#imagine how many points you two could score together

[penance-pack]

It's always so bizarre to me when the Heat and the Suns play each other in the NBA.

From the Suns perspective, Heat is necessary to the core of your existence. You could no sooner separate yourself from Heat than you could Light. You are unbreakably tied and winning this war means losing so much of yourself you become unrecognizable.

And from the Heat perspective, all Heat is fleeting and meaningless if not for the Sun. This is a fight that if you win, amounts to your own death in a darkened ice age. A decisive victory would mean no more life, much less NBA games.

Yet, every year, twice a year (with a potential to be 9 times if they ever met in the finals), they continue to perpetuate this pointless war.

Don't even get me started on when the Wizards play the Magic.

[angel-of-the-moons]

Chocolates vs Aliens Pt. 2

Symbrock x Pregnant!Reader

TW/CW: NSFW, SMUT, PiV sex, unprotected sex, fluff, pregnancy, childbirth, anxiety, mentioned somnophilia (consented), lactation kink(?), oral sex (f! receiving)

MINORS DNI I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENT YOU CONSUME

Taglist: @yoink-a-doink @jayfall93 @being-worthy @theflamingraven

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Every day passed meant it was another day your baby girl grew, another kick, another day closer to being able to hold her in your arms and see her tiny face.

Of course, Eddie and Venom were excited, too. You guys moved fast, but everything came in stride, as if you were together for years. Despite the strange circumstances surrounding the three of you, you were content. Eddie and Venom treated the baby as if they fathered it, and you couldn't be happier. Even if you and Venom were in a constant battle for dominance when it came to chocolate. (Spoiler: you almost always won.)

You especially loved it when Venom cradled your belly. He did it at every available opportunity he could snag. Eddie meanwhile took care of a few more mundane things, splitting with Venom the duties of helping your changing body as your due date closed in on you.

Eddie would massage your feet and swollen ankles, while Venom's inky body would surround your midsection, taking the weight of the baby up off your hips, easing the strain on your back...

But your favorite day so far has to be today.

Because right now, you were currently watching Eddie and Venom snap at each other as they struggled to assemble the crib you ordered online.

No written directions were included, merely pictures of most of the crib already assembled; and the two already had to take it apart three times to start over.

"No, that part goes to that part and that one goes there!" Eddie snapped as the symbiote held a screwdriver and a piece of the railing in a long inky tendril.

Venom growled deeply, "WE ARE NEVER BUYING ANYTHING FROM IKEA EVER AGAIN!"

"No the fuck we are not." Eddie huffed. "We're better off buying furniture at a goddamn yard sale!"

You giggled from where you rocked on your reclining chair, your belly heavy and rounded out; effectively making you look like you swallowed a melon whole.

Eddie and Venom snap their heads to pout at you.

"What're you laughing at?" Eddie asked.

"Yeah, we'd like to see you try to put something like this together!" Venom snorted.

"Nah, I already have my hands full putting together something waaaay more intricate." You snort back, looking through the cozy baby clothes you'd bought yesterday.

New Years was approaching, and you knew full well you would be due around then, and your poor tiny baby would be absolutely freezing! So you took the preemptive and bought little newborn winter clothes for your girl, including a cute little fluffy teddy onesie with a hood that had cute little ears on it.

"Oh, yeah?" Venom asked, narrowing his eyes skeptically.

"Yep." You pat your tummy, and the skin shifts as a tiny foot kicks from within.

"...Okay yeah fair point." Eddie chuckled, shaking his head.

"Yeahhh, mommy wins again!" You grin, patting your belly once more, earning yet another eager kick as you imagine it to be a high-five.

"What, are you keeping score now?" Eddie sighs, pointing the screwdriver at you.

"Damn right I am." You grin. "Mommy points for the win!"

"And how many points do we have?" Venom inquired, tilting his head.

"Not enough to beat meeeee~"

Both of them snorted and shook their heads, before turning back to the task of assembling the frustrating crib that would soon, very soon, cradle your newborn daughter.

If Eddie or Venom ever put her down, that is.

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Christmas came and went in what felt like the blink of an eye. Your little celebration was small, and you even invited Mrs Chen over to join in on your festivities.

Which mostly consisted of pizza, a sandwich board, and chicken wings, plus a few homemade goodies that Ms Chen brought with her. Not the best meal idea, but it was a party, and damn those wings were good.

You and Venom even gifted Sonny and Cher a nice little seed treat you baked for them as a Christmas present for being "such good birdies".

Baking for chickens, now that was a first. But hearing their happy little clucks as Venom petted them and talked baby to them was absolutely adorable and worth the trouble. As were the large eggs afterwards!

Your mood swings had petered out about two or three months ago (you weren't sure, but Eddie insisted when you didn't break into tears watching a documentary about penguins) and unfortunately, well...

There are other symptoms of a pregnancy that you really thought you could stave off. You tried, you really did, but Venom having such heightened senses and being able to pick up on your scent and hormones? Oh, yeah. You were screwed.

Literally. In several different ways. You'd only had sex once or twice in a previous relationship, and with how disappointing that was, you definitely preferred to handle your urges yourself.

Where your ex-partner previously failed, Venom and Eddie were overachievers.

Taking great care with your belly and baby, they did whatever they could to ensure you were comfortable before making you so strung out your brain could barely form a coherent thought. Between Venom's tongue and Eddie's hands, you were a whimpering, trembling mess when the two would take you to bed.

Venom was especially ravenous in his sexual appetite. After learning more about sex and the pleasure it brought since bonding with Eddie... Where his host was a meal, you were a full-course desert that he would lose himself in.

Some nights, when he would climb through your window, he would immediately seek you out, drawn in by the lingering adrenaline from the hunt and the smell of you.

When you weren't moving about your apartment, Venom could find you in bed, sleeping fitfully. That was when he would crawl up under the blankets and find his way between your legs, not letting up until you woke up a panting mess.

Yeah, definitely the best way to be woken up, in your opinion. There were worse ways. Waaaay worse. Especially because your pregnancy-libido certainly wasn't complaining, the rush of endorphins afterwards would help outweigh the growing anxiety as the days passed.

Every day meant you were closer to your due date. Every day meant you were closer to experiencing possibly the worst pain you will ever feel in your life.

And there was the chance something could go wrong, that your baby could get stuck, or the umbilical cord could wrap around her, or she could be in a breech position...

You feel Eddie's hands gently encircle you, lazily draped over your shoulders as you sat in the shower chair, the warm water pattering over you two. It was New Year's Eve, and you two decided a calm, relaxing shower was a nice way to unwind before you poked your head out of your window to watch the fireworks people would inevitably launch to usher in the new year.

"Hey, sweets." He said to you softly, his thumbs brushing your collarbone softly. "We can feel your pulse jumping like crazy. You okay?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I just..." You sigh.

"Liar." Eddie chuckled, bringing his large hands to your shoulders to press his thumbs into your weak spots, making you shiver and drag out a soft noise from you.

"C'mon." He urged gently as he massaged you, sending delightful shivers down your back and to your toes and all the way back up again.

"You can tell us, sweets. You thinking about the delivery again?"

You deflate a little, the bliss of his skilled hands drifting away from your grasp as the weight of your baby's birth came back to your mind.

"...Yeah. I'm just... I'm so, so worried, Eddie." You say, feeling your lip begin to wobble.

"I've read so many horrible things online of how it could go wrong, and..."

Venom's head suddenly slinks around you until his strange body is stretched so he could look you in the eyes.

"But there's also good things." He rumbled. "You might have a quick birth, not having to go through it for hours or even days..."

"And hey, you might even be one of those ladies who sneezes and pop! The baby's out!" Eddie added in, making Venom groan.

You can help but chuckle at how absurd it sounded, and you knew Venom was inwardly cringing at such a naive suggestion.

"I doubt I'll be that lucky." You sigh, a smile finally gracing your soft lips.

"Hey! You never know!"

"Idiot." Venom huffed.

"Shithead." Eddie smirked.

You feel your anxieties settle a bit, at least for now.

Your hands trail over your belly, over the thin purple lines crossing your skin, your fingers gently caressing the rising and falling bumps as your baby shifted and rolled around inside your womb.

"...Willow." Venom suddenly said.

You and Eddie blinked and stared at him, brows raised and eyes large, a long silence filling the shower as the water ran over you.

"What?" You ask him.

"For a name. You're gonna be due any day now." He purred, leaning his face closer to your belly.

"Still haven't settled on one."

"Where did you hear that name, Vee?" Eddie asked, shock evident in his tone.

"In some TV show I flicked through when you two were asleep. I like it." He replied simply, pressing his muzzle to your belly, feeling the tiny feet and hands thrash out from within.

"Okay, as far as names go that's... actually a good one." Eddie murmured.

"...Willow." You repeat softly.

It was a beautiful name. And honestly... You liked it. You had yet to pick a name for yourself, indecision being your worst enemy your entire life made the process that much harder.

Picking a name was one of your fears, too. You wanted your daughter to have a wonderful one; one she could carry with pride, and the pressure you placed on yourself to pick the perfect one was what screwed you up on that.

But this name, the one Venom suggested felt... right.

"Yeah." You smile once again. "Yeah. Her name can be Willow."

Venom grinned a shark-like grin and nuzzled his face into your belly like a happy affectionate cat, purring like one, too.

"Well, I'm glad that's a weight off of you." Eddie chuckled, resuming his earlier massage into your shoulders, earning another blissful sigh from you.

Yeah... Things will work out. After all, as long as you had these two with you, you felt like you could handle anything.

You relaxed and leaned into Eddie's touch, a little whimper escaping you as his thumbs knead into a knot in your shoulders.

Venom grinned up at you, and you knew fell the glint in his eyes meant you were in trouble.

And you knew that Eddie had the same smirk.

"No point in hiding it, sweet thing." Venom growled lowly, his tongue laving out to taste the skin on your hip, tracing the stretch marks etched into your skin.

"We know what gets you going." Eddie said quietly, leaning in to whisper in your ear.

You shivered when Venom's tongue slithered lower, past the swell of your midsection and down to your twitching clit.

"It's n-not my fault..." You whined, your voice cut off by a breathy moan as you felt Venom's tongue squirm past your entrance and into your tight, gummy walls.

"Of course not." Eddie hummed, massaging your shoulders as you arched your spine as little as you could; Venom's inky body slinked around you, enveloping you and keeping you from slipping off the shower chair in the process while he proceeded to eat you out with voracious hunger.

Eddie hissed suddenly, his fingers halting in their ministrations to squeeze you softly.

"Eddie, what--" You panted.

But that's when you felt it. The water was getting cold.

"Maybe we should move this to the bed, hm?" Venom cackled.

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"Eddie, fuck..." You whimpered fingers gripping tight into your bedsheets as Eddie rutted his nose against your clit, his lips and tongue dancing through your soaked folds as his hands pawed at your hips, bringing you down closer every time you squirmed away.

As Eddie devoured you, part of Venom's mass was completely surrounding his cock, sucking and stroking in time with his tongue as it pushed and pulled against your weeping cunt.

It was too much, and not enough at the same time. As much as you wanted more, you also wanted to push him away because the sensations were beginning to become too much for you to handle.

Your eyes were rolled back into your head as you felt that blissful feeling begin roll into a roaring crescendo, threatening to overtake you and make your heart patter out of your lungs.

God, you wished your belly wasn't in the way so you could see what he looked like between your legs. One day, soon.

Or, well... At least once you were fully recovered after the birth. Which would probably be a while.

You were so lost in Eddie's mouth working you over that you didn't notice Venom leering at you, saliva dripping around his fangs as his eyes narrowed to barely-there slits, focused intently on your heaving breasts; both long since swollen and sensitive as your milk came in.

You certainly didn't notice the small beads of hazy white liquid beading up and threatening to roll down the soft mounds of flesh as your orgasm approached.

"Oh, fuck--" You gasped, weakly rolling your hips to meet Eddie's eager mouth.

For a split second, you hear Venom snarl softly, before all of a sudden his mouth was on you, latching onto your pebbled nipple, his tongue rolling and squeezing your breast to get out every drop of that sweet liquid he could.

"Fuck." Eddie groaned, pulling back to breathe heavily.

Venom made sure Eddie could taste your milk as he drank from you readily, the flavor coating his tongue and flooding his taste buds to combine with the sweet taste of your nectar that coated his face and chin.

It was an intoxicating combination.

Eddie's eyes rolled a bit as he dove back in, aggressively sucking and nipping at your clit, gently prodding your entrance with his fingers as Venom proceeded to try and drain your breasts of all their milk.

All at once, the combined feelings had your mind blacking out, every muscle tensing as you came; your teeth snagging your bottom lip between them and you made a loud moan, barely able to string their names out of your mouth as they helped you ride out your orgasm.

Eddie pulls his mouth away from you and rises to his knees while Venom pulls himself free (albeit reluctantly) of your breast, licking the stray rivulets of milk that had begun to run down the sides of your tits.

"So sweet, love." He purred, licking his chops. "But we need more."

Venom's head merged back into Eddie's body, his inky mass slinking down his arms until it was comfortably arching your hips and back off the bed while Eddie rutted his sensitive cock against your sensitive cunt, still fluttering and clenching around nothing as the remnants of your orgasm waned.

But every lazy stroke of his hips sent little bolts of lightning arcing through your nerves, stretching out the little aftershocks just a bit farther as he carefully slid his cock into your hungry cunt.

"Fucking tight." Eddie hissed through clenched teeth, his eyes pinching shut.

"Not gonna last long, sweets." He rasped.

Between Venom working his cock over and edging him while he ate you out, and how your silky wet heat enveloped him so wonderfully tight, he could already feel himself getting lost in your body.

"Eddie, please..." You keened, your fingers going to grip at his wrists, your nails digging into his skin with each plunge of his cock into your needy hole.

He was careful with you, trying not to jostle you (and the baby) too much as he fucked you.

You felt the pressure build up low in your belly once more, squeezing down and sending another tight feeling down your spine as you became hyper-aware of every vein in his cock as he glided in and out of your hole.

"Almost, baby, almost..." Eddie breathed, wriggling one of his wrists free so he could brace it in the pillow by your head to give himself a bit of leverage as he rocked his hips into yours.

He could feel his orgasm climbing fast; sweat dripping down his brow as your delicate hands slid over his shoulders. The way you bit your lip and locked eyes with him only drove him further into no man's land.

"Fuck." He moaned weakly, his pace stuttering and dragging out as he felt the first volley of cum shoot out of his sensitive tip.

He had enough control to pull out, rutting his hips over your belly as the rest of his cum shot over your swollen belly and twitching pussy, his cock once more rutting against you as he came hard.

Your teeth grit and your nails dug in as Eddie buried his face in the crook of your neck, panting hard into your damp skin as you feel a sensation you were almost familiar with burst low, a fresh burst of wetness gushing from you are the pressure on your lower spine builds and tingles.

"Oh, fuck." You swallow. "Eddie."

"Yeah?" He asks, pulling back to look down at you with an almost cocky smile on his face.

"I think my water broke."

He and Venom both immediately began to panic.

"WHAT?!"

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The scrambling to get to the hospital moved by you in a blur. One minute Eddie was hastily dressing you in one of your sundresses, slippers, and a pair of panties, the next you were carried like some sort of fairytale princess down to the car park.

Good luck getting an ambulance out to your place tonight...

Eddie and Venom bickered the whole time to your car, your hospital bag prepped and slung over Eddie's shoulder as he guided you down to your car.

They sat you in the passenger seat and helped you buckle in as the first set of contractions ripple through you. As the pain flashed, you couldn't help but be reminded by your earlier concerns.

You read that some women felt pain for days, or hours before their water broke. Why were you only feeling it now? Was that a bad thing? Was something wrong?

Fuck, you knew it would hurt, but... you weren't prepared for the sudden sharp stabbing. You expected it to start as a throb and build from there, not immediately start out like someone was hacking away at your lower half.

When you arrived at the hospital, Eddie had actually slipped and busted his ass on the freshly mopped floor in his haste to fetch you a wheelchair.

You would have laughed, if you hadn't been gripping the safety handle in the car, screaming as another sharp jolt stabbed through you.

A few nurses even chased him out, harping about how he could have a concussion from falling, but quieted when they saw what had him in such a frantic rush.

Your baby girl was coming, whether you were ready or not.

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It had been close to four hours, and you were almost ready to deliver; nearly fully dilated, as your obstetrician cheerfully announced, a smile so cheerful and calm you almost kicked her in the face.

She was less impressed with Eddie, however, as she pulled him out of the delivery room to talk.

"We'll be right back, luv." She assured you sweetly.

"Uh... Is--is everything okay? You were saying they were okay, and--" He blurted out nervously.

"No, no, she's fine." She assured him, pushing her glasses up her nose once more.

"Then what..."

"I couldn't help but notice how hesitant she was to tell me how she went into labor. But I have to know, did she fall? Injure her belly in any way?" She questions.

"No! No, god no." Eddie said, waving his hands and shaking his head. "Nothing like that!"

She crossed her arms and tapped her finger on her bicep, a thick brow quirking upwards on her freckled brow.

"...Were the two of you having sex?"

Fuck.

Shit.

Fuck fuck fuck.

FUCK.

"Uh... I, er..." Eddie put a hand on his hip and scratched the back of his head, casting a look into the room where you were read-faced and sweaty while the nurses wiped your face with a towel while your hands gripped the handles in the birthing chair you were seated in.

He blew a puff of air out of his cheeks.

God, he wanted to crawl into a hole and die. The embarrassment of the situation was too much for him, having this teeny tiny Irish woman stare him down.

"I'm not judging you." She says flatly, not letting him escape her microscopic gaze. "But I have to tell you that there is a reason we tell pregnant patients to avoid penetrative sex, or excessive sex this late into their third trimester. It can make them go into labor."

She clicked her tongue and sighed. "You're lucky that she was so close to her due date that the baby isn't in any real danger. But it was still reckless. Regardless if she consented or not, this sort of thing can be dangerous, you hear me?"

Eddie wilted, feeling very much like a puppy who got caught wee'ing on the carpet, shame and mortification filling every inch of his body. Even Venom felt this way, cringing internally at the truths the doctor spat at them as she gave her lecture.

Her rant was cut short when you made a sharp yelp, jerking and clutching at your belly and one of the nurses came rushing to the doorway.

"Doctor O'Halloran, she's ready. We can already feel the baby's head. Looks like this baby wants out now!" She said, absolutely calm and no concern in her voice. If anything, she sounded excited!

Eddie meanwhile was frantic as O'Halloran clicked her tongue again, checking her watch with an almost bored glance. "Huh. Look't that. Well! Let's get this baby out of her! Adjust the chair so she's a bit more comfortable."

She grinned at Eddie, "Well? C'mon, Papa! You better be in here to see your baby girl!"

He felt his heart surge and flop in his chest when she said that. It was finally settling in.

Papa.

Their baby. Their baby girl.

Eddie had scrambled to behind the chair, leaning forward to wrap his arms around you.

He was glad he had Venom to strengthen his body, because god, could he swear you had suddenly gained incredible super strength as you began to push, crying and screaming as your lungs were squeezed of air, the pain so blinding you had actually fainted for a few seconds, all while not losing your inhumanly tight grip on his hand.

You had shouted more obscenities than Eddie and Venom had ever heard you swear, in between crying and apologizing for saying them and fainting like a messed up cycle.

Doctor O'Halloran assured Eddie this was normal rather calmly as you came to yet again, just to cry and scream again as your body struggled to push the baby free of your birth canal.

The smell of blood immediately had Venom wanting to surge forth, despite knowing there was nothing he could do for you currently except support you from inside of Eddie as you endured the most painful struggle of your life and he bore witness to something he'd never seen with his own eyes.

The bringing of a life into the world.

It hurt the both of them, to see you hurting so badly as you strained to bring Willow out for the world to see. Thankfully, as Venom had hoped earlier in the night, your birth was going quickly.

Not painlessly, of course, oh no. Definitely not painless.

"The moment we get home, I'm bonding with her. I know I can do it." Venom whined within Eddie as you sobbed in pain. "I want to fix her. I don't want her to hurt anymore after this."

Eddie silently agreed, hoping you would consent to melding with the symbiote to heal the damages your body was going through to birth your baby.

They just wished that you didn't have--

All at once, your body went slack and your eyes shut, but before the boys could panic any further, a tiny, ear-piercing wail filled the room.

"A girl! A nice set of lungs on her!" O'Halloran laughed as she scooped up and handed the newborn off to the nurse. She knew that Eddie (and Venom of course) were too preoccupied between staring in awe at the squirming purple body the nurse held to focus on cutting the cord.

