#it's all incredibly damaging in the long run

[twst-drabbles]

Floyd 14

Summary: Your nails grew too long again and now you need to cut them. And, as it turns out, your little pet Floyd makes for a great nail clipper.

(Wanted to write something goofy. So here it be. More little house pet Floyd being a weirdo.)

You usually didn't give much of a care for the length of your nails. They grow, they chip and split all the time, and they do so more often now that you have these pets to take care of. Not to mention that you have been going out more, leading to more opportunities for them to get damaged.

But then you accidentally scratched Epel, and unless you want to face the wrath of a disappointed Vil again, you have to cut them. Well, it's not as if disaster would strike if your nails are left long and Vil is dropped off again, but his attitude becomes even more annoying that it's just better to cut them and forget them.

However, here's the trouble, you don't have a viable set of nail clippers. You haven't needed one for years, so the pair that you did have were rusted beyond usage. And rather then go out and get a pair right now, you just left the job to your teeth.

And then, eventually, you started using Floyd's teeth when you got too lazy to use your own.

"Hey Floyd," you approached the tank sleepily, yawning as you rubbed the back of your sore neck.

Floyd, ever the creature that runs on his own schedule, peeked out of his little cave, yawned out bubbles, then face planted into the sand, clearly too sleepy to drag himself back.

Yeah you wanna be back in bed too, but Rook insisted on an early morning hike with Vil and Epel. You're not in any rush, but you would like to have a small meal before you go.

And so you do your little trick.

You brought out your longest nail, and dinked it against the glass. Two sharp sounds, divided by a second. Floyd eyes shot wide open and he launched himself up so quickly, he slammed right into the tank's lid. It was enough to make the tank jump.

"Ah." Whoops. You forgot to open it.

Like an old sticky hand toy from the cheap arcade about a mile down from your place, gravity slowly peeled Floyd from the lid. He drifted down, the entire front half of his chubby body made flat.

"Sorry about that, Floyd. I'm still kind of sleepy." You pop open the lid, and splashed your fingers into the water, "Come on, it's nail cutting time."

Shaking himself back into shape, Floyd slid his body right onto your palm.

You sat in the nearest chair, towel on your lap, and let Floyd at it with your nails. He gnawed on each one of them, like a comically small wood chipper. One by one, your nails were cut down with perfect precision. So much so that when you tried to pull away too early, Floyd grasped your finger with his tiny hands with a whining grunt. Not done. And then would slap your wrist with his tail.

"Okay okay, my bad." Ugh, your hands were entirely covered in slime, but hey, what can you do? Besides, after you wash your hands, the skin always ends up incredibly soft. You can't help but wonder if you should bring this up with Rook. Hmm, perhaps later.

Floyd gave two firm pats on your hand. He's done, time for the next one. He splayed his arms out, as if getting ready for the biggest hug of his life.

Silly, silly eel. Hopefully he doesn't throw a tantrum when he realizes you're going on a hike without him. Right now you're just dressed like you're getting ready for a deep cleaning of the house.

But for now, he can enjoy himself as he chews off your nails. And then run on out of here as soon as you can.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Who is Yvette and may I please know more about their streaming career? 🙏

Comtesse Yvette Preux is, for lack of a better word, one of the ‘iconic’ investigators/PCs in Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. She appears in a lot of art in the rulebook, as do many of the PCs of the A.N.I.M. team and our friends.

(both by team artist @chaospyromancy)

She’s also the first ever monster PC to ever be played in Eureka, back before Eureka even had official monster PC rules. The incredible success of that campaign is what set the precedent for what monster PC gameplay would come to be in Eureka.

You can read a bit of an origin story for her in this post

In the 2010s and 2020s, she has a fairly successful twitch streaming/influencer career, with her gimmick being that she claims to be a real 800+-year-old vampire, and allegedly never breaks character. Her twitch and YouTube channels cover competitive gaming, challenge runs, advanced math, firearms, and urban exploring.

In-person she is.. a little harder to get along with. She’s.. old-fashioned, and her values are very distinctly those of someone who grew up rich and Catholic in the 1200s, which ironically means she has little in common with a modern “tradcath.”

The contrast between the modern world, the modern world’s pop culture idea of the Middle Ages, and the actual Middle Ages is a major theme in the parts of her story where she’s actually integrating into the society of the 1990s and 21st century.

Many would expect her to be virulently and openly hateful, but that’s the pop culture Middle Ages. The actual Middle Ages were oppressive in different and more interesting ways.

I’ll give a few interesting examples

In the Middle Ages, women were considered the more “lustful” and “sexually aggressive” sex, a bit like men are thought of today. It’s women who were considered basically responsible for lust in the first place, to the point that it was considered a public health issue. Lust with no outlet was thought to be detrimental to one’s overall physical health. Sex or even masturbation was sometimes prescribed by doctors to combat this.

This is a comedic exaggeration/oversimplification but in the medieval world being around women would gradually fill up a Dark Souls-style Lust meter and if you didn’t do anything to reduce it it would take a chunk out of your health, making you sickly and prone to other health problems. Women were more resistant to this because they’re the source of lust in the first place. Medieval women covered their legs and their hair in particular for everyone’s protection.

This manifests in Yvette as her not caring at all about being naked in front of female friends, but being careful not to look too sexy around male friends. And then awkwardly telling them to masturbate later if they need to because it’s better to sin and live than to avoid sin to the detriment of one’s health. (In fact, knowingly damaging one’s health is a sin.)

In the art, you can see her not only wearing pants, but even wearing pants that show her ankles and legs, and wearing her hair down. It took her a long time to get comfortable wearing anything but full-length skirts around men, but these risqué (to her) outfits are symbolizing her character growth from someone who is accommodating to others to a fault, to prioritizing her own comfort, even at cost to others.

In the Middle Ages, they did not conceptualize homosexuality like we do now. No one was gay, and neither was anyone straight. Attraction wasn’t a trait of an individual, it was a fact. Homosexuality wasn’t really considered a thing that you were, it was a thing you do. It’s really hard to explain so I’m just going to hope y’all get it along with the example. Sodomy was sodomy, and that was considered to cover basically any irregular form of sex. Irregular sex between a man and woman was as much sodomy as sex between a man and another man. This also means that there was no presumption of homosexuality in the Middle Ages. You didn’t have to say “no homo” before you touched your same sex friend’s hand. Close friends would kiss each other on the mouth and stuff, and that was considered normal. (Though something you would want to avoid was spending more than a few minutes alone with an opposite-sex friend, because that could be used to call the woman’s virginity into question, which could hurt her eligibility for marriage.)

As Yvette understands it, in the 21st century, people have constructed entire communities around their enjoyment of sodomy, like how she’s a member of the gun club. She has complex feelings about that but it isn’t like she’s never engaged in sodomy before either. (She brought this to confession and did her penance so it’s fine.)

What really aggravates her is how she can’t touch or kiss any of her friends in the 21st century without it being considered sexual.

She argues it’s not “gay” for her to feel attracted to women either, it’s normal. Women are naturally attractive to everyone.

Where it really gets abrasive though is probably the classism. She’s from the noble class and still considers that to really matter, it makes her a little bit better than everyone else, and more qualified to be making decisions for people.

She does love commoners, though. All her friends are commoners, and she’s very protective of them. She’s too autistic to get that noblesse obligé wasn’t supposed to be a real principal she lives by and even back when she was for-real managing a fiefdom she was an advocate for the comfort of the peasantry.

I'm gonna have to stop listing all her quirks here because if I don’t stop then it’ll go on forever. If you want to read some short stories that feature her, subscribe to our Patreon.

I’ll segway by saying that two more major aspects of her are generosity and power. She revels in power in all forms, including the power to solve the problems of people who are helpless to solve them themselves. Like I said, she takes noblesse obligé very seriously. Jesus Christ had the power to multiply the fish and bread for the hungry, so he did. She can help, so she will(whether you like it or not). She hardly even considers it a “duty,” it’s more like why would she ever do anything else? Sometimes this means giving away staggering amounts of money, other (more exciting) times it means getting involved in a Eureka adventure/investigation, the more challenging and dangerous the better, because it makes her even cooler. This is what gets her into Eureka adventures. She’s going to help the helpless, what does it matter if it also fuels her ego?

I also just realized I’ve said very little about her actual twitch streaming career. Like I said, her gimmick is that she’s a real vampire. In the 2010s and 2020s, she is more or less “out” as a vampire, openly identifying herself as such and doing almost nothing to hide any aspect of her vampirism(except the part where she sneaks up on people in the night and drinks their blood, but she doesn’t hide that because it’s a vampire thing, she hides that because it’s an assault charge). Most people just think she’s weird, or really really dedicated to the persona. And if somebody does actually see her not reflecting in a mirror, or some other unexplainable proof of vampirism, what are they going to do? Go online and say “hey everyone I think that this popular e-celebrity whose gimmick is that she says she’s a vampire actually is a real vampire!”? Vampires aren’t real, idiot.

If you want to read short stories about her, you can get them with a $5 subscription to our Patreon,

and she and her exploits in Eureka campaigns are also talked about a lot in the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club.

The Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook will also have a section that will probably be called “the making of a vampire” that will detail some of her actual living life and shine a little more light on how a vampire actually comes to be in Eureka’s world.

[hussyknee]

Listen I love Ellen and Oscar but

June Claremont-Diaz 🫱🏽‍🫲🏻 Princess Bea

↓↓

✨ Parentification Trauma ✨

[mantisgodsdomain]

We're going to talk about our cool vampire guy headcanons again. We like to set Monsieur Scarlet as a member of Solenopsis invicta, albeit a very unconventional example of the species. As a fire ant, technically, he is venomous - however, he's not actually had venom production online for decades, and at this point the cost for Making That Bite Work Again far outweighs the perceived benefit.

Would it be directly useful for his survival to be capable of injecting people with venom that causes intense burning sensations? Yes, probably, especially since he's at a scale where the swelling induced would probably take out an arm for hours at a time. He's just not going to fix it, because that takes life force that he could be using for other purposes, like breathing, or keeping his heart running, or having an emergency teleportation stock so that he can fling himself a metre or two in any direction when need be.

[arolesbianism]

I have been playing beastieball and first of all very good game second of all smth smth Olivia Broussard

[alchemistc]

Part One

The loft is sadly undecorated. He'd tried, is the thing. Gone to the same novelty store they'd found on a random walk after a date, in late September, where Tommy had spent twenty minutes worrying a foam pumpkin in his hands while Buck tried to decide what sort of decor would fit his utilitarian loft.

They'd spent so long lingering over the sculpted white candles, Buck thrilled because Tommy's straight face broke every time Buck pointed out which ones looked like incredibly expensive dildos, that he'd felt bad enough to buy a whole set of them just to appease the girl at the counter who'd been watching them with a half annoyed, half wistful expression while Buck made a comment about dragons that had had Tommy biting his lip so hard he'd actually gone red in the face trying to hold the laughter in.

But every time he'd picked up a glass tree and thought how much fun it'd be to try to make Tommy go full Tik Tok Paramedic on him, every time he'd found something soft or plush enough that Tommy wouldn't have been able to resist running his fingers over it, plucking it up to toss it between his palms - well.

It wasn't like there'd be anyone in his loft long enough to really appreciate his decorations.

"Why'd you kiss me?" he asks, rounding on Tommy as Tommy takes a tentative step towards the kitchen.

"You were being annoying." At Buck's look, he elaborates. "Force of habit."

The finger comes up without any input from Buck, his voice tipping into that same flirty, bickering rapport he'd always pushed as far as he could. "I knew you did it to shut me up."

Tommy expression shutters. He recognizes Buck's tone. A few months ago that tone would start with a round of banter that usually ended with at least one of them with their pants around their ankles.

He looks spooked. He's staring at the island stool closest to the door like he's replaying the last conversation they had here, and Buck feels all his ire rear back up.

"You promised me clarity, Tommy." It's an accusation, and they both know it, because he looks ready to fucking bolt.

Slowly, he steps in. Half a yard closer to Buck, close enough to curl his hand over the island, and Buck is struck again by how goddamn unfair it is that Tommy looks this goddamn good in a suit.

"I did."

Buck's pretty sure he has some muffins he hasn't frozen yet that wouldn't actually damage Tommy, if he threw them at him.

"Can we...?" He gestures, vague as his half a question, and Buck wants to throttle him. Or kiss him again, which is -

"I need a beer. You?"

Tommy sighs. His grip on the corner of the island makes his knuckles go white. "Evan."

"No beer, got it." He swings the door open and doesn't wait for the reaction to either his snippy little rejoinder or the stacks and stacks of baked goods filling up the shelves of his fridge. He pops the cap with his back still turned, let's the fridge door fall closed. "Not like you drove here, but sure. One of us should be sober, I guess."

The switch back to Evan doesn't do anything for him at all.

Buck leans back against the counter and tries not to think about how he'd had this half formed idea of getting a real tree this year, finding some novelty kiosk that made those hokey ornaments for people to mark the years they'd been a family. He'd thought -

Tommy blinks guiltily when Buck catches him eyeing the way he fills out his slacks, a toe to groin drift of his gaze that makes Buck ache for when he could respond to that by dropping to his knees.

"That's a lot of bread," Tommy notes, eyes focused somewhere over Buck's shoulder.

"Why'd you break up with me, Tommy?"

Tommy freezes. Shifts from foot to foot. Sighs, and takes a few steps to the fridge, swings it open to grab a beer of his own. It's still the stuff Tommy likes. Buck's not picky, really, and it'd been habit to grab the six pack he always kept for Tommy.

The last five times he'd restocked.

Tommy takes half a step back to lean against the island, just off center from Buck, so they both have to twist their necks just a little to actually look at each other.

"You terrify me," Tommy murmurs, a few swigs in, when the silence is just starting to make Buck's skin itch. "Evan, I'm not -." He grimaces, frustrated. "I'm not some Super Gay who fights for justice and equality and the ability to make horrible television with Hummel doll sopranists."

"I don't know what that means."

Tommy's smile is wry. He'd had a running list of movies Buck's never seen on a note on his phone - every time Buck missed a reference, he'd added it to the list. They'd gotten through maybe twenty before -

"I led on a good woman for years because I convinced myself I could live my life ignoring a huge piece of myself. I hurled slurs with my buddies just to make sure no one noticed me. I fed into every toxic stereotype I could just to avoid anyone realizing I wasn't one of them. I'm not - I'm not some Gold Star Gay, paragon of the community. I didn't do shit. And even when I made the decision to let myself just be who I always was, I waited until no one in my life was close enough to me to question that I hadn't always been this way. I -." He winces. Shakes his head. "I run instead of fighting. I hide every time someone tries to see me. I'm not - this comfort you're so convinced I have I took at the cost of other people who were braver and stronger than I could ever be. Do you - is that an admirable quality, to you?"

Buck wishes they'd sat, like Tommy seemed to have been hinting at. He wishes he'd spent the ride over preparing himself for this, instead of stopping himself from crawling into Tommy's lap and getting a horrible rider rating for his trouble. He wishes -

"Do you think I don't already know all those things about you?"

It's - actually, it makes him a little furious, to think that Tommy spent six months thinking he'd successfully hid all those things from Buck. And - sure, he hadn't exactly been forthcoming about more than a few of those things, but like -

It wasn't like Buck didn't actively find ways to pry stories from Howie and Hen, even Bobby on occasion. It wasn't like Buck hadn't noticed the clipped way Tommy spoke of his past, his family, always tucking away more than he revealed. It wasn't like Buck wasn't well aware that Tommy Kinard had the capacity to be a total fucking asshole, if he wanted. Just because he'd kept it cool around Buck, made it just flirty enough for plausible deniability -

"You deserve better than that. Than me."

"Then be better than that, Tommy." It's not the best way to get his point across, but... "I've had multiple serious relationships, Tommy. I'm - I've been in love, before, and I've had my heart broken before, and I've had my trust broken before, and I've made people I love feel like shit. You weren't new and exciting, Tommy, we were - we were boring and domestic and it was the best six months of my life. It was what I -."

And this, of course, is where the words start to crest over, too many at once while his mouth tries to keep up and his throat is too tight to -

He swallows. Stares at his toes until his vision swims. Maybe those are tears, or maybe he's just stared long enough to go cross-eyed. His throat feels like he might be able to scrape a few words out

"I go too fast sometimes. I - I get scared I'm falling behind and so I clear a few hurdles too fast to catch back up and it -." Frustration rises through him as he remembers the way Tommy had levered himself up, spun away, broken things off without even a hint of the careful consideration Buck had grown so used to. "And you just - you tell me you want more than anything to be my last but you can't even give me the closure of a clean break! What the hell was that about?"

"Evan, I -."

