#i did not know ‘dopamining’ was a real word until now. i thought i made it up (comma) until i *looked* it up

[thewandererh]

Exhibit A: Procrastination, Gratification, and Initiative

and what it means regarding dopamining, and living life to the fullest.

i am not a professional! this is my interpretation of feelings i (and most likely many others) have experienced.

the meaning in life

is defined by what you do

and how you move through

- me. just now ✌️☺️🤳📸

think of a time you had things to do. everyone has a time like that. in that time, you know you have things to do—but you’re distracted by something. perhaps by doomscrolling, or planning something with friends to avoid homework, or needing to tell someone something vital. they are hard situations…but why?

your body evaluates that you’d feel better once you’ve completed the goal you have to do. whether it be by going outside, finishing that assignment, or talking to that someone. however, doing it would have you leave the established comfort you’re enveloped in now. you don’t want to change your situation because you’re comfortable, so you continue to recline. maybe you try to ignore the thought by busying yourself further, but it never works.

you are now conscious that you are wasting your time. everything becomes stressful. just one more video. just one more game. just one more minute. you’ve connected with your body, listened to its needs, but put them off. declining the offer for the sake of reclining with just one more video, game, or minute. the constant dopamine surge of your comfortable situation makes it hard to leave, and you try to reinforce that. you know you’ll be happier with the task done, but you try to make up for that ‘lost gratification’ in your current situation. you could be happier, but you don’t want to make a change that would alter your situation. so you bury yourself deeper with meaningless work all to try and find meaning.

this is procrastination.

it’s a spiral of meaningless longevity that can last for hours. and once one is conscious of it, it turns your moments of forced dopamine into a bad time filled with only regret and misery.

“you could be doing something more fulfulling.” says your body. your body knows your needs better than you do sometimes, so why not listen to it?

we humans fear change. we humans like when we know where we are in life, and knowing that it’s comfortable. knowing that it’s safe. who knows what could happen while you do that task? you’ll have to sit up, actually move again, and paramountly, actually stress about something. you’ve have to use energy you don’t think you have, or could reserve for something else. you can watch or play some more with that energy instead, so why not?

change has to happen. especially when it’s for the better.

your body is telling the truth when it says you’ll be happier after you finish that task.

while you try to finish that task, you’ll be doing something different. this is understandably scary! but you’re listening to yourself instead of suppressing your wishes and bottling your feelings.

this time-wasting activity you’re so caught up in is so addictive because it involves instant dopamine. your brain wants more, so you keep giving energy into an activity that, as a bonus, helps you forget the world and your problems alongside it.

the task you need to do is a transitional period to dopamine. it’s an effortful wait that feels unbearable at first glance because you’re so enveloped in the dopamine-generating-machine (dopamining??). but this dopamine is so much more fulfilling that anything you can gather while scrounging deeper into that activity you’re desperate to keep going.

this is gratification.

gratification comes as personal celebration after you’ve completed something. it comes with the dopamine generation, yes, but it’s so much powerful when you’ve worked for it (so it’ll be used as a term in that work-for-it sense). gratification is your body being relieved of pressure and burden because of the effort you’ve put in to better your situation. you feel safer now, less anxious, and more free. you have one less to-do on your list, and that deserves to be celebrated. more will always come, but why not stop for a moment?

this task has stressed you out to the point of desperately avoiding it with meaningless activities. but it’s done now. it’s completed, and it’s all thanks to you. the effort you put into this task could have been any level of difficult, but you did it. whether the task be big or small, you did it. if you had to do it in parts, that’s ok. taking a break between work lets you refocus your thoughts and reflect on what you’ve done, which also summons gratification. you’re working! you’re in the zone! maybe the confetti can wait until after it’s completley done, but you deserve a snack and a brain break (or so).

you feel so great doing something so much better for your stress levels. you’re living life fuller than you did before. before you were suffering by your own hand…but why?

it didn’t have to be like this.

procrastination is caused by being rewarded for not getting things done. dopamining at it’s peak. it’s self-induced, because only you control it. and you have the capacity for changing your situation. here’s how:

this is initiative.

taking initiative is being proactive about your situation. you take opportunities as they come to better your situation; you notice when you’re uncomfortable, reflect, and make a change. sometimes keeping in touch with your body is hard because of the face-paced nature of dopamining and procrastination, but your body will never stop reaching out. this is why when you take a break, you realize how hungry or etc you are. take a moment after a video, game match, or something of the like finishes. breathe. take a moment to remember and reevaluate yourself. how long has it been? what do you need to get done? why would you rather avoid it? and even, how can you make it easier?

taking initiative is listening to yourself when you start to feel uncomfortable. track the feeling, and understand where it’s coming from instead of pushing it away. assess your situation. what is easy, and what would make you happier? think twice—dopamining is a habit that’s hard to break.

taking initiative is taking a deep breath, getting up, and looking at your task. examining the difficulty and breaking it up into parts if necessary. maybe you need music/ambience if it’s monotonous, but try not to make that too distracting. get a snack and water (etc) if you feel fatigued or discomforted. examine the big picture in steps, and reward yourself when you’re finished.

breaking out of a dopamining session means a lot. you remember your body and ergo what you need. it might take some time to develop the habit of checking in on yourself, but it is possible. you are not lazy. you are not a time-waster. you can live life to the fullest when you chase the proper gratification.

when you break out of dopamining, even just a session of it, potential opens up. even before you finish your task, you recognize what you can do. you could go on a walk, draw, write, read, organize, explore some music, do some more chores if you’re in the zone, and so much more. and then when you finish that task that feels so daunting, the gratification feels earned. it feels different. it feels personal. you just did something that mattered more. and steps like that build persistence, self-awareness, and proactivity. steps like that make life fuller.

_…-~^*^~-…_ _…-~^*^~-…_ _…-~^*^~-…_

helpful articles that make points i don’t + stand strong at the possibility i make a mistake in this post!

[damnineedabreak]

Junior

When Junior was walking down the street he saw a little dog crying. I think that's what made him go into the deep blues that followed that day.

It was always a trigger, it was always a thing that seemed insignificant what made him go in to a downward spiral.

"What the fuck." He said to himself. And I understand what he means, and I think you do too. Sudden wave of sadness in the middle of breakfast with mom.

He spent the rest of the day going numb until he finally got to be home by himself, played Mac Miller's top sad existencial songs and laid down in bed crying nonstop for about an hour.

We think that he has a new problem now. Weed is making him apathetic and isolated. He says he's just chilling, but we can totally tell he is trapped.

"Why is living so complicated for me?" I heard Junior saying.

Bitch is he for real? The thing that bothers me the most about Junior is his fucking self-pity. For Christ sake.

Maybe I should be nicer, after all, we've read enough self help books to know that I should treat Junior with compassion. Because, after all, the guy's still a scared little boy trying his best to fit in adulthood. But sometimes I see him and I wonder, is he fucked? I've seen him trying so many things to improve, "get better", evolve, transcend, be in peace. Nothing seems to work for him, so I wonder, is he really so fucked up in the head that nothing brings a little sooth for his soul.

I asked him once "What's hurting dude?" but I don't think he trusts me enough to tell me. He sends me songs though. He can't speak about his feelings through words but I've known him for so long that I can read him by listening to what he's listening too.

I wonder why he's so fucked up. I know he had a not so good childhood and teenage years but he seems so different. It's like everything he is, he is halfway. Or better said, I think he is so many things that he can't be one alone, so I can't figure him out. I guess that's why he's such a lonely person.

I told him his heavy weed use was making him a weirdo. He replied with a smile. Fucking weirdo.

I don't think. he cares enough to change it. After all, he has a point: a) he thinks that if he leaves weed he can go on a bender on heavy drugs and ruin his life (which is totally possible for a guy like him), or b) It does manage his hyperactivity, hyper vigilance, chronic fucking stress over everything and don't allow yourself to rest vibe.

He knows weed made him a bitter loner but he seems so comfortable there. He found some sort of new dopamine releaser in introspection. For some time it made him feel great until he realized he couldn't live in his head, once again. Going back to people, going back to society, meeting new people, trying new things were now a burden. All he wanted to do was to go home and smoke by himself, with some really good music. I love his music taste it's so deep and emotional and rare.

"Fuck everyone", he say's about 40 times each day. He really hates people, I even heard him say once that he thought Hitler did what any rational person would do, get rid of the garbage, except that hitler chose the wrong target. He said target should've been stupid people.

"The fuck is wrong with you man? What you mean Hitler was right?" I told him while hitting the joint at his place. "I don't get why you're so angry at the world, you are rich." He just laughed and lit another joint. Fucking guy is evasive as fuck. He is one of the smartest people I know but he can't get past the first wall of feeling. I don't think he even knows what it feels to just feel, like naturally, not thinking about a feeling but actually feeling. No wonder he's so angry at the world.

I think he's stuck somewhere inside his mind, I just don't know where. Why did he get bad again?

[boldlyvoid]

Amoreena | Chapter Five

Chapter Five

main summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine.

Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels.

Chapter Summary: (fluff only) weekly Saturday reading only they are joined by an extra 15 lost boys, not just Spencer

Warnings (adding as they happen): fluff, hurt/comfort, depressed spencer, reader has a daughter, falling in love, strangers to lovers, library smut, oral (female receiving) lots and lots of fluff

word count: 3K

from the beginning <3

He woke up Saturday morning to the sound of a bunch of voices coming from beyond the walls of his room. Only it wasn’t his room, it was the room he slept in when he stayed with Y/N and Amoreena, he hasn’t left since he arrived on Thursday and he had no plan to either.

They still hadn’t told her about their relationship, not wanting her to come crawling into bed with her mom in the morning to find Spencer there too. She wasn’t ready to explain to Amoreena what it meant for Spencer to be in her bed, how they were in love and that she might need to learn how to knock before entering.

So he slept in the spare room, completely contently because he knew she was only on the other side of the wall, instead of 30 minutes away like she would be when he slept at his own apartment.

It had been a week since he saw them reading in the park, and now they were his family. It was incredibly fast, anyone who heard the news would say so. But that’s how his life worked, he blew through everything incredibly fast, it only made sense for him to skip every step in the book and become a stepdad overnight.

He woke up then, missing Y/N and Amoreena as he thought about the last week. Finally getting dressed and peaking outside, through the crack in the blinds, to see what was going on on the farm.

There were a bunch of men in the field with the cows dropping new cattle off in a big truck as a bunch of children ran around the yard. Y/N wasn’t kidding when she said her 7 siblings had produced 15 cousins for Amoreena to play with. Children all between the ages of toddler and 7-years-old, screaming while they ran after Rufus and the cats, it was a pure dopamine rush to witness.

He found Y/N in the living room, a book in one hand and a coffee in the other, “good morning cutie, all the ruckus on the farm wake you up?” She did her best fake southern accent as she smiled at him. Beautiful as ever in the early morning sunshine.

He nodded with a yawn, sitting beside her and snuggling into her shoulder. She placed her mug in his hands so she could wrap an arm around him and pull him in closer, letting him take a sip of coffee and become a real person again.

He noticed she was reading a book he had never seen before, reading the pages and not know the words. It was a first for him.

“What’s that one about?”

Y/N closed it to let him look at the cover. It was a hand-bound book, wrapped in green fabric that was at least 30 years old and in well-loved condition. The gold lettering reading Amoreena, along with a pressed gold rose and the author's name. He had never heard of it before.

“My grandma was an aspiring writer and the reason I love books so much, her name was Peggy and she had a dream once about a wonderful little girl named Amoreena and the magical life she created for herself. She wrote it all down and my grandpa had it typed and bound for her, she was so proud of this book,” Y/N gushed, smiling as she held it to her chest softly, thinking of all the memories Spencer didn’t know yet.

“Really?” Spencer couldn’t help but smile at her.

She nodded softly, “she loved Elton John, so much so that when my sister Ashley came out she threw her a party. Almost all those kids out there are Ashley's, by the way, she went down the adoption and foster root after I did IVF.”

She pointed out the front window at all the people gathered on her land, “Ben and Dylan dropped their kids off too while they help dad and Evan with the farm. Those are my brothers in case you didn’t know their names yet, there’s also Carver and Francis but they don’t live as close.”

Her little life was just so perfect, “did they want to come with us to read this afternoon? We need some lost boys.”

“They’d love that, are you sure you can handle 16 kids between the two of us?” she smiled, pure love spreading through her body as she held him.

“They’re not so different from psychopaths right?” He teased, watching her settle against him even more as they enjoyed their Saturday together.

“What else can you tell me about your grandma?” He snuggled into her more as he asked, wanting to know as much about her happiness as possible.

“She was always listening to music, she loved Elton's song Amoreena the most. It was the song she played for the majority of my childhood. It only made sense for me to name my little miracle Amoreena too, cause I wouldn’t have her unless nanny suggested I have a baby.”

“I would have loved to meet her.”

Y/N’s smile changed then, “she would have loved you and your big mind.”

“My mom wants to meet you and Amoreena,” he announces softly, he hasn’t really told her anything about his family yet.

“What’s she like?”

“She has schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s and she lives in a care home in DC right now, I try and see her when I can but she has her own schedule so I have to fit around when she’s having a good day,” it was hard to explain it to most people, but not to her. He didn’t feel any shame or fear in introducing them. Y/N was the most loving human, and Amoreena was just the same.

“When is she free next?” A simple question that made him feel incredibly giddy.

“Tuesday from 3-5,” he snuggled in closer to her as she wraps her arm around him.

“We’ll pick Amoreena up from school after work and take her over,” Y/N agreed, their lives intertwining like they were always meant to.

Like she was the ivy on his old cottage, she took him in and made him her own, wrapping herself all around him and never letting him go again.

He basically finishes her coffee while she holds him on the couch. The sound of the kids outside making them laugh every once in a while, dogs barking and cows mooing, the farm was alive and roaring while they enjoyed each other's company.

“Did you bring your costume for the reading today?”

He sat right up then, looking at her like she lost her mind, “of course I did, I wouldn’t have Penelope spend a week tracking down a Captain Hook costume just to forget it.”

Y/N’s jaw dropped, “you didn’t?!”

He simply nodded with a cheeky grin, “come on Tinker Bell, everyone knows she had a thing for Hook.”

“Who didn’t? He was the first and last bad boy I was interested in, I typically go more for Milo’s and Ariel’s; full of adventure and always learning something new,” Y/N teased him.

“Mhm, I always had a thing for Aladdin and Belle in search of far off lands and happy endings,” he mused, making her smile just as much as he was, “but for real it was between Hook and Wendy for my costume,” he made her laugh again, wanting to hear it for the rest of time.

“You still can, I have a blue nightgown you can borrow,” it was so easy for them to flirt, it fit into their conversation so simply it felt like they had been together forever.

He couldn’t help leaning in to kiss her, resting her back against the couch softly as she held onto him. He loved kissing her, she tasted like coffee and happiness every single time. She made the cutest sounds when they would make out like she was surprised by it or she wasn’t used to it at all.

She made him feel like he was young again like he was 21 and in love for the first time. All his trauma disappeared and that Spencer who used to stare back at him in the mirror was gone now. That guy packed his bags and left the farm to never be seen again.

Good fucking riddance is all he had to say.

He was happy, he enjoyed being happy and he was going to stay happy. It was the only goal he had going forward, and as long as he was in her embrace, surround by the laugher of her child and family, he knew it would be possible.

Amoreena came running inside then, finding the two of them making out on the couch before they could part from each other.

“Ewww!” She cried, jumping on top of the two of them and knocking the wind out of Spencer.

“Get off,” Y/N tried to speak as she was crushed by the two of them. “Mom down!”

Spencer picks Amoreena up then, taking her away from the couch and spinning her around like she’s an airplane. She cheers and cheers and doesn’t want him to put her down because it’s so fun. The next thing he knows he’s being dragged outside to twirl all the kids around like they’re Peter Pan, flying through the air on their way to Neverland.

He’s surrounded by giggles and tickles fights, he’s tackled down against the dirt as a herd of tiny children dog pilled him. Laughing until he cried, feeling more joy than humanly possible and then Y/N’s telling them all to get ready to he’d to the park.

Coming down the stairs in a pirate costume to a bunch of screaming kids was an experience and a half. Spencer couldn’t believe how happy it made them all to imagine Captain Hook had broken into the house and Amoreena, or Peter Pan as she corrected him, chased him outside with all the lost boys.

He took a moment to learn all their names, all 15 of them, however, unlike the cats, they had relatively normal people names.

Kate, Cade, Jet, Lauren, Cassie, Sara, Evan, Benny, Olivia, Jessie, Owen, Maddie, Gwen, August, and Parker, were the cutest little family of cousins. some looked like Amoreena, some looked like their own mothers, a handful of them were adopted out of the country, they were the most perfect cast of lost boys.

He's never had any cousins, no pets, no siblings. His life never felt lonely until he realized what he missed out on.

“Dad,” Amoreena whispered as she tugged on his shirt lightly, “look!”

She pointed towards the house where Y/N was standing. When she said she was going as Tinker Bell he really didn’t think she meant looking exactly like Julia Roberts at the end of Hook.

She looked magical in her beautiful white dress, curly hair with the most perfectly placed flowers and flawless wings wrapped around her shoulders. She was a vision standing on the porch, waiting for him to pick his jaw up off the floor and compliment her.

“Tink,” the words are more like air, soft and barely there.

“Is Captain Hook being nice? Or should we take him to the pond and let the Alligators deal with him?” Y/N teased, marching down the stairs and poking Spencer's chest.

“Ouch,” he teased her, holding his hand over his heart to make her feel bad.

But she didn’t, “some Pirate you are,” she teased, sticking her tongue out at him before taking Amoreena’s hand and running off down the trail towards the main house, everyone following her lead.

Nanny packed enough snacks for all 16 kids, and a little extra just in case. Spencer slipped the lunch box over his shoulder and they made their way towards the adventure. Y/N pulling a wagon just in case the littlest ones didn’t want to walk anymore. It was spectacular.

Y/N stopped then, pretending to stand like an army man turning around abruptly to look at the troop. “Lost boys, are we ready?”

“Yes, Tinker Bell!” They cheered back.

“On my lead, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4,” she marched, bringing her knees up high as they all followed her down the path. “We’re following the leader, the leader, the leader,” she began to sing.

Spencer was in awe, his heart felt like it was going to explode as he watched everyone follow her. Singing along as they marched their tiny little butts down to the park.

“We’re following the leader wherever she may go!” Amoreena yelled the lyrics back, leading the pack as Peter Pan should.

“Tee dum, tee dee, a teedle ee do tee day Tee dum, tee dee, it's part of the game we play Tee dum, tee dee, the words are easy to say Just a teedle ee dum, a teedle ee do tee day

Tee dum, tee dee, a teedle ee do tee dum We're one for all, and all of us out for fun We march in line and follow the other one With a teedle ee do, a teedle ee do tee dum”

It was like magic, they all knew the words and they sang the whole way down the path. Every verse and then repeating it. Not a single kid strayed from the path, no one complained about sore feet or hot backs, they loved their Aunty Y/N and so did Spencer.

“We’re off on an adventure, adventure, adventure,” Y/N changed the words, making him smile as she brought happiness into the world. “We’re off on an adventure to read out in the sun! Tee dum, tee dee, a teedle ee do tee day…”

Every single time he thought she had given him the best day of his life, she manages to outdo herself.

—

They barely listened to the story, it was a disaster of epic proportions but they tried. 15 kids is a lot to handle as an ex FBI agent and a librarian, they had lunch and instead ran around the field playing lost boys instead. It was still an amazing afternoon.

He was going to be covered in bruises the next morning. He had been kicked, poked, trampled, jumped on, the whole 9 yards. They were the most energetic bunch in the whole world, and then they came home to ice cream.

“Y/N,” Spencer finally pulled her aside when all the kids were preoccupied with their cold snack after a hot day.

“Yes, cutie?” It was a nickname that was sticking, much like pretty boy, and he didn’t mind it at all.

“We’re going to need more than 2 songs tonight to get her to go to bed,” he teased, stepping into that step-dad role with ease.

She couldn’t stop smiling at him, wrapping him up in her arms gently so he didn’t crush her fairy wings. “We’ll take her swimming, that’ll tire her out instead. Are you lookin’ for some alone time?”

“I love her dearly, but I can’t kiss you as much when she’s around,” he whispered before pecking her quickly and hearing the group of lost boys pretend to be sick.

“Just because he’s my dad doesn’t mean you have to be gross like your mom and dad, mom,” Amoreena’s smart mouth making them both shake their heads and laugh.

“What would you do if I did this?” Y/N teased before dipping Spencer back like a princess and kissing him, he stuck his foot out in shock as she held him there.

“Ewww!!” All the kids yelled as she returned him to his feet.

“Or this?” Y/N pulled him into another kiss, her leg popping like Princess Mia’s in the princess diaries.

Amoreena and her cousins were all screaming then, laughing at how gross their aunt and her new boyfriend were being. Used to it clearly, their grandparents were just as in love and watching from the porch as they held each other on the swing.

“I love you,” Spencer announced, loud enough for all to hear without a care in the world.

“You better,” she smiled. “I love you too, cutie,” she added before kissing him one last time.

His life felt perfectly complete.

Y/N’s brothers were incredibly kind just like her. He learned that Ashley was the oldest with 5 kids and her wife Susie, then Ben who was 46 and his wife Shannon, they had 3 kids. Dylan and Laurie had 4 and Even, her twin brother had 3.

Turns out her mom had 2 sets of twins back to back, 7 children and only 5 pregnancies. It felt crazy for him to think about having that many people in his life for his whole life, he wouldn’t have known what to do with anyone more than just his mother growing up.

Spencer helped Bob with the barbecue, they made burgers and hotdogs for all 16 of the children while they continued to run through the fields. They had enough energy to last them 5 straight days of chaos. It was amazing.

Y/N and Spencer managed to wander off while all the kids ate, sitting under a tree with their dinner so they could finally have some time alone together.

She was beautiful, sitting in the afternoon amber glow as she tried to keep her hair from blowing in her face. Tucking the strands behind her ears so she could eat her dinner in peace before spencer handed her the hair tie on his wrist. Then she got ketchup on her cheek, seemingly on purpose as she smiled at him and laughing as Spencer wiped it off with his thumb. He was so in love he felt stupid, smiling at her like he’s never seen another person before, absolutely enamoured.

“Derek and his wife wanted to come over tomorrow and have his son meet Amoreena if that’s okay?”

Her face lit up, “his son is the one named after you right? Not your godson?”

He nodded with yet another smile, his lips were going to fall off at this point. “Yeah, he’s the sweetest little guy, Hank’s never been to a farm before.”

“You tell them our gates are always own to new minds and pure hearts,” she smiled. “That’s what nanny used to say.”

He leans in and kisses her then, resting his forehead against hers as she held his cheek in her free hand, smiling ever so softly as she stared into his eyes, they didn’t need words, he knew she loved him too. A week of pure bliss had passed within the blink of an eye, and they still had forever to go.

Taglist: @shemarmooresfedora @spookyspence @spencers-dria @manuosorioh @reidsfish @mochionly (send me an ask if you want to be added to the tag list, I don't always see every reply! i love you guys thank you so much for reading)

[ahtsumu]

the mystery of love ; kuroo tetsurou

pairing: kuroo tetsurou x f!reader

synopsis: kuroo tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. he believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. but that doesn’t mean he can’t believe in love.

tag(s): sweet summer lovin’, friends to lovers, inspired by call my by your name, university student!kuroo tetsurou, lab intern!kuroo tetsurou, so much pining lol, fluff, angst, slow burn ; warning(s): profanity, mentions of alcohol ingestion (it’s legal bc they’re in italy!), suggestive themes ; wc: 4.8k

a/n: happy birthday tetsu!! i hope you guys like this. i really enjoyed writing it ♡

Kuroo Tetsurou does not believe in soulmates. He believes in science, himself, and sometimes other people. At least, that’s what he tells you. Sometimes you treat this information as a source of hope; other times, you’re not sure what to make of it.