All they could think about was her.

She was here. In front of them. Finally.

Those tiny feet that kicked out at them all this time, the little head they could feel shift around in your belly...

The nurses adjusted the chair enough to allow you to lean back, and Eddie covered your face in kisses, waking you up again with a mad grin.

And, heaven fucking bless you; amazing, gorgeous, powerful you, you smiled back. A tired, watery smile as you cried in victory.

Giving birth and being birthed was the closest thing that someone could come to dying and still come out of it. Many were not so lucky, but they were glad you were among the majority that emerged from this bloody struggle with a smile on your face and mirth in your bloodshot eyes.

The nurses wiped your baby down a bit before pulling your gown down to place her squirming, hiccuping body onto your bare chest.

Your hands weakly went to cradle her warm body, kissing the top of her head where a patch of fuzzy hair was.

"Hey, sweetheart." You sniffled, whispering against the wet fuzz.

You could barely get words out as emotions surged out of you all at once, overwhelming your body and mind as you cradled your precious child.

Almost immediately as your voice washed over her, it was as if the angry baby instantly calmed. It was like your soft, happy sobs were a soothing balm to her squirming body.

Neither could tell who moved it first, but Eddie's hand went to cover yours, Willow looking positively teeny beneath his large hand, watching in awe as her tiny, fat little fingers clawed and groped at your chest.

The sounds of loud booms from outside filled your ears, making her jump and wail once more as you coo'd and murmured to your baby.

"Hey, Eddie?" You sniffled, looking up at him.

"Y... Yeah?" Eddie asked, his throat tight as tears began to build at the corners of his eyes.

You tipped your head and kissed his jaw, weak and tired.

"Happy new year."

You were only faintly aware of the nurses cheering; both the healthy baby you birthed and in celebration of the new year ahead of you.

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They kept you at the hospital for another two days after you gave birth. After passing the placenta and remaining viscera of the birth, your body felt like literal tons of strain had been lifted from you.

And of course you, at the same time, felt like you had been tackled unprotected by a professional linebacker.

So, of course as soon as Venom offered to ease your comfort and repair the damage you agreed. It would certainly save on the recovery time. Sure, it would be hard to explain during your next checkup, but you'd cross that bridge when you got to it.

Ms Chen had gone to the hospital, as she was practically the closest thing either of you had to a mother and she wanted to see the baby. She carried an armload of supplies with her, too. Including some kinda balm that frankly stunk of something akin to menthol, but whatever it did, it certainly eased the pain on your poor nethers.

And of course, she gave a shit-eating grin when you named her honorary grandma.

Even Eddie's ex, Anne, came with her fiancee to congratulate him and coo over the adorable little bundle he so proudly cradled in his strong arms.

He certainly had nurses swooning, but you knew their eyes were only for you. Especially after he cried some more when you wanted his name on her birth certificate.

Right now, you watched as Willow suckled on her cute pink pacifier that Anne had slipped down to the gift shop to buy while they were at the hospital.

She was dressed in a soft two-piece to ensure the remnants of the umbilical cord weren't too aggravated, her cute little face pinched as she grunted in her sleep, exhausted from feeding and content as you carefully swaddled her.

Eddie came up behind you as Venom's head emerged from his body, all three of you looking down as your newborn dreamt whatever dreams babies had. Probably about her next feeding time.

"She's so fucking cute." Eddie sighed dreamily.

"I know! And she's so chunky." You giggle. "I had a real meatball of a baby. No wonder I was so big."

"Nah, you're beautiful." Eddie chuckled, kissing the skin of your shoulder that had been exposed by your oversized T-shirt. One of his, for sure, but he didn't mind.

Venom purred in a near-silent content, before turning to look at Eddie with a shark-like grin, sending a thought telepathically for only him to hear.

The thought made Eddie choke and start to laugh as he buried his face in the crook of your neck.

"What? What's so funny, you ginormous dorks?" You snicker.

"Ah. Eh..." Eddie said, grinning widely. "...Vee says he calls dibs on the next one."

"Next one..?" You say, your brows furrowing.

"Yeah... the next one. He wants to be the one to knock you up next time."

"Oh, my god!" You gasped, spinning around to slap at Eddie's shoulder while he and Venom laughed. "You two are horrible! Have mercy on my poor body!"

Venom leaned in, nuzzling the pulse in your neck.

"We didn't hear a no..."

[putellasawfc]

wrong hands !

mary earps x lioness!reader

(tw: this fic contains mentions of sexual assault, i promise it’s not anything too heavy but it is still there so please don’t read if this topic is triggering for you).

-

you rubbed your hands together in an attempt to accumulate some heat in your palms, hoping that in return the warmth would spread to the rest of your body and bring you some comfort from the freezing temperatures you had been stuck in for the past ninety-six minutes. albeit you had been playing in a very important game with your national team, so the chilly weather had been just a mere thought in the back of your mind whilst you focused on scoring goals with the help of your girls, but now that it was over, it was as if it was hitting you all at once.

you had finished hugging and shaking hands with the opposite team, sharing kind words with the occasional ‘good game’ or even a quick catch up with some of the players you had formed a friendship with over the years. next was the team huddle where sarina went over the highs and lows of the match, praising you all for winning the game and playing good as well as pointing out a few places where she thought you could’ve done better, though it was very brief as it always was after a match, the real talk would happen tomorrow just before you got training again for the next game.

now, you were engaging with the fans who had generously shown up in support of your team despite the november air cutting at their exposed skin like ice cold needles, they still stood with smiles on their faces. some of them held signs, whilst others held shirts they were wanting signed, and more held out their phones in hopes of getting a picture or two with some of the players. it was always heartwarming seeing how much support you had garnered over the recent years. not even just you as a person, not even your team, but women’s football as a whole had seen a large spike in interest lately and it was an amazing feeling.

when you had first began to play football, you played in small stadiums where most of the seats were empty, only a few hundred people showing up to show their interest in the sport if you were lucky. and although you would never take whatever kind of support you had for granted, there was always that side to you who would sit back and watch how easily men’s games filled with thousands and thousands of people eager to watch the ninety minute game, and it would be almost like a small kick in the teeth when you really thought about the difference.

but now, as the number on the board read 56,291 in attendance you couldn’t comprehend how much your passion had blown up over the world. and it wasn’t just other women who were showing their interest in the games, but men too. you knew how sensitive of a subject it was, men being interested in women’s football, it wasn’t something that was popular amongst them but you imagined their newfound support had something to do with the win your team brought home at the euros in 2022, they were finally taking you seriously.

you bent down a tad to take a picture with a young girl who couldn’t have been over the age of thirteen, she held her phone out in one hand and you leant in as close as you could with a gleaming smile on your face, staying in that position until she finished snapping a few pictures of the both of you. her arm lowered and she pulled back with a softer smile now.

“thank you so much!”

“you’re welcome”. you replied, sending her one last smile before you continued your way down the line, wanting to interact with as many people as you could before you were told you had to go back in.

you got another couple of pictures taken, signed a few t-shirts and even a phone case that a woman was adamant she wanted you to sign, and eventually gave away your shirt to a small girl who had asked you politely for it in the sweetest voice you had ever heard. you had folded instantly, disregarding the weather that you had been complaining about since the match ended in your head, your number one priority had now changed to making that little girls night.

finally feeling satisfied with the amount of people you had pleased tonight, you turned to leave, eager to get through the tunnels and under the hot shower. the quicker you were done with that the quicker you could return to your room for the night and get into your comfy pyjamas and cuddle with mary. speaking of, your eyes wandered to the goalkeeper who stood just a few feet away, chatting happily with rachel and georgia about god knows what but with the grins on their faces you could only imagine it wasn’t anything serious. just as you were about to make your way towards the trio, another phone was shoved in your face, quite rudely you thought, that had you pausing in your steps.

you looked to see a guy, who seemed to be just slightly older than yourself with a smug grin on his face as his eyes shamelessly wandered your england kit clad body. you frowned, instantly put off by his perverted demeanour, his actions making you take a step back.

“wouldn’t mind taking a quick picture would ya love?” his gruff voice sounded, and you glanced from him to the phone that was still held out infront of you.

you thought about it for moment, weighing out the pros and cons in your mind. it was only a quick photo, wouldn’t take more than a few seconds and then you could move on. it would definitely spare you any verbal abuse the man would no doubt spew out towards you if you refused the picture, and you’d avoid any negative backlash online if he or anyone present were to post about it and make you look like the bad guy.

so with a hesitant smile you nodded, “sure.”

you stayed a step away from the barrier separating you both but chose to lean in a little to get the picture, just wanting to get it over and done with as fast as possible. what you weren’t accounting for though, as you forced the most convincing smile onto your face, was the pressure you felt starting on your hip, before it slowly lowered to your behind. you frowned, not completely registering what the feeling was until you felt the grip tighten, and that’s when you jumped away in disgust.

the man didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed for what he had just done, still stood there with the smug look on his face as if he was proud that he had just squeezed your behind without consent - and that only angered you more.

“what the fuck? why would you do that?” you exclaimed, drawing the attention of a few people around you both.

the man furrowed his brows as if he was confused by your outburst, the realisation that he genuinely thought what he’d done wasn’t that big of a deal would’ve made you laugh if you weren’t in complete disbelief.

“chill out i barely touched you.” he grumbled, not happy with the amount of attention on the two of you now.

you scoffed, ready to lay in on him for the audacity he had to make it seem like you were overreacting, when a flash of green passed your peripheral vision and someone began doing it for you.

“does it make you feel like a big man grabbing women like that yeah?” the person in question focused in your line of sight, the number 1 with the name earps just above it alerting you of who it was.

you took a step towards your girlfriend, worrying about the close proximity between her and the man as she approached him with no hesitation, her body pressed against the only thing separating them so she could get as close as possible, something that distressed you slightly, there was no telling how unhinged this man actually was.

“mary don’t, just leave it.” you grabbed ahold of her upper arm with a gentle grip, “he’s not worth it.”

she ignored your attempt at redirecting her attention, and with the murderous glare she held towards the offender opposite you both, you knew she was not moving until she was satisfied.

“you’re scum mate.” she threw him a dirty look, “thinking you can go around behaving like that. it’s disgusting. you need to apologise to her.”

by now everyone’s eyes were on the three of you, more so mary than anyone else as they watched her anger levels rise. there were phones angled your way, no doubt recording every second so it could get posted to tiktok or twitter as soon as it was over, the thought making you more eager to deescalate the situation.

the man scoffed, now turning to look you up and down in disgust as if he wasn’t just eyeing you up like a piece of meat seconds prior, “i have nothing to be sorry for.”

mary breathed out a laugh, though it lacked humour and she rolled her neck in exasperation at the cowardly response. “stop showing off in front of your little mates, it doesn’t make you the big man you think it does.” she spat, and your grip increased on her arm as she pushed herself further into the metal barrier, closer to the man. “your just a prick who needs to learn how to respect women.”

“mary, come on let’s not start anything now.” your were more than grateful to hear sarina’s familiar dutch accent to the other side of mary, the older woman mirroring your actions as she laid a hand on the goalkeepers other arm.

you hadn’t even realised she was nearby, last you had seen her she was having a talk with the manager of the opposite team, and when you turned to look at her you noticed a few of the england girls were stood behind her too, the small group of them all sharing the same repulsed look on their faces.

“not until he says sorry. you can’t act like that and just get away with it, it’s not on.” she ranted, “you’re lucky there’s so many people around right now or else i’d be doing a lot more than saying a few words.”

the man seemed taken aback by that, the (what you thought was permanent at this point) smug expression finally fading as his jaw dropped slightly, you knew it was obvious not only to him but to everyone, that mary could do a lot of damage if given the chance, especially when it came to protecting the people she loved.

“just say sorry man. you know you’re in the wrong.” bright frowned, wanting nothing more than to share a few nasty words, but with so many cameras out now she knew it was best to keep it pg.

“god fine. i’m sorry. happy now?” the confidence in the man’s exterior had long faded, his face burning with what you could only assume was embarrassment with all the negative attention and you felt a sense of satisfaction at the quick 180.

it was obvious the apology had no genuine meaning behind it, he just wanted the whole situation that he had caused to be over with so he could run away and hide and hope that nobody had caught his face in the recordings. but it was all you were getting clearly, so without any further acknowledgment of him, you turned your back on him and focused all your attention on mary who didn’t seem to be pleased with the rushed words.

“come on babe, don’t let him ruin our night yeah? we won, we played well, no accidents or anything like that. it’s a good night, so let’s go and celebrate.” you grabbed her face gently and moved it so she was now eye level with you, and you watched as her blue eyes softened gradually.

with a heavy sigh and a nod of her head, you revelled in the win and wrapped a hand around her arm, gently pulling her away from the crowd. you didn’t miss the last hateful look she spared towards the man, before she turned and allowed you to lead her off without another word but you chose not to comment on it. you reassured the girls you were okay when a few of them asked, getting a few comforting shoulder squeezes and side hugs from them as you walked. and truly, though you were a little shaken up from the whole incident, you know that with mary by your side you would be okay.

-

“thank you for sticking up for me. i appreciate it.” you moved so you were standing infront of mary who had sat herself down at her cubicle once you made it back inside, your hands moving to pull her hair from the low ponytail it had been in since this afternoon.

once that was done you ran your fingers through her blonde strands, pulling out any knots that had been formed as gently as you could, smiling at the way her body slumped in relaxation at the sensation.

“no need to thank me love, i’d do it over and over again if i had to. people like that make me sick.” she grumbled, her eyes closing as she sank further into your soft motions.

“i know, but you got him told. think you scared him enough to put him off behaving like that for awhile at least.” you teased, recalling the way his face had paled at her threatening words.

she hummed at that, a smile finally emerging on her face. “yeah, he did look like he was about to wet himself didn’t he?”

the both of you shared a laugh, thankful that you could at least look back and find some humour in the situation that moments ago had you both fuming. her hands, now void of the gloves that warmed her palms throughout the game, found themselves resting on your hips, rubbing soothing circles through your football shorts in an attempt to convey the same coziness that she felt with having you so close by.

“think i should follow you around whilst you take your pictures with the fans from now on.” she spoke, and for a moment you thought she was joking until you saw the genuine glint in her eyes.

“really? i don’t think anything like this is gonna happen again darling, it’s never happened before.” you replied, making sure to be as reassuring as you could with your words.

“yeah i know, but i don’t think i’ll be able to relax if i’m not with you. it hasn’t happened before but it could happen again just as easily as it did tonight. just let me be with you.” she kissed your clothed stomach, “at least for a little while. i don’t know what i’d do if i let you wander off on your own and it ended up happening again.”

your heart warmed at your girlfriends protectiveness, though you never doubted that mary cared for you and your wellbeing immensely, having her confirm it out loud made you fall deeper in love with the woman who had stolen your heart almost two years ago now.

“how could i say no to this face?” you scrunched your nose and grabbed ahold of mary’s chin, moving her face back and forth as she rolled her eyes at your mildly childish behaviour.

“you can be my little shadow for the next few games. saves you walking round like a little lost puppy whilst you wait for me to finish, eh?”

her fingers dug into your hips at the dig and you jumped, squealing in surprise at the sudden motion. “mary!”

“you earned that, so cheeky you are. think you’ve been spending too much time with toone lately.” she shook her head, and you were relieved to have your playful girlfriend back.

“whatever you say earps. now come on.” you whined, dragging out the ‘n’ as you did. “let’s go back to the room. i want some love and some pizza, not really fussed about what order they come in.”

-

(i’m posting this from my phone so i’m hoping everything looks okay). 🤞🤞

[outsideratheart]

Goodbye, Hello (Alexia Putellas x reader)

A/N: Chapter 4 of The Legacy Series. Now the story can really begin.

Ajax was home, the players and staff were your family yet as you stand in the tunnel at the stadium named after your father for the first time you cannot help but think that in another world that would have been the first of many. Oh how you wished he could see you play on the field that meant so much to him. Would he proud of you? You’d like to think so.

Meanwhile the players of Barcelona have a day off in Portland between their games for the WICC cup. They had naturally split into groups much like they do on any away trip but Alexia noticed something as she bumped into a couple of her team mates wandering the unfamiliar city; two were missing, Lieke and Aitana. As far as she was aware the two of them wasn’t close enough to do something together so it sparked her curiosity. The captain convinces Jenni, Leila, Mapi and Patri to go back to hotel to get them, she didn’t want them to waste their day in the hotel room. What she didn’t expect was to see Aitana walking the hallway donning a red & white football shirt. As she get closer to the young midfielder she recognises the Ajax shirt with your last name on.

“Aitana” Alexia voice makes her jump.

“What are you doing here”

It didn’t sound like a question and her face had the same expression a young child does when they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t.

“I could ask you the sa—“

“Aitana hurry up, it’s about to kick off”

The door opens to reveal Lieke wearing an identical shirt to Aitana.

“What is? Who’s playing?” Mapi asks slightly confused as to why her team mates would rather stay in the hotel instead of exploring.

“Ajax” Lieke says with a obvious tone whilst pointing to the badge on her shirt.

“And why are we watching Ajax?” Patri added.

Aitana and Lieke shared a look. What which said ‘We know something you don’t and we don’t know if we can tell you’.

The secret they had been keeping for the past couple of days would be sure to bring a smile to their captain’s face but you had sworn them to secrecy. Lieke only found out because she had visited you in Amsterdam before going back to Barcelona and your mum let it slip. Aitana found out straight from the horses mouth when she was invited to a Cruyff foundation event in Barcelona, imagine the shock when she saw you there. Afterwards you told her about your decision and she pinky promised that she wouldn’t tell a soul.

“She’s playing for them isn’t she?” The devastation in Alexia’s voice was clear. She truly thought that you had played your last game for Ajax and after your talk in Ibiza she was almost certain you would soon be a Barcelona player but now she had doubts.

Lieke only nodded in fear that she would let it slip if she were to open her mouth.

You walked proudly out of the tunnel as you wore the captain’s armband one last time. As you line up with the rest of the team you spot your mother, two brothers, sister-in-law, niece and nephew in the crowd. It takes every ounce of strength not to break there and then. The past couple of days had taken a lot out of you, tears included and up until this moment you thought you had no tears left to cry, oh how wrong you were.

After you shook hands with the Feyenoord captain you walk to your position. You were in the zone, that is until you hear the entire stadium break out into applause. When you turn around you see that both teams have left you to walk to the middle of the pitch alone. The fans were showing their appreciation and it was killing you. The game was a farewell and the fans knew it even though nothing official had been announced. It was set up as a friendly but it was also against Feyenoord, the club’s rival and it just so happened to be your favourite fixture of the season.

You really did enjoy the next 90 minutes and scoring at John Cruyff area will be something you would never forget. Truthfully, you wasn’t sure how to feel. Should you be happy for the career you have had at the club or should you be sad for leaving, the latter hit you like a tone of bricks.

Your coach calls you over to the sidelines where you see your family waiting. There was two frames shirts resting on stands. You joined the women’s team when it was first established in 2012 and you would leave being the highest capped player as well as the clubs top goal scorer, the two shirts represented these achievements.

Alexia couldn’t believe the scene unfolding on the screen in front on her.

“She’s leaving?” Alexia asked Lieke without taking her eyes of the screen, you had her full attention.

“What does it look like?”

The TV showed you sobbing in your brother arms. You and Alexia had talked about the difficulties that came with moving to Barcelona but she never once stopped to think about what it meant for you to leave Amsterdam.

“Are you crying?”

Alexia feels a tear fall down her cheek, one that she quickly wipes as she thinks Mapi is talking to her and she isn’t ready to be teased again.

“Lieke you’re crying”

She was in the clear. The Dutch woman was the one bound to be teased.

“You wouldn’t understand. You don’t know her like I do”

But I want to. This is what Alexia thinks but doesn’t say.

“Aitana’s going to lose her number” Jenni says.

“No I’m not. She’s already told me that she doesn’t want it” Aitana only realises what she had said when it’s too late.

This is enough pull Alexia’s attention from watching you give a speech, one which she doesn’t understand but still she hangs on every word.

“What do you mean she has already told you” Alexia questions her team mate who clearly knows more than what she’s leading on.

“I didn’t say that” Aitana wishes she could take it back.

“Yes you did. Y/N told you her decision didn’t she?”

“You’ll have to wait till Monday to find out” upon realising she was digging herself a deeper hole, Aitana comes up with an excuse to leave the room knowing had broken her promise without directly breaking her promise.

