#if these things make a person unfuckable in your eyes then where will that leave you in a few years time??

[feukt-42]

Elden ring + Shadow of the Erdtree lore thoughts

Alright, so, first off, obviously, spoilers ahead.

I've been thoroughly enjoying and getting my ass kicked by SotE and what ive seen of the lore so i wanted to ramble about it.

I specifically wanted to talk about how Elden Ring explores power and godhood.

In the base game, godhood isnt seen as inherently bad. Marika's golden order is fucked up six ways to sunday, but the blame mainly rests on Marika's shoulders it seems. She's a genocidal homewrecking war-mongerer who threw two of her children in the sewers bc of racism, she's not a good god, but it doesnt portray the problem as her being a god, just her being a mess. The game provides several "solutions" to unfuck everything :

Ranni's ending has you completely throw the system in the trash. She says, fuck it, godhood's the problem, im out of here. She is kinda right, but the lands remain fractured and the power vacuum left behind is going to be immense. We're on the right track but could be better.

The frenzied flame ending is just pure concentrated nihilism so i think we can move past it for this one.

The bunch of other endings are fairly similar : you beat Marika/Radagon's ass and you impose yourself as Elden Lord to keep her in check and fix the issues you see as most important. This doesnt fix anything long-term, the god in power is still the exact same fucking mess but with a chaperone now i guess.

None of these endings are very satisfying, they all leave you with a sense of "it could be worse i guess" (except the frenzied flame one but you get the point). This is where Miquella comes in :

Everything we hear about Miquella sounds great. He's kind, compassionate, against racism, doesnt like violence, etc etc. Cherry on top, he's even one of the characters with a direct shot at godhood, brilliant ! Why cant we just put him in charge, he'll do much better than the absolute wreck we have right now.

And thats where the base game leaves us, Marika is a fucked up mess of a person, and the obvious solution is to put the much better Miquella in her place.

Shadow of the erdtree, on the other hands, aims to set the record straight. The problem wasnt just Marika, the problem is inherent to godhood in and of itself.

In SotE, we see the land of shadow, the realm where Marika came from and ascended to godhood, and the realm where Miquella intends to do the same. And the more we hear about who Marika was before in snippets of lore, and the more we watch Miquella tread the road to godhood, we realise something :

There is no such thing as a good god

It doesnt matter how kind and compassionate you were, what your morals were, who you loved, who you loathed, none of it matters because you cannot grasp the power to become a god without sacrificing who you were before.

In the dlc we see Miquella shed more and more of himself, his flesh, his arms, his eye, his heart, his doubts, his fears and even his love. Miquella has shorn so much of who he was that he formed an entire new person (St Trina) from it. Some of him remains, he still wishes for a kinder world, but he cant sacrifice anymore of himself for it. Now he has to start sacrificing others.

Miquella was always blessed with the ability to charm others, and he sees it as the least painful path to make others do as he wishes. And so he charms his sister, he charms Mohg, he charms Radahn, his followers, Leda, Moore, Thiollier, Freyja, the hornsent, Ansbach, and everyone he can convince to give themselves up for his dream of a kinder world, regardless of the pain they might cause or feel by being enthralled by him.

And oh boy do they feel pain. Mohg is used and discarded like a ragdoll, and his followers and dynasty slowly crumble to nothing as the last pureblood knight watches helplessly, himself entranced by the one responsible after he failed to kill him. Radahn's soul is shoved in a corpse so that he can play consort to a god that is his antithesis, depriving him of his glory and honour as lord of the battlefield. Malenia is left alone to rot after Miquella has no use or help for her, and she endlessly waits for her brother to return. Every one of Miquella's followers has to grapple with those feelings of betrayal, manipulation, and lost memories returning all at once. It is by no means painless.

And so we end up with a god that is not much better than Marika was. On his path to godhood, Miquella has caused as much pain to those along the way as his mother once did, in this very same land that still feels the scars of Marika's ascension.

The only way to gain power is to take it from everyone else, and that cannot be achieved without pain.

[oogaboogaspookyman]

@mushroom-for-art I BLAME YOU FOR THIS FIC YOU GOT ME TO FUCKING MAKE WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS

[TRY ME]

"Axel." Arceus give him strength what the hell happened now. God he's got his arms crossed, he did something alright and will have to endure his scolding dammit.

"Is something wrong, bunny??" Axel tilted his head in genuine confusion. Something he did but what he did he does not know.

"I spotted a certain... Pink armless mewtwo comforting what i assume is his sister? Wonder if that has something to do with my loving, caring, oh so kind fluffy beast that i feel animalistic need for..." Axel immediately realizes what Spooky is talking about now and expresses annoyance, sighing.

"Just listen-" he's immediately interrupted by an already riled-up Spooky, "no no! Do not interrupt me! We need to talk about that and get a solution cuz i will not stand as you deny yourself and your literal sons and daughters some fuckin' kindness!" He says while grabbing a small stick and tossing it at Axel, aiming... Not at his face but definetly not anywhere else, i don't fuckin' know but he certainly don't hit like- his eye. "Sorry about that but you had it coming- i think you should apologize real quickly, and i'm not even asking you to make this formal apology with a suit and tie and a note with roses-" he pauses at the thought of Axel in a suit, as a consequence blushing and pretty much dissociates in his own crazed love for Axel... but quickly comes back to reality. "No no- i'm just asking you to apologize! A little "unfuck you" would suffice, y'know? It's that simple!"

It's a long silent stare from each other, the wind blows leaves from behind Axel into god knows where else they're being taken to in this mad world...

"Nnno... No i don't think i will apologize for not appreciating what's best described as further violation of my own bloo- aCK-" Axel got hit in the head with another tiny stick tossed onto him. Spooky, his tail thumping onto the ground in frustration, now glares at him with the eyes of someone who would sacrifice so much over so little purely out of spite and personal grudges with said sacrifice being offered.

"Come on now, i don't think there's any reason to be arguing over this, besides i personally don't see you as capable of being cold like that!" Spooky immediately grins a little... Axel gets the unusual feeling he's about to regret saying that, as if he managed to push his own beloved bunny to his limit.

"Oh yeah?! Try me!" Axel flinched a little at Spooky's sudden raise in his voice, now he sounds more stern. This in turn activates his stubborn resilience.

"Yes go on ahead, show me you're as strong as you say" Axel smirks a little, knowing full well he will win... Deep down, he's just *aw fuck i messed up didn't i?*

A sigh. "I'm not asking for much, not even gold or diamonds, just a little sorry in person and a promise to be a little kinder in the future, nothing more" Spooky now sounds less cold and more like he's worried, but why should he? He's jumping into a rabbit hole just to help other people and for what?

"I'm within my right to be angry still at what humans did to me and what they keep doing to my genetics further warping and corrupting it into an unrecognisable subservient form. Of course I'm repulsed when I see what" he swipes his arm into the air, as if to dismiss the situation "they've done, the meager little thing they wanted to turn me into." Right after he begins crossing his arms, trying to at least spook his partner out of the situation.

"You think i don't know? I've seen you with the armor pieces screwed on you, of course i know. But it's not an excuse." Axel immediately feels an unnerving feeling of dread and regret. Anxiety. You think i don't know? I've seen you with the armor pieces screwed on you, of course i know. But it's not an excuse.

He stands up, arms still crossed, to maintain his intimidating persona. Amusing. "How I'm handling my issues is not something that you need to entangle yourself with, especially not when it comes to them, this is personal and I would appreciate if you respected that and took a step back"

"You're still hurting them though sooooo... Metaphorical boot to the head, you had it coming." At that point he growls lowly to warn Spooky of what's coming if he digs deeper into the situation... Which he smirks at. "Guess i'm cuddling with Hutch instead of you~"

If this was a cartoon or something, there would definetly be a little boink sound right now in this moment of sudden silence.

Axel turns his head away, *breathe just breathe, you're gonna snap so you better control yourself, that's your partner that always wants to cuddle and so with you* he breathes in and out... In, and out... Breathe in, breathe out... *don't screw this up now you've already lost Hutch and your daughter once you can't lose him too*

"If that's what you choose to do..." And so he floats up and away to calm his nerves...

Don't you feel selfish, Mewtwo? Pathetic? Cowardly? You should fight. You should know better. Mewtwo. Hehehehehehe~

Spooky breathes in and out... What he did was intense, maybe a bit too much for his own taste... "I'm doing this for his own good! It's okay! It's fine, it's healthy! He sorta deserved it anyway so you can't be blamed!" And so he walks away...

Do you know the feeling of how you're biting on much more than you can chew? You're going to regret this.

It started with slightly more frequent nuzzling with Hutch, just him placing his cheek on Hutch's fur and almost seemingly napping on him. Who can blame him? He's fluffy as hell, a walking pillow, even he does that from time to time! Feels a little envious though, that he can't deny much.

Next day, he started cuddling with Hutch a little more, and sort of ignoring Axel to plop onto Hutch's back and lay. Sometimes, he feels like he's being smug about it, almost smirking behind that face of pure raw comfort from that big gengar's fur.

Then it became full cuddles with Hutch and none with Axel, just measly little flirty looks and bleps, but nothing more than that, and he even sees Hutch giving Axel knowing looks, as if he's in on it too. The envy turns into fear and anxiety. Oh god he's serious. He's not joking...

Next day...

"Spooky?? Bunny??" Axel sounds like he's about to whimper whenever he speaks now

Hutch just immediately covers Spooky's ears, defensive yet just as smugly, "don't bunny him you! He's not in a good mood with you!" Spooky nods as he wraps his tail around Hutch. Look at him, sitting pretty on that gengar's lap like a little king. Smug little piece of...

"I've been thinking... You win, i'm caving. I'm gonna apologize and i will be kinder in advance..." Axel closes his eyes and looks down, expecting to be chewed out. Look at you...

It happened before. It might as well happen again.

"Three... Two... One..." Hutch counts down for some odd reason... He's giving a different knowing look, like he knows what's gonna happen next...

Spooky lunges at Axel with all his mighty worried need and anxiety for Axel, hugging him, as he sounded genuinely guilty, hurt maybe. "OKAY OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I FELT PHYSICAL ACTUAL PAIN HAVING TO RESTRAIN MYSELF FROM CUDDLING WITH YOU AND I ALMOST STARTED TO CRY ON HUTCH BECAUSE I REALLY MISSED YOU AND YOUR GORGEOUS FUR AND YOUR BIG HEAVY TAIL AND YOUR WARMTH AND- AND-"

"Shhh it's okay..." Axel interrupted his downward spiral into guilt, "it's okay, you're okay... I'm sorry for being a jerk before, i'm just hurt and... I'm really looking for help, you have to believe me on that..."

"hhhhhhhhhh i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm so sorry i'm so sorry hhnnnnnnhnhnhgnggnnnn....,,,," is he weeping? He feels Spooky's tears on his shoulder, going down his back, so it's assumed he's weeping...

"Oh lovey..." He starts petting the sobbing Spooky on his shoulder to try to calm him down at least a little. This whole ordeal must've been taxing for him...

"If you weren't critically endangered by your nature as artificial living things, i think i'd take him to be sedated" Axel shushes Hutch immediately after, and goes back to petting he who is definetly not okay if he's gonna be crying like that after he was all cold and callous towards Axel before.

Simp.

[undeadvinyls]

more stuff on vera:

she smiles like a polish and has a resting bitch face because she CANNOT let herself do her dad's creepy ass grin (i mean this)

even then she poses like her dad and do sometimes end up making that grin. esp on her middle school yearbook photo when she was 13

she looks up to abigail because that's the only responsible woman she's known yet. it's still not a good role model but at least she understands her with the more girly things

i imagine in every episode she would be, she'd have a different outfit. i mean dad's drip is unfuckable with so hers should be too

she and toki like to watch shrek 1 & 2 together + horror movies w/ skwisgaar and murderface

while she isnt 16 yet, murderface gives her driving lessons in the car he received on his b-day in that episode

pickles always ruffles her hair and giggles because she's like the sibling he always wanted instead of seth. he acts like a big brother around her

vera's genes received from dick include the big aquiline nose, blue eyes, blonde hair and thin posture

i imagine at the end of dethwater they'd be a bonus scene where dick and vera r eating dinner together except nubbler is in sunglasses to hide his bursted eyes from her. when vera asks whys he wearing them he takes them off and she literally falls off her chair

i imagine she's the one who gave him the idea of getting cybernetic eyes lol

because of spending a lot of time with pickles, she picked up his wisconsin accent. and now once in a while she calls knubbler "feether" instead of "father". because of how much she and pickles complain abt their parents

the reason why vera almost ended up in juvie was because she beat up 2 kids with a brick who were bullying her friend

the band is more weirded out by the fact that dick didnt leave her in the dust and actually took the custody of vera instead of the sole fact hes got a kid

speaking of, if she was canon, i imagine there'd be an episode between dethwater and ep 16 where vera is introduced and the band goes "SHE'S YOUR KID?!?!"

i also imagine she was the only person who told william that it's okay to be gay because she's gay herself (lesbian)

skwisgaar also likes to talk abt music with her, a lot

still writing her relationship w/ nathan and charles but i feel like it's neutral-to-positive

despite it all, she truly loves her dad, even if he's like, the worst person to be a dad ever. he's trying his best. even if he brings a bad example most of the time and is the reason why she's got behavioral issues in school

cant believe im doing this. anyways, hi, this is my metalocalypse one and only oc, very self-indulged vera lmfao. im gonna give her a better ref later ig

i know knubbler reads more like a double-income-no-kids gay wine aunt but i had to make him a girlfailure daughter for his girlfailure self (that desparetely doesnt want to look like him)

[giantkillerjack]

Shout-out to the galaxy-brained Lupin III artists who draw Zenigata as a man in his 40s with a receding hairline and a hairy dad bod 10/10 THIS is the Zenigata that Lupin wants to fuck!!

Let middle-aged characters look middle-aged and sexy 2023!!!

[disturbedbydesign]

Special Girl - Part 5

Summary: You arrived at Harvard as a shy, nerdy girl. You never thought a guy like Lloyd Hansen would notice you. But Lloyd saw you—really saw you—and for a time you became his special girl. Now, years later, you’re stuck in a sexless marriage. Unloved and unfucked for months, you’ve decided enough is enough. The fact that Lloyd has been keeping tabs on you for years has nothing to do with it… or does it?

Pairing: Lloyd Hansen x Reader

Word Count: 7.7K

Warnings: DUBCON (alcohol use/manipulation); INCREDIBLY unsafe/unhealthy/deadass wrong BDSM practices (Lloyd doesn’t do safewords or aftercare); plus-sized reader/fatphobia; cheating; degradation; bondage, spanking/whipping, gagging; knife kink; blood kink; CNC roleplay; gunplay; rough oral (m receiving); explicit sex (O,V,A); unprotected sex (Lloyd doesn’t wear condoms, ok?); unwanted pregnancies/abortion; physical intimidation/abuse; general toxicity; Lloyd is a psycho and he’s fucking mean—Dead Dove Do Not Eat! 18+ only, no minors.

Series Masterlist

Part Five

Lloyd leaves you catatonic on the bed, his cum dripping out of your every hole, and makes his way over to the pool house. He’s still there, tied to a chair, his right eye swollen shut and his split lip finally starting to coagulate. By Lloyd’s estimation, he’s got at least two broken ribs, three broken fingers, a dislocated shoulder, and a nasty case of testicular torsion. He’ll probably lose the nut, not that he’s using it much these days.

“Hey there, Mikey,” Lloyd says. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I was doing a bit of entertaining.” Lloyd scooches a chair up next to Michael—slowly, deliberately—and points his Ruger at his stomach. “Now, have you thought any more about the question I asked you earlier?”

“I told you,” Michael says feebly. “I don’t know where my father hid the drive. I just need more time—another week, maybe two, and you’ll have everything you need.”

Lloyd pokes him in the ribs with the muzzle of his gun and Michael winces. “And that would have been fine,” he says, “except you broke my rules.”

Michael’s one good eye goes wide as he looks up at Lloyd. “I didn’t. I-”

“Hope the head was worth it, buddy,” Lloyd says, clapping Michael on his fucked-up shoulder before rising from his seat. “You really should have let her finish. Little wifey sure knows her way around a dick.” Lloyd grabs the laptop off the table and pulls up the video file he’s just uploaded. “Believe me, I know,” he says, and he winks at your husband as he presses play.

Lloyd is near giddy as he forces Michael to watch you get violated on screen. After all, he did give him fair warning this would happen, and it’s what the guy deserves for being such a pain in the ass. It should have taken a month tops for Michael to collect the evidence on his father, but the guy is just such a wimp—too intimidated to stand up to his old man, too scared to go snooping around in his own parents’ house. So Lloyd had come up with a motivational tactic he thought might move things along: he had told your husband in no uncertain terms that if he engaged in any PG-13-and-up activity with you before he’d finished the job, you would be the one to pay for it. But if Lloyd is honest, it was less about getting the intel and more that he’d really just wanted to see if Michael would listen—if he was really so fucking weak that he’d let another man tell him if and when he could fuck his own wife.

If you were his wife, Lloyd thinks, there isn’t a person in the world—including you—that could stop him from fucking you whenever and wherever he wanted. But this loser you married? It took him six months to break, and even then he was too much of a pussy to stick his dick down your throat and take what was his; you’d practically forced yourself on him and still he could barely get it up. And then he fucking cries? Lloyd chuckles every time he thinks about it: watching you through your home security cameras, giving your husband one last chance to prove he’s worth a damn, down on your knees in your pretty little dress with your tits out, begging your own husband to want you. It was so fucking pathetic.

But you’d stuck to your guns in the end, told him to fuck off like the worthless piece of shit that he is. Lloyd had known you wanted out, that you have for years—all he’d done was give you a little incentive, just the push you needed to remember that you may have been married to Michael for all these years, but you’d never really been his. Your husband had never owned you—mind, body, and soul; only Lloyd Hansen has that distinction.

Lloyd sits with his hands clasped in his lap, his long legs spread wide in Michael’s direction as the man in front of him curses and weeps at the violent imagery playing on the laptop screen. He wears his most devious smile as he listens to you play the victim, and he watches your husband go through the gamut of human emotions one might expect in this particular circumstance: disgust, fear, anger, despair. If this guy only knew, Lloyd thinks, that this is tame for his wife. Every time Michael tries to look away, Lloyd tsk tsks him and raises his gun and barks, “Keep watching.”

Of course, Michael doesn’t know that you like everything that’s being done to you on that tape, that you asked for it, that you’ve been dreaming about it for years. Maybe if he did, he’d be crying even harder. As it stands, though, Michael is gagging as he watches you swallow Lloyd’s cum, and by the time Lloyd’s got his dick in you, your husband is retching up stomach acid all over his bare chest. His skin has to burn like hell, too, with all the cuts Lloyd had made.

“Turn it off,” Michael begs. “Please.”

“Ohhh, but it’s just about to get really good,” Lloyd says. “You ever fuck her ass, Mikey? I’m willing to bet that you haven’t. Well, let me tell you, It’s like heaven in there.”

“Did you kill her?” he croaks out. “Did you kill my wife?” 

Lloyd just laughs. “She’s fine,” he says. “Better than fine, I would argue. In fact, I think I might keep her—at least until the job is done.”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Michael begs. “Please just let her go.”

Lloyd leans in and whispers in Michael’s ear, “Not a chance. She’s just so much fun to play with.”

Lloyd leaves the video on repeat, checking Michael’s wrists and ankles to make sure his binds are secure before locking the pool house back up. The man is already broken, more malleable than he’s ever been, and Lloyd knows this thing could be finished tonight if he let him go—that he’s finally willing to man up and stand up to his father and get the fucking job done—but Lloyd is simply enjoying this too much. Psychological torture isn’t usually Lloyd’s thing, but he’s too close to this one; he wants Michael to suffer in every possible way because he committed the worst crime of all—he took something that doesn’t belong to him.

Walking back towards the house, Lloyd makes a decision. He’s spent months working this guy to get the job done the way the client wants it done—totally under the radar, no casualties—but he’d stopped caring about doing things the right way the second he saw Michael watching that video. What Lloyd wants now, what he needs, is for your husband to know everything, to see everything. He decides he’s going to let his team handle this business with the Senator—send them in quick and dirty, even if that means the old man dies bloody and the client doesn’t get exactly what he wants—because it’s not about the job anymore; it’s about what Lloyd wants, and what Lloyd wants is for your pathetic, weak-willed pussy of a husband to watch you get fucked live and in person so he knows that you are his, always were and always will be, and that there hasn’t been one single hour of one single day where you wouldn’t have chosen him if he’d given you the option.

And, of course, he wants to see the man’s face when you tell him the kid’s not his. That’ll be absolutely delightful.

It’s not that Lloyd feels threatened—how could he? The man is an ant and he is a boot. No, he just wants to see if you’ll do it, if just the chance that Lloyd might want you is enough to get you to cuck your husband and finally tell him the truth. You’ve already left Michael, but are you willing to hurt him? Might you even enjoy it? Is it possible that, deep down, you and Lloyd really are the same?

It’s Lloyd’s last test for you—his most important test—and if you can prove yourself to him then maybe, just maybe, he’ll give you what you’ve always wanted. The kid is a problem, of course, but Lloyd is nothing if not a problem-solver.

First, he decides to give you a little taste of the domestic. He walks back up to the bedroom and finds you freshly showered and wearing the Harvard football jersey—his jersey—that he’d left out for you. He likes you in it, wearing his name and his number: a branding of its own, just not Lloyd’s favorite kind. It pisses him off that you’d tattooed over his initials but he understands. What man would want to fuck a woman with another man’s name carved into her leg? Lloyd gets it, he does, but he’s already planning where he’ll cut you next, what he’ll write. Perhaps a Property of Lloyd Hansen right above your pussy. No, that’s too many letters for knifework, but maybe the tattoo gun…

“Hi,” you say. “Sorry I kind of passed out.”

“S’alright, Porkchop.” He crosses the room with a few purposeful strides and kisses you lightly on top of your head. “I know I gave it to you pretty rough.”

“I liked it,” you say, squinting your eyes and using that husky little voice you do when you want him to know how much you love the pain and how much of it you’re willing to endure for him.

“Oh, I know you did.” He wraps you up in his arms and feels you relax into him. “Now will you come downstairs, actually eat something this time? We’ve got all weekend, you know.”

You look up at him, as surprised as Lloyd expects you to be at his just throwing the invitation out there.

“Really?” you ask.

“Of course,” he replies. “Did you think I was just gonna kick you out? After all this time? No way, Porkchop. I’ve got big plans for you.”

Lloyd runs his thumb across the apple of your cheek and you lean into it and close your eyes. He kisses your forehead and then your lips—those plump, pillow-soft lips that feel so fucking perfect against his own. Lloyd isn’t big on kissing, never has been, unless it’s you. He pulls away because he has to or else he’ll end up back in bed with you. That can’t happen, not right now; he’s got work to do.

“Let’s go eat,” he says, and you follow him down the stairs.

