#i think about their story every moment of every day

[drchucktingle]

how are you human?

so many interesting comments and thoughts on my post saying buds should consider not coming up to strangers in marginalized groups and saying 'how are you a real person that actually exists?'. i will point out this: despite my VERY gentle tone a few buds said i was having a 'meltdown' for even mentioning it

others said i was being too serious for someone who is ‘not a real person’. so if you would any more evidence of what it is like to be a buckaroo like myself there it is. every day, autistic folks who may seem ‘weird’ are bombarded with messages and comments and implications that they are fundamentally not human beings

sometimes it is outright and blatant like the comments on last post saying ‘well why are you getting mad? you are not even real’ and sometimes it is in the very subtle ways that folks use language when they talk to us. there is huge difference between ‘how do you exist?’ and ‘i am glad you exist.’

anyway, something that i think many people who have not lived this experience dont seem to understand is i KNOW the poster who said ‘how are you a real person that actually exists’ probably meant it as a compliment. that is THE POINT of why i am taking a moment out of my trot to gently and anonymously let them know how it might feel to be on other end of something like this as a queer or autistic or otherwise marginalized buckaroo. it is obviously not their intent to actually hurt someone, so i am letting them know

maybe because queerness and autism are not physically apparent it is hard to explain, but imagine going up to very tall or very short person and saying ‘cant BELIEVE you are real’ as a compliment. not a great way to treat others. on my original post, an indigenous author chimed in with their own experience and feelings similar to my own. a woman who said she was very tall told her story. point is, while i do not have their experience, what i am saying has a universal thread for 'othered' folks

point is: i UNDERSTAND there is this sort of exaggerated or ironic (or maybe even sometimes very literal) language around fandom to say things like ‘how are you a human?’ to creators, but since it is not your intent to hurt, i think you might want to know how that feels to marginalized buckaroos sometimes.

obviously you can say anything you want. i do not hold it against you. also, if you think ‘oh no, did i say something like this to chuck at a convention? i am so embarrassed' then DO NOT WORRY i promise you buckaroo you are just fine. i present myself in a way that is unusual by definition, so i have pretty thick skin about this type of thing and a lot of patience. MANY buds start off thinking i am ‘a joke’ and then become fans over time and i am glad to trot beside them and prove love is real.

however there are other autistic or queer or marginalized buckaroos with smaller platforms who hear this just as much as me, so i think it is important to say it loudly and maybe together we can work on making a very slight shift in the way we speak to the ‘others’ in our lives

we do not NEED to let subtle dehumanization slip into our language. in some cases it has been called ‘micro aggressions’ but i think buds dont often consider what that means for COMPLIMENTS. ultimately, telling marginalized people YOU ARE SO AMAZING YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY EXIST may seem very fun and silly on the surface and for some folks it probably feels that way, but for others it can feel like a reminder of the broader doubt about their humanity. you can just say ‘YOU ARE AMAZING’ without the reminder of the many times autistic or queer or marginalized folks are told in a very serious and pointed way (like comments on the last post) ‘YOU ARE SO WEIRD THAT I HAVE DECIDED YOU ARE NOT REAL’

buckaroos can take this information and apply it to their interactions, or they can ignore it, that is totally fine. we are all trotting our own trots and proving love in our own way and thats okay bud, HOWEVER i feel like it is important to at least let folks know, even if that means getting told i am having a ‘meltdown’. i think it is important to have complex or difficult conversations if it will prove a little more love in the long run. THANK YOU FOR READING BUCKAROOS. i am honored to trot forward with you can tackle this kind of thing with you, and honored you buckaroos have created such an amazing space with me to pull apart these kind of feelings. THIS IS PROOF THAT LOVE IS REAL LETS TROT

[kalmidnight]

(from The Book of Virtues, A Treasury of Great Moral Stories, an anthology by William Bennett)

The Magic Thread

Too often, people want what they want (or what they think they want, which is usually "happiness" in one form or another) right now. The irony of their impatience is that only by learning to wait, and by a willingness to accept the bad with the good, do we usually attain those things that are truly worthwhile. "He that can have patience, can have what he will," Benjamin Franklin told us, and this French tale bears him out.

Once there was a widow who had a son called Peter. He was a strong, able boy, but he did not enjoy going to school and he was forever daydreaming."

Peter, what are you dreaming about this time?" his teacher would say to him.

"I'm thinking about what I'll be when I grow up," Peter replied.

"Be patient. There's plenty of time for that. Being grown up isn't all fun, you know," his teacher said.

But Peter found it hard to enjoy whatever he was doing at the moment, and was always hankering after the next thing. In winter he longed for it to be summer again, and in summer he looked forward to the skating, sledging, and warm fires of winter. At school he would long for the day to be over so that he could go home, and on Sunday nights he would sigh, "If only the holidays would come." What he enjoyed most was playing with his friend Liese. She was as good a companion as any boy, and no matter how impatient Peter was, she never took offense. "When I grow up, I shall marry Liese," Peter said to himself.

Often he wandered through the forest, dreaming of the future. Sometimes he lay down on the soft forest floor in the warm sun, his hands behind his head, staring up at the sky through the distant treetops. One hot afternoon as he began to grow sleepy, he heard someone calling his name. He opened his eyes and sat up. Standing before him was an old woman. In her hand she held a silver ball, from which dangled a silken golden thread.

"See what I have got here, Peter," she said, offering the ball to him.

"What is it?" he asked curiously, touching the fine golden thread.

"This is your life thread," the old woman replied. "Do not touch it and time will pass normally. But if you wish time to pass more quickly, you have only to pull the thread a little way and an hour will pass like a second. But I warn you, once the thread has been pulled out, it cannot be pushed back in again. It will disappear like a puff of smoke. The ball is for you. But if you accept my gift you must tell no one, or on that very day you shall die. Now, say, do you want it?"

Peter seized the gift from her joyfully. It was just what he wanted. He examined the silver ball. It was light and solid, made of a single piece. The only flaw in it was the tiny hole from which the bright thread hung. He put the ball in his pocket and ran home. There, making sure that his mother was out, he examined it again. The thread seemed to be creeping very slowly out of the ball, so slowly that it was scarcely noticeable to the naked eye. He longed to give it a quick tug, but dared not do so. Not yet.

The following day at school, Peter sat daydreaming about what he would do with his magic thread. The teacher scolded him for not concentrating on his work. If only, he thought, it was time to go home. Then he felt the silver ball in his pocket. If he pulled out a tiny bit of thread, the day would be over. Very carefully he took hold of it and tugged. Suddenly the teacher was telling everyone to pack up their books and to leave the classroom in an orderly fashion. Peter was overjoyed. He ran all the way home. How easy life would be now! All his troubles were over. From that day forth he began to pull the thread, just a little, every day.

One day, however, it occurred to him that it was stupid to pull the thread just a little each day. If he gave it a harder tug, school would be over altogether. Then he could start learning a trade and marry Liese. So that night he gave the thread a hard tug, and in the morning he awoke to find himself apprenticed to a carpenter in town. He loved his new life, clambering about on roofs and scaffolding, lifting and hammering great beams into place that still smelled of the forest. But sometimes, when payday seemed too far off, he gave the thread a little tug and suddenly the week was drawing to a close and it was Friday night and he had money in his pocket.

Liese had also come to town and was living with her aunt, who taught her housekeeping. Peter began to grow impatient for the day when they would be married. It was hard to live so near and yet so far from her. He asked her when they could be married.

"In another year," she said. "Then I will have learned how to be a capable wife."

Peter fingered the silver ball in his pocket."Well, the time will pass quickly enough," he said, knowingly.

That night Peter could not sleep. He tossed and turned restlessly. He took the magic ball from under his pillow. For a moment he hesitated; then his impatience got the better of him, and he tugged at the golden thread. In the morning he awoke to find that the year was over and that Liese had at last agreed to marry him. Now Peter felt truly happy.

But before their wedding could take place, Peter received an official-looking letter. He opened it in trepidation and read that he was expected to report at the army barracks the following week for two years' military service. He showed the letter to Liese in despair. "Well," she said, "there is nothing for it, we shall just have to wait. But the time will pass quickly, you'll see. There are so many things to do in preparation for our life together." Peter smiled bravely, knowing that two years would seem a lifetime to him.

Once Peter had settled into life at the barracks, however, he began to feel that it wasn't so bad after all. He quite enjoyed being with all the other young men, and their duties were not very arduous at first. He remembered the old woman's warning to use the thread wisely and for a while refrained from pulling it. But in time he grew restless again. Army life bored him with its routine duties and harsh discipline. He began pulling the thread to make the week go faster so that it would be Sunday again, or to speed up the time until he was due for leave. And so the two years passed almost as if they had been a dream.

Back home, Peter determined not to pull the thread again until it was absolutely necessary. After all, this was the best time of his life, as everyone told him. He did not want it to be over too quickly. He did, however, give the thread one or two very small tugs, just to speed along the day of his marriage. He longed to tell Liese his secret, but he knew that if he did he would die.

On the day of his wedding, everyone, including Peter, was happy. He could hardly wait to show Liese the house he had built for her. At the wedding feast he glanced over at his mother. He noticed for the first time how gray her hair had grown recently. She seemed to be aging so quickly. Peter felt a pang of guilt that he had pulled the thread so often. Henceforward he would be much more sparing with it and only use it when it was strictly necessary.

A few months later Liese announced that she was going to have a child. Peter was overjoyed and could hardly wait. When the child was born, he felt that he could never want for anything again. But whenever the child was ill or cried through the sleepless night, he gave the thread a little tug, just so that the baby might be well and happy again.

Times were hard. Business was bad and a government had come to power that squeezed the people dry with taxes and would tolerate no opposition. Anyone who became known as a troublemaker was thrown into prison without trial and rumor was enough to condemn a man. Peter had always been known as one who spoke his mind, and very soon he was arrested and cast into jail. Luckily he had his magic ball with him and he tugged very hard at the thread. The prison walls dissolved before him and his enemies were scattered in the huge explosion that burst forth like thunder. It was the war that had been threatening, but it was over as quickly as a summer storm, leaving behind it an exhausted peace. Peter found himself back home with his family. But now he was a middle-aged man.

For a time things went well and Peter lived in relative contentment. One day he looked at his magic ball and saw to his surprise that the thread had turned from gold to silver. He looked in the mirror. His hair was starting to turn gray and his face was lined where before there had not been a wrinkle to be seen. He suddenly felt afraid and determined to use the thread even more carefully than before. Liese bore him more children and he seemed happy as the head of his growing household. His stately manner often made people think of him as some sort of benevolent ruler. He had an air of authority as if he held the fate of others in his hands. He kept his magic ball in a well-hidden place, safe from the curious eyes of his children, knowing that if anyone were to discover it, it would be fatal.

As the number of his children grew, so his house became more overcrowded. He would have to extend it, but for that he needed money. He had other worries too. His mother was looking older and more tired every day. It was of no use to pull the magic thread because that would only hasten her approaching death. All too soon she died, and as Peter stood at her graveside, he wondered how it was that life passed so quickly, even without pulling the magic thread.

One night as he lay in bed, kept awake by his worries, he thought how much easier life would be if all his children were grown up and launched upon their careers in life. He gave the thread a mighty tug, and the following day he awoke to find that his children had all left home for jobs in different parts of the country, and that he and his wife were alone. His hair was almost white now and often his back and limbs ached as he climbed the ladder or lifted a heavy beam into place. Liese too was getting old and she was often ill. He couldn't bear to see her suffer, so that more and more he resorted to pulling at the magic thread. But as soon as one trouble was solved, another seemed to grow in its place. Perhaps life would be easier if he retired, Peter thought. Then he would no longer have to clamber about on drafty, half-completed buildings and he could look after Liese when she was ill. The trouble was that he didn't have enough money to live on. He picked up his magic ball and looked at it. To his dismay he saw that the thread was no longer silver but gray and lusterless. He decided to go for a walk in the forest to think things over. It was a long time since he had been in that part of the forest. The small saplings had all grown into tall fir trees, and it was hard to find the path he had once known. Eventually he came to a bench in a clearing. He sat down to rest and fell into a light doze. He was woken by someone calling his name, "Peter! Peter!"

He looked up and saw the old woman he had met so many years ago when she had given him the magic silver ball with its golden thread. She looked just as she had on that day, not a day older. She smiled at him."So, Peter, have you had a good life?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," Peter said. "Your magic ball is a wonderful thing. I have never had to suffer or wait for anything in my life. And yet it has all passed so quickly. I feel that I have had no time to take in what has happened to me, neither the good things nor the bad. Now there is so little time left. I dare not pull the thread again for it will only bring me to my death. I do not think your gift has brought me luck."

"How ungrateful you are!" the old woman said. "In what way would you have wished things to be different?"

"Perhaps if you had given me a different ball, one where I could have pushed the thread back in as well as pulling it out. Then I could have relived the things that went badly."

The old woman laughed. "You ask a great deal! Do you think that God allows us to live our lives twice over? But I can grant you one final wish, you foolish, demanding man."

"What is that?" Peter asked.

"Choose," the old woman said. Peter thought hard.

At length he said, "I should like to live my life again as if for the first time, but without your magic ball. Then I will experience the bad things as well as the good without cutting them short, and at least my life will not pass as swiftly and meaninglessly as a daydream."

"So be it," said the old woman. "Give me back my ball."

She stretched out her hand and Peter placed the silver ball in it. Then he sat back and closed his eyes with exhaustion.

When he awoke he was in his own bed. His youthful mother was bending over him, shaking him gently.

"Wake up, Peter. You will be late for school. You were sleeping like the dead!"

He looked up at her in surprise and relief.

"I've had a terrible dream, Mother. I dreamed that I was old and sick and that my life had passed like the blinking of an eye with nothing to show for it. Not even any memories."

His mother laughed and shook her head.

"That will never happen," she said. "Memories are the one thing we all have, even when we are old. Now hurry and get dressed. Liese is waiting for you and you will be late for school.

As Peter walked to school with Liese, he noticed what a bright summer morning it was, the kind of morning when it felt good to be alive. Soon he would see his friends and classmates, and even the prospect of lessons didn't seem so bad. In fact he could hardly wait.

[ddlydevotion]

Dating Luigi Mangione ࣪ ۪ ֢ 🦢‌ࣳ ! !

currently listening to: salvatore by lana del rey

a/n: I’ve been seeing many fics of Luigi where people portray him as rude/aggressive so I wanted to try something a lil different.

His facial expressions are always on point in every video we’ve seen of him, so I have a feeling he’d be a very active listener. You could be in the middle of telling him how your day went and a small smile would spread across his lips at the sound of your melodic voice. His eyebrows twitching with concern once you start to mention anything negative occurring. this is basically his face when he’s listening to you:

He would most definitely be the type to make playlists in your name while he’s thinking of you. He’s so in love with you to the point where he can no longer listen to his favorite music without thinking of you and the beautiful moments the two of you have shared. He also has a habit of sending you songs that he thinks you’ll like/remind him of you.

He loves being able to live life to the fullest and loves doing it with you even more. He takes photos of the two of you wandering around whatever city you’ve traveled to with a little $30 digi cam. He has a Polaroid of the two of you placed in his wallet.

Luigi doesn’t need a gift to be expensive in order to fully cherish it. You could give him a handwritten letter and he’d protect it with his life because you gave it to him. He can’t afford to lose any evidence of the love the two of you share for one another. He loves gifting you items that reminded him of you, things you mentioned enjoying, surprising you to go do something you’ve mentioned wanting to participate in. You don’t even have to mention any of these things more than once because he’ll remember.

His back pain can get incredibly severe and there comes days where he can’t seem to focus on even the most simplest of things. Having you there while he attends physical therapy, participates in yoga/gets helpful treatments somehow makes the pain a bit more manageable. Knowing that he can go to you when he needs something is enough to ease his anxieties in situations regarding his chronic pain.