"No! Okay, no. It's my turn to - it's my turn to be mad. It's my turn to - do you know how lonely I've been? How - how much I'm in my own head about where I went wrong, and what I could have done differently, and why you won't just fucking text me when you clearly want to? Do you know - do you know what it's like to think you've finally found something worth the humiliation of being known and then have it vanish in a single night? Over - you never talked to me about any of the shit you brought up that night, Tommy! You never - if you were so scared of not being enough to keep me interested, or so sure you weren't a good enough man, or so sure I couldn't possibly know what I wanted out of this, you could have saved us a hell of a lot of time and - and hurt by not being exactly the person I thought I could spend the rest of my life with! If that was all a - a smokescreen, some act, then why did you - are you actually so cruel that you convinced me we were falling in love while you had one foot out the door the whole time?"

Tommy's grip on the bottle looks painful.

"It's your turn to talk," Buck snipes, and he takes a little satisfaction in the way Tommy blanches. Just a little. Just enough to ignore how much he wants to rip Tommy's suit jacket at the straining shoulder seams and bite a bruise into that spot below his collarbone that even Tommy's undershirts hid well enough to keep the team at Harbor from putting him on blast for coming to work covered in hickeys.

"Six months with you was more devastating than two decades of hiding who I was, Evan," Tommy says, and it's a horrible opening that makes Buck feel like he's being drawn and quartered but he'd given Tommy the floor, so -

Tommy's eyes are a little too misty to call them anything but welling, and Buck hates it as much as it satisfies the pieces of himself he's spent weeks trying to pick up and glue back together.

"Evan, I lived with Abby for years and I don't think I saw her as much as I saw you. You -." He swipes a hand through his hair, and rustles one of his Superman curls loose to drape tauntingly over his forehead. Buck wants to bite him. He wants it to hurt. "You burrowed in and you just kept digging and I didn't take a second to question it until it was too late."

"Too late for what?"

"For me to take the cowards way out and leave before it hurt."

"Maybe I should have dug further," Buck snaps, and Tommy's gaze flits to his. Holds, for the first time all night. He's breathtaking in the best and worst way possible. He's spent weeks now trying to imagine anyone else ever making him feel the way prolonged eye contact with this man makes him feel.

"You did," Tommy admits, a confession that sounds like it's been gut punched right out of him. "You still -." Another grimace, Tommy pulling back, pulling away, hiding, running, and Buck can't -

"So what is this, Tommy? Is this - are you -?" He shakes his head to clear the cobwebs. Rears up, pushes off the counter, and Tommy's eyes widen like he's just now realized he doesn't have an easy exit. Buck just stands there, though. "If this is it, let this be it. If you don't want - if you're not willing to fight for this with me, tell me now. I know I'm - I know I'm a lot. I know I push for more when I'm scared. I know I'm overwhelming, and I sometimes can't stop talking to save my life, and I know I'm jealous and petty and - I know I'm not perfect."

Tommy sets his bottle on the counter beside him. Worries his lip between his teeth and rolls his jaw.

"You snore. You're a bitch sometimes and every once in a while it's not even charming. You hog all the covers and then you complain that it's too hot. You're vague about every single thing in your past that you think makes you seem like a bad person. You always think food needs more garlic and sometimes you're wrong. Sometimes when I spiral you just give me that stupid indulgent smile of yours and I know you stopped listening two reddit threads ago. When you're grumpy sometimes it takes everything in me not to pick a fight because you're such an asshole. You get cagey every time I pick at a thread you don't want to unravel and I - I hate it. I wanted a life with you and you couldn't stick around long enough to tell me why you were too afraid to go for it. So if - if you think I'm seeing you with rose colored glasses, or whatever. If you think I'm not - if you think being the first guy makes you too special for this to be real then just..." He sucks in a breath. Blows it out through his nose and feels the ache in his chest that's half remnants of his earlier panic attack and half fear that Tommy will actually turn and walk out at the end of this. "If you don't wanna fight for this I'll fill in the hole I dug as best I can and I'll leave you alone, okay?"

The look on Tommy's face is one he's never seen before. They've done this dance, or parts of it, at least. Tommy'd left him outside Micelli's, breathless and confused and aching, before he ever knew what it was like to hold his hand, to press his nose into the join of his neck and shoulder, to curl a hand in his hair or be filled by him - with attention, with affection, with the weight of his body and the stretch of his cock. Even then, this had felt different. Real, in a way the misty edges of his time with Abby, or the way Buck's puzzle pieces had never quite fit with Taylor's had never been. Even then, he'd just wanted so desperately to know and be known by Tommy that he'd taken his second chance and run with it.

"I don't snore," Tommy says, when the silence gets too heavy, and Buck - god, Buck has missed that tone, the snappy little tilt of his head, the blatant lie that passes over Tommy's lips so smoothly it's hard to tell sometimes that he's not being serious.

"I have audio proof," Buck says, and then doesn't immediately admit that he'd played it on a loop two nights into the breakup when he'd wrapped his entire body around the spare pillows on his bed and still hadn't been able to sleep alone in his bed.

"It bugs me that you spent days following scraps of information about a dead outlaw you convinced yourself cursed you, but you didn't even know what a Kinsey scale was."

This is - progress. This is... not Tommy bolting.

"I'm a two. If that's - is that, like, gay enough for you, or...?"

"You go too fast for me, Buckley," he says, and Buck knows that's a fucking reference to something he doesn't have context for just as well as he knows he's willing to spend the next decade waiting for the reference to pop up on Tommy's list. It's a terrifying, exhilarating thought and it's probably exactly what Tommy means.

"I can slow down," Buck says, and he tries to mean it. Nothing about how he feels about Tommy is slow.

"I don't want you to," Tommy admits, and then lets the silence stretch. They're two and a half feet away from each other and the distance feels like the farthest he's ever been from Tommy and the closest he may ever be again. "Living together, making a life together..." He swallows. "Marriage." That stops him short just long enough to recall how he'd blazed right past the I love you and straight into how he could keep Tommy. "You scare the shit out of me every goddamn minute of every goddamn day and I've never missed being terrified as much as I have since I walked out that door."

"I'm in love with you," Buck tells him, and Tommy blinks back tears. Takes a shaky breath and nods.

"That's what scares me. It's never - it's never been enough, before."

He'd sort of expected this to end with either the echo of his KitchenAid or a frantic rush up the stairs, but when Tommy meets him halfway all he does is sink his nose into the curls behind Buck's ear and breathe.

His arms drag Buck closer, his feet shuffle beneath them, his chin hooks over Buck's shoulder and he breathes, and breathes, and breathes.

---

"Your morning breath is rancid," Tommy tells him, palm centered on Buck's nose when he leans in for a kiss, pads of his fingers curled just slightly so that his hand is nearly encasing Buck's entire face. He wants to be annoyed but it's mind numbingly hot and Buck has missed it. Missed the snark, and the comfortable way Tommy will shoot him down when his head is in the clouds, and exactly how fucking large Tommy is.

"I'm so tired of avocado toast," Buck bats back, and Tommy is distracted enough by his need to make a face at that for Buck to swoop in and press a kiss to his cheek. He makes sure to make it a little wet just to watch Tommy's face crinkle in mock disgust.

He's in one of Buck's hoodies, is wearing the pair of his own sweats Buck had buried in the back of his closet in a fit of pique three days post breakup. He still looks properly debauched and Buck wants to drag him right back to bed.

Except -

"You don't have to go," Buck repeats, for the fifth time since he brought it up somewhere between peeling Tommy out of his suit pants and rolling out of bed to warm a hand towel under the sink so that Tommy could clean the cum off his abs. "But I need to shower and leave in like - twenty-seven minutes."

Tommy catches him by the waist and drags him in. "I won't be able to stay. You baked and I took as much holiday overtime as I could, but if you seriously want me there -."

"I seriously want you everywhere."

Tommy raises a brow.

"I mean that in a horny way and a codependent way."

Tommy snorts. "Good to know we're approaching this in a healthy manner."

"You told me not to slow down," Buck reminds him, and he gets a smack to his ass for his trouble.

"When Maddie pulls me aside, do you think she'll just slip me a poisoned glass of wine, or is she gonna get up on a step stool and make me stand there while she strangles me to death?"

"She won't do that." Buck leans in again, rolls a loose curl between two fingers. "She'll just stab you in the middle of the kitchen and warn my parents not to step in the blood."

"That's comforting."

Tommy takes a utilitarian shower in the downstairs bathroom and doesn't let Buck join him, and then rifles through Buck's closet until he finds all three of his button downs Buck had tucked away.

He has to borrow a pair of Buck's slacks and Buck absolutely does not mind that his ass is definitely gonna stretch them out.

With about seventy seconds to spare, Tommy presses Buck to his front door and kisses him just long enough to screw up Buck's meticulous timing - by the time he pulls back and gives Buck enough room to glance at the time on his stove, Buck knows they're gonna hit just enough red lights to make them late.

"I love you too, by the way," Tommy murmurs, and just this once, Buck decides not to be a brat about being five minutes late.

[ladyofrosefire]

fuck it, bg3 companions shower routine

Shadowheart: Shar hates self-care, but a Shadowheart does take pride in her hair, and a Shadowheart who has learned to be kind to herself can indulge. Long, complicated hair routine, very specific water temperature, and a tendency toward long-ass depression showers. LOVES a bubble bath and will make a whole event of it with flower petals and candles just for her. Will bring a book with a little book tray and a glass of wine.

Astarion: Similarly complicated hair routine. Gotta hydrate the curls, and being dead does not do nice things to your hair. Less prone to standing there staring at nothing while the horrors set in, but prone to scrubbing too hard. Similarly fond of a bubble bath, although without the book or flowers, although he will fuck with an essential oil heater and likes to make his own blends.

Lae'zel: Queen of the 4 minute shower. She has been accused of not even waiting for the water to heat up, but she likes it blistering. Does not actually use 3-in-1, thank you. Having fairly short hair helps. She finds the other companions baffling. Would get bored in a bubble bath unless she had company (rubber duck counts).

Wyll: Sings. If someone called him on it, he would be embarrassed, the first time, for about a minute. Neither wildly efficient nor inclined to standing there for ages and ages and prefers to shower in the morning. Washing his hair is a chance to relax and take care of himself, although before he has his family back, it can be a bit melancholy. He has fallen asleep in the bath before. I feel like he'd love a bath bomb and he'd love the full romantic evening with candles and flowers and music.

Karlach: Please, please someone boil her. Once she gets her engine fixed all the way, she tries a cold shower just to remember what it feels like and keeps up a running commentary about how much it sucks while also not turning up the temperature. Absolutely loves sharing a shower with someone and will also sing. Should not attempt her little jig on wet tiles. May try anyway. Someone should introduce her to proper hair/skin care because if anyone is using 3-in-1, I'm sorry, it's Karlach. Genuinely cannot sit still for a bubble bath unless she has company to cuddle.

Gale: Voted Faerun's Most Likely to Relitigate Arguments in the Shower, Even if He Won Originally. Loves to pamper himself, canonically, loves a spa day, also canonically. You simply are not getting the bathroom back for a good hour, although not all that time involves running water. Plays around with different products and researches the living hell out of everything. Loves a long soak. The only person with a feline in their house to ever bathe in peace. Constantly torn between wanting a book with him when he has a bath and not wanting to get the pages steamy and damp, much less actually wet.

Minthara: Her ideal hair wash involves someone else doing it for her while also having the utmost certainty that the person will not attempt to murder her. If her partner washes her hair for her, she turns into a puddle. She has an incredibly specific lineup of products. If she shares, understand that she has bestowed upon you a great gift. More about bath salts than bubbles and could be persuaded to a sufficiently elegant bath bomb (it would not be a difficult check).

Halsin: Low-flow showerhead user. Hell, he might be the kind of person to turn the water off entirely when not soaking/rinsing out his hair... However, he is not immune to the "shower together to save water" line even though he KNOWS it doesn't work that way. He needs low-scent soaps/etc considering his heightened sense of smell. And listen, this man does not fit in a bathtub unless he goes somewhere special or finds a particularly large one. He made everyone floaty ducks, properly sealed against water damage, and he has one for himself that holds his soap.

Jaheira: Understands that having a chair in the shower is just being kind to yourself and proceeds accordingly. Will revisit arguments she had that day, but despite that has a quick and fairly simple routine. She needs the water pressure to pound the everloving hell out of her back. Loofa on a stick user. Like Wyll, she has fallen asleep in a bathtub, in part thanks to having and using a bath cushion. Truly, the expert on bath-based comfort.

Minsc: Also sings in the shower. LOUDLY. Boo is allowed to sit a shelf out of the way. The best way to get him to use lotion is to give him something that smells yummy. He has similar problems to Halsin regarding fitting in bathtubs. He tries anyway. He has been banned from at least one hotspring for doing a cannonball.

[pinkhoodi]

love island !

✎ᝰ — hcs on how the bat boys (and wally :p) would act on love island

♡⃕ — bruce wayne, dick grayson, jason todd, wally west x reader

♡⃕ — genre + warnings: fluff, fluff, and more fluff <3

♡⃕ — a/n: who do yall think would be the best male islander ? I’m voting wally or jason 🧏🏽‍♀️

꒰ BRUCE WAYNE ꒱

Ꮺ bruce is here for one goal and one goal only, to find true love and he’ll use love island as his opportunity !!!

Ꮺ at first bruce thought it was a silly idea to go on a reality show to find love but then watching a season (or two), he realized that it might be just what he needs. a vacation in fiji where there’s no communication to the outside world and the only thing to focus on is the villa

Ꮺ I would see bruce as the bombshell everyone and I mean everyone is in love or jealous with. his introduction is smooth, his manners compliment him well, and the eye contact he makes with the girls have them heating up in the face. he would be an early on bombshell, maybe the end of week one so a lot of people consider him as an honorary og islander

Ꮺ bruce usually ends up making connections and then they wither away. he doesn’t understand why and it does start to frustrate him, he tries his best to grow a connection but he genuinely can’t seem to do it

Ꮺ thankfully, he’s grown some friendships that keeps him motivated and reminds him that there is a potential someone out there for him :)

Ꮺ buttt once he does, he’s stuck to his couple like glue and rarely leaves their side. he is there giggling and chatting with the person day in and day out, his experience in the villa swiftly changes once this person comes in

Ꮺ now casa amor…bruce is nawt playing any and I mean ANY games with casa !!! yes the reason for casa kind of makes sense but he doesn’t wanna indulge in the idea of hurting his couple or potentially damaging what he has built

Ꮺ bruce is someone who makes it to the final four and either wins or is definitely runner up. the results doesn’t phase him really since he feels like he found his person and someone he can grow to love <3

꒰ DICK GRAYSON ꒱

Ꮺ oh baby dick is here to have FUNNNNNNN. of course make some new connections but who is he to turn down a nice vacation on an island? with his busy and stressful schedule, he needs this vacation more than ever

Ꮺ dick would be an og islander and his path with finding love is what reeled in viewers. he’s done damn near every trope but oddly they don’t work in his favor :/

Ꮺ he realizes that most of the girls only get with him cause of his looks and his appeal which excited him at first but soon made him realize that these aren’t the connections he wanted. he wanted something genuine, something he could enjoy for the long run

Ꮺ I would think that he finds his love with one of the og members that he didn’t invest time in until later in the show. all his connections failed him except one and it was only labeled as a friendship until it sparked into something deeper in the last few weeks of his time in the villa

Ꮺ casa amor is what dick anticipated the most ngl, he was so ready to pack his bags and skip to casa. he wasn’t stressed about what was going on in the villa only cause he didn’t have any strong connections. I mean he brought a girl back but that didn’t last long

Ꮺ sadly dick didn’t make it to the final four and it kinda hurt him a little bit but he enjoyed the time while it lasted. also his connection with his person became stronger outside the villa and they eventually grew into a beautiful couple :)

꒰ JASON TODD ꒱

Ꮺ in jason’s head, he is here for a good time, not a long time. it became the complete opposite but that’s neither here nor there !!