Lloyd lets you reheat the food in the kitchen. He lets you pour him a drink. He lets you make him a plate before making one for yourself. Such a good little wife, so well trained. He knows you would live to serve him and he’d live like a goddamn king if he let you into his life. It really is a shame, though; you’re so much better than this, so much more. You would have made an excellent lawyer—and not a dirtbag, either. You would have done something of substance, something that mattered, something that helped people. You’re so very good at making other people happy.

After you’ve cleared his plate and yours, Lloyd lets you rinse the dishes but tells you to leave the rest. “Come sit with me,” he says. He pours you another glass of wine and takes it, and you, into the living room before making a fire in the oversized stone fireplace.

You’re cradling your glass of wine in both your hands, sitting on the big brown leather couch with your legs tucked under you. You’ve got nothing on under his jersey and it takes all the strength Lloyd can muster not to throw you on the rug in front of the fire and fuck you half blind. But no—not yet. He has some questions he needs to ask you, some things he needs to say.

“So,” he says, poking at the fire and turning around, “tell me about Harrison.”

He watches your eyes light up and your quick attempt to hide it, but of course he clocks it—he was waiting for it.

“I didn’t think you were interested,” you say, but not unkindly.

“Well, I am… in my way.” He sits next to you on the couch and places his hand on your bare thigh. “Look, I never wanted to be a dad. You know that. I fucking hate my dad and I’d probably be a far worse one than he was, but… you know… he’s my son. I want to know about him. That is if you want to tell me. I understand if you don’t.”

You smile softly and Lloyd can see your eyes start to water. Hook. Line. Sinker.

“He’s a lot like you, actually,” you begin. “I mean, he looks like you, but it’s not just that. He’s whip-smart and he knows exactly what he wants at all times—has even before he could talk.” You laugh a little, thinking about it. “And he’s a tough kid, maybe a little too tough, honestly, but he’s got a good heart underneath it all. And he’s so sweet when he wants to be.”

“He gets that part from you,” Lloyd says, and you roll your eyes. “What kind of stuff does he like?”

“He loves superhero movies and pepperoni pizza and, of course, football. You’ll be happy to know that he thinks flag football is for ‘wusses’ and he can’t wait until he can play tackle.”

“That’s my boy,” Lloyd says, and he finds himself feeling a surprising surge of pride.

He didn’t think he would actually care about any of this, and he was more than prepared to fake it for your sake, but the more he learns about his son—that there’s a tiny little Lloyd running around out there with that same innate urge to hurt—the more vainglorious he feels. He created this life, forced it into you so that you could push it out into the world and give the universe another Lloyd Hansen. There’s a certain power in that that Lloyd had never, until this very moment, understood or recognized. 

“He’s definitely his father’s son,” you say, searching his eyes for any sign that that means something to him. Lloyd gives you what you’re looking for, of course, and you smile. “He’s gonna get kicked off the team. I swear.”

“Not if I buy off the coach,” Lloyd quips. “So what else?”

“Well,” you continue, “he loves everything about the fall—the leaves and the pumpkin picking and Halloween costumes and candy. He hates me because I don’t let him watch scary movies yet, and he hates me because I make him go to school, which he despises even though he’s the smartest kid in his class.”

“Keep the kid in school, Porkchop. I mean it. Don’t let him grow up to be some degenerate dropout loser.”

“Oh, he’ll stay in school, because he can’t play football if he doesn’t. He’s starting to learn that sometimes you have to suffer for the things that you love.”

“Harsh lesson for a six-year-old,” Lloyd says, taking a deep pull of whiskey.

“Yeah, well, it’s a harsh world.”

Lloyd puts his drink down and turns to face you before grabbing your bare legs and putting them in his lap. “Look, I know you know what I do, that my particular line of work isn’t exactly conducive to being a family man. It’s not that I don’t care. It really isn’t. It’s just… complicated. I mean, you can’t expose a kid to that.”

“I know,” you say. “I understand, I do. I’ve never asked you for anything, Lloyd. I never even told you he was yours.”

“You didn’t have to tell me. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Your eyes drop to your hands in your lap and Lloyd notices, for the first time, that you’ve taken off your wedding ring. “At first,” you say, “but then you just kept popping up and I knew you must know.” You look back up at him, searching his eyes for a truth you’ll never get. “Is that why you’ve been following me? Is it because of Harrison?”

And now, Lloyd thinks, it’s time to lay a few cards on the table: not all of them, of course, but enough to nudge you towards where he wants you—needs you—to be.

Lloyd sighs deep. “I need to tell you something,” he says, “and you’re going to get upset, but I need you to promise me that you’ll just listen to everything I have to say before you freak out, ok?”

Lloyd can smell the fear wafting off you. “You’re scaring me, Lloyd.”

“Good,” he says. “You should be scared. I’ve been trying to protect you from this shit for years, but it’s getting really ugly now and it’s time you knew the truth.”

“Protect me? Protect me from what? What the fuck are you talking about?”

Lloyd has decided to give you the broad strokes, taking a bit of creative license where it suits him, and he begins.

“I told you not to marry Michael. I told you his father was a scumbag, but what I didn’t tell you —because I didn’t know then—was that the Senator is a very dangerous man. I always knew he made his money selling secrets. That’s about the worst kept secret in Washington but… you know… selling secrets is a D.C. staple. I thought it might hurt him eventually, but I never thought it would hurt you.”

You sit up straight and turn to him, sitting cross-legged as his jersey rides up your thighs and Lloyd tells himself don’t look, don’t look, focus.

“What do you mean hurt me? What the fuck is going on, Lloyd?”

Lloyd takes your hands in his. “The Senator’s been selling the wrong secrets to the wrong people—high-security intel he shouldn’t even have access to and he’s auctioning it off to the highest bidder—the fucking Russians, no less. But he’s got friends high up in the agency, probably because he’s got dirt on them too, so no one was doing a goddamn thing about it while I was there. But now there’s been a change of the guard, the CIA wanted to move on him, so they brought me in, and that’s when I found out that… well…” Lloyd takes a deep breath and prepares himself to tell the Big Lie, the one you absolutely have to believe if any of this is going to work. “Michael knew. He’s always known. And a lot of his money—your money—it’s from the Russians.”

Lloyd looks you in the eye, daring you to question him, and you find in them what you’ve always found: exactly what he wants you to see. “I don’t understand,” you say, your voice shaky. “He doesn’t work with his father. He barely even talks to the man anymore.”

“That’s what he wants you to think, Porkchop. He doesn’t want you to know that you’re using blood money to send your kid to school and get your fuckin hair done.”

“What do you mean blood money?”

“About a year ago, the Senator sold off the names of a bunch of undercover agents. As of today, there’s only one left alive. The Senator got millions for it. That’s around the same time Michael got that big bonus and you bought your fancy new house, no?”

You bring your hands to your mouth and make a sound that’s not altogether human. “Oh my God,” you say, but you’re not quite ready to believe it. You shake your head. “No, Michael wouldn’t do this. He would never take the money if he knew that people would die because of it. He just… he wouldn’t.”

“He would, Porkchop, and he did. I can show you the paper trail if you want, but that’s not even the worst of it.”

“How can this possibly get any worse, Lloyd?” you ask, and you’ve got that look in your eyes—that fear that Lloyd finds so goddamn addictive. Christ, he can smell it on you. Focus, Lloyd.

“Things can always get worse,” he says, “especially when the Russians are involved. The Senator fucked up this time because he’s a greedy sonofabitch. He smelled that oligarch money and he decided to play the Russians off each other to drive up the price. Let’s just say, these are guys who do not like to lose, and now the losers are pissed, and they’re out for blood—specifically your family’s blood, and they do not give a single fuck who they drain it from. I killed one of them outside your house four months ago, another one outside Harrison’s school his first day back, but they just keep coming, Porkchop, and you know I’d kill a fucking army of men for you but they’ll just keep sending more unless Michael gets me what I need.”

Lloyd can see your hands trembling a bit as your mouth drops open. “You… you killed someone… for me?”

Lloyd takes a sip of his drink and puts the glass back down on the coffee table. “Technically, I’ve killed 23 people for you over the past 14 months, but who’s counting? That’s not the point. The point is that”—he grabs your hands again and stills them—”and I need you to just listen here and don’t get mad, I’ve been trying to work with your husband for a little while now, to get him to help me help the government take control of this situation, to get back the intel the Senator has and get him to turn himself in. And they’ll take it easy on Michael if he cooperates, but he won’t.”

You snatch your hands back from him and straighten your spine. “You’ve been working with my husband?” you ask, quirking your eyebrow at him. “For how long?”

“A couple of months,” Lloyd says, “it doesn’t matter. What matters is-”

“How long, Lloyd? Exactly.” 

He can see in your eyes that you already know the answer. You always were too smart for your own good.

“Six months, but-”

You push away from him, to the other end of the couch, and you drop your head into your hands. “I should have known. Fuck. I should have fucking known you had something to do with this.” You stand up and start pacing back and forth between the couch and the fireplace, cursing under your breath, before you turn back to him, “Is any of this even true? Or did you just wake up one day and decide, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go threaten Michael so he’s too fucking scared to fuck his own wife and then she’ll come crawling back to me like she always does because she’s so goddamn predictable.’” You grab your wine glass and finish the contents in one gulp. “I’m such an idiot. I’m so fucking stu-”

Lloyd rises quickly and you stop speaking, backing away from him as he walks toward you. He takes the glass from your hand, setting it down next to his, and then he grabs your wrists—not as roughly as he could, but not gentle either.

“I didn’t fucking ask for this, ok? Six months ago, my guy at the CIA comes to me and tells me your fucking husband is dirty, hands me a fat paycheck, and tells me to turn the guy, so that’s what I’m gonna do. That’s my fucking job. And you know what? I’m glad he came to me with it, because there’s no one else on Earth that will do more to protect you, to keep you safe, to keep Harrison safe. You think I wanted this?” He drops your hands and runs a hand through his hair. “You think I wanted to have to go see your piece of shit husband every goddamn week knowing that he goes home to my girl and my son? Please. I didn’t fucking ask for this. I told you not to marry him. I told you what would happen if you did and guess what, Porkchop? I was wrong, because this is waaaay fucking worse. So, really, you should be on your goddamn knees thanking me because if they hadn’t come to me, all of you would be in the fuckin ground by now.”

“I- I don’t…” Lloyd can see your mind racing, trying to sort through the infodump he just unloaded on you—to make sense of it, to catch him in a lie or find any evidence whatsoever that the things he’s telling you are untrue. You won’t, of course, and a lot of it is true; you just don’t need to know which parts. “What happens next?” you ask.

“My guys are… let’s just say working with Michael as we speak,” Lloyd replies. “They snatched him up from some shitty motel, and it’s a good thing they did because the Russians tailed him from your house Wednesday night.”

“Th- they were there?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Porkchop,” he says, cupping your cheek. “They are always there.”

“What about Harrison? My parents? Are they-”

“I have people on your parents’ house. They’re not going to touch a goddamn hair on the kid’s head, I promise you that. I may not be Dad material, but I’m not gonna let anyone hurt my son.”

You’re crying now and Lloyd can feel his cock starting to stir in his pants. He wants to grab your face and lick the tears off your cheek. Fucking focus, Lloyd. Christ. 

“I need Michael to cooperate, to get us the information we need so we can figure out who exactly we are dealing with overseas. I can’t stop these guys for good if I don’t know who’s sending them.”

“Well, I’m sure your guys have ways of making people cooperate.” You shudder after you say it, not wanting to let yourself think too hard about what those methods might be. “I can’t imagine Michael would last long under that kind of pressure. I’m shocked he didn’t fold the second you walked through his door.” Lloyd can see it occur to you in real-time that your husband—your weak, spineless loser of a husband—has avoided any real repercussions for months. You look up at him, staring daggers into his eyes. “Why is that, exactly? Why didn’t you make him cooperate months ago?”

Lloyd has been waiting for this question. “I could have,” he says. “Fuck knows I wanted to, but the agency wanted it done clean and my methods are… messy.”

“I don’t believe you,” you yell. “You could have ended this ages ago, but you kept it going. You let me stay in the line of fire for months, Lloyd. Why?”

“I would never have let anything happen to you,” Lloyd replies, and that’s the God’s honest truth. “But… I will admit to having some ulterior motives.”

You roll your eyes and throw up your hands. “Of fucking course you do. You always do. What kind of sick game are you playing? This is life and death shit and you’re playing your fucking games?”

Lloyd takes a deep breath and grabs your shoulders. “I just… I needed to know,’ he says.

“Needed to know what?”

“That you don’t love him anymore. That you really wanted out. So, yeah, maybe I threatened him, told him not to fuck you just to see if that would speed up the process. Because if that was me, Porkchop—if you were my wife and some asshole came into my office and told me not to touch you, I wouldn’t last a fucking day. I’d go home that night and fuck you harder because of it. But this guy? This fucking loser you married?” Lloyd scoffs. “I needed you to finally see it, ok? To see what I have always seen—that he’s weak, a fucking coward, that he’s not good enough for you or strong enough for you.”

“And then what?” you snap. “I leave him and you show up and then what, Lloyd?”

“Then maybe… I don’t know…  I don’t know, ok?”

“You’re the coward,” you shout. Your palms connect with Lloyd’s chest and he lets you push him away. “You’re the weak one. All of this shit you pulled and you still can’t fucking say it.”

Lloyd stares you down, watching your chest rise and fall beneath his jersey. Goddammit, you look so fucking sexy when you’re angry, but he’s so close now. He stalks toward you and grabs your neck, shoving you up against the wall and trapping you there—a caged animal, ready to strike. He’s never seen you this angry; you’ve never allowed yourself to show him this side of you—because he’s never allowed you to—and Lloyd is enjoying it a little too much. He wants to punish you for it, for your insubordination, for daring to question him, but he needs you angry—just not at him. 

Lloyd puts just the right amount of pressure on your carotid artery and presses his forehead to yours. “Call me weak again, Porkchop. Go on. Keep talking your shit, see what happens.”

Your eyelids flutter. He knows how much you love this grip, what it does to you, how stupid you go in his hands. But are you stupid enough to believe him, to trust him, to do exactly what he wants despite everything he’s done to you?

“I’m sorry,” you wheeze. “I didn’t mean it.”

Lloyd smiles. Yes, yes you are.

“All I’m trying to do is keep you safe, Porkchop.” He releases some of the pressure on your neck and you gasp for breath as he runs his thumb across your bottom lip. “I need you to work with me here, not against me.”

“Wh- what do you need me to do?” you ask. 

I need you to pass your final exam, Lloyd thinks.

“I need you to listen very closely,” he says, “and do exactly what I say.”

***

Your mind is racing as you wait for Lloyd in the strange bed. You didn’t believe him at first, thought it was just some cruel joke he was playing, but he showed you the evidence—photos and bank statements and all sorts of shit that had your head swimming as the reality of it hit home: Michael knew, he was involved, he profited. Your husband—your sweet, gentle, honest husband—is an enemy of the state.

And that should have been the worst of it, but Lloyd saved the actual worst for last: a video recording of the two of them in Michael’s office a few weeks ago, with your husband telling Lloyd that he didn’t care about you anymore—that there was no point in going after you because he was going to leave you anyway. 

But, if you’re honest, you didn’t need to see or hear any of that. Even before you learned that Lloyd had killed for you, you were already all in. Seeing the look in Lloyd’s eyes when he finally said the words “my son”—you could have cried because the last thing in the world you were expecting was for Lloyd Hansen to actually care. He tried to hide it but you could see it on his face; he was emotional (as emotional as Lloyd Hansen gets, anyway) and you’d decided then and there that there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to put your family—your real family—back together. 

And he’s finally admitted, in his way, that he wants you. He won’t say it, of course, but he was so close to admitting that he has real feelings for you, that you’re more than just a fucktoy for him to play with, that you’re still his special girl. And so you’d agreed to do what he asked you to do—horrible as it is—because you truly believe that if you do it, he’ll finally admit the truth: that he loves you and he’s always loved you, that he’s ready to make you a real part of his life. There is nothing Lloyd Hansen could ask you to do that was too much, no line you wouldn’t cross, if it meant he would finally make you his.

You’ve got no love left for Michael anyway. He lied to you, he put you and Harrison in danger, and (if you’re honest) Lloyd is right: he’s weak, he’s a coward, and he’s not strong enough for you. You don’t want to hurt him but you know you have no choice. Lloyd explained that it would be better for him in the end—that this is the push he needs to finally cooperate. Without you, without his son, he’ll finally accept that the jig is up. He’ll finally do the right thing and turn the evidence and his father over to the government.

All this should bother you a hell of a lot more than it does, but you have to admit that it’s exciting. You’re on the verge of a whole new life, though you don’t yet know what that looks like. At this point, any life without Michael in it is looking pretty good to you but the life you really want—the life you’ve always wanted—is so close you can taste it. So close, in fact, that it’s currently stripping naked and crawling into bed with you.

The bed dips with Lloyd’s weight and then he’s next to you, one arm around your waist and his head perched atop yours. “All set,” he says. “I’ve got some of my guys at your house. They’ll bring by your and Harrison’s things in the morning. You can’t go back there—neither of you—until this is over.”

“And Michael?” you ask.

“They’ll bring him by, too.”

“Are you sure there isn’t another way?” you ask.

“I’m sure,” he replies. “If he was gonna break, he would have. My guys worked him over pretty good.”

You should feel something when he says this—some disgust, some horror, some sympathy pain—but you don’t. You feel cold and hard and angry. You feel like he did this to himself, that he deserves whatever nightmare he’s currently living at the hands of Hansen Government Services.

“And you think… if we do this… it’ll break him?”

“Oh, Porkchop, I know it will.”

Lloyd runs his hand down your thigh as he kisses your neck, finding your pulse point and sucking a bruise into it. You missed his marks; you want to be littered with them. Your legs open for him and his fingers work their magic on you as he nibbles and sucks at your tits. He’s not as vicious as he usually is—he’s not breaking the skin; he’s almost gentle with you and between this unexpected softness and the feeling of his mustache on the sensitive flesh of your breasts, you're so worked up that you’re already arching your back and yanking at his hair.

“Oh, God, Lloyd. Fuck me. Do whatever you want, I don’t care, just please fuck me.”

Lloyd chuckles against your skin, your nipple still in his mouth, and says, “Whatever I want?”

“Yes,” you whisper. “Please.”

He releases your nipple with a wet pop and smiles up at you. “What I want is to eat your sweet cunt until you cry. Haven’t gotten a taste yet, Porkchop, and I’m fuckin starving for it.”

“It’s yours,” you moan.

“Oh, I know it is.”

Lloyd kisses and sucks his way down your body until he reaches your center, and he shoves his big nose against your clit and his stache against your pussy and he inhales deep. “Fuck me,” he says, and you feel his deep voice rumbling against your most sensitive flesh. “You smell so fuckin good.” He peers up at you from between your thighs and he cocks his head. “Haven’t eaten you out with the flavor savor yet.”

A giggle erupts from the back of your throat and you clasp your hand over your mouth to stop it. You look down at Lloyd, waiting for his expression to go from mirth to malice, but he doesn’t shift.

“What, you don’t like it?” he asks.

“I do,” you say, still trying to keep the giggles at bay. “I love it.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “You want a mustache ride, Porkchop?”

Now it’s pointless to try and stop from laughing, but Lloyd isn’t angry; he’s ravenous. He’s gripping your thighs in his big hands and running his tongue and his teeth up and down them, lightly grazing your clit as he moves from one side to the other and back and forth and back and forth until you’re dizzy.

“Please,” you whimper, so needy to feel his tongue where you need it most.

Suddenly Lloyd releases you and crawls up to the head of the bed, and you’re too distracted by the bounce of his hard heavy cock to even whine at him for teasing you. But you should have known: Lloyd Hansen always gets his before you get yours. You shift your body, ready to suck the soul out of his dick, but when you move to take him in your hand, he stops you.

“Sit on my face,” he commands.

“Wh- what?”

“You heard me. Get the fuck on and strap the fuck in.”

Well, this is new, you think to yourself. Lloyd had never once let you get on top of him unless you were riding his dick. You look him in the eyes, trying to ascertain whether he’s fucking with you or not, but you can see he’s serious even before he snaps, “Sit. On. My. Fucking. Face. Now.”

You don’t have to be told twice, and you throw one leg over Lloyd and straddle him, grinding your soaked pussy against his length and dragging a long hiss out of him.

“That’s not my face, Porkchop,” he says. “But if you’d rather ride my dick…”

“Later,” you say, and you move up his body until you’re hovering over his face.

“I said sit, goddammit.”

Lloyd grabs you and pulls your full weight down on him as he starts to devour your pussy from below. You hold on to the headboard and try to pull off of him a bit but he grabs your hips and holds you down tight against his face. As he pushes and pulls you, he’s got his nose grinding rhythmically against your clit and that fucking mustache is doing something indescribable to you as he fucks you with his long, thick tongue.

“Yes,” you cry out. “Oh fuck. You feel so fucking good. Don’t stop.”

Lloyd just growls into your pussy before sticking his tongue all the way out and sliding your body against it. You’ve got one hand on the headboard to brace yourself as the other tugs at his hair. You allow yourself to pull a little harder than you normally would, and when you give it a nice hard pull on one particularly satisfying swipe of his tongue, he fucking moans—it’s that same moan he does when he’s in the throes of an intense fuck, when he reaches the point of no return and he couldn’t tear himself out of your pussy if there was a gun to his head. You could have cum just from that sound, but luckily you don’t have to because he’s got you so fucking close with his tongue.

He lifts you off him briefly, telling you, “Cum all over my fuckin face. Do it,” before getting back to work, and within seconds you’re calling out his name as you gush all over his chin.

“Mmm,” he grunts, “so fucking juicy.” He lifts and guides you off of him and you lay next to him on the bed, your chest heaving as you try to catch your breath. “Now clean up your mess.”

You grab Lloyd’s face in both your hands and bring it down to yours and you lap at his chin and his lips, tasting yourself on his skin as he stares you down.

“Leave the mustache,” he says. “I want to smell you for days.”

You smile and he opens his mouth to let your tongue inside, and he kisses you soft and slow and deep until your absolutely aching for him.

You pull out of the kiss. “Need you inside me, Lloyd.”

“And I need to be there,” he replies, “but I can’t decide how I want my pussy served.”

“Anything,” you moan. “Just fuck me.”

“Alright,” he says. “All fours, ass up. Get moving.”

You hop to it quick as can be, and before you can back it up for him, he grabs your hips and digs his fingers in deep and he pulls you back until your ass smacks his lower stomach. You can feel his cock hot and hard in your hand as you reach between your legs and position him just right, and when he snaps his hips and enters you with one punishing thrust, it knocks the wind out of you.

He palms your ass cheeks hard as he fucks you from behind and God you want him to hit you, and somehow he just knows because he starts to spank you—one hard smack for every four thrusts, alternating sides until your ass is fucking burning and your eyes are watering. He reaches down and grabs your throat and pulls you upright, fucking up into you as he squeezes the sides of your neck. His other hand rubs violent circles on your clit as you start to shake in his arms.

“That’s it,” he says. “That’s my girl. Cum all over this dick—your dick. Come on. You can do it, Porkchop.”

You lean your head all the way back so you can look at him, and you expect to see his cold shark eyes staring back at you. But what you see is something different: his eyes are almost soft and his brow is furrowed and he’s slack-jawed and he looks almost… is that loving?

