#i mean asks…i’m open. theoretically.

[you-are-my-neverland]

guess who actually finished the prologue!

[starmapz]

RATIO OVERTIME

𓉸 kento nanami x f!reader

𓉸 kinktober smut oneshot

❝ your new boyfriend recently revealed his technique to you and it's had you wondering- exactly what else could he do with that technique? after all, it was meant to create a weak point, right? ❞

𓉸 warnings ; 18+ only. contains explicit content. soft dom!nanami. oral (f! receiving). fingering. nipple play (f! receiving). masturbation (m! receiving). praise. choking. mild dacryphilia. begging. pet names (darling, sweetheart, love). overstim. kento is so so careful n sweet w reader.

𓉸 words ; 3.7k.

masterlist || kinktober 2024 masterlist

“Pardon, darling? I think I misheard you,” your boyfriend places his book in his lap with a furrowed brow. He’s been sitting quietly reading his book on the couch while you watch TV since he got home, but you’ve hardly paid attention to the screen; Your thoughts were completely occupied by one thing and one thing only.

“Well, your technique creates a weak spot, no?” You continue, knowing very well that Kento did in fact hear you.

“That’s correct,” his mahogany eyes examine your expression, contemplative of what it is that you’re implying.

“Sooo, could you use it on me in bed?” You ask again.

He rubs a hand over his face. “Sweetheart, is our sex life not enough for you?”

“No no no, I swear I’m very happy and not bored,” you promise, tilting your head as your gaze travels off to the side. “Just… curious if that’s something you could do.”

“No,” he decides with a stern shake of his head. “My technique is intended to cause harm. I won’t use it on you.”

“It’s meant to find a weak spot,” you try to reason with him. “My pussy is my weak-”

Your boyfriend’s brow furrows harshly as he puts his hand over your lips. “Vulgar,” he comments, eyes narrowed in a scolding manner. He sighs as he lowers his hand. “Darling, I can appreciate where you’re coming from, but I don’t want to risk causing you any harm.”

“You won’t!” You insist, scooting towards him on the couch. “We can test it first. I mean, you usually use your fists or a blade anyway, what if you use a finger?”

To your surprise, Nanami does actually seem to contemplate this for a moment, his gaze trailing down to stare blankly at the open pages of his novel. He supposes that theoretically you could have a point, but the thought of bringing you any amount of harm makes him uneasy.

“What are we testing it on?”

Your eyes shine as you bound out of the living room in an instant to the kitchen, bringing over a T-Bone steak. Understandably, Kento sighs. “You want me to use my technique on our dinner?” His tone suggests he’s barely putting up with your nonsense, but there’s a glimmer of amusement twinkling in his eyes regardless.

You nod, grinning as you set the slab of plastic-wrapped beef on the coffee table by Kento’s knees. You plop down beside him as he leans forward and-

Shockingly enough, just using the tips of two fingers does split the plastic, but that’s about it. The steak jumps somewhat but it doesn’t cause it any physical harm. This seems to shock Kento as well as he inspects the beef.

“Pleaaase, Ken?” You beg, sidling up to him. He casts you a glance before giving in with a sigh, an easy smile pulling at the corners of his lips. Your pussy throbs at the realization he’s giving into your request.

“Very well, darling. But you need to promise me you’ll use the safe word if it’s even slightly uncomfortable,” he insists, looking deeply into your eyes.

“I will.”

“Please put our dinner away,” he adds with an amused chuckle as he gets to his feet to go wash his hands, setting his book aside.

With a grin, you bounce to your feet, returning the steak to the fridge before excitedly making your way to the bedroom. Kento enters the room shortly after you, shutting the door behind him as you approach, tugging on his sweatshirt.

“Needy, my dear?” He asks, one hand pressed to the small of your back as he brings you closer, the other softly stroking your cheek in a gentle and loving manner.

“I honestly just didn’t think you would agree,” you admit, your eyes shining as you look up at him.

His mahogany eyes take in your features with a soft hum. “Whatever makes you happy, my love.” Your grin is his entire world, like the sun in the sky it brightens his life, and the way your body presses to his as you cling to his shoulders to kiss him lights a flame of lust within him. Your breasts press to his chest, and he catches the way you subtly grind your hips into him. He softly kisses you back once before that same hand that was so gently brushing your cheek mere moments ago applies pressure to the sides of your throat, lightly choking you.

You whine, your lips parting as Kento pulls back from the kiss. Your eyes have already glazed over with need as your boyfriend smiles, his expression darker as he purrs “I need you to be a good girl for me tonight then, can you do that, my dear?”

You nod, gripping his shoulders tightly as he kisses your forehead softly once more before he removes his hand from your throat as he picks you up with ease. You gasp in surprise as you’re tossed over his shoulder before he lays you down on the mattress. Laying on your shared bed, you eagerly watch as he pushes his sleeves up past his elbows before making his way over your body with one knee on either side of your waist.

Kento leans into your neck, pressing a soft kiss below your ear as he sucks softly at the sensitive skin. You whine as he teases you, fingers tangling in his hair as you attempt to get him to move a bit further south as your walls flutter at the thought of having Kento’s fingers buried deep within your cunt.

Kento tuts, clicking his tongue. He pulls back, grabbing your hand by the wrist and pinning it, along with your other hand, to the pillow above your head. “Eager, hm? I plan on taking my time indulging you, my dear. You told me you would be a good girl.”

Trapped beneath his weight, you can’t move. You shuffle your hips beneath him in search of friction, whining. “I’ll be good, Ken.” You bat your eyelashes at him, relishing in the way his pupils blow out purely from your obedience.

He hums in approval, keeping your wrists pinned in place as he kisses down your neck. You pliantly tilt your head to give him better access, your breathing hitching when he reaches your collar. He shoots you a glance before moving his hands to slip them beneath your shirt. In one movement, he slides the material up over your breasts, not covered by a bra in the comfort of your home.

The flat of his tongue presses to your left nipple before he sucks on the hardened bud. You feel the way he subtly smiles as you gasp, arching into him. He releases the bundle of nerves with a pop, turning his attention to your other nipple as he pulls your shirt over your head. “Arch for me, love.” He instructs, his teeth grazing your nipple. He slides his hands down your body, pressing a kiss between the valley of your breasts as you obediently arch your back so that he can slide your pants- along with your panties- down your hips and legs.

You shiver beneath his attentive eyes that drink in every inch of your skin. Kento is a man who gets off on your pleasure, his eyes darkening as you squirm and whine from only a brush of his fingers along the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. He tugs your ankles until your legs hang over the edge of the bed. Getting down on his knees, he pulls your legs apart and admires the sight of you laid bare before him. His favorite sight.

“So gorgeous, darling,” he hums affectionately, pressing kisses to the inside of your thighs so slowly that you can’t help but squirm. He moves so languidly, fingers gripping at the plush of your skin as he keeps your legs parted.

“Ken, stop teasing,” you whine, reaching down to tangle your fingers in his hair but he pulls back before you can.

“Patience.” The tone he uses is scolding and sends heat straight between your legs, pooling in your stomach. He smirks knowingly as your cunt pulses around nothing, dripping in anticipation.

“Kennnn,” you whine desperately, bucking your hips in search of friction as he gently but firmly grips your wrists and places them at your sides with a stern look.

“Be a good girl for me, dear. Keep your hands above your waist,” he instructs. With blown pupils, you stare down at him and nod, gripping at the sheets as he hums in approval and throws both of your legs over his shoulders.

He leans in, licking a long, slow, stripe up the length of your slit. Your lips part in a soft moan before you pull your lower lip between your teeth as you watch the way your boyfriend’s deep oak eyes watch your reaction, savoring the way you melt into him. He follows up his movements with one more slow stripe before he sucks your clit between his lips, swirling his tongue around the sensitive bud.

You grip the sheets harder, toes curling as your heels dig into Nanami’s shoulder inadvertently. He rolls his shoulders in an attempt to ease the pressure you’re putting on his back, but he’s willing to put up with the feeling if you feel good.

He releases your clit with a pop and begins to lap at your folds, circling your clit with a thumb. Your back arches in pleasure at just how well he knows you as his tongue dips into your entrance and pulls a needy whimper from your lips. Everything about the way he moves sends pleasure coiling into your stomach and, completely caught up in the bliss of his tongue, you move to tangle your fingers into his hair again.

Kento’s quick to react, catching your wrist with his hand, but you don’t expect the way he grabs your ass and lightly flicks the skin, setting his technique off. You jolt and yelp in surprise, not expecting a simple flick of his fingers to feel like that, and certainly not expecting the way your walls clench around nothing.

Your boyfriend’s eyes narrow as he observes your widened eyes. “Did that hurt?” He asks, though given the way you’re dripping for him, he already knows the answer.

You shake your head. “No it felt… a bit like a spank,” you describe it. He sets your wrist on the blanket at your side, nodding.

“You still want me to do this?”

Again, you nod. “I do,” you grin, staring at him with lidded eyes. You look so gorgeous and he relaxes knowing he isn’t hurting you and that you do like it.

“Good, darling. You remember our safe word spectrum?”

“Mhmm.”

He places a gentle kiss on your inner thigh. “Tell me how you’re feeling right now?”

“Green,” you smile, using the heels of your feet to pull Kento closer to you.

He softly smiles back, pressing your thighs back down and lapping up the juices that drip from your folds, relishing in your moan. You ball your hands into fists, letting out a gasp when he slides a finger between your folds. Your walls squeeze him tightly, fluttering with each minute movement of his fingers.

Slowly, he pumps the digit in and out as he works you open for him, his tongue still relentless on your clit. He slips a second finger into your squelching pussy, still working his fingers in and out as your walls stretch for his long digits.

“Ken,” you breathe out, “please.” You feel him smile against your clit as he stands up, leaning over you while he continues languid ministrations of his fingers. It feels good, but it’s as though he’s keeping you on edge, continuing to tease and toy with you for his own pleasure. Your suspicions are confirmed when he continues watching your pretty and desperate expression while pulling his thick cock from his sweats.

“Tell me what you want.” His voice is an octave lower than usual, commanding your attention. Glossy eyes meet his, dazed and drifting in a fog of pleasure that he’s causing.

“Want you to- hah- use your technique.” You breathe the words out eagerly. He curls his fingers once against your sweet spot, watching as your jaw hangs ajar with pleasure, but he immediately stops. “Ken, please,” you whine.

“Where do you want me to use my technique?” He asks, his voice strained as he fists his cock, slowly pumping up and down. Your glassy eyes watch the way he pumps his cock, barely hearing or making sense of what he said as you buck your hips, chasing pleasure. You almost go to grab his wrist in an attempt to get him to move, but stop yourself just in time, throwing your head back in frustration as you grip at the blankets again.

“Inside, inside me, please Ken, please- need you, need you so bad-” you babble, squirming as he slowly continues to tease you, the knot in your stomach remaining tightly coiled but never bursting and allowing you what you need.

“Good girl.” Nanami hums, sitting at the edge of the bed with his cock in one hand and fingers plunging deep in and out of you as he observes your expression. Your walls pulse and flutter as he curls his fingers, meanly bullying your sweet spot, only to relent and slow when your legs begin to quiver.

“Ken,” you whine as he keeps you right at the edge of your climax but never allows you to cum. He knows your body well and he knows how to get exactly what he wants from you, so when he picks up speed and sends cursed energy straight into your core, your eyes widen and you gasp as he sends you over the edge in the most intense orgasm you’ve ever experienced.

Heat pulses in your walls, lightning running straight up your spine as your body tenses and quivers, wave after wave of your orgasm crashing over you as Kento much more gently works you through your climax.

When your muscles finally relax around his fingers, he slows his movements and pulls out. Your body slumps into the bed, lips parted as you pant heavily. Your mind is so foggy you barely register the way your boyfriend brings his fingers to your lips, watching with a hum as your tongue works around the digits obediently without a second thought. Hell without even a first thought.

He groans at the sight, continuing to pump his weeping length as he throws his head back. Once you’ve licked his fingers clean of your arousal, he gently brushes your cheek, making sure you’re still with him.

You smile at him with lidded eyes, your head tilting to watch the way he spreads pre-cum over the head of his swollen cock. He smiles back at you. “How did that feel, darling?”

You blink a few times. “Like-” you pause, searching for words. “I don’t know. Heavenly?” You chuckle lightly.

“Hm. I’ll take it,” he nods, his eyes soft despite the way he’s slowly pumping his length. He gives you a moment to catch your breath when you drop your head back before he breaks the silence. “Can you give me another, my love?”

He sees the fire light in your eyes again as you eagerly nod. He firmly presses your thighs into the mattress, pushing them open as he eyes your sopping folds again.

“Be a darling for me and keep your hands above your waist,” his voice lowers an octave again and you nod obediently, gripping the sheets once more. His pupils blow as he watches you jolt when he pushes two fingers deep into your gummy walls, curling them slowly as he begins to work you back to the precipice of an orgasm.

You arch your back for him, tilting your head to the side to watch Kento jerk his erection, his eyes glossy with desire and lips parted. He doesn’t see you watching him, focused solely on his fingers buried deep within you.

“Kentoooo-” you whine his name breathily, gripping the sheets harshly. You want nothing more than to cling to your boyfriend, whimpering as he works your g spot, sending sparks up your spine with each movement. He hums, moving his thumb to rub slow circles into your clit. Your walls harshly clamp down on him, your muscles tensing as he intensifies the feeling of pleasure. Your pussy drools around him, your slick coating his fingers down to his wrist as he works you towards an orgasm.

He could push you over the edge right now easily, your walls continually fluttering as the muscles of your abdomen visibly clench and contract with each movement of his digits inside you. But he wants this drawn out, he wants to watch you fall apart on his fingers, all for him.

“Ken, I’m gonna-”

“Hold it,” he commands, his voice gravelly as his eyes snap to your expression. You whimper, squirming as your walls clamp down on him again. He knows you love being at his mercy, his cock twitching in his hand at the sight of your obedience. He loves to see you laid out beneath him, only able to think of him just as much as you like being in this position. Hell, he knows he could cum just from the sight of you looking so gorgeous with his fingers to their hilt in your cunt.

“Ken-” you gasp when he begins bullying your sweet spot, his fingers curling perfectly for your pleasure. “Ken,” you whimper and whine, squirming beneath him as you feel the edge quickly approaching. “Please, please let me cum baby, please,” you beg breathlessly as Kento slows his fingers once more, keeping you from the climax that’s making your legs tremble as you teeter so dangerously over the edge.

