#i feel like I had something else I wanted to say but I've forgotten it um. anyway yes reiterating that I'm so happy you enjoyedge

[nochepsicodelica]

Toji who got really drunk after a misunderstanding you left him to ponder upon one morning when you left for work. You missed a part of your routinely goodbye to him and at first it didn't bother him. He understood that you were running late, but once he started chugging the cold drinks and he sat with the sentiment, he realized it did strike him.

He hated the entire process of getting drunk, hated that drinking was unbearable unless it was chased with sweet kisses from you, but there he was, downing bottle after bottle. He was starting to feel liquid full but even in this intoxicated state he didn't want to put down the bottles. At some point he starting feeling uncomfortable being by himself and didn't want to feel that way anymore, so he called and texted you. Multiple times. You finally picked up after the eighth call.

-Hi, baby! Sorry, I missed your calls. I just left work and i'm heading home.-

-Baby? Who are you calling baby?- He scoffs, a roll of his eyes following.

-You... Toji. It's you. Who else would I be calling baby?-

-Honestly, I...- He laughs, the sound not coming off as one of joy with the next words he speaks. -I didn't think you even loved me enough to give me stupid pet names. I feel very unloved by you and... mhm, just want you to know that.-

Now, that's just entirely untrue and it hurts to hear. You prove your love for him every day. What is this sudden false claim against you?

-Toji, love, what are you saying? I'm coming home, already. Maybe we should talk in person. This is hard to discuss over the phone.-

-Uh-huh, you do that.- He sighs, heavily, his eyes lidding with sluggishness. -Can't win a verbal argument, s-so you're gonna come over here and try to seduce me with your pretty face. I'm just gonna say no when you try to touch me. Just no.-

-I'll see you in a bit, Toji.- you say, before abruptly hanging up.

He sounded off. You knew something was up the second you saw his eight missed calls and a stack of messages just saying 'hey'.

Your keys jingled as you pulled them out of your bag to unlock the front door. The house was steady, no sign of Toji watching TV in the living room or of the shower running. You walked further in, calling his name. It was kind of eery walking through your silent house. You also knew of Toji's tendency of scaring you, so you were on guard for that as you paced around the house. You had one more room to check and it was the bedroom. You dragged your feet over to the room, knocking when you noticed the door was closed. There was no answer after two more knocks so you just opened the door.

The sound startled Toji who was lying against the headboard of the bed, almost falling asleep. The second he saw you his demeanor changed. He perked up like a dog when their owner comes home, before melting back to the stoic state he had been sitting in.

"Hey," you say, almost tentatively, as you walk towards your shared bed, sitting down on the edge. You're met with an acknowledging hum of a response. "What's wrong, baby?"

"There you go calling me baby again. Baby is for people who love each other, so stop it."

You look over the bed, spotting the evidence that led to the bite in his attitude towards you— those bottles that spill the remaining drops of their content and Toji's backwash onto the bed, making the sheets reek of alcohol.

"Well, I love you, so no, i'm not gonna stop calling you baby."

He crosses his arms over his chest, huffing like a child. "That so? It didn't seem that way this morning. I've never felt so forgotten about by you."

"I told you I was gonna be late for work, but you insisted on keeping me trapped beneath you. Bring that part to light, handsome." You can see the corners of his lips twitching. He's holding back the most wicked smirk at the short burst of memories from the morning. "Plus, I still gave you your goodbye kiss, so what are you on about?"

"You didn't say 'I love you'. That's part of goodbye with you, so you can't blame me for feeling this way." His eyes express something of hurt. Maybe it's enhanced by the drinks he had, but you can't leave him that way.

"You're loved, baby. Very much so. Me not saying it this one time doesn't diminish the actual feeling." He's been reduced to a cub over this, so as his lover, you step in to mend the feelings that were grazed.

"Can you..." he rasps, patting his thigh, signaling for you to sit. You drag yourself towards him, and plop yourself onto his lap. You can smell the alcohol on his breath as he rambles on about how you can't forget to say 'I love you' to him ever again, even if it's a blurted, rushed one that he doesn't get a chance to respond to as you rush out the door.

The look he reserves for you is entirely soft, his hands are hot against your clothed back as they feel the warm body he's missed for hours. "I still..." he pauses to sigh, tiredness imbued into the sound. "Still want you to call me baby," he starts again. "I was just bummed. Don't stop calling me baby. Don't ever do that." He's letting his hands roam all over you. Your back, your waist, your hips—everything.

"Are you gonna let me touch you or are you gonna say 'no'?" You grin, remembering his words, verbatim, just incase he tries to tell you he never said them.

"Why aren't you touching me? Why would I not want you to touch me?" He looks insulted by the question and you have half a mind to remind him of what he said to you on the phone, but the heat in his eyes dies out as quickly as it appeared. "Really need a hug, mama. Please, hug," he says, the last part muffled by your chest as he keeps his face buried into it.

You held him tight and murmured 'I love you' countless times, while he hummed in response and groaned quietly as you ran your fingers through his hair.

[blade-liger-4ever]

Why Cody Burns succeeded where Rafael Esquivel failed

Honestly, Raf is one of those characters I never thought much of, in part because he was so forgettable. More often than not in Prime, Raf was just the sweet baby who everybody thought the world of and wanted to keep out of harm's way, even though the most he ever did in the show was provide technical help with Earth machinery or play the part of innocent child. This was not helped by the fact that he was buddy-ed up with the mute Bumblebee, who's sole contributions up until his two part arc and the series finale was additional man power and adorable mimic. While this was good for background humor, it ultimately did nothing to the overall storyline in the series, both for Raf and for Bee, and for the series itself.

By contrast, Cody Burns - the resident team baby, beloved by all and unwaveringly helpful in rescue missions - stood out far more than Raf. And what's more, is that he never had "his own" Autobot/Cybertronian partner, when literally his whole family had one of their own.

Allow me to delve into this, hopefully, final observatory post regarding the TFP kids.

Of all the humans, we quite frankly get the least out of Raf. We know he's a prodigy, given that he's twelve (and a quarter) and jumped straight into the same classes as Miko and Jack, the former of whom is no slouch as I've already covered. We're shown that his family allows him free reign of Jasper, as he's playing by himself near the road, although he's alone. That tells us that his family is either extremely lax in their attention for their youngest child, or that Jasper is an actually safe location for a kid who's barely filling out his shoes to be on his own. Whether or not either option is true, that's dangerous and shows that Raf goes unnoticed by his family. I'm not saying they're abusive or willfully neglectful of him, but this points us to the conclusion that Raf has a very lonely home life, and we already know that he's got zero friends until he meets the Autobots.

This could have been a great plot-point for the series: by giving Team Prime a small child with no one for company, the writers could have more clearly given the Autobots hope for the future of the War/after the War, while Raf could have gained confidence and security from having people who actually cared and listened to him. It could have been fun, having him be the human cycling through the Autobots for various needs. Imagine Raf going to Optimus for comfort after another day of feeling ignored, talking to Arcee for ideas on how to stand up to Vince (being the sole child in class makes you a target, after all), or coming to Bulkhead for how to struggle through the physical aspects of his school regimen (i.e. the time he brought up the rope climbing to Ratchet.) The possibilities were endless.

But instead, he's specifically handed over to Bee. Bee, who is the disabled child that is also largely forgotten, and who, while he does bond with Raf and provide him with much needed company, offers nothing else in the way of development or storylines. We got something marginally better when Raf started spending time with the grumpy grandpa that is Ratchet, which was great to highlight Ratchet's soft side that nurtures his own character progression, but it's not enough for Raf's development. I greatly prefer the company of the Autobots to the human characters in virtually every series, but there needs to be a noticable human presence to ground the Autobots' protective instincts toward Earth and to push along the story. Raf ended up being a token character not even halfway through the first season, which is a shame given his potential, especially since he and Bee ended up being background décor.

Now, as a counterpoint, we come to Cody Burns.

Like Raf, Cody is the youngest child of the Burns clan - and I say clan because his family has been the one providing Griffin Rock's safety and protection for about...roughly three hundred years? (Correct me if I'm wrong, but his family were the ones in-universe to discover the island. Thus, there's a large claim and respect to his family's name.) His father Charlie is the chief of police; his oldest brother Kade is the chief firefighter; his older sister Dani is the helicopter pilot and primary search and rescue operator; and his brother Graham, who's about eight years older than ten year old Cody, is already a chief engineer and inventor himself. Clearly, Cody has an impressive family. Clearly, they're the best of the best, and he couldn't be prouder of them.

And clearly, Cody feels the need to earn his stripes given their talents and the family's reputation.

A recurring subplot in Rescue Bots is how Cody is insecure about his role on the team, and that often leads him to attempt to provide help and find his place in life in the family. Sometimes, this works; although he's often left monitoring the situations across the island at home through the cameras, Cody finds ways of giving advice or pointing out a hazard that the others are oblivious to that would have likely killed them. And this is a noble occupation his fills, with his aid saving many lives and much trouble.

However, sitting around and merely being an observer wears on him. It makes him restless, and he often seeks aid from the 'Bots to figure out his problems before typical shenanigans ensue that rectify the current episode's dilemma.

This is an important part of Cody's characterization because while he does occasionally feel left out/ignored by his family, he understands it is because of their duties. Charlie has to daily wrangle different criminals and legal offenses while Graham is eagerly going to town on his latest project. Kade and Dani each have their own lives that are beginning and that they're pursuing, but additionally maintain an intense sibling rivalry due to them being not even three years apart. Thus, while they're seeing they're respective girlfriend and boyfriend, they're also competing in various childish ways that, sometimes, result in massive fights. It's no small wonder Cody rarely goes to them for advice.

For this, he's left with the 'Bots, and because they view him as their darling little brother who inspires them every day to give the humans of Griffin Rock and Earth a chance, they listen and advise him. Heatwave is the oldest of the 'Bots, and thus more experienced; additionally, Heatwave more than once nearly threw in the towel in the early days, but only relented due to Cody's convictions and virtues. Therefore, while they have a special bond without it being the sole focus, Cody tends to run to Heatwave the most when emotionally unwell and Charlie is unavailable. Heatwave in turn gives him comfort and advice, and backs him up in most situations. Chase is one he less often seeks help from, mostly due to Chase's nature of being a rigid rulebook. Most times Cody helps Chase understand human expressions and terms when Charlie is busy or otherwise engaged, with both their efforts helping the police 'Bot to loosen up. There are times when he needs Chase's input, as strange as that aid might be, and Cody doesn't hesitate to seek it.

Boulder he goes to almost as regularly as Heatwave, and the two get along fantastically. Boulder provides him with loving company he's hungry for, and sound advice without being overbearing. Blades sometimes needs more encouragement than anything, and thus Cody plays the rare part of helping guide someone through their numerous fears. Because of that, the 'copter 'Bot is extremely loyal and protective of Cody, and when Cody does ask for his help or companionship, Blades readily gives it. Sometimes, Blades will even go above and beyond what is asked, and never asks for anything in return.

These are healthy, constantly growing relationships that Cody develops with the 'Bots, as well as magnificent characterizations that are always expanding. While the focus tends to be shown through Cody's eyes or centered around him, it never fixates on him more than is necessary. Rather, by setting him up as the show's heart, the writing team is able to stretch out towards arcs related to other characters, both the 'Bots and their specific partners, and the other human cast members who interact with the 'Bots on a less frequent basis.

This is how Cody takes the potential of Raf from Prime and not only runs with it, but builds up countless heartwarming moments and strong characterizations over the course of Rescue Bots' run. Cody is positively and rightly shown as the glue of the family element of the show, and is given the autonomy to maintain his own personality and growth without being forgotten like Raf consistently was. That's why Cody stands out, and poor Raf is left hanging.

Well, that's my thoughts on the matter. I felt I should tackle Raf, given I covered his two peers, and Cody is a cute, fun, and constantly evolving counterpart to Raf that explains much of why I feel the poor baby of Team Prime was ultimately misused and unnecessary. I hope you enjoyed this, and that it got some gears turning in your heads.

I'll be seeing you guys!

"Rescue Bots, roll to the rescue!"

[eclipsedechoesofmywords]

"I Read About You in History Books"

[Bucky Barnes x fem!reader]

Part Two here [Outside of History Books]

Masterlist

Summary: You've always been fascinated by history, especially by the untold stories of people forgotten in the shadow of legends. Bucky Barnes is one of those people.

Warnings: Mentions of trauma, Fluff with a dash of angst, not proofread

Word Count: 1.6k words

You knew The Winter Soldier. Who didn't? Everyone knew the tales of the most feared assassin in the world. How he appears and disappears like a ghost. How he struck his victims with deadly accuracy and no one could catch him. The man behind the mask intrigued you more, though. It was almost laughable, but to you, The Winter Soldier was older news than James 'Bucky' Barnes.

Meeting Steve Rogers was incredible. It took every professional bone in your body not to jump up and down in excitement. I mean it was the Captain America. How were you not meant to be excited?

You didn't expect to become his friend, to watch his back and have him watch yours. You had been in so many fights besides him and, of course, asked him every question you could think of about his life, the war and especially Bucky Barnes.

Why do you want to know so much about him? He had asked once.

Only the Gods knew the answer.

You couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to Bucky Barnes, more than what was in the history books. There was never much about him in anything, always being overshadowed by Steve or the other Howling Commandos. You'd read every account, watched every documentary, pieced together the fragments of his life as if they were a puzzle begging to be solved.

You never expected to meet him. Never expected him to be more than a name in a book or a picture in a documentary. You thought that meeting Steve was miracle enough.