You cum almost instantly the second his eyes lock onto yours, and you don’t let your eyes flutter closed and you don’t blink because all you want is to watch him watching you come undone on his cock. You want him to see in your eyes how much you love it, how much you love him, but most of all you don’t want to miss one nanosecond of this look that he’s giving you. He’s never looked at you like this before. You clench down hard on him once you regain control of your muscles because you want to see his face when you do.

“Oh fuck. You are squeezing the fuck out of me, Porkchop. Gonna make me cum.”

“Do it,” you say.

“Not yet.” He pulls out quick and you’re clenching around nothing, missing the feel of him deep inside you and it’s only been two seconds. He pushes you forward and you bounce on the mattress. “Turn around. I’m goin deep.”

The second you’re on your back, Lloyd grabs your ankles and throws them up on his shoulders before pressing your legs back and entering you again. It’s your favorite position and he knows it—you never feel more full of him, never feel him deeper inside you, than when he fucks you like this. He’s going deep but surprisingly slow; his thrusts are softer than usual and he’s taking extra care to roll his hips just right so that he’s hitting your spot with every slow silky drag of his cock. You are so fucking wet—almost too wet—and all you can hear is the creamy sound of your own pussy and Lloyd’s moans as he fucks you.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum. Need you to cum again. Can you cum again, baby? Can you cum for me?”

You clench involuntarily when he calls you baby. He hasn’t called you that since the first time he fucked you. After that, it was all slut and whore and bitch—and you like that, you do, but baby… baby is different. Everything about this feels different.

“Yes,” you say. “I’ll cum for you. I always fucking cum for you.”

“That’s cause you’re my special girl. My perfect girl. Oh fuck, baby, please I’m so close.”

“Harder,” you say, and he does what you command, fucking you deep and rough while he kisses you soft and gentle. The dueling sensations have your head swimming and it doesn’t take long before you’re close.

“I’m gonna cum. Cum with me?” you ask, and you know you sound meek and desperate but you don’t fucking care because the way he’s looking at you…

“You want me to cum with you, baby?” he asks, and you nod.

He puts both his hands on your head and you know he could crack your skull open like a watermelon with them but he’s not squeezing hard—just using you for purchase as he pistons his hips and hits you hard and deep, just the way he likes.

“Oh fuck. Oh, baby. I’m gonna cum.” He lets out a high-pitched grunt as he tries to hold it back, to wait for you, but you’re right there with him. “I fucking love your pussy. I.. I… fuck… I love you. I fucking love you.”

You’ve never cum harder in your life. Just those words and your whole body is shaking and trembling and you’re crying out to him, telling him how much you love him as he shudders and spills himself inside of you. You revel in the feel of his dick twitching inside your walls, clenching down on him hard and holding him inside as you take in your favorite sight in the world: Lloyd Hansen, fucked-out and blissed-out—and finally, after all these years, in love.

He’s laying on top of you, still inside as he goes soft, and a tiny smile is playing at the corner of his mouth. “Don’t ask if I meant it,” he says, running his thumb across your bottom lip. “I think you know that I do.”

But you would never have questioned him. Lloyd Hansen doesn’t just accidentally say I love you when he cums. He also doesn’t cuddle after sex, and he certainly doesn’t fall asleep beside you with his arms wrapped around you.

Except that’s exactly what he’s doing, and while your body is wrung out and spent, you barely get any sleep that night because your mind is on fire and everything is Lloyd.

PART SIX >>>

[spaghettificationandpretzels]

The Reaper and the Death Angel Part 28

Opie deserves better and he's going to get it, there's lots of mental health talk in the chapter so tread carefully. While it's all put in a positive light, I understand if this is where you leave me. I must also apologise for the filth in this chapter, Grammarly has seen things.

Series Masterlist

Part 27

Contains: Fluff, smut(phone sex, M and F masturbation, Dom/sub dynamics, rope bondage, fingering, sex toys, oral sex F receiving, P in V, CONSENT, aftercare), discussions of mental health, discussions of attempted sexual assault, loosely follows the plot of 2x04and 2x05. If I miss any, please let me know.

6.5K Words

Comment if you want to be tagged.

Time away and Clay has Jax frustrated.

You were in Jax's arms, even after the successful wrap party and the fun in the bathroom, his mind was elsewhere. "What's wrong dearest?"

Jax squeezed your arm, "it's Opie, I'm so worried about him."

You rolled over, resting your head on his chest, "did something happen at the meth house? Sam seemed worried too."

Jax buried his face in your hair, "he blew the house up without a remote, he was thrown off his feet by the blast. He could have been killed and he knew that."

You put a hand on his chest, "that's not good Jax, this on top of him walking into fire at that meet. You've got grounds to worry." There was no point in lying.

"What do I do?"

You drummed your fingers on his skin, "you make sure he's not on the brink of doing something harmful. I've been here a million times before Jax, the quiet ones are the ones you worry about. I'll talk to him; sometimes, a bit of tough love goes a long way. Plus, I did Donna's autopsy, it affords me a level of understanding."

Jax embraced you, pressing his lips to your ear, "thank you."

"Hey Opie, can we talk?" You didn't wait, the next day you showed up at the garage with some cakes and pulled Opie aside the moment he was free, "sure, is everything ok?"

You shook your head, "not really, I hear you've been taking some very unnecessary risks."

He didn't respond, "I understand you are in pain, probably the worst pain you've ever been in but so are your kids. Whatever idea you've got in your head has got to go, they need you here."

He looked at you, his eyes almost wet, "it has to stop Ope. This wallowing in your misery is an affront to Donna's memory. She took a bullet meant for you and instead of spending every day of your life grateful that you get to spend another day with your children, you're pissing that chance down the drain."

He looked away, his breathing rough, "she loved you Opie, with all her heart, she loved you enough to stay through everything. And you are tossing that love aside. I can't say anything that will ease your pain, but I can tell you that you're not helping anyone by thinking and acting the way you are." He looked crestfallen.

"Now, you are going unfuck yourself or I'll do it for you. I don't care what you do, take up knitting or fishing or stamp collecting, drag yourself to grief counselling or a widower group or turn to God. Hell, fix every broken down bike you come across. I've been to too many funerals where everyone is in mourning for someone who didn't need to die and I won't be going to yours.I will drag you to help, kicking and screaming if I have to. I might be small but I contain much rage and it gets me places."

You could see the resolve on his face, "you know my number, I don't care what time of day or night it is, if you want to talk about anything, I'll pick up. Don't give me another person to mourn Ope, I've already got too many people to remember."

****

"What's the run"

Jax was getting dressed, "blood drive, Eureka Children's hospital." You took a breath, "it's a shame your good work is covering the sale of weapons. How long will you be gone?"

Jax pulled you into his arms, "I'll be home late tomorrow."

You smiled, "what ever will I do without you? You know, idle hands are the devil's playthings, you should stay by your phone so I just in case I get any ideas."

He leaned down and kissed you, his hands gripping your tightly. Just as the kiss was getting heated, Abel started crying, "my boy, the master of timing." You shook your head and Jax pressed one last kiss to your lips, "I'll get him."

Upon Jax's return, you were sitting on the bed deep in thought, "what?"

You took a deep breath, "just thinking about Opie, how's he doing." Jax smiled, "whatever you said to him must have worked, he seems better."

You breathed a sigh of relief, "tough love, sometimes people need a smack across the head to knock them out of their pain. It's very different from my normal approach but oatmeal wasn't going to cut it."

Jax huffed a laugh, "you're amazing, you know that?"

You shook your head, "don't count your chickens just yet, I can't fix what's going on with Ope, I can only lend him a helping hand."

****

With the guys gone, it was time to put some plans into motion. You went into bone storage and took out the case you were looking for. The case was open and shut and the killer was already inside, which was why it hadn't been touched. The victim was a smuggler who got caught up with the wrong crowd and ended up getting killed. The reason you wanted it was a piece of evidence, a tobacco leaf.

Zobelle was outside when you showed up at impeccable smokes. You went up to him smiling, sticking your hand out for a handshake, "hello Mr Zobelle, I'm Dr l/n and I work at The Nothern California science and natural history museum. If you have the time, I'd like to ask you some questions about the cold case I'm working."

He took your hand and you squeezed hard, "I'm not sure I'll be able to help, don't you have experts you work with?"

You nodded, "I do, I have tobacco experts, leaf experts, and trade experts, but you add a different perspective. Sometimes knowing the emotional and situational context is just as important as factual information."

He invited you in and you smiled at Weston as you creasted to the threshold, "hello, I don't believe we've met are you helping Mr Zobelle set up his store?"

He nodded, "yeah."

You sat down at one of the tables and got the evidence bag out, "the killer has actually been caught and is serving life so the DA didn't feel the need to bother but I want to give the victim justice. Can you please tell me what kind of cigar producer would use this kind of leaf and curing process?"

He picked up the bag and looked it over, "someone who was being cheap, you can see that the leaf isn't the best from the harvest, I wouldn't even think of selling something like that here."

You nodded, "thank you Mr Zobelle, do you think it might be a part of a counterfeit operation, I'm sure you've run into that before?"

He tilted his head, "yes on the occasion but we always know what to look for."

You smiled warmly, it was false, "thank you for all your help Mr Zobelle, this whole thing has been very enlightening."

****

As you walked out the door, Gemma's car pulled up. You walked over to her when she got out, "Gemma what are you doing here?" She pulled out the Sherman's bag, showing you the mask, "wasn't that what they were wearing, how did you get it?"

She threw it back inside, "they sent it to me."

You put a hand on your shoulder and pushed her gently back to her car, "don't let them know it's gotten to you Gem, we're going back home and you're going to pretend you never got it, understand? There's a lot more going on than you think."

She gave you a dirty look but didn't resist, "what have you got planned?"

You looked behind you to see if they had noticed, "right now? I'm going to see Jacob Hale."

When you got to his office, he was in with his brother, as he came out, he met eyes with you and you walked up to him. "Hello Mr Hale, I have some concerns I think you need to hear?"

His slimy face broke out into a smile, "of course, I'm always happy to hear the concerns of a valued member of Charming."

"Are you aware that one of the men you rent to is surrounded by known and convicted Neo-Nazis?"

He was taken aback, "what?"

You stiffen your voice, "Are you aware that one of the men you rent to is surrounded by known and convicted Neo-Nazis?"

He shook his head, "no, I would never bring that kind of hate to Charming, if you have proof, please share it."

You smiled nastily, "I have proof, plenty in fact. I'll send it over to Unser, I'm sure he'll be interested to hear that those kinds of people are here, who knows what they're into or who they're working with. Don't you agree David."

The deputy turned to his brother, his expression righteous, "yeah I do, Neo-Nazi have no place here. Thank you for your concern y/n, I know we don't get along but I've always valued your input on cases."

You put a hand on his shoulder, "despite being a cop, I think you've got your head on straight. It's a shame your brother didn't do this due diligence. No matter, I'm sure you'll get it sorted, won't you Jacob?"

He nodded agreeably, "I'll be right on it. Thank you again for bringing this up."

****

Later that night, you called Jax, "how was your day, my love? I heard Piney had to leave to sort some things out."

You heard his chuckle, "yeah, Tig had a run-in with some bounty hunters."

You rolled your eyes, "do I want to know?"

There was a groan, "nope, you don't."

He could hear Abel babbling in the background, "how's the little guy?"

You chuckled, "Good, we had a very interesting conversation about geo-politics in perfume industry and I just put him down." There was the rustle of sheets.

"How was work?"

Jax had taken more and more interest in your job, if only to see you get all dorky. "Good, second case closed this week. Jack found a bug that led the feds to within two miles of the original crime scene, it's a slam dunk."

Jax smiled, "I'm glad things are getting better."

Jax didn't want to think about all the times you had crawled into his lap, close to crying because of unsolvable cases. "more good news, Anvil's contract has been expanded to another museum. Apparently, the curator for the California Museum of Technology was so impressed that security could answer questions about exhibits they wanted in."

"Did you end up getting that new fancy machine?"

He could hear the excitement in your voice, "the new mass spectrometer? Yes, it's amazing, it sings to us when it's done."

His tone changed, "what are you wearing?"

Of course he would start with such a stereotypical line, "One of your T-shirts, the white one with the hole in the arms and the faded Son in black. And those boyshorts you like, the ones with the ladybugs on the butt."

You could almost hear the smirk, "I like it when you wear my clothes."

You giggled, "I know, I like wearing your clothes. Are you busy?"

His voice got deeper, "no, you?"

You wonder if his hand was about to be busy, "nope, I'm in bed, all by my lonesome talking to you."

There was a grunt, soft but still there, "Jax, would you like me to touch myself?"

You heard his fist slam against something soft, "yeah Darlin, I'd like that." Jax was going to have a heart attack or faint, all the blood had rushed to his cock and now all he could think about was the vision taking place in your bedroom.

"You're on speaker." Jax could hear you opening the toy drawer, he was curious, aside from opening and closing it to get lube, you hadn't had the chance to enjoy the toy drawer yet.

"Are you having fun?"

With a light buzz over the line, the answer was more breathy, "yes, maybe you can sit and watch next time." His hand slid into hands pants, stroking his cock. Your hands were so much softer, more precise.

"Oh my God, Jax."

This was torture, hearing you but not being able to touch you, "you feeling good Darlin, bet you wish I was the one holding that toy."

Another one of your moans had his hand speeding up, "yes, your hands feel so much better."

He wondered if he had died somewhere along the road and this was hell, he could almost feel your hands grabbing at him. "Come on Darlin, I can hear how close you are, let go for me." The moment the words left his lips, he could hear it, the choked gasp that signified you had fallen over the edge.

Jax followed you violently, "fuck."

He heard you giggle across the line, "thank you Jackson."

His pleasure turned to smugness, "what have I told you about that?" Another giggle, "it's not like you're here to do anything about it."

He bit his fist, "listen here little girl, I'll be home tomorrow and after the day I've had, you are really in for it."

A huff, "oh really? I'm looking forward to it." So you knew he had a bad day and were offering an outlet, God he loved you.

"I love you y/n."

He sounded much calmer, "I love you too Jax. Goodnight beloved, I look forward to your return."

"Goodnight Darlin."

****

"Hello my love."

Jax pulled you into his arms, "you're a sight for sore eyes y/n." You smiled softly, reaching up to stroke his cheek. Jax had turned up at your office mid-morning, having raced home to see you.

"You want to talk about what's got you so upset or you want to deal with it tonight?"

Jax slumped in your arms, "both." You put a hand around his elbow and walked him to the couch in your office.

"Shit's gone to hell. You were right about Clay, his mask is off and he's pissed. I tried to push about Donna more and he told me he kill me if I brought it up again, no matter what you said."

Jax expected you to be angry, "good."

He tilted his head, "he doesn't think I can or will follow through. Underestimating me isn't smart Jackson, if he doesn't see me as a threat I can play him like a cheap flute."

Jax shifted, resting his head on your shoulder. "I'd be lost without you."

You ran a hand over his head, "hey, I need you just as much as you need me."

Jax smiled, "yeah, you need me to reach the top shelf."

You giggled, "that and you're very warm, I get cold at night without you."

He sat up and placed a hand on your cheek, "thank you, I feel a lot better." That was a half-truth, he was still thinking about bending you over whatever surface was available and fucking you until you couldn't stand.

"But I can tell you're still frustrated. My offer is still on the table, if you've still got shit to work through by tonight, I'm here."

His hand landed on your face, his thumb drifting over your lip, "you sure? It's not going to be sweet and romantic."

You turned your head, pressing a kiss to his palm, "nonsense, you're always romantic, even if you're bending me in half."

****

"Where to fuck were you?" Jax rolled his eyes, "seeing my old lady and the mother of my child."

Clay snarled, "don't forget what your main priority is, y/n can look after herself."

Jax's skin started to itch, "you're so fucking ungrateful. In the last few months, she has single handedly ended our war with The Mayans, ensured that the Italians will always be in our debt and tortured two men so we knew what we were dealing with when it comes to Zobelle, not to mention what she did for mum last month."

Everyone was quiet, they still remember Tig's face after church that night, all he kept repeating was how frighting you were. Bobby and Chibs said a quiet thank you, Juice did his best but couldn't find the words and the rest of them acted like it was an expectation and there was no need for thanks.

"ENOUGH." Sam stepped in front of Clay, making sure he didn't swing on Jax. "Both of you stop it. This is insanity, we have the enemy pounding at our door and you're bitching at each other." He stood over Clay. Sam always went out of his way not to make his 6'6 height stand out but not now, he was making sure Clay knew how big he was.

"You're a fucking Marine, pull your fucking head out of your ass and act like it. You have no control over your temper and you can't think ten minutes ahead, we are in the middle of it, unfuck yourself and stop thinking like a POG."

POG Person Other than Grunt, the most insulting thing you can be called by a fellow soldier other than a coward.

Clay stepped back, his eyes wide, "the fuck you say to me."

Sam wasn't having it, "you fucking heard me. You call Jax selfish but you're only thinking about yourself. We wouldn't be here if you and Trager had listened to everyone in the first place and got us out on guns six months ago."

Clay swung at Sam. Sam sidestepped, grabbing Clay's fist, "you want to try that again, old man?" It was like he was a different person, gone was the soft teddy bear, and in its place, a cold killer.

Clay pulled away and turned to Jax, "I should have figured you would sponsor someone so disrespectful." Jax was done, Clay might have well have said that about Thomas had he been alive.

Before Jax could hit him, Bobby stepped in, "that's enough. Sam's right, we have to focus on the bigger issue. Go home and cool off, we'll talk about this tomorrow."

****

A cloud of rage entered your home when Jax walked in, "bad day at work dear?" He grunted, "ok, we can talk about it over dinner if you like. It will be on the table by the time you have shower."

Jax was back downstairs and at the table within ten minutes, "Sam and Ima by themselves tonight?" He nodded and sat down, stabbing at his meal like it was the one that upset him.

"Clay went off again, Sam almost got physical with him."

Jax saw you swallow, "I'm sorry, after Caruso he's on a short fuse. You need to keep an eye on him Jax, I know it might not seem like it but he is a very violent man. I was able to calm him down after Donna but with all the trouble Luanne and the girls have been having, plus Clay, he's ready to blow."

Jax took a deep breath, "If you think he's scary when you spar you haven't seen anything, I've seen him beat men to death without blinking Jax. He'd shoot himself before he ever hurt someone innocent but Clay and Tig aren't really that."

Jax had never heard you this worried before, "yeah I think I saw that today, I'll make sure he doesn't go too far."

You smiled softly, "thank you, you have no idea how grateful I am that you're his friend."

Jax reached across the table and grabbed your hand, "I love you."

You squeezed his hand, "I love you too. Now let me wash the dishes and we can enjoy the rest of our night.

Jax's hand got a little tighter, "I'll wash up. Go to the bedroom, by the time I get up there, I want you naked, on your back, on the bed. Don't even think about touching yourself."

Jax took the opportunity to cool down a bit as he washed up, he could feel the race of his heart as he put away the last dish. Part of him wanted to wait, hoping to catch you disobeying him but the thought of you naked and waiting for him was too much.

He collected a jug of water and some snack bars and headed to the bedroom, pausing by the laundry to put some damped hand towels into the portable warmer you normally reserved for cleaning up on outings.

When he came to the bedroom and opened the door, he felt the anger renew. You were sitting at your vanity, rubbing oil on your nails. "I thought I told you to get naked and lay on the bed." You turned your head and smiled, not getting up. He put the items in his arms down on one of the side tables.

"You didn't say please."

Your disobedience had the desired effect. Jax was stalking over to you, lifting you up by your arm and tossing you onto the bed. "Take off your clothes."

You smirked at him, "make me."

He pulled you towards him by your hips, "take off your clothes, I won't ask again."

You put your lips within touching distance of his, "make me." Jax stepped back, he looked so angry. When he spoke, his tone was calm and not in a good way.

"Unless it's your safeword, or I'm asking you a question, I don't want to hear from you for the rest of the night. Nod if you understand." You went to open your mouth, and Jax's hand clamped over it, "nod if you understand." You nodded and Jax walked away, moving towards the closet, "do not move." You debated getting up, you could hear him getting rope out of the chest.

He was back before you could move, dropping multiple lengths of thick silk rope next to you and kneeling down at your feet, "give me your arms." You kept them by your sides, shooting Jax a defiant look. Jax was yanking you up by your upper arms, ripping off your T-shirt and bending you over, grabbing both your forearm to keep you from moving away.

He shifted, holding your wrists with one hand while he reached down to grab the rope. He threw the rope on the bed, flipped you over, and re-grabbed your hands.

He crossed your wrists, putting a folded up bit of the ruined T-shirt between them as he tied them together so nothing pressed uncomfortably. He bound your wrists in the thick cuff, the knots were expertly done and with each new loop and braid, he checked the tightness and if it would give you rope burn.

When he was done, there was a palm width cuff tie holding both your wrists together, "wiggle your fingers." His tone was soft, his role forgotten for a moment, "anything feels strange or painful? I need a verbal answer gorgeous." You wiggled your fingers and clenched your fist a few times.

"No, I can comfortably move my fingers and there's enough room for me to flex my forearms."

Jax nodded, "good. Now, you're going to do exactly what I tell you to do and maybe I'll let you cum tonight."

He stood over you, one hand holding your cuff wrists before yanking you up the bed and tying you to the headboard. He fluffed the pillow and placed it under your head, loosening the rope and adjuting it so your shoulder and elbows were supported and comfortable before retying your hands back up to the headboard.

"Are you planning on doing anything, or are you just going to stare at me?"

His hand was wrapping around your jaw and chin, being careful not to press on the sides of your face and set off a migraine, "what did I tell you about talking. One more slip up and I promise you won't get off for the rest of the month, let alone tonight."

He picked up the other bits of rope, spread your legs and tied each one to a bedpost, checking in again to make sure you were comfortable. Then he was opening the top drawer. He picked up the wand, the one that ran on wall power and plugged it into the powerboard next to the bed.

Jax put the wand next to your hip, picked up his K-Bar off the bedside table, and slipped it under the fabric of your underpants, slicing the sides. He took in your soft smile, and he had sudden flashes to the day you almost reduced Tig to tears for having a dull knife.

He was going to say something but he noticed the wet patch on the cotton, "at least there are parts of you that aren't defiant." He moved, sitting on the bed next to you. His hands were warm as he ran them over your skin, one made a path up your hip and to your face, turning your head to meet your eyes.

"I think I've been too lenient on you, maybe it's because you're so sweet to me or because I love your fire, but I'm going to fix that tonight and make sure we nip this attitude in the bud." Your raised eyebrows said it all, you can try.

He picked up the wand with one hand, the other resting lovingly on your thigh. He took in the hard look on your face, clearly stealing yourself for what was about to come and smiled. He enjoy the rebellion, it only made the acquiescence sweeter.

You heard the soft buzz and then Jax was putting pressure on your leg so you couldn't twitch away, with that Teller smirk, he pressed the toy to your slit. It was in the lowest setting, just enough to be distracting.

The thumb of the hand on your thigh was rubbing softly, Jax's attention was on your face. When your breath stuttered, he put it up one notch. "Nothing to say?"

