - some where other people could see like your collarbone and others where only he could see, like your inner thighs… and don’t even get me started on the fact he would love seeing your wetness coating his lips after he ate you out…

On his partner… legs in general. Being able to grip your thighs whenever he wanted, rub his hands up and down your legs, knowing he could push them open whenever he wanted… yeah

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

In your mouth 99% of the time. The other 1% would be if he was feeling a little more needy and wanted to come on your face, but most of the time, he loves holding your head down on him, feeling himself twitch in your mouth before letting go with a shaky groan. He doesn’t have a preference on if you spit or swallow, at the end of the day he wants you to be comfortable, but the times you do swallow and clean up the remaining mess on his cock would always leave him shuddering with pleasure and admiration. 

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He LOVES keeping dirty polaroids with him. Maybe not in his wallet where anyone could see, but for sure with him at all times, either of the both of you together or just you… it’s a nice reminder for him of what’s waiting at home.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He’s experienced at a very basic level, for sure. He knows what he likes, but he isn’t an encyclopedia of how to make his partner come just yet… he’d need a little guidance, but the smallest bit of reassurance and help and he’d be a master at it after a few minutes.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Cowgirl and reverse cowgirl for sure. It’s not that he doesn’t want to put in the work, because he absolutely likes taking control, but he likes being able to grab you and watch you feel good; he loves watching you hold onto his shoulders or knees and ride him, swirling your hips and whining.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

He’s serious but he’s fun. You couldn’t role play with him because he’d end up giggling and taking himself out of it, but he doesn’t see sex as something funny, if that makes sense. He always has both of your pleasure in mind, but that wouldn’t stop him from biting at you, spanking you playfully and making it a fun experience.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Say it with me, I keep it short and simple! He’ll shave it all off and keep it trimmed for a week before he just let’s it go again - an infinite cycle.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He’s intimate but he’s not serious, you know? He loves being with you and feeling you, but he’s not about to make it a grand romantic gesture every single time. That doesn’t mean he won’t ever make it romantic, but he likes to keep you on your toes. In more ways than one, if you catch my drift…

J = Jack off (masturbation headcannon)

He’s part of the population that thinks that if you jack off with your left hand, it feels like someone else is doing it… and while there’s no telling if that’s totally true, the fact that he always jacks off thinking about your hand moving up and down his cock or how tight you feel around him when he fucks you gets him there every time, regardless of what hand he uses.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

On par with the polaroid thing - exhibitionism - BUT!! Not in the traditinoal sense. He would never take photos or videos on either of your phones (can’t trust technology, honestly), but that wouldn’t stop him from taking polaroids of you or using a video camera to film the two of you, getting a rush from putting on a show, even if its just for the two of you to see again at a later date together.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Home! But in “dangerous” places. What I mean is like, right next to the window where no one could see you unless they were really looking, but the idea that it could happen is such a rush for the both of you. Or even just with the windows open, that risk of being heard drives him wild. 

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Don’t confuse this with a marking kink, but knowing that you’re his and knowing that you trusted him enough to be at his mercy whenever he asked gets him so hard, it’s insane. He’d never push if you were clearly not in the mood, but if you were reciprocating, he’d immediately take control, reminding you that you belong to him.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn-offs)

He’s someone who also gives vanilla… so no extreme kinks. Honestly, I can’t even see him exploring “tame” kinks… the farthest he’d go would be anal.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Since he loves coming in your mouth, he’s absolutely more of a receiver, but he’d never turn down the chance to lay between your legs and let you make a mess all over his face, his tongue skillfully flicking, his lips suctioning on you, vibrating with the hums of his moans.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

You know… rough and slow and/or fast and sensual, depending on the situation. He’d absolutely slowly pull almost all the way out before slamming his hips back into yours, making you shudder with desire and need, and there are other times where he’d pull you against his chest and slam into you, his lips messily kissing and sucking on your neck and jawline, small reminders of “mine, all mine” being whispered in your ear.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He’d be down for a quickie for sure, but he’d still make enough time for aftercare, for the both of you. Both because he enjoyed being cleaned up by you, but also praising you and reminding you that you did so good and made him feel so good. So… I think the quickest a quickie would be for him would be the time it takes for him to come from just you sucking him off, noting that he would absolutely return the favor the next time.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

See above, with the window thing. I think he’d never put the two of you in real danger of being caught, but the risk of being heard through a door or a wall is something he will absolutely risk in a heartbeat.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Unfortunately, he is a one and done guy, but it’s not for lack of trying. You just make him come so hard the first time that he’s spent! I do think he would be down for a bit of edging every now and then, where he’d let you take some of the control where you’d bring him right to the edge then take your mouth away from him with a little pop, watching him writhe and beg for you to be good and let him come in your mouth.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Now!!! I personally think he would have quite a bit of fun with butt plugs. Not in himself, but for his partner. Having a small collection of them, some with heart shaped gems on the ends, some just solid silver, maybe a stray tail here or there… he’d love to watch you wear one around the house for a while wearing a skirt with nothing underneath, asking you to pick up something he’d “conveniently” drop so he could peek at the plug in you.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He teases, but not in a typical way. It’s always subtle, be it teasing remarks about how good your body looks in what you’re wearing, how he could tell you were needy by the way you rutted against his thigh when you were in his lap… little bites on your neck to remind you he could fuck you senseless if he wanted to.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He’s not a screamer but he’s not quiet, at all. The best way to put it is that the two of you could absolutely be heard through a wall if someone was really listening, but not loud enough to make out distinct words.

W = Wild card (a random headcannon for the character)

UMM Let’s talk about degradation :) I think :) he would be into that. But like… not badly, you know? Something gives me the vibe that he would like calling you dumb - but NEVER stupid, dabbling in some other things like calling you a slut :) that’s all :)

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

He is so the kind of guy to get a boner at the smallest thing, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to drop to his knees and beg for you. If you’re not around or not feeling it, he can think it off, but on the rare occasions he can’t, well… that’s what those photos and videos are for! 

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterward)

Within the hour for sure, but not immediately! He’d doze in and out for a bit, waking up to help you clean yourselves off, falling asleep after laying down in a too-comfy way, waking up again to get dressed and help you get dressed if you wanted to (he’d never protest naked cuddles, of course), and once it was truly all over and you were both cuddled up together, he’d be out. If there were things to do later in the day… good luck, because you’d have to be the one to wake him.

[sensei-venus]

Tanner in an interview getting asked about a rumor his gf is pregnant and him deflecting the question bc it's true but they aren't ready yet to tell

(Unedited) (Pregnant Reader)

“So there has been a very big rumor going around as of lately, I assume you have already heard about it going around?”

“I already know what your going to ask.” Tanner laughed as he sat up him his chair. They had been in this interview for almost a whole hour now. He was itching to just get up and leave.

“So, are the rumors true that you and your long-time girlfriend, Reader, might be expecting?” the reporter asked. They guys face was lit up as he asked the question.

Tanner gave a small shrug while saying “Well I believe a while ago both me and Reader actually gave a statement about kids.” the reporter seemed to sit on edge as he went on “We both would love to possibly have them one day. The both of us have discussed it quite a lot. Before and after we started our relationship.” his tone was filled with happiness. It was true that the couple talked about kids a lot in their time together. Both of them wanting to raise a family together.

The reporter raised a brow “So you confirm that you and Reader are pregnant now?” the reporter seemed on edge. The way he seemed to almost sit on the very edge of his seat was telling.

The recent surge of rumors that the young star couple where pregnant was flying around every social media platform. It took off the minute Reader was spotted at a baby store in LA. She was photographed by a passerby coming out of the shop with a large bag of unidentified items. The photos also captured her placing the the bag in her car before driving off. She was dressed in a very plain outfit of just a long baggy shirt and yoga pants.

Most fans were separating the possible pregnancy after the couple had taken a week-long vacation not long after the pictures were taken. Taking themselves out of the limelight for a brief moment and stepping away from the public.

Super fans were pulling up cancelation sheets of upcoming movies that Reader had supposedly been cast for but now her name was no longer on. New movie releases were scrubbing her name from feature boards. Already editing her name off of movies that were set to start filing in the following months.

It didn't hell the rumors that Reader had yet to make a public appearance after those pictures were leaked online.

“All I can really say is that we have talked about it before. The rumors are just that, rumors going around because my girlfriend went to a kid's store. I mean we have a lot of friends and family a lot of them have kids. She might have just been picking up a gift for one of them. You know how Reader loves giving gifts.” he laughed.

“So you can't say if it's true or not?” the reporter was starting to get more pissy with Tanner. His voice growing higher as he tried to dig more at the situation. Clearly trying to get a big scoop from this low-level interview.

Tanner was able to see right through his little game.

The interview was thankful cut short when Tanner's phone rang and the timer on their meeting went off seconds later. The guy who had been interviewing him looked totally defeated. With Tanner keeping tightlipped on the topic he didn't get much out of him. There would be no big scoop for his company.

Walking off he picked up the call, smiling he answered “Hey babe how are you doing? Better than earlier I hope?” a small hum was heard on the other side of the phone.

Reader rolled around on their bed for a moment before turning over. She shoved a pillow under her head as she went back to her phone. She sighed “I'm doing a little better…” she paused for a moment and looked down at herself. She knew she wasn't showing just yet, maybe if you looked hard enough you could see the smallest bump forming under the chubbiness of her belly. Running a hand over her belly she smiled “My stomach still feels all funky but that's to be expected I guess.” she giggled a little.

Tanner gabe a small smile as he walked.

“Did they pester you about those stupid pictures?”

“A little but it was nothing I couldn't handle so don't worry about it too much.”

Reader chewed in her lip a little, the trip to the baby store was a split second decision on her part.

“I know I shouldn't have gone out like that. I should have just ordered something online and had it delivered.”

“Babe no, you wanted to go out and do something special to tell me about-” he looked around for a second. Making sure there was no one around to overhear their conversation. “The baby and I wouldn't change that for anything. It was super sweet and such a surprise, I loved it.” a small laugh was heard on the other end making him grin.

“How about I bring you some ginger ale to try and help with the morning sickness?” Tanner said as he finally reached his car in the parking lot. As he unlocked it he heard a small sigh from Reader.

“I would love that actually oh and if you could pick up a big pretzel? The big soft ones?” he could practically hear the longing in her voice.

“I'll pick up two just in case, I'll see you in a little it. Love you.”

“I love you too Tanner, see you when you get back.”

[onlyseokmins]

$$60 billion (part 2) • l.s.m.

How did a legendary bounty promised for turning in the wasteland's most infamous outlaw transform into a sick, little inside betting joke amongst your traveling companions? Though you have no idea why they're doing it… you sure as hell don't want that very same gunslinger comrade worth sixty billion double dollars to know anything about it either — but oops — looks like he already does! Damn you and your temper, some unhelpful lip-loosening alcohol, and one no-good, sorry excuse of a preacher you sometimes think of as a friend.

Pairing: outlaw!lee seokmin x fem!reader Genres: smut (minors dni!), trigun!au, action!au, apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic!au, space western!au, slight enemies to comrades to ??? !au, angst, fluff, they're dumbasses your honor 🙏 Warnings: swearing, blood, guns, injuries, medical tingz, destruction, mentions of knives, violence, unsettling space western things, slight body horror and hints at altered dna, weird religious cults, mentions of eating/food, alcohol, threats, bets among friends, tame-ish alien/monster/plant sex (????? listen it'll make sense - think of him like howl's bird form on steroids idk), mating, possessiveness!, marking, bruising, jealousy, smelling/scent kink???, wet messy sex uwu, wing kink (??? listen i was gonna explore it more but decided not to ok??), BITING (bc it's me), mechanical/robotic fingering???, gagging, bulge kink, oral sex (explicit male receiving and brief fem. receiving), seokmin's dick is like SLOPPY TOPPY LORGE w/ a mind of it's own, lowkey forgot how to write smut sorry </3 WC: 13.2k of 32.7k | Part 1 | Read on AO3 A/N: this is for the Now that's 90's - A Seventeen collab and loosely based off/inspired by the Trigun anime/manga! You do not need to know it as I manipulated a whole lot of elements for my own narrative but beware of various spoilers if you do go ahead and check out the series after reading!! I hope everyone enjoys the conclusion and please check out the other writers in this amazing collab ❤️PS, I know nothing abt chess lmaooooo but let me know your thoughts and feel free to ask any questions regarding this au's intricacies!! This part might get a little confusing because of a flashback!! (starts right after the italicized paragraph and ends with "...in this moment...")

The silence is palpable.

"Does it hurt more to get stabbed in the back or shot?"

Only the continual rustling sound answers your philosophical question. Not that you actually care because you weren't really expecting a reply.

So, you keep talking.

"I think it would be more painful to get stabbed… but it would take longer to heal from a gunshot wound."

There's a brief pause in the motions behind you. But the quiet resumes, though the practiced skill of a needle threading through your skin quickens. While the local anesthetics Tonim's doctor supplied is doing its job for the most part, you swear you can still feel the tug of flesh being sewn together.

Or maybe you're just thinking too hard.

"Look. I'm… I'm sorry."

If tension could personify itself right at this moment, it would do so with ease, given how heavy its presence currently sits in the room. A low voice finally speaks up, gravely and roughened after such a long period of silence and the hairs on your neck rise.

"Are you really?"

"… Yes."

A heavy sigh — one burdened with all the worries of the world — follows. You wince and then tremble, wishing you could turn around. It's easy to guess what he's thinking but god, do you wish you could see his face to confirm. The fear of the unknown paralyzes you.

"I seriously am."

"Doubtful. I know you only asked me that question to subtly say you'll be okay and heal just fine but it's not that simple."

The callousness in his tone and the sharp way he says your first name makes you want to shrink down, shrivel up, and quite frankly die on the spot. Gritting your teeth, you succumb to the apparent silent treatment until the snip of scissors signifies your surgeon has finished treating you.

You think twice about your options upon hearing the click-clack of medical supplies being put back into the first aid kit. Then you think, "fuck it!", and use your good arm to keep the fabric of a spare t-shirt pressed against your chest and shift so you can face the man who just rather aggressively threw a handful of unused alcohol prep pads back into their designated slot.

"I'm super duper, utterly, and truly apologetic, Seok."

The gunslinger heaves another grand exhale of irritation. He doesn't even so much as glance at you, frowning sourly down at the roll of gauze in his hands instead. The temptation to reach out and touch him — soothe him — is strong but you decide against that (for various reasons) and resort to huffily pouting instead. Amazingly it seems to work, because he notices right away and folds way too easily without much of your sway, finally facing you with a reluctant but serious expression.

"Then what did you learn?"

Your gaze lowers, eyelashes fluttering while you drown in your feelings of shame and wrack your brain. The urge to toy with the silver chain around your neck is strong though you resist the tick and hesitantly answer instead.

"Um, that I need to fortify my mental block better?"

"Try again."

"Uh…"

"How about the way you're not supposed to play the hero?"

The tin of the trauma kit rattles as Seokmin slams his left hand down on the bed, leaning menacingly toward you. Though narrowed, his eyes seem to glow. You can't help but whimper at the intense ire dancing in those irises paired with his sharp tone. Like the desert's suns, it simmers and radiates off of him with rays of heat that you can easily feel given how close he is.

"I'm, I'm sorry!"

"No, you're not," he states sharply though the rigidness in his body relaxes after your squeak of another apology. "You almost died!"

You'd defiantly cross your arms if you could. "Between the two of us, you were most at risk of dying."

"Was not! And we both know my chances of injury are much, much lower than yours."

"You can't lecture me and flex your stupid powers this time! It's different 'cause Jihooon was fuckin' with my mind."

The harsh bitterness is more so directed at yourself and the damned Crimsonnail than Seokmin. But as usual, you vent all your frustrated emotions out on him, especially whenever he brings up the fragility of your mortality. You both stare stubbornly into each other's eyes, thinking back to what happened and what could've happened.

Lina's protected. The Tonim residents were all immobilized. Seungcheol, Seungkwan, and Mingyu are in good spirits. You are safe.

A burst of air rushes into Seokmin's lungs, relief filling him as he idly scans your figure for injuries. Casually reloading his revolver just in case, he beams as you approach. The mirrored expression of victory on your face accompanied by a hand reaching out causes his whole body to shudder in pleasure. There's nothing he'd like more than to intertwine his fingers with yours.

Instead, he settles for returning your enthusiastic fist bump. Nudging his shoulder against yours, Seokmin chirps out, "Good job, partner!"

"Partner?"

"Yeah, partners."

You shake your head like you can't believe him, amusement tilting up the corners of your lips. He wants to tell you everything, all of it. But his ears catch the faint click of a contraption behind him and he looks over his shoulder just in time to see Jihoon's crossbow assemble.

Joshua looks mightily displeased but makes no effort to put a stop to the Crimsonnail's actions. Seokmin can only thank his lucky stars that Soonyoung remains in a catatonic state. Dealing with a ginormous worm so soon after being in its stomach a couple days ago was not appealing in the slightest.

The fingers of his prosthesis splay out, cybernetic arm lowered and extended outwards in front of you as you turn around as well. He knows you hate unwarranted protection but you'll have to forgive his instincts this time. Nevertheless, he trusts you. And as Jihoon opens fire, Seokmin leaps into action, expecting you to do the same — only to do a double-take when you don't move despite a flurry of nails breaching the air.

Your eyes remain unfocused. Glazed over and cloudy, posture tense but still. He sneaks observatory looks your way from afar while firing Geranium. Round after round, breaking nail after nail to prevent any harm befalling you. A maniacal laughter rings out and Seokmin freezes, putting two and two together.

Then he snarls.

Jihoon must've sicced his killing intent — a nasty ability to project and create illusions of destruction in someone and break their will — on you. Cursing, he starts making his way closer to you, inwardly reaching out to you and begging that you'll break free of the blonde-haired man's clutch on your psyche.

You're obviously more than capable. He knows this. But your movements are sluggish, slowly releasing Sirocco from your grasp. The empty pistol lands on the sand with a muffled thud and Seokmin's pretty sure his heart mimics it. A look of terror and horror spreads across your facial features, surely subject to something awful within the confines of your own mind.

And while you're experiencing visions of things you fear coming true, he's stuck in the vivid reality where they do.

You spin around with a wild look in your eyes — full of rage and anguish. He stumbles back as you teeter one foot at a time toward him and in the distraction, a nail pierces right below your shoulder blade.

Someone wails behind him.

You scream.

Seokmin rushes forward. But he's tackled suddenly to the ground and ends up flat on his back. Completely winded and left with his vision smarting, blinking in confusion at the blurry double halos that definitely shouldn't be around the duo of suns in the sky.

Then your face comes into focus. And god, forget the suns — in all your glory and in all your fierceness, you shine brighter than them all combined — hallucinations be damned.

It takes a bit of wrangling around, given how you try to wrestle and pin the man down. The clunky gun you're waving around goes off several times, harmlessly lodging bullet holes into the sand cushioning around Seokmin's head.

"Stop it, you're gonna hurt yourself!"

Moving and lashing out like a wild animal before it's fully sedated, his words don't come through the hellish haze Jihoon's trapped you in. You pull the trigger with no regard for the injury to your shooting arm.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

He dutifully counts each round fired, multitasking between that and the effort it takes to contain your struggling movements. Once again, thanks to the overpowered strength of his prosthetic, the man's finally able to sit up with you secured in his arms to cease any further movement.

"Lovely, lovely mayfly," he murmurs. The stable cybernetic hand gently feels around the impaled shoulder while a trembling thumb rubs your abnormally chilled cheek. "C'mon and snap out of it, pretty."

Not a spot of recognition in your blank glare. His eyebrows furrow as cold metal presses in between them. Seungcheol is cursing, Mingyu and Seungkwan are shouting loudly. Jihoon gloats.

But none of that matters. Seokmin drowns all of it out by diving in the pooling depths of your empty irises. Searching, calling, begging. Biting his lip, he delivers a quick slap and pleads, "Come back to me, love."

And like a mist that rises after dawn, you return to him. Your stunned grip on the gun falters, the final bullet rattling in its chambers. The pained expression on your face slices open his own heart but its shredded form takes flight in utter relief.

You're back. You're going to be okay — he'll make sure of it. And even if you don't know it, you're his and he's yours.

"Y-you're dead," you choke out and all he can do is smile despite feeling like he's on the verge of crying. Elation, anger, guilt, hope, longing, worry, joy — all of it turns and tosses within him like a rustling flurry of winged creatures struggling to break free.

So, he smiles at you and grasps the barrel of the old pistol aimed at his forehead. "I know, mayfly."

Jihoon howls in fury. Joshua finally steps forward, striking a military pose with his hands behind his back. Composed as ever, his voice remains its deceptively sweet self compared to the harsh jerking movements he's subjected upon the gray-eyed man via telepathy.

"You've crossed the line, lost number thirteen."

"Don't call me that!"

It's no surprise that the pecking order in Dokyeom's henchmen sowed seeds of dissent. Though Joshua was simply a right-hand man, he remained the only unnumbered member, proving the lack of disposability DK saw in him versus the others.

"Know your place."

"Which has always been at the top! But because of you — !"