As I’ve mentioned before, Luigi loves trying new things and exposing himself to unfamiliar cultures/locations. This fact goes hand in hand with his openness to trying new food with you. Oh, he’s never tried ____ before? Well, might as well try it now with you!

You make his travels so much more lively and notable.

Three words: skin to skin.

The loving warmth of your welcoming hands and fingers tracing shapes onto his muscular back makes him feel as if he’s on cloud nine. He loves being able to wake up to the sun peeking through the blinds and feeling your bare skin embracing him.

He has a HUGE family and mostly all of them have heard the lovely stories he has stored up about you. During the first Christmas you ever spent with his family, they made sure they had your favorite foods out on display. How did they know they were your favorites? Well, you have your boyfriend and his ramblings to thank for that. Despite not having spent much time with you, his family still found the time to provide you with your very own gifts. You’ve felt nothing but welcomed by their presence as they treated you like an old friend upon your first meeting.

You don’t really have to want for anything when you’re with Lu. You mention wanting to go see that movie that just came out? He already has a tab open on his phone to purchase tickets. He sees you eyeing something at the store but hesitate buying because ‘it’s too much’ ? Well, he’s putting it in the cart anyway.

Definitely calls you cute little variations of your name. His favorite terms of endearment to use for you are probably: baby, cutie, babe, princess, etc. was gonna put sweetheart but I’m not too sure

[josos24816]

I think the trend ppl find themselves clueing into unconsciously is that the marker "woman" is just so grossly broad as to be meaningless. it doesn't say anything about who u are, what u like or dislike, what causes u support, how u engage with or perceive the world. it doesn't say anything about your relationship to your own sex, sexuality, gender, nothing. what does it actually meaningfully tell you about a person?

I think it’s an unfair demand to ask “woman” to convey that amount of information. It’s a rather rigorous demand to place on any label that someone uses. Labels mean different things to different people — that doesn’t make them meaningless, and the fact that yours and my labels don’t necessarily agree doesn’t make their usefulness zero.

which is that im not sure if a "taxonomic" understanding of gender is actually one which can account for such things as multigender ppl or trans ppl who change their gender.

I’m sorry, I’ve tried writing a response to this point, and I don’t know how. I’ve realized I don’t really understand what even @tpwrtrmnky meant by the “taxonomic” category of woman.

the moment one decides to categorize themself as x, that is the moment of gender transition, insofar as "gender-transition" means something like "linguistic reclassification". or at least that element of it, but it is kinda about the linguistic use-case

Agree 100%. At the end of it all, I think that’s largely what we are playing with when talking about gender and other “identity” terms. It’s a linguistic game*, where language as a pointer to a concept — even (especially) multiple things at once — is what allows each category to be loosely defined.

At the same time, because words are just pointers to ideas, they exist at multiple levels of reality: what it means to you, what it means to your social circle, and what it means societally, are often different. They also have different demands. (E.g. You could easily define a new word and use it for yourself. With some effort, you might get some friends using it. But it’s a different story entirely to get gen-z–level adoption, where you can expect strangers to understand your meaning (almost) perfectly.) The more compatible your labels are with the broader social reality, the less friction you’ll have.

Which is why even if we claim that gender is about self-expression of identity, that’s kinda just at the local level? Because it also has elements in how others perceive you, which is why the claim to being a man/woman/(whatever category) has less friction if you also present in ways that are congruent with what others expect of those categories.

It also means that if you change your gender every day, you can believe that you are 100% that gender, but others (including me) might settle on believing that you are somewhere in-between, because that is a lower-friction conception of you than the one where I have to re-draw my mental representations every day. And we don’t have to agree 100%. (Although you might prefer it if I do, if only because your internal conception of identity is in constant negotiation with the higher levels of social reality.)

*Btw I’m using the word “game,” but I don’t mean to imply it’s any less serious. I just mean that linguistics is an area where multiple individuals interact together, so we can’t ignore the interactions and their effects.

does this also necessarily mean that every time you doubt your x-ness, your x-hood, you actually are y again for a moment?

Sticking with your linguistics theory, it seems like this last question is a return to the more rigorous binary. (Or, even if you have more than 2 categories, it seems you’re still making discrete “bins”.) Discrete just doesn’t work well to conceptualize something as fluid as language.

We switch between linguistic representations all the time, often without realizing it, and rarely claiming that only one is the “true” representation. If you apply this approach to your hypothetical scenario, with gender as a continuum, it becomes something closer to a probability distribution. Just don’t collapse things into discrete “bins” and I think the paradox resolves itself.

"Trans women are actually women for real, not in a metaphorical sense, not in a "anyone can be anything" sense, but genuinely actually make more taxonomic sense to classify in the category of women than any other group you could classify them in" is a position you'll find is pretty radical even in queer spaces

[notlongtolove]

between the sand and the stardust

burnt toast theory. the butterfly effect. invisible strings. it’s only human nature to try and make sense of the senseless. for all the what-ifs and could-have-beens, the alternate paths and lives you could’ve lived, this is the reality you’re in. you know—effects, theories, strings be damned—that you would’ve found each other.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader (second person, no y/n)

genre: fluff

content: reader is up contemplating what life would be like if her and spencer had never met. spencer has a few reassuring things to say about it.

word count: 1.8k

note: inspired by this! spent the entire day nursing the post nye hangover and woke up in a haze to write this. god me whennnn

a line: I’d pray to every god out there, in every language I don’t speak, to find you in every universe where I haven’t found you yet.

If you came to me with a face I have not seen, with a voice I have never heard, I would still know you. Even if centuries separated us, I would still feel you. Somewhere between the sand and the stardust, through every collapse and creation, there is a pulse that echoes of you and I.
- lang leav

The world has a funny way of looking at things. A knack for folding coincidences into neat little narratives that we, its ever-curious observers, insist on unspooling. Burnt toast theory. The butterfly effect. Invisible strings. It’s only human nature, you suppose, to try and make sense of the senseless. Things happen—things that are just things—and yet, we stitch them together into stories, pull meaning from the chaos, weave threads where there might not be any at all. 

It didn’t make sense that you’d been eleven minutes late to the bus that morning, despite sprinting down the stairs with your laces undone. It didn’t make sense that Spencer’s train had broken down that day when the transit service proudly boasted a 92% on-time rate. It didn’t make sense that the last bus had rumbled away two minutes before you arrived, leaving you stranded at the stop with a dark-eyed boy and an easy smile. 

And it certainly didn’t make sense when you, who always preferred to keep your headphones in and your gaze down, had turned to him in pure desperation and said, “Do you want to split a cab?”

Now, 845 days, 21 hours, and 23 minutes later—Spencer keeps count, of course—you lie in bed, his arms wrapped around you with such love you almost can’t remember what it felt like to navigate the world without him.

You think about that morning sometimes. Would it have mattered if you’d woken up on time? If Spencer’s train hadn’t broken down? You would’ve slipped past each other like all strangers are meant to. You could have missed him entirely. The very thought makes your chest tighten.

And then there’s everything that came after. Maybe you’d still be grinding away at that dead-end job if Spencer hadn’t nudged you—no, shoved you—into applying for that writing scholarship. Maybe he wouldn’t taken some time off to go into teaching if he hadn’t seen how much it broke you when he was shot last year, your sobs echoing in the sterile hospital waiting room.

It’s terrifying to think about. How this moment, this minute, your life is just a single dot in a universe of shifting constellations. One singular version of a story that could have unfolded a million other ways.

You shift slightly, feeling the soft brush of Spencer’s breath against your neck. His arm tightens instinctively, pulling you closer, like even in sleep, he’s afraid to let you drift too far.

“What’re you thinking about, baby?�� he murmurs.

“Nothing.”

“Liar,” he says softly, and you can hear the smile in his voice. He presses a kiss to your shoulder, a silent reassurance. “Tell me.” 

You shift, rolling onto your side to face him. The room is dim, illuminated only by the faint glow of the streetlight outside, but you can still make out the soft angles of his face, the curve of his lips, the shadow of his lashes against his cheek. His arm lifts briefly, giving you room to move, before settling back on your waist.

“Just...” You sigh, the words heavy as you trace invisible patterns on the blanket. ​​​​“How we met.”

“Mm,” Spencer hums thoughtfully. “Dingy bus stop. Very romantic.”

You huff a quiet laugh, shaking your head. “No, I mean... imagine if I hadn’t woken up late that morning. Or if you’d been on the train that didn’t break down. Isn’t that scary?”

He shifts slightly, propping himself up on one elbow to look at you fully. “What’s scary, baby?” he asks, his fingers drawing idle patterns on your hip.

You hesitate for a moment, then exhale. “Like… there’s a universe where we never met,” you say, your voice quieter now. “We’d be living our own lives. Separate. Strangers.” The words send a shudder through you. 

Spencer doesn’t answer right away, his gaze steady and thoughtful as he studies you. “That’d be a really sad life,” he says finally. 

You hum in agreement. “Imagine it. Nobody to sort your shelves for you. They’d be an absolute mess.”

“No one to bring you tea in bed every morning. Tragic.”

“No Mugi,” you add, your gaze flicking toward the end of the bed where the cat lies curled in a ball. The mention of his name earns a soft purr from him, a sound of sleepy approval.

“To be fair,” Spencer muses, “there probably would still be a Mugi. He’d just still be at the shelter, waiting for some mediocre parents to find him.”

“Yeah, probably parents who don’t spoil him rotten with treats every time he asks.”

Spencer chuckles, glancing toward the cat. “Let’s be honest, sweetheart. You’re the one who can’t say no to that face.” 

As if on cue, Mugi stretches languidly, front paws extending before he hops off the bed with a dramatic flick of his tail. He pads off into the other room, leaving the two of you alone in the quiet.

“See?” you sigh, your voice softer now. “Everything would be different. No tea. No Mugi. No you.” 

Spencer’s arm tightens around you, pulling you closer until your forehead brushes his. “But things aren’t different,” he says simply.

“I know, I know,” you say, your voice barely above a whisper. “But I... I don’t know. It’s so scary Spence. I just—”

“Any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again,” he interrupts, his voice calm and steady. “Know where that’s from sweetheart?” 

You pull back slightly. “The Iliad,” you murmur. 

“Smart girl,” he grins, the dimple in his cheek making an appearance. His hand brushes a stray strand of hair from your face. “It's true,” he agrees. “A lot of things could be different. You could’ve been on time for the bus. My train might not have broken down. We might’ve never crossed paths.” His hand moves from your hair to your face, cupping your cheek. “You could’ve married your high school boyfriend if that asshole hadn’t cheated on you.”

“God, don’t remind me,” you groan, wrinkling your nose.

“And I,” he continues, his voice softening, “could’ve stayed in Vegas, never left, never thought there was anything more for me.”

You look away as you imagine these horribly bleak and sad alternate realities. Sure, it was hell catching your first love in the locker room with another girl but with the certainty you feel for Spencer now, it’s hard to feel anything other than grateful for everything that led you here. You think back to Spencer as a child—alone, hurting, and relentlessly bullied. Your heart twinges with the thought of the pain he’d endured. 

“But I didn’t,” he says, breaking the silence. He takes your hand, his fingers threading through yours as if he understands exactly what you’re thinking. “I’m here. You’re here. And so is Mugi, who is probably tearing apart the couch as we speak.” 

A soft laugh escapes you, though it’s shaky, and you squeeze his hand. Your chest tightens with something that feels an awful lot like gratitude.

“You know,” he says after a pause, his voice softer now, “I thank god every day that my train broke down.”

You glance at him, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t even believe in god.”

“I don’t,” he admits with a small smile, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand. “But I’d pray to every god out there, in every language I don’t speak, to find you in every universe where I haven’t found you yet.”

Your heart stutters in your chest. “Spence…” you manage, though his name barely makes it past the lump in your throat. 

“I mean it,” he says again. “I pray that every version of me deserves to know you in every possible world. To have this. I’d find you, no matter how many lives it took. Because finding you was the hard part. But loving you? That’s second nature.”

Your chest aches. It’s a wonderful kind of pain, as if your heart is trying to expand but can’t quite manage it—too happy, too loved.

“I think I’d find you too,” you say softly, the words tumbling out.

“Think?” Spencer repeats, mock affront in his tone. “I pour my heart out, and all I get is a think?”

You giggle as you halfheartedly swat at his chest. “You know what I mean.”

His hand catches yours, holding it over his heart, his fingers warm against yours. Before you can say more, he leans in, pressing a kiss to your lips—deep and unhurried. It lingers, pulling you closer, tinged with love and longing. 

When you finally pull apart, your forehead resting against his, you breathe out, “I love you.”

A soft smile spreads across his face, and he whispers, “I love you too, sweet girl.”

You close your eyes, letting the moment wash over you. “I think what we have… this… it’s more than fate, y’know?”

“Destiny?”

You shake your head, a small smile on your face.

“Oh, I’ve got it. Prophecy,” he teases.

You laugh, light and easy. “No, not that either.”

He quirks an eyebrow, waiting for your explanation.

“It’s like… it’s inevitable,” you say finally, searching for the right words. “You and me. No matter what. No matter where or when. It’s just… always supposed to happen. Even if fate didn’t allow it, even if destiny didn’t write it. I’d find you. I know I would.”

Spencer’s gaze softens. He cups your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing against your cheeks as he looks at you like you’re the only thing in the universe—To Spencer, you might as well be. It’s a gaze so tender it makes your chest ache all over again. 

“You’re everything,” he murmurs, leaning in to press a kiss to your forehead. 

“Technically, you have me to thank,” you say playfully. “I asked to share a cab.”

“And how’d you know I wouldn’t have just asked for your number?”

You catch each other's gaze for a moment and burst into laughter.

“Okay, fine,” Spencer concedes with a small smile. “I probably would’ve been a mess trying, but for the record, I really did want to ask.”

“Oh I’m sure, honey,” you tease, shifting closer to him.

“Let’s stop worrying about alternate realities and come back to this one yeah? It’s pretty damn good.”

You know Spencer’s right. For all the what-ifs and could-have-beens, the alternate paths and lives you could’ve lived, this is the reality you’re in. The one where he’s here, and so are you. You know, without a doubt now—effects, theories, strings be damned—that you would’ve found each other. 

It’s a certainty that transcends time and space, a quiet knowing that runs deep in your bones. No matter the paths you might have walked, no matter the lives you could have lived, it doesn’t matter. You share a love that demands to be seen and to be heard—An undeniable, inevitable reality. The best kind of love. 

It’s a love that insists on its own existence. 

⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ hi if you're here! thank you for reading! feel free to like or reblog or comment or reply!

