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yodawgiherd · 4 years ago

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You Were Never Truly Gone ch.4

>>>Read on AO3<<<

Finally heading to the M-rated waters, as I promised. Fluff and smut and a bit of worldbuilding, because a story should have a plot. Last I checked...

Despite all the bold words, nothing happened in the end. They were both tired as hell, after watching the stars the whole night, so in mutual agreement it was decided to postpone anything intimate to a later date. Secretly, they were grateful for that. Eren, because this was his first night with Mikasa since coming back, and simply holding was overflowing his senses. Mikasa, because there was that teeny tiny chance that this is still a dream, that she will wake up in the morning alone in her bed.

There was no space between the two during the night. Eren curled himself around her, whispered good night, they shared a kiss and Mikasa fell asleep with a big smile on her face because this was something she always dreamed about happening. To make things better, he didn’t disappear in the morning, snoring softly into the skin of her neck. And with that morning, where the sun shined over her cabin, their new life began.

A week passed.

Mikasa cut Eren’s hair, making it shorter, but declined his offer on doing the same. Hers was long now and getting even longer, but there was no need to restrain it anymore. No ODM gear to tangle into, no fear that an enemy might grab her. For the first time in her life, Mikasa was completely at peace, both internally and externally.

It showed in her posture, in her face, in every part of her life, and Eren loved it. He didn’t even realize it before, but Mikasa rarely laughed, giggled, or showed any sort of happiness out loud. Then again, with life as traumatic as hers, once should not be surprised. Not anymore – now she was laughing and smiling and overall doing those sounds that made Eren’s heart flutter wildly. She was his everything, simple as that, and making her happy was a much better mission than trying to survive in a world of titans or destroying an empire threatening to crush them.

There was always some work around the cabin, from cutting the wood and caring for the few animals to hunting, yet Eren was a quick learner. With him around, even the dullest of chores were fun, because Mikasa had everything she wanted. A home. A man that she loved and that loved her back. Well, maybe not everything, because Mikasa always wanted to have a family too, but there would be enough time for that. For now, life was idyllic.

Also, it was time for some questions.

“Mikasa,” he began one time over late breakfast, “What did Armin say about our time in the paths?”

She watched him over her toast for a few seconds, took a bite, and chewed, clearly buying time. Even after all that, her words were guarded. Mikasa did not enjoy remembering the past, because it was the time of the greatest pain in her life – a time when she was alone.

“He told me that you said that you loved me, and you wanted us to be together.”

“That’s it?”

“Oh, he also mentioned that you never wanted me to find another guy.”, she frowned at him, “I should be mad at you for that, did you expect to die and I was supposed to what? Be alone for the rest of my life?”

“Yeah, that was inappropriate, but I wasn’t expecting to ever see you again.”, her hand on the table, Eren reached over to caress it, “Will you forgive me if I tell you a detail Armin left out?”

From the crinkle in his eye, it would be a good one.

“You have a deal, Yeager.”

“The thing is, I didn’t say those words while staring into the distance, unbothered by everything. No, I threw a tantrum.”

“You what?”

“Like a child. I cried and sat in the water where Armin knocked me, screaming that I wanted to be with you.”

The mental image made Mikasa’s heart ache.

“Eren I…”

“Yea, I was desperate back then.”

The emptiness in Mikasa’s chest echoed its memory, the hollow feeling he left behind when dead. To chase it away, she stood up and rounded the table, seating herself in Eren’s lap. She held his head, angling it up, staring right into those beautiful emeralds.

“Well, we are together now.”

The way he looked at her – it was as if Eren was watching the sun, a beauty so incredible that he couldn’t put it to words. Adoration was a weak one because it didn’t even come close to what he felt for Mikasa.

“So we are…”, he whispered, and then she was kissing him again, the breakfast forgotten for now.

Despite all these little romantic pauses, there was work to be done.

Eren was not passive, offering his own ideas on how to make the cabin even cozier, and most of them were good. They put together a table outside, a few chairs, the woodwork coming naturally to their hands, skilled with blades. Yet work with blades is always dangerous, and one failed woodcarving later Eren was suddenly bleeding from a deep cut on his palm, staring at the red line in annoyance.

Mikasa was quick to move, collecting alcohol and bandages, but Eren waved her down, amused by her actions.

“What are you doing? It will heal.”

But it didn’t. No steam, no quick fix-it, only pain, and more blood, and a realization knocked on the front door of Eren’s mind. Right, he didn’t have his powers anymore.

A nigh professional bandage around his injured hand, as Mikasa had plenty of experience with patching wounds, Eren was forced to lie down, and he stared at his hand while she cleaned the mess he left behind. As always. Sure, it hurt like a bitch and would probably heal for a few days, but Eren smiled on the wound. This - this pain, this felt good. It felt good to be alive.

And the pain was far from the only emotion in the cabin, as things got heated too.

Mikasa adored kissing, Eren was more than happy to assist, and their days were often interrupted by these moments. Completely at random, with no reason other than want. A good morning kiss, a good night kiss, a random smooch while passing each other, a make-out session while hunting that scared the poor deer for life.

He learned that Mikasa’s neck and ears were her weak points, abusing that knowledge shamelessly. Covering the porcelain perfection with marks was a new favorite pastime of his.

Her beauty was ethereal. Be it the contrast between the pale skin and raven hair, now long enough to cascade past her shoulders, or the way her eyes sparkled when she smiled. In his life, Eren could never appreciate beauty. It was filled with dread, with death and blood, with titans and the war. He lived to survive, lived to draw a struggling breath while the world wanted him dead. Only when he truly died did his life change. Now he had time. Time to stop and appreciate the scenery, time to look at Mikasa and see what he was missing all these years.

Eren didn’t think that “beautiful” described what she was. Sunrise was beautiful. The stars, high up in the sky, were beautiful. The flowers Mikasa grew in a part of her garden were beautiful.

Not her.

Somehow, she made everything better. Sunrise was nothing compared to her smile. The stars were enjoyed the best when she was with him, lying on the roof and counting them, giggling anytime Eren tried to find a shape in those lights. The flowers put together created a crown that Mikasa planted on his head, and Eren was the king of the garden for a good minute – a position he would take over the founding titan any day of the week.

No, Mikasa wasn’t simply beautiful. She was perfection.

Evenings were the best because they got to lie down on the roof and watch the stars, hand in hand. It was here that most of their physical exploration took place. Over the clothes at first, a touch here and there, a gentle caress and a quick retreat when the other party gasped, only to be told that “It felt good.” Feelings were a topic hard to describe, but they worked together and were slowly bringing that wall down, brick by brick.

The roof adventures evolved. The kisses were more intense, the touches bolder, the rut of his clothed hips into hers harsh. When Mikasa craved some, all she had to do was meet Eren’s gaze, give him her version of “sexy” eyes and bite her bottom lip, and he was rolling on top of her before she could even giggle.

The evening kisses were slow and sensual because there was no rush. Their work for the day was done, and no amount of stars could ever be as mesmerizing as the girl in Eren’s arms. He would much rather watch her eyes than see the moon. Maybe it was the primal need to please her, maybe it was a magnetic pull, maybe it was…

Who was he kidding, Eren was just a frustrated and horny virgin - that’s it.

So, for whatever reason, he found his fingers slipping under the hem of Mikasa’s skirt one night, anchoring on her knee. Too low from where he wanted to be, but first he had to have her permission. The shy parting of her legs was enough, Eren was dense but not that dense. Up he went, probing at the unexplored territory of her thighs, feeling the muscles. Mikasa had incredible legs, hell, her whole body was incredible, a souvenir left behind by her soldier days. Finally free to do what he wanted, Eren indulged himself, dragging his hands higher and higher until fingers dug into the flesh of inner thighs.

He was close, so close to her heat that Mikasa couldn’t help but feel anxious. This was the last barrier between them, the last thing that they didn’t do and she really, really wanted to cross that bridge. At the ripe age of twenty-two, Mikasa was more than ready. Whispering her consent, she watched wide-eyed as Eren swallowed, giving her a nod of understanding. After what felt like a lifetime, his fingers finally made contact with the fabric of her underwear. Gently, gently and carefully he touched her over the cotton, taking her advice and rubbing the place with two of his fingers. Mikasa reacted beautifully, she gasped into the kisses, cheeks boiling more than usual, her hands tangling in Eren’s shirt. She liked this, the attention, the way he touched her, reminding her that he’s here, that she’s not alone. Not anymore.

Eren rubbed at her more insistently, maybe trying to force more of those pretty sounds out of her pretty lips but the cloth was in the way. And Mikasa wasn’t playing around anymore.

“Take them off.”, she half-ordered, forcing Eren’s eyes to widen.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

He was still too slow for her tastes, so Mikasa helped him, tugged the underwear down her legs and kicked it away, not minding that it fell from the roof. They would have time to hunt for it later. Eren was still somewhat flabbergasted by how demanding Mikasa got, but she had three damn years to mourn him, to imagine all the things that would never happen and now when they were actually happening she could not wait.

Her hips tilted to a better angle, inviting Eren to push a single finger in, feeling something he never did in his life. It was warm and moist and kinda funny as if he was sticking it into a freshly made pie. However, pies never moaned. The moan, now that was something that tickled something deep in Eren’s brain. Gasps, groans, even little sounds of pleasure – Mikasa made them all but this was the first time she full-on moaned, shameless and loud. God, he wanted more.

Recognizing that the muscled sheath would stretch for him, Eren added a second finger, scissoring his digits. It was a work in the dark, as Mikasa had her skirt on and he couldn’t see what he was doing, so he used her body as a guide, as an indicator of what to do.

She was greedy. Greedy and selfish, yet she couldn’t find a reason not to be. This was what she wanted for so long, so much that it made her cry to sleep at night. Opening her mouth, Mikasa instructed him further.

“There’s a little bundle on top that feels good when you touch it.”

“Oh really?”, there was a slight shift in the fingers on her sex, “Is it here?”

“No, a bit higher.”

“Here?”

“Close…”

“Here?”

“Hng… Y-Yes.”

It was amazing that such a simple touch could make Mikasa gasp like that.

“How should I touch it, what do you like the most?”

In her state, Mikasa didn’t even realize that Eren just asked her how she masturbates. Not that she was ever big on that, but she was a teenager once and did experiment with what the girls gossiped around in the barracks. It was fine, but nothing compared to how she was feeling right now, Eren’s longer fingers filling her in a way her hands never could.

“Small circles, start slow and then move faster and faster. You can be a little rough, but not too much, because it is really sensitive.”

Careful he was, but not too careful, rubbing as she instructed and soon Mikasa was seeing stars that weren’t on the night sky but beneath her eyelids. Brighter and brighter they shined and she wasn’t even able to kiss Eren anymore, panting with head turned. To please her further Eren quick-invented a new hold on her private parts. Two fingers in a palm against her bundle of nerves, he moved in and out of her while rubbing the place and Mikasa lost it.

Here, on the roof of their cabin, clutching to Eren’s back for dear life, Mikasa Ackerman had the first assisted orgasm in her life – and it was by far the most powerful one. She had tears in her eyes once she came back from her high, and Eren was feeling proud, prouder than when he sealed that hole in the wall with his titan.

“Do you..”, she swallowed, head hidden in Eren’s neck, “D’you want me to touch you too?”

“There will be plenty of time for that later.”, he argued, kissing her temple, “We should head to bed.”

Another week passed.

If anything, the cabin paradise got even better. During their evening kissing sessions, Eren didn’t have his fingers all over Mikasa only, but inside her too. Unexperienced but a quick student, he was able to quickly follow given instructions and translate the movements of her body into his fingers, making her feel better and better with every try. Soon, Mikasa wasn’t able to guide him at all, too busy with gasping and moaning while Eren’s mouth kept sucking the last air out of her lungs or marking her neck with a never-ending supply of love bites. And once she was tired and exhausted, once he made her come enough for his tastes, Eren held up the stained hand, licking her sweetness off of and then kissing her, letting Mikasa taste herself on his tongue.

She touched him too, learned how to handle that thing between Eren’s legs to his satisfaction. While he was blushing like crazy at first, repeating that she does not have to do this, Mikasa shut him up with a kiss while her hand dug confidently beneath his pants, fingers curling around the length that quickly became stiff. Jerking Eren off was a bit more difficult because he made a much bigger mess than her, but seeing him melt into her touch and whine and beg when she held the pulsing rod in her hand was so worth it.

It was amazing that all this – all this pleasure they could give each other, was only the first step on a long road that both Mikasa and Eren loved to walk. In no rush, hand-in-hand, taking it one thing at a time because now, there was no limit over their heads. Now, they could enjoy each to their hearts' desire.

Mikasa wasn’t surprised when Eren caught her hand one day and pulled her to him, the bucket she was carrying cluttering on the ground. He hoisted her up but it was day and they were out in the full light with work to be done so Mikasa initially protested.

Her: “Eren wait…”, was weak and not entirely convincing, especially when her legs wrapped around his waist immediately, holding him tight as a vine. Taking her body language as the one Mikasa couldn’t lie in, Eren buried his face in her neck, the scarf being pushed away by his nose as he kissed her there. Out of sheer instinct Eren’s hips began bucking into hers, rutting clothed like an animal against that heated patch of skin between her legs. Even with the barrier the friction was very pleasurable, and soon Mikasa’s head was falling back and knocking against the wooden side of the cabin, the pretty moans leaving her parted lips.

