#just realized I never spread my bullshit on here about this yet

[dirtytransmasc]

and while we're at it, he has a Nevus at the base of his neck:

(can't find the perfect image, but trust and use your imagination)

the hair grows out similar to Na'vi hair, thicker than the rest of his curly golden locks, and he braids it like a Kuru (and maybe in time it will actually become one)

and maybe he has moles and freckles that dance around is skin like tanhi. maybe there's an oddly large gap between his big toe and his little toes, maybe that's why he's so damn good at climbing. maybe his brown eyes are a little too big and glow a little too close to amber to be entirely human looking. maybe the tips of his ears and his canine teeth are a little too sharp.

just imagine a universe where Spider looked a little less human and a little more Na'vi. imagine how he would have been treated, so clearly and abundantly touched and altered by Eywa. it is undeniable. no one can deny him his home because the Great Mother has chosen him from birth.

[lazycats-stuff]

Batfamily x male reader

Batfamily x male!reader - this is part 1 everyone.

Summary: some talking is done.

Warnings: angst, fluff, (Y/N) is trying and so is the fam, cursing, trying to forgive, a punch was thrown, cutting people out

The fight echoed through the manor. Even days after it, the tension was still palpable. (Y/N) truly wanted nothing more with his so called brothers and father. If they tried to talk to him, they would be ignored or (Y/N) would just snap at them.

Almost biting their head off.

Safe to say, things were going to complete and utter shit.

Bruce didn't even know how to start talking to (Y/N). Was he emotionally reserved? Yes. But will he try everything in his power to make it right?

Yes. Everything he can do, he will do.

Bruce has decided to call a meeting. He made (Y/N) leave his room and (Y/N) has never looked worse. He couldn't sleep for days on end, only getting about 4 hours per night. He wasn't in the mood to eat either. He was only alive because Alfred had to make sure he was still alive.

Everyone noted that he looked like he didn't want to live anymore. More so, he looked dead. (Y/N) just sat down, an angry look on his face, arms crossed and body language closed off. He sat down as far as away as he could from them, clearly not happy to be here in the slightest.

He tucked himself in the chair, ignoring everyone and everything.

" (Y/N)... " Bruce started quietly, clearly not wanting to have a blow out and an explosion. " We have to talk through this problem. " Bruce continued just as softly and (Y/N) scoffed.

" We know we have been... Neglecting you, to say the least. But... We want to fix our mistakes. We want to be better. " Bruce said and (Y/N) chose to roll his eyes instead of listening. No matter what they could say could ever fix this.

" Well... 10 years too late. " (Y/N) said sarcastically, tapping his fingers against his tucked up knee, clearly anxious to leave this room behind. He really was anxious too leave.

" And we realize that. " Tim started softly, looking at (Y/N) with a sad look on his face. (Y/N) wouldn't allow them to see them sweat.

" Bullshit. " (Y/N) said quickly. They don't realize shit. " You are only doing this because Jon came over and pointed it out and now you are worried that the word doesn't spread. " (Y/N) spat out, leaning on his tucked up knee, glaring that the floor.

" That is not true. " Damian said and (Y/N) looked up, glaring at Damian, scoffing at the words, then laughing bitterly.

" Oh please. You never told Jon about me! I'm assuming all of your friends don't know I exist, right? " (Y/N) said as he rubbed his eyes from the exhaustion.

The silence was the only answer that (Y/N) needed.

" Yup and there it is. No one knows I fucking exist! " (Y/N) said loudly, blood pressure raising. He took a deep breath to calm down. " Just as I thought. No one knows I exist. No one even cared about my school achievements either... Let me ask you something Bruce. " (Y/N) asked, turning his attention to Bruce.

" Do you have a college fund for me? Just like you do for other four? " (Y/N) asked, itching for an answer. When Bruce looked away in shame and (Y/N) scoffed yet again.

" Also, don't you fucking dare setting it up. I have got a scholarship anyway. " (Y/N) answered the unasked questions. Bruce was proud of (Y/N). How could he have done this to (Y/N), forget to put a college fund...

" I'm sorry (Y/N). I didn't mean to forget you. " Bruce said, keeping his distance, but wanting nothing more than just hug him and kiss the anger away.

But alas, that's not how it works. (Y/N) has to forgive him first.

" Can you tell us more about the scholarship? " Jason chimed in, wanting to speak about something that (Y/N) could be happy about.

" It's for MIT. " (Y/N) said quietly and everyone was in shock. They didn't know that (Y/N) was into science and mathematics and what not.

Another mistake of theirs.

" That's amazing (Y/N). " Tim praised, smiling at (Y/N). Getting into MIT is hard as hell.

(Y/N) rolled his eyes, but deep down inside, he craved that praise more than life. But some praise won't erase everything that happened.

" You would really have to move then... " Dick said sadly and (Y/N) glanced at all of them. They all seem sad that he would have to move all the way to Massachusetts, but it would be necessary. (Y/N) needed to get out of here. One way or another.

" I think what we all mean to say is that we are sorry. There is no excuse, not a single thing that could justify what we did and what we have caused to you. " Damian said and (Y/N) was shocked to hear the word sorry just tumble out of his mouth like that, so effortlessly. So easily. But he composed himself quickly.

" How do I put his nicely? " (Y/N) said, looking sarcastic. " I don't give a damn about any of you. I don't give a damn about apologies at all. I don't care about any of you. The moment I move out, all of you are going to be dead to me. Period. " (Y/N) said as he quickly stood up, going to his room.

He isn't going to fucking listen anymore.

" No, (Y/N) wait! " Everyone called after him and tried to stop him. Jason managed to grab his arm, but (Y/N) threw a punch and knocked Jason down on his ass, making the others rear back. It was a truly what the fuck moment for all of them.

(Y/N) was never violent.

(Y/N) slammed the doors of his room shut and everyone was silent. Jason was breathing heavily through his mouth as (Y/N) broke his nose.

" He has a hell of a punch. " Jason muttered as he stood up.

" We have a shit ton of gravelling to do. " Tim muttered and everyone nodded in agreement. Saying that they are dead to him, well, will be dead to him, that was sort of a nail in a coffin. Coffin about their relationship...

That was probably on the brink of death, if not dead already.

" Come on, he needs some time alone. " Bruce said and ushered everyone out of the hall, mostly Jason to take a look at his nose, to treat it and heal it.

That same night, (Y/N) quietly managed to get his things into a car, while others were on patrol and blocked them in the process. Then he started driving to MIT, because he didn't have the nerve to put his things onto a plane and go. And besides, he didn't have enough things anyway.

(Y/N) could finally start his new life.

[jayparked]

heeseung and 44? 💕 congrats on 1k babii 💪🏽

warnings: strong language, brat tamer hee, implied oral (m rec), you're bad at video games and kinda mean :(

wc: 656

"are you fucking serious?" you scoff, hands slamming down on your keyboard as your teammates get you killed yet again. "are we just playing healers for funsies? for the aesthetics? no- this is bullshit, don't lock in a character if you don't know how to fucking play them!"

a light tap on your shoulder makes you jump, one hand instinctively coming up to move part of your headset off your ear.

"heeseung? when did you get home?"

"just now," he smiles softly, cupping the side of your face and gesturing his head towards the monitors, "sounds like you're not having a good time."

your anger melts away now that your boyfriend is here. pouting, you nuzzle into his touch and sigh slowly. "my teammates are so stupid," you mutter through your pouted lips, "no one knows how to play their characters or the game in general."

heeseung chuckles slightly, brushing his thumb along your jawline before leaning down to look at your match stats.

"you're playing dps but you're not carrying at all," he tsks.

"it would be easier if my entire team pitched in even just a little bit and did their fucking jobs."

"no don't be like that," he scolds playfully, "as a dps you should be able to carry your weight, whether your support is good or not. in fact, looks like you placed lower than your support teammates. start another match." he points to where you sat on the match overview and that's when realization sets in. because you were so focused on how your team was doing, you lost your focus and ultimately threw the game.

"start up another match. i'll watch." heeseung smiles, kissing the top of your head before grabbing his own gaming chair and pulling it up next to yours.

as the next match starts, heeseung is intent on watching your gameplay so he can give you pointers and keep you focused. but somewhere along the way, his own focus drifts. he now finds himself watching you, your face to be specific, as an array of profanity leaves your pretty lips. the way your eyebrows furrow and the corners of your mouth turn downwards has him gobsmacked. you certainly don't act this way when you play with him, and, now that he thinks of it, he's never heard you swear so much in all these years you've been together.

the match ends and you huff out another sigh, leaning back into your chair with your arms crossed firmly over your chest. "thought you were gonna help me..." you grumble.

"oh i'm gonna help you," heeseung's tone is lower than before as he stares at you with a dark expression on his face, "i'll show you how easy it is to win even while distracted."

"and how are you gonna do that?" something unexplainable stirs within you as your boyfriend slowly spreads his legs in his chair, beckoning for your headset.

"i'll play the next match. without swearing like a sailor and being mean to my teammates," he says with a smirk.

"sorry. i don't know why it gets so bad when i'm playing." you pout again, handing over your headset reluctantly.

heeseung puts the headset on his head, leaving one ear uncovered, queueing up the next match before he leans back. "how about we put that pretty mouth of yours into good use then, hmm? since you say such dirty things, might as well let it do something about it."

your eyes widen slightly, unable to stop them from roaming down your boyfriend's body and seeing the growing tent in his sweatpants. your stomach drops as the sharp suddenness of arousal takes over you.

"h-how is that gonna help me get better at the game?" you gulp nervously.

"it'll teach you that if you want a foul mouth so bad then we're going to use it the right way. now get on your knees before the game starts."

for part of my 1k follower celebration send me a member and a number from this list and i'll write a short drabble about it ♡ masterlist

[kyriethesquishysquid]

Heard Through the Grapevine (König/Fem!Reader)

Summary: There were always crazy rumors whirling around military bases and KorTac was no different. König, in particular, was often the victim of the most vicious rumors. Despite knowing her opinion is unpopular, the lovely reader refuses to partake in spreading the lies and often stands up against them instead, all while trying to battle her growing feelings for the quiet colonel. 

Word count: ~9K

A/N: Some use of Y/N. Reader’s description is left rather vague but there are details of her being short, chubby, and with hair long enough to pull back. Reader is aged between her mid-twenties to mid-thirties. While König has no exact canon age, in this fic he will be somewhere around 40 (an age range I’ve seen people come to match with his ranking as colonel). König has anxiety, reader has anxiety, we ALL have anxiety. Slightly possible medical inaccuracies- While I am a nurse, I am not an AP or Emergency Room nurse so I’ve never done stitches myself. I’m using my basic medical knowledge, what I’ve learned in classes, and Google. So please forgive any inaccuracies! As always, I've never played COD. No beta we die like Graves.

TW: Porn with minor plot. Romance and smut. Slight age gap (reader is somewhere around 5-15 years younger than König). Size kink, mild innocence kink(?) dom/sub themes, M!dom/F!sub, major power play, praise-degradation, accent/language kink, voice kink, dirty talk, multiple orgasms, and loottss of pet names (I’m a whore for pet names) in both German and English. Mentions of violence. Talk of blood, wounds, and stitching in a medical setting. 

