#if i want to say the same thing in the tags of some unsuspecting person's post then that's my right

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

don't wait for tumblr to give u more tags. go off about tony and steve and zola pls i am humbly requesting

As a part of my ongoing war on my ask box this is a very old post regarding a tumblr tag essay i made forever ago. i half answered this ask when it came in and then forgot to finish. without further ado:

Anon is talking about this post about Steve and Tony’s relationship. I HIGHLY recommend the original post it's great but i copied the original tags essay below since it's been so long since the ask arrived.

#I feel like anyone who writes Tony stark for marvel should have to go watch bojack horseman first as like a mandatory assignment#because that show understood the premise of Tony stark better than any MCU writer ever has and it wasn’t even writing for tony stark#in sum bojack horseman follows the titular bojack who is a washed up 90s sitcom television star#bojack himself is extremely self destructive and the show follows him as his selfish and egotistical tendencies erode at his relationships#However bojack himself is an extremely sympathetic character. his harmful acts are all tied very directly to the trauma of his life#he’s a survivor of generational abuse whose own substance abuse problems stem from the fact that he was in such a neglectful environment#that he had started drinking at an INCREDIBLY young age got himself sober only to relapse due to a spiked drink after fame

#this sympathic is increased by the fact that he does geninuinely love and care for his friends and often goes to extreme lengths to show it#but what the show understands that MCU writers dont is that his tragic past doesn’t excuse the harm or pain he causes and the show goes to#LABORIOUS extents to emphasize the consequences and suffering his actions cause in his attempt towards making amends#it is FASINCATING to me that MCU just fails to grasp this because it’s really the core of Tony’s character. his story is one of redemption#and regret. but what it never seemed to get is that requires recognition of wrongs and change and his relationship with steve is a prime ex.#when they meet tony is 40+ and Steve is 23-25. steve has been awake from world war 2 for less than 2 weeks everyone he loves is dead and hes#visibly haunted by his time in the ice. his ptsd flashbacks to crashing the plane is how his character is introduced. Tony spends the time

#calling him ‘capsicle’ and talking about how much he can’t stand steve. the narrative plays it off as a gaff of little consequence but#practically speaking that’s INSANE. like can you imagine you’re a traumatized war vet who got out of a coma 2 months ago and woke up to#discover everyone you ever loved is dead and this stranger twice your age at your new work nicknames you coma boy and hates your guts bc of#his daddy issues? like Tony in avengers is borderline cruel but the narrative and the fandom never acknowledge it. it’s like removing the#laugh track on a scene from one of those old sitcoms and realizing how mean it is. and while we can fully acknowledge that Howard hurt Tony#that doesn’t make it Steve’s fault and doesn’t give Tony the license to take it out on him. like at the end of the day your healing is your#responsibility and the MCU fails to grasp that with Tony. honestly it does a disservice to the depth of his character b/c Tony should have#already grown past this by the time of Avengers. he had already gone through iron man 2 and grappled somewhat with his relationship w howard#while that doesn’t mean he’s healed yet it does mean that his character needs to learn to grow past it or he risks stagnation. mcu just#happily embraced stagnation and it made the character worse for it. Theres a scene in the comics where Tony is the first to reach out to#Steve post ice. he takes him to the air&space museum and welcomes him to the future. THATS the growth we want. Bc fundamentally even if we

#sympathize for Tony’s abuse by Howard lashing out at someone who was functionally dead at the time of ur dads mistakes is a very juvenile#mindset. /growth/ is deciding to be better than the person who hurt you and the MCUs obsession with blaming Steve for howard cut that off#CW would have been SO MUCH MORE COMPELLING if Tony had formed a relationship with Steve bc Steve would be torn between past and present but#instead Tony is saying how much he hated Steve during the fucking movie and Steve’s taking it with grace. like you’re 50 man you gotta work#past this at some point. out of tags but I have Opinions about Tony and actually zola too but we won’t get there give me more tags tumblr

Fundamentally, my issue with Tony and how he's written for the MCU is that he has the potential for one of greatest redemption arcs ever and the writers are fucking allergic to giving it to him, and his dynamic with Steve is a a prime example of it. How poorly Steve's relationship with Tony was mishandled is a pretty perfect case study as to how Tony as a character was mishandled as a whole.

As stated in the Tumblr Tags Essay above, by the time Steve came on the scene, Tony should have already grown past his hate for Steve. To be clear, that is not saying he should have gotten over Howard or any harm that he suffered as a result of his. Howard was his parent who was, to some degree, at least emotionally neglectful, if not abusive. Healing and learning helping coping mechanisms does not demand you forgive your abuser.

But Steve was never his abuser. He's a 20-something year old guy who has been trapped in a block of ice for Tony's entire life and who woke up two weeks ago to find out that everyone he ever loved is dead or suffering from alzheimer's and that his sacrifice was for nothing because he was just told the thing he drove a fucking plane into the fucking arctic over is Back Again Because We Learned Nothing.

And the thing is that the realization that "This man can hold literally no complicity in my abuser because he was frozen in the Arctic Circle the entire time" requires a level of emotional maturity you generally achieve at the age of thirteen or so. Tony is fucking fifty. Mentally, he's over twice Steve's age. At absolute best, the way Tony treats Steve from the outset is immature and more accurately it's downright cruel. Voluntarily killing himself by driving a plane into ice only to wake up and discover that he has lost everyone he ever loved is undoubtedly one of the most traumatic things that has ever happened to steve, and he just woke up from it. He is two weeks out from this. He's actively having flashbacks of what happened right before Tony starts cracking jokes about it. It'd be like if Steve walked up to Tony right after he got back from Afghanistan and called him Waterboarding Boy and everyone treated it like it was a cutesy character trait.

That's one of the most egregious parts of how Tony's character is written--things that are objectively things that need to be addressed in his character arc area treated like acceptable and borderline justified quirks in his personality. Tony's relationship with his father is one of the cornerstones of his backstory and who he became. While he doesn't have to forgive his father on the road to recovery, he does have to realize when he's using it as an excuse to hurt others and stop it.

That's also something he never does, and one of the reasons why i think that the writers for him need to watch Bojack horseman. In the same movie he's claiming to that he was Steve's friend, he's still saying to his face how much he fucking hated him over things that happened when Steve was supposed to have martyred himself to save the world.

There's multiple parts of Tony's character that could have formed the basis of an amazing character arc if he grew and improved from them, but the narrative refused to even recognize them as problems, let alone have him overcome them, and his relationship with Steve is a perfect example of it. The writer's refusal to recognize that brings down the quality of his entire arc and cheapens him as a character.

If Tony had been allowed to recognize that Steve was not to blame for his father, accepted it, and given a man half his age who just lost everything a lifeline, that would have shown an amazing amount of growth. Instead, they left him as immature and cruel. It's a shame and an insult to the potential of his character, and it's a mistake that they repeat again and again. Tony was supposed to be completely against developing weapons for others, but he canonically helped build a major part of Project Insight. Tony's entire stance in Civil War was meant to show that he had accepted that he made mistakes and that he needed to be held accountable for his actions, but then he went and unilaterally built EDITH, whose existence violates multiple international treaties including the Accords and had so few safety precautions that a teenaged boy was able to accidentally call out a missile strike on his teenaged classmate. He's in a movie where he's driven by his guilt for causing the death of someone's college-aged son, and in that same movie he blackmails a high-school-aged boy to join in on a fight he knows nothing about, that goes directly against his interests, and could get him killed even if he was certain that Team Cap wouldn't use lethal force. Rhodey got paralyzed from the waist down from friendly fire. Tony had a moment in the same fight where he had reason to fear that Peter had been injured if not killed.

Ultimately, Tony's entire character is built on a foundation of repentance and growth. That's why he has so much potential and why he's so compelling. The fact that his writers were unable to recognize when he even needed to repent, let alone allow him to grow, was honestly insulting to what he could have been.

Zola:

The reference to Zola is actually more of a response to fandom’s response to Zola as a whole than the actual specific person who made the comment.

Overall, the majority of fandom response that I've seen just seemed to be sort of besides the point? The thing about Armin Zola working for SHIELD is that I personally have only seen discussion about this in context of talking about how Peggy and Howard are Bad or talking about how steve would feel betrayed when he discovered it. To be honest most of the discourse I’ve seen has just been about hating Peggy Carter and using this as a sledgehammer in that discussion.

It’s not that I disagree with that reading of it—like, I do think Steve felt betrayed by the realization that Zola was recruited in the end, and I think it’s bad to have recruited literal Nazis—but I do think that fandom elevated the most tangential point of it to the detriment of its entire narrative purpose. I've only ever personally seen it used in character discourse and shipping wars--which like, anyone can draw on any plot point they so choose while participating in fandom. But Zola's recruitment was the thematic core of Winter Soldier, and it always seemed kinda weird to me that it was treated as a personal defect in Howard and Peggy when it was the entire argument of the movie and one of the best social commentaries that the MCU ever made.

Zola gives what I think is one of the better MCU villain speeches in the bunker about how Hydra recovered after the war. He states that they realized that taking the freedom of the world by force only galvanised people against them. It led to their own downfall. But he explains that Hydra realized that the people of the world would freely give away their own rights and freedoms if you made them comfortable. If you say you’re doing it for their own safety and comfort, then they’ll effectively look the other way while Hydra seizes control of the world. And that entire monologue is bolstered by the fact that that is exactly what happened in Zola’s case.

Zola was brought into SHIELD as a part of operation paperclip. Operation Paperclip was a post-war initiative by the United States government to recruit key Nazi scientists into United States scientific development. This entire initiative was brought about in response to the Cold War arm’s race and it was justified on the basis of dire national security need. Both America and the Soviet Union were EXTREMELY CONCERNED about losing the cold war. As a result, they were willing to take pretty much any strategic advantage they could, including After, President Truman, who gave the final go-ahead for the initiative, said that "this had to be done and was done."

Even after it became public knowledge, it was defended as more of a necessary evil and the cost of the practicalities of governance than a world power welcoming war criminals with open arms. Multiple participants have been linked to human experimentation, slave labor factories, etc, though none were ever formally found guilty of anything--which may be because the US aggressively whitewashed their pasts and then went so far as to help relocate one of the members of the initiative to Argentina.

This was, again, all a part of the Cold War arms race with the USSR--who had an identical program going at the same time, Operation Osoaviakhim.

En arguendo, let's just assume that all of this was done with the best possible intentions and execution. The nominal rationale was the Cold War. While analyzing the Red Scare and the entire Cold War period would take way too long, I think a solid premise we can agree on is that nuclear war is bad. It would have been disastrous for anyone alive if the Cold War had escalated, and recruiting top scientists from the Nazi regime 1) kept the USSR from doing it instead, which they were actively doing, and 2) helped prevent strategic advantage in one country or another that may have led to an escalation. Now, I'm not a historian, and all of these premises can naturally be debated, but these were the like, best faith premises that world leaders had at the time. If you want a nuclear deterrent, you need the biggest stick.

The thing is that, if you assume these premises as genuine for the sake of the argument, the absolute best this leaves you with is doing a very bad thing for a very important government purpose. You're supposedly preventing nuclear war, but you're doing so at the cost of justice for all the people who suffered at the hands of these people, and the risk of future harm that they may cause.

Which, thematically, is the core of the Winter Soldier.

I've usually seen Zola's recruitment discussed in terms of Peggy or Howard making the decision to let him in, when in reality, they probably didn't make the call themselves so much as become complicit in it later. Zola was captured and recruited right at the end of CA:FA (he later clocks this at 1945) but Peggy and Howard didn't even have an organization at that point, let alone the power to recruit a head Nazi scientist. This was two decades before SHIELD was ever founded, and if we take the Agent Carter series as binding canon, at the time of Zola's transition into American government would, Peggy had so little sway that she couldn't even get anyone to listen to her, let alone recruit a nazi scientist, and Howard was potentially on the run and definitely not involved in any formal governmental decision making. Even if you assume that they were somehow in charge of a government agency at the time of Zola's recruitment, the actual recruitment and function of Operation Paperclip was conducted by independent agencies (Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency and the Counterintelligence Corps) that Peggy and Howard weren't a part of, and the person who made the call for Operation Paperclip itself was The Literal President Of The United States. Whatever way you cut it, Peggy and Howard probably had nothing to do with Zola's initial recruitment--what most likely happened was that two decades passed (the time between Zola's recruitment and SHIELD's founding) and when resources were being allocated some big-shot in the overseeing body was like Yeah You Do Weird Stuff? We Got A Guy Who's Been Doing Weird Stuff For Us For Like Twenty Years and then when Peggy and Howard saw him they were like Oh Its This Motherfucker.

To be clear, this is not at all to absolve howard and peggy for working with a guy they knew did literal human experimentation because he did it on one of their best friends. But this is to more clearly reframe it from Decision They Personally Made to The Ways Being At A Certain Level Of Government Makes You Complicit With Horrible Things, which perfectly encapsulates the heart of the movie.

At the open of the movie, Steve is visibly on a fucking ledge with SHIELD. Fuck, Fury and Nat spend most of the opening trying to keep him from flying the coop. And it's because Steve for the very first time has to grapple with the consequences of being an active participant in a governmental body.

Straight up--Steve spent the entire war going AWOL. His entire military career was spent doing what he wanted and flipping his superior officers the bird. The man was a terrible fucking soldier but by the time anyone figured it out they had already given him a comic book and the Medal of Honor and the man could bench press a tank it was simply too late. Then, he got encased in ice for 70 years, woke up, had two weeks of fun future integration activities like Not Getting Therapy For His Problems and Looking At Pictures Of His Dead Friends, got tapped in because they fucked up with the exact thing he lost everything to stop, immediately went AWOL again, almost died again, went on a roadtrip of self discovery, and at some point between then and CAWS started working as one of the main STRIKE members of SHIELD. This is likely his first time having to ever deal with the realities of being a hand of the government.

One of the most insidious things about high-level government work is there's rarely some Main Guy sitting behind a desk signing Evil Decrees and responsible for everything. Power is allocated and things get messy very quickly.

Take Ghost for example. One of SHIELD'S Main Guys falls out with another Guy, smears his name, which makes the Ex-Guy so desperate that he takes unnecessary risks in his experiments that predictably blow up in his face and leads to his young daughter having a debilitating power that results in her uncontrollably phasing through objects. Another Guy tries to do the right thing and help her, but Other Main Guys think "This kid would make a GREAT assassin" and leverage a cure for her debilitating health condition into turning her into a forced operative. This health condition starts to kill her, but the Main Guys were so happy with their new forced assassin that they never looked for a cure to begin with and was going to use her until she died. She goes rather reasonably goes AWOL, and in her attempts to cure herself, she's willing to do just about anything to get cured, and including contemplating kidnapping Scott's daughter as an option.

Steve obviously wasn't called in to help with that (he was AWOL himself at that point) but assume he was--he would only get pulled into this mess at the very end when all the damage is done and there's a highly unstable assassin kidnapping little girls. SHIELD was at fault for every horrible thing that happened to this person. He has a strong sense of justice, and he'd likely to be furious to find out that SHIELD took an orphanged child and abused their incredibly painful and terminal medical condition, which was indirectly caused by them, in order to force them into becoming a highly skilled operative.

But there isn't just one person that he'd be able to find and blame for what happened with this--culpability was stretched out over Multiple Main Guys who made bad decisions, a lot of Lower Guys who built the suit, trained her, handled her in the field, and experimented on her to learn her limits, many of whom likely didn't even work for the organization any more.

Who do you go after for that? The Main Guy who smeared her dad? But he didn't have anything to do with the assassin business or the actual accident. The Main Guys who made the calls for the assassination thing? Better candidates, but is it that simple? What about the guys who just get orders every day and have no decision making authority, who were handed a little girl who was vulnerable and in pain and told to train her to kill? What about the ones making a child-sized tactical suit with no details about what was going on but who had reason enough to suspect it wasn't all good? They were just following orders, but so were Nazis working the camps.

How do you go after people for that? Fire them? It's been decades. Most are probably retired. And that's a pretty lame punishment for what they did. He doesn't make the calls for legal action, they definitely have qualified immunity for their decisions, and there's a whole host of problems with proving anything.

But, on the flip side, what does he do about Ghost? what happened to her is terrible, but if she had kidnapped Cassie Lang, he couldn't exactly sit on his hands and let it happen no matter the justification. There's a very good chance he has to stop her and become another link in a chain of what's been a lifetime of abuse. Things get messy when you're just a cog in the machine of a sprawling agency that has a lot of power to abuse.

While we don't know what Steve's been doing while he worked for SHIELD, we do know that it pissed him off to high heavens. The very first thing we see him doing for SHIELD is recapturing the off-course Lemurian Star from pirates, and he is the exact opposite of a dutiful soldier during it. He doesn't just salute and follow his orders without question--one of the first lines of his mouth is calling them out for lying about the ship being in those waters because it was off-course. He's like "Oh, so it's not off course, it's trespassing" to which Nat says "I'm sure they had a good reason" and Steve replies "I'm getting a little tired of being Fury's janitor."

He's saving the hostages, and then all of a sudden he finds Natasha in the control room downloading the drive and realizes that this was about SHIELD's data to begin with but no one clued him in on that fact. He's pissed because the hostages could have died, which is a fact he immediately goes after Fury about.

There is so much character jammed into those few minutes of screen time. This is visibly an old argument--at one point, Fury says to him "It's damn near getting past time for you to get with the program, Cap" to which Steve tells him not to hold his breath. Steve doesn't like or approve of a lot of SHIELD's actions, but he's called in after all the bad things they did went to shit. Like, what's he going to do--say, sorry, the Lemurian Star was obviously Up To Some Shit that I don't want to be a part of, RIP to the hostages but I'm just going to let them get shot in the head? He's the janitor and he's sick of getting called into SHIELD fucking something up through their own immoral actions and calling him to pull their ass out of the fire. He spends the entire first half of the movie on the verge of flying the coop entirely, and Nat and Fury visibly know it and are trying to get him off the ledge in every interaction they have on screen with him--which directly contributes to the fact that Steve doesn't trust either of them for the first half of the movie.

It also is likely the motivator behind why he does ultimately trust Sam. Steve spends the first half of the movie getting Managed. He's increasingly pissed and distrustful of SHIELD and its agents, and he's got good reason to be--Nat and Fury hide things from him and keep trying to persuade him to stick with the program (to be clear Nat's (and to a somewhat lesser extent Fury's) own actions and whether any culpability for things like project insight could possibly be imputed to her has to be analyzed under an entirely different lens due to the difference in her personal history and character type, but this is already way too long to tackle that here. this isn't actually meant to assign blame to her, but more to analyze the likely results on steve). Fury takes him for a tour of his Fascist Death Machine and tells him that's what the world needs. The neighbor he was growing increasingly intimate with was a SHIELD agent who lied to him about her name and the fact that she was spying on him. At the end of the day, the majority of the of the early movie is spent with his desires and principles are treated as secondary and unwanted complications to the fact that they really need him to keep throwing that shield on SHIELD's behalf (whether this is actually what nat and fury specifically are trying to do is, again, a separate analysis we don't have time for, this is just to go to how it likely affects and appears to Steve).

Sam, meanwhile, is beautiful and charming is the only one who openly expresses a genuine concern for Steve as a person and not steve as a solider. Sam spends the entire first half of the movie reaching out to someone in a position he's been in himself and trying to get him help. his entire first meeting with Steve is defined by him trying to help a fellow Vet recover from war. he tries to gauge where Steve's at with the future, invites him to the VA, and packages it in a easily-seen-through excuse that gives them both plausible deniability--Steve can come by and get the help he needs not as Captain America The Man The Myth The Legend Who Is Really Fucking Struggling, but as Steve the guy helping Sam impress the girl at the front desk.

When he comes to the VA, Sam has the direct opposite response that everyone else in the movie has to Steve questioning his place in SHIELD and in government work--he's like "Quit. Quit now. Be free and beautiful like me. become an ultimate fighter or whatever the fuck you want." He doesn't give two shits about what the world will do without Captain America keeping it safe--he just cares about what Steve needs.

This all goes to a greater analysis about how Sam is beautiful and charming the perfect parallel to Steve, the only one who could possibly have taken up his shield, and actually wrong in that line he says about how he does what Steve does but slower because he consistently decides to do the right thing before Steve is another analysis that would go too far off the point to get into. The point being is that Sam exists in the narrative as the direct opposite and alternative to the reality fury and nat offers Steve. Steve spends the beginning of the movie with Nat and Fury seemingly sacrificing the means for the end, but there's Sam, beautiful and charming someone who made the same decision he's now faced with, being like "fuck it. sometimes you have to walk."

Steve's entire struggle about his position with SHIELD reaches its climax when he first finds out the truth of Project Insight.

For the avoidance of any doubt, SHIELD secretly being infiltrated by HYDRA has no effect on how wrong Project Insight was from the start--it just emphasized how horrifically wrong it could go. But "Space Super Death Weapon That Can Immediately Kill Dangers To National Security" is a bad idea no matter who is in charge of it. First off, Steve is right--punishment follows the crime. No government has a crystal fucking ball and anyone who justifies things on the basis of "taking out threats ahead of time" is talking out their ass. to be clear, i'm not saying you need to wait for someone to be on a plane and flying at the twin towers to stop a terrorist attack--in law, we have a designated level of "closeness" that lets us say "yeah you were totally actually doing what we don't want you doing" at which point you can charge them with attempt, and often a lot of the earlier steps leading up to the Big Harmful Thing are actual crimes you can intervene with.

Project Insight was the flagship of of a "quantum surge in threat analysis." It did exactly what it was designed to do: it took out threats before they became threats. The only difference between SHIELD being at the helm and HYDRA is who gets defined as a threat. HYDRA would have defined that as anyone from a high school valedictorian in Iowa to Stephen Strange, but it's not any better if SHIELD's defining that as some random kid in Afghanistan who shows whatever traits show a risk for one day becoming a combatant.

And yet, steve's the only one in the movie who says this. We don't actually know how much Nat knows about Project insight itself, but Fury is fully aware and a participant in it, and Tony Stark apparently took one look at the thing and said "your engines are shit. i'll improve them." Steve takes one look at them and calls it fascist bullshit.

At the end of the day, you can never justify shit like this under the assumption that the people controlling it will use it for the best, because you cannot trust the people controlling it. Yeah, Project Insight was probably pitched with being used against the worst threats. Dangers to public safety, terrorists, that kind of thing. Do you want to know who else was considered a danger to public safety? MLK, who the FBI fucking murdered. The people who define threats to national security are the ones who have the same incentive to maintain the status quo in an unjust world. Even if we assume Project Insight was made to stop the next 9/11, we also have to assume that at least some of the strikes it would have carried out under not-HYDRA control would have been for the wrong reasons.

What the fuck does all of this this have to do with Zola?

Operation Paperclip and Peggy and Howard's decisions within it directly mirrors Project Insight and Fury's decisions within it, directly mirrors Steve's journey and central conflict over the course of the film, and directly contrasts with the alternative Sam poses within it.

CA:WS at its thematic core, says that initiatives that sacrifice justice for claims of national security and public safety are exactly what robs us of our rights and freedoms and ultimately endangers us all. It's not even subtle--Zola says it out loud in his evil villain speech. but operating at a high level in a government agency puts you in a position where you're meant to make that decision again and again, even if we assume you have the best of intentions.

Peggy and Howard were people who believed that they had to make the hard decisions to save the world. They were handed a decision where perception of culpability was obscured by how distributed out the blame was, and the direct public benefit to national security was posed to be overwhelmingly good. It leads to SHIELD's infiltration. Project Insight went through on the exact same reasoning. Fury, Maria Hill, possibly Nat, and Tony (off-screen) all do the exact same thing and justify the means by the end, and it leads to the helicarriers being made.

Steve spends the movie being told, explicitly, to "get with the program" and start making the same decisions. His central conflict is being someone on the inside of this club, being told that he needs to start understand what keeping the world safe demands, and his journey leads to him refusing to do it. The climax of the movie is a character so minor that we never learn his name refusing to launch the helicarriers with a gun pointed at his head, even though the complicity he carried in it would have been just as attenuated as Steve's was as SHIELD's janitor. And all throughout it, there's Sam, someone who left the military explicitly because he couldn't follow the rules he was being given anymore.

Peggy and Howard's decision to go along with Zola in Operation Paperclip is a direct parallel of the decisions Fury made with Project Insight and the decisions Steve ultimately refuses to make himself. Making Peggy and Howard complicit in what let in Arnim Zola encapsulates the entire core argument of CA:WS and it's so weird to me that I've only ever seen it discussed in shipping wars and discourse as to whether a Character Is Bad.

Peggy and Howard, ultimately, were members of a governmental task force who made the Hard Decisions for The Public Good. As an inherent part of that role, they did bad things. Unjust things. They undoubtedly saved the world multiple times over as a part of their tenure as the head of SHIELD, but it would be absolute naivety to assume that anyone in that position didn't become complicit in terrible fucking things. It's the direct product of their positions in the government, and it's exactly what leads to Steve's position in Civil War. it is absolutely bonkers to me how people watched Winter Solider and then reacted to Steve's opposition to the Accords like Local Imperialist Military Boy Refuses To Listen To Anyone Else. Steve just had a masterclass in how people in the government make decisions that sacrifice justice up to and including people he once trusted with his life. Of course he didn't fucking trust General Human Experimentation And I Consider Bruce Banner The Property Of The United States Military with his every action as Captain America. He had just learned that he couldn't even trust Peggy and Howard with it.

[in1-nutshell]

Hello! I read/saw one of your writings (Steeljaw and his pack reaction to Bot Buddy with the personality of Perrito from "Puss in Boots the Last Wish") and you did a good job and I love it!

If it's okay can you continue or do this same request with other Steeljaw's (previous) pack members, as well?

Also Thank you!!!

Let's see what other horrors Buddy will unleash on the unsuspecting Con's.

Steeljaw and pack reaction to Bot Buddy with the personality of Perrito from Puss in Boots the Last Wish (continuation)

SFW, platonic, Cybertron/ Bot reader

Scowl

Scowl stumbled quite literally on Buddy.

He was going to go to what seemed like an abandoned lot. He wacked a bin when he heard a yelp.

Surprised, Scowl went to the bin and saw a mini con pop out.

"Oh! Thanks for the help friend! I've been stuck there for a bit. Steeljaw wanted some more steel beams so I was trying to get some, but I got stuck! So, thank you again!"-- Buddy

"... Umm you're welcome?"--Scowl

He helped Buddy out a bit after seeing their pitiful attempts to drag any of the beams.