Yet the moment was ruined when she looked back down, her eyes locking with the gaze of their goat. Yams, as they named the animal, was chewing hay, but its somehow incredibly intelligent eyes never left Mikasa’s, watching her with interest. And no, she didn’t want to be watched by a goat while being intimate.

The pull on Eren’s hair was strong, quickly forcing him back to reality.

“What’s wrong Mika?”, he asked, halting his movements, “You don’t like it?”

“I do but…”, she moved her mouth closer, whispering, “Yams is watching.”

“W-What?”

But when he turned his head, Eren could see that the goat was indeed looking, very much throwing his libido from the window. With a sigh, he let Mikasa back down to stand on her feet, even helping her smooth the wrinkled skirt.

“Next time, let’s do it somewhere with fewer eyes.”, she offered, making him grin.

“I’m looking forward to that.”

Quick, so quick that he couldn’t even follow, Mikasa stood on her tippy toes and pressed a fleeting kiss to his mouth.

“Me too.”

While they were having their budding romance, the rest of the world struggled to draw breath.

Armin sent letters, explaining the situation in deeper detail and offering a few ideas on how to defuse the Eren thing. They were mostly informational, intent on catching Eren up on what happened during his absence, with neat rows of numbers and words. But it was the first time that Eren saw the destruction that he caused on paper, the first time he read just how much of an impact rumbling left on this world. It would take decades to recover, most likely more, and still, it would never be the same.

Words, numbers, statistics - the population he killed was reduced to this. Yet Eren couldn’t ignore it because it was his doing, his sins, their blood on his hands. This world, this ruined husk with billions wiped out, that was his doing. In the history books, Eren Yeager would go down as the greatest villain that ever lived, and those who stopped him were eternal heroes.

Mikasa found him sitting over these, head in hands, staring at the small letters. The pain in his face was evident and it was obvious to know why.

A slender hand appeared, swiping the letter away.

“Don’t mind those.”

“Do you want me to close my eyes towards the world? Pretend that I don’t see it?”

“No, but there is no need for you to torture yourself.”, she reached over, gently cradling his cheek, “You are here for me, aren’t you?”

A sad smile spread Eren’s lips.

“Of course.”

But it was not okay, and the following night Eren could not fall asleep. Mikasa was out cold, tired from her busy day, curled against his chest, but rest evaded him. Anytime he closed his eyes, the rumbling played on his eyelids, the death he caused coming back to haunt him. Eighty percent. A ridiculous number, but it was the truth. Eighty percent of all life was ended by him, by his actions. No other war, plague, or famine was this deadly.

Eren couldn’t breathe.

As silently and gently as he could, he slipped out of the bed, rushing outside into the cold air. There he fell to his knees, eyes wide as he gasped for breath. Never since being reincarnated did he think about the rumbling this much. He had a goal before, to get back to Mikasa, to reach the only home he knew in this world, but now that he was here the dangerous thoughts flowed.

Looking over his shoulder, he eyed the cabin, his paradise on earth, eyes watering. How did he ever think that he could have this? A home, a woman that loved him, a woman that was the most beautiful and amazing person in this whole world. How can he smile at her, kiss her, hold her in his arms when his hands are dripping with the blood of millions?

Crying now, sobbing, Eren pressed fists to his eyes, teeth clenching. A genocide later all his dreams came true. He once called Historia the worst girl in the world, what was he then? The worst man, monster, the evil incarnate that somehow got its happy ending. How was this fair? How could the universe stand for such an atrocity?

Warmth, a strong hand that wrapped around him, pulling him to rest against a familiar chest. Putting his arms around Mikasa, Eren cried into her nightgown, fingers bunching the material.

“I-I don’t deserve this.”, he choked, “I don’t deserve you.”

“Shhh, It will be okay.”, she rocked him gently, “I’m here for you.”

“I’ve done… such terrible things. I shouldn’t have this, I shouldn’t have you.”

“Maybe not, but tell me Eren.”, she pulled back, making him look at her, “What do I deserve?”

The answer was immediate.

“The whole world.”

“Ah, and from this whole world you just gave me, I will pick a single thing for myself.”, softly, she kissed his forehead, “You.”

Overcome with raw emotion, Eren pushed their foreheads together, taking the moment to just stare deep into her eyes, bathing himself in the undying love he saw.

“The universe is not fair if it lets me have you.”

“It never was,”, Mikasa retorts, “not since the beginning. You may be the devil, but you are not the only sinner who ended up redeemed. Remember Annie? Remember how she murdered Levi’s squad, remember how we feared her, hated her? Or Reiner, whose actions of breaking the wall killed hundreds.”

She hugged him tighter, whispering.

“You are not perfect, but if they got a second chance, why can’t you?”

With no good answer in mind, Eren crashed his lips into hers, giving in. Lucky was a word that described fortunate people, but it wasn’t enough to express what Eren was. He had Mikasa in his life, and that was beyond lucky.

Sometimes the memories still tormented him, sometimes he could hear the cries and see the crushed faces, but when that happened Eren simply tightened his hold on Mikasa’s sleeping body, letting her love and touch wash those night terrors away. She was his talisman, his light in the darkness, and the answer to why Eren should be allowed to live. Because Mikasa wanted him to, that’s why.

He held her and thanked God for her, because she was a divine gift to the world. Eren thanked Ymir too for the second chance, even knowing that the girl is gone, finally free. It’s the gesture that counts. And there were other ways to show affection to the angel that redeemed him.

And five days after his breakdown, he got a chance to do so.

Mikasa whined when he pulled the fingers out of her without letting her reach the peak, grey eyes stormy. She watched in disapproval as he sucked the sweetness from his digits, grumbling about letting the job half-done. All Eren did was kiss her even deeper, whispering against her swollen lips.

“I want to taste you.”

“… You just did.”

“Not like that.”, Eren shook his head, moving until his head was in the apex of Mikasa’s thighs, emerald eyes burning with passion when they met her gaze, “Like this.”

“I-Is that even a thing?”

“Believe me – when I bunked in the Marley hospital, there was one thing that the veterans loved talking about.”, he smirked, “Their adventures with women.”

“So, you know how it works?”

“I have a faint idea.”

Her skirt was in the way so Eren bunched it up until it was resting on Mikasa’s stomach. This was the first time he got a good look at the place between her legs, and he found it endearing. It was pink and glistening a bit and reacting wonderfully when Eren rubbed it. Mikasa was dying of shame, her skin boiling red and she even pulled the scarf up, hiding her face into it.

Ever the explorer, Eren moved forward and did what he wanted to for a long time. Sticking out his tongue he licked at her, getting the strange new taste in his mouth. She was sweet and Eren found himself liking it, eagerly pushing down and pressing for more. Mikasa was unsure what he was even doing at this point, but it felt amazing despite the strange sounds. She could feel his tongue tracing her sex before dipping in.

He made her feel good, great even, combining the efforts of his tongue with a rub on her clit. Eren even reached out when he was tongue deep inside her, taking both of her clothed breasts and squeezed hard, forcing a cry from Mikasa’s throat. Unrelenting, he kept pleasuring her until she came all over his face, breathing hard while Eren gently licked her through the finish. And when she was done he crawled up, facing her reddened face with his smug one.

“Wanna taste yourself?”, he asked, and Mikasa didn’t feel like answering with words.

She kissed him instead.

Mikasa, always the great equalizer, insisted that she tries using her mouth on Eren too. It was strange, holding the thing in her hand, it was even stranger having it in her mouth, but Mikasa was determined and nothing would stop her. In her fervor she let it slide way too deep into her throat, and she gagged and coughed and Eren was apologizing so much that she put a hand over his mouth to silence him.

“Shhh.”, she said, “Let me work.”

Grabbing a hair tie from her pocket, she tied the long hair into a ponytail because it was getting everywhere, and as soon as it was tamed she went back to it. And work she did, indulging herself on her wiling partner, trying everything she could think of. It was fun, it was great fun but then Eren let out a tortured groan and tugged at her ponytail, a warning that she understood but decided to ignore.

He exploded inside her mouth, and she swallowed around him, not stopping until he was done. Only then did she move up his body, meeting his flushed face with a bold smile.

“Wanna taste yourself?”, she threw Eren’s words back at him, and his answer was the same as hers.

A deep kiss.

A third week passed.

Niccolo came by with a basket of homecooked food and Mikasa met him outside, saying that she doesn’t feel well. He left the food with a get-well-soon wish, and suddenly there was a day when they didn’t have to cook. They ate the admittedly delicious meal outside, the meat going great with one of the left-over bottles of wine. A tiny bit of red found its way to Mikasa’s cheek, smeared across her scar, and Eren was very glad that this time around it’s not blood.

“You’ve got some sauce on your face.”

“Huh, where?”

“Here..”, ever helpful, Eren reached out to thumb it away but didn’t pull his hand back, letting the touch linger.

Mikasa leaned into it, smiling and overall being the prettiest thing he ever saw. Not to wonder, the next moment he was kissing her.

It was passionate, way more than usual, partly fueled by the wine but mostly by the hunger for each other. The three weeks was enough time, enough for the reality to become what it always was – real. Eren was here, with her, and maybe he didn’t deserve it but she did. Mikasa always fell asleep hugging him and woke up tangled with Eren, never alone or crying into her pillow. And kissing was nice and all but they were two healthy young adults and sometimes, kissing simply doesn’t cut it.

The cabin door banged when he kicked it open, pulling Mikasa back to him as soon as he could. With her eager assistance he managed to unbutton her shirt, letting it fall on the floor. She did the same to him and now they were both topless, naked skin sliding against naked skin.

Eren had a faint idea of how Mikasa's body looks like. They spent a lot of time together, slept in the same bed, and her nightgown was not made of the thickest material. There were times during the night where her ass rubbed just perfectly against his crotch and Eren had to tilt his hips away, lest he wakes her with his raging hard-on. There was also that one time when he walked in on Mikasa changing and was blessed with a sight of her fully naked for about a second before they both went red in the face and Eren slammed the door closed, loudly apologizing.

But this, this was something different altogether.

It was the first time when they got willingly naked with each other. Even during their earlier activities the removal of clothing was limited to the most necessary ones – panties nudged aside, pants pulled down, skirt bunched up. Now it was all and everything, falling on the floor like leaves in autumn and the two lovers stumbled around the cabin, bumping into furniture.

She was beautiful, of course she was, but there were definitive proofs of her hard life left behind on her body. The muscles were one thing, coiling beneath her skin, her abs far more defined than Eren’s ever was. Younger and dumber Eren envied those muscles Mikasa had because she was that much stronger and faster than he, older and wiser Eren worshipped them. They were a part of the woman who was the reason for his existence.

Yet the muscles were not all. Mikasa had scars, a lot of scars, scattered everywhere and Eren had to take a break from her lips to touch them.

“I’m sorry,”, he heard her whisper, misunderstanding his pause, “I know that they are ugly.”

“Ugly?”, he laughed in disbelief, “Mikasa, you got these while saving my life, over and over again. You got them while saving the damn world. You got them while being the bravest and strongest soldier that ever existed.”

Suddenly he was on his knees, and Eren’s lips ghosted over her stomach where a large cut was.

“They are beautiful.”

And he kissed her scar and didn’t stop there. Every single one, no matter how small, felt the touch of his lips, gentle but insistent. To see them all Eren had to take off her skirt too, and now he had Mikasa only in her underwear, a sight that he thought will never bless his eyes. But he was here, she was here, every cut on her skin an obstacle she had to overcome for them to have this heaven together. Slowly and lovingly Eren placed Mikasa on the bed, crawling over her. Her hair, long and unbound, spilled on the pillow, midnight against the whiteness of the sheets. He kissed the cut on her ankle, the marks left behind by ODM gear on Mikasa’s thighs. Eren’s journey was long and arduous but he loved every moment of it. The end was her face, and after he kissed the scar on her cheek that he gave her in his youthful rage, it was done. For today at least, as Eren would repeat the same journey a hundred times if given the chance.

In clear contrast, his body had no marks. No scars, no blemishes, no birthmarks, it was new and it showed. The only cut he had was the one on his hand, a few days old and a result of his own clumsiness. They were both veterans of the same wars, but Mikasa was the one forced to wear the marks on her body. It only made Eren feel even more affection to her, a deep desire to worship her – all of her. With a question he tugged at her underwear and she relented, letting him remove everything from her body. Now she was bare and he could finally take her in fully, nothing hidden from view anymore.

There is no word to describe what Eren felt at that moment. A mix of love, adoration, awe, and, no need to deny it, lust. In his faint memories they were like this before, during their “what if” escape, but that was a dream, nothing compared to the reality. Mikasa was a woman shaped by war, her body was a weapon, yet it lost nothing of its grace. Every move of her mesmerized him, every shift of her muscle beneath the porcelain, every time she drew a breath and those perky breasts rose from their perch, high on her chest. Aching to touch them, he ran his hands over her ribs first, feeling the bones one by one. Finally, he reached those mounds, filling his hands and squeezing, kneading them. It must have felt good because Mikasa groaned, shifting beneath him on the bed.

