#i spiraled a bit from the original post

[jaybirdwest]

seeing as Dick had to find out on his own, i don’t think Bruce told like. anyone

i would bet that the majority of the people who know the second Robin died found out through Dick (the Titans, mainly).

which also reminds me of something i’ve thought about a LOT: Wally learning what happened to Jason.

Wally was the Flash, the so-called Fastest Man Alive, when Jason, his best friend’s little brother, died. i bet he beat himself up for not having Dick’s (and Jason’s by extension) back while Dick was offworld with the Titans.

and it has to be especially shitty because Wally couldn’t have possibly done anything to help, even if he’d known, because he was slower than he’d been since he was like eleven and didn’t have superpowers. Flash 1987 #22 released the same month as the end of Death in the Family, and that was when he topped out at the speed of sound (hell, the next issue even involves him having actually lost his speed altogether). he probably had to deal with the fact that there was absolutely nothing he could have done to spare his best friend from that pain. for someone who used to be the Fastest Kid Alive (fast enough to beat Barry in a race, even) and able to run faster than light, that would be painful

and you know how some characters go to Flashes like “You can time travel! Go back and undo what happened!” and Flashes have to explain that no, they can’t do that, it’d fuck everything up? well, Wally wasn’t even fast enough to do that if he wanted to. he could barely run for extended periods of time, needed constant food (like, insane amounts that he couldn’t even afford for a while because his metabolism was fucked up. he needed more food than Barry ever did despite being FAR slower at the time.), and his powers were generally… not good. an arc later he gained some speed, but it’d be dozens of issues later, after the Return of Barry Allen arc, where he finally reaches his original speed (and a bit after that when he becomes the fastest speedster ever).

when he learned Jason Todd died (probably from Dick, maybe even the news since he def knew their identities), he’d be immediately confronted with the fact that BARRY could have saved Jason. because this was when he was dealing with a massive inferiority complex around his uncle and the Flash legacy.

Wally could do literally nothing to save his best friend’s little brother and would absolutely beat himself up for that, at a time where he’s already lower than probably ever.

I recently came across these panels of Green Arrow 2001 where Oliver is in the afterlife, and I have some thoughts below.

It’s the line “Spooky didn’t even mention it to me” that really takes me out because how many people did Bruce actually tell about Jason’s death when he was grieving? Obviously Clark knew, he was there in Death of the Family’s aftermath to prevent Bruce from killing the Joker, but if Green Arrow didn’t know, that’s like… a pretty core member of the Justice League.

Batman just went about his JL missions while grieving and internally suffering and at least Green Arrow didn’t notice, but also I don’t know who would have said anything if they did notice. It’s a somewhat known fact in-universe now I think, but I don’t know, it just makes me sad that he didn’t say anything about it when it happened.

[absenthearted]

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD || HACKEARNEY + ALTERNATE UNIVERSES [1/?]

A girl walks into the woods, and a wolf walks out.

The village has a tradition: a girl is chosen as a sacrifice to the Wolf. The Huntsman leads the Chosen into the woods and keeps vigil at the entrance. 

The girl does not come back. The Wolf stays away.

This is how it has always been—until now.

[irate-iguana]

Help.

[pyporapy]

Screw these guys (sends them on a little vacation)

[thedragonagelesbian]

A Lesson in Drowning with Prophet Delilah Dubois

Adelaide first saw the headlights. The rain scattered their light, diffusing the fluorescent brightness into a hazy glare that consumed the whole world. She was standing square in the middle of the road, but she did not wince as the car beared down on her. She was too busy wondering what it would be like for it to consume her too. Would she also disappear into the white noise? Or would it be more like a classical devouring, replete with metal tongue and a cavernous chrome stomach?

She stood her ground.

Then, the jeep swerved. It missed her by inches, sent a shower of muddy water up her stockings, and rattled to a stop some yards away.

Adelaide’s next instinct was to run. She could sprint between the well-manicured lawns to her right or scale the nearest fence to her left and take her chances with Warwick Lord’s German shepherd howling something pathetic in his yard. But she had barely taken one step toward her escape when the driver’s door swung open. A tall, slender figure stepped out, features obscured in the storm.

Still, she knew who it was.

“Adelaide Lenora Dellouise, just what do you think you’re doing out here?” 

The full name did make her flinch, but Adelaide squared her shoulders and set her jaw, trying to hold herself taut enough that she couldn’t shiver.

“Walkin!”

As he came around the back of the car, Adelaide caught a glimpse of her father’s dour expression in the red sheen of the tail lights, all furrows from his sandy hairline to the bridge of his nose.

“In the middle of a shelter-in-place advisory? Without so much as a raincoat on?”

For all his exasperation, Wyatt Dellouise didn’t have to strain to be heard over the sound of the raging storm. Then again, he had his deacon voice on. This wasn’t the soft muttering of a man who seemed perpetually ashamed to be alive for risk of deriving some pleasure from the whole ordeal, but rather the preacher’s booming, fit for a pulpit and louder than thunder.

Adelaide responded with a shrug. As much as she tried to hide it, though, she couldn’t ignore how cold and damp she was now that she had stopped moving. The wind ripped through the thin, soaked fabric of her sundress, and she had so much water in her shoes her toes squelched with every slight shift of her body. A moment later, her teeth began to chatter, and they wouldn’t stop knocking against each other no matter how hard she pressed her lips together.

Her father folded his arms and moved between her and the trunk of the car. Shadow eclipsed his face again, and all Adelaide could make out through the sheets of rain was his hazy red silhouette.

“Are you fixing to get pneumonia?”

“I was thinking I’d let the storm wash me out to sea, actually!”

The silence that followed delighted Adelaide so much she almost didn’t care how true her words were or how deep they hurt her. She’d swallow a knife and let it rend her from the inside out if it meant he knew it was his fault she was bleeding.

“Quit this foolishness,” her father said at last, sighing like a tempest gale. “Just come with me, Addie, please. We’ll go shelter together in the church.”

“Just drop me off at home!”

“Get in the car!”

And that was that, as Adelaide knew it would be since the moment the jeep rolled up, an outcome equal measures inevitable and terrifying. Who, after all, could ignore a direct order from Deacon Wyatt Dellouise? The voice of the First Church of Her Will spoke. You listened. That was the way the world worked, as immutable as any law of physics. Adelaide couldn’t fight that, no matter how hard she had tried over the last two years. For as many days as she had spent steeling herself against her father’s influence, in that instant she withered under his ironclad certainty like she was still seven years old and arguing about her bedtime. She could not help but be compelled.

She took a few teetering steps toward the jeep as an arc of lightning split the sky above them. In the crack of white, she saw her father’s face soften.

“Thank you, Addie.”

She shivered, tucked in on herself, and said nothing.

The worst part was that it actually was nicer in the car. Her father had already turned up the heat all the way, opened the passenger-side vents, and switched on the seat warmer. She didn’t want it to feel good. She wanted to resent it like she resented everything her father touched, but her body obviously hadn’t gotten the message. Feeling returned to her slowly, nipping at her numb extremities and stiff joints and hunched, frozen spine.

“Weeeeeell, Lady Dellouise… So kind of you to join us.”

Adelaide bolted upright as a low, smooth voice from the backseat interrupted her involuntary relaxation. She whipped around, damn near relishing her skittering pulse and tight lungs because it meant her defenses were still up, but there was no monster behind her. Just a man. Slimy John, as he was colloquially known, was certainly one of Harborview’s more disquieting citizens, with a penchant for selling knives to children. But he was still just a man, and he gave her a toothy, human smile.

“Johnathon and some other residents will be sheltering in the church with us.” Her father had climbed back into the car. There was a megaphone in the driver’s seat which he rested in his lap as he closed the door, dampening the storm. “Folks who’d be safer there than anywhere else, you understand. The Davises are cooking up dinner for everyone, and the Owens have lent us some camping equipment to help stay comfortable while we wait this thing out.”

“I am much obliged, Deacon Wy,” commented Slimy John. “Y’all really don’t have to go to so much trouble.”

“We’re a community. We take care of each other.”

Adelaide scoffed under her breath. She knew exactly where this so-called community’s care ran out, and it was at crossing her father.

They drove straight back to the church. As they trundled through Old Harborview, her father rolled down the window to blare his pronouncements about the shelter-in-place advisory and the church’s open doors, but he didn’t slow down to accept any other transients. Adelaide could only assume the new haste was for her benefit. The sooner she was locked inside, the better, right?

Adelaide dug her nails into her skin, glanced at her phone, and started counting the minutes til the storm’s passing, just like she and her best friend Nat used to do during Sunday School. Whoever could go the longest without checking the time got the other’s oreos during snack break.

She always lost.

Lit beneath by a pair of austere spotlights, the First Church of Her Will surged from the darkness, its single spire towering and curved like a giant rib jutting out into the night sky, a carcass picked clean. As the car pulled up, the wind’s rabid howling grew louder, screaming against the windows. Adelaide, who could finally wiggle her toes again, couldn’t decide which would be worse: braving the storm once more or facing whatever was waiting for her in the cathedral.

“I’ll get the umbrella out of the trunk,” her father announced. “No need for you to get any wetter than you already are.”

He turned off the engine. The car plummeted into darkness, and when the heat cut out, Adelaide shuddered, an ugly, reflexive twitch.

She snapped, “I’m fine,” and reached for the car door.

Before she could open it, however, Slimy John let out a long, low whistle of a laugh.

“Whew! She really got Melanie’s quick temper, don’t she, Wy?”

Adelaide and Wyatt both went rigid.

For her part, Adelaide was rarely ever equipped to talk about her mother, fifteen years gone and mourned more in the last two than at any other point in her life. On that particular day, when she was already hanging on by a thread, just the name was enough to send her trembling. 

Worse than the name, though, was her father, who mirrored her tension in the corner of her eye. The symmetry between them, clamped tight around the same loss, made Adelaide sick to her stomach. Suddenly, she needed to get out of the car as fast as possible. Even the church had to be better than sitting in that moment of connection.

She threw herself out into the storm. It swallowed her up for a moment, but she ran up the slick steps and through the heavy double doors, and in an instant, the hurricane disappeared. In its place, the First Church of Her Will opened up before her for the first time in a year.

And in that instant, Adelaide knew she had made a mistake: this was worse.

Like her dad’s car, like the mansion down the road, like just about every inch of Harborview, it felt so much like it should’ve been home that she nearly burst. The memories slammed into her, cresting and crashing from every corner of the nave: the worn pews where she and Nat used to play hide-and-seek, the glinting prayer candles where she had knelt after her mother’s funeral, the lectern where her father had stood for so many days of so many years still larger than life, the painting behind the altar rendering the church’s founder, Our Lady Prophet Delilah Dubois, in severe beauty, each stroke of her countenance exactly as Adelaide remembered it after spending one too many sermons lost in her oil-slick eyes, each detail another mouthful of saltwater she couldn’t swallow.

And mercy, it was warm like the undertow wrapped around her throat

And it was full. The smiling faces of familiar strangers dotted her horizon, all brought together under the banner of community care and that stubborn, unerring streak of self-sufficiency that defined Harborview, and Adelaide hated it so much she could’ve choked on it. 

The storm surge of her rage broke through its levee, and she was too full too sudden and sputtering for air as her vision blurred white-hot. Her mind churned, dizzy and desperate, around one furious thought: how dare?

How dare this no longer be her home? How dare he spoil that too?

And how dare they abide it? Her so-called family friends, the congregation that had raised her and now sat by twiddling their thumbs while her father drowned her?

“Adelaide!”

In one moment, the entire world was tilting around her, as if she were a liferaft thrown out to the roiling sea. 

In the next, there was a hand on her shoulder. Her focus broke, and everything went still and straight again.

Nat’s father, Duke Owens, beamed down at her and tugged her inside. 

“So good to see you, kiddo. How long’s it been?”

Adelaide blinked and stumbled after him. Sluggishly, the social scripts of polite society and normal conversation came back to her.

“Too long…”

“Well, it’s great you’re here. Sarah Davis is making her famous collard greens, and her, uh, third… the current husband brought over a huge batch of potato salad, and we’ve just put on a pot to cook some corn. We’ve also got water, juice boxes, even a lick of bourbon if you think you can get away with it.” He winked as he directed her down the aisle. 

A shake clearer-headed, Adelaide got a better sense of who else was milling around in the shrine to her poisoned youth. About two dozen of Harborview’s fine citizens sprawled out across the pews. They were split half and half between those who were dispensing the charity and those who were receiving it. Among the latter, Adelaide identified a smattering of residents from the trailer park at the west edge of town, a stoned vanlifer, a young city couple whose car had probably broken down, a handful of farmers who didn’t trust the structural integrity of their houses, and Madame Tilly, the congregation’s oldest and most devout member.

The other half—composed of Mary Owens, her two sons, Sarah Davis, her daughter, her current husband, one of her ex-husbands, and another priest—clustered at the front of the nave. That, Adelaide knew, was her destination: the insufferable snare of small town small talk with people she had known all her life and resented.

The altar and the lectern had been pushed back to make room for a pair of mismatched folding tables. One held the Owens’ camping stoves and large, bubbling stock pots, while the other was attended to by the younger generation, who were setting out plates, bowls, silverware, and napkins. Combined with the drink coolers and the warming tupperwares of potato salad, the spread could have been any church potluck or community barbecue.

Indeed, the only indication of the hurricane was Adelaide herself, tottering to a stop in front of them and once again failing not to shiver.

The fussing began immediately.

“Oh, sweetheart, what happened to you?” cooed Mary Owens.

“Poor thing, you gotta go change!” exclaimed Sarah Davis. “I’ve got some spare stuff in my duffle…”

“Dang, Adelaide, you’re gonna get sick going out dressed like that,” tutted Nat’s older brother, Jack.

“That’s what I told her.” Adelaide felt her father’s hand on her shoulder like a vice. “I found Addie halfway back home. She got caught out in the storm when the advisory went into effect, but, mercy be, we’re all safe here now.”

The others, ever the faithful parishioners, nodded and intoned, “Mercy be.”

Smothering the urge to gag, Adelaide cleared her throat and mustered up her most charming cheerleader smile.

“Mrs. Davis, that change of clothes sounds swell just about now.”

The church’s holiness had never quite extended into the single-occupant bathrooms in the basement. The consecration stopped short at the harsh fluorescents, speckled linoleum tiles, grimy ceramic, and the half-empty trash can perched on its throne of wet, crumpled paper towels. The closest thing to sanctity in the room was the pastel cross-stitch wall art reminding its viewers that Delilah preached moderation in all things… except cleanliness!, and even that couldn’t compel anyone to actually throw their paper towels away.

It was as close to an escape as Adelaide was going to get.

She had to peel her sopping clothes away from her skin, like wearing away the adhesive of a band-aid until she was hunched and nearly naked in the middle of the bathroom with two handfuls of dripping fabric. Her flats were coming apart at the seams, and her stockings were so drenched and muddy that she abandoned any hope of salvaging them. Instead, she threw both articles of clothing in the trash before trying to ring out her dress over the sink. The twisting and squeezing yielded some measure of success, so she stuffed the dress into the plastic bag Jack had offered her.

She then began to rifle through Sarah Davis’ assorted athleisure: a pair of neon pink and green tennis shoes, socks that said namaste, two tight yoga pants, and an assortment of sporty tank tops emblazoned with bubble text that ranged from mere novelty (KEEP HARBORVIEW WEIRD) to outright suggestion (MY EYES ARE UP HERE). Adelaide picked one that said FINE LIKE WINE not because it suited her particularly but because it had the loosest fit. Both pairs of pants, however, were as form-fitting and skin-tight as the wet stockings she had just taken off, hugging every curve and divot of her legs.

In the end, she was dressed but exposed, unable to control something so simple as her appearance, hating the glimpses of herself she caught in the mirror. 

Even her face seemed foreign to her. The rain had ruined her makeup, leaving streaks of mascara down her cheeks and blotchy patches of red lipstick on her mouth. Her hair hung from her in frizzing, ropey strands plastered to the sides of her face and neck. She didn’t recognize the face staring back at her with the tears rimming its wide, desperate eyes.

That other person trapped in the glass snarled, wrenched a paper towel from the dispenser, and clawed the rest of its makeup off. A moment later, it raked its nails through its hair in a biting impression of a brush, gathering the strands together in a loose ponytail with a scrunchie from Sarah’s duffle bag.

At least she had control over something.

At least she could still control the muscles of her unvarnished face, massaging out the furrows in her brow and slackening the tension in her jaw and schooling her lips into an effortless smile. 

When she looked in the mirror one last time, she almost resembled herself again.

Supper was up by the time Adelaide went back upstairs. Townsfolk were gathered at the front of the chamber, salting and buttering ears of corn and taking deep, indulgent whiffs of the collard greens, laden with thick-cut bacon and leftover ham hock. Strains of jovial conversation reached her by the stairwell. How is so-and-so doing? Some weather we’re having, huh. Got any holiday plans? How old is so-and-so now? She’s where? Oh my, but they grow up so fast…

Adelaide heard Nat’s name in the mix—something about an athletic scholarship at Clemson—and felt sick again.

Her empty stomach grumbled its complaints as she turned away, but she ignored it, forcing her attention to settle on Madame Tilly, who had not joined the others for dinner. Rather, the old woman, sporting her trademark purple velvet cap and elaborate gem-encrusted beetle brooch, was still kneeling by a box of candles near the front door, lost to the world as she muttered her prayers.

Adelaide reasoned that that, at least, was a conversation she could handle.

Matilda Lawrence had been just as much a part of Adelaide’s life growing up as the Owens. For as long as she could remember, she and her father had been checking up on Madame Tilly after Wednesday service. It had been Adelaide’s earliest act of charity, a kind deed for a kind elder whose mind had wandered even in her youth. Even longer than those visits, though, Adelaide recalled her unwavering faith. As distracted as she might be elsewhere, in church, Madame Tilly was nothing but resolute and focused. Indeed, her knowledge of canticles, verses, and hymns was second only to Deacon Dellouise himself.

Adelaide used to think it would be nice to grow up and be someone like Madame Tilly: refined, devout, at peace.

Nowadays, she just barely had one of the three.

Adelaide squatted beside the prayer box, three tiered rows of tea lights set in small glass bowls. Only a few of the candles were lit, each a pinprick prayer glinting above a puddle of grey wax. She watched them flicker as she listened to Madame Tilly continue her supplications without so much as a glance in her direction.

The words were as familiar as the low, hoarse voice that mumbled them:

“That I may deliver my own salvation, I bequeath upon myself a clear mind and a strong heart. That I may shoulder my own burdens, carry my own weight, and discipline the limits of my own desires, such that I never exceed the boundaries of restraint and propriety. That I may survive the oncoming storm, I pray for clarity, fortitude, and tenacity…”

“And in so praying,” the words spilled forth from Adelaide’s marrow, deep and reluctant as every fiber of her being, “I grant upon myself such virtues as foreseen by our lady prophet.”

Madame Tilly lifted her head, blinking, and smiled up at Adelaide, slow and indulgent.

“Little Addie,” she murmured, gums stretched wide. “How are you?”

“Surviving by someone’s grace.” Adelaide didn’t know if it was her own or her father’s or Delilah’s herself. Probably wasn’t her own. “How ’bout yourself?”

“All is as we will it.”

Typical Order of Dubois bullshit response. Adelaide smiled back.

“Well, it looks like dinner’s up, if you’re hungry.”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you, but I can’t stop praying. There’ll be time to feed myself later. Harborview needs my prayers now. It is as our lady prophet says.” Madame Tilly tapped her forehead with the second knuckle of her right pointer finger, tracing a loose oval between her brows. “‘In seeing clearly, might all the Earth resolve itself in perfect and accurate order.’ Worship is the only way to a clear mind’s eye. A clear mind’s eye is the only way to a righteous world.”

Righteousness seemed a terribly inappropriate framework for understanding a natural disaster, but Adelaide’s good sense told her not to argue. 

Instead, she picked up one of the lit prayer candles and tilted it forward. The melted wax pooled to one side, threatening to drown the pinpoint of light quivering inside the glass. When she narrowed her eyes, the flame blossomed into a thin white line across her vision. Its expansion was an optical illusion, she knew, but if she focused hard enough, she could trick herself into thinking that the glass was heating up, cracking, splintering, shattering…

“We could all use some clarity just about now,” Adelaide remarked as she spun the bowl, watching the silvery wax swirl like wine.

“Don’t I know it… You seeking clarity yourself, little Addie? I haven’t seen you around here in a while.”

“Y’know how it is.” Eyes open, eyes closed, flame thinning and widening and winking like blinding starlight, glass hotter and hotter against the pads of her fingers. “One day, you’re suddenly an adult, and you gotta take some time to figure things out.”

“I’ve been an adult for quite a while, dearie. I did all my figuring out long ago.”

“And how’d that go for you?”