ᯓ★ song recs if you feel like it: invisible string by taylor swift (bc how could i not) margaret by lana del rey feat bleachers

[spideysbruh]

Still Want It All

a/n- this is kinda a part two to i want it all, but it can be read alone !!!

~~~

A couple of months after Y/n and Timothée get together, their press tour is about to start. Y/n has no idea how they're going to hide that they're together. They honestly can't keep their hands off each other.

Things have been great, Timothée just met her parents and they absolutely loved him, telling Y/n how great he is and how well he carried himself at their dinner.

She met his parents as well, she was extremely nervous, but it went well. He told her afterward that they’d never reacted this nicely with any other girl he’d brought home, they thought she was pretty, nice, and charming.

They’ve been seen out together a handful of times, but it didn’t cause anything too crazy online, since they had filmed a whole movie together and have posted each other online before.

Y/n liked that she could still post the occasional photo or video of him, and whenever he posts a story of her, it just comes off as two friends hanging out. Which is true to an extent.

They’re in a news building right now, getting ready for their first interview of the press tour. She’s sitting next to their director, Aaliyah, and Timothée is on the other side.

They answer a handful of regular questions about the movie, making jokes here and there. Aaliyah gets a question primarily for her and Timothée takes the opportunity to lean back in his chair and make eye contact with Y/n behind Aaliyah. She raises her eyebrows at him, wondering what he wants.

He grins and sticks his tongue out at her, making her snort and shake her head.

He does little things like that throughout the day, poking her side, flipping her off, and even sneaking a quick glance at her boobs making her jokingly roll her eyes.

“You're a sick fuck.” She says at the end of the day as they head into the elevator to get to their shared room.

“What did I do? I'm just a chill guy.” He sarcastically says, pushing their floor number.

She laughs, “Shut the fuck up.” he chuckles and as soon as the doors close completely he grabs her face, kissing her fervently.

She hums and kisses him back, her hands tangling in his hair, tugging on the strands gently.

He pulls away and sighs against her lips, “Been wanting to do that all day.”

She smiles and quickly kisses him again before the doors to their floor open.

He takes her hand in his and walks to their room, swiping the card to unlock it.

The weeks pass and they get used to acting like nothing more than just friends for the interviews, maybe a little flirting here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary for them.

Timothée is always touch starved throughout the days, but sharing a room with her every night makes it worth the wait.

Today, they have a few fun one on one interviews, the first one being a 'friendship test'

“Hi! I'm Y/n L/n.”

“And I'm Timothée Chalamet. And this is the friendship test.” He said, interrupted by Y/n giggling.

“You said that really seriously, it was weird.” She laughs, nudging his arm.

“Oh, my bad.” He chuckles, admiring her for a second.

She smiles and looks at the card in her hand, “Do you remember when and how you guys first met?” She reads, looking back up at him with a smirk.

He hums and thinks for a moment, having to look away from her to resist the urge to kiss her. He puts his finger on his chin to make it seem like he's thinking about it, which makes her laugh again.

“I do, I remember being reallyyyy fucking nervous because it was you, and you're awesome and brilliant and extremely talented. I remember thinking you probably wouldn't talk to me off camera.” Y/n says, blushing at the memory, “But then you came into the room and you were the nicest dude ever! You introduced yourself like you weren't literally Paul Atreides, and then you asked if I wanted to get lunch with you in the cafeteria. Which really helped for our chemistry on set and everything.” She finished.

“You know what's crazy? I was nervous to meet you because I had already seen your audition tape and you were just fucking spectacular that I thought I'd look stupid next to you.” He laughs, Y/n's mouth drops at his words.

“Don't play with me, bro!” She says, he chuckles and shakes his head.

“I'm so serious. I knew you were extremely talented from the second they showed me your tape.” He shrugs, crossing his arms and meeting her eyes.

Y/n pouts, “You never told me that.”

Timothée eyes her mouth and bites his lip before responding, “Well we never talked about this before.”

“That's true. Okay okay, your turn.” She says, watching him grab his card and scan over it.

“Best moment together outside of filming?” He reads, they both smirk as a rush of other kinds of memories fill their minds.

They make eye contact and burst out laughing, Y/n shoving Timothée while laughing, “There's so many.” Y/n says, trying to make their laughing seem normal.

“So so many.” Timothée helps as he leans back towards Y/n, and then feigns thinking.

“Ummm, I'm thinking of when you went to that Sabrina Carpenter concert with me instead because my friend flaked on me and you let me serenade you the whole time.” She replies, trying to think of one that was innocent and doesn't expose that they're dating.

“Awww I was thinking the same thing.” He says, touching her arm.

“Were you really?!?!” She asks, surprised.

“No.”

She rolls her eyes and lightly shoves him with her shoulder, “Well I like that one. It was still pretty early on too, like we only knew each other a month or two by that point, but you still came with me.” She smiles, “What would you say, then?”

Timothée hums, “How about when we had that movie night, and I met your cat and you cooked for me? You made that one puerto rican dish, remember? I'm forgetting the name.”

Y/n smiles at the memory, that was the night that she knew she liked him more than a friend. He was so cute and respectful, he even had a second plate.

She blushes at the fact that he thinks of that as one of their best memories.

“Yeah, I wanna change my answer to that one too, actually.” She giggles, Timothée watches her carefully before looking back at the cards in front of them.

Y/n clears her throat as they switch to standing face to face for the next exercise.

“We're gonna have you guys compliment each other, you can write them down on those cards.” A crew member explains as he hands them markers to write with.

“Wait, y/n turn around, so we don't see what we're writing.” Timothée says, grabbing her shoulders and turning her away from him, he turns himself too as he starts writing.

“Wait oh my god, you're writing so quickly.” Y/n giggles, “There's just soooo many amazing qualities that I have, huh?” She teases, jokingly flipping her hair.

Timothée laughs, “There really are.”

She blushes at that as she writes down her compliments. “Okay, I'm ready when you are, Timmy.” She smirks, knowing how much he likes when she calls him that, maybe just not right now.

Timothée groans and turns around in sync with her. “You can go first, y/n/n.”

She sighs and reads her card, “I wrote that you're a very kind and generous person. You always look out for the people you care about. Which I find very admirable.” She says, smiling at the way his eyes soften at her words.

“Thank you.” He appreciates, “Um, I wrote that I love how good you smell.”

It's quiet for a second until y/n speaks, “Are you serious?” She wonders.

“No.” He shakes his head, making her laugh, her booming laugh echoing across the room. Y/n once again shoves him as she laughs, Timothée snorts and watches as she calms down, patiently waiting with a small smile on his face.

“I'm sorry, T. Go ahead.” She giggles, wiping her eyes.

“I actually wrote that I love your laugh. I like how when something is really funny to you, you basically lose all sense of mobility and just shove the person closest to you. And your laugh always fills the room with so much delight and makes everyone else happy too. It's never a bad thing to make others cheerful.” He finishes, seeing her smile widen at his words.

“Thank you, Timothée. You don't even know how many times I've gotten crazy looks because of my laugh.” She grins, he huffs and shakes his head at that.

“People just hate happiness, I swear. Your laugh is adorable.”

“Thank you.” She blushes and looks down at her card, “My other one that I wrote was that you're very witty. You always know how to lighten the mood and make someone feel better when they're down.”

“I try my best.” He nonchalantly says.

“Well, you're really good at it. You've helped me a couple times!” She says, placing her hand on his arm.

“Thank you, thank you.” He responds, running a hand through his hair. “I also wrote that I love how confident you are. You never let anyone harsh your mellow, and you're extremely comfortable in your own skin.”

“Well, that's what a lifetime of bullying does to a person.” She replies, jokingly shaking her head.

“Stop, were you actually bullied?” He asks, reaching over to comfortingly rub her arm.

“Oh yeah, to this day!” She laughs it off.

“Why would they bully you?” He asks in genuine disbelief.

She shrugs, “Too weird or something, who knows?”

“Well, I love you just the way you are.” He says, she blushes and leans over to nuzzle her head against his shoulder for a second.

“Awwww thank you Timmy, I love you too.” She smiles, his cheeks redden at that and he sighs.

The next exercise is a mind meld, they have to name the same things at the same time.

“Okay, condiments.” She says, and he nods, “on three… one, two, three. Ketchup!”

“Ketchup!” They say in unison, Timothée cheers and jumps around, making her laugh.

“Dude, we're literally so in sync.”

Timothée agrees and places his hands on her shoulder, shaking her a bit as he jumps up and down excitedly. “We're not done, T. Your turn.”

“Right, right…. okay a color. One, two, three- green!”

“Green!” They once again say in sync.

“Bro!” He exclaims, clapping as she giggles.

“Bab- bro we're so.. mind melded.” She catches herself, making him laugh.

“Hell yeah we are! Let's finish strong. Animals!”

“Okay okay, one, two, three- Giraffe!”

“Whale shark!” He says at the same time that she says giraffe, she frowns and stares him down.

“Why the fuck would anyone say a whale shark?!” She questions, he sighs and defeatedly lays on the ground, jokingly putting his arm over his eyes.

“Just leave.” He jokes, Y/n snorts and lightly kicks at his legs.

“Come on, we're gonna get this on the second try, watch.”

“Join me down here.” He says, peeking up at her, she giggles and jokingly groans as she sits down next to him.

“Okay, one two three- elephant!”

“Peacock!” He yells, y/n frustratedly sighs, putting her face in her hands.

“Timothée! Once again, why is peacock the first animal you thought of?!” She teases, he laughs and sits up.

“I don't know!” He chuckles, admiring her as she sighs.

“Okay, third time’s the charm! Let's think more domestic, okay?” She says, meeting his eyes, he nods, “one.. two.. three- cat!”

“Cat!” he says, y/n cheers and lunges forward, tackling him to the floor.

“THAT'S HOW YOU DO IT!” She exclaims as Timothée laughs, wrapping his arms around her. “We're literally the most mind-melded people ever.” She jokes as she pulls away.

Timothée grins, “I think it's safe to say that we passed the friendship test.”

“Oh yeah, with flying colors.” She knowingly smiles and takes his hand to help him up.

~~

After filming that, they have a one hour break for lunch and Timothée keeps trying to hold her hand and kiss her in risky places.

“I miss youuuu.” He whines as they walk down the hall.

“Baby, we've been together all day.” She giggles as he intertwines their fingers.

“I know, but-” She's cut off by him pushing her into a private bathroom, “Timothée!” She exclaims, turning to face him.

“Yeah, but it’s literally torture not being able to kiss you whenever I want… and do other things.” He complains, pouting at her.

“I'm sorry! I just wanna make out with my girl for a minute or two pleaseeeeee.” He begs, softly kissing her cheek.

“You're such a horny little fucker.” She giggles as he kisses down her neck.

“I didn't say I wanted to fuck… unless you want to.” He suggestively says, raising an eyebrow.

“You know what, you did say for a minute or two…. you'd still have about a minute for cleanup. Give or take.” She teases, he playfully tugs on her hair at that.

“Funny.” He says, and then leans in to kiss her, sliding a tongue between her soft lips.

She moans and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him closer. He groans and lifts her to sit on the sink, she chuckles into it and wraps her legs around him. He rubs his crotch against hers and she pulls away.

“Don't get any ideas baby, we're not having a quickie right now.” She mumbles against his lips.

He sighs, “No no, of course not. Just a fun little makeout of course.” He goes back to her lips as she giggles.

His hands respectfully stay on her thighs, squeezing them occasionally as they kiss passionately for another minute or two before reluctantly pulling apart.

“I guess we should go eat.” He says begrudgingly, helping her off the sink.

“Yeah I guess so.” She says, reaching forward to fix the collar of his shirt.

He smiles lightly and gently rubs some smeared lip gloss from underneath her lip before opening the door for her.

“After our last interview today, I'm all yours tonight.” She promises as they walk down the hall.

When the video posts a couple of days later, Y/n watches it in their hotel room while Timothée is showering. She laughs at how cute they are and can't help but love how it's kind of obvious that they're together… or maybe not.

She's reading the comments when Timothėe comes out in only his underwear, his hair dripping as he sits down beside her, kissing her head before speaking.

“What you doing?” He mumbles, looking at her laptop.

“Mmmm, reading the comments on that friendship test we did.” She says, he chuckles and leans in closer so he can read them too.

THE WAY HE LOOKS AT HERRRRR

BRO HES IN LOVE W HER ISTGGGG

or maybe they're just friends promoting their movie..

THAT FACE SHE MADE AFTER HE SAID HIS BEST MEMORY W HER OH M HHHGGH SHE LIKES HIM FR

the way for his compliments he said he “loved” them… oh he wants her

that was so funny when she tackled him to the ground, BUT THEN HE HUGGED HER 🥺🥺😭😭😭😭 she's so lucky

HE SAID HER LAUGH IS ADORABLE 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

“You in love with me, Timmy?” She says softly, he laughs and turns his eyes away from the screen to her.

She smiles and kisses his lips, setting the laptop on the dresser as he slowly deepens the kiss.

He caresses her face, “Of course... How couldn't I be?”

“I love you.” She moans as he kisses her neck, he sensually licks at it before softly sucking a small purple spot onto an exposed spot. “Timmyyyy, people will see.” She whines, but doesn't make any effort to stop him.

“Mmmm, let them, you can do me next.” He mutters, nipping at the collar of her shirt. She giggles, tangling her hand in his hair. “I love you, y/n/n. These past few months have been the best of my life.” He says, his lips now centimeters away from hers as he speaks.

“You still want it all with me, baby?” She wonders, he nods and pecks her lips, pulling her to lay on top of him.

“Of course I do.”

*

[desired-misery]

[not me getting to this five years late LOL, but I'm still gonna do it!]

How many fics have you worked on since January? Omg, so many. So many. Around 30 or so (almost all WIPs, especially)

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? Tried a new method of showing a character having a bad experience via dissociation by changing how the scene is written (no real spoken dialogue especially)

What piece of media inspired you the most? Resident Evil to the max!!!!

How many fandoms did you write for this year? Just two, I believe. Resident Evil and Red Dead Redemption 2.

What ships captured your heart? Resident Evil: Leon/Chris + Chris/Piers + Leon/Luis + Chris/Leon/Piers + (and someone opened my heart to Ada/Hunnigan and GOD I need!!!). For RDR2: I always love Hosea/Dutch, Arthur/Charles, Kieran/Mary Beth

What characters captured your heart? fcuking LEON S KENNEDY, THAT MAN IS NICE! DAMN! Oh, and Hunnigan, too! She is so fucking cool!!!

Did you write for any new fandoms or ships this year? Resident Evil is new to me! We have RE4R to thank for that.

What fic meant the most to you to write? Hm, that's a hard one. I'd say the one I've posted is "This Must be Good" because of what I was trying to do, and I think I succeeded with it.

What fic made you feel the happiest to work on? All the whumptober stuff :) I love whump! And it was my first time interacting with the whump community on tumblr!

What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing? Within Range! Managing all those characters and chaos was fun! (it's a scene, not a full fic, but it's about 50% done, enough to be posted for whumptober).

What fic was the most difficult to write? Genesis 3:19! Spent a long time on it proportionally to how long it is. Lots of research, a lot of refining how I wanted it to read/feel.

What fic was the easiest to write? Experiment 537! BOW!Leon was so fun to write, I need to prioritize working on that AU.

What were your shortest and longest fics posted this year? (for completed fics, I posted a lot of wips for whumptober) Shortest is "This Must Be Good" at 3.9k, longest is "Trapped by Circumstance" at 17k

What were your go-to writing songs? Anything by Witchz. New fav artist this year.

What was the hardest fic to title? Genesis 3:19. God, that was hard lol

What's your favorite title of the year? It's a WIP, but "Flies and Blood, The Demon"

Share your favorite opening line: He avoids capture for almost two whole days until they bring out the dogs. ("Trapped by Circumstance"

Share your favorite ending line: Luis averts his eyes from the laser’s glow as it burns the rest of the parasite away into ash. (Genesis 3:19)

Share your favorite piece of dialogue: “Keep it professional, Kennedy,” Adam cuts him off, cold and firm. Leon curbs his instinct to snap back, smoothing his anger out just enough to count as humor. He pushes because he always pushes, even though it pisses Adam off— especially because it does. "Jesus, did someone kill the Queen or something?" "Or something," Adam repeats, drier than a rock. (WIP "Flies and Blood, The Demon")

Share your funniest line: If Piers didn’t already know that Kennedy was this sarcastic by nature, he would be thinking Kennedy’s GSW isn’t that bad if he is being snarky. (Within Range)

What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?: Pretty much every decision Capcom makes... so yes it absolutely changes the story (LOL), but it's fine! It means I get to have fun patching up major plot holes.

What writing programs did you use? Google docs, then started using Ellipsus! I like Ellipsus!

If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?: Finishing Whumptober! It was my first time participating!

Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic? Nope! Just enjoy posting and talking about it

How did you recharge between fics? ... working on new ones?

Did you create fanworks other than fic? I did not, but I'm hoping to start next year!

How many events did you take part in? (bangs, exchanges, ship weeks, zines, prompt memes, they all count!) Just one, Whumptober!

If this were an awards show, who would you thank? @waywardsou2 for being the literal BEST!!!! EVER!!! FOR EVERYTHING! @rainwaterapothecary for letting me spam you with re4r thoughts and enabling my love for Hunnigan! @geddy-leesbian for being a cool friend who makes cool shit and has a sick AU that I love to think about! @silvercap for your whump ideas and fellow desire to make Leon suffer :) @greasedcowboy for the love you poured onto Genesis 3:19 and our talks after! <3 and major honorable mention to @wisecrackingeric-2 for showing being 98% responsible for me loving Luis so much!!!!!!! Fuck yeah, Luis!!! Fuck yeah, Eric!

What's left on your to-do list for 2024? Uh... 'tis over, but I did not finish what I wanted to.

What would you like to write next year? So much, so many things. Especially finish up all my posted wips and then post new ones! I have so much writing I want to do!

A slightly revised version of last year's questions! Two ways to play: Reblog and have your followers send you numbers, or answer the whole list!

How many fics have you worked on since January?

What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year?

What piece of media inspired you the most? (This can be the fandom you wrote the most for, the one that spawned the most ideas, the one you thought about the most, etc.)

How many fandoms did you write for this year?

What ships captured your heart?

What characters captured your heart?

Did you write for any new fandoms or ships this year?

What fic meant the most to you to write?

What fic made you feel the happiest to work on?

What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing?

What fic was the most difficult to write?

What fic was the easiest to write?

What were your shortest and longest fics posted this year?

What were your go-to writing songs?

What was the hardest fic to title?

What's your favorite title of the year?

Share your favorite opening line

Share your favorite ending line

Share your favorite piece of dialogue

Share your funniest line

What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

What writing programs did you use? Did you write by hand?

If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?

Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic?

How did you recharge between fics?

Did you create fanworks other than fic?

How many events did you take part in? (bangs, exchanges, ship weeks, zines, prompt memes, they all count!)

If this were an awards show, who would you thank?

What's left on your to-do list for 2024?

What would you like to write next year?

[prettybouquets]

𝓙ayce 𝓗cs*ੈ✩‧₊˚

gn!reader x jayce talis

request; none

word count; 500~

cw; sfw + nsfw hcs (the nsfw is not very descriptive)

a/n; i have an unhealthy obsession w this man.

"Jayce is alive!" I say as they take me into the white room.

sfw;

