#i make three points and he answers to one of them????

[thatonegrimm]

Hello !! I love your writing style and the stories you write so so much, the one where manager!reader had to teach the boys how to use a phone was so so funny, thank you for writing :)

Could I request manager!reader getting jealous of the saja boys? It sounds so cliche but I really wanna see their manager getting all pouty and sulky when they see the boys interact with a fan or huntr/x in a specfic way!!

Maybe a fan was touching them too much to the point where its really becoming too excessive and their manager was starting to get pissed off but when they look back at the boys just smiling at said fan, they think 'Oh. Ok fine i was getting sll worked up over nothing wtv guys'. Or they see clips of saja boys x huntr/x getting all chummy and teasing eachother(or threatening to end one another), their manager feels ache in their heart and they cant quite distinguish the cause.

Anw!! thats my req :D sorry if its a little long</3 Make sure you drink enough water and get enough sleep btw!

HELLO!! 💖 First of all—thank you SO MUCH for your kind words!! Seriously, hearing that you loved the phone fic means the world to me 😭💕 I am honored to deliver manager!reader chaos at your service.

(Also thank you for the reminder to drink water—I desperately needed it)

🌙Saja Boys x Jealous!Manager Reader

It’s not personal. You’re just their manager. You just happen to want to throw a clipboard at anyone who touches them.

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🧿 Jinu

You’re watching the fan meeting from the sidelines, trying to stay focused on timing and cue cards.

Then it happens.

A fan leans in, gets too close, touches Jinu’s sleeve—twice. She giggles and brushes her fingers up his arm. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t recoil. Just gives that quiet, tight smile like he’s trying to be gracious.

You feel your stomach turn.

You glance back at your clipboard. Re-read the same sentence three times. Pretend not to see it when the fan puts a sticker on his cheek and he doesn’t even flinch.

You tell yourself it’s fine. He’s fine. This is your job.

Still, when he passes you afterward, your tone is short. Clipped. Tense.

“Make sure to sanitize before the next group.”

Jinu hesitates, then follows you. Quietly.

Later, backstage:

“Are you upset with me?” he asks gently.

“No. Just... managing things.”

He tilts his head. “You looked upset. When she touched me.”

You freeze.

He watches you for a second longer, then, voice lower:

“I didn’t enjoy it. You know that, right?”

You blink. “You smiled.”

“I was being polite. But if it had been anyone else, I’d have said something.”

Your heart skips.

“And if it had been you... I wouldn’t have needed to.”

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💪 Abby 

You’re doing post-show rounds when a fan wraps her arms around Abby like she knows him. Like they’re friends. Her hands press low against his back, lingering.

He hesitates—just a second—but his natural instinct kicks in. He smiles. Says thank you. Doesn’t pull away immediately.

You do.

“Okay, folks, let’s move it along,” you call out, voice a little too loud.

Abby doesn’t say anything at first.

But later, while you’re sorting backstage logistics, he appears next to you with two bottled waters and a slightly furrowed brow.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“You seemed... mad. When that fan hugged me.”

You pause. Avoid his eyes. “It was too much. That’s all.”

He’s quiet for a beat. Then offers the water like a peace offering.

“I didn’t like it either,” he says, almost shyly.

“You didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t want to make things weird. But I should’ve.”

Then—so softly you almost miss it:

“You always notice stuff like that. It makes me feel really... cared for.”

You blink.

He rubs the back of his neck. “Is it okay if I care back?”

You don’t answer. You just take the water—and let your fingers brush his on purpose.

--------------------------------------

📚 Mystery 

You’re reviewing fan footage. Just checking social engagement. Totally normal manager stuff.

Then the clip plays.

Mystery standing beside Zoey during a group shoot. She nudges his shoulder. He smirks. She laughs. He looks at her like she said something clever, and your heart clenches.

You pause the video. Rewind. Watch it again.

“It’s fine,” you whisper to yourself. “It’s just work. They’re professionals.”

But something aches. The way he looked at her—it was barely a change, but you’ve watched him long enough to notice the difference.

You shut your laptop harder than necessary.

Later, while you’re handing out notes, he hovers beside you.

“Your energy’s off,” he murmurs.

“I’m fine.”

He doesn’t push.

But that night, he finds you alone on the rooftop, headphones in. You pretend not to notice him until he sits beside you, silent.

“I don’t smile at them like I smile at you,” he says softly.

You freeze.

“I know you saw it. But it wasn’t the same.”

You don’t know what to say.

He leans in just slightly.

“If you want me to stop being close with them, I will.”

“Why?”

“Because I like how you look when you’re jealous. And I like how I feel when I see you watching.”

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💋 Romance 

You’ve always known Romance flirts. It’s his whole deal.

But there’s something different about the way he interacts with Huntrix. The banter with Mira. The way he tosses his head back laughing when Rumi calls him dramatic. The gentle way he calls Zoey “sunshine.”

It’s not fake. That’s what’s killing you.

You try to play it cool, but your answers get shorter. You dodge eye contact when he winks. You stop bantering back.

He notices.

Oh, he notices.

After a press event, he corners you near the exit, gaze sharp.

“You’re quieter lately.”

“Busy,” you lie.

“Liar,” he purrs, stepping closer. “You saw the videos, didn’t you?”

You shrug.

He leans in.

“You know none of them can get under my skin like you.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” you mutter.

His smile fades for half a second.

Then he brushes a strand of hair behind your ear, voice velvet and low:

“Then let me prove it. One night. No cameras. Just you and me. Say yes, and I’ll forget every name that isn’t yours.”

You pretend to scoff.

But your pulse is thundering.

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🔥 Baby

You know Baby gets fan attention. He’s got that whole dangerous-pretty-boy thing going.

But today? It crosses a line.

Someone flirts with him. Obvious. Bold. Says something that makes you blush just hearing it.

And Baby smirks back.

You feel like someone just hit you with a fire extinguisher to the chest.

You pretend not to care. Pretend not to flinch when they brush past you. Pretend not to feel that sting when he just stands there and lets it happen.

Later, you pull him aside. Not in anger—just to regroup. To reset.

“Be careful with that,” you say, quieter than usual.

“With what?”

“Flirting. Fans get attached.”

He watches you for a moment. Says nothing.

Then he pulls something out of his pocket. A note. Folded.

“They gave me this.”

You don’t look at it.

He drops it in the trash.

“I didn’t keep it. Didn’t want to.”

You blink.

He shrugs, scowling a little.

“Why would I, when you’re the only person who actually makes me feel anything?”

You open your mouth.

He walks away before you can reply.

Later, you find your name saved in his phone under “🔥 REAL ONE.”

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M-List

[wisteria-lodge]

“Snape’s Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors them — we’ll be able to see if it’s true”

An In-Depth Examination of Snape as a Teacher (Part 1 - Books 1-4)

All right, I’m game. Let’s do this properly.

(McGonagall will get her own companion breakdown after this, and maybe Dumbledore too - but he definitely sees his job as “prepare Harry to fight Voldemort” first and “Be a good headmaster” like. Fourth or fifth? I’ve heard the argument that he only hires Lockhart (who he 100% knows is a fraud) so Harry can learn some abstract lesson about the perils of fame. RIP to the fifth years taking their OWLs that year. He also makes Ron a prefect based on vibes. The eighty-billion-points-to-Gryffindor thing is part of the “mad” Wacky Dumbledore persona, and is just been memed to death.)

But Snape vs McGonagall - that's an interesting question, and I'm very interested in how it breaks down.

Snape's Reputation

In book 1, Ron and the Twins think that Snape favors Slytherin - it's one of the first things we hear about him - and Hagrid thinks that Snape just hates everyone (but Harry doesn't quite buy it.) Quirrell's position is that Snape uniquely hates Harry:

“But Snape always seemed to hate me so much.” “Oh, he does (...) Heavens, yes. He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn’t you know? They loathed each other.”

And Harry is inclined to agree.

At the start-of-term banquet, Harry had gotten the idea that Professor Snape disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he’d been wrong. Snape didn’t dislike Harry — he hated him. - PS

[The expression] was beyond anger: It was loathing. Harry knew that expression only too well; it was the look Snape wore every time he set eyes on Harry. - PoA

By Book 2, Harry agrees with Ron that Snape hates everyone except the Slytherins (but hates him The Most):

Harry also happened to be Snape’s least favorite student. Cruel, sarcastic, and disliked by everybody except the students from his own House (Slytherin). - CoS

Oliver Wood also seems to agree:

"Snape’s refereeing this time, and he’ll be looking for any excuse to knock points off Gryffindor!" - PS

“We’ve just got to make sure we play a clean game, so Snape hasn’t got an excuse to pick on us.” - PS

"Finish the game before Snape can favor Hufflepuff too much.” - PS

We DO know that Snape likes to spam-book the Quidditch pitch to make it harder for Wood to schedule practice, and overwrite already scheduled practices with his teacher's authority. So it makes sense why Wood particularly wouldn't like him.

But that's the question isn't it: what do we see Snape actually DO?

Class #1 - "Little foolish wand-waving here"

Snape asks Harry three trivia questions he doesn't know the answers to. Harry's embarrassed, Draco thinks it's hilarious. Harry hasn't done anything to Snape at this point, but Snape has latched on to his fame and decided he needs to be... taken down a peg. Harry is "our new celebrity" and "Fame clearly isn’t everything.” Snape also doesn't call on Hermione - who hasn't had enough time to earn her know-it-all, why-don't-you-let-one-of-the-other-students-try reputation yet. So... the purpose of this little exchange isn't to move the class along, it is to embarrass Harry.

“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Potter?” Harry (...) had looked through his books at the Dursleys’, but did Snape expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

I'm on Harry's side here. Snape's being unreasonable. This is also the first point where Harry bites back:

“I think Hermione does [know], though, why don’t you try her?” A few people laughed (...) Snape, however, was not pleased.

This also loses Harry his first point, and... it's not over nothing.

"a point will be taken from Gryffindor House for your cheek, Potter.”

Class continues, and Snape goes around "criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like," even "telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs." Which is interesting: "almost everyone" probably includes some Slytherins, so so far Snape's bias doesn't seem to be house-centric: He dislikes Harry, and likes Malfoy

(In later books we learn that he is a friend of the the Malfoy family, and knows Draco outside of school. But in Books 1-4, the implication is more that he likes Draco because Draco is a suck-up.)

“Sir,” said Malfoy loudly. “Sir, why don’t you apply for the headmaster’s job?” “Now, now, Malfoy,” said Snape, though he couldn’t suppress a thin-lipped smile. (...) “I expect you’d have Father’s vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job — I’ll tell Father you’re the best teacher here, sir —” Snape smirked as he swept off around the dungeon - CoA

Then Neville manages to melt Seamus' cauldron, and Snape responds...okay.

“Idiot boy!” snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?” Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose. “Take him up to the hospital wing,” Snape spat at Seamus.

So... he's clearly competent. He gets rid of the dangerous potion easily, knows exactly what Neville did wrong, and sends him off to the hospital wing. However... he's also insulting his students, which isn't great. And like, this is not a teachable moment. Neville's in pain, he's not paying attention. The time to correct his potion making would have been earlier, when you could have headed off the mistake. Or later, once he's physically in decent shape again and can like, listen.

Then Snape decides this is all Harry's fault. Somehow.

He rounded on Harry and Ron, who had been working next to Neville. “You — Potter — why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That’s another point you’ve lost for Gryffindor.”

Snape. Snape. You're projecting. You have this little James jr. child-star version of Harry in your head that just isn't real. You've already established that Harry knows nothing about potions.

Also like - yes. Harry's fame absolutely gets him special treatment (in Book 3 especially, it seems to be why the Aunt Marge thing is completely covered up.) Snape picks up on this, and in his head is maybe trying to correct the imbalance?

“Ah, well, Snape . . . Harry Potter, you know . . . we’ve all got a bit of a blind spot where he’s concerned.” [said Fudge] “And yet — is it good for him to be given so much special treatment? Personally, I try and treat him like any other student." - PoA

But I think we've established that he absolutely does not treat him just like any other student.

STUDENTS INSULTED: 2

"Idiot boy" (Neville)

"Fame clearly isn't everything" (Harry)

POINTS TAKEN: - 2

Disciplinary Action #1 - Confiscating Harry's library book

This starts a recurring pattern: Harry and friends are doing something they're not supposed to do... so Snape picks up on a guilty vibe... and just finds some random way to punish them. Which Harry thinks is unfair.

The trio are in the courtyard using Hermione's portable flames to stay warm, something they don't think is technically allowed:

Unfortunately, something about their guilty faces caught Snape’s eye. He limped over. He hadn’t seen the fire, but he seemed to be looking for a reason to tell them off anyway. “What’s that you’ve got there, Potter?” It was Quidditch Through the Ages. Harry showed him. “Library books are not to be taken outside the school,” said Snape. “Give it to me. Five points from Gryffindor.” “He’s just made that rule up,” Harry muttered angrily. - PS

I think I believe Harry. Hermione will go out and read down by the lake and no one cares, and even if this is a rule - this is a 'go back inside' moment, not a 'confiscate the book' moment. Harry specifically goes to the staff room to ask for it back, because "Harry had an idea that Snape wouldn’t refuse if there were other teachers listening."

POINTS TAKEN: - 5 (TOTAL - 7)

Disciplinary Action #2 - Ron + Draco Fight

The first instance of the Draco Malfoy Special: Provoke someone else into throwing the first punch as a way to get them in trouble.

“WEASLEY!” Ron let go of the front of Malfoy’s robes. “He was provoked, Professor Snape,” said Hagrid, sticking his huge hairy face out from behind the tree. “Malfoy was insultin’ his family.” “Be that as it may, fighting is against Hogwarts rules, Hagrid,” said Snape silkily. “Five points from Gryffindor, Weasley, and be grateful it isn’t more.

Works like a charm. And Snape (as we see) is very happy to turn a blind eye to Draco's antics.

POINTS TAKEN: - 5 (TOTAL - 12)

Disciplinary Action #3 - Quidditch Fouls

Snape had just awarded Hufflepuff a penalty because George Weasley had hit a Bludger at him.

Fair.

Snape awarded Hufflepuff another penalty for no reason at all.

Possibly an instance of Snape being biased against Gryffindor in general... or else Harry not paying close enough attention.

Disciplinary Action #4 - The Flying Car

Snape generally goes to expulsion as a threat, even though if you take the series as a whole there's no way Dumbledore is ever letting that happen.

"Be warned, Potter — any more nighttime wanderings and I will personally make sure you are expelled." - PS “Most unfortunately, you are not in my House and the decision to expel you does not rest with me. I shall go and fetch the people who do have that happy power.” - CoS

But this is still the first time Harry is in real trouble. I do think he gets off kind of easy (detentions and letters home - Harry talks McGonagall out of taking away points.) But McGonagall and Dumbledore are not happy.

If Snape had gone to fetch Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor House, they were hardly any better off. She might be fairer than Snape, but she was still extremely strict.

There was a knock on the office door and Snape, now looking happier than ever, opened it. There stood the headmaster, Professor Dumbledore. There was a long silence. Then Dumbledore said, “Please explain why you did this.” It would have been better if he had shouted. Harry hated the disappointment in his voice. 

Disciplinary Action #5 - Mrs. Norris' petrification

This is actually a really interesting little interaction because like... everyone involved is half-right.

“I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful,” [Snape] said.

Absolutely correct. Harry is hiding the fact that he found Mrs. Norris because he was following the basilisk's voice.

“It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel he should be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team until he is ready to be honest.” “Really, Severus,” said Professor McGonagall sharply, “I see no reason to stop the boy playing Quidditch. This cat wasn’t hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter has done anything wrong.”

McGonagall is also right - Harry hasn't done anything wrong - and even if he had, taking him off the quidditch team is an extreme punishment that won't even have the desired effect. When Umbridge tries this exact thing, it just makes Harry's behavior worse.

Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look. His twinkling light-blue gaze made Harry feel as though he were being X-rayed. “Innocent until proven guilty, Severus,” he said firmly.

Dumbledore absolutely knows more than he's saying. But, he's going to let Harry come to him on his own terms ("Is there anything you wish to tell me, Harry?") - otherwise Harry is never going to trust him, and that is the most important consideration here. So... Severus gets low-key gaslit.

“Midnight,” said Harry. “We’d better get to bed before Snape comes along and tries to frame us for something else.”

The first time that the text *explicitly* gives us Unreliable Narrator Harry. We know that Snape didn't try to frame him... but that's still how Harry thinks about it.

Class #2 - Hermione Steals Ingredients  

During this class, Snape does seem to be coming for the Gryffindors in general, not just Harry:

Snape prowled through the fumes, making waspish remarks about the Gryffindors’ work while the Slytherins sniggered appreciatively.

We also get a causal "Snape turned and walked off to bully Neville." And he does continue let Malfoy get away with stuff - Malfoy is of course trying to start something to get Harry and Ron in trouble, like he does.

Draco Malfoy, who was Snape’s favorite student, kept flicking puffer-fish eyes at Ron and Harry, who knew that if they retaliated they would get detention faster than you could say “Unfair.”

Harry throws a firework into Goyle's cauldron to create a distraction for Hermione. Snape handles the situation honestly pretty well:

Snape was trying to restore calm and find out what had happened.  “Silence! SILENCE!” Snape roared. “Anyone who has been splashed, come here for a Deflating Draught — when I find out who did this —” “If I ever find out who threw this,” Snape whispered, “I shall make sure that person is expelled.”

He doesn't come directly for Harry, which is actually a little surprising. But this class (and this book) is more about the Slytherin/Gryffindor divide, so I guess that does make sense.

Class #3 - The Dueling Club

Snape showed up to cause problems on purpose. He's pairing up Harry and Draco because, it would be funny. The Slytherins are cheering him on during his one-on-one with Lockhart. We get one more snipe at "the famous Harry Potter." (again, fixated on that whole 'fame' thing.) And then he's able slide one more insult at Neville.

STUDENTS INSULTED - 1 (TOTAL - 3)

“Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We’ll be sending what’s left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox.”

Class #4 - Malfoy's "Broken" Arm + "Poisoning" Trevor

Malfoy staggers in late because of his "injury," and doesn't get in trouble.

Harry and Ron scowled at each other; Snape wouldn’t have said “settle down” if they’d walked in late, he’d have given them detention.

They're basically correct about this. Snape never gives out detention, but over the course of the series Harry will lose 70 points for being "late."

Then Snape has Ron cut up Malfoy's roots for him, trade roots when he does a bad job, and make Harry skin his shrivelfig.

Malfoy had always been able to get away with anything in Snape’s classes; Snape was head of Slytherin House, and generally favored his own students above all others.