“Lieke?” Alexia changes tactics. If Aitana knew something, your best friend definitely did.

“You must have said something right in Ibiza”

She didn’t confirm it but she didn’t have to. It wasn’t like you and Alexia talked about you moving to Arsenal in detail that night. She wished that she could press fast forward on her life. It was only Friday, meaning still had three days before she would find out officially that you had chosen to follow in your father’s footsteps. In three days you would be announced as a Barcelona player, the Blaugrana shirt would once again have Cruyff on the back.

When Monday came around the team entered the facility with an extra pep in their step, all eyes glued to the locker room door. Every person that entered who wasn’t you was met with a look of disappointment. It is only when Lluis walks in does the elephant in the room get discussed.

“By the way your faces dropped when you saw it was me, I assume you know what is happening today or more appropriately who is signing for us today. Given what this means to the club the announcement will be made over at Camp Nou, not here”

“But then she’ll be coming here, right?” Alexia tried her best to mask her disappointment but failed miserably.

“Not today. She has media, several photoshoots and a meet & great at the stadium store”

Alexia knew that this wasn’t what you wanted. The club was making the most of having a Cruyff back at Barcelona and they didn’t stop the think the toll that it would have on you, it was a business at the end of the day.

Several hours later, training had finished for the day. Lieke was in the shower when her phone starting to ring, a call which she obviously missed yet the person of the other line didn’t give up. After the fifth missed call Alexia grabs the phone with the intention of giving it to the Dutch but she accidentally sees who the caller was.

Danny Cruyff 5 Missed Calls.

A small panic formed in her gut. Why was your mother calling Lieke and why was she so persistent. Had something happened to you?

That panic didn’t lessen when she handed the phone to Lieke whose face must have been a mirror to her own. She immediately calls your mother back.

“Hoi” “Natuurlijk” “Ik laat haar jou bellen”

Alexia’s Dutch was practically none existing. Lieke has tried teaching her some phrases during away games but the only things she could understand was hello which didn’t answer her unasked question; were you ok?.

“Is she ok?” Alexia asked. She didn’t need to say your name for Lieke to understand who she talking about.

“Apparently the press conference got a little bit out of hand. They were asked not to ask too many questions about Johan but there was one Marca journalist who didn’t stop pushing. Now Y/N won’t answer any of Jordi, Luuk or Danny’s calls. I said I’d go round to their house after I finish here”

“Are none of her family here with her?”

“No. Y/N knows what this will bring up for them and her so she asked them not to come but promised they could be at the first home game” Lieke pauses when she sees the look of worry on her captain’s face “Would you like to come with me?”

“Where?”

“To see her”

Alexia nods her head eagerly as a grin spreads from ear to ear.

Lieke asks that Alexia not mention the visit to the rest of the team but in the end it isn’t Alexia that lets it slip. Aitana can tell what the two of them are up to when the rush to pack up their things and leave without being noticed. The small spaniard asks if she can go with them as well only she says it a little too loud. Before Lieke has the chance to answer her, several other players ask to go with them. Their argument; you were now part of the team and this team always looks out for their own.

“She is going to hate this” Lieke says but still she agrees silently hoping that your habit of wanting to being alone in these moments is no longer a thing.

“I can tell them that they can’t come” Alexia is ready to do whatever is needed.

“No, let them come. Truth is I don’t know what to say to her. Maybe one of them can cheer her up” Lieke pointed to were Leila had Patri in a chokehold whilst Mapi filmed them for some reason.

Now you wouldn’t say you hated the house in Barcelona but there was a reason why you tended to stay in a hotel whenever you visited the city. It was the home your Mother and Father built, it has their presence everywhere whilst the house in Amsterdam was more your style. You had asked your mother if you couldn’t redecorate but she said no.

You were staring aimlessly in the garden when you heard the intercom go off letting you know someone was at the gate. Now it could be one of two people, your manager and Lieke, both of them knew the code so you were a bit hesitant as you looked at the security camera. It’s safe to say you didn’t expect who you saw but you let them in anyways.

Your mother raised to be a good host so you greated them at the door before they had the chance to knock or ring the bell. Looking in the mirror that was hung above the table in the foyer you hated how obvious it was that you had been crying but when you welcomed your team mates none of them mentioned it.

It seemed that you were having some kind of team night because they had brought Pizza which you wasn’t against. You hadn’t eaten all day and you wasn’t in the mood to cook.

“Call your mother” Lieke smacked you playfully before making herself at home. She knew where everything was so you left her to get plates, glasses and whatever else they needed.

Alexia stayed behind. A photo hanging on the wall having caught her attention. It was one of the family when your dad played his last game as Barcelona manager.

“It’s one of my favourite photos” your presence made her jump.

“Lo siento”

“Don’t be. I’m pretty sure Pina and Patri are trying to take a selfie with one of his shirts” You pointed to where the young players where subtly trying and family to take a photo with one of your dad’s framed Barcelona shirts.

“I’ll tell them to stop” Alexia tries to walk off but you pull her back.

“It’s ok” Truth is you liked that they were being appreciated, you barely gave them a second look.

For the next couple of hours, you and your new team mates sat in the garden eating pizza and telling all kind of football tales. You understood what Alexia meant when she said the team was a family. You had only been a Barcelona player for a few hours yet you already felt part the family. You knew the biggest challenges were yet to come but in this moment you knew you made the right decision.

It wasn’t necessarily late but the team had been at training all day and you could see the girls were getting tired. Lieke must have picked up on it too because she suggested they head home.

“Wait! Before we go” Patri stood up, a glass of water in hand “Welcome to Barcelona, to Y/N” everyone cheers in your honour “And to having a Cruyff back in Barcelona”

This didn’t get the same response from you but you knew that Patri was coming from a good place.

Alexia surprisingly offered to stay and back clean. The reason why is was surprising is because there was nothing left to clean, everyone had tidied up after themselves.

“We better get started because as you can see this place is a mess”

“Ok so maybe I didn’t stay to clean up”

“No” you say sarcasticly. Your tone causes Alexia to chuckle but it is more so to cover up her shyness.

“I thought maybe I could show you a few places, if you’re not too tired” Alexia never forgot the conversation you two shared that night in Ibiza and she fully intended to show you what the city had to offer, she wanted to show you her Barcelona.

Truth is you were exhausted mentally which made doing anything except from laying of the sofa a chore. Then again this is Alexia, you did want to get to know her more and you knew you wouldn’t get the chance to once the season started.

“Ok but I can’t be out too long. You may or may not have heard but I’ve just signed for a new team and I’d like to impress them at training tomorrow”

“I’m already impressed” Alexia whispers to herself.

Barcelona was a different city at time. The street were emptier but the city couldn’t be more alive. You may have done everything in your power to stay away from it but you could understand why it is loved by so many. You tried to look at the sights with a fresh set of eyes, you wanted to make new memories and tonight those would be made with Alexia.

“Is there anywhere you want to go?” Alexia asks as she bumps into your shoulder.

“Can we just walk for a bit” She nods her head and guides you down her favourite streets, shows you some of her favourite buildings and points out a few restaurants that she wanted to take you to.

There were so many questions she wanted to ask you. The top of that list was are you ok but the answer was obvious. She also wanted to know what was going on in your head but then she wondered if even you had to answer to that.

“Can I ask you a question? Why isn’t your family here?” Lieke told her but she knew there was something more to it.

The way you stopped in your tracks made her instantly regret the question.

“Let’s go this way”

She doesn’t bring up the change of subject and within a few minutes she finds herself walking through the gothic quarter. She follows you through a narrow alleyway, one that she didn’t know existed.

“This is my favourite spot in Barcelona”

Alexia watches as you knock on a door that is in the centre of the wall and can be no bigger than half a meter. Then a couple of minutes later she sees a hand hold out a paper bag, one which you take in exchange for some money.

“This is the best kept secret and best cookies in Barcelona” you hold open the bag and watch as Alexia takes one. Her eyes close as she takes a bite, you knew what she was experiencing. You had been 6 when you were first brought here.

“Ay Dios Mio”

“Told you”

Alexia makes grabby hands and you give her the bag but not before taking a handful of the tiny cookies for yourself.

“Me playing here brings up a lot of emotions, not only for me but for them too”

At first the brunette doesn’t know what you’re talking about but then it hits her. You are answering her question, the one you do so subtly dodged.

“I asked them not to come”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought if they wasn’t here then I could have a normal day where I’m just a football player signing for a football club. It was naive of me”

“How is to be a Barcelona player?”

“Honestly, it’s amazing. I can’t wait to start this chapter of my life, I just hope it can be my chapter and not a part of his”

“Why can’t it be both? You are your father’s daughter, you can’t change that but you can embrace it and what better place to do so then here in Barcelona” Alexia spins around with her arms spread wide.

“Did they come up with that or did you?” You asked referring to the club.

“That was all me” Alexia says rather proudly.

The night passes by far too quickly. You had only intended to be out for an hour, two at max but now it was close to midnight and you knew it was time to call it a night. Even though you didn’t want too, you bid Alexia farewell and told her you would see her in the morning.

8 hours later you found yourself standing in front of the home ground which was all a short walk away from the training ground. You stared up at the sign and read it out loud.

ESTADI JOHAN CRUYFF

Your mind wanders to memories with only one man, the one you wishes was here for this.

“I thought I might find you here”

Of course, she knew where you’d be.

“Buenos dias Alexia”

“Are you ready?”

“Ready”

And ready you were. It was time to start the next chapter in your life. The years to come would define your career and change your life forever.

[euijoosorangeslice]

Can I request teacher k and spanking please? Thank you!!1

A+

warnings: teacher-student relationship, cheating, slight non-con (power difference), age gap (reader is a uni student and k is well…a teacher. At most 7 year age gap), fingering, oral {fem recieving}, harddom!k, exbhitionism; creampie, spanking.

Your first year of college was coming to a close. You had mostly all A’s, except for in one class. In Mr. Koga’s class, you had mostly slept for the entire year. Who wants to be awake at 8am on a Monday after getting blackout drunk the night before?

But you landed yourself a D in his class. Barely, since you were only three points away from failing that class. The final exam was worth half your grade anyway, so if you could just ace it then you’d be in the clear! As soon as the test was placed in front of you, your heart dropped. Shit. You had no idea how to do anything on this paper. Okay, what the hell is a hypotenuse?

You just bubbled random answers and sat there until the testing time was up. Let’s just hope your instincts were amazing. As your teacher started instructing on what courses you’d need to take next for which credits, you found it easy to get lost in his eyes. Was it wrong to want to kiss your teacher? His lips looked pretty nice today, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad dating an older guy.

You shook the thoughts from your head when the Mr.Koga stared passing back exams. He tapped a finger on your desk, your imagination running wild with the veiny orientation of his hand. "You need to see me after class." Mr. Koga whispered, sliding your exam onto your desk. You picked up the test, and low and behold, you got a 45%. Fuck, couldn't atleast get a fifty? Now you were definitely failing his class. He finished passing out tests, going on some dumb rant about how many people passed over the failed amount, which was practically everyone but you.

Maybe you were just a dumbass. Anyway, your professor dismissed the class and you walked over to his desk, swaying your hips as your tiny little skirt hugged your ass. "Y/n, I'm quite concerned with your scores on your test." He looked up, seeing your cute boobs being pushed up by your tight little shirt. "I've never had anyone do this bad on my exams. Is everything okay at home?" He leaned back in his chair, watching as you bit on the back of your black pen.

You pouted, placing a hand on his desk. "I don't know, Mr. Koga. I think I've been having a hard time focusing. This class is fucking boring." His eyebrows furrowed roughly, scoffing. "I'm sorry? Do you think my class is a joke?" You leaned over his desk, giggling in his face. "Mr. Koga, I barely even know what class this is."

"I don't appreciate your attitude, sweetie. You need to act right or I'm gonna have to punish you." You squeezed your thighs together at his harsh tone. Fuck, that's definitely a turn on. "Oh yeah? What are you gonna do? Suspend me?" You teased, Kei sucking his teeth. "I could do that. Or I could give you another option," Kei stood up, placing himself inches away from your face.

"You could fuck me for an A. I know you've been thinking of me like that. So I could report you, or I could fuck you. Bend you over my desk and make you a good girl just for me, hm? Is that what you want?" You could've sworn you were dreaming. You hopped over his desk, bending over into his lap. "Oh, Mr. Koga. I think I need some help making a decision."

Wasting no time, he pulled you by your hair and grabbed your waist. "Let's take these dumb panties off." He grumbled, your chest pressed against the cold wood table as he lifted your skirt. "I'm starting to think you're really a slut. Wearing a lacy thong to school? You just want me inside of you." He pulled the underwear down, looking at your wet folds. "Aw, you really want me bad. Dripping all over my floor." He slapped your ass, watching you slightly jump. "Fuck! Mister Koga." You whined, arching your back into his touch. "Call me sir."

He slid two of his fingers into your hole, caressing your ass as he slowly slid them in. Randomly spanking you as he fingered your hole. "Yes, sir!" He chuckled, unbuckling his slacks. "Where'd that attitude go baby? I thought you wanted to be a brat." He teased, roughly spanking your ass. "I'll be a good girl, promise!" He gripped your thighs, kneeling down to be facing your wetness. He buried his face into your ass, taking a long, deep breath in. "Fuck, such a pretty little girl." He spat, tonguing your clit as he put his fingers deeper inside of you. You squirmed, Kei holding you in place.

"Sir, i-it feels so good! Please, need you in me." You moaned, gripping the desk as you felt the sensation of your boobs rubbing against the wood. He pulled away from your dripping wet pussy, dropping his slacks to the floor. He picked you up, placing you onto your back. He started chuckling to himself. "Damn. I forgot to lock the door. Anyone could just walk in and see you slutting out for your teacher." He palmed his cock, grabbing it from his boxers and slowly shoving it into you without warning.

"Wait, S-sir 'm a virgin!" You squeaked in pain, Kei quickly pulling out. "Really? Shit, I'm sorry, angel. Here, I think I have lube in my bag." Kei squirted some of the cold gel onto his fingers rubbing it over his dick. "Alright, I think that's enough." He mumbled, massaging your thighs. "I'm going in now, okay?" You nodded rapidly, feeling his tip push past your entrance. "Sorry for the stretch." He whispered into your ear, holding your hip as he pushed further in. "F-fuck!" You moaned, feeling like Kei was inside of your womb. "I'm all in. You want me to keep going?"

"Yes, sir. Think I'm ready." You whispered, Kei slightly pulling out and pushing back in. He picked up his pace, lifting your leg over his shoulder. "Fuck, your pussy feels so good. Tight little girl, hm?" Your boobs bounced against your chest as he moved, your eyes rolling back. "Mm, Sir! Feels so good." You moaned loudly, Kei smirking. "Yeah? Damn, you're definitely getting an A for this. Never felt a cunt like this before baby." He spoke, accenting his words with a few hard thrusts. His hand slid down to your clit, vigorously rubbing it as he drilled his cock inside of you.

Feeling your orgasm approach, your legs began to close, but Kei forced them back open. "Don't be shy, angel. I know I'm making you feel good. Just go ahead and cum for me." Your legs crossed behind his back, forcing him to stay inside of you. "You want me to cum inside of your pretty little hole? Tryna get knocked up by your teacher, aren't you?" He sped up, chasing his own orgasm. "Yes! Fuck, please cum inside of me sir." You begged, Kei groaning in pleasure. As you reached your orgasm, you clenched around him, making him cum inside of you.

"Shit. Fuck, I-I'm going to be in so much trouble of you get knocked up." Kei mumbled, his brain starting to reason with himself. You giggled, slowly sitting up onto his desk. "I think you should be more concerned about cheating on your wife, Mr. Koga." He rolled his eyes, massaging your thighs. "Well, we need a divorce anyway." You smiled, placing a kiss on his cheek. "If you want to get remarried, I think I know a good candidate. She might be having your baby."

[sunlightmurdock]

My Future in You | 0.7 | Bradley Bradshaw x Reader

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Synopsis: Bradley’s twenty-two years old and not where he’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to be out of the academy by now. Instead, he’s retaking his senior year of college and praying to god that he gets into flight school. Mav’s gone, his mom’s gone. He’s mad at the world. Then, a hook up at a Halloween party changes his future even more than he could have imagined.

Warnings: accidental pregnancy, smut, pinv, enemies to lovers - they aren’t quite lovers yet don’t get your hopes up but they do some lovin in this one xx, poor Jake bc his suffering deserves a warning

…

“I don’t get why girls like this crap so much.” Bradley comments, popping a handful of m&ms into his mouth at once. Gilmore Girls continues on despite his disapproval. You sip on your sprite from the vending machine outside, then set it down on the bedside table.

“It’s comforting,” You answer without turning your gaze away from another of Rory’s relationship disasters. Bradley nods softly, furrowing his eyebrows at the screen. He doesn’t find comfort in this. “How many girls have you watched this with, anyway?”

Bradley shakes his head, chewing his candy, “We’re just starting to get along, I don’t think it’d be smart for me to answer that question.”

You turn your head to look at him and he’s smiling playfully at you.

You lift your fist and fake cough into it, “Slut.”

He laughs, leaning his head back against the wooden headboard. He presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek as he turns to look at you again, he raises an eyebrow, “Me?”

You hit his stomach and laugh softly. Bradley grins, pleased that he’s finally gotten you to stop crying. He shifts, tucking one arm behind his head to get comfier. You shift closer to him. He spent thirty minutes trying to figure out how to turn the air conditioning off and couldn’t figure it out. You’re dressed to sit in front of the grand fireplace at your parents’ house, not to sit in an air conditioned motel room.

He isn’t phased at all by the way you wrap yourself around his arm. He’s more displeased by the choice of television.

“Can we see if something else is on?” There’s a baseball game on the next channel that he’s interested in checking the score of. You aren’t listening. You’re thinking about your parents.

“My parents wouldn’t have called each other sluts.” You say at the same time. He scrunches his nose, looking over at you again. You’re still in your dress from earlier, he’s in shorts and a t-shirt now, much comfier. It’s like you’re half expecting that you’ll be going home again.

“What?” Bradley frowns.

“My parents. Wouldn’t have - d-do you think we’re going to be bad parents?” You ask him. There’s a truly fearful look in your eyes. Bradley smiles softly.

“My parents probably would’ve,” He shrugs his shoulders. He remembers them always laughing together. He looks back towards the show just so that he doesn’t have to see you start crying again. “Besides, I’m not exactly gonna be begging your mom and dad for parenting tips.”

Bradley has a point. You don’t want to be like them. Three of his children are terrified of him and he only likes the fourth when you live up to his expectations. Your mother has always let him be that way.

“What were your parents like?” You ask Bradley. Bradley flinches as you put your leg against his.

“What the fuck - why are you so cold?” He gasps, shoving your legs back to your side of the bed with his. He lifts his gaze and finds you frowning slightly. He sighs. Begrudgingly, he shifts his hips closer and slips his leg between yours, ignoring the way your skin chills his. He grabs your knee and pulls it over his thighs so that your legs are entwined with his.

“What were you saying? - My parents?” Bradley asks. You nod at him. Bradley doesn’t like talking about his parents anymore. It makes him feel like he’s four years old and coming to terms with his dad’s death in a therapist’s office again. But, he figures that it’s reasonable that you’d like to know about them.

He thinks back to sleeping in his parents’ bad after nightmares. Sitting near the airport in his dad’s truck, on his mom’s lap, watching the planes take off. Sitting on the kitchen counter whilst his parents danced around the kitchen, his dad singing some soul track from his own childhood.

“They were good parents - maybe not what parenting books would’ve recommended, but they loved me,” He says softly. His thumb strokes your knee. “They would’ve liked you.”

He knows that they would like you. Smart, funny - big mouth. He isn’t so sure they would like the person he has been since he lost them, but he knows that they would have liked you — he’s certain.

“They would?” You ask softly. You reach across and steal a handful of his m&ms. Bradley grabs himself a handful too.

“Yeah. Especially my mom, she was always bugging me to introduce her to a nice girl,” Bradley explains. He looks down at you and smirks, “Since I don’t know any nice girls, you would’ve done just fine.”

You hit his chest, “Asshole.”

He chuckles softly, squeezing his palm around your knee.

“They let me make mistakes.” He says softly. You know that he’s referring to what happened with your parents earlier. You scoot closer and rest your head on his shoulder, sprawling your palm out across his chest. You sigh softly. You can tell from his tone that he misses them.

“I’m sorry.”

Bradley shakes his head. He shrugs calmly.

