#it's just so stupid and this moment after an hour and a half of buildup just killed me

[royalarchivist]

Quackity: Excuse me, I've never seen a bird fly. Can any of you please show me what a bird flying looks like?

I wasn't planning on watching Rust, but seeing Quackity BS his way into people's good graces and get treated like a king despite being butt-ass naked for over an hour sure is something else.

[still-breathing-au-p3r]

It takes him far too long to get a hold of himself. Even once Nakai-san had come to let him know he was allowed back in Shinji’s room, it hasn’t been any less of a struggle. 

Every time he starts to think he’s managed to get his head above water, another wave goes crashing over him and he’s swamped again, overcome.

Shinji would have a field day, seeing him like this. He’d never let Akihiko live it down.

Even that thought makes his throat tighten all over again. Shinji’s still around to poke and prod at him for being so sentimental. 

God, what a stupid thing to get so emotional about.

He knows he shouldn’t be like this; if he lets himself get carried too high by hope, he’ll have that much further to fall if it gets shot out from under him. Just because Shinji woke up once doesn’t mean he’s out of the woods. There’s still a million things that could go wrong, or get worse, or…

Akihiko grips at his hair and tugs a little. He really doesn’t want to think about any of those hypothetical disasters. Is there really something wrong with being relieved in the moment? After all the anxiety he’s been forced to shoulder over the past two weeks, he has to have earned the privilege, right? 

That’s what he tells himself, at least. Now if only the rest of him would cooperate. His body is still buzzing with a surge of adrenaline that refuses to ebb. The buildup of restless energy pricks and stings like he’s got nettles growing under his skin.

Mitsuru’s arrival with the juniors (half of the juniors, at least– he makes a note to ask about that) in tow offers him a reprieve from his little mental purgatory at last.

“How is he?” Mitsuru asks immediately. Akihiko can tell that she’s attempting to look and sound completely collected, but he’d be able to hear the fragile note in her voice even if he couldn’t see the haloes of red around her eyes. Finding him standing in the hall just outside the door to Shinji’s room, instead of inside and attached to his bedside like a magnet, probably didn’t lend itself to many optimistic interpretations.

“He’s asleep right now. Normal sleep this time, he didn’t–” He clears his throat. He knows it’s ridiculous, but he’s reluctant to speak the alternative out loud. “The way Nakai-san explained it to me, even though he’s been unconscious all this time, his body was still burning through a lot of energy trying to heal, so– it’s no wonder he’s exhausted. He was already out like a light before they’d finished examining him, they said.”

“It would be better to let him rest, then.” Mitsuru nods with poised understanding, but Akihiko catches the smothered traces of disappointment under the relief in her eyes. She had to have been hoping for the chance to speak with Shinji, or at least speak to him and know for sure that he could hear her.

“May– may we still come in and see him?” Yamagishi asks, her hands clasped formally in front of her. “As long as we’re quiet?”

“Yeah, of course,” Akihiko says. “And if he wakes up on his own before visiting hours end, we might still get to talk to him.” He looks at Mitsuru in particular as he says this. She smiles gently, gratefully. 

Yamagishi, Takeba, and Aigis all look elated by the idea as well. A comfortable warmth blooms in his chest to see it. He’s known that the juniors looked up to Shinji more or less since he had re-joined S.E.E.S (even longer than that in the case of Arisato, Takeba, and Junpei, who had all continued to enthuse to each other about how Shinji had come to their rescue in June for days after the fact), but to see so clearly how much they care about him–

Shinji had tried to remain aloof and keep everyone at arm’s length, and Akihiko has never been so pleased to see someone fail. Despite his best efforts, the juniors still saw through him, saw the person that Akihiko and Mitsuru know: the one who makes such an effort to hide his kindness but never withholds it; who watches out for people as not just a matter of habit, but reflex. 

He’s always been that way. Akihiko is so, so glad that the younger members of the team can see it too. Back when they were kids, there had been precious few people that saw Shinji’s good points– who’d even bothered to look… It had basically only been Akihiko himself and Miki, and a couple of matrons at the orphanage, and then eventually Mitsuru as well.

Now he’s got a whole slew of people who know  him. Who care about him. Shinji deserves that.

Whether he believes it or not.

Akihiko holds the door open and the juniors file into Shinji’s room in silence, with Mitsuru taking up the rear. As she passes, she catches his eye and flashes another brief smile, and he can tell that she’s following the same train of thought as him. 

“Is anyone else on the way?” Akihiko whispers to her– by which he means, ‘is Junpei on the way?’ He wouldn’t expect or ask Amada to be prepared to see Shinji on such short notice, and it hasn’t escaped Akihiko’s notice that Arisato has never come by either. He refuses to judge either of them for it. He gets it. He knows.

He’d be a hypocrite if he said anything.

Mitsuru nods and lingers near Akihiko as he closes the door most of the way, leaving just about a centimeter’s gap. “Iori and Arisato volunteered to escort Amada to the hospital,” she replies. “They should be en route to meet us here by now.”

Akihiko hums an acknowledgement. Does that mean Arisato will actually be here? As far as surprises go, he’s grateful that this is a pleasant one for a change.

Shinji’s right where he left him when he turns his attention back to the bed; soundly asleep despite the juniors crowding around him. He breathes in a slow, even rhythm.

“I’m so glad…” Yamagishi hiccups, dabbing at her eyes with a pink handkerchief. Takeba must have lent it to her, judging by the color. Aigis pats her shoulder, earning a wobbly smile.

“It’s really incredible how much better he looks now without the mask.” Takeba murmurs. Akihiko definitely agrees. 

Along with the oxygen mask, most of the wires and tubes have been detached; the reduced number of IV drips he's on now means that only one of the needles is needed anymore, and the monitoring equipment has been reduced to just the heart monitor and oximeter. It all makes it so much easier to believe that Shinji’s really back– that he’s really only sleeping and not trapped in limbo, beyond their reach.

Arisato does indeed make an appearance, trailing behind Junpei and looking pale and antsy, with Amada trailing behind him in turn. Seeing Shinji for himself seems to bring most of Arisato’s color back almost immediately. 

They all stay for as long as they can, quietly chatting as they wait to see if Shinji will wake up. Takeba has to shush Junpei several times, but there’s never any real bite to it. Even a rivalry like theirs– one that’s nearly a match for Shinji’s and his own (though it does favor entirely verbal needling over actual brawling)– takes a back seat to relief. Amada hovers behind the loose perimeter formed by the rest of the team and says almost nothing, but his reassurance that he’s alright when Akihiko checks in with him seems entirely sincere.

Visiting hours end, and Shinji remains asleep. Akihiko stamps down his impatience. He’ll get the chance to visit again by tomorrow, and he’ll stay as long as he has to. There’s…a lot that needs to be said, after all.

[tmwcs]

Mermaids Tale - Chapter 1

Alright here we go. First chapter of Mermaids Tale, I think i already mentioned but this story deserves a better title, but we'll stick with it for the sake of ceasing any confusion.

As mentioned in my latest post, I'm adjusting the ML to post the whole storyline of MT, I must...its really quite good and when you read the buildup and the history of the characters, its good. For those of you that want just the good stuff, i'll post ONE chapter of the first smut encounter, just one. This story has alot of smut, among other genres. So there will the best of both worlds here.

Pairings: Heeseung and you

Warnings: Not a whole lot. Mentions of nudity but that's about it.

Summary: Noooooooooooooo....just know, that MT Heeseung is really...sexy. This storyline contains a cat and mouse chase type of thing going on. Lots of hunter and fleeing prey vibes.

Side note, i think they finally fixed my tumblr because posting is alot less of a pain. Seriously, the chapters i've posted so far for each series, some of the grammar errors and structure errors are bc this thing would not let me copy and paste, i had to like re-write each paragraph into the box as i was looking at the draft. So there may have been alot of typos and stupid mistakes in those, apologies.

The sound of the busy city buzzes in your ears as you monopolize through the crowds.

Passing by a line of shops and rows of canopy tents of casual eatery, you keep a hollow face as you remain hidden beneath the bill of your hat. You strut through, strategically making way towards the path of a shorter route leading to your home.

Your hair lays bundled up under your headpiece, eyes remain forward under the hovering cloth, and your body’s form, out of sight and beneath a large sweatshirt. The lengthy shape of your legs made out by the fitted jeans that cover them, and the slight exposure of soft skin on your forearms, revealed by slightly rolled sleeves, remain as your sole identifiable features that are seen.

Carrying out your habitual trend of hiding beneath cloth, and shadow when traveling hasn’t been the most pleasant routine.

However, throughout the course of events in earlier years, you’ve learned and been warned of, the dangers against you. For each time you leave shelter, you place yourself at risk of exposing yourself and suffering the unimaginable, putting an end to your bloodline.

The fate of your bloodline, as mentioned, solely relies on you. Carrying the task of preserving it comes with dire responsibilities and measures, something that you have been doing for many years, yet still haven’t grown entirely used to.

You turn around a corner leading into a marketplace alley. It’s a shortcut you normally take to get back home, saving you a half hour from walking among crowds, which never made you feel easy. Not after you learned of your secret.

The moment you projected the turn, the owner of one of the food tents accidently bumps into you, as he was making his way to customers bringing them hot jasmine tea.

His body was forced back from the impact, as was yours. The ceramic dishes that were neatly staged on the platter fall and shatter on the stone tile. The young man peeks up through recovered squinted eyes and sees that the contents of the teapot had sullied your entire sleeve.

Noticing the color of the material becoming darker from the splash, his face grew into great concern when he saw the skin on your arm glisten at the reflection of a nearby streetlight.

The vapors emerging from your arm are noticeable, as well as the blotches of the bright red shade that takes over the natural hue of your pigment, and the stunning glow you were born with.

He begins apologizing theatrically and calls out to the neighboring canopy owners.

A group of elderly shop owners come to attend to the wound on your arm, suppressing the discoloration with wet cloths and ice. One woman runs back inside her boutique to find a first aid kit, while the others remain in a frenzy as they place effort into treating the burn.

But there was no burn, at least in a somatosensory manner, not visually.

You reassure them that you’re fine, despite their urging in taking you to a hospital. You softly shake your head and thanked them for their care, you further your efforts in convincing them by smiling and waving, appearing as jovial as possible while you continue your way through the alley.

As a child, you didn’t realize that your inability to feel physical touch, vibration, or any sensation for that matter, was really something to be concerned of. Truth be told, you still don’t. In fact, you prefer it that way. Regardless of countless moments where teachers, friends, and family all grew concern over your “defect”, you personally found it convenient.

You would be lying to yourself if you deny ever being curious on what it is like, to feel temperature, roughness, pressure, tickle, itch, pain, pleasure, cloth, skin, and tingle. But you realize that whatever it was that you were missing, you couldn’t possibly be yearning for it if you’ve never experienced it. As depressing that may sound, your “defect” saved yourself the emotional traumas of pain and sadness, which is something you had no problems feeling.

It started when you were six, after your dog Lucy had passed away. You were sad because you missed her greeting you, the way she kept you company and played outside, and the sound of her adorable whines whenever she wanted a doggy treat. You developed a bond with her out of pure emotion because the times that she licked your face, when you pet and rubbed her ears or her belly, or when you held her in your arms, it wasn’t possible to develop any fondness out of the physical compassions of love for her. You never felt it.  Which somehow, you believe, may have placed limitations on the strength of your bond with her. Since everything you felt was out of pure emotion, the number of traits that would cause your grief was limited, therefore you were able to accept her loss much faster.

There were other times too, like the moments where your friends would experience a broken heart or betrayal at the discretion of a loved one. Events such as this is what made you the most grateful. After witnessing the times when a dear friend would come to you for comfort, shattered by the hands of a man who used and abandoned her, you came to understand that the degree of her sadness and heartbreak was enhanced due to her physical relation with that man. Thankfully for you, you could only imagine, not that you would.

You found it very disturbing that regardless of how many times your friend had experienced the ruthless abandonment of her lover, all conducted after a session of sexual intimacy. No matter how many times he left her, she would always welcome him back with open arms, enabling him to do it all over again. Whenever you had asked her why she would even permit herself to let him in again, her response was the sealant of any curious thought you had in the sense of touch.

“I know he’s going to leave, and I wasn’t going to. But then he kissed and hugged me, and I just couldn’t help it, I needed to feel him again. Have you ever gone without sex for weeks Y/N? Its brutal! I got desperate.”

Her words drifted through your brain. What would she have said if you had divulged the fact that, regardless of you being 109 years old, you never had sex. You heard from friends you made along the way of their experiences, and quite frankly, it never appealed to you. It may just be one of those moments where the coined term “you had to have been there” applies heavily to it, which of course, wouldn’t matter for you. The loss of the sense wasn’t just limited to your skin, it was internal as well. You recall the time when you nearly had a close call in exposing your secret.

It was while you were with a group of co-workers, the lot of you all deciding to have lunch at a sushi bar. A moment of carelessness resulted in everyone being confused when the waiter brought out the tea and poured it into each of your cups. You were the first to drink, and upon noticing you sipping from your cup, a fellow co-worker across follows suit and takes a sip.

The sound of the cutlery clashing, the blood curling scream, and smaller dishes shattering on the floor, overfilled the entire restaurant as she jumped up and covered her mouth. The tears streamed down her face as she shouts for ice and water, the remaining group stood off to the side with puzzling looks.

“Too hot! My mouth is burning!”

She panicked as her mouth begin to blister and her lips turned red.

“Why didn’t you let it cool down?”

“I thought it was already cooled down! I saw Y/N drink from her cup, so I thought it was okay!”

The poor girl exhausting her sobbing words as she popped ice cubes in her mouth, desperately trying to relieve herself from the burn.

The group looked your way, they also noticed your lips were bright red, and now that you think about it, you may have had blisters in your mouth as well, but how were you to know?

You played off that whole experience by telling them that you had a damaged nerve syndrome. That’s been your go-to excuse for as long as you could remember, there was no other way other logic that you could use for moments like that one.

You finally make it to your apartment.

Looking down at your arm, you noticed the redness was beginning to swell a bit, ironic that you couldn’t feel the pain from injuries such as this, yet you were susceptible to the damage it would cause. Everything has its ups and downs you suppose.

Migrating to your bedroom, you glanced over to the all the vintage photos of your mother, father, and your siblings.

Managing life by changing your name every decade, relocating, and cutting off ties with friendly relations after a certain amount of time had passed, it wasn’t easy for you to succumb to emotional moments of loneliness. Your life was always moving, nothing was constant or stable, at least not for too long. The only time when you would feel saddened was whenever you looked at the photos of your family, who have all been passed away for years already. The remaining relatives you had from your brother and his wife, your cousins, nieces, and nephews fully remain unaware of your existence, there was no way you could explain that, while they were significantly younger, your appearance had remained unchanged since the year you turned 22. The moment you blossomed into a young woman, no longer having the pre-mature attributes of a girl, you were at your true feminine form and had remained as such. Just like your mother.

A flashback drives past your mind for a moment, you remembered it so vividly.

“Y/n, do you want to join us? We’re doing game night.”

Your younger brother implores you to join, and normally you would, but tonight was different.

“No thanks Matthew, I want to go out for a night walk on the beach. Tell mom and dad I’ll be back after a bit.”

“Are you sure? Do you want me to come with? I don’t think mom likes it when you go out by yourself, remember? She said that a 15-year-old girl should never be out on her own in an unfamiliar place.”

“I’ll be fine, this is private property, and the beach is just right across from the house. I’ll be back in an hour.”

At that, you left the old beach rental your family reserved for the trip to Greece. It was your first time there and it became your favorite place in the world. There was something about the land and the Aegean Sea that surrounded it. It gave you a feeling of familiarity, the same sense someone would get when they go home for the first time in many years. It was nostalgic. Yet, that wasn’t the only thing that made you feel sentimental.

You didn’t know why, but up until that year you pondered the puzzling fact that, while your defect inhibited you to feel physically, there was something about the ocean that contradicted that.

You had found out about it initially when you were 7-years old, your family took a trip to a beach nearby home. The hot sand was too much for your family, and they knew it wouldn’t affect you since the family doctor was the one that initially told your parents of your “nerve damage”.

Despite hearing their calls to you, bidding you to stay put with them, you ignored their yells and ran to the shallow waters. It was the first time you had ever seen the ocean, and you were attracted to its appeal the way magnets attract iron.

With your feet stepping into the water, you were shocked to realize that there was something transpiring. There was a sensation that you’ve never experienced before, and you didn’t know what to call it. Looking back, you know now that it was the temperature of the water. Yes, the temperature. Not only that, but the swirling whirlpool swishing around your ankles, the wet sand riding in between your toes, the jagged tips and points of rocks and seashells, and the feel of the gravitational pull as the water receded, only to return at your feet once more when another rolling wave had hit.

For the first time, you had felt the powerful sense of touch.

You never mentioned the experience to your family, there wasn’t any particular reason, you just felt content that you were able to experience the sensation for once. But you quickly realized that your ability to feel only occurred when you were in the water. The ocean waters.

You exit through the back kitchen door, skipping towards the shallow waves. The rental was just far enough from the water, a single person such as yourself walking amongst the wet sands couldn’t be seen easily at night. But you weren’t concerned at all, there was absolutely no one in sight and that’s how you preferred it, because now you’ll be able to freely express your joy once you reach the shallow waves.  

The moment the water rushed over your skin; you rediscover the sense of touch once more.

Of all things in this earth for you to feel, you were eternally grateful that it was the ocean. You felt as equally grateful as you breached the waters belonging to the beautiful Aegean Sea. It was the first time you get to experience water that was foreign, exotic, and mystical, much different than the local beaches back home.  

Before placing our feet in, you took a second to watch the bubbles of the sea foam riding the waves. It was so pretty to look at. The foam resembled white clouds as the bubbles looked like crystals, reflecting twinkles of glistening light reflected by the moon. Assorted pastel color prisms coated each bubble as you watched them roll back into the sea for the next wave.  

You walk along the shallow end, kicking your feet to create small splashes as you twirl in your summer dress. Apart from the sense of touch, nothing ever changed your experience in the water, up until a feeling hit you. It was a sensation you didn’t recall feeling in the water before, but it stung with a vengeance. You couldn’t put your finger on what was happening, but you knew based off your recollections of witnessing similar reactions with other people, the sensation you felt was the first in your life.

Pain.

The overwhelming reaction of having to feel pain for the first time caused you to collapse, the stinging sensation grew worse. You panicked. Unable to fathom what was going on, your mind tried to process at the sensation you were succumbing to. Drowning with confusion and fear, you realized that, unlike the waters back home, there was something about the waters belonging to the Aegean Sea, and your body was reacting to it.

Fear and shock took over your emotional senses, covering the unpleasant sense of physical pain as legs grew weak, too weak.

The stinging hit every inch of your legs from the hip down, and for a moment you wondered if you had been stung by jellyfish or perhaps bitten by a poisonous sea snake.

To your horror, you screamed as you looked down at your legs, finding that you no longer had them. Not anymore.

Instead, they were replaced with a long, graceful tail and fin. You shuttered in fear, noting that the lower half of your body was now covered with fish scales.

You couldn’t move from the sandy spot you were laying in. Your panic heightened as you attempt to use your upper body strength to crawl away from the water, but the pull of the waves as the tides rolled in enabled the receding sand to sink you down, practically gluing you stuck and your lower half remaining in the water.

As the currents grew stronger, and no one in sight to hear or see you, your body was slowly but surely getting pulled in deeper into the water.

Each wave dragged you in deeper, your whole body was nearly entrenched in the shallow water, yet it was becoming easier to move, so long as you were going in the direction of the deep end. You felt exhausted from fighting against the waves, so you laid there in defeat. Your wet hair was plastered all over your face, the transformation of your lower extremities caused the ruffle lining of your dress to shred.

Noticing that the stinging pain was no longer present, you closed your eyes and found comfort in feeling the soothing sensation of the water showering your entire body. The feeling that you normally enjoyed.

You closed your eyes and laid your cheek down on the wet sand before you, not sure if you just needed a break or if you had entirely given up and assumed you were going to die in that spot. Within seconds after closing your eyes, another wave rolls in, covering you entirely. As it pulls back, revealing every shell and rock that laid thickly underneath the sand, the raging current drags you one final time, fully submerging you in the water.

The feeling, opposed to what you felt moments earlier, was beyond amazing. Even though the temperature of the water was cooler, you felt warm and secured. The swooshing of the current wraps around you and glides against your skin.

Your whole body felt the touch of everything around you. The pale silver scales glowed contrasted against the shadowed depth around you. Considering how dark it was underneath the surface, your view was as clear as glass. Everything you laid your eyes on, you were able to see its finer details, no matter how small or large it was.

You could hear the echo calling of whales, even though they were meters from where you were at. It appeared that not only did you gain the sense of touch by being in the water, but your other senses remain unimpaired. They actually seemed enhanced under water.

As tempted as it was to savor the environment you were in, you started to get worried that your mother would come look for you, especially since your time outside was breaching the final moments of the hour. Though you weren’t entirely sure how you would go see her in the state you were in.

You swam back to the shoreline, although it didn’t feel like swimming, more like gliding. You found it was so easy to move in the water, and you were moving in a speed that you’ve never was faster than any moving car you rode in.

Beaching yourself as you reached the shoreline, you turn to admire the pale-silver color of your tail.

The fin was large and fanned out, the skin that stretched over the frame was semi-transparent, and it glistened with a sheer blend of pastel colors, the same as the seafoam. Two spurs outlined the out corners of the fin as it branched out, they were long, and the tips of them were sharper than any knife you’ve seen.

The scales on your tale all looked like nacre, or simply known as Mother-of-Pearl, reflecting the wide hue of colors to bounce off the silver base. The amount of scales lessened just past your pelvic bone, revealing the skin you were familiar with. Had there been more time you would have removed your dress to see how much had changed with your upper body if it did change. Yet you became more focused on figuring a way to get out of the water, then coming up with an explanation for your appearance.

Moving was hard, compared to how it was in the water, now that you had laid ashore it felt nearly impossible. Finding yourself stuck yet again, the only manner to get farther away from the water was to crawl using your upper body. Digging your elbows into the murky sand, you struggled to find some level of stable foundation as you felt yourself sinking in.

Noticing the partial burial of large rocks all around, you reached for the exposed surfaces, grabbing on to the points and edges. Using the moment of your body to shift in the direction you needed to go, you exhausted every effort by using whatever means necessary to get further up, closer to your destination. The sense of touch begins to fade out, disappearing the further you move away from the water. A bittersweet exchange.

Finally, you reached the dry mounds of sand. Grabbing a handful, you watch as the spilling of dry granules seeps in between your fingers, feeling a sense of accomplishment. You moved upward just a tad bit more, ensuring no part of you, to include the tail, was touching water.

You come to a sudden halt as a familiar sensation hits you. Odd, since you were no longer touching the water, yet the stinging all throughout your lower half re-emerges, and you could feel it just as strongly as you had in the water. You turned over onto your back and saw all the dry granules of sand that coated the scales of your tail. Witnessing the metamorphosis happening before your own eyes, you watched as the beige hue of the sand and the rainbow explosion of color from the scales begin to transform. The merging of colors gradually fades into a hue that matches your skin, while the two long spurs at the corners of your fin begin to recede.

Beginning at the inner triangular tip in the center of your fin, the skin separates, and continues up along the center of your tail, regaining the shape and length of your legs.