Scowl ended up bonding with Buddy while getting the materials for this Steeljaw guy.

That being said...

He gets attached really quickly.

Buddy is just so small and fragile looking. If he'd sneeze he was sure he would send Buddy flying back a couple yards. Scowl was bigger, stronger, and much bulkier than they were.

As much as he hated to say it... He has to remember how Grimlock handled smaller things.

He was not prepared for the untold backstory Buddy had to tell. He doesn't know what was worse. Hearing the story or hearing it in such a casual form.

"Wow! You're so strong Scowl! You remind me of one of my friends. He was so strong that he put a ton of scrap metal on me! I found a pretty slab of ions from that day!"--Buddy

"... You're friend... They tried to bury you?!?!"-- Scowl

"Yeah! But I'm telling you the slab was the prettiest thing!"--Buddy

Scowl has told Buddy if someone hurts them, to let him know so he can pay them a visit. That bot will be nothing but scrap metal when he's through.

Drag Strip

Drag Strip has had his fair share of peculiar friends.

Look at Wildbreak.

He met Buddy while trying to look for Wildbreak and the others. And he might have had another incident with ice again. Thank goodness it was just his pedes.

Bad news was it was his pedes. He couldn't exactly move well.

Enter: Buddy

"Hello! Wow you seem to be in a bit of a pickle!"--Buddy

"Yeah I know... Why don't you pass me that crowbar over there?"--Drag Strip

"Sure thing friend! Hey after this you want to go out for a drive? I know the best spots around here and the best shady parts too--"-- Buddy

"...what did I get myself into..."--Drag Strip

The next thing he knows Buddy becomes a third shadow. Second being Wildbreak. He is starting to think that he might attract weird bots.

Drag Strip is unnerved hearing some of Buddy's backstory. It's not something he expected.

You're so lucky you have friends that stay with you all the time Drag Strip."--Buddy

"I guess, but he can be such a pain in the afterburner,"-- Drag Strip

"Maybe, but I have to follow my friends everywhere. They usually end up running. They like playing tag a lot of the time."--Buddy

"They run from you?"-- Drag Strip

"Yeah, but I always find them eventually. Where are you going?"--Buddy

"I need to tell Wildbreak something."--Drag Strip

He is ready to throw down with anyone who decides to treat Buddy like a lesser bot. Drag Strip makes sure that Buddy is either with him or Wildbreak at all times.

Wildbreak

Wildbreak was looking for Drag Strip when he found Buddy.

They had gotten separated when the Autobots had ambushed them.

He ended up under an abandoned bridge when a storm came by. It had started thundering when he felt something touch his pedes.

"Excuse me? You're kind of crushing my tail."-- Buddy

"What? Oh! I'm sorry!"--Wildbreak

"It's okay! I don't like the storms either."--Buddy

"...It gets too loud..."--Wildbreak

"You can hold me if you want. I'm trained in the arts of therapy cuddling."--Buddy

"No I'm --"--Wildbreak

CRASH!

"... You sure you don't mind?"--Wildbreak

"Not at all. Just don't dent my armor too much."--Buddy

"Right, sorry."--Wildbreak

After that night, Wildbreak is now best friends with Buddy. Even after they find Drag Strip, Wildbreak doesn't leave Buddy alone. If he is going somewhere, Buddy is going with, and he doesn't mind at all.

His spark breaks when he hears some of Buddy's backstory. He could never imagine his friend in these scenarios.

"You have so many stories Wildbreak!"--Buddy

"Yeah it's been a crazy time. But bots like Drag Strip make things a bit better."--Wildbreak

"Oh! That reminds me a story! One time a had this friend who put me in a box and, and threw me off a bridge! It landed in the acid wastes, but I got out of there before it landed in the acid. I saw the prettiest sunset that day. And --Wildbreak are you crying?"--Buddy

Wildbreak full on sobbing holding Buddy close.

"...no ..."--Wildbreak

If anyone came near Buddy with intention to harm, it is on sight. Wildbreak is ready to drop kick anyone who comes near Buddy. No one is going to hurt them while he's around.

[pawberri]

ok, so i just saw an anti-dni post talking about how having a dni list in bio is purposeless and annoying since it is like a 'holding a sign saying "do not kick me." ' now, i find that perspective objectionable (since obtaining a block list might be what is desired anyways and not all dni reasons have to be extremely polarizing, e.g., i dont think a minors dni will suddenly make a billion minors annoyed, making them interact w/ you immediatly) and i have a slight feeling that you disagree with that point of view too because uhhhhh.

so what i wanted to know was whether you share the same reasons to oppose that perspective, and, if not, then, what are they?

I have been getting really annoyed with the backlash to dnis... I think it's goofy when some person has a dni with a million things, but it feels reactionary to me to say "it makes no sense for you to put your boundaries and expect people to follow them." There's especially this vibe with people who post more extreme content getting mad at dnis. I think that's weird. Partially, people seem to take them as like... a sign of moral superiority or hatred... rather than just a little bit of clarity on boundaries. These people talk about "curating your online space" but have to make these posts ranting about people who do it in a way they dislike. I especially think it's dumb to say, "Just block me, why do I have to not interact with you?" because... I mean, you can't block someone you don't know exists. It's meant to be a preemptive expression of boundaries, so the other party has the chance to block you and / or just not interact.

I know that, in practice, some people have really silly, long dnis that are linked on some weird carrd that takes forever to read. I don't think it's fair to strawman the concept of expressing some of your boundaries online in a digestible format as being stupid because of that, though. Especially when a lot of the people with silly dnis are teenagers just trying to figure their life out. They'll grow out of it. It's fine.

I also think it's weird and victim blame-y to say people will naturally be harassed if they give any kind of indication of their boundaries. I sometimes get mean anons, but for the most part, my experience online is way better because I am upfront about things. I don't get too personal or say things I'm uncomfortable sharing, but I make my boundaries clear. Even when I was a teenager and getting harassed by redditors, I never had stuff I asked to be trigger tagged used against me like people fearmonger about. (I'm sure it can happen, but I think that for most people, it just results in their social circle tagging stuff for them.) Even if that did happen, I think it would cruel to say that it was my fault for daring to express a boundary. If you kick the guy who says "do not kick me", you're still being bully and a contrarian asshole. Even if I didn't express a boundary, people like that would likely harass me. If I don't express a boundary for the sake of avoiding harassment, I get in exchange an audience that will constantly be shocked and fight with me about my beliefs when they show. Then, that creates either an unpredictable level of harassment or the feeling of being harassed because I'm constantly in discourse with my followers. At best I feel miserable and hate interacting with my followers.

I think this partially comes from people who are afraid to express their boundaries for fear of backlash (ie they want to make extreme content but fear saying so will make their followers mad), but honestly I think being straight forward makes your audience more curated. The people I see who post extreme content and are clear about it seem to have an easier time than people who build an audience of a bunch of unsuspecting people and then slowly introduce untagged incest kink or something. Not saying it's a guaranteed anti-harassment tool, but I don't understand the impulse to warn for nothing and have no clear boundaries with your audience, then get mad you curated the audience you curated. I hope it doesn't come across as me victim-blaming in the opposite direction, I don't think anyone deserves harassment regardless of if I disagree with what they post online. I kind of just mean to illustrate a counter example to the idea of the dni-haver making themself a target or inherently Being A Harasser.

[the-cursed-thing]

Alright while putting tags in something I rebloged I thought of a real fun sibling dynamic thing between pre-tadpole Durge and Orin that I found funny enough that I'm making it a separate post too

(Keep in mind I am imagining my Durge in this, but hopefully overall it's general enough that it can apply to other Durge's)

I like to imagine Durge and Orin having some sort of sibling bickering and annoying each other dynamic but more demented and violent even if Durge may be a lot older than her depending on the Durge. Like the two attempting to attack (maybe kill) the other as a greeting, like throwing knives at the other when they walk into the room. Then laughing at the other if they don't dodge on time or dodge clumsily

Orin purposefully leaves her art/"corpse dollies" in the way and in places she knows will irritate or inconvenience Durge. Durge retaliating by just starting to eat them right in front of Orin. Orin yelling at Durge to stop and maybe even trying to stab them or something to get them to just drop the corpse.(maybe Orin tries to grab the corpse and pull it away from Durge but Durge won't let go so it's like they're playing tug-of-war with it or something)

Maybe they leave random organs hidden in the other one's pillow or bed in ways meant to be uncomfortable just to irritate the other. Orin hiding some of Durge's vivisection tools and making them have to bribe her for the location or spend a while looking for them.

But then occasionally they give each other tips or pointers about various things. Maybe one of them will randomly discover a new weapon that the other one definitely gave them but it's never brought up

Maybe Durge sometimes will give Orin a corpse or person for her to play with while just not directly addressing what they're doing. Maybe both of them will go on hunts in the city together, where one sets up an ambush while the other lures an unsuspecting victim towards the other that they can kill together.

Maybe they sometimes had peaceful moments where Durge may have attempted to do Orin's hair, or would help her brush and wash it. Maybe Orin would sometimes follow Durge around because she admired/admires them and wants to be more like then, but whenever Durge questions what she's doing she'd just say something about making sure Durge doesn't fuck something up or that she's just happening to go the same direction.

I just really like the idea that the two of them were at least sort of close

[card-queen]

15 Questions Tag

Super duper thanks for the tag @maskedemerald

Rules: Answer the 15 questions as your OC or yourself. Tag up to 15 people.

Tagging: @raichana @kyuponstories @aptericia @the-down-upside-finch & @mister-writes

Teach me more about your characters! Please!

Also, my answers are gonna fudge details because some of these questions are not suited for fantasy projects!

Are you named after anyone?

CAS: Aye, Castowen the Brave. Naming kids after folk heroes is pretty common where I'm from. CONORIC: I cannot answer for my real name... my birth name, but apparently Conoric is the name of a folk hero from the same tales as my brother. SARABONNEY: I should hope not! In the ancient customs of my forefathers, my name translates to 'dead flower' to confuse evil spirits. Everyone's got names that mix good and bad things. HUGHWEN: Not as far as I know. There's only one Hughwen Shelborne. GWYNNEN: I believe a great-grandfather on my mother's side. FRYSZKA: Not that I am aware! I have many names that were sponsored by relatives but to my knowledge, I am the only Fryszka I know of! PENTOS: I cannot see that is any of your business.

When was the last time you cried?

CAS: Not since my mother was still around, Lady keep her. That woman could brings tears from a statue! CONORIC: I cannot recall. (He can) SARABONNEY: A long time ago, probably. I'm not so easy to startle, you know. And besides, why does it matter? HUGHWEN: Oh, I can't tell you that! It's a good story though! GWYNNEN: I don't know if it was the last time... but it certainly is the time I remember the strongest. It was the day I decided that I needed to change things. FRYSZKA: Ooh, I'm afraid quite recently. I can be quite tearful! PENTOS: I do not believe that I... cry. (He is correct)

Do you have kids?

CAS: No, not me. If thing'd gone differently, I'd probably have 2 or 3 by now but... my calling was elsewhere. CONORIC: No. Someday... perhaps. But no. SARABONNEY: Are you joking? I've got my hands full with all my brothers and cousins! I don't think even I could handle any more mites running around needing attention! HUGHWEN: (chokes) I... cannot say for certain. I certainly cannot rule that possibility out, if you understand my meaning. GWYNNEN: Not as yet but... I have my eyes on a certain lady... so perhaps someday..? FRYSZKA: No, but when that time comes I want to have so very many! Especially girls! (she trails off, daydreaming) PENTOS: I cannot imagine anything more repulsive.

Do you use sarcasm?

CAS: Not likely. That kinda talk is liable to land me in some pretty hot water. Not that I need the help, mind you. CONORIC: No, I find it rather tiresome actually. SARABONNEY: I don't... mean to, but... people can be so frustrating. You must understand, I know it's frowned upon and all, but some days being sarcastic is preferable to... the alternatives! HUGHWEN: Does a bird have wings? ;) GWYNNEN: I find that I sound more flippant or sarcastic when faced with challenges and challengers who test my patience. FRYSZKA: Sometimes! If the spirit takes me~ PENTOS: What do you think?

What’s the first thing you notice about others?

CAS: It's hard to put in words... Generally, how they carry themselves. There's a lot to take in about a person when you first meet them. CONORIC: Where they look, if they make eye contact and that sort of thing. People often look towards that which interests them, giving me ample time to study them. SARABONNEY: I think I notice their eyes first. I tend to look there and... I dunno, I guess I just get a feel for people! Especially if they match my gaze! Which isn't all that often actually... HUGHWEN: Oooh, I shouldn't say.... All right, if you insist. I notice where they keep their money... and typically how much of it they carry. GWYNNEN: Their posture, especially their hands. In my line of work, it helps to be ready for any kind of trouble... even from the most unsuspecting of souls. FRYSZKA: They're outfit! You can tell a lot about a person by how they choose to present themselves, you know! PENTOS: Voices. They often draw me out of my thoughts...

What’s your eye colour?

CAS: That kind browny-orange that a lot of Ethelians have, right? CONORIC: They're a kind of dull red, I suppose. SARABONNEY: Oh, they're orange. Do you like them? HUGHWEN: They're orange, wouldn't you say? GWYNNEN: Dark brown. A strong Ethelian colour, or so I'm told. FRYSZKA: They a shade of pinkish red! In my native tongue, it's called 'py' and it's a colour that symbolises life and passion! Beautiful, isn't it? PENTOS: Amber, I suppose you'd call it. I really do not care.

Scary stories or happy endings?

CAS: Happy endings. If a story doesn't end well then what's the point in reading it? CONORIC: It really depends on the story. SARABONNEY: Are those my only choices? That's not very many... if pressed, I suppose I'd have to say 'scary' stories. If it all ends too happy that it just feels... I dunno... fake, I guess. HUGHWEN: Who doesn't love a happy ending? GWYNNEN: Happy endings all around. FRYSZKA: Ooh! Ohh! I have to say both! I love happy endings, especially in romance stories... but I also love being thrilled, scared and sad... especially in romance stories. I think I just romance stories. PENTOS: I prefer text books. I have no time for children's stories...

Any special talents?

CAS: Like all Ethelians worth a penny, 'm a pretty good cook. CONORIC: Nothing to boast of, I'm afraid. SARABONNEY: I know my way around all the plants and flowers in my neck of the woods. And if you've been there, then you don't need me to boast about how impressive that is! HUGHWEN: Coin tricks and gambling, mainly. Although, if you ask some of the women I've know, they might be able to add to that list. ;) GWYNNEN: I count myself as a skilled horseman. FRYSZKA: Well, I don't mean to brag, but I know my way around any marketplace and know all the typical prices of fabrics, jewellery, food and luxury goods off by heart. I'm really quite dependable! PENTOS: I have many. I was raised to be highly efficient. I know all the plant-life that grows naturally on the Eastern continent, I'm fluent in all known languages and some ancients ones (he continues on and on)

Where were you born?

CAS: Walbury, in Ethelia. It's a big town with too much going on. CONORIC: In a manor largely devoid of anything I care to remember. SARABONNEY: The tiny village of Asterwood just off the Bear King Forest. You probably haven't heard of it, it's not on many maps... HUGHWEN: Can't remember. GWYNNEN: In the manor of Canbury in the north of Ethelia. There's no place quite like it. FRYSZKA: You must'nt think ill of it, but I was actually born in Sal Rega, in Santcria. I know that all that place is known for is those poor 'Children of Sal Rega' but honestly, there is more to my home town that just tragedy! PENTOS: Kyros. You'll need permission for anything more specific.

What are your hobbies?

CAS: Woodworking and whittling. I'm pretty handy with a knife. CONORIC: I find reading quite comforting and I've been quite taken with writing down my thoughts of late. SARABONNEY: Oh, I love to cook like any proper Ethelia, but I also like to do pottery and art. I design all my jars and pots myself! (she proudly presents some of the ugliest looking pots & jars known to man). HUGHWEN: Gambling and spending money. The same as any right thinking man, don't you agree? GWYNNEN: I'm afraid I have little time for hobbies these days. My work is my life. FRYSZKA: Just a little pursuit of mine to create perfumes! I haven't made anything yet... I'm, um... studying. (she has, she is not, and the reek). PENTOS: (scoffs) You mean besides filling in asinine surveys? I suppose card games for one would count as a hobby, yes?

Do you have any pets?

CAS: Can't say I ever have had a pet. I'd love one though, a great big scary thing. CONORIC: Not unless you count messenger birds. SARABONNEY: Well... Steen's not exactly a pet, but... I do feed him and take care of him. Steen's more of a helper... he pulls the carts for me when I got to town, but... well, he's the closest thing I've got to a pet. HUGHWEN: Never had time for pets. GWYNNEN: Indeed. My household has always kept dogs. My own dog, Bron, is as eager as puppy despite getting on in his years. FRYSZKA: I have an albino snake that I take with me everywhere, her name is Petrissa! She's so tiny, sometimes I forget where I put her! PENTOS: No.

What sports do you play/have played?

CAS: I used to play a lot of street games when I was a lad but now that I'm grown, the only sport I lay claim to is the sport of Monster hunting and prying squabbling farmers apart. CONORIC: None, I'm afraid. My condition makes me rather... ill-suited for such activities. SARABONNEY: We didn't really have sports growing up... I think we just made up rules for games we only knew the names of! HUGHWEN: There's a Mizani pastime of throwing knifes and darts at targets. It's not gentlemanly to brag, I understand, but I hold a few records in some cities across the sea. GWYNNEN: Horse-racing and jousting. Not the best but by no means the worst either, mark you! FRYSZKA: Ahaha, oh dear no. I was far to inflexible and clumsy for sports. I have always enjoyed watching them though! PENTOS: Sports are a fool's activity.

How tall are you?

CAS: (He checks) So... 175cm... what's that? Like 5'9''? CONORIC: 163cm at last count. SARABONNEY: I'm 161cm, which I know is short but honestly, I can manage just fine! It's not my fault everyone else is taller! (she is of a quite average height and will not hear otherwise :/) HUGHWEN: Guess? ...no? What a shame... I'm 177cm. GWYNNEN: 185cm by my reckoning. Quite tall for an Ethelian or so I've heard. FRYSZKA: Me? I'm just a tiny little 154cm! And I truly love it! PENTOS: I am exactly 195cm, which, I believe, is 6'5''.

Favourite subject in school?

CAS: What makes you think I had a favourite subject? (laughs) I was a rotten brat of a student, never paid attention to a thing! CONORIC: History, I gather. I was rather reclusive in my studies. SARABONNEY: I'll tell you now, I wish I was reading. Would've made my life a whole lot easier... but no, I believe I was most interested in art and cooking. HUGHWEN: Oh, I found learning about chemistry quite fascinating. Do that surprise you? GWYNNEN: History and law. The two go hand-in-hand, I feel, and have shaped a lot of what irks me about that way things are today... FRYSZKA: Mathematics! Oh, I love numbers so much! It's so reassuring to have something so unifying across all of the world! PENTOS: (scoffs) All of them. The pursuit of knowledge is not something one can simply put half their heart in.

Dream job?

CAS: Oh, a dream job, is it? I think if all things settled down then I'd like to keep my duties as a Castleguard Captain. Feels good to help others and prepare the next generation too. CONORIC: I really haven't considered what the would even be... SARABONNEY: I'm not sure... I just know that I haven't found it yet. I want to do something that keeps me active, learning and helping others. Suppose that applies to a lot of jobs, doesn't it... HUGHWEN: A rich drunk? That counts as a dream job, wouldn't you agree? GWYNNEN: I once held lofty ambitions of being a county judge... a way to enact change and make life better for everyone... Ah, but these days I think I would settle for the job of beloved husband and father. FRYSZKA: Oh, you know what I would truly love? I would love to own a dress shop by the sea! PENTOS: Botanist. Thus, my studies.

[chidoroki]

182 Days of TPN - Day 13

Chapter 13: “Traitor, Part 3”

Yes yes, bravo Norman. Very clever plan that would’ve fooled me as well, though I’m surprised Ray didn’t at least go check the first two locations, but I suppose he was just feeling that confident.

Of course it’s an unfair advantage to the anime for how it handled Ray’s laugh, since we can actually hear him (& i very much prefer said laugh in dub), but also because it’s just a better shot of his madness. The panel doesn’t show us much.

I know I always give credit to Isabella for raising such high grade merchandise (& yes i still hate how that sounds too) but is it fair for me to praise Ray as well? Surely he helped behind the scenes (if only just a tiny bit) in very casual and unsuspecting ways to both mom and the children, and I mean that like not only helping Emma & Norman slowly realize the secrets of the farm but perhaps assist with the other kids by improving their scores and their daily lives.

Sure he put all his efforts to just help Emma & Norman but we now know from ch181.5 that his initial plan was to save everyone. And granted, he’s the reason for some shipments due to tests involving breaking trackers, but he’s doing his best okay?

You dunno how badly I wished they would’ve had Ray just say “Yeah” again. I know it wouldn’t be true if he answered that way, but it would be funny. To me.

Alright, please have mercy on me Norman fans, but I think I finally realized the reason I’m not the biggest fan of your precious genius.. and that is because he was so ready to just use Ray and leave him behind. Ray. One of his very best friends. The boy who has been living in a hellish reality for the past six years, doing everything he possibly can in order to give Norman & Emma a chance to escape and survive at the cost of his own life. And Norman just decides.. nah, thanks but no thanks, traitor, we don’t actually need you.. like excuse me?

There’s many characters in this series who are ready to sacrifice everything (i.e. their own lives.. or memories) for the sake of others and then there’s Norman here who’s willing to sacrifice someone else (who he is very close to) for his own benefit. Yes I know Isabella basically does the same thing by raising the children to be essentially perfect meals in order protect her own life, but it just.. feels different to me. Probably because the latter is written as a fabulous villain who we’re supposed to dislike and the former is one of our main heroes we’re supposed to root for? But how can I cheer for him when said hero is trying to abandon another hero of the story? Granted, Norman didn’t know Ray was working as a double agent at first, but the fact he was so willing to ditch Ray at the drop of a hat just never sat well with me. But thank god for his chat with our literal sunshine child with a heart of gold before this scene even took place:

“I’d take that person with us. Because if we escape, that person’s life might not be guaranteed anymore. Also.. I want to believe in us. The thing with Gilda made me realize that. Ray told me to suspect everyone. And if he says that I couldn’t see through mom’s lies, I don’t have a comeback. But even if there is a traitor who is an agent of the demons, there’s no one among our siblings who is truly bad...(continued below)”

If it wasn’t for Emma and her optimism and devotion to her family, I firmly believe Norman would’ve kept quiet to use Ray and eventually abandon him, if given the chance. So thank you best girl for saving my boy’s life way before the escape even happened.

This cute flashback conflicts with the anime as ep1 did have Conny carry Little Bunny to the front door (it disappears after, somewhere), but the manga doesn’t show the stuffed animal in her hands at all, so this little memory makes sense in the manga’s case.

I believe this conversation happens somewhere during the events of chapters 10 & 11, between more tag practice and the library meetup with Don & Gilda, as we do see her carry a kid around in ep4 at least.

Favorite panel/moment:

He just looks so.. chill and unbothered, despite the situation. Ray’s just real intrigued that Norman figured him out so efficiently.

[youngster-monster]

personally i phrase my working titles like joke articles, which is good because a. i get to simplify the plot of the fic for peabrain future me who undoubtedly will read the 3000 words of absolute nonsense and not understand a single letter of it and b. i get to add it to the pile of silly working titles. case in point, " pro gamer KABEDONS unsuspecting minimum wage worker, KILLING HIM INSTANTLY " which i will not be explaining because it is frankly way funnier that way

my little plate in front of my enclosure just reads "The Loathesome Poor Organizer" and when you look inside its just me on my hands and knees before a giant digital billboard of the drafts category in my discord server

im literally this close to giving in mark my worms

there are a few rarepairs i like that have as few as 1 (i dont want to talk about the 0 fic tags... my pairs will be so damn rare that theyre still raw) fic in the whole fandom and im (INTERNALLY, i dont interact with things i dont like) beefing with like 12 different authors because of how firmly i believe that He Would Not Say That

me liking your fics is good because youre like that entire tag. when i realized how many were yours i was like HELL YEAH!!!!!! IM EATING GOOD!!!!!!!!!

ahem, now for tag time! you get to have One of my funny working titles for the time being :) most of them are highly contextual so theyre less funny unless you get 300 dms about the precise context and frankly im subjecting you to plenty rants as is so that one i shared is, incredibly, the one that needs the LEAST explaining

I WANNA TELL YOU ABOUT HIM SO BAD oh my god everytime i get the chance to talk about him i about go nuts. i hate him so much but hes kind of iconic. he wasnt always a god and he became one because it was funny for the rp. he canonically has a one way trip to the abyss in his house and i still dont know how to explain that in lore. i want to share more about him and i Will, hopefully, but that involves removing my masquerade mask and i am still a Little too scared. SOON. YOU WILL KNOW HIM SOON

its so awesome having friends who are abnormal about things in the exact same way as you.. like youre gripping eachothers shoulders and going YOU GET IT!!!! YOU GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

beastly noises on hold until internet gets better!!!! The Animal Is Hibernating

Silly title gives nothing of the plot away, all the vibes, more at 6

I am throwing fresh fruits into your enclosure. and a pumpkin for enrichment.

I also don't interact with things i don't like because i wasn't raised in a barn but. being a hater is good for you actually. @ some authors in some tiny fandoms i'll read you but like i'll be a judgmental bitch about it

my toxic trait is that i am very proud of being so much of that tag and everyday i think about getting so much worse about it. sorry to the haters you are so valid but unfortunately a few people said they liked my stuff so now i want to feed them Forever with (unearths years-old wip ideas) peacock kael'thas au i guess???

oc has that one way trip to the abyss at home that minecraft lava pit for convenience that Pet Oblivion

[aurumacadicus]

Tumblr: Would you like to add tags so people can find your post? Me, watching the notifs roll in: I know what we're about, son.

Okay so. Witch AU. Everyone has some form of magic, but they have places where they specialize. Covens are typically just families, but it's not unheard of for a person outside of the family with the same specialty to be welcomed in. Tony is an overachiever (of course) and has two specialties because both Howard and Maria refused to have their legacy end with them. So he's one of the world's best technomancers. But he's also one of the world's leaders in horticulture, because Maria's family first made their name in providing poisons... and then pivoted to potion ingredients when being involved with poisonings became too dangerous.