But it's really Neville who is having a bad time in class today.

Neville regularly went to pieces in Potions lessons; it was his worst subject, and his great fear of Professor Snape made things ten times worse.

And I really don't blame him:

"Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn’t you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn’t I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?” Neville was pink and trembling. He looked as though he was on the verge of tears.

Making a student cry is... not great. And I don't think we ever get a reason for why Snape seems to hate Neville so much in particular. A little later on we're told "he was bullying Neville worse than ever" and when Snape's leaving the staff room before the Boggart lesson he's says - “Possibly no one’s warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult.”

“Please, sir,” said Hermione, “please, I could help Neville put it right —” “I don’t remember asking you to show off, Miss Granger,” said Snape coldly, and Hermione went as pink as Neville. “Longbottom, at the end of this lesson we will feed a few drops of this potion to your toad and see what happens. Perhaps that will encourage you to do it properly.” Snape moved away, leaving Neville breathless with fear. (...) "If he has managed to produce a Shrinking Solution, it will shrink to a tadpole. If, as I don’t doubt, he has done it wrong, his toad is likely to be poisoned.”

Probably one of Snape's cruelest moments - especially the bit where he's forcing Neville to poison his pet. It's super plausible that he was always planning to save Trevor (he does have antidote in his robes). But Neville doesn't know that. And it's like... does Snape think this is motivating? Because it doesn't work, Hermione has to bail out Neville, and then gets punished for it. (Also, remember back in Book 1 where Harry got punished for not helping Neville? There's just no way to win with this guy.)

Five points from Gryffindor,” said Snape, which wiped the smiles from every face. “I told you not to help him, Miss Granger.

STUDENTS INSULTED - 2 (TOTAL - 6 )

"thick skull" (Neville)

"I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult" (Neville)

CRYING STUDENTS - 1

(Neville)

POINTS TAKEN: - 5 (TOTAL - 17)

Class #5 - Subbing Defense Against the Dark Arts

Harry starts off by losing points for being late, and I guess nosy? (or conscientious.)

"This lesson began ten minutes ago, Potter, so I think we’ll make it ten points from Gryffindor. Sit down.” “What’s wrong with him?” Snape’s black eyes glittered. “Nothing life-threatening,” he said, looking as though he wished it were. “Five more points from Gryffindor, and if I have to ask you to sit down again, it will be fifty.”

Then we learn that Lupin keeps bad class records. Which is honestly ... in character, and doesn't have anything to do with Slytherin/Gryffindor bias. I'm just throwing it in because it IS really annoying when other teachers don't leave you good sub notes.

Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered so far —” “Please, sir, we’ve done boggarts, Red Caps, kappas, and grindylows,” said Hermione quickly, “and we’re just about to start —” “Be quiet,” said Snape coldly. “I did not ask for information. I was merely commenting on Professor Lupin’s lack of organization.”

Then... Snape makes another student cry:

"That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger,” said Snape coolly. “Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all.” Hermione went very red, put down her hand, and stared at the floor with her eyes full of tears.  “You asked us a question and she knows the answer! Why ask if you don’t want to be told?” The class knew instantly [Ron] had gone too far. Snape advanced on Ron slowly, and the room held its breath. “Detention, Weasley,” Snape said silkily, his face very close to Ron’s.

And Ron ends up in detention.

STUDENTS INSULTED - 2 (TOTAL - 6 )

"insufferable know-it-all." (Hermione)

CRYING STUDENTS - 1 (TOTAL - 2)

(Hermione)

DETENTIONS GIVEN: - 1

(Ron)

POINTS TAKEN: - 20 (TOTAL - 37)

Class #6 - Malfoy at it Again

Malfoy spent much of their next Potions class doing dementor imitations across the dungeon; Ron finally cracked and flung a large, slippery crocodile heart at Malfoy, which hit him in the face and caused Snape to take fifty points from Gryffindor.

That plausible deniability is cracking a little, Snape. Dementor impressions?

POINTS TAKEN: - 50 (TOTAL - 87)

Disciplinary Action #6 - Post-Hogsmeade Check-In

Malfoy tells Snape that Harry snuck into Hogsmeade - which he absolutely did do. Snape starts off pretty reasonable and then goes... off script...

“Everyone from the Minister of Magic downward has been trying to keep famous Harry Potter safe from Sirius Black."

Like this is the same point Lupin will make (more effectively) later:

"I cannot make you take Sirius Black seriously. But I would have thought that what you have heard when the dementors draw near you would have had more of an effect on you. Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them — gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks.” He walked away, leaving Harry feeling worse by far than he had at any point in Snape’s office. “It’s my fault,” said Ron abruptly. “I persuaded you to go. Lupin’s right, it was stupid, we shouldn’t’ve done it —”

BUT Snape just starts spiraling about fame and James:

"But famous Harry Potter is a law unto himself. Let the ordinary people worry about his safety! Famous Harry Potter goes where he wants to, with no thought for the consequences.” “How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter (...) He too was exceedingly arrogant. A small amount of talent on the Quidditch field made him think he was a cut above the rest of us too. Strutting around the place with his friends and admirers . . . The resemblance between you is uncanny.” “Rules were for lesser mortals, not Quidditch Cup-winners. His head was so swollen —”

Until Harry snaps at him, and Snape calls in... Lupin. I honestly have no idea why he calls in Lupin. He certainly doesn't believe "the dark arts are your area of expertise." It does lead to a very funny showdown over the map where Lupin knows he's "Moony," Snape knows he's "Moony," Lupin knows that Snape knows he's Moony... but isn't allowed to call him on it, so he just placidly lies his way through the interaction, and Snape gets nothing. Dumbledore actually hits him with a very similar sort of gaslighting at the end of the book:

“YOU DON’T KNOW POTTER!” shrieked Snape. “HE DID IT, I KNOW HE DID IT —” “That will do, Severus,” said Dumbledore quietly. “Think about what you are saying. This door has been locked since I left the ward ten minutes ago. Madam Pomfrey, have these students left their beds?” “Of course not!” said Madam Pomfrey, bristling (...) “Well, there you have it, Severus,” said Dumbledore calmly.

STUDENTS INSULTED - 2 (TOTAL - 8 )

"exceedingly arrogant" (Harry)

"[thought he was] a cut above the rest of us" (Harry)

Class #7 - Neville Melts Another Cauldron

The next two days passed without great incident, unless you counted Neville melting his sixth cauldron in Potions. Professor Snape, who seemed to have attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, gave Neville detention, and Neville returned from it in a state of nervous collapse, having been made to disembowel a barrel full of horned toads.

I do think the fact that Neville has a pet toad adds another level of meanness to this detention. Snape's detentions tend to be both sensorially and psychologically unpleasant. He has Ron scrub bedpans, he has Harry copy the files Filtch keeps about the Marauder's rulebreaking, at one point he schedules detention over quidditch practice on purpose, and has Harry pick out dead flobberworms without using gloves.

DETENTIONS GIVEN: - 1 (TOTAL - 2)

Class #8 - Hermione's Teeth Incident

Double Potions was always a horrible experience, but these days it was nothing short of torture. Being shut in a dungeon for an hour and a half with Snape and the Slytherins, all of whom seemed determined to punish Harry as much as possible for daring to become school champion, was about the most unpleasant thing Harry could imagine.

Harry is correct about Snape blaming him for being Champion. Snape absolutely thinks he puts his own name in the Goblet ("Don’t go blaming Dumbledore for Potter’s determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here —”)

He shows up, and Malfoy's outdone himself with the SUPPORT CEDRIC DIGGORY/POTTER STINKS badges. (Got to maintain that plausible deniability...) Then Malfoy provokes Harry - their spells meet in the middle and ricochet. Harry's boil charm hits Goyle, and Draco's teeth-growing charm hits Hermione.

Goyle bellowed and put his hands to his nose, where great ugly boils were springing up — Hermione, whimpering in panic, was clutching her mouth. “Hermione!” Ron had hurried forward to see what was wrong with her; Harry turned and saw Ron dragging Hermione’s hand away from her face. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Hermione’s front teeth — already larger than average — were now growing at an alarming rate; she was looking more and more like a beaver as her teeth elongated, past her bottom lip, toward her chin — panic-stricken, she felt them and let out a terrified cry. “And what is all this noise about?” said a soft, deadly voice.

Snape gets Malfoy to tell him what happened, and addresses him in a way that seems unusually harsh -

Snape pointed a long yellow finger at Malfoy and said, “Explain.” “Potter attacked me, sir —” “We attacked each other at the same time!” Harry shouted. “— and he hit Goyle — look —”

Which kind of suggests that Snape (who is very capable when it comes to magical accidents) is about to sort this out properly.

Snape examined Goyle (...) “Hospital wing, Goyle,” Snape said calmly. “Malfoy got Hermione!” Ron said. “Look!” He forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth — she was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had now grown down past her collar. (...) Snape looked coldly at Hermione, then said, “I see no difference.” Hermione let out a whimper; her eyes filled with tears, she turned on her heel and ran, ran all the way up the corridor and out of sight.

Presumably "I see no difference" is Snape making comment about the fact that Hermione has large teeth, normally. Which... isn't good. She's clearly panicking and crying, and he dealt with Goyle appropriately (and Neville, when he was also hit with splashes of boil-potion), so why not Hermione? Not one of Snape's best moments.

At which point, Harry and Ron start swearing at him.

“Let’s see,” he said, in his silkiest voice. “Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention each for Potter and Weasley.

STUDENTS INSULTED - 1 (TOTAL - 9 )

"I see no difference" (Hermione)

CRYING STUDENTS - 1 (TOTAL - 3)

DETENTIONS GIVEN: - 2 (TOTAL - 4)

POINTS TAKEN: - 50 (TOTAL - 137)

Disciplinary Action #7 - Yule Ball Chaperone

Snape had his wand out and was blasting rosebushes apart, his expression most ill-natured. Squeals issued from many of the bushes, and dark shapes emerged from them. “Ten points from Ravenclaw, Fawcett!” Snape snarled as a girl ran past him. “And ten points from Hufflepuff too, Stebbins!”

POINTS TAKEN: - 10, -10

Class #9 - Rita Skeeter's Interview

Snape starts off reasonable, by asking the Trio not to talk about Rita Skeeter in class:

“Fascinating though your social life undoubtedly is, Miss Granger,” said an icy voice right behind them, and all three of them jumped, “I must ask you not to discuss it in my class. Ten points from Gryffindor.”

But then he finds the magazine, and starts reading "Harry Potter's Secret Heartache" aloud. This situation is just really well set up to ping all of the baggage Snape has around Harry being "famous." Unfortunately, once again it seems to be Hermione who is caught in the crossfire.

“You might be laboring under the delusion that the entire Wizarding world is impressed with you,” Snape went on, so quietly that no one else could hear him (...) “but I don’t care how many times your picture appears in the papers. To me, Potter, you are nothing but a nasty little boy who considers rules to be beneath him.” “So I give you fair warning, Potter,” Snape continued in a softer and more dangerous voice, “pint-sized celebrity or not — if I catch you breaking into my office one more time —”

Which (this time) Harry did not actually do. And then the class ends with Snape threatening him with Veritaserum.

So, final tally:

STUDENTS INSULTED: 2 (TOTAL - 11 )

"nasty little boy" (Harry)

"considers rules to be beneath him." (Harry)

CRYING STUDENTS: TOTAL - 3)

DETENTIONS GIVEN: TOTAL - 4)

POINTS TAKEN: - 10, -10, -10 (TOTAL - 147)

As things stand (stay tuned for part 2) - Snape has never punished a Slytherin, has never scolded or criticized a Slytherin - unless you consider Slytherins to be included in the single sentence "criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy." He also lets them get away with behavior like talking and laughing in class, being late, and general messing around that he does not tolerate from Gryffindors. So, as it stands I do have to conclude that yes, he does favor them.

I was surprised with how often this preoccupation with Harry being famous comes up, and how it's Harry, Hermione and Neville that get the bulk of his attention during class. (Ron manages to stay out of it - except when he's defending Hermione, or his family.) Draco's tactics are also EXTREMELY consistent, and he and Snape (Teacher and Teacher's Pet) seem to low-key reinforce/enable each other's bad behavior.

I think Snape might be a little fairer in this regard during books 5-7, but we will see.

[seijorhi]

Sanctuary

for @iwaasfairy's Cherry Velvet organised crime collab shh it's only a few weeks late Yakuza Okkotsu Yuuta x female reader w.c. 4.2k tw: yandere themes, extreme dubcon, attempted assault, non-character death, mentions of blood, arson, nsfw, smut, implied stalking, this one's a doozy i think

His is not the first dead body you’ve seen.

The glassy eyes, neck bent at an unnatural angle, even the blood pooling beneath the gash on the back of his head, you hadn’t bothered to check for a sluggish, thready pulse. The fact that he hadn’t so much as twitched in the twenty minutes you’ve sat staring at him further solidifies your assessment.

Deader than dead. 

On your living room floor. Because you shoved him.

Mid-thirties with slicked back hair and a cheap looking designer suit, everything about him from the thick gold chain around his neck to the equally tacky watch on his wrist screamed wanna-be gangster, dime a dozen ‘round here. Thugs with their first taste of money and power thinking they rule the damn world when in reality they’re a step above the gutters, on a fast track to ending up face down in a dumpster with the next asshole in line sweeping in to take their place before their body’s even cold.

From your few brief and extremely unpleasant interactions with this particular asshole, you doubt anyone’s gonna miss him too much. 

Unfortunately for you, that isn’t the saving grace it should be.

Your fingers drum anxiously against your thigh, your gaze flickering from the dead body on your floor to the message typed up on your phone, ready to send.

I need your help, it’s an emergency. Please. 

The last part was added somewhat begrudgingly. Deleted. Typed again. Calling him would be easier and would probably get him here faster, but despite the looming inevitability of it, the thought of actually speaking to him makes you want to shrivel up inside. If your back wasn’t against the wall–

But it is. 

There’s no point stomping your feet and bemoaning your lack of a choice. You have choices and none of them are any good. With this one, maybe you’ll make it out of this mess in one piece. 

Send.

You exhale in a gust and exactly none of the tension holding your body captive eases. 

The text is a hail Mary at best, one that hinges on too many variables. You haven’t laid eyes on the man for three years – for all you know he’s holed up in prison. Besotted with one of the sultry singers from Gojo’s classier joints or some idiot heiress. Dead. Alive and too entrenched in the festering rot of your leaving to bother lifting a finger to help.

You’d like to think that even if he still bore a grudge, Yuuta wouldn’t abandon you if you begged, but any faith you have in the man you knew is wishful thinking at best. Three years is an aching chasm between you. 

The clock ticks. Your leg bounces. 

Should you try Gojo if Yuuta doesn’t answer? Would it be worth the pound of flesh he’d delight in watching you carve for him?

Tears sting at your eyes and furiously you blink them back.

The corner of your coffee table shines with blood, more of it seeping into the fibres of the blush flatweave rug you’d salvaged at a flea market years ago – one of the few pieces of home you’d brought with you when you ran.

Your phone vibrates and you snap to attention, holding your breath. Beneath your message, a tiny red heart appears, and then–

Where?

The relief that hits you feels like a gut punch. You fold in on yourself, forehead resting on your arms, and shudder out another breath. Texting back your address takes a minute because your hand won’t stop shaking and the stupid thing keeps autocorrecting the wrong words, but eventually you manage. 

This time, the reply comes through in seconds. 

Be there soon x

—

The quiet knock at the door shatters your already fragile nerves.

Much like with the shaking text message, it takes a moment or two for your muscles to move how you will them, unfolding and rising to your feet. 

The dead body lies between you and the door, you give it a wide berth, skirting around the walls to reach the doorway. Peering through the peephole, you’re relieved to see the familiar face of your ex-boyfriend smiling back at you.

Relieved and a little unnerved, if you’re being totally honest. 

Yuuta smiles with boyish innocence, a sweet natured soul incapable of causing harm. The sort of guy who walks old ladies across the street and helps lost, crying kids find their parents. He smiles and you’re twenty years old again, thinking your roommate was so full of shit, because there was no way this guy with puppy-dog eyes who blushed and stammered through introducing himself could possibly run in the same circles as her girlfriend Maki did.

You can’t even call it an act. Yuuta was kind and gentle and sweet when he came home to you with blood flecked over his shirt, the acrid bite of gunpowder still clinging to the fingers he’d trace over your lips. 

But it could flip like a switch. Never around you, not if he could help it. You’d be out, settled in Yuuta’s lap at one of their clubs or restaurants when Gojo would come calling. Your sweet boyfriend would extricate you with a kiss, promise not to be too long, and nine times out of ten, his driver would end up taking you back to the penthouse, playing dumb to your requests he drive you home instead.

Just once, you decided to follow. 

Yuuta knocks again, calling out your name, and you – clutching the door handle – you hesitate. Your hand refuses to move. 

The door isn’t locked. The dead asshole on your rug hadn’t seemed all that concerned with security when he’d shouldered his way into your apartment, kicking it shut behind him. You’re the one who begged Yuuta to come, but the sight of him on your doorstep sends you back to that night, and the startling absence of humanity in your sweet, kind, gentle boyfriend as he sliced another guy’s hand off with a fucking katana.

You invited him, and now he’s here. 

To help. 

Lesser evils, you remind yourself. Yuuta never laid a finger on you you didn’t want. Against your better instincts, perhaps, you crack the door. “Hi.” 

A pathetically inadequate greeting considering the circumstances, but Yuuta breaks into a relieved laugh, pushing the door wider to swallow you up in a near crushing embrace. “Hi, baby.”

While you don’t return the hug, you can’t exactly rebuff him either. You end up in an awkward middle ground – nestled stiffly against his chest with your hands curled into loose fists, hanging by your side. Yuuta doesn’t care. You get the sense that your tiny apartment could spontaneously combust, dead body included, and it wouldn’t drag him away from this. 

“You should’ve called me sooner,” he mumbles into your hair, making your stomach flip uncomfortably.

It would’ve been easier if he’d come to you cold, you think. Ridden to the rescue begrudgingly, because he thought he owed it to you – one last favour to put the flaming disaster of your relationship to bed. You could’ve swallowed snide jibes and frustration far easier than the intimacy he’s trying to inspire with the hugs and the pet names.  

“I… need your help.”

Finally, Yuuta draws back. Hands on your hips, thumbs working smooth circles into the sliver of bare skin between your skirt and the bottom of your top. Gunmetal eyes appraise you, narrowing at the tear in the neckline of your shirt, the bruise blooming on your cheek. For the first time since stepping foot in your apartment, Yuuta sees you. 