" — The top of those already at the bottom, perhaps. Respect your superiors and your orders, Crimsonnail. You were not to lay a hand upon Master Dokyeom's brother. Ever."

"I didn't!"

"Or a member of his little group." His indifferent gaze swept over Seokmin protectively cradling your body. "This voids our involvement and nullifies any further implementations of the game."

Joshua would thank his lucky stars that the humanoid typhoon is letting them leave scotch-free if he was a decent man. Unfortunately, he's not — already considering what punishment to enact upon Jihoon per his master's orders. The Crimsonnail feels a shiver down his spine, further enhanced by Joshua's frosty, disdainful look of disapproval as he telepathically drags Jihoon to the car.

Still, it's a good thing Seokmin's a pacifist by nature, that he's more preoccupied by your well being than anything else. Your brow begins to bead with sweat, the pain of your wound finally sinking in past the adrenaline rush wearing off. Black circles dance in your blurring vision, the gun falling from your grasp as you droop forward and rely on the unerring sureness of his support and the safety within in it.

Seokmin knows he needs to get you medical help right away, and it's the only thing he can focus on. There's no time for exchanging a blow with a blow nor the faintest idea of revenge.

Not yet. Not now. Maybe never if it means putting you in harm's way.

Was he really going to give up following the bloody trail to hold his brother accountable for the unspeakable crimes he's committed? Throw away the blank ticket Rem spoke about? All for one person?

The questions all swirl around in his head like a nebulous mass. And like a newborn star — one that's been long in the making — the answer is crystal clear and shining bright as you sit in front of him now looking devastatingly beautiful to him despite all that's happened. Most importantly, you're safe.

But all he can say in this moment aloud is, "I'm sorry."

For a multitude of reasons. So many of them. You seem to spot something in his eyes, frowning ever so slightly.

"You don't have to apologize for anything. I'm fine."

"I almost lost you."

"But you didn't."

"…I know. And I'm so fuckin' glad."

Seokmin runs his fingers in a distressed manner through dusty, matted strands of reddish-brown strands. Immediately drawing attention to the dirt, grime, and dried blood coating and dulling the cybernetic's buzzing glow.

"That's gonna be a pain in the ass to clean."

He appreciates the subject change, shooting you a lopsided grin. "Yeah, tell me 'bout it."

"Let me help."

You get up before he can protest. A tactical way to coerce him into worrying about helping you rather than arguing. The coy part of yourself is applauding the method, especially when the calloused flesh of his palm splays against the bare skin of your lower back in the name of support as you both walk to the bathroom.

That same part whispers naughty temptations to drop the t-shirt covering your chest, press up against him, and see his reaction. But your reasonable, reserved side is too held up on various other matters to give in.

Sadly, you find out you can't offer as much assistance as you would've liked. But Seokmin seems heartened by just seeing you up and about and close to him. Plus, you make use of your idleness while he washes in the sink by reaching for the few stocked amenities you can reach with your good shoulder above it when he asks for them. And you receive a heartfelt smile in return.

"I probably should've just showered."

You shrug. "You still could."

"Nah, it's fine, I can do it later. What about you, though? You're going to need help with those stitches."

"What a roundabout way to say you want to bathe together, Seok. You could've just asked."

Maybe you expected him to splutter nervously or protest fiercely at the tease. You certainly don't expect him to just shake his head — silver earring flashing in the vanity's dull lighting — and chuckle.

"I'm being serious, goof. Besides, it's not the first time I've seen you in the tub."

"What?" you squawk and his grin doesn't falter. In fact, it turns into a smirk.

"I'll go get Sherry. Lina's gonna want to see you too, she wouldn't stop crying about her pretty savior getting hurt."

You frown. Was he still going to dodge The Talk™? And did he think you were really just going to him out of your clutches that quickly?

"We still need to chat. You promised."

His eyes flash. "… And you don't like promises."

Yes, that was exactly why. He knew your history. Still, you refused to back down.

"No, I don't. But I like you… and, and most of all, I trust you. I just want the truth, Seok. Even if you think it'll hurt me, at least be honest. Trust me back. I promise it'll make it less painful if you tell me why you thought I wasn't serious. So, please…"

Don't let me down.

It's unspoken, but he can clearly hear it in your tone. A battle-worn sigh escapes so you try to lead him and finish with a question where he can give a more straightforward answer.

"… How long have you known? About the bet, I mean."

Despite wavering between semi-alertness and bordering the edge of losing consciousness, you're aware of Sheryl's presence as she bustles around with Seungkwan and Mingyu to clear out an empty room above the saloon temporarily used for patients. Seungcheol waits outside the door with you two, a cigarette loosely dangling from his lips.

When Sheryl leaves, she sneaks a peek at the way your face buries into Seokmin's neck, how the man carefully assesses the rest of your body for injuries. His touch is gentle, the cybernetic arm coated in blood as it holds the nail in you steady. He'd been adamant about being the one — the best one — to treat you. Smiling, she hands Seungcheol a couple of double dollars and the pastor raises an inquiring eyebrow.

"For that little game of yours," the woman whispers knowingly and gestures to the two who just exited the room and Seokmin hurriedly heads inside. "They told me all about it."

You lift your head to glare at Seungcheol and then your other comrades as you pass, wondering if this was some sick form of revenge for pulling one on him and if Sheryl was so keen to set you up with someone in the same way pompously done for her. But your shoulder feels like it's on fire so rather than reprimand your stupid, back-stabbing friends and slump back wearily against Seokmin.

He's a simple man who certainly can't hide a silly smile at the unconventional snuggling. Lifting his chin, he then tilts his head questioningly to the money in Seungcheol's hands. "You're still doing that bet?"

"Haf'ta win the lasses 'n hopeless romantics over 'n have 'em rootin' fer ya."

"Y-you know about the bet?"

Seokmin hushes you with a low murmur, words muffled by the press of his lips to the crown of your head. You can't make out what he says, but the timbre is soothing enough that your eyes close.

"Gotta make that sixty billion somehow if we're not turnin' ya ass in."

"Fair enough!" The wanted man laughs and closes the door with his foot.

His cheerful demeanor then dropped to focus on the proper procedures to treat your wound and that's when the silence settles in, soon followed by the weighing air of unresolved tension between you. And now, you're continuing the determined path to fully speed-run ahead and break it, though he shrugs nonchalantly at the question.

"Known for a while, to be honest."

"Seriously? I thought it was a secret!"

"C'mon, you know how bad Cheol is at keeping them."

"Yeah, right," you roll your eyes. "That man takes things to the grave — literally!"

"You're too hard on him." Seokmin leans toward you, bracing himself with an arm supported by the sink and brown eyes sparkling with humor. "Think about how much you've learned about him."

"Against my will, too much…"

"Which means I'm right."

"… I guess you do make a fair point."

"Of course. He's a completely open book once you peel back that damn protective hardcover of his."

Still, you sniff disdainfully and frown. "I swear, you're the only one who sees him like that."

"Like what?"

"Like…. unafraid, unconcerned, unbothered by all that he is, all that he's done, et cetera."

"Why not? He's done the same for me. Besides, I've said it before but he has those eyes, you know. Kind."

Ah, and that's what gets you to resign with a small grin. It's just like Seokmin to see only the good in people.

"And you're not all that different," he continues with a broad, knowing smile. Immediately you bristle and he clarifies, "from me." Some part of you momentarily wonders if you spoke your thoughts aloud or if he just simply knows them that well. "As loath as you are to admit it, you care for him. Most importantly, you trust him."

Though your face sours at the thought, you don't retort right away. Sure, Seungcheol is a trusted ally. And maybe the motivation to free Jeonghan from the control of the Eye of Joshua wasn't solely because it was simply the right thing to do. But also because it might brighten the dull spark and leave one less bloodstain on the hand of a man who bore the burdensome weight of all sins like a cross on his shoulders.

Then you wave away those thoughts for now. "So, is that why you thought I wasn't serious on how I feel about you. 'Cause of the bet?"

"No, because I never knew the full extent of it. But… if you're saying it had to do with your feelings, then I would have to say yes — though I find it hard to believe any bet's worth my bounty."

"Oh." Your cheeks heat at unwittingly giving it away.

Seokmin smirks when you avoid his gaze, and he moves in even closer. "No one has sixty billion double dollars just lying around, mayfly."

"You're just saying that so no one turns you over to July."

"Well, you won't do it, will you?"

"You don't know that," you fire back, intending to heighten your defenses that only weakly falter because you're still not looking at him.

"But I do."

"Yeah? Prove it!"

Ooh, a challenge.

And one more step closer.

"Because you care too much about the man you like to put him behind bars."

Your eyes dart back to meet his, ready to squint reproachfully only to widen at how the gunslinger's face is only a breadth away from yours. Breath hitching, you desperately want to whine out in irritation but it comes out in a low whimper. Seokmin's canines flash in the bathroom's dim lighting.

"That's not, that's not fair." The wall pressing into your bare back keeps you from retreating and the hand keeping the t-shirt covering your chest feels how your heartbeat speeds up. Your skin is on fire, only the cool temperature of your locket and its chain preventing you from utterly exploding after the plaintive admission of, "You already know everything. But…"

"But…?"

The unconscious action of biting into your lower lip only gets realized by the way it keenly draws Seokmin's eyes. Electric blue flashes against brown irises yet they darken to almost black with the sudden thrill of desire that rises to the surface. He's so close, you can feel his breath caress your face, and you swear you hear it deepen into a low grunt before he raises a brow for you to continue.

"But… b-but I don't know…a single… thing."

Seokmin has forever believed Rem's take regarding the ticket to the future always being blank. For him, it's always been an unknown path forward that he's let lead him wherever and to whatever destination.

He holds himself back, just enough to utter the (practically what should be unneeded) words of reassurance, "It could only ever be you — and it's always been only you — that I could be in love with so much, mayfly," and then he's eliminating the meager distance between the two of you. For the first time, he stamps that blank ticket with an assuredness of the future and outcome he's never had before — with a kiss.

Cradling the back of your head with his cybernetic prosthesis, the other cups your cheek and then trails down to your collarbones — but no further than appropriate. His mouth, though, disregards the very notion. A teasing tongue repeatedly runs across your bottom lip to smooth out the indents caused earlier by your teeth then naughtily pokes and prods its way between, eliciting a sweet gasp from you he absolutely devours.

Your whole body shudders with happiness, eagerly surrendering to the man's wild, possessive fervor as he passionately steals the breath out of your lungs and stakes his claim on you by leaving behind shiny kiss-bitten lips. Seokmin only draws away, panting, to admire his handiwork, light-headed and dizzy with delight.

"I love you," he reconfirms with his forehead resting against yours and nose tickling your own, "… partner."

Breathlessly, you joke back after placing a soft kiss on the corner of his mouth. "Love you too, partner."

And that was that.

With your shoulder injury on the mend and the other members of your little ragtag group nursing their own bumps and bruises, you all decided to spend one more night in Tonim — much to Lina's delight. While she merrily bounced from one 'hero' to the next, you playfully reminded Wonwoo that he still owed you some free drinks. You were eager to take advantage of the fact and he was more than willing to accommodate.

The tavern that originally held a subdued, slightly hostile air to it when you first arrived was now filled with an unfettered joyous harmony. You're so easily swept up in the ambiance of such high spirits and jubilant townsfolk as mug ales filled to the brim get passed around and clinked together, you fail to notice Seokmin's sudden withdrawn nature.

Not until the next morning do you first realize something's off.

"You're sure about this?"

"Oh, no. Not you too, Seok."

You'd already flipped off and shoved away a complaining, terribly hungover Seungcheol and finally got rid of the watchful, fretting gazes of Seungkwan and Mingyu. The duo had been hovering around you with concern ever since you downed a full glass of alcohol last night. While you generally just let them be and were quite thankful not to wake up with a pounding headache, you certainly weren't above crushing all of Mingyu's pudding cups if he meekly asked one more time if you were okay or needed help.

Seokmin leans against the open door frame as you pack. The pulsating glow of lost technology flickers in your peripheral and keeps you aware of his quiet presence. Part of you had always wondered if the ever-running currents of lighting synced with the flow of blood through the rest of his body.

The gunslinger doesn't speak, and you wonder why. And though you'd like to flatter yourself and entertain the notion that he's watching you — while other times that may be true — you don't feel the weight of his eyes trained on your motions. It wasn't like there was much to stuff in your bag, the satchel's leather cracked, faded, and well-worn after all these years of use through the desert and everything you truly value remains strapped some way to your body. So once you're finished, you inquisitively peek over in his direction.

Brown eyes are trained on the clunky gun on the mattress — the same one you'd pressed against his head. It's also the exact same pistol Chan had spent his adolescence restoring and repairing. Left unnamed unlike the honorary grave Seokmin had helped you prep before leaving the ruins of Ivywood behind. Meanwhile, his gaze darts to linger in contemplation on the chain around your neck before his eyebrows furrow, emphasizing the drawn out features and dark circles beneath his eyes.

"You look tired, you doing okay?"

"Yeah, just haven't been… sleeping well."

Frowning, you step toward him. Although he doesn't back away, his entire posture stiffens. "Will you be able to make the journey?"

He snorts, gesturing to your shoulder you're trying not to move too much. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to be asking you?"

"I'll feel better at the border."

Seokmin nods understandingly. "The weather will align well."

Within the sandstorms that relentlessly swirl near the Melca Border Sea of Sand, hides the only SEEDS floating ship that survived the Great Fall and you have to get the timing just right to reach it. It's home to a large community of humans, and most importantly, it's what you would consider a true home to you and Seokmin. Already, your energy restores — excited at the prospect of getting to relax in a place you trust and people you truly enjoy being around.

"Jun can take a look at my shoulder."

"That's true, it would be good for him to do."

"And I'm sure Hao's going to want to check your arm, maybe fashion some fabric that's not only bulletproof but also nail-proof."

"He's gonna give us both a scolding."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

You share a look of fond chagrin. Even though Seokmin's well over a century older than Juhui and Minghao, they were direct Earth descendants aboard a ship full of lost technology and geniuses in their own right. Those facts alone gave them all the confidence and utter audacity to more often than not, act like fretting toma mothers over the two of you.

Nonetheless, you appreciated them with all that's remaining of your heart.

The trip to the Melca Border wasn't a straight shot from Tonim but it wasn't as far as you thought. A bittersweet farewell to Wonwoo, Lina, Sherry, and the rest of the townsfolk was to be expected. Though their sorrow weighed you down, the knowledge that you were parting from them with good memories and the expectations to visit again kept your steps light-footed.

Seokmin remains zoned out the entire time. You bulk it up to his normal reaction whenever something emotional was on the horizon. Returning to Melca held a grand spread of wonderful, warm memories with a scattering of dreadfully sad ones too. Though the floating ship's defenses have been bolstered to the max over the years, the terrible events weren't easy to forget.

But they were incidents in the past and it's thanks to the intellect of the two who greet you at the entrance of the ship that their defenses continue to improve. Luida proudly stands behind them, accompanied by Brad and his wife.

"Greetings, weary travelers."

"We're no strangers, Luida," Seokmin protests against her formality.

The elderly leader's playful grin smooths out the wrinkles lining her wise face. "Welcome home, children."

It's a simple phrase but one that fills you with inexplicable warmth. Hansol might be the son born of her own body, but no one is immune from her maternal instinct. She beckons for everyone to come inside where the main quarters lie and the growing crew population will certainly be enthusiastic upon hearing about your return.

Seungcheol, Mingyu, and Seungkwan trail after without fuss, also elated to be aboard the familiar floating ship. You smile with genuine delight and step forward to follow while Minghao takes one look over his wire-rimmed glasses to survey Seokmin's dusty figure and elegantly tilts his head knowingly in the hallway leading to the technology laboratory. Glittery, colorful beads woven through the long strands of his two-toned hair clink in time with the movement.

It's hard to hide the snicker that escapes as you watch Seokmin trudge after Minghao like a scolded puppy. Your glee at someone else's suffering doesn't last long when a gentle hand clasps your shoulder. Wincing at the pain, you meet Junhui's puzzled look before his eyes narrow.

"You're hurt," he says, disappointed but not surprised, and leads you away to the med bay. It's exactly what you expected, in fact, the main reason behind why you're here — and yet, you sulk and whine petulantly just because you can.

"Not my fault that the only way to get here is by timing everything right to jump into a sandstorm and then onto a flying platform."

After instructing you to lie down on the medical bed and cutting the fabric of your shirt without fanfare, Junhui clicks his tongue. "You only come to visit when you're hurt."

"Not true!"

He concentrates on disinfecting and resewing the torn stitches in the tender flesh around the parts of your wound that are still healing. His tone borders on slight resentment but the concern weighing in it smoothes it all over.

"And yet most of our time spent together is only when you visit so I can patch you up."

"It's not like that."

"I know… but I would've met you elsewhere."

"Boring."

"Can't you courteously pretend to care about yourself out of consideration for those who worry?"

"You'll go gray at such a very young age if you stress all the time, Jun."

He shakes away silver bangs that threaten to impede his vision, unamused. "And you'll end up buried under the sand next time."

"Sounds cozy."

"I swear —"

You wave his growing ire away. "Seok takes care of me just fine."

"Yes," Junhui's cat-like smile causes your metaphorical hackles to raise. "He does care deeply about you."

"I'll punt you into the fifth moon and give it a second crater with your body."

"Now, now… violence is never the answer."

"Violence is the only reason you have a job!"

If you weren't as close as you were, perhaps he'd be offended by your claim. Instead, he kicks you out (after ensuring you're indeed in relatively good health), leaving you to laugh victoriously. Then, you set off to the technology lab in good spirits, hoping to catch Seokmin and commiserate with him.

Instead, you find a lone Minghao sitting refinedly amongst all the tech with grace and poise. He was in his element. Fiddling with and poking at a well-worn, familiar cybernetic tech with a thin silver instrument, he simply raises an eyebrow to acknowledge your presence.

"Did you fit Seok with a new arm?"

"But of course," the man sighs wearily, "despite my best efforts, my darlings always return home to their father with quite a beating."

"… Then you'll hate what I'm about to tell you."

"No, I cannot fashion you a pierce-proof trench coat. However, I will acquire some stronger material… but there better not be a next time."

You purse your lips and pout. It often seemed like Minghao worried more about his inventions than the people using them, though you knew that to ultimately not be true.

"So, he already told you what happened."

"Oh, yes… he told me everything." Heterochromatic eyes suddenly meet yours, sharp with a spark of amusement. "See, I almost didn't want to give him the latest modification but…"

"But…" You repeat warily.

Junhui was always mischievous, though most of it only ended with harmless pranks. On the other hand, Minghao's sarcasm-filled humor rarely made an appearance, and when it did, it usually delighted in the sickest of satisfactions.

Yet, he simply shrugs, evasive as always. "I think you'll like its improvements."

There's something foreboding about that statement, but he ushers you away under the pretense that he needs to concentrate. And shortly, you find yourself stopped by curious passersby or familiar faces in the hallways to the main quarters. Since your last visit, a multitude of passengers have a lot to share and update you on. By the time you reach your own pod, you're socially exhausted.

Sleep came easy but finding Seokmin did not. The SEEDS ship was already big in the first place and additional construction enlarged it further. An itchy, achy feeling pooled inside your gut on the second evening you'd been unable to catch sight of him. Finally, you acknowledged the bitter truth — he was avoiding you.

You had to come to terms with how delusional it was to think that once everything was out in the open, the scattered puzzle pieces would magically fall together in their rightful places. It should be easy, right? It's what happened in those cheap novels Junhui dug out of an abandoned pod in Melca back in the day. He'd given them to you as a birthday joke — Minghao sighing and handing over your real present (the first bullet-proof trench coat) — but you'd actually read through all the cheesy, steamy piles of romantic drivel.

Seungkwan, ever the cynic, and Seungcheol — who's naturally a heathen — quickly destroyed the slim spark of hope of ever hoping to feel those flutters in your gut. Meanwhile, Mingyu was someone precious and wholesome with a romantic outlook on life underneath the great muscular physique he'd gained from carrying that heavy concussion gun around.

You often wondered why they never tormented him like they did to you. But despite his indomitable stature, the emotionally soft man's tears were the most powerful weapon in his arsenal. Even if he didn't quite realize it, his comrades certainly were aware.

And Seokmin… well, if you knew how Seokmin felt about romance, you wouldn't be stuck in the position of wondering why the fuck he was avoiding you.

Again.

"Where is he?"

"Good morning," Mingyu greets the following morning, cheerful as ever. "If you're still hunting Seokmin for sport, he said he's feelin' a little sick!"

"Sure."

"No, he really is." Seungkwan refutes your aggressive eye roll with a gentle shake of his head. "Loverboy hasn't come out of his room for days and when I almost knocked the door in earlier, he finally responded only to sound like a dying toma."

Your face contorts into a morbid combination of concern and irritation, shifting between the two expressions. "Probably 'cause he stayed out all last night!"

And with a dramatic huff, you glower at the pastor seated in the cramped corner of the floating ship's kitchen area. Seungcheol deemed it was cooler, darker, and the farthest spot in the enclosed space from any of your misplaced wrath. He smiles, the white stick between whiter teeth jollily flicking up and down at you, taunting.