𖦹 Jayce is basically your personal cheerleader, or in other words just a really supportive partner. He's always there to give you encouragement when you need it and finding ways to make your day a little more durable. 𖦹 Jayce is very big on PDA, he loves to be hands on, and he isn't ashamed of it one bit. Whether it's holding hands while walking on the pavement, an arm around your waist as he guides you, or a quick kiss on your temple when no-one is watching. He just loves the idea of showing you how much he loves and appreciates you through touch. 𖦹 Even though Jayce is a busy man he absolutely adores spending time with you, especially over cozy nights snuggled up to one another. He also loves to ramble on and on about Hextech and his new ideas to you, he gets so into it, big toothy smile, illuminating eyes, and he often stumbles over his words when he realises you're actually listening. 𖦹 Jayce has a soft spot for spoiling you. From intricately designed gowns to small trinkets that remind him of you, he loves surprising you with tokens of affection. 𖦹 While he trusts your ability to handle yourself, Jayce can be fiercely protective (not overwhelmingly), especially in tense or dangerous situations. He’ll always position himself as your shield if needed, there is no way he is letting you get hurt on his watch. 𖦹 He has a great sense of humor and loves to tease you lightly. He thrives on making you laugh and can’t resist a little playful banter. Jayce also enjoys gossiping about the Councillors at some rooftop with glasses of alcohol in both your hands. (it's even better if you're a councillor too.) 𖦹 Jayce is a very thoughtful and romantic man, meaning he likes to plans surprises—think candlelit dinners, bouquets of flowers “just because,” and he enjoys playing them off nonchalantly. 𖦹 He’s not just about grand gestures; Jayce is also very attentive to the little things. He remembers your likes, dislikes, and the stories you’ve shared, making you feel cherished and unconditionally loved.

nsfw;

𖦹 Jayce is an incredibly passionate lover, always focused on ensuring you’re comfortable, satisfied, and utterly adored. He always makes sure you find pleasure before he even thinks about himself. 𖦹 He loves taking his time, savoring every touch, kiss, and sigh that you give him. Jayce is all about eye contact and whispered affirmations, making each moment deeply intimate. 𖦹 His strength isn’t just in the way he holds you effortlessly against him—it’s in the way his fingers trail along your skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. 𖦹 Jayce adores your body and isn’t shy at all about expressing it. He’ll kiss every inch of you, murmuring praises as he goes, making you feel like the most beautiful person in the world. 𖦹 After intimacy, Jayce is the type to pull you close, tracing lazy patterns on your back while murmuring about how much you mean to him. Cuddling you is non-negotiable. 𖦹 Jayce is a confident switch, though he mostly leans towards being a sub!dom. He always makes sure your comfortable, with unwavering respect for your boundaries and desires. 𖦹 He notices what makes you tick and learns exactly how to touch, kiss, and hold you to leave you breathless. Jayce takes immense pride in knowing he’s the only one who can make you feel this way.

© prettybouquets 2024. all rights reserved. please do not copy, modify, or repost any work as your own.

[boohorns1136439]

Learning to belong ~ poly!MHA x fem!Reader (09)

Alright, merry Christmas everyone ! A bit late but still. I don’t have anything to offer to you guys. I can activate my anonymous ask if you guys want to ask me questions about the fic, I won’t say anything that’ll spoil the story but if any of you have a question. Why not ?

Warning: cursing (?)

Tags: Pack! Izuku Midoriya X Bakugo Katsuki X Shoto Todoroki X Kirishima Eijirou ; Pack! X fem!Reader ; Omega!Izuku Midoriya ; Omega!Bakugo Katsuki ; Omega!Shoto Todoroki ; Omega!Kirishima Eijirou ; technically Beta!Reader ; modern Au ; post-UA ; Reader has a quirk ; non hero!Reader ; smut eventually ; fem!Reader ; afab!Reader

08 <- 09 -> 10

Masterlist

Taglist

Izuku left his appartement troubled the day Todoroki’s "confessed" to them what really happened at the hospital. He’d spent the morning buried in his work at the agency he shared with Katsuki, hoping patrols and incident reports would quiet the uneasiness settling inside him. But it lingered, clouding his thoughts.

It wasn’t anger, not exactly. Or at least, not just anger. Frustration, maybe. A weight of uncertainty pressing on his chest, mixed with a bitter taste of jealousy he wasn’t proud to admit. He understood. He did. He knew how overwhelming a bad heat could be for an omega, how it could strip away all logic, leaving them at the mercy of your instincts. He’d been there himself, and he’d rather break every bones in his body than revisiting some of those awkward, clumsy high school’s memories. Though that knowledge didn’t make it easier to imagine Todoroki in that vulnerable, desperate state, reaching out for a stranger. The thought twisted in his chest. It wasn’t that Izuku doubted Todoroki’s love or loyalty. Absolutely not, years of shared struggles, laughters, near-death battles, and quiet mornings filled with kisses and affection had since long dispelled his old fears of being abandoned and not being enough for his pack. But imagining Todoroki like that, with someone else, left him haunted by the question: What if Kirishima hadn’t come in time? It had clung to him all morning, feeding his uneasiness. Again, It wasn’t about mistrust, he trusted Todoroki with his own life, it was about the helplessness of it all. He hated that his mate had gone through something so overwhelming and difficult, and he hadn’t been there to help.

By the time lunch rolled around, the weight of his thoughts was too much to bear. Izuku found Katsuki in the breakroom, halfway through his usual homemade lunch.

“Kacchan,” Izuku began hesitantly, sliding into the seat across from him and opening his own lunch box.

Katsuki paused mid-chew, his sharp crimson eyes narrowing recognizing the worried look in his mate green eyes . “What?”

Izuku poked at his food, his appetite nowhere to be found. “It’s about Shoto.”

That got Katsuki’s attention. He set his chopsticks down with a deliberate clink, leaning back in his chair with a sigh.

“What about him? You still hung up on the hospital thing?”

“I’m not ‘hung up,’” Izuku said quickly, though the defensiveness in his voice betrayed him. “I just… I don’t know how to feel about it. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“You’re overthinking. As usual.”

“Kacchan, I’m serious. Please.”

Katsuki studied him for a moment, his sharp gaze softening just slightly. “Are you mad at him? You know he wouldn’t have done that if his brain wasn’t heat-fried, right?”

“No, I’m not mad at him. Maybe a little,” Izuku admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I’m more mad at myself. This whole thing is just so… weird. And maybe if I’d noticed he was going into an early heat, none of this would’ve happened.”

Katsuki clicked his tongue, leaning forward. “You’re not a damn mind reader. The half-and-half bastard didn’t even know what was going on with himself. Yeah, it sucks, and I don’t like it too, but you can’t stop every little thing from going wrong before it happens.”

Izuku frowned, concern flickering across his face. “I know, but I’m still really worried about him. Didn’t he still look… off this morning? I can’t shake the feeling that he’s not okay.”

“Of course, he’s not okay,” Katsuki snapped, though there was no real bite in his voice. “But that’s why we, you’ve gotta talk to him instead of sitting here stewing in your own damn head like a dumbass. You wanna fix this? Go home and deal with it. No point in worrying all day about it, focus on what you can do now and do it.”

Izuku nodded in response.

“You’re right. I just—thank you, Kacchan. Really.”

Katsuki rolled his eyes but didn’t pull his hand away when Izuku reached out to give it a quick squeeze. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t get all sappy on me.”

He held Izuku’s hand for a moment before pulling free, grabbing his chopsticks again.

“Now shut up and eat,” Katsuki added. “I didn’t bust my ass making lunch just for you to waste it.”

Izuku smiled, the tension in his chest easing just a little.

.

.

.

By the time Izuku got home that evening, the weight in his chest had eased, thanks to Katsuki’s words lingering in his mind. Tonight, it would just be him and Todoroki—Kirishima and Bakugo were out on night patrol so they wouldn’t be back before later in the night.

The apartment was quiet, save for the soft hum of the heater. As Izuku stepped into the living room, he spotted Todoroki on the couch, sitting cross-legged with a bowl of peach slices perched on the armrest beside him. He looked up briefly when Izuku entered, his lips twitching into a faint smile. But it didn’t reach his eyes—just polite, and anything but genuine.

“Hey,” Izuku greeted gently, as he studied Todoroki’s face. The jealousy and frustration that had gnawed at him earlier felt distant now, the only thing left from his emotional turmoil was concern for his mate.

“Long day?” he asked, moving closer.

Todoroki shrugged, picking up a peach slice from the bowl.

“Not really. Just tired.”

“Tired how?” Izuku pressed, sitting beside him. “Post-heat tired, or… something else?”

There was a pause, just long enough for Izuku to notice the way Todoroki’s fingers tightened around the edge of the bowl.

“Post-heat tired,” he replied, but his voice was clipped and dismissive.

“You went to the hospital to apologize, right? Did you see her?”

Todoroki stilled at the mention of the hospital. His whole body froze, and his gaze dropped to the floor. The air between them grew heavy, and the silence that followed was thick and uncomfortable, making Izuku regret his words almost instantly.

“I went,” Todoroki murmured eventually, his voice so low Izuku almost didn’t catch it. “But she wasn’t there.”

“Well… that’s okay,” Izuku said carefully. “You can try another time. Or maybe write her a letter to the director’s hospital directly so he can arrange a meeting?”

Todoroki didn’t respond, his posture unusually stiff. Normally, Todoroki’s silences were comfortable, but this one made Izuku worry even more as his green eyes flicked to the bowl of peaches, then back to his mate.

“Peaches ?” he said, trying poorly to lighten the mood.

“I bought them after going to the hospital,” Todoroki replied flatly, popping another slice into his mouth without meeting Izuku’s gaze.

Everything felt off. Even Todoroki’s scent was wrong. The usual freshness and sweetness of frozen berries and honey was tainted with something sharp and sour, a bitterness that made his nose itchy and worried his omega. His omega instincts screamed at him to do something, to reach out, to comfort his mate.

“Shoto,” Izuku said softly. “If something’s bothering you, you can tell me. You don’t have to deal with it alone.”

Todoroki’s gaze flickered toward the window, his expression unreadable.

“I’m fine,” he said, but the words lacked conviction.

“You’re not fine,” Izuku said, his voice steady but gentle. He gave Todoroki’s knee a light squeeze. “But I’m here, we are all here so whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

Todoroki’s breath hitched, his shoulders stiffening. But for the first time tonight, his blue and grey eyes met Izuku’s.

“I just… what I did was wrong. It wasn’t just the heat. I couldn’t think straight and someone got hurt because of me.”

“Shoto…” Izuku’s chest tightened.

“It doesn’t matter if I wasn’t myself,” Todoroki said bitterly, his voice barely above a whisper. “I still did it. I should’ve been stronger. I don’t even understand how I could just lose control like that. It’s never happened before.”

“You’re not immune to your instincts, no matter how much control over them you think you have.”

Todoroki’s jaw tightened, his gaze shifting to the floor.

”I hurt someone, Izuku. That’s not something I can just excuse because I was in heat.”

As he faced Todoroki, Izuku remembered Katsuki’s words from earlier that day, and found himself offering a similar piece of advice to his mate. The green and orange pair unknowingly working together to support their mate.

“I’m not saying it excuses anything. What you did was wrong, and you know that. But beating yourself up over it won’t fix anything. What will make a difference is taking action—doing what you're already trying to do: owning up to it and making it right. ”

Slowly, Todoroki leaned forward, letting his forehead rest against Izuku’s shoulder, as if the weight of it all had finally pushed him down. Izuku didn’t hesitate, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him even closer. Todoroki felt tense under his touch, and something told Izuku there was more than just guilt. Something deeper, but for now, he didn’t push. He held him tighter, letting his mate feel the steady warmth of his presence.

“Can I have some peaches?” Izuku murmured after a moment, his second attempt at lightening the mood that night, but, as always, he never gave up.

Todoroki huffed softly, the sound almost like a laugh. “No.”

Izuku smiled at the sound and tried to grab a slice of peach anyway, but Todoroki moved the bowl out of reach.

“Wait, seriously?”

“I’m eating them all,” he said matter-of-factly, though the corners of his lips twitched upward, hinting at a playful smile.

“I didn’t know you liked it so much.”

Todoroki shrugged. “I never cared for peach, but I’ve been craving them lately.”

Hey guys, I didn’t update on Sunday like I planned, and I don’t think I’ll manage a second update today either (sorry about that 😭). In my defense, I did try, but I can be lazy sometimes and I didn’t like the first version of this chapter. This chapter ended up shorter than I wanted, and I struggled writing it. I’d love your thoughts on it, in fact I need it for this chapter (Izuku, the dialogue, characterization...). I am not happy about it but I don’t think I can improve it anymore. I won’t make any promises I can’t keep, but let’s hope the next chapter is longer. After the holidays, I should be free, so Chapter 10 will be out next week!

As always, criticisms are welcomed

Big thank you to @cafekitsune who made the beautiful dividers

08 <- 09 -> 10

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[thelaundrybitch]

Bangin'

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TURTLE DOVES!!!!

Have a little ditty I scraped together for shits and giggles.

Love yas! 🫶🏼🫵🏼💖

I'm gonna go ahead and deem this an 18+ story.

🔥A Dirty Laundry Fic🔥

And as always, my ninja turts are aged up to 30+ years. Don't be weird.

Please don't steal my work. Reblogging for others to enjoy is highly encouraged, though🤩

Bangin'

You’ve had the hots for Leo for as long as you’ve known the turts. Don knows your dirty little secret because he’s your BFF, and you tell him everything. You’ve made it quite clear to him that if you are ever caught with Leo alone, to come save you. You don’t want to say anything stupid and ruin friendships or lair visiting privileges by confessing your undying love for the eldest turt. So, you do your best to keep your distance because you fear your mouth will commit mutiny, always keeping your interactions with the blue bara fairly short and always ensuring one of his brothers is in the same room in case you need an emergency evacuation.

Leo, however, keeps trying to herd you away from his brothers or catch you alone so he can use that irresistible charm of his, to win your heart. He’s had a big fat crush on you for just as long and has actively been trying to get some alone time with you.

But it’s always thwarted. Whenever he thinks he’s got the upper hand, Donnie appears and whisks you away to the lab to help him with something. Eventually, he gives up, thinking that you and Don have something going on, and tries to occupy his time with additional training, meditating, or reading whenever you come to visit.

This certainly gets your attention.

Effectively crushing your blue-terrapin-loving heart.

A few months go by as you try to tell yourself that his lack of attention and interaction is for the best, and you almost have yourself to that ‘ok’ point.

Until…

The dreams start

Hot, horny, and hella realistic. You dream about honor boy pinning you to every surface of the lair. You swear you can almost feel his mouth on your skin. You can even smell that bergamotty goodness that is Leonardo, right as you’re waking up. 

Sometimes, the dreams are so realistic you have to walk around your apartment to make sure he’s not actually there.

It’s at this point you decide you need to avoid him altogether. Otherwise, you’re going to end up mauling him and begging him to make your dreams come true.

Leo, on the other hand, has been in absolute agony. And still IS in agony. He can’t get you out of his head no matter what he does. Your scent always seems to linger in the air for days after you’ve visited, no matter what room he walks into. Your voice echoes in his mind as he reads, that sweet laughter clouding his focus, rendering his imaginary escape impossible. 

Pretty sounds slipping from your pretty lips, with your small form fitting perfectly under his much bigger one, taking him so well every time he closes his eyes. Both asleep and awake.

It’s fucking torture.

Then it happens.

You walk into Don’s lab one day on a rampage. You’re tired. You’re sexually frustrated. And it’s all Leonardo’s fault.

Now, Don already knows about these dreams - because, of course, you told him. So, the moment you slam his lab door open, he puts down what he’s working on and gives you his undivided attention as you start spewing about your latest dreamland tryst. 

As you're talking very animatedly with Don about said adult activities you are going into great detail about positions, and kinks, and all kinds of risque dialogue.

Little do you know that Leonardo is present. He is over behind the lab table, squatting down and looking for a book that Don recommended on focusing through distractions.

He’s getting ready to stand up and leave when he hears your upset voice but freezes the moment you start talking about your latest dream. Because all of a sudden, out from your perfect, pretty little mouth comes all these words. Talking about all these physically untried ✨positions✨ accompanied by some over-exaggerated, very real-sounding… noises.

And he just—

Flatlines.

Zero brain activity.

He stands up so fucking fast that he slams his head on the shelf; the shelf dislodges and catapults the contents ALL over the place.

And he is mortified.

You're mortified.

Because you were absolutely reenacting some of said positions with a stool from the lab table.

And the way he's looking at you?

He's gotta fucking know.

But he doesn't.

And that secret crush he's had on you for years is about to be blown.

Holding your breath, you carefully stand the stool back to an upright position, giving Don the hairy eyeball before looking back at Leo for his response. 

Good God, you’re gorgeous.

His eyes are glued to you, and he’s watching every little move you make. Leo hasn’t seen you this close in months.  

Sure, he’s seen you from afar and in every dream, but being less than twenty feet from you is doing unmentionable things to him.

The way your v-neck tee is hugging all your curves in all the right places has his head spinning. You look good enough to eat.

He’s not sure what comes over him (quite possibly the oncoming concussion), but his legs move on their own accord and bring him around the lab table to where you’re standing with your face hotter than lava and wishing the Earth would open up and swallow you whole.

He stands almost on top of you, looking down into those enchanting eyes of yours, his own baby blues flicking back and forth from your eyes to your lips and back again.

He’s as silent as the calm before a storm, with waves of intensity rolling off of him like a tsunami and threatening the existence of your panties.

It’s too much. The looming. His intimidating presence. You know he knows, and you need to explain yourself before he hurls your ass out of the lair for good.

Stuttering out his name, you tell him you can explain and proceed to put your foot directly in your mouth as the verbal vomit gives away your position. They’re just dreams! You can’t help what your brain thinks about while you’re asleep! As a matter of fact, it’s his fault! Yeah! You can’t help that he’s the one-

“Me?” If Leonardo had eyebrows, they would’ve flown clean off his face. “I’m in these dreams?”

Eyes rivaling the size of Jupiter you glance at Don, who has nearly bitten off his tongue trying not to laugh, and just shrugs at you. Swallowing hard, you look back at Leo, whose irises are barely visible with how big his pupils are blown.

Trembling, you swallow hard and nod slowly. 

Without a second thought, he squats down, scoops you up like a princess, and growls out, “You need to come with me.”

“Wha- why?!” you panic, your hands moving around his neck to steady yourself in his arms.

He brings you in closer to his face, and in a husky voice, he tells you, "Because we need to go somewhere with thick walls… Those delicious noises and screams? They're all mine. No one else gets to hear those."

And that's the story of how you became part of Leonardo's mattress.

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[heavysighing-dreamyeyes]

The way I fell in love with this fic immediately!! OP has such a fantastic grasp on words, and pacing it fr had me completely entranced with the story. Jason and the reader felt so fleshed out and real that I just wanted to tuck them both into bed and tell them it's all going to be alright! I talk about my fav parts below the cut:

All it takes is one misstep, one stutter, one hesitation, and he will take it as an excuse to demand your demotion— or worse, termination. You’ve been preparing for this presentation for three weeks. If after all that effort it’s still not good enough, maybe you should be fired.

The stakes here are already giving me anxiety, mentally had to check if I had any high-stakes projects to take care of (I do not) but I am immersed and still feel like I do

Rush hour traffic has the ice cream tub you bought at the convenience store dripping condensation all over the passenger’s seat and your hips hurt from being in the same sitting position for most of the day, but you remind yourself that peace is only a few miles out. Stopped at yet another red light, your grip tightens on the steering wheel. Breathe in. Breathe out. The line of cars starts to move forward.

Ugh this is so visceral, I can literally feel my chest tighten at this scene (But I'm also thinking about how terrible Gotham traffic is, like I know every other day you have to change your route home because some rouge decided to rob a bank and crash their getaway car)

He’s just sitting there, doing nothing except bleeding out on your cream-colored carpet. He’s spread out on the couch like he owns the place, head leaned back against the wall as he lets his injured arm hang over the armrest and drip blood and dirt onto your cream-colored rug. The liquid seeps into the expensive wool, staining it with reddish-brown hues and the scent of iron, and he doesn’t even notice.