Was that all it took? Dry land? Or just being out of the water…these waters.

You didn’t tell your parents what happened that night, you didn’t know how. For the longest time, you wondered if it had been a dream or some type of hallucination. Yet the memory of feeling the water, listening to the whales, and re-visualizing the clarity of your sight, you knew that it was neither.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Bound, Part 9

Previous part

It’s funny, in a morbid sort of way, how fast life can go wrong.

A matter of minutes completely ruined him.

And he didn’t even have the warning he usually did. Sure, his phone had chimed about a half-hour prior to warn him that an akuma had been spotted. Bruce had given him that Look he always did when Tim ‘forgot’ to turn his ringer off of silent while they were on patrol, and he gave a falsely sheepish smile as he pulled his phone from a hidden pocket and quickly turned it off.

But he hadn’t known that Ladybug had found the akuma, much less that she had started fighting it.

Usually, there was a quiet buildup of anxiety and fear and tension that gave him a sort of warning. A passing blow that would tell him to brace himself.

But no. He was just lucky that he had been on a rooftop at the time, trailing just behind Bruce as the pair of them grappled from place to place in search of crime to stop, because if he hadn’t then he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from falling three stories.

Not that he would have realized that he had done so until long after the fact.

The pain was blinding. Thorough training kept him from crying out, but he still found himself on his hands and knees, tears pressing against the inside of his mask in a desperate attempt to escape. He could vaguely recognize a voice, someone he knew was trying to speak to him, but it was impossible to make anything out over the ringing in his ears. It was pain unlike anything he had ever felt before, even worse than that night at the dinner table where he had thought his veins had been filled with liquid magma, because now it was centralized. It had chosen a spot to eat away at, instead of evenly distributing it, and he was forced to deal with the fact that he felt as if someone had just stabbed him in the face with a hot knife and then started twisting. He curled his fingers into his skin, gloves scrabbling against his cheek as if he could physically drag the pain away from himself, trying to tear it out from the source.

And then it was over. He slumped against the concrete, scratching up his chin in the process but that was nothing compared to what he had just endured.

“Robin?” A gravelly voice started carefully.

He tried to blink the water from his eyes so he could see who was leaning over him – not that it mattered, friend or foe, it wasn’t like he would be able to do much to get himself out of the situation if someone wanted to fight him – but quickly gave up on that. He, instead, focused on who in his life might have sounded like that. He mulled over the tone a couple of times in his head.

“Robin,” the person said, more insistent this time.

His breath caught in his throat.

It was with mounting horror that he realized who was leaning over him. Because if Bruce saw him here, could see the remaining scars of whatever stupid magic thing had accosted his soulmate – because Tim, out of some twisted sense of nostalgia, hadn’t been able to convince himself to opt for something that wasn’t the classic domino mask to hide his identity – then that meant…

“Do you have something to tell me?”

Tim breathed a shaky sigh. “Can’t we do this when I feel better?” He tried, weakly. He still couldn’t bring himself to sit up, his body felt dead (maybe his soulmate had actually died again… with an injury like that he wouldn’t be surprised) and all of the anxious energy he had expected to have in this inevitable moment didn’t come to be. He wanted to go back to Wayne Manor and curl up by the fire and drink Alfred’s hot cocoa and listen to Dick’s stupid puns and tease Bruce for being socially awkward and…

He wanted to experience all that one last time.

He wanted to have a home, if only for just one more day.

A careful finger poked his cheek and Tim hissed, his hands curling against the concrete roof.

The finger dragged along his cheek before it was pulled back so Bruce could inspect it. His lips pressed into a thin line when he found nothing had rubbed off. The inky, crackling blackness that had opted to wind its way over the side of Tim’s face was underneath the skin.

“You have a soulmate,” Bruce said. It wasn’t a question.

It was quiet. Tim wondered if he could get away without ever having to confirm it. The silence was damning in itself, surely, so Bruce should have known. But the man had always been one to aim for straightforward answers and confessions whenever possible, and Bruce was patient in a way that Tim couldn’t bring himself to be after the ordeal that still sent aftershocks rippling under his skin.

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

Bruce was quiet again. Maybe he wanted an explanation. Maybe he was just gathering his thoughts.

Tim used the moment to force himself up into a slightly more dignified sitting position, even if he still opted to hunch in on himself with his cape pulled tight around him.

“You’re putting someone else in danger,” Bruce accused.

“She does it too,” he mumbled, but it wasn’t an argument that Bruce would listen to or care about. “Hence the…” He waved vaguely to whatever it was that had marred his face.

Bruce didn’t seem moved. “Did you ever get her verbal consent?”

Tim couldn’t say a word. He’d been given ‘Permission’ when Ladybug had gone out on the streets and started getting injured in ways that Tim couldn’t even dream of replicating, but that was after Tim had become Robin, so the argument wouldn’t hold up. Hell, Bruce would probably argue that she had become Ladybug as revenge, so she could even the playing field bond-wise, so that would be considered his fault too.

He gritted his teeth. “No. We’ve never talked.”

Bruce gave a shaky exhale. “You lied to me for months. Endangered not only your own life, but someone else’s – someone who never even consented to it – and both of you are children.”

“You needed a Robin,” Tim said, glowering at him.

“No amount of me needing a Robin should have justified this in my mind, especially not for as long as it did,” sighed Bruce, pinching the bridge of his nose. “But I’ll make up for it now: Tim, go home.”

And Tim wanted to tell him that this was the closest he had ever gotten to a home.

But it wasn’t like Tim had ever really learned how to argue with those he loved. He was never listened to whenever he tried to defend himself. And he had been expecting something like this for years now, had always known that the family provided by the Bats was temporary, had always kept his soulmate quiet because he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to continue the moment he was found out.

So, really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone when he pressed his lips into a thin line and turned away, heading back towards the place he had grown up.

~

Marinette wasn’t quite sure while the pain had stopped, but she wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She didn’t know when it would come back, being productive while she could was the key.

And, yes, she found herself suddenly unable to get out of bed in the morning for reasons that she was almost completely sure weren’t due to her, but she was a being of pure spite at this point, especially when her soulmate was involved, and she was going to finish this or so help her god she was going to march over to her soulmate and deck them.

Actually, she thought as she forced herself to roll onto the floor. It was always the hardest part, forcing herself to move that first bit and get out of the safety of her bed when all she wanted was to burrow and hide until she withered away into nothing. Maybe I should do that anyway. Not like it’ll be hard to find them with this stupid string following me around.

The thought pulled a wry smile to her lips, however shortly. Her facial muscles pulled strangely. When was the last time she smiled outside of when she talked to victims?

A minute chill ran through her at the thought. She quickly moved on, pushing herself up and towards the dresser.

And she went about her day. She had started helping Chat on patrols now that she was physically able to do so without (too much) worrying about whether her soulmate was going to suddenly get stabbed.

Now, patrols weren’t exactly necessary, not really. Their phones would notify them the moment an akuma appeared regardless of whether they stepped outside, but they weren’t actually looking for akumas. No, they were looking for the butterflies that came just before.

As they started to narrow in on a location, she noticed Chat getting antsier and antsier. If she was even marginally more paranoid, she might have thought he was a traitor, but the rational part of her brain still worked sometimes. She had died before, and if he really was a traitor she wouldn’t have been brought back, much less given her her miraculous back when he had.

That didn’t change the fact that she knew he was keeping something from her, and that it was putting her on edge. He had never bothered with secrets before, exempting their secret identities, so whatever it was was big. On par with the secret identity stuff, at least, and he had the same amount of skittishness when talking about it that he did when they talked about their personal lives.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he lived somewhere nearby and didn’t like the fact that Hawkmoth was so close.

She never got to find out, though.

Because they traced Hawkmoth to the Agreste household (she was pretty sure they were models or something, she had seen Adrien Agreste’s billboards all over town). Apparently, the place had a secret basement that Gabriel Agreste used to farm his butterflies and generally act evil in. It even had a coffin, complete with the man’s wife laying prone inside.

Marinette tried to make a joke about how the place was a stereotypical evil lair, but Chat had seemed… absent.

Not so absent that he couldn’t fight. Hawkmoth, for some dumb reason, clearly hadn’t expected them to find him, and he hadn’t been prepared. In the end, the fight only took about ten minutes. A large amount of the akumas were harder to fight, and she thought it felt strangely anticlimactic. Of course, it was better this way, but…

She sighed, leaning against a railing, twirling the brooch in her hands. It looked so simple, and yet it had caused more destruction than most of the supervillains she could name. It was relieving to find it in good hands – her hands – once and for all. When the kwamis were done getting their revenge, she would hand it off to them, and they would be officially free to do whatever they wanted.

She was exhausted, and the completeness of the situation had done nothing to help with that. She knew she should be happy, or, at the very least, relieved, and yet she couldn’t bring herself to even pretend to smile.

She cast her eyes over the edge of the railing, to the abyss below. She couldn’t see the bottom. She wondered, idly, how far down it went. And then how much it would hurt to hit the ground – or if it would even hurt at all.

Marinette straightened and forced herself to walk to the middle of the platform.

That… was just her soulmate’s newfound depression bleeding into her, right? Like, sure, she was losing what had pretty much been her sole purpose in life for the past few years, but she shouldn’t be so upset that she was wondering about that. She liked being alive. There was no other way to be.

At least there was plenty to distract her here.

The kwamis were… not pleased with Gabriel Agreste, not in the slightest, and she grimaced when a wet crunch met her ears.

Her gaze flicked away. Both her and Chat Noir were detransformed, but she couldn’t seem to look directly at his face. Every time she did, it was like her eyes slid right off. She took in aspects of his clothes, like the fact that his outfit was expensive or that she was pretty sure she had seen it somewhere before, but only briefly before those thoughts slipped away like water spilling between her fingers.

Still, she registered that his shoulders were shaking just fine.

Maybe the kwamis’ brutality was throwing him off?

She shoved her hands in her pockets. “Uh, guys, I think he’s dead,” she piped up.

There was one more sound that reminded her a bit of tearing wet paper, and a minute shiver ran through her, but then it was over.

“He will not harm us anymore,” Tikki said, their voice strangely low in comparison to the almost ear-splitting high tones they usually spoke in.

Marinette flashed an awkward thumbs up, nodding. “So… are we done here?”

“Nope,” the new kwami (Nooroo, she was pretty sure they were called) piped up.

Her shoulders went tense. “Sorry?”

The kwami chuckled. “It’s nothing bad. I’d just like to reward you before you go. Give me a wish, and I will do my best to grant it.”

Marinette stared, blankly. A wish? How could he ask someone like her for a wish? Could she get her soulmate severed from her? But then what would that leave her with? She had never particularly been able to care for much else. Terrible as it was, the anger she felt over her soulmate and the injustices surrounding that was the only emotion she could really feel nowadays.

Chat Noir pushed himself to his feet, and even if she couldn’t really see him, she recognized the determined set of his shoulders as he closed the distance between himself and the kwamis.

“I want the entire world to forget everything about Hawkmoth and us. Including me.”

Marinette went very still. She looked at Chat Noir with wide eyes, but he didn’t look back at her. There was a set to his jaw.

The kwami pursed their lips thoughtfully. “I can’t completely make them forget, but I can remove the emotions from the equation, which should make everyone struggle to recognize it as real. Like a dream, or the mandela effect.”

“I don’t care how you do it,” Chat said, his voice shockingly cold as he shoved his ring at Plagg. “I just need it done.”

“Then it will be done,” the kwami said. It turned to Marinette, now. “And you? Would you like to forget, too?”

She slowly reached up and pulled the earrings from her ears. “No,” she said. Because, as much as it pained her to know that her friend was leaving her, and no matter how much she wanted to avoid that pain like the plague… she also recognized that it was better. For her. She had no clue why Chat felt the need to do this, but it served as a great reminder. Getting attached to people never ended well for her. They would always leave her, so why bother with the heartache? Why not just leave first?

Unless…

She eyed the earrings in her palm. She had control over Tikki, sort of, and if she wanted to she could make it so the kwami would never leave her.

And then her eyes found the lump that had once been a person.

Not worth it, she decided.

She steeled herself and looked at the kwami. “I want to continue being able to see and interact with magic.”

The kwami gave her a mildly confused look, but she pointed to the string spooled at her feet and it seemed to understand as much as an immortal, invincible being could.

“It will be done,” it said again.

She nodded and handed the earrings and brooch over.

The kwamis disappeared in a flash of light.

The pair of ex-heroes watched where they had gone for a moment, silent.

Marinette was the first to break out of the quiet stupor that they had been put into. She headed towards the elevator that would bring her back to the surface. Soon, it would be nothing but a bad dream for Chat, and a bitter memory for her. Chat didn’t snap out of it in time to get in the elevator with her, and thanks to the magic cloaking their identities she couldn’t make out the devastation on her face.

She stalked the halls of the Agreste mansion. If she couldn’t find a door then she was going out the window, just to spite a dead man.

But, disappointingly, she found her way to the door. She hated intuitive layouts. She forced her way through it, but a hand managed to catch the door before she could slam it shut behind herself.

Chat was in the door, panting slightly, looking like he had run from the elevator.

“Coccinelle, I –,” he tried.

She dodged the hand that reached for her, but threw up a lazy hand to wave behind herself as she continued back towards home.

“See you never, Chat Noir.”

~

Tim turned over in bed when his phone got a notification, squinting at the light permeating the relative darkness of the room.

He considered, for a moment, whether he should just let it be.

And then he sighed to himself and picked it up. Wondering if it was his parents. Or the bats. Bad habits die hard, he supposed.

… why did he have duolingo?

He opened the app and found that he had an over hundred day streak. His eyebrows furrowed. Why had he done that? And why was he continuing it after Batman had stopped making him learn other languages?

(Had stopped making him do anything at all, really.)

He shook his head to himself. He knew he had to have had a reason, there was no way he had just suddenly gotten a passing interest in learning French, especially since he could no longer really remember doing it… but whatever.