Simple Translations (Longer translations will be included next to their sentences!):

Scheiße - Shit

Kleines - Little one

Kätzchen - Kitten

Schätzchen - Sweetheart

Liebling - Darling/Love

“You can’t say he doesn’t terrify you!” 

Your friend’s words scoffed through a mouth full of pizza made you grimace for multiple reasons, a shrug of your shoulders being your only answer as you dug back into your mashed potatoes. 

“Seriously, Y/N?” Mark pressed harder with obvious disbelief. 

“What?” you retorted sharply, “Is it so hard to believe I’m not scared of the colonel just because he’s a big guy?” 

 “Then what’s with the way you look at him?” your best friend, Lisa, added, unable to hide the coy smirk growing.

A heavy sigh left your lungs and you dropped your spoon onto your plate, directing a deadpan look at the both of them as you realized they were not going to drop the subject. 

Damn her and her mischievous nature. She was the only one who knew even a little about your hidden feelings for König, having been spilled one late night under the stars after far too many drinks, and she hadn’t stopped giving you shit for it since. Thankfully, she was a good friend and didn’t air out your personal laundry to anybody; not even your other mutual friends. However, that didn’t stop her from teasing you at every turn possible. Like now. The whole topic was a stupid subject in your eyes, brought on by the recent rumors about König having decapitated a new recruit for looking at him wrong. Ridiculous, unbelievable, and yet people wouldn’t let it go. It made you feel a kinship for the big man. Though for different reasons, you’d been the subject of many rumors over your life, having been picked on and subjected to bullshit drama simply because of your weight. Perhaps that was the biggest trigger of it all, but the fact you truly liked König was certainly a major supporting factor.

“Colonel König is intimidating, yes, but most men are intimidating; save for the present company,” you shot back with a little grin, earning a scowl from said man, “Nonetheless, I’m not scared of him. He’s never raised his voice at me, nor given me a reason to believe those stupid fucking rumors people want to spread about him. He’s always treated me with respect, more than any of the other cocky bastards around here do really. Those stupid rumors come from people who are jealous of him, either his rank or his superior physical condition, OR from people who have nothing better to do with their downtime than come up with spooky stories.”

Your best friend’s eyes went owlish in shock, pulling the corners of your lips into a frown of frustration at her childish behavior, and you prodded her shin gently beneath the table. 

“For fuck's sake, stop looking at me like that. You know I respect and even like the colonel, okay? So no matter what silly shit floats around, I’m not going to believe a word of it until the day I see these supposed cruel actions in person,” you sighed, then pled with her softly, “Just- Just drop it, please.”

When she didn’t respond, you felt a prickle of uncertainty send the hairs on the back of your neck on end. You tried to catch her gaze only to see it traveling off to your right before finally coming back your way with a nervous laugh. 

“I- I didn’t realize it but… he was sitting behind you,” she murmured softly. 

Spine snapping straight, you gaped at her in shock. 

“No way, you’re joking, right?” you hissed. 

The slow shake of her head made your heart fall into your guts, pounding heavily in your veins as you nervously turned in the direction she had looked, only to find him putting up his dirty dishes and exiting the room. 

“Mother fucker!” you groaned, “So- So he heard all of that?!” 

When she nodded, you were almost sure you were going to faint. You and König were on good terms as nurse and patient but that didn’t mean you wanted him to think (however correct it was) that you had some kind of crush on him with how adamantly you defended him. 

Food suddenly didn’t seem so appetizing with the nerves buzzing in your stomach. Pushing your plate away, you got up from the table and quickly dismissed yourself with the excuse of paperwork piling up on your desk. It wasn’t a complete lie at least. Medical documentation was never-ending, especially in a military base with accident-prone soldiers. You only hoped you could make it back to the medical wing without running into the big man himself and making things more awkward. 

Dumping your food, you shoved the plate into the dirty dish bin and rushed out into the hall. You were grateful to find the foot traffic minimal, allowing you to cross the base as quickly as your short legs could carry you. Your anxiety was already high enough with the worries of what König now thought; adding another unknown variable into the mix would spell certain disaster for your mental stability.  

The instant you stepped foot into the medbay and found it empty, you shut and locked the office door before snagging up one of the throw pillows off the old beaten-up couch and screaming into said pillow with all of your might. You screamed and screamed, until your throat hurt and your heart pounded loud in your ears, until you felt that nervous buzz of panic fade from your skin and leave exhaustion behind. 

“I’m gonna need a fucking drink tonight,” you sighed as you dropped into your computer chair, “She’s gonna owe me for this shit.” 

With that last thought, you fell back into the monotonous routine of finishing up charts and notes from the day. 

The next few hours passed quickly into days and days into weeks, time flying by in a blur as you buried yourself in your work and your patients in hopes of forgetting your troubles. You were both relieved and frustrated that you hadn’t seen the colonel at all during that time; relieved you wouldn’t have to deal with an awkward situation but frustrated because, despite the anxiety, you missed his presence. It wasn’t until Horangi assisted a hunched-over König into the office three weeks later that you realized he’d been gone on a mission during that time, a mission that had obviously gone askew. Immediately you jumped to your feet and ushered the duo over, prepared to balance the injured giant on his other side if necessary.

“What happened?” you demanded as Horangi helped König sit on the medical bed. 

“Nothing serious,” König replied, letting out a hiss when Horangi jerked his hand away and none-too-gently removed the makeshift bandage from the bigger man’s side.

A shudder ran down your spine at the amount of drying blood shining against his tight black shirt and then you eyed the tear in the fabric. His pale flesh was covered in different states of drying blood but the bleeding of the visceral wound seemed to be, thankfully, stopped for the time being.

“Good god, not serious?!” you snapped in disbelief. 

König had the gall to roll his eyes as you muttered to yourself about men being stupid and stubborn. As you leaned in closer to examine the gash, Horangi moved aside to give you room. Luckily, the cut looked relatively clean but the depth of it was concerning, with multiple layers of tissue peeking through the wound. 

“Hey, I’m going to debrief with the general,” Horangi commented suddenly, “I’ll let him know you’re getting fixed up first.” 

König gave a small nod in reply as the other operator left the room and you stepped back with a half-smile. 

“I’m going to have to stitch that up. If you’re not comfortable with me doing it, I can call the doctor in but I have done them plenty before if-”

“Ja, I want you to do it,” he cut you off quickly. 

That wasn’t a surprise. Nobody enjoyed having to call one of the docs in during the middle of the night unless it was for a dire emergency because they were all, understandably, cranky when woken. 

“That’s fine,” you agreed, biting your lower lip before gesturing at him and adding, “I- I’ll need you to remove your shirt so I can get a better look and stitch you up.”

König let out a noise of understanding as you turned away to wash your hands and grab out all of the necessary equipment you’d need for the stitches. Thankfully, the wound wasn’t deep enough to have chanced any vital areas, especially since it was on his side, but there was no doubt it was still deep enough that it wouldn’t heal properly without treatment. How he was even upright and talking like normal was beyond you. You were just glad you had been an RN in the emergency room before transferring to KorTac, your time there invaluable for all the shit you’d had to put up with here between busy doctors and never-ending patients. 

“Alrighty, let’s get this show on the… road”

As your gaze met bare, toned, skin, your brain immediately melted into nothingness. Gone were all the years of medical training and college; all that remained were the hormones of a bitch in heat. Never, in the entire year you’d worked with KorTac, had you ever seen him shirtless. He was hardly in here, between his elite skills and natural resilience against being hurt, and the only times he had been were generally for serious things that the doctor would have to take care of, or for routine visits that wouldn’t require him shirtless. So to say you were struck dumb was an understatement. 

Logically, you had known König was fit. It was practically written in all of their contracts to stay in peak physical condition, and the compression shirts he wore did nothing to hide the defined muscles in his arms and stomach, but seeing him without the fabric was even more daunting than you had expected. 

“Schätzchen?” he asked softly, voice full of something that sounded like concern. 

His gloved fingers touching your face finally jerked you out of your entirely inappropriate fantasy of getting the chance to lick up and down his abdomen and you nearly squeaked in shock, barely concealing the noise by clearing your throat. 

“Uh, sorry, I- I don’t know what came over me, uh, okay. Can you lie down for me, please? I’m sure you know this works but I’m gonna numb you up first. It’s probably going to sting,” you warned him.

Setting the equipment on the metal rolling table, you took the last terrifying steps toward him and it took everything in your power not to moan as you realized you were directly face to face with firm pecs until he finally sat. You managed to shake away the lustful thoughts on your own this time and pulled on gloves before grabbing up the syringe. 

“Ready?” you asked, not daring to meet his eyes lest you get too flustered to work. 

“Ja, go ahead,” he rumbled. 

With a steadying breath, you carefully poked the needle into the top layers of the wound and pushed the plunger down slowly. You’d seen other soldiers cry over the pain of a lidocaine injection into an open wound, not that you could blame them, but, of course, König took it all without even flinching. The man really acted like he was made of stone. It was insane. 

“That should kick in in just a few,” you murmured, capping the needle and placing it into the sharps container, “Wanna tell me what happened while we wait?” 

Feeling safe back near the cabinets rather than within arms reach, you finally let your eyes find him and watched in disbelief as he sat up without even a wince, cool blue eyes clear and steady.  

“Ah, nothing serious. There was one hidden upstairs and we didn’t realize it until- well, this,” he replied after a moment, gesturing to his side with a half-chuckle half-sigh. 

A frown turned down your lips at that. God, you really had it lucky, sitting here in your cushy position as a nurse. Sure, the hours sucked, and seeing people hurt (or god forbid worse) really sucked, but at least your life was never in danger like theirs. You hated thinking about him getting hurt like this, no matter how silly it was since he could obviously take care of himself. Swallowing hard, you nodded and grabbed another fresh pair of gloves, snapping them on with a forced smile. 

“Well, I’d hate to see the other guy then,” you teased softly.

It was a joke, and yet it wasn’t. You had no doubt his assailant hadn’t made it out of there in one piece. 

“Let’s just say, not even a talented nurse such as yourself could help him when I was done with him,” he replied.

You couldn’t help but giggle at how his eyes crinkled beneath the faded black smudges, further conveying the amusement lacing his tone. 

“I bet. I know I wouldn’t want to be your enemy, colonel,” you snickered, “Okay, lie down again for me please.”   

König leaned back with a little groan and tucked his right hand behind his head, keeping the angle perfect to avoid stretching or squishing the skin around the wound. There was a comfortable silence as you readied the needle with thread in the driver. You gave him a testing tap around the wound, to which he quickly affirmed he felt nothing before you got to work. You quickly cleaned the area, put a clean drape around it, and then snagged up the needle. It had been a bit since you’d done sutures on such a wound but you quickly fell back into the familiar rhythm with simple interrupted stitches. 

“You’re rather good at that,” he complimented quietly.

You felt your cheeks warm at the praise as you sent him a warm smile and replied, “Thank you. It’s nice to know I haven’t lost my touch since leaving the emergency department.” 

“Oh? What made you decide to come here instead?” 

Well, this was new. While König was always kind to you, it generally never went beyond small talk. You knew as much about him as he did you, though you couldn’t lie and say you were complaining about the change. That little fangirl you tried to hide so deep inside was dancing with elation over the fact that he was trying to keep a conversation going, but it wasn’t helping your little crush one bit.  

“Honestly? Better pay and escape from a bad home situation,” you admitted honestly, “I just didn’t have a great environment to accel in and when my cousin mentioned joining you guys, it just made sense.”  