He reveled in the knowledge of being safe since he'd been the only one able to provide any information on the humanoid typhoon's whereabouts. The pastor — who still enjoyed a late-night smoke to cure some of his insomnia — considered it his saving grace to catch sight of the fellow gunslinger slinking through the shadows in the halls. Apparently, Seokmin had been sneaking outside the past few nights and remained resolutely ever-elusive during the day.

"Should go see 'im. Yer all antsy and 'm bettin' he's missin' his… mayfly."

"Oh, go fuck yourself," you snarl and storm out, missing the man's bark of laughter before he continues contemplating the best way to siphon money during a confessional.

The unfaltering stomp of your combat boots is the background beat on your walk to Seokmin's pod. His halls aren't far from the kitchen area and yet each footfall feels like a step into the unknown, the lights above seeming to grow dimmer the closer you get.

Why was he acting like this?

Did he regret everything that happened between you?

Was something wrong?

Would he shut himself away from you?

Worry and anger swirl together, mirroring the vortex of sand you had to pass through to get here. Seokmin's never shut you completely out before but you're familiar with his reclusive acts when things get too much. Too close. Too emotional. And you're afraid to be the catalyst to another spiral.

So, you knock. Harsh, loud, and ultimately unforgiving if ignored.

"Seokmin, open up! I know you're alive!"

A mutter of "Barely," carries through the door before he clearly answers with a curt, "I'm not feeling well but I'll be fine."

"Open the door."

Silence.

"Please."

The silence continues — and your temper flares. "Don't make me go get my bag and grab my lock-picking set!"

You can hear sounds of cursing and some rustling around before the door slowly and reluctantly opens, Seokmin hiding in the shadow it casts.

"As you can see, I'm quite fi —"

Both a coughing jag and the firm push of your shoe interrupts his confident statement. "Sure hope you weren't about to say you're fine!"

A faint smoky scent permeates the pod. You cough and pause to let your vision adjust to the darkness. The first hint toward Seokmin's unusual behavior because he thrived in the sunlight, no matter how weak the sunrays that reached the floating ship were. Then second, you blink in wonderment at the black heaps littering the bed and floor.

Feathers. Everywhere.

Reminiscent of the time you'd broken Seungcheol's ridiculously expensive pillow against Mingyu's bulky bicep during a good-natured fight with Seungkwan's assistance. But instead of an explosion of brown and aqua toma plumage causing you all to sneeze, these were inky dark like the night sky and resembled piles of soot against the pod's stark white backdrop.

You whirl around to find Seokmin retreating to the corner of the room, hands slamming on top of the dresser for support. His back is to you with two thin wings jutting out from it. Feathers rustle as he pants, shoulders coinciding up and down with the motion of the wings.

"Seok, how did… how did this happen?"

It's not fear that causes your voice to tremble but worry. The appearance of his natural Plant form is no longer shocking. In fact, the more you see it, the more you find it eerily beautiful. Probably similar to those who believe them to be messengers of a higher power. But he's only ever transformed in dire situations — either due to stress or the rare exhaustion of his superhuman abilities against stronger foes.

He doesn't reply so you take a cautious step forward. An animalistic growl erupts from his throat, followed by a pained groan. You gasp as he shakes, protrusions rupturing from the lower parts of his shoulder blades. Two more wings burst out and unfurl below the trembling ones already quivering on his back.

So that's how they hide and reappear.

"Is it 'cause you're sick? Choi said you've been staying out all night. You could've caught a cold or something's in the air. Never know what's floating around here." You babble as you frantically search for signs in the mirror above the dresser for any hints to what's caused this.

Seokmin's bent over and you note what should be brunette roots of hair are now pitch-black too. Closer and closer you creep until you can make out each bead of perspiration trickling down his neck and how they coat every bare part of his body in a sheen of sweat.

Then his head snaps up. An eye — unshielded by the black fringe of his red-brown tipped bangs — narrows to glare into your widened ones. A tempest of electric blue rages within it. Like the hottest type of fire, it burns more than you could ever expect in a vortex of one prominent emotion.

Desire.

An involuntary shudder overtakes your whole body, and you unconsciously bite your lip. Seokmin slumps back down, granting respite from that ardent azure glow.

"Sick," he snarls and laughs, strained. "Sick in the head, that's for sure."

"How… how can I help? What can I do for you?"

"Get out."

"Seok —"

"I'm serious, mayfly. For your own good. Leave."

"My own good?"

"I'll, hah, I'll explain… explain it later."

Your arms cross. "Oh, really? Or will you avoid me again? Like you have been for the past several days?"

"I haven't —"

"Don't you dare feign indifference! I'm not stupid — we talk about our feelings and then you retreat. Just be honest with me… please."

You promised.

He sucks in a very deep inhale through clenched teeth, seeming to regret it instantly because his grip on the edge of the dresser is hard enough to crack the strong material. Glowering at your reflection again — not daring to acknowledge your very real and extremely close presence in the room — Seokmin bares his sharpened and widened incisors in a snarl.

"We will talk, mayfly, please believe me. Now's… hah… just not great timing with… with what's happening."

Irritation easily gives way back to worry. "At least tell me what I can do for you. Should I get Jun?"

"He can't do anything. Gotta just… work it out of my system."

"Work what?" You frown, knowing how rare it is for the medical specialist to be stumped.

"It's not for certain…" Four different wings flutter in agitation at various speeds. "Not a lot's known about Plant physiology," his mouth turns downward, "even I don't have a thorough understanding."

"Is it a disease?"

"Wish it was that simple."

"You're talking in riddles and running verbal circles, Seok."

"… Dokyeom and I are independent Plants. Likely the only ones, well, you know — still functioning. Alive. When Rem found us, research was obviously done."

You know the story very well and nod. "And had been conducted before."

"'Course thanks to Rem, it wasn't as invasive but there were, hah, occasional talks. Theories. And then, of course, before us twins, there was…"

"… Tesla."

A Plant with a lifespan of only two-hundred and thirty days.

Seokmin swallows. "Tesla. Yes. I recall bits and pieces. Hypothesized with Luida and company… Outside of Dokyeom following the unethical methods humans sometimes conduct for experimentation," he snorts at the irony, "it's thought that Plants… can copulate… with a mate… of their, hah, choosing."

"Really?" Your eyebrows raise, intrigued. "That's a brilliant discovery!" Then they furrow. "Wait, are you saying that this," you wave your hand to gesture at his current form, "is because… you're, er, ready to… mate?"

He holds his head. "… Yes."

"Oh, okay. So, you need like… relief? A mate? Should I…?"

Your questions hang uncertainly in the air, unfinished because you're really not sure what you're supposed to even offer. A sarcastic smirk graces Seokmin's lips, condescending in the sort of way that's aimed more at himself.

"What kind of man do you think I am, mayfly?"

"A very, uh, Planty one for sure."

"Better than leafy, I suppose."

"Though you are quite… feathery."

Finally, he turns toward you, a wry and defeated smile on his weary face. His wings stretch outward and curl back in, elegantly waving toward you as if drawn in your direction. You can't help but smile at the object hanging from a cord around his neck.

"You still keep that old thing around?"

He looks at the golden cartridge and chuckles. "It's special."

"Me holding a gun to your head was special?""Meeting you will always remain a treasured memory, no matter the manner of how it happened." Seokmin falls quiet, lost in thought before hesitantly asking, "Did I not mention Plants mate for life? Well, at the very least, I know I do."

"Oh." Your astonishment reveals itself in a breathless gasp. There's no escaping that all-consuming, fiery cerulean gaze. "So is this the first time you've been… ready to, uh, mate?"

"No, I'm used to the way these cycles come and go. But this for sure is the worst bout yet."

"… Why?"

You hold your breath. He takes a step forward. Then another.

He's so close, if you leaned the slightest bit forward you'd press up against each other. Somehow, with an overwhelming sense of shyness guessing the underlying thoughts and what his answer will be, your eyes roam his bare upper chest and torso.

If you could caress him you would. All the shiny black feathers adorning his wings and the occasional ones sprouting along his forearms pointing to his Plant abilities. Each scar along with every bit of metal or his body's naturally grown wood that replaces chunks of lost flesh. He's kept them as reminders of when he's failed humans, though you've seen them only as when they've failed him. He shivers, like he can feel it, as if he knows what you're thinking and you questioningly re-meet his burning stare as he shoots you a wane smile.

Sheepishly, he rubs where the cybernetic arm attaches to his shoulder. Many have turned away in disgust or mock pity at the disfigurements. Yet despite the true abomination he looks like right now, there's only ever been pure empathy and acceptance he doesn't deserve — all from you.

"Conscious consent and reciprocation."

Your lips turn upward, joy causing your soul to unwittingly sing. "Does that mean… I'm your mate?"

"No."

It's like Gunsmoke completely collapses, and you're left twirling without footing in space. Seokmin matches your fallen expression with one of his own.

"What? Wh-why?"

"Don't get me wrong, it's —"

"I swear if you say 'It's me, not you'…"

He rather adorably tilts his head. "How did you know?"

"It's a typical cliche," you roll your eyes, "just give it to me straight, Seokmin. Is it 'cause I'm human?"

"… It's not that simple, and this isn't something trivial. It's — hah — it's a huge commitment." The use of your given name indicates his seriousness. "A lifetime one. For me, it's only ever been you… and it will always be you for as long as I live, which could be your whole lifespan! And I don't, hah, I don't know — hell, it's taking everything I can not to tear a dead man apart, let alone what I'd do if you'd change your mind, want something — someone else."

"You're doing it again, projecting and underestimating my feelings for you."

"It could be the effect of my pheromones, mayfly. We don't know every —"

"That's right! We don't know! So we have to trust each other and see."

"It's —"

"Let's not subject ourselves to the hypothetical. And what do you mean by dead man?"

Seokmin's jaw tenses, fingernails digging into numb skin. His wings waver, like they're considering cocooning around him for protection. But their tips simply flutter as if soothed by an unseen force, preventing them from enclosing completely.

Teasingly, you lean toward him and squint. "What else aren't you telling me, Seok? You pick a side hustle up that involves the deceased like Choi?"

He snorts at the audacity and doesn't take the bait. Instead, unfamiliar but still achingly familiar irises dart to your neck, tracing the silver chain laying against your skin. A dull sort of sadness fizzles out those blue fires and you clasp the shape of the locket beneath your shirt in realization.

"He was a boy, Seok. A boy I grew up with for a short period, one that felt like a brother to me."

"… You said you loved him."

"When?"

"… To Cheol. After you first met him."

"That would've been so long ago? How do you even remember that?"

He sighs, heavily. "It's not easy to forget. Your voice was so warm, so gentle, so in love when you admitted it."

"Love can mean different things! And I assure you, my feelings for you differ greatly from how I felt about him. And… he's… he's long gone, Seok."

Guilt burns in his eyes. "I know. Which makes me all the worse."

"No, it doesn't." You shake your head, a resigned smile resting on your lips, and hold your arms out. "'Cause I understand and forgive you. And most importantly, I love you."

It's uncertain if those words break or restore him, but the hard rigidness in his body melts away, sagging in a semblance of relief. Then he rushes forward into your waiting embrace, wings helping to propel him forward until they wrap around and press you to him tight, tickling areas where his arms aren't squeezing around you.

"And I adore you, my lovely mayfly."

You groan. "When will you stop calling me that?"

"Never," he snickers and you feel the curve of his lips as he comfortably nuzzles into the crook of your neck. "For as long as you're mine."

"Yours?"

"Mine."

"Sucker."

A chaste kiss brushes the lower tip of your ear. So ticklish and unexpected, you pull back with a giggle and playfully swat his shoulder. And just as he's about to dive forward and prove your little comment correct in retaliation, you burst into full-on laughter that leaves Seokmin to settle his hands on your waist with confusion crinkling his brow.

"What?"

"So that's why you were always having a deathly staring match between my childhood memorabilia?"

"… Was not."

"You — the most sentimental loser ever — definitely were!"

He pouts momentarily, the cute jut out of his lower lip quickly transforming to a devious smirk. "You'd bet on it?"

"Totally." You place your arms around his neck, bringing your bodies closer again and matching the charge of electricity with a clever tilt of your lips. "I'd win, too."

"And what's on the table?"

"Sixty billion double dollars, of course."

"That so?"

"Mhm, and it seems like someone's bounty matches that worth."

Seokmin quirks a brow. "Seems like you want me on the table."

"Winner takes all?"

"Mayfly, I've always been yours."

"Sap," you laugh again.

A bright grin certainly declares your delight in victory, though your partner in crime uses the distraction as an advantage for his earlier loss and wastes no time. Diving in, a sharpened canine grazes your pulse point, automatically causing your head to tilt to offer easier access. Two left wings sweetly swoop down for support, feathered tips tenderly brushing your forehead.

The heat of his tongue placates the dragging scratch of his fangs. Though it sears you alive, heating your entire body from the tips of your toes, swirling in your core, and concentrating beneath Seokmin's lips on your skin.

When reaching that cold, familiar necklace you treasure so much and he can't help but loathe, it's seized between his teeth before he registers the action. Tugging it away from your neck like a dog, you wonder if he'll even shake it like one. His eyes follow the length of the chain, focusing on where the locket pops out above your chest.

You raise a questioning brow. "You gonna just play with my jewelry or take my clothes off?"

"Oh," Seokmin whispers, jaw dropping, and suddenly stands stiffly at attention.

You watch, entranced by the bob of his Adam's apple as he visibly gulps. Large, calloused hands — so practiced in undressing you for baths and patching up wounds — falter as they skim along your sides in a fleeting touch. Smiling encouragingly, you intertwine your fingers with those of his prosthetic while leading the other one beneath your shirt, the rough flesh of his palm blisteringly hot against your stomach.

"Is this okay? Can it help calm your Plant powers?"

"Yes… but that means… giving yourself to me… forever."

"Can't think of anything I'd enjoy more."

Confident, you trail kisses up his jaw to his cheek, stopping near his ear. Playfully tugging at the earring hoop as you pull away. Then you break away and bend over, shimmying off your shorts in one smooth motion. Stepping out of them, next goes your top. As each fabric hits the floor, Seokmin's eyes become more lidded, heavy with want. Smoldering. Desiring.

Four black wings fan out and stay as rigid as his stance. As if they're waiting with bated breath. And when you finally stand bare before him, he sheepishly drags his gaze to the floor with a flustered smile.

"I'm the one naked and you're embarrassed?" you tease and his posture relaxes.

"Because you're a vision to behold."

"Says the one who looks like an angel."

You back up until your knees hit the side of the bed. Like those morbid tales that depict curious listeners following a luring call to their demise, Seokmin's only a step behind you. He doesn't dare let his eyes stray further from your own, a goofy grin on his face.

"Consider this my fall from grace then, mayfly."

Gingerly, you sit on the edge of the mattress, waiting for his next move. He towers over you in this position. Formidable in appearance yet oh-so-gentle when picking up your left hand to kiss your knuckles and rub his thumb across its faded scar. Another smooch gets placed to your inner wrist and you hold your breath at the passion in those blazing cyan depths that refuse to look away. Then, a cautious touch to your shoulder urges you onto your back. Obediently, you lay down and a bunch of stray loose feathers fly up into the air upon impact.

"Beautiful," he murmurs.

The clothed knee resting between your legs helps his arm support the weight of his body hovering above you. A tentative hand slides down from your shoulder to your hip, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Caressing every scar, memorizing each color and swirl of ink decorating your skin, and erasing any insecurities or blemishes you see in yourself. Cold digits draw whimsical shapes and tickle your abdomen, stopping above your pelvic bone.

"May I?"

"Of course."

Seokmin rejoices in your consent by littering your collarbone with love bites. And his touches move lower, tender despite their mechanical nature. Warmth blossoms and flows under every surface of your skin Seokmin's traced, coiling and settling in a pulsating — almost painful — heat rupturing between your legs.

Only he can be the one to relieve this ache which he precisely aims to do. A simple, single brush across sensitive folds instantly has your breath hitching, shaking beneath him.

"Are you alright?"

"Mhm… yes."

He audibly gulps at your unexpected whimper of ecstasy, reluctantly tearing away from watching amorous bliss overtake your facial expression to the wet heat detected by his pointer finger's sensors. A feral growl rumbles in his chest at the debauched sight of desire beginning to dampen your thighs — the trace of what he's been smelling from you now overloading every single one of his senses as he coaxes more to flow from you. Seokmin's more than thankful for his enhanced vision and the glow of cybernetic technology baring your most intimate parts to him.

Guided by an instinctual impulse, he eases a finger inside. Your back automatically arches off the bed, eliciting a sweet gasp of delight. The cool touch of the digit seized tightly by the pulsating walls of your cunt slowly warms as it adjusts to the welcome intrusion. He soothingly brushes the knuckle of his middle finger across the soft outer flesh of your pussy to relax its grip. Eventually it lets up enough to let him explore further and deeper than your own have ever reached.

"I'm… I'm not sure how best to please you," Seokmin admits, drinking in your every reaction to his curious ministrations. "But there's this urge, this need, to make you feel good. Prep you properly for my… my entry."

By pure accident, he strokes a rough patch of nerves that makes your eyes roll back, hips lifting at the sensation of wanting more of whatever that feeling was, and your quiet noises melt into a loud, needy moan.

"More," you plead, "touch me more, Seok."

He eases his other finger inside without question, grunting at the squeeze that almost prevents him from moving to where you want him the most. But unlike the rest of his quivering body, the prosthesis remains steady, still, and patient. Waiting until it can bully itself and a third finger past your entrance's vice-like clench.

You start pulling on your breasts, trying to alleviate the tingling in them. Seokmin observes with a keen eye and a toothy, fanged grin. After a bit, he leans down to let his tongue trace the underside of one mound, leaving behind a saliva trail shining in the unconventional lighting as he tends to the next. Alternating with playful nips and naughty tugs to your nipples whenever your grip on them falters from the overwhelming pleasure.

So attentive and eager, soon you're writhing beneath him as you hit your peak. One hand grips your hip tightly, surely to leave a bruise with the way it cramps. His other doesn't let up, well-oiled mechanisms continuing to pump in and out of your trembling pussy until you whine from the overstimulation.

His wings fold protectively around both of you like a canopy as you share a tender kiss. Dazed and happy, you tenderly brush back black bangs and play with one of the feathers that's sprouted near the hairline above his ear. He shivers.

"Let me take care of you too."

"Are you sure? What about your shoulder?"

"That's the least of my concerns right now."

"I can still…"

"Later. First, I want to help you."

Suddenly, Seokmin's shy again, flushed cheeks darkening. "I… I think I'm a little different… down there so it's okay if you don't want to… or get scared."

"It's not like I've seen enough dicks to compare whether what you're packing is normal."

The both of you share a goofy laugh that eases the presumed awkwardness. He sits back to unbutton his pants but you stop him.

"May I?"

You might as well have knocked the air out of his lungs. He stares at you wide-eyed and then emphatically nods, finally clearing his throat to squeak out, "Sure."

Ignoring the aftershocks of your earlier orgasm, you sit up and kneel in front of him. Intent on a few minor distractions, your mouth and hands start at his shoulders to work their way down. Imagining you have the power to heal the damage dealt to his body and soul through tender touches.

You see a sad sense of beauty and justice in the patchwork of metal bolts and bark. And as you apply marks of love that bruise and blossom between them, he lets out a content warble. You're quick to undo the button of his pants, both of you gasping at the utterly wet mess seeping through the material when you tug the zipper down with your teeth.

He lifts his hips to help and once he's just as naked as you do you take him in. Anatomy was meagerly touched upon during your days at the convent, so truthfully all you're aware of at the sight of his heavy cock is the need to be filled with it.

And the closest thing to take him is your mouth, jaw already aching before you even open it. Almost reverently, your hands wrap around to stabilize it. Seokmin hisses pleasantly at the contact.

"You don't have to —"

He's cut off by a groan as you inquisitively suckle the tip. The copious amounts of slick smearing from it and down the base taste sweeter than Seungcheol's lollipops and you moan heartily, causing his thighs beneath your elbows to tense at the vibrations.

"Oh, mayfly."

A wing caresses your cheek that bulges as you take more and more of him, Seokmin's hands tearing at the sheets. The tip of another wing tantalizingly drags down your bare back. Your hands begin to explore, finding the puffy edges around the slit from which the thick cock emerges from. His hips jolt upwards at the contact to sensitive tissues, causing you to gag.

"Ah, 'm sorry!"

While he whispers repeated apologies, you're only compelled to take him further. Slowly you get used to the stretch, but no matter how much more you're able to squeeze down your throat there's still enough of his length for both of your hands to play with. It gets easier the more aggressive you get, his cock seeming to respond to your vigor in tandem. Soon you're lost to the haze of whether you're bobbing your head up and down or it's swirling languidly in your mouth on its own accord.

