#it was genuinely extremely fun

[qlala]

Whump prompt requests?? :o Pretty please can I request Barry gets kidnapped and Len finds him tied up? (Do want: muzzle/gag, handcuffs. Don't want: pet p!ay, established relationship)

i think this is the only prompt i've ever gotten with a detailed list of wants and don't wants, and you know what? i love clear instructions

the devil you know (coldflash, 5.6k, rated M)*

(*note: this fic makes implied reference to threats of SA/noncon, but none occur)

When Iris West tracked Len down three days into the Flash’s latest disappearance, Len sent her on her way with a shrug. He didn’t know or particularly care where Barry was, and he privately doubted Iris’s insistence that Barry wouldn’t have gone off anywhere without telling his team first. 

Still, he made an idle mental note to follow up if another week passed without any sign of him. Making that promise out loud might’ve gone a long way in wiping away some of the bitter disappointment out of Iris’s eyes as she left, but Len had a reputation to protect. 

Besides, Barry had a bad habit of popping up in Len’s life at the most inconvenient time possible. Ten days without the Flash interfering in any heists or Len’s attempts to follow the hockey playoffs undisturbed? He wasn’t that lucky. 

Four days later, a meta-snatcher tossed someone down onto the ground in front of Len's chair in handcuffs, a black hood, and very little else, and Len's first thought was that being right all the time was exhausting.

Narrow hips and shoulders, a lean and powerful body (although, underfed as he looked at the moment, that balance tipped closer to just lean), long legs folding under him as he settled uncomfortably—if prettily—onto his knees before sitting back on his heels. 

The concrete floor couldn’t have been comfortable. Len had put together the de facto throne room they were in precisely for meetings like this. It sat at the heart of a creaking warehouse abandoned at the edge of the docks, largely off the CCPD’s radar given the overwhelming impression that it was going to slide into the river with the slightest gust of wind. (Len encouraged that impression at every opportunity; he liked to post Mardon up on the roof to howl a few well-timed gusts of wind through the corroded metal walls during particularly lucrative negotiations. It made people antsy, and antsy people made worse deals.) 

He’d emptied the place of everyone except for himself and Mick for the evening’s entertainment, though. Call it a hunch; meta-snatching had largely dried up in the past couple of years. Most of the meta-humans with both valuable powers and common sense had already aligned themselves with one big player in Central City or the other—never mind that the distinction felt increasingly like choosing sides for a scrimmage. What mattered was that neither the Rogues nor Team Flash took kindly to their allies getting grabbed off the street, and meta-snatchers had learned quickly and painfully that they were better off finding safer professions. 

Of course, it helped that most meta-humans had also developed a healthy fear of the few meta-snatchers still bold enough or desperate enough to stay in the game. Len had taken that night’s meeting for the same reason that trophy hunters set traps on the edge of their own camps; the bolder the animal, the bigger the teeth. 

When the meta-snatcher pulled the black hood off with a flourish, Barry didn’t even have the good grace to look chagrined. 

“My, my,” Len drawled, settling back into his chair with a slow smirk. “What big teeth you have.”

It was too perfect to resist; he’d had the line ready even before he’d seen the muzzle, and he hadn’t landed on the top of Central’s food chain by ignoring chances landing in his lap like that. 

It was stark black leather, something Len would’ve expected to find in a very particular kind of club and not a meta-snatchers toolkit. He wondered idly if they’d had to improvise; a week of Barry Allen bitching his ear off, he sure as hell would’ve reached for the nearest gag, too. 

And it did seem to be functioning as a gag. It was well made from a single piece of leather, the breathing vents cut into the sides clearly designed not to allow enough give for the wearer to actually open their jaw. It fit snugly over Barry’s mouth and nose, looped securely over his ears, and came together in a heavy buckle on the back of his head. With the way it just skimmed the line of Barry’s high cheekbones, it was nearly a perfect inverse of the Flash’s usual mask.  

It was a better look than the cowl. Shame Barry would probably drop him in Iron Heights for suggesting that he take inspiration from the meta-snatcher’s fashion choice. 

Based on the flatly unimpressed look Barry was leveling him over the mask, Len was going to have to put that one on the back burner for a while. 

A quiet snort from Len’s right pulled his attention momentarily to Mick. Barry was lucky Mick hadn’t boomed a laugh the second the hood had come off; the plausible deniability that he and Len didn’t know who the Flash was under the mask was wearing thin enough as it was. 

Mick leaned against the side of Len’s chair and rumbled, too quiet to carry, “And it ain’t even your birthday.” 

The meta-snatcher cleared his throat self-importantly and Len flicked him a glare as he pulled his smirk under control. He was some distant relative of the Santinis, which made it all the more idiotic that he’d been poaching metas on turf that Len had chased the rest of his family off of years ago. Len had disregarded his first name as soon as he’d heard it; he didn’t plan on needing it. 

“He bite?” Len asked, pushing himself lazily out of the chair. 

Santini tucked the hood into his back pocket, clearly sensing a sale, and backed up a few steps in the universal invitation to inspect the wares. 

“Nah,” he said, conversational now that Len was showing interest. "I muzzle anything with a meta gene. That’s from experience. I caught one once, she could literally talk someone's ear off. And I mean literally. It would shrivel up and just..." He mimed a splat. 

Barry’s dark shock of hair was sticking up wildly around the straps of the muzzle, and Len could see a purple bruise blooming just over the edge of the leather at one temple. However they’d gotten the thing on him, he’d put up a fight. 

A hell of a fight, Len corrected himself, as he got close enough to get a proper look at Barry in the dim light. There were more bruises mottling his skin further down, and they weren’t showing any signs of healing. Len couldn’t see what kind of cuffs were holding Barry’s arms behind his back, but he would’ve put money on power dampeners.

"Meta gene, hm?” Len reached out and trailed his fingers through the air a scant inch above Barry’s mussed hair, just to feel the novel lack of static humming around him. "What can it do?"