Tying the last end into a square knot, you snipped off the extra thread and stood with a proud smile, examining your handiwork happily. 

“Gotta say, you’re a model patient, colonel. I don’t wanna see you in here for this again though,” you playfully scolded. 

As you turned away, you were startled by a sudden deep laugh. Not a chuckle or a snort, but a full-on belly laugh, and you were absolutely certain you’d never heard anything more beautiful.  

“And here I was thinking about getting stabbed again just so I could see meine süße kleine krankenschwester.” (My sweet little nurse)

“Hey, no using languages I can’t understand,” you retorted with a giggle, ducking your face in hopes of hiding the way your cheeks flushed with lust at the sound of his mother tongue. 

Why was that so sexy, hearing him speak German? Not that his speaking normally didn’t affect you but, when he fell into his old language, it just did something different. Another laugh rumbled from the man as you went about cleaning up the utensils and you had to grin. You knew, going forward, you’d do anything you could to hear that laugh again. A small glimmer of hope flickered to life in your chest as you ungloved and tossed them in the trash. Maybe this was the beginning of an actual friendship… or more.

As you scolded yourself over the lofty dreams, a presence against your back put a sudden stop to your motions, every last bit of you freezing in place except your heart which pounded valiantly in your veins. 

“You- You shouldn’t- shouldn’t move around so much,” you whispered breathlessly as you tried to shake off the sudden nerves, “Don’t wanna rip your stitches out already.” 

He was all but impossible to ignore, standing so close that you were certain you’d bump into him if you breathed too hard. Taking a small stabilizing breath, your eyes closed in frustration as you caught his scent, the faint smell of sweat, gunpowder, and something spiced, possibly a faded cologne or body wash overtaking your senses. It took all of your will to keep moving and cleaning up as if everything was normal. As you grabbed the antiseptic, you could visibly see the way your hands shook and mentally berated yourself. You were literally just sticking a needle into his side minutes ago. Why was this affecting you so much?! 

You grabbed onto the counter for balance and lifted onto tiptoe only to have the bottle suddenly snagged from you and shelved in its spot just barely within your reach. It would have been completely fine, a nice gesture even, if it weren’t for the fact he had to lean against you to do it. With his free hand resting against your waist for balance, you could feel every- single- fucking- inch of his form against yours. Forbidden images of him taking you right there against the counter flooded your thoughts when you got a very personal feel of his dick against your lower back, completely prominent in its shape even while soft.

The fates were fucking testing you to the ends of your limits at that point. 

“You should get a step stool, kleines, don’t want to hurt yourself,” he mused quietly.

A shaky nod was all you could manage, your fingers wrapping around the edge of the solid countertop and holding on for dear life. You couldn’t find it in you to reply with the mortifying lust clouding your mind. With your luck, instead of thanking him you’d ask to repay the favor with a blowjob. 

Deep breaths. In and out. After a few moments, you knew you should respond. You had to do something to diffuse the situation because he was obviously content to let you stew in your thoughts.  

“You- You- Uhm, you should go rest,” you stammered out after a moment.

And then he was gone. The instant he stepped away, you nearly dropped to the floor, your knees weak and back now startlingly cold. Tucking some hair behind your ear, you spun around and prepared to give him the usual medical spiel about resting and letting the wound heal, only to lose the ability to speak when a large hand cupped your jaw. 

“I’m sorry if I scared you.”

His voice was soft, warm with a tinge of amusement dancing at the edges, and suddenly you remembered the stupid conversation you’d had with your friends in the canteen. Your tongue felt thick and immovable so you settled for shaking your head no, trying to convey that he, in fact, hadn’t scared you.

“No? No, what?” he asked. 

Swallowing down the urge to moan, you shakily replied, “You don’t- didn’t scare me.” 

Your plump cheeks burned hot at the way his icy blue eyes subtly changed, lids lowering into an indiscernible expression as his irises searched your face thoroughly. 

“Are you sure? You’re suddenly much quieter, Schätzchen.”

A little curse escaped before you could catch it as you subconsciously melted into his hand when his thumb started stroking your jawline. The calloused texture rubbed deliciously against your soft skin and sent goosebumps down your arms.    

“I-I’m sure,” you answered, voice barely audible even in the silent room, “Just… unexpected.” 

When he leaned down and hovered just above your ear, you swore you were about to combust. He was close, too fucking close. Delectably within reach and yet so far away in the ways that mattered. Your thighs clenched together in search of some kind of relief when his scent infiltrated your senses again, the same as before but so much stronger, and you couldn’t help the way your stomach fluttered traitorously. 

“That’s all, hmm?” he rumbled lowly. 

Oh. That bastard! He knew what he was doing to you and he was teasing you about it! How was this the same quiet colonel that you practically had to bully into saying more than a few words just a couple of weeks prior? You lifted your hands and prepared to shove him away, to give him a piece of your mind, but he threw you another curveball with the sudden sensation of soft lips against your throat.

“Ah!” 

This time, your gasp was loud, rivaled only by the pounding thump of your heart threatening to burst from your chest. 

“I asked you a question, kleines, I expect an answer.”

A truly pathetic whine fell from your lips as your head fell to rest against his shoulder. How were you supposed to answer him?! Your tongue felt thick and immovable as you soaked in the sensation of his skin against yours.  

“König, please, I don’t- I don’t understand what you want here,” you finally managed to croak through parted lips. 

He let out a small hum but didn’t answer right away. His lips busied themselves trailing barely-there kisses up and down the side of your neck. When you felt his nose brush against your ear, you nearly jumped. Every touch threatened to make you come apart right then and there and it was quickly becoming too much.

“Is- Is this about what I said a few weeks ago?” you pushed for an answer. 

Pausing in his thorough exploration of your flesh, he let out a little breath before humming back, “Mmhmm. Imagine my surprise when I heard you defending me, Schätzchen, heard you tell your little friends so certainly that you were not scared of me; that you even liked me.”

Your nails instinctively dug into his bare arms as you fought for your sanity, his teeth scraping your neck and raveling away what little sensibilities you had left. 

“At first, I doubted what I heard,” he spoke as his hands took hold of your hips and squeezed softly, “You are so soft and sweet. Untouchable to someone like me. I’ve spent the last few weeks debating, agonizing over if you might feel what I felt. Tonight though, with the way you looked at me? I could finally see it.” 

When he pulled back, you couldn’t bring yourself to meet his gaze again but he was quick to correct that with a little nudge. 

“Still so shy.”

Your thoughts were running a thousand miles an hour; fear, lust, and disbelief were shouting at you in so many different ways that you thought you would pass out from overstimulation alone. While you’d thought about this happening almost every night since you’d first talked with him, you’d always assumed he would be a fantasy only. You never imagined the quiet, steadfast, colonel would ever have a mutual interest in you. Part of you wanted to drop to your knees and thank him for even touching you, while the other waited with panic-laced worries for him to announce that it was some kind of prank. 

When his calloused fingers trailed up your face and into your hair to scrape your scalp, it was like he flipped a magical switch. Gone were the panicked thoughts, the uncertainties, and the insecurities. All that existed were the beautiful sensations he created. 

“Does that feel good?” he asked. 

You nodded dumbly and let your eyes flutter back open as you heard him laugh, flushing with desire as you were once more pinned with those gorgeous eyes of his. 

“This isn’t some kind of joke, is it?” you finally questioned, managing to get somewhat of a grip on your psyche, “Because if it is, I’ll-” 

A sharp sting through your scalp cut you off as he tightened his fingers in your hair, following your silence with disappointed tongue clicks. 

“Do I really seem like the kind of man who would joke about something like this?” 

You shook your head slowly, muttering a defeated little “No sir” in response. Your efforts were rewarded with the release of your hair, hand tenderly cupping the nape of your neck instead. 

“I need to hear you say you want this before it goes any further,” he instructed you, firmly but gently.    

As your lips parted, you hesitated. Of course, you wanted this, but here? Now? Your eyes darted nervously to the cracked door before catching his once more. 

“I- I do but… König, anyone could come in and, god, you’re hurt and-”

You watched in awe, voice trailing off into silence, as he leaned in and pulled up his sniper hood, revealing a black gaiter which he promptly tugged down. The peek of a strong, square, jawline peppered with a short stubble made your eyes open wide in shock but your attention was quickly captured by his full lips, curled up into a smirk with a peek of sharp canines flashing through. Fuck, if only part of him was this gorgeous, you were afraid to see him completely bare. 

“As I have said, it’s not serious, and you’ve so graciously patched me up,” he purred softly, eyes boring holes into your sole as his lips almost touched yours, “Now, tell me kleines, do- you- want- this?”

“Yes, god, ple-”

Fingers dug hard into your soft sides as he finally captured your mouth in a gentle kiss and you instinctively stretched up to meet him, hands sliding up to wrap around the back of his neck in an attempt to convey just how badly you wanted him. Words weren’t your forte but actions… actions you could manage. 

A quiet groan escaped your lips as you felt his hips press against yours and hands came down to grab your ass. Your shock quickly turned into concern when you felt him start to lift you. 

“König, no!” you scolded him as you wiggled out of his grasp. 

The colonel had the gall to look confused by your rejection. 

You gestured to his freshly sewn stitches and bit out, “I don’t care how much you say it’s fine. I refuse to be the reason you pop your stitches and I’d rather not have to put a needle in your again. Just…” 

Your stern words trailed off as you saw the mild pink tinge across his upper cheeks. He was too adorable. Huffing out a low sigh, you rested your hands against his firm pecs and gently pushed him back toward the bed. 

“Lay down, I’m shutting the door real quick.”

Thankfully, he didn’t bother arguing, just turned with an annoyed grunt as you shut and locked the door. The annoyance in his eyes dropped the instant you carefully climbed up onto the bed with him, letting him guide you to sit over his thighs comfortably. 

“If we’re doing this, we’re doing it in a way that you won’t get hurt,” you warned him. 

“Verdammte Hölle,” he scoffed lowly, fingers digging into the plush softness of your thighs, “Fine, if you insist, just get over here.” 

A gasp passed from your lips into his when he dragged you in closer and you felt the bulge of his cock already growing through his cargos. And what a fucking power rush that was, to know you were affecting one of the strongest men in existence. You! A short, chubby, nobody-famous nurse and this god-like man wanted you. 

“Fuck,” you breathed out quietly, hands coming to rest on his chest as he guided your hips down against his, “König, I said-”

“You may be on top of me, but you are in no way in control, understood, Kätzchen?” he bit out huskily. 

Your heart stammered in your chest but you managed a little nod in response. Apparently subdued by your acceptance, his hands spurred you into motion once more, tearing a broken moan from your chest as his hardness pressed deliciously against the apex of your thighs. Even though clothing, he was working you up entirely too easily.  

He attacked your neck once more and growled out a terse, “Scheiße, I always knew you’d sound fucking beautiful like this. Mein kleines engel, so verdammt unschuldig und süß.” (My little angel, so fucking innocent and sweet)

While you had no idea what he said, it was clearly something sexual and you couldn’t help the way you shuddered. It was kind of funny. When you first met him, you’d been shocked by the pitch of his voice, having expected such a giant being to have a deep voice; and now… now you wouldn’t have it any other way. 