The tension inside the room ratchets, violence crackling in the air. 

“Yuuta–”

“Who is he?” Yuuta’s voice is level, but there’s no mistaking the lethal edge behind his dead-eyed expression.

“One of Naoya’s underlings. I don’t know his name,” you admit in a small voice. Delivering threats and roughing up women didn’t usually require a formal introduction. “There’s probably an ID in his wallet if you’re up for frisking a dead guy.” 

Yuuta doesn’t laugh. “And why the hell would one of Zen’in’s cockroaches be at your apartment in the first place?’

Yuuta hadn’t laughed, but there’s no holding back the strained, bitter chuckle that escapes you. 

“I didn’t run to him if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not stupid; Naoya’s the last person I’d ever get into bed with.” Second last, actually. “It started with mum after she got sick. Dad couldn’t keep a job, he was drinking a lot, gambling too, I think. It got worse after she died. When I went back I thought I could help him, but–” but he wasn’t interested in seeing his tainted daughter, much less accepting your help. Ironic, considering that he was the one who ended up entangled with Naoya. “I didn’t know he owed the Zen’ins. Not until that asshole,” your chin juts towards the dead guy, “showed up at his funeral a couple of months back to tell me I needed to settle his debts.” You shrug, “I ran a few days later, came here. I didn’t think they’d follow me back to Tokyo.” A small part of you hoped that hiding within Gojo’s territory would’ve afforded you some level of protection from Naoya and his thugs.

And maybe that might’ve been the case, had you not picked a run-down dump at the very edges of it. 

Yuuta’s quiet for a beat. “I heard about your dad. DUI, right?”

It takes a few seconds for the words to sink in, and your stomach sinks with it. It’s funny how you don’t realise you’re clinging to the last vestiges of hope ‘til they slip clean from your grasp entirely and you’re in freefall. You’re tired, so damn tired of this. All the fear and the paranoia, the running and hiding, scraping by through the skin of your fucking teeth and for what? What was the point of it all when you never truly walked away? When you’ve ended up right back where you started, only this time you knew better, and it’s entirely your own fault. 

“You’ve been keeping tabs,” you surmise, closing your eyes.

 The warm palm that cups your jaw has you flinching, but Yuuta is nothing but gentle when his lips brush your cheek. “C’mon, we should go. I’ll get someone to take care of this, you don’t have to worry about a thing, okay? I’ve got you.”

He takes your hand then, lacing his fingers with your own. You pause long enough to snatch up your purse and then he’s leading you from the apartment, the quiet thud of the door closing behind you echoing in your head.

The gleaming black SUV waiting out front looks shockingly out of place in this neighbourhood, as does the suited driver who smoothly exits the vehicle to open the door for you both to slide in. Yuuta’s the one to pull your seatbelt across your chest and buckle you in, a safety precaution he doesn’t bother with for himself. The moment he’s settled, though, he reaches across the seat to steal your hand once more. You let him.

The engine purrs to life beneath you, the rhythmic clicking of the indicator filling the empty space between you as the driver wordlessly pulls out onto the road. “Where are we going?” you ask.

If it’s the club, or any of Gojo’s businesses for that matter, you think you’ll burst into actual tears. There’s nothing left inside of you to deal with Yuuta’s boss, or the uncomfortable, knowing looks from Maki and the others. All you really want right now is a long, hot shower with a comfortable bed to crawl into after.

“Home,” he promises. 

The words should bring some modicum of relief, but they don’t. You can’t feel much of anything right now, weighed down by exhaustion, grief. While Yuuta flicks out his phone and begins to type a one-handed message, you allow your head to fall against the window, closing your eyes as the streetlights spin past you in a blur.

Home.

—

Laid out on Yuuta’s bed, a silk camisole and short set, baby blue and edged in lace greet you when you emerge from the ensuite bathroom at his new apartment.

The clothes you’d come in with are long gone, unceremoniously shoved into a trash bag for Yuuta to get rid of while you showered off the night’s events. When he’d said he’d find you something to sleep in, you were expecting an oversized tee, maybe, not lace covered sleepwear. 

Mindlessly you slip them on, exhaustion quashing the noise in your head, and drag yourself back to the living room where Yuuta waits, splayed on the couch, thumbing through his phone. 

Unlike you, he’s still dressed in the suit he showed up in, although he’s shed the jacket and his shirt’s now unbuttoned to his sternum, allowing a glimpse of the sprawling traditional japanese tattoos inked across his chest. The knot in the pit stomach tightens when he glances up at your arrival and his jaw goes slack. 

Yuuta never used to frighten you, but there’s a dark, fervid gleam in his eyes as he drinks you and the teensy little pyjamas down that makes you feel hunted. 

You’d run if you could. If you thought it might actually save you from this.

“Feel better?” he rasps.

Soundlessly, you nod. 

He swallows. Licks his lips and clears his throat. “Good. Do you uh, want a drink?”

What you want more than anything is to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. For this to be a nightmare you can shrug off in the morning. To wake up twenty years old again, before you ever heard the name Zen’in Maki roll off your roommate’s tongue. 

In the absence of that, alcohol will suffice.  

“Yeah, sure.”

Sitting yourself gingerly on the edge of the couch, you watch as he first fixes a whiskey for himself and then retrieves a new bottle of sake to pour a glass for you. 

“Thanks.”

Sake should be sipped, but as Yuuta settles onto the couch – not in the seat he’d previously vacated, but with his thigh pressing up against yours, his arm stretched over the back of the couch behind you – you knock it back in two mouthfuls, shuddering at the warm burn of alcohol sliding down your throat. 

“Easy, baby,” he says, taking the glass from your fingers and setting it down on the coffee table. “You just need to relax a bit, huh? You won’t sleep when you’re all wound up like this, let me take care of you.”

Like a pretty little doll, you’re shifted and easily repositioned on his lap, your back to his chest, knees hooked over his own spread thighs. “I missed you. Every day, I missed you.” He draws back a few locks of your towel dried hair to lay a kiss, petal-soft, on your thrumming pulse. “I’m glad you called me tonight.” He chuckles sheepishly, buries his grin by hiding it in the crook of your neck, “Thought I was dreaming at first, seeing your message. Felt like a dream anyway.”

Your breath shutters at the heavy palm that cups your breast and gives a slow, considering squeeze, the other trailing tortuously down the silk front of your camisole to your shorts. 

Another kiss, this time on the curve of your jaw. 

Your participation in this act isn’t required, merely your silent acquiescence. You don’t have to do anything. 

Tomorrow when the dust is settled and the body in your living room gone, you’ll set about putting some boundaries – distance – in place. Helping you isn’t an act of benevolence no matter how sweetly Yuuta sighs, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of your tiny, silk shorts. Sex is a given, the rest; cohabitation, enduring the whims of his boss, sinking any further into the rot of that lifestyle (your hands are bloodied enough), doesn’t have to be. 

There needs to be separation, somehow. You cannot give him everything. 

But it’s a problem for tomorrow, when the edges of your nerves are not quite so raw. For now, the noise in your head eddies, the tempest raging beneath your skin tuned out.

Why fight against the inevitable?

Yuuta’s touch doesn’t hurt.

Your head lolls back on his broad shoulder, a shift of your hips more easily allowing his hand access to the warmth of your pussy. Though you aren’t wet – how could you be? – it hardly matters. Yuuta’s in familiar territory. No one’s spent the hours learning every inch of you the way Yuuta has. No one ever held that zealotry.

And he forgets none of it.

The slow heat he draws out, working his fingers over your sex, quickly remedies the situation. He always pays good attention to your clit, and when his middle finger slides into you, the walls of your pussy grip and shudder while he groans at the sensation. The slick sound it makes when he draws back has you cringing, but if he hears it, feels it, he gives no indication. 

There’s no hiding your little gasp when his ring finger joins, crooking up inside of you, all the while the heel of his palm grinds against your throbbing clit. You buck. Bite down on your bottom lip. He tweaks at your nipple, pebbled into a bud, and you jerk in his grasp. 

Through his pants, his hardening cock twitches insistently against the cleft of your ass, reminding you, in case you’d at all forgotten, exactly where this is heading. 

His mouth is on your neck again, teeth flirting with the idea of sinking into soft, delicate skin, marking you as his, offering yet another taste of you. His thumb strokes your thigh. 

“Take them off– good girl,” Yuuta pants as you lift your hips obediently, his fingers still notched inside you, and tug at the silk shorts, letting them slide down your legs and fall gracelessly to the floor. 

Slick dribbles down his fingers from your cunt. The way Yuuta moans your name and curses at the sight of it would be enough for shame to swallow you whole, if not for the liquid surge of heat that floods through you when those wickedly clever fingers of his find your g-spot.

“Yuuta!” you cry out–

–and whatever self control he’s left shatters into a thousand pieces. 

You hear the hiss of his zipper and another curse – all the warning you’re given before he’s manhandling you once more, this time to turn you around on his lap. Twin flushes of colour burn high on his cheekbones, a glassy, feverish look in his eyes as familiar to you as it is foreign. As terrifying as it is visceral. 

Your stomach swoops. 

There’s a moment, a brief space in time you’re afforded to collect yourself, before his hips jerk upwards at the same time wet fingers sink into the plush of your middle and drag you down. Your breath’s robbed of you, knocked clean from your lungs at the sudden fullness within, his cock stretching you open and filling you deep.

“Fuck!” you gasp, your nails clawing at his back.

With your knees now settled onto the couch on either side of him, riding him would be easy if that’s what he wanted. He doesn’t. You could be a ragdoll, soft and pliable in his grip for the way he sets about bouncing you on his cock, only you’re meeting each punch of his hips with a roll of your own, chasing the delicious heat sparking from the friction against your clit. A hand splayed over your asscheek squeezes and urges you on. Yuuta leans forward to capture your lips in a sloppy, demanding kiss. 

The sex is messy, jagged edges and discordance. Tenderness swiftly devolves into desperation. 

You’re stretched around him, panting and sweaty, clinging to the fabric of his shirt, and it isn’t enough. There’s an edge of pain that creeps in, his treatment just a little too rough as he fights to fuck you deeper, to carve himself a place within you you can’t overwrite. 

Your thighs shake. Yuuta’s grip flexes at the mere hint of rejection. Come morning you’ll be an artwork of mottled fingerprints, but you won’t shy away from him here.

The savage, needy noises that spill from him between kisses, the lewd squelching of his cock rabbiting into you from below, they feed the hot puddle of shame burning in your belly. And yet through the bite of his cock dragging through you, the roiling beneath your skin, hot pleasure snakes through your veins, undeniable. Inescapable. 

You can’t remember the last release brought about by another person. Some drunken hookup, probably, a faceless one night stand that slipped from your mind the moment you crept out the door. You ache for this as much as you dread it. 

He knows it, too. 

“I need you,” Yuuta’s ragged plea becomes a chant. “I need you, I need you, fuck, I–”

Hips surging, the maddening angle of his length driving into you, and the silken heat of your own cunt fluttering and squeezing around every intrusion, it drives you both to a frantic crescendo. Pleasure spools in your gut, a sweet agony that winds tighter and tighter.

Your back arches, toes curling against his thighs. A soundless cry tears its way free as your orgasm crashes over you, blind pleasure rippling through you like the waves of an aftershock. You clamp down on Yuuta’s cock and his whole body shudders in turn, collapsing against your heaving chest as hot spurts of cum flood your quivering, aching pussy. 

When Yuuta falls back to the cushions of the couch, he drags you with him. Beads of sweat slide down his tattooed chest, disappearing beneath his shirt he hadn’t bothered to shed. Yuuta doesn’t care about his disheveled state, much less your own, settling you back into his chest, cock still stuffed inside of you, to press a lingering kiss to your temple. “Feel better?”

“Yeah,” you lie. And then, after a beat, “Thank you for showing up tonight.”

Slow knuckles trail up and down the length of your spine as Yuuta leans forward to retrieve his forgotten glass of whiskey. “For you, I’ll always come running.”

—

Yuuta’s in the shower when you wake late in the morning.

He mentioned last night – or early today, you suppose – something about getting you clothes for the day. You can see a bundle of fabric waiting for you at the foot of the bed, what looks like a dress and some underwear, but you’re in no rush to rise and play dress up.

Not until the shower’s free at least. Your thighs are still tacky with his cum.

Besides, whatever plans Yuuta has for the day, first stop on your list is going back to your apartment. Even that thought sits unpleasantly; the desire nonexistent to return to the home you were assaulted in, to walk over the blank space on the floor where your favourite rug used to lie and remember the blood that spilled there.

You can’t stay here, though. You know that much.

Reaching blindly for the nightstand, you fumble for the phone Yuuta plugged in to charge last night. There’s no messages or missed calls, which is hardly surprising. The friendships were fleeting when you bounced from place to place and god knows your extended family won’t speak to you anymore. 

There’s a news alert in your stack of useless app notifications and you almost, out of habit, swipe it away without a second thought, until your eye catches the headline.

Fourteen dead, three hospitalised in Tokyo apartment blaze. 

Every drop of your blood turns to ice.

There’s probably hundreds of thousands of apartment blocks within the city. Millions, even. Your hand trembles as you click on the link to the article. The seconds that pass waiting for the story to load crawl, compounded by the off-kilter thudding of your heart.

It can’t be. 

He wouldn’t, he–

The video at the top of the page begins to play; firefighters dousing the burnt out, smoldering husk of a building with huge hoses amidst flashing blue and red lights of emergency vehicles. 

The same building you drove away from last night, after Yuuta promised he’d take care of things.

You watch in open mouthed horror as the video switches to the inside of a newsroom, the grim faced anchor speaking soundlessly as pictures of the victims flash on the screen. Hot tears spring to your eyes as you take them in, one after another, each new victim another knife twisting in your chest. When a photo of a mother and her two young boys appears, you clamp a hand over your mouth to muffle a choked sob.

Hot tears stream down your face, your whole body shaking like a leaf. You want to throw up. The sound of your heart pounding fills your ears, deafening you to all else.

And then–

You. An old picture; you in your graduation gown, beaming behind a gorgeous bouquet of peonies. Happy and carefree in a way you haven’t been for years.

A victim, burned up in the fire with all the others. Dead. 

The phone drops from limp fingers at the same time the bathroom door cracks and Yuuta’s voice floats out.

“Baby, you up yet?”

[sturnsrecord]

INTRODUCING ꒰ TRUE BLUE!NICK + FRATBOY!ACE

true blue!nick isn’t one for parties, especially at his brothers frat house. but his night takes a weird turn when he meets ace.

contains. making out, grinding, confusion

parties were not his scene. especially frat ones full of loud, cocky guys all trying to impress every girl that walked through the door.

it was like a mating ritual, the way they leant up against a door or wall — thinking hovering over a girl would work. which unfortunately, more often than not, it did.

he could appreciate those who didn’t entertain it. girls that made a fool of all of them or even went after a guy instead. it was respectable at least.

nick spent too much time watching— judging. simply absorbing everyone else’s interactions either to analyse or for the pure drama of it. people watching kept him entertained and feeling good about his own decisions.

despite the somewhat lonely thoughts that constantly rattled in his brain, it all came spilling out the second he found someone he knew.

“just saw a three way kiss. disgusting.” he pulls a face, grimacing at the memory of it as he sits down.

“y’know there ‘a people fucking — doin’ muuuch worse.” chris murmurs, parked on the couch like always with a joint hanging from his lips.

nick sits back, thinking for a second — stopping himself from complaining about that too. “well i don’t have to see that so.” he sighs. “i just don’t get the fucking need to swap spit with two other people. at the same fucking time.”

chris simply shrugs, ignoring the way nicks eyes bulge out of his skull — hands flying about as he speaks.

“i hate these parties, everyone’s so fucking horny.” he complains further.

“nothin’ wrong with that.” chris murmurs, trying to. defend himself and entire crowd. nick scoff, unable to hide the look of his face. “don’t even get me started on your putrid habits.”

he frowns, taking a toke of the joint. “putrid?”

“uh, yeah. literally putrid — your roster is diabolical.”

chris turns to give him a slight side eye. “the fuck y’know ’bout my ‘roster’?” nick raises an eyebrow, hesitating to answer. “i know it’s never ending.” he mutters.

he scoffs, not offended but rather amused at nicks comment — maybe even a little smug about the fact. he laughs it off, bringing the joint back to his lips as he looks around.

nick settles beside him, hands fidgeting with his phone before he follows chris’s gaze. “her, i like. she’s cool.” he points out — as if it was some kind of redemption.

“who?” chris mumbles, elbows resting on his knees — body leant forward comfortably. “the girl you’re currently staring at. ogling actually.”

“m’not… ogling.” he trailed off, unable to defend himself as the both of them stare at her — a watching the way she controls the room and every man in her path. both admiring for different reasons.

“her names nova by the way.” nick says, as if it was some encouragement for chris to go and talk to her.

“yeah, i know her fuckin’ name, nick.” his words are harsh, spitting out like some sort of defence against what? nick didn’t know.

“aaalright then.” nick practically leans back, aware from chris’s projecting attitude. it was hard not to crack jokes in these moments. “shoot me for asking, but if you know her why are you looking at her like that?”

he simply glares, unamused by the comment. “like what?”

“like you wanna eat her alive.” there’s no hesitation in nicks comment, as he simply states a fact — one that chris was unwilling to admit.

“that’s bullshit. she’s a fuckin’ pain in the ass.” it’s almost funny the way chris denies it, clearly uncomfortable with the topic of conversation as he shifts around in his seat. “how the fuck do y’know her anyways?”

nick has to bite his tongue to not backtrack and poke fun at chris, but he can tell that whatever it is with nova is not something chris was willing to talk about, yet alone admit.

“she does some of the costume design for the shows.” he observes chris carefully as he speaks. “she’s very talented, and more than tolerable considering her… crowd.”

chris shoots him a look, not appreciating the insult. “whatever. she comes across as a bitch here — ow! what the fuck!” chris reaches up to hold his arm that nick had just slapped, not at all perplexed by the reason he did that.

nick simply gives him a look, silently scolding him for his language towards her. “have fun staring.” chris purses his lips, giving a sarcastic nod before nick stands. “and watch your mouth!”

the walk to the bathroom is long, and finally getting there to find that the door is locked only had nick wishing he never came — anticipating a disheveled couple of people to walk out.

but it’s not — to his surprise. in fact, somehow it’s worse.

“holy fuck, i thought you were chris.” his brows furrow as he looks at nick — door swung open between them. ace, one of chris’s friends that nick had heard more than enough about. “shits uncanny.” he chuckles, moving past to leave the bathroom.

he’s blindsided to say the least, a little rattled at how to respond or if he even should respond. what kind of an introduction was that? as if nick wasn’t his own person, just chris’s lookalike brother.