The streak was over a hundred days long at this point, he might as well continue, if only for the sake of having something to do. At least he didn’t have to get out of bed to do it.

~~~

Next part

@laurcad123

[fishstyx]

curious.

featuring. mahito x fem!reader

wc. 1.5k

genre. smut, dark/taboo

tw. 18+ nsfw, noncon, stalking, somnophilia, alcohol, thigh fucking, penetration, size kink, stomach bulge

synopsis. there’s just one thing mahito has yet to learn about human anatomy... and when you hobble out of a bar at daybreak, you’re about as good as volunteering your body.

What a poor, lost little thing you are, trudging through the back alleyways of Tokyo with little to go on under the twinkling twilight. You stumble around in the darkness as if trying to outrun the first rays of sunlight, fingers fumbling to find purchase on the sides of buildings unfamiliar to you. You must’ve been drinking all night long to require wall support to keep you upright now, hiccuping as you drag your hands along the concrete. Truly the lowest of the low, a runt in a world teeming with lesser beings. Human swine would do well to know their limits, but apparently you don’t.

And what an easy target you make; a little too easy, even. You wouldn’t have a clue what was happening if Mahito cornered you now, idle transfiguration descending upon you with a single touch of the hand. 

But what a waste that would be, disfiguring a remarkable specimen like you, so utterly out of it that you can’t even tell that he’s right behind you—so dangerously close that he’s practically breathing down your neck as you make your way home.

Sure, Mahito has his pick of the city’s stragglers at all times of the day, but what suddenly draws him to you lies in how disheveled you look, the little bit of makeup you have on smeared across your face, that low cut shirt of yours riding even lower than it was made to.

Not to mention that he’s absolutely dying to get more acquainted with human “anatomy”—but he hates how his victims squirm and squeal when he takes his time, as if they have any chance of actually escaping him. It’s an insult, really, so he figures he’ll go after someone on the more... susceptible side. Someone who’s not only wandering around alone, but also on the brink of collapse, unable to call for help. Someone who makes no attempt to fight back, someone who will let him have his way with them, someone who doesn’t mind the intrusion simply because there is no alternative.

Someone exactly like you.

You’re making this way too simple, not a single look behind you as you stagger your way home. You even have the courtesy to leave the front door of your house ajar, the stupid little thing that you are, not an ounce of energy left to spare as you pass out into the bed.

He’s on top of you immediately, ripping your clothes off to ogle their contained contents. So this is the female body, he thinks, half mesmerized, half disgusted by the way your taut tits spill out from underneath your already revealing shirt. He studies every inch of your exposed skin carefully before rolling your sensitive nubs between his fingers, finding that they stiffen on command. Even when you’re out cold you react to his touch; he was right not to kill you immediately. 

His personal playground, exactly the way he wanted it.

Proportions aside, he finds that there are few differences between his male body and your own. But there’s something that piqued his interest at a movie showing once and he wants it to try for himself today. He palms at his erection, intrigued by his natural reaction to the sight of you all sprawled out. Is there really something so special about it? He can’t say he sees the appeal, but apparently his body can, his bulge pressing harder against the cloth the longer he looks at you.

His pants come undone when he feels his damp excitement through the fabric, glint of his precum illuminated by the kiss of the rising sun, satisfying heaviness of his dick bared to the ticklish air. He marvels at the way his hand fits perfectly around his length, fisting it as he stares at the rise and fall of your chest. This is the part that he didn’t get to see on screen, the part where he ruts against your lower half with his own.

It’s not like he knows what he’s doing yet, bucking his hips into the first thing he can fit his dick into: the space between your thighs. Mahito squeezes them together and slips his shaft between the plushy flesh, reveling in the chills that run up his stomach. It’s a nice visual, the way his cock disappears for a moment before resurfacing atop of your barren legs, and an even nicer sensation. But it doesn’t quite feel half as good as he thought it would be. His mind races with the flickering images of o-shaped mouths and curled up fingers. Humans are so… dramatic, he thinks to himself, pulling his meat out of the cushy canal of his creation.

But then his eyes wander to your silken panties, the one place he hasn’t ventured yet; how annoying that humans wear more clothes under their clothes. He laughs to himself when he pushes them aside to reveal a wet, pulsating mound. Now that’s more like it. A finger inches inside you, followed by another, as he tries to determine if it’s a good fit or not.

Well, he won’t know until he tries.

Burying himself inside your leaking cunt, he gasps at the way you hug him flawlessly. It’s warmer, so much warmer than your thighs, and suddenly it feels like he’s alive for the first time in his life. Your breathing changes as he starts to move, pushing your ragdoll figure into the mattress. Tingly pleasure envelops him entirely when little whimpers and moans begin to tumble from your lips.

Mahito bends over to meet your mouth, taste of hard liquor encircling his tongue as he forces it inside, exploring your wetness in its entirety. You share a soft groan when he adjusts his angle, hilt of his cock pushing against a spot so spongy and so textured that his sensitive head shivers in pleasure.

Fistfuls of flesh gathered in his hands, he continues to move by instinct, chasing after the milky cream that foams around the base of his cock. The slip and slide motion of each and every stroke seems to register even while you sleep, your hips rocking ever so slightly into his own, mouth moving open and shut but never quite overflowing with distinguishable words.

The lewd noises of your dripping pussy fill the room, second only to the clapping of skin on skin as his tender balls pound against you. Reckless abandon takes over and the snapping movement is driven by so much force that you begin to stir, eyes twitching.

But you’re not awake yet—responsive, but otherwise subdued. He knows because the things that spill from your lips next can only come from a person who can’t even tell that they’re being raped.

“It feels… so…” you whisper, and he pauses for a moment to listen to what you have to say.

“Feels so… full…”

He throbs at the words, instantly feeling himself grow harder, deciding that it’s time to try out one of his little “experiments.”

“Feels full, huh?” he says into the curve of your neck, crooked smile dancing on his lips. “Good thing I can make you feel even fuller.”

Reshaping himself is almost second nature at this point. Mahito stretches you out with the deft fattening of his cock, your walls drawing taut around him in turn. Snug, you become impossibly snug around him as you throw your head back, convulsing from the pressure. It’s an inhuman size, so monstrous that when he pistons his pelvis forward, he finds it substantially harder to bottom out.

The clear outline of his cock stares him in the face now, a delicious belly bulge shifting up and down with every slam. You struggle to catch your breath, the stimulation forcing you to release your hot, sticky fluids. Entire body shaking, you keen your satisfaction, stilling only when his thrusts run shallow.

A jittery feeling takes the human curse over, the buildup of all the sweet sensations bubbling over and bursting from his fully stimulated cockhead. He pulls it out to get a better look and ends up squirting all over you, shooting his seed onto your thighs and teats. How delightful, he thinks to himself, overjoyed by how it glistens in the full heat of the sun. The perfect present for you to wake up to.

It’s quiet now, only a soft pant—yours—audible in the spring of day. 

He ponders his options. You could take hours to come to your senses. But as much as he’d love to take off now, to leave you in total confusion and bewilderment, his desire to see the absolute horror cross your face as you take in the spatters of dried-up cum is even stronger. And eventually, he gets just that.

You don’t disappoint, bleary eyes fluttering open in your half-conscious state, locking with the curse crouched beside you, then darting wildly from the mess he’s made to the stitches on his face. How fortunate, or rather unfortunate; you were born with enough latent talent to be able to perceive him. You’d scream, but he’s already ahead of you, covering your mouth before you can produce a single squeal.

“Morning, dollface.” Tears prickle your eyes as you look on in fright, too afraid to move a muscle.

“I had a lot of fun in bed, didn’t you?”

fishstyx © 2021 ✸ all content and their rights belong to me. do not repost, reproduce, or modify anywhere.

[missjanjie]

Signed, Sealed, Delivered | (7/7)

Title: Signed, Sealed, Delivered Summary:   Jan is in love with her French pen pal, Nicky. Her roommate, Crystal, is in love with her best friend, Gigi. A (perhaps ill-thought out) plan emerges: give Nicky a reason to visit by inviting her to Crystal and Gigi’s wedding. With a month to pull the scheme together, no one knows how this will end up. Word Count: ~2.9k (this chapter) / ~20.3k (total) Relationship(s): Sportsdoll (Jan Sport/Nicky Doll), Crygi (Crystal Methyd/Gigi Goode Rating: E

Read on AO3 | Ko-Fi

“Nicky!” Jan exclaimed after a moment of stunned silence. She grabbed her into a hug, needing to touch Nicky to convince herself that this was really happening. “Holy shit, I thought you weren’t coming for another couple weeks.”

Nicky squeezed Jan tightly and let out a content hum. “I moved some things around. I just couldn’t wait to see you any longer.”

Jan grinned from ear to ear. “God, you have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she breathed out, still in awe of the girl in front of her. She wasn’t thinking about the fake wedding anymore, or Crystal and Gigi’s new, real relationship. All that mattered was that finally, finally Nicky was here.

“If it is half as happy as I am to see you, I’m lucky,” she replied, gently pushing Jan’s hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. Her hand lingered, thumb stroking gently across her cheek. “Mon ange, you are even more beautiful in person,” her voice was soft, as if she were still processing it.

“Me?” Jan scoffed, “I’m in the presence of a literal model. Come on,” she gently took Nicky’s hand. “Let me show you off to Crystal and Gigi.”

Nicky was thrilled and walked with a spring in her step as Jan led her inside. “Ah, the happy couple! Bonjour!”

Gigi and Crystal did their best to look like they hadn’t been trying to eavesdrop on the conversation, offering smiles and cheerful greetings. “So nice to finally meet you,” Crystal added.

“How long are you in New York for anyway?” Jan asked as she sat with Nicky on her bed.

Nicky’s gaze drifted to the floor as she kicked off her heels. “Longer than I expected, I’ll tell you that,” she answered, biting back a grin. “That is a conversation for later, don’t worry about it,” she added, looking back up to face Jan, resting her hand on her thigh and shifting closer. “Tonight is about you, it’s your celebration.”

Gigi tapped Crystal’s arm to get her attention. “Why don’t you and I go check out the 24-hour spa? I think they need some time alone together,” she suggested, already getting up and looking for her shoes.

Crystal looked at her girlfriend quizzically for a moment, then nodded in understanding as she got up and followed her out. “Good for Jan, French pussy was the graduation gift she really needed,” she remarked once they were safely out of earshot.

Jan looked over a few moments later, only then realizing that her friends had left. She’d gotten a text from Crystal shortly after that simply read ‘have fun’ with a few winking emojis. “Oh my god,” she muttered under her breath with a laugh.

“What?” Nicky asked, trying to look at the screen, but Jan set her phone face down on the nightstand.

“Nothing, just Crystal being… Crystal,” Jan brushed it off as she scooted closer to Nicky. “More importantly, we’ve got the room to ourselves. Which is good, ‘cause I don’t wanna share your attention with anyone.”

Nicky bit her lip and gently took Jan’s hand. “Rest assured, you have my undivided attention.” She looked at her for a moment, deciding on her next move. It was a battle of what she wanted versus playing it safe, and in the end, the former won. Her hands moved to cup Jan’s face, and she kissed her deeply, languidly, doing all she could to savor that moment.

For a moment, Jan was too stunned to react. She thought she was dreaming, that this was too good to be true. But even her best dreams weren’t this kind to her – this was a fantasy brought to life. She kissed back, moving as close to Nicky as she could – any space between them was too much.

“Jan, I’m in love with you,” Nicky breathed out against Jan’s lips, her fingers still tangled in her hair.

Jan thought she was going to faint. Her head was spinning and her heart was racing, she didn’t know just how badly she longed to hear that, nor could she find the words to adequately reply. Instead, she settled on the simple truth. “I’m in love with you too. I… I have been for a while.” She looked down and swallowed thickly. “Gigi and Crystal aren’t getting married.”

“I know.”

“Wait… what? You do?”

Nicky chuckled softly. “Your friend tracked me down and told me, the one that looks like a lemur. She said she knew you’d chicken out.”

“Heidi,” Jan groaned, hiding her head in her hands. “You’re not mad?”

She shook her head and pulled Jan onto her lap. “No, I just think you guys are stupid,” she teased, pressing little kisses along her neck. “They’re cute together, though.”

“They started dating like, an hour ago,” Jan admitted with a laugh. “They’re good for each other, in their own weird way,” she mused, aimlessly playing with Nicky’s hair before her tone shifted to a serious one. “But let’s get back to us, because we literally just proclaimed our love to each other and I think that takes precedent.”

“You’re right,” Nicky laughed softly. “I want to be with you, with my whole heart I do.”

“And you don’t mind the distance?”

“The distance wouldn’t bother me, but…” Nicky’s face broke into a broad grin, “we don’t have to worry about it.”

Jan shifted to straddle Nicky’s lap, now able to look at her more directly. “We don’t?”

“I wanted to wait until tomorrow to tell you, because this is still your day. But I wasn’t planning on dropping the ‘love’ bomb either, so here we are.” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “I got signed by Ford Models and they’re having me relocate here and have me on a two-year contract.”

“Oh my god!” Jan squealed and tackled Nicky down on the bed. “That’s amazing! You’re gonna be a model!” She pressed kisses all over her face. “Where are you staying? You can come live with me and Crystal and probably Gigi.”

Nicky smiled, wrapping her arms around Jan’s waist. “I was hoping you’d say that, because I haven’t gotten much of that model money yet,” she laughed.

Jan rolled onto her back with Nicky now on top of her. “Now that that’s settled, can we go back to making out? I was enjoying that.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Nicky smirked before their lips collided again. The chemistry between them was electric, sparks shooting off from a buildup of long distance and silent yearning. They craved each other more than their lungs craved air and nothing could satiate them except for more.

It wasn’t long before making out simply wasn’t enough. Jan and Nicky haphazardly tore off each other’s clothes and tossed them every which way. But as rushed as that was, they slowed down once they were both naked – this was the first time they were truly seeing each other’s bodies, it was a moment to savor.

Nicky took control, pinning Jan to the bed and kissing down her neck, her collarbone and chest, she didn’t leave an inch of skin from her chin to her thighs untouched, and left a scattering of hickies in her wake. She used one hand to nudge Jan’s thighs apart, and with the other, she traced two fingers along her folds. “Oh, you’re so wet already, babygirl,” she cooed.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” Jan breathlessly confessed. “How many times I’ve fantasized about you.” Under any other circumstances, she would never be so bold as to outright admit that, but there wasn’t anything she could hold back from Nicky anymore. She had waited so long to have her, nothing was going to get in the way of that, nothing was going to be hidden.

“You’ve fantasized about me?” Nicky looked up at Jan, a broad smirk on her lips. “That’s fucking hot, I would love an in-depth retelling one of these days… just not right now. You’re gonna be too busy moaning for me.” Before Jan could respond, Nicky moved her head between Jan’s thighs, her tongue lapping at and circling her clit as she eased a finger into her.

As if on cue, Jan let out a high-pitched, gasping moan. Part of her had been just a little worried that she had hyped everything up too much in her head and it’d lead to the sex itself being disappointing, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. It didn’t take long before she simply lost control. Her body arched and writhed, desperately urging Nicky on. The way Nicky’s tongue felt against her clit, the way her fingers scissored and curled inside of her, Jan couldn’t think of a better way to describe it than utter bliss.

Nicky wasn’t surprised that Jan was so vocal, or that even her most erratic movements seemed graceful. She sucked on her clit as she steadily fucked her with three fingers, relishing the wanton moans and desperate whines she elicited from Jan. And when she could tell Jan was close, she doubled down on her efforts until Jan was shaking and trembling from her orgasm.

“Oh my… Holy… Fuck…” Jan’s head was spinning and she couldn’t think or see straight. She probably couldn’t have remembered her name if asked. Her body was so heightened and sensitive, she thought she might come again just from moving too much or too fast.

“That’s about the reaction I hoped for,” Nicky hummed, unable to hide her cocky smirk. “You look so beautiful like this, like you’re glowing,” she observed, leaning down and kissing her forehead.

Jan hummed happily, melting into the bed. “Gimme a sec… I wanna take care of you too.”

Nicky cocked a brow. “Are you sure you’re up for it? I think I saw your soul leave your body for a minute,” she teased.

“Uh huh,” she pushed herself to sit up once her breathing had evened out. “Please, Nicky,” she purred, pressing kisses up her shoulder and neck. “I’ve waited so long, I need to taste you.”

Nicky felt a chill go up her spine and a throbbing between her thighs. “Putain d’enfer…” she muttered under her breath. “How could I say no to that?”

“You can’t, duh,” Jan grinned triumphantly and waited for Nicky to lay on her back before she moved down and pushed her thighs apart.

“Mm, of course not,” she let out a content sigh that turned into a moan once she felt Jan’s tongue enter her. “Fuck, that’s it baby,” she praised, tangling her fingers through Jan’s hair.

Jan basked in the praise, using it to motivate her. Her tongue swirled and thrusted with an eagerness she just couldn’t contain. She added one finger, then another, working them in tandem while her free hand wandered the expanse of Nicky’s body, admiring how soft and smooth her skin felt under her fingertips.

Unlike Jan, Nicky wasn’t especially vocal in bed. Her grunts and moans and words of praise were soft, but filled with passion. Her hips rocked faster and her breathing got heavier as she reached her peak, and let out a sharp cry of pleasure as she came. “Fuck,” she panted, “I’m glad I listened to you.”

Jan smiled and moved to lay beside Nicky, kissing her sweetly. “As you should be.”

Nicky wrapped her arms around Jan and pulled her close. “Coming here was the best decision I’ve ever made. Not just because of the sex, I just can’t imagine being an ocean away from you ever again.”

“And now you never have to be. Having you here is even better than I imagined.” She let out a content sigh as she cuddled up to her new girlfriend, and they laid in comfortable silence for a good few moments. “I should probably text Crystal and let her know it’s safe to come back. Though she and Gigi are probably fucking in a sauna right now.”

“Go ahead,” Nicky handed Jan her phone. “Do we have to get dressed? I really don’t wanna move.”

Jan shook her head as she texted Crystal. “Nah, they’re chill like that. Also, full disclosure, Crystal and I did hook up once, but it was a totally platonic one-time thing,” she assured.

Nicky giggled softly. “You would fit in so well in France,” she mused as the two of them got under the covers and tangled up in each other, going from separated by a body of water to completely inseparable in the span of one night.

“Are you guys decent?” Gigi asked as she and Crystal re-entered the room. They both smirked when they saw Jan and Nicky cozied up under the covers. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

Jan rolled onto her side. “Not at all,” she chuckled.

“You guys have fun?” Crystal asked, she and Gigi sitting down on the other bed.

“To say the least,” Jan reached back and held Nicky’s hand. “We’re in love, by the way.”

Gigi and Crystal looked at each other, exchanging surprised looks, though the confusion faded the more they thought about it. “I guess with the way you’ve been talking about her all this time, it isn’t that much of a shock,” Gigi concluded.

“I also know you guys are not in an actual engagement,” Nicky chimed in, propping her chin up on Jan’s shoulder. “I knew before I got here, but Jan told me on her own. No hard feelings, it’s just clear that the three of you have one brain cell to share,” she added with a laugh.

“Did she tell you that she and Crystal fucked?” Gigi asked. Although she wasn’t bothered by it, it had still caught her off guard and lingered in her mind. But she and Crystal had talked it out on their way to the spa, and there was no bad blood between any of them.

Nicky was unphased by the question. “Yeah, we wanted to have a clean plate, so we talked about everything.”

“Slate,” Jan clarified. “But more importantly, Nicky’s moving to New York! She got a contract with a really good modeling agency, so she’s gonna live with us.”

“Wow, you guys had an eventful couple hours,” Crystal remarked with a laugh. “So, we’re gonna have two couples living in one apartment, huh?”

Gigi looked over at Crystal, her heart skipping a beat. “Two?”

“Of course two,” she replied without missing a beat. “I want you to move in with me too, Geege. You practically live with us already.” She wrapped her arm around her, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“Aw, you guys! Tonight brought all of us together, I’m so happy, I could cry.” Jan did feel her eyes get a bit watery as she spoke, quickly wiping them with the back of her hand. She never thought this would be how the night would go, but there wasn’t a thing in the world that would’ve made it better.

------

It has been a week since graduation night, and Gigi and Nicky have finally settled into the apartment, save for a few unpacked boxes tucked into corners or hidden under beds. Even though they now doubled the occupancy, the flow was natural and the adjustment was immediate. The four of them had become sort of a weird little family.

“I can’t believe I’m going for my first test shoot with the agency,” Nicky breathed out, her voice tense with nerves.

Jan cupped Nicky’s face and rested their foreheads together. “Hey, you listen to me. They picked you for a reason. You are gorgeous and talented and before you know it, companies are gonna be fighting over who gets to hire you first. And then I’m gonna brag to everyone I know that my girlfriend is a model and they’re all gonna be super jealous.”

Nicky smiled, her body unclenching. It was hard for her to be stressed around Jan – it had always been that way, through texts, over Skype, she just had that effect on her. “Okay, I guess I can’t argue with that.” She pecked her lips and pulled her bag onto her shoulder. “I’ll be back for dinner, love you.”

Gigi and Crystal were watching them from the kitchen, still in their pajamas with coffee mugs in their hands. “I don’t think I’ll ever not find it crazy that they worked out so well, and so easily,” Gigi remarked between sips.

“Guess there’s something to be said about true love, as corny as it is,” Crystal mused, then looked at Gigi, biting down on her lip for a moment. “Right?”

Gigi’s cheeks dusted pink. They hadn’t said ‘I love you’ to each other yet, their relationship was still new, even if their feelings weren’t. This was the closest either of them had gotten to the phrase, and she wasn’t ready to get emotional this early in the morning. “Right,” she managed to get out in an even tone, resting her head on Crystal’s shoulder.

This was a new chapter for both couples, one that was drastically different from any before. But the change was welcome, maybe it was necessary. None of them were the same people they had been two months ago, nor would they ever want to go back. And in the end, they could all look back and laugh at the fact that this was all because of a crazy little plan that should’ve been destined for failure, but ended up being their greatest success.

[artificialqueens]

Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Chapter 7 (Crygi, Jan x Nicky) - Joley

ao3 link

“Nicky!” Jan exclaimed after a moment of stunned silence. She grabbed her into a hug, needing to touch Nicky to convince herself that this was really happening. “Holy shit, I thought you weren’t coming for another couple weeks.”

Nicky squeezed Jan tightly and let out a content hum. “I moved some things around. I just couldn’t wait to see you any longer.”

Jan grinned from ear to ear. “God, you have no idea how happy I am to see you,” she breathed out, still in awe of the girl in front of her. She wasn’t thinking about the fake wedding anymore, or Crystal and Gigi’s new, real relationship. All that mattered was that finally, finally Nicky was here.

“If it is half as happy as I am to see you, I’m lucky,” she replied, gently pushing Jan’s hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. Her hand lingered, thumb stroking gently across her cheek. “Mon ange, you are even more beautiful in person,” her voice was soft, as if she were still processing it.

“Me?” Jan scoffed, “I’m in the presence of a literal model. Come on,” she gently took Nicky’s hand. “Let me show you off to Crystal and Gigi.”

Nicky was thrilled and walked with a spring in her step as Jan led her inside. “Ah, the happy couple! Bonjour!”

Gigi and Crystal did their best to look like they hadn’t been trying to eavesdrop on the conversation, offering smiles and cheerful greetings. “So nice to finally meet you,” Crystal added.

“How long are you in New York for anyway?” Jan asked as she sat with Nicky on her bed.

Nicky’s gaze drifted to the floor as she kicked off her heels. “Longer than I expected, I’ll tell you that,” she answered, biting back a grin. “That is a conversation for later, don’t worry about it,” she added, looking back up to face Jan, resting her hand on her thigh and shifting closer. “Tonight is about you, it’s your celebration.”

Gigi tapped Crystal’s arm to get her attention. “Why don’t you and I go check out the 24-hour spa? I think they need some time alone together,” she suggested, already getting up and looking for her shoes.

Crystal looked at her girlfriend quizzically for a moment, then nodded in understanding as she got up and followed her out. “Good for Jan, French pussy was the graduation gift she really needed,” she remarked once they were safely out of earshot.

Jan looked over a few moments later, only then realizing that her friends had left. She’d gotten a text from Crystal shortly after that simply read ‘have fun’ with a few winking emojis. “Oh my god,” she muttered under her breath with a laugh.

“What?” Nicky asked, trying to look at the screen, but Jan set her phone face down on the nightstand.

“Nothing, just Crystal being… Crystal,” Jan brushed it off as she scooted closer to Nicky. “More importantly, we’ve got the room to ourselves. Which is good, ‘cause I don’t wanna share your attention with anyone.”

Nicky bit her lip and gently took Jan’s hand. “Rest assured, you have my undivided attention.” She looked at her for a moment, deciding on her next move. It was a battle of what she wanted versus playing it safe, and in the end, the former won. Her hands moved to cup Jan’s face, and she kissed her deeply, languidly, doing all she could to savor that moment.

For a moment, Jan was too stunned to react. She thought she was dreaming, that this was too good to be true. But even her best dreams weren’t this kind to her – this was a fantasy brought to life. She kissed back, moving as close to Nicky as she could – any space between them was too much.

“Jan, I’m in love with you,” Nicky breathed out against Jan’s lips, her fingers still tangled in her hair.