“Oh? Magst du es, wenn ich mit dir Deutsch spreche, mein dummes kleines Kätzchen?” (“Do you like when I speak German to you, my silly little kitten?”)

Instinctively, you ground down in search of relief as his voice filled your head and took over your thoughts. 

He chuckled softly and murmured, “You do like it. I can feel the way your sweet little cunt throbs against me each time. Do you always react this way when I speak German around you?” 

Your body froze at that, face heating and flushing down your chest as you finally understood what he was saying. No fucking way.

“You- You can feel it?” you asked meekly, hoping he’d say no. 

“Mmhmm, Deine kleinen Zuckungen sind so süß- Ah, there is it again,” he teased, “So, kleines? Is it like that every time?” (Your little twitches are so cute)

With a frustrated groan, you quietly admitted it before ducking down to bite onto his shoulder. You felt a thrill of satisfaction when you felt his cock jump between your thighs but didn’t even stop to gloat, too enthralled by the taste of his skin. You didn’t dare leave marks, unsure of the protocol for his position, but gods you wanted to. Maybe another time, if you were given the chance. Scraping your teeth across his flesh, you scooted back to sit farther down his thighs and began to make your way down his collarbone and chest until you were able to gently bite the meatiest part of his pec. 

“Ah, Scheiße!”

Before he could react further, you continued on and swiped your tongue across his nipple, earning a guttural moan and his fingers curled into the hair at the back of your head. For a moment, you questioned if he intended to stop you but, when he didn’t, you did it again. The little muffled curses he let out only worsened the mess in your panties and you had to restrain yourself from reaching down to ease the ache. It wasn’t until you were kneeling between his thighs and working at his belt that he finally stopped you.

“Kätzchen, just what do you intend to do?” he asked as you nibbled softly at the skin above his pants. 

You let out a huff and rolled your eyes up at him. 

“I intend to suck your cock, if that’s okay, colonel,” you shot back. 

He mumbled something quietly under his breath then added louder, “While I would love that, I don’t know how much time we have.” 

As you finally worked his belt open and began tugging his pants down, you couldn’t help but pout. 

“That’s not fair. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” you whined. 

The way his eyes rolled back and his hips arched made you grin. 

“And I would love to see those beautiful lips wrapped around my dick, but another time, kleines. Right now, I need to be inside of you.”

Your cunt clenched instinctively at that, at the promise of another chance to touch him, and you finally relented with a sigh. 

“Fine, fine, but you owe me later,” you replied, letting him pull you back over his lap. 

With a chuckle, he pulled you into a kiss and mumbled, “Of course, Schätzchen. Anything you wish, whenever you wish- except for right now.”

A flush crossed your face, deep and hot, as his words settled into your chest. When he began tugging at your jeans, you helped slide them and your panties down until they were hooked around just one leg. You weren’t given much time to ruminate on the feeling of your bare flesh against the scratchy fabric of his pants before the sensation of calloused fingers sliding down your slit stole both your attention and breath. 

“Ooh, look at you,” he crooned lowly, fingertips pushing between your lips and sliding back up until he found your clit, “So wet for me already.” 

Worrying your lower lip, your forehead rested against his cheek and your nails dug into his shoulders as you nodded slowly. Of course, you were. Who wouldn’t be when Adonis was touching them? He moved slowly, gently, almost as if afraid to go faster. It felt good but it wasn’t enough. 

“Ich wünschte, ich könnte jetzt meine Zunge in dieser heißen kleinen Muschi haben. Ich wette, du schmeckst himmlisch.” (I wish I could have my tongue in this hot little pussy right now. I bet you taste like heaven.)

“Ffff-Fuck!”

A broken whine escaped your lips when he finally slipped a lone finger into your core and it took everything within you not to collapse at that moment. One of his felt like two of yours but reached even deeper. You couldn’t resist rocking into his motions as he carefully worked you open. 

You didn’t even get a chance to cover your mouth before he suddenly forced in a second one and curled them against your g-spot, a moan spilling from the big man beneath you as you mewled.  

“More,” he demanded as his other hand tugged up his hood once more and smashed his mouth against yours, “Again.” 

You didn’t stand a chance in hell at ignoring his commands with the way he began hooking his fingers in a constant come hither motion against your spongy patch of nerves. Tears burned in your eyes as you fought for breath against the onslaught of sensations plaguing your body. It’d been so long since you’d let anyone else touch you, relying on your own hand and toys for release, and fuck if it wasn’t overwhelming. 

“König, ple-please!” you begged weakly, unable to keep from trembling against him as he brought you dangerously close to the edge. 

For all his talk about not having time, he was surely taking his. His fingers felt incredible but you needed to feel his cock. 

“Yes, Kätzchen?”

“Want you. Need you, please!”

His low moan was the only answer you needed, shaky hands diving down to work the waistband of his pants lower and tug at his boxer-briefs. You couldn’t even keep your eyes open to focus, too lost in the delirium of your approaching climax and the pleasure dancing along your skin. 

When you finally pulled him free, you instantly shoved his hand away and shuffled up until his tip was kissing your entrance, but he halted your motions before you could do more. 

“Don’t go too fast, alright? I don’t want you to get hurt,” he instructed you gently. 

You barely managed to open your eyes enough to meet his and nodded hastily. Go slow. You could do that. And yet, when he finally allowed you to move, you were tempted to just slam down, no matter how massive he felt. However, your self-control prevailed, only held back by the reminder that he’d probably stop you if you got hurt. 

It wasn’t until you started to lower yourself and you felt the fat head of his cock begin to split you open that you really understood why he’d been warning you, prickles of pain and pleasure dancing behind your clenched eyes as you sucked in a harsh breath. It didn’t matter that you were soaking wet and more than ready, your body was fighting to take each inch. 

“That’s it, gutes Kätzchen, just like that,” he praised softly. (Good Kitten)

Finally, after what felt like forever, your hips settled down against his and you let out a little mewl of satisfaction. 

“Jesus fuck,” you breathed out huskily, “This feels- Fuck, I can’t even describe it.”

“I know.” 

His voice sounded as tightly wound as you felt. Every muscle in your body ached but none more than the throb of your core. 

“Can- Can I move?” you asked. 

“If you’re ready.”

Steading yourself with his broad shoulders, you lifted up and slowly dropped back down, nails digging into his skin as he touched every last inch inside of you. When your eyes fluttered open, your cheeks bloomed a deep red as you found him already staring at you with awe in his gaze. It would have been anxiety-inducing if it weren’t for the bruises his fingers were leaving on your hips and the quiet little grunts falling under his hood. Knowing he was watching you though, it was daunting and lit a flicker of doubt in your chest, demanding you do everything to make sure you looked and felt your best for him. 

“Ah, wait, here,” he gasped suddenly, halting your motions as he tugged up your T-shirt.

You almost stopped him, wary of fully exposing any parts of you that you felt uncomfortable about, but he was too quick. He tucked the hem into the neckline of your shirt and instantly tugged down the cup of your bra, one hand wrapping around and lifting your breast while the other hand palmed your back and jerked you forward until he could wrap his lips around your nipple with a heady groan. 

“Fuck, König!” you whimpered, shocks of bliss making you pulse around his cock.

His moan was loud against your flesh as his hand left your back and guided your hips into motion once more, the dual stimulation enough to make you shudder. Bit by bit, you were able to work up to a faster pace, until pleasure started to take hold of your mind and you lost all sense of rhythm, more focused on coming than putting on a good show. 

“Ohgodohgod ohmygod!” 

A heavy growl vibrated against your skin as he grunted out between kisses, “Oh Gott, das ist es Kätzchen, kommst du mich holen?” (Oh god, that’s it kitten, are you going to come for me?)

You buried your frantic cries into your palm as you felt tears begin to fall. It was too good, too much, and you fucking loved it. The burn of his cock stretching your walls brought you so close to the edge that it hurt, each thrust making your clit throb with need. You managed a panicked, muffled, plea and were rewarded with teeth sinking into your flesh and a calloused thumb on your sensitive nub, tearing a hellish screech from your lips as you were instantly pushed over the edge. Your hand barely contained the frantic moans pouring from your throat as he pushed you through the crest. Every swipe of his thumb and thrust of his cock brought on another wave of pleasure, again and again until you lost the ability to do more than exist. 

With an audible pop, he pulled back from your abused skin and relaxed back against the bed, moans starting to rival yours in volume as his hands took hold of your hips and his knees bent under you. When he started thrusting up to meet each bounce of your hips, the fog finally took over completely. Leaning back enough to wrap your hands around his forearms, you gave over that last bit of control and just followed his lead. The sound of your ass meeting his thighs became louder, faster, in the quiet room; a lewd soundtrack coupled with the squeaks of the medical bed and your unstifled noises of pleasure.

“Mein gott. Look at that face. Not a single thought going through that sweet little head of yours, is there?” he groaned, chuckling when you suddenly leaned forward and buried your face in his neck with a meek hum, “No, no, don’t be embarrassed, kleines. It’s a compliment to have such an intelligent woman so brainless from my cock.”

You instinctively clenched around him and nuzzled further into his neck out of mortification. God, that shouldn’t be hot! You shouldn’t like that and yet you do. How did he manage to weave together such sexual praises into something that sounded like genuinely sweet compliments? 

“Sit back up, now,” he commanded sternly, “I want to see that beautiful face when I come.”

The change in position instantly put your senses back on edge, the press of his cock against your sweet spot all too tantalizingly perfect as he muttered gentle praises and led you back into rhythm, words slowly dissolving into the most unholy whimpers and grunts you’d ever heard. It wasn’t long until you couldn’t make out a single thing he said, English long evolved into German between frantic moans of your name. 

Suddenly his grip became overwhelmingly painful and you let out a squeal of panic, but the pressure was easily forgotten in favor of bliss as he began to thrust into you violently. It was almost as if he were trying to fuck himself into your cervix, a scary thought knowing he had the length to do so, but every attempt you made to lift off of him and create space was thwarted by his superior strength. And gods, if that didn’t do the dirtiest things to you. Even when he released one hip, he was powerful enough to keep you in place with just one hand, the other suddenly reappearing between your thighs. 

“Oh- Oh god, yes, König, just-” 

All it took was a few circles around your sensitive clit before you were thrown over the edge once more with a scream. Wave after wave rocked through your body as you rode him hard, thighs shaking and heart pounding as you scratched at him and cried his name all too loudly.  

“Oh Scheiße, ich werde kommen, bitte, nicht aufhören, nicht aufhören, bitte, bitte, bitte!” (Oh shit, I'm gonna come, please, don't stop, don't stop, please please please!)

Even in German, his message was clear. Fighting through your own hazy pleasure, you tightened your thighs and clenched around his cock eagerly, whimpering his name and pleading with him to come. You weren’t given any warning as he suddenly grabbed your neck and jerked you down into a ravenous kiss, a mixture of high-pitched keening and growling moans pouring into your mouth like oxygen when he buried himself one last time to the hilt. 

Tremors ran through your being as you felt his cock twitching, heat filling you with each pulse, and you couldn’t help the tears suddenly building in your eyes again. 

“Holy fuck,” you whined against his lips. 

When you clenched around him again and tried to move your hips, he put a stop to it immediately, arms wrapping around you and trapping your body to his. 

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he hissed darkly, “You start that andI won’t want to stop, and we definitely don’t have time for that.”  