“She simplified things a good bit.” Madame Tilly nodded toward the back of the church, and Adelaide followed her gaze to the oil painting of Delilah Dubois. The prophet’s watchful steely eyes stared back from underneath a windswept cowl. “I was a wild and wayward soul once upon a time, but I wandered back to her eventually, and she set me on the straight and narrow… You could always come back too, y’know. Give it all a second chance.”

Adelaide’s grip on the bowl tightened.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Ah, but showing up is only half the work.” Adelaide glanced back at her out of the corner of her eye. Madame Tilly responded by touching her finger to her forehead again. “You still have to have faith, dearie. Otherwise, it’s only a paper moon.

“That was the first lesson Lady Delilah taught us, after all. She saw the end of days on the horizon, the plagues and the storms and the fires that would burn this world to its core, and she turned to prayer. Not just mumbling a few half-hearted words, you understand, but complete dedication of body and soul to her worship. That was her salvation.

“And it’s saved Harborview dozens of times since then. Right before you were born, actually, we had another hurricane. This one got so close the state put us under an evacuation notice, so your daddy rented a whole fleet of buses and he went out in his jeep with his megaphone to round folks up and make sure they got out safe and sound before the storm got bad.

“But instead of leaving with them, he and Melanie came back here, and the three of us set about doing what Delilah mandated we do in the face of travesty. We dedicated ourselves to our piety. We didn’t eat, we didn’t drink, we didn’t sleep, we just prayed.

“And we were rewarded, as Delilah said we would be. For all those weather boys saying we would be wiped off the map, the hurricane only grazed us. Oh, there was some superficial damage to a few buildings on the Docks, and we lost the old community center to the flooding, but we survived. Harborview survived, as it always has, on the back of its own self-efficacy. 

“That is the power of faith, child: making divine and mortal providence one in the same.”

But much of Madame Tilly’s sermon had fallen on deaf ears, for Adelaide could not let go of the thought of her mother holed up in this church listening to the world end around her. She pictured her crouched before this same prayer box, hands clenched, eyes shut, trembling.

Had she wanted to stay? Or had she been coerced, her husband never being one to let his things wander too far from his domain? She was a devout woman, but did her faith hold? Did she believe Wyatt when he told her devotion was the only way to salvation?

Did she have any other choice but to believe, to paper a smile over the worry and go through the motions of her worship while her fear gutted her from the inside out? How many screams and sobs did she smother because doubt was still the worse sin in the eyes of her husband?

Did she nurse some secret seed of resentment toward him for condemning her to die alongside him?

Adelaide’s own fear spiraled as sudden as a lightning strike. It was an old anxiety at this point, but it hadn’t yet lost its edge or its weight: that moment of feeling the entire ocean bearing down on her chest. Too tight to move, too heavy to breathe, just the water in her lungs trying to drag her down.

Trapped.

Crack!

The candle holder exploded.

Madame Tilly yelped as glass and wax showered the ground. The still-burning wick hit the carpet. A chorus of gasps and shrieks and questioning grunts surged from the other side of the church.

But all Adelaide knew was the flame. The orange glimmer cut through the fear, and for a blinding moment, she had that holy clarity that the Order of Dubois revered so much: a crystal-clear image of the church reduced to smoldering ash and burning rubble, so real she could taste the heat and smoke sweet on her tongue. If she just focused…

Some smell like ozone and chlorine hit Adelaide square in the nose. Her vision blurred, head swimming as that sublime image warped before her eyes. She tried to hold onto it, but it vanished out from underneath her, like missing the last step in the dark. For a moment, she reeled in the free-fall, stomach plummeting and body lurching, staggering back onto her heels.

Then, her vision settled. She was back in the church. It was normal and whole. The flame was out. And her father was staring hard at her from across the room.

Outside, the thunder boomed as loud as any pipe organ, deep enough to shake the church’s foundations.

The power went out.

The congregation gasped again as the darkness took them. The precious few points of candlelight were quickly joined by the glare of cellphones at the front of the nave. Madame Tilly merely shook her head and resumed her praying, while Adelaide stared at the faces huddled near the altar, cast in a waxy and uneven sheen by the weak flashlights they clutched to their chests. An anxious murmur bubbled up amongst them until their deacon cleared his throat so loud even the rain seemed to hold its breath for him.

“There’s no need to panic, folks.” Wyatt Dellouise only owned a flip phone, so for a moment, his voice seemed to emanate from the darkness itself, ever-present and ever-vigilant. Duke Owens switched on a camping lantern, suffusing the back of the church in a too-white glow. Wyatt appeared, his features ghastly as the light carved steep shadows into his countenance. “We knew this was a possibility, but the church has a generator precisely for this situation. I’ll go out back and turn it on. Duke, you mind if I borrow a flashlight or a lantern?”

“Of course, Wyatt, and if you need someone else to go out with you—”

“I’ll go.”

The glaring cellphones all turned toward Adelaide as she stretched her hand up into the air. A stuttered silence followed. Her father’s thin silhouette shifted.

“That’s awful kind of you, Addie, but—”

“You shouldn't have to go out there alone, Daddy!” Adelaide interrupted brightly. “I wanna help.”

He couldn’t deny her this, not when she was playing the dutiful, smiling daughter he wanted so badly to have back. With a nod and armed with raincoats and a high-powered flashlight, her father led her out the back door of the church.

Stepping back out into the storm, Adelaide’s mind wandered to her other childhood best friend, the one she tried her damnedest not to think about. Once upon a time, before Adelaide had ruined everything, Zak Ibis had been the genderqueer prom king to her prom queen. As the self-proclaimed arbiter of good taste and cultural relevance in a backwater town he resented, Zak could deliver gospel as well as any priest over DairyQueen blizzards or in the Barracuda’s locker rooms. Their vast but shallow reserves of amateurish expertise included computer science, film, sports, economics, and numerous pop science areas like sleep health, fad diets, and wolfpack dynamics as allegories for the human condition.

One such lecture came to mind as the first splash of rain hit Adelaide’s face, turned up toward a patch of clouds where the faint light of the moon filtered through the storm. She remembered one of her many late night break-ins to the lighthouse down the street from the Dellouise Mansion. With Nat giving her a boost, Adelaide would shimmy into the cracked second story window and open the door. Nat provided the snacks, Zak the weak booze, and they’d spend hours playing card games or listening to Zak pontificate.

Over cold, congealed nachos and watered down beer, Zak had once opined about the mammalian diving reflex— in his words, how to trick your lizard brain into thinking the world’s not ending by being in some water about it.

And in the storm’s totality, it did feel like being swallowed up by the sea: the whole world disappeared in the torrent, no ground, no horizon, no body, just the numbness where the droplets pelted against her skin.

Zak was right, it was kind of relaxing.

Would that she actually were in the ocean, sinking into the abyss so that her corpse could give rise to untold and monstrous ecosystems deep beneath the tides. Instead, the swinging of her father’s flashlight, cutting sharp through all that wet nothing, reminded Adelaide of where she was.

“The generator’s just back here.”

“Mhm.”

“Hold the flashlight, will you?”

Adelaide lifted the light up to illuminate the boxy grey generator on the ground and the paneling in the wall above it, which her father began to fuss with. She watched him work in silence, trying to puzzle out the function of the multitude of switches and blinking lights. She didn’t have the faintest idea what her father was doing with them. 

Then again, that was the way the two of them functioned, wasn’t it? She didn’t have to know much of anything because daddy dearest could always solve all of her problems.

The irony of being dependent on a man who had dedicated his life to preaching self-sufficiency was so bitter that Adelaide drew in on herself, shivering in Mary Owens’ raincoat and Sarah Davis’ yoga outfit and despising the kindness they had shown her.

“What are you going to do if we ever have to evacuate?!” she shouted over the roar of the storm.

“We won’t need to evacuate,” he responded evenly.

“Sure, not this time around, but there’s always next time, ain’t there, and the time after that? We have a million fucking storms every summer, what are you going to do when one of them finally threatens to wipe this miserable shithole off the coastline?”

Her father’s hands paused, hovering over some button or another. Adelaide could not see his face, but she watched the outline of his Adam’s apple quiver.

“Watch your language, Addie,” he mumbled at last. He pushed the button, and light flooded out of the stained glass window suspended above their heads.

“That’s not an answer, and you fucking know it! Tell me what you would do!” 

Desperation seized her as he finally turned toward her, mouth set like a tombstone to match the hard granite of his eyes. Adelaide could not feel her lips spluttering around her words, but she tasted the rainwater against her teeth. 

“Would you let me go?!” She came so close to pleading that she wanted to retch. Barely swallowing the bile, she spat, “Or would you trap me here like you trapped Mama?!”

What little color was left drained from her father’s face.

“Addie, don’t—”

“You’d rather see me dead than gone!” The tempest didn’t stop for her like it did for him, but she could match its fury. “You’d let me drown before you’d let me leave!”

“I’d— I’d protect you!” He reached for her, stammering out familiar pleas and supplications. Adelaide shrunk away from his grasp. “I’d keep you safe, like I always have!”

“You’d just keep me!”

He tried to grab her again. Adelaide stepped backwards, slipped on the slick grass, and plummeted to the ground. He lunged to catch her, but she slapped away his hands as she fell. She’d rather have the pain: the sharp ache of a future bruise thrumming through her thighs and up her spine, the scrape of her knuckles against the ground, the twist of her wrist as she held onto the flashlight like a liferaft.

Standing above her, Wyatt’s face contorted, no longer the picture of the austere deacon but of a tired, sad old man.

“Addie, please,” he whispered, extending his hand again, “please just stop this. You’re only hurting yourself.”

In response, Adelaide chucked the flashlight as hard as she could in the other direction. 

Somewhere in the darkness above her came a sigh, followed by heavy footsteps headed toward the flashlight, which had rolled to a stop near the fence of the cemetery. Still, Adelaide made no move to pick herself up. Instead, she leaned back to lay down in the mud, letting the rain wash over her.

She couldn’t see the sky.

She couldn’t see much of anything, but she knew Harborview’s geography well enough to draw a straight line from her outstretched fingertips to her father’s house, less than a block away but lost in the storm. She could extend that same, unerring line through to the lighthouse, that last bastion of unspoiled childhood, and she could stretch it out further to the ocean beyond.

She could feel it out there, roiling just out of sight. And if she closed her eyes and focused on her breathing, she could almost feel it inside her too. In her mind’s eye, she saw a wave as tall as the sky cresting over the town, poised just before breaking. It would flood every street, level most buildings, wash away thousands of lives, erase Harborview from the face of the Earth and drag its fractured remains out to sea… and maybe that could free her.

Maybe it would be enough to call her father’s bluff and scare him into breaking the magic that tethered her to Harborview. 

Or maybe the magic would break on its own if there was no Harborview.

As soon as it had occurred to her, Adelaide couldn’t let that thought go. The flood, the catastrophe, the destruction, the death. The horror sunk its fangs deep into her, gnawing the edges of morality and logic alike, and she let that callousness fester because it burned oh so tenderly even as she was slowly losing feeling in her limbs.

Why, after all, should she care about the wellbeing of the people who showed up twice a week to suckle at the teat of her father’s dogma despite everything he had done to her?

Why shouldn’t they drown too?

Who was Adelaide to deny the prophecies of her Lady Delilah?

[createandchaos]

#god finally someone who Gets It #the fanon interpretation of haha himbo idiot rodimus passes me off so much #like part of it is jro's fault for playing it up #but there's so much nuance to rodimus that most of the fandom just skips #like read the rest of the comics #mtmte and ll were both good#but there's so much more to rodimus than that#read his spotlight#read primacy and autocracy #when I was still rping rodimus so much of his characterization came from the other comics #and I still got anon hate for being ooc bc “lmao roddy's too stupid and irresponsible for these things” #like ??? no??? he's not???? #he is just as traumatized and exhausted of war as the next mech#he's not some frat boy himbo #@ op sorry for the tag rant #I literally got so tired of this fanon interpretation it booted me from the rpc #and mostly tf in general

@ganonthot Do not apologize for this, this was a delightful read.

I will say that with James Roberts, I think it wasn't him purposefully portraying him that way in the actual canon but fans actually taking him too seriously on social media when he was clearly joking. Because the way he writes him in More than Meets the Eye and Lost Light shows he IS a competent leader, he's capable of doing far more than people give him credit for and the way he talked about him at the 2017 TFCon panel is really deep and considerate.

This lines up with what we see throughout MTMTE and LL!!! This isn't new, it just probably wasn't as intense as it is now because he was amplifying parts of his personality in small increments because they were still at war. To do it to the degree it was at in MTMTE/LL wouldn't just be dangerous, it'd have actually gotten people killed. So he likely only did enough to not be a liability.

It's also probably as bad as it is in MTMTE and LL because before the series starts he almost dies (or possibly did since Roche drew his spark being gone) at Megatron's hands, he's stranded on an alien planet with the Matrix fused to his chest, AND he discovers Ironhide and Sunstreaker are alive on Cybertron and what Galvatron plans to do with Vector Sigma. He has no time to amplify, he needs to warn the Autobots of what's happening. And when it's all done and the war's actually over he's left with four million years of trauma, his latest traumatic experience, and he's no longer in full-time survival mode.

It's at the end of the Remain in Light arc that Rodimus has stopped using this coping mechanism, instead trying to better himself during the entirety of The Sound of Breaking Glass and Dark Cybertron.

But then Optimus completely wrecks this, @decepticonsenual and @autisticthassarian having great posts on Rodimus' leadership and his regression here and here respectively. And personally, I think Autocracy also played a big role in his regression which JRo might've kept in mind.

Autocracy is where we get Rodimus' origins and see one of the most traumatic moments of his life: Nyon's destruction by his hands. Both Megatron and Optimus justify it but I think he took it deeply when Optimus justified it because he framed leadership as making hard choices, loneliness, self-doubt, and having the strength to do what needs to be done and make the hard choices. To Rodimus, who was an empty (destitute) and had just destroyed his home, killed his community, friends, and family to spare them from a far worse fate leaving only a handful of survivors he must've clung to this, placed all his trust, hopes, and wishes in the enforcer who tried to help only after the Omega Destructors arrivedCOUGH and told him at the end of Autocracy that maybe one day he'd carry the Matrix. So when he takes the initiative to make the hard choice and be honest with his crew and placed his fate in their hands, it's a slap to the face when his idol told him that no, it was the wrong choice and he's not fit at all to be a leader only to then later put Megatron on the Lost Light without consulting him at all. He finds out from Ratchet of all people that this is what's happening and he has no say in it because Optimus is the paragon of everything that is a "good leader."

Thinking about how the mtmte/ll fandom tends to portray rodimus as a manchild and/or a himbo to such an exaggerated degree that he's unrecognizable in the way that it loses that his story is that of someone who's painfully flawed and coping in life post war and has made really terrible mistakes and tries so hard to make up for it and the refusal to acknowledge and incorporate these aspects into your fan creations hurts what he's supposed to be and makes him static. He was homeless, he was an insurgent, he joined the autobots, he lost friends because of it, they died right in front of him, he's lost people under his command, he's reckless, he's arrogant, he's caring, he prefers to work alone as to not drag anyone down with him, he puts his life on the line to help people, he continues to make mistakes, he hides them, he owns it, tries to be better, he falls back into the worst of himself when he's essentially told it doesn't matter, he inspires people around him, and he stands by them despite their flaws and welcomes them to his crew. There's just so many things about him that aren't explored that I wish would be, especially when you bring in conversations from panels at TFCon.

[numinous-scribe]

Siblings by trial and choice

So @noir-renard posted a prompt in Haunting Heroes a little while ago that's had me in a perpetual choke hold ever since.

When the Portal ZAPS Danny, he doesn't just get turned into a half ghost; he gets catapulted halfway across the galaxy. So now he's stuck on an alien ship, trying to deal with new powers, and desperately searching for a way home.

And my immediate thought was "How can I make this about Starfire?", from which everything spiraled.

[Click the pictures for better quality!]

Having assumed that the portal wasn't even supposed to be functional, Danny had absolutely no basis for anything that was happening to him. Not his new look or powers, not for wherever he was, and certainly not for the predicament of where he landed-- A ship he would later come to know as belonging to the slavers known as the Gordanians.

For all Danny knew, he certainly wasn't human anymore, and he might not have even been in the same dimension either; while Earth had been seeing more and more interactions with aliens, he'd never seen any quiet like these, and his parents had said that the portal was designed to view a whole other world.

And that was terrifying! He was Danny Fenton, just fourteen, and so far out of his depth it wasn't even funny. If it weren't for Koriand'r then Danny didn't know how he would have kept it all together.

As it were, Kor'i had already been enslaved for four years by this point. She knew what it was like to suddenly be cut off from everything she'd ever known, and the torment that was awaiting this strange boy that had appeared in a flash of green light. So even though she had nothing to give, Kor'i stuck by Danny's side.

Together, for the next two years, they fed each other hope.

Naturally, returning to Earth was a big ordeal for Danny, and by proxy for Kor'i as well. Over the two years they spent enduring harsh labor and torture from both their Gordanian captors and the Psions, Danny had confided in all sorts of stories about his home world and vice versa Kor'i about Tamaran. After confirming that he hadn't been transported to another reality, and that this was his Earth, Danny had been so excited to return home and to introduce Kor'i to his friends and family.

But while Earth was still the same, home... was not.

His parents were in jail; not only for their unethical and code violating lab, but because they were so neglectful to the point that minors were able to get into the lab unsupervised and one of them— Danny —was able to access their faulty machine and, presumably, died.

Jazz got picked up by the state, but quickly managed to get herself emancipated and now lived in some other state attending college.

The Manson's moved. Sam was a wreck and not coping well at all; her parents were considering having her committed to an institution for a bit to help her last anyone had heard.

The Foley's couldn't afford to move, so Tucker had to carry on with life as well as he could. He's quiet now, not as verbose and shameless as before, more of a hermit than anything.

And since he's been presumed dead, and can't figure out how to disprove that, honestly, Danny doesn't know how to pick back up where he left off. He can't. Because everything, including him, has changed as well.

But, like she's always done since the moment they met, Kor'i was there for him. And now they have a new family in the Teen Titans as well.

Bonus:

Close ups of Phantom and Starfire. Danny's suit design is a mixture of some of his original concept art and @the-stove-is-on-fire's designs :)

[helenanell]

Contempt of Court || Challengers

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Art Donaldson X Fem!Reader 

CW: 18+ MDNI. Alcoholism / substance abuse. Suicidal ideation. Mentions of car crash/ injury, infidelity (technically - Art is still married to Tashi, but they’re separated) Angst. Smut. A little toxic.

Wordcount: 10.8K

Notes: No use of y/n. Set after the events of the film. Reader is a Tashi stan (There’s too much Tashi Duncan erasure happening and I won’t stand for it.) 

Summary: Still recovering from an injury that put your tennis career on pause, your publicist has landed you a deal to be an ambassador for Nike. What she doesn’t tell you, is that so is Art Donaldson: the player who bad-mouthed you in a live, post match interview two years ago. You only find out once it’s too late. 

 (This story was inspired by the dynamic between Billy and Daisy in Daisy Jones and The Six. But…make it tennis.)

  ━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

For eight agonising weeks, your wrist has been encased in a cast, but now that it’s finally off, you feel far from relieved.

 As the doctor had sawn into the plaster, producing a cloud of white dust like he was breaking into a bone instead of revealing a healed one, you had actually felt panicked. 

After the car crash, you had spiralled into a pit dug with your own self-pity and pain. And once you’d reached the bottom, you’d staved off the encroaching darkness with alcohol and too many painkillers. 

You’d taken drugs before at parties and drunk until you wiped your own memory, the consequence being waking up with your skull practically splitting open from pain. But there was something profoundly different about becoming intoxicated in the hopes of rendering yourself numb:

 You hated yourself whilst you were doing it, and once the harmful buzz wore off, you hated yourself a little bit more. 

You had become fast friends with shame in the past few months. 

You have been desperate to play again, screaming, crying and practically tearing off your own skin with the need to get back to work- to not let yourself fall behind or your ranking suffer. 

But, amongst the amalgamation of negatives there had been a sort of relief, too. Relief, because the choice had been taken away from you. 

The accident hadn't been your fault and nor could you force your bone to heal faster, so for a brief period of time, you had convinced yourself nothing was your fault. For once, you couldn’t be blamed for your own fall from grace. 

But now your bone had healed and if you didn’t give recovery your all, it would be your fault. If there was no triumphant comeback, it would be on you. 

Another thing to fail at. 

Another thing to lose. 

All of which only added to your bafflement over your publicist’s insistence on coming over this morning, in order to discuss ‘a major opportunity’ that wasn’t related to a competition. 

You had originally tried to worm out of it, but your coach had found out and given you the third degree. 

You’re already tired at the thought of it and you don’t even know what it is yet. You don’t want to think about anything but tennis. You don’t have the energy for it. 

