#idk what else to tag this..... I don't even know how much reach I actually want it to have lmaooo

[antisocialxconstruct]

okay hi hello happy Saturday. We are doing this. If it seems familiar, the first scene is one I posted here a million years ago but it's been revised quite a bit for the new setting and everything. And also just to be better.

word count: 5,600

Ghost City

Chapter One

Somewhere in the club, Maksim suspected, there was someone who wanted him dead. He knew why, in broad strokes at least. But he wasn’t planning to oblige.

“Beer here tastes like warm piss,” Chronic griped, voice raised enough to ensure her complaint would be heard over the persistent clamor of mindless dance music being pumped through the warehouse. The thunk of her empty glass hitting the table between them was less lucky.

Maksim snorted and idly twirled a cigarette through his fingers before settling it between his lips. He tucked it into the corner of his mouth to mutter “that’s why I told you not to order it,” as he flicked open the heavy lighter in his other hand. He didn’t have to make the same allowances for the noise pollution, he knew the military-grade surveillance gear in Chronic’s skull was picking up every word he said, and likely a half dozen other conversations in their immediate vicinity. He lit up with a languid lack of urgency, exhaled a thin stream of smoke that caught the alternating pink and turquoise of the LEDs overhead, and let his gaze wander as he scratched idly at his temple, where one of the rows of short keratinous horns that cluttered his forehead disappeared into the chin-length black curls that were currently gelled neatly into place. The stocky woman across from him leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, and he arched an expectant eyebrow at her.

“Figured that was just ‘cause you’re teetotal and you don’t like fun,” she said with a shrug.

“Eh, сука.” Maksim plucked the cigarette from his mouth after another drag and met her eye with a thin smile. No humor. “Guess you’re an expert now.” The barely-veiled hostility didn’t earn him much of a reaction, but then he wasn’t expecting it to. He was paying Chronic for her eyes, not for pleasant company, which was the only reason he had let the usual mask of performed affability slip completely. This new persona was a bit of an experiment of its own, an extra layer of distant arrogance just to really emphasize his lack of interest in making friends. Still, he couldn’t afford to be too overtly mean. He did need Chronic’s eyes.

Without moving her head, her gaze slipped over his shoulder and behind him, the minute twitches of her pupils the only sign that she was scanning the crowd as she idly responded, “dunno about that… I can’t figure why a guy like you’d come to a place like this.”

Maksim flicked a bit of ash onto the dingy little ashtray on the table. “A nightclub?”

“I mean Chicago.”

A short span of silence, between them at least, as the bone-rattling treble climbed to a crescendo and hung there for a beat, then another. Maksim resisted the temptation to use that lull in the music to comment on her lack of originality. Chronic had never actually accused him of anything, but the words spy and mafia had been swimming around in her head vividly enough that Maksim had never had to do more than skim her surface thoughts to pick them up. She clocked him as ex-military within an hour of meeting him, and between that, his accent, and the fairly conspicuous modifications to his hands and left eye, she drew her own conclusions. There was perhaps a small degree of irony in the fact that, if his life had gone differently at a couple of key points, he almost certainly would have been serving as a covert agent for the Russian state right now. On the other hand, if he’d been a little smarter he would have gotten out of the country faster and managed to dodge the draft entirely. None of that seemed worth explaining to Chronic to dispel any of her suspicions, not when her cooperation came with a straightforward price tag.

At last the bass dropped with an intensity that vibrated uncomfortably through Maksim’s nerves, and with the fresh cover of noise pollution all he ultimately said was, “still on me?”

“Mm,” Chronic refocused on him. “Sure as.”

A low frustrated sound escaped from the back of his throat to be swallowed up by the ever-present electronic beat. Another drag, then he tipped his head back against the booth, breathed smoke up toward the industrial rafters high above and let his eyes flutter closed. He shouldn’t be doing this. He had invested a lot of money into making it materially harder to do this, and he was going to invest more into making it worse. And yet there was that pesky trouble with old habits… “Describe them to me,” he said, and then tentatively, with the lightest touch he could manage, he extended his consciousness out through their immediate surroundings, like running an open hand over wood and hoping to catch a splinter, scanning for any hint of attention or interest angled toward their booth. He picked up a few right away, but they didn’t register as anything other than earnest curiosity, passersby stealing surprised glances when the undulating lights caught on his horns just so. In 2098 it was no less common to meet a variant than it was a natural redhead, but that didn’t always stop people from staring, especially at a mutation as conspicuous as his.

“Big guy,” Chronic was saying, “but like… ‘no gene-tech’ big. Milled around for a while but now he’s sitting at the bar.” Maksim refined his search perimeter, found the little blip of someone side-eyeing them with more intent from halfway across the room. He raked mental fingers through flashes of awareness and fleeting short term memories as Chronic continued. “Leather coat, camo pants-”

“Stop.” The bartender just thanked him for a tip. A couple of people on the dance floor were eyeing him appreciatively from the back. “Brown hair, jack on his left temple, drinking something green… acting like he thinks he’s the star of an action movie?”

Chronic laughed, a sharp bark of a sound that punched through the club’s ambiance. “That’s the one.”

“ID?”

“None to speak of.”

He shouldn’t be doing this. He started to dig, prying experimentally at the edges of the man’s thoughts, trying to pull away the outer layers to get a deeper look. Who are you? Who sent you? Memories and personal knowledge were always harder to read than surface thoughts, but he was just beginning to glimpse discernible shapes-

All at once his perception snapped back into place like a split rubber band and he pitched forward with a hiss and a muttered curse, pressing his palms to the sides of his head. It did nothing much to soothe the kind of directionless, brain-deep pain that had overtaken him. When after a few uncomfortable seconds he dared to open his eyes again, the strobing lights were almost too much to handle. He stubbornly blinked his vision back into focus anyway, and met the gaze of Chronic watching him impassively from across the table, one arm now slung over the back of the booth.

“So what’s the plan, boss?” she asked, wholly unmoved by the display.

“You can’t even get a name?” He didn’t mean for it to sound quite as sharp as it did, but he also didn’t take it back.

Chronic shrugged, pursed her lips. “Could you?” Maksim answered with a withering glare. “Whoever put that shadow on you wanted to stay clean as all hell. Either they went out of their way to find someone untraceable or they sunk some real money into making him untraceable.”

Maksim chewed on his mounting frustration for another moment as he took a last long drag on the cigarette, then stubbed out the remains and rose to his feet. “So no one would miss him.” Chronic’s eyebrows shot up toward her hairline but he was already stepping away from the table before she could make any further comment.

At the very least, the door slamming shut on his mental prying crystalized his focus, woken up his reflexes and centered him inside his own skull in a way no stimulant ever did. A twinge ran down the length of his left arm, the reparative fiber optic mesh knitted into his muscles protesting against the adrenaline-charged tension he was now carrying in his shoulders. He winced and shook it out as he weaved his way through the undulating crowd of clubbers with minimal effort, the carbon-fiber claws in his fingertips extending and retracting with half-conscious anticipation. As he neared the bar he reached up to check the manhunter in its holster at the small of his back, under his coat and out of sight, but as soon as he caught a glimpse of the man tailing him it was like a switch flipped–his demeanor rolled over into the one reserved for dealing with marks, a casual and open saunter and an easy smile. It would have been faster and easier to shoot him from the cover of the crowd and be done with it, and it wasn’t as if this act would trick the man into thinking Maksim was someone else. Not if he was even fleetingly competent. But Maksim had mulled over the situation long enough to decide there might be information to be extracted here, if he could play the game right.

“You look lost, cowboy,” he remarked as he slid up alongside the man, and now he did need to raise his voice just a touch, though the bar was at least a little quieter than the dance floor. His target turned and looked up from his stool, and Maksim took some satisfaction in tracking the array of emotions that flashed across his face in that instant before he set his jaw and straightened his back slightly. Getting ready to play along.

“Not really my scene,” he responded, his voice a hard-edged baritone to perfectly match the rugged-big-screen-hero image he was projecting outward. “Just waiting here to meet someone. You need something?”

Maksim leaned back, braced both hands against the bartop behind him, maintaining his height advantage over his shadow. “Honestly I just wanted to talk.”

Another almost imperceptible hesitation from his counterpart. “Maybe we could move that somewhere more private.”

“I think I’m fine right here.” Maksim flashed him a smile that wasn’t quite mocking. Not openly. An amateur, he thought. Wasting time he could have spent grabbing me. If Chronic couldn’t pull anything on him it’s because he’s nobody, there’s nothing to pull. The shadow sat back slightly, one hand drifting toward the edge of his jacket, and of course Maksim knew the posture of someone going for a gun. “That’s really not necessary,” he continued, gaze flicking pointed but unconcerned from the man’s hand up to his face. “In fact, here. We can be friends.” He pushed one hand away from the counter, drew his own pistol, and set it down on the bar. Then he settled back into his easy stance, not at all primed for a fight. His shadow didn’t seem entirely persuaded, but he didn’t escalate things any further. “How long have you been doing this?”

“Long enough.”

“Yeah?” Maksim’s smile tilted toward indulgent. “So you’ve got stories?”

Something lit up behind the other man’s eyes then, a sudden spark of inspiration. “Everyone does, right?” he began. “Actually maybe you know this one, didn’t happen to me but I heard it friend-of-a-friend style.”

“Sure,” Maksim conceded. “Best source you could ask for.”

The man inclined his head. “You get it. So I heard about this job out in NYC, maybe… a couple months back, real gruesome mess. Team of five go into this big high security warehouse to grab some holy relic, except halfway through one of them just snaps. Turns on the crew, makes mince out of a couple of them before the others can take him out, later he says demons made him do it. And the other two, the only ones who survived, they just accept that and let him walk. Can you believe that?”

As he talked Maksim had gone still, his casual slouch growing a little stiff. The smile never fell from his face, but it felt strained there now. Stale and brittle. “And what do you think should have happened?” he asked slowly.

“Y’know I’ll be honest,” the shadow said, leaning an elbow on the bar and puffing up with the apparent upper hand he had gained in their exchange. “I don’t have a lot of stake in it either way. But maybe there’s a few parties might be holding a grudge against that guy. Maybe one or two willing to spend some money to make sure he faces some consequences.”

That wasn’t good… but it could be worse. Probably. Maksim didn’t know who they had been working for, but if it was someone willing to send cleaners after him for botching the job they’d be more efficient than this, he wouldn’t have been standing there having a pleasant conversation with one of them. Lockjaw and Ziggy probably had friends, but he didn’t know them either. He had hoped none of them would be the vengeful types, but maybe he needed to reassess. Or maybe he just needed to go further west than Chicago.

The shadow shifted in his seat again, opening his mouth to add something else, and without waiting to find out what it was Maksim grabbed the back of the man’s head and shoved hard enough to bounce his face off the bartop. The collision rewarded him with the wet crunch of bone fracturing.

Someone shrieked behind him. In one smooth motion Maksim had the gun in his left hand and the claws of his right locked onto the man’s scalp, keeping him pinned face-down on the bar. He cast a mental net out around them, grabbed every spike of shock or fear he could catch and clamped down on their impulse to do anything about it, digging a little telepathic hole of Nothing To See Here around the two of them. The pain hit almost immediately, driving straight into his skull and down his spine as his vision blurred and the walls of his barrier started to crumble inward like wet sand as soon as they’d been erected. Through a daze his shadow choked out a mangled curse past bloodied lips and made a feeble effort against Maksim’s grip, only to go still again when the manhunter’s muzzle pressed up against the side of his head. Maksim really wanted nothing more than to pull the trigger and paint the counter with this man’s skull, it would certainly resolve this quickly and send a clear message to whoever sent him. But it seemed unlikely Maksim would be able to stop anyone from noticing that.

“I’m going to walk out of this club,“ he bit out through gritted teeth. A chunk of his barrier slipped and he could feel the bartender’s attention drifting their way in a tangle of confusion and concern. ”You’re not going to follow me. Not tonight and not any other night. If I ever see your face again I’ll split it in half properly. Understand?“

No more than two seconds of hesitation, then the shadow nodded–as best he could anyway, smearing blood across the counter under his cheek.

Maksim let the threat hang for another beat, then withdrew and holstered the gun. “You should have a talk with whoever hired you for this,” he said as his shadow lifted his head, cupping the gnarled mess of his nose in his hands. “They di-…” the rest of Maksim’s words died on his lips in a wave of nausea and the barrier finally crumbled. Spots danced around the corners of his vision moments before it began to tunnel, the moment stretching uncomfortably out in every direction.