This means that Tony inherited several magical plants when his parents died and had to become an expert handler pretty quickly. Maria had taught him the basics, but knowing what to do and actually doing it are two different things. And there's actually a lot of pressure for him to do well, because the Carbonell coven has some of the rarest plants in existence, and legal rights to several others. But, he overcomes. In fact, he thrives, because at the end of the day, when he's trying to escape electrical pulses and metals singing for creation, sticking his hands in the dirt and cultivating his plants soothes his racing mind and quiets his techno-ideas.

The Carbonell (and now Stark) coven's pride and joy, however, is the tentaculum papaver. Its pollen and seeds has been used in brewing and spells since the inception of the craft. Sure, basic poppies could be used instead, but they're not as potent. There are only a handful of them left in the world, though, and all of the plants outside of the Stark greenhouse were propagated from Maria's carefully cultivated original that had been passed down in her family for generations.

Tony is the only one allowed to handle it, both because he doesn't want to take the time or effort to teach someone to harvest it properly (his mother taught him over three years before he left for college, and it took another decade of trial and error to perfect upon what she'd taught him), and because he doesn't want to deal with the headache of the legal liability (nor the notoriety of 'Stark coven member sues for damages in plant sex crime'). There's only a few seconds to realize that the plant is finished being harvested and about to... fertilize. You have to be quick to get away unscathed. And Tony's worked with it so long that he knows the plant's tells, how it shifts to test where the harvester is so it doesn't waste its energy trying to snatch its prey up and miss. Most witches, even the more experienced horticulturists, give the plant a wide berth, for fear it might have a sudden growth spurt and its vines might extend further than expected. (Tony contends this only happened once, when he was experimenting with mulches, but apparently once is enough when the response was an unsuspecting person screaming and Tony frantically hacking at the vines with a machete.)

But! Tony has learned a very interesting way to double the pollen output. And perhaps that way is... a little unorthodox. In a way that other witches would probably be scandalized. Not scandalized enough not to jump on the extra sales, of course, but enough that he'd be ostracized for a bit. Maybe even lose what little coven he has now. So he pushes it to the back of his mind, keeps treating it with the same perfunctory effort he does all his magical plants. So what if pollen production goes down. Global warming or whatever. It's fine.

At least, until another coven submits an application for a propagated seedling, and to Tony's horror, the plant isn't willing to self-pollinate anymore.

All this to say that one of the Avengers walks in on Tony getting fucked by the magic plant because that's apparently the only way it's willing to pollinate and drop seeds anymore.

Stupid tentacle porn idea

[bastillewolf]

Shinigami Eyes (I)

Pairing: Corpse Husband / Reader

Summary: When you’re paired up with Corpse as imposters in a game of Among Us, you seem to somehow apprehend each others strategies even though it’s the first time you’ve ever played together. He appreciates a good impostor.

Notes: I know I still have many fics I need to finish, but I just wanted to throw out a quick Corpse one because sad to say I’ve been simping for him too. By the way, this is my interpretation of him and this is just for fun. Also, I haven’t written for second person in a while, so I’m sorry if this sucks.

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Shinigami Eyes - Oneshot

“Hey, I wanted to invite Corpse,” Sean said right as the Among Us theme started playing on your computer.

“Great vooooice,” Grease called out.

“Oh, I haven’t played with him before,” you said. It was true, but you’d heard of his legendary voice before and your viewers had been asking for him. You’d only allow it because No Simp September was over. Chat was already going mad.

“You’ll love him. Unless he murders you, because he’s a great imposter,” Sean replies. “He’s too good,” Felix adds.

After a moment, you heard the familiar noise of someone joining the Discord. “Hello everyone,” a deep rumble greeted. The group all said their welcomes, while you introduced yourself. “Very nice to meet you, Corpse,” you added. You didn’t want to comment on the obvious. He must hear it all the time. But you couldn’t deny it was like silk to your ears.

“Nice to meet you to. You make great vids.” A blush spread across your cheeks, “You shouldn’t say things like that, chat is already jealous.” He chuckled.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Impostor

Great, you’re instantly sweating. Thankfully, though, it seems you were lucky enough to have been teamed up with the king of lying himself. Corpse’s name is as bloodred as yours.

You decide to follow him after Toast and Sean, and think about how it was Sean who ironically invited the person who was going to murder him in just a few moments. All four of you were being decontaminated below lab, when Corpse made stepped a tad closer to him. You almost synchronically chopped their heads off, and you squealed in excitement. 2 down, 4 to go. As long as no one would find their bodies for a while, you still had time.

Next thing, you’re out of the South entrance and you’ve split up. You join Sykkuno in electric and just wait on him to do his task. Felix joins you afterwards in the next room. That’s when Toast’s body, and ultimately Sean’s, is reported.

Corpse had run back and self-reported.

“Corpse and I just ran into decontamination and found Sean and Toast,” Rae announced.

You were still muted. “Oh god, he’s playing a dangerous game.”

Sykkuno decided it would be the perfect time to call you out. “You and Felix only joined me a while later and decided to stay. Kinda sus of you.”

“No, she was with me at the beginning. I watched her do a task in office,” your fellow impostor vouched. They’d been right, he’s a damn good liar. He manages to hide any sliver of emotion in that deep baritone.

“I don’t trust Corpse anymore, he does stuff like this all the time when he’s impostor,” Lily noted.

“Stuff like what?” He huffed in amusement.

The group agreed the accusation made was a bit vague, and it had affectively directed the attention away from you and onto Felix. After another round of some serious investigating and threatening you all decided to skip.

“Corpse makes me feel less nervous about being an impostor,” you tell chat, “He seems so chill about it.” You ran down to Weapons, but decided against killing anyone when you found three people doing tasks there. You shoved yourself into the clump of bodies and waited until everyone had finished. Running back up to centre with both Lily and Rae, you felt restless that you would eventually have to kill one of them. You just hoped they wouldn’t take it personally.

Corpse ran past, alone. Your characters didn’t have eyes, but somehow they showed a mutual understanding. He killed Lily, you killed Rae. You sputtered and chortled and followed right on after him down into the venthole. He met you in the bathroom stall. “Cosy,” you joked. Until Grease walked in. “Oh, that’s awkward.” You realized you were still standing suspiciously over the venthole. “Shit.”

You didn’t know where Grease had gone, but your first instinct was to hit the red emergency meeting button in the Office. “Grease was in the bathroom stall hovering over a vent.” You may not have your fellow impostors emotionless tone, but you knew laughing through your accusation usually worked.

“Are you kidding me?! I just saw you and Corpse standing in there doing I don’t know what!” Grease yelled.

“That’s a bold statement. You know I’d never cheat on Sykkuno,” Corpse said. “Wait, what?” the man in question replied. Corpse ignored him.

“Corpse was with me when I found you there. On another note I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people vent at the same time before.” Two truths, technically.

“Alright, I’m voting Grease,” Felix said, “I’m sensing liar voice.”

Sykkuno suspected Grease and you, but promised he’d vote you out after if he was wrong. “We have to vote now,” you reminded them.

Grease was ejected.

You met Corpse again in laboratory, where only Felix was doing a task. No one moved. “Oh no, you may have the honours,” you gracefully called out to an unsuspecting impostor. He seemed to get the message through however, and swiftly killed Felix when the Kill button was set to press again.

Defeat.

 “Oh my god, that was so stressful,” you cried out. Corpse chuckled, “Don’t worry, you did great.”

“Hey, don’t you dare steal him,” Sean threatened, “He’s my impostor mate!” You laughed.

“You murdered me and Lily almost synchronically,” Rae sputtered, to which Sean added, “Oh my god, same here. It was some nasty psychic shit.” “Corpse and I just have the Shinigami eyes,” you explained. You saw Corpse’s name flash in the top left corner, but only heard him exhale in amusement. It was cute.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Impostor

“Oh… my… god.” Has this ever happened before in this game? Either way, no one will suspect both of you to be it again. You imagine he was feeling similarly, as he hadn’t moved from the spawn point yet. “How in the fuck…?” Chat was confused, but seemed to enjoy the spectacle.

You and corpse split up this time. Don’t use the same tactics twice.

You followed Felix and Sykkuno into Office and faked a task. They decided to wait for you, and you kept your eyes on the green bar until it moved. You travelled trough Admin and Decontamination until you met up with Lily in Labs. “Shit,” you murmured, “There’s too many people. I’m gonna look suspicious.”

Corpse showed up. Lily and Sykkuno left. You killed Felix. Toast walked in, and unfortunately at the hands of your teammate, he did become toast.

You ran in a circle around him and hoped it was enough of a hint for him to follow you. He picked up on it and followed you into the bathroom stall. But neither of you vented. You let a smile slip, almost forgetting you had a face cam. Awkwardly clearing your throat, you explained to your viewers in a very non-convincing way this was just a good impostor strategy. They’d do well to learn from it.

The bodies were reported instantly, and you cursed under your breath. Lily was the one who reported it. “So, I found Felix in Labs and there were only two other people in there before me and Sykkuno left.”

“I went down through Decontamination,” you explained, “I lost Corpse back at Labs.”

“I went back North, I passed you on the way there, Lily.”

Lily was sus of you. “What? Why?!” You asked. “Because I didn’t see anyone in Decontamination and there’s no way you could’ve gone through there that quickly. I wasn’t gone that long,” she said.

Well, shit. “Weren’t the lights off? You couldn’t possibly see me in Decontamination. I’m wondering why you walked back into Labs anyway, Lily.”

A series of ‘ooh’s were heard through the Discord call.

“But I was running up that hallway, I didn’t see you come out,” Grease suddenly spoke up.

“Why were you in there, Grease?” Corpse asked, but you knew it was already too late.

“I was running up to do my task in Labs. I didn’t see her come through the doors before the body was reported.”

“I wasn’t out of Decontamination yet,” you ground out. It was of no use, however. More than half of the people left voted you out, including Lily, Grease, Sean and Corpse, since he had an image to maintain as fake crewmember.

HeartEyes was ejected.

You decided, both out of your own interest and for content’s sake, to follow Corpse as a ghost. He seemed to be having the same trouble as you, suddenly being surrounded by a group of people. “That’s rough. He’s gonna have to kill five more people.”

That was when he bravely decided to take action. Sabotage the reactor, follow everyone there, jump into the lump of people trying to fix the problem and kill so no one would know who did it. He self-reported it in the blink of an eye.

The group was indeed confused, to say the least. Grease had died. “Wait, who was the last to come in?” Sean asked. “It was me,” Corpse admitted, “But I did the handprint scan because no one else was doing it. Weren’t you standing there doing that with Lily?” “Yeah, I had to wait because it wasn’t working.”

“What?!” Lily exclaimed, in only a way she could, “I was doing the scan! It was Sean, then!” The two suspects were starting a heavy discussion, whilst your eyes were trained on the red of Corpse’s name.

The group decided to vote out Lily, as she was the one to report the last murder.

“Is he just… Killing the people who voted for me?” you muttered. Shaking your head, you continued, “Nah, it has to be coincidence.”

But then a body was found, and Corpse said he suspected Sean again. Was he actually working down the list? “Is he avenging me? That’s so sweet, no one has ever done that for me before…” Just a video game, you had to remind yourself. It was just a video game you were playing with friends. And a man with a very nice voice who’d just murdered everyone who did you wrong. Just a game, yes.

Turns out, Corpse really knew how to put his voice to use, as Sean was ejected. He managed to kill Sykkuno and Dave after that, and the game was won by the imposters.

“AGAIN?!” Felix yelled, “How did you two get teamed up again?!” “That’s bullshit,” Sean laughed.

You smiled, as Corpse said, “Us Shinigami’s have to stick together.” It made you blush. “Thanks for avenging me, Corpse. That was very sweet of you.” He chuckled, “Any time. I don’t mind killing people when I have a good teammate.”

“Hey! I’m still here too, you know!” Sean yelled upset.

“It was really fun playing with you guys,” you said, stretching your arms. You’d already been streaming for three hours, it was time to go. Everyone said goodbye, but you didn’t hear Corpse. And you wished it hadn’t twisted your stomach in the way it did.

You wished your viewers a nice day, and promised to update them on Twitter when you’d be streaming next. You were done for the day.

Yet, as you’d closed all tabs and were about to close Discord, you got a call. It was private, and it was from Corpse.

“Hey, miss me already?” you jokingly said.

He chuckled quietly. He suddenly seemed a lot shyer now, being extracted from the group. “Nice game.”

“Yeah, you really know how to keep your emotions hidden. I was impressed, to say the least.”

“You were really good, too. I can appreciate a good imposter.”

You bit your lip. “Hm, I hope to see some more of that appreciation in the future. It was rather nice having someone avenge me.”

“I’d do it again any time. Hiding in the toilet was a good strategy, by the way.”

You snorted at that, “Not good enough, it seems. They voted me out.”

“Big mistake. Nobody kills my teammate.”

“Aww, did the Shinigami catch feelings for the human?”

He rumbled, “I thought you weren’t human?”

You didn’t comment on the fact that he’d failed to answer the original suggestion you’d made. “Touché.”

It was quiet for a moment, and you wondered if you’d crossed a line there and made the wrong assumptions about where the conversation was going. You quickly added, “Are you playing again this week?”

“Yeah, Sean said they’d stream again this Thursday.”

“I suppose I’ll see you there, then.”

He hummed. You sensed there was more to it, though. He hadn’t made any indication he wanted to end the call yet. But then he finally said, “I hope we get teamed up again. So you can get your own revenge.”

“I hope so too.”

***

Might do a follow up to this oneshot, if anyone asks for it. Will definitely create more for Corpse, he’s a lot of fun to write.

[frostedfaves]

Naive (1)

Masterlist

Pairing: demon!Wanda Maximoff x fem!reader

Summary: Of all the humans Wanda has met, you’re suddenly her favorite.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, dark!fic, demon things™️ (be warned that this shit will get much darker in the future), subtle hand kink (don’t @ me)

A/N: special shoutout to the anon that inspired this fic series, I hope you enjoy this weird combo of AOU x IW Wanda. also if you have any previous knowledge of demons, throw it out the window before you read this because I guarantee that things will not add up here lmao

-

Wanda’s favorite thing about interacting with humans is her effect on them.

Walking through a crowd is fine. She’ll brush a few shoulders and rattle a few unsuspecting adults, flash solid black eyes at kids that either stare or scream. It’s temporary and brings a bit of fun to an otherwise dull day.

The real joy comes from direct contact. Wanda travels miles away from her apartment building, choosing different stores, restaurants and cafés just to keep things interesting. A new cashier each time. She’ll have an air of friendliness about her that isn’t exactly fake; she finds most humans to be charming, despite their fragile minds.

“Will that be all?��� Roy--according to his name tag--asks with a grin and Wanda nods in response. “Okay, your total is $21.14. You can just swipe or insert your card in the machine there.”

Wanda inserts her card carefully, complimenting the decor as she waits for the transaction to be completed. After returning it to her wallet, she flashes a soft smile at Roy as he hands her the receipt, purposefully brushing her fingers with his. As his skin makes contact with one of her rings, she notices the goosebumps rising along his arm and hears his breathing pattern change.

“Roy? Everything alright?”

She hears the concerned voice of a coworker as she makes her way to a table to wait for her meal, already seated by the time Roy coughs in an effort to collect himself.

“Yeah, just feeling off I guess. I’ll be fine.”

A chuckle falls from her lips as she watches the poor cashier attempt to return to his previous state of mind, finding the urge to smile and wave when his eyes cut over to her. His voice trembles when he calls her name and he stands as far away as possible when she approaches the counter to grab her order.

“Thanks for everything, Roy.”

Sensing that he’s startled enough without it, she keeps her other tricks hidden in her sleeves and simply walks away, holding her laughter until the doors close behind her. A good meal with a side of human interaction, her absolute favorite.

-

The next day brings Wanda to a bookstore around lunchtime. She takes a minute to browse the aisles, taking an exceptionally long time lingering in the section harboring books on angels and demons. The stereotypes amuse more than upset her like they used to in the beginning.

“Is there anything I can help you with?”

Wanda turns to make eye contact with the employee behind her, about to ask a question for the fun of it when a laugh catches her attention. Her gaze redirects to the café counter straight ahead, and a warm feeling washes over her when she hears the laugh again.

You’re genuinely entertained by the elderly woman purchasing a bagel with exact change, and Wanda manages to catch the end of the conversation as she draws near.

“Safe to say, I haven’t worn the blouse since that day.” She bids you farewell with her bagel and receipt in hand, eyes twinkling as she observes Wanda on her way past. “You have such bright and beautiful hair, dear.”

“Thank you,” Wanda responds with sincerity, attention locked on you while approaching the counter. “Hi.”

“Hey,” you greet her with a voice much calmer than the one you use with most of your other customers. “What can I get you today?”

You watch the orange haired woman turn her head to study the items behind the glass, taking the time to do your own inspection. You admire the dark red jacket that covers most of her torso, gaze lingering on the multiple rings hugging her fingers that seem to be smoothing nonexistent wrinkles in her dress, almost in a nervous fashion. It brought you a bit of comfort, assuming that she was affected in the same way.

“What do you recommend?”

“Oh, well…” You walk over to open the glass case from your side of the counter, naming each item as you grab it. “I usually have this pretzel that’s stuffed with spinach and cheese and this brownie. I can heat both of them for you, if you’d like.”

“I would love that,” Wanda responds in a grateful tone, placing a bottle of water on the counter after taking it from the fridge. “And I’ll also have one of these incredibly overpriced waters.”

You begin her order with a laugh, and she watches you ring everything up with the speed and expertise of a seasoned employee, wondering how she’d gone this long without running into you. The total price is brought to the digital screen just before her card is inserted, and she takes the time to quickly slip her rings into her pockets while you’re taking the pretzel and brownie over to the miniature oven. The last thing she wants to do is scramble your brain before she even gets the chance to explore it.

“Here’s your receipt,” you announce while giving Wanda the slip of paper, your eyes lingering on her hand for a moment before looking at her again. “Your food should be ready soon.”

“Okay, thank you…” Her sentence trails off as she searches for your name, the letters rolling off her tongue with ease when she finally locates it on the apron covering your chest.

“You’re welcome…” You trail off in the same fashion and she catches on quickly.

“Wanda.”

“You’re welcome, Wanda,” you repeat as you hand her the water bottle before she can walk away.

Less than two minutes later, you approach the table she’s taken over with two small ceramic plates and a sheepish grin.

“I should’ve asked if you were going to stay a while, but I can grab some bags if you need to go.”

Wanda shakes her head with a laugh as she takes them from you, startling you when she doesn’t react to the excessive heat radiating from the dishes.

“This is perfect.”

She takes her time with eating, and your attention is drawn to her between customers, grateful that she’s too busy with her phone to notice your stares. On the other hand, Wanda’s mind is filled with thoughts of you. What you look like when you think she can’t see you glancing over, what you smelled like when you were close. The nerves, the kindness, the desire to learn her name despite her being just another customer to you. She knows that you noticed her missing rings, but she’s already prepared with a cover story. A two minute conversation has her dying to pick your brain more, learn your habits and become more familiar with your body, beyond a simple brush of your fingertips. She already wants you to herself, just the way you came, without her interference for now; that’ll come later.

A good meal with a side of human interaction, her absolute favorite.

-

Despite Wanda leaving an hour before your shift ended, she lingers in your thoughts on the bus ride and walk home. You find yourself recalling her kind smile, fidgeting fingers and the scent of her perfume when she passed you on her way out, and you’re so deep in your memories that you end up colliding with your apartment door.

“That’s not going to get you inside any faster, dear.”

Your cheeks burn as you face Ruth for the second time today, the first time being earlier when you sold her a bagel.

“I know, Ruthie,” you respond sheepishly as you pull your keys from your pocket. “Is everything okay? You’re usually in bed watching a cowboy show by now.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to come home so I could talk to you.” She checks to see if the hallway is empty before opening her door and waving you over. “Come on, quickly.”

You scurry into the apartment behind her, taking in the scene before you while she locks the door. Having visited her before, you know she keeps the television at a higher volume, but it seems louder than normal.

“I know I might seem like I’ve lost my marbles, but I wanted to warn you about that woman you saw today....The one with the bright hair.”

“You mean Wanda?” you question, eyes widening when she nods. “Warn me about what?”

“There’s something off about that Wanda, if that even is her real name.” She snatches her arm out of her robe and brings it closer for you to see. “I’ve had these chills since I brushed against her earlier. Something’s not right with her. How do you even know her name? I’ve never seen her before.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” you assure her as you help her slip her arm back in the sleeve. “I only know her name because we were having a friendly conversation and she used mine. I was just being polite to someone I’ll probably never even see again.”

“Just be careful,” she pleads as you head toward her door again, and you offer your best attempt at a relaxed smile.

“I’ll be fine, Ruthie. Get some rest, okay?”

You hear her lock the door behind you as you make your way back to your own apartment, rushing through the process of unlocking the door and securing it once you’re inside. As much as you don’t want to let Ruth get you worked up over a stranger, you can’t help thinking about the odd little things you noticed earlier. 

It isn’t unusual for someone to linger after buying food or drinks from your counter, whether they have homework or even just a phone to keep them busy. Wanda seemed to be waiting for someone the entire time, and you remember hoping that she wasn’t on a date, despite not wanting her to be stood up. But she simply slid her phone in her pocket and departed with a friendly wave as if nothing had happened.

You especially remember her waving at you with those ringless fingers, and wondering silently where the intricate jewelry had disappeared to. Obviously you just assumed that the rings were tucked away on her person and not dumped in the trash, but she doesn’t seem like the type of person to give up on her accessories in the middle of the day. Part of you--a part that you didn’t dare to address--wondered if she’d emptied her hands to send you a subtle sign. No, that can’t possibly be it.

Sleeping proves to be difficult with so many unanswered questions floating about, but you eventually give into the act. A few hours later, you peel open your eyes when you think you hear something in the room. The digital clock that sits on your bedside and serves as an alarm and occasional radio reads 3:34am, and you’re just about to close your eyes again when you hear another sound. You raise your head to turn toward your closet, and a scream is trapped in your throat as you catch sight of a figure in the shadows.

The next time you wake, the sun is out and your alarm is blaring on the nightstand beside you. Your gaze flickers over to the closet as you reach out to silence it, your heartbeat dropping slightly when you don’t see anything other than clothes. Deciding that you must’ve been dreaming, you shake away the fearful thoughts and head to the bathroom to start getting ready for another day of work.

The only thing you haven’t decided on yet is whether you want to see Wanda again.

[seita]

— don’t ask | hitoshi shinsou (m.)

pairing: hitoshi shinsou/f!reader

genre: angst, fluff, smut

wordcount: 𝟷𝟹𝟻𝟿𝟶

cw: roommate!au, sugar baby!au

tags: heavy pining, arguments, briefly ft.kaminari, rejection, possessiveness, jealousy, crying, dirty talk, pet names, dom!shinsou, fingering, riding, cunnilingus, multiple orgasms, praise (?), marking, creampie, angst with a happy ending.

note: this is a thank you for 5k followers! i can’t believe i hit such a milestone in only like a month and a half! i appreciate the love and support everyone has given me and i promise to put out more quality content going forwarad!

— you thought it was strange a guy your age made such good money by seemingly doing nothing. whenever you would question him about his income, he’d grow defensive. once a month, a left the house for a few days; leaving to perform a mysterious job he didn’t want you to know about.

⇦ back to navigation

© all content belongs to seita 2020. do not modify or repost.  

When you saw the flier for someone looking for a new roommate, you honestly thought it was one big scam. You assumed that the second you set up a meeting, you would be kidnapped and never seen again. 

Being a lowly college kid meant you didn’t have your sea legs in the adult world quite yet. Swamped with studies, horrible at managing your time and your stress levels, you were left a constant mess. So, your solution was to stick to studying for the most part and work part-time so the job didn’t take up too much of your time. 

Another genius idea you had was the age-old roommate situation. You started out looking for listings online for preferably Musutafu or Tokyo. Alas, you came up with nothing after a handful of weeks and were intending to give up. 

However, a stop by the grocery store changed everything. It was a flyer for someone looking for a roommate in an area of Tokyo that you knew to be pretty pricey. 

It was close enough to your college campus so you wouldn’t have to worry about a stupid commute. You thought it was too good to be true as you looked at the information stating you wouldn’t even need to pay rent. You’d simply have to split some bills and buy your own groceries. 

The idea of not having to shell out hundreds of dollars a month was appealing on its own; you’d definitely be able to save with a living situation like that. 

The logical side of you was weary, however. The entire thing could be a ploy to trick some unsuspecting victim, like yourself, into who knows what. 

Still, it probably wouldn’t hurt to contact the person just in case it wasn’t a trick. No harm in checking, you supposed. 

Tugging the flyer down from where it was pinned up on the bulletin board, you folded it up and tucked it away in the front pocket of your purse to take care of when you got home from classes. 

All of that led you to meeting one Hitoshi Shinsou. He was a tall, tired looking guy around your age. His most prominent feature was the fluffy mess of purple hair that was atop his head. When you first met him, he fixed you with a cold gaze ― his purple irises burning holes into you. And for a second you were sure that you were right on your hunch and you were never going to return home. 

Nothing of consequence happened, naturally, and instead he showed you the bedroom you would be using and handed you a key before sitting down on the couch to watch TV. The whole exchange was unlike anything you expected. When you questioned him he simply told you he’d get everything straight for you and that you could begin to move in whenever. 

So you did.

As expected of such an expensive apartment, the room you were given was great. It was roomy and nothing like you assumed you would wind up with. Most college students wind up with a shitty roommate, a one-bedroom apartment, and instant ramen for dinner every night. 

Instead you got the chillest roommate known to mankind. Shinsou barely even made a peep. Most of the time you found him relaxing in front of the TV watching murder documentaries. You did learn that the poor guy had insomnia and as a result was up almost every night. Sometimes you would catch him snoozing on the couch but that rarely lasted more than 2 or 3 hours before he was up and about once again. 

You did learn that the man was a lousy cook so he mostly lived on instant ramen before you moved in. Luckily for him, you enjoyed cooking and decided to be the one to make meals for the two of you. To say Shinsou was appreciative was an understatement. 

Simply put, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. 

And so bloomed an easy friendship with him. Shinsou made it easy to befriend, although he was a quiet guy he was funny and charismatic; the type of guy who probably had a lot of friends. 

You lived there for about a month when you noticed the first weird disappearance. 

You had been laying in bed, eyes closed as you slowly began to drift off to the white noise of your overhead fan. 

What lulled you from your daze was the beep of the alarm at the front door. Sitting up, you listened carefully only to hear a couple beeps and the click of the door shutting. 