The glare Barry shot him at the word "it" looked awfully annoyed for someone who was supposed to be in fear for his life, and Len raised an imperious eyebrow back. 

“Tests can’t really tell you that,” Santini said, patronizing enough that Len cut him a warning look. He put his hands up, an easy surrender. “...as you know,” he tacked on, mollifying. “I’ll tell you, though. He burnt through the first two pairs of cuffs we put on him. Whatever it is, he’s packing heat.” 

Len snorted. There were understatements, and there were understatements. The man had hooked a great white shark and thought he was selling an unusually bitey tuna. 

It gave Len exactly the information he’d needed to know, though. He hadn’t really thought Barry’s identity had been compromised, not with the way Santini had shown up alone, unarmed, and without several other bidders in tow.

He expected some kind of cheek from Barry, a tilted head that said “I told you so,” muzzle or not. Maybe even Barry pushing to his feet once Len got close enough, overly confident that Len would uncuff him and the game would be up. 

But Barry only tipped his head back to hold Len’s gaze as he sauntered toward him, and he didn’t stir from where he was kneeling. 

Len ignored the clear attempt at eye contact and began pacing a wide circle around him, appraising. It left Barry with the option to either twist to follow him or give up, and Len had to tamp down a smirk at the churlish way Barry snorted under the muzzle as he swung his head around to face forward again.

Up close, though, Len’s amusement began to evaporate. Barry didn’t look like he could stand. 

Power dampener cuffs were clamped tight around his narrow wrists, as expected. Homemade, but not shoddily so—Santini was an ambitious amateur. Bruises spanned the range from purple-black to fading yellow-green, the Flash’s missing week accounted for. 

Even with their more recent, less murder-y history, he expected Barry to have enough of a survival instinct to tense when Len passed behind him, some kind of instinctual response to having his back to someone who had once made it his life’s mission to kill him. 

Instead, as soon as Len’s path put him between Barry and Santini, Barry relaxed.  

Len’s feet stilled without permission from his brain. He waited for the trick, but none came. The longer he watched, the slower Barry’s too-sharp shoulder blades rose and fell, breath evening out, chin sinking by degrees towards his chest, like he’d finally allowed a week’s worth of exhaustion to catch up to him at once. 

Like he finally thought he was safe. 

Something dangerously close to alarm spiked through Len’s chest at the thought, and it took everything in him to repress the instinct to rear back a step. 

He shoved the panic down instead, held it under until it drowned, and got ahold of himself. The annoyance that bloomed in the aftermath, on the other hand, was welcome. 

Barry and his stupid, endless, goddamn faith that Len was a good man. He’d always trusted him too much. But up until now, Len had had the plausible deniability that it was only because Barry was counting on his powers in the event that Len did betray him.

Now, he was faced with the unfortunate reality that things were far worse than he’d let himself believe. It was his fault, really. Barry trusted too easily; it was an immutable part of who he was. Len had watched people wriggle close enough to Barry to sink their knives in his back too many times to count. None of it made a difference, not in the long term. 

But usually, Barry seemed to limit himself to second chances, even if he did give them out too freely. There were plenty of people in Iron Heights—hell, in the ground—who had used that second chance to take another stab at him, only to find that Barry’s patience had hard limits. 

Len, on the other hand, had let himself become something unacceptable. An exception. From the moment he’d failed to shoot Barry with his father’s thumb on the trigger that could’ve killed Lisa, he’d become a permanent lesser of two evils. Len didn’t even know what chance he was on, but he had passed second long ago.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, people said. That was Len: Barry’s devil of choice, every time. Len had enjoyed it for a while, no sense in lying to himself about that. He liked the snarls of annoyance when he turned the cold gun on Barry’s other problems, let it stroke his ego that Barry had chosen him over them. 

But he’d let it go too far. Because Barry, it seemed, had forgotten a crucial part of what that saying meant. He’d forgotten Len didn’t play on the side of the angels. 

Lucky for him, Len was going to enjoy reminding him. 

Len forced himself to move again. His gaze lingered on the bruises as he finished circling Barry, despite his best efforts. The worst of it was centered on Barry’s left shoulder, where a hazy ring of deep purple suggested a dislocated—and subsequently relocated—shoulder. He also had a nasty bruise ricocheting over several ribs, and Len watched him breathe for a careful moment. A slow, measured inhale, then a slight hitch and quick, almost involuntary exhale; at least one of them was broken. 

Len’s carefully curated annoyance was already simmering rapidly and unacceptably toward anger when he caught sight of the marks wrapped around Barry’s upper arm. He’d missed them at first glance, easily lost next to the darker mottling from the dislocated shoulder. But the shape of it was unmistakable: four parallel lines around the strong curve of his bicep—a handprint. 

Someone else’s handprint. 

Len caught the thought by the throat before it made him round on Santini. He shoved the thought, snapping and hissing, back into the possessive corner of his mind it had escaped from, and barred the door after it. 

Barry’s surrender had knocked something off-kilter in Len’s brain, sent boxes he’d kept carefully bolted shut spilling open with the impact. Barry may have been his problem, but that was the only “his” that he was. 

And Barry was only his problem because he’d got himself caught by a two-bit amateur with some jerry-rigged tech. A few bruises were the least he deserved; the only reason he was alive was because that two-bit amateur had dumped him at Len’s feet and not someone else’s.

Still, a nasty thought was churning in the back of Len’s mind, and he had to put both hands in his pockets to keep from reaching for the cold gun. He wanted an honest answer out of Santini, not whatever he thought Len wanted to hear. The truth mattered; he needed to know how many pieces the man would be leaving the warehouse in.

“Looks a little worse for wear,” Len drawled, forcing his tone light and sardonic. “Got a discount for damaged goods?”