This, you realise with his shoulder pressed against yours and both your bodies sprawled across his wrinkled bed sheets, is one of those other times. You turn your face to look at his.

“What?” he asks, one side of his mouth curling up in a smile.

For a moment, you wonder what would happen if you just said it. You could blame the alcohol. Get away with it scot-free. While you mull the option over in the dead silence of his room, your brain suddenly registers the music still playing from the living room. The low bass reverberating through the walls. How close your lips are. The sound of his breaths.

“Earth to Y/N?”

And like that, the little what-if that rose in your mind falls back with its tail between its legs. You bite your lip, look around his room like the walls have a script printed on them. Unfortunately, they do not.

“I was just thinking about my shirt.” It’s not great, but it’s the best you can do while still feeling the vodka and orange juice burn in your stomach. And smelling it on yourself.

Kuroo’s laugh booms through the room and you can’t help but giggle along with him. “I said I was sorry!” he says, hazel eyes twinkling with mirth. He pauses and glances at his closet, then nods his head in its direction. “Take a hoodie. Your pick.”

A smile–– one you try to downplay but fail miserably to–– creeps up your face. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Kuroo replies. “You can also shower here if you want. It's the least I can do after spilling my drink all over you.”

When you emerge from Kuroo’s bathroom in one of his thinner hoodies, a lot soberer and drying your hair, he’s not on the bed anymore. Quietly, you step out of his room and look for him through the house. People are crashed everywhere–– on the sofa, over the kitchen counter, even propped up against walls. The floor is covered with plastic cups and mysterious pools of liquid. Wrinkling your nose, you try your best to step around the messes, looking in every corner in the house for the raven-haired boy.

You find him back in his room, actually. He’s back on his bed scrolling through his phone, the light illuminating his sharp features. When he hears you close the door behind you, he looks up, eyes immediately zeroing in on the black hoodie over your torso. The corner of his mouth twitches up.

“Where’d you go?” you both ask at the same time. He chuckles; you grin. Crawling back onto the bed, you tell him to go first.

“I went around to make sure nothing’s broken,” he explains. “Perks of being the only sober intern in the house, I guess.”

A beat passes.

This house is rented. You forgot about that. All his expenses are paid for by your mother’s lab. You forgot about that. He fits in your world so well, like maybe he’s always had a spot there, that you forgot that Kuroo Tetsurou is only here for the summer.

“Right.”

Kuroo raises a brow. “And you?”

“I went to look for you.”

He smiles and holds his hands out like a magician at the end of a trick. “Well, you found me.”

“Yeah,” you muse. “I guess I did.” Aren’t you lucky.

With that, something shifts in the air. A contemplative expression crosses Kuroo’s face. Maybe he’s realised how his words come out sometimes. Kuroo often says things that sound like they have more than one meaning and it used to throw you off, but now you just go with it. You’ve even picked up that habit yourself. “Do you ever wish that you’d met someone earlier? Maybe under different circumstances?” he asks.

Sighing, you fall back against his mattress and stare up at the ceiling. Telling the truth feels easier when you can’t see him. “Yeah. All the time.” A few seconds pass. “Do you think we would’ve been friends if we went to the same college?”

He also lies down. You’re both back in the same positions you were in an hour ago, but something’s changed. “No,” he admits. You’re not surprised–– that’s what you’d expected. “I’d be a junior and you’d be a freshman. We probably would’ve never met. And even if we had, I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with a… freshie.” He chuckles softly at the end. “And look at me now,” he adds softly, more to himself than you. You look over at his face. A contemplative smile rests on his lips.

That urge to just say it returns.

“Kuroo, I think––”

“You’re my favourite p–– oh, my bad. You first.”

And it goes away again.

“Um, uh,” you stutter, “how long do you have left here?”

Kuroo raises his brows. “On this planet? Hopefully a while, Y/N.” He sees your unamused expression and drops the front. “Three more weeks.”

Your eyes widen. Eight weeks have already passed. Blood rushes to your ears. Eight entire weeks have already passed, meaning that in three weeks, Kuroo Tetsurou will leave forever. And in four, you will, too. Except you’ll come back. You’ve done so every summer since you were born, probably will do until you die.

But this place will never be the same as it used to. Not after him.

“Y/N?” Once everything comes back into focus, you see the concern riddling his features. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm? Yeah.”

Say it.

“You didn’t have too much to drink, right?”

Say it.

“I just got buzzed. What about you?”

“The only drink I was planning on having all went to your shirt.”

Say it.

“Kuroo.”

“Yeah?”

Not yet.

“Let’s go on an adventure.”

At two AM, everything is different. The streets feel different, the villas look different, and you–– you can’t put your finger on it but Kuroo Tetsurou has changed, too. He sits behind the wheel of your father’s white 1953 Cadillac with the convertible roof down, unruly hair blown back by the breeze, a euphoric grin stretched over his face. In the passenger’s seat, you sit with an equally large beam and your hands raised into the dark sky.

“Where to, Miss?” he shouts over the wind.

“The stars,” you shout back with a laugh. Kuroo’s cat-like eyes briefly flit over to your side profile, lips curving to form a smaller, more tender smile. But you miss that–– your gaze falls on him just a second after his return to the road.

“I heard you say Jack’s,” he says, smirking.

The 24/7 diner sticks out like a sore thumb in the row of sun-baked stucco and stone buildings with its bold neon lights and shiny exterior. During the day, it seems gaudy, way too American for a small town in northern Italy. But at night, this place feels like home. You’ve been stumbling into Jack’s completely shit-faced since you were sixteen. Of course, all those other times had been with the kids of your mother’s coworkers. All those other times, you could hardly remember what you even ordered when you woke up hours later.

But this time, you walk in with Kuroo Tetsurou at half-past-two in the morning, the chemicals running through your bloodstream epinephrine and dopamine, not ethanol; if you’re drunk then it’s on a feeling and your only poison is the boy next to you. You study his face and consider that thought. No, he’s not poison. He’s the antidote.

“Y/N!” the server exclaims, rushing over with two menus. “And Kuroo! My two favourite customers, but together this time!” Giovanni ushers you two to a booth by the window and takes your orders, purely for show, of course. He knows your orders by heart: the Lorenzo for Kuroo and the Quentin for you.

“With fries on both, please,” Kuroo adds, throwing you a wink. “Aren’t I a gentleman?”

“You only did that to have more for yourself,” you reply drily. Having him over at your house for dinner every night made picking up his idiosyncrasies so unbelievably easy. You know them like they’re your own. You know him like he’s your own.

Kuroo clutches his chest and pretends to be offended, then changes the conversation to what happened at the lab today, or rather, yesterday. That your mother and the other researchers are so close to finding a cure for the strain of virus that’s recently hit crickets in southern Italy.

“You should drop by again sometime,” he says. “Last time you came around was, what, two weeks ago?”

Your face breaks in a grin. “Are you saying you’ve missed me? Chemistry getting boring?” you tease, drawing a loud laugh from him.

“Sodium hydrogen, you little shit.” Your mother’s used this one on you before, but hearing it from him makes you giggle anyway.

Giovanni comes back with two plates, each loaded with fries. You both say your thanks and he retreats to the kitchen again, but not before wiggling his eyebrows at your reddening faces. Wordlessly, you grab your fork and knife and transfer at least half of your fries onto Kuroo’s plate. Kuroo stares at you with the slightest smile. That look sends your stomach into flips.

“What?” you question nonchalantly, cutting into your burger.

“Nothing,” he says, mirroring your actions. “Nothing at all.”

It’s hard to imagine that after spending almost every day together for eight weeks straight that there’s still more to learn about each other, but there is. You tell him more about your real home. Your best friend who called you at 3 AM last night because of timezones. Stories from every summer before this one, when you were a different person in the same place you are now.

He tells you more about Kenma, his best friend from high school. How they played on one of the best volleyball teams in Japan. Stories from training camp, literature class, the metro ride home after school–– you listen to every single one in rapt attention. There’s not enough time in the world for all the things you want to know about Kuroo Tetsurou, so you take what you can get. If only you’d known him before you’d known him.

“If we’d met earlier here, do you think we would’ve been friends?” you ask after paging Giovanni for the check.

“No,” he replies, picking up a few remaining fries with his fork instead of his fingers. The corners of your mouth turn up. That’s your thing. He considers the scenario seriously. “I think we met right when we should have.”

“What about the future?” you press, leaning into the conversation. “Let’s say we meet in two years here, instead of now. Would we be friends?”

Kuroo sets his fork down, eyes you steadily. “What’s this about?”

You blink. “What?”

“What’s with all these hypotheticals today?” Perhaps worried that he came off too harshly, Kuroo adds, “I thought I was the scientist.”

“I just… it feels like I’ve known you since forever.” This feels like it was meant to be, you don’t say. And I want to know you forever.

A sigh–– fond, but still a sigh–– blows through his lips. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates,” he says with a wicked grin.

“Are you calling me your soulmate?” The question, shamelessly genuine, painfully hopeful, leaves your mouth without you intending it to and you regret it instantly. Because Kuroo Tetsurou has told you many times that he does not believe in soulmates.

Is it so bad to dream, though?

You watch him carefully but he doesn’t say anything, just continues smiling wryly like you’d intended to tease him. Like he knows that you know better. But you don’t.

“Are you?” he suddenly replies. Sharp eyes hold yours, daring you to respond. Do you dare?

At that moment, Giovanni returns with the check. “Who’s paying?” he asks, unaware of the tense exchange that just occurred across the table. Inaudibly, you sigh in relief. Kuroo is about to say that it’s on him when he catches himself in the middle of his sentence, looks your way, then back to Giovanni. He says you’ll go Dutch. You nod in approval.

“So,” Kuroo drawls once you’ve both paid for your meals. “Where do we go from here?”

Good question.

Kuroo Tetsurou has never been to an outdoor club period. And though he’s been clubbing, he has never once gone dancing in his lifetime. You tell him that’s about to change as he parks the car in a lot near the venue. Before him, all your summer nights were spent here.

“You’ve been here for two months and you haven’t been to an outdoor club yet?” you ask while unbuckling your seatbelt. That can’t be possible. If you’d been in his shoes… an attractive college student in a foreign country for the summer, you would have gone wild.

“Nope. I’ve been a little busy, y’know, spending my days in a lab, handling chemicals, studying viruses, washing lab equipment, writing up reports for your mother and her colleagues, working on my own research on the side… the usual.” He flashes you a bright, sarcastic smile.

“Poor baby,” you coo, ruffling his hair. Kuroo laughs while you continue messing with the dark locks. “Was your first full day here the only tourist-day you’ve had so far?” His weekends, you already know, are spent either lounging around cafés, pools, or the great outdoors with you or the interns. But you’d assumed he’d had time to do some exploring on his own.

Kuroo nods. “And my guide wasn’t even that great,” he mutters, shooting you a dark look. “She sped through every attraction and hardly spoke a word outside of the tour to me. I think she hated me.”

You giggle and open the door, letting the music from the outdoor speakers infiltrate the bubble inside your car. “Maybe she was just nervous!” you say as you get out. That’s a lie.

“About what?” Kuroo follows suit, the gravel crunching beneath his feet. “I was so friendly to you and you just brushed me off each time.” He pouts.

But you don’t reply. Instead, you just grab his hands and pull him towards the venue. As you step into the boundaries marked by fairy lights and rustic wooden fences, Kuroo stops in his tracks and tugs on your intertwined hands. You glance down before up, trying to memorise how his hand looks around yours in the few seconds you can steal.

“Y/N,” Kuroo says. The strobe lights paint his skin pink, blue, purple like it’s a canvas. “Tell me why you were nervous.” Grammatically, it’s a command. And yet it sounds like he’s begging.

“What’s it mean to you?” you ask, feeling your heartbeat speed up in your chest. So what if you just… said it? What would happen?

“Everything?” he replies with a cheeky smile. The odds that he seriously means that are slim. But… they’re there. You shake that possibility out of your mind. That’s just the hope talking.

“Depends how convincingly you say it.” You tug on his arm. “C’mon. Let’s dance.” But he doesn’t budge–– he just continues to stand by the entrance of the club with an expectant look on his face. People are starting to stare.

“Fine,” you say with an eye roll. “I’ll tell you." Kuroo smirks, something self-congratulatory ready to leave his mouth, but then you let go of his hand and dance backwards into the throng of moving bodies. “But first, you’re gonna have to dance with me!” 

You allow yourself to be swallowed by the lively music, the people, the moment. Seconds later you’re deep enough into the crowd that you lose sight of Kuroo. Something in you says that he’ll show up soon, though. For now, you let yourself breathe. Forget about the heaviness of what-if’s, the itch to confess, the dread of the aftermath. Feelings are a lot like gravity. Sometimes they keep you grounded, other times, they weigh you down. This is one of those other times.

You dance up to a friendly-looking group of teens your age. Three guys and two girls. You shout your name and follow up with how it’s nice to meet them, hoping one of them finds you nice enough to keep around. Dancing alone in a club is one of the worst things that can ever happen to someone. Luckily, one of the girls–– the one wearing a purple wig–– pulls you in for a hug, drunkenly shouting back, “Bianca!” Bianca pushes you into their circle next to one of the guys and, just like that, you two start moving to the beat, feeling it in your feet, shoulders, hips. At one point, you turn around and take a good look at his face. The guy’s cute enough, but he’s not Kuroo. Still, you say nothing as he moves closer to you and grabs your hand, lifting it up and motioning for you to twirl.

Suddenly, a pair of hands grip firmly onto your waist and pull you out of the circle. “Hey!” You look down, suddenly realising they’re Kuroo’s. A shiver runs down your spine. He spins you around to face him. His lips are set in a firm line, eyes completely devoid of humour, nostrils slightly flared.

“Hi,” you say quietly, testing the waters.

“Hi,” he replies curtly. His hands are still on your waist. Selfishly, you choose not to point that out. Instead, you try to defuse the situation with a light question. Playful tone.

“Where were you this whole time?”

“Looking for you.”

“Well… you found me.” You flash him a sheepish grin. A peace offering of some sort.

“I did.” He doesn’t take it.

“Lucky you.”

Irritation finally seeps through his features. “You just left me on the dance floor!” he snaps. “And then when I find you after searching the entire venue, you’re dancing up on some random guy!”

“It was in good fun!” you retort, wriggling out of his grip. “And I wasn’t dancing up on him.” You want to ask if he’s jealous so badly, but you take a good look at his face and decide against that.

“Fun?” he asks incredulously. “Worrying about losing you, worrying about myself getting lost, then having to worry about that guy after finding you isn’t very fucking fun to me, Y/N!” The words fly out of his mouth like daggers without pause. Once finished, he looks at you with a disappointed gaze, shaking his head lightly, chest rising and falling with each heavy breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say, looking down at your shoes. It doesn’t matter if you disagree with him–– a sort of shame drills itself so deeply into your conscience that all you can think about is making things right again. “I didn’t think my actions through.”

A second passes. You wonder what he’s thinking.

“Hey, look at me.” Kuroo lifts your chin up with an index finger. Your wide eyes meet his narrow ones. Just as a pink beam glides over his face, his gaze softens, falls down to your lips. And then you feel his thumb on your chin, barely grazing the skin of your bottom lip. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down. The revelry in the background fades to dull beats against your eardrums. Suddenly, you register that he smells of, as usual, blackcurrant and amber.

But now you also smell of blackcurrant and amber.

You’re wearing his clothes. You smell of him.

Kuroo’s eyes crawl back up to yours, wide like he’s just been caught in the middle of a crime. You blink expectantly, ignoring the furious way your heart pounds in your chest. Shallow breaths puff through your slightly parted mouth.

“I am.” It comes out barely a whisper. C’mon. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me––

You gently touch the hand he has on your chin. Kuroo jolts back like he’s been burned. “I’ll, uhm, I’ll be in the car,” he stutters, looking away from your face. He pushes through the sea of people, leaving you all alone on the dance floor, body doused in blue light, fingers touching the area his thumb had been as if preserving its print.

Kuroo hardly notices you slip into the passenger’s seat minutes later. He’s got his forearms hanging over the steering wheel and gaze fixed ahead into the darkness, mind probably running off to a place he wishes his body was, too.

As soon as you’ve buckled yourself in, Kuroo starts the car.

The entire drive home is silent.

Once Kuroo pulls into your courtyard and parks, he turns off the engine, unbuckles his seatbelt, and steps out of the car. Wordlessly, you follow his actions and meet him by the stairs to your door.

“Hi,” you say quietly. He doesn’t look at you.

“Hey.”

The two of you stand outside your front door in silence as you both consider what to say next. This can’t be the way it ends.

“I shouldn’t have… done that,” Kuroo says first.

“Done what?” You choose to play dumb. Call it selfish, but you want to hear him say it. Maybe then it’ll feel as real as it had been. Kuroo sighs and leans his shoulder against the stone wall, crossing his arms over his chest. There’s no way he can dance around what happened. Perhaps the past two months can be summed up as the development of a strong friendship with skilled doublespeak and metaphors and just enough artistic licence, but this can’t. And Kuroo knows that. He can’t feed you an alternative truth like he’s done so many times before. What’s more, he can’t lie to himself anymore. So maybe it’s better just to not speak at all.

Your eyes burn holes into the side of his face. Fine. You’ll concede first. “I was never nervous.”

Kuroo blinks, turns his head around to look at you. “What?”

“I was never nervous. I was playing it cool because I didn’t want to risk befriending you and getting attached.” I’m still playing it cool, you don’t say. And I’m already attached. “Guess I just came off as a bitch instead.” You laugh. “But can you blame me? You were this cute, older guy. Smart, too, since you were interning with my mom. You were my dream guy.”

An amused breath blows out of his nose. “Were?” he questions, grinning, only remembering the fragility of your platonic relationship a second later. “Um––”

“Are.” It slips out of your mouth without you realising. Fuck. Kuroo stills. It’s too late to take back your words now, so you might as well just keep going. “You still are my dream guy.”

Seconds pass and neither of you says anything. Sweat gathers in the palms of your hands. You start to feel your heartbeat through your neck. The buzz of the cicadas grows louder. Oppressive. Behind Kuroo, the sky is starting to turn pale blue and pink in the horizon. That means it’s almost sunrise. The night is almost over, and, hopefully, so is this awful conversation.

“And… you don’t feel the same.” Funnily, you feel like you’re lying. You’re telling Kuroo how he feels and you think you’re lying. Does that make sense? None of this night even feels real. God, you hope this has all just been a dream. Mustering a soft smile, you say, “That’s okay. Thank you for the party. And the adventure.” It was fun while it lasted. You feel the house key in your pocket and turn to unlock the door. “I hope this doesn’t change anything between us, Kuroo. Can we still be friends?” The words leave your mouth feeling like barbed wire. You know damn well you can’t still be friends.

And suddenly, you feel his calloused hands around your cheeks. Suddenly, his hot breath fans over your face.

“Can I kiss you?” he murmurs.

Your eyes close instantly. “Yes, please.”

And suddenly, his soft lips are on yours.

Kuroo breaks the kiss seconds later. “Fuck,” he whispers, resting his forehead against yours, touching the tips of your noses together. “Y/N, I don’t want to be friends. Fuck.” A dry chuckle leaves his mouth. He pauses to collect his thoughts but decides that that can wait. Instead, he presses another kiss to your lips so fervently that he backs you up against the wall with no space between your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heartbeat like this, chest to chest. Kuroo’s hands travel down your waist and rest on your hips. His tongue runs across your tongue, your teeth, the insides of your mouth. You gently suck on it, drawing a satisfied moan from him. When the kiss ends, you see that his lips are red and cheeks are swollen. A warm feeling spreads through your chest. “I thought I could be happy just being friends with you but I can’t. I want you so bad it hurts. Not to mention, when I saw you in my hoodie?” His fingers pinch the material. “I thought God was testing me or some shit.”

“Sure didn’t feel like you wanted me that way,” you retort, still breathless.

“In my defence,” Kuroo says, thumbs tracing your cheekbones, “I was very scared.”

“Of what?”

It looks like he’s about to tell you, but he changes his mind and doesn’t answer. He grabs your hand and pulls you back to the car with a cheeky grin. “I’ll tell you only if you tell me where we can watch the sunrise.”

Kuroo holds your hand, stroking your thumb the entire drive there.

After a short hike, you plop down on the grassy hillside, supporting your body with outstretched arms in the back. Kuroo sits down beside you with one of his hands covering yours, fingers intertwined like a honeysuckle vine around a hazel tree. You tell him that you grew up running along this hill with your parents. It used to be your playground. Maybe, you think, it’s time to make new memories here.

“Beautiful,” Kuroo breathes, a wonderstruck look in his eyes. The sun’s just risen halfway above the pink and blue horizon, the saturated orange casting the entire city below gold. It’s not just the city, though. He’s also gold. He’s just as beautiful. You watch him with a soft smile on your lips, noting how his wide eyes and slack jaw return to normal as he stares off into the distance. After resting your head on his shoulder, you fix your eyes on the sunrise ahead. You wonder what he’s thinking so quietly about.

“Penny for your thoughts?” you finally ask once the sun has finished revealing itself.

Kuroo blinks, returning to reality, but continues to stare straight ahead. “I was just thinking about… soulmates.”

You lift your head off his shoulder. “Don’t tell me you believe in soulmates now,” you tease.

“Hmm.” He turns to look at you, the sun turning his hazel eyes the colour of honey. That same wry smirk from Jack’s returns to his face.

“You wanna know why I was so scared?”

“Pray tell.”

“Because I’ve never felt this way towards anyone.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“No,” Kuroo laughs, laying his head down in your lap, looking up into your eyes. “I’m serious. I used to purposely stay away from girls in high school. Same in college. Same all the way until you somehow wormed your way into my life. That’s why we wouldn’t have been friends.” You cock your head to the side.

“Why?” you ask, running your fingers through his hair.

Kuroo’s eyelids flutter shut. He inhales deeply before talking. “My parents are divorced. The years before the divorce were… very ugly.” 

(He spares you the details of the midnight arguments, the smashed plates, the holes in the walls. He spares you the details of how he only ever knew how to fall asleep with his head sandwiched between two pillows, how he hasn’t seen his sister in a decade, how he’ll curse and snap but never yell because he always feels like a child again around the noise. That’s for another time, if you’ll have any.) 

“I still remember all the fighting and yelling. For the longest time, that’s all I knew about marriage and relationships.”

“Did you think all relationships were like that? Fighting and yelling?” you ask.

“For a while, yeah. I’m still a little scared of that, to be honest. Ending up in a relationship where all you do is fight.” Kuroo sighs. “But that’s not the only thing. I thought I wouldn’t know how to love someone, growing up like that.” At that, your fingers pause in his hair.

“Wait,” you say, furrowing your brows. A wave of immense sadness (not for yourself, for him) washes over you. “You think you wouldn’t know how to love someone else?”

“Thought.” Kuroo cracks open his eyes and smiles up at you. “I’m in the process of changing my mind.”

[heli0s-writes]

crystalline*

A/N: Instead of attending to the rest of my WIPS, here’s 1.6k words of Bottom Bucky and Service Dom reader. Throatfucking. Erm. Cathartic crying. 

Warnings: Bucky working out trauma. Please stop reading if you are not 18+

brooklyn after dark masterlist

You teach him how to want things again.

His pieces from the past, the joys he used to have taken too soon— you tell him he can have it all back.

It started with food, predictably. No longer being tube-fed slurry, Bucky quickly embarked on discovering all the new flavors of the 21st century.

Chocolate alone was a month-long passion as he attempted to scrub out the standard issued combat rations haunting his tongue. Chalky cuts like cold pressed gravel— fuck that. The first time you broke off a square of unroasted, dark, sprinkled with Himalayan sea salt chocolate, Bucky’s head hit the back of the couch with a pathetic mewl and a million things rushed through his mind of all the ways he could keep feeling this good.