“It’s alright.” It isn’t, but he’s growing more used to saying that now. It’s what’s easiest.

“Do you think they would have reacted like my parents did about all of this?” You ask softly. Bradley scoffs and shakes his head quickly. He knows the answer immediately, and there’s not a doubt in his mind about it.

“No. I think they would’ve been a little freaked out, but they wouldn’t have been mad.” He decides. He strokes his thumb along the curve of your knee. He knows they wouldn’t have been mad at him.

He remembers the time his Mom found condoms in his room as a teenager. She made him talk for hours about safe sex. But she wouldn’t be mad about this. She would smack the back of his head, call him an idiot and ask what she could do to help. You hum softly.

“I wish the baby could’ve met them.” You muse.

Bradley turns his head. He hadn’t thought of that yet. He knows they would have adored being grandparents. He swallows the lump in his throat and squeezes your knee softly.

You lift your head to look at him, worried that you might have overstepped and hurt his feelings. He reaches out and strokes his thumb across your cheek. There’s a moment where you’re sure that he’s going to kiss you, and then he turns his attention back to the show.

His hand comes up to the back of your head, his hand stroking softly over your hair. Your head goes back to resting on his shoulder, your palm resting open on his stomach over the fabric of his shirt.

Bradley stares right ahead at the screen. Jake’s voice is in his head telling him not to complicate things. Jake’s right.

This isn’t how you imagined this going. Sitting in a motel room with Bradley at one in the morning, the day after Christmas, eating m&ms and watching a Gilmore Girls rerun.

You’re still grateful that you invited him. You know that if you were here alone, you would still be crying your eyes out. You stroke your thumb softly over the fabric on his stomach as you pull yourself closer to him.

Bradley’s eyes flicker downward to observe the motion, then he looks back up at the show. He has seen this episode dozens of times, he isn’t interested in the slightest, but he won’t let his attention dip from the scene again.

You remember exactly what’s under that shirt, and not just because he has been wandering between your room and Jake’s without a shirt all week. With all of the puking this week, you hadn’t exactly been paying attention to his bare chest. You have much more fond memories of what he looks like under that stupid eagles shirt.

Him kneeling between your legs, tanned skin flushed with heat. Lips parted, breathing hard with need. The way the muscles in his arms flexed as he reached behind him, grabbing at the fabric behind his neck and tugging at it.

You glance down at your hand on his stomach over a navy cotton blend.

He feels your hand travel slightly south. It stops on the patch of skin visible from where his shirt has risen up slightly. Just below his bellybutton, above his shorts. Your fingertips stroke soft patterns on the exposed strip of skin.

Bradley watches the show.

Your fingertips brush the line of not quite blonde, not quite brown hair that trails from his navel into the band of his shorts. Your hand remains on his stomach as your fingertips brush against it.

He knows what you’re doing.

His gaze falls down once more, watching as your fingertips breach the waistband of his shorts. Bradley swallows, then looks back toward the screen.

Your hand cups over the bulge in his boxers, palming softly over the length. Bradley bites his cheek, his eyes on the screen as you stroke his cock over the material.

He shifts his hips a little, growing restless. Your hand dips under his boxers, wrapping around the base of his cock. His fingers toy with your hair. His cock starts to stiffen under your touch. His eyes flicker down to your face.

You look up at him.

His lips quirk, like he just thought of something funny. You watch seriously as he brings a hand up to his mouth and fake coughs into it, “Slut.”

Your lips part. As your eyes meet his, he cracks, about to start laughing. It catches in his throat as you squeeze your hand tighter. He chokes, gasping in a sharp breath of air.

“A-Ah - fuck. Ow.” He grabs your wrist tight and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Dick.” You loosen your grip a little and swipe your thumb over the swollen tip of his cock.

He lets out a relieved breath as you release him, and sinks back against the headboard. He swallows hard, dipping a hand into his shorts and curling his palm over the top of yours. He turns his head to look at you and lets out a soft breath.

You can tell he’s about to lead with another snarky comment. It’s just what he does. You push forwards and press your lips to his before he can. Bradley takes the hint - verbal retaliation isn’t an option. His weight presses against your body as he surges forwards until you’re on your back, your hand slips from his shorts and grabs at his waist to steady yourself.

His hands skim along your sides, grabbing fistfuls of the sweet dress you had picked out to impress your parents and bunching it up around your hips. This is a stark contrast to his memories of tearing leather shorts down your legs the last time.

You hum softly into his mouth, slipping both hands under his shirt, feeling the way his muscles contract under your fingertips as he grinds himself impossibly closer. He slides a hand up into your hair, curling his fingers and tugging softly at the neat style. You nip at his bottom lip. He presses you harder into the sheets.

“Do you always pop a boner when girls are mean to you?” You murmur against his lips, raking your nails softly across the small of his back, desperate to have him closer.

He shakes his head softly, tugging at your roots hard enough to make you gasp. He sucks a hard kiss into the curve of your jaw, groaning softly as he rocks his hard cock against your core. Bradley has no idea how he could have missed those Seresin genes the first time around - with a mouth like that, it’s clear as day to him exactly where you came from.

“Just for you, baby.”

Your lips quirk slightly. Such a way with words. He’s smooth when he wants to be.

You have to admit, as he tilts your jaw back further and trails filthy, open-mouthed kisses, along the length of your throat - you understand the appeal. It’s clear to you that his way with words, the way that he knows how to work his mouth against your skin — it’s no wonder that girls fall for him the way that they do. But you see right through it.

Bradley gasps softly as your palm squeezes at his cock. It’s more gentle this time, just something to let him know that he doesn’t hold the power here like he usually does. He fists his hands tighter into the fabric of your dress, pulling away from your throat as it bunches around your ribs. You arch yourself into him as he sucks soft kisses across your navel.

He grazes his teeth across your hipbones, mouthing tenderly across the hem of your underwear.

You sit up and tug your dress the rest of the way over your head. Just as you drop it to the floor, your back hits the mattress. He tugs your underwear down your legs, pulling at your hips until you fall back. His mouth dips between your legs, making you gasp softly.

He must be trying to impress you. You slide your fingers into his curls, taking your lip between your teeth as his tongue trails between your folds. You hum, grinding your hips up into his mouth. He grips your hips, pressing them down firmly into the mattress.

Bradley’s mouth works at your core as his eyes flicker up to you.

You sit up at the same time he does, pushing at the fabric of his shirt until he has the good sense to tear it over his head and drop it to the ground. His chest presses firmly to yours as he shoves his shorts down his legs. You catch onto his shoulders for leverage, pressing feverish kisses along the length of his neck.

His hands grab at your thighs, wrapping your legs around his waist.

You moan gently into his shoulder as he presses into you. He grits his teeth, holding his breath as he sinks his full length into you. He swallows, pulling back slowly. His hips stutter just a little as he fills you again.

“Fuck.” He mutters into your cheek. So wet, so perfect. He wraps his arms under you and cradles you tight against his chest, pulling you as flush against him as you could possibly be. You press your nails into his shoulders. He turns his head, finding your mouth with his.

He slides his tongue against yours, rocking his hips gently forwards, grinding his cock softly into you. Your lips part, eyes squeezing tightly shut as his rhythm builds towards something you can work with.

You kiss his shoulder, his collarbones, working your mouth up onto his neck. His eyes damn near roll back in his head. For a while, you understand the hype. The performance is shattered, he becomes just another frat boy, as he snaps his hips forwards and makes you gasp.

You wince into the crook of his neck. Bradley feels your legs wrap tighter around his waist. His arms squeeze around your middle as he pounds into you. You gasp again, grabbing hard at his bicep. “Ah- fuck.”

He grunts softly, driving his cock into you hard and fast.

“B-Bradley,” You push at his hips softly. He assumes that this is praise. “Ow, fuck - can you stop?”

He pulls back to look at you. His hands skim down to your sides, thumbs stroking softly over your hips. You watch his glaze fall down to your stomach then back up to you. Of course he assumes that he’s so good that the only way you could want him to stop was if there was something wrong with the pregnancy, “What? - Everything okay?”

“Other than the fact that you’re jackhammering my cervix.” You kick at his hip in complaint. He sits back on his knees and furrows his eyebrows, glancing down between your bodies as he slips out of you.

“I can’t help the fact that I have-“

“If you say it’s because you’ve got a big dick, I’ll never let you touch me again.” You swear, pointing a finger accusingly at him. He rolls his eyes, leaning his head back. Trust a Seresin to lecture him on how to fuck.

“What do you want me to do?” He breathes.

You sit up and push hard at his shoulder until he’s on his back. Bradley’s hands find your hips as you swing a leg over his waist. You push firmly at his chest, pressing him down into the mattress.

“Idiot.” You mutter softly. He opens his mouth to retaliate, instead taking in a soft gasp. His eyes close. You rock yourself softly against the tip of his cock, letting it drag between your folds. He hums as you sink down slowly onto his length. You’re happy to have found a sure fire way of shutting him up.

You lean in close and grab his jaw, tilting his head. You press your lips softly to his earlobe, “FYI, having a big dick means nothing if you don’t know how to use it.”

“I know how to use it.” He bites back. He’s half tempted to shove you off of him and forget this whole thing.

Until you rock down onto him, fingertips pressing hard into his thigh to brace yourself. He grabs tight at your hips, steadying you as he presses his head band into the pillows.

You lean forwards and kiss his collarbones softly, trailing your tongue over the pronounced spot. You finish with a soft kiss to his chin, eyes on his as you lift yourself up and come back down, grinding into his pelvis until you’re completely full. “So do I.”

“Fuck.” Bradley mutters.

He wants to argue more but there just isn’t a thought in his head other than how good your pussy feels. His fingers press hard into your hips. You take your lip between your teeth, bracing yourself on his pecs as you rock yourself on his length.

“That better?” He breathes out. Your brows raise slightly, surprised by his apparently genuine interest. You nod your head, taking one of his hands from your hips and sliding it between your legs. He swallows, adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. You feel his fingers tremble just slightly as they find your clit.

Finally, you let your head lull back, a soft moan slipping your lips as you agree, “Mhm - much better.”

Bradley’s lips part, brows raising as he watches you. He throws his head back and closes his eyes.

“Don’t.” You warn him. Bradley groans, fingers working feverishly against your clit. “I’m almost there. Just - just… fuck, like that.”

Bradley presses his heels into the mattress, pushing his hips up to meet yours each time they come down against his. He pants. You can practically see it in his face as he struggles not to spill over the edge.

He skims his free hand along your side, groaning as his hand find your breast. His eyes glance between your face and your body, and then down, watching the way that you move on him. He considers himself lucky briefly - that he has this incredible girl in front of him, and she has decided to tie herself to him for life.

Your fingertips press into his thigh, squeezing at the muscle, desperate for leverage as you bounce on his length.

Bradley grunts as your walls clench around him. Your legs start to tremble under you. You fall forwards against his chest, breathing hard as you rock your hips. His arms wrap around your waist as he buries his face into the crook of your neck, grabbing your hips as he fucks you through your orgasm.

You gasp for air, feeling like he’s driving it out of your lungs as he fucks into you. You tremble with sensitivity, mewling desperately against his chest. His fingers dig into your hips as he spills into you with a groan.

He holds you there, arms wrapped around your torso as his lips press softly into your neck. His fingertips trail the length of your spine as you push yourself up and lift off of him. There’s a sheepishness in the way that you look at each other now.

“I think this might be the best Christmas I’ve had in a while.” Bradley says - mostly just to say something. He doesn’t think about it much when it’s leaving his lips. It’s just to break the tension. It’s after you’ve scoffed at him and headed off towards the bathroom with his shirt in your hand that he stops to consider it.

This probably is the best Christmas he has had in a good few years.

Last year was his first completely alone. He spent the day in his room dodging calls from Mav.

The year before that was when his mother was at her worst. She spent the entire day sleeping and apologising. He spent the day telling her that it was fine and to just focus on getting better. That was his worst Christmas.

Before that, that was the year she had been diagnosed. Bradley still thinks of the heartbreak in her eyes on that day - the knowledge that she was leaving him behind to figure it all out on his own.

He slips back into his shorts and settles in against the pillows. In comparison to the past three years, today wasn’t so bad. Not for him, anyway.

You come back to bed and fall asleep side by side, not touching. You wake up curled against his chest with his head resting on top of yours. It’s the banging on the door that makes you untangle yourself from him. It’s early but there’s light streaming in from under the curtains, so it can’t be that early. Your head rises and falls with each soft snore that slips Bradley’s lips.

You stand groggily and walk towards the door, dropping the chain and pulling it open. Bradley grumbles as light fills the room and he forces himself upright.

Jake looks you up and down. He looks at your dress from yesterday, still crumpled on the floor. He looks at Bradley, barely awake and laying on his side in the unmade double bed.

“Are you kidding?”

You blink at Jake. Of course it’s Jake. Who else would it be?

Bradley sighs and presses his palm into his eye socket, rubbing hard enough that he’s seeing stars when he takes his hand away. You pull Bradley’s shirt a little lower.

“I just spent all night trying to convince Dad not to cut you off and you’re out here getting laid?” Jake’s in utter disbelief.

“I was upset.” You reason with him, frowning as you look up at him - expecting nothing but sympathy. Bradley snickers behind you.

Jake opens his mouth to argue, looking between the two of you. He shakes his head.

“I thought I told you to stay away from her!” Jake goes around you and looks at Bradley instead. Bradley shrugs, stretching his arms out above his upset.

“She was upset.” Bradley reasons.

Jake pinches the bridge of his nose. He takes a moment to compose himself. He sighs softly and turns towards you again. You tug at the shirt, wishing it was longer.

“S-So? Did you fix it?” You ask softly.

“Dad’s gonna finish paying for your college. Rent and tuition until you graduate.” Jake explains. You’re covered until May. You silently do the math. The baby’s going to be here in either July or August - and you’ll be on your own. Jake watches your eyes widen. He braces himself for more tears.

“How’d you convince him to do that?” Bradley questions, brows furrowed as he sits up.

“His tax records are public. If he stops paying, people ask questions.” Jake explains. Beth was the one who came to the realisation late last night. She’s taken the side of her two younger siblings. No one - including Mark - has spoken to Lauren in hours. She spent most of the night sitting at the kitchen island and picking at her nails. Waiting for forgiveness.

You press a hand over your mouth. This is it, your father really does hate you. The only thing left tying him to you are taxes. You think of the strong man who’s shoulders you used to sit on. Those blue eyes that have always adored you so much. The man who sat across from you yesterday with nothing but disappointment in his eyes.

It may have been naive, but you had really thought that you might have been able to make him understand. That’s all ruined. You realise that they’re never going to speak to you again. Your eyes flicker between Jake and Bradley. The only two people you have to rely on in the entire world are frat boys who can barely stand each other.

Bradley realises that you’re about to start crying again. He remains in place and looks at Jake.

“So what do we do?” Bradley asks.

Jake shrugs his shoulders. A muscle in his jaw ticks. He takes a deep breath as he looks between you and his ex-best-friend.

“You step up.” Jake explains.

Bradley knew that this was the next step. At this moment in time, with the way you’re looking at him with such trust in your eyes — he feels fine with that.

Jake knows Bradley well. He knows that tomorrow, Bradley won’t feel the same.

Bradley understands the tax situation. He just can’t help but wonder what comes afterwards when one of Governor Seresin’s kids just stops visiting home. Isn’t there for Christmas, for rallies, for meetings, for state events.

Or, she is — and she has a kid.

He can’t help but think that this plan isn’t built to last. But, he has two Seresin’s staring at him and waiting for a response. And so, he nods.

…

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[darthgloris]

Volleyball (Berlín x female reader)

Summary: Berlín and Y/N, code name Varsòvia, were childhood friends since high school and finally reunite during the five-month training for the first heist.

Type: fluff

A/N: I wrote the Spanish names because I prefer those to the English ones, no warnings.

Happy reading!

The moment he entered the classroom, my jaw dropped. It shocked me how I recognised him instantly, after twelve years.

“No real names,” his brother reminded me, and I nodded quickly.

I walked up to him and his face lit up as he saw me. I jumped into his arms and he laughed, wrapping his arms around me and spinning me around.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, still laughing out of shock.

“Well, I’m a dirt-poor criminal and 2.4 billion euros didn’t sound so bad, so…” I chuckled. “I could imagine it’s the same for you.”

“Yes. Yes, it is.” He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. I smiled shyly at him, looking at him through my eyelashes and he pecked my cheek affectionately.

“Everyone please take a seat.”

I sat down at a desk and he sat in front of me, flashing me a smirk before turning around. Just like the old days, I thought to myself, smiling.

“First, I would like to set some ground rules. No personal information, that being names, ages, and no relationships.”

The room groaned, and I chuckled silently. I knew everyone would break that rule anyway.

“On the names, let’s do… cities, we’ll do cities. You?” He pointed at the girl in the front seat.

She paused for a second before replying. “Tokyo.”

Then his brother. “Berlín.” He chose. Fitting perfectly with his personality. I thought for a moment.

“Varsòvia.” I picked.

Berlín turned around with a mischievous smile.

“Don’t you dare make Nazi jokes,” I warned him.

“Twelve years, and you still know exactly what I’m thinking,” he responded.

I laughed lightly, “Never gets old.”

…

Life at the estate in Toledo wasn’t bad at all. We had free time and good meals, and I was reunited with Berlín, at last.

“Who’s up for volleyball?” Nairobi asked.

Berlín and I looked at each other knowingly, smiling softly. I winked at him and he winked back as we silently agreed to play our trick.

“I’m a bit rusty, but why not?” I agreed.

“I’m in,” he said. The others agreed as well.

“All right, everyone, let’s make teams,” I said. I silently counted us. Nine.

“We’re not even-numbered.” I said.

“Profesor! Are you playing?” Tokyo yelled.

“Sure.” He replied.

The teams were me, Berlín, Rio, Denver and Tokyo versus Nairobi, Profesor, Moskù, Oslo and Helsinki. Berlín and I took our places: I went in the center and he was in the front-right corner. Our strategy was to be always near each other so we could work together to score as many points as possible.

“You’re going to regret putting those two in the same team,” Profesor said softly to his team, pointing at us.

“Why’s that?” Nairobi asked.

“You’ll see.”

“We’re two teams of five.” I said. “First team that gets to 15 wins.”

Rio served: the ball flew to the other side without a problem and Nairobi dug.

“Berlìn,” I called his name softly and forearm-passed it to him, who attacked with strength and the ball touched the ground.

“Score,” he said proudly.

We used the same strategy again: Rio served again, this time Helsinki attacked and Denver dug.

“Varsòvia,” Berlín set me the ball and I attacked with as much strength as I could and the ball bounced aggressively on the grass.

“Oh, by the way-” I said out loud while approaching Berlín. “-we’re awesome.” He finished and high-fived me.

“That’s why,” Profesor said to Nairobi.

2-0.

2-1. Moskù scored.

2-2. Nairobi served and Oslo scored.

3-2. Berlín and I scored.

4-2. Berlín served the ball. “Ace,” He chuckled in pride.

5-2. He aced again.

6-2. And again.

6-3. Profesor blocked.

6-4. Helsinki served, Nairobi attacked.

…

“14-14, this is the tie-breaker, people!” Said Denver.

While Tokyo got ready to serve, I looked at Berlín. The twinkle in his eyes made me see he was not going to lose this match. Tokyo served. Profesor dug, Denver forearm-passed. Nairobi set, Moskù attacked. Berlín set me the ball, and I jumped as high as I could, attacking forcefully. The ball fell into the other side.

“Set point!” Berlín laughed and our team cheered and celebrated as he scooped me up in his arms bridal style and spun me around. I yelped in surprise.

“A bit rusty, mis cojones, Varsòvia,” Nairobi laughed. “Good job.”

“Thank you,” I said, out of breath and slightly dizzy from the spinning.

…

That same day we were having dinner and another high school tradition came up: insulting each other without getting offended in the slightest.

We were talking about past relationships and Berlín addressed me. “So, Varsòvia, how has it been for you? You’ve become so beautiful, you must have spent the last twelve years reliving 1999.” He said, a cocky smirk on his face.

I wasn’t even bothered at the compliment as much as the use of the date. The table raised a chorus of “ooh”, “ahh” and wolf whistles.

“1999?” Denver questioned.

“It’s a figure of speech about how sexually promiscuous she was in that year.” Berlín explained and I looked at him, smirking back.

“Do you have a figure of speech for how jealous you were of the boys that came out of her room?” Profesor teased him, earning a louder chorus from the table.