“Aw, fuck off,” Santini lobbed back, oblivious and good natured. “So he got a little banged up in transit. I told you, he didn’t like the cuffs. He dislocated his own shoulder trying to get out of ‘em. Not my fault. Hell, I put it back in for you.” 

“Not what I was talking about.” Len slid a pointed glance down Barry’s body—miles of freckled skin, very little else—then looked back at Santini. He didn’t lift an eyebrow; he didn’t have to. 

“Oh, the underwear?” Santini scoffed. “I deal in weapons, Cold, not skin. Too messy. Kid’s got every stitch of clothing and virtue he had when I found him, swear on my mother. Besides, he’s not my type.”

The generous two-handed gesture Santini made in front of his own chest didn’t impress Len, but it was crude enough that he took him at his word. He’d suspected as much, regarding the clothes. Barry may have been stupid enough to get himself caught by a meta-snatcher, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get caught and stay in the Flash suit. Whatever trap he’d stumbled into, he’d must’ve had time to throw the suit into some dark corner. No wonder his team hadn’t been able to track him down. 

That unpleasant matter behind them, Len rolled his shoulders back, settling in for another slow circle around Barry. The business portion of the evening was wrapping up, at least as far as he was concerned. He had the information he needed from Santini, and all that was left was to remind Barry that if the meta-snatcher was the frying pan, he was the fire.

If his first perusal had been business, the second was… well. Call it an advance on the clean-up fee he was going to charge Barry for handling Mr. Virtue over there. 

Barry lifted his head as Len started to circle again, tilted it slightly in unspoken question. The muzzle was inspired, Len would give Santini that. Barry had sure as hell never held his tongue for so long in Len’s presence of his own volition. 

Len could hear the list of complaints he’d be in for once he took it off: thanks for leaving the cuffs on for so long, those were comfortable—you know, they sell this new technology nowadays, it’s called an area rug—probably with a dig about his age, while he was at it. 

Len banished the thoughts and the grin that was threatening. Christ, maybe Barry was right. He was getting soft if he was laughing at just the idea of Barry crabbing at him. 

He reached for his earlier determination, instead. He tilted his head with a collector’s eye as he tightened the circle, close enough to touch. 

Barry really did have freckles everywhere, more than Leonard had imagined in the occasional privacy of his own thoughts. Constellations of them between the colorful galaxies of bruises painted over his leanly-muscled shoulders, his chest, stomach, carelessly parted thighs. There was even a pair of them right on the dimples of his lower back, where Len’s thumbs would’ve fit like the space had been made for them. 

It was a tempting thought. Pressing his own claim into Barry’s body, maybe covering up that hand-shaped bruise with one of his own. He was the one playing big bad wolf now, after all. And with both of them dressed for the part: Len, with the fur collar of the parka brushing his jaw, and Barry in those little red shorts. They left absolutely nothing to Len’s imagination, a delicious payoff to years of idle wonderings about what the Flash wore under that suit.

Something of the thought must’ve shown on Len’s face, because Barry looked decidedly less patient when Len caught his eye again. He glanced pointedly back behind himself, then back up again, as if Len weren’t perfectly aware that he wanted the power dampener off.  

Barry wasn’t the only impatient one. Santini clapped once, businesslike, and began walking closer. “You just window shopping today, or—?”

Len cut him off with a look, winning him back silence and space as Santini course-corrected with a gracious “after you” gesture and ceded ground again. 

A week in a cage clearly hadn’t been enough to break Barry’s pride, let alone his spirit. The muzzle was probably the only thing that had kept the meta-snatchers from realizing who he was. Barry would’ve snarked their ears off no matter what they did to him; he’d taken too many hits to be afraid of a little pain. And even with how stupid Santini was, the bared teeth and complete contempt would’ve added up to Central’s apex predator eventually.

The thought was a butane lighter to the sparks of arousal in Len’s veins. It was unfortunate that he wouldn’t be able to take the muzzle off while Santini was still breathing down their necks. He would’ve liked to see the fear in his eyes when he realized the enormity of the mistake he’d made. Delivering the Flash bound and gagged to the one man in the city who had something of a gentleman’s agreement with him…

Len hummed, a little wistful, as he reminded himself that said gentleman’s agreement precluded him from hauling Barry up to sit in his chair and slitting Santini’s throat at his feet. 

But he let the idea of it linger, knew that it would darken his eyes as he skimmed another lingering look down Barry’s body. 

And there, finally—a hint of wariness in Barry’s eyes when Len bothered dragging his gaze up from the dark hair that trailed temptingly down Barry’s lower stomach and disappeared under his waistband. Beginning to remember, maybe, that Len didn’t work for free. 

Len pushed his advantage while he had Barry off-balance. He drew his hands from his pockets, slowly, casually, and held them up at Barry’s eye level. He was wearing gloves, as he always did when conducting business. No point in keeping the cold gun strapped to his thigh if he wasn’t going to be ready to use it. The gloves were a helpful and very visible reminder of that.  

When he was sure he still had Barry’s attention—and he did, something unreadable passing across Barry’s eyes as they darted between Len’s hands—Len turned one hand toward himself, brought the other to its fingertips, and then slowly, one finger at a time, began teasing the glove off. 

Barry tracked the movement with his eyes without prompting, giving Len a quickly-dismissed impulse to reward him. A quizzical furrow formed between his brows, and he stole a single glance up and risked a quick, faint tilt of his head to one side. Confused, yes, but not combative. The difference between “What are you doing?” and “What the hell are you doing?”  

It was Len’s turn to feel an annoyed burn of impatience. Barry was on his knees in front of a convicted killer, bound and gagged and stripped to his skin, and Barry still thought this was all part of a plan. Len had killed three men in front of Barry—and counting. The only plan he had now was finding out how far that stupid, blind trust could bend until it broke.

Len finished drawing the glove off slowly, and in the quiet of the room, nothing but the distant sounds of the river rolling past outside, he was certain Barry heard the rasp of leather over skin. 