Sleep came next— something he thought he’d had enough of, but the difference between getting perma-frosted every decade and lying face down in whatever memory foam’s made out of is lifetimes apart.

Bubble baths. Streaming apps. Nice clothes.

Attention and affection. Kisses. Braids in his hair. Tickles for extra laughs. His ego’s in overdrive because he has half a thought about anything and you’re fulfilling it like his personal genie. You say he needs all the dopamine he can get and you’re gonna give it to him.

And you give it to him in spades.

Orgasms. Jesus fucking Christ, he’s spoiled rotten.

Morning sex, afternoon sex, sex before bed. Blindsided in hallways and under conference room tables. The compound pool’s been properly christened more than once, and if Tony ever found out just exactly how many of those precious luxury cars have seen the imprint of Bucky’s ass, he’d set them all on fire.

But, reconciliation comes for him eventually. Spend long enough feeling all good he figures it was about time he starts screwing it up. He turns greedy, he starts wanting for too much. His girl’s an insatiable little beast, but even beasts have limits.

-

Bucky went shy when he asked, stuttering about how it’s okay if you didn’t—if you weren’t—it’s kinda strange— but you’d put your hand over his and tilted his chin up.

“Bucky,” you said fondly, “Baby,” and then a sweet smile curled over your pretty pink lips like spun sugar, “I’d eat your ass like a five-course meal. I’ll let you fuck me on the moon. What is it, huh?”

He could’ve kissed your dirty mouth silly.

“I want you to use a toy—"

“We do all the time.”

“—on me.”

And that sweet candy pink smile turned red hot and wicked. No limit in sight.

-

You approach the bed like a fever dream and all the blood in Bucky’s body congregates south.

Nothing on but the 2-day-shipping-because-the-phone’s-a-genie-too leather harness sitting snugly on your hips and a grin. The heaviness between your thighs hangs like both an offering and a weapon.

He asked for it. He wanted it. Just—maybe, to start— can you be rough with him. Then, stuttering once more because he doesn’t know how to justify why. It doesn’t make any sense and it’s hard to say out loud that with all the things you let him have, that after nearly a century of being out of his own body, he… wants to give it away.

He’s messed up, baby. Sick down to his rotten core.

You only shushed him. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll rough you up real fucking good. No why’s necessary.

Fleshy weight brushes against your inner thigh, swinging idly from one side to the other. “This okay?”

“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, still dressed at the edge of the mattress, skin beginning to prickle, nerves taking a hard left into arousal. When your hand finds rough landing in his hair, he thinks he must be the luckiest bastard in the entire world.  

Bucky drops on his knees like dead weight, nearly tearing off his clothes, feeling the upsurge of heat in his cheeks and chest. His eyelids are fluttering, your face going fuzzy but he can still see that look of adoration you reserve for him.

He’s pondering if that old saying is true—if there can be too much of a good thing, if he’s become spoiled sick, or if he could overdose on pleasure when you start thumbing the edge of his mouth.

“Pay attention,” you say with a glimmer in your eyes. “Open.”

He’s tingling when you put two fingers in, moving around his tongue, scissoring them against his inner cheek. They explore for a while, bolder each passing second. He can tell you’re getting excited too, your chest heaving gradually, watching him with curious intent.

“You like this?” You ask, lip between your teeth, and Bucky nods, leaning further in, spit following the path of your hand down to his neck. You palm the cock like it’s always belonged to your body and he’s mesmerized at how it rises from your grip, moving over his face to rest on his cheek.

“It’s big, baby.” You warn, full on now. You stroke the outline of his jaw with it, leaving a burning path in its wake. “You sure?”

He quietly likes that you ask—honey-toned and patient, needing to hear it, knowing that he needs to hear it from himself. All those things he’d been made to say with his body and not with his mind.

Now he gets it back, as you said. Gets a part of himself back, too.

“Yes—ah—yes.”

Bucky’s words are slurred into your hand, but he’s begging with his eyes. Yes. I want it. Please let me. Please make me. Please fix me.

You replace your fingers, sluicing up the cock with his spit. Then, you fuck his mouth slow, feeding it to him inch by inch before dragging it away. Bucky’s lips are quivering for more, jaw slack, panting hoarsely. He feels overcome at how you stand over him, mesmerized by him, too.

“Yeah, honey,” you croon, and Bucky’s heart swells with pride. “You’re doing so well, pretty boy.”

He’s licking blindly and sucking between ragged gasps when he attempts to say your name, knowing full well he’ll never get the whole word out before you wedge back into him. And god, it’s hot. It’s dirty and filthy and so fucking sweet.

You grasp the base of his skull, keeping his head still and laying into his mouth rhythmically. The cockhead hits Bucky’s throat, pushing into the soft palate, reaching further. His eyes are rolling, whimpers catching where the toy ends, caught in the breath of air in his mouth.

“Take it, baby,” you command, and Bucky gags. One hand scrambles for your thigh, other clawing his own, pressing red crescents into the flesh. It hurts. It hurts good like it never did before and Bucky chokes it down, eyes squeezed shut now, tears prickling from the ducts and collecting at the corners.

“Oh, you’re so good,” and his body just keeps lighting up. “You good boy. You perfect, perfect boy.” And he’s nodding desperately, needy, gut coiled tight like a spring.

“So fucking dirty,” you hiss, pulling hard on his hair, “Look at you— leaking all over yourself.”

He is. He’s a goddamn mess, sticky lines of precome down his shaft and collecting at his base.

“Drooling all over my cock like this. You’re hungry for it, aren’t you?”

“Uhhngg— hnnng—” He moans weakly at the things you do to him and for him.

“That’s right, you are. Keep going, show me how much you want it.” Jesus, the way you make him feel— like he could be exactly who he is and never have to apologize for a goddamn thing. Broken and ruined but you’d still give him the whole fucking world.

The noises Bucky’s making are muffled and obscene as he fists himself, shuddering and pumping erratically. One more final drive from your hips and he’s bursting at the seams, shattering to pieces, coming with a strangled cry.

You don’t let up, taking his throat unrelentingly, watching him sob and fall apart. He’s going limp in your clutch, letting his eyes well up like pools, your smiling face so beautiful in the crystalline light.

If he’s sick, then you must be the fever he can’t sweat out. The fire burning through his bones until he’s nothing but smoldering bits of debris afterwards. Grains and soot of him floating in the steady flow of your faithful current.

When he’s made a perfect mess of himself, come-covered and quivering, you finally let him breathe again, pulling out wetly.

“There you go,” you say, kneeling to kiss his panting mouth, “Did that feel good?” 

Your lips are a cool balm on his swollen ones and Bucky hums a response, body still thrumming. “Yeah,” he sighs, sensitive like a wound, raw and open and tender. “Real— good.”

You rub his back and run your fingers through his hair, letting him rest in your arms. You wipe away the tears on his cheeks and over his trembling eyelids.

Gentle words tumble from your lips. Promises of love and of good memories to replace the bad ones. More kisses. More affection. More reclamation.

All those little granules of fractured time, you collect in the soft surrender of his mouth. Wet and salty, they fall together there, and Bucky feels himself clicking into place. Perfect and whole and treasured like an iridescent pearl.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

↑ Everyone @ Boris Johnson right now.

I am so annoyed that this is happening in a week with no News Quiz, no Now Show, no Mock the Week. The Last Leg doesn’t come back until next Friday, and God knows what things will look like by then. I can picture the Last Leg writers frantically writing jokes as the story unfolds, constantly having to scrap and redo them when things change. Late Night Mash doesn’t start again until the fall, and there’s no point in even guessing what they’ll have to talk about at that point.

This, more than anything else, might be what finally gets me to check out the post-Oliver Bugle. If they put an episode out tomorrow, I might have to listen to it just because it’s the only topical comedy happening this week, and if I can enjoy that one without constantly thinking, “no this is incorrect where is the trans-Atlantic Smurf man?”, it might make me decide to try the other ones too. And that reminds me, Last Week Tonight is also not coming back until the end of July. This is more than big enough so even that generally American-focused show would have to cover it, but it’s not happening either.

For the second time in a few weeks (the first being post-Roe v Wade), I have become a person who looks at Twitter, because I don’t want to wait for the next episodes of topical comedy shows to get released before I hear what these people have to say. I found some stuff, enjoyed it, but am already feeling how potentially lethally dopamine-inducing the quick hits on Twitter could be, so I shall be careful not to get drawn in too much. This is a temporary thing to only be employed on special occasions, like when an entire country rolls back women’s rights by very literal decades in one fell swoop, or when the British PM goes down in a blaze of fire and brimstone.

Frankie obviously has a bunch, but for some reason this is the one that made me laugh out loud:

And of course, there is one voice we can always count on. If the shitshow he was put through in the last couple of days caused mental health triggers, due to its similarity to another time when white people being mad at Nish Kumar somehow made the actual real news - which it genuinely might have done and that genuinely upsets me on his behalf - Nish Kumar is not letting it stop him from being all over this today.

This makes me even more glad I’m going to see his show at the end of July, even though I already saw it in May. Boris-based material didn’t make up too much of the show, but it definitely made up some of the show, and he’s going to have to rewrite that now. So I will not be seeing the exact same show again, and I’m looking forward to seeing how he updates it.

Is it weird that even when I went to sleep last night, with over 40 resignations and counting, I didn’t think this would happen? It’s sort of the same as how I never thought the Brexit referendum might pass until the moment it actually did, even though looking back, there were good reasons to believe it was a possibility. It was just such a huge change from the status quo, and I was used to the idea that the status quo does not change that much in one fucking day (oh God, what simpler times those were).

Now, the status quo is that people at high levels of power do unbelievably horrible, stupid, incompetent things, and never face consequences. And I just expected that to keep being the case. Not that this is some great example of power being held accountable. Boris Johnson got away with accomplishing pretty much everything he wanted to do, including many things that will be very difficult or impossible for future governments to fix (I almost left out the word “impossible” there, because anything can be overturned if you try hard enough for enough years, as we recently learned with the Roe v. Wade decision, but then I remembered that no amount of political or legislative will can bring back people who’ve died of COVID). And he’s only going to be replaced by someone who’s just as bad. But still, I really didn’t think this would actually work. I think I might be a little impressed with some of the worst people in the world. This doesn’t make them not the worst people anymore, but they did manage to do... something. I guess time will tell what the hell they actually did.

Anyway, hope everyone in the UK is having a good time. In the words of the great Zaltzman and Oliver, isn’t democracy fun?

[pollenat]

ITZY and A moment of sadness

➛ Trigger warning: angst. The concept resolves around the reader going through a depressive phase and the members’ reactions to it.

Dark and provoking. Somehow, the world feels worse than immortal killers from cult classics. It’s much more relentless in its pursuit after your peace and it’s not even trying.

You wonder, have you always felt this way, or was there a time when the world didn’t seem as bleak as it does at this moment. Everything looks fruitless. What’s the reason for passing days? What about the changing seasons? How does one go on with a reason? The world does nothing and yet chooses that form of an attack on you. It’s effective.

A knock resonates. Jumping in place, because you were drowning in pain, until the sound, like a rope, pulled you towards the surface, the real world of now, you welcome it with a little bit of hesitation. Who? What? Why? Like a sleepwalker, you walk towards hallway, slow, terrified, blue. The anxiety raises, and you wonder whether it’s not too late to turn back. Pretend you’re not home. After all, there is no emergency to take care of, is there?

The knocking resonates once again, a stark contrast to the silence and calmness of your small apartment. It feels dead although you’re the most living creature that could ever inhabit the four walls. Not even a fly to join you. Just you and the terrorizing knocking on the front door.

A breath in, a breath out. You’re not sure about opening the door even when your hand catches the locking mechanism. The crunch of turning metal travels through a crack in your chest, like water does through split glass. There’s a silhouette outside, one that you instantly recognize as...

YEJI

Though you’re sure she will start scolding you any second now, a sigh breaks through the plush of her lips.

“(y/n)-” accompanies a soft smile of comfort.

Yeji isn’t mad, though you think she should be. Any other person would be furious at you for avoiding them. But not Yeji. She understands and offers her presence. Always. So in the end - you’re at fault here. For making her worried, hurting her by avoiding contact and being so thoughtless towards someone who’s still by your side. No matter how many may have left you, Yeji would never do such thing. The thought makes your eyes burn. All you had to do was tell her.

She doesn’t wait for you to speak, or cry your eyes out. Yeji’s arms open and lock you in a tight embrace. As she clings onto you, you’re pushed deeper inside the hallway. The sound of closing front door is just a sound. Yeji smells of familiarity and promise that things will be fine. Eventually. Perhaps, with her around it may seem so. Once she’s gone, the spell will break and you’ll return to the spiral of self-pity. It’s a wonder she hasn’t grown tired of you already.

“I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” says Yeji. Her tightening embrace seems to be an answer to your similar motion.

Your fingers dig into the common material of her coat. It’s cold from the temperature outside. Her helix, leaning against the side of your head suffers the same fate. You were the reason she had to endure it - the cold. Guilt instantly fuels your imagination. You think of her frozen fingers, shaking teeth, teary eyes and itching skin - all of which you’re the reason for.

“Are you overthinking?” She waits a moment until, lying, you shake your head no. “Don’t ever think that I could be mad at you for being sad.”

Her statement is not just any reassurance. It’s her proving how much she cares about you. So much that she knows you’re on a self-guilt spree. Like always when feeling down.

“How-” You still want to ask, but the pain in your throat seems life-threatening.

Her hold weakens, so she can lean back and look at you properly. The avoidance of her gaze doesn’t discourage Yeji. As little as you want to show, her still smiling lips are pushing themselves into your view. Like magnets, they summon your eyes to appreciate the show. It doesn’t last long enough. She pouts, head nodding at somewhere behind you.

“Shh. I’ll make you something to drink, alright? I bought chocolate and other things. Chose the weirdest snacks I could find in the store-”

Yeji’s hands slip down your arms to lock on your fingers. You’re pulled along to kitchen, the usually irritating light of a lamp you hate, no longer as terrible. Frankly, it’s hard to pay attention to anything other than the young woman in front of you. Yeji is a bright star of good vibrations. Just a look at her and you’re feeling lighter, as if the sadness could be weighed and abandoned. You don’t need the chocolate-sized portion of dopamine. It won’t last, though you don’t plan on completely omitting it.

“Good thing I remembered to buy milk, right?” Yeji’s eyes almost close, unable to fight with her raising cheeks. “What would you do without my grocery shopping sense?”

She’s talkative, putting the day’s history into words. You’re listening, eager to catch onto every syllable, focus on something that’s worth your attention. Chocolates are small and last a single bite. But Yeji? She’s a lifetime of dopamine.

LIA

Before you can recognize the visitor, her hand lands on the door to push it farther. Jisoo has a solemn look on her face. She quickly passes you and closes the entrance, as if she was scared of something awaiting outside. The palms of her hands are flat against the door’s surface. Curtains of dark hair cover her profile, to keep you away from whatever her face may be painting.

You’re trapped in long minutes of uncomfortable silence, filled with thoughts of scary possibilities. Did you do something wrong? Maybe something happened to her? The reminder of many missed calls passes your mind, like an accusatory finger pointing at the main suspect. You want to ask her what’s going on, but words are too difficult to come by.

After what feels like forever, Jisoo turns to look at you. The solemnity falls, so a picture of worry can take its place. She looks as if guilt was chewing her ear off. As if she was the one with a string of bad choices following her.

“Sorry.” Her voice is small. “I was worried you’d- you’d close the door in my face.” A huff of disbelief follows. She seems amused by her own way of thinking.

Unsure how to tackle her behavior, you just nod in understanding. Lips feeling dry, you dare a look around the room you see on a daily basis. Just like you imagine yourself - it’s a picture of pure misery. Slightly embarrassed by the mess, you scramble to collect abandoned belongings. Otherwise Jisoo will surely scold you.

A jacket you had no strength to hide. Shoes you didn’t care for. A jumper you randomly abandoned. In the past they didn’t matter. Now, they’re an irritating distraction.

“What are you doing?” Jisoo catches the jumper’s sleeve.

“Cleaning.”

She clicks her tongue and pulls the material out of your hands. It’s neatly folded and placed on the nearest surface, so you’re no longer bothered by it. But the need to hide it in a closet raises in the place of irritation. You’re staring at the jumper, indifferent to Jisoo’s hard gaze.

“Seriously,” She steps in front of you, taking all of your sight for her. “don’t you think there are more important things than stress-cleaning?” Jisoo’s smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

Embarrassed, you attempt a sigh, but instead of frustration, it’s a sound of a broken heart. Distorted and miserable. Out of what exact reason? Who knows, because surely not you. One moment you were existing, the next one you were feeling guilty for breathing.

Jisoo’s right hand wipes your cheek, probably to get rid of a stray eyelash you haven’t noticed. It’s a kind reminder of the good things, you’d kill to get a hold of. To forget for a moment and focus on something else, other than your mental state. Like the jumper. You want to put it away. Out of sight, out of mind as they say.

“You ignored my texts, calls... Just a single word back would do.” Though you’re the one with dark clouds hanging over your head, Jisoo sounds like she’s in actual pain, all caused by your stubborn silence.

“I’m sorry. I just don- didn’t feel like talking to anyone.”

“And that’s fine. But always let me know you’re around, okay? No talking. Just a yes, or- I don’t know.”

Perhaps it’s the pressure of your terrified gaze. Perhaps the useless silence pushes her into action. Or, perhaps, it’s Jisoo’s own overpowering feelings that make her embrace your middle. She doesn’t look like someone who wants to let go and her tightening grip only proves the assumption. For the first time this eveing, her smile shines with honesty.

RYUJIN

She looks annoyed. The opening of your front door has her head falling back, a deep breath escaping, eyes closing. You watch her chin, somehow relieved it’s her, somehow more scared it’s her.

“I thought-”

Her raspy voice is terror-inducing. Under other circumstances, you’d love catching onto the rougher parts when she reaches the lows. But now? Now you’d rather tune it out so she doesn’t speak more, so she doesn’t get a chance to say something that may cut through your fragile shell.

“I was seriously worried.”

Without any other courses of action left to take, you open the door wider. It’s only polite to allow the guests in and you have no answer to her statement. But Ryujin doesn’t seem ready to step in, or even look at you. She’s facing the hallway’s wall, sorting out emotions that are a total mystery to you. There’s more to her state than serious worry.

“Why didn’t you answer the phone?” Her question isn’t a surprise. It’s a fact you want to push out of your awareness. Phones are scary. Answering questions is scary. Seeing irritated Ryujin is scary.

“Sorry-” You tell her, lost on words.

Her face finally turns towards you which you answer by looking down at your feet. You haven’t noticed how irritated the cold made your skin. White lines of drought cross your blueing skin tone. Toes drum against a dirty doormat.

“Just a text would be enough.” She says in a much softer tone. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Though eager to, you don’t allow yourself a look at Ryujin. Who knows how much more heart break you can accept, even if the previous reasons weren’t directly caused by you. Is your head you, or is it a different being? These days, it rarely seems to be an ally, more an enemy.

Steps are taken towards you. Ryujin’s heavy boots stand next to your naked feet. You want to step back and let her inside, but hands catch your cheeks before you can move away. Chin is lifted up. You’re staring at Ryujin and she’s staring back. Into your soul, someone could think. But the thing is, you’re aware she must know now. Her sudden softness is enough of a proof. You’re fragile and Ryujin knows how to deal with characters in your state.

“Did something happen?” She comes closer, so now her warmth is shielding you from a draft.

Hesitation holds you silent for few long seconds that Ryujin bravely faces.

“No.”

“So nothing happened?”

“Nothing happened.”

“So you’re sad?”

A bite on your lower lip answers her. Ryujin nods, dropping her eyes. She doesn’t speak for a longer time, until cold wind’s blowing makes you shudder. At that, a guilty smile crosses her fingers and without turning away, Ryujin kicks the door closed.

“We’ll have to do something about that then.”

CHAERYEONG

A picture of pure worry. Chaeryeong looks like a puppy that has done something wrong and now feels guilty. But she did nothing to feel guilty of. You’re sure of that. As always, the fault is all yours. Why would she even choose to care for you? Obviously - aside from the kindness of her heart. And now, in a spot right next to the uselessness, you’re struck with guilt.

She wants to say something, but decides to search your face before speaking. Lips close, then press into a thin line. Her eyes drop down before looking at you again. You’re not sure how to answer her unclearly asked question. There’s no clear explanation to your state.

All wordless, you take a step to the side, allowing her inside. Chaeryeong hesitates only for a moment. She’s such a natural view, you’re weirded out by her being frozen in place, unresponsive to your motion. An invisible switch has to be turned on for the pieces to match. Her steps inside are small, anxious. Remind you of her first time at your flat, back when things were alien. But they’re not anymore. Chaeryeong knows everything about the four walls you inhabit, from the most comfortable spot on your couch, to where you hide socks. She’s seen it all. Your gloomy days are where the blank territory rests. Best couch spot won’t help with that and Chaeryeong knows it.

After closing the front door, you turn around to catch her facing you. Dark eyes hang under wrinkles of a strained forehead. For a moment you forget yourself. Fingers, as if having their own mindset, reach forward to flatten her skin. It’s soft and warm, unlike the rooms you’re closed in.

“Don’t do that, or it will stay that way.” Chaeryeong’s frown deepens for a second, but she smiles. You do as well, though the corners of your lips ache.

Her hand doesn’t swat yours away, like it tends to do with a little bit of a joking undertone. Instead, it weakly grabs your wrist to invite you into a hold. Her bright smile doesn’t falter like yours. Chaeryeong’s face remains an anchor, the last reminder of good feelings you’ve once possessed.

“Can we watch a movie?” Her question takes you by surprise. It’s careful, but also so outside of the range of possible topics, you’re not sure whether to be glad or doubtful.

“I mean- Sure?” The smile widens, though it seemed impossible a moment before.

You’re pulled straight on the couch, with no possibility of standing up in sight. Chaeryeong’s hands circle around your arm, her body coming as close as possible, making you wonder whether she has applied glue in-between your sides.

“Next time,” The TV clicks. “just text me.”

Though you’re basically glued to one another, she doesn’t dare even a stray look in your direction. Chaeryeong’s eyes are focused on the screen. You know she’s not watching the random episode of Family Court.

“Text you what?”

“You know what!”

Your question seems to offend her somehow. One of Chaeryeong’s hands slaps your abdomen, but frown is quick to disappear as she lays a cheek on your arm. Only now you notice the warmth she emits, like a human-shaped heater. Comforting, inviting, overtaking. You cannot resist the magnetic pull. Skin rests on her velvet-like hair. Maybe next time you will find the courage to text her, so the smell of her strawberry shampoo fills your senses and pushes everything wrong out.

YUNA

“Ah, you really couldn’t be bothered to have phone on you? Seriously, who does this now? We’re living in the XXIst century!” Yuna babbles on, eyes staring at you, but not really. She’s so taken by the monologue, your state passes her judgement unnoticed. Knowing her, the speech was in the works her entire way to your apartment. “And to think you usually never let it go out of your hand! But today, you just had to ignore me? What am I to you?”

“Hm?” Her eyes widen, a sign you read as I didn’t meant that last sentence. It was the heat of the moment and, frankly, you don’t care about words today.

Yuna doesn’t continue her rant. Your passiveness is much more interesting to her than the personal feeling of anger. A little dumbfounded, she finally takes her eyes off of you to stare at your front door. She may be lost in thought, but you realize it’s not good to keep the guest waiting outside. Weakly, the door is pushed wide open. Your feet take you back to the couch you occupied earlier.