Seokmin's hips stutter but you feel the tremor first pulse against the inner walls of your throat. His cock throbs as you pull off of it, hollowing your cheeks and parting with deliberately powerful suction. A loud pop releases its tip and your hand supports its weighty girth falling forward. You dig the nails of your free hand into the muscle of his quaking thigh, ducking down to teethe at the puffy slit from where his cock must emerge.

Moving on to licking and dragging the point of your tongue along the sizable vein lining the underside causes Seokmin's low groans to turn into a high-pitched trill. Once you reach the swollen, leaking head and nibble on the hard glans, it spasms wildly and finally erupts. From the top slit seeps sweet syrupy fluid that readily overflows into your awaiting, open mouth.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he blabbers.

You'd reply that there's no need for gratitude, perhaps you'd thank him, but the viscous release keeps spilling out. Rivulets trickle well past your lips and coat your chest. Although still in a euphoric daze, his eyes flash with sharp satisfaction. Instantly possessive at the sight of your bare body decorated so erotically.

His wings snap open — filled with purpose — and your face is pressed down into the mattress. Surrounded in a smoky musk as the angelic monstrosity it belongs to and destined to be your mate hovers above.

Your voice comes out hoarse as you raise up onto your elbows and spitefully spit out a black feather. "Do those wings of yours prevent you from being topped or something?"

"I'll let you find out another time, partner," Seokmin huffs, laughter evident despite his apparent breathlessness. He steals a tender kiss, pleased grunting at how your lips — shiny and swollen — taste of him. "But for now…"

Like an anchor, the tech material warmed by your shared body heat and passion winds underneath your hips, keeping them raised. A calloused, ticklish touch roams traces your spine. He draws an occasional spiral here and there as he goes, mindful of your wound, until firmly pinning the nape of your neck to the side, creating the perfect arch of your back.

"I think you'll like this," Seokmin says as if he isn't liking the view below him.

But for you, straight ahead lies the dresser's mirror. It reflects the full manifestation of an independent Plant poised to devour a human in the most intimate sense. The fearsome size of his cock lies heavy on top of your ass, leaking droplets of arousal all over your backside.

"Will it fit?"

"Of course, you are mine to claim and take." His hips just forward and you both moan. "I think we're both wet enough to try."

"I trust you."

"Let me know if it hurts in any way and we'll stop right away, mayfly."

Many troupes of desert-traveling dancers have mesmerized you before. Yet even they can't compare to the graceful and smooth motion of Seokmin releasing your neck to align his tip with the entrance of your cunt and slowly bullying his way in.

Tears of pain mixing to unfathomable pleasure blur the vision of your mouth widening to let out whines and moans. "Seokkie…"

"Mhm, mayfly… my love… my mate."

Finally, the front of his thighs are flush against yours. Hips pressed tight against your ass. Fully sheathed inside your tight hole, neither of you have ever felt such intensity before. He surrenders his body weight on top of yours, hands braced outside of yours clenching loose feathers and silk sheets. The outer heaviness matches the intensity of what your pussy struggles to accommodate.

"Mine."

Seokmin's hips swirl at a slow pace. Rather than thrust, he massages the sensitive glands at the base of his cock with the soft flesh of your ass. His length seems to shrink and grow and writhe with a mind of its own, filling and teasing you nonstop. Leaving no surface of your inner walls untouched or untended to for too long.

"Yours."

You shudder in blissed-out delirium and Seokmin lights up — literally.

Fluorescent lines glow in distinct patterns across skin, brightening the more he starts to pant and build up your shared pleasure. Sharp canines prick into the skin of your unmarked shoulder as he wraps his prosthesis under your stomach to raise your hips, the new position driving you faster to that rapidly approaching edge. You cry out with a lurch, blurrily making out his glowing form that shudders above.

Though the view in the mirror gets hidden by black wings stroking your entire body. Teasing the underside of your tits and tenderly brushing away the stings of his teeth marks.

"I-I love you," Seokmin rasps.

"Love…" You manage to enunciate the words, mind emptying and drool wetting the bed as your second peak approaches. "Love you too."

Pain and pleasure draw forth an onslaught of your apparent arousal that lecherously mixes with the frothy mess dribbling from his cock. Claws appear on Seokmin's right hand, another addition to the bestial Plant features emerging in the throes of passion. He's not completely lost to the primal thrall though, able to resist from breaking skin.

Delicately scratching your waist without drawing blood, then using the finely pointed tips to pluck and tease effortlessly at your clit. You cry out, body shaking as waves of euphoria crash against the shoreline of imminent pleasure.

Seokmin helps ride out your peak with a couple of speedy thrusts. The feeling of his hips slamming into you has you seeing more stars than Gunsmoke's galaxy contains. And just as you're overcome with too much stimulation, he lets go with a particularly strong bite into the top of your shoulder.

His cock softens and its heavy weight like a blanket along with the continual pump of his warm, soothing release. The feeling of it leaving none of your inner walls untouched feels as sweet as it tasted on your tongue and helps ease the ache inside your cunt. Still joined together and slick with stickiness, he collapses onto his side and gently assists you with rolling over so you can face him.

"Hey, you."

"Hello there yourself, lovely mayfly."

Your nose wrinkles but gets smoothed out by feather tips playing with the ends of your hair. Seokmin smiles as you snuggle closer into his chest so two of his wings can cocoon around you as the heated fervor from prior activities cools.

"Did that help?"

"… Yes," he says though his tone wavers with hesitance.

You raise your chin and see the electric blue luster hasn't faded yet from his gaze. Sheepishly, the corner of his mouth raises and you shiver, feeling the swell of his cock stretch out your pussy. The bulge it creates brushes against Seokmin's abdomen and he twitches.

"Sorry, it's… I'm gonna be kinda insatiable now that I've had a taste…" He trails off, wings snapping behind him. Slowly, he pulls his hips away and you both hiss as his cock is dragged out.

"What are you —"

You're cut off by the animalistic glimmer in his gaze, catching the feral smirk that he attempts to hide by licking his palm. Quick as lightning, Seokmin fleetingly swipes the outer lips of your cunt and brings his fingers, tonguing at them. Body set aflame again, neither of your break eye contact as he moans headily.

"But not of this," he rasps.

Before you know it, you're staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stickers on his ceiling with your mate between your legs. His wings trail along your calves, their flexible ends curling near your inner thighs, encouraging them to spread and stay open, pinning them in place.

"Oh, aren't you a beauty?"

He moans shamelessly at the sight of your messy, glistening pussy. You squirm at the ticklish sensation of his feathers and that smoldering, ravenous look. If only he knew what it was like to see him devour you with his mouth.

Delicious.

Just like the feeling of his tongue working its way inside and licking up the shared essence of your releases.

Your fingers weave between strands of hair as black as night, tugging lightly and accidentally snagging one of his ear feathers. He moans eagerly, and the vibration has you shuddering, already quickly nearing another mind-shattering orgasm. But you don't let him carry you there too fast, smooth brain muscles trying to form a question.

"How… long… how long do these cycles last?"

Seokmin presses a loving kiss to your twitching clit and blows, entranced by how you clench around nothing. Then he smirks, elongated teeth shining in the darkness like a predatory warning though you have nothing to fear.

"As much as you can handle but… we're really only just getting started, mayfly."

The motion light kicks on as Seungcheol shifts his boots in the direction of the unlit kitchen area. Junhui and Minghao's entrance awaken the rest of the lights and they frown at the makeshift bunker set up.

"What are you three doing in here?"

Seungkwan sleepily mumbles a curse word and next to him, Mingyu blearily rubs his eyes. A scattering of empty pudding cups and bottles lie around them as well as a disorganized array of poker cards.

"We're afraid to venture out of here."

Junhui shares a secretive look with his closest friend at Seungkwan's cryptic words. "Ah, so that's happened. Or happening."

"'Bout time y'all came 'round. Time for ya to pay up!"

"Pay up for what?"

"Compensation. 'M the one who got the closest to bein' right knowin' they'd fuck after confessin'."

"If anyone needs compensation, it's me for the mental damage of having to make one of my lovelies into an enhanced sex toy."

Seungcheol guffaws. "Ya didn't! Ya lil cheatin', schemin' scientist!"

Meanwhile, Mingyu looks mighty concerned. "Does that mean Seokmin has a dildo for an arm?!"

Minghao crosses his arms with a steely glare. "No."

"Oh good. I don't think I could look at him the same."

"I don't think any of us will ever look at him the same again."

Junhui eagerly rocks back and forth on his heels, hands stuffed in the deep pockets of his lab coat. "Do you think they discovered all the functions and benefits of it yet?"

"Should be our next bettin' round."

"No more bets. I don't care if it's half a double dollar to go in, I refuse to go through this again."

Mingyu elbows his raven-haired companion. "C'mon, your heart's warmed by this!"

"Warmed and consumed by the rage and fury of hellfire, yes."

Giggling, the tall man smiles widely and holds his hand out. "Alright, I win then!"

"Win what? Thought you didn't remember your bet."

Mingyu purses his lips. "Only because none of you took me seriously and joked with a bunch of gross innuendos when I said they'd find their home in one another!" He then sighs dreamily. "But if I'm right, we'll know by tomorrow morning."

"Who says it'll be tomorrow mornin'. Might take weeks. Months even, I reckon'."

"I'll kick you all out before it comes to that," Minghao threatens and runs a hand through the few strands of hair without a bead. He tosses a wad of money in front of Mingyu. "Never involve me in this again."

Despite all the grumbling, everyone has a sense of lightness in their hearts at the thought of their dear friends finally getting together. And the happiest of them all is Mingyu, who cheerily gathers his prized double dollars, dreaming of all the pudding he can buy.

A lone figure stands on the edge of the valley of the Melca Border. The Sea of Sand, aptly named, can change tide and turn vicious at any second. Their cloak billows in the sandy winds that whip around them, though even the steadfast hood can't hide the satisfied smile on their face.

"You did well," they commend and the name that falls from their lips is one some might consider lost to the sands of time.

"Saintess." Another figure materializes out of the sand gusts in response to the praise. "It is to be done as you said."

"Very well. Shall we go now?"

Whether it's the mysterious sands that swirl around and whisk them away or the lost technology cube that transports them, no one will ever know for no one ever saw them. Like ghosts, they disappear and find themselves outside the real ghost town — where it all began.

A toma croaks in the distance. Brave travelers dare cross the ruined wasteland and the saintess meditating atop one of the largest rocks hidden in the shadows opens her gray eyes tinted by lilac in the glow of the moons to observe. Despite all of her traveling, the white robes wrapped around her body remain in pristine condition.

She turns behind to look at the man standing over a scattering of stones, staring intently at one of them. With poise and purpose, she dusts off her clothes and strides over to him.

"Chan."

Brown eyes tear away from his own name carved into the headstone in front of him to look at the one who's said it aloud.

"Yes, Saintess?"

"Do you regret it?"

"No. Never."

"Good," she states, satisfied with his response. With a grand sweep of her hood to cover short, dark hair, she gestures to the east. "We will set up camp one more night before returning to the Saint in the morning before he speaks with our Master."

Chan mutely nods, following the saintess back into the desert where she confidently leads him to a cave that will shield them from the unpredictable nature of Gunsmoke's wastelands. He thinks of you, the girl he must keep safe and two brothers. One with wings as pure white despite his continual revelry with hate-filled darkness, the other bearing ones the complete opposite color of his twin — a wild card.

He reminisces over the Blessed and Holy Sisterhood of Little Ivywood, the convent and all the orphans that lived there. Pondering Sister Meryl's role, who stands before him now as the revered Saintess, leader for the Eye of Joshua and second only to the Bishop of the cult named after himself. She moves curious little statues back and forth across the surface of a large flat rock and the young man can't help but ask her a question in the unnerving silence.

"Do you think this will work?"

Meryl smiles elusively, as always. She picks up the smallest one with a deliberate flourish, placing it on a blackened space close to the last row of alternating squares carved into the stone's surface.

"Have you ever played chess before?"

"No, what is it?"

"An Earthern board game. It is quite complicated." Gesturing to the piece she just moved, she continues. "This is a pawn, the weakest of all chess pieces."

Chan bristles. "But strength comes in numbers, no? There are eight of each color, surely the right side can find a way to win."

Unfazed by his agitation, the saintess nods placatingly. "With the right strategy, even a pawn may become a queen — the most powerful. Unpredictable." She points to a white figurine with a cross on top of it. "Enough to checkmate a king."

Entranced, Chan watches as she rearranges and repositions various pieces across the faux chessboard. Soon, the pawn that took on the mantle of a Black Queen captures the White King. His eyes roam what's left on the battlefield at the end of the match, pointing to one that looks like a tower.

"What's that one?"

"A rook. It best supports an allied pawn towards promotion from behind the scenes." Her eyes sparkle mischievously. "It's most powerful during the end of the game, as you can see."

Chan gulps, holding his breath for a moment, and clears his throat. "Then I'm ready."

"Wonderful," Meryl nods, "we'll depart for Master Dokyeom's stronghold in the morning. I'm sure Joshua, our dear Saint, will be… pleased upon our return."

"To the glory of the Black King's rise."

"And to the glory of our so-called queen."

Keep him safe, Chan thinks to himself as he settles on the ground. And yourself. One day we'll reunite in the most joyous of occasions…

He pulls out a faded wanted poster with the infamous outlaw worth sixty billion double dollars, donning a wishful smile before closing his eyes and murmuring, "I'd even bet this impossible amount on it."

onlyseokmins: April 2024 ©

[mamawasatesttube]

i know you arent a fan of n52 and rebirth era dc comics and i was wondering what would have wanted to see instead? im still pretty new to reading comics and i like your take on things.

oh man. oh mannnn now that's REALLY asking!!!! i could probably write a 2000 word essay in response to this question. WAHOO

okay, so the shortest form of it: it's genuinely hard to balance keeping a company afloat and having to worry about what sells, vs telling good stories when you're working with twenty to thirty years of comics as prerequisite reading sometimes. and i understand that as a principle, and that dc (and i mean. everyone) was worried about low sales numbers and the economy being not great etc etc. so i get that they wanted to do something big to mix things up and get people talking and get a lot of attention. however..........

if you haven't already read it, i'd totally recommend this article for a good breakdown of what a total shitshow n52 was and how little planning or foresight went into it whatsoever. like, you read this and you go good LORD no wonder it crashed and burned so hard they rebooted it again after just 5 years.

ANYWAYS. as for what i would have done instead...

well, it depends on how self-indulgent we're letting me be. if i could walk back geoff's lex retcon i would do that in a heartbeat, and simply confirm kon as just 100% A Clone Of Superman.

i would also love to play in the space of super comics post-new krypton more, specifically wrt kon and the steels. i would LOVE a run like superman: the man of steel set in this era, focusing a lot more on clark & the extended superfam; i'd also want searching for chris to become a real storyline - it could be a long, overarching superfam theme for a while, sending them all over the place following this or that lead on how to get chris out of the zone after mon-el finds him, etc. like, there's def things to be done with that.

in terms of my personal self-indulgence... i want to see kon & kara on a space adventure together. pleaaaaase. i want cousin bonding and i want shenanigans and i also want deeply emotional talks about new krypton and also about the fact that linda lang wears conner kent's old glasses. please. please. please. a 6 or 12 issue mini/limited series of them off in space together wouldve been everything.

in general tbh with clark, john henry, kon, kara, and nat (and lois, tho like, obvs she's a civilian) all around i think having a superman team book wouldve been really good in this era, especially with the fallout of war of the supermen and all the anti-alien sentiment sam lane cultivated. digging into kryptonians as immigrants and refugees in the wake of that could have made for some really good and poignant storytelling.

i also would love like... a new titans book. not tt03. i don't like mike mckone's art i'm sorry and also everything about what that series did to kon and bart and cassie was so... ugh. but maybe a new book focusing more on the team and all actually liking each other, for one, instead of being full of cattiness and. eugh. like, a new titans book launch for the era of cassie healing as leader, tim coming back, kon and bart Being back, etc. you know? something a lot more hopeful than tt03 feels.

in my rich inner universe this all leads to a beautiful long slow burn for tim and kon having their queer realizations and working through those feelings in longform stories, not just "and suddenly he realized he'd been bisexual all along! and instantly started making out with the first boy available." specifically i would love to have seen kon have a solo with an arc of him running off to space to try and cope with those realizations, getting into a very brief messy and bad relationship reminiscent of those of his youth but gay this time, and then ultimately accepting himself and returning home. to me kon is a gay genderqueer man, and the realization that he's not into women and was just fabricating attraction his whole life bc he assumed he had to be into women to be like superman is very jarring to him. and i would LOVE to see that journey in comic form. in space.

these are mostly superfam thoughts because honestly there are not that many other characters/groups whose storylines ive read through all the way through 2011 slkjdfkld but with more research i definitely could have more to say re: others too <3 thank you for the question, it was a fun one to ponder!!

[arshooo]

ronin music ramblings

I grew up a metalhead. This is basically just me yapping about other metal/hard rock bands/songs I'd like to show him or I think he'd def have saved.

Starting off with the obvious. Ice Nine Kills. Legit a horror movie band and I feel like without a single DOUBT he would listen to them. Ideal date would be taking him to one of their concerts (i've seen them twice and they put on a SHOWWWW)

Welcome to Horrorwood. The song makes me think of the server. I was driving home the other day and making connections and omg. Literally the opening lines chat. "Ink fills the page/A classic killer completes the cast" HELLO??? INK??? AS IN WRITING???????? A CLASSIC KILLER??? MC IS TRYING TO PRETEND TO FIT IN LIKE ONE?????? HELLO????? ON MY KNEES????? WAS IT MEANT TO BE??????

Hip to be Scared. Please. This one just tingles my Ronin Senses™️ right. I feel like he'd appreciate just the mental imagery of this one.

Wurst Vacation. Adding this one bc its a personal favorite of mine and i just really wanna show him. Theres murder happening in the background, again, the storytelling, like.. ronin pls im begging you to be real so i can pass him an airpod for this one.

The Fastest Way To A Girl's Heart Is Through Her Rib Cage. Just trust me on this one. He'd listen to it. Trust fr fr

BAD OMENSSSS RAHHHHHH. BLASPHEMY!! LOVE!! HEART THROBBING MIND BOGGLING ANALYTICAL LYRICS

DEATH OF PEACE OF MIND. such a good song first of all. listen to it. I feel like hed really resonate with this part. "When the curtains call the time/Will we both go home alive?/It wasn't hard to realize/Love's the death of peace of mind" just gives me gluttony gods vibes yknow? RIP kc alt universe Ther, you will be missed 😔🫶

Dethrone. Majorly blasphemous. Again, idk if this is one i want to show him or one I think he'd listen to. Mostly I listen to this one so I can scream it and I just want him to be present for that.

Literally any bad omens song. Glass houses. Yes. Who are you? Yes. All of them.

Okay so Motionless in White is up next bc the vibes. I’m thinking more-so the entirety of the albums Graveyard Shift and Disguise would be up his alley but yknow Scoring The End of the World could work too with some of em. Trying to keep these as brief as I can bc it’s 4 am and I’m so so tired.

Brand New Numb for me was a major life changing song as a 12 year old so I’m just gonna put that here too bc pls pls pls ronin let’s play on your gameboy with my Bose speaker blasting this in the background. It would so funnnn ahdhdhdhshajsjdhskakalakak

Thoughts and Prayers. COUGH COUGH angelwood COUGH COUGH COUGH.

Legacy. I mean hello it literally starts out perfect for him. He’s literally making a legacy for himself. Like chat. I could literally honestly name any line from most of these and be like yeah ronin coded if you squint but fuckkkk…

Undead Ahead vers. I based my kc oc on so I mean I’d also wanna show him those. Hey. You should listen to Motionless in White. Yeah.

Necessary Evil literally has Jonathan Davis from Korn in it. He already likes Korn so I meaaann..

Holding onto Smoke, just the vibes.

Eternally Yours. HES A ROMANTIC CHAT. Listen to this one pleaseeee and look me in the eyes and tell me he wouldn’t listen to this one. It’s just so like full of his rot idk. "I'm ready to bury all of my bones/I'm ready to lie but say I won't/So tell me your secrets/And join me in pieces/To rot in this garden made of stones" and the line "im more than willing to rot in hell with you".

Slaughterhouse <3

This may be basic but Sleep Token. It reminds me of another genre of The Neighborhood and he canonically likes The Neighborhood soooo...

Take Me Back to Eden. Again, this one reminds me of him and Ther. Feel like a lot of the lyrics just match. “I’m a winged insect you’re a funeral pyre.” sad thoughts :(

So idk how sketch tumblr is with names or anything so imma just censor kinda but V/re. Like, sure the names a little crazy but when you dissect the song itself, yeahhhh. I'm analyzing this one. Its abt the singer and his lover diving head first (getting "swallowed whole") into love even though they both know how potentially dangerous and damaging it could be. I feel like Sleep Token's music to me just feels like Ronin and the MC's relationship.

Rain. Nuff said.

Bring Me The Horizon. I will not take criticism on this one bc they’re def my favorite band ever. Every song. Every song ever. They’re gonna be a whole separate post tho bc I could go into way too much detail abt the correlations between ronin and bmth. I hyperfixate over both of them so they are NOT escaping me.