It was funny – her body was hard, mostly muscles and bones, cut from her training as a diamond. But her breasts were still soft and squishy and Eren couldn’t get enough of them. Her nipples hard against his tongue when Eren mouthed her chest, licking and kissing and leaving marks with his teeth.

“How are you this perfect?”, he choked out, making her blush even more.

“I’m not.”

“Yes, yes you are.”, to make her see, Eren kissed a trail from her breasts all the way up to her mouth, kissing her nose.

Perfect – from the tips of her toes to the top of her head.

Eren’s fingers were at her entrance again, toying and prodding, the touch experienced now. He knew what to do, and Mikasa was soon gasping into his mouth, head swimming. His other hand went on a journey too, touching everything and everywhere, committing this to his memory. The mental image Eren was creating – he wanted to know her, every nook and cranny of Mikasa’s body for one reason only. So he could make her feel the best that he could.

Exploration didn’t go unrewarded. A nipple, which he flicked and Mikasa let out a short gasp. The second one, that he pulled into his mouth, sucking diligently. Hands busy – one down between her legs, fingers moving in and out and palm rubbing her clit, one at her chest, tweaking that funny nub. Mikasa was reacting well, and Eren got his mouth engaged in a different place, kissing and licking all over her sensitive neck before returning to her abandoned breast. The bite on her nipple sent a shock of pain through all the pleasure, but Mikasa loved that spice.

She came, came hard with a strangled cry that he captured in a kiss, came over his hand and Eren loved that, loved when her hips moved on their own and rode out its orgasm on his digits. But when he tried bringing those fingers up to his mouth Mikasa interrupted him, catching his hand and licking it clean herself.

Today, this would not satisfy her. Today she wanted more.

She was so polite, asking if he could strip too, and Eren almost fell from the bed in an effort to follow her wishes. Now it was her turn to explore, to touch everything everywhere, to trace her fingers over the planes of unmarked skin. Palming the hard erection Mikasa wondered how that will ever fit inside her. Yet with her fingers brushing over his member, Eren couldn’t wait anymore.

“Please,”, he begged in a broken whisper, unworthy as he was, “Please let me make love to you.”

And the angel looked at him, the grey eyes drowning with their intensity, the ethereal being regarded the broken man that shared her bed, the nameless existence that defied death for her. And then, a tiny smile curved her pink lips.

“Yes…”, she said, spreading her legs and tilting her hips up.

“Yes….”, now her hand was on his member, pulling and guiding him insider her.

“Yesssssss.”, was the third hiss as Eren penetrated her, Mikasa’s eyes fluttering closed from the intensity.

It was a tight fit and Eren was glad for the touches from earlier, because without her wetness he had no idea if it could even get in. It took time, rocking back and forth as he pushed in more and more, Mikasa’s unyielding muscles giving way. Even overwhelmed like this Eren wanted to touch her. Her breasts were fun to squeeze, her face a great place to kiss. Still, his hips danced, pulling and pushing and Mikasa’s legs wrapped around him, helping with the movements.

In a primal attempt to establish dominance, or maybe to just stop her hands from distracting him Eren gathered her wrists and pinned them to the bed above Mikasa’s head, holding her stretched with one of his hands. At the same time he finally bottomed out, the head of his member kissing a spot deep inside that was never touched before, the connection making them moan in unison. Joined as much as they could, the pair stared into each other’s eyes, seeing the overflowing love they held. A love that demanded to be consummated.

And consummated it was in rhythmic thrusts, the headboard banging the wall. Her hands easily slipped from the restrictive hold Eren tried to have on them and were now grasping at his broad back. When he moved just right, when he rubbed the perfect place inside her, they changed into claws and carved into the skin, creating bloody wings in their wake. The pain was nothing compared to the pleasure, Eren not even halting in his movements. He fucked her slow and deep, pouring all of his love into the thrusts. Mikasa was moaning right into his ear, the sounds so sweet that Eren could drown in them.

He wanted more.

Eren had to have her closer, had to be touching as much of Mikasa as he could. Sitting up he pulled her until she was in his lap, the new position pushing the thing inside her even further, now that gravity was assisting. They wrapped each other in a hug and then the movement resumed, but now they were both doing it. Eren thrusted and Mikasa rocked her hips, working in unison to reach their goal. Gasping on her shoulder wasn’t good enough, the hot puffs he blew into her hair, so Eren angled his head to kiss her. Now they were exchanging air too in addition to the deep connection of their bodies. It was always better to let Mikasa move because she excelled at anything physical, and Eren was the one faltering when her hips circled, the massage of her inner muscles out of this world.

He was weak, too weak to resist because this was the best Eren ever felt in his life. With a groan, a mumbled warning he came, hips jerking into hers. The finish was something out of a dream, making his whole body shake while whiteness pushed on his eyelids, and Eren knew that this was everything he could ever ask for.

Here in their cabin, Eren and Mikasa took each other’s virginity, finally becoming what they were always meant to be. Lovers.

Mikasa’s lips fell open, the strange sensation of being filled by Eren’s climax worming its way into her brain. Bodies stilled, they sat in the bed, tangled together as close as two people can physically be. Eren was the first to move, kissing the side of her throat.

“I’m sorry,”, an apology pressed into her skin, “I couldn’t stop myself.”

“It’s okay…”, a breathy gasp, “I enjoyed it.”

Overcome, Eren fell on his back, staring at the ceiling, but looking up he saw that Mikasa didn’t follow. She was still straddling his hips, seated upright, watching him with a new spark in her eyes. Reaching out, she ran a finger down Eren’s face, loving the change of perspective. Now she had all the control, all the power, and nothing was restraining her from taking what she wanted.

Mikasa rolled her hips experimentally, making Eren curse as he grabbed her. No, she didn’t like that. Peeling his fingers off Mikasa planted them back on the bedding, leaning down until their lips brushed.

“Stay.”

A single word, a single kiss and she was upright again, stirring her hips. She was a visage on top of him. A beautiful dance of her muscled stomach, the rolling of hips powered by those defined abdominals. The long hair shifting with her movements, curtaining her from behind. The way she tilted her face up, eyes closed, losing herself to the pleasure. The daylight streamed in through the windows, bouncing off of her pale skin and she was bathed in it, beautiful beyond any imagination. Reddened cheeks, swollen pink lips, midnight hair, white skin marked by red love bites, perky firm tits bouncing with her movements. A painting couldn’t be more perfect than Mikasa right now, no artist could ever hope to capture what she was. And Eren was an observer, blessed by this sight, pinned to the bed not only by her weight but mostly by her word.

Being on top was quickly becoming Mikasa’s favorite position. Not that she tried many of them, but being here and free, able to watch Eren fall apart beneath her that was an experience she enjoyed. Faster, she bounced on his lap with more strength and was soon craving a little change.

Hands finding purchase on Eren’s thighs Mikasa leaned back and continued her riding, the sounds of their lovemaking filling the cabin. Full of pure joy, full of him, high on hormones she laughed out loud, head falling back and the ends of her hair tickling Eren’s legs. So long it grew, now that war wasn’t forcing her to cut it anymore.

To help, to assist the divine being, Eren put his thumb to work on her clit and she appreciated it with a deep hum. And this time around, with a lot of cheek biting and digging nails into his palms, Eren managed to hold until Mikasa came first, clenching around him and crying out loud. Done and spent she collapsed but didn’t let his length fall out and Eren had to help himself, thrusting up until he also spilled for the second time, muffling his sounds by her hair.

“Thank you.”, he whispered, kissing everywhere on her face, from forehead to the eyelids, the cute nose that she scrunched, over her lips down to the chin.

Her eyes fluttered open, meeting his jittery gaze with her own.

“Don’t..”, a gentle touch on his cheek, “We did this together.”

“Together…”

There were tears now streaming down his face, tears from the pure happiness that bloomed in his chest. And Mikasa wiped them away but didn’t ask why Eren was crying.

She knew.

To his surprise, Eren enjoyed cooking and gardening a lot. Maybe it was the need to create with his hands, rather than destroy, he had enough death in his life. Still, he was no slouch at hunting yet Mikasa always outperformed him, a fact that he was often teased for.

To test her, if the Ackerman strength had truly left her body, he built a small sparring ring and invited her to join him. Stiff at first, as the fighting grew out of their lives, but on about the third round the blood boiled and the body remembered what it used to be. Mikasa’s unnatural strength was indeed gone, vanishing with the paths, but she was far from weak. Her body was a perfectly put together machine that she mastered, and while she couldn’t pick up Eren with one hand anymore, she could easily do it with two. They punched and danced around and twisted and turned on the ground and Eren came to a realization. Even now, Mikasa crushed him.

Then again, there were certain benefits to sparring, like the feel of her skin on his, the hands that roamed everywhere to push and pull, and….

It was after the fifth time that Mikasa pinned Eren to the ground when his hand circled her hips and pulled instead of pushing her away, the indication rather clear.

“I’ll assume that this was your plan from the start?”, Mikasa asked, not minding the change of physical activity in the slightest.

“You overestimate me,”, he muttered, planting open-mouthed kisses over the sweaty skin of Mikasa’s neck, “I’m thinking on my feet here.”

Well, she would not question his genius.

A chicken came close, eyeing the sweaty mass of entangled bodies writhing around on the ground, curious about what was happening. Noticing a shirt, thrown away in a heat of passion, it pecked at it to try the taste. However, then the black-haired human made a loud noise and it scared the animal, making the chicken run away with flapping wings. The fabric was not worth it.

Several months passed.

Armin sent more letters. The situation wasn’t getting better, but it wasn’t getting worse either. Yeagerists and the rest of the world were barking at each other like rabid dogs, but neither was willing to bite first. Historia mediated peace talks in the meantime, opening Paradis up.

Most importantly, they kept his secret. To the world, Eren Yeager was dead.

In other news, Jean and Pieck were dating, Armin wrote. Reiner was depressed since Eren came back, but he was getting better thanks to Gabi and Falco being awesome. Levi asked how Mikasa was, and Armin smiled and said that she’s okay. The old captain probably had a hunch of bullshittery, considering the look he gave the blond but didn’t pry.

To them, it was an echo that barely reached their private paradise.

It was bliss, no other word to describe it. The days in the cabin alternated – sometimes they woke up with a crack of dawn and were doing chores as the sun rose, sometimes they stayed in bed the whole day, doing nothing but re-exploring each other’s bodies. With the final barrier between them broken, they were experimenting with their intimacy, because no idea was dumb enough not to try. Who would mind? It was just them in the cabin, and they had a backlog worth years of suppressed feelings.

In those months Mikasa’s scarf was used a lot, becoming a blindfold or a way to gently tie someone’s hands. The location was also great to change, and the cabin wasn’t big enough for their tastes, the surrounding river, forest and meadows offering so many new places to try.

When having “fun” outside Yams was a hard limit because he kept watching with an interested expression and Mikasa couldn’t take it. For the sake of her mental health, they began locking the poor goat in the barn as a precaution. And everything was perfect again.

Until one day, when two events found a way to disrupt it.

First – Mikasa missed her period. A thing that was honestly to be expected, and a little miracle that it didn’t happen sooner. Sure, she was drinking some tea that was supposed to help but that was for girls who made a mistake, not for young women that were having sex multiple times per day.

Eren, who initially had a speech about them having to be careful because Mikasa getting pregnant out of nowhere while she is supposed to be living alone would be hard to explain, was nothing but a hypocrite. He was not careful in the slightest, unable to stop himself and pull out more times than he could. Mikasa locking her ankles around his hips at times or refusing to go down from her position on top didn’t help.

Not realizing the implication the period was ignored, Mikasa reasoned that it would come later, but the second event was of a much bigger immediate impact.

Mikasa was feeding Yams in the yard while Eren plucked a goose he hunted earlier, their normal day of an idyllic life. That was all changed when an unfamiliar sound could be heard in the distance, and straightening, Mikasa shielded her eyes from the sun to see what it was. A car. A big black car was coming towards her house, bearing small flags on the sides. There were no roads to her house, but the machine did not care, chugging it over the grass.

“Eren, hide!”, was her warning hiss, and he was quick to obey.

Dropping the goose he all but sprinted inside the cabin, managing to close the door just as the car climbed the hill, getting a clear view for the first time. It vroomed closer and closer until it was here, stopping with a grunt. Mikasa watched it all with the hay basket at her hip and Yams abused her confusion, eating right out of it.

The metal opened to reveal a black-suited man who jumped out, opening the rear door with a bow. Kiyomi climbed out, her face betraying nothing as she looked left and right, taking the whole cabin in. The half-plucked goose caught her attention but she didn’t comment on it, walking over to the table instead.

Understanding the gesture, Mikasa dumped the basket much to Yams’ glee, joining the older woman. Kiyomi had her hands folded on the wood, eyes calculating as always, watching her approach. And when Mikasa sat down, her words were fast and emotionless. Not even a “Hello”, Kiyomi rolled out her plan immediately.

“I am withdrawing my support from Paradis.”

“Excuse me?”

“I will make the announcement in a week. After that, there will no more help from Hizuru, and you will be left on your own. Again.”

Mikasa tapped the table, trying to wrap her head around it.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I want you to understand what will happen. Without us, queen Reiss will be left defenseless and the Yeagerists will devour her. Once she’s gone, who is there to stop their expansion plans?”, Kiyomi’s words were daggers, “There will be another war, and this time it won’t stop unless one side is completely wiped out.”