Jan thought she was going to faint. Her head was spinning and her heart was racing, she didn’t know just how badly she longed to hear that, nor could she find the words to adequately reply. Instead, she settled on the simple truth. “I’m in love with you too. I… I have been for a while.” She looked down and swallowed thickly. “Gigi and Crystal aren’t getting married.”

“I know.”

“Wait… what? You do?”

Nicky chuckled softly. “Your friend tracked me down and told me, the one that looks like a lemur. She said she knew you’d chicken out.”

“Heidi,” Jan groaned, hiding her head in her hands. “You’re not mad?”

She shook her head and pulled Jan onto her lap. “No, I just think you guys are stupid,” she teased, pressing little kisses along her neck. “They’re cute together, though.”

“They started dating like, an hour ago,” Jan admitted with a laugh. “They’re good for each other, in their own weird way,” she mused, aimlessly playing with Nicky’s hair before her tone shifted to a serious one. “But let’s get back to us, because we literally just proclaimed our love to each other and I think that takes precedent.”

“You’re right,” Nicky laughed softly. “I want to be with you, with my whole heart I do.”

“And you don’t mind the distance?”

“The distance wouldn’t bother me, but…” Nicky’s face broke into a broad grin, “we don’t have to worry about it.”

Jan shifted to straddle Nicky’s lap, now able to look at her more directly. “We don’t?”

“I wanted to wait until tomorrow to tell you, because this is still your day. But I wasn’t planning on dropping the ‘love’ bomb either, so here we are.” She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “I got signed by Ford Models and they’re having me relocate here and have me on a two-year contract.”

“Oh my god!” Jan squealed and tackled Nicky down on the bed. “That’s amazing! You’re gonna be a model!” She pressed kisses all over her face. “Where are you staying? You can come live with me and Crystal and probably Gigi.”

Nicky smiled, wrapping her arms around Jan’s waist. “I was hoping you’d say that, because I haven’t gotten much of that model money yet,” she laughed.

Jan rolled onto her back with Nicky now on top of her. “Now that that’s settled, can we go back to making out? I was enjoying that.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Nicky smirked before their lips collided again. The chemistry between them was electric, sparks shooting off from a buildup of long distance and silent yearning. They craved each other more than their lungs craved air and nothing could satiate them except for more.

It wasn’t long before making out simply wasn’t enough. Jan and Nicky haphazardly tore off each other’s clothes and tossed them every which way. But as rushed as that was, they slowed down once they were both naked – this was the first time they were truly seeing each other’s bodies, it was a moment to savor.

Nicky took control, pinning Jan to the bed and kissing down her neck, her collarbone and chest, she didn’t leave an inch of skin from her chin to her thighs untouched, and left a scattering of hickies in her wake. She used one hand to nudge Jan’s thighs apart, and with the other, she traced two fingers along her folds. “Oh, you’re so wet already, babygirl,” she cooed.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” Jan breathlessly confessed. “How many times I’ve fantasized about you.” Under any other circumstances, she would never be so bold as to outright admit that, but there wasn’t anything she could hold back from Nicky anymore. She had waited so long to have her, nothing was going to get in the way of that, nothing was going to be hidden.

“You’ve fantasized about me?” Nicky looked up at Jan, a broad smirk on her lips. “That’s fucking hot, I would love an in-depth retelling one of these days… just not right now. You’re gonna be too busy moaning for me.” Before Jan could respond, Nicky moved her head between Jan’s thighs, her tongue lapping at and circling her clit as she eased a finger into her.

As if on cue, Jan let out a high-pitched, gasping moan. Part of her had been just a little worried that she had hyped everything up too much in her head and it’d lead to the sex itself being disappointing, but she couldn’t have been more wrong. It didn’t take long before she simply lost control. Her body arched and writhed, desperately urging Nicky on. The way Nicky’s tongue felt against her clit, the way her fingers scissored and curled inside of her, Jan couldn’t think of a better way to describe it than utter bliss.

Nicky wasn’t surprised that Jan was so vocal, or that even her most erratic movements seemed graceful. She sucked on her clit as she steadily fucked her with three fingers, relishing the wanton moans and desperate whines she elicited from Jan. And when she could tell Jan was close, she doubled down on her efforts until Jan was shaking and trembling from her orgasm.

“Oh my… Holy… Fuck…” Jan’s head was spinning and she couldn’t think or see straight. She probably couldn’t have remembered her name if asked. Her body was so heightened and sensitive, she thought she might come again just from moving too much or too fast.

“That’s about the reaction I hoped for,” Nicky hummed, unable to hide her cocky smirk. “You look so beautiful like this, like you’re glowing,” she observed, leaning down and kissing her forehead.

Jan hummed happily, melting into the bed. “Gimme a sec… I wanna take care of you too.”

Nicky cocked a brow. “Are you sure you’re up for it? I think I saw your soul leave your body for a minute,” she teased.

“Uh huh,” she pushed herself to sit up once her breathing had evened out. “Please, Nicky,” she purred, pressing kisses up her shoulder and neck. “I’ve waited so long, I need to taste you.”

Nicky felt a chill go up her spine and a throbbing between her thighs. “Putain d’enfer…” she muttered under her breath. “How could I say no to that?”

“You can’t, duh,” Jan grinned triumphantly and waited for Nicky to lay on her back before she moved down and pushed her thighs apart.

“Mm, of course not,” she let out a content sigh that turned into a moan once she felt Jan’s tongue enter her. “Fuck, that’s it baby,” she praised, tangling her fingers through Jan’s hair.

Jan basked in the praise, using it to motivate her. Her tongue swirled and thrusted with an eagerness she just couldn’t contain. She added one finger, then another, working them in tandem while her free hand wandered the expanse of Nicky’s body, admiring how soft and smooth her skin felt under her fingertips.

Unlike Jan, Nicky wasn’t especially vocal in bed. Her grunts and moans and words of praise were soft, but filled with passion. Her hips rocked faster and her breathing got heavier as she reached her peak, and let out a sharp cry of pleasure as she came. “Fuck,” she panted, “I’m glad I listened to you.”

Jan smiled and moved to lay beside Nicky, kissing her sweetly. “As you should be.”

Nicky wrapped her arms around Jan and pulled her close. “Coming here was the best decision I’ve ever made. Not just because of the sex, I just can’t imagine being an ocean away from you ever again.”

“And now you never have to be. Having you here is even better than I imagined.” She let out a content sigh as she cuddled up to her new girlfriend, and they laid in comfortable silence for a good few moments. “I should probably text Crystal and let her know it’s safe to come back. Though she and Gigi are probably fucking in a sauna right now.”

“Go ahead,” Nicky handed Jan her phone. “Do we have to get dressed? I really don’t wanna move.”

Jan shook her head as she texted Crystal. “Nah, they’re chill like that. Also, full disclosure, Crystal and I did hook up once, but it was a totally platonic one-time thing,” she assured.

Nicky giggled softly. “You would fit in so well in France,” she mused as the two of them got under the covers and tangled up in each other, going from separated by a body of water to completely inseparable in the span of one night.

“Are you guys decent?” Gigi asked as she and Crystal re-entered the room. They both smirked when they saw Jan and Nicky cozied up under the covers. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

Jan rolled onto her side. “Not at all,” she chuckled.

“You guys have fun?” Crystal asked, she and Gigi sitting down on the other bed.

“To say the least,” Jan reached back and held Nicky’s hand. “We’re in love, by the way.”

Gigi and Crystal looked at each other, exchanging surprised looks, though the confusion faded the more they thought about it. “I guess with the way you’ve been talking about her all this time, it isn’t that much of a shock,” Gigi concluded.

“I also know you guys are not in an actual engagement,” Nicky chimed in, propping her chin up on Jan’s shoulder. “I knew before I got here, but Jan told me on her own. No hard feelings, it’s just clear that the three of you have one brain cell to share,” she added with a laugh.

“Did she tell you that she and Crystal fucked?” Gigi asked. Although she wasn’t bothered by it, it had still caught her off guard and lingered in her mind. But she and Crystal had talked it out on their way to the spa, and there was no bad blood between any of them.

Nicky was unphased by the question. “Yeah, we wanted to have a clean plate, so we talked about everything.”

“Slate,” Jan clarified. “But more importantly, Nicky’s moving to New York! She got a contract with a really good modeling agency, so she’s gonna live with us.”

“Wow, you guys had an eventful couple hours,” Crystal remarked with a laugh. “So, we’re gonna have two couples living in one apartment, huh?”

Gigi looked over at Crystal, her heart skipping a beat. “Two?”

“Of course two,” she replied without missing a beat. “I want you to move in with me too, Geege. You practically live with us already.” She wrapped her arm around her, pressing a kiss to her temple.

“Aw, you guys! Tonight brought all of us together, I’m so happy, I could cry.” Jan did feel her eyes get a bit watery as she spoke, quickly wiping them with the back of her hand. She never thought this would be how the night would go, but there wasn’t a thing in the world that would’ve made it better.

——

It has been a week since graduation night, and Gigi and Nicky have finally settled into the apartment, save for a few unpacked boxes tucked into corners or hidden under beds. Even though they now doubled the occupancy, the flow was natural and the adjustment was immediate. The four of them had become sort of a weird little family.

“I can’t believe I’m going for my first test shoot with the agency,” Nicky breathed out, her voice tense with nerves.

Jan cupped Nicky’s face and rested their foreheads together. “Hey, you listen to me. They picked you for a reason. You are gorgeous and talented and before you know it, companies are gonna be fighting over who gets to hire you first. And then I’m gonna brag to everyone I know that my girlfriend is a model and they’re all gonna be super jealous.”

Nicky smiled, her body unclenching. It was hard for her to be stressed around Jan – it had always been that way, through texts, over Skype, she just had that effect on her. “Okay, I guess I can’t argue with that.” She pecked her lips and pulled her bag onto her shoulder. “I’ll be back for dinner, love you.”

Gigi and Crystal were watching them from the kitchen, still in their pajamas with coffee mugs in their hands. “I don’t think I’ll ever not find it crazy that they worked out so well, and so easily,” Gigi remarked between sips.

“Guess there’s something to be said about true love, as corny as it is,” Crystal mused, then looked at Gigi, biting down on her lip for a moment. “Right?”

Gigi’s cheeks dusted pink. They hadn’t said ‘I love you’ to each other yet, their relationship was still new, even if their feelings weren’t. This was the closest either of them had gotten to the phrase, and she wasn’t ready to get emotional this early in the morning. “Right,” she managed to get out in an even tone, resting her head on Crystal’s shoulder.

This was a new chapter for both couples, one that was drastically different from any before. But the change was welcome, maybe it was necessary. None of them were the same people they had been two months ago, nor would they ever want to go back. And in the end, they could all look back and laugh at the fact that this was all because of a crazy little plan that should’ve been destined for failure, but ended up being their greatest success.

[mistabullets]

can i please request a scenario? 🥺 i was thinking of something like 18-21 y/o kakyoin who gets a new, attractive older neighbor and he just keeps looking for excuses to be around her? (and then m a y b e she repays him for all his help?)

ok guess i’ll heard y’all loud and clear! have your milf hunter kakyoin :3

NOTE: all characters are aged up! cw includes age gap (think 5+ years tho), fem pronouns, afab reader, alcohol mention, drinking, eating out, fingering, vaginal sex, drunk sex, praising

Not SFW under cut ;

“Good grief, why are you always trying to get with old hags?” Jotaro questioned.

When Kakyoin first laid eyes on you, his new neighbor, discussing with the landlord about the terms and agreement, he was instantly captivated by your beauty. The redhead boy was eyeing you from outside his balcony, enjoying the pleasant spring afternoon and the view you had to offer. He noticed the way you batted your lashes and how well the red lipstick suited your plump lips. The dress you had been wearing that particular day showed off the swell of your ass along with a slight cleavage, a promising view of your bigger breasts. You had certainly made his day and you didn’t even know it.

**

Two weeks later, Kakyoin notices you were finally moving into the empty apartment right next to his. With no lewd intentions behind his generous offer, he introduces himself as your next-door neighbor and offers to carry some of the heavier boxes, up and down the stairs. You are truly relieved since had some slight aches and pains already from preparing and packing up for your new home all by yourself. The two of you begin unloading the rental truck, which took about a good hour or two. Not that the younger man minds, since each time he trailed behind you, ascending the stairs, he has a great view of your butt. The sway of your hips is almost similar to the swing of a pendulum, spellbinding, to the point he has to control his gaze and not be caught in hypnosis.

Finally, the work is all done and boxes are settled in corners, furniture in their designated spots. You decide to order some pizza and share with Kakyoin, as thanks for all his hard work, despite just having met today. You get to know your new neighbor and friend during dinner; he’s a college student who had explored a lot as a teenager, having seen most of the world. Now, he and his best friend of four years, Jotaro, are studying at the local university; he’s currently in his junior year and halfway through in receiving a bachelor’s in Game Design. You’re impressed by his passion, saying he must be smart to be able to learn the complicated knowledge of technology and the dedicated art skill needed for video games. And Kakyoin learns a bit about you as well. Apparently, you moved because of a recent job offer, already had a degree under your belt, and you were seven years his senior. You had even been married at one point but divorced the scum over half a year ago! The younger man is surprised when he realizes you are close to hitting your thirties, believing you were at least in your early to mid-twenties. You take it as a compliment though, lucky that you have no grey hair yet to appear, despite the stress that had accumulated.

Over the next few weeks, Kakyoin helps you settle into your home. He gives you directions to wherever you need to go, helps you unpack a variety of clothes, cooking utensils, shower curtains, the bed frame, and even more furniture. The man is even kind enough to help with laundry and help set up the new computer that you had purchased recently. In return, you begin cooking meals for your young neighbor and his roommate. You have tried to offer him some money before but he always declines it, saying it was just him lending a helping hand to someone who needs it. What a sweet boy, I wish my ex would have been so kind like him, you would think to yourself.

**

Eventually, the two of you became close friends. You would invite him over for drinks and dinner after work. Sometimes, Jotaro would be there too, but he had no interest in hanging out with older women, always muttering “good grief” when you would burst into a fit of laughter after the redhead would tell a cheesy joke.

Tonight is a repeat of that.

You let out a snort, doubling over, “O-Oh geez, that’s a good one, Kak-kun!”

It is you, Kakyoin, and Jotaro playing a new game on the Nintendo 64. However, alcohol is in the mix, and both you and the redhead man are a bit too tipsy. Jotaro, annoyed by his friends’ antics, leaves the party of three, saying he has to get up early in the morning. Jotaro wonders if it is a good idea to depart, knowing his friend has a huge crush on you and it could lead to something messy. But he concludes, after interacting with you for the past month, there’s always a glint in your eyes when Kakyoin is around. Jotaro’s curious to see where it would eventually lead to. He utters a simple bye before telling his roommate he will leave the door unlocked if anyone needs him.

The soft click of the door closing indicates the party of three just turned into a party of two. Now, it is just you and Kakyoin now, still giggling over whatever nonsense had you howling. Once you manage to gain a semblance of composure, you tell the redhead that you want to watch a new movie you had bought recently. You toss the box at him, to see the cover. The man is intrigued after reading the back of the VHS box. After stating his interest, he slips the cassette into the player. After making some adjustments to the TV settings and pressing the button to play the movie, Kakyoin curls up right beside you on the couch. For right now, his attention is on the television screen, anticipating the horror sequences for Silence of the Lambs. But after about halfway into the movie, he notices how with each jump scare or the buildup of a scene, you would scoot yourself, as if seeking some sort of protection. Eventually, the boy, with warm drunken courage, lazily wraps one of his arms around your frame, holding you tight when the suspension broke within each scene.

**

As the credits rolls, you look up at your fellow movie-goer, slightly less intoxicated and realize his hand had slipped down to your waist during the course of the movie. An idea comes forth from the remainder of your inebriated and primitive mind, eyeing the young man beside you. You register, that you like Kakyoin a lot more than you originally thought. He’s mature for his age, super smart, and you bet he had some youthful vigor to him, right? With a stupid yet dazzlingly grin spreading across your delicious lips, you reach out to touch one of Kakyoin’s cheeks, rubbing it tenderly, a heated blush already radiating.

“Y-Y/N? What is it?” he asks, slight confusion in his voice. He always assumed you were into older men, or at least someone your age.

With drunken stupor, you giggle, “Oh nothing Kak, just realized how cute you are… like, really cute.”

You could feel the blush burn the palm of your hand even more, “Oh, really now?” the boy prods, his lush thoughts spiking a nerve in him, finding a renowned boldness.

“Yeah, I… I don’t know, just kind of wanna kiss you. Would that be okay?” now you are flushing as you took note of how Kakyoin’s lavender orbs scan your body and the position you are currently in. The faint scent of beer from your breath tickles his nostrils and he finally sees just how inviting your pretty lips are, even without the lipstick applied on. Your eyes long from him, even in the darkness with the faint glow of the menu screen. Without any more hesitation, he seals you in an experimental kiss. You gasp into his mouth but soon welcome the taste of fermented booze and cherry-flavored chap-stick. Soon, his tongue slips into your mouth and he tastes even more of you; it is more intoxicating than the beer the both of you shared earlier. After a minute or two of this developing make-out session, his soft lips peels away from yours; both of you need to catch your breath, to process what was going on. But you could sense both of you wanted more, by how flushed your cheeks are and the lust dancing in his pupils. You decide to make the next move, being the more experienced one, by straddling his lap. You lock lips again.

One thing leads to another. Eventually, the redhead underneath you unbuttons your blouse, throwing it into some forgotten corner of your living room. Kisses and loves bites are littered on the side of your neck, down to your left breast. Wanting more of his touch, you reach from behind and unhook the bra hook, revealing your ample tits. Kakyoin allows himself a moment to admire the softness, how bouncy they look, and how delicious your nipples look. Experimentally, he reaches for one breast while he leans in and gives the unattended nipple a lick. You grab a hold of both shoulders as Kakyoin stops being experimental and more precise with technique. What was the last time you felt this good? And god, you feel your panties are already soaked as the young man pinches your hardening buds. “O-Oh god, Kak-kun, y-yes, good boy, you’re doing such a good job~”

Encouraged, the boy slides one of his hand from your chest, slithering his warm digits against your belly until he reaches your groin and the hem of your pants. He reaches further down, slipping his hand into your jeans and feeling to lacy undergarments you are wearing. You edge him to go further, wanting to feel his thick fingers inside of you already. “Right there, Kak~” you plead, as the boy peppers kisses into your neck and shoulder. He happily fulfills your request, exploring southward, passing your trimmed bush before being invited by the welcoming slit of your wet pussy. However, Kakyoin has an even better idea. Without warning, he grabs you by the waist and gently throws you onto the couch. Now he’s on top of you, gaining control.

You elicit a gasp, slightly taken aback by his boldness, “Oh my, Kakyoin…”He pulls down your jeans along with your panties, and now you’re fully naked before the younger man as he drinks in the sight of your sexy figure. He reaches for the hem of his shirt and throws it off. You can’t help but also admire the defined muscles of his abdomen, the heave of his chest from all the excitement, and the bulge growing more prominent with each passing moment. Your focus is turned back to Kakyoin, as he opens up your legs and nestles into the apex of your thighs. “Please, Y/N, call me Noriaki,” he says before dipping his face to your sex, spreading apart your pussy to reveal your glistening pussy and your needy clit. He admires it for a moment, before his tongue curiously laps over your exposed entrance, the tip of it probing at your sensitive nub. Instinctively, you reach to grab a hand fist full of crimson locks, particularly his side bang. “Noriaki, r-right there… lick my clit again, please…!”

And after a few more licks, he finally gets the hang of it all, your voice guidance to how to properly eat out a woman. Your ex would rarely go down on you despite how often he would demand blowjobs… and when he did go down, he would complain about how you needed to look good and clean yourself up. However, Kakyoin is obsessed with the musky, feminine scent of you and drinks your juices like a man who hasn’t had water in days. While he’s not exactly experienced compared to Jotaro, his eagerness to please makes up for it. He rests one hand on your inner thigh while he decides to further tease your entrance. He index and middle finger presses up against your core and sinks in. You let out a moan, not prepared for the intrusion but once they are adjusted, buried to the hilt, you begin to welcome the sturdy digits inside of you. And Kakyoin enjoys the wet warmth swallowing up his fingers, the velvety walls of your cunt hugging him tightly. Gently, he begins to scissor and curls the two fingers inside you, until he finds that one sweet spot that makes your back arch and you release a needy cry. Making a mental note to himself, he pumps his finger in and out of you while his lips suck at your clit. You scream his name, “N-Noriaki! O-Oh fuck, if you, nngh! K-Keep that up– I-I’ll cum!”

He gasps for air, but still relentlessly finger fucking your insides, “Then please, do cum for me, Y/N!”

And keep it up he does, eyeing your body and watching with satisfaction as you squirm and buck yourself into him; you want more of his mouth on your pink pearl and more of his thick fingers inside of you. Thinking you can handle it, Noriaki adds a third finger and continues his ministrations, wanting to bring you to your first climax of the evening. The pad of his fingers hits your g-spot one more time and coil in your abdomen uncurls, washing you with a wave of pleasure and your eyes rolling to the back of your head. After your orgasm settles down and you’re down gushing out your juice, the boy underneath you gently pulls out his fingers, admiring the slick wetness before popping it into his mouth. He can’t help it, you just taste so, so sweet to him. You relish in the afterglow of your climax before remember how hard your new lover must be.

Catching him off guard, you tackle the younger man back on the bed and start to unbuckle his belt. You then proceed to unzip his pants, pulling it and his boxer (with cherries on them of course) down to his ankles. You take a moment to examine his manhood, the length being long and having a decent amount of girth to it. You think the red tip is cute, matching hair color. While it looks appetizing, you want to get to the main course. Not wasting any more time, you mount your lover and begin to tease his dick, already leaking with precum. Kakyoin takes the time to appreciate your palpable body and how it radiates your lustful intentions. Your hair is already a mess, (e/c) eyes are wanting, and your shoulders and checks a subtle shade of red. He grabs your hips and helps you as you start to align your molten core with his bold erection, now slicker with your lewd fluids. Slowly, you begin to sink down, the tip of Kakyoin’s cock already filling you up. His nails bite into your waist, leaving crescent shape scars while his dick is buried to a hilt. “G-God, (Y/N), you feel absolutely amazing around me, p-please, I want more of your pussy–”

“N-Nori– mm, god, yes, I’ll fuck you, I-I want to thank you, oh god, you’re so big–” you babble, as you begin bouncing on him, taking control and placing your hands on his chest. You lean down for another passionate kiss, riding him until exhaustion before he takes the lead. Both of you go at it for hours…

Meanwhile, Jotaro can hear all of this. The walls are very thin but at least, so it seems, that the both of you are having fun. But it’s still annoying and your lewd noises will definitely wake up the cranky neighbors. “Yare yare daze,” the black-haired man groans to himself, rummaging through his drawer until he finds his handy dandy Walkman with his headphones already attached. He slips them on and presses the play button, blocking out the sultry moans and godawful dirty talks the both of you converse in. Finally, he can study in peace. He goes back to his desk and returns to his research for his marine zoology class. 

[dvp95]

can’t breathe when you touch my sleeve - chapter 11

pairing: dan howell/phil lester

rating: e

warnings: none

tags: alternate universe, slow burn, fluff & humour, tiny bit of inner turmoil wrt sexuality but trust me it’s not that deep, deeper than anticipated but still not that deep y'all this is primarily silly, eventual smut, idiots in love

word count: 3,995 for this chapter (49,787 total)

summary: Dan keeps making a fool of himself in interviews, to the point where it’s basically a meme. Now he’s got to sit down for the better part of an hour and sell his show to the YouTuber he’d had a massive crush on when he was a teenager.

read from the beginning on ao3 or on tumblr!

read this chapter on ao3 or here!

The flat is dark but for the string lights over Phil's headboard and the candles on his nightstand. Phil's fingers are tracing patterns on Dan's chest, loopy circles and spirals that leave goosebumps in their wake. He's humming something familiar under his breath that Dan can't place and his eyes are half-lidded behind his glasses.

They're tangled up on Phil's bed, ostensibly getting ready to sleep, but Dan is struggling. He doesn't want to miss a single moment he's got left with Phil. He'd thrown on some boxers in concession of sharing space with a dog, and Phil has gotten completely dressed in Dan's pyjamas with muttered complaints about the cold. Dan already misses looking at his body, but he has to admit that he likes looking at this, too.

"Remind me again when you're leaving?"

Dan sighs, lightly tapping a line of freckles down Phil's arm and tangling their fingers together when he reaches them. "Sunday afternoon."

"Too soon," Phil says, quiet and light like he's trying to play off how much it sucks.

"Too soon," Dan agrees. "But I'll be back as soon as I can. And we can - I mean, I want to still, like. Date you. Even when I'm not here."

With a little hum of a noise, Phil blinks up at Dan. He looks a little perplexed. "Well, yeah," he says. "I'm just gonna remind you again that I introduced you to my parents. I wasn't planning on running off with the next local idiot who fawns all over me."

"I did not fawn," Dan protests, but his lips are twitching. He presses them to Phil's forehead to hide the movement. He didn't actually believe that Phil was thinking of this as something with a time limit, but it's nice to be reassured. They're quiet for a long moment, and then Dan has to ask the embarrassing question that's been plaguing him. "Are you, like. Are you my boyfriend?"