“Well, I happen to have one for how sexually promiscuous you can both go be with yourselves.” I smiled sarcastically at the siblings and the others laughed.

“Touchè, Bambi.” Berlín replied.

…

I sat on a chair in the balcony, enjoying the late summer breeze. A knock on my door startled me.

“Come in.” The door opened and Berlín entered.

“Hey,” He said softly and approached me. He came up behind me and leaned down to rest his arms on my shoulders, his chin on top of my head.

“Hi,” I chuckled back, grabbing one of his hands and interlocking our fingers. “Why so affectionate, Berlín?”

“Why are you questioning it? You know you like it,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, I do.” I smiled at him and got up to give him a proper hug. I nuzzled my nose into his neck and sighed.

“I missed you. A lot more than you think.” I said. I felt his smile on my forehead.

“I missed you, too, sweetheart.” We held each other for a good minute before pulling away. “And I meant what I said before. You do look beautiful.” I blushed.

“Berlín…” I shook my head in denial.

“You do. I mean it. With all my heart.” He brushed a strand of hair behind my ear and rested his hand on my cheek. I placed my hand over his and leaned into his touch.

“If I ask you something, will you promise to be 100% honest with me?” I asked him.

“Of course.”

“Were you really jealous in 1999?” He broke eye contact, drawing in a sharp breath.

“Yes. Yes, I was.” I gazed at him sadly.

“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t stand hearing about every single boy that came in and out of your bedroom while I had a massive crush on you.” He argued.

"You didn't have to, why didn't you just tell me?" I asked.

"And what were the chances of you saying 'yes'? I was a dumb teenager-"

"I was a dumb teenager too, hence why I might have accepted," I said playfully.

Berlín shook his head fondly and kissed me softly without warning. I kissed back immediately, smiling against his lips. When we pulled away I chuckled and blushed, while he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear.

"Te quiero muchísimo, Varsòvia."

"Yo también, Berlín."

[cacti-are-like-flamingos]

Dating Bokuto...

So like...i was halfway done when i accidently did something and it all just got erased. best believe my heart dropped all the way to my stomach. Que rico

Hopefully my memories good enough to recall all of my points

I did say that I never got to finish Haikyuu!! so I don't know the ending. I also don't remember many of the characters well so I'll have to re-visit the show again if people start requesting

Dating Bokuto is very much like eating flan--- it's so soft, almost silky. A sweetness overload that doesn't quite overfill the stomach but neither does it leave you empty. Although it does, on numerous occasions, leave you craving for more. maybe seconds... maybe thirds... maybe even fourths! you get the idea

He's quite literally the definition of a sweet himbo (unless it involves volleyball, that and being with you is when his two brain cells finally start to work. But even the latter has it's own special circumstances)

Surprisingly, he's somehow managed to figure out the perfect between volleyball and you. Afterall, he would never want to neglect you. (But he will always neglect his school work)

He'll invite you to his practices so you can watch, he'll invite to his practice so that you can play together, or he'll happily go with you to do whatever you want. As long as he gets to spend time with you, he could care less. However, the second option he views as the ultimate option. He gets to do his favorite thing with his favorite person, how could he not love that option?

That is not to say he doesn't like going on dates with you --- he practically beams at the idea of going out with you. It's like he gets to show you off.

His favorite type of date is the sort that involves any kind of festival. He gets to eat to his hearts content all while constantly holding your hand, giving you random nuzzles and kisses in front of all to see. He most especially likes winning you a variety of plushies and items. And I'm not talking about the small ones (unless those are the ones you wnat), I'm talking big business plushies. the sort that when you hold them, you can't see shit neither to the sides or over the head.

That's why he bought you a wagon that he drags around for you. Carrying so many things can easily tire out the arms, so with this you can happily continue the date without tiring so quickly.

He also really likes eating those pretentious desserts that you see on TikTok or Instagram, the ones with a thousands cute decorations on them that make them look even more edible (Ugh, i want to try those so bad)

When I think of someone dating Bokuto, I imagine that them having a tremendous amount of patience to deal with his various mood swings. Someone studious, so that he can pass his classes,. Yet, sociable enough to make friends with all the other teams, including his own. I imagine someone who doesn't really do sports on the regular but can prove active when the situation requires it. It's either that or he'll just force you to be more active.

Ah, he's the sort to love couple-matching outfits so be prepared for that. He's constantly raiding your closet to see what kind of outfits you have so that he can match with you (especially, sweaters)

He obviously invites you to his tournaments and games, so everyone already knows who you are. Whenever he makes a score, he instantly looks to where you are to see if you saw him do that --- he'll jump around and beam when you I've him a thumbs up with a smile.

When the owl is down, the team now depends on you to get his head back in the game --- Akaashi can get him out of depresses mode but just a single praise from you gets him out instantly

Speaking about Akaashi, you're very good friends with him. So great that the two of you often times texts memes about the various member of the team. You're also study-buddies.

Bokuto's not at all jealous because he's happy that his best friend is close to his partner, although if you do start paying more attention to the phone (not akaashi related) or to anything else, he will whine like a baby. Throwing himself into your arms and putting all of his weight on you so that you can't get him off

I have a scene where the Coach lets you come with on the team's bus whenever there's an away game, and that Bokuto takes a small nap on your shoulder while you quietly listen to some chill music or talk to Akaashi in whispers as to not wake up the sleeping owl boy.

Oh! Have you guys ever seen that trend on Tiktok of the girls that like get these pool-toys to entertain their boyfriends? Like the girl throw the toy into the water and the boyfriends jump into the pool in order to retrieve them? Yeah, you do that too with him. He'll spend literal hours entertained like that until he's out of energy. By then, he'll once again throw himself onto you and just sleep away. (hopefully, you'll have thunder-thighs or you'll be numbed rather quickly)

Ah, he likes for you to be the one to style his hair. Not to say he wont do it, it's just he likes you doing it for him while he watches through the mirror. I think he likes to receive acts of service while he provides words of affirmation and a shit ton of physical affection.

You like to give him a mohawk to tease him and he'll just cutey pout before breaking out into giggles.

Very fluffy he's kind of love. You just wished he did his actual work for once.

...

(A/N): That's all I got for now.

Hope you enjoyed!

[coltermorning]

A Rival of Want (A Rival Of Wills Pt. 2, RDR2 Fanfic, Arthur Morgan x F!Reader, 18+)

Summary: The perfect opportunity arises for you to get your revenge against Arthur.

Author’s Notes: Accidentally made this one extra extra long hah (imagine that) but it’s worth it I promise! Part one is here.

Tags: Arthur Morgan x reader, smut, low honor Arthur Morgan, rough sex, bondage, NonCon

AO3 Link

~

A Rival of Want

Word count: 12032

You thought of your pride as you sat atop your horse, riding back into camp after a long few hours away. Your attempt at finding a score proved futile, and your mood had spoiled further because of it.

Ever since Arthur had committed such a vile act on you those weeks ago, you could think of little else. You were beginning to be paranoid it was affecting your daily merit as a result. Every lead you followed since had turned sour, all falling flat or proving unworthy of risking your neck. If you didn’t know any better, you would think Arthur’s little stunt had settled over you like a plague, saddling you with the bad luck you had worked so hard to give to him. But no matter the cause, you weren’t bringing anything in, and your pride was suffering for it.

You thought of this pride and how it usually brought you more success when you met Lenny walking to his post just outside of camp.

“That you, Y/N?”

“Hey, Lenny,” you responded, not in the mood for conversation but unwilling to be unpleasant to the kid as you liked him well enough.

“Have any luck?”

Your gaze sharpened, as did your tone. “No.”

He got the message, walking on with a small smile. “Sorry I asked.”

You knew better than to respond, not wanting to start a fight that wasn’t warranted. You were having trouble holding your temper down as it was, and you didn’t need to give it another reason to swallow you whole.

You rode on and hitched your horse, avoiding as many camp members as you could as you made way to your tent, wanting nothing more than to be left alone.

“Miss Y/N,” said a voice just behind you before you could so much as sit on your bedroll. You rolled your shoulders to ease their tension before turning slowly, like the action would rid you of your annoyance.

“Yes, Miss Grimshaw?”

“Dutch wants a word with you. He’s just over there, by the water’s edge.”

Thanking the heavens she hadn’t needed more work out of you, you nodded and made to pass her quick enough that she couldn’t dream up some new chore to give you.

You walked to the lakeside and saw Dutch standing alone, far from any listening ears. You wondered what on earth this could be about before calling out to him. “You asked to see me?”

“Ah, Miss Y/N.” Then, as he looked back out at the lake, “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“It is.” You looked to him, not giving him space to dally.

He met your eye and chuckled. “You’re all business, ain’t you?”

“I was under the impression that’s what you took me in for.”

He smiled. “You’re not wrong.” He took another beat, your patience waning. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you for some time now. About you and Arthur.”

With the one person you couldn’t stand brought up, you felt your fists clench in fury without even meaning for it to happen. You stayed silent, and Dutch went on.

“I take it you don’t like him any more than he likes you.”

He gauged you for a reaction. To get this godforsaken conversation over with quicker, you relented. “I’d prefer not to think about him at all.”

“Fair enough,” Dutch said. “But, well. Why should I be out of pocket over a failure of reason? Over a…need to outperform one another?”

He looked at you knowingly, and you suffered for it. Of course. Of course Arthur had caused you so much grief even Dutch had taken notice. You’d caused the great brute enough grief of your own too, but that was beside the point.

You swallowed your pride—a mighty feat. “You shouldn’t be.”

“Sure,” he said. “Sure. Just…consider what the two of you could accomplish if you put your heads together for once, worked with each other instead of against each other.”

“Have you given him this talk?” you asked. By the slight gleam in Dutch’s eye, you knew he hadn’t. Leave it to him to try to make you see sense instead of his golden boy. But when you considered it, maybe it was because you were the more reasonable one. You chuckled at the thought. “All right then. The next lead I find, I’ll bring him in on it. But please don’t ask me to make it a regular occurrence. I’m not agreeing to enjoying his company.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said. “And Y/N?” The amusement Dutch then leveled you with grated on your nerves. “Thank you.”

You nodded your head before turning and walking away, silently fuming as you did. Now, not only did you have to find a lead, but you would be forced to bring Arthur along and share in the profits with him. You could think of nothing worse. There was one thing though, one small bead of hope that may make such a thing worth it—revenge. Revenge would be easy if it was just the two of you. But you would have to figure out a way to get it without Arthur sniffing out your ill intentions. That would prove no small task. Your mind reeled with the possibilities as you made way to your tent, planning all the while.

~

Two weeks passed before you found something. It was exactly what you’d been banking on: small enough to only need two and big enough for one hell of a payout. That, in your book, was a win no matter if Arthur was along or not. So, begrudgingly, you sought him out at the campfire, using every ounce of will you possessed to fight the words out.

“You busy tomorrow?”

Arthur was one of two sat around the fire, the other being Uncle who you never had to worry about cutting into a job anyhow. Even still, Arthur looked around like he expected you to be talking to someone else. When his eyes landed on your flat expression and saw you were looking at him, he barked a laugh.

“I don’t believe it. You, asking me for a favor?”

You tried to block out the sound of that laugh, the memory of the last time you’d heard it. “Not a favor, no.”

“What then?”

Your tongue felt glued to the top of your mouth. You forced yourself to speak, the thought of revenge the only thing enabling you to. “I’m asking you to join me. On a lead.”

He laughed again, that same laugh. “Like hell you are. What’s in it for you?”

“Trust me, it wasn’t my idea,” you spat, not liking how this was going already. “Dutch asked me to.”

“Dutch?” Arthur turned to look at the gang leader’s tent, drawing your gaze to the very man you were speaking of. He was watching this unfold, nodding at you in approval. You clenched your teeth.

Uncle nudged Arthur from where he sat on the ground. “You better take her up on it, Arthur. Or else I will.”

“You won’t do shit you lazy bastard,” Arthur said on a laugh.

Your patience was wearing thin. “Look, you want in or not? Because I can just as easily ask-”

Arthur stood, silencing you. “I’m in.” The grin he leveled you with was full of a malice that burnt you up inside, made you want to strangle him. “What’s the take?”

“I’ll tell you the details tomorrow.” With that, you turned to go back to your tent, having had enough of his haughtiness to last you the whole night through and then some.

He stopped you with a hand on your shoulder, his touch making your skin crawl. “I didn’t ask for the details. I asked for the take.”

You turned slowly, fully prepared to have a shouting match with him until your eyes landed on Dutch. He was watching you in earnest. You closed your eyes to cool your temper, waiting a moment before replying calmly, “It’s a house robbery north of Valentine. Take’s good if my information’s sound.”

“And is it?” Arthur asked, settling back with his hands on his gun belt like he ran the damn world.

Your blood boiled. “It is.”

He gave you a look that screamed he doubted it, and before you could lose your head, you turned away from him and took measured steps back to your bedroll. Measured, so as not to spin around and gut the man where he stood.

Luckily, that was all the outlaw seemed to want from you for the time being, as you didn’t see hide nor hair of Arthur for the rest of the night. You tossed and turned in your bedroll nonetheless, dreading the coming day with him while going over your plan again and again. If all went well, you would get your vengeance. You would just have to withstand hours alone with him to get it.

When morning came, Arthur asked when the two of you would be leaving to which you shot down quickly, telling him not until the evening. The cover of darkness would be an advantage, something he was familiar with but called you on anyway. It was hard enough to keep your temper when he wasn’t questioning your every move, so you broke and snapped at him, your words like fire unleashed as they left your mouth.

“You ain’t calling the shots, Arthur, no matter how much you may want to. So either leave it, or I’ll find someone more willing to come with me.”

That stumped him. He grimaced at you but left you alone without a word. With that, you got through the rest of the day without another hitch, doing a few camp chores and cleaning your weapons, making sure all was in working order. When you were grooming your horse, preparing to saddle her, Arthur approached.

“We doing this or what?”

As annoyed as you were with him, you thought of what you had planned for after the robbery and smiled. “Mount up, cowpoke.”

“All right then,” he said with an eagerness that made your smile widen.

The pair of you rode off, heading for the homestead known as Firwood Rise. You hadn’t been back this way since the hell the gang had raised in Valentine ran you out of the area apart from scoping out this lead the past few days. It was a long way from Clemens Point—a place you had to be going to to get to. And, as you suspected from such a long ride, Arthur tried his best to get under your skin all the while. When you were mere minutes away and he asked if your soreness had ever gone away from taking such a beating from him, it took everything in you not to jump off your horse and drag him off his own, kill him where he fell. The temptation was never far these days. Instead, you leveled him with a flat look and didn’t answer, reminding yourself you would get yours in a few hours if all went according to plan.

Darkness hadn’t quite washed over the small homestead when you arrived, so you nodded to Arthur to follow you as you made way for the cover of trees just north of the place. You would wait a while, scope the place out, be sure you were correct in the family’s absence. It didn’t take five seconds for Arthur to speak his mind on the matter.

“I know this place. Woman scientist lives here. What the hell are we robbing, dinosaur bones?”

You didn’t know what on earth he meant by this. “What? No. I don’t know who lived here before, but a family just moved in a few weeks ago. Word in town is they took a trip to retrieve the rest of their belongings. Won’t be back for two more days.”

Arthur furrowed his brow. “You sure? Cause I just seen that woman a month ago, and that barn was full of- well. Some kind of monster if I’ve ever seen one. I don’t know how she could have managed to move it so soon.”

Again, you had no clue what he was on about. “I don’t know about any woman, Morgan. But I know about this family. Been watching them the past week. A couple and their boy, wealthy enough for all of us if their fancy clothes and belongings are any indication. Seems they wanted a life away from the big city,” you said with a chuckle. They would soon see where that got them if you and Arthur had anything to do with it.

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” he mumbled, eyes on the house. You followed suit and watched as the silence stretched between you, a welcome respite.

When the sun finally sank and darkness took its place, you and Arthur went to work. He took the house, you the barn, knowing just what you would find. Sure enough, one of the finest coaches you’d ever laid eyes on greeted you as you stepped inside, shutting the door softly behind you. Why these people had ever brought such a thing all this way, you couldn’t begin to figure. They were asking for trouble even having it in the vicinity of Valentine, no doubt why you had heard of this lead in the first place. You’d made a deal with the man who gave you the lead too—bring him the wagon and he would pay you handsomely. It was so recognizable you weren’t sure what he would do with it but were happy to have it off your hands and to have money in your pocket. If all went as it was supposed to.

The barn was decidedly lacking in horses, but you were prepared for this and stepped back out to get your own. You led her over before taking liberty to a harness in the back of the barn, rigging your mare up to pull. When you were nearly finished, Arthur stepped inside.

“You weren’t kidding about these folks,” he said, leaving the door cracked behind him. “More money than they knew what to do with.” He eyed the coach as he said this.

“You got that right,” you said with a chuckle, nodding to the coach. “You ever seen anything like this?”

“Out this way? Never. They must be fools to keep something like this around.”

“I’m hoping to prove you right,” you told him. “I’m selling it to a man just outside of Valentine tonight.”

He eyed you. “Can he be trusted?”

“As well as any other no-good thief who gets others to do his dirty work.”

“Sure,” Arthur said with a chuckle. “You need my horse?”

“No, she’ll pull fine. Quite a sight we’ll make though, so I need you to ride ahead and keep watch so no one rides up on us.”

He nodded and whistled for his horse, peering through the crack in the door.

“Take good?” you asked him.

“Shit, better than good. I may start following you around for leads after this is over.”

You didn’t like the sound of that whatsoever and were somewhat rattled by the compliment. If your remaining plans for the night played out, you were going to do something that was much easier on your conscience if he wasn’t being so agreeable.

You shook the thought away and stepped back from your horse, making sure all was secure. “Get the doors open would you?”

Arthur obliged you, and within minutes, you were riding down the track toward town, toward enough money to have you grinning.

The pair of you thankfully didn’t meet anyone on the ride in and caught up with the man you would sell the coach to just north of town. To your annoyance, Arthur took it upon himself to do the talking.

“How much you giving us for it?”

The man seemed more dodgy than before, especially around Arthur, and you weren’t sure if it was because he would have tried to scam you out of a larger sum of money if you’d been alone or if Arthur was being overbearing and spooking him. You didn’t like the idea of either.

“I can do…three hundred, coach as fine as this.”

“Now, hold on,” you told him, abandoning your work at detaching your horse. “You told me seven hundred last week, not to mention we got the thing for you.”

Arthur’s gaze shot between you at word of such a large sum. “Seven hundred?” he roared, approaching the man. “You better up your offer or risk eating a bullet.”

“I- I can’t do better!” the man stammered. “M-maybe last week but…”

“But nothing,” you and Arthur said at the same time. You exchanged a glance.

“Find the money or I’ll kill you where you stand,” you pushed. “I want what I was promised. Every damn dollar of it.”

“I can’t, I- all I have’s four hundred. Honest!”

“Give it here then,” you said, reaching your hand out, annoyed that he had tried to keep a hundred for himself besides.

He moved to his saddle bag and pulled out the money, holding it close to his chest, reluctant to give it away. Arthur stepped forward and ripped it from his grasp, pocketing it.

“I expect the rest by the end of the week,” he said with enough of a threat in his voice to make the man balk.

“But- but I-”

Arthur grabbed him by his shirt collar. “You heard me. You don’t get it to me by then I’ll come find you myself. Understand?”

“Yes! Yes, I understand. I’ll get it. I’ll get it, all of it!”

“Good,” Arthur said, shoving him away. “Now get this thing out of here before you get us all killed.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” the man stammered, working at light speed trying to get his horse hitched to the coach. You reached over and undid the last buckle attaching your mare, leading her away.

“You head into town,” you told Arthur. “I’ll meet you at the saloon. Need to get this harness off her.”

“I’ll wait,” he answered, eyeing the man fumbling with his harness leather. “Want to be sure this fool gets out of here unscathed.”

“How thoughtful,” you quipped.

“I want my money,” he snapped at you. There it was—his wrath you so enjoyed pulling from him.

“You’ll get it,” you shot back. “If that man’s backbone’s any indication. Don’t gripe at me.”

“I ain’t griping.”

“You sure as shit are. And while you’re at it, give me my half. Don’t think I forgot.”

“Not here,” he grimaced, his voice low not from discretion but from rage.

You laughed as you pulled the harness off your horse, tossing it aside. “Yes, here. Now.”

“You ever heard of something called subtlety?” he asked, stepping into your space. “Finesse?”