Barry’s attention fractured as Len watched. His gaze flicked up from the glove for a single, distracted glance at Len’s eyes. Just below the line where the muzzle dug into the underside of Barry’s jaw, his throat bobbed on a swallow. 

Good, Len thought. Nervous was the first step toward suspicious, and suspicious might just keep Barry alive. 

Len looked away with easy disinterest, settling his attention to Barry’s unbruised shoulder. Barry sat up straighter as Len reached out with the glove in his hand, a hitch in his breath visible in the stuttering rise of his bare chest. 

When Len laid the glove out on the bare, unmarked skin there, Barry twitched like Len had stuck him with a knife.

Almost getting it, Len mused. Ignoring the urgent, searching flicker of green eyes in his direction, Len reached out with his newly bare hand and rested the tip of one finger just under the corner of Barry’s jaw. 

The black leather there was butter soft and warm from Barry’s skin. Just as slowly as he’d pulled off the glove, Len stroked the finger up the line of Barry’s jaw, following the sharp edge of it through the muzzle. Only then did he slide his gaze back to Barry’s to watch the emotions dart through those pale eyes. Confusion, yes, then surprise, with another sharp inhale. And then, with the first flush of healthy color to Barry’s face since he’d been dragged in, understanding. 

Yahtzee, Len thought with a smirk. 

He didn’t give Barry a chance to pull away. He caught him with two fingers under the edge of the muzzle, hard, knuckles snug against his windpipe, and jerked his chin up.

Barry jolted with the movement, full-body, back arching to accommodate the sudden, demanding angle of his neck, the glove tumbling to the ground. Eyes wide, he made a sound behind the muzzle that might’ve been Len’s name if he’d been able to open his mouth enough to say it. 

Somewhere behind Barry, Santini started to object, but he shut himself up before Len had to look his way again. Likely Mick had warned him off, a pointed hand on the heat gun’s handle, or the man had just remembered who he was dealing with. 

Len held Barry there at attention, letting him hang off the hook of his fingers. Heady wasn’t a strong enough word for it. It was a level of control he hadn’t imagined even back before Barry became Barry, when the Flash was a problem to be solved and not a single facet of a more fascinating, infuriating whole. The hero of Central City helpless at his feet, stripped of that golden cloak of lightning he wore everywhere like armor… 

And still not fighting Len an inch. 

Barry’s chest heaved, breath coming quick and shallow, that broken rib apparently the furthest thing from his mind. When Len met Barry’s gaze, his own eyes narrowing in frustration, Barry’s were stunned and breathless. But still, no fear there. 

Agitated, Len crooked his fingers tighter, forcing Barry’s chin up another inch. Barry’s lashes fluttered—maybe feeling that rib now, after all—and Len watched the muscles in his thighs flex as he nearly forced him up onto his knees.

Fight back. 

Barry didn’t so much as twist in his grip, eyes half shut. With Len’s fingers hooked under the edge of the mask, he could feel the heat of Barry’s breaths, nearly panting now. His face and throat were stained pink, exertion clearly catching up to him, and Len wondered if the mask was starting to cut off air after all. 

He loosened his grip and allowed Barry to relax back onto his heels. Barry’s breathing stayed ragged anyway, blush touching the top of his chest as Len frowned at the unreadable expression in his eyes, gone round and almost glassy. 

When Len slipped his fingers free of the mask, Barry didn’t move an inch, head tipped back where Len had left it. 

Len’s patience snapped, curling his gloved hand into a fist at his side. He could’ve snapped Barry’s neck in less than a second, bared to him like that, all fragile skin and sharp tendons. It would’ve been easy as breathing, and there would’ve been nothing that Barry’s powers or his little team could’ve done about it. 

Len took a sharp step forward, closing the rest of the distance between them. It brought the front of his hips nearly flush with the muzzle, his boots between Barry’s knees, which were falling open a little further with every uneven breath. 

It was—too much, frustration at the completely unearned trust, frustration that Barry had been reckless enough to get himself caught, both tangling confused with frustration at Barry. That even stripped and submissive on his knees in front of Len, offering him his throat, he was still the one goddamn thing Len wanted and couldn’t have. 

Len should have conceded that his self-restraint was clinging on by a thread. He should have taken a step back, drawled something droll and amusing, and ended the night with his sanity intact. 

Instead, Len curved a hand around either side of Barry’s neck and stroked them upwards slowly, deliberately.

How many ways could someone kill you just like this, Barry? 

Barry’s throat worked under his hands and he shivered, hard, even as he tipped his head back further, giving Len more room to take advantage of. Barry made another, fainter noise behind the muzzle, half-swallowed as his throat bobbed. 

One point to Len. Even Barry couldn’t miss the threat of Len’s fingertips pressed against the fragile bones of his neck. 

Len lifted them to the edge of Barry’s jaw, followed the line of the straps around his ears, and then reached forward to trace the leather up until his fingers met at the buckle on the back of his head.

The movement brought the parka up on either side of Barry’s head, caging him in, hopefully adding to the claustrophobia of having Len so completely in his space. Len hooked a finger under the loop of leather where it passed through the buckle. He paused there, poised to pull it tighter, and was about to close his hand around the strap and tug when Barry did the one thing he wasn’t counting on. 

He gave in. 

All of the last remaining fight went out of those narrow shoulders at once, nearly unbalancing Len where he’d been bracing his wrists on the steady line of them. 

Instead of using the opportunity to duck away—point made, Snart, let me out of this thing—Barry only swayed deeper into the circle of Len’s arms. Before Len could jerk backwards, half-certain that Barry was finally passing out—Barry brushed closer and rested his forehead against Len’s lower stomach. 

For the space of two heartbeats, Len’s mind went perfectly blank. And then he realized, with a level of disbelief so incredulous that he could feel it bleeding against his will into respect, what Barry had just done. 

He’d called Len’s bluff. 