Ꮺ jason just did it cause production reached out to him. how? the world may never know. however, he doesn’t regret accepting the offer cause he enjoyed it more than he thought and he met some incredible people who helped him grow as a person

Ꮺ I would say jason was a bombshell that came in about a week after the season started. He’s like an honorary og cast to the other islanders

Ꮺ sadly, jason was almost always at the bottom or vulnerable cause he couldn’t find the right connection. every girl or bombshell he connected with, something was missing, something that could complete him. though he did find it halfway through the season

Ꮺ a bombshell came through just last minute and he’s been stuck by their hip since. he was still open to new connections but this bombshell always reeled him back in, made him see what he was missing from his past connection. they’re kind to others, always laughing, and bring a soft yet joyful energy to the villa

Ꮺ now casa…ooo casa. at first jason did it only to see what the hype was about it but oh how he instantly regrets it. he acknowledged himself and made his presence with the casa girls but he instantly got the feeling that they were nothing like his connection back in the villa

Ꮺ did he do some things? ….sadly yes but immediately regret it the day after. in a “why the fuck did i do this? what is wrong with me?” type of regret. he felt even more regret when he returned to the villa and saw his couple feeling low and silently infuriated during the recoupling

Ꮺ he did own up to his actions and told them the entire thing that went down, not sugarcoating anything. also apologizing almost every time he saw them until they forgave him

Ꮺ he got into the final four and won :). viewers loved his storyline and loved the amount of growth he had throughout the show + the amount of fangirls he collected

꒰ WALLY WEST ꒱

Ꮺ thee actual lover boy in this villa and it’s so cute :(. he really came to love island for the right reasons and it’s so beautiful watching him fall in love and become a lovesick puppy around his couple

Ꮺ wally would be either an og member or a bombshell that came in after the third recoupling

Ꮺ he didn’t really think too much into it when he applied for the show. he wanted to have fun for the summer and see what this show could teach him, what didn’t expect was to have one of the most beautiful love stories everrr

Ꮺ wally’s connection weren’t too bad but for some reason he kept gravitating towards someone (you) and it would unintentional, he genuinely doesn’t know how it happens. he could be getting to know other people but still find himself under your arms, at ease and with his cheeks blushing red

Ꮺ not only that, he would always end up recoupling with them. he doesn’t understand why but he enjoys knowing how much you like him and how much he likes you

Ꮺ as time went on, he slowly stopped being interested in other people and only kept his attention on his couple. he realized after talking to the boys how he feels and they all joked about he might be falling in love, they were joking but wally felt a ping of nervousness about this “falling in love” but he couldn’t deny it to himself, even if he tried

Ꮺ wherever his couple is, there he is as well. even not in their absence, he leaves a small pout until they come back, he pretends that he wasn’t pouting beforehand but the entire villa snitched that he def was (he was so red, it was so cute but so embarrassing LMAO). he’s always smiling when talking about them, describing them with such beautiful adjectives, and all his recoupling speeches about them have the villa feeling like he was a yearning poet in his past life

Ꮺ casa….casa amor. he wasn’t too excited on the idea but the boys convinced him and he instantly regrets listening to them. the casa girls just didn’t feel right and he tried to keep all interactions on a friendship level, no matter how much the girls push themselves onto wally

Ꮺ he got all sappy and sort of become sad of not being with his couple. while his friends enjoyed, he kept them in the back of his head and wondered what they were doing in the villa. a lot of “I miss y/n” and “I wanna be with y/n”, he missed them so much to the point where he started counting down how many hours left in this casa

Ꮺ viewers loved how much wally has grown to love their couple and has showed more than minimum to be with them. even if he did had a few screw ups, he was more than sure to fix it and get back into their good graces, he can’t see them being hurt and he doesn’t wanna hurt them in anyway, shape, or form

Ꮺ I would say wally def came in second or third place. the prize really didn’t matter to him so he’s not phase by it, he’s just happy to meet someone this incredible on the island. after the show, him and his couple officially got together and ended up married years later <3

♡⃕ hey im looking for a girl in the villa. personality, any height, mrs right 😜

♡⃕ ngl, the only reason it took me song to get these out cause i was hooked on love island 🥸 (#TEAM SORDELL & TEAM KANA 🤞🏽)

♡⃕ who was yall fav islander ? yall better not say rob or aaron…

♡⃕ there is def gonna be a part two !!! I wanted to add kaldur and roy but I’m way too tired and my brain hurts rn :/

𝐕𝐎𝐓𝐏 💗: psalm 27:14

© 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟦 𝗉𝗂𝗇𝗄𝗁𝗈𝗈𝖽𝗂. 𝖺𝗅𝗅 𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍𝗌 𝗋𝖾𝗌𝖾𝗋𝗏𝖾𝖽

[hipstergecko]

Waking Up.

Hey so remember that DPxDC prompt I wrote awhile back? I've been writing it! Here's a brand new chunk.

Ghost in a Box: Danny experiences extreme sensory deprivation after getting trapped in a coffin like box his parents invented. His box is opened on the JL watchtower after being found in an underground bunker. Humans can't do sensory deprivation for too long. Apparently neither can Danny.

Original Ghost in a Box prompt here.

----

Black bat was waiting. She was quite good at waiting. Sometimes on a mission you had to be patient. Still and silent. Waiting.

The boy that had come out of the box had been in the intensive care unit for days. He had been dehydrated and was terribly emaciated. He had been starving. How long had he been in the box?

They couldn’t ask him until he woke up. So she had been waiting.

Cass sighed and walked silently down the hall to the ICU. After they had gotten the boy into the medical wing, she’d gotten the whole “that was incredibly dangerous” spiel from her dad Batman. He was proud of her though. She could tell. It spoke through the lines of his shoulders and the tilt of his head. The softness of his hands. Hopefully that softness would be given to the boy from the box.

There had been multiple debriefs and meetings to discuss how to proceed with the boy. The majority of heroes were loath to continue opening boxes. What if they were full of creatures much like the boy? Capable of so much damage and danger. They didn’t even know what he was.

The documents they had uncovered called the boy a ghost. But after checking his vital signs, they found he had a pulse. He had a heart, breath, and blood. He was human.

But he was in the box. So he wasn’t. The members of Justice league dark had been contacted and were due to arrive any day now. They had been on assignment somewhere else. Cass hadn’t bothered to find out where they’d been.

None of that mattered anyway.

What had mattered, truly, was that the boy from the box was afraid. Afraid and unable to communicate. And Cass understood him. He was terrified and desperate. And Cass saw him beyond the horrors.

He was a child and he needed help.

So he was hers now. No matter what anyone else said. She reached out to him first and he was her new brother/son/child. Bruce would have to deal with it.

She had stayed on the watchtower, with Bruce’s blessing, since the box had been opened. She barely left the boy’s side much to Bruce’s chagrin. He was not pleased with the possibility of her being in danger. But Tim had pointed out that she was plenty dangerous herself.

She loved her brothers.

She stayed on the watchtower all the time now. Staying with the boy and only leaving the observation room to shower and eat on her own. The doctors had insisted, gently, that she should take some time to herself after those first few days. So she does. Today she took a hot shower and attended a few meetings to keep up as to what they planned to do with her new brother. She also got to spend some time with Spoiler who had just so happened to be on the watchtower that day (she sent a thank you message to Tim over the family chat).

She looked through the observational window, a frown hidden behind her mask. The boy was hooked up to various machines to monitor his vitals. His eyes were still covered and the headphones were still firmly on his head. He looked so small and frail against the bed linens. There wasn’t much more they could do until the JLD members arrived.

The doctors inside the room were gently cleaning the boy. Running a warm soft wipe down his arms and legs, checking his vital signs, laying a warm blanket over him for comfort. She watched impassively at first, then with intense interest as some of the monitors showed brain activity.

Signs of waking. Her new brother was waking up.

She was the first one in the room when the boy jerked awake with a gasp.

---------

Consciousness.

Discomfort.

Gravity.

The air tastes funny. His arm itches. His legs feel heavy.

Weird.

Danny floated on the edge of wakefulness. Or at least what he thought was consciousness. It was hard to tell anymore. Everything was a cycle of dreaming and waking, or was it dreaming and dreaming? It was hard to find reality. Nothing changed except the hallucinations his mind conjured. And even his mind had started to get things wrong.

He couldn’t trust his memories anymore. He couldn’t remember what life was like. If he saw his mother in the box with him, he couldn’t make out the details of her face. Or His father’s laugh. Or his sister’s hair. Everything was fuzzy. Distant. Faded from his memories.

Did he even have a family? Was that something he made up?

He couldn’t remember.

How long had he been in here? He’d stopped counting the days when his eyes ceased to glow. Recycled ectoplasm was good at sustaining a ghost, but not good at feeding a ghost. And him being only a few years dead, he was still developing powers. Well he would be if he wasn’t essentially being purposefully stunted in this stupid box.

What a stupid box. Can’t even sit up in it. It was more like a coffin than a box. It would figure that he finally got put in a coffin. Specially since he died all the way but not quite once already. How lame. Someone somewhere was probably laughing about this.

What was he thinking about? Oh yeah. His eyes stopped glowing. Made it harder to see what was real. He couldn’t see the shadows of his real hands and the lack of them on the images his mind conjured. It was hard to tell the difference. If he could even tell the difference anymore.

He probably couldn’t tell at all anymore really.

He floated beyond consciousness for a moment more, resisting the press upon his mind to wake. Better to sleep. After all, there wasn’t anyone coming to get him. The whispers were silent when he wasn’t in his mind. The voices stopped. The hands didn’t pull at his mouth and eyes. It was the only chance at peace he got.

Something touched him.

Weird.

Wait…

Something, no, someone was touching him. Moving his itchy arm. He felt hands on his legs, moving them under the heaviness.

The hands were touching him.

Danny jolted to full consciousness with a gasp. He violently jerked away from the hands and scrambled back. They’d never moved him before! They’d only tried to! He had always fought them off! They were just hallucinations!! His mind only thought he was being touched!! What happened?! How?! WHY?!

His breath came in larger gasps of air as he spiraled into panic. The hands, glowing and green, decayed and skeletal reached out of the darkness. Whispered words filled his ears, static and chiming all at once. He flailed out at them frantically, touching nothing. He whimpered. They weren’t real they weren’t real they weren’t real.

One of the hands grabbed his arm.

He cried out at the contact. The weak and raspy sound pulling painfully from this throat as he lashed out at the hand and fell back. The ectoplasm felt firm and plush beneath him.

Wait, was that really ectoplasm? Was this real?

Somehow in his retreat, he reached an edge. He slipped.

He fell.

He hit a hard surface and felt the air whoosh from his lungs. He choked on the strange air and grasped blindly around himself. There was no ectoplasm, nothing swishing around him as he moved. He struggled to breathe and reached frantically out to his sides.

There were no walls.

No walls, no ceiling, no swishing stale ectoplasm.

What…

He… he wasn’t in the box.

This couldn’t be real.

He scrambled back along what he felt was the floor until he hit something hard. A wall? He didn’t care. This wasn’t real, but it felt real enough to use as an anchor, so at the wall he stayed.

Danny grasped at his arms. Nails dug into muscle, piercing the skin and drawing ectoplasm. He felt the pain and it grounded him. He was real. He was still real. His breathing was still harsh, the panic still real. The hands still reaching for him weren’t real. The floor and wall weren’t real. He was just trapped in another hallucination.

He just needed to calm down and wait until he came out of it naturally or hurt himself into reality. Either way he would still be in the box.

Abandoned in the box.

He dragged his nails down his arms, leaving behind gashes that wept. He wasn’t concerned though. His ghost form would heal fast enough that it wouldn’t make a difference. All he needed was to stop seeing things that weren’t real. He’d shed enough tears over illusions of his friends and family. Been through enough terrors and memories to doubt his mind. He knew he was in the box. Once he found the box again he could try to go back to sleep.

He’d lost the will to do anything more what felt like a lifetime ago. All he had left to his obsession was protection. Self protection. Survival. Keep his human half alive. By staying a ghost and surviving the horrors of his mind.

It was all he had left.

He ran his hands up his arms to start tearing at his skin again and found… wetness? He hadn’t healed yet? He lifted a hand to his face and licked the wetness on his fingers.

Copper tang. The faintest taste of ectoplasm.

It tasted like… blood?

Danny’s heart stopped in his chest. Wrong. His heart stuttered in his chest and he scrabbled at his neck. He fingers found his pulse.

Oh no.

He had a pulse. He was human again!

The darkness surrounding him was suddenly suffocating, pulling at his breath and stealing his rational thought. He was real, but he was going to die. Humans can’t survive as long as he had without food and water and air! He couldn’t keep control of his ghost form and his human half was going to die! He had to change back or he would fail at doing the only thing he had left!!

He started hyperventilating and desperately grabbed at his ghost core. An immediate searing pain shot through his chest. The sound he made was akin to someone tearing paper and he fell over on his side. He began trembling all over.

That hurt so bad. That hurt so bad.

He couldn’t think. He could breathe but that just brought him closer to death. Tears welled from his eyes and caught on something just beyond his eyelashes, turning the blackness somehow darker. He was going to die and the recycled ecto had failed and he was going to die and the static wouldn’t stop and the hands wouldn’t let him go and he was going to die alone and forgotten he was going to die again nopleasenopleasenotagain-

Something touched his hands.

Danny jerked back and away, nausea surging up his throat. He pushed himself up only to vomit stomach acid. The only thing in his system. It burned as it came and went. His stomach clenched so hard that he curled over on himself. His muscles shook with strain as he hyperventilated. He couldn’t get enough air. He couldn’t see. Couldn’t hear. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move…

Something touched him again. A gentle pressure on his back. Warm and soft.

He tensed beyond what he thought he was able. Rigid, but shaking in fear. He had no thoughts beyond the sheer terror of what he thought was unreality becoming reality.

Moments passed. And nothing happened.

The pressure on his back stayed. It did not grasp at him like the hands did. It remained gentle and soft. A warmth. It was different. It was scary.

It felt nice.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Danny’s breathing calmed. Slowly, he felt things around him. He felt the blood trickling down his arms. The cold floor under his legs. The soft, long shirt on his body didn’t close in the back or reach down past his knees. He was warmer than the floor which was strange, but made sense. He was human again. He couldn’t even remember the last time he turned back human. It was his greatest fear. To turn human in the box and die alone and small in the dark enclosed space.

But he wasn’t dying. He was breathing. The air was fresh. It tasted strange. His hands fluttered along the wounds on his arms. He felt pain and knew it was real. And the pressure on his back felt real.

Did… did someone open the box?

Hope hit him so hard that he began to cry softly. He couldn’t let himself hope, but he couldn’t deny it. Not when this all seemed so real. His crying grew harder. Harsh stuttering breaths that he couldn’t even hear. Which was kind of odd. Why couldn’t he hear himself? Did he still have ears? He slowly reached up and felt where his ears should be. There was something covering them. A hard plastic thing that went up over his head. Slowly his hands moved in front of his face. He found his nose and his mouth. They were still there. Then he touched the places where his eyes should be. He felt cloth.

His eyes and ears were covered?

Another hand touched his own and he jolted. It was as gentle and warm as the other hand. He could finally hear his ragged cries as the hand took his gently and intertwined the fingers. A gentle squeeze had the tears coming hard and fast. From fear or hope? There was no telling. A sheer outpouring of emotion.

Someone had opened the box.

And they were holding his hand.

He desperately hoped this was real.

----------

That's it for now! Honestly I'm just writing snippets of story beats and then stringing them together when the anxiety has quieted. I have an AO3 account now, but I'm still posting everything here first!

Nyeeeh keep an eye out for more I guess.

[monakisu]

about saiki kusuo...

he's a leo.

he's incredibly tidy. if his parents leave the house in a mess, he'll complain but proceed to deep-clean it anyways.

he's a stickler for other people's safety. if he notices someone's shoelace is untied, he'll tie it for them, regardless of the circumstances (ie. smack-dab in the middle of a sports game)

on another note, he seems to have a fixation with tying people's shoelaces for them.

he's weak for sweets in general, not just coffee jelly. sweet tooth saiki!

he has a huge soft spot for kids. this probably stems from his failed childhood friendship with akechi.

he's scared of bugs because he can't read their minds. this implies that powerless!saiki might be a lot shyer, more anxious, and even pricklier, since he doesn't know what anybody's thinking.

he's totally a mama's boy. he learned his moral compass from her, does whatever she wants, believes he was born an esper to protect her, etc.

also, the notorious zebra print blazer was because of his mom.

he's so much of a people-pleaser that he'll sacrifice his desire for anonymity and normalcy; he'll insert himself into situations, stalk people, and use his powers even if it means the spotlight will fall on him.

not only is he a people-pleaser, he's a drama queen. he'd rather concoct elaborate plans to avoid somebody instead of simply rejecting them.

he's a one piece fan.

his favorite arcade game used to be whack-a-mole, and he thought destroying all the moles meant he'd won. he was banned because of this.

his glasses are colored glasses from his childhood toy box. wording implies that he's been wearing this same pair his whole life.

he likes baking/cooking, mostly because he gets to eat the sweets that he made. (househusband saiki... heh.)

he smiled a lot more freely as a kid. when he wasn't wearing a dazed expression, he looked like quite the cheerful child.

he helps kaido out with classwork by simply handing him his own work.

he rarely gets sick, and when he does he can cure himself by turning his body into an inferno through pyrokinesis. however, this means he knows next to nothing about medicine.

similarly, he's tragically naïve about the internet.

he's good at singing and likes karaoke (preferably singing by himself).

like kaido, he gets seasick. however, he fervently denies this. he seems to think himself impervious of the maladies regular people suffer from.

he has a bit of a girly run.

he likes using takahashi as a joke. "it's everyone's favorite, takahashi." he also hates takahashi because of his strong resemblance to akechi's childhood bully, takashi.

he likes hot baths.

when he walks home from school, he follows this routine: he stops at the convenience store, picks up coffee jelly, puts it back on the shelf, then continues home. ...incredible. he seems incapable of not staring at any nearby coffee jelly.

he may be willing to downplay his smarts/talents to avoid trouble, but he'll get competitive when he's with akechi or kusuke.

he's hesitant to cause his friends any harm, but will freely maim toritsuka, so long as the damage is immediately reversed.

he won't hesitate with kusuke, though.

lastly, and most importantly:

he's a cutie patootie <3

[cultven]

Hi!