“If you know that much, why would you ever withdraw your support?”

“You know why.”

So this was about her. Again. This was about Kiyomi’s never-ending plan on planting Mikasa in Hizuru as a shogun’s wife. This was about her bloodline, the thing that was worth more than anything to the old woman.

“You’re threatening me.”, Mikasa understood, “If I won’t come, you will doom this island. How can you do that?”

“Because I tried everything else!”, Kiyomi’s voice finally got heated and she clenched her fists, “I gave you time, I gave you four years to mourn him! I was nothing but a supportive ally while Paradis struggled to catch up to the rest of the world. I devoted so many resources to you that I’ve been called a madwoman back in my homeland. But that ends here.”

She stood up, delivering the closing words with the finality of falling rocks.

“Mikasa, you have one week to decide. Either come to Hizuru and take your rightful place or stay here and watch the island around you burn. If the shogun’s bloodline is doomed to end with you… Then so be it.”

Ever since the end of the war Mikasa did not have those crazy headaches, but now her temples were pounding again as the car disappeared over the horizon. Soon, warm hands circled her and pulled her into a hug, and she rested her head on Eren’s shoulder.

“What do we do?”, she whispered weakly, but he had no answers.

Three days later, it was the anniversary of Eren’s “death”, a year since he came back.

Armin and everyone would be coming tomorrow, but tonight it was just them, lying together on the grass next to the small headstone. Mikasa didn’t come here anymore, for obvious reasons, but nostalgia made her bring flowers and now those were resting on the grave, much to Eren’s amusement.

“Another year.”

“Indeed, but this one was much better.”

“I take it that you prefer the cabin over paths?”

He smirked, kissing her temple.

“Infinitely.”

“Two years there, huh. How did it feel?”

“Not very long, the opposite. They were collapsing fast and I had to save all my memories before they died. There were some I wanted to leave behind so I would forget them,”, a grimace, “Like the rumbling, but I knew that I had to take them all. Otherwise I would never be complete.”

Eren always had pain in his voice when talking about the process of reforging himself, and Mikasa could imagine that it was far from a pleasant experience. And now that she thought about it…

“Wait, since you were dead, you didn’t have your body, right?”

“Obviously…”

“So you didn’t age for two years.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Where are you going with this?”

“You are two years younger than me now!”, she giggled, “A child.”

“Oh come on.”

“I let you drink wine!”, she gasped, “So irresponsible of me. And…”

Whatever Mikasa’s next age-gap joke was would be lost to the history, because Eren silenced her the only way he knew. With a kiss.

In a silent agreement, they didn’t talk about Kyomi’s offer, but Mikasa found herself thinking about it at the dead of night when Eren’s soft snores were the only sound in the cabin. However, now she had a more immediate issue, because his hands got adventurous, slipping underneath her clothes.

“You are not serious,”, she accused him, “Here? Of all places?”

“Why not?”, he was kissing her neck again, slowly but surely hiking the fabric of her dress up, “It’s just a decomposing head there. I should know, It was mine.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“You love me.”

“And I keep wondering why.”

With a grunt he rolled them over, hovering over Mikasa’s flushed cheeks.

“Then let me remind you.”

Maybe it was the need to forget about Kiyomi and her threats but Mikasa ended up going along with his plans. Here they were, naked bodies entangled on the grass with Eren thrusting into her, the leg she had wrapped around his hips pulling in sync. But for once it was not hard enough to dispel the lingering sadness of the place and Mikasa stopped him, making Eren pull out.

Then she was up, scrambling on her knees and turning around, leaning on the wood of the old tree that watched them grow up, that hosted the place of his last rest for three years. Eren understood her wishes, guiding himself back into her once she was done moving, the re-union making them both moan. And then it was hard and fast and bruising. The fingers clutching her hips were marking the porcelain skin with red, the hips slapping into her ass making obscene sounds. Wet, tight, and everything to dream about, Mikasa’s inviting depths crumbled Eren’s mental strength. She was losing it too, head craning and the long hair falling all over her face. Desperate to see her, Eren reached out to brush it aside, and now the midnight cascade went over one of her shoulders. One of her hands moved too, resting on her own ass as support when her body turned sideways, the delicious sounds leaving her at an alarming rate.

Was it strange that she enjoyed having sex here? Maybe. But this was a place of her greatest breakdowns, here she cried again and again at Eren’s grave, unable and unwilling to accept that he was truly gone. Here she broke into pieces and had to pull herself back together again. It didn’t feel like desecrating the place, more like blessing it, overwriting the sad memories with new happy ones.

With a rub at her weak place Mikasa broke, moaning out loud into the night. And when a few of her tears fell on the grass, she realized that this was far from the first time she cried here. But this was the first one when those tears were of pleasure and happiness.

Eren followed her climax with his own and then they collapsed into a sweaty embrace, careful not to fall on the headstone. My most beloved, my dear it read, but Mikasa didn’t feel dread when looking at it anymore. Her beloved was right here in her arms, and she had to make sure that it stayed that way forever. The world was intent on keeping them apart, even now after his death, but she would not let them.

With the sex haze covering their senses, the telltale smell in the air, Mikasa looked at the stars while Eren buried his nose in her hair. Four years after she lost the love of her life, a year after getting him back, and approximately five minutes after being pounded by him from behind to a mind-shattering orgasm, Mikasa Ackerman came to a decision.

“Eren,”, she got his attention and he hummed into her hair.

“Hm?”

Mikasa took a deep breath.

“Let’s go to Hizuru.”

#eremika #fanfic #snk

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sparkkeyper · 5 years ago

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We Don’t Have to Be Perfect

Sneaking in just before the deadline, this is the first of my three submissions for @itsthearoway‘s Aro Way Challenge, which highlights Good Omens fanworks with an aromantic light. I love how versatile the bonds in Good Omens are, and how they lend themselves so well to a number of a/sexual and a/romantic and a/gender identities. As an aro person myself, it’s nice to see some representation in a fandom that I love.

We Don’t Have to Be Perfect

Prompt 34: At a woodworking class

Fandom: Good Omens

Characters: Aziraphale+Crowley

Warnings: none

Summary: Aziraphale takes up a new hobby and tries to make something meaningful with it. It doesn’t quite go as planned, but maybe that’s okay.

--------

“So this is where you've been disappearing to.”

Aziraphale held open the door he'd just walked out of so a young woman could exit the woodworking studio after him, barely sparing a glance toward the gangly form of the demon on the sidewalk. “I haven't been disappearing anywhere. I told you the dates and times of this class and even gave you the address.”

“Looking for a new hobby, are you?”

“One can always learn new skills. Now that I'm not reporting to Heaven anymore, there's no reason I can't try something new when the whim takes me.”

“Not that that's ever stopped you before,” Crowley grinned, falling into step beside the angel as he started the walk back to the bookshop. “Well let's see it then.”

“See what?” Aziraphale fidgeted, fooling exactly nobody.

“Last I checked, when somebody signs up for an art-based class they usually make some sort of art-based thingy to take home. Let's see it, come on.”

“I, ah...” Aziraphale glanced everywhere but at Crowley, looking rather embarrassed. “It's not up to standards.”

“Whose standards?”

“Yours. Mine. Anybody's, really.”

“I think I can be the judge of my own standards, angel.”

“Oh very well.” And from a bag at his side he pulled a wooden oval, roughly eight inches at its widest point, and the demon plucked it from his hands to study it before he could protest.

It looked, quite frankly, like a child's drawing rendered into wood: a very rudimentary snake wiggling around the outside of the frame with two pairs of feathered wings inside. Bumps and gouges dotted the surface and it seemed not even the final sanding could take care of them. The width of the snake was hilariously inconsistent and the wings were missing more than a few feathers each where Aziraphale had clearly misjudged the carving process and accidentally chipped them off.

Crowley snorted before he could stop himself. “Is that me? And wait, the bit inside, is that supposed to be the two of us?”

Aziraphale grabbed it back, his expression somewhere between a scowl and a pout, and he refused to meet Crowley's eyes. “As far as I can tell, we have the longest-running friendship on the planet, you and I. It seems to me that that's worth commemorating, and for something of that magnitude it really ought to be magnificent. Perfect. But it isn't. I intended to hang it in the bookshop, now that I don't have to worry about anyone connecting us or not. But...well look at it.”

Beside him, Crowley began to laugh. Aziraphale glared at him in affront. “Let me get this straight. You wanted something utterly perfect to celebrate sixty centuries of knowing each other, and your first go-to was woodcarving?”

“I wanted something more durable than paper, and I have no desire to put the time into metalworking.”

“So you went with woodcarving.”

“I went with something I thought I could learn and enjoy, yes!”

“How long have you spent in that class?”

“Nine sessions. It's more difficult than it looks!”

“Clearly.” The demon shook his head in amusement. “I wouldn't be surprised by an illuminated manuscript, I think, but I never expected something like this from you.”

Aziraphale's eyes flashed. “Well, if it's such a ridiculous notion, perhaps I should just forget the whole thing.”

“Wait-”

But he'd already slammed the piece down into the metal rubbish bin next to a bus stop.

Crowley rounded on him. “What the heaven did you do that for?!”

“I tried very hard for that poor result, I'll have you know!”

“And? Looks like a snake, looks like wings. Seems like you succeeded.”

“Does that look like succeeding to you, Crowley? Because if that is your idea of success, it certainly puts your failures in a whole new light!”

A wall slammed down over Crowley's expression. He spun without a word and marched away down the street. Aziraphale regretted the words the instant they were out of his mouth but it was already too late.

“Crowley, wait! Crowley- Oh...” His fists clenched. “Drat everything!”

Aziraphale plopped himself down on the bus stop bench and glared out into the traffic.

It was several minutes later that the demon sat down beside him.

There was a feeling between them like tension releasing. Crowley melted into a slouch across the back of the bench. “I can respect a clever insult when I hear one, angel. Well done. That one was quite good.”

“You'll be disappointed to hear that I'd like to retract it, then.”

“Mmm, pity.”

The silence between them grew more comfortable as the seconds passed, rather than awkward.

Aziraphale sighed. “I was hoping to make something worthy of what we have. It ought to be intricate and lovely and grand. Something worth six thousand years. I don't have nearly the skills to make it how it deserves to be.”

Crowley nodded just a bit. “Wasn't telling you to stop, by the way. I just never pegged you as the woodcarving type.”

“Well...I suppose I'm not.”

Crowley held a hand over the bin and the remains of the woodworking project leapt dutifully up to his fingers. Being slammed into metal had snapped it into several bits. He tried to fit the pieces back together again to get another look at the picture. “It's...good,” he tried.

“No it isn't.”

“No it isn't.” Crowley turned it upside down. “We were never really perfect, though, were we?”

Aziraphale sighed. “No, we weren't. I do wish I could reach back into the past and fix things. All those times I said no. All those times I insinuated we weren't friends, or that I didn't like you, or that you were somehow less than I. It wasn't fair to you and...we could have had so much more, Crowley. More time. More drinks and dinners and conversations, seen more plays together, gone to more concerts together.”

Dark sunglasses watched the traffic. “And yet it worked.”

“What?”

“I'm still here. You're still here. Somehow we muddled through it all, that's my point. It was never perfect. It started with bad small-talk and veiled insults, and only went downhill from there for a few thousand years. It was rocky and awkward and suspicious. It took time to become worthwhile.” Crowley turned the pieces over in his hands. “And it broke. And we had to put it back together again. Yet it's still going. If I had the choice to do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat. Because...” He trailed off and covered his mouth with a hand. “Oh shit, you've got me doing the mushy stuff.”

Aziraphale glanced at him curiously. “No, go on. Because...?”

“Because...it was worth it. Because...I appreciate it more, I think. I know what it's like to not have anybody. And to have your only connection to somebody be built on mutual distrust. And...I don't take any part of this friendship for granted now because of that. It means more because we had to work for it, you get me?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale said softly. “Yes, I think I understand.”

Crowley offered the broken pieces back to his friend. “A little wood glue ought to put it right. Maybe one of those little picture hangers on the back, could hang it from a nail.”

The angel looked at him skeptically. “You'd really want this hanging in the bookshop?”

Crowley shrugged, a hint of red colouring his cheeks below his glasses. “I mean...I've never had a picture of me on someone's wall before. Thought it might be nice, you know?” Nice to be wanted, said the spaces between his words. Nice to be able to say, aloud or through symbols, that we do have a friendship, that it doesn't need to be a guarded secret. “What I'm saying is, maybe it's fine that it's not perfect. Because neither were we.”

Aziraphale regarded the pieces of the project with the same warm look he usually reserved for Crowley. “I'll patch it up and hang it in the shop,” he said decisively. “Over the till. And when I get a little better at the whole woodworking thing, I'll make another one. And another. And each time it'll get a little better. Stronger. Hopefully more detailed.”

The demon was trying to maintain his casual facade but Aziraphale still caught the pleased smile fighting for purchase on his lips. “I’d quite like to see that, angel. I really would.”

