#it pretty much looks the same as mine just w green instead of black leaves

[sofarsogoodsowhat]

new one on my mom + she finally helped me finish my sfsgsw one + started a flower on her

[icerosecrystal]

An Unexpected Turn Of Events

Mominette Month 2021

Day 01 - Find A Child

Masterlist

Authors note: Hi, everyone! Just one quick to let you all know so that this fic is not confusing for you. This fic is a reverse Robin fic. In other words, Dick is the youngest instead of the eldest, and Damian is the oldest instead of the youngest. This same thing applies to all of the other bat children as well.

Marinette sighed in relief as she finished rifling through her purse. She had woken up late and had hastily left her hotel room for her consultation. She had thankfully not left behind anything that she would need during the consultation. Feeling a bit paranoid, she looked once more through her purse, and there was the tape measure, pencils, notebook, sewing kit, and the NDAs. She may or may not have flipped through the grimoire belonging to the guardians and found the spell for expanding the space in her purse to be the way it was for her yo-yo when she transforms into Ladybug. Unlike her yo-yo, the expansion was still limited. But the extra space was still beneficial.

As Marinette was walking, she pulled out her phone to look at the time. 9:50, she thought, leaves me enough time to get to Wayne Tower by 10:00 if I want to be on time. As she was putting her phone away, she felt something hit her legs and torso. She let out a slight oof at the unexpected weight against her lower body. As she peered down, she saw a cute boy, probably around eight years old clinging onto her legs. He had black hair, and as he looked up at her with teary eyes, she saw the most devastating sparkling blue eyes she had ever seen. His slightly chubby cheeks were flushed pink, and his nose also had a pink tinge to it. The flushness was probably a result of the choked sobs he was currently letting out.

As Marinette looked around, she realized that none of the nearby grown-ups looked to be his parents, nor did they look like they were missing a child. She bent down and smiled softly at him, hoping to calm him down a bit. After a beat or two, her smile seemed to do the trick, and his sobs reduced down to a few tears. Once she knew that he had calmed down, she softly whispered, “ Hey, honey. Are you lost? Do you want me to find your parents?”

He sniffled a few times before replying with a slight tremor in his voice, “Yes. Please help me find my Boose.”

“Your Boose?” Marinette questioned.

“Yes,” he slightly whimpered, “Boose is my new daddy. My other daddy and mommy had to say goodbye to me.”

Marinette gasped in shock at his words. This poor kid, so young, and yet his parents were gone. Dead. Marinette thought about the many akumas which her parents didn’t survive. She then shook herself out of her thoughts. Come on, Marinette. Stop worrying about yourself all time. Your parents are okay now. But this kid is lost! Get out of your head! Steeling herself, she gently asked him, “What’s your name, hon? Mine is Marinette, but you can call me Mari..”

Surprised by the kindness and warmth in her voice, he stuttered out, “Richard… but I like Dick better. Richard sounds old. I’m not old!” He then shyly added, “It’s nice to meet you, miss. You have a pretty name.”

Marinette smiled as she saw his confidence growing with every word he spoke. Marinette laughed aloud at the words he shyly said, “It’s nice to meet you too.” She then questioned, “Do you remember where your daddy is?”

Dick was now bouncing on his heels, and he squealed out in excitement, “Yes! My daddy is in the big, tall building with the huge ‘W’ on it!”

The corners of her mouth twitched in amusement. Dick’s excitement was infectious. His words then caught up to her. Well! It looked like luck was on her side after all! She would have enough time to get Dick back to his dad and still be on time for her consultation. She stood back up and then smiled down at him, “Well, I’m heading there too! So why don’t I take you back to your daddy?”

Dick nodded his head rapidly before holding her hand with his much smaller one. They then started walking towards Wayne Tower. Dick continued to babble on about the most random of things. He talked about his grumpy older brother, who it seemed begrudgingly liked him. He also discussed the many pets his older brother had. It also seemed like Dick’s adoptive dad had a slight problem with adopting too many children from what could be told from the many siblings that Dick mentioned.

When the door of Wayne Tower came into sight, Dick stopped talking, allowing them to walk in comfortable silence. As she was about to speak to ask him where in the building his father worked or the name of his dad, Dick blurted out, “I like you, Miss Mari. Can you be my mommy? I don’t have a new one yet!”

Marinette stopped in shock before trying to stutter out something, anything, but all of her words were incoherent. What do you say in response to a question like that, she thought to herself? She saw Dick looking at her for an answer, and after a while, he decided to pull out some puppy eyes. Shoot! Marinette thought. I need to say something to stall for time. At least until I get him to his dad. She reassured him, “I am thinking about my answer, Dickie! But how about we first get back to your daddy, and then we talk about it?”

Dick contemplated her words before nodding in agreement and practically bouncing through the doors. Marinette sighed in relief and also walked through the doors. Her head was down as she speculated what she should do about Dick’s question. Suddenly, a rough voice spoke up in front of her, “Hello. Ms. Dupain-Cheng, I presume.”

Marinette lifted her head, and there in front of her was Bruce Wayne, her newest client. And clinging to him was the very boy that was holding her hand just seconds ago. She suddenly remembered hearing something about Bruce Wayne adopting the son of some acrobats who were in an accident. The name of the kid was Richard Grayson! She hadn’t made the connection!

Realizing that Bruce was looking for an answer, she hastily stuck out her hand, stuttering, “That is correct, Monsieur Wayne. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He stared at her hand before gently taking it and raising the back of her hand to his lips. “Please, the pleasure is all mine. Let’s make our way upstairs.”

She blushed at his gentlemanly actions before squeaking out a small, “Let’s.” The three of them climbed into the elevator and went to the top floor of the building. The doors of the elevator opened up, and Bruce gestured for her to go first. She did so and looked around at the beautiful interior of the building that she had not yet noticed. Bruce then opened up the door to what seemed to be his office. Inside she saw there to be seven kids. She smiled at them in greeting. Most of them smiled back at her. The exception to this was what looked to be the oldest and one of the younger ones. (Damian and Jason, if you didn’t figure it out.)

Marinette felt Bruce step closer so that he was next to her before he spoke once more, “These are all of my children, biological, adopted, or otherwise.” He pointed to the man with stunning green eyes stating, “This is my oldest son, Damian. He’s 22.” Damian gave a tight-lipped smile in response, along with a slight tilt of his head.

Next, Bruce gestured to what looked to be the second oldest saying, “This is Tim. He’s 18 years old.” He was sipping coffee and giving the briefest of nods to her. He looked seconds away from collapsing.

He then acknowledged a blonde girl, remarking, “This is Stephanie, but she likes to be called Steph. She’s 17 years old.” The girl seemed to be bouncing in place and close to bursting from excitement.

He pointed to a rough-looking boy stating, “This here is Jason. He just turned 15. He’s a few months older than the next youngest.” The boy smirked at Marinette in acknowledgment of his introduction.

Bruce finally gestured to a girl with Asian features saying, “This is Cassandra or Cass. She’s 14, but like I said, a few months younger than Jason.” The girl seemed to be peering through her very soul. After gazing for a few seconds, she hummed in what Marinette deemed to be satisfied as if she liked what she saw.

Bruce then turned towards her, “And you’ve already met Richard or Dick. Thank you for bringing him back.”

Marinette smiled in acknowledgment of his compliment before replying, “It was nothing Monsieur Wayne. He was all alone, so I had to help him. But he was delightful the whole time. Now as for what I came here for, what type of clothes have you been looking for–”.

But before she could continue, Dick blurted out, “Daddy, I like Ms. Mari! Can we keep her? I want her to be my mommy!”

The result was instant. The room burst into a flurry of noises, each of Bruce’s kids trying to speak over one another. Marinette was blushing very brightly. In fact, from how hot her face felt, she was sure that she was inventing new shades of red. Marinette looked over to see Bruce’s reaction and squeaked when she saw him staring at her with a sharp, analytical gaze.

Marinette took a few breathes to calm herself down. She then softened both her gaze and voice as she addressed Dick, “Dickie, honey, as much as I loved meeting you and talking with you, I, unfortunately, cannot be your mommy. Bruce is your daddy, and he will someday find a lovely lady who will be your mommy.”

At her last sentence, all or most of the kids seemed to have snorted in amusement. It seemed as if they disagreed with her statement. Dick looked sad and seemed to be growing teary-eyed. Marinette looked over to Bruce for some help but only found him concealing the amusement that he was most likely feeling quite well. If she hadn’t been Ladybug, she probably would have never noticed the slight bit of emotion peaking through his mask. She glared at him reproachfully as if saying, this is your kid, so you need to help me convince him that I would not make a good mother.

He rolled his eyes in return as if trying to say, Don’t kid yourself. You would make an excellent mother. And you’re already attached to him, don’t deny it.

As Marinette sighed in response, Bruce turned away from her towards Dick and knelt to his level. He then gently said, “Now Dick. Miss Mari can’t be your mommy.” Marinette started nodding as if agreeing with Bruce’s words. But then stopped when he continued, “But she can visit you and maybe one day be your mommy.”

Marinette opened and closed her mouth, no words coming out. Before shyly looking down before raising her head, stammering, “Well, I guess I could visit.”

All the kids started cheering in response. The exception to this was Damian. But the corner of his lips was slightly raised as if the start of a smile. Dick bounded over to her, hugging her and babbling out everything he wanted to do with her. And in all the chaos, Marinette’s and Bruce’s eyes met. They both exchanged small smiles.

Marinette then clapped her hands together, reminding them, “I do still have to do a consultation with all of you. So how about we do that, and then we can do something fun together?” Seeing everyone’s nods, Marinette then continued with the consultation. But unbeknownst to anyone in the room, their relationship would change drastically in the coming months. But ultimately, it would change for the better.

One Year Later

It has been a year since the faithful day when Dick requested Marinette to be his mom. And since then, they only seemed to grow closer. She had met Alfred, Bruce’s Psuedo father and the children’s pseudo grandfather. She thought that he was extraordinary. And honestly godsent. She also experienced a lot of adventures with the Waynes. In fact, after only four months of knowing each other, she figured out that they were the Bat-Family. She had caught them once after patrol and raised her eyebrow as if demanding an answer, and god did she get an answer from them!

Marinette and Bruce had also started dating. This change in their relationship occurred a few weeks after she found out their identities. They were now engaged to be married in a few months. All the children had warmed up to Marinette over the months, even Damian, who always withheld his emotions. But they had all come to see her as their mother figure and were ever so grateful for her. And so they wanted to do something for her birthday.

The very morning of her birthday, everything went wrong. Marinette woke up to quite the sight. All over the kitchen was what looked to be cake batter. It seemed as if they were trying to put the baking she had taught them to good use, but they had also made the cake batter explode. Marinette and Bruce stared at the mess before they both started laughing. Marinette had a light, melodic laugh, while Bruce had a very gruff laugh.

Marinette beckoned all of them forward for a hug before proclaiming, “I love that you all were trying to do something for me, but none of you had to do anything. But it’s the thought that counts, so thank you. But next time, please stay away from the kitchen.”

She then shooed them on their way before getting two mops, handing one to Bruce as she passed by him. She kissed him on the cheek before starting to clean up the mess, Bruce following her actions. She then quietly snickered, “Well, this was quite a sight to wake up to on your birthday. I would have thought that today would have been relaxing.”

She looked up to see Bruce shoot her a small look before shaking his head in amusement. “Mari, darling, when has our lives with them ever been relaxing? They are always getting into trouble.”

She snorted in response, “Yes, well, they get it from their father.”

Bruce glared at her lightly before pulling her into a deep kiss, “I don’t know. Their mother seems to be just as chaotic sometimes.”

She shook her head in amusement, pulling herself away from Bruce’s embrace and questioning, “How is this even my life anymore?”

He chuckled lightly, alerting her that he was about to sass her in some way. “Well, from what I remember, about a year ago, you came across this kid that–”

Marinette held up a finger to his mouth, stopping him from uttering another word. She was also glaring at him reproachfully. “Yes, I do know-how. I was there. Now go away so that I can clean up the rest of the kitchen. You’re distracting me.”

He let go of his mop before giving her another deep kiss and then darting away. As he strolled out of the room, he shouted over his shoulder, “Oh, I know how distracting I am. I am well aware of how irresistible I am, ma coccinelle.” He could hear her spluttering in response before yelling back at him, but he continued on his way to his office. Along the way, he chuckled to himself.

Back in the kitchen, Marinette was glaring at nothing. She was also plotting ways to show her fiance who the irresistible one was. She then sighed in happiness. Yes, her life was amazing. A year ago, if someone told her this would be her life, she wouldn’t have believed it. But now she was living it, and god was it amazing. Funny what finding a child will do to you, Marinette thought to herself before carrying on with her task of cleaning up the mess her kids had made. Yeah, life was amazing.

2,683 words

I actually got it done!

~ ❄ Crystal ❄

@mominettemonth

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[dancingintheraindreamingonday]

My loyalty can be bought - Chapter 7

Author’s note: The journey is almost over. Maybe two more chapters. Sometimes I want to write thousands of words but that would probably bore you. Thanks to everyone who reads my stories. It means the world to me. 

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

„When was this picture taken?“ Bucky, Sam and Zemo, the golden trio, stand in Sharon Carter’s apartment looking at all her illegal paintings. But a certain framed picture got Bucky’s attention. On this picture was Sharon and you.  A cigarette was between your fingers and a bottle of Vodka was in the other hand. Your wedding ring wasn’t on your left ring-finger anymore. Instead you wore it as a necklace. You looked different. Your hair was darker than usual and you wore more make-up. If Bucky hadn’t memorize every feature of your body he wouldn’t have recognize you.

„Three years ago… I think… During that time (y/f/n) and I were pretty close but now not anymore. I think that’s a side effect when you are the vice-director of SHIELD. She doesn’t trust me anymore.“

Bucky didn’t know what shocked him most. You being vice-president of SHIELD or you not trusting Sharon anymore. After all, you and Sharon were really good friends. 

„She said my loyalty can be bought and that’s not a good character trait.“ Sharon continues talking as she pours herself a glas of whiskey.

Bucky jumps to his feet and pushes Sharon against the wall who drops the glas. „Bucky!“, Sam screams and stands right behind Bucky. „What the hell are you doing?“

„And did you sell your loyalty to the one who kidnapped (y/f/n)? Did you?“, Bucky shouts at her.

He knew it. Right from the beginning when they met Sharon after all those years. Something was off. She’s not innocent

Sharon doesn’t look at Bucky but instead at her mobile phone. Sam follows her gaze, unlocks the phone and finds a voice message of you just a day before the abduction: 

„Tell your little friends to stop following me. I don’t like being followed, Sharon. I know the identity of the power broker and I also know that SHIELD is infiltrated by HYDRA again. I’m neither blind nor naive. Why are you working with her, Sharon? I thought you hated Valentina. Why are you cooperating with her? I’m warning you. Leave them alone. Leave my family alone.“

The call ends. Your voice still hard and strong, echoing through Bucky’s mind. 

„Where the hell is she? If you want to live you better tell me.“

„She knew how this would end. (Y/f/n) played with fire and got burnt. You really think she’s still the same quirky and naive teenager who just lived for the love of a man. Wake up, Bucky. How do you think she got the job at SHIELD? You still trust her even thought she kept all the secrets.“ Sharon tries to free herself but Bucky’s grip is too strong. „Did she tell you that the first year of being a mother she wasn’t even with her child because of her depressions? She gave the kid to Tony and Pepper. Did you know that? Did she tell you how close she was with Clint Barton? Did she tell you about the huge argument she had with Steve and that they weren’t on speaking terms for 3 years? Did she tell you that she lived in Madripoor for months? And did she tell you that she was with Barton on their criminal missions? No, I bet not. She’s still acting like this weak woman around you but believe me. She’s not innocent.“ Sharon spats in Bucky’s face. 

„For the last time. Where is she?“ Not responding to Sharon's accusations.

„I’ll show you because she’s probably already dead. It was her or me and after all she was right about one thing: My loyalty can be bought.“ Sharon’s voice is filled with anger as she smiles at Bucky and Sam wickedly.

Sharon leads the way, a gun is pointed in her back. „If that’s a trap I’ll make sure you will regret the day you betrayed (y/f/n).“, Bucky whispers in her ear. 

After a while they walk into a dark building which is guarded with several soldiers with heavy guns. 

„They are with me. They wanna see the project.“

As they walk down the hall they see many doors with little windows. Bucky see other men and women in white hospital clothing laying on bed. 

„(Y/f/n) is our special guest. She’s in the last room.“

The last room has three more soldiers guarding the door. As they step aside and Bucky, Sharon, Sam and Zemo enter the room, Bucky’s heart drops. There you are. Unconscious and weak. Bucky pushes Sharon aside and walks directly to your bed. 

„Love?“, He caress your left cheek with his big hand. „Can you hear me? I need you to wake up. We have to get you out of here.“ He takes the syringe out of your arm and shakes you softly but you don’t respond. 

„I’ve brought them here as you wished.“, mumbles Sharon in her ear piece. 

The door opens again and soldiers run into the room to take their positions. „What a great day. Killing the winter soldier, the falcon and the vice-director of SHIELD. And this guy.“ A woman with black hair and big silver earrings walks into the room, looking from Bucky, to Sam, to you and to Zemo. „Good work, Carter. Well done.“, she pats Sharon on her shoulder. „You are Ms. De Fontaine. You were friends with Steve. How can you betray his legacy?“, Sam asks disgusted by her betrayal. „The world changes, Mr. Wilson. So does people and people’s goals.“ 

As Sharon and Valentina De Fontaine walk out of this room, Bucky and Sam, and even Zemo make themselves ready to fight. 

„Have fun, boys.“, Valentina chimes as the the door closed. 

15 soldiers versus 3 men. Bucky attacks first and then there was utter chaos. Punches, knife stabs and kicks. All you can hear are bones cracking, cries and thuds. Sam is pressed against the wall with no option to escape. „Any last words?“ , asks the soldier who points a gun at Sam. But before Sam could do anything the soldier collapses on the floor with a bullet in his left temple. Sam turns to his right. There is you. You lean against the wall with shaking legs. The gun is still in your hands as you whisper „Asshole“. While Sam and Zemo take the end of this fight as a small break to catch breath, Bucky rushes to you. He hugs you and kisses you dirty hair. „We need to get out of here.“ He grabs your hand as you all escape Madripoor. 

Later on the plane, Bucky looks at you intensively. „Why didn’t you tell me?“

You look at him confusion written on your face. „Tell you about what?“

„About everything. You and SHIELD; You and Steve and you and Barton. I didn’t know you were a couple.“ The last part hurts Bucky the most. He feels this green monster inside him roaring out of jealousy.

„Clint and I were never a couple. Maybe a couple of idiots and friends. But there was never more between us. Clint and I lost so much but we didn’t lose the love we had for those who we lost. At that time we were in so much pain and grieve. No, a romantic relationship was something both of us never wanted- not with each other or with anyone else.“, you reassure Bucky. He doesn’t show it but Bucky is relieved and happy. 

„There is still so much that I don’t know about you.“

„James, we broke up after you came back, remember? And people don’t really talk with their ex-partners.“

„Breaking up with you was the worst mistake I’ve ever made.“, whispers Bucky just for you to hear it. 

„It’s okay, James. I’m okay. We changed. We both did. You changed. I changed. Heck, our whole family and the whole universe changed. And love does the same too.“

„Mine didn’t.“, says Bucky. „My feelings for you never changed. I still love you.“

You smile at Bucky for a while, not reacting to his love confession immediately.

You lean your head against the cold window of the plane and close your eyes. You spoke so softly that Bucky almost missed it you say. „I’ll always love you.“

Chapter 8

Author’s note at the end: Sorry, for making Sharon kinda bad. I love the Sharon in the movies and I love the actress, so it’s definitely nothing personal. Did you notice how much my you-character changed? A few chapters ago in Bucharest she didn't notice that she and Bucky were being followed but now she's more aware of her surrounding. ;)

@inlovewith3 @jackiehollanderr @homesicam@dreamydreamerwriting @losers-club6 @gengen64@agentsofsheilds @crimson-darling @akkinda10 @xemine@bubblegumholland @chipilerendi @iamasimpingh0e @bbmommy0902 @madddiiee26 @teenagedreams-bucky @aya-fay @idontknowwhatthisisfam @w-wolfhxrd @useless-creature-213  @angywritesstuff @supernaturalcat7 @harrys-stan @geek-and-proud @pastel-boy-sungjae @austynparksandpizza @maxsaturdayhatesnarwhals @teenagedreams-bucky

[feral-dumbass]

Speak of the Devil

James “Bucky” Barnes/ Female Reader

Summary: You tag along with Bucky to a undercover reconnaissance mission at a goth club. Smut ensues. 

Includes: Degradation, Choking, little bit of slut shaming, unprotected semi-public sex, hint of cockwarming, dirty talk, oral

Words: 4,307

A/N: This is my first fic I have ever posted on here. I hope I included all the warnings correctly. Not sure if I need to include fingers in mouth, but that happens. Title credit goes to the Misfits. Tagging @gagmebucky​ and @babybluestan​. Thanks for giving me the guts to post this! I am so thankful for you guys. 

Masterlist

The bass of Molchat Doma vibrates the walls as you search for Bucky. When you stepped into the goth club on 66th street, you were more nervous than you liked to admit. The club had recently gone under new management and is rumored to be a place for arms trafficking. It is ingenious, actually. Under all the makeup and leather, anyone could hide their identity. Take Bucky for instance. Tight jeans, a black t-shirt, some eyeliner, and a leather jacket down to his calves, Bucky is unnoticeable. Also, helps that the most identifiable thing about him is covered under gloves. Don’t even get started on the leather band and silver chain wrapped around his neck. You need to fan yourself just thinking about it. 

You also look quite different from your usual lab coat and safety goggles and Bucky has certainly noticed. He could not keep his hand off your thick fishnet covered thighs the whole way here. 

With a kiss to your cheek, Bucky had left you at the bar to check out the area. That had been twenty minutes ago and sadly, people were starting to notice you too. 

You felt eyes on you as you mindlessly scrolled through the meme group chat. Peter and Shuri were having an entertaining fight on who sent the best memes. You couldn’t handle the creepy feeling anymore. You were ready to show this creep the pretty switchblade Bucky got you for your birthday. Chin raised, your eyes met with green ones across the bar. You tried to give your best resting bitch face with dead eyes, but he only smirked and took that as his cue to swoop in. You slammed cash on the table for your blood red drink and slipped into the crowd before he could make two steps in your direction. You went down a hallway in the back which led you to your latest predicament. Where the fuck is your thick ass boyfriend? 

You have enough PHDs under your belt to know not to yell out Bucky’s name. Searching for his wide frame under the neon lights is the only option you have left as you pass the restrooms. You think finding a 6’2” man would be easy, but apparently, every alternative person wears 5 inch platforms. Not like you can really blame them. If they weren’t so expensive, you’d be Bucky’s height too right now. 

As you fill with envy for people that can fit into knee high platforms, an arm wraps around you and yanks you into a unisex bathroom. “It’s me.” Bucky’s deep voice assures before you can even start going through the defense attacks he taught you. You slip out of his hold and turn around to face him. Ignoring the fact Bucky has taken off his jacket and his muscles are now stressing the seams of his long sleeve shirt, you cross your arms. 

“Where have you been?”

Bucky blinks confused before finding his answer. “Bugging this two floor building. Why? What’s wrong?” You will tell him sooner or later. Might as well do it now. 

“Nothing. It’s just, uh, a skeevy man was staring at me far too long. We made eye contact and he tried coming over.” 

“Did he hurt you because I will-” Bucky’s already heading for the door before you squeeze his arm. 

“Bucky,” you laugh astounded that he’s so ready to fight for you. You didn’t even give him a description. Bucky lets you pull him back to the center of the room. “I slipped through the crowd before he could try anything. I’m fine.” 

“Promise?” 

“I promise. I’m fine.” You stand on the tip of your toes to kiss Bucky’s cheek but he turns his head to kiss you instead. He kisses you deeply just long enough to leave you wanting more.

“You still have your knife right?” 

“Yes, you dork.” He visibly relaxes at the confirmation. You take a hold of his chin and turn his face towards you. “You do realize you have cut on your cheek right?” It’s not too bad. A medium cut surrounded by bruising. Super serum is probably at work already healing it, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. It’s not like you’re left with the best of first aid in the bathroom. You head to the sink to wet a paper towel with soap and water. 

“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” You glare at Bucky through the mirror. “I don’t suggest going three doors down. A couple of guards are sleeping on the clock.” He walks over and cozies up to you, wrapping his arms around your waist as he kisses your shoulder. “Is that really necessary. I think there’s more pressing matters to attend to.” He rolls his hard on into your ass as he kisses across your shoulder and up your neck. 

“Really?” You pry as you wring out the paper towel.

“I have been hard since you walked out in the commons.” Your face gets warmer at his confession. “I mean-” Bucky groans as he looks down at your fishnet covered legs. 

“While we’re on the subject, the eyeliner is working for me.” You’ve piqued Bucky’s interest. He meets your eyes through the mirror again. “You should wear it more often. You look so much like-”

“If you say Chase from the Covenant, I’m leaving.” Life drains from his eyes as he speaks.

“Like a man who can get into my pants.” 

“Nice save.” 

“Anyways, I say fuck it. Let’s do it.” Bucky’s eyes light up with excitement. “But clean the blood off your face first.” Bucky takes the paper towel out of your hands, scrubs the line of dried blood off his cheek, and throws it in the trash can before you can blink. Bucky turns your face to meet his lips not even a second later. He kisses you even deeper than before slipping his tongue in your mouth. You lift your hand to thread through Bucky’s hair. At the feel of your hand in his hair, he breaks away. 

“No. No. Keep your hands on the sink. I think this could be fun.” He grabs both of your wrists and places your hands on the edge of the sink. He’s moving your hair off your neck before his lips connect with it. “So pretty, baby. Is this all for me?” He mumbles before placing a hickey on your neck. His hands squeeze your thighs before snaking up your torso and kneading your breasts through your top. Lost in the pleasure only Bucky can give, you assume his question is rhetorical. You learn it wasn’t as he stops his ministrations. “Is this mine?”

You scramble to find your words. “Yeah.” Your voice cracks. “Yes.”

“Good girl.” He looks directly into your eyes through the stickered mirror as he unzips the front of your top. Bucky brings his gloved hand up to your mouth. “Bite,” He mumbles before planting multiple kisses on your neck. 

You bite down on his index finger and he pulls his hand away, leaving the glove in your mouth. He quickly takes the glove, stuffing it in his back pocket, before his right hand is kneading one of your bare breasts. You sigh at the feel of his calloused hand on your soft skin. You get a moment to enjoy the feeling until Bucky is lifting his other gloved hand toward your mouth. You get the memo without having to be told. You help tear off his glove for his metal hand and he’s stuffing it in his back pocket again. Instead of going for your other breast, two of Bucky’s metal fingers tap on your bottom lip. 

It is not like you to deny him. You take his fingers in his mouth and suck on them, giving them the same attention you’d give his dick. Bucky leaves the growing patch of hickies on your neck to growl at the sight. “Such a fucking tease.” His metal fingers press down on your tongue making you take his fingers deeper. He let’s up when he knows you are about to choke. “Can’t wait to get inside you, but first I want to see you cum on my fingers. Would you like that, honey?” His right hand leaves your chest and plays with the hem of your short skirt. 

With his fingers still in your mouth,  you nod, widen your stance, and back your ass up into his crotch. He chuckles lowly right next to your ear before his right hand is yanking up your skirt. Your skin tight skirt barely budges with one hand. 

“You gotta be kidding me?” Bucky takes his metal hand out of your mouth and uses it to yank up your skirt. You pray to whoever’s listening that your horny boyfriend doesn’t rip your bottoms off. It’d make getting out of the club a lot more messier. “This skirt is annoying me. You’ll just have to be naked for a week to make it up to me.” Thankfully, your skirt moves up your body to bunch at your waist. You don’t have time for a witty retort or to even think about how you were airborne for a second before Bucky is digging his metal fingers into your sex. At the feel of fishnet over wet folds, he pauses. “Wait, are you-”

“Not wearing panties? Yep.” 