“no, not chris. just his… gay brother.” the words come out petty, like he was trying to make the guy sound stupid. but the second that adjective gets thrown out he wants to smack his head against a wall.

ace looks just as confused, unsure what to do with such an introduction as he stands there — watching nick back up into the bathroom. “uh… good for you man.”

it’s painful, excruciatingly painful. and it’s his own fault. who even says that in such a situation — as if that was his one true feature. being a fucking homosexual. the pain is enough to have nick shutting the door behind him, hoping to god he’d never see that guy again.

he thinks about it whilst he pisses, and whilst he washes his hands. repeating it in his head, grimacing each time.

it was moments like these he wished he could go back in time, not to change his whole life or do anything differently. but just for that one slip up, that one thing he said that made the whole conversation still.

letting it nag at him probably didn’t help, but it felt good in the moment to reimagine it. all the things he could’ve said that wouldn’t have earned him such a strange look.

one less thing to keep him up at night.

the only positive of the situation was that it gave him a good reason to leave, knowing he’d go home with a smile on his face — having great decision making skills on refusing to spend another second at this party.

the last thing he could have ever anticipated was him, stood there. still.

maybe ace was about to throw some slurs his way or tell him how much of a loser he was. it’s hard to tell in the few seconds he has, watching him stand there almost breathless like he was going to say something — unmistakably letting his gaze flit down to nicks mouth.

but then his lips are pressed up against his, following through with his gaze.

oh.

it doesn’t matter that the action has him speechless. there was no option for talking apparently, just some random guys lips moving against his own — quick and feverish like he was starved.

nick can’t remember the last time he made out with a random at a party.

it was freeing almost. fun and exciting. but as soon as he’s backed up into the bathroom, hearing the door shut and lock, it all becomes… intense.

strong hands gripping his face hard as his ass pushes into the counter behind him, lips merging to sync together as all train of thought stops and his entire self melts into the kiss so perfectly.

“wha—” he can’t get a word in, taking a small breath before ace kisses him again — clearly all for the action right now.

what shocks nick most isn’t even the forwardness or complete one eighty that this dude had. it was the way it had nick so incredibly riled up, cock straining against his trousers almost painfully — as if he’d never felt a sexual touch from anyone before.

as ace moves to run his lips over his neck, nick can’t help but reach out — bracing himself against him and his rock hard abs. god, what the fuck was happening right now?

who the fuck was he, and how the fuck had he never met him before?

“f-fuck, that feels so—”

“shut the fuck up.” his harsh response shouldn’t have nicks balls throbbing, but it does. the sheer tone of ace’s voice pumping blood faster than in should through his body, like a hot rash spreading.

a sexy, muscular, very hot rash. all over him.

it’s all groans and short breaths, nicks head tipped back to allow more access for ace to suck and nip at his sensitive skin.

everything just clicks, they’re too in sync for either of them to comprehend it — bodies grinding together, hard dicks rubbing against one another like it was some rehearsed dance.

and god does it feel fucking amazing. ace clearly knows what he’s doing, and it gives nick the comfortability to just stand there and take it — pull him closer to feel more of his broad body up against his own.

it feels right, and it’s doing everything and more for nicks arousal as he lets his hand linger up ace’s top — getting a feel for his sculptured bod.

he’s in heaven, caged in, not wanting to leave. it’s all too good until he feels a hand around his wrist, dragging his own hand away from ace’s crotch. “fuck.”

it’s not a good ‘fuck’. ace’s breath hitting nicks skin sharp, sounding like regret or some kind of denial.

ace swallows, meeting nicks gaze. both as flushed as eachother, ragged breaths mixing in the small space between their faces.

“don’t… tell anyone.”

its unexpectedly soft, vulnerable. and it pains nick to his core. the worst three words in the english language, bundled up together and thrown at him before ace is out of the door — practically gone with the wind, away from the crime scene.

𐔌 ©.STURNSRECORD

notes. this might be the most excited i’ve ever been for an au

[ssivinee]

「 Lovesick 」

n. kazuha x le sserafim ! f reader ✎𓂃 Between you and your girlfriend, you've always been the caregiver type. You could never resist anything about Kazuha, even when your unaware of what you've done to hurt her feelings.

word count ! 1.6 k

requested ! hiii can i request something ab sub!Zuha? Doesn’t matter if it’s smut or fluff you can do whatever you’d like :))

author's note ! needed a break from the long fics and smut rq yall- I also apologize to the anon that sent me this like months ago AND I ONLY GOT TO IT NOW IM SO SRRY.

This is also fluff... don't be fooled :>

“I don’t understand why he likes bullying me!” 

You side-eye where the voice comes from, a look that annoys Chaewon to the point she throws the first things she touches beside her. Thankfully, it was only a pillow, and you dodged it smoothly, sticking your tongue out at her.

“Shiro bullies me enough, I don’t need you adding onto it,” she pouts, and a burst of laughter escapes your mouth, knowing well how much the dog antagonized her. “Rei got along well by training with him, so maybe it’s just his love language for you, unnie,” Yunjin voices while reading her book. 

Chaewon watches you nod in agreement, knowing it was just to annoy her, and she almost throws another item at you. Scared for your face, you shield up with your forearms in the hope of lessening the damage until you hear Kazuha coming into the living room from the hallway.

“Can we not try to kill her?” Chaewon looks offended at the younger as she sits down beside you, beginning to cuddle up into your side. “Yah! She’s the one that’s gonna kill me!”

You feel Kazuha just shake her head against you, your legs crossed underneath the soft blanket, you lean back to make sure she is comfortable. Looking down, her eyes look soft, gazing up at you with the usual warm smile she gave.

“Don’t get all lovey-dovey now,” Chaewon groans, voicing some annoyance. Someone clearly wasn’t in the best mood today. Probably because of the practice, which was definitely mentally and physically exhausting.

“Oh, c’mon, unnie. Don’t be a hater now,” You voice in a more innocent way, Yunjin tilting her head quickly in agreement before going back to her book once more. Chaewon visibly rolls her eyes, bunching up the blanket in her arms as she begins to make her way to her room.

You were a tiny bit worried that you may have pissed her off but she erases any worry when you hear her yell down the hallway, “None of you stay up super late please!”

There was a collective yes from before everyone heard the door click shut. “Does Mary die in this book?” Yunjin asks in English, and you turn your head, giving her a look. “I told you I wouldn’t spoil it for you,” she told her right back in English.

Having hyped her enough and actually putting her into the story, you told the fellow Korean-American that you would keep it spoiler-free. Yet the anticipation of Yunjin knowing you knew the ending had her all jittery.

“I just wanna know~” She whines, making you chuckle at the way she flails around with the book in one hand. “You want some tea?” Asking her as you got up from your seat, shifting Kazuha off slowly, who looks at you with soft eyes that you didn’t catch.

“I’m down,” she answered with eyes trailing across a page of her book. “Babe?” You ask, looking up a bit while heating up some water in the electric kettle. You only see her nodding before looking back at the TV to watch the show.

Catching how she gave you less attention than usual, you could tell something was bugging her, but you weren’t about to expose any problems in front of Yunjin. “Hibiscus?”

“Make it the blossom version, please?”

You nod, and take out one packet, then take out two packets of a Mango Cintron tea that you and Zuha both liked. Beginning to take out the three mugs, you placed them on the counter and began to rip each packet one by one to place the tea bags in.

“Make mine peppermint,” Kazuha voices, her attention not leaving the TV as you stared at her. Now you were sure something was wrong.

Your girlfriend was the type to follow you around everywhere when possible, cuddle into you at any point, and copy your food or drinks, so the change in tea flavor had gears turning in your head. Without any context, your brows furrow together, and you begin to scratch the back of your head.

Kazuha could feel how your eyes would glance at her every now and then while you waited behind the counter. A pout begins to form on her lips again while she feels your stare, a sigh escaping her lips.

After a few minutes, the ding of the kettle brings you out of your thoughts. You pour the hot water all the way for you and Yunjin, then leave some space for milk, the way Kazuha likes it.

No sugar for the older ones, then two small spoons of sugar for the younger, and you stir all three. You made sure you gave Kazuha’s tea first, then went to grab yours and Yunjin so you could sit back next to her.

But when you go back to your seat, stirring the spoon while holding the mug with one hand, Kazuha doesn’t even look at you. She keeps her eyes to the front, and you had a lot of patience… not when it comes to Zuha while she’s acting like this.

Yunjin put down her book, focusing on the show so she could properly drink her tea. You could barely even focus on anything, just staring at the back of your girlfriend's head while sipping slowly on the hot tea. 

The room only being filled with the sounds of the television made you want to bash your head against the wall. Maybe tea was a bad idea, but you wouldn’t have known that unless you actually made the tea.

Kazuha gets up from the couch to put her dishes in the sink. She usually comes back quickly, just so all the dishes can be done at once. 

With the sound of the faucet turning on, your head whips to the left, staring at her, very confused, as she begins scrubbing away at her mug. You glance quickly at Yunjin, who was already giving you a look, trying to hide her own suspicious face behind her large mug while sipping on the tea.

‘You better fix whatever you did,’ she mouthed towards you, and your eyes fell down to your lap. Shaking your head and trying to figure out what you could’ve possibly done this time, Kazuha leaves both of you and heads into her room.

You're left gobsmacked in the living room, Yunjin laughing at your mouth agape at the younger's actions. “Seems like you're in trouble~,” she teased in a quiet voice, making sure nothing upset Kazuha more. Flicking her off with an eyeroll, she cackles again as you leave her to head into Kazuha’s room.

As you enter, you shut the door behind you and lean on it to find her scrolling on her phone while lying on her pillow. The way she doesn’t even look your way made you a little sad. “Are Sakura-unnie and Eunchae not looking for you?”

“No, we agreed I’d spend the night here,” She hears you shuffle over after you answer, feeling the edge of her bed sinking down to the right. 

“Can you tell me what I’ve done wrong?” You asked woefully. Now the sadness in your voice makes her peak up, seeing how your brows tilted up while the frown on your face began to show.

You hear the click of her phone, shutting it off as she places it down beside her. “You didn’t even pay attention to me. Just Yunjin-unnie and Chaewon-unnie, you also know how I feel when the two of you speak English with me in the room.”

The way her head falls, hanging low, with a gloomy look on her face, as she fiddles with her fingers. Your eyes soften at the way she basically expressed feeling left out, and you take her hand into yours.

“I didn’t mean for my actions to come off that way. I’m sorry, angel.” You stare as she looks up, tears pooling in her eyes, and you pout at the look. Moving forward a bit, shifting your weight on the bed, you give her a sweet kiss on the lips.

“Chaewon unnie just hasn’t been in a good mood, so I’ve been teasing her a bit, then Yunjin asked me something and I responded in English out of reflex,” you admitted, wanting to explain yourself, but then shook your head. “Doesn’t matter, I’m just sorry.”

“It would’ve just been nice to be included,” you nod, understanding what she meant. It’s a valid way to feel, and it crushed you to even see her this way.

“Cuddle buddy?” You ask, arms reaching out to help her giggle, blinking the tears away. You lay beside her, head on your chest, as you combed your fingers through her hair. Even giving her kisses on her forehead as you hummed a tune.

“You know I love you, right?” Asking her and she looks up at her, her large doe-like eyes that made you swoon easily for her.

“Of course, and I love you too.”

“Good,” the response makes Kazuha giggle as you begin to squeeze her in a hug and roll her on top of you. “I would never do anything to make you sad on purpose,” you expose yourself, but the younger knew that already. “I know that, baby.”

“I would never want you to cry because of me.”

“I’m aware,” her heart began beating fast from all your words. You had a way with words that just made her fall in love with you over and over again.

“I would beat myself up for it, angel,” she taps your face lightly with the tip of your fingers, as if she were slapping you, and you let out a tiny gasp, acting offended. “You did not,” asking a bit appalled. 

Your girlfriend giggles, sitting up on your lap, and begins peppering your face with kisses. Then, leaning back down, straddling your thighs as she laid her head on your chest.

“Sorry for being sensitive.”

She feels you shake your head above her head, patting her back in comfort with another kiss on the head. 

“Don’t ever apologize for being you.”

[cuckoo-on-a-string]

A Sparrow at Sea 4/4

MDNI

Whitebeard pirates/reader (fem? functionally gender-neutral)

I do not curate tag lists, but I reply to comments on each chapter when the next goes live.

Summary: Turned into a bird as part of a slave-smuggling operation, you get your revenge - and then your revenge gets you. Panicked and alone, you crash land on a very large, very famous ship full of very large and quite infamous men.

***Warnings: graphic violence (birds go for the eyes, kids), blood, burning, mild body horror, technically kidnapping, reasonable fear of death, crushing/suffocation, implied nudity, panic attacks

(I tried writing four one-shots for my birthday and wrote one four-shot instead.)

Master List

Ace was a fire hazard. Izou always looked like he knew too much. And Marco remained a type A(sshole).

Though you flitted from one to the other, even trying Jozu’s armored shoulder and Haruta’s puffy sleeves, you always found your way back to Thatch. Although he might be even busier than Marco, he was surprisingly chill about it all.

The ship’s kitchen filled a thousand bottomless stomachs three times a day, with a limited menu available at all hours to accommodate every shift, sleep schedule, and appetite. He always had something to do, but he loved his galley, and it showed. Everything had a place, and all of his team knew their roles.

Every kitchen you’d ever seen on half this scale was a warzone of barked orders, small fires, and tears when the customers weren’t looking. But Thatch clearly understood that none of his men could leave, could find a work/life balance. The ship was their home. That included the galley. He gave them reason to stay and opportunities to experiment with the variety of ingredients gathered from remote islands.

He also wore shirts as intended – jackets even! – which made your life easier. No matter how battle-hardened they were, you knew men could be big babies about little things, like claws pricking into skin when they moved too quickly. Even an accidental swat could kill you. You’d felt those muscles under your feet. That would suck for everyone, especially you. And you weren’t ready to leave Whitebeard’s crew for the big sea in the sky, so those considerations remained a priority.

Thatch didn’t even twitch the first time you awkwardly flailed up to his shoulder.

“Picking me? I’m honored.”

And that was that.

The first day you caught some long looks from the other men – but you were what appeared to be a messy wild animal in a place full of food. It didn’t last. When you didn’t shit indoors and actually policed your own feathers as they dropped, your presence was accepted. But you’d never had to prove anything to Thatch.

He chatted with you, even when his crewmates were working beside him. You answered, pretending it was a real conversation, and he smiled when you replied, even though all he heard was birdsong.

You weren’t above playing favorites, but you still did the rounds, because Ace looked too damn sad about it if you didn’t. With every return, Thatch greeted you with a big smile and a handful of seeds. He liked feeding you like he enjoyed feeding everyone else. After some discussion, the kitchen team cleared out a small cabinet. They removed the door and kept the make-shift birdhouse stocked with various nibbles, a water dish, and a pile of old rags.

You found it embarrassingly homey.

And you quickly found yourself settling in, riding Thatch’s shoulder as he began breakfast prep hours before dawn, groggily nestling into the crook of his neck as he explained the menu. Ace would come down at some point in the day, puppy-dog-eyed and eager. Trial and error led to a mutual agreement that his hand was actually the safest place. Or his hat. He only squashed you once when his narcolepsy struck, and you couldn’t find it in your heart to hold it against him.

The others came to you as time allowed or need demanded.

Marco was doctor, sure, but fuck if the crew of orphans and outcasts didn’t need several full-time therapists to handle their festering emotional wounds. It wasn’t hard to spot a pirate having a rough day as he trudged to the kitchen door, asking if Birdie was in.

It felt like pulling your weight, in a way. You thanked them for feeding you, caring for you, and not asking the wrong questions by spending long evenings perched on the rail beside Vista, staring out to sea. Or recovering the pens Marco dropped when he worked too late into the night. Or jumping on Ace’s head when he stared into the middle distance for more than five minutes at a time.

You still hadn’t approached Whitebeard. He knew of you, and the crew discussed your aversion to their captain, but no one forced the issue. He was too much, the epitome of all threats in both strength and observation. The world boasted many strange and wonderful things, but he’d seen more than most, and you were willing to bet he’d see right through you.

You’d hate to be found out.

Not that you liked being a bird, but if you ever got your skin back, you’d have to disappear, and that would upset the crew. But even that would sting less than the alternative: finding out the truth.

You hadn’t done anything to intentionally manipulate them, and you’d never sell them out, but after sharing so many vulnerable moments, you knew they’d see it as a betrayal. Honestly, just remembering what you really were felt like dishonesty.

But you were an unwilling accomplice in an espionage mission that never was, and you really hoped the ones truly responsible were already dead.

Time returned your feathers and carved your niche in the crew. You worried less, burying the eternal scream that still bubbled up when you considered just how accustomed you’d become to being a bird. It wasn’t that it felt right to have feathers, but the horror had become terrifyingly mundane. And while you were still very wary of them, you only feared the men you sailed with because of their size and its potential consequences. But you had no qualms riding on their shoulders, hands, and heads.

That was for the best, because in the months since you boarded, the Moby Dick didn’t put into port. You couldn’t have left if you wanted to, not easily anyway. Smaller fleet vessels came and went with commanders, off causing their own mayhem and gathering supplies to return to the family home. The enormous ship was a roaming port of its own, really, unless something specific caught the captain’s interest, and that hadn’t happened for a hot minute, apparently.

The commanders’ cycling adventures forced you to adapt your schedule from time to time, but it didn’t usually bother you. Your birdhouse remained, and come-or-go, there was always at least one familiar face to pester. Or the kitchen team, who took it as a matter of honor to speak to you while their division commander was away.

Thatch rarely left, and when he did, you spend much more time on deck, watching for sails. It pulled a lot of ribbing from the other men, primarily aimed at Thatch. Plenty laughed and assured you your favorite would be back soon. Maybe it made you look clingy, but you spent most days literally clinging to men’s shirts entirely in the buff. There were better things to blush about.

So, you found yourself hanging in the rigging, watching Thatch’s ship inch into view, from sail, to ship, to sailors. He climbed aboard, laughing and holding a strange fruit destined to be sliced, diced, and served up in a pie. You fluttered down, catching bits of the conversation as he crossed the deck.

A mystery devil fruit.

Your claws sank into white threads, and you chirped as loud as you could in his ear, Better not be another Logia. If you turn to smoke or some shit while I’m on your shoulder there will be consequences. I never shat in your mouth when you fell asleep over your cookbooks, but there’s a first time for everything.

“Birdie missed you, yoi,” Marco drawled.