In all honesty…you’re hanging on by a thread.

‘Drinking too much’ is a far too casual phrase for how you’ve been living: it has connotations of casualness- a glaring lack of stakes. For you, the stakes are unbelievably high.

You know you can’t afford to become alcohol dependent because even being a functioning alcoholic isn’t an option for you. The only way to function as an athlete—to maintain your career trajectory and the attain the US Open title—is to be at one hundred percent. 

Mixing your painkillers with straight vodka isn’t one hundred percent: it’s a cry for fucking help. Except you can’t let anyone hear the cry, you need to stifle it. 

It’s bad enough that pictures of you being rolled away from your totalled car in a gurney had been plastered over the internet for weeks after the accident. The alcoholic, pill popping tennis pro was a story that would never go away. 

It would morph into an ugly sort of infamy: you’d been in the exclusive club of American sweethearts and heartthrobs who had been hounded so much by the ‘devoted’, that it had driven them to substance abuse to drown out the noise and fortify against the flashing lights. 

So, no one could know. No one.

Which is why, as your publicist pulls into your driveway, you’re rushing to hide a half full bottle of vodka inside a hideously expensive—and also just hideous—vase that had been given to you as an engagement gift.

Two years ago, when your fiancé–and fellow tennis player–had been caught in 4k, kissing a barely legal actress from a HBO teen drama, you’d almost smashed the vase. But, something about destroying a gift from Serena Williams felt like spitting out the ambrosia a god had fed you from their very own hand.

So, while your ring had been thrown into a ravine (best not to dwell on that.) the vase had remained. 

The doorbell rings much sooner than you’re prepared for. Who knew a five-foot-two woman in heels could move so quickly? 

You run over to the door, chewing down on two pieces of gum you’d hastily shoved into your mouth to cover up the scent of alcohol. When you pull it open, you’re met with the stern face of your Publicist, Rebecca. She’s tiny but terrifying, her sharp features framed by a pitch black bob.

Sometimes, it does feel a bit like you’re talking to Edna Mode, but you’d never dare say that.

“Rebecca, hi!” You’re aware the greeting is too happy, and try not to grimace.

When you step back to allow her to enter, Rebecca frowns at you as she passes.

“Why are you fake smiling?” she questions. “Your cast is off, you should be actually happy.”

 You drop the toothy grin, wincing with embarrassment as you follow her into the kitchen.

“I am happy about that, obviously.” You clear your throat, overly aware of how disingenuous you still seem. “What I’m not exactly overjoyed about, is whatever this ‘opportunity’ is.” 

You watch as Rebecca grabs bottle of water from the fridge and then pulls out a stool to sit at the kitchen island. You follow suit, dropping down beside her.

“Well, you should be. I practically had to sell my soul to get them to pick you.”

You level her with an unimpressed look. “Wow, Rebecca, way to raise me up from rock bottom.”

She waves you away. “Oh, please! You hate when I coddle you.”

You huff, dropping your chin into hand and propping your elbow on the counter. “Okay, out with it then. What is it?” 

Rebecca’s cheeks split with a blinding grin. “Nike.” She declares gleefully. 

“Nike.” 

Her smile dampens, disappointed you haven’t burst into happy tears. “Yes, Nike. You know…Just Do It.”

“Yes, I do. I’d just prefer not, you know…do it.”

Your publicist looks just about ready to slap you. “You’re kidding. It’s Nike.”

“Oh, is it? You haven’t mentioned that.”

Rebecca’s frown becomes a scowl and you think about ducking when she angrily snatches up her water bottle. But she doesn’t throw it, just waves it around as she begins to rant at you: 

“Do you know how hard it was to get this?! They wanted Naomi Osaka but I convinced them to go for you instead. And christ knows they were hesitant after the US Open meltdown-”

“We agreed not to refer to it as a meltdown.” You cut in. “My therapist says it has negative connotations that, ‘make me feel a harmful degree of shame.’”

Rebecca scoffs. “You went to one session with that therapist and then fired her because you didn’t like that she drew you a diagram.”

“It was condescending: I’m not five, I don’t need visual aids.”

“Okay, just shut up!” Rebecca barks, smoothing down her still immaculate hair and taking a deep breath. “This isn’t actually up for discussion. You’re doing it.”

“I’m not doing it.”

  ━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

( Two Weeks Later… )

‘Just Do It.’ 

It’s the first thing you see when you walk into the Nike office for the photoshoot. 

The poster from a past campaign with Andy Murray has been blown up to ridiculous proportions and framed, hanging in on the first wall that greets anyone who enters.

“If they make mine that big I won’t be able to look at it. I’ll actually vomit. ” 

When Rebecca–who is the epitome of a chatterbox–remains silent, you turn you head to look down at her. She’s already peering up at you, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

Your eyes narrow with suspicion. “What have you done?”

Rebecca lets out a laugh laced with unadulterated fear. “Okay…so, any minute now you’re going to be super fucking pissed at me and you have every right to be, but remember that as you’ve already signed the contract, you don’t have a right to walk out of here.”

You stare her down, knowing it doesn’t take much intimidation for her to crack. 

You don’t end up needing her to blabber, however, because not even five seconds later, the door you’d just come through swings open and a lone figure enters.

 As you turn, you feel your publicist actually take a step away from you.

“Rebecca, I’m going to kill you.” 

You’re not looking at her as you spit out the threat, your eyes are already boring into the man who’s noted your presence and is lingering just beyond the doorway. 

Your history with Art Donaldson is far from extensive. In fact, while the trajectory of your careers have practically run parallel, the two of you have spoken maybe twice. 

But then, almost two years ago, the U.S Open had happened. 

Still dealing with the fall out of your fiance’s cheating scandal, you’d been in potentially the worst mental space of your life. And yet, you had still made it to the final.

 But, during the match…well you’d sort of lost your shit. And then you’d just lost. It had been dramatic and mortifying. 

Then, with the dust not even close to settling, things had gotten even worse. 

Having just clinched the men’s singles trophy for himself, Art Donaldson had sat down for his live post-match interview and one of the first questions he’d been asked, was about your ‘comportment’ during the final. 

You would never forget his answer: 

'Well, obviously it’s a massive disappointment. In so many ways the match between those two women today was legendary. But it always stings when you see someone get in their own way. Anger like that doesn’t belong on the court: it’s infantile and disrespectful to staff and to the fans. It threatens to overshadow what was otherwise a phenomenal game of tennis for both of them.'

When he had then been pressed for his thoughts on what should be done in regards to sanctions, Art had simply said: ‘I think whatever she’s feeling that made her act that way, is probably punishment enough.’

In a few minutes, Art had made you a subject of scorn as well as unwanted sympathy.  He’d made you sound simultaneously contemptible and pitiable. 

He was right, but he hadn’t needed to sound so sanctimonious when he’d said it. And telling the world your own mental anguish was probably torment enough, was just salt in the wound.

In your own defence, you had gone into the final right off the back of the announcement that your ex-fiancé’s new girlfriend was pregnant. And the dates had made it blindingly clear, that conception had happened whilst you were still with him.

 You’d never felt so worthless or dehumanised. And then, after you’d practically killed yourself playing the match of your life, only to lose, Art fucking Donaldson had felt the need to call out your behaviour. 

‘Anger like that doesn’t belong on the court.’ 

Anger ‘like that’ wasn’t something you’d brought to the competition in your overhead luggage, it was a parasite that had been poisoning your blood.

You’d thought that sort of self-cannibalising rage was in your past, bust as Art starts walking over to you, it rears its ugly head once more.

And he has the gall to smile at you. It’s an amicable, almost anticipatory smile. 

You barely even register when Rebecca ducks away, muttering something about finding the photographer. 

Art calls out your name as he stops before you, the corners of his eyes creasing as his smile intensifies. “It’s good to see you.”

“The feeling is not mutual.” You intone harshly.

Art’s smile doesn’t drop, it just becomes tighter, his eyes sparkling with mirth. “Ah- so you are still upset about what I said at the Open.” 

You glare at him, forcing yourself to stop gritting your teeth lest they shatter. “What could possibly make you think that I wouldn't be?”

Art laughs softly, running a hand through his short blonde hair. “Well, because your coach and your publicist both assured me that you weren’t.”

Those fucking traitors. 

It looks like you’ll be going into tomorrow with only your nutritionist and your physio left on your team.

“They lied.” You reply sharply. 

Art tilts his head, his gaze becoming brazen in the way it assesses your face. “Clearly.”

“Well, obviously this isn’t happening.” You gesture between the two of you. “I’m not doing a photoshoot, let alone an entire campaign, with you.”

“I don’t see why it can’t go ahead.” Art declares casually, his lips tugging upward as he observes your indignation. 

You take a step back, not trusting yourself not to lunge for him.

“Well, it’s a good thing I have little regard for your opinion then, isn’t it?”

Art's brows draw together, some irritation beginning to pollute his easy going demeanour. “You do care.”

“Excuse me?”

“You do care about my opinion, because f you didn’t, you wouldn’t still be this pissed over something I said years ago. 

“Pissed?” You almost choke on the word. “You made me sound pathetic. Weak. You insulted my entire career!”

“I seem to recall saying that your match was ‘legendary.’ Phenomenal, is another word I used.”

If there wasn’t so much anger writhing in your gut, you might have rubbed it in his face that for something he’s outwardly dismissing, he seems to remember what he said about you very well.

You step up to him, closing the distance in two strides.

“‘Whatever she’s feeling that made her act that way, is probably punishment enough.’ You said that about me in front of peers and fans in a live interview that was watched by thousands!”

“You’re telling me you don’t think you were out of line?” Art challenges, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning in. 

You know he’s not wrong: it hadn’t been your finest hour. In fact, the morning after, with your behaviour laid bare in the cold light and already being picked over by commentators and tabloids, you had been able to acknowledge it may very well have been one of the worst hours you would ever have. 

But you’d rather die than acknowledge that to Art.

“Oh, that’s fucking rich coming from you!” You hit back disparagingly.

Art’s fingers dig into his arms. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re a hypocrite, Art. I watched your match against Patrick Zweig at the…what was it- Phil’s Tire Town Challenger? Someone recorded it from the stands. Tell me, what emotion were you bringing to the court when you yelled ‘fuck you’ at him across the net?” 

“You have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“I’m not proposing a thesis, Art. This isn’t up for debate. I’m just telling you what I saw. And it seems to me, that you have some fucking anger issues of your own, so quit chewing me out over mine.”

“Chewing you out–” He splutters, his cheeks flushing with outrage. “Wow, you really do have a victim complex, huh?” 

“Fuck you!” You seethe.

Your exclamation doesn’t dissuade Art, instead he gathers momentum: 

“You’re acting like I should fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness over an entirely reasonable answer I gave to a question about your piss-poor behaviour. But I didn’t make you launch your racket across the court or cuss out the line judge. You’re not a tragic woman, or some wronged heroine, you’re a grown woman throwing a tantrum because I wasn’t very nice about her in an interview, two goddamn years ago!” 

“Well, I’m a bitch and you’re a hypocrite, looks like neither of us should be tennis’ poster child.” You snap, pushing past him and heading for the door. 

There was absolutely no chance you were doing this photoshoot. Nike could give Naomi Osaka another call. 

Just as you’ve got past him, Art is following you, snagging your wrist with his hand. “Hey! I didn’t call you a bitch.” 

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone. Badmouthing people in public forums is your move.” 

You yank yourself out of his hold and with his eyes burning into the back of your head, you leave Art Donaldson alone in the lobby. 

  ━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

( Three Weeks Later… )

In the intervening weeks since your confrontation with Art, you have discovered just how airtight employment contracts can be. 

Nike should really give their lawyers a raise, because you have been assured that there is more chance of you sprouting wings, than being able to get out of the ad campaign. 

You’d been forced back to the studio a week later with your tail between your legs, but while you’d felt genuinely apologetic over the inconvenience caused to Nike’s team, your fury at Art had only compounded. 

Thankfully, the feeling had been mutual and the two of you had passed the entire shoot in utter silence. Neither of you had offered up so much as a hello or goodbye to the other, and while it had clearly been painfully awkward for everyone around you, it had worked out quite well. 

Unfortunately, you and Art had been called back for a day of what they were calling ‘action shots.’

Which is why you’re currently at a country club, dressed in all of Nike’s new gear, being forced to actually play tennis against Art. 

If it was anyone else, you would already have drawn attention to the fact that your wrist is in excruciating pain, but you refuse to falter in front of him. 

Besides, as much as you’re loathe to admit it, playing against Art is exhilarating. 

The team have just called for a break and somehow, despite the innumerable people that have been buzzing around you for the entire day, you and Art suddenly find yourselves alone at the side of the court. 

You’ve done well at remaining civil with each other, but that’s only because you only said ‘hello’ and ‘ready’ before you’d started playing.

Unfortunately for you, Art seems to be in the mood to antagonise.

“I don’t get why this is making you so miserable.” Art says, dropping down onto the bench beside you with a shit-eating grin on his face. 

You hold up the can in your hand, fingers biting into the condensation slick metal. 

“I specifically asked for Tangerine La Croix and they’ve given me Pure.” You mock. You couldn't care less about what you’re drinking.

“Funny.” Art deadpans. 

“And here was me thinking you’d jump at the chance to call me a diva.” You answer, donning a smirk of your own.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

Some genuine anger colours Art’s tone and it only feeds the fires of your own.

“What?” 

Art grabs the can from your hand and maintains eye contact as he steals as a sip.

“You refuse to let go of a few critical, but very valid sentences I said about you in that interview and you’ve used them to construct a narrative about my dislike for you. I don’t dislike you.”

“Oh, you don’t? That’s good, because this amicable exchange is really making me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.” 

Art groans, slumping back on the bench. He manspreads so wide that his knee knocks into yours. 

“Can you not just enjoy yourself? It’s a beautiful day and we’re being paid to do what we’re great at.”

You wrinkle your nose and try to snatch back the can, but Art tightens his grip and the metal crumples as you both tighten your hold. 

“Yeah, well, not everyone gets off on having their face on a billboard.” You sneer, almost falling back when Art suddenly lets go of the can.

It’s practically empty and completely deformed, so you slam it down onto the empty space beside you.

“How do you know that I do?”

“What?”

“How do you know that I get off on it?” He repeats glibly.

“Because, you’ve clearly wanted to retire for years and now that you have, you can monopolise on the popularity that your wife built up for you and live off clothing lines and ads for the rest of your life.”

“Being great at tennis built up my popularity.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you actually believe that, Art? So many phenomenal players go widely unknown for their entire careers. You are only The Art Donaldson instead of just plain old Art, because Tashi Duncan made you a brand. She’s responsible for your legacy.”

“She didn’t make me.”

“Maybe not, but she did mould you into what you are. You would have been just another generic Stanford whiteboy if she hadn’t decided to give you fucking form.”

“You talk about her like she’s God.” 

“Are you telling me that’s not what it feels like when her attention is solely on you?” You challenge, but you don’t wait for an answer. “You know, I actually played her quite a lot when we were teenagers– we always ended up being us against each other in finals– and even then…it was like trying to play against an elemental force. Every time, without fail, there was a tiny part of me that just wanted to fall to my fucking knees in front of her. But I never did, instead it made my game better. She made my game better. Tashi put all she had into you after her injury, the least you could do is acknowledge what she’s done for you.

“You don’t have to tell me what I owe my wife.”

You scoff, rising to your feet. “I’m telling you what you owe your coach.” 

You don’t actually know where you’re going as you walk away, only that you need it to be far from him.

  ━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

( Two Months Later… )

At the launch event for Nike’s new line, you’re standing in front of the massive poster that’s at the forefront of the campaign and swallowing down bile. 

It’s a great picture, you’ll give them that: Your feet are practically lifting off the ground as you throw up the ball for a serve, your expression is contorted with a ruinous passion that portends some sort of violence. And across the net, there’s Art: he’s dropped into a crouch, ready to pounce once you send the ball his way. In the face of your fury, his anticipation comes fitted out with his signature smirk. 

It’s not just a great photo, it’s phenomenal.

 You want to tear it off the wall. 

You’re on the verge of asking anyone if they have a pen so you can scribble over Art’s face, when the man himself appears beside you. In your peripheral vision you catch a glimpse of his sleek, all black suit, but you don’t turn to look at him. 

“I’m not sure you’d get away with defacing it in front of so many people.” 

Trying to suppress your eye roll would be a fruitless endeavour, so you turn to face Art, forcing him to bear witness to your indignation. 

“You should know by now that I have little regard for decorum. You certainly like commenting on my lack of it.”

“I thought you’d still be hung up on that.” 

“Yeah, well, some of us have follow through.” You give him a venomous smile. “How is retirement treating you?”

“Ah, I should have known.”

“Known what?”

“You see retirement is quitting. So, you’ll force yourself to continue well past the point you should, your game will get shittier and shittier, so by the time you’re forced to quit, people will be pitying you instead of remembering how phenomenal you were.”

There’s a compliment in there, but you’re not feeling generous of spirit enough to pluck it out of the insult. 

“I know when to stop, Art. It’s just not now.” You answer coldly.

“Okay, when? Like- give me your timeline. You must have thought about it.”

“Not yet.”

This answer seems to really frustrate him and he just stares at you, a muscle in his jaw feathering as he grips his champagne flute. 

“Do you think I didn’t notice how much your wrist was killing you when we played each other? Are you really going to wreck your body out of stubbornness?”

“You know, Art, what you did wasn’t bowing out at the perfect time, it was cowardice. You skipped right to the curtain call when you still had a last act left to perform. You never got that US Open trophy, did you?” 

Art sighs, his gaze moving back to the photo of the two of you. "Yeah well, something tells me you won't either. Have a good night."

Then he's backing away, his stare lingering on you even as he lets the crowd reabsorb him. 

  ━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

( One Month Later… )

Had Tashi Duncan not been one of the people in your life that you most respected and admired, you wouldn’t even have considered attending the fundraising gala for her and Art’s foundation.  

But you were, quite frankly, obsessed with her, so of course you had come.

 Sitting in an uncomfortably tight dress at a table of people you don’t know and with a fair amount of alcohol circulating through your system, is quite possibly the most painstaking thing you’ve ever gone through.

Apart from the car crash. That had been pretty bad. 

But you’re adamant you won’t think about the car crash tonight, or the fact that, somehow, your wrist seems to be getting worse; devolving to a state more dire than when the cast had first come off. 

The meal—which you hadn’t been able to stomach—had come and gone and now the auction is beginning. Tashi is up on the stage, dazzling in the way that only she can and Art is standing at the bottom of the set of stairs that lead up to the platform.

Unfortunately, your table is very close to the front and you’re positioned right in his eyeline. 

Art keeps stealing glances at you with an emotion you can’t place. You had tried to switch seats with the man across from you, but the asshole turned out to be a real stickler for assigned seating. 

If only to distract yourself, you whip out your phone, resting it in your lap beneath the table.

The moment you open up Instagram, your heart drops into your stomach. 

You thought you had expunged any remnants of your ex from your life, but it seems you’ve missed a mutual friend on Instagram, one who has just reposted his engagement announcement with his girlfriend and mother of his now one year old daughter. 

That bastard has broken your heart and wrecked your head, but while your life just keeps getting worse, the universe has seen fit to bless him with everything he’s ever wanted. 

The auction is already in full swing when you rise clumsily from your seat and weave through the tables, heading for the closest exit. 

It’s only as you push open the door and begin to sway, that you realise you’re actually quite tipsy. You might have drunk a little too much before you’d left the house. 

It’s freezing outside, but you can’t face going back for your coat, so, unsteady on your feet, you flee into the extensive gardens that surround the estate that’s acting as the gala’s venue. 

You walk well past the point where the lawn lighting disappears and clamber over a fence that has ‘restricted area’ prominently posted in front of it.

You don’t know where you’re going, but as you stagger down the hill, your sadness is alleviated very slightly by the sight of a massive pond that you’re sure is beckoning to you. 

You kick off your heels and drop down onto the bank, quick to put your feet into the water. Once you’re settled, you retrieve your hip flask from your clutch and begin to guzzle vodka in earnest.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

You turn and you find an incensed Art striding towards you. You’re more than a little delighted by the sight of mud splattered over the polished surface of his shoes. 

“I was having some time to myself.”

“You needed to walk all the way down here to get it?”

You laugh caustically, gesturing at him. “Well…no. Obviously I should have walked even further away.”

Art huffs, entirely unimpressed. He takes a few steps further down the bank and holds out a hand beckoning you over.

“Come on, you need to come back inside.”

“Why is that?”

“Because, you offered tennis lessons with yourself as an auction item and you’re up soon. You need to be on stage.”

Ah. You’d forgotten about that. 

“Why do I need to be seen? It’s not like they’re buying me.”

“You still can’t stay in there. Get out.”