He lets out the longest groan to date. “You’re gonna kill me.” Bucky tears open a hole in your stockings at the apex of your thighs before massaging and digging into your sex with vengence. “That’s what you’re gonna do. Forget all the highrisks missions. The stupid fucking guards. I’m gonna die because my girlfriend can’t wear a fucking decent pair of underwear.” Bucky groans and he’s… he’s being unfair as two of his thick metal fingers slip into you. He knows how much you love it when he uses his metal hand. Bucky is using it against you to sear his touch into your brain. You throw your head back onto his shoulder as he reaches sensitive depths inside you. His right hand goes back to kneading your chest.

“Wearing panties makes it harder f-for… for you to fuck me. Need to be prepared for your horny ass 24/7.” You pant in between words. Bucky raises an unimpressed eyebrow. The speed of his pumping fingers quicken to the point where the both of you can hear how wet you are over the distant music. “W-when are you not… horny?”

“I’m not even going to entertain you with an answer when I have this wet pussy to play with. ‘Sides, I’m not the one who sounds horny right now. “ Bucky’s metal thumb rubs your clit. “I’m not the one desperate enough for my boyfriend’s cock that I'll spread my legs in a public bathroom. Honestly, you just went with it? No second thoughts?” You’re too overwhelmed with pleasure to even bother a response. Bucky clicks his tongue. “That’s not good girl behavior. More like slutty behavior.” Bucky’s eyes light up with an idea. “Be a good slut and cum for me.”

“Bucky,” you gasp pleadingly. 

“C’mon, you heard me. Cum for me. It’s the least you can do.” He’s sucking on a pulse point on your neck when you go rigid underneath him. You cry out as you reach your euphoric high. 

“God damnit, you’re so gorgeous when you cum.” Bucky makes you feel the full effect of your orgasm as he continues to pump his fingers and rub your clit. You have to practically tear his metal arm off you to get peace. Both of his hands leave you and you can hear the tell tale sound of his pants being undone. 

You get a small amount of reprieve before Bucky is rubbing his dick through your drenched folds. His thick cock stimulating your sensitive nerves. Bucky’s steel toed boot nudges your stance wider and he’s dipping into your entrance just enough for you to start to feel the intoxicating stretch of him. You’re arching your back at the burn when he pulls out suddenly. You sputter as you try to find your words. 

“I don’t think you really want my cock.” He goes back to spreading your folds over his cock. The tip runs across your sensitive, overworked clit every once in a while.

“I’m literally on display for your fucking dick right now.” 

“Then say it.” Bucky nuzzles your neck and blows cool air on the patch of hickies. 

“Bucky, please fuck me. I’ve been wet since you mentioned you had to wear a leather jacket. Let me have it.” 

Bucky snorts at that. “My sweet slut. Always so ready and willing for my cock.” 

“Only a s-slut-” Bucky slides into you slowly making you feel every massive inch of him  “- f-for you.” You whimper at the feel of him as your back arches. You're trapped in between Bucky and the sink. No choice but to feel all of him. 

Bucky rumbles right against your back. “My own little whore. I like the sound of that.” He tests the waters by thrusting shallow. You’re convulsing around his cock. It always takes a few to get used to the initial stretch. He groans. “Always so fucking tight. My own personal heaven.” He hasn’t been able to stop his little thrusts, addicted to the feel of you. 

“B-Bucky,” you gasp strained. “P-please, move. Do something.” 

“Look at you so desperate for my cock. I love it. Such a good whore.” He pulls out and you could cry until he’s thrusting back in, knocking the wind out of you. You gasp, collecting enough air for him to knock it out of you again. Again. And again. It’s not before long, Bucky is setting a brutal pace and all you can do is take it. You are going lax as the pleasure makes your extremities tingly. Bucky is pretty much the only thing holding you up as he brings three of his right fingers towards your mouth. He doesn’t even have to tap on your lips. You open your mouth for him to slip his fingers inside and suck on them. Bucky’s eyes zero in on your pretty lips wrapped around his fingers. 

“What a good slut. Such a good girl. I love you so much.” His metal hand gently wraps around the base of your neck. His index finger and thumb stroke the skin right underneath your choker causing goosebumps to break out. “This looks so pretty on you, baby.” He kisses the spot your jawline and neck connect before continuing. “I think we both know how much better my hand is wrapped around your neck though.” He gives a light squeeze, slightly cutting off your blood flow, and grins at you. A broken moan leaves you as drool pools around his fingers starting to drip down his hand and your chin. “So fucking stunning. Should have got out my phone before we started.”

A light, airy feeling starts to creep into your head, kind of like your floating. Bucky’s pace never lets up and you’re close. So, so close.  A few more thrusts and Bucky is reaching new depths. You’re knuckles strain as you grip the sink hard. 

“Shit.” He grunts. His fingers press down on your tongue not give a fuck if you gag. Your eyes widen as his warmth floods you. Bucky’s pace slows and he’s pumping his hips shallowly while he cums.

 As much as you love the bare feel of him, you’re pissed. You were so close to an orgasm and he stopped. It was without clittoral stimulation too. It was gonna be groundbreaking. You actually gag on the pressure of his fingers down your throat and smack his wet wrist. He quickly takes his fingers out of your mouth and apologizes. You can’t believe you're stomping your foot while still on your boyfriend’s dick, but there’s a first for everything. You’re actually pouting as you cross your arms over your bare chest and jut out your lower lip. 

“Bucky!” You wait for him to take his eyes off your ass and meet yours through the mirror. 

He smacks your ass, squeezes it, and hums, mildly distracted. “Yeah?” He glances up and does a double take. “You’re pissed?”

“Uh yeah. Do you know how close I was before you ruined it? I-” Bucky takes his hand off your throat and uses both to dig his thumbs in the dip of your back as he shushes you.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ll make it up to you.” You’re frustrated and slightly on edge when Bucky slowly pulls out. “Don’t get more upset, but that was literally the hottest thing we’ve done. You have never looked hotter.” 

“Why would I get upset when I feel the same.” You begrudgingly agree. 

“Oh my god, you’re gonna hold not letting you come against me. You’re such a baby.” You open your mouth to defend yourself, but Bucky turns you around and lifts you on to the edge of the sink before you can start. Butterflies erupt in your stomach at that manhandling and you ignore it. While you avoid his eyes and glare at the wall over his shoulder, he wipes some of the drool off your chin. You melt on the inside and try not to show it. If you look in his eyes, you’re going to forgive him. If you look into his eyes, you’re going to forgive him. “This is ridiculous. When have I ever left you hanging? Don’t you think maybe I had a plan?” Your eyes slowly slide over to his. His eyes, still darkened by lust, bore into you. “I don’t want to see you cum on my cock through the mirror. I want you to face me, eyes rolled back, mouth gaping as I repeatedly reach all the sensitive spots inside you.” 

“You’re the one that’s the fucking tease.” You smack his broad chest. He takes your hand and kisses each knuckle. His hand then goes to knead your thighs dangling off the edge. 

“So, what do you say? Second round?” 

“I can’t believe I am saying this, but I’m sexually frustrated and still slightly mad. Fuck me before someone comes in.” He wedges himself between your thick thighs. Bucky leans down to kiss you and you thread your fingers through his hair at the nape of his neck, happy to get to touch him.  He eventually stops kneading your thighs, just feeling the texture of the mesh stretched across your skin. 

Bucky groans as you nip at his lips when he pulls away. His head drops down and shakes it in disbelief.  “You need to wear these more often.” He looks very serious at you and you would snicker if you weren’t about to fuck. You do smirk at him though and swirl his hair between your fingers. 

“You gonna fuck me in public more often if I do?” You wipe some of your burgundy lipstick off the edge of his bottom lip as you ask. 

Bucky’s Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps. “I-is that what you want?” He’s grabbing your ass and pulling you closer to the edge. You can feel his hardening cock against your hip. You’re so close to Bucky, you lean in just a few inches to press your chest against his and whisper sultry in his ear.

“I am constantly ready for your cock. Twenty four seven. Name a place and I’ll spread my legs. So fucking big. Feels so damn good.” You kiss right underneath his ear and then move a few inches down to suck hickey on a soft spot of his neck. With super soldier recovery rate, it won’t last long, but it sure does rile him up. He moans and it echoes off the linoleum poster covered walls. You love the vibrations underneath your lips as he tilts his head to the other side. You know his eyes are fluttering as you can’t help but to give him a few others hickies next to it. 

You lean back to admire your handiwork. Purple blotches litter his neck in between smudges of burgundy lipstick. You’re pretty sure you’ve wiped off all your lipstick on Bucky. His blown out pupils watch you like a hawk, hands digging into your ass. He’s rubbing his hard on into the crease of your stomach and thighs and he doesn’t even know it. “C’mon, I want to feel the ache of you tomorrow. Fuck me like the whore that I am.” You feel a chill run down his spine before he finally takes action. 

He rolls up his sleeves and of course, because your chest is now facing him, he needs to leave a few hickies on them. As he guides his dick to your entrance, you wrap your legs around his waist. Bucky momentarily ceases the hickies to watch your puffy folds easily accept his wide cock. Both of you are groaning at the feeling. 

“Your pussy’s so wet for me. Fuck.” Bucky’s too turned for a filter. You keep your edging comment to yourself and kiss his sweaty temple. The edging thoughts stewing inside are knocked out of you as Bucky fingers trace the place you two are joined. He uses the excess of your combined wetness to rub your clit. Pleasure makes your toes curl. 

“Not what I meant when I said fuck me, Bastard.” You can’t get Bucky to move his hips without falling on your ass. He seems perfectly fine to have you warm his hard dick as he kisses and leaves hickies along your collar bones. Your free hand grabs his bicep and you’re close to coming already. 

“Yeah. Your bastard.” You can feel him grin against your skin. You’d comment if you weren’t about to cum. 

“C-close. Please don’t stop.” You gasp out, begging as the rise of your orgasm hits. You’re squeezing Bucky while in your peak. He almost groans as loud as you’re moaning.

“You’re so gorgeous. Love when you convulse around my cock, honey.” He kisses your cheek momentarily before going back down to your chest. He starts pumping his cock in and out of you. This time literally knocking the wind out of you. You’re oversensitive from your orgasm and he never truly let you come down from it. Bucky is certainly making his promise. You’ll feel him in your guts for the next few days. Your hands run through his hair and pull on the ends. His mouth finally detaches from your chest as he moves with your hand. He lets out a full blown out moan that makes your heart pound. Bucky always lets out the filthiest moans when you pull his hair. You fucking love it. His metal hand leaves your ass. He grabs a hold of the edge of the sink as he pace picks up. 

As much as you love filling all your wet dreams with the hottest audio ever, you don’t have the strength to keep your arm up for long. Your hand drops to his back. His muscles ripple underneath your fingertips as you dig your nails into his back. Both of you panting into each other's ear. Your legs shake at the approaching orgasm. 

“I know you’re close. Be a good whore. Cum on my cock. I’ll wait for you.” He rubs your clit even faster. 

“FUCK.” You’ve never been happier for loud music blasting through the club’s speakers. An intense orgasm takes over you. White dots fill your vision as tears collect at your waterline. With how hard your gripping his cock, Bucky isn’t far behind. He can only get in a few more thrusts before he’s cumming again. He bites into your shoulder and groans. Shivers wreck down your spine as his warmth fills you for the second time tonight. Bucky lets the sink carry his weight as he grips it hard. 

There’s a groaning protest before a chunk of the sink falls off. You’re there to block him from falling. He pulls out and moves you closer to the other edge, away from the crime scene. You look over your shoulder. Thankfully, he didn’t break off any of the major plumbing parts. Water spraying everywhere would make looking yourself presentable a lot more harder, but maybe that could have been your excuse. Oh well. 

You turn back to Bucky. He’s still holding on to the broken piece of sink. Both of you break out into giggles as he throws it in the trash. 

“I can’t believe you did that.” You’re grinning ear to ear as he tucks himself back into his boxers. 

“I can.” Bucky shrugs. “I don’t think you get how tight you get when you cum. Me breaking things during sex is not new.” 

“My back. Our nice bed frame. The ottoman in the commons… Can’t forget the multiple tables. Shout out to Tony’s dented Acura hood.” You pull Bucky’s shirt to get him closer to you. You kiss him before he speaks. “Are you trying to seduce me?” 

“If you fuck me again, there won’t be a sink left.” 

He hums and rubs your thighs. He’s definitely addicted to the feel of the fishnets stockings. Good luck trying to get his hands off you for the rest of the day. “You have a point.” He drops to his knees. 

“What are you doing?” He’s spreading your thighs wide in front of his face.

“I can’t let my cum drip down your legs out there. That would be irresponsible of me.” That's all the explanation you get before he’s burying his face in between your legs, stubble scratching your inner thighs. You gasp as he licks a stripe from your entrance to your clit. Fuck what he said. You’re the one that’s gonna die. Bucky is truly your horny bastard. 

[idnek83]

Was/Is

Rating: Teen

Pairing: Soda Kazuichi/Gundham Tanaka

Words: 4,701

Tags: Minor Character Death, Alternate Universe - Soulmates (the one where you can only see colors after you see your soulmate), Non-Despair, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied Past Abuse

Summary: Soda's soulmate was dead before he ever really got to meet her. Life is complicated when you've lost something you never had. But maybe there's still some hope

Read on Ao3

_____________________

All Soda could remember about his soulmate was her black hair, pink skirt, and the fact that she had been sitting alone while the rest of the kids had played. He had really only managed to look at her for a few seconds before getting distracted by the suddenly bright and vibrant colors of the playground equipment around him, and then by the shocking purple of his sweater. Once he had finally gotten a hold of himself and looked back, the girl was gone.

He had gone to bed that night excited. He didn’t really understand what a soulmate was yet, but he knew it was something good. Something so good that some people spent their entire lives searching for it! And he had already found his! He’d never have to search!

Except he did.

The girl never came back to the park.

Soda and his parents went back to the park nearly every day for a year, assuming the girl would come back when her parents realized what had happened, and then she and Soda would get to grow up together, never knowing the loneliness of not having a soulmate.

As the days passed, Soda’s parents came up with all kinds of reasons the girl might not have come back; maybe she hadn’t told her family yet, maybe her parents couldn’t remember the exact park they had gone to that day, or maybe they had moved soon after and were still trying to find time to come back.

But she never came back.

His father got frustrated, accused Soda of lying for attention and wasting his parents’ time. There was no way the girl wouldn’t come back once her parents knew what happened.

But Soda was too good at telling colors apart to be faking. Sure, some kids knew their favorite shirt was green, or their house was yellow, but only because they were told that by others. Soda had no trouble identifying colors, even on things he had never seen before.

He wasn’t lying. So, after a year of waiting, they had to consider other reasons why the girl never returned.

Soda didn’t understand the word ‘dead’ very well at the time. He knew it meant gone; his grandfather was dead, and that’s why he had never met him before. But he didn’t understand why his mother had cried so hard when she told him his soulmate was probably dead too. That wasn’t new, she had been gone the whole year, so why was it so upsetting now?

He understood two years later when the family dog got hit by a car.

Dead didn’t mean gone. Dead meant gone forever.

He wasn’t sure if he actually mourned for her, it was hard to mourn for someone you never really knew, but he knew had definitely mourned. Mourned for the life they could have had, mourned the happiness it would have brought him, mourned the connection he would never have.

Mourned for himself.

He thinks that was when he started to hate her. That little girl sitting all alone had taken not just his happiness, but his hope for the future as well, and shattered them.

He had never even said ‘hi’.

She had ruined his life.

_

He had to move after middle school. The other kids had stopped being impressed by his ability to see colors and had taken to teasing him about his missing soulmate instead. Worse than the kids were the teachers. Their pity, and the way they would whisper to the other kids to be nice to him because he would always be alone, he just couldn’t handle it anymore. So his parents shipped him off to an all-boys school the next city over. He changed his look to make extra sure no one would recognize him and pretended he couldn’t see colors like most teens.

He thought things would be easy at an all-boys school; high school boys don’t care about love and soulmates and all that crap right? Sure, it’d come up, and some of the guys there might even be each other’s soulmates, but it wouldn’t be, like, an everyday thing he couldn’t escape, right?

Wrong.

His roommate had met his soulmate in middle school, but she had to leave the country for a few years for her mother’s job or something. Soda tried not to pay attention when his roommate talked about her.

His roommate had caught on eventually, and had been pretty upset that Soda apparently didn’t care about how lovesick he was. He had yelled about how jealous Soda must have been of him, since he had already found his soulmate, and Soda had done his best to ignore him.

But then he started going on about how lucky Soda was that he didn’t have to spend everyday missing his soulmate, that he would get to meet his when he was older, and they could both live together happily without any issues.

The next week Soda had been accepted into Hope’s Peak, and the school quietly convinced his old roommate’s family to drop the assault charge. It was only one punch, after all, and the cheque Hope’s Peak sent them had quite a few 0’s.

_

Being around girls again after almost a year was… weird.

He had spent a couple late nights staring at his ceiling and trying to force himself to think of girls, preferably girls without black hair, the way he thought he was supposed to. It was hard. He knew he had to be attracted to women, his soulmate had been a girl after all, but he really just couldn’t make himself interested.

He told himself it was because he had only been around men for so long.

But he had been seeing girls everyday for a week now, and it was still just as hard.

He knew people dated around, it was good experience. Some people didn’t find their soulmates until they were much older anyways, and some… it was good experience, and it was all some people ever got.

It was all he would ever get.

So why couldn’t he make himself interested?

Maybe it had to do with knowing his soulmate wasn’t out there. Other people dated because they hoped it would help them be a better partner to their soulmate one day, or because they wanted to practice their ‘moves’ or whatever. But there was no reason for Soda to practice.

All he could really do was pretend.

So a few weeks later when his class received a pretty blonde princess as an exchange student, that’s what he decided he’d do.

She was perfect. Pale blonde hair that couldn’t be mistaken for black even at night, beautiful features no one, even those who had already found their soulmates, could resist, a polite but firm personality, and, most importantly, unobtainable.

No one would question why Soda was so attracted to her despite not being his soulmate; she was objectively beautiful, and no one could fault him for not actually trying to date her; a princess couldn’t date someone who wasn’t her soulmate, the scandal would be outrageous.

Sonia gave him something to hold on to when people brought up soulmates. Instead of awkwardly staying quiet or changing the subject, he could loudly talk about how much he wished Sonia was his soulmate until no one wanted to discuss it with him anymore.

It was great. People started changing the subject for him whenever soulmates came up, just so they wouldn’t have to hear him talk about Sonia anymore.

The next year flew by, but he still couldn’t bring himself to think of girls late at night. Not even Sonia.

_

He hated Gundham Tanaka. Hated him like he had only ever hated his soulmate.

Everything had been so easy the previous year; talk about Sonia and, boom, no more soulmate talk. Easy.

But then the dark overlord of who-gives-a-fuck had joined their class, and suddenly Sonia didn’t seem quite so unobtainable to everyone.

It had been obvious that she liked Gundham from day one. He wasn’t her soulmate, but it didn’t stop her from making googly eyes at him when she thought he wasn’t looking, or from spending nearly the whole school day at his side.

Soda couldn’t really blame her, she was probably interested in him for the same reason Soda was interested in her: he was unobtainable.

Apparently Gundham had already met his soulmate. He didn’t really talk about it, all anyone knew as far as Soda could tell was that Gundham’s soulmate was… not here. His irritating way of speaking made it hard to tell why exactly Gundham wasn’t with his soulmate, beyond something about their first meeting taking place “before this mortal form was truly mine to wield freely,” and fuck if Soda knew what that meant.  

Regardless, it meant Sonia could chase after him all she wanted, and nothing would come of it. She was free to practice or pretend or whatever for the day when she finally met her real soulmate. Lucky her.

Unfortunately, other people didn’t seem to understand the whole ‘wanting someone because they’re unobtainable’ thing as well as Soda. They just saw that Sonia was interested in someone who wasn’t her soulmate, which meant in their eyes Soda now had a chance.

Suddenly people wanted to hear him talk about Sonia again, even if it was just to hear him complain about Gundham. The new possibility of Sonia dating was just the spice needed to make his fake crush interesting again, and the apparent rivalry between him and Gundham made it all the more exciting.

Honestly, if it was all just talk about Soda trying to date Sonia while Sonia was trying to date Gundham then he wouldn’t even have minded it that much. But the problem was that the conversation never stayed that specific, it always shifted from the three of them to the concept of dating someone who isn’t your soulmate, which shifted to talking about soulmates, which shifted to people wanting to ask Soda things.

“What do you think your soulmate is like?” Dead.

“When do you think you’ll meet them?” Like eleven years ago.

“Aren’t you excited?” For what? To die alone?

Soda hated Gundham.

He had ruined his life.

_

Hajime was the only one who knew.

They had been sitting together in Hajime’s room watching tv one afternoon when Hajime had started talking about soulmates. Soda let his friend ramble and let himself space out until it was over.

But then Hajime had shaken him by the shoulder.

“I don’t get it Soda. How can you be so into Sonia but not excited to meet your soulmate? You know it’ll be, like, Sonia times ten once you find them right?”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t really want to lie Hajime. They were soulfriends after all, even if it was just a fake term Soda had come up with since he knew he’d never have anything more. Hajime was the closest thing he’d ever have to a soulmate, and he didn’t want to lie to him.

So instead he just said, “My jumpsuit is yellow.”

“What?”

“My jumpsuit is yellow. And my hair is pink.” He looked into Hajime’s eyes. “The walls are blue, your tie is green, and my soulmate is dead.”

He had no idea how long he cried for after that, but he knew Hajime had held him through it, even cried along with him. Afterwards he had admitted to Hajime his reasons for calling him his soulfriend, and Hajime had said he was honored.

They never really talked about it again, but Hajime always did his best to keep the topic away from soulmates when Soda was around.

_

The only time Hajime had ever brought it up purposely was to ask if Gundham was telling the truth about having met his soulmate. Gundham would confidently tell his classmates the colors of various objects, but it wasn’t like any of them would know if he was lying. Even their teacher hadn’t met her soulmate yet, so there wasn’t like anyone who could call his bluff.

Soda had just sighed and told Hajime Gundham wasn’t lying, he always got the colors right and even if he was kind of a freak, it would take someone with actual magic powers to guess them correctly 100% of the time.

Hajime had gone quiet for a while after that, until Soda got annoyed and finally asked him what he was thinking.

“Look man, you’re gonna hate this…”

“Just spit it out, Haj.”

“I think you and Gundham would actually get along pretty well.”

“Wow, you’re right, I hate it.” Soda had moved to leave, but Hajime stopped him.

“Look, I know you hate him cus he ruined your whole fake crush on Sonia thing, but I really think you’d like him if you gave him a chance. Plus, I think he’d be able to understand your soulmate situation better than… shit, sorry.”

Soda froze when Hajime said it. Then his blood boiled.

“What the actual fuck, Hajime?” He hadn’t meant to yell, but somehow it made it easier to not cry.

“I’m sorry! I just think he might be in a sort of similar situation!”

“The guy literally talks about having a soulmate all the time! How is that similar?” Soda couldn’t help but remember how good it had felt to punch his roommate.

“Okay, sure, but he also talks about not being able to see them? Like it’s hard to understand him sometimes but I don’t think he actually knows where his soulmate is anymore! Like you guys could talk about how it feels to lose your soulmate even-” Hajime ducked out of the way of Soda’s fist easily, like he had been expecting it, “-even if it’s different kinds of loss!”

“Fuck you man.”

“Just think about it okay?”

Like he had a choice.

_

The thought of talking with Gundham wouldn’t leave his mind after that.

It had sounded really stupid at first; dead and missing really weren’t the same thing, but the more Soda thought about it, the more he could see that Hajime had a point.

Gundham’s situation was, at the very least, more similar to his than that of anyone else he knew.

Most people couldn’t understand the way it felt to lose your soulmate, it was just too hard for them to imagine losing something they hadn’t even found yet. So even if Gundham hadn’t lost his in the same way, at least he could kind of relate.

And then there was the whole aspect of not knowing. If Gundham didn’t know where his soulmate was, that meant he probably couldn’t be certain they were even still alive, so at the very least he’d probably considered what it’d be like if they were dead. Maybe Soda could even help him cope with it if they were.

Not that he was really a master at handling it himself, but still.

Maybe Hajime really did have a point, and the more he thought about it, the more Soda realized he didn’t really dislike Gundham as a person.

Sure, his way of speaking was pretty weird, but Soda actually found it pretty cool that he was comfortable enough with himself to talk like that in the first place. Soda tried his best to immediately change anything about himself that made him seem weird to his peers, there’s no way he’d dress in such bright colors if his other classmates could actually see them.

Gundham was also super good with animals, which Soda had always envied. He hadn’t had a pet in years, and seeing Gundham casually walk around with his hamsters and whatever other animal he brought that day had always made him jealous. Maybe if they started hanging out Gundham would let him play with his pets…

And now that he thought about it, Gundham also seemed pretty kind. He let Sonia down incredibly gently when she had first asked him out, and always seemed happy to help his classmates out when they needed it.

Maybe talking with him wouldn’t be so bad.

_

It had been surprisingly easy to get Gundham to speak with him alone.

He had come up with all kinds of excuses for why he would need to talk to him, but in the end all it took was “Hey, can we talk?”

They stood together on the roof of the school, staring out over the campus in silence as the sun began to set. Now that he was actually there, Soda wasn’t really sure where to start. He remembered how he had opened up to Hajime, and decided he might as well use the same tactic. It had worked last time.

“Your scarf is purple.” He swallowed and waited for Gundham to say something, shifting his gaze to watch him.

Gundham’s thin eyebrows raised as he processed the words.

“You have met your destined one, then?” Soda watched Gundham’s face shift though a thousand tiny emotions in a second, before settling on something akin to joy as he turned to face him.

Soda nodded but raised a hand to cut Gundham off before he could utter the “congratulations” Soda could see forming on his lips.

“It was years ago.”

“Ah.”

That single syllable held more meaning than any consolation anyone had ever tried to give him before. A single syllable, yet Soda already knew Gundham understood his feelings more than anyone else ever had.

But Soda needed to make sure Gundham understood completely before he continued.

“She’s dead.” Soda thought of the little black-haired girl, alone on a bench.

He always imagined it was a car crash.

Gundham nodded once, curtly. It looked like he was clenching his jaw.

“I… do not know if my beloved still breathes.” So Soda had been right, it had been something Gundham had at least considered. “Did you… know? When it happened?”

Gundham’s voice sounded smaller than it ever had before, and it made Soda want to hit the person who made it sound that way and tell Gundham everything would be okay.

But he was the one who made it sound that way, and he didn’t want to lie.

“No.” Gundham looked so crest fallen at the word, Soda couldn’t help but backtrack a bit. “A-at least I don’t think so. I was really young, so maybe I felt it and just didn’t know what it was?”

Whether people could feel it when their soulmate died had been debated for as long as anyone could remember, and there still wasn’t a firm answer. No one had found a scientific explanation for the sudden sense of loss some people experience when their soulmate dies, sometimes hours or days before they’re told of the death, nor had they found an explanation for why only some people seem to feel it.

Most people don’t believe it’s a real thing.

People like Gundham believe it is because they need to.

“… Did you know her long?”

Soda usually hated talking about it, but he felt like he could with Gundham. Like he would understand.

“Hardly a few seconds.” Soda laughed weakly and leaned against the railing, hanging his head. “I was a kid. I got distracted by the colors, and when I finally got my shit together she was gone.”

“I’m sorry.” It didn’t feel like pity. It felt like empathy, like understanding. “I too remember being overwhelmed by the sudden vibrance. So much so that my dear matriarch could hardly console me.”

Soda chuckled a little, but before he could worry that Gundham might think he was laughing at him, Gundham chuckled too.

“It can be a lot to handle for a kid, huh? Honestly they should make kid stuff a lot less colorful for that exact reason. Oh, I mean, I assume you were a kid when it happened?”

Gundham smiled and nodded.

“As you can see, I never quite recovered from my distaste for colors.” Gundham gestured to his mostly black outfit.

“Must hate looking at me then, huh?”

Gundham laughed again. Damn, it really was easy to get along with this guy.

“I do not mind them on you. My distaste does not extend beyond my own attire.”