You didn’t give an inch, meeting his anger with your own. “I have, and I know enough about it to know when I’m being cheating out of the take. Now give me my goddamn money.”

He chuckled, settling back with his hands on that godforsaken gun belt of his just as he had done the night before. The sight burned you up. “You’ll get your money when I decide to give it to you.”

“Oh, how high and mighty of you,” you said bitterly. “I roped you in on this because Dutch made me. This is my score.”

“And yet,” he said, looking to the ground with a smirk you couldn’t stand. “I’m the one with all the money.”

You couldn’t take it anymore. You snapped and shoved him, making him stumble backward a few steps, laughing as he did. That laugh just served to make you angrier, and you unsheathed your knife, the ringing sound of it scraping leather giving Arthur pause.

“You won’t,” he taunted.

“Give me what I’m owed and I won’t.”

You noticed a sudden lack of noise to your left and looked to see the man standing there by the coach, stunned at how quickly the pair of you had turned on each other.

“Are you insane?” you hissed at him. “Get going!”

“Right! Right,” he mumbled as he clambered onto the coach and flicked the reins, making the hulking thing lurch forward. Your gaze turned on Arthur.

“Where were we?” You angled the knife, fully expecting to have to slice him to pieces to get your money.

To your surprise, he smiled and opened his satchel, pulling out bills and separating them with a sigh. “Here,” he said, landing the money in your hand, not bothered in the slightest by your knife mere inches away.

“Thank you,” you said with malice, counting the money before putting it away. You would get a good look at the rest later, of his half, and be sure he wasn’t cheating you out of anything. If all went to plan.

He walked past you to head into town. “You coming then woman?” When you didn’t answer, he turned. “Or do you want another fight like before? Because I assure you, you’ll lose.”

That was it. Whatever thought you had about feeling bad for getting your revenge was long lost. You would make this work no matter if it took knocking him out cold with the butt of your gun to do it. You followed him without a word, scowling as you did.

The pair of you entered the saloon and were met with noise and drunkenness so thick it lit the room. The many patrons were long since three sheets to the wind with the late hour, and you were surprised there was even a person left to make food when Arthur stepped up to the bar and ordered it. He ordered a beer too, something you joined him in with a shaky hand. You wanted this to work so badly it had you nervous—something you nearly never were.

After Arthur ate and finished his beer, you spoke up with as much nonchalance as you could muster. “You wanna get a few rooms for the night or ride back now?”

He eyed you with a devilish gleam. “We can get a room. Don’t need two.”

You scowled at him as relief washed over you at his preference—it would make things much easier. “Like hell we don’t,” you spat, knowing the more you argued, the more he would dig his feet in and demand to share a room.

“No point in wasting money,” he grumbled. “Plus, I happen to know you agree with me.”

“Is that so?” you asked, sitting back and crossing your arms. “Please, enlighten me on my feelings.”

“Stop playing the fool and admit it,” he said. “You can’t stop thinking about that night.”

“That’s you, Morgan,” you said bitterly. “You can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve drawn a veil over that night. Didn’t happen, won’t ever again.”

“Sure,” he said with a grin that made you uneasy. Maybe he had plans of his own for the night. You were hoping to crush them nonetheless—you just had to find a way to get your hands on his drink.

Hoping this was your chance, you spoke with as much feigned anger as you could. “I’m getting another beer.” You stood and pushed back from the table, all sharp movements and impulse.

“Be a dear and get me one, would you?” he said sweet as honey, and you stopped with your back facing him, considering blowing your plan just to round on him and slap him silly. Instead, you swallowed your pride and moved to the bar. He had just unknowingly nailed the last hammer in his own damn coffin.

You ordered two beers, making sure Arthur was still turned the other way as you pulled the vial of powder out of your satchel and tipped it into his drink. You did so with hate thrumming through your veins—no guilt whatsoever reaching you. You did so with the memory of what he had done to you burning hot. You did so with a smile, knowing you would finally make him see just how it felt to be used, degraded, humiliated.

You swished his drink around and turned, putting on your best scowl as you approached him once more. You slammed the beer down in front of him and took a long pull of your own. “You owe me a quarter.”

“I don’t owe you shit,” he said, bringing the bottle to his lips. You tried with all your might not to watch him closely as he drank, praying he wouldn’t notice a change in taste. Sure enough, he didn’t.

“Why you gotta make it so insufferable to work with you?” you pushed, trying to keep his mind off his beer and his movements automatic.

“If I remember correctly, you’re the one that started all this,” he quipped. “Didn’t have to undermine me.”

You smiled, meeting his eye. “I did, actually. Just too damn funny not to.”

“This all a joke to you, is it?” He leaned in close. “You want me to teach you another lesson? Wipe that goddamn smirk off your face?”

You didn’t flinch, staying silent a beat before looking away, taking another sip of beer. “Two rooms. I don’t trust you to act a gentleman with one.”

His eyes narrowed. He leaned back in his seat and drank from his own bottle, his rage simmering if the look he gave you was any indication. You were sure now he was forming his own plan. Too bad it wouldn’t work.

After more heated conversation, enough to make Arthur start chugging his drink, you stood up and acted as though you were too angry to put up with another minute of his company. Waiting too much longer would foil your plans anyway. So, you began storming out and were met with his hand on your wrist.

“Where you think you’re going?”

“I’m getting a room,” you snapped. “Feel free to sit here and argue with the wall.”

“Not a chance,” he said lowly, a smile lighting his face. The sight nearly made you shiver—you prayed he wouldn’t shake off the mixture you’d made like it was nothing. Surely you’d gotten the portions right. You steeled your spine and reassured yourself as you yanked your arm from his grasp, leaving the saloon without a word.

The first sign of your plan in action showed through when he went to follow you and nearly stumbled down the saloon stairs, shaking his head a bit as he stepped to level ground.

“Wait goddammit,” he mumbled, walking fast to keep up. You didn’t cut him any slack.

Soon, you were through the hotel door, asking for two rooms.

“One,” Arthur insisted, coming in behind you. “One room. I told you, don’t waste your honey.” He blinked hard. “Money.”

You scowled at him. “Are you drunk? Two rooms, Morgan. It ain’t gonna put me out, I promise.”

He made to argue then stumbled slightly, making you reach out to catch him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I don’t…” He shook his head again then seemed to notice you were holding him upright. He yanked his arm away. “I’m fine.”

You rolled your eyes and turned to the hotel manager who was watching with a hint of distaste, like he was expecting Arthur to hurl any second. “Fine,” you said on a sigh. “One room please so this idiot doesn’t choke on his own vomit. Two beds.”

“Only got one bed in each,” he replied.

“Fine,” you repeated through gritted teeth, catching Arthur again as he swayed dangerously toward you. “First floor. I don’t think he’s got it in him to make it up the stairs.”

The manager slid you a key as Arthur mumbled something that sounded mildly threatening. You paid the man and yanked Arthur along. “What the hell is your problem?” He fought hard just to walk with you. “Can’t handle your alcohol or something?”

“Can handle- just fine-”

“Sure you can,” you said on a sigh as you propped him against the wall and unlocked the door, pushing him into the room. Right on cue, you watched his eyes roll back in his head as he dropped like a stone, hitting the floor with a sickening thud. That, if anything, would have him sore in the morning. You laughed to yourself as you closed the door behind you and locked it, ready to get to work.

After long enough that you worried you’d killed him, Arthur finally came to. And it took all of a heartbeat for him to come completely to his senses, his confusion at the situation he found himself in skyrocketing. He yanked his hands but found them tied, stilling.

“What the hell?” he growled, yanking again before you stepped around him, all pride and triumph.

“What’s the matter?” you taunted, leaning in face to face. “Rope cutting in?”

You saw his rage unleash, his face turning so red you worried he’d pass out again. “You little- let me out of these ropes! When I get my hands on you-”

“You ain’t in a position to bargain,” you interrupted. “Or threaten.”

He gritted his teeth, flashing them at you like an animal, yanking at his bindings. You had managed to sit him in a chair, tying his hands together not behind the chair but underneath it so that he didn’t have any leverage to pull away with lest he risk snapping his wrists. You had also bound his torso to the back of the chair, his ankles to its legs. He wasn’t going anywhere. And to top it all off, you waved his gun belt in front of his face, weapons and all.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” you told him. “Nobody takes anything from me. Ever. Not without payback, that is.”

“I’m gonna find a way out of this,” he growled. “And you’re gonna get it when I do.”

You pulled his knife out of its scabbard and brought it to his chest, pressing against the front of his shirt. “You try anything and I’ll give you something to yell about.”

You took the knife away with a small flick, making it cut through his shirt, just shy of piercing his skin. The anger wrenching his face was so severe you thought he would explode. But he didn’t, holding his tongue.

“Good,” you teased. “Best you keep that mouth of yours shut for this.”

“Don’t think I won’t yell loud enough for the whole town to hear,” he spat. “Get the law sent here to take you to jail where you belong.”

You held your hand up to silence him. “Enough. I’ll knock you out cold again if I have to.”

He flashed his teeth at you in a scowl and gave a harsh pull at his ropes, his body straining with the effort. “What did you do? Give me something to make me sleep?”

You laughed with malice, circling him. You came up behind him and whispered in his ear, “Something like that.”

He yanked his head back to head butt you, but you pulled away just in time, making him grimace, “Coward.”

You laughed again. “Call it what you want. You did the same to me if I remember correctly.”

“I didn’t have to put you under to do it,” he hissed. “Fought you down fair and square, tied you up, fucked you good-”

“Enough,” you repeated, circling back around to come face to face with him. “Before you give me ideas about just what to do with you.”

His breathing became labored he was so filled with fury. “You so much as lay a hand on me and you’ll regret it, that I guarantee.”

You smiled with as much wickedness as you could muster. “I don’t need to lay a hand on you, Morgan. Not yet, anyway.” With this, you sheathed his knife and tossed his gun belt on the end of the bed, facing him fully. “See, I know just how to torture you. And I don’t have to do a thing to you apart from make you watch.”

He scoffed. “You’re mighty full of yourself.”

“You’re getting the idea,” you quipped, bringing your hands to your hat, taking it off slowly.

He watched you like a hawk, wordlessly, as you began to undress right in front of him. Your shirt, stripped away, your chaps and boots and pants following suit. He seemed to be trying to prove a point, that what you were doing had no effect on him whatsoever, as his expression never changed from that of immense anger.

When you were left in just your underthings, you backed up to the bed and propped yourself up on it, smiling at him. “Want me to stop, Morgan?”

He shook his head in annoyance and looked out the window instead—a new tactic. You didn’t care. You would pull his gaze back soon enough. “Didn’t think so,” you whispered, the soft hiss of clothing filling the room as you stripped everything away.

You sat on the bed completely bare and spread your legs, the man you despised still refusing to look at you as you did. You smiled nonetheless, bringing a hand down to your inner thigh, moving it slowly toward your core. When you began touching yourself so intimately, your head fell back in a lazy laugh. “Oh, I just know this eats you up. You want so badly to take me, abuse me, make me yours. Won’t ever happen, Morgan.”

He let out an annoyed huff. You looked to him to find him still looking away—you knew why. “Won’t look at me, will you? Afraid to take this sweet sight in? Afraid of what it would do to you, make you feel?”

“Shut it,” he grumbled.

“You’re telling me I shouldn’t be worried? That the sight of me pleasuring myself wouldn’t drive you mad enough to break through those ropes and come give me what I deserve?”

“I said shut it,” he snapped, still looking the other way. You pushed a finger inside of you in retaliation, the feeling making you hum your approval.

“You don’t have the upper hand here,” you muttered, repeating what he had said to you all those nights ago, as he had taken you so roughly against that tree.

You thought you heard a growl of frustration but were too distracted to be sure as you began pumping your finger in and out. With that sudden pleasure, you brought your other hand down and started small circles around your clit, not giving in entirely just yet. But still, you let out a small sigh, arching your back against the bed.

You were sure Arthur would break soon and stole another glance at him. His frustration was still there, the scowl on his face somewhat laughable as he fought the temptation to look at you. You swirled your finger right where you needed it and moaned, and the sound made him clench his jaw. He was close to his breaking point. And you could do so, so much worse than this. How weak-willed he was when it came to you.

You kept on like this, getting nearer and nearer to an orgasm that would have you seeing stars. If only Arthur could pleasure you like this. He never would, not with that pride he had. But there were other things Arthur could do—hopefully things he would be more than willing to do once you broke him.

When your end was seconds away, you took your hand away to give Arthur the full view of your soaked core if he chose to swallow his pride and look. With that, you circled your finger on your clit like mad and soared, breaking over your pleasure as it shot through you, making you moan low and long. Your eyes shot to Arthur and saw his focused expression, saw that the bastard still hadn’t looked but that he was listening as intently as he could to every sound you made. Giving away his desire. Your plan was working.

“Too bad you couldn’t make my body do that,” you teased, knowing just the effect it would have.

“I did make you- do that.” That small hesitation was all you needed to hear. His gaze had shot to you and dipped down to your wetness, to your legs still spread wide before him. But, just as quickly, he steeled himself and locked eyes with you, refusing to look back down.

“Awe, what’s the matter?” you said with a pout, standing. “Not man enough to look at a woman all bare?”

You approached him. He didn’t respond, keeping his eyes on yours, his anger taking over once more. You just chuckled, leaning in close enough to prop your hands on his thighs. It was easier to tell how heavy his breathing had become this close.

“That get you all in a bother, Morgan?”

“You wish,” he spat.

You smiled wickedly and began moving your hand up his thigh, toward his manhood.

“Don’t touch me,” he said through gritted teeth, bucking his hips to get your hands away.

You stopped your pursuit, changing your approach. “That’s funny,” you said through a heavy bitterness. “I seem to recall telling you the same once. To no avail.”

He didn’t have a response to this. Good. Let him realize the suffering he had put you through. Let him feel it tenfold.

You straightened and climbed into his lap before he could so much as blink, making him begin to shoot some nasty insult or other at you before you stopped him by running a hand around his head, pulling his hair. The action forced him to look up at you, his teeth bared in anger again.

“Let’s get one thing straight,” you said lowly, settling on his lap and noting that he was half hard. “You ever try to touch me again without me wanting you to, and I’ll cut off each finger you use to do it. No one uses me like that. Understood?”

His grimace turned into a smile. “Like you didn’t want me to.”

“I’m sorry,” you said with venom, yanking his hair so his head was pulled back farther. “Did me telling you to stop mean nothing to you? Your idiot brain not able to comprehend what that means?”

“Oh, I heard you,” he taunted. “Heard those pitiful whimpers of yours as you tried to convince yourself you didn’t want it. But you did. Your pleasure gave you away. Hell, all this is giving you away.” He looked down at your body as he said it. You couldn’t stand the smug satisfaction on his face for a second.

“You’re missing the point,” you snapped.

“Careful,” he said. “Don’t let that temper of yours get the better of you.”

You were seeing red when you shoved him and stood, going back to the bed to get his knife. You debated it then, cutting him loose and threatening him with a gun until he left. Maybe he was right in some small way. Maybe finding your pleasure with him was a bad idea, playing right into his hand. You shook the thought away, knowing cutting him loose would be worse. He would just find a way to best you and fuck you senseless, break you. Not again. Tonight was about the opposite—you would break his will if it was the last thing you did. No matter if it broke your own in the process.

You turned back to him and saw his eyes flick up—he had been staring at your ass. It just made you all the angrier, and suddenly you couldn’t go through with your plan fast enough. You rushed him and ignored his demands for you to stop as you sliced through his pants at the knee, careful not to gouge his leg no matter how badly you may have wanted to, cutting a long line upward until you reached his hip and yanked up. You had torn his pants clean in two, his undergarments with them. You continued cutting until they fell below him in tatters, his manhood on full display, still half-hard. Your eyes flicked to his, to the anger boiling his blood.

“How does it feel?” you asked with a bitterness so thick you could taste it. You straightened and threw the knife behind you, making it clatter against the wall. Without hesitation you climbed into his lap once more.

“Stop it,” he spat, beginning to yank at his bindings, leaning away from you.

You caught the hair on the back of his head again and pulled, forcing him to look up at you. “No. You think about that the next time you want to manhandle me,” you said, moving your hips forward so that you sat against his cock. “You think about this,” you said, starting to move back and forth on him. “When you want to fuck me. How it feels to be helpless.”

“I ain’t helpless,” he spat, his anger still shining through despite his arousal now building beneath you.

“That so?” you teased. “Sure feels like you are.”

“I ain’t,” he snapped again, those words enough to make you smile as his voice cracked slightly on the second one.

“You’re giving yourself away, Morgan. You wanted this all along, didn’t you? Wanted me to ride you hard, make you find your pleasure.”

“You so much as try that, and I’ll-”

You interrupted him by taking his cock in your hand beneath you, lining up with his now-hard length. He gritted his teeth in response, trying hard not to give in to you.

You locked eyes with him and smiled wide. “What are you gonna do to stop me?” And with that, you sat down swiftly, with force, making you moan your satisfaction as his cock split you. He made a noise somewhere between a wince and a groan, still trying hard to defy you, still holding your eye.

“Don’t,” he warned. His voice was low enough for you to feel vaguely threatened by that, but you didn’t care. He felt too good inside of you for you to stop now.

“You never listened when I told you that,” you spat before rising up and sitting hard on him once more, beginning a harsh pace.

He did wince this time, shutting his eyes and gritting his teeth against the pleasure. He felt so good like this you moaned, throwing your head back as you bobbed up and down on him. You moved your hands to his shoulders to keep your balance and felt the tenseness there, his muscles straining against every instinct he had to let you do this to him.

“You gonna let your pride get in the way of your pleasure?” you said lowly, your voice husky with arousal.

“I got a stronger will than yours,” he answered, though his tone was saying otherwise.

“Then why are you so hard I can feel you in my guts?”

“Because of you,” he spat. “Doing such vile things in front of me. Because you had yourself dripping all over the damn bedsheets and made me want to break this chair into pieces and come fuck you so hard you can’t see straight.”

“What was that about a strong will?” you teased. “Admit it, Morgan. This isn’t about dominance. You want me. You want my body, want to make me yours.”

“You are mine. I got you so hooked on my dick you couldn’t leave me be, could you?” Just as he said it, you thrust down at the same moment he snapped his hips upward, burying himself inside you in a way that made you suck in a breath. “That’s what I thought,” he quipped.

“I ain’t doing this because it’s your dick,” you spat, still riding him with a harshness that was driving you high. “I could fuck anyone I wanted to. I’m doing this because you can’t stop me, because you took something from me and I’m getting it back.”

“What, your pride?” he said with an amusement you couldn’t stand.

That was it. Your anger boiled over, making you wrap your hand around his throat and push against him. He was forced to lean back as you took him harder, riding him so harshly your orgasm neared. You squeezed tight against his throat, making sure he couldn’t speak one more ill word against you. He tried nonetheless, nothing but a garbled, furious sound escaping him as you used his body to find your pleasure. Your breathing turned heavy, a long moan escaping your lips as you fucked him.

“I’m gonna come, Morgan,” you said with a smile, pushing so hard against his throat you hoped he would bruise. “All over your cock. And there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop me.”

Just as you said it, he shoved his body forward in an attempt to get you off of him, but he was too late. You sat astride him one last time and went still as you came hard, your muscles clenching around him. He cursed you and pulled back, his anger overcoming him and aimed right at you. You didn’t care. The feeling of reaching such a blissful pleasure had filled you with a contentedness not even Arthur could shake.

You rose off of him and released him in the process. “You little-” he started, so mad he couldn’t even finish his sentence, his face red with fury as it had been when he woke. “Come here!” You just shook your head, smiling down at him as you backed away. “Get over here before I break this chair!”

You sat back on the bed, propping yourself up on your elbows to look at him. “What’s the matter? Doesn’t feel so good to have it done to you does it?”

“At least I made you find your pleasure,” he growled.

“Now you’re getting it,” you teased as you reached for his satchel, dragging it over. “This is what it feels like to be a woman in a man’s world. Helpless, degraded, wronged. I told myself at a young age I would never feel that way, and yet you managed it. So how does it feel? To have it thrown right back in your face?”

“I ain’t a means to an end,” he snapped. “I fucked you into the dirt because you made me angry. Don’t act like you ain’t doing the same, like you’re better than me.”

There was a small amount of truth to that—you weren’t any better than him. But you never claimed to be. No matter his cutting words, he could do nothing to wipe the smile off your face. Especially as you proceeded to count the bills in his satchel and slowly lowered your knees down to the bed, spreading you legs wide before him once more in distraction.