He canonically likes Slipknot so imma just leave it brief and say Killpop lmfao. Love his music taste way too much. I’ve seen them in concert 3 times and I would so love to drag him to one. Preferably I’d actually like to take him to Daytona’s Welcome to Rockville or Sick New World bc those are so fun fhfhfhfhfhfhff

He canonically likes Korn (or at least I'd assume if you had a bright red neon sign of an artist in your room I'd assume you'd like them?) but alas, I don't listen to a whole lot of Korn so I don't have too many ideas on this one. I only like a few of their like mainstream songs ig so if anyone has any recs for my Ronin playlist lemme know please lmao

Here's a few more songs. Just the odd ones out where I didn't feel the need to rant abt them and all the how's and why's of why Ronin should listen to them.

Nothing More

Christ Copyright

ANGEL SONG

A Day to Remember

Right back at it again

I Prevail

Body Bag - okay one rant. The name says it all but so do the lyrics. HHHHNGGFG RONIN PLEASE LET ME SERENADE YOU WITH THIS OME WHILE IM DRIVE 80 DOWN MY NEARBY INTERSTATE PLEASE IM BEGGING Y OUOURUEUEUEUEUEEU I LITERALLY NEED TO SCREAM IT FOR HIM ITS THE ONLY PITCH I CAN MATCH WITHOUT MY VOICE CRACKING

THANK YOU FOR READING (and perchance listening 🤭) and this is defiantly part 1 of ? bc I have so many songs I associate w ronin in the rock genre so yeah.

Here’s a full playlist of all the songs mentioned 🎀

[evanmyersbadhabit]

🩸‼️Eyeless Jack: My HCs :3 ‼️🩸

🗡️‼️~ I YEARN TO YAP!! ABOUT EJ!! ONE OF MY FAVS!! I LOVE CANNIBALS YAHOOOOO!! (I mean duh.. look at Hannibal😻) ANYWAYS!! This is just gonna be some Headcanons I have! All kinds of Random ones that just swim in my goldfish brain...🐟🎀

🧬‼️~ CW/TW: Mention of organs, Brief mention of Gore, Brief mention of Violence, and Brief mention of Throwing up / Vomit

🔖‼️~ Physical Appearance Headcanons:

⭐~ He gained more bat-like traits after his sacrifice, such as sharper teeth, enhanced hearing, and a strong sense of smell.

⭐~ Due to the much larger teeth, His Canines are to large for it's mouth, so they'd fit under the Snaggletooth territory.

⭐~ Due to the enhanced sense of smell, he can smell quite literally EVERYTHING.. (he will know if ur STINKY!!/silly) But back on track, this causes headaches from time to time due to the fact it isn't used to having such a strong sense. After a while he gets used to it though.

⭐~ POINTY EARS !! BIG POINTY BAT EARS!! Mainly to accommodate to the enhanced hearing. Which is much more of a nuisance then a gift. (To him)

⭐~ To add to the ear thing, Due to the strong hearing, everything seems obnoxiously loud to him, making him sensitive to sound, which leads to common irritability / overstimulation.

⭐~ Due to being blind, and having more Bat-like traits, he uses echolocation to see.. sometimes.

⭐~ VERY TALL!! He's 6'8, and fairly toned, hence he's super strong and not built like A FUCKING TWINK!!!! sorry... hater era.

⭐~ Claws... BUT RETRACTIBLE!?!? Hell yeah. HELL YEAH!!!

⭐~ He has a few scars here and there from fights and attacks from victims, but it has a stronger body so he heals much faster than the average human.

⭐~ He can purr.. And I fw the idea that he has a Tail.. so yeah🎀

🔖‼️~ Behavioral / Personality Headcanons:

⭐~ Very closed off. Rarely makes the effort to interact with others.

⭐~ Due to almost always being overwhelmed with his senses, he lashes out quite often.. and everyone is just used to it at this point, it's been years.

⭐~ Extremely touch averse. Unless he gives you verbal permission to touch him, Don't try.

⭐~ Tends to have a distaste for sharing it's space and becomes aggressive when asked to share. Only shares his space with a selective few pastas.

⭐~ Due to the Tar-Blood mix in his system, he's mostly non-verbal, as it tends to hurt to speak from time to time.

⭐~ If he's closer with you, he'll tend to be more open about things in his life, but if you aren't close, he'll pretty much just ignore you.

⭐~ Love Language (in both a romantic or platonic sense) is gift-giving, since he's iffy with touch and not the best with words, so he expresses his devotion through gifts! (Which would be small things like jewelry he stole from a victim or a book you've mentioned)(If your S/I or oc is a cannibal.. prepare for an organ or two/silly)

⭐~ Tends to have a lot of Violent impulses and/or intrusive thoughts, only acts on them rarely as he's learned to somewhat control them.

⭐~ Clean freak. Due to his status as an ex-medical Student, it likes to keep his space clean and organized. Well as clean and organized as it gets for a blind man.

⭐~ His ability to sleep is ASS. He could go to bed at like,, 9PM and wake up at 2AM and not fall back asleep till 8AM... Or go to bed at 2AM and not wake up till like 10AM..

🔖‼️~ Extra Headcanons: (some are me projecting but shhh..)

⭐~ He's Aceflux and Demiromantic.

⭐~ Doesn't really care for gender (in a dating sense), Panromantic.

⭐~ "I'm probably nonbinary but I have a job so idrc about that rn" ahh situation (He's Agender bc I SAID SO DAMN YOU !!)

⭐~ Never really Gave a damn about Pronouns.. then bro locked IN!!/Silly (Uses He/It)

⭐~ Doesn't tell people he's Canadian because people ask him dumb questions or make jokes and it pisses him off (HEAVY PROJECTING WITH THIS ONE!!)(Not Canadian... But German💔)

⭐~ After the cult stuff, his body rejects any food that isn't meat or flesh, strict Carnivore diet because eating anything else will make him throw up💔

⭐~ Always Cold. It could be 100 degrees out and he'd STILL say it's cold outside (Bro Just like me frfr..)

⭐~ It's the type of mf to take a 4 hour nap, wake up for like 10 minutes, then Nap for another 3 hours🎀

⭐~ adding to the sleep stuff, He can fall asleep ANYWHERE. Car? that's fine. Bed? Perfect. STANDING IN THE DOORWAY?? GET OUT BRUH !!

⭐~ One of the few Pastas who try to keep clean often, mainly due to his desire for cleanliness🎀

🧾‼️~ ANDDDD THAT'S ALL!! This took me a WHOLE. 3. DAYS. ... ANYWAYS!! Hope you like these.. if y'all want more lemme know.. I can TRY!! :3

[bella-rose29]

Deck the Halls (and not your partner) - part 8

from here on out this series is just going to be Lockwood and reader bonding and being annoyingly good together while coming up with steadily more ridiculous ways to piss off the bitchy cousin bc she's trying to get revenge

with that said lockwood does have a brief sad moment :(

Word count: 7.1k

Warnings: swearing, references to sex (both mild and slightly less mild), sleepy lockwood, he can't talk properly when sleepy, the whole morning thing is just what I want to happen in my own life tbh, Steph (the Bitch), lockwood remembers his childhood (might make you sad), brief mentions of murder?? hypothetical murder though (that will make sense I promise), a really intense snowball fight, (can you tell I'm an archaeology student from the way I describe building forts and mud huts?), lockwood gives all the teams in the snowball fight names and they are very basic but I love them

That night when Y/n and Anthony went to bed, they stood staring awkwardly at the bed for five minutes.

"Well that armchair can't be comfortable," Y/n said, glancing sceptically at it. She wasn't sure where Anthony had slept the night before after their argument, or even if he'd slept at all, but she didn't feel right about taking the whole bed for herself anymore now that their situation had changed.

She would do it if he insisted, of course, but there would be a very tiny part of her brain telling her to be the better person. It was unlikely that she'd listen to it.

"I got used to it, and I've slept in worse places. You take the bed again. The bath surely couldn't have been nice to sleep in."

"It was actually a lot more comfortable than you'd think." They kept on looking at the bed, both in their pyjamas (Y/n had stolen one of Anthony's t-shirts already, and when she'd first walked out of the bathroom in it he'd kissed her for a good few minutes in a way that left them both breathless). "Maybe... maybe we could share? I don't know if that's too soon or anything but honestly if we've been supposedly dating since April then I think we're way past that."

"If you're happy with it then I am, darling."

"Alright. I'm having this side though." A couple of minutes later the two of them were under the covers and settled in, and Y/n reached over to turn off her bedside lamp. The room was immediately shrouded in darkness, and suddenly it felt a lot colder than before, despite the fact she was buried under the duvet. "Ant?"

"Yeah?"

"... Can I move a bit closer to you? I'm cold." She didn't get a verbal response, instead receiving the sounds of the sheets crumpling and a body shifting, and a few seconds later Anthony's warmth was surrounding her as he took her into his arms and laid her on top of him. She tangled their legs together and wrapped an arm around his torso, and he brought both of his arms around her to secure her in place.

"Is that better?" he asked, and from where her head was resting on his chest she nodded.

"Much better. Thank you."

Her breathing evened out not long after, and she fell asleep to the slightly faster than usual beating of Anthony's heart.

~~~

When morning came (or rather when the sun finally rose over the horizon, since it was just after 8 AM), Y/n woke up and tried to turn over to stretch, but found that her movements were restricted by a weight on her side.

An investigation of what was happening lead to the discovery that Anthony was now lying on top of her instead of the other way around like they had been when they went to sleep, and that was why she couldn't turn over. She went to shift him off of her, but as she went to move him she caught a glimpse of his face and realised that he looked so peaceful asleep she might just let him stay that way. He barely got enough sleep as it was, so why cut it short when he was finally getting some rest? God knew he needed it with how hard he worked to keep the company going, although that had been much easier in the past year as they had gained more popularity among the people of England (their name had been spread far and wide by happy clients).

He wasn't entirely on top of her, more lying on his stomach next to her while he rested his head on her shoulder and spread his arm out over her middle, but the weight was enough that movement was restricted. A light knock sounded from the door, making Y/n look away from her new boyfriend's face to see who it was. For some reason fear gripped her as the handle turned, but when the door opened a few seconds later to reveal her father she let out a sigh of relief. She had been worried that Stephanie was starting her research into how she was going to get her revenge already, but Y/n's cousin was almost certainly still asleep at this hour.

"Just got some tea," he whispered after Y/n put her finger to her lips, pointing down at the still-sleeping Anthony. "Where should I put it? Just here? Alright, there you go. I think we're all just going to lie in bed for as long as we think we can get away with, so don't worry about coming downstairs yet if you don't want to."

"Thanks, Dad." He crept back out the room, wincing slightly when the door hinges protested as he pulled it shut, and then he was padding down the hallway back to his own room. Soft sounds from just below her head made Y/n look down at Anthony, who had apparently been woken by the door closing. He rubbed at his eyes, blinking furiously as he attempted to properly shake himself awake, and pushed himself up a little to sleepily smile down at her.

"Morning, darling," he murmured, dropping his head to press a small kiss to her lips. "D'ya sleep alright?"

"Mmhm. Did you?" Anthony only nodded in response, eyes drifting shut every few seconds as he tried to stay conscious long enough to hold a conversation with her.

"You can go back to sleep if you want, although Dad just brought tea in if you want it."

"Ooh, that would be brilliant. D'ya want me to pour it?" Y/n stifled a giggle at his slightly slurred speech, and starting to move into a sitting position.

"Don't worry, Ant. I've got it." She poured out the water, making sure to add the honey and sugar to his at the right times, then carefully handed over the mug. "Have you got a proper hold on it? Because if you spill tea in bed then I might have to kill you."

"I can't spill tea? But how else are you meant to know that George and Flo have definitely fuc-" he was cut off when Y/n hurriedly reached out to steady his mug, the liquid inside nearly sloshing over the edge as he had been leaning in in a conspiratorial manner, forgetting he was holding a large cup of steaming hot liquid in one hand.

"Anthony! Watch what you're doing!"

"Sorry," he said, faint blush coming on to his cheeks as she scolded him. "Was jus' trying to make a joke. Although what I said about Flo and George wasn't a joke." He made a point to look her in the eyes with as much seriousness he could muster, as though it were of the utmost importance that she knew all about her colleague's sex life.

"Alright, thank you for that," she responded, making sure her tone was gentle, and when he smiled dopily she felt her heart skip a beat or two.

How the hell is he so pretty?

"You're pretty too, darling." His smile had turned smug, and she realised with a start that she'd said her previous thought out loud. Her face started heating up, and Anthony did a good job of hiding his laughter were it not for the amusement dancing in his eyes as he sipped his tea.

"Shut up," she mumbled, wanting to jab him in the side but not trusting his capabilities of holding his tea steady this early in the morning.

~~~

"Good morning, lovebirds!" Will chirped when Y/n and Anthony walked into the kitchen, and he sent a smirk their way from where he stood at the hob frying eggs. "Sleep alright?" He seemed to be asking something else though from the way his eyebrows were moving.

"Is... he okay?" he whispered instead, leaning down slightly to reach Y/n's ear.

"I talked to him in the library yesterday. After... you know."

"Ah. Right." After they had argued and then made up and then made out. "Does that mean he's up to date then?"

"Yep."

So Will knew about all of that. This could be interesting.

"They must have slept fine," Ben started, pulling out the toast that had popped and putting in more slices. "Y/n looked like she'd only just woken up when I went in with tea, and Anthony was fast asleep."

Anthony felt a blush rise up his neck and cover his face at the realisation that Ben had seen him draped over his eldest daughter, but the fond smile that appeared on Y/n's face made it worthwhile. She was wearing one of his jumpers again (she had really leaned into the habits of being his girlfriend already, which meant that many of his t-shirts and jumpers were suspiciously not in the drawers he had originally put them in), and was cosying up to his side as he leaned back against the kitchen island.

Y/n looked like she was about to say something, but at the exact moment she opened her mouth another voice was already filling the room.

"Morning everybody! How are we all today? Isn't the snow just gorgeous?"

Emma grimaced slightly before she turned around, sharing a glance with Anthony before greeting her niece. "It is, Stephanie. I take it you slept alright?"

"Oh yes, thank you!" She was weirdly chipper for somebody who had been acting like a raving lunatic the night before, and Anthony couldn't help but feel unease creep up his spine at her wide grin.

What was she up to?

"Hello, you two! Are you looking forward to going out in the snow later? I shall have to drag you out, Y/n/n, since you hate going outside!" Anthony frowned. Y/n wasn't the biggest fan of the outdoors, but whenever they gained even the slightest amount of snow she was out of the house in a flash, laughing and spinning around the street while it fell. Anthony had always accompanied her, giving the excuse that he wanted to be nearby if she tripped and fell so he could laugh (to which Lucy, George, and Holly had looked at him dubiously).

But really it was because it had been so long since he had seen anyone so carefree.

He had loved the snow as a little kid, running around trying to catch the snowflakes on his tongue, building snowmen, making snow angels, having snowball fights with his family.

Then he had been on his own, and suddenly the snow was no longer a source of warmth for him. He had looked at the roads paved in white and felt as cold as the outside air, good memories being brought up and tainted the longer he stared at it.

He could see where he had set up a fort in defence against his father and sister's attack, crouching behind the wall with his mother while they laughed so hard their sides hurt.

He could see where the four of them had laid down in the thick snow, spreading out their arms and legs and sweeping them back and forth, back and forth. Jess had deliberately laid down close to him so they could hit each other playfully.

He could see where he and Jess had made their snowman (although they called it a snow ghost), carefully picking through the undergrowth to find the perfect stones that were just right for the features.

He could see all of that when he saw snow, and eventually he had stopped looking.

But then Y/n had come along, bright and burning, and when she had experienced her first snowfall at 35 Portland Row she had shrieked with joy. Within moments she had shrugged on her thick coat and boots, hat haphazardly shoved on her head and gloves neglected as she shot out the front door, and the other members of the agency were left behind to wonder what on earth was happening.

The other three were quick to follow, leaving Lockwood inside to watch from behind the glass barrier, and for the first time in years he looked outside and saw the snow.

He also saw Y/n fall on her ass incredibly dramatically, and immediately good memories were being created again.

It took him another year to actually go outside in the snow again, and by this point he was deeply entrenched in the hating game that he had with Y/n that he used his excuse of wanting to see her fall over.

He didn't admit to himself for a while that the real reason he was in the cold with her was to make sure that she didn't fall over too hard, or get knocked over by a car that hadn't realised anyone would be on the road (really, why couldn't she have gone in the back garden?), or even because being outside when she was this happy was making him forget that he couldn't feel various parts of his body due to the biting air.

So hearing Steph say that she was going to have to drag Y/n, the girl who loved snow, outside into the snow, didn't make sense to Anthony. He glanced at Y/n where she was stood at his side and realised that she had told her family she didn't enjoy the snow, because there was nothing on her face that said she was confused like he was.

He really hoped they could leave this place soon, because while Y/n's parents and siblings were wonderful, her aunt (who had been sat in the corner sneering at the couple) and her cousin were not. The constant remarks about Y/n's body, how she acted, how she ate, her job, her life, what she enjoyed doing and what she didn't, it can't have been healthy for her to grow up with those comments, and apparently Y/n had been lying to them about herself to get some of it to stop. Anthony suddenly felt even more awful for the things that he had said over the years, and he dropped his head to meet the top of Y/n's to press a kiss there. She looked up in surprise, a question on her face, and he only shook his head and laced their hands together.

He wasn't going to hurt her again, not now that he had a chance with her. And if anyone else hurt her? Well, he would just have to ask which one of them was picking up the shovel, and who was taking the body bag.

~~~

After breakfast everybody wrapped up as warmly as they could and headed out into the snow. It really was insane how much snow they had had, given it was England and they were unused to the sort of snow they saw described in other parts of the world. Anthony had grabbed Y/n's hand after Stephanie tried to get there first, and when she had tried again to be the one accompanying Y/n outside he pulled her out the front door where John and Sam had started clearing a path.

"Ant, slow down! You're gonna pull my arm out of its socket!"

"You'll be fine. I'll give you CPR."

"Ant, you can't give me CPR to fix my arm not being attached to my body anymore."

"Oh. Well I might as well do it anyway, just in case it does help." He was tugged backwards when Y/n came to a stop behind him, and turning around he realised they had travelled quite far from the house.

"Anthony."

"Yes, my darling?"

"Do you just want to give me CPR because it gives you an excuse to kiss me?" He tried not to blush too hard at how quickly she had figured out his ulterior motive, but recovered just as fast with a smug smile.

"I don't need an excuse, darling. I just need to know you consent." She pushed forward, hand still linked with his, and planted a kiss on his mouth.

"Unless I physically assault you, Anthony, then consider me always consenting to you kissing me."

"Perfect."

He kissed her again, trying not to smile too much since it stopped them from kissing more, and wrapped both arms around her waist. She was smiling too, her cold nose pressing into his, and she let out a joyful shriek when he suddenly bent slightly and picked her up off the ground, twirling her while not ever taking his lips off of hers. When he finally put her down again he sighed in content, resting his forehead against hers and just revelling in the knowledge that they had worked through it all, and he was happy.

Then a snowball hit them square in the face, and he was spluttering while Y/n looked for the source.

"That's enough kissing, love birds! You can do that later!"

"Will." Y/n's eyes narrowed and the smile on her face was downright wolfish, and Anthony desperately hoped that she considered him a team mate or he was going to get pulverised.

"Darling, can I just ask, is it the two of us against your brother?"

"It's the two of us against them all, Ant." He knew she meant all of her family, but he couldn't help but think that she meant that it was the two of them together against the world, too. "Oh! You've never had a snowball fight with us before, have you? Basically instead of a kill-or-be-killed scenario, we combine it with capture the flag. Nana Jean has a collection of items that she gives each team, and you have two hours to build a fort and any defences you want. Then when Nana Jean says go, you've gotta get all the items in your fort, and then get all the way to Nana Jean on the front porch. It's very important that you get all the items in the fort first, because otherwise you get accused of cheating and get disqualified. Ultimately, though, nobody can trust anybody, but everyone always tries to get Steph and Linda because nobody likes them."

"So... if we can't trust anyone...?" He left the rest of his question in the air, but luckily she knew what he meant.

"Don't worry, I'll pair with you. Normally I'm with Olivia, 'cause we're meant to be in pairs, but my brothers never care about that rule. Mum'll throw at anyone, and so will Dad, my grandparents are on the porch watching from their chairs, so they'll get some good photos I imagine, Olivia is far too busy trying to look good all the time, and we need to duck!" She grabbed the front of his coat and yanked him towards the ground just as a large chunk of snow sailed through the air where their heads had just been. "Right. We need to start making some sort of defence, which shouldn't be too difficult because of how much snow there is, and then we need to start making weapons, because Nana Jean has obviously just started the timer for two hours building. Sabotage is also allowed during this time." It was both terrifying and weirdly attractive how quickly she was getting into the spirit of an all-out snow war, and within seconds Anthony found himself being put to work building walls.

He had done a similar thing with his family.

London never really had that much snow on the ground at any one time because of all the people and cars that needed to move around, and since agents still had to go out at night the roads and pathways were mostly clear to prevent any unnecessary deaths or accidents. One year, though, there had been too much snow for people to shift enough of it in one day ready for the night, and weather officials had said that temperatures would be rising anyway and the snow would melt in a couple of days. Anthony's parents had woken him early (back when he slept without an issue) and pointed out his window at the snow, and he had been so excited he had gone and jumped on Jess' bed, not caring when she swatted at him with a pillow. The four of them had then spent the day building forts in the back garden and getting their defences ready, and he and his mother had tried planning their walls strategically for the best possible advantage.

"You can't just put it all on top like that, you need to build it a bit like an igloo, or a mud hut. And make sure you've got the proper dense snow, not this superficial flaky stuff. Add some sticks and rocks and things for a bit of integrity, and pack the snow around it. That's it!"

His parents had taken fort building seriously, no matter what the material they were using was. Pillow forts were always complex too, but when finished Anthony had a castle to be king of.

"What are you doing?" Y/n asked, pulling him out of his memories. He'd been crouched down behind a bench that was in their front garden, clumping bits of undergrowth together and starting to build up the walls.

"You need to add sticks and rocks and things for integrity," he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

"Oh. That makes sense I guess. Can you-" she stopped herself for a moment to hurl a hastily made snowball at someone, and Anthony made a mental note to get her to teach George how to throw when he heard a yelp from somewhere in the garden and a cheer from Y/n. "Sorry, needed to get John. Can you like, show me what you're doing? Then we can both do it and get these walls up faster. I really think it's unfair that Will, John and Sam always team up because they all play fucking rugby, so their walls are basically done already."

"True, but we fight ghosts, darling. We know better than anyone how to win a fight, because if we lose, we quite literally die. Here, take some of this," he said, placing some of the stones he had found in her outstretched hands. "Stack them up a little bit, like I've done, yeah, that's good. Then take a whole load of snow and pack it around. It makes it a lot stronger."

"Where did you even learn how to do this? You literally never join in when we have snowball fights back home." His hands slipped when he realised that she had called Portland Row home, but he quickly recovered.

"My mother."

"Oh. Ant, I'm-"

"Don't. Don't say you're sorry. It's... it's nice, actually. Remembering her. Sad, because she's gone, but nice." He could feel Y/n watching him and he cleared his throat. "I don't know if you were in London when we had that last big snowstorm, but there was about this much of it. My parents took me and Jess outside all day and we built forts in the back garden, and then had a snowball fight. It was me and Mum against Jess and Dad. We won, of course. Mum had a really good throwing arm and Jess was complaining about the cold." He smiled at the memory of his sister's squeals when he had snuck up behind her and stuck snow down the back of her coat, running away with a gleeful laugh. An idea struck him then, and he sat up a little. "I've just had a brilliant idea on how we can piss off Steph," he said, and Y/n mirrored the shark-like smile he had on his face.