It takes her a moment to gather thoughts before you hear her stepping inside and closing the door. Then she struggles with the fabrics. You haven’t noticed her current choice of shoes, but you imagine her pulling boots off of her feet. Yuna sighs in discomfort. The noise isn’t meant to be loud. It’s the silent apartment that takes it on a run through every nook and cranny.

A stray pillow occupies your fingers. Yuna walks inside the living room. Her hesitancy is obvious. She may be quiet, but the atmosphere is screaming. Another material is pulled, probably a scarf. Feet pad against naked floor. She stands next to you, staring at where you’re tormenting the poor pillow, before she dares to sit down. Yuna is not good with these things. You know they make her uncomfortable. That’s why you avoided involving her in the first place.

“Are you-” She jumps a little at the volume of her own voice. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’ll be okay.” Then, so she doesn’t have to wonder, you add “Didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Well-” The paint comes off of the pillowcase’s zipper. “You should worry me with things. You know, when you’re feeling bad and all that- All that stuff.”

There’s an attempt at humor - a huff you don’t understand. Probably meant to portray her powerlessness. You’re aware there’s nothing Yuna hates more than the thought there’s nothing she can do. It’s an energy-consuming parasite that feeds on your anxiety and her inability. So the silence continues, stretched into long minutes. Every time she opens her mouth, nothing comes out of it. Every time you move a little, she jumps in her seat. As if your movement could hurt her.

“Really, you can go home. I’ll deal with- this.”

She doesn’t answer. Not initially After a moment of hesitation and analyzing your features, Yuna dares to scoot over, so your thighs are touching. The lack of sudden movement on your side gives her all the encouragement she needs. Arms are quick to embrace you. Their hold is tight, but maybe not tight enough. The thought isn’t voiced.

“But I don’t want to go home. I want to stay with you. Keep you company. I know I’m not that good with these things, but- I want to be better at it. So just tell me how can I help, or if you don’t want to talk, then I’m fine with not talking too!” Her passionate words land on the back of your neck in a series of rapid breaths. “Just- don’t push me away, alright?”

➛ pollenat’s list of headcanons

➛ pollenat’s list of shorts

➛ pollenat’s list of scenarios

[thekitteninlove]

I want to start with a disclaimer that applies to all my fanfics.

BDSM has always been seen in a bad light, and i want to clear some misunderstandings. Any impact play (spanking, whipping, etc) should always be consensual and never send you to the hospital or leave bruises. It is also highly recommended to only spank the thighs or butt because they have the most protective fat and muscle. You must understand that this is just a game, there's no 'beating' or anything like that and i don't want to encourage any sort of violence by this, which is why i'm saying this. It's hard to explain it. It's like in a movie when 2 people are fighting. To the observer it looks like they're harming each other, but irl they're just acting. It's just an act. The damage taken isn't anywhere as bad as it seems.

Want a scientific explanation? Here it is. When the butt, for example, is spanked it stimulates the skin’s nerve receptors and can trigger the release of feel-good endorphins and the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Okay, now, so i'm participating in the kinktober event, but i combined more kink prompts from @xxsycamore 's list. They are: temperature play, sensory deprivation and begging. From the dialogue list i did 25. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t stay awake anymore. Maybe after that too.” At first i planned to only do day 30, but then i thought that temperature play would go well with sensory deprivation, so i wrote this. This takes place in Oliver's route, which i did last year, so i don't remember too much from it. It's when they try to escape from the Magic Tower only for Dalim and the other disciples to stop them midway. This is what would've happened if Oliver and the MC hadn't been able to escape from them.

Characters: Dalim Tweedle, Oliver appears only at the beginning

Warning: smut, bondage, sensory deprivation, temperature play, begging

Title: Dalim's doll

I was at a crossroads. Either I could just run away or become Dalim’s doll to save Oliver. I didn’t want to abandon Oliver because that’d be an awful thing to do, but I didn’t want to become that disciple’s plaything either. I didn’t even know him. But I couldn’t see any other way around it. There was a large group of magic disciples clad in black robes right in front of me who were like a pack of wolves ready to attack at any given moment. There was no way I could defeat them all by myself, so I chose what I thought was the best option at that time.

“Alright. I agree to become your doll, Dalim” I could see Oliver’s eyes widen in shock, while Dalim seemed quite pleased by my decision. “On the condition that you won’t harm Oliver in any way” I added hastily to remind him of the promise he made. Oliver tried to put on a fight, but since it was daytime he didn’t have much strength because he was in his child form, so in the end he was taken away by the disciples. I was left alone with Dalim, who seemed to be their leader since they all obeyed his orders. While I followed him through the forest back to the tower I mulled over the decision that I made. I believed it was the best choice, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. Who knows what he had in store for me? I started to get nervous as I walked through the dimply lit hallways of the tower. I was worried that they might want to use me in their crazy experiments, so at this point I began to rethink my choices. But before I could come up with any escape plan, Dalim stopped in front of a door and said “Since I tend to stay here more than the other disciples I was given this room to use it for resting”. Once he opened the door he invited me in. It wasn’t too small, but it wasn’t big either. It looked just like a bedroom, with one double bed in the right corner of the room and a nightstand besides it. On the left side of the room there was a closet and some bookshelves. I think there was also a window, but any light coming from it was blocked by a large drape with the symbol of the tower on it, so the room was, just like the hallway, dimly lit by some magic crystals embedded in the wall.

“This will be your new room. I hope you like it” I heard him say.

As I turned to him to ask him about his plans he pulled his hood off and I gasped in surprise. I recognized him. He was the barkeeper I met at a pub in the Central Quarter. Relief flooded me as I realized I at least haven’t given myself to a complete stranger and that Dalim wasn’t as bad as he seemed to be.

“You shouldn’t drop your guard around me, princess. You don’t know me as well as you think you do” he warned me, but that didn’t convince me that he was the villain he pretended to be. To begin with, I’ve talked with some of the girls that knew him and all said only good things about him. The only bad things I’ve heard people say about him was that he was a whore who stole their partners away from them.

“You say that, but I’ve heard about how well you treat the ladies, so it’s kinda hard to believe you’re that bad” as soon as I said that a grin spread over his face.

“Oh, so you won’t believe me? Don’t say I didn’t warn you” he said as he drew near me. “Ever since I first saw you in my tavern I wanted to touch you, to feel how smooth your skin was under my hands” his heated look along with his words made me realize how much he wanted me. “But that man stopped me and I had to hold back” as he said that he slowly made his way behind my back. “I’ve waited so long for a chance to make a move on you without being interrupted” he put his hands around me from behind. “And now I finally got you where I wanted”. I heard him say that in a low voice right next to my ear, which sent a tingling sensation down my spine. “You’re my doll now, so I’m going to play with you to my heart’s content”

I saw him bring a blindfold to my face and tie it up around my eyes. “This should make things a bit more interesting” I heard his voice come from behind me. I let out a yelp of surprise when I felt him lift me up in his arms. “Relax, my lady. As long as you’re being a good girl and listen to me I won’t do anything bad to you”. I then felt something soft under me as he put me down on what was most likely the bed. He brought my hands over my head and bound them to the bed with what I think were a pair of fluffy handcuffs before I felt the bed shift a little as he sat down next to me.

“Why are you tying me up?” I was a bit tense since I didn’t know what was he planning to do to me.

“I just don’t want my doll moving around too much while I play with her” his reply was a bit too vague for my liking, but I decided to just wait and see what his plans with me were. He didn’t sound like he wanted to divulge too much.

As he began to unbutton my shirt I felt a mix of excitement and anxiety form within me. “My Lord said he wanted to play with you too” I heard him say all of a sudden, “but I don’t share my dolls, so I convinced him to find another toy” his words brought me some relief. I didn’t want to experience real torture. As if he knew what I was feeling he continued saying “So don’t worry, princess, I won’t let anyone else lay even a finger on you.” His face must’ve been quite close to my neck because I could feel him breathe on it. “You’re mine now” I heard him say before he pressed his lips against my neck, eliciting a soft sigh from me. Since I was blindfolded and couldn’t use one of my senses, the other senses were heightened, so every touch and kiss I felt on my body was more gratifying than usual and I soon started wanting more. I knew I wasn’t supposed to feel this way towards my enemy, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted him. So much. And he seemed to want me just as much because his hands were hungrily roaming my body, leaving a trail of warmth in their wake. “Ah, I finally got my hands on you, princess, and I won’t let you go.” His words were filled with desire. “I doubt you can even imagine how much I’ve been craving you all this time” He paused to place another kiss on my neck. “but I can give you a hint”. He pressed his hips against mine so I could feel how hard he was for me even through our clothes and I let out a sigh of pleasure as he began rubbing against me. Knowing that he desired me so much was quite arousing and being bound and unable to do anything but submit to him and let him do whatever his dirty mind came up with was even more arousing. I was enjoying this too much, but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling like this either.

The way he was touching me and his movements were driving me crazy. I was supposed to hate my enemy, yet here I was… craving him.

“I can tell that you’re enjoying this, my lady, but I still want you to say it. I want to hear you beg for it”

Dammit, I didn’t want him to know how much of an effect he had on me, but now that he knows… no, I won’t give him the satisfaction of hearing me beg. Why should i?

There was a moment of silence while he waited for me to say something, but when he realized that I wasn’t going to say anything he said in an almost amused voice “Hmm, so you don’t want to do that? Fine then, I can just play with you until you do”

Play!? But I’m in no mood for playing right now! Is what I wanted to say, but I knew he wouldn’t listen, so I kept silent

His hands kept sliding over my body, gradually warming me up. “Your skin is so soft, I can’t keep my hands off you” there was a brief pause before he added “Actually, I think you got too warm. I need to cool you off. Luckily, I have some cold water with some ice cubes in it nearby, so I’ll use that”

I felt him move on the bed to get the glass of water. I gasped when I felt a few drops of cold water land on my neck. “Uh-oh, was that too cold? I’ll warm you back up a bit then” I then felt something warm and wet on my neck as he ran his tongue on my cooled off skin, making me sigh contentedly. He kept playing with my senses like this for a while, pouring a few drops of cold water on me, then warming me with his mouth. Sometimes he’d blow some warm air on me to tease me before using his tongue to stir the fire within me. Once he got rid of my clothes I felt too exposed, so I wanted to cover myself with something, but since my hands were cuffed all I could do was close my legs

“Oh, you’re feeling bashful now, my lady?” I heard Dalim’s mischievous voice come from above me, while he managed to slip one hand between my legs and rub his fingers over my entrance. “But you’re so hot over here, don’t you want me to pour some cold water over this hot mess?”

The way he moved his hand over that spot was so arousing I unintentionally let out a moan.

“Come on, princess, I know you want to”. He used both of his hands to spread my legs and I didn’t put up much of a resistance. As soon as he did that I felt a few drops of cold liquid run down my pussy.

“If you’re a bad girl and don’t stay still I’ll have to use the rope to tie you up until you won’t be able to move even an inch, so you better stay like this” there was a warning tone in his voice that had a strange effect on me. Instead of making me afraid of him, it made me even more aroused.

After he poured some cold water on me, he pressed against that area what was most likely the tip of his cock, then he rubbed the length of it over it. “Do you feel how much I want you?” his voice was quite husky now. “I can hardly hold myself back from going all out on you, but I want to hear you beg for it”

He kept rubbing himself against me, stopping only to pour some cold water on my sweet spot before resuming what he was doing. I didn’t want to yield to him, but I was about to reach my limit and there was no way I could escape from this difficult situation I put myself in. His movements made me so hot and wet for him I couldn’t contain myself any longer and said “Ravish me already”. I made a sound of surprise when I felt a sting on my butt as he spanked me.

“That can’t even be called begging” he sounded slightly annoyed, but not too much. “I said beg”

Dammit, fine then.He made me crave him so much that I finally gave in to him and said “please fuck me. I need to feel you inside me”

“Yes, you finally said it” He seemed quite satisfied by this as he pushed himself inside me, eliciting a sound of delight from me. As he began moving I heard him say in a low voice “Oh, it feels so good… mmmh, I’m going to completely lose my control”

I could tell he was trying to control his movements, but after a while he lost it as he began going faster at an erratic pace. Seeing that his desire for me was so strong he’d lose control made me even more aroused. I hoped the others weren’t able to hear us, but with how loud I was moaning, I doubted that they couldn’t hear it. I don’t think he’s supposed to do such things in his workplace, but then again he’s in a high position, so maybe he tends to get off scot-free for doing such things.

Waves of delightful sensations coursed through me as he went all out on me and I tightly gripped the bed frame to which I was cuffed. His hands were on my hips making sure I was staying as still as possible. I couldn’t see anything since I had the blindfold on, so my mind was focused on the naughty things he was doing to me. The pleasure had been quickly building up inside me until it reached its peak intensity as I came under him.

After he calmed down a bit he took off my blindfold laid right next to me. Since I couldn’t move much because of the handcuffs I just turned my head towards him to see his beautiful dark grey eyes staring intently at me. We were still breathing hard after that passionate love making session and I was still trying to regain my composure.

Dalim broke the silence when he asked “Why did you sacrifice yourself to save that man? Is he that important to you?”

Sacrifice myself? Oh, he must be talking about how I offered myself to be his doll in exchange for Oliver’s safety. That man better thank me. “Well, he’s just a friend, but I just couldn’t bring myself to leave him there, in the hands of the bad guys. If something bad were to happen to him because I ran away it’d be partly my fault”

Dalim sounded a bit confused as he said “That can’t be. The blame would only fall on the ones who do the deed, not on anyone else”

“You’ve got a point, but… what I’d be thinking is ‘if only I’d stayed there and negotiated somehow then this wouldn’t have happened’. You know what I mean?”

“I guess. I still think you shouldn’t feel guilty about that though”

He didn’t seem to get it, but that didn’t matter. His hands were back on my body before he said “I can see you care about him more than I would like you to and it makes me jealous”

More than he’d like me to? What does he mean by that? I wondered, but I didn’t have time to think about the answer because my mind got distracted when he moved his hips back on mine.

“Ready for round two, my lady?”

“Huh? Already?”

He gave me a grin and said “You’re my doll now, remember? I’m going to use your body for my own pleasure just like I would with a sex doll. So I’m going to fuck you until you can’t stay awake anymore. Maybe after that too.”

He began moving again and all I could do was moan at how good he was making me feel. He kept doing naughty things to me for hours until it was time for him to report to his lord. Then he made sure I had everything I needed, which was quite thoughtful of him, before heading off to do his job. I was quite tired after all the things he did to me, so I quickly fell asleep after he left, feeling relieved that the deal I made with him didn’t turn out to be as bad as I thought it’d be.

[altheterrible]

This came up in my Facebook memories from 2008. Thought it would be fun to do it again almost 15 years later.

1) What should we call you?

Al the Terrible

2) Have you ever showered with someone?

not in any way that was remotely enjoyable.

3) Do you still talk to the person you fell hardest for?

Lol no

4) Are you a male or a female?

Female

5) Was last New Year's Eve enjoyable?

Not really. It was a struggle to stay up until midnight.

6) Are you high?

Unfortunately, no

7) McDonalds or KFC?

They offer totally different products. Generally I'll choose McDonald's though.

8) Burger King or Wendys?

Wendy's, I guess. They have better nuggets.

9) Target or Walmart?

Meijer, usually. I mean, I'm there all the time anyway.

10) What time is it?

2:13 AM

11) Would you ever become a vegetarian?

I hate vegetables, is the thing. So probably not.

12) What is your desktop picture?

SPACE!

13) Can you swim well?

Not at all. Having only one functioning lung makes swimming pretty hard for me, and dangerous to boot. I don't float very well.

14) Would you rather go to Tokyo or Paris?

Hard pass on both. Japan has serious issues with misogyny and France has issues with snobbery.

15) Do you have a guitar in your house?

Yes, a bright orange electric guitar. I also have a blue electric bass.

16) Are you listening to music right now?

Nope, might turn some on though.

17) Who else is in the room with you?

Sev the Cat is asleep on my rocking chair.

18) How long can you go without your phone?

Oh, roughly 32 seconds. I'm a dopamine addict.

19) Do you have any enemies?

None who are aware they're my enemies.

20) What last made you sad?

A billboard for a pet cremation service.

21) Is the person you last kissed younger than you?

He was 14 years old, small, with black fur, yellow eyes, and four legs.

22) Last person talked to on the phone and what did they say?

My doctor's office, I was trying to get them to call in a refill for a med.

23) What is your favorite commercial you've ever seen?

The one I've watched the most is probably the KISS Pepsi commercial. I was obsessed as a teenager.

24) Who last grabbed your ass?

Some drunk creep at work. Love working nights.

25) Do you eat raw cookie dough?

Shamelessly.

26) Don't you hate it when the radio ruins songs by over-playing?

My job plays like the same 25 songs over the PA, most of which I've never listened to voluntarily but nevertheless know all their words.

27) How do you eat oreos?

Generally I don't, but when I do I like to dip them in milk.

28) Are you cocky?

Lol no. I have no faith in my own abilities and will be the first person to express doubt about my capabilities.

29) Could you live without a computer?

I very rarely use an actual computer anymore, mostly I use my tablet.

30) At what age did you find out that Santa wasn't real?

Wait, he's not?

31) What do you do when you're sad?

Do things to make myself even more sad, to the point that it's ridiculous how dramatic I'm being, and I can laugh about it.

32) Who would you call first if you won the lottery?

my sister

33) Is anyone on your bad side now?

I don't have a bad side, I'm a friendly, happy, kind person 100% of the time.

34) What's the first thing you do when you wake up?

Take my morning meds.

35) Will you keep your last name when you get married?

I was thinking if I ever get married, I'll use the opportunity to choose a new last name. I'm a fan of MacKenna

36) Do you return your cart?

Sometimes. Sometimes I put it directly behind someone else's car to be a dick.

37) What brand are your pants/shorts right now?

I think I got them at Walmart, they're really ugly gray sweatpants

38) What irritates you most on the internet?

Videos that autoplay with sound. God, is there anything more awful?

39) Do you like sushi?

I've never had it, but I don't like it as a concept.

Gonna tag people who should do this because I think old fashioned surveys need to come back. @wardinpanties @severinw93 @lifewithchronicpain @theresnocureforcuriosity @westgateoh do it and tag 5 people!

[pebblysand]

of breakable clay [extended author's notes on chapter viii of castles]

oh my god. it’s out. jesus christ.

okay first off, before i dive into anything, i know i’ve already done this in the actual a/n but i would like to wholeheartedly thank @whiffingbooks over on discord for helping me with figuring out the structure of things fic. although i have to admit i did not, at all, do what i told you i would do, talking it out was massively helpful in figuring this one out, so thanks a million. secondly, i would like send all of my most sincere and affectionate thanks to @whizzfizz on here, who mother-of-god basically designed this entire chapter and listened to me rant, and rant, and rant about it for days on end without complaining. i’ll go into a bit more depth later on, but THANK YOU.

now, a few facts on this chapter before i dive further in:

wordcount: 19168. i legit would apologise for this but i promised i wouldn’t so i’m not going to. that’s growing up people. don’t apologise for yourselves haha.

soundtrack: so i’ve never mentioned this but each chapter kind of has a soundtrack? like a song that i listened to on loop while writing this. here, i would basically point you to the entire spotify of a band called barns courtney (there’s one album and a few eps), i basically listened to all of their songs on loop this past month. i feel like they have such a strong gryffindor energy, in the good, the bad and the ugly. this chapter is definitely sort of an ode to gryffindors so their music was a very big inspo. if i had to point you to one song, it would probably be dopamine.

favourite line: ‘I dig my fingernails into the inside of my palms and it feels like the blood that comes out is already boiling.’

what is this chapter about? now, that’s an easy one. survival.

okay, now, spoilers under the cut.

ugh. holy fucking shit. i’m actually at a stage right now where i strongly believe that no one on earth will want to read this because everyone probably hates me right now for the choices that i made, especially after i made you wait almost three months for this shit. i always feel like whatever i’ve put out was the hardest chapter to write so far but this one was really out there in terms of struggles - i’m really sorry it took so long, but here we are.

there are reasons, though. first, as i said in my may round up, i didn’t really start writing this until about a month ago, because a lot of things were happening in my life that i needed to take care of. i took exams (which i passed!!!!), my mum had a health emergency, ireland added france to their mandatory quarantine list (it has been removed as of yesterday thank. fucking. christ) and i started a new job. it was a lot.

anyway, this being said, when i did get to writing this chapter, as mentioned above in the thank-you section, i kind of first struggled with the structure of it. now, you will see this is a recurring theme this time around but for this, my instincts were telling me one thing, and my brain was saying something else.

basically, what came first here wasn’t the actual content of ginny’s letters (more on that, obviously, in a minute) but the ‘mood’ i wanted for the chapter. i wanted to recreate, both for harry and for the reader, this sort of idea of being completely immersed in a book or a story. like, you know the kind of mood where reality just kind of blends out, where you start reading something and just. cannot. stop. i don’t think he’s much a reader (at least not canonically) and so i wanted this to take him by surprise, for her to take over his life with her words. i explained in the previous a/n [link] i chose to have ginny’s war be told through letters (basically, i thought it would be the best way to narratively tell her story), and i really wanted harry to experience what she’d lived through almost first hand.

now, interestingly, my idea for how to do this originally was to have the letters sort of be interwoven into the events of 1999, throughout the next couple of chapters (meaning this one and chapter nine). i had this idea in my head of him living through ‘real life’ things but not being able to take his mind off her letters, with the letters also sort of echoing the events that were happening in 99, etc. having the two plot lines develop at once and meet in the middle, kind of.

and i tried to write that. for a long time. spoiler alert, it didn’t work. i think the reason is that every time i sat down with it, i felt like i was doing a disservice to both stories. i mean: 97/98 is important, but 99 also is, you know? and by taking the narrative in and out all the time, it was like you couldn’t concentrate on one thing. it was just very messy and didn’t have the intensity i was originally aiming for because it kept being dragged out of whatever was the main action at the time. i wanted harry to get sucked into the narrative, for her letters to take over his life, but in the end, the impression i just got was that the whole thing was confusing af. instead of deeply caring about both, i couldn’t bring myself to care either for ginny’s story, or for his.

also, i just kept hitting a wall: a wall called harry. basically, i knew that the next two chapters (i.e. eight and nine) would stretch from january 99 to june 99. and for the love of god, no matter how many times i turned it around in my head, there was - to me - no way that harry as we know him would just pace himself to read her letters throughout all those months. like, harry fucking potter isn’t the kind of guy who ‘paces’ himself. he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t sleep for a week to get through it all, you know? this is everything that he’s wanted to know since last may, he’s been desperately looking for answers up to this point, there is absolutely not way in hell that he’d wait it out nicely until june. it felt ooc to have him read the letters over a few months. and i just kept hitting that wall over and over. i considered, at one point, building him reading the letters into flashbacks but flashbacks of flashbacks were, again, quite messy, and i don’t think her letters would ever be something he’d volunteer to re-read, so. clearly, it wasn’t working.

then, i think on a random sunday a few weeks ago, i just went back to the drawing board and was like: okay, say we just write all of the letters and go from there, what would happen? by the end of the day, i’d written 12,000 words and that was that, really.

now, the second difficulty, once i’d decided that was…. what you all probably want me to talk about.

i know this is probably not what you want to hear but: i didn’t really plan this? like, i understand that a lot of people have sort of a headcanon about what happened to ginny in that year in hogwarts but i … don’t. like, as planned as this fic is (which it is, i know where i’m going, i promise) that was always a bit of a blank-space-tbd in my head. i think that this story, as hinny as it is, is mostly about harry. and while i knew what i wanted for harry from her telling her story (for him to get sucked in, for him to realise that his war wasn’t the only war in the world ‘cause he’s been bloody self-centered so far, for him to realise that his plan to protect her didn’t exactly work because it didn’t cater for who she is, etc.), i wasn’t really sure what that story was. i mean, i knew it was going to be bad and traumatic, obviously, but i didn’t know what would happen. and still, to me, what i wrote is a version of that year. it’s not really my headcanon (i still don’t really have one), and i definitely accept other versions, if that makes sense.