No suit, no speed, no backup, bound and gagged and as powerless as Len ever could have hoped to have him, and Barry had called his goddamn bluff. 

Chips down, cards on the table, there was nothing else to do—Len took a step back. 

Cold air rushed back between their bodies. Even with that dampener keeping his powers in check, Barry must’ve been a hundred degrees, and Len’s jaw ached against the loss of his heat instantly. 

Barry fell back onto his heels, and Len didn’t wait for him to get his bearings. He hooked a finger through one of the ear loops, forcing the last shreds of anger into the movement, and jerked his head back up.

For the first time all night, Barry didn’t jolt to meet his gaze. Instead, he let three full seconds tick past before he lifted his eyes, as if looking up had been his idea all along. Hair disheveled, pupils nearly swallowing the thin green ring of his irises—

Barry smirked at him. 

It was unmistakable, muzzle be damned, eyes narrowing in such viciously smug satisfaction that Len was torn between shoving him away or dragging him into a dark corner.

Len tightened his grip in the edge of the muzzle, on the brink of deciding, when a low whistle cut through the room. 

“Well, shit. You really have got a way with ‘em, huh?” 

Santini’s voice was an unwelcome reminder of the unfinished business Len had to attend to, and he dragged his gaze away from Barry only after a dark look, promising him that he’d deal with him next.  

“Or maybe just with this one in particular,” Santini continued, grinning like he and Len had agreed on something. “Funny thing—he finally stopped burning through those cuffs when he overheard me tell my crew I was considering Cold as a buyer.”

Len slid his gaze back to Barry. Barry, who was looking anywhere but Len, apparently deeply interested in hearing anything Santini had to say for the first time since he’d dragged him through Len’s doors. Barry, who was still breathing hard and blushing to his roots. Barry, who was trying to draw his knees together even with Len still standing in between them. 

“Did he, now?” Len asked. 

The question wasn’t aimed at Santini, but he answered anyway. 

“Mmm-hmm.” He rocked back on his heels, inclined his head to Len in a pantomime of tipping a hat. “You got a reputation for looking after yours, after all. He must’ve thought you’d have some use for him or another.” He flashed a salacious grin; his objections to the ‘skin game’ clearly ended where his sales instincts began. “I figured maybe the feeling was mutual, and you’d appreciate first dibs on the sale.”

Lips pulling into a sharp, predatory smirk, Len lifted the toe of one boot and planted it on the inside of Barry’s thigh. “I’m considering it.” 

Len pushed Barry’s legs apart with ease. Barry’s color deepened, and he jerked his head like he had any chance in hell of jarring Len’s hand loose from the strap of the muzzle now. Len clicked his tongue in a light, mocking reprimand, and Barry flashed him a glare for it, even as he stopped twisting under his grip. 

He didn’t fight it when Len drew his head to one side, far enough to give him an unimpeded view down the front of his body. The blush stretched halfway down his chest, past nipples that were hard and peaked like Len had just spent an hour teasing them with his tongue. He didn’t need to nudge Barry’s thighs wider to see the thick, heavy outline of his cock straining at the front of the red shorts, but he did it anyway, and was rewarded when it twitched at the demanding press of his boot.  

“I’ll take him,” Len drawled, and Barry’s hips hitched forward as Len guided his legs apart another inch, pulling the thin material taut over his groin.

Across the room, Santini laughed. “I haven’t even told you how much.”

“Not paying.” Len didn’t bother looking up; Barry had lifted his gaze to him again, and Len was going to need a more compelling reason than a low level Santini to look away from the impatient heat in his eyes. “Mick?” 

Mick strode past them without a glance. Santini took one stumbling step backwards, then did the first smart thing he’d done all day: turned heel and ran.

Something in Len’s smirk made Barry blink, brow furrowing. He said something behind the muzzle, chin lifting in a way he probably thought was authoritative, and came across entirely the opposite on his knees. 

Len had heard the words “No killing” come out of that mouth enough times to recognize it from cadence alone, but he tugged Barry up by the muzzle instead, until he got the message and stumbled to his feet. 

“Didn’t catch that,” Len drawled. 

Barry looked ready to argue, as if he weren’t half-wrecked already, skin flushed, hair wild. But he did a distracted double-take when Len shrugged out of his coat, and his gaze went dark and intent as it slid down the dark clothes he was wearing underneath, shouts behind him forgotten.

“You can fill me in later,” Len said, turning away. He shucked his belt as he sauntered toward his chair, let the buckle ring when he dropped it to the concrete. 

Barry was still standing indecisively in the middle of the room when Len settled into the chair with a comfortable sprawl, legs spread, boots wide. His gaze caught on the thick press of Len’s cock, hard against his jeans, and Len flashed his teeth at him in something too sharp to be a smile.

“Got somewhere to be, bolt cutters are in the workshop.” Len indicated a door to the side with a tip of his head, even as he moved his hand to the front of his jeans. “If not...” 

He rubbed his thumb over the button of his jeans, enjoying the pressure against his cock—one slow circle, another. The third time, he slid the button free. 

And Barry came willingly. 

[braisedhoney]

fighting back? against who? they're so happy—they've been waiting for you.

you are wonderful. don't you know that?

bonus: they play sims together :)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

doing chibi is a good design exercise bc it forces u to think on shapes n essential details, essentially thumbnailing ur designs. its also a terrible design exercise bc it ends up looking cute no matter what

[shkika]

if u call me beautiful you can have my attention for 5 more minutes

[stil-lindigo]

little dove.

a short comic about Ash and Snow's first meeting / how Snow got her nickname.