“I’m not in it, Art. I’m just dangling my feet in the water.”

“Well, you can’t ‘dangle’ your feet in there, it’s a pond not a swimming pool.” 

“I can’t?” You feign a bafflement as you look at your feet, submerged in the murky water. “I sort of already am?”

Art moves even closer but falters, his bright eyes becoming an invading force: his gaze takes hold of your edges and peels them back.

He can see inside.

“What’s wrong?” He probes, the harsher edges of his previous words now nowhere to be found.

“At the moment, it’s you.” 

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m not actually, but I’m getting there.” 

Art’s eyes flick to the metal object glinting in your hand. “Is that a hip flask?” 

“What a keen eye you have.” You mutter sardonically.

“Okay, I'm serious now, get out.”

“Oh, he’s being serious!” You mock, rising to your feet.

 But you don’t move away from the pond. Instead, you turn and start walking backwards into the water you wobble when your bare feet sink into the mud, icy liquid seeping into the thin fabric of your silk dress.

Art lunges forward, closing the distance until he’s standing at the edge of the water. His hand darts out and he grabs your forearm. 

“You’re too close to drunk to be near a body of water, let alone in one. You’ll drown yourself.” 

Art plucks the hip flask from your fingers with his free hand and tosses it into the grass behind him, all without taking his eyes off you. 

Then he seems to actually register where his hand is. He’s still gazing into your eyes as his thumb brushes over the scar above your wrist. 

“Compound fracture.” You say on a bitter breath. “The bone went right through. Fucking drunk driver. Funny that, isn’t it? He crashed into me, fucked my career probably permanently and then I became a drunk to cope.”

Some of the hardness in Art’s expression melts away, but it pools into the bags beneath his eyes and the shadows beneath his cheekbones, making him look almost distraught. Once you realise it’s sadness--no, pity--for you, you wrench your wrist out of his grasp and wade further back into the pond. 

You gasp, shocked as the frigid water wraps around your legs in an eager embrace. It’s like it’s clinging on, wanting to keep you forever. 

You find the thought of it quite peaceful.

You think on Art’s words from months ago: he’s right, about you being too stubborn to know when to stop. You won’t retire until you’re physically falling apart.

 But what if you just sink down into the water right now? You’d disappear and the memories would be of a great player gone too soon.

God, you didn’t realise you had such a large ego that you’d consider letting yourself drown just to save face.

Art is beyond unimpressed now. He’s furious. 

“Get out.” You just smile at him, stepping further back. The water reaches your navel and you let your fingertips skim over the water. “I’m not kidding, get the fuck out. Now.”

“Will you just back off!” You erupt. “We’ve done the campaign, we’re not friends, there’s no reason for us to be involved.” 

“None of that gives me a reason to leave you alone out here.”

“Why not?!” You protest desperately. “It’s not the ocean, I can’t be swept out to sea!”

“Get out of the water.”

“No.” 

“Get out.” 

“Get fucked.” You hit back, letting yourself sink back into the water. 

As you move to float on your back, another frantic laugh bubbles up as you're enveloped by its icy grip. Your dress becomes heavier, a five thousand dollar weight around your body, urging you to sink lower.

You turn your head to the side so that you can see the surface of the water:

This far out of the city, the stars are no longer choked by smog and so are able to tear through the darkness. The water perfectly mirrors the sky, so much so that it’s like you’re swimming in the cosmos. If you open your mouth, you could take some of it into yourself. 

You had struggled to get out of bed this morning, but now, in the quiet night, you have the chance to swallow a thousand stars–

Impudent splashing disrupts your peace. 

Your head shoots up, water running in eager rivulets off your hair as you watch wide eyed, as Art drops into the water. His jacket and shoes have been discarded on the edge of the bank. 

“What are you doing?”  

Art doesn’t answer, instead he drives through the water towards you, his strides producing ripples that disturb the reflected constellations. Shooting stars. 

You’re not very far out, so just as Art closes in on you, you plant your feet on the muddy bottom of the pond and stand up.

The fabric of your dress is dark and slick against your body like an oil spill. The breeze blows a tentative breath against you, causing your skin to pebble and your nipples to harden.

Art reaches for you but your hand flies out and you swat him away.

You push yourself further out, giggling at his expression as the water comes up to your chin. 

Then Art’s diving after you, the white material of his shirt submerged in the water. 

“Art, this is a pond, not a swimming pool.” You tease, amusement blooming.

In fact, you’re relishing the sight of his arms pushing through the water so much, that you forget to make another escape attempt. 

Before you know it, Art is right up in front of you, his breath coasting over your face as he wraps an arm around your middle beneath the water. 

You drive your feet into the mud, your smile growing as he looks exasperatedly up at sky. His fingers press into your side.

“This is so beyond funny.” He grouses, trying and failing to tug you closer.

Seeing as you’re not actually drunk, you’re not sure what comes over you, but you’re seized by a giddy, childlike urge. 

You decide to give into it.

Art’s eyes widen slightly as you rush forward, pressing your chest right up against his. Then, you place one hand on each of his shoulders and push.

There’s a brief moment, where your face rises above Art and he gazes up at you, droplets of water rolling off your face and onto him. He’s looking at you in the same way you had been gazing up at the stars. Perhaps you’ve become one of them. Wouldn’t that be something?

Art realises too late what you’re going to do. 

“Don’t you dare–”

You push all of your weight onto his shoulders and dunk him into the pond. His head goes under, short blonde locks floating up in the water.

You immediately let him go and when he comes up, spluttering for air, the hand not on your waist winds around the back of your neck, threading into the hair at the nape of your neck. He pulls you flush against him again.

When he speaks, it is a whisper you feel against your cheek. “You’re such an asshole.” 

Your hands fall onto his waist beneath the water. “I know.” 

You shriek as Art tips you back, his hand still cradling the back of your neck as he dunks your head into the water in retaliation. It feels like a baptism. 

When you come back up, he's chuckling as you gasp for air. 

“I had to do that.” Art defends.

 He notices you scrambling to push soaked strands of hair out of your eyes and proceeds to help you, his hand brushing over your cheeks and forehead before returning your sight to you. 

“I feel like you didn’t have to.” You splutter, fighting back a laugh of your own. 

You’re suddenly glad for his grip on you- you’re far too flustered to stand firmly on your own two feet. 

Art’s cheek’s dimple as he smiles, shaking his head at you. Your breath hitches. 

When he’s unencumbered by negative emotion…Art shines. 

He leans in again, his lips grazing the shell of your ear: 

“Don’t start something you’re not prepared to finish, sweetheart.” Your breathing becomes even more laboured as he draws away, his nose briefly dragging against your cheek. “Now…get out of the goddamn pond.” 

And then he’s pulling away, leaving you gaping after him as he moves back towards the bank.

 His touch is an absence you really wish didn’t feel so profound 

“Spoilsport.” You grumble. But you’re already moving after him. 

The alcohol you did have in you has disappeared; shocked out of your system by the frigid water and the feel of Art’s hands.

 You wade back towards the bank, your hip flask is nestled in the grass and glinting seductively in the moonlight. 

With Art’s back to you, you let yourself stare as he drags himself out of the water. His shirt is stuck to his body and entirely see through, settling into the ridges of his muscled chest. The moon’s light shines through the fabric hanging from his sleeves, making it look like the membrane of wings.

As Art kneels on the grass, you blink rapidly as if he’s a vision you can dispel from your sight. 

You can acknowledge he’s attractive- you’re not blind– but you can’t abide the yearning arising within you. You don’t have room for that in your life, for anyone, but especially not for him. 

You finally reach the edge of the bank and then Art is kneeling at the edge, holding a hand out for you to take.

You consider him for a moment and process the newfound ease on his face. He seems almost serene. 

You fight off a shiver that you blame on the cold and ignore his outstretched hand, pulling yourself out of the water unaided. 

“Really?” Art bites out irritatedly, watching as you wander over to your hip flask and sit down right beside it. You take it into your hand and unscrew the cap. 

When you bring it to your lips you look right into his eyes. “Really.” 

You throw your head back, the path the vodka burns down your throat is a welcome discomfort. You had felt far too peace just now, floating in a sea of stars with Art. 

But those weren’t stars, just a reflection of them. It was a trick. Nothing that could ever be real. 

When you drop the now empty flask into your lap, there are tears in your eyes. 

When was the last time you’d felt even close to the happiness you’d found in that water? 

It wasn’t real.

A traitorous tear is already rolling down your cheek as you drop your eyes to your hands. 

“Hey.” Art says softly. He kneels down beside you, one hand on your soaked back as the other plucks the flask out your lap. “What’s wrong?”

You make a noise that’s half sob, half laugh. “I already answered that question.” 

“Yeah, except I know you’re full of shit.” When you look up at him, Art’s frown becomes something gentler. “I know I’m not your problem.” 

You scoff, shoving his chest. He sways backwards, but drops down onto his knees, planting himself on the ground beside you. His hand is still on your back.

“Yes, you are actually.” You answer nastily. “You really are.”

“Just tell me.” Art whispers, ducking his head into your field of vision so you’re forced to look at him. His free hand settles on your cheek. “Tell me what’s wrong because this…is sort of scary.”

You lift your hands and clasp his cheeks, digging your fingers in. You’re overcome by a violent impulse to tear into his skin. 

It would be far easier to draw blood than confront how you’re beginning to feel about him. 

“Aww.” You croon. “Did I scare the poor little baby?” 

“Stop it.” He scolds. His hands move to grasp your wrists but he doesn't pull you away, not even as you press your nails further in.

But you won’t stop- can’t stop. Your feelings have become spiteful and unruly, running away from you at a pace which you can’t hope to match.

You can’t take the strain. And because Art is the contributor to that is closest to you, it’s him you’re going to lash out at.

“No, really, I didn’t think you’d be such a pussy.” You forge on, spewing venom. “I scared you by getting in a pond? Grow the fuck up, Art.”

But Art doesn’t rise to it. His jaw doesn’t clench and his grip on you doesn’t tighten. 

“This isn’t okay.” He says, tentative but assured. “You’re not okay.” 

“No, I'm not!” You snap wrenching your wrists free. “But it’s got absolutely nothing to do with you.”

You try to rise to your feet, but Art doesn’t let you. He moves so he’s kneeling either side of you, his legs pressing into your thighs as his hands fall onto your shoulders. You can feel in the way his fingers press into you that he’s fighting the urge to shake sense into you. 

You look up at him, slightly startled by his forcefulness. His back is facing the moon now and his drenched body is limned in silver. 

Before you can berate yourself for even thinking about it, you’re winding your hand around his tie and dragging him down, smashing your lips against his. 

You shouldn't be doing this, a large part of you doesn’t want to, but it feels like the only way to purge yourself of him. And what kills a bacteria faster than blazing heat?

Art lets out a warning groan, but your teeth nipping his bottom lip is all it takes to have him leaning in. Even your kiss feels like a fight, battling each other for control, pressing with bruising force.

Art crowds over you, guiding your back against the grass.

You let yourself fall. 

As your back presses into the earth, one of his hands settles on the side of your neck as he drags the other up your leg. When he peels up the sodden material of your dress, his hand exploring your thigh, the cold air bites tauntingly against your rapidly heating skin. 

Your hard nipples brush against his soaked t-shirt and the feeling is so tantalising, that you find your back arching, pressing yourself into him and chasing the sensation.

When you let out a moan into his mouth, Art draws back as if some unseen hand has pulled on him.

He’s still agonisingly close, his lips a hair's breadth away as he gazes down at you through heavy eyelids, water droplets running down his face from his hair. His breathing is ragged.

 Art’s eyes close and with his sight lost to him, his lips drift closer to you again and his teeth nip at your chin. After placing a ghost of kiss over where he’s bitten, he takes a deep breath.

Then his eyes open, and his expression is blank. It makes you feel sick.

You’re burning up with want, but you can already see the realisation of your transgression settling into the very bones of Art. He’s about to spurn you, disdain no doubt working its way to the surface. So you have to get there first. 

“Poor, sensitive Art, scared by a kiss.” You goad. The words are forced out and they feel malformed on your tongue. “Don’t worry your little head over it, it doesn’t mean anything.” 

Art drops his eyes from you, shaking his hand as he pushes himself off up. 

“Nice try, but I know what you’re doing.”  

He mumbles it and doesn't give you a chance to acknowledge it befores he’s on his feet and walking away. 

Tears prick insistently at the back of your eyes but you force them back, pressing the heels of your thumbs into them until it hurts. 

You sit up, feeling leaves and blades of grass sticking to your exposed skin.

You feel the air shift behind you, and are startled when you peer over your shoulder and find Art standing at your back. He has his shoes back on and is gripping his dry jacket far too tightly. 

You find your voice, but it’s weak: “What am I doing Art?” 

He doesn’t meet your eye, instead he opens up the jacket in his hands and settles it over your shoulders. You sit there, stunned as he tugs it around your body. Then he leans down and over your shoulders, his breath on the side of your face as he deftly buttons the jacket up. 

Art encloses you in the dry garment that carries the scent of him. 

“You’re doing the same thing as me.” He says quietly. It sounds almost painful for him to talk. “Running away. I guess we’re both cowards.”

And then he’s gone, marching back up the bank without another word.

You’re left sitting there, wrapped in his jacket and staring out at the pond. 

Not the night sky. 

Just a pond. 

  ━━━━∙⋆⋅⋆∙━━━━

( Three Months Later… )

After your cast had first come off, Wimbledon had felt like an intimidating but still far off thing; a dark shape on the horizon, but one you had to squint to see. But then it moved closer, barreling towards you like a bat out of hell. 

You’ve made great progress in your recovery, you really have…but all your extensive physiotherapy hasn’t been able to heal the nerve-damage you’d turned out to have- at least not in a timespan that’s workable for a professional athlete. 

You’re done. Tennis career over.

And your worst fear has come true: it hadn’t been your choice. Injury has forced you out and the public discourse is rife with commiseration and useless, positive platitudes. 

Art has been proved right. Everything would be so much better had you known when to quit. You had preferred ridicule to this. 

But until you’d come to Wimbledon, it hadn’t really sunk in yet: you hadn’t had the moment of finality. 

What closure has ended up feeling like, is the final nail in your coffin.

As you had watched the first matches of Wimbledon from the stands, Rebecca glancing at you constantly–presumably to check you weren’t about to burst into tears–you had felt as though you were being buried: each serve and volley another hand tossing dirt on top of the coffin, sealing you beneath the ground for good. 

At least one part of your day has been successful. You have completed the challenge you’d set for yourself that morning, which was to not drink any alcohol until the evening.

 It has been excruciating.

Evidence of your victory lays in your trembling hands as you fit your keycard into the door of your hotel room. You’re desperate for what you know sits waiting for you on the other side. 

But then, just as the lock mechanism chirps to let you know you’ve been granted entry, someone calls your name.

Your keycard is left in the door as your fingers fall away from the handle and you turn to face Art. He’s stopped himself a safe distance from you and is gazing at you with what looks like…relief? 

Of course you knew he was at Wimbledon–you’d narrowly avoided crossing paths with him a number of times already today–but to hear his voice and having his probing stare directed solely on you, is as debilitating as you remember. 

You haven’t seen each other, or even spoken, since the night by–or rather in–the pond. 

The only place the two of you are still together in any capacity, is on the Nike billboards that are still occupying space throughout the world.

And as if Art’s thoughts align with your own, he says: 

“You pull an impressive disappearing act.” He steps closer.

“That suggests you went looking for me.” You counter, pleased with how detached you sound. “We both know you didn’t.” 

“No. I didn’t.” Art replies frankly. 

“So I didn’t disappear, did I? You just couldn’t see me.”

Art moves towards you some more, stopping an arms length away. 

“It felt the same.” He utters lowly. “You were gone.”

You shrug halfheartedly. “So were you.” 

Then you press your back into the door, fingers seeking out the handle, shaking now for a reason other than alcohol withdrawal. 

You really don’t know if you’re running away or urging him on, but when you push open the door and duck inside, you do know that you’re not angry when he follows. 

You put your back to the hallway door, expecting Art to move past you and head into the suite, but he doesn’t. At least not right away. Instead, he stops right in front of you, looking down at you as the door swings shut. 

You would barely have to lift your hand and you’d be touching him.

You hate that he looks so good. He’s in simple navy dress pants, a white shirt sitting snugly on his chest, the top few buttons undone. 

The two of you stand like that for a minute or so, and just as you realise that your breaths have practically synchronised, Art is moving away from you and wandering inside. 

It’s only then, as he ventures deeper, that you remember what you’ve been so eager to get back into the room for. You curse yourself, letting your head fall back against the wall behind you.

Even if he hadn’t already seen them, it would be too late for you to hide the line of alcohol minis that you’d gathered from the bar cart. 

You’d set them out earlier, the process almost meditative. It had been a promise to yourself: get through the day without drinking and you can have all of these once you’re alone.

But now they’re standing out in the open, displayed on the nearby desk like pieces knocked off a board in a game that you’ve been playing against yourself. 

You watch helplessly as Art walks right over to them, his hands in his pockets. Your face flushes with shame.

Art cranes his neck back to look at you. You’re still pressed against the wall, afraid that if you take one step closer, you won’t be able to stop yourself from taking ten more. And you don’t want to be close to him when his face shifts into pity or revilement. 

“You planning on drinking all of these?” Art asks, turning back to the bottles as if he knows his gaze is steadily undoing you and wants to grant a reprieve.

Eased slightly by the remarkable placidity of his tone, you’re able to answer calmly. But you still don’t move. 

“That was the plan.” 

Art lets out a non-committal hum. “Why?” 

You laugh awkwardly, wringing your hands together. “I don’t know, why does anyone drink?” 

“I don’t care about anyone, I'm asking about you.” His voice is firm, but the foundation of it is something less solid. His words shake on the way out. 

You’re overcome with the urge to be honest. It’s actually a lot easier when he’s not looking at you. 

“I drink because at some point in my life, every tiny thing became really difficult- like, embarrassingly difficult, to the point where I feel like a child again. And it turns out that ineptitude is easier to bear when you feel like you’ve imposed it on yourself. I drink because it makes me feel helpless…but, helpless by choice.”

The confession hangs suspended in the air, a horrifying, complicated marvel- like a beautiful butterfly now dead and pinned by its wings to a board. 

Art speaks into the silence, his back still turned to you. “Do you want to forget? Is that part of it?” 

“Forget what?” You’re struggling for breath now, his presence drawing all of the oxygen from the room.

He half-turns his head, blue eyes settling over you once more. “All of it.”

“There’s not enough alcohol in the world for that.” You say morosely.

You have learnt that getting drunk doesn’t rid you of all the thoughts that torment you in sobriety, it just pushes them further to the back. Even if you drink so much you can barely walk, the thoughts remain, banging on the barrier and demanding to be let back in. 

Art doesn’t respond to that. He turns back to the little bottles and you watch as he reaches out a hand and knocks over the one closest to him. He pushes it forward, sending them all toppling one after the other like dominos. His eyes are set on them as they roll around on the table, a couple falling onto the plush carpet. And your eyes are set on him. 

Then, he finally turns to properly face you, knocking the fallen bottles with his feet as he leans back against the table and crosses his arms against his chest. 

He’s waiting, you realise. Waiting for you to speak. Waiting for you to make the first move. Wanting you to come to him. 

You push off the wall and start walking towards him. “Why did you follow me in here, Art?”

He sighs, the corner of his lip pulling up with a melancholy smile. “Because you make me feel helpless.” 

That almost stops you in your tracks, but you recover quickly, barely a footstep faltering as you advance on him. Your heartbeat is a warning drum in your ears.

Once you reach him, Art widens his legs, allowing you to step between them.

As you settle your hands on his thighs, his duck beneath your dress and come to rest on the bare flesh of the back of your legs. He draws you closer, making you fingers dig into his trousers to steady yourself. 

You sigh, your eyes fluttering shut as he leans forward, brushing his lips against your exposed sternum. 

You’re still flushed and sweating from the uncharacteristically blazing English sun and you shudder as Art’s tongue darts out lapping at the moisture there. 

You rock forward, placing your chin on the top of his head, inadvertently pressing his mouth further into your skin. His lapping tongue turns into kisses, kisses that travel down onto the swell of your breasts and into the valley between them.

Even when he reaches the fabric of your dress, he doesnt let it stop him: Art’s lips close around your clothed nipple, wetting the thin fabric with his saliva. You let out a breathy moan into his hair as he moves onto the next one. 

As Art works his mouth against you, you push your hands higher, letting your fingers brush the bulge in his pants before they’re settling on his belt buckle. 

He says your name, each movement of his lips searing into your flesh. 

“Do I make you feel helpless?” He asks, his hands moving up to curl in the sides of your underwear. 

“No, Art. You don’t.”

As you undo his fly, he begins to pull your underwear down.

“Why?” He closes his mouth around your breast and bites down just enough to make your breath catch in your throat. 