Phil laughs, not unkindly, and nuzzles into Dan's neck to press a kiss there. Dan can feel the curve of his smirk when the sensation makes Dan shiver.

"Yeah, Dan," says Phil, low and fond. "I'm your boyfriend."

"I'm just making sure," says Dan.

"You're so stupid," Phil says, pulling back from Dan's neck to grin up at him. His eyes are so bright that it almost aches to look at.

There really isn't a good argument for that. Dan shrugs, pulls Phil close enough that he can feel Phil's heartbeat. He buries his face in Phil's hair so that he doesn't have to watch Phil's expression change when he says, "Yeah. I told my brother about you, actually. Told him you were my boyfriend."

Phil chuckles. "I told my brother about you, too. Dunno why you're embarrassed about it."

"Yeah, but that's different," Dan mutters. "You talk to Martyn."

"I get that your family is," Phil says, pauses for a brief moment, "complicated, but I'm not bothered by them knowing about me."

"That's good," says Dan. "Because, er, I'm having lunch with my mum after the morning interviews tomorrow, and I thought - well, y'know."

A gentle hand in Dan's hair pulls him back from the cuddle so that Phil can look at him. His eyes flicker over Dan's face like they're looking for something. Whatever it is, he doesn't seem to find it.

Phil smiles indulgently, shaking his head a bit. "I actually don't know, Dan. I'm gonna need you to use your words. Because right now it sounds like you're inviting me to lunch with your mum. Which, to be clear, wouldn't be weird for me, since you've met mine, but I get the feeling it might be weird for you."

That hadn't been at all what Dan was asking. He thinks about it, though, wonders if if would be better or worse to have backup for this lunch.

Dan loves his mum. Their relationship is strained, distant, has got a heavy buildup of guilt and mistrust on both sides, but he loves her. He isn't sure he can bring Phil into that and explain it, not when he's met the wonderfully warm people who raised Phil.

"I was actually just asking if you'd be okay with me mentioning you, but how about," Dan says slowly, turning the idea over in his head. "We meet you at the park after lunch? I wanted to whine until she brought Colin, anyway, this gives me a good excuse."

"Colin?"

"My family dog," says Dan. "Don't make fun of his name, your dog's name is nerdy and a pun."

Phil laughs and kisses the tip of Dan's nose. "I wouldn't dream of it. I like animals with hilariously normal names."

"So, you'll come? You really don't have to."

"Sure, I just," Phil says and pulls a little face, like he doesn't want to voice whatever he's thinking. "Is she... one of the people reacting badly? Wanna know what I'm getting into, here."

"No, she's been great," Dan says quietly. "She might be weird, but she won't be... y'know."

"I do know."

The smile playing around Phil's lips makes Dan want to kiss him, so he does. He can't believe that he's just allowed to do that, can't believe he somehow stumbled into being the luckiest person alive.

Dan's done a lot of things over the past decade that he thinks would shock and awe his teenage self. He's met and worked with some pretty big names, gotten drunk with his costars at some pretty big events, and publicly made a fool of himself in some pretty big ways.

He thinks this would take the cake, though. Just the simple act of kissing his boyfriend in bed would have been more than teen Dan could have dreamed of. He'd wanted that, of course, in a pipe dream sort of way, like how he'd wanted to stop hurting his girlfriend, wanted to feel some kind of acceptance for who he was so terrified to be. But the world had been way too fucking scary for him to consider it outside of daydreams.

Not to mention the fact that the man he's kissing is AmazingPhil. Dan laughs, pulls back from Phil to grin at him.

"You know," he says, "I used to have the biggest fucking crush on you."

"Used to?" Phil teases, brushing his fingers over Dan's ribs to make him squirm and laugh harder.

"Shut the fuck up," Dan says fondly. "I mean, like, in 2007."

Phil blinks. He's a lot sleepier than Dan is, which Dan very generously attributes to how long it takes Phil to do simple math in his head. "Wait, you seriously had a crush on me when you were sixteen?"

"Maybe," says Dan.

"Oh, that's so cute," Phil coos. He gives Dan a smug little grin and rolls on top of him. Their limbs are so long and they're both so clumsy that Dan isn't surprised by Phil almost kneeing him in the balls in the process, but he's also so far gone that he barely cares. "And what would sixteen-year-old Dan think of all this?"

"He wouldn't believe it," Dan laughs, settling his hands on Phil's hips. "Like, literally, this would have never occurred to him as a possibility."

"Why not?" Phil teases, knocking their noses together gently. Dan gets the impression that he's more charmed than he's letting on with his dry voice. "You didn't wanna come to Summer in the City? Make an impression?"

That makes Dan honk a laugh right in Phil's face. Objectively, that's mortifying. Phil just snorts, though, so Dan decides not to worry about it on top of everything else he's constantly anxious about in Phil's presence. "The impression I would have made on you in 2007 or even, like, ten years ago, wouldn't have been anything good. You think I'm awkward now? You can only imagine what I was like before I had any kind of confidence."

"I'm sure it was very cute," says Phil. "I'd have added you on MySpace."

"I hate you," says Dan, not least because he'd sent Phil a friend request on MySpace. He is absolutely not going to bring that up, though.

"Yeah, sure seems like you do," says Phil, grinning.

Dan doesn't like the smug look on his face, so he takes Phil's glasses off and sets them aside, chuckling when he immediately starts to squint. "It's bedtime," he reminds Phil.

"Bedtime," Phil agrees, and he blinks a bunch before he laughs. "I can't see you. You gotta kiss me goodnight."

Definitely a request Dan can handle.

--

Once again, Dan finds himself staring at the ceiling of Phil's flat. He's got a snoring dog at his feet and a snoring man draped over him, and he should really be relaxed enough to drift off by now. He's comforted by the smell of Phil's sheets and the soft pattering of rain against the small windows, but it doesn't help get him any sleepier. It's frustrating. He's got interviews all morning - the last of the Isles leg before they get shipped off to the continent for another two weeks of the same circus - and he doesn't want to be cranky for them or have to apologise to another makeup artist for the dark circles under his eyes. He tries for a really long time to fall asleep before he gives up on it for the moment and reaches for his phone.

The familiar cycle of applications helps settle some of the restless energy that's thrumming under Dan's skin. The fingers of his right hand run over Phil's shoulders and through his hair, gentle and idle enough to avoid waking him, as he scrolls through different social media sites with his left thumb.

His feeds are busy enough, since it's not quite late enough to be considered unreasonable in Atlanta or Chicago and Los Angeles is fully awake, but none of it is really catching his attention. He likes a bunch of dog photos and gets lost in a Twitter moment on a topic he's never heard about before. Three different times, he almost buys something that's being advertised to him before he remembers that he already owns something similar to it.

Normally he'd put on some AmazingPhil videos to help him fall asleep, but that feels pretty weird to do when the man himself is literally drooling on his chest right now. Not to mention, he'd have to get up to find some headphones, and that would just defeat the purpose of staying in bed.

Dan spends twenty minutes drafting an email to his grandma, hindered by only using one thumb and his brain not being at full firing power as it is. It ends up saying more or less what he'd texted to his mum, only with an apology at the end. He doesn't know why he does that. He isn't sorry for who he is, or for not telling her, or for not believing in the god that might inform her reaction. He almost deletes the apology, actually, but the fact is that he is. He is sorry for all of those things.

He doesn't want to be. He wants to be unapologetic. But this is a woman who he's always respected and who is so vocal about supporting his career that he sometimes gets embarrassed by the statuses she posts about him on Facebook. This is also a woman who brought him to church for a good chunk of his life.

It's so vivid, even now. Getting his collar smoothed down by her dainty hands, his cheeks pinched by all her friends. The stifling, muggy air and hard pew under him in the summer.

Discomfort. Physical discomfort, as a child, and a deeper sort once he realised he didn't belong there. If he has to narrow it down, he's sorry that he might be giving her a different sort of discomfort in return.

He emails so that he can check for her response on his own time instead of panicking and shutting his phone off like he did with his mum, and then he goes into the app store to download some new, mindless games. Those entertain him for a while, the easy taps of his thumb giving him something to focus on that is not all the ways he's failed his family or the terrifying reality of what he might see in his mother's eyes tomorrow.

Today, he supposes. He'll be lucky to get a couple of hours at all.

In the end, he doesn't get any sleep. He wants to, because he knows he's going to be a zombie at work and at lunch, but maybe that's a good thing. He doesn't know what his mum is going to say, after all, doesn't know if she's going to try and defend his dad or talk about his reaction at all, so perhaps it's for the best that Dan feels everything a little more numbly than usual.

Dan turns off his alarm a split second after it rings, which is never a great feeling after a hard hit of insomnia. It's the final acknowledgement that sleep is not coming, no matter how much he tries to will it. He sighs and gently rolls Phil off of him. The way Phil grumbles and curls into his pillow, cuddling it to his chest, manages to get a weak smile out of Dan. He's just... cute. That's all there really is to it. Thor perks up when Dan gets out of bed, his ears all the way up, and Dan figures that it isn't the worst idea in the world to get some fresh air.

"You wanna go for a walk?" Dan whispers. He has to bite back a laugh at the way Thor reacts - spinning excitedly in a circle on the bed before hopping down and running to the door.

The sun is just starting to rise, giving Dan enough light to avoid injuring himself as he finds something to throw on for the walk. He ends up with his own pyjama pants and some graphic tee or other of Phil's because he can't be bothered to look for something else. He figures that anyone else awake right now won't judge him for it.

He remembers to grab keys and doggy bags before he tries to get Thor out of the door without his excitement turning into barking. He hasn't really barked much in Dan's presence, but he doesn't want to take any chances. It would be just his luck to wake everyone in the building up because he has no idea what he's doing when it comes to training a dog. The dog his family had when he was growing up was cute, but he was real bad at being a dog. Dan's got absolutely no practice with making dogs listen to him, and he's not exactly assertive. He's been chased by chickens more than once.

The chill of the dawn air makes Dan glad he grabbed one of Phil's countless denim jackets, and he pauses on the pavement outside for only a brief moment before Thor starts tugging him down the road. Thor knows the area, even if Dan doesn't, so he's happy to let the dog guide them with his nose and stubby little legs.

It's too early to talk to anyone, for sure, but Dan wants to rip the band-aid off before he has to shift into his public persona. He texts his mum with one hand, can u bring colin please i miss him so much and ive got a friend for him, attaches a cute photo of Thor sniffing at a neighbour's flower box. After a moment's thought, he sends the photo to Phil as well. He'd watched Phil put his phone on silent before they got into bed, so he isn't worried about waking him up. Dan has to slip his phone back into his pocket to quietly scold Thor for eating someone else's petunias and scurry away from the scene of the crime.

Everything feels just a little hazy with the rising sun, the mist of barely-there rain, and Dan's own lack of sleep. He lets Thor guide him into a lazy walk around the block and breathes in the polluted air like it's going to make everything better.

Maybe it should be scary how right this feels. In fact, it is scary, and Dan would like to blame it entirely on his insomnia and idiocy, but he knows it's more than that. He wants this to be his routine, as stupid as that is. He doesn't want that right away, doesn't want to leave Atlanta and come right to Phil's flat, but he wants... that. Eventually. First, he wants a drawer in one of Phil's dressers, wants to text whenever he's outside, wants to meet Phil at the dog park with two coffees and a grin on his face.

Dan never really took himself for a hopeless romantic, but then again, he also never thought that he'd be able to date someone he wanted to be with for the long haul. Even a medium haul had been off the table with the girls he's dated since his last actual relationship. It was always going to be missing something.

When Thor starts whining and tugging at the lead a bit harder, Dan smiles. "You wanna go home, cutie?" he murmurs, spotting the distinctive blue of Phil's front door. "Let's take you home."

--

The questions are the same every time. Not the exact same, no, but still the same. Every publication and media site wants to know the same shit about the show, and they don't even have all the answers.

"No, we haven't heard about a new season yet," Jaime is saying for the third time in one morning, with some kind of unending patience that Dan will never understand. "Trust me, the internet will know as soon as we know. Of course it would be nice to keep working - I don't think my character's storyline is anywhere near done!"

She laughs, but Dan can tell that it's forced. It's starting to take a strain on her, too, and he knows that they're all just waiting for something original to come up. Patrick has zoned out, pulling a Full Dan and staring off into space.

There aren't any pins for Dan to comment on this time, even if he'd wanted to. The morning has been slogging, not least since he'd left Phil still asleep in bed with a kiss to his sweet-smelling hair. Dan is so tired, but he knows they're all so tired. There's nothing for them to do but paste smiles on their faces and deflect spoilery questions while they count down the minutes to their free afternoon. Well, Jaime and Patrick have a free afternoon. Dan is going to have his hands full.

His mum had agreed to bring Colin happily and mooned over Thor's photo, but Dan has been perplexed by the fact that she didn't even ask whose dog it was. He wants to tell her, wants to be clear that he hasn't gone and got himself a big responsibility just yet, but there's a larger, pettier part of Dan that wants to keep Phil to himself until his mum is face to face with him. Dan wants to see if she has to school her expression, wants to know if this is an arms-length continuation of their relationship or the start of something rocky and healing.

Since Patrick is off in his own world, Dan tries his best to be present for this interview. He makes the interviewer laugh and tells stupid anecdotes to keep the attention off of everything Jaime won't say about her character arc.

It's a good thing he is paying attention, because Dan isn't sure how he'd have reacted if he'd been caught off guard by, "And as I'm sure you're aware, a lot of fans have been speculating about on-set romances. Is there any truth to those rumours or is that just some fun for the fans?"

Jaime snorts loudly. It's very unladylike. Dan is so, so fond of her.

"Uh, no," says Jaime. "I mean, if you're talking about between the three of us - which I have seen, the shipping isn't as quiet as y'all think it is - then, I'm sorry, but there's no way. I won't even act like there is to keep people guessing. I'm not going to date Daniel or Patrick for, like, twenty thousand reasons. If you want to talk about Tanner, though..."

She winks and trills her real laugh, which makes Dan laugh in turn. Jaime's crush on the man who plays Patrick's father is such an open secret that he's surprised more people don't ask her about it. Maybe they think it's a sensitive or uncomfortable subject, but Jaime's got no compunctions about loudly fancying someone who is both a decade older than her and married. The interviewer's laugh is a bit less genuine.

"Really?" he asks, sounding skeptical enough that Dan wonders if he ought to be offended. "And the two of you think the same? No chance?"

What? If they did want to be with Jaime, why the fuck would they say that in an interview right after she'd denounced them as romantic interests? Dan wonders if this guy understands that's an insane thing to expect, or if he's just trying to get a reaction out of them.

"Er, yeah," Dan says. He looks at his costars for backup. Jaime shrugs, and Patrick seems to have only just realised he's being spoken to and has the panic of 'what was just asked of me?' in his eyes that Dan is all too familiar with. He decides to word his answer clearly enough that he can help get Patrick up to speed as well. "I mean, like, we're all just good friends. I don't think any of us have any interest in more than that. And honestly, if we did disagree with Jaime, we wouldn't force our feelings on her anyway. That'd be fuc- I mean, that would be messed up."

He sees the glint of triumph in the interviewer's face and groans internally. Fuck, he should have stayed in bed.

"Interesting," he says, "that you've already thought about a situation where you have unrequited feelings for your on-screen girlfriend?"

Yeah, Dan thinks. Super interesting. He's kissed Jaime a thousand fucking times for the camera and it doesn't do anything for him, thanks ever so. He sighs and runs a hand through his straightened fringe so he doesn't slap himself in the face for opening this can of worms.

"Look, I get that a lot of fans want to know," Dan says, keeping his tone as light as possible. "The thing is that I'd like to keep my personal life private. I'm happy to tell you that it doesn't involve Jaime in any way, though."

"I'm fine with my personal life being public," Patrick deadpans. "There's nothing going on in it and that's how I like it. We're all equally pathetic that way, right?"

"Oi," Dan says, unable to hide his offense. The lack of sleep is really making his filter drop, and that's dangerous.

Jaime throws him a life vest before the interviewer can jump on his reaction, patting Dan's knee and saying, "You know, Patrick, some of us are pathetic in many more ways. Like, do you remember the time..."

And off she goes, weaving a story about Dan making an ass of himself. He interjects at all the right moments, laughs and groans in equal measure, covers his face when he starts to legitimately blush at the memory of an entire Starbucks thinking he'd gone insane.

He's comfortable with sharing that amount with his fans, he thinks. He's not dating Jaime, he never will be dating Jaime, and he's a private person. That's really all they need to know for now.

[pisati]

december’s only just started but I think now’s a good a time as any to start a 2019 recap. 

I don’t remember much of the first half of this year, if I’m honest. I remember it starting in a pretty dark place. I do remember starting talking to Gavin at the tail end of 2018; that was honestly a light spot in that space of time. I’d really been through it last year, and it was so nice and refreshing to talk to someone who genuinely seemed to care, who was genuinely interested in what I had to say and was genuinely curious about me. I felt kind of weird about that level of attention at first, but now I miss it. time’s gone on, what can I say, maybe I’m a little attached. not painfully so, but. this is someone I really do care about a lot.

which is why I’m still pretty regretful about january. I still don’t really know what happened over festivus weekend. I’d been so upset for so long, and next thing I know it’s back to the usual. but it was just.. nothing. I felt blank. my heart dropped into my stomach the next day once I realized how something that felt so insignificant could be so hurtful, and honestly I spent all of festivus in that dead zone at T’s house just really upset with myself. I don’t know how much I would’ve enjoyed it even if that hadn’t happened. 

my depression was really bad. I remember my emotions being all over the place. I remember drinking and eating bundt cake alone at home in my bathtub on valentines day. I remember sending some messages I kind of regret, others just for fun, because fuck it, why not? I remember spending a lot of time in bed. a lot of time trying to reassure myself that I hadn’t done irreversible damage; that I hadn’t fucked up everything as per the usual. journaling, trying to keep my mood up above rock bottom. I was fostering that litter of rats early in the year, and that felt like a whirlwind. I remember going out to dinner with a friend, and coming home, even after having a good night, in a horribly sad mood. I barely remember any of the rest of it. 

I’m sure some good things happened earlier in the year too. one of the few things keeping me sane, besides my rats, was waking up in the middle of the night to snapchat and whatsapp messages from Gavin. I was a complete mess, but having someone consistently showing me they cared and actually wanted to.. I don’t know, follow all my social media, get to know me, all that. it was nice. I remember having a real bad day mood-wise and going to yoga with charlotte, and coming back to a message that I was the ~some kinda angel~ he’d been dreaming about. amazing how something like that can pick you right up. I remember a lot of voice clips; he was real excited to hear my voice the first time. I don’t much care for my voice, but... that enthusiasm gave me a little more confidence to do more song covers. I hadn’t recorded that many in years, if ever.

I think I went to a few shows earlier in the year. I got to meet Phoebe Bridgers, which was so cool. Carmen took me back out to Baltimore after I’d just seen Hozier, and we saw Weezer and The Pixies. and I got to hear all about her girlfriend troubles and her adventures in Cuba. it was really nice reconnecting with a friend, hearing how she’s been trying to do better for herself, and she really is. I can’t say I’m not a little jealous of her; her confidence and radiance; but I’m also really proud of her too.

I started my mood tracker app in february, and I think I started seeing my psychiatrist not long after that. I’m still amazed she started me on something that didn’t make me sick, and might actually be working for me. I’m still recalling that one night I had, must’ve been february. I felt absolutely godawful, and nothing helped. it wasn’t anything in particular, I just felt Bad. I wouldn’t have done anything stupid, but I also felt for a minute like it’d never go away. I tried everything. I tried a bath, possibly a face mask. I tried writing, I think. I tried music. I even put on a disney movie or two like I would if I were feeling sick (I rarely ever watch anything disney, but when I get panicky from nausea I need something comforting). nothing helped. that I think is what prompted me to go to a psychiatrist this time. I hadn’t been in that deep of a pit in a long time.

things started to pick up with the weather. I felt myself balance out. I really thought for a minute that I was going to scare Gavin away with my erratic moods, and I thought he had this perception of me that I was some kinda crazy or overemotional or whatever else... but I was just in a real bad spot. I’m still grateful that he stuck by me through all that, and wasn’t too weirded out by me for it to be actually exciting when I got my plane tickets to Scotland. I was really excited too, but of course kind of nervous because I’d never been that far away from home by myself before. 

I remember doing a good bit of volunteering, but I was really tired and couldn’t keep up with much more than one day a week. my energy levels were worrying. I know I saw a few doctors, because thankfully I had the time, but they weren’t terribly helpful. 

I’m sure I went to more shows. I lost my Louie in June, not long after his second birthday. that was heart-shattering. I wasn’t expecting it from him; he was just fine. he just had a lump removed from his tail. he was such a happy, sweet boy. I couldn’t believe one minute he was snuggling with his cagemates, and the next I was holding his tiny little body in my hands, trying to get CPR to work, watching the life leave his eyes. taking him to the crematory was hard. picking up his ashes was hard. everything about it was hard. but I had to keep going. I wasn’t expecting that at all, and I was so scared Ollie would be alone, because Fitzie’s time was coming fast too. he’d been deteriorating over the course of the year and I just knew it was only a matter of months. his legs were going, and he couldn’t clean himself. towards the end I had to check his privates at least once a day; male rats get buildup of various fluids, oil, and skin cells, and those plugs can block their urethras. they generally clean it themselves, but when they get so old they can’t do it. so it was up to me to pull it out. I can’t say it wasn’t weirdly satisfying, kind of in the same way that popping a big pimple is satisfying, but it was definitely gross.

so I looked for more rats to adopt. and by some miracle, just like the day after Marty passed, I found a brand new litter posted by the rescue some of my fosters went to. I went to meet the baby boys and picked two, and while I probably could’ve picked a better match... I love my Harper and Micah to bits. they’ve got such personalities on them.

but of course, nothing is ever convenient. right after I adopted them (because I had to go through such a long adoption process; I could’ve had more time otherwise), I had to go to farm jam. I was a little over-prepared this year, but I’m glad I got myself a nice tent and prepared for rain. farm jam honestly wasn’t that great this year, though. my friends wanted to hang out with each other, hardly anyone talked to me, and their friends from other places that I didn’t even know had other friends that they brought to our campsite, so there were a lot of strangers around. not that that’s a bad thing, but... I just felt uncomfortable. everything is so different now. not to mention I just felt really alone. people talked to me when they needed to. I ended up actually pretty bored; I’d brought some things to keep myself entertained, but I was asleep before midnight every night because there was only so much I felt like staying awake for by myself. there was one night I was just really upset, so I made myself a quick dinner and shut myself in my tent while everyone else was up all night. I read by lantern-light, put in my earplugs after I was tired enough, and went to sleep. I was ready to be home again. I’m not sure if I want to go again next year. I like farm jam, truly, but it’s just not fun when you’re surrounded by ‘friends’ who can’t eve be bothered to talk to you. it was painfully obvious that I’m just not part of the group anymore.

I was glad to have Scotland to look forward to. I got to unpack and repack; thankfully I was smart enough to make packing lists before I even left for farm jam. I was nervous as all hell once I got to BWI and found my terminal, and once I landed in JFK I was trying real hard not to call my mom like I usually do when I get nervous. I get the travel jitters pretty bad. but I took some zzzquil before I got on the plane, and since I’d already been up all day I was grateful to sleep through a good bit of the 5.5 hour flight. I managed to stave off jet lag by staying up for another full day, but I can’t say I enjoyed it, ha.

I did enjoy everything else about that trip, though. I definitely had plenty of high points in my year (much more than last year, for sure), but this trip was probably the best. I know I wasn’t the most expressive (I guess I’ve learned not to be?), but I loved it there. I also know I got real lucky with the weather, so it’s not always as gorgeous as it was when I visited, but it really was lovely. I’d love to go back to Gourock one of these days. sit on the shore; a little slice of such a big world. I wouldn’t have wanted to skip rocks with much of anyone else.

I had a moment while I was catching my breath in Edinburgh; I’d gotten the tiniest bit lost and wound up in the park across the street from the Botanic Gardens, so I sat on a bench for a bit so I wouldn’t look weird. after a while I got up and crossed a big football field to get back where I was trying to go, and I remember looking up at the sky for a split second, and it really hit me that I was alone. that was the furthest away I’d been from home by myself, and I was in a city 2 hours away from the only other person I knew for thousands of miles. it wasn’t scary, necessarily. not even lonely. I think that feeling would’ve given me anxiety in the past. it was just... a profound aloneness. 