Snow's story

Ash’s story

--

notes:

--

all my other comics

store

[relaxxattack]

trying to go through the psycholonials tag why are you people saying the art is ugly and bad what the hell. did you actually read the whole thing or were you turned off by the Pixels on the first page

“it’s not as imaginative or interesting as anything in mspa” what the hell are you talking about.

do you understand how hard it is to get these colors to look this gorgeous together. do you even try to be immersed in zhens mental state (which is quite obviously what the art is evoking especially for characters like percy or the cops).

i would argue that not only is the juxtaposition of this style incredibly whimsical and fun as hell but actually some of it’s more technically advanced than art in homestuck

look at this guy! look at the level of rendering and shadow! how are you thinking this is ugly!

[trekkiedean]

the funniest part about the boys prequel has already happened and it’s that show turning into the exact kind of mcuified franchise it started out mocking

[deoidesign]

Time and Time Again comes back tonight!

Thank you all for being so patient with me, I know it was a long hiatus.

My health was struggling, my arm was (is) hurting, and I decided it wasn't worth it. I'd rather be slow!

So thank you for giving me that grace, and I hope you'll be there with me for the rest of the series.

[asentienthaze]

I love finding random tumblr posts describing just the soppiest most pathetic man and then just reblogging it going

"haha

jon sims"

[ex0toxin]

karaoke!! 🎤🎵✨

jsys week'24, day 5

[stingray-art]

Weston College P4 “Drudges”

[uncanny-tranny]

Every time you think, "Oh, I don't have [x condition], I'm basically cured!" that is the devil talking. You aren't cured, you are likely going through periods of your symptoms waning. Don't cease whatever you're doing to help yourself, like medication, for instance, because it's likely you still have the conditions or symptoms, even if you aren't noticing them as frequently or severely.

[idle-compy]

this is like the most poorly done edit ever but i couldnt get the idea out of my head

[skitskatdacat63]

Fernando Alonso & His Relationship With Cards

I'm sure we're all familar with the cards on the back of Fernando's Vegas GP helmet by now, but did you know his relationship with cards goes a lot deeper?

I. Magic Tricks

You've probably seen or heard someone at least mention Fernando's propensity for card tricks. As far as I can tell he was doing them(publically) as far back as 2003 all the way to as recently as 2018. Even once performing a card trick, with a condom and a teddy bear(!??!?!??!!), in front of Valentino Rossi who said "How was that possible?"(x)

But how did this start? According to James Allen, "Fernando admits to having been heavily influenced by his grandfather, a mercurial figure, who taught him magic and card tricks, still one of his passions away from the race track."(x) And I'm not sure the validity of this one, because I couldn't find an actual source, but apparently he once said: "My parents are responsible for the two things I like doing most - driving and magic tricks. They bought me my first go-kart and a magician's kit."

In several interviews he described it as his hobby off track, and that he loved learning new tricks and surprising others in the garage with them! So clearly cards are pretty important to him both as a hobby but also to who he is as a person since they've been with him just as long as racing has.

II. Card Symbolism in His Helmets

This is the reason I originally made this post, but I thought I should also explain the origins of his card fascination first. As I said, we probably all remember the cards on the back of his helmet in Vegas, but did you know that wasn't the first time he had cards on the back of his helmet?

From 2008-2013, he used to have a pair of cards on the back of his helmets. The symbolisms of the cards themselves as well as the evolution of their design is really fascinating to me! Even more so with the recent development of the card choice in 2023.

Fernando said he wanted to reference his two titles in some way on the back of his helmet and after his friend sent him several ideas, he decided on having two cards(an ace of clubs and an ace of hearts, sometimes pictured with 05 and 06 on them as well), saying: "I picked the cloverleaf [the ace of clubs - Ed] to give me luck, but the only pity is that it doesn't have four leaves!"(X)

2008.

Here's the very first appearance of the cards! They're displayed flat, with the 05 and 06 clearly visible

2009.

Very similar to 2008, but with a slightly different design, and they're maybe a bit more straight with less shadow?

2010.

This is the first major change! I was sad they didn't have the years on them anymore, but then I realized they're sparkly to match with his signature lightning bolts on the top of the helmet!!

2011.

Honestly I'm still somewhat unsure if this is the actual 2011 helmet? It's pretty difficult to find clear photos of the back of helmets from older seasons. It's easiest to find them on replica sites or auction sites so I'm not 100%? But anyways, I like that this has the championship years on the underside of the cards

2012.

This is when I started getting weirdly emotional about the helmets. Do you see how they've progressed from being a centerpoint to being curled up and sad at the bottom of the helmet? Not listing the year anymore??

2013.

Same thoughts as 2012. And after this season, they cease to exist (just like his ferrari chair in the garage, WOAH CALLBACK), until cards make a reeappearance in his Vegas helmet, albeit in a different form

2013 Monaco(Honorable Mention):

For some reason 2013 helmets were easier to find proper pictures of, so I happened to witness this absolute beauty. The creativity of this helmet genuinely blows me away??? Wanting to keep the card motif, but making sure to incorporate it into the rest of the puzzle piece design?? Mwah! There was another special 2013 helmet but they didn't change the cards at all so I really applaud this one

2023 Las Vegas(The Return of The King):

The magnificent return! But look! The cards are different cards! Instead of being two aces, it's now an ace of hearts, a four of hearts(his driver number of course!) and, the, now iconic, representation of himself as a Joker. I literally could not believe my eyes when this helmet was released and I saw the Joker card, what a fucking silly old man....I really wonder if he felt nostalgic having cards on his helmet again or if he didn't think about it all and was just like, "ah cards because Vegas!!!"

III. Why Does This Matter?

*The rest of the post was factual, this is moreso my personal thoughts on the symbolism of the cards/designs

This post spawned from me recently watching the 2010 Bahrain gp and noticing "hey wait a minute...are those CARDS ON THE BACK OF HIS HELMET!?" It's a really tiny detail that's unfortunately covered up by the HANS device pretty much whenever he's wearing the helmet, so it's really difficult to spot! But I became fascinated with the fact that he had cards on his helmet before that recent helmet, and now here we are!