He watched your jaw clench, "try harder." He closed his eyes, he didn't know it was possible for intense frustration and madding arousal to exist in the same space.

He turned it up by two, rolling it back and forth over your slit. He watched you suppress a grunt, your eyes moving to stare at the canopy above your head. He held it there, pressing down softly, with another swallow breath, you composed yourself and he shifted the placement of the wand so he could touch you with his other hand.

When his fingertips met your entrance, he groaned. "Jesus Christ you're wet." With agonising slowness, he slid two fingers inside you, then he was scissoring them open while pushing his fingertips against your G-spot. He could feel you getting closer so he turned the wand back down to the lowest setting and paused his fingers.

Other than a wet inhale, you made no indication of the change in touch. When Jax could tell you were away from the edge, he turned the toy back up and moved his fingers again. He watched you carefully, stopping each time you got close and when the time between pausing got shorter and shorter, he spoke.

"Don't you dare cum until I give you permission. If you do, I promise you'll regret it." But he didn't stop, in fact, his fingers became more insistent and the vibrations were ratcheted all the way up.

You whimpered like an animal, turning your head to bury it in the crook of your arm. Jax did not relent, leaning down to kiss your neck. The angle couldn't have been comfortable but he didn't care.

But then he heard a hard grunt you and met his eyes with nothing but determination. Jax had to change his strategy, being harsh clearly wasn't working. He shifted so he was more on top of you and pressed and soft kiss to your lips.

You returned the kiss, your lips pliant against his. You were gasping more, unable to disconnect from the sensation now that he was so close. "Don't you dare."

His voice was tender, the words spoken right into your ears, "I can't hold it any longer."

Jax felt his chest swell, he was winning. "Jax please." He didn't stop and you flew over the edge, contracting around his fingers while you tried to twitch away from the intense sensation.

He touched you gently as you came down from your high, "now what am I going to do with you, huh? If you had just done what I asked you to in the first place we wouldn't be here but you just can't take simple directions."

He tutted and wiped his wet hand on your leg, "you got any ideas?" You opened your mouth slightly, trying to gather some saliva to soothe your dry throat, "can't think?" You shook your head, "what a shame, I guess I'll have to come up with a solution all by myself."

Jax laid on his side next to you, his upper body propped up by his elbow with his skin against yours. He put a hand on your face and ran his thumb over your lower lip. His soft smile had a sinister edge as he turned and kissed his way down your body. When he got to your core, his breath caught in his throat, you were utterly soaked.

"Oh, that must be very uncomfortable. Let me make it better." He kissed your inner thigh, slowly moving to your centre. He dispatched with any teasing when he got there, sucking your clit into his mouth and sliding three of his long, thick fingers inside you.

It was overwhelming, he knew exactly what to do and he was paying attention to each gasp and twitch. He pulled back and slapped the outside of your thigh, "if you tug on the ropes one more time, I will tie you up so tight you won't even be able to think about moving."

You relaxed and he went back to work, his free arm coming to rub your leg. It couldn't have been long before you were ready to cum again, "Jax…I"

You felt him smile, "I know Darlin, you can let go." The words were barely out of his mouth before you reached that peak. He didn't stop, his fingers pushing harder and harder.

"Jax, I can't."

Another slap to your hip, "what did I tell you about talking?" You slammed your head against the pillow and resigned yourself to whatever he had in store for you.

You had no idea how much time had passed, only that the orgasms never seemed to end. He would occasionally pull away to kiss elsewhere and you would be eternally grateful for the momentary break. You must have started crying because you could feel the wetness on your face, if Jax noticed, he didn't let on.

"Please Jax, no more, I can't." Finally, he took pity on you, kissing a path up your body and to your lips. The lower part of his face was wet and your could taste yourself on his skin.

He was still wearing his PJs, stepping back to take them off your eyes raked over him like he was a piece of art. You always looked at him like he was the most attractive thing you had ever seen.

Jax rested his weight on top of you, pushing your hair out of your face and wiping the tears off your cheek. "You good to keep going?" You could feel his cock against your stomach as he lay on top of you.

You nodded and he kissed you, "a nod isn't an answer."

He watched you take a ragged breath, "please, I…..yes Jax."

He smiled lovingly, "I'll go slow."

Jax knew he wasn't going to last long, he had been painfully hard since your first 'fuck you' glare. That didn't matter, you were shaking around him after a handful of soft thrusts. He couldn't hold it any longer, he let out a grunt and came inside you, his hand coming to grip yours.

Jax untied your hands and you wrapped them around him, pulling him into a kiss, "thank you." Jax felt a little lost as he moved to untie your legs, he had spent the last two hours tossing you around, doing whatever he wanted to you and you were thanking him.

He cleaned you up, wincing when you flinched away from the warm towel. You took the water, laying on hand on his as you drank then climbed into his open arms.

Jax was content to just hold you but part of him was worried about the silence, "you doing ok?" As much as you wanted to enjoy the lingering high, Jax's tone let you know it was time to come back to Earth.

"I'm great, amazing in fact." You felt him relax under you, "yeah, that was really fun, we should do it again."

He chuckled, "remind me to ask you again in the morning. You're not sore?"

You shook your head and put your hand on his cheek, "no, not even a little. I'm really grateful that we get to do this stuff together Jax and if I didn't want or enjoy something, I would tell you."

The nasty voice in Jax's head was fading fast, "you have no idea how much I love our time together. It's one of the only things that turns off my brain's constant noise. Truly, it's nice not to have to worry about the world falling to bits because I'm not on top of everything." Jax squeezed you into his arms, every doubt in his mind banished by your honesty.

"However, if you don't coil my ropes back exactly how you found them, I will dye you hair in your sleep. The fabric for those ropes was obscene and if they're not put back right they will fall apart."

Jax laughed, "Of course Darlin."

****

"Are you still that sore?"

Gemma nodded, "I'm just so stiff." You put the cup down, "blunt force trauma causes swelling, there's some meds you can try, I'll write you a list."

Jax came out of the garage, asking his mothers about an old Harley manual. "Hello Chibs." Chibs came in with a smile on his face, "is Kip getting his implant today?"

He nodded, "wee man's completing himself."

Jax kissed you goodbye and left, and you took Gemma to the drug store. You went in and spoke to the pharmacists, handing him the scripts that you got off one of your labmates.

When you came out, Gemma locked eyes with a woman and then she was running after her. She watched the blonde jump into her car and when you went to touch her shoulder, she swung back and you narrowly missed an elbow to the face.

"Are you ok, who was that woman?" She was still staring at the empty car space, "Gem?"

She shook herself off, "she was there the night I was taken."

You nodded, "I'm not surprised, that's Zobelle's daughter."

****

You had just finished an autopsy when you got the call, "Luanne, slow down. What happened to Otto?" She was a mess, all you heard was her stuttering that he was stabbed in the face, "Ok, ok. All I need you to do is authorise me to see his intake form and talk to his doctors, we'll go from there."

Half an hour later, you got the call from Stockton, it was bad. The moment you hung up, you called Jax.

"Jackson, are you busy."

He could hear by your tone that something was wrong, "is Abel ok?"

Abel was fine, tossing his toy around the crib next to your desk, "Abel's fine, have your heard about Otto."

There was a pause, "no, is he ok?"

You took a deep breath, "did any of you talk to Zobelle today?" There was a huff, "Clay did. He went after him for protection money."

You put your head in your hands, "Otto's been stabbed in the face, he's lost his good eye. When I got off the phone to Luanne, I got Anvil's analyst to do some digging, it had to be the Aryans."

Jax took in your clipped, to the point summary, "this is Clay's fault, he won't fucking listen to anyone."

You shook your head, "I know my love, but right now we can't do anything. When I get off work, I'm going to go see Luanne and the girls then talk to your mum and I'll call you back ok?"

"Ok Darlin, let Luanne know we're here for her."

****

It was late afternoon by the time you were able to check in on Gemma, "How are you after this morning? That running couldn't have been fun."

She shook her head, "I'm fine." She wasn't.

"Gem you need to talk to someone, this isn't good for your health."

There was silence, "I know what it's like. When I was sixteen and in college, my first boyfriend attacked me, almost managed to rape me after bashing my head in. You can't keep it to yourself, it will eat you alive."

She turned to you, "does Jax know?"

You nodded, "I told him a few days after we got together. It was tough and I was terrified he'd stop loving me but he was good about it. I felt he needed to know, if anything just to explain the occasional nightmare."

She took a deep breath, "Clay's not as understanding."

You handed her a card, "I've made an appointment for you, a counsellor who works at the museum. She nice and she'll help you, you're going to see her or I'll have you charged with attempted assault."

The guys had just finished church so you and Gemma walked out to sit with them at the picnic tables. "Did it go the way you wanted it?"

Jax nodded, "yeah, it's all good for now."

Jax put his arm around you, and tilted his head towards Opie and Lyla, "they seem cosy."

You smiled, "yes, they do."

"SHIT" You looked towards to source of the noice and Chibs was running at breakneck speed away from the grey van in the lot.

BANG

There was a fireball that engulfed the car and Chibs was thrown clear off the ground. Jax and the rest of the guys were towards him, "DON'T TOUCH HIM." Jax paused before his instinct to shake Chibs took over. Sam ran to your car to get a spinal collar while you went over to Chibs.

"If he has spinal damage and you move him, he could die." Sam placed the collar around his neck while you called 911 and checked him over.

"Hello my name is Dr y/n, I need an ambulance there's been a blast and a man has been injured. Late forties, early fifties, decent health, no preexisting conditions to my knowledge, bleeding from a head wound."

You turned to Jax, "you guys have a real problem on your hands.

He looked over his bleeding friend, "I know."

Part 29

Another super long chapter, please let me know what you think. I've noticed there are a lot of new readers and I'm very happy to have you here.

[archer3-13]

@yanderefairyangel I'm guessing you mean the agarthans from three houses and not all of fes previous villains, but to add some clarification I didn't post this light analysis of the hounds to shit on them or call them bad villains. I can comfortably say actually that 3/4 of their group are characters i really enjoy warts and all, with only zephia getting any particular ire from me [and only really because i dont think shes the right character for the role they had her playing].

I just wanted to make the observation that engage landed on a really good concept with the four hounds but ended up botching the execution enough that the resultant story beats involving them dont land as well as they should.

a good non spoilery comparison example [in relation to engage] would be pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of sky. a game that accounting for my own nostalgia blinders still makes me choke up at its ending.

spoilers for an over a decade old game, but your an amnesiac time traveler human from the future who gets turned into a pokemon in the past of a world dominated by pokemon. you meet you new best friend, go on a bunch of adventures together where you build a raport, meet the mysterious dusknoir whos a time traveling cop and help him bag the criminal grovyle who is also from the future and stealing timestones.

everyones happy, you go to see dusknoir off at the time gate, and as hes seemingly thanking you personally he grabs you and drags you into the future instead. its there we learn that actually the time cops are evil time cops seeking to ensure that the future remains in its fucked up post apocalypse state, and grovyle was the trunks hero guy going back in time to stop the apocalypse. you travel with grovyle for a while, learn the you from before the memory loss was grovyles partner in hero crime, go back to the past and help grovyle with the whole unfucking the future thing.

but, just before you go into the final bosses lair where the unfuck things button is dusknoir shows up to catch you, reasoning that since he knew where youd have to go to unfuck the future hed just wait for you there because time travel. you and the gang resist arrest and beat dusknoirs sorry ass with an uno reverse card. his goons flee, your past partner goes to open up the final gate to the final lair and you and grovyle watch dusknoir alone.

and its here where the big twist is reveled, dusknoir informs you about the particular rules of pmmd explorers time travel. namely that making major changes to the past doesnt just create new parallel timelines, it deletes the old future to update it with the new one and that includes everyone in the future. hence why dusknoirs a time cop and why grovyle has basically been treating the whole thing like a suicide mission because he also knows whats gonna happen, as did you before the amnesia. dusknoir tries one last time to stop you, and grovyle forcibly drags dusknoirs ass back to the future leaving the task of saving the world in your hands. your past partner blissfully ignorant of the consequences of doing so.

and so that leads us into the end, you keeping the knowledge of your imminent removal from the timestream from your partner because you know what needs to be done and you both cant afford any distractions at this point. you climb the lair, beat the boss, press the save world button and the world is saved.

and as your leaving to go home, you character narrates about how their body is getting heavier, its becoming harder to move and they can feel their existence fading. before you even start the trek back home you have to say goodbye forever to your partner who is fucking devastated by this and begs you not to go even as your disappearing before their eyes.

and they cry. they sob their eyes out devastated and utterly heartbroken.

and then they force themselves back up, and force themselves to keep going home.

because they have to keep going. they promised you they would.

they keep going back home.

and as they monologue to themself about

they keep getting further away from you.

Now, further spoiler warnings but the whole wiped from the time stream thing is resolved in a more upbeat manner by dialga giving you a mulligan and restoring your existence as a treat/gift. that doesn't invalidate the previous emotions of the ending and in fact the reunion of seeing your partner again is incredibly touching. but it is worth noting.

but that leads us into the comparison and why i brought this up to begin with. my ideal delivery of the four hounds in engage well not looking like pmmde, should feel like the aforementioned beats. i should be feeling chocked up when marni dies at zephias own hand, or when griss and zephia were dying together. but well im definitely sad, its not the same gut wrenching emotion i get when even just typing out what happens in pmmde's ending. obviously for me personally it never would reach that same raw emotion for lack of a nostalgic connection, but again, ideally i should be getting chocked up over these characters i do like but i dont really.

and a large part of that is time given and suitability. in pmmde, the game takes its time with dusknoir and grovyle and the various emotions and experiences therein. were introduced to dusknoir fairly early on and the majority of the pre future time is spent with him and seeing things from his perspective or atleast the perspective he wants us to see. there are certainly a few moments of 'suspicious behavior' thrown in to hint towards his true intentions with us but a majority of that early time is spent building a friendly relation and impression of dusknoir. he saves us on multiple occasions, he presents a humble and learned disposition, he organizes and plans things, and what time we do get with grovyle in the pre future time shows him in an entirely villainous light with ominous dark clouds, a brash and somewhat abrasive personality and a coldly practical disposition.

then we get to the future, and the script flips on its head. we see dusknoirs true disposition and the wisdom and humility become contextualized as manipulation and cold aloofness, as he unflinchingly orders your execution in short order and begins hounding your every step in the future. meanwhile grovyles brash abrasiveness and coldly practical disposition become contextualized as a defensive weariness and practical necessity for the ruined future he was born and lived in and for the mission hes seeking to undertake. and during your time in the future and beyond you gradually peel away grovyles emotional barriers he put up to avoid getting hurt, learn about him and his mission and why he seeks to undertake it, see more of his playful 'cool guy' side that led to some of that initial abrasiveness etc. well with dusknoir we see more of his villainous behavior and intentions, the methods and lines he'll cross to do what he feels needs to be done, how he previously manipulated you and your friends in the past, and his own justifications and perspective as yo why he feels hes right in what he does.

and thats both things the four hounds lack in their own plotting. they lack the time and care given to pmmde's own villains to make sure the proper relations are established and built to a believable state, and in the case of zephia specifically the suitability for the role they want her to play.

dusknoir works really well in his own role because his personality and character fits with and is fluid between everything he needs to do and be. he needs to be the humble, wise, senior adventurer with a sterling reputation who comes up with the plans and has the authority and respect for all the good guys to defer to. but he also has to be a villainous enforcer of a ruined future and a brutal tactician for a god of time in a primal state. so he has to be coolheaded, gentlemanly and formal, intelligent, and someone who exudes authority.

zephia is the trusted and efficient villainous right hand to sombron, but also the 'mother figure' of the hounds. thus she needs to be intelligent, authoritive and villainous but also motherly and nurturing. the kind of character that springs to my mind in that regard is an elegant 'madame' like figure, not necessarily soft spoken but definitely melodic and refined in speech and mannerisms, someone who pretends to social graces even well shes doing horrific shit in the name of her masters goals in the background. a social master effectively who exudes authority by virtue of being reserved and calm even in the storm to juxtapose her extreme actions well still leaving believable room for the four hounds to view her as a genuine mother figure and build that relation out for the audiences own perspective.

what zephia is as a character is sadistic and outwardly mocking, with a very aggressive manner of speech [in the english version anyways] and little in the way of subtly or tact. i understand that not all mothers are or have to be 'understated' or 'refined' as it were to work as mother figures. mothers come in all different types even across just geographical lines. i just think it was a bad choice in regards to zephia because it dilutes any possible impression of care for the other hounds via coming across as her being disingenuous about the very concept, likes shes mocking it as she talks about it. and by virtue of association it makes the other hounds look... frankly stupider and less understandable for going along with it regardless, because from the players perspective it looks like their falling for the most obvious scam in the world.

sorry, this got a lot longer then i thought it would - -

Fire Emblem Engage: The Four Hounds, Execution and Intent

got past ch23 of engage, gameplay wise its a fun enough chapter using map environmental damage gimmicks in a way that generally works. as you can tell from the title though, thats not why im making this post. I'm making this post because spoiler warning:

this is where the four hounds and the plotlines tied to that whole group basically culminate. id be surprised anyways if anything more comes of them, but at this point i feel confident enough at their part in the story to comment on it.

under the cut

the tl:dr of it all is that the four hounds are a villain quartet idea i love in concept, but find lacking in execution in regards to their place in the story.

but what do i mean by that? well, we'll start by going over the concept of what engage wants the four hounds to be. at the bare minimum the four hounds are our evil quartet/mini group for the game, a timed honored tradition not just in fe but across media of all sorts. in terms of general archetypes we have

zephia: evil sexy female group leader and bosses right hand mauvier: the honorable obviously going to heel turn or die tragically guy griss: the crazy one in it ostensibly for the lols possibly for another reason marni: small bratty child who was duped into it with candy

and if they were just the bare minimum I probably wouldnt have much more to say on the matter, but the game does give them some extra narrative teeth and its something that kinda flew past my head for the majority of the game because it didnt feel that important. we will get to that.

but essentially, ya know how in ch10/11, the snippet of the scene marketing decided to use to tease the four hounds pre release? when zephia notes how the four hounds are 'like a family'? shes not just saying that she literally means that, its their 'unique selling point' so to speak as an evil group. aside from their evil archtypes you can also map them like this

zephia: mommy mauvier: daddy griss: son marni: daughter

and to give the game credit where its due, when that realization did finally hit i'll admit, i appreciated the four hounds and what was going on with them a lot more. the irrational attachment mauvier and marni display to zephia despite how awful of a person she is makes sense, why mauvier is being so weirdly passive about all the things the hounds are doing especially to veyle despite clearly taking issue with it makes sense, why marni wants to go back to the hounds and mauvier fuckin encourages her to go makes sense.

a lot of what im mentioning there is pretty clearly suppose to be irrational behavior taken for emotional reasons of course. the game presents it as such, but it was always the context of why the characters were acting irrationally that got lost. the deathbed clarification between griss and zephia does clear up a lot of that confusion, atleast for me, and brings some interesting weight to previous storybeats. the four hounds are a family, but a clearly dysfunctional one serving a dark god.

and it tracks with what in retrospect are the wider themes of engage, family and what defines the individual in relation to them. veyles struggle for recognition from her father sombron to the point of believing in his lies until forcibly confronted with the truth, veyles evil alter ego being the complete opposite of veyle in every way except in the desire to be sombrons daughter, ivy and hortensia having had a loving father in hyacinth until his obsession with the fell dragon saw him willing to abandon his own daughters for power, alcrysts and diamants father being described as a paradoxical fierce warrior and gentle family man, alears relation to lumera and how they decide to be family by choice instead of family by circumstance etc.

which is why i will ultimantly say that watching griss and zephias death scene chocked me ever so slightly [in that good emotional release way] with griss providing a gentle reprieve in their dying moments, with a genuinely kinda beautiful final shot of their corpses lying next to each other with griss holding on to zephias hand in the end.

how, fucking, ever.

you'll notice how when describing their death cutscene i pretty much exclusively focus on griss leaving zephia out of the descriptor entirely despite the cutscene being just as much about her as griss. and thats because well i can definitely understand and appreciate the concept intellectually

execution is another matter

were introduced to the four hounds fairly early on in engage, over ten chapters before their whole plotline culminates. and right off the bat i'll note that the screen time for these chucklefucks is kinda wasted in a lot of instances. when they do appear in story they usually could just be replaced with bit villains, and i mean that from both a gameplay and story perspective but for this post story is the more important aspect.

so! the distribution and utilization of their screen time is already wonky and uneven. that'd hurt things even if it was executed really well. but, as i said it isn't and i can point to two primary factors in that matter that i feel needed some serious tweaking to get this to work

the interaction of the hounds as a family unit

and zephia herself

so, starting with the easier problem [in my opinion], the hounds and the time they spend interacting. if the idea were suppose to be grasping is that the hounds are like a family unit, if a very fucked up one, then its important that when the hounds are on screen interacting with each other that their interactions always carry a very distinctive family dynamic to them. and this is the first hurdle engage trips over with the hounds because frankly they dont.

dont what? dont interact all that often as a group, dont interact like a family. as stated their screen time is already wonky, but even when the group is all together on screen is very heavily weighted either to zephia talking mad shit, or to evil veyle/veyle interactions. that leads us into the second part of this problem, and its that even when the four hounds are all together interacting they never really feel like a family, even an off brand one. they feel like evil coworkers in an organization brought together as colleagues to do missions as they try and impress their superior for individual merit.

and thats a problem, cause if we are suppose to feel sad for their 'family' when it starts fraying at the edges, when the ideological and moral weight and contradictions of their actions and individual perspectives start clashing and tear the family asunder, suppose to feel bad when mommy and daddy start fighting because mommys an evil bitch who stabbed their daughter, then they need to feel like a family right from the get go and in every interaction and appearance they make.

which brings us to what i would consider the bigger problem. zephia herself. why is she a problem? because shes the biggest impediment outside of screen time and dialogue distribution inn getting this group to work and feel like an actual family. and screen time and dialogue distribution? giving the four hounds room to interact and feel like a family? thats a writing issue sure but a fairly easily fixable one you just have to give and write them more lines of interacting like a family.

zephia however simply does not work character wise as a mother figure for the four hounds family unit. even if you tried to get them to interact more like a family unit youd run into the problem that shes written exclusively as sombrons evil sexy secretary. and yes secretaries can be mothers but thats not the point.

in order to get this idea of the four hounds as a family unit across, and not the facade of one but an actual pseudo sort of family unit that were suppose to feel for as a family unit, then you need to have characters capable of displaying affection and compassion for each other. and zephia just cant do that the way shes written, itd be like trying to write petrine [or aversa really, who zephia shares way more writing dna with] in a domestic family situation. they're both characters that are too outwardly cruel and cold to realistically manage that without feeling either disingenious, as zephia felt the entire time i was playing whenever she mentioned the four hounds as a family unit which is part of why it didnt stick with me at first, or just feeling out of character.

and unfortunately the only way you could practically fix that, is by rewriting zephias character to one that would fit what the story wants to convey. at which point she becomes a different character, just one sharing zephias face.

best solution i can think of is to shift zephia from a aversa type as it were to more of an eremyia type if that makes sense. cause eremyias big thing in the fe12 assassin sub plot is how she outwardly presents the facade of a kindly matron of a church orphanage well underneath shes a cruel and cold taskmaster of an assassin cult for gharnefs objectives. if zephia had at least been somewhat similar, presenting a wholesome motherly facade before letting the teeth out to achieve sombrons objectives, then i feel things would have hit a lot better in regards to the four hounds and their plotlines.

it would make more sense why the group stays together despite the horrific shit they do, it would hit harder when the cracks form, it would be more shocking when marni gets stabbed by zephia, more impactful when mauvier declares his intent to kill zephia, and more heartbreaking when zephia belatedly realizes she wasted her opportunity for a real family of sorts by taking the four hounds for granted and similarly more heartbreaking when griss lets the facade drop for a moment to comfort zephia before passing away himself.

but... they didnt. or atleast it doesnt come across that way in the english translation. and thats why i consider it a really good concept, with poor execution.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT��S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

[tojisveryown]

𝙸𝚗 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝙴𝚢𝚎𝚜 | 𝟶𝟸

© 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚜𝚋𝚋𝚢𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛

𝙰𝚌: 𝚠𝚃𝟼𝙸𝙳𝟸𝚀𝟺𝙰𝙺𝚄𝟿𝚏𝚛 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚠𝚝

𝚂𝚢𝚗𝚘𝚙𝚜𝚒𝚜: 𝚃𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚐𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚟𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚋𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚊𝚝 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚊𝚌𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚙𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘 𝚊𝚗𝚢𝚘𝚗𝚎, 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚗 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚠𝚍 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚞𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚕 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚟𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚎𝚗 𝚙𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚎𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚎𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚙𝚕𝚎𝚝𝚎 𝚘𝚙𝚙𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊 𝚙𝚛𝚘𝚓𝚎𝚌𝚝.