Frowning, you got out of the bed and wrapped your blanket around your shoulders to shield yourself from the chilled apartment air. Your footsteps were silent as you padded your way to the entryway. You immediately noticed that Shinsou’s shoes were gone from where they should have been sitting beside the front door. 

You checked his bedroom to find that he was, indeed, not there. You simply assumed he had gone for a walk or to a convenience store or something since he couldn’t sleep and went back to bed. That was certainly not something uncommon for the insomniac you called a roommate. 

When you got up in the morning, however, you noticed he was still gone. 

You wandered into the kitchen, intending to open the fridge to start something for breakfast only to find a cute cat-themed sticky note plastered to the front of it. Written in your roommates sloppy handwriting was “I won’t be home for a few days.”

Short and to the point but still causing questions to arise in response. 

You had no choice but to carry on. You could text him and question him but you had a feeling you wouldn’t actually get any information. 

Two days was how long he was gone for. He turned on the second night, looking as tired as usual. 

“I’m home,” he called with a heavy sigh, kicking his shoes off before dropping the heavy duffle bag he carried to the floor. 

“Hey,” you greeted over the back of the couch, “I uh...made dinner but I didn’t make any for you. I didn’t know when you’d be home.”

“It’s fine, I already ate anyway,” he hummed, dropping his full weight onto the empty cushion beside you. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. 

You eyed him and decided to simply not ask about the hickey on his pale skin. 

The time ticked past midnight and you stood up, yawning as you stretched, “I’m heading to bed.”

“Alright,” he mumbled, finally stealing the remote from you, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Hey…” you paused at the entrance to the hallway, deciding to chance it, “Where did you go anyway?”

“...To work,” he replied, simply. 

His tone held a sense of finality to it, leaving no room for you to inquire exactly what that meant. So, with a final bid, you went to your bedroom. 

It was almost like deja vu, laying in bed as you fell asleep only to hear the beeping of that alarm. You sat up and climbed out of bed, intending to catch Shinsou before he was gone but as you reached the living room, you heard the front door click shut and he was gone. 

Sighing, you wandered to the kitchen to find another note like you’d seen last time stuck to the fridge. 

As you glanced at the calendar on the wall, you realized it was almost exactly a month since the last time he did this ― you remembered because he left on the 23rd and it was currently the 22nd. You could practically feel the dots forming but you had absolutely no way of connecting them. 

Deciding to retire to bed, you attempted to sleep but found yourself thinking of Shinsou. 

Two months in a row he vanished around the same time, in the middle of the night leaving only a note. Now that you thought about it, he didn’t seem to have a job ― he only said his disappearance was part of his job. But he came back with a hickey. 

Sighing, you rolled over and attempted to fall asleep. 

Two days later, he came home. 

“I’m back,” he grumbled. 

Immediately, you noted the aggravated tone to his voice. Sitting up from where you were sprawled out on the couch, you eyed him. Instead of just dropping his duffle bag like he had last time, he took it straight to the laundry room. 

As he disappeared into the kitchen, you got up and followed him. He was squatting on the floor, rummaging through the bag as he tossed out pieces of clothing. You leaned on the door jam with your arms folded on your chest. Whether or not he knew you were there, you didn’t know. 

“There’s some dinner left for you,” you said softly, watching him pause and look over his shoulder at you.

“I already ate,” he replied, voice cold. 

You frowned, standing up straight, “Alright, well…” you sighed, “I’ll wrap it up and put it in the fridge in case you get hungry tonight.”

He didn’t reply but you kept watching him. He moved to fully sit on the floor, stretching his legs out in front of him with a grunt. You noticed that he was separating the clothes into two piles. Closer inspection brought your attention to the price tags attached to the clothes in one pile. 

You found yourself wondering where he got those clothes from but you decided not to ask. He seemed to be in a rather sour mood. 

He left the new clothes on the floor and dumped the others into the washing machine. With quick efficiency, he started the cycle and stuffed the remaining clothes back into his bag. 

You backed up to allow him to leave the laundry room. His shoulders were stiff and his posture was tense. It was a complete 180 from how you usually saw him. 

“You um...you alright?”  you finally asked when he sat down on the couch. 

He barely spared you a glance before propping his feet up on the coffee table, turning the TV on. Realizing you weren’t getting a response, you attempted to brush off the brief anger that flashed through you and instead went to the kitchen to clean everything up. 

You didn’t know why he was being so rude to you ― it’s not like you did anything to him. Deciding to just head to your bedroom to study, you shut off the kitchen light and skirted behind the couch to avoid getting in his way of the TV. 

He didn’t say a word as you disappeared down the hallway. 

As opposed to last time, his ‘work’ seemed to have not gone too well this time around. At least the last time, he was just tired and feeling lazy. 

You could still hear the TV going when you put all your stuff away and crawled into bed. 

The next morning, you awoke with a sigh. Sitting up, you stretched until you felt your joints pop.

As you wandered out of your bedroom, you heard the shower going, indicating Shinsou was still around. Not that you were expecting any different. 

You fixed a quick, simple breakfast for you and Shinsou, hearing the shower turn off as you finished. Wiping your washed hands on your pants, you made your way to the bathroom.

You only got to knock on the door once before it was yanked open. Suddenly, your mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. 

He stood there, his usual fluffy hair flattened and hanging haphazardly around his face. He wore his usual bored expression despite the fact he was standing there, dripping wet with only a towel around his waist. Immediately, you got a whiff of his body wash and shampoo, making you swallow thickly. 

Fuck, he smelled really good. You always thought so, when he sat on the couch beside you, you could always smell that delicious, musky scent of his body wash mixed with the spice of his cologne. But freshly washed with it, you were nearly salivating at the smell. 

“Um…” you swallowed thickly, tearing your gaze away from the well built muscles under those baggy clothes he always wore, “B-Breakfast is ready…”

“Okay,” he mumbled, moving to skirt around you. 

You sighed, assuming he was still in a shit mood again. Running a hand through your hair, you shook the delectable sight of him fresh out of the shower from your mind. As you went to go back to the kitchen, a large hand grappled around your wrist. 

“Hey,” he mumbled. You looked over your shoulder to see him nervously rubbing the back of his neck, a habit you’d seen numerous times before, “I’m sorry...about yesterday.”

“Huh?” you raised a brow, trying to ignore how big his hand was around your wrist. 

“I was in a shit mood and I took it out on you,” he explained, “So I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh,” you relaxed slightly and smiled, realizing he was actually in a decent mood today, “It’s okay.”

He gave you his own relieved smile, making your heart lurch in your chest at the sight. It was rare to see any other expression beyond that tired, bored look he always wore. Finally releasing his hold on your wrist, he spoke again, “Let me get dressed and I’ll come eat.”

“Alright,” you nodded, biting your lip as he turned his back to you. As he walked you could see the way the muscles flexed under the skin. 

When he finally vanished through his bedroom door, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Shaking your head you moved back to the kitchen intending to stuff your face to forget about how hot Hitoshi Shinsou really was. 

Before, you thought he was good looking. Usually dark circles were unbecoming but they looked almost at home on his face. His skin was nearly flawless and looked soft to the touch ― you’d seen the skincare products housed in his cabinet. It was expensive shit too. Seriously, what was the guy's job?

That thought had your mind wandering back to the monthly disappearances. 

The chair scraped against the floor as he came back ― wearing a baggy t-shirt and black sweats. He immediately dug in and began to eat. 

“So...I have to ask,” he paused, brows coming together in a scowl as you uttered those words.

“Don’t ask,” he mumbled, shaking his head.

“I just wanted to ask...if this is a monthly thing. I’ve only been here for 2 so...I just wanted to make sure,” you clarified, watching his shoulder relax. He seemed extremely defensive over any questions related to his ‘job’, you noted. 

“Yeah. Once at the end of the month I leave for two days to work,” he answered simply, obviously avoiding giving any more information that you could feed off of. 

He was smart at least. 

The sun finally dipped below the horizon and the two of you were sitting on the couch watching TV. He had some documentary on but truthfully you weren’t paying a whole lot of attention to it. 

For some reason, your mind kept bringing you back to the sight that morning of Shinsou. As you looked at him sitting beside you, arm tossed casually over the back of the couch as he slouched with his legs spread, you found yourself admiring him. 

He had a sharp jaw and pretty lips. A look lower, your eyes landed on his hands ― long, pretty fingers with prominent veins beneath the pale skin. 

Suddenly, his sharp gaze cut from the TV to you and you found yourself locked in a gaze with him for a split second before you broke away to look at the TV once more. In your peripheral, you swear you saw a smirk crossing his face. 

But he didn’t comment and for that, you were thankful. 

You bid him goodnight and as usual, he stayed up. You began to wonder if the man even tried to sleep anymore. 

You stepped into the bathroom, warning your roommate that you were taking a shower. He shouted back a simple ‘okay’ before you shut the door. 

You stepped under the stream of water after stripping, the steam of the hot water filling the bathroom and relaxing your muscles. You tipped your head back to wet your hair, humming to yourself. 

You eyed Shinsou’s body wash sitting in the purple caddy handing on a hook on the wall. It brought you back to how nice he smelled when he was close to you. When you could feel his body warmth radiating off of him. You would look at him, his shoulders broad and his body warm and inviting. It was nearly impossible to resist the urge to cuddle yourself into his chest. 

You wondered what it would be like to lay against him, his arms wrapped around you as he softly stroked your skin. Maybe he would press a soft kiss to your forehead ― the idea alone made you melt. 

Realizing you had lost yourself in thought, you hurried to finish your shower and get to bed. 

You fell asleep with Shinsou on your mind that night. 

Shinsou’s third monthly work time finally rolled around once again. This time, you stayed up late so Shinsou had no choice but the interact before he left. You were hoping to maybe get more hints about what it is he did. 

He shut his bedroom door, hoisting his duffle bag over his shoulder with a grunt. You were surprised to see him in actual clothes ― rather nice ones as well. 

His jeans fit him perfectly and the button down shirt he wore was tucked in, showing off his lean figure. The belt buckle on his jeans indicated it was name brand and you found yourself wondering how much his job even paid. 

“I’ll be home same as usual,” he mumbled, bending down to slide his shoes on at the door. He looked so good doing just a simple task and you found your heart racing in your chest. His shoulders were accented so well by his shirt. The sleeves were rolled up halfway on his forearms and there was an expensive looking watch on one of his wrists. 

Butterflies erupted in your stomach as he opened the door ― suddenly finding that you didn’t want him to leave. 

“Um…” you called, making him pause in the open door, looking over his shoulder with a brow raised in question, “You...uh…” you struggled to find something to say but he waited patiently for you to form your next words, “Have a nice time...come home soon.”

Your heart thudded painfully as you watched his gaze soften, a smile forming on his lips as he nodded, “I’ll see you later, ______.”

Your ears were ringing as he shut the door, the sound of your name coming from his lips echoing in your head. You sunk down onto the couch, hand on your chest as you came to a startling realization. 

You had a crush on your roommate. 

Living with Shinsou after coming to terms that you had a crush on him was...difficult to say the least. Simple things he did that you used to pay no mind to, you now found yourself getting jittery at the sight. 

Like the way he rubbed his eyes with a fist when he woke up from a nap on the couch, a sound you could only describe as a whine coming from his throat as he sat up. 

The day your kitchen sink stopped working and he had to fix it was one you wouldn’t ever forget. He was leaning beneath the sink, in the cabinet on his back as he fiddled with some tools on the pipes. His white t-shirt became see-through as he sweat from the hard work, his biceps flexing with every movement he made. His shirt rode up a bit over his stomach, exposing his abs that moved and rippled with every movement. His sweats were riding low on his hips, exposing that delicious v-line and happy trail that vanished beneath the band.

The worst part was the way you could see everything in those gray sweatpants he wore. You were pretty sure he wasn’t wearing any underwear. 

You had to leave the room and hide in your bedroom with the window open until he finally finished fixing it. 

You definitely didn’t let your hand slide down your panties to the mental image of him that night. 

Despite living together for nearly four months, you knew close to nothing personal about Shinsou. Putting aside his weird, shady two-day job once a month, you didn’t have anything else to go off of on who he was. 

He was a quiet guy who liked documentaries, video games, and had insomnia. He really loved to eat breakfast foods and cats. Although you hadn’t been in his room even once, only had a couple peeks inside, you knew he owned some cat-themed stationary at the very least. 

Despite his cold appearance, he was actually quite kindhearted and gentle but seemed to have no desire to show it unless necessary. One time, you cut your finger while cooking and you swear you’d never seen him run faster to get a bandaid from the bathroom ― one with a cat on it, no less. 

You still remember the feeling of his hand holding yours and how close his face was as he inspected the cut. You could have leaned in and kissed him so easily then. 

And god was that tempting. 

So lost in your thoughts, you didn’t realize the glass you were holding in your hand slipped free until it shattered in a million pieces across the linoleum floor. You gasped, startled as you looked around for a way to escape but a single step in an area you thought was clear brought a cry from your lips as you stepped on the tiny shards. 

You heard a loud thump from the living room where he had been playing a video game before the thundering footsteps raced into the kitchen. Shinsou’s eyes were wide, like he was terrified of what he would find. 

“Don’t move,” he snapped, noting the way you leaned against the counter to take your injured foot off of the ground. He opened the storage cabinet and pulled out the broom and dust pan. 

It took only a few minutes for him to clean it up enough to get to you safely on his own bare feet. Instead of you limping your way to the living room however, you found yourself swept off your feet. 

Your heart raced so hard, you could hear it pounding in your ears. You were cradled against his chest, so warm and firm with his strong arms beneath your knees and shoulders. His heavenly scent surrounded you ― more intense than you’d even smelt it before. As you finally got a close look, you took notice of how his long lashes framed his pretty eyes. 

All too soon, you were placed on the couch and he was disappearing down the hall with quick efficiency. You were still stunned from being in his arms that you barely noticed he had returned until he was on his knees in front of you. 

Immediately, your cheeks bloomed hot with a blush. The image of him on his knees like that immediately sent your mind to a wicked place. 

Luckily your dirty mind was stopped in its tracks when he began pulling glass from your foot.

You gasped in pain, attempting to pull away on reflex but he held strong, sharp gaze burning holes into you.

“Sit still,” he growled, sending a shiver down your spine. 

His voice was so low, so commanding that you found yourself immediately doing what he said. You always were weak to a dominant man. 

Soon enough, your foot was cleaned and he deemed that the bleeding had stopped.

“It’ll probably hurt like hell for a little while when you walk on it,” he warned, packing the first aid away. 

“Thanks Hitoshi,” you smiled, earning a soft nod of acknowledgement from the man. 

The memory of being in his arms, even for that brief moment, was imprinted in your mind. As you laid in bed, you thought about it. It made your stomach flutter in excitement as you fell asleep. 

The fourth monthly job for Shinsou came and unfortunately, you missed him leaving. You had stayed up studying and as a result fell asleep earlier than usual. When you woke up he was already gone and you were left with a painful throb in your heart. 

You missed him. 

As you lazed on the couch, you found your mind wandering to him again. Like always. It was like your mind was cursed. 

You wondered if he thought about you at all. The idea made you feel giddy and you had to bite back a smile. You felt like a silly schoolgirl with your crush ― the way he made your stomach flutter, your heart race, and your cheeks burn was getting ridiculous. It wasn’t like you could confess, he hadn’t given much of a hint that he even thought of you as a friend. Plus, you weren’t sure if you were willing to give up the killer apartment and perfect roommate gig you currently had with a foolish confession. 

You heaved a sigh, sitting up with a new idea in mind. 

A way that you could learn more about him.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the...most noble means. 

Standing outside his bedroom door, you bit your lip. It felt wrong to go into his room without permission. It wasn’t like he went into your room ― as far as you knew, who knows what he did while you were at school or working. 

The metal doorknob was cold in your palm as you turned it and pushed it open with a soft click.

You’d seen his room in quick glances before when he opened it but you’d never gotten to fully inspect it. He had a large bed that took up the most space in his room. Situated on a dresser at the end of the bed was a TV, a Playstation set up beside it. Against the opposite wall was a desk with a gaming computer setup and a red and black gaming chair pushed in neatly. 

There were a few articles of clothing littering the floor around his laundry basket and his closet was partly open to reveal his primarily monochromatic wardrobe choices. 

Walking into the bedroom, you immediately got a whiff of his cologne, making you smile at the addictive scent. You took a seat on the edge of his bed, the black comforter incredibly soft beneath your hands. 

You leaned forward and opened his nightstand drawer, finding nothing too interesting ― a picture of him standing with a smiling boy with crazy green hair, a pink-skinned girl, and a beaming red-haired guy. 

You hadn’t really given it much thought ― that he had friends. He didn’t really talk about anyone, in fact you never heard him mention anyone in his life besides his mom a few times. You did note that he texted on his phone quite a lot and sometimes you could hear him laughing and cursing from his bedroom as he played a video game. You wondered what his friends' names were, what they were like ― what it was like to be friends with Shinsou. 

What you wouldn’t give to be someone...important in his life. 

Sighing, you closed the drawer and moved to his dresser. Your own thoughts caused your heart to ache and you tried to brush it off by looking through the drawers for something interesting. 

Fortunately, you got what you wished for. 

The last drawer to the right contained a little black metal box buried beneath some clothes. You pulled it out and took a seat on the floor, pressing the button to open it. It popped open and you gaped at what you saw. 

It was filled with money. More money than you’d probably ever seen in your whole life. The bills were wrapped together with rubber bands ― there had to be thousands of dollars in even a single stack. As you pulled out the bundles, you found that there were things located beneath them. 

Jewels; all types. Diamond rings, necklaces, bracelets, ruby and emerald gems decorating them. You pulled out a ring and held it up, watching as he gleamed under the light. 

You tucked everything back inside the box and hid it back the way you found it, shutting the drawer before standing up. 

You had no idea what to think as you shut his door once again, moving to your own room. How could he have all that money hidden away like that? It was certainly shady. 

Perhaps it was counterfeit? Or maybe he stole it! 

And what about those jewels? Did he steal those too? Why were they hidden instead of sold off somewhere?

You had so many questions and absolutely no answers. 

Suddenly you were regretting going snooping in his room. 

The fifth month of living with him would have to be where things started to go downhill. 

He came home from his weekend away, tired and grumpy, just wanting a relaxing shower. However, you hadn’t realized he was home so in your tired, sleep-filled daze you stumbled to the bathroom with the urgent need to pee. 

You pushed the bathroom door open and halted in your tracks, heart stopping in your chest at the sight of shirtless Shinsou. 

He had his back to you, displaying the angry red scratch marks that raked down the pale skin of his back, making them stand out even more. He realized you were there and spun around, eyes narrowed in a glare. With his chest in view, you could see all the hickeys and bites that trailed down  his body, disappearing in the hem of his jeans that he had yet to shed.

“Get the hell out,” he snapped, ripping the door from your hand before slamming in shut in your face. 

You stared at the wood for several, long seconds, stunned. You heard the shower start and snapped out of your daze. Forgetting your once desperate need to pee, you trudged back to your  bedroom and quietly shut the door. 

You weren’t a fool ― you knew exactly what those marks meant. You crawled under the covers and found yourself wondering what kind of woman got Hitoshi Shinsou’s attention enough to get him into bed. 

And what did she have that you didn’t?

Truth be told, you couldn’t even imagine him as the type to sleep around. He wasn’t exactly sociable and he rarely seemed to go out of his way to interact even with his friends.

You could hear the shower turn off and you were suddenly reminded of the way he slammed the door in your face ― the ache from realizing he’d been with someone else only exacerbated by the knife of his shouting at you. 

You closed your eyes and attempted to sleep, ignoring the sting behind your eyes. 

The next morning, you found yourself not wanting to get out of bed. You could hear Shinsou shuffling around the house, doing god knows what. You heard him walk down the hallway, heart freezing as he stopped in front of your bedroom door. 

You closed your eyes, willing him to go away. 

Luck was not on your side, however, as he knocked thrice on your door. It was loud enough that you knew you wouldn’t be able to feign sleeping through it. 

You sighed and crawled out of bed and trudged over to the door, pulling it open just a bit to get a look at him. 

He had his head down, hand clasped around the nape of his neck with his other hand shoved in his pocket. He looked up when he heard the door open, brows drawn together as he gazed at you partially hiding behind the door. 

“I uh…” he cleared his throat, “I went out and picked us up some breakfast.”

“Oh…” you shifted on your feet awkwardly, nodding your head, “Thanks...I’ll eat later.”

You were about to close the door, desperate to escape the burning in your eyes as you remembered last night. Before it could close, however, he shoved his hand in the crack. You paused, not wanting to crush his hand in the door. You let him push it open to show more of you ― clad in shorts and an oversized t-shirt that you loved to sleep in. Thankfully the shirt was big enough that he wouldn’t be able to tell you weren’t wearing a bra. 

“I have to apologize,” he grunted, meeting your gaze, “I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that last night. I was just ticked off…” he trailed off.

You bit your lip, “I uh...I didn’t know you were home...so that’s why I just...walked in…” 

He shook his head, “No I understand, really. Y-You just surprised me and I reacted. I really need to stop taking my shit out on you, I’ll work on that, really. I shouldn’t have slammed the door like that either. It was a shit night but it wasn’t your fault you didn’t know I came home.”

“I-It’s alright, Hitoshi, really,” you smiled, though it faltered a bit at the memory of those scratches and hickeys.

“I...hope you’re not hiding away in here because I upset you,” he muttered, making you frown once more.

“What do you mean?” you questioned.

He bit his lip, looking away awkwardly, “you’re usually up around 10 and it’s...getting close to noon. You don’t do that normally so...I can only think you were trying to avoid me and that’s the last thing I want. This is your home too and I never want you to feel like you can’t be comfortable here.”

You gaped at him, processing what he was telling you. First, he paid close enough attention to you that he knew what time you got up ― that thought made happiness bloom in your chest and second, that was probably the most you’d heard him say in one sitting.

“It’s okay now, Hitoshi,” you smiled, “let me get dressed and I’ll be out to eat, okay?”

He smiled, making your cheeks burn at the sight as he nodded, turning away from you to move back to the living room. You closed your door and sighed. 

It was crazy how just a simple smile from him had your heart fluttering. However, it was quickly halted by the memory that he had someone ― maybe it was a girlfriend. That made your chest ache and you bit your lip to halt those negative feelings as you stripped and changed out of your pajamas. 

You had no idea how you were going to get past the painful clench in your chest every time you looked at him now. 

Month six rolled around and nothing very interesting happened. Shinsou moved his playstation into the living room so the two of you could play some games together. It was a fun bonding experience and you got to watch the way his eyes would light up whenever he beat you. The sound of his laugh still rang in your ears and you couldn’t help but smile every time you thought back to that pretty smile of his. 

It became a weekly thing for the two of you, every Friday night you would sit down on the couch together and play into the early hours of the morning. You got to know more about Shinsou than you had ever before. 

Sometimes he would jerk his body and brush against yours, sending goosebumps across your skin. He was always so warm and inviting ― just having him near you sent your poor heart into palpitations. 

You almost forgot about what happened the previous month when he came back ― those hickeys and scratches on his back finally having been cast out of your mind. 

Your heart did ache when you bid him goodbye the night he left again, wondering if he was going to see her or not. 

The seventh month was when that already precariously balanced life came crumbling down all at once. 

Shinsou was in the shower as you played on his Playstation, sitting in front of the TV with a frown on your face. You could hear the shower running and in the back of your mind you pictured what he might look like ― water running down his flawless skin, his hands caressing. You felt an almost pitiful clench in your core at the mental image. 

Your perversions were cut short by the sharp ring of the doorbell. You paused your game and groaned as you stood up, your knees popping from being sat in the same position for too long. Unlocking the door, you pulled it open and paused. 

A woman stood on the other side of the door, a well-fitting black dress and fur coat wrapped around her shoulders. Her ears, neck, and wrists were adorned with sparkling jewelry and you could see the red bottoms of her expensive heels. She wore vibrant red lipstick across pretty, smiling lips as she acknowledged you. However, you could see the cold gleam in her eyes that made the smile all too fake. 

“Can I help you?” you asked, leaning against the door jam. 

She hummed, tucking some hair behind her ear with perfectly manicured nails, “Is Toshi here?”

“Toshi?” you raised a brow at the nickname, “He’s in the shower. What do you need?”

“Just to talk,” she replied, stepping forward like she wanted to come in. When you didn’t budge she raised a brow, “You don’t mind if I come in, right? I’m sure Toshi would love to see me.”

“Uh…” you didn’t get a chance to reply as she brushed past you, her shoes clicking on the hardwood floor as she made her way towards the living room, “Sure...come on in…” you whispered sarcastically, rolling your eyes as you shut the door. 

You could hear the shower was turned off, indicating Shinsou would be returning in a minute. You looked at the woman as she glanced around the apartment, feeling a sting of jealousy burning within you. 

Was she the girl he was dating?

“So...how do you know Hitoshi?” you asked, making her smile. 

“I’m his girlfriend, of course!” she beamed, voice far too peppy for your liking.

The words sent an arrow through your heart and you looked away with a hum, ignoring the need to flee to your room and cry into the pillow like a stupid middle schooler. 

As if on cue, the bathroom door opened and Shinsou strolled down the hall, towling his hair as he moved. 

Any other time you would have drooled over the sight of a shirtless Shinsou, gym shorts hanging loose on his hips as he walked.

“Uh...Hitoshi…” you mumbled, getting his attention. 

He looked up from beneath his towel, meeting your gaze before his eyes moved to the woman beside you. Immediately his eyes went wide and he stood up straight. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snapped, startling you with how aggressive those words came out. 

The girl didn’t seem too affected, merely pouting as she spoke, “I wanted to talk to you.”

“You have no business being here,” he growled, jerking his head to the door, “Get out.”

“No!” she argued, walking right up to him, “I deserve answers before you throw me away like trash, Hitoshi!”

“I don’t owe you anything,” he replied coldly, breezing past both you and her to go to the kitchen. She followed him but you remained in the kitchen, listening as they argued.

“Why won’t you see me anymore?!” she cried, petulantly stomping her heeled foot. 

“Because you got too damn attached,” he spat, opening the refrigerator to grab a bottle of water before walking into the living room again. 

“Attached?!” she gasped, grabbing his arm to force him to look at her, “I have given you so much. How can you just break it off without a real reason! Come on, Toshi, just...be with me, you won’t have to work anymore.”

He tensed, glancing over at you at the mention of her job, jaw set, “Just get out, Kana.”