“Good girl,” he purrs softly, his voice hardening as he shifts to watch your expression. “Cum on my fingers, darling.” With one last pump of his fingers, he releases his cursed energy into your sweet spot, sending shocks through your body as you cry out and cum hard over Nanami’s fingers again, your arousal coating him and the sheets. You shake hard, grasping desperately for your boyfriend and dragging your nails over his forearm as you attempt to push his hand away, trembling hard from the sensation of your overwhelming orgasm. Kento doesn’t relent, keeping his digits firmly buried within you as he works you through the orgasm.

“Too much, s’ too much,” you babble, squirming until he finally pulls his fingers out of your pussy. Your head falls back on the pillow as you catch your breath.

“Good, sweetheart?” Your boyfriend checks in with you. He pulls your hand from his forearm and sets it back on the bed, willing to forgive that you didn’t keep it above your waist when your mind was clearly a mess.

You nod. “Still good, Ken. Green.”

“Good, my love. I want you to give me one more, okay?”

“Oka- aah-! fuck-!” Before you have the chance to prepare yourself, he plunges his fingers back within your walls that still flutter with the aftershocks of your previous climax. You cry out in surprise, attempting to shuffle back on the bed as overstimulation clouds your senses and tears prick in your eyes. “K-Ken-!” You stammer, jolting when he bullies your g spot not only with long, practiced fingers, but also with repetitive releases of cursed energy that makes your mind go foggy with thoughts of only Kento.

“Shit,” he groans as he watches you mindlessly babble, squirm, whine, and whimper, all from him and before he knows it, he’s finishing in his hand. He throws his head back as he finishes on his thighs, slowing his movements and giving you a momentary break as he focuses on his own high, pumping himself through it.

Coming down from his orgasm, he stares back down at your drooling pussy that continues to pulse around his digits. He picks up the pace, sending multiple zaps of cursed energy straight to your core and sending you over the edge before you can even register you’re there. You scream out your boyfriend’s name, fisting the sheets as you cum again. Your eyes roll into the back of your head, seeing stars from the sheer intensity of the orgasm.

Your body doesn’t just tremble, it shakes from the way you’ve been sent over the edge so suddenly. Your chest heaves as you pant, staring at the ceiling through tears. Your mind is foggy as you barely register Kento wiping away your tears and kissing your forehead.

“You did so good for me, beautiful,” Kento whispers. His voice is so soft in contrast to how his fingers bullied you only minutes ago.

You barely manage to hum in response, blinking as you focus on him. His hair is disheveled, evidence of your slick still on his chin from earlier. You smile up at him with lidded eyes, reaching out to hold his forearm.

He smiles back at you, placing a chaste kiss on your nose before he gets to his feet. He comes back a few moments later with a warm, wet, towel, bringing it to your soaked thighs. You jolt at the feeling, blinking as you sit up on your forearms, watching how softly he wipes the arousal from you.

Satisfied with his work, he cleans himself up and pulls on his boxers, crawling onto the bed behind you. He pulls you into his lap, peppering your cheeks, neck, and shoulders in kisses. He doesn’t relent until you’re giggling, his arms wrapped around your middle.

“How are you feeling, love?”

“I’m good Ken, I promise! Don’t worry.” You shoot him a lazy grin, kissing his jaw.

“I always worry for you,” he hums, resting his chin on your shoulder. “It seemed like you enjoyed yourself, though.”

“I did,” you hum, leaning back into Kento. “I’m gonna be sore tomorrow.”

“I’m certain of it,” he agrees with a chuckle. “Why don’t we run you a nice bubble bath?”

“Ugh, that sounds heavenly,” you groan, your body still feeling as though you’re floating.

“Consider it done, my love. Anything for you.”

masterlist || kinktober 2024 masterlist

𓉸 a/n ; and that's a wrap on kinktober! thank you so much to everyone for all the love on these pieces, i had a ton of fun writing them ♡ college sukuna coming soon, i'll likely put up a teaser for that series once i'm back from my trip this weekend and have a bit more written. anywho- thank you for reading and i hope you enjoyed! likes, reblogs, and comments appreciated as always ♡

𓉸 taglist ; @fushitoru @tojis-ball-sack @rathreads @sukunadckrider @nxcxllxsevens

@r0ckst4rjk

[softestqueeen]

care for a dance?

pairing: spencer reid x reader

summary: spencer learns how to dance to teach you.

warnings: just pure fluff

wordcount: 764 words

a/n: this is just short and sweet! I’ve got the idea from @i-live-in-spite and just had to write it. I’m not 100% happy with it, but I had to get it out.

Spencer Reid knew how to do lots of things, theoretically. He could exactly tell you how to throw a ball perfectly for it to land in the net, at which angle you should throw it and from what position. He could tell you how to get checkmate in less than three moves across the checkered chess board, in this case he could even show you.

What he could also tell you, was how to dance a simple waltz. He couldn’t however demonstrate that, but he thinks he might want to learn how to.

“Spence, do you know how to dance?” his eyebrows shot up at the question.

“Uhm, I think you might have to be a bit more specific than that. There are thousands of dances in almost every culture, which all have different meanings. Are we talking about Salsa, flamenco, a waltz?” Spencer gave back. It was adorable to hear him ramble like that.

“Yeah, I meant more like a waltz or something simple. I really want to learn that for Rossi’s wedding and thought maybe you knew how to,” you explained further.

“I- Yes, I think I could do a waltz. It’s actually a remarkably simple dance that consists of the same few steps every time you do it. The music has a special beat and is written in a ¾ bar, as opposed to the usually used 4/4 bar. It is also most commonly danced to the song “the blue danube” by Strauss.”

“Well, if you’re that confident with it, how about you show me this weekend. We could practice it,” your smile was gentle as you slightly tilted your head. You didn’t want to miss any signs of discomfort in Spencer’s face.

“Oh, uhm, yeah that would be great! Saturday at 6 at mine? We could also get takeout,” he offered.

“Sounds good, I’ll see ya around, Spence!”

That was on Wednesday and now that Saturday is inching closer and closer he actually has to learn how to waltz. In theory it was easy, but the reality definitely looked different.

He was very glad that he has practiced before you came over. The amount of how often he tripped over his feet would have definitely gotten a laugh or two out of you, though.

Spencer was holding his hands out before him, his left arm stuck out curling around your imaginary palm, while his other hand was resting in the air at the approximate height of your waist. He tried to recall everything he knew about the basics, as well as the four YouTube tutorials he just watched.

Moving his foot forwards, he set it down before following with his other foot. He must have looked incredibly ridiculous while doing this alone, but for you, he’d do anything. Slowly, he continued the dance, his tongue peeking out between his lips in concentration.

The profilers’ eyes were practically glued to his feet. Once he tried it without looking, he immediately tripped over his feet and almost knocked over the lamp that was standing in his living room. He continued to practice though, his movements slowly getting more fluent. Deciding that he knew enough of the basics to teach you, he ended his training session.

A few hours later you knocked on his door. You were wearing relaxed clothing and carried a bag with your favourite takeout. Spencer gave you a smile before opening the door wider to let you in.

After removing your shoes, the two of you sat down in his kitchen to eat. Afterwards, you stood up, extended your hand, and asked, “Care for a dance?”

“Always,” he answered.

“But we can’t dance yet, I don’t know how to. Show me, please?”

And so, the two of you spent the next one and a half hours practicing. Spencer was the most patient person ever when repeating the steps over and over again. He guided you when you did your first attempts and was never mad at you for stepping on his feet.

“I think I got it now,” you said before getting in position again.

“You sure?” Spencer asked.

Only giving a hum in response, you put on the music again and start dancing. One foot forward, slightly tilted, then following with the other one. Repeat, repeat and repeat and you’ve got it.

You did it. You squealed in excitement before taking your hands out of his. Instead, excited, and not really thinking, you take Spencer’s face in your hands, lean forward, and press your lips to his.

Now, Spencer was definitely happy to have learned how to dance.

a/n: i hope you liked this, if so please leave some notes, likes, reblogs and comments! feedback is very appreciated!

please also consider supporting my ao3: @ softestqueen

requests open!

taglist:@silvermagnolias@milywatermelon@BigBananaa @i-live-in-spite

[thepersonnamedsam]

learning how to drive - sv5

pairing: sebastian vettel x genz!driver (platonic), 22 grid x genz!driver (platonic)

summary: you may have your super license to drive your f1 car, but driving outside the paddock? not really your thing

word count: 1k

warnings: nothing really

note: the genz!driver is maybe 17/18 and does not have a drivers license. i have no idea about driving a car, so just ignore that part

masterlist / taglist

The second the grid had found out that you had not yet made your driver’s license, they were joking about it. You’re driving at 300 km/h every second Sunday, but you are not driving at a normal speed on the roads? What was wrong with you? Actually, you had a fair reason not to drive on the streets, you were scared. You feared hitting another car, or someone hitting you. You were scared of ignoring road signs or missing a stop sign. 

“Our youngster is scared to drive, are you not racing this weekend?” Lando had made fun of you the most, finding it funny that the younger driver was not driving a normal car. Daniel had a laugh or two with it as well, but always hoping you’d know he was only joking. Even Max cracked a joke, never really participating in bullying the driver, as he respected you very much and saw himself in you at some times. But when Danny starts to joke, Max was fast behind him laughing silently along.

George, Alex, and Charles were trying to be encouraging but they were still making jokes about it. “Should I get you tomorrow? We can share a ride, as you can’t drive”, George laughed, and you just stared at him annoyed. You still agreed, every single time he asked you. 

You were grateful for your friends, but they were still annoying like nothing in your life was. So, when Seb noticed your fear, he felt bad for you. He wanted to help you; that’s why he offered to teach you how to properly drive. Not in an F1 car, but in a worn-down Subaru Outback H6-3.0. The car belonging to his father and was the perfect car to learn to drive in. It was a manual car, it’s important to know how to drive stick. The car was old, so if you kissed a wall, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal.

“Seb I’m scared, what if I hit someone?”, your concern laced your voice. Seb sighed, already explained to you that you were first going to practice on an empty parking lot and not actually going on the road. You had done your theoretical driving test and passed, with flying colors, but starting your practical driving lessons? You just couldn’t do that. 

You sat in the car, both hands on the steering wheel, arms so outstretched Seb’s arms were hurting. “Just relax, y/n, everything is going to be fine. You are fine and you got this, it’s not your first time driving, remember? It’s your job to drive”, Seb tried to calm you down. His left hand touching your right arm and guiding it to a comfortable level. 

“Okay, now first press the coupling and shift the stick to neutral. That’s it, good job”, he told you, telling you what to do. “Now you step slowly on the gas, slowly, yeah?” You were doing it; you were driving the car! And the more time you spent in the car with Seb, the easier the driving got. You were just so happy. 

The next time someone mad a comment about your normal driving, you bit back. When Carlos approached you, already smirking you knew what was going to happen. “Hey y/n, do you think you could drive me to the paddock tomorrow?” His eyebrows wiggling like crazy. You had to hold back your smile. “Uh, yeah sure, I mean I can try, right?”, you answered him. Carlos looked at you with surprise in his eyes. He nodded; nut sure what to expect the next morning. 

When you texted him, that you were outside, he didn’t think you would be waiting for him in a Ford Mustang 1966, your first self-owned car by the way. He looked pretty stunned as he opened the door to the passenger seat. He whistled at your car and made a comment such as ‘Nice one’. So, you started the car and drove him and you to the paddock. The hotel wasn’t far away, but there still enough time to show him your new learned driving skills. You still weren’t technically allowed to drive on your own, not having attended the driver’s test yet. But no one had to know that you drove five minutes without supervision. Carlos was now there to supervise you. 

You passed him your phone; it was connected to a Bluetooth speaker. “Choose what to listen to, but don’t play Smooth Operator, or I’ll be singing to you the whole time”, you laughed at him. He was just aimlessly picking a playlist and pressing play. Kilby Girl by The backseat Lovers started to play. Nodding your head to the beat of the song, Carlos was actually a bit scared of you losing focus. But you didn’t, you arrived safely at the paddock where Seb was waiting. He had a huge grin on his face, proud of you to actually drive with someone else other than him. He hugged you, whispering how proud he was of you in your ear. You smiled; Seb was definitely your comfort person. 

Later that day, when an interviewer asked about your driving skills off the track, it had become a meme, thanks to some of the drivers, you answered honestly: “Sebastian has helped me learn to overcome my fear of driving outside the paddock. He sat with me in a car, for hours and explained everything to me. It’s hard to believe I got my super license before my actual driver’s license, but it’s fine. It’s something more to add to my resume.” 

Seb was standing behind the camera, smiling and feeling proud. He held up his two thumps and outstretched them to you. You smiled as well and bid your goodbyes to the nice interviewer. You were glad to have Seb as your mentor and you made sure to tell him that enough. 

[interstellarlyinlove]

Almost kiss (May 13th)

word count: 707

@wolfstarmicrofic

Sirius is so angry he’s going to explode. He wants to break something but he’s sitting on his bed and there’s nothing to break. “What do you mean?”

Sirius can tell that Remus is also angry. His skin is blotchy and he’s pacing around their dorm room. “I mean, there is so way in hell I’m going to risk any of you getting hurt.”

“But there is no risk!” Sirius wants to hold Remus by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. “Why won’t you let us help you?”

“Because you don’t know that there is no risk!” Remus screams. “Who decided that an animagus is werewolf bite immune, again?”

“Mcgonagall said–”

“Everything McGonagall said is theoretical. And I’m sure she'd agree with me if she knew why you were asking her in the first place. There is no real-life proof or evidence or–”

“Remus, listen to me,” Sirius says, trying to keep his voice level. He stands up and crowds Remus’ personal space because he wants Remus to listen to him. He puts his hand on Remus’ shoulder, and Remus holds his gaze. “Animals can’t be werewolves. It’s safe. Lycanthropy only affects humans and how lucky are we? That’s–”

“Don’t patronize me!” 

“I’m not,” Sirius says. He tries again, “I’m sorry. Remus, we want to do this for you.”

Remus lets out a shaky breath. “Sirius, I truly appreciate it. I know I’m being harsh but this is the nicest thing someone’s ever done to me, and I love you all so much. It’s incredible. I can’t even express how grateful I am that you thought of something like this.”

Sirius shakes his head. He thinks it’s because they’re standing so close but he can’t scream anymore no matter how much he wants to. Instead, he whispers, “Don’t talk like that. This isn’t a favor.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“You could never hurt us.”

“I would never forgive myself if–”

“We’d be safe, Re. We’d be helping you.”