You were quite wrong.

~~~

"Mind if I join you?"

Bucky frowns. "In a stairwell?"

"Well, I usually come here to get some quiet, so yeah, in a stairwell."

Bucky's posture is stiff as he leans back against the cold concrete wall, his arms crossed over his chest. You stand a few steps below him, one hand resting on the metal railing, your head tilted to the side as you study him.

“Quiet, huh?” he asks, his voice a low rasp, still hesitant to engage.

“Yep,” you reply, popping the 'p' with a small grin. “It's one of the few places in this whole compound where no one’s either training, running missions, or asking me a million questions.”

He’s guarded, that much is clear, but there’s something else too. Something underneath the surface, a complexity you’ve always suspected is buried deep within James Buchanan Barnes. You aren’t just interested in The Winter Soldier. You want to know the man beneath that, the person history has barely bothered to document.

“So, what brings you up here?” you ask casually if your presence is the most natural thing in the world.

Bucky glances away for a moment, his jaw clenching. His eyes are distant, but not in the way that screams of danger. More like he’s... lost. "Just needed some space," he finally says.

"I understand that." You slide down onto one of the steps, resting your arms on your knees, looking up at him. "It gets overwhelming, doesn’t it? Always being around people, no room to just... think."

Bucky nods in agreement, his eyes flickering to you.

You decide to take a chance. "I swear this isn’t some weird interrogation or anything, but... I've read about you, in History books. Well, about the Howling Commandos. About you and Steve during the war."

His expression tightens, the walls going higher up than before. "You don't know me—"

"I know," you say quickly, cutting him off. "I know that what’s in those books isn’t the whole story. That’s why I want to know more."

"More?" His gaze sharpens, almost suspicious. "Why?"

You shrug. "I don’t know. Maybe because history’s never the full picture. It’s just pieces, bits of what people decide to write down. I’ve always thought there had to be more to you than just 'Steve’s best friend' or 'The Winter Soldier.' And..." you press your lips together, hesitating, but continue, “...I guess I just want to know who you really are.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, the tension between you thickening with each passing second. His blue eyes are scrutinizing you, searching for something—maybe sincerity, maybe an ulterior motive. You aren’t sure.

"You think you can figure me out?" he finally says, his tone biting, though not as cold as before.

You shake your head. "No... But I think you deserve to be known. Not just as a name in a book or a legend in a file. As, well, you."

His brow furrows, and for the first time since the conversation started, he looks truly unsettled. "What if I don't even know who that is anymore?"

The pain in his voice catches you off guard. For a moment, the Winter Soldier—the assassin, the ghost—seems to fall away, leaving only a man haunted by the weight of his past. And it breaks your heart a little.

"Then maybe I can help you figure it out," you say softly.

Bucky exhales, a sound heavy with the burden of decades he hasn’t asked to carry. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make any promises, but he doesn’t leave either. Instead, he slowly lowers himself to sit a few steps above you, the silence between you shifting into something more comfortable.

"Can I be completely honest?" you ask.

"Huh? Yeah?"

"I don't come here for quiet. I lock myself in my room for that. I totally stalked you in here."

Bucky scoffs. "You're probably the nicest stalker I've encountered."

You look up at him, grinning. "Thank you!"

He raises an eyebrow at you but you swear you see a small smile grace his lips.

Maybe this is the beginning of something. Maybe not. Either way, you aren’t about to let him disappear like a ghost again.

Not if you have anything to say about it.

[anxiousnerdwritings]

I am going FERAL over this imagine:

So basically Bruce brings reader home to be his new daughter/the boys' new sibling but Uh Oh! They now want you carnally and reader is just like "you said you wanted me as a daughter/sibling, wtf is this" and being their platonic darling is better than being shared between them romantically so reader tries to come off as innocent and child/sibling coded by being like "yeah I've never actually kissed or dated anyone before aren't I just so innocent" and the boys are like :)))

So then Dick says you can call him your boyfriend "just to feel it out" and Tim starts blatantly stealing your panties and Jason says he can give you your 1st kiss so you can "practice" with him and Bruce offers to teach you how to touch yourself and (and him) and when you try to walk it back cause the boys are being Freaks they're in their delulu era so eventually you end up tied to the bed with the boys and Bruce drawing straws over who gets to take what 1sts (like 1st date, kiss, virginity, ect).

And Damien is just in the background absolutely SEETHING cause the the boys and Bruce's Horny Time keeps interrupting his Mommy Time with the reader

And reader using Damien as kind of a shield cause what are they going to do, feel you up in front of a CHILD? Like just, "Stay Platonic :))"

Just that kind of pseudo incest makes me Feel Things (*/∀＼*)(///∇///)

I'd love your thoughts/a fic based on this! Ty ❤️

TW: Brief mentions of pseudo incest(y) scenarios/behavior, manipulative tactics, yandere tendencies

(Okay so I’ll answer this with my thoughts for right now.)

I know I primarily write incest(y) related topics for my Game of Thrones/ASOIAF stuff but I have been tempted to/curious about branching it out into some of the other fandoms I write for 👀. (I’ve had a few ideas rolling around in my noggin for a bit if anyone is interested.) So I would be willing to give this a try. I’m down to experiment with some new stuff, within reason of course.

I imagine the Reader being older (probably 19-23), maybe even having been a runaway of sorts or not having a very stable home life, so when they’re given the ‘offer’ to become part of the family they’re looking to fulfill a familial void they’ve never experienced or have forgotten how it’s felt like. I definitely see Bruce and the rest of the boys keeping a very close eye on the Reader before they decide to finally bring them into their family, basically full on stalking them from the moment they caught their attention (you know how the Batfam works). It wouldn’t be a surprise if even before the Reader was with them physically that the boys developed a more carnal desire for them. At first, their intentions were completely platonic, but with all the lengthy observing and information gathering of their supposed-to-be-new-family-member eventually something changed in how they all saw their darling.

I really see the change in their obsession starting with either Dick or Tim first. Especially regarding some accidental or purposeful peeping Tom foolery. I feel like Bruce would be the last to fall victim to the change in direction or at the very least he’s the last one to admit to it. If Damian is younger than I see his obsession staying strictly platonic, but if he were much older than I could see him involving himself to the same depths as his family.

At first, I see things happening subtly. Knowing that at the very least a few of them are already in an obsessive-romantic headspace in regards to their darling before they even physically become part of the family the guys would try to be as welcoming as possible without revealing their true intentions. They don’t want to scare you off right away, they want you to walk into it semi-willingly at least. But the interactions with the Reader would show something else. The lingering touches, the being much closer to you than really necessary, the heated grazes over your clothes here and there that leave you wondering if that actually happened or not. I also kind of like the other members not being fully aware of each other’s change in obsession, everyone giving each other the side eye until it sets in and then all out war of who gets the darling to themself unfolds only to eventually end up with them working together and agreeing to share. That’s when Bruce’s heel-turn is revealed.

Once things get truly amped up, the interactions with the Reader really begin to escalate. The boys would walk around shirtless more often, all of them trying to get their darling to look at them, to really look at them. Eventually, it’s not just them being shitless but either them in nothing but their underwear or nothing at all. They start out as accidents but eventually it’s pretty loud and clear that the guys want you to see them, all of them, to even touch them and feel them to your hearts content. But thats not all, of course it’s not. The touching of their darling only gets all the more intense, to the point that you know damn well that they’re touching you and they want to leave you wanting for more. So much more. The Reader’s innocence and lack of experience would only spur them on even more. They absolutely thrive off of it. They all want to be your first, your first everything. There will be a lot of secret ‘lessons’ being given behind closed doors and telling of “Don’t tell Batdaddy or he’ll get real mad.” “Don’t let Jay know, or he’ll want to punish you for not doing this with him.” “Let this be our secret, (Name). Something just for you and me.” “Can’t tell anyone about this or they’ll ruin it for the both of us.” And they only get even worse from there.

I can’t see Alfred being okay with this in any situation, whatsoever. I think he especially would feel like Bruce and the other boys completely took advantage of the Reader and he would try his best to aid them in trying to keep up with the platonic intention of this entire fiasco. He would be a total cockblock, even going as far as helping Damian in his cockblocking endeavors. Alfred’s intention would be to play both sides so he knows how to help the Reader when it comes to Bruce and the others but it wouldn’t take too long for them to figure out that Alfred is working against them. Like, Alfred was all for the familial-platonic obsession but when things started getting more romantic he was ready to shut that shit down ASAP. You can’t tell me he hasn’t, at least a few times, locked Bruce, Dick, Jason, and Tim out of the house to give the Reader some peace and give Damian his much deserved allotted time with them.

Speaking of Damian, he is a menace (as per usual) but even more so than normal. He really doesn’t take too well to the new direction of his father’s and brothers’ obsession for the Reader. He thinks it’s pretty messed up but he sincerely likes and cares about the Reader and he wants them to stay, he wants them to continue being a part of the family forever so he’ll let some things slide. Some. He even may be willing to look the other way when it eventually comes to Bruce, Dick, Jason, and Tim baby-trapping the Reader if it means this whole ‘family’ thing becomes set in stone with the arrival of a new ‘sibling’. But for the most part, at least early on, Damian would be a huge pain in the ass for the other family members. He feels like he needs to step in to save his darling from the others and their ulterior motives. He’s all his parental/older sibling figure needs, at least at that point. He may even try to runaway with them to keep them safe from the others. Hell, he may even get his mother involved if he was desperate enough, especially if he saw the Reader as a parental figure. Or maybe even another Justice League member to either adopt him and the Reader so that he could have that family experience he was promised with the Reader. Or he would be completely content just living the rest of his life just him and the Reader, platonically of course.

It would either take Bruce or Dick to have a talk with Damian to get him to come to some agreement to allow them to continue with what they’re doing in regards to the Reader. I think Dick would get away with manipulating Damian much better than Bruce could. I think Damian would have some opinions about his father especially throughout this whole situation. Especially since I see Damian being very observant of how Dick, Jason and Tim are behaving towards the Reader early on and picking up on the fuckery taking place, even going as far as telling Bruce about it under the belief his father would be on his side (not ever fathoming the idea of his father also doing similar things to the Reader without him ever knowing). As far as Damian knew his father was completely platonic towards the Reader, as a ‘father’ should be. Right? So understandably Damian feels not only betrayed but also disgusted when he finds out that his father was and still is taking part in, acting in a similarly depraved fashion as the others.

Eventually, I could see them coming together and being one big ‘happy’ family. But it sure as hell comes at a price. (Usually the Reader’s freedom and sense of self outside of the obsession they’ve been dragged into, to drown in alongside their yandere(s).)

[legandairy-horror]

Does anyone else feel a strange sort of dread waiting for new deltarune chapters?

It sounds crazy right? I admit it's a weird feeling for sure, and I'm not even 100% sure if dread is the right way to describe it. But as more info is revealed and the next chapter inevitably gets closer and closer to releasing I can't help but feel a strange sort of, melancholy? Longing? The only way I can describe it is "when you know the goodbye is coming". The strange somber feeling when you know you’re going to have to leave stuff behind, but aren't quite ready for it yet.

warning: words. Homestuck

In 3 months Chapter 1 will be 6 years old, and in 2 months Chapter 2 will be 3 years old. Deltarune is ostensibly in Early Access but this release schedule puts new chapters closer in time scale to whole sequals if anything, which they most assuredly are not trying to be. This has created a strange situation in the fanbase that I don't think I've ever truly seen anywhere else. One where, In the time between chapters It feels like everyone has had their own chance to decide what Deltarune is to them. To create their own version of this story, to write their own themes that they want to see explored, to imagine their own events and plot twists they want to see play out.

@lynxgriffin Paper Trail Comic Being an Alternate Story following off of chapter 1

@lilybug-02 The Chara Timeline Being one of many interpretations on the popular Asriel & Chara roommates headcannon.

@huecycles Andromeda Chapters being their interpretation on the full game

The innumerable Deltarune Theorists and analysts like HalfBreadChaos, Andrew Cunningham, Stuffed Alpaca, etc. etc.

@vyletbunni Deltatraveler being a whole ass fangame based around a chapter 2 meme that it has long since outlived

And that's kinda the thing isn't it? Once more deltarune comes out, a ton of these projects will just become outdated, it's an inevitability. So what will happen to them? will they become forgotten? maybe, maybe not, it's impossible to tell. but either way it feels kinda sad to think about yknow? that one day all the time and effort spent and all the memories made might one day just cease to exist.

There's a lot more I could say on this topic if given the chance but to keep this tumblr post from morphing into a 2 hour long video essay in text form let me leave off with this.

In the age of the internet and social media there will always be a fan of something. Nothing truly dies quite like it used to anymore, regardless of whatever influencers want you to believe. But that doesn't mean things stop changing, that there wasn't a past that has since been left behind. I'm a Homestuck fan. more specifically I'm a Late Homestuck fan, one who came in after the comic had already ended and it's peak in popularity was long behind it. The fandom's still around all these years later. But it'd be foolish to admit that, 8 years after the comics controversial end, the inescapable trend of new fans replacing old fans has left the fandom wholly disconnected from the monolith that it once was. the only remnants of which lie in decades old discourse and fanfiction. Like old relics of a long forgotten city, waiting to be excavated under a fine layer of dirt.

Before I close out here I just want to make it clear: I'm not saying that we should be trying to return to some nebulous "glorious past" that never really existed. I'm not trying to deride Toby Fox for not working in the sweatshop hard enough to produce more content™, or whatever you wanna try and spin-doctor this post into. It's just a thought that creeps into my head every now that I wanted to share, see if anyone feels the same, yknow?

Besides it's not all doom and gloom. For those of you OG Homestucks who read till the end. You remember Heinoustuck? Guidestuck? Nightfall? Fucking Ke$haStuck? yeah those are still going by the way! after years of inactivity they've now started back up again. some under new authors and some by the same author but still!

You could say a lot about that but to me at least, it makes me feels hopeful in a way. That, even if not everything will survive. we'll at least have some mementos to remember what came before.

[mimicmimikyuwrites]

Who You Belong To - Jonathan Crane (Scarecrow) x Fem!Reader SMUT

Summary: You and your professor share what could barely be called a relationship, but what's there is tricky and difficult to put a positive label on. When a fellow classmate successfully asks you on a date, Dr. Crane decides to make one thing clear: who you belong to.

Contents/Possible Warnings: Age Gap (Reader is in her early 20's, Crane's in his mid 30's), inclusion of original male character, student-professor relationship, unprotected sex, P in V sex, toxic relationship (?), creampie, semi-clothed sex, mentions of masturbation, degradation, semi-public sex (they fuck in an office), SMUT, MDNI

Other Notes: You can read part two here.

Some people say there's over four hundred estimated phobias, others say that number can be even higher at five hundred; no matter the number, you were sure Dr. Jonathan Crane knew every single one of them by heart. Your slightly off-putting psychology professor with a passion for fear and its workings shared a relationship with you that had breeched its professional expectations long ago. You couldn't tell what he was to you, exactly, but it certainly wasn't just your professor, not when he had been inside of you more times than either of you could count.

It wasn't uncommon for him to ask you to stay after class, leading into an invitation to his office before you found yourself bent over an expensive, wooden desk that had already been cleared off in expectation of you being pressed to it while you took him. Sometimes if he wanted to strike a bit of fear of getting caught into you, he'd fuck you right in the lecture hall, always letting you know how terrifying the consequences would be if someone else did something as simple as come back for a forgotten pen.

You may have been his favorite teacher's pet, but you were sure there were others. Jonathan was an attractive man who taught an already difficult class, it'd be no surprise to you if he had other women lined up for a chance to recieve a better grade from him in exchange for a little "extra- credit" assignment, as much as you hated to admit it to yourself. He was never yours to begin with.

"Care to tell me why you're staring down at your closed text book instead of listening to my lesson?" Your professor questioned, breaking you out of your thoughts. Shit, how had you gotten so immersed in your little daydream that you had forgotten you were in class? You could feel the sympathetic stares of your peers burning into you as Crane loomed over you, a gleam of mischievous satisfaction in his blue eyes. You didn't respond.

"Stay after class," He said plainly, heading back to the front of the room. He'd still ask you to stay back regardless of how things went, the little show he had made out of you was his way of toying with you in just the way he liked. It was more of a tease at this point, you weren't scared, not of him. Still, you shrunk back into your seat in faux embarrassment to entertain him.

"To those who were paying attention, unlike a certain someone," he paused, gaze drifting over to you as he quickly took in the sight of what you were wearing.

While it was nothing out of the ordinary for you, you did choose to wear a skirt today, a favorite of his to see on you. How easy would it be for him to pull it up, bunching the fabric over your hips so be could get acess to what he was really after? He also took note of your gloss-covered lips, mind drifting onto how great they'd look wrapped around his cock or wide open as you moaned for him. He shifted, moving to be further behind his desk as he felt his pants tighten. He would wreck you after everyone was gone.

"You have a test on the topic of agoraphobia this upcoming Monday; today is Friday, which means you have the weekend to review the notes, which I hope you've been taking, for your own sake." He continued. "You're all free to go, except who I've already asked to stay." He really wouldn't stop rubbing that in, would he? Maybe he was trying to rile you up to make your usual "meeting" more exciting today.

As your classmates rose, you stayed seated, putting your stuff into your bag as you did. It was all routine, except for the man who had approached you before making his way out. He stood over you with a friendly smile, one that you had to admit made him look handsome. He didn't look too different from Dr. Crane in terms of basic features; dark hair and cornflower blue eyes. He was your type on the level of looks.

"Hey, I'm Ryan," He introduced himself, friendly smile remaining on his face. "I heard that you're pretty good in this class, making straight A's. I was wondering if you could help me study this weekend if you're free? Maybe we could grab a cup of coffee, too?" You looked over to where Dr. Crane was standing, the man in question observing your interaction from his desk, making it subtle by acting like he was sorting through papers.

You and your professor weren't exclusive, and if he had others lined up and waiting for him, then you could, too; it'd only be fair. Your classmate wanted to study and get coffee? He'd get what he wanted and more. "Sure! I'm free tommorrow at twelve if that works out for you," You finally replied, smiling up at Ryan. You had just met the guy and he was already doing something that Crane never did: asking you out on a date.

Ryan grinned, grabbing a notebook out of his bag and ripping out a piece of paper, writing his number on it before handing it to you. "I'll see you then!" He exclaimed happily before waving goodbye and leaving. After he had left, you stood up, pulling your bag over your shoulder before you made your way to where Jonathan was at the front of the lecture hall. He did ask you to stay after class.

"Throw it away," Crane stated plainly, moving the small, paper-filled trashcan that was under his desk to be in front of you. You looked down, not realizing you still had the slip of paper with Ryan's number on it in your hand.

"Do you even know what it is?" You retorted, shoving the paper into your bag.

"He gave you his number. You don't need the number of someone you turned down," He responded, moving the trashcan even closer to you. "Throw it away." He repeated.

"Except I didn't turn him down." You replied, watching his brows furrow in a mix of confusion, and then annoyance once your words sunk in. "We're not exclusive, you and I, are we?" Part of you hoped he'd prove you wrong, telling you that he was yours and you were his, while another part of you wanted to tell him 'fuck you" to his face. How many simultaneously lucky and unlucky women did he have waiting for him? Many, you were sure of it.

"I'm sure you have someone else in another one of your classes that you can spend your evening with, Dr. Crane." You smiled, trying to ignore the growing pain in your heart. "If you can have others, then it's only fair that I can as well."

"What makes you think that I have others?" He inquired, looking up at you with curious, blue eyes. "Do you think I'm the type of man to give out straight A's in my class in exchange for a fling or two? I don't even up your grades, darling." He chuckled lightly.

You rolled your eyes. He had to be lying to you... right? Were you really the only one and he just didn't see you as more than someone to have sex with? You didn't know what idea hurt you more, but the end result was the same: you meant little to him, and your body was all he wanted.

"I'll see you on Monday, professor." You mumbled out, feeling defeated. You already knew why he had asked you to stay after class, but the thought of him touching you while he wanted nothing more than just sex sickened you. What did you expect? That's all things had ever been. You shouldn't have caught feelings.

He watched you leave, letting out a long sigh once you were gone. You had always been a pain in his ass, but not one he'd ever get rid of.

Saturday at Twelve left just as quickly as it had come, and before you knew it, not only had you had your date, but you were also back in your Psychology class on Monday, a test on agoraphobia in front of you. Being nearly sixty questions long, it was intimidating to look at, even more so when the majority of questions were statistic-based. You were far from worried, however, having studied the topic extensively over the past few weeks.

Any confidence you had left you once you received your score later that same class period. You had failed by a large margin, the bright red ink in the corner shamefully exclaiming '34%' seeming to mock you as you stared back at it. You had yet to fail any assignment in your Psychology course, let alone one on such a common fear as agoraphobia. Your professor did this on purpose.

"Yes? Can I help you?" Crane asked, not bothering to look up as he shuffled through a stack of papers on his desk. You placed your failed test in front of the man, an angry frown on your face as you did so.

"Did you intentionally fail me because I went out on a date this weekend, you prick?!" He finally glanced up at you, his neutral expression not faltering a bit despite your obvious discontent. Then, he stood up, making his way over to his office door in the corner of the room.

"Come on, let's take this to my office so you can shout at me without embarrassing yourself as easily." The condescension in his voice only served to upset you further, much to his sadistic delight. You were the first one inside, Jonathan making sure to lock the door behind you. Before you could even open up your mouth to yell at him once more, he spoke.

"Did it feel good?" He asked nonchalantly, catching you off guard.

"What? What are you—"

"Did it feel good when he fucked you?" He finished, watching calmly as your eyes widened in shock. "You have a hickey on your neck under all that makeup you used to try and hide it. You've done the same to the ones I've given you in the past. It's just barely noticeable."

He stepped forward, closing in on you like a hungry animal would their prey, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Did it feel good? Did he manage to fuck you better than I ever could?" His arm wrapped around you, a hand placing itself on the small of your back as he leaned into you. "Or did he leave you wanting more? Did you go home and grab that vibrator of yours, just wishing it was me that had been the one with you while you were forced to make yourself cum, because he couldn't?"

He moved, lifting you up so he could sit you on the desk. Of course, like always, it was cleared off ahead of time in anticipation of your visit.

"Maybe I need to show you who you belong to, hmm?" His hands moved down under your skirt, one resting on your inner thigh while the other gave an experimental touch to your clothed sex. You were already wet, your arousal felt through the thin cotton of your panties. "Soaking already, my dear? He must've left you worse off than I imagined." Jonathan purred.

"H-He barely touched me," You stuttered out, feeling Crane tug your underwear to the side, his deft fingers finding your clit. "All we did was make out." You let out a soft moan as he began slowly rubbing at the sensitive bud.

"I don't believe you." His hands left you, beginning to undo his belt. The prominent tent in his black slacks let you know just what was in store for you; he was starving for you. "Not when you admitted you let him touch what's mine." He continued, motioning for you to take your soaked panties off.

"What's yours?" You breathed out, slipping off the clothing in question, letting it fall to the ground below.

"You need to know who you belong to." He stated, pulling his cock out; hard and leaking pre-cum at the tip. Your pussy grew even wetter at the sight. You spread your legs on instinct as he came in closer, putting himself in between them, a hand resting on your hip while the other lined himself up with your eager cunt, the head of his cock teasing your entrance.

"Who do you belong to?" He asked staring into your eyes with his half-lidded, sultry ones swimming with lust and need. "Answer me correctly and I'll be nice and give you what you want."

"You. I belong to you. Dr. Jonathan Cra— oh, fuck!" You gasped out, feeling him thrust into you without warning. He set a quick, almost animalistic pace, wasting no time; not when he needed you so much. Every drag of his thick cock inside of your desperate cunt sent pleasure coursing through you.

"I bet he didn't fuck you as good as this," he groaned, a tight grip on your hips as he slammed into you, the lewd sounds of your shared pleasure filling the small space of his office. It had only been a few days since he had last fucked you, but with the way you were already trembling beneath him it felt like it had been months.

"You're the best I've —Oh!— ever had!" You managed to get out between your moans. It was true, too. Out of every man you'd ever been with, no man had made you feel as good as Jonathan did. "Harder– baby, please!" You begged, gripping the edge of the desk like your life depended on it.

"Look at you, begging like a slut," He growled, pounding into you even harder. "That's okay, darling. You're my little slut. Mine to fuck. Mine to ruin." He let out a loud groan as your pussy clamped down on him at the sound of his words. "Oh? Does that turn you on? The thought of me ruining you? Trust me, you're not going to want a single person other than me after I'm done with you, darling." You pulled him down, dragging him into a messy, open-mouthed kiss. Your tongue moved against his, just like you were made for each other.

"I love you," you whimpered out, feeling him nip at your neck. "Please— I want to be all yours. Only yours." You pleaded, your mind too clouded with the intense pleasure rocking through your body to fully process the potential impact of what you had just confessed.

"You already are." He responded, hips snapping against yours as he lost his rhythm. "I love you, too. I don't care what trouble I'll get into for what we've done. I don't care if I lose my job, as long as you're with me at the end of it all."

That sent you over the edge, along with the tip of his cock grazing your sweet spot. You came around him, your orgasm crashing over you as your legs shook with the force of it all. He spilled into you not long after, thick, warm cum shooting deep inside you and leaking out to drip down your thighs as he let out a long, loud groan of ecstasy.

You slumped back against the desk, feeling the cold wood against your warm, hot skin. Jonathan buried his head into the crook of your neck, pressing soft, chaste kisses to it as you both came down from your orgasmic highs. You stayed like that for a long moment until both of you calmed down, a blissful exhaustion filling you.