She looked over at you, a sly smile forming on her lips, “She doesn’t know what you do, does she? Is that why you’re avoiding this?”

He didn’t reply, simply glared at her. Kana scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest, “After all I spent on you, you have no right to just run away. You know I can treat you better than anyone else can, Hitoshi. You’re making a mistake.”

“I have plenty of other clients lined up, Kana,” he shot back, making her frown. He chuckled at the sign of weakness she showed, “What? Did you think you were the only one? No, sweetheart, I have plenty of girls waiting to spend even just one night with me. You’re not special. You’re certainly not the highest paying one either. There’s nothing of importance tying me to you. You have nothing special to offer. You got too attached, starting having feelings for me...you know it would never work with my job. So just leave before you get your feelings hurt.”

Both of you were stunned silent. You because you had never heard him speak so coldly and harshly to someone before ― even when he was having a bad day and accidentally took it out on you. Her because the words he spat out with such venom wrecked her pride and made her burn with anger. 

She clenched her fists and snapped her head towards you, “Best not to get close to this prick,” she warned, her voice watery with unshed tears, “A man who makes money being a sugar baby isn’t one you want to get attached too.”

With those last words, she stormed out. The slam of the door made both you and Shinsou flinch. The silence that followed was even more deafening, however. 

Shinsou cursed under his breath, running a hand through his half-dry hair.

“So...she wasn’t your girlfriend?” you asked, making him look over at you. 

He was quiet for a second before chuckling under his breath, “You learn what my job is and that's the first thing you wonder?”

“Well!” you defended yourself quickly, “She introduced herself as your girlfriend!”

He shook his head, moving around the couch to take a seat, “No, she was just...a client I spent time with for a while. She started catching feelings so I cut it off and referred her to a friend of mine. Apparently...she didn’t like that.”

“How’d she know you lived here?” you asked, sitting beside him.

He shrugged, “She could have looked through my shit at some point, I suppose.”

You hummed, not wanting to push him to reveal more than he wanted to. After all, it wasn’t even his choice to expose his line of work anyway. 

Well, at least you had answers on why he had all those expensive clothes, cash, and jewelry. It was good to know he wasn’t some type of shady thief in the end. 

“It’s...just a really bad idea to get involved with clients,” he explained suddenly, “It’s not a relationship that’s built up on anything real. Having to pay for the company of someone is not a good foundation,” he sighed, running his hand through his hair again before looking at you, “I hope you...don’t think differently of me because of my job.”

You shrugged your shoulders and shook your head, “It’s not really my place to judge you, you know?”

“Thanks,” he smiled, “It’s not really something that’s as bad as people think. It gets a bad rep for having sex for money and shit but...truthfully majority of my job is just...being company to rich women. Sometimes they want to take me around to some fancy parties to show me off or go on dates because they’re lonely. Sex isn’t the majority of what I do. I mean...I will but...it’s not the most common occurrence.”

Once again, the vision of those hickeys and sex-scratches crossed your mind and you found yourself wondering what kind of woman gave him those. At least you could be assured he wasn’t going out to see his girlfriend when he went to work ― they were strictly clients.

Which meant...he was probably single. 

Your heart stuttered in your chest at the hopeful idea. 

“How about I order some take out?” you asked, standing up to retrieve your phone. 

“Get some pizza,” he called as you disappeared down the hall. 

After his occupation was revealed to you, things began to look up. He became more open and carefree around you ― as he no longer had a big secret to hide. He didn’t really talk about his work but he wasn’t hiding it from you either. 

You decided not to ask too many questions, knowing you’d only burn up in jealousy at the idea. You knew you didn’t really have a right to be jealous since you weren’t his girlfriend or anything but you couldn’t help it either. 

The peaceful feeling didn’t last long, however. Once the fire started burning, it had no other choice but to rage. 

“You should really just tell him, _____!” your friend, Uraraka whined, head against the table.

“It’s seriously painful,” Momo agreed, “All this pining is making me sick.”

“Oh real nice,” you rolled your eyes, taking a sip of your coffee. 

It felt nice to hang around with your friends for once ― it wasn’t something you frequently got the opportunity to do. 

Just as Uraraka was about to open her mouth and reply, a looming shadow dropped over the table. You all looked over to find the familiar blonde hair and wide grin.

“Kaminari,” you greeted with a smile.

“Hey _____,” he waved before tucking his hands in his pockets, “Listen, I’ve been wanting to ask for a while but...would you like to go out with me sometime?”

The question left you stunned. 

You weren’t super close to Denki Kaminari, you shared a few general studies classes. He was a goofy, excitable guy who always seemed to know how to light up a room. Everyone around him was always in a good mood, in general he was just a very positive person. 

Not just that but he wasn’t too bad to look at either; with his pretty, wide eyes and sharp jawline. The black lightning bolt streak through his hair just made him look even more charming. 

But you hesitated, your mind drifting to Shinsou. 

Sighing, you bit your lip, “Can I get back to you on that?”

He smiled, nodding his head, obviously relieved you didn’t tell him a flat out no, “No problem. I’ll see you later!”

Once he was gone, a sharp smack landed on your back making you cry out.

“Why didn’t you give him an answer?!” Momo cried.

“Denki’s a great guy, _____! You should do it!” Uraraka added.

You shrugged, “It’s just…”

“If you’re holding out hoping something will miraculously happen with stupid Shinsou, it’s a stupid idea,” Momo said, making you pout that she had read you so easily.

“Just tell him how you feel, _____,” Uraraka sighed, “If he rejects you, you can accept Denki’s date!”

You sighed but didn’t reply. Your two friends shared a look before changing the topic, drawing the attention away from your hopeless crush on your roommate. 

When you got home, you were filled with a sense of urgency. Shinsou wasn’t in the living room so you went to his bedroom, knocking a few times on the door before he opened it. 

“Hey,” he greeted, a tired smile on his face, “Welcome home.”

“Hitoshi,” you swallowed thickly, steeling yourself.

He frowned, “What is it?”

“I need to talk to you,” you breathed.

“Okay,” he stepped aside, waving you into his room.

You hesitated for a second, realizing that there would be no turning back once you walked inside. The door shutting behind you echoed in your head. He moved past you to take a seat on his computer chair. The screen was lit up behind him, indicating he had probably been playing something before you interrupted. 

“I’m all ears,” he said softly, relaxing back in his seat.

“I…” you shifted on your feet, biting your lip, “I got asked out on a date.”

He raised his brow, cocking his head to the side. Part of you had hoped you would see some hint of jealousy from him at your words but his face remained as steely as ever.

“And...you want advice or something?” he chuckled.

You shook your head, “I want to know if…” you took in a deep breath, “If you like me before I accept him.”

He was silent for what felt like an eternity, just staring at you. Shinsou was always the type of man to think before he spoke, running through all possibilities before opening his mouth. His throat moved as he swallowed, a soft sigh coming from his nose.

“You...have a crush on me, or something?” he asked, making you deflate slightly.

“Yes,” you admitted, “And...if you don’t like me back then I’ll accept this boy’s date. There’s no reason for me to wait around and hope you’ll like me back when I could be out meeting someone new.”

He nodded his head, quieting once more. You watched as he stood up, taking a few steps towards you, “_____…” you heart clenched at his tone, knowing what was coming, “My job...it doesn’t leave me room for personal relationships.”

Despite how much you prepared yourself for it, hearing him reject you hurt. You nodded, forcing yourself not to cry as you backed up towards the door.

“Alright then,” you gave him a tight-lipped smile, turning your back to him, “I guess I’ll accept Kaminari’s date then.”

As you walked out his door, you didn’t see the pained look in his eyes. Your name lingered on the tip of his tongue but he didn’t dare speak out. The click of his door was deafening in his ears and when you were gone he sighed, hanging his head as he sat on the edge of his bed, feeling like an idiot. 

The next day, you hunted down Kaminari, telling him you’d love to go out on a date with him. He was thrilled, going off excitedly about how he couldn’t believe you actually accepted him and that he would make it the best date ever. 

And truth be told, the date was a blast. You had told him you’d never been to laser tag before and immediately he said that was exactly what you do then. The sound of Denki’s laughter still echoed in your ears as he lost to you, accusing you of cheating in a lighthearted tone. 

You didn’t see much of Shinsou after you started seeing Kaminari. Although it was casual, you spent a good bit of time hanging out with him ― he began eating with you, Uraraka, and Momo on campus and the two of you texted often. 

It seemed that Shinsou wasn’t making a big effort to hang out with you anyway. As much as that hurt, you knew it was for the best. It spared you a lot of hurt and him of the awkwardness of living with a girl who had a crush on him. 

It was fair enough, you mused. 

But when you laid in bed at night, your phone on silent and the faint sound of Shinsou’s voice floating through the walls as he gamed with his friends, you felt the now familiar tug on your heart. You longed to be with him. 

But you knew it was pointless now. 

You’d been seeing Kaminari for a month when he showed up on your doorstep to pick you up. Usually you would leave and meet him but due to the rain, he opted to pick you up and save you both from the hassle. 

You were in your room, putting the final touches on your makeup when the doorbell rang. Before you could react, you heard Shinsou open the door. 

You quickly grabbed your purse, tossing the strap over your shoulder as you opened your door. You could hear their voices carrying down the hallway.

“Holy shit!” Kaminari laughed, “What a small world ― it’s been a while Hitoshi!”

“Denki,” Shinsou greeted curtly. 

“You ______’s roommate?” Kaminari asked, tucking his hands in his pockets as he waited for you, “She’s talked about you a bit. Didn’t know it was you, though, man!”

“Denki―” Shinsou was about to say something more but was cut off by your entrance.

“Hey there babydoll!” Kaminari greeted with a grin, holding his hand out for you to take, “See you later, Hitoshi!”

Shinsou didn’t respond as he watched the two of you leave, his jaw set tight as he held himself back from calling out. 

-

You felt like you’d never been more angry in your life as you stormed home. Things had been going so well between you and Kaminari, you felt like you could genuinely start to like him. You enjoyed his company and began to think less and less about one purple haired roommate of yours. 

You slammed the front door, startling poor Shinsou on the couch. He turned around, eyes wide at the blazing anger visible on your face.

“What the hell is your problem, Shinsou?!” you cried, kicking your shoes off and tossing your backpack to the floor.

“Huh?” he raised a brow dumbly, only fanning the flames of your rage. 

“You…” you heaved, fists clenched, “Who do you think you are?! Telling Denki to break it off with me?!”

Realization quickly flashed over his face and he groaned, standing up, “I didn’t tell him to break up with you!” he argued. You opened your mouth to retort but he put his hand up to stop you, “I just told him to think it over. Do you know how we know each other, ____?”

“No,” you shook your head, tossing your hands up, “What does it matter? You still have no right to interfere in my relationship!”

“He’s in the same line of work I am!” he snapped, rounding the couch, “He does the same exact thing I do.”

You paused, letting the information sink in, “Why does that matter?”

He shook his head, “Do you really want to be with a guy who spends his nights in bed with women, _____? That’s not exactly the easiest job to trust a man with.”

You didn’t have a retort, “I thought...the majority of the job was just being a companion.”

Shinsou sighed, taking a seat once more, “It really depends on the guy. Denki is pretty popular because he loves to get his dick wet.”

You thought those words would make you feel jealous. The idea of the guy you were seeing fucking other women should make you feel something but instead...you felt almost relieved. Still, it didn’t simmer the anger you felt towards Shinsou at putting his nose in your business.

“You should have come to me and told me your concerns, Shinsou,” you snapped, narrowing your eyes at him, “Instead of going behind my back for me to be dumped.”

“You’re right,” he admitted, biting his lip, “I just...wanted to see if Denki was still the same as he was when I last knew him. It’s just how it happened. I am sorry.”

Sensing his apology was sincere, you relaxed and nodded, “I’ve got to study.”

With that, you hid away in your room. 

You couldn’t deny you still felt a bit ticked off with him but at least you were able to move past it. You realized you weren’t truly attached to Kaminari, you were just using him to shove your feelings for Shinsou away ― a pretty dick move on your part. So you were relieved to be out of the relationship.

Unfortunately, this left you with Shinsou once more. Where he once was pushed from your mind for the most part, he now resumed plaguing your thoughts. 

You couldn’t deny how tired you were. 

It was emotionally exhausting feeling your heart race at the mere sight of him only for it to ache when you remembered there was no chance in hell he’d even give you the time of day. 

Things reached a head when he returned from work. Eleven months in and all the negative feelings and tension finally culminated. 

“Hey Shinsou,” you called, finding him leaning against the kitchen island with a cereal bar in his hands. 

He looked over his shoulder, an unusually cold look in his eyes as he regarded you, “What?”

You tried not to flinch at the tone, frowning, “Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he snapped and you sighed, realizing he was in one of his moods, “What do you want?”

“I...nevermind,” you shrugged, “We’ll talk when you’re in a better mood.”

You hadn’t meant for it to be something to piss him off further. You truly meant that you would wait until he felt better to talk. For some reason, however, he took it wrong.

“The hell is that supposed to mean?” he growled, pushing himself off of the counter to storm up to you.

“Nothing!” you defended, “I don’t want to get into anything with you, okay?”

“If you have something to say then just say it!” he snapped, making you shake your head.

“No!” you argued, turning on your heel to storm into your bedroom. 

Before you could get very far, however, a tight hand was wrapped around your elbow, pulling you back.

“Don’t fucking run from me!” his tone sent shivers down your spine, the angry fire burning in his eyes finally snapping something inside you.

“I am so fucking tired of this!” you tore your arm from his grip, not missing the frustrated grunt he gave in response, “This shit isn’t working anymore, Shinsou! You clearly don’t know what the hell to do with yourself; you come home from working and you’re in a shit mood and you take it out on me. Then you act like everything is perfectly fine. You know how I feel about you, so you can’t even pretend that doesn’t have anything to do with your behavior. In fact, I know it affects you because why else would you have convinced the only guy I’ve seen in the past like two years to dump me like trash! All over this stupid fucking job of yours. I don’t want to deal with the shitty way you make me feel, Shinsou!”

“So?” he snapped, teeth bared.

“So I’m gonna fucking move out!” you threatened, standing nose to nose with him.

His eyes narrowed and he let out a humourless laugh, “Fine! The sooner the better!”

With those last words he stormed past you, slamming his bedroom door with deafening finality. 

You were left alone in the living room, fists clenched as tears you’d held back so long finally broke free. 

A stupid purple haired idiot was not worth being hurt so much over. That you were sure of. 

It’s not like he even cared, apparently. 

With that thought finally pushing you into action, you returned to your own room to begin looking for new housing. 

In all your time living with him, the longest you went without seeing him was two days. Once a month when he went to work ― that was the only length of time you didn’t see him every day. 

Now, however, the two of you were avoiding each other like the plague. You had been busting your ass finding a new apartment, going to school, and working as usual. Shinsou had been hiding in his room the majority of the time. 

You even stopped cooking. 

Part of you wondered if he even noticed. Deep down, however, you knew he probably didn’t care. 

He would just get a new roommate and go on like usual. Like you had never existed. 

At least you’d be able to get over him then. 

It took a month before you found a decent place. It was nowhere near as nice as your current one but there was nothing you could do about that. Your situation with Shinsou was unique and you knew you were never gonna have an opportunity like this again. 

You came to terms with that. 

Wandering out of your room, you were surprised to find him sitting on the couch. His nose was buried in his phone but the TV played his usual shows. 

“Hey,” you greeted, keeping your voice even. He grunted in response, not looking up, “I found a place. I’ll be out by the end of the week.”

He didn’t say anything and you sighed, feeling your eyes burn. 

How you wished he would say something to stop you ― to show you that the past year wasn’t a huge waste of time and that you really meant nothing to him. You felt you could have at least called yourselves friends but...apparently that was one sided. 

The thought hurt so you escaped to your room once again to hide. 

The night before your move, you were laying in bed playing a game on your phone. Laying on your back, you held the screen up and tapped your thumbs aggressive against the screen. Your momentum was lost by three sharp knocks on your door. You cried out as your phone fell from your hand and dropped on your face. 

“Shit,” you groaned, tossing it away and getting up from bed. 

Opening the door, your words caught in your throat at the sight of Hitoshi Shinsou’s sleepy gaze fixated on you. His hand was clasped around the nape of his neck and he was looking away nervously. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” his head snapped towards you, eyes wide before you realized how that sounded, “I-I mean I thought you were supposed to be gone! You know...to work.”

His shoulders relaxed slightly and he shrugged, “I cancelled. I...wanted...no, I needed to talk to you. Can I come in?”

You stood there for a few seconds, thinking it over before stepping aside to let him in. He gave you a tight lipped smile before you shut the door behind him. Turning to face him, you took note of the way his free hand was shoved into his sweats pocket. The tension was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. 

“What...what did you need?” you asked, sitting on the edge of your bed. 

He remained standing, obviously thinking over his words carefully. His back was to you, his figure hunched slightly in his usual posture. But you couldn’t miss the tension his form held. 

“I never intended this to become a long-term thing,” for a moment you thought he was talking about your living arrangement but before you could refute, he was turning to you, “This sugar baby thing, that is. I had a friend who did it and made some good money from it and eventually I got into the scene and realized just how good it could pay. It’s been like 2 or 3 years now since I’ve been at it.”

He dropped his hand from around his neck, beginning to pace around your room to gaze at your various knick-knacks. He paused at the few boxes you had packed up already, a frown marring his face.

“I make even more money by selling the presents I get. Sometimes the clients will give me jewelry or clothes, I always sell them,” he sighed, picking up a snow globe that sat atop your dresser, shaking it mindlessly to watch the fake snow float around the glass. 

“Why are you telling me this?” you asked softly.

“The truth is, I hate the majority of my job,” he confessed, ignoring your question, “Most of the people are pretentious assholes who think they’re better than me because they pay me. I don’t mind being arm candy, it doesn’t really bother me. And not gonna lie sometimes the sex is bomb,” he chuckled almost lifelessly and you ignored the pang in your chest at his words, “But the position I’m in forces me to basically do whatever they want me to. Naturally, I have limits and shit but if they want to dominate me I let them and that sucks.”

“Hitoshi,” you grumbled, making him look at you, “Why are you telling me about your sexual preferences?”

“Oh right…” he shook his head, “I hate doing it because I don’t have much control in my life because of it,” he looked at you with fierce eyes, “That’s why...I want to say fuck it.”

Before you could respond, he was walking up to you, cupping your cheek in a warm hand. Your eyes were wide, staring up at him as he moved close to you, his lips brushing yours. 

“It’s been so fucking painful letting you go,” he whispered, “Having to reject you and let you go out with fucking Denki nearly broke me down, not gonna lie. I didn’t want him to hurt you, that’s why I interfered...but I also...didn’t want to let him have you when I wanted you so damn bad myself.”

Your heartbeat stuttered as you stared up at him, wide eyed, “D-Does that mean you…”

He nodded, “Shit, I’ve liked you for so long, _____. It’s been so hard not telling you how I feel every single day.”

“Hitoshi,” you likced your lips, reaching up to fist the front of his shirt. He hummed before you spoke again, “Please kiss me.”

There was a quick flash of his smile before his lips met yours ― every bit as soft as you expected them to be. You could faintly taste toothpaste on his lips but you didn’t mind one bit, he probably tasted the same from you. 

His hand moved from your cheek to your jaw, angling your head to deepen the kiss. Your own hands moved around his shoulders, pulling him closer. 

You quickly found yourself on your back, his hand wandering up the hem of your shirt, touching the bare skin of your stomach. You whimpered, fisting his hair as you kept him locked in a kiss. He didn’t seem to mind, simply sighing against your lips. 

You still had questions but you couldn’t bear the thought of stopping this so you tucked them into the back of your mind, devoting yourself to what was right in front of you. 

Shinsou sat up just slightly, breaking the kiss. You almost whined but the feeling of his hand creeping upwards towards your bare breast stopped you.

“Is this okay?” he asked for your consent, pausing before he actually touched you.

“Very,” you breathed, tugging him back down for another kiss. 

Immediately, he cupped your breast, thumbing your already erected nipple. You gasped into his mouth, earning an amused chuckle from him.

“Sensitive?” he asked, pecking your lips before suddenly sitting back. 

This time you did whine at the loss. He flashed you a fond smile before pushing the hem of your shirt up to your neck, revealing your chest to his greedy eyes. 

“D-Don’t just stare,” you complained, feeling your cheeks burn as he admired your body. 

“Sorry,” he replied insincerely, cupping your breast once more, “You have such pretty tits, you know? I couldn’t help it.”

You scoffed but it turned into a choked gasp as he enveloped your pert bud in his hot mouth, wet tongue lashing against it before he pulled away with a firm suck. You wrapped your hands in those soft, purple tresses and whined. His other hand came up to pinch your other nipple, making sure to give it just as much attention. 

“Toshi…” you whined, tugging his hair until he pulled away, his lips swollen. 

“What is it, baby?” he hummed, nosing at your neck to press soft kisses there.

“T-Take your shirt off,” you breathed, tugging at the hem until you were able to pull it over his head with a bit of assistance. 

Once he was as shirtless as you, your hands began to wander to touch every bit of skin you had long to for so long. He let you explore, letting out a soft sigh when you brushed over one of his hardened nipples. You didn’t linger in one place for long, quickly growing too curious at the sight of his member straining against those damn sweatpants he always wore. 

His head tipped back as you palmed him through the fabric, quickly noticing that he wasn’t wearing any underwear. Eagerly, you dipped your fingers beneath the hem and pulled his cock free, your fingers not even able to touch once wrapped around. 

He was thick, a curve to his length that you just knew would hit a certain spot inside of you that would make you lose your mind. The head was a flushed red color, leaking precum that you used to give him a couple easy strokes. 

He reached down, grabbing your wrist to stop you before slipping his own hand down the hem of your shorts and panties. 

Your hips bucked the second his fingers made contact with your folds ― already dripping wet and coating his digits generously. He gave a few soft circles to your clit, testing your sensitivity before finding the pressure that had you cunt clenching around nothing. 

You whined, grinding your hips against his touch in hopes he’d slip at least one of those long fingers into you. Thankfully, you were granted your wish and more as he easily slid his middle and ring fingers in. 

He groaned as you walls tightly clenched around him, trying to desperately pull him back in whenever he pulled them out slightly. 

“Feel good?” he breathed, already knowing the answer but craving your praise.

“So good,” you whimpered, biting your lip. He curled his fingers suddenly, nailing that sweet, spongy spot on your upper wall, “Right there!” you gasped. 

He grinned, massaging that one pleasure-point with vigor, “Yeah? Right there, kitten?”

You keened at the name, walls clenching. He groaned at the feeling, suddenly pulling his hand free from your shorts. You didn’t have time to complain before he was tugging the remaining articles down your legs to toss away. 

He moved with practice expertise, grabbing you beneath the thighs to pin them open. Your wet cunt was exposed to his all too greedy eyes. He licked his lips at the sight, making your cheeks burn. 

Before you knew it, he was kneeling on the floor beside the bed, tugging you down just a bit so your ass was almost hanging off the edge. The position left you completely at his mercy. He knew it too. 

You watched with bated breath as he spread your folds open ― revealing the shiny, pink hole that continuously dripped your arousal. It clenched beneath his leering gaze and he groaned. 

“Fuck!” you squealed when he dove forward to wrap his lips around your hardened clit. 

He hummed at your taste, sending vibrations through the little bud. He quickly abandoned that in favor of getting a full taste of your juices. Tonguing your entrance, he reveled in how tight you were around his tongue. 

You reached down, tanging your fingers in his hair as he ate you with all he had. His tongue worked expertly to circle your clit before dipping back down to your hole once again. 

“Please, put your fingers in,” you begged, desperate to be filled. 

He quickly obliged, slipping two long digits into your clenched pussy before mouthing over your clit eagerly. He could already feel you clenching sporadically around him and he couldn’t resist setting a quick pace, hammering against your sweet spot with every movement. 

Your muscles were taught as you felt that glorious high building up. Soft pleas left your lips as your back arched. 

“Gonna cum, kitten?” he tasted, flicking his tongue against your clit.

“Y-Yeah!” you sobbed, abandoning your hold on his hair to tear at your blankets ― not wanting to hurt him in your throes of pleasure. 

“Cum then,” the casual way he said those words flicked a switch and you were cumming. 

He groaned through your high, feeling your cunt spasm around him. He felt your cum gush from around his digits, soaking them as you clit throbbed beneath the pad of his tongue. Once your body began to relax, he pulled away. 

Your thighs slammed shut once he was out of the way, your muscles trembling through the intense aftershocks. While you were coming down, he stripped himself of his sweats, popping his cum-soaked fingers into his mouth with a groan as he fisted his cock to the sight of you trembling. 

The fact he made you cum so hard was a boost to his ego and he didn’t bother fighting the prideful grin on his face. Sweat coated your skin and made your hair stick to your neck. 

After several seconds, he climbed onto the bed and maneuvered you so your head was in the pillows. You bit your lip and grinned slyly at him as he climbed onto the bed. 

“Shit uh…” he looked around your room quickly, a frown on his lips. You looked up at him curiously before he explained, “Condom?”

You bit your lip and shook your head, “D-Don’t worry about it.”

“Huh?” he gaped down at you.

You shrugged, “I’m on the pill and well...I’m sure you use condoms with you...job, right?”

“Always,” he blinked.

“Then…” you wiggled your hips at him with a cheeky grin. 

He chuckled, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips. Reaching between the two of you, he gripped his cock and tapped the head of it against your folds. Your thighs jumped as he slapped lightly against your sensitive clit. 

Finally, he began to press into you and your mouth fell open at the delicious stretch his cock gave you. He clenched his teeth, letting you soft groans as he sunk more of his length into you. Your walls gripped him so tightly, spasming and clenching as he was fully seated within you. 

The two of you had to pause before continuing, the feeling of him filling you up too much. His cock was thick, making you feel like he was stuffing you full. 

“Please,” you begged, fisting the pillows on either side of your head as he sat back on his heels. 

Gazing between your thighs, he nearly lost it at the sight of your cunt stretched tight to accommodate him. He thumbed over your clit, receiving a sharp cry from your lips. 

“Fuck...you’re so fucking tight,” he growled, circling his hips against yours with a groan, “I can feel you clenching so tight around me. Bet you wanna cum again, huh?”

“Yes!” you cried quickly, mouth agape as he gave a sudden thrust, “Please make me cum!”

He shushed you, rubbing his thumbs over your hips, “Don’t worry, kitten, I got you...I’ll get you there.”