A little grin crossed your lips as you melted into his hold and murmured, “Aye, aye, colonel.” 

His little snort of a laugh jostled you against his frame only for him to still and hold you tighter. You turned to rest your ear against his chest and listened to the steady heavy beat of his heart while your fingers trailed up and down his arms. 

“That was okay, right?” he asked after a moment, the uncertainty surprising. 

It took some effort to get him to let you go but you managed to finally sit up, hands slowly pushing up the edges of his mask to just until his lips were visible again, and you kissed him softly. 

“Better than I’ve imagined,” you whispered softly. 

He tensed for a moment before a little huff of a laugh puffed across your lips. 

“You’ve imagined this?” he asked back. 

Chewing your lower lip as you lifted again, you gave a shrug and replied, “Yeah, a lot, if I’m being honest. As you heard, you’re an intimidating man, colonel, but really, it only adds to your appeal.” 

It felt weird to be so openly blunt about your attraction to him but you supposed you were past the point of second-guessing things. His eyes searched your face intently for just a moment before he smiled, a warm, heart-pounding expression that made your knees weak. Fuck, maybe he hid his face for that reason. It wouldn’t do to have everyone tripping over themselves at his beauty. 

“I’m glad to hear that,” he murmured softly, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind your ear, “As much as I want to hold you longer, I’m afraid we should get decent before someone comes along and-”

“Fuck, yeah, you’re right!” you gasped, eyes darting to the door instinctively as you clambered off the bed. 

The moment you released your hold on him, your knees tried to give out but he was quick to give you a balancing hand. You thanked him quietly as you fixed yourself quickly- Well, as quickly as you could when your legs felt like jelly and your head was still spinning. When you were finally all dressed, he was carefully sliding his shirt back on. 

“Wait, let me make sure we didn’t tear anything loose.”

He gave you a look that told you how ridiculous he thought you were being, but he humored you with a sigh after a moment. Leaning in, you looked over the stitches and were happy to find everything still intact. 

“Good to go! Thank goodness,” you sighed happily, then flushed as you looked up at him, “Uh, you’ll have to come back in seven to ten days to get the stitches removed, which I’m sure you know. Other than that, just take it easy. Any damage you do will only prolong how long you’ll have to be on light duty.” 

“I see, and if I need assistance with any in the meantime? I can come to you?” he teased, eyes crinkling warmly at the edges.

Unable to hold in your grin, you replied, “Always. I’d be glad to help with anything you need, colonel. Just come find me.”

You tossed him a coy smile before making your way to the door, only to get spun and pushed up against the wood without warning. One big hand cupped your neck and forced your head up as he leaned in and kissed you, soft and light in a way that made your toes curl. 

“Sorry, needed one more,” he purred softly, chuckling as your face went hot. 

“Get out of here before I make up a reason to keep you here overnight,” you bit out teasingly. 

He gave you a mock salute before releasing you and allowing you to open the door. His gaze became soft once more when he studied you as you leaned against the door frame. 

“I’ll see you again soon. Have sweet dreams, Kätzchen.” 

“You too, König.”

When he finally walked away down the hall, you couldn’t help but watch him go. God, that man had the most perfect ass, and don’t even get started on that broad back. Biting back the flare of lust threatening to rekindle in your stomach, you ducked back into the office and ran a hand through your now-tangled locks, letting out a low sigh. The clock on the wall read two thirty in the morning, which meant you thirty minutes to get König’s chart typed up and then you could finally head home for the night. Thoughts of a hot shower and your soft bed had you groaning. Yeah, you were definitely going to sleep good tonight. 

…

“Sooo, how was your weekend?” Lisa asked, eyebrows jumping up and down in anticipation as you slid into the seat opposite her and Mark. 

You simply threw her a nonplussed look, not daring to give her any inclination. Lisa was good about keeping your feelings secret but you weren’t sure she could contain herself in public if you told her about what had happened with König, not to mention you didn’t want to chance him getting some sort of backlash if the fraternization rules applied to you. You’d have to do some research on that later if you two were going to meet up again at some point. Logically, seeing as you were contracted as a nurse and not as a solider, you hoped that you were outside of those rules but you weren’t certain.  

“It was fine. Nothing too crazy,” you lied seamlessly. 

She seemed to deflate at that. 

“Really? When I saw the colonel was back I had hoped…”

“Well, you hoped wrong,” you replied blandly, “I saw him but nothing happened. It’s fine, really. Probably for the best to maintain that professional boundary.” 

A body collapsing onto the bench beside you made you jump and nearly spill your food until you caught it at the last second, your heart racing from the shock until you saw it was one of Mark’s buddies at your side. 

“Hey, Ian,” Mark greeted, “What’s up?”

He was obviously as confused about his friend’s appearance as you were, but your confusion didn’t last long when he suddenly turned to face you. 

“So, I heard from a little birdie that you were single right now. Is that true?” Ian pressed, lips quirking up into a grin.

You shot a deadly look at Mark, earning a silent apology as his face heated, before you addressed the private next to you.

“I am but-”

“Great! You should come out with me Friday night! I have a weekend pass and I need a pretty lady to take with me to the city!” 

Well, shit. You knew nothing about Ian. You hoped he was a decent guy and wouldn’t be upset over you rejecting him since he was Mark’s friend but men were tricky. How were you supposed to turn him down without hurting or angering him? As your lips parted to answer, a massive hand suddenly slid around your throat and silenced you. Eyes wide in fear, you let out a shocked whimper and froze in place, only to catch the familiar scent of a warm cologne as a hard body pressed against your back. 

“There you are, liebling, I’ve been searching all over for you.”

König. Oh. Fuck. Tilting your head back at his insistence, you let your eyes meet his icy blues, obviously crinkled in joy. When his fingers tightened around your throat, you couldn’t help the way your face flushed in delight, your entire body warming with insatiable need as he descended and planted a loud smacking kiss on your forehead.

“Come now, I’ve brought lunch for us.” 

The entire table was silent during the exchange and you could practically feel Lisa vibrating in her seat, but you didn’t dare look away from him to address her. Nodding once, you rose to your feet where he finally released your throat. He interlaced his fingers with yours and you instinctively scooted closer, enjoying the body heat and comfort he put off.

“I’ll uh- I’ll see you guys later,” you threw back as he led you out of the canteen. 

The walk was quiet as he dragged you through the halls until he finally stopped at his office. With a little murmur, König opened the door and ushered you in first. The moment the door slammed shut, you were unceremoniously shoved against it, a little oomph escaping your lips at the impact. A weak moan left your lips as you felt his breath against your ear.

“Ungezogenes kleines Kätzchen,” he purred huskily “From now on, you will let it be known that you’re with me, got it?” (Naughty little kitten)

You hesitated before nodding and replied, “Y-Yes sir. I wasn't sure- I didn’t know what-” 

“Shh, shh, I know, schatz. It is not your fault. I didn’t make my intentions quite clear. You belong to me now.”

A shudder ran down your spine, forcing a moan low in your throat as you practically preened under his possessive claim. Despite the threatening tone, you felt no fear. If anything, it turned you on more than ever. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl. Now get on my desk,” he instructed. 

Your confused glance was met with a smirk and a wink as he pulled away. 

“I prefer to have my dessert first, Kätzchen. We can eat lunch after.” 

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt behind the cut; "the one where Kon's soulmark is fake". I remembered that, like, SEVERAL of my older WIPs are just a hot mess at the starts of their tags and also realized that I had posted like, very little coherently-connected parts of specifically this one's beginning, for some reason? Despite the fact that I love hurting and being hurt?? Somehow???? TERRIBLE oversight on my part, gang, sorry, here y'all go, enjoyyyyy~ 💙 (( chrono || non-chrono ))

Kon is sort of fucked-up in a lot of ways, but he didn't deliberately get the tattoo. Like–he's not that fucked-up. Hell, even Black Zero wasn't that fucked-up. 

Black Zero's Westfield didn't even give him the tattoo, actually, so maybe that's part of why they had a better relationship than Kon did with his version of the guy. Kon would also have hated the asshole a lot less if not for the tattoo, probably. 

But his Westfield had made damn sure to give it to him.

Kon doesn't remember much before he got broken out of the cloning tube, but he does remember getting the tattoo. It'd taken a really long time, and it'd been the first time he'd ever felt pain. So like, it'd made an impression. 

He hadn't even known what it was for, then. Hadn't even known what it was supposed to be. A brand? A method of identification? Some kind of weird serial number analogue? 

Not so much, it'd turned out. 

Superman's soulmark is a gorgeous Kryptonian sunrise spread out across his chest, bold and bright and beautiful. It looks like the rising truth and the clarity of a new beginning and the very literal physical manifestation of hope. 

And Kon's tattoo looks exactly like it. 

Except for the part where it's obviously just a tattoo, of course. 

Tattoos don't pass for soulmarks, after all, which is the only reason Kon has the damn thing to begin with. Westfield hadn't wanted him to make the mistake of thinking that he was a real person, or to make the mistake of thinking that anyone was ever going to give a fuck about him as the person that he was. He was a clone, an experiment, a weapon, a thing. He didn't have a soul or a soulmate. Didn't have a mark. 

He got over that. Like, it sucks? It really sucks. And he still hates it. But he'd gotten over it. 

Or he'd thought he had, until he'd found out who Superman's soulmate was. 

"What?" Kon says, staring blankly. 

"Dad's my soulmate," Jon repeats, pointing at the Kryptonian sunrise spread out across his chest, brightly illuminated by the noontime sun as they stand on the dock at the edge of a little pond on the outskirts of Smallville. "Why, who's yours? Or don't you know yet? Like, has it not come in?" 

"Clones don't get soulmarks," Kon says, wanting very, very badly to just throw up and die. 

"Huh?" Jon says, looking actually surprised. Kon continues to want to throw up and die. Or maybe bury himself in magma in the center of the planet and stay there 'til he suffocates. "But I thought everybody got soulmarks!" 

"Naw," Kon says instead of fuck you, because the kid's ten and doesn't deserve that. 

"Why not?" Jon asks, because again, he's ten. Ten and apparently as emotionally intelligent as a pudding cup, but whatever. Not like Kon's never had this conversation before. 

Never with Clark's kid who is apparently so much his kid as to be his literal fucking soulmate, which no one ever thought to mention to the stupid shitty clone in the past like four months since Clark had finally admitted to the secret identity that Kon had long since figured out thanks to Hypertime bullshit, but whatever. He only even officially met Jon a couple months ago. 

Probably they all figured it just wasn't his business, he guesses. 

Which–it's not, really. It's not his business. It never has been. 

It's not. 

"I mean, I'm sentient or whatever, but I'm manufactured," Kon tells the kid with a shrug. "Therefore no soul, therefore no soulmate, therefore no soulmark. That's all." 

"You don't have a soul?" Jon asks in bewilderment. 

"Naw," Kon says again, with another shrug. "So like, we gonna swim or what?" 

"Oh, uh, yeah," Jon says, still looking bewildered. 

So they swim. 

Kon, obviously, doesn't take his shirt off for it. 

Jon, mercifully, doesn't ask why. 

It's fun, aside from being the worst afternoon of Kon's life. They fuck around for a couple hours, then fly back to the farm after and mostly dry off on the way, and Clark comes out to meet–well, not them, obviously, but Jon. Jon lights up at the sight of him and throws himself straight into his arms like he's never once had to question whether or not Clark would ever want him there, and Clark smiles down at him like he's the most important person in the world. 