The threat of a taunt hovered in his smirk, and you leapt back into the air, circling until you found an opening. Feet outstretched, you snagged his hair. The grip stopped your momentum, and you nestled down in the golden explosion as he yelped and tried to pull you out. Which was difficult without pulling his own hair.

Try me, Pineapple.

Before he could sort through the mess you’d made of his ridiculous styling (not that most of the crew were much better – Thatch included), you escaped, cackling in triumph, and returned to your usual place on Thatch’s shoulder.

The cook didn’t hide his delight. “Let’s go see what chaos you’ve caused while I was gone,” he said, trailing his fingers over your head. That meant going to the galley, the best place on the ship, and you gladly settled in for the ride down.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The crew celebrated Thatch’s return that night with a feast on deck. Thatch really only got to enjoy part of it, of course. He was still stirring pots and tossing skillets when it began, and he retired early to prep for breakfast.

Ace tried convincing you to stay on his hat with a few berries when Thatch left the party, but you didn’t want to leave Thatch to just talk to himself while he worked. So, off you flew.

He was busy. Bending, lifting, and climbing to review stocks and ensure everything was properly stowed before he even brought out the cutting board for the pile of zucchini awaiting his attention. Your birdhouse made a better resting place, and voices carried in the empty space, reverberating off tiled walls and polished counters. You could hear him. He could hear you. And you stayed out of the way.

As the night wore on and Thatch regaled you with hyperbolized tales of his strength and valor on his trip, a shadow moved into the galley. Thatch noticed, too, breaking his narrative to acknowledge the intruder.

“Hey, Teach.” The cook didn’t even turn around, still hard at work. “Need something?”

The shadow nodded, drifting closer.

“Ya might say that.”

You’d hated Teach from day one. Thatch and Ace had both tried reasoning with you, explaining he was big and a little careless but he certainly didn’t mean any harm. That he was a friend worth having. But that wasn’t the man you saw.

The longer you looked, the more he reminded you of a cat. Some prowling thing waiting in the light, content and lazy in a way that masked his oddities. He didn’t want anything, which was strange enough for a pirate. He didn’t ask for anything despite his tenure, and he laughed off his open selfishness as a harmless quirk.

Always smiling, but too widely. Always laughing, but at the wrong times. Quick to offer advice that almost sounded mocking.

No, you didn’t trust Teach, and you were glad as you observed, silent, from your nest.

He was moving too slowly, too carefully, fixated on Thatch. His steps echoed the cook’s like he wanted to be forgotten as he moved. One hand gripped something on his belt, and a stray beam of light caught the silver gleam of a blade leaving the sheath.

You sat up, hopped to the edge of your cabinet, and peered down as Thatched moved to the counter below.

“Well, there’s still a basket of leftovers from breakfast. I don’t think there’s any pie, but if you’re starving…”

Teach’s eyes blazed as he raised the knife over his head, smiling honestly for the first time. His whole face changed with the expression, transforming from clown to monster.

You lunged.

Shrieking.

Thatch looked up, surprised by the noise, and you latched onto Teach’s left eye. Your claws punctured into viscous jelly before either man realized what had happened.

It threw off the killer’s aim, and the blade sank into Thatch’s shoulder as the cook turned to follow your trajectory. You didn’t pause to see more than that, devoting your full mind, body, and spirit into tearing this backstabber apart.

“FUCK!” Teach grabbed at you, and you retaliated by hooking your feet into his eye socket, pecking and tearing viciously as he stumbled. “Damn bird!”

He caught you, hand as awful as you remembered, but you had a good grip, and pulling you off would mean pulling out his own eye. There wasn’t much he could do, and your feathers slipped around in his unsteady grasp, smeared with his blood.

Cursing, Teach squeezed. Hard. If he couldn’t get you off his face, he’d crush you.

It pushed the battle cry right out of your body, but you hold on. His eye was your only lifeline.

“Birdie!”

Thatch joined the fray from where he’d fallen, cutting at Teach’s legs. Cook he may be, but Thatch was still a pirate, and his time in the kitchen taught him just where to slice. Meat was meat, joints were joints, and tendons were tendons.

Teach buckled, howling.

He tried to catch himself, grabbing at the air for balance, and instinctively let you go. Not that it did him much good.

Now everyone was on the floor, wounded and slipping through the mess. Thatch rose to his knees, pulling out a knife of his own. You could see the hilt of Teach’s weapon over his shoulder, and your favorite’s face was pale, glistening with sweat as he fought through the pain.

Before Teach could get his hands on you again, you released his left eye and sprang to his right, flapping and spreading your wings wide to block his view. You couldn’t get the knife out of Thatch’s back, but you could make it easier for him to sink one in Teach’s chest.

You raked over Teach’s lid with your claws and pried at his lashes with your beak as he thrashed. He had the sense to keep it closed as he cursed you to hell. You were so consumed with keeping him blind, you didn’t see the hand coming. One strike sent you flying into the cabinets.

A blur, a wet smack on impact, and a short drop.

It felt like you’d left your ghost on Teach’s face, and your body sat in a soulless, thoughtless heap.

Then air hit your lungs, your mind rushed back into action, and you focused stunned eyes just in time to see Thatch kneeling on Teach’s gut, his chef’s knife stabbing into the traitor’s neck. He pushed it deeper and deeper as red fountains jumped to life and Teach wriggled, gaping like a fish. Still trying to push Thatch’s hands away from the killing blow. Trying to breathe.

He had no final words, only a frothy red gurgle.

And Thatch slumped, breathing hard, and you saw how wide the red flower on his back had bloomed.

You rolled to your feet. Shook yourself out. Nothing broken. Possibly very, very bent, but manageable.

Thatch needed help. Fortunately, the door was still open from Teach’s intrusion, and you took off before the blood on your wings could gel. It wasn’t graceful, and it wasn’t half as fast as you wanted, but you made your way through the ship, rising level by level to reach Marco’s study, praying he’d be overworking himself.

Since you couldn’t knock, you reared back as you approached the door and let yourself smack into it. The hit wasn’t half so bad as the one Teach dealt you. No immediate rustling or voice told you the doctor was awake – or even present – and you started chirping for all you were worth, jumping on the handle so it jiggled and rattled.

When the door opened, you slipped right off and landed on the floor.

Marco, rumpled and ink-smudged, blinked at you.

“Birdie? What –”

His eyes turned to saucers as he registered the bloody prints you were leaving on the floor, and he scooped you up gingerly, checking for wounds before he even understood the problem.

Not me, stupid! you screamed. It’s Thatch! Follow me, hurry up! Come on!

You pulled at his shirt, flapping just enough to get airborne before he closed his hands in a clam-shell around you.

This was bullshit.

You let your claws do the talking.

And he listened enough to rethink his approach. His fingers pulled back, and you were on your way again, even slower as your wings dried and turned stiff, but leading Marco where he was needed regardless.

He followed you, asking questions you didn’t have time to answer even if you had the right shape to speak. You’d left a trail of smudges on your way up, and once Marco figured out that you were heading to the kitchen, he caught you again and raced at full speed to the open door.

Thatch sat on the floor between the stove and the pantry door, hunched over, pressing a towel as well as he could do his shoulder.

Teach remained an ugly corpse.

Marco slipped as he went to his brother’s side, dropping you as his phoenix fire flared to life. He shouted for help, hands on the wound to stop the bleeding and secure the blade.

On the floor, by Thatch’s knee, you kept watch, like Teach would sit up, laughing at having fooled you all again. He still had one eye you could pluck out if you needed to.

Jozu, Fossa, and Vista arrived in one great stampede of swearing and drawn weapons. Marco filled them in as best he could between barking orders. Chaos rumbled around you, along with some very big feet in terribly hard boots, and you chirped to remind them you were there as you skittered away from danger.

Vista’s white gloves gathered you up. Crusted blood cracked as you moved, weighing more than it really should. You couldn’t fly after the others as they lifted Thatch from the floor and carried him away, but Vista was better than wings, and he kept pace.

The nurses, who usually cooed over you, took you from the swordsman once you reached the infirmary. You lost sight of Thatch as Marco moved him into surgery, and you were carried behind several screens to a bowl of fresh water where the women helped coax the blood – worse than cherry pie – out of your delicate feathers.

They blotted you dry and left you to sleep on a towel.

It was no one’s business if you eavesdropped, if you listened until Marco emerged, weary and confused with a partial report to send to his Pops. It certainly wasn’t anyone’s concern if you crept your way through the infirmary, sneaking under white-draped beds and around desks until you found Thatch.

No one at all needed to know if you settled on the rolling tray at his side. Just in case Teach came back from the dead. Just in case he needed something. Just in case he woke up soon.

When morning found you preening on top of Thatch’s head while he flirted with the nurses and made a nuisance of himself, no one thought to comment.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

You surveyed the town from the pinnacle of Thatch’s pompadour.

You almost felt human, though taller than you’d been before. Looking down to see people’s faces was better than roaming at an eye-to-ankle perspective, though, and when people glanced at Thatch, you could pretend they were seeing you.

Your escort had healed well from the attack, forced to rest by Marco’s glare and Jozu’s physical bulk filling the door. His left arm still hung in a sling to ease the torn muscles in his shoulder, but he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. If anything, his brush with death had motivated him to seize life by the throat and demand everything it had.

After a great debate with the other commanders, he got permission to take you on shore leave.

“If Birdie doesn’t want to join us,” Marco had said, “what kind of pirates would we be to deny a creature it’s freedom, yoi?”

You defense of Thatch, of course, had convinced them all that you were well tamed and entirely theirs, so no one had serious concerns that you’d leave, only get lost.

The Moby Dick lurked half a mile out from the port, easy to see, but only accessible by tender. Half the town came to meet the pirates at the dock, shouting what they had for sale or begging to join up. The other half of town hunkered down behind barred doors. It wasn’t like their absence made the streets any less colorful, and eyed the vibrant spices and vegetables in the market, wondering how much Thatch would purchase (and how much was safe for you to eat).

Damn, you missed your old digestive tract. A bird’s diet sucked when you knew what you were missing, and the greatest drawback of living in Thatch’s galley was seeing all the hot curries, cheesy soups, and chocolate desserts drove you bonkers. You would say nothing of the coffee, because the smell every morning broke your heart anew.

But if you hadn’t been a bird living in Thatch’s kitchen, there would be no Thatch to carry you around the marketplace full of things you couldn’t enjoy, and that was worse. You’d coped for months. What was another decade or five?

“How much do you think Ace would pay me,” the cook mused, “if I replaced Marco’s stash of candied pineapple with durian fruit?”

Not enough to cover your funeral.

“Eh, you’re probably right… but,” he threw a coin to the vendor and slipped the malodorous treat to his collection. “Jozu loves the stuff. And Marco hates repeating his work. I’m safe until the stitches come out, and afterwards I can bribe myself a guard.”

Seas, the man loved trouble. Not to say you wouldn’t enjoy the show, but you untucked a strand from his flawless updo just as a precaution. You needed to tell him some things. He was human. He was fallible. His ego being as overinflated as his preferred hairstyle just made it easier to attack.

He squawked like a parrot, trying to smooth everything back into place as you danced around and over his knuckles, chirping back at his giggled curses with equal enthusiasm.

This was good. This was a life you could resign yourself to, even if no one else realized you were living it. This was –

Gone.

A puff of feathers, a burst of wind, and you were soaring over the town, locked in wicked, curved talons.

Like an owl’s

Thatch had already disappeared, lost in the sea of shifting figures far below, but you screamed for him anyway, struggling until the tips of your captor’s claws pressed through to your skin.

A low hoot chilled your blood, extinguishing your immediate plans to break free and run like you had before.

That was a warning, and you didn’t imagine the Zoan user would be kind enough to repeat it.

He crossed half the island in a matter of minutes. As he neared his destination, the owl glided through a copse of trees, swept around corners, and dipped below the rooftops, shaking anything without wings. There was no way Thatch could see where you’d gone. No casual birdwatchers would know, either. It was your old trick spun against you, and your little heart beat so fast you thought you’d throw up.

No one could help if they didn’t know where you were.

The owl wheeled along the shoreline, tucking close to the piers and rocky beaches on the far side of the island. A large boathouse swallowed you, and before your eyes could adjust, the predator landed, squashing you under his full weight. Just because he’d landed didn’t mean you were going anywhere.

“I don’t fucking believe it.”

You craned your neck between two of the owl’s talons to see the other Devil Fruit user. The asshole responsible for your feathered ass. You took a deep breath to chew him out, wondering if the owl Zoan would understand, but the other bird pressed down, robbing you of any comeback but a breathless squeak.

The man approached his compatriot, who lifted one foot so the human could grab you instead. He tilted you back and forth, looking over the marks that first clued Izou into your strange position.

“The little pest really is still alive.” He squeezed. Hard. “We can take care of that.”

“Punishment should fit the crime, shouldn’t it?” The owl became human, a lanky fuck who didn’t look like he’d bathed in a year. He nodded to an iron brazier across the boathouse. The crackling flames just carried over the lapping waves, and your feathers tried to stand on end.

Your handler liked the idea. He laughed and sauntered over to a pile of small cages too small to fully spread your wings inside. Still chuckling, he shoved you inside, rough and careless.

But you had bigger things to worry about than a few broken feathers.

The slaver shook the cage, holding it up to his face for a better view as you tumbled around like dice in a cup. “You know how much you cost us? You know how many Berries went up in smoke? How many men we lost? We can’t meet quota now.”

He sneered, giving the cage one more rattle for good measure. “Guess that’s our problem, though. You’re too much trouble to try selling.”

The Zoan user smirked, hooded eyes following your progress across the room. The cage still swayed, but you had enough coordination left to scream for help. Again. To the spiders in the rafters and the fish milling under the sheltered dock.

Thatch, Marco, Jozu, anyone.

You never should’ve left the ship. By the time Thatch reported back, it would be too late. They’d never know what happened. They’d never know you’d been human all along. They’d never know you the way you knew them.

The cage hovered over the flames, just enough for the highest tongues to kiss the bottom bars. You fluttered madly, clinging to the top and staying as far away as you could.

“Not fun, is it?” the Zoan asked.

An inch lower, and a lucky spark caught in the down under your wing. Heat became blinding pain, and you resisted instinct, pressing your wing down to smother it before it could spread. You dangled from the top bars by one set of claws, upside down, cringing into the sting. The men were laughing, but all you could hear was the fire, a tangible echo of the night you’d been transformed.

This story would end as it began – in flames.

Your cage swung like a pendulum, pushing you to scramble away from the various angles the flame kissed you, while leaving you constantly disoriented. It wasn’t long before you tumbled into the bottom of the cage, and everything went bright.

Pure panic claimed you. Even if you’d been human, there was a point where pain drove a person to animal survival instincts. As a bird, your feathers became kindling. They kept the fire close, feeding it into blistering skin as you bucked, throwing yourself against the bars as the breeze coaxed the blaze deeper, hotter.

Other voices joined yours, shouting as chaos exploded through your periphery. The cage fell from the slaver’s hand, and your chest clenched. But although the fire remained, hell didn’t swallow you. Coals didn’t press through the bars to char you beyond recognition.

“The water, yoi!”

“Right!”

Gravity lost all sense of meaning, and you wondered if your soul was leaving your body. Then the cage smacked into seawater.

Everything cracked as salt rushed into your eyes and flooded your sinuses. It burned in a whole new way, debriding your raw flesh. You broke the surface and screamed in agony.

With a voice you barely recognized. Through teeth and lips. Your hands clawed the low waves, but you didn’t know how to fight the crush of new, familiar sensations.

Before you went back under, a big body splashed into the water next to you, and a mass of white and brown caught you, treading water while holding you to his chest. Leaving the water was a haze. Someone threw an old blanket that smelled like fish over you, and Marco was practically screaming at everyone about infection and first aid, and you found yourself looking up at a bunch of men who looked so much smaller, and more human than they had that morning.

Thatch grinned like you weren’t covered in burns and too exhausted to move.

“Glad you’re back with us.”

Your hand lifted of its own volition, and you studied the glistening patches of exposed fascia between familiar scars and callouses. “I’m not a bird anymore.”

Thatch nodded, much too casual about the entire ordeal. It made you think things were even worse than you knew. “Nope.”

“And…” You frowned, rolling your tongue over your hard palate, tasting the smoke with a sharp depth your bird senses hadn’t offered. “And everyone’s… okay with that?”

Enormous, worried eyes swooped over your view of the rafters. Ace’s pinched brows dipped even deeper. “This is who you’ve always been, right?”

Well. Obviously. “Yeah.”

“Then nothing’s really changed, has it?” Thatch asked. He adjusted the blanket as a bunch of new footsteps stomped towards you, shouting something about a stretcher. “Just need to find you a bigger bunk. The kitchen cabinet isn’t gonna do it anymore.”