I was wondering if you can do a Deadpool x reader x Wolverine fic where reader is like very shy. They find her in the void with the other hero’s from the resistance. They both are immediately smitten but since they both are pretty loud and bickering a lot, it makes the reader nervous. Maybe once they win the fight against Cassandra Nova, the two of them confess to her at Wade’s apartment.

Hope you having a wonderful day/night

No pressure or rush

-W.P 💚

Founded Love

Deadpool X Reader X Wolverine

Content: Some cursing, Deadpool’s humor, Wolverine being so done with Wade lol, Self-conscious Deadpool

Word Count: 3.7k

Warnings: Spoilers for Deadpool 3

a/n: First request done! Hopefully, you like it, I tried following the best I could. The reader may seem a little more timid than shy, however.

You were walking around the ruins of The Void, kicking away the dirt and small rocks that lay in your path. Despite always being on edge, you’ve found yourself at peace with your life in The Void. As long as you stayed away from Cassandra Nova and kept to yourself things were just fine. You had even found a family of your own in The Void, superheroes like yourself who were forgotten with time. It wasn’t the life you had imagined for yourself as a child, but you were happy all things considered. As you stumbled around the woods not looking for anything in particular when your eyes spot a blue minivan in the distance. 

You hum to yourself in confusion, taking in the state of the vehicle. It was battered and bloody, the liquid still visibly fresh. It looked a hell of a lot like Nicepool’s car, another trashed variant that lived in The Void. You hoped it wasn’t his car, he always seemed kind enough, hence his not-so-creative name, and you didn’t want any trouble finding the man. Besides, Nicepool was one of the only other people in The Void besides your family you could comfortably talk to. You have always been the shy type, even back in your everyday life in the real world. Casual conversation didn’t come naturally to you, leading you to feel incredibly awkward most times. You were never fond of most other people anyway, so your reserved nature didn’t bother you. 

As you shuffled closer to Betsy, you remember Nicepool always insisting you call the car by her name, you catch a glimpse of two people. The first was notably tied up in various seatbelts, seemingly asleep. He was another Deadpool variant, thankfully not your befriended one, and was bloodied similar to the car. The second man was a Wolverine variant, something that isn’t usually seen in The Void and was also quite beaten. By the looks of it, they had a pretty hefty fight and weren’t going to join consciousness anytime soon. Making a swift decision on what to do with the newfound characters you sigh and try to start up the car, planning on taking them back to your crew.

Much to your surprise, the car runs quite well considering the damage it’s withheld. The drive back to your hideout was quiet with some soft snoring from the back seat. Some music would have been nice but you didn’t want the pair waking up before you got them to the rest of your family. You could handle the transportation, but the questioning was something better fitted for Elektra or Eric. Eventually, you turn the car and park it next to the house you have been calling home for almost a year now. You debated bringing the two men inside by yourself before quickly realizing there was no way in hell you’d be able to move their large figures. 

“Guys, I’m back.” You quietly announced walking through the door. You saw Remy and Laura sitting at a table playing cards while Elektra was making some sort of food in the kitchen. 

“Hey, glad to see you made it back ok.” Elektra smiled, plating five portions of her cooking. “Did you see Johnny while you were out there?” 

“Nah, unfortunately not. But, I did find some new guys. A Deadpool and a Wolverine.” That caught everyone’s attention, especially Laura’s. You and her were quite close which led her to entrust you with her past, most importantly the bits of Logan. You felt uneasy with all the attention now suddenly on you, but continue your thoughts with fiddling fingers. “They’re, um, in a car unconscious just outside the house. I drove them here. I probably can’t move them inside so…” You let your stream of thoughts trail off, noticing Remy stand up from his space at the table. 

“I’ll go get them, eh?” His accent never failed to amuse you, causing you to smile and nod at the man as he went out the door. Blade soon entered the room and began talking with the others, speculating what the hell was going on with the two men outside. You took this as an opportunity to hide away in your room, allowing yourself to decompress after everything. 

After some rustling outside your room, it eventually quieted, likely meaning the two men were still asleep and the others wanted to give them space. You took this as an opportunity to sneak around to the kitchen, the starvation of not eating all day finally catching up to you. As you tiptoe down the hallway and past the living room you hear an inaudible grumble. Turning your head slightly you see the Wolverine stir. Not realizing you had completely stopped to stare at the man, his narrow eyes met yours with a questioning glance. 

“What the hell are you looking at? Where are we?” His accusatory tone and spew of questions caused you to become flustered. You begin to tap your foot on the floor, a nervous tick you’ve developed over time. 

Realizing you have yet to answer his questions you spoke up, “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were awake. Or I guess you just kinda woke up, huh?” You get out an awkward laugh, avoiding eye contact. You hated this with everything in your body. “I, uh, found you guys in that old banged-up car so I called for backup to take you here just to make sure you guys were alright.” When you didn’t get a response you turned back to the Wolverine who was previously throwing questions at you to find him much calmer now. Maybe he finally gauged that you weren’t a threat to him, and even if you were he could easily take you down. You find his eyes scanning your body and finally meet your eyes, causing you to shrink. His frown lines were less prominent than before, adorning a more relaxed expression. 

“Mhm, well thanks for that then.” It wasn’t the kindest thank you in the world, but it was nice he was at least a little grateful for your efforts. As you watched him examine the room you took in his appearance. He adorned the iconic Wolverine suit, the one that Laura insisted her Logan never wore, so it’s likely that this isn’t her Logan, but you figured that much considering ghosts didn’t make it to The Void. He seemed to have a permanent frown on his face, which oddly suited him. There were small tufts of hair on the top of his head, ones that resembled ears. It was cute. Little did you know, when you finally turned away from admiring the man he took his own turn to take you in. You could tell there wasn’t a version of you in his world, but he still felt comforted by your presence in an odd way. Perhaps it was because you saved him and his stupid sidekick. No matter the reason, the gentle look on your face when you hadn’t realized he was awake yet was enough to draw him towards you. 

“What’s your name?” He wanted the conversation to continue and was becoming increasingly interested in you. 

“Y/N. I already know yours, you’re the notorious Wolverine. Also known as Logan.” He seemed shocked you knew his real name, especially by the disregard of how you said it. Noticing his reaction you hastily begin explaining yourself. “Well uh, it’s just Laura told me, if you even know who that is, um I’m not sure if you have her in your universe.” Your speech comes out in an anxious jumble, before deciding just to shut your mouth altogether, wanting to hide away. Wolverine chuckled to himself slightly, finding your skittish behavior quite endearing.  

You felt yourself blushing, wanting to hide from the strong eyes following your figure. Just as you were about to mumble out an excuse to leave the room Logan responded to your earlier ramble, “I’m not sure what all that means bub, but thanks for letting us crash here.” You watched him take in the room, mostly staring at Remy’s impressive stash of alcohol. He stood up from his place and chose a bottle of booze to open and take a swig. You knew Remy wouldn’t appreciate this action, but you were too shy to speak up about it. 

“Yeah, of course.” You rocked back and forth on your feet, something Wolverine took notice of. The whole time you spoke to him he picked up on your small fidgets and mannerisms. Despite finding them precious he didn’t want you to feel so nervous while talking to him, he wasn’t all that scary. Besides, he doesn’t hurt people without reason. “Was that Nicepool’s car you were in?” Before Wolverine had the chance to open his mouth a loud gasp followed by “Thor!” is heard from the bed. Upon seeing the Deadpool variant spring up from his sleeping position you hide yourself half behind the wall. Other than Nicepool all of the other Deadpools you have encountered were aggressive to say the least. But if this one was traveling with the nice Wolverine then maybe he couldn’t be so bad? 

Noticing your caution Wolverine decided to speak up, “Morning, jackass.” 

“Well, good morning to you too, honey bear.” Deadpool took in their surroundings before settling his gaze on you. “I see a beautiful woman has kidnapped us. Not how I was planning for this trip to go, but this could be a pretty hot porn set-up.” You could practically hear the smirk oozing from his speech. Maybe not an aggressive Deadpool, but it didn’t make him any less intimidating. 

You didn’t know what to say, so Wolverine said what you were practically thinking. “Shut the fuck up, asshole. She helped us here and now you’re creeping her out.” He took a swig before slightly positioning himself between you and the Deadpool. 

“I’m not the one with a permanent scowl! You look like the stereotypical villain of every cartoon.” Deadpool stands up before sauntering his way over to you. “What’s your name, pretty little thing.” 

“Y/N.” You managed to squeak out, ready to go lock yourself in your room forever. All of the sudden attention made you increasingly nervous. Deadpool just patted your head and looked over at Wolverine. 

“Dibs on this lovely lady.” He began smushing your cheeks like you were a child. He was quite the character, oddly charming in his weird ways, although you were getting overwhelmed with the physical touch. “I would be okay with sharing with you though Wolvie. Maybe divorced parents' style, I get weekdays and you every other weekend, hm?”

Wolverine growled, “She’s not an object, dipshit.” He pulled Deadpool off of you, clutching the fabric of his suit in his hand. As they begin to argue over you, you feel yourself shrink. Their booming voices and increasingly violent demeanors made you nervous, wanting to flee from the scene as soon as possible. Noticing their attentions were solely on each other you took the chance to sneak out of the room and back into the oasis that is your bedroom. You enjoyed the conversation you had with Logan, but once Deadpool woke up it was clear the two characters didn’t seem to mix well. Once they were caught in each other’s warpath it was like you weren’t even there anymore. 

You heard them eventually quiet, likely realizing you had left the scene a while ago. The arguing also caught the attention of the rest of your roommates, who were all very curious to see what the deal of the two new arrivals was. You opted to stay in your bedroom and listen to some music to help calm you down. As much as you loved your found family, large crowds were still unnerving. As it got later in the night you quickly realized that you couldn’t hide out forever, needing to eat as humans do, so you snuck out of your room. Luckily it seemed everyone had retired for the night early. It was odd considering the new arrivals but maybe they all wore each other out. 

Walking into the kitchen you notice another figure already standing at the toaster, patiently waiting for his food to pop up. “Hey, cutie.” The man in red purred, wiggling his fingers in your direction. 

“Is your whole personality just being a creep?” You half-joked, grabbing a box of cereal. You typically wouldn’t say things like this is strangers, but you could tell that this was certainly Deadpool’s type of humor. He seemed to appreciate the joke as he only giggled at the comment. 

“Maybe.” He said, playfully dragging out the E at the end. You just roll your eyes in return before fixing yourself a bowl of cereal and sitting at the counter, back turned towards him. Realizing that the conversation was over you heard an uncharacteristic sigh from the mercenary. “Sorry for kind of ambushing you there earlier. It’s just fun to watch Wolverine get his panties in a twist. He was sooo flirting with you back there.” It seemed he genuinely felt bad for making you uncomfortable back there, which was sweet. However, his one comment stuck about flirting. There was no way, right?

“I don’t know, it seemed like a normal conversation to me.” You shrugged despite feeling your entire body heat up at the suggestion. 

“Maybe he wasn’t flirting with his words, but he was definitely flirting with his eyes.” Deadpool moved back into your line of vision, waving his hand in front of your eyes. “Just know I’m batting my eyelashes under the mask right now.” You must say, despite the sheer amount of annoyance this man can bring, he is quite funny. 

Giving in to the stupidity you don’t hold back your small laugh, which plainly pleased Deadpool across from you. “Where is Wolverine now anyway?” It was strange to see the two apart seeing as you found them together. 

“He’s talking to your feisty friend out there.” You could tell right away he was referring to Laura. It made sense why they would be talking. You wonder if he had a Laura in his timeline. Suddenly you heard the pop of a toaster and Deadpool’s demeanor pop up. “Oh, fuck yes!” He clapped vigorously before reaching into the toaster and pulling out a freshly made Pop-Tart. 

“Hey! Is that my last Pop-tart?” You question, eyeing the familiar-looking treat. 

“How mad would you be if I said yes?” Deadpool looked at you with fake innocence. 

“Very.”

“Then, no.” He patted your head once more before situating himself across from you, Pop-tart on a plate. You rolled your eyes, feigning annoyance. It was strange to find yourself so comfortable with the man in such a short amount of time. Admittedly, you felt this way about both of the new arrivals. They were quite friendly, to you at least, and were easy to talk to. You were grateful you stumbled upon them in those woods, and they seemed to feel the same way. 

“Did you hear about the plan for tomorrow?” Deadpool questioned. Your downcasted eyes looked up in confusion. 

“Plan?”

“Yup, we’re gonna rock Cassandra’s shit tomorrow,” Deadpool said with a grin. “Can’t wait to see the look on that egghead’s face when she realizes she got fucked by a Looney Toons squad.” You just shook your head, smiling a bit before noticing the plate still soundly sat in front of the man. 

“Hey, your Poptart is getting cold.”

“Shit! Cold Pop-tarts are the worst.” He groaned, throwing his head back. “I guess I was just too distracted by your beauty to notice, among other things.” He makes motions with his hands around his chest. He’s talking about your boobs, classy. 

“Yeah, yeah.” You just giggled. “Eat you idiot.” Deadpool grinned under his mask before looking down at the plate. He seemed hesitant about something, but you didn’t know what. It was only a Pop-tart, all he had to do was lift his mask and eat it. Speaking of which, you actually can’t recall ever seeing him without his mask. 

“I might actually take this one to go, baby girl. Don’t wanna ruin your appetite.” He motions to his mask before nodding his head and turning to skip out of the room. 

“Hey, wait!” You’ve seen some pretty nasty stuff in The Void, surely it couldn’t be that bad. “Eat here, with me. I’d appreciate the company.” Seeing you want him to stay Deadpool couldn’t just dent you, so he conceded and sat himself back down. Tentative fingers made their way to his mask, pulling it up only slightly. Under you get a glimpse of scar tissue, textured and wrinkled. After taking notice of your lack of reaction he continues slowly, his prominent cheekbones revealed, and then his dark brown eyes. Finally, his mask is completely off, revealing a bald head underneath. You admit it wasn’t what you were expecting, but it wasn’t horrible in the slightest. 

“You grossed out yet?” He asked with a forced-sounding laugh. His appearance was clearly a sore subject for him. 

“Not at all.” You smiled at him. “You made it seem like your face was going to be melting off or something.”

“Eh, it kinda is.” By the tone of his voice, you assumed you put the man in much better spirits.

“Well, I still think you look quite charming.” Surprise painted Deadpool’s face, and then a face of appreciation. Not many people thought he was good-looking with his deformation, he constantly got berated for it, joking and not. He ended up using his humor to seal the pain, it was a nice break to have someone see him other than his skin. “Besides, I know it’s not the same but I had like major acne as a teen, so my skin was basically as bad as yours.” 

“Probably worse if I had to guess, them hormones be crazy girl.” Deadpool had a wide smile before biting into the, now freezing cold, Pop-tart. Gross. You two sat and talked, picking away at your respective meals before Deadpool, who you learned was named Wade, suggested you both head to bed. Claiming you need your energy for tomorrow because he’d hate to see you skinned and popped like a bloody zit, his words, not yours. 

He already ran off somewhere when you were taking the trash out. As you hauled the giant trash bag behind you, a person grazed your shoulder. “You know tomorrow is a suicide mission, right?” The gruff voice from earlier, Wolverine. He sounded concerned. 

“We’ve been her prisoners for so long, it’s about time we did something for ourselves.” Wolverine seemed to accept your answer with a curt nod, turning away so you couldn’t see the worry etched in his face. 

“Just be careful, bub.” That was all he said before walking inside, leaving the door slightly open for you once you’re done. 

To put it bluntly, the mission was a success. Logan did end up assisting you and your family in effectively taking down Cassandra. This was not surprising to you, despite his rough demeanor you could tell he’s a caring person on the inside, he just doesn’t know how to verbalize it well. What you didn’t expect, however, was to be pulled into the portal with Logan and Wade, transporting you back to Wade’s dimension. This was where you took down Cassandra for good this time, watching Wade and Logan heroically sacrifice themselves for Wade’s loved ones. It was heartwarmingly sweet and incredibly anxiety-inducing. But you all made it, not without a few scratches but regeneration came in clutch. What you were most grateful for was learning the rest of your family got to return to their timelines, something you had all longed for for so long. 

After the chaos, you and Logan figured you had nothing in your old worlds and decided to stay in Wade’s timeline. He graciously offered you a place in his apartment and, after sleeping on a not-so-comfortable couch for months, you finally saved enough money to rent your own apartment which was conveniently next door. This meant the three of you hung out all the time, whether it was an ambush hang-out or a planned movie night. Wade’s family became yours and you were happy.   