~~~

Around an hour later, pretty much everybody's forts were complete.

Will, John and Sam had taken Tom into their team (to which Y/n had complained further, since it was meant to be a pairs team situation) and their fort was huge, with walls that took up an entire corner of the garden. Steph and Linda had a pathetic looking fort since neither of them wanted cold hands or to touch the snow, but it was good enough to provide a small amount of protection for now. Emma and Ben's fort was surprisingly decent, and they had added a little turret on one side just for fun.

Then there was Anthony and Y/n's.

"What is that meant to be?" Sam shouted at them, his tone mocking. Taunts were always called out at this stage, Y/n had told Anthony, since everybody had made their defences and weapons and now they were just waiting on Nana Jean to say when they could start. "It looks like a mud hut!" John yelled, clearly thinking that they would be an easy target.

"Good," Anthony muttered, smile decorating his face. "Mud huts are weirdly strong if you build them right."

"You are so random," Y/n said, but she was looking at him with stars in her eyes. "George I would have expected this kind of knowledge, but you? Never would have guessed you knew this much about mud huts."

"My parents studied them, Y/n/n. Of course I know this much about mud huts."

"So random," she whispered under her breath, looking back out at the playing field. Each of the four teams had taken a corner (Olivia had chosen to side with her parents after they threatened to take away her tv privileges if she didn't join in), and Anthony and Y/n were in the opposite corner to The Brothers Grim (he had named them that in his head). The Bitches (Steph and Linda) were on their right, and The In-Laws (Emma, Ben, and Olivia) were on their left. That meant that they, The Love Birds, were most likely going to get attacked last. Everybody was going to be aiming for The Brothers Grim or The Bitches, since they were the strongest team and the most horrible team respectively, and Anthony and Y/n had come up with a plan.

"Are the names really necessary though?"

"What do you mean?!" He did his best to look appalled. "Of course the names are necessary, darling! How else are we meant to quickly and effectively communicate which fort we're going for?!"

"You're ridiculous, Anthony Lockwood."

"We've covered this already, Y/n L/n. I'm very aware of how ridiculous I am."

"I mean, what kind of person pretends they're a whale when drinking orange juice?"

"Yeah, but that only works if you have the orange juice with the bits in it, because then you can filter it through your teeth and-" She had cut him off with a kiss again, and while he had been in the middle of a very important explanation, he didn't mind that this was how he was being cut off. "You really need to stop interrupting me like that, darling," he said after she pulled back, but he didn't mean it. She knew that he didn't mean it either, because she was smiling softly up at him in the brief silence that they had before the fight started.

"Go over the plan one more time?" she asked.

"Sure."

~~~

Nana Jean had taken her place on the front steps, wrapped up in about ten blankets as she sat on her chair next to Gramps.

Y/n was tense, a pit of nerves forming in her stomach as she crouched next to Anthony. Their plan was supposedly foolproof, but they only had her knowledge of previous snowball fights with her family to discern what the other teams would try and do, and they could always have new tactics. The one thing they could rely on, however, was everybody attacking Steph and Linda first.

Each team had been randomly allocated an item from Nana Jean's collection, and had placed it in their fort. Their job then was to protect it at all costs, and not let it reach any of the other forts. Once in a fort, provided the thief didn't have all four items, they could be taken back along with any other items in the fort.

The Brothers Grim seemed to have the advantage, what with their huge walls and numbers, but Anthony and Y/n had spent most of their lives fighting far more threatening opponents in far more dire situations, and so this would be a breeze. With her knowledge of how her family fought (extremely dirty) and Anthony's weird knack for planning intricate extractions of items, they were sure to win.

They would even end up with time to spare to get under Steph's skin.

"Ready?" Nana Jean called out, receiving multiple affirmations in reply. "Three!"

Anthony shifted beside her, and she got ready to move.

"Two!"

The pit of nerves was filled to the brim, spilling over and making her limbs shake.

"One!"

Anthony's face was set in determination, and his eyes were flicking over the playing field as he waited. She was sure that she was doing the same.

"GO!"

Immediately action brought the front garden to life, with people running everywhere and snowballs flying to and fro, mostly missing but occasionally finding their marks. Anthony had already shot off while Y/n stayed behind with their item: Nana Jean's scarf that was too old and tattered for her to actually be kept warm by it anymore. She knew that Will would try and sneak around the back, and John would be left at their fort since he had the best aim and strongest throw. Sam would be the decoy, and Tom was just running around hitting everyone. Steph and Linda were getting annihilated, crouching down and shrieking loudly when snowballs from all directions took the top of their fort walls off. They had used the soft flaky snow instead of the proper solid stuff, and as such their fort wasn't much protection. That's what Anthony had said, anyway, and she decided that he knew what he was talking about. Y/n spotted her mother attempting to creep up behind her, and she chucked a snowball right at her face. It missed, hitting her shoulder instead, but it was enough of a threat that her mother backed off for now.

Anthony had disappeared somehow, and while she searched for a while she couldn't spot his skinny beanpole frame anywhere. That was probably a good thing, she thought, because if she couldn't find him, then their first target definitely couldn't.

Olivia made for Y/n then, battle cry piercing the air, but before Y/n could even take aim her sister was taken down by someone else's snowball, quickly followed by a "YES! HA HA!" that told her it was Tom. She looked through the gap in the bench that Anthony had left while building their fort, and saw her youngest brother doing a victory lap of the field, getting hit by snowballs but carrying on anyway.

"Got it," Anthony said, making her jump and nearly hit him. "Woah! It's me!"

She did hit him then, hissing her response. "You scared the shit out of me!"

"Sorry, darling, sorry. Got it though!" He smiled triumphantly, looking very proud of himself as he lifted up the woollen hat that had been the item belonging to The Brothers Grim.

"Excellent!" She planted a kiss on his frozen lips and he grinned even more widely as he put the hat down. "Did they see you?"

"Nope. I told you earlier, I'm like a ghost myself." He had said something to that effect earlier on, but she hadn't really been paying much attention because she was too busy thinking how gorgeous he was when he got excited. He was like a puppy, and she could practically see his tail wagging while he looked at her with those brown eyes.

"Yeah, you certainly look like one right now," she snorted. "I'm pretty sure you're the same colour as the snow."

"Oi, my ghostly complexion is going to win us this thing, alright? Anyway, it's your turn to go out. Here." He handed her the large rock that they had found, and kissed her on the cheek. "Go get 'em," he winked, and then she was off, leaving him to guard their fort while she made for her parents.

Unfortunately they saw her coming immediately, but purely because Tom was still running around like a headless chicken and had screamed "Y/N'S COMING! Y/N'S COMING!"

"Dammit, Tom," she muttered, frown on her face. She had hidden the rock in her coat pocket since it was the right size (She and Anthony had made sure they would fit properly), but she still had to get the large gloves from their fort. The stone didn't matter now, because they had seen her, so all she needed to do was snatch their item and get back without being brought down. Luckily the gloves were tied together, which meant she only needed to grab one and she could be off again. Her parents were already tiring, she could tell, but years of being an agent and building up the stamina needed to run away from Visitors all night meant that Y/n was only just getting started. She dodged the snowballs that were thrown her way, and slid behind The In-Laws' walls, taking part of it with her. "I'll take those, thanks!" she said, picking up the gloves and immediately running off again, trying to ignore the snow she could feel melting down her spine. "Here," she huffed when she got back to her own fort, nearly knocking Anthony over.

"Oh, perfect! You alright to stay here while I get the last one? Or did you wanna pause for a moment? I don't think The Brothers Grim have noticed their item is missing yet, but your parents are definitely going to start making their move on us soon."

"Just gimme a moment to catch my breath, and I'll be good to go." She had collapsed into his side, clutching her stomach and trying to control her breathing, and he wrapped his arms around her briefly.

"As much as I would love to stay like this all day, darling, I do also need to throw snow at your family because they're coming this way."

"Oh, yeah. Go for it," she replied, sitting up again. Anthony picked up a snowball in each hand and chucked them over their walls, and although Y/n couldn't see who it was she did hear an "oof!" a few seconds later. "I've still got the rock from The In-Laws attempt in my pocket, so I can go and get The Bitches' item if you wanna keep throwing? You're better at it than me 'cause I can only use one arm. The other one is shit at throwing."

"You sure?" he asked, picking up another snowball. She nodded. "Alright. You know what you're doing, yeah?"

"Yep. I'll see you in five, Schmoopie."

"Why are you calling me Schmoopie? That's my name for you!" he called after her, playful frown on his face. Her only response was laughter, which she quickly stifled as she hid behind the thick oak tree closest to Steph and Linda's fort. Their item was a snowshoe, although where Nana Jean had even found one of those was a mystery. The rock she had in her pocket wasn't really big enough, but if she covered it in a bit of snow then it would be good enough to fool them. Anthony's intricate extraction plan for getting all the items had been to use decoys after sneaking up on each fort, and so far their first target, The Brothers Grim, hadn't even noticed. They were too busy fighting off Olivia, who had turned slightly feral over the course of the fight, and Tom, who had apparently decided that no team was better than the team he had created for himself, and was throwing snow at everyone including himself. Y/n crept forward slightly to assess how long she had before either her cousin or her aunt turned around, but then snow started hitting their nearly-destroyed fort again and she knew that Anthony was working on the distraction for her. Tom started attacking Steph and Linda again too, and while her Dad had joined Olivia in attempting to break down the walls of The Brothers Grim's fort, their attack was weakening.

She needed to move fast.

Y/n made her move then, bending down to grab some snow in one hand, and readying the rock in her other, and headed in the direction of Steph and Linda's backs. They were too busy trying to remake their walls, which meant they had left their snowshoe unguarded behind them. She dropped the rock in the snow, then picked up the snowshoe, and in the next five seconds had shoved the snow in her other hand down the back of Steph's jacket and sprinted away. Her cousin's screams followed her the short distance back to her fort, and Anthony didn't need to ask how it had gone when he heard them. "All four items, safe and sound. Now we've just got to get to Nana Jean without them getting taken off us."

That was the hardest part, since Nana Jean was sat on the front porch nearly completely opposite them. They would have to cross the entire playing field and pass The Brothers Grim fort to get to her.

"Alright. You take these. You can't put them in your pockets, which is annoying, but otherwise we'll be disqualified for cheating. You ready?" she asked Anthony after loading his arms with the items. He nodded, fiery determination in his eyes.

"I'm ready. Remember the weak spots in their walls, yeah?"

"Yep." She had memorised the points that Anthony had pointed out to her earlier, and thanked his parents for showing him how to build excellent forts.

"Okay. Three, two, one, go!" They stood up from behind their walls and started running, Anthony's long legs carrying him across the field while Y/n periodically stooped to grab more snow and compact it into a good enough shape that she could throw it far. He nearly made it, and then Will appeared out of nowhere to take him down. Anthony twirled out the way (always the fancy one), and Will missed catching him by a hair's breadth, but now there was more of a distance between Anthony and Nana Jean.

"THEY'RE GONNA WIN!!!" Tom shouted, and suddenly all of Y/n's family members were closing in on her and Anthony with snowballs in their hands.

"RUN!" she screamed, begging her legs to respond. They were slightly numb from the cold now.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M DOING?!"

Nana Jean had her arms outstretched from where she sat on the porch, and Y/n was momentarily blinded by the flash of her Gramps' camera just inside the window. She threw what snow she could at both people and forts, picking out the points where Anthony had said were weakest and aiming, and sure enough within moments part of The Brothers Grim's fort had collapsed, and the brothers themselves were crying out in anger.

Time passed slowly and in a blur, and before she knew it Anthony was up the steps and shoving the items into Nana Jean's arms and collapsing at her feet, then letting out a small cry of pain when Y/n landed on top of him. "Did we do it?" she asked, expression wild as she tried to catch her breath. Anthony didn't say anything, his face not revealing anything.

Then he cracked a smile, and it was like the sun had come out. "We did it!"

"You did it, love," Nana Jean said from above them, looking fondly down at her granddaughter where she was lying on the floor.

Y/n immediately pushed herself up (that made Anthony make another "oof" since she had braced her full weight on his chest) and turned around, pointing at all her gathered family members who were stood looking sorry for themselves (apart from Tom, he was still running around and throwing himself in the snow) and shouting "HA! WE WIN, SUCKERS!"

~~~

"Thanks," Y/n said, gladly accepting the mug of tea that Anthony handed her. He smiled down at her, one of those soft secret smiles that he kept for the people he loved, and sat next to her on their loveseat.

She wasn't sure when she'd started calling it their loveseat, but that was what it was, she supposed. Nobody else sat on it apart from them, and now they were cosying up like they always did. She had slung her legs over his and made sure not to spill her tea while he adjusted.

"That's nice and warm," he said, holding it under his face to heat up his frozen features. Y/n hummed her agreement, sipping on her own tea.

Everyone was snacking on random bits of food from the still-extensive collection (despite how much had been eaten at the party), and Anthony had brought over a bowl of bits for the two of them to share. Despite the slight chill that still sat in her bones, she was warm, and as she watched Anthony converse with her Gramps she realised that it was him making her warm.

Not his body heat, although he was surprisingly warm for somebody who had been running around in the snow all day, but rather the feelings he was stirring up in her. He made her feel warm just by interacting with her family, just by allowing her Gramps to tell him jokes that the rest of them had all heard a million times, just by even being here with her. He hadn't needed to come with her, and in fact he had argued against it and compromised, saying if she couldn't find anyone then he would do it and be unhappy, and yet he had done it anyway with a smile on his face. She'd genuinely believed that he wouldn't come with her, or would go back on his word because he thought it would be funny to watch her suffer.

But he was here, cuddled up on a loveseat with her in her family's house, talking to her Gramps about trains or something (she suspected it was more her Gramps was talking at Anthony), and he was hers.

Steph hadn't stopped watching them like a hawk since the snowball fight, but Y/n couldn't find it in her to care because she was with Anthony, and they had achieved a sliver of revenge themselves earlier. Her cousin was rightfully pissed about having a bunch of snow chucked down her back, but then again she had spent her whole life making Y/n miserable so really she deserved it.

He was her home, she realised. Not this house, not even Portland Row, despite the fact that she regularly called it that. No, neither of those places were her home.

Anthony Lockwood was.

part 9

Tag list: @ahead-fullofdreams, @aislinrayne, @anathemaloren, @anthgoldenhrry, @augustisintheair, @avdiobliss, @aysha4life, @bobbys-not-that-small, @briar-rose23, @curseofhecate, @dangelnleif, @edible-rat-vomit, @el-de-phi, @ell0ra-br3kk3r, @ettadear, @fearlessmoony, @fudosl, @idkbubs, @imaginebeingmentallystable, @informedimagining, @karensirkobabes, @lady-ashfade, @light-23, @locklyebrainrot, @locklyle1kanij, @locknco, @magicandrosewaters, @mentallyillsodapop, @mischivana, @mitskiswift99, @mrsklockwood, @mrsyixingunicorn10, @newbooksmell777, @no-morning-glories, @novelizt, @phlooper, @ran23sblog, @reggiepeterss, @simrah1012, @somethingrandomwatzit, @star-of-velaris, @superpositvecloudshipper, @t2sh0, @taygrls, @tournesol77, @whistle1whistle, @whenselenefallsinlove, @wordsarelife, @y0urm0m12

let me know if you want to be added to/removed from the tag list! <3

[deadlysoupy]

Soo I see you as a fellow mikey and bee fan (me too I love these little creatures that have some ıdentity problems ;>) . I have a little crossover thing in my head. When bee has some problems with cybertron and politics with a quick anger he takes a niiice vacation on earth. He absolutely has a little mental breakdown in some bar thinking and waiting to strascream to arrive he sees a little boy chased by some strange man. Now he has to save the boy from some strange man (ofc rubble trauma). While poor mikey is separated from his brothers and now try to run away from some strange man.