[dexantnaomi-askblog]

HAI :3 THE ILLUMINA READER WAS SO GOOD CAN YOU DO A BROKER OR DOLLMAKER READER WITH TWO TIME, ELLIOT, NOOB, CHANCE AND SHEDLEDSKY (fuck ass name🥀) (In honor of my bootleg Broker plush arriving)

JEEZ YOUR FAST DAMN, ths gonna take me forever again/j I'll do Dollmaker

Two Times/Elliot/Noob/Chnace/Shedletsksy xDollmaker!Reader

Reader is she/her

Shedletsky (He/Him)

This gluttony chicken eater ex-creator seem awe of you

Like he sometimes thought you're mute multipul time due to you having three living dolls to help you speak

You're face is literary so emotionless sometimes, and that starled him a bit before getting used to it

Well he has tried to impress ypu mulitpul times, poor guy you had to sew him the rebirth doll so he still lives

He kinda like how you sew the dolls, but kinda winch at your back , i mean you have like acupuncture needles and sewing needles at your back like how is that not painful

He had helped you mulitpul times, like giving you bloxy cola or medkit, or stunning the killer when the killers are chasing you

By that you repayed his kindness, by giving him a good-luck doll or rebirth doll when he's at his mercy

He liked your purse, wondering what inside when one of the dolls said its usually stuffings, wools and sheets

That doesn't mean he won't try to peak in and see whats inside tho

Two Times (They/Them) damn it hard to write them holy

This front-stabbing seconded lived spawn workshiper idiot took a liking to you quickly

Like bro really took an interest too fast

Will often talk about the spawn, and how they workship 'them' and you should, even tho one of the doll furiosly said they don't workship something like that

Really took a liking to your dolls, will often hug them (with your permission ofc)

Poor thing you remind them of Azure, they'll have a small heart attack whenever you (or your doll) speaks (you have tyo comfort them after)

Will help you stun the killer during rounds, and is always close to you

They sometimes ask you about your needles and why is it always stuck to your back

If it hurts then they try to do a ritrual to get rid of the pain or smt

They're really fond of your clothes, wondering where you got it from

They're crazy, but sometimes can be sweet

Chance (He/They)

Damn this gambling addicted mastro took a liking to you quickly

You remind him of itrapped, so they're usually close to you

Really likes your horns, sometimes stop flipping his coin just to play with your horns

They are always close to you during rounds and is always on a look out for you, since damn it takes so long for you to sew up a doll

You have to find a medkit or sew him up a doll due to thier gun exploding right in his face because they, of course won't stop gambling and having XVIII weakness already (Not sure how he survived but ok)

He repays your kindness by helping you do generators or giving medkits/bloxy cola they found on the floor

They once touch your back, and ended up getting jumped by the dolls (never again)

Will try to teach you how to gamble, even though the dolls dissaprove he at least talks about gambling and them owning a casino before getting forsakened (I think he still does)

They will sometime ask you about your bandages, even tho he knew that you won't answer

Overall a solid 9.9/10 idiot that cares for you

Elliot (He/Him)

Well, you know the drill. The overworking paranoied pizza worker looked confused and awe at the same time

I mean, he would be worried since you were covered in bandages and is somewhat mute (in his eye)

Since you have the lowest health, he would give you a pizza or a medkit to make sure you stay during rounds

Not sure how, but you're taller than him so... The dolls have a mind of their own so they usually make fun of his hight, he does try to make himself taller at some point (by wearing heels) but it's no use

Not sure what the dolls wanted, so he often gives them pizza to make them shut up, or just happy in general

If you heal him or revives him, he heals you back. No words, just pure healing

He will talk about how he once worked at a pizza place and how its getting exploited almost daily

He will often help you change your bandages time to time

He will ask about your back, and how is it not painful. Hes TONS of questionn for why you have, when you have a purse, put the needles at your back

He's concerned as hell don't blame him

NOOB (They/Them)

This... scared cutie bean ghostburger eater is a bit scared due to how you look

You have to ressure them that your friendly, well the dolls did the speaking

They will often cuddle your dolls with your permission

Will talk about their cat, tac, alot. Even showing a picture of the cutir patoti cat

You acknowledge it, and sew them a custom pillow size cat doll that look like tac

They have thanken you multipul times, even taking hits or distracting the killers just so you can escape during rounds

They get along with Folly well, often talking about something. You just watch and smile inwardly

Every time they look at your back the istantly look away, that must be painful

Super concerned about you, i think they also thought your mute and probably in alot of pain too

You just have to convince them that you're ok

Sighhhhhhhhhhhhh think took extra long thanks to two times and noob (no hate to them, i just don't know how to write them damn) i also love the corny name i gave them LMAO

[bullet-prooflove]

Mythbusters: Danny Williams x Reader

Tagging: @kmc1989 @football1921 @fangirling-alert @lovebookheart @navs-bhat @star017

Summary: Danny has never been so thankful for an episode of Mythbusters.

Companion piece to:

One Night - Danny realises he’s made a mistake after the first night you’ve spent together.

The Backseat (NSFW) - Danny’s attempt to discuss the night before goes awry.

Distraction - Danny finds you to be a welcome distraction.

96 Hours - Danny worries after he doesn't hear from you.

Gut Feeling - Danny’s fears are validated when he stops by your home.

Three Days - Danny discovers your fate when Peterson decides to send pictures.

Buried - What happened during those three days you were missing?

In the minutes after Danny receives those pictures he can’t function. There’s a roaring in his ears, the loud rush of his blood coursing through his veins as he sits there in his seat remembering those final moments you had together, the hurt in your eyes after he told you about Charlie, the fact he got up and walked away.

He should have stayed, he should have kissed you, he should have promised you that it didn’t change anything, that he wasn’t going back to Rachel but instead he got his car and left you behind.

And now you’re gone, buried in some fucking field somewhere and Danny, he doesn’t know how to find you, he doesn’t know how to bring you home. He almost throws his phone all the wall when it rings, he knows its Peterson calling to torture him, to twist that corkscrew even deeper into his chest.

“At least tell me where her body is…” He rasps when he answers the call, his fingertips pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off pressure that’s building behind his eyes. “Let me give her back to her family-”

“Danny…”

Your voice floods his ears and for a second he thinks he must be hallucinating because you cannot possibly be alive but then you continue, a rush of words that his brain fumbles over as you speak. “I’ve spent two days in the fucking woods and I’m at a remote campsite on the Kaunala Trail. I’ve run into a couple of hunters that have lent me their sat phone but I need you to come get me.”

“Nik…” He whispers. “I thought you were dead, he showed me pictures…”

“Mythbusters.” You tell him and Danny lets out a near hysterical laugh because that’s your thing, making out on the couch with MythBusters on in the background because it helps your ADHD brain focus. “Look I gotta go, one of the hunters is a paramedic and she’s very insistant about trying to administer first aid. I’ll get them to text you to coordinates but please just… I just wanna see you. You’re all I could think about...”

You choke then and Danny can sense you’re at your breaking point. He can’t imagine what you must have gone through over the past three days, how you kept yourself alive after climbing out that grave.

“I’ll be the first one with boots on the ground.” He promises you as he raises from his desk, signalling Steve through the glass window. “Just hold tight ok? I’m on my way."

Love Danny? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.

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Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee

[callme-naomi]

Maybe One Day I Can Learn to Love You, Too

Word count: 1.9k words

This entire thing was a bad idea. Scratch that, it was a terrible idea. Jumping off Mount Everest can only compare to how risky this was, but if you pull it off, the win will be worth the risk.

*record scratching noises* let's rewind to what happened.

You were just a student minding your own business amidst the hardships that were college, and being in college meant you now entered the chance to get the most life-changing moment a girl can have: getting into a relationship.

Unfortunately, none of the boys in your class were up to your liking, and if they were, they were already taken.

While you first detested the idea of dating a senior, it all changed one day your friends and you were in the lab and a few seniors from the computer sciences section walked in. You recognized a few of them, but it was the blonde-haired* senior that caught your eye.

Unlike his other fellows, who were pretty loud and outgoing, he stood in a corner with his notebook tucked in his arm, his entire face schooled into seriousness as he waited for the others. While the instructor talked to them, dividing his attention between your batch and the seniors, you took this moment to scrutinize the silent boy even further.

"Who caught your eye?" One of your friends, Mary, bumped your shoulder, and you looked at her, annoyed.

"That one," you whispered, "by the board."

As if your voice carried over, he looked in your direction for a second, before sliding his gaze to something else.

"Ah, I didn't know your type was the nerd." she smiled at you, only for your other friend, Samantha, to intervene.

"Gotta agree, he does have the looks." She looked you in the eye. "If you have a crush on him-"

"Are you kidding me?" You scoffed, watching the seniors leave out of the corner of your eye. "My parents will disown me if I got a boyfriend before a degree."

Which was a blatant lie.

"Anyways, if you ever change your mind, let me know." Samantha, the biggest social butterfly you'd ever met, pointed to herself. "I'll arrange the rest."

"Thanks." You diverted your gaze to the heating copper sulphate solution and took it off.

"I'm surprised you don't have any questions." Mary prodded, to which you shushed her before you set the solution to cool.

"I'm trying to figure out which one to ask first. I have too many questions." You answered. "Now, what was his name?"

"Kento Nanami. Computer science major, topper ever since he set foot in this place." Samantha shot off like a gun, tossing her brown ponytail over her shoulder

"Far earlier than that." Mary added. "I was his junior in high school. Ask more, I'm enjoying this."

"You answered three of my questions in one go," you grumbled. "Anyways, is he dating anyone?"

You were embarrassed to see the two of them giggle. "No, he's single."

"A shame too, a fine lad like that." Sammy shook her head.

"So why don't you?" it slipped out of your mouth too quickly, and you immediately berated yourself for giving her the idea.

"Not my type. You done with asking?"

"Has he got any siblings? Or any best friends?"

"No siblings as far as I know, and he does have a friend, Yu." Mary answered this time.

"The one you're dating?" to which she nodded.

"Where does he live? Or spend most of his time?" you were about to ask this when the bell rung for the Maths lesson, and while you packed your things up, the two of them drew closer to you.

"Not making fun or anything, but if you're serious about this," Mary whispered fast, "you can tell us okay?"

"Okay."

****

In the next week, your entire google search history involved tips and stories of how to get your crush to notice you.

Somewhere in May, Samantha texted you. Hey, a senior of mine is asking for a girl. Her friend's single and you know, the formal dance event is coming up. You up?

Who is it? Do they even know me?

No damned idea.

Well, you were single too, but the thing was, there was only one person you wanted to go to prom with. That's a bit sudden, actually. Give me a few days to think, okay?

Soon, your crush became too obvious. You, who preferred to eat alone in the rooms, would go for lunch in the cafeteria just to catch a glimpse of him, and you began making frequent visits to the library to find him pulling out a book. Crossing in the hallways, he would look at you, and nod sometimes in greeting, and the entire day you'd be in the skies.

And when you found out he's in the soccer team? There wasn't a single match of his you didn't attend, even if it meant baking in the sun or freezing out in a fever.

It did not help when Mary or Sammy would tell you that they noted him occasionally glancing at you in break, or him looking around to find you if you're absent, or that he didn't borrow a library book just because you had needed it more.

You told them every time. only to an eye roll and smirk, that it isn't something serious or anything meaningful, meanwhile you kept gaslighting yourself into believing it's just a crush, you only think he's cool, but you couldn't stop yourself from imagining him and his pretty face and his arms and-

And if Mary was telling the truth, Haibara-senpai had mentioned he had gotten out of your crush that he likes a girl now, but wouldn't tell who. For a moment, your hopes raised, but when you didn't see any extra reactions from Kento, you quashed your silly dreams. maybe he liked someone from his class. But it only fueled your want to at least try.

Fast forward today, you had gone to ask Mary a favor.

"Hey, don't make fun," you warned her, "but could you have this delivered to him? Without telling him it's from me?" At her questioning stare on the wrapped packet, you explained, "it's his birthday."

Immediately her face split into a brilliant smile. "Why didn't you say so earlier?"

And when she texted you mission successful, you waited to see if he would figure it out or approach you.

You were seriously disappointed to find out none of that had happened, even though you yourself had told her not to reveal your identity, but you had hoped that maybe he'd try to prod it out of Mary.

And when during your Physics lesson, he came in to convey a message to the professor, you tried to get a clear view of his wrist without being too suspicious, and you felt your heart sink when you couldn't find a watch on his right wrist.

And that's when you decided to go for it, and texted Samantha, hey, I'm up for that formal dance. Is it still open?

You tried to drive him out of your head. But while the other girls began telling you you shouldn't have fallen for him and that he's too serious for someone like you and he's not good enough, there are other fish in the sea, you were adamant to prove that this wasn't just a crush or an obsession. Because when you intend on something, you plan to end it.

When you returned from the summer holidays, the school workload seemed to have increased tenfold in the students' absence. For a while, it gave you a distraction from thinking and scheming all the while about Kento.

That didn't mean you still didn't lie down in bed, staring at the ceiling thinking about him.

Recently, you had taken to the habit of tattooing, and while your parents were strict about a permanent tattoo - it's against the school code, we don't want you expelled because of some silly fashion or you can do it after school - you resorted to the black markers and Sharpies. So all time, your wrist would be decorated with some random doodles, or words.

Once having gotten told off by your professor, you began wearing longer sleeved shirts to hide your tattoos.

It was a random day and while the teacher had yet to come, you took the chance amidst the chaos of the classroom to begin doodling one of your most tattooed words ever onto your wrist.

Kento Nanami.

You were about to begin drawing a heart around your initials when suddenly the teacher came in to yell about getting ready for a biology lab practical. Marching into a line with your notebook and pencils, the instructor explained the objective on the way.

Your class had just learned how to take blood pressures last week, so now it was time to practice it on someone else. She herded you all to the computer laboratory, the other labs being isolated, and her not wanting to be scolded by some professor for disturbing someone else's class.

The computer lab was full of the seniors, who were on the table doing their work, when the instructor came in and asked them if they gave their permission for the lab.

Hearing their yes, she led you all inside and instructed you to choose a partner. You were pushed and barged against others who were eager to take a partner of their choosing and in the end, you stood there, waiting for someone unpaired to go take a test of.

Just before you could turn and ask the instructor what to do, a student asked to enter the room.

"Ah, there you are! Mind if she took your blood pressure for a practical?"

You turned around to see your teacher asking none other than your crush about this, and following her line of sight, he met your gaze. Nodding in assent, he walked over to you, before dragging out two stools for the both of you.

You reached out for his sleeve, before hesitating and looking up at him to ask his permission. He, who was following your every move with silence, used his left hand to push his sweater's sleeve up and allowing you to take the pressure.

None of you spoke, and you dared not break the sanctity of the silence, enjoying this closeness you could get, hearing his blood pump through and recording the observations.

"You're left handed?"

You had now heard his voice in a long, long time and while replaying the sound again and again, you answered, "yes. you're right handed, right?"

"Yes."

You were writing on your notepad when you pulled your sleeve back to scratch an itch, and that's when you noticed him stare at your wrist.

"May I ask what you've written there?"

"Where?" you asked in response, knowing full well what he meant. Laughing sheepishly, you just said, "oh, it's nothing-"

"It's alright, I apologize for asking."

"Oh it's completely fine. Are you good at keeping secrets?"

"I am." He was about to ask the reason behind your question when you pulled back your sleeve, waiting for his response to seeing his name doodled on your wrist.

"I know," you finally managed, unable to bear the silence that settled. It was today you decided to let it all out, once and for all. No regrets. "I like you, I have liked you for a long time, and well, I didn't know how to tell you."

"So you tattooed my name?"

"Yeah. It doesn't make sense, I know."

In response, he, keeping his gaze on you, pulled back his left sleeve to see-

"Recognize this?"

Of course you did. That was your birthday present to him. As you met his gaze with delighted surprise, he shook his wrist to bring the watch further down to show you a tattoo.

Of your name.

"It does make complete sense," he told a stunned you, "the same way I couldn't manage to tell you that I've liked you too. I hope you're good at keeping secrets as well?"

Guess we'll be finding out.

****

Exhilarated, and no longer single, you flopped down on your bed at night, the days ahead already looking brighter to you.

Scrolling down to your newest contact, Kento <3, your eyes slid to the latest chat, him asking you to come to the dance with him and with a panic, you remembered, the college dance's five days later!

You immediately texted to Samantha, hey, can you call that dance date off? I'm sorry, I'm coming with someone else!

GIRL WHAT? YOU'RE GONNA GET ME KILLED FR FR. though wait a damned second - WHO IS THE BOY? YOU FINALLY GOT ONE?

A second later.

Bad news girl: the date I said, my friend's just said he wanted to meet you tomorrow.

You called her and explained the entire situation.

"Look, I just agreed to someone else, I wanna go with them-"

"Girl, I get it, but you can't just do this out of the blue."

"Please? You always have something."

"Okay fine. How about you meet that boy tomorrow, and tell him face to face? And do something that won't make me look bad."

*****

Tapping your toes against the pavement of the coffee shop Samantha told you to meet at, you nervously went over the words you managed in your head. Hey, thanks for the offer, but I actually want someone else?

Finally, hearing footsteps behind you, you decided to raise your head and took a deep breath.

"Y/N?"

You looked up to see in a black jacket and jeans, Kento was staring at you.

"Oh hi," you waved , this is getting bad, now he'll see this, "I was here because a friend of a friend of mine said someone wanted to meet me here. For the dance date."

He looked down at his phone and showed you a picture. "By any chance, is this your friend?"

You looked into Samantha's DP. "It is her!"

"Well, I guess I'll ask you again: will you come to the dance with me?"

****

HEY GIRL! what happened? I heard you said yes?

Yeah, that was the guy I wanted, actually.

*in this au, he's changed his hairstyle to the one he now does as a sorcerer

Hello! this one is kinda longer (school romances ily) and this is my part for College AU, prompt day 5!

[hyuniemyunie]

After hours

House m.d characters x gn reader

gregory house, james wilson, lisa cuddy, eric foreman and robert chase

Sfw ish (very suggestive, no sex)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

(ФωФ): NO SEX BUT BORDERLINE NSFW!!

making out at the hospital late at night😝 gn reader, suggestive, groping, established relationship.

its suggestive..yurr..im edging yall ig💔 i could probably make a part2 or sum if yall want it. anyway yes hi hello im back. this time yes cuddy no cameron bc ion wanna

⠄･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠄･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠄･ ⋆ ･

Sterile Rooms, Dirty Minds

The lights above were dimmed—unusual for Princeton-Plainsboro’s diagnostic department, but not unusual for House’s office at this hour. His cane was leaning crooked against the desk, a half-empty Vicodin bottle sat beside an abandoned file, and the air smelled faintly of takeout and hospital-grade disinfectant. You were sitting on his desk—legs spread just enough to accommodate his body between them, the sharp edge biting into the back of your thighs through your clothes, though you could barely register the discomfort.

House's mouth was on yours, and it was messy. Sloppy. His stubble scraped against your skin, his teeth tugged at your bottom lip in a way that was too practiced to be accidental. One of his hands gripped your jaw, holding you in place, fingers spread over your cheek and under your ear like he was memorizing the shape of your face by touch alone. The other hand had slid under your shirt at some point—fingers splayed wide across your stomach, calloused and hot and shameless.

You could feel the push of his thigh between your legs as he leaned in, chest brushing yours with every breath, his pelvis flush with yours. You were gasping against his mouth now, struggling to keep up, especially with the way his thumb kept stroking upward, inch by inch, toward your nipple, only to stop short. He enjoyed teasing himself more than he enjoyed teasing you. Bastard.

"How many hours do you think we’ve got before Cuddy starts wondering why I haven’t caused a catastrophe today?" he muttered against your lips, words muffled by the way he kept kissing you between phrases. “Two? Three? Long enough for me to disappoint you thoroughly in an on-call room?”

“Long enough,” you breathed, sliding your hands under the back of his shirt and dragging your nails up his spine, just to hear the grunt it pulled from him. “But I think you like the desk more.”

“I do.” He grinned. “It’s sturdy. Handles trauma well. Like me.”

He ground down just slightly, just enough that you could feel him, hard and insistent through his jeans, pressing right where you needed him. You let out something between a sigh and a groan, and he rewarded you by kissing you deeper—tongue parting your lips, hand moving to grab your ass over your clothes, fingers digging in.