"There's a new restaurant that opened up in the town center," he smiled, caressing your cheek. "I hear it has some of the best Chicken Alfredo the city has to offer. Good wine, too."

You chuckled tiredly, not catching on to his offer. "You fucked me silly just so you could tell me about some Italian place?"

"I'm sure it's a better first date than whatever that guy got you," He said, letting out a chuckle of his own. "I'm free later tonight if that's not too short notice."

Your eyes shot open as the realization set in. "Wait— You're asking me out? What if someone from the University sees us, Jonathan? You could get—" He cut you off with a short, sweet kiss.

"Arkham always needs new doctors, darling. There's never a shortage of the need for psychiatrists. I'm tired of grading papers, anyway." He nuzzled his face into the crook of your neck. "You heard what I said earlier, didn't you? I love you. You belong to me."

You had finally learned who you belonged to, and you couldn't have been happier.

[six-eyed-samurai]

I've seen a lot of people who write Muichiro as someone who sort of forgets he's not dating you in the crush stage, but my take is that Muichiro actually forgets he's dating you and thinks he's in his crush era.

🌸He'll approach you suddenly, a couple times a month, with a serious expression and red cheeks, to confess his not-so-secret crush on you from since the day you both met, having forgotten he had already done so and you both were already together

🌸You usually just go along with it until he gets to the "I hope you feel the same but I'll understand if you don't" part; then you break it to him with a shy laugh that he had already confessed and you both were going out

🌸It's not tiring at all to keep repeating the same scenario, not at all! Muichiro is so cute when he does it, unconsciously pulling an innocent puppy expression and staring at you hopefully. And when he remembers you both are a couple he'll immediately light up ever so excitedly, attack you in a hug, press his forehead against you and apologize in a flurry of "Sorry" and compliments

("How did I manage to pull someone like you?" He wonders out loud. You laugh - he's too cute for his own good.)

🌸Not only that it's honestly become a guessing game with you to see what method Muichiro would confess to you again this time. You both have approximately cycled through confession by love letter, gifts (he might've stolen it forgetting it belonged to someone else, but it's the thought that counts, right?), cloud-gazing date, outright declaration, jealous blurt...yeah, you've gone through every single trope there was possible

🌸Your favorite one was when he threw an airplane across the room to you and when you unfolded it he wrote a little sweet confession. You still have it, along with the rest he started throwing to you to 1. get your attention 2. annoy you 3. ask you to join him for training or cloud-gazing

🌸 You've told him multiple times it's okay if he wants to stare at you anytime he likes after catching him doing it one day, like he did when he was in his crush phase, but he forgot and acts like he just got caught performing the most atrocious crime on earth: looks away immediately and vehemently denies it

🌸Everyone around you guys thinks it's super funny and adorable how Muichiro would start talking about you and abruptly end it with something like "Is this what people mean by having a crush?" or "I would really like to be her boyfriend someday if I manage to confess and she accepts." As said above he gets really puppy-dog excited when he's told "Aren't you guys dating already?"

("We are?" Muichiro frowned. "I don't remember..." His eyes widen. "So that's who left me that daikon today..." Then he runs off forgetting he's in the middle of conversation to go find you.)

🌸Sometimes it's a little awkward when it comes to dates though. Say there's a festival happening in a nearby town or White Day and you've been planning to spend the day having fun with him - Muichiro's going to forget you're both together and be too shy to ask you out despite that's all he's thinking about. Then you have to remind him, or someone else triggers it.

("I'm so sorry I didn't ask you!" Muichiro pushed a small box of chocolates towards you. "I got you this as an apology if it makes up for it? We'll do anything you want for tonight if you want?)

🌸It's always funny when Muichiro gets sulky or starts moping around when he hears about your boyfriend and how you're gushing over him because he forgot it was him. You like to tease him about it by listing out all the qualities you like about him and the usual praise until Muichiro asks who it is, his jealousy quite obvious.

("You, dummy!"

Muichiro blinked, then groaned, grabbing onto your side and looking up at you pathetically. "Don't play with me like that!")

🌸Of course it's not all fun and games. If this is before he met Tanjiro and regained his memories he can be pretty cold to you when he doesn't remember about your relationship, leading to a lot of things you both have to talk through after a fight.

🌸Worse case scenario is that he still remembers you as a crush, but decides that instead of confessing like before he ought to push you away before you became a weakness, a distraction...someone he'd lose.

🌸After he gets back his memories and becomes more like his old self however, he doesn't forget your relationship anymore, meaning to make up for all the times he did. In fact he flexes it, wanting to tell everyone about the both of you all the time to the point your default face is now "extremely flustered".

🌸Especially when he's jealous, actually.

("I heard that (y/n) has a crush though, do you really think you still stand a chance?"

Muichiro whipped his head around at the sound of the two slayers gossiping in the corner during a break from his training. A slight crease forms between his eyebrows and he decides to go a little harder on them later.

"Nah, it's fine! I'm a hundred per cent confident she'll say yes as long as she isn't dating anyone!"

"But I heard she is," a third slayer joined in, leaning closer conspiratorially. "A Hashira, actually."

The guy in question bursts out laughing. Scumbag. "As if! Don't be so stupid. She's already lucky she could get MY attention."

"Who would want a stupid mizunoto like you?" Muichiro smacked the slayer with the flat of his blade expressionlessly. The other two yelped and scrambled back. "For your information (y/n) got my attention - and now you have mine: go run ten laps around the Estate and if I hear you defile her name again I'll make it a hundred."

He blew a raspberry at the poor wretch as he ran past.)

[periprose]

Hi! :)

I’m craving some Logan Howlett angsty fluff and I really like your writing style… Do you think you could maybe do a fic where either Logan and reader are in the heat of the moment and his claws come out and he scratches her. Or where Logan has a nightmare and the same thing happens. Either way the reader ends up comforting him.

Thank you! 🩷 :)

Hi!! So sorry for getting to this so late 🥹 loved the idea btw :) ended up doing a bit of a mix of both? If that makes sense.

/

"Out with it."

Your voice rings out clearly among the X-Men, the throng of battle no longer around you all. It was a more exhausting battle than you would've thought, but nothing irks you more than knowing that Logan has been apparently thinking of you as someone to play babysitter to. He hadn't trusted you to make your final blow to the enemy, and instead scooped you away to safety before lashing out with his own claws.

Logan clearly has something to say to you, and you want to hear it. You're not going to let him escape again- the way he always does, nonchalantly, refusing to acknowledge how he treats you.

Charles stiffens next to you in the helicarrier. Watching the tension, feeling the palpable heart-wrenching sensation between you and Logan. He doesn't know how you got to this point.

"Listen. Just because you didn't have it doesn't mean you're not a good X-Man-" Logan starts dismissively.

"But I did! I did have it!" You shout back at him, and then inhale carefully. "Nobody told you to rescue me, Logan. If I was about to die, then I was. I wanted that to be on my own terms."

"Don't talk like you're a fucking martyr when you've never had the privilege, kid." Logan's unnecessarily harsh tone has you flinching. "Do you know how many people I've seen die, for no good reason? Do you really want a bunch of Pentagon psychos to be your last memory?"

"Shut up." You shift in your seat, feeling small. "We don't get to choose when we die. Not like you."

Logan becomes visibly angered with that, the little taunt you've made towards his immortality. "That doesn't mean you have to go seek it out, dumbass."

"Oh really? Don't tell me you're getting soft, Logan." You glare at him, and Charles and Jean and Scott look at each other uncertainly. "Just because your life is so long doesn't mean the rest of us have forgotten what it means to be alive."

There's an unspoken, sudden charge in the air, now that you've mentioned what everyone else has the good sense to shut up about- Logan having lived so long and not caring about the consequences of his actions. Logan's eyes narrow until you feel sure that you've pushed him too far this time- he looks more animal than human, more Wolverine than ever- and you feel yourself inching forward, letting the anger of not being understood push you to fighting him- and Charles suddenly raises his hand in protest.

"Please, you two. I'm not sure what has transpired today, but I know you are better than choosing to have a physical altercation on a helicarrier flight." His calm, soothing tone makes you feel a little disappointed in yourself, and you settle back in your seat, refusing to meet his or Jean's glances of concern.

/

All you really wanted was an apology. A "Sorry, I won't do that again." Or even an explanation for why Logan keeps tabs on you all the time, never letting you be a real part of the X-Men, always safely on the sidelines. Were you just too weak?

Should you even be here?

You feel guilty for what you said to him. It's not a bad thing, you know, that Logan doesn't want you to get hurt- it's just that you want to do your job. You're not a kid.

It almost, almost justifies how you treated him, but even you know that was too far. You can't act as if you know Logan's life story- not even Charles or Jean would claim to do that, and they've searched his mind for memories several times.

Like it or not, the man was mysterious. He kept to himself on a lot of things, citing past hurt as his reason why- and you should've respected that.

"Maybe I am weak." You mutter to yourself, wondering why you can't restrain your emotions around Logan.

You're practicing shooting small, psionic blasts towards the target in your room- it's a great way to pass the time when you can't sleep- when you hear a groan, a shudder, an angry, deep growl-

It sounds like Logan. His room is right above yours, and the sounds are definitely coming from there- you hear him yell, and before you can stop yourself, you're bounding up the stairs to the third floor of the X-Mansion, bursting through his room's door with a ready hand, in case you need to fight.

/

Logan watches as you berate him in his dream.

Actually, it's not quite you- it's some venomous, evil, witch wearing your face. You giggle at him- you call him old- you don't take him seriously.

With every taunt, you fire another bright purple blast at him- and for once, his body doesn't heal instantaneously. He is getting old, getting hurt, watching as blood pools out of him. It's agonizingly painful.

He's going to die this time, without making it right with you- he's afraid that you're right about him, that he's a washed up sad old man who can't ever let people in.

"We don't need you anymore, Logan..." The not-you whispers softly, smiling a smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes, and Logan can't help but believe it.

His self preservation instincts kick in, and he launches forward, snarling, claws out with a sharp snikt sound. He feels that even though he'll regret your death, he'll miss you immensely, it's just one more tally mark to several others.

/

"Logan. Logan!"

You're leaning over Logan's sweaty, clammy body in his bed. You watch as his hands fist in the sheets, and he tosses and turns in agony- you breathe in hesitation, in fear that he's not going to be okay- he grunts suddenly, and you're reminded of how Rogue tells you about his nightmares. They're frequent.

How out of touch could you have been today?

You gently-yet-firmly grab Logan's arm, shaking, and his arms move forward in a self-defense mechanism that seems practiced, as if he's been attacked in his sleep before, and before you can move away, there's a sharp snikt sound, a quick wave of claws, and a searing pain in your side.

It all happens before you can even blink. You fall off to the side, on the floor, writhing in pain. Logan's claws just nicked your side, it's essentially a scratch- but the pain is so much worse than you're expecting, and you fall to the floor again as you try to get up.

You breathe in harshly, holding back a sob, as you feel wet blood pooling through the side of your night dress.

"Jesus Christ." Logan pounces off the bed, waking to blood all over his claws, and he's leaning over your body, as you blink up at him hesitantly. He immediately panics, lifting you up and resting you on his squatted thighs. "Kid! Hey, kid, don't close your eyes-"

"..." You're just barely hanging on, but you listen.

And Logan feels that same sense of shame he felt when he attacked Rogue, when Jean "died", every single time he had accidentally unsheathed his claws towards someone who didn't deserve it.

Doubly so, considering it's like his terrible nightmare has come to life. But you absolutely didn't do anything wrong- he can't believe he was so angry with you.

He calls for help, in a slightly broken tone, and no one seems to be coming.

"Just a scratch." You try, but Logan shakes his head.

"No, no, no." Logan spits out. "How could I- I never meant to-"

"I'm sorry, Logan." You cough, and Logan feels awful that you're apologizing while bleeding out due to his actions. "I shouldn't have said what I said. You're not some unreliable old man who doesn't care..."

You flinch at a sudden, sharp pain, and Logan motions for you to stop talking, but you keep going.

"If anything, you're the opposite. You're there for me. And I'm sorry that I got so... so angry at you for that." You mutter to yourself, not aware of how Logan hangs onto your words. "You're protecting me from making mistakes, and I'm grateful."

"No, kid. You had a point before." Logan interjects, but you shake your head.

"Did I? Or was I being a brat?" You grimace at yourself.

"You did have a point. I was being selfish," Logan shakes his head and then swallows that urge to push you away. "I don't always know how to leave people well enough alone. Sometimes I'm too much."

He hesitates, and then continues on. "Like, I treat you as if you're a nuisance, right? But I always... I always want you next to me. And I know I should just sort my shit out like an adult. But I'm scared."

"Scared?"

"Of what happens. What always happens." Logan sighs in defeat. "I fall in love, and they die. I find my people, and they leave me because I'm such a jackass. There's too much surrounding me that just... ruins everything."

"No, no. I won't leave." You tighten your hand around Logan's, and he, despite wanting to say that you're wounded because of him, believes you. He's so grateful to hear you say it- he had no idea that's what was weighing on him so badly.

He loves you, he knows he does. Logan has never been the best with feelings, but for once, he's glad he was honest.

The first thing Scott sees when he finally makes his way to Logan's room, from all the way across the X-Mansion, is Logan whispering "I'm sorry," and... he thinks (he's not 100% sure), "I love you," to your very forlorn, softly curved-around-him body.

It's a very tender moment, and Scott feels he should leave.

Then Logan presses a firm, shaky kiss on your forehead, and then your lips, and you, with your limited reserve of energy, kiss him back, and then Scott interjects with:

"Hey!...?"

He seems taken aback as you both look at him. "I heard screaming? What is this, some sort of weird cult sacrificial scenario?"

"Logan... had a... nightmare..." You wince, and Scott sees the red on your night gown. "I need... medical attention."

"On it." Scott glances at Logan for permission, and he's currently trying to push all these mushy feelings back into his chest where they belong, and he wants to be there to help you in the clinic, but he's flustered with everything that's happened and he can only hand you to Scott without looking at him.

Scott smirks to himself as he runs you to the clinic of the X-Mansion.

"You and Logan, huh? I knew there was something in that fight today." Scott remarks as you cling to him.

"It's taken an embarrassingly long time for me to figure it out, but yeah." You blush. "Has everyone else...?"

"Jean's been running a bet for the last year." Scott laughs. "She says you both are two sides of the same coin."

You can't help but agree.

[manonssunset]

"COSA NUESTRA"

pairing: kim minjeong x fem!reader

synopsis: minjeong, a regular like you at the jazz lounge, decided to challenge you, unaware of what was about to unfold.

part 1 ○ part 2 [coming soon]

warnings/tags: language, suggestive, the story takes place in 1978, ending hints at nsfw content, minjeong is wearing the same outfit as the photo, heavy sexual tension, reader is kinda nonchalant help

wc: +2,5k

a/n: I was heavily inspired by my man's new album, I literally fell in love with the retro/1970 vibes, and also, minjeong in that outfit made me lose my mind. in this fic, I describe pool dynamics using specific terms. if you need some clarifications, I made a post with what everything means.

The warmth of the lounge atmosphere was a great contrast to the typical november cold weather, an atmosphere you were quite used to: young beautiful women dancing to the band’s jazz melodies, swaying their bodies to the rhythm, their partners chattering and laughing while clouding the room up with a thin layer of smoke. you passed the pool tables, the unmistakable sound of the billiard balls colliding and cristal glass clinking filling the air. you slid through the crowd and found your way to the bar, taking a seat on one of the black leather stools. 

“excuse me, could you pass me the newspaper ma'am?” you requested the gentlewoman sitting beside you, noticing the pile of papers stacked neatly in front of her. saying she was beautiful was an understatement, she looked sharp in the suit she was wearing, her tie perfectly knotted, and her vest hugged her waist deliciously. she was a regular just like you, you’d seen her before, but you’d always kept your distance, never quite summoning the courage to strike up a conversation.

she turned towards you, offering a timid smile. a shade of pink colored her cheeks, probably caused by the alcoholic liquid she was drinking. she answered “absolutely, here you go, ma'am”, extending the arm that wasn't holding the glass to grab the newspaper and handing it to you. your eyes met each other, and it felt like a spark had just been ignited between the two. 

“thank you so much.” you thanked her, smiling back. your heart beating faster, this was your opportunity to get to know her, you had to quickly think about something else to say before the conversation could end. 

“it's my pleasure,” she said softly, fixing a strand of hair behind her ear. “the pleasure is mine… may I ask your name, madam? it's not the first time I've seen you here.” you didn't know where this confidence came from but you sighed in relief when her face cutely lit up at the sudden question, her already pink cheeks turning a deeper shade of red. 

“no I don't mind, it's minjeong, nice to meet you.” she replied, shaking your hand, the soft grip lingering longer than expected, leaving you wanting more. you greeted her back, introducing yourself, settling into a comfortable conversation with the girl, getting to know each other, the newspaper long forgotten. 

“I've seen you play pool before, you're good, but I don't think you can beat me.” she suddenly challenged you, a smirk appearing on her face as she eyed you expectantly, knowing that you wouldn't let someone you just met belittle your skills like that.

“oh, you think you can beat me ma'am?” she was still giggling and repeating herself, stating that she was indeed able to win against you.

a wicked idea formed into your mind, you chuckled slightly before speaking “okay, since you're so sure you can defeat me, let’s make a deal. if you win, I'll let you do whatever you want to me, if you don't, it's the other way around, huh?”. when she grasped what you were insinuating, the face minjeong made was priceless, her smile suddenly dropped and her teasing demeanor quickly faded. you caught with your peripheral view her thighs press tightly together, sensing her newfound feeling of mixed fear and excitement. “s-sure,” she slightly stuttered.

as you two stood up to move to one of the pool tables, you realized how tiny minjeong was, not that you were the tallest or the most muscular but she just looked so easy to manhandle. and, unsurprisingly, you weren’t the only one affected by the size difference, the other girl unconsciously gulped when she had to look up to meet your gaze. “how do we determine who breaks?” she asked, grabbing a cue from the stand.

“well, since you decided to challenge me, I think it’s fair if you start, don’t you agree?” you responded, sliding your long black coat off your shoulders, hanging it to the wall, remaining in your three-piece suit. as you grabbed a cue and the triangle to rack the balls, minjeong nodded affirmatively, her eyes following your every move, exhaling through her nose and mentally preparing herself before starting the match.       

you watched her get in position, sliding the cue between her fingers, hand placed on the table, aiming at the center, taking a deep breath and shooting. a loud thud was heard and the colorful balls started rolling around on the play field, bouncing on the bumpers. it was an impressive start, she managed to pot three striped balls, the decision of the group a predictable and easy task, the advantage she had was clear.

however, that was what an inexperienced person would have thought, minjeong being the example. a more acute observation would have made her realize that choosing to pot another striped ball was going to be her downfall. sure, she was in the lead with only three balls left to pot, meanwhile you still had all seven, but the disposition made reaching the remaining spheres almost impossible. you couldn't help but smile to yourself seeing her concerned face as she realized the challenging situation she had put herself into. 

minjeong adjusted her stance, her brows furrowing in concentration. she leaned over the table, eyes narrowing as she calculated the angle. The cue hovered over the white ball, but she hesitated. her fingers trembled slightly, and she repositioned herself, then again, a growing uncertainty flickering in her movements. a bead of sweat gathered at her temple. the tension in her posture deepened. you could sense the change, the pressure of the game was getting to her. every small shift in her stance seemed to reflect her internal struggle.

you stayed silent for a moment, giving her space to gather herself, but there was something about her now: a vulnerability that had crept into her demeanor. you knew she needed help, not just with the shot but with her growing unease. you took a slow step toward her, feeling the tension between you both build in the air.

you stood behind her, close enough that she could feel your presence, yet still leaving to her the decision to close the distance. minjeong didn’t move at first, but you could tell she was aware of you, her posture slightly stiff as if unsure how to react. then, without asking, you gently placed a hand on her waist, guiding her to shift just a fraction. the contact was light but intentional, enough to make her freeze for a moment.

“let me help,” you said quietly, your voice calm, almost reassuring. there was no force in your words, just a quiet offer. minjeong took a breath, the smallest of nods acknowledging your proximity. her hesitation remained, but she didn’t pull away. as you moved your hand to gently adjust her wrist, you could feel the heat of her skin under your touch. it was subtle, but the way her body first tensed, then relaxed ever so slightly, was telling. you could feel her breath quicken, though she tried to keep it steady. 

"you know that it’s impossible for you not to foul with this layout?” you murmured, your voice low, just above a whisper. “you’re overthinking it. relax a little.” your hand on her waist shifted ever so slightly, guiding her posture, your touch light but firm enough to reassure her that you were there to steady her.

minjeong let out a small breath, her body shifting as you gently moved her hand into a more natural position. the proximity between you felt charged, the space between you both compressed with an electric tension. she didn’t pull away, even though there was a shift in the air, an unspoken awareness between you both.

"if you aim like this, you can at least pot one of your balls, you’re still going to hit one of mine but better that nothing, right?" you added softly, your voice almost a reassurance just for her. she nodded in agreement, her fingers tightened slightly on the cue, but now it felt more controlled, less uncertain. her breath steadied as she prepared for the shot. with a final, silent breath, minjeong lined up her shot once more, her body moving fluidly as she struck. the ball, as you predicted, hit one of yours but thanks to your help she was still able to pot one of hers.

now it was your time to shine, you loosen up your neck and back, grabbed your cue and got into position, aiming, shooting and changing posture repeatedly. the balls were rapidly going in one by one, you used some tricks, showing off your skills you acquired over time. potting the first six balls had been quite easy, the real challenge was the last one, you were having the opposite problem that minjeong had, one of her striped spheres was in the way to pot your seventh. the only way to escape this situation, was to try a complicated shot.

you bent over the table, aimed, calibrated the strength you would need, and forcefully shot. your eyes fixed on the ball, following its movements, hoping for the best. the trick had worked, your ball hadn’t collided with minjeong’s one, running to the other side of the table, getting closer and closer to the pocket. you were ready to celebrate when the ball started to slow down and stopped right before falling in. “damn it! It was so close!” you exclaimed, disappointed in yourself.

the other girl, who had been attentively watching you play, walked over to you and gently lifted her arm to pat your shoulder as a sign of sympathy. “don’t feel sad for one bad shot, you did amazing until now,” she reassured you, a warm feeling spread through your body making you blush. “thank you minjeong, I really appreciate it,” you replied, caressing her arm back to show gratitude. you saw her cheeks redden when she heard you say her name, averting her gaze and softly smiling. 

you were now taking in the fact that minjeong was probably going to win, it was easy, you cleared the table for her, she just needed to do some simple shots to succeed. and that's exactly what she was doing, potting her last two balls before aiming for her victory. you were observing from the other side, apprehensive of your evident losing condition, resting your chin on your hands that held the cue vertically. 

but when everything seemed to be already written, the unpredictable happened: yes minjeong did indeed pot the eight ball, but she also potted the cue ball, automatically making you the winner of the match.

as the game came to its unexpected end, a grin stretched across your face. you couldn’t help it: there was something intoxicating about this power shift. minjeong’s bright eyes flickered with frustration, then embarrassment, and the slightest hint of disbelief. she had lost. the moment was almost cinematic, the dim lighting casting a golden hue over her features. she looked... entranced, still processing the outcome.

her gaze was fixed on you, lips slightly parted. you could see the vulnerability beneath the surface. her hands hung loosely by her sides, but you could feel the tension radiating from her, like a pull between the two of you, a magnetic force that neither of you could deny. as you moved closer, her breath caught, and her body stiffened, but there was something else now: a faint glimmer of anticipation in her eyes. she bit her lip, her pupils dilating as your face came nearer.

you paused, contemplating your next move, her eyes were begging for proximity, flickering between your lips and your gaze, a slight tension building up in her shoulder as if she was anticipating your touch. her body leaned your way as a silent welcoming sign, and you took it, cupping her face gently, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath your palms. the hum of conversation and laughter around you seemed to fade into the background, leaving just the two of you in a bubble. her breath quickened. “relax, minjeong,” you murmured, your voice low, comforting, and commanding all at once. “it’s going to feel good.”

you took a deep breath, you were engulfed in the sweet scent she emanated, surely not a cheap perfume. the richness of the jasmine mixed with vanilla acting as an invisible thread that pulled you in every time she was near, a fragrance you’d come to associate with her. minjeong’s eyes narrowed, hesitation made clear by her parted lips, mouth muscles slightly twitching as she was trying to say something, but was too scared to. should she risk it all like this? her heartbeat louder as it echoed in her chest.  

a beat passed before she found the courage to whisper, almost too quietly to hear, “can you kiss me... please?” her hands, trembling slightly, found their way to your waist, pulling you in. the uncertainty in her voice made the request all the more enticing. she wanted it. she needed it. you could feel the weight of that simple plea hanging between you, thick with unspoken desire. 

you sensed some unwelcome eyes turning your way, a few lingering glances that had you unconsciously tighten the grip on her face in possessiveness, wondering if it was the right thing to continue right there. the bubble that you were both in had dissolved just for a second, you were now hyper aware of your surroundings, the laughing and clinking had become an unwanted intrusion to your intimate moment. your attention swinged back to her face, your furrowed brows trying to communicate your discomfort non-verbally to the other girl.     

you hesitated before speaking “in front of everybody? don’t you think it’s a little… dangerous?”, the question hung in the air, your voice barely above a whisper, as if you were giving her a moment to decide. she glanced around, eyes darting from yours to scan person per person, the idea of kissing you in front of so many people was suddenly very real. minjeong’s gaze flickered back to yours, a blush crept up her neck, she let out a soft laugh, more of a nervous exhale than anything else. her lips remained parted, but no words came out, just a soft hum of uncertainty. 