ooooh, ow, that's heavy. The day has just been so awful and all you want is just a moment to yourself and when you finally think your space is safe there's another issue to deal with and there's blood on your cream carpet. What's worse is that you don't him to be consider an issue, but in the moment when you're already so drained and exhausted and he's only making things harder, it's difficult to consider him as anything else

Today, your arms are too heavy and your gaze remains rooted on the widening splotch of red against white. Your throat feels dry. “You’re getting blood on the carpet.” He peers over the armrest. “Oh, shit,” he curses, lifting his arm to hover it over his lap.

Ahhh, sobbing because it's not even an 'I'm sorry' and maybe normally you don't need it to be, but today it's just another thing drawing you closer and closer to breaking

But you can’t say any of this, and you do want him to come to you whenever he needs help. God knows he won’t go anywhere else.

Love this little insight, if it's not you, then it's no one, and he's been coming around long enough for you to know that

It’s a partnered dance long since committed to muscle memory, steps you can take in your sleep.

!!! This line is such a standout for me, poetry fr

You notice the way his fingers curl against his thighs when you, somewhat carelessly, wipe the dirt from his skin with more pressure than necessary and the way his eyebrows tilt inward when you work slower than usual. You notice, but you ignore it.

I looove the tension building here, it feels like bubble about to pop, a scream about to break the silence

You’ll be subjected to all the shitty coworkers and unsympathetic friends and exploitative vigilantes of the world for the rest of your life.

SOBBING, wow, no words for this other than we all definitely need to cry

“Sorry about your rug,” he says. He tugs at the strap of his muzzle with one finger, rubbing at the skin underneath the leather. “I can get the stain out.” You retrieve the needle and thread from the kit and don’t respond. You don’t even look at him. After a moment’s hesitation, he continues. “It’s easy. You just need salt and—” “Okay.” He goes quiet.

This whole interaction is written incredibly, it has me sucking in breath and my eyes going wide. There's just this heaviness with it, both of them are trying in their own way, but nothing is going to make you feel better right now. And there's an ache that they're both messing up? Like, maybe you're not going to want him to come back after this. Or maybe he won't want to, and the whole tentative relationship you've built will just vanish

Flecks of fresh red on the light pink fabric. First your carpet, now your pajamas. Your favorite, special, extra soft matching cotton pajama set, a rare splurge after your promotion that stood out among old t-shirts and sweat shorts. Ruined. Again, he doesn’t seem to notice.

oh no

“Did I say something?” Hood asks. He waits for your response, but when none comes, he adds, “I’m sorry if I did.” He speaks so quietly you may not have been able to separate his words from the whirring filter of his mask, if not for the chilling silence of the bathroom floor.

OH NO

“Can you just let me work?” You snap before he has the chance to speak again. It’s loud, louder than you’d ever dream of speaking to him, and he flinches. Your eyes shut in apology, but only for a moment before you get back to it. He looks away. His feet point towards the door.

!!! OP!!! OW!! I'm going to go stare into the void, but YOU need to go stare at a wall and think about what you've done

(Maybe you noticed in the back of your mind that he’s not exhibiting any body language since you snapped at him, but the compartment in your head for guilt is already overflowing, so maybe you didn’t notice it, you tell yourself.)

I gasped, but it's so true to his character for him to shut down when hurt

You stare at your sleeve, at the patches of blood blooming like ink blots. The red and pink hues blend together behind your blurring vision. You sniffle.

Art

One finger ever so gently hooks around your chin, pulling it back up to face him. You keep your eyes closed, not wanting to see him see you like this, but the tears are still streaming. He brushes them away. Whether that makes it better or worse, you can’t be sure, because you cry even harder, snatching your face away from his grasp to muffle your sobs into the back of your hand.

In awe of your way with words here, I can feel the hurt and the comfort with every line

Your hands, still pressed to his chest, slide higher, completely of their own volition, out of a newfound desire to wrap your arms around his neck. You don’t hear it, but you can feel his sharp draw of breath, his chest rising quickly under your touch.

oooh, this action feel so big, so much, a line that you want to cross but neither of you are ready for

you ache with the want to know what he looks like. The color of his eyes. What his mouth looks like when he winces over a deep cut or chuckles at one of your anecdotes. You wonder if his lips are soft or chapped. If he’d like it if you dragged your thumb across the bottom one.

Yeah, wow, that's fantastic. This gets right to core of knowing Red Hod and wanting to know who's underneath, it's so compelling and I eat it up every time

He stays silent. But when you search his face, waiting for an answer, his hand moves to your side, palm sliding a fraction of an inch closer to your waist and fingers tensing, you can almost see through the mechanical muzzle to the way his lips shape the words. At least, he wishes you could. You know why.

SCREAMING, I want to give them the world and wrap them up in blankets! Seriously, this fic is just so, so good. I loved every line, and I don't think I blinked the entire time. Jason felt so human, flawed, but still kind and good. Incredible work as always, OP!! 💙💙

you're good to me, baby

with the roar of the fire my heart rose to its feet, like the ashes of ash i saw rise in the heat. settle soft and as pure as snow, i fell in love with the fire long ago.

or; because the red hood bleeding onto your living room carpet is exactly what you need right now [3.6k]

Jason Todd x fem!reader; based on this lovely ask; ngl this turned into a personal vent jason doesn't show up until 1k words in LMAO; warning there’s blood (duh) and reader is type A and suggested to have heavy anxiety; pre-established relationship where reader doesn’t know his identity + muzzle red hood bc HOT

Compartmentalize. Create baskets in your mind. Analyze the situation, and drop the corresponding emotion in the appropriate basket.

One: You had a fight with your best friend. She called you selfish because you weren’t enthusiastic about her new relationship. She just can’t seem to understand that no matter how happy you want to be for her, it’s painful to see everyone find safety in another person when you can’t. Every attempt at romance is squashed by something or the other that you keep doing wrong. I thought you were hot, your latest dating attempt had said when you ran into him and asked why he never texted back. But you’re kind of a lot. Not something I have the space for right now, you know?

Two: There’s an important presentation today, one that could determine the fate of your position in the company. Your coworker, the one who’s convinced you stole his promotion (he just flirted with the higher-ups while you actually completed the requirements), refuses to let you forget how much is at stake. All it takes is one misstep, one stutter, one hesitation, and he will take it as an excuse to demand your demotion— or worse, termination. You’ve been preparing for this presentation for three weeks. If after all that effort it’s still not good enough, maybe you should be fired.

The emotions here? Frustration. Anger. Exhaustion. Jealousy. Just to name a few. But there’s no time to dwell on anxieties right now, so you shove those thoughts aside. Drop them in their compartments and move on because, after all, if you can strip them down to their bones and find where they stem, you can yank those anxieties from the ground before they have the chance to root. And then there’s no need for unnecessary heartache, right?

(Who cares if the baskets are overflowing, crumpled fragments spilling over the sides like garbage in a landfill? Who cares if the room of your mind is so packed that you’re pressed against the wall and breathing becomes painful.)

The digital clock beside your bed reads 6:12. The numbers blink in and out of the window, their red dots and dashes taunting your heavy eyelids. You still have forty-eight minutes of peace before it will scare you awake. Its beeping will ring so loud and angry that the adrenaline from the startle will power you through your morning routine, and your beating heart won’t dare still to entertain wishes of just five more minutes. 6:13 now. You have forty-seven more minutes of peace, minutes which should be spent sleeping, giving your poor brain a break from itself. But you can’t. Every time you close your eyes and begin to sink below the level of consciousness, your heart pumps a house-special cocktail of cortisol that laces through your bloodstream and convinces you that if you fall asleep you will miss your presentation and you will get fired. The off-grid escape plan formulating in your head switches from hypothetical to tentative when your neighbors, apparently awoken to lust as well as tired by it, start going at it again. You want nothing more than to bang on their door and scream obscenities until they hate each other enough to never touch again, but you resign yourself to consciousness, giving up on the dream of what would now be forty-four more minutes of sleep. 

It’s Friday morning; only one more day to get through before the sweet release of the weekend finds you. (The whole weekend will be spent contemplating the start of a project, feeling like two days is not nearly long enough to complete anything, and dreading Monday until it finds you with nothing done and the same, endless cycle awaiting.)

After completing your morning routine 44 minutes early, you use the spare time to go through your presentation once more, just for good luck, wrapping up the third run-through just in time to hear your alarm to leave for work.

The presentation goes decent, at least well enough to quell any doubts about your ability to do your job. Your coworker ate his words for sure, and you might have enjoyed the look on his face had you not mentally checked out as soon as you finished your closing remarks. Rush hour traffic has the ice cream tub you bought at the convenience store dripping condensation all over the passenger’s seat and your hips hurt from being in the same sitting position for most of the day, but you remind yourself that peace is only a few miles out. Stopped at yet another red light, your grip tightens on the steering wheel. Breathe in. Breathe out. The line of cars starts to move forward.

When you get home, your frustration is close to boiling over. You kick off your shoes right at the door, your keys and bag following close behind.

Far be it from you to break down on the floor in the middle of the room, the plan begins to formulate. There’s a box of tissues on your desk– that can go on the nightstand, along with two of the chilled water bottles you keep in the fridge for after you work out. And you’ll need something for the tissues, right? The small wastebasket from the bathroom should be fine. You drag it over to the side of your bed, sitting in your usual spot to make sure you placed it at a reachable distance. You won’t want to get out of bed to wash your face after this, so a washcloth should go next to the tissues. And an extra one, just to be safe. There’s a half-pint of ice cream left in the freezer, you remember, and store that information for later.

You keep a set of comfortable clothes ready, the nicest, softest pajamas you own that you only wear after an everything shower. This shower, however, is a quick one, not much more than a few minutes under scalding water to comfort you, if nothing else. The light pink pajamas are a high-quality cotton and you feel like you’re in the clouds when you slip into them. Remaining is the ice cream, which you set out on the counter right before your shower so it would thaw just enough to be soft but not melted, With everything in your room ready, you go to retrieve the ice cream but stop with a startle when you round the corner.

“Jesus,” you mumble.

He’s just sitting there, doing nothing except bleeding out on your cream-colored carpet. He’s spread out on the couch like he owns the place, head leaned back against the wall as he lets his injured arm hang over the armrest and drip blood and dirt onto your cream-colored rug. The liquid seeps into the expensive wool, staining it with reddish-brown hues and the scent of iron, and he doesn’t even notice.

“Hey.” The Red Hood lifts his head when he sees you.

On any other day, you’d be quick to action, hauling him up off the couch and sprinting for the first aid kit under the bathroom sink. Today, your arms are too heavy and your gaze remains rooted on the widening splotch of red against white. Your throat feels dry. “You’re getting blood on the carpet.”

He peers over the armrest. “Oh, shit,” he curses, lifting his arm to hover it over his lap. He sounds robotic through his muzzle mask. His hood, pulled down to reveal his thick black hair curling at the ends from humidity and sweat, rests on his back.

I don’t have time for this, is what you want to say. You want to scream it in his face and kick him out for having the audacity to think he can come and go as he pleases, that you’re nothing more than a drive-through emergency room who will drop everything if he gets so much as a paper cut. But you can’t say any of this, and you do want him to come to you whenever he needs help. God knows he won’t go anywhere else.

Holding back your heavy sigh, you wordlessly walk to the bathroom. He takes that as an invitation to follow. 

It’s clinical. Rehearsed. Neither of you speak. It’s a partnered dance long since committed to muscle memory, steps you can take in your sleep. He knows to seat himself on the step stool you got just for him, for nights like these. He knows where to find the first aid kit and which supplies to hand you first. You know the exact steps to follow. Check the palms for abrasions. Antiseptic to the lacerations. Concussion exam. 

Maybe he can sense the air of tension surrounding you, because he doesn’t say as much as he usually does (though, granted, it’s still not much). It’s a reflection of your dynamic several months earlier when this arrangement began, back before you’d managed to chip away at the surface of his rough exterior. You notice the way his fingers curl against his thighs when you, somewhat carelessly, wipe the dirt from his skin with more pressure than necessary and the way his eyebrows tilt inward when you work slower than usual. You notice, but you ignore it.

We both know you have at least a dozen people who could do this for you. The words echo in your mind. Don’t act like I owe you this. If anything, you owe me a new carpet. These are things you wish you could say, but never will. Being realistic, you’ll probably never be able to say things like this. You’ll be subjected to all the shitty coworkers and unsympathetic friends and exploitative vigilantes of the world for the rest of your life.

This isn’t his fault, you remind yourself, but still, your lips turn down and your jaw feels tight with the effort to keep your face still, to not burst into tears right on the spot. In the second it takes for you to calm yourself, your hands pause. He notices. He says nothing. 

It’s not until you’re finished with cleaning the blood from his arm wound and giving him a wad of gauze to hold against it that he tests the waters and asks, “Is it too bad?” 

He sounds automated, but over the last few months, you’ve learned a thing or two about reading even these robotic actions. There's a certain quietness to the beginning of his sentence like he’s debating if he should say it or not. 

“It’s fine,” you say, shortly. 

“Sorry about your rug,” he says. He tugs at the strap of his muzzle with one finger, rubbing at the skin underneath the leather. “I can get the stain out.”

You retrieve the needle and thread from the kit and don’t respond. You don’t even look at him.

After a moment’s hesitation, he continues. “It’s easy. You just need salt and—”

“Okay.”

He goes quiet.

You don’t mean to be so tetchy, but you don’t have the energy for anything more. Every little thing has you feeling on the edge of shattering. It’s too much. It’s all too much.

It’s when you’re kneeled at his side, staring into the gaping wound on his bicep and trying to thread the needle, fingers trembling from the chill of the tiled floor with nothing but a layer of thin cotton to keep you warm, that it happens. He shifts on the stool, a mere twitch in an attempt to get comfortable, but it brushes his bloody arm against yours. Flecks of fresh red on the light pink fabric. First your carpet, now your pajamas. Your favorite, special, extra soft matching cotton pajama set, a rare splurge after your promotion that stood out among old t-shirts and sweat shorts. Ruined. Again, he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Did I say something?” Hood asks. He waits for your response, but when none comes, he adds, “I’m sorry if I did.” He speaks so quietly you may not have been able to separate his words from the whirring filter of his mask, if not for the chilling silence of the bathroom floor. The insulating brick walls of your old apartment building are something you’re usually grateful for, but tonight you find yourself wishing for the city’s commotion to seep through the walls. Something, anything to buffer his proximity to you.

You hear his inhale as he prepares to say something else.

“Can you just let me work?” You snap before he has the chance to speak again. It’s loud, louder than you’d ever dream of speaking to him, and he flinches. Your eyes shut in apology, but only for a moment before you get back to it. He looks away. His feet point towards the door.

He wants to leave, you can tell, and you don’t blame him. You just messed everything up. But you started this, so now you have to finish it.

You sit in silence for the several minutes it takes for you to clean his wound and stop the bleeding.

He’s not looking at you, gaze transfixed ahead of him on a chip in the paint. At least, you assume. It’s difficult to guess what’s going on behind the milky white covering over his eyes. His subtle body language can be read if you pay close enough attention, you’ve learned, but that’s not something you care to do right now.

(Maybe you noticed in the back of your mind that he’s not exhibiting any body language since you snapped at him, but the compartment in your head for guilt is already overflowing, so maybe you didn’t notice it, you tell yourself.)

You stare at your sleeve, at the patches of blood blooming like ink blots. The red and pink hues blend together behind your blurring vision. You sniffle.

“Are you—” Hood starts. Because now he’s looking at you.

“Excuse me,” you say, pushing yourself off the ground and stumbling out of the room without so much as a glance back at him. You stagger into your room, needle and thread still in hand, and push the door closed. The lights are off, and the darkness is calming, quieting your buzzing thoughts. You close your eyes and lean against the door. Breathe in. Breathe out. You continue this exercise, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth to soothe your sympathetic nervous system, the same way a therapist instructed that one time you went. You wipe away the moisture that has collected in your eyes, roll out your stiff neck, dry your sweaty palms over your thighs. You toss the needle and thread aside, because they are definitely not sterile anymore, and take a few more breaths before opening the door and going back to the bathroom.

You avoid his face, following the lines of grimy grout between the tiles before resuming to your spot at his side. His inspecting eyes burn on the side of your face. You wipe down the forceps with a sterilizing wipe and rip open the plastic packaging for a new needle, holding it up to the wound, but your hand refuses to steady.

Another deep breath. Then another.

Hood sighs. It’s almost chastising. “I think I should go.”

“What?” You’re just surprised enough to be torn away from your thoughts and look him in the eye (mask) for the first time all night.

“You can’t do this,” he says, gruffly. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll let you figure it out.”

You scoff. “Yes, I can. I’m fine.”

Before he can argue, you grab him by the wrist to hold him in place just as he starts moving to get up. He winces, but you keep your grip tight on him. You can feel his scrutiny through the cold, expressionless barrier of his disguise, practically track his pupils as they search your face.

You both pretend he couldn’t break from your hold in an instant if he wanted to.

“You’re shaking,” Hood says. His voice is much softer now.

You follow the turn of his head to your hand where it hovers the needle right over his skin. You are shaking. Trembling, in fact.

“No, I’m not.” It comes out as an empty whisper.

You focus all your strength on steadying yourself, but the harder you try to stabilize, the harder you tremor. Your other hand releases his wrist to clamp over your dominant hand and force it to stay in place. It guides the needle closer to the skin, but now your vision is blurring. You blink rapidly, but it’s not enough. The tears start falling. You look away from him, but a warm hand settles over yours. You don’t dare look at him, unable to bear showing him your shameful face, wet and blushing and screwed up in misery. You turn your face into your sleeve. Clamp your eyes shut tight, thinking maybe if you keep them closed, this darkness will swallow you up and he won’t be here anymore.

But the warmth of his skin on yours is the first feeling of softness, of relief you’ve felt in months, and then it’s gone. Your shoulders are shaking, quaking with the effort to keep your sobs quiet.

One finger ever so gently hooks around your chin, pulling it back up to face him. You keep your eyes closed, not wanting to see him see you like this, but the tears are still streaming. He brushes them away. Whether that makes it better or worse, you can’t be sure, because you cry even harder, snatching your face away from his grasp to muffle your sobs into the back of your hand. You don’t realize he’s pushed himself off his stool to sit cross-legged on the floor until you feel his hand circling your arm and pulling you closer. The tools in your hand clatter on the floor as your palms come up to press against his chest, fighting against him with half-hearted protests murmured through your cries. But even with only one good arm he’s too strong for you, and you’re pulled into him.