You let your head fall back, mouth open as his teeth scraped down your neck. “Fuck, House…”

“Is that a request or just a lament?” His voice was low, rough, edged with amusement and arousal and something else underneath that he never liked to name. “Because if it’s the first one, I can be very accommodating.”

“Not here,” you said, even as your hips rolled up against him. “We shouldn’t.”

House huffed a breath against your throat, pressing a kiss there that lingered just a second too long. “You’re on my desk, legs around me, and I’ve got my hand down your pants. I think we crossed that line twenty minutes ago.”

“Your hand is not down my pants.”

He leaned back slightly, smirking, eyes glinting in the low light. “Would you like it to be?”

You didn’t answer. You didn’t have to. He kissed you again, harder this time. When his fingers returned to your stomach, they dipped lower this time—over the waistband of your pants, tracing the line of your underwear, knuckles brushing where you were hot and needy for him. He didn’t move further. Didn’t need to. Just the hint of it had your whole body tensing.

“You’re not exactly making a case for patience,” he muttered, lips brushing the corner of your jaw. “I could fuck you right here and blame the mess on Foreman.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Say that again when you're not grinding on me.”

He was right. Of course he was. You didn’t care. His name was on the door. The blinds were mostly closed. The hall outside was quiet except for the faint buzz of fluorescent lights and the distant squeak of a janitor’s cart. It was just you and him, and the pressure of his mouth, his hands, his body pressing yours into wood and glass.

House kissed you again, but slower now. Less biting, more tasting. He kept his hand resting low on your belly, thumb dipping just beneath the waistband, teasing—not quite enough, never enough. He pulled back only when you were breathless again, and even then, it was only a few inches. His face was flushed, lips red, pupils wide with want. He looked at you like he was reading you—diagnosing something beneath your skin that had nothing to do with blood or bones. You’d never seen him look at anyone that way before.

“I want to fuck you,” he said, blunt and low and close to your ear, voice cracking just slightly with how tightly he was holding himself back. “Not here. Not rushed. Not with the janitor two doors down and my team probably fucking up a case without me.”

You swallowed hard, nodding, your fingers fisting the fabric of his shirt. “Your place?”

“My place,” he echoed, breath warm on your cheek. “My couch. My bed. My kitchen table if you’re good.”

“You are such a piece of shit.”

“Yeah. But you’re coming home with me.”

His hand slid fully under your waistband now, palm cupping you through your underwear, slow and deliberate. You gasped, back arching off the desk, hand flying to his wrist—not to stop him, just to feel. He leaned in and kissed you again, gentle this time. Soft, like an apology for stopping. Or maybe a promise to continue later. Either way, it was the kind of kiss that said you’re mine, and not here, and soon.

When he pulled away, he didn’t step back right away. Just rested his forehead against yours, breath warm and shared, both of you flushed and trembling and way too aware of how wet both your underwear probably were, how hard he was still pressed against you, and how badly this needed to happen somewhere else.

“You still gonna come home with me,” he asked, voice rough and barely above a whisper, “or do I have to kidnap you?”

You laughed softly, tilting your head just enough to brush your nose against his. “Get your coat, House.”

He pulled back finally, hands sliding out from under your clothes, adjusting himself shamelessly while you fixed your shirt and tried to stop trembling.

He winked, already limping toward the door. “Come on, babe. Let’s get the hell out of here before I lose all self-control and fuck you on top of my MRI results.”

You followed him, cheeks still hot, heart still racing, legs just slightly unsteady. And god help you—you couldn’t wait.

Close the Door

The soft clack of the door latching behind you was louder than expected in the quiet of the oncology department. It was nearly midnight—long past when the fluorescent lights should still be on in Wilson’s office, long past when either of you should still be there. But the low hum of the computer screen cast a dull glow over the desk, illuminating his tired eyes as he looked up from a file, pen paused mid-sentence.

“You’re still here,” he said, voice roughened from disuse, tinged with surprise but no disapproval. His jacket was draped over the back of his chair, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie loose and crooked, the first two buttons of his shirt undone like he'd tried to breathe for once but couldn’t quite manage it.

You crossed the threshold without answering, let the door close behind you with a soft click. Something about the air between you shifted—subtle, but charged. He watched you approach with careful eyes, the edge of a smile twitching at his mouth. He already knew what was coming, he was just waiting for you to admit to it.

“So are you,” you murmured as you came to stand beside him. Your fingers brushed against the back of his chair. “All your patients asleep. No emergencies. No excuse to still be hiding in this office.”

Wilson leaned back in his chair slowly, pen set down, hands resting on the arms. You stepped closer.

“I didn’t want to go home yet,” he admitted, tone quieter now, more honest. His gaze dropped to your mouth and lingered there. “Not without you.”

The silence pressed tight between you, thick with things left unsaid and all the things already known. You bent down slowly, your hand curling around the edge of the armrest just above his, the fabric of his dress shirt warm against your knuckles. His breath hitched. You could feel the tension coiling up in both of you, the way his thighs stiffened slightly beneath his slacks, the way his throat worked as he swallowed.

“You’re not even pretending to do paperwork anymore.”

“No,” he said, and his voice trembled just faintly. “I was waiting for you.”

The kiss was inevitable. Desperate. Your lips met his hard, mouths pressing together in something that couldn’t be mistaken for a greeting or a thank you or a goodnight. It was hungry. It was impatient. His hands flew to your waist as he stood abruptly, the wheels of his chair skidding behind him. You staggered back a step, but he followed, pressed you against the wall just beside the bookshelves, hands gripping your hips.

He kissed you like a man starved. His mouth opened against yours, tongue sliding in without hesitation, devouring you in ragged, open-mouthed kisses that left both of you gasping. His fingers tugged at the hem of your shirt, pushing it up just enough to feel the heat of your skin, and his groan against your mouth was hoarse, raw, needy.

You arched into his touch as he dragged his palms up your torso, thumbs brushing the sides of your ribs, not quite frantic but close. It was careful for half a second—then it wasn’t. His mouth traveled down to your throat, teeth scraping across your pulse point with a pressure that sent heat racing low in your gut.

“You taste like coffee,” he murmured into your skin, voice low, almost reverent, before his teeth sank into your collarbone. Your fingers twisted in the fabric of his shirt.

“And you taste like desperation,” you muttered back, breathless, tilting your head back to let him have more.

His laugh was choked, nearly a groan. One of his hands slid down between your legs, cupping you over your clothes with a firm grip that made you whine before you could stop yourself. He squeezed, slow and deliberate, watching your face with eyes gone dark.

“Fuck,” you whispered.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “You like that?”

You nodded. You were already half undone, pressed hard against the wall with his body between your legs, his hands everywhere—one rubbing you with just enough pressure to make your thighs twitch, the other up under your shirt, fingertips teasing at your chest, grazing your nipples until you gasped into his mouth.

Your own hands finally moved, clumsy with urgency, dragging his shirt up and over his hips, slipping beneath the fabric to trace the trail of soft hair down his stomach. He shivered, cock twitching against your thigh through the layers of fabric still separating you. You reached between you, palmed him through his slacks, felt how hard he already was.

“Jesus,” he hissed. “We’re in the goddamn hospital.”

“So lock the door,” you said, not stopping.

He laughed, forehead pressing to yours. “You’re going to kill me.”

Your fingers dragged down his zipper, slow enough to tease, not slow enough to be patient. He groaned into your mouth again, hand tightening in your shirt. He was trying to decide whether to stop you or fuck you right there on the floor.

His hips jerked forward when you brushed over the outline of his cock, and he bit your bottom lip hard enough to sting. “If you don’t stop now,” he warned hoarsely, “I’m not going to stop either.”

You stilled, lips swollen, chest heaving.

Then, slowly, you leaned up and kissed him again—deep, hot and slow.

“We should go to your place,” you said when you finally pulled back, voice low, rough, your lips brushing his as you spoke. “So we can fuck properly.”

Wilson’s groan was full-bodied and exasperated and turned-on all at once. He rested his forehead against yours for a long moment, both of you breathing hard.

“God,” he muttered. “You’re insufferable.”

“Mm. And you love me for it.”

“Shut up.”

You grinned and kissed him again.

He shut the office lights off on the way out.

Overtime

The blinds were half-shut, casting long slats of shadow across her office walls, broken by the soft golden spill of her desk lamp. Outside, the hospital had gone quiet in the way it only ever did past midnight — the buzz of daytime urgency traded for the occasional distant beep of monitors and the dull roll of a gurney wheel down some far-off corridor. The air smelled faintly of her perfume, sharp and expensive, tinged by the paper scent of hospital files piled high beside her elbow.

Cuddy’s fingers tapped a soft rhythm against her glass desk surface, eyes scanning the page in front of her without really reading it. She could feel your stare. Not overt, not hungry, but insistent. You sat across from her, ankle hooked over your knee, pretending to be focused on the budget projections she’d asked for — or maybe just giving yourself a reason to stay. You always found a reason.

She didn't look up when she spoke. “You’ve been in here a long time.”

“Mm. So have you.”

Her pen paused. She leaned back slowly in her chair, gaze lifting at last to meet yours, eyes flickering with that clinical scrutiny she always wore like armor—until something else softened it. The sharp edge rounded. You could see it in the way her eyes dragged down your face, to your mouth, her thoughts were only half about whatever line item she was supposed to be signing off.

“Still pretending this is about work?” she asked, her voice low, too smooth for how tired she should be.

Your lips twitched. “That depends. Are you?”

Cuddy arched a brow, lips curling at the corners as she stood, drawing herself up from the chair with that deliberate grace that made you ache. She was all authority—pencil skirt taut across her hips, blouse unbuttoned just enough to make your mouth dry, dark waves of hair falling just loose enough to tell you she’d run her hands through it more than once tonight. She stepped around the desk with slow, practiced ease, heels quiet against the floor.

Her hand settled on the back of your chair before you could move. The heat of her so close made your back straighten without thinking. Her perfume was stronger here. Jasmine, clean skin, and something darker underneath. Her thumb traced a line across your shoulder, just once.

“I could write this off as a supervisory meeting,” she murmured, low against your ear. “Late-night strategy session. But then someone might ask why I’ve got you sitting here looking at me like you’re seconds from climbing across the desk.”

You turned your head slightly, enough to see the gleam of amusement — and want — in her eyes. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to lie for you.”

Her smile was sharp. “I don’t pay you enough for that.”

“You don’t pay me enough at all.”

“Then you really have no excuse.”

Before the words had finished leaving her mouth, you’d reached for her waist, fingers hooking just above the curve of her hips, pulling her down onto your lap with one smooth tug. She didn’t resist—didn’t flinch—only let out the faintest hum of approval, her weight settling onto your thighs, one knee slipping to the outside of yours. Her arms went around your neck as naturally as if she’d done it a hundred times, which she had, and still you felt your heartbeat slam harder like it was the first.

“God, you’re smug,” you whispered against her mouth, just before you kissed her.

The first press was slow and lazy. The kind of kiss that asked without begging, that lingered more than it searched. But Cuddy didn’t do soft for long, not when it came to you. Her fingers curled in your hair, dragging your mouth harder against hers, the rhythm of it tipping fast from exploratory to demanding. She’d been waiting hours for this, and was finally done pretending.

You didn’t mind the heat of her breath or the way her hips shifted subtly against your lap. She wasn’t trying to grind down, but couldn’t help herself. Your hands slid down her back, greedy, tracing every inch of her spine like it might ground you, anchor you somewhere in this too-bright, too-quiet office where she smelled like sin and looked like something you should never have been allowed to touch.

But she let you. She always let you.

Your hand found the edge of her blouse and slipped under it, warm palm against bare skin. Her breath hitched. She didn’t stop you. You moved higher, hand flattening just under her ribs, then trailing up—slow, deliberate—until your fingers brushed the swell of her breast. She made a sound against your mouth, low and half-caught, not quite a moan but nothing polite either. Her nails dug into the back of your neck.

“You’re not shy tonight,” she whispered, mouth ghosting your jaw.

“I’ve never been shy with you.”

She laughed, soft and breathless, then caught your bottom lip between her teeth, tugging, just enough to make your fingers twitch where they rested beneath her bra. Her hips rolled again, this time slower, more controlled, and you felt her exhale. She was trying not to lose control too quickly.

“Lock the door,” she murmured, dragging her mouth down your neck. “Do it.”

You didn’t argue. She slid off your lap in a motion as fluid as her entrance, and you stood, heart thudding so loud in your chest it made your hands shake slightly when you twisted the lock. When you turned back, she was leaning against the desk, blouse half-untucked, one leg crossed over the other, lips kissed pink and eyes darker than before.

She crooked a finger at you.

It took you three strides to reach her. Your hands were on her waist again before you could think. You kissed her like the office would dissolve if you didn’t, like the whole hospital might catch fire and you’d still need more. Her hands were under your shirt now, fingers cool against your skin, dragging your hips flush against hers with none of the usual hesitation. It was all friction now — mouths messy, bodies tighter, hungrier, her thigh slotting between your legs.

You palmed her breast fully this time, thumb brushing over the sensitive point through lace. She gasped, the sound raw and real, and didn’t stop you when your other hand slid down, curved over her ass, pulling her tighter to you. She rolled her hips again, breath hot in your ear.

“You make me stupid,” she hissed. “Do you know that? I have meetings at eight. A board call. And you—” she kissed you again, hard, messy “—come in here and make me forget every reason I’m supposed to say no.”

“Then don’t,” you breathed. “Don’t say no.”

She kissed you again instead. You both groaned when you pressed her harder against the desk, her hands fisting in the fabric at your back, dragging your shirt up. She wanted to take it, or tear it, or just feel skin, god, any part of you she didn’t already have.

“Take this off,” she said, tugging at your shirt.

“You first.”

Another smirk, one she didn't bother to hide as she reached for her buttons. One by one, she slipped them open, slow despite everything, watching your face as pale skin was revealed inch by inch. She shrugged the blouse off her body. The sight of her in just her bra, breath shallow and pupils blown wide, made your stomach lurch with something close to worship.

“I should make you beg,” she whispered, pulling you back in. “Make you sit there while I finish my paperwork. Watch me touch myself at my desk. Maybe let you help if you’re good.”

You groaned against her collarbone. “Jesus, Cuddy.”

“No,” she said, cupping your jaw in one hand. “Lisa.”

She kissed you again, rough and open-mouthed, and your hands were everywhere—up her sides, down her hips, one slipping between her thighs and pressing just enough to make her tremble. She pulled you closer, rocked against your hand, and when you felt how wet she already was through her underwear, you cursed under your breath, forehead dropping to her shoulder.

“God, you're unbelievable,” you whispered.

She dragged your mouth back to hers with a hiss of approval. “Then prove it.”

After Rounds

The hallway lights buzzed faintly overhead, casting a pale glow across the empty diagnostics office. The floor was mostly dark by now—nurses whispering at stations, the odd intern scribbling notes at a computer, but otherwise, the hospital had finally dipped into that rare, late-night quiet that only came when the adrenaline tapered off and the chaos slowed to a crawl.

You stood near the desk, arms crossed, shifting your weight between your feet while trying to look preoccupied. You weren't on call anymore, not technically. You had finished your last rounds over an hour ago, but the idea of going home hadn't really crossed your mind. Not when you knew who else was still here.

The door creaked open behind you. You didn't turn, because you didn’t need to.

“Still here?” Foreman asked, voice low, the kind of tired drawl only twelve hours of diagnostics could draw out of him.

You hummed, grabbing a folder off the desk without looking at it. “So are you.”

He didn’t reply at first. Just stepped farther into the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click. You could feel the change in the air before he even crossed the space between you. The shift in tension, the silence too full for two people who weren’t thinking about each other. You turned finally, catching the shadow in his gaze, his usual stern composure looser now that the rest of the team was gone.

“You’re not supposed to still be here,” he said again, quieter this time, though there wasn’t any real protest in his voice.

"I know.”

He stood a foot away now, hands in his coat pockets, brow drawn but soft. You held his gaze, the fluorescent light above flickering once, then holding steady. The silence stretched again, and neither of you broke it. He didn’t move at first, too used to calculating his every step, too careful about what people might say, what someone might see. But his restraint never lasted long when it came to you.

His hand reached up, brushing your jaw first. Not rushed, not overly firm—just a touch meant to anchor. Then his fingers curled, and he leaned forward, lips meeting yours in one long pull, breath steady but heated. You kissed him back instantly, pressing closer, his coat brushing your chest. The folder fell out of your hand to the desk with a soft thump, forgotten.

His other hand came up to your waist, palm warm through the thin fabric of your scrubs. The door was locked—he always checked. Still, there was a thrill that shot down your spine as he pushed you slowly against the edge of the desk, your hips nudging against the wood. You felt him exhale into the kiss, the tension in his jaw melting just slightly, though his grip on you didn’t waver.

Foreman always kissed like he was trying not to. Like there was a part of him still holding back, still worried someone would open the door or catch him slipping. But not tonight. Not after the stress of three consults, two difficult differentials, and a full day under House’s impossible standards. Tonight, he let go.

Your back pressed to the desk now, your hands sliding up under his coat to feel the crisp shirt beneath, fingers curling into the fabric. You could feel the strength in his arms as he leaned into you, tongue brushing against yours in slow, deliberate strokes. His fingers dug slightly into your waist, anchoring you to him as he kissed harder, deeper, tasting the parts of you he had missed all day behind patient charts and professionalism.

He broke the kiss just long enough to press his forehead to yours, his breath hot and uneven.

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he muttered, his voice rougher than usual, hand slipping down to the curve of your hip. “Couldn’t get anything done with you walking around in those damn scrubs.”

You bit back a smile, tilting your head just enough to kiss him again. This one was messier. Slower but desperate. His hand slid lower, gripping your thigh, fingers flexing through the fabric, the pressure enough to make your breath catch. You let out a soft sound against his mouth, rewarded with a soft groan from him, his fingers dragging up again to tug at the waistband of your scrubs.

He didn’t pull them down—not yet. But the way he touched you, you could tell he was thinking about it. His hand palmed your ass through the fabric, firm and unapologetic, the motion deliberate.

You gripped the back of his neck, nails lightly grazing his skin as his mouth trailed down your jaw, then lower, to the base of your throat. Warm lips, soft drag of teeth—not enough to bruise, but close. He breathed you in, his voice low against your skin. “You’ve got no idea how hard it is, keeping my hands off you all damn day.”

“You could’ve snuck me into the on-call room.”

He laughed under his breath, lifting his head to meet your eyes again. “You would’ve moaned loud enough to get us fired.”

“Would’ve been worth it.”