that was the telltale sign that your feelings were mutual. you then let go of her cheeks, you gently placed your hand on top of hers, taking her arm, fingers curling around her delicate skin. the soft warmth of her pulse under your touch was a subtle reminder of how close she was. “let’s go to the bathrooms, it’s more secluded.” you speak in a low and controlled voice, keeping the whispery connotation of your last conversation. you let the words linger just enough to make minjeong feel a heat spread through her body, making her wonder what exactly you meant by “more secluded”. 

her train of thoughts interrupted by a graceful pull on her arm, with every step you took, you drew her closer to the promise of something more. she followed without thinking, her feet moving on their own, a warm tension building within her with each step, her pulse quickening as the distance between you two seemed to shrink, leaving her breathless with anticipation.

a/n: part 2 will come out soon... 👀

[latherinhoney]

2:00 am

(jake & heeseung - enhypen)

genre: college au

description: heeseung, jake and you have been best friends since forever, going off to the same college and even sharing an apt together. Finding time to relieve yourself can be difficult, especially living with other people since you don't want to be caught but what if it was your best friend? What if they offered to help you out in the name of being best friends and that they always help each other out no matter the situation.

5.3k words

warnings: 18+, hard smut, breeding/creampie, double penetration, anal, eating out, nipple play, some cock warming, overstim, masturbation, getting caught, use of sex toys, pet names, best friends to lovers kinda?? they just wanna fuck one another

a/n: hello hello, it's been a while since i've posted something but I had a request for a heejake x reader smut and decided why not? this is probably the longest smut i've ever worked on, it's pretty filthy lmao but as always i hope you enjoy and send me any requests! :)

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The three of you had been sharing an apartment ever since they finally let you move out of the dorms your freshman year. Jake, Heeseung and you had been friends since basically forever. Everyone always said how you guys were basically attached at the hip and did everything together.

When senior year rolled around, you guys couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from one another, going to different schools so you guys agreed to apply to the same schools. Luckily fate was on your guys side and you all got accepted into the same school. 

Though you guys did have have your occasional fights and bickering, you couldn’t imagine yourself anywhere else. You all complemented each other very well and meshed together. Since you were broke college students, you obviously couldn’t splurge for the nicest apartment but you guys managed to find a 2 bedroom for an amazing price. Jake and Heeseung shared a room and they gave you the honors of having your own bedroom. 

It was great having your own room, it was decorated the way you wanted and was the perfect place for when Heeseung and Jake started getting a little too annoying. The talk of significant others and hookups came often as you would all ask each other if you could bring back someone home. Hearing the main door close and open plus the shuffling of feet. Then hearing the bedroom door close shut and the noise of the bed hitting against the wall echoing throughout the apartment. 

Jake was notorious for bringing girls back home to the apartment for his late night hookups. Considering he was at frat parties so often it was basically like was apart of a fraternity. At least once a week he was coming home with a new girl, to which he would send a text ahead of time and which meant Heeseung and you would be roomates for the night. On the other hand Heeseung wasn’t much of a hookup culture guy although his looks could say otherwise, he only par took in them occasionally. He preferred to stay in and do whatever activity he pleased over finding some girl to hookup with. Though with you, you never really participated in hookups. Only having had one serious boyfriend in your lifetime it was just something that didn’t interest you. 

Though that didn’t mean you we’re a complete angel. Hidden in the nightstand next to your bed was your collection of toys. When the guys were out of the apartment, it was your time for your fix. Thankfully you’d never been caught by Jake or Heeseung but have had very close calls. Just last week when they we’re both out of the house, you we’re riding your dildo using your vibrator, so close to hitting your peak. “Fuck” you had moaned throwing your head back. You kept the vibrator on your clit as you could feel your stomach bubbling. “Ima cum soon” you whimpered out to yourself. That’s when you heard keys moving and the main door open. You had forgotten to lock your bedroom door and there was a 50/50 chance that Heeseung would pop in. Immediately lunging up, you shut the door and locked it. That was an extremely close call. Ever since then you were extremely careful and planned out when you we’re going to masturbate to minimize the chance of them potentially walking in on you. Though as of recently they we’re home a lot more then usual and it was starting to drive you slightly insane. You hadn’t been able to find a chance to relieve yourself and it was starting to get to you. 

“ You okay?” Jake asked tilting his head. 

“I’m okay” you muttered “Just slightly irritated is all.” 

“Hmmm well what’s irritating you?” 

“Ah it’s nothing, don’t worry I’ll take care of it” 

“It doesn’t seem like nothing but if you ever need help, Heeseung and me always here for whatever it is” 

That night you lied in your bed wondering what the hell Jake meant by that. The way he had said “for whatever it is” your imagination started running wild. Did he know? Could he tell?  So many questions swirled around inside your head. Did he mean something else with different intentions? “No, this is stupid” you thought to yourself “How could I think that one of my bestest friends wanted to fuck me? Don’t be stupid” You snapped out of it and turned over on your bed and looked at the clock 2:00am. Everyone was asleep by now, so it was either going to be now or never. You looked over at your door to make sure it was closed and started slowly opened your nightstand to reveal your array of toys. 

It’d been so long since you last masturbated that you we’re becoming impatient fumbling around grabbing a toy. You quietly slid down your pants making sure that you weren’t making any noise that Jake and Heeseung could hear from the other room. You then slipped off your underwear throwing it to the side of the bed. Reaching your hand down, you started rubbing your clit. You pratically moaned at how good it felt since it’d been so long. Quickening your pace, you grew wetter and wetter. 

Moving your hand down to grab some of your arousal to continue rubbing your cilt. The noises your body were making were so lewd, that in the back of your mind you we’re praying that Heeseung or Jake wouldn’t wake up. As you continued rubbing your clit, an aching feeling grew in your core, the feeling of needing to be stuffed. You reached over to grab your dildo and aglined up with your entrance, slowly pushing it in.

It’d been a while so the stretch was a little uncomfortable but not unwelcome. Gasping at how good it felt, you continued to warm up to it until it fully slipped in. Slowly moving it in and out you started to quicken the pace. Rubbing your clit at the same time you could feel your mind slowly slipping.

Needing to bite your tongue to keep your whimpers in, you continued moving the dildo at a quickened pace. “Fuck” you whispered out, you knew you weren’t going to last much longer with the warm feeling quickly growing in your stomach. You kept going at a relentless pace, the tip of the dildo rubbing over your g-spot with every thrust. “FuckFuckFuck” you continued whispering out. The feeling in your stomach getting tighter by the second. 

While almost getting to the brink of your climax that’s when you failed to hear footsteps walking towards your door. Heeseung woke up groggy in the middle of the night, looking at his phone he saw that it was 2:00am. He set his phone back down and got out of bed to use the restroom. In his groggy state he used the restroom and went over to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water and that’s when he heard it. He saw that the lights in your room we’re still dimly on and could hear noise coming from your room. He found it odd since you would usually have your lights off by this time. Finishing his glass of water, he started walking over to your room. 

He could hear noise from your room but couldn’t exactly make out what it was. Since you guys we’re so close with one another you usually didn’t have to knock on each others doors. If the doorknob was locked that’s when you knew the other person wanted privacy. That’s when Heesung opened the door, watching you about to hit your climax. He stood there frozen like a statue realizing what he had just walked into. It was too late for you stop when out of the corner of your eye you saw your bedroom door swing open, looking at Heeseung standing in your doorframe dumbfounded. 

“Fuck” you moaned out as you reached your peak arching your back off the bed. Not being able to stop you continued riding your high out until you came down from your peak. You then embarrassed reached to grab your blankets and quickly throw them over yourself. You could feel the heat on your face growing stronger from the embarrassment of getting caught. 

“Can I help you?” you breathe out slightly panting. 

“Uhmm…uhmmm” Heeseung stammers out, as his face slowly grows bright red. 

Not being able to get the words out of his mouth he steps back and slams the door shut. 

“Oh my fucking god, no way” Heeseung whispers panickedly as he rushes back to his room. He sat on the corner of his bed and processed what he just saw. You, balls deep with your dildo hitting your peak. Remembering you moaning as you reached your peak, not stopping even though he opened the door and watched what you we’re doing. The way your back arched from the bed and the way you couldn’t stop fucking yourself even when you reached your peak made Heeseung’s mind completely lose train of thought. Although he didn’t want to admit it he was turned on and found it arousing. 

Sure he always thought you we’re cute and found you attractive but never thought of pushing your guys relationship past only being best friends. Though something in his mind flipped when he saw you cumming on your bed. It was the first time he thought of wanting something more and wanted to push the boundaries of your friendship. Hearing the noise of the bedroom shut and whisper panicking from the other corner of the room, Jake also woke up from his sleep slightly panicked. 

“Hey, Heeseung what’s wrong?” He asks with a raspiness in his throat

“I can’t believe I just saw that” Heeseung says as he puts his hands up to his face. 

“What man? What happened?” 

“It’s so awkward, I don’t even know if I can tell you” 

“You know damn well there’s no awkward thing you can say in this friendship, what happened?” 

You lied under your covers completely mortified about what had just happened. You couldn’t believe that Heeseung had just caught you masturbating and literally caught you at the worst part too. You don’t even know how you we’re going to face him after this, praying a hole would open up on your bed and swallow you whole to save you from the embarrassment. “Fuck and of course it’s when I haven’t done it for a while either” you groan throwing your head back. 

“And that’s what happened” Heeeung says finally removing his hands from his face, red still decorating his face. 

“No way, oh my god” Jake laughs slightly “That must’ve been so awkward” 

“I was literally frozen dude, I couldn’t move at all, all I could do was watch” 

“Oh my god” Jake continues to laugh “But tell me this” getting slightly more serious “... was it hot…?” 

“We’re all best friends for fucks sake, I can’t be thinking like this”

“Listen, I know it’s weird but you can’t tell me you haven’t at least had the thought cross your mind?” 

“... I mean, I won’t lie and say I haven’t but still” 

“ I mean cmon Hee haven’t you seen when she walks around the apartment in those tiny ass shorts or when she wears those tight shirts with her boobs almost spilling out?” 

“..... yes….” 

“And you got hard watching her cum, right?” Jake says pointing at Heeseung’s obvious hard-on. “Listen, I told her if she needed help with anything to let us know and we can obviously tell she needs help right now so now’s the perfect opportunity” 

“Are you sure? Shouldn’t we just leave her alone I’m pretty sure she’s embarrassed” 

“She’s gonna be embarrassed regardless, might as well face the problem right now” 

“I hope your right” 

Jake and Heeseung get up and off the bed and start heading towards your room. You hear the footsteps leading towards your bedroom and curse “Fuck what could he want now” you groan not wanting to lift the sheets from up off your face. That’s when you heard a knocking from your door “can I come in?” you hear Heeseung from the other side of the door. You roll your eyes “What’s the fucking point of knocking on the door anymore” you think to yourself “Yes cmon in”. That’s when you see two people enter the room instead of one. You were even more mortified no fucking way Heeseung told Jake about this too. “HEESEUNG” you yelled out “You told him??” 

“Im sorry, I was panicking, and Jake asked what was wrong and I couldn’t hold it in” Heeseung said rubbing the back of his neck. Though on the other hand Jake was looking at you with a stern look. Worried about what he was going to say, you avoided making eye contact with him. “I thought I told you if you needed help with anything to let us know” he says crossing his arms. By this point your mind was running a hundred miles an hour, what did he just say? Did help with anything mean what you actually thought it meant? You swear you we’re starting to go crazy no way he just said that? 

“Well… uhmmm.. I didn’t think that’s what you meant.” You said avoiding eye contact. “We’re best friends, best friends help each other out with anything no matter what it is” Jake says his gaze darkening. 

“Well typically “normal” best friends don’t help each other out in this type of situation. 

“Well every friendship is different and we’re just taking ours to the next step.” 

You couldn’t help but admit that you did find them attractive, the way Jake and Heeseung would walk around with only a small towel wrapped around their waist after a shower. The way it hung low and could see their v-line start forming but you kept these thoughts to yourself because you guys we’re best friends. But when Jake and Heeseung had their hookups and you could hear a new girl moaning from the other room you couldn’t help but wonder is it as good as it sounds? But again these we’re thoughts you kept to yourself. 

Jake and Heeseung sat down on opposite sides of your bed and looked at each other nodding to one another before they opened their mouths to say what they we’re going to say. You we’re nervous having no idea what they we’re going to say or do. 

“If your okay with this we’re willing to take this friendship to the next step but need your confirmation” 

The way they both looked at you made your stomach fill with butterflies. “Yes please, I need both of you so bad I’ve been so lonely” you whimpered. The green light flashed and both of them immediately took their opportunity. 

“Fuck Princess we’re gonna make you feel so good” Heeseung pants out leaning into you. 

Jake immediately leans in to start kissing you on the lips, his kiss filled with want and need. You can feel the desperation behind his kiss, him wanting more and more. He slips his tongue out asking for permission and once let in the kisses start turning sloppy with him not being able to get enough of you. Meanwhile Heeseung roamed his hands all over your body, slipping them under your shirt and grabbing onto your boobs. He couldn’t believe it all the times he thought about how your tits looked like when you would wear those skimpy tops, he was finally about to see them. He unclasped your bra and started massaging your boobs which made you let out a moan into Jake’s mouth. 

“Feeling good baby?” Heeseung smirked continuing to play with your tits. You could feel your brain start to feel fuzzy with how good you were feeling. He moved his hands down to play with your nipples, causing an instant reaction from you. He rubbed the pads of his fingers on your nipples and then would pinch them rolling them inbetween his fingers, toying with them. You could already feel a warm feeling of arousal forming in your stomach from how good Heeseung was making you feel. Lifting your shirt up, he revealed your breasts his mouth practically watering at the sight of them. Leaning in, he opened his mouth and took a nipple in his mouth. Swirling his tounge around the bud has he continued licking it. Letting go for a slight breather he then started sucking on your nipples, now taking turns between both tits. 

You threw your head back in pleasure not being to contain your composure but Heeseung continued sucking and started slightly grazing his teeth over your buds. 

“Fuck Hee mmhm” you moan out. 

He took this a good sign and kept sucking on your nipples at a feverish pace. The kisses with Jake turned to the point where you we’re just exchanging saliva. He pulls back from your face and looks at you, you notice his lips are all red and his eyes are blown out. 

“Fuck I just can’t get enough of you” Jake whimpers leaning in for one more kiss. 

He pulls away noticing that your shirt was barely on due to Heeseung sucking on your tits. He helps you and pulls the rest of it off your body, leaving you completely naked only thing covering you was your blanket covering your bottom half. 

“Fuck baby, you’re so fucking beautiful” Jake praises as he takes in your body. He slowly moves his hand down your stomach to reach for the hem of your pants for him to only realize that you didn’t have anything. He groans at the fact that you didn’t have anything on turning him on even more. 

“Naughty” Jakes teases “You didn’t have anything on this whole time?” 

“Was masturbating before I got caught I didn’t have the time to put anything back on” 

“Oh?” Jake laughs “Well it definitely speeds up the pace” 

He lifts the blanket off your legs, the only thing still keeping you covered now fully exposed. He reaches his hand down once again starting to rub your clit. 

“Fuck Jake”

He kept rubbing your clit, picking up the pace already forming a pool of arousal. Heeseung took a moment to stop sucking on your tits and watched Jake rub your clit. He lazily played with your nipples as he watched Jake. Having the both of them watch you while you got your clit rubbed made the warm feeling in your stomach grow. 

“Fuckkkk” Heeseung groans out as he watched Jake slip his fingers inside of your cunt and start to finger you. By this point your mind was clouded, the only thing you could focus on was cumming. 

“Don’t just look Heeseung, start rubbing her clit” Jakes commands. Heeseung snapping out of his state moves his hand over and starts rubbing on your clit. With both of them fucking you at the same time, you we’re pratically begging to cum. The noises your body we’re making with Jake’s fingers slipping in and out and Heeseung rubbing on your clit feverishly we’re so lewd, almost pornographic. 

“FuckFuckFuck I’m gonna cum please don’t stop” you whimpered out. 

“Cum for me princess” 

The warm feeling in your stomach reached it’s peak and just like that snapped. 

“Fuck mmhm cumming” you whimper out 

Jakes continues fingering you riding out your climax and Heeseung never lets up his pace. Coming down from your high they don’t let up their pace, they just keep going. You started to feel overstimulated begging for them to stop as you couldn’t take it anymore. 

“PleasePleasePlease no more” you cry out trying to squirm away but they just hold a tighter grip on you. 

“Aww baby doesn’t want to anymore?” Jake coos “Just give us one more” 

The familiar feeling started growing in your stomach again and this time faster. This time around Heeseung took it as a opportunity and removed his hand from your clit and leaned in instead to place his mouth on your clit. He sucked on it, starting to swirl his tounge around your clit. You swore you almost started seeing stars from how good it felt. 

“Hey, not fair” Jake said getting jealous “I wanted to eat her out too” 

Jakes pulls his fingers out causing you to gasp for air from the loss of contact. He put his hand in his mouth, savoring the taste of you on his lips. 

“You taste so fucking good I need more” 

He drops his head down and joins Heeseung in eating your pussy out. Both of them lapping and taking turns at sucking on your clit. Eating you with a hunger that seemed they couldn’t get enough of. Jake returned his fingers back into your pussy that was weeping for attention. 

“Oh my god you're so wet, so wet for me and heeseung?” “Bet this pussy of yours is just begging to be stuffed.” 

He slips his fingers in and you let out a whimper. 

“Mhhhm fuck please, fuck me” You plead looking up at Jake.

He moves his fingers in and out quickening his pace. The familiar feeling yet again growing in the pit of your stomach. He curls his fingers slightly to hit your g-spot ripping out a moan from you. You didn’t know how much longer you we’re going to last at this rate. Heeseung never let up the pace he was eating you out at, eating you like it was his last meal. His tongue roamed all over your pussy determined to find your sensitive spots and it didn’t help that Jake was there helping him eat you out too. Licking your pussy at the same time it was almost too much to be able to take. 

The feeling was starting to grow tighter and you knew you we’re going to cum soon. 

“I can feel that pussy of your tightening around my fingers are you gonna cum baby?” says Jake before taking another mouthful of you. “Cum for us baby” Jake groans out

Those we’re the words you needed to hear before you we’re pushed over the edge. Reaching your peak felt like an out of body experience, the pleasure completely overtaking your body. Jake and Heeseung continued eating you out riding out your peak before you finally starting coming down from it. 

“Princess you taste so good, fuck I need more” Heeseung whimpers into your pussy trying to clean as much of your arousal as he could. He continues to slurp you, coming down from your high you began to squirm in his grasp from still being sensitive. On the other hand Jake pulls away and yet again puts his fingers in his mouth to suck your cum from his fingers. 

“Always taste so good can’t get enough” Jake grins.

 By this point you had been fucked out of your mind, recieving not one but two explosive orgasms. Your body was getting tired by this point but you could tell Jake and Heeseung we’re just getting started. You look up to see Jake and Heeseung’s hard-ons as they palm over their cocks. 

“Fuck I can’t wait put my cock into your tight pussy” Jake whimpers out as he rushes to take off his clothes. In your drunken bliss you watch as Heeseung and Jake move quickly to take off their clothes. As you watch them remove the last of their clothes, slipping off their boxers you realize just how big they are. Their cocks stiff and leaking pre-cum already. “Fuck” you thought to yourself “How are they gonna fit?” You adjust yourself sitting back up and look over at both of them, you could see a hunger lingering in their eyes. 

“Lay on your back” Heeseung demands becoming more assertive then before, you’d never seen this side of him. You do as told and readjust yourself to lay on your back. Heeseung’s moves over to your side and grabs onto you to readjust your body onto his lap. You can feel the way his hard cock presses against your back and shudder at the thought that pretty soon he’d be inside of you. Jake then moves over to position himself in front of you. You didn’t really know what they had planned and looked at them in confusion. 

“What are we about to do?” you ask with a puzzled look 

“We’re going to fuck you at the same time” Jake smirks 

“Oh”

Your mouth runs dry at the thought. Both? At the same time? You didn’t even know if they’d even be able to fit inside of you let alone take both at the same time. Heeseung grabs onto your ass and starting to massage it. 

“Relax, we’ll take good care of you” 

Heeseung grabs his cock in his fist pumping it a few times, watching as the pre-cum starts to leak down his cock. Bitting his lip he isn’t able to contain his moans and let’s them slip. 

“Fuck I need you inside of me already, I can’t take it anymore” Heeseung whines. 

Letting go of his cock, he reaches back down for your ass and lifts you up slightly re-positioning himself to lean his back slightly on the headboard. He has perfect view of your ass, drooling at the fact that his cock was finally going to be inside of you. 

He lowers you back down onto his cock and feel his cock slowly start to enter your ass. He slowly pushes it in letting you get adjusted to his length but grits his teeth as your ass clenches around his tip. Breathing heavily he continues to slowly further push into you until your finally balls deep. Your ass feels full and the strech is slightly uncomfortable but welcome. You ask Heeseung to just stay like this for a few minutes so you could adjust to his cock. 

“Princess I’m going insane I could cum from just this, please can I move?” Heeseung pleads. You nod your head and almost instantly Heeseung starts fucking into you, moving at a gentle pace to help you continue adjust to his length. During this Jake is touching himself to him Heeseung finally entering your ass and watching as your face contorts from pain to pleasure. It was driving him insane and he needed to feel himself inside of you. 

He shot Heeseung a glance making Heeseung stop and you whimpered from the loss of friction. 

“Why’d you stop Hee?” you cry out 

“Because I can’t let you guys have all the fun” Jake remarks “Besides it wouldn’t be fair to leave this hole empty, I know how bad you want it” 

Your pussy clenches around nothing anticipating for Jake to enter you. He could cum just from watching the way your pussy clenches for him. He pumps his dick a few more times and spreads your legs, slowly entering you. Your pussy was so warm and hot that he almost came right there and then but held his composure. The way your pussy was clenching down on him was almost too unbearable for him. You felt stuffed in almost every way possible, Jake’s thick cock in your pussy and Heeseung’s in your ass made your head spin. Though having both of them inside of you wasn’t enough you needed them to start moving inside of you. Your body was begging for any type of friction at this point.

“Please, I need you to move mmhm can’t take it” you beg out. 

With that they both start to move and your body feels like it’s on fire with pleasure hitting you from every angle. The sound of skin slapping from both angles sounded so dirty but felt so amazing. Jake moved one of his hands to play with your nipples adding even more onto the pleasure. Your mind was melting and couldn’t even register the amount of pleasure you we’re feeling. 

“Fuck, princess you’re clamping down so hard on my cock it’s driving me insane” Heeseung grits out.

You could feel the way Heeseung’s cock moved in your ass repeatedly hitting your pleasure point and Jake’s tip repeatedly rubbing against your g-spot, grazing the bottom of your cervix. It was too intense and you could feel the warmness start to build in the pit of your stomach. The room was filled with heavy panting and moans, everyone focused on reaching that high. You could tell that they we’re getting close the way Heeseung’s thrusts were getting inconsistent and Jake’s face was starting to contort. 

“I don’t think i’m going to last much longer” Jake moans out. 

“Me either mmhm so close” Heeseung pants 

You could feel yourself starting to get closer and closer by the second as well, the feeling growing too intense. Jake puts a hand to your stomach, wanting to feel the way his dicks moves inside of you. With the way he was watching you being fucked stupid and him feeling the way his cock moved inside of you it was too unbearable for him. 

“Fuck baby i’m coming” Jake whimpered out. A few more sloppy thrusts and Jake unloaded inside of you. Continuing to chase his high as he fucked his cum inside of you making sure you took it in deep inside of you painting your walls. The feeling of Jake cumming inside of you sends you over the edge and hit your peak as well. 

Riding out your high, Jake continues to pound into you, your pussy clamping down on his cock. He grunts at the extra pressure put on his cock and it spurs him to continue fucking you. You start coming down from your high and Jakes fucks the last of his cum into you before slowing his pace until he stops but never pulling out from you. Before you can even question him you can feel Heeseung’s hips start stuttering 

“I’m gonna- I’m gonna fucking cum” Heeseung whines before he finally spills his load inside of you. Him cumming triggered another orgasm inside of you and both of you came at the same. It was nothing like you had felt before, the feeling of cumming from your ass felt so intense. You couldn’t help but throw your head back and whine in pleasure at how overstimulated you felt. The feeling of your ass clenching on Heeseung’s cock sent him even more over the edge. 

Fucking into you even more feverishly, making sure he stuffed you full of his seed. He wanted to make sure you we’re full of him and that you we’re his and only his. He came down from his high, hips slowing down. Your brain was mush at this point only feeling pleasure, relishing in the fact that you we’re stuffed of both of your best friend’s cum. 

“How was that baby hmm?” Jake asks. 

“So fucking good” you say slurring your words. 

“Fuck you make not wanna pull out, you feel too good” Heeseung whines hiding his face into your back. 

“Can’t we just stay like this for a bit?” Jake begs. 

You cave and stay with both of them inside of you for a few more mins. They decide it’s finally time to pull out and Heeseung makes sure to hold onto you as he pulls you off of him since he knew you’d be too weak to support yourself. Both him and Jake hiss at the loss of contact and you cry out at the loss of feeling of having them inside of you. Heeseung lays you down and both of them watch as their load drips out of you, satisfied with themselves. 

“So how was it… fucking your best friends?” Jake asks with a shit-eating grin.

“Fucking amazing” you slur in your blissed out state “We should’ve done this sooner”

Heeseung and Jake both let out a small laugh and smile. 

“I’ll go get something to wipe her down with” Heeseung says lifting himself off the bed. Jake stays and starts playing with your hair looking down at you with loving eyes. 

“What are you so giddy about” you asked softly laughing 

“Nothing, just you’re so pretty I can’t help but look at you” 

You hum as he continues to play with your hair, you could get used to this. 

[slu7formen]

Girl first of all I want to say that I'm OBSESSED with your writing I love it.

Second of all I would like to make a request about Luke so hear me out.

Luke and reader were in a relationship before he betrayed camp and they were head over heals for each other and then he stole the bolt and when Percy discovers he's the thief the reader is there feeling betrayed and specially heartbroken even though Luke ask her to go with him but she doesn't accept it because she's so loyal to camp and her friends.

Time passed and even if she wants to hate Luke she loves him more than anything. And Luke loves her too so instead of asking Annabeth to escape with him he asks reader and she accepts.

I want to see everything in here fluff, angst, everything you think about.