The voices around him went tinny, distant and indistinct as vertigo gripped him.

He could feel the music boring into him, threatening to vibrate him apart if he stayed there any longer.

Someone grabbed at him and he twisted, shaking them off out of pure instinct, and started moving.

It was all he could do to orient himself, fix his gaze on the high doorway gaping black with the night sky beyond, and shove his way through the remaining crowd as he fought to keep his footing. People became increasingly unconcerned with his presence the further he got from the bar, until at last he crossed the threshold and the cool night air hit him all at once as he staggered to a stop to be sick on the pavement outside.

A chorus of laughs rose up from across the street as he fell back against the club’s exterior wall, and now the music was dulled to a steady thump and buzz through concrete. Someone called out “fuck yeah man party hardy” and earned themself another round of jeering laughter. Maksim grimaced but he didn’t have it in him to pinpoint the source of the comment, much less respond.

He closed his eyes. Okay. So that was a waste of time. Or he had in fact played the game wrong. But if nothing else it was a clear indication that it was time to move on.

He was unsure how long it took to collect himself, for his senses to settle back into place and the piercing in his skull to fade to a level he could ignore. In that time no one followed him out. Not his shadow, who must have heeded his warning, not any of the other patrons, whose attention he had apparently shrugged off against all odds. Not even Chronic, who seemed to have inferred that their brief and unproductive partnership was over.

Fine.

That was fine.

He pushed himself away from the wall with a concerted effort, and started the slow trek back to his apartment. He needed to make some travel plans.

–###–

Ilya Kasharin was already dead.

Figuratively, sure, in the sense that they assumed no one in Boston had really looked for them or spared them much thought at all after they disappeared. Maverick would have made sure of that.

But also literally, in the sense that four years ago they had flatlined on an operating table for a full six minutes, only to be “reassured” after the fact that this did not invalidate the terms of their contract with NervAMP.

This was the one they took some issue with.

The focused clatter of fingers on keyboard was the only sound punctuating the silence of their modest workspace, where they sat folded into a tortured pretzel in their chair. Their eyes were laser-focused onto the screen in front of them, pupils glinting unnaturally in the light any time their gaze darted back up a few lines in their code, catching a missed tag or double-checking their logic as they chided or argued with themself in distracted mumbles.

More than anything, this needed to be thorough. Their last foray into NervAMP’s systems had only been long enough to copy the basic structure of their network and prop open a backdoor, not to exfiltrate any of their data for experimenting. They could throw the worm into the playground of their virtual network as many times as they wanted to see it spread before scrubbing it back out, but at a certain point they would just have to trust that it could do what they wanted and set it free. They were getting impatient with their own iterative testing, and they imagined the worm itself growing restless as well as it unfolded across the screen in front of them, eager to fulfill its purpose.

With a sigh Ilya paused and then sat back, a final assertive jab at a couple keys the only signal the machine needed to compile the worm and inject it back into the virtual network, just to be sure their last round of tweaking hadn’t compromised the basic functionality. Their second and third monitors blinked to life, and Ilya watched intently as the rudimentary visual representation of the network–little more than a sprawling array of interconnected lines and dots–transformed from uninfected green to compromised yellow over the course of about eight minutes.

No changes there, not that they really expected any.

This next step was the one they were least eager to take, and perhaps on some level all the systematic tweaking and troubleshooting had been in an effort to push this off as long as they could reasonably justify. Unfortunately they didn’t feel like they could reasonably justify much more, so they sat forward again, nudged the deck closer in front of them, and combed their fingers through the choppy layers of their auburn hair, flipping it over their shoulder and off the back of their neck. With their other hand they drew out the thick meshjack cable that sat spooled up inside the left side compartment of their deck, then eyed the head of it for a moment, the way one might eye a particularly unappealing morsel of food they were nevertheless about to swallow whole. Then their fingers found the edge of the port nestled at the base of their skull, they locked the cable into place and flicked a switch on the face of their deck, and they had just a split second to feel the electric shudder pass through their body before their consciousness was no longer rooted there.

Ilya was familiar enough with common depictions of the Immersion Mesh in popular media over the years, even spanning as far as a century back when the internet itself was still a fledgling concept. They had only learned fairly recently that those depictions were all, essentially, completely wrong. Pouring your human perception directly into an information network was not really comparable to the things people evoked when trying to depict it, it was not an elegant heads-up display, or a virtual chatroom, it wasn’t rudimentary gridlines and geometry any more than it was an elaborate surrealist landscape. More than anything, it was impressions. The idle half-awareness of a long highway drive, the sustained mental effort of solving a puzzle, the keyed-in focus of a hunt… or the animal anxiety of being hunted. The mind was bombarded with information and then left to make free associations, impose will and desire like any other machine running a script, and while most people’s brains did end up translating this flow of data into imagery in order to make it easier to comprehend, it was a bit like dreaming–amorphous and highly individualized.

It was not an environment just anyone could thrive in, it often required either an incredible reserve of mental focus or a willingness to dissociate at will. Ilya had neither, but what they did have was a very particular goal and a deep well of spite. At first they had simply avoided the mesh as much as they possibly could, instead sharpening their skill in every facet of the process that could be done with eyes and hands and a keyboard. Tactile, satisfying. But when they continued to hit obstacles that couldn’t be cleared from the physical side of the screen, when they had finally overcome their revulsion enough to go under the knife one last time to have a meshjack installed, they did the only other thing that seemed reasonable.

They got fast.

As their mind swirled and readjusted to the change in perception, they imagined cupping the worm in their hands, and knew that it was now within a little pocket of onboard storage inside the jack, ready to be deployed alongside the array of other programs they had loaded there for intrusions. None of those should be needed to begin with, this was a route they had already mapped out specifically so they would not need to linger. Then the nothingness of the mesh fully closed up around them and within a heartbeat they were on the move–in a sense. Navigating the public expanse of the mesh was largely effortless and unremarkable, their subconscious hardly having time to settle on a clear visual translation for their marathon sprint through their previous steps, out of the familiar (relative) comfort of their own system, zig-zagging through a handful of tethered machines to disguise their trace, and finally shouldering their way inside NervAMP’s servers through an unprotected wi-fi enabled conference room light system. It was a hilariously irresponsible oversight (Ilya would make sure it was hilarious in the retelling, even if they felt sick with the discomfort now), and not the first one they had ever taken advantage of. Last time they had been trying to get out.

Once inside, they paused. Their surroundings were beginning to take on shapes and patterns, artificial daylight spread across white walls, long clean lines and tasteful chestnut accents, floor to ceiling glass panels dividing hallways from meeting rooms from offices from employee lounges without any of the rhyme or reason a physical building would demand. Ilya’s mind squirmed and protested against the visual, and they might have shuddered if they could still feel their own body. But they would need to go deeper than this. They were on the administrative level, and while meddling with NervAMP’s employee schedules and canceling their next delivery of office supplies would be amusing, it wouldn’t make the trip worthwhile.

Still. Maybe on the way out.

Ilya strove to navigate the halls with purpose–if they left too many meandering traces in the mesh, NervAMP’s MAID would be on them immediately. They had never been allowed to walk these halls alone before (they had never walked these halls, they reminded themself, and they weren’t walking them now), and there was a nagging irrational fear that someone would catch them and walk them back to Carter, sitting patiently behind his desk in one of these non-Euclidian offices waiting to waste Ilya’s time with more condescending bureaucracy. Their subconscious offered up the impression of people moving around them, bustling footsteps and clattering mailcart wheels and snatches of conversation, though it was always around a corner, across a room, behind a closed door. Ghosts of other people on the network, going about their business. Eventually Ilya began to settle into the flow of traffic, get a picture of where people were lingering and how to avoid them. As they dug deeper into the company’s directories, the architecture began to shift around them. Less glass, less tasteful accents, more thick doors and keypads.

This was worse. The memories stirred up by the upper levels were the ones that left them bitter and frustrated. These were the ones that made their skin crawl and their hands tremble–or would have, if they were still in their body, which only accentuated the distance and added an extra dimension to the discomfort. The halls they were traversing felt strange, somehow too narrow, too constricting, and yet uncomfortably spacious and empty at the same time, and they couldn’t shake the growing sensation of eyes on them. Housekeeping, they thought, sighing internally. The MAID’s attention was on them now. They picked up the pace again, focus darting back and forth as they tried to judge what felt like the best spot in this warren of half-data-half-memories to set off a bomb. Of course they weren’t going to shake the MAID that way, nothing about their behavior now could be interpreted as anything other than an intrusion, even to the most incompetently trained algorithm. So they started forcing doors, cracking passwords and spoofing credentials without much remaining concern for the fingerprints they were leaving behind. It wouldn’t matter once the worm had done its job anyway.

Then they shoved open a pair of double doors and stopped cold. They’d found the spot.

The advantage of meshjack visualizations was that they could translate innate, subconscious knowledge into something immediately comprehensible. An encrypted file became a lockbox, network traces became footprints, an intrusion countermeasure became a tripwire. In this case, Ilya’s subconscious had translated the best layer of the directory to deploy the worm into the one room they would have most liked to torch. The operating theater.

An approximation of it, at least, the surgical table standing cold and impassive at its center like some grim monument haloed by the blaring lights overhead, leaving the rest of the room draped in ambiguous shadows. Ilya took a step forward-

And froze, pain arcing through their nerves. There was a sensation of weight bearing down on them, of a crushing pressure fixing them in place and determined to grind them down into the ground.

The MAID. Locked on, running a final check before it tried to forcefully eject them from the system.

Not fast enough.

They resisted the temptation to glance behind them–MAIDs weren’t programmed to look like anything, they were invisible specters inside the network, and whatever Ilya’s own mind could supply would only serve to further disrupt their focus and make them an easier target. They had a counter-countermeasure for this, they didn’t need to panic. It would only work once, and not for long, but they only needed a few uninterrupted seconds. Probably. They turned their focus inward, called up one of those little executables inside the meshjack storage. The MAID clawed at them with greater determination, certain now that they were an interloper that needed to be removed, and they were grateful for the layers of obfuscation they had wrapped around their signal but no amount of reminding themself that this was all in their head was making it not hurt.

Then their form shuddered, flickered, and a second copy of it stepped away and moved purposefully back through the door. Ilya kept stock still, not even daring to look too closely at anything yet, but they felt the pressure of the MAID’s focus lift slightly, hesitantly, and then pull away completely as it peeled off to investigate the new intrusion.

That wouldn’t take long. The decoy wasn’t programmed to do anything but move up and down through directories in an extremely conspicuous manner, the MAID wouldn’t need more than a few moments to snuff it out. Ilya bolted into the room, fell forward and grabbed either side of the surgical table in front of them, and urged the worm into action. There was the briefest hesitation, a single microsecond just long enough for them to worry that it wouldn’t deploy right–

And then it went to work. Fissures opened up on the surface of the table under Ilya’s hands, splitting and spreading in every direction, pouring over the sides and across the floor and leaving Ilya with the impression of fractures shooting out across a pane of glass from a single impact point, of the room losing cohesion before their eyes. (Of rot.) If it could keep up that pace, they dared to imagine it could eat half the archive before anyone quarantined it. If they’d had a voice inside the mesh, they might have laughed.

Their time ran out before they fully registered what had happened. The MAID came down on them like a hurricane, likely with the same force it had brought to bear against their decoy, leaving them with the sensation of being ripped away by a vicious windstorm as everything cut to featureless white.

Then they were out of the mesh, fumbling with the cable plugged into their brainstem the second they had enough fine motor control to reach for it. Once it was out they flicked it away like a live snake, all their triumph and satisfaction of a moment ago forgotten. Sharp, ragged breaths punctuated the silence–my breaths, they assured themself, as they stared down at hands that felt clumsy, distant and out of focus in exactly the way they had dreaded. They flexed their fingers, straining to feel and notice the bend of each joint as they closed their hands into fists and then opened them again, then slouched forward to press their palms to their forehead as they drew in and then released one long, deliberate sigh. Then another. A half-conscious desire to feel contained wrapped their arms tight and close around their own torso–a mistake, they realized too late, as their fingertips found the subtly raised edges of the inlays that spread across their arms, an elegant metallic map of the contours of their musculature. They shuddered, as the sickening impulse to pick, scratch, dig flared alongside a familiar and inescapable thought.

Those aren’t your hands. Those aren’t your arms.