𝚆𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐𝚜: 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚊𝚕𝚌𝚘𝚑𝚘𝚕, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚎𝚡, 𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚍𝚛𝚞𝚐 𝚞𝚜𝚊𝚐𝚎𝚜

𝚆𝚘𝚛𝚍 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝: 𝟸.𝟻𝚔

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚜: 𝙲𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚎 𝙰𝚄, 𝚛𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚙𝚎𝚛𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚘𝚘 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚒𝚖𝚎, 𝚏𝚕𝚞𝚏𝚏 𝚖𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚜𝚝

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 | 𝙿𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝟶𝟸 | 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝

(𝚄𝚗𝚎𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚍)

⋆ 💌⋆ 

3 am, it was three o’clock in the morning and you woke up to the sound of your phone going off. Who the hell would be up at this hour, especially since there was a lecture everyone had to attend in four hours.

You took a glance at your screen, slowly adjusting to the brightness, you allow yourself to wake up, you check your messages, and realize Gojo has been texting you nonstop 

“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with this guy its three am..” you whisper to yourself trying not to wake up Utahime

“Who would ever wanna fuck you anyway?” 

Sheesh. 

Am I that un-fuckable? You walked over to the bathrooms and gave yourself a long and judgmental stare. “Shit, I am un-fuckable aren’t I?” 

Before you let your insecurities get the best of you, you decided that it’d be best to catch some sleep and worry about your appearance later. It’s not that your body was ugly, or that your face was ugly, it was definitely how you dressed. 

The way you dressed practically presented to everyone what type of vibes you give off, and as of right now you gave off pretty much “Hi, my name is L/N Y/N and I still shop at the kids' section from target.” and that is NOT the impression you wanted others to have when glancing towards you. 

You sighed, “That fucking man whore really did a number on my self-esteem.” You rolled over and checked the alarm clock placed on the nightstand that was sandwiched into yours and Utahime’s bed. 5:38 am 

“Maybe I should go shopping after the lecture.” you rolled off your bed and decided to get an early start. After finishing up you left the girls dormitory. 

6:45 am

Coffee? 

Coffee.

⋆ 💌⋆ 

You hurried to the coffee shop that was a floor below your first lecture, luckily there weren’t that many people waiting in line, after what felt like two minutes it was finally your turn to order.

“Hi welcome, what may I get you?” The barista said, 

“Hi good morning, may I get an iced caramel macchiato?” 

“Of course, that’ll be 5.47!″

You dug in your bag to find your wallet and before the lady could take your card a hand placed itself over your own “I got it, add a white mocha to it will ya’ make it for Y/N Gojo, thanks.” That voice belonged to none other than the pest you dealt with yesterday. “G’morin’ Y/N.” he smiled as he slung his arm around you leading you outside the small coffee shop. 

“Mmm, so about yesterday.. I’ll forgive you if you let me take you out on a date? How ‘bout it?” 

No. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?

“Huh? I didn’t apologize.” You feel yourself leaning on the pillar that stood outside the coffee shop. 

Gojo scoffed, “That’s exactly why, you won’t have to if you let me take you on a date. Think about it Y/N.” he leaned closer resting his forearm on the same pillar you were leaning against right above your head. He was practically towering over you.

“And if i don’t want to apologize?” He scoffed once more and held your chin, forcing you to lookup. His touch was cold, almost concerning really.. it’s probably from some sort of std.

“Y/N Gojo your coffee is ready! Y/N Gojo!” 

Gojo stepped away to grab both cups of coffee, he handed you yours and walked alongside you. “You know Y/N, so many girls would kill to go on a date with me, you’re really missing out.” there he goes flashing that cheekily smile around again. 

“Guess I’m not like the fuckable bimbos you go after then.” 

“You know you could be if you wanted to,” he walked in front of you, turning on his heels so he was now facing you as he continued to walk backwards. “All you have to do is give me a call.” he pulled his sunglasses down and gave you a wink.

Cheeky bastard.

You shoved the iced coffee into the core of his stomach signaling that you wouldn’t be swooned so easily by his escapades, you held out your arm until he realized you were giving the coffee back. His fingertips grazed over your hand and you flinched at the subtle contact. Before Gojo had the chance to call you out you were submerged into the crowd.

“Y/N stop being so difficult.” 

⋆ 💌⋆ 

6:58 am, you made it on time for your first early morning lecture and sat in the fourth row. As you began to pull your stuff out more and more people started filling up the seats. You were beginning to regret returning the coffee Gojo had bought for you due to the lack of sleep.

“Y/N don’t run off like that, I almost lost you in the crowd.” You turned your head and there he was, sitting right next to you while wearing that stupid grin “Sorry some of it spilled out, but it’s still perfectly fine.” he admitted as he slid the iced coffee towards you. You looked away, you thought Gojo would finally get the hint to leave you alone and yet he just kept going on Until..

“Good morning Satoru!” a girl smiled as she sat down in the row in front of us “Why do you have two coffees?”

He cocked a smile “Good morning Yuri,” he greeted before he took your coffee and handed it in her direction, “Ehh, they gave me an extra drink. But I wouldn’t mind giving it to you.” 

You turned your head to watch the scene play out, that bastard and his cheap tricks. “That was supposed to be my coffee” is what you wanted to say, but you knew it’d be best not to get tangled in Gojo’s business. You turned away looking for a new seat. You packed your things and headed towards the back of the lecture hall.

The girls face lit up in excitement “Of cour-”

“Kidding, this is Y/N’s.” but before Gojo could turn his head back to you to flash that idiotic smile of his you were nowhere to be found. 

⋆ 💌⋆

The lecture was finally over and just as you were finishing up your notes a figure appeared. “Y/N it’s rude to leave without saying anything.” He slid your cup of coffee on the desk.

“Thought you gave it to that girl.” 

“I bought it for you, not her.” he stated firmly, he grabbed your bag and walked towards the door, “Are you coming or not?”

“Huh, where are you and I going? And give me back my bag.” 

Satoru turned on his heels and leaned down to your height pressing his pointer finger on his lips. His crystal blue eyes met yours and you were at a loss of words, his eyes truly were beautiful and you almost let a compliment slip until you realized who those eyes belonged to.

“It’s a secret of course, and its ‘we’ Y/N, say ‘where are we going’, what good if there in having a parter if you aren’t even acknowledging them correctly?” 

“You aren’t my partner, work alone.” you handed him the cup of coffee and  seized your bag out of his arms. For the second time this week Gojo was now staring at your back as you walked away, your figure getting smaller and smaller each step you took before you were one with the crowd. Gojo stared down at the cup and noticed that you didn’t take any sips of the caffeinated drink that he purposefully bought for you. 

“Warm up to me soon will you?” he whispered to himself as he passed by a trashcan throwing the drink away.

⋆ 💌⋆

The next morning you found Gojo patiently waiting for your arrival, in his hands were two cups of coffee, it doesn’t look like he’s noticed you so you take that advantage and walk behind a group of students going to their next class. As you were passing by desperately trying to avoid any form of contact with Gojo you unintentionally eavesdropped on a conversation he was having over the phone. Unfortunately you weren’t able to hear the other side of the line.

“Another bet? Sugu’ that’s shitty” He laughed  “No, she already thinks I’m an asshole and making a bet with you involving her would make things worse. Okay okay okay one month right? Okay bye.”

Fucking bastard. Who does he think he is, making a bet to see if he can fuck someone he called unfuckable.

⋆ 💌⋆

Just when you thought you were finally free from the virus known as Gojo, the chair next to you became occupied by the person you thought you’d be able to ignore. 

“G’morin’ Y/N!” he cheered gaining the attention of all the students that had the decency to come early “Got you some coffee, promise I won’t give it to anyone this time.” 

You ignored him and reviewed the notes you took yesterday, as class began the thought of Gojo sitting next to you slipped your mind until he moved his elbow with the intentions of hitting yours but knocked down the coffee he brought you onto your notes. 

“Whoopsies.” He laughed it off and gave you his notes for you to copy off of

“Gojo I can’t read this.”

“You don’t have to be so picky Y/N, who else is gonna let you borrow their notes you don’t have any friends.”

Asshole.

⋆ 💌⋆

The next morning Gojo showed up with two cups of coffee again and this time he brought a couple of napkins. He sat down next to you and placed the cup in front of you. 

“Didn’t you learn from last time?” you questioned as you slid the cup back to Gojo.

“Well maybe if you actually drank it I wouldn’t have spilled it.” he pouted and pulled out a new notebook “Here, since I did ruin your old one.”

You opened the notebook and there was a drawing of a penis on each of the pages.

You took a deep breath and faced Gojo, it took almost everything out of you not to dump the coffee on this man whore again. 

⋆ 💌⋆

As the next day came you expected Gojo to sit next to you but today he didn’t, you finally got to pay attention and take proper notes without anything getting spilled on them. After class ended, you found yourself going to get bread from a bakery near your school, but as soon as you were about to pay a pair of cold hands reached over yours handing his card to the cashier instead of yours.  “’s okay I got it.” he said smiling as he slithered his hand around your shoulder. You slid his hand off and pulled him to the back of the bakery.

“Woah Woah Y/N we can’t do it here there are people from our class watching!” He teased as he threw his hands in the air as a sign of defense. 

“What do you want from me.” 

“What?”

You took a step forward, closing the little space you had between the two of you “What do you” poking his chest with your pointer finger you inched closer “want from me?”

Gojo leaned forward and whispered “Be my partner again Y/N.” Gojo felt you stepping away, furthering the distance you once closed. He pulled you into his chest and rocked himself, along with you following side to side due to his strong grip. One of his arms wrapped around your neck as the other slid down to the small of your back.  “What’s so bad about being my parter? Afraid I’m gonna use you like the chick you saw me in the library with?”

“I don’t want a man whore as my partner.” you huffed. Gojo flinched at the harsh words you used to describe him, nonetheless he still held you close, his cold hands grabbed your wrists guiding your arm to his back wrapping them around himself. 

“What do I have to do to prove to you I’m not a man whore?” he asked rubbing your back and pulling you closer to his chest. God how many layers of cologne  does this man lather on himself. 

“You can start by getting off me.” 

“Mmm.” he pulled you even closer to the point where you two had little to no space whatsoever between your two bodies. “Only if you agree to take me back as you partner.” 

You sighed giving in “Let me think about it?”

“M’kay!” he said pulling you even closer before letting you go.

⋆ 💌⋆

You walked back to campus with Gojo, the walk was quiet and peaceful. The sound of cars passing by along with the birds chirping filled your ears and it was a much needed break after eating at the bakery with Gojo filling your thoughts with nonsense. 

You and Gojo were on your way to the next lecture of the day until Gojo stopped walking. 

“Gojo?” 

“Sorry Y/N I have to take a leak, can you please wait for me? I wanna be able to sit next to you in class.” 

You nodded and waited on a bench that was within a few feat of the bathrooms, moments later you heard footsteps approaching.

“Hey that was fast, did you wash your hands?” You questioned finally looking up realizing it wasn’t Gojo but the girl who Gojo offered your coffee to, Yuri. “Oh.. Can I help you?” 

“Is Satoru really dating you?” She began to laugh and the two girls behind her joined after giving you a hard gaze. 

“What no-”

“Probably one of his bets with Suguru. Like Satoru would ever wanna date you. What are you after? His money?”

“Huh no.”

“Please, save the bullshit, how much did you sell yourself for Satoru to hold you in the bakery like that? Or did you force yourself on hi-”

Before she could continue the stinging sensation that was both on your hand and face shut her up. She held her hand up and you flinched waiting for the contact that her hand would soon make with your face, but instead when you opened your eyes Gojo’s hand had grabbed her wrist before the contact was ever made. 

He shoved Yuri’s hand away and grabbed your hand dragging you to your next lecture. 

⋆ 💌⋆

During the long boring lecture the only thing you were able to think about was everything that happened moments before class began. Losing yourself in your thoughts Gojo slid a piece of paper with the words: “are you okay :( ?”

You replied with: “Yes. I’m fine, thank you.” Gojo smiled to himself as he replayed the scene of him coming to your rescue, cocky bastard.

Ripping off a piece of paper from the corner of your notebook, you wrote down a few words and placed the folded piece of paper onto Gojo’s open palm. 

“I guess, you can be my partner again.”

That day Gojo Satoru wore the smile that you gave to him proudly.

⋆ 💌⋆

𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚘𝚞𝚜 | 𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 | 𝙼𝚊𝚜𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 

𝙽𝚘𝚝𝚎: 𝙻𝙼𝙰𝙾𝙾 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚜𝚘 𝚜𝚘𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙶𝚘𝚓𝚘 𝚜𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛, 𝚒𝚝'𝚜 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚜𝚘 𝚏𝚞𝚗𝚗𝚢 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚎. 𝙰𝚜 𝚊𝚕𝚠𝚊𝚢𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚗 𝚊𝚜𝚔 𝚒𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞'𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚝𝚘 𝚋𝚎 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚝𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚌!  𝙷𝚘𝚙𝚎 𝚢'𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚎𝚗𝚓𝚘𝚢𝚎𝚍(っ◔◡◔)っ ♥

⋆ 💌⋆

𝚃𝚊𝚐𝚕𝚒𝚜𝚝: @peppytine @enesitamor

𝙽𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚘𝚗 𝚃𝚞𝚎𝚜. (𝟺/𝟸𝟶) 

© 𝙰𝚕𝚕 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚜 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚘𝚓𝚒𝚜𝚋𝚋𝚢𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚝𝚞𝚖𝚋𝚕𝚛

⋆ 💌⋆

[lesdemonium]

romtober day 19: yelling first kiss

Rating: T Ship: Geraskier Word Count: 1977 Summary: Jaskier gets very jealous when Geralt shows interest in someone else.

read on ao3

Jaskier played on, fingering the strings of his lute like he was born to do. The crowd was eating it up--Jaskier had been impeccable at winning their favor. A well-timed wink, a smirk in the right direction, blowing a kiss or two. They were eating right out of his hand, and nearly everyone was dancing, singing, or at the very least stomping their feet. To his crowd, Jaskier was irresistible.

His witcher, however, was another story entirely.

Geralt was not paying attention. This wasn’t entirely surprising--when Jaskier performed, Geralt really only seemed to have a perfunctory interest in what Jaskier was presenting. Though Jaskier ate up any attention he could get, he couldn’t fault Geralt for this. After all, Geralt was his first critic every time, of every song. By the time Jaskier’s songs made it to the public, Geralt had heard every iteration of the lines possible. Even a robust love would temper and fizzle under circumstances such as these, and Geralt had professed no great love for Jaskier’s “pretty lies,” as he often called them.

However, it was not simply that Geralt was not paying attention that was eating at Jaskier--it was that he was paying attention to someone else . Jaskier prided himself on his ability to read a room while also performing, and he had tracked the changes as they were happening.

There, Geralt’s eye was caught by something-- someone --just to the left of Jaskier. At first, Jaskier had giddily mistaken it for a glance in his direction, only to quickly grow hot with shame as he realized that the look was not meant for him at all. As Jaskier turned about the room, he saw the object of Geralt’s interest, and the young man was just as interested back, if his furtive glances were to be believed. Jaskier thought, with no small amount of hope, that this was where things would end. Geralt didn’t often express interest in men, and he even more rarely did anything about his interest.

This time, however, boldness came down to the newcomer. Jaskier missed the moment he stood up--Jaskier had been far too distracted by flirting with a young woman who, in return, gave him a very generous tip. When Jaskier had his wits about him enough to check, the man was gone entirely, only for Jaskier to find him at Geralt’s table.

The worst part, the part that made Jaskier’s heart sink into his chest, was that Geralt was smirking at the man. How many times had Jaskier gone to Geralt with that very same stance, to get nothing but icy stoicism in return? Now this man walked up with half the swagger Jaskier had, like a dimmer, duller version of the bard himself, and he would have the honor of Geralt’s bed?

Jaskier had a performance to attend to. Adoring fans. Pretty women with prettier smiles, handsome men with eyes that sparkled in his direction. Jaskier would just have to hone this energy, this itching beneath his skin, this hurt in his chest, and aim it toward a more worthy nighttime companion. But every time he tried, he caught a snippet of the conversation Geralt and this stranger had, or his eye landed on the way the man was now touching Geralt’s arm, and Jaskier’s blood coursed through him, icy hot and devastating.

He couldn’t decide what he wanted to do, how he could process this better. Should he continue playing, to try to distract himself, or should he end his performance now, leave his audience wanting more, and leave to lick his wounds? The decision was made for him, however, when Geralt and the man left the tavern. There was no continuing after that, after the silent, delicate rush of pain as his heart chipped off just a bit more. Jaskier finished his set, thanked his audience, then retired to their room.

When Geralt found him, Jaskier was nothing more than a lump on the bed, curled up inside himself and pretending to the world he did not exist. Dramatic, certainly. But to fight against one's own heart was futile at best.

Geralt snorted. “Don’t tell me. You drank too much too early, and now you’re already hungover?”

Jaskier didn’t answer. No barb, no sarcastic retort, nothing. He realized, in an absent sort of way, that he probably should have, as that reaction was far more likely to convince Geralt to leave him alone. Still, he said nothing.

“Some lady broke your heart, then?” Geralt teased further. When Jaskier only huffed, Geralt shoved at his shoulder. Jaskier waved him off. “You’re melancholy tonight. Come on. Up.”

His order was paired with a, quite frankly, rude display of strength by pulling Jaskier up and off the bed. Jaskier stumbled as he was forced to his feet, and fell face-first into his witcher, much to his own personal embarrassment. Jaskier shoved Geralt off with a scowl.

“Leave me alone, you great brute!” Jaskier snapped, his hands landing on his hips. “I don’t appreciate you man-handling me in whatever direction you prefer!”

Geralt’s smile was small, but still managed to be shit-eating all the same. “You were on my side.” He shrugged, then pushed past Jaskier and onto the bed.

“Oh, no, definitely not,” Jaskier said, stepping in front of Geralt again. “I am not sharing a bed with you. You are--are sweaty and--and.” He paused, and his eyebrows furrowed as he looked at Geralt. Geralt hardly looked as if he had just had a romp in the hay, as it were. He looked entirely too put together, his hair barely even mussed. Not even the slightly swollen lips that would evidence a particularly heated makeout session. “Why do you look so…. Sheveled?”

Geralt raised an eyebrow and looked down at himself. “Sheveled?” he repeated.

“You--I saw you! I saw you leave with that man. Why do you look so damn put together?” Jaskier’s hands went back to his hips. Geralt was trying to make Jaskier look like a fool, Jaskier knew it. He would not stand for it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Now, though, he grunted, and avoided Jaskier’s gaze. Instead, he turned his back on Jaskier.

“The hell you don’t! Gods, you must think me the stupidest man alive. I pay attention, Geralt. You can’t just act like I have no clue what I’m talking about whenever I hit on a subject you don’t care for.” Jaskier didn’t want to know, not truly. He couldn’t imagine a subject he wanted less details about than whatever Geralt and this man got up to. But now that he had started in on it, he couldn't stop. He was powerless against himself.

“Jaskier, drop it.”

“No, Geralt, I don’t think I will! You’re the one that condescended to talk to me when I so clearly wanted you to leave me alone , I think it’s only fair that you now have to deal with the consequences of that decision! I saw you . I saw that you were interested in him. So why are you here ? Why are you decidedly unfucked ?”

“Why do you care? What do you need to know of what we did or did not get up to?” Geralt crossed his arms and turned to give Jaskier a hard look, but Jaskier could not stop this forward momentum. Apparently, his mood had turned him self-destructive.

“You go in for that now? You’re so rare about showing affection for men, I had convinced myself you weren’t interested at all! So, what was it about him? Was it his look? I suppose he was handsome, in a common sort of way.” That was a lie. Geralt’s taste truly was beyond reproach, but Jaskier had to dig anyway. “No surprise you like them bold. After all, your last fixation was Yennefer. So, tell me, Geralt. What exactly is your type?”

“What are you--” Geralt started, but Jaskier interrupted him. Jaskier could see the confused look on Geralt’s face, he didn’t want Geralt to voice his questions. Jaskier was half afraid he’d answer them in his tirade.

“And then you don’t even fuck him! Even he wasn’t good enough for the great Geralt of Rivia? Is anyone? No, you just need to exert your own might over everyone. Get their hopes up and then leave and go back to your own room as if nothing happened!”

“You’re mad that I didn’t have sex with him?” Geralt sounded amused. Jaskier did not find the humor in this.

“‘I’m the White Wolf, I’m ridiculously handsome with a body sculpted right from the Gods themselves, I like to force bards out of beds when it suits my needs and force them to talk and when I leave with someone I don’t fuck them because all I really want to do is make people fall in love with me and remain cooly detached from everyone because I apparently get off on it .’”

He wasn’t aware of when he started yelling, but he was definitely yelling at Geralt now. And all Geralt did in return was smile at Jaskier. It infuriated him further. Jaskier would have much preferred if Geralt took the bait and yelled back, turned this into a ridiculous fight. Instead, he smiled. He looked as if he was trying not to laugh. And, oh, if that didn’t make Jaskier feel as if he was on fire.

“Jaskier, are you jealous?” Geralt asked, and his smile turned crooked.

“Of course I’m not jealous!” Jaskier retorted. His face felt hot as the embarrassed flush spread over his whole body. “You are a brute! You just--just do whatever you want with no regard for how those around you might feel. It’s-It’s selfish, it is! And I will not put up with it, and-and--” He stopped, abruptly, and suddenly he felt short on air. Jaskier was so worked up, he could hardly focus on anything beyond the way Geralt was stepping closer to him.