I hope you like this request and make it real for me because I've been having this idea for over a week.

Okay but I feel so bad ‘cause I totally forgot I had this story FULLY WRITTEN and READY to be published (‘cause I LOVED it), I’m so sorry angel, made you wait a lot more than just a week 🥺, but thanks for reading my stories <3

MDNI. luke castellan x fem!reader

warnings: luke´s a traitor, betrayal, use of yn, swearing, kinda angst (?, KISSING, lil book spoiler

₊˚⊹♡

The crackle and pop of the bonfire filled the air, a comforting contrast to the vibrant bursts of color exploding overhead. The annual fireworks display was in full swing, casting shadows on the faces of your friends huddled around the warm flames. It was a picture of peace, a moment of respite amidst the constant threat of monsters demigod drama.

You stole a glance at the empty space beside you. Luke, your boyfriend, had told you he'd just be back in a minute. A few minutes had turned into an eternity, but you chalked it up to his usual impulsiveness. He'd be back any minute, with his signature smile and an arm wrapped around you.

You knew it.

From the moment you met, you and Luke had been inseparable. You were his confidante, his anchor in the chaos of being a demigod and his messy life. He was your rock, always there to make you laugh, to understand the weight of your heritage in a way no one else could.

The warmth of the fire danced on your skin, but a shiver snaked down your spine. Something felt off. The chatter of your friends seemed muted, replaced by a dull ache in your chest. You couldn’t deny the way you noticed how Luke has been acting lately. So weird and distant towards you the last couple days. You loved him, fiercely and unconditionally. You'd been there for him through thick and thin, especially after his quest left a jagged scar across his cheek and a hollowness in his eyes.

But then he suddenly just, snapped.

A memory surfaced in you , sharp and unwelcome. It had been months ago, a conversation in the darkness of his cabin in a particular cold night. Luke, his eyes filled with a desperate fervor, had confessed his anger towards the gods, his belief that they were cruel and neglectful parents. He'd spoken of tricking the Olympians, joining forces with the Titans to fight for a better life for all demigods.

The anger in his voice, the glint of rebellion in his eyes, had scared you. The scar on his face, a reminder of his failed quest, seemed to burn brighter that night.

You understood his anger. The gods were far from perfect, their neglect and cruelty evident in countless demigod lives. He'd begged you to join him, his voice filled with a desperate hope. But you'd refused, your loyalty to Camp Half-Blood and your friends unwavering. You had spent hours talking him through it as you held his hand, reminding him of all the good the gods had done, no matter how flawed they might be. He'd looked lost at the time, seeking comfort in your touch. You'd thought you'd reached him, extinguished that spark of rebellion.

You really believed that conversation was long forgotten. But there was a reason why you remembered it.

Some movement at the edge of the woods caught your eye. But it wasn't the boy you were expecting. Percy, his face pale and etched with worry, practically stumbled into the fireplace, his chest heaving and his grip tight on Riptide.

A pang of concern shot through you. "Percy?" you called out, concern lacing your voice. You pushed yourself off the ground, walking towards him. "What happened? Where's Luke?"

Percy hesitated, his eyes filled with a storm of emotions. Shit, should he tell you? His silence was a hammer blow to your gut. You knew, with a chilling certainty, that something was terribly wrong.

"What?" you choked out, the question barely a whisper, expecting some kind of answer from the blonde boy, but nothing came from his trembling lips. The air felt dense, with a truth you desperately wanted to deny. You saw Luke getting into the woods with Percy, you saw it. And now, he was nowhere to be seen.

Then, it clicked. A cold, horrifying truth began to dawn on you.

He lied.

Without a word, you pushed Percy aside and started running, towards the woods. Your heart hammered against your ribs, like a trapped bird desperate to escape. You plunged into the darkness of the forest, the path you'd walked countless times with Luke now leading you into the unknown.

"Luke!" you screamed, your voice raw with anger and despair. You wove through the trees, the undergrowth tearing at your camp shirt, but you didn't care. You had to find him, to confront him, to understand why he'd chosen this path, if he chose it, why he'd lied to you.

But with each passing minute, hope crashed over you. The forest grew denser, the silence broken only by the rustle of leaves and the frantic beat of your own heart. There was no sign of Luke, no echo of his footsteps, no smell, no sense of his presence, only the chilling truth hanging heavy in the air.

He was gone.

He had left.

You sank to your knees, the weight of betrayal crushing you as the first tears you ever cried for Luke Castellan, started to fall. The man you loved, the person you'd trusted with your life, had chosen darkness over everything you held dear. He had chosen Kronos over you.

Grief, a cold and relentless serpent, coiled around your heart. And that feeling never seemed to leave.

The year that followed was a blur of sadness and a desperate attempt at normalcy. The silence from Luke was deafening. Not a single Iris-message, not a single sign of the one who once, was your boyfriend.

You knew you wouldn´t be able to return to Camp, at least not for now. Every corner held a ghost of Luke's smile, every sword clang a reminder of his battles and his betrayal. Your friends, the true ones, bless their hearts, tried everything to cheer you up from a distance, but their efforts felt like trying to pick up the pieces of a broken glass in the sea.

You opted to stay home that summer. But even there, away from the prying eyes and hushed whispers, escape from Luke's betrayal seemed impossible. Messages and news found you no matter where you hid. News of Luke leading a rogue army aboard a stolen cruise ship, rumors of him serving as Kronos's right hand while the Titan slumbered – it all reached your ears.

The nights were the worst. The darkness mirrored the hollowness within you. Tears would stain your pillow as you relived the events leading up to his betrayal. You once seemed to dream about seeing him again, and now you only screamed when you saw his face in your nightmares.

The memory of his touch, the warmth of his smile, the nights you spent loving each other with the sheets tangling in your legs, all felt like cruel illusions now. Yet, a part of you, a stubborn, illogical part, still clung to the love you once shared.

And Gods, did you try to keep yourself as busy as possible. You threw yourself into your studies and little courses here and there, seeking solace in facts and logic. You even began working, a boring but well payed summer job. Yet, the pain lingered, a dull ache that refused to subside.

The more you tried to banish these visions, the more vivid they became. You missed him like a starving man craved a feast, a yearning that gnawed at your insides and threatened to consume you. Frustration gnawed at you. How could you still love someone who'd betrayed you so utterly? How could your heart still ache for a man who chose war over you? The questions echoed endlessly within you, a relentless chorus fueling your self-conscious.

How could you be so weak?

These consuming questions were your companions for a whole year. But as the second summer after Luke's betrayal rolled around, a shift occurred within you. The raw, agonizing pain began to dull, replaced by a quiet resolve.

Finally, you decided it was time to take back control again. Camp Half-Blood called, a familiar haven among the storm. You returned a changed person. The vibrant smile that once adorned your face was a ghost, replaced by a guarded expression that spoke about the pain you harbored in silence. The camp's familiar energy felt hollow, a constant reminder of the happiness you'd lost.

Training became your sole solace. You'd disappear into the arena for hours, your celestial bronze sword a blur as you cleaved through training dummies, each swing fueled by a potent cocktail of grief and anger.

Exhaustion became your closest companion too. You pushed yourself to the limits of your endurance, hoping to find oblivion at the bottom of an empty fuel tank. But sleep, when it finally came, offered no escape. You'd dream of him, leading his army of rogue demigods, his eyes filled with a fanatical zeal that chilled you to the bone. And in those dreams, you'd see yourself, standing beside him, not out of loyalty to his cause, but out of a desperate yearning for the boy you once loved, still love.

In the quiet moments, when your friends weren't around, the dam would break. You'd collapse onto your cool and empty bed, tears streaming down your face, a raw, primal sob escaping your lips. The memory of Luke was no joy anymore, it haunted you like a specter.

You hated yourself for the traitorous flicker in your heart, the desperate, illogical yearning for him. It wasn't the war that tempted you; it was him.

You hated how much you missed him.

The scent of rain clung to the humid night air and to you like a second skin as you zipped up your duffel bag. Another summer at Camp Half-Blood loomed, promising a bittersweet mix of nostalgia and pain, but more training. The worst was yet to come, so you needed to be ready.

New York City, with its cacophony of car horns and the anonymity of millions, had become your refuge these past few months. In Manhattan, the memories of Luke seemed to hold less power for some weird reason, their edges dulling with the passage of time. You'd spent the past months in this tiny apartment, the silence deafening compared to the constant hum of life at camp.

Just then, a sharp rap on the door shattered the silence of your apartment. It was past midnight, an unusual time for visitors.

Adrenaline surged through you. Months of living fully alone had honed your senses. You'd become acutely aware of the city's underbelly – the flickering shadows that could hide monsters thanks to the ever-present mist. You'd seen them stalking the streets, stalking you, their true forms hidden to them mortals, an unsettling feeling crawling up your spine whenever their paths crossed yours. They never attacked, but their chilling presence followed you like a phantom.

Grabbing your necklace, you asked, "Yes?"

Silence. You weren't taking any chances. Pulling down at the pendant once, the necklace morphed into your celestial bronze dagger.

You took a step, two. Could it really be a monster? Could it really be some creature trying to get to you, by knocking on the door? With a shaky breath, you cracked the door open just enough to peek through the gap, hiding the dagger behind your back.

The sight that greeted you stole the air from your lungs.

Standing on your doorstep, bathed in the harsh glow of the hallway light, was Luke. His dark hair was windswept, his face etched with a gauntness that hadn't been there before, but his eyes – those were the same eyes that had haunted your dreams for months. They held a desperate plea, a flicker of the boy you once loved struggling to break through the hardened shell of the man he'd become.

“Luke?”

The silence stretched between you, thick with unspoken words and a tangled web of emotions. Time seemed to warp in that hallway, a single moment stretched into an eternity. Luke looked different, yes. The carefree boy you knew had been replaced by a man hardened by experience, his features etched with lines that spoke of battles fought and burdens carried. But his eyes, those brown eyes that had once held a mischievous twinkle, now held a deeper sadness that mirrored your own.

"Hi" Luke finally said, his voice raspy.

You stood speechless, the dagger still clutched tightly in your hand. Years of longing warred with the fresh wounds of betrayal. You wanted to scream at him, to unleash the torrent of hurt and anger that suddenly washed over you. But something held you back, a flicker of curiosity, maybe.

"Um, can I come in?" he continued, his posture pleading despite his attempt at nonchalance.

Jesus. Was that all he had to say? After everything, after what he did, all he could muster was a request to enter your apartment? A tide of anger threatened to drown you. Did he not understand the gravity of what he'd done? Did he not realize the pain he'd caused? But you forced your thoughts down. You weren't a child anymore, throwing tantrums wouldn't solve anything.

"Are you armed?" you asked, your voice flat, devoid of any warmth.

Luke flinched at your question, a flicker of pain crossing his features. "You think I wanna hurt you?" he countered, his tone defensive.

"Last time I saw you," you spat back, your voice laced with bitterness, "was three years ago, and I know your little monsters are keeping an eye on me. The first thing I'm supposed to think about is whether you want to hurt me or not."

He sighed, a long, weary exhale. Unzipping his jacket, he turned slowly, patting down his pockets before turning back to you. His eyes, once alive with mischief and love, were now filled with a desperate sincerity. "See? No weapons. Just me."

You studied him, a battle raging within you. One part of you wanted to slam the door, to let him know that he wasn't welcome. Yet, another part, a smaller, more vulnerable part, couldn't help but cling to the flicker of hope that flickered amongst the ashes of your love.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, you stepped aside, allowing a sliver of space for him to enter. "Fine" you said, your voice devoid of warmth. "But you better have a good reason to come here"

Luke hesitated for a beat before stepping inside. He closed the door softly behind him, the sound echoing through the tense silence. He stood there awkwardly with his hands in his pockets, his eyes scanning the room, landing finally on the packed bags besides the tv.

"You're heading back to camp?" he asked.

You flipped the dagger in your hand, and the celestial bronze morphed back into the golden necklace. "What do you want?" you repeated, your voice still sharp, a shield against the emotions swirling within you.

Luke stood awkwardly in the doorway, the once carefree boy replaced by a man burdened by the weight of his choices. His leather jacket seemed to hang heavy on his broad shoulders.

"I…" he started, then stopped, seemingly unsure how to proceed. He cleared his throat, the sound scratchy and unfamiliar. "You look different" he finally managed, the words tumbling out awkwardly.

You scoffed, a humorless sound that surprised even you.

"Look, yn" he finally managed, his voice barely above a whisper, "I wanna talk, okay? I know what I did was wrong. I know I hurt you."

You rolled your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest. "You could say that again."

His fingers twitched at your bitterness, but pressed on. "I came here because..." He hesitated again, seemingly wrestling with an inner turmoil. "Because I-"

Frustration bubbled up within you. This cryptic approach, this lack of honesty, it was infuriating. "Because you what, Luke?" you demanded, your voice laced with a sharp edge. "Because you decided to grace me with your presence after leading a rebellion against the gods? Or maybe because you just wanted to see if I'm still waiting for you?"

You watched his face harden, the vulnerability replaced by a familiar defiance.

"Don't twist this" he snapped, his voice firm. "I came here because..." He took a deep breath, his eyes locking with yours. "Because I miss you, yn. I miss us."

The air crackled with a tension so thick you could almost taste it.

You took a slow step towards him, then another. He took notes of yourself as you did. The way you had grown internally was so intense that he could sense it everywhere. He might have betrayed you, but that only helped you get on your feet stronger, grow stronger. Become the warrior he always knew you were.

Then, in a move as instinctive as it was fierce, your hand lashed out. The slap connected with a stinging crack, the sound echoing through the apartment like a thunderclap. Luke's head snapped to the side, a crimson handprint blooming on his cheek. Shame flickered in his eyes as he scoffed, quickly replaced by a dull acceptance.

He deserved it, that much was clear.

"How dare you?” you spat, your voice shaking with barely controlled fury, "How fucking dare you come back here after what you've done? After leading a rebellion against the gods, after putting everyone we care about at risk? After betraying me?"

Luke took a shaky breath, running a hand over the burning mark on his face. "I'm sorry” he said, his voice low and ragged. "I'm so sorry. I know I hurt you, and I know a simple apology won't erase the pain or fix things. But you have to believe me, I never meant for things to get this bad"

He stepped towards you, his hands outstretched in a placating gesture, but you flinched back, the space between you a tangible barrier. "Don't touch me" you warned, your voice laced with ice.

He lowered his hands, his shoulders slumping in defeat.

“I know you hate me for what I´ve done. For joining Kronos, I-“

"You think this is all about Kronos?" you cut him off, your voice shaking with barely contained fury. "You think the reason my heart has been broken these past years is because you joined a fucking Titan?"

Luke remained silent, the weight of your words pressing down on him like a collapsing mountain. He knew better.

"This is about what you did to me, Luke" you choked out, tears welling in your eyes. "I was with you, all the time. I was your girlfriend! And you betrayed me. You left me alone” your voice broke so hard that you had to take a second to swallow the big gulp that was forming in your throat. “Everyone at camp looked at me after what you did," you choked out. "They either felt sorry for me, or they insulted me, saying that I was still loyal to you, that I was a traitor."

You closed your eyes for a moment, the pain etched on your face a stark reminder of the devastation he'd wrought. "You were the most important person in my life" you cried, your voice raw and vulnerable. "But you? You let Kronos fill your head with empty promises, and just like that, you forgot about us."

The truth felt like a bitter pill to swallow. He opened his mouth to speak.

"I asked you to come with me" he finally whispered, his voice thick with regret. "I gave you the chance to leave with me."

"And even after I said no," you countered, your voice trembling like the finger that was now pointing at his chest, "you still left. You threw me away like shit. And do you know what the worst part is?" Tears streamed down your face, tracing a path through the dust of old heartache. "That as much as I try, I can't seem to hate you."

A sob escaped your lips, shattering the fragile dam you'd built around your emotions. "I still love you, Luke" you confessed. "Even though it's a love that fills me with pain, it's still there. I hate myself because I dream about you, about the way things used to be. But when I don't, I feel like a piece of me is missing."

You looked up at him, your eyes brimming with tears and a raw vulnerability that left Luke speechless.

What had he done?

"I hate myself because I can't help but pray for your safety, even though you never seemed to care about mine. I hate myself because even after everything, I still love you, Luke."

Your heart felt like a shattered kaleidoscope, a million shards of love, anger, and pain reflecting back at you in a distorted reality. You walked and sank onto the couch, burying your face in your hands as sobs racked your body.

Luke, his heart heavy with a remorse sharper than any weapon, watched you crumble. The carefree girl he fell in love with was gone, replaced by a woman etched with the scars of his own actions. Hesitantly, he reached out, placing a hand on your back as he sat down next to you, a gesture of comfort that felt more like a branding iron on his guilt.

"yn” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion, "I still love you too."

You didn't respond, the sobs coming in ragged gasps as your body struggled to contain the storm within.

"I know I left you" he continued, his voice cracking slightly. "And you didn't deserve it. But… I was so lost, so angry. Kronos promised me power, a solution to all the problems I saw. He convinced me that Olympus was corrupt, that the gods didn't care about half-bloods like us. And when you said no, he-, he told me to leave you behind, said that it would be easier for everyone…"

His voice trailed off. Easier for who? Easier for him, perhaps, to sever the ties that bound him, to plunge headfirst into a rebellion fueled by manipulated ideals.

"But it wasn't" he choked out, a tear escaping his eye, carving a glistening path down his cheek. "Every day, every step I took… it was a constant reminder of what I'd lost. The guilt was eating me alive, yn, you have to believe me”. His hands desperately reached for yours, trying to get your fingers to intertwine by placing his over yours.

Tears welled up in his own eyes. "I regret everything. I mean it. I don't want to do this anymore."

You finally lifted your head, your eyes red-rimmed and brimming with unshed tears. Luke looked different to you now, the bravado and arrogance gone, replaced by a vulnerability that mirrored your own.

"Don't want to do what?" you asked, your voice hoarse.

"This” he gestured vaguely to himself, but you didn’t quite catch it. "Following Kronos. Helping him rise to power. It's wrong. I can see that now."

“Little late to that, isn’t it?” you blurted out.

He took a deep breath, his expression resolute. "yn, there's a reason I came to you. A reason I risked Kronos' trust in me." He paused, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Kronos wants me to become his host."

And the world seemed to suddenly stop. You stared at him, the weight of his words sinking in. Your mind raced, trying to process what he had just said. Luke, your Luke, becoming a vessel for the monstrous Titan?

"What?" you croaked, fear coating your voice like frost. Your eyes darted around, searching for a way out, a solution, anything. But Luke wouldn't meet your gaze, his jaw clenched tight, a storm of emotions brewing beneath the surface. "No. No, he can't. It's not possible."

The thought of him, Luke, being consumed by Kronos, twisted your insides into knots.

Luke, however, seemed to gather his resolve. "Yes, it is" he said, his voice low and strained. "There are things you don't know, yn. Things I've done."

A cold dread gripped your stomach, a physical manifestation of the terror that clawed at your insides. Your mind raced, desperate for answers. "Then tell me" you only managed to say. "Luke, what have you done?"

He hesitated, looking around as if afraid someone might be listening. "There's no time now" he finally said, his voice tight with urgency. "But I promise I will explain everything. That's not why I'm here."

Taking a deep breath, he dared to reach out, his hand gently grasping yours, finally. The warmth of his touch sent a jolt through you, a stark contrast to the chilling fear that gripped you.

He called your name, his voice softening. "Come with me" he said.

You only feel capable of frowning your brows in confusion. "Go where?" you asked, your voice wary.

"Anywhere" he said, like a plea. "Let's run away, together. It can be just you and me again"

He leaned closer, the air around him crackling with a tension that mirrored the storm within you. As his forehead rested against yours, a jolt of electricity shot through you. It was a familiar warmth, a spark that had ignited countless stolen kisses and whispered secrets back when your world wasn't teetering on the brink of war. His other hand cupped your cheek, the touch a stark contrast to the turmoil raging inside you. His hand, usually warm and comforting, felt cool against your burning skin, a physical reminder of the distance that had grown between you. Yet, despite the chill, a wave of longing washed over you, a yearning for the simple comfort of his touch.

But reason tugged at you, a voice of caution in the midst of the storm. "But Luke," you stammered, pulling away slightly, "If you escape, Kronos will come for you. He'll come for us, and-,"

"I don't care" he interrupted, his voice resolute, yet laced with a tremor that betrayed his bravado. It was as if he was on the precipice, teetering between defiance and the vulnerability of a man on the verge of breaking. "I'll fight everything that comes for us. And if the war happens... I'll fight. I'll fight for everyone, I’ll fight for you. I'm not losing you again, yn."

His words resonated deep within you, a desperate echo of the love you still harbored for him, a love you thought you'd buried beneath layers of anger and sadness. You saw the fear in his eyes, a fear that you sadly shared, but beneath it, a flicker of something else – a raw, desperate hope. And as you looked at him, a wave of relief washed over you.

The relief of knowing he wasn't entirely lost, that a part of the Luke you loved still existed.

"I love you" he confessed again, his voice trembling.

Looking into his eyes, a storm of emotions swirling within them, the truth resonated with you. "I love you too" you whispered, the words tumbling from your lips like a long-awaited confession.

The world did indeed, stop. The rain, a relentless symphony against the window pane, faded into a distant murmur. The thunders became a muffled echo. In that moment, the only reality was the space between you and Luke, charged with the unspoken electricity of your confessions.

He leaned in further, a hesitant question in his eyes. A flicker of fear danced in their depths, a scared boy seeking forgiveness beneath the warrior's facade. You watched him, a bittersweet ache blooming in your chest.

With a sigh that trembled on your lips, you closed the distance. Your lips met in a hesitant touch, a tentative exploration of a forgotten familiarity. Three years of longing, of unspoken words and simmering emotions, poured into that kiss. It was sweeter than you'd dared to imagine, a warmth that spread from your lips and drizzled down your chest.

Unlike the passionate encounters of your past, this felt different; like kissing him for the first time. Luke's lips moved against yours with a reverence that sent shivers down your spine. He held back, his desperate desire tempered with a respect that surprised you. You knew him.

But then, you yielded. Your lips parted, a silent invitation, and his tongue met yours in a dance as old as time. A full, heavy and angry thunderclap erupted outside, a jarring contrast to the intimacy unfolding on the couch. But you paid it no mind, lost in the whirlpool of rediscovered affection.

Your arms encircled his neck, a desperate hold. He, in turn, cupped your waist, his touch lingering on the curve of your hip as he gently lowered you onto the soft cushion. His body hovered above yours. His lips, however, remained glued to yours, a relentless exploration that spoke of a love both fierce and fragile.

The kiss deepened, a slow burn that threatened to consume you both. You felt the familiar rhythm of his heart against yours, a counterpoint to the frantic beat of your own. It was a melody of second chances, of unspoken apologies and nascent hope.

His hand trailed down your back, teasingly brushing under your shirt, sending shivers dancing across your skin. You arched into his touch, a wordless plea for more. But just then, he pulled away, his breath ragged, his eyes a storm of conflicting emotions.

His voice, a husky murmur against your skin, sent shivers down your spine. "I missed this so much," he whispered, his lips trailing down the delicate column of your neck and the dip of your collarbone. His warm breath mingled with your own, a heady mix of emotions swirling around you.

Your fingers tangled in his hair, the familiar texture a stark reminder of the past you both desperately clung to. He reached for your pulse, slowly sucking in before letting it pop.

"I wanted to feel you every night" he confessed. "Every night, I dreamt of you." His words were a stark contrast to the cold, distant Luke you saw in your dreams, the only vivid memory you’ve had of him the past years.

"Luke" you whispered, your voice barely audible as you tried to speak.

He didn't stop. His hand drifted down your torso, his fingers brushing against the exposed skin of your lower tummy. Every touch felt like a brand, a searing reminder of what you had lost and the uncertainty that lay ahead.

"It was a mistake" he said, his voice thick with regret. "A big, fucking mistake. Leaving you, betraying you-, it was the biggest mistake of my life. My life doesn't make any sense without you."

With a strangled sound, Luke deepened the kiss, his lips moving against yours with a desperation that mirrored your own. You clung to him, a drowning sailor grasping at a lifeline. The scent of leather that clung to him was intoxicating, a familiar anchor in this storm of emotions.

"Luke" you managed to gasp between kisses, a flicker of reason breaking through the haze of desire. You needed more than just words, needed a binding promise, something concrete to hold onto if you were to take this leap of faith.

He stared at you, his eyes a storm of emotions – desire, confusion, and a flicker of something that might have been annoyance. But before he could respond, you pressed on.

"Swear on it, Luke" you whispered, your voice trembling slightly. "Swear on the River Styx” you repeat. Luke’s eyes dart back and forth, from your lips, to your eyes, to filling up with confusion. “I’m not-,” you cut yourself off as you feel your eyes filling with tears again. You bit your tongue before speaking, “I’m not letting you hurt me like this again"

You knew it was selfish, a desperate attempt to safeguard your heart. But Luke was here, finally, after all this time. You craved the warmth of his touch, the comfort of his presence. The thought of letting him go again, of enduring another betrayal, was unbearable. Yet, a part of you, still scarred from the past, craved a guarantee, an oath sworn on the most powerful river in the Underworld. It was dangerous, yes, but did you care?

Did he care?

Luke's expression hardened. The River Styx, held a weight that couldn't be ignored. The river he already bathed himself in. It was a binding vow, a promise etched in the very fabric of existence.

He looked at you, his eyes searching yours for a flicker of doubt, a hint of manipulation. But all he saw was the vulnerability, the fear – a vulnerability born from the scars he himself had inflicted.

"I swear on the River Styx" he said, his voice low and solemn, each word heavy with the weight of the oath. "I swear I won’t ever leave you. I swear I love you. I swear I'll fight for you, for us, with every breath in my lungs."

[sehodreams]

extra points

TW and tags: professor!Eunseok x student!reader, anxiety (lots of it, with added overthinking), pet names, reader is a crybaby, clothed humping, fluff (comforting I believe), even if everything sounds nice here, obviously a relationship with your professor is not okay (there's power imbalance just for the fact she's a student and he a professor).

WC: 5.2k

Summary: You want to always make him proud of you.

Comment: A bit self-indulgent since I've had a crush on a professor each semester and I also had anxiety when they praised me. Hope it makes other academic weapons here feel a bit seen. Also, tried to check the grammar and times, but idk, now it feels a bit robotic, please tell me if I should write everything in the past time again, just wanted to try something new. A bit ass, sorry, it feels as if I've forgotten how to write.