Before you could respond, he was setting an almost brutal pace. You always imagined what Shinsou would be like in bed ― you pictured it too many times at night. Sometimes you imagined he would take it slow with deep, intense thrusts. Other times you’d picture exactly this; rough, harsh thrusts that you were sure were going to leave you sore when the morning came. 

You had no complaints though. 

Hitoshi gripped you beneath your knees, pinning your legs to your chest as he fucked you. Your cunt gushed around him, making lewd, wet noises reverberate around the room and mingle with your mixed moans. He let out groans of pleasure, strands of purple hair sticking to his forehead. 

You couldn’t help but admire the sight of him ― muscles rippling and moving with the force of his thrusts. Reaching up, you pulled him closer against you, dragging your nails across his shoulder blades. 

He winced but you felt his cock twitch at the pinch of pain inflicted as a result. You thought back to what you saw that one night ― the marks some random woman left on his body. Suddenly, you were overcome with the need to mark him as yours. 

Catching him by surprise, you managed to flip him over, straddling his waist, using his strong chest as leverage to fuck yourself on his thick cock. The new angle allowed him to reach even deeper, almost hitting your cervix every time you sunk down on him. He gripped your hips, assisting your movements as he tossed his head back into the pillows. 

“Shit, that’s it, kitten,” he praised, reaching up to pinch one of your nipples.

You keened at the praise, leaning down to deliver a sharp bite against his shoulder, sucking at the skin until a bright red mark bloomed. You eyed it proudly, biting your lip as you ground against his cock, making sure your clit got the attention it needed. 

Shinsou bucked into you, making you whine as he started a steady pace of bouncing. Your thighs burned but it was worth the sight of having him beneath you. The way he stared up at you, as if you were a goddess made your heart race. 

“Toshi…” you whined, leaning back to steady yourself on his thighs as he started to thrust up into you. 

“What is it, babygirl?” he grunted, gripping your hips tightly as he fucked his thick cock into your gushing cunt. 

“Make me cum, please!” you begged, biting your lip. 

He grinned, bringing his thumb to his lips to lick the pad of it, “I got you, baby.”

Before you could think of a response, he was circling his thumb around your clit, the bud desperate for attention. Your body tensed with just a few quick circles of his thumb, his cock angled against your g-spot so perfectly that you immediately reached your high. 

Through your own cries of pleasure, you heard him moaning alongside you before he froze, his cock buried deep inside you as he came. His cock throbbed and pulsed with every jet of hot cum he released into your clenching walls. 

All at once, things stilled. You both relaxed against each other. His cock was still stuffed inside you, softening as his cum leaked out around him to make a mess between the two of you. You laid your head against his chest, his large hand cupping the back of it, pressing soft kisses against your forehead until your heartbeats finally slowed to a reasonable pace. 

“Let’s take a bath, baby,” he groaned as he sat up, keeping you secure in his lap.

You were surprised he could carry you so easily after he nearly fucked the very life out of you. 

Soon enough, you found yourself surrounded by sweet-smelling water with a fucked-out Shinsou cuddling against your back.

“Not to...ruin this afterglow bliss,” you hummed, leaning back against him as the warm water ripped around you, “But what brought this confession on suddenly? I thought you said your job doesn’t allow room for relationships.”

He was quiet for several, long seconds before he leaned forward to press a kiss to your shoulder, “I didn’t think it was fair to let myself be with you when I was going out once a month to hang around with a bunch of women. It isn’t something I want to put you through.”

“So you’re going to quit?” you asked. 

He nodded, “I probably won’t be able to make enough money to keep this place but...if it means I can have you without feeling like shit about hurting you, then yeah. It’ll be worth it, I’m sure.”

“Why don’t you just…” you bit your lip, pausing.

“What?” you questioned, gripping your chin to make you look at him, “Talk to me.”

You hummed, “Just stop with the sex and kissing stuff...just be arm candy, like you said. Hang out with them. They’ll still pay for that, right?”

He raised a brow, shifting so he could look better at your face, “You’d be okay with me going to hang out with a bunch of women who want nothing more than to sit on my dick?”

“Well…” you cleared your throat, your cheeks burning, “As long as only I get to sit on your dick then it’ll be fine. I trust you, Hitoshi.”

He was quiet once again before a smile fell across his lips, leaning forward to press a kiss to your lips, “We’ll talk more about it later. Let’s just relax.”

He tucked you against his chest, leaning back against the porcelain of the tub. With his fingers caressing across your skin, you allowed yourself to drift off ― finally wrapped up in those damn arms you dreamed of.

[thera-daydreams]

PLUS ONE

》 A TRESE TWOSHOT 《

[Maliksi x Reader]

📝 Summary: In which your beloved best friend snatches you from your apartment at dawn asking you to be his plus one for his cousin's wedding. Unbeknownst to the clueless you, everything is just going according to Maliksi's ultimate masterplan. With the help of friends and family, the Prince of the Tikbalang finally gets the girl he's been longing for. And oh, Señor Armanaz gets his dream daughter-in-law and the promise of grandchildren within the year.

📌 Warning: May contain some slight NSFW for spicy suggestiveness and cussing. No smut or anything super SPG—this girl can't write that for her life—but just be prepared. It's Maliksi we're talking about. We've got friends-to-lovers, obliviousness, pining, fluff, and a tikbalang simp. Figure it out. 😃

(word count: 7,454) ♥︎ Part Two: ?

》 AUTHOR'S NOTE 《

Not an Inday spinoff, but a lengthy oneshot in celebration of this blog getting 90 followers. Just ten more to 100, yay! Thank you so much for the love and support, everyone. I also promised that I'll be making this brainrot that @binibiningbabaylan and I have fangirled over a few days ago (find the original post here) when I finished the latest chapter of Inday. Here it is! 🥰

Before I forget, I was also inspired by the cute fic made by @crispybasil titled "Sunshowers" and the "Trese Boys As Things My Guy Friends Do" made by the amazing @smolla-than-a-bug (I bow down to your wonderful works in the Trese fandom). I definitely see Maliksi to be the type to go on spontaneous roadtrips and be the boyfriend to drive you around eveeeerywhere (while also driving you crazy). 🚘

There are also some songs mentioned throughout this work. You should probably listen to them while reading for the full experience. Ending was somewhat rushed but eh, I'm too exhausted and I've rewritten it too many times. Also, if someone makes some actual tikbalang smut, tag me please. Anyways, enjoy! 💕

The way it all started was hilarious. Absolutely fucking hilarious. It happened like a blur. Literally. One second, you were snoozing in your bed. The next? You had a seatbelt on in the shotgun seat of a sophisticated-looking car. Your brain didn't even get to process it yet.

"... So let me get this straight," you grumbled, still half-asleep from your sleep marathon. You just finished a hugely successful project at work yesterday, got promoted, and wanted to make up for the restless nights you spent overtime in the office. Of course you were irritated from being disturbed. You were on vacation leave for two entire weeks, originally planning to go into temporary isolation by deactivating your social media accounts and reserving a beach cabana for yourself in Batangas.

Well, turns out, you weren't going to Batangas anytime soon. All because your unreasonably spontaneous bestfriend of ten hectic years stole you from your apartment at 2AM. Was this considered kidnapping? Was this him just being more in touch with his tikbalang side, taking unsuspecting women in their sleep and leading them to their inevitable death? (He was going over the speed limit, so it was a valid thought.) Will wearing your shirt inside-out save you today? Lord, masyado ka pang pagod para mag-isip ngayon.

"Go on."

"You abducted picked me up in the middle of the night because you want me to be your plus one at your cousin's wedding in Tagaytay?"

"Yup. And technically, the venue is right on the outskirts of Cavite going to Tagaytay," he corrected you as a matter-of-factly.

"Same thing, whatever," you huffed tiredly. "Your cousin's wedding is at 6AM today. In a few hours. In four hours."

"Uh-huh."

You groaned exasperatedly, "Mal naman, eh! You didn't even let me bring anything. Could've at least given me a heads-up a few hours ago. I'm practically emptyhanded right now save for my phone! Sinungaling ka, you said this was just a normal midnight drive—not a freaking wedding!"

The Prinsipe ng Mga Tikbalang, son of the Great Stallion, heir to the Armanaz herd, and the Top Drag Racer of C-5 Expressway—if that was even one of his Game of Thrones-like titles—grinned as he continued driving beside you. He let you continue ranting in the passenger seat while he mulled over his ultimate masterplan that would change his entire life later on. He was a spur-of-the-moment kind of guy, so all this wasn't his thing. But for you? He'll make plans, alright.

"Wala man lang akong dinalang masusuot o kahit konting makeup para maging presentable sa harapan ng buong pamilya mo," you exclaimed, in absolute despair. "Do you know how out of my league you are? Your rich-ass family might judge me—hell, your dad might see me as a hampaslupa if I show up there in my pambahay and tsinelas!"

"Psh, I'm not out of your league," Maliksi waved it off, smoothly turning a corner. "And calm down. We've known each other for a decade! My dad practically loves you as his own daughter. Heck, the entire family knows you and keeps telling me they want you adopted in already. Lolo Andres and Lola Perlita said they'd have the paperwork settled. You just need to sign them."

It would be even better (and easier) if you married into the family. To him, specifically (as if he'd let anyone else have you). God, he was already being so obvious in his advances, but you were just so damn oblivious whenever it came to romance. None of this needed to happen if you just got it through your thick skull that he was madly in love with you.

"That's not the point, idiot!" you slumped back into your seat, hopeless. "Do you think the bride and the groom will get offended? Shit, baka masumpaan ako kung magagalit sila, Mal. Mukha akong patay galing sa South Cemetery."

The long-haired tikbalang rolled his eyes, "Huwag kang mag-alala. Nothing's going to go wrong. Chill ka lang diyan. I've got everything under control, babe."

Babe. Yes, he even called you babe but you thought it was him being a himbo and a massive flirt. Now, it was his common term of endearment for you, but you still assumed it was him just being irksome to you and that you couldn't stop the man from saying it anymore. Thus, you let it be (the most obvious hint of his attraction to you, bestie).

"... Ugh, why didn't you ask Hannah or Amie to go with you?"

He just smiled knowingly, shrugging and making up an excuse, "Nagmamadali ako, eh. Hannah and Amie are also coming, but they already have the other tikbalang as dates."

"'Luh, ako pala ang backup choice mo?"

"Heh. Whatever you want to think."

Little did you know that you were always his first choice. Always. Even when he pursued Alexandra Trese many years ago, trying to convince himself you were just his best friend, it was always you. How did he come to that realization? Well, an international band he was a fan of released a song a couple years ago and he heard it being played in a club in BGC. The song title?

It Was Always You by Maroon 5.

Needless to say, after hearing the song and being unable to get it—get you—out of his mind at night, he stopped courting Alexandra. Unfortunately for him, that time, you'd started dating other men. Therefore, he was left on the sidelines... until your latest and most painful breakup, at least. That was five years ago. You still hadn't dated anyone since then, kind of traumatized from getting into another failed relationship like that.

In the present day, as if the fates were playing on you two, one of your favorite artists played on the radio. A very ironic song given the situation you two were in.

Best Friend by Rex Orange County.

Maliksi knew it was a favorite of yours. He knew it by the way your eyes lit up like a star brightening the twinkling night sky. Like the sun first rising in the morning at Apolaki's command. Like the moon extending its gentle rays from the magic of Mayari herself. If there was anything he wanted to ask of the old gods, it was you—everything else be damned.

"I wanna be the one that makes your day, the one you think about as you lie awake," you half-sang and half-screamed happily, somewhat out-of-tune. "I can't wait to be your number oooooone! I'll be your biggest fan and you'll be mine—"

Maliksi glanced at you, not minding that his eardrums were probably getting microscopic ruptures from your aggressive singing. As much as he wanted to stare at you all day, he had to keep his eyes on the road. But the lyrics you were singing were wrong; the Prince of the Tikbalang was already yours from day one.

"Babe, McDo drive-through tayo for breakfast. Let me make it up to you. Gusto mo ng caramel sundae for your promotion gift? Sige. Ako bahala. Chicken nuggets din? Mabubusog ka ba niyan? I don't think they serve those this early..."

》》》

"Sandali lang!" you shouted out from inside an empty room. You'd just arrived at the venue—the Alta Veranda de Tibig in Silang, Cavite (practically the gateway to Tagaytay)—an hour or so ago. The hired makeup artist just left so that you could privately change into the outfit that had been bought specifically for you. Curse Mal and his ability to buy anything (perhaps anyone) he wanted. "Bwiset, Mal, you didn't tell me we'd be part of the damn entourage. We have to be walking the aisle in thirty minutes, simbako! You just love rushing me, don't you!?"

If only you were the one walking down the aisle today towards him.

When you exited the room, Maliksi couldn't help but let his jaw drop as he skimmed your figure, clad in the luxurious, silky satin blush midi dress he bought in one of those fancy stores in Makati yesterday. He imagined that it would look great on you, but now, seeing it on you in person... you looked divine (and frankly, he wanted to see it off your body to see what was underneath—but don't get too ahead of yourself, Mal). It was a whole 'nother level from his imagination. The deep cowl neckline and thin spaghetti straps showed your lovely collarbones... as well as a peek of your cleavage. His favorite and the best part of it all? It was backless, allowing him to gaze at the tempting curve of your spine.

He hadn't realized he had grown silent until you smiled and closed his mouth, tapping his chin.

"Lalangawin ang bibig mo, Mal," you laughed softly. Never had you seen him so speechless. You then flicked your hair back, ridiculously posing for him like you were on the cover of Vogue magazine (haba ng hair mo, gurl!). "Do I look that good? Char lang."

"... You look absolutely ravishing—I mean, uh, stunning. Hot. Yeah." That was all he could say. He mentally punched himself for not showering you with more suave compliments.

Still, your face brightened up, not knowing that the man in front of you just fell for you a thousand times harder, "Wow! Really? Damn. Ang galing talaga ng MUA na kinuha mo, ginawa akong artista. Give me their contact number later! May work event pa naman ako in two months. I'm shocked, it's like they made me rise from the dead! Even my eyebags are gone, Mal! How'd they do that?" Heck yeah, your confidence was boosted. He offered his arm to you like a gentleman, making you half-heartedly roll your eyes (you took it anyway). From holding it alone, you could tell that your best friend was a sinewy man (well, you knew that already after seeing his tikbalang form before—the little shit didn't even wear a loincloth like all his clanmates; your poor eyes were eternally scarred).

You looked him up and down. You wouldn't lie—Maliksi is and always has been an attractive man. Now? With his hair in a ponytail (pun not intended), definitely one of the hunkiest men you've ever known. "You're not looking too bad yourself, horsey."

"Ako pa!" He puffed his chest out in pride. You chuckled at his reaction.

"By the way, how do you even know my dress size and my shoe size?"

"Babe, I've known you too long. You know almost everything about me, I know everything about you."

You snorted at his confident tone, "'Di nga? You don't know every single thing about me, Mal. Assuming ka masyado."

"Alam ko nga anong cup size mo. Wala lang 'yang shoe and dress size."

You slapped his shoulder, cheeks quickly flushing red, "Huy, umayos ka! Walang hiyang tikbalang na 'to." With this guy as your best friend? You heard dirty jokes at least once a day. "Don't be inappropriate here!"

"What? It's only fair I know!" He looked down on you suggestively, wiggling his eyebrows. "You already know I always go commando, so of course I know that your bra is a size—"

"Shhh! Baka marinig ka, 'nyeta."

"So? Let them hear. My best friend has a nice set of melons!" he shouted. You were grateful there was no one around. Hopefully.

"Oh my God..."

Your best friend chortled at how flustered you'd become. He led you to where some of his family was waiting, with a couple of his relatives already greeting you. You instantly and quite easily mingled with them, your worries of them not accepting you far from even true (they all knew how much their prince loved the innocent you).

"Kayo na talaga, pare?" one of his older tikbalang clanmates asked while you went away to be fawned over by his aunts.

Maliksi chuckled, crossing his arms as he watched you from afar, "Heh. Hindi pa."

Another one of his clanmates—a younger one—laughed, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, "Talaga? That's cap, bro. You two are like a married couple already and you guys still aren't a thing?"

"Ilang taon na ba kayong magkakaibigan?" the older one asked him.

"Almost ten years," Maliksi responded, a smile unconsciously pulling his lips up as he remembered your moments together. He watched you converse with his female relatives (who adored you the moment Maliksi brought you to a family event many moons ago).

The two tikbalang snickered as they saw the look on the Great Stallion's heir.

"You're down bad," the younger one said, snapping a photo of his lovestruck kuya. "You've got it so bad for her, dudeparechong!"

"Balak mong ligawan anytime soon?" the older tikbalang inquired.

"Heh. Balak ko na ngang pakasalan. Kung pwede, ngayon."

They looked at Maliksi as if he was crazy. He was very much serious, though, even if there was a huge, lopsided smile on his face. The Prince of the Tikbalang raised a brow at them.

"What? Don't give me that look. Our ten years of being best friends is practically the courting and the dating stage already."

"Eh... you're right. Don't waste anymore time. Go and marry her today, dude. Suporta kami sa'yo, basta groomsmen kami sa kasal niyo, ha!"

"Ge. Without question."

Meanwhile, on your end with the ladies of the family, they started pestering you on your love life (like all typical Filipino aunties). Chismis everywhere.

"O, iha, single ka pa ba?"

"Kailan ka magpapakasal? Malapit ka nang pumasok sa thirties mo."

"Do you want kids? How many?"

"Are you and Maliksi a couple? You look good together! Kayo na, 'di ba?"

"Will you be getting married next? Are you engaged? When's the wedding? Invite niyo kami!"

Before you could get overwhelmed by their questions, Maliksi swept you off your feet to lead you to the entourage that was lining up outside the chapel area. Again, it happened like a blur. He laughed at the partially nauseated look on your face.

"You okay there?" he asked, grinning.

"Your family thinks we're together," you muttered quietly, not meeting his eyes. You weren't sure why you felt... tingly about their statements.

He tilted his head at you curiously, gently setting you down on your feet and helping you stand.

"Do you hate the idea?" It hurt him to ask you the question, but he wanted your thoughts on it. Perhaps doing this was a bad idea. Maliksi was competitive in many things, including wanting you to be his, but if you were so opposed to it, he would never force you into something you didn't want. He let go of your hand; you didn't even notice he'd been holding it until he let go. "Am I making you uncomfortable?"

Your wide-eyed gaze snapped back to look up at him, "No! No, it's not that! And... it's not bad." Your hand felt strangely empty now that his was gone. Biting your lip, you disclosed, "You're not making me uncomfortable, Mal. Don't ever think that."

With that, you shyly interlocked your arm with his, tearing your eyes from his to mask the growing warmth you felt spreading in your veins. You two didn't say anything else when the ushers let you walk down the beautiful, petal-covered aisle together.

The man beside you was starstruck. Hopeful. Maybe both of you did have a chance. Maybe somewhere in the depths of your soul, his feelings for you were being reciprocated. For the rest of the sacred ceremony in the gorgeous main pavilion, both of you relished in short, comfortable, and low conversations. He even cracked jokes every once in a while—really funny ones that made it challenging for you to you stifle your laughter.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss the bride."

Maliksi fervently prayed to Bathala that he'd experience the same opportunity he was seeing with you someday. One day.

Even while the sun was brightly out, the sky began showering down light rain onto the land. You were in awe as you looked out the window.

"Hala, totoo nga pala! Tignan mo!" you laughed, tugging Maliksi's suit sleeve, pointing at the window.

"Na ano?" he curiously inquired, not understanding what you were referring to.

"Na kapag may tikbalang na kinakasal, umuulan habang may araw pa," you replied, eyes filled with childlike mirth and wonder. A rainbow had even begun to form by the clouds. "Look, it's magical! Ang ganda pala ng view dito kasama ang old Spanish architecture. Timeless na timeless. It's so pretty, 'no? Picture tayo 'maya, Mal."

Unlike you, it wasn't the sky outside that the prince was looking at. Amidst the loud cheers for the newlywed couple and the bubbles the guests were blowing, his vision could only focus on how magnificent you looked while being amazed. You were his best view. (Ed from 90-Day Fiancé, kabahan ka na, may katapat ka sa pickup line mo.)

》》》

"Smile for the picture!"

You giggled as Maliksi was dragged into a photo-op with the bridesmaids and the important older wedding sponsors a few feet away (funnily, he looked a little constipated around them). All of a sudden, when he was heading back to your direction, you were roughly pushed into the said man's arms. When you turned around, there was nothing (except maybe a gust of wind that came out of nowhere).

"Ooh, gotcha. Careful," the tikbalang steadied you, strong hands holding your biceps. "Natapilok ka?"

"... Huh, hindi naman," you wondered suspiciously, looking around. "I think someone pushed me? Parang tinulak ako... but wala namang tao."

"Weird. Maybe it was just the wind."

It actually was. Really. Maliksi knew for a fact that it was those two taong hangin who were spying on you from the corner, trying to pair you up. He gave them a thumbs-up while your back was turned in the opposite direction. Hannah and Amie returned the thumbs-up before vanishing. Suddenly, the two wedding photographers had moved on from the bridesmaids and were right beside you.

"What a lovely couple you two are!" she praised. Before you could correct her, she held up the black contraption she held towards you two. "Pose for the camera, lovelies!"

And so you did, the photographer guiding you two on what to do. Maliksi wrapped his arm around your waist and you leaned on his side, looking sidewards to the camera with one leg cocked in front of the other. Her assistant, who was holding a polaroid camera, printed out two photos for you.

"Thank you," you told him, taking the photos from his hands then flicking them rapidly to make the images develop. You and Mal were about to walk to the reception area when the photographer stopped you, handing the male beside you a business card.

"If you two need a photographer or a videographer for your wedding, call me," she signaled to both of you before running to another guest, bringing her assistant with her.

You gawked, "Mal, did you just hear what she said?"

"Loud and clear." A grin was on his face. He seemed very pleased at what he heard.

"... How can she even tell if someone is married or not?"

Maliksi's free hand took your left hand, tapping the ring finger, "Nothing here."

"Ooooooh. I get it now." Your brows creased. "Huh. This is like the fifth time today the people here have mistaken us for a couple."

Maliksi shrugged, teasing you, "Who knows? Baka may potential tayo, babe."

Before you could ask him what he meant, he was hurriedly towing you to the reception venue. While he was doing that, you stared at the now-developed polaroid photos you were holding. Huh. Maybe you two did look like a couple.

"Come on, they're serving some snacks at the welcome reception area. Peach pie and mango float-flavored. Paborito mo, babe."

》》》

The rest of the night went by without a hitch. You were actually enjoying the event—the host was great, the food was great, the music was great. Everything was great... that was, until the games.

"Alright! Now that the bride's garter has been removed, let's have the bouquet and garter toss... starting with the females!" the host announced. "Dear bride, please stay here in front. And all single ladies—and by single I mean ready to mingle and are not married—please rise and stand here on the dance floor. Let's play matchmaker tonight, everyone!"

"Uy, single ladies daw," Maliksi nudged your side. "Sign mo na 'yan." You snorted like a pig.

"Nope, ayokong madamay sa bouquet toss," you whisper-yelled at your best friend. "Do you know how embarrassing that is?! Besides, they won't notice if I don't join! Special tactic ko 'yan sa weddings: pretending I'm not single. Katabi naman kita."

More women came to the front, making you feel assured that you didn't need to participate. The host was about to say something, when the bride interrupted to whisper something into his ear.

"Hala, halaaa! Sabi ko all single ladies, pero may isang single lady na nagtatago pa!" he announced, making you freeze. Please don't let it be you. "What's her name, beloved bride?"

"Y/N L/N." You nearly spat out your champagne. You? Did they just call out your name? How did they know?

"Oh fuck," you cursed quietly.

"'Di ka makakatakas dito, babe," Maliksi jabbed, making you stand up. "Tinatawag ka na."

"Baka may ibang Y/N L/N dito," you resisted, attempting to sit back down. "I can't do this, Mal."

"'Sus, ikaw pa. And it's just a symbolic ceremony!" he encouraged, as if he didn't have any underlying intentions. "I doubt the bouquet will go to you anyway."

Sheesh, what a big fat liar you are, tikbalang prince.

You expressed your dissatisfaction with the situation, "Bwiset, fine. I'll just... dodge it. Or evade it. God, I swear..." You calmed down, confident. "I'm not going to worry. I've never caught the bouquet at my own friends' weddings anyway."

When you were at the dance floor, Maliksi snickered, seeing the bride—his cousin—wink at him. After all, he had thoroughly bribed her earlier.

《《《

"It's about time you settled down with someone, Mal," the bride commented while he slipped her the newest Hermés designer bag filled with a bunch of jewelry (plus some bills) two hours ago, right before the reception began and while you were in the restroom freshening up. "Hehehe, this is why you're my favorite cousin."

"Do we have a deal?"

"Of course. I'll make sure she participates. I'll also try to throw it in her direction."

"Good. Thanks."

"You better invite me to your beach wedding. I can tell how much you love her."

"Not a problem. I'll even make you a sponsor."

The bride stared at her bouquet, already practicing how she was going to throw it, "Tito's going to thank me so much for ensuring that he's going to get grandkids soon, hihi."

》》》

Back to the present, on the other end of the room, Maliksi saw a familiar duo give him a sign that they were ready. Bingo. Time to execute the most important part of his plan.

《《《

"I don't care how you do it," he told the two wind elementals after he bribed the bride. "I've already instructed the bride on what she should do, pero siguraduhin niyo lang talagang lumipad sa kanya ang bouquet."

"Mmhmm," Amie flipped her hair, a hand on her cocked hip. "And what do we get in return, oh great Señorito Armanaz?"

"Sagot ko bar-hopping niyo for one month."

The two girls pretended to think about it, making Maliksi roll his eyes. He had to pull out the big guns, huh?

"Fine. Magbibigay ako ng cash deposit plus pwede niyong gamitin ang black card ko for a one-week shopping spree in Ortigas." There. Bullseye. That's what they liked.

"Deal!" they exclaimed excitedly.

Hannah let a cool gust of wind enter one of the nearby windows, testing out how they're going to do this. "Ano pa bang pinaplano mo for Y/N mamaya?"

Maliksi hummed, "Basta."

》》》

You tried your best to hide within the densest part of the group of women. The bride seemed to have her eyes on you, weirdly enough, and she looked almost feral wanting to throw her flowers into someone's face.

That someone being you. Most likely.