“Lucky me.” They shared a smile, and Soda’s eyes drifted back to where Gundham’s purple scarf was gently billowing behind him. “I guess your ‘distaste’ doesn’t include purple either, huh?”

Gundham reached out and drew one end of his scarf in front of him, staring at it contemplatively.

“It was the first color I saw. My beloved was wearing it the day we met.”

Soda laughed.

“That’s wild! Purple was one of my first too! Like I’m not sure what was actually the first one, cus I was in the middle of a playground, but I remember looking down at my sleeve and just being blown away by it.”

Soda smiled and looked up to Gundham, only to spend the next minute in silence, trying to figure out what he had said that made Gundham’s brow furrow so much.

“Um…”

“You said you only met your destined for a moment, did you not?” Soda nodded. “How, then, do you know she is deceased?”

Soda felt his stomach drop. This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to convince him his soulmate wasn’t dead. Sure, there was a chance, but he had waited at that park for a year, no parent would have stayed away that long after finding out their child was seeing colors.

There was a chance, sure, but it was too small and too painful to hold onto.

“Look man, she’s dead. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Soda, this is important. I would not ask if it wasn’t.” Gundham placed his hands on Soda’s shouldered and turned him to face him. “Did you see your soulmate perish?”

Soda looked away.

“No.”

“Did you hear of her death some other way?”

He’d heard this all before. He hated it.

“No. I didn’t know her name or anything, so I couldn’t, like, look it up. But Gundham-”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“A long time ago, okay?”

He hated this. Things had been going so well. Gundham had been so understanding up until that moment.

“Soda, I need to know when. Exactly.”

Wait, did Gundham… know his soulmate? Had they been friends? Siblings? Did the girl manage to tell Gundham about the boy she had seen in the park before she died?

Could he really learn something new about his soulmate?

“It was… about eleven years ago? I was seven, and it was, like, early fall?”

“On a playground?”

“Yeah?”

“The one across the street from that strange black and white bear store?”

“Yes? Gundham, did you know her?”

“Eleven years ago… at that playground… and you were wearing a purple sweater?”

“Yes! Gundham, please! Who was she?”

Gundham’s eyes fell to the ground and his grip on Soda’s shoulders loosened. His mouth opened and closed, looking for the right words.

“Me.”

“What?”

“The little girl. Your soulmate. That was me.”

“But-” Soda stopped talking and looked into Gundham’s pleading eyes. “I don’t- like I mean… It was a girl though? Long hair, pink skirt, like- uh-”

Gundham shook his head and took a deep breath.

“I know. It was before my soul and body were one, before I even knew they were in conflict.”

Soda’s eyes widened.

“You… so that’s why I-” Soda smiled and held Gundham’s face in his hands. “I’ve never been attracted to girls! It didn’t make any sense, cus if my soulmate was a girl then I should have- but!” He stepped back and threw his hands in the air, gesturing excitedly, “This makes sense! My soulmate was trans! This makes so much more sense!”

“Is.”

Soda stopped and looked at Gundham.

Is.

His soulmate is, not was.

He has a soulmate.

He has a soulmate and he’s alive.

He has a soulmate and he’s alive and he’s standing right in front of him.

Soda’s on his knees sobbing before he even realizes he’s moved.

Gundham is there holding him before he can even think to stand.

His arms are so strong and warm around him, he feels comfortable, he feels safe, he feels right.

He feels like home.

Soda sobs harder and wraps his arms around Gundham, presses his face into his shoulder and holds him as tight as he can. He spent years thinking he had lost him forever, he never wanted to let him go again.

Gundham holds him through it, stroking his back and whispering “I’m here” into his ear over and over again. Soda doesn’t want the moment to end, once his sobbing subsides and his breathing returns to normal he just stays where he is, breathing in the scent of his soulmate and memorizing the feeling of him in his arms.

But he needs to ask. Needs to know.

“Why didn’t you come back?”

“My mother believed something at the park had frightened me, and deigned not to return.”

“You didn’t tell her you could see colors?”

“I… did not trust adults much as a child. My angel mother had only recently liberated me from hell, thus it was several moons before I told her what had transpired, and we had transferred our dwelling in that time. She could not remember the location of the park after so long. I am sorry”

Soda files Gundham’s ‘liberation from hell’ away for a conversation later, now isn’t the time.

“You don’t have to be sorry.”

“You believed I was dead. I must have caused you so much suffering over the years.”

“It must have been hard on you too…”

Gundham is silent, and Soda finally pulls his face back from his shoulder to look at him. There are tears running down his cheeks, so Soda reaches his hands up to wipe them away.

He leaves his hands where they are when he’s done. Gundham isn’t looking at him.

“Hey.” He waits. Eventually Gundham meets his eyes, his expression filled with guilt. “I think we’ve both probably made each other cry enough for, like, the rest of our lives, okay? I’m just happy you’re here now.”

Gundham takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When he opens them, he smiles and places his own hand over one of Soda’s, holding it in place as he shifts his head to press a kiss into Soda’s palm.

“Thank you, my love, I am glad you are here as well.”

Soda can’t help but blush. Even if they are soulmates, ‘my love’ just sounds so… intimate.

“Uh, well, I’m glad you’re glad?”

Gundham chuckles and intertwines their fingers. Soda is so busy looking at their clasped hands that he almost misses Gundham leaning towards him. The hand below his chin, tilting his face up, is all the warning he gets before Gundham’s lips meet his.

It’s soft, and almost hesitant, until Soda realizes what’s happening and returns the kiss a little too eagerly, bumping their mouths together just a little too forcefully.

Gundham pulls back laughing, but silences Soda’s apology with another kiss before he can voice it. Soda lets Gundham lead this time, mimics his movements and melts into it, until Gundham pulls away with a happy sigh.

He brushes a strand of hair behind Soda’s ear.

“I’m sorry-”

“If your next words aren’t ‘for ending that fucking amazing kiss’ I don’t want to hear it.”

Gundham looks taken aback for a moment, before chucking and shaking his head.

“Then I am sorry for ending that fucking amazing kiss.” Gundham smiles at him and he smiles right back.

“Good. Now make it up to me.”

_

All Soda can remember about his soulmate that night is his black hair, purple scarf, and the way he feels in his arms as they kiss. He manages to look at him for a few seconds between kisses, getting distracted by the way his hair falls across his forehead, or the pink flush of his cheeks. Once their lips meet again he knows; his soulmate is right here, and he’ll never let him disappear again.

[angelsfalling16]

The Way You Wear That Dress

Inspired by the song Dress by Charlotte Sands

Part of the 20 First Kisses Series

Summary: It's the beginning of eighth year, and Simon can't find Baz at the Welcome Back Picnic, so he goes in search of him. What he finds is unexpected and makes him rethink everything he has ever felt for Baz.

Word Count: 2150

If you want to know what I imagined Baz’s outfit looking like, here are the links to the dress and the boots! (I love the idea of Baz in these boots and have used them in a couple of fics now.)

Read it on ao3

***

Simon

It’s the beginning of eighth year, and I’m pretty sure Baz is already up to something. He isn’t at the Welcome Back picnic with everyone else, so I decide to go in search of him and stop whatever scheme he’s about to put into motion.

I start with our room, wondering if maybe he decided to go back up there, but the room looks the same as it always is at the beginning of term. My side is devoid of any personal items since I didn’t have anything I felt like bringing back from the care homes (not that I really had anything there). Baz’s side is immaculate, all of his things neatly put away in their respective places, filled but not cluttered.

I move over to the window to look out at the school. It seems empty right now with everyone else out at the picnic. My eyes skate over the courtyard where, not long ago, the first years’ fates were sealed by the Crucible. I only hope none of them were given as evil a roommate I was.

My gaze continues over the grounds for anyone who isn’t out on the lawn, and after a minute of searching I catch movement on the ramparts.

It could be anyone, but I know it’s him.

I turn away from the window and head back down the stairs and away from Mummers House. I quickly but quietly make my way to where Baz is, not wanting to scare him off before I can figure out what he’s up to but also wanting to get to him before he disappears again.

I come to a stop several feet away from where he stands on the ramparts. It isn’t what he’s doing that causes me to freeze, though. It’s what he’s wearing.

At first, I wonder if he has decided to don the Watford-issued cape for his final year, but then I realize that the swishing of cloth around him isn’t a cape. It’s a dress.

The dark green material falls to just above his knee in the front, giving just a glimpse of his thighs, but in the back, it nearly grazes the ground. At the top, around Baz’s shoulders and chest and around to his back, the material is sheer with interwoven lace, allowing his pale, grey skin to show through. He wears the dress like it’s nothing, like it was made specifically for him. (Knowing Baz, it probably was).

My eyes follow the line of his dress down to his things and knees, but where I expect to see the rest of his legs – his muscular football calves – I’m met with the sight of knee-high boots that are laced up the back and have a heel that adds at least two inches to two inches Baz already has over me.

I can’t seem to stop staring at his outfit, but I finally manage to force my eyes back up, and that’s when I notice Baz’s hair.

For the first time since I’ve met him, Baz is wearing his hair down with no products slicking it back away from his face. Instead, it’s being pushed back by a thin headband, silver like his eyes, that still allows his hair to fall in natural waves around his face.

Suddenly, my mouth is dry and my throat feels tight. I try to form words in my head, but my mind is blank. All I can think is, legs. And that’s when I know that I’m fucked.

How is it that Baz looks so good in a dress? He should look ridiculous. I should want to ridicule him for it. Instead, all I can do is stare and hope that he doesn’t turn and find me staring at him.

For a full minute, my eyes slowly drag up and down his body, taking it all in, before I force myself to look away, not wanting to get caught staring at him. Inevitably, though, my eyes are drawn back to him. 

It’s hard to believe that it’s really him. I just can’t reconcile this version of Baz with the version I’ve known for seven years. He looks so different, but he also looks very much like himself. Possibly even more like himself than he ever has. (If that makes sense.)

I wonder what happened to him this summer. It’s like there was a shift somewhere within him that made him act and dress differently. I just don’t know what it is.

He is dressed so femininely, but he still holds this masculinity about him, and the whole thing is driving me crazy. He pulls it off so effortlessly.

He’s dripping with confidence as he leans his arms on the ramparts, a lit cigarette hanging between his fingers.

I know the smart thing to do would be to turn away and leave him be, but doing what’s smart has never really been my strong suit.

I take a few steps towards him even though I haven’t consciously made the decision to do so. I feel drawn to him like a string is pulling me towards him, and as I draw nearer, I notice a glossiness to his lips, as if he’s spread lip gloss or something over them.

I want to hit him. Why does he always look so good? It’s annoying. 

My eyes fall back to the dress he’s wearing, and I can only imagine what other people might think if they saw him like this. For starters, he’s out of uniform, and also, he looks bloody well perfect, like nothing he wears will ever make him look bad.

I briefly consider going to find the mage and telling him what Baz is wearing, but breaking dress code isn’t enough to get him kicked out of school. Plus, I’m not sure I want to share this side of Baz with anyone else.

I’m not sure why but it probably has a lot to do with the fact that Baz has obviously chosen a place away from everyone else, maybe so they won’t see him like this and judge him for it. But it could be something else holding me back. Something like this desperate need I’m feeling to put my hands on him.

I want to push him up against the wall and…and…. That’s where my thoughts cut off because usually when I push Baz against the wall, I want to punch him, but today, that’s not what I want. I don’t want to fight him. I want to…

I shake my head. I can’t finish that thought, can’t think about what it means.

And yet…

An image pops into my head of my hands on his hips, rubbing against the luxurious material of the dress he’s wearing. Of my hands in his hair, tangling in it. Of his breath on my cheek. Of the feeling of his glossed lips on mine. Of the moment he starts to kiss me back and--.

And I shake my head again.

I won’t lie and say that I don’t want any of that, but I can’t be foolish enough to allow myself to hope for it. Nothing has changed. Baz still hates me, and he’d laugh in my face if he found out that I want to kiss him.

Because I do. Want to kiss him, that is. And it’s not just because of the dress. I think that was just the thing that pushed me to finally admit how I feel. How I’ve felt for a long time.

But Baz will never feel the same way about me.

I should go. I can’t let him catch me practically drooling at the sight of him in that dress.

I turn away from him, but I turn too quickly and trip on my own feet, cursing loudly as I try to catch myself.

“Simon?” Baz says behind me.

“Uh…” I say stupidly, picking myself up off the ground and slowly turning to face him. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing here?”

“You, uh, you w-weren’t at the picnic. I came looking for y-you,” I stutter out as my face flushes red.

“You weren’t supposed to see me like this,” he says, and his voice sounds strangled.

He drops the cigarette to ground and grounds it out with the toe of a boot that probably costs more than everything I have ever owned. That sight shouldn’t make me even more attracted to him, but it does.

He turns one of his usual sneers on me and snaps something snarky at me, probably the beginning of chewing me out for following him, but I barely hear a word he says because I’m so mesmerized by the way he looks. Also, the sound of his voice is somewhat soothing, even with the biting words that no doubt spill from his glossy lips. I missed hearing it while we were away for the summer.

He’s looking at me expectantly now, like he’s waiting for me to answer a question I didn’t hear, and I feel myself blush even deeper.

What the hell is wrong with me? This is Baz. He’s just wearing a dress. I shouldn’t be acting this weird around him.

That’s when I see his nails, colored all black, a glossy sheen to them, and that’s the last straw.

I can’t possibly think straight anymore, so I push all thoughts from my mind and move to close the distance between us. Careful not to mess up the dress, I shove him up against the wall but stop just before our lips meet.

The heels of his boots cause him to tower over me even more than usual, but I’m not bothered by it. I actually kind of love it.

His mouth is parted as if I stopped him mid-word, and the tips of his ears are turning pink. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, though. I’ve never been very good at reading people, especially not when it’s Baz.

“If you’re going to punch me, get it over with already, Snow,” he sneers.

“You called me Simon before,” I say.

“No, I didn’t.”

I shrug. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is, “I don’t want to punch you. Far from it actually.”

He hasn’t pushed me away yet, and my confidence starts to build. Maybe Baz would be more receptive to this than I originally thought. 

I keep one hand on his hip to keep him pinned to the wall and move the other one up to cup the side of his face.

“Is this okay?” I whisper, hesitantly. He nods, so I move my hand up higher, into his hair. My hand slides over the headband and combs through his hair. “What about this?” I ask, my voice breathy and barely audibly.

He nods again.

My eyes drop down to his mouth, and I want to try one more thing, but I don’t want to push my luck. I don’t want to risk trying too much and losing it all.

“Just do it,” Baz whispers as though he read my mind.

I cock my head at him in a question, uncertain whether he actually means what I think he does. Then he says “kiss me” so I quietly I almost don’t hear him. But I do hear him, and it only takes me a beat to lean forward and press my lips firmly to his.

The kiss is everything I imagined and more. His lips taste like cherry cola, and I feel drunk on the taste of him. Like I’ve lost all sense. (And maybe I have since I’m kissing Baz of all people.)

It only takes a moment for Baz to begin kissing me back, his arms coming up to wrap around me and pull me closer. I can feel the dress move along his body as he moves under my hand, and I feel lucky that I get to experience this. It’s a shame that he’ll only be wearing the uniform after this.

I wonder if he would even want to wear this dress in front of other people if he could.

I like the way he looks in it, but I obviously wasn’t meant to see him like this. Does he like wearing the dress? Is he afraid of what other people might think? Has he worn it before?

I have a million questions, but now is not the time to ask. If Baz wants to talk to me about his choice to wear the dress, I’ll be there to listen. But I won’t pressure him into talking about it.

So, for now, I’m going to enjoy it while I can.

I’m going to enjoy this while I can. Having Baz in my hands and not fighting with him. This is so much better than fighting, I think, and I continue to kiss him, thinking about how this may be the best year at Watford yet.

[marvel-mistress-padawan]

The Man In The Green Tie (NSFW)

Sometimes Emma hated these formal dinner parties and other times she quite enjoyed them. Tonight was one of those nights that she felt a little of both emotions. She was dressed in her signature white and wore a diamond pendant on a gold chain just in the right place to display her cleavage. It was working. Half the men in the room had noticed her. Of course they noticed all the other beautiful women in the room too. Men were fickle like that. Some of them even went after the plain looking and ugly women, believing they had a better chance with them. Emma didn’t care for hearing all their thoughts of conquest tonight, only the ones concerning her.

Frost International was her Company and this dinner with partners, investors, and associates, was important for future relations. She had met almost everyone here in previous dealings. Everyone except one man. He had longish black hair and wore a black suit with a green tie. He sat at a table with Justin Hammer and some journalist whose name Emma couldn’t remember. All she knew was that the man in green tie was one of the most fascinating men she had ever had the pleasure of ming reading. He wasn’t paying much attention to the women in the room. He noticed them of course, but only briefly. He wasn’t thinking about money or power, in spite of being associated with Justin Hammer and attending her dinner in the first place. No, his thoughts were thoughts of amusement at being able to deceive Justin Hammer so thoroughly. He had only one weapon to sell. There were none in production, no test models or protypes, just the one, and Hammer was willing to pay a signifigant amount for a supply that did not exist.

Emma got down from her place at the bar and approached Hammer’s table, making sure that her slinky white dress still clung to her in all the right places.

“Miss Frost?” Justin looked up as she stopped at his table. “It’s a pleasure to see you here tonight.”

“Mind if I join you?” Emma didn’t wait for his reply. Justin wanted her to go away and not ruin his business deal. She wasn’t going anywhere. She pulled up a chair. “Those barstools do a number on a girl’s ass,” she said, waiting to see if either of them would look. “Your little table over here looked so much more comfortable. I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure. I’m Emma,” she offered her hand to the stranger in the green tie.

To Emma surprise, the stranger did not take the opportunity to look at her backside. In fact he mentally told himself not to. Instead he took her hand and he kissed it like a true gentleman. What shocked her even more was that she actually felt something in response to his polite manners.

“My name is Lucas Olsen,” he told her with such sincerity that had she not been a telepath she might have believed it was true. Lucas wasn’t his name. He was thinking about his name. It was Loki. He was not human. “This is a lovely party you’ve created here,” he told her.

Most men would have made a point to say something about Emma herself being lovely as well. Loki didn’t. He didn’t even think it. Emma couldn’t figure out why that irked her so much. It wasn’t that he didn’t think her pretty. He was as distracted by the placement of her diamond necklace as Hammer was. He wasn’t lacking in confidence like some of the men in the room and yet he did not pursue her. Why?

“I appreciate the sentiment but I wouldn’t call it lovely. It’s an unfortunate necessity of this business. I can think of a lot of things more fun to do on a night like this,” Emma told them, her gaze entirely on Loki.

“One ought not mix business and pleasure,” Loki said with a hint of a smile. He had understood her insinuation and was more interested in playing hard to get than in chasing after her.

“W-what things?” Hammer spoke up. “What fun things would you do?”

It was in that moment that Loki thought Hammer to be a sad pathetic little man who wouldn’t know how to win a woman if she were handed to him. The journalist who sat with them, and whom Emma had neglected to greet, got up uncomfortably and left. Emma wished that Hammer would do the same.

“You’re an inventor Hammer. I’m sure you could think of something,” Emma barely disguised her annoyance.

“Well, I’m usually too busy to do much of anything fun. That’s part of being a hard working, stable...single...American,” he said, trailing off and failing to deliver his intended confidence.

“Plenty of hard working Americans know how to have fun. Maybe you’re just a buzzkill,” she told him. It wasn’t nice but she wasn’t known for being nice. “Maybe you’d like to get me a drink?”

Insulted, Hammer got up and left. He didn’t come back.

“I would say that was a little harsh but…” Loki began.

“But you don’t like him any more than I do,” Emma knew it to be the truth.

“I may not like him but he is still useful,” Loki said with a shrug.

“You know what else is useful?” Emma crossed her legs beneath the table and allowed the foot of her open toed shoe to touch his leg. “A little rest and relaxation, don’t you think?”

Loki did not respond to her touch as she expected. Oh he was interested but there was something of amusement in his response. Maybe it was because he was alien. Maybe his people couldn’t be expected to respond like humans.

“I suppose we could all do with a diversion here and there,” he agreed.

It was then that his thoughts became clear. He knew. He knew she was a telepath. He knew she was toying with him, and he was toying with her just as much in return.

“How did you…?” Emma began. This had never happened to her before. She had always been the one in power over men. Her beauty and her ability to read minds, her education as a sex therapist had given her a distinct advantage. And now this gorgeous man was playing her?

Loki smiled. “I have certain abilities. I may not be able to read a person’s thoughts from moment to moment but I can see their memories if I touch them. You gave me your hand and from there I knew the truth of it.”

“Then why didn’t I realize that until now? How are you able to block out at least some of my telepathic abilities?”

“Magic,” he said simply.

“So you can read memories, and do magic? Anything else?”

“It’s a rather long list,” he said demurely.

“Fuck,” she muttered. This was all falling apart now. It had been six months since she’d taken a man to bed. Most of them had been too stupid and self centered to bother with. After six months she was starting to get desperate but not so desperate that anyone would do. She had thought when she came to Hammer’s table to meet his friend that her chance had finally come. Apparently she’d be spending another night alone.

Loki raised an eyebrow at her word. “I wouldn’t say no to that.”

For the first time in years, Emma found herself blushing over something a man had said to her.

“Should I take your blushing as a yes?” he asked her.

Emma felt entirely out of place in this scenario. Never in her life had she been deposed of her power like this. And yet she couldn’t say that she hated it. Not at all. “Yes,” she said, all her hesitation ended. “How about a dance first?”

Loki led her out onto the dance floor and he turned out to be an expert dancer. He pulled her rather close to himself and took in a breath. She had never danced with anyone without knowing his every thought and desire. Some of Loki’s thoughts broke through but they were vague and even unclear. She had never felt so powerless, never so anxious, and certainly never so intensely turned on.

When the song hand ended Emma went to the bar and downed a drink. She wanted this, but it was so weird that she definitely needed a drink. Loki followed her and watched her with concern.

“If you’re not ready, there’s no need to rush,” he told her.

Emma spun on her heel to face him. He was being polite. He was truly concerned that he might be pushing too much too quickly and was too well mannered to do that to any woman, despite his desires. Emma dropped the glass in her hand and it shattered at her feet. Such kindness was rare in the men she had met. This one was dangerous. She had picked up that much from his thoughts, but he had standards. He would not harm a lady. She wasn’t accustomed to being thought of as anything other than an object to be lusted after and yet this man would never treat her as such.

“No, I am ready,” she said, stepping over the glass to return to him on the dancefloor.

The second dance was slower this time and both of his hands rested on her backside. She wrapped one arm around his neck and pressed close enough that she could feel his hardness against her center. The entire dance was not appropriate for a business dinner but she lacked the ability to care. It had been so long and he was more enticing than any dance partner she had ever stood across from. He leaned close enough that his breath was warm against her neck and Emma felt wetness between her legs.

The song came to an end all to quick and the sound of tinkling glass broke apart the few couples dancing. Charles Blake her CFO was making an announcement. She had forgotten that she had requested for Charles to do this speech. It was going to take a good twenty minutes followed by a formal dinner being served.

“I can’t leave, probably not for hours,” Emma said, frustrated. “I did set this up after all.”

“There’s no need to leave,” Loki told her. “I can give you exactly what you want, right here.”

“I’m not sure I can be that discreet,” she said, an eyebrow raised. “Not in this dress.”

“Who cares about the dress?” Loki said. “You’re a telepath. I have magic. I’m sure we can work something out.”

Her jaw dropped open. “You mean…?”

He nodded. “You sit at your table and I’ll sit at mine. No one will be the wiser.”

Emma went back to her seat at the bar and Loki back to his table where Hammer had been. She was barely seated when the thoughts began to hit her. Not just thoughts but images and sensations, very real sensations. This was going to be more complicated than she had thought.

It seemed as if Emma were no longer in the banquet room at all but instead in a bedroom with large open windows to a view of a world she had never seen. Loki’s homeworld. It was so real that she could smell a far off ocean breeze as well as the same scent she had smelled on his collar when she danced with him. He took her hand and pulled her to the bed, unzipping the back of her dress and letting it drop to the floor. Then he was kissing her. It felt so entirely real that Emma worried she wasn’t remaining still in the real world.

Emma worked on pulling off his clothes while he kissed her starting with the green necktie. His hands were on her breasts, his tongue in her mouth and Emma had every intention of pushing him over and climbing astride him. He gently pushed her back and crawled atop of her, resting his weight on his elbows and continuing to kiss her. She lifted her hips to encourage him to continue. She had waited so long for this that she didn’t need further preparation. She was already so wet, so needy, that she didn’t want to wait a moment longer. He pushed his way inside her and she let out a moan. He went still.

“Oh god don’t stop!” she told him, desperate for friction.

Loki grinned a little at her plea but he heeded her words and started moving again. He moved in and out of her slowly at first and Emma sought his mouth for more kisses. He gave them to her and then he moved to kiss down her jawline and her neck and beneath her earlobe. His pace increased and she lifted her hips a little higher to find her center of pleasure.

“Harder?” she asked of him and he gladly obliged, plunging into her deeper and harder than before.

Emma could not stop the moans that came from her and they were only increased by hearing his grunts of pleasure. Then the moment came when she could finally let go of the building tension. Her body pulsated in relief.

Emma came to herself and found she was still in the banquet room. Charles was still going on and on about financial matters and no one in the room was aware of what had just transpired in her mind. She had apparently kept still and silent. The stool beneath her was a little wet where she sat. Her eyes met Loki’s across the room and he grinned knowingly. Emma suddenly felt warm and she reached for a folded paper dinner program to fan herself with. Loki smiled more broadly at her flush face and she wanted to slap him as much as she wanted to laugh.

Once Charles had finished his little speech, Loki crossed the room and sat next to her at the bar.

“I can’t actually stay long tonight. Now that I’m done with Hammer, I’ll be leaving. I know where to find you though. My mind can reach across great distances, if that’s something you wanted anyway?” he asked her.

Emma bit her lip, intrigued by his offer. A telepathic lover? “I don’t want to wait six months until the next encounter..”

“Believe me, you won’t,” he told her.

“And you’re going to send me telepathic flowers and chocolate?” she teased.

“I don’t think I’ll have to,” he leaned into her space and placed a kiss, not on her lips but on her forehead. “Goodnight Emma Frost, until we meet again.”

“Until we meet again,” she told him as she watched him go, shaking her head at herself. Somehow, his green necktie was still in her hand.

[hvitserkk]

GIF Tutorial by hvitserkk

This tutorial will show you my updated gif editing routine. I use this technique for every gif I make whether they're 268, 540 or even for the base of pastel, b/w or pale gifs.  

I do have a masterlist of my tutorials that single out certain parts of this tutorial, which I still use. This is how I currently make all my gifs, I use an action to replicate this, but I've added the download to my psd pack and the psd for this specific tutorial.

Image and text heavy tutorial below!

Here are the gifs I'll be using (no editing except for sharpening), three is excessive, but I want to show this on light and dark gifs also gifs with poc, so you can see the versatility:

1. The first thing I always do is add two "Curves" layers, named "Curves - Whites" and "Curves - Blacks". This is where the most editing comes in. I have a tutorial specifically for this technique here, but I'll explain it now.

On the "Curves" settings, on the left, there's the white and black eyedropper. For "Curves - White", click on the white dropper and then on your gif, click on the absolute whitest area. This will change that to pure white #ffffff, so be mindful of where you click.

The same for "Curves - Black", click on the black dropper and click the darkest area on your gif, this will change that to pure black #000000 so again, be mindful where you click.