Staring at the words on your screen that no longer make sense, you try to calm your nerves down, except, you can’t forget the way your professor looked at you before he dismissed your group.

You want to cry, but you have already cried enough. Then you want to scream, but it's 3am and your parents will kill you. You start to ponder your last choice, kill yourself, but even in your head that’s a bit too much.

You just don’t know what to do with everything you’re feeling at that moment. Wishing you could be as nonchalant as your friends, you want to stop thinking about his disappointed face when you finished your exam, because maybe you’re overthinking it, perhaps it wasn’t even that bad.

No, you’re wrong. It wasn’t perfect, and for you, that’s already bad enough.

You try to go to sleep, that should help you. You watch the bottle of melatonin in your nightstand, so closing your laptop, you grab it, take three pills instead of one, and beg the gods you’ve never believed in to make you sleep until the next morning.

Of course, before you drift away, you set your three alarms to arrive on time to his class.

You’re used to walking there filled with anxiety. You always wonder if you’re going to have the answers he wants to hear that day, or if you did good in your last test. It’s terrible, stressful, and the knot on your chest is, for anyone else, a sign that they should chill out, but to you, is a sign that you should do better.

Your mother always says that the person who knows they’ve done everything they could has no reason to feel nervous, and that has pushed you to think you never do enough because she also says you can always do more.

It’s always been the same since that semester started, you go there filled with anxiety, you raise your hand whenever he makes a question to the public, and you feel the knot loosening with each minute that passes and with his smile when you say the correct answer.

You have to admit that, when the class finishes and he says goodbye with that proud smile, you feel as if all your stress and your time invested in reading all the material he has shared makes sense. It feels a bit good, and you’re addicted to that sensation.

He only wants you to reach your full potential. He has said it to the entire classroom, that all those articles and books he has shared are only for them to always have an answer out there in the real world. He says it to the public, but the extra material he emails you makes you feel special.

You’re special, right? He wouldn’t be going out of his way to give you more knowledge if it wasn’t like that.

When you arrive to the classroom you’re pale, and your friends try to tell you that everything will be fine to calm you down, but you can’t.

You’re spiralling into anxiety, and not because you have done bad, but because you have disappointed him.

When he dismissed you, he hadn’t smiled at you, he hadn’t shown you that happy expression he always has when you’ve met his expectations, and even more, he hadn’t said well done.

And if you weren’t his best student, you didn’t want to be there.

Not much later he arrives and tells everyone that he will share the grades in his office, so all of you should go to have a private talk with him when you have time if you want feedback, and if you don’t, the grades would be in the platform the next day.

The class goes as it usually does, smooth, and silent.

He does a couple questions, and you answer them after no one raises his hand and you leave the five-second space in case anyone else wants to talk first, so everything is as normal as it can be, but instead of feeling relaxed with the time passing, you feel worse.

One of your friends tells you to meet her in the cafeteria after you finish talking with the professor, that she will buy you a coffee to cheer you up, and you smile to pretend you’re okay, but you’re fucking not.

You feel like throwing up while walking to his office, but you haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, what would you throw up at that point?

It doesn’t take too much time for him to tell you to come in after you respectfully knock on his door two times. You hear him moving papers inside when you open the door, and when you walk in, you both say good afternoon before you sit.

He doesn’t search for anything, the paper he had in his hands was yours, as if he knew you would be the first person to go and see him.

‘’Well done’’ it’s all he says.

He gives you a sheet with your grades until that date and you want to feel relaxed because all of them look good, just one, the last one, is not the perfect grade you’re used to, by one point. Then, you look at his eyes, waiting for more words from him, anything, just something, a praise you hope.

‘’Are you okay?’’ he asks you. You don’t need to be a genius to know how your face must look at that moment, pale and unfocused, like any person at the border of fainting.

You’re not about to faint, you’re about to cry, which is even worse.

Your eyes prickle and your shoulders shake. They’re coming, and you wish they didn’t, because they’re the kind that can’t be stopped for a long time.

‘’Yes’’ you say and almost immediately you start crying. ‘’I’m sorry’’.

Eunseok’s eyes open and he circles his desk to meet you. He doesn’t know what to do to help you, you’re shaking, and your tears come out like a flood that nothing will dry.

‘’What’s wrong?’’ you feel he wants to say another word, maybe a baby, but of course, it is not appropriate.

‘’I’m sorry’’ it’s the only thing that comes out of your mouth.

It breaks him to see you like that, his best student, falling apart.

He knows a lot of things, he has a career teaching, yet he’s completely lost there with you shaking in front of him.

His hands move before he can think, which is a stupid move for someone his age, used to always thinking twice before doing anything.

He had to think about taking that position a month before he accepted. He was never one for teaching, more into working on his own. If he had to admit it, he was never into interacting with a bunch of kids even when he was a student, but you had changed his perspective, making him happy to go to work every morning you would sit in his class, knowing someone would happily answer instead of leaving him talking all alone for two hours.

‘’It’s okay’’ he murmurs, caressing your shoulders with his wide palms. ‘’You did good, what’s the problem?’’

You don’t answer him, standing and denying with your head, trying to go to the door.

Looking at your trembling lip and your furrowed eyebrows, his heart flinches, and he doesn’t let you leave, holding you in his arms instead.

Your arms wrap him back, tearing face pressed against his chest while he caresses your hair and lets you sob.

It’s so embarrassing you feel like crying even more, because what would he think of you from that moment on? So pathetic, crying like a child when you were a grown woman.

You’ve tried to look perfect for him for so long, and everything had gone to shit in just a second.

Still, you don’t want to let him go.

He is warm and comforting. His aroma is earthy, woody, manly. His hands feel good against you, one on your back, slowly patting you to soothe you, and the other on the back of your head, feeling your hair. However, the best thing has to be his voice so close to your ear, deep and calming you with the way he doesn’t shush and lets you cry as much as you want.

‘’It’s okay’’ he murmurs, letting you hug him even harder. He doesn’t want to think you’re crying because of him, but what else could be the reason for those fat tears bothering your pretty eyes? ‘’Is it me? Have I done anything to you? Am I being too much?’’ he had never thought he was pushing you that much, but now that he realizes, he had never treated another student, or person, like he had treated you. He wants to excuse himself with the thought of all the potential you have, you’re so smart, he couldn’t treat you as if you were just any student.

But in the end, he reminds himself, you’re just a student. He doubted you had even worked once in your life, because no one working or that thought about other things that weren’t his classes would be able to keep up with everything he was giving you.

You denied his questions, even if it was, you couldn’t tell him it was because of him. It was because of you and your stupid head not letting you sleep with the thought of disappointing him.

‘’No’’ you sob, and your hands grip his shirt, wrinkling the pristine fabric. ‘’It’s just me, I’m sorry’’.

His arms get tighter around you, almost too much. You sniffle to make your cries stop. ‘’It’s okay, I’m sorry too’’ he says because you hadn’t said out loud, but he knows you’re like that because of him.

‘’Please don’t treat me differently’’ you beg because you don’t want him to change. You want to continue receiving his emails with more work, you want him to keep having expectations of you, and you want him to keep being proud of you.

You want to be special to him because he’s special to you. You weren’t like that for any other professor, and not any other treated you like that either.

You have good grades with everyone else, but none of them make you want to give all of you to their courses. You do exactly what’s necessary and then you leave it there. But, again, none of them were him.

It’s not something that you wanted that to happen.

The ability to follow him with your eyes, concentrating on every of his moves while your hands moved on your keyboard on their own was something that had developed with time, like your feelings for him, and everything started with that silly smile gifted to you when you made him a question about something you hadn’t understood in one of the articles.

‘’It’s the first time anyone has asked me about it, I had started to think no one read the material’’ he had said, innocently smiling at you, no idea forming in his head about what your insides felt when he showed it to you.

Everyone said that he was evil, grading all his students without compassion and telling them without an ounce of fear if they didn’t meet his expectations. He said there was only one person who did good in his class all the time, and everyone (including you) knew who that person was even if he didn’t say the name. All that had made you feel things you shouldn’t for him.

Another knock on his door startles you two, and you have to move apart. He looks at you, and one of his hands goes to your cheek to clean the gleaming left by the tears, but you’re faster and clean your eyes with your hands before you say you should leave, not giving him time enough to say anything.

The same afternoon everyone starts to get anxious in the group chat and you silence them. The student who saw you running out of his office says that you were crying, so everyone believes that you flunked, and if you did bad, none of them had hope to even pass.

When your friend calls you and asks why you were crying you say that it was nothing, just stress, and that you didn’t do as bad as everyone thinks.

She believes you because, of course, you're a good girl and you don't have a reason to lie. You have no reason to feel you’ve done anything wrong, but you feel as if you had done something you shouldn’t.

First, you were embarrassed for crying in front of him, but if you had done only that, you doubted you would be having that pressure in the pitch of your abdomen. Then, you recognized what you were feeling, desire, and you definitely shouldn't be feeling that towards your professor.

It’s weird, even if it’s not okay for you to feel that way, you admit to yourself that it felt good to be held by him. He shouldn’t have hugged you, you know that, and you fool yourself thinking it was the only thing he could’ve done in that situation and that he’d have done it with anyone too.

When you receive his email with the extra material you notice that there’s less than usual and that he has written something extra apart from the typical small message listing the titles with a Best regards, Dr. Song.

He starts with a Miss next to your name, and you read it with his voice, hearing him close, just like when he whispered next to your ear. If there is any occasion in which my office or advice is needed, please do not hesitate to come to me, my door is always open.

You don’t know what to say.

You want to say thank you, but an apology feels more correct, and just like in those exams in which you get points deducted for answering wrong, you prefer to not answer at all.

The next class, you sit way in the back, and you don’t answer any of his questions after your five-second stop, to what other students, not daring to let the silent tension stay, start to give short unsatisfactory answers that make Eunseok nod instead of proudly smile.

By the end of it, you slip out of the room with your friends, which is unusual for them since they’re used to waiting for you in the cafeteria.

‘’Don’t you have any question today?’’ one of them asks you.

‘’Not today’’ you say with the excuse of not feeling good, walking faster for them to follow you.

You feel ashamed every time you’re in front of him. The sensation of his arms around you keeps replying in your head, and you shiver when you hear his voice in your head at night. You want him in a way you shouldn’t, and it doesn’t feel like an innocent crush anymore.

You can only continue like that for two more classes before he calls your name and asks you to stay back.

Your friends don’t ask anything, but they direct a suspicious sight at you two. They had joked before saying that you two had a love quarrel when you didn’t answer his questions the second time, which had started to feel weirdly real.

‘’Don’t be silly’’ you laugh. ‘’I just don’t want to stress myself more than necessary anymore.’’

What you say makes sense in everyone’s ears, you really had to chill out, especially after that last crisis.

You nod at them, and they leave without question.

You stay away enough from him, waiting for him to talk. He sees it and sighs, shoving papers into his portfolio without a second look.

‘’I can’t help but notice there’s something different in your participation in class’’ he says. ‘’And I’m sure is related to what happened in my office.’’

‘’Nothing happened Sir, I just haven’t been feeling good’’ you don’t entirely lie. You can’t seem to function around him anymore, even in that moment, you have to resist the need of pressing your thighs to stop that need you’ve developed for his touch since that day.

When he folds his arms in front of his chest and leans back into the big desk, you gulp. He looks so fucking good you can’t pull away your eyes from the way they flex and how they look covered by his simple black shirt with the first button open.

‘’I expected more from you Miss’’ he says, and you, like instinct, feel incredibly bad again.

‘’I’m- I’m sorry’’ you say, trying to stop your eyes from prickling again.

He notices your change. It’s not hard to recognize. Suddenly, you become smaller, and you blink faster, biting the inside of your cheek.

‘’I’m not scolding you’’ he clarifies. His hand gets closer to you, touching the border of your hoodie to get your attention on him instead of the floor. You didn’t notice the way you had moved your eyes from his arms to the floor, and when you see his focused eyes on your face, you feel vulnerable. ‘’You’re my student and if you’re acting this different, I can’t ignore it’’ his eyes are on yours and his thumb and his index are still holding your clothes, playing with the fabric, ‘’I just want to know you’re okay’’.

Warmness floods you. You want to hug him again, you want him to hold you, and for him to whisper that everything is okay over your ear. No, now, you want more than a simple hug.

‘’I’ll do better Sir, I’m sorry’’ you say, and he feels you’re saying the truth this time, so he slowly nods, and his hand leaves you.

You have to gulp the whimper that wants to leave your throat after he smiles at you.

You’re fucking disgusting you tell yourself when that night you want to find relief with him in your mind.

The next days are full of pain. You want to feel him so bad you don’t even know what to do anymore. Your hands are not enough, and the hands of the boy you had let touch you on that stupid Tinder date weren’t enough either.

You had started to answer his questions in class again, lifting his mood and freeing everyone from the uncomfortable moment of having to talk to fill the silence.

‘’Did you reconcile?’’ someone jokes.

‘’We never fought to start’’ you laugh and push their shoulder to leave you alone. ‘’I just want to keep my good profile and my grades’’.

Wanting to be closer to him, you’ve even volunteered to help him grade his tests, reason why you were on his office’s couch at that moment, with a thousand papers spraddled in the little coffee table in front of you and a hand full of red tint marks.

You have less time for yourself now that you’re his little assistant, but you continue reading everything he sends you at night, feeling a bit more tired from the lack of hours of sleep.

Still, everything is worth it when you receive his texts asking for your help or when you buy yourself a cup of overly sweet coffee with the card full of coffee cash he had gifted you.

‘’For your time’’ he timidly slid the gift card to you, and you couldn’t believe your eyes because you were sure no professor gave their assistants anything at all.

You wanted to say no, and you were about to, but the wide smile on your face had been faster than your brain.

‘’I was afraid you were going to reject it’’ he laughed, showing you a new face of him you hadn’t seen before. When he truly laughs, you notice, his cheekbones become more notorious, and his grin is big, showing a bit of the gummy area of his teeth, to what you tell yourself, you wouldn’t dare to deny him anything anymore.

Waking up to the sound of your alarm, you see that it is not the alarm for waking up, but the one that tells you to go out if you don’t want to lose the bus.

You get ready quicker than ever, only brushing your teeth and running out, thanking the world that you took a late-night shower just in case.

Your look is terrible, not that you dress nicely every day, but not as bad as that day, and the world you thanked before seems to laugh at you now, making you lose your bus and making you spend money that you don’t have as cab fare.

When you arrive, you’re almost an hour late, and you don’t dare to push the door open, watching through the little window how your professor is already talking loudly inside.

Eunseok doesn’t turn to you, and you prefer that. You know that he’s exigent with times, he doesn’t even give extra minutes to people that talk too much in presentations. We have to respect everyone’s times he has said on too many occasions for you to forget.

It’s the first time you’re late to his class, and you blame yourself for not putting in more alarms when you went to sleep so late after reading the last paper he had sent you.

You don’t dare to stay there; you don’t even dare to go to the only coffee shop around to wait until your next class because you feel undeserving of spending the coffee money he had given you. You walk to the library with sad eyes and hide in the archaeology section to cry.

No one studies archaeology in your school so you cry in peace until you receive a couple of texts from your friends asking where you are and one from him.

Are you okay? you read.

Yes, I’m sorry, you reply.

Come to my office.

You knock on his door and wait for him to talk even when he has told you multiple times to just go in if you don’t hear voices inside, but you still don’t dare to do it.

‘’Come in’’ he says, and you finally open the door. You don’t walk inside as soon as he talks. He’s ruffling between documents, and you first stand and just look at him from where you are, and then, when he makes eye contact with you, you close the door behind you and give a few steps closer, leaving your bag on his coffee table before you sit in front of him. He waits for you to talk and when he notices that you won’t, he does it, ‘’What happened?’’

‘’I was late…’’ you say, ‘’It’s my fault, I’m sorry’’.

‘’But why? Did anything happen to you on the way here? I need you to talk to me, I don’t know what happened to you if you don’t’’ what he says makes sense, but you feel like saying more would be making excuses. Your parents hate excuses and have always taught you to only say what’s necessary if you’ve done something wrong. In this case, you’re sure you did something wrong.

‘’I’m sorry’’ your breath starts to get harder, and your eyes get a bit wet.

He stands up and walks to you. You think he’s going to lean on the desk like he usually does when he explains something to the room, but he surprises you by moving your seat and caging you in it, slightly bending and inspecting your face.

‘’I’ll repeat my question, and I want you to stop saying you’re sorry’’ he talks, obliging you to maintain your eyes on his with how close he is. ‘’Did anything happen to you when you were coming here?’’

‘’No’’ you answer like you can.

‘’Then what happened?’’ he asks.

‘’I-I fell asleep’’ you finally say.

He sighs, looking relieved, however, you think he sighs because that's the worst reason you could’ve given, and that makes you more embarrassed.

‘’No, wait, it’s okay’’ he smiles when your eyebrows frown to contain what he recognizes as dangerous tears with how shiny your eyes are getting. ‘’Such a crybaby’’ he laughs then, cupping the side of your cheek and cleaning one of the tears that escaped with his thumb.

‘’I’m-‘’

‘’For fucks sake, stop saying you’re sorry, you’ve done nothing to be sorry for’’ he interrupts you before you finish talking and you have to contain another sorry inside your chest. ‘’Sorry’’ he says, making you smile without knowing why. ‘’I’m just glad nothing bad happened to you, I was so worried the whole time, it’s the first time you’ve ever been absent from my class.’’

‘’I was almost an hour late’’ with his palms still on your cheeks, you felt a lot calmer, ‘’I know you don’t like late showers, so I didn’t dare to knock on the door’’.

‘’Oh doll, you should know by now that you’re always the exception.’’

He’s so tender with you, and his voice is so comforting, that you want to close your eyes and just stay with him in that position.

So, you do it, you close your eyes and exhale through your nose, feeling all anxiety disappear from your insides, and you only open them again because Eunseok is kissing you, and you can’t believe what you’re feeling.

The kiss is so soft. His lips feel perfect against yours, smooth and slightly damp. You don’t know what makes you so bold, but your hands go to his neck to not let him move away. At first it was superficial, just lips touching, to then get deeper after you showed equal eagerness.

It’s not much after, as if both of you had been needing to feel each other for a long time, that his tongue caresses your lips to make you accept him, which you do immediately.

The kiss is getting so messy that for a second, he has to breathe over your mouth. Both breaths are hot and fall over each other’s open mouths, making you let a low moan out with the sensation.

Everything is really happening, and you feel your panties get wet with his simple kiss.

He takes your breath again with a groan, making you stand from your seat to pose his hands on your back and press you against his body.

You whimper feeling his belt pinch you and his hand on your back getting lower. Your hands want to do something, so instead of staying still on his neck, they go to feel his hair.

Even his hair felt good.

Silk on your hands, you let him press his thigh on your sex, moving your hips to feel him more.

‘’Fuck, this is so not okay’’ he frowns, lips going to attack your neck while you close your eyes and let him move your hips to meet his thigh and make you more of a mess inside your pants. He stops for a minute, frowning because of how his common sense screams that what he's doing is wrong in so many aspects.

‘’No- don’t stop, please’’ you beg in a whisper. You can’t be loud, you know that what you’re doing is not okay, yet you’ve been needing him for so long, you can’t stop him, and he doesn't want either.

‘’Such a good girl, always making me so proud, fuck, I won’t be able to let you go’’ he says, retaking his past action and making you hump him with both of his hands pushing your hips back and forth his tailored pants.

They’re black, simple, elegant, like him, and you want to cry because it feels like a dream.

‘’Always being so good to me, you’re gonna cum for me like this, right?’’ he asks, biting the side of your neck, making your eyes roll with how close you are to finding your orgasm.

You can’t talk or you’ll moan, you know your body, so you bite your lip and nod while gripping onto his shirt.

His chest is big, and you can’t help but rub your own to his. There, you notice that your sports bra and your hoodie do nothing to impede your hard nipples from feeling good.

He must notice the way you desperately need his attention on your chest, so one of his hands goes from your hip to directly touch you under your shirt.

‘’My pretty girl, can’t believe I’ve endured so long without touching you’’ you can’t believe he calls you pretty when at that moment you feel you look like shit, but he proves you wrong, groping your chest with need, fondling it, to then play with your nipple. His thumb is sweeping it with experience, making you dizzy with all the stimulations together.

Your cunt clenches when you press your clit on his leg, you start to hump him on your own, setting your own pace to cum, and opening your eyes to look at his face, you see shiny white dots.

Your drunken expression makes him let a breathy laugh free, and you cum with a louder whimper the moment you see his smile directed at you.

He stops his attention on your chest and lets you ride down your high while lovingly caressing your back and holding you in his arms.

You need a minute before all clearance is back in your mind and shame starts invading you because you just… well, you haven’t fucked, but you know you’ve done a lot more than a simply making out session.

Your trembling legs and the mess inside your pants are enough proof of that. You’ve never felt anything close to that in your life, so good you had no doubt you could get easily addicted.

Shame is not enough to stop you, and feeling his erection against your abdomen, you feel bad for being the only one who has had an orgasm.

‘’I- I want to make you feel good too’’ you say, inhaling his aroma and hiding your face on his shoulder.

‘’We can’t do more…’’ his arms get tighter around you, not letting you get away before he can finish, knowing the ideas that were already forming in your head about him not wanting to touch you. ‘’Not here.’’

You nod relieved.

Your phone starts ringing, and he lets you get apart enough for you to grab it out of your pocket to see who’s calling you. It’s your alarm for your next class.

‘’Busy?’’ he asks, reading the clear Math II that appears on your screen.

‘’Nah’’ you say. You hate math, and you like Eunseok, so it’s not hard to choose between them. Shoving your phone in the back pocket of your jeans, you press your body to his and hug him again.

He laughs and his hands move from the small of your back to your ass, to where your phone is, and he gives you a soft smack on the free area.

‘’Go to class, can’t let my star student get distracted if I want to keep showing off how good you do in mine’’ he says, and you feel so happy with the idea of him talking about you with others that you become weaker in his arms. ‘’I’ll call you later.’’

You reluctantly move apart from his arms when he pushes you to the door and gives you your bag. In front of his door, before he opens it for you, he gives you a long-lasting kiss that feels more like a peck. Then, pushing you out softly, he makes you leave his office, and when you turn back to see him one last time, he’s smiling at you, which makes you smile the rest of the day too.

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 22: I May Be Right or I May Be Crazy

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When the reader left Payback 40 years ago after a falling out with her childhood best friend she never looked back, but when two men show up to her apartment and start asking her questions about the past, the reader begins to think those things can’t stay hidden and starts to question what’s real and what’s fantasy.  This is a re-telling of The Boys Season 3, where the reader is a supe who's known Soldier Boy since 1927. The chapters will fluctuate between past and present. This is chapter twenty two of my "You Call It Madness But I Call It Love" series. (I'm so bad at summaries please forgive me!)

Word Count: 9.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this one 18+ because it handles some heavy subjects! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. Seriously it is DARK. THIS ONE IS REALLY DARK! Angst, Cursing, Mentions of Abuse (sort of- it's more the reader being used without knowledge of it and I'm not sure what to call that), Numbness, Mentions of character going through some HEAVY EMOTIONS and INTERNAL TRAUMA , Violence, Explicitly Described Torture, Fire, Graphic depiction of death, Blood, Gore, Sexual References, Family Problems. Soldier Boy might be, is, really, absolutely, completely a little OOC. Soldier Boy is really all you need as a warning.

Note: This is told from the Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. Reader is described as "curvy" occasionally. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

A/N: I'm serious guys this one is really gory, violent, and bloody. I mean, so is the show. BUT this is an additional warning if you don't like reading that kind of stuff, please do not read this. It also handles a really delicate issue with the reader going through something that no one should ever have to. I've never written something like this before and honestly I don't think I ever want to again, but it had to be addressed...

Internal Monologue is in first person and is in italics

Series Masterlist

Masterlist

"Are you sure you want to stay here?" Ben says, gently pushing back a few strands of your hair from your face, fingers trailing against your cheeks, warmed from the morning sun that peaks through the large trees which shield Legend's property from the rest of the world.

Butcher had finally found Mindstorm, figured out which cabin he was hiding at, and although you wanted to go to make sure that Ben was alright, you knew that you couldn't go with him.

There was something you needed to do and you needed to do it without Ben there. It had to be handed delicately. You weren't sure what you would learn, what it would confirm or deny, and as much as it hurt you to be apart from Ben, you had to do it alone.

It was two days after your revelation, after you received what seemed like divine wisdom while staring at your daughter as if seeing her for the first time in forty years and understanding what it was that you'd forgotten. It had been hard to laugh off why you'd shattered a mug during Butcher's little pow-wow, even Rosemary was concerned after, but you'd waved her off and said that you were just getting accustomed to your new supe strength.

But Ben wasn't fooled. When you went upstairs to clean the alcohol from your clothes Ben had followed and tried to get you to tell him what was wrong, but you'd only said that you were tired. He knew you were lying, but he only sighed and hugged you because he didn’t really know what else to do.

And now standing outside of Legend's house while Ben, Butcher, and Hughie were about to go after Mindstorm you wanted to tell him what you believed, but you still couldn't.

You had to find out for yourself.