Kon should just count himself lucky that Clark trusts him enough to leave him alone with his kid for more than thirty seconds and be grateful. 

What Kon actually is, of course, is jealous and angry and fucking heartbroken. 

Jon is ten. Kon was manufactured two years ago. Clark had a real kid long before Kon was even a theoretical spark in a scientist's eye. 

And Jon had Clark the whole time Superboy was just desperately hoping that Superman would decide he was worth his attention. Worth the "S". Worth . . . 

When Clark had offered him a name from his family–specifically a name from an adopted member of his family–Kon had been . . . stupid, a little, and thought that it might've been, like . . . another step. Like he'd hoped that Superman even letting his weird stupid clone wear the "S" to begin with might've been.  

He hadn't been a complete idiot or anything. He'd known Clark would never, like–want to keep him around or have him too close or anything. He'd just thought that maybe he'd . . . that someday he might've . . . 

Kon isn't a real person. Like–obviously he's not. It isn't subtle. Hell, he'd have known it even if Westfield hadn't bothered tattooing him with a copy of Clark's mark. And really, he guesses he should be grateful Westfield didn't tattoo his own soulmark on him, whatever it was. 

Just, like, of course he's not Clark's . . . family, or whatever. Of course he's just like that one weird kid from down the street that somebody occasionally invites over out of pity who only learns the family secrets by accident or through osmosis and isn't actually kept in the loop or anything. Kon knows that. 

But watching Jon beam up at his dad and Clark smile down at his son is still making him want to curl up and die right here and now. 

Kon does kind of wonder what it's like to be, like . . . loved, or whatever. 

Everybody always makes it sound really nice. 

"Dinner's about ready," Clark says. "You two mind setting the table?" 

"Sorry, I gotta get going," Kon says instead of admitting he has no idea how to set a fucking table, especially not to whatever Martha Kent's standards are. Cadmus did not actually see fit to educate him on typical household chores and he has very rarely ever sat down at any semblance of a normal family dinner. Like, in Hawaii they all just ate wherever and not even all together half the time, and Cadmus has a cafeteria, and Young Justice just dumps a pile of junk food or takeout on the nearest unoccupied surface and they all just go to town on it like the weird gaggle of semi-superpowered and usually-ravenous teenagers that they are. 

He could look it up on his phone, and he probably will later, but there's no way he's gonna run the risk of getting caught looking it up on his phone. Like–no. Never, thanks. Miss him with that particular little bit of "further proof of being a fake person" humiliation. 

So it's . . . whatever, he guesses. 

"Well, that's alright, we'll just have to catch you another time," Clark says with a polite smile that looks nothing like the one he was just wearing for Jon, and doesn't even fake like he's disappointed or like he's gonna miss him. Because like . . . why would he, after all? 

Kon misses him all the time, but Kon's the pathetic counterfeit of a person with a copy of said person's soulmark tattooed on him. 

"Yeah, sure," Kon says, thinking longingly of suffocating in the center of the planet. 

Sometimes he thinks about what's gonna happen when he finally gets his dumb ass killed and whoever, like, autopsies or embalms him or whatever sees the tattoo. Thinks about what they're gonna think, if they . . . 

Superman's soulmark isn't a secret or anything. Clark's gotten smashed around too often for the suit to have kept it covered all this time. So like, if someone ever saw the tattoo on Kon's chest and didn't know that Cadmus put it there . . . 

Like . . . well. The natural assumption would be that Kon got it on purpose, obviously. That Kon was actually, like, that fucking pathetic and disturbed of a person. 

He never wants anyone to see it. Never wants anyone to know. Never . . . just never. None of it. Ever. 

And Clark will never smile at him like he smiles at Jon, so maybe Clark will just never know about the tattoo either. Maybe that's a thing that Kon can manage. 

He's managed it so far, at least. 

Kon goes back to Cadmus and buries himself in his eternally unmade bed in his cramped little disaster of a room and desperately tries to not be the absolute fucking freak that he is. 

He definitely fails at not being the absolute fucking freak that he is. 

He cries about it for a little bit, like that's something he even has the fucking right to do, and tries so fucking hard to forget how Jon's very real soulmark had looked when he'd stripped his shirt off and bared it so unselfconsciously. Not even deliberately or proudly–just as a simple, inalienable fact. A thing that he knew. A thing he just had. 

Although Kon wouldn't even care about the stupid goddamn mark, if Clark would ever look at him even a little bit like the way he looks at Jon. 

He tries not to think about the way Clark would actually look at him, if he ever found out that Cadmus had tattooed his fucking kid's mark on him. 

Kon's never let himself think too much about Clark's mark, on account of not wanting to torment himself that bad. He'd just vaguely assumed that it was Lois at some point and then just shoved said assumption in a box and drowned it in concrete and made sure to never, ever take his shirt off in front of anyone else or any possible cameras or spy equipment or anything similar. Ever. 

He should've known it wasn't Lois. It's a Kryptonian sunrise. Why would it be Lois? 

If it were Lois, though, Kon wouldn't care this much. If it were Lois, it'd be a romantic mark, and Lois is straight-up gorgeous and a total fucking badass, yeah, but Kon doesn't, like, want her or anything. There's nothing to be jealous of there. 

So of course it's not Lois. Of course it's not romantic. 

It's Jon, and on top of that it's a mark that only actual Kryptonians would ever share. 

It's Clark's real kid. The one he had long before Kon was even a single strand of stolen DNA or a cell in a cloning tube or even a scribbled theoretical on a whiteboard or in somebody's notes. 

The one he actually wants. 

Not for the first time, Kon wishes that prick Westfield weren't too dead to punch. 

And while he's wishing for completely impossible shit that’s never gonna happen, he wishes he could've been able to stay in Smallville for that stupid dinner without fucking embarrassing himself, too.

[juqtier]

☆◞: IM ALWAYS JUST A DOOR AWAY ✧ SPENCER REID

SUMMARY: after blowing up at your neighbor, you and your friend decide to have a night out to help you with stress. what could go wrong?

GENERAL WARNINGS: mentions of alcohol and alcohol, angsty, arguing, spencer is kind of (definitely) an asshole, kissing, cursing, somewhat darker plot points as story progresses

THIS CHAPTERS CONTAINS: alcohol and alcohol consumption, characters are drunk, cursing, spencer is an asshole, cursing. also if anything is wrong or said wrong ignore it and pretend it’s all correct thanks 💯🥰🫶🏽

GENRE: enemies to lovers, fluff, angst

⋆·˚ ༘ *

chapter 2 : it’s dr. reid

✎ It has been a couple weeks since you blew up at Spencer, and not much has changed. Well, except for your attitude towards him.

You never smiled or waved at him. In fact, if he even glanced at you, you’d quickly roll your eyes before he got the chance.

As you sat in the back at your work, counting tips, you couldn’t help but think about how much you hated him.

God, he’s so stuck up.

He doesn’t even know me.

Wearing a vest doesn’t make you any better than me or anyo-

"(Y/N), are you okay?”

Your coworker (and closest friend), Liv, interrupts your thoughts. She stared at you with a subtle hint of confusion. You hadn’t even realized you'd been zoned out or that you’d been slamming down the cash on the table.

You and Liv met when you first began working here. She was possibly the happiest person you know, and the kindest. She always listened to you ramble about anything, whether it was a stupid hobby, a rude customer, or even the most mundane story about your week.

“Um yeah. Just some problems..” You weren’t even sure how to answer her. Bringing up the situation made you even more furious.

However, Liv became a bit more concerned with this answer.

“Oh no! What’s wrong? Family troubles, a boy?”

You breathe in deeply, trying to suppress the anger building up again before you start talking.

“It’s just... my neighbor.”

Liv leans on the table you sat at, obviously interested in what you have to say. “Go on…”

Her saying that immediately gave your mind the confirmation it needed to go ahead with your rant.

“Well, when I moved in, I wanted to greet him. I don’t know, trying to be neighborly and whatnot, like one does. But.. like..”

You rub your face with your hands. It became clear to you that talking about this would anger you no matter what, so why not just get it over with?

“He’s such a jerk. Like, he interrupted me when I tried to say hello. He even slammed the door in my face.”

Your friend's eyes widen, leaning more towards you, showing her interest. Honestly, even if she wasn’t showing any care whatsoever, the words would’ve kept spewing out regardless. You needed to get this off your chest.

“Oh, and he showed up at my door, telling me to turn my music down. I have no problem with that, but in the same breath, he tells me how I have terrible taste. He said, 'Some of us have jobs and commitments', or whatever bullshit he said to me. Like oh I’m sorry, I never knew because I don’t also work my ass off!”

Your voice gradually became louder, yet you weren’t quite yelling. All Liv does is nod softly, almost as if she knew how much anger and frustration built up inside of you.

“And I live next to him, I can’t avoid him. He’s like the plague! Maybe during the apartment tour, the realtor could’ve been kind enough to give me a heads-up! Maybe like, ‘Oh, by the way, the neighbor is insanely rude and pretentious, so maybe avoid him if you can’, I dunno!”

“Jesus, (Y/N), I’m sorry.” Liv quickly says. Venting to your friend calmed you down a bit, but you were still visibly annoyed.

“It’s fine… It’s not... whatever.” Your body slumps into the chair, the tip money you were previously counting still spread in front of you.

“Let’s go out tonight. You and me!” Liv suggests happily.

The idea sounds nice, but you haven’t been out in what feels like forever. When you moved, you left all of your dresses and more risqué clothing behind to make the move easier. I mean, you didn’t even think you’d have a reason to go out of the house.

“Liv, thanks for the attempt at helping, but I haven’t gone out in so long. I don’t even have going-out clothes.”

"Well, you’re in luck, sweets! I have tons of going-out clothes, or whatever you call them. When I’m out in a couple hours. Finish counting your tips, go home, shower, and I’ll pick you up. No ifs, ands, or buts. See ya!"

With that, she smiles sweetly at you and hurries off, going to serve another table fast enough so you can’t say no to the plans she made. You let out a small huff, seeing no way out of this.

And Liv was nice; what harm could going out with her do?

You gather the cash and stuff it into an envelope, sliding it into your purse and gathering the rest of your belongings. Untying your apron and setting it down, you exit the restaurant through the back and make your way to your car.

Please let tonight be a good one.

-‘๑’-

“Choose an outfit, any outfit!”

Liv displayed all her dresses for you to choose from on her bed. She had picked you up a couple hours prior, and the two of you had been talking for a while before getting ready.

You straightened your hair and did a smokey makeup look, something you hadn’t done in a while.

The dress selection was quite impressive, but a simple short, sparkly black dress stood out to you the most. You pick it up and show Liv your choice.

“Ooooh, skimpy, yet simple. I like!” Liv said, smiling from ear to ear.

“Go put it on!”

She eagerly pushes you into the bathroom to change, shutting the door behind you.

Slipping the clothes on and staring at yourself in the mirror, you felt insanely confident. Since you hadn’t been out in so long, you forgot how fun it was to get dressed up.

Stepping out of the bathroom and into the room where Liv went to change, she audibly gasped upon seeing you.

“Jesus (Y/N), you look hot!”

A giggle escapes your lips as you look down at the yourself and smile at her.

“I might have to steal this dress, I like them too much.”