this being said, i obviously had thought about it a little. i remember writing chapter one with that line: ‘They have sex for the first time, that day – his first time and it feels like hers, too, but he wouldn’t dare ask, not anymore, anyways’ and thinking i wanted to leave the door open. to me, it was a door completely open: it could have indeed been her first time, or she could have seen someone else (consensually) during that year, or she could have been assaulted. i honestly didn’t know but yeah, that was always a possibility in the back of my head.

then, to tell you the truth, when i wrote the first version of this chapter (the 12,000 words i mentioned earlier), it wasn’t there. i sat down and decided that i wasn’t going to go there. firstly, because, while you probably don’t know this, i’ve written about sexual assault before. my previous long fic, children, in another fandom, dealt (in part) with that. and i didn’t want to be the-fic-writer-who-writes-about-sexual-assault. especially because trust me, there are people who are a lot more legitimate to talk about this than i am. i also didn’t feel like it was necessary to the story, i could do without it and still explain ginny’s early behaviour in the fic, explain her trauma, and have harry realise the things i talked about before. secondly, i’ll be honest: i know this isn’t what people in this fandom want to read. the hinny pairing is mostly about love and fluff (which i love, btw, don’t get me wrong) and i was like, ugh, i don’t want to face the angry comments. i’m writing this a/n the morning before posting so i admittedly don’t know what the reaction will be but i do anticipate a lot of annoyance with me. i knew that a lot of people wouldn’t like it if i went there, and it was just easier not to.

but then, as i started editing, there was a comment (and this, ladies and gentlemen, is a testament to how much your comments fucking matter, okay?). a comment that i remembered reading on the previous chapter and could not get out of my head, no matter how much i tried. well, hello, @whizzfizz. i’ll happily give credit where credit is due. it read:

This made me think of something you mentioned earlier in the fic (possibly Ch1) about Harry not being sure if he was Ginny’s first but that it felt like it. I wonder if this is something that is going to come up in her letters to him.

and, so, it turned. around and around in my head, and i couldn’t get it out. and i kept saying to myself: no, you’re not going there. no, you’re not going there. and then, one night, i caved. i was like, fuck, i need to know if this person really meant what i think they meant by this. and so we talked. a lot. and, i did a lot of thinking. about women. about wars. about violence against women as a an inevitable weapon of war. about ginny being harry’s girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend (more on that later), and what that would have meant in their world. and @whizzfizz, you said something that in the end really sold me. you said: ‘at this point, i don’t think it would be realistic for it not to have happened.’ and, that was that, really.

because i was right, initially. amycus/ginny (ugh, the idea of a pairing makes me throw up in my mouth a little but yeah, there it is) isn’t necessary to the story. but i believe it to be necessary to what this story is trying to show. the plot held well without it, no questions asked. 12,000 words of the da and their battles, of ginny’s rebellions. it was fine. but i think i wanted more than fine. to me (and i appreciate how fucking pretentious that is, please slap me in the face *eyeroll*), castles is more than its plot. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: this is about what is behind ‘all was well.’ it’s about trying to paint a realistic picture of their lives. and that includes the war. and realistically, as far as i’m concerned, knowing how humans fight their wars, knowing our history and the history of violence against women construed as a weapon in literally every conflict there ever was, there is no way that this didn’t happen. ginny says it herself: for us girls, it’s just the way wars are fought.

so, i did go there. and the whole fandom probably hates me for going there, but i sort of stand by it, i have to say. to be honest, on a sort of subconscious level, i kind of wonder: didn’t i always know i was going to go there? like, this fits perfectly into the plot to the point that i think it was probably in my head for much longer than i care to admit. now, i’m so, fucking excited to write next chapter because i finally get to write happy things, and hinny getting back together on rock solid foundations of openness and sharing, and trust, and i’m so, so glad. there are a couple of scenes in the next chapter that i’ve been working towards for months and i’m so, bloody excited to write them. everyone might hate me and i might just be writing this fic for myself now (lol), but again, i stand by the decisions i took. to me, it fits.

phew. okay, now that huge thing is out of the way and explained, here are a few more jumbled thoughts:

the more i think about it, the more i think that my reason for not wanting to be the-fic-writer-who-writes-about-sexual-assault is a bit ridic. children and castles, in that way, are so, so different. like, i appreciate the overlap between the silk fandom and the hp fandom is probably ridiculously small but if you’ve read both stories, they’re obviously very different. one thing that both stories centre on, though, is consent. and to me, that’s probably the most interesting element of ginny/amycus, and the most interesting element of writing characters within a restrictive pov, rather than an omniscient one. like, do i think ginny/amycus is rape? yes. 100%. do i think that ginny thinks it’s rape? that is a much more interesting question. she says it a number of times but i think to her, this is all about control. i think that because of what happened to her with tom, she’s someone who is terrified of losing control of her mind and of her own agency. so as not to lose that, she’s willing to do whatever it takes. it is a ‘you can control my body, but not my thoughts,’ sort of narrative. and, she never says it outright because i think psychologically she’s just not there yet, but tom is everywhere in these letters. and as her world just spirals out, she hangs onto the very few things that she can control: her relationship to harry, and her willingness to do what it takes for them to survive. she initiates the ‘relationship’ with amycus in an attempt to control her fate. later, as she explains to harry she feels a lot of guilt over what she did, and like a lot of sexual assault survivors, she thinks it was her responsibility. because i’m in harry’s head most of the time for this fic, i’m not sure i’ll ever really get to discuss that at length, but it’s definitely something that i wanted to show. another interesting question is: does harry think it’s rape? i think at that point in the fic, he doesn’t have the education, nor the vocabulary for that. i think instinctively (because he is someone who is very instinctive), he doesn’t blame her. if he blames anyone, it’s probably himself. he understands the necessity to do what you have to do to survive and thinks that no, no matter what she claims, that was not consented. that’s kind of what comes out in his annoyingly inarticulate letter to her at the end. beyond that, though, i think he’s a bit lost, just like she is.

on a mildly related note, there is something that i've been seeing a lot in the comments and that i feel like i should maybe address? namely: harry's reaction to ginny dating other people. i assume similar comments will be made about his reaction to ginny/alecto (meaning that he still decides to write to her, at the end of the chapter). i've seen a lot of people observe that he's much more 'chill' about it in castles than in canon. fair point but is he, though? like, he isn't happy about it in castles. and he's jealous as well. but he was never entitled in canon. he was jealous, yes, the chest monster and all that, but he never really did anything about it, and never really impeded on her right to see other people. now, this being said, i agree that in sixth year he might have thrown a tantrum, had she done what she did in castles, but that was sixth year. it was before the war. before he lost half a dozen people. before he had to adult bloody fucking quickly. this being said, i do think castles-Harry is more 'subdued,' i suppose, than canon harry. this is a choice i made early on, which to me is related to the fact that he kind of lost his 'voice' during the war. i mean, it took him six months of people talking shit behind his back to do a press interview to defend himself. i think with ginny, it's a lot of the same. he's a boy who blames himself a lot, and generally doesn't particularly think he deserves the people in his life. to me it's an evolution of his character within the the world of castles. i'm happy to agree to disagree on it, but to me it makes sense within the character evolution and the way the fic's gone, so to speak. now, obviously, he'll grow out of that in due course, but we're not quite there yet.

regarding their relationship, now, i have to say: one headcanon that i did have for this was her not outright telling everyone they’d broken up. i’m sorry, that plan was shit. i just don’t buy for a second that she would willingly have gone ahead with it, and i don’t buy for a second that tom wouldn’t have used her had he known they’d been together, ex girlfriend or not. plus, i think she needed something to hand onto, and that was her relationship with him. her letters. the belief that they would be together again. without it, i don’t think she’d have survived. and i think that summer after the war, they were totally on the same page, for different reasons. both of them kind of saw their relationship as the one thing that kept them afloat, the one good thing they had, partly also because they’d idealised it for so long. she says it as some point, it wasn’t a relationship, it was a lifeline (another sentence i came up with as a response to a comment, lol) and while that is toxic and was meant to crumble at some point, it was necessary for them, both during the war, and in the early days after it. i think her last letter to him is painstakingly correct on that one.

regarding canon, i know i’m bending a couple of things here, which i just wanted to quickly acknowledge: 1) i know jkr has said it’s teddy remus lupin. i just can’t believe, for a moment, that someone who hated himself as much as lupin did, canonically, would name his son after himself. naming his son after his best mate who died to young to become problematic though? i totally see it. so yeah, creative licence, it’s teddy james lupin in this house, lol. 2) when they meet neville in dh, he kind of hints that they’ve only just started to use the room of requirement a couple weeks ago. the text however, only says they’ve only been staying in it full time a couple of weeks ago. i needed them to have somewhere where to meet with the da and stuff, so i bent that a bit. it’s not strictly canon, but it’s also not not canon, if that makes sense.

on seamus blowing things up and talking about eight hundred years of oppression? full disclaimer, while i am french, i have been living in ireland for long enough to become eligible for citizenship in less than six months (yay!). i know some people have said that seamus is a bit of a cliche in the books/films and all (the only irish character keen on blowing things up, haha *eyeroll*), but i actually kind of love it? like, the whole thing about the cranberries and zombie at the start of the fic has been in my head for much longer than i care to admit. i love the idea that there’s this whole muggle war going on at the exact same time that no one ever talks about and actually, i find the idea of wizarding ireland v. muggle ireland and the whole political structure fascinating. like, is wizarding ireland an independent state? what’s the story there? i have a whole seamus fic in my head, partially on this topic, that i might or might not write one day.

lastly, i know this may sound a bit weird but i need to say it: once i’d figured out what and how i was writing it, i bloody loved writing this chapter. first stylistically, i really wanted to mimic the style of how i’d written the magazine article in chapter 5 (i.e. not writing out the whole thing but writing out in text the excerpts that harry focused on) and i love how that turned out. i think it was a good way to balance her words and his, kind of merging them into one, big narrative. second, as a writer, it was so fucking interesting to write someone who knows how to write, which believe it or not i’d never done before. additionally, i loved the challenge of editing this because it was like: i’ve got to edit this, but not too much? i was very careful about modifying and polishing too much of ginny’s speech in the letters because i obviously wanted it to sound like someone who was just writing as the words came to her, without polishing the words, the punctuation, etc. like i usually would. i wanted her to have quirks (she says ‘you know?’ a lot) and i played with her capitalisation and punctuation a bit too. i know these aren’t necessarily noticeable details but it was definitely something that i thought about and that was very fun and interesting to write, as a format.

wow, okay. this was LONG but i think i have everything i wanted to say. if you’ve read all of this (whyyyyy?), thanks so much for sticking around. if you’ve got any questions, anything i didn’t address, do let me know, anon or not, my ask box is open. now, i would love to say i’m going to chill or something, but the truth is that i have to a) actually do a last read through of the fic, lol and b) put it out. this is what i get for writing the a/n before finishing the damn thing, i guess. i’ll rest tomorrow, lol.

lastly, in terms of next chapter, realistically, i’d say eight to ten weeks. i have a full time job now and also, writing this was fucking exhausting and i need to take time out for a bit before coming back to it with a fresh mind. i will be writing other stuff though, i promise. i have a couple of prompts to get to (thanks!!!) and a couple of other ideas so i will probably be posting in the meantime, just not castles.

lots of love,

p.

[watchtower-feed]

Running Hot

Notes: I lied. I didn’t write at all yesterday because I watched a sports anime on running. That’s the origin story of this baby. Also, I needed a break from the angst and write something fun. Words: 1,611

     Waking up in the morning to go jogging on campus is one of the hardest things a student has to work through to build into a habit. But not you. Not when you have a six foot three beefcake acting as your carrot (and hopefully, stick).

     Every morning, at three in the morning, an hour you didn’t know existed until now, Damian Wayne leaves your co-ed dorm to jog around the campus. After he finishes his route through every trail, he heads straight for the varsity gym until his first class at ten.

     You’re not a stalker. You don’t know this because you deliberately sought it out. You came across this information by accident. It was one drunken night where your friends forgot about you and you forgot how to get back to your dorm. So you sat by the park bench in front of the varsity building.

     That was where you first saw him. Sweat lathered limbs that made his muscles shine even in the low light. Shorts short enough to see half his ass. No shirt. And eyes that can pierce through your soul like a real, actual bad boy. Not the leather-wearing kind that smokes their lungs to shit or breaks windowshields and then runs off before the cops arrive.

     No. This boy--- this man looks like he would wait for the cops and stare them down until they agree that yes, he had to do it.

     Once sober and once it’s time for a new dawn, you put on your running shoes (ones you only use when you go grocery shopping) and head out to maybe accidentally run into this perfect hunk. You’re surprised to find the door opening before you even touch it. You look up and right above your head, there’s a strong hand pushing it open.

     You stare at it and follow the tanned muscular limb with your gaze until your eyes meet with dark green eyes setting your skin ablaze. Suddenly, it’s too hot to breathe from your nose alone. You stare and only now realize that he’s crazy tall, close to a head taller than you.

     He’s looking back at you and raises an eyebrow at your stunned figure. You completely lose it. He looks like the bad guy your parents warn you about as teenagers but you go into his van anyway because his eyebrows alone promise the most amazing sex you’ll ever experience on this planet. Maybe even in the entire galaxy.

     “You’re in the way.”

     His voice fits his body perfectly and you wonder if God is a sexually frustrated woman. It’s low and deep, almost guttural, like an animal. Can’t be tamed. Defintely wild and dangerous.

     Like a mute, you keep staring at him and Damian Wayne isn’t known for his patience. He rolls his eyes and steps closer so his foot can hold the door open. Then he grabs hold of your waist, calloused hands and a firm grip, (oh how you wish you were wearing a sports bra or crop top), and lifts you outside, out of the way of the dormitory entrance.

     As soon as he put you down, you cover your face with your hands because you may not see it but you can definitely feel the red on your face. When you look, he’s already gone.

     The next morning, you’re wearing a sports bra and running shorts, and you’re already stretching outside at 2:30 am. You hear kinks and cracks every time you fold your limbs over the other and you wonder if you should do this regularly, at least to keep healthy.

     Finally, at 3:08 am, Damian walks through the doors. His eyes catches yours for a single second before he already breaks into a run. You almost trip as you try to keep up. You’re swearing to yourself as you try to keep up with him. His pace makes you wonder what ever happened to warmups? Or jogging? Why does he have to be running?

     You last 5 minutes before you stop and lose him. You’re wheezing like an asthmatic 6-year-old during his first PE class. “Fuck you, Damian Wayne,” you say out loud.

     The next day you’re already jogging. You take your chances and see if he follows the same path. By 3:11 am he runs past you and you speed up to keep up. You last 8 minutes this time, losing him again.

     You keep doing this every day and you keep asking yourself if you’re a stalker or a madman. Why are you doing this to get Damian Wayne’s attention? Why can’t you just ask him for his number like a normal college student? 

     But this has gone on for too long that you don’t feel like giving up. You just want to finish his whole lap around campus until he enters for the varsity gym. If you do that, if you can finally keep up, then maybe you’ll stop this. And maybe Damian Wayne will ask you out.

     Of course, it’s not easy to get on athlete’s level. Especially if you’re not even an amateur. So it takes you months. At least it’s not half a year, but months of running every single morning is still an insane amount of dedication to chase after a hunk whose eyes can make you cum in an instant. Or is it?

     You shake your head, dispelling such thoughts because the view in front of you is amazing. You’re staring at Damian Wayne’s bare back, chiseled to perfection and ruggedly adorned with long scars that could rival a bear hunter’s marks.

     Then you realize it’s past 4 am. You’re suddenly giddy with excitement and adrenaline because he’s about to head to the varsity gym.

     Suddenly, all happy chemicals in your body leave you as you watch him turn towards the campus border. You stand, breathing loud and annoyed, while watching Damian Wayne continue running on the road until he was out of sight.

     You skip the next day. You lay awake until it’s time for your first class and you go through the day just like any other, but more upset.

     “Gosh, Y/N. Why are you in such a pissy mood? Isn’t exercise supposed to give you happy hormones or something?”

     “It’s called dopamine, dumbass. I almost made it yesterday, okay? But then Damian Wayne decides to change his running route and goes off campus!”

     They chuckle, “You fucking stalker.”

     You hit your friend and pout, “I’m not. This information just came to me.”

     To your further annoyance, they laugh and tease you some more. One of them suddenly stops and stares at someone behind you, and quickly says, “Kind of like how Damian Wayne is coming to you. Right now, Y/N. Like now.” Your friend grabs your shoulders and turns you until you see him standing behind you in his full (and fully clothed) glory, along with some of his varsity friends beside him.

     He looks at you with his arms crossed and he raises one eyebrow. You suddenly ask the god of sexual frustration what you’ve done to anger her.

     “I didn’t see you running this morning.”

     “Oh,” you stammer dumbly because your jaws and mouth muscles have suddenly gone stiff. “Cramps?”

     His eyebrow goes down while the other shoots up. Dear god, he can do it with both of them!

     “Are you asking me?”

     “No! Did I? Did I ask you out?”

     Loud groans flood your table like a tsunami. While his friends snicker loudly.

     “No, I didn’t! Ugh--” you harshly rub your face, trying to wipe off the stupidity you woke up with this morning, “I meant to ask you out--” but it obviously didn’t work. “I’m going to stop talking now.”

     “Promise?” teased one of his friends who’s leaning in over Damian Wayne’s shoulder while holding his stomach, cramped from all the laughing.

     Damian Wayne pushes his face back effortlessly and turns to you with the same deadly serious expression he always seems to have. “So you didn’t run this morning because you were going to ask me out?”

     You sigh. Tired of the groans and chuckling, you decided to come clean. “I’ve been running with you, or more like running behind you, these past couples months because I… Ithinkyou’rehot?”

     He narrows his eyes and leans down, closer, “Telling or asking?”

     You stare at him and you can really see his features now. His protruding cheekbones. His prominent jawline. His annoyingly clear skin. His soft jet black hair. “Definitely telling,” you blurt out. “But I never caught up with you-- obviously-- so I thought-- maybe-- if I--” Goddammit finish an actual sentence before the hot guy leaves. “If I finished your run with you before you go to the gym then maybe I can ask you out.”

     You bite your lips as you eye Damian Wayne and wait for your doom. Your friends are crossing their fingers but definitely invested in such a scene.

     Damian gives this little sigh and a small tilt of his head, as if saying ‘is that all?’ 

     “Yesterday I ran with my brothers at Gotham park. Tomorrow, finish my run with me on campus.” He pauses to look at you, making sure you’re still keeping up because you’re just gaping at him. You nod. “I’ll skip morning practice. We’ll walk to this small diner in the city. My oldest brother calls it ‘a hole in the wall’ because they make all kinds of breakfast foods.”

     You’re still gaping but your mouth has definitely opened wider. Impatiently, Damian uses his rough hands to close it. “Nod if you agree.” You nod. “Good. See you tomorrow, Y/N.”

✧ Watchtower Masterlist ✧

[mylovelies-docx]

Kid Krow - Checkmate

Chapter 3!

I am also posting updates on my AO3 account if anyone prefers the other format!

Don’t forget to listen to the song here!

Chapter warnings: A little angsty, mentions of anxiety and medications.

Word count: 1.7k (a little shorter than the others)

*You let some things slip to Poe that you never meant to be said out loud.

You were trying to determine if having Zorii as your friend was better or worse in relation to Poe. On one hand, you loved her as if she were the sister you never had and knew that she was a decent person, if only a little morally ambiguous like the rest of you; on the other hand, you had no one to confide in about your feelings for Poe, since, you know, they were together and all.

Sure, you were friends with Zalos, Mille, and Arle, but they weren’t your friend friends. You weren’t close enough to them emotionally to spill your secrets. You all got along great, but you knew you would never be best friends with any of them.

You considered Kes Dameron a friend since he had known since you were young, but you could not go into the gritty details of your desire for Poe with him. Gross. He was the only father-figure you had ever known, so you weren’t going to ruin it by embarrassing yourself like that.

Poe...Poe had been your best - and only - friend for the last decade and a half until Zorii was added into the folds of your heart. You three got along great and used to do everything together. You still went out with them occasionally, but felt superfluous and a bit queasy watching them together. You would always enjoy their company, but when Poe started getting handsy and showering her with affections, you always made an excuse to run away.

You were getting quite good at running away.

______

“Hey, (Y/N)! Do you want to-”

“Nope, sorry! Zorii and I are havin’ a girls’ night.”

***

“Princess! Let’s go-”

“Can’t. I’m almost finished with this story!”

***

“Come see this musician with me-”

“Sorry, Poe. I need to scour the corrosion from the capacitors.”

***

“(Y/N), why don’t we-”

“I’m a little busy at the moment, Poe!”

***

“Princess, can we-”

“Look, Poe, I’m almost-”

“No, (Y/N)!” Poe exclaimed, stopping you as you were trying to run by him with a greased wrench in your hands.

You stopped to stare at him. You could only run away for so long until Poe caught up.

“You’ve been avoiding me for days now -- what gives? You didn’t even do this after-” Poe begins, but you cut him off before he could mention the incident.

“I know!” you interject, clutching the wrench tighter so that it wouldn’t slide through your fingers and land on your foot. Again. “I’ve just been a little busy lately. You know how badly this ship needs a tune up before our next run.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, but you also didn’t need to replace and re-grease every cog and gear in the galley. But you needed something to do that wasn’t pining over Poe, and this was the next best thing to finding a random person in a cantina.

“Yeah, I know. But you have always made time for me...At least, you used to.” Poe looked wounded, his eyes downturned and mouth in a straight line. You hated to see that look on his face, but what else was there to do? It was getting harder and harder to keep your promise as time went by.

You took a deep breath and tried to think of the best way to explain yourself. You couldn’t exactly tell him that you were failing spectacularly, despite how hard you were trying. Every time you were around each other, it got harder to breathe knowing how he felt about you.

Or, rather, didn’t feel about you.

But you weren't going to burden him again with your feelings, so you had to find an excuse that sounded half-way believable.

“I’ll always make time for you, Poe. I just… haven’t been feelin’ like myself these last few days.”

Which wasn’t a lie. Your mind had been a scrambling mess; unable to focus on anything for longer than a few moments sometimes, and then at others, so hyper focused that you couldn’t think of anything else. You had stopped taking your SSRIs a few days ago, and you were spiralling.

“Do you need help? What can I do?” Poe pried the wrench from your hands and placed it out of the way. He grabbed your upper arms and started massaging your tight muscles. He had done it so many times before that he knew just where to knead.

“Hmm…” you hummed in content and leaned your head onto his warm chest. “This is perfect, Poe,” you whimpered into him.

“Did you stop taking your meds again?” came his quiet voice.

You didn’t respond. That gave him the answer he needed.

“Sweetheart…” he chastised softly.

“I know. I just thought I’d try it again to see if I was gettin’ better,” you admitted. You had been feeling… not great, but alright lately, so you wanted to see if you could manage your anxiety on your own without the meds or Poe. You should have known that the middle of a crisis was not the time to stop cold.

“Come on,” Poe said, pulling away from you and grabbing your hands, “we’re going to bed. I know you don’t sleep when you’re like this.”

He was right that you hadn’t been sleeping, and you were absolutely exhausted now that he mentioned it. He tugged you along and you followed obediently, anticipating the warmth of Poe lying next to you for the first time since… that night.

You got to your quarters before remembering that you were covered in grease and sweat.

“Poe, I need to wash off,” you whined, turning around and trying to walk back into the hall towards the ‘fresher, regardless of how badly you wanted to lie down. Ever since Leena Issard’s comment all those years ago, you took every opportunity there was to get under water and wash yourself free of the smell you were convinced still clung to you.