"Yeah. I don't want to leave Rosemary or Lou." You reply leaning in to his touch. It was true, you didn't, but it wasn't the whole truth and it made you feel guilty. You'd never lied to him before or well, hadn't tried to intentionally trick him. And it felt worse to do this now that the two of you were starting over, and when everything felt more wonderful than you could have imagined all those years ago.

Ben eyes you for a moment and you're suddenly worried that he's been a mind reader this whole time and he's just never said anything.  But then his expression softens. "Are you sure you're okay? You haven't said too much since the other day."

"I'm fine." You touch the front of his supe suit, laying your hand directly over his heart and feeling the gentle thud in the palm of your hand. It was difficult not to touch him now, not after the boundary had been crossed so many times over the past two days. Somewhere deep down you worried that Ben was still uncomfortable with you doing something so intimate in public.

You were aware that everyone was looking at the two of you, Rosemary and Lou standing more towards the house on the front porch and Hughie and Butcher were standing by Butcher's car parked in the long driveway. Butcher's car still had a giant hole in the roof from when Ben punched through it and when he saw the hole, Butcher had threatened to send Ben back to Russia and you threatened to melt Butcher into a puddle.

But Ben gently touches your wrist, where your hand rests against his chest, frowning slightly.

"Fine. I've got a few things on my mind-" You whisper, hating how easily he could read you, but at the same time you loved it.

Ben made you feel seen, and after years of feeling invisible, feeling like you were losing you best friend, and feeling like he would never care about you the same way, it made you happy and comforted.

"Then tell me. I want to help." Ben's hand slides up your wrist to your hand, entwining his fingertips with yours and surprising you again. He was being so open and thoughtful in front of everyone. His eyes search yours as if he was trying to see your thoughts and it made you smile again to understand how much he loved you and cared about you.

"Ben." You breathe, squeezing his hand. "I don't want to talk about it now. Can we talk about it when you get back?"

"Is it why you're not coming with me?" His frown deepens.

"A part of it. But I really want to make sure that Lou and Rosemary are safe."

Ben raises his gaze to look at where Rosemary stands frowning at the two of you, before he looks back at you. "Okay." But he doesn't seem happy with the turn of events.

You didn't blame him, you didn't want him to go face Mindstorm alone even with Hughie and Butcher. You still didn't trust Butcher and of all your old teammates Mindstorm was the most troubled.

"Can you promise me something?" You ask Ben, looking up at him.

"Anything."

"Watch out for the kid."

"The kid?" Ben looks confused. "Lou?"

"No. Hughie." You glance over to where Hughie is standing at the back of the car with Butcher.

Probably talking about the Temp V they're going to shoot up to take down Mindstorm.

You really didn't want to leave Ben with Mindstorm of all people. Mindstorm was probably one of the only supes that could do something to Ben. Ben did have some psychic immunity, but you thought that Mindstorm could peel away the layers, sink deep into his mind, make Ben see the things that always plagued him. And the last thing you wanted was for Ben to be trapped in an automatic loop of him listening to his father say what a disappointment he was. You were trying to make him forget those things, just as Ben tried his hardest to make you forget the things your mother said to you.

If Mindstorm put Ben through that, you were going to hunt him down to the ends of the earth and make him understand what it was like for someone to peel the skin from your flesh bit by bit and then make him eat that brain of his that he loved so much.

Plus you figured that the worst thing that could happen is Mindstorm would lock you in your own head and you'd have to spend your final hours with your dead mother, which yes that would suck, but at least at the end of it you'd have a new fun superpower to torture Mindstorm with.  Seemed like a good trade-off if you had to spend your last moments with the bitch herself.

I wonder what he'd make her say to me, what I'd see. I've heard it all before, don't really think that he'd make me see anything I haven't seen before or heard before.

"Why?"

"Hughie's not like us. None of this is him. He's different. He's a good person and all of this is-” You glance over at Hughie again, before looking at Ben. “ Just look out for him."

Ben's hand tightens in yours where it still rests against his chest. "Fine. But if that fucker comes for me I'm not going to tip-toe around Hughie's feelings. I'm going to kill Mindstorm, that's why I'm going there."

"I know." You nod.

"I mean you saw the shit he did to those kids-" Ben whispers the last part because he doesn't want Lou to hear, but notices Rosemary perk up, where she stands on the front porch.

"Yeah. I remember."

Mindstorm was more fucked up than most of the others on your team, found joy in making people see terrible things. And his favorite targets were children. Stan had a hell of a time covering that up, covering up Mindstorm's morning walks through parks and on the edges of elementary schools. He liked to live in their minds as he took them apart bit by bit, exposed them to his own twisted reality.

Mindstorm wasn’t a good person, but you knew that Hughie was.

"I'm not asking you to spare his life." You whisper back. "He was one of the worst from our old team. I'm just asking you to look out for the kid."

"I will."

You nod, still worried. He was going with Hughie and Butcher, but it still felt like he was alone if you weren't with him. The problem was you couldn’t see the way around it. This was your chance to go alone to find some answers, but you didn't like it, didn't like leaving Ben.

Probably about as much as Ben hated leaving you.

“I promise I’ll come back.” He murmurs pressing his forehead against yours, green eyes soft in the morning light. He was mistaking you hesitation for your fear of him leaving and never coming back.

You reach up with your free hand to touch his cheek. "I know." Your thumb gently rubs over his bearded cheek, smiling up at him. "I love you." You whisper.

Ben leans down and kisses you softly, just a fleeting brush of his lips against yours that leaves you wanting more. "I love you too Sweetheart." He murmurs with a soft smile.

Again you weren't used to that, used to him looking at you like you were his whole world, and you never wanted him to stop.

Ben pulls away and raises his gaze to where Rosemary stands arms crossed over her chest with Lou standing beside her watching with wide eyes.

"Be careful." Rosemary says, but it sounds pained, almost as if it took a large amount of effort to say, but you were happy she said something to him that wasn't meant to hurt him.

Maybe that's a good sign. You think to yourself, but then you notice the frown on her face. Or maybe not.

He nods once, but as soon as he takes a step towards where Hughie and Butcher are waiting by the car, Lou runs to him, her tiny arms pumping as fast as she can.

"Ben wait!" She cries, throwing herself against his leg and pressing her head into his right knee. "Don't go. If you go Aunty y/n will be sad again!" Lou mumbles into the fabric, hugging him tight.

Ben stiffens, his eyes shifting to you and for a second you see something unfamiliar flash in his gaze, something painful. It shakes you to your core, and makes you remember how he looked when he stood above your bed the night he came back and said that he couldn't lose you and when he sat in the car and showed you how upset he was that he wasn't there for you when you were pregnant with Rosie.

It made you want to pull him into your arms and hold him close, make him feel loved all over again, show him how much you wanted him here with you despite everything that happened in the past.

He crouches down so he can look Lou in the eye. "I won't be gone long. I'm a little harder to kill than these other sons of-" Ben stops to sensor what he was going to say and clears his throat. "Um. I'm a little harder to keep away than other people."

"Do you promise?" She says.

"Yes I promise honey." Ben smiles tightly.

"Take this for good luck." Lou reaches into the front of her bright pink overalls to pull out a small yellow flower about the size of Ben’s pinky, holding on to the stem in her little hand.

You have no idea where she got it, only that she was holding it out to Ben as if it had the power to save the universe.

Ben looks from Lou's face to the flower, but takes it from her. “Thank you.” He places it carefully in his pocket and zips it in, but before he can stand to go, Lou throws her arms around Ben’s neck and hugs him tight.

You're sure that Ben must barely feel it, you'd seen a supe try to choke him out and Ben only laugh at them. But this is different.

Ben doesn’t move, in fact it doesn’t look like he’s really breathing. His eyes flick to where you’re standing, wide  in surprise and you give him an encouraging smile, because Lou already loves Ben just as much as you do. Ben’s arms are still at his sides awkwardly, but he finally wraps one arm over Lou’s back to hold him to him, gently as if he’s afraid he’ll crush her.

"I'll come back." He murmurs to her. "I promise." But his eyes aren't on Lou, they're on you, open and almost earnest. Making you understand again that he didn't want to leave you, that he wanted to stay, but if he had to go, he'd always come back to you.

Rosemary watches with a frown from the porch, but doesn’t say anything. In the days that had followed their initial meeting she was still trying her best to let him know that she wasn't going to be his friend, that she wasn't going to forgive him.

It hurt you. You didn't say that to her, because you didn't want her to be guilted into liking Ben, but it hurt. It hurt to see your daughter push him away, when all Ben wanted was family. You understood that. Understood that in the way he treated Lou and understood it in the way he treated you.

He was so different than before and you wished Rosemary could see it like you did, but you understood that she needed to realize that all by herself no matter how long it took. You all had time.

Maybe that was the problem, Rosemary had an eternity to hate Ben, but maybe the good thing was that you had an eternity to make him feel loved.

Lou pulls back from him and you take her hand while Ben stands.

"Oi' while we still got daylight!" Butcher shouts from his car, leaning back against the door.

But just before you think Ben is going to go to the car, he steps close to you and kisses you so fiercely you don't remember how to breathe and then he's gone just as suddenly.

You watch the car pull away holding Lou's hand tightly, while it goes down the long drive and finally vanishes in the thicket of trees. It doesn't feel as warm anymore, you're not sure if that's because Ben is gone or because you're preparing yourself for what you have to do next.

"Here you go kitten. This is the only one I could find" Legend says walking through the front door of his house and past Rosemary to hand you a knee-length dark green leather coat. It was vintage, and you had asked him to find something that didn't make you look ridiculous. Legend had closets full of clothes that would have made you look like you were in a Solid Gold music video, and Ben had started wearing the clothes around the house because he didn’t have anything else.

Of course on him they looked good, Ben could be wearing a paper bag and a shower cap and still somehow pull it off.

"Thank you." You release Lou's hand to take it, putting your arms through the sleeves so it hung over your jeans and your black t-shirt.

I swear if I lose one more jacket someone is going to pay. Yeah, because that's what I should be upset about, losing another jacket.

"What do you need that for?" Rosemary asks.

"Lou." You crouch down next to her, smiling up into her freckled cheeks. "I want you to go inside and draw me a field of sunflowers okay?"

"A whole field?" Her eyes brighten.

"A whole field."

"Can I give it to Ben?" She asks.

"Of course you can honey. I think he’d like that very much.” You tuck her dark hair behind her ear before she turns and runs through the large wooden double doors at the front of Legend’s home.

You stand. "I have to do something."

"What do you mean? I thought you just told Ben that you weren't going after Mindstorm?"

"I'm not going after Mindstorm."

"Then what? You’re going to kill someone else aren’t you?” Rosemary crosses her arms over her chest, obviously upset.

You don’t answer.

“Why? Why are you doing this-“ She shouts exasperated.

“Something about everything that happened doesn’t sit well with me.”

“What do you mean everything that happened?”

“Ben was Vought’s golden boy. And I don’t understand why Stan Edgar would just let him be taken like that.” You look at where Legend stands. You didn't think that he knew anything about it, hoped that he didn't. He was one of your oldest friends and to find out that he had betrayed you the same as Payback had betrayed Ben wouldn't end well.

By now he's lit a cigarette, smoking it thoughtfully. "I've wondered the same thing. Stan Edgar was involved in everything, and for him to give the go ahead for Payback to hand Soldier Boy over, means that there must have been some money exchanged for him to green light it." Legend blows out a lungful of smoke that hangs in the air in front of his face. "Stan never brought up much with me, just that he was excited that the team was going to be given a chance to help out in Nicaragua." Legend frowns. "I will say that before the premiere that night, Stan seemed to already know that y/n wasn't going to be on that trip. In fact he was convinced that you were going to stay state-side and work with Vogelbaum on some things."

"Vogelbaum?" Rosemary questions looking at him.

"He was the main scientist for Vought, he had in fingers in every pie, knew the extent of all our powers, except mine." You wave a hand. "I always refused bloodwork, I didn't want him to be poking and prodding around in my DNA for too long. But he definitely was big on genetic testing. They were trying to make a new hero-" You pause remembering what Vogelbaum said the night of the premiere. You hadn't remembered what he said until now. When Vogelbaum mentioned the next generation of heroes.

"What is it?" Legend asks.

"Stan knew I wasn't going to Nicaragua. He knew that Countess would make Ben push me away, but what if he was working with Vogelbaum?"

"What would that help?" Rosemary interjects.

"The night of the premiere Vogelbaum said that he wanted me to come by the lab, to meet someone. He said that he was working on "the next generation of heroes" or something." You shake your head as if trying to move things back in place so you can understand. "There's something I'm missing about the whole situation. Some missing piece that doesn't fit." You bite the inside of your cheek. "Stan tried to come talk to me after Ben died, but I never heard what he had to say- I broke his nose and threw him out."

"Maybe he was going to try to get you to come to the lab again." Legend shrugs.

"But why were they so adamant about that it just makes no sense. Why was I important? Why me? It could have been anyone. Hell, they could have had Countess go instead of me. There were other women, other supes. Why did I matter so much?"

You glance at Rosemary again, examining her face and seeing the same thing you realized the other day. Deep down you understood why, but you wanted to be wrong, you didn't want to believe that someone would take that from you, that someone was capable of doing something like that.

"But do you have to kill someone to find out why?" Rosemary pleads. "I don't understand how you're okay with killing people-" She begins to say looking at you like she's never met you before.

"You think I'm okay with killing people?" You ask her. "You think I like this?"

"No but-"

"I've done a lot of shit that I'm not proud of. I've lost control. I've killed people. But believe me when I say that what I'm about to do, I do for you. It might not seem that way right now, but I hope that one day you can understand that."

"Mom I-" She starts, but you hold out your hand. She looks from it to you as if confused, but then finally takes it.

"If Homelander comes here, you kill him. Do you understand me? You don't give him a chance to speak, you kill him." You say, feeling your powers transfer into Rosemary. It didn't hurt, it never did, in fact if she did it to anyone else they probably wouldn't have noticed. Her ability was almost undetectable, the only thing that changes is the quick flash of molten gold in her eyes when she does so. But it was instantaneous and it didn't matter how long Rosemary held on to someone, all it took was skin to skin contact, one touch and that was it.

Rosemary's expression hardens. "Okay."

"I love you." You squeeze her hand once more before you let go.

"I love you too mom."

You take a few steps away from her. "I'll be back tonight. I promise. If Ben gets back before me, just tell him that I needed to do something and that I'll be back. Don't let him try to come after me."

"He's not the easiest person to tell what to do." She sighs.

"I know." You shrug. "He's just like you."

"He is not-"

"He is."

"You need to borrow the car kitten?" Legend asks, beginning to search through his pockets for the keys to his black 1967 Impala. It was in mint condition and Legend was proud of it.

He should be. It's a nice car.

"Nah I think I'll hitch-hike." Your smile is triumphant and maybe a bit mischievous, as you take to the sky, leaving the world and everything you know behind.

If only you knew what was coming.

Stan Edgar was a simple man. He liked his whiskey neat, his coffee black, his cigars Cuban, his suits pressed, his dinner at 6 pm sharp, and his women poised. Stan Edgar rarely deviated from his plans, never cancelled a meeting, and took every phone call no matter how late. He read the Wall Street Journal each day, checked his blood pressure meticulously, and was in top shape for a man of his age. After years of shaping his image, Stan Edgar's life was the epitome of control and composure.

Not a hair was ever out of place, his apartment on the Upper East Side was perfectly organized, and he never got angry, he got even. He never lost a minute of sleep. He never raised his blood pressure and he knew the exact price that a minute of his time was worth.

He took his morning coffee in the dining room of his large five-bedroom penthouse apartment with a bowl of oatmeal while he read the Wall Street Journal and left his home at exactly 7 am only to return at 5 pm to read through various briefs before his housekeeper delivered his dinner to the same dining room table that he had previously had breakfast on.

When he was taken off the board from Vought, his schedule had deviated slightly, but it was easy for him to control the company, especially with the connections that Stan Edgar had worked his entire life to maintain.

Stan Edgar's life had reached a point of comfortable routine and after forty years it was as it should be. He knew the ins and outs of New York City, he had a stable home, various rental properties, rising stocks, and a control of most of the inner workings of Vought even with Homelander's hostile takeover. Homelander was proving to be a bigger problem than he hoped, but Stan Edgar did not allow himself to revel in Homelander's destruction of the company Stan worked so hard to build up.

Every moment in his life was mapped out to the second and Stan Edgar had worked hard to make it to the top, had crushed many an executive, assistant, and person to gain the power and status that he had.

When Forbes did a profile on him, they had proudly described his rise to power, of course there were details left out, pieces of Stan Edgar's life that he had worked hard to sweep under the rug. But he did not lose sleep over that.

His apartment is cold, silent, and dark when he walks through the front door at 6 pm sharp, odd because Stan expected his housekeeper to be standing there to take his coat as she had been for the past twenty years. The same navy blue wool coat he shrugs out of and hangs on the maple coatrack just inside the front door in his foyer.

You can hear the sound of his footsteps along the marble tiled floor as he makes his way through the silent apartment, his dark brown shoes polished to a shine, squeaking slightly against the polished tiles.

"Roberta?" Stan calls looking for his housekeeper. His voice caries through the darkness.

You could smell the tobacco from his last cigar on his suit coat, his heady cologne, and his hair oil that was just a little spicy. It was old fashioned, something that you could remember from the first time you met him.  You could hear the steady beat of his heart in his chest, perfectly maintained by the bottle of medication you had found in his bathroom only a few hours ago.

You already knew Stan Edgar's routine by heart, knew exactly how he spent his days, and the kind of person he was. Today was not the first time that you had trailed him, wove through the crowded streets behind his thin form as he moved oblivious to your shadowing, and watched his driver Carlos pick him up and drop him off at the correct times. You had done it many times, taken days to understand who he was, understand where he went at what time, and who he met with.

Nothing in Stan Edgar's life was a mystery to you.

Hughie's revelation of Victoria Newman's relation to Stan Edgar was not a surprise. It was a piece of information you held close to your heart if things between the two of you ever went South. You didn't fear her power and you weren't above torturing the weapon that Stan had turned her into. It would have been difficult, she was after all a senator, but it would be easy to inflict a small problem within her body telekinetically, something that looked normal to the naked eye.

Of course what you were about to do to Stan was going to be difficult to explain to the police.

You had contingencies in place for that though, there was nothing to worry your head over. The hardest thing you'd done today was get out of bed this morning and your day had included disposing of Stan Edgar's security detail, who hadn't even been able to touch you, let alone know that you were following him.

Some security detail.

You took a drag from your cigarette, leaning back in the high-backed chair in Stan's ornate living room, the tip burning orange in the darkness, the smoke obscuring your form where you lounge back against the faded green velvet. It already smelled like cigar smoke and you knew that it was where Stan smoked his nightly pipe after dinner, the velvet holding the strong scent of tobacco and Stan's ancient cologne. You hadn't had a cigarette since you were pregnant with Rosemary, but there was something about the drama of smoking one that you couldn't pass up.

Stan turns into the living room, but his foot hits something solid where nothing should be and he pauses.

"Roberta?" He says again hesitantly. "Did you move the couch?"

She wouldn't answer him, couldn't answer him. Killing her had probably been a mistake, but when you realized that she was an ex-hero hired by Stan as an extra precaution to make sure no-one entered his apartment, it had made you feel better, especially when she tried to electrocute you, which had surprisingly slowed you down, but not enough to spare her life.

You hear Stan's fingers fumble against the light switch on the wall and the hiss of his surprise when his hand comes back sticky and wet.

You can see him clearly in the darkness, Homelander's x-ray vision meant that you'd never have a problem seeing in the dark ever again. You watch Stan's nose wrinkle in disgust, confused at the discovery, but then watch as he reaches again and flips on the light, his eyes leveled at the ground trying to figure out what it was that he stumbled onto.

His security detail had come to sweep his apartment as they did each day thirty minutes before he arrived home, and it had been the last thing that they had ever done. The blood from the bodies was soaking through the hardwood floors and trickling down to the oriental rugs below Stan's modern living room furniture. The thick copper smell of blood was everywhere and you weren't sure how he missed it.

You hear the sharp intake of his breath as he sees the bodies, traces the ripped limbs and headless forms of his pathetic security detail at his feet. There were others in his bedroom, one in the kitchen, and another hanging from the horns of a moose head over the fireplace at your right where you sit, the blood flowing thick down the beige wallpaper and dripping onto the once pristine floors. There were nine in total, and although the past version of you would have maybe felt some remorse for their deaths, you were finding it difficult to, especially after realizing what you had.

"It's hard to find good help these days." You arch your brow taking a drag from the cigarette perched between your index and middle finger. "I'd say you paid too much for their service given how easy they were to dispose of. I'm kind of disappointed, thought that they'd be a bit more of a challenge."

Stan looks up from the bodies, eyes wide, to see you sitting there in the armchair. There was blood flecked over your shirt, on your jacket, in your hair and on your cheeks that you hadn't bothered wiping away, you figured that there would be more soon and you didn't care.

"Y/n." He keeps his voice composed, but you can hear his hand shift to his pocket for his phone.

It doesn't get far.

You telekinetically pull him over the back of the couch and force him on his knees in front of the ornate square coffee table poised in the center of the room. His hands palm down, fogging the glass with his body temperature. His body is outlined in bright purple, completely at your mercy and under your control, your own eyes glowing bright purple.

You allow yourself to take another drag of cigarette and let a cloud of smoke trickle out from your full lips. "It's good to see you Stan. How long has it been? Ten years? You look good better than my teammates did anyway."

"I was wondering when you were going to drop by." He says tightly eyeing you. "Are you going to keep pretending that you're not Indigo?"

You smile and laugh at him. "I think I'm done pretending."

You weren't surprised that Stan knew. When you'd seen him at your art show all those years ago when you moved back to the city you had suspected he knew, not to mention that he had called Legend to ask about you. It was unfortunate that Stan knew, because now you worried who else knew, but you also figured that the cat was out of the bag as soon as you fought Homelander.

Plus, maybe the secret would die with Stan.

"Is Ben here?" Stan asks, and you hear the way his voice sticks on Ben's name. His eyes shift to the dark corners of the room as if he believes that Ben will materialize from the shadows.

It's like him to be more afraid of Ben than me. No one was ever afraid of me. I was just Ben's little friend, another supe that they could dress up and put on display. They should have been afraid.

"No, I came alone. Thought I'd give him the night off."

"I’m surprised you let him back into your life after everything that happened." Stan replies, but you don't miss the twitch of his body as he tries to escape the grip of your powers. He wouldn't. Your hold was unbreakable for someone like him. If you had decided to use your powers on Ben or on Homelander, you were sure that it wouldn't hold them for long, they were too strong.

You examine Stan again. His body is rigid in your hold, head tilted up to stare at you, hair flopping forward into his face from when you yanked him over the couch, and his knees are pressed into the blood soaked carpet on the living room floor.

You knew what he was doing, he was trying to get inside your head, try to make you turn against Ben the way everyone else did, but you wouldn't fall for it, not again.

"Well you did you best to keep it that way, didn’t you Stan?"

"I don't know what you're talking about-" Stan's words are cut off in a gasp as your telekinetic grip tightens on his body, squeezing him tight for a moment before you release the pressure, but keep him where he is.

"Do me a favor, don't lie to me. It's insulting, plus we're old friends." You smile sweetly. "And I always love seeing my old friends. Especially ones who stabbed Ben and me in the back."

Your glowing purple eyes flick to the large painting on the living room wall. It's one of yours, a depiction of a quiet forest from your last show. It was weird to see a piece of the new life you crafted hanging there. "I'm flattered you bought one of my paintings."

"You always were talented. I was disappointed that you didn't start trying to sell them earlier. Probably would have sold more when you were a hero,  could have enhanced your image." He says, but you can hear the edge beneath his voice. He's trying to keep conversation, make this diplomatic, when he knows there's no way out. You’d made sure of that. No one was coming to help Stan Edgar.

"I sell enough now. Thanks though." Your body stands from the chair, listening to the rapid beat of his heart in his chest, and gesture to the collection of tobacco pipes that line the mantle beneath the body of the security guard. "My dad had a pipe just like this one." You stop at a simple one, not carved, plain, a dark cherry wood that tapered into solid black. "Used to smoke right before he went to bed every night. I spent a lot of time sketching him sitting in his chair by the fireplace, learning what he looked like, tracing the plains of his face." You take another long drag from the cigarette.

It was hard to think about your father after all these years, you hadn't thought of your family in a long time, not when you had Rosemary and Lou and now Ben. But you could still remember those quiet evenings when there was a hint of a chill in the air and your father would smoke his pipe and listen to music from the phonograph he had in the corner while you sat at his feet and drew him. Sometimes your mother would join him with her own embroidery in the matching arm chair next to his. As much as you never got along with her, you could see how much she loved your father and how much he loved her.

"I'd never met Homelander in person before a few days ago. I'd seen his face on billboards, on energy drinks but never in person. I would have realized it years ago if I had." You trace the gentle curve of the pipe with a fingertip, exhaling another trail of smoke.

"Realized what?"

"I'm only going to ask you this once Stan." You pause as you turn to look at him. "Why does Homelander have my father's nose?"

It was obscure. You knew that. But it was what you had realized the other day when you were looking at Rosemary, the one feature that distinguished her from Ben, the one piece of yourself that she had, was the same one that Homelander did. You suspected that the smell of hair dye you smelled when you met Homelander for the first time was to cover up the brown hair that he must have shared with Ben, just as the makeup on his cheeks would cover the familiar freckles Rosemary had. They could have been twins, you could see it now.

Stan doesn't breathe, his muscles straining under his suit as he silently fights for his freedom, his heartbeat thuds loudly in your ears, but he doesn't answer you.

Your eyes glow a dangerous purple and the ceiling light flickers above the two of you, the sound of the static with each blink breaking up the wet tap of the blood dripping to the floor and the low pitched thrum of your powers that fills the room.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Stan swallows.