“I’d pay you to keep it, you look good.”

The comment made you blush slightly as your friend continued to compliment you.

“Alright, I'm ready. Let’s go!”

The two of you order a cab and head to the club. The thought of Spencer Reid is nowhere in your mind.

-‘๑’-

As you arrive at the club, you can already tell it’s quite full. Just upon entering, you see tons of people dancing and drinking—even a drunk girl spilling her drinks all over herself as her friends quickly try to clean her up.

Liv grabs your arm, dragging you up to the bar in a matter of seconds. It seemed so fast; you hadn’t even noticed she ordered you two drinks.

“Two tequila shots, two waters, and two limes, thank you!” Liv orders from the bartender. He nods and heads off to grab you guys your drinks.

“Starting off strong?” You say this, laughing softly.

“Of course! I want you to have a good night, (Y/N). It’ll be fun, trust me!"

Liv smiled softly at you as she grabbed the salt on the counter, seeing the bartender come back with the shots.

“Here you go. Enjoy, ladies.”

The both of you nod as the bartender steps away, helping others with their drinks. You lick the back of your hand and sprinkle salt on it before grabbing the shot and throwing it back.

It burned slightly, going down your throat, and you winced a bit. Quickly licking the salt off your hands and sucking on the lime, you can’t help but shake a little bit. It’s been so long since you’ve even consumed any sort of alcohol, so this shot felt incredibly strong to you.

"Jesus, I forgot how much I hate tequila.” You say, clearing your throat a bit. You grab your water and take a sip as Liv laughs, seemingly having had no reaction to the shot.

“Welcome back to drinking, huh?” She jokes, which makes you both laugh a little.

-‘๑’-

As the night goes on, the two of you dance and drink more, progressively becoming drunker. The shots began going down like water; a lime wasn’t needed to help anymore.

As you and Liv danced together, you decided to get more shots. Liv was clearly having too much fun to get off the dance floor right away, so you made the sacrifice to step off and grab them.

“I’ll go grab us some more shots; you just stay here.” You say to her, words slurring as you walk over to the bar. You lean on the bar to order more shots, hoping to make them your last ones as you get more and more tired.

The bar was full, so the bartender wasn’t going to tend to you right away. As you take a seat to help you have some sort of balance, you become aware of the presence of someone behind you. Assuming it was Liv, you snap your head to look at the person.

No fucking way

It seemed like you could never escape the nightmare that is Spencer Reid.

"Holy shit, Reid... are you stalking me?” You say this, looking up at the tall man. If your words didn’t indicate how drunk you were, your face did. Your eyes were heavy, and your face was slightly flushed red.

“Stalking you? I wouldn’t even if I was paid.” He states, making you roll your eyes.

“I don’t know what karmic debt I have to pay off, but it sure is hell seeing you everywhere I go.”

The words coming out of your mouth were so slurred, it made him chuckle. This made you roll your eyes again, annoyed at everything he did.

“I’m not particularly pleased to see you either." He answers, not even looking down at you as he scans the bar.

“And besides, you’re not the only one allowed to go out. I’m here with some work friends, not for you. They’re all just too drunk to hold a conversation…”

You laugh slightly as you tilt your head. “You don’t drink”

“No, not really. Can’t say the same can you? Try not to clear out the alcohol…”

Of course he had to throw in a snarky comment quickly. Even if it wasn’t normally seen as rude, coming from him was a different story.

“I’m leaving anyway.. have a.. nice night… or whatever.” You reply swiftly, forgetting the shots you planned to order and hopping out of your seat. You stagger a few steps away before feeling his hand wrap around your forearm, quickly stopping you.

“Wait, how are you getting home? You can’t drive like this.”

It almost felt like you couldn’t roll your eyes anymore than you have. You turn your head to look at him, your hair falling in front of your face.

“Don’t pretend to care.. where.. I’m going." Your words seemed to take forever to get out; you just wanted to get as far away as possible in that moment.

“Just because I don’t like you at all doesn’t mean I’m going to let you be in possibly dangerous situations. Especially in this state..." His eyes didn’t seem angry at that moment; they were just worried. It almost felt foreign to see him not roll his eyes back at you. It shocked you.

“How are you getting home?" Spencer’s voice is a lot more stern this time, startling you a bit. You never expected him, of all people, to care.

"Well, mister Reid…”

“It’s Dr.” He corrects you.

“Whatever.. me and my friend… Liv… will get a cab home. Any other questions?"

When he doesn’t respond right away, you think that’s the end of the interaction. When you attempt to slip your arm out of his grasp, he only tightens his grip a bit more. Not hurting you, but stopping you from walking away.

“I- I don’t think that’s very safe. I’ll give you guys a ride.”

Usually you’d argue and protest, but he seemed too serious to even try. And besides, you’d rather get a free ride than pay for one.

“Whatever..” You begrudgingly agree, pulling your arm away to go get your friend. Liv is easily pulled off the dance floor this time as you explain the situation. She holds onto your arms as you exit the club behind Spencer. It was obvious she had many more drinks than you; you could’ve looked a little sober next to her.

"Hello, sir, thank you for the ride.” She says to Spencer, her words are barely comprehensible. Spencer just nods, not really understanding what she said.

You walk to Spencer’s car with Liv on your arm, then softly help her into the backseat, buckling her up. She was laughing and giggling as you did so, not paying much attention to Spencer at all.

"Please, please, please don’t throw up in my car.” You hear him talk to himself as he walks to the driver's side door and gets in.

As you get in the front seat beside Spencer, you look around at the interior of the car. It was completely clean; there was not a speck of dirt in sight.

“Huh, is the car new?” You ask, turning your head to face him. He shook his head as he stuck the keys in the ignition, starting the vehicle.

“No. I just don’t drive much. I don’t like to, I usually take the train or have a coworker drive me. Can you give me your guys addresses?”

You nod, telling him both addresses, seeing as Liv was too inebriated to say much. The car begins to move, and you lay your head back to stare out the window. Watching the world pass by was calming; you even began to drift off a little.

Suddenly, the car stops.

“We’re at Livs.” He almost whispers. You lift your head up and look around before getting out of the car. You still had pretty bad balance, but better than Liv’s, who had passed out by now. Spencer gets out as well and helps you hoist Liv out of the backseat.

“How much did you guys drink?” He asks, referencing how drunk your friend was. The two of you begin walking to the door of her house.

“Not a lot, just... a lot..” You joke, laughing at your own stupidity.

“I wouldn’t do that. Alcohol causes 13 percent of deaths among-“

“Boooorinnng.” You interrupt. He presses his lips together as you two reach the door. You dig through the purse Liv had on her shoulder and fish her keys out, quickly unlocking the door and pushing it open.

“I’ll go put her to bed.” You say, dragging Liv off Spencer’s shoulders and to her room. She is easily carried, being quite light. As you reach her room, you set her down on the bed and take her purse off her shoulder, placing the keys beside it on her dresser. She didn’t really respond much, but you did hear her softly snoring as you laid her down.

As you shut the lights off and exit the house, you see Spencer waiting on the sidewalk for you.

“Come on, I’m tired.”

You walk to the car and get it again, buckling up quickly.

As you begin driving, he suddenly begins talking to you.

“I never took you as someone to go out at all.”

“Dr. Reid, you don’t know me at all.”

Saying this makes you realize, you don’t know him either. I mean, he was annoying, yes, but what did he do? What did he like? Were his interests as painstakingly pretentious as he was? You grew curious, then quickly grew confused as to why you were curious at all.

When he laughs at your comment, you immediately snap out of your head. “I do know you’re a pain in the ass.”

“You’re not exactly a dream either, believe me.”

You go back to staring out the window, waiting for the car to finally park in front of your apartment.

When it finally does, you get out as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Spencer is right behind you.

“Stop following me, weirdo.” You comment as you walk in front of him, refusing to turn around.

"Sorry, princess, but in case you forgot, I’m your neighbor.”

You groan at this comment as you both reach your apartment doors. You were already so irritated and tired that you couldn’t bear another snarky comment or remark from him. Opening your door, you look at him and nod.

“Good night, Dr. Reid.” Your tone was sassy, yet jokey. He rolled his eyes and smiled at you, lifting his hand to wave goodbye. Before he can reply or say anything, you shut the door.

You made him smile.

He smiled cause of you?

Why did you care so much that he smiled? Shouldn’t that annoy you? Maybe you were just too drunk to function properly. You shake the thoughts off and slip into more comfortable clothes, quickly jumping into bed and falling asleep. Maybe tomorrow you’ll be thinking straight…

-‘๑’-

PT 1 | PT 3

tag list: @daisyridleyss @taygrls @yeonalie @peanutbelley @vivian-555 @ehedrick012110

a.n : this feels really long, and it is, so sorry ! but next chapter is a lil more eventful i hope! also, in my head liv is a blonde sweet sort of ditzy girl, but you can imagine her however you’d like! liv lover regardless 💪🏽💯

[letsgetrowdy43]

Heartbreak Hotel—

Quinn Hughes x reader

Warnings: suggestive content (no actual sex) (it's literally only at the end), lmk if there's anything else I need to warn ppl about :)

I live for the angst of it all… I’m also ignoring the 40 requests in my inbox cause I’m lazy so here, to make up for my lack of motivation

Briggs, the Boeser family's two-year-old baby boy bounced on Y/N's knee. Small giggles erupted from him as he played with the sleeve of his favourite aunt's blouse. A smile spread across the woman's face as she placed a kiss on the crown of the baby's head, "so when are you having one of your own?" Charlotte (I did in fact make a fake wife for Brock, so what??) asked with a smug grin as she sipped her coffee.

"We've definitely talked about it," Y/N joked wiggling her eyebrows at Charlotte who let out a laugh, the woman picked up her coffee cup to hide the look of discouragement on her face from her friend.

"Hughes still having intimacy troubles? I thought it would be much easier for him once he married" Y/N's lips formed a straight line as she thought of her husband, "that's definitely not the issue, we decided that we just aren't ready yet" "Ready? Y/N/N, you've been married three years nearly" Y/N looked at her best friend with this knowing look, "I will never understand how your guy's relationship works"

The blonde let out a quiet sigh, "we are just in a strange place right now" she shrugged, bringing her hand up to remove a lock of her hair from baby's hand, "it's not that I'm not ready, I would love to be a mom, but sometimes it feels like he doesn't want to take those next steps" she said with a sad smile.

Quinn's romance and love seemed to be fleeting, his concentration landing more on his life within the hockey world, rather than on his wife. An issue that the two were tip-toeing around, sharing soft kisses and gentle words but only when he was thriving, only when he was accomplishing greatness. If he wasn't blossoming to the level that he felt was acceptable the idea of loving his wife went out the window, and his heart stayed at the rink along with his passion.

As time went on Y/N learned to accept that this was the love that she was going to receive for the rest of her life. She would always fall second to hockey, it was his life and his greatest aspiration, and she could live with that. But sometimes she wished he would just choose her for once.

"That's utter bullshit, he loves you, you know that," Charlotte said with a smile, Y/N just laughed and joked the agonizing conversation away, no longer wanting to speak about it if no one was going to listen to her point of view. "I know he loves me, he married me for a reason" She bitterly smiled and took another sip of her coffee.

"When is Beau supposed to stop in?" "He said he would stop in around noon, so any minute now?" both women stared at the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, eleven fifty-five.