"Target locked on," you saw her mouth move. She positioned herself like she was about to throw a football at someone (ahem, you). Holy shit, was she talking to you? Miss ma'am, it was a bouquet toss not a bouquet throw. The bride seemed to notice this, and once more regained her elegant composure.

"3, 2, 1," the host counted down. "Go!"

Surprisingly, the bouquet flew very high into the air (it was a wonder it didn't get tangled in the ceiling decor), but quite a distance away from you. You grinned, knowing it was too far to even touch you. Squeezing through the crowd of women eagerly awaiting the bouquet, you went to return to your assigned table.

Ah, what a wonderful evening.

Sike!

Something painfully landed right into your face, leaves and flowers getting into your hair and mouth.

... Wait, leaves and flowers?

Before you could comprehend it, the bouquet dropped right into your arms. What kind of ungodly, inhuman force allowed this to even happen?

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have our lucky girl for the night!" Everyone clapped, with some—those guests you knew—even cheering your name unbelievably loud. The host approached you, a glint in his eye which you couldn't understand. "Miss Y/N, kindly sit here while we await the lucky guy who catches the garter from the groom."

What just happened?

"All single gentlemen, please proceed to the dance floor. Remember, the man who gets the garter gets to slip it onto the lucky lady's leg later!"

Oh, God. You pinched the bridge of your nose. What you'd give to be back at home or to be in that resort in Batangas you'd planned on going to for a solo vacation.

"To make this even more exciting," the host stated, handing you a black blindfold. "Our lucky lady has to keep her eyes closed until her lucky man for the night captures the bride's garter! When the music plays, only then can she uncover her eyes."

See? Humiliating, just as you expected. Still, you wrapped the blindfold around your head (albeit hesitantly). You attempted to guess who it might be, thinking of all the tikbalang friends Maliksi had introduced to you back then whenever he invited you to his clan reunions.

"Groom, are you ready?" the host asked, microphone loud and clear.

"Ready na ready!"

"Single gentlemen, are you ready?!"

"Ready na ready! Awoo, awoo!" they loudly chorused, exactly mimicking Spartans about to engage in battle. You sweatdropped in the seat you were in. This was actually kind of scary. Maybe you felt a bit objectified.

"3, 2, 1, go!"

There was a brief moment of silence, which made you concerned. Ba't ang tahimik? Then, everyone erupted into roars and bravoes much louder than when you caught the bouquet—perhaps even louder by tenfold. What the heck was happening?!

The music played. Very raunchy, spicy, babymaking music. You expected it to be the typical Careless Whisper by George Michael or Pony by Ginuwine (corny songs which you could probably laugh at, at least), but no. Nuh-uh, this was probably worse. The DJ must be pretty young, the song of their choosing being a slowed, bass-boosted, sexier remix of Earned It by the Weeknd.

Ano 'to, bold? Fifty Shades of Grey? The hell was this?

Alright. This was embarrassing. Thank the heavens there were no children at this party. From the music alone and its implications, this was strictly for adults.

You removed your blindfold (that was okay now, right?) as the guests whistled playfully. You peeked one eye open reluctantly, then inwardly groaned. Oh, no. You should've expected it to be him of all people from how loud the reactions were. And all those yells from the crowd were from his family.

Son of a—

"Well, this has proven to be a very interesting arrangement!" the host proclaimed. "Our lucky man for tonight is none other than our great clan leader's heir, Maliksi Armanaz! Congratulations, sir! You get to slip the lacey little garter on Miss Y/N!"

The said very smug tikbalang stood a few feet away from the chair you were sitting on, smirking at you. His hair was no longer in that mesmerizing ponytail—instead, he'd tied it into a more sinfully attractive man-bun, loose strands framing his face and accentuating that sharp, angled jaw of his (say yes and thank you to Manny Jacinto's jawline, besties).

"Let's cheer him on in his new mission, everybody!" the host pushed. Was this that glint in his eye earlier? And was that a one thousand peso bill sticking out of his pocket?

The groomsmen, Mal's cousins and uncles whom you've met before, hollered words of encouragement to the tall man (who was, oddly enough, not one bit fazed). In fact, Maliksi seemed like he was famished as he stared you down.

You swallowed, feeling like you were going to get eaten (heh, say that again). Maliksi had shrugged off his dark suit blazer to the beat of the song (holy fuck, he also unclasped the suspenders attached to his pants right before your eyes—asdfghjkl). Were you prepared for this? No. Will you ever be prepared? No!

"Mr. Armanaz, before you begin," the host interrupted. "We have an additional challenge for you in this mission. Kaya mo ba? It was a request of the newlywed couple."

"What is it?"

"Use your teeth!" the bride and the groom cheerfully shouted, clapping with the other guests. Whatdidtheysaaaaay???

The cocky bastard didn't even hesitate, his smirk at you growing wider; those pearly whites of his on full display. Was it just you or were his canines a little sharper than usual?

"Anything for the newlyweds. Challenge accepted," he dashingly replied, winking at you. You sputtered indignantly. Pisteng yawa. Putangina. Putek. Pakshet. You swore you thought of every swear word in the book at that moment. What did that YouTube parody song about Filipino mythological creatures say again? About the tikbalang? Ah, yes. Half-macho dancer and half-stallion. Maybe the joke was true, especially when you saw what Maliksi did next.

He bit the shred of lace, loosening his necktie (bestie, you good there?), unbuttoning some top buttons, and rolling up the sleeves of his collared white undershirt up to his elbows (consequently showing off his toned, veiny forearms—those lucky bridesmaids behind him nearly fainted). Honestly, you felt like you were about to lose your mind from embarrassment. With how tantalizing your guy best friend was being? Let our response be: San Pedro, kunin mo na ako. Was he doing all this to tease you? To rile you up?

Because damn it all, it was working. In your ten years of knowing Maliksi Armanaz, withstanding all his daily dirty jokes and flirtatious attempts, never had you seen him like this. So... wolfish. Ravenous. Like he was a man that hadn't been fed in years.

He stalked closer towards you, falling to his knees in front of your legs. Your gown had a long slit that extended up to an inch or two below where your left leg began—your best friend was eyeing his target already, knowing where to place the garter. Normally, you would never even wear something as revealing as this gown. It just wasn't your type, but Maliksi was the one who bought this for you for this specific occasion, so you had no choice. It was this or your pantulog he stole you in just hours ago. At first, you were confident in the gown. Now? You felt too... naked.

Somehow, in the heat of it all, you'd muted out the noise of the venue. Maliksi teasingly lifted your foot up, fingertips slyly grazing the thin shoe straps around your left foot—his calculated touch leaving fire in its trail. Once the garter had been successfuly inserted past your high-heeled stilettos, the man kneeling in front of you kept his hands to himself. Despite the fact that now there was absolutely zero skin-to-skin contact between you and this man, your body felt hotter than it ever was before as he expertly slid the lacy bit of cloth up your ankle at an agonizingly slow pace.

Maliksi's warm eyes had turned dark, his pupils blown, a tinge of red in them—of his true beast—while he maintained striking eye contact with you, pulling the garter up your calf with his teeth. Smoothly tugging... tugging... tugging. Tangina, it was like he was undressing you with his eyes alone; like he was telepathically telling you to keep your eyes open.

To keep your eyes on him, where he was knelt inbetween your legs, his hands intentionally locked on his back. Did you ever imagine this? Him between your legs? Maybe. Once or twice. But you never thought about it seriously; Maliksi dated girls left and right in the past.

His lips... his lips were so close... so close to your leg that you could feel the heat of his breath along with the lace. Were you about to die? Perhaps you already did. Maybe you were in heaven. Up... up... up... snap!

Suddenly, he stopped, grinning up at you mischievously and letting the elastic bounce back to the skin of your left knee.

"I'm not going any further, don't worry, babe," he whispered, noting that your eyes had become misty and glazed over. Internally, he grew worried. "That's enough." Did he think it was from discomfort? From you being uncomfortable? Bitch, no. It was the exact opposite. You had never been this turned on in your entire life.

You felt like your soul had left your body at that moment. Did you just have a heart attack? Was your blood pressure okay? Before you or Maliksi could stand, however, someone bellowed from the wedding sponsor tables.

"Higher! That's an order!"

Fucking hell, it was Maliksi's father who shouted. He wasn't in the huge tikbalang form you'd normally meet him in, but he was still very intimidating in his humanoid form, commanding attention and subservience wherever he went. You could tell where Maliksi got it from.

Instantly, the other guests—already half-drunk and wanting the spirit of partying to continue on—joined in.

"Higher! Higher!"

The host cheered, "You heard Señor Armanaz! Higher!"

Maliksi gave you a questioning look. Even if it was his father who spoke up, he still wouldn't do anything you didn't want. Well, you two made it this far; there was no point in getting embarrassed now. You bit the inside of your cheek, nodding. You probably couldn't erase the redness on your skin with how much you'd blushed from this night. It was as if the heat was tattooed onto your skin.

"Go on, Mal," you whispered to him, bending your torso down closer to his face, eyes half-lidded from want. "Finish what you started, babe."

With those sultry bedroom eyes he'd never once seen you show him before—plus you turning the tables with that familiar term of endearment, how could he refuse? Like a switch had been flipped inside him, he immediately complied, taking the frilly scrap of stretchy lace between his teeth once more, moving it further up to your thighs until where your high slit ended—centimeters below the warming juncture between your legs.

Your legs felt wobbly... boneless, as you stood up from the chair, the fabric of your gown cascading over where the lace sat securely on your upper left thigh. The party was still going strong even after you two finished the garter wearing tradition.

"'Atta boy! That's my son!" Señor Armanaz blazoned, standing up and raising his glass for a toast. "Cheers to the newlywed couple! May they last forever!"

You guys weren't the newlyweds, but it did sure feel like it. If the clan leader was hyped up, everyone was hyped up. Heck, the groom and the bride didn't mind one bit what had just transpired on their dance floor. In all the chaos, Maliksi took you out of the reception area and somewhere quieter. More private.

You would need to have a serious, urgent talk with your boy best friend.

》》》

You two silently sat on a stone bench in a gazebo somewhere in the reserved venue for the wedding, trying to cool down and get yourselves back together (at this point, you needed ice from that steamy, half-scandalous event you just went through). Here, there was no one else except for the chirping of crickets, the lush trees surrounding the area, and the golden fairy lights strewn all over the roof. Awkwardness was something you'd expected after what just happened, but somehow, you still felt comfort in this man's presence. For the past thirty minutes, both of you just stayed still, lost in your thoughts and reflecting.

"Mal?" you finally spoke up.

"... Hmm?"

"Ano tayo?"

"Whatever you want us to be."

Your fingers instinctively reached out for his, just like they always did when you were anxious. Sensing this, he grasped your hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Soothingly. He massaged the skin of your fingers, distracting you from your nervousness. It seemed like both nothing and everything changed between both of you. The gesture was the same, but so different at the same time.

"Mahal mo ako." It was not a question. It was a statement. A truth—one that you'd been too blind to see before. One that you only discovered while you stared into each other's eyes in that party not as best friends. You realized with a jolt in your heart what he really felt for you, and now, what you really felt for him. In those thirty minutes of silence, you knew. You just knew.

"Yes. I do."

"... Just as a best friend?" you probed.

"..."

Finally, you gazed into his eyes, previously so dark and full of hunger. Now? Just reluctant. Vulnerable. Open. Unsure of what to do next.

Seems like you had to be the one to take initiative tonight. Taking out your phone, you opened your music app and pressed play on a certain song. Ikaw at Ako by Johnoy Danao. You removed your heels (which were starting to blister your ankles and toes), then pulled him up to stand.

"Dance with me," you murmured, grabbing his arms to wrap them around your waist. He was stiff. Tense. What was he to do when the woman he's been pining after for so long let him hold her? All his gallantry and ability to romance disappeared out the window the moment you let him touch you so intimately.

You two weren't even waltzing. Just swaying. Slowly, you leaned your head on his broad chest, listening to the steady thump of his heart.

"... I love you," Maliksi admitted in the middle of it all, feeling like he was dreaming. Your head on his chest kept him grounded to reality, however. "More than anything in the universe. I fell for you ever since you patched me up when you were nineteen and I was a reckless drag racer who didn't have a purpose in life. 'Nung dinala mo ako pabalik sa Armanaz Tower on the verge of death. Simula noon, ikaw lang."

"I realized that," you smiled, reminiscing the old memory. You were just a broke college student that time, coming back to your dorm from making your group thesis at a classmate's house. Imagine your panic when you found a half-man, half-horse bleeding out by some bushes on the way home at night. Despite your fear and your little money (only enough to feed you for the week), you went out of your way to buy a first-aid kit at the nearest 7/11. It was scary, but you managed to mend the creature's wounds by the side of the road. When he was finally able to speak, turning fully human (which you admit, freaked you out initially), you arduously carried him back to his address—to his father and his clan, even if you had classes the very next morning. Because of your heroic deed of saving their precious heir, the tikbalang clan had become indebted to you: a teenage girl on the verge of a mental academic breakdown, just making her way through the cruel adult world. How old of a memory that was, you thought, yet you still recalled it in perfect detail. "Just a while ago."

"Ah." He swayed you gently.

"Lahat ng ito, plano mo?"

"... Yes," Maliksi fessed up. "Except for this part where we're here dancing in this belvedere. Wala sa plano ko. Gusto ko sanang magconfess doon sa may fountain para sweet, pero..."

You lifted your head off his chest, smiling at him with one brow raised, "You know, between both of us, you're supposed to be the spontaneous one. Planning isn't usually your thing."

"I know. It's a failure, huh?" Maliksi sighed.

"Nah." You shook your head, then suddenly locked lips with him. It was so fast and surprising he didn't even get the chance to return your first kiss. For once, you caught him off guard. You pecked him on the lips again. "It's not a failure."

"Wha—"

"I'm sorry for making you wait, Maliksi. Ten years. We're twenty-nine now, and only tonight do I realize how blind I've been. We've been going around in circles, wasting so much time. Ayoko nang mag-aksaya ng oras," you whispered guiltily against his lips. How could you have been so blind? Andaming nasayang na taon. Making up your mind, you told him, "Yes. Sige, I accept. I'll be your plus one."

The tikbalang was flustered and baffled from the kiss, as well as your revelation, "... But, you already are?"

"No, silly. I meant that I'll be your plus one for life. For as long as you'll have me," you laughed, now processing that you were currently dancing barefoot with your boy best friend and had just kissed him in a wedding you didn't even plan on going to. The universe had a mysterious way of doing things. "Guess I'm the spontaneous one now, huh?"

Maliksi was tongue-tied. "Seryoso ka ba? Is... Is this a marriage proposal?"

"Whatever you want it to be," you echoed his words back to him. "Best friend, plus one, girlfriend, wife—mmpf!"

He kissed you so hard your lips bruised. After an impromptu makeout session which was definitely more in character for Maliksi, you both pulled away, panting heavily in search for air, still desperate for passion. He cupped your cheeks, giving you a sweet, featherlight Eskimo kiss.

"You're missing one more title."

"Hm? What do you mean, Mal?"

"Love of my life." He kissed you again, this time lifting you off your feet and spinning you around (his sneaky right hand was resting on your bum, too, giving it a tight squeeze). You know in the Princess Diaries where the main character's foot just... pops whenever the prince charming kissed her? Yeah, that happened to you on that humid summer night. This was right. You two were meant to be together. Everything was falling into place.

The bungalow you reserved for your Batangas vacation leave ended up being the site of your very eventful honeymoon with the Prince of the Tikbalang (with his libido, it wasn't that difficult to continue where you'd left off in the garter toss; that scrap of lace came off your leg the same way it went on). Actually, nauna pa ang honeymoon sa actual wedding (it was definitely spontaneous). Right after your confession in that alcove, you two went to Maliksi's father to ask for his blessing (which he gladly gave, cackling and saying that it took you long enough) before you guys went driving off to Batangas that night. You and Mal indeed had lots and lots of fun in that resort (I'll let you imagine the rest). More beautiful memories were made from that point on—this time, not just as best friends.

All that and your small, intimate wedding occurred in early April. Just when you thought that it'd be impossible to fulfill Maliksi's life goal of having a baby within the year (nine months of pregnancy meant that the earliest you'd give birth would be January next year), the impossible happened.

Exactly thirty-two weeks later, on New Year's Eve, the Armanaz herd welcomed one prince and two new princesses into the world. Triplets who were instantly adored by everyone in the clan.

Señor Armanaz had never been happier, and so were you and your husband. Your best friend. The love of your life. Your forever plus one.

Maybe being spontaneous wasn't so bad after all.

Taglist: @belladaises @binibiningbabaylan @4kodzuk3n @sparklingmallow @severuslovebot @holyshxtangel @marinac15 @space-flamingo @pippethealien @kashasenpai @disappointmentpastry @hornehlittleweeblet2 @seijohoe @monimiin @ibelievein2dmensupremacy @tinybonksharkcop @methehipster @banisuoh @genshin-idiot @lemonnie-kimmie

[prettyvampiress96]

The Malfoy Secret - Chapter 4

Excitement buzzed through the halls of Malfoy manor, with Draco home on break, Lucius and Anastasia had been invited by Cornelius Fudge himself to the Quidditch World Cup . Bulgaria VS Ireland. Of course once Draco had heard the news it became a family outing. Draco was thrilled Anna was tagging along. "Draco darling just because your home from school , does not mean anna can shy away from her work. Your father and Anna will have reputation's to uphold as do we?" Narcissa warned him yet again. " But mother that's barbaric, Anna is my friend . Mine and I want her to watch the match with me" Draco whined turning on his heels to pout up at Anna. Lucius , Narcissa and Anastasia all shared a look to each other which Draco completely missed. Keeping this a secret would be that much more difficult yet all the more so exciting.

The Malfoy's and Anastasia apparated to the match and they proceeded to walk through the crowds in order to reach their private box , stopping to greet others along the way. Lucius and Narcissa began walking up the flight of stairs first followed closely behind were Anna and Draco. "Ah here's Lucius now. I'm positive most of you know each other " came the voice of Cornelius Fudge. Anastasia tensed when she laid her eyes on who Cornelius was conversing with. The Weasley's. Anna tensed and her jaw locked into place, her hand reaching towards her wand. After her last run in with Percy, Anna was certainly taking no chances. Draco noticed the change in Anna and turned looking confused at the situation. Anastasia narrowed her eyes completely having zoned out of the conversation , until Arthur Weasley held his hand out towards her . Instead of shaking his hand Anna chose to not take notice. "Anna" Narcissa scolded as if Anna was one of her own. "Oh that's quite alright Narcissa truly, Percy did say some rather unforgiveable things, it's bound to be hard for her to forgive. No hard feelings. Right lets get to our seats shall we?" Arthur said clapping his hands , he began rushing the children up the stairs. Draco took Anna by the hand and proceeded to drag her to their box, very nearly pulling her over . The private box even had a adjoined balcony with slightly more spacious seats than the original. " Look Dray, As spectacular as this view is these shoes are not made for me to be on my feet leaning over a railing for the whole match , so I'm going to fetch a seat by your parents" Anna said her cloak swishing behind her. Spying the two elder Malfoy's seated alone in the back row with a seat saved between them.

Anastasia sidled her way to the spare seat squeezing herself past Narcissa , whose fingers trailed up the smooth skin of Anna's bare leg. The entire arena suddenly erupted into applause and cheers. The Bulgarian team came flying out along with their mascots. Veela's. Veela's were stunningly beautiful creatures capable of entrancing any male in their presence. At the sight of the many Veela's Anastasia eyes Lucius watching his reaction, her hand grasps the top of his thigh squeezing hard. Lucius jumped at the unsuspected contact, his actions gaining the attention of Narcissa. " Oh Darling I do believe our princess wants to play" Narcissa cooed. " Yes it would certainly seem that way. It is rather brave of our babygirl if you ask me. Tell us babygirl is that what you want ? You want us to make you scream our names for everyone to hear ? Does our dirty little princess want an audience to watch her beg ?" Lucius teased , his voice low enough for both women to hear. The effect of his words had Anna squirming in her seat. With her hand still on Lucius's thigh Anna could feel his length hardening beneath her touch, deciding to test the waters ,Anna began slowly undoing the zip . " Don't start something you can't finish baby " Cissa whispered into Anastasia's ear while sliding her hand to cup Annas throbbing heated , panty-less sex . At the discovery of no panties, Cissa was in two minds to whether to take Anna over her knee right there and then or completely fuck her senseless later. Deciding on the latter Narcissa began dragging her index finger through the slick folds of Anastasia's wet folds, reaching the bud of nerves she began rubbing slow circles. Anastasia bit down on her lip in an attempt to keep their cover being blown. With Lucius's erect shaft free from its clothed prison, Anna wrapped her hand around the base. Anastasia moved her hand up to the red swollen tip swiping her thumb across the tip spreading the glistening pre-cum over her thumb. Anna made eye contact with Lucius as she popped the cum covered thumb into her mouth humming in approval at the salty taste it provided. Lucius stared in disbelief at his little princess's bold action. Leaning to her slightly Lucius whispered.

" You do that again princess and I'll take it upon myself to personally destroy the beautifully tight cunt of yours and mummy wont be able to save you" Lucius smirked with a glint in his eye. " You promise daddy" Anna whispered back.

Anastasia felt a rush of adrenaline surge through her , whether that was due to him or to the fact Cissa was still launching her attack on anna's clit she didnt know neither did she care. Anna's hand picked up the pace around Lucius whilst she ground down against Cissa's fingers . Narcissa's fingers curling inside of anna hitting the spot each and every time she thrust , her thumb hitting the bud of nerves driving Anna so close to the edge. The closer she got to her big finish the harder and faster she gripped Lucius. Narcissa felt Anna's walls constrict around her fingers. Cissa removed her fingers from Anna lifting them up for both Anna and Lucius to see Anna's juices dripping from her fingers. "I'd offer you a taste my love but I really dont want to " Cissa smiled warmly at the pair as she cleaned each finger with her tongue one by one making a rather erotic show for the pair. " Fuck Cissa ! I'm so close babygirl I highly suggest taking your hand away before we make a mess " he warned , Anna chose to disregard his warning and continued her ascent, hell bent even to make her daddy feel as good as he makes her. Anna felt Lucius's cock twitch in her hand signalling he was about to cum and boy was she ready for it. Lucius with his eyes momentarily clenched shut, he missed as Anastasia bent her head down, with one last pump on his twitching penis Lucius rode his orgasm out shooting white shots of cum. Surprisingly Anna caught the majority of it in her mouth leaving little to no mess. Anastasia rose back into her seat laughing lightly. Narcissa placed her hand on Anna's thigh. " You did such a splendid job darling and you taste so sweet . Our sweet babygirl " Cissa commented softly. Lucius hummed in agreement. " Indeed she did my love , I must admit it does make me wonder how her lips would feel wrapped around it, perhaps her lips on you too my dear . The possibilities are endless wouldn't you say?" Lucius replied quietly. Anna blushed furiously. In the background the arena erupted in to applause. Draco and his friends turned from the railings and ran approaching Anna and his parents. "They lost , the Bulgarians lost by 10 points 10 freaking points. What a match though Anna? " Draco asked. "Oh yes It was definitely quite the match. Had me on the edge of my seat the entire game" Anastasia enthused back. Draco looked pleased at her response. " Oh father , mother Blaise invited me and the others to go back to his tent for a while , Would that be alright with you" Draco asked them politely his hands clasped in front of him. "Yes Draco that's fine by us , you know where our tent is should you need something. Be safe" Lucius allowed , secretly happy that Draco would be elsewhere giving him and Cissa time with their babygirl. Draco fist pumped the air in pure excitement. "Anna you want to come I'm sure everyone would love to see you again you are everyone's favourite head girl after all " Draco asked his eyes wide and hopeful. Anna shuffled her weight from foot to foot . " Oh um Draco that's rather kind of you but in fact I'm rather tired . I figured I might just go and get some sleep" she replied scratching her neck at the awkwardness silently praying Draco wouldn't see through her lie. Draco nodded at her response waving and leaving with his friends in tow. With Draco gone , Anastasia, Narcissa and Lucius walked side by side back to the tent . " Are you actually tired little princess or can mummy and I convince you to join us in what I do believe you started earlier this evening?" Lucius asked with every intention of keeping the promise he made her earlier. " Well I suppose theres a chance I could be persuaded" Anna shrugged lightly, spotting their tent she turned to them with a small giggle and took off running . Leaving Lucius and Narcissa to watch in complete awe. Narcissa curled into her husband's side. " My god I love her " Cissa whispered softly . Lucius planted a soft kiss to the temple of Cissa's head smiling at her comment after all he too felt the same way. " Me too my darling me too , let us hurry I do

believe our precious girl would not fare well being kept waiting." Lucius said taking Cissa by the hand and into the tent. As they entered their room of the tent , they both froze in complete and utter shock , the sight of their princess already on their bed completely naked . Her long hair pulled back into the high ponytail that Lucius seemed to adore . Her hands on her knees patiently waiting . " You and mummy kept me waiting daddy, that's not very nice of either of you. I thought I'd have to try and start things all on my own . It wouldn't have been as good as mummy's but you were taking too long" Anna pouted . Narcissa felt instantly guilty , Lucius however was plagued with the image of his babygirl on the bed pleasuring herself without them. That thought being more than he could take , he strode over to a pouting Anna turning her by the cheekbones to look at him. " Oh Is that so little one ? You would start without us ?Really, is that so?" he taunted her. Anastasia looked from him to Narcissa who watched on with an arched brow, embracing in the confidence their princess had today. Lucius didnt like the attention shifted from him and pulled her back to look at him by her ponytail. " Touch yourself princess I dare you and I'll take you over my knee and give you the spanking of my dreams. Only mummy and daddy get to fuck you with our fingers. Wouldn't you agree darling?" Lucius asked pulling Anna to stand in his arms turning them to look at Cissa who had also now gotten rid of her clothes. " Oh I absolutely agree my dear of course unless we tell her otherwise" she caressed Lucius's cheek placing a kiss to the corner of his lips , leaning over Anna's head in the process. Narcissa then stood looking Anna dead in the eyes. " Although I might add that I will spank you myself should you ever leave the house without panties on again my baby" Cissa warned , Anna silently cursed in her head. Lucius's arms tightened around her bare waist placing her down on the bed with Narcissa close behind , their hands roaming over Anna . Lucius let his left hand cup her cheek while his right hand gently held her throat. " No panties ? Really ? In that case perhaps a punishment is needed hmmm?" Lucius thought out loud to Narcissa. Anastasia gasped at the sudden surge of pleasure rushing through her just from his hand on her throat . Before he could apply pressure , loud noises of explosions and screaming interrupted. Leaping up Anna and Narcissa quickly dressed using magic while Lucius went to see exactly what the commotion is. When he returned , he had a panic stricken look on his face. "Death eaters we need to leave" Lucius said sternly. He knew all too well the damage they were capable of. Narcissa's hands flew to her mouth. " DRACO" Anastasia and Narcissa shouted together. Anna wasted no time hurrying out of the tent with her wand drawn ignoring the shouts and cries of Lucius and Narcissa behind her. Curses were being thrown from every direction. Anastasia spots Blaise and his friends leaving but no Draco. " BLAISE , where is Draco ? He was with you" Anna asked frantically .Blaise nodded. "He was until they started attacking , we got split the last I saw he was by my tent" Anna didnt wait to listen the rest. Running as best she could in a dress and heels, Anna began calling Draco over and over until she saw him . Draco was doing his utmost best to defend himself against three Death Eaters. He was doing so well until he tripped over an abandoned backpack. "Stupefy" Anna cast knocking the death eaters back, Anna helped Draco to his feet keeping him tucked behind her back. She now stood facing the Death Eaters. " Protego" Anna shouted blocking their attacks. "SECTUMSEMPRA" Anastasia cast leaving two of the three Death Eaters bleeding to death on the floor. A flash of green hit the third . The Killing Curse. It was an unforgiveable spell. Lucius and Narcissa appeared from behind Anna and Draco , grabbing onto them , they apparated back to Malfoy Manor. Draco broke into sobs at how close he came to death. Narcissa rushed to him