“Sirius, you’re not hearing what I’m saying.”

Except Sirius is hearing what Remus is saying, he just doesn’t like it. Sirius wants to enter Remus’ brain and poke around until he makes him see sense. More than anything, Sirius wants to make the most horrible thing Remus has to go through incredibly too often suck less, because no one in the world deserves to endure horrible transformations on full moons, but especially not Remus.

Sirius wants to say all of this, and he looks Remus in the eye and opens his mouth to do just that, but nothing comes out. Because Remus is looking at him all heartbroken and somehow hopeful at the same time and Sirius has never seen anything more breathtaking in his life. He doesn’t know what’s come over him and he swears he’s still angry and furious but Sirius feels like he’d implode if he doesn’t kiss Remus this fucking instant. And, oh, that is a thought. 

Sirius is too angry to care, and he’ll scream some more after the fact, so he leans the tiniest bit closer and it may be his mind fucking him over but he swears Remus does the same, and they’re breathing in the same air and–

“This took us forever to find but– oh.”

Sirius jumps. He turns around and sees James and Peter standing in front of him. James is grinning and Peter is holding an enormous ancient-looking book.

“If I knew that making out with Remus was all that it took to make him change his mind I would’ve done it myself.”

“That’s not–”

“James! You–”

“It’s safe!” Peter says, cutting Remus and Sirius off and hitting Sirius’ chest with the book. Sirius yanks the book from Peter’s grip. “Look at the bookmarked pages.”

Remus is blushing when he takes the book from Sirius the very next second. Sirius thinks he’s blushing as well. “You shouldn’t dog ear library books, Peter, ”Remus mumbles as he starts flipping through.

Sirius chances a look at James and he immediately looks away because he can’t handle that much self-satisfaction right now. Only then does Sirius realize that it’s safe. He looks at James again and grins. 

This is Sirius’ most favorite day, for more reason than one.

[runespoor7]

I mean obviously I’m am going to ask you about chengxian, for the ask meme

What made you ship it?

It was the most interesting relationship in the book. I'm a sucker for childhood friends with broken promises, for grief, for misunderstandings over loyalty and love, and for relationships whose resolution in canon is bittersweet.

It still took some time and effort before I started really shipping it. I was theoretically open to shipping it but I hadn't yet read fics that really sold me on it (this was in 2019, I think). Then as an experiment I put a WWX-inspired character in the setting I was GMing for the JC and JYL NPC stand-ins to have him to play off of. Turned out I did ship them.

What are your favorite things about the ship?

😬

*wide, helpless, expansive gesture*

It's never simple with them. It's always fraught. They love one another but they also resent one another. Hunting demonic cultivators is about WWX still maybe being alive. Maybe JC can bring himself to kill WWX this time, or maybe he can find a way to bring WWX back home and forgive him. WWX promises to be with JC but he ends up promising that he won't stay ("like my father served your father") but he didn't mean it with an end. the mess that is the fraughtness of WWX's liminal space when it comes to his social rank.

love hurts, what hurts is love.

the fact that the one 'leading' is WWX, not JC, going against the accepted social order. (tbh, if that wasn't the case, I probably wouldn't be into the ship.) it paints such a picture of WWX being so charismatic, and JC being so taken with him, that JC falls into being WWX's sidekick. no wonder YZY was awful about it.

JC keeping Chenqing like a mad dog and keeping Lotus Pier WWX-safe. I. god. JC rating WWX's attention >>>>>>>>>>>>> JC's self-respect every time, in every way. Amazing.

it's incredible to me how WWX asks JYL about love in a scene framed in a manner to make it subtextually point in the direction of LWJ (it's mdzs; the canon pair in mdzs is wgxn; there are no - explicit - love triangles in mdzs; and yet even WWX's original crush on LWJ is, uh. informed by JC and how WWX is with JC and the fact that LWJ is New and Not The Son of WWX's Benefactor. this is normal.), where it's apparent that WWX is scared of being in love because it changes how you act, it's a limit, it's a cage, you're limiting yourself for someone else - and then WWX does something for JC that is everything he was scared of.

and it does ruin him! it's terrible! so his romance with LWJ is everything his feelings for JC weren't. He's not the one doing the protecting. LWJ doesn't question him. There are no expectations of anything, no discussions of the future, no thoughts of society. LWJ is just such a comfort, just a good thing WWX gets because he wants it. Also LWJ isn't emotionally taxing af (this is a big one). (WWX kinda ends up YZY-ing himself at the end of the book but I'm not thinking about that.)

WWX's utter toxicity toward JC. not a iota of respect for either JC or JC's boundaries to be found, except when convenient for WWX.

they both really, really believe that WWX is better than JC in every way. it's very cool

look. i'm a simple person. arrogant genius jerk/grumpy dutiful tsundere otp.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I love the joke that chengxian isn't incest but both of them wish it were, but I think the only time one of them wished they were brothers was JC when he decided to sacrifice himself for WWX and he was lying in bed making morbid jokes. At least sacrificing yourself for your brother who is the better cultivator and can lead the sect would be simple. Forgivable. Good.

I also think they might grow to think of one another as brothers at some point post-canon, that's a sort of reconciliation that might happen, but to me it's key that during canon they don't know what they are to one another, they just know they're scarily, terrifyingly important, and there's no word for what they are to one another.

JC refused shixiong-shidi (in a shocking reversal of their normal dynamic, I think he forgot he did that and spent roughly two decades feeling insecure and weird that WWX doesn't call him shidi) and they can be nothing else, socially speaking. The love that dare not speak its name, if you would. And at that same time post-canon they could also decide that what they're to each other is that WWX used to be in love with JC, and maybe JC still is, and they're not brothers. Or maybe both! The point is, the definition of their relationship is uncharted waters and they never thought of each other as 'brothers' (much less called each other that).

2) WWX is incredibly bitter and resentful of giving his core to JC and that colors everything he thinks and says about JC afterwards, including after he's returned to life. Basically, he gave, and gave, and gave, and felt there was no gratitude, and he's unable to live the life he wanted, unable to reap the promises life made him, and JC isn't any more agreeable or tractable than before (less so, in fact!). It's not fair.

[cameronspecial]

Assisting In Deception (Part 2)

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of Sex and Assassinations.

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 2.8K 

Summary: Rafe makes an unusual offer that Y/N takes just to prove a point to her cousin.

Masterlist

Y/N enters Rafe’s office to see him scrolling on his phone at his desk. His coffee is left cold in its mug while his focus is on his phone. He looks in her direction at the sudden feeling of another presence in the room. She walks over to the chair in front of his desk and waits for him to put down his phone. “Yes, Ms. Y/L/N. What do you need?” he offers, giving her his full attention. She readjusts her posture with the sudden new gaze on her, “I know it’s a little early, but I was wondering if I could have March 18th off.” His eyebrows knit together in confusion. She isn’t one to request time off unless she is sick and he highly doubts she can predict being sick six months in advance. He knows she is a planner, but no one could schedule a sickness.

“Okay, may I ask why you need the day off?” 

“For my cousin’s wedding. I mean it would be great if I could have the whole six months just to look for a date, but I could do with just the day.”

“You need a date for the wedding?” 

“It’s not necessarily a need. It just would make my life a little easier to go to the wedding without being questioned by my relatives about why my romantic life is non-existent. It also doesn’t help that there are like a million parties before the actual wedding that I will be going to solo.” 

Rafe shifts his body weight forward, placing his elbow on his desk and his chin on his hand to show his interest. He feels as though fate plopped this opportunity in front of him. What are the chances that Y/N needs a boyfriend at the same time that he needs a girlfriend? “I have a proposition for you,” he states, calmy like what he is about to say is an everyday offer. Y/N’s head tilts, “What would that be?” He looks into her eyes and it feels as though he is about to reveal a deep dark secret. “I want you to be my girlfriend.” She sits there in shock for a solid minute; her mouth hangs open, saying nothing. Rafe worries, waving his hand in front of her face, “Ms. Y/L/N?” “I’m not sure what to say about that,” she admits with bewilderment all over her face. Rafe nods, “I should clarify. I would like for you to be my fake girlfriend. I would go to all of your family events and in exchange, you would let me use you to show the media that I’m not everything they say I am.”

“I see. So you want to use me.”

“Well, yes. But I shouldn’t have used that word. We would just make media appearances together and that’s it.”

“Theoretically, if I were to say yes, I need more details on what you would require me to do.” 

“Exactly what I said. You could flaunt me in front of your family. I’d go to the engagement party, bridal party, the wedding and any other thing related to the wedding. For me, you would just need to make one or two event appearances, be seen with me in public a few times and maybe one interview. That’s it. If you agree, we could write this all down in a contract.”

“What about the fact that you are my boss? Don’t you think people will say things about that?” 

“They probably will, but everyone will have criticism of who I say I’m dating anyway. I have full confidence that you can charm the public.” 

Y/N takes a second to ponder what he is saying. She weighs the pros and cons of his statement and in her mind, the cons come out on top. “I’m sorry, Mr. Cameron. But I don’t think I’m comfortable with the idea of being in the spotlight. Thank you for offering though.” She gets up from the chair and makes her way back outside.

——

It’s been a few hours since Y/N has been in his office and she can’t stop thinking about what he said. She turned down the offer because she wasn’t sure it was a smart idea with her crush on him. The relationship would be fake, but the possibility of her catching true feelings for him could be a risk. It would be too painful if that happened and then they had to stop dating. She would rather take the annoyance of being single than the pain of heartbreak. She still can’t believe how calm and collected he was throughout the whole conversation. He acted like he was asking her what she wanted for dinner, not like he was asking her to lie to the world about their relationship. The ringing of her phone snaps her out of her thoughts. 

She takes it out of her pocket to answer it. “Hey Y/N, how are you? Did you get Francine’s wedding invite?” Natalie asks through the phone. Y/N shakes her head at her cousin’s inability to hide what she really wants to know. Natalie has only ever had one interest in life and that is one-upping her cousin. “I did, Nat. Are you going?” she plays into her cousin’s game. 

“Of course, I’m going. I love Francine, so I would totally want to go to her wedding. Plus, Richard can take the day off. I’m thinking of getting us matching hats for the wedding. Well, a fascinator for me and a top hat for him.” 

“That sounds like a great idea. I’m glad that you are happy with Richard.”

“So… Are you going to be going to the wedding solo again?”

The hint of pity and patronizing in her tone irritates Y/N to no end. Y/N responds without another thought, “Actually, I do have a date. Not that it is your business really. Anyway, I have to go. My boss is calling me.” She hangs up the phone and sighs at what she has to do. She gets up from her desk, knocking on Rafe’s door. She enters at his approval and sits herself in the same chair again. “I accept,” she informs. “But I want a say as to what goes into the contract.” 

“I can work with that.” 

Rafe holds his hand out for her to shake. As she shakes it, worry floods through her. She realizes that this isn’t just going to be something her family is going to see, but the whole world is going to know about their relationship. What will they say when they learn she isn’t the heiress of some big company? What will they think if they learn she is his assistant? She buries her stress deep inside and promises to not let it out until this whole thing is over. 

——

The staff lounge is empty except for Topper sipping his tea whilst on his phone. He may be the head of legal at Cameron Development, but he always makes sure to get to know everyone in the company, no matter the rank of their job title. “Ahh, well if it isn’t the new Mrs. Cameron,” he jokes when he notices her at the door. She smiles at him and walks to the Nespresso machine, “That is not a new nickname that you are calling me. So I see you got the contract.” Topper laughs at the seriousness of her voice at what he called her. “That I did. I have to say I was not expecting to see a contract about your relationship with Rafe when I woke up this morning.”

“Me either. All I wanted was someone to go to my cousin’s wedding with me. And now, I am going to be paraded around his world.”

“Well, you could��ve just asked me. I’m always available to take you out.”

“Thanks but the only taking out I’m considering right now is the one where you would need a gun. All jokes aside, I think it’s going to be fine. Rafe is a good boss.”

“He is and if he ever gets on your nerves too much, you can always come to me.” 

“I’ll definitely keep that in mind.” 

——

Rafe looks around the subway station horrified about the state of the place. His expensive dark blue polo shirt and tan dress pants are a stark contrast to the hot and rat-infested platform. Y/N giggles at the look on his face, “It’s like you’ve never been on  the subway before.” “I haven’t,” he admits, looking at her with raised eyebrows. Her head moves from side to side and she hesitantly takes his hand to guide him onto the arriving subway.

One of the stipulations of the contract is that Y/N gets to take them on their first “outing” as a couple. She wanted to go out with him outside of work to get to know him more than the very little he’s allowed anyone he works with to get to know him; the exception being Topper and Kelce, who grew up with him and were given jobs when he took over the company. The other rule she stipulated is that she wants a soft launch of the relationship until it is necessary for her to be revealed as the mystery girl. At least, this way she can keep her privacy as long as she can. She had told Rafe to dress casually, but she really shouldn’t have been surprised that he still arrived looking like a million dollars. 

He keeps his sunglasses on as he pauses to sit down beside her on the subway seat. He takes a chance to glance at the costumed cookie monster and looks back at her. “Do you have to keep your sunglasses on? We are on the subway,” she questions, leaning in to talk to him. His eyes dart to the muppet beside him, “Yes, because me wearing sunglasses indoors is the strangest thing here. Why couldn’t we have taken my car?” She shoots him a playful glare. “Your fancy dancy car would bring too much attention to us and that is the last thing I want right now,” she explains, checking the subway screen to see how many stops until they get off. “Where are we going anyways?” he inquires, following her gaze. 

“It’s a surprise.” 

——

The pair exit the station and the sight before him is one he is familiar with. He isn’t sure what “regular” people restaurant is around Central Park, but he lets her steer them in the right direction. He looks down at their joint hand and he can’t help but notice how they interlace together perfectly. He shakes himself out of his observation and looks up to see the reason why she stopped. In front of him is a street cart that appears to be selling hot dogs. He looks over at her with a questioning look, “You want me to eat food that has come from a cart?” 

“Oh, come on. It’s not that bad. And this place has a permit. It’s fine.”

“You can eat that stuff, but I’m not risking it.”

“Stop being so snooty. Eating is part of a date. So you are going to go sit on that bench and eat whatever I get you. If you are a good boy, then maybe I’ll get you a Spider-Man or Spongebob ice cream. Dealers choice.” 