“Why do you care what I did or didn’t do with him?” Geralt asked, and his voice was soft. So soft, so gentle, something in Jaskier’s brain broke.

“Because it wasn’t me !” he exploded back, and closed his eyes in his shame. There would be no coming back from this. Not from the yelling, from the odd ranting, nor from the confession. Jaskier wished more than he had ever wished for anything to just be burned on the spot.

Instead, though, he heard Geralt come closer. He felt the warmth of Geralt’s hand just before it delicately cupped Jaskier’s jaw, turning his head just the slightest bit up. Jaskier melted into the kiss, his bones turning loose, liquid, as he stumbled forward into Geralt’s chest again and grabbed at something, anything, to hold onto. Jaskier’s fingers twisted into the soft, worn fabric of Geralt’s shirt, and Geralt caught him with a hand around his waist.

If they had stayed there even a moment longer, Jaskier would have forgotten his own name. He didn’t think he needed it anymore.

“It wasn’t you,” Geralt agreed. They pulled away, only to breathe, which hardly seemed worth it to Jaskier now. Geralt’s words were hot on Jaskier’s lips and it took a moment before Jaskier’s brain caught up.

“Of all the times to kiss me, you choose when I’m hysterical and yelling at you?” Jaskier groused, but his words held no bite. Especially not when paired with the desperate way he was pecking at Geralt’s lips.

“I wasn’t sure. You’ve never been so jealous before.”

“He… reminded me. Of me. But you liked him , I didn’t think you liked me .”

Geralt hummed, and captured Jaskier in another long, thorough kiss. “I do,” Geralt said, after, and Jaskier almost forgot what they were talking about. That was okay, too. Jaskier had done quite enough talking tonight.

[jenomark]

➔Pairing: Taeyong x Reader ➔Other Members/ Characters: Ten | Johnny  ➔Genre: Smut (w/ plot!) ➔Warnings: Weight is mentioned a lot | Self-esteem & Self-worth issues | Could be triggering for people with weight issues | Fingering | Vaginal sex | Oral (M) ➔Word count: 4,321

➔Summary: For many reasons, you haven’t had sex in a long time. Though you love yourself and your bigger body, you’re always aware that other people might not. After a bad night with someone who didn’t want to be seen in public with you, your best friend Ten offers to set you up with his friend Taeyong. 

*This is very body positive, but it does deal with a lot of negative things that are very close to reality for most people. I tried to portray things as accurately as I can, given my own experiences. I know not everyone’s experience is like mine. It’s a very honest outlook on having a one-night-stand or FWB relationship while being a bigger girl. 

  Mr. No Name. He hit all the right notes and strokes. He was attractive and mildly interesting. More importantly, he said he didn’t care what you looked like, or that it had been awhile since you’d had sex. His clothes flew off mid-air, and you watched them land here and there. Mistakes never landed in one spot, you thought. They peppered your life like seasoning, and even so, life had been tasteless, as of late. You still found yourself craving the morsel that would poison you.

“Can you give me a moment?” you asked.

  Nameless stretched across your bed like a God, his arms draped out in what he must have pretended was satin. IKEA might have felt honored. When he spoke, he told you to hurry back quickly. He said he didn’t have that much time, but you suspected he was the type to fuck and leave. 

  “Okay.” you said.

  You left your bedroom, not really thinking that you’d just left a stranger to rummage through your personal belongings. You went into the bathroom and turned off all the lights. You didn’t want to look at your body stuffed into the lingerie you carefully picked out for the occasion. You didn’t want to know what he saw when he looked at you. You hated that you were that girl, but old habits die hard, or rather, they come back from the dead and pick you apart until you’re just bone.

  Sex. It never mattered much to you. You would consume it when it came, just a notch above feeling grateful that someone would stick themselves inside of you. You didn’t know if it didn’t matter because it didn’t, or because you couldn’t fathom caring so much about someone that didn’t care for you back. It was easier to skip the hurt altogether and go straight for the parts where you ate the ice cream without the excuse.

“Get a grip.” you told yourself in the darkness.

  It had been awhile since you’d had sex because, despite being happy in your own skin, you were still terrified of someone seeing you naked. It was hell to explain how fulfilled you felt as your own person until a man looked at you and diminished your worth by calling you the most unfuckable person in the room. It was so easy for someone to tear down years of hard work and self-reflection for a two second shame fest by a stranger in a passing car, yelling about your weight, or what you should and shouldn’t be eating. And, yes, you hated that you cared what people thought of you, even after all this time.

 Enter: Mr. No Name. You called him that because he gave you an alias to call him by, and the fake name didn’t sit well with you. You wanted to ask him why he didn’t want you to know him, but deep down, you already knew. No one wants to be seen with the fat girl. You knew you were completely right when you asked him for coffee, and he looked as if you’d asked him to march around town with a parade float tied to his leg. Not everyone would look at the straight-sized man and the plus-sized girl and think negatively, but there would always be people who were still looking. Maybe you didn’t want to be seen as much as he didn’t want to be seen. Maybe you were also the problem.

 Still, you were horny and touch starved. After all, all you wanted from him was sex. That was the agreement. And you loathed yourself for briefly wanting more, for looking at him and his desire for you, and thinking that it could extend beyond the bedroom. Silly you for wanting what some people had. You had to forgive your own poor self-esteem and hope that others would, too.

 When you went back to your bedroom, he had passed out on your pillow. He was hugging the other one, his naked body smooth against the fabric. In his sleep, the prospect of him didn’t seem as scary as you thought. You wouldn’t hold it against him. You woke him and told him to put his clothes back on. 

“So what?” he said. “Things don’t work out. It wasn’t meant to be.”

  You looked over at Ten and felt that he was completely missing the point. It was your fault. You were never honest about how you felt because you didn’t want to bring attention to it. He knew your lingering insecurities as well as anyone, but there were things he could never truly understand. Last thing you wanted was for someone to pity you, or worse, think you’re just making it all up in your head. 

“I want sex,” you said. “I think I’m drying up down there.”

“Dating apps.” Ten said, as if his genius idea would save you. 

“Absolutely not.”

“You have to start somewhere.”

“I’m not a fetish,” you said. “Dating apps make me realize why I don’t date in the first place.”

“If you wait for things to happen organically, you might miss out,” Ten said. “Do people still do newspaper ads?”

“Are newspapers even a thing?” you asked.

  You and Ten looked at each other and shrugged. There were so many things you understood about each other. You sat down and wiped sweat from your forehead. You were supposed to be cleaning your apartment. There was something about deep cleaning that soothed you. And Ten was supposed to be helping, but he was sipping his hot tea and playing around on his phone.

“Can I be honest with you?” you asked.

  It felt like now or never. He didn’t need to know everything, just a little bit where you were coming from. There were sirens going off in your head telling you not to say anything to him. Your big mouth couldn’t stop once you were dead set on something.

“Always,” he said, putting his phone down. “Is this about the date?”

You nodded. “It’s about me, too. I’m..I don’t love the body I’m in..sometimes..other times, I love her. She gets me from point A to B. She makes me feel sexy. Forget what makes you healthy and what doesn’t. I don’t listen to anyone else but my doctor. All I know is that I love myself, from my ridiculous long second toe, to my double chin. All of it. And I think that scares people away, and I think I let them scare me away, too.”

“Was he that bad?” he asked.

“He didn’t want to be seen with me. Before we entered my apartment, he asked if anyone knew he was there,” you said. “ I would have cried if I was any other person. You know, I’m not even mad that he was like that. At this point, I expect that more than I don’t. I’m mad that, for one moment in time, I really expected him to be different. He kept saying how much he loved my body, and I didn’t get fetish feelings from him. I thought, “Wow, he could really be the one. He could be the fuck buddy of a lifetime.” Despite fucking it up in so many other ways, he made me feel like a person. I felt wanted.”

“He sounds like a dick.” Ten said.

Slowly, you nodded in agreement. At the same time, you and Ten sipped your drinks, lost in thought. 

Then, as if he remembered something important, Ten tilted his head and said, “I know a man.”

“That’s great,” you said, dryly. “I know a lot of men, too.”

‘“No,” he said, slapping the table. “I have a friend.”

  You raised your eyebrows. You thought about being sarcastic, but Ten wasn’t paying attention. It was no fun if he didn’t play back. He was excited by his own thought process, the wheels in his head spinning. 

“You just want sex!” he said.

“Correct.”

“With someone who will be seen with you in public,” he continued. “So they don’t kill your lady boner. I know a friend who will do that for you.”

“No.” you said, flatly.

“Why not?”

“I’m not a charity case,” you said. “I don’t want a man to fuck me just because he feels bad.”

“This guy isn’t like that.”

  You wanted to say that all guys were like that, but that way of thinking didn’t help anyone. It wasn’t true. You knew there were men out there who were what you wanted, you just didn’t know why they were halfway around the world. You thought of Ten’s friends, which were also your friends, by default.

“Which friend?” you asked. “All of them are with someone. Besides, I wouldn’t have sex with any of them. It would be too weird.”

“You don’t know him.”

“But I know all of your friends.”

“Not this one,” Ten said. “He’s in my art class. You’ll love him. Come to Saturday’s class. I’ll introduce you.”

  They say fat girls shouldn’t wear overalls. You looked at your tummy in the reflection of a car and pressed your hands against it. Your thighs looked like they were bulging in the little shorts. You shook your head to rid yourself of the thought demons that tried to make you think you were anything less than sexy. Whenever it came to the opinion of men, unfortunately, they liked to show up and rear their ugly heads. You looked adorable in your overalls, and you’d look smokin’ hot out of them.

 You weren’t good at art, so you didn’t know how to dress up, or how to behave. You showed up and stood by a bunch of people smoking cigarettes and gossiping. You thought the atmosphere would be more like the movies, and you thanked yourself you didn’t show up in some ridiculous scarf and a beret. 

“You’re earlier than I am,” Ten said, hugging you from behind. “That’s not something I can get used to. You look like an art ho.”

“What is an art ho?” you asked.

  Self-consciously, your eyes started going towards your reflection. Ten took your arm and led you inside, past the smokers, and right through a door into a cool and brightly lit studio. Ten came every week, and you could see why. The place had a cheery vibe, and everyone around you was smiling and sitting down at an easel. There was food in the corner of the room and all of these prints on the wall that you could look at for hours.

“So,” you said, sitting down. “We just...paint things?”

“Yes, “Ten said. “We get a theme for the day. No rules. No stress or worries. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. All that matters is that you have fun.”

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re a great artist.” 

Ten blushed. “I try my best.”

  Taking your place and watching everyone slowly trickle into the class, you noticed how attractive everyone was. You didn’t know what Ten’s friend looked like. You didn’t even know his name. You imagined him in your head, building him up like a clay figure. He had eyes and a nose, he was tall and resembled a beautiful marble statue. You looked around the room and realized there were mostly couples, their eyes finding each other wherever they went. Your eyes kept swimming around the room, too, even as the class began. And that’s when you saw him.

“Whoa.” you said underneath your breath.

  He was beautiful. He was tall, like you imagined. So much of his broad shouldered body peeked out from behind his easel. He had black hair, which he swept back from his forehead. He had a smile permanently fixed to his face, and the warmest brown eyes you had ever seen. You physically gulped before nudging Ten.

“Who is that?” you asked. 

Ten smirked. “That’s Johnny. All the girls love him.”

  You were all the girls. You couldn’t stop staring at him. You wondered if painting him would be too creepy. As class began, you tried focusing on the project at hand, but your eyes kept going back to him.

“I need to get laid, “ you whispered. “I need to get laid so badly.”

“Will you relax,” Ten whispered back. “I don’t need you climaxing in front of my class. I think that’s frowned upon.”

  You forgot about Johnny as best as you could and painted the sexiest fruit bowl of your life. You were proud, tired, and most of all, itching at the chance to talk to Johnny. You were thankful for Ten in that moment, so thankful that you could have kissed him. But, your attention was not on Ten. You were thinking about Johnny’s big body slamming you down onto your bed and fucking the still life out of you.

“I want you to meet him now.” Ten said. 

  You stood fast, your knee knocking into the easel. Several people looked your way because of the loud noise. You waved and tried to shake off the embarrassment. Johnny stood too, his face a model of perfection. He was so happy that it was infectious.

“He’s a little too attractive.” you said. 

“Johnny?” Ten asked. “I guess so.”

  Ten ushered you forward. As you were getting ready to extend your hand out to Johnny, Ten kept pushing until you were in front of the easel at the end. A man stood up and wiped his hands on his jeans.

“Hello, “ he said. “I’m Taeyong.”

  You were speechless. You cursed yourself for automatically thinking it was Johnny. The look on your face must have said it all, because Ten needed to cover for you. He told Taeyong your name after fixing you with the longest side-eye in human history.

“Taeyong,” you said. “Right. I’m sorry. I’m just...so..in love with your painting.”

  You looked at his painting. It was chaotic. The fruit were different colors and they were all smashed, the seeds ripped out, and the juices flowing. He had more paint on his hands and arms than what was on the canvas. 

“This?” he asked. “Thank you. Painting gives me energy.”

  Ten put his hand on your shoulder and said he was going to clean up his station. You couldn’t recover from the initial embarrassment, so you offered to go help him.

“It’s okay if you don’t like what you see,” Taeyong said. “I understand.”

  Ten gave you one last “I will fuck you up if you ruin this for yourself” glance before disappearing. Everything in you felt apologetic towards Taeyong. It wasn’t even about him. 

“It’s not you.” you said.

Taeyong laughed. “That’s usually how the saying goes.”

“No!” you said. “Really, it’s not you. You’re wonderful.”

  And you meant it. Though he was different from Johnny and different from what you expected, Taeyong was very handsome. In your mind, you didn’t judge the way he looked because you didn’t want him to do the same to you. You knew how it felt too well, which is why it hurt you that he was feeling that way.

“Can I be honest?” you said. “I think I fucked this up. Ten didn’t tell me anything about you, and I thought you were someone else.”

“Ahh,” Taeyong said. “Imagine the disappointment.”

  You could feel yourself growing dizzy.  You took a seat in the chair next to Taeyong. When you stood, you were a little taller than him. When you sat, your body felt massive in front of his smaller frame. You looked into his face, into his eyes which didn’t look as upset as they should have been.

“I’m an idiot,” you said. “All these years wanting people to censor themselves for me, and I end up doing it to someone else. Can we start over?”

Taeyong sat. He placed his hands between his thighs and nodded. The way he moved was so cute that you couldn’t help but smile.

“Taeyong,” you said. “Would you like to come home with me?”

“Y-e-eesss.” he said, drawing the world out cutely.

  You found yourself back in your bedroom, in a role that seemed too familiar. You were starting to feel scared that Taeyong only came back because of some fat fetish. He had been seen with you in public, had even reached for your hand on the walk back to your apartment, but fear had a way of resurfacing in intimate spaces. 

“This is nice,” Taeyong said, gesturing up at the painting above your bed. “I draw on my walls, but this is much more sophisticated.”

  You couldn’t seem to talk. Your mouth was dry. You asked him if he wanted a drink so that you could have one to loosen up. He said he didn’t drink much because his neck got all splotchy and red. You skipped the drink and disappeared into the bathroom, like a coward.

“We’re here again,” you said to yourself. “Just fuck him al-”

  There was a knock at the bathroom door. You turned on the lights and opened it slowly to see Taeyong standing there. 

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m good.”

“It’s just that,” he said. “You’re talking to yourself. I talk to myself sometimes, too. Do you want to do this another time?”

  He looked so sweet that something in you just toppled over the edge. You didn’t say no. You didn’t say yes. You crossed the threshold and kissed him, grabbing the back of his head. The kiss itself was so soft and tame that you kept trying to make it more aggressive. Taeyong released his lips from yours and rubbed his mouth. He laughed nervously and looked down at the floor. His lips were red and swollen, his eyes more lustful than before when he finally looked back up at you. He stepped forward and kissed you, pressing his body up against yours. Normally, feeling someone's tummy against yours would make you retreat, but you were so lost in the moment that you didn’t notice. 

“Bedroom?” Taeyong asked.

“Yes.”

  It was Taeyong who guided you to your own bedroom. Your eyes went straight to the painting above your bed. There was a new appreciation for it. When you looked back to Taeyong, he was looking at you like he was looking at art: admiring, questioning.

“You’re nervous,” he asked. “Why?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been with someone.” you said.

  You and Taeyong sat on the edge of your bed. You were itching to kiss him, but you felt that the questions on the tip of his tongue would get in the way.

“Being nervous is okay,” he said. “But I want you to know that I’ll take my time and make it enjoyable for you.”

  He leaned in to kiss you, his hand pushing your hair out of the way so that he could rest it on your cheek. Your hand was on his thigh. Things started escalating, like you were both trying to one-up the other. Taeyong’s hand was on your breast, trying to figure out the machinations of the overalls. You were rubbing his leg a little too much. He had to ask you to stop or he'd explode. You laid back on the bed and let him hover above your body. Your thighs felt extra jiggly when his hands caressed you. You felt yourself clamming up, and Taeyong sensed it and stopped.

“I’m not entirely comfortable with my body sometimes.” you admitted. 

“Do you want to stop?” Taeyong asked. “We can watch movies or play board games?”

“Board games?” you asked.

He shrugged. “I like games.”

 You wanted to laugh. Taeyong was much different from Mr. No Name. Being with him felt less like a performance. It was like you were being intimate with a friend, only intimacy looked a lot like awkwardness. 

“I don’t want to stop,” you said. “Do you?”

“No.” Taeyong said.

  He sloped down to kiss you. His hand continued moving up your thigh and into your shorts. Having someone's fingers inside of you after not having anything for so long felt like an epiphany. You moaned and stopped kissing Taeyong. Not because you wanted to stop exploring his mouth, but because you couldn’t contain your excitement. You opened your legs and let him finger you, his skinny and long fingers jerking in and out of you with zeal. 

“Don’t stop,” you moaned. “Don’t stop.”

  You came around his fingers quickly, your hand reaching out to grab his wrist. He delicately kissed the side of your neck, double chin and all. You took a minute to catch your breath, but Taeyong was all over you. He unhooked your overalls. He lifted up your shirt to reveal your stomach. Checking to see if it was okay with you first, he kissed your soft flesh. You moved further up the bed so that his face was down below. He helped you remove the outfit, and you finished it off, sitting up on your bed naked and fighting the urge to cover yourself.

“Don’t tell me I’m beautiful,” you said. “Don’t say anything at all about my body. Tell me about yours.”

  Taeyong smiled in understanding. He yanked his shirt over his head and pointed at his scar. The pink jagged line was shiny. You yearned to place your lips against it. 

“A scar,” he said. He brought his hands up his body, his ribs noticeable. Seductively, he brought his hand back down until his fingers caught on his zipper. It didn’t take much for Taeyong’s baggy pants to fall to the ground. He slipped off his briefs to reveal his soft cock. “Can I show you my body?”

“Yes.”

  He was going to come to you, but you scooted to the edge of the bed. You didn’t love the way your body looked while you were sitting, but your attention was saved by Taeyong’s cock. You took over, working him in your hands, and watching as he came to life. You leaned down to suck him, enjoying how he whimpered from the warmth of your mouth. You stopped momentarily to kiss his scar before you were back at it, drawing him closer and closer. Before he could spill, you let him go and climbed back onto the bed on all fours, your ass facing him. The position was easiest for you. You didn’t have to look at men when they fucked you, your fat moving rabidly, and your mind wondering how distracted they were by your body. You waited for him to come to you and thrust his cock into you from behind, but Taeyong didn’t. 

“I want you on top,” he said. “I want to see you.”

  You watched Taeyong lay on your bed, his body just below the painting. He was relaxing in a bunch of pillows, and he was smiling. If you went on top of him, his small frame seemed like it would disappear underneath you. The thought of your thick thighs rubbing against him made you queasy. Yet, there was something so sexy about him wanting you that carried you forward. It was an interesting situation. 

“Are you sure?” you asked.

Taeyong lifted his arms behind his head. “Ride me.”

  You gripped his thighs and climbed on top of him. You were hyper aware of your body touching his. You lifted your ass up and tried to situate yourself. As you did, Taeyong’s hands were all over you. He poked and prodded you, smoothing his fingers over your skin and exploring everything there was to see and not see. At first, you froze in place. You had never had anyone feel your body like that, like a painter painting a canvas. You could feel his brush strokes as you closed your eyes, his fingers moving over your nipples, and the way he touched you when he went between your legs. 

  Lowering yourself down onto his cock, you had to slowly let him in. Every inch was felt, moving inside of you so intensely that every time you moved back up just a little, you wanted to lurch forward in pleasure. Taeyong held your waist and kept his hands there as you rocked over him slowly. 

“I forgot how good this felt.” you said.

  You hadn’t ridden someone since university. It was the second time ever, and the first time with someone you could actually see yourself liking. You tried pushing the L-word thoughts out of your head. You and Taeyong were only having sex, not dating. 

“Faster.” Taeyong said, the words coming out of his mouth surprising him.

  You rode him faster, trying not to think too hard about the way your body bounced, or how it looked. He touched you as you fucked him, his hands getting increasingly more desperate. The way he looked up at you made you feel bold. You pressed down on his chest and started fucking yourself on his cock with a new pace, your body slamming down on him hard. The sounds of your bodies slapping together was loud, and at one point, you slowed down because you were scared you were hurting him.

“No,” he moaned. “Keep going.”

  You fucked him until you came, throwing your head back and riding the wave. Taeyong watched you with awe, even when you didn’t stop moving. You wanted him to come, wanted to finish him off the way he deserved.

“Give it to me,” you said, fucking him. “I want it, Taeyong. Come for me.”

  You pushed your breasts against his chest and kissed him. The moan that broke free from his lips was loud and whiny. You kissed his neck and kept taking his cock until he came, his body stiffening before relaxing. You let him stay inside of you long after he had come, his fingertips drawing love hearts on your skin.

“I was thinking,” Taeyong said. “Tomorrow we should get that drink.”

[nightshade-minho]

-Nightmare- (10)

Warnings: Um, like always, get tissues ready, I guess.

He hated this.

Being in the same room as five other people, three of which he hated, wasn’t how he wanted his evening to go. He wanted to be home with you, watching movies and cuddling under about ten blankets. He regretted ever going to that party and meeting the insufferable redhead. God, he couldn’t believe he’d fucked up this bad.

Even now, as he ate dinner, he tuned out the conversation around him. From time to time, he would glance up at Rina, jaw clenched, hate coursing through him.

It was her fault. Right? It had to be. 

Whatever. He just had to get through this dinner, and then he’d be able to go home with you. And...maybe, maybe he would confess to you. It was scary to think about...he could feel his heart thumping, and his palms were sweaty. But he knew it was what he had to do. You probably didn’t like him back...but he couldn’t keep it in. He’d kept his feelings locked in for so many years, and now that they were finally out, he couldn’t reel them back in. He felt like an emotional wreck.

He didn’t care if you didn’t feel the same. Seeing you with the necklace around your neck had only solidified what he already knew- you were meant to be his, and he would do anything to make sure that would happen.