Here's where I chose as my whitest area for my "Curves - White" layer:

And for the darkest area for my "Curves - Black" layer:

Here are my gifs now: 

This is the fastest way to HQ gifs, as you can see my gifs are already 100% better. The curves layers will also balance any weird colors. If you find that your it's changing the tone of the gif way to much, use this instead, but drag up for whites and down for blacks on the related layer:

2. The next layer I add is a "Levels” layer, this can vary gif to gif, but I usually slide the middle arrow to the left and the left arrow a but towards the right, honestly, I use pretty much the same level numbers on every gif and play with the opacity. Here are my settings, the layer is named “Levels - Opacity” meaning, the settings are set, just play with the opacity:

And here is where the opacity slider is on the layers:

And here are my gifs, again they all have the sames level settings, just different opacities to suit the individual gifs: 

3. The next step is to balance the colors, even if the curves layers balanced your gif, I always tweak the colors just a bit. I have a tutorial here on "Color Balance" layers, but basically if your gif is to red, slide the red setting to the cyan. If your gif is too purple, slide it towards green. My top two tips are always start with the "Shadows" on the drop down, and overly blue shadows are easier to fix in the next step then yellow. Here are the settings (I only edited the shadow settings) for one of my “Color Balance - Balance” layers:

and the correlating gif:

Here’s what my layers look like now on all three gifs:

4. Now we're cooking, but I like to add a "Selective Color" layer to make the colors pop, I don't go to wild, but I like a rich coloring. This is different for each gif so I won't show my settings, but I have an in depth tutorial for "Selective Color" layers here. For this specifically, I just add to each color on the main color setting, meaning on "Red" I slide the red slider towards the red. On Cyan, I slide the cyan color towards cyan. I do that for each color, except green, where I add to both cyan and yellow!

One thing I will show is, in this gif, if you look at the darkest shades, you can see there's a tone of blue:

To fix that, on your "Selective Color - Colors" layer, on the black setting, you decide which color the shadows are toned. Since mine is blue on the "Yellow" slider, I want add yellow to that. The top slider is red - cyan, then second is magenta - green and the third is yellow - blue. So I want to "add" yellow to the blue. Here's the settings I used: 

My gifs now with the “Selective Color - Colors” layer:

5. Honestly, you can stop here and most the time I do, but you can add a "Brightness / Contrast" layer. I won't now because my curves layers added a lot of contrast and the levels brightened them enough. *A tip for this is to always make the contrast half of the brightness, do it dramatically then lower the opacity for example: brightness - 60 / contrast - 30, I feel like that gives a nice balance and you can always change the opacity later. 

6. The next layer I do is another “Selective Color” layer named “Selective Color - Whites”. All I do is go to the white selection and turn the white up quite a lot. I’ll play with the opacity, but personally I like a really bright white. If the scene is dark, I leave the opacity high, because I like the crispness that it adds, but if it brightens skin or hair too much I turn it down. I also turn it down if it’s literally blinding. Here’s my settings: 

And my gifs:

7. The next thing I do is add some oompf is to add another "Selective Color" layer, but for vibrancy. I also have a "Vibrance" tutorial here, and a "Rich Coloring" tutorial here which I often use. For this, I will touch on the rich coloring.

It's very simple, just add a new "Selective Color" layer and only on the reds, really go crazy with the colors making sure to keep it some what "natural" ie no magenta or yellow skin. Here are my gifs as an example on my “Selective Color - Neutrals” layer:

As you can see the colors are intense, but it’s just vibrant “skin color” not overly yellow or magenta. Then you just turn the opacity down until you get a rich, natural color. Here's an example of my settings: 

And my gifs:

8. The next and second to last thing (whew) is to add another "Curves" layer, doing the same thing as the first step, use the black color dropper to click on the darkest area to get a pure black. After all the coloring and vibrance layers, I want to make sure the black is black. I won't explain this, since step 1 is the same thing.

9. The last step I do is to add an "Exposure" layer. This is the final layer, so I add a bit of contrast, brightness and darken the blacks all at the same time. I do it dramatically, then lower the opacity. I call this "Exposure - Final Brighten" and here are my settings for all my gifs: 

After I lower the opacity to suit the individual gif, that’s it! Before, I used a lot of layers (15+) before and in my old tutorials, but using that first step, I cut this down to 9. You can cut these down depending on what you’re looking for, but here’s my final layer setup:

Here are my before gifs:

And my afters: 

I really hope this tutorial helps, I apologize if this is too long or complicated. If you have any questions or need help, feel free to shoot me an ask/message!

[emeraldbabygirl]

Brat: A Kim Sehyoon smut part 2 uwu!

Genre: sMUT

Warnings/kink(s): thigh riding, dirty talk, choking, hair pulling, degradation, slapping (but it’s light I promise I won’t go too far into my dark shit..for now oops)

Length: short like my attention span (I lied. I’m a lying lil bitch)

It had been a two days since Sehyoon had been at your house. You woke up your panties wet at the extremely sexual dream you had of Sehyoon. You sighed looking at the clock in your room. 11:30 it read, you’re surprised you didn’t sleep til noon. Getting up from your bed you took your wet panties off but instead of putting on a clean pair you decided to go without. Even if Sehyoon didn’t try anything further with you the thoughts going through your head were enough to soak a new pair and you really didn’t want to change them every 10 minutes.

You headed downstairs and wandered into the kitchen. You didn’t see Sehyoon on the couch in the living room. You grabbed a water and plopped down on the couch. In a trance, still not noticing Sehyoon on the couch. “Sup slut.” You jumped and squealed both at him scaring you and the word he used. “S-Sehyoon I-I didnt see you. A-are you here alone? Where’s my brother?” You asked your face already heating up

“He’s somewhere in town. Don’t know when he’ll be back so for now it’s just the two of us.” Sehyoon eyed you. You where wearing a tight crop top with no bra as Sehyoon could clearly see your nipples hardening under the cloth and a lil pink skirt that you wore hiked up so when you sat down it showed so much of your thighs. Sehyoon smirked. He was wearing the holy grey sweatpants with no underwear clearly as you could see the slowly rising tent in his pants and a cut off black tank top. His green hair was wet and slicked back so his whole gorgeous forehead was exposed. “You dress like such a slut, the other day it was a hoodie and the shortest and tightest booty shorts and today you look like a slutty student that wants to get fucked by the teacher. Sehyoon shook his head.

You frowned at Sehyoon, “w-well what about you. You’re a man whore w-wearing those sweatpants w-with no underwear underneath a-and” you stopped yourself when Sehyoon’s gaze turned harsh. His lips were a thin line and his pupils were sharp. “You really are a brat aren’t you? You’ve been teasing me for the past two days with your slutty clothes and the way you purposefully drop literally anything just so you can bend over in front of me, you never wear a bra, I doubt you’re even wearing panties, you also talk back to your brother who’s clearly the oldest one in the house, you never eat what he fixes, you always complain, you go out of your way to reach for things in high places just to get a reaction out of me. So tell me Princess, are you always like this or are you doing this just for me?” You subtly try to close your thighs, the wetness leaking out of you. He was right on everything. All you want is to be fucked by your brother’s best friend til you’re crying and cumming over and over and since you’re too shy to use your words, to tell Sehyoon how much you want him you choose to act out, hoping he’ll get the hint and punish you. The heat on your cheeks and in your core was driving you mad. You placed the water on the table and looked over at Sehyoon. You tried to look into his eyes but they were so intimidating and your gaze slowly found his cock tugging against his pants.

Sehyoon’s cock shifted in his pants and before you could look back up he had your chin gripped in his hand. “My eyes are up here you disgusting bitch.” You breathed in a shaky breath as his words were becoming more lewd. “What is it you want from me huh? Just teasing me? A quick fuck? Do you want me to mark you up and make you mine? Hmm? What are some of those slutty thoughts that are swimming through that pretty mind of yours Princess? Tell Daddy what you want.” You couldn’t help the soft moan that came out of you, I mean, he called himself ‘daddy’ for fucks sake and god was he indeed a daddy. Sehyoon smirked before pushing your face away from his. “Dumb little bitch. You’re all bark and no bite. You probably wouldn’t even know what to do if my cock was right in front of those pretty lips of yours.” You couldn’t take his words anymore, you couldn’t take the teasing and the neediness you had for him. So you softly spoke up, “p-please, let me ride your t-thighs.” You moved closer to Sehyoon air kissing your wet hole as you moved your legs.

“You should’ve said that baby.” Sehyoon grabbed you and harshly slammed you on his thigh holding your hips down. Your face was beat red, your lips quivering as you placed your hands on Sehyoon’s shoulders. You were so horny and wet but for some reason you couldn’t bring yourself to move. Sehyoon frowned, raising one eyebrow. “Aww what’s the matter lil bitch, don’t know what to do? Are you that dumb or did the thought of riding my thighs and cumming everywhere make you dumb?” You softly whimpered when Sehyoon lifted your skirt up. He chuckled, “no panties again? The material of my pants are gonna hurt that cute clit of yours Princess.” Sehyoon hummed to himself as his fingers dipped into you. “F-fuckkk..” you moaned your body shaking. Just as Sehyoon was about to thrust into you his phone rang. With an annoyed look on his face he reached for the phone. Seeing that the caller ID was your brother Sehyoon smirked when he got an awful idea.

Placing the phone back on the couch he put your brother on speaker phone. He looked at you and smiled before fingering you at a fast pace. He didn’t even start out slow. “Hey man how’s it going?” He asked his free hand going up to grab your breasts. You hated that Sehyoon had done this, talking to your brother while fingering you felt so dirty and despite all your attempts to keep quiet you accidentally let a few small moans leave you. “I’ll be home soon, how’s my sister?” Sehyoon smiles at your expression. You were lost already, eyes shut tight as moans cascaded out of your mouth. “I don’t know, she’s probably still sleeping but hey, um, stay out a bit longer man I brought a girl home and she’s really loud and making a mess so I don’t want you here quite yes. She’s quite the shy lil bunny.” After Sehyoon said this he quickly rammed his fingers into your g-spot. “Daddy!” You screamed falling against Sehyoon’s chest. “Jesus Christ man, ok I’ll stay out til 10 for fucks sake. Just clean up the mess..but uh..fuck that dumb whore good huh? Tell me about it when I get back.” And with that your brother hung up.

Sehyoon hummed as he continued. “Did you like that baby? Bet your feeling so exposed knowing that your brother called you a whore without knowing who he’s talking to. Wait til he finds out I’ve been fucking you dumb behind his back. Shit, your parents might kick you out if they find out. You’d have to live with me and be my lil bitch huh?” Sehyoon frowned when he didn’t get an answer out of you. So as quickly at he stuck his fingers in you he pulled them back out. You sat up and whined but got cut off when Sehyoon’s hand slapped you across the face. Not too hard but enough to cause tears to well up in the corners of your eyes. “Aww don’t cry Princess. You only got slapped cause you didn’t answer me. I’ll keep slapping you til you’re no longer a brat now answer me, did it turn you on being a slut in front of your brother?” You were still processing the question when his hand came in contact with you other cheek, the hand that was previously in you. “Yes! Y-yes it did!” You yelped. Sehyoon smiled. “You filthy whore. Ride my thighs already so you can fuck off.” Sehyoon’s words were getting you so wet and hot, you slowly began moving your hips letting out little whimpers as you felt the material rub against your clit.

“So cute, such a slut but so good when she finally gets put in her place. Here, suck.” Sehyoon shoved the fingers that were in your pussy in your mouth and you struggled to suck and grind on his thigh at the same time. Your hips would either halt or you’d stop sucking. “Tsk you can’t even multitask you stupid baby.” At this point tears were leaving your eyes, you were so needy and he was being mean and making fun of you instead of letting you do what you wanted. “Here, let me help you.” Sehyoon pulled his fingers out of your mouth as his hand went to your throat and squeezed it hard. “Be a good Princess and grind on my thigh and my grip will loosen okay?” You nodded and started up again. Tears continued to fall as his grip was still tight. You were afraid of passing out so you went faster rolling your hips against him. Out of surprise Sehyoon tensed his muscles which caused you to stop for a few seconds. Sehyoon didn’t like this as his grip got tighter. You whined as best you could and picked up the pace.

When Sehyoon did it again you tried your best to ignore it. Finally Sehyoon’s grip was no longer as he let go of your throat and grabbed your hair instead pulling your head back. “Ah fuck!” You moaned. You looked down at Sehyoon and he was smiling, his eyes dark. He looked so hot sitting there doing nothing and everything at the same time. You picked up your pace. You had your head buried in Sehyoon’s neck and your broken cries and whimpers were spilling out of you like the cum that was about to exit your body. Sehyoon just chuckled as he held your head to his neck, stroking your hair. You were about to cum, you could feel it. You weren’t sure if Sehyoon would allow you to or not. With what little strength you had you looked up at him with teary, pleading eyes. “It’s not from having my cock or any other part of me in you, you’re getting off all on your own. I can’t make you come princess.” You cried out “Daddy please! Please tell me to cum I can’t without your permission.” Sehyoon looked at you. He looked at you and started laughing, “you filthy bitch. You can’t multitask for shit and you suck at riding my thigh and now you’re asking to cum despite doing this to yourself? How pathetic!” Sehyoon slapped your face once more a little harder this time as the sting caused you to stop your movements for a bit. You weren’t in the mood for his games anymore, you were desperate for him and desperate to cum you didn’t know what to do. So you just continued to ride his thighs whining like the pathetic bitch he said you were.

Sehyoon was getting a kick out of you. He loved seeing you a mess for him, he wasn’t even touching you. Everything that was happening was on your hand. You were getting off on everything and that made Sehyoon want to bend you over and fuck you til you’re screaming his name. He wanted to ruin you but he held back. He still had five days to wrap you around his finger, he wasn’t gonna play fair. He grabbed your face, this time gently as he looked into your hazy eyes that were red and glossy. He smiled at the red marks on your cheeks from his slaps. “I was only joking Princess. You ride Daddy’s thigh so well. However we have so much time to play still. I’m not gonna let you cum so easily, so no you do not have permission to cum.” At Sehyoon’s words you stopped grinding on his thigh. You were shaking and the wetness kept coming but he didn’t say you could cum and that made to start sobbing. You had done everything for him and he still was being mean to you.

“Aww don’t cry Princess,” he said pulling your little body into his arms. He rubbed little circles on your lower back, “I’ll let you cum soon. When you stop being a brat I’ll let you cum over and over and over again until you’re begging me to stop. Just be patient and be a good girl. As soon as that brat is out of you Daddy will give you everything you ask for okay?” Sehyoon pulled you away from him just so he could taste your lips. Your salty tears got him off and the thought of making you cry like this made thoughts of pure sin invade his mind. But he pushed them back and continued his gentle kissing, for now. Sehyoon then patted your butt before pushing you off of him. “Go clean yourself you dirty slut.” You got off his thigh and rushed to the bathroom before he could catch you. Sehyoon scoffed picking up your cum from his sweats with his fingers and placing them in his mouth. He groaned at your taste. “That bitch came anyway.”

(Wow there’s gifs in the function already fuck me up that’s so hot SKSKSKS I’ll use this one since I didn’t really like the others) So anyway that A.C.E comeback pushed me to write the second part oOF. I wish I got the push to write my other fic ideas. But yeah Favorite Boys is so fucking hot and despite him having green hair in this fic I was thinking about him with black hair. Anyway I hope it’s good and to the people that were asking about it thank you for being patient with me and I’m sorry I couldn’t get it out sooner :( but I hope you all like it

[chaseatinydream]

night of sevens (ii) || p.sh (atz)

➵ pairing: reader x park seonghwa (ateez)

➵ word count: 3018

➵ genre: stargazing; fluff

➵ synopsis: seonghwa prays to the stars to give him his one shot at happiness on the magical night two celestial lovers come together.

>>>

The festival is more beautiful than you could have imagined.

Lanterns decorate the trees around the two of you, faintly glowing with jewel tones of light and casting Seonghwa’s face in a pretty pink shade that reminds you of cherry blossoms. There’s a faint, floral scent mixed into the air, swirling and twisting with the smell of delicious snacks and treats sold by some of the stalls that are lining the walkway.

“Wow…” You gush excitedly as you spin in a circle, trying to take in all the sights and scents that are bombarding your senses all at once. Above you, the indigo night sky is glimmering with tiny stars, the clearest you’ve seen them all your life. Seonghwa beams warmly at the sight, watching your gaze flicker from one stall to another, thrilled and ready to explore all of the festival has to offer. A little smile curls at one corner of his mouth.

“Do you like it?” Seonghwa asks softly and you whirl to meet his gentle gaze with the biggest grin he’s seen on your face, it’s as bright as the stars in the sky.

“Like it?” You repeat his question to him, sounding incredulous and he panics for a moment, heart racing, but then you nod so happily he’s worried your head might fall off your shoulders. “I love it! Why haven’t I come here before?”

Seonghwa lets a tiny breath of relief escape him. So you are enjoying yourself after all. He takes baby steps, swallowing once again to keep the tremors out of his voice before asking his next question. “Well, do you want to explore the festival with m-me?”

Damn, his voice cracked on the last word.

But you don’t seem to notice, bobbing your head up and down. “Of course, silly! Isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing? Let’s go! I want to eat some snacks and buy some things for Wooyoung!” Your gaze switches between a shop selling traditional rice cakes and another with tiny, multi-coloured charms hanging from the front. You can already see a little puppy one you think your best friend would like.

Seonghwa smiles warmly at your exuberance and leads you towards the charm stall, you rush forward to look through the keychains spread out on the table cloth. To your surprise, most of the charms there have the same, recurring characters. One is a man herding a cow, the other a woman weaving cloth, and the last, a flock of black and white birds that you recognise to be magpies.

You cock your head to the side in curiosity. Is there any meaning to these characters?

“Is there anything you want?” The old, kindly man behind the counter asks politely, stepping forward to assist you. You shake your head, pointing at the puppy one that reminds you of Wooyoung – you’re not big on keychains yourself. Seonghwa steps up behind you as the stall owner picks the keychains you’ve selected out of his stock, putting them in a little paper bag as they clink together.

“What did you get?” His words are warm at your ear and you smile at the pleasant feeling, turning around to grin at him broadly. “Close your eyes.” You instruct him and Seonghwa feels his heart thud in his chest, tongue flickering out briefly to wet his dry lips before he closes his eyes with a fond smile. You take his hand in yours (he suddenly goes very rigid) and press a plastic charm into the centre of his palm, fingertips lingering there for a moment before they pull away.

Seonghwa’s breath stutters across your cheeks.

“Here.” You tell him brightly and his eyes flutter open, glancing down at his hand. It’s a little plastic charm depicting a cute chibi cow herder with blond hair, two adorable cows in front of him. His heart leaps into his throat at the gesture and you beam at him, raising your own matching one. “Now we match!”

The weaver.

Oh dear.

He’s in trouble.

“The two of you are very cute together.” The store owner smiles and Seonghwa feels his heart thundering madly in his chest, every beat reverberating in his ears. You aren’t supposed to find out this way, it’s not time yet! But luckily for him, you’re completely oblivious, shaking your head with a grin.

“Nah, we’re just friends.” You tell the older man and the store owner gives Seonghwa a sly, mischievous look that has his cheeks turning bright red, fingers fidgeting nervously behind his back. Even though he knows that the words are to be expected, he doesn’t know why there’s a sinking feeling in his chest at the word ‘friends’.

“Just friends.” He manages to croak out but the man raises an eyebrow, unconvinced, that little knowing smile still remaining on his face. Then he pulls out a glass bowl filled with little folded paper slips from under the table, setting it on the counter top.

“How about you have a little something to tell your fortune?”

“That's so cool!” You gush excitedly, pulling a small yellow slip out with glee, before turning to face him, eyes shining. “Seonghwa-oppa, you too!”

Seonghwa doesn’t really believe in this sort of thing, but he can’t help the trepidation welling up inside of him as he reaches forward for a slip of his own. His fingers descend into the bowl, rummaging around for a moment (as if fate really worked that way), and eventually pull out a little green paper slip, twisted around the middle.

“Check your fate, oppa!” You chatter excitedly, already in the process of unfolding your own. He mirrors your actions, untwisting the slip in the middle with slender fingers before turning the printed side to face him so he can read his ‘fate’.

Maybe things will have changed after tonight.

Seonghwa’s mouth falls open, eyes widening. How could… how could this tiny, randomised paper slip find its way into his hands, of all people?

Does he… really have a chance?

“Hey, Seonghwa-oppa, what’s your fate?” You stand on your tippy toes, trying to peek at his slip, but he prides himself on regaining his senses just in time to push you back with a gentle finger to the nose, a crooked half smile on his face as he slips the paper into his pocket before you can see it.

“It’s a secret.” He murmurs warmly with such a fond look that delightful heat rushes from your cheeks to the very tips of your toes. You’re sure your face is fire engine red at the moment, but you clap your hands over your cheeks and turn away before he can see it.

“W-well… mine is a secret too!” You tell him earnestly and he laughs, ruffling your hair and you blush from the roots of your hair to your fingertips. He’s looking a lot more cheerful than before, as if some sort of invisible burden has been lifted from his shoulders. You don’t know what exactly his printed fate was, but you’re just happy to see him happy (a sentiment that is much too cheesy for your tastes, but if it’s him, you find that you don’t mind as much).

Maybe the one you’ve been looking for has been by your side this whole time.

“Come on, let’s go see the stars.” Seonghwa smiles, taking your hand boldly in his his much larger one, his fingers practically engulf your entire hand, radiating warmth that reminds you of crackling fireplaces, of warm hugs and overly large sweaters… of home. His newfound confidence nearly stuns you, but it’s nothing unwanted, in fact, it’s the very opposite. You relish in the feeling and make a bold move of your own, interlacing your fingers with his and squeezing tight; he turns back to look at you with a smile that crinkles his eyes and lights up the entire night sky with its brightness.

He leads you to a small clearing in the middle of a grove of trees, wishes of other festival-goers hanging from the branches in the form of tiny, multi-coloured paper slips all around you. It’s surprisingly silent, devoid of other people. You can hear the muted chatter of others some distance off, but other than that, the only sound that reaches your ears is the chirping of crickets and the rustle of leaves in the gentle night breeze.

The wind touches your bare arms and you shiver; Seonghwa, of course, notices. He takes both your hands in his and blows warm air over them, stroking his thumb over the back of your hand with a featherlight touch and you freeze at the soft pressure against your skin, feeling warmth that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual temperature pooling at your cheeks.

“Are you cold?” Seonghwa asks, his voice low and gentle and your rebellious heart beats too fast for you to keep count. You barely manage to keep the tremors out of your words and instead opt for a simple nod, even that too, feels embarrassing. In order to escape the weight of his gaze, you instead turn around to pull your jacket out of your bag.

“I’m sure I had a jacket in here, oppa, just give me a second…” You duck your head away from him shyly and root about in your bag… but to your complete confusion and surprise, the jacket you were so sure you had put in is missing.

“Did you forget it?” Seonghwa asks worriedly, already taking off his soft brown coat, reaching around you to drape it on your shoulders. It’s way too big for you but you love it, the hem falls past your knees and envelopes you in its warmth – Seonghwa’s warmth, lingering in the very fabric of the coat. You pull it tighter around you and bury your nose in the collar, the fluff tickles the tip of your nose and you can inhale his scent, fresh and warm, like clean linen left in the summer sun.

“Thanks, oppa.” You smile shyly, sitting next to him on the grass. He leans back, fingers splayed across his chest as he looks up at the sky above, breath whooshing from his lungs in a relaxed sigh. You lie down as well, looking at the stars twinkling above head. You know next to nothing about astronomy, but the sight is calming and beautiful to behold.

Suddenly, Seonghwa breaks the silence, raising a finger to point at the sky. “Do you know what those stars are?” His voice is quiet but it’s never been more clear; in fact, the two of you have never been this close.

“No.” You whisper back. You don’t really know why, but something about that moment feels heavy around you, as if it’s something precious you need to keep close and never let go. Turning your head, you glance at Seonghwa, his eyes are enraptured by the stars above, reflecting their light in their depths.

Your breath catches in your throat. You’re unable to look away.

“According to Korean folklore based on a Chinese myth, the heavenly king had a daughter called Jiknyeo, who was a talented weaver.” He points at a bright star that seems to outshine all the others that surround it. “She’s represented by the star, Vega. She looked out of the window one day while weaving and saw a cowherd, Gyeonwu, across the Milky Way and fell in love with him. He’s represented by the star Altair. However, after the two got together, Jiknyeo refused to weave and Gyeonwu let his cattle run amok in heaven. Thus, the Heavenly King separated the two of them, banishing them to either side of the Milky Way.” He gestures at another star in the sky, eyes shining with wonder, as if truly imagining they are the souls of those lonely lovers.

“That’s sad.” You say, barely listening to what he’s saying. Instead, you’re captivated by the diamonds twinkling in his eyes, the way galaxies seem to reside in his gaze. He’s beautiful.

“On the seventh day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, the king, moved by his daughter’s tears, decided to allow them to meet. However, the two lovers could not cross the Milky Way to meet each other. In the end, the magpies worked together to form a bridge over the Milky Way so that the lovers to cross and be in each others’ embrace once again.” Seonghwa exhales softly, heart beating so loudly in his chest that he’s almost sure that you can hear it. He doesn’t dare to look over at you, wondering if you’ve noticed what he’s about to do, what he’s trying to hint at–

“And so Qixi is celebrated as the day the stars aligned for the two lovers. The stars are really beautiful, but...” Seonghwa’s words are barely above a whisper, his teeth worry his bottom lip as he tries to build up the courage to just goddamn confess to you. You’re more beautiful than any star, he wants to say, but the words are stuck in his throat like an uncomfortable itch that he just can’t get rid of.

He sucks in a breath between his teeth, swallowing the saliva that seems to have built up in his mouth from nerves. His tongue doesn’t want to cooperate, hiding behind the near crippling fear of a rejection, but his fate’s words whisper to him once more from his pocket.

Maybe things will have changed after tonight.

God, he wishes so badly. Closing his eyes, he prays once to the stars, a silent plea to please align for him, to please, for once, make his wish come true.

Seonghwa takes a deep breath, rolls onto his side to look at you in the eye, the words at the tip of his tongue, when–

“I prefer the stars in your eyes, Seonghwa-oppa.”

Time seems to still.

Seonghwa’s eyes widen almost comically, blinking furiously like he can’t believe his own ears. But you’re looking at him with the sweetest smile on your face, the softest light in your eyes as you regard him and his heart clenches unbelievably tight, so warm it almost hurts.

“W-what?” He manages to stutter, honestly it’s a miracle he can string letters together in the first place. You duck your head down bashfully to look at your feet before looking at him in the eye once more, cheeks rosy red in the light of the lanterns. There’s determination shining there, brighter than any star in the sky.

“I like the stars in your eyes, oppa. I like you, more than any star in the sky.” You tell him honestly and Seonghwa merely stares at you like you’ve struck him dumb with a sledgehammer over the head. You falter a moment, frowning, before you lean forward, hoping for a reaction at the very least. “Seonghwa-oppa?”

Is he going to reject you?

God, you pray to the stars that that’s not it.

Then suddenly, he buries his face in his hands and laughs. It’s stifled, muffled by his palms at first, but then it grows into something bigger, more carefree, so full of infectious joy that you can’t help but smile even though you have no idea what’s going on.

When he finally pulls his large hands from his face, there are tiny tears gathered at the corner of his eyes, sparkling like dewdrops. But what blinds you is the huge grin on his face, so warm and happy and you find your face twisting between a smile in return and a frown of confusion. Luckily, he answers your question before you make an awful half grimace in front of him, his grin so wide you can see his teeth peeking through.

“I can’t believe you confessed before I did.” Seonghwa laughs and you feel your heart overflowing with a sudden rush of warmth, the light, airy feeling spreading throughout your body till you feel like a hot air balloon that could take to the skies any moment. “I had this whole confession planned and everything, this trip and all was so that I could confess to you under the stars… and I can’t believe you just went and ruined it like that, you little pabo.” The last word is filled with so much affection and genuine endearment that before you can notice, hot tears of happiness are already spilling forth from your eyes.

He loves you back.

Then you smack him on the shoulder lightly.

“Who are you calling a pabo, huh? I seem to recall you were the one sneaking around trying to invite me to a romantic festival and all instead of just confessing on the spot– “

Before you can say another word, Seonghwa’s fingers are brushing your jaw for one fleeting moment, just like they did on the train. But instead of vanishing like the spring breeze, they take a firm grasp of your chin, the stars you love so much twinkling in his eyes as he grins, breathless and excited, before dipping his head down to meet your mouth.

You swear you see stars burst behind your closed eyelids.