He stares at her in surprise that she talked to him in such an ordering manner. She always speaks her mind, but she normally does it in a less commanding way. He listens to what she says and goes to sit on a bench looking over the lake. After a few minutes, she comes back with two hot dogs and water bottles. She hands him one of each, “I have ketchup and mustard packets if you want. I didn’t get you a New York hot dog because I thought I would ease you into street food culture.” He takes the packets with thanks and adds the condiments to his meal. They eat in silence until she breaks the silence. “So you grew up in the Outer Banks. What’s that like?” He looks over at her, finishing chewing before answering, “Yeah. It was quiet.” 

“Wow, this has been a great conversation. Thank you for participating in it!”

“I don’t know what you expect, Ms. Y/L/N. I’ve never been much of a talker.” 

“First, when we are outside of the office, you can call me Y/N. Second, what I expect from you is to stop being Mr. Cameron, my boss, and to be Rafe, my boyfriend. If people are going to actually believe we are dating, then you have to separate those two.” 

“Okay, fine. I see your point. Ask me another question.” 

She grins at his offer and takes a second to think about it, “You are never playful or smile, so why do you tease me sometimes? It’s the least serious I’ve ever seen you.” 

“You’re the only one who isn’t afraid of me. Plus, it amuses me how flustered you get.”

Y/N is rendered speechless and she uses one hand to put her hair that is framing her face on both sides of her face behind her ear. The conversation flows in small talk while they finish their hot dogs. She takes their garbage and stands up, “You’ve been good. I guess I can get you an ice cream. Do you want Spider-Man or Spongebob?”

“Are those the only two options? What about the other flavours?” 

“Yes. Now, choose.” 

“Spongebob.”

She nods and heads back over to the stand. He watches as she pays for the sweet treats and returns to him. Rafe didn’t want her to pay for everything on the date, but she had put it as a requirement in the contract. He takes the package from her, opening it as soon as it makes contact with his hand. The disappointment on his face is evident on his face and she laughs. “This does not look like the picture,” his lips turn in a microscopic pout. Her head moves from side to side, “Things rarely do, Boss.” 

——

Y/N returns home from the date a little after five to find Juni sitting on the couch, watching TV.  “Where have you been? You didn’t tell me you were going out, Sweetie,” Juni interrogates, getting up from the couch to be closer to Y/N. She chuckles at her best friend worrying like her mother. She gives her a hug, “Did you forget that I told you about my fake date with Rafe today?” “Oh, yeah. I did. Sorry, I’ve been so busy with work that I forgot. How was your date with the Big C?”  she apologizes, sitting herself down at the kitchen island. 

“One. That cannot be your new nickname for him. Two. It was good. He opened up to me a little bit, so we are making progress. It was adorable, he was so disgruntled that the Spongebob ice cream wasn’t like the picture. Also, apparently, he teases me because he likes to see me flustered.” 

The loving look in Y/N’s eyes causes Juni to frown, “Just be careful with him. I don’t want you getting hurt in this whole fake dating thing, Sweetie. I’ve never seen these things end well.”

“Don’t worry. I won’t fall for him. He’s my boss and nothing more.” 

Alexander enters the apartment with no knock and an annoyed look on his face. “Why must people be so crude? Why does no one want a serious relationship anymore?” he complains, settling himself on the couch. The girls turn with concerned looks on their faces. “Another bad date?” Y/N poses, getting up from her stool to sit beside him. “Yes, this guy literally told me all he wants is a fuck buddy. And when I asked him why he still tried to match with me even though my profile said I wanted a relationship, he said that he just thought I was lying and would agree to just fucking when I saw his face,” he answers and lets himself be embraced by Y/N. Juni gets up to rub his back in reassurance, “Ugh, I hate men that are so cocky like that. I’m sorry the date went bad. He doesn’t realize what a great guy he is missing out on.” 

Heat rushes to his cheeks and he scratches the back of his neck. They look into each other's eyes. Anyone but them can see the obvious attraction between the two. Y/N looks between the pair with a slight bit of jealousy. She wishes that she could have chemistry like that with someone, but that would require believing in love first.

Taglist: @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @wickedlovely121 @aprilrudgate @loving-and-dreaming @thepatriarchykeychain @maybankslover @abbybarnesstuff @wh0reforbucknasty @spencereidbasis

[izvmimi]

malevolent enterprise ch. 1

cw: ceo!au. sukuna and yuuji are siblings. drug use. header by @/cafekitsune! a/n: background to a series of oneshots. masterlist

Exactly two unexpected things occur exactly one week to the hour of Wasuke Itadori’s death - 1. Yuuji Itadori, second grandson from his only son Jin Itadori, inherits all of Itadori Enterprises and its subsidiaries and 2. Yuuji’s older brother and lifetime antagonist Sukuna formally changes his name to Ryomen, and establishes Ryomen Industries.

Yuuji, in moments, is saddled with the grand title of C.E.O., and Sukuna, if he didn’t have enough reasons to dislike his kind, caring younger brother, has finally added yet another one to the list. This part doesn’t particularly bother him, after all, even Yuuji has to admit, no matter how much he has tried to love his brother over the years, Sukuna is fundamentally a piece of shit. 

And that’s exactly why he’s the perfect choice for the job.

Yuuji sighs and takes another piece of sushi off of the left flank of the poor girl who’s been laid prone and nearly naked on the table for most of the evening. He’d ask her if her shift was coming to an end soon but even he had to admit it felt weird asking about the work conditions to a girl who was meant to be a prop at an event that was theoretically in his honor. The salmon is exactly the right temperature and feel in his mouth and he can’t ask for more. He offers her a thumbs up as he walks past her which has her somewhat confused, then makes his way back to the lounge chairs.

Sukuna by now has stopped schmoozing all the other industry leaders in the room and now contents himself with four giggling floozies in his lap, his practically blood-red eyes glowing in the neon club lighting as he smirks at him. Yuuji gives him an exasperated look but finds a seat far away alone. He’s actually not sure why he’s still here - the new personal assistant that was assigned to him is already sending emails from the interim chief that he still doesn’t understand and Sukuna’s already told half of the attendees he expects him to run Grandpa’s business into the ground. A few girls venture in his direction, one of which Yuuji has to admit is pretty enough to make his cheeks warm (if it’s not his last three beers finally kicking in) but Sukuna’s already whistled and called them over by the time the first girl opens her mouth to introduce herself.

“I’ve got plenty of arm space to spare!” he practically cackles, and the last girl, the pretty one, takes a last look at Yuuji before apologetically sauntering over to his brother for attention. Sukuna and another young CEO, who Sukuna cruelly trash-talked just less than a month ago, take shots off of another woman’s chest, and Sukuna finishes off the theatrics with a line of coke down her abdomen. 

Yuuji rolls his eyes, but before he can get up and finally convince himself to leave rather than tolerate his brother’s antics, another body slides into the booth next to him, bumping him on the shoulder.

“New CEO!” 

Indoor sunglasses cover the young man’s eyes and before Yuuji can smile and embrace him, Satoru Gojo has him practically in a headlock mussing up his hair. 

“Oi! Stop!” Yuuji hisses, embarrassed to be treated like a kid, especially in the presence of his older brother already trying to force him back into the shadows. Yuuji recollects himself, adjusting the lapel of his shirt but Satoru frowns.

“I’m shocked you made it,” Yuuji says. He’s delighted to see his family friend, just as odd and eccentric as Sukuna can be but with less of the dickish behavior.

Somewhat. 

"I mean hopping on my jet, cutting my vacation short-” Satoru stops and sighs, stretching out his long limbs as he leans deeper into the soft cushions, “but of course I’d show up to congratulate you.” Gojo sits up suddenly, leaning in, and Yuuji doesn’t ask himself how he can see through those. 

“So are you gonna compete with me now? Throw me out of the market?”

Yuuji grins. “I don’t think you’re touchable in all honesty, but even if you were,  I think we can both agree to be successful.”

Gojo is satisfied with this answer. Clinking his beer bottle on Yuuji’s forehead, a move that genuinely throws him off guard, Gojo downs the rest of the bottle then turns, winking at a girl in Sukuna’s court, and when she nearly rises, Sukuna gives him a practically glowing red glare. 

Gojo laughs, then turns back to Yuuji who snorts.

“I think there are enough girls to spare, Aniki,” Yuuji teases. He leans in, draping his arm over his senpai’s shoulder. “After all, I’m pretty sure Sukuna’s laywer friend is here, just waiting for you to get on her nerves.”

Gojo laughs. “She hates my guts but I know she wants me in hers.”

Yuuji sips on the beer he’d set aside, not bothering to make an additional comment, remembering the last time he mentioned the redhead to him, he’d spent nearly thirty minutes just talking about her tits. Despite this, the same man could easily be found in numerous news articles with a number of different women, so he couldn’t actually be sure of the depth of his interest, but Yuuji had the feeling that Gojo felt a little differently about her. 

A sideways glance makes it clear that Satoru is already scanning the room, to see if she’s still here amongst the throng of people. Yuuji watches Sukuna who seems to have chased away the extra floozies and now sits with one girl straddling him, his own hand suspiciously low down the curve of his ass, and the other licking and whispering into his ear, something that looks vaguely doglike. Yuuji frowns and looks away, but Gojo has already risen, his own instincts prompting him to find someone to go home with. 

But before he can go off and get really wasted, Yuuji realizes he has a serious question for the more experienced corporate bigwig before he calls it a night.

“Aniki.”

Gojo’s head turns to him, a drunken half-smile on his face.

“Ne?”

“It’s a work question,” Yuuji answers with a tinge of discomfort. Asking for help is embarrassing at this stage, but Gojo is the only one who doesn’t judge him, rather helps even if it’s in a way that seems ridiculous, like some kind of flippant genius.

Gojo frowns.

“Fine, but you have to promise to have a good time.” 

With that, Gojo starts to sway with the music, and with the great length of his body and limbs, dressed in all black from head to toe, Yuuji is briefly reminded of bamboo gently swaying in the wind. He stifles a laugh before rendering himself serious again. 

“You’ll call me a dumbass but I have a new vacancy that’s sort of high up and I’m trying to figure out who to hire.”

The lenses obscuring Gojo’s eyes don’t help Yuuji gauge his thoughts but Gojo is still dancing so Yuuji continues talking.

“I want someone from the outside. Someone who didn’t know my grandpa or Sukuna. Any recommendations where I should start looking?”

Gojo does a full body roll, then stops. 

“I’ll send you an application tomorrow. Now loosen the fuck up.”

Yuuji blinks, then starts the two-step of a man who is under too much stress but not drunk enough.

“Okay.”

[sofa-king-lame]

A little Nanny!Buck AU snippet, as a treat.

Ok let me preface this by saying this one is a loooong way off. But here's a little taste:

—

Buck is right on time – early, even. Eddie notices a Jeep pull up in front of the house ten minutes before the scheduled time, and Buck gets out and is at the door right on midday. 

“Hey, I’m Evan. But please call me Buck,” he greets with a grin and extended hand. Eddie grabs is for a handshake that’s firm and warm, and although he knows theoretically it’s insane to already trust Buck – he does. 

“Eddie. Thanks so much for coming, I hear you’re a popular guy,” Eddie chuckles as he steps back to allow Buck in. 

“Ah, yeah. I do alright,” Buck laughs. “Should I take my shoes off?” 

“Up to you, I’m not fussed,” Eddie tells him and gestures towards the kitchen. Buck keeps his shoes on and follows behind Eddie, taking a seat at the table. 

“So, you work with Hen?” Buck asks, setting a thick folder down on the table. Eddie hadn’t even noticed he’d been carrying it, was a little distracted by how fucking beautiful this guy is. Is it a bad idea to hire a nanny you’re instantly physically attracted to? Probably (definitely). But given the alternatives Eddie had spoken to today he might not have a choice. 

“Have for about a year now, she’s pretty great huh?” 

“Oh yeah, she’s amazing. I love the Wilson family so much,” Buck replies with a soft smile. “I wish I had more time for them.” 

“What’s your availability like at the moment?” Eddie asks, dreading the answer. If Buck can’t help then he’s either gonna have to set up more interviews, or go with Busra and encourage Chris to wear headphones all day. 

“Wide open, actually,” Buck grins. “I just finished up with my most recent full-time family last week.” 

“I - what? Seriously?” Eddie gapes. “Can you start tomorrow?” 

“Yeah,” Buck laughs. “I mean – you should maybe ask me some questions first, make sure we’re a good fit.” 

“Hen trusts you. That’s enough for me,” Eddie breathes. “But you’re right. Uh. Chris sometimes has medical appointments that I can’t take him to because of my schedule. Is that something you’re able to do?” 

“I go wherever I’m needed. School pick-up and drop-off, appointments, overnights, weekends...your schedule would be my schedule," Buck tells him and something loosens inside Eddie’s chest. Maybe it’s going to be okay.

—

Tags under cut. Please let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from my tag list.

@playinginthunderstorms @elvensorceress @inbucksbusiness @singitforthegirls @sonofatoasterwaffle @crose84 @wrongfulruffian @carolinahope @heartsfromeden @shealwaysreads @lookforanewangle @eddiedisasterdiaz @dracculaura

[infiniteeight8]

Hello again, just me humbly requesting that you bless us with more of the IronStrange Can’t Find Out series. I know you said getting in the queue early is the best bet, so asking for updates right after you post a new one is my game plan. I need these boys to get their happy ending in this verse eventually! 😅❤️

Your timing was excellent! 😀 Along with the other two, but you know, that means you all got three updates not too far apart! Win for everyone. lol. 

I have two prompts in the queue for this series after this one. 

And now, Tony’s POV post-heat!

-

Tony throws himself down on the couch near the armchair where Pepper is curled up, reading. “I’m not a jealous person, right?” he demands.

Pepper puts her book aside. “You aren’t,” she affirms, partly because this is obviously the appropriate response for whatever rant Tony is about to launch into, and partly because Tony really isn’t a jealous person. If a potential—or even current—partner is more interested in someone else than they are in him, the last thing Tony wants is for them to stick around. And when the interest is purely theoretical, window shopping, to speak, he has no problem playing along with his partner’s appreciation.

He shoots her a despairing look. “Then why is the thought of this mystery alpha of Stephen’s driving me crazy?” 

“Probably because he’s hurting your friend, if unknowingly,” Pepper says. “You’ve always been protective of your friends.” And Tony’s feelings for Stephen had rapidly escalated past friendship, even if he was being a little stubborn about recognizing that. 