You remove one of your hands from his crotch and use it to grab the back of his neck, you pull him away from your chest, forcing him to look up at you as your other hand disappears into his trousers, palming his hardness.

Even as you step out of your underwear and kick it away, you’re starting to stroke him. His mouth falls open, sucking in a breath as gazes up at you as if you hung the moon.

“How could I feel helpless?” You goad, leaning in and resting your mouth beside his ear to whisper. “When I have so much power over you?” 

Art’s initial answer is to buck up into your hand, chasing the friction you’re moving too slowly to give him, but when you laugh at his desperation, he’s surging up, wrapping his arms around your waist and spinning you.

In a flash, you’ve taken up his position: ass resting on the edge of the desk. 

Before you can catch your breath, Art has his hands on your knees and is spreading your legs, exposing your bareness to him.

But apparently he still hasn’t got you where he wants, because his fingers then wrap around the back of your legs and he lifts you, placing you further back onto the wooden surface. More bottles roll off the edge and drop into the carpet. 

Then, finally, Art’s eyes meet yours. His smirk makes a return. 

“So…” He begins, his hands gathering up your dress and leaving it to bunch up at your waist. “I have absolutely no effect on you? None at all?”

“No-” You can’t even finish your thought let alone the word before his fingers are running through the wetness between your legs. Your instinct is to shut them, but his hips are in the way, so you only succeed in holding him firmly in place. 

You are left to stare as he lifts his hand up, evidence of your arousal glistening on his fingers. Then, slowly enough that he can watch the realisation of what he’s doing dawn on your face, Art takes his fingers into his own mouth.

His eyes meet yours and do not shift away for even a second as he licks your wetness from his skin. 

The tightness in your belly becomes almost too extreme to bear, and a throbbing begins between your legs. 

“I want you to ask.” Art says, his fingers–now wet with his own saliva–drawing circles on your inner thigh. “I want you to ask me to fuck you.” 

“I thought you were here because I make you feel helpless?” You try to sound taunting, but your voice is ragged with want. “Now you want to be in control?”

Art leans down and you expect an abrupt, bruising joining of your lips, but instead he kisses you slowly, tenderness in every gentle movement. His mouth is is still aligned with yours as he answers: 

“It’s not about control, sweetheart. I just want to hear that you want me as much as I want you.” 

You begin to kiss along his jaw, your sentence formed with words cushioned between the press of your lips:

“I want you to fuck me, Art.” 

Art's fingers curl around your jaw, bringing your lips back to his as he frees himself from his pants with his other hand. Your kiss is languid but rapidly growing with force, passion driving pleasure ever closer to point of pain.

“Condom?” Art questions into your open mouth. 

With his fingers digging into your chin, you can't shake your head so you’re forced to gather enough of your wits to speak again:

“Birth control.” 

“Okay.” Art pecks your lips before lifting a hand and spitting onto it. Then he’s fisting himself in his hand and pressing inside of you. 

Your legs immediately wrap around his waist, hooking together to pull him in even further. 

Art lets out a shuddered breath, his head dropping to your shoulder as he settles himself inside of you.

He kisses and licks across your collarbone, only stopping when he comes across the thin strap of your dress. With a little growl, he takes it between his teeth, tugging it back and then letting it ping back into your skin. 

You laugh, still adjusting to the feel of him inside of you as you move to pull down the top of your dress. But Art has other ideas. He stops you with a slow thrust, rolling his hips just enough to have your hands wrapping around his neck instead. 

“Let me do it.” He’s giving a command and yet it sounds like a grovel. 

Then, in unison, his fingers find the straps of your dress and he’s pulling them away, tugging the bodice down and exposing your breasts to him completely. His hands fall onto them immediately, palming the supple flesh and lifting them up higher so that he can kiss them even as he begins to rock into you. 

Just as your heartbeat begins to find some sort of rhythm again, Art pulls out of you almost completely before driving back in. Your breath is knocked out of you and as he begins to thrust with controlled rapidity.

Your hands fall to his still covered ass and dissatisfied with the lack of contact, you push your fingers past the waistband and dig your nails into his naked flesh. 

Art moans into your neck, clamping down with his teeth as he picks up his pace yet again. 

“Art-” You call out, lost in the press of him inside you. 

The table begins to shake so much that it’s slamming against the wall, the noise perfectly aligning with the sound of your hips slapping together.

“Tell me this doesn’t make you feel out of control.” Art pleads, his movements growing frenzied. 

By this point you can hardly think straight, so you give in, his statement going unanswered as your head is thrown back in pleasure. Art chuckles, licking up the column of your neck. 

“I think I got my answer.” 

“Shut up.” 

When Art laughs at you again, you remove your hands from his ass and grip his face instead, drawing his lips back up to yours. He opens wide, panting into your mouth before your tongues start to move together.

You stay like that, mouths joined and breaths shared as his thrusts become messier,  his hands on your back beginning to tremble.

But you’re not close yet and he knows it. He reaches between you and presses his thumb into your sensitive bud, applying enough pressure that, combined with him driving into you, has you quickly coming undone.  

You break the kiss, crying out as your body is wracked with convulsions. 

Art smiles, his eyes drooping closed as he chases his own release. And it doesn’t take long. You’re still coming back to yourself when his hips stutter and his fingers dig into you. He lets go, spilling inside you. 

You both go still. You press your face into his chest–his shirt now dappled with spots of sweat–as he places a kiss on the top of your head. 

You’re both breathing heavily, reeling in the wake of your joining when your phone–tucked into your purse that you had dropped by the door–begins to ring

Still inside you, Art shifts, pressing closer as his lips begin to kiss a path down your cheek. “Don’t answer it.” 

You lean back just enough to meet his eye and smile. “I’m not going to answer it.” 

Art matches your grin as he leans down and gives your lips a peck. “Good. Because I’m nowhere near done with you.”

[appalachiancowboy99]

After Dark

Arthur Morgan x CurvyFem!Reader Established relationship, high honor, grumpy Arthur in desperate need of release, 18+, MDNI (Minors DO NOT ENTER)

Arthur comes back to camp later than usual, with nothing but a bad disposition and a desperate need to release his pent-up frustrations.

Warnings: longer read, sexual content (oral, unprotected p in v, rough sex), mentions of violence, mentions of anger, and dabbles in sensual fluff.

Gif by: @sunwingsunset

A/N: Thank you so much to @photo1030 for not only being my sounding board in the never-ending chaos that is my writing process but also for being such a wonderful friend through it all. So grateful for you, don't know what I'd do without ya, C! <3 Thank you so much to @rivetingrosie4 for being an inspiration for my little works and being so supportive of my creative endeavors, not to mention the kind generosity of your friendship! Forever grateful for to have met you! @tortureddpoett I'm so excited to explore this budding friendship with you! Thank you so much for showing so much excitement for my work, IT MAKES ME EXCITED (EEP!). It means an absolute ton to me <3 @mr-inkslinger your friendship has been an absolute delight to explore! Thank you for posting that toe-curling smut that always has me giggling and kicking my feet! So happy to have met ya! And thank each and every single one of you for liking my first drabble and expressing interest in this next one. I'm so sorry it's taken me forever to publish this post, but hopefully, the next ones won't take me as long. I'll forever be grateful for your patience and kindness <3 But now, enough of my babbling, y'all enjoy yourselves with this one- I know I did ;)

Fuck. From the second he opened his eyes, he knew that the day was going to be fucking awful; his neck had a crick in it, his head was pounding from what little sleep he’s received over the last few nights, and now he had to trudge back out into the goddamn muggy heat to work. One disaster after another had piled up; everything that could have gone wrong, went so terribly awry that he wound up farther away from camp than he originally intended and managed to add a solid fifteen-dollar bounty to the mounting collection resting atop his head. Dutch had sent him out on a wild goose chase, following a lead from Micah that, of course, ended up being a complete waste of time. And that meant he was coming back to camp empty-handed, which almost certainly meant he'd be on the receiving end of another one of Dutch's lectures on the endless responsibilities placed upon his shoulders. He dreaded it, wanted to avoid spiraling down another conversation that would end in Dutch questioning his faith in the ever-evolving plan he’s found himself working on these days.

As if he needed any of that horseshit tonight. All he wanted was a moment of peace and quiet, a chance to catch his breath after the disaster of a day he'd just had, but instead, he was headed back to camp with nothing but bruises, a bloody lip, and a bad disposition to show for his efforts. Trees and other bits of scenery whipped by in a blur as Arthur spurred his horse onward, his surroundings melting together into a muddy mess of shapes cast by moonlight. He passed through New Hanover, his furious pace leading him down the familiar roads of Lemoyne, reaching the clearing outside of camp. Lenny and John are the first to spot Arthur approaching the thicket of trees disguising Clemens Point's main entrance. “Hey, who goes there?” Lenny’s voice echoes through the forest, bouncing off the thicket until it reaches Arthur’s ears.

“‘S me.” Arthur grunts out through gritted teeth, clearly not in the mood for any chit-chat. Even underneath the shadow of leaves and limbs, the scowl etched upon his face is easily distinguishable, a clear sign for anyone with any common sense to give him a wide berth for the rest of the night. Lenny and John, both, had a pretty good idea of what might happen when Arthur steps foot into camp and they don't want any part of it. As a result, they give each other a little knowing glance and stay in the treeline, preferring to avoid the impending shitstorm and let Dutch or Hosea deal with it instead. He strides past them in a fit of frustration, dismounting his mare with a jerky movement before she's even come to a complete stop. Kieran spots him and hesitantly approaches. That poor fool. "H-Hey, Mr. Morgan. Would ya like me to unsaddle the 'ol gal here?" Kieran's question was nothing more than an innocent query, but his expression turned the young man into a nervous wreck. If looks could kill, Arthur’s certainly could; his steely eyes are set ablaze with annoyance and irritation as he casts a hateful glance in Kieran's direction. Even Kieran knew better than to talk to Arthur when he was in this state, knowing that it would only lead to suffering at the hands of his unbridled wrath. Kieran’s eyes immediately darted to his feet, desperate to avoid Arthur’s icy gaze as his fingers trembled with the frayed ends of rope in his hands. Quickly as to not start any trouble for himself, Kieran took hold of the mare's reigns and led her away to the field of horses, putting as much distance between himself and Arthur as he could. A slight pang of guilt runs through him when he sees the way that Kieran high-tailed it out of his line of sight. He doesn't want to be harsh to the boy, he's been a useful asset to the gang, but his temper is just too far gone for him to muster up an apology. As fast as the angering thoughts snapping through his mind, Arthur turns on his heels and storms into camp in search of Dutch. His boots furiously hit the grass and reddened Lemoyne dirt as he passes by a few of the wandering eyes from those still awake at this late hour. Charles casts him a wary glance, and so does Sadie, but neither of them cares to look long enough to entertain what's about to happen. He passes by his own wagon and heads straight to Dutch's tent. Dutch is nowhere to be seen, yet the lamp light inside casts its soft golden glow upon the closed canvas flaps of the tent, indicating that he might be inside. Not wasting any more time than he has to, Arthur approaches the tent, not bothering to stop and think until it's too late. His hand raises, readying to peel back the canvas flap, when all of a sudden he hears the sweet amorous sounds of lovemaking echo through the night air.  Molly’s sweet voice gasps out between each movement of their squeaking cot, calling out for Dutch as the unmistakable sound of skin slapping skin penetrates through the thin canvas walls, revealing exactly what’s occupying Dutch’s time tonight.

“Oh, Dutch. Don’t stop,” she encourages through strained, unabashed moans of pleasure. Dutch’s deep, husky voice murmurs back something unintelligible, but the increased squeaking of their bed and the filthy little noises coming from Molly are a clear indicator that Arthur should be stepping away to give them some privacy. Embarrassment washes over him, causing a faint rosy flush to heat his face and bloom across his cheeks. For once, he's grateful for the distraction from his current frustration. On most nights, he'd find comfort in your presence, seeking you out to vent his grievances as a distraction from the ever-present aggravation that seemingly follows him around these days. But tonight, he just wants to retreat to his tent, away from everything and everyone, to try to calm down before he says or does something he regrets.

He strides past the dying campfires and tables that are askew from daily camp activities, and his mind tirelessly races from thought to thought, stealing his attention away from his surroundings. If Arthur had even bothered to look, he would have spotted your sleeping form laid out upon his bed the moment he stepped inside. You had been waiting for him all evening. After working yourself to the bone doing laundry, dinner prep, and other camp chores for Ms. Grimshaw all day long, you wandered your way over to Arthur’s tent in search of a quiet place to sit. Part of you wished to find him seated right there on his cot, wanting to simply have a conversation with the man who has stolen your heart, but to your disappointment, he wasn’t anywhere to be found. So, you waited for him.. And waited until the very idea of waiting became too tiresome and you unknowingly fell asleep.

Sneaking away from the gang for private talks with him has been one of your favorite things to do since you joined the gang so long ago. Y'all have always had a knack for avoiding the company of others. But somehow in the midst of squirreling yourselves away, both of you have come to find that you'd prefer being alone together. Eventually, this led to many nights where Arthur would seek you out just to speak his mind, allowing you to see the world through his eyes for a short while. You have not only embraced Arthur's thoughts, but in doing so, you have captured his heart all the same. If it weren't for you, he's certain he'd have lost his damn sanity long ago.

Arthur takes that dusty old gambler's hat off his head and runs his fingers through his hair, taking a moment to calm himself down. His eyes glance over the things laid out upon his bedside table before catching a glimpse of your figure awash by the pale moonlight in his periphery. Your hair is sprawled out over the small blanket you've rolled up into a makeshift pillow; curls flowing like a roaring waterfall, laying a mess, and finally free from the bun that was atop your head earlier in the day. His eyes rake over your voluptuous figure, noting every dip and curve from your plump waist and hips to the ample swell of your breast hidden by a layer of clothing. The moment his mind registers that your presence isn't a dream, his eyes soften and his mind no longer races with anger. You are his peace, the only thing in this world that he cherishes above all else. 

Sighing softly, he finally discards his hat from his hand and places it onto his nightstand before working off his worn leather jacket and satchel, resting them on the back of the chair nearest his shaving mirror. And while he's on his feet, he takes the time to carefully roll down the canvas walls of his tent, unraveling them with the quiet precision of a mouse, and securing them in a few simple knots to hide you two away from the world.

It's quite dark by the time he wanders over to the cot, dark enough not to notice himself brush against your legs as he takes a seat on the edge of the old creaking bed. The familiar, welcomed-warmth of his body pressing against your shins rouses you from your restful slumber. Your eyes flutter open to find his figure perched next to you, shrouded in a darkness so thick that you are sure you're still dreaming. His head and broad shoulders are slumped over as he begins working off his dusty boots, caked with remnants of mud and manure.

"Hmm... Arthur?" Your voice floats through the quiet darkness, laden with fatigue and clearly carrying the lassitude of someone who could fall back asleep at the drop of a hat.

He quickly glances over his shoulder at the sound of your voice, his eyes already adjusted enough to the shadows to see your tired face staring back at him with confusion. He silently curses himself for waking you. "Shhh, Darlin'. Don't wake up on my account. I'll be done in just a minute," Arthur lightly grunts out the last word as he struggles to remove his right boot.

Even in your own weary state, the exhaustion in his tone isn't lost on you. Thinking it best to rouse yourself as quickly as possible to free up his bed for him, you sit yourself up and will yourself awake with a slight stretch. "'S okay. You need rest more 'n me."

"No. You was restin' 'fore I got here. Go 'head and lay back down." He isn't having any of your courtesy tonight. He's worn out, far too tired to argue with you about whether or not it's appropriate for you to share his bed for the night.

The rest of the gang, aside from John, Abigail, Susan, and Hosea know nothing about the true nature of y'all's relationship. Although, the rest of the girls have picked up on the changes you've brought about in Arthur since your arrival so long ago now. Seeing him get all soft and doey-eyed at you over these last few weeks has most definitely tipped them off about what y'all really get up to when you're out running errands together. But they catch wind of you sleeping in his tent tonight, it will all but confirm their suspicions. And yet, you just can't bring yourself to move from the comfort of Arthur's cot with him sitting so close to you.

"What time is it?" The question falls from your lips, carried on the soft currents of a gentle breeze pushing through the tent flaps. Fine sinewy muscles flex beneath his shirt as he leans over to work off his other boot and you are powerless to admire the shape of his body beneath.

A muffled grunt escapes his mouth the moment he finally frees his aching feet from the confines of his boots, "Late," he simply replies.

You take a deep, cleansing breath, allowing the tranquility of the night to settle around you like a soft, comforting blanket. Outside these walls, no sounds of chatter or lively activity can be heard, aside from the gentle hum of crickets by the riverbank and the faint sounds of a squeaking cot stopping abruptly. The gang is unusually quiet, the air filled with repose now that Arthur's returned safely to you. Only a few stragglers tend to the campfires, their focus solely on themselves, interested in anything beyond the flickering flames; not even the sounds of Dutch and Molly or Arthur's irritation can disrupt the peaceful bubble encompassing Clemen's Point tonight.

The plush heel of your palm rubs over one of your eyes as you flit them toward the tent entrance, watching how the wind slightly ruffles the bottom of the canvas. It's only then that you realize that Arthur has tied down the walls for privacy on your account. Normally, he wouldn't bother setting up the walls before collapsing on the cot for a few restless hours of sleep. But tonight, he's gone out of his way to ensure your comfort. Your heart couldn't feel any more full of love for this man by your side, a man who puts your well-being above all else, even above his own. Never did you think that love would have been like this for you: sitting in the comfortable silence of privacy for lovers when that luxury is rarely afforded for women like you. But despite your gratitude for his thoughtfulness, a pang of guilt gnaws at you knowing he made the extra effort while you took up residence in his bed, a cot that's barely big enough for the two of you given your plump frame.

In an attempt to make up for taking up so much space, you roll yourself forward along the thin mattress and quickly slide past him, crawling toward the foot of his bed where his trunk of clothing is kept. You've decided to give him his space for the night, even though in your heart, you'd prefer to stay. Before your foot even slides off the trunk to touch the soft grass below, you're reminded of John stopping by Arthur's tent earlier in the day.

Through a half yawn, you speak, not giving Arthur the chance to catch-on to where you're headed, "'Fore I forget: John stopped by while you was out."

Arthur slightly leans back as his fingertips mindlessly fumble with the buckle of his gun belt. The slight clicking of the metal rings out as he works to remove the clunky accessory from his body. His strong back brushes against you as he moves with the comfortable ease he's come to enjoy over these last few weeks of secretly being yours.

"What about it?" His concentration is split half between himself and the presence of your body behind him.

Your words don't register in his mind until he's completely removed the belt from his body. He figures it was that stagecoach job he reluctantly handed off to John; it had completely slipped from his mind until this very moment, much like yourself. The cool metal filigree atop his trunk moves under your feet as you rest them just shy of slipping off its edge, causing the hazy memory to play out behind your tired eyes.

-

You were just settling yourself in, resting your weary body on the edge of Arthur's cot, just as you're doing now. Little beads of sweat accumulated on your forehead from working out in the intensity of Lemoyne's miserably humid heat. Grimshaw had you and the rest of the women working on camp chores, which you hadn't complained of, since it usually occupies the time until Arthur's usual return. However, the day was far too hot for you to not complain about the harsh conditions she had y'all in. Eventually, evening came and you were finally finished with the laundry, allowing you a moment's rest to seek out the comfort of Arthur's cot.

In the midst of wiping your brow down with one of his neckerchiefs you'd secretly swiped, the hard thump of boots hitting grass caught your attention. You'd anticipated Arthur's arrival, but something didn't feel quite right. The boots didn't move with Arthur's measured stride; they scuffed the grass and dirt, signaling a different, but familiar presence. The moment you look up, you spot John standing at the entrance of the tent, not at all surprised to see you sitting upon his cot as if it were your own.

For a brief moment, his brow furrowed in a mix of frustration and exhaustion. It was as if he was caught between the two warring emotions, each pulling him equally. Clearly, he expected Arthur to be back already.

"He not back yet?" The gruffness of his voice has you believe the former, rather than the latter.

"Not yet," you say in kind, hoping to ease some of his burden. "Was you needin' him for somethin'?"

John did and the news certainly wasn't going to sit well with Arthur at all.

-

When the thoughts finally coalesce within your fatigued mind, you internally grimace knowing that Arthur isn't going to like the reality of the situation. Gentleness has always been your strong suit, especially when it came to dealing with half of the bull-headed men in camp. So, you lace your words with the softest tone you can manage, "Said it weren't as much as y'all had planned on: about fifty-dollars tied up in what little him 'n Charles found."