“Wade! Don’t burn the popcorn this time!” You yelled from across the room, feeling entirely comfortable in the company of your peers. 

“Please. I can’t handle the burnt smell any longer. It’s a miracle you haven’t burned this place to the ground yet.” Logan grumbled, resting his arm around you. 

“I’m wounded, you guys think I’m that horrible at making such a simple dish.” As if on cue, smoke begins to ooze out of the microwave. “No! Not towards the smoke alarm not again!” He rushed over, hastily fishing the bag out, and dropped it as it burnt his hand. Quickly putting it in a bowl he hops over the back of the couch you settle on your other side, offering the bowl to Logan. 

“I’m not eating your fucking popcorn ash.” Logan mumbles, still looking for a suitable movie. 

“More for me and cutie over here then.” Wade smiles, popping a piece of popcorn in his mouth and instantly regretting it, resisting the urge to spit out the popcorn. “Mhm, delicious.” 

“You’re an idiot.” Logan berates as you just giggle. After much bickering, mostly between Logan and Wade, you finally settle on a movie, The Proposal. Halfway through Wade unexpectedly turns in your direction. 

“You know, I’m really happy you found us gutted in that shitty excuse for a car.” It was sweet, in Wade’s own way. 

“Me too, bub,” Logan says, squeezing your shoulder where his arm still rests around you. You look between the both of them and smile brightly. 

“I’m the happiest, I got to meet you guys. You really broke me out of my shell, you know that?” You squeezed Wade’s hand while patting Logan’s thigh. You truly were grateful for them, the other group may have been your family but these two felt different, even closer in a way. “I don’t think I ever want to leave.” 

“We’re glad,” Wade says sweetly before frantically shushing both you and Logan as his favorite part of the movie begins your play. The rest of the night is spent in comfortable silence, much to your surprise with Wade, as the three of you cuddle closely on the couch, thanking the universe for connecting you. 

[featherandferns]

orange juice (fic)

jj maybank x fem!reader | inspired by noah kahn's incredible music

content warning: mentions of drinking and drug use; mentions of abuse; mentions of bodily harm (vague, non-graphic); sexual content | feel free to message me with questions of detail if any of this concerns you before reading!

word count: 7.5k

blurb: in the most unlikely of settings, you and JJ reunite after five years apart in radio silence.

“You know, on my way here, I saw a dead rat.”

A cloud of cigarette smoke dispels into the air.

“It was funny, you know? Cause I felt bad that it was dead, even though it was a rat. I mean, I knew nobody was going to miss it, and that it didn’t have any rat family or friends which would mourn it or anything. But still…It looked like it had been hit by a car, and it was only small so it didn’t look very old, and it seemed so harmless lying there. It probably had a million and one diseases, but just laying there, it seemed harmless. And it felt weird to be sad about this thing dying which would have only maybe caused more damage if it had stayed alive – nibbling through electrical wires and all that.”

JJ takes another drag of his cigarette as he digests the anecdote.

“Anyway. This just made me think of that,” you quietly finish before sinking back into the silence.

“Did you just compare my dad’s funeral to a dead rat?”

You clear your throat. JJ watches in his peripheral as you look down at your feet and fidget your fingers.

“Shit, I guess I did.”

His eyes cut ahead the moment yours seem to flick up.

“Can’t believe that’s the first thing I’ve said to you in years.”

JJ inhales and exhales the nicotine of his cigarette. “Well, I can.”

That makes you laugh. Small and sheltered.

“I weren’t sure that you were going to come,” JJ tells you.

“Could say the same thing to you,” you reply.

Sighing, he drops the cigarette and crushes it under the heel of his boot. He probably should have worn smarter shoes. But then, why would he? Waste of money and space in his truck. Not like his dad was going to see them anyway.

“I only decided yesterday. Practically drove all night.” As if reminding himself of the sleep deprivation, JJ lets out a yawn.

“How is it, being back in Kildare?” you wonder.

JJ shrugs. “Weird. But also not weird at all. I guess I just feel old. I was driving through town and everything looks different.”

“I mean, it has been five years.”

“Jesus,” JJ chuckles, shaking his head. Had it really been that long?

He shoves his hands in his pant pockets and finally finds the nerve to take you in. His eyes scan over you like one might survey potential damage to a car after a close call. He never lets them go below your waist though. As if losing nerve, he flicks them back up to your head and meets your eyes.

“You look well.”

“Thanks. Right back at ya,” you smile.

With that smile – sweet and simple – JJ finds himself being hurled back through time to his teen years. The reminiscing of his youth and the memories that your presence stirs up feels like reflecting on a past life. Something that he almost had, and something that he didn’t exactly lose, but something that changed.

Everything had changed, really. The streets that he used to drive down with his friends, running away from security and darting to and from keggers and house parties, they all had new homes, new paint, new families. Old mom-and-pop shops were now trendy smoothie spots and hippie bars. Empty plots of land that were a good spot to share a joint had now been bought and developed into stylish holiday rentals. None of JJ’s family was left here, not even his cousin. None of his friends were here anymore either. Well, except for you. Is that what you were to him? A friend?

“It was a nice service,” you say.

“Was it?”

For someone like Luke Maybank, ‘nice’ is probably a generous term for a funeral service that’s void of cheery anecdotes and tender memories. It’s a shame that all the memories JJ held in high regard of his father – of the moments that they were bonded and close – often came with the overarching theme of alcohol or drugs. He wasn’t sure there was ever a genuine moment shared between the two. Whatever praise and pride he gathered from his dad was short lived and sparse. When his dad left the island on the boat he stole, JJ never heard from him again. And now he never would.

“Did they ask if you wanted to say anything?”

“What’s there to say? He was a guy and he died in a bender. Short and simple, I guess.”

You nod and go silent once more.

JJ knows that his answer evaded the politeness markers of small talk, but it was true. Luke Maybank was a human who lived on this earth with no mark to be left apart from those which he laid on his own child. The only way that he’d be remembered was in the nightmares that still sometimes have JJ waking up in cold sweats and reaching for the box of cigarettes by his bed.

“I’m sorry. I probably shouldn’t have come,” you say.

“No, it’s not…” JJ shakes his head and offers you a smile, but he knows it looks unnatural. He isn’t sure what he’s feeling right now. Perhaps everything, if that’s even possible. “I’m glad you came. I’m just tired and…well, you know.”

The funeral of my father.

“Right. Of course.”

He watches you tuck your hair behind your ears and glance towards the graves. He remembers how you used to do that when you were both younger. It was funny to him: you’d go through the fuss of trying your hair back in one way or another, but you’d always leave out a couple of strands. “To frame my face” you’d tell him, and then you’d precede to spend the rest of the day tucking your hair behind your ears. He liked it though. When you’d be concentrating on something, like surfing or fixing something up or writing, you’d lean forward and they’d come lose and hang over your pretty features. He’d want to mess with them; tuck them behind your ears for you. Sometimes he did. He remembers when you’d be on top of him, kissing him senseless, and they’d come lose and tickle his face. Somehow it would make the whole thing more sensual, with his laughs and your giggles.

He feels his face flush as the memories of nights like those creep back into his head. He shouldn’t think of you like that, not after all this time. Not with how things turned out. And especially not at his father’s funeral.

JJ had come over to you once his father was safely tucked away in the ground, six feet under. You’d attended the service at the church, hiding near the back, and then the burial, and as everybody else departed to give JJ ‘a moment’ (whatever the hell that meant), he’d turned to find you stood near a bench, lost in thought.

“It was nice of you to come,” JJ thanks.

“I’m surprised none of the others are here.”

“They don’t know. I sort of kept it close to the chest,” JJ admits. “I’m actually impressed by the turnout.”

You go to laugh and JJ sees you stifle it. It helps him ease up, smile a real smile for a second, as wicked as that sounds.

“People have layers, I guess.”

“Not my dad.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

You meet his gaze again. Your eyes make it clear that you haven’t shed a tear and neither had JJ. He wasn’t sure if maybe that would come later, once the so-called shock had worn off. He doubted it though. And yet, there was a haze of sadness about him. Death is weird as a whole. The death of a parent like JJ’s, even weirder. Maybe it wasn’t just the funeral causing the sadness. Maybe it was you.

JJ makes a move to leave but before he can even shift his foot one whole step, you’re talking.

“Do you wanna come back to mine? We could catch up. I’m sure you’ve been doing all sorts since I last saw you. Maybe have a drink or two, for old times’ sake?”

“Oh, I don’t drink anymore.”

“Oh,” you say. A pause for thought, then, “well, I have orange juice.”

It’s a strange thing to offer in place of a bottle of beer or glass of wine. Most people would say a cup of coffee. But no - orange juice: that’s where your mind went. It makes JJ smile. It seems so on-par for you to offer him that.

“Okay. Sure. Orange juice sounds good.”

“Do you need a moment, before we leave?” you ask, glancing back over your shoulder to the gravesite of JJ’s deceased father.

The dirt atop of his plot is fresh and stark brown against the green grass. JJ stares a second. The groundkeeper is dusting some muck off the gravestone. The funeral director had offered him a fine granite with award winning chiselling, after recognising JJ from the articles of El Dorado and assuming some high-placed budget. JJ had opted for a simple thing though. Cheap and likely to be hard to read within half a decade. It’s what Luke deserved. Probably what he would have invested into JJ, if the roles were reversed.

“No, I don’t. We can go,” JJ says, voice vacant. He looks back to you. “I’ll drive.”

You don’t live in your childhood home anymore. The place that you’ve settled in is a small home in a sweet looking neighbourhood. In fact, it seems the only part of Kildare that feels familiar to JJ. The front garden is quaint but well kept, with trimmed grass and flower beds that clearly garner a lot of attention and care. The fence is in need of a lick of paint: the blue fading and peeling. A sticky note is attached to the door frame of the front door and it makes JJ smile. ‘Doorbell’s fucked – shout “ding dong” really loud’.

“This is a step up,” JJ says.

“Nice, right? My neighbour is a dick though. Always complaining that I leave my driveway light on in the middle of the night. As if I can even afford to that.”

JJ chuckles as he follows you inside. There’s an instant warm smell that hits him. JJ can’t seem to describe it in any other way than that it smells like you. The interior is safe and homely. The wallpaper and wooden floors pair nicely with the throw pillows and crystals and plants and flowers. Fairy lights are strung from end to end. A kitchen, open plan, feeds nicely into a sitting room. A dining table is tucked in the corner which seemingly functions more as a desk: books piled atop with sheets of paper strewn out. There’s a small corridor to the right and the walls are lined with framed pictures which JJ can’t make out from where he’s stood. He assumes it must lead to a bathroom and bedroom. It isn’t unlived in though. There’s a small pile of clothes which need ironing; they’re sat in a basket, next to the TV. Near the backdoor is an arts and crafts project of some kind strewn about on the floor in organised chaos, blocking the exit.

It's still early in the afternoon so you don’t bother flicking on a light, instead opting to soak in the last few hours of daylight before dusk. Kie used to compare you to a cat, basking in the sun and chasing the rays until there was none left to follow.

JJ closes the door behind him and leans against it.

“You can take your shoes off, if you want.”

“Alright,” he mumbles. He toes them off and kicks them to the side, amongst a pile of your own. He notices how there’s nobody else’s shoes there: just yours, and now his.

You pour out two glasses of orange juice and turn around, handing one to him. He takes it, lost in thought. It all feels surreal, stood here with you, after a five-year pause. When you go to the sofa to sit, he assumes he should follow. You sit on opposite ends. A part of him wonders why you haven’t stretched out your legs and dumped your feet in his lap. ‘These stink’, JJ jokes, poking your toes. You wiggle his fingers off. ‘Shut up, no they don’t.’ Force of habit: he always seems to get stuck on that past. Instead, you go to pull one of your legs up onto the sofa, and JJ flicks his eyes around the room another time. He sips his juice.

“So…” You start. “Any news?”

“Well, my dad died, so there’s that.”

You kick out your leg, aiming for his thigh. “Come on now. Be serious.”

“I am; you were at the funeral. Thought you might remember that,” JJ jokes.

Rolling your eyes mirthfully, you have a sip of your juice. The sun paints shapes on the coffee table, weaving through the thin curtains that line your window. It makes your skin glow, healthy and happy. He’s torn between staring at your face and remembering every detail of your features and avoiding you completely.

“When did you move in here? It’s nice.”

“About two years ago. Mom and dad are still at the old place. They’ve rented out my room though, for tourists and stuff.”

“That’s nice of them,” JJ snorts. “How’s your brother? Is he doing good?”

“He is. He’s at college actually. Graduates later this year.”

“The fuck? That’s so trippy,” JJ mumbles, almost to himself.

JJ can remember your brother as nothing more than a preteen, sulking around the house and begging for rides to soccer practice. Now he’s nearly got a whole ass degree. His eyes naturally fixate on the dining-table-come-desk in the corner.

“What do you do for work then?”

“I’m a teacher at Kildare high.”

Of course you are. JJ smiles, eyes still fixated on the table. It seems to prompt you to continue.

“It’s kinda weird sometimes cause some of the old farts still work there,” you say.

“Oh shit. Mr Rumble still there?” JJ asks, perking up a little, meeting your gaze.

You laugh. “Mr Rummel does still work there, yeah. Still likes to bring you up to me, actually.”

“Really? In what way?”

“Just likes to add the odd little ‘you remember when your boyfriend used to steal my stapler’ kinda things.”

JJ’s laugh is different this time. The word ‘boyfriend’ coming out of your mouth has his thoughts short circuiting. You glance down at your juice and swirl it around the cup.

“Anyway, it’s a pretty good gig. I like teaching, and I actually think I’m making a difference to some of these kids lives sometimes, which is sort of strange.”

“I bet you are. You were always good at helping people,” JJ tells you. Your smile turns soft.

“Thanks, JayJ.”

The nickname is like another sucker punch to the chest. JJ takes it like a champ. Washes it down with water; pretends there’s vodka in there somewhere.

“How are the others, then?” you ask. “How are they?”

“Good. Happy. John B and Sarah are expecting a kid soon.”

“Fuck off.”

“No joke,” JJ laughs. He leans back into the sofa, reclining in the soft throw pillows. It’s strange how easily relaxed he is in this new setting. “They’re debating between two names. Esmeralda or Eton.”

“No. Please God, tell me you’re joking.”

“I wish,” JJ snorts. “Not that I got much of a leg to stand on.”

“What do you mean?” you frown. You lean over and place your juice down on the coffee table.

“JJ? Kinda dumb name.” JJ has a sip of his own before mirroring your actions.

“Hardly. ‘John James’ is pretty proper sounding to me.”

“Meh.” JJ shrugs and props an arm up on the back of the sofa.

“What about Kie, and Pope?”

“Kie is on her environmentalist shit. Investing in rebuilding the coral and things. Pope is studying like crazy. Got a good job lined up too.”

“Only Pope would get a degree when he has literal gold in his savings,” you chuckle. “Didn’t you buy a shop too, or something?”

“A little surf shop with John B, yeah,” JJ nods, smiling proud. The surf shop is something that he would always take pride in. What felt like a pipedream was now his nine-to-five. “It’s doing real good, actually. We’re thinking about expanding.”

“Well, that’s good,” you say, nodding. The two of you lock eyes. Your smile holds steady. “I’m happy for you, JJ. Really.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I’m glad you’re doing good, too.”

And now the polite small talk is over and the catch-up is done. It’s so bizarre seeing someone again after so long. So many things in life have passed – relationships, jobs, fights, conversations, achievements, ailments – but when you finally come to sum it up, it only takes ten minutes. Going through a heartbreak lasts for months, but then a year later and the relationship is summed up in a sentence or two. Time doesn’t only heal, but it also shrinks. It seems to have shrunk whatever used to exist between yourself and JJ too, as you both sit, searching for things to talk about which avoid the dark and ugly. Things which avoid the obvious.

“Do you think you’ll stick around in Kildare for a bit?”

“I don’t know. I ain't really thought about it,” JJ admits. “I weren't even sure if I was gonna go to the funeral.”

“Where are you staying tonight?” you wonder.

He laughs to himself and shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. “I have no idea. Probably just crash in my truck.”

“You’re loaded as fuck and you’re gonna crash in your truck?” you laugh. It isn’t mean when you say it. Just amused.  

“I don’t know. You don’t really get used to having money when you grew up without it. I still feel guilty buying a new pair of boots or something when my old ones ain't coming apart at the soles and shit.”

You nod. “That makes sense. Eminem had a similar thing.”

“Yeah, I’ve always thought me and Eminem were similar,” JJ deadpans.