cradling him like the child he was. Narcissa took Draco upstairs and let him talk his way through what happened before they found him. Upon hearing Draco's side of things, Narcissa would be forever in debt to Anna for saving him the way she did. Meanwhile in the master bedroom Lucius pulled Anastasia into him , needing to hold her in his embrace. Never had he felt the amount of fear and panic that he had when he saw her trying to defend herself and Draco against three ruthless Death Eaters. Tomorrow he would absolutely scold her so bad but for tonight both her and his son remained in one piece . No physical damage. " Princess you have no idea how relieved I am that your not harmed . Myself and Cissa can never lose you babygirl. We need you" Lucius almost cried into her hair. A single tear rolling down his face. Narcissa entered the room. " He's okay he's sleeping poor boy is shaken though, We owe you a thousand thank yous darling , without you I fear our Draco may not be here tonight so thank you our beautiful Anna . Now we've had enough for one night wouldn't you say ? How about a bath and some much needed cuddles in bed hmm?" Cissa suggested. Anastasia and Lucius nodded in agreement. All three of them now submerged in a bubble bath both Narcissa and Lucius refused to let go of Anna's hand . The events of tonight really shook everyone to their core. Narcissa offered to wash Anna's hair while Lucius just wanted to hold her a little longer. After they were all bathed and ready for bed Anna had yet to climb in with them instead hesitating by the door. " Darling girl are you not coming in with us? Is something wrong?" Narcissa asks panicked at the possibility Anna could have seriously hurt herself. " No nothing is wrong it's just with Draco home shouldn't I be in my guest room?" Anna asked looking to the floor. When Draco was usually home Anna usually stayed in a guest room down the hall to keep their secret. " Darling come and cuddle with us for a while, we all need it , I can carry you to bed later princess" Lucius persuaded. Anna didn't need to be asked twice . She jumped straight up onto the bed crawling into Lucius's open arms, Anna settled down and held hers open for Cissa to crawl into. Lucius began playing with Anna's hair twirling it around his fingers. Kissing the crown of his head as he twirled each piece. Anna wrapped her arms around Narcissa holding her against her chest. Something about being stuck between the two made Anna feel safe, the safest she had ever felt. " I love you Lucius and I love you Narcissa "Anastasia said sleepily, her eyes fighting to stay open. Lucius and Narcissa both tensed at those words. The first time their Anastasia had said that she loved them and with their names well it just melted them both. " We love you too darling so much " Narcissa whispered gently moving to kiss her forehead , catching the smile on her face from her words brought tears to Cissa's eyes again. Anna drifted peacefully to sleep surrounded in a loving embrace .

[ironmandeficiency]

pedro boys + spending habits

word count: fuck if i know, wrote it thru the app

characters: din, marcus m, dave, pero, marcus p, oberyn, max, frankie, whiskey, maxwell, javier, ezra

a/n: idk what caused this to happen but it works i guess. hope they make sense

✨support my ko-fi✨

trust him with your money, your drink, your social security number, everything:

din. this man is barely scraping by on his own when you first meet him. when he adds the kid to the mix, he gets even more frugal than he already is with an old as sin ship that many people are surprised to see fly. he will have a policy of “you earn it, you choose what to do with it” and since he goes after most of (if not all) the bounties to keep you all alive, he has the final say in how most of the credits are spent. he does want you to have nice things though, so he makes sure to configure the budget to where you don’t have to pour your credits into the group’s survival money very often. it’s the least he can do. he’s very big on taking care of his people and will show that in small ways.

marcus m. he’s a single dad for a significant amount of time, he has no choice but to be responsible with his money. he has to take care of missy, keep them both fed and housed and healthy, and that’s not even touching on how expensive all of high school graduation and college will be once she gets there. he teaches missy very early in life how important money is bc he doesn’t want her to ever know how it feels to not have enough. he makes a considerable amount of money w the heroics tho so he can afford to responsibly splurge on you both, but not constantly. is very cautious abt the splurging becoming a habit

dave. yeah he may be a murderer, but he’s scary great at managing his money (to continue being able to murder). he’s got his ex wife’s alimony (that still pisses him off but that’s another story) and two girls he takes care of, there’s no other choice for him either. there’s never a worry about dave having a midlife crisis and spending money on some stupid dad thing (like a motorcycle or assless chaps or a country club membership) because he murders to keep his mind off that sort of stuff. files his taxes diligently every year the day tax season starts and will pass this wisdom to the girls.

pero. he’s very good at judging if you need something or not. if it can’t feed you, keep you healthy, kill someone, or protect you, you don’t need to buy it. definitely not a man who indulges in trinkets and frivolous things that do nothing but weigh down his horse and his person. will encourage this way of thinking with whoever travels with him to whatever extent he can, but won’t be a dick about it if you have something sentimental on your person. if it’s a necessity, he will splurge on a bed and bath at an inn but not much else for a while. cheap because he has to be

marcus p. i don’t think i have to explain this one so i won’t. no i’m not being lazy who said that?

maybe you’ll be fine if he’s in charge. maybe:

oberyn. being a prince (and himself), there are different ways this could go. he spends his money frivolously at brothels & on his daughters + other loved ones (as well as other luxuries) and doesn’t really seem to be the type to keep tabs on it all as he goes. but... he’s a prince in a prosperous kingdom and so there isn’t really a worry for money. he’s known as the red viper for many reasons, including his clever nature and the ease with which he can get what he wants thru whatever means necessary. if you want for something that he can’t buy, you know he will find a way to get it for you (which can be a problem sometimes).

max. he’s good with money in the sense of perpetuating capitalism — that’s the red flag here. hell, he’s gonna be investing into bitcoin and who knows what stock market bs & bc it’s max, of course you trust him. max can’t control the stock market tho, so sometimes things are a little iffy. it always evens itself out though, and you make sure in the future that he invests his money instead of your joint money. he’s still gonna share anyways, it just helps you have a little more peace of mind.

frankie. he just wants to take care of you, okay? you can’t fault him for that 🥺 he maneuvers his budget around to make sure he can do all these nice things for you while leaving his own needs unchecked, which isn’t okay. he just wants to provide for the ppl he loves the best he can, but the problem begins when he starts to think he isn’t doing enough. his insecurity & lack of self-worth (fueled by his guilt for “not being everything you deserve”) is what makes him agree to the Trip™️ in the first place. once he comes back & sees you frantic, only wanting him home and not giving a flying fuck about the money, does he realize that you’re devoted to him and not what he can do for you.

whiskey. working for statesman made him forget what things really cost bc he suddenly never had to worry again about not having enough money. being with someone that isn’t practically made of money will snap him back into reality. he looks at his bank statements and his balance occasionally, but our big spender cowboy hasn’t really counted money as something he worries about for a while. when he constantly showers you in expensive gifts (only the best for his baby, that’s his motto) and you tell him that he has to not do that bc he’ll go broke, he plays it off because he doesn’t remember having to worry. separate bank accounts are only because you want to make sure your money is being spent smartly (even though jack has offered constantly to pay for literally anything you need).

don’t give him anything you want to see again:

maxwell. as much as i love this dork, he’s absolute shit with money. when his business is falling apart (bc he made the stupid ass decision to buy the oil rigs no one wanted bc they weren’t producing oil), he throws it all into saving face and trying to make investors buy into something that isn’t there. what a smart business man would’ve done was liquidate his assets and possibly try to get into a business that will yield at least some profit. he does learn his lesson tho and eventually can be trusted with money, but even he is hesitant to do anything with the household finances. he’s a dreamer, and dreams and money are the same as oil and water.

javier. i know you’re possibly surprised but hear me out. he’ll go all in to get info, whether he’s spending american taxpayer money or his own money or anyone else’s, if it’s valuable info that can be bought, it’s gonna be bought even if he goes without groceries for the next two weeks. before being with you, it was booze and prostitutes and cigarettes that ate away at his checks outside of buying information. the only thing that really changed once you got together was the prostitutes and slightly less cigarettes and booze. however, when he goes back to laredo permanently, he’s perfectly capable of keeping his shit in line. he’ll balance every checkbook in sight and run a tight af ship.

ezra. this man is a scavenger by necessity, a con man by choice. he has a silver tongue and a roguish charm and pretty questionable morals; he’s not gonna have any issue with getting his hands dirty. he’s probably gonna use your joint money to try and pull a fast one on some unsuspecting stranger (“it’ll double our money,” he says, “it’ll be fine,” he says), but then said stranger will end up turning the tables and leave you both absolutely broke. yeah he will feel guilty, no doubt. the only problem is that he won’t take it as a “hey don’t do it again” lesson, it’ll be a “this is how i can improve for next time.” eventually you have to put your foot down and take control of the money and when he realizes that you’re improving your lives much better than he is, he will thank you for it.

all pedro character taglists: @likeshootingstarsinthenightsky @obirain @leias-left-hair-bun @themarcusmoreno @catsnkooks @captainrexstan @mackstrut @torradoza @simping-for-fives @stardustsunrisekisses @darthadeline @artemis61003 @majorshiraharu @getdookuedon @capricornrabies @max--phillips @darklingveracruz @book-of-anarchy @andysficrecs @purelypascal @whovianwar @lv7867 @hornystarwarsbisexual @kaermorons @princess76179 @pedropasscals @greeneyedblondie44 @seasonschange-butpeopledont @qhbr2013 if you don’t want to be tagged, lemme know!! the link to join is in my bio

[alovesongshewrote]

Oops, I Did It Again | Connor DBH

Plot:  Sometimes you get bored.  Sometimes you get crepes.  Sometimes you get tackled by a St. Bernard [Connor DBH x Gender Neutral!Reader]

Word Count:  1,508

Warnings:  dog

A/n:  this is a direct sequel to this, and like most other sequels, it’s worse, lol.  though, you do get to hang out with sumo in this one, so

Tags: @deviatedwinter​

masterlist​

There are certain situations in which charges get dropped.  I can’t be bothered to list them, but trust me when I say an android revolution is one of them.

So, after like, a week on the run, you were free to go.  No breaking and entering charge, no theft charge, no nothing.  Just the memories of adrenaline in your veins, soft lips on yours and the joys of screwing over your employers.  

After you’d obtained your freedom, you stayed in Detroit.  It wasn’t like you had anywhere else to be or anything else to do.  In truth, you were kind of bored.  Believe it or not, there was not much to do in a rebuilding city except for supporting small businesses.  So you did.  Every Saturday was crepe day, that’s just how it was.  Or at least, that’s how it was supposed to be.

One particular Saturday, you were halfway to the creperie.  Your headphones were plugged in, your music was blasting, and you completely neglected to notice the very large St. Bernard headed your way.  You had no choice but to take note, however, when the dog jumped on you, knocking you right to the ground.  Another person may have been upset by this, but not you.  You like dogs because you are a normal and good human being overall, so getting knocked over by a lovely pup such as this one kind of made your day.

“Hey there buddy!  How are you?  I am well,” you said, allowing the large beast to sniff you.  Once the dog decided that you were worthy™, it rolled onto its back, allowing you to do the honour of petting it.  You rolled with it, deciding to pet the heck out of this random dog.

“Awww, you’re such a good dog!!  You are baby :),” you cooed, as the dog stuck his tongue out, very clearly enjoying himself.

Connor, the android sent by Hank, was not feeling the same way.  Post-revolution, the deviant detective had moved in with his partner in solving crimes, and so had been sent to walk the lovely jewel of the household, Sumo.  Usually, an activity such as this brought Connor joy, but somehow, the St. Bernard had escaped from his leash and run off through the streets of Detroit. 

Connor was, obviously, not okay with this.  He was in, as the kids call it, deep shit.  Maybe, with a human dog-walker, losing a dog of Sumo’s size might be a little more understandable.  A dog like that could easily send a toddler, or some other unsuspecting person flying through the air.  Big dogs tend to be pretty strong, and Sumo was, in fact, a big strong dog.  Connor was not some other unsuspecting person though.  He wasn’t a toddler either.  He was an android, a deviant android made of literal fucking metal.  So, how did Sumo escape his grasp?

Plot contrivances.

But that wasn’t exactly an answer Hank would accept, so when Sumo fled Connor gave chase.  You would think he’d be good at that considering his background as a detective.  He’d chased several people and androids through the streets of Detroit, his thirium pump beating out of his chest,  racing, surging forward as a familiar thrill raced through him.  He’d run through this city, forward and back, too many times to count, feet hitting the ground in time with each simulated breath.  

So, chasing a dog should be nothing, right?  Ha, no.  Out of all the things Connor had ever chased in his life, a slip of paper lost in the wind, an umbrella during a storm, deviants, criminals and the like, Sumo proved to be the most difficult creature Conner ever had the pleasure of chasing down.  When he found the dog, though, Connor found the other most difficult creature he’d ever dealt with in his android life.

“Awww, you’re such a good dog!!  You are baby :)”  

“How did you say that out loud?”

You stopped petting the St. Bernard, purely out of shock.  Now, there was a voice you’d never expected to hear again.  You’d hoped for it, of course.  Maybe you’d heard it in some of your stranger dreams, and maybe it had come in across your T.V, like, once, but you never actually believed you’d hear it again.  At least not in person.  However, when you turned, there he was.  That fucking cop.

“Well, hey there Connor sent by- huh.  Probably not Cyberlife anymore, huh?”

“I-”

“Oh, you weren’t sent by the police, were you?  I swear anything you find in my apartment isn’t mine, I stole everything-”

“I-I’m… what?”

You stopped, standing up to face Connor directly.  Sumo whined, though, so you stopped what you were planning on doing and resumed petting the dog, “Damn, I made you speechless.  I am proud of myself just so you know.”

Connor looked at you, and then at Sumo.  It seemed that the great beast liked you.  With a sigh, the android took a seat on the other side of the dog and watched as you rubbed circles into the pup’s fur.

“So,” you smirked, “It’s nice to see you again!  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you outside of a police department before, so this is cool.  I like your shirt.”

Connor had no clue what the fuck you were on about, which was becoming a regular thing at this point.  You were referring to a plain white shirt.  He had no idea what there was to like about it.  When you grinned at him, though, he didn’t care.  He just wanted to say something to you.

“Thank you.”

“No problem!  So, is this big guy yours?”

“Uh, well, yes, I suppose.  His name is Sumo.”

If possible, your smile widened.  You rubbed the fluff around Sumo’s face and cooed again, as if you were slowly becoming a pigeon, “Sumo!!  Sumo, Sumo, Sumo.  It’s perfect!”  

For a moment, Connor found himself staring.  He wasn’t sure what the word was for how he felt watching you fuss over his dog, but he knew it was… nice.  Seeing you smile felt like seeing the sun come out after weeks of rain.  It felt like a fresh pot of coffee in the station, or the joys of a case well done.  It was nice.  Really nice.  It was just as confusing as everything else you did, though.

“Well, he is just the cutest thing!!” you squeaked.  It actually took Connor a minute to realize you were talking to him.

“I’ve heard Hank call him a ‘good boy.’”

“He is!” you exclaimed before realizing you had no idea who Hank was.  That, you decided, would not be a problem for you today.  Maybe it would be for a future you, but you weren’t going to deal with it now.  Now, you were going to cause other problems.

“So, how've ya been, Connor?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you, the last time I saw you we didn’t exactly talk, and a lot has happened since then, so… how are you?”

“I’m…  I’m doing well.  What about you, have you been alright since you…”

“Since I kissed you and fled the police station in the wee hours of the morning?”

“Yes, I believe that covers it.”

You giggled, the smile on your face growing soft as you remembered that night, “Yeah, that was fun.  The charges were dropped so I’m generally free to go.  I just have to avoid committing any other crimes and I should be in the clear.”

There was a moment of silence that almost broke you.  Fortunately, Connor broke the silence first, “Did you not say everything in your apartment is stolen?”

You could not help the loud and obnoxious laugh that escaped you, “You got me there officer!  Perhaps you’d like to visit sometime?  Y’know, to investigate,” on the last word you made sure to wiggle your eyebrows intensely.  You weren’t sure if Connor got the joke, but he did smile, so that was a win.

“So, (Y/N), where were you headed before Sumo interfered?”

“Damn, Con!  It’s always straight to the point, huh?”

“Straight t-?”

“I was actually on my way to grab crepes.  I enjoy supporting local businesses.”

The android raised an eyebrow and gave you a very fun smirk, “Are you sure you aren’t stealing from them?”

“Positive.  You could join me if you wanted to check?  They allow dogs, so...”

Once again, there was a moment of nerve-wracking silence.  Thank god for Connor, honestly, “I think I would like that.”

His answer was semi-unexpected but entirely welcome.  You jumped to your feet, instantly ready to go, “Come on then!  Let’s go!  Rock and roll, buckaroo!”

Once again confused and charmed by your antics, Connor followed your lead, standing and calling Sumo to his side.

Yeah, you were still odd.  And you made him feel weird, but it was the best kind of weird.  You were a lovely type of strange, the exact type that made him smile.  And you got along with his dog.  That, my homeskillet, is a good thing.

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

Surprising Finds

Summary- 1.7k. Ransom Drysdale x You. Bucky Barnes x You. Ransom said you could do whatever you want. So you decided you wanted to go antiquing much to his dismay. Warnings- probably a word or two. But honestly its fluff. Divider made by @firefly-graphics​

A/N- I found out @sagechanoafterdark​‘s birthday is coming up. As its a surprise, I didn't ask but I did take some inspiration from her personal series Held For Ransom and All Good Things. Both fantastic series and should be checked out. I hope you have a wonderful day Sage and thank you for reading all my rambles in your DM’s. 

Ransom perched his sunglasses on the end of his nose as he peered over the frames to the quaint storefront you had him stop at. There was a couple tables displaying some nice dishes and other kitchen appliances, above them in the awning were hanging baskets of morning glories lifting to the morning sunlight and giving the whole store a welcoming feeling. “Here? This is where you wanted to stop Y/N? It looks abandoned.” 

You were digging in your purse and pulling out a few bills to stuff in your pocket before pushing your bag to the floorboard and under the passenger side car seat. “It does not look abandoned. There is an open sign right in the door.” 

“Is that even a legit sign? It looks like something someone plastered it there to draw in unsuspecting tourists so they can trap them and torture them. There is a Saks just another hour away we will be passing. You can find whatever you want there.” He tried reasoning with you, about to turn the car back on when you reached over and slipped the keys from the ignition and smirked at him. 

“Nice try Ransom, but today was about what I wanted to do.” You slipped out of the car, leaving him there huffing at you and pushing his sunglasses back up his nose and following you. He did agree this morning to those terms. Of course you might have coerced him with playful kisses on his chest while straddling him, giving him the look.

That look. 

The cursed look you could pull off whenever you caught him off guard. Fuck it Drysdale, you should have known better. 

“Well if I had known you were going to drag me to the middle of some bum fuck town in the middle of nowhere to look at other people's junk, I would have planned out a trip for us instead.” He complained in a slightly accusing tone as you shrugged while pushing open the door with some effort, blinking in the sudden dim lighting that accompanied antique stores typically. 

“Stay in the car then Hugh, you can't ruin this for me.” Almost flippant sounding, not caring. Oh that tone could drive him nuts.

“Don't call me that.” he snapped. 

“Then quit acting like I'm forcing you to come with me against your will.” You shot back with a smirk, knowing that you could so easily get under his skin. Peering around now that your eyes adjusted. So far no one had come from the counter to greet them, so you just wandered into the building. Ransom was not far behind, picking up random things and rolling it in his hands before setting them back down. You hummed happily while lifting box covers and pulling out old records, reading titles and sifting through a few piles of magazines and books littering the shelves. “See, it's not so bad.” 

Ransom, who was currently glancing in a glass case with some fine gold jewelry and coins yanked his sunglasses off and perched them atop his head. “It's okay, but it's still full of junk.” He made a pointed glance at a gaudy relic of a mime painting leaning against a wall. 

“Sure, you have to seek out the treasures in here.” You countered while sidling up towards him, loping your arm around his waist while looking in the case before moving towards the painting he had so adamantly pointed out. “What do you say, we could always gift this to Linda?” You teased and Ransom moved beyond the glass case to stand in front of it, laughing. 

“Are you saying my mother would enjoy that?” Ransom quirked a brow as you made a move to stand a bit away, holding it out at arms length and making you giggle. 

“Hell I know she would hate it, but how funny would it be to see her attempt to say thank you while we are offering to hang it on her wall?” 

“She wouldn't even try. She would flat out say hell no.” Ransom shook his head and pulled out the painting behind it, grimacing at the next one. Some portrait of a man, looking stoic in the portrait, it actually reminded Ransom of his Harlen's portrait that he was sure Marta still had hanging in memory of his grandfather. “Besides, it's probably haunted or some shit.” 

You were about to point out why it was an even better gift then to torture Linda with when a male’s voice interrupted them. You both turned at the same time to see someone come out the back room. 

Coffee colored hair framed around a warm face, dog tags bouncing off his chest as he grunted with effort dropping off a heavy looking box behind the cash register. “I can assure you it is not haunted. Not that piece at least.” The man brushed the dust off his hands as he came around to greet them. “But I'm afraid I can't tell you the story behind it. I'm just helping today. The store owner happens to be at an estate sale. But anything you have an interest in, I can have her call you. My name is Bucky, if you need any other kind of help.” He smiled warmly, holding his hand out which you shook, then Ransom afterwards, introducing yourselves as well.

You had to admit he had caught you by surprise. Your breath hitched a bit and you felt Ransom stiffen next to you, having heard it as well. “We are just here to look around, not for anything in particular. But thanks for the offer.” You mention while Ransom wraps an arm over your shoulder, you could feel him posturing slightly, a puff to his chest, a rumble of a “We are fine, thanks.” 

Bucky retreated back to his project after you two moved away further into the store, looking over old knick knacks and vases that you had an interest in. Ransom loosened up once you two were alone again. 

“What was that about?” You asked while moving to a clothes rack, picking up an extravagant hat and perching it on your head. 

“What was what about?” he asked, grabbing a scarf and draping it around your neck, pulling you closer. A signature smirk on perfect pink lips upturned slightly. “You look dashing by the way.” 

You narrow your gaze as he drops his head to nip at your lips, pressing your hands to firm pecs under his shirt. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” you whispered while he continued to tease you, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth before he pulled away. 

“I heard that gasp of yours.” He pulled the scarf off while you did the same with the hat, moving into another section of the store. “You think he’s cute.” 

You paw through some random box of items, picking through mugs and utensils. “So what if I did?” 

Ransom curled the tip of his nose at your response and you glanced at him from the corner of your eye, seeing a moment of self doubt that you knew he dealt with, although you two have brushed on the subject a few times, you knew it lingered. You roll your eyes to yourself with a half smile and turn back to him, wrapping your arms around his waist. “Sure hes cute, but does he drive me insane and fuck me so good I’m screaming his name? Or bring me my morning coffee in bed? Do I wear his favorite sweater around the house to tease him? That's a hell no, only you get that Ransom.” 

“You are a menace.” Ransom shook his head, that doubt melting from his eyes and turning sharp again with your statement. 

“Hell, calling the kettle black their Drysdale.” You grin while taking his hand and leading him to the next table. Ransom was about to follow when he pulled up short, picking up a decanter made from cut crystal. 

“Okay this I want.” He let go of your hand, admiring the rest of the set. You folded your arms over your chest, smirking at him. 

“See, complain the whole time and look who’s the first one to find something they just had to have.” 

You stood at your kitchen counter mixing together some dried tea leaves to pack into a tea ball when you felt a pair of arms circle around your waist and a broad chest press against your back. “Welcome home Doll.” came the Brooklyn accent that made you smile, looking over your shoulder with a quick peck to his lips. 

“It's good to be back. I got some really nice items so that once they are cleaned up they will look excellent displayed in the front there. Did you have any customers?” You turned back to your tea, dipping it in a cup and pouring the steaming water over it. Soon the calming aroma of lavender wafted over you two while Bucky and you retreated towards the living room. He settled first and you curled into his side. 

His fingers smoothed along your thigh while he recounted the day to you. A few small sales, some of the vintage dresses that so many loved finding in good condition, a rather nice dresser you had hoped would find a good home and collectible teddy bears that you guessed would go quickly. 

“... then a younger couple came in. They had a whole mess of stuff they took with them. That decanter set you had laying around went. And the woman found herself a “I’m The Boss” mug she insisted on much to his dismay.” Bucky chuckled softly recalling the expressions. “They were looking at the paintings in the corner. Assuming that mime one was haunted, it is kind of creepy.”

You giggled while sipping your tea. “It is, I hate that thing, but people are really into that shit. Good thing they didn't take that one behind it. That one actually does have a spirit attached to it.” 

“The old man portrait?” 

You nodded while tugging a blanket off the back of the couch and cuddling into it, wrapping the two of you up while reaching for the remote. “Oh yes, he's been with that thing for years. Harmless really, you can catch him when you smell cigar smoke. He just likes to hang out. I offered to move him on, but he insists he's happy right where he is.” 

Bucky was quiet a moment and tugged you in closer. “I can understand that.”