He wouldn’t look down, his eyes glued to your hands on his belongings, a defiance running through him so hot he gritted his teeth and refused to take the bait. All you could do was laugh nonetheless, as his erection was still straining so hard against his belly it was a wonder you hadn’t made him find his pleasure already. That gave you a new realization as you tossed his satchel aside but kept the money in hand, noting with surprise that he hadn’t shortchanged you after all. “You like this, don’t you?” you teased, standing.

“What?” he spat, all wrath and pride, his gaze flashing between you and the money you took.

“Arguing with me like this, it turns you on, doesn’t it?”

“No.” Even though the word was sharp with truth, his body said otherwise.

You flashed him a wicked smile. “Then why are you still so hard?”

You sported a taunting gait as you took the few steps to join his money with your own, taking every last bit of it for yourself. His face contorted with rage not over any word you had said, not over anything you had done to him—he was furious about the money. Of course he was. You should have tried taking it sooner. You saw his jaw clench, his eyes darkening like his anger was blocking out all else. He looked down at his bounds, searching for a way to escape them. Panic set in before you could see reason—that he had no way out. He started pulling against the ropes nonetheless.

“It’s no use, Morgan.”

He kept trying anyway, not saying a word as he did, like his sudden fury had made everything else fall away, even his will to argue. He tugged hard enough to make the wood of the chair creak.

“Stop it.” He couldn’t possibly muscle his way out. Could he? He did it again, and you heard something snap. “Arthur,” you warned, wishing your fear hadn’t found its way into your voice.

You debated running before he could do anymore damage, but you were naked, more so than he was. You had a feeling all that you had done would fuel him with a determination so thick that he would catch you quicker than you could redress and get to your horse. When he yanked his leg forward and braced his foot against the floor, breaking the leg of the chair in the process, you made up your mind. You had no other choice.

You ran for your clothes and began dressing quicker than you ever had, leaving your undergarments as you yanked your pants up your hips, sliding your arms through your shirt and leaving it unbuttoned. You gathered his gun belt and weapons along with your own when you heard a sickening crunch of wood, the sound making you stop dead. You whipped around to see Arthur on the floor, the chair broken in half from its impact with the ground. He was free, tearing the ropes from his body, his smoldering gaze set on you. You sprinted around him and leaped over the outstretched hand he attempted to catch you with, reaching the door and flinging it open. You didn’t have a chance to step through it before it was slammed shut in your face.

You pulled the first weapon your hand could find and rounded on Arthur, but he knocked it away with a sharp wrap against your wrist. He yanked the remaining weapons out of your grasp and threw them behind him. You stood there staring at the gun you had let fall to the floor, refusing to look at him, unbelieving you had let this happen. You didn’t get to do this for long, as his hand met your throat in retaliation for earlier, and he slammed you against the door. Hard.

Your fingers scrambled to his hand, attempting to break his grip as stars began swimming in your vision.

“You do as I say,” he said so grimly you feared for your life. “Or you’ll be unconscious before you can say another word.”

As much as you hated to do it, being conscious was the better option, so you nodded.

“Good.” The evil satisfaction that lined that word made panic set in, deep and unrelenting.

He kept his hand on your throat and pulled your forward, making you meet his eye. The fury within them shook you. “You’re gonna strip and tie yourself up nice and tight to that bed. If you try to escape, I’ll whip the hide off you. You defy me, and I’ll take your body as I see fit. No talking. Got it?”

You nodded again, trying hard to keep a neutral expression on your face. You didn’t want him to see your fear.

He threw you forward with enough suddenness that you stumbled, catching yourself but only just. The ropes at your feet lay there like death sentences—would he harm you for what you had done?

“Hurry up,” he growled as he gathered the weapons from the ground, putting them on the dresser with the loud clacking sound of metal on metal.

You did as you were told, glad that he had put the weapons down. You undressed then tied the first rope around your wrist, the feeling making your panic flare up. There was a way out of this you knew, you just had to be smart. You had to think. But you couldn’t, not with the feeling of being trapped gripping you like a vice.

You finished tying the second rope and went to put the third around your ankles.

“No,” Arthur commanded. You turned to look at him to find that he had taken off his remaining clothing, his shirt held in front of him the only thing blocking his body from being on full display. Of all things, you looked to his broad shoulders, holding back your fear—he was powerful. Enough that you wondered what he was going to do to you, the damage he could do if he was angry enough.

“Don’t tie them together. I want those legs spread wide on the bed.”

There was your answer. You tied the remaining rope and stood tall, watching him as his eyes roved over your bare body without shame, without pause, without any of the stubbornness of before. For once in your life, it made you want to run. You had never truly been scared of him before, but after what you had done to him…

“On the bed,” he snapped, his gaze still predatory.

You reluctantly did as you were told, knowing where this was going and not enjoying the idea of being tied up again at his hand. You laid down on your back, watching him as traces of your familiar anger began to take hold.

Arthur tied your legs down first, then as if relishing in doing this to you, he brought your arms up slowly, one by one. There were moments you debated fighting him but knew you couldn’t overpower him, that it would just make whatever punishment he had planned worse. So you sat there limply, staring at the ceiling in defiance as he made sure your ropes were tight then crawled over you. You prepared for the worst. You prepared for your anger to eat you alive as he repeated what he had done all those weeks ago. Only, he didn’t.

“You listen to me,” he said lowly as he boxed you in below him. “You talk a big game, but I think it’s a load of horseshit. You say you don’t want this? Prove it.”

“How am I supposed to-”

“Shut it,” he snapped. He hesitated then, as if he was fighting some inner battle with himself. Still, his gaze remained fixed on you, his eyes hungry. Whether for violence or your body, you weren’t sure.

He started carefully, his words picked apart. “If you don’t say another word, I won’t fuck you. You stay quiet all you want, and I’ll punish you plenty, but I won’t fuck you if you can really prove to me you don’t want this.”

You sat there, leveling him with a smoldering gaze but refusing to speak. That request was simple enough, but it shocked you more than anything. Where was this sudden restraint of his coming from?

“But if you do make a sound, I’ll take that to mean you do want this, that you have all along. Is that clear?”

You nodded, wondering why he had given you a choice instead of taking what you knew he wanted from you. Especially after what you had just done to him.

You debated what exactly he meant by punishment when he moved down, surprising you further by laying his hand on your stomach, slowly sliding it down your body. What was he getting at, playing nice?

Five minutes later, you had your answer. By punishment, he had meant sensual torture. His hands had roved over your body so close to where you needed him but never yielded any pleasure, remaining just out of reach. You knew then what he was doing and where this was going—he wanted to work you up into an arousal so frustrating you couldn’t deny him. He wanted you to want him, to say the words to him, to demand he fuck you. He wanted all your anger at what he had done to you before to mean nothing. And that was something you just couldn’t give in to. But oh, did you want to. Especially as his hands worked you so roughly, as they kept squeezing your breasts, dragging across your skin but never your nipples. Especially as one hand kept running under you, gripping your backside as the other ran along your inner thigh, higher and higher. Your breathing had turned heavy, your body reactive to every touch. But still, you remained wordless, refusing to do what he was asking of you despite him touching you like this—something you never thought you would feel in this lifetime. Not from him.

He suddenly picked up his pace, one of his fingers coming so close to the relentless heat between your legs that you bit back a moan. He noticed, his hands stilling.

“Quit fighting it,” he said lowly, softly, with a voice you wanted to give in to. And he resumed his torturous work, one hand brushing over your ribs, toward your breast, the other between your thighs.

You wanted to. By all that was holy, did you want to yield to that request. But then your reason for doing any of what you had done tonight would be rendered obsolete. Then he would take everything to mean you just wanted to fuck him, that you had enjoyed him ravishing you in those woods. And you…well. Part of you had enjoyed it. With all of that painful pleasure, how could you not? But that didn’t mean this man could take whatever he wanted from you without your consent. Then again, that wasn’t what he was doing, was it? He was giving you a choice. An impossible one, sure, and an unfairly balanced one. But he wasn’t taking you without pause as you had expected him to, even after you had had your way with him and robbed him blind. So where did that leave you?

You wondered, if you steeled your will, whether or not he would give up. Whether he would get frustrated enough to snap and use your body to his liking anyway. Or would he lay here all night, running his hands over you body like little whispering promises of what was to come? Thinking of it that way, the giving nature of what he was doing…maybe he wanted you to want him. Maybe he was guilty over what he had done, and this was his hope that it hadn’t been entirely one-sided. Maybe this was his apology.

No. You reminded yourself of the glee he prided over you when he fucked you in those woods, the satisfaction he had plastered on his face afterward. The anger he leveled you with when you climbed in his lap earlier. No, this was not an apology. It wasn’t some selfless act either. It was meant to break you, to force you to give in to him on your own terms instead of his—something that would leave any further argument against him meaningless. It would mean you had wanted him all along even if you hadn’t, and you had no doubt he would wield that over you with pride, using it as an excuse to do whatever the hell he wanted to you for the rest of his days. And you couldn’t have that.

So, as much as you hated to do it, you attempted to block out all feeling as his hands continued their grating work. You forced your body to shut down, telling yourself it was only greed and lust circling you like predators, that you didn’t have to give in to either. Finally, you stilled your body, your mind, knowing you could not only ignore his need for you to want him, but best it. Arthur sensed this sudden resolve in you and stopped, looking to you. You locked eyes with him and smiled. Then his thumb came down on your clit, and you lost yourself entirely.

A moan hummed through you despite any will of your making, despite anything you could do to stop it. And, according to his terms, that counted as consent enough. A wicked grin split his face as he removed his thumb, climbing over your body, lining it up with his own.

“That’s all it took, huh?” he jeered. “You’re weaker than I thought.”

“No,” you uttered, knowing any word you said would damn you further. But this was far from begging for him to fuck you, and you fully intended to make that known. “Don’t.”

“What did I say?” he asked as his body rested flush against yours, his hard length moving against your inner thigh. “One word, one sound, and you’re done.”

“I know that, but I-” The head of his cock met your entrance, the feeling and how badly your body wanted it taking any words you had left. But, to your surprise, Arthur didn’t move any farther. He chuckled instead, relishing in taking your words away.

“Tell you what. I’ll give you one last chance. Only since I know you’ll waste it too.” He started grinding against you, never pushing into you, but his manhood slid against your thigh in a way that drove you mad. “I do all this to you and you still tell me to stop, and I’ll leave you alone.”

That was easy enough, something you were midway to proving as you opened your mouth to speak. But he interrupted you when the head of his cock nudged against your core, sliding not inside of you but upward—grating against your clit. You winced and closed your eyes tight, not needing that kind of pleasure in a moment like this. For you were stuck somewhere between wondering why he had given you such an easy out and realizing it wasn’t easy at all. Your body wanted him. Badly.

“Goddamn you,” you whispered, suddenly finding it difficult to breathe much less think as he started repeating that same motion, dragging his cock against your clit. You opened your eyes to see him grinning down at you, knowing just what effect he was having. “Goddamn you,” you repeated, the words full of venom. “This is all just some fucking power play to you, is it? That’s why you’re giving me another chance. Because it would stroke your ego so damn hard if I was begging you for this.”

“I didn’t say you should beg me,” he said, his smile spreading. “I said to tell me to stop. But you can’t, can you?” He shifted his body slightly before resuming his pleasure-filled torture, bringing a hand to your throat and pinning you to the bed. He brought his face beside yours, his mouth inches from your ear as he whispered, “Admit it. You want this. You can’t tell me no.” His words were full of arousal and pride, all male. And damn him for being right. The higher he worked you, the less you felt that you could deny him.

Your streak of defiance that you normally clung to, the pride alongside it that made you who you were, they were slowly losing their importance with each thrust of his length against you.

“Your silence is giving you away, I’m afraid.”

You shifted under his grasp, angry at his smugness. He chuckled but brought his hand away from your throat, bringing it to your breast instead. To your nipple this time. You tried hard to control your breathing as he flicked his finger across it, your body reacting to his touch.

“You gonna let your pride get in the way of your pleasure?” he teased, repeating what you had said earlier. Under very different circumstances. You considered it—he hadn’t given in. Not really. He defied you the whole time, never finding his own pleasure despite you using him so harshly. Maybe his will was stronger than yours. It certainly felt that way now.

“It ain’t pride,” you gritted out.

“No?” The amusement in his voice burnt you up, but not nearly as badly as when he moved, his cock going back to your thigh, inches from where you needed him most.

“N-no.” You hated the break in the word the moment it left your mouth, especially since it turned his smile feral.

“Then tell me, why is it you’re still holding back? And why is it you ain’t tried to throw me off you?”

Because as much as you wanted him now, you hadn’t the first time. And that mattered. “Fuck you,” you spat. “And get the hell off of me.”

He had the decency to look surprised for a beat, stopping his relentless pace against you. You waited for him to get up, for his face to fill with disappointment over truly being denied. Neither reaction came. Instead, anger overtook him, and his hand found your throat once more. “No.”

You balked at that word. “You promised,” you said through strained words, his hand restricting your ability to speak.

“I did no such thing.”

“So your word-” He plunged into you, his cock hitting you just where you needed him, making your body sing its pleasure, arching into the mattress. “-means nothing,” you finished, nearly breathless. You tugged at the ropes tying your hands, trying to get at his hand around your neck, but it was useless.

He buried himself in you, his pace brutal and fast. “You should have known better.” He suddenly sat up, bringing his hand away from your throat and dipping them under you, lifting your back. He slammed his length back into you while remaining upright. It was ungodly how good it felt. You held back the outcry on your tongue. “You shouldn’t have pulled that little stunt on me.” You could barely focus on what he was saying, your eyes nearly crossing with pleasure. “Should have known I would get you back for that sooner or later.”

Your pleasure overwhelmed you in seconds, and before you could so much as breathe a response, you came hard, all of his teasing from before and the build up to this reeling through you. That wasn’t all. He kept up his pace, burying himself in you so deep you thought you would die.

You managed to get a hold on yourself and opened your mouth to speak, but all you could manage was a breathy, “Arthur,” that made him laugh lowly. It was the way a lover breathed a name—pure submission and a revelation of just how much you wanted this.

“I know baby girl,” he said on a smile. “I know.”

You wanted to slap him for calling you that but couldn’t. You couldn’t do much of anything besides take the abuse he was giving you.

“Gonna fill you up so good,” he said breathlessly, and it was then that you noticed his chest heaving, his pace quickening.

The mention of him filling you with his spend shot a thrill through your bones, enough to make you swallow your pride and eat your words from earlier. “Do it,” you said, shame finding no place on your tongue. “I want it.”

He looked down at you in surprise. “I-”

“Shut up and fuck me, Arthur.”

His whole body tensed at your words. It was what he had been waiting to hear all night.

“Yes ma’am,” he said gruffly, and something about it satisfied you beyond anything else that had happened, beyond what you had done to get your revenge, beyond finding your pleasure. He succumbed to your request. And you soared with pride for it.

Just as a smile lit your face, Arthur came, his groaning pleasure a sight you wouldn’t soon forget as every muscle in his body tensed beyond measure. He had kept his word and buried himself deep within you, making you take every drop of his spend. And worse still, you loved it. You loved that he hadn’t backed off and left you there, that he had gone against his word and taken you anyway. As much as you hated to admit it, that kind of loving abuse thrilled you. It always had. You had never wanted some groveling, pitiful lover. You wanted an equal. And Arthur was all that and then some.

“You ever tell anyone I gave in, and I’ll kill you,” you assured him.

He was still attempting to catch his breath when he replied, a smile stretching across his face. “I don’t have to. You’ll be giving in to me every goddamn night from now on, loud enough for that whole camp to know it.”

With that sinful little guarantee, you found yourself smiling right back at him. “As I recall, you don’t keep your promises.”

“Oh, I’ll keep that promise. You can count on that.” On the last word, he pushed his lower body against you before pulling out every loving inch, your slick covering his cock, the sight making your arousal flare up once more. He saw where your gaze had landed and chuckled. “Maybe you’ll beg me for it after all.”

With this, and a nasty look shot at him, he got off the bed to redress, neglecting to untie you.

“You gonna get these ropes off me or wait for the next angry bastard who walks in here to take full advantage?” He laughed as he started pulling on his clothes, not deigning that with a response.

When he was fully dressed, having stolen a pair of pants that wasn’t cut to shreds from a dresser drawer, he turned to you and lit a cigarette. After taking a slow drag, he leveled you with a stare only a man could give, one frustrating in its smugness. His eyes raked over your naked body. “Would you have untied me?” You nearly laughed. Hell no. If Arthur hadn’t escaped that chair he was tied to, you would have left him to figure it out. This must have shown on your face, as Arthur shook his head. “Thought so.” He pulled his knife out of its scabbard and approached. “But, I’m feeling generous.”

To your surprise, he cut through the rope at your ankle nearest him. You waited for him to cut the next, but to your annoyance, he sheathed the knife and stepped back.

“Oh, how kind of you,” you said flatly, knowing you were nearly just as trapped with only one foot free. “Cut the rest.”

He just took another drag on that damned cigarette, smiling all the while.

“Morgan,” you warned.

His smile widened. He walked to your belongings on the floor, took every bit of the money you had stolen from him for himself, then turned and made way for the door. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.” You were reminded of another night he had left you bound, angry as all hell, and reeling from brutal pleasure—another night he had taken everything from you.

“If you don’t untie me right now and give me my money-”

“See you back at camp,” he shot over his shoulder as he left the room. You debated screaming bloody murder at him, but before you could make up your mind, the door was slammed shut and you were without any means to free yourself.

“Fucker,” you murmured, knowing just how on top of the world he was likely feeling. It was meant to be you feeling that way. So, like any other woman who had been twice scorned, you began planning your revenge yet again. This time, you would make it right. You would leave no loose ends. Your pride and your anger would get you there, come hell or high water. Because when it came to rivaling Arthur Morgan, there was no one better suited to it than you.

[theflyindutchwoman]

The scene you posted today made me think about the possibility of us getting a parallel of it in season 6 — then dancing together at Bailey and Nolan’s wedding.

And the way it probably wouldn’t be all that different 😂 maybe his hand placement might be lower on her back 😏 but they’d be just as smiley and flirting and happy

Ooooh imagine if they keep up the theme of them talking about her job/career and they have a more serious talk about UC or something 😩

You have no idea how hard I was trying not to think about that when I was rewatching the wedding scenes! I'm half expecting Bailey and Nolan's wedding to either be interrupted or just be a simple ceremony with two witnesses like they were implying at some point… But I'm honestly really hoping that there will be another scene with Lucy and Tim dancing together. The potential of parallels with this… I agree, it probably wouldn't be that different. I could totally see them exude the same happiness and carefree attitude they had at Nyla's wedding since they were already acting like a couple there… Then again, there's a chance that they would also take it up a notch in the intensity level now that they are together… Maybe another elevator eyes moment… Maybe even a kiss… The heart eyes and little touches even more out of control…

As for the other potential parallel - depending on when the wedding happens in the season, Tim and Lucy could address her possible promotion there. She's after all supposed to take the detective's exam at the beginning of s6 - unless she already did. So if the wedding takes place in the 100th episode, that also could be when she finds out her score. Or if the wedding is kept under wraps until later in the season, it could indeed be tied back to her undercover storyline, especially if she had to do another op right before. So many possibilities…

[maribatserver]

TTT 2023 - Tournament Top Dogs

Everyone who participated in our tournament was incredibly creative, and we were delighted by how many of you joined in this year! We do want to honor those who really pushed the envelop though.

Now, those of you in our server (or at least, those of you who were poked into joining by a certain someone) probably noticed that @boldlyanxious was really excited to write for this event again. And write she did, finishing with a grand total of 18,960 words, which for those of you who played last year may or may not remember, is 300 words more than she did last year. Everyone give her a round of applause, won't you?

Even with the most words total though, there was another author who had the longest Fic submission.

We want everyone to put their hands together for @olivia-anderson-fanfic, who wrote Stale(mate) in 6,065 words, to @newdog14's absolute delight. If you like vampires, are down with fictional violence, and don't like cops, we definitely recommend it. Just make sure to read the tags before you dive in.

Of course, there are other players who were working hard this year.

Now, we don't know how many words @serenescribbles wrote this year, but we do know that she drew 195 comic panels, most of which were colored. We were all really impressed by this dedication, and we hope that you are too, even if you weren't rooting for Book Design and were thus cursing every time a new comic went up, even as you had to go "awwww" over how adorable they were.

Though, even with 195 comic panels, our award for most submissions is going to another player.