They abruptly let go again, stretched their arms out in front of them, groaned when one of their shoulders popped. That finally made them aware that they’d been holding their truly horrendous posture for far too long, so they unfolded themself, rose to their feet, and stretched properly, taking a sort of perverse satisfaction in the way their stiff and protesting muscles affirmed to them they were in fact here and fully present inside their own skin. Then another reminder: their stomach growled insistently. They grimaced and peered down at the clock on their terminal. Measuring time in the mesh was challenging but their access log said it had only been about twenty minutes. They must have already worked straight through dinner and into the evening when they went in, because it was coming up on 22:00 now. Too late to go out or order anything in. Too late to cook either, especially with the kind of headspace they were in, but as they wandered out of the glorified walk-in closet that had evolved into their workroom, and through the equally modest rest of their apartment, they figured they could scrounge up something.

[justporo]

Hi! Could I please get some headcanons or a drabble of Astarion x anemic!Tav and how things may differ when it comes to him feeding on them, how he'd take care of them if they needed it, etc? Would love to see what you come up with. Thank you for your time! 💜

Hello and thank you very much, Anon! Since I'm actually hit with the Bloodless debuff today myself... What else could I have written?

This is a very sweet idea to write something - which I took and then made it sarcastic... I hope you like it.

Also - idk why, but for this I pictured Tav as velnna's Staeve - you probably know who I'm talking about and if you don't you should very quickly go over there and find out, because I love Steven and you should really give this incredible incredible artist who has contributed so much to this fandom a lot of love. All the love. (I didn't wanna tag them because I didn't know if it was okay and didn't want to annoy them but go check out their blog!!)

Pairing: Astarion / Tav (You) Wordcount: 1,6k

Bloodless

The sun was burning in the sky. You felt sweat almost drip from your skin. Every step seemed to be harder than the last one. Your heart was fluttering although your pulse seemed flat. Damn this Mountain Pass.

You and the rest of the party had been hiking through the mountains for days. It was exhausting for everyone, but especially for you it seemed. Surely, the fact that you had offered Astarion your blood almost every other night (and that he was always very keen and graciously grateful to take it) had quite obviously to do with how much your stamina had dwindled.

But you knew offering up your blood was very much helpful. Not only to the vampire, but the party as a whole: Astarion had basically become a menace on the battlefield since he’d been able to feed properly. Also, you were stubborn – a bit of missing blood wouldn’t knock you out. Or would it?

You tripped on a loose stone and almost face-planted on the ground. Only in the last moment were you able to catch yourself and dampen the fall with your arms. You quickly got up again and hoped no one had noticed since you’d dropped to being the last in the group today.

But trying to raise yourself so quickly had been a mistake and you suddenly felt overly woozy, your vision blurring and you were immediately back on one knee.

And of course, it hadn’t gone unnoticed: Astarion had been in front of you and had seemingly been alarmed by the noise of your fall – twice.

“What is it, Tav, got too distracted looking at my back, hm?”, he taunted and came over to where you were doubled over – leaning on your arms too now because you felt so dizzy all of a sudden that you felt you had need of all of your four limbs on the ground to support you.

When the vampire realised you weren’t getting up and also didn’t respond to his quip in your usual witty manner, he quickly gave the others a shout to let them know not to go too far ahead. Then he came over to you. You were desperately trying to not pass out when you saw the hands of the pale elf through your blurred vision reaching for you.

“You do hear me, yes?”, Astarion whispered to you. You could only nod curtly. His hands hesitantly touched your shoulders.

“Alright, can you get up? There’s a big stone over there where you could sit down.” You shook your head which made you even dizzier.

“Oh hm”, Astarion seemed a little helpless on how to proceed with you. You felt him turn away.

“Don’t tell the others!”, you exclaimed breathlessly. The vampire whipped around: “But… why?” “Just don’t please”, you whispered and carefully looked up at his face. Was that… actual worry?

“Please just… Help me sit on this rock, let me have some water… and rest and we’ll keep going in a few minutes”, you pleaded with him. Astarion didn’t look completely convinced but sighed in defeat after a few of your racing heartbeats.

“Alright – could you please not die for a moment while I go and talk to the others?”, he said in a sassy tone that couldn’t completely gloss over the worry in his voice.

You let your head fall down again and simply nodded. Astarion went off towards the rest of your companions.

Ever so slowly you felt a little bit better. Cautiously you knelt back onto your feet – at least not on all fours anymore! Shortly after you tried to carefully get up and move over to the rock Astarion had mentioned.

That was when the vampire returned. “Oh no no, you stay right where you are, you poor helpless creature that would have perished already had it not been for me.” He ran the last few feet over and grabbed one of your arms to slowly put it around his neck and help you get up and walk over to sit on the boulder. You wanted to say something witty at his taunt, but your mind was too blank.

“Also, we are actually taking a break – all of us, so don’t even try to keep on walking”, he scolded you as he placed you down.

“What did you tell the others?”, you asked simply as you placed your forearms on your thighs and just sat leaning forward like that for a little. “Tss, does it matter now? Something like I broke a nail of mine and needed a moment to mourn it or whatever”, Astarion replied annoyedly.

“Can’t believe they actually stopped for that”, you said slowly and chuckled with your head between your knees and threw up a look at your vampiric companion. “Yeah well, seems they care a lot about my wellbeing. And I take it they would about yours, too”, he gave back – again very sassily. You just chuckled but didn’t reply. You saw that he relaxed a little.

“Ah here. You should probably drink and eat a little”, the vampire said after a while of the two of you just sitting there. He offered you a water bottle and some berries from a pouch – both of which weren’t his for obvious reasons.

You narrowed your eyes at him: “Where did you get those?” “By the Gods, you are so reluctant to help, I should’ve left you in the dirt.” Astarion rolled his eyes at you. “The druid gave it to me – you’re not as inconspicuous as you might believe, oh mighty leader of our adventure troupe.” You had a desire to punch this cheeky elf but you knew you were in no condition to act on something like this, so you sighed and first took the water and then started to munch on some berries from the offered pouch.

Silence spread once more between the two of you. Before Astarion broke it again: “Listen, Tav, darling, I know this must be because you’re letting me drink your blood so often.” You immediately wanted to start protesting but the vampire hushed you, brows furrowed.

“No, for once, you’ll let me do the talking. Don’t think I’m blind – your form has been declining for quite some time now. We can’t go on like this. I mean, Halsin has also noticed already.” You stayed silent and kept popping berries in your mouth and silently thanked the druid for his kind gesture – even if you didn’t want the others to know of this weakness. You slowly started to feel better.

“As much as I enjoy our little late night… sessions. We should probably take a break – at least concerning these particular ones. And maybe later, keep longer breaks in between if you insist to keep throwing yourself at me to drink your blood”, Astarion continued and sighed theatrically.

He tried so hard to be sarcastic about the whole thing, but you noticed that he was actually worried, judging by the guilty glint in his red eyes. And maybe it was that the blood loss was affecting your brain too much but you stared at him and just dryly said: “You know, you could just admit that you care about me, Astarion.”

The vampire huffed in surprise, then he sneered with a click of his tongue: “Bah, of course I do, you seem to be the only one to get this group of clowns to work together after all. It’s not like I care for you much as a person. As a blood bag maybe, but other than that…”

You pursed your lips and let him ramble, digging his own verbal grave by trying to talk himself out of it.

You didn’t even reply afterwards, just let him steep in the own awkwardness he created.

You kept looking at him – even offered him a berry, he scrunched his nose at – then shrugged and ate it yourself.

You slowly opened your water bottle…

“Okay, maybe a little. Tiny bit. Because you’re the only one in the group who seems to have a real sense of humour – at least when you’re not lying in the dirt being a dried out husk”, Astarion exclaimed.

You grinned at him wolfishly and shook the last of the berries from the small bag into your mouth ignoring his insult. “Now, wasn’t even that hard, was it? I really like you to, Astarion”, you said and then slowly stood up – careful not to immediately make a fool of yourself again.

“I liked you better when you were staring at the dirt up close”, the vampire replied and jumped up while crossing his arms over his chest, then sauntered away.

“Sure, if that’s what you need to tell yourself”, you kept teasing and slowly went after the brooding vampire.

You met up with the rest of the camp then went on your way for the rest of the day. The others were already so used to the two of you missing from the camp at the same time (mostly during nighttime, of course) that they didn’t even look up when the two of you came back.

Later when you all had settled down for the night you saw that Astarion went over to Halsin and talked to him softly. They both threw you looks in between which made you uncomfortable because you certainly could imagine what the topic was. Before Astarion had also made sure you’d gotten the first serving of tonight’s dinner (and also seconds).

Even later when the others were already at rest the vampire confessed, he’d been asking the druid about how he could go about drinking your blood without putting too much of a strain on you. Again, you noticed that he seemed not only concerned about his blood rations when he explained that to you.

The next days you also noticed that Astarion had started carrying some water and the bag from Halsin containing the berries.

And you thought to yourself that – for a blood bag – Astarion seemed to put an awful lot of thought and action into making sure you were okay.

[profundcherrylady]

SINGLE DAD!SAE ITOSHI.

A/N: Finally writing about Sae's late wife because y'all have been begging me to (y'all: like 3 people). Honestly idk if I'm gonna make more parts of this one so sorry I can't think of anything else at the moment (and I have other themes I wanna write)

Warnings: Mentions of death (kinda explicit but not too much) and SOME angst, bc obviously he's gonna be sad. Lots of grieving (it all works out in the end trust 🙏)

Contents: Sae being a little careless and awkward lol, kid not knowing a single thing about keeping her thoughts to herself, some fluff but this is a weird mix of like three things at the same time including hurt/comfort. Implied fem!reader (usage of femenine pronouns for reader, reader being refered to as 'miss')

Description: After losing his daughter at the supermarket, y/n FINALLY makes and appearance and makes the tag "sae x reader" make sense for once.

At the vegetable section, you struggled to choose between the various options to bring home for dinner. It shouldn't be this hard, since you were all by yourself most of the time, but you couldn't decide what you wanted to eat. It was then when you felt a gentle tug on your coat that made you look down, little teary teal eyes meeting yours and almost making you smile at the adorable sight of this kid staring at you in confusion.

"Hey sweetheart, what's wrong? Where are your parents?" you took notice of the lack of adult supervision this child had, since all the other adults around seemed to be either alone or not in panic of having lost a kid.

The girl opened her mouth to speak but then paused (seemingly reconsidering her words) and then spoke again, "Hi, my name is Mao Itoshi. I can't find my papa right now, can you help me find him or get me to the 'nearesest' 'autohority'?

And your heart almost melted at the way she messed up her little speech (which you assumed was given by her father in case she got lost). And how could you say no to helping this little angel? "Aw, of course honey, let's get you to your dad." you took her small hand in yours, ensuring she wouldn't get lost again, and started walking around in hopes to find her father. She still seemed a little scared and confused but you managed to calmed her down with the assurance of finding her dad. "What does he look like?"

"Um... he's... super tall and super cool-looking." you chuckled at her answer. Of course she wouldn't give you an actual description.

"I mean, what's the color of his hair or his eyes. Does he have eyes like yours?"

"Yeah."

"And what's his name?"

"...Papa?" you laughed again.

"You know your dad's name isn't 'papa', right? He has an actual name."

"He does??? What is it?"

"I don't know." you giggled. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll know when we find him."

"Mao!!" a short-breathed, panicked voice interrupted your little conversation, and it was then when you spotted Sae for the first time. You weren't particularly interested in football, but even then Sae's reputation as the country's favorite midfielder was hard to ignore. One would think he wouldn't be out in a public space like this, but here he was, a totally different face as what was shown in the media. He looked just like a regular father, relived to have found his child.

"Papa!" the child beamed at the sight of her dad, and she let herself be carried and hugged as soon as he reached her.

"What were you thinking wandering around like that? You're just so- I've told you a million times- You are in so much trouble, young lady, you- What did you think would happen if-" he took a moment to breathe. In moments like this one, gentle parenting was probably one of the hardest things Sae has ever done. He tried his best to not loose his cool and scream at her; that wouldn't solve anything. The important thing was that she was safe and sound. "...You are going to give me a heart attack one of these days. Something bad could've happened to you, you know? I'm just... glad you're okay." and it was then when Sae first took notice of you, standing awkwardly trying to not ruin the little family reunion.

"She helped me get to you, papa." he heard his daughter explain, and it made sense because he knew the little girl would probably still be crying for her dad if no one was there to help. So although he would've liked to avoid the extra social interaction, he figured the least he could do was say thank you.