Poe wouldn’t allow it, your entwined hands jerking you back into him. He had found your stash of sleep aids and placed one in your mouth, forcing you to dry swallow since you didn’t have a drink in your room.

“Not now, princess. You need to lie down,” Poe coaxed. He placed himself underneath the mountain of blankets on your cot, spreading out on his back and leaving a space for you to cuddle up with him. You sank down gratefully, your face in his neck and his strong arms around you, holding you close.

Maker, how you had missed this; missed this closeness and intimacy with Poe. You both had been spending so much time with other people -- he with Zorii, and you with anybody that wasn’t Poe -- that you had forgotten what it felt like to be in his arms.

Your breaths started to slow and your sore muscles were relaxing after days of tension. The excess adrenaline in your system was fading, replaced by the meds and dopamine that Poe was so good at making your brain produce.

“That’s it,” he cooed, running one hand over your head and smoothing down your frazzled hair.

You both stayed like that for quite a while. You felt peaceful, warmth suffusing from the top of your head and down to the tips of your toes. Being with Poe like this always made you feel good and was one of the main reasons you had fallen so hard for him.

“You know you could have come to me,” Poe whispered, one hand still in your hair and the other rubbing soothingly along your back.

You were in the hazy state between wakefulness and sleep where nothing was real, causing your mouth to open before your brain could realize what was about to come out.

“You did some damage, so I’m makin’ you pay,” you muttered into his chest, so close to falling asleep that consequences didn’t exist.

You felt him stiffen beneath your fingers, which were fisted tightly in his shirt. The action didn’t register fully in your mind, causing you to be unaware of just how badly you had messed up.

“What?”

“I’ve gotten tired of the games that you play. When you tell me you love me then you throw me away. It hurts. And I thought the others could help me forget you, but there’s no forgettin’ you, Poe.”

“(Y/N)...” Poe started to move out from underneath you, but you held on fast, refusing to let him put distance between you. “(Y/N), what are you saying? You know I wouldn’t do that.”

“You might not realize it, but I do. I do…” Your eyes were closed and it didn’t feel like you were present in your own body. It just felt so good to be like this with Poe.

Why didn’t he feel the same way?

“I’ve never said I loved you, (Y/N),” Poe whispered, desperate to understand what your clouded mind was trying to say.

“Nooo,” you slurred, “you’ve never said it verbally, but you’ve shown me. Like when we’re around the fires? And you’re holdin’ me? I feel it then.” You were grinning into him upon recalling those nights, unaware that he was watching you with something like horror coming over his face.

“Princess, I don’t know what to say,” Poe cried out softly. “I wouldn’t have done that if I had known.”

“Princess,” you echoed him, the rest of his statement lost to the circulated air of your quarters, “that’s another way you tell me you love me.”

“Maker, (Y/N), why didn’t you ever tell me?” Poe was barely breathing under you. He felt so trapped and was desperate to get away.

“Because I just wanted to pretend you loved me, too.”

Your hands had gone lax against his chest and your head lolled to the side. Poe took this opportunity to slide off of the cot and start pacing the room. You cried softly out to him, making pathetically weak grasping motions in his direction, but he didn’t return to you.

“I’m sorry, (Y/N),” he begged off, his hands fisting in his hair so hard he was liable to pull out chunks.

He paced the length of your room once more and hurried to the door, not even pausing to look back at you.

In the time it had taken for him to stand up and make his way out, you had fallen asleep, memories of this conversation already forgotten.

[clara-licht]

You’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me

You woke up in a familiar place with Marvel actors staying there. Or at least, you thought they were actors...

Pairing: The Avengers & Reader Genre: Platonic, general Word Count: 1.9k Note: This is an edited version from my old work in deviantart where the idea is you somehow met the Avengers, but you thought they were the actors instead. It’s been a while since I last wrote something so this was a nice refresher! I got a Peter Parker imagine in works right now, though.

When you opened your eyes, you instantly regretted it.

"Ugh!"

You shielded your eyes from the burning light. When your eyes finally adapted to the lightings, you took in your surroundings. You were in a familiar room. But you didn't think you've been there before. It just that you thought you knew this room. It was quiet, but not dead quiet. You kept looking around you in silence, until a voice startled you.

"Good morning, miss."

"Who's there?!" You immediately jumped out of the bed you'd been on.

"Please do not be alarmed. My name is FRIDAY, an Artificial Intelligence created by my boss, Anthony Stark."

Hearing this, you scoffed. FRIDAY? Anthony Stark? Okay, this was either a dream or someone was pulling prank on you. "Yeah, right. And I fell from the sky to SHIELD's Helicarrier, saved by Captain America, and was treated by Dr. Bruce Banner in Stark Tower. Or is it Avengers Tower?" You said sarcastically.

You got to admit; you loved Marvel. Even if you were pretty sure Endgame also ended your life as you knew it and you couldn't accept a lot of things that happened in that movie. Like Steve leaving Bucky for Peggy, who he knew already had a fulfilling life and children? Nonsense. Far From Home was also quite heartbreaking, seeing your favorite character, Peter Parker, going through a lot like that. You just re-watched it a few days ago and had a good cry about it. Or was it weeks ago? Or hours ago? Wait, why were your memories foggy? You couldn't remember what happened before you woke up in the room.

"Are you okay?"

It took a moment for you to regain your composure. "Yeah, I'm fine. So, care to explain what happened? You can't be the real FRIDAY. As much as how I wanted you to be, FRIDAY only exist in Marvel Universe. Where is this? How did I end up here? What happened? Who are you and what do you want?"

"One moment."

You raised an eyebrow. Now she intended to make you wait? Whoever that guy who pretended to be FRIDAY was, her voice could seriously pass as Kerry Condon's.

A sound of door sliding open made you turned around. And God did you not regret doing it.

"OH MY GOD. ROBERT DOWNEY JR?!"

"Who?" The vertically challenged man, who clearly was Robert Downey Jr. a.k.a Iron Man actor, frowned. Now you didn't care if it was a prank pulled by your friends. You got to meet Downey after all!

"Oh God, are you really?! What did I do to deserve meeting you?!" You started squealing.

"Hey, FRIDAY? Are you sure she's not mentally broken? She hit her head quite hard, didn't she?"

"Yes, boss. I ran full scan of her and right now the amount of dopamine in her brain is increasing- indicating that she's happy. Aside from that, I am 100% sure she is fine."

It was your turn to frown. "What? What scan?"

Downey chuckled and looked at you. "Follow me."

Slightly confused, you followed him.

❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊

"So… Mr. Downey?" You called.

"Who is this Downey that you keep speaking of?"

"You, of course!"

"Well," He lifted an eyebrow as he inched closer to you, "my name is Tony Stark. Feel free to call me Tony, not that name of someone I don't even know about. I've never met someone who don't know about me before."

You had to fight the urge to roll your eyes. "Well, Tony," You emphasized his name, "if you keep insisting on playing the whole Iron Man act, then I will play along."

"Play?" He mumbled, face now confused. But he decided to say nothing as the elevator dinged and you two exited the cramped lift. He led you to a spacious room. On your way, you looked around. Now you knew why it felt familiar. That place was designed close to the Avengers Compound in the movie. Whoever did this prank, they really outdid themselves.

"And here we are!"

"What took you so long, Tony?"

"Brother Anthony! I see that the lady has woken up!"

"Oh, she's awake."

"Hey, Cap! That girl you saved is awake!"

"She is?"

You gaped.

No.

Freaking.

Way.

"Now I'm sure I must be dreaming." You muttered.

"What was it, sunshine?" Downey, you mean Tony, asked with that annoying smile. "So! Let me introduce you to-"

"Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Elizabeth Olsen, Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Ty Simpkins and oh my god it's Tom Holland and Tom Hiddleston. Yes, I know their names, thank you very much." You mumbled under your breath. "

"Okay, dear lady who seems to know whoever name that you've mistaken us for, I will correct those names for you." Tony sighed. "Meet Thor and his brother Loki who finally decided to stop being a menace after almost dying in the hand of evil purple ball sack," he gestured to Hemsworth and Hiddleston.

"Those two scary assassins over there are Clint Barton, known as Hawkeye, and Natasha Romanoff, or Black Widow," then he pointed at Renner and Johansson.

"Wanda Maximoff, also known as Scarlett Witch." Olsen hesitantly waved at you.

"Capsicle, Steve Rogers, and practically-his-boyfriend, Bucky Barnes." Evans looked at Tony disapprovingly while Stan nodded politely at you. "Usually they got a third guy, Sam Wilson, with them, but he's currently visiting his family."

"And lastly, my interns, Peter Parker and Harley Keener. Vision and Banner are somewhere in this Compound."

You scoffed again. "This might be the best time to wake up. Okay, wake up!" You close your eyes and started shaking your head. "Wake up!"

"What are you doing?" Renner, or Clint, asked.

"Why can't I wake up?" You mumbled. You slapped yourself, hard. "OW! DAMN, THAT HURTS!" Your eyes widened.

"It… hurts? So this is not a dream?" Blinking a few times, realization dawned on you. "Oh, this must be a prank. Alright, you got me. What the hell happened to me earlier and who organized this prank?"

Tom Holland looked up and raised a hand, "I can answer that!"

"Nope, you just stay there quietly, Underoos. Take it away, Cap." Tony said, followed by Holland pouting.

What a cute guy. Wait, no, focus!

Evans stepped forward, "I believe I can answer that."

He started explaining that when Peter (nope, it's Tom Holland, it's got to be Holland) was running on the tracks outside, he saw something falling out from the sky at a rapid pace. That something turned out to be you, who were unconscious at the time. Alarmed, he caught you (no, that doesn't make sense, IF I was really falling that fast, he shouldn't be able to catch me that easily without any of us injured) and called for help. They brought you inside and got Doctor Helen Cho (again, that must be Claudia Kim or something) to check you and she cleared you out. Apparently Doctor Stephen Strange (seriously, they got Benedict Cumberbatch here too?!) came by earlier to check you as well and deemed you non-dangerous, so they let you stay in one of the rooms in the Compound until you wake up.

"Ha, nice story, Captain. Come on, be serious here for a second!" You shook your head, "The Avengers isn't real, okay? They're just fiction! A made-up story! As much as I would love for them to be real, they only exist in Marvel Universe and thank goodness Sony and Disney kinda made up and let Spider-Man stays in MCU because otherwise I won't know what to do! Besides, there's just no way someone could have super powers like-"

"You're scared," Olsen stated softly, "I understand. But I know you somehow feel comfortable standing here with us. You recognized us as someone that you knew, someone you actually trust. You… You somehow feel at ease and want to believe us, although your mind keeps telling you that you're dreaming and this is a prank by your best friend (f/n). You're not, this is not."

You took a step back. It suddenly seemed dangerous to be in that room and whatever ease you felt (yes, she was right, you did feel comfortable for some reason) left you immediately. "Okay… I don't know how know that, but clearly there must be something wrong here…"

"Something wrong indeed." Hiddleston sighed in his attractive British accent as he, who was supposed to be sitting on the couch beside Hemsworth, walked pass from behind you with a bottle of coke in his hand.

"I-I thought you were there!" You pointed at the couch.

"I was."

"Then how-"

"It's not hard to teleport, mortal."

"What-"

"Are you okay? You look pale." Renner, who you started to believe was the real Clint Barton, walked towards you.

"No! Stay where you are!"

"Miss-"

You slid down and sat on the floor, pounding head in your hands. "This is not real. It can't be. It can't be. It can't be…" You whispered over and over again in between your short breath. Your heart was racing and your whole body started shaking.

"Miss, take a deep breath-"

"SHUT IT!"                                                    

"Boss, the lady seems to be in distress and starting to show symptoms of panic attack."

"Shit. Hey, hey, come on, breathe slowly-"

"I'm sorry, is this the wrong time to come?"

A new voice made you turn around, only to see a weird person with red and green skin wearing a shiny cape coming in, followed by a big green figure.

"V-Vision?" You croaked out.

"Uh, yes. Do I know you?"

And that was the cue for you to pass out.

❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊❊

"You've gotta be kidding me."

"We're not."

"But there's just no way-"

"And there's just no way for you to come from a dimension where it seems so peaceful."

"It's not peaceful! War still happens!"

"Yes, but no outer space threat? Really?"

"It's just a fiction!"

"Well it's not. Look at Loki."

When you regained your consciousness, you were still surrounded by some the Avengers. The real Avengers. It made you accept the fact that it was not, indeed, a dream.

"So, I fell out from the sky," Peter nodded. "and this is the Avengers Compound." He nodded again. "You all have no idea what happened to me since Dr. Strange, Maximoff, Stark, Thor, and even Loki knows nothing." They nodded. "And I can't even remember what happened before it!"

"Hey, we'll found out about it." Vision said reassuringly.

"How do you know that I'm not evil?" You asked.

"He's worthy of Mjölnir, and he can see pass you. He knows." Thor said with a smile.

"Besides Strange said you're fine. Maximoff also doesn't feel any threat coming off from you, and Peter's tingle-" Tony stopped himself, "Uh, I mean, Peter is good at sensing bad people and he's fine."

"Are you sure you can help me regain my memory?" You asked, ignoring the little blunder. You must tell them what you knew later and asked about the timeline. Tony mentioned 'evil grape ball sack' which definitely meant Thanos, but he was alive, along with Natasha and Vision, so there must be something different.

"With all our might."

"How?"

"Well, let's start with you telling us your name."

"It's (y/n), (y/n) (l/n)."

[beyondconfessor]

Principle Decisions [11/24]

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Lilith/Zelda Spellman

Summary: It was nice to indulge, for a moment, that Lilith was honestly pleased to see her. That her fingers ran through Zelda’s hair because she wanted to feel her moan against her, that her hand slid around her waist and held her tight because she wanted to hold her. For a moment, Zelda could pretend that this was all real.

N.B.: Also posted on AO3. This is pure fantasy, please suspend your disbelief.

Zelda swallowed as she stood in front of the classroom. She’d been flat out since that morning. Given that her Saturday had been lost, she’d spent all of Sunday finishing off her marking and lesson planning until late into the evening hours. As such, she was exhausted.

She drew in a breath, feeling the caffeine run through her bloodstream as she lifted the marker to the whiteboard and wrote out the main dot points, discussing her thoughts as the class listened to her.

She couldn’t show weakness. Couldn’t allow them to see the exhaustion drifting over her. She needed to focus on the work and drive the points home.

She turned around, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over. Walking back to the pavilion. She used it to steady her and requested Melvin to answer the context of what she’d written on the board in three romantic languages and advise as to their similarities.

The head rush washed over her, and she felt her blood flow return as she listened to him stumble over her words, stuttering, but still managing to point out four out of the five things she was hoping for. She directed to Elspeth next, enquiring as to the missing part.

She couldn’t remember the rest of the class, feeling it blur across from her, but was thankful nonetheless when the class left, leaving her to slump in a seat, head dropping against the spine of the chair as she waited for the dizziness of the room to pass. Perhaps she needed to eat something more sustaining than a granola bar for breakfast-–and yet nausea had been ever-present of late.

She wanted to place it to menopause but knew better than to suggest that. The truth of the matter was that she was unwell, and despite seeing her gynaecologist recently, she’d been placing off seeing her general practitioner for some time, given that during her last visit, the doctor had lectured her about the long term effects of stress and smoking.

She didn’t need another lecture, and her smoking was reduced to two cigarettes now––hardly good for her, but better than her youth.

“Professor Spellman?” she looked up, blinking at the fluorescent lights before sitting up straight in the chair and turning to face the doorway. “Are you okay?” Prudence enquired.

“Quite fine,” she advised, grabbing her bag and standing up. As it was, she felt better after having sat down for a moment. Perhaps that’s what she needed. Maybe she could squeeze in a micro-nap on her lunch break.

“We were meant to meet a few minutes ago. If you prefer, we can do it here?”

Zelda sighed. Her office was only just down the hall. “No, best to be in there,” she advised. Zelda followed Prudence to her office before unlocking the door and setting her things inside.

Pulling out her laptop, she set up and watched a dozen new emails loaded, each one a student pleading for clarification or requesting a new time to meet her to discuss their course load. Sighing, she sorted the emails into different folders before looking up at Prudence, who already had her own workout.

“I graded the assignment for the first years of your language, but I’m afraid that I can’t do the religious studies. Your parameters made sense, but I don’t understand enough of the subject to mark them. I’m sorry.”

Zelda nodded, she’d expected as much, in fairness. “Thank you, Prudence. You’re doing far more than I would expect of a TA.”

“You’re still spreading yourself thin,” Prudence advised. “I know you’re going over everything I mark to make sure they’re fine and I don’t know if it’s because you don’t trust me, or––“

“I trust you,” Zelda advised, with a wave of her hand. “It’s not because of that, it’s because if I’m going to sign them off, I need to ensure that I agree. You do well, there’s hardly ever a bias, and nothing I’m concerned about. If you ever choose to follow the path of academics as a career, I assure you that I will be happy to provide you with a reference.”

Prudence’s expression softened then, a shade of red warming her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said, before drawing in a breath to steady herself, meeting Zelda’s eyes again. “But that’s still a massive workload for yourself. Is there’s nothing that Faustus can do?”

Zelda paused then, watching as the girl’s face scrambled as she realised her mistake, but outside of an awkward movement she made to tug at her sleeves, she did not attempt to correct herself, choosing instead to double-down on it––or perhaps hope that Zelda had missed it.

“Faustus?” Zelda inquired. “Are you on first names with Professor Blackwood?”

“I––we are,” she confirmed. “He’s…agreed to mentor me for one of the projects next year.”

Zelda’s expression sharpened. She wanted to ask then, flatly, if Prudence was having an affair. But then the question was, if Faustus were having an affair with his student, she’d be morally bound to advise Constance. The woman had only recently recovered from her previous breakdown, and as an affair in her marriage would likely only cause her to regress to how she was all those months ago when she couldn’t look after Leticia.

Zelda held her tongue. It wasn’t a problem for now, and so far all she had was guilty looks from Prudence. The girl could just be harbouring a one-sided crush herself. There was no reason to believe Faustus was doing anything wrong.

She continued to discuss things through with Prudence, agreeing to relent and allow her to create some structure for the first-year class lesson planning––providing herself with some relief to focus on other things. She’d still look it over, and likely change it as she needed to, but it would provide valuable skills to Prudence and allow a breather, even if it was only for two hours a week.

As it was, her eyes remained focus on the weekend, counting down the days. She was exhausted, and although she went to bed most nights feeling her eyes burn with the need to sleep, her brain kept her awake with worry, flicking through the work she needed to get done, emails she needed to respond to, essays she’d marked that she fearfully chewed the inside of her mouth over, wondering if she’d been too lenient or too harsh.

Lately, the only thing that allowed her any respite was a choice of three vibrators and a familiar fantasy.

Lilith and her at a crowded restaurant, where the woman was incessantly touching her as they conversed over the food, the woman’s eyes holding hers steady, advising that if she failed to respond the game would be over.

It was enough to drive her quickly to a dopamine high, allowing her to drift asleep where she would dream for a few hours before been awoken by panic, five minutes before her alarm was to go off. She slept enough to not fall asleep at work, and for everything else, there was caffeine.

When the weekend finally arrived, she allowed herself to sleep. There was still a hundred and one things to do, but Zelda allowed herself to turn off her alarm, ease the growing panic and sleep in a little bit longer. After all, she had a meeting on Sunday, and she didn’t want to turn up tired.

Zelda turned up early, stayed in her car until ten minutes to the agreed time, and then knocked on the door. Lilith bid her entrance and closed the door. “We’ll speak first,” Lilith said, and gestured to the kitchen. A neutral space.

Zelda sat down at the table as Lilith sat across from, smiling, her eyes bright as if she was delighted to see Zelda again.

A flicker of something sweet pulsated through Zelda’s heart before she steeled it. This was a professional discussion, not a date.

“I would like it if the impact play continues,” Zelda told her, wanting that to be clear. “I’ll be a better judge of myself and ensure it won’t happen again.”

“It will likely occur again,” Lilith said. “That’s not a poor reflection on yourself; it can be difficult to judge your own emotional needs. But…it might help if you know why you dissociated?”

Zelda bit her lip, and looked away, feeling as if her chest was tightening at the question.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Lilith coaxed. “But if you know why you disappeared at that moment, we can avoid it, or you can be mindful of what you were feeling so the next time it happens we know not to engage in it.”

“I…” she paused, remembering the feeling of the sting, of how much she’d wanted it to hurt. It’d hadn’t been about relief, it’d be about needing to be punished. At the time, a feeling had unsurfaced, knowing she wasn’t enough, couldn’t do enough and when it began to hurt, all she could focus on was that she’d deserved it. “I do,” she said.

“Do you feel that way today?”

Zelda blinked, feeling her eyes prick. “Somewhat, but nowhere near like I had before. I can handle it.”

“How about we play it safe. There are many other things we can do that can provide relief that doesn’t involve impact play,” Lilith said.

“So every time I’m feeling this way, we can’t engage in that?” Zelda asked. The words came out harsher than she intended, and she flushed, looking away. There was an incessant need underneath her skin, and the relief that the caning brought was wholly desired.

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Lilith advised. “When you’re in a healthy mindset, we can learn and touch on your limits and discuss in further detail. Impact play can be used to find relief in times like that, but I don’t feel comfortable doing that with you until I know what your limits are.”

Zelda nodded, swallowing thickly. “Fine,” she said. It was a no for today, but not a no forever. “Seems like a ploy to get more money out of me.”

“Ah yes, my super-secret spanking plan,” Lilith said, giving a patronising nod of her head. “Whatever will I do now that you know it?”

Zelda rolled her eyes. “So impact play is out of the question.”

“There are other comforts. We don’t have to have sex or even indulge in kink,” Lilith advised. “Some of my clients just want the aftercare as the entire session.”

Zelda thought of the feeling of being in the woman’s lap, her hand stroking her hair. Her chest ached for it, but to admit that was…painful. She hadn’t earned it. “No,” she said. “What about bondage?”

“With some clients, I’d be hesitant, but you’ve always responded well to it,” Lilith advised. “I don’t see an issue.”

Zelda exhaled, that was something at least.

“There’s also the domination side. I could order you around on your hands and knees.”

Zelda’s eyes drew to Lilith’s, a flutter returning low in her belly. “And do what?” she asked.

Lilith smirked. “One of my clients just cleans the house. But I’m sure there are other things I could have you do.”

“And what other things would that be?”

Lilith gave a small laugh, her expression shifting. “Anything you want.”

Anything she wanted, the options burned through her and Zelda found herself letting a thousand and one ideas roll through her mind. On her hands and knee, drawing her tongue over the woman’s sex, Lilith’s hand in her hair. Lilith fucking her. Being made to watch as Lilith masturbated…

Lilith rose to her feet, and Zelda followed. She watched as Lilith led her down the hall, a saunter in her step before she turned and gestured for Zelda to walk up the stairs.

Zelda paused, watching her, feeling anticipation bite through as she realised that all she wanted at that moment was Lilith. She wanted to kiss her.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Lilith asked.

Zelda’s eyes watched how her mouth formed the words before her eyes flicked to Lilith’s, a breath tugging as she almost considered crossing the line and just kissing her. God, she wanted to kiss her and feel her gasp and moan and––

Zelda found herself pressed against the nearest wall, and the woman’s mouth was on hers. It was hot and pressing. Zelda moaned, feeling her heart leap at the kiss as hands held her firm, pressing her tight against the wall.

And then her coat was being slid from her arms, tossed to the bannister of the stairs, as Lilith’s mouth continued to kiss hers with a fury. As if she’d longed to see her, touch her, kiss her. Just as she had longed for it.

It was nice to indulge, for a moment, that Lilith was honestly pleased to see her. That her fingers ran through Zelda’s hair because she wanted to feel her moan against her, that her hand slid around her waist and held her tight because she wanted to hold her. For a moment, Zelda could pretend that this was all real.