He’s so gentle with you, rubbing your back and resting his chin atop your head while you cry and cry and cry into his shirt. Several minutes pass like this, with your face buried in his chest and his good arm holding you tightly against him while the other dangles lamely at his side, throbbing with an intensity he’s trying to ignore.

When your sobs die down, and you’re sure you’re all cried out, you linger against him. He smells like smoke and gasoline, and his shirt is soft and warm from his body heat seeping through. His hand continues to stroke up and down the length of your back, even after you’ve quieted. The edge of his mask digs into your scalp where his chin sits, but it feels worth it. Your hands, still pressed to his chest, slide higher, completely of their own volition, out of a newfound desire to wrap your arms around his neck. You don’t hear it, but you can feel his sharp draw of breath, his chest rising quickly under your touch. Your hands lose their nerve at his clavicle as you hold your breath for fear of the smallest movement drawing attention to your forwardness. You wait for him to rebuff you, to lean away from your touch, or grab your wrists and pry them off. He doesn’t.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. His chest finally falls.

Eyes opening, your thumb swipes over the edge of the red bat symbol just below his collarbone.

His movements pause, lightly gripping the fabric of your shirt for just a moment, before releasing it. “It’s alright,” he tells you.

You pull back from his chest to look at him, the way his cold and unfeeling expression stares back at you. You wonder from time to time what’s under the mask, but tonight the desire is overwhelming; you ache with the want to know what he looks like. The color of his eyes. What his mouth looks like when he winces over a deep cut or chuckles at one of your anecdotes. You wonder if his lips are soft or chapped. If he’d like it if you dragged your thumb across the bottom one.

The metallic odor spreading through the room brings you back to the present, and you hope the flush from your tears hides your cheeks’ growing heat when you realize where your mind had wandered. 

“Oh, fuck, your arm.” You speak in a watery voice, wiping at your face as the urgency returns to your senses. Though you try to move away, his firm hand on your back pulls you back in.

“Don’t worry about it, okay?” He says, resuming his caresses up and down your back. “I can take care of it.”

“Then why do you even need me?” You sniffle with a small smile.

He stays silent. But when you search his face, waiting for an answer, his hand moves to your side, palm sliding a fraction of an inch closer to your waist and fingers tensing, you can almost see through the mechanical muzzle to the way his lips shape the words. At least, he wishes you could.

You know why.

this was lots of fun to write and thank u for your patience ik i said i was gonna "knock this out in a day" 2 weeks ago😬😬 also we're gonna pretend they aren't just letting his open wound marinate for half an hour when it should be getting stitched up bc it's fiction ok? everyone say thank you mostly-imagines for proofreading this😚

but anyway happy new year!! it's been barely 2 months but starting this account made my year so much better🫶🫶🫶and ty for 500 followers that's crazy🫣🫢

[aventurineswife]

Heey :3

I'm a bit new to HSR but I would love to make a request regardless. A platonic request with a reader that lost their parents at a very young age and somehow ended up with the listed characters With Boothill, Aventurine, Gallagher, Gepard (if I requested over the character limit just chip some off <33)

Reader is like in their teen years

Fragments of Fate

Tags: Boothill x Reader, Aventurine x Reader, Gepard x Reader, Teen!Reader, Platonic Relationships, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff with Angst, Protective Characters, Emotional Bonding, Slow Burn Friendship.

Warnings: Mentions of Parental Loss, Themes of Grief and Trauma, Violence (Mild/Implied), Angst with a Happy/Bittersweet Ending, Possible Depictions of Flashbacks (Trauma-Related), Protective Behavior.

A/N: WELCOME TO THE FANDOM!! I HOPE YOU ENJOY YOUR STAY AND DON'T LET THE WEIRD PEOPLE GET TO YOU!! 🤗💕💖

The galaxy was vast, unkind, and unrelenting—traits Boothill understood better than most. When he found you wandering the outskirts of a ruined settlement, it felt like staring into a mirror of his past. A teen, lost and alone, with nothing but the smoldering remains of a life stolen too soon. You reminded him of himself, crying in the snow all those years ago.

The first thing Boothill taught you was how to defend yourself.

"Out here," he said, crouched by the fire with his mechanical hand resting on his holstered revolver, "you either draw fast, or you're done for." His eyes locked onto you, and for the first time since meeting him, you saw something other than sharp wit and vengeance in his expression—concern.

But Boothill wasn’t a teacher in the traditional sense. His lessons came wrapped in stories of survival, laughter, and his signature dramatic flair. He showed you how to handle a blaster, track footprints across barren wastelands, and recognize when to stand your ground—or when to run.

One evening, as the two of you watched stars streak across the dark sky, Boothill broke his usual bravado. "The world’s gonna throw you into the dirt," he said softly, his shark-like teeth catching the firelight. "But you? You’re gonna get back up every time. You hear me, kid?"

In Boothill, you found a guardian who didn’t pity you but saw your strength—even when you didn’t see it yourself.

Meeting Aventurine wasn’t a chance encounter; it was destiny orchestrated by a gambler who always bet on himself. You stumbled into his orbit during a skirmish between the IPC and local rebels, a frightened teen who had lost everything. He could have walked away—after all, you were just another face in a galaxy filled with suffering. But something about the fire in your eyes stopped him.

"You’ve got guts, kid," he remarked, adjusting his glasses as he ushered you into the safety of his suite. "Stick with me, and you might just learn how to play this game called life."

Life with Aventurine was a whirlwind of unpredictability. He taught you how to navigate high-stakes situations, whether it was bluffing your way out of trouble or making calculated risks that turned the odds in your favor.

One day, he handed you a deck of cards, each one worn and bearing faint marks from years of use. "Lesson one," he said with a smirk. "The game’s rigged, but that doesn’t mean you can’t win."

Aventurine’s mentorship wasn’t about coddling. He challenged you, pushed you to think ahead, and celebrated your victories with genuine pride. Yet, there were moments of vulnerability—late-night conversations where he’d share fragments of his own tragic past. "We’re not so different, you and I," he admitted one night, his voice quieter than usual. "We both know what it’s like to lose everything. But here’s the trick, kid: we don’t let it break us."

With Aventurine, you learned that survival wasn’t just about strength—it was about strategy, resilience, and knowing when to bet it all.

When Gepard found you, it was during one of the harshest Fragmentum attacks Belobog had ever faced. You were huddled in the ruins of a home, clutching a makeshift weapon and trembling with fear. The sight of you—so young, so lost—stirred something deep within him.

"You’re safe now," he said, his voice steady and reassuring as he extended a gloved hand. "I’ll protect you. That’s a promise."

Life under Gepard’s care was structured and disciplined, but never harsh. He treated you with kindness and respect, understanding the pain of loss in a way only someone who had carried the weight of duty could.

He taught you how to wield a weapon—not for revenge, but for defense. "Strength isn’t about defeating your enemies," he said during a training session. "It’s about protecting what matters most."

Gepard’s lessons extended beyond combat. He instilled in you a sense of responsibility and compassion, encouraging you to help others even when the world seemed bleak. Under his guidance, you began to rebuild your confidence, finding purpose in small acts of courage and kindness.

One night, as snow fell softly outside the city walls, Gepard joined you by the fire. "I know it’s hard," he said, his eyes reflecting the flickering flames. "But you’re not alone anymore. You have a family here—with me, with the Silvermane Guards. And together, we’ll face whatever comes."

With Gepard, you found more than a protector—you found a father figure who believed in you, even when you struggled to believe in yourself.

[thekitsandthekats]

i wonder if people understand that to hate haley is to really really misunderstand aaron.

like, im not trying to make this about him but i think stories are so intertwined because obviously they are.

haley and aaron were highshool sweethearts! he said he fell in love with her after watching her rehearse. haley must've felt something too for them to be together, then to be together that long! she's been with him through law school, through being a prosecutor, through being on S.W.A.T, through FBI training and all the years working up to being the Unit Chief of the BAU. she's been right there with him!

they have jack and there is her happy family, the peaceful idyllic life dreams are made of, but of course aaron keeps working, he's always traveling to situations where he could die at any moment. that's hard, guys. to know that your husband could go to work and not come back, every single day. haley is an incredibly strong and loyal person and determined to keep her family together. but all of that is difficult in the face of aarons job. she knows that he loves her and jack, she knows that he's a good father but she also knows he's bound to duty, to his job, to saving eveyone he can. when she leaves its not because the love wasn't there but because she couldn't do it anymore. and there's strength in that too.

to leave the love of your life, the father of your children, someone you've been with through so much, since you were a teenager. do yall understand how difficult that must've been.

and even after she leaves, she still sends aaron videos of jack and little updates on his life. i always think of the end scene in seven seconds when aaron asks to see jack even though he's sleeping. haley stares at him for a beat before she says yes and ive always thought that she must see something on his face. a kind of look that means he's just come back from a difficult case and needs the reassurance of his family. so, of course she says yes.

the reason i say to hate haley is to misunderstand aaron is because her death broke him in unimaginable ways. the guilt must eat at him, killing him everyday. do you understand how important family is to aaron. he tells rossi once that he did everything for his family, that before the divorce he tried his hardest in everything. and to have haley be murdered because of her connection to him, because foyet used her as a tool to get to him.

he loved her with everything in him, and haley loved him just the same. to not respect her position in his life, is you doing a disservice to yourself. theirq story is heartbreaking gold.

im honestly tired of all the criminal minds fans dismissing haleys death. like that woman is strong. she knew damn well in that moment she was going to die but her kid was right there so she held herself together until her last final moments, so idc if “she cheated” or whatever bullshit yall try and use to hate on her — she was such an understanding wife and an amazing mother and im tired of yall shitting on her when you wouldn’t be able to handle half the shit she went through.

and i can now breathe!

[misssilversunny]

Ok so I've been on a bit of a Yandere batfam binge tbh. One thing I saw was someone saying that there should be a yandere batfam that's too interested in Reader's life, as opposed to the multitude of neglected Readers.

I would like to build on that and say, a Spoiled!Reader. Maybe around grade school age for some of the story, the rest being them as an adult realizing that their family's "interest" in every aspect of their life was nowhere near healthy. Or it could be a crack fic where Reader is guarded like the president of the world.

For example, as a child, they applied themselves to everything, wanting to be as smart as their older siblings, and followed Alfred around all the time when they found out that he was a spy in his early days.

Every award was put on a shelf, every drawing was fridge worthy, to the point where they got a corkboard to put all their drawings, and whenever they wanted something, they got it. Bullies never got more than a week of fun before an injury befell their parents or some other misfortune. Bruce was almost constantly seen with them.

Timeskip to maybe their 20s, they're trying to hold down a long term relationship after so many ended up with their partners becoming distant before either they broke things off or Reader left them. Every batchild is using their own connections to try and keep possible suitors away.

Reader laments their lack of freedom and privacy to their friends, leading to the common "Tells people about a funny memory. Why are they looking at me like that"

Apparently, while it's normal for a brother to offer if their younger sibling has noone to take to the dance, saying that they should go instead of a proper date is not. Family members should not be dressing you like a doll past age 6 (The girls + Alfred + Dick all love putting outfits together for reader, saying that they're just made to be dressed up.).

Your parents shouldn't be physically intimidating and scaring off every partner, and definitely shouldn't be saying that you shouldn't look for a partner as long as you have them. Your family shouldn't "joke" about how friends are fine since "they're seldom as permanent as family".

Reader slowly realizes that they need to get out, fast. But instead of it being a struggle for the Batfam to find them because they know next to nothing, it's a fight to do something they couldn't predict because they've all been watching them like hawks since they set foot inside the manor.

Most, if not all of their friends outside of the group that convinced them to run are friends with at least one family member, so 60-90% of their social net has been gutted. They can't use their legal name while they live in Gotham, but they need a job to get the money to leave.

I think Damien being the biggest yandere would be really funny, especially if you read it like Lance Crown is with his sister. Bro has multiple lockets with photos of them throughout the years in them, as well as a photo for every single birthday he was present for.

In Damien's eyes, Reader's primary title is "Damien's Little Sibling" and is willing to deal with the shared titles that must come with that (Dick's Little Sibling, Bruce's Child, Alfred's Ward, etc). If you want to have the honor of bestowing Another Title upon Reader, Damien has to give the go ahead first. He will never give the go ahead.

Jason would also be super protective, since he was around when they were still learning to talk and walk. He comes into the living room and Alfred's got Reader on a blanket with some toys and upon seeing him, Reader wobbles to their feet and stumbles over to him, squealing in delight and almost falling over before grabbing onto his leg and smiling up at him.

It was at that moment, the Reader fan club was truly established. Bruce would be the leader since he was the dad, but Damien was second in command and manages the collections of information/photos.

AN: I have no clue about the lore/timeline the Batfamily has. If something mentioned couldn't have happened during a certain point of time, then I'm sorry lol.

[bellobambino]

'O Sole Mio'

?: After a few glasses of cheap Chianti, Luigi tells you a story. Nothing could have prepared you for its delivery.

1,080w

Author's Note: I don't have any words left after this, all i have is feelings and crying and ... im so gone for him. ive lost my mind. i dont know if this shit makes any sense but i was just about weeping writing it LOL

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

It was the last golden gasp of summer at Seaside Heights, the kind of evening that feels like a postcard itself. The boardwalk was alive with the smell of fried dough and the sound of distant screaming children on rides powered by questionable engineering. Luigi and I had wedged ourselves into a corner table on the patio at some hole-in-the-wall Italian place.

We had ordered slices and “just a glass” of wine, which inevitably became, “Just bring us the bottle.” By the time I was three pours deep, Luigi had his legs stretched out like he owned the place.

His eyes, espresso-dark and shining under the cheap string lights of the boardwalk, were giving me that look. You know the one. Like he knew how good he looked in his half-buttoned linen shirt.

That’s when he suddenly froze, his head tilting to the side. He pointed upward. The music—some cheesy, dramatic Pavarotti knockoff that these Italian dives play to try and appear authentic. Then he smiled, clapping a hand over his mouth.

“What?” I asked, already laughing at whatever dumb thing he was about to say.

“Oh my God.” He shook his head. “I can’t tell you. No way.”

“Well, now you have to tell me.” I smacked his arm—rock solid.

He paused and sighed. “Okay, but promise me you won’t laugh.” He leaned in with a straight face that had me eagerly anticipating another highly entertaining Mangione story.

“I promise,” I lied.

“Alright.” He looked around, then leaned in conspiratorially. I was melting for this man. Every moment with him felt important, filled with meaning. He could have said anything, and I’d lap it up like a dog. “So,” he started, rubbing his face like he was already regretting this.

“My mom used to play these mix CDs on the stereo at home. Pavarotti, Bocelli, all the classics, right? She’d be cooking, cleaning, just vibing to these… love songs.”

“Sure,” I said. Totally normal so far.

“But this song”—he pointed upwards again to the song playing on the patio speakers—“‘O Sole Mio,’ a total guilty pleasure for her. When it came on, she would lose her mind. Singing, swaying, dancing. And eight-year-old me sat there watching her, thinking, This must be the greatest song in the history of songs. So, Mother’s Day comes around…”

At this point, Luigi paused, biting his lip like he wasn’t sure he should continue. I couldn’t help the smile that possessed my face.

“Oh my God, Lu, what did you do?”

He waved me off, reaching for his wine. “No, nah, I can’t—”

“Finish the story, Luigi.”

“Fine.” He threw his hands up. “I learned the song. Like, the whole song, okay? I watched every Pavarotti performance on YouTube at the time. Memorized the lyrics. Practiced in front of the mirror. And on Mother’s Day, I performed it for her.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did. For her, my family, my cousins, neighbors. I’m pretty sure Pavarotti himself has sung for smaller audiences.”

I lost it. “You did not…” I said, breathless already. The image of little eight-year-old Luigi in my head, filled with love for his mama, singing an Italian love song in complete earnestness, was too hysterical to keep contained.

“I did,” he admitted. The music swelled in the restaurant, hitting that classic over-the-top crescendo, and Luigi—my God, this man—pushed back his chair and stood up.

“And now…” He slapped his hand on his puffed-up chest and lifted his chin.

“Luigi, NO.”

“I will sing it for you.”

And let me tell you, it was terrible.

He was hamming it up like some kind of opera drunk on karaoke night, his voice all over the place but somehow still deeply passionate, like he was singing to save Italy itself. People in the restaurant were staring. I was just as mortified as I was captivated. Tears were streaming down my face. Dying. And he didn’t stop. He didn’t care. He kept going—arms gesturing wildly, every crescendo perfectly wrong—and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

When he hit the final note—“O SOOOOLEEEEEE MIIIIOOOOOOO!”—he threw out his arms in a dramatic flourish, like he was expecting roses to rain down from the sky. I clapped so hard my palms hurt.

When he finished, he bowed. One or two other patrons gave half-hearted claps, probably just impressed by his dedication to the bit. His cheeks and ears were a delicious shade of pink, his smile lighting up his face as he moved his chair closer to me.

“You’re too much, Luigi,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes.

He finally sat down, our knees touching. He leaned towards me, and suddenly I was his only audience. “Do you know what the song means?” His voice was soft, so only I could hear. There was a twinkle in his eye that wasn’t there before.

I shook my head.

“Okay, ‘O Sole Mio’—it means ‘My Sunshine.’ It’s about… someone being the light of your life. Like…” He shifted his weight, trying to find the words. “Like even the sun itself can’t hold a candle to the person you love.”

He ran a hand through his hair, a little embarrassed by the intensity, but too caught up in the moment to stop himself. “It’s like the artist was saying, ‘The world is so much brighter with you in it.’ The guy is completely wrecked over how beautiful life is because of this one person... you know?”

His eyebrows furrowed slightly, gauging if any of this was resonating with me at all. His goofy bravado had melted into something almost painfully genuine and sincere.

This was real for him.

“I do know, Lu,” I said quietly.

He leaned back, taking his wine. He shrugged. “And that’s why I sang it for my mom.” He tried to downplay it, but I saw right through him. “Because she’s always been my sunshine. Always will be.”

My breath caught in my throat at that.

Then, he must have realized he’d gone too far into the serious zone. He snapped back to being playful. “Anyway, I fucking nailed that performance on Mother’s Day, and everyone talked about it for weeks after.”

I don’t know if he realized what he was doing to me. The lights sparkled brighter. The air tasted sweeter. And my heart was warmer. Because he was here. He was insane, but I wouldn't have him any other way.

The song made perfect sense. Life is a gift with you.