"Thank you for helping her. I've told her to not wander around, especially in big supermarkets like this, but she just won't listen sometimes..." you chuckled once again, now more from embarrassment than amusement at her antics.

"That's okay. I know how kids can be."

"You got any?" he inquired, and you shook your head with another laugh (which Sae didn't understand because he asked seriously).

"Nah. I mean, they're nice, I'm not saying I wouldn't like any, but I don't have any kids at the moment. Just little siblings; they can be just as difficult."

"You don't have to tell me twice..." he scrunched his nose a little at the thought of Rin as a child, and how difficult he was to handle, which in retrospective made it easy to figure how he got along so well with his niece (lil bro was just as problematic)

"But your kid seems nice. I'm sure she's a good child."

"When she wants to be... but mostly yes, I try to make sure she grows up to be good."

"I'm pretty sure she will."

"Are you single, miss?" Sae turned his head at his child so fast he might've breaked his neck, but he didn't care about that, he was too busy being shocked.

"Mao, don't ask people things like that."

"Why not? She's so nice to me, I like her. And you're single too!"

"That doesn't mean you can ask her if she's single. You need to think before you speak a little more, god..." he turned to you again, "So sorry about her; seems like she hasn't learned social norms yet." (Isn't that his job to teach her? Lol.) "We'll be going now, thanks again." with the still complaining child on his arms, he walked away to his shortly abandoned shopping cart, making sure to NOT set her down this time so he could keep an eye on her.

"Papaaaaa."

"Don't throw a tantrum in here, please... what's going on now? What you did was wrong, you know?" he sighed. "I don't you didn't mean anything bad, but you can't just ask any woman who is nice if she's single and try to set her up with me."

"Why not?"

"It just isn't correct, okay? Why are you insisting so much on this?" she pouted, hiding her face on his shoulder on an attempt to not talk to him. Sae rolled his eyes at the sight as he continued pushing the shopping cart through the aisles, then spoke again. "Come on, tell me."

"I wanna do the mommy-daughter dance at school..."

"Oh..." that made it make sense. "I could do it with you; you don't have to set up strange women with me for a parent-daughter dance."

"It's a mommy-daughter dance! It's not the same... I'm the only one who doesn't have a mom and the teacher says it's okay but I know my classmates are gonna think I'm weird." he hummed, understanding her feelings. Of course, he hadn't gone through anything similar, but he could get how she could feel singled out if she showed up to a mother-daughter dance with her father. He really did wish there was something he could do to make her feel a little better.

"Well, sweetie, there's not much I can do... you know I'm happy to do the dance with you if you want." he felt her lower her voice a little as he got closer to the line infront of the check-out.

"I know..."

"Don't get so sad... you're not going to be left out, I promise. It's the same thing, I mean, what difference does it make? I'm still a parent, and you said your teacher said it was okay."

"She did..." Sae's attempts to cheer up his daughter were failing, so he went straight to the only fool-proof plan he's ever known to always work.

"You want me to buy you ice-cream?"

"Okay..." he smiled a little for her, hoping to coax her to do the same, and once he was close enough to the small ice-cream freezer next to the cash register he opened the lid to take one for the little girl (one he knew for sure that she loved, just to be safe). But as he was taking out his hand he took notice of your presence, again. You looked even more surprised than him, but your expression quickly changed at the sight of the sad child.

"Aw... it's you again." you said, "why the long face, little one?"

"Don't mind her, she's upset about something... rightfully." Sae responded before Mao could. "Can't do anything about it though."

"A mother-daughter dance."

"And... why is that difficult...? Does she not have a...?"

"No."

"Oh... I'm very sorry." he answered you straight to the point. He was used to people asking about his late wife but he never bothered talking about it. It just... still hurt. And it kind of hurt even more knowing he couldn't give his daughter the one thing she yearned for the most, even though everyday he tried his hardest to give her the best life possible. He did everything in his power, he fought and struggled and worked day-to-day to be both a father and a mother somehow but it still wasn't enough. She still missed her mom as much as he did and the thought of replacing that woman was... well, there's just a reason why Sae was out of the dating game after his wife's passing.

And now he was here, teary-eyed child on his arms and a woman he only met once that same day on the supermarket, when the possibly stupidest idea came up to his brain, and he made the stupidest decision of saying it out loud.

"Listen, I know we don't... know each other technically but my daughter seems to think you're nice and... could you go with her to that dance? She just... she doesn't want to feel left out." he was also kind of desperate. Like really, really desperate because if he wasn't he wouldn't be asking this to a supermarket stranger. "You don't have to if you don't want to, but I... can't seem to find a solution to this. She'll settle to go with me if I tell her but she'll be sad and... people won't know you aren't actually her mom. It'll just be one night."

You doubted for a moment, but when you looked at that sad little girl with her big eyes full of tears, how on earth were you supposed to say no?

"Okay, I'll do it. I don't mind."

"And don't get me wrong, okay? I'm not trying to... replace her mother or anything; it's just that one night." he warned, and you nodded. "Thank you."

He tried to be nonchalant about it, however it was hard to deny the strange feelings he had about the situation. He closed himself off after his wife passed away and he promised to not try and find her a replacement, alas not get married again. This was the mother of his only child and the one woman he could say he's ever loved; how could he just throw that away dating someone else after she died like that? It felt wrong, somehow.

When he got married it was "til dead do us apart" so, what now that it did? He couldn't move on, no matter how much he tried. Even when his wife was dead he was struggling to process that he was a widowed man; whatever interaction he had with any woman for some reason still felt like a betrayal of his marriage. Like cheating. He was cheating on his wife who was no longer even alive. His daughter was motherless and he was a little bit of a coward. Many people had told him it was the grieving process and that the feelings would pass with time but they didn't feel like they were. He still teared up a little whenever he remembered that day when the stupid rain caused a stupid car crash that his wife wasn't even involved in yet got unjustly affected from the aftermath of the crash. Or when he got home and remembered he was one person short of a family. Yes, he had a daughter and furthermore a family to come home to, yet he felt... oddly lonely.

Was that normal? Was he allowed to feel lonely? How could he when she still had that child waiting for him at home and looking up to him, making him drawings and giving him hugs whenever she felt sad?

Maybe it was because he spent so much time working, or because his daughter spent a lot of time at her preschool, that it almost felt like it was just him. That he really was lonely.

So, fast-forward to a few months later, imagine his surprise when (before he could even realize it) you were part of his daily routine? It had become so frequent for his daughter to ask for your presence at school events or things like do her hair or just play together for a while that in a very short amount of time he found himself calling you over every weekend, and maybe making a little conversation with you while you were there. Then hours would pass and it would become a little too late for you to go home, so he'd offer you spend the night, and later inquire if you had dinner yet to make sure he had made enough food. The morning would come and with the moon hiding to let the sun rise you'd be gone as well; quick farewells before you rushed back to your own routine and his daughter would inevitably ask how much was left to see you again.

Then he'd chuckle at her impatience, staring at the door you just left through for a brief second.

And he'd say 'soon'.

[speakingsoftly]

Living for You

Part 2 to Dying for You

Bakugo x f!reader

tags: angst, kinda suicidal undertones, definitely self harm mentions, verbal fighting, blood mention, wound mention, angst with happy ending, idk what else

word count: 2.1k

Author's note: Again not proofread because I don't feel like it. Maybe a little rushed but I don't actually plan anything I write, I just start typin and hoping for the best. Slightly self-indulgent because when I got injured, I was like the reader and was going crazy at not being able to do things by myself and really struggled with it. I feel like going from an independent person to suddenly being dependent on someone else is really tough on one's psyche and can make you lash out. Also again, I have no actual medical knowledge and am just bullshitting my way through it so if anything's not accurate, ignore it :) Maybe slightly ooc Bakugou but I honestly believe that he matures and isn't as bad with his words and can actually regulate his emotions better. He still has some of his usual comments but with no bite to them. Leave a comment, like, reblog if you want. Anyways, enjoy!

A month has passed since the villain attack that almost took your life. Your injuries have gotten better, most of them almost healed. Now, you’re focused on physical therapy to regain mobility. After all, having a chunk of your body taken out in addition to a head injury does mess things up a bit for you. Bakugou has been by your side through it all, just like you were by him after the war. 

You were discharged from the hospital a week ago, but the doctor wanted someone to stay with you due to your mobility issues. Bakugou called his agency and got a month off before you could even say anything. He’s staying at your apartment now, cooking for you, cleaning, caring. 

It was a struggle. Not that he knew. He’s been putting so much effort into helping you and taking care of you. Normally, you would appreciate it, but right now it was stifling. You went from being an independent person to now having to be helped to the bathroom. It was embarrassing. 

  Logically, you know that he just wants to help you, especially when you were in this state because of the hit you took for him. Because he loves you. But logic has long been overridden in your mind and now you are run by pure emotion. 

“Sweetheart, I’m gonna run to the store. Ya need anythin ‘fore I leave?”

You didn’t mean to say it. You love Bakugou. You love him so much which is how you knew exactly what to say to hurt him. And you did. You watched as he flinched back at your harsh words, his face twisting with raw hurt. You regretted the words as soon as they left your mouth. 

Fuck just leave me alone! God all your hovering makes me wish I died!

You reach out your hand, desperately wanting to apologize, to make him understand you didn’t mean it. But he backs away before you can touch him. 

“Just-just don’t. I-” He takes a deep breath and turns around. His voice is gruff and shaking when he speaks again, “I’ll stop hovering. One of the others will check in tonight.”

He leaves before you can speak. Your left staring at the door, mind swirling with thoughts. At some point the sun goes down and a knock at your door jolts you. You move as fast as you can towards the door and open it. Kirishima stands there awkwardly. Bakugo must have explained everything and sent him. Your face falls as it finally hits that Bakugou won’t be coming back. Sobs rack your body as you begin to collapse to the ground. Kirishima catches you before that happens and he half carries, half drags you to the couch. 

“Hey, hey, hey. It’s ok, it’s ok. You’re gonna rip your stitches open if you keep this up!” Kirishima tries to calm you down, to no avail. You’re practically heaving at this point, everything that’s happened piling up and finally breaking free. You claw at your chest, desperately trying to stop the pain on the inside. 

You feel Kirishima try to pull at your arms but you just shove him away. You can feel your quirk activating and the air around you starts to move. Kirishima is flown across the room as a mini wind storm surrounds you in your panic. You see him grab his phone but just ignore it. He tries to move towards you a few more times, but gets shoved back. He finally gives up and just stands across the room, watching you. You’re still sobbing and clawing at your body. You know something ripped in your side as you feel a warmth begin to pool down your body. You go to dig into the wound, but an angry voice stops you.

“What the FUCK happened?”

Your head shoots up and you see him. Bakugou is standing next to Kirishima, anger evident as he glares at the man before turning towards you. The wind you’ve surrounded yourself in wavers at the sight of him before disappearing. Bakugou immediately rushes towards you, his hands cupping your face.

“Ka-Kats?” You question, your eyes bloodshot from all the crying. 

“Hey, I’m here, sweetheart. Fuck, what the hell happened?” His eyes ghosted across your body as he checked all your injuries. He seemed to have noticed the blood from your side as he scoops you up and brings you to the bathroom. Kirishima goes to say something, but is stopped by Bakugou who just shakes his head. Kirishima seems to get the hint and leaves. 

“Stupid, shitty hair. Can’t even check on my girl without causin’ trouble,” he mutters as he sets me down on the counter. The casual use of ‘my girl’ has apologies tumbling out of your mouth faster than you can think as you stumble over the words.

“Oh fuck, Katsuki. I’m so sorry. I’m sor- I’m sorry I didn’t mean it, I swear. I love you so much, you don’t bother me, you don’t! I’m just, I’m so sorry. I don’t- I don’t know what’s wrong with me! I just-”

“Hey hey hey listen to me. I don’t care about some shitty remark, ok? Yea it fuckin’ hurt and I needed some space, but I’m not gonna leave you. Especially not like that. I’m sure I said shitty things to you when I was in your position so just… just promise me not to say shit like that. Don’t go sayin you wish you’d die because- because I just can’t take that. I can’t,” he says, gripping tightly onto your hands. He’s looking in your eyes and oh. He’s crying, you realize. Bakugou Katsuki is crying as he begs you not to say you wish you died. 

It’s like something has settled in your heart as you realize that this man, the one who’s been by your side for yours, who you love more than anything in this life- loves you the exact same amount. That the man who has devoted his life to being the number one hero, now aims that same passionate devotion towards you. 