#the aro way challenge #itsthearoway #good omens #aromantic fic #my fic #Aziraphale #Crowley #woodcrafts #woodworking #there's so much love between them #it doesn't have to be romantic to be meaningful #they're communicating awww they're learning #arowaychallenge2020

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ikementally-deficient · 5 years ago

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Head-Canon: Ikesen Warlords react to an MC who wants to worship them (sexually)

Requested by a lovely anon.

Rating: Habanero (see Masterlist for rating descriptions)

Oda Forces

Nobunaga firmly believes this is exactly his due as the amazing Devil King that he is. He tends to be a take charge, grab what he wants kind of guy, so he’s a little thrown by the idea of you doing all of the work. He comes around pretty quickly when he realises this means an endless stream of blowjobs and ego stroking though. Best body parts to worship: chest, cock.

Nobunaga grinned as Mai knelt on the dais before him and placed her hands on his knees. The grin widened when Mai leaned forward to nuzzle his chest and abdomen.

“Nobunaga-sama,” she sighed against him, breasts heavy against his pelvis. “I’m so glad you’re home.” She ran one small hand down the collar of his red kimono underlayer, tracing the muscular outline of his chest. “The castle feels so empty when you’re gone.” Her pink tongue follows the line drawn by her hand, and Nobunaga let his arms fall loose by his sides. Mai slid the layers of kimono off one shoulder and pressed her face against him, her warm breath teasing his nipple. “I love your strength, Nobunaga-sama. Let me show you how much I dream about you when you’re not here.”

Hideyoshi is, at first, profoundly uncomfortable with this idea. His deep-seated belief that his self-worth depends on his utility to Nobunaga and others means that he usually does all the work in bed; he knows he’s attractive to women, but doesn’t really grok why they might climb into his bed aside from that fact. You’ll have an uphill battle convincing him that he’s worthy of worship. Best body parts to worship: neck and shoulders.

Hideyoshi sat stiffly on the tatami, his legs crossed and his mouth set. Mai settled herself in his lap and curled her hands around the nape of his neck, teasing his hairline with her fingertips. She pressed gentle kisses along his jaw. “Hideyoshi,” she whispered. “You take such good care of me. Please, let me take care of you for once.” Gently she nudged his arms until he cradled her close, while she murmured lovingly into his strong neck and broad shoulders of how she respected him for the burdens he carried.

Mitsunari is a blank slate, sexually speaking, which means he’s an easy sell. If you tell him this is how it works, then he’ll believe you, and make sure he’s vocal about his appreciation of your work. He has a tendency to view his body simply as a vehicle for getting his mind from place to place, so the idea that there’s a particular part of it drawing your attention is a little foreign to him. Best body parts to worship: face (brain) and hands.

“Princess, tell me what you want.” Mitsunari’s angelic face was an open book, radiating a sincere desire to learn what pleased her. Mai smiled and gently guided him down to the futon.

“Just lay back, Mitsunari.” She caught his writing hand and brought it to her mouth, running her lips across his ink-stained fingertips. “I want to take my time and learn all the ways your clever hands can feel me.” Her teeth grazed the callused pads of his fingers as she straddled him, and he shivered.

Mitsuhide, like Nobunaga, loves the idea of being worshipped. Unlike Nobunaga, Mitsuhide requires more than ego-stroking. He knows he’s no paragon; the snake of Azuchi works in the shadows, and the only people who should be worshipping him are just as shady as he is. Mitsuhide doesn’t get really into the worship unless you debase yourself in the process. Best body parts to worship: Stomach, cock, hands.

“Mitsuhide, please --!” Mai’s voice was muffled by the way her face pressed into his abs. “I want to suck you so badly. I want your cock --”

Mitsuhide smiled ferally and knotted his fingers in her braids. “Now, now, little mouse. You know the rules about begging.”

He could see the edge of her answering grin as her tongue forged a wet path south to the base of his cock.

“Yes, Mitsuhide-sama. I know, I must always remember my manners and beg with my mouth full.”

Masamune isn’t a worship kind of guy. Receiving praise is a passive act, and that’s just not his deal. He’s also self-aware enough to know that although he is pretty awesome, he’s got his fair share of flaws. But unlike Hideyoshi, he’s happy enough to go with the flow as long as you’re enjoying it, and as long as he gets the chance to return the favour later. Best body parts to worship: Mouth, strong thighs (man rides horses like a maniac, trust me, he’s not using the reins to steer).

Mai straddled his thigh, grinding down hard as he flexed under her. “Oh god, do you feel how wet you make me, Masamune?” She panted against his throat. “You’re so hard,” she slid closer to his hip, trapping his erection between them, “so strong, I can’t help myself.” She clung to his shoulders as she worked herself into a frenzy, teasing at his mouth with her hot breath. “All I could think about during that ride was riding you instead.”

Masamune’s answering laugh was husky as he captured her lips in a warm kiss. “Well, I never thought my kitten might want me for my horsemanship instead of my swordsmanship, but why don’t you show me what you like.”

Ieyasu doesn’t like being vulnerable, and weirdly, listening to you love on all his best traits makes him feel very vulnerable. Unless the body part you plan to worship is his mouth, you’ll have a constant background stream of sarcastic comments about your good sense, sanity, and taste in men. You’ll have much better luck if you skip worshipping him, and invoke his possessive tendencies by talking about how you could never want anyone else instead. Best body parts to worship: Back and arms (heyyo, archery muscles).

Ieyasu stared blankly at Mai before blushing and looking away. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered. “There’s nothing special about my archery.”

Mai smiled and circled around him, running her fingers around the collar of his kimono and dipping them inside. “But Ieyasu,” she tugged the collar down, exposing the nape of his neck, “I know how impressive these muscles are, even if you hide them under these layers.” She pressed her thumbs into the muscle between his shoulders. “I know that no one else can handle your bow.” She kissed the bumps of vertebrae at the back of his neck. “When you draw back the bowstring, I can imagine every shift of your back and arms and I can’t even imagine anyone else anymore.”

Uesugi-Takeda Forces

Kenshin.exe has crashed. Abort, retry, fail? Kenshin will murder every person in Japan, Asia, the world, and attempt to take on Nature herself for you, but he never expected you to praise him for it. In fact, he’s been kind of resigned to you and everyone else trying to get him to chill out. Worship of his body doesn’t push any buttons for him, but praising his strength, his prowess in battle, his ability to protect you and keep you safe, all of these will drive him into a passionate frenzy. Best body parts to worship: Hands and feet, calves.

"Mai, what are you doing?" Kenshin stared down at the woman kneeling at his feet, parti-colored eyes baffled.

She lifted her head and shuffled closer to him, leaning her forehead against his thigh. "I wanted to thank you for all you do to protect me, my love." Her hands were surprisingly strong as she clung to his calf. "I see how lightly you step across the field of battle." Her fingers dug into the muscle, finding the points of tension he barely noticed anymore.

Kenshin gasped and sprawled back on the futon as the release of the knotted muscle threw him of-balance. "I would fight anyone to protect you," he replied in confusion, "but --"

"But you thought I didn't approve?" She smiled and cast an adoring glance up through her lashes. "How could I resist such strength and grace?"

Shingen, Lord of the Chippendales (the nickname is canon and you can’t take that away from me!) just straight up loves it when you worship him, but he will do everything in his power to turn this into a mutual admiration society. Pick a body part, any body part, and he’ll gladly show it off for your pleasure. He will keep trying to distract you with his own praise, unless you manage to short-circuit his brain first. Best body parts to worship: muscular forearms and strong calloused hands from woodworking (and swinging a six-foot broadsword, what the even hell is that).

Mai ran her nails lightly down Shingen’s forearm, admiring the goosebumps that rose in her wake. “I do love your arms,” she murmured. “They’re so . . . capable.”

Shingen flashed her the flirtatious smile that always sent heat curling through her core. “They are capable of many things, my goddess.” He slid one arm around her waist, pulling her tight against his chest. She grinned and pushed at his chest, leaning back enough to grab his other hand and flatten it against the skin revealed by the gap in her kimono collar.

“It’s not just your arms, Lord Shingen. Your hands are so large and warm,” her heart beat faster under his palm, “that I melt every time you caress me.”

Sasuke is a modern feminist ally, so at first he’ll ask a lot of questions to ensure this is something you want, not something you think he wants. Once he’s satisfied that’s the case, he’ll happily follow your lead wherever you want to go. He’s also not beset by the concerns about masculinity or dominance that might affect the more traditional warlords, so you can take more charge than you might otherwise. Best body parts to worship: Chest, hands, extreme flexibility.

Sasuke knelt quietly, eyes closed, patient. Mai circled around him, carefully inspecting each knot and twist in the silk rope binding his forearms together behind his waist. At last she was satisfied, and crouched behind him, ghosting her lips across his shoulderblade.

“Sasuke,” she crooned. “Look at you. Look at how easily you twist like this.”

He arched his back, pressing against her breasts as she ran her hands down his biceps. “I get a lot of practice crawling through the ceilings.”

“I know you do. It’s genius, what you’ve engineered above the rafters.” Her hands skate over his shoulders, caressing his deltoids and pecs. “I’m amazed by everything you’ve accomplished here. Who would have thought there was so much practical skill hiding under that lab coat.”

Yukimura is confused, embarrassed, baffled, and not sure you aren’t making fun of him, in roughly that order. Best body parts to worship: Face, arms.

The hot blush on Yukimura’s cheeks belied the glare he shot at Mai. “You’re joking, right?”

Mai giggled. “No, I’m not. I love seeing you blush like that.” She leaned close to brush kisses across his cheekbones. “It lets me know how much of an effect I’m having on you.” She looped her arms around his neck to pull him closer as he tried to hide his face. “You never can hide how much you want me, and I love it.”

Wildcards

Sadly, I just couldn’t come up with anything for these three. I feel like Kennyo goes through profoundly uncomfortable and straight into actively angry about being worshipped. I actually can’t wrap my head around him ever being okay with it, unless we get about ten thousand words of character development out of the way first.

Ranmaru and Motonari I just don’t know enough about. I feel like Ranmaru has hidden depths that would make the answer to this question less straightforward than it seems. Motonari is definitely arrogant enough to love it, but his fear of touch (which is straight up the only thing I know about him) would definitely be a complicating factor.

#headcanon #ikesen headcanon #ikesen #ikemen sengoku #writing #rating: habanero

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twinkluvr67 · 5 years ago

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alright, now that my post limit is reset, this will likely be the last post i make. i’ll stick this at the end of my queue so it’ll be at the top of my page.

i have 323 followers as of writing this post. when i made the “list of users that i don’t like” list, i had maybe 316. my posts hardly get over 5 notes. i’m not some popular tumblr user that was trying to put these other people on blast... i honestly treat my tumblr as a public diary, and i make random posts just to get thoughts out of my system, and then i delete them at the end of the day.

i was never making a “blocklist”. i personally don’t give two shits if you follow those people, even though i don’t like them. so, like, stop asking to be “put on the list”... i’ve never even heard of any of you people in my ask box lmao... i don’t have any opinion on you so there’s no reason for you to even be on my “list”. honestly the fact that y’all saw a list and immediately wanted to be put on is kinda pathetic imo but that’s none of my business i guesssss

i don’t know anything about the people on my list..... i don’t even know the names of any of them. i don’t know their age, race, gender, anything... all i know is that toadprince is white and that’s basically it. and you know what? i don’t care. because guess what! it’s not a crime to dislike people who happen to be minors or poc. they’re annoying as hell and the fact that they’re my age (16) or people of color really does not change that fact. so uh... stop vilifying me for saying i don’t like them, lol. i’m allowed to have opinions and feelings.

umm, what else... oh, yeah. i don’t like homophobic jokes when they go too far. i don’t like that “y’all know homosexuality is a sin, right...?” nonsense. it’s nasty and makes me hells of uncomfortable. and the whole “i hate gay people my age” post by scammer... ugly as hell. unironically gay and homophobic (and transphobic, for making fun of neopronouns LOL). i don’t think making jokes like “i’m homophobic lel” or “i hate gay people” is bad, obviously..... i just hate when jokes like that go too far. sorry for having boundaries, i guess.

um, and i guess regarding some claims in my ask box? well firstly, i’m not racefaking, lol. my father is puerto rican and dominican and is literally brown and my mom is white. so yeah, i’m mixed latino/white. i’m not gonna drop family pics to prove it to you so you’re just gonna have to take my word for it and believe that i have literally 0 reason to racefake lmao... and about some other stuff, please stop pinning the blame on me for having this blow up. i really didn’t expect any of this to happen and it’s honestly really upsetting. also, there are some claims of nasty shit that some of those users did and i want everyone to know that whatever you say abt those users on the “list” i’m taking it with a grain of salt bc 1. you’re on anon 2. no sources and 3. lots of rumours surround popular users so it’s hard to take them at face value.

anyways, all this situation has really shown me is that i was right, lol. in all honesty? i’m not surprised at all that as soon as they caught whiff of my post, all their followers and mutuals came out of the woodwork to harass me. mean people attract mean people, after all! i mean it completely unironically when i say all of your vibes are rancid as hell.

so, i’m just taking this whole situation as a last straw for me and i’m going to finally quit using tumblr. i’ve been entirely too dependent on tumblr and the good it’s done me is over. it feels like everyday i see something upsetting and honestly the only reason i stayed was for my friends, and for all the art i love to see. i’ve been wanting to quit tumblr for a long long time and now that this whole thing happened, i’m really ready to let it go. this website is great for a lot of reasons, but ultimately the entire environment is just... really awful. even staying within my small circle of good mutuals and some other choice people i follow, there’s no real way to escape negativity. i’ve been doing really well with my life lately... i got a new hobby (friendship bracelets!!) and i’ve been taking meds for my mental health. i’m more active and getting out of the house and taking more care of my body, and i’m finally feeling more like a real person. but whenever i get back into using tumblr regularly, it feels like all that progress is taken away.

i just want to live my life without fear that everything i say is going to be scrutinized and/or taken the wrong way. i just want to live a normal life, free of weird annoying people who think they’re woke for bullying others. at least in real life people own up to their bullying, lol.

but, yeah... goodbye, i guess. i’m gonna focus on my mental health now and get back into learning korean and practice drawing more and maybe learn how to knit and sew. maybe i’ll even start writing again! who knows. anyways, this site is poison and i really regret being here since i was 13. and, uh, get therapy. @ literally all of you

if you want to know what i’m up to or you want to talk or anything, feel free add me on discord (vera#0877). i don’t really use other social media, so discord will pretty much be the only way to reach me. if my discord changes and you can’t add me, ask @vrisdaves for my new one.

seeya o7

#feel free to rb

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gwidener · 6 years ago

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Sometimes, reality happens

There was a conversation I had with my father-in-law years ago where he couldn’t believe I hadn’t spoken to my own father in years. It was just beyond him that we could get to a point where we didn’t care to contact each other. He was completely stunned when I explained I may not even know when my father dies.