It should have frightened her how much she wanted it, but when Lilith’s mouth drew over her throat, it was hard to not ache at the idea that she could have this. She could find someone who wanted her like this.

But she didn’t want it with anyone else.

Zelda kicked her shoes off and allowed herself to be manoeuvred next to the stairs where Lilith drew back, teeth biting over her bottom lip as if to hide her grin.

“Hello darling,” she said, a hand coming up to cup her cheek. “Have you thought about what you want?”

“I have.”

“Good,” and then Lilith’s fingers were entwined with hers, tugging her up the stairs, into the bedroom, where the door shut and they could finally look at each other.

Here, it was easy to pretend, Zelda realised. She didn’t need to be a professor at the university or a guardian of two surly children. She didn’t need to be a matriarch to her family or a dozen other things that she was to other people.

She could just be Zelda.

“Tell me I get to ravish you,” Lilith said, and her hands were on Zelda’s waist, a wide smile on her mouth. “I’ve been dreaming of it.”

“Just dreaming?” Zelda asked.

“Ask me nicely, and I might even tell you all the other things I’ve been getting up to as well.”

Zelda hummed, watching the woman’s smile widen further. “I want what you offered the other day. I want to see you come undone.”

“Define undone?” Lilith said, her eyebrows arching as her thumbs drew circles on her waist, over the material of her dress. “Do you want to see me undressed?”

“Mm, yes.”

“Do you want to see…me on my knees?”

“I did enjoy that. I might like to see that again.”

Lilith bit her lip, nodding her head. And then she was leaning in close, her mouth near Zelda’s ear as she asked softly, “did you want to hear me call out your name.”

Zelda drew in a breath, biting back the moan in her throat. “Yes,” she answered, her voice low and purring.

Lilith leaned back and then smiled at her. “Now, there are two ways we can do this. You and I can have sex or…I really do what I promised the other day.”

“Which was what?” Zelda asked.

“That you let me tie you up and I’ll let you watch. I promise it will be quite the performance.”

Zelda felt a wanton tremble low in her belly. Under usual circumstances she wasn’t sure she’d be interested in watching a partner masturbate, but Lilith wasn’t just a partner. Lilith was…something else entirely, and the idea of being tied up, unable to do anything, helpless to watch as she squirmed in her bindings…

Well, she was certainly not against it in any capacity.

“And that will take up our entire time?” she asked sceptically.

“Oh no, there’ll be room for play afterwards. I’m sure you’ll be quite needy for some…relief.”

Zelda’s heart fluttered, a flush already brushing over her. “Well, then. How could I refuse such an offer?”

“How indeed.”

Lilith stepped around, behind Zelda and unzipped her dress, and then her mouth was on her neck and Zelda was feeling warm hands slide over her body as the dress was pushed to the ground.

She went to do the same for Lilith, only for the woman’s hands to catch her. “Oh no,” she said. “You have to keep your hands to yourself, that’s the only rule otherwise you’ll lose some privileges. Now, on the bed like a good girl.”

Zelda bit back a sardonic comment and turned, moving to sit down on the mattress, before shifting to the centre on the bed, where she sat back on her knees, hands in her lap as Lilith returned with lengths of black rope.

The ropes were knotted, and this time, Zelda watched at her ankles were bound to her thighs, which in turn were bound to her wrists, keeping them all nicely locked together. Lilith checked them, fingers running around the pressure points, before she began kissing down Zelda's body, across her throat as one hand slid over the cup of her bra and other slid between her legs.

Zelda moaned, feeling herself grow wet underneath Lilith’s deft fingers as the woman teased her to frustration before pulling away, apparently satisfied when Zelda began panting in her ear.

And then she stood up from the bed and Zelda watched as she moved to the end of the bed, in full view of her.

She undid the cuffs of her long-sleeve blouse, undoing the buttons before she slid it from her shoulders. Then she was unzipping her skirt and drawing that down her thighs. Zelda watched the material slide down, her eyes enchanted by the image of lingerie.

Like herself, Lilith apparently dressed to impress, there was a set of stockings and a garter belt as well, and Zelda watched as she under the claps of the garter belt one by one, before letting them hang.

And then Lilith’s hands were running through her hair as she stretched her body.

Zelda swallowed, drinking in the sight of the woman. It was the first time she’d had the pleasure of seeing her undressed, and if she was honest with herself, she was envious of the fact that it wasn’t her hands undressing her as she kissed over the bared skin.

Lilith’s foot lifted to the ottoman, and then she was sliding down the stockings, her eyes watching Zelda’s follow the movement before the silk was dropped to the ground. And then she did the same with the other leg. A languid movement, her body stretching with ease in flawless movements that had Zelda wondering if the woman did yoga––or had perhaps been a dancer.

Zelda waited, watching with interest as then Lilith returned to sitting on the bed before her, sitting on her knees as she watched Zelda squirmed.

She was close enough that had Zelda been unbound, she would have been able to reach out and touch her, and right now, that’s all Zelda wanted to do. She wanted to kiss her throat and clavicle, place her hands on the woman’s waist and drew down to the hips. She wanted to feel her thigh press between Lilith’s and feel the woman roll her hips over it as she sighed in her ear.

“Aren’t you just a picture,” Lilith said to her with a sharp smile.

“You look divine,” Zelda said, unabashed.  

Lilith’s smile widened, her nose crinkling with obvious delight before it softened again as she came to bite at her bottom lip. Her head tilted and Zelda drew in a breath, focusing her thoughts away from the softness growing inside of her.

“Are you ready?” Lilith asked.

“I am,” Zelda confirmed, watching Lilith’s chest rise and fall.

Lilith grinned, before she leant forward and pressed a soft kiss to Zelda’s mouth, and then she was sitting back on her knees.

Zelda watched at the strappy silk underwear was pushed down her thighs and then slid to her calves.

Zelda expected to watch the woman touch herself, sliding her hands over her body––which was an exciting concept on its own.

Which meant that she didn’t expect Lilith to straddle her thigh, and then moved to kiss her throat, purposefully drawing her body across Zelda’s bound body so there was very little Zelda could do but draw in a breath as she felt the woman’s sex slide over her thigh.

It was entirely more seductive than any lap dance she’d had before, given that she could feel Lilith’s naked body against her, entirely unable to do anything about it. And then Lilith’s mouth was pressed to her ear and Zelda could feel her hand sliding between them both.

Zelda swallowed, trying to calm her beating heart as Lilith’s mouth pressed over her neck, drawing down her throat as she made the smallest noises. Her hips rocked, sliding over Zelda’s thigh, and it was a performance in its own right, one that Zelda could look over Lilith’s should and see in the floor-length mirror in the corner of the room, but she didn’t want to watch.

It was too much when she could hear Lilith making small gasps as she touched herself, knuckles bumping against Zelda’s thighs.

“Lilith,” she whispered.

And the woman’s hand curled over her shoulder, as if to hold onto her for steadiness, her body rocking.

“Please.”

“Please what?” Lilith asked.

“Can I…” she paused, straining in the ropes. “May I please touch you?”

“No,” Lilith advised, her smile wicked as she gasped and Zelda could feel how wet she was, dragging along her thigh. Her fingers twitched, arms straining in the rope bindings and Lilith grabbed her chin with her other hand, holding it steady to look into her eyes. “Watch me, or I’ll get creative.”

Zelda swallowed, “Yes, my Queen.”

“I am your Queen, aren’t I?” she said, her face awash in rapture. “And you are mine today, aren’t you, Zelda.”

“Yes, my Queen.”

Lilith hummed, and Zelda watched her expression shift, head rolling back, body shifting forward. Zelda felt as if her throat would go dry. But every time she leant forward, Lilith was holding her back, laughing at her.

“Needy little thing.”

“Needy,” Zelda snapped, and then the woman’s nails were cutting in her jaw with warning and Zelda felt the need wash over her. She wanted her, needed her like she was oxygen. And all Zelda could think about was what it would be like to run her tongue over the bare throat and feel the woman moan.

“I knew you would get worked up by this. Are you sure you don’t want me to sit back and spread my legs wide for you? You could see how wet I am.”

“I can feel it.”

“And isn’t that much, much better?” Lilith asked and Zelda felt her knuckles purposefully drag against the seam of her underwear. The barest of touch was making her squirmed as the woman continued to fuck herself on her lap and there was nothing she could do to help her.

There was a hundred witty retorts she had that rose and fell as she felt the woman’s head duck to her shoulder. In the mirror, Zelda could see Lilith’s back muscles growing taught, her body shaking. There was a moan, muffled against her throat and Zelda’s breath shook with anticipation, catching in her lungs as she felt the speed increase.

“Zelda,” Lilith hummed into her ear and Zelda’s eyes closed, teeth biting over her bottom lip to prevent from crying out. She wanted her badly. Never before had she felt so much blood rushing into her sex, wetness pooling in her underwear, until she heard the woman’s name whispered like that in her ear.

She didn’t know if it was better or worse to have made this decision. She could be tongue deep in Lilith by now, have her mouth drawing out the same noises rather than this wet, messy feeling drawing over her thighs.

A wave of dizziness washed over her and Zelda’s eyes opened, looking up at the ceiling to focus as she drew a breath, once and then twice, as Lilith’s hand worked between her legs and her other came and curled over her shoulder, the grip trembling as she worked faster and faster.

There was only the soft sound of a panted breath and soft moans, and Zelda’s breath tightened, hoping she was close, because if this continued, she was surely going to combust. Her body burned to touch her, have her hand stroking between Lilith’s legs.

And then the hand tightened on her shoulder and Lilith’s body was taught and rocking. Her mouth was on Zelda’s and it was like everything came into focus. Zelda felt it like an electric shock shooting down her body as the woman moaned against her mouth, her kiss hard and furious.

She tugged at the bindings again, desperately trying to touch her, pressing against her as she rocked with the last convulsion.

And then it was over and Lilith’s body drew loose, her hand drawing away from between them to settle on her other shoulder wetly.

“Untie me,” Zelda said with as much dominance as she could muster with lust powering through her.

Lilith laughed, and then the ropes were tugged undone. Before they were even tossed away she was pinning Lilith to the bed, kissing her mouth and drawing down her body, hungrily, possessively wanting to claim what she couldn’t have.

Lilith’s laughter filled the room as she squirmed underneath her, before her legs wound around Zelda’s waist and she drew Zelda’s face back to hers, kissing her in short, fast bursts before she dropped back. “I thought you’d like that.”

“I hated it.”

“You loved it,” Lilith said, “I could feel it,” and as she said, it her hips rocked prominently, blue eyes flashing. Zelda felt the slickness drag against her body.

“It was cruel, needless torture I wouldn’t wish on another.”

“Is that so?”

“It is, we should do it again another day.” Zelda knew she would be dreaming about this moment. Imagining what it felt like to have Lilith’s body rocking over hers again and again.

Lilith smiled, drawing her fingers over Zelda’s faces softly, tenderly. And then her expression shifted to mischievous. Her hand snatched away and then suddenly Zelda was being kissed again. With teeth and tongue and sucking pressure that had her moaning––too distracted to realise until she felt her hand’s tugged together, that she was being bound again.

It was a simple binding, wrists bound together, but it was enough that in confusion, she slipped to her side and suddenly found Lilith sitting on her hips, pinning her to the mattress.

“Is that how you’re going to play?” Zelda asked.

“Mm. You were rather disobedient. I felt you trying to touch me despite my warning as to otherwise.”

“So now you’re going to punish me?”

Lilith gave a look, not advising either way to her plan, and before Zelda do so much as try to rock her hips, she had her hands above her head, as the woman drew her mouth down Zelda’s throat. “Stay still,” she said, and then Lilith was climbing off her.

Zelda frowns, lifting her head to watch as Lilith opened her wardrobe only for her to turn around and shoot her a dirty look. Obeying, she leant back down on the bed, anticipation prickling over her skin.

And then Lilith was returning and Zelda was biting her lip, eyes watching the ceiling as she felt the woman kneel on the bed before her, sliding in-between her legs.

“Do you know much about forced orgasms?” Lilith asked.

Zelda’s head dropped to look her, but whatever toy she had remained behind her back as she settled on her knees, in between Zelda’s legs.

Lilith’s eyes drew over her body, a long, deep breath puling into her lungs before she smiled, meeting Zelda’s eyes again. “It’s a favourite of mine.”

“For you or me?”

“For you. Think of it as…the other side to the coin.”

Zelda swallowed. “I know a bit of it, but I’ve never really had more than three or four orgasms in the same evening.”

“Mm, I’m sure you stopped your partner or partners when it became unbearable.”

“I…oh,” Zelda realised, she drew in a breath and watched as Lilith dropped a vibrator onto the bed.

“I’m very good,” she assured. “And it can be a lot of fun for both of us. I think it’s a safe way to test you limits, if you’d like to try it,” Lilith was looking at her almost shyly, though there was certainly a vested interest in it. She wanted to see her come undone, but it was more than that. This wasn’t about Lilith taking her to new heights, this was about pushing her limits in pleasure and discomfort and…

…well, Zelda couldn’t help but feel her heartbeat race. “Forced…orgasms?”

“Mm, I press play and we see how many times I can get you off before the battery dies.”

“Is there a record for this?”

“No challenge as such. I prefer to keep to personal bests of the victim,” she said, “And I would very much enjoy making you my victim. Safeword still withstanding.”

Zelda nodded.

“We don’t have to, however––“

“I want to,” Zelda assured, cutting her off. “I want to try it. If I don’t like it, I’ll just say music box.”

Lilith smiled, and there was a genuine warmth to it. As if she was both proud of her and pleased with her. It twisted in Zelda’s chest, a desperation fluttering as she realised that if Lilith smiled at her like that, she’d surely follow her to Hell.

“Good, now, let’s move you there with the pillows.” Zelda shifted, allowing Lilith to help her sit up and shift across to the pillows. The woman allowed her to adjust, propping up two more pillows behind her before she sat back and smiled at her.

And then Lilith was moving between her legs again, her hands drawing over Zelda’s legs.

Zelda’s hips lifted as her underwear was removed, and then Lilith’s mouth was warm, kissing against her knee, setting her chin atop of it lazily, and Zelda watched that blue eyes follow her as she drew her fingers over Zelda’s sex. It was a warm coaxing and Zelda bit her lip, keeping her eyes steady as Lilith drew over the labia, stroking gently.

It was enough to make her limbs shake, and then, apparently satisfied with her reaction, Lilith picked up the vibrator and Zelda held her breath.

“What’s your safe word, Zelda?”

“Music box.”

“Good girl.” The vibrator hummed, its battery quiet as it set against her. Lilith's eyes held hers, watching at Zelda drew in a breath, feeling it hum over her. Never had such a thing felt so intimate, but as Lilith’s other hand came to slide over her thigh, Zelda felt the tension coil inside of her, heels digging into the blankets.

It came slow and steady, shivering from her. It was different from how Lilith’s fingers felt and different from when she masturbated alone. The orgasm spun from her and Zelda breathed through it once, twice, her eyes fluttering and then returning to Lilith.

The vibrator went stronger and without even feeling the first one finish, the second shook through her, harder as she clenched around nothing.

Lilith smiled at her and Zelda felt her heart pound as she leant forward. The woman kissed her and then Zelda was moaning as she felt the vibrator kicked up a notch.

Zelda hissed, feeling it roll over her clit to the other side and back. “You’re doing well,” Lilith coaxed as she drew back. “Two in two minutes, I’m impressed.”

Zelda swallowed, it was intense, far more than she expected. Her thighs shook as she squeezed, heels digging, hands clenching in their bindings. “Jesus in Heaven,” she spat, eyes squeezing shut.

“Three, good girl.”

There her hips tried to pull away, the intensity too much, but Lilith’s hand was firm of her leg, holding her in place as she manoeuvred the vibrator over her clit. It was intense, her clit’s sensitivity was too much, and Zelda strangled a breath, holding back as she felt her body shake, muscles clenching again.

“Lilith, I can’t…” she whined.

“You can,” she coaxed, and as it to prove her point, she slid her other hand from her thigh and stroked over the labia, around and down and then was sliding inside of her where Zelda was wet and wanton, wanting to be filled.

“God,” Zelda hissed and her heels dug in and Lilith's fingers slid prominently, curling against a spot.  

It almost hurt, it was hurting with the intensity, but it was good. She could feel her walls clenching around Lilith’s fingers, squeezing as she was coaxed higher and higher again and then she was crying out, sobbing.

“No more,” she pled, trying to move her hips away, but again, Lilith held her firm, her eyes holding hers, a smile on her lips.

“One more,” Lilith said to her, “You can do it.”

Zelda bit her lip. Her back ached, her stomach muscles ached from all of the squeezings, and there was a rush of noise in her ears. She thought about disagreeing, but the way Lilith was looking at her––utterly please and surprised, fingers stroking inside of her…

Zelda bit her lip, head bowing. One more, she nodded in agreement.

The vibrator moved, rolling up and over and directly onto her clit and Zelda hissed, pulling back away, feeling the ropes pinch on her wrists. She squeezed, a cry whimpering from her and then felt Lilith’s fingers curling, sliding, drawing.

It was Heaven and Hell. She didn’t want it to stop, and yet she couldn’t do it, could feel the climax.

It was too much.

Her heart pounded, heavy and hard in her chest and ears. And then her body was convulsing and Zelda saw stars as she was fucked through to the orgasm.

“Music,” she whimpered.

The vibrator clicked off, Lilith’s fingers slid out from her and then she felt the tug of ropes being undone before Lilith was dragging her close.

Zelda whimpered, feeling her clit throb in a way she didn’t know was possible. She ached, her whole body ached from the however many orgasms she had in a span of however long, but as she was pulled to Lilith’s chest, the woman’s hand drawing through her hair, Zelda couldn’t find herself upset.

She could feel the tears that were drying on her face, and yet despite all of that, there was a hunger in chest as Lilith pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You did well, I’m impressed.”

Zelda shivered, a smile tugging at she allowed her to relax for a moment. There was nothing sweeter than the touch, and despite how much Zelda’s sex felt swollen and raw, a part of her wanted to ask for it again.

“Four orgasms.”

“Five,” Lilith corrected. “Though not all are equal,” she teased.

Zelda sighed, feeling the fingers draw through her hair. She was tired now, utterly exhausted and a part of her wanted to fall asleep like this, with the woman’s fingers running through her hair. But she couldn’t, there were things to do, essays to mark, results to put up.

“Come with me,” Lilith tugged, and then Zelda was finding herself gently being lead to stand, before Lilith was taking her out of the bedroom, into the bathroom, where the remainder of her clothes were removed, before Lilith guided her into the shower stall.

The water was hot and Zelda sighed as it drew over her skin, feeling Lilith slide in behind her. She felt like she was in a haze, barely acknowledging as soap and water were drawn over her skin by Lilith’s hands. There was a soothing nature to it, feeling her hands draw over her shoulders, down her back and legs.

And then Lilith was turning her around to face her.

She wanted to kiss her, but Lilith’s was focused on lathering her arms, then her chest and her belly. And then it was all being rinsed off.

Zelda took the soap from Lilith’s hand, and did the same to her. Washing over her shoulders, down her arms and across her chest and belly, over her back and down her legs. It didn’t feel sexual, she expected it to, to find herself aroused by the process, but instead, she just found herself looking at Lilith and feeling herself soften.

All of the tension had left her, and there was only dizziness that remained as she set the soap aside. For a moment, they stayed there in the water, their eyes watching each other and Zelda almost leant forward, her hand going to cup Lilith’s face, before she watched as Lilith shut off the water.

It was over.

As Lilith wrapped her in a towel, Zelda couldn’t help but ask, “Do you treat all of your clients like this?”

“Only the ones I like,” she said as she took a towel for herself and led Zelda back to the bedroom.

Lilith pulled out a dressing gown from the chest of drawers, sliding it on and tying it at the waist as Zelda dressed again, placing on her bra, garter belt and stockings before her slip and dress. She paused, watching as Lilith drew out of the room, her hand drawing through her hair to pull it back from her face as she smiled at Zelda.

Zelda paused, feeling the smile flutter inside of her before she turned away, moving to the mirror to fix her hair and place heels on.

She felt lightheaded, and if she had just rolled through five orgasms, she’d be suspicious. As it was, she ignored the feeling and made her way downstairs to where her coat and handbag were, before she went to the kitchen.

She rolled her shoulders, feeling tightness in them as she watched as Lilith set the tea down on the table.

“Feel better?” Lilith asked of her.

“I do,” she said. “Lately this has been the only time I get to spend without worrying about work or family.”

Lilith nodded, “That’s how I got into all of this,” she advised. “It seemed to be the only place where everything else disappeared and my thoughts turned singular.”

“I appreciate everything that you’ve done.”

At that, Lilith’s eyebrows rose. “Is that so?”

Zelda hummed, and then she reached into her bag to pull out her wallet.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Lilith said. “Today fulfilled my fantasies as much as yours, it wouldn’t be fair to take your money.”

Zelda frowned, “I did ask for this,” she pointed out.

Lilith shook her head, “No, I enjoyed myself too much. It’d feel like double-dipping.”

Zelda stepped forward, going to comment, but as she did, a wave of dizziness overtook her and before she could even make the extra step towards the chair, she was…

…

…what was she doing?

________________

[captainscanadian]

Reputation | Bucky Barnes x Reader (Part 1)

My Masterlist

Summary: Freshman year was all about the failed friendships. Sophomore year was all about the lack of a social life. Junior year was supposed to be about focusing on school, until Bucky Barnes came along.

Word Count: 3245

Pairing: College!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: SMUT (18+), FUCKBOI BUCKY, MINORS FUCK OFF!

A/N: Reputation, as a title, was heavily inspired by Taylor Swift’s iconic album of the same name. This is my entry for @buckysmischief​‘s 1K Writing Challenge. I know I’m a few days late but I started a fic with smut in the first chapter so... it took some time to perfect it. I’d like to thank my boo @baezen​ for being a good beta and for the constant love. Lastly, the reason why this whole fic (and my blog itself) exists in the first place was because I was reading @i-am-a-closet-fanfic-fiend​‘s College AUs and wanted to write one of my own. It’s been 11 months since then and I finally did it. This fic is an unofficial AU of my own fic, Better, but you don’t have to have read it to read this fic. Same characters, but they meet in a completely different time of their lives, under completely different circumstances. Better!Bucky is back, but he’s at NYU now. I DON’T OWN THE GIF & I DON’T DO TAGLISTS.

Whoever made the claim that college was the place where one would meet their lifelong friends was most definitely the biggest moron on this planet. You firmly believed that when you first arrived at NYU two years ago. Leaving your small town just outside of Philadelphia for the Big Apple, you had so many hopes and dreams when you got here. Education was your priority, but you had been so eager to meet new people and try new things just as much. After all, it’s all anyone who knew had told you. College is the place where you would meet your lifelong friends. 

Bullshit. It was all bullshit. 

Freshman year was all about newfound friendships. New kids huddled together in an unfamiliar environment, leaning on each other because being on your own for the first time in your lives was not easy. It was inevitable. It was human nature. A new environment meant the search for a sense of belonging. You had found that for yourself too.

A large group of friends, all ten of you being freshmen, you would claim one of the large round tables in the dining hall after your late afternoon biology lab. You ate, you talked, and you walked back to your dorms together. It became a ritual. But expecting that this kind of ritual would last until the end of your undergrad was a naive judgement to make.

By the end of that year, half of your friends had managed to switch to a different program and found another group of people to hang out with. The ones that remained in your group had managed to join their preferred extra-curricular activities and made more friends who shared the same interests. While you did manage to find the time to volunteer with the UNICEF chapter on campus, you hadn’t managed to make any close friends from that.

Sophomore year was to be the loneliest of years. The one friend you thought you would have for life had managed to ditch you for her sorority sisters – not that you had a problem with that. Your friendship had been hanging on a loose thread for a while before it came to a rather abrupt end. People grew up within the first two years of college, and people who grew up also grew apart from each other. It was inevitable. Margaret Sykes was also a complete fucking moron as she was, but that’s a story for another time.