It seems to strike well with you because you’re cracking up, laughing like he’s just told the best joke you’ve ever heard. He smiles. He always liked making you laugh. You have a horrendous laugh: truly awful. Cats in a bag being bashed against the wall-howling dog parade level of terrible. JJ loved it though. He used to tickle you just to hear it. Watching you now, head titled back, eyes shut and mouth agape, guffawing like a damn hyena…He feels like throwing up.

“Sorry, that…That was good,” you chuckle, wiping your eyes and catching your breath. “You were always good at making me laugh.”

“Fuck knows why,” JJ chuckles.

“Cause you’re funny,” you reply, as if its obvious. “You were always funny.”

It’s strange how the tone of the conversation rises and falls like a mountain range the longer the two of you sit on the sofa.

Your smile turns sombre, like when someone reminisces over a funny memory of their dead pet. Nice at first, amused, and then dampened with the reminder that those times have passed.

“It’s weird, to be honest. You’re so different now but you’re also still JJ.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know,” you sigh. You glance around the room for a moment, as if you’d find the answer hidden in code on the spine of the books stacked on the windowsill. You look at him again. “Your face looks different.”

“It does?” JJ asks. He lifts a hand and strokes his jaw. He could do with a shave, he supposes. The vanity tries to bite through to ask how, but before he can, you’re talking again.

“You don’t drink,” you add, nodding to the orange juice still sat on the coffee table. “You’re quieter. Less…”

You seem to lose the words and so you gesture with your hands. Explosion.

“Calmer. Sadder, but not sad.”

“I can’t tell if these are good things or not,” JJ says, half-joking.

“You look at me different too.”

That makes him pause. He meets your eyes and holds your gaze, steady. The whole room shifts in a moment, from carefree catch-up to tense confrontation.

“Different?”

“Yeah. You look at me different.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” JJ mutters, going to reach for his drink.

“Yes, you do, JJ.”

Your smile is gone now. He can tell, catching it from his peripheral. Suddenly he doesn’t want to be here. Doesn’t want to be in Kildare, doesn’t want to be in this house, in this room.

“You could at least acknowledge it, you know?”

“I don’t understand—”

“It’s actually more rude to not acknowledge it,” you snip.

“I’m not being rude, I’m just making conversation. You’re the one who’s got me on blast like you’re some God damn therapist,” JJ hits back, meeting your steely stare.

“You feel like you’re on blast?”

“I feel like I’m being observed, that’s for fucking sure.”

“Maybe you are. Maybe you are being observed, JJ,” you return, voice harsh and cutting like how a blade slices through paper. “Because it’s fucking weird having you back.”

“You’re the one that invited me here.”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” you say.

JJ takes a breath and closes his eyes. The anger never went away, despite what you’ve just told him, he just got older. Got better at hiding it. Got enough money to try therapy. He takes another moment to breathe through it. Push it down his throat and back into his stomach and let it burn out in the acid.

“I’m sorry,” you quietly say. The venom is gone. “I shouldn’t have…I’m sorry.”

He isn’t sure why – can’t pinpoint a perfect reason behind it – but behind his eyelids, JJ feels tears swell. Feels his lips twitch like a child when they hit their funny bone. His next breath in is shaky.

“JJ?”

“Just…”

His voice cracks and he clears it, shaking his head. He wants to open his eyes but he’s scared he’ll start crying, and he’s not doing that, not right now, not today. It’s not even you. You’d seen him cry before. Held him through it and patched him up; made him smile after the sadness. But he refuses to cry today because he can’t give his dad that satisfaction, even if it’s not about him. Opening his eyes, no tears escape. He reaches for the juice and downs it.

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop saying that,” he snaps. Then, softer, “please.”

You nod. There’s a quiet. Then, you move to stand and he closes his eyes again because it’s a struggle for you to stand. It’s a struggle. He rubs a hand over his mouth as if trying to shove the welling emotions back inside. There’s the sound of running water in the background as JJ tries to gather himself. The crack-crack-crack of a gas stove turning on and then the clink of metal on metal. You’ve put the kettle on, boiling water. There’s the tinker of porcelain mugs being taken off a stand. He seems to zone in on the peaceful sounds of you making coffee.

When you pour water into the mugs, he remembers the sound of your voice years back. ‘Did you know humans have the ability to hear the difference between hot and cold water being poured?’ ‘Why the fuck do you know that?’ ‘I don’t know. Just thought it was interesting.’

As the teaspoon repeatedly brushes against the inside of the cup as you stir in the instant coffee and milk, JJ finally feels all the emotions even out. As your footsteps make their way back over to him, you flick on the lamp by the front door. JJ opens his eyes to see you place a steaming cup of Joe in front of him on the coffee table. The mug is cute. It’s peach pink and says “I’m drinking tea instead of committing crimes” on the front in an innocent type-writer print.

“Cute mug.”

“Thanks. Thought of you.”

He silently laughs. You sit closer to him this time and your mug sits next to his. There’s no funny quote written across the paint. Then your hand is on his back, barely rubbing him, and it hits JJ that this is the first time you’ve touched him in five years.

“I shouldn’t have gotten so angry,” you tell him. “It ain’t my place to say any of that. Especially not today.”

“It’s true, though. That’s the kicker, ain’t it? That it’s true,” JJ replies.

He sighs and leans back, sitting upright once more. Your hand falls away and you clasp it in the other in your lap. He glances down and takes in your side profile. That stupid piece of hair has come lose again, fallen in your face. He distracts his twitching fingers by twisting one of his rings.

“I’m okay, you know,” you tell him. You look up and meet his eyes. Yours are damp with emotion, just like his were moments earlier. “I’m really okay.”

“You almost weren’t though.”

“Is that the problem? That I almost wasn’t?”

“It’s not the problem. You were never a problem.”

“I ain't mean it like that,” you tell him. You shake your head and JJ isn’t entirely sure why. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Am I the reason that you left Kildare?”

A bird calls outside and JJ seems to latch onto it like a lifeline. That question makes him feel stranded and scared. He wasn’t ready for it despite being fully prepared.

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

“I…It ain't that simple.”

“Can you explain it to me, maybe?” you wonder. There’s no wrath to your tone anymore – no vendetta against him. There’s just curiosity and care, and this wonderful tenderness that JJ always associated with you from day one, when you offered him your cap to keep his hair off his face.

“I didn’t like the person I was in Kildare.”

“Okay,” you quietly say.

“I didn’t like how I acted. I didn’t like how reckless I was, and how I didn’t care who got hurt in the process.”

“Like me?”

JJ swallows. He doesn’t tear his eyes from yours though. “Yeah. Like you.”

“Okay,” you repeat, quieter still, nodding.

“After El Dorado, coming back here, everything felt tainted. I just…I needed to escape it. My dad and my past and…And you. I couldn’t face it. I felt like I’d caused some freak accident and had gotten away, and then I'd come back to face the aftermath and I just couldn’t stomach it. I just ran.”

You nod.

“I just ran,” he hears himself repeat. “And I’m not proud of it. Of any of it.”

“Okay.”

“And I wanted to fix things, but I didn’t know how. Every time I thought of coming back to Kildare, or picking up the phone, or going on Instagram and finding you…I just got so fucking scared, like a stupid shithead kid. I was so scared of becoming the guy I was again.”

And, again, you nod. When he doesn’t continue, you fill the space. “How long have you been sober?”

“The minute I left Kildare.”

“Fuck.”

“Cold turkey. It sucked ass. It still does. You don’t miss it any less. I miss the rage too, sometimes. I miss my dad sometimes, too. Miss him beating on me. How fucked up is that? That I miss him beating on me?”

You don’t seem to know what to say to that. You just look down at the coffee mugs and watch how the steam is slowly but surely going away.

“I am sorry. I know that ain't worth anything, but I am sorry.”

“It is worth something.” You clear your throat, voice coming out stronger when you say, “It’s worth everything.”

Your smile comes back, timid and tiny. You meet eyes for the millionth time that night.

“It feels like I’ve been ready for you to come back, for so long, and now you’re actually here and…I don’t even know where to start.” He watches your tongue dart out and wet your lips. “I wasn’t expecting you to look so good.”

“Disappointed?”

“Massively. I would have got my ass in the gym more if I knew it was a Goddamn competition.”

JJ smiles. “You were always a sore loser.”

“Says you,” you snort.

There’s another peak in the conversation after the long slug of the last dip. It’s so bizarre. So wonderfully bizarre.

“I’m proud of you, for getting sober. Do you feel better for it?”

“Depends.”

“Well, you look better for it,” you say.

“You’re drooling, I think,” JJ teases, reaching a finger out to prod your cheek.

Rolling your eyes, you mirthfully bat his hand away. “You’re hallucinating.”

“Well, withdrawal does crazy things,” he quips back.

You chuckle and shake your head. “I missed you like crazy.”

“I miss you too.”

Your lips part a little with that. Miss. You seem to hesitate to hold his gaze then, like it’s too intense. JJ feels as though he can see every emotion flash across your face in a second, like watching a car crash in slow motion. Surprise, shock, joy, anger, then sadness. It’s that sadness that hammers hard when you speak, voice weak.

“You left without saying anything, JJ. For five years. You just left me.”

“Don’t make it sound like that. Like I abandoned you.”

“But you did,” you whisper. The tears are back. You’ve both fallen from the top of the mountain. “You abandoned me.”

“You don’t get it,” JJ replies, voice suddenly thick.

“I was in it with you.”

“You didn’t see it,” JJ forces out. His tears are falling: they didn’t wait this time. “You didn’t see how it looked – how you looked. You looked so fucking fragile and tiny and small and your leg was so bent and twisted and black – it was black – and I thought you were already dead.”

Your breathing is shaky and broken. The two of you sit on your sofa in the sunset, eyes locked, tears streaming, chests heaving like you’ve run a marathon. The word ‘dead’ hangs in the air and haunts the room.

“I thought you were dead, and I thought it was because of me.”

“Do you hate me for it?”

“Why the fuck would I—”

“Because I didn’t die? Do you hate me for it?”

JJ blinks back his bewilderment. He physically shifts back in his seat, as if you just spat in his face. Horrified, he tells you, “Of course I don’t. Why would you even ask me that?”

“Because I’m still here, JJ. But you acted like I wasn’t for five years. You didn’t even come see me in the hospital. Didn’t sit with me in the ambulance. Hell, you can’t even look at my leg now! You think I didn’t notice? At the graveyard, and now. You think I can’t see it on your face?”

JJ whispers your name in a tearful plea. Stop.

“I’m still here, JJ. And I invited you back here, and I went to the funeral, because I wanted to see you.”

“To show me what I did?” JJ asks, harsher than needed.

You hold his gaze. “To show you I’m okay.”

He shakes his head, insistent. “It was my fault. If I hadn’t been drinking and if I’d been thinking straight, I would have never let you jump off the bike like that. It was fucking reckless and stupid and I would never, ever do it again. It was all my fault.”

“I don’t care who’s fault it was, JJ,” you whisper. Your hand reaches out and traces his cheek and jaw, and he can’t help but lean into your warm touch. There you sit, cradling his face as if he was the victim in this whole thing. It calms him almost immediately. “Nobody forced me on that bike. Nobody forced me to jump, not even you.”

“I shouldn’t have let you.”

“JJ,” you sigh.

He closes his eyes as you shift in your spot, and somehow you end up with your forehead pressed against his. He reaches out one of his hands for the other of yours that rests in your lap and he clenches it, tight. You’re both still crying but they’re silent tears now.

“I forgive you, JJ.”

He shakes his head whilst you nod.

“Yes, I do, I forgive you. I always have. You know why?”

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move.

“Because you were dealt the shitest hand I’ve ever known and look who you are. You’re sober, and you're healthy, and you have loving friends and a steady income and a job which you love, and a boathouse, and so much of your life left. And you didn’t kill anyone. You didn’t kill me, JJ. You didn’t even lose me.”

“I don’t—”

“We’re more than our mistakes.”

When JJ opens his eyes, you pull back enough to let him meet your gaze. As if you know what he’s about to ask, you smile. That smile…JJ feels like he’s coming home.

“You’re more than your mistakes, JJ.”

The moment his lips slot against yours, tentative and hesitant, like a bird exploring new ground for the first time, he’s home. There’s hardly a moment of reluctance, of confusion and mismatch from the time passed, before you’re kissing him back. The softness of your lips against his and the brush of your tongue. The sigh in your voice and the tilt of your head. It’s so seamless and sweet and safe. JJ feels safe here, with you. He feels like all the shit doesn’t matter. He feels like sober might actually be synonymous with happiness, with you. When he lies you down on the sofa, JJ doesn’t want to leave this room, this house, or Kildare. He wants to stay here, worshipping you, breathing you in until you consume all of his senses, because after five years, nothing has made him feel as alive as this. As you.

Everything is a wonderful illusion of being rushed and well-paced all at once. He revels in the way your skin gives gently beneath the scrape of his teeth. When he sucks at your throat, the skin is so delicate, and this close to you JJ can smell nothing but your perfume. He wants to fucking drown in it.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he pants. You’re gasping too. Fingers sliding through his hair, down his sides, along his face.

“I missed you,” you whine.

And that phrase gets repeated over and over like a mantra or a prayer. He hears himself whispering it against your skin with every button he undoes on your blouse. Basks in the sound of your voice, older and mature but still you, as you say it whilst pushing his dress shirt off his shoulder.

There’s a stalling pause when his fingers finish tracing down your stomach to your pants. You seem to notice it. Your hand comes to his face and thumbs at his cheek. They’re still sticky from dried tears.

“JJ,” you whisper, coaxing his attention back to your face. You’re glowing. You’re happy, you’re healthy, and you’re here. “It’s okay.” Nodding, you repeat. “It’s okay.”

Then, he watches your own fingers land on the button of your pants, slowly undoing it. Then the other and the third until they’re lose. He watches you wriggle out of them, pulling them down, struggling somewhat from the tight position on the sofa. Watches the scars emerge, faint but clear, and how they grow and spread like ivy on the side of a house. They merge with the cellulite and stretch marks. With a random bruise you must’ve gotten from hitting your leg on the table the other day. They’re a part of you – plain and simple. At the knee, there’s the connection for your prosthetic right leg. Once your trousers are off, JJ finds himself reaching out to touch it. This thing that he was partly responsible for, this marvel of medicine, the reason you can walk. He loves it and hates it desperately all at once. Glancing back up to your face, you’re watching him just as carefully as he was watching you. But you’re smiling.

“You’re okay,” JJ finds himself saying quietly. Because you are. You’re here, laying almost bare before him, just like you had years before.

“It’s rude to make a girl wait, JJ,” you tease.

With that, JJ’s smile is blossoming back like the returning of spring flowers following a brutal winter. He leans forward and catches himself above you with his arms, kissing you like you’re all the oxygen in the world. Your left leg rubs at his calf, still covered by his trousers, and you giggle against his mouth.

“Fuck, I missed this,” you say. “I missed you.”

“How much?”

“So much,” you say.

“Oh yeah? What’d you miss?” JJ persists, kissing down your neck.

“Your mouth,” you say through a moan. His hands slip behind your back and unclasp your bra. You arch your back enough for him to tug it off.

“My mouth?” he wonders, breathing it against your skin. You’re practically writhing. JJ laughs. “What about my mouth?”

“Don’t be a jackass, JJ,” you mutter.

“You want my mouth?”

“Yes,” you quietly beg.

“You do?” he checks, kissing over your breast, sucking at your nipple. “Where do you want it?”

“You fucking know where,” you sigh, impatience shining through.

He grins at the sudden hitch of your moan as he softly nips at the sensitive skin around your nipple. Then he’s kissing down your stomach until finally his fingers hook into the sides of your panties. He slowly, tauntingly, pulls them down. You kick them off at the ankles, a clear act of frustration, and he bites back his laugh.

“What? Here?” JJ plants a kiss to your hipbone. “You want my mouth here? Or…”

Another kiss, to your pelvic bone.

“Here?”

“Fuck you, Maybank.”

“You wanna?”

“I swear to fucking God,” you huff, laughing through the annoyance.

With that, JJ settles himself between your legs and praises you like you deserve to be. The noises you make are downright evil, considering he can do nothing about it and has to hold it together. You taste so familiar on his tongue.

“Fucking missed you,” he groans against you.

When he sucks on your clit, your hands latch into his hair. Your back is arching and you’re gasping and panting and desperate, and JJ feels like a young God. Pulling back, he slips a finger into your hole and it welcomes him so easily. He cusses at how wet you are.

“Come on baby. Come on, I know you’re close.”

The tells of your body haven’t changed since the last time you two were in this position. The way your mouth hangs open in a silent moan when you fall over the edge is so surreal to see after five years apart. He feels you spasms around him and basks in the scratch of your nails against his scalp as you try to ground yourself. He hardly has time to suck his fingers clean before your pulling his mouth to yours and kissing him stupid.

“Fucking missed you,” you repeat against his mouth, making him laugh. “Nobody fucks me as good as you.”

“Jesus Christ, you can’t say shit like that,” JJ chuckles. “Won’t last.”