It turns out, I would. I got a message late last Thursday night that he had passed away from complications with cancer and its treatment. I did not know how I felt about it then and to be honest I still don’t, but I’m spending some time trying to work through that. Sitting and writing all this out is part of it. Some people say don’t speak ill of the dead; I don’t think it does anyone favors to pretend people like my father were great people.

What do I know? I know I didn’t love him. I know that I resented that he continued to draw breath after my mother died. I know that he let me down continuously from an extremely young age. I know that he was racist and as this came more and more into view, our arguments got more intense until we finally stopped talking at all. I know that he was an alcoholic. I know that he was a Green Beret in the Vietnam War and so, for a time, he was probably very good at murder. I know that I have a lot of complicated feelings about the country that sent him to a pointless war and that probably let him down when he came back from doing what he was asked. I know that when I was a kid, he would pop up when he felt like it, and this made my mom sad.

I have very few photos of him, but one of them is from a trip my mom and I were on with him that I only remember in flashes. The parts I remember of it are the only totally good memories I have of him and it is really telling that they are just moments, that I can’t recall any substance, just driving through the forest and picking up a newspaper from outside our door at one of the hotels we were at. There are a couple other small memories; being in the back of a truck during a small parade in my hometown. Dropping in on him in his workplace (though in retrospect I think this was because my mom knew he would probably be there.) Seeing him outside the old VA hospital (for those of you downriver, it once stood on the land at Outer Drive & Southfield, where the shops at the bottom of the hill are.)

I can tell you vividly the first time I felt really disappointed by him was; it surprised my mom that this was the case, but it wasn’t when he would change plans or not show up when he had said he would, because frankly I already didn’t expect him to, even really young. My mom was at work (my mom was always at work) and I was digging through boxes in the basement; I found a savings account booklet starting a little bit before I was born. You could see little deposits building it up for some time…and then it starts draining. And draining. All the way down to nothing. I asked my mom about it later; they had been planning to save for their hopes for me to eventually attend college. Instead, this paid for drinking binges and keeping us above water after we had left.

There was a huge gap where we didn’t see him, didn’t hear from him, and this was pretty decent. My mother remarried (and THAT guy turned out to be an absolutely awful human being, but I’m not even trying to go down that well right now) and eventually we moved in with his family in a house the next city over. More years pass and eventually, somehow, my mother and my half-sister end up in contact again; it turns out that she owns a small deli nearby, and that my father spends time there. I start spending time there.

At first, and for a while, stuff is okay. Not great, not awful, but okay. I get a little older and start the tiniest of jobs there, just sweeping and mopping the store up 3 days a week. Our conversations get more pointed, and more heel-digging. This is right around the time I start really paying attention to what we are reading in school, and what is going on when we are talking about US and world historical events; this is important in my development as a person as it makes me question the conservative conspiracist syndicated radio show I’ve been listening to. Probably not coincidentally, it’s also around the time I started listening to punk. So when I am having a conversation with my father and he is seriously trying to argue that the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, I’m an early teenager (somewhere around 14-16?) and I’m already not going to entertain that. I might not have been able to win most of the physical fights I was in as a kid, but I absolutely could argue my ass off.

The small amounts of headway we had started to make, where I could tolerate him, eventually evaporated. His own prejudice brought it out more often in conversations with my half-sister, which brought her from someone I respected as a person who managed to run her own business and then devote a ton of time to her passions to someone I felt very conflicted about when she would throw around the n-word. Eventually, I got into other things in high school and didn’t have time to hang around the deli as much, but out of obligation I would still poke my head in, even for a little bit after graduation. My wife never met my father, but she did hear him trying to yell at me from the background of a phone conversation once when I was there, really early in our relationship.

I actually want to dig into that more. There are certain times when people are going to be more apt to bury hatchets and reconcile. Weddings. New babies. Funerals. Stuff like that. We had not talked for years, but at the time I still at least had my sister from the deli on Facebook. Our other sister had moved down south years before, and she and her family (and our father) all followed together later on. (Down there, she developed her passion for doll-making into a business of its own while raising her kids, something I still respect about her despite everything else.) So I use that connection to get addresses like a decade later when Meg and I are finally getting married. I didn’t have my hopes up, but it made my mom happy that I at least invited my dad and my sisters on that side.

We don’t hear anything back.

So that’s fine, as I take it; eventually my sister sends a facebook message with some half-ass excuse about how she’s going to be in the area just before or just after and so can’t make another trip and at the time I swallow it down. But not even a card from my father or my other sister. Literally nothing. And I really want to continue to play it off like this didn’t hurt, but it did, because I was dumb enough to let it. So this would be the very last time that would be a possibility.

So life goes on until my mother starts getting very ill a couple short years ago. My sister and her husband begin contacting me on FB; they want to get together next time they’re in the area, they want to talk with me, they hope my mom is well. But you never did until all this started happening? How does that work? My mom needed me more than at any other point, and that is clear, and this is just someone trying to seize on that, wedge themselves in, under the guise of providing comfort to me; but I already surrounded myself with people who actually can help me all the time, not just when it is convenient. Through this all, I might add, still nothing from my father. My mom, who still loved him even when she knew she had to leave him for both our sakes, who tried her very best to still see the best in him even as he let her down time and again, and who would still occasionally ask if I had talked to him, was leaving this world in a very painful process to watch and it wasn’t like my phone number had ever changed. But nothing.

All this and I can still only say I don’t even know how I feel. Relief, a little, maybe? I’m not glad to say he is gone - for all the arguments, he never raised a hand to me that I can recall, and if he ever did to my mother nobody has ever told me of it. He was clever, if impressionable. He did all that his country asked, and I’m sure he did and saw unspeakable evil in the process. I’m sure that this was a contributor to him developing his own demons from the bottle, but it doesn’t excuse it. So it’s tough because there was a lot there, and yet I’m still somehow not of the opinion that he was always a totally irredeemable person, just that it was not worth the time and effort of my own life that I could put into other mutually supportive relationships instead. I’m sure it makes my sisters sad to lose him, and I feel for them, but not enough to want to talk about it. It didn’t feel genuine when it pulled my sister out of the woodwork when my mom died and it wouldn’t be genuine for me to contact them now all the same, because I don’t share their feelings. I do know that. I don’t think there was anything big left unsaid between us, but the hardest thing to wrap my head around is that I truly can’t ever know.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years ago

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WHAT THE AVERAGES

Having people around you caring about startups, which is more work. To us that's positive evidence an idea is a good thing. The stories that seemed to be nothing more than filling out a brief form the briefer the better. The only style worth having is the one you can't help. You have to be able to test-drive any Web-based applications. Nearly everyone who writes about it says that economic inequality should be decreased, I shouldn't be helping founders. It will be very valuable to understand precisely which ideas to keep and which can now be discarded. But disappointing though it may be somewhat blurry at first.1

Watching users can guide you in design as well as its results.2 I think there are two components to the antidote: being in a place where rudeness isn't tolerated, most can be polite. We would have sold. Because Web-based applications.3 A woodworker creates wealth. In fact we only spent about $2 million in our entire existence. And yet when I was in high school I spent a whole day watching TV I'd feel like I was descending into perdition. Like the managers of mutual funds or hedge funds, VCs get paid a percentage of the money they manage: about 2% a year in management fees, plus a percentage of the gains.4 While we were writing the software, our Web server, using the browser as an interface.5 Viaweb had a scripting language called RTML that let advanced users define their own page styles.

This doesn't mean big companies will disappear.6 And this team is the right one adjacent to it.7 I'm not sure why. And so you tend to deal with bugs wholesale.8 In software, it means you should give users a few basic elements that they can watch you. That's much more likely to discover new things, then instead of turning a blind eye to the places where conventional wisdom and truth don't quite meet, you should do it yourself. Fortunately for him, they turned it down, and one of the reasons kids give up drawing at ten or so is that they were onto something. The Mac was popular with hackers when it first came out, and if they try to redo something, it will mean a very different world for developers.9 Or more precisely, the effect of the decisions they make. The customer support people and hackers. Since the 1970s, economic inequality in the US.10 If so, your old tastes were not merely different, but worse.

Notes

It's conceivable that intellectual centers like Cambridge in that so many startups from Philadelphia.

That should probably start from scratch. I believe Lisp Machine Lisp was the season Dallas premiered.

Letter to the point of a social network for pet owners is a way in which many people work with founders create a silicon valley. There are circumstances where this is not too early if it's dismissed, it's usually best to err on the way we met Charlie Cheever sitting near the door. For sufficiently small audiences, it would be to say that IBM makes decent hardware.

Some find they have less money, it's ok to talk to corp dev guys should be easy to discount knowledge that at some point, there are signs now that the missing 11% were probably also encourage companies to do as a general term might be a good nerd, rather than given by other Lisp dialects: Here's an example of a reactor: the editor, which merchants used to build consumer electronics and to run an online service. There are a different attitude to the point of treason. Robert in particular, because they couldn't afford it.

Among other things, they have less room for startups is uninterruptability. Simpler just to steal a big VC firm wants to invest more.

Simpler just to steal a big company, and I bicycled to University Ave in Palo Alto. It's probably inevitable that philosophy will suffer by comparison, because it might make them less vulnerable to legal attack. A good programming language ought to be a problem later. I read most things I write out loud at least try.

We didn't swing for the linguist and presumably teacher Daphnis, but as a rule of thumb, the world.

It should not try to avoid companies that can't reasonably expect to do that.

In the late Latin tripalium, a well-known byproduct of oligopoly. In a startup in a situation where they are now. They live in a band, or because they wanted to than because they are so intellectually dishonest in that. What has changed over time, because spam and P nonspam are both genuinely formidable, and Reddit is Delicious/popular with groups that are still called the executive model.

But iTunes shows that they decided to skip raising an A round. In Boston the best hackers work on open-source projects now that the lies people told 100 years. Did you know the answer to, but also seem to have gotten where they all sit waiting for the coincidence that Greg Mcadoo, our contact at Sequoia, was one of the most useless investors are also the highest maintenance.

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otherworldink · 4 years ago

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Intro to "Woodworking"

Where do you go when you live in a tiny medieval fantasy village and need some basic sex ed? The woodshop apparently. Results may vary. Includes frank, if humorous, discussions of sexuality.

Read it below the cut, or continue reading on: Wattpad or Otherworld.Ink

Bren had never liked sharing personal information. He believed in the twin virtues of privacy and minding your own damn business, and he acted accordingly. Unfortunately, he'd come up against a problem that required advice. Expert advice.

And there was only one place in his backwater village he could get it.

The carpenter's workshop was a pleasantly open building with large windows that let in the light and broad double doors that could allow the passage of a finished table or bed frame. The scent of fresh-cut pine and the subtler scents of hardwoods permeated the air. In every corner there stood half-completed projects, from the disassembled pieces of little boxes to uncut slabs with measurements drawn in charcoal. Bren could even see a small spoked wheel, half-sanded—a spare for the wheeled chair Kole's father used.

Mercifully, the only people inside were the shop's two owners. The most conspicuous of the pair was Dorin, whose height and breadth led some to suspect he had a touch of giant blood somewhere in his ancestry. He sat hunched over a pair of carved wooden fawns, adding the last fine details with a small chisel.

Hale looked slight compared to his husband, but this was just an optical illusion. A point that was reinforced as the man casually lifted a slab of wood that must have weighed as much as Bren did. It was impressive, but not why Bren was here.

"Hi, Bren!" Hale greeted, looking up from examining the marks on the wood slab. "Did your mother change her mind on the dimensions for that shelf? I was just about to make the first cut."

"No, no. It's not about that. I just... I need some advice."

"Oh? Thinking of taking up woodworking?" Hale asked, half joking.

In his nervousness, Bren replied with a poor joke of his own.