Now in your junior year, you were starting to get back into the swing of things. After landing an on-campus job as an office assistant, you were hoping to keep yourself busy with your full-time course load. No time for fake friends, or real ones at that. You were finally moving on with your life, leaving behind those who had left you behind for good. After all, college was also supposed to be the best time of your life even without those lifelong friends. You might as well make the most out of the experience and build yourself a career.

It was the weekend before classes were to begin, and you found yourself sitting alone in the dining hall with a slice of pizza that was now getting cold. Having picked up your textbooks from the campus bookstore earlier that day, you decided to grab a bite before you would retreat to your dorm room for the remainder of the night. Perhaps you could get a head start on your readings.

Your lack of a social life seemed to be a blessing when it came to how you had planned ahead for the semester. When you weren’t working or volunteering, you would be studying and sleeping. One thing you had learned the hard way from your years of pulling all nighters – they did not work for you as they did to most people.  Micro-planning might just be the way to survive the next two years.

From the corner of your eyes, you could see a large group of friends sitting at the same table you used to sit at during your freshman year. You could not help but roll your eyes, an exasperated sigh escaped your lips. Naive freshmen, you assumed they were. They’d learn the harsh truth in the next few months.

You took a bite of your pizza slice as you looked out the window that you had been sitting by. The breathtaking view of Washington Square Park reminded you of your first day in New York when you had stepped out of your dorm room to take a stroll. The summery weather of New York City had brought students, tourists and locals alike to the heart of campus. You loved this city and campus for how lively it was – a true multicultural land of opportunity.

New York had become home to you in the last two years, despite the dull memories of lost friendships. Moving to New York had been the right thing to do for your education. NYU really was the place for students to be. You had no concerns about the academics here as you did the social aspects of your life. But you wondered if you really wanted to stay in the city after graduation. You had no reason to stay, no one to hold you down in the Big Apple. Moving back to your parents’ house in Philadelphia was an option for you. Your father had been hoping that you would return home after graduation and take over the family business from him, but you wanted to do more than just blindly follow in your parents’ footsteps.  

Speaking of footsteps, the sound of someone approaching your corner table made you turn back from the window. Your eyes landed on a familiar pair of blue ones, a small smile tugging at the corner of your lips as you recognized the dark haired man who was walking up to you. He donned black skinny jeans and a red Henley, his long brown hair parted down the middle. It was a few inches longer than the last time you had seen him. A part of you had often wondered how hard it must have been to maintain those luscious locks of his. The shine and volume alone put the ladies to shame.

 “James.”

James Barnes, or Bucky as he was referred as by his closest friends, had been your neurobiology tutor during your freshman year. After failing your first quiz on the effects of dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin on the brain, you had approached your professor in desperate need of help. You needed to pass that class in order to complete your degree and failing your first quiz was not a great start to your freshman year. But you had been so determined back then to succeed academically. You still were.

Professor Van Dyne had been gracious enough to assign one of her best upper year students to help you get your grades back up. According to her, James was the teacher’s pet in the biology department and the best person to study with. His photographic memory had allowed him to maintain a consistent 4.0 GPA since his freshman year. As impressive as that sounded, his reputation precedes him. He was known around campus, or at least within the biology students, as the Casanova of New York University.

Rumours across the Greek life circuit on campus – Bucky was the resident fuckboy. It was an untold truth around NYU that he had slept with at least one person in every sorority. According to Margaret, one of the sororities even included having a one-night stand with Bucky as part of their initiation. He was apparently the best night anyone could ever have, and even if he never called any one of his flings back, he would still be found lurking around the next party and leaving with someone else later that night. It was apparently a rite of passage - a rite of passage that you had managed to avoid for as long as you had.

“Hey, doll.” He pulled the chair across from you before sitting down at the table. “Long time, no see...”

You raised your eyebrow at him as you set your pizza slice back down on your plate. Picking up a napkin to wipe your mouth and hands, you shrugged your shoulders at him. “What do you want, James?” You asked him, holding up your hand before he could answer the question. You had known him along enough to know what he was going to say. “I know, it’s been two years since I took my first year neurobiology class. And no, you don’t have to show me how oxytocin affects the human brain.”

“You’re really going to break my heart like that, Y/N?” He asked, feigning hurt with a dramatic sigh as he bought his hand up to his chest.

You rolled your eyes at him, laughing softly before shaking your head. He’ll never learn. “Why are you even here right now? I thought you graduated last year.”  

“Hey, just because I’ve graduated... summa cum laude, by the way, it doesn’t mean that I’m not welcome here.” Bucky remarked with a smirk plastered across his lips. “I have my own reasons for being here. You don’t own this campus, you know?”

You crossed your arms against your chest, still not breaking eye contact with him. There was no way you would fall for his charm. You had not done so in freshman year or sophomore year and you were not planning on doing it now. “Enlighten me.”

“Did Steve not mention that I got into NYU Med?” He asked you, his smirk not leaving his face.

Steve Rogers was Bucky’s best friend since childhood and the former president of the UNICEF chapter on campus. You had volunteered together for a few charity fundraisers over the years, but you were not as close to him as Bucky was. “Why would he have a reason to mention it?” You asked him as you leaned forward in your seat. “I would have placed my bets on you going to Columbia with him, if I’m being honest. You two seemed to be so inseparable. I can’t believe you just ditched him like that and let him take off.” 

It was true. Bucky and Steve were inseparable. After all, they had grown up together since they were young kids. They were always together on campus, having taken a majority of their classes together. It was so rare to see one of them without the other. 

“And did you really think that would impress me so much that I would actually end up sleeping with you?”

“Why?” He asked, almost in a whisper as he leaned forward in his seat. “Is it working?”

As the sun was finally setting over the New York City skyline, you found yourself perched up naked against a penthouse window in Brooklyn. The view from up here was much more breathtaking than the view of Washington Square Park from the dining hall window. But that was not the reason why you were so out of breath now. You were panting for air as you stared at the reflection of the man who stood behind you. After a heated make out session from Greenwich Village to Brooklyn, you wound up undressed in his bedroom that had a view like no other. 

“I can’t believe that actually worked on me... you obnoxious asshole.” Your heart was pounding out of your bare chest as you felt the moisture trickle down your inner thighs, and you tilted your head back.

Bucky had a smug look on his face, one that was filled with just as much lust as it was filled with pure satisfaction. You had finally fallen for his charm, after two years of fighting it. He had seen the way you glanced at him every time he volunteered with you and Steve. He knew that you must have felt attracted towards him, even though you denied it every time he had brought it up.

 He licked his lips as he gently pulled you towards him, turning you around so that he could kiss you on the lips rather roughly. “Playing hard to get doesn't suit you, doll.” His hands grasped your bare ass before his fingers slipped between your folds slick with your arousal. “You want me so badly, don’t you, Y/N? Don’t lie to me now. Your soaking pussy speaks the truth.”

You bit down on your bottom lip as you trembled to find the right words to say, your cheeks growing hot as did the rest of your body. A soft moan slipped out of you as you felt his cold fingers slide right into your entrance, sending shivers up your spine as you forgot how to stand still. You felt defeated by your own desires, having given in to his advances after fighting it for so long. You really thought you could get through your entire undergrad without being yet another one-night stand on James Barnes’ tally. But tonight, your strike was added to the drawing board with the rest of them. 

“Are you going to keep talking or are you going to fuck me like you fucked every fucking sorority sister on campus?” You gasped. “They all say that you’re the best night they’ve ever had, Barnes. I won’t believe it until I have proof.” You asked him as you began to unbutton his Henley.

“Getting desperate, are we? You made me wait a few years for this, doll. I’d have to make you wait a little longer now than a few minutes.” He was such a tease. “I didn’t fuck Margaret Sykes though.” He pointed out, a teasing look on his face as he pulled his fingers out of you and motioned you towards his bed. “You two were close in freshman year, weren’t you? And then last year, you purged your Instagram of any photos of her. I noticed.”

You rolled your eyes at his mention of your former best friend, lying back in his bed as you still tugged on his Henley. He was fully clothed while you were naked and exposed – the power that he had over you now, it was astonishing. But you could not deny how desperate you were for him. After all, your own body had lost that fight against your attraction towards this man. 

“Don’t bring up that bitch when I’m lying naked on your bed, James.” You told him, shaking your head at him. “If I could purge my own brain of any memories of her, I would.”

He chuckled as he sat down at the edge of his bed, his large hands firmly holding your thighs apart. “You act as though Margaret was the Antonio to your Bassanio, Y/N. It’s not like she would have cut out a pound of her flesh for you if you were ever in debt.” His bright eyes glanced down at your soaking core, his tongue peaking through his parted lips at the sight of just how aroused you were. He liked that he had such an effect on your body, knowing that you were attracted to him as he was attracted to you despite having known each other for years now. He pulled at your folds to get a glimpse of your throbbing clit, brushing his thumb over it in a quick teasing manner as he watched for your reaction.  

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a guy who reads Shakespeare.” You told him, giggling softly as you placed your arms above your head. It was a sign of you giving him full control of this ordeal; let him do what he was known to do best. After all, he did have a reputation. “But I think it’s so fucking hot that you do.” 

Another moan as you felt his thumb over your clit; you bit down on your lips not to make any noise. Bucky had warned you that Steve’s bedroom was just down the hall from his and the last thing you wanted was to have an awkward run-in with the blonde haired man who had taught you all about volunteering for charitable organizations for the duration of your undergrad.

“I can recite Hamlet’s soliloquy in its entirety while I fuck you, if you would like me to.” He joked, his fingers now drenched with your wetness as he slipped them through your entrance once again. His thumb rubbing circles on your clit as his eyes watched eagerly for your reaction.

“To fuck or not to fuck... that is the question.” You laughed at your own joke before looking up at him, rather seductively, your left hand pinching your swollen nipples as you began to feel the pain between your thighs relieve with his touch. Moaning once again as he slipped another finger inside of you. “Oh fuck, James... you really want to waste your time reciting Shakespeare with me when you could be putting that mouth to better use? What even happened... to your so called reputation of... being the best night everyone’s ever had?”

Bucky chuckled softly as he continued to finger you for another moment, pulling them out only to remove his Henley. “Desperate.” He pointed out with a wink, unbuttoning his jeans and taking them off as well. “Is that what they’ve all been saying about me now?”

“Are you telling me.... that you’re unaware of your own reputation, James?” You asked him as you sat up against his headboard, feeling the moisture between your legs now seeping through the clear white sheets on his bed as you gasped for air. “Your reputation... precedes you.”

He walked to his nightstand to retrieve a condom, hand slipping below the waistband of his boxers to slowly stroke his cock. A tantalising smirk played on his lips. “Well then, why... don’t we... put an end to it?” He asked you, pulling down his boxers to reveal his half-hard cock.

Your eyes perked up at his length. “Damn...” You gasped. “They really weren’t lying.”

James Barnes raised his eyebrow at you before tossing the condom at you. “Do the honors, doll?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” You giggled, rolling over in bed so that you could reach him. Your hand wrapped around his manhood before stroking him until he was fully erect.

Bucky hissed at the feel of your touch against his length, shaking his head at you. “Desperate.”

Removing the condom from the package, you put it on him before you looked up to meet his lusty eyes. “Are you saying that you’re not desperate for me at all, Barnes?” You asked him before you pulled yourself on all fours, moving your hair out of the way.

“Two years was a long time, doll.” He admitted, his hands caressing your ass before he let himself slip though your entrance. He took his time to position himself, not wanting to hurt you in any way. “Let me know if you feel like I’m going too fast or you need me to stop, okay? I don’t want to hurt you.”

You nodded, eagerly. “Just fuck me already, James!”

“Desperate.”

Whoever made the claim that college was the place where one would meet their lifelong friends was most definitely the biggest moron on this planet. College was the place where one would have the best sex they ever had, and Bucky Barnes really did live up to his reputation that night.

[btswishes]

What we were and what we are

One Shot/ Random

A/N: Take it as an emotional dump. I will put a keep readying line since I don’t think anyone would want to read this. XD Have fun anyways if you wish to stay friend. Who knows maybe it could be a Yoongi x Reader , friends to lovers story, idk. 

Word count:   2,535

Playlist recommended for this : Jin-Epiphany   Big Bang- Loser  Big Bang- Blue   at the end you can try BTS- We Are Bulletproof The Eternal

Warnings:  dark, anxiety, talk of trauma , be yourself please

                   ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  The sky was covered with soft cotton candy like clouds, tinted in the colors of the ending day. Oranges, reds, blues, yellows, you name it it was there. The wind was warm and but a whispering tender sensation over your exposed skin. The grass pillowing your body under the roughly placed cover, as your head moved up and down by Yoongi’s breath. Laying onto him felt like a antidepressant pill to you.Time had stopped. He was leaning onto his left arm as you both were looking up at the sky. His free hand from time to time brushing over your hair. 

“Your mom is calling.” he said taking a glance at your lit up phone screen

“Leave it.” you didn’t even use all the breath in your lungs with this sentence. 

“Shouldn’t you pick up tho? I mean she is your mom.” Yoongi’s eyes now focused onto you 

“Nah man, she is probably mad at me for something. My mom or not, good or shitty relationship, no matter how much parents say ‘i understand you’ or ‘i was your age once too’ .It never works, telling them anything ends up being a pain in the ass later. Asking for help when you fuck up is the same.” you tried following a lonely cloud with the corner of your eye

“I guess them not accepting that something is wrong with their kids is a defense mechanism.” 

“That fucks us up tho. Just because they want to lie to themselves to feel better, leaves their kids untreated and undiagnosed ,messing them up. Years of being bullied and not knowing why, can’t study even if they try, can’t be themselves. Such an easy solution, yet such a hard choice to make to take the first step.” you sighed as you spoke out, a bit of disappointment mixed in with your breath. 

“Ha ha ha.” Yoongi laughed under his nose before laying back down 

“The fuck did I say?” you cut him off, thinking the giggle was a bit displaced in this talk

“And when you take the first step? What then? The so called professionals lie to us too, give us chemistry and tell us all will be ok as they turn us into addicts to fake serotonin. Psychologists? The word comes from Greek meaning the study of the soul, yet those assholes look at us as bags of meat that you can stuff with pills. Yet we would do anything to get that drop of calmness, that feeling of being a bit happy for being alive right now. And when the effect passes? You want more and more, pill after pill, pharmacy after pharmacy. What difference is there between us people with anxiety and disorders and drug addicts? The medical degree probably.” 

  You smirked after his last words “ Not all doctors are bad, but you can feel how genuine they are, the rest are health merchants. I don’t think there was a difference in the first place. Drugs, alcohol, smoking fuck it, even sex, man. It’s all to fill that void with dopamine, serotonin and all the bio crap.” 

“Isn’t that chemistry tho?”

“We learned it in biology class so it’s bio to me. Do I look like a professor to you?” you rolled over and flicked his nose earning a ‘yah!’ “Hey.” 

“Wasup?” Yoongi pulled his hand from under his head and spread his arms wide like a star in the vast sky. 

“You know that thing where people ask you, if you saw your younger self in front of you right now and they were having the same feelings as you. What would you do?”

“I don’t know honestly, probably give the little guy a hug and some money ,or buy him something to eat. Someone out there for sure has it shittier than me, but I guess one of my mistakes was to undervalue my own emotions and mental state. Fuck, i got myself in such a hole. When people say ‘after you hit the bottom there is no where more to go but up’ , honestly that is straight up crap and bullshit. Some of us keep clawing and digging fearing that there is more to come. “ 

“Ah.” a memory popped up in your head on it’s own “That shit hole. Yeah, either you lose yourself laying there with bloody fingernails and hands, or you start crawling back up like a bug. You know, the blood is gonna stain the walls so next time you fall you will remember and catch yourself...if you make it that far.” lifting your hand, you covered a bit of the sky with it, noticing the colors around it “What about the times we reach out but no one grabs on?”

“Fuck! Y/N! We were supposed to have a nice walk in the park not a whole ass depressing talk session!” Yoongi hissed out, unlike his words his voice wasn’t angry

“Oh come on, you know that somehow we always end up talking about this shit.We are both broken pieces, but I think that isn’t bad at all.” you felt his breath stop under you for a split second “I feel like that is why we fit so well together.”

“Oh for real?” he asked a bit surprised by your words “I always thought it was because we were both hella toxic.” you swung your hand and hit him in the stomach “OOF!” he folded in half, sending you sitting up “I forgot how aggressive you were too.” Yoongi’s voice was coming from between his teeth.

“I am serious! I feel like we went through our hard times and learned to manage, that is why we can talk about all these things like this.” 

“Makes sense, we were each other’s shoulder. You start falling, I pull on you and the other way around.”

 You noticed the contagious smirk on his face that mirrored onto you almost instantly “We fall together, we crawl back up together. Damn we sound inspirational.”

“I told you! We should make one of those vlog channels where people wake up at 5 am looking like damn models, meditate and finish all their work before 11am.” throwing your body back you fell onto the cover, but Yoongi didn’t join you. He staid sitting, letting you focus on his back as he continued “You know we are losers, right?” 

“The biggest losers out there.” 

  He looked towards the sky letting the wind play with his hair, when suddenly you both burst out laughing. Your voices were so loud the birds flew away. “Yeah, we are.”

“Honestly tho Yoongs. Why did we care so much what people thought of us? I mean sometimes I still do but-”

“Same, same.”

“Don’t cut me off stupid!” you kicked him a bit “As I was saying!” you emphasized on ‘saying’ ,when he pinched your leg in retaliation a couple of times “Body types, dudes, girls, genderfluid or no gender at all. Being cute or stylish, pretty or ugly, was a mad waste of time. The nerd is gonna probably become rich, the ugly people will end up becoming better lookin that those basic Karens. I swear, even with all that bulling and people wanting be to be the top. With or without them the Earth keeps spinning .”

 “Did you just discriminate flat earth people!?” he gasped cartoonish “Y/N, i didn’t know you were this type of person.”

“Yah! You really out here trying to cancel your best friend, Min Yoongi!” 

“You don’t need me to do that, you already do it yourself with the stuff you say.”

“Says you, loser.” your words made him lean onto his elbow next to you, eyes focused on your face as the colors of the sky began fading over your bodies and skin 

“I like that word, loser.” he said “It sounds rude, but at the same time no one calls you that if you aren’t different. Different means unique, special. Who tf would want to be the same as others?”

“That was us too stupid, back then.” Yoongi pocked your cheek a couple of times gently 

“Yeah, but it’s not back then anymore Y/N. It’s now. We grew up. With our jaw and fist clenched we fought and made it here. They shot at us, they threw rocks and called us cowards, weirdos. But we made it through the darkness. After all that we are and will forever be bulletproof.” the sudden rustle of the grass under you two signaled him getting up and spinning, hands to the side. His head leaned back and he looked so happy. Yoongi’s eyes were closed, he could fall and not even notice, but he wasn’t afraid no more. Whatever happens will happen. 

“You make us sound hella dope man. I love it.”

“Anxiety, social issues, any kind of mental problems and disorders. They level us up, as long as we try. At the end of the day you lose something to win something.”

“The end of the chapter is the beginning of the next.” you began to notice he was starting to lose balance from all that spinning around “Hey stupid, you will fall and hurt yourself like th-” you couldn’t even finish the sentence when his legs tangled up and he fell onto you “You ok?!That was such a stupid move! Open your eyes next time!”

“Why?” he became serious, his eyes looking into yours. Yoongi crooked his head to the side,as his fingers caressed your cheek “If I was looking I would have been too afraid to fall. At the end of it all i ended up failing and found a little angel. See? Win win to me. You can’t always see where you are going, but you gotta believe that good things are on the other side.”

“You are bleeding, that is what is on this side.”

“I am WHAT!” his forehead was a bit scratched “Damn it! My handsome face!”

“Oh come on! Wait till I glow up like that! I will get the best looking SO out there.” the child in you was pouting at Yoongi

“You know damn well we are too messed up for a relationship with others. We try and try, get used and then we either lose interest, or fall completely out of love for months. By the way...” his fingers found your cheek again, but this time it wasn’t a gentle poke but a sharp pinch. Your hands flew in the direction of his arm to try and make him let go of you. “Who told you you don’t look good?”

“Ow ow Yoongi! Let me go!!!”

“Not until you tell me who said all that crap to you!?” prying yourself from his grip you continued rubbing the now red and warm spot

“People i liked or others in general. You know how shit goes.” 

“You for real need to get your eyes checked! People stare at you when you walk by cus you look TOO good.” his words were like a low growl of a jealous pet

“Nah man, they are either judging me or they want to fight me. There is no middle ground here.” 

“You really!” with all the power in his hand he flicked your forehead 

“Stop inflicting me wounds!”

“Then stop talking shit about yourself! I swear your bodydismorphia needs to join Jimin when he has talk sessions about his day with Hoseok.Plus, people do stare at you when you walk in town in the attracted way. On our way here at least 5 people turned back and continued looking.”

“Ew creepy!” you said “Why do you count them!”

“You little!!!Come here!” your neck found itself in a chokehold in a matter of seconds 

“HYUNG!”Jungkook’s voice echoed through the park reaching your direction “Y/N AND YOONGI ARE BEING THE DEPRESSED AND FLIRTY AGAIN!”

 “This kid I swear I will kill him some time soon!” you hissed at Jungkook

“You two really can’t drop this habit.” the slow and calm footsteps pulled your attention and soon subsided your anger 

“Joon, you know how we are.” you added, leaning back onto you elbows 

“I know, we are all like that.” Joon looked at you two sitting on the ground

“Y/N is right, broken pieces do find each other.” Yoongi added, but Joon sighed and rubbed the back of his head. He squatted down eye level 

“Broken pieces find each other because they fit together and make a beautiful new bottle that they can fill up with happy memories. Our sad and hard pasts make us titanium that can’t be broken. Even if one of us cracks, we are all going to help him become stronger.” he reached his hand out, standing up “ You are not alone Y/N, we are going to be forever titanium. You have us and we have you now. We are not lonely or misérables with you.”

“WE ARE BULLETPROOF GUYS!” Jungkook yelled out again

“Yeah...we are.” with a smile shining brighter than ever ,you grabbed Joon’s hand.He pulled you up as you were holding onto Yoongi. When the chain starts no one can cut the bond. We pull each other up...is what you realized. 

“Oh and.”

“Yes Joons?” 

“Can you two date already or at least go out on a date. It hurts looking at yall like this.”

“What!?” the blanket in your hand turned into weapon as you began hitting him with it in a moment of panic. His words hit a nerve.Yoongi wasn’t the one to rush or to run. With his hands in his pockets he followed you down the hill. His footsteps stopped for a moment to look at the now dark sky. 

 We may not be able to see the stars during the day, but at night they are too many to even count. Nothing is truly hidden forever, even who you are meant to be. It’s ok not to know now or later. When we are young we dont really know. We try to fit in a mold that was created, but we can’t, we just can’t no matter how much we try.

 We end up being labeled by the things we are different. Some come from a darker past, others don’t. Yet everyone is important, the way they feel, their emotions and inner state. If I could, I would grab your hand and show you a bit of the future. Think of this, your future self, the one that did it all finally and continues to dream big, is looking at you through memories. They grab your hand and push you forward towards the good. The tunnel may be dark, cold, lonesome and scary but it always leads to something. Just don’t give up.

  Regret, unsuccessful love, residual feelings for someone who used you. They are all a stepping stone, don’t look at them. Now you know what not to do, EXP( experience points)  come in many forms honey. Be who you want to be, life is yours. Be the main character in your story, not anyone else’s. Even if you fall sometimes, show everyone how amazing you are by standing up. Baby steps turn into miles, whispers become yelling, crawling becomes flying. Breaking the mold becomes you.