And you were right. The news doesn't sit well with him at all. All of the compiled frustration of working a nothing-lead and now knowing that the other job didn't pay well either boils beneath the surface of his skin until he explodes like a whistling kettle. Preventing himself from lashing out at you, Arthur kicks his boot toward the other side of the tent, knocking it into the chair. The loud thunk of its sole hitting wood claps harshly and causes you to flinch, startling you fully awake from the suddenness of noise and his movement.

"Every goddamn day it's some shit," he spits through his teeth.

Although you know he'd never intentionally hurt you, the anger in his voice sends a cold shiver down your spine and your stomach flips and churns in knots. Usually, you'd blame yourself, reprimanding your big mouth for even opening up to mention something that you knew wouldn't bode well for his weary mind. But you're in too much of a shock to even consider self-deprecation as an option. Your wide eyes search through the darkness, watching the shadowed outline of the man you love heave in a deep breath to steal his nerves. His shoulders slump forward and head hangs low as he rests his elbows on his knees, utterly defeated from the compiled anger and exhaustion coursing through him.

It's at this moment that you remember the job Dutch sent him on earlier in the day; Arthur didn't want to go and had very little sleep after working on yet another lead that barely got them anywhere. If it had been left up to you, you would've made Arthur stay right here in this bed to get some rest like he deserves. You would've taken care of him so tenderly, but, as usual, what Dutch wanted would have far outweighed any of your concerns. You've learned to recognize the pattern of these situations by now, and given Arthur's aggression, assuming that today's job didn't go quite as planned would be hitting the nail right on its head. You test the waters with a quiet question, "Lead didn't pan out today, did it?"

The soft shake of Arthur's head, coupled with the shadow of his palm running over his face tells you all that you need to know: no, it hadn't gotten him any farther than where he had started. Another useless effort. Your heart aches watching him struggle with so much weight on his shoulders. No matter how strong Arthur might be, he's just a man struggling to carry his own burdens, let alone everyone else's. Ever since settling down here, Dutch has placed so much responsibility on him that you've wanted to scold the man for even mentioning Arthur's name in passing. He's worked himself thin and thread-bare, barely having any time for himself outside of the time he spends on the road traveling from place to place at Dutch's convenience.

Empathy for the man that you've fallen in love with so long ago breaks your heart, aching in desperation to relieve some of his pain. Instead of walking away, keeping to yourself, and silently shouldering any of the blame for setting him off, you choose to stay the night. Despite knowing full well that the girls will have their gossip circulating by morning, Arthur's needs are far more important than any snickering comment or playful jest that'll inevitably come your way.

You scoot back where you were and lean toward him with less apprehension than what your words had suggested. Resting your delicate palm between the broad expanse of his shoulders, you feel him tense at the soft slip of your tender touch over his shirt. The tips of your fingers glide over his shoulder and silently take purchase on the taut muscle there. With a gentle, yet firm pull, you coax Arthur back toward you.

"C'mere. Lean back 'n talk to me..." Your dulcet tone pierces through his irritation, encouraging him to rest in your awaiting arms.

Arthur slowly reclines back, allowing himself to unwind in your embrace as his much larger body sits snugly against your plump bosom. Relaxing doesn't come easy for him. Hell, you'd be surprised if it had, given the high tensions between him and Micah these days or the tiresome back and forth between the two rival families in Rhodes. He has every right to be terse and tensed up like a snake ready to strike, but you aim to comfort him even if that means you risk getting bit. Silence hangs in the air between you, aside from the gentle breaths and the occasional strained grunt catching in the back of his throat while he struggles to get comfortable against you, due to the remaining stress insisting on clinging to his tired body. Your loving hands splay out over the firm expanse of his chest, feeling the steady and reassuring thrum of his heartbeat beneath your palms as you try your best to soothe your brooding lover. It's as if your mere presence cracks away at the anger lingering in the stiff tendons and taut plains of muscle along his torso until he relents and finally lets go. His body relaxes back into you as if he were sinking into the plush, luxurious drapery and bedding found in the finest hotels of Saint Denis; much like the bedding of the room he'd paid for the very same night he had whisked you away to bed you properly for your very first time.

He's silent for a long while, almost reluctant to burden you with his troubles. So, you take it up on yourself to start the conversation by spilling what had happened to you earlier in the day, thinking it might earn a laugh or two, "Well, I'm sure my day weren't as rough as your'n," you hum. "But I did fall off the dock, landing my hind-end right in that water."

The image would usually cause a humorous snort to escape him, but the irritation still bristling at his nerves prevents him from reacting with anything else other than a huff of annoyance, "I told ya to watch your footin' out there. Ain't no use to nobody if you get yourself drowned."

Fortunately, as he chides you his words begin to lack much of the anger from moments ago. But you sigh softly anyways, relenting to his incessant need to protect you from life's dangers, despite being able to handle your own, "I know, I know..."

With a few buttons of that old blue work shirt popped open by your deft fingers, the smallest opening there is just big enough to slip your hand inside and rest it up on the soft but wiry hairs at the very center of his chest. "You shoulda seen me, though," you murmur as you lean down toward his ear, lowering your tone as you press your cheek to the side of his head. "Was drenched head to toe, clothes clingin' to me like feathers on a wet chicken."

He sulks, trying to stay mad at anything and everything he can to give into the bristling anger at the back of his mind, but he can't. No, not when he can clearly envision you all soaked and surprised from falling into that cold lake. A faint smile curls up the corners of his lips and then, just as he almost chuckles, he clears his throat, holding his laugh back. However, you catch on far too quickly for him to play it off so easily.

You gasp softly in mock surprise as if offended by the idea of him laughing at you, "Arthur Morgan. Are you laughin' at me?"

That's when his temperament breaks, giving way to the huff of laughter rumbling through his chest. "I ain't laughin' atchu, per say..." he counters. "Just maybe at the thought of what ya mighta looked like comin' up outta that water: madder 'n hell, hair clingin' to your head," and as if to illustrate his point, Arthur reaches his hand backward and turns his head to try and catch a glimpse of you in the thick shadows, barely making your face distinguishable to his eyes, as he brushes his fingertips over the bits of hair clinging to your forehead from the muggy heat.

Though you narrow your eyes in mock annoyance, you lean into his calloused fingertips, accepting the gentleness of his touch while a giggle of your own creeps up into your throat, "Oh? Is 'at so? Maybe next time I find you out on that dock, I'll think 'bout pushin' ya in 'n lettin' you see how it feels."

He huffs out a skeptical breath and raises an eyebrow at the very thought of you even trying something like that with him. It'd be a futile effort and one that you truly wouldn't consider without the clear consequence of him pulling you right down with him.

And just as soon as the laughter came, it was gone again, replaced instead with a comfortable silence that settles between you two once more, giving him some space to think about what's happened to himself today. Long before the days of your arrival, Arthur would keep to himself and dwell on the ever-present burdens troubling his mind, brooding for hours. But with you, he feels a safety that men like him are rarely afforded.

"Well, if ya think fallin' in Flat Iron's bad..." he continues, "Try goin' halfway 'cross the state lookin' for a man that don't exist. Then when ya find someplace to get a drink, ya end up catchin' a few stray hits from some drunken bastard."

A soft gasp enters your lungs at the revelation. Another fight? You lean over his shoulder, reaching to take his scarred chin into your hand. It's hard to see through the inky-black darkness of the night, but even in the haziness, your eyes can make out the bruising along his jaw, the harsh scrapes of knuckles cutting over his cheek, and the jagged cut on his upper lip. It isn't a rare sight to have him come back battered and bruised by some job from time to time, but that still doesn't quell the uneasiness in your heart at him going through such pain and aggravation.

Your eyebrows furrow in sympathy for your rugged cowboy, eyes softening to match as you breathe out, "Oh, Arthur."

He's quick to dismiss your concern with a soft sigh, pulling away from you to lean forward and distract himself from your sympathetic gaze, "Ah, don'tchu go 'n worry yourself over me none, Darlin'."

Being fussed over or thought of so tenderly still isn't something he's used to; he's shown you that time and time again. But it never deters you from trying to make things better, to make things easier on him however you can. Whatever turmoil Arthur's got rolling about in his mind is far from the usual and it takes patience to understand; a patience that he finds only you can give.

You reach your hand out toward him. The delicate ends of your fingertips reach up to brush over the nape of his sun-kissed neck, grazing over the ends of his slightly overgrown hair, silently making a note to yourself that you'll trim it for him tomorrow. His body shuffles slightly backward, leaning in to accept your touch while he slips off his suspenders: pulling them down his shoulders heavy with burden, before taking his time to unbutton that tattered old work shirt you're so used to seeing around his muscular frame.

"'Sides..." he starts. "I did have some good that came from today."

"What's 'at?" you hum softly with a lilt of dryness. "Hittin' that feller back?"

He can't help the chuckle rising in his throat at the dry sarcasm touching your words. Arthur shakes his head softly, "Nah, Darlin', " the last word strains from his lips as he rises to his feet with a groan, leaving the safe comfort of your touch as he stands to undo his pants.

He glances over his shoulder, peering down at you through the darkness with a smirk curling up at the right corner of his mouth. Watching as your sweet eyes follow his every movement, Arthur turns to face you, allowing you to gaze at him as he slowly pushes the brass button through the eyelet at the top of his riding pants. The fabric opens effortlessly, revealing the red cloth of his union suit underneath. The sight of him before you, suspenders hanging loosely on either side of his long legs and his pants aching to be peeled from his strong form has your lips parted in awe at the man standing mere inches away from you.

He continues from just seconds before, "Seein' you laid out on my bed, purdy as a dream."

After stepping out of his pants now crumpled around his ankles, Arthur lowers one knee upon the cot nearest your thighs. He leans over you, using his thick fingers to tilt your chin upward, meeting his crystalline eyes. "Was one helluva sight I could get used to seein'."

The low timbre of his voice sends a shockwave of desire straight through your heart and into the aching pit of your stomach. Your lips draw up into a shy smile, and a faint dusting of pink envelops your cheeks just like the moment you'd first professed your feelings for him under that canopy of trees he led you through so blindly. Although it hasn't been long since that fateful night, the closeness of your relationship has escalated so quickly that your head and heart dizzy at the mere mention of his name.

Arthur's calloused thumb brushes over the supple swell of your bottom lip, enticing you to part them just for him. You comply, of course, unable to resist how a ghost of his touch makes you so pliant beneath him. And when he leans down to meet your lips with his own, your heart swells with tender affection. Those warm, slightly chapped, but pleasantly plush lips are heady as they connect with a passion that stokes the burning coals of desire in the very base of your core.

"Been waitin' to use that one for a while, hmm?" You hum contently while blindly guiding your hands toward the flare of muscle encasing his ribs. God, how you could worship this man and never tire of feeling how warm, how strong he is beneath your palms.

"Depends. It workin'?" He murmurs, smirking cockily against your lips.

Your mind begins to spin as the calloused pad of his thumb dips from your chin and swipes over your jawline. His fingers splay out over the side of your neck, fingertips gripping you with tender passion to hold you in place. He could easily break you, bend you with his finger and thumb as if you were nothing more than a twig beneath his rough and weathered hands. Never have you felt so small and fragile, always knowing in your heart that you took up much more room than other women. But, when you're with Arthur, he makes you feel as delicate as the petals on a beautiful flower, something so precious and worth loving; it's so much more than you'd ever experienced in your whole life. He touches you so tenderly as if you were made from nothing more than ash, a veritable pile of matter waiting to slip through his fingers at any moment.

You want to hum your praises to your lover, to let him know exactly how much you've wanted this, how much you've missed him, how well he's kissing you, touching you... But you can't. There are no words. He's stolen them from you, drawing all the air out of your lungs with his lips, leaving you gasping for the air coated in his divine masculine scent: sweet tobacco, wood ash, and mossy earth. He encompasses you, wrapping one arm around your waist as he pulls you close to his body, all the while shuffling himself forward to join you on the small cot. Your back presses against the hard wooden frame of the wagon making up the other half of his tent. He presses against you, holding you close to his strong body as he slides his right hand from your jaw, trailing it down over the soft skin of your neck, and down to your chest, where he heatedly palms your breast hidden just beneath your blouse. To have him touch you like this, like a man frenzied and dying for a taste of intimacy, has your head spinning and your heart on the verge of exploding if it hadn't already; for all you know, you could've died the moment his lips crashed into yours, and all that's left is a heaven you'd only dreamt of.

A low growl of appreciation rumbles through his chest for the plumpness of your body. Most men do not know the fine pleasures that extra curves on a woman can bring. But Arthur sure does. And oh how he worships your full figure, despite your opinions about yourself. His large, calloused palm shifts his attention to your other breast, kneading you tenderly while his lips work from your mouth, and instead, leaving a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses over your jawline and supple neck.

His name is a breathless sigh across your trembling lips as you allow your hands to explore his body in return. Touching over the large expanse of his torso and gliding your fingertips over the worn fabric of his union suit, you desperately search for the button that would bare him wholly to you. In the time it takes you to undo one of his buttons, his skilled fingers undo two of yours. Button after button unthreads upon both of your bodies, though his hands are much quicker at ridding you of your layers, leaving them strewn about on the ground until he's stripped you down and laid you beneath him in nothing more than your chemise and bloomers to conceal your decency. Arthur then crawls over you, his movements deliberate and enticingly slow as he cages you in with his hands pressed into the thin mattress on either side of your head. Shadows danced and shifted restlessly, playing tricks on your perception as you try to focus on what little of Arthur you could see through the haziness, making the absence of light feel alive. To feel him above you like this has your stomach in knots, tightening with a firey passion that's ready to snap at any given moment. Hearts are pounding, thrumming wildly against your ribcages like birds desperate to escape the confines of your chests. You hear it, hear how his breath shutters with each wild thump of his heart, and you feel it in his breath as it puffs over your cheek. He's losing himself to you and you him, slipping so quickly that rational thinking is no longer of use. You need him and he needs you.

The flaps of his union suit hang loosely from his body, allowing your hands to reach in and press flat over his heated skin. He shivers slightly at the contact, his muscles tensing and flexing beneath the tender meeting of your palms placed upon his scarred, goose-pimpled flesh. Your fingertips ghost over a scar on the right side of his ribcage, causing your face to crinkle with sorrow for what hardship your lover, this great outlaw, has had to endure in his lifetime. The damaged tissue is the result of a nasty fight he had as a young man: when someone stabbed him with the broken end of a beer bottle; they had aimed to kill him, but he had survived. The spot still aches with the memory of Hosea digging out the shards of broken glass from the angry, bloodied wound. But somehow, the way your delicate touch brushes over that old scar with such love and care causes the outlaw's skin to tingle, and his cock to ache with the pride of knowing that you love him so.

He takes his time with you here, laid out beneath him like a perfect little thing he's captured and kept safe by hiding you away in the privacy of his tent. After the day he's had, he wants to savor every bit of loveliness he's blessed with in your presence, so he can't rush this with you, not now. Arthur takes his time admiring you, letting his eyes rake over what he's able to see, and feeling what he cannot. Leaning down close enough to your face to capture that seductive glint in your glittering, lust-blown eyes, Arthur searches for any change within them as he maneuvers his right hand away from the mattress to trail along your sensitive flesh. The rough pads of his fingers ghost over your thigh, caressing the plump deposit of flesh along your middle, snaking up over your collarbones, and over your neck in search of your delicate face before sealing your mouth with his own in a kiss so tender you whimper from the initial contact.

Shivers of anticipation roll through him as your body responds to his touch: back arching off the bed, hands pulling on the nape of his neck to hold him down and assure that his lips won't leave yours, and the way your bloomer-clad hips roll upward in search of some much-needed friction. God how he could spend hours with you like this, letting his hands roam over your body to make you shiver and plead for any ounce of affection that he can give you. Your needy state is only exacerbated by the slight tremble in your thighs as he snakes his hands down over the pillowy flesh, seeking out the waistband of your bloomers. Ridding you of the cloth separating your pussy from his line of sight is an easy feat: the clad, slightly damp undergarment peels away from your plump hips with ease at the help of his precision; the Lemoyne heat causes the clothing to stick to your slightly dampened skin, but dammit if the temperature pales in comparison to how heated Arthur makes you feel. He tosses them down onto the ground, and places his hands upon your knees, spreading them apart as he sits above you to admire the feeling of your plump body beneath him.

His hand is unhurried and exacting, gently brushing his calloused knuckles down over your inner thigh, then lightly petting them over your soaked need covered by a soft thatch of hair. He can't see you fully, but that does nothing to stop his mind from envisioning how your cunt glistens with slick, all for him. The moment he presses his fingertips to your seam, parting you with the practiced precision of a lover, he lets a low, ragged breath escape his nose in appreciation for how wet you are. You shiver and instinctively try to close your knees from the pleasant surprise of his touch, and fuck does it feel good to have him brush over your folds like that.

"Always so ready, ain'tchya?" He murmurs, a teasing lilt to his voice as he takes his time in savoring the feeling of your slick upon his fingertips.

Your hips involuntarily twitch, bucking upward into his hand, seeking out his fingertips to make him swirl them over your aching little clit. You want him to touch you right where you need him, feel him right on that little spot upon that nub of nerves that makes your mind swirl and your body careen into a blissful orgasm. But he doesn't give that to you, not yet. He wants to work you over slowly, savoring every little sound he can draw out of those pretty lips. You're far too shy to answer him directly, instead favoring to cover your face with your forearms as he takes pleasure in taunting you like this. But the moment his fingertips threaten to part your folds, you let out a delicate little noise, someplace between a whine and a prayer to let him know that you're in no mood to endure his teasing tonight, "Arthur... Please."

Oh, how he loves to hear the sound of you begging; he's already half-hard at the idea of you wanting his touch, let alone hearing how desperate you are for it. He answers your prayer with a long, smooth stroke of his thumb parting your puffy, wet folds. You keen at how just a simple touch causes your stomach to flutter and your slit to clench around nothing at all. Your thighs, thick with strength, covered by a layer of squishy softness, part for him, relaxing lazily as he guides his thumb over each of your labia.

It was nearly impossible to get you to lay like this for him a few weeks ago; you'd been concerned about the unsightly appearance of your inner thighs: scarred over with dimples and imperfections, as well as the slight discoloration of having them rub together after so many years of being a larger woman. Most women that you've seen naked, don't have the same ailments upon their bodies as you have on yours. Just the other day when bathing with some of the girls in the lake, you'd noticed that even on Karen's body, a woman closer to your size, still didn't have the scars or discoloration across her skin in the same way that you have. And that night that Arthur had you laid out for him for the very first time, he'd noticed that apprehension in you, taking it as having second thoughts. But once you had explained how you felt about your own body, he hadn't even given the idea a single thought; his own body is mauled up, covered in old and ugly scars, and carrying more than three colors from all his time spent out in the sun. So, he couldn't have cared less about some scars, a little extra hair, weight, or even the discoloration over your thighs. What he did care about, however, was making sure that you felt loved in spite of it all. And now, it feels no different. To have you spread your legs for him like this, without a single worry holding you back, is a goddamn treat.

Fuck how good it feels to have the soft press of his thumb tease over your cunt, tracing the delicate path between your weeping entrance, to your swelling bud with a pressure so teasing and light that you squirm to feel more. Your plush lips tuck between your teeth to hold back any sounds that give away what you two are doing in here after dark, but it's useless; the lewd sounds of his thumb circling over your clit echo throughout the tent: a dead giveaway to anyone that dare walk by. Holding your breath like this isn't easy, not when the pounding of your heart echoes in your ears and your chest feels as if it's being seared from the inside out. A ragged gasp finally inhales through your nostrils, desperately trying to fulfill your body's need for air when you can no longer restrain your breaths.

He huffs out a low chuckle in amusement at the state he has you in: clearly desperate and in need to have your clit rubbed just the way you like it.

"Hmm.. Hear that?" He rasps out before going silent, letting you hear the sounds of your own slick being spread over your soaked cunt. He only continues when he finally reaches your clit, circling over the throbbing little nerve-ending to make you sigh out in pleasure for him. "So goddamn wet. All for me."

In a blur of movements, Arthur's chapped lips and teeth skim over your knee, slowly working their way down over your inner thighs. He nips at you, earning a few little squeaks and giggles until he kisses over your plump mound. His thumbs take hold of either side of your cunt, spreading you open to let the night air hit your wet skin. It's pleasant like this, to feel yourself spread out beneath him like a meal ready to be devoured and dammit if he ain't starved for a taste. Being eaten out has quickly become one of your favorite acts of intimacy in recent weeks; his tongue is so skilled at finding spots on you, making you come so deliciously, that most days it's all you've been able to think about. Hell, it's all you're thinking about now as his head sinks down to your core and his hot breath fans out over your aching need. His tongue slips out of that perfect mouth and flattens out over your seam, lapping at you once to earn him that little sigh of pleasure escaping your throat.

Your hands immediately seek out his head, combing through his slightly sweat-dampened hair as he swirls the blunt tip of his tongue over your clit.