"Different kind of 'wood' to be working with."

There was a pause as Hale processed. Then he grinned like someone had handed him a new chisel.

"I knew it! It's Kole, isn't it? That nice half-elf boy?"

Bren's ears burned, and his eyes glued themselves to the floor.

"It is!" Hale dropped the wood slab in his eagerness, shaking the ground on impact. He didn't seem to notice. "Tell me everything! What do you need to know?"

The excitement was not mutual. Bren had resolved to ask for help with the same enthusiasm one used to ask the blacksmith to pull a bad tooth. Mercifully, Dorin only looked mildly interested, sparing just a glance before continuing his carving.

"Look, I'm not here to share details. I just need to know how some things work, and I figure you two..." Bren glanced back and forth between the pair then cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"Right, right." Hale nodded with exaggerated understanding. "No need to overshare. ...Unless you want to, of course."

Hale wasn't the worst gossip Bren knew—that title went to Mrs. Fields who owned the mill—but Bren still thought he took a bit too much pleasure in having his nose in everyone's business.

"I just need to know how some things work."

"Like what?" Hale tapped his chin. "Don't tell me you need to know what goes where? I should have some blank paper around here if you need me to draw diagrams. I can think of a few positions that would be good for beginners."

"No! No, I already know about that stuff." Kind of. A bit. In any case, Bren didn't think his dignity could survive diagrams. "I just need to know about... logistics. Like how you figure out who, you know... tops."

It was hard to get the words out, and he regretted it as soon as he had. It felt like such a stupid question, like it was something he should already know instinctively. People certainly had their own ideas about how these things worked, but Bren and Kole were about the same age, height, and build so it was hard to say that any of the usual "guidelines" applied.

To his surprise, Dorin answered first.

"I wouldn't worry too much about that," he said without looking up. "Just see what feels right when you get to that point. You can take turns trying or, hells, even flip a coin for it. There's more to sex than putting your dick in a hole. Focus on making each other feel good, and the rest will sort itself out."

That... actually sounded sensible. Reassuring, even. Maybe Bren had been making a big deal out of nothing.

"No, no, no! Hold on a minute, babe." Hale quickly covered Dorin's ears. "Listen to me, Bren: you are at a crossroads right now. This is where you set the tone for your entire relationship. You have a unique chance to secure the best position all for yourself. You have to be the bottom!"

Dorin snorted, but made no move to remove the hands from his head. Hale ignored him and continued.

"Topping is a fool's game! If you want to feel something around your dick, you can have your own hand any time. But when you want to get fucked, what are you supposed to do? Oh, you can try certain vegetables, and I've certainly carved a few things in the right shape, but then you've still got to do all the work yourself, and-"

Dorin cleared his throat, interrupting the deluge of far-too-personal information. A mercy, given that Bren was on the verge of bursting into awkward flames and disintegrating into the floor.

"Hush!" Hale scolded his husband. "I'm passing on my wisdom. And you can't hear right now!"

He returned his earnest attention to Bren. "What I'm saying is, no matter what anyone tells you, it is surprisingly hard to 'go fuck yourself'. If you ever get the opportunity to have someone else do it, do not pass it up!"

"He's only saying that because he's lazy in bed," Dorin said, apparently giving up on withholding personal information. Hale made an offended noise.

"You! You can't hear, remember!"

Bren wished he couldn't hear anything.

"Is there anything useful you can tell me, or should I just leave?"

"Always use oil," Dorin said, finally brushing Hale's hands away from his ears. "More than you think you need. It makes everything more pleasant."

"Except for oral!" Hale added.

"Yeah. Except that."

"Okay, that's... good to know," Bren said. "So, like, the oil you use on tools, or...?"

"NO!" The objection came from both of them simultaneously.

Dorin cleared his throat.

"Ah, no. Different oil."

Hale grimaced.

"Otherwise you're in for an awkward trip to the healer."

Bren could tell there was a story there. A story he absolutely never needed to hear.

"Then... what kind are you supposed to use?" And where could he get it? Ideally without anyone guessing what he intended to use it for.

"We'll send you off with something," Dorin said. "It's better than you getting desperate and using whatever's on hand."

"Trust us on that," Hale added.

On this matter, Bren would.

In short order, the two set him up with a small jar of oil and instructions on where to discretely buy more. He also found himself holding the two fawns.

"You can pay us back by delivering them," Dorin explained. "They're for Leda on the other side of town."

"They're actually for her daughter," Hale added. "Leda hopes that if the kid has some nice toy fawns, she'll stop trying to bring home the real ones she finds out in the fields."

The palm-sized fawns were impressively lifelike: one curled flat and low like it was hiding in the grass, the other half-sprawled, pushing itself up on delicate forelimbs with its ears pricked alertly. Bren wasn't sure they'd be enough to persuade a determined child to give up the real thing, but they might come close.

Dorin offered some parting words.

"I don't think you have anything to worry about. Just take it slow, listen to each other, and have fun."

"And for fuck's sake, let him top!" Hale added, unable to help himself.

Bren mumbled something approaching a polite goodbye and hurriedly retreated with the fawns, the oil, the advice, and what remained of his dignity.

His initial plan had been to make the delivery and retreat home to bury his face in his pillow until the embarrassment receded, but fate was not so accommodating. Less than halfway across town, he spotted Kole at the blacksmith's shop, saying his goodbyes. Bren paused on reflex, and when Kole turned away from the workshop, he spotted him.

Kole smiled—partly bashful, entirely charming—and Bren's stomach flipped.

Kole had moved into town a few months back with his parents: an elven mother and a human father who had recently survived an unpleasant encounter with a wyvern. Years ago, Hale had made a wheeled chair for his elderly aunt, and since then, anyone within a week's travel who needed one would order from him.

The family had made the journey to have the chair properly fitted and had ended up staying. Something about wanting to live "somewhere quiet" and enjoying the "lovely pastoral scenery". Which all sounded like nice euphemisms for "boring", but Bren supposed boring might be what you wanted after getting mauled by a wyvern.

"They're cute," Kole said, nodding at the carved fawns in Bren's hands.

"They're not mine!" Bren said hastily. "I'm just delivering them."

"Right." Kole's gaze lowered. "What's that?"

Bren realized, with some alarm, that he was looking at the bottle of oil sticking out of his trouser pocket. He hadn't thought it would be a problem since there was nothing suggestive about it's appearance, but he hadn't prepared for anyone to ask about it!

"Nothing!" His voice came out slightly more panicked than intended.

Amusement flickered on Kole's face, as if he could tell Bren was hiding something but was nice enough not to call him out on it.

"Who are you delivering them to?" Kole asked, mercifully turning the conversation back to the wooden fawns.

This was why Kole was the actual best. He had the decency to let things lie. (Or, at least, to let Bren lie to save some face.)

"Leda. They're for her daughter."

"Oh yeah. The little 'fawn-napper'." Kole chuckled. "Do you need help delivering those?"

"No, they're not heavy or anything." It was only after he'd said this that he realized Kole was making an excuse to join him. "Uh... I mean, you could..."

"I could carry one? In case you need a free hand."

"Yeah. That'd be good."

Kole accepted one of the fawns and fell in step next to Bren.

The two of them had been intimate before, but always alone. Bren was too much a private person to allow anything else. But when Kole casually laid a hand on Bren's lower back, Bren really couldn't bring himself to object. It felt... nice. And it's not like anyone was paying special attention to them.

Did he mention it felt nice?

Given where Bren had just come from, it was impossible not to reflect on the recent conversation. He tried to keep his thoughts decent, out of respect for the carved fawn in his hands. It was far too innocent for anyone to be having those kinds of thoughts around it.

Still, though...

Maybe Hale had a point.

#queer #gay #short story #bite-size fantasy #fantasy #writing #creative writing #original fiction

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hypokeimena · 7 years ago

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i honestly dont remember but i think it may have been after i asked for hp aus and you delivered thoroughly and passionately and i was like 'oh fuk he has knowledge AND likes noah czerny' UNLESS... we were already mutuals at this point......... idk my dude i never know whats going on at any time, ever

I THINK WE WE WERE ALREADY MUTUALS but “hey does anyone have hp au recs?” would 100% draw me out of the woodwork. i THINK i followed you through liz or harry because i liked your noah art!

why did you follow me?

#hi i hit capslock when i typed 100% and then got confused that the numbers didn't capitalize.#ghoultwink

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wineanddinosaur · 5 years ago

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We Asked 10 Brewers: Which IPAs Should Be Considered ‘Modern Classics?’

The craft beer industry evolves seemingly on a hairpin: Beer trends appear as if by magic, from the Brut IPA to the fruited sour; flagships and core ranges fade in favor of new releases; and exciting innovations claim all the attention.

With the steady onslaught of new beer brands and styles unstoppably marching forth, labels only two or three years old — or even two or three months old — can feel dated. In extreme cases, even beers two to three weeks old are deemed past their prime (drink those DDH DIPAs fresh!).

Beers extant for less than a decade thus feel like relics, pre-dating so many of today’s top or trendiest breweries. Top-rated IPAs like Cigar City’s Jai Alia are part of the 1990s-era brewpub’s warn woodwork.

With so many IPAs on the market, what constitutes a classic of the modern era? We asked brewers throughout the U.S. and U.K. what sticks out.

“There are a few IPAs from modern breweries which fit this bill for me, and I’ll keep going back to them time and time again. I’ll mention two of them: Starting closer to home, any IPA by Kernel can be named here. Their IPAs are such a beautiful, pure expression of the hops contained within; the malt bill [is] so clean and precise; the carbonation is so soft and on point… It is so easy to drink glass after glass — a testament to that being that I have zero bottles left out of the 24 I ordered two weeks ago. Further afield, Zote by Calusa Brewing in Sarasota, Fla., is really one of the best examples of New England IPA available in any country. Citra, Mosaic, Cascade, and Centennial are what’s on offer, giving huge juicy citrus with such a soft, silky body it’s far too easy to nail a 4-pack in the Florida sun. Check them out if you’re down that way — they’re crushing it.” — Jay Krause, Cloudwater Brew Co., Manchester, U.K.

“Who says you can’t like both kinds? Rare Trait from Cerebral Brewing and Super Power from Comrade Brewing couldn’t be further apart in the IPA world, but both are modern classics in my book. Rare Trait is a hazy IPA packed with citrus and tropical flavors; it’s the beer that helped solidify Cerebral’s place as modern masters of the style. Super Power is a straight-up classic West Coast IPA which has dominated beer competitions in various forms and categories. It holds a static line at most of Colorado’s serious beer bars and that spot is well deserved. It never disappoints with a light, dry body and hop aromas of grapefruit and pine.” — Jan Chodkowski, Head Brewer, Our Mutual Friend Brewing Co, Denver

“It is classic to say Pliny the Elder, but for me, it really is a classic double IPA and should be remembered as such. I think for me, it also has a personal meaning. I had tasted it before, but I was in California on a scholarship to a UC Davis short course and I spent a few days visiting Russian River as well as other places in the area. I had the beer at Russian River and remember having it fresh on tap. I went to a bar a few days later and it was 33 out of 50 on a draft list. I think once you take away the hype of it and taste the beer itself for what it is, it truly is an amazing double IPA… The malt balances the hops, so it is bitter without being incredibly overpowering. It also was really one of the first well-known DIPAs of its kind.” — Colleen Rakowski, Brewer, Brasserie Cantillon, Brussels, Belgium

“Fermentation-driven, soft, and full-bodied IPAs that grew out of New England are now industry-wide commonplace across the globe. This modern approach to making IPAs has been building steam over the past decade or so, and Julius from Tree House Brewing Co. has certainly planted itself firmly as a stalwart in the category. Julius has gone from only appearing in growlers brewed on a glorified homebrew system to now in iconic cans being brewed on an automated brew house in an enormous modern brewery. One can easily argue that the journey for the Tree House team has been fueled by Julius and all its popularity. Rich fruity yeast esters, hop saturation, a soft mouthfeel, and a balanced and approachable package make Julius an IPA that has certainly established itself as a modern classic that many across the globe have been inspired by, and make the trek to get.” — Blake Tyers, Wood Cellar & Mixed Fermentation Director, Creature Comforts Brewing Co, Athens, Ga.

“I’ve never liked the term ‘modern classic’ but there are a few IPAs out there that I feel are certainly significant enough to warrant some sort of recognition. Straight off the bat, Jaipur by Thornbridge will always have a place in my heart as a true exemplar of British breweries’ initial take on West Coast American-style IPA, but not only that, it stands up in cask! Which is unfortunately not true of many popular IPAs, and is a testament to the skill of the brewers at Thornbridge.” — Jaye Arbuckle, Head Brewer, Franklins Brewing Co, Brighton, U.K.

“At the time I was asked the question, I had a glass of Kernel IPA (Mosaic) in my hand, which coincidentally would be at the top of my list of answers. The Mosaic single hop version of this IPA [is] the first beer that turned me on to the U.K. beer scene years ago. It has the perfect amount of mouthwatering bitterness to keep you going back for another sip; a subdued malt bill to allow the hops to shine; and no cloying sweetness I often find in other IPAs. What makes it a modern classic is that it has been around for 10 years, surviving fads like the IBU race and super-sweet milkshake IPAs, without showing its age. Neither West Coast or East, it continues to exist with a sense of purpose in the U.K. craft beer scene.” — Zoe Wyeth, Lead Brewer, Burnt Mill Brewery, Suffolk, U.K.