When Rina had accused you of changing him, that was the last straw.

Fuck Rina. He probably shouldn’t have snapped at her like that, but he couldn’t help it. He made his way to the bathroom, not wanting to be in the same room as her anymore.

Splashing water on his face, he wiped it clean and sighed, running his hands through his hair. He couldn’t wait to get out of here, couldn’t wait for this to be over.

As soon as he stepped out of the door though, he was met with her face, uncomfortably close to his as she caged him against the doorway, expression furious.

“I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m really not having it.” 

“My problem is you. Why the fuck can’t you just leave me alone?” He snapped.

“I know you’re not dating her. I know it. I tried giving you the benefit of the doubt but...it’s so hard. I almost believed it at first...but now, it’s just so laughable. You two, trying to fool everyone into thinking that you’re dating. It’s pathetic.” She spat.

He remained silent.

“What I wanna know is why you left. Is there something wrong with me? Am I unfuckable or something?” Her voice quivered a little, a sprinkle of vulnerability before it regained its usual confidence. “There were millions of guys falling over themselves to want me, to fuck me that night.. Have you ever paused to consider how it would have affected my reputation? You running out of the room just minutes after we entered together?”

“Look, Rina...you’re being unreasonable-”

His brain almost short-circuited when he felt her lips on his. He was consumed with the need to push her away...the acute awareness that you were in the other room.

But for some reason...he couldn’t. He was tired of the game they were playing. Maybe if he just gave her what she wanted, she’d finally stop. She’d stop bothering you two, and he could live his life with you in peace.

So he kissed her back. She pulled away after a few seconds, panting and looking at him with shining eyes. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”

He shook his head, eyes widening. “My girlfriend’s literally in the other room-”

She scoffed. “Seriously, Minho, drop the act. I know you two are in a fake relationship. You make it blindingly obvious.” She stares curiously up at him. “Do you...actually like her?”

Minho didn’t say anything, averting his eyes and trying to breathe normally.

She let out an incredulous snort. “Jesus...you’re such a cretin. That bitch doesn’t like you back, you do know that, right?”

“I...”

She pulled away completely, grabbing his wrist and pulling him forward a little bit, peeking around the wall. Minho felt the dread rising in him as she did so, his throat going dry. His eyes took in Juyeon and you on the couch, him leaning closer to you, his hand on your inner thigh. He couldn’t see your expression as your back was facing him, but he’d seen enough. He felt anger pulsing in him as he looked away, scowling. 

He hated the way his legs and fingers felt shaky. There it was again, that weakness you caused. He’d been prepared to submit, prepared to accept the weakness as a part of him...but you clearly didn’t feel the same way. So what was the point? 

He grabbed Rina, dragging her to the side and whispering in her ear. He’d had enough. 

“Where’s that asshole’s bedroom? I wanna fuck you on his bed.”

She grinned, pulling him in for another kiss as she led him to the bedroom, pushing him onto the bed and straddling his lap. 

Somehow, Minho didn’t feel anything, not even arousal, as she moved her hips against him, unbuttoning his shirt rapidly. He felt blank, vapid...his body moving as if it were a robot.

Even as he kissed her furiously, he could feel his actions fueled by his frustration and anger. How he wished you were the one on his lap right now...but you’d made it increasingly clear that you didn’t want him in that way. He could make peace with that. 

“Fuck you.”

As soon your shaky voice hit his ears, he pulled away like lightning, his eyes landing on your face. The shocked, devastated expression on your face breaking his heart.

Before he could even say anything, you ripped off the necklace, throwing it at him and running away. 

He felt tears prick his eyes. That expression on your face...it was now etched in his brain, the memory of it making him nauseous. Why did you look so horrified, so heartbroken? You didn’t like him, so why were you so angry, so sad? The implications of it scared him. What if...

He pushed Rina aside, bending down to pick up the chain, his eyes filling with tears. It wasn’t broken, thankfully. He tucked it into his pocket, turning to the girl on the bed, who was glaring up at him.

“Are you really walking out, again? You do realize-”

“Shut up. I’m done with you. Do whatever you want, I don’t fucking care, okay? I’ve hurt the person who means the most to me multiple times, and you’re to be blamed for some of it. I know I’m the one at fault...and I also know I would have never recognized my love for her if you hadn’t thrown your little tantrum, and forced us into this fake relationship. But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from all this, it’s that my feelings for her definitely aren’t fake.” He rambled, breathing hard. For some reason, her dumbstruck expression gave him a weird sense of satisfaction.

He ran out of the room, walking to the door as fast as he could and trying his best to avoid Juyeon’s eyes.

***

Minho found you walking down the street. Your back was to him, but he could almost sense the hurt in the way you walked. His heart ached, especially because he knew he was the reason you looked so defeated. He opened his mouth to call out...but he couldn’t.

You deserved so much better.

He inhaled again, working up his courage.

“Y/n!”

You stopped in your tracks, slowly turning around at the sound of his voice. He walked closer, sighing and running a hand through his drenched hair. “Y/n...please...”

“What?” You snapped, crossing your arms. “What could you possibly have to say to me?”

“I...um, I’m s-”

“No.” You scoffed, holding your palm up. “Don’t you dare apologize. You’ve done enough of that.”

He tilted his head to the side, his sadness slowly transforming into anger.

Actually, why was he apologizing? What right did you have to pretend like you were the victim here? You had no idea about his feelings. You didn’t know what he was going through. You were the one who’d started it, flirting with Juyeon.

“Why the fuck should I be the one to apologize?!”

Your eyes widened. “Wha...Minho, you were literally making out with the girl who wants to send you to jail just a few minutes ago! It was just...irresponsible.” In all honesty, you could care less about the immaturity of the action. You couldn’t tell him the real reason after all, could you? That you were jealous.

“Do you ever not think with your dick?” You asked, feeling your emotions burn. “You know...they were right. You are just a  fuckboy without any substance.”

The words hit him like a knife. He opened his mouth, closing it as he felt his heart burn at the words, partly because somewhere deep down...he was scared they might be true.

He felt his anger boil over as he took the necklace out from his pocket. “You know what, Y/n? It’s true, what you said in the letter. This friendship was a mistake, after all. I wish I’d never fucking met you, never wasted all these years on someone as boring and mundane as you!” He threw the necklace on the ground, swallowing. The slightest streak of hesitation ran through him, his inner voice telling him to stop and think...before he shook his head, snapping out of it and crushing it under his shoe. 

You let out a small gasp, swallowing your tears as you stared at his feet.

“I knew we’d be breaking up tonight. I just never thought it’d happen this way.” He whispered. He was glad for the rain right then, thankful that they were masking the tears running down his face. He hated the lies he’d just spewed. 

You paused, hiccuping as you felt fresh tears run down your cheeks. You were sure you looked like a raccoon, mascara dripping down your face.

“Minho...you were right. I’m the one who should apologize. I’m sorry.” You took a deep breath. “Sorry I ever fell in love with you.” You choked out, lips quivering as you watched his face slowly twisting with shock. You turned around, not wanting to see it anymore, walking away from him as fast as you could, your heart pounding and legs shaking.

Your dress was sticking to your body and your hair was plastered to your head. The cold rain was making you shake, wishing you’d brought a jacket. Your heart felt colder, though.

They say confessions in the rain are supposed to be romantic. This felt anything but.

***

You cried into your pillow once you reached home, feeling empty. You were a muddle of emotions, your entire body still wet from the rain. 

He didn’t even run after you. Didn’t even care.

Then again, what reason did you have to be angry? He wasn’t really your boyfriend. But...you also had to accept that he wasn’t your best friend anymore. It had come straight out of his mouth. 

Your best friend had disappeared a few years ago. The guy you lived with now wasn’t that Minho, wasn’t the Minho who gave you the necklace, the one who cared about you. He was different. Maybe he did belong with Rina.

At least, did this mean that Rina wasn’t pissed at him anymore? You were glad that he wouldn’t have to go to jail, at least. You didn’t hate him that much...no, quite the opposite. You still fucking loved him. And you hated yourself for that.

By the time you felt the drowsiness settle in, the sun rays were already poking through the curtains.

***

Minho felt like he’d just been struck with a hammer. The sound of thunder was all he could hear apart from your words repeating themselves over and over in his head.

You fell in love with him.

When? How? Why?

He couldn’t comprehend it. He’d watched dumbly as you left, even after you became a dot in the distance. It had felt like he was rooted to the spot, his legs having lost the ability to walk and his brain, the ability to think.

He ran his fingers through his wet hair as it slowly dawned on him. The realization that he hadn’t been alone in pining for his best friend, that you’d also been going through the same thing as him. You were in love with him…

He let out a shaky sob as he realized just how badly he’d fucked up.

***

The sound of the doorbell ringing woke you up. It was still pretty early in the morning, and you groaned as you dragged yourself out of bed, having had only 3 hours of sleep.

You hated your heart for hoping it was Minho, coming to apologize…even though you knew an apology wouldn’t be enough for you to forgive him. It was hard…but you had to stay away from him. You needed space, time to think. Seeing his face so soon would be too raw to handle. You’d forgive him immediately, even if he said nothing. And he didn’t deserve to be forgiven.

It still disappointed you when you opened the door to see Juyeon standing there with his hands in his pockets.

“What are you doing here?”

He pressed his lips into a thin line. “I just…wanted to say I’m sorry. And after what happened, I wanted to comfort you.”

You nodded expressionlessly, trying not to show how broken you were. You wanted to be strong.

He tilted his head, and the look of sympathy on his face made you want to cry even more.

“Can I…come in?”

When you remained silent, he quickly cleared his throat. “I mean…I just want to explain.”

You thought for a moment and shrugged, stepping aside as you went back in, sitting on the couch. He came inside, hesitantly sitting next to you.

“Look…I have a few things to admit. First off…I like you.”

Your eyes widened. Yeah, he flirted with you…but you didn’t know he actually had feelings.

“Rina-“

He shook his head, interrupting you.

“Rina and I aren’t together. We’re literally cousins. Everyone on campus knows that.”

You wrinkled your nose. They were? “Um, ew. Then why did-“

”She doesn’t talk to me much. Just a week ago, she approached me telling me about the whole situation, about Minho running away and humiliating her. I’d already kind of heard about it, but the way she was talking about it painted him in a much more vindictive light, you know? And then she told me about how she thought that maybe you two were faking your relationship. Which I found pretty absurd at first, but I quickly realized it could be the truth.”

He took a deep breath, glancing at you to make sure you were still listening before looking back at his hands, folded in his lap.

“She knew I had a tiny crush on you. So, she made me help her carry out her plan to get you two to break up, saying that she’d be able to get you to like me.”

He looked up at you, his eyes sad. “It was wrong of me to help her. She’s just deranged and obsessed with her ‘reputation’. I understand if you never want anything to do with me ever again. I just have one question.”

He looked at you, asking for permission. You nodded, signaling him to go ahead.

“Do you actually like him? Like, as more than a best friend?”

You paused, trying not to let the tears spill as you nodded. He sucked in a sharp breath, nodding with his lips tightly pressed together.

“Oh.”

You rubbed at your eyes, turning to face him completely. “Look, Juyeon…what you two did was pretty messed up. I never thought one person could be so petty to the extent of wanting to send someone to jail just because they refused to have sex with them, but here we are. A series of mistakes and misunderstandings are what got us here…but, whatever.” You scoffed.

“I’m sick and tired of all this. I don’t like Minho anymore.” Lie. “It isn’t just this situation that changed my mind…Minho changed way before Rina stepped into the scene. And..I think this was just a wake up call, letting me know that he’s no longer the person I thought he was.”

Juyeon took your hand, holding it gently. “You…you deserve better.”

You shrugged again, avoiding eye contact. There was silence for a few minutes.

 “Y/n…?”

“Hm?”

“Give me just one chance, please? A chance to show you I can make you happy?” He asked, biting his lip as he looked at you hopefully.

You paused as you observed his face. Juyeon was…actually quite good looking. And besides assisting Rina in her shenanigans, he seemed to be a genuinely nice guy. He’d always been kind to you. Your mind was screaming at you, telling you this was a bad idea…that you didn’t have feelings for him, that you were still not over Minho...but the word already came out of your mouth before you could stop it.

“Okay.” You squeezed his hand.

***

Minho woke up with a yawn. The first thing he noticed was how the bed he was in definitely wasn’t his. He was used to this kind of situation, but usually there’d be a naked girl sleeping next to him. This time, though, the bed was empty.

He got out of bed, heading for the door and seeing Chan sat at the breakfast table.

“Oh, good. You’re up. Breakfast?”

He shook his head, groaning as last night’s memories came flooding back. Your disturbed expression when you caught him with Rina, your tears as you confessed, the broken necklace.

He’d picked it up after you left. It was ruined, the little diamonds chipped and the clef cracked. He’d put it in his pocket, going to his car and driving straight to Chan’s. After what you’d said, he’d thought it would be better to give you some space.

“How long will you be staying here?”

“A while. I just don’t think I can face her again after yesterday.” He mumbled.

Chan nodded understandingly. The first thing Minho had done when he reached Chan’s place was cry, telling him the whole story from beginning to end. He’d felt slightly better after letting it all out.

“You know, you should get your clothes. I don’t have enough spare ones.” He chuckled, turning to look back at his plate.

“Oh fuck..I don’t think I wanna see her again so soon…”

“Just for a few minutes. You need your stuff after all.”

“I can’t just talk to her so soon! How can I act nonchalant and aloof when she confessed to me the other night? When we both hurt each other?”

Chan shrugged. “Hmm, you’re right. Fine, then. I’ll go get your stuff, and also inform her that you’re going to be staying with me for a while. Okay?”

“Okay.”

***

Chan made his way out of his car and to your apartment. He knocked on the door, waiting as he whistled a tune under his breath.

The door opened.

“Oh, hey, Chan. What are you doing here?”

Chan frowned as he stared at Juyeon, looking him up and down.

“Um..I could ask you the same thing.” He thought about how Minho had told him about what he’d seen on the couch.

Juyeon shrugged. “Long story. Y/n?” The man turned around, calling out for you. A few minutes later, you appeared beside him, and he put his arm around your waist. 

“Oh, hi, Chan!”

“Hi, Y/n.” Chan spoke slowly. “Um…Minho was wondering if he could get some of his stuff.”

“Why? Is he going to be staying at yours?”

“Mhmm. For a while.”

You shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Wait here.”

As you left, Chan turned to Juyeon with a glare. “What the fuck is going on between you two?”

“What do you think? We’re together now…sort of.”

Chan’s eyes widened. “B-but…”

“But what? I’ve always liked her.”

“Minho likes her too, you know.”

Juyeon stopped, raising an eyebrow. “He does?”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, it sure doesn’t look like it. I don’t care if he has feelings for her. All I know is that I could treat her better than he ever could.”

You came back, handing Chan the bags with a smile on your face. Chan returned your smile. “Thank you, Y/n. Have a nice day.” He glanced beside you. “Juyeon.”

“Wait, Chan…tell Minho I said Hi.” You said slowly, playing with your fingers as you felt your tension grow.

Chan paused, nodding with a fake smile as he went back to his car, his mind swimming with thoughts.

How would Minho react when he tells him this? He had a hunch that it would not be pretty.

[illfoandillfie]

Welcome Home

Pairing: Roger Taylor x Fem!Reader

Summery: Roger’s delayed getting home from tour.

Warnings: SMUT (18+),but it’s like light smut lmao,cock warming,morning sex,just like some fluffy bullshit really

Words: 2326

A/N: Been a lil minute since I wrote Rog and I kinda missed him. this idea came to me last week and wouldn't leave me alone lmao

Taglist: @laedymoon​ @dtfrogertaylor​ @vee-ndetta​ @atomic-watermelon​ @kellypenac​ @labessieisallama​ @deakyclicks​ @jennyggggrrr​ @drowseoftaylor​ @hannafuckingsucks​ @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming​ @queenmylovely​ @supersonicfreddie​ @taron-egrotten @johndeaconshands​ @borhapbois​

It had been a couple of months since you’d seen Roger face to face. The biggest downside of dating a rock star was dealing with his absence. Everyone seemed insistent on dragging him away from you, often to the other side of the world. You took comfort knowing he missed you as much as you missed him, and that he was leaving you to live out his lifelong dream. What could be more important than that? When he was away, he called frequently to check in with you. You’d laugh about whatever drama he’d had to endure during rehearsal (though privately you were sure he exaggerated) and then you’d tell him all about what he was missing back home. But the further into the tour he got, the more the calls changed. Gone were the long conversations that unpacked every minute aspect of your day. They were replaced with long conversations that answered the question how was your day? in the first five minutes and dedicated the rest of the time to talk of possible ways to celebrate his eventual return, growing steadily filthier. The problem was that, having moved in together, you’d become accustomed to a certain amount of physical intimacy that you just weren’t getting without Roger there. You missed being able to startle him by laying ice cold hands against the back of his neck, missed cuddling up with him on the couch. You even missed the way he’d pinch your bum as he hugged you, laughing when you squealed in response and batted his chest with your palm. Of course, you missed the sex too. He’d always claimed to be a good lay and, so far, he hadn’t disappointed you. It wasn’t always easy to unwind after a long or hard day of work without being able to grab Roger by the hand and pull him into the bedroom for a few hours, and sometimes the forced abstinence just added to any tensions or stresses you were already dealing with. Plus it was nice to have someone you enjoyed having sex with, who liked making you feel good, and it kind of just sucked to lose that. So being stuck with nothing but your imagination soon had you desperate for Roger’s return and he seemed to feel the same. By the end of the tour you’d abandoned all pretence and we just having straight up phone sex every other night, Roger locked away in his hotel room, you wherever you’d happened to pick up the phone – bedroom or kitchen or lounge room, it didn’t matter.

There was some mild embarrassment at the thought of what may be said of you if anyone were to overhear. Things mentioned in the heat of the moment often seemed silly after you’d hung up, the fog of needy lust subsiding. But while you were on the phone you couldn’t care less who heard what, as long as Roger was there, listening to you, describing his own ideas in response. It was good that Roger had just as large a disregard for anyone else’s ears as you because you were sure one of the boys would be in the room next to his, probably able to hear everything he said. Perhaps if they’d been able to hear your voice, your moans, you would have been more concerned, but you were alone on your end of the line, free to be as loud as you liked. And when you were lying in bed, one hand shoved down the front of your pants, listening to Roger describe how he wanted to fuck you, loud is exactly what you were. The hand that wasn’t pressed to your clit held the phone held tight to your ear, as if loosening your grip would shake you loose from Roger himself.

“Christ I miss your cunt,” he groaned down the line, the sound of his hand sliding over his dick audible beneath his words, “tell me you miss my cock,”

“God yes Rog,” you whined, a little startled by just how much you meant it. “Miss how you fuck me. My fingers are fucking shit compared to the way it feels when you fill me,”

“Shit, love. The second I see you I’m going to slide into your pussy and just stay there for as long as I can.”

“I’ll squeeze down on you,” you warned, not in the mood to think about being full and unfucked.

“Good. I’ll cum in you and then stay there until you’re squirming and begging and I’m hard enough to pound you. Fuck you so loud the neighbours complain. Might even keep myself stuffed inside you until I can start round three.”

“Jesus Rog,”

“You like the sound of that? Being my own personal cock sleeve?”

“Mmhmm, so much. You could live in me. Just stay inside me forever, fucking me and pumping me full of cum over and over.”

“Fuck. I can hear how wet you are.”

So it usually went, or something similar.

But, unfortunately, your most recent phone call was nowhere near as fun. Roger had meant to be home by six. You’d been excited and spent the afternoon getting things ready. A nice hot bath with your favourite scents, fresh sheets for you to ruin the minute he walked in the door, a bottle of wine for afterwards. It would pair nicely with the steaks and sides you’d prepped – all easy and fast to cook as soon as you’d recovered enough. You even put on some of your nicest underwear. Not your fanciest lingerie because it was likely to be torn in his haste to undress you, but it was a matching set and one you knew he liked. But six o’clock came and went and he didn’t walk in the door. Enough time passed that you’d gotten cold waiting in just your undies, so you’d thrown a robe over the top and settled in front of the TV under a blanket. But it was hard to relax when you didn’t know where Roger was or why he hadn’t come home when he said he would. After a few more hours the phone rang and you raced to it, slightly worried you were about to hear something devastating. You sighed in relief at the sound of Roger’s voice but he didn’t have much time to chat. He rushed out an explanation for his being late – something about a weather delay and missing luggage – and then hung up again. A little upset at having to wait even longer to see him, and that your night had been ruined, you fixed yourself a quick dinner, leaving the steaks for the next day instead. You didn’t change though, just in case, your head flicking towards the front door at every little sound. It was late when you finally decided to call it a night, stumbling up to your room, not even bothering to change into pyjamas before you slipped under the covers.

The next thing you knew was being woken by someone climbing into bed next to you, the chill of his fingers making you shiver as he brushed hair off your face. You cracked an eye open, but the sun hadn’t risen and it was hard to see more than a vague outline, Roger’s quick apology for waking you confirmation of who he was. He felt you move to try and get a better look and softly told you to go back to sleep. Instead you waited for him to finish undressing and then shuffled closer, reaching out for him. He let you wrap your arms around him, repaid you with a soft kiss.

“You’re home,” you mumbled, not fully awake.

“Finally. Sorry I’m late,” his voice was low and rough and comforting to hear, right beside your ear, undistorted by connection issues and distance, “Fucking terrible night. But I’m glad to see you again.”

“Not quite the welcome I’d planned,” you said through a yawn.

He laughed softly and kissed the tip of your nose, “Me neither.”

“I got all dressed up and everything,”

Roger raised the blankets into the air, peaking under, trying to see what you meant, letting out a low whistle and a “now I really wish I’d been here sooner,” though you weren’t convinced he could actually see the set through the grey black of the early hour.

You laughed sleepily and raised a hand to stroke his cheek as he fell back to the pillow.

“I was thinking about you the whole way home,” he broke off to yawn, “Had to have a quick wank halfway across the Atlantic,” he yawned again and let his eyes shut for a moment, blinking them back open to look at you with a hint of his cheeky grin.

“Remember when you said you’d fuck me as soon as you saw me,”

“Not sure I have the energy for that. Don’t think you do either.”

You hummed in agreement, the sandman tugging at the corners of your brain, but there was another idea there too. Something more insistent. You tightened your grip on Roger, adjusted yourself to be more comfortable, pulled his head closer to the crook of your neck, able to feel his warm breath on your bare skin. “Kinda want you inside me anyway, Rog.”

“Really?”

The more you thought about it the more you wanted it. You’d missed his presence in the house, the smell of his shampoo and his cigarettes and his aftershave all mixed together, the way his laugh could fill a room, how it felt to sit in the backyard on a warm day and listen to him plucking at one of his guitars, the way he smiled when he said he loved you. And now that he was back all you wanted was to keep him close, listen to his every breath, feel his hair tickling your neck, the scratch of his stubble before he shaved, his warmth seeping into your skin. Just lying beside him wasn’t enough. You wanted to drown in him, completely and utterly surround yourself in him. But that was too hard to explain so early in the day, when you’d had only a couple hours sleep and he seemed to be running on even less. So you replied with a short, “Mmhmm,” lilting upward, and dropped your lips to the top of his head.