"A-Agh, Arthur.. N-Not so fast," you whine out in protest, yet your hips bucking up into his mouth says otherwise. But he relents, nonetheless, giving you a moment of reprieve before he delves back in at the same pace.

He's aiming to make you cum quick and hard: slithering his tongue over your clit with the precision of knowing exactly what side and spot makes you writhe beneath him. Just left and then a little upward beneath that little hood of skin and he has you singing for him. Explicitves roll off your tongue one after another in between sweet little sounds that praise him for what effort he's putting in just for you. To hear you, feel you crumble beneath him like this is better than any robbery or score he gets out on the road. But just before he lets you come, he pulls his head back slightly and puffs cool air over your clit, making you whine.

"Shh.. Shh.. 'M gonna let ya cum, Darlin'. Don'tchu worry 'bout that none. 'M gonna take real good care of ya," he hums lowly as his lips and bristly scruff brush over your quivering inner thighs.

His promise isn't far off from fulfillment, not when he sinks his tongue into your heat and presses his opened mouth over the entirety of your cunt. He sucks hard, feeling your walls constrict around the wriggling muscle of his tongue as he laps inside your spongey center. Your thighs tremble with need as he fucks you with his mouth and slurps up your slick, drinking in as much of you as he can and relishing the tangy sweetness of your delectable taste. You throw your head back against the rolled-up blanket you had been using as a pillow earlier in the night, all while he eats you out like a man who's desperate to consume you.

But the aching throb of his cock, constricted by the thin fabric of his union suit, is far too angry for him to ignore. He's got to have you, now.

As he shuffles back up to his knees, leaving your cunt longing to cum on his tongue, you flutter your eyes open and snap your head up to try and catch a glimpse of what he's doing. Clearly, you ain't pleased with him teasing you like this, but when you feel his fervent movements, you realize that he's trying to work off his union suit. He wastes no time it peeling it away from his torso, but the moment he starts to tug it down his thighs, allowing his weeping cock to spring free, he nearly topples over and just about slams head-first into your body. Thankfully, he catches himself in the knick of time, grunting out a few curses as he grows impatient with his incapability to slide that damn fabric off his legs.

Amid his struggle to bare himself, you can't hide the giggle creeping up your throat as he curses under his breath, frustrated with how the fabric insists on clinging to his muscular legs. You help him slide the old red union suit off his body by digging your heels against the back of his thighs and pushing it down the long length of his legs until it reaches his ankles. The undergarment hangs loosely off his feet, causing him to kick it haphazardly off the side of the bed, letting it fall onto his trunk to skirt down on the grass below.

The instant his turgid length brushes over your inner thigh it twitches with the anticipation of feeling your tight, wet walls clamped around him, milking every drop of spend nestled away in his balls; spend that he so desperately wishes he could drain right inside of you. For now, however, just a single brush of your fingertips against him is enough. He has to hold his breath as he guides your delicate palm over his velvety shaft to stroke the needy ache away; if he isn't careful, he'd cum just like this. He hisses, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth as your fingers wrap around him and your thumb seeks out the weeping slit of his blunt tip. Arthur is, by no means, a small man: his legs are long, torso strong and wide, feet and hands are like bear paws, and his cock.. God, his cock is big. You could use both of your hands to stroke him and still, there'd be enough room for his tip to be entirely untouched. But you make sure as you stroke him with one hand, you pay extra attention to his tip, smearing his drooling precum over as much of him as you can, even down to the dark and wiry curls along his base and balls.

He's trying so hard to hold himself back, but with each tender pass of your thumb over that sweet spot along the underside of his tip, the last remnants of his patience crack away. You feel him crumbling like this, crumbling into a frenzied mess of low-hummed breaths and grunts through gritted teeth, and you fucking love it. Before you can even think about the desire roaring in the cavernous pit of your stomach, aching to be quelled, he smashes his lips into yours so hard that you're sure one of you is bleeding. The pain of his busted lip splitting back open is an angry reminder of the frustration still lingering at the back of his mind; he's as tensed up, pent-up, as a taut rope ready to snap.

With a quick movement, he swats your hand away, preventing you from jacking him into a fast climax. Then, in one swift motion, he grabs hold of your thighs and forcefully yanks you toward him, making the round swell of your plump ass plant firmly against the hard front of his strong body. Your thighs spread out, squishing over and conforming to the contour of his hips, the intimate contact leaving you both ragged and breathless. Your heart drums a frantic rhythm in your ears, drowning out all other thoughts and sensations that belong to you alone. It's as if your mind has descended into a tangled web of strangled noises and glorious sensations that only Arthur seems able to untangle or soothe. The faint outline of his body nestled between your thighs is a constant reminder that nothing beyond this moment, beyond him hidden away with you inside of this tent, matters.

The hard length of his turgid pride parts your folds, gliding over the slick thatch of curls usually concealing your cunt from his eyes, but with his sight hindered, he can explore every single nook, roll, and crevice without you shying away. His weight bares down on you as he holds your legs into the crook of his arms, nearly bending you in half as he drags his cock over your seam. It feels so good like this, even though you can hardly breathe with the thickness of your thighs pressing against your already plump stomach, but when the tip of his cock knocks into your clit, it makes the strained pain well worth it. The back of your hand flies over your mouth as he continues on like this, pleasuring himself and you with each agonizingly slow thrust. Hearing your ragged, strangled half-breaths, he releases your thighs, leaving them to splay out lazily on either side of his hips as he leans down to steal a tender kiss.

Upon breaking his lips away from yours, the low hum of his voice finds its way through the haziness of your lust-broken mind as he murmurs against the shell of your ear, "Gonna take ya just like this..."

Chapped lips skim over your jawline and trail to your lips, where he gives you another tender kiss filled with gentle affection: polar opposite to the rough sex-driven outlaw you've gotten a taste of tonight, but aligning perfectly with the man you fell in love with all those years ago. Scraped knuckles skim against your slick heat as he slips his hand in between you both and presses flat over the thick, dark curls at the base of his throbbing length. His fingers spread wide over his pubic bone, holding his cock between his middle and ring finger, stiffening himself outward to seek out your clenched entrance. With a slight pullback of his hips, he guides himself to your slit, catching right on the taut muscle before pressing forward and splitting you open.

A soft cry hums in the back of your throat and he shushes you so tenderly, sliding his hands over your knees and down your shins to soothe the ache he knows you're feeling. You're so fucking tight, hardly different from the first night he took you and bedded you properly back at the Saint's Hotel. It nearly shatters him when your walls flutter around him, squeezing and pulling him in inch by inch as if you were carved out just for him to sink into. He stills only for a short moment, letting you feel him nestled up against your cervix before he slides himself out and enters you again with a sharp snap of his hips. Lingering anger and frustration from the shit day he's had still pulsates at the back of his mind, desperate to be released as the tension in his body rises.

The tight walls of your cunt clench onto him for dear life as jolts of pleasure and pain rack through your body.

Behind the shield of your palm, you cry out, "A-Agh, Arthur!"

You're trying your best to be quiet, to still your ragged breaths and hide your whimpers, but he's making it incredibly difficult. Each slow drag of his cock coming out of you with a satisfying pop, only to pierce you with a hard roll of his hips, sends you reeling. You're seeing stars, shaking from the pleasurable burn of the passionate fire he's stirring within you. Strong hands grip your hips, keeping you still as his thrusts guide you into a steady rhythm that makes the old wooden frame creak and groan with every subtle and sharp movement that your bodies make. Being discreet has left his mind entirely, no longer concerned with what sounds are coming out of his tent as he fucks you good and proper. No, he couldn't care less when the sounds of your slick pussy squelches as he presses himself flush against you and groans against the pulse point of your neck.

"Don't want ya hidin' them purdy sounds, Darlin'. Let 'em out for me," he grunts out between slow but hard thrusts.

Usually, intimacy like this is savored in the shaking breaths and whispered little sounds only audible to your ears, but tonight... Tonight Arthur is something else entirely. Primal. A damn, dirty outlaw. You love this new view of him, but you can't allow yourself to let the others hear. What if someone were walking by? Or Hosea or Dutch hear you two going at it? You wouldn't be able to look at them for a week! But he doesn't give you much choice in the matter: snaking his hand down between your bodies, his muscular forearm presses against your plush belly while his thumb immediately finds your clit.

"O-Oh, God," you whine as the pad of his thumb circles over you, followed by his name dripping off your tongue like the sweetest honey. "At's it... Such a good girl takin' me so deep. Mmm.. Gonna cum 'round me ain'tchu? Gonna give me a real good one, baby?"

God damn him if his mouth ain't filthy. The way he croons out those little praises and words of encouragement has your climax building faster than you ever could have anticipated. And the swirling of his thumb? It has you shaking, whining, pleading, practically begging for your release as he talks you through it, "C'mon, Darlin'... I feel ya squeezin' me real tight," he praises, "'At's it. Focus on me."

With one more swipe of his thumb over your sensitive clit and his cock hitting that sweet spot right against your cervix, you're tensing, digging your heels into the thin mattress, and cumming around him so hard that you see white. It takes everything in you not to scream, but the strangled sound coming out of you is loud enough to warrant some head-turning if anyone were awake. The moment your walls flutter and start milking him, he falls forward and drops down onto his elbows to cage you in. His thrusts are relentless as he takes his anger out on you in this way, using every movement of his body to release the bristling anger clutching onto his mind like a damn vice grip. No matter how fervent and frenzied, he's still careful not to hurt you, always thinking about how good he's making you feel while chasing his own release.

Arthur isn't a man of many words, but when you're gripped around him like this, clutching him with your arms, legs, and your fluttering pussy, he is downright mouthy. "Oh, such a good girl for listenin' to me. Shh.. Shh. I gotchu, baby. I gotchu."

His mouth hovers over yours, claiming your lips as he kisses you hard and possessively. Moans spill out of you, traveling through the expanse of his throat until it hums within his chest and he echoes one back. To talk like this with him, in a language only two lovers could understand, is far more intimate and pleasurable than anyone could ever know. Arthur is yours and you are his, no ownership or proprietary claim, but just the pleasant knowledge that both of you choose to love each other is enough.

With a few more rolls of his hips, he's nearing his own orgasm: length twitching and engorging as his balls tighten. In desperation, he quickly climbs off of you and pulls his cock out from your core. His right hand tightens into a fist around himself, and although you can't see it, you hear the lewd, effortless slide of his hand vigorously pumping over his tip like his life depends on cumming for you.

Finally, his orgasm hits him, working its way out of his tightened balls and spurting over your plump mound and belly. If he could see his spend on you like this, it'd be enough to make him cum all over again. But both of you are far too exhausted to even consider that so soon. You're still shaking, panting heavily as he lowers himself down onto you, not caring that his sticky spend is now covering the front of his body as well, as your sweaty bodies come down from such an enormous height.

His touch traces a slow, deliberate path down your leg until his fingertips reach the softness of your hip, where he gives your flesh a gentle but firm grasp. Reveling in the smoothness of your skin and the feel of your curvy form beneath his palm, he lets out a slow exhale through his nose. The heat of his breath spills over your neck and shoulder, doubled by the heavy breaths leaving his lips as he lazily peppers your clammy skin with kisses.

After a long stretch of quiet spent nestled into his hair, breathing in the comforting remnants of campfire intermingled with his musky scent, your breathing finally begins to steady. Slowly, your senses return to you one by one, like pieces of a puzzle falling back into place. Shock and disbelief jolt through your entire being as it finally hits you how easily he manipulated your body with his own strength and skill as a lover. You'd heard of men being rough with women, but never did you think it could be this pleasurable.

Your voice finally cuts through the relative silence, carrying a deep sense of satisfaction and astonishment with it, "Wh-here in the hell did that come from?"

An amused chuckle rumbles inside his chest, slightly huffing out of his nose as he slightly pushes himself off of you to gauge your reaction, "Reckon I were a little pent up. Why? You like it?"

To say you liked it was an understatement, but you'd like anything as long as Arthur were right there with you to experience it just the same. While his right hand slides up over the plump contours of your body, appreciatively grabbing at the plushness of your stomach and breasts, he lovingly brushes a few stray strands of hair off your forehead stuck there by the sweat covering your body. You hum softly in agreement to his question, deciding that you did enjoy this different side of him you hadn't expected, despite his rough exterior.

"Mhmm.. 'S always good with you," the loving words you murmur cling to his heart and earn you a pleasant kiss that tastes like the remnants of his busted lip.

As his lips trail back down over your jawline, his beard delightfully scratches over your sensitive skin, causing you to hum in appreciation for him loving you like a man who worships the very ground you walk upon. Your own body follows his lead, fingertips glide down the entire length of his back, tracing the contour of muscle that hint at the immense strength lurking beneath. You can't help but marvel at his shape, this man you love so dearly, and how his body was molded for love and carved from such a hard life. While your fingertips glide across his muscled frame, you can feel the subtle shift of his body as he adjusts himself on top of you, notricebly more relaxed than before: a clear testamanet to the calming eddect your touch has on him.

Curiosity peaked, you murmur, "You relaxed now?" as your fingertips idly trace the two little dimples that grace the base of his spine, just above the firm and muscular curve of his ass.

An amused smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, obviously enjoying the path your fingertips are carving out over his back. He'd never admit it, but he loves it when you grab him unabashedly, palming his ass like he so often does to you. The warmth of his cock brushing over your leg, hardening much faster than he expected for a man his age, tells you all you need to know.

He agrees with you, humming softly against your chest as he inches himself down to where his mouth hovers over the plump swell of your breasts, "Thinkin' that we just might need a little more time for relaxin', don'tchu?"

A/N: Big thanks for the divider from @saradika-graphics and the beautiful gif from @sunwingsunset, please go send them some love for their work! <3

Other creators that expressed interest and drew inspiration from: @subpopizzy , @cassietrn , @coltermorning , @redwritr, @zae-heeyyy, @twola , @amorgansgal

Please do go check all the blogs I tagged! You surely won't be disappointed!

As always, sending my love - M. <3

[merbear25]

Can you do Law, Zoro, and Ace x their beautiful S/O who is really really shy, but she gets a lot of attention because of her beauty and she gets really stressed and overwhelmed. ~ requested by anon

I’m so sorry that I deleted the original ask!! There was a weird glitch when I posted a different one yesterday where I accidentally posted that request to this one. Anyway, glad I copied it to another doc! I hope you like what I’ve written for you. 💜💜

CW: fluff, headcanons, fem!reader in mind but nothing specific mentioned

With a beautiful and bashful reader (Law, Zoro, Ace)

Law

He was incredibly observant—noticing reactions you’d make without you yourself realizing there was a pattern.

With your beauty attracting (mostly) unwanted attention, he did his best to steer others away from you, preferably without you noticing them at all.

Since you weren’t the confrontational type, shying away from the ones who got a bit too familiar with you, he made sure to step in to handle the situation. From his intimidation alone, they scampered away.

He’d be fairly protective over you, meaning he’d tend to stay close to your side or nearby. However, there were bound to be times he wouldn’t be able to be next to you.

Wanting to be sure you could work your way out of a nerve-wracking predicament, you’d spend a long time going over what you should do if x, y, or z happened.

Though it was far from ideal for either of you, it him some peace of mind that you could manage without him.

Zoro

It was obvious that you were shy and that it only became more difficult for you when others gave you that attention. It was more unfortunate for those who couldn’t take the hint than it was for you—being swatted away by Zoro wasn’t the most pleasant thing after all.

He was always the protective type—knowing you and his friends were safe was of high priority to him, as it would be for anyone.

That being said, he wasn’t going to suffocate you. He wanted you to have that independence to explore and experience things, so he wasn’t necessarily going to be hanging around you all throughout the day.

In saying that, he still kept an eye on you, especially when in crowded areas. Staying by your side, practically acting as a guard dog, his presence warded off any who so much as thought of flirting with you.

His temper wasn’t one that could easily be ignited. When it came to keeping you and others safe, remaining level-headed in the heat of the moment came naturally.

He didn’t even realize how much you needed someone like that, though. The rock that wouldn’t budge, even when you were being shaken to your core—it did more than he could ever understand.

Ace

As much as he thought your shyness was endearing and sweet, he wasn’t too fond of others giving you that same type of attention. Knowing that you didn’t like it either only gave him more of a reason to shield you from it.

Whenever you got stressed from the amount of attention you attracted, he was good at keeping you from spiraling.

Giving you stability that also came with a light-hearted smile helped ease your nerves, keeping that whirlwind of emotions from swooping you up in the storm.

Although he didn’t look extremely intimidating, he had his ways of getting people off your back.

He had charm and was good with people and when those mixed with his dash of mischief, he could easily trick them or distract them. It never took long after he swooped in to send them away practically forgetting the main reason why they’d come up to you.

Even if he was deeply bothered by how much those interactions weighed on you, his bright smile and laid back demeanor didn’t falter when he turned his attention back to you—just wanting to show you that everything would be okay.

[autisticlalna]

how to watch Skyblock Kingdoms!

because i'm dragging all of you down with me.

what is Skyblock Kingdoms?:

Skyblock Kingdoms, or SBK, is a Skyblock survival server made by VikingPilot where 18 20 players are split into groups of 2 and have their own island to take care of. each island has a unique wood type, and have a monopoly over that wood type! trade between kingdoms is allowed and encouraged, but any saplings belong solely to their original island-- with the exception of oak, which is a freebie anyone can have.

the teams are theoretically a mix of seasoned skyblockers and people not as familiar with it, but in practice there's more novices than experts so comedy has quickly ensued.

what's the story?:

in most cases, SBK is more of a casual improv vibe. think Hermitcraft rather than Empires. what this means is that there's no overarching story everyone is following, but some players have bits they've decided to commit to that, in typical MCYT fashion, are spiraling. some perspectives stay away from the action, some are playing along with whatever bit is tossed their way, some have their stories to tell, and Avid is the reason i'm having to rewrite this paragraph.

we've got capitalists! we've got OSHA! we've got witches feeding the void to try and appease it so it stops eating their bridges! we've got signs of the timeline falling apart! we've got a fortune-telling wizard! we've got something trapped deep down in limbo! we've got somebody cursed to be a monkey by british sun tzu! we've got selling your soul for a weekly lootbox! we've got a kingdom being overtaken by snow and sculk! we've got an airline with a 75% mortality rate! we've got a lawyer?

as of this version of the post (Avid's episode 17, Marma1ade's episode 15, Viking's episode 13, Vintage's episode 13), the first major story arc has wrapped up and things are going in a very interesting direction.

what's the format?:

there are edited videos being released regularly on Youtube by most of the creators, but a couple of POVs are stream-only so far. however, you can easily keep up with the server shenanigans without watching any streams-- there's some stuff that doesn't make it into videos, but not anything that would leave you locked out of the loop.

you can find all of the episodes out so far in release order in this one massive playlist by Doovid! thank you Doovid <3

on top of videos and streams, SBK has songs written and performed by Avid for his episodes! please listen to Through the Void, it's really good. there's also an animation for it that's used as his intro, which is also really good. if you want to listen to cool tunes made for SBK by one of the creators, you should watch Avid.

who to watch?:

depends on what you're looking for!

if you want a focus on building, then Fixxitt and KingElffe are both working on large-scale projects that are downright stunning to see in Skyblock. if you're interested in the Void storyline, then your best bets are Avid, Marmalade, and Trog-- and if you want lore in general, you can add Rubyco, Vintage, Milkman, and Anathra (and potentially Viking) to the list. if you want something chill, then Doovid, M1G, Kale, Anathra, and Leon are pretty laid-back. if you enjoy cinematic editing, then you should check out Avid, Trog, Doovid, Leon, and Viking. if you're here for comedy, then you'll want to check out Viking, Doovid, Milkman, Leon, CodeNeon, and Kittrix, but honestly everybody gets in on that one as they mess with each other constantly. and that's still not covering everybody!

i recommend watching everyone's episode 1 to get a feel for their style and go from there. Anathra, Artemis, Neon, and Leon's perspectives start around the Ender Dragon fight, and Fool and Tea are stream-only.

who's on the server?:

as mentioned, some of these POVs are stream-only!

Dark Oak (VikingPilot + Fixxitt 412) - industry on a massive scale Cherry (Rubyco + vintage_applesauce) - friends with everyone Jungle (AvidMC + Doovid) - the universe has it out for them. Birch (TheFoolsFam + SadMilkman) - the villain is always capitalism Bamboo (M1G + KaleHameron) - space samurai shenanigans Mangrove (Marma1ade + Teaish7) - witches with a void problem Acacia (Dr. Trog + Kittrix) - triangle-loving chaos-causers Spruce (AcornBandit + Anathra) - very chill (both definitions.) End (CodeNeon + LeonSBU) - have been here the whole time! Mushroom (KingElffe + Artemis8bit) -

tl;dr Watch Skyblock Kingdoms.