I was really proud of myself for tackling Edinburgh by myself. figuring out the trains, going to see the castle, managing to avoid looking like a tourist so nobody hassled me, finding a little record shop to browse through, walking around the gardens alone. I was in so much pain I couldn’t even believe it, though. I’m amazed I made it back to the train without my leg bones breaking through my heels, and amazed I could even still walk by the time I got back to Gourock. my hips were so stiff and every step was hard. I know I pushed it. but it was so worth it.

I miss the feeling. that no-obligations feeling; being able to do pretty much anything we wanted because it was vacation time. I do remember feeling bad, not knowing what it was that I must’ve said or done (because why else would you go quiet on me?). that wasn’t so fun. but I know I’m not unreasonable. I’m not hard to talk to, I don’t think. I don’t explode over little things; I’d much rather talk through them than be left wondering what I did wrong, and then do it again. I don’t mean to be rude or mean or anything like that. we grew up with very different perceptions of things but I want to be on the same page, and sometimes that means being a little more conscious of what I say and do.

I wasn’t really looking forward to coming home, but thankfully I had a little bit more down time before I started my new job. and ever since the end of august, I’ve been in work mode, it feels like. I’ve tried to keep up with volunteering, I’ve kept myself entertained sending packages out to Scotland (can’t say I’m a fan of international shipping costs though), and I’ve dealt with the loss of a few pets. I’ve been lucky enough to have my mom’s help with moving out, and I feel like my meds are really helping me now too. I feel a lot more balanced out than I did, and having such a good work environment is helping immensely. I’m still not quite where I want to be, but I feel better than I have in years both mentally and emotionally.

the emotional front has changed too. back at the beginning of the year, I was so messed up, still. there was a lot of residual hurt after the 2 years or so prior, but I was also still super depressed. but the waters have calmed, and I’ve found that I’m not completely alone, necessarily. I have the hope that I have one person in my life now that won’t give up on me. I’ve had... something like a year now of something relatively consistent. I feel like I’ve been able to build some trust, and like I’m slowly chipping away at these walls I’ve had built up. for the first time in years I’m actually kind of upset about feeling lonely. for the first time in years I’m not feeling sick to my stomach thinking about holding a hand, or someone holding me, or, god forbid, even kissing someone. I might even want that. and it’s weird to me, now, because it almost seems out-of-character, since I’ve been so messed up for so long. but this isn’t out-of-character, it’s the character I used to be before things all went sideways. I’ve had this image of being distant and detached and repulsed and unfortunately that ends up getting tied to the fact that I’m asexual (though in actuality they’re not related). but I know that’s not me. I know my asexuality is just a fact about my attraction to other people, and it has little to do with my behavior. it’s weird to me, feeling like this again, but I’m so relieved the damage might not have been permanent. it helps that my memory is such garbage. hard to remember how to feel fucked up when you can’t hardly remember how you got there to begin with.

maybe my year will end on a little brighter note. I’m seeing a new rheumatologist on new years eve. I hope a few people will come visit for new years. I’ve got crafts to do and things to keep myself busy with. I hope Gavin will want to skype before the end of the year, but I get not feeling good. I get that talking takes energy. sometimes I feel like I just take a lot of energy to interact with, so I’m trying not to be annoying. I’m fine doing my own thing, as I have been. but I do miss his [virtual] company. it’s getting a lot more obvious since moving out how really quiet and lonely it is by myself, and I have this feeling in the bit of my stomach that I’d feel a lot better if I could share this space with someone. sometimes I just want to show someone something, make them smile, talk about little nothings. and I don’t have that right now. I’m trying to let little things make me happy and let that be good enough, but it’s hard sometimes. it would just be really nice to be able to rest my head on a shoulder. to laugh about a dumb tv show with someone. even though I feel a lot better than I used to when I missed people, things sometimes just aren’t as good alone.

a lot of this year felt really foggy. but I’m glad to be where I am, even though it’s making me nervous. I hope I’m putting a good foot forward. and I hope 2020 brings more growth and healing. I hope one of these days I can learn to be the kind of person I want to be, and that I can be good for someone else too. so I can just know that to at least one person I’m not completely insufferable. so I don’t have to be so afraid that I’m just going to drive people away so I self-isolate. I’m doing a lot better about the negative thoughts, but I want to keep improving on that too. I have a lot of work to do, but I want to do it. it’s scary to feel like I’m doing so much alone. it’s sad knowing everyone else is caught up in their own lives, but at least most of them have someone else. it hits me sometimes how really, really lonely it is to have your own life but completely alone. I don’t mind being single. but it would be nice to come home to someone I love. someone that isn’t my rats, though of course they brighten my day no matter what, ha.

so. yeah. I’m a little hopeful. I want to get my shit figured out a little bit more. it’d be real nice to go back to Scotland too, but I might have to put that idea on hold til my life balances out a little more. I’m just going one day at a time right now. I’m doing my best. and thankfully my best is getting a little better. I want to keep that up.

[teaplease1717]

Gosling Chapter 2

Welcome back! This is my day two entry for 2019 Fluff Week. The theme is unlikely friendships. This is more of a buildup chapter, but hopefully you will still find some of the parts cute.

Before we get started, thank you everyone for all your love and support! It means so much to me! And big thank you again to my awesome beta, EmberStork.

Link to part 1 of 5: https://teaplease1717.tumblr.com/post/185652318716/gosling-ch-1

Disclaimer: Story is mine but TodoMomo and the rest of the characters of Boku no Hero are not…

Xxxxx

The class 1-A dormitory was large but practical. Structured to look like a U, the boys dorms were on the left and the girls on the right. The common area connected the two sides with a large open floor plan that included a fully stocked kitchen, multiple tables and a 60 inch TV surrounded by couches and chairs.

At the moment, the twenty students that made up class 1-A had begun to squeeze onto those couches. No, nineteen. Shouto’s heart tightened as he looked down at the young child cradled on his chest.

“Awww, she’s so cute!” Ashido Mina said, plopping down next to him and leaning in, not caring about Shouto’s personal space as she looked at the child. A smile spread on her pink lips. “What’s your name?” Ashido asked, poking at the child’s foot.

“Yes! Yes! Tell us your name,” Hagakure Toru, echoed appearing like magic next to Ashido (or maybe she had been there the entire time, Shouto didn’t know). Soon all the girls from class 1-A had crowded around him and were cooing and fussing with the child.

Shouto felt his shirt bunch in her small hands and tightened his hold.

“Maybe Momo-chan is embarrassed,” Asui Tsuyu said, a finger resting on her chin in thought.

Uraraka Ochako squealed, smiling happily and clapping her hands together. “That’s too cute!”

Yaoyorozu buried her face further into his shoulder.

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed. We just want to be your friends. I’m Jirou Kyouka. What’s your name?” Jirou asked, her voice softening.

After a pause, the child pushed slightly against his chest and Shouto loosened his hold so she could pull back. Her big, black eyes looked up at him as if asking for permission. When Shouto didn’t respond, a small, embarrassed smile spread across her lips and she mumbled “Momo” before falling forward and burying her face into the crook of his neck.

The girls surrounding him squealed.

Shouto felt a small half-smile pull at the corners of his lips.

“Attention! Ashido-san. Hagakure-san calm down. Everyone sit down,” ordered a tall boy with a wide frame and black hair parted neatly to the left of his head. His rectangular glasses slipped down his nose as he chopped his hand through the air to gain order. “As you know there has been an accident and Yaoyorozu…”

“You make it sound like she’s dead,” Ashido interrupted, leaning back on the couch to poke at Yaoyorozu’s clothes. “Anyways, whose decision was it to get her the All Might onesie?” She asked, cocking her head as she looked over Shouto at Jirou.

“Don’t look at me. You can thank Kaminari for that,” Jirou replied, her ear jack pointing across the room.

“Hey,” Kaminari said from the opposite couch. “You sent me alone and I panicked. But you have to admit, it’s an awesome outfit! Who doesn’t like All Might? Most of my boxers have him on them.”

“Ewww! Too much information,” Jirou laughed from behind her hand.

Shouto deadpanned as he imagined All Might’s signature smile on Kaminari’s crotch.

“Stop your whining and get to the point,” snapped a boy with spiky, blonde hair and red eyes. Obviously fed up with the banter, Bakugo leaned forward, placing his elbows on his spread legs he shot a glare across the room at Shouto. “What the hell happened half and half?”

Shouto’s eyes narrowed.

Bakugo’s question grated on his nerves. As if the whole situation was his fault.

It wasn’t like he wanted Yaoyorozu to be hit with the kid’s quirk. And it wasn’t like he wanted to be the one stuck taking care of her either.

Shouto’s chest tightened. He was the least qualified to care for another. Endeavor had made sure of that. In all likelihood he’d probably just screw up and make her cry like he had his mother. As if feeling his frustration, the midnight black head pulled back and onyx eyes looked owlishly up at him. “Are you mad? Did I do something wrong?” Yaoyorozu asked, her voice tilting with the cadence of a toddler.

The girls surrounding him immediately began to coo at the three year old. Shouto ignored them as he pulled Yaoyorozu back into his chest. “No, I’m not mad.” He said, giving her a small squeeze. After a second, pudgy arms wrapped tentatively around his neck. Shouto felt the anger drain from him. Even as a child, Yaoyorozu was always worried about others.

Iida coughed, bringing his attention back to the front of the room. “That’s right, perfect segway Bakugo-kun. I’m going to turn it over to Mineta-kun who will talk us through the events of this afternoon,” Iida said, stepping back as a small boy with grape like hair stood up and cleared his throat behind his hand.

“At about 0300 a group of us went to the arcade, then, at about 0330 a group of kids came into the arcade and one of them used his quirk to reverse Yaomomo back to a child. We think between 3 or 4 years old.”

“We also know from discussions with the bra-” Mineta faked a cough. “The kid’s mother and observation that Yaomomo will stay a kid for the next 24 to 48 hours, has lost the majority of her memories after age 3 and will only follow around the first person she saw when turned. As such, we have dubbed this the duckling quirk.”

“Why? Ducks don’t follow the first person they see. Isn’t it more like a gosling?” asked Sero Hanata.

“That’s true kero,” said Asui. A murmur of agreement rustled through the students.

“Quiet! Quiet! Gosling or duckling; who cares? The problem is that Yaomomo’s hot body is gone!”

Shouto frowned. It was no secret that Mineta had lecherous tendencies and had tried to prey on Yaoyorozu over the last three years. Using her innocence and naivety to trick her into falling for his plans. Anger welled up inside him at the memories and he felt the familiar chill of his quirk but when he looked down nothing was there.

“So what do we do now?” asked Ochako hesitantly.

Midoriya fidgeted next to her. “I don’t know. I…I guess just wait?” he said, his eyes dropping to the floor.

Heated discussion broke out on what to do next. Shouto sighed, he wished Yaoyorozu was here. She always knew what to do. She was reliable and mature and that’s why he trusted her. His chest tightened strangely at the thought of her.

“What about changing her back? Don’t quirks have a limit or something? Didn’t you say something like that Bakugo? Back during the sports festival.” Kirishima asked, turning to Bakugo.

“That was different dumbass.”

Midoriya looked up. “Technically that could work,” he said, rubbing his chin in thought. “Usually all quirks can be reversed or weakened one way or another. Like Mineta-kun’s quirk can be countered by fire or ice. Maybe if -”

“Midoriya,” The teenagers looked up. Standing in the doorway was Aizawa Shoto, their homeroom teacher. His tired eyes narrowed on Midoriya. “Time altering quirks are extremely sensitive. If forcibly reversed they could do permanent damage.“

Shouto’s throat felt dry. Aizawa continued.

"Iida already informed me of the situation,” Aizawa said, his gaze leaving Midoriya to sweep over the rest of the class. “It’s best not to try anything extreme, unless any of you are looking to adopt.”

“We’d never do anything to hurt Yaomomo,” Jirou said, a flush had worked its way over her face at the unspoken accusation. Shouto saw some of the other students nod in agreement.

“But what if we just try something easy to turn her back, like trying to get her memories back with games or something?” Kamanari asked.

Aizawa sighed. “That should be fine. Just nothing that would endanger her or yourselves. And don’t have her practice her quirk,“ he ordered, his voice sounded more tired than usual. A murmur of agreement passed through the students. "I’ll be back later to check in on her and I’ll bring dinner for the rest of you. In the meantime don’t go out and don’t do anything stupid.”

The class nodded again.

"Iida, notify me if anything in Yaoyorozu’s condition changes.”

Iida saluted (yes, sir!). Aizawa stared at his class for another moment before turning around and leaving as silently as he had entered.

The tension in the room visibly relaxed.

“Yeah! Free food!” Kaminari, Ashido and Mineta shouted.

“But that’s one powerful quirk. I can only imagine if the kid becomes a villain,” said Sero thoughtfully.

“That’s true but we don’t know how it works, it could just turn whoever he touches his age,” said Midoriya.

“Hey! Focus on one thing at a time nerd,” Bakugo barked and for once Shouto agreed with Lord Explosion Murder. They needed to get Yaoyorozu back and soon. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to take care of her like this. He was already afraid his hand crushing curse had infected her. If he made her cry, he’d never forgive himself. Shouto gulped.

“Todoroki-kun? Are you alright?” Midoriya asked, concern evident on his face. “Don’t worry. I think it’s still worth it if we try and get Yaoyorozu back but, if we can’t, it’s only for a day or two and we’ll all be around to help out. Or I mean I don’t mind helping,” he said bashfully, rubbing the back of his head.

“Don’t back down Midoriya! It’s not very manly,” said Kirishima punching his fist into his other hand.

“Yes, as class president, it is my duty to help all my classmates. You can count on me,” said Iida, adjusting his glasses.

“And me too,” Uraraka smiled.

“Yeah, as friends I don’t mind helping out too Todoroki,” Mineta said, nodding in agreement. Shouto looked down at Yaoyorozu. He had been forced to grow up in isolation. Training until his body nearly broke but now he wasn’t alone.

Yaoyorozu was looking up at him with a big smile. Absently, he smoothed down some of her hair as the rest of the class joined in agreeing to help anyway they could. Their support filled him with warmth. Friends. He had never thought he’d be so lucky to have so many people that would care and support him. He didn’t have to do this alone. “Thanks.”

“Good! Now let’s begin operation get Yaomomo’s boobs back!” Mineta said, pumping his fist into the air.

Shouto internally grimaced. No one said he had to like all of his friends.

Xxxx

Second chapter done. Sorry, not too much fluff in this one but don’t worry the cuteness will increase in the next chapter. Thanks everyone for all your support! Your feedback/kudos are always appreciated!

@bnha-fluff-week

[littlesilverplatinum]

The Years it Takes to Perfect a Craft

---

The slow, methodical tick of his analog watch counted the third hour to be had. Three hours ago, a man he knew nothing about had come to his doorstep, disgruntled and hesitant in his manner of speech but with a clear goal in mind nevertheless.

Chronic back pain, he had explained. Nothing a little shock couldn’t heal, surely.

--Hour three was when Koh always, always, wondered if the people he ‘helped’ would wake up or not. In the heat of the moment, when the cords are connected and the metal pads sit dug into the bare skin of whoever needs his help – nothing but the adrenalin of it all fill his mind. A limp body was a man sleeping. A limp body after hour three, could be a corpse.

His breathing was the only thing that filled the crowded room of his apartment. Small, dark and cluttered – that’s what it was. Johanna would’ve never allowed it to be so, but she was not there to scold him for it.

Hugh was his name. Middle-aged like himself – balding, with a noticeable tilt to his walk. As Koh watched the man laid in a mess against the contraption he claimed to heal with, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had a family waiting for him.

No ring on his finger, but that hardly meant anything.

Koh didn’t wear his – even though he very well still could.

It was on aching knees that he stood up, a ghost of a touch to his right ring finger (a twist, a pull) causing the only pause. He treaded through the litter on his floor – the mess he never quite managed to get rid of. --Until he stood before Hugh. A heavy set man, tall enough for him to stand at an almost equal height only when the other is seated. The thought of how never crossed his mind – he had had to carry many different people out of his contraption. Hugh would just be the very next one.

With one arm slung over his shoulder, the other around his waist, Koh carried the robust man. Off his sentence, away to the extra bedroom laid bare save for a small, low bed. The lack of covers, of sheets, did not matter. The stain from previous patients even less so.

It had been an adventure for sure, when he had had to clean the mattress of piss one cold afternoon. It couldn’t really have been helped. A sleeping body could not care for itself when in need. … So, to let go of the buildup of waste really was the only option. Still, as he laid the man onto the stained mattress – Koh hesitated to leave.

Like he had done with so, so many others.

Narrow, charcoal eyes took in the sight before them.

… How long had it been? How long had it been, since he took on the title of an alternative doctor? Years, surely.

Koh would crouch by the makeshift bedding, squatting down with a deep breath and watched the rise and fall of the man’s bulbous chest. He breathed and that was the only sign that he wasn’t damaged.

---

Arthur had been the first client’s name. A friend since he arrived in Hoenn, working the late shifts at the space center. A man with a wife and kid – a son, long since out of his home on a journey to become the greatest. In what, he wasn’t sure. --Probably in the same way all the kids dream to make it big.

Nevertheless… Arthur had suffered a work injury that had left him deaf in one ear. The left, to be precise, and it was always the talk of the evening. How his wife continuously nagged in the wrong ear, which was good as far as he was concerned.

About how he couldn’t properly hear mumbled words, how he was annoyed when people spoke to him on the wrong side.

What he would give to get his hearing back, just to get rid of the disability label.

Koh had nothing to show for his work, at that point. He did what was asked of him on a daily basis. Checked the fuses, the lights – made sure no power was gone and that if there was an outage, the emergency breaks would start running. What he did in the privacy of his own home had never been of interest to anyone but himself.

His attempts at taming electricity at his will had started back in Sinnoh. Perhaps even since Johto – his home region. When he used to have his own Pokémon – they were charged. Wild, untamed. They had harmed him in ways that healed his stutter. --The high of it all still lingered with him. Never had he quite felt so alive, so sure, as he had when coming to after a high voltage shock. His mother had cried against him as she cradled him to her chest, praying in a way he never understood to something he never believed in.

She hadn’t allowed him usage of such types after that.

So when he came of age – was his line of work really that shocking? Sure, he had been no electrician. Yet. More of a janitor type of guy, doing the bidding of the companies running Hearthome City like it was their own personal playground. His ability to work with machines, fixing alarms and lights across the city was the closest he got to experimenting.

There had always been the risk of getting caught, so his playing sat limited.

Until he moved to Twinleaf with his new wife.

Something he never thought himself to do – settle down, be the husband of a household. The responsibility of caring for his young wife – his fling, if he was honest about his feelings back then – was a heavy one. The stress? He healed it with irresponsible actions.

--At the birth of his daughter, he had nothing to strive for. No want, no desire to be part of the life he had. Yet he kept going. For them, perhaps. For the smile of his child.

In this time, he tinkered. Tested, came up with theories. He built his own sound system to play songs for Hikari at age two, though she never had been fully interested in it in the end. His other experiment had been a simpler one… Ones that lacked finesse, sure, but that would yield a result eventually. A metal rod dug into the ground, upon the highest point he could realistically get his daughter to without much energy, time and harm.

-          The rise and fall of Hugh’s chest told him he had time to remember, still. He wouldn’t wake for another hour or so, if even that.

He remembered his words to her like they happened yesterday.

“If I could take you to Mt. Coronet… I would. But this is all I can manage for the moment.”

And for all his fault as a father, as a husband… He had meant those words. The metal rod on the mediocre hill had been a failure for months – it had been stupid, in its own right. He never thought it would work that day, either. A thunderstorm was but a thunderstorm. They happened.

Lightning landing where you wanted it to? Rare. It never happened.

Yet that evening, it had.

It had been his first real success – a goal he had reached, however small. He had managed to make what he wanted happen.

“Hikari, did you see?” He had whispered to her. His hands holding her shoulders right, so small under his hold.

The breathless ‘yes’ of his daughter had been an afterthought in his own excitement. Mattered little, as the beating within his chest raced and the hair on his arms stood on end.

-          He had told the story many times to his co-workers. Spoken in delight, with passion he had

with nothing else, of how he controlled the weather that day.

They never quite believed his story, he knew. Thought it as an old tale he passed on with time itself. And they had no reason to believe him, truly. --He never asked them to, either.

But one evening, as a few too many had been had – Arthur came to crash at his place. Something he never would’ve allowed, had he been any more sober. But stuff like that happened sometimes.

The morning had been awkward. With pounding headaches they had shared a coffee over the kitchen table – littered with notes, batteries of all kind and other such trinkets. Arthur had found it in himself to finger at the pages, flipping through them carefully without a look of interest falling upon his features. Koh had let him. Once the shoes sat on both his feet, Arthur had clasped his shoulder before making his exit.

“Tell me when you have it figured out,” he had commented. The first words between them that day.

… Afterwards, the younger male of the two hadn’t come in to work for a week. Called in sick with the flue, apparently. --Yet he was seen in hardware stores, in secondhand shops and through the blinds of his second-story apartment. Koh sheltered himself for a week, before arriving back at the pub with greasy hair and an unshaven, untamed beard.

The boys had greeted him like it was nothing – a casual hello after no contact whatsoever. But that was just their ways. His dark eyes had singled in on Arthur, who excused himself from the table without much protest.

The two men walked into the street in silence, an understanding coming between them. As the lights of the evening came on, those in the neighboring houses turned off. A shift in atmosphere, a shift in mood.

It was in the echoing stairwell that Arthur spoke.

“Would it really work?”

Koh paused two steps before the landing, knees bent and shoulders hunched. Through the dirtied fringe of his hair, he starred down at Arthur. His yes sat wide, crazed.

“We will just have to see… Wont we?”

That evening, in the silence of his own apartment – Koh thought he had killed a man for the first time in his life.

(And that he would come to describe it as such – as the first time, rather than the only time, was a test to his obsession. That, even if this one resulted in death; he wouldn’t be able to give up his craft even if he killed many more.

The thought of victory, of success, was as addicting as any drug could ever be. A high he dare not come down from, fearing to suffer the withdrawal to the point of his own demise.)

The high voltage directly connected to the elder male’s skull had knocked him clean out of his chair, landing face first onto the dirtied wood flooring of his home. --Arthur hadn’t breathed for an hour, before seemingly – everything started working again.

The wait had been agony. Each half hour he would check for a pulse, then each quarter. Then every minute. Until he couldn’t find it in him to actually… Care. If Arthur would die, then he already would’ve done it – surely. And if he would die anyways – then he sure had taken his sweet time to do so.

---

-          The sharp, shuddering breath of Hugh startled him out of his thoughts. In his daze, he had

taken a fist full of the weathered mattress in his palm and held on tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. For his fingers to go numb. When no further movement came from the other male, he released a breath he hadn’t know he held. The tightness of his chest loosened, went away, as air filled his lungs.

Thirty minutes from then, Hugh woke up. The fastest any of his patients had ever recovered – a curious case, indeed. It usually took half a day, or more.

Koh stood form his crouch, leaning over the man to place both his palms on each of his shoulders. From past experience – waking could be a violent reaction like no other. --But the large male merely blinked to life, a yawn coming over him as though he had just taken a peaceful nap.

Koh was cautious nevertheless.

Hugh’s look, eventually, spoke more words than he ever thought them capable of. ‘Get off me.’

He needn’t.

Hugh was adamant about sitting up, even at youngest protest and insistence to stay on his back. But arguing led nowhere. As the hulking man seated himself, Koh went to fetch him a glass of water to wash down the dryness of his mouth – a small side effect, compared to what could be.

“Slept well, princess?” He asked, handing the clear glass to his guest. A grunt was his only response, one that seemed to quite surprise them both. … It sounded light, not deep or rough. Something that would’ve better matched his given voice.

When Arthur had come to, he had not shown any signs of hurt – that anything was amiss. It was only through continual contact and speaking that Koh came to learn that not only had his deafness been healed – but he had gained something from the experience. Heightened senses, as he had explained. Sometimes, he would catch glimpses of something he came to call rainbow shimmer and in those moments, the world around him would single down into that very special moment. He tasted colors, saw lights he couldn’t explain. --He never could truly describe it in a way that gave it all justice, he said many years later.

He also never experienced it again after that. Faded into nothingness a month after, as though it never had happened in the first place.

So it was with interest – morbid curiosity, perhaps, that Koh watched his new work drink his water. Watched his Adams apple move with each hungry chug. Watched as he tried to speak, but no sound came.

The silence was, quite literally, deafening.

Many emotions crossed the older man’s features, in that moment. That of distress, of worry and… fear. Then, anger, as his gaze was directed towards him.

Koh was forced to his back in an instant, the hulking weight of Hugh too much for him to truly have a fighting chance against. His head hit the adjacent wall, though it was a minor impact compared to his shoulders. Large, rough fists held onto the collar of his shirt as though it was a lifeline, shaking him while no sound came from his rapidly moving lips.