“I can’t stop wondering what this guy is like,” Tony says, tipping his head back against the couch. “Is he enhanced? A civilian? Has he even met Stephen in this timeline? Is Stephen pining for a guy who doesn’t know he exists, or a guy who doesn’t even want him?” Tony groans. “I can’t decide which is worse. I mean, being actively rejected is probably worse, but at least then Stephen might be able to get over the guy.”

“You said they had multiple lifetimes together,” Pepper interrupts gently. “I can’t imagine that’s easy to get over.”

Tony makes a frustrated noise. “I know. But I keep thinking, if I knew something about the guy, maybe I’d understand. Or at least I’d— I don’t even know.” Pepper knows. At least I’d be able to size up the competition. Or maybe, At least I’d know what he has that I don’t. But she keeps quiet. “But Stephen won’t say anything about the guy. Nada. Nil. Zip. Except that he’s an male alpha, and that he’s happily mated.” Tony slumps.

Pepper makes a sympathetic noise. Honestly, she’s a bit baffled, too. If it was her, she thinks she’d want to talk about her mate. Even if they couldn’t be together. Maybe especially if they couldn’t be together. But on the occasions she’s met Stephen, it hasn’t really seemed to her like he was pining. He’d been rather focused on Tony, actually, almost to the point of being rude, though Pepper hadn’t minded.

Wait.

“What’s that expression for?” Tony says, sitting up out of his slouch. He points at her. “I know that face. That’s your ‘I just realized Tony is being an idiot’ face. Spill. What’d I do?”

“Tony,” Pepper says slowly. “Does Stephen know why you and I got bonded?”

“Sure,” Tony says automatically.

“No, think about it,” Pepper insists. “Did you ever actually tell him, or are you just assuming he knows because you trust him enough for him to know?”

Tony opens his mouth, then stops, brow wrinkling. “I mean, I must have…”

“When?” Pepper demands.

Tony visibly searches his memory and comes up blank. “Okay, so I may have assumed. Why?”

Pepper laughs and shakes her head. “Tony. From Stephen’s perspective, you are happily mated and therefore unavailable.”

Tony looks stunned. “You think I might be the mystery alpha?”

“It would explain why Stephen’s been so tight-lipped,” Pepper says. “His friendship with you is all he has, and he’s probably terrified it’ll ruin it if you find out.”

“He wasn’t confusing me for his alpha during his heat,” Tony says with dawning realization. “He was forgetting that I wasn’t his alpha. He must have been worried he’d give himself away, that’s why he didn’t want my help at first.”

Tony is still for a moment, and then he leaps up and is halfway to the elevator before Pepper can react. “Tony, wait!”

He stops just short of the elevator and turns back uncertainly. “Pep. We always said—”

Pepper waves him off. “Of course we’ll break our bond,” she says impatiently. “But you can’t just rush over and throw yourself at Stephen. He’s been hurting. If you’re not careful, it’ll end up seeming like you’re throwing that back in his face. You need to slow down and think.”

Tony lets out a long breath and scrubs his hands through his hair. “Right. You’re right.” He gives Pepper a wry look. “Careful isn’t my strong suit.”

She smiles. “You’ll figure it out.”

[lunar-wandering]

bite of '87

the title doesn't really have anything to do with this fic, it was just the first thing i thought of when it comes to horror games.

anyways i wanted something silly so i wrote a lil something i thought of a while ago about Mei and Wukong streaming together

word count: 1k

read on ao3

It was a relatively chill stream, all things considered. In fact, despite having the Monkey King sitting in the chair beside her, quietly watching her play the latest most popular horror game on the net, Mei only had a slightly above average number of viewers, compared to her normal views.

And then Mei’s videogame character turned a corner, and triggered a jumpscare.

Mei, herself, quite used to this after many years of horror games, only slightly flinced.

Wukong, on the other hand, had been suitably spaced out, and hadn’t expected it. Thus, it was only perfectly natural for him to jump, fur standing on end, quickly maneuvering himself into a standing position on his chair (how he managed to do that without the chair falling over was a near miracle, Mei couldn’t help but think), and then started shouting.

If Mei had to guess, he was probably cussing out the game.

And, well, she did have to guess, because the noises leaving Wukong’s mouth were inhuman. Literally.

Mei blinked slowly as Wukong finally stopped shouting, panting, seemingly out of breath as he slid back down into a sitting position. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see her chat going wild, but she didn’t have the time to focus on that right now.

Mei paused the game, and then turned fully to face the Monkey King.

“Did- did you-” Mei started, stammered, and then decided to try again as Wukong turned his attention to her. “Did you just- chirp?? Squeak?? Like- like a monkey??”

Wukong froze.

“I mean,” Mei continued, ignoring him, “-you are a monkey, but like, did you speak monkey? Like, actual- y’know- bananas and all that-”

“Okay I’m stopping you right there.” Wukong thankfully interrupted before Mei could further go off the deep end trying to figure out how to describe a theoretical monkey language. “First off all. I did not speak monkey. That’s not- that’s not something I do-”

“Oh, you totally did.”

“I didn’t.”

“Uh, ya totally did.” Mei gestured at her computer screen, where her chat was still going wild. “Thousands of witnesses, Mr. King. They’re clipping this as we speak.”

“Well- uh, they’re wrong. And the clips are wrong.” Wukong said, crossing his arms as he stubbornly looked away from her. “It’s just the audio glitching out, or something like that.”

“The audio- Monkey King, you can’t use the audio as an excuse, because I am sitting here with you right now in real life-”

“No you’re not.”

Before Mei could even think of a retort to that absolutely insane statement, Wukong was gone. No bright flash of light, nothing other than a slight blur and the crackle of magic, and he was gone. The chair didn’t even move an inch. Mei was half convinced at this point that he must’ve put some kind of magic spell on it, because there’s no way a chair that spins around would’ve stayed completely still after that.

Mei continued to stare at the empty spot in silence for a moment longer.

And then she slowly turned back to face her chat.

“Do you see?” She asked, “Do you see now, chat? Do you see what I have to deal with on a daily basis?”

Her chat continued to fly by at a speed too fast for her to read, so she instead leaned back, covering her face with her hands as she let out a long tired sigh.

Only to startle at the sound of her window opening behind her.

“Hey, Mei!” MK’s voice sounded, and Mei shifted to the side so that her camera could see her now open window and the Monkie Kid entering through it. “I’ve got a delivery for you!”

With that said, he lifted up his other arm, revealing Wukong, who looked incredibly unimpressed at the fact his successor was casually lifting him up by the back of his clothes. Stepping down into Mei’s room, MK dragged the reluctant Monkey King in with him.

“…One question.” Mei said, “How did you…”

“Oh, he teleported to me.” MK snorted, rolling his eyes as he dropped Wukong back into his chair, and then proceeded to lean against the side of it. “Like I wouldn’t be watching the stream and would help him hide. Seriously, Monkey King, do you even know me?”

“Unfortunately, I do.” Wukong grumbled under his breath, clearly unimpressed with his current situation. MK and Mei both heard him anyways.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” MK leaned forwards, “It better have been you agreeing to answer Mei and the chat’s questions.”

“I agreed to no such thing!” Wukong tried to get up out of the chair, only for MK to put his hands on his shoulders and force him back down. “Kid, let go-”

“You will sit down, and you will answer the questions, Monkey King.” MK said. Wukong briefly stopped struggling to look up at him.

“…Is this because I knocked over your paints when I teleported into your room.”

“Eh, just a little bit.” Both Mei and Wukong gave MK twin looks of deadpan disbelief. “Okay, so maybe a lot of it is, but still-”

Wukong managed to free himself from MK’s grip, knocking the chair out of the way as he stood up, clearly ready to run again. MK slipped down into something akin to a fighting position, ready to grab him. Mei pulled her legs up onto her chair in order to sit crossed legged as she watched the staredown.

“Monkey King. Sit down and answer the questions.” MK said.

“You. Can’t. Make. Me.” Wukong’s eyes flashed a bright red.

“Bet.” MK’s eyes flashed gold, his hair growing slightly longer.

There was a beat, and then in a flash of golden light, Mei had two monkey demons fighting on her floor. Mei blinked as Wukong turned into a bird, only for MK to pin him down under one hand, prompting him to change back to normal to knee his successor in the chest.

Mei glanced at the game that was still paused on her computer.

Then she reached for her camera, angled it so it could capture the fight, ran as fast as she could with her dragon speed to get some popcorn, and then returned to her prior seat.

As she shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth, Mei absentmindedly noted that her viewers had doubled while she hadn’t been looking.

Well. Anything for the views.

[mrcaptainrex]

When We Are Worms.

Pre-Order-66!Crosshair x F!Reader (No Y/N)

Warnings: Swearing, because Crosshair. Sleepy-Grumpy Crosshair. I can't imagine Crosshair being a lovey-dovey guy, so he's awkward and kind of a grumpy bitch. Sorry not sorry.

Summary: Crosshair and his lover talk about their theoretical life as worms instead of getting much needed sleep.

A/N: Yes I did just write a one-shot where worm-life is a metaphor for freedom. I hate how proud I am of this.

_________________________

Being a clone was a shitty way to live. Being an experiment was even worse. From the moment Crosshair was "born", he was raised on the expectation to be perfect. He was never allowed privacy, or a good meal, or even the chance to choose his own passions. He hated it. He hated that no matter how much he hated it, he couldn't imagine what else he could do. He wasn't exactly fit to be a cook, or a mechanic, or any other boring civie job. He had come to accept that no matter how much he wished, he could never be anything but a clone. A soldier. Property.

But not to her. To her, he was everything. A loving man who was good, smart, and funny. A man who she could imagine loving in any galaxy. A man who, if not for their unfortunate circumstances, she would have already married and taken far from this war.

Moments like this made it all worth it. Moments where his brothers were out, and it was just the two of them alone on the Marauder on a cool night. Where she lay next to him with her head on his chest, resting quietly while his hand stroked her bare arm. Moments where, for a second, they could be a normal couple. No war, no politics, no intruding-brothers. They were just two lovers, enjoying the presence of each other and the comfort their silence provided.

They were both beginning to drift into much-needed sleep when she broke the quiet.

“I just thought of something.” She said, lifting her head off his chest as if she had reached a brilliant conclusion.

“How unfortunate.” Crosshair mumbled. He didn’t even bother to open his eyes.

She thought for a moment, and then settled back onto his chest to look into his eyes. “Cross?” She asked quietly.

She only received a sleepy hum in response.

“You love me right? No matter what?” This finally got some of his attention. His eyes opened and met her own with confusion.

After a moment to come up with a sarcastic comment, he settled for, “It would appear that way, mesh’la.” He seemed satisfied with his nonchalant answer and laid his head back on the pillow, allowing his eyes to close once again.

“What if I was a worm?”

By now he accepted that he wasn’t going to sleep for a while. His eyes snapped open, with a furrowed brow and confused look in his eye. “What?”

“Would you love me if I was a worm?”

“Why the fuck would you be a worm?”

She couldn't help but giggle at his response to the illogical question.

“I dunno, weirder things have happened.” She thinks for a minute, trying to imagine a plausible scenario that involves turning her into a slithering creature. “What if one day I’m cursed by an evil witch, and I’m condemned to worm-dom for the rest of my life?”

Crosshair hums sarcastically, as if what she’d suggested was just as likely as getting an ingrown toenail. “Depends. Am I a worm too? It’d feel kind of zoophilist if I were still human.”

Despite the absurdity of the conversation, his words made her heart swell. She lifted her head from his chest and propped herself up on her elbows. “You’d want to be a worm with me?” She gasped.

He found it odd that such a conversation could still leave her enamored with him. He swore he could say anything and she’d still find the sweetest meaning behind it. Then again, she saw the good in everyone.

“I mean.. I would prefer it to being a human in love with a worm. What if I stepped on you?” She was sure she’d never been more in love with him.

“That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said.” She whispered, placing a kiss to his nose.

“Clearly I need to step up my game, then.” She settled back onto his chest and continued imagining their lives as a squiggly object. As Crosshair finally allowed his eyes to drift shut..

“Where would we dig our hole?”

A sigh. “Seriously?”

“I’d want to dig it by the lakes on Naboo. Peaceful, moist..” While she was in dreamland, he grimaced at the repulsive ‘m’ word.

“Naboo would be a horrible idea. Tech told me Gungans use worms as garnishes. Alderaan would be better. It’s easier to raise wormlets when they’re not being eaten.”

She could have sworn she felt her heart stop beating for a few moments. "Wormlets?"

He shrugged. "I dunno, whatever the fuck baby worms are called."

He turned his eyes from the ceiling to look at her. To his surprise, he could spot tears in her eyes. Immediately, he thought he had overstepped. "I-I'm sorry. I know kids aren't.. can't happen for us."

She shook her head and blinked her tears away. "No! No, I'd love that. I just.. Well, I didn't know that was something you wanted.. Do you?"

A sorrowful sigh escaped his lips. "Maybe one day." He stretched his neck to place a chaste kiss to her hair. With as much love as he could muster after the exhausting events of the day, he whispered to her, "When we're worms."

He never thought he would say that to his lover..

"When we're worms." She repeated with a smile on her face. Satisfied, she snuggled closer to his chest and allowed herself to sleep.

Crosshair, on the other hand, found himself too pleased with the thought of the future to allow him to sleep.

One day, when the war had ceased to exist, or at least ceased to involve them, they would become worms, and dig their happy hole, in the softest of dirt, and safest of fields. Someplace where they could have as many wormlets as they want, and where no crow or gungan could disrupt their peace. One day, when they become worms, they would live as the happiest worms that ever squiggled. He was sure of it.

[supper-ansuta-broth]

Time for a post about something I've been personally researching for a while!

In most cases, there are three ways to exit a live. In the first (and most common) case, the song is completed, the player is taken to the live results screen, and depending on their performance, is either granted credit and rewards for completing the song, or is taken back to the song selection screen.

The second way to exit a live is a little more common among players who are frustrated with their current performance in the live: simply hitting the pause button mid-song and exiting out of the live, losing whatever BP they may have used and forfeiting the chance to get any rewards at all.

But there’s a third, less known-about way to exit a live, and that’s achieved through closing out of the app entirely. If a player starts a live then, at any point during the live, exits out of the app and allows it to close completely or refresh, upon opening the app again the player is greeted with the normal splash screens and startup loading sequence. And when all of it is over, the player is given a text box asking them if they’d like to forfeit the live, much like option 2, or if they’d like to continue the live where they last left off.

This function, as it turns out, has some strange impacts on gameplay. For one thing, if you had the 3D MV turned on for this live, the MV will be disabled, instead being replaced by the card CG of whatever card you had in your Performer spot.