I just want them to explore emotional traumas and being sassy little shits while making everybodys problem

(Im sorry for this long thing I just have been thinking about them over a 2 weeks now)

⚘️

okay okay there's a lot to unpack here so it will get long, i didn't write anything but i have some thoughts

first of all thank you so much for this bc when i first got into transformers i saw bumblebee and, me being a life-long tmnt fan, spotted the mikey parallels right away, since my first tf show was tfa. it is disturbingly scary how many similarities these franchises have and its kinda sad no one considered a crossover yet, especially with the same publishing house at one point (idw). its a tragedy we never got anything with both of them, they're even both sci-fi genre with some environmental messaging - that said i don't want tmnt to be involved in a war so. uh. maybe not a great idea lmao

on the topic of mikey and bee - yes, they're absolutely very much similar! even when taking into consideration their different interpretations (like rise mikey being different from 2012 mikey, and tfa bee being different from tfone bee etc) i still think they both carry the same kind of attitude across their franchises. both are the "kid-friendly" appeal, their characteristics more upbeat and cheery to be a contrast to other more serious characters. BUT ALSO they get the LEAST amount of character growth out of any central characters (at least it's very prominent in mikey which i've always stated, you can quote me on that, he gets such "background character" energy it drives me up the wall sometimes; for bee its different with each iteration since he does get the central role more often than not), and they usually have to keep up an aloof persona everyone expects them to have (i drift to these characters all the time unfortunately) (AND THEY'RE BOTH THE YELLOW COLOUR TONE KINDA A LITTLE BIT)

so how would they interact with each other? it really really depends on the continuity and the timeline, but i'm gonna keep it brief and general enough as to not overthink it

i still think bumblebee would act like a sort of older brother figure no matter the situation - even if he fails at it bc he secretly just wants to have fun - and mikey is having none of it, he has enough brothers already. everyone knows michelangelo is a hazard to society and he's not gonna let anyone forget that, so he ropes bee into some weird shenanigans when he "could use the help of a cool giant alien robot". they break into a government facility or a decepticon base and try to get important info, and while bee feels bad about going in unsupervised ("goody-two-hoes over here"), mikey is having the time of his life, and seeing that uncontrollable chaos just sparks something in bee, too, so he starts enjoying it too a little bit

they both get scolded for sneaking out and doing dangerous stunts even if they got the intel, but ultimately get out scot-free with the power of ✨puppy eyes✨ and hang out for a while

i think bee would be very sad to see someone so young already experience so much hardship and still keep up a brave face... like sure he's been through war already but he's hundreds of thousands of years old, and this kid is fifteen and he's been trying to survive his whole life

mikey in turn being the sentimental and empathetic guy would try to help bee around his ptsd, reminding him a little bit of leo that way, and he'd try to share his love of humans and culture with him, maybe get them both out on a little nature walk, dance to music, teach bee how to skateboard (it does not go well lmao)

anyway bee gets a little stinky friend and he shows mikey off to every autobot in sight just holding him like "this is my best friend michelangelo :)"

made this just for fun as a reward for you guys having to bear my incoherent yapping (chose tfe bee bc hes the default to me) (AND THANK YOU ANON FOR SENDING THIS i actually had a lot of fun and got way too indulgent lmao)

[eternalmarvel]

MK1 - BI HAN X READER ~ REUNION ~

an: ok hi guys lowkey i havent written fanfiction in years so this is my brief return. so feral for bi-han bro got me writing again

anyways please enjoy this story that i cooked up at work instead of doing what i get paid to do 🔥i got really sloppy at the end because this fic ended up being MUCHH longer than what i intended and i lowkey lose the plot bc it was supposed to be much more different

also if you guys have requests send them in i might do them i might not so dont expect too much

ps+ i'm not chinese so if i mischaracterized something pls let me know!! i'm the wrong type of asian to be writing this lmfao

--

you returned to the lin kuei outpost hoisted on the shoulders of the neighboring rocky mountains. it was a heavy winter yet, but a meager layer of snow had curtained everything all the same. your breath was heavy as you sighed and looked at the exterior of the stronghold, smoke spilling from your mouth. it had been years since you had been back here, practicing with the lin kuei as only a young woman. you were never an initiate, but your father was a powerful man who had been good friends with the former grandmaster of the lin kuei and wanted to assist them by having you help them out. after a couple of months of training and bonding with all the other lin kuei initiates (as well as the grandmaster's sons), you had left to pursue your responsibilities. you had been burdened with far too many tasks to just remain in one place -- it pained you but you knew you had to leave to do what was required of you. not one for goodbyes (and the fact that if you had to confront the brothers about your departure, you probably would've ended up staying...), you disappeared into the midst of the dark night.

after all with great power comes......

the gates to the stronghold opened and you entered inside. it was difficult being back. how would you approach the brothers? would they still be upset at you for leaving? surely not, considering they let you back in. but what if this is a trap, a ploy to set up a mediation to get you to explain where you were all these years? thousands of thoughts swirled inside your mind but it didn't matter now. you were inside the courtyard now, watching as initiates sparred and practiced with one another. you could begin to feel the influx of raw magical energy as you walked by, prompting you to take a deep breath in and walk with your head held higher. you opened the gates to the interior to see tomas and kuai liang speaking with some of the younger initiates. kuai had his hands crossed behind his back, his eyes stern as ever as he commanded some of the younger warriors to try out a new training exercise. tomas had a small smile on his face, his arms crossed in front of his chest. they didn't notice your arrival and so you quietly walked up to them, with hands behind your back and a shy smile across your face.

tomas was the first to notice you, and his face immediately burst into a smile. "(name)!" he yelled out, excited like a puppy being adopted by an owner for the first time ever. you were originally going to keep this visit somber, but you couldn't help to keep the smile off your face. suddenly a huge urge to hug him overcomes you, and you spread your arms around the nape of his neck, pulling him in. he pats your back, exclaiming:

"i didn't realize you were going to be here so soon!"

you pull away from him, giving him a big smile. "sorry it took me so long. had a lot of stuff to get to."  that smile on your face does not betray your intentions. it's the truth--you really did have a lot to get to. procrastinating and putting off the visit for as long as you did, however, was honestly not your intention.

you see kuai glance at you gently, a fond look washing over him as you peak from over tomas' shoulders.

"c'mon, i know you want in on this too," you say playfully as you beckon kuai over. he smiles kindly as he takes you into his arms.

"it's good to see you again, (name). seems that time's been treating you right," he says with his hands on his hips, admiring your character as he gazes at you from up to down. you can't help but blush, and wave away his comment.

"you guys have grown up a lot too! what have they been feeding you guys?!" you playfully ask. the two of them playfully chuckle, as tomas responds with,  "been drinking my 7 glasses of milk everyday!" you give him a confused look as kuai gives him a side-eye. "pretty sure it's meant to be water, tomas. but i'm glad you're so lactose-affluent," you say playfully with a grin.

kuai takes you softly by the arm and introduces you to the other members. "everyone, this is (name). she used to train with us and it's lucky for us she wasn't officially trained as an initiate or she'd be better than all of us." his compliments cause you to blush and roll your eyes, as you give a humble bow.

"where is bi-han?" you ask, reluctantly. kuai's gaze becomes sterner and yet more cautious.  "he's with some students right now. though i uhh....am not sure how receptive he will be to your....visit." you smile. "don't worry for me, kuai. i can handle the boy i used to beat in our spars." "except he's not a boy now. he's grandmaster of the lin kuei." your eyes fall to the ground. of course he was. their father died just a few years ago and now bi-han had inherited one of arcticka's greatest creations. you look back up and tomas and kuai solemnly.

"sorry i could not attend your father's funeral. i only heard about it just recently and even if i knew about it earlier, i didn't know how you guys would feel about me popping up at his service unannounced."

"you're family, (name). you were then, you still are now. nothing's changed but the time passing," he says tenderly as he rests his hand on your shoulder. you give him a smile in return and nod your head.

"thanks for the sentiment, kuai. but....let's see if your big bro shares the same sentiment."  kuai and tomas share an unsettling look as they take a deep breath in. "you're welcome to try and get through to him. don't blame me if he throws an ice pick at your head."

you roll your eyes playfully. "i'm sure i'll be fine, just tell me where he is."

tomas points to the other side of the stronghold, pointing to the large training room decorated with gold and red lanterns. come to think of it, most of the stronghold was painted with evidence of the Chinese New Year's festivities. you hadn't realized that the new year had encircled so quickly. as you made your way to bi-han, you felt your heart flutter. there was no telling how he would react. what if he actually DID throw an ice pick at your head? the nerves bubbled up in your gut as the cold air outside did nothing further to ease your unrest. as you walked to the large room where bi-han was at, your eyes briskly caught a glance at the remnants of more festivities at the stronghold. you smiled softly to yourself.

at least bi-han cared enough about his initiates to host what looked like some vendors/merchants and games at the stronghold for all of them. this gesture was sweet, almost like a father providing for the children he's adopted. just like his own father, though you didn't dare to say this out loud. this thought process however, had managed to calm you down until you got to the very wide doors to the training room. you took a deep breath in before you quietly opened the doors, peering in to a room with many masked initiates sitting on the floor inside gazing up at bi-han as he fervently explained something.

you moved to the back of the room, carefully moving past the other member to get a good look at bi-han, leaning your shoulder against the wall. a few minutes passed as he wrapped up his lesson, finally catching your eye. for a ninja he wasn't much aware of your presence. but he also hadn't felt your presence in years, and you were aware of that. when his eyes met yours, he didn't look surprised like a person gazing upon a long-dead wraith but rather he looked stunned as to how you even got here. there was anger hidden behind his eyes, but at the same time....

"(name)?" it had been years but you still felt the same way when he called out your name. his voice had gotten deeper and he had changed into a grown man. your eyes explored his stature -- he was taller, his muscles were defined, and a different aura now defined him. he was no longer the softer boy you knew him to be, now he was grandmaster of earth's last defence; of course he was going to be a changed man now.

you smiled cheekily, not knowing how to react. truthfully, you didn't know how you got this far.

"hi, bi-han. i hope i didn't distract you when you were busy teaching," you speak coyly, not wanting the other initiates to overhear your WHOLE conversation. he looks down at you, almost like he's debating what to say next. you take a deep gulp and you scrape away at the skin underneath your nails, causing them to bleed. after what seems like a milennia of consideration, he furrows his brows and briskly walks past you.

you nod your head with a soft smile. you understand why he feels this way but to be honest, you're not sure whether you would've preferred this treatment or having an ice pick gone straight to your dome. the other initiates look on carefully, trying not to invoke their grandmaster's anger. before they can do anything else, they follow their grandmaster out the room.

"don't take it to heart. if you were anyone else, he probably would've frozen you solid. i'm surprised he actually went the mature route."

you turn around to see whose voice those sentences belonged to. your eyes fell upon a man wearing a yellow uniform, similar to kuai's uniform but the colours inversed. his hair is tied up almost in a ponytail and restrained by a yellow bandana across his forehead. he's a good-looking man, but an unfamiliar face.

"i'm sorry, i don't recognize you," you say as you furrow your eyebrows piecing together who this man could be.

"cyrax. i haven't seen you before here either. though kuai said that there may be a guest visiting today." he gives you a small smile and stretches out his hand so you can shake it. you give him a warm yet stern handshake. you take his hand and give him a small shake.

"i was hoping for a warmer reception from him honestly. though it was my fault for thinking he might've reacted the same way i might've towards him."

"eh, he's been cranky for the last few days. still, that makes him not snapping on you all the more interesting. are you familiar to him? personally?"

"oh, ha, no," you wave him away embarrassingly, "i used to train here with the brothers. i'm acquainted with them pretty well. just haven't seen them in years, so...."

"ahh. well, good luck with trying to get sub-zero to warm up to you. you're attempting to do the impossible." he replies with a cheeky grin, before bowing to you and leaving the room. you take a deep breath in, unsure of how you were going to get the grandmaster to liven up a little and talk to you. as the day continued, you found yourself wandering the old halls of the stronghold you used to train in. it was night-time now, and you admired the dark glow on all the new year festival decorations. they shone bright as the gold off of them reflected the moon's light. a little upset at not being able to have the reunion you wanted, you walked out to the terrace surrounding the courtyard, looking down at the dimly lit enclosure. no one was out practicing right now, causing you tp scoff to yourself. when you practiced here you went well into the late night and yet none of these new initiates hold the same respect and regard for hardwork as you did. your mind flashes back to your sparring practices with bi-han. when you both were younger, he could hardly touch you you were so fast. your hits were hard and fast, mirroring bi-han's form but you were just that much quicker. he hated admitting it, but you were just a better fighter -- though your elemental magic couldn't hold a light to his cryomancy.

before your mind wandered off to the unknown, you heard footsteps behind you making their way down the corridor. you turned to see bi-han in a dark blue/black hanfu with a few books in his arms. your breath caught in your throat as you gazed upon him. if he saw you, he was doing a great job at pretending he never did. this didn't matter to you, as you quickly hid behind one of the pillars in the terrace. he had his head down, bad idea. as he came closer to you, you waited for the perfect moment to strike before finally revealing yourself. bi-han didn't react at all and if he did, it was out of pure annoyance.

"no. you're not leaving until we speak."

"are we finished?" he says stoically, before attempting to go around you. "that was enough of us speaking."

flabbergasted, you back up quickly and block his path again.

"bi-han." you say, defeated and exhausted. you didn't come all this way to get dejected and leave without getting proper closure. if you had to move on from him, you wanted to at least clear things up with him before getting on with your life.

"did you not leave the last time? i am simply doing to you what you have done to m-us." he replies matter-of-factly.

"i'm here now aren't i? c'mon now, i know you've been dying to talk to me. i wanted to talk to you all this time!" you say coyly, throwing a playful punch at his meaty arm.

he looks a little upset, or at least his eyes and frown betray him if he was going for a stoic look.

"why now? why after all these years. you might as well return to wherever you came from," he replies lowly and yet it shows that he's hurt. your heart warms a little at the fact that you could've had this much of an impact on him. you nod your head slowly and look into the enclosure beneath you.

"i'm sorry bi-han. you know i had to leave soon. it wasn't going to be forever, even if i wanted for it to be so. and i knew......" you look down, a long distance into the ground, "if i told any of you guys i was leaving i probably wouldn't have ended up leaving." the look on bi-han's face relaxes a bit, but you can still see him holding the stress on his face. there's not much more that you can say. he was right in being upset -- if anyone else abandoned you the way that you did to him or his brothers you'd be livid. the two of you spent months with one another and yet neither of you had confessed your feelings. the tension was palpable and everyone else noticed it too, it was just confusing as to why neither of you acted on your desires. for you, it was the fear of rejection. perhaps it was the same for him as well?

you lean on the terrace on your side, gazing at bi-han. just being near him after all these years was enough of a blessing but something in you wanted more, though you would never publicly admit to this. you stop yourself at first, but then reach for his arm, carefully, almost to not startle him like he's a wild animal at bay for now but at risk of leaving at the first sign of danger. he doesn't retreat, moving his gaze from your face to your arm. you gently get a hold of his forearm, grazing your thumbs against them. he's cold, but retracts the cold from his skin so that it's back to normal temperature. you hold your gaze at his arm, almost too shy to look at his face.

"i think you've missed me all this time."

bi-han scoffs. "not in the slightest."

"then why are you so close to me?"

it's like the act is intuition. he notices how close the two of you are now and apparently his closeness has gone unnoticed because only a mere half foot now separates the two of you. he lets out a small chuckle out of annoyance and shakes his head.

"you still remain as aggravating as ever."

you put your hand on your hip.

"i apologize for upsetting the mighty grandmaster of the lin kuei." you say, coming a little closer and almost closing the already-tiny gap between the two of you.

"that can be rectified." he says, almost flirtatiously. you're a bit taken aback by his frisky comment. you thought he might've actually been offended by your comment but it seems that his playful nature has become unfamiliar to you after all these years. you place your hand gently on his cheek, caressing his cheekbones and acne scars.

"i've missed you, you know," you finally express your true feelings.

bi-han's eyes soften a little.

"i should've been here-with you....i know that i didn't exactly give you much closure bu-," before you can continue on with your tedious apology he fills the space between the two of you and kisses you with a voracious hunger you've never seen before. his nose pushes against yours and you lean into the kiss, slightly moaning. he tries to slide his tongue against you and it's almost as though the two of you are young kids again, sparring. you defend your mouth, refusing to let his tongue inside but he grabs ahold of your other arm, surprising you. taking advantage of your shock, he slips his tongue inside triggering another gentle moan from you. the two of you wrestle with your tongues, exploring the smallest crevices of one another's mouths. years of tension and pressure are finally alleviated with this kiss. you lean in for more, like a child fiending for sugar, but he pulls away to gaze in your eyes.

you take a deep breath -- that workout took a lot of your wind away from you. however, your lips still draw near his, lowkey aching for more.

"i've wanted to do that for so long..." he says, pushing his forehead against yours. "are you planning on leaving again?"

you smile brightly. so the cold-hearted grandmaster did hold a soft spot for you.

"that depends. do you want me to stay?"

he removes his hands from your wrist and brings them up to your face, reciprocating your earlier caresses.

"as long as you don't leave again."

[sexisbetteronthemoon]

I’d love to hear your ideas for pregnant Lance if you have any (just in general or for Change Ringtone or even a fic you haven’t talked about before) 🥺🙏

hi! i honestly don't remember what fics i've talked about. i don't have many with pregnant Lance. one i do have is going to be hacked up and rewritten, but it's about 170k so i'm putting it off.

mm, for Change Ringtone, and off the top of my head, i imagine that Lance is actually very calm during it. he's witnessed his siblings having kids and has been present for most of them. he's heard stories and is very much mentally prepared for the worst. so he's actually really surprised when his pregnancy is.. not so bad.

his feet and ankles swell, he feels like a heavily anchored hot air balloon, he's very uncomfortable and sweaty, he's got hemorrhoids and hasn't had a proper bowel movement in ages. the worst of it, to him, is that he's got morning sickness throughout the entire pregnancy.

but what keeps him going is the thought that it could be worse. he's heard and witnessed worse. and it makes him feel much more able to deal with the comparatively mild pregnancy he has.

and that keeps him very calm (aside from the brief hormonal mood swings of course).

it helps that Keith is carrying all of the stress. he is constantly freaking out over every little thing. Keith feels like he's caught in a body horror film as he watches Lance's body change in ways that he feels shouldn't be physically possible. reading pregnancy books and pregnancy forums haunts him. the horror stories keep him up at night. he's not the least bit calm.

he just wants Lance to be okay and get through this. he spends way too much time seeing to Lance's comfort that it even starts to annoy Lance a little. he's got the doctor on speed-dial. he's also one of those dad-to-be's that goes, “we can't have sex, what if i hurt the baby?”

eventually, he gets the courage to go through with it, but it takes a lot of convincing and even a little strip tease or two from a very sexually frustrated Lance to get him on board.

at one point, Lance experiences false labor and Keith's hyperventilating into a paper bag while Lance is the one rubbing his back, reassuring him that he's alright.

and Lance is alright. except when someone messes with his system.

Shiro visits, and on a night when his morning sickness is acting up, Shiro uses up the last of the ginger tea.

Lance gives him a look that makes Shiro pray to every god he's ever heard of. he's standing in the kitchen, staring Shiro down after hearing Keith screech, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DRANK THE TEA?”

he's wavering on his feet, heavily pregnant, hair a little frizzed around his head, bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. his nausea is horrific. and he's staring dead-eyed at Shiro who looks like the grim reaper itself has come for him.

he doesn't even say anything. but it's enough to scare the living daylights out of Shiro.

it's half past one in the morning, but Shiro promptly volunteers to go out and get Lance more tea while Keith rubs Lance's back after returning to the bathroom to puke up his guts.

when Lance's water breaks, Keith blacks out. by the time, he comes back to himself, he realizes he's picked Lance up and has started walking to the hospital. Lance has already called an ambulance and is actually laughing at him between contractions.

the ambulance picks them up half a mile from their home, and the whole delivery is the most harrowing experience of Keith's life. by the end of it, he tells Lance, “you want to do this AGAIN? are you insane?”

and Lance is holding his newborn, too happy to be mad at him. he just says, “you promised me a dozen.”

and Keith is, unfortunately, a man of his word.

the irony here is that Keith was so focused on worrying about Lance and the pregnancy that he had zero time to contemplate fatherhood. and now there is a whole child and Keith finds himself having staring contests with them bc he is absolutely bewildered by the tiny entity that his world now revolves around. he is extremely careful and constantly looks to Lance to guide him through it. the first night home, he spends the entire night standing over the crib, checking that the baby is still breathing while Lance sleeps.

he's there to prepare a bottle as Lance taught him before the baby even begins to get too fussy. he's terrified the baby will choke the entire time he's feeding him. changing the diaper goes just as well. Keith does it so slowly that the baby wets the changing table.

he passes out over a bowl of cheerios in the morning.

there's days where Keith will take the baby to work to give Lance time to himself, and he'll attend meetings with the baby in a kangaroo carrier. everyone speaks in whispers and are somehow even more terrified of Keith because the last person to wake his baby got fired.

Keith's just as rattled during the second pregnancy, but he's handling it better since he knows what to expect. he considers himself a veteran and he's armed with lotion for Lance's belly, a donut cushion for Lance's comfort, and ginger tea for Lance's nausea. he still worries like hell, but he's more confident that things will be okay.

thankfully for Lance, the nausea is not so bad the second time.

or something like that.

[atimesfeeler]

I loved @twilightkitkat 's post SO MUCH I just had to add to it. It reminded me of a fic I'm working on rn.

I especially liked the part with Vanessa because I don’t think she just left him because of the reason Wade thinks. She didn’t just want him to be a superhero or whatever- in the flash back, she’s begging him to open up to her, to be present, to let her help him and I don’t thinks Wade could do it.

He felt like, incorrectly, that he couldn’t burden her with it. He has so much baggage and pain and issues, and he can’t corrupt her with that. He had cancer and instead of spending his last days with her, he left her. And when he survived he avoided her until she was literally kidnapped.

Everyone thinks Logan runs but really Wade does. He doesn’t want the people he loves to know he’s in pain. At his birthday party, he’s obviously miserable but everybody’s together! And smiling! So he’s going to be happy and pretend he’s just fine. But he’s not even very good at hiding it bc, like mentioned before, it’s a little bitter. His jokes don’t land or they come out passive aggressive and tense. But nobody calls him out for it except Logan. Logan who tells him in the meanest way that he’s a clown but that he’s sad, pathetic, and attention starved. He’s not buying the clown act.

And when Logan moves in, I love the idea that he starts noticing Wade when his mask falls or he gets too tired to pretend.

I’m writing a fic where Wade deals with chronic pain in less healthy ways and, of course, he tries to hide it. It's more brief and censored on tumblr bc I don't want to get my account terminated again, but it will be more detailed on ao3.

…

He dealt with it in other ways. The pain.

After all, a little bit of death couldn’t hurt, right?

Treating himself gently only sometimes worked. If he did everything right, if he did all the steps then maybe, maybe it would ease up. Sleep well, wake up at the right time, eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, draw a scalding bath, and take some hard hitting drugs.

Most days, Wade was much more impatient. Most days, Wade failed. It was too hard to take care of himself when waking up felt like dragging himself up from glacier water and pounding on the underside of the ice. Cooking was a nightmare he didn’t even want to consider tackling, and he was rarely patient enough to wait for the bath to fill or for sleep to take him as his body wracked with pain.

There were faster, easier, more instant ways of relieving the pain.