He almost wanted to laugh.

“Does your back still ache?” Koh bit out, between shakes that rattled his jaw. “… Or do you not care for that anymore?”

The shakes, the anger and the annoyance stayed clear and prominent for a few more minutes. A hit was landed to his cheek, though with a lack of real intent of hurting. A retaliation, surely. For all that it was worth. --Once Hugh was off him, Koh shouldered his attire properly once more before standing up. The buttons of his dress shirt was ruined, but he had enough of them to last him a lifetime anyways.

“I know you’re feeling… Distress, in this moment.” He would explain, hands running through his grease laid hair. At the corner of his eye, he caught the other male hold at his throat, trying to force sounds out. Any sound. “But don’t worry. All treatments have a… Side effect, if you will.”

The clear blue gaze of Hugh’s sat narrow and distrusting. A small squawk left his throat – much like the grunt from earlier.

Koh continued. “Your voice will come back in a few days, most likely… It’s temporary.”

Hopefully.

“So… don’t get your panties in a twist about it…”

He was left with no payment that day, but that hardly mattered. He didn’t truly do it for the money – didn’t do it to help people, really. The thrill, the stress – the excitement.

That was the only reason he kept this going.

--Sometimes, during late evenings when sleep eluded him – Koh wondered if he made the right choices in his life. If leaving his family behind was the right choice. If the lack of Johanna – of Hikari, was worth the pleasure he gained.

But, sometimes, as he starred at the old framed picture of the two sitting at his windowsill of the kitchen, he couldn’t remember what was so good about them in the first place.

[idryusan]

liar liar.

@hyukid, halloween party, late into the night, status: extremely drunk ( event )

– dare, tell a lie. 

there’s still a part of san that genuinely hates hyuk. after all, they were friends. back when san was still struggling, trying to piece together this fractured sense of who he was. his self worth. it’s not much better today, but it had all been much more nebulous then. he’d leaned harder on hyuk when he shouldn’t have. but how was he supposed to know he was going to disappear? hypocritical maybe, for those who know san. know the fluctuating way he tosses about like the tides. unruly and forever in misdirection.

but it hadn’t been entirely about affection. physicality. it had been about finding someone while he’d felt lost. and it had been about them leaving at the exact moment that intimacy was founded. those sorts of experiences tunnel their way in. etched in a foundation of a flawed person. all of san’s misgivings are far from hyuk’s fault. but he’s resentful. and resentful of his apparent selective amnesia over san’s existence. 

so he hates him. he does. he hates him because, despite his unwillingness to admit it, he had felt betrayed. he had felt unwanted. not rejection in the classic way. san hadn’t been harboring unwavering affection for hyuk. he wasn’t devastated that they wouldn’t work out in some cliched romantic way. but he was lonely. and he’d all been raised to assume that affection, attention, caring balanced on this careful precipice of deserving, proving his worth. and it toppled. 

maybe he knows better now. maybe he doesn’t. but all that bitter buildup had never been washed away. it just grew acrid, stained at his teeth with unspoken words. 

and now, now he’s drunk. too many drinks followed up with shots and hyuk’s in front of him. a list of stupid dares burned into his brain. and in his addled state, he plucks one from the abyss. finds it funny in some warped sort of way.

tell a lie.

“hyuk. hey, hyuk.” the repetition of the man’s name nearly sounds like a hiccup on the way out. he reaches out to grab a fistful of his sleeve, half for balance and half to pull his attention. “we should talk.” his eyes are rounded, doe eyed and innocent. it looks real. san learned how to do that at sixteen, a test camera pointed a foot away from his face. hyuk should know this. but he probably forgot all those inane stories san unloaded on him years ago. 

he stumbles along with him toward a somewhat-vacant corner. he bites at his lower lip. repetitive. he started doing it a good half hour ago. now his lip’s swollen. a drunken habit. “i just. don’t you like. miss it? don’t you want us to be friends again, too?” he wants to laugh outright, but that would break this clumsily stacked up lie. he’s not sure he’d get those stupid points then. he’s been absolute trash at nearly everything thus far. not that it’s far from predictable.

“i mean, i get it. right? i forgive you. i’m not sure if you even care, but. there you go.”

he doesn’t. he’s not sure he ever will. part of san wants to sucker punch him. if that had been on the dare list, maybe he’d have gone with that instead.

[blairtrabbit]

Thoughts on Goddamn Voltron

1. The treatment of Shiro and Adam as a couple was the stupidest shot at “representation” i think I’ve ever seen and it honestly made me angry. We don’t know anything about Adam. We don’t know anything about him but his name and that he possibly has some sort of relationship with Shiro. We are never even allowed to see them physically touch (because this would be gross I suppose) and when Adam is killed off immediately in the initial invasion there is no emotion to it other than he was someone we were supposed to care about because Shiro cared about him. Or ...so its suggested. Not only is Shiro denied any sort of emotional catharsis after being forced to be stoic and endure unimaginable amounts of physical and mental trauma there is no one waiting for him to come home. They are killed for absolutely no reason aside from creating some bizarre boyfriend in the refrigerator for a character who certain has enough anger at the Galran empire that he doesn’t need anymore. If Adam was introduced to show Shiro was gay then that failed. If Adam was introduced to heighten the stakes that failed too. Adam was created to die for no damn reason and unless he somehow appears in season 8 this kind of shit queer-baiting is un-acceptable...hell even IF he comes back who cares? we aren’t even given the chance to know him as a person so whats to come back? Sidenote: Don’t make Shiro sick with some terrible wasting disease and then NEVER mention it again. What the SHIT. 2. The treatment of Lance is unimaginably cruel and I don’t understand it. In season three Lance proves himself to be a mature member of the team and not only does he help Allura who took his lion he becomes Keith’s right hand after a rocky start. He has shown multiple times that he is vulnerable, once to Keith’s face, and yet his leader and his team constantly question his choices and insult him. It went beyond ribbing this season. It felt like everytime there was a chance for the writers to do it they stuck in a Lance barb. I kept expecting a breakdown a moment where he finally defended himself, walked away or told them that he was tired of it. But that moment never happened. Instead the strong right hand of voltron just takes it and continues to do his job. No matter how many great shots or encouraging comments he makes he never gets fucking complimented. Also the writers seemed more determined then ever to give him absolutely no arc or focus. Which leads me too- 3. Why the hell did Hunk have Lance’s story arc. Theres this thing in writing called “setup and payoff” Its a super simple concept that all writers,especially in film and television, know how to use. You set up a concept early and later on it pays off with an emotional revelation or a character change. In seasons one two and three...even four? Lance was the only one on the crew besides Pidge who talked about his family. We saw them in his memories. he had a scene with Coran where he talked about missing earth. He talked about his mom and so on. That was his starting point and when he gets back to earth it should have been his family in the camps, his speech about being angry about coming back to a peaceful earth and a closed end to his talk with Keith about being a leader and how he respects him as one back in season 3. Having Keith compliment his bravery would cement him as his right hand the person hes SUPPOSED to be closest to on the team. Hunk had no set up for this. He never mentions his family or how much he misses them. He talks about food but for some reason he was given the ending arc that Lance EARNED but wasn’t given. In fact it feels like it was even written for Lance but was changed because they goddamn hate him and decided he doesn’t get an arc fuck you. 4. Hey. Hey Voltron. Its called fucking character development.  If you wanted to make Allura and Lance have a relationship you can’t make them blush in ONE EPISODE and call it development. Why don’t you cut down on the 90 fucking minutes of brain melting action sequences and put in some more character development. You can’t just dedicate the first half of your season to some goofy (lance abusing) comedy then spend the last half in one constant exhausting battle and expect us to give a shit about the cadets or anyone you introduce on earth. To me the stand out episode this season was the one where everyone is floating in space. They had to...INTERACT with each other but even this episode felt empty because Keith was the only one allowed to act out...AGAIN. Where was Lances righteous anger? Or even Allura’s? Why is Hunk stepping into this role as mediator all the sudden? What even lead to that? Was he literally just written into the Lance roles? If you wanted to tear the group down to have them be built back up then you have to do so on equal footing and it felt....tame. Like you didn’t want the kids to worry too much. Stress makes people act in cruel ways sometimes and overcoming it is a part of good character development. Instead it was just some lame foreshadowing about the deux ex machina that was lion summoning. It had so much potential-SO MUCH.

5. Not everybody has to end up in a fucking relationship. Axca? Seriously? Man are you gonna crank out some romance bullshit in season 8 aren’t you voltron? Is that what your gonna do? Make sure everyone gets a set of corresponding genitalia to wrap everything up in a nice straight bow? I’m sure you’ll give Shiro some kind of significant other right? Or maybe just have him smile at a dude ala live action Beauty and the Beast because that's what representation looks like in 2018. 6. Coran not getting to build the spiritual successor of his grandfathers work is kinda bullshit.

He spent literally every season waxing lyrical about how great his pop pop was and how much he wanted to be the one to build something like he did and then the castle is destroyed and I’m like oh man so cool Coran is gonna get his wish.Thats so emotionally rewarding that after all the hero-worship Hes gonna have the opportunity to build a new castle even better than the one his grand-oh -no...ok Sam did it. Yeah ok.

7.YOU CAN’T SPEND ONE EPISODE ON EARTH BEING DESTROYED AND SHOW MAYBE THREE PEOPLE AND EXPECT ANYTHING TO HAVE EMOTIONAL WEIGHT. Hey, remember the movie Independence day? Not a great movie but it actually felt like the world was being invaded. It felt like peoples lives were being interrupted on a large scale and it accomplished this by showing the invasion from multiple pov’s worldwide. Would that have been so hard? Maybe show a little girl at school seeing a Galra ship. A man in Africa? A mother in Russia? Just quick shots. Thats all you need. A few establishing shots to show that people are experiencing something foreign and terrifying. I know its a kids show and you gotta what...keep it Y-7 but the Galra literally killed thousands and thousands of people-possibly millions you can’t just gloss over that. STAKES CAUSE TENSION. WITHOUT STAKES OR JUSTIFICATION A BATTLE IS EMPTY AND POINTLESS.OH ON THAT NOTE. 7. THE BATTLES IN THE LAST EPISODES BECOME RIDICULOUSLY BORING AND REPETITIVE. You can tell what the writers wanted to write. They wanted to write whole scenes where people star trek groaned in chairs and shouted about how much time they had.Because of the season lack of setup or stakes buildup in the previous episodes theres no tension whatsoever. Do I care about the people of earth? No I haven’t even seen them. I care about Shiro and the mains ...not even the cadets. I haven’t seen them interact enough with each other to even establish their personalities. So if the whole earth fries eh...I care more if Shiro is ok because i’ve gotten to know him over time. If the entire battle was to save Shiro from a falling ship (HOW THE FUCK DID HE SURVIVE THAT BTW I GUESS BEING A CLONE MADE HIM IMMORTAL) It would have more weight to it than the entire Hour long clusterfuck that was the battle for Hunk’s Parents, literally the only humans we care about. 8. WORLDBUILDING? HOW ABOUT FUCK YOU. Wow...so WW3 huh. That sounds interesting Voltron you wanna...no? Alright so...Russia is still a country this far in the future? Is China still communist or? Hey...why is this lady the queen of the Garrison? Why is her position so important? Who funds the Garrison? Is it the United States? The UN? Is it an international organization? Who pays the bills? The funding must come from some government who would be curious why you asked for millions of dollars towards all these bizarre supplies that could be used to build the biggest ship ever made.Why is Admiral Sanda god? She keeps threatening to go over their heads in the chain of command but that means that SHE has to report to someone? WHo?? THE PRESIDENT? SOME KIND OF WORLD LEADERSHIP COUNCIL? I know this shit is hard but come ON. Earth is NOT like these alien planets Voltron has been on that have a centralized monarchy or singular race with one central government. If Sanda is worried about causing wars and global panic thats fine but shes the one commiting treason by not reporting to her own superiors and letting the leaders of the free world make decisions on behalf of their own people. One person can’t make all the decisions we call that LAAAAAAAAZZZZYYYYYY. Oh and about Admiral Sanda? 9. Admiral Sanda is the worst villian Voltron ever faced Why did you try and give her a redemption arc? Every decision she made was stupid every choice was just...so dumb. She betrayed everyone and her level of power kept making me go...why...is she the queen of earth? When she died I was like good. What a dumbass. Don’t try and redeem someone who did nothing good in the first place especially if you never established enough world building to show she might have been correct. We can’t just trust TELL you have to SHOW us. 10. If you think the racism against immigrants is bad now I can’t even imagine the civil wars when actual aliens just invite themselves over. 11. Thanks for fucking up our tide systems by parking a fucking Balmera directly in our atmosphere assholes. In conclusion:THANKS I HATE IT.

[the-desolated-quill]

Avengers: Infinity War - Quill’s Quickies (No Spoilers)

Sometimes I think back to when the MCU first started. How excited I was that the Avengers were finally on the big screen. The attention to detail in regards to world building and character dynamics. There was no limit to the possibilities involved here. Us geeks were living the dream. Compare that to the MCU now. A bloated, cynical sequel factory churning out blander and blander movies each year, over-saturating the medium with what is, essentially, glorified B movies. Whenever I think about the MCU nowadays, I recall that scene near the end of The Dark Knight when the Joker says to Batman; “I think you and I are destined to do this forever.” That’s how I feel about Marvel movies now. I just feel this permanent sense of ennui. It’s like being trapped in a loveless marriage. Once there was passion and fireworks, but now the spark has gone out of the relationship and I’m silently praying for some kind of respite that will never come.

Avengers: Infinity War is a landmark movie in more ways than one. It represents the culmination of 10 years worth of collaborative filmmaking, it’s quite possibly the most ambitious crossover to date, but it also in many ways signifies just what a stupid, dull, incoherent mess this shared universe has turned into.

As you can probably tell by now, I didn’t exactly go into this film with high expectations. Going through the MCU in recent years has been like walking through a scorching desert without end. Black Panther provided a kind of temporary oasis, full of palm trees, beautiful lagoons and a luxury spa, but sadly I had to leave this paradise behind to brave the desert wastes once again. And having experienced that moment of sheer bliss in that oasis, the harshness of the desert sands feel all the more unbearable. But even then, as I took my seat in the cinema, I foolishly had a small glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, Infinity War wouldn’t be so bad. It’s directed by the Russo Brothers after all. They made the brilliant Captain America: The Winter Soldier and pleasantly surprised me with Captain America: Civil War. I remember going into Civil War with the same pessimistic feeling, and while it wasn’t a perfect movie by any means, it was a lot better than it had any right to be. If anyone could make Infinity War work, surely it would be them, right?

Sadly it seems we’ve finally found the Russos’ breaking point. Avengers: Infinity War was utterly tedious to sit through. I was bored to tears. Not only was I struggling to make sense of what was going on half the time, I didn’t care about what was going on neither.

Let’s start with the most glaring and obvious problem. The characters. There are WAY too many of them. I swear you could easily have gotten a whole trilogy out of this. In fact I honestly would have preferred that. It would have given the story more room to breathe. Instead everything is just crammed into one overly long film that constantly jumps to different locations every couple of minutes as though the filmmakers have some form of ADHD, and none of the characters are allowed to get any kind of development. In fact they’re not characters at all. They’re chess pieces. They show up on screen, do what the script requires them to do, and then disappear once their purpose has been fulfilled.

There were some moments that could have been more impactful, like scenes involving Thanos and Gamora, Vision and Scarlet Witch, or Loki and Thor, but they don’t have nearly the emotional resonance they should have because they’re essentially fighting for space in this gigantic clusterfuck. Other characters, like Captain America and Black Panther, are forced to become these dull, shallow caricatures because the story just doesn’t have any room for them to really shine or come into their own. The focus isn’t on telling an engaging story or developing the characters, but instead on these massive, computer generated action scenes that I simply don’t give a shit about (in fact the final fight in Wakanda reminded me rather horribly of the battle on Naboo in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace). Not to mention, due to how poorly this whole arc with the Infinity Stones has been handled over the course of these movies, Infinity War spends most of its time explaining to the audience just what the fuck is going on and reminding everyone where all the characters are at. Doctor Strange in particular seems to only be there to provide exposition. (Quick side note, the Eye of Agamotto is an Infinity Stone? I’m sorry, have Marvel Studios ever even so much as glanced at a Doctor Strange comic before?!)

Oh yes. After all my ranting over the years about what a racist piece of shit the Doctor Strange movie is and how I stubbornly refuse to watch it despite being a huge fan of the comics, you’re no doubt wondering what I thought of the Sorcerer Supreme considering this is the first time I’ve properly got to see him in action. He’s... fine, I guess. Benedict Cumberbatch was about as good as I expected him to be, given what he has to work with here. Aside from a bit near the end, they don’t go nearly as psychedelic or as imaginative with the magic as I would have liked them to. All Strange ever seemed to do was just use these glowing disc things or this energy whip. Also the Cloak of Levitation seems to have a mind of its own. I don’t get the purpose behind that at all. But do you know what the biggest problem is with Doctor Strange? The same problem as most of the other male characters. They all sound exactly the fucking same. This is something a few people on Tumblr have commented on before, and it’s really noticeable in this film. The dialogue is practically interchangeable to the point where characters like Strange, Iron Man and Star Lord start to just blur together. There’s no two ways around it. This is just bad writing.

The crappiness isn’t limited to the protagonists neither. No, the villain Thanos is just as shit, although that didn’t come as much of a surprise. He’s meant to be the supposed Big Bad of the MCU, and yet there’s been no buildup whatsoever. In these 19 Marvel movies, Thanos has only appeared twice, both in post credit scenes. We have no idea who the fuck he is or what he’s doing. So the Russos have to shove in a hackneyed backstory and motivation for the fucker, and good God is it bad. Like... insultingly bad. Marvel often like to brag about how they planned all of this from the beginning, but Infinity War proves otherwise. His whole plot doesn’t make any sense and was clearly just pulled out of some hack screenwriter’s nether regions, we don’t fully understand what’s driving him to do something so mind bogglingly daft in the first place, and any attempts to wring any emotion out of us and make us empathise with the prat just end up falling flat on their face. I know Marvel have always had a villain problem, but this is just embarrassing now.

And then there’s the ending. Holy fuck do I hate the ending! Marvel have done some bad shit before, but this has got to be the most insulting thing I think I’ve ever seen from them. Without giving too much away, critics and fans (aka idiots) have been using buzzwords like ‘shocking’ and ‘gamechanging’ to describe the ending, but that’s objectively bollocks. For one thing, the Russos have had ‘gamechanging’ moments in their movies before and they never seem to stick (think back to SHIELD being destroyed in Winter Soldier or Iron Man’s dubious morality in Civil War), but the big pisstake for me is that Marvel have already announced their next set of movies. So we know what happens at the end of Infinity War isn’t permanent... and yet they still expect us to be emotionally devastated by it. Fuck off!

I’ve said a few times in the past that Marvel need to take a break. I’m now going to go one further. Marvel need to stop making movies altogether. 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe needs to end. 

I’m sorry, but I’m just so bloody sick of this. I’m sick of these cut and paste movies with no thought or effort being put into them. I’m sick of Marvel’s cynical greed and utter contempt for their audience. I’m sick of fans and critics kissing their arses and saying that MCU movies are the best when they’re so clearly fucking not. Ever since Doctor Strange came out, I’ve come to the conclusion that nobody is actually watching these movies. They’re basically the cinematic equivalent of dangling your keys in front of a toddlers face. Just show a few pretty colours, some punch-ups and bad jokes, and that should keep the plebs quiet for a couple of hours. But if you were to actually engage your brain, these movies quickly fall apart. I mean just look at the sheer bloody number of news articles discussing what happened leading up to Infinity War and posing theories as to why certain characters behaved the way that they did in the movie. Shouldn’t that give just a little bit of a hint? if your story has become so stupid and convoluted that people have to read news articles and stuff to make any sense of the fucking thing, maybe you’re doing something wrong.

No. That’s it. I’m done. I’m not watching anymore of these bloody movies. Infinity War sucked donkey balls and I never want to see it or any other MCU movie ever again.

[kaoruyogi]

How to Win Wars and Influence Nobles (Ch. 29)

Rating: E for Explicit/NSFW Content!

Check it out on AO3!

You’d think a video game lawyer could just drop into a pseudo-medieval universe filled with magic and demons and be totally okay with it, right?

Nah.

In the wake of her brother, Spencer’s, disappearance, Belle dropped into Thedas with luggage, but without a clue. After a brief but memorable panic attack, she resolved to be the best goddamn lawyer Thedas had ever seen. Even if she was the only goddamn lawyer Thedas had ever seen. And even if that obstinate asshole, Cullen, wouldn’t stop giving her the side-eye every time she walked into a room…Or every time he walked into a room with her in it…Or every time they walked into a room together…Or–Fuck it. You get it.

Chapter 29: Fucking Lying to Fucking Everyone

“Ooh. Ooooh Jesus fucking balls.” Belle reached up and hammered the roof of the carriage with the side of her fist to signal the driver to stop. “Ahhh.” She hissed in a breath.

“Is something the matter?” said Josephine from her seat opposite Belle. The ambassador had long since become accustomed to Belle’s persistently foul mouth, and she no longer got quite so scandalized when Belle issued a string of curses.

Belle hissed in another breath. “Ooh. Gotta pee.” She shut her eyes and tilted her head back. The carriage didn’t stop. It kept rocking away, sloshing the full capacity of her bladder from side to side. “Gotta pee, pee, pee.”

She banged on the ceiling again. “It’s a right fucking now sorta thing, dude!” she said from deep in her diaphragm.

Josie leaned her head out of the small window. “Please stop,” she said just once at a very reasonable volume.

The carriage stopped. Belle squinted her pained gratitude to her friend before flinging the door open. On this stupid carriage ride from Skyhold to Halamshiral, she had gone from thirty-seven weeks pregnant to thirty-eight weeks pregnant. As a result, she had to piss. Always. The only time she didn’t have to piss was the five second window after she had just finished taking a piss. Even then, there was a little tingle. And it was always urgent. There was no slow buildup to the moment her schoolteachers would have called “an emergency,” no ten or twenty minutes during which she could just hold it. There was only ever the terrifying sensation that her bladder would evacuate everywhere and on everything in ten, nine, eight…

She exited the carriage, half hopping and half sliding, like an elephant seal, and she waddled past several Inquisition soldiers toward a small ridge. They saluted her, because of course they did. Only men under Cullen’s instruction would salute a beached whale as it ran past to piss behind a bush.

Belle muttered to herself as she shuffled. “Oh God. OhGodohGodohGodohGod.” Her feet kicked up dirt because her hips and legs had shifted to make bending her knees a gargantuan effort. She ducked behind a shrub just large enough to cover her when she squatted. She was grateful she’d chosen only Antivan-tailored maternity wear to bring to the Winter Palace when she wasn’t in her expanded Inquisition uniform. It was easiest to pull up and down. Fereldan would have been better, but she didn’t want to piss any Orlesians off. Of the more neutral nations’ alternatives, Antiva’s puffed sleeves and empire waisted long gowns seemed the best option. Nevarrans cut their pregnant women’s clothes too tight, and they seemed to enjoy slapping little pieces of armor on everything. Tevinter, aside from being a non-option because it was Tevinter, belted their garb to the point of ridiculousness. Rivaini maternity gowns were essentially shifts, meant for an easy transition from pregnancy to nursing—Belle ordered several of them in bright colors for use at Skyhold. The Anderfells didn’t send a tailor.

When Belle finished, and her bladder twinge returned to a level that didn’t induce blind panic, she tottered back toward her carriage at the center of the caravan. Cullen stood beside his blue roan stallion, both having taken up a strategic position between her and the blissful discomfort of her seat. Her husband’s face was marked up with stress, pinched and crinkled in too many places.

“Are you alright?” he said when she was still a few feet away. “Did something happen?”

Belle rolled her eyes. “Same thing that happened the last fifty billion hojillion times I stopped the caravan. I had to pee. She’s sitting on my fucking bladder.” She gave him a peck on the lips when she got close enough. “You gotta quit worrying.”

Some of the crinkles smoothed. “You can hardly blame me. She’s due in two weeks’ time. Rosalie was born two weeks before she was expected.”

“That may be true, but Rosalie was baby number four. First babies are pretty much always late. I bet Mia was late.”

“By nearly a week.”

“See? We’ll be in Halamshiral in a couple hours, and this Exalted Council thing should only last a few days. Then we’ll turn around and be home in Skyhold just in time to wait another week. So chill.”

Belle kissed him again, and he held her hand to help her back into the carriage before the caravan spurred on. With the rocking recommenced, she retreated into her thoughts for a while. If she was honest, she was as worried as Cullen about when their baby would decide to burst onto the scene. She believed what she’d said. Most first babies arrived late. But there was no certainty in those statistics. If anything, the fact that every first baby she’d ever met came late, herself included, meant she was bound to be the exception that proved the rule.