[venus-haze]

You're My Best Friend (Homelander x Reader)

Summary: Homelander was a test tube baby, raised in isolation in a cold, clinical lab. But that doesn’t inspire America, does it? Vought tasks you with creating the idyllic backstory for its hero, and what starts as a limited comic run spirals out of control when Homelander himself demands your help in making the story a reality.

Note: Gender neutral reader, but no other descriptors are used. Based on a request by @crash-and-cure as well as a bastardization of one of the sweetest love songs ever written (sorry, John Deacon!) This got kinda meta? Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: Emotional manipulation, I guess some gaslighting on Homelander’s part? Do not interact if you’re under 18.

When Vought hired you to create their long-awaited Homelander origin comic series, you were thrilled—until they gave you so little information about his childhood to work with, you weren’t even sure you could come up with one comic, let alone the ten they requested. The details about his childhood were minimal, not even a full printed page—a loving mom and dad, played baseball, did well in school, strong sense of justice from a young age, his friends called him “Johnny.” Your requests to meet with Homelander so you could get some stories from the man himself were constantly denied.

You almost considered dropping the project, until you decided to throw caution to the wind and pull from your own childhood and set it in good ol’ generic suburbia. Some of the storylines were based on your own experiences or things that had happened to people you’d grown up with, though you changed enough names and details to not link it to anyone in particular. Except yourself, of course. Using a pseudonym professionally meant you felt no need to change your own name in the comics. Sure, making your cooler fictionalized self Homelander’s childhood best friend was a bit self-indulgent, but no one would know, really.

To your relief, the editors at Vought loved your ideas, making minor changes before bringing the storylines to their comic artists to bring it to life. The result was Finding Homelander: A Boy’s Journey To Be a Hero. The issues flew off shelves when they were first released, ironically praised for their relatability and authenticity. Vought extended your contract, asking you to produce the cartoon adaptation and another ten issues.

Still, in all of that, you’d never met Homelander. A representative from Vought emailed you to let you know to tune in to his interview on a talk show one day, saying that he’d be talking more about the cartoon project on it. You recognized the host, Tracey, always chipper and having some extravagant giveaway for her audience members. Daytime TV was never your thing, though.

“I think what resonates with so many people is how relatable your childhood is,” Tracey said, holding up a copy of Finding Homelander issue #3, where he saved ‘you’ from getting hit in the face with a baseball at one of his games, catching it with ease. It’d been the happy ending to a short storyline of him struggling to find his place on the team and you encouraging him to not give up. “You and Y/N were pretty close, do you still keep in touch?”

“You know, Tracey, not as much as I’d like, unfortunately. Adulthood can be so busy, you need to cherish those childhood memories,” Homelander said. “I did give them a call when the comics first came out, and wow, the laughs we had over those old antics of ours. Talk about a walk down memory lane!”

You guessed the bullshitting was all part of the promotional circuit for Homelander. Knowing this childhood of his was your own fabrication, you couldn’t help but wonder what else about him was fake. Maybe he wanted to maintain his privacy, you could certainly understand that. You couldn’t shake the voice in the back of your mind that said it wasn’t so simple, that the narrative Vought pushed was a cover to hide something in Homelander’s past.

“Now, I’ve heard rumors of a cartoon show based on the comics in the making, is this true?”

“It is! I’m excited for this project, getting back to my ‘roots’ so to speak. I’ll be voicing myself, of course, but it’s funny you’d bring up Y/N, because they’ve agreed to voice themself, too.”

“How fun!” Tracey exclaimed over the roar of the talk show crowd’s applause and cheers. “I guess this is the hopeless romantic in me, but I hope this reconnection leads to something a little more. I’m just a sucker for childhood sweethearts!” 

Homelander laughed along with the host’s giggles, “Well, you never know.”

You balked at the television, mouth agape. Surely he couldn’t be talking about you. ‘Y/N’ could be anyone with your same features. Vought had probably hired a professional voice actor for the role and were pushing the authenticity angle. The whole situation felt odd. 

When you checked your work email again on your phone, you nearly dropped it on the floor. 

SUBJECT: Meeting with Homelander This Week

The email contained a list of days and times throughout the week wherein Homelander would be free, apparently wanting to meet you to thank you for the success of the comic series and discuss upcoming work. Yeah. That last part you sure as hell wanted to discuss too. You responded with the soonest time available, in a meeting room in Vought Tower the following evening. As soon as you hit ‘send’, you wondered what exactly you were getting yourself into.

Anticipation filled your gut as you went about your day leading up to meeting the supe himself. What would he be like, really be like? Was there even a version of Homelander that wasn’t hopelessly manufactured for the masses? You knew then that his upbringing was a lie, and thus stood the probability that so much else was, too. 

When you stepped into that meeting room, you hadn’t been expecting his face to light up at the sight of you. 

“Homelander, hi, it’s great to—“

“No need to be so formal, Y/N! You can call me Johnny, just like old times,” he said cheerfully, in on a joke you clearly hadn’t been aware of.

“Sorry, Johnny,” you said, playing along. “It’s great to see you again.”

He pulled you in for an unexpected hug that you returned. “Figured we should catch up before things really start getting crazy, don’t you think?”

You nodded, your nose brushing against him as you did so. Just as your lips parted to offer an apology, he smiled, shooing away the assistant who’d accompanied him out of the room. 

He sat down, motioning for you to do the same.

“Gotta say, I’m a fan of your work,” he said.

“Thank you,” you said. “I’m not sure I understand exactly what’s going on, though.”

“What’s there to understand? I’m not allowed to know more about my best friend, our lives together growing up?”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Wasn’t hard for me to put two and two together, but considering everyone else around here has their head up their asses, they have no idea,” he said, before lowering his voice conspiratorially and giving you a charming smile. “I haven’t told anyone. What’s a secret between friends?”

You nodded, overwhelmed by the intensity of his attention on you. “What do you want to know?”

He sighed, resting his head on his hand. “Everything.”

So you told him. Not quite everything, of course, but enough to abate his curiosity. At least for the time being. His interviews were sharper, more specific with details rather than rattling off whatever had been in the comics. You watched in shock as convincing photos of his Little League days were posted to his social media accounts, anecdotes provided by his increasingly frequent conversations–or more like interrogation sessions–with you, but in his style, of course. It was almost scary what the graphic design team at Vought could accomplish, not that you’d ever know how, exactly, as they were all under the same strict NDA that you were.

He started spending more time with you, too, and after a while, it did seem like you were old friends. Part of you flinched whenever you called him Johnny, because Johnny wasn’t even real, but with your complacency, this fabrication was slowly morphing into a strikingly tangible memory. With each conversation, he drew you deeper into the world you’d been paid to create for him until you found yourself slipping up.

You’d been showing him a goofy stuffed monkey on your desk, a cute little thing with big sparkling eyes. A prize for getting two out of three at the ring toss. Probably spent more money winning it than it was actually worth, but it was about the effort, the memories made.

“You remember, don’t you? You won it for me at the county fair,” you said without thinking.

He laughed in agreement, as if he actually had. Except he hadn’t. Your high school boyfriend won it for you a week before graduation. Sensing the mood shift, he set down your prize and looked at you with the same intensity he had when you first met.

“It’s been a while since we were there, huh?” he said. “Why don’t we go back?”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “Go where?”

“Home.”

With a strong arm around your waist, he took off for your hometown. You could hardly tell which way was up or down, he was flying so high, but he didn’t seem to mind the way you clung to him at all. When he finally landed, you recognized the community baseball field where all of his fictional games were set. 

“Geez, it’s like nothing’s changed,” he said cheerfully.

You looked at him in disbelief. How long was he going to expect you to go along with it? Or maybe the question you should have been asking was, how long were you going to enable him? The end wasn’t anywhere in sight as he took your hand, and you walked him through your childhood, further enmeshing him in it until you arrived at the house you grew up in. 

The middle of the day, no one was home, and so you let yourselves in like you owned the place. Suddenly, the house seemed too small for a man like Homelander to occupy, but he was engrossed in the details of it. He scanned the kitchen, no doubt inspecting the contents of the fridge and cabinets with his x-ray vision. Moving onto the living room, he stared at photos on the wall, the magazines and DVDs that were strewn on the coffee table, giving away your parents’ taste in entertainment.

“Which one was your room again?” he asked.

You swore you could feel his breath on the back of your neck as you wordlessly led him to your room. Each step down the hall felt dangerous, as if you were about to walk into a trap. Face-to-face with the closed door, you opened it, standing aside while Homelander looked around, from what you had hanging on the walls to the knick-knacks you’d left behind.

An uncomfortable tension settled over the room when Homelander closed the door of your childhood bedroom. An odd blend of hurt and amusement spread across his face as he observed the way you were eyeing him, body ready to fruitlessly run from him the way a rabbit would a hawk.

“C’mon, after how long we’ve been friends, I would never hurt you,” he said, as if reading your mind. “We’ve been through so much together. I mean, we were each other’s first kiss.”

You froze. Issue #9. That was something Vought’s editors had added, claiming a romance angle would make the series appeal to the younger female demographic. You hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

He slyly backed you into the wall, leaning over you as you slinked down the slightest bit.

“Show me how we did it,” he whispered, his hand caressing your cheek. “So clumsy and nervous, I can even feel you…quivering.”

“Homelander, I don’t know what you’re—“

He tsked. “Y/N.”

You let out a shaky breath, “Johnny—“

He hummed in satisfaction. “It’s alright. I know it’s been a while.”

You let him kiss you, sweetly in a way that put your actual first kiss to shame. His lips were soft against yours, his tender movements intentional as he cradled your face, pulling you the slightest bit closer to him when you kissed him back. 

A sense of familiarity settled over you, warm and comforting like pulling a blanket out of the dryer on a chilly evening. Every time it seemed like you were beginning to overthink the situation with Homelander, he drew you back in with the kiss, a more than effective distraction until you pulled away with a dazed smile on your face.

[gh0st-t0wn3]

I finally had time to make proper designs for the Trio!

Redson: Ver 1

Ver 2

I couldn't decide on if I liked it better with the braids or not so I just posted both, but anyways!

I gotta admit, I used to not like the idea of redson having Bull features (except for a small pair of horn maybe) but the concept really grew on me and now I really love it and wanted to try making my own design and I'm really proud with how it turned out.

I would've added more scars, since Guanyins throne pierced his entire body, but there came a point where it just looked like there was too much going on so I had to get rid of a few scars to tone it down, so we're just gonna say they faded over time, okay? Okay.

I also made him Miao (one of the largest ethnic minorities in southwest China) on PIF's side, and Mongolian on DBK's.

The Miao ethnicity of China has a long history, rich culture, and an ancient folk religion. Adorned in beautiful traditional clothes, possessing natural talent for singing and dancing, they live in uniquely designed indigenous architecture, which I think fits perfectly with how I imagined Princess Iron Fan and with her; Redson.

As for DBK being Mongolian, I saw someone else talking about this headcanon and I just liked it so I decided to use it, I don't really have a specific reason for it, I just thought it fit, not sure why though, it's just one of those things that makes sense even if you don't know why, you know?

Mei:

I made her taller and gave her a long dragon tail (like really long, it drags along the floor if she's not holding it up), though her scales are pretty much everywhere across her body they're most noticeable on her shoulders, thighs, and face (they're a bit hard to see in this photo because they're kinda hidden behind her hair, but I did give her scales beside her eyes)

I also gave her horns these little spiral designs around them, gave her sharper nails, and designed her ears to look like coral, since she's a water dragon and I thought they looked cool.

Honestly idk what else to say about her design, I didn't have anything specific in mind when designing her, I kinda just had to wing it, but I'm happy with how it turned out :)

(I also made her Bengali, on her dad's side, but it's not really important or has any reason behind it, just a headcanon I've had for a while, don't know where it came from though)

MK:

Alot of people have speculated that the monkey form we see during the fight against Azure in season 4 isn't MK's full form yet, that we're just seeing a fraction of what he's yet to become, based on the fact that while he has the weird side burns, the tail and the face marking, he also lacks a natural skin tone, they didn't give him a proper nose etc, so I wanted to play with the idea.

I decided to make him this strange mix between human and monkey, leaving him pretty much human with the addition of his tail(s), and weird li'l monkey feet.

(I was also gonna give MK more arm/leg hair, it was in my first sketch, but I forgot to add them when I was doing the line art and didn't realize until after I saved it as a jpeg, so that's my bad, but I'm gonna add it in to any other art I make)

It's also a bit hard to see in this, but I designed his staff with more details, specifically adding dragon-esque imagery to the Golden ends, this is because (for anyone who's new to the fandom/hasn't read JTTW) Wukong's staff was originally one of the several pillars that held up the sea in the dragon palace, until he stole it and shrunk it down to use as his weapon.

I also did MK's clones :)

Porty MK:

I gave him stripes of coloured hair and gave his tails all different colours, though I don't think he would actually dye it, instead I like to think that he would use that really crappy dollar store spray in hair dye (or hair chalk). I kept the fishnet clothes that I added in my originally design of him for my headcanons post, and decided to give him striped elbow length fingerless gloves.

I also gave him a cropped shirt, ripped shorts and these weird fingerless glove-esque shoes for convenience, since regular shows seem like they would be uncomfortable.

Edit: my dumbass forgot Porty's stupid print jacket 😭

Artist MK:

For Artist MK I gave him overalls and a jacket over it, which he wears specifically for when he's doing paintings so he doesn't ruin too many of his actual clothes (I know I said that this was inspod by Circusapple, which it still is, but this is almost exactly what I wear when I'm painting too, just in different colours).

I also gave him those gloves that digital artists wear so they're hands don't accidently trigger something on the screen because everyone knows that every artist just walks around with their art glove on even when it's not necessary.

Delivery MK:

I have to admit, I was never a big fan of MK's work uniform just being his regular clothes with a work jacket thrown over it so I wanted to try and make him look a little more professional and decided to instead give him a chef coat (similar to the one Pigsy wears on the show as well), with a logo for the restaurant on the chest, along with it I gave him plain black pants, since casual red jeans didn't seem very professional (I know he's just a delivery person, but if you were to look at pretty much any food corporation, even people who do deliveries have to wear uniform, so it's always been kinda strange to me that he's just in regular clothes). 

The shoes were harder to make professional given the whole "half-monkey" thing so I opted to give him the same strange fingerless glove-esque shoes for comfort and convenience, but made them plain black as well.

[girlfromthecrypt]

I haven't posted to this account very much (or at all, really), so I figured I'd update you guys on the state of Such Happy Campers and Press Play. I don’t want to talk about the incident that led to me putting SHC on ice because it still rather upsets me, but honestly, I think it was a good decision. I was grieving the “loss” of SHC for a while, but I can't help but believe I made the right call. Continuing on under the circumstances would have drained me and likely taken me right down the road to writer's block.

Furthermore, and in hindsight, I find writing Press Play a lot more fulfilling right now. All my life, I've only ever written horror, so Press Play has been a wonderful breath of fresh air. It feels cathartic writing about struggles I myself have experienced, and it’s so easy to write about music. I love music so much, and I didn't realize how fun it could be to combine this with my passion for writing. You might have been able to tell from the sheer difference in word count between Press Play and SHC, but it's been so much easier working on this somehow. Also, I do believe SHC wasn't all it could have been. I only want to put out my best work, and I don't think SHC was quite on par with Press Play.

But what about SHC, you may wonder. Or you may not, but I'll address it anyhow. I have recently had an idea for what I might turn the original SHC into. It's only a vague outline right now and I won't turn it into anything more until I'm done with Press Play (I have learned that I can't really write several IFs at once, I'm not C.C. Hill), but I figured I'd let you know that the SHC characters aren't gone forever. My idea would involve the entire SHC cast, though some names/appearances/personalities may undergo changes. Also, I might exclude Anita because she was, admittedly, my least favorite to write and might not fit in with the new setting. Other than that, the IF would explore an interesting alternative to the SHC narrative— for example, the character equivalent to Basil Laurier would actually be a practicing lawyer in this one. Another prominent change would be the inclusion of Sawyer Wright-Garcia as a full RO. They’re the only one I actually have a clear mental image for as to where their story would go, and it is… nuts.

Without spoiling too much, the plot and setting would be very different. It'd be horror, except it'd start out very unassuming, light-hearted and sitcom-y, only to then spiral. I feel like I'd enjoy causing that kind of whiplash. Anyhow, that's that. I hope that if you liked and perhaps miss SHC, this post helped at least a little bit.

[blighted-lights]

The ravage clone 😭 I do imagine soundwave would be overjoyed at first thinking somehow she survived. "I knew lord megatron was wrong, ravage is just built different." Then he'd get pissed as hell at shockwave because that is NOT ravage! (He still takes care of her anyways).

It reminds me of this tiktoker who cloned her cat so she could have another one after the og died and she got pissed because the new cat had a different personality. Yeah they look the same and have the same DNA but they do not have the same memories/experiences!! It will never be 100% an exact clone.

Differences like that would make it bittersweet because soundwave would feed her ravage's favorite food to find out they don't share the same tastes and he'd spiral.

HI YIKES!! (referencing this post here, btw, which you all should look at and send me asks about hehe <3)

and i have to say that everyone who's left tags and comments so far on that post (plus inbox messages, thank you <3) has been FAR kinder in terms of angst levels of this idea than what i originally had planned. soundwave initially does have some vague hope that this ravage is the original ravage when he first meets her, BUT this hope is immediately dashed. he can tell from the start that she isn't the original ravage and shockwave outright admits to her being a clone 😔

shockwave's entire plan with cloning ravage was both as an emotional support to soundwave after they lost the original ravage AND, in true shockwave fashion, a bit of a manipulative move. soundwave's work and self-care have absolutely tanked with the loss of ravage. shockwave figured that bringing her back, or at least some version of her, would make soundwave feel obligated to take care of her- and it does! but to take care of this new ravage, soundwave has to take care of himself as well or he risks not being able to provide her what she needs. soundwave's self care goes back up, he starts working more effectively because he's properly fueled and rested, and shockwave considers it a win!

it's,, not a win tho, because ravage's clone is her own individual person and the pressure of trying to live up to the original ravage is suffocating. and since shockwave is her creator, she prefers being around shockwave over being around soundwave, and it ends up being a Mess™️. this cloned ravage also has very vague imprints of the original ravage's personality traits, but it's So obvious to anyone paying attention that she isn't the original at all.

soundwave also has no idea how to process the existence of this new ravage as she is a clone of one of his closest friends- his oldest friend, really. he's going through a lot of conflicting emotions while grieving- and that's not even going into what the other cassettes are feeling

[derpymidnight]

Inosuke With a Pretty Girlfriend HCs

This was originally meant to be written as a reader who wears makeup, paints her nails, etc. It sort of spiraled into crush and dating headcanons lol. My bad!

pre-relationship♡

I think Inosuke would be more concerned with the fighting abilities of his s/o rather than her looks. In fact, it makes very little difference what she looks like to him.

When he first starts feeling things for her, he assumes it's some secret power she has.

Inosuke wonders why he thinks of you at the worst of times, especially in the heat of battle or when you're away from him. It gets worse when his face burns under the boar head because of something you did or said - oftentimes a hand on his shoulder or complimenting him on a job well done.

He tries to ask Tanjiro but explains it in such a roundabout way that he really has no idea what Inosuke means.

In an attempt to be helpful, Tanjiro suggests that maybe it's a breathing technique you learned and that's what got Inosuke so shaken up (oh Tanjiro-).

Of course if Zenitsu was there he'd know immediately what was bothering Inosuke.

At one point the boar-headed boy corners you and demands you stop doing that, and when you ask for him to elaborate, he says "Those weird feelings I get whenever you're around!"

When you finally understand and explain it to Inosuke, he flat-out denies it to be the case.

"No way do I like you! Lord Inosuke bows to no one!"

You shrug, assuming you've gotten it wrong.

Zenitsu is furious when he hears what happened

"YOU IDIOT! HOW COULD YOU SAY SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO A PRETTY GIRL LIKE HER?!"

It takes a shouting match and a good bonk to the head for Inosuke to finally ask you out:(

post-relationship♡

Inosuke might tease you a bit if you wear makeup and such ("Why are you putting that on your face? It'll just rub off!")

If you tell him to stop teasing you, he will, but every little thing you do will now be carefully observed by him.

Inosuke is genuinely curious as to why you're plucking the hairs off your eyebrows or why you paint your fingernails knowing it won't enhance your fighting abilities.

He already thinks you're pretty, so he'll be confused as to why you do things to make yourself prettier???

Again, he thinks you have some sort of secret power behind your beauty (almost like a blood demon art)

On the rare occasion that he does remove his mask, you tease him for being the pretty one (how could you not? He's got lashes even you are envious of). He just pouts and brushes it off

Sometimes you'll ask if you can do his makeup or paint his nails; Inosuke might indulge you occasionally

Is the type to mess up your hair just because he can. When you get mad, he actually laughs