The kiss is soft and chaste, you grasp his sleeve and pull him closer, winding your arms around his neck. He laughs once against your lips before he claims them again as his own, the barest hint of the summer warmth brushing your mouth as he kisses you gently, once, twice, thrice. Then he’s pulling away to look at you deeply in the eyes, your arms still linked around his neck and he rests his forehead against yours with a carefree chuckle, eyes crinkling into little half moon crescents.

“You’re more beautiful than the stars in the sky.” He tells you, so close you can count every eyelash, his breath warm against your lips. They ache for another kiss, so you just smile and pull him down to meet your lips once again, the stars twinkling over the two of you for the rest of eternity.

Maybe the stars really did align for the two of you, after all.

[undertale-rho]

Multiverse Saga: Taken!Altertale - Chapter 6

Rhosaith stared up at the bright blue sky above her, a cool breeze passing over her pressurized EVA suit and into the street beyond. Looking back down at the cup of tea in her hand, she raised the cup to a straw that connected to her rebreather, allowing the liquid from the outside world to pass through to her beckoning mouth. Finishing the mug, she placed it on the table beside her, placed a few golden coins beside it, and stood up, placing her wide-brimmed hat back onto her head. She then looked back up at the sky.

She knew, of course, that the sky wasn't real. It was just the projection of a screen to give everybody a warmer comfort of home. If one looked carefully, they could even see the upward curve of the land further ahead on the tube.

The Nexus is what they called it. A giant space station roaming the great void of the inter-universal expanse, serving as the capital to the multi-universe initiative known as the Multiverse Alliance.

Rhosaith sighed. No matter what wilderness existed, whether it be the forests of Earth, the vacuum of space, the void between stars, galaxies, or even universes, or even across dimensional boundaries, there was always going to be somebody who got the bright idea to bring civilization along with.

"Rhosaith." a digital voice sounded in her ear.

"What is it, Hamlet?" she asked.

"There's a reclamation party being formed near the Spires to retake a pre-rift universe."

"So?" she said lethargically.

"It may be a good source of information regarding this multiverse at large."

"That's nice."

As Rhosaith walked along, her long coat billowing in the sudden gust, she completely disappeared, re-appearing just outside a door.

Realizing what just happened, Rhosaith, let out an exhausted sigh.

"You should at least try and do what you have been tasked. If nothing else, then to simply make it look like you're doing something." Hamlet said.

Rhosaith looked contemplatively at the door.

"Fine." she said after a minute, taking a firm hold of the door and sliding it to the side.

The room within was made of a dark metal. Within, sitting in a few chairs that were scattered throughout the room, were a number of people. Five Rho recognized to be Sanses. One was a Papyrus, and another was a Chara. The last two in the room were skeletons, though of no base Rho recognized right off.

Closing the door behind her, she walked further into the room, towards the nearest chair.

"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, HUMAN!!!" one of the Sanses shouted.

Rhosaith stopped moving and looked over at one of the groups of Sanses, where three of them were gathered together. One of them, the shortest of the three, was pointing right at Rhosaith. Everyone in the room, in fact, looked at the Sans.

"Er... yes?" Rhosaith asked. "Was there something you needed?"

"I have no idea who you are!" the Sans declared. "This is an awful thing that I simply cannot stand have continue!" the Sans walked over to Rhosaith and outstretched his hand. "I'm Sans. Obviously. Most people call me Blueberry to avoid confusion, though. What's your name?"

"I'm, er, Rhosaith." Rhosaith said, taking Blueberry's hand. "Nice to meet you, uh, Blueberry."

"The pleasure is all mine! Mweh heh heh!!!"

Rhosaith looked over the Sans. He reminded her of Papyrus in a way. A confident step permeated each of his strides as he returned to the other two Sanses that he was with.

Reaching the other two, he immediately started chatting heartily with them, stars practically forming in his eyes from the excitement.

The other two Sanses Blueberry was with looked just about as excitable as he was. One of them wore a turquoise tunic with a great big yellow cloak resting on his shoulders; the pin holding the cloak on being a large red orb with a big white star on it. The other Sans featured a mostly brown outfit, the most dominant features being the large brown scarf around his neck, the light blue jacket tied around his waist, and the giant paintbrush strapped to his back. A dark blue sash filled with vials of paint, like an ammo sash, decorated his chest. Blueberry himself featured a mostly blue outfit, a shorter cobalt scarf around his neck, with a more grey-blue shirt and pants, returning to cobalt for his gloves and boots; the rims of which were lined with yellow.

Looking to the other three-member team situated nearby, Rhosaith spotted a Sans, who looked pretty basic—wearing a blue jacket over a white shirt, and black shorts, with blue sneakers finishing off his outfit. Beside the Sans sat a Papyrus, who wore much the same, but orange rather than blue; with the jacket being a hoodie instead. Next to them also sat a Chara, whose outfit was in the same vein as Sans's and Papyrus's—a green jacket rather than a blue or orange, dark brown pants, and red boots and gloves.

The next group, a pair of skeletons, stood against the door-side wall. One of the skeletons wore nothing other than a blue backpack and a dark-grey cloak so tattered, it was practically a few ribbons. Looking carefully, Rhosaith thought she spotted something that resembled a finger-bone hanging off the front of the pelvis. The other skeleton wore a striped, white button-up shirt, black slacks, and brown shoes. Holding up the pants were black suspenders that looped over the skeleton's shoulders. They seemed deep in conversation and didn't seem to pay any mind to Rho.

On the other side of the room, standing with his back in the corner, was another Sans. This one featured a white sweatshirt and sweatpants, ending in black socks and white slippers. Over it all was a great blue long-coat with a hood over the Sans's head. The ends of the sleeves and the hood were covered in white fluff. Though she couldn't get a clear look from where she was, Rhosaith thought she also saw black lines streaking from the bottom of the Sans's eyes down to the base of his mandible.

Finally resting down into the seat she'd chosen when Blueberry approached her, the door at the front of the room opened, and another skeleton-Monster walked in. Bundled in her arms was a bunch of papers and binders and the like.

"If I could have your attention." the skeleton said, placing the papers on a desk at the front of the room. She looked over the ten people situated around, all of which were now staring at her.

"Is this everyone?" she asked.

"I haven't seen anyone else come in." the classic-Sans said. "So I guess so."

"Don't worry about the numbers!" Chara chimed in. "You've got the Bad Time Trio and the Star Sanses on the case."

The skeleton looked thoughtfully at the two groups.

"Hmm. Yes, I suppose you're right." she said, readjusting her glasses. "In that case, let us begin."

The light in the room dimmed to nothing as a large hologram appeared in the room.

"Six months ago, a pre-rift universe, universe AlT-113CO was attacked by a Destroyer—the identity of which remains unknown. Since the attack, Alliance scouts have surveyed the universe without drawing attention from the Destroyer. Their findings have shown that the universe, which was coded before the attack, is now physical."

"Whoa, whoa, hold it. Time out for a second here." the naked skeleton said, his accent sounding Brooklyn in origin. "Universes don't just turn from coded to physical. You sure your scouts got the right place?"

"While you are right in one regard," the brown Sans with Blueberry interrupted, "there have been reports of universes changing behavior before this, like UnT-214, which also turned from coded to physical. Before being coded, though, it was a game. This is one of the reasons why the standardized universal classification system doesn't commonly include the suffix in archive."

"Er, thank you, Ink." the presenter skeleton said. "If I may return to the briefing."

Ink!Sans waved his hand for her to continue.

"The objections, uh..." she looked down at a paper in her hand. "S.T brought up are valid, however. Despite this phenomenon being well-known, it is still unclear what, or who, causes a universe to switch behavior. As of right now, the scouts believe the Destroyer to be responsible for this."

Almost immediately, murmuring erupted within the groups, all of which quelled when the white Sans in the back boomed his voice.

"What information do the scouts have on the Destroyer?" he asked.

"Not much at all, I'm afraid." she answered, looking down at her paper. "I'm afraid I'm also at something of a disadvantage. I don't have your name documented."

"Just call me 4."

"Alright, 4." she wrote a 4 in the margins of the paper she was holding. "Er, like I said, not much is known of this Destroyer. What information the scouts managed to get on him just shows him to be a Sans; one from a UnF universe, by the looks of things."

A picture of the Destroyer flashed into the hologram. It was a Sans, though with a large hole in the upper part of his skull. Other than that, the only other notable difference was the bright white right eye he possessed.

4 huffed upon seeing the picture, his eyes sharpening into a deadly focus. 4 turned to leave.

"Wh-where are you going, 4?" the skeleton asked.

"I have what I need. I'm gonna go 'liberate' that universe. I'll meet you all there."

With 4 leaving, the others got up and moved to leave as well.

"W-w-wait!" the skeleton pleaded. "I haven't finished yet."

"It's fine, lady." Chara said. "Like 4 said, we got what we need. We'll be fine."

One by one, against the frantic requests of the presenter, everyone in the room left. Everyone, that is, other than Rhosaith, who was still sitting in her chair.

"Excuse me, miss?" Rhosaith said as the last of the other mercenaries left.

The presenter looked over at Rhosaith.

"Do you have a digital copy of your presentation? I'd like to have one."

The presenter’s face brightened up at Rhosaith's request, quickly pulling a data chit from her pocket.

"Thank you." Rho said, taking the chit and stuffing it in her own pocket. She then stood up. "Thank you for compiling all this data for us, I'm sure it may come in handy." She, too, then left the room.

"You see?" Hamlet chided. "I told you going to that meeting would be useful."

"Yeah, yeah. Shut up. Just take me to my ship, already."

"As you wish, Madam."

Rhosaith then vanished completely from the Nexus.

The doors to the elevator door finally slid open, and Rhosaith stepped out into her personal cabin. Despite having unbelievable technology, more advanced than anything she'd ever seen elsewhere, Rhosaith preferred to hold to what she called "simpler tech". Not wanting to force her own decisions on those that served her, teleportation pads and personal teleporters were strewn all across the grand space leviathan that was her flagship. Despite this, she still rode the elevator to her cabin.

Upon arriving, she took off her black wide-brimmed hat and long black coat, hanging them on a nearby coatrack. Stepping towards her bed, the black EVA suit she wore dematerialized from her form, so that all she wore when she hit the mattress was a plain white shirt and white pants. The very clothes she wore when she was taken.

Her own personal cabin was devoid of color. The walls, door, floor, ceiling, and even all the furniture within—with minor exceptions—were white; making the coat and hat hanging on the coatrack stand out far more than they should have.

Turning her head to the nightstand beside her bed, she looked at a picture that stood on its surface. This picture served as one of the only sources of color within the room. Picking it up, she brought it over and hugged it tightly to her chest.

"Oh Frisk..." she muttered quietly. "Were it that these cursed machines had not taken me from thee, I would be there by thine side even now. Alas, for it be not so. Here am I, far from thine side. Far from thy warm embrace. Thy bronze skin. Thy pleasant bodily aroma that never ceased to calm me."

Rhosaith pulled the picture from her chest and stared at its contents. It was a picture of two Humans. Herself, and a man beside her.

"If fickle fate had it be that we meet again, oh the speed to which I'd press my lips to thine." Rho leaned forward and kissed the part of the picture where the man was. "But alas, it cannot be. I am here, and thou art there. Far away, out of reach."

Tears slowly leaked from Rhosaith's eyes. Try as she might to stop their flow, she soon gave in and held the picture firmly to her chest once again.

"I miss you so much, Frisk..." she wept upon the bed sheets until her eyes ran red, and she finally fell asleep.

"Rhosaith." a digital voice echoed in the room. "Rhosaith."

"Mmm..." Rhosaith mumbled.

"We're nearing the universe known as 'AlT-113'. It's time for you to wake up."

Rhosaith sat up, the picture frame still in hand.

"How far out are we?" she asked through a yawn.

"Only a few minutes. You may teleport in at any time."

"Great." Rhosaith stepped over the side of the bed, replacing the picture back onto the stand.

"I heard you weeping again." the digital voice said after a minute.

"I thought I told you to not spy on me when I'm in here." Rhosaith scolded.

"Apologies, Madam."

"Geez, Hamlet. It's the one place I've closed off to everyone but me. At the very least, I should feel like I'm not being watched or listened to in this one single room."

"Again, apologies. It won't happen again."

"Yeah, until it does."

Rhosaith stood up from the bed. Stepping away, a cleansing wave flew over Rho's body in an instant, cleaning it of excess debris. A second later, Rho's EVA suit rematerialized around her, and she stepped towards her coat and hat, putting them on as well. When she finished doing up the coat, blades materialized around the leg-half, enclosing the half somewhat like a skirt. Beneath the covers of her coat, a holster also materialized, attached to her leg—within, a handle was held firm.

"Alright." Rhosaith said. "Let's go."

In an instant, Rhosaith was teleported from the ship down to the universe, AlT-113.

Taken!Altertale : Tactical Briefing

Previous Underearth Prologue First of this book Next

[aghasexxy]

Naughty Girl | Im Jaebum

Pairing: Reader x JB

Words: 2,489

Genre: Smut

Warnings: A LOT of teasing/ Foreplay/ ORAL STIMULATION/ Daddy JB

Summary: You and your long time crush JB have one last project for your class to complete in order to graduate. JB has always teased you about your goody two shoes appearance. But this afternoon rendezvous changes all of that.

(The songs that inspired this one shot were Unravel Me and All To You by Sabrina Claudio so since i couldnt post them to this, you can listen to them to fully immerse yourself in this. Enjoy!)

This is it. The final stretch. My final school year is coming to a close and I intend to go out with a bang. By any means necessary. My psychology professor gave our class of fifty one final assignment. We were to discuss the many signs of erratic and destructive behavior and provide a slideshow presentation. Piece of cake. The problem lies in who my professor chose to be my partner. Im Jaebum. A.k.a one of the most popular people in my graduating class and my long time crush. We’ve been going to the same schools since we were 5 and it seems that with every passing year JB gets more attractive causing my attention to shift from time to time. He was like every other fuck boy. You know, the kind that would block your path with their entire body until you muster just enough annoyance to push them out of your way. Yeah, that kind. But I kinda liked it. The teasing and cocky playboy attitude was kinda hot. It makes him even more desirable. But of course I’ll never tell him that.

Friday is the day JB and I mutually agree to meet at my apartment off campus. I just about finish getting everything set up when I hear the doorbell ring. I walk over and open the door. There he was, leaning on the door frame. His leather jacket hugs his muscles but not in a way that make it look like its too tight. He’s wearing a loose white T-shirt that shows a fairly good amount of his chest. His skinny dark blue jeans hug his legs in such a way that you can tell he’s pretty athletic. This was his signature bad boy look and it made him so much more desirable. The cologne he was wearing was absolutely hypnotizing. I clear my throat. “Come in,” I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose and step to the side.

“Ugh this is boring!” JB throws his head back as we pass hour 2 of the project. The essay portion is just about done but I get anxious. “This needs to be perfect,” I mumble to myself. I feel JB look at me. “Just do enough so we at least get a B+.” I scoff and turn to him. “I don’t do B’s. Only A’s.” He smirks at me and I roll my eyes. “I have higher standards.” I suddenly feel the space between us disappear and turn to my right. JB had scoot closer to me. He was eyeing my word doc and reading it thoroughly. He places his head on my shoulder and hums to himself. His cologne and overall presence was overwhelming my senses. I clear my throat loudly. “Yes?” he says smoothly. “Can I help you?,” I retort back at him. He shrugs. “I’m just reading it.” He finishes it and nods. “It sounds great Y/N. You don’t need to worry about it. We’re definitely getting an A.” I smile a bit to myself. God he makes me want to melt. I stretch my neck and groan silently. “You good Y/N?” I nod and smile. “Yeah my neck is just stiff. Hours and hours of studying is finally catching up to me I guess.” He shakes his head. “Nope,” he places his arm on the back of my couch. “It’s because you’re uptight.” I scrunch my brows. “What? No I’m not!” He raises an eyebrow. “Y/N I’ve known you since I was, what, five? You’ve always played the role of little miss perfect. In everything you did it had to be perfect.” He examines my entire frame and I turn away from his gaze, crossing my arms over my chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I pout. But honestly he was right. I’ve always been the conservative type. From the way that I walked down to the clothes I wore. Thanks to my upbringing I’ve adapted this lifestyle wanting desperately to break free of it but too scared of the reaction of my parents. “For example,” JB examines me again. “This whole innocent school girl get up needs to be fixed.” He was talking about my army green cardigan over a white button up blouse and checkered skirt with black high socks. I know, typical. “Do you watch porn Y/N?” I scrunch my eyebrows and look at him absolutely dumbfounded. “What kind of question is that?” He snickers and shrugs. “A yes or no one,” he leans forward to look me eye to eye. I clear my throat. “Um no I don’t,” I turn away out of embarrassment. My eyes widen when I suddenly feel a firm hand on my bare upper thigh. I look back at JB, a devilish smirk stretched across his face. “Well,” he traces circles on my thigh lightly. His gentle touch and bad boy exterior combination is turning me on more than I can comprehend. He looks at me, sees that I’m not resisting him, and continues. “there’s a category in porn called role play,” his hand moves to my outer thigh, continuing the same soft motions. “You know what that is, right?,” his eyes shoot back up to mine so quickly I shudder under his intimidating gaze. I nod. “And you wanna know what one of the most popular scenarios is Y/N?” I shrug. He leans in closer, his hand traveling up my thigh. I gasp at his soft fingers grazing my ass cheek. “Naughty school girl.” I gulp and feel the blood start to rush to my face. “W-What?” He grabs me by my waist and pulls me into him, making me sit between his legs. My thighs rest on top of his while my legs lay behind his back. With his hand still resting on my back, he eyes me up and down. “Y/N,” he caresses my back softly while his other hand plays with my hair. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately but your behavior is unacceptable.” His hand goes from my head to my hips as he pushes me closer to him. “Violating dress code showing that nice perky ass,” he spanks me playfully. “talking back, and then pretending like you did nothing wrong,” he suddenly grips my waist hard. “And detention isn’t helping the issue at all.” He cups my chin with his hand forcing me to look at him. My breath is caught in my throat as I stare into his dreamy eyes. “Someone’s gonna have to straighten you out, get you to behave,” he says before he plants his lips onto mine.

I place my hand on his chest ready to push him off but stop once he bites my lower lip and sticks his tongue in my mouth. He moves forward causing me to lay flat on the couch. His hands rest on either thigh as we continue to devour each other. He pulls away and I whimper from the lost contact. He smirks as he can obviously see that I’m a mess for him. “You have no idea how long I wanted this,” he says under his breath. His strong hands move from my thighs to my chest. He looks at me, awaiting my approval. I nod quickly. He slowly unbuttons my shirt just enough to see my perky breasts covered in a black push up. He groans and leans down. His soft lips leave butterfly kisses along my chest and I shiver with every peck. How can someone be so gentle yet so rough at the same time? I couldn’t take anymore teasing and I was so close to begging for anything from him. His fingers clasp around the rim of both cups and pulls them downwards.

My nipples were hard and twitching from the foreplay and dirty talk. I rest my hands in his hair and behind his neck ready for his lips to attack me. Instead I’m greeted with a pleasurable pinching sensation. I look down and see him playing with them. He twists and pinches, rotating the nubs in between his thumbs and indexes. I throw my head back in ecstasy, flinching and shaking from the pain. I whimper and moan. “JB, I-it hu-hur-,” before I can finish my sentence, I gasp as I feel JBs tongue start to flick fast against my left nipple that was sensitive from the foreplay. I moan at the sensation of his tongue lapping against my sensitive nubs at rapid speed. “Oh fuck don’t hold back y/n,” he says breathlessly against my chest. “Let me know how much you want it.” He attacks my other nipple the same way and I cry out softly. “Ohhhhh that feels so good…,” I wrap my legs around his waist, pulling him in. He leaves a wet kiss over my nipples making me shudder, a trail of saliva connecting his lips and my flesh. His lips trail up to the crevice of my neck as he buries his face in it. I whine out as he sucks and licks my delicate skin. I grip the nape of his neck hard, earning a hiss from him. I feel his lips curve into a grin. “You like that, huh?,” he whispers. I shudder at his warm breath on my damp skin and nod quickly. “Baby girl,” he says in a low tone making me squirm under him. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do this to you?”

He begins to slide down my body, kissing every inch of me whether it be clothed or not. “JB…,” was all I had the strength to muster. His delicate hands grip my thighs and spread them apart as he positions himself in front of my womanhood. “You remember what you wore for prom y/n?,” he asks, his eyes glued to mine. I bit my lip. I just want his mouth on me again. I shake my head as I am too emotionally and physically weak to speak. “You wore a dark red gown with a train. Open back, crossed in the front. Your hair was up,” he kisses my inner thigh slowly and deliberately. I whine from the feeling and stroke his perfectly chiseled face. “I just wanted to pull you away and kiss you until I ran out of oxygen y/n,” he kisses my other thigh just the same. His recollection of prom night made me realize that he had always paid attention to me when I didn’t think he was. “But I couldn’t,” his grip on me gets tighter and I yelp. “because fucking Namjoon was your date.” His fingers latch onto my underwear and pull them down. “But if he wasn’t your date,” his eyes focus on my throbbing and exposed pussy. The look on his face was one of an animal focusing in on its prey. He looks up at me again. “I would’ve grabbed you, thrown you on the closest table,” he pushes my legs into my chest more. “and gone down on you.” I look down at him, my vision and mind hazy. “JB please eat me,” I blurt out. He smirks at me. He realizes that he has finally broken me. “As you wish baby.”

He drags his tongue from the bottom to the top. I gasp at the feeling he was giving me. He takes his fingers and spreads my lips apart isolating my throbbing clit. He gives it an open mouth kiss, his lips swallowing it whole and I shudder. “Ah-hhh-a,” I moan out. I then feel his tongue start to lap against it and I forget how to breathe. My hand travels to the nape of his neck to stroke his head and hair. My other hand is in my mouth holding back my screams of pleasure. “JB,” I whine out. He lifts his head and I moan softly from the lost contact. “Yes beautiful?” I look down at his handsome face. Just the sight of him between my legs is enough to push me over the edge. “I-I’ve never been k-issed like this…,” I say between short breaths. He smirks and kisses my clit again making me jolt. “Oh princess,” he sticks his fingers in his mouth, presses them against my sensitive bud and proceeds to rub it hard. I shriek. He looks back up at me with piercing eyes. “I know.”

I squirm and moan nonstop as the pressure sends me into convulsions. In the midsts of my low guttural screams he begins to tease me with his words. “Seeing you shake and cry like this because of me is all I’ve ever wanted y/n.” He connects his lips back to my clit making me scream. “Ahh o-ohhhh yes J-B! J-just li-like tha-at,” a feeling at the pit of my stomach starts to rise and my breath is caught in my throat. “Ohhhhhhhhhhhh,” I moan out, running my hand through his hair for the thousandth time. He chuckles against me and I suck in a breath. “I-I t-think I’m go-onna-a…,” he pushes my legs farther back and ruthlessly continues to eat me out keeping me as still as possible. My orgasm hits me hard and I scream out. I try my best to get away from his mouth but to no avail. My pussy throbs from the overstimulation but I let him keep going. His mouth is far too good for him to stop. I push his face farther down making myself cry out in painful pleasure. “Oh fuuccckkkk,” I moan in a low guttural voice. He moans against me and I release all over his face again. This time I try to push him off of me. If I let him keep going he might actually kill me. “JB, i-I c-can-n’t…,” but he doesn’t let up and he knows I’m too weak to protest anymore. “Ohhhhh, ahhh stop….p-please…it’s t-too m-much...,” I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself for another orgasm. He flicks his tongue over my clit a couple more times and I lose my mind. “AHHHH JB PLEASE STOOPPP!,” I scream at the top of my lungs.

He finally stops and kisses his way back up. He grabs my face and connects his lips to mine. His tongue lodges into my mouth and I taste myself. He grips my waist so hard I squirm a bit. He pulls away and looks at me, smiling at my red and sweaty face. “How do you like the taste?,” he whispers seductively. “Now you see why I couldn’t just let you cum once,” he kisses me lightly again. “You taste way too good for just one serving.” He runs his index finger over my swollen lips. “You taste better than I imagined.” He sticks his finger into my mouth encouraging me to suck it. I oblige and moan for him. He smirks and shakes his head. “What a naughty girl.”

[korra4321]

Gifts (Alternative ending) (unedited)

It's had been exactly a year since she had him thrown in Azcaban , the prison that was build escpacially to keep wizards and witches like him under a lock and key, but in his case it was totally different , they made for him a very special cell with maximum security,it had a glass like texture instead of the usual stony one or the metal bar like , he has the furniture to be white or gray just like his room on her house , meal times was exactly like when they had it together, he even request the same scented candles that she had, the same painting on the walls , every single tiny trivia detail was the same as the one of the house .

It funny how she captured him , you see during his time as Lord Voldemort , another masked figured appeared it was a female one , it started so small at first she stunned few of his deatheaters that was guarding a shop leaving messages that a rebellion had began signed up as {Lady hope } , later she took down more and more until she became the face of the rebellion , as if she was Harry replacement , and in no time she was facing off the dark lord .

He shouted more cursed at her , wanting to just unmask her and killing her , he was curious to see the face of the woman defying him , that had the courage of the dead house Gryffindor, the brains of Ravenclaw, she was judging him and returning his cursed with lighter ones , aiming to just unmask and capture him, so when fate has it twisted way in fullfiiling thiere first part of the wish , both of them were left stunned with shock of who the other was.

Tom reached out his hand not believing his eyes, Korra had tears in her eyes , and he tough she was scared of him , he reached to wipe it out whill he opened his mouth to give a lecture , only for her to recover from the shock and whisper "Stupefy" knocking him unconscious.

He signed , returning to read the book on his hand ,just for him to hear the footsteps of two persons and a hiss that belonged to Nagini " I can feel my master " he smiled at the sense of her aura ,the door of his cell dorm opened reveling her , his soulmate.

Korra didn't change a lot just that her hair that she cut down to fit her rebellion mask , has gotten back to it original length, her eyes got that rest she deserve , her skin more healthy then when she was paranoid that Voldemort will show up at her door making her another victim for his limitless body count.

When she saw him for the very first time in a year she gasped, his hair has gotten longer not the length of a female , the length that was blocking his eyesight if he let his hair uncombed , he have gotten more thin if that was possible, not the thin the 'I can see your bones ' thin , the thin that those who strive to be more then model like , the Slytherin heir will not let himself starve , his skin got more pale due to the lack of sun light exposion , his eyes were still that lovely green .

They where staring at her, eyes longing at every single detail of her face once he was don't taking the examination look he smiled naturally , "hello love, I am glad that you put the long distance relationship state to end, I passed the taste didn't I?, Of course you were testing my ability for it " he didn't pose at the greeting part at all.

"Hello Tom ,I think that I stated before we are not lovers" Korra firmly said as she sighed heavily , she didn't fool herself in thinking that he will be acceptable toward that she didn't return his (obsessive) romantic feeling toward her , her feeling toward him were pure platonic one , nothing less nothing more .

He chortled lightly , "my bad , silly me how could I forget ,Korra , we are not lovers "

She smiled and realised a breath of comfort

"We are soulmates" he continued, saying that as if it's was a solid fact that no two can argue over it .

Korra took fee steps until she was close to him but not so close to see what was his book about , "Tell me Tom, did you really have to do that ?, You could use the easy approach"

Voldemort teeth dangerously closed on them self as he breathed " I doubt that those delusional freaks will kindly kill themselves if I asked for it , the only way to clean there sins is with their blood "

Korra who had regretted opening the wound inturraped him "TOM ,... What I meant was them not respecting muggle born and muggles themselves , I didn't ask for my bestie to go down full mass murder on everyone who was not pure"

He appeared to be taken back " Love ? I was not planning on killing you or myself  , I know that you are my soulmate , you see fate keep in adding more evidence to it nearly every day "

She tough that she will get used to his mood swings and his unhealthy obsession with the idea that they were soulmates, but clearly he could covert a conversation from 'how was your cup of coffee' to 'you see ?, The waitress brought for us smilliar mug colors ,is that evedence of we are soulmate?' in matter of minutes .

She rolled her eyes "surprise me Tom z what are they"

He was euphoriant to be asked that by her , "we are half bloods , you love winter and I was born in it , you don't mind snakes and exotic animals , I speak parseltounge"

'and I can speak sarcasm fluently' Korra though

"Your favorite color is black that is the same as mine, you hate the toxic people like I do , your Lady hope persona match my Lord Voldemort one , hope can be wordplay to hobie which means my love in Arabic...."