He kissed you again, faster this time. His tongue pushed into your mouth without hesitation, his hips pressing closer. His hand slipped beneath the hem of your shirt now, fingertips dragging up your side, hot against your skin. You arched slightly under the touch, his body pinning yours more fully to the desk.

His breathing got heavier the longer he touched you, and you could feel the restraint breaking again in the way his hand gripped your waist, tugging you tighter against him. His thigh nudged between yours, his other hand sliding back down to your ass, this time giving a firm squeeze that made your breath hitch and your nails dig into his back through the shirt.

Foreman groaned softly into your mouth, kissing you with the kind of hunger he rarely let show. “You keep making those sounds,” he muttered, “and I’m not stopping.”

“Mmh—don’t. Don't stop."

That broke something in him. His hand slipped past the waistband now, dipping into your underwear just enough to grope you properly. His touch was rougher now, more confident, more impatient, and the way he held you made it impossible to think. You gasped against his mouth, bucking slightly into his hand as he kissed you again, swallowing the sound greedily.

He didn’t let up—kept touching, squeezing, dragging his fingers in just the right way while his other hand held your face, thumb brushing the edge of your lip. His kiss turned feverish again, devouring, mouth wet and hot and open over yours. You could barely hold yourself up with how he was working you over, and he knew it. His thigh shifted to support your weight, hands steady, body locking you in place.

You pulled him closer by the collar, grinding up against him in the heat of it, and he let out a breathy curse, pressing into your movements without hesitation. His hand gripped your ass tighter, guiding the motion, helping you find that friction you both needed so badly.

“I’m not taking you on the desk,” he whispered against your ear. “Not here.”

You groaned in protest, breathless, half out of your mind. “Why not?”

“Because I want more than five minutes with you. I want your legs over my shoulders. I want to take my time.” His voice was gravel now, so full of need and want it made your knees weak. “And I can’t do that here.”

“Then get us out of here.”

He kissed you one more time—long, slow, and deep. Then he stepped back just enough to fix your waistband, the heat of his hands lingering. He smoothed his palms down your sides, breathing heavy, forehead still pressed to yours for a beat longer before finally stepping back fully.

You adjusted your shirt with trembling fingers, heart pounding as you looked at him. His lips were slick with spit, jaw flexing as he stared at you like he wasn’t finished—because he wasn’t.

He ran a hand down his face, then picked his coat off the back of the chair. “My place.”

You nodded, still dazed, following after him when he unlocked the door.

The hallway was quiet again.

But this time, it felt charged.

And you knew you weren’t sleeping tonight.

Sterile Sheets and Quiet Sins

The office was quiet in that muffled kind of way hospitals always managed when it was well past midnight. Phones muted. Voices hushed. No code blues echoing through the halls. Just the sound of tired fluorescent lights humming above and the occasional rustle of papers or nurses’ shoes down the corridor. The diagnostics office was dimly lit, only the soft glow from the desk lamp painting a halo of warmth over reports and files spread across the table, long forgotten in the wake of your arrival.

You stood behind him in the cramped space, close enough that your hips brushed the back of his chair. Robert hadn't turned when you'd entered—he’d glanced up, blinked those tired eyes at you, lips curling faintly—but hadn’t said much, already knowing you weren’t there to talk about patients. He wasn’t stupid. The tension had been brewing for hours.

"You’re not supposed to be in here," he said lowly, voice rough from exhaustion or anticipation—you weren’t sure which, maybe both. He shifted a little in his chair, straightening, but made no real move to stop you when you reached over his shoulder and slowly pushed the folder on his lap off to the side of the desk.

"Then kick me out," you murmured near his ear, letting your hand drift down the front of his chest—his tie loosened, top buttons undone, the rise and fall of his breathing giving away the rest of his restraint. Your fingers paused just above his belt.

He let out a shaky breath. Didn’t move.

"Didn’t think so."

You leaned down and kissed the side of his neck, soft and slow, just enough to make him swallow hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed under your lips. One of his hands came up, slow, a little unsure, to touch your thigh where you’d rested it beside the chair. There was the smallest squeeze, nothing confident, nothing that made you feel like he was in control. It was sweet. Desperate. He just wanted to feel where you were.

"You’re such an ass," he muttered, though it had no real bite to it. If anything, it trembled at the end, he already knew he wasn’t going to win.

"You love it," you whispered against his ear, and then sank your teeth just a little into the soft skin there, making him hiss.

He jolted, knuckles tightening where his hand held your leg now. "Fuck—"

You moved around the chair slowly, stepping between his legs until he was looking up at you. That exhausted, beautiful face flushed with something warmer now, lips parted slightly, his blond hair slightly messy from hours of shift work and now the fingers you threaded into it as you tugged his head back. His eyes fluttered closed for a second, long lashes catching the low light, and then he looked up at you, almost pleading.

"You’re gonna get us caught," he whispered.

"Only if you can’t keep quiet."

You kissed him hard, without patience, you’d been thinking about it since the minute the sun went down. His hands flew up to your hips, gripping hard, and you could feel the way he pressed into you instinctively—he couldn’t help himself—already half-hard beneath those tight, creased slacks. You could’ve laughed at how fast he responded, but it felt too good, too hot, to pull away even for that.

He kissed back like he’d been starving for it all night, tongue sliding against yours in slow, eager strokes. There was no performance in it. No arrogant show. Just raw need.

You dropped into his lap, knees pressing into the cushion on either side of him, your hands on his jaw, his throat, his hair. He groaned into your mouth, a little choked-off sound, hips twitching up against you before he bit down on the sound too late. You didn’t slow down. You just pressed harder, rolled your hips forward, and kissed him deeper. His hands flew to your ass, squeezing tight—needy, grasping, more desperate than he probably realized.

“You’re shameless,” he mumbled breathlessly against your mouth.

“You’re hard,” you shot back.

He flushed deeper, mouth falling open again, and you took advantage of it immediately. Kissed him until he whimpered, until he was shifting underneath you, one hand still gripping your ass. He couldn’t decide if he wanted you closer or if he was trying to hold himself together.

You slid a hand between the two of you and pressed your palm against him through his pants. He jolted, gasping into your mouth as you rubbed slow, firm circles over the bulge in his lap. His breath stuttered against your lips.

“Fuck—ah—don’t—”

“Don’t what?” you whispered, dragging your mouth to his jaw as your hand squeezed a little harder, palm rubbing over the fabric with just enough friction to make his thighs tense beneath you. “Don’t touch you? Don’t make you feel good?”

He shook his head helplessly, breath shuddering. “I’m—fuck—‘m already close.”

You grinned against his skin. “That’s cute.”

He groaned, loud this time, and you reached up to cover his mouth with your hand while your other kept working his lap. You could feel the way he trembled beneath you, the way his hips couldn’t stop bucking up, chasing the pressure, chasing the edge. You were so close to ruining him right there, and he knew it. You could see it in his eyes. That dazed, ruined look. Embarrassed. Completely at your mercy.

But you didn’t give him the satisfaction.

You pulled your hand back suddenly, leaned away just enough to make his head thunk back against the chair in disbelief.

“Wait—wha—” He sounded wrecked, voice wrecked, and he blinked up at you like he couldn’t comprehend why you’d stopped.

You stood slowly, smoothing your clothes as if you hadn’t just had him seconds from falling apart under your hands.

“Get your stuff,” you said, breath still ragged but steadying. You smirked at the disbelief on his face. “We’re going to your place.”

He stared at you like you’d just slapped him, jaw slack, chest heaving. “You’re—are you serious?”

“You want me to make you come in your office?” you asked, arching a brow. “You want House to walk in and find you like that? Humping the air? Whimpering like some desperate intern?”

He looked away quickly, face burning as he adjusted himself with a shaky hand, mouth still parted, lips red and swollen from how hard you’d kissed him.

“…You’re evil,” he said finally, still not meeting your eyes.

You grinned. “You like it.”

“…Yeah.” His voice cracked, almost a whisper. “Yeah. I do.”

You held the door open for him, lips curling.

“Then hurry the fuck up.”

[idrellegames]

Maybe I'm just overly forgiving or empathetic but in the myriad of ways I've played my MCs and Aeran (Platonic or romantic, low bond or high bond, low romance or high romance, MC is The Best To Ever Do It Failing Only 5 Of Your 25 Checks With One Injury or The Worst To Ever Do It How Are You Still Alive After Failing 13 Of Your 26 Checks And Three Injuries), I never DON'T see a point in Aeran's anger. He's completely right in that we've experienced this tragedy in different ways- Doesn't mean he's right in thinking that we can never understand each other, or to lash out at us, but like. It's been one night in a city he's clearly having a hellish time being in. He doesn't owe it to us to feel the exact same way about the other Wayfarers. We ARE all we have at this point and I feel like I'd personally be the worst friend ever to turn my back on him over this night. That said I have been told loyalty is my fatal flaw lmao

Genuine respect to all the players that feel differently, I just can't match your energy even if it sends me to an early grave...I gotta be nice to the little guys in my computer screen.

Any connection your MC has with Aeran is always going to come down to the question of—at what point do you make the decision to give up on someone you are/were close to? How far do your empathy and compassion go, and at what point do you make the decision that you can no longer do it?

There's no right or wrong answers here. It will very much depend on what that relationship was like prior to Episode 2, how you're roleplaying your MC, and also personal experience and subjectivity.

The one thing I will say about Aeran in the three years I've been receiving asks about him, is that I think because he defies typical NPC/PC writing, that brings in a certain shade of frustration with his character. Of course the MC wants to know what happened, but they are not entitled to his trauma. They are not entitled to his story, and they are not entitled to force him to walk them through the worst day of his life that has left him scarred forever. He is very flawed and very bad at handling his own boundaries, but that also doesn't mean that the MC is entitled to cross them because they need answers.

The MC can be just as flawed as Aeran is, and their internal monologue is both biased and unreliable in their favour. This is probably the most apparent with Varyn apprentices right now (although it is true for all MCs). A Varyn apprentice MC feels like she had favouritism towards Aeran and it brings out anger and frustration in Episode 2, but that is a feeling on their part. Until the player has more information, it should not be framed as fact.

No character in Wayfarer will easily offer up information to the MC because they're the player-controlled character. The NPC needs to open up on their own, you can't force them to do something they are not ready to do—and in Episode 2, Aeran is simply not ready to talk about the fall of the Wayfarer Order.

He was there. He survived it.

The MC was not.

[fivefeetfangirl]

Bestie if you need to pull out sawatskys interview techniques to have a conversation with him, he's not worth it

[megumi-fm]

.

[damthosefandoms]

Who is your ultimate favorite Outsiders character and why? I'm curious

it really does depend on the day who my favorite is, but for the sake of answering this I’m gonna say soda.

for me he’s the easiest to write and project onto and maybe it’s the fact that some stuff about him feels relatable to me—maybe it’s because I have a type of character I always end up liking most. which is silly girl-crazy dude who is usually seen as “the stupid one” in the fanon, with clearly undiagnosed adhd and is scary when angry and when they’re not acting like a happy-go-lucky idiot, you know something is up. which idk. it’s probably soda.

he just as so many layers to him and there’s so so much to think about. so much we don’t know. sometimes I think if the outsiders had a sequel—like an actual sequel because as much as I like to pretend it’s a trilogy, twttin and tex are not sequels to the outsiders lol—it would be soda and pony focused and because the outsiders was about pony getting closer with darry and realizing darry isn’t the worst—I wonder if a sequel would’ve been pony having to take off his rose-colored glasses and see that soda isn’t the perfect brother. not to say soda isn’t a great person but again, pony puts him on a pedestal, and he’s got layers.

I could make a case for darry and pony and sometimes dally being my favorites too, but idk. I think about them all the same amount but I feel like I get soda more (and I think the dally that exists in my head isn’t exactly canon-accurate but that’s not the point).

I also really like steve and two-bit and johnny some days!!! idfk im telling you guys it’s all over the place. but like if i had to pick one definitely soda.

[enavstars]

(Naruto has specifically also called him "mom" multiple times)

Headcanons time!

After the war Obito is perfectly fine (like in canon as we all know, I'm not delusional at all obviously) and also Sasuke goes out to travel the world.

Obito is kept under house arrest at Kakashi’s for a few years until he's finally set completely free and so immediately marries Kakashi.

On the other hand, Kakashi suggests to Sasuke to stay at his house too whenever he comes back to visit the village since he doesn't have a place anymore (until he starts dating Naruto later). At first everything is awkward because Sasuke and Obito have a complicated relationship (with, you know, the massacre and all) and Kakashi also has other quiet intentions.

Kakashi actually hopes to use this opportunity to apologize to Sasuke for how he treated him. I mean, as much as I love them, Kakashi did treat Sasuke unfairly because he projected himself a little too much onto the boy, and now he just doesn't know how to approach the subject because of his poor social skills. When he finally apologizes, Sasuke does not get his point, getting confused because he believes that the fact that he cared is enough (I mean the boy doesn't really know how a healthy relationship with an (older) adult should look like). But Kakashi doesn't like that answer, so he gently explains how just that is simply not enough. This leads Sasuke to finally reflect on his life and decide to move forward, accepting Kakashi's apology.

Afterwards Kakashi talks to him about what can he do as a Hokage to honor the Uchiha clan (I'm still pissed that they tried to brush off a genocide so I'm fixing it). In the end they settle for a memorial and firing (and hopefully imprisoning) the other two council elders that supported it all.

Meanwhile, Sasuke and Obito's relationship also develops. Sasuke doesn't forgive Obito, and at the same time Obito is working on his own guilt and atonement, so evidently they don’t get along at first. Eventually, when Kakashi truly becomes one of Sasuke's most precious people/bonds, he starts tolerating Obito because he understands he's important to Kakashi. As time goes on Sasuke and Obito slowly manage to cool off their relationship and find some common grounds with everything they’ve been through. Together they eventually reflect on it, little by little, from the many tragedies that stained their lives to the manipulation they have both suffered; by the result of Konoha’s rotten system in one way or another. Although they have much to work on, especially with Obito, how he tried to pull Sasuke’s strings, and his part in the Uchiha massacre, Sasuke chooses to not give in to his hatred. He understands Obito in the end, and is able to move on. And on his part, Obito does make an effort to treat him much better than he used to.

In fact, one way he tries to make up for his mistakes is by telling Sasuke about the Uchiha clan's history and traditions, the stuff that Sasuke could never know before because he was too young, as he thinks that their legacy should be passed down to someone who truthfully honors the clan with their full chest.

Basically Sasuke deserves love so I gave him a father figure (Kakashi), because every other adult has treated him terribly and he desperately needs one. And Obito is now his annoying/weird uncle/stepfather.

I will of course make more comics because they're also very chaotic, being three people in a single house and yet amounting to:

- two war criminals, Uchiha

- two married men

- two moon-coded traumatized people

(worthy of an unhinged Venn Diagram)

[inkskinned]

i have chronic pain. i am neurodivergent. i understand - deeply - the allure of a "quick fix" like AI. i also just grew up in a different time. we have been warned about this.

15 entire years ago i heard about this. in my forensics class in high school, we watched a documentary about how AI-based "crime solving" software was inevitably biased against people of color.

my teacher stressed that AI is like a book: when someone writes it, some part of the author will remain within the result. the internet existed but not as loudly at that point - we didn't know that AI would be able to teach itself off already-biased Reddit threads. i googled it: yes, this bias is still happening. yes, it's just as bad if not worse.

i can't actually stop you. if you wanna use ChatGPT to slide through your classes, that's on you. it's your money and it's your time. you will spend none of it thinking, you will learn nothing, and, in college, you will piss away hundreds of thousands of dollars. you will stand at the podium having done nothing, accomplished nothing. a cold and bitter pyrrhic victory.

i'm not even sure students actually read the essays or summaries or emails they have ChatGPT pump out. i think it just flows over them and they use the first answer they get. my brother teaches engineering - he recently got fifty-three copies of almost-the-exact-same lab reports. no one had even changed the wording.

and yes: AI itself (as a concept and practice) isn't always evil. there's AI that can help detect cancer, for example. and yet: when i ask my students if they'd be okay with a doctor that learned from AI, many of them balk. it is one thing if they don't read their engineering textbook or if they don't write the critical-thinking essay. it's another when it starts to affect them. they know it's wrong for AI to broad-spectrum deny insurance claims, but they swear their use of AI is different.

there's a strange desire to sort of divorce real-world AI malpractice over "personal use". for example, is it moral to use AI to write your cover letters? cover letters are essentially only templates, and besides: AI is going to be reading your job app, so isn't it kind of fair?

i recently found out that people use AI as a romantic or sexual partner. it seems like teenagers particularly enjoy this connection, and this is one of those "sticky" moments as a teacher. honestly - you can roast me for this - but if it was an actually-safe AI, i think teenagers exploring their sexuality with a fake partner is amazing. it prevents them from making permanent mistakes, it can teach them about their bodies and their desires, and it can help their confidence. but the problem is that it's not safe. there isn't a well-educated, sensitive AI specifically to help teens explore their hormones. it's just internet-fed cycle. who knows what they're learning. who knows what misinformation they're getting.

the most common pushback i get involves therapy. none of us have access to the therapist of our dreams - it's expensive, elusive, and involves an annoying amount of insurance claims. someone once asked me: are you going to be mad when AI saves someone's life?

therapists are not just trained on the book, they're trained on patient management and helping you see things you don't see yourself. part of it will involve discomfort. i don't know that AI is ever going to be able to analyze the words you feed it and answer with a mind towards the "whole person" writing those words. but also - if it keeps/kept you alive, i'm not a purist. i've done terrible things to myself when i was at rock bottom. in an emergency, we kind of forgive the seatbelt for leaving bruises. it's just that chat shouldn't be your only form of self-care and recovery.

and i worry that the influence chat has is expanding. more and more i see people use chat for the smallest, most easily-navigated situations. and i can't like, make you worry about that in your own life. i often think about how easy it was for social media to take over all my time - how i can't have a tiktok because i spend hours on it. i don't want that to happen with chat. i want to enjoy thinking. i want to enjoy writing. i want to be here. i've already really been struggling to put the phone down. this feels like another way to get you to pick the phone up.

the other day, i was frustrated by a book i was reading. it's far in the series and is about a character i resent. i googled if i had to read it, or if it was one of those "in between" books that don't actually affect the plot (you know, one of those ".5" books). someone said something that really stuck with me - theoretically you're reading this series for enjoyment, so while you don't actually have to read it, one would assume you want to read it.

i am watching a generation of people learn they don't have to read the thing in their hand. and it is kind of a strange sort of doom that comes over me: i read because it's genuinely fun. i learn because even though it's hard, it feels good. i try because it makes me happy to try. and i'm watching a generation of people all lay down and say: but i don't want to try.