But this function also has another, lesser known consequence that, although it doesn’t seriously impact gameplay in most cases, can make for some strange or interesting occurrences that wouldn’t otherwise happen during a normal live.

So, let’s talk about it. In this post, I’m going to be discussing a phenomenon I like to call the “Re-Entered Live Start Timestamp”, or the RLST for short.

(Disclaimer: This post focuses on the Japanese version of Ensemble Stars!! Music, and not everything here may apply to other versions of the game (most relevant here being the English Ensemble Stars!! version). Thus, I cannot confirm if anything mentioned in this post will work for any other version of Ensemble Stars!! Music. Additionally, everything in this post is completely irrelevant to Ensemble Stars!! Basic. If you have any questions, feel free to send us an ask and I’ll answer whatever I can.)

So, let’s break down this term piece by piece.

The “Re-Entered Live” part is easy enough to understand. Like I talked about in the intro, a re-entered live is a state of live gameplay in which the player has exited out of the app, allowed the app to refresh, or through some other means, has been booted back to the startup screens and has chosen to continue a live. Easy enough.

But, what about that “Start Timestamp” part? This is where we have to discuss some theoretical ways the game itself functions, specifically as it relates to handling how far a player has progressed into a live. So, keep in mind that I don’t know exactly how the game works in regards to this subject, or why they work this way. These are simply my observations about the game, and my assumptions as to why these decisions were made.

In very basic terms, each song that can be played in a live has a certain duration attached to it. The game keeps track of how far a player is into the song by keeping track of this time. In a perfect system, if a player were to exit out of the app and re-enter the live they were in, the game would take them to the exact timestamp where they left off, and they would be able to continue playing as normal.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, this is the case. However, there are certain things the player can do, and certain songs the player can select, that will make this system behave a little strangely.

Recall that, upon re-entering a live after closing and reopening the app, 3D MVs are disabled for the remainder of the live and replaced with a still card CG. In most cases, this changes very little about the song in question, and the live can be played as normal with little impact to the player.

However, there are certain songs with certain attributes about them that would make this transition inconvenient for the player. Specifically, there are several songs in the game with long opening cutscenes preceding the actual music, and there are several songs in the game with alternate versions depending on the presentation mode selected, especially ones that show up in the YouTube 3D anime selections, like Crossroad or Checkmate.

These songs, and actually every song in the game, has a specific point which tells the game “if a player exits out of the app and re-opens the live before this point, skip them ahead to this point, usually just before the song starts”. This timestamp is the one I like to call the RLST. Essentially, if you enter a live, and then immediately quit out of the app before the song even has a chance to start, the game will put you forward in time to the RLST and allow you to continue the live from there.

There are a few guidelines that the RLST must follow:

It cannot be negative. (Obviously.)

It must start at some point before the earliest possible note in any given difficulty (that is to say, the RLST cannot skip notes). And,

A player must not be able to backwarp (i.e. skip backwards) to the RLST, only forwards.

For most songs, the RLST is so close to the timestamp 0:00 that it would be almost undetectable unless you were literally counting frames between start times. However, there are a few examples of songs with very noticeable RLSTs, and some that are more convenient and even comical than others. I’ll go through a few examples here.

1. Noir Neige

The song Noir Neige, the second of the Christmas shuffle unit songs, is pretty well-known for having a 20 second long intro cutscene at the beginning of the song, with no dialogue or even music to accompany it, one of the longest in the game. Although nowhere near the top spot for taking the longest amount of time to, for lack of a better term, “get on with it”, it does take the top spot (as far as I’m aware) for the longest intro in a live with absolutely no inputs, including its Special difficulty version. However, by using the RLST to one’s advantage, one can skip this cutscene altogether, as the RLST for this specific song is placed directly between the cutscene’s end and the song’s beginning, thus bypassing the need to sit through Ritsu handing his brother a pomegranate twenty-seven times.

Unfortunately, though, this doesn’t appear to save any time when grinding lives, unless your device is prone to lag with 3D MVs enabled. In fact, it takes significantly longer to start up the app again after closing it than it would to simply wait out the cutscene. However, if you happen to be playing during an event and need a quick song to use 10 BP on and come back to later, this may be a good option for you, considering that if you let the app close after starting the live, upon your return you won’t need to sit through that long cutscene, making this otherwise lengthy song a bit more manageable at just over 2 minutes.

I should also mention here that Hamtaro tottoko uta, although also having a ridiculously long opening cutscene at just over forty seconds, has its RLST set at just before the opening clock chime at the beginning of the cutscene, considering for the higher difficulties, this opening cutscene is charted. Therefore, this same trick cannot be applied there, despite its cutscene being double the length of Noir Neige’s.

2. Nekketsu☆Ryusei Ninpouchou

Nekketsu☆Ryusei Ninpouchou is another event song with an opening cutscene, although this one is significantly shorter. Since this is pretty much the same case as Noir Neige’s opening cutscene, I won’t go as in-depth here, but the RLST for this song is placed after the point with the beeping, AR Mode screen. Again, it would take significantly longer to reload the app than it would to simply sit through the cutscene, and it wouldn’t save that much time during event grinding like Noir Neige would, but it’s still a nice oddity to note.

Additionally, other songs with opening cutscenes may have them skipped via their RLST placements, so unless there’s anything notable like in the next few examples, they probably won’t get called out by name. So, consider this an acknowledgement of all of them.

3. Ryou Kataomoi no Kousaten de, Kimi ni Mata Aitakute

Along with having a comically long title, the song for the Koisuru♡Scramble April Fools 2024 event has a comically placed RLST as well. Upon closing out of the app after entering this song, players may be horrified to find that the song has placed them directly on top of a double note, meaning if you aren’t quick enough, or if your timing is off, you may miss it altogether. As far as I’m aware, this is the only song with RLST placement like this, although some other songs’ RLSTs may be placed in such a way that the first notes of a song are visible. Although slightly cruel, the rest of the song is forgiving enough that you can rapidly tap your screen as the unpause timer counts down and be fine for the most part.

4. ROCK ROAR

This song is a good showcase of the second purpose of having an RLST: normalizing the restarting of every version of the same song. Some songs, like ROCK ROAR, have several versions that can be played: in this case, one with a 3D MV like the rest of the songs in the game, and one with a “Movie” MV, which here is a clip of the Crossroad Selection series in which this song plays. The clip used also has a short introduction that plays before the song starts. Unlike the previous few examples, however, the RLST doesn’t necessarily skip ahead of this cutscene. Instead, it seems to play a version of the song that’s been cleaned of any excess sound effects and dialogue from the Crossroad episode in which it was featured, sounds that are heard if you let the movie version of the MV play normally. This effect is present in several other songs, including We’ll be “Knights”, one that doesn’t have an opening cutscene, but a closing one, that is silenced entirely upon closing the app and re-entering a live.

These aren’t every example by far, but they’re some of my favourites.

There are a few other consequences of re-entering a live after exiting the app, but none I’ve seen so far have been as in-depth and scarcely documented as this. It’s also unclear whether or not this is actually an intentional feature by the developers, an unwelcome necessity in programming, or if it’s simply an oversight (especially in the case of example 3 discussed earlier).

Regardless of the reason why the RLST exists, it’s a fascinating quirk about a game full of little quirks that pique my interest. I hope that, in discussing how the RLST functions, I’ve sparked some interest in this niche mechanic of Ensemble Stars!! Music. If I have, feel free to tell me about it through an ask, or if you have any questions, I’d love to hear those, too.

Thank you all so much for reading, and happy playing!

(Here's a clip of #3 in action, too:)

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

orchid

a/n: thought about splitting this one up into multiple parts, but no, you're just getting one big fic. yet again, just a daydream I had that I scribbled down, just vibes, nothing fancy. also the tiny apartment she lives in, that's just where I lived a year ago. like a ghost in the attic (also also also, I almost exclusively worked on this in the middle of the night, so if it’s not up to par with the rest of my works, I do sincerely apologise)

update: i will not write a part 2 for this story so please stop asking me! you are giving me a stomach ache 

summary: “Alright, so even though I’m not, why is it that it would be such a bad thing if I theoretically had a thing for him?”

warnings: Sirius Black x reader, modern!au, college!au, starving artist!reader, posh boy Sirius, very light enemies to lovers energy, probably extremely inaccurate country club, reader works at the country club, playing 20 questions, kissing, sexual comments and references but no actual smut in this one, alcohol consumption, a little bit of light B & E as a cute date, small tolkien reference, open ending (kinda)

word count: 6023

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“All right, listen up folks,” bellowed the short snappy figure of your boss, “it’s gonna get a lot busier starting today since a lot of the member's kids are coming home on break from boarding school and university and whatnot, so that means not only will there be more people to keep happy but also a lot of stressed-out parents who await the luxury that they are paying for. I expect you all to be on you’re A-game, is that clear?” 

“Yes, Mr Barrett,” echoed throughout the room like a choir.

“Good. Now get back to work everyone!” 

Just as the herd started to thin, Mr Barrett waved you over before you had a chance to slip out, “Y/l/n!”

Watching your work friends duck out before he could call upon them as well, you gave in to the newly formed reflex and said, “yes sir?”

Not lifting his eyes as you stepped closer, he kept them glued to the clipboard in his hand and ordered, “go restock all the bars.”

“Um, why? Didn’t Tim just do it last Monday?” 

“He did,” Mr Barrett finally glance up at you and explained sternly, clearly already being over this conversation, “and now I’m telling you to go do it again. Look, these folks' kids are coming home. So, trust me when I tell you that it needs to be fully stocked.” 

“Alright,” you exhaled and scurried out at the irked wave of his hand. 

You hadn’t been working here at the Millington club for that long, but even when you consider the fact that you had to mosey up to a bunch of insufferable rich folk, the paycheck was still a lot better than any other place you’d ever worked at, consequently making it tolerable.

Now balancing a heavy cardboard box jam-packed with various clanking liquor bottles, you made your way through the glamorous halls of the club, first making your way down towards the east side lounge. Glancing down at the clinking flasks, you couldn’t even begin to calculate how many months of rent you would have to give for even just one of these lavish drinks. 

As you entered the posh sitting room and made your way over towards the bar, a collection of rowdy voices caught your ear.

“No way, I don’t believe it.” 

“No, I’m telling you, mate,” you sat the box down on the marble countertop and glanced over to spot the young raven-haired man answering his friends, “it’s true, right there in the library.”

“What genre was it in?” one of the two young men asked. They were all three spread out on a few small queen Anne couches, clustered in the corner, as if they owned the whole establishment, “biography? That corner’s pretty private…”

“Um, I was a little too preoccupied to notice,” the cocky boy scoffed, “you know, with my head being all the way under her skirt and all.”

Kicking his feet up onto the mahogany coffee table in the middle, the bespeckled one in the group chuckled, “only you mister I lost my virginity in a threesome could just casually have that happen to him on a Tuesday afternoon.”

“Who was it with anyway?” the other one asked. 

Furrowing his brows, the man in the centre of the story genuinely didn’t seem to remember, “I think her name was Emma? Something like that.”

“Didn't your mother tell you it’s creepy to stare?” you flinched at the sudden and sneaky arrival of your co-worker’s familiar voice, uttering directly into your ear.

“Jesus fuck, Lucy! Don’t scare a girl like that! I could have dropped one of these,” you held up the expensive bottles in hand, then swiftly went back to putting them away. 

“Please don’t tell me you have a thing for him,” she ignored your annoyance, crossing her arms. 

“What?” was she referring to the brash handsome man you couldn’t rip your eyes away from just a second ago? “No! I don’t even know who he is.”

“Wait, you don’t know who that is? 

“No.”

“Seriously?”

“Nope.”

“That’s Sirius Black,” she told you as if the name alone was common knowledge, but then continued as the lightbulb over your head clearly didn’t turn on, “Orion Black’s oldest son?” still nothing, she tried one last time, “as in the Black automobile company? That super old posh one?”

“…the one that the royal family drives around in?”

“Ding, ding, ding!” she threw up her arms and continued to look at you as if you were an idiot. 

“Alright, so even though I’m not, why is it that it would be such a bad thing if I theoretically had a thing for him?”

“Because that man right there, gorgeous as he might be, is the biggest playboy on the planet. He doesn’t even know what the definition of a relationship is, let alone love. Y/n, I know you. You, my wonderful friend, is a relationship type of girl, not a casual sleep-around like it’s nothing type of girl. So, trust me when I say, don’t go there.”

“I wasn’t gonna!” you said defensively as she finally turned around and left you to your work. 

Bending down to open up a small cabinet, you kneeled on the polished hardwood floor and scurried to finish your work of restocking the bar.  

“Hey love,” you heard after only a minute had passed. Glancing up, you saw the very same man you had been so fixated upon earlier, casually leaning his forearm against the counter. He looked like he could have just stepped out of a ralph lauren ad with how impeccable his clothes were. 

Shooting up, nearly bumping your head on the way, you felt your heartbeat pick up as his dark eyes bored into you, “hi! Can I help you with anything?”

“Me and my mates over there were just about to go do something a little more fun than what this snooze fest has to offer,” he gesticulated, then added rather smoothly, “you look like you could use some fun, you should join us.”

“Sir, I can’t just leave,” you cocked your head, “I’m in the middle of my shift.”

“So, when do you get off?” he asked, but then as you simply averted your gaze, scrambling for a polite way to untangle yourself from this mess, he pushed, “oh, come on, I know you want to.”

Keeping your eyes low, you shook your head, “I’m not really supposed to socialise with members.”

“Ah,” he leaned in a little closer, lowering himself to your eye level, “you’re a real good girl, aren’t you?”

Eyes growing wide at his suggestive word choice, you blushed, “e-excuse me, sir?”

“I noticed the way you were looking at me,” his studying gaze didn’t waver for a second. 

“Oh, that wasn’t-“

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell if you won’t.” He then leaned in even closer, “hey,” nearly whispering into your ear and effectively sending shivers down your spine, “if it fits your schedule better, we could just go into the billiard room right now…”

“Why would we-“

“My friends can stand by the door if you’re nervous,” he interrupted once more, reaching up to push a lock of your hair behind your ear, “no one will bother us, promise.”

Completely stunned by his bold proposal, it took you a few seconds to decline, “sir. I-… I’m gonna go back to work now…” then slowly picked up the now empty cardboard box and exited the room, leaving Sirius alone to pick up the pieces. 

“She’s new… I want her.” 

That was all Sirius had uttered to his friends before making his way over to hit on the new girl, occupied restocking the bar. 