You can only nod in response. He uses your silence to begin working on the damage you caused yourself. He cleans the scratches on your chest and checks the damage on your side before bandaging both. He presses small kisses to your forehead and cheek each time you hiss in pain and whispers a soft, sorry, as he does so. Once he’s done, he cleans up the mess and leans towards you. He fits himself in between your legs as you sit on the counter and rests his head in the crook of your neck. You hum as he presses a soft kiss to it before he wraps his arms around you, still being mindful of your injuries. 

Your hands find purchase on his shoulders, one snaking its way into his hair as you begin running your fingers through it. Both of you sit in silence for a few minutes, soaking each other in. The tightness in your chest makes you break the silence and speak.

“Katsuki… I am truly sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. It’s just… been so hard. I’m not used to being so, so useless. And I can’t move like I used to and everything hurts and you were being so sweet to me that I just. I wanted you to feel a fraction of my pain, despite you not deserving any of it. I really am sorry. I promise I don’t wish I died. I’m very very happy to be alive and I’m even happier with you. I swear.”

He lifts his head and looks at you, saying nothing. You feel your heart stutter as his face remains expressionless. Panic begins clawing its way up your throat when he finally sighs and opens his mouth. 

“‘M sorry too. That I didn’t see you struggling. That I never realized how much pain you were in. I’ll do better, I promise. We both will. No more holding this in, ya hear me? I know I’m not the best with words, but we’re talkin this shit out from now on.”

You only nod and pull him back towards you, desperate to be close to him once again. His nose brushes against yours as teases you, lips ghosting over your own. You groan which pulls a chuckle from him before he smashes his lips to yours. The kiss is desperate and passionate, a mixture of anger and regret and love all in one. You feel his tongue flick against your bottom lips, asking for entrance that you willingly give. His hands move from your face down to your waist, squeezing. It has you hissing in pain as he unknowingly grabs your wound. He immediately backs off as you inhale sharply at the throbbing of your side. 

“Fuck, shit, I’m sorry. Shit, sweetheart, you okay?” he asks, his carmine eyes full of worry as he checks on your side. You huff a laugh through the pain as you lean into him again.

“Yea, I’m ok, Kats. God, I think we’ve apologized more times tonight than I’ve ever heard you say in your life. Am I that special or what?” you joke, trying to lighten the suddenly somber mood. 

“Yea, you are,” is his only response. You freeze. 

“Hm?”

“You asked if you’re special and I said yea. Ya need your ears checked now too?” he responds roughly, a blush tinting his cheeks. You don’t know what to say so instead you just pull him closer, but that isn’t enough for him.

“Look. Being shitty with my words is my thing, but that’s no excuse for me not to tell ya how much you mean to me. Which is a lot. Fuck, I’ve been in love with you since you helped me recover after the war. Maybe even before that. And I’m gonna be in love with you for the rest of my life. I’ll spend that time on my knees apologizin if it means I get to spend it with you. So yea, I’d say you’re pretty fuckin special to me, sweetheart.”

Your eyes begin to water as you stare at him, surprised at his sweet words, but also in awe of him. Bakugou Katsuki who once called you a shitty extra is now calling you the love of his life. He’s grown so much these past few years and you are so happy that you got to experience it. That you get to experience this, experience him. You can’t help yourself as you kiss him once more, overcome with love and adoration for this man. He responds in kind, love pouring out of him. You suddenly pull away, desperately revealing your bleeding heart and offering it to him as he offered his.

“Fuck, Kats. I love you so much it hurts me. But I’ll take that pain any day because it means I’m with you. That I’m alive and I didn’t die in that shitty attack. Loving you has been like breathing air. It comes so easy that I think I loved you before I even realized it. I wanna spend the rest of my life with you, to get married and grow old together. I wanna live for you, for us. I promise, I won’t die or get horrifically injured again because I want that future so badly. I’ll do anything to have it with you because I love you. So much.”

Tears wet both your faces as you are both overcome with so much emotion. This past month has been grueling for the both of you and to finally have it all laid out and revealed brings a sense of relief to the tension you didn’t know you carried. He must feel the same as his shoulders droop and he rests his head on yours. 

“I want that future too, Y/n. I want it badly. I love you so much, sweetheart, so much.”

At some point he carries you to your bedroom and you both lay down, exhausted after today’s events. You lay on your non-injured side and listen to Bakugou’s heart beating in his chest. His hand runs soothing stripes up and down your back as he hums a soothing tune. His hand and his voice soon lull you to sleep. As your eyes flutter shut, you silently thank any and all celestial beings out there that they granted a second chance at life to you and to him. You also vow to keep on living, not just for you but for him as well. 

As if he heard your thoughts, Bakugou whispers into the quiet room, “I’ll hold you to your promise, sweetheart.”

[freimeka]

am i the only one who's about to explode by thinking of a bodyguard ghost??? like he's... extremely on another level please help me !! i actually hate this and might delete this pls forgive any mistakes ans typos it's 3am . i feel like i forgot some tws and tags but oh well idc

★ obv bodyguard!ghost + pwp + just unholy thoughts + descriptions of masturbating + very brief mention of idk just a heated argument + ghost is kinda voyeur here

You have no idea how the two of you ended up like this. You clearly remember that you were screaming at Ghost's face. The reason was something completely dumb...like, he probably insulted one of your friends and you just exploded. You've been feeling on the edge because of him for the last week now—you cannot even count the times that your hand, completely out of your control, has traveled down on your body once you were alone to touch yourself.

As you think of him.

That fucker.

Ghost can easily get under your skin without even trying, it's like a love-hate relationship. You've known him for many long years—he has always been right there, next to you whenever you turn your head around to see him. He's protected you, spoiled you maybe even more than your parents did. Well, there have also been countless times that he annoyed you so much that you just wanted to slap him across his face but you just let them pass. You're used to Ghost, and he's used to you.

You should be mad at him now, your body should be on fire just by how angry you're at him but... your hand keeps traveling down on your body. You get comfortable on your bed, letting your body meet with the soft mattress as your legs immediately spread apart as if on autopilot mode. One of your hands easily travels underneath your shirt to touch your perked nipples, your fingertips pinching them just to feel a bit more. Your other hand slips past your soaked panties, and you realize that you're embarrassingly wet—with every move of your fingers you can hear a slick sound that's faint, yet loud enough to echo in your empty room.

You throw your head back when your trembling fingers start to rub circles against your clit, gathering the wetness and spreading it all over to make it easier for you to move your fingers in circles. Your eyes are shut, and you feel yourself taking short and erratic breaths as your fingers keep rubbing circles. No matter how you do or what you do, the mere idea of being stretched by Ghost's cock just doesn't leave your mind. Your fingers don't feel thick enough, they don't reach the parts that you want them to reach—and that's getting frustrating. You're usually so careful about being quiet in order not to get caught, but the feeling is overwhelming; you think that you might cry. That's why a soft, yet a bit louder than ever whine falls from your lips. You don't think that it's dangerous because everyone except Ghost is outside, your parents work long hours and that's why Ghost has become a babysitter as well as a bodyguard—that's what he says, but you know that he's trying to annoy you.

Since you two have argued like fifteen minutes ago, and his mad and hoarse voice somehow made you wet, Ghost must be outside on the balcony. He's probably smoking.

Right?

You feel your bed being crushed down under someone else's weight, and you want to open your eyes but the scent is all too familiar. And you feel like you're about to explode from embarrassment. Ghost rests his hands on your bare thighs, his fingers grazing the soft skin with such gentleness that you struggle to hold back a whimper. It's a small touch— it's obvious that he's testing the waters first.

"You're making it hard to be around you," you hear him whispering, his voice is dangerously low. You finally decide to open your eyes, to see him without his damn mask and he's already looking up at you. However, he breaks the eye contact as soon as you look back at him—he's now looking at your thighs, his lips touch your inner thigh as he speaks. "But you're also making it hard not to be around you."

You can't believe he's admitting it.

"Please—Ghost, I—," you barely whisper, your voice is shaky as your fingertips burn to feel Ghost's soft hair. "I'm... I just," it's impossible for you to explain yourself, but then again you don't have to do it since everything's pretty clear. Ghost is breathing so heavily against the skin of your inner thigh, and he's not done—for fuck's sakez he's not even started yet. Ghost's hands skillfully reach down to your sides, and he drags you against him to make you feel just how much he wants you. You hear the sounds of fabric as your body is pulled down on the bed, you're almost at the edge of the bed now while Ghost is kneeling down in front of you. He doesn't speak for a while, and you feel yourself get even more stressed. It's obvious that he has no problems with what you've been doing, but damn it, say something.

"You're perfect," he hisses, he sounds almost out of breath as he whispers against your skin. You feel him pulling your panties up, letting the already soaked fabric cover your wet pussy again. "You're so perfect."

And that's probably all you need to hear, you're way too gone, too overwhelmed to care about the consequences. You can worry about them later, but you know that this is mutual, and he wants you as much as you want him. He kisses you, it's a gentle peck on the lips first. But then, he gets harder and harder, pushing you back against the bed and holding onto your hips tighter— and you realize that he's making you think about only how badly you want him inside you. The way his big, calloused hands are touching your bare thighs, the way his kisses are getting more and more intense... He's getting you to feel hot enough to make you melt in his presence.

"I was waiting for the fun part to come," he breathes out, "But you take damn too long."

There's a moment of silence.

"I can help you with that."

You make a sound like a whine, like a soft cry of pleasure—all of those anxious thoughts that say you've embarrassed yourself are gone in a minute. Your body aches, you can feel your heartbeat getting faster just by the thought of Ghost finally filling you up to the brim.

He leans in, his broad shoulders are enough to make you disappear under his body as he presses his lips against yours desperately. There's something almost feral in the way he kisses you, as if he's even more impatient than you are. As if he's been waiting for this to happen for a long time.

Ghost's breath grows more and more desperate as the two of you kiss; his tongue licking into your mouth as your teeth bite into his bottom lip, your bodies are pressed against each other as much as they can. The feeling of him rubbing circles against your clit through the fabric of your panties drives you crazy and you feel your breath being stolen from your lungs. You need to feel him, somehow; it doesn't matter if he pushes his fingers or decides that he can pound into you, you just need him. Not through the damn panties, you need to get rid of them.

He's kissing you fiercely now, his tongue tasting your lips and then sliding inside your mouth greedily. His hands are working on your trembling body, touching your pussy through the fabric; you feel like crying, he should take it off.

"This feels so good," Ghost says, his voice is deep and it feels like he's speaking in your head. "Doesn't it? Don't you think that I can do a better job of filling up that cunt?" Ghost asks, and you know that he's taunting you—but you can't stay under that now, can you?

"Take them off," you breathlessly whimper, it's something like both a beg and a demand—Ghost can take whatever suits him. "Please, just take them off."

Ghost lets out a groan, and it's clear that hearing what you just ask him to do is driving him insane. If he was desperate to kiss you before, he's desperate to make you bury your face into the damn pillow and pound into you until your pussy remembers the shape of his dick.

"You're so wet," he chuckles deep in his throat, staring down at you for a moment as if he's trying to gather himself before he gives you what you want.

"I should keep your panties with me, you know," he lets out a deep sigh as his fingers hook around your panties and pull them down slowly but surely. As he keeps talking to you, his voice lowers. "You're not the only desperate one here."

He finally pushes a finger in, letting your walls stretch slightly to the feeling of his thick index finger—but you still feel like that's not thick enough. You're greedy when it comes to him. Your moans turn into whines as he adds the second, and the thirs finger without any prior warning. He's moving his hand quite fast now, causing your legs to tremble as your fingers wrap around his thick biceps—all you can do is cry out, whines and whimpers and string of curses fall from your lips as Ghost toys with you. Your body tenses up when his hand starts to move a bit faster, his fingers curling inside you until he finds a spot that will have you begging for more. He succeeds, and it causes your walls to get tighter around his fingers.

"Do that again for me," he mumbles against your mouth, breathlessly. "Do that again for me when I'm inside you, baby."

"It would be such a disgrace if I never tried to make you feel good," he whispers. His breath is hot against your neck. "But look at you... what happened to that fierce girl? All I'm seeing is an obedient little girl, my sweet girl, who's already getting dumb without being filled up properly."

"Oh, I hate you," you reply, your voice is low and filled with desperation as you wet your lips with your tongue. The more Ghost makes you wait, the more you feel like crying.