~~~

What a beautiful thing is a sunny day.

But another sun, even more beauteous, oh my sweetheart, My own sun, shines from your face This sun, my own sun, Shines from your face; It shines from your face

[raekensluver]

WICKED OBSESSION - EX!LUIGI MANGIONE x FEM!READER- PART TWO

PART ONE, PART TWO

DESCRIPTION: it seems you finally managed to get luigi out of your life, so you decide to move on and date someone new. but when you're in a club and you run into luigi...how is he going to react to your new relationship?

CONTAINS: dark themes!!!!!!!!!!, toxic!luigi, clubbing, drugging, cheating, daterape, manipulation, p in v, unprotected sex, oral (male receiving), mentions of babytrapping (it doesn't happen).

w.c: 4.2k

a/n: lowkey tweaking out because i know my baby lu would never do this but this is a work of fiction so it's okay....right?

the neon lights of the club throbbed in time with the bass, casting an eerie glow across the dance floor. the air had the scent of sweat and perfume, the sound of laughter and music an intoxicating blend that made the world feel alive. you leaned against the bar, sipping your drink, feeling the vibrations of the music in your chest. your new boyfriend, matt, swayed beside you, his hand resting gently on the small of your back.

months had passed since you last saw luigi. the memory of that night was a distant echo, a faint taste of something sour on the back of your tongue. you had blocked his number, deleted his messages, and even moved apartments to escape the shadow he had cast over your life. every time you thought you had left the toxic relationship behind, the fear of his reappearance had clung to you like a sticky web. but with matt, you felt free. his gentle touch was a balm to your bruised soul.

your parents adored matt. he had a way of making everyone feel seen and heard, a stark contrast to luigi's demanding presence. when he picked you up for dinner, he'd bring flowers for your mom, ask about your dad's day, and listen to their stories with genuine interest. he was the kind of son they had always hoped for. when they saw the two of you together, their faces lit up with the warmth of a thousand suns. they had never seen you so happy, so at peace.

but the night at the club, the night you saw luigi, the shadows of your past began to stretch their long fingers into the present. his eyes found you through the crowd, and for a moment, time seemed to stop. his gaze was intense, filled with a mix of anger and desperation. you felt a chill run down your spine, a shiver of fear that you thought you had outgrown. matt, noticing your sudden tension, wrapped his arm around you protectively, whispering, "who's that?"

you tried to play it cool, taking a sip of your drink and hoping luigi would just pass by, but his steps were determined. as he approached, his eyes never leaving yours, you felt the old weight of his presence settle back on your shoulders. "luigi," you murmured to matt, your voice shakier than you'd liked. "it's okay, everything's fine." you told him, but everything wasn't fine. luigi had always had a way of making you feel like you were the only person in the room, and even now, surrounded by the pulsing energy of the club, it was just the two of you.