Now, you probably remember that @the-coffee-fandom won four MVP awards, that was certainly possible because they played for all teams, but it was also because they submitted more than any other player, with 37 submissions total. How epic is that?

Though, even with 37 submissions, they didn't manage to take our High Scores.

This year we have two winners for the Highest Score, given to the Highest Scoring Fic and the Highest Scoring Art submissions, respectively. @mochegato earned 123 points with Sugar Baby Blues, which had 5,008 words, 5 prompts, and was posted on Double Point Day. It's very cute and very fun, so definitely check it out. @serenescribbles earned 468 points for birthday blues, a flat color comic with 88 panels and all seven prompts, which she drew by hand, and we cannot imagine how cramped her fingers were when she finished it at the end of day seven.

And, last but certainly not least, there's the folks that we could never have put on this tournament without:

Thank you so much to all of the folks who read, reblog, comment, admire, like, scream over, leave kudos on, and otherwise consume the content made for this event. You guys are the reason that we can get so many people so hype to play in this event, and why they come back and create for us again and again.

We couldn't do this without you all! So thank you, to our creators, to our mod team, and to our fans! We hope that we'll see you again for our future events, the next of which is coming up in October.

[hremails-art]

*Crazy squealing YAAAAAAAAYO I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO SHIPS WILSON AND BAD COP LIKE CRAZY AAAAA HOLY MOLY Ahem. Anyway. Do you have any headcanons for this ship? Could be anything you wanna share, but I can give you some prompts: when did Bad Cop realize that he in fact does actually like Wilson back? How much of a denial was he in at first? Someone like him is sure gotta be high in Tsundere score lmao

I DO IM SO HYPE IM NOT THE ONLY ONE. well, besides my bestie cupcake lolol..i have alot of thoughts about them, but ill answer your prompts under the cut!

I think that, throughout wilson and badcop's time together he was very very wary of engaging or talking to him, (like in ch3 when he tells him to shut up so he can focus) because he doesn't want to be treated how he always is: a murderer. Granted he is a murderer but was locked up for someone he would never ever hurt: Ava, the last light in his life after the death of his wife. Nobody ever believed him.

When Wilson asked him about the memories he learned from his clone, in a way badcop's defenses were lowered. He was surprised someone actually understood him, and took a moment to listen to him. At that point i think his feelings would move between platonic and romantic, realizing after wilson's death that he wanted more for them, their time had been cut short.

Obvs if entropy was longer i think there could be time for cute romantic teasing, especially with "do you like me boss?" "No, i mean yeah, whatever."

lolol i just think badcop is confused about his romantic interest, but wilson knew badcop even longer than im sure he realized. Wilson probably developing small feelings for his clone. But after clonecop had pushed him away becoming cynical and uncaring those feelings were never fufilled.

I didn't really intend for that to get so long and possibly emotional but i have so many thoughts about the pair's inner thoughts and feelings, especially living in such a high pressure situation. I really hope that if ez3 is made breadman makes so cute dialogue between them, i'd imagine it likely because the two already know each other. now if wilson would just keep prying.....

[morningstar-warriors]

Game Fifteen... And Others I haven't written something like this for...

So This is the giant turd pile list of all the stuff I have been working on since the last game... A lot of issues arrived, I'd received great feedback from different players. All wonderful, and time to take a sledgehammer to the preexisting stuff... Disclaimer, this post was initially sent to a playtest group so pardon its casual nature. I figured it'd be good to record it here as well.

Mad Rambling below:

Dice Pooling:

First off, still using six sided dice. So that hasn’t changed. I imagine you all know what dice pooling means, but just in case the short and basic of it is: the better your character is at something, the more dice they can roll. In this case, that would be your cat’s ability score + their skill = How many dice they roll. I explained this in a recent post that's probably more put together.

This has its ups and downs… Rolling a pile of dice, and counting the amount of numbers that pass a check, rather than adding them all up, feels a bit more player friendly. Especially for kids and noobs. It’s dead simple, a 6 is really good, a 1 is really bad. Everything in-between is up to how easy or hard a situation is.

Downs are, the way the game is at this point in time. You can have up to five points in both your ability scores and skills. This means you could roll up to TEN dice. That's a LOT OF DICE!!! Now, this could actually be super fun. The big roll. Who wouldn't love a huge roll? You’d feel so good at what you’re doing. The chance of reward feels higher... But, I can see it getting old and tedious if it's a commonly used skill.

Harm:

Rather than keeping track of HP and AC numerically, you now have little boxes to tick off. Honestly one of the worst aspects of D&D for me is all that honkin stinkin math. This gets rid of more math! YAY!

To better explain, Harm is a way to track how hurt a character is.

⬛Scrape (Mild damage) No debuff

⬛Bloodied (Blood is drawn, an active attack was made and landed)

⬛ouch - 1

⬛Oof ouchies -2

⬛Severe (Your cat is damaged badly, and needs medical attention.) - 3 dice to roll

⬛Fading (Your cat is dying, and needs medical attention NOW.) -4 dice to roll

Names of Harm still being workshopped…

Rather than an enemy dealing, say, a measly 4 damage. Now they deal 1 harm. If you reference our chart above, that means a cat is scraped. So they suffer no consequences– yet. Two more hits, and they could temporarily lose 1 dice from their dice pool.

With harm comes Protection. Instead of armor coming with an AC, it tells how much harm it deflects.

Really Rough Chart:

Fluffy – Grants 1 protection.

Thorn Armor – Grants 1 protection and 1 harm to an enemy.

Clay Armor – Grants 2 protection.

Leather Armor – Grants 3 protection.

Bone Armor – Grants 4 protection.

With this I am also working on the medical side of things, as one of the biggest playable classes– A Healer, needs to be able to enact their namesake.

Leveling:

Still floating in many “errs” and “uhms” for me, but I want it to work through failure and RP. Like Harm, its boxes you tick off. Everytime you fail a roll, you get to check off a box, and get closer to leveling up. This lets people level fast– which is something I feel like DMs dance around way too much. Game progression feels way more fun and natural if your players level up fast. Seriously, try it. Also, I love the concept that failure leads to LEARNING. That's awesome.

RP is the part where this gets foggy. So you get to level with good rp? What the hell is good rp? Is that not subjective? Maybe. Dad and I agreed when everyone at the table is excited by another player’s actions– that's good rp. Influencing the DM, rule of cool, is good RP. So I know it exists, it's not completely nebulous.

I think offering a clear outline of what I mean may clear this up. I want to put a stress on interacting with, and helping your friends at the table. Character growth, interaction between players, participation from players, I think that is something that should be required in these games.

Skills:

BONUS UPDATE!!!!!

I added SIX new skills. Oooh ahhh! In my first playtester group, I had a very distinct issue called “Roll Ponder.” I said it over and over and over. Make a ponder check for me, ehh roll ponder, yeah ponder, you know what I’m gonna say… It became a meme. A groan and an eye roll. My head was in my hands guys.

So I remedied that, presenting, the newbies:

Chase

Cats are known to be quick, they can twist and change direction in the drop of a hat. A cat’s Chase Skill determines how fast and maneuverable it is. Sometimes a cat needs to get away from a threat in time, or rush after a fat juicy mouse. This check is best used in cases of speed, hunting, and evasion.

Endurance

In some cases cats may be doing strenuous tasks for prolonged periods of time. Or worse, they’ve eaten a dangerous herb. Endurance dictates how well they can handle being put under tough situations. Especially ones that strain them physically.

Tradition

The Tradition Skill puts to test how well a cat has been listening to their elders. This Skill is used to identify unique aspects of different Clans or outsiders. Aside from understanding different customs, cats use Tradition to recall old stories and Clan history.

Medicine

The world of Warriors is dangerous, and cats often get hurt. The Medicine Skill helps a cat know what herbs to smell for, or understand how critical someone’s condition is. Through these discoveries a cat can help alleviate pain or prevent death.

Faith

A cat may ask their ancestors for signs or an answer, the Faith Skill gives them a chance of being answered to. Certain cats have abilities gifted to them by Star Clan or the Dark Forest that could be tapped into through Faith. Other times they are being influenced by forces they wish to push away, or want to recall a detail regarding religious stories.

Speech

Speech shows how well spoken a cat can be. This skill aids in persuasion, and attempts to impress those listening. Cats who are particularly cunning use Speech to lie or manipulate others.

Link to all the skills here.

Now obviously not all of these were related to the ponder conundrum, but they felt like relevant additions that expanded the kind of actions a kitty cat could take.

TLDR:

Lots of updates that need some tweaking and play testing, it's time to play cats again.

[tomodachipersonalitycentral]

Could you do a relationship analysis for Mordecai and Silver as well? :3

Heck yeah! For reference, Mordecai is an Independent Lone Wolf and Silver is an Independent Artist.

Category Compatibility

Independent types can either love or hate each other. Independent types can relate to sometimes needing alone time or not fitting in to the world around them, but the ways they are unique can be different and clash.

The latter is sometimes the case for Mordecai and Silver. Mordecai is an outcast because he is so factual and cold half of the time, while Silver is an outcast because he's considered too volatile and emotional/a loose canon. This can cause fights, and more direct communication and time together is needed for these two to fully understand each other.

Personality Compatibility

In my opinion, Artists and Lone Wolves are almost opposites within the Independent Category. Lone Wolves are very internal and broody, being stuck in their own heads while Artists take their feelings outward through creating and admiring the world around them, for better or for worse.

Therefore, Lone Wolves can have more negative/harsh outlooks on things while Artists prefer to coat things with a layer of sugar they call "positive potential". Even if things are bad now, they want to see how it can lead to beauty.

Ironically, Mordecai and Silver aren't stereotypically their types in this way due to their experiences and outlooks. Mordecai is the more positive one because he sees unrealistic and intense negativity as a waste of time, while Silver is the more negative one because he does not trust that the potential beauty he sees will ever become a reality.

In this way, Mordecai could help Silver connect to his more positive side and admit the potential beauty he sees in things despite pushing it down, while Silver could help Mordecai express his feelings more, even if they aren't entirely "realistic".

Overall Strengths

Silver could help Mordecai connect to his creativity, and show him it's okay to be a little more imaginative when it comes to expressing himself.

Meanwhile, Mordecai could help bring a more level headed view on situations and center Silver when he becomes too negative. He could help Silver be more direct when he expresses himself.

The two make up for the other's weaknesses, encouraging the other to consider different points of view and connect to different sides of themselves they usually would not.

Overall Weaknesses

Silver's more artistic view of the world might make it difficult for Mordecai to understand how Silver views things, and might make it harder for Silver to communicate this to him.

Mordecai's more straightforward view of the world may be difficult for Silver to grasp, and he may not go deep enough into his emotions than Silver would like.

The two are opposites in many ways, which can lead to a lapse in understanding and many, many potential arguments. They are both stubborn and might think their way is best when there's an achievable middle ground.

Compatibility Score

I think their compatibility score is 60%-69% or Cutest Couple!

If one of them puts in some real effort, no telling what could happen down the road.

They'd really have to help the other feel safe around them and bridge that gap between them.

[jcmarchi]

To Train AI Models, Bigger Datasets Not Always Better - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/to-train-ai-models-bigger-datasets-not-always-better-technology-org/

To Train AI Models, Bigger Datasets Not Always Better - Technology Org

A new study by researchers at the University of Toronto suggests that one of the fundamental assumptions of deep learning artificial intelligence models – that they require enormous amounts of training data to make accurate predictions – may not be as solid as once thought.   

Artificial intelligence, ChatGPT – artistic concept image. Photo credit: Pexels / Cottonbro Studio, free license

Jason Hattrick-Simpers, a professor in the Department of materials science and Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and his team are focused on the design of next-generation materials – from catalysts that convert captured carbon into fuels to non-stick surfaces that keep airplane wings ice-free.  

Their findings, recently published in Nature Communications, stemmed from efforts to navigate a key challenge in the field: the enormous potential search space for training of models. For example, the Open Catalyst Project contains more than 200 million data points for potential catalyst materials – which still only covers  a tiny portion of the vast chemical space that could, for example, yield the right catalyst to help us address climate change.  

“AI models can help us efficiently search this space and narrow our choices down to those families of materials that will be most promising,” says Hattrick-Simpers.  

“Traditionally, a significant amount of data is considered necessary to train accurate AI models. But a dataset like the one from the Open Catalyst Project is so large that you need very powerful supercomputers to be able to tackle it. So, there’s a question of equity – we need to find a way to identify smaller datasets that folks without access to huge amounts of computing power can train their models on.”  

This leads to a second challenge: many of the smaller materials datasets currently available have been developed for a specific domain – for example, improving the performance of battery electrodes. In other words, the data tend to cluster around a few chemical compositions similar to those already in use while missing more promising possibilities that may be less obvious.  

“Imagine if you wanted to build a model to predict students’ final grades based on previous test scores,” says Kangming Li, a postdoctoral researcher in Hattrick-Simpers’ lab.  

“If you trained it only on students from Canada, it might do perfectly well in that context, but it might fail to accurately predict grades for students from France or Japan. That’s the situation we are up against in the world of materials.”  

One possible solution when building AI models is to identify subsets of data from within very large datasets that are easier to process, but which nevertheless retain the full range of information and diversity present in the original.  

To better understand how the qualities of datasets affect the models they are used to train, Li designed methods to identify high-quality subsets of data from previously published materials datasets, such as JARVIS, The Materials Project, and the Open Quantum Materials Database (OQMD). Together, these databases contain information on more than a million different materials.  

Li built a computer model that predicted material properties and trained it in two ways: one used the original dataset, but the other used a subset of that same data that was approximately 95 per cent smaller.   

“What we found was that when trying to predict the properties of a material that was contained within the domain of the dataset, the model that had been trained on only 5 per cent of the data performed about the same as the one that had been trained on all the data,” Li says.  

“Conversely, when trying to predict the properties of a material that was outside the domain of the dataset, both of them did similarly poorly.”  

Li says that the findings suggest a way of measuring the amount of redundancy in a given dataset: if more data does not improve model performance, it could be an indicator that those additional data are redundant and do not provide new information for the models to learn.   

“Our results also reveal a concerning degree of redundancy hidden within these highly sought-after large datasets,” Li adds.    

The study underscores what AI experts from many fields are now discovering:  that even models trained on relatively small datasets can perform well if the data is of high enough quality.  

“All this grew out of the fact that in terms of using AI to speed up materials discovery, we’re just getting started,” says Hattrick-Simpers.  

“What it suggests is that as we go forward, we need to be really thoughtful about how we build our datasets. That’s true whether it’s done from the top down, as in selecting a subset of data from a much larger dataset, or from the bottom up, as in sampling new materials to include.  

“We need to pay attention to the information richness, rather than just gathering as much data as we can.” 

Source: University of Toronto

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3 Tips That will Make You Guru In Finances

bankrugby.com - If you do not find what you are on the lookout for within the list beneath, or if there's some form of bug and it isn't displaying finance associated phrases, please send me feedback using this page. Whether you’re looking for a automotive, truck, or SUV, try financing a used automobile. Since many different R customers will doubtless face this similar downside, one goal of this post can be to put out the options for others on the lookout for older and de-listed securities. These TED Talks present insightful perspectives and practical recommendation to help you face your financial scenario with honesty and compassion. Be empowered to maneuver confidently toward the long run with the assistance of those key talks highlighting the mindset, motivation and instruments essential to set your self up for success. Beyond the dry facts, spiced with among the mistaken-doings available in the market, there are additionally Things That It's best to Know if you're one of many photo voltaic workers of the long run that Chase's e-book targets. If you end up having hassle making car payments, the neatest thing to do is contact the lender and attempt to work out an association, in line with an article on the Fox News Network website.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get a loan with a lower rating, but it will price you more curiosity and the next month-to-month payment. In case you are unable to afford your financed car, your lender could enable you to search out someone who will assume the funds. The "wholesaler" is typically an underwriter or a broker-seller who trades with other broker-dealers, rather than with the retail investor. This must be someone you're near and someone who trusts that you will repay the loan. And decrease credit score scores will price you in many ways, which embody being charged larger curiosity charges and charges when you are making an attempt to take out sure kinds of loans. Imagine your first mortgage has a non-mounted interest fee, that means that your curiosity rate rises and fall with the overall rates. Between finance and accounting, finance could be considered because the more basic subject of the two areas.

As we were doing this, we also discovered other issues in our Yahoo Finance prices, so decided to gather the tickers we beforehand thought we'd use from Yahoo. This use is pretty correct when the variety of days remaining until possibility expiration is massive. In a large firm, there could also be a couple of division underneath the bigger umbrella of the finance department comparable to payroll, accounts payable, accounts receivable and sales. This subsequent point may be my favourite goal for the finance and accounting division operate… You'll take a detailed take a look at different markets, how they function and fluctuate, and find out how to effectively manage and mitigate the risks inherent in investing. Here, payoffs are set as a operate of LIBOR specific to the tenor in question, whereas discounting is at the OIS fee. You can save yourself some hassles by checking your individual credit score report back to see if there are any errors on it. A copy of the complete report might be downloaded on this page.

We found that we might match the massive majority of our still-lacking tickers, but the associated fee for the extent of entry allowing the total history wanted can be a full year’s entry at their just lately diminished value of $299 (via the Quandl API). The scale of the low cost relies on a chance value of capital and it's expressed as a proportion or discount fee. Once you repay bank card debt with a personal mortgage, you receive a fixed curiosity fee mortgage to repay your bank card debt. This is another space of private finance where individuals usually search skilled recommendation and that may get fairly complicated. But again, I didn’t know that to get an condo, for instance, in New York, even together with his credit rating, which is basically stable, it was nonetheless a problem. Some dealerships even specialize in helping people get another car even when they’ve had points with their credit. Some individuals may be hesitant at first about buying a used automotive, but you might be able to discover a used car that has low mileage and very little wear and tear. In case the automobile valuation is less than the amount owed to lender, you should talk about about the choice of selling with them like the right way to progress with car sale and about settling the destructive equity with them.

BBC. December 13, 2002. Retrieved 2008-11-11. Argentina will proceed to default on $1bn of debt owed to the World Bank, a move which is able to effectively isolate the country from all major worldwide lenders. It's going to scale back your overall costs, and it'll present lenders you’re responsible sufficient to have some cash put away. This accounts for 10% of your general score. Every establishment has its personal guidelines for determining what sort of credit score rating they need in an effort to provide you with a mortgage. Also, should you resolve you want a 36-month mortgage time period as an alternative of a 60- or 72-month agreement, your monthly cost will likely be larger. Climate finance is equally vital for adaptation, for which vital monetary sources might be equally required to permit societies and economies to adapt to the opposed effects and scale back the impacts of climate change. Climate finance is vital to addressing climate change as a result of giant-scale investments are required to considerably reduce emissions, notably in sectors that emit massive quantities of greenhouse gases. Now, we discover that we're lacking about 200 tickers out of the 5,500 we set out to match.

Competitive bids are then doled out till the whole subject has been bought. Regardless that each closing worth was once publicly disclosed within the newspaper, that doesn’t imply that those prices can be found for evaluation, and it takes so much of work to gather them. New Credit: Have you been opening many new credit strains recently, or have you had quite a lot of onerous inquiries in your credit score? In the recruitment sector factoring is an effective resolution, often utilized by short-term recruitment agencies who must be certain that their enterprise has the out there funds each week to make payment to the employees they have positioned. While typical entry-degree schooling for these roles is a bachelor's diploma,1 those who go on to take the CPA exam may place themselves for continued profession development. Within the case if ticker “EDO” beneath (to not be mistaken with EOD who've offered the info), the reliability of the Yahoo knowledge on the same dates throughout the early period, is proven to be very dangerous. In these instances, we have been often able to make use of the Yahoo data.

If you want to use this free template to help you together with your personal finances and planning, obtain the Excel spreadsheet and edit it accordingly to fit your wants. The credit score reporting bureau permits you to tug your credit report at least as soon as a year totally free. By purchasing this Lawsuit Report, you comply with our Terms & Conditions governing usage and limitaions of this report. The Finance Initiative just lately printed a report highlighting a series of key suggestions to accelerate adaptation finance from the private sector. Through the Finance Initiative, UNEP focuses on supporting non-public sector monetary establishments including Banks, Investors and Insurers to grasp and mitigate local weather dangers, seize the industrial alternatives from local weather motion, and ultimately take all needed measures to fully align portfolios with the mitigation and adaptation goals of the Paris Agreement. But MSMEs, with their fragmented nature and restricted scale, discover it difficult to capitalize on such alternatives.