There's something to me about how the design of the cards evolves over the course of six seasons from the cards being front and center to being smaller, more folded up and closer to the bottom of the helmet. As I said, the 2012-2013 ones genuinely made me depressed because it feels, symbolically, like his hopes for getting another Ace are becoming more and more unlikely and falling away until they eventually fall falt and fade away entirely after 2013 and disappear for basically a decade.

But when they return? They're not the same cards! Instead of representing Fernando's championships, they now represent him as a person, displaying his driver number and his persona of being a Joker!! Though I do think it's interesting he happened to keep the Ace of Hearts, even though he talked more about the Ace of Clubs before. I'm not sure it's actually this deep in reality, but I like to think that it's him not letting his championships(and the lack thereof) define him, but rather letting who he is as a person shine and be the centerpoint instead! But on a sadder note, as @suzuki-ecstar said to me, maybe the Aces aren't there anymore because he's lost all hope for a chance at a third Ace entirely :(

[wickmitz]

Do u actually ship rocky and mitzi?

to try and be as simple as possible, i suppose i do ship them ; i’m particularly drawn by their dynamic and have long since grown enamored with it … so, naturally, i enjoy turning them over in my head and shoving them together, seeing all the possible ways they fit and how they function when glued together. rocky’s feelings for mitzi are so intense and metaphorical that there’s a lot of ground to run with, honestly. it’s not a black and white relationship where they fit neatly under one label or another either, hence my constant use of the term ‘a secret third thing’ for them overall. there’s romance, obsession, desperation, platonic associations, and a thousand other factors embedded into what they have. rocky simply ‘seeing mitzi as a mother figure’ or ‘being totally in love with her in a traditional sense’ just doesn’t capture them with the justice they deserve. it’s more … muddled than that. rocky, at this point in time, is completely incapable of maintaining love anyway, and mitzi certainly isn’t any better either. in a context where i envision them together, that aspect is a big part of things : where they click together due to their inability to sustain a healthy and stereotypical romantic bond, and thus accidentally fuel each other’s unhappy paths. it’s easy to see how mitzi does this to rocky! but rocky is capable of doing it to her as well, what with his all-consuming need to be who she relies on and to restore the lackadaisy to it’s previous glory for himself and her. he enables her and she enables him, even if it’s subconscious and accidental. while there is undeniable fondness and care there, they are also walking down this path hand-in-hand, tugging each other along when one of then falters or pauses. so, to me, it’s not hard imagining things becoming closer and more intimate … who doesn’t want to be smashed together against someone who gives you all the validation you crave and never shuns you, twisting all your awful deeds into something good and believing you righteous at all times. it’s addicting! and natural. while rocky obviously would enjoy such a relationship, so would mitzi at this point in her life. where she’s exhausted and feels particularly ugly within, and is currently all alone.

they also would click in ways that wouldn’t force them to abandon how they currently go about romance. mitzi needs to spend a good portion of her day thinking about her dead husband and nobody else, meanwhile rocky is very enamored with being a knight in shining armor so to speak, only able to express himself through extreme devotion, a thing that ( as said by crew members on stream ) can’t singlehandedly keep a relationship afloat … normally. but mitzi can deal with rocky’s rather eccentric and destructive behavior, can take the only thing he can offer and accept it wholeheartedly, because she couldn’t handle anything more normal or mature right now. and rocky, despite his occasional displays of territorial behavior, never bats an eye at or feels inferior to mitzi’s atlas obsession. this wouldn’t be the case in other relationships, where both of them would have to change or grow in some way in order to keep the love stable and secure. there would be things they’d have to give up, or be vulnerable about, and both of them are too stubborn for that at this point. a random lover would always be a second thought compared to the lackadaisy.

( now, of course, i ship mitzi and rocky with other people! and i’m very interested in these bonds forming during canon’s events. but it’d either be an unhealthy relationship, due to everything i said above, or a happier sort of take on things : where mitzi and rocky are pulled from their minds’ unraveling edges and are both given the care, patience, and understanding they both need. one where they can set aside the lackadaisy for a moment or two, and can find genuine happiness somewhere else. i never see them as fully moving on from it, nor do i see mitzi fully giving up atlas or rocky fully giving up mitzi, but things can be softened and less insane. sometimes! )

now, is this healthy? no. but is this me saying they should be surgically removed from one another because they make each other ‘worse’? also no! i adore them in every sense of the word and acting like there aren’t positives attached to their dynamic would, frankly, be stupid of me. they are there for each other in their worse moments and approach each other with kindness, something they don’t really get from others anymore. they are genuinely happy to be in each other’s presence and have a habit of lifting each other up, or providing each other some much needed warmth on a bad day. you see it many times in the comic, situations where mitzi is devestated, and rocky rushes in to comfort her ; and he always succeeds in some way, wiggling that severe expression off her face and getting her to smile, even if it’s small and weak. and rocky loves that! it makes him happy to be able to ease her heartache and worries so. it makes him feel useful and needed, and she’s one of the only people in his life to give him even a sliver of praise here or there. here are some examples i can remember off the top of my head :

and while there isn’t many examples of mitzi praising rocky, she is also still one of the few people who shows concern over him and asks after him. there are also two scenes, in the pilot and in the comic, where rocky messes up big time, and mitzi has every right to be frustrated with him. she could yell, she could get mean, like rocky is so used to, but instead … she sucks it in and simply lets it go. this happens with the pig farmers, but also in the pilot most notably! where the second she realizes how hard rocky is taking her words, her reasonable and sympathetic irritation at things not working out, she backtracks. she forces those emotions away and simply says this, earnestly and kindly, and wipes the devestation off rocky’s face :

as much of an accidental negative influence they can have on each other, there’s also a more purposeful positive influence that is inherent in their dynamic. i wouldn’t ever want to dismiss that, nor do i enjoy when other people rush to do so themselves, claiming they’re simply no good for each other. well, they claim mitzi is a manipulative person who only sees rocky as a pawn, but i’ll pretend fans are critical of rocky’s many faults as well. the point is : they’re good for each other and to each other! they just happen to have a great capacity to cling and stay where they are rather than doing anything more beneficial or productive. any dynamic in lackadaisy can become toxic in a sense, given the fact that a majority of the characters are prone to indulging in their flaws and chasing what’s familar, what’s most comfortable, with little regard to anyone else. but i find that aspect interesting, and i love rocky/mitzi all the more for their accidental enabling and vastly obscured views.