"Of course, you do," he replies, his voice is full of sarcasm. "That's why you're dying to get your pussy filled by me, correct? You're lucky that you're not the only one who does this," as Ghost speaks, you feel him moving around—and soon after the sound of his belt coming undone is heard. He doesn't even bother to get rid of his clothes properly, he just pushes his trousers down before he pushes your shirt above just a bit to indicate that he wants you to take it off.

Who are you to say no?

Your trembling fingers grab the hem of your t-shirt and you take it off with one swift motion, letting the piece of clothing fall to the floor.

You're way beyond gone at this point, your mind is empty, so no words come out from your mouth. You feel Ghost pulling you closer to himself on the bed. He's resting his knees on the edge of the bed as leverage while holding you by your thighs and making you spread your legs as much as you can. He's always wanted to touch you, fill you up, and the way you're looking at him through your heavy-lidded eyes is making it even harder for him to resist you.

"You know," he murmurs, "I would imagine us all over the place— my room, the backseat of cars or a damn parking lot, some closet, bending you over any surface that I find as soon as we step back in the house." His voice is thick with lust, it's like he's ready to devour you, consume you until there's nothing left of you. "I imagined you in my lap, your legs open for me, and..."

Ghost doesn't finish his sentence and instead, he finally gives you what you've been craving all along. He's big and thick, and the moment you feel the tip of his cock pushing inside you let out a soft yelp—Ghost is slow until he's fully in you, and just as you think that he'll give you some time to adjust to his size, he mercilessly thrusting. Sharp and powerful, almost abusing your cunt as his big hands spread your pussy even more just for his hungry gaze.

"I always felt like I was going to explode." You can hear him grunting, letting out low and deep sounds of pleasure as he mercilessly fucks into you. Your body moves up and down on the bed, putting on a show for Ghost that'll just drive him insane with how you look. He leans in, and his tongue licks hot stripes all over your chest before he takes one of your nipples in his mouth. His tongue flicks around it, his teeth gently and teasingly bite into it just to see your reaction. Every time you're slightly overwhelmed and sensitive, your walls clamp around his cock, making Ghost let out a string of curses as his grip on you tightens more and more.

He wraps his arms around your waist, gently rolling over to let you lie on top of him—his body presses into the mattress. You find yourself sitting on top of his body, his arms wrapped around you and his face in between your breasts. "Ride me," he whispers. "I wanna come inside you like this," and he's so, so cruel—how can he talk to you like that when he knows you're so, so, so sensitive. You whine, your arms tightly wrap around his neck as you start to do as you're told; but you're so close, so, so, so close that your movements become sloppier and messier.

"Can't," you gulp. "I can't, Ghost—," your words are breathless and low, your vision is blurry as you come all over his cock without even having the chance of letting him know. But that's Ghost, and Ghost knows you very well. He knows you better than you know yourself. "Yes, sweetheart," he whispers against your chest. "Go ahead, show me how you do it. I promise I'll make you feel even better than this."

[vodika-vibes]

Heyyyy!

Are you doing preference lists? Or idk what’s the name for those lol

So I was thinking about what nicknames would the clones give to the reader?

I love your fics and I hope u have a wonderful 2024!

Nicknames

Pairings: ARC Trooper Fives x Reader, Commander Fox x Reader, Alpha-17 x Reader, Crosshair x Reader, Clone Commando Sev x Reader

Tagging: @trixie2023 @n0vqni

A/N: So I think you're asking for headcanons (at least I hope that's what you're asking for or else I'm answering this all wrong, lol). Since you didn't give a list of which clones you wanted, I'm going to just pick a few. Sev's feels a little awkward, honestly, but I'm still kinda happy with it.

ARC Trooper Fives x Reader - Mesh'la

The first time the unfamiliar word slipped from Fives lips when he was speaking to you, you didn't think anything of it. Fives uses basic and mando'a interchangeably at times, and while frustrating, Fives doesn't have a problem translating for you when you ask.

This time, however, this time when you asked what the unfamiliar word meant (the word falling clumsily from your tongue as you tried to mimic the way he said it) he dropped his datapad and wouldn't look you in the eye.

"Fives?" You ask, "Is it...is it bad? The thing you called me?"

"No!" He blurts his eyes suddenly wide, "No. It's...it's a good thing. It...uh..." He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, "It means beautiful."

You stare up at him, startled, and then you smile fondly, "You think I'm beautiful?" You ask.

He laughs and favors you with a smile, "How could I not?" He reaches out and lightly brushes the back of his fingers against your cheek, "My mesh'la."

Commander Fox x Reader - Angel

Commander Fox is such a hard worker, always in his office, even on days when he's supposed to be resting. Even when his brothers beg him to take a day off.

He works so hard, in fact, that the first time he calls you Angel you're pretty sure it's because he forgot your actual name. You don't mind. Well, you're a little hurt, you've been working with his for months now and him forgetting your name is like a punch to the gut, but you've always been a bit of a pushover when it comes to Fox.

And then he keeps calling you Angel.

Day after day. Multiple times in a singular conversation.

And you finally have to say something.

He smiles at you, soft and warm and so very fond, "I know what your name is." Fox says as he leans over you and tucks some of your hair behind your ear, "I call you Angel, because that's what you are. My Angel. My whole reason for showing up everyday. My whole reason for fighting in this war. Does it bother you?"

And you find, suddenly, that you don't mind the nickname at all.

Alpha-17 x Reader - Little Love

Working alongside Alpha-17 has always been easy. Sure, it leads to long days and even longer nights, where you bicker and bump heads about everything, but you respect the hell out of Alpha-17, and you know (hope) that he respects you too.

Which is why the sudden nickname startles you so badly.

"I...beg your pardon?" You ask, your eyes wide as you look up at the much larger man.

Alpha rests his chin on the palm of his hands, and watches you with an exhausted smile, "I asked," He repeats, his voice a low rumble, "if you would hand me the datapad on your left," a lazy smirk crosses his face, "Little Love."

"Since when do you call me-?"

He shoots you a thoughtful look, "Since today, I suppose. Is that okay?"

You duck your head, and release a quiet laugh, "Yeah, I think it's a great nickname. Though it's not really true..."

He leans across the table, his gaze serious as he looks you in the eye, "Then lets make it true. You and me."

And, really, how can you say no to that.

Crosshair x Reader - Sweetheart, Kitten

Crosshair is an asshole. He's always been an asshole, he'll likely always be an asshole. At least he's honest about his assholery, you suppose.

Still, you could do without him calling you sweetheart like it's an insult. It's supposed to be a petname! Not an insult!

You know better than to pick arguments with Crosshair. You do! Months of traveling with him have proven that arguing with his is an exercise in futility. But you just can't help it. He's finally pushed you to the edge.

So here you arm, your arms folded over your chest, having a raging shouting match with Crosshair.

...well, you're shouting at him, he's just goading you and making you angrier. And still, still, he's calling you sweetheart! Like...like some villain from a gangster movie.

Fed up with his bullshit, you go to push past him, wanting to remove yourself from the situation before you say, or do, something foolish, but Crosshair moves, and pins you against the wall before you even realize what's happening.

You bite your tongue to stop the flood of curses you want to spit at him, and he smirks at you, "Aww, Kitten. Where'd your claws go?"

And all of the fight drains from your body as your face burns. You were wrong, Kitten is a much worse nickname than Sweetheart.

Clone Commando Sev x Reader - Sarad

For such a hard and rough around the edge man, Sev is surprisingly tender with you. Always the first person to offer you a compliment (even when you look/feel gross and just want to shower and curl up on the couch) and always so very gentle with you, as though terrified that he might hurt you if he's not careful.

And so his nickname for you isn't the least bit surprising.

Sarad. Flower.

At the time you laughed, "Because I'm small and frail?" You teased him, even as you leaned against his solid body and accepted his gentle affection.

"Because you're beautiful. And perfect, just like a flower." Sev corrected, as he brushed his thumb against your cheek, as gently as one would brush their fingers against a flower petal.

And just like that, you fell deeper into love with your stern and hard, and somehow oh so sweet man.

[everestica]

♫ - Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everybody, this post is how some of the characters I liked over the year spend Christmas with you and some (towards the end) what they got you for Christmas! (PS If there is anybody else you would like me to add to this feel free to ask and I might come out with a second part!!) ♫ ---------- ♫ ---------- ♫ ---------- ♫ ---------- ♫ Gepard - He loves being able to sleep in, but since he knows how excited that you are he only chuckles a little when you wake up in the morning and immediately get out of bed to go look under the tree (No matter how old you are you gotta see the gifts in the morning), he'll only sit on the couch holding you close to him as you open each others gifts!

Silver (Twst) - He loves Christmas as much as the next person but CANNOT wake up in the morning for anything 😭 (Que you and Lilia trying to wake him up in the morning) but as soon as he is awake tho expect him to give you your present very fast just in case he falls asleep again (He dose when Lilia is going on about Christmas when he was a kid)

Deuce Spade - Most excited ever, He's more likely one of the first ones up so you never have to worry about him not being awake in time, He will be the first person to hand you a present more specifically the one from him, it's three of his favorite things mixed together, Christmas, presents, and you!

Tachihara Michizou - Manz just doesn't wanna get up in the morning, as much as he loves you he wants to sleep in, but as soon as you do get him up he will be hella excited and drag you to the tree with him, as excited as he is tho he will be super cool and very toned down about the present he got you, and by present I mean Presents (Man has two good paying jobs I mean you can't blame me for adding that in) He actually got (most of) your gifts just though out the year when you had mentioned something in passing. (Idk that shit's the cutest to me, get you a partner who remembers the small stuff 😭)

Akito Shinonome - Again another one who just wants to stay in bed and cuddle all morning but instead of you waking him up, it's Ena. She's was too excited about this to be sleeping any later then like 7 AM. So now the two of you have been dragged out of bed and now starting to cuddle on the couch as people start getting the presents from under the tree, one of the last ones was from Akito. It was a symbol of how the two of you met, at one of his concerts so it was a necklace with a microphone on it and a little charm that had A + (your initial) on it.

Furina - SO EXCITED, Will get up so early and go rushing to the tree to see the presents underneath, loves all the pretty lights and how they illuminate the room and all the wrapped gifts under the tree, at a decent hour though she will go and wake you up by jumping on you, she won't hurt you tho. (Nobody wants to go to the ER on Christmas) Will love opening presents, and loves passing them out as well, but she loves you even more and loves the smile on your face when you see the cute things that she got you!

Hajime Hinata - Again another guy who just kinda chuckles at how excited you are about it, I mean he likes christmas don't get me wrong but he loves your expressions about it much more, though he would never tell you that. Will def let you drag him to the tree and sit him down somewhere (as long as you sit somewhere near him, at least so he can still reach you) Loves seeing you smile at what he got for you at the end though and that's the best gift he could ever ask for.

Blade (HSR) - Seems like he's pissed off all the time standing somewhere behind you as you, Kafka, and Silverwolf all sit down around the Christmas tree and start passing out and opening gifts though one of the last gifts is a smaller box you notice as Kafka hands it to you, smiling, the tag says "To (Name) From Blade." That's why she was smiling, even though you had gotten gift for Blade you didn't expect him to get you one, when you finally opening it and look inside it's a bracelet with his initials and your initials, with coordinates on it. The first place that you two met.

Thoma - He loves christmas and loves spending it with you and the Kamisato siblings, seeing you and Ayaka spending time near the Christmas tree, as Thoma watches over the two of you as Ayato finishes up signing something for the yashiro commission. As he finishes they start getting gifts, one of the middle gifts was a medium sized gift the tag reading that it was from Thoma. As you opened it, there was something small inside it looked exactly like the rope he wore in his hair, and it was. It was a smaller version though one that looked like it was meant for around the ankle or the wrist, which ever one you picked he tied it on for you as a reminder that he was always with you, no matter what.

Malleus Draconia - Loves seeing you excited about the holidays, even if he doesn't fully understand it he will always support you and if you're happy then he is too! He loves watching you open the bunches of gifts that he got you and even loves the gift(s) that you got him, one in particular that stood out was the last one that you had gotten from under the tree. It was known to almost everybody that you stayed in Diasomnia more than 90% of the day since when you didn't there would def be some lighting outside that night. So instead he had gotten you a temporary Diasomnia room card, since you needed magic to get in, so it was infused with magic so you could get in you needed, along with one of the armbands that all the people of Diasomnia wore. It was really a gift for everybody, Sebek and Silver because they would get sort of a break of watching over him if you were always with him, Lilia since he might end up finally getting grandkids, Malleus since he would be able to see you more, You because you wouldn't have to stay in ramshakle all the time and be worried that one day you would wake up without a roof, and everybody else in Diasomnia since they wouldn't have to worry about an angry housewarden.