He bubbled that Korra zoned out of his chatting only to be zoned back in by...

" And your hair match mine now , you see you returned it to it original length , when mine is long for , we match even when I can't see you "

Korra lover that she didn't eat anything that day , just in case his lecture that she was so positive will leave her wanting to throw up , "you see love , you even feel sick from staying away from me "

Korra serach for a topic to talk about that can shift his attention on her "Nagini misses you"

His eyes widened " you can speak parseltounge?"

"No but I can understand body language"

"Hello master " Nagini hissed

"Hello Nagini , have she been waiting for my outbreak today ?"

"She doesn't know "

Korra still searched for a new thing to distract him before she ask him what the question she come for " Tom , what book are you reading?"

He returned his attention to her " oh , I am not reading more like writing "

He showed her the book, Korra felt more disguste by what he wrote it was just one word all ever the pages as she flipped them .

Her name

Tom having the habit of looking at her and drinking in every detail of her , when took his book to see , be took the opportunity to look at her hand , he eager from the inside , she had the promise ring on her finger , that was meant to have their engagement ring,

"Nagini ....kill whoever give her the piece of metal"

"Yes master "

Korra , reached the last page , she didn't know what negative emotion left for her to feel from it.

The page had a list of their weeding plan , honeymoon, no child name since he know she doesn't want any, the places that he will love to take her to, everything that he planed on doing for them, and all the (creepy ) romantic ways he planned on purposing to her then obliviate her , move to a new location for a different purpose way until he checked out all the ways , the last eat was bone chilling , he planned on purpose to her on surrounded by the corpses of their enemies , all whill they were on the body of the dying minister of magic .

Korra decided to leave it was the time to ask , she give him back his book , or diary to be more specific , when that time for their hand to hold to same object he took his sweet time , crassing her hand , "I love that your skin still smoth, I know mate you kept it just for me , the same way your body is left not touch by anyone but m...."

She took fee steps back , not shocked from his word , but when she saw the wall behind him .

It was filled with her name .

The tears fall down her checks , Tom got angry " come here love , let me wipe them by myself, I don't want anyone but me to do that, not even yourself " he extended his hands for as far as he can from the cell , eyes red like the blood of his fallen enemies .

"Tom , before I leave I want to ask you, why do I feel like something is always missing"

His mood swings strikes again " oh dear soulmate , we are soulmate so naturally you will that when we are not around each other , ... But I know that you mean physical, it because I made a hoxrac for you ...,a mate is equal after all "

"Goodbye Tom"

She began walking , only to hear him reply

"See you later love "

A chill run down her spine but she never looked back.

She was at home now , looking at her promise ring that she bought to herself from the jewelry store, she bought it as a promise to never ever visit him , but since she broke the promise she no longer felt obligated to wear it ,so she gently removed it and put aside on the coffee table.

She decided she need to take a nap , that last thing she saw was Nagini moving outside, before the sandman come for her.

When she woke up there was blood on her , but that was not what frightened her the most,

No it was the note on the same coffee table that she putted the ring on it ,

{Hello love , I am here , but let's play hide and seek ,I am hiding and you seek me

With best regards

Your soulmate

P.s you can't escape all the doors and windows are locked , the house have silence spell on it , oh and there is nothing you can use as weapon too, just your pretty hands  }

Korra never felt the need to scream in terror before like she felt it right there.

Her hands were shaking from rage , that he Tom from his hiding place could see , and being delusional he tough that was a sign of excitement.

He smirked , oh it was gonna be so much fun.

Korra stood up and give her back to the wall gluing on it to never give him the chance to jump on her like his twisted fantasies he have.

She didn't know what to do if she found him , didn't want to know what he will do to her if she did.now she was at the stairs she wished of she could looked two places at the same time , one up and one down .just in case he was to ambush on her .

With each step she took her heart beats louder , untill she reached the top and and had smelled the smell of salt and rust she opened the guest room to find the corpse of the jewelry ship keeper , and to make it worse Nagini was eating it.

Korra didn't fight the tears , she just let them fall , the snake was too busy to notice her , she closed the door and her eyesight was blurry ,she wiped them , just in time to her it " you know love, that keeper had it coming " the voice come inside her head , he was using legllemancy on her , when she tried to use ocullemency to keep him out she couldn't use magic and she was not surprised by that , of course he give her a potion that made her temperory as as she hoped to not use magic.

" Oh I just can't wait for you "

She ignored him , continuing her task she made the wall her support friend , his room was empty , she made sure to search the entire house before coming upstairs, so that leave one room not touched ,hers .

When she opened the door she found her room having a romantic one , straight out of romantic movies , with the sound of running water , "welcome love " his voice didn't come from her head , not it was from right behind her , Korra didn't have the time to turn around,

His arms sneaked around her middle holding her hands captive and his chain rested on her shoulder , his hot breath on her ears tickled her when he whispered " ohh how much I missed your"

"Fuck you...Tom Marvalo Riddle"

He laughed

"If that what you...."

"I didn't mean it that way you...."

"Love , you are dirty by his filthy blood , let's get you cleaned up "

His stupid mood swings.

He led her awkwardly to the bathroom that has the bathtub filled with hot water , rose pitals and the scent of coffee candle , her changing clothes were folded nicely waiting for her , she didn't dare to look at them , she didn't want to know what he chose for her , stupid choices she give him to make , now it come biting down on her , biting like the mess up fact the pet snake was eating dinner, the fact she was led to the bath by her (soulmate) bestie , that his hair was still long.

"Before we bath ...."

" Tom please I don't want to take a bath with you " he shock his head , "love , I understand that you are body shy , but that not a problem I will leave and let you take it by yourself , then once you don't I will bath in the same water you bathed in , that a soulmate right "

His eyes pupils were dialed as he continued not stopping

" Also my hair is long , so we you can cut it and wash it for me , just like you did when I was still homeschooled once, also the scissors are magically enchanted so don't even think about it ".

He wiped away the tears that felt down ,

"I told you only I can wipe them "

There was no escaping from him she knew it , she didn't have to look outside to see the dead bodies of all the enemies on the street , to see the Halloween night take a twisted turn.

To know that he let deatheaters customes be the Trojan horse to began and end successful his plan on taking over the magical world.

To see the two masks on her bed , Lord Voldemort mask and Lady Hope.

He sealed her fate with a kiss on her eyes .

[lilyenderborn]

Constants and Glitches

Swap Au by @nofacednerd and @graffiticraft 

He had just mentally woken up. His head felt like it was floating, but was pounding. Slowly, he put his hand down to push himself up only to find something warm and sticky around him.

“Marvin! I found him!” He heard a voice in a thick German accent call. “Oh, hurry up he iz bleeding from ze the neck.” He tried to open his eyes his head threatening to make him pass out again.

“Anti?” A new voice approach him. “Oh jeez. Henrik you didn’t tell me it was Anti. We need to get him stabilized. Did you ever get that teleporting magic figured out?”

“Not yet mein doctor. But ve need to move. He iz coming.” He felt pressure against his neck.

“Well help me pick him up. Keep the - on his -. We’ll hide at -.” The voice began to fade as he passed out once again.

He was swimming, twitching uncontrollably. There was a desire deep within him to take control of everyone. To control his own identity. As he moved closer to a figure holding only a lighter his eyes shot open.

“Whoa, whoa. Marvin he’s awake!” His vision was blurry and there was pressure on his chest keeping him from sitting up.

“It’s alright Anti, just breath slowly. You’ve been hurt pretty bad.” The voice was different from before, yet it felt familiar like the others.

He did as he was told. Every inhale of air made sharp pains in his neck, but his vision began to clear. A man in dark red top hat and a fancy blue mask began to come into focus.

“J...J...” He stuttered as though trying to remember a name. The man became clearer. He was sharply dressed and young in appearance. An image of a superhero in red and a  blue mask flashed for a second before disappearing. “Jackie?”

“Marvin!” He called again as Anti once again tried to sit up. “Easy Anti. Yeah it’s me.”

“I’m coming. J.J. just got back from looking for Jack. Nothing. No sign at all. Henrik is running the channel but I don’t know how long he can hide his accent. We need you out there, Jackie.” He looked up to see a similar looking man with glasses and a doctors coat. An image of a painted cat mask and a cape flashed in front of him before the doctor returned to normal. Jackie left his side and left out of view.

“Marvin? I...I...”

“Take it easy Anti. You’re safe here. Thank the cards Henrik found you after he dragged you out of control.” Marvin explained leaning in close. He felt the man’s hands running along his neck though he couldn’t feel them clearly, as though something were blocking the other man’s fingers.

“My head hurts Marv...Like I can’t think straight.” Anti managed out, trying to look around.

“It’s okay. What’s the last thing you remember?” Marvin asked moving from him seeming to work on something nearby.

“That’s the thing. I can’t tell. When I try to remember before it’s almost like I have two memories. I don’t know which is the real one.” Anti explained now staring at the empty wall. An image of a glitching figure grabbing him first flashed by as though seeing it play out in front of him. The scene changed to him grabbing a figure in a grey snapback hat. Anti quickly closed his eyes. “Marvin... my...”

“They’re okay, Anti. J.J. checked up on them as soon as you went missing. Chase hasn’t touched any of them.” Marvin said closer causing him to open his eyes and look towards him. “Come on, let’s get you up slowly Anti.” He felt an arm behind his head and watched the doctor help prop him up to a sitting position. He then handed him a pure black hat.

“Thanks doc. Really.”

“You should thank Hen when you see him next. He’s the one who found you and covered for you to get Chase off your scent.” Marvin mentioned with a shrug.

Anti put the cap on turning it backwards. Suddenly it felt like a surge of sparks went through his body, causing him to twitch slightly. He closed his eyes hoping Marvin hadn’t noticed the twitching.

“Y-You think I can get up, doc?” He said slowly reaching up to slowly rub the bandages around his neck.

“I suppose but no crazy trick shots till that is healed up. I still don’t know how you survived a clean cut to your neck.” Marvin mentioned.

“Yeah. Right. I guess I got some insane luck.” Anti mentioned giving a very strained chuckle.

“I suppose so.” Marvin helped him to his feet causing Anti to wince as though his legs weren’t used to the weight. “Still try to stay out of Chase’s crosshairs. I don’t know if you could take another hit like that. Your family and Jack need you, Anti.”

“I-I know...” he said tentatively, heading away before muttering out of earshot. “At least I thought I knew...” He twitched again before rubbing his neck. He hurried away, his head down until he ran into a soft, still body.

“S-Sorry...” Anti looked up. He saw the blue hooded masked figure of Jameson Jackson. Once again, the silent hero flashed with the image of a sharp dressed man in a bowler hat who seemed out of time. When the hooded man cleared again, the man was writing something without even looking at the words. Jameson held the pad up for Anti to see as Anti twitched again.

‘They’re getting worse now aren’t they puppet give me my family back -Ch@se’

Anti took a step back. “N-No these are my memories. Leave Jamie out of this, you demon.” He said, shaking as he thought he saw Jamie’s eye begin to cry blood. Instantly the light above grew brighter around them before the bulb broke plunging them into darkness.

“A-An...ti?” He heard a far off woman’s voice before he heard a familiar laugh.

“Chase! Leave MY family alone!” Anti yelled into the darkness.

“They aren’t yours...” He heard a voice that sounded far away.

“They are! I don’t care what you keep claiming! Whatever you did to my head, stop it!” Anti covered his ears. The laughter seemed to be getting closer to him.

“You don’t belong here, Anti. We both know that. Those memories that shouldn’t be there? I’ve got them too.” The voice was close now. Anti quickly turned, coming face-to-face with another man with the same face as the others. One eye a glowing sickly green with a blue iris, the other was dead black with a red iris. There was blood trickling down the side of his head as he glitched. ”You’re the reason...They’re in...so...much....pain...”

“Stop it!” Anti screamed, unable to look away. With a flash, the glitching figure changed to the scared man he’d seen before in the snapback with the red skull. Anti suppressed another twitch as the two figures kept switching in front of his eyes.

“What do you see life stealer?” Chase growled. Anti hesitated as he began to walk closer to him. “Or do you want to know what I see when I see you?”

“N-No...stay back.” Anti took a step back, his hand going to the bandages around his neck.

“I see a smiling glitching demon coming towards me with a knife. He has a slit neck that still bleeds but never seems to die. Now...” He glitched again and appeared closer to him. “What...do you...see?”

“A-A scared man. W-With a nerf gun. He’s looking for something- something I have.” Anti said gulping, unable to move now.

“Give...them...back.” Chase growled again. He pulled a gun from his pocket, aiming it at Anti. “Or, face the consequences.”

“Anti!”

Anti froze hearing the voice. He couldn’t turn to look. He didn’t know what Chase would do with the scrambled memories. Instead he chose to rush forward tackling Chase to the ground before they both disappeared before the woman’s eyes.

He was floating for a while as it felt like electricity going through his body. Desperately he tried to not twitch as he gripped his head. A voice that he seemed to sort of recognize called out to him as another wave hit.

‘Who are you little glitch?’ ‘Where do you come from?’ ‘Are you what you think you are?’ ‘Do you really know what you know?’ ‘Where you going?’ ‘What do you actually want?’

“I want the truth. I want to know, if- is my family mine?” He called back closing his eyes. He could picture the woman where he left her frantically trying to find him going to his brothers.

Or were they?

‘What do you know?’ ‘What do you want to know?’

The voice asked cryptically. Anti gripped his head thinking back finally separating the images of his brothers with their look alikes.

‘Go ahead, little glitch you may ask your questions but be quick. If your counterpart decides before you, you won’t get a choice.’

Anti struggled with understanding what it meant but focused on his questions.

“Is Chase right? Is my family my own?” Anti asked.

‘Interesting. A different first question. The answer to both of them is yes and yes.’ The voice answered with a soft voice.

“So I don’t belong in that world? In that role?”

‘Ah I would prefer yes or no questions, but since I gave no rules for you I shall answer these two.’ There was a pause. ‘You technically do not belong in that world, but the world allowed you and choose you for that role. Think of it as constants and variables.’

Anti frowned. That particular phrasing of the situation was easier to follow. Another thought came to him - the difference in his brothers. “Are my brothers really my brothers?”

‘They are as close as they deem so. If they call you brother then that is what you are. I sense a deeper meaning to your question, though.’

“The split images. The ones Chase and I see.” Anti paused. “What are they?”

‘They are from another world. Similar yet different. Now one more question before I ask you a final question.’

“Okay, if I leave the world will Stacy be safe?”

‘Interesting. Very interesting. Bodily yes, she would be safe. Chase’s anger will have subsided, but she will be heart broken and alone.’

Anti paused, now thinking of the family he’d left behind when he’d tried to protect her from his counterpart. She wouldn’t just replace him with a better version of Chase. That’s what the voice had to of meant by heartbroken and alone.

‘Now then, my little Glitch, answer this right and you may return home. I may even fix that interference problem you seem to have. However, answer wrong and you’ll go back to the world of flashes you saw before. Who were you before you came to my domain, little Glitch?’ The voice asked, gently.

Anti thought for a moment, afraid of answering on a whim. The answer should be obvious but in his mind sat two names. Two memories. Which was actually him? There was a long pause and a repeat of the question from the voice that Anti finally could place voice. It sounded like Jack reading a solemn story.

“Anti-Anti Septic. Husband to Stacy and father to two. That’s who I was before I ended up here.” He paused, taking a breath. “Jack.”

There was great laughter from the voice before it respond once more. ‘So you are Anti. So you are. It’s a shame, I quite miss my glitchy boy running around but a deal is a deal. Keep that wound clean Anti and it’ll heal.’ The voice said more relaxed, but still sad. He felt an electrical surge, causing the world to black out. He swore he could hear a woman’s voice nearby.

“Is he ready to be discharged yet Marvin?” He hesitated with opening his eyes.

“Stacy, he barely survived a slice to his neck. You need to let the poor man heal. He’s probably going to be confused when he wakes up since he was recording when Chase found him.” Marvin’s voice sounded tired and stern as his eyes focused on the black haired woman standing over him.

“He’d still be safer at home. I dare the glitch bitch to come near me or my family.” She said and he could hear Marvin groan.

“Yeah you tell him...Stace.” Anti said groggily.

“Well good morning, sunshine. Despite your lovely wife nagging you’re staying here till we run Chase off again, got it?” Marvin said coming into Anti’s vision. Anti blinked, realizing his face though not covered with the usual surgical mask seemed normal and staying that way. “Doctor’s orders.”

“Whatever you say, doc. Stace maybe bring the kids here? I want them to know I’m alright.” Anti said smiling as she nodded. She continued to glare daggers at the doctor. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He was home.

Finally, he was home.

[snowbatsims]

post 19

And, the washing machine broke!

And instead of fixing it himself this time, Einarr was getting stupidly thirsty and decided to invite a repairman over here instead. The deal was easy; in exchange for a sum of money with an extra tip, he ordered a simple repair, as well as a bit of blood. Bloodthirst is still a thing, after all. They're vampires.

REPAIRMAN: Whooaa, sweet. I always wanted this. EINARR: You may keep that if I get a little bit of your blood. You know, as we arranged. REPAIRMAN: Haha, no way. It's mine now. And then he ran out, as fast as his little mortal human feet would carry him. Obviously that wasn't enough. A vampire always catches up.

EINARR: SIGHS. I told you. I hate doing this. I just need a little bit of your blood! It was quite literally a part of the deal, remember? Why couldn't you just trust me. Meanwhile....

MORTEN: Oh my god. Why.

MORT: Now what!! MORT: Turning it on and off again doesn't even work??? MORT: Didn't we just have a repairman here too? Lord. MORT: Where did that guy go?

MORT: ... MORT: Oh man. I just remembered the strange fantasy tree I saw the other day. MORT: Maybe I can actually go there now.

It's autumn, and yet its leaves are still firmly in place, green as ever. It's not even a pine tree, which WOULD be evergreen. 

Nope, this one has leaves, is covered in strange mushrooms, and it.. glows. 

Should've mentioned that. It very much is a tree that glows, which does require some further investigation.

MORTEN: This seems rather.. fairy-like. I wonder if it could... Giggles from the tree could be heard. Suddenly, an entrance-shaped hole in the tree opened. MORTEN: Oh?

Man, this place is beautiful.

MORT: Here, froggy froggy...

MORT: Wow. This fish looks like a potato. I love them.

Being a vampire in the digital age sure is nice!

MORT: Gosh, with all the frogs and fish around here, and no harmful sun, I could probably stay here forever! MORT: ...Though I guess it would get a little lonely... Strangely, he hears someone sit down nearby.

He does a double-take. Is that really... MORT: Mom??? What are you doing here? MOM: ...Hello. MORT: Hello? MOM: ... :)

Honestly, this place is beginning to give him the creeps. MORT: Are you sure you're not an illusion? MORT: ...Please talk to me. MOM: Yes. MORT: That's it? Uh... guess I'll be more specific. MORT: How did you.. get here? The constant giggling of the surroundings is starting to get a little more ominous now, despite somehow sounding exactly the same as ever.

MOM: The Sylvan Tree sent me here. MORT: That's- that's what it's called? Huh. How would you know its name? MOM: *giggles* She sounded exactly like the fairies... MORT: Are you.. are you sure you're not just an illusion conjured up by fairies? MOM: This place is beautiful. I think you would love it here. You should stay. MORT: Uh... Her eyes go pitch black. MOM?: 𝓦𝓮 𝓬𝓪𝓷 𝓶𝓪𝓴𝓮 𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓭𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓶𝓼 𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓮 𝓽𝓻𝓾𝓮. 𝓟𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓮, 𝓼𝓽𝓪𝔂 𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓾𝓼. MORT:

...

MORT: WOW, I SURE AM HAPPY TO BE BACK IN THE REAL WORLD!!!

MORT: So, you said we're moving, huh. EINARR: That is the plan, yes. MORT: It's actually happening? It has been a few years since the idea was proposed... EINARR: Indeed it is. We were just low on funds at the time, but Rune has been earning a lot of money in royalties for his music lately. EINARR: Anyway, we're finally going to be near the coast! I've found a very nice, large house to accommodate all five of us. MORT: Ooh. So you're doing portraits to hang up in our new home, then? EINARR: Yes. MORT: I haven't seen you paint much before! When did you-- EINARR: Morten. Child. I'm a thousand years old. You may take a guess. MORT: Oh, right.

Floral arrangements!

And Kvikindi went visiting a certain classmate. The one who's the grandchild of one of Rune's cousins. That classmate.

LUKAS: So you're uh, half vampire or something? I mean, I definitely see your alien part. It's really cool! KVIK: Yep!! And all my dads are like, wow watch out, you're gonna be struggling with this vampire shit too sometime. Bluh, bluh.

LUKAS: Hey, that is a bad word. Try being more quiet. KVIK: Really? Shit? Bat says it all the time. LUKAS: Well, my parents would give me house arrest if they even THOUGHT I said that!!! KVIK: Oh, huh. How lame.

RAKEL: Where is our visitor? EMMA: Oh, she's been playing with Lukas. RAKEL: I wanna play too...

And so they did.

RAKEL: Do you spot anything cool yet? KVIK: I see an orange floating crystal above me. RAKEL: W...what? KVIK: Oh, that cloud looks like a spider. RAKEL: Wow, yeah. KVIK: BAT CLOUD!! RAKEL: Where? KVIK: Right.. there ah dangit it's gone already. RAKEL: Aw, no!!!

Anyway, they finally moved.

And this is the point where I updated Mort's hair again. It's available for download on this very blog. 

They made not just one, but two snowmen that night. How productive. Must be easy when you literally can't get cold.

EINARR: Ugh, these awful windows.

EINARR: We really need curtains.

We also really need the ability to change our ceilings. Seriously.

On a random evening neighborhood exploration... LIV: Wow, hey, did you just fly here as a bat??? Dude, are you vampire? MORT: Well, yes-- LIV: THAT IS SO COOL. I KNEW IT. I KNEW THEY WERE REAL!!! MORT: I guess-- LIV: Bite me. MORT: what

LIV: You heard me, buddy. *slaps neck*, Come get your juice. MORT: You're.... kinda weirding me out, person.

LIV: I'm sorry? MORT: M.. maybe later. I'm not actually thirsty right now. Just exploring the neighborhood, really. LIV: You can have my phone number if you want? MORT: Y-yeah, sure. LIV: Whenever you need any blood, I'll be right there for you, buddy.

And then it was Winterfest, once again.

Kvik got into a childhood furry phase....

FATHER WINTER: Ho, ho, ho.. Gosh, nobody's around.

BAT: Hey. FATHER WINTER: Have you been naughty this year? BAT: ...not at all. FATHER WINTER: Hm. My lists very much say otherwi---

BAT: Thank you very much for the gift!!

RUNE: Oh, dear.. Is that really Father Winter? RUNE: Bat, I swear to god.

MORT: Oh.. oh, dear.

MORT: I'm so sorry about that. Bat is an absolute gremlin sometimes.

MORT: I mean, seriously, the audacity of that child!!! FATHER WINTER: O-oh, it's fine, dear-

MORT: HOW COULD HE!!! WHAT IF HE KILLED YOU! IT WOULD MEAN NO MORE WINTERFEST FOR ANYONE!!! FATHER WINTER: N-no, it's fine, really. MORT: HOW. FATHER WINTER: I'm not the only Father Winter, dear. We're merely the assistants of Santa Claus, MORT: BUT STILL!! I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU DEAD...

MORT: I don't wanna.. see anyone dead. FATHER WINTER: I appreciate your concern, dear. Do you want a present?

MORT: Do I???

MORT: Gosh, I hope it's not dog droppings like last year. FATHER WINTER: Why, who could ever give you that? MORT: Last year's Father Winter. FATHER WINTER: Ah, I believe it must have been a mistake. You're much too good. MORT: Yeah, it was apparently meant for Bat. FATHER WINTER: I see. That's the kid who just drank from me, right? MORT: Yep. FATHER WINTER: Figures. Well, he's not getting anything from me this year. MORT: Pretty sure he already did. 

EINARR: Why, hello there. FATHER WINTER: ...are all of you vampires? EINARR: Yeah, sorry about that.

EINARR: We're definitely going to stick around for a while, hah! MORTEN: Jeez, don't remind me...

EINARR: Anyway, how are you? Has this Winterfest been treating you well at all? FATHER WINTER: Well, first of all, MORT: Bat drank from him.

EINARR: *pretends to act shocked* MORTEN: Nobody's buying it, old man. FATHER WINTER: ...did the lights just turn off?

EINARR: Hey, what's it like to have day vision? FATHER WINTER: ..you're not noticing it? MORT: Only a teeny tiny change, honestly. EINARR: I guess they shut off our power. We're a little low on funds since we recently moved. FATHER WINTER: Anyway, uh, I figure Mr. Auðvinsson would like a present as well this year. EINARR: Of course.

EINARR: It's.. tickets. FATHER WINTER: Congratulations, your entire household has won a room at a hotel in Strangerville. I advise you to use these tickets within this winter. EINARR: Strangerville, huh. Peculiar name. FATHER WINTER: Yes, quite. FATHER WINTER: I believe it is time for me to leave now.

MORT: Aw man, Rune missed him...

Well, speaking of Rune, it seems he brought in all the guests now.

Hug train.

MORT: It's actually the real you... MOM: Gosh, what do you even mean? MORT: You wouldn't believe what I saw the other day. MOM: Son, you're a vampire. I'd believe anything at this point. MORT: It's such a long story though,,,, Bottom line is, the fairies created a clone of you and--- MOM: Oh, my dear child.... And so they all had a nice winterfest. Even if it’s dark.

I might enjoy screencapping too much.

[necrokittytales]

Necrokitty Tales: Trouble in Inkwell Isle (Chapter 26)

Authors’ note: Necrida’s writing will be in italics and SPKC’s writing with be regular font.If you have no idea what this roleplaying thing is, you can start from the beginning here.

THIS HAS SOME VERY NSFW PARTS AND YOU KNOW YOU WANNA READ IT! :D

———————————————————————————

Finally, Cagney and Amber reached the cells, although definitely not without some hiccups. Huge walls of cement in the same shape of the  geometrical structure as the rest of the hive as they were brought to the jail cells. The guards released their cuffs and locked them into cells adjacent to each other.

“You will remain here until our gracious Queen Honeybottoms decides what to do with you,” one of the guards explained before they left.

Cries of laments and begging from other prisoners filled the air. In front of their cells was an old bearded bee locked in as well. He looked at them curiously, noticing they were covered in honey. When the guards finally left, he asked in a shaky voice. “Stealing royal jelly? Ha! You must have a death wish.”

Cagney crossed his arms. “Apparently! Nothing but rotten luck since I crossed paths with this cat. And she’s not even a black cat-what are you doing?” He looked over at Amber.

Amber froze mid lick of her inner thigh and glared at him. “Taking a bath! Can’t a girl get a little privacy?!”

Cagney turned bright red and looked away awkwardly back toward the bearded bee. “So that death thing…how often does that actually happen? I don’t remember Rumor being so… violent.”

The old bee turned red as well and looked away from Amber, trying to focus on the carnation’s question. “Oh! Uh, well, she’s always been a bit intense, specially after the whole deal with the Devil. But from what I’ve heard, she’s kinda coo-coo now.”

“She’s insane….” A voice came from above the old man’s cell. It was younger bee, and he looked scared. “It was my first day as a servant, and I entered her chambers to clean up. She-she was at her desk, surrounded by books and she was so furious…It’s been three weeks since she locked me in here! I was just going to change her sheets! How is that a crime?!”

Even Cagney had to admit, that sounded a little severe for Rumor. “Oh, well, yeah I guess that’s a bit weird.” Rumor was a bit strict but he expected all members of royalty had to be like that. He jokingly thought to himself that maybe the bee had caught her doing something illicit with another bee. However, the bee royalty did seem to be on the prudish side and he doubted it. “Do we get a trial or anything?”

The old bee burst into laughter. “A trial he says! Hahaha!” He wiped his tears. “I’ve been waiting for my ‘trial’ for thirty years now, boy!”