the more romantic aspects aren’t really something i care too much about, overall. i play around with it and find scenarios where things can bloom in such a way, but them calling each other ‘boyfriend’ or ‘girlfriend’ isn’t something i care for. i do not think mitzi would ever be attracted to rocky in a sappy lovesick way -- she’s above fawning as it is, and is rather methodical about things like passion or adoration nowadays anyway. her eyes can’t exactly sparkle upon seeing rocky spilling syrup all over himself nor can she sigh dreamily at his nonsensical, improv poetry spiels that just burst out of him like water through a broken dam. but they could soften at the corners and she could convince herself of something romantic if it held her the right way. if she felt battered enough to give into it, or was lonely enough to indulge herself in a place she knows she’s wanted. rocky, on the other hand, is a bit easier to imagine here! he would never say no to miss m. and actively wants to ‘keep’ her already … if they were to become an item, an obscure, happenstance item, than he’d embrace it full heartedly! it’s been well established rocky isn’t one to turn down love or affection, so to get it from mitzi of all people? it’d be extremely ooc to even pretend he’d regret it or shy away. he loves her, of course he does, his beautiful dionysus : who unlocks her doors for him to enter, who smiles upon him with her wine soaked lips, who brushes a dainty paw across his shoulder and sings him praises like it doesn’t pain her to say them. she is warm and comforting and soft, and rocky is possessed by a maddening desire to wrap every spaghetti limb he has around her, and never let her go. again, his love is nothing short of all-consuming and obsessive where mitzi is concerned. her devoted acolyte! it would be simple to see how he’d get here in comparison to mitzi’s more wounded and guarded heart. i don’t think rocky fully loves her in only a romantic sense, however! i’m a firm believer that it is a mix of romantic and platonic feelings, an awkward and intensive blend of the two, this sort of combination that isn’t easy to sort through. he does take comfort in the fact she reminds him of a motherly figure, just as much as he genuinely finds her attractive and appealing in a puppy love kind of way. there’s also the fact that rocky is keen on lying to mitzi and wearing masks around her in the name of seeming more amazing in her eyes -- the fact his love for her is metaphorical and personal in equal measure, and the fact mitzi hides herself away from everyone around her. there would be a lot of untangling! a lot of pretending. this is a ship that will always have a multitude of layers and caveats attached to it, so to speak.

but that excites me! i like it! i love a dynamic that i could write endlessly about no matter the context it’s being framed in! how utterly unsurprising it is that the first lackadaisy fic i thought of was one that would focus heavily on these two and what’s happening between them, what could happen. mitzi wallowing in her self-inflicted misery while rocky prowls around her, begging to be useful to her while simultaneously chasing off a suitor of hers that he cannot stand to let near, is quite the image in my mind, and is one i always have looping around in the back of my head. the parallels to atlas/mordecai are an added bonus to this! if rocky is doomed by the narrative then mitzi is the narrative to which he’s bleeding himself upon, you know? that, as well as his own insecure delusions. mitzi, similarly, would easily waste away to nothing or get herself killed while trying to pursue her nostalgic ambitions if it weren’t for rocky being so willing to do the dangerous stuff for her. i think about how mitzi almost got herself killed in skedaddle and how rocky rushed to save her. while zib and ivy care for mitzi, and viktor is obligated to protect her, they are not as quick as rocky is -- nor as recklessly devoted to the point of readily given sacrifice.

anyway! i’m very fond of them, and there are so many scenes and other aspects of their characters that i could spend ages pouring over. this is, genuinely, merely a fraction of my thoughts on them. although i do hope i answered your question, anon! i got a bit carried away and i’m sure a lot of this is hard to parse through by default, but oh well!

[svtskneecaps]

dude how the fuck is it that everyone on this server has insane chemistry with each other. my brain just fuckin bounces between dynamics like wow foolish and bad, wow baghera and forever, wow baghera and bagi, wow philza and etoiles, wow fit and pac, wow pac e mike, wow favela five AND six (bagi screeching "DON'T MESS WITH FAVELA" paraphrased had my mental hamster wheel hitting unprecedented rpms), wow the french and the french + bebou, wow antoine and mouse, wow bagi and tina, wow tina and forever, wow morning crew, wow slime and mariana WHO I'VE SEEN INTERACT LIVE O N E TIME, wow rivers and roier wow, wow rivers + the vaca crew, wow girl town, wow jaiden and roier, wow baghera bad and forever, wow forever and cellbit, wow cellbit and tazercraft, wow cellbit and roier, wow quackity and etoiles, wow phil and forever, wow bad and etoiles, wow tina and etoiles (fucking love them), wow aypierre and maximus (what the fuck, love it), wow foolish and jaiden (and also bad), wow missa and phil, holy shit jaiden and cellbit, jesus christ antoine and maximus and SEE

I AM MISSING A MILLION INTERACTIONS THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY GONE INTO MY SIBLING'S TEXTS TO SAY "GOD I LOVE THEM" AND I GUARANTEE I WILL ADD TO AND UPDATE THIS LIST WITH MORE (bc wit of the staircase) there is so much enrichment in my enclosure my brain literally doesn't know what to do with it. i've stalled out. i'm so happy. how the fuck did they do this.

additionally, bc i KNEW i'd forget something: foolish and vegetta (HOW), cellbit and baghera, baghera and fit, mouse and cellbit