“If I’m at a chain grocery store picking up an IPA to bring to a party with folks from all walks of life… I’m going to pick up Sierra Nevada’s Hazy Little Thing. Many of the old guard are trying to keep up with trends and many are failing, but this beer always delivers and has made Sierra [Nevada] many new fans amongst younger drinkers. My favorite IPA right now, however, is whatever iteration is available from Hen House Brewing and their Conspiracy Theory Series (Chemtrails, Denver Airport, Illuminati). These guys are making big moves in Sonoma County (north of San Francisco) in the shadow of giants like Lagunitas and Sierra Nevada. Whether it’s a classic West Coast IPA or their version of a NEIPA… Their insistence on freshness on the shelves or on tap means I always get a great beer.” — Tim Decker, Founder, Altbrau, Oakland, Calif.

“I feel like a great example of a ‘modern classic’ IPA is Lunch by Maine Beer Company. It is bursting with citrus, pine, and tropical aromatics, balanced by a wisp of malt sweetness, and still allows the citrusy hop characteristics to shine through in the finish. It’s completely satisfying to a broad range of consumers and doesn’t destroy your palate or your appetite, a perfect take on the modern classic IPA that a lot of professional brewers enjoy.” — Bobby Bump, Head Brewer, Right Proper Brewing Company, Washington, D.C.

“I still wet myself whenever I see Hill Farmstead Harlan on tap anywhere stateside. I love any brewer with the guts to dry hop with Columbus these days in any measure, and the combination of that with Nelson Sauvin and Simcoe just ticks all the boxes for me. It’s the most balanced, soft, and nuanced example of an IPA I’ve ever had, where you can taste every part of its makeup in every sip. There’s been an arms race over the years of how many hops you can cram into a glass with IPAs — and we certainly share some of the responsibility for that — but Harlan feels like an antidote to that whenever I try it. Class in a glass.” — Alex Lawes, Founder, Owner, Brewer, Whiplash Beer, Dublin, Ireland

“If a modern classic must have universal appeal and stand the test of time, citrus IPAs ring loudest with me. Whether infused with blood orange, tiger lemon, grapefruit, tangerine, or otherwise, a citrus IPA’s very approachable flavor profile is appreciated readily by novice and experienced drinkers alike. Furthermore, their flavor and brand value draw steady admiration from brewers. Brewers of all experience levels and aptitude do create consistently delicious examples. Most taprooms offer a Citrus IPA seasonally and some have year-round staying power… Certainly, the citrusy offerings are not currently obsessed over as they were at peak fervor. But, their charm and bright flavors have stood the test of time long enough, with wide enough appeal that it is easy to foresee their continued popularity among drinkers and brewers year in and year out.” — Chris Gartman, formerly of Five Points Brewing Company, London, U.K.

The article We Asked 10 Brewers: Which IPAs Should Be Considered ‘Modern Classics?’ appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/10-best-modern-classic-ipas/

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johnboothus · 5 years ago

Text

We Asked 10 Brewers: Which IPAs Should Be Considered Modern Classics?

With so many IPAs on the market, what constitutes a classic of the modern era? We asked brewers throughout the U.S. and U.K. what sticks out.

The article We Asked 10 Brewers: Which IPAs Should Be Considered ‘Modern Classics?’ appeared first on VinePair.

Via https://vinepair.com/articles/10-best-modern-classic-ipas/

source https://vinology1.weebly.com/blog/we-asked-10-brewers-which-ipas-should-be-considered-modern-classics

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spiteandalice · 8 years ago

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Judas Touch Pt 3

Alright. This is a bit on the shorter side but it’s mostly angry smut so maybe that makes up for it?

As per request :3 @beautifulramblingbrains and @beltz2016

PART ONE PART TWO

Warning: contains language, violence, smut and… violent smut

It’s astonishing how the initiates behave like blind monkeys in a ball pit during training but seem to be able to do just fine when they get into a fight while unsupervised. Two boys, Erudite and Candor, are busy reconstructing their faces when we walk in and for once Eric has to shove his way through the crowd instead of watching it part for him. Nobody really breaks up fights here unless it’s getting too close to losing a member over a cup of chocolate pudding, but these aren’t members, they’re initiates. There is no emotional attachment whatsoever and the morbid curiosity we all have has time to shine. Humans are extremely fucked up, if you think about it, I had months to reflect on that.

I grab the Erudite by the hair and yank his head down while simultaneously kicking the legs out from under him so I can straddle his back, pinning his arms down with my knees. Thanks to the shock of someone actually knowing how to hurt him he doesn’t put up much of a fight, even after he is pinned and had time to process what I did to him. It gives me plenty of time to watch Eric handle the Candor, who is so in the zone that he’s trying to take on a Dauntless leader. Again, we seem to get not only the brave but also the reckless and that usually equals stupidity. Eric sighs, dodges a sloppy punch with barely any effort and draws his fist back to knock the guy out with a punch to the face. And he didn’t even put much weight behind the movement, which in turn doesn’t help the fact that I am still soaking wet. Moments like this fascinate me because he is always so calm and controlled but if you look closely you can see the turmoil behind his eyes. Not just controlled anger, which is a beautiful sight to behold all on it’s own. He would have been a perfect Erudite and sometimes I do wonder how he ended up here, in spite of the obvious embodiment of what Dauntless now stands for. And why that Matthews woman was so interested in him. Still is.

Maybe I’ll ask him one day.

After I’m done beating the shit out of him for leaving it up to me to figure out why the hell those two were fighting, he has to go visit his old faction and cozy up to their leader. During my time as ambassador I only had two official visits to the brainy faction, both things Eric couldn’t be bothered with. The other times he took care of matters and I have to say that I wasn’t really eager to deal with that woman - she doesn’t like me, and the dislike is mutual. She once alluded to me being a possible distraction for him and she does not appreciate any kinks in her well manicured plans. I laughed at her and left, because there is absolutely nothing on this forsaken planet that can stop Eric once he is set in motion. It’s one of the things I admire about him.

“So,” I spit, walking in front of the Candor with my hands folded behind my back, which seems to be an automatic leader gesture, “care to enlighten me why you thought it would be a good idea to try and murder your fellow initiate? A very pathetic attempt, may I add, but one nonetheless.”

The Candor is still beyond pissed, which is why I decided to interrogate him first, while the anger is still fresh. Once he had time to cool down and the anger turned sour he’ll just turn into a sarcastic little shit and I really don’t feel like slapping him around much today. I’m saving that for Eric.

“He was talking shit about my sister,” he growls and I stop in my tracks, unable to keep myself from shooting him an incredulous look. What exactly is it about faction before blood that these morons don’t understand? Every damn year someone is howling about their damn family like they’re all special little babies that don’t actually have to listen to a single damn thing we have been telling them and it drives me insane. This faction is far from perfect but if these inbred degenerates come in and refuse to even try we might as well throw in the towel and pick up a nice little retirement hobby. Maybe Eric can crochet or do a little bit of woodwork. I know he’d tell me he has some wood for me to work on because all men are secretly twelve.

But back to the task at hand. I chew the guy out for his transgressions and leave him to the kitchen staff for some serious cleaning duties, I know that the place needs it badly. The Erudite fucktard can go clean toilets across the compound and that leaves me facing a wall of reports when I get back to my office. I could swear I heard Max giggle through the door of his office. He’s dead.

It’s way past ten and I’m in the middle of a little cardio on the living room floor when I hear the door. I’m not even bothering to acknowledge his presence because I’m still pissed, but if there’s something Eric hates it’s being ignored. Or disrespected. Or losing. Or people who lack ambition. Meatloaf Fridays. The list could go on and on.

I’m on all fours, pumping my right leg up and down in spite of the way my body screams at me. Pain can go suck it, I will win this. A different kind of pain digs into my hips and pulls me back against him, which is his way of demanding my undivided attention. I snarl and kick his thigh, which should hurt even though I’m barefoot. With a grunt his grip on my hips tightens and he lifts me up to turn me over, which I gladly accommodate, my legs wrap around his neck and I squeeze my thighs together, trapping his head. If I thought I had him I’m way too cocky and need a reality check, because he grins wolfishly and nips at me, grazing my clit with his teeth through the thin fabric of my shorts.

Using my abdominal muscles I push my upper body upwards, not my best move because my crotch is now pressed right against his face and Eric lazily trails his tongue over the fabric, causing it to soak through in mere moments which admittedly is not all him. My hands lift to yank at his hair but he knows what I’m up to and grabs my wrists, pinning then to my sides. As far as brute strength goes he is always winning, especially right now, and he knows it. Suddenly the world around me tilts and because I was distracted by his mouth I’m not prepared for my impact on the floor. It stuns me for a few moments while I try to breathe and that’s all it takes for him to shred the shorts that I just bought.

With an angry growl I kick at his chest and send him on his ass, he didn’t exactly go flying but that’ll have to do for now. I pounce after him and twist his shirt collar just to cut off the circulation a little. My other hand reaches under me to find his damn zipper but he decided that I had enough time to enjoy myself and stands up, his arm wrapped around me tightly. Before I can bite at his neck more than once he turns me around and holds me in place by wrapping his arm around my throat, so if I struggle too much I’m cutting off all circulation and I can’t breathe. I still twist and kick, he slips his hands beneath my legs, humming appreciatively at the fact that even my thighs are slick and wet by now.

“How come you get so violent and wet at the same time, hm. Almost as if you’re some sick little bitch that gets off on it.”

Eric runs a wet finger over my lips, spreading my own juices across my mouth. I growl and bite his finger, hard, and he chuckles but I can feel his cock twitch where it’s pressed against my ass.

“Takes one to know one,” I grind out between gritted teeth, I’m angry because he so easily pins me, even though I know it’s due to my injuries, lack of training and malnutrition. He seems to really enjoy himself though, I suspect there aren’t that many women who can keep up with him even if they want to. I hear the sound of his belt buckle hitting the floor and it sends a shiver of pleasure through me. That belt has played quite the role in our relationship so far…

My moment comes when he pulls off his shirt, his grip on me loosens enough for me to twist around and jab him in the ribs. Using my full weight I push him down and he hisses when he tumbles backwards and pulls me with him so I’m straddling his lap. One quick snap of both our hips, perfectly synchronized, and he’s inside me. It’s almost eerie, sometimes, to see how we seem to think the same things, at the same time and then act the same way. It’s probably where the secret twin rumor comes from.

Not willing to give in to him so easily I bury my hand in his hair and yank, wanting to expose his throat to my teeth, but before I can lean forward his hand wraps around my throat and he squeezes. We stare each other down, I’m pulling, he’s squeezing and I rock my hips against his in a frantic rhythm, knowing that the release I’m looking for will be just as violent as this is right now. And oh so satisfying.

My muscles tighten around him and Eric hisses, his grip around my throat slipping slightly. It’s those little moments where his control slips that I’m looking for, that I absolutely fucking live for, because I know that he hates it when it happens. And maybe, just maybe, I’m arrogant enough to firmly believe that I’m the only one that’s capable of doing this to him.

We’re both slick with sweat and my skin slides against his, I let the nails of my free hand rake down his throat since he won’t let me bite him. His hand tightens again and my vision begins to blur around the edges, just slightly. Eric knows exactly how much pressure to use and when to stop, and I hate to admit it but it’s fucking hot. Just a little more and I gasp, I’m not sure if it’s the lack of air or the orgasm that suddenly slams my body out of this world that is responsible for my temporary loss of vision, but I don’t care at all. I want to scream but I can’t, all that comes out around the pressure of his hand is low and strangled and I’m vaguely aware of my nails digging into his throat. As I come down and my tensed up muscles begin to relax so does his hand around my neck and I take a deep, shuddering breath, moaning again as my lungs fill. I look at him, his eyes never left mine for one second since I slid on his cock and I grin, lifting my hand from his neck to my mouth to suck on every single finger to clean them, I did draw a little blood. Eric shudders and grabs my hips, his fingers digging into my bruised flesh once more. He keeps me down and grinds me against him, once, twice, before he stills and bites down on my shoulder with a guttural sound that makes me smile.

Without a word I get up and gather the tattered remains of my clothes, that I just bought by the way, and head for the bathroom, absolutely intending to lock the door on him. I’m still angry at him for disappearing to Erudite once more and for generally being an asshole, even though I can’t really fault him for the latter without being a complete hypocrite.

“Have you been to the infirmary yet?”

To my credit… I manage not to stop dead in my tracks, I manage to hide my shock fairly well and I keep walking away from him.

“You know that I haven’t, you’re keeping tabs on me. I’m going tomorrow, want to come watch them make sure you can’t knock me up?”

Eric mutters something I can’t understand and I roll my eyes, which he can’t see so it’s purely for my own pleasure. What an idiot. I slam the bathroom door shut behind me and make sure to lock it so he can’t follow me into the shower. Serves him right. I’ll probably pay for it once I get out, but that’s a risk I am more than willing to take.

PART FOUR

#eric divergent #eric divergent fanfiction #jai courtney fanfiction #eric divergent/ofc #eric insurgent fanfiction #eric insurgent #eric insurgent/ofc #judas touch

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