“You sure?” his question was an exhale against your throat, fingertips dancing closer to the waistband of your knickers.

“Positive. Just for a bit, please,”

He stifled another yawn as he pushed your underwear down, letting you kick them off one foot as he got rid of his own. There was a pause as he ran his hand along his length in long lazy strokes, a needy whine caught on the tip of your tongue as you waited. But it died there, replaced by a gasp as he pulled your leg over him and slowly sunk into you. Your fingers tightened where they lay and you felt his groan as vibrations against your throat as he filled you inch by inch.

“You okay?”

“Perfect,” you whispered back, “Welcome home.”

Roger hummed and breathed deep, taking a moment to wiggle into a slightly more comfortable position, hitching your leg up a little higher, tilting your head down so he could find your lips again. You saw his eyes flutter shut as he relaxed into the pillows, content to just stay like that until he could summon the energy to do more. You let your own eyes shut too, relishing the way it felt to be stretched around him, listening to his breaths slowing down and evening out.  

It was Roger’s groan that made you stir. An almost desperate sound, though he tried to keep it quiet. Slowly you blinked your eyes open, trying to tell whether Roger was awake yet too, or whether the noise was made in his sleep. You could see him clearer now, the bags under his eyes, the ruffled unkempt look of his hair. Your leg was still slung over him, slipped a little from where he’d placed it, and without thinking you made to move it back. Roger groaned again as a small gasp left you, the full memory of what had happened the previous night returning to you. It was weird, waking up so full, but not unpleasant.

“Y/N,” he sighed, “you up?”

“Mmhmm,”

“Love, do that again and we’re going to have a mess to clean up,” he warned, softly.

“How long you been awake?”

“Not long. But you’ve been clenching around me a bit in your sleep and I’m so close.” The last two words were almost pained and you briefly considered moving, letting Roger go so he could calm down sufficiently. But you were comfortable and happy wrapped around him and the memory of your phone calls nagged at the back of your mind, “You can let go,”

“What?”

“I’m… what’d you call me…your personal cock sleeve? So let go,”

Roger stared at you, eyes wide though still tired looking, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard. But, when you didn’t take it back he leaned in to kiss you, rocking his hips against you slowly, letting out a low noise as you felt him empty inside you. You kissed him in return, stroked his cheek as he calmed down. Just for a moment you let your eyes slip shut again, basking in the feeling of it all. When you looked back at Roger he was still staring.

“I love you,”

“Good, I don’t plan on letting you leave this bed much today,”

“Sounds good to me,” he laughed softly, following it with a hiss when you intentionally clenched on his sensitive dick again, “wait, wait love, give me like another minute.”

You apologised and settled for another kiss instead, leaving a few extra along his jaw until he was able to make good on his earlier promises.

[thefrostedfeather52]

incorrect bapo quotes (part 4)

link to the generator: https://incorrect-quotes-generator.neocities.org/

*Peter's helping Jason out after they get injured, while the others are watching* Nadia: How does Jason look? Ivy: A little better than you, actually.

Lucas: Self care is actually getting into fights with randoms in dark alleys. Matt: No, self care is stuff like taking a bubble bath, or putting on a lot of makeup if you like it, or taking a nice warm nap! Nadia: Self care is the burning heat when rage washes over you!! Self care is when you feel the bones crack under your powerful fists!! Self care is the fear in your enemies’ eyes!!! Peter: Lmao self care is taking your birthday cake just so I can eat the frosting. Ivy: If you touch my birthday cake I’ll make you eat your hands.

Peter, Jason, and Nadia are sitting on a bench Ivy: Why do you guys look so sad? Peter: Sit down with us so we can tell you. *Ivy sits down* Jason: The bench is freshly painted.

Peter: You lying, cheating, piece of shit! Jason: Oh yeah? You’re the idiot who thinks you can get away with everything you do. WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD Peter: I’m leaving you, and I’M TAKING NADIA WITH ME Ivy, picking up the monopoly board: I think we’re gonna stop playing now.

Peter: If you had to choose between Ivy and all the money I have in my wallet, which would you choose? Nadia: That depends, how much money are we taking about? Ivy: Nadia! Peter: 63 cents. Nadia: I'll take the money. Ivy: NADIA!!!

Ivy: WHY. why did you give Nadia a KNIFE?! Jason: I’m sorry. She said she felt unsafe. Ivy: Now I feel unsafe! Jason: I’m sorry. Jason: ...would you like a knife?

Jason: HELP! I TOLD PETER I’D COOK DINNER TONIGHT BUT I CAN’T COOK! Lucas, pouring milk directly into the cereal bag: And you thought I could help?

Peter: Nadia, keep an eye on Ivy today. She’s going to say something to the wrong person and get punched. Nadia: Sure, I’d love to see Ivy get punched. Peter: Try again. Nadia, sighing: I will stop Ivy from getting punched.

Peter, texting Jason: Jason! Help I’m being kidnapped Jason: Where are you? Peter: I’m with some strange person. In a car. Help. Jason: I’ll call Nadia. Nadia, answering her cell: Y’ello? Jason: Where’s Peter? He texted me that he was being kidnapped. Nadia: Peter? Whaddya mean, he’s right next to me- Nadia: Nadia: I’ll call you back. *hangs up* Nadia: THE NEW HAIRCUT ISN’T THAT BAD! Peter: WHO ARE YOU?!

Peter: You have to apologize to Ivy Nadia: Fine. Nadia: 'Unfuck you' or whatever.

Peter: What if I press the brake and gas at the same time? Lucas: The car takes a screenshot. Nadia: For the last time, get the fuck out.

Peter: Let me show you a picture from last night that really upset me Jason: Okay, but in my defence, Nadia bet me 50 cents I couldn’t drink all that shampoo. Peter: That’s not what I wanted to- you drank SHAMPOO?!

Peter: I love you guys, you're the best thing that's happened to me. Jason: We're the best thing that's ever happened to you? Peter: Yes! Nadia: I'm starting to feel a little sorry for you.

Peter: Treat spiders the way you want to be treated. Jason: Killed without hesitation. Peter: No.

Peter, talking to Jason on the phone: Did you preheat the oven like I told you to? Jason: You bet! Peter: At what temperature? Jason: 535. Peter: That's the clock. Jason: Peter: Jason: 536.

[kaplanwrites]

02.7.Other Side.

sound: The other side by UNKLE, Tom Smith

***

Kon knows when he fucked up this relationship (started to fuck it up more and more). 

He supposes, he also knows why he did this - as an unconscious protest to the unfairness of life, of the circumstances. To Tim’s decisions. 

Mostly out of his own frustration to being unable to protest the pound of a replacement Tim made all for himself, but who somehow became an anchor for the both of them(the sum of them). 

(Somehow on the shitty end of his mulish egoism, as always, Tim ended up being.  )

Jeez, is he an asshole.

It’s no wonder that as he earnestly tries to make this pretend-family real, more than simply real: strong, lasting. Romantic. (oh God he’s so fucked. Everything he fucked, in the end, is just himself over). Tim is being difficult. 

The kid is in the heart of it, but it is not about him, right now it’s about Tim and making Tim understand how he is making Kon feel.

Frustrated. Angry. Miserable.

Fucked.

Tired and sorry, and stuck in front of the wall that Tim’s self-loathing is. (“Self”, though? Tim was never the one to doubt himself, he's the most driven and sure person Kon knows. So is it just, “loathing”? Is it “Kon-loathing”?)

(But then again, Tim was confident. He also was cheeky, and an ass, and Kon’s best friend and confidant, and now he’s… kinda pushed a stop button on all of those things).

It’s like they coexist simultaneously in the same and parallel place together, it’s like Tim can hear him only if making a conscious effort (which he is not always trying to make. Or, to be fair, has time to).

See, Kon understands that things should be unfucked, and then they start to fuck. It also happens unconsciously (for him at least, but, he thought that they started to fuck to make it all better, but all they achieved - is fucking it up better). For all that he wants Tim to open up, he doesn’t really want to know why he did it. His peaceful rest lays on trusting Tim not to have a malicious cause for it. 

For the first month, Kon thinks this arrangement to be blissfully awesome, then entertaining and convenient. As he starts to stay in Tim’s bedroom for nights, he starts to see cracks in Tim’s facade.

(He knows, that when he’s not contemplating Tim’s disassembly drilling metaphorical  (and wanting to blast very real ones so badly) holes in the ceiling, he is being watched. He also knows it’s the only time Tim looks at him directly now (after they started to fuck(this up)).

He wants to feel loved again like he was - for years now, he realizes, and isn’t it an asshole thing to wish? The worth in the want, isn’t it?

 This whole cohabitation started off as weird, but now they push to unhealthy. Then again, he suspects, maybe “fuckbuddy relationships with your best friend who nursed your child to life while you were dead” have very shaky foundations for “normal”.

Also, he’d never was able to do fuck all to shift Tim from his path, but together, oh, they’ve always been synergetic. Hence, fuck-up of cosmic proportions. Fast. Brutal.

He dreams of his cheeky snobby overthinking Robin.

He lies in bed and thinks about tearing the gorgeous sharp man lying next to him apart and finding his old chum wonderboy inside. Cradling him to the chest and reassuring that everything will be back to normal. Eventually. Sometime later.

(sometimes he resorts to pushing his forehead into Tim’s jaw, putting a tentative hand on his shoulder) (sometimes Tim doesn’t pull back)

Sometimes he thinks that if they’ve started to fuck back in Metropolis, it wouldn’t be that much of an issue right now. At all. This whole…

Then again, Kon doesn’t think Tim is that shallow of a person to think that Kon will chase the first convenient skirt when Kon will get bored with him.

Then again, Kon didn’t think that he will be that shallow of a person to treat this whole… this. As friends with benefits.

(With the benefit of doubt size of Manhattan.)

He tries to speak, but every time he opens his mouth, he finds words… lacking.

(‘Hey man. Back a couple of months ago, when we fought about your fuckbuddy who wasn’t me? Remember that? So I’ve figured it wasn’t that I was just horny, I was really jealous of this dude. Weird, huh?)

Sometimes (when they’re angry) it’s for the best.

The Kid awful lots of time was more about words than deeds, now Kon mostly resorts just giving everything Tim needs.

If that needs to be spreading out on top of still hot bike, balanced only by Tim’s hand in his hair and spared scraps of TTK, well, it’s worth it.

(For all it looks like Tim punishes him for being careless, his second hand strokes Kon’s outstretched thigh, soothingly, and Kon lets go. Lets them both feel it).

---

Kon keeps his stretched and primed canvases on the wall next to the windows in his room; white and greyish rectangles hanging on nails in odd angles form unsettling ghost gallery around the window frame.

Tim usually doesn’t spare much thought to them, but faint acrylic smell wafts from the open window, and it catches his attention.

There are no new paintings in the room. The easel stands empty, all pots seem to be shut. 

Tim smells paint as he looks for a new brush on shelves; smells it as he turns to leave after he finds one that will tech cleaning job done. Stops.

He stares at empty queen-sized mattress negligently pushed towards the wall, to make more space in the centre of the room. It stands right in front of the door uncovered - Kon was gathering laundry a couple of days ago. It makes the bed look barren and unnecessary. There’s an empty shopper bag with receipts for paints and condoms on it, the latest lie now in his nightstand. Tim chews on his lips.  

The smell itself is nothing of a notice: it could be any of the rags thrown around the room, but something tugs on Tim’s mind, brings him to the windowsill.

There’s that one canvas peculiarly hanged near ceiling facing away from the room, obviously darker than others. It would be a hard job to put it this way if you don’t have a TTK, Tim guesses.

He contemplates how exactly hard it could be to get it down and back up again.

He wants to think that he didn’t mean to climb the windowsill.

He takes first look on the painting as he grabs it from the hook, and almost flops down to the sill from his precarious position hanging from the window frame.

Tim is fascinated by the vividness of the painting: maroon backdrop seamlessly merges with shadows around the sole figure on painting creating vertigo of strokes and dots,  almost like the bird-eye view of a night city.  

Startled,  Tim recognizes himself on painting,  bare-chested and barefaced,  but very unmistakably Red Robin.

Man on painting poised over the viewer reaching over the upper right side of the canvas, eyes either hooded in bliss or slit in anger,  with multicoloured strokes proclaiming sweat over his chest.

He remembers a red streak of blood on his cheek,  remembers the anger and anguish of the night Kon was knocked out on a team-up with JL Dark. Remembers vindictive way he fucked into pliant body splayed on his bike,  barely into the garage after a long night. The way Kon’s dazed eyes never left his.

The way he later tugged both comforter and Tim over the spread of bed, murmuring ‘Cold’ into the back of Tim’s head. The way he felt (not normal. human. cool) on Tim’s back.

Tim figures that the voodoo sucked the sunlight charge out of Kon, and kicks him out of the bed first thing in the morning to park with Eli. He looks wrought and miserable leaving, but when hours later he returns, perked up and with two more kids in tow, Tim is relieved to learn that he was right.

He’s not particularly clingy that day, but he touches Tim more. A handclap on the shoulder. A brush of fingers as he passes Tim’s laptop charger. He goes to fly some more, leaving kids to distract Tim from work and destroy the living room.

During the dinner he pushes his bare feet under Tim’s, twine them together. Looks at Tim.

(he’s running a fever again, and Tim’s feet are cold. It is convenient (it is a relief)).

Smiles.

---

As Tim turns the light off in his office, he realizes that the cityscape outside his window looks almost like the background of that painting.

He’s already too late but really wants to take this photo now.

He finds the drone in the lowest drawer of Yves’ worktable, contemplates flying it through the labs to the roof. Nobody will bat an eye about it (it says something about his department, but he’s not sure what exactly). Thinks about the half-dead battery in the drone.

When it’s finally outside, paired with his cellphone and poised at the right side of the roof,  Tim activates it; lowers it down to the right floor,  makes a couple of sweeps to and fro until he sees himself through the drone's cam.

He toggles with controls a bit and pushes drone back and forth until he catches frame right and sees the reflection of city lights clearly behind the drone - in front of Tim.

Momentarily distracted by this dichotomy,  simultaneously seeing this landscape both in the window and mirrored on his cell’s screen.

He gets rid of the tie and opens the collar,  puts his right palm to the glass just over his right shoulder.

It's not right.

It’s too crystal, too precise, and although he likes that in his photographies, it’s not like that painting at all. He can see the drone in reflection,  for one,  and his face - tense and annoyed, for another.

Warning of low battery, peacefully blinking in the upper right corner turns angry red and the drone begins it's slow descend to fickle safety of the solid ground.

Tim pushes forward,  tries to catch a couple of shots more. Transfers everything drone shot to the cloud.

Pages security to retrieve the drone sometime during the night.

He swipes through photos in the elevator, and luckily finds what he looks for. There's one accidental shot where he's slightly off-centre, with tightly pinched eyebrow looking down to descending drone. His palm cut in half by the border of the frame, and the cityscape is a blur of lights, highlighting his face with a soft glow.

It’s perfect,  but he still tweaks a bit with colours. Deepening shadows, pulling contrasts. Making sloppy seem intentional.

His phone buzzes with an inquiry from Kon if he should tuck the kid in.

He sets home, sending a photo instead of an answer from the car.

***

Years later both painting and printed-out photo hangs in Kon’s studio in the new house.

flies drone

takes dozens of pictures

they’re pretty but not it

than battery dies and the drone takes last shot before descending down to its sure death

and the picture has blurred lights in the reflection, and Tim’s brow pinched in concern as he looks at descending drone

and it’s perfect

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

A day late, but ah well...

As usual, we’ll go ahead and do an Open Question Night. Which basically means that, while my ask box is always open, tonight I’ll be keeping an eye on it and answering things as they come in. Any fandom or work I’ve talked about here (or posted on AO3) is fair game, as are general questions about writing, etc. I do accept prompts, but I am. Not very good at filling them in a timely manner unless they Immediately spark something, lol.

So, yeah, what’s on your mind?

Also, since I don’t think I have for a couple months, plug for my Discord server! It’s pretty quiet, mostly intended to be a slightly more interactive extension of this space, but you’re welcome to check it out!

Anyway, the usual Coming Attractions details are behind the cut!

PodTogether 2021:

I participated in this challenge for the first time this year, and it was a whole lot of fun! Of Other Suns is a SW/AtLA crossover, and I think it turned out pretty well! My reader/podficcer and I worked pretty closely together during the initial brainstorming process, working out what we wanted to do, and also bounced off one another during the whole editing/finalizing process. There’s a lot that I didn’t end up putting into the fic (because time and length; I am a. Uh. Very wordy writer; the aim was for 6-12k words, we ended up with nearly 15k as it is...), so I might poke more at this specific AU, or crossovers linking up at a different time (either a different point in the SW canon, or in the AtLA canon, or both). I...definitely have extensive headcanons for SW characters as benders of various elements (or nonbenders), and there are at least two Force-sensitive AtLA characters who were outside the scope of the crossover.

Anyway, if you want to check it out...click this link XD (and definitely listen to the podfic too!!! It’s really great)

Precipice:

So, between the final push on PodTogether and some origfic stuff I got done, I...did not get anything finished and posted for this, alas. But! I am saying it here in the hopes that doing so publicly will for once get me to actually stick to a deadline, which is that I will get either the first Protectors chapter or the next Preludes one-shot (or both!) up by this Sunday, September 12. The Protectors chapter will be mostly scene-setting, establishing where various characters are when we open, six years after we last saw our heroes. The Preludes segment will involved Hondo contacting Obi-Wan (and Anakin, who’s with him when he gets the call) about something Relevant To Their Interests.

I will for sure get that Prelude out this month, and hopefully at least two Protectors chapters, but we’ll see how things go at work and how much brain that takes, which is always a factor...anyway, with any luck, I’ll start establishing a Rhythm. I don’t think I’ll be doing weekly updates, the way I did for the first few arcs of Precipice (in part because there are some other longform projects I intend to start putting out and if I am going to do Weekly Fic Posts, I’ll probably alternate), but we’ll see how things go.

AtLA Fic:

Again, I didn’t finish what I wanted to (other than the aforementioned crossover for PodTogether), but I have been working on stuff in the background and, while I’m not going to commit to a Specific Deadline like I am for Precipice, I do plan to post at least the opening chapter of the still-untitled Avatar Zuko AU I’ve been working on this month, so watch this space!

Other Fic Projects:

I’m poking around at what to do for next years SWBB (if only because my wordcounts have been Steadily Increasing and I’d like to get a head start in anticipation of that happening again this year, lol). Still considering exactly what to do, whether I pour all my focus into OFLAM, like I consider every year, or see if I can work up Bail Unfucks the Timeline or another half-plotted AU I have in the back of my head, or go with a different prompt/storyline that occurs to me at some point between now and then, but I’m starting to Actively Ponder things.

I do have that BSG1 crossover outline in the works, I swear XD I’ve got...uh...maybe half to two thirds of the first third of the overall storyline written up? XD It’s a. Uh. Long one. I might go ahead and release it in three parts, just for length/convenience, and because it does more or less have three distinct sections (the initial contact/New Caprica fallout and establishment of the Haven settlement which makes sense in context; the second contact/algae planet; and then an adventure on a resurrection ship to retrieve a Specific Boxed Five and possibly walk away with Ellen because that would just ruin Cavil’s day and I do so love to ruin Cavil’s day, lol). ...I’m going to go ahead and post a preview snippet at the bottom of this post, as Motivation XD

I think that’s all the fanfic stuff I have specific updates for. There’s generally always stuff noodling around in my brain (lately, for Star Wars, AtLA, BSG, or some combination of the three), it’s just how much of it materializes, lol.

At some point, I plan to revisit some BSG epics I had going on (Serenissima; rewriting For Sorrow Sung or doing a slightly different storlyine with the same concept; The Other Battlestar; a few others), but no concrete plans as of yet.

I also kind of want to explore a far-past AtLA setting I designed for a challenge community way back? But I’m not sure if that would work better as an original work with the serial numbers filed off, if I could figure out how I wanted to do that (I have done it before, as I’ll talk about below, but this concept, while not directly involving any characters from Avatar canon as it’s set 2000 years prior to Sozin’s reign, does to an extent lean on the Avatar specifically as a concept, in a way that the other fic I did this with did not).

Original Fic:

Due to a challenge on rainbowfic, I actually got. Quite a bit written? Most of it was not super plot-relevant, but I dropped some Hints about a character in Lux and I got to play in some heads I don’t very often. I might go back to the Regency AU at some point, and there’s a specific reveal I want to write up for a secondary character in The Farglass Cycle, but I haven’t quite figured out how to structure that one, so we’ll see how it goes.

Had an interesting discussion the other day about the way original fiction sometimes starts as fanfic with the serial  numbers filed off and...well, a lot of my original stuff starts that way? Or has some roots there, anyway.

Lux doesn’t quite as much, but I definitely ported in at least two characters who started as fanfic characters (leaving aside that this is, y’know, The Apocalypse IN SPACE so, like. Various fandoms that deal with that probably influenced things, plus several key players are Public Domain Characters sooooo), plus some of the way the world is constructed draws on the Native Tongue trilogy and I flat-out stole a concept from Queen of the Damned, though the way it works in this world is different (also, to be fair, I think I’ve seen it in other places, too; but I personally got the idea from there).

The Farglass Cycle and Untitled Intrigues Story, however, straight-up started as fanfic concepts. And I don’t think it’s obvious unless I point out what the source materials were? Farglass, in particular (it’s the AtLA fic I mentioned earlier), because it started as an alternate future and then the map and magic system got reworked, plus the Avatar themself wasn’t even super involved in the original fic context, and while certain characters are very loosely based on AtLA characters, by now they’ve been so altered by the setting that it’s...I used the same archetypes, if that makes sense?

And then Untitled Intrigues Story started as a fusion between two wildly different fandoms, and while one character is a pretty clear expy if you know where he comes from, and another character kept the same actress in my head, I don’t think it’s very clear other than that.

...anyway, not sure where I’m going with that, other than it’s been in my head lately, lol.

...I think that about covers it! What about you guys? What are you all working on? Slash any questions, etc.?

Teaser for BSG1 AU outline, as promised:

So, anyway, SG-1 is prepared for rain and mud and a survivable-but-kinda-unpleasant environment. They’re also prepared for the usual shenanigans--Goa’uld, cranky local politics, weird alien tech that Daniel really should know better than to touch but sends him into another dimension anyway...

Just. Y’know. A normal mission.

They’re...not quite prepared for what they actually find when they step through.

Which is a very tense and now slightly Confused crowd of people, and a firing squad made up of very large killer robots, with a teenage girl as their target.

(One of the large killer robots is. Uh. Well. Half a large killer robot now; that particular Centurion was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got kawooshed in the face. As one does.)

(Said Centurion absolutely wins the ‘Weirdest Death’ pool for the week in Download City, because that is clearly a thing that exists because it entertains me)

There’s a beat where everyone just stares at everyone else, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The wormhole disengages.

Daniel takes half a step forward, opens his mouth to start the ‘we are peaceful explorers from Earth and y’all seem to be having a Moment here, sorry for interrupting, but, uh...’

And then the moment end and absolute chaos erupts.