"What did I say about lying to me?" You sigh, flicking the cigarette into the full length white curtains that remain closed over the living room windows, immediately catching fire. Of course they would, you'd soaked them in gasoline moments before Stan came into the room.

His eyes flick to the flames as they reach up to the ceiling, but the fire alarm wouldn't go off, you'd sabotaged it. 

"The human body can withstand 50 pounds of pressure per square inch before it starts to crush. I’ve never crushed anyone before, mind you I’ve also never been crushed." You shrug your shoulders turning back to look at him. "But I'm very interested to see what it will do to your body."

Stan utters one word. "Please."

"It's funny." You take a step closer to him, tapping your lip thoughtfully. "I didn't ask you to beg for you life, I asked you to answer a simple question."

Stan still doesn't answer. The high pitched snap of his fingers one by one breaking is sharp as you increase the pressure on his hands , like the crisp sound of a wishbone at Thanksgiving.

Stan inhales sharply, his gaze lowering to what used to be his fingers, not quite realizing what the sound was. You watch as the realization rolls across his face like thunderclouds on a stormy day, as he realizes  they have been reduced to mush beneath your powers and a scream rips from his throat, echoing through the empty hallways, but there's no one there to hear him scream. Blood swells beneath the ruined flesh, turning his skin a sickly shade of purplish-red, before oozing through the breaks in the tissue by the sharp points of what were the delicate bones of his hands.

"Ooo. That doesn't look too good buddy." You click your tongue. "You want to rethink your answer? Or do I have to do your toes to match?"

"Vogelbaum tried to tell you at the premiere." His voice is a weak growl, eyes not raising from his hands. "I tried to tell you too, but you broke my damn nose."

"Tell me what?" You hold your glowing purple hand over him like a warning prepared to crush whatever you have to, to make him speak.

He continues to look down at his ruined hands.

"Ah-ah-ah." You place a fingertip beneath his chin, feeling the stubble of his five o'clock shadow, so his gaze is now on you. "I want you to look at me."

"Ben was a manic, crazed, he needed to be replaced. He wouldn't follow orders, wouldn't listen to us. He only listened to you!" Stan spits, his eyes filled with rage and pain. "It was easy to turn the rest of the team against him. Countess was jealous of his attention on you, it was logical that she would be the one to break whatever you two had. Even Noir was easy to convince. He always was obsessed with you after you saved his life from that asshole." More blood seeps over the glass table.

You withdraw your hand from Stan's chin for a moment surprised. You knew that Countess was always trying to get between Ben and you, but the news of Noir's obsession was new.

"What do you mean Noir was obsessed with me?"

"Oh please." Stan seethes through his gritted teeth. "Did you really think that you kept losing things? Your hair ties, your underwear, your hairbrush, even that stupid fucking necklace you always wore! Noir was harder to keep out of your apartment than Ben whenever you were out of town. Not to mention he always asked to be put on the same interviews, given auditions in films you were in. Noir was always trying to get between Ben and you, but you never gave him the time of day. Do you have any idea how hard I had to work to make sure you never figured out that he kept breaking in to your apartment?"

Your body goes cold. You knew the necklace Stan was talking about, the pearl necklace that your father had given to you all those years ago, the one that you'd lost a few months before your birthday and never figured out where it went, and the one that Ben had replaced on the night he gave you everything you wanted. You had noticed some things missing, the hair-ties and hairbrush, but you thought you'd left in the hotel rooms that Vought paid for, you had no idea that Noir had been in your apartment.

Whenever he talked to you, you thought that he was being friendly, that Noir was trying to be nicer to you because the rest of the team avoided you due to your close relationship Ben, but you never imagined that he wanted to be more.

"Noir was first on board with the plan. It didn't take much to get the others to fall in line." Stan continues.

"What plan?"

"The plan to replace Soldier Boy. But it had to be handled delicately, there couldn't just be any supe that took over. It had to be someone worthy, someone who exemplified the bullshit American Ideals that Ben used to boast about in all of those ridiculous films."

"So what? You sent Ben off to fucking Russia and you replaced him with Homelander? You shoved all that American dream shit down Homelander's throat and look what you created. You created a fucking monster!"

"It wasn't supposed to be that way. Vogelbaum wanted the replacement to grow up with a mother. He saw how Ben lived with only a father's influence and he wanted a soothing reassuring person in the replacement's life."

"You're not answering my question." You snarl, your hands beginning to glow brighter as you tighten your grip on his feet, preparing to crush them into mush.

"We had the genetic material from Soldier Boy it was harder to get it from you!" Stan shouts, feeling the pressure intensify in his feet, thinking that if he answers your question you'd spare them.

You stop for a moment, tilting your head to the side. The heat from the flames on your left growing with every passing second as they spread to the other curtains on the second large window. “What are you saying?”

“Did you really think we didn’t know what you could do?" Stan almost laughs, but it comes out in a choking cough. "We knew. Your power is one of the rarest we’d ever seen. And Dr. Vogelbaum hoped that your son would have the same one, that your son would possess some quality that you had and the qualities that Soldier Boy had. The perfect weapon. The perfect supe." Stan croaks. "A supe that could adapt and walk away from death like you could. A supe that was perfectly under our control, different than Soldier Boy."

“Are you saying that Homelander is my son?” Your voice is dangerously low, no more than a snarl.

Stan swallows. “Yours and Soldier Boy.”

With those words, the bones in Stan’s feet snap loudly as they both are reduced to nothing, but crushed bone and flesh, never to be used ever again.

But his scream of pain is wiped out by the roaring in your ears as you realize what he's said, realize exactly what Vogelbaum did all those years ago, realize exactly why he asked you to come to the lab when you danced together at the premiere.

It was what you suspected, but that didn’t mean that you were any less ready to hear it. The wave of emotion that crashes over you squeezes your heart in your chest, because what kind of a monster would do that? What kind of person would take something like that from you or from anyone?

Anger, pain, shock, rage, and horror all war in your chest, grappling against your ribs, choking your next breath from your lungs, and make you feel as though your body is tearing itself apart.

You think about the hollow look in Homelander's dark eyes, remember what Hughie told you he was doing to Annie, what Hughie told you he had threatened to do, and remember what Butcher said that Homelander did to his wife. You remember how cocky and confident he was at the Twins home, how unaffected he was by the gore of the bodies on the upper levels, and remember the way he didn't seem to care that he was hurting Ben, that he killed Butcher, and then tried to kill you.

That monster is my son, is Ben's son. He's Rosemary’s brother-

You could feel the anxiety rising, threatening to rip your own heart out of your chest, but then it suddenly shifts to all encompassing rage. The entire room shakes with the force of your anger, spider cracks appearing in the drywall all around the room, the windows in the room shatter sending glass blowing outward onto the street sixty stories below the penthouse apartment, and the furniture begins to shift and slide along the floor restlessly as the flames flare bright red and orange and cause the wallpaper to curl black.

"How did you get my genetic material?" Your voice is eerily calm as you gaze at him, vision going red.

Stan looks up at you, painful tears in his eyes. "We couldn't do it when Ben was with you. He was so damn protective of you, if we tried to touch you with him around he would have torn us apart, so we had to wait for him to go shoot one of those stupid films overseas." He gasps. "Vogelbaum said that you wouldn't remember. Said that it would be just like a bad dream.

You freeze when he says that, the memory of the nightmare that had plagued you for decades flashing across your mind, every detail becoming crystal clear. The voice of Vogelbaum telling the nurses to hold you down, the smell of his breath, his face gazing down at you from between your legs with a sickening smile on his face, while you tried to clear your head, the sound of your own screams ripping from your throat as you tried to fight the drugs they pumped into your system to keep you quiet.

"Egg extraction was difficult." Stan coughs, blood appearing on his bottom lip. "You killed two nurses and two orderlies. Almost killed Vogelbaum."

"I should have." You spit savagely. "If he was here, I would make him suffer. How could you do that? How could you do something so inhuman-"

Your body doesn't feel like your own, your skin is too tight, your next breath catching in your lungs, and a shudder of absolute disgust shakes through your bones. You feel the urge to throw up, to expel whatever images you can, to purge yourself because it meant they had been inside you, touched you, defiled you in a way that they believed was justified. Disgust, shame, horror and pure uninhibited rage shift along your skin in waves crackling in the air around your body. Everything you know is a lie. Everything that you thought you knew about the past nothing more than shades of gray.

"In the name of science there is no boundary, no limit that cannot be surpassed." Stan tries to smile, but it comes off as a grimace and as soon as he opens his mouth, his entire front row of top teeth rip from his mouth and land on the glass table, flecking blood over the surface.

Stan sputters, choking on the blood, eyes widening in pain, but he continues, his voice sticking around the holes where his teeth once were. “Vogelbaum tried to tell you that night. Tried to get you to come to the lab but you refused. He wanted the subject to have a mother, a figure that he respected, a way of reigning him in-"

"You have taken everything from him!" You snarl grabbing Stan by the throat, raising him to your face. "You have denied him the right of family. You made him into something inhuman something unrecognizable-"

"We didn't do anything." Stan cannot hold on to your wrist, tries to raise his ruined hands to place them against you skin, but they only slide off leaving smears of his blood against your flesh. "You chose this. You did this to him. You denied him a mother. We tried to allow you into his life and you refused."

"Don't you dare turn this on me. What you did to my son is not my fault. You turned him into a monster because you wanted a puppet, a weapon you could control. What Homelander became is all you and Vogelbaum. It has nothing to do with me." You throw Stan back against the opposite wall. "You made damn sure of that."

He lands in a heap, tries to rise to his feet, but the ruined stumps no longer work so he props himself up against the wall,  taking shallow breaths, blood trickles down the corner of his mouth.

But Stan doesn't stay on the floor long, you raise him up, his body glowing again bright purple as he slams back into the wall, arms outstretched, legs hanging limply beneath him as he gasps for breath.

"When Butcher's wife had her son, Vogelbaum was happy he got another chance. Happy that Ryan had a mother figure to rely on, but Ryan has not turned out anywhere near as powerful as your daughter.”

Your jaw tightens as you tilt your head, fear breaking through the rage and numbness that has begun to build beneath everything else.

"What did you just say?"

"It took us years to find her, but as soon as I saw her at the art show ten years ago I knew. She's the spitting image of Ben. So we put things in motion."

"What things?" You snarl, tightening your grip on his chest so tightly that you hear the cracking of his ribs.

"Her ability to keep powers for 24 hours is unmatched. She’s almost indestructible. Almost as indestructible as you. She was so helpful in our development of our Temp V.” He exhales in one breath sharply, wincing in pain.

"What?" Shock grips you tight, holding you in place.

They used Rosemary for that? For the shit that Hughie and Butcher shoot up?

"The scientists at Vought couldn't figure out a way to temporarily give someone powers." Stan gasps. "But her blood was just what we needed to understand it."

"You took her blood?" You roar, the furniture in the room flipping back towards the door, crashing against the walls.

"She gave it to us. When I approached her she was adamant about not telling you. You were so against being a hero again and having her do anything connected to Vought.” He smiles around the holes in his mouth. "She agreed to help us if it meant leaving you alone. But-" Stan swallows again, gasping out another breath that sounds like a wheeze. "We were always watching. Always have been watching. There is no where you can escape us, no where you can go to get away from us. You think you're free?" Blood trickles over his dark lips and down his chin, but he continues to smile. "You never will be. And when your granddaughter finally develops her powers, she won't be either. Vought is already prepared for her, nothing can stop it."

Your face hardens at his mention of Lou, anger flaring deep in your soul, rational part of your mind no longer in control. There was no semblance of the control you were so proud of left.

You didn't know who you were anymore. All you knew was that this man had taken something from you, stripped you of what you were so long ago, and he would pay. Because you'd be damned if he was going to take Lou away too. If he really had already gotten to Rosemary, you'd failed her, but you wouldn't fail Lou.

You take in a breath, but the cold numbness is quickly coming to pick away at the heat of your rage, filling your chest cavity. "You've always been a snake, slithering your way to the top, choking the other people who challenged you, slimy, pathetic. You were afraid of Ben all those years. Cowered in the fucking shadows from his rage, afraid to speak, afraid that he would be your end. You were wrong Stan. You should have feared me instead. Because I am the end of you."

"Y/n please-"

But his next words are lost in the blood curdling scream that rips from his throat as his body begins to cave in on itself, the snapping of bone and the smell of blood filling the room as his limbs flatten and shrink into his body, ribcage caves in to his torso, his head crunching down into his neck until the thing that was Stan Edgar is nothing more than a soccer ball sized lump of flesh and ground bone, dropping to the ground with a sickening wet thud.

The flames lick at the walls behind you, steadily curving around the room as you stand there. Stan's blood is soaked into your hair, dripping down your cheeks, but the heady copper smell is obscured by the smoke that floods the room.

Despite it all you can't hear the sound of the flames, can't hear the sounds of the city below, can't feel the heat of the fire, can't feel the stickiness of the blood as it coats your cheeks. There's a buzzing your ears, that comes after Stan's death. An uncontrollable shudder shakes your body as you stand there in the ruined room, the cold feeling unfurling from the center of your chest like the petals of a flower. You can't feel anything, not rage, not shame, and definitely not remorse.

Because everything you know is a lie, everything you knew about Homelander, and now everything you knew about Rosemary. And if she hid that from you, what else had she lied about?

A/N: I did try to warn y'all. This chapter was a lot, and completely out of my comfort zone and I really miss writing the happy fluff 😭. But this chapter had to be done. And honestly… the reader's Homelander is showing. Somethings I think he may have inherited even though he was kept apart from her.

If you'd like to read something a little happier please try my series:

Take A Chance On Me

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[coloursflyaway]

i'm finally going through the comments on heaven to no one else but me (i'm so sorry for the delay, btw, but i was gone over the weekend and you guys were SO sweet that i wanted to take the time to reread everything and make sure i'd respond properly) and i just had A Thought.

i've been putting charles through the ringer lately, which i love doing, because that boy suffers so prettily. but how about a fic in which through magical hijinks charles loses his memory, and edwin is the one left behind?

and charles is like he always is, which is bright and happy and clever and wonderful, and he takes to edwin like he did last time ("so we're best friends? that's pretty cool, i never thought i'd get a best friend this clever! how do you put up with me?") and he's the same, but also, he's not.

because all the time they had together changed charles, just like they changed edwin, and there is something impossibly nostalgic about seeing charles like this, like a snapshot of thirty years ago, but at the same time, it's the most painful experience of edwin's life, because charles has forgotten everything about what made them them.

the synergy isn't there anymore, the ease they usually move with together, the references to older cases and the inside jokes they have.

one time, edwin holds out his hand on instinct; charles asks, "huh? what do you need?" instead of putting their magic screwdriver into it.

edwin doesn't do it a second time.

and there is a beauty, maybe, in watching charles get to know him again, but god, it breaks edwin's heart every second of the way.

and they go through remedy after remedy and nothing works, and edwin has to face the possibility that he might still have a best friend, but he'll never get His Best Friend back, and it's not enough to destroy him, because charles is still there, but god, it is close.

(charles, at the same time, is baffled by everything edwin knows about him and how close they must have been and is this really everything, is edwin keeping something from him? did they - he can hardly think it, because surely it can't be true, this doesn't happen to him, he's not worth of this happening to him - kiss? is this why edwin looks at him so dejectedly when he thinks charles doesn't notice?)

and charles keeps asking questions, like he is trying to figure something out, until one day, he kisses edwin. straight on the lips, a hint of a question in the curve of his mouth, and edwin is both overwhelmed and devastated, because this is what he had been hoping for before charles had lost his memory, and yet he cannot enjoy it now, because it's not His Charles; and yet he cannot pull away, because it is Still Charles and edwin loves him in any way he can.

it feels like cheating somehow, but what if he'll never get charles back, what if this is all that is left of their friendship now?

so he kisses back anyway, and when charles smiles against his lips, edwin thinks maybe, just maybe, it could be okay.

only that a few days, or maybe a few weeks later, something happens and charles suddenly looks at him and he's Back, edwin can see it in his eyes, and -

-and how can he explain this to charles now, that he let himself be kissed by charles when he was not himself, how can he look charles in the eyes when he knows that he has taken advantage of him like this, has he gotten his best friend back now only to lose him again because he couldn't control himself around charles and-

-and charles smiles at him, says, "hi. good to be back. i missed you."

and he takes edwin's hand, who still cannot speak, cannot think, and presses a kiss to the back of it.

"guess i just had to start all over again to realise i could absolutely fall in love with you, huh?" he says, and he looks at edwin like he used to a week ago, like he used to a decade ago, and edwin is crying before he knows it, fingers curling around charles' to hold onto him.

"did you?", he asks, and charles just laughs, sweet and happy and safe.

"oh absolutely. although i think i might have started thirty-odd years ago."

[sainzsiren]

HUGS

featuring: oscar, daniel, charles, lando, ollie, arthur

cw: a little angst i guess but nothing serious and swearing

ᡣ𐭩 oscar piastri

oscar is a polite cat. this is a known fact. it is also a known fact that cats are selective about the people they trust. luckily for you, oscar has put all his trust in you. you knew he had a rough day. he had been gone before you woke up and was just now getting back after you had already eaten dinner. you could see the exhaustion dripping off of him, eye bags evident and shoulders hunched. he greeted you with a small smile and then wrapped his arms around you. you could feel him relax as you stood together, his arms around your shoulders and yours around his middle. he places the most gentle kiss on your temple and whispered how he had missed you. there's nothing that makes him happier than coming home to you.

ᡣ𐭩 daniel ricciardo

daniel is sunshine in human form and finds joy in making other people laugh and feel good. but sometimes, he can get tired just like everyone else. he had been quiet all day but said he was fine when you asked. by mid afternoon, it was apparent that something was really wrong. you walked from the kitchen to your shared room to find him on the bed answering emails, looking like he wanted to curl up and die. you gave him a look, your eyes screaming 'tell me what's wrong'. he gave you one right back that said, 'talk later, hold me now.' he shuffled so he was sitting at the edge of the bed and you wrapped your arms around his shoulders as he wrapped his around your waist. he pressed his head into your chest as you ran your fingers through his curls and he realized in that moment that you were exactly what needed. then and now, forever and always.

ᡣ𐭩 charles leclerc

charles isn't the biggest hugger. he'd rather wrap an arm around you and place a kiss on your cheek, so when he does cave and hug you, it's even more special. you hadn't seen him in two weeks because of work. you guys had talked on the phone and texted constantly, but it wasn't the same. when he picked you up at the airport, he grabbed you and lifted you off the ground, spinning you like how they do in movies. "i've missed you, mon amour," he says as he puts you down. he pulls away and smiles at you, and before you can smile back he pulls you back in for another hug. "what's this about, charlie?" you ask. "i don't know, i just really missed you."

ᡣ𐭩 lando norris

it doesn't matter if you're happy or sad, lando just wants to be close to you. you were in the paddock grabbing food with oscar's girlfriend, lily, in between free practice one and two when he snuck up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and pressing kisses to your exposed shoulder and neck. lily giggled, giving you knowing look that said 'he would do anything for you.' and it was true. he would. he would give you a million dollars or kisses if you asked, and give you a million hugs without you having to ask or think about it.

ᡣ𐭩 ollie bearman

ollie hugs are the best. staying true to his last name, he really does give a bear hug. he walked into hospitality after a great qualifying and his face lit up when he saw you. "hey bear," you said, your smile creeping into your words. he immediately pulled you into a tight hug. his thumb lightly tracing circles on your shoulder. he starts to rock you back and forth and you can feel his contentment as he rests his chin on the top of your head. his height makes hugs even better because he is able to envelop you like your own person blanket, or even better your own oversized teddy bear.

ᡣ𐭩 arthur leclerc

let's be honest, arthur is hot. like really hot. and he loves that you think he's attractive and sometimes get a little embarrassed about it. he had just finished working out and was walking through your shared bedroom to the bathroom so he could shower, but he felt your eyes on him. he looked up from his phone to find you staring, your lips slightly parted and your book completely forgotten on your lap. he smirked and said, "like what you see?" classic. but you couldn't help it! he looked so good. the arms. the waist. the layer of sweat that made him glisten. you looked away in embarrassment and he just laughed. that cocky motherfucker. he grabbed your hand and gently pulled you out of bed and into a hug. you hid your face in his neck and be gave you a squeeze. he pulled back to see your blush had worsened, quickly deciding to kiss your forehead and pull you back in so you could hide again. curse his hotness.

[neuvigroove]

𝒊 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒚 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝒍𝒆𝒇𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚.

pairings. scaramouche x fem reader synopsis. scaramouche swore to himself to protect you from dottore, but in order to do so, he must abandon you. before he leaves though, he makes sure to put a smile on your face. genre/warnings. pure angst, written in scara's pov, reader is energetic and childish, she/her pronouns used for reader, mentions of blood, stabbing, and death wc. 1.1k a/n. i actually shed a tear while writing this and listening to summertime sadness. playlist. die first - nessa barrett, summertime sadness - lana del rey, train wreck - james arthur

[2:39pm]

today is y/n's birthday.

i can see her in the near distance, skipping around like an excited little kid. she's always had too much energy for me to bear, but perhaps i've grown used to it, seeing that she's always glued to my side for some reason unknown to me.

that bliss however, will change today. dottore knows about where she's from. a planet far from the depths of teyvat. a globe dominated solely by the human race with no room for elemental power. a planet currently known as earth.

very little is known about this planet, which only causes dottore's interest to peak. her origin makes her the perfect test subject for the doctor, but i will not let him lay a dirty fingernail on her.

we cannot continue to travel as one; dottore will find her if she's with me. i don't have any cards left to play.

i do worry that leaving her alone would put her in another danger. she carries no vision, nor any strength that could compare to the creatures of teyvat. however, nothing is more dangerous than becoming an experiment of the second fatui harbinger. on the inside i know she'll be okay. she can find-

she can find my replacement. a new companion.

my only option is to watch over her from the shadows. that is the only way i can protect her.

sometimes i can tell that i hurt her feelings when we converse. but my personality is something i can't change, and she's never seemed to want change from me. perhaps that's why i've enjoyed her company more than i could ever enjoy another human being's. she understands me more than i think she does.

since i made her cry on her last birthday, i've decided that i could attempt to make her smile this time around. in my defense though, the cookies she made for us to share together were truly detrimental. but... maybe my words were too harsh. i forget what i said exactly... "you wanna poison me? are you so dumb as to have forgotten that i'm not human?"

my eyes trail back to ms. craziness and my eyes widen when she trips over a tree branch. i actually have no idea how i've been traveling together with a girl who has two left legs without dying. i don't notice the tears streaming from my eyes until she looks my way and spots me.

she runs over to me, and i quickly wipe the useless, hot tears. when i see her happy expression, i need to make an effort not to let the guilt eat me alive. i think i've admitted it to myself a while ago, but i love y/n. i'd presumed just as everyone else that i'm a puppet incapable of anything close to love, but if what i feel for y/n isn't love then i'm not sure what it is. i am positive that it is love. when you experience pain, you don't doubt it and assume it's something else. you just feel. and when i'm with her i feel.

"SCARA!" y/n exclaims as she topples me over in a hug. i nearly fall to the ground, but i'm able to catch us before it's too late. gosh, can she even contain her energy for two rational seconds?

i shove her off of me, but before i can say anything, she excitedly holds up a compass-like trinket in my face. "look! a sweet young boy gave me this lovely compass! it's supposed to lead you to wherever you'll be the happiest! and~ it led me right to you! we are just the perfect little duo, aren't we scara?"

i scoff, "and you believe that? it led you towards me because i'm standing north from where you were earlier."

y/n's excited expression drops.

"oh..." she pouts. "well... we can still pretend, right?"

pretend. maybe i can pretend she'll always be with me.

"pretending won't get you anywhere in life," i respond flatly.

"oh, but you pretend all the time," she responds. "i know you sometimes pretend that you can't hear me when i ramble about random things. although it hurts my feelings, you're still my best friend, scara."

what she said is actually not true. i in fact remember everything she rambles about in great detail. like that one time she was complaining about how she hates her hair because the wind blows it in an unattractive way. it was just so annoying because she needs to set her priorities straight. her appearance should be the last of her worries.

"give me your hand," i say. my voice is softer than i intended it to be. when she extends her hand, i slip a diamond bracelet around her wrist. on it is a charm with her nickname for me engraved in the center: scara.

please don't forget about me.

"oh, scara... it's beautiful! I'll never take it off. i promise."

"i have a matching one," i respond as i hold up my wrist for her the see.

she smiles when she sees the nickname engraved on my bracelet: princess.

there it is. her smile.

i sigh. "human, i know that you have your other shenanigans to deal with today, as do i. but meet me up that hill in the forest at sunset."

"oh, okay? scara, why are you being extra nice today?"

"um," i attempt a half smile. "it's your birthday, isn't it?"

[6:03pm]

i pick up the sword from the wet grass of the forest mountain beneath me. it's raining hard tonight. y/n is going to catch a cold, and i won't be there to care.

i walk over to the puppet standing across from me. my puppet. the puppet i've created to fake my own death. isn't it funny? the puppet of a puppet. both abandoned by their creators.

i take my bracelet off and slip it on its wrist. she has to believe it's me.

"i'm sorry," i whisper before stabbing my clone in the chest. i close my eyes when i hear my own voice cry out in a short-lived pain. it falls to the ground, lifeless as i walk away into the forest.

the bloodshed spreads with the heavy rain, and moments later, i see y/n approach the dead body. there she is.

and i feel as if my nonexistent heart has cracked in half when she screams. my eyes close in a sort of pain i've never experienced before. i'm sorry. i'm so sorry, princess. it's the only way you wouldn't look for me.

i wish that a day will come where we can be partners again. but on the inside i know that her human lifespan is not long enough to fulfill that silly wish.

scaramouche fanart credit: X (Twitter) : llxx88103769