“What!?” The younger bee exclaimed, surprised, holding onto the bars of his cell. “ But… we all have the right for a fair trial! It wont be long now ‘till I get mine.”

“Keep telling yourself that, kid. Dreaming is free… for now.”

At that moment a couple of guards flew in towards the young bee’s cage.

“Neddie Nibley, you’ve been accepted into the Royal Reforming Program of our gracious Queen Honeybottoms. You will now be escorted to your new chambers at the reformation camp.”

The little bee tried to process what they were explaining him. “Uh…w…what about my trial?” He asked confused, but the guards ignored him and cuffed him, roughly taking him out of his cell and escorting him out of the prison.

The old bee sighed and laid down on his wax bed.

Cagney had a bad feeling in his gut at this but decided to shrug it off and start wiping the honey off. Maybe once he had a chance to talk with her about this, he could clear the air. He glanced over at the cat and groaned. “For Gods sake, are you done yet?”

Amber giggled but secretly continued to scope out her jail cell as she over dramatically groomed herself. There had to be a way out. Every cell had its weakness.

After a while the female bee guard returned and stopped in front of Cagney’s cell.

“Cagney Carnation, you have been summoned by our beloved Queen Honeybottoms.” She opened the cell and signaled him to come out. “I will escort you to her office.”

The old bee looked curious.

Cagney cocked his head at her. “Uh yeah, sure. Thanks.” He followed the bee down the hallway. He realized what the guard had said as he stepped out of his cell. “Office? Don’t you mean her throne room or something?”

The guard smirked, feeling the nervousness in the flower. “I know what I said. She probably wants to kill you personally, you know, for old time’s sake.”

They passed a few doors before reaching the elevator. The guard tried not to get too close to the sticky carnation, and pressed the button for the highest floor, 127.

The elevator’s doors opened revealing a tall golden hallway decorated with columns and paintings of the past Queens. At the end, there was a beautifully carved wooden door. The guard knocked.

“My Queen, I brought you Cagney Carnation.” There was a noise at the door, as if several locks were being removed.

“Let him in, you’re dismissed.” Rumor’s severe voice could be heard through the door.

“Yes, my Queen.” The guard opened the door for the flower and as soon as he passed she closed it behind him.

Rumor’s office was round and as golden as honey could be. The floor was covered in a soft red carpet and the walls were tall, decorated with paintings and pictures of members of royalty, antiquities and other artifacts Cagney couldn’t recognize. There was only one huge window and siting in front of it, on a tasteful wooden desk, was Rumor, surrounded by towers of books and papers. There was a door on the right of the office. If Cagney had to guess, it was probably Rumor’s chambers. Her personal chambers,

The Queen lifted her eyes from the documents she was reading and looked up and down at Cagney. She didn’t show it, but she was delighted to see him, especially covered in royal jelly.

Ever since she met him in high school, Rumor had felt an attraction towards him. At first she thought it was an instinctive attraction, him being a flower and her a bee. But as years passed by, she got to know him better, and to her misfortune, she found herself falling hard for the carnation. If Hilda wasn’t around, she liked to think she might have had a chance with him.

When she had to leave high school to start her royal education, she lost touch with Cagney. Fortunately, when she was finally Queen of the hive, she immediately started a business relationship with him. Not only his flowers were exceptional quality, but that allowed her to have a perfect excuse to see him.

She cleared her throat and placed some papers back to their folder. “Why are you covered in my priceless royal jelly, Cagney?”

Cagney was really hoping she wasn’t going to ask that question, but it was kind of impossible not to expect her to do so, considering he indeed was coated in the stuff. He clasped his hands together. “Yeah, funny story about that. See, I was actually coming to see you about something totally unrelated to this. When I passed by the docks, I got into a fight. Unprovoked, by the way,” he casually explained.

“Anywhoo, one thing led to another and I threw a bitch-uh assailant at a box and we got smeared with the stuff….your majesty,” he quickly added, remembering that Rumor was a Queen after all.

It was a bit surreal to see her like this. He hadn’t really spoke with her on a personal level since high school. And when she came and offered to do business, he wasn’t exactly sure how to interact with her and ended up resorting to his normal brash gruffness. Which still landed him the contract much to his smug delight and Hilda’s bewilderment.

He waited to see if Rumor believed the story.

Rumor had to do extra effort not to smile at the flower. She found him adorable trying to talk in a politically correct way.

She raised an eyebrow, not fully believing his version of the facts, for she just read a detailed report of the situation in which they where found. And it seemed the adorable flower was the main reason of the incident. “I take it that the assailant is the cat we caught with you.” She looked back at the report. “Who is she?”

Cagney had to bite his long tongue not to blurt out the first profanity he could think of. Instead, he shrugged. “I don’t know, some cat burglar from the first isle maybe.”

“Burglar?” She couldn’t hold her smile. The cat would be a great subject for her reforming program. “I see.” She pressed her hands together. “You mentioned earlier you wanted to see me for something else. If its not urgent, I would suggest you go clean up at one of the guest chambers, and we can talk afterwards.” It sounded more like an order than a offer. She pressed a button on her desk to call service.

Cagney abruptly reached forward and put a green sticky hand on hers, physically preventing Rumor from completely pressing down the button to give the order. “Uh, actually, well it kinda is…”

The look she gave him, which he could only interpret as barely repressed lethality, made him realize that touching her at all was probably a pretty severe line to cross and retracted his hand before he could lose it.

He backpedaled especially as he saw he dripped some jelly honey on her desk. “Actually, maybe it’s not so urgent, just like a favor but you’re right i should go clean up first…”

The unexpected contact took Rumor by surprise. “How dare y~!” But she managed to keep her cool. It was obvious he didn’t know anything about protocol. And she realized she liked that.

She was tired of all those endless rules and manners that everybody had to keep in mind if they had the chance to speak to her. But Cagney didn’t know half of it. He was a wild flower. Her memories of those teenage years flew back to her mind, reviving the flame of her feelings for the carnation.

For a moment, she got lost in her thoughts and unconsciously she licked the honey from her fingers. When she realized what she was doing, she hid her hand and blushed heavily, looking at Cagney, hoping he wouldn’t make any comment about it. She cleared her throat and tried her best to keep a poker face.

“I-it seems important…we should talk about it now.” She offered him to sit with a motion of her still honey covered hand. “Don’t worry for the mess, I’ll call somebody to clean up later.”

The fact that Rumor was still willing to listen after he dripped honey all over her desk was a humongous relief. He was more wrapped up in the realization that he didn’t just screw everything up to notice her slight indiscretion. He took a seat and began to try to explain.

“So, a couple days ago, the observatory on the first isle was broken into. There was a lot of damage. The worst part is, the dome got broken. You know, the big glass lens that Hilda uses to show people planets and stuff?”

Cagney was choosing his words as carefully as he could, not wanting to indict himself further than he already had. When Rumor slightly nodded to indicate she understood, he continued. “It was insane how hard it was to even get the dome in the first place, but now we’re trying to rebuild it and we definitely don’t have the materials to do that.”

He swallowed. “I guess that brings me to why I’m here. Other than the folks at the casino, you’re the only one who has the cash to fund the observatory’s repair. And well, none of us are going back there after what happened, so I came to ask if you’d be willing to loan the money needed to fix the observatory.”

She was very quiet after this and he cleared his throat. “I don’t got a lot of collateral I admit, but I’m willing to do anything - make more pollen, clean up the mess, be nicer to the worker bees, whatever you want.”

Her eye twitched at the mention of Hilda’s name. After all this years, he was still hanging with her even though she didn’t show any signs of being interested in him. It was as if she was using him for moral boost, a simple toy to play with when ever she was bored. Rumor despised Hilda for it.

She looked at the spell books next to her with an air of satisfaction. From what Cagney was telling her, her spells might be doing their effects. Everything precious to the sky witch was crumbling in front of her, and there was nothing she could do… But Cagney! He was willing to do it for her. 'Dumb carnation! Can’t he see she’s using you!’ The bee thought to herself with an angry sigh.

When the flower finished explaining his problem and what he needed from her, she felt a knot in her throat. So that was it, he needed money to build what she tried to destroy. Looked like their relationship was bound to be a professional one, and nothing more.

Dark thoughts started to fill the Queen’s mind. If that horrible witch wanted to use Cagney for her own benefit, then why not take advantage of it? Maybe that’s what Cagney found so attractive in Hilda. She could order him around, and he would gladly obey. Well, she could give orders, what was better than a Queen in giving orders.

She hoped by forcing him to do her will, he would realize Hilda wasn’t worth the trouble and he would be free from her once and for all. She looked at the honey on her hand with a smirk. “Hmm. That is a lot of money, Cagney. I’m going to need a little more…convincing.” She slowly licked the honey at the back of her hand and looked at him to check if he understood what she was suggesting.

A sexual proposition would surely dissuade the carnation, and Hilda would have to find a new errand boy, or better yet, leave the isles.

Cagney stared blankly back at the Queen as he watched her lick her own hand. More convincing? What else could he do? He glanced around. “Did you want me to get you a towel or somethin?” He asked.

Rumor blinked unbelieving. Maybe she wasn’t being as clear as she thought. She sighed and stood up, walking sensually towards the flower and leaning on her desk. She slowly ran a finger along one of his honey covered petals.

“I meant. What arguments do you have to make me more…inclined…to give you what you need?” She sensually sucked the honey from her finger.

The flower suppressed the shiver that ran through his stem. He tried to focus on her words. Arguments? was she asking him for evidence or debating material? Wasn’t really good at that. Mostly he just yelled at something until it either went away or he threw something at it to make it go away.

He subconsciously pulled the petal she touched. “I don’t know, uh, please?” He groaned. “Shit, I didn’t really think this through,” he admitted, “Do you want like data or something? Like, how many kids go to the observatory a year something?”

He couldn’t help but have an awkward chuckle at his situation. “Probably should have gotten information like that. I kind of just hurried over here. Hell, I was such in a rush I didn’t even tell anyone where I was going, so if you want something like that, give me a few days to go back and figure it out.“

Rumor raised an eyebrow, confused, dropping her sexy act. "What do you mean? Hilda didn’t ask you to come here her behalf?”

“What? No,” he scoffed. “Hilda is way pissed off at the universe at the moment. This was my own idea… Well…not the dock thing, and again, sorry for that even though it totally wasn’t my fault.”

The bee backed a little from the flower, trying to make sense of it all. “So you’re selflessly willing to go into serious debt to help HER? Are you together?” She finally dared to ask, although she was terrified of the answer.

He remembered Hilda’s words before shaking his head. “No, we’re not. In fact, I’m the one who broke the dome…” He figured he might as well come clean with the bee. She seemed reasonable enough

Rumor couldn’t help but feel relieved by the answer, but notice the sadness in his tone and felt a bit bad for him. “I thought you said someone broke in. Did you guys argue again, like you used to?” She knew how bad tempered they both were. In high school, they would get in stupid arguments that almost always ended with something broken, or somebody, besides them, getting hurt. “Old habits die hard, uh?” She crossed her arms.

She looked at the honey covered flower imagining how amazing it would feel to jump on him right now and make him forget all about the sky witch.

Cagney grimaced. “Well, it didn’t help things that’s for sure. We did fight. And that was pretty messy. We’re back to being friends at least but yeah, nothing else. Figure the least I can do is try to fix the dome?” He asked hopefully

She frowned at him. She wondered how far was he willing to go to help that witch. “I can’t believe you’re still friends. After all your fights, I don’t think I ever saw her apologizing to you. It was always you who had to go after her.” She crossed her arms and looked at the flower serious. “You want to do business?” She smirked. “Let’s do business. I want you to triple your pollen supply.” She waited for his answer.

Cagney started to argue with her that this wasn’t always the case. “Well, I mean, sometimes Hilda does bring me…wait, t-triple my pollen delivery? Are you insane?” He realized, his eyes widening. When Rumor’s gaze didn’t break, he started to think about it. He’d pretty much have to work from sunrise to sunset nonstop. He would be burnt out in no time.

Perhaps he could ask some of the gardening students from the school for help. They had been hassling him for the chance of an internship and he had been violently rejecting the offer. He settled down. He could play nice for Hilda’s sake. “I think I could do that,” he finally nodded, “Is that it?”

The corner of the bee’s mouth twitched. It was insane for him to accept that. “So you will work three times as hard for a woman who only cares about you when somebody else is interested. That’s why you didn’t tell her you where coming here. You knew she would overreact.” She would have to push harder. “You will also repay the Royal Jelly you made me lose in public service hours.”

Cagney grit his teeth and felt them threaten to turn sharp but he exhaled quickly instead, forcing them to remain dull. He wrecked the jelly, and from what he remembered, it was something that only Rumor was capable of producing. Hence her royal status and the reason it was so expensive.

“Fine,” he grunted. “What did you have in mind for the public service?”

“Well, for starters you will clean up your mess. Including the cells you and your friend were in.” She could see how he was starting to realize her demands were being too much. She smirked at him.

Cagney realized “friend” referred to Amber and he scowled. “I’m not going to even try to take a sponge to the cat unless she takes a break on that whole licking herself thing. Who just licks themself?!” He saw her continue to smirk. “Fine. Hope that flea bag likes a hose.”

She leaned in. “For how long are you going to follow her, Cagney? She’s obviously not interested in you. Just last night, my workers saw Beppi going to Hilda’s place, and this morning they were leaving together. It doesn’t take a genius to see they spent the night together.” She paid attention to his reaction. Hopefully that would be enough to dissuade him from helping her.

He calmed down as she continued to speak about Hilda. The flower was starting to feel his resolve shake as Rumor continued to point out the glaring flaws in his relationship with Hilda. He thought back to the night of the date, where Hilda admitted she was jealous. It was only then that things progressed further, only for her to practically mock him mid coitus about the likelihood of a romantic future between them..

The thing with Beppi made him break out into a wide smile. “Now as far as Beppi goes, I actually had him go to Hilda. He’s supposed to keep her somewhat sane or at least give her some relief if she snaps and has to attack someone!” The carnation chuckled. “So unless you got something else about those two I’m not aware of, I can tackle thing that cleaning stuff!”

'Dang, that last one backfired.’ The Queen thought to herself. She couldn’t believe what he was willing to do for that manipulative bit~witch. Time to get out the big guns. She would present him with an indecent proposition. One he would definitely refuse, and the deal would be off.

She slid onto her desk, getting closer to the carnation, with a malicious smile and hungry eyes. “Well aren’t you sweet? Worrying so much for somebody who only cares about you when boredom strikes. It warms my heart.” She put a hand on her chest. “I’ll help you, Cagney., IF you can meet all my demands: triple your pollen supply, public service hours until you pay your debt, and… .” She drew closer to his face. “Satisfy me,” she almost whispered. “Make me feel the biggest, most intense orgasm of my life.” It was really hard to keep a straight face saying this, but she was confident he would run out that door as soon as he processed the info.

Cagney nodded at the first two requirements. Although they would suck, it was something he ultimately would be able to pull off. Granted, not without a lot of pent-up rage, but it was technically doable.

“How long do I have to triple…?” Rumor’s last demand hit him right in the chest and his jaw dropped. “Wait, what?! Is that a joke?” He stammered. There was no way she was serious. He looked at closer and nervously chuckled. “Y-you’re screwing with me right now, right?”

The Queen smirked at him. Her plan worked. “I guess there’s no deal then. Hilda will have to find another puppet~way! Another WAY to finance her observatory! It has been nice seeing you, Cagney. You can use the guest rooms bathroom to clean up before you leave,” she said, extending a hand, showing the door.

That puppet comment really stung and he felt a few thorns slip out. He wasn’t a puppet. This was HIS idea to make up for what he and the universe had accidentally done to destroy her life. And it’s not like Rumor wasn’t attractive or nuthin.

He could have slapped himself. No, what was he thinking?! He couldn’t do that to Hilda…could he? She would never want anything more than a friendship with him if she saw he would stoop this low to even considering sleeping with the royal Queen. It was pretty much cheating-If they actually had a relationship and a mutual attraction, he realized.

Rumor’s words made him angry, sure, but they were starting to feel true the longer she looked at him. Hilda wouldn’t have even gone as far as she did on their date night if she hadn’t been jealous of Isabella. And when they actually were having sex, the way she emphasized that this was a one-time thing, to enjoy it while he could, it made him feel kind of like a dog getting a treat for “being a good boy.”

Yet, despite all of that, he was still crushing on her. It was kind of pathetic. And one of the things he wanted most was for her to be happy…and maybe fall down the stairs of her repaired observatory while he got to watch. That would be pretty fucking funny. Plus, this might be one of the few things he would have to do that could be enjoyable, he noted, checking out Rumor’s thick but curvaceous frame.

Cagney leaned back in his chair, looking disinterested despite the fact he was freaking out. “I was just wondering if you were joking because you only wanted ONE, but I guess not. Haven’t had anyone take care of you in a while, huh?” he scoffed, trying to appear fine with this.

The Queen blushed and blinked in surprise. “E-excuse me?” As a proud Queen, she never showed weakness to the lower class, so she immediately recovered from the unexpected answer, clearing her throat.

“My personal life it’s none of your bees wax!!” She was really bothered by his comment, not because it was rude, but because it was true. It was hard to find time for that when you had a hive of incompetents to run. “And I have to warn you, I’m very hard to please!” She declared proudly. “Are you really that confident in your skills that you think you can satisfy a Queen?” She was full of royal confidence. He wasn’t talking seriously… was he? Her inner teenager secretly hoped he was.

He caught sight of her brief weakness and realized he had a shot. He grinned, his teeth a bit sharper. “Why don’t I go clean this stuff off and then you can show me how to make a bee buzz?” He said, gesturing to the royal jelly still coating his body.

Cagney was already very nice to look at, but covered in royal jelly really made the Queen melt. She felt the familiar tingling sensation between her thighs, and bit her lip to not lose it and jump on him. She had to stay strong. He was bluffing! He was in love with the blimp, he wasn’t gonna go through with this. He was obviously testing her.

She pointed at her chamber’s door on the side of the office with a shaky hand. “T-there’s a shower in my chambers…” She tried to keep her confidence but the view of the honey dripping from the carnation’s petals made it very difficult and her voice came out as shaky as her hand.

Her voice continuing to waver, spurred him on in this show of bravado. He took her hand that was pointing to her chambers, letting a few drops of honey fall on her fingers before wrapping his tongue around them and and sucking the honey off them slowly.

Only once he was done did he wink at her. “Can you show me where that is exactly?”

Rumor was as red as a tomato. The tingling feeling was now a bell sending waves all throughout her body. Her brain was no longer in control of her body and, as if it was an order, she took Cagney to her room without letting go of his hand.

To the surprise of the carnation, the room was a beautiful Arabian garden. Soft grass covered the floor, small bushes and flowers were carefully planted to create a harmony. And in the middle of the room, right in front of a gorgeous, curtain covered bed, was a fountain, set on floor level, as big as a small pond, filled with crystal water and lotus flowers.

'Cagney Carnation is in my room! OMG OMG OMG!’ Rumor’s teenage girl was yelling like a fan girl inside her head. With an even more shaky hand, she pointed at the fountain in the middle of the room to show the flower where he could clean himself.

Cagney was impressed by the state of the garden. It was beautifully well-maintained and as his leafed feet touched the soil, his petals flared happily. The city was no place for a big flower so it was indeed a welcome surprise to be brought here. There’s was only so much his body was capable of without access to the soil, but this would do just nicely for what he had in mind.

He looked eagerly at the waterfall. He was pretty dehydrated from picking fights in ports and getting arrested. He glanced at Rumor. “You planning on watching me while I wash off?”

Cagney’s question brought Rumor back from her thoughts. She let go of his hand and she shook her head. “Oh!” She thought this might just be part of his game. He knew she was bluffing so he was testing how far she was willing to go. 'Ok, the finger licking was very convincing, but he won’t dare to bath in front of me’. She thought eyeing the flower.

“This ARE my chambers, Cagney. No-one is in here unless I’m present.” She said with a bit more confidence, crossing her arms.

Cagney shrugged. “All right, fine by me.”

Considering he was already naked, he was hardly fazed when he entered the fountain in front of the Queen bee, rinsing himself. That honey stuff was sticky, but he was able to eventually scrape it off. He finished his wash, taking a long drink from the fountain, before stepping out and shaking himself dry.

He gave her a sly grin. “So, got anything you don’t want me to do? I know it might be hard to think about if you haven’t done it in forever, but just thought I’d ask.”

Although it wasn’t very sensual, the Queen still enjoyed watching him scrub the sticky substance from his sturdy stem and delicate petals, although she didn’t like at all when he dried himself like a dog, splashing her royal clothes. She wiped some drops from her face and looked at Cagney angrily. He was having a blast, she thought, humiliating her like this. She was a Queen and he acted and spoke to her like she was a nobody!

'Why do I find that so attractive?’ She couldn’t help ask herself, blushing with both embarrassment and anger at the flower’s comment.

“Very nice of you….” She replied angrily. “Number one: you will obey me. When I tell you to stop, you WILL stop. This shouldn’t be a problem, since you have a lot of practice following Miss Berg’s orders.” She grinned. Maybe she could rile him up enough to make him drop his act.

Cagney humorlessly chuckled and approached her until he was to his full height over her, prompting her to step back. “Heh, do you know why she calls me a stubborn weed?” He asked as he rooted himself. Before she could respond, he had wrapped an arm around her and drew her against his rough stem. “Because I ain’t good at following orders.” And with that, his mouth crashed against hers with a quiet growl.

Rumor buzzed her wings in surprise, trying to get out of his grip. Since she couldn’t release her arm to slap him, she kicked him on the bottom of his stem, making the flower release her mouth but not his grip. “How dare you!?” She yelled, even though she found this very arousing, “I could have you killed for this!”

Cagney hissed painfully at the unexpected kick. He glared at her and let her go. “Okay, YOUR MAJESTY,” he grumbled, “What do you want me to do?”

She rubbed her arms where Cagney held her and stepped back. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest, she never felt like this before…being handled roughly, getting a kiss stolen… Adrenaline and arousal was rushing through her body, clouding her judgment.

Still, lingering doubts continued to ebb at her and she stared at him, confused. “You really would sleep with me just to help her? Do you even like me!?”

“Of course I don-” Cagney stopped mid-speech. If he told Rumor he didn’t like her like THAT, then what would happen? That would probably crush her. She’d kick him out and then the observatory might be forever domeless. If Rumor didn’t go on a murder sting spree. So Cagney decided to rethink his previous outburst.

Rumor was hot. Flowers naturally found bees attractive, so that wasn’t the issue. Cagney decided to go with that. “Of course I don’t-wouldn’t do it for that! I like you,” he explained. Besides, he’s thought, as he waited for her response, there’s no way that Rumor actually liked him like that or something. This just had to be one of those weird royal power things monarchies did.

“Y-you do?” The bee gave him an skeptical look. “You…find me attractive?” She needed to hear it again, even if he was lying. It felt really good to hear him say it. She had waited for so long to hear him say something like that to her.

Ah, he smiled, now that one he could definitely answer (fairly) truthfully. “You’re pretty hot,” he reassured her, wrapping a leaf around her waist and drawing her close to him again to emphasize the point, “Ya know, when you’re not hitting me,” he added.

Rumor’s wings buzzed at the touch, but this time she didn’t fight back, allowing him to pull her closer. She was still unsure as she studied him. Her bee vision allowed her to see the special UV markings in his petals, inviting her to get even closer to him. This, combined with his sassy personality, made him irresistible to her. She couldn’t hold it any longer. If she didn’t do anything now, she would forever regret it.

She gently pulled his petals and kissed him passionately. “Oh, Cagney! I’ve been wanting this for sooo long!” She kept kissing him and caressed the sensitive spots on his petals.

A warning bell went off in his head at those words but he quickly theorized she was referring to sex. His mind went blank and couldn’t stifle the pleasured groan that fell from him as she petted the sensitive parts of his petals.

The bee knew exactly where to touch and very soon he found himself wriggling needfully against her. His hands stumbled, trying to find a sensitive spot on Rumor’s chest before he just ran his long tongue along the sides of her neck.

The bee moaned between his arms, surrendering completely to his touch. To help him out, she unbuttoned her striped dress, exposing her generous bosom. She pressed herself more against him, enjoying the attention the tongue was giving her, and lowering her hand to caress his stem. “What do you like about me?” She managed to ask, blushing heavily and petting his sensitive spots, as if she was trying to motivate his answer.

Cagney tried not to pant but Rumor was too determined in her attentions that the carnation could only hang his head. He realized she had partially disrobed, and quickly seized upon her chest, kneading the thick skin between his fingers. “Well, definitely this,” he lewdly purred, nipping down her neck toward her chest.

A shy smile showed in the Queen’s face. She pet his petals again while he was working his way to her chest, and noticed something sticky. “Looks like you missed a spot,” She gently pushed his head to her level and slowly licked the honey.

“Holy shit!” He exclaimed as her tongue lapped at the leftover honey on his chest. He instinctively started to wrap around her but quickly pulled back. He bit his lip trying to reset his brain and decided to play along with what Rumor had started earlier. “Now what part of this old flower do YOU find attractive?” He teased, sliding a hand down the side of her waist.

The bee smiled maliciously. “All of you!” She groaned and pushed the carnation pinning him on the grass, sitting on his very sensitive spot, her hands pressing him down on his shoulders. She rubbed against him and kissed him passionately, looking for his tongue with her own.

It was a bit strange. He had just been in this position with Hilda not even a week ago. The memory of the woman moaning on top of him sent his piece slipping out. It nudged against Rumor’s entrance as she ground against him but he wasn’t able to stick it anywhere. He desperately bucked against her but she held him down pretty well. That bee was stronger than he remembered. His eyes darted around, realizing they were on soil and his fingers started to dig into the dirt.

Rumor noticed Cagney’s eagerness to go further and she broke the kiss to quickly remove her bloomers, for she was just as eager as him. She went back to be on top of him, but when she felt the carnation’s piece poking at her entrance, she stopped.

She had waited for this moment for so long, she wanted to savor every second of it. She looked directly into the flower’s eyes, radiant with confidence, and gave him a mischievous smile while she slowly allowed his entrance inside her. She moaned softly at the sensation, delighting herself at the expression of the flower underneath her. Finally, he was hers.

The flower really dug his fingers into the ground as his piece was surrounded by her tight, hot womanhood. He never stuck his dick in a warm honeycomb before, but he imagined it would feel just like this. His tongue lolled out as he groaned and squirmed, “Hil-holy shit,” he finally managed, nearly blurting out something else instead. “Rumor, you’re so tight!” He panted.

She bit her lip and kept grinding him very softly, letting him reach the bottom of her honeycomb before pulling him away from it. She leaned over Cagney and used her tongue to play with his, tasting his sweet flowery saliva, ending in a wet, sensual kiss.

It was one thing to roughly kiss, it was another to do it sensually. Cagney wasn’t sure what Rumor’s sexual history had been, but her kissing was almost seeming like that of a lover and not that of one needing a rough screw. She kept teasing him below, never letting him remain hilted for more than a few seconds at a time. Her dangling her sex just above his tip, leaving him to go nearly crazy trying to put some friction on his piece once more – it was too much.

He could feel himself wanting to grow and take control, but he remembered what happened when he tried to do that in the beginning, so he let Rumor set the pace.

Gradually, she ended the kiss. She stopped grinding him and fully sat upon on him again, feeling his manhood reaching that particular extra sensitive spot, and releasing a moan of pleasure. She then moved up and down his piece, still taking her time, caressing his chest and enjoying every single one of his groans. “Do you like it like this?” She asked, softly.

He almost didn’t hear her gentle, quiet question. “Yeah, this feels pretty good, but I thought you said that you wanted ME to give you the best orgasm of your life?” One of his vines had sprouted from the dirt and slowly curled around her waist.

“Alright,” she moaned, deciding to follow his game, “show me what you can do.“ She smiled, pulling him almost out of her, but she kept playing with the tip, letting it inside and out very gently while caressing the flower’s vine around her.

Cagney grinned maliciously as she granted him permission. "Good to hear,” he chuckled, clenching his fingers. The other vines that have been quietly growing underground broke through the soil and seized Rumor, pinning her arms to her sides. Before the bee could react, she was jerked up into the air off of Cagney until she was suspended slightly above his level. The vines around her arms continued to grow, fondling the tips of her breasts as more began to press and remove whatever clothes were left on the bee.