♫ - Please if you are going to repost any of my works anywhere else, ask permission first! There will be almost a 100% chance that I will say yes as long as you just ask and give credit! Thank you for your understanding!

[deathonthe]

ferrari parked outside | 1633

pairing: charles/max

rating: explicit

word count: ~5000

tags: established relationship, slightly non-linear narrative, under-negotiated kink, somnophilia, riding

summary:

Max is an embarrassing amount of gin and tonics into the night when Lando shouts very loudly into his ear. “Does Charles pay for everything for you?” “What?” Max shouts back. “I mean like– Seems like he’s always paying for you, mate,” Lando says. Holds both hands up in the air and dubiously glances to the side. “Not that I’m judging or anything.” “He doesn’t pay for everything,” Max lamely insists.

director's cut:

the following are my notes and thoughts during the writing of this fic. they should in no way influence the way you've interpreted it! but feel free to read it to gain some extra insight into my pea-sized brain

ok. one thing u should know about me is that i will constantly push the max verstappen babygirl agenda no matter what. sugar baby max is pretty adjacent to that

i spent an awful about of time deciding the opening scene, between first scene (B) and the following directly after (A), idk how many times i swapped the two. i was afraid if i started off with B, it would kinda give a tacky record scratch effect when u reach A. but starting with A made the progression into B seem unnatural and too abrupt so. in the end i went with B, then A because the fic gradually loses its seriousness and matches the kinda light humour it progresses into

the line "I want chocolates and those bread rolls they bake fresh." took me a god awful amount of time to write. at first i wanted max to specify a monte carlo cafe to make it seem more genuine but all the reviews for cafes in monaco were in french! which i suppose i should've expected. in the end i went with that even though i'm not completely happy with it

another thing u should know about it is that i care about character voice and characterisation above all else. i try my best to emulate how these people sound. i always sift through so much interview material while writing a fic to try and get the drivers' voice tones and linguistic quirks and body language as accurately and naturally as possible. and too be honest, i don't think i did that very well in this fic. i think i could have imitated it better

a little bit of french, of course. they live in monaco, charles speaks french. max doesn't speak enough, so not quite as much french as other fics (for example, for esteban and lance, i would generally write about half of their dialogue in french if they were only speaking to each other in a scene. it feels more authentic as esteban and lance communicate in french when they are talking to each other in real life)

i designated charles three terms of endearment: baby, cheri and mon cher

nothing made me happier than when it became canon that max calls charles 'charlie' in real life, because i was gonna scrap it from the fic because i thought it sounded ooc

to be clear, i never intended to give charles a daddy kink in this fic. you can assume he doesn't have one. neither does max

the running joke is that this is actually a proposal fic and not a sugar baby one

in the lando scene, when max cuts him off before he can finish his sentence, lando is about to say: "and charles also paid for martjin to dj at this red bull party for u." i wasn't sure if the implication was very strong, though

in actuality, max cuts off lando with a "fuck off" and lando says later "why the fuck would i be, charles isn't my fucking boyfriend" but i thought that was too many fucks and ended up taking all but one of them out

i know charles doesn't drive a red laferrari

the other running joke in this fic is obviously charles is not ever watching the whale documentary seriously. he was instead always thinking or focused on something else in his head

the ice cream scene came to me in a fever dream

charles can't actually procure the cheesecake factory, he's about $125 million in net worth. the cheesecake factory is over $1 billion

i am not a fan (i.e., i am actually just a hater) of when max is depicted like an aggressive, overly possessive, hyper-masculine suave, dom caricature from an e l james erotica novel and when charles is just delegated the softer, more feminine counterpart automatically. so. u see me subverting that expectation a lot

i had a lot of fun writing victoria's part where she cooks both charles and max within 100 words

did you know this fic is exactly 14 pages on google docs? i thought that was pretty cool

if i had to sum up this fic in three words: chekov's schrodinger's proposal

thanks for staying 'til the end!

[johaerys-writes]

Kind of a random ask but okay. I noticed you have a lot of mutuals and my question is do you have any tips on how to socialize in the fandom here? Like I have people that I would love to interact with, but Idk how. Idk if this has happened to you

Hi anon!! I totally get where you're coming from. I never really thought too much about it and I don't know if I have a specific method, but here's what I would do, if I were you:

Don't be afraid to talk and reach out to people. It doesn't have to be sliding in their DMs, which I understand can be awkward if you don't know the person, but routinely commenting on their posts, their fanfic, their art, or reblogging their posts with nice and enthusiastic comments is a great way to make friends! I don't always have the time or the spoons to do that unfortunately, but I try to do it as much as I can. I really appreciate all the creators in fandom and I try to show that.

If you're a creator (but even if you aren't) don't be shy about posting your work and maybe tagging people in WIP memes or tag games or something like that. Not everyone responds, but I feel like tagging ppl sometimes opens the door for more communication, and if they tag you back you can just keep the conversation going.

When you see people reblog a prompt list or ask game, send them asks!!! Please, just send them an ask!!! This is actually a pet peeve of mine tbh, people reblogging an ask list or ask game from someone who obviously wants to get asks lol (why else would they rb it) without sending an ask first. I feel like it's basic fandom etiquette, but it's also a really nice gesture even if you don't know the person that well. Showing that you actively care about what someone has to say is the first step into getting to know them, I think, and it's also just very nice to be included.

Getting into a fandom discord or group chat isn't always easy or intuitive, but if you do find yourself in one, don't be afraid to talk!! I may or may not be suffering from "can't shut the hell up disease" LOL but I'll take any opportunity to talk about my faves that I can get 😅 It may feel like you don't have much to say at first, but sometimes just reacting to what others say and being generally nice and positive can be a good first step.

It can be tempting to lurk around and only look at what others say or post, or to read fics without leaving a comment, or to like art but not reblog it, but it does nothing for helping you meet people. Imo this is actually really pervasive and not good for fandom overall. To each their own, of course, I'm not going to tell anyone how they should engage in fandom, but my best and most lasting friendships were made because we started reading each other's fics for example, or complimenting each other's art, or they reached out to me because this or that meme made them think of me, or we tag each other in games and stuff, or we took part in fandom exchanges, etc etc. It might be hard at first if this isn't something that comes naturally to you, but I do think it's worth it if you want to be part of a community. And, like any community, fandom requires give-and-take to thrive.

TLDR: sometimes seeing ppl in an established fandom interact with each other and having friends can be nerve-wracking and you don't know where to start, but honestly fandom is all about engagement. Basically, talk to people! Compliment their art or their fic! Tag them in games! Send them asks! Be kind! That’s it 😊

[weirdestcornelius]

TL;DR It's not too late to turn things around. Keep pushing on until something happens, and if not, it's going to be #sparkleover.

With her current behavior, Eve will near-certainly attract unwanted attention. That's probably obvious by this point, of course.

But on top of trolls and haters, there are several online communities entirely dedicated to mockery and harassment. That's where the true problem comes in.

Kittycorn quite literally has every single possible thing they'd want from a target. Immaturity? Check. Hubris? Check. Outbursts? Check. Relevance? Check. If changes aren't made in time, I don't think ANYBODY would like what'd happen. Fortunately, however...

They have yet to find her. Or, if nothing else, they indeed know about her but simply don't care enough to do anything. Yet.

There is still time. Judging by how Kneeby APPARENTLY doesn't have the sparklecriticism blog blocked yet (along with there not actually being that many barriers for us anyways), we can still get words in. I'm unsure if people would wanna hear the truth, but they likely need to by this point. After all, I may currently dislike Eve as a person, but I don't want her or Sparklecare to crash and burn.

So, cue Plan Z.

Step 1 - Tone: TL;DR Be more approachable. This might not seem like a great idea to you guys at first, and I think this step might get flamed the most, but we should lay off the bitterness that comes with every post. There is a reason we're thought of as disguised hate blogs. We might have some right to be angry, but by doing so, our message will come off as hateful yap, impeding our goal. Instead, approachability will be part of our key. Obviously, criticism is still going to be imperative, and we certainly shouldn't forget about that part, but know that aggression will not help.

Step 2 - Action: TL;DR 3, 2, 1, GO! Once we master courtesy, we can progress to Step 2. The deal's simple; just keep posting like y'all usually do with a revised tone. With that, we'd (hopefully) be genuinely listened to, and then we'd (hopefully) see more progress until something becomes of our efforts.

Step 3 - Increment: TL;DR Step 2 but BETTER!!! This basically just takes Step 2 and ups the ante a bit. Post more often, make the posts longer, et cetera. Maybe even hop on over to the main sparklecare tag if y'all particularly need to. Whatever would further improve our reach.

Step 4 - ???: TL;DR idk I'm not sure about what we might do if Step 3 fails, or if being concerned about that is even reasonable. For all we know, we could just give up, or maybe something never before thought of could suffice. I don't know, man.

I'm still kind of brainstorming, and this plan really isn't polished that much in the slightest, so I'd like to be told what y'all think for now along with any possible ideas (step 4, revisions, literally just giving up, etc). I get that composing a whole fucking campaign over fictional gay furries is probably an act of blatant, unfiltered stupidity on my part, but that's what happens when you have a hyperfixation you never asked for.

If all goes according to plan, we'll get a better Kittycorn, and we'll get a better Sparklecare. Hopefully we don't get a full civil war instead or anything. Hell, I really do hope there's some far simpler thing that can be done rather than hosting a full campaign, because I'm very doubtful regarding both myself and this plan.

Signed, Chuck.

Four step plan time

[cthulhum]

Hey so I was one of the ones who commented on that post, hope you didn't take any of it personally bc I really didn't mean it that way. I apologize if it came off that way!

What you said in the tags of your reblog of that post, I think that is the entire problem. Like the near-complete silence (except from Misha) over the years muddied the water so much that we actually can't even tell what's queercoding vs queerbaiting. But you are 100% correct both of em can be true at once and likely *was* true simultaneously due to what seems like absolute chaos in that metaphorical writers room (different writers conceptualizing destiel differently)

The problem is that we really, really don't know what went down re: intent on destiel, and may or may not ever find out.

But if you're interested I'm trying to make a somewhat comprehensive resource on what the HELL happened with destiel over on @destielfandomlore. Granted I started this like literally 10 days ago but there are definitely some patterns emerging and it at least SEEMS to support that there was some level of intent present.

Anyways again I'm sorry if my comments in the tags sounded harsh!! Feel free to reach out too if you have more questions or thoughts :) although idk how helpful I would be lol

noo this is so sweet i didnt think u were harsh or anything i genuinely want to know what everyone else thinks about this and u were very respectful and my reblog was not about u i promise !! its just that english is not my first language and u all r so well spoken and sometimes i dont understand all of it and its intimidating and makes me feel kinda stupid and some of those things i talked about like queer coding vs queer baiting still confuse me ?? anyway i am in fact interested in ur research and just anything else u have to say in general if u think itll help me understand these things !! idk ure very sweet thank u for this <333

[solarsystemvents]

Tips I don't often see for/in the runaway community.

Make sure to leave a note. Police will investigate your case much more if they suspect you are kidnapped. This is because they believe most teens will return on their own in a few days. They'll tell your parents how to track you if you took your phone and that's basically it, they'll let your case go cold.

People say take 100-500 dollars but in reality if you want to stay away for long term you need to take at the VERY least 1k+. Find random jobs you can do for extra cash ((mowing people's lawns, babysitting, etc)), be careful to only offer to strangers though.

Stock up on nonperishables ((foods that won't go bad)) BEFORE leaving. For example cereal, granola bars, etc. My school gives us free breakfast every morning and I'm collecting the cereal rather than eating it so I have a shit ton before I actually leave. My friends are helping too. And we have a "school cafe" where they sell coffee, snacks, gum, etc. Jerky and gum your best friend. Idk how many schools actually have little cafes like that but if yours does I recommend checking out what they have.

Don't stay with people you know for too long. If they get caught, even after you leave them, they can and will get into legal trouble. I'm not sure the harshness of their punishments for harboring runaways, and it may vary, but I do know it's illegal.

Don't Uber, hitchhike, etc. Even if you trust uber and stuff people, especially minors and people that are afab, often get kidnapped and or sex trafficked. Be careful.

If I find anymore I'll add those too, be safe and good luck.