Now standing there, alone and blinking hard, not understanding why his usual charm hadn’t worked on you, he heard his friends come up behind him.

“How did it go? You meeting her in the bathroom or what?” 

“She turned me down…” he was still frozen, staring out the door you’d disappeared through, with a stunned smile on his lips and a determent glint in his eyes. His words didn’t sound unhappy, simply surprised and even a little amused. 

“That’s nice, good for your health to be turned down by a pretty face such as hers. Also means you are in fact human after all,” Remus pulled out his box of cigarettes and swiftly tugged one into the corner of his lips to lite it, “so, that’s nice to know…” noticing the look in Sirius’s eye, “come on,” he wrapped an arm around his neck, “we’ll just go out tonight. Get you nice and pussy drunk. That’ll make you forget her in no time, promise.” 

“Funny seeing you here,” you didn’t even bother to look up as the slightly familiar voice found your ears. 

“Yeah,” you kept your eyes on the list in your hand just a little longer, “it’s almost like I work here or something.”

Finally glancing up, you met the intoxicatingly dark eyes of none other than Sirius Black, “you’re funny…”

“So,” you started moving along, not letting his bugging hold you back from executing your work, “is there anything I can do for you, sir?”

His long legs made it a piece of cake for him to follow along with you, “go out with me.”

Stopping your stride, you sighed, “Mr Black-”

“Please, call me Sirius,” he interrupted you with all the charm in the world.

“Mr Black, excuse me for being blunt but when will you get the hint?”

“Y/n, hey!”

This dude really doesn’t quit. 

“You know my name now,” you couldn’t stop your eyes from rolling even if you wanted to. 

“Yeah, well I asked around a bit about you. That was just one of the many tantalising facts I learned about you,” he winked, and you tried your best to ignore the butterflies that cheap trick had successfully sent fluttering throughout your stomach. 

Moving to leave the room, he swiftly blocked the door, making you see nothing but his annoying smirk, “seriously dude, what will it take for you to just leave me alone?”

“Go out with me,” he shrugged lightly and crossed his arms. 

“No.”

“Why not?”

Feeling like you might explode if he didn’t get out of the way, you exclaimed, “because I’m not I’m not gonna sleep with you!” your eyes grew a bit wider at the proclamation you’d let slip out.

“Oh really?” he simply smiled, clearly just taking it as another challenge. 

Squeezing your eyes shut, you hoped that the conversation would get less uncomfortable if you couldn’t see his jaw-dropping visage anymore, “yeah, I’ve heard what people say about you.”

Completely loving it, he clearly took that as a good thing, “really?”

“Yeah, well it’s like a fucking ghost story around here, so I didn’t have much of a choice. You’re just that kind of guy and that’s fine! But you just need to know, all that charm, it won’t work on me, so you might as well just turn around now. I am not just gonna be another notch in your belt, another hot new little thing for you to pass the time with, okay?”

Eyes still shut, you thought for a second he had left with how long he took to answer you, “okay, fine.” 

“Fine?” you finally blinked your eyes open.

“Fine,” he smiled, “I won’t sleep with you.” 

“Great!” you threw up your arms and moved to exit the room, though he stepped in front of you again, leaning down to be at your height.  

“I mean, it’s probably gonna be really hard for you to resist after the date I’ve got planned out, but sure, if you don’t want to.” 

Gnawing the corner of your bottom lip for but a moment, you gave out, “if I say yes to go on a date with you, one date, will you leave me alone?” 

Face only inches from your own, his smile grew wider as he agreed, “deal.”

“Mr Black! Welcome back, sir,” not only the security guard but also an older gentleman in a crisp suit had greeted you both at the entrance of the unusually vacated museum, “enjoy your evening.”

“Thank you, Henderson,” Sirius politely shook his hand before planting it on the small of your back, guiding you further inside. 

Glaring up at him as if he was an alien, he finally questioned your gaze, “what?”

“What are we doing in here?” you spoke in a near whisper, “the museum closed like 2 hours ago.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged, climbing the big stone steps that lead up towards the first exhibit, “my family’s a big donator to this place, so I just pulled a few strings.”

Fighting the urge to roll your eyes, you simply followed him into the first breathtaking room and breathed out, “okay…”

Even if the company was somewhat challenging, you couldn’t deny how the beauty hung up all around you made the evening at least tolerable. Your little art heart was too weak not to swoon at the sight of all the impressionistic pieces that were on display in this season's unique exhibit. Iconic pieces you could have only dreamed about studying this close. 

After a surprisingly long while where Sirius miraculously shut up and simply let you roam and relish in the paintings, you took a deep breath and decided to actually make the smallest of efforts to test if your companion did in fact have any more depth than a teaspoon. 

“So,” you started as he settled in beside you, his dark eyes washing over the landscape in front of you, “you’re home from uni for a bit?”

“Yep,” he buried his hands in the pockets of his black trousers, “oxford.”

You felt so strong for not just bolting in the opposite direction. “You’re an oxford man?” you scoffed, “should have figured…”

“Like my father was and his father before him,” he added rather coldly, sounding like this was a rehearsed reply that pained him to recite. 

“What do you study?”

“Business,” he kept his answer short. 

“Oh yeah?” you glanced over, trying to break through and see if his outsides matched his insides, “is it fun?” 

Brows furrowing, he turned to meet your gaze, “what does that have to do with it?”

“You don’t enjoy your major?”

“It’s just,” he inhaled deeply, uncomfortably trying to end this specific chat, “school, you know?”

“No, I actually don’t,” you informed him, slowly moving towards the next painting. 

“No?” he followed. 

“I don’t go to school,” you informed. 

“You don’t?” 

“No.”

“Oh, okay…” he averted his gaze, but still felt the need to explain his confusion, “I knew you liked art, so I just kinda assumed that you went to school for that or something…”

“Why bother paying a ridiculous amount of money in order to learn about something that I’m already really good at? No one is gonna deny me the right to create art just because I don’t have some fancy degree in it. If it’s a masterpiece, then it’s a masterpiece.”

“Yeah, I guess so…” you could tell how foreign your words were to him, “so that’s what you do for a living? You paint?” 

“It doesn’t pay the bills, but that’s not really the point now is it?” you reflected with a small smile, “just because it’s what I do doesn’t mean I earn a large profit from it, if any at all.”

For a moment, he just went quiet, staring at the many paintings with a slightly glossed-over look in his eyes. You were trying to catch his glances, read what it was that was going on inside that head of his, but your timid attempt at finding a new topic to blossom suddenly became the most effortless task in the world the second that he casually rolled his sleeves all the way up to his elbows.

“Wait, you have tattoos?” tumbled out of you as soon as you spotted the ink. 

“Yeah,” he gave a small shrug. 

“How did I not know that?” you asked, sounding genuinely interested. 

“Guess my pretty face was just a bit too distracting for you to notice,” he winked, regaining a bit of his usual confidence, “do you have any?”

“Yeah, a few. Though they’re just some stick-and-poke ones one of my friends gave me.”

“Aw, my first tattoo was a stick-and-poke one! I was 15 and it was at boarding school in the bathroom,” he remembered fondly. 

“Oh yeah? Your parents must have loved that,” you chuckled. 

“Oh, they don’t know.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, well, clothing can hide a lot and they only really see me a handful of days out of the year anyways, so… what they don’t know won’t hurt them.” 

Maybe he wasn’t so terrible after all… After finding a sliver of common ground, the rest of the conversation just flowed after that, making the remainder of the evening not just tolerable, but even enjoyable. 

Nearing the end of the tour, you felt his shoulder lightly bump yours, “you like it?” ripping you out of the trance the art piece in front of you had induced. 

“I mean, it’s a Monet,” you gestured towards it, finding his question a bit silly, “I think it’s physically impossible not to like it.”

“Darling, I wasn’t talking about the painting,” he clarified, smiling warmly down at you.

“Oh,” you looked up at him and couldn’t help but be blatantly honest, even if it meant that you had been wrong, “yeah, I guess it wasn’t half bad…” then cast your vision back on the painted pond and added as casually as you could muster, “but we are so not doing anything like this next time.”

“Next time?” 

“I swear to god,” you sighed, shutting your eyes, “if you don’t shut up in less than two seconds, I won’t hesitate to change my mind. You were just starting to grow on me.”

“Yes, ma’am, wouldn’t dream of it, I’m just standing here, looking at the art,” you heard him smile and peeped your eyes open to find him boldly still staring at you. 

“You sure we’re allowed to be up here?” Sirius asked, following you up the last bit of the clinking metal staircase in the seemingly abandoned factory you’d without context dragged him into. 

“Oh, don’t tell me that you're scared,” you playfully glanced over your shoulder at him, “doesn’t your daddy’s lawyer always bail you out of all the shady fun you and your friends get into?”

“Who exactly do you think we are?” he scoffed lightly, though didn’t deny your claim.  

“So, you’ve never committed a petty crime before? A party animal like you?”

“I have never done anything wrong in my entire life,” he shot back sarcastically. 

“Right you haven’t,” you chuckled, trying without success to bust open the rusty door, putting all your weight into it, “give me a hand, would you?” you requested breathlessly, his frame quickly following your command, stepping right up beside you, readying his shoulder and waiting for your go, “okay, one, two, three!” you both gave it a big shove, making it fly open and reveal not only the factory’s small, flat rooftop but also the most breathtaking view of the city’s skyline and the rabidly disappearing sun. 

Seemingly not impressed by the dingy surroundings, Sirius grumbled, “now do I get to know what we are doing tonight?”

“No sense of adventure…” you sighed teasingly, “I’m not telling you, you’ll have to find out yourself,” you sauntered over towards the small ledge by the section of the roof that sunk down a bit and had a bunch of vents and things. Taking a seat, you gestured to the cold concrete beside you and said, “now, sit.”

“You want me to sit?” he eyed the dirty surface mistrustingly. 

“Yeah,” you smiled, patting the spot with your fingers, “come on, you can sit on my jacket if you’re such a wuss.”

“Oh my god, fine, I’ll sit down,” he moved towards you, “just keep your jacket. Don’t want you to freeze to death.”

“You don’t? That’s reassuring to know,” you jested as he carefully took a seat beside you, dangling his long legs over the edge. 

“So… this is your big plan?” he asked, completely unimpressed, “sit on a filthy rooftop together?”

“Don’t mock when you don’t even know what it is yet,” you raised a defensive hand and then proposed confidently, “now, ask me a question.”

Furrowing his dark brows, he bit his lip in order not to stifle a laugh, “a question?”

“Yeah, you’ve got 20, so use them wisely,” you explained the childish game. 

“Oh my god…” he groaned as he caught on, although still played along, “okay, is it a thing?”

“Yes.”

His pristine hair blew in the wind as his eyes scanned the city below for clues, “is it big?”

“No.”

“Am I physically close to it?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

“Okay, so it’s small and close by, but I can’t see it…” he recited underneath his breath, “is it, fuck, I don’t know,” he grumbled, both completely over the game yet also way too invested to just quit immediately, “your phone in your pocket?”

“Good one, but no!”

“Fuck, I don’t know! Am I even close?”

“You are closer than you might think.”

“Can I just get a little bit more of a hint?” he pouted in your direction. 

“Fine, it is within a meter of you.”

Head whipping around confused, “um, that’s literally just you. Is it you? Are you really calling yourself a thing right now?”

“No!” you snapped, slightly offended that he’d even think that, “just use your imagination for fuck sake. Don’t they teach you that at boarding school and fancy universities?”

Letting out a long exhale, he just kinda zones out a moment, genially scrambling for the answer and scanning every visible inch of you. “…I truly don’t know,” he then squinted his eyes at you, “was this some sort of test? Did I fail it?”

“No, calm down,” you pulled your backpack around to the front, ripping the biggest compartment open and fishing out a bottle of bargain beer for the both of you, “here,” you handed him one.

“What is this, a price for losing?” 

“No, that was the thing,” you placed the corner of the bottle’s cap up against the hard edge below you and gave it a swift tap, effectively popping it off and sending a lava flow of bubbles soaring down the dark glass and soaking your hand. 

“This was it?” he hesitated, but eventually mimicked your manoeuvre to open the lacklustre beverage. 

“Yep,” making the last letter pop as you raised the bottle up towards your lips. 

“You’re terrible at twenty questions,” he chuckled, taking a small sip. 

“You’re the one who couldn’t figure the answer out!”

“Yeah, because there was no way I was ever going to be able to figure that out! You can’t just be like Bilbo and ask for a person to guess what’s in your pocket, it has to be something the other person would be able to figure out.”

“That’s never how I played it, but if you wanna go again, play by your rules, then go right ahead, I’ll guess this time.” 

After the last of the beers, you’d brought with you were a thing of the past, after several rounds of that child-like play had flown by, the harsh chime of his phone interrupted your guessing of what you were pretty sure was the small spire visible in the horizon before you. 

Like a reflex, he fished it out of his pocket, and you watched as the soft smile quietly vanished from his features as if it had never been there to begin with, snuffed out and forgotten like last season’s fashion. It hadn’t been the first time you’d witnessed his phone be a mood killer, it happened at least once whenever he had been in your presence. 

“What is it?” you asked, tossing the game to the side to make room for the growing concern you simply couldn’t ignore any longer. 

“It’s nothing,” you watched his face twitch slightly as he read the message that plainly bothered him. Taking a deep breath, he tugged it away in his jacket and circled back to the quickly forgotten game, “you, um, still have 4 more questions till you run out-”

“Sirius,” you cut him off, determined to figure out what was troubling him, “who was that?” not giving you an answer, he simply averted his gaze. “I’m not gonna tell anyone, if that’s what you’re worried about. Who do you think I know that I could spill all of your deep dark secrets to? My neighbour Mary who’s about 90? Oh yeah, she would have a field day, if she actually remembers to put her hearing aid in,” you joked, in an effort to get him to relax and open up, “come on, you can tell me.”

After a good long moment of him thoroughly biting his inner cheek, he finally spoke, “it was my dad. He wanted to remind me that I’m supposed to start sitting in on meetings beginning by tomorrow. Start doing my part for the family business and finally grow up. He wants me to follow in his footsteps. And I know that it must sound fascinating, running a huge company like that, but it truly isn’t. It’s just a bunch of long boring meetings with boring money-hungry people talking about boring numbers. It has absolutely nothing to do with the cars themself.”

“And that’s not what you want?” you asked softly. 

“That’s not the point,” he uttered, sounding downright exhausted. 

“Isn’t it? Do you want to follow in his footsteps?”