"hey, it's been a minute," luigi said, his voice smooth as velvet, his smile forced and cold. matt offered a hand, a polite gesture that you appreciated, and luigi took it in a firm, almost painful grip. "luigi mangione," he said, introducing himself. "i know who you are," matt replied, his grip equally firm. "i've heard a lot about you." there was a beat, a moment where the tension grew thick enough to slice with a knife. luigi's eyes flicked to you, a question in them. "this is matt," you said, trying to keep your voice steady. "my boyfriend."

his smile didn't waver, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. "oh," luigi said, his eyes lingering on matt. "you're the one who's been keeping her out of trouble, huh?" he leaned in, his voice low and mocking. "good for you. she used to be such a handful." matt's jaw tightened, but he didn't rise to the bait. "i think she's pretty perfect the way she is," he said, his voice a gentle rumble that seemed to fill the space around you.

luigi's gaze snapped back to you, his eyes dark. "right," he said, his tone clipped. "well, i didn't come over here to cause any trouble. just wanted to say hi." his hand reached out, and for a split second, you thought he might touch you. but matt's grip on your waist tightened, a silent warning, and luigi's hand fell away. "another time, then," he said, his voice dripping with a promise that sent a fresh wave of cold fear through you.

he turned and began to walk away, his movements fluid and graceful despite the crush of people on the dance floor. your eyes followed him as he disappeared into the crowd, a snake slithering back into the shadows from which he came. matt's arm tightened around you, and you felt his breath in your ear. "are you okay?" he asked. you nodded, but the nod felt too heavy, forced. "yeah," you said, "i'm fine." but you weren't fine. the sight of luigi had cracked open a door you thought was sealed shut, and the memories flooded in, unbidden and unwelcome.

an hour passed, or maybe it was two, the minutes stretching and warping to the beat of the music. matt was pulled away by friends and you remained by the bar, the empty glass in your hand a silent sentinel to the fear that had crept back in. you tried to ignore the way the lights played over the shifting crowd, turning every shadow into a potential threat. you tried to focus on the music, the laughter, the warmth of matt's hand when it found yours again, but luigi's presence lingered like a bad taste.

suddenly, he was there again. luigi slid onto the stool next to you, his eyes never leaving yours. the bartender set down a drink in front of you, and you stared at it, a slithering coil of dread tightening in your stomach. "i just wanted to talk," he said, his voice a low murmur that seemed to cut through the din of the club. "i've missed you."

you took a deep breath, the taste of your drink bitter on your tongue. "it's over, luigi," you said, your voice firm. "i'm done." the words felt like a declaration of war, and for a moment, you braced yourself for the storm of his anger. but he just nodded, his smile never wavering.

his eyes searched yours, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face. "i know," he said, his voice a whisper over the music. "i just wanted to make sure you knew that i still care." you felt the weight of his gaze, the intensity of his words, and for a moment, doubt flickered. but then you remembered the pain, the tears, the endless cycle of his apologies and your forgiveness. "i don't need that kind of caring anymore," you replied, sliding off the stool. "i've got matt. he treats me right."

his expression didn't change, but the air around him grew colder. "you always did know how to pick 'em," he said, gesturing to the drink with a tilt of his head. "have one last toast with me?" the glass was filled with an amber liquid that glinted under the neon lights, and you knew it was your favorite whiskey. luigi had always had a way of knowing exactly what to say, what to do, to get under your skin.

you stared at the drink, the ice cubes clinking together with a sound like shattered promises. if you took a sip, if you engaged with him, you were afraid it might be like opening pandora's box. but maybe, just maybe, if you humored him this one time, he would leave you alone forever. you picked up the glass, the condensation wetting your fingers, and raised it to your lips.

the whiskey burned down your throat, a familiar warmth that brought with it a rush of bittersweet memories. you set the glass down firmly, the clink of it hitting the bar a declaration. "that's enough," you said, your voice clear and unwavering. "i have to go find matt." luigi's smile remained, but there was something in his eyes that sent a shiver down your spine. "sure," he said, "enjoy the night."

you pushed through the sea of bodies, the music a muffled roar in your ears. the lights spun and swirled, making it hard to focus. matt's tall frame should have been easy to spot, but the more you looked, the more you realized he wasn't anywhere near. a sinking feeling began to form in your stomach, a knot that grew tighter with every passing second. you scanned the dance floor, the couches, the bathroom line, but there was no sign of him.

you pulled out your phone, the glow of the screen a beacon in the dark. no messages, no calls. you tried to call him, but the club's reception was spotty at best, and all you got was a series of rings followed by silence. where was he? had luigi said something to him? the whiskey swirled in your stomach, mixing with the fear that had taken hold. you sent a quick text, trying to keep the panic out of your words. "where are you?"

the seconds ticked by, feeling like hours. no response. the music grew louder, the lights more oppressive. the crowd seemed to close in around you, and you felt like you couldn't breathe. your heart hammered in your chest, a drumbeat that echoed the bass of the music. you pushed through the throngs of dancers, searching every face, but matt's was nowhere to be found.

the club was a labyrinth of neon lights and pounding rhythms, each step taking you further from safety and closer to the panic that threatened to consume you. the floor was sticky under your shoes, the air thick with the scent of desperation. your eyes searched frantically, darting from person to person, but all you saw were strangers, their faces a blur of indifference to your distress.

suddenly, a hand grabbed your arm, spinning you around. you gasped, ready to lash out, but it was luigi. his eyes searched yours, a flicker of genuine concern breaking through the mask of his usual arrogance. "you okay?" he asked, his voice cutting through the cacophony. you nodded, trying to swallow the lump in your throat. "matt's missing," you managed to shout over the music. "i can't find him."

luigi sneered for a second before it was replaced with something softer. "let's go look together," he offered, and for a second, you almost believed he had changed. almost. but you were desperate, and he was right there. together, you wove through the dancers, his hand in yours. his grip was firm, grounding you in a way that was eerily familiar. "matt's a good guy," luigi said, his voice low enough that only you could hear. "you deserve someone like him." the words stung, but you didn't have the energy to argue.

you began to feel loopy, the whiskey hitting you harder than it should have. the lights grew too bright, the sounds too loud. you stumbled, and luigi was there, his arm around your waist, supporting you. "are you okay?" he shouted, his face close to yours. you nodded, trying to shake off the fog that clouded your thoughts. "just need to find matt," you murmured, leaning into him.

his grip on you tightened, his thumb stroking the side of your hip in a way that sent a shiver down your spine. you realized with a start that the hand that had held yours was now resting on the small of your back, guiding you through the crowd with a possessiveness that was all too familiar. the whiskey's warmth had turned to ice, and you felt yourself sinking into the cold embrace of the club's floor. "matt," you tried to call out, but your voice was a whisper lost in the roar.

the lights above swirled into a nauseating kaleidoscope, each color stabbing into your retinas like a knife. the music grew distorted, the laughter around you turning into a cacophony of taunts. you felt luigi's arm around you, his grip tightening as you stumbled again. "let's go someplace quieter," he yelled in your ear, his breath hot and sour. the hand that had been on your back slid up to your shoulder, his fingers digging in, and you realized with horror that you couldn't move away. your limbs felt like lead, and the panic grew, a scream trapped in your chest.

the edges of the club blurred as he half-dragged you through a side door and into a hallway that was a stark contrast to the vibrant chaos of the main room. the walls were cold and unforgiving, the floor sticky under your feet. the lights flickered, casting eerie shadows that danced around you like ghosts from your past. your thoughts swirled like the neon lights, a toxic mix of fear and confusion. "matt," you tried to call out, but your voice was lost in the thump of the bass that seemed to follow you even here.

"shh," luigi murmured, his breath warm against your cheek. his arms were around you, supporting you, but it felt more like a cage. "he's probably just stepped outside for some air." his voice was soothing, the way it used to be when you were together, when you were lost in his lies. "let's sit down, okay?" before you could protest, he had guided you to a bench against the wall, his grip firm and unyielding.

you leaned against him, your vision swimming. the whiskey had hit you harder than you had anticipated, and the room spun in a dizzying array of lights and sounds. you tried to focus on his face, but it kept shifting, changing into the monster you had left behind. "matt," you whispered, the name a prayer on your lips. "i need to find matt."

his arms tightened around you. "he'll find you," he assured you, his voice a seductive purr that sent a shiver down your spine. "right now, you just need to relax." his hand slid down to your waist, his fingers curling possessively. you tried to push him away, but your body didn't respond, heavy and sluggish. "no," you slurred, the word barely audible. "not again."

the room tilted and you felt yourself slipping, the floor rising up to meet you. luigi's arms tightened, his grip like iron bars keeping you upright. "don't worry, i've got you," he whispered, his breath hot on your neck. "just let me take care of you." the words echoed in your mind, a siren's call from a nightmare you thought you had left behind.

you felt his hand move again, this time sliding up to the base of your neck, his thumb brushing against your pulse point. your heart hammered in your chest, a desperate rhythm that seemed to match the throb of the bass still pounding in your ears. you knew what was happening, knew the game he was playing, but you couldn't find the strength to fight it. "no," you murmured, the word barely escaping your lips. "please."

his eyes searched yours, the coldness in them sending a chill down your spine. "you always did like to play hard to get," he said, his voice a mockery of sweetness. your mouth felt dry, the whiskey a burning memory on your tongue. you tried to swallow, but your throat was a desert, parched and desolate. the room spun faster, the lights above becoming a blur of color that made your head ache.

his hand moved up to cup your chin, forcing you to look at him. "don't you remember how good we were together?" he asked, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw. "i can give you everything you want. everything you need." his breath was hot, the scent of alcohol and something darker, something that made your stomach churn. "matt can't give you what i can."

you tried to pull away, to stand, to scream, but your body was uncooperative. your legs felt like jelly, your arms heavy weights attached to your shoulders. "no," you whispered, the word barely escaping your numb lips. "i don't want that anymore." the room was spinning faster, the lights above swirling into a sickening pattern that made you want to retch.

luigi's grip remained unyielding, his thumb stroking your cheek with a gentle pressure that was anything but comforting. "you don't know what you want," he murmured, his eyes searching yours with a hunger that made your skin crawl. "but i do. i want you." his voice was a siren's call, a promise of comfort in the storm that raged within you. but it was a lie, and you knew it.

his other hand found yours, guiding it with a surprising force to the bulge in his pants. your stomach lurched, the whiskey churning in your stomach like a tempest. "feel that?" he asked, his voice a low rumble that seemed to shake the very foundation of the club. "that's how much i want you." the fabric of his trousers was rough under your trembling fingers, the heat from his body searing through the material. "luigi, no," you managed to gasp, your voice barely above a whisper.

his hand didn't move, his grip unyielding as he pressed your palm against his erection. "just one more time," he murmured, his breath hot against your ear. "i'll make it worth your while." the memory of his touch, his kisses, his promises flooded your mind like a tsunami, threatening to drown you in a sea of despair. his thumb traced lazy circles on the inside of your wrist, sending a shiver of revulsion through you.

you felt his cock twitch under your touch, and you realized with a start that his hand had moved away, leaving yours to hover there, unsure of what to do. your mind screamed at you to push him away, to run, but your body remained frozen, trapped in a prison of fear and doubt. his eyes bore into yours, searching for a flicker of the desire that had once burned so brightly for him. but all you felt was the cold, hard reality of his manipulation.

his hand moved to the back of your head, gently but firmly guiding you closer to his crotch. you could feel the heat of him, smell the musk of his desire. your stomach churned with the whiskey and the horror of what was about to happen. "please," you whispered, your voice barely audible. but he didn't listen. he never did.

his zipper rasped open, the sound echoing in the empty hallway. your eyes watered with the effort of not crying, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing you break. his cock sprang free, hard and demanding, and you knew what he wanted. his hand pushed your head down, the pressure unmistakable. you closed your eyes, took a deep, shaky breath, and did as he bid.

his cock filled your mouth, the taste of him bitter and wrong. you felt his hands on your hair, guiding you, his breath coming in short, excited gasps. your cheeks hollowed as you moved up and down, his grip tightening with each stroke. the whiskey churned in your stomach, but you couldn't throw up. not now. not here. you had to get through this.

you kept your eyes on him, his face a mask of lust and power. his eyes were locked on yours, the dark pools of his pupils swallowing any hope of escape. the lights above threw shadows across his face, making him look like a demon from hell itself. his mouth moved, whispering words of encouragement, of ownership, but you couldn't hear them. the only sound was the sickening sounds of your swallowing and gagging and and the thud of your own heart, beating a desperate rhythm of survival.

then, without warning, luigi pulled himself out of your mouth, his grip on your hair painfully tight. he pushed you back down onto the bench, his eyes never leaving yours. his pants fell to his ankles with a soft thump, and he positioned himself between your legs. "you always did know how to take care of me," he murmured, his voice a knife slicing through the silence. your heart hammered in your chest, a wild, terrified animal trapped in a cage.

his hand reached up under your skirt, the fabric rough against your skin. you tried to close your legs, to fight him off, but your body was a traitor, too weak from the drugged whiskey and the fear. his fingers found your panties, ripping them aside with a savage jerk. the sound of the tearing fabric was like a gunshot in the quiet hallway. you felt a moment of pure, unbridled rage, but it was quickly swallowed by the cold, numbing acceptance that had become so familiar during your time with him.

his cock pushed into you, and you bit your lip to keep from crying out. the pain was a white-hot knife, slicing through the fog in your mind. he was rough, his thrusts hard and fast, like he was trying to claim you all over again. your hands gripped the edge of the bench, your nails digging into the wood. you didn't look at him, focusing instead on the flickering lights above, trying to find a pattern in the chaos to hold onto.

but despite your efforts to remain detached, a moan slipped out, low and desperate. it was like a dam breaking, and suddenly you couldn't hold back the sounds of your body's betrayal. the pleasure built, unwanted, the whiskey making your senses too intense, too alive to ignore. your eyes squeezed shut, and your mouth opened in a silent scream as luigi fucked you, his hips slamming into yours with a brutal rhythm.

his hand left your neck and traveled down your front, his fingers tracing a fiery path down your spine. you shuddered at the contact, a mix of revulsion and unwanted arousal that made your skin crawl. his grip was firm, his fingers digging into your skin, reminding you of the power he had over you, even now. "see?" he murmured, his voice thick with victory. "you still want me."

his thrusts grew deeper, more deliberate, his eyes on yours. "you know i could get you pregnant," he whispered, his breath hot on your face. "wouldn't that be great? you, tied to me for the rest of your life, just like i always wanted." the words were a knife in your soul, twisting and turning until you weren't sure if the moans coming from your throat were from pleasure or pain. "i could do it right now," he continued, his voice a taunt. "make sure you never forget who you really belong to."

the sobs began then, deep and raw, the sound of your own breaking. luigi's eyes widened for a fraction of a second before the smugness returned. he liked your tears, liked that he could still make you cry. his grip on your hip tightened, his thumb digging into your flesh as he pumped into you harder. "that's it," he murmured, his voice a dark caress. "just let go."

you didn't want to let go. you didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing you crumble, but the whiskey and the fear and the memories were too much. the moans grew louder, mingling with your sobs, and you hated yourself for it. your body was responding to his touch, betraying you with every stroke, every thrust. his other hand found your clit, and you bit down on your lip, trying to keep the noises inside.

his eyes gleamed with triumph, his smile cold and cruel. "that's it," he murmured again, his voice a sibilant whisper in the dark. "just like old times." his thumb circled your clit, pressing down with a merciless precision that made your eyes roll back in your head. your hips bucked against his hand, a silent plea for release that was more about ending this nightmare than giving in to his touch.

the orgasm ripped through you, tearing apart what was left of your defenses. your body arched, your nails scraping the bench as you came around his cock, the sound of your cries lost in the music that thumped through the walls. luigi's smile grew wider, his hips moving faster. "see, baby?" he said, his voice a mockery of tenderness. "we're perfect together."

then, without warning, he pulled out, his cock slick with your arousal. you felt the warmth of his cum spurt onto your stomach, painting you with his claim. the act was a final declaration of his dominance, a physical manifesto of his ownership. your eyes snapped open, meeting his in a silent battle of wills. you hated him, hated the way your body responded to him even now, hated the way his cum marred your skin.

his smile never wavered as he tucked himself away and zipped up his pants. "see you around," he said, his voice casual as if you hadn't just been violated in the shadows of a club. and with that, he turned and left you there, trembling and alone. the sound of his footsteps echoed down the hallway, fading into the throb of the music until all that remained was the sticky emptiness of his absence.