She was all too glad to be torn from her spiraling thoughts when Josie suggested they go over their strategy once more before they reached the edge of the city. Max would lead the negotiations as the figurehead of the organization, and he understood enough about nobility from his upbringing to do a fair job with some assistance. Belle and Josie were there to back him up and chime in as needed.

Belle’s extra duties included playing the roles of both the sympathetic pregnant woman and the pitbull attorney. She was happy enough to do the latter, should the opportunity arise, but the former annoyed her. She hated playing the pregnancy pity card when it came to matters of professionalism. In Washington, an opposing counsellor once told her to take a break—not asked, told—and she threatened to have him sanctioned for discrimination. It hadn’t mattered one iota that she really needed to piss at the time.

The towering white and gold heights of the Winter Palace came over the horizon first, and soon the low built slums of the rest of Halamshiral appeared. As the Inquisition retinue rolled through the city streets, Belle noted that not enough had changed since Max helped elevate Briala into power behind Celene and Gaspard. The elves living within the city looked to be as impoverished as ever. Children, thin even for their lithe builds and covered in filth, stared in awe of the soldiers and carriages as they passed. The whole situation nauseated Belle. It felt too familiar. She watched as Sera, who had been riding ahead near Max and Cassandra, stopped her horse to lean down and speak to two or three of the children and toss them a bag of coin for whatever information they’d passed along.

As the gates of the Winter Palace closed behind the last of the Inquisition soldiers, Belle couldn’t help but feel hypocritical. With all the power she’d been granted, she was there for a purpose other than freeing the impoverished from their Thedosian ghettos. In that moment, her duties felt selfish. The gates ensconced the guilty away from their atrocities and their neglect, and now she was locked in with the monsters, trapped and masquerading as one of them. It was no wonder Cullen hated the nobility with such fervor.

Josephine accompanied Max around the gardens to socialize with the nobles whose asses he was expected to kiss. The two had become much more open with their relationship while Belle was gone, and they allowed each other a number of adorable favors and little intimacies that made her smile from across the courtyard. It brought her some relief to see nobles from all over Thedas seem to be kind and accepting of the full-bloomed love between the Inquisitor and his ambassador.

Cullen helped Belle out of the carriage and saw to it she was hydrated. He fetched two dainty glasses of water, gave one to her, and held the other until she needed it. He asked after her welfare every few minutes. It was very sweet, but he was helicoptering. She couldn’t entirely blame him, though. She had been stabbed the last time they were there, after all. It made her feel safer to have him so close, especially knowing he wouldn’t be in the chamber for most of the Exalted Council’s proceedings. So she let him hover.

They found all their friends as they meandered and mingled. Varric had been waiting just inside the gates to waylay everyone for a little while with all his new stories of being Viscount. Belle told him she would have hugged him, but that she was pretty sure her belly would knock him flat on his ass. He said it wouldn’t have been the first time.

Thom Rainier had finally decided to go by his real name, and he gave Cullen a jolt of a handshake when they met again. He congratulated them on the pregnancy and caught them up on his dealings of the past two years. Belle was pleased to hear of all the good work he’d being doing with the surviving men from his battalion and with those imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. She offered her legal assistance should he ever find someone who might benefit from it, and he told her he would start a list form which she could take her pick. A scintilla of regret eked into the back of her mind at the thought of so much pro bono.

Vivienne had remained very much herself with the passage of time. She proffered her felicitations for the marriage and pregnancy, but she made an offhanded remark about Belle’s willingness to marry down. Belle reminded her Cullen was at least five inches taller, which meant she’d married quite a ways up. Vivienne offered to treat her to a proper spa day after the baby was born, and she gave Cullen a backhanded compliment about the inevitable but conciliatory handsomeness of the child. The couple moved on with a foul taste in their mouths and promises of free pampering. At least they had broken even with the woman.

Dorian and Iron Bull lingered near one another in the tavern, making eyes across the room while everyone caught up. “You’ve become rather rotund since the last time I saw you,” said Dorian with a jaunty lift of an eyebrow.

“And somehow you’ve become even shinier,” said Belle. She poked one of the dozen little silvery diamond plates on his chest.

He laughed and drew her into his arms. “I have missed you very much, you know. Things can get very dull without your sharp tongue around.”

“I doubt anything could be dull with his sharp tongue around.” She stuck out a thumb toward Bull.

“Ah.” Dorian cleared his throat. “Yes, well, never dull there.”

“I am glad you two found each other,” said Cullen, much to Belle’s grinning surprise. “It’s good to know you’ve found something close to the happiness I feel with Belle.”

Dorian rolled his eyes and groaned. “Maferath’s balls, Commander. Must you always be so sweet and endearing? It’s enough to make my teeth rot.”

“Oh shush, butthead,” said Belle as she let her head fall to rest on Cullen’s shoulder. “I like him sweet and endearing. Don’t ruin him.”

The newly appointed Magister laughed. “I’m not the one who ruined him. The Cullen I first met would have run away gagging if he heard someone talking like that. You, my dear, are the one who ruined him.”

“Fine. So don’t un-ruin him.”

“I’m still standing right here,” said Cullen.

“Cutting your usual dashing figure. I will miss you both when I return home at the end of all this. Bull and I can never seem to finish a game of chess.”

“Then stop playing strip chess you fucking fiend,” said Belle.

“Now let’s not be hasty.”

“How long will you be in Tevinter?” said Cullen.

“For the foreseeable future, I’m afraid. If I truly mean to change things, I need to do my part in the changing. You two could always visit. I go to the border of the Free Marches several times a month if you’re not inclined to fear for your life every moment in Minrathous.”

“For your chess games, huh?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Dorian peacocked a little.

“We’ll see what we can do after she gets here in a few weeks.” Belle rubbed a single circle over her belly. “Shit’s about to get weird.”

A doleful, longing expression passed over his face. “You know, I envy you that.”

“You guys could always adopt. I’m sure there are a zillion little orphan boys and girls who would kill for such rad dads. And you know you’d be able to protect them cause Bull’s a fucking murder machine. You’re no slouch in the death-dealing department, either, mind you.”

He chuckled. “Perhaps once I’ve managed to fix enough that Bull can actually live in Minrathous. But for now, I’ll settle for seeing your little bundle grow up on your very frequent visits.” He glanced in Bull’s direction, and Belle’s eyes followed. Bull tilted his head toward the door and stood. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’m feeling a bit exhausted from my travels and am in rather desperate need of a long nap.”

Belle nodded with a licentious smile. “Oh I’ll bet. A real long nap. I bet you’ll feel so good after your real long nap. Looonn—”

“You are one of my dearest friends. With that in mind, do shut up.”

She giggled, and he headed for the exit. She called out after him. “Enjoy your long nap!” He swatted the air behind him before vanishing through the doorway. She took a sip of the second glass of water she’d finally removed from her husband’s hand.

“I suppose that’s one more chess game they won’t finish,” said Cullen.

Belle spat her water everywhere.

After she finished apologizing to the three people she’d moistened, and after sitting with Cole to listen to some of Maryden’s newest tunes, Belle and Cullen decided to peruse the wares of the merchants set up in the courtyard for the occasion. The goods were mostly useless. Baubles and vanity weapons meant to hang from walls instead of belts. When they were midway through the makeshift marketplace, a booming bark thundered from a stall behind them. Belle lurched, nearly spilling what remained of her water down the front of her dress. Cullen spun around, prepared to defend his wife with nothing but his balled fists.

She turned around to meet her would-be attacker. Instead, she saw a massive gray dog that looked exactly like a Cane Corso. Its pointed nub of a tail twitched back and forth, dragging its ass into an ecstatic wag. Its mouth hung open, pink tongue lolling out over too many teeth.

“Whose mabari is this?” said Cullen, loosening his fists so as not to scare the shopkeeper.

The masked man answered with a thick Orlesian accent that Belle almost didn’t mistake for French first. “As of this moment, Ser, he is no one’s.”

“No one’s?”

“Someone brought him to the palace, that much is certain. I saw him drinking from one of the fountains. Then he tried to catch one of the fish. Rather than letting the guards kill him, I took him to see if I might find his owner. No one has claimed him since yesterday.”

Belle and Cullen approached the dog, and Belle held out her hand like a paw. The mabari gave it a few short sniffs before licking all of her knuckles at once. She smiled and scratched behind his ear. Cullen took a knee in front of the dog.

“Another Fereldan stranded in Orlais,” he said, sounding somewhat faraway. He held up his fist like a SWAT team member signaling his partners to stop. The dog’s intelligent brown eyes snapped to Cullen’s hand, and he sat. Cullen laid his hand flat, palm down, and the dog laid down. Belle shot a quizzical glance at her husband.

“How much do you want for him?” said Cullen to the merchant.

“What?” said Belle. “Hey wait a second, this is a conversation. You can’t just unilaterally decide we’re getting a dog now.”

A stitch knit itself between his brows. “But you love dogs.”

“Yeah, and it’s a big decision to get one. One we have to make together. We’re in the middle of a goddamn upheaval. We don’t even know if we’ll be living in the same place next month.”

Cullen turned his attention to the mabari. “You don’t mind where you live, do you?”

The dog barked and licked her hand again.

Belle’s eyes widened. She shook her head and chided them both with her tongue against her teeth. “Don’t try to weaponize his cuteness. It’s beneath both of you.” The dog barked again. “Hey now,” she said to him. “Cullen, we’re already about to have another mouth we have to figure out how to feed. I want a dog too, but this is something we should talk about.”

“Aren’t we talking about it now?”

She felt the incredulity spreading over her face before she heard it in her voice. “Well, yeah, but—I mean—Cooler heads, right?”

Cullen stood, taking her hands in his and looking her in the eye. The glowing amber of his gaze still made her just a bit weak in the knees. “Mabari are very intelligent. He will be the perfect protector for our daughter. And in the unlikely event we need to hunt for our food, we would have a much better chance at catching something with his help. He’s a Fereldan. He cannot be left alone in Orlais. It’s a travesty.”

Belle stared at her husband for a long while. The stich in his brow rose and rose until it threatened to meet his hairline. She looked at the mabari panting beside her. “What are we going to call him?”

She watched her husband all but leap out of his skin. She had never seen him so giddy. It made her laugh despite herself.

“Charles,” he said.

“Charles? Like Charlie?”

“No. Charles.”

“That’s weird, though.”

“It’s not weird.” Cullen turned to the giant dog. “You like the name Charles, don’t you?”

Charles barked. His tongue flapped up against his nose.

Belle bit back a laugh. “Fine. Charles it is. But I reserve the right to call him Charles Barkley.”

Cullen narrowed his eyes at her. “Is that the name of a person?”

“The world may never know.”

*****

The sister moons cast sibling shadows in every direction when they rose high over Thedas on the third night in Halamshiral. They propagated at dozens upon dozens of angles to create a complex mosaic of light and dark. Belle stared out the window of the immaculate room she shared with Cullen, tracing through the maze of varied darkness to find the blinding reflections that glinted off the nearby gold and silver towers. Her hair had gotten too long, she thought just then, though she couldn’t say why she thought it.

She made her way back toward the bed where Cullen and Charles slept. Her restlessness left the sheets on her side in tousled disarray, and she sat in the blank spot she’d abandoned when she gave up on sleep and stood however long ago. She watched her husband sleep while her mind ticked like a broken clock stuck in time. His lips moved a little, and he murmured something about a chicken, and she smiled. It almost always made her smile when he talked in his sleep.

But Belle knew she wouldn’t sleep for some time yet. Too many things rattled through her thoughts, not the least of which was the unshakable feeling that she was fucking lying to fucking everyone. She was lying to the Exalted Council, save for Divine Leliana Victoria, about the extent of the very real Qunari threat Max kept running off to handle. She and Josephine spun up an easily punctured tale of the Inquisitor’s valiant efforts to stop a spy or two, knowing full well a small army had plans to blow up the Winter Palace. All of it to save her client’s—the Inquisition’s—ass. The bar ethics committee would have had a field day. She would have become a cautionary tale spread through every professional responsibility class in every law school in every state where she was licensed. That there was no bar ethics committee in Thedas brought her little comfort. She had managed to maintain her oaths until now.

She was lying to Josephine about the extent of her concern over Max’s growing mark. Just after he followed the first dead Qunari’s trail through an eluvian, his mark began to glow more brightly than ever. And it was spreading. As Belle sat awake that third night in Halamshiral, Max’s mark had already crept like toxic vines up and up, pausing just below his elbow. It hurt him. She saw him grimacing as he clutched his cracked fist when he thought no one was looking. Josephine asked Belle if she thought it could kill him, and Belle said no. It was a lie intended to bring comfort, but it sat like acrimony in her gut.

She was lying to her husband about the extent of her fear of their baby being born on the road to Skyhold. She told him over and over that the baby was going to be late. First babies were always late. But she’d had her bloody show last night. It happened in the dark, and she told Cullen about it when he woke to her scrambling to clean up. He said they should leave for Skyhold at first light, and she told him it could still be weeks before the birth. That part wasn’t a lie. She put her hand on his cheek and kissed his forehead, and she told him not to worry because she wasn’t. That part was a lie.

Belle laid her too-long hair back on her pillow to try to sleep again. She counted tiles on the ceiling and stones in the walls, and she wondered when Arl Teagan had turned into such a tumbling dickweed. He’d been so friendly when they corresponded in the past. Now he’d spent two days ranting about the Inquisition’s invasion of Ferelden with Grey Wardens in its ranks and touting his country’s exile of the Wardens, like he hadn’t helped the Wardens a decade ago and been a key supporter of Fereleden’s Warden king and queen. Belle contemplated who could have shifted his perspective in such drastic fashion while she counted. She fell asleep before she got very far.

The third day of the Exalted Council proceeded exactly as the first two. Teagan was snarling his nonsense, Duke Cyril de Montfort was oozing praise and sprinkling less than subtle hints about the Inquisition marching under Orlais’s banners, and Divine Leliana Victoria was playing the skillful foil to help buy time. Max and his horrifying arm were off God knows where with Sera, Rainier, and Vivienne to try and put a stop to the Qunari demolition crew. All Belle could hope for at his point was that he would come back with some tale of triumph and bravery to save everyone’s asses by convincing the Exalted Council of the Inquisition’s continued utility and necessity. And for her wicked Braxton Hicks contractions to cut the shit already.

“Arl Teagan,” said Duke Cyril, “I fail to understand how the Inquisition’s continued presence at your Caer Bronach—” his pronunciation of the keep’s name seemed intentionally atrocious “—constitutes an invasion. It has been far from exclusive, from what I am told, and your country maintained no control over the place for decades.”

Teagan sneered past Divine Leliana Victoria at the Orlesian. “Of course you don’t understand. Your country has been trying to invade Ferelden for more than a hundred years. Far be it from you to claim to know the appearance of an invading force.”

“On the contrary, Arl. It is for that very reason that an Orlesian, above all others, would know precisely what an invading force looks like. We could produce one with little more than a flick of the quill.”

“And that’s exactly what you’re trying to do now, twisting the Inquisition into Orlais’s control.”

Belle couldn’t believe they were still on about this. Three days of the same thing. Circular arguments upon circular arguments. She hated circular arguments.

She cleared her throat, drawing the eyes of the dais. “As Ambassador Montilyet and I have mentioned,” several times, “the Inquisition has already substantially decreased its presence at Caer Bronach over the past two years, and we would be more than happy to release primary control of the keep to Fereleden on the conditions that we be allowed to maintain a small number of troops and scouts there, and that Ferelden would not allow the keep to fall prey to highwaymen or other dangerous influences. But you have refused to provide such assurances, Arl Teagan.”

“And I will continue to refuse.”

Belle glanced at Josephine before replying. The ambassador had dark circles under her eyes, and her posture listed here and there under her exhaustion. Tiny strands of frayed hair spoiled her usually perfect coiffure. Belle had never seen her friend in such ragged shape.

“Why is that?” said Belle, turning her attention back to Teagan.

“I will not promise to allow a foreign force to maintain even the slightest presence on in a fortress on Ferelden soil.”

“With respect, the Inquisition is far from foreign. Almost every person in Caer Bronach today is Ferelden. But what about the second condition? Why are you refusing to give us the assurance that Ferelden won’t let the keep fall into the wrong hands?”

“I do not rule Ferelden. I do not presume to assure you or anyone else of our willingness to maintain our own forces anywhere.”

“So, to clarify, you want the Inquisition to abandon a keep we took from murdering bandits to protect the citizens of Crestwood because you don’t want us there, but you can’t say you’re willing to garrison soldiers there to provide that same protection? I’m not certain the citizens of Crestwood would be so thrilled to hear how quickly you’re tossing away their safety for the sake of removing the Inquisition’s presence. Not to mention those who have started families with the Inquisition personnel stationed at the keep for the past three years.”

“I am not implying anything of the sort,” said Teagan, whose cheeks were turning pinker by the second. “I am simply not empowered to make any guarantees on behalf of King Alistair.”

Out of the corner of Belle’s eye, she saw a blonde elf scurrying up to Josephine. The young woman leaned in to whisper something in Josie’s ear. “Well, you may not be empowered to make guarantees, but I am,” said Belle, struggling to focus. “I can guarantee that if the Inquisition remains at Caer Bronach, no Ferelden property will be turned over to bandits or marauders, and the citizens of Crestwood and their families will be safe.”

Without warning, Josephine gasped and leapt up from her chair. She didn’t say a word to Belle or anyone else. She just ran out of the chamber, nearly clipping the elf’s heels with her toes. The audience to the hearing erupted into a riot of whispers. Belle winced as another phony contraction squeezed through her.

“This is highly irregular. Does Ambassador Montilyet have something better to do than argue the Inquisition’s case?” said Teagan, every seething syllable overenunciated.

“I apologize. Ambassador Montilyet has been called away on a minor emergency,” said Belle, lying again through her gritted teeth. This practice contraction hurt more than the last batch. “We can continue with your leave.”

And continue they did. After about fifteen minutes of back and forth between the Arl and the Duke, with Belle’s occasional interjection, she watched as another young messenger slid up behind Divine Leliana Victoria and whisper something into the side of her huge hat. A hand on Belle’s shoulder startled her, and she whipped her head around to see Cullen’s face very close to her own. He wore a familiar expression, unreadable to those who didn’t know him well, but painted over with unease to her. His autumnal eyes flicked about before locking with hers.

“Max has been seriously wounded,” he said quietly.

“Jesus.”

“He asked me to retrieve you for a few moments. He was very insistent.”

Belle was halfway to her feet when Divine Leliana Victoria said, “Duke Cyril, Arl Teagan, perhaps we should take a short recess. A matter has just come to my attention that I must see to.”

“Of course, Your Holiness,” said the Duke.

“Of course,” said the Arl.

“Excuse me,” said Belle, and she waddled out of the chamber with her husband.

Cullen held her hand as they started their trek across almost the full length of the palace to get to Max’s quarters. “What happened?”

He shook his head. “I’m not entirely certain. Rainier was carrying Max over his shoulder when they came back through the eluvian, and half of Max’s marked arm was missing.”

“What the fuck? Missing? Arms don’t go missing.”

“Rainier said Max cut it off himself. Max ran ahead after the Viddasala while the others stayed back to fight a number of Qunari she’d left behind. He came back screaming, holding his arm, and he took Rainier’s sword and cut it off.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Vivienne did what she could to stop the bleeding, and they brought him back. He’s been raving. Something about Solas.”

“Solas?”

“I don’t know why. But he told me to bring you to him at least five times before I agreed.”

“I don’t get why he was so insis—Gah!” Another fraudulent contraction wrapped Belle up in a tight torment, stopping her words and her feet. She hunched over with her eyes clamped shut. She squeezed Cullen’s hand so hard it stung.

“Belle! What’s happening?”

She blew out a long, slow breath with the ebb of the pain. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Braxton Hicks. Just more Braxton Hicks.”

“That was not like the others,” he said. He looked angry.

She smiled at him, though from the furrow in his brow it wasn’t terribly convincing. “Yeah it was. I’m fine. Just all this walking. Let’s go, come on.”

They managed to make it to make it to Max’s room without further incident, and Belle managed to persuade herself into believing her own words. The contractions weren’t real. They were practice for when the baby would come in two or three weeks. They hurt worse, but it was just because her idiot body needed a bit of a dress rehearsal.

The scene in Max’s quarters was the calmest version of a horror show Belle had ever seen. She reckoned that was because most of the horror happened before she got there. Divine Leliana Victoria was already there, holding the free hand of a weeping Josephine. The Antivan’s other hand carded through Max’s sweaty hairline in a soft rhythm. His pallor was somewhat gray, and half his arm was gone. White bandages smattered with dark red blood and yellowed plasma clung to what remained. Belle covered her mouth to keep from cursing.

“You’re here,” said Max upon catching his mildly delirious gaze on her. “Good.”

She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to ask why he went berserk and hacked off his own arm. She wanted to ask if he was okay. She wanted to ask if he’d been listening to her all those times she’d told him to be safe. All those times she’d thanked God he came back in one piece. For the first time, he hadn’t done either.

“I’m here,” she said instead, and she walked to his bedside.

“I had to tell you,” he said, more than a little weak and more than a little frantic. “Now. Before you worry about it for another second.”

“Tell me what?” A thousand possibilities streamed through her mind. She stilled herself with her mantra. Predict, prepare, preempt.

“Solas. Solas wanted me to tell you he’s sorry.”

“Sorry? For leaving the Inquisition? I don’t—”

“Sorry for tearing you and Spencer from your lives.”

Belle’s stomach churned, and she thought for a second she might throw up where she stood. “What?”

“It was his fault. His hubris, he said. The very first time, with Spencer, he thought he could take advantage of the Breach to tear down the Veil.”

“Tear down the Veil?” said Divine Leliana Victoria.

“It’s his aim. Fen’Harel. Solas. He gave Corypheus the orb. Didn’t know he’d do so much wrong with it. He thought he’d just tear down the Veil. Then Solas—Fen’Harel could take everything back.”

Belle felt Cullen’s tense breaths splash across the back of her neck. His features were just as tight. “He caused all of this.”

“He thought he could do it,” said Max. “But all he did was pull Spencer through. He thinks it happened because of where Spencer was. I didn’t really understand any of that. But it latched onto your blood, Belle.”

“And he just…kept trying?” She fought her tears and her urge to vomit.

“After we sealed the Breach, he tried again. Then after Corypheus. Then again two months ago. The last two times, he really thought it would work. Hubris,” said Max again. “He won’t try again until he’s certain. He’s sorry it happened.”

It was Solas. Solas who she thought was nice. Solas who had always seemed just a touch off. He was the cause of her thrice ruined life. Belle’s entire body trembled. Her rage boiled. “He’s fucking sorry?”

“We have to stop him. It’ll kill everyone. Everyone. If he does it.”

Cullen’s large hands found her shoulders. “We will,” he said.

“I’ll fucking kill him myself, I swear to God.” A tear raced down her cheek.

Max lifted his partial arm as if to take her hand. He looked embarrassed when he realized what he’d done. Another tear loosed itself, and she reached down to take his other hand. He gave her a weak smile.

His eyes darted between Belle and Divine Leliana Victoria. “Can you two try to adjourn the Exalted Council for the day? Tell them I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” said Josephine, still weeping. “No, you must rest. Two days, at least. Please, my love.”

“It has to be tomorrow. I promise, it won’t take long.”

“I can do that,” said Belle.

“Of course,” said Divine Leliana Victoria.

“Thank you.”

Belle held her husband’s hand all the way back to the Exalted Council chamber, her rage bubbling and frothing in the space made by their pensive silence. Leliana parted from them several minutes before, wisely choosing to avoid the appearance of favoritism. She was already seated when they entered the room.

Belle stepped forward. Cullen hung back. She stood before the center of the dais to address the council.

“I apologize for the unusual nature of this request, but the Inquisitor has asked that the Exalted Council adjourn for the remainder of the day so that he might personally address all of your concerns tomorrow.”

“I see no problem with that,” said Duke Cyril.

“Nor do I,” said Divine Leliana Victoria.

“I do,” said Arl Teagan. Of course. “There is no point in delaying this process to wait for his defenses any longer. If he was able to request our adjournment, he is just as able to come here and speak for himself.”

“He’s not, actually,” said Belle. “He’s been wounded, and he needs to rest for the evening. He has assured me he will explain everything himselllll—”

Pain ripped through her body like a scythe. She curled in on herself for a moment, made blind and breathless by the purity of her agony, and she grunted against it. She tried to straighten her torso, to explain that it was just a dress rehearsal, but the excruciating Gehenna only continued to build. She held onto her round belly, and she screamed, and she was one hundred percent sure her asshole was about to fall out.

Strong arms, Cullen’s arms, lifted her and carried her away. He was shouting something to someone, but all she could hear was the cacophony made by her body’s attempts to rive itself in half. That idiot body had skipped dress rehearsal and jumped right to opening fucking night with a sold out crowd. And she was furious.

*****