Rumor gasped, surprised by Cagney’s sudden movements. She instinctively buzzed her wings to release herself, but the vines got her tied up real neatly and in a matter of seconds, she was completely immobilized in the air. She blushed heavily, embarrassed of being handled like a fly on a spider web, fully naked in front of her high school crush.

The carnation smirked and closed the gap between them once more. Before she could protest, he wet one of his long fingers and inserted it inside her, massaging and fingering her inner folds and playing with her clitoris with his thumb.

This should be humiliating for her, for no-one has ever dared to treat her with nothing else but full respect and submission to her. However, she couldn’t help but feel excited about it, especially since it was Cagney doing all these things to her. She moaned softly at the carnation’s gentle touches.

The fact that the Queen bee was moaning and not trying to actively murder him was a good sign. He removed his finger only to stick in two this time. He scissored them inside of her and kissed her again, savoring her the taste.

The Queen was living a dream. How many times had she fantasized about being this intimate with Cagney Carnation? Way, WAY too many. When he kissed her, savoring her mouth, while fingering her, she returned the gesture making the kissing more intense. If this was another dream, she never wanted to wake up.

There was something very alluring about Rumor. Maybe it was because she was a bee and there was that natural attraction between flowers and bees. He could only imagine it would be even more pronounced due to her being a Queen. Whatever it was, it was intoxicating and he lifted her higher into the air, removing both of his fingers. His tongue darted out and started circling the sensitive flesh before plunging in and wriggling inside her, stroking and poking all the sensitive spots

She groaned softly as he lifted her up, sorry for breaking the kiss, but immediately recovered at the feeling of the flower’s tongue filling her very wet womanhood. “Oh my God, Cagney! W-what are you doing to me?” She blushed and panted heavily, enjoying every wave of pleasure that the carnation’s oral stimulation was providing for her.

Cagney drank heavily of her essence, pulling her thick body against his mouth so he could reach deep inside. He shut his eyes, blissfully taking in his partner. He ran his hands along her sides, continuing to press needfully into them, imagining if he continued to rub down, he could pull apart her thin pink legs…

Wait, no. Rumor wasn’t pink. Where did that come from? His mind started to clear as he remembered a few bits until Rumor panted his name. At the sound of his name, he could feel his penis twitch and ache. He lost focus as he spotted the bed and his hormones spurred him forward. He carried his insect companion to the bed before releasing her, dropping her on back on her bed.

He loomed over her. “Are you ready?”

Rumor was absolutely delirious, such boldness in his actions and yet, so tender, so intense! Her entire body was burning her, asking for more of the sweet touches of the flower. For her, this was more than just a natural attraction. This had to be love, or at least something really close to it.

She was panting heavily when Cagney asked her the question. She nodded and spread her legs to accommodate him.

Cagney pressed down on her and slid his piece inside her in one smooth motion. He lewdly groaned as he began to pump into her, slowly at first. He badly needed the friction. He was so pent up from…from…huh, why was he so pent up? He tried to shoo the thought away as he concentrated on screwing his companion. He shut his eyes again, increasing his speed, listening to her squealing for more.

He ran his lips along where her ears would be, hoping to catch the scent of rain but it was only an overpowering sickly sweet small that invaded his nostrils and made his mind all muddled. God, how long had he wanted to satisfy the stubborn woman? He leaned down and lavished kisses against her neck and her breasts which were no longer covered up by her red dress. Every moan sent a thrill up his stem.

He could feel his vines wrapping around her wrists, pinning her down. He was confused to find the wrists bare. Where were her bangles? Didn’t she always wear bangles? She wore the bangles the last time they were in this position. Yes he was sure of it. He saw the glint of them, even with Hilda goading him on as he made love to her.

His eyes shot open and looked down. This was not Hilda. This was Rumor. Oh my God, what was he doing? Her bee pheromones tickled his senses and he tried to resist. Mentally, at least. Physically he was still plunging deep within the squealing member of royalty, twisting and pulling at her chest.

Hilda, Hilda would be crushed by this? Right? It was so hard to think. He could remember her words that night, telling him they would return to being friends, so this should be fine, right? Why did he suddenly feel so guilty? And why did he keep hoping that when he shut his eyes again, he would open them to the vision of his feisty best friend calling out for him?

He was doing this for her. For Hilda. To fix everything and oh holy crap, Rumor knew exactly where to touch. He stifled a squeal of his own and increased his speed, his libido fighting whatever conscious thought he still possessed.

“Ah! Yes, Cagney! Oh please, give me more!” Rumor groaned out loud moving her hips to accompany his thrusting. This was amazing for her, the pleasure she got from all the roughness, being tied up in her royal bed, as he had his way with her! And those beautiful petals brushing against her skin, sending chills to her boiling body.

The closer she drew to her orgasm, the deeper she let the carnation go. Her voice increased in pitch, the deeper he plunged. This was even better than what she ever could ever imagine. She didn’t want to ever be apart from him.

Cagney could feel himself reaching his limits and with that, all his frustrating and complicated feelings about this situation were driving him insane. He swore he was with Hilda one minute and the next with Rumor. And every time it switched back to the bee, he couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of bitterness at that, despite reminding himself that was all okay. His body was certainly fine with it and he continued to moan and pant lewdly with each stroke. No wonder flowers spoke almost religiously about their sexual experiences with a bee. It was incredible!!

But when it changed to Hilda, it was an emotional euphoria. He didn’t care about trying to fix the dome, nor catching the dragon anymore. He just wanted to grab the small woman tightly and never let her go. With this was all over, he’d take her on a real date, under the stars where they could just be alone. No one for her to be jealous of, just them so he could finally ask her how she really felt.

He felt the woman underneath him let out a particularly throaty cry and her vaginal walls clamped down on him, blowing his mind with how good everything felt. The muscle contractions sent the emotional carnation over the edge and he moaned out the woman’s name as he spilled his load into Rumor. A sense of immense relief and gratification filled the flower and he could have collapsed in delicious satisfaction if he wasn’t holding himself up. In fact, it would have been perfect, so perfect except for one tiny little detail…

The name he called out didn’t belong to Rumor.

Rumor looked at the carnation with wide eyes, not able to believe what just happen….

The next thing he knew, Cagney was violently thrown back to the cage by a group of guard bees, with a bucket of soaped water and a sponge.

“And after you’re done here, you will take care of your sticky friend there.” The guard bee pointed at Amber as he locked the cage and left.

The old bee looked curious at the confused flower. “Hehe, I see you’ve reached an understanding.” He chuckled.

Amber made direct eye contact with the old bee as she licked her inner thigh, forcing him to look away. She stopped licking and looked over at the bewildered flower. “If you try to even get anywhere close to me with that bucket of water, you’re dead.” She sniffed the air. “…and why the hell do you smell like sex?“

Cagney groaned and buried his head.

—————————————

Rumor was sitting on her bed facing the fountain. Still in that bitter afterglow from her climax. Her eyes were glassy and she had to do a huge effort not to let the tears fall.

He was in love with that blimp, and there was nothing she could do about it.

… Or was there?

She reached for her spellbook at her desk and started looking for more deadlier curses to throw at the sky witch. And maybe a little something to help clear the carnation’s mind and allow him to see that the one for him, was the Queen bee.

—————————————

After making sure there was nothing else they could recover from the observatory’s destroyed exposition room, Hilda decided it was time to clear the place. And for that, she had to go to the city’s junkyard.

Dr. Kahl, Inkwell’s mad scientist, was the owner. He had bought the place to guarantee access to materials and have all the space he needed for his crazy inventions, such as giant robots with a particular taste for bubblegum.

The scientist was usually friendly (in a creepy way sometimes). There was only one individual that could set the doctor off and that would be his rival, Werner Werman. The rat mechanic always tried to sneak into the junkyard to get free materials for his weapons and machines, and Kahl always tried to prevent him from doing so by inventing creative and deadly traps.

Today it looked like Dr Kahl was having a nice day. When Hilda and Beppi landed near him, they could hear him chuckle and rubbing his hands excited. "Hi, Dr Kahl! Is this a good time?” Hilda asked, making the cloud disappeared before the clown could get off, making him fall with a thud.

“Oh! Ja! You’re chust in time to zee mein latest creazion!” The scientist pulled out a remote control in his hands. Hilda stared raising an eyebrow, hoping that her expression would let him know she needed more explaining.

“It’s a trap! Zat rat vill haffe no chance next time he decites to schow his filthy tail arround my bropriety!” . The doctor clarified. He pressed some controls and a chihuahua shaped robot dog walked towards them.

“BARK, BARK. IM ROBODOG 0.1. I AM PROTECTOR OF DR Kahl’S JUNKYARD. IDENTIFY YOURSELVES, OR YOU WILL BE OBLITERATED. BARK BARK.”

Hilda looked at it skeptical and a bit scared that it might actually blow in their faces, for it kept making a buzzing noise, as if something wasn’t connected right inside. “That is… something. Uh, it’s not gonna kill us though…right? You have the remote? Doctor?” The dog deployed a gun from its tiny back.

“BARK, BARK. IM ROBODOG 0.1. I AM PROTECTOR OF DR Kahl’S JUNKYARD. IDENTIFY YOURSELVES, OR YOU WILL BE OBLITERATED. BARK BARK.”

“Don’t vorry! I kot zis!” Kahl started to press buttons trying to find the right combination to make it stop.

Beppi whistled and slowly backed up, gently tugging Hilda along with him. “I’m sure it’s going to be fine.” Hilda looked at him. “Probably.”

“Vat a joke!”

The bosses all jumped at the sound of clunky metallic crunching. Werner Werman, the scrap metal progeny, marched toward them proudly. He was followed closely by a large metallic cat. He looked at the dog and laughed.

“Ha! You zink your zecond rate hunk of mismatched vires und lasy zoltering is not effen vorth to look ubon mein ovn masderbiece. Arh ! PattleCat 0.2!” He announced, gesturing to the large, very deadly robotic cat.

Beppi continued to whistle and hide behind Hilda.

“Ha! You und your zilly opzezion vith giant cats!” Dr Kahl laughed. “Is not zee zise dat matders is vat you can do vith it dat’s imbortant!”

“Weeell… they all say that….” Hilda chuckled remembering Cagney last sleep over.

Dr Kahl didn’t pay attention to the woman or the clown, and pressed a big red button in his remote. “Ropotog 0.1! Schow dis apominazion of a cat vat you can do! Inidiate brodocol 'Get out of mein broperty’!”

The mini dog started to vibrate violently and the gun on its back returned to its place. The sound of an engine came from the little robot’s rear, and with a huge flame, it rocketed towards the cat.

Werner lit his cigar and pressed his button. “Pattle Cat! Initiate brodocol 'Broof of mein Zuberior Intellect, you hack!’” The rat saluted the cat as the tail turned into a rocket and the robot launched itself toward the dog.

The two mechanical monsters collided with each other, both openly firing weapons as the scientists shouted commands with their very thick German accents. Ammunition ricocheted off the various objects in the scrap yard. Sprockets and springs flew in all directions.

Beppi very slowly shoveled popcorn into his mouth while he watched the battle, offering some to Hilda who just seemed equally stunned or annoyed. It was hard to tell with Hilda sometimes.

The woman smiled and took some of the popcorn the clown was offering her without looking away.

It didn’t take long for the fight to escalate causing a fire to start from an exposed wire. A few more punches and with a colorful explosion, the robots where completely destroyed.

“Nein! Robodog 0.1! You killed it! You filthy, yunk schtealing rat!” The scientist threw the remote aiming for Werner’s head.

The remote clunked the rat on the helmet and Werner turned on the scientist, equally indignant. “Pattlecat vas ein marffel of science und your clunky mechanical mongrel ruined it!” He chucked the remote at Dr. Kahl. It hit the ground and shattering into a bunch of pieces at his feet, leading the rat to yell angrily and charge the scientist with a flurry of swears.

The doctor did the same as his rival and charged waving his fist hoping to hit the rat. Hilda couldn’t help but chuckle at some of the German insults she understood.

“Five more minutes and then we should probably do something before they actually hurt eachother.” The woman said to Beppi, eating more popcorn.

“I really wish I was selling tickets,” Beppi sighed.

The scientists had resorted to flimsily slapping at each other, their limited physical prowess not allowing them to actually land any effective blows on each other.

It was a few more minutes before Beppi showed Hilda an empty bag. “Ran out of popcorn. Think we should stop them?”

“Yeah… I guess….” She sighed getting close to the men. “Alright! Alright! You’re both beautiful ladies, now break it off!” She got between them and easily pushed them from each other, making them stumble and almost fell down. “Oops! Sorry.” She apologized.

“Ouch! Miss Berg! No need to get fiolent!” Dr Kahl rubbed his chest where she pushed him. Hilda rolled rolled her eyes.

“Ja! Ve are chust haffing ein intelligent discuzion!” Werner whined.

Beppi grinned. “I know, right? She can be quite a handful these days!”

“Oh! You bunch of sissies… .” She crossed her arms. “And YOU….” She said looking at Beppi. “If I’m such a handful, you’re more than welcome to go back to your circus!”

Beppi shook his head. “Nah, this is way more fun! Hanging out with a woman like you can really make a clown’s balloon pop, if you know what I mean.”

“Vat does he mean?” Werner asked, cocking his head.

Hilda’s eye twitched in disgust for the clown’s comment, and decided not to ask what he actually meant.

“Don’t mind him! I’m here cause I need to get rid of some debris at my observatory. Are… any of you free this week to come pick it up?”

Dr Kahl rubbed his hands anxiously. “Uh! Vhat kind of debree are ve tahlkin about? Old delescopes? Avstral measurements ardifacs?”

“Yeah…” she replied a bit sad. “All that and some big rocks.”

“Uuuh!!!” Kahl tried hard to contain his happiness.

Werner shoved Dr. Kahl aside and cleared his throat. “Hilda, pleaze bermit me zee honor of helbing you manage und clean up your opzerffadory! Dr. Kahl here vouldn’t know zee first zing apout astronomical deffices!” The rat boasted.

Beppi slowly pulled out another bag of popcorn.

Hilda rubbed her chin feeling an idea forming inside her head. At that second, her cap lit up like a  light bulb.

“What the~?” She gasped turning around. Beppi had pulled an imaginary cord, as if he was turning on a lamp. Hilda rolled her eyes and pushed him away, her cap turning back off. “Well, I guess I’ll have to pick one of you, huh? If only there was a way to see who’s the best for the job….”

Kahl’s eyes shined, he adjusted his googles. “If you chooze me I’ll giffe you ein 50% discount!”

“His zerffices aren’t effen vorth zat much. Arh ! Chooze me und I vill help you repuild zee opzerffadory valls!” Werner protested.

Beppi nudged Hilda. “Are we bidding or are they bidding?”

Hilda smiled at the clown and gave him a knowing look before returning to the scientist. “Wow! Werner, that’’s an offer really hard to deny….” She look at Dr Kahl waiting for his offer.

The doctor looked nervous. “oh! Uh… I’ll… I… Uh… I von’t only help you repuild it, I’ll get you ein new telescobe! Ein more boverful one!”

Hilda open her eyes wide. “Wow! Really? Those things are expensive….”

“Ja, ja! Don’t worry! I can build one.” Kahl said confident, glancing at his rival over the shoulder.

Werner glared at the scientist. “Ja, ja zat’s all vell und kood put how do you blan to atdach zee combonent to sdudy zee cosmic lights?! You vould need at least tvo beople of intelligence to effen azemple zee biece much less atdach it!”

Kahl cleaned his glasses, mumbling something to himself. He hated it to admit it, but his rival was right, it did required intelligent people to build such a precision instrument.

Hilda noticed the doctor hesitate and decided to give it a little push. “Well, Dr. Kahl, do you know any 'intelligent berson’ that might be able to help you?” She mocked a bit, mimicking Werman’s accent.

The professor put his glasses back on and crossed his arms. “Hm… zee only mind dat bearly gets cloze to mine… is zis rat here. Arh ! Put I refuze to vork vith him !” He immediately added.

“Aw… that’s too bad… so I guess the best offer is Mr Wermer’s, then.” Hilda extended her hand to shake Werner and close the deal, but Dr. Kahl jumped between them.

“NEIN! Nein! Vait! I… eh… we… argh!” He turned to the rat. “I bropose a truse, rat… vork togeder and split the brofits.. and den back to distroy each odher.”

Hilda smirked discreetly.

Werner huffed. “I zuboze, put only to vork tovard ein common interest. Arh ! Put afdervards, svorn enemies! Understand?” The rat held out a hand only to withdraw it quickly and remove the shocking trap that was attached to the underside of his paw. “Zorry, zorry, force of hapit,” he grumbled. He held out his hand again. “Deal?”

The doctor frowned and looked at his hand untrusting for a second, but finally , he shook it. “Deal.”

“Great! So, you will get rid of the debris, knock of 50% of the price, and get me a brand new telescope for free.” She recapitulated with a big smile. “You guys are hired! When can you start?”

"I can pe zere tomorrow. 10am,” Werner bragged.

“Oh, great! I’ll b~.”

“I’ll be dhere at 9!” Dr Kahl said looking at Werner as if he wasn’t done fighting yet, interrupting Hilda

Beppi clapped his hands. “That sounds-!”

“Nein!” Werner paused. “Eh, wait, I’ll be dhere at 8:30!”

“Uh….” Hilda look at them, starting to get a bit worried.

“I’ll ve dhere at 8!” Dr Kahl yelled facing the mechanic.

“Ok! You guys… just… be there at 9:15! There. Nobody wins.” She said, hoping to settle the matter with a stomp of her foot. At that moment, moved by a strong wind, a small cog started roll down one of the junk mountains around them, creating a domino effect ending into a huge ball of mechanical junk about to crash Hilda.

An exclamation mark appeared over the clown’s head at the sound of something crunching. He spotted the pile of junk precariously falling toward an exasperated but unaware Hilda. Before the pile could crush her, he tackled the irate woman out of the way.

Everything hit the ground with a loud smash, sending parts and pieces flying everywhere. Werner and Kahl stopped arguing and stared in complete surprise.

“Scheisse! Fraulein! Idiot! Are you okay?” Werner yelled, scurrying over.

It took a minute for Hilda to realize what just happened as she shook her head on the floor. But when she did, her reaction was quick. “Oh my God! BEPPI!?” She immediately ran towards the pile of junk, turning into Sagittarius and lifting the heavy scraps.

With a gasp, Dr Kahl quickly reached for another remote from his lab coat and seconds later a few human size robots got close to them and begun to help Hilda remove the junk.

“Beppi! Zay somedhing!” The doctor started calling while helping everyone.

More of the debris was lifted and lying on the ground relatively unharmed looking was a halfway covered Beppi. He shook his head a bit disoriented and blinked as he looked up at the other bosses. “Oh hey guys! Did you like my smashing rescue?”

As of the last of the debris was lifted, the group’s faces went from relieved to shocked. Beppi raised an eyebrow. “What? You don’t like my junky jokes?”

Werner pointed. “Your legs, Beppi, they’re gone!”

The clown turned his head around to see his legs completely deflated. “Huh.” He nudged the astounded rat. “See? Whaddya I tell ya? Women like Hilda really make my balloon pop!”

Hilda returned to her normal form and gasped. “Oh my God, Beppi! I-I’m so sorry! Your legs! Can you move them?” Even though Beppi wasn’t always the best company, she cared about him enough to worry. Plus, he just saved her!

Beppi made an attempt to move and shook his head. “Nope! Better tie a string to me before I accidenally float away!” He lamented, sitting up and holding a deflated foot sadly.

Dr Kahl looked thoughtfully at the collapsed mountain. “Dhis is very odd… I allvays make sure to keep my mountains sturdy prezicely to prevent dhis.” He turned angry at Werner and poked his chest. “Is dhis your doing?”

Werner narrowed his eyes. “Mein fault?! Your schoddy sdacking apilities are to plame for zis! You could haffe crusched us all, you girnverweigerer!” The rat argued, slapping away the finger and shaking a fist at the scientist.

Hilda raised an eyebrow and looked at her amulet ring. Could it be that she was actually cursed and the ring prevented her from getting harmed? Nah, she was just reading into things. This was a junk yard with skyscrapers of debris. Of course it was only a matter of time before something like this could have happened.

The woman rolled her eyes hearing the inventors starting to argue again. She cast a cloud and helped the clown to get on it. “I’ll take you to the hospit-wait! You don’t have bones….” She looked at his deflated legs, feeling very guilty. “How are you supposed to recover? Like, should I get an air pump? I have one at home.”

——

“Clowns are very special creatures!” Beppi explained as he finished wiggling up on her couch. “They thrive on happy, positive emotions like laughter and love! That’s why you always see them at circuses! All that togetherness keeps them healthy as a horse!”

“I’d normally just go to the circus and get better but I can’t go looking like this! I’d SCARE everyone. That type of negative energy could kill me!” Beppi explained, hanging his head sadly. “I’m afraid I’m stuck like this unless someone starts treating with me lots of love and kindness…”

'He’s gonna die for sure’ Taurus voice echoed in Hilda’s head, making her smile.

“I see…well…I’ll do my best then.” She accommodated some more pillows around him. “You wan’t a nice cup of tea? hot coco?” She tried to sound nicer that usual.

Beppi brightened up. “You know what would really brighten my buttons? If you sat next to me for a bit!” He exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Maybe being close to someone as nice as you would make me feel better in no time!”

The woman skeptical look at the clown and crossed her arms. “Argh… fine.” She finally accepted and sat carefully next to him. “But I warn you! No funny business.”

“Not even a knock-knock joke?” He asked hopefully. The look she gave him made him sigh.

“Oh alright. How about some serious business?” The clown faced her and batted long eyelashes at her. “Have you ever been in love before?” He dreaming asked.

“What!? N-no… never… no-one is good enough for me.” She crossed her arms and avoided the clown’s eyes. She could hear Gemini giggling.

The woman blushed.

Beppi gasped loudly. “No one?! Never?! That’s terrible! Ohhh, I feel myself getting weaker just thinking about it!” He moaned, starting to sink into the couch.

“Wha-!? Nononono!” She tried to sit him up normally again. “Fine! I’m in love! Just don’t die on my couch!” She opened her eyes widely, realizing what she just said. “I mean I’ve BEEN in love, I’m not in love right now!” She kept turning into a deeper shade of red. Gemini was having a lot of fun. “I was in love, and now I’m not.” She felt like she had to clarify further.

Beppi wiped his brow, “Whew! That was a close one! Thought I saw my life flashing before my eyes there!” He wrapped his arms around Hilda in a gentle hug and pressed his face against her shoulder. “Tell me how you two met! Was it magical? Were there birds singing and flowers blooming?”

Hilda didn’t appreciate the hug, but she felt compelled to indulge him after he saved her from getting smashed. She sighed. “Yes to all that. It was sunny, and flowers were blooming too. Happiest moment in my life.” She truly hoped her answer would satisfy the clown.

She did, however, started thinking about her feelings for Cagney. What was going on between them?  Was it simple sexual tension build up or was it something more?

Beppi nestled in closer. “Oh that makes me feel much better. But why aren’t you two together still?”

Hilda got lost in her thoughts and actually answered the clown sincerely. “Because it’s weird! We’ve been together since we were kids and, well, we know everything about each other, the good and the bad! We know how to get on each others’ nerves.” She chuckled. “We always have a good time together, even when we fight.“ She made a pause there. It felt good to say all this out loud, but she quickly realized she wasn’t alone with her twelve constellations. "But like a said! I’m not in love, I used to be, and the feeling is gone and…” She stood up nervously. “I’m gonna make some tea, you want some tea? I’m gonna make tea.”

Beppi was a bit surprised by the honest answer and let her get up without realizing he had done so until she was standing and offering him tea. Oh well. Time to make the best out of losing his cautionary cuddle companion. “That sounds nice! Can I have a lot sugar in mine, pretty please? And anything else sweet you have!” Beppi asked.

“Sure!” Hilda quickly walked to the kitchen and prepared the pot to heat the water. She reached to the closet to pick up the sugar and honey, but she couldn’t reach for the second item. She remembered the last one to use it was Cagney, and she rolled her eyes with a smile, reaching for a chair.

Cagney always took opportunities to make fun her, even when he wasn’t there. One of his favorite ways was to put her stuff in high places to make fun of her height, making her realize that, without her powers or furniture to climb on, she was just a tiny person. He found that adorably hilarious to imagine a great sky witch asking for help anytime she needed to reach for something.

“I bet he even closed the lid tighter, that dumb dandelion,” she chuckled, reaching for the jar. She stopped a second to see Rumor’s picture on the honey jar. Some memories started to pop in her mind.

One in particular made her cringe: the prom. They weren’t the best gal pals, but they got along, until prom night. Rumor somehow convinced Cagney to go with her, but when he found out that Hilda was stood up by her date, he competently forgot about Rumor and spent the rest of the evening focusing on Hilda. The evening ended with Rumor going home early and them continuing the party under the stars.

Rumor was obviously furious, but not with Cagney. No, she was very bitter toward Hilda. The bee had mentioned that Hilda was the one brainwashing the flower by teasing him and pulling his heart strings. This made her think. Was she really manipulating him?

She shook her head to clear her head and prepared the tea. Minutes later, she went back to Beppi and served him a cup of raspberry tea. “This is all I got.” She said, showing him the sweet products.

Beppi squealed happily at the selection of sweet things. “Oh this is perfect! You have the sugar and the milk and …milk.” He stopped himself from saying the last item she brought. He saw Rumor’s picture on the honey jar and remembered Cagney’s words about it. He had to be subtle.

So he picked up the bottle and chucked it out the window with a squeal.

“What the hell!?” Hilda yelled. “What are you doing!?” She frowned.

“Reducing the negativity in the room?” He suggested.

“Wha-?” She looked at him confused. She started to wonder if he could read minds or something. “What are you talking about?” She asked, leaving her trembling cup on the table. She was getting nervous.

Beppi waved his hands. “I can’t talk about it. Tooooo much stress and bad juu juu if I even think about you and Rumor!”

Hilda shrugged. “That was a long time ago. We’re grown ups now. She probably forgot all about it with her responsibilities and all.” She crossed her arms to better hold her shaky hands, but her foot kept tapping on the floor.

Beppi pretended not to care but he was grateful Hilda was uncomfortable even discussing it. Keeping Hilda away from the third isle was easier than he thought. He held her one more time. “Are you cold? Hugs are the best for keeping warm and healing clowns!” He declared.

She grunted and hugged the clown back. “You better get well soon.” She kept thinking about Rumor. She knew Cagney was still in touch with her because of the pollen business, so maybe he could arrange some sort of reunion and she could have the chance to clear the air with the bee. Also, it was a great excuse to talk to Cagney.

Beppi started to play with her shirt from behind. “So, who’s taking first watch for the dragon?”

Feeling the clown playing with her shirt made the woman think he wasn’t as injured as she thought. “I’ll take first shift.” She pushed him away roughly. “And you better keep your hands to yourself if you don’t want to loose your hands too.” She looked at him threateningly.

Beppi actually looked saddened by that only to break into a sly smile. “Oh. I’m sorry! It’s just the material of your outfit reminds me of the circus tent!” He yawned. “Wellllll, if you insist on first shift, I guess I should just get some shut eye! I’ve had a crazy last few days after all!” He tucked himself, flopping his deflated legs over himself. “Crystal dragons, crazy carnations, angry genies and magic churros take a lot out of clown.”

———————————————————————————

CHAPTER 01,  CHAPTER 02,  CHAPTER 03,  CHAPTER 04,  CHAPTER 05, CHAPTER 06,  CHAPTER 07,  CHAPTER 08,  CHAPTER 09,  CHAPTER 10; CHAPTER 11; CHAPTER 12 ; CHAPTER 13 ; CHAPTER 14  ; CHAPTER 15; CHAPTER 16 ; (nsfw) CHAPTER 17 ; CHAPTER 18 ; CHAPTER 19 (nsfw) ; CHAPTER 20 ; CHAPTER 21 ; CHAPTER 22 ; CHAPTER 23 ; CHAPTER 24 ; CHAPTER 25 (nsfw) ; CHAPTER 26 (you are here now!)