“Don’t care,” you say. “Only thing bigger than your ego is your dick.”

JJ can’t help but laugh at that. He loves your giggles in response. And then your hands are shoving at his trousers and the humour is gone, replaced with nothing but raw lust and desperation. There’s nothing performative about it, when the two of you hurry to strip his clothes away as soon as possible. He takes note to get his socks off. You’d always had a weird thing about it, sex in socks, and nothing was going to taint this night. Not after so long.

Being inside you…JJ missed it more than all the alcohol and weed in the world. Nothing compared to the feeling of you clenching around him. The vice of your leg hitched up and over his back as he grips into your thigh, mean and firm, perfecting the angle. The senseless, endless whines falling from your agape mouth, eyes closed tight, lost in the feeling of it. JJ wants nothing to be less than perfect for you, for this. Every stroke, every kiss, every clench of his fingers…it all has to be perfect. He knows when you’re close and he’s more than fucking relieved. It’s taking everything in him not to come. He needs you to fall over the edge first.

“Do the thing,” you whine. “Do the thing, John.”

With that, JJ remembers five years back, to late nights and later mornings spent rolling in bed with you. He bites into his lip, holding back his shit-eating grin as the memories flood back, and he leans forward to your ear. Gently taking the lobe within his teeth, he croons into the shell of your ear.

“That’s my good fucking girl.”

And finally, you fall apart, taking JJ with you like you always would.

When the high finally passes and the endorphins settle down, the two of you are laying on the sofa, only covered by a throw blanket JJ had dragged down from the back of the sofa. You’ve somehow shuffled so you’re laying mostly atop of him. His arms are locked around your damp stomach like a vice, nose nestled into your hair, just behind your ear, breathing you in with every inhale.

“Will you stay in Kildare, just for a short while? For me?”

JJ wants to laugh but he knows how wrong that would be in this moment. The humour doesn’t come from the question, but from the notion that he’d leave after finally having you back in his life, safe and happy, after five long years.

“Anything,” he whispers, pressing a kiss against your hair. Anything for you.

-

“You look like shit by the way,” JJ says.

His hands are warm in his cargo pant pockets. Head tilted down and gaze steady, he sighs.

“Guess you didn’t have chance to clean up though, right?”

Shockingly, the gravestone says nothing back. Well, says nothing asides form Luke Maybank in barely legible font.

It still feels surreal, that his dad is gone. That they’d never remedy anything, or even attempt to fix their relationship. That JJ wouldn’t be able to face him and show him what he’d become. How he’d risen past it all and grown from the pain and the agony. That he’d taken the shitty hand that he was dealt and turned it into nothing but flushes and full houses. That he hadn’t grown into a petty criminal or a tax-evading lowlife, but a strong, good-willed, well-intentioned man. The thought, bittersweet at heart, makes him smile.

“I’m happy dad. I know you probably hate that, being dead and all, but I am.”

As if on cue, there’s the high pitch giggles from afar that catch JJ’s attention. He glances over to spot you and your wonderful mini-you, sitting on your shoulders, waving at him. He waves back, small and short, smiling.

“I’m glad you never met her,” JJ tells his dad, never tearing his eyes away from the pair of you. You ease her off your shoulders and take her hand, pointing to a small bed of daffodils. “I was so scared I’d be bad at this. I was so scared that I’d be like you.”

She’s so fragile as she picks a flower free from the bunch, holding it by the stem, up to you. You nod and presumably smile in approval.

“But I’ll never be like you. She’ll never know what it feels like to live in fear,” JJ states, firmly. He looks back down to the grave. “I’m not your mistakes, and I’m not mine.”

He lowers to a squat and wipes some of the dirt off the stone, revealing the dates. “Happy birthday, dad. You suck, and I hope you’re finally at peace.”

“Daddy, daddy…”

There’s an insistent tug at his jacket sleeve. JJ smiles and looks down at the best mistake he ever made. Mistake is a strong word. ‘Oops, I think is better’, you’d said when you first showed him the pregnancy test.

“What’s up, bub?”

“I found this flower. Can I give it to papa?”

JJ takes the daffodil and glances to the grave. A brief moment of anger passes over him like the breeze of winter. He doesn’t deserve this. He isn’t your papa. I’m glad he’s dead. But he closes his eyes and breathes. Your hand squeezing gently at his shoulder tells him you’re there. It helps ground him.

“Yeah, bub. I think that’d be nice,” he smiles, handing it back.

She giggles as she puts it on the grass just before the stone. Her laughter is brighter and louder still when JJ scoops her up as he stands, looping her around him until she’s a backpack.

“You wanna get ice cream?”

“Hell yeah,” you whoop.

“Hell yeah!” mini-you copies. JJ laughs.

“Alrighty, lets go.”

As the three of you make the small walk back to the car, you intertwine your fingers with JJ’s, holding his hand tight and secure. JJ takes one last glance back at the gravestone. It all began here, in a way, the re-introduction to a life he thought he’d lost. Perhaps the nicest thing JJ’s dad ever did, the kindest act he ever performed, was dying. Perhaps that was his way of paying him back for all the crap he gave.

“Hey.”

JJ glances down at you.

“You okay?”

He smiles. Then, he nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”

Everything is going to be okay.

[skylarsblue]

I still have more. More Incorrect Quotes.

(Accidentally had a lot more fem!Y/N than intended but it's overall GN!) Alex: What made you think you’d be good for the military? Y/N: I worked at a Waffle House in America. Alex: Ah, alright, that makes sense.

-- (Interrogating Valeria)

Y/N: Look, Gaz, you know me. I can't- I can't do it. Gaz: Why not? Why can't you interrogate her? Y/N: Because I'm a bisexual with mommy issues, Gaz. And she's as pretty as she is scary. I'm already not that intimidating, she'll laugh at me when I start stuttering and then I'll just be horny. It can't be me. Gaz: ....okay, I'll ask Alejandro-

-- Y/N: I just realized something...I had a bad childhood. Gaz: Yeah we know. Y/N: What do you mean you know? Soap: Look at how you stand! People who had good childhoods don't stand like that. Y/N: How do I stand?! Gaz: Like Ghost. Ghost: ...I don't appreciate the call out but fair-

-- Price: Where are you going?! Y/N: To either get ice cream or commit a felony, I'll decide in the car!

-- Ghost after watching Fem!Y/N do an incredibly risky move: I just...Is she blind?? Suffering some form of brain damage?

-- (Tw; Hollywood Undead unalive song)

Y/N: My legs are dangling off the edge, the bottom of the bottle is my only friend, I think I'll sli- Price: EXCUSE ME?! WHAT ARE YOU ON ABOUT?? Y/N: Wh- No Captain, it's just a so- Price: GHOST GET THE BASE PSYCH ON THE PHONE Y/N: CAPTAIN IT'S A SONG I'M FINE- Well I'm not bUT NO WAIT HANG ON-

-- Valeria: *screaming in spanish* Y/N: ... Gaz: Don't. Y/N, blushing: I'm trying-

-- (During movie night; watching Venom)

Y/N: *pauses on that scene where Venoms sticks his tongue out at the guy in the street* ....Hear me out- Gaz: NO! NO. Y/N: NO NO LISTEN, LISTEN- Soap: Let them speak. Gaz: Don't encourage this! Y/N, pointing at the screen: LOOK AT IT! LOOK! Objectively you have to understand- Gaz: NOOO, it eats people! Soap: THAT TONGUE IS THREE FEET LONG AT LEAST! Gaz: No, I will not be hearing anyone out! I- GHOST, Ghost, back me up. Tell them they shouldn't want to fuck the ALIEN. Ghost, looking at the screen: Ethically, it's wrong. Gaz: Thank you. Ghost: ...objectively- Y/N: AHA! SEE?!

-- Ghost: *bends over* Y/N: *silently flips out* Soap, quietly: Wh-what? What are you-?! Y/N: SHHH *grabs Soap's jaw and turns him to look* Soap: *slack jaw* Damn- Y/N: fuckingdamnindeed- Ghost: *turns around* Soap: So it's your turn to pick dinner, what're you thinking? Y/N: Oh I dunno, maybe something pork related, uh, or cake- Soap: Aha, yeah...cake. Ghost: ....??

--

Fem!Y/N: I am not the mom of 141, that's ridiculous. Someone: You make all of them lunch every day with fruit cut into shapes, IN PERSONALIZED LUNCH BOXES Fem!Y/N: They need nutrition! Someone: You color code their items- Fem!Y/N: Look, if you were there for the item mix-ups you'd understand. Someone: YOU ARE LITERALLY FOLDING AND LABELLING THEIR LAUNDRY WITH A SHARPIE ON THE TAGS. Fem!Y/N: *holding Simon's skull boxers, writing his name on the tag* That- ...oh my god I'm the mom.

-- Ghost, watching Soap run past: WHAT DO YOU HAVE?! Soap, grinning & sprinting: A FUCKIN' BOMB Ghost: NO!!!

-- Price: Y/N, this is Lieutenant Riley, you can call him Ghost. Ghost: Y/N, looking him up and down: ...you got daddy issues? Ghost: ....maybe Y/N: Cool, same. Pleasure to meet'cha, sorry life gave you shit. Ghost, shaking their hand: Ditto. Price: *concerned sigh*

-- Price, walking into the common area at 10 pm: What in the world- Gaz, Soap, and Y/N: *all in there pyjamas with face masks on, eating snacks* Y/N: *slowly keeps chewing* Gaz: ...heeeyy siiirr... Price: It was lights out an hour ago, what are you lot doing? Soap: *slowly raises another face mask* ....Self care, sir? Price: ... Ghost, walking in at midnight for water: ....what. Soap, Gaz, Price, and Y/N: *stop gossiping* Gaz: ....hey. Soap: Evenin' L.T. Y/N: Howdy. Ghost: *looks at Price with a face mask on* Ghost: ...*sighs and sits down* Pass the Goldfish. Soap: Yeaaaah, good man! Welcome to the party!

-- Shepard: Is anyone here straight?! Price: ...*hesitantly raises hand* Laswell: *pushes his hand back down*

-- Valeria: *angry ranting* Y/N, a captive: Stop being so mean to me or I swear to god I'm gonna fall in love with you!

-- Ghost: What in the hell are you doing? Y/N: Laying in the rain. Ghost: Why? Y/N: If I lay here long enough, it feels like it washes the sad away. So I'm gonna lay here until the sad is gone. Ghost: You'll get sick. Y/N: Better sick than sad, sir. Ghost: ...*looks at the sky, back down, sighs* Ghost: *lays down on the tarmac* Y/N: Got a lot of sad? Ghost: ...Yeah. Y/N: If the rain doesn't take care of it, let's trade sads. Then it'll at least be a different kind of sad. Ghost: Not sure you want my sad. Y/N: Maybe not, but I don't think you should have to handle your sad alone either. Ghost: ...alright. Y/N: Cool.

-- Price: Simon, it's three o' clock in the morning. Why on earth are you making chocolate pudding? Ghost: Because I've lost control of my life.

-- Soap, with a gunshot wound: Do I regret it? Yes. Will I do it again? Most likely.

-- Y/N after doing something so badass it would fit in a movie: ...DID EVERYONE SEE THAT?? CAUSE I WILL NOT BE DOING IT AGAIN.

-- Ghost: You kidnapped the prime minister's daughter? That's illegal! Soap: Okay, Ghost, but what's more illegal? Briefly inconveniencing the prime minister's daughter, or destroying 141? Ghost: KIDNAPPING THE PRIME MINISTER'S DAUGHTER, JOHNNY! Fem!Y/N: Do you guys have like, a water or something? Snack maybe? No?

-- Y/N: I think there's been some confusion. I'm not the one in trouble here. Enemy Soldier: ...What? Y/N: There are only four of you. You'll need more than that. Gaz, hearing it over the intercom: ...they're gonna whoop-ass but we should probably go help them.

-- Someone: Why are you doing their straps for them? Price: They don't like velcro. Someone: Just do it yourself! Y/N: I'm not touching that stuff! I'll get neurotypical cooties.

-- Y/N, high on painkillers: If yo leg get cut off, would it hurt? Soap, in a hospital bed beside them: ...DUH Y/N: How though? Soap: Cause your leg got cut off! Y/N: Where you gonna feel the pain? Soap: In your le.... Y/N: Exactly bro! How you gonna feel the pain in yo leg if- Both: If your leg is gone! Soap: Whoooaaa... Y/N: Bro I swear, we're geniuses. Ghost, on his last brain cell: Fuckin'ell.

-- Ghost, about to lose his shit: Dear lord, I know we haven't spoken in a long time but if you could give me a little patience-

-- Gaz: Do you believe in God? Y/N: ...Yes & no. Gaz: Yes & No? What do you mean? Y/N: I believe there is a higher power, I believe a God exists. But...believing in God? Now that...haven't done that in a long time.

--

Gaz & Y/N: *dancing* Ghost: Can you two be serious for five seconds? Gaz, bustin' a move: Dunno sir, can you have fun for five seconds? Y/N: *stops and looks at Gaz* Gaz: *stops and is filled with instant regret* ...uh, sir, I- Ghost: Tell you what. I'll give you five seconds...to start running- Gaz: *turns to run and sees Y/N already yards away* YOU LEFT ME?! Y/N: I WANNA LIVE!!!!

-- Ghost: What are they doing? Price: Arguing in morse code. Soap: - .... .- - .----. ... / .-- .... -.-- / -.-- --- ..- .-. / ... .... --- . ... / .-. .- --. --. . -.. -.-- Gaz: -.-- .- / -- --- -- -- .- Soap: YOU FUCKIN' TAKE THAT BACK-

-- Soap: Keep your eyes closed, I have a surpriiisee!~ Ghost: You did your paperwork? Soap: I said surprise, not miracle.

-- Y/N, on tiktok: FOR ALL YOU NASTY ASSES IN MY DMS- *shows the team* THIS IS MY TEAM. STOP SENDING MY DICK PICS OR I WILL SEND THEM AFTER Y'ALL. Ghost: You've been getting dick pics? Soap: Who the hell's been harassing you online?! Y/N: SEE?? THEY'LL WHOOP YA ASS, SO LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!

-- Y/N, on tiktok again: Alright, backfired on me. For all of y'all who are now trying to be nasty by THIRSTING for my teammates, uh, no. Stop askin' for my Captain's marital status, I'm not gonna tell you. No you may not get my teammate's dicks, I will not be giving you their social media, stOP ASKING I KNOW THEY'RE HOT BUT NO-

-- (I've fallen down the rabbit hole of Karen compilations, so, that's why I thought of this)

Y/N: Goodbye sir! Male Karen: Fuck you bitch! Go suck off your captain you fuckin' whore!! Y/N: Sure, I'll do that, goodbye! Male Karen: Suck my dick, whore! Y/N: Can't! It's too full of military dick, you'll need to make an appointment, GOODBYE!! Soap: *wheeze* Gaz: Jesus. Christ. Ghost: I told you all America is shit.

(Bonus Note cause I can't put in anywhere else; on the topic of Venom + C.o.D. I know we have Soap in place of Eddie & Ghost in place of Venom, but hear me out. Y/N! being Ghost's host and Johnny being a third part. P o l y ! A u !)

[annwrites]

⸻ tell me i'm your national anthem. part four. ⸻

· pairing: homelander x collegestudent!reader · type: part of a series · summary: you begin to get a better idea of just how deeply damaged john truly is & he stakes a claim to you. · tags: lactation kink · tw: possessiveness · word count: 2,618

You sip on your iced coffee, typing away on your laptop, near to completing your essay for one of your classes, which is due in two days.

“God, he’s so hot. I don’t get why you don’t think so,” Emma says.

You glance up to her from over your laptop screen with a raised brow, watching as she stares down at her cellphone with a dreamy look in her eyes.

“Huh?”

She looks at you, then raises her phone, showing you a recent livestream of John. No, Homelander.

No, John. You hate his moniker.

He smiles charmingly at a reporter, who speaks into her microphone with an excited look on her face. “I’m here speaking to the one and only Homelander, who just—with the aid of his fellow supe, A-Train—saved a family of three from a near-fatal car accident.”

She holds the microphone toward him. “Can you tell us what happened here, Homelander?”

You refrain from rolling your eyes at the obnoxious name.

“Yeah, me and my buddy and fellow supe, A-Train,” he nods to the smiling man at his side who waves to the camera. “Were just doing some patrols of the area—just something we try to do every now and again across the state to keep our people safe,” he says with a shrug.

“When we saw the driver over there,” he continues, pointing to a man standing near a blue sedan. “Run a red light here at the intersection. Just—” He purses his lips, shaking his head. “Carelessness.”

He sighs, continuing on. “But, thankfully, A-Train and I were able to step in and rush the injured parties: a mom, dad, and their sweet little girl, to the nearest hospital. I mean, to wait for an ambulance…there’s no telling what might’ve happened. What precious lives might’ve been lost.”