*not all of the ab-se tags apply to me, I'm trying to reach everyone I can to help. and not all of the tags apply to everyone else either, and it is better to not assume

[sttoru]

Girly idk how I wasn't following you still, tumblr isn't stupid, I'm sorry that you are feeling on the outskirts of the fandom as well. You are a wonderful person and writer, and I'm glad you’ve been growing as you have been. You deserve so much more love!! 💕

It does make me feel like there is something wrong with me or like in off putting when i see several big blogs talking to each other, boosting each other. But then I drop in, just say hi to be friendly, only to be ignored. When they are literally responding to various anons or other people.

It seems like they want to talk to everyone else but me. Which has me feeling like I'm in the wrong, I'm bothersome and unwanted in the fandom space. They don't have to talk to me, but my feelings are still gonna be hurt at being shunned by 90% of the blogs I try to interact with.

It does kill my motivation since I don't want to be seen as someone who just posts. I want to be seen as a friend and someone to talk to.

I understand that some people get along better than others. But damn so many people are having this problem it seems like. It's boiling down to popular blogs like other popular blogs, boost other popular blogs and they stay the main people in the fandom eyes whole everyone sits quietly in the side just wanting to be partly including

Feel free to rant right back if need be. Cause I get needing to get this shit off your chest, cause I sure as hell needed to

hiii feyyy !!! dwww, it’s all good :> thank u sm for ur nice words aaaaaaa u r as well, one of the writers on here that i respect 4 their hard work !

gonna vent a bit haha need to get some things off my chest too like u said;

i get ur first point!! it sucks rlly. especially when you are the first one reaching out (which takes a lot of courage, especially for someone socially awkward like me lol) and then it hurts DOUBLE because you get ignored. i get ittttt rlly. for me, i always try to reply ppl even if im a bit late because im either thinking of a proper response or am distracted or busy , but i never intentionally ignore anyone interacting with me. i know some ppl on here do bcs they don’t feel entitled to respond to comments or anons or whatev, which is like ? ok. but if it’s someone just being friendly and complimenting you / your work … it’s not hard to reply w a form of gratitude . some rlly think they’re celebrities on here and it needs to stop

and it’s understandable and totally valid to feel like you’re being shunned and unwanted by people you just want to befriend , only for them to ignore you / not interact with you but with everyone else :/ it sucks and ppl don’t seem to realise that it could hurt other’s feelings. i hope you know that you’re not unwanted tho! those people are just… idk, a bit weird (ofc im only talking abt people who INTENTIONALLY ignore others)

findjng a friend on tumblr with the same interest is like a chore. you either click instantly or you think you do, only for it to be fore 2 interactions max and then you go back to ignoring each other basically on dash

AND YOUR LAST POINTS!! so true. its that the more popular blogs just stick together and help each other out when ??? there are smaller blogs of writers / artists just sittng in the sidelines like ‘ok so what do i have to do to gain traction if the people with a bit of bigger platforms are totally ignoring me & my works’

it’s actually tiring. ofc, me having 3k followers — i am suuuuper grateful, not complaining much, but i also know how it feels. my notifications are super dry except for mainly likes, my dms are like a desert, inbox is 98% only of anons who drop requests and then leave without leaving anything else. no one to talk to, except for people who leave a comment every once in a while :/

like u may think bcs i have decent following i actually gain more interactions? not rlly. only likes & sometimes reblogs w tags. that’s all really, i don’t really have anyone on here who i consider a close online friend (as much as this sounds sad & cringy LMAOO) but its tiring to see everyone be so close to each other on dash while im on the side like ‘how nice it must be to get that much interaction’

& im sure there are people who r gonna say ‘just interact with them’ I DO and i either get left on read or they respond dryly / or i don’t get the same energy back. bcs sometimes im reluctant to reach out first because it always ends up w me taking the initiative & i end up looking desperate to get an interaction with a mutual LOL

anyways thinking abt this tumblr writing community makes my head ache bcs of all the things ive seen and experienced on here (also on my prev account which i had for 2 years)

[sinterblackwell]

Hi! I read your tags on the aro!LQG post and I wanna talk about it a little if you don't mind? (Disclaimer I'm rlly awkward so if anything sounds rude pls know I don't mean it to be.)

Okay so I feel like when Madam Meiyin talked about SQQ's fated person LQG did think that it was him, because I'm pretty sure no one else knew LBH was still alive by then (cmiiw)? To be fair the traits could be used to describe LQG which is hilarious so it's probably deliberate for comedic effect. When I read about LQG getting more aggravated by Madam Meiyin's prediction, I deadass thought he was just baffled like "why is this random demon telling that I'm SQQ's soulmate??? this is definitely bullshit we shouldn't continue listen to her." and so the rest is history hahah. I had thought it was really funny for LQG to be self-conscious about the prediction and so unhappy about it.

Anyway yeah that's it. Sorry for bothering you I just want to talk :')

first things first, you didn’t bother me at all!! this ask actually made me smile because i don’t engage a lot with the svsss fandom…or just any fandom in general, in discussions so i was happy to see someone reach out to me to just get to talk. second of all, i did a reread of that scene purely to see from a better pov than i did when i first read it and it truly is something.

**what is even more something is how much i write, hence why i put this “keep reading” sign.

hopefully any of it is salvageable :’)

the laughable thing about all this is that i genuinely feel like sqq regarding that scene in that … it just did not occur to me that lqg could possibly have been who madam meiyin was talking about. there was not a single brain-cell that considered lqg was thinking along those lines as you said where he was like “what the hell, is this stranger insinuating i’m sqq’s soulmate?”. while sqq didn’t consider any guys at all, in my case, i think i was very biased bc of how much i love bingqiu that any other character who may have an infatuation with our mc just wasn’t in the cards for me.

reading your own interpretation of that scene, i feel dumb now because it just seems so obvious. i said in my tags of that post you mentioned that that prediction can go both ways and madam meiyin’s words can apply to both lqg & lbh, i think.

“Your fated person has very little interest in others,” Madam Meiyin went on. “But once they find someone, their devotion is absolute.”

“A first-class beauty, peerless among all humans.” Madam Meiyin said with certainty.

i would also say this one below but i’m not too sure, since if we’re applying it to lbh, that “first meeting” would have been when he met sj!sqq, not sy!sqq so idk if the lines are just blurred there.

“Your first meeting was unhappy, and there might even have been loathing involved,” said Madam Meiyin. “But after a critical moment, that all began to change, and thoroughly so.”

but i can definitely understand now why the fandom are so rattled when it comes to lqg and his feelings for sqq, whatever they are. it now makes me curious to see fics that explore that, but i’ve also just been very wary of reading any svsss fic that isn’t centered around bingqiu as the main pairing😅

thank you for giving me your thoughts on that scene!! it honestly makes a lot of sense in reflection, and i feel like it definitely hits hard because whoever this “fated soulmate” this madam was talking about was, for both lqg & lbh, it reveals a certain depth in the impact that sqq has had on these two characters that they just end up sort of blurring the lines in this prediction.

which makes what happens during those years where lbh held onto sqq’s corpse and lqg constantly chased after him so much more heavy to think about…..

[yuquinzel]

hi user yuquinzel >< do u remember when u first started writing here on tumblr?? im planning on opening my acc and idk where to start :'( do u have any ideas how to?? T_T

— hihi anon !! i remember when i made my first post vry well omg it was in september last year + i had no idea how tumblr worked, i wrote for jjk & posted it thinking nothing of it BUT then it got a lil love & it got over 1k notes & so i dedicated some time to figuring out how this site worked :') i actually had no plans to continue posting, i only wrote in drafts & for my eyes only, i even went on a 7 months break bc i didn't think much of this blog T_T

im not sure I'm the best person to come to for advice but i'll tell you what i think might make ur experience a little more fun :]]

i think it mainly depends on what goal you have in mind when you start a blog. is it to simply write because you have these super cool ideas, or to share your works with others, or if you're aiming to be a successful writing blog i suppose?

-> making tags for your blog makes it fun ( at least for me) and it makes your blog sorted and organised !! i hate how messy my blog was at first ;-; make ur pinned post, make your theme, treat ur blog the way you'd decorate your first and new apartment LOL

-> also like make sure your posts show up in tags!! tumblr sucks sometimes and new posts from new blogs don't show up in the tags at first so be mindful of that ! + add appropriate tags so that it reaches the audience ur aiming for ig?

-> set your boundaries and rules !! they are absolutely non negotiable lol, and will set the rhythm for ur future interactions

-> when it comes to writing, having some sort of unique touch to your works makes you stand out yk? it makes your blog more engaging + something to remember !!

-> that's not to say you HAVE to be different, it's important to remember to be comfortable w your writing and take as much time as it takes to make your blog your safe space !!

-> something i struggled w was comparison :') please don't EVER compare your skills w anyone else. you have your own style and rhythm, the essence of writing lies in enjoying the process of it coming together

-> interact w people more !! make friends, read more + have fun !! that is something i regret never doing much but it's one of the best parts of running a blog on this site :P

honestly that's all i can think of for now T_T i wish i had known these all from the start but i hope these help you !! good luck for your future blog omg, i definitely wna know more about it in the future !!

[thispatternismine]

Getting rid of any kind of umbrella tag makes it impossible to find stuff or filter properly.

Having to search tags multiple times if the fandom you're in has multiple adaptations or versions is annoying, especially if you want to be excluding stuff.

Worse, the option to filter for crossovers is functionally useless in any fandom where there is more than one iteration of the property (such as a sequel or adaptation), because everyone tags multiple versions of the fandom for ~reach~ (ugh). And yeah I know that's what they're doing - I've clicked on fics with both MDZS & The Untamed tagged where the author admits they're following MDZS novel canon specifically (so the drama being tagged is a lie). Also I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that many of you are writing fics specifically focusing on the audio drama or MDZS Q like c'mon some of yous are lying! Same for SVSSS fans tagging the donghua in addition to the book. Like, why?

And because of that I can't filter out actual crossovers because non-crossovers will go too!

And on the flipside, finding crossovers when I want to is impossible. A few years ago I read a fun Good Omens/Untitled Goose Game crossover & was like 'Huh, Good Omens seems like it'd be perfect for some interesting crossovers!'. But like 90% of the fics were tagged with both the book & TV series, which counted as crossovers, & any actual crossovers got buried.

Most of the time the adaptations are similar enough that characters & plotlines are roughly the same, & differences are often smoothed out by the fic itself anyway (does it matter if characterisation of a particular character is slightly different in an adaptation if you're going to put him through the wringer & have him emerge a fundamentally changed person anyway? Does an added plotline matter if you're adding a bunch of plot yourself & handwaving stuff you make your fic work?). But according to Ao3 they count as crossovers.

And tbh I don't blame the authors for tagging multiple fandoms! It's annoying & they're misrepresenting the fic but of bloody course they're going to do that to make sure people see their fics regardless of which sub-fandom they've chosen to search for fics in.

That's something that will only become more necessary considering how much media being released these days is a reboot, remake, sequel or adaptation of something else.

I don't even know why you'd want to get rid of AMT type fandom tags? The only thing I can think of is that maybe people find it hard to seek out fics that are focused on more niche adaptations within a fandom because a lot of authors might tag their fics with an AMT tag rather than getting specific. IDK that seems a lesser evil to what is going on now, but I suppose it could bug people. Is it possible to make it so an umbrella tag can be used to search & filter, but ot be added as a tag on fics? That way authors can pick applicable sub-tag(s), but anyone searching for the fic can be more vague. Is that something that can be done or is that just Not How Tags Work On Ao3?

Regarding Fandom Trees & AMTs

Tag wrangling is, on the whole, a fluid process. It's meant to be, because the way language is used and the way tags are used change over time. We're the first to admit that we don’t always get it right, and that we do sometimes make mistakes despite our best intentions. This is why wrangling decisions are not set in stone and are reevaluated periodically as circumstances change or as new information becomes available. 

In light of the impact that removing the Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms metatag has had, we have put that metatag back in place. 

When it comes to fandom metatags and fandom trees, there is no 'one size fits all' approach that works for all fandoms. Consequently, we have placed a hold on all structural changes to fandom metatags, All Media Types fandoms (commonly called AMTs), and fandom trees while wranglers discuss the need for additional guidelines and adjustments to our approach regarding these tags going forward. 

This hold will remain in place until tag wranglers have had ample time to fully reevaluate our fandom wrangling guidelines with the aim of making it easier for Archive users to find the content they’re looking for and filter out the content they aren’t. This guideline reevaluation process is something we are actively working on, but it will likely take some time to complete. We will update again once these fandom guideline discussions have come to a close.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)