Staring out into nothing, he slowly let the truth slip out past his lips, “no...” the tiny word instantly hitting him like a truck, “fuck. I’ve never actually said that out loud before… I don’t wanna do that… I don’t know what it is that I want to do, but I sure as hell know it isn’t that. I don’t wanna become another soulless businessman like my father.”

“Can I ask you something?” you asked him gently. 

“Sure.”

“Why are you still studying business if you know that’s not what you wanna do?”

Exhaling heavily, “because I think what scares me even more than this future they’ve got all mapped out for me is the unknown. I don’t know what will happen if I hop off the train, but at least I know what it looks like inside and I know where it’s headed.”

Without giving it a second thought, you reached out and took his hand in yours. 

“You’ll get off. Might not be today, but someday you will.”

A soft smile spread across his lips as the stressful thoughts slowly melted away with the aid of your touch and he turned his attention back to the date. “I gotta admit, this wasn’t at all what I expected.”

“What did you think? That I was gonna take you to dinner at a michelin restaurant? Some day you will learn that money can’t buy you everything. I mean, just look at that view,” you nodded towards the blushing skies above, the sun now nearly disappeared down behind the many roofs of the city. 

“Yeah,” he breathed, not taking his eyes off of you for a second, “it’s beautiful.”

Not soon thereafter, when the dark night started to bloom and the date was due to end, you took him up on his adorably chivalrous offer and let him walk you back home. However, when you reached the outside of your building, he wasn’t the only one anymore that wasn’t ready to part ways yet. When you fumbled with the keys and he eagerly asked, “could I maybe walk you all the way in to your front door?” all you did was nod, because right now in this very moment, just one more minute of his charm was all you desired. 

“Just what floor did you say you lived on?” he puffed from behind you once you’d reached the third floor of the old apartment building. 

“I didn’t,” if you’d told him that you lived on the fifth floor, right underneath the roof in a tiny shoebox of an apartment, he properly wouldn’t have dared to climb the steep stairs with you. “And just because you're walking me to my door doesn’t mean you get to come inside, okay?”

“Got it.”

Even though he looked to be in phenomenal shape, you still noticed his attempt to hide how much of a tole this trek really was for him.

Once you finally reached the small dark door to your home, out of sight and out of mind down a narrow hallway, creaking it open, his eyes widened at the sight of your tiny apartment, “oh my god, that’s your apartment?” he didn’t even have to poke his head inside to be able to view every single millimetre, seeing as the whole flat in its entirety was probably the size of his bathroom. 

“That’s my apartment,” you confirmed, not finding the size as jarring as he did. 

“Is it even legal to live up here? Aren’t these attic rooms for storage or something?”

“They used to be, but now I promise it's totally above board.”

After letting out a small chuckle, he then took one last long look at you standing in the doorway, smiling warmly down at you, “I had a lot of fun tonight.”

“Yeah, me too,” you smiled, and when he then turned to take his leave, you stopped him, “hey Sirius?” still close, he turned around, “can I-, could I maybe-…”

Taking a step closer to you, he stared down at you and uttered, “what?”

“…can I kiss you?”

Not hesitating for even a second, probably just in case you would change your mind, Sirius bent down and boldly kissed you. The feel of his soft lips pressed against yours and his tongue confidently asking for entrance surprisingly didn’t increase your nerves, it minimised them. It felt oddly comfortable. Like you’d already done it a thousand times before. 

“Goodnight,” he breathed out, lingering just a little longer.

“Night.”

The persistent knocks at your door finally came to a screeching halt as you swung it open and revealed the unexpected figure of Sirius. 

“I need to talk to you,” he insisted, sounding out of breath, probably having sprinted up the stairs. 

Furrowing your brows at the less-than-warm greeting, you asked, “Sirius? What are you doing here? It’s 11 o'clock at night,” pushing past you, the small stumble he took as he crossed over the threshold didn’t manage to escape your perception, “hey, what’s going on?”

“Everything’s going on!” he bellowed, making you quickly close the door behind him and cross your fingers that the walls in your building weren’t as thin as you feared if he was going to continue at this dramatic volume. 

Whirling around to plant his unfocused eyes on you, you saw right through him and asked, “are you seriously drunk right now?”

Fully ignoring your question, he sank down onto your small couch and spoke wearily, staring out into your dimly lit home, “you messed everything up.”

“Excuse me,” you crossed your arms and closed your light robe a bit more to cover your less then modest pyjamas up, on the verge of just ripping the door open again so that you could kick him out, “I haven't done anything-”

“You messed up everything!” his unsteady eyes finally met your glare, “everything was just fine before I met you, there was a plan, a good plan,” he gesticulated with his right hand, “I didn’t see any problem with the plan till you had to show up and turn it all upside down,” you felt your heart start to sink as his intoxicated words impacted, “you ruined it all. You ruined me. For the first time in my life, the world is a truly terrifying place. It’s never been that way till you showed up,” you noticed his clenched jaw begin to quiver, “you are like a bright light, showing me just how dark my life actually is. I didn't ask for that perspective! I was perfectly fine just wandering around in the dark!”

“Sirius,” you reeled back, completely stunned by the tornado that had just interrupted your evening routine, “what are you-”

“You scare the shit out of me, Y/n,” he exclaimed, cutting your question off before it could fully form, “no girl has ever done that, except for you. Fuck, I love you! That terrifies me!” he sank down even further, nearly laying down at this point, overwhelmed by the storm brewing between his ears, “but what scares me even more is the thought of losing you.”

Completely stunned, you found your body slowly dropping down upon the mattress of your bed, sitting there at a complete loss for words, flabbergasted as you watched his low groans and curses gradually fade away until you picked up on how his breaths had slowed, and his lids had grown heavy, exhaustion snuffing him out like a flame.

Curled up on the windowsill, backlit by the morning sun, you raised your eyes from the sketchbook balanced on your bent knees, to reference the dark-haired man still passed out on your tiny couch. 

Even after you’d not so silently riffled through your pantry this morning, checking to see if you had any resemblance of a hangover cure hidden away in there, he still slept like a baby, through all the crinkly bags and accidentally dropped containers. 

Though now, as you weren’t really making any noise at all, simply emanating the silent scratching of your pen against paper, you saw him stir, inhaling sharply as he awoke.

“Morning sleepy head,” you tried to be mindful of your volume, the light wince your tone evoked from him clearly affirmed your suspicion of the horrible state the night before had put him in. 

Craning his neck to look at you, he sat up, squinting in confusion as the bright morning light washed over him, “Y/n, what, um,” his voice sounded like it had been through a meatgrinder, “what am I doing here?” 

“You don’t remember?” you sat the sketchbook down beside you but kept your seat in the window, merely shifted a bit. 

“I-… Did something happen?” his palm lifted up to shield his mouth in worry, “did we-”

“Oh my god, no,” you got what he was hinting at and quickly cut in to correct him before your cheeks had a chance to turn an even brighter shade of red, “you showed up here last night, completely wasted.”

“Oh…”

“Yelled at me for a little bit and then you kinda just passed out.”

“Fuck…” he sighed, jaw clenching from guilt, “Y/n, I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah, you should be,” you crossed your arms tightly across your chest, “what even happened last night? Were you just at some club and randomly decided to come and shout at me a bit?”

“I wasn’t out,” he shook his head, still not meeting your eye, “I was at this stupid party with my family, some fundraiser I think, and became maybe a bit too pissed and got into an argument with my dad,” taking a deep breath in, he spoke, “I told him that I’m dropping out of school and that I don’t want to take over the company.”

“Oh…” it nearly came out as a whisper. 

Taking shelter behind his hands, he lightly ran them down his face, “I’m really sorry,” he said earnestly, “I shouldn’t have bombarded you like that. I don’t remember what I said, but you don’t deserve any of it.”

Every word he had uttered the night before still played on a loop inside your mind, “…none of it?”

“No,” he finally met your gaze, “not one.”

Your churning stomach tried to prevent the words from flowing out, but your now fully bloomed feelings eventually prevailed as you found yourself asking him softly, “not even the part where you told me you love me?” 

© 2023 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[suzukiblu]

Ko-fi thank-you sentences for Sam; further progress in "Match is technically also a Luthor".

The thing parked outside is . . . theoretically a towncar. Theoretically. 

Match doesn’t actually think towncars are typically equipped with obvious armor and subtly “concealed” weaponry as accents, though. At least not the kind that’s clearly designed to handle open warfare, anyway. There are tanks he’s seen that were less prepared for open warfare.

“Right on schedule, Mr. Luthor,” the chauffeur says, then holds the car door open for Luthor as the bodyguard slips into the front passenger seat. Match . . . doesn’t actually know what he’s expected to do here. Obviously the chauffeur’s going to be the one driving, but he’s never ridden in a car; only the kind of transport vehicles the Agenda uses, most of which are military-issue or at least militarized designs. 

The chauffeur raises a pointed eyebrow at him, still holding the door open. Luthor’s already settled into the back of the towncar and seems to be occupied with skimming the contents of a tablet that was left on one of the seats. 

Match . . . doesn’t have any orders. Or even instructions. Or–anything. 

He’s supposed to get in the car, he thinks. It’s the logical deduction, that he’s supposed to do that. 

But no one’s told him to do that. 

Technically, he could still kill any one of them. Kill all three of them, if he’s careful about it. Luthor isn’t going to be able to pull out any kryptonite if he’s having a TTK-induced massive stroke. Technically, he could kill them all and just go back into the facility and–

“‘Joseph’ seems appropriate, but also implies I’m willing to share,” Luthor muses idly, not looking up from his tablet. “But ‘Alexander’ is just too on the nose, and doesn’t account for your brother anyway.” 

. . . “share”, Match wonders? Share what? 

“Superboy isn’t my brother,” he repeats. Luthor spares him a dry look. 

“I’m your father,” he says. “I’m perfectly aware of who your siblings are.” 

. . . Match cannot process a damn word that the man just said, so just gets in the towncar and sits stiffly on the opposite side of the backseat. Luthor returns his attention to his tablet and the chauffeur shuts the door. Match feels an odd sense of–he’d call it “panic”, almost, if he was the kind of thing that could feel anything like that. 

“I suppose one of you could be ‘Alex’ and the other could be ‘Xander’, of course,” Luthor says, tone back to musing as the chauffeur gets in the driver’s seat and starts up the car. “But that also doesn’t seem like much effort, which seems a bit hypocritical of me after I was just judging your respective manufacturers’ lack of it.” 

Match doesn’t know how or even if he’s supposed to respond to any of that. Some of the staff at the Agenda just talked to hear themselves talk; some of them expected him to function as a sounding board. A . . . “rubber duck”, one of the engineers had called him once, laughingly patronizing, though he hadn’t understood the apparent reference. 

“I don’t have a father,” he says. Luthor spares him another dubious look. 

“Oh, don’t you?” he says. “I designed your DNA myself. You’re a masterpiece, by the way, so you’re welcome for that. A perfect blend of Kryptonian and human. Sublimely arranged and maximized.” 

“Biologically, that wouldn’t make you a parent,” Match says. “Superman and Paul Westfield were the only DNA donors to the initial design.” 

“It’d actually make me more of one, in my opinion. But I said a perfect blend,” Luthor snorts dismissively, rolling his eyes. “Paul Westfield’s DNA was anything but ‘perfect’.” 

Match . . . pauses. What does that mean? Who else’s DNA would . . . ?

Oh, Match thinks. 

“The tactile telekinesis is much more effective with Luthor brainpower behind it,” Luthor informs him. “Just for the record. Westfield’s DNA wouldn’t have you capable of crushing cities or splitting atoms.” 

. . . oh, Match thinks again. 

“Splitting atoms?” he asks slowly. 

“I told you,” Luthor says, pointing the tablet pen at him and tapping it against his chest. “You’re a masterpiece. The radiance of a thousand suns. And I am Death, destroyer of worlds.” 

Match doesn’t know how he feels about being called a . . . “masterpiece”. He’s an improvement on Superboy, the Agenda’s told him, but it’s not as if Superboy’s all that impressive a baseline to start from, so . . . 

So he doesn’t know. He’s still a clone either way; a copy of someone else. A copy of a copy, in fact. 

And apparently, he’s also an atomic bomb.

[whumpshaped]

imagine a vampire carewhumper that works as a therapist simply thralling their patients out of bad patterns. like obviously it’s bad and sometimes they feed from their patients as payment, but this vampire genuinely wants to help and peace of mind for some blood is a good deal

tw vampire caretaker, therapy setting, dubcon hypnosis

‘No, I’m telling you. This is real. It’s not one of those… weirdos who pretend to hypnotise you and stuff. This is real hypno-therapy.’

Whumpee was still sceptical as they neared the office door, nervously fidgeting with their hands as they tried to work up the courage to knock. They didn’t believe in it, not really, but it was worth a try. They weren’t bound to any therapist just because they’d tried their services once. It wasn’t a huge commitment. 

They took a deep breath and lifted their hand, but the door opened before they could’ve made contact. “Oh, Whumpee.” Caretaker smiled at them, swiftly standing to the side to allow them inside. “I was just about to check whether you’d arrived already. Some people get shy about knocking.”

“Y-yeah. Thanks.” 

The office was just as they’d imagined: cream coloured walls and comfortable chairs, a soft-looking sofa and plenty of decorations to give the illusion of hominess. All in all, not very threatening at all. 

“As I understand, this is your first time trying this specific kind of therapy,” Caretaker went on, gesturing towards the sofa for Whumpee to take a seat or lie down. “Do you have any particular worries regarding the process, or should I just run through the general gist of it, and you’ll ask your questions in the end?”

“Um…” Whumpee sat down, rigid as a corpse, and tried to remind themself that this was just another person, not some sort of scary monster. “I guess… um… You can go ahead and explain, I, I’m not sure I even know enough about this stuff to ask questions.”

Caretaker nodded. “That’s alright. It’s really quite simple. There won’t be any pendulums or pocket watches, I will simply ask you to lie down and try to relax. I’ll help you along with some simple instructions, almost like a guided meditation, but specifically focused on putting you into a ‘trance’; by that I just mean a state in which we can access your subconscious more easily. It’s like if you were dreaming, but with the ability to still respond to my questions.”

This so wasn’t going to work. This was something straight out of a dumb movie. Taking away the pendulum didn’t help Caretaker’s case as much as they might’ve assumed. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“Well… Theoretically, I could offer you a refund.”

“Theoretically?”

Caretaker’s smile widened just a fraction. “I’ve never had it ‘not work’ before.”