Any pain that didn’t stem from his own body was good.

With Vanessa, Wade had tried the healthy way. The three meals, ten hours of sleep, and taking his vitamins. The whole mile. There was this urge he constantly resisted that told him it would release the tension in his skull if he carved under his eye into his cheek where the migraine pulsed, like he was some sort of fucked up carpenter with voices in his head.

Vanessa didn’t understand it. If he was in pain, why would he want to be in more? She understood his masochistic tendencies in bed where they mixed pain and pleasure, but just pain? Just harm for the sake of being harmed? They got into a lot of fights about it.

He resisted the attempts. Hid them from her where he could. Sometimes he’d miscalculate, and she’d walk into the bathroom before he could heal and clean up his brain splattered on the bathroom tile. She hated it, and Wade hated that he was hurting her.

He reeled back any anger or snippy comments that stemmed from the sheer newness of having his body feel like it was dying all the time. It was so hard to interact when pain rippled through him like a feedback chamber. It made his fuse short and curt. His witty remarks turned snappish and bitchy. People asked stupid questions and made even stupider comments when he was having a Bad Pain Day, and everything felt a bit more raw and oozing. Wade didn’t have the energy to keep up the act and while his mind rarely stopped running, it shifted into something darker when pain was on his mind. His jokes fell flat, laced with a bitter ending. Sometimes, Wade didn’t even want to talk. He wanted to punch someone. Maybe even himself. And every time he snapped or said something he didn’t mean, he wanted to hurt himself even more.

Quickly, he grew exhausted putting on a brave face, and he had never been good at letting people help him. There was this awful clash of wanting to be comforted by the people he loved and hating that he needed comfort. It made him feel weak and pathetic, and Wade already hated so much about himself that he didn’t want anyone to see the twisted, fucked up parts of him. How ironic that he always had an audience anyway. He couldn’t hide it from you or whoever was watching him those days, but he could hide it from the people he loved. Shield them from it, almost.

On Bad Pain Days, Wade didn’t want anything to be different. He didn’t want to acknowledge the pain he dealt with, and seeing that pity on her face set his teeth on edge. It both hurt to be babied and, later, it hurt to be ignored when he stubbornly insisted he was fine.

Obviously, it didn’t work out.

It was better with Al.

Al tried to help. Once or twice. Her motherly instincts kicked in, maybe, Wade didn’t know. He shot himself once in front of her while they were watching the Bachelorette together, and she cursed him out and told him to stop and never do it again. Wade took his little attempts to the bathroom after that. He cleaned up after himself. He went out. Wade tended not to do the more dramatic methods that draw attention.

Wade had it down to a science. A decent chunk out of his frontal lobe sent Wade into a pleasant, almost subspace-like place. He would just… float and forget that his body hurt all that bad. It was good for Bad Brain DaysTM too when Wade’s thoughts were louder, faster than normal, and the voices stopped sounding like himself. When the fourth wall was a little too easy to see, and it got to him, being the doomed comic relief, when his head was trying to split his consciousness in two.

If his temporal lobe was nicked, then Wade would start hallucinating and hear a banger of a song while time, space, and movement sort of fucked up for a second. It felt like getting high, but he didn’t need an entire bag of cocaine and to hot box weed to get there.

If something happened to his parietal lobe, the pain wouldn’t know where to go. A bear could literally be eating his insides, but the pain signals couldn’t register if they had nowhere to go.

He did most of his questionable coping methods in the stereotypical bathroom spot. It was private, and Al got onto him for getting blood and bits all over the apartment. He once left his liver or his kidney in the kitchen sink, and Althea threatened to call the cops on him - her coke stash be damned. Now he’d drape himself in the empty tub, play music loudly, and expertly deal with the pain.

The system he had was fine. Regulated. It was working. It was fine. It wasn’t going to get any better.

Until Logan.

...

I haven't posted it on ao3 yet, but it will be apart of the series for my fic where Wade cries in the Honda instead of fighting.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not defending an ex-friend when people called her a slut?

I (20 f) fell out with my best friend and roommate M (20 f) at the end of sophomore year of college. reason we fell out isn't the main subject of this post but I think it's relevant so I'll try and keep it as brief as possible.

For context I'm Black attending a VERY white school. Frenshman year I was the only black girl in my building and this was just post-covid so student groups were pretty dead. So first trimester most of my college friends were the girls from my floor including M (white) and S (20f, asian american). It was very isolating tbh, esp bc I experienced a lot of microaggressions, but the girls I befriended were pretty good at sharing my outrage and letting me confide in them.

The worst incident was when at a party, a guy (G, white) made some very racist comments towards me and in general (said the n-word a few times). I admit I escalated it by engaging w him and the whole thing got out of hand, a lot of people saw, and he got a reputation as a racist. Afterwards, he was always rude to me, blaming me for egging him on while drunk and just constantly making disrespectful comments about me and my 'attitude' where i could hear. no one ever said anything to his face but were supportive of me after the fact - S was always particularly supportive and said she could relate.

I was generally fine with avoiding G esp in sophomore year when we moved out. I lived with M and another friend (P) and it went pretty well. We were asked in like November if we would renew our lease, and though M and I wanted to the third friend didn't, so we began to think of replacements, and S was looking for a place.

Thing is, while S and I were still on good terms I felt like she was being a bit secretive w me. She'd often come over and talk privately w M and I got the gist she was seeing someone and didn't want me to know. I shook it off as us growing apart and the fact I'd gotten more involved in Black student groups and hadn't hung around with our dorm friends as much, but then in Jan, as we were planning to sign the new lease, I found out she was dating G. Tbh at this point we weren't even close friends that I felt a strong personal betrayal, but more so I was mad at them both for not telling me while making plans for us to live together. They knew I was uncomfortable around G and wouldn't want to live w his gf, esp without knowing. It felt like they were almost purposefully going behind my back.

I didn't do anything at the time, just slowly backed out of the lease renewal and made other arrangements. I stopped hanging out with S almost completely and was just cordial w her and took a big step back from M and our dorm friends.

The other relevant bit of context here is M had a boyfriend (T, 20 m) who was in our freshman dorm and very close to our year one friends (lived with them sophomore year and now junior year too). She broke up w him in Feb, which led to a lot of her friendships w our dorm friends (her only friends really) to deteriorate a bit, esp as she was no longer super comfy hanging around where he was. this especially became an issue in the spring trimester bc she got a new boyfriend over the break, a friend from her classes T hadn't liked.

So, M kept pressuring me to hang out w her and our dorm friends a lot more, which inevitably meant seeing S and now G, who they'd all decided they were cool being around when I distanced myself. I told her why i didn't want to and I didn't want to see G again but she promised he had 'changed' and wouldn't say anything to me. eventually I folded and went out w them all once and it honestly sucked. M completely abandoned me to be w her other friends, G didn't say anything but kept glaring at me the whole time, and I felt very out of place. afterwards I told M i was sorry, I know she felt awkward around her ex without me, but I wouldn't do that again.

She left it till like the end of the year then there was a big dinner she really wanted to go to that T would be at (her bf was not invited), w all our dorm friends. I kept saying I wouldn't go, but then she told me she checked w the hosts and confirmed (and promised) G wouldn't be coming. I said okay but asked we sit next to each other and made it clear how I felt around S etc, and she agreed and promised we would. Long story short G was there, I wound up next to S and across from him snickering at me the whole time, with her on the other end of the table. I texted M about it, she said it was 'fine' and I was imagining it and to try and enjoy the gathering.. yeah no. I dipped before desert, she chased me outside asking what was up and I explained why i was upset, she said i can't expect her to be there for me the whole night and she's allowed to 'have a good night without my drama,' i said racism wasn't drama and she literally dragged me along to deal with her drama, nevermind my comfort, and that she was an incredibly selfish friend for putting me in this position. I left, she wound up crying with everyone comforting her, everyone there (M included) went off at me for being an unsupportive friend/dredging up year old drama with G/overall making everything about race, I cut them all off and moved my stuff into my girlfriend's place a week after all this and didn't speak to anyone since.

which is pretty much all the backstory (longer than the main bit, sorry), that gets us to the actual AITA situation. Junior year starts, I'm at a welcome back party w some other friends and i'm vaguely aware my old dorm friends (including S and G) are also here, but it's a huge party and i'm w my very supportive friends who ik will back me if anything happens so i dont really care. eventually M arrives w her bf, gives me an awkward look but doesn't say anything to me.

Then at some point, I'm upstairs using the bathroom and I hear the girls from our dorm group speaking to M in the hallway. Apparently it came out over summer she'd hooked up w her new boyfriend before she ended things with T and they were all pissed at her (esp for her playing the victim w her ex). I tried to stay in the bathroom until the conversation ended but someone was pounding on the door and I wound up having to get out and waddle past them awkwardly to get back downstairs. When I got out one of the girls was calling M a slut and other names and while i tried to avoid it I accidentally made eye contact with M, who was super upset and crying. I kinda just shrugged and went downstairs.

Later that night i got a long ass message from her new bf about how he knows I'm upset with her but it wasn't fair for me to just leave her in that situation, and that it was petty and selfish of me (esp bc I'm usually the person calling out this shit). I spoke to my gf, and she said she understands why i did nothing but also that it's never okay for people to call someone a slut. I agree with that 100% and in any other case i might have tried to diffuse the situation (like if it was safe and I thought I could). I've told a couple friends who think I did nothing wrong and it wasn't fair to expect me to say smth when she never said/did anything to defend me and that she had it coming, but my mom told me I should've done the kind thing and not stoop to their level and it's made me feel really bad. I think I might be TA bc i could have stood up for her without anything bad happening to me beyond being in an uncomfortable convo, and also bc it kinda felt good seeing her friends turn on her? Like she threw me under the bus to be in their good books and defend them and they dropped her ass anyway, and if I acted from a vengeful place then thats asshole-y of me. but also no one in this story has apologised to me once and as my friend says its not fair to rely on black ppl to fix racist white ppls mess.

so, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[pixie-felix]

Hi Pixie! A semi half-baked idea and a question.

So I've got "Ribbon" by Mariah Carey on repeat in my head. So guess who popped into my brain? Pretty Prince Jinnie bc we love seeing that man tied up in ribbons. But imagine trying him up temporarily because for an anniversary you prepared a special dance to that song for him. (The irony) We all know if he had his hands free and simply told not to touch her would absolutely cave 3 seconds after you got close enough. He looks wrecked once you're done so from the teasing touches and quick but deep kisses shared. I'm talking trying to take calming breaths, eyes slightly glazed over, pouty lips parted slightly, almost painfully hard in the lace shorts you bought him. But his eyes are glued to you. Have been since he was tied in/to the chair.

Do we tease him a little more with bites, kisses and hickies while slowly grinding against him until he cums? Should we go with a hand job and dirty talk as he sits there, mind fuzzing over and mostly communicating in half sentences and phrases making the prettiest noises you could hear up close? Put his pretty little mouth to use and ride his face? Give him some of the best head he's ever had and tell him he can't cum until we do? Immediately sink down on him and ride the hell out of him? Obviously all of the above is possible. He'd be so overstimulated as you just have your way with him. (This just got longer as I wrote. The demons are at work🤣)

How would the others react if you dance for them (maybe not to this song, but other sensual songs that remind you of them)? Who's blissfully surprised and might later give you a private dance of your own? Who's most to least likely to behave during your dance? (I'm so sorry this is like ten questions, but I wanna know your thoughts. BUT take your time. There's never any rush)

--🍭

I LOVE YOUR DEMONS

THE WAY I HAVE BEEN FOAMING AT THE MOUTH TO REACH THIS ASK JESUS CHRISTOPHER CHRIST

Oh.

My.

GOD.

As someone who used to be a burlesque dancer, this question SANG to me. Lmao, punny. Seriously though, for a brief period of my life I was a professional cocktease, and it was fucking awesome. And I genuinely had a routine that involved a guy being tied to a chair... What times. Hah. I was going to say thank fuck it wasn't skz and then I did the math and Chan would have been thirteen. Ew. So yes, yay, thank fuck there was no skz involved 🤣🙈

Of course now I'm daydreaming about being 19 again and being Bang Chan's hot-and-unstable noona. I want teenage Channie to have a crush on me! I mean, I want adult Chan to have a crush on me too, but that's different. Like, I want to go back in time and experience him having a crush on me in that cute way little kids and awkward teenagers do? Urgh and lmao, this has probably come out all wrong. Idc. It's written now.

*AHEM* Back to the questions.

I know we've discussed it before, *somewhere* (just wait until I've got that index finished. I'm gonna be cross referencing us left, right, and centre), but just to check...

You're keeping those ribbons loosely tied, right? So that not only are you driving him nuts with your movements (how is your body roll better than his?!), he's also going insane because he's got to keep himself still. Or suffer the consequences.

Um, did I see you mention lace shorts? Because I'm going to need a little elaboration on that 😇 How lacy are they? How short are they? Are they panties? Please tell me they're panties. Guys in lingerie... Yeah. That is definitely a topic we should discuss in great detail, when the time is right.

Okay, so I have consulted my smut playlists, yes that is a plural, and come up with the following pairings:

Chan. Chan has two options- one for Channie, and one for Christopher. Gotta love that duality.

For Christopher, easy: Scream My Name by Thomas LaRosa. Slow, sensual, with lots of build up and that ride-or-die-borderline-possessive vibes? Yes please. This was definitely not influenced by the Escape video. Bring out his protective side while he’s not allowed to move, tease him, drive him a little bit insane. 

If you want to REALLY push his buttons (of course you do), and you’re living in the poly!skz universe, get one of the other members to dance with you too. Obviously, Hyunjin would would be ideal. Again, definitely not influenced by the Escape video… If you go with this option, be prepared for revenge. Sexy, sexy revenge. (I would love to hear your thoughts on revenge.)

For Channie, (possibly definitely more my vibe because I’m a silly and mischievous goose who's totally addicted to Chan’s laugh): Pony by Giuwine. Do I even need to explain? Even if he isn’t immediately thinking of that lip sync battle (or even just Magic Mike itself) you KNOW he’s going to be cracking up. The only downside being he might laughing too much to get hard…  Lmao of course I’m lying. He was rock solid the moment you tied him to the chair, and he might be laughing but you KNOW he’s going to be throwing you down and giving you your own performance once you say the word.

Minho. Despite his poker face and tsundere personality, Minho is pleasantly surprised when you ask him to let you give him a lap dance. Whether the iconic eyebrow raise when you handcuff his hands behind him is for your benefit or his, (he's definitely pretending his dick isn’t already waking up) is up for interpretation. 

He’ll pretend to be unaffected at first, and the casual observer might not be able to tell how into it he is. But there is no way you miss the the slight narrowing of his eyes, or the tension in his jaw. Or the subtle fidgeting when his pants get too tight.

The song is Ride or Die by Jeff Satur. Does it have Drive vibes? Perhaps only lyrically, but still. He’ll appreciate the link almost as much as he appreciates the way you slip the key to his cuffs into your bra. He can fish it out with his teeth and tongue later.

Added bonus: it’s in his vocal range and now my brain is full of him quietly singing it to himself the next morning, in the kitchen while he makes you eggs. (I don’t even like eggs, but I just feel like that’s the *vibe*.)

Changbin. Choosing for Changbin was really hard, because Binnie never deserves to suffer. But of course he would like to be tortured a little bit, and we can't refuse him anything.  Obviously this needs to be a girl group song, and nothing too filthy. He is the prettiest princess after all.

So, with that in mind: Igloo by Kiss of Life. Watching the HyunLixBin cover of it was so cute. And everybody knows how much we love taking cute things and ruining them making them sexual. Take the original choreo and make it more intimate. Slower. Heck, maybe slow down the entire song.

Whatever you do, he's going to be over the fuck-mothering moon. When you sit him down in that chair. We all know those muscles aren't just for show, so EITHER make sure you tie those bonds extra tight... or use some ribbons that are so pretty he won't want to break them. Pink is always a good choice.

I nearly didn't include this song after whichever member's birthday livestream racist bullshit... but fuck them, Binnie looks so cute doing the dance, let's focusing on that instead.

Hyunjin. I’m right there with you with Ribbon, I hadn't it before but now it is his song. Straight on the Hyune playlist (I can't be the only Stay with separate playlists for each member, right? And I can't be the one who's Ayen playlist is exclusively badass bitch bangers, right?).

To pick my own Hyune track I'd defintely go with I Feel Like I’m Drowning, Two Feet (I feel like I should give a warning that this mv is quite raunchy, but then here you are, dear reader, reading our horny musings... so perhaps a warning is unnecessary?)

Other than that, I have nothing to add. Your Hyune-vision is perfect. I would like in please 🙏.

Han. No question about it: Mommae, Jay Park. Again, raunchy mv. This is Jay Park we're talking about. And you know he's seen the video, because it's iconic. And he was a teenager when it came out, so he's almost definitely beaten off to that beat before lol that's barely even a pun but it made me laugh sorry not sorry.

He was hard the moment he saw the ribbons in your hand, and on the verge of orgasm by the time you'd finished tying him to the chair with those pretty little bows. So when the music starts and he hears that iconic baseline -which naturally triggers a whole avalanche of horny teenage memories- it's no surprise that he jizzes his pants before those first nine beats are up.

By the chorus, he's already hard again, and begging you to touch him as you tease and sway around him. The question is, how long do you torture him? Making him sit in his messed up jeans, practically foaming at the mouth, tears in his eyes as he begs you to sit on his face, his thigh, his cock, his anything. I hope you tied those ribbons extra tight.

Oh, and bonus: you didn't let him undress properly because you knew this would happen, and he likes the pain of how the denim keeps his dick restrained.

Felix. Because it's fun (gotta keep it cute for Lixxie), and it's been in a bunch of reels lately: Sugar by Flo Rider. It's a bop, you know he's heard it (all those hours on tiktok), he's definitely danced to it before. Possibly in the bathroom, while he's waiting for the shower to heat up or doing a facemask. Maybe naked, once or twice.

Maybe he even took a silly little video of it for you, but chickened out of sending it after remembering you describe the time your ex sent you a two minute long video clip of him spinning a dick windmill and he doesn't want you to think of him that way.

But now here you are, dancing for him to the song he's had stuck in his head for weeks. He's a happy boy. A patient one too, obediently staying still while you straddle and grind on him, his boba eyes all big and glossy with lust as he admires you adoringly. The only hint that he's struggling to stay still? That white knuckle grip he has on his seat.

He's such a good boy, you don't tease him for long. You're barely halfway through the song when you pull on his wrist ribbons, freeing his arms enough so that he can touch you. Even freed, he stays respectful: you'll have to guide his hands to your hips yourself. After he's finished kissing you that is, whimpering into your mouth as you roll your hips against his. In time with the song, of course.

Seungmin. The bedroom eyes on this man. Jesus Christopher Christ. He might have an excellent poker face, but that slight tightening around his eyes, the barely there frown... That's when you know you've got to him. Better have tied those ribbons tight.

Getting him to agree to the whole idea of being tied to a chair in the first place will a bit of a challenge. Never one to give in easily, you'll have to pull out all the stops to get him to agree to this. Ofc, if you're living in the poly!skz universe, there's an easy hack for that: just tell him [insert member] was a good boy and let you dance for him.

Competitive Minnie mode: engaged. Dick: solid. Patience: thin.

Oh, and btw. You didn't tie those ribbons tight enough. Because when his fuse finally fizzles out, he's got you up against the wall, pinning you by the throat with his other hand in your pants before you can say "bad puppy".

Yeah, the song is Ride by SoMo, and after this night, he's going to torture you at every karaoke party you and the guys go to. This is now his song. Just like you're his girl. He won't even flinch when his hyungs and Jeongin cringe at the lyrics. You're his, and as soon as he gets you alone he's gonna take care of your body... and other quote other lyrics at you. With his dick. (Sorry, had to cool myself down with some humor because I'm still reeling from this and that. SEUNGMIN YOU WERE MY SAFE PLACE WHY DID YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THE CAMERA LIKE THAT I AM LOST.)

Jeongin. Right, I'm gonna combine my two favourite maknae problems here and suggest Move by Taemin. Do I even need to elaborate? You wouldn't even need to move, just sit on his lap, arms around his neck, your lips just out of his reach... Tease him with your smile and your eyes rather than your words.

But of course, that song is impossible to sit still to. Your body will roll all by itself, and paired with the way Jeongin is eye fucking you... makes you bolder than usual. It's nice to see the maknae go feral.

Speaking of which, you might need to gag him. Boy has a filthy fucking mouth on him (and yes I'm still calling him boy, because you know that only gets him more and more worked up). What you gag him with is dancers choice: more ribbons? Panties? Literal bread? (again having to cool my jets with some humour goddamn I'm not even ovulating). Whatever you use, watch out. The brat bites.

Oh, and did you tie those ribbons tight enough? Baby bread has been working out a lot recently...

okay it has only taken me months to reply to this and then days to actually write it all out. I hope you see this lollipop anon 😖 and if anyone else would like to weigh in with their striptease and/or tying skz to chairs thoughts, comment or send in an ask maybe a smoke signal or somthing 🫶