The camera pans back to the reporter. “What would we ever do without you—either of you? We are all so lucky to have heros like the two of you—like the Seven—saving and protecting America every day.”

The camera returns to John who shakes his head, waving his hand. “No, it’s the people of this great nation who are the real heros. We’re just here to do our jobs and use the gifts God gave us to protect and save our fellow man.”

“And save them you did,” the reporter replies, continuing on before Emma locks her phone, looking at you, resting her chin atop both her fists.

“I want him so bad,” she mumbles with a smile.

You grin, shaking your head—sweating nervously.

She’s loved the man for as long as you can remember. Used to have a poster of him—ok, multiple posters—stuck to her bedrooms walls growing up. And she’s seen all of his movies probably an unhealthy amount of times.

If she had any idea that he’d had his head shoved between your thighs just a few nights ago—that you know his real name, his childhood story—the real one—that you’ve had him in your bed, crying in your arms, sitting at your dining table as the two of you eat together…that he’s called himself ‘your man’ more than once now… You’re pretty sure she’d pop a blood vessel, grill you relentlessly on everything, and then never forgive you.

You tell her everything, but this…you can’t.

Honestly, you wonder if she’d even believe you if you tried, anyway.

“What do you think he’s like in bed?”

Your head shoots up. “What?”

She grins. “Not like you want to know how many times I’ve thought about it, but…he’s like the American Dream, right? I mean, he’s definitely my American wet dream.”

You snort.

She continues. “So do you think he’s vanilla, then? Only missionary? Or…oh, I bet he loves creampies. He seems like he could be the type to have a breeding kink. Nuclear family and all.”

You lay your head down. “I don’t want to know.”

You know he’s incredibly good at oral, if nothing else. And he’s a boob man. He’d spent the entire night with his face resting between both of yours.

And he really loves to cuddle. He’d held you like a human-sized teddy bear all night. But, you suppose it makes sense: being desperate for affection. Every time you’d thought today about what he’d told you last night, your heart had broken all over again. You’d actually had to hide yourself away in a restroom today between classes just to cry.

Maybe your period is going to start soon…

God, who would’ve thought in a million years that you would feel sorry for Homelander? But you don’t see him as that now. Not when you’re alone together. Now he’s just…John.

Honestly, in a million years you would’ve never imagined letting him into your bed. Holding him. Calling him baby. Or sweetheart…

“Just guess,” she insists.

You groan in irritation, raising your head. “Maybe he’s a boob man.”

She rolls her eyes toward the ceiling, thinking for a moment before looking back to you while nodding. “Yeah, I can see that.”

You shake your head while smiling. “I have to get this paper done.”

You don’t bother keeping your balcony doors closed this evening. Not while you’re up and idly watching TV, at least.

Watch, you think, the one night you leave them open—as a reluctant invitation—will be the night he finally decides he’s grown bored of coming here and he never returns.

You’re entirely okay with that possibility.

You’d do anything to pass him off onto Emma. Then again…no, you wouldn’t. You most certainly don’t like the idea of him doing to her what he did just a couple nights ago to you on your kitchen counter.

But, she also wouldn’t have even thought about fighting back like you had. She would’ve been completely willing.

You wonder if that would’ve made him all the more angry. Maybe that’s the part that turns him on the most—resistance; a fight.

You jolt when you hear a soft thump to your left. You, begrudgingly, turn your head in that direction, met with the sight of the one and only Captain Asshole.

You feel guilty after thinking that, though. Especially after last night.

He’s just…emotionally stunted. And you’re not even sure at what specific age. Maybe there isn’t a particular one, because for his entire adolescent life…he’d been locked in that room with no one and nothing to interact with.

Tears sting your eyes.

He steps over the threshold, and you merely gaze up at him.

You’re not offering to willingly make him dinner like some trained pet. Not that you feel like it to begin with. You’ve already eaten. He can fly down to the local McDonald’s and pick up a Big Mac if he’s hungry.

Fly down.

He can fly.

What an insane thing to be able to do.

But also fantastical and amazing.

You wish you could do that.

He slips off his boots, setting them beside the door, before padding over, seating himself heavily beside you.

You flip the channel to some trivia game-show then.

“You ever seen any of my movies?” He asks.

You roll your head to the side, staring at him. “What do you think?”

He rolls his eyes, crossing his arms, looking at the TV. “So, you’ve never had a favorite supe?”

You face forward again as well. “Not really, no.”

“Never had so much as a poster of me?”

You shake your head.

He smirks. “Maybe I should gift you a Homelander pack of panties.”

You look at him with a raised brow.

“Of course they sell those,” you say with a shake of your head.

He leans over you, sliding a hand up your thigh. “I could be with you all day long that way. Right between your legs.”

You shake your head yet again, but in disapproval. Even if your lip twitches in mild amusement.

He leans back again. “I’d like a glass of milk.”

You huff quietly—the playful moment clearly over—and stand.

Once you’ve given him his requested drink, he takes a brief sip, then speaks before you seat yourself once again.

“Well, you’ve gotten to see me undressed. I think we should make things even.”

You still—the hairs raising on the back of your neck—while you simply stand and stare at him.

“C’mon,” he says, motioning with his hand, taking another drink. “Strip.”

“You’ve already seen me without…bottoms—”

“So now I get to see the other half.”

The part of you he’s most interested in, he thinks.

You cross your arms, frowning, heartrate slowly beginning to climb.

His eyes go red and you jump slightly, arms falling to your sides in surprise.

Shades of blue return to you then, and he smiles sweetly, which serves only to make your stomach turn.

“I’m waiting.”

With trembling hands and stinging eyes, you grip the hem of your shirt, slowly tugging it up and over your head. You bunch it up, then hold it shyly against your middle.

“All of it,” he states, taking a long drink, licking his lips as he looks you over.

Your chin wobbles. “I don’t want—”

He sighs, leaning forward. “It’s just us. So slip it off, then climb into my lap.”

You waver.

“I’m not going to rape you. If I wanted you on your back with your legs spread, you would be.”

Not that it’s an unappealing idea to him.

You reach behind you, undoing your bra one clasp at a time. You slip it from your shoulders, tossing it onto the coffee table, then clasp your hands over your naked breasts.

He makes a beckoning motion with his index finger, so you step forward. Hesitantly.

“Straddle my lap.”

You swallow thickly, then do so, settling bent legs on either side of him, resting back on your calves.

He glances to your hands, then into your eyes with a raised brow.

You’d been right in what you’d told Emma that morning—your assumption about him having an appreciation for breasts—apparently.

You lower your arms, resting your hands in your lap, and he abruptly wraps his own around you, leaning forward, taking a nipple into his mouth.

Your eyes widen in shock, your body growing warm all over as he begins to gently suck, his eyes fluttering closed while he moans quietly in the back of his throat.

You, meanwhile, remain still and silent, unsure what the hell to do with yourself.

He releases your breast for a moment, taking a drink of milk, then immediately dives back in.

The TV plays softly in the background, so you choose to instead focus on mentally participating in answering trivial questions instead of…this.

Until he leans back, sliding a hand up your back, gripping your neck.

Your eyes meet his.

“Touch my head.”

You slide trembling hands atop his shoulders, lacing your fingers into his blond strands, and he returns his attentions to your chest.

You gently rub your fingertips against his scalp and he hums in contentment, taking another sip of milk, then sucking on your other breast.

It’s then that the metaphorical wheels begin to turn.

Constantly switching between taking drinks of milk and sucking on your breasts… Oh good lord, he has a breast-feeding kink, doesn’t he?

He just grows more and more interesting the more time you spend with him.

And then your heart breaks all over again.

What if it’s not, entirely, a kink? You know it’s at least half one with the feeling of his erection pressing against your shorts.

He never had a mother. Never had any form of maternal comfort growing up.

Showing up and asking—rather, demanding—dinner, your attention and approval, nearly threatening you last night after a moment of extreme vulnerability… He’d held you to his chest the entire night. Like a child does with a toy for comfort when attempting to sleep.

And now…he’s pretending to breast-feed.

You decide on another small experiment—he liked it the other night when you gave him affectionate touches—and begin to quietly hum a nursery rhyme.

This feels like some fucked-up psychological experiment: you trying to read him and gauge his reactions to this and that to get an exaction on his true nature. But, in reality, he doesn’t seem terribly hard to get at.

He goes to switch breasts again and you grow silent. Until he looks up at you, and tells you, “Keep singing.”

The two of you are lying in bed again with John’s head resting between your breasts as he takes even, steady breaths.

You run your fingers slowly through his hair, lulling him to sleep.

You’re nearly on the edge of it yourself when he stirs before leaning over you, slowly sliding his hand up your chest, then along your neck until his large, heavy palm comes to rest atop the soft, delicate skin.

He stares down at you, and you cup his cheek, brushing your thumb along it.

He smiles gently, tightening his hold, and you swallow nervously, your brows furrowing.

“You’re mine,” he whispers. “You belong to me now. Do you understand?”

Your eyes flit between his and your heart begins to hammer in fear.

“You understand me,” he continues. “Like no one else has ever bothered to. We’re together now. Got it?”

He can’t really mean it. Someone like him…he must be expected to carry on with who Vought and the press choose for him.

“We…we’ve known each other for four days, John. That’s not enough time to—to know how you feel—”

“It wasn’t a question. I wasn’t asking. You’re mine.”

He presses his lips to yours and a tear slips from the corner of your eye.

He lies back down then, snuggling close to you for comfort. “If I find out you’re seeing anyone else, you won’t like what happens to him. So, I suggest staying loyal. Not that anyone else could ever compare to me, anyway. I mean, you should be happy about this—that you’re the young woman I’ve chosen for myself. It makes you special. Being mine, that is. A rich superhero. The supe.”

He closes his eyes, softly smiling. “The greatest man in all of America—the world—and I’m all yours.”

He tightens his hold around you.

“Doesn’t that make you happy?” He asks with a flat, slightly-threatening tone.

Your fingers tremble against his scalp. “What about Maeve?”

He snorts. “She might be my equal—for the most part—but you have your own appeal. There’s nothing I can give her that she can’t already get on her own. Whereas you should be grateful I’ve spared you a second glance or thought. That I’ve let you get this close to me. I’m a gift, really. Come to add interest to your ordinary life.”

A narcissist is what you are, you think.

Does he think, by stressing how special and one-of-a-kind he is, that you’ll…what? Agree? See how blind you’ve been all these years to have shirked the prospect of idolizing him, and finally fall on your knees, beginning for his attention?

You already have it.

The roles are reversed here, in truth. He’s the one desperate to have yours.

You know you shouldn’t speak further, but you want to hear his response to you laying the truth plainly before him. “If I’m so ordinary and you’re so…extraordinary, why bother with me? What is my ‘appeal’, as you put it?”

He grows quiet, listening to your heart pounding in your chest.

Finally, he curls his fingertips inward against your back. “Go to sleep.”

You squeeze your eyes shut, terrified of him. Of what’s happening to you.

Dear God, why couldn’t you have skipped just one day of class? Or come halfway through the day instead?

Now… Now you would be paying for it until he chooses to call this sick game quits.

[arolesbianism]

Some Brute doodles plus a bonus Button

[marikosenwrites]

﹒⪩nsfw headcanons - karasuno edition

a/n: YES I AM BACK WITH THE NSFW EDITION HAHAHAHA ... yeah i only did five characters because i'm really running out of time before my vacation (two months long) and i assure you my progress will be really slow but i'll still be posting some random shitposts

characters: hinata shouyou, kageyama tobio, sugawara koushi, tsukishima kei, yamaguchi tadashi

gn/fem!reader

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘HINATA SHOUYOU∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

-i would head canon him as the experimental type

-he’s kind of just the softie that looks after you a lot even during sex (and especially during sex)

-not if he goes feral though- (we don’t talk about it)

-mm…if you were sadistic he would enjoy your sadism and be a ma…masochist- (my friends said i was one and i mean i don’t disagree…)

-likes seeing your face!! so doggy style isn’t really that common for you guys

-(i’m actually looking hard into this wait until i get lazy)

-if you or shouyou something find something new- HE’S ALL “OOH CAN WE TRY CAN WE TRY” even if it’s like two in the morning and you have to tell him to quiet down

-“b-but i wanna try!! 🥺🥺🥺”

-and oh man is that face your weakness- you give in anyway

-his aftercare is like the best

-you guys just watch a movie or chill in each other’s arms because it’s comfortable that way

-if you’re only taking a small break i think shouyou would prefer keeping his dick inside of you so he can feel your warm ass walls 🥺🥺

-i don't even know what i'm writing anymore

-would actually only have sex after you're twenty and would make sure that you guys have dated at least a year but if circumstances...

-idk why but he would like to brag about it to kageyama- i mean they *are* rivals after all-

-has incredible stamina

-uh...idk probably into edging?? i'm really unsure with this one

-his moans are uh??? loud

-ALSO REMEMBER THAT ONE TIME HE GOT HIT IN THE BALLS BY A VOLLEYBALL BY KINDAIICHI-

-i'm not elaborating let me pretend he didn't get permanent balls damage

-also try to avoid quickies with hinata he’s going to get overboarded with that shit

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘KAGEYAMA TOBIO∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

-possible power play?

-you like to make fun of him by calling him 'king' and he's gonna be like "stoppp..." and yk it riles him

-sadist

-not really the needy type tbh

-it’s really more of a “how i’m feeling that day”

-but he’s clingier than you expect him to be

-more of the traditional type actually

-doesn’t really experiment much

-he actually puts in effort during sex (i haven’t read enough about this)

-he TRIED during aftercare (keyword is try)

-might try to make you something but cooking isn’t really his forte

-so he gives you cuddles and you guys might just take a bath but that usually leads to another session-

-down for quickies anywhere

-i forgor to mention

-his moans are pretty

-when you guys make eye contact all you see is a hunter eating his prey

-he loves eating you out or vice versa <3

-literal king in bed tbh 😩

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘SUGAWARA KOUSHI∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

-i'd say average when it comes to sex

-really soft with you, and is barely feral

-small grunts and gentle movements against your skin

-you guys would definitely have a safe word

-he gets carried away sometimes...><

-tries to plan everything before hand

-like starting with a date and ending in bed and shit

-possibly breeding kink when you guys are older

-loves being cockwarmed since he feels so warm on the inside <3

-feral-ness 3/10

-not really down for quickies, it's risky

-doesn't like experimenting

-might prefer to keep your sex life private and unlike hinata and kageyama not brag about it

-but the whole team knows of your relationship

-his stamina is just average so usually just a round and a half and he's down and snoring

-aftercare is a must if he isn't that tired

-consists of food, bubble bath, AND TONS OF CUDDLES

-literally an angel

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘TSUKISHIMA KEI∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

-sadist FR.

-he just loves teasing and edging you

-literally when he's helping you with his slim and long ass fingers he stops when he knows you're going to come and goes like

-"you don't think sluts deserve to come, do you?"

-kEiiiii stappppp plz 🥺

-but when he's not edging you he's just a marshmallow

-so fluffy

-OK BUT HIS LONG ASS FINGERS ARE HELL BECAUSE HE GETS TO TEASE YOU ENDLESSLY

-that tall ass blond is gonna tease you endlessly about your height (this hc is both nsfw and sfw)

-pretty moans though <3 probably gives you goosebumps

-there probably is a safe word

-PHONE SEX PHONE SEX PHONE SEX RAHHHH I'M GOING CRAZY HEAR ME OUT

-OK WHAT IF HE'S AT CAMP AND HE JUST CALLS YOU BECAUSE HE FEELS HORNY AND YOU GUYS *lip biting*

-ya get what comes next he guides you to touching yourself and vice versa <33333

-but it's not that often he VOLUNTARILY goes to camp (he also wouldn't call you during the potential youth training camp thing)

-down for quickies anywhere

-i feel like he would be into getting caught by both girls and boys because now they know you belong to him and he belongs to you

-sooo yeah <3 ain't he lovely

-his teasing is crazy btw if you hadn't gathered that from the anime that is like "who said you could come, slut?" and "yeah baby, doing well-" it's like two hell and heaven differences

-his aftercare is amazing though because he shows his soft side

-lightest teasing maybe

-protecc at all costs

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘YAMAGUCHI TADASHI∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

-masochist for a change bc well kei

-really really really gentle with you during sex

-safe word needed!! he gets overboard sometimes

-doesn't really moan that much contrasting to public opinion

-more groans and grunts

-loves to be cock-warmed

-no quickies nuh-uh

-kind of afraid of getting caught to be honest

-no kinks though tadashi's average when it comes to sex

-no phone sex either i guess he's the type of guy that FIRMLY believes that his cum only belongs in your pussy and nowhere else

-squeezes you hard when he comes

-i really shouldn't be doing this at school when i'm supposed to be working but integrity doesn't exist

-i hc that if you want to experiment smth with him

-he would do it with you <3

-overall a fluffy relationship

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