Within a matter of seconds, a man walked through the doors and sat in the seat next to Y/N, taking the baby out of her arms and tucking him into him, "hello little man" he said squeezing Briggs' cheeks. "Look at his little smile," he said in a baby voice as he threw the baby in the air and caught him, just to listen to the little boy's addictive giggles. "You two have that same IQ," Charlotte mumbled with disgust, followed by a smirk gaining a fake scowl from the man, Briggs trying to copy the look plastered on the grown man's face.

"My beloved Y/N, where is your grumpy husband, he hasn't been answering my texts all day, I'm having withdrawals" a fake tone of desperation lacing his voice as he batted his lashes. "Both sets of in-laws are in town for my mom and Jim's birthdays this weekend, so we are hosting dinner tonight at the apartment" The woman stole the toddler right out of Tito's hold, sticking her tongue out at him as the little blondie curled up in her lap.

Her eyes wandered over to the clock again, realizing that it would be best if she left sooner than later in order to help Ellen and her mother with dinner preparations. "Speaking of dinner, I should probably head out" She smiled sweetly and placed the tiny human back into Tito's grasp. "I've barely blessed you with my presence and now you're leaving?" the woman nodded, "fake friend!"

"Bye Beau," she pushed his shoulder, ducking down to place a kiss on the toddler's forehead, "bye-bye Briggs," she waved. "No goodbye kiss for me?" Charlotte asked as the woman got up and off of the couch to place a sloppy kiss on her best friend's cheek,

Finally showing herself out as the calls from her mother already began rolling in on things to grab from the store before making her way home.

⭐︎⭐︎

"Y/N, straighten your back, your posture is horrendous" her mother scoffed from behind her as she helped pull her mother-in-law's fresh-baked apple pie out of the oven. "Sorry Mom," she said just above a whisper, adjusting her stance and placing the hot pie on the marble counter.

Quinn walked into the kitchen in search of a corkscrew, he was dressed nicely. A navy button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows leaving his muscular forearms on display.

He was always so carelessly attractive.

His eyes met hers, taking a moment to appreciate her beauty, drinking up her silk-covered silhouette and then flashing her a soft smile. She hated how just the softest looks or gestures could flip her stomach, and wipe her memory of the past few months. Rid him of any blame for why their marriage seemed to be drowning rather than thriving.

"Mom?" he snuck up behind his wife and placed his hands on her hips to kiss her on the cheek, "Dad needs our help in the dining room," and just like that, his warmth was gone.

Quinn was always a gentleman, whether they were in a fight, or hadn't spoken to each other in days he would always greet her with kind words and treat her as if nothing was wrong between them. It was all one big mind-fuck. Although she was starting to believe that he had lost interest in her, he had made that very clear early into their marriage, she would always find things about him that she loved most about him and hold onto those feelings.

It wasn't like that in the beginning though, she didn't always feel the love slipping from between her fingers, it was intertwined in her soul, Quinn's love was her everything. He was gentle and kind, promising her the world. Reminiscing of the life that he had dreamt of with her, but with every seeming day it was as if that dream was washing away.

Y/N couldn't find it in herself to hate him. Even after the long nights of endless fighting, screaming until the only thing she could hear was her heartbeat in her temples. Opting to sleep in the spare bedroom because she couldn't look at him without feeling nauseated. Getting so close to just leaving, walking out the front door and never turning back. But after every heated fight he would come to her at the latest hours of the night and apologize, hot tears streaming down his face as he apologized for raising his voice at her, and she would do the same thing to him.

They were in a constant cycle of tearing each other into pieces and then trying to tape each other back together as if the emotional damage wasn't already in effect.

Dinner started at exactly six sharp, Quinn held Y/N's hand over the table, a small motion that hid their issues with a sweet facade.

"So Quinn, your team is really taking advantage of the playoff push, you guys are killing it" Mr Y/L/N stated, his voice raspy with old age. Quinn's face lit up at the mention of hockey, "The rebuild was really good for us, I'm just hoping to be able to contribute to the push" his wife smiled bitterly, and Ellen sat silently taking in the micro-aggressions that the couple sent each other. "He's so humble," the young woman's mom grinned at her daughter and the rest of the table "You're basically carrying the team love" she smiled sweetly as Quinn denied her claims.

Quinn squeezed Y/N's hand, making her look at him with furrowed brows, "I never got the chance to tell you that you look stunning, that dress is..." And there he was again, making soft comments that rid her of any anger or resentment she was holding against him. "Thank you, you look very handsome as well" she whispered as he leaned forward slightly to place a kiss on her bare shoulder.

The parents sitting around the table completely oblivious to suffering that was silent but present.

"So when are we expecting grandkids?" Ellen said with a grin missing the way that both you and Quinn went rigid in your seats.

There it was, the million-dollar question.

The woman smiled awkwardly and looked up at Quinn as he shrugged, "we're a little young don't you think?" he asked with an unamused expression as he watched his mom shake her head. "I would say twenty-five is a reasonable age" she shrugged and looked over to Y/L/N's mom who nodded in agreeement.

"I mean we are both busy people, and Quinn is always away for work" "You're blaming us not having kids on my lack of presence?" Quinn scoffed and took a sip of his beer. "That's not what I meant, Quinn" She took a deep breath and shook her head, "I just meant that we aren't ready, you've said it yourself it'll happen when the time is right!" she said defensively as she removed her hand from Quinn's and turned her body to face anyone else at the table other than him.

She picked her wine glass up and off the table to finish the remainder in her glass before heading to the kitchen to grab dinner from the oven, her mother-in-law following closely behind.

Ellen walked into the kitchen to see the girl leaning against the counter, her face hidden in her hands as she let the tears flow. "What did my son do now?" the older woman asked gently as she pulled her daughter in-law into her arms.

Ellen Hughes always knew how to fix a situation.

"It's not his fault," she didn't even know how to express their issue in words, sentences getting caught in her throat as she cried into her mother-in-law's arms. Ellen shook her head, "you can't carry all of that baggage sweetheart, let me try to diffuse it" she said dis-attaching herself from the young woman and grabbing a fresh bottle of Pinot Grigio from the wine fridge.

"I'm going to sound so selfish" she mumbled as she pulled the roast out from the oven, "but sometimes I just wish he would pick me, he would choose me over hockey and the team" Ellen's expression softened, "that's not selfish, you just want to be a priority, you already should be his priority," she said quietly pouring herself and her daughter-in-law a glass of wine.

"The same thing happened to Jim and I just after we moved to Toronto, he was so consumed with the Leafs and their development that I carried all of the weight of our family," she said softly, wiping away the girl's tears, "you're not selfish, I just think you need to knock some sense into my son" she smiled, "if you talk, he'll listen, it's one of his greatest attributes" she smiled and grabbed the roast from the counter before heading back into the dining room to serve dinner.

⭐︎⭐︎

Quinn stood behind Y/N in their shared closet, she held hair in her hands as he gracefully unzipped the back of her silk dress. An awkward look on his face as he tried to look anywhere but her almost naked silhouette, ignoring how the fabric pooled at her ankles and left her vulnerable.

"If I say something will you listen to me?" she asked quietly, turning around to see him in nothing but his sweatpants, a sad smile on his face, "I need you to hear me."

She watched as he nodded his head, getting slightly distracted from the way his back muscles flexed as he reached up and grabbed himself a new facecloth. His shoulders were broad and muscular, his face soft. A pair of black wire-framed reading glasses sat perfectly on his nose, his brown slightly out-grown hair messy from running his hands through it. He was so attractive, it almost made her angry how distracted she found herself.

"I want to fix this," he answered shortly with a frown, she slid on a pair of silk pyjama pants, remaining in her bra as he pulled her into his chest, "I love you."

"Do you really though?" she asked tiredly, forehead leaning against his chest as the exhaustion filled her voice. "Of course?" he pulled away, slight panic on his features as he heard the seriousness in her tone. "I feel so unimportant to you lately, I just want to feel like I mean something in your life, like the past six years of my life haven't been wasted on a man who prioritizes everything above me" she confessed.

Quinn opened his mouth to answer but was promptly silenced as she covered his mouth with her hand, "listen," she sighed, her hands now playing with the hair on the back of his neck as she made him look her in the eyes. "I don't think I could tell you the last time that I looked at you and truly felt like you still loved me, you spend all your time with the team, and I'm not mad about that, I'm so proud of all the work you're putting into your dreams," her voice cracked as tears welled in her eyes, "I just want you to make me feel seen, I feel like our dream of a life together is slowly withering away."

Quinn's brows furrowed "I don't underststand," his hands squeezed her torso lightly as he pulled away, "is this because I said I wasn't ready to have kids yet? Cause I know your'e ready, and it seems like everyone around us is ready, I'm just not there yet," a tone that resembled defensiveness laced his voice as he watched the girl wipe her eyes and shake her head. A dry laugh left the girls mouth as she sadly shook her head, "you're missing the whole point Quinn, it's not about wanting kids, I can't remember the last time we talked, or laughed together, or even the last time you genuinely touched me when it wasn't the outcome of a win and a night out with the boys!"

She watched a realization hit him, dawning on him just how much he had been taking her for granted, "I didn't- I don't know?" His face falling as he backed up against the dresser, "I don't know how to make it right" was all he said staring at his wife whose face was puffy and tear covered, wearing an old t-shirt of his and short as she hugged herself.

Y/N knew Quinn wasn't inherently bad, the look of realization on his face showing her that this absence wasn't because he was bored or that he was tired of her, he was lost.

She bent down onto her knees and kneeled in front of him, "I just need you to love me." "I do love you" he reached out and grabbed her hand, "I promise that I've never stopped loving, I never will." "You need to show me that, you need to make it right Quinn, cause I can't stay in a marriage where my husband doesn't acknowledge my existence, and I don't want a life with someone who only needs me around when he's feeling on top of the world" she whispered as she place a kiss to his knuckle.

"I want the good, the bad, and the ugly, and I want it all with you."

He reached forward and wrapped his arms around her to pull her into his frame, "I will make it right," he whispered as he sat her down on his lap, straddling him, his hands finding comfort on the soft flesh of her thighs. "I know you will" she mumbled, feeling like for the first time in a long time he was actually looking at her, actually listening to her every syllable.

His hand travelled up to her hip, nose bumping into hers as he eyed her bottom lip, "can I kiss you?" "Please," she said breathlessly as he swooped in and captured her lips on his, his hands kneading the skin of her thigh as her hands found his jaw line, holding him as close to her as humanly possible.

She pulled away first, her chest heaving, lips swollen as she looked at his hazy expression, "that was a good start," she grinned as he wrapped her body around him, getting up off of the ground and travelling into their room. "My apology hasn't even begun yet" he said smoothly, his lips making their way from her jaw down to her collarbone.

"You do have a lot of apologizing to do" she whispered into his neck as he laid her down on their bed. A small grin on his face as she innocently stared up at him, "don't worry, we have all the time in the world."

-

-

-

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

Steve finally moved out of his parents' house after Robin graduated and into a shared apartment with her. His parents never let him have a pet before, and he had always wanted a cat. It was all he could think about when they moved in.

"If you want a cat, get a cat," Robin shrugged as she doodled Vickie's name over and over. "We're still rolling in that compensation money."

Steve grinned, grabbed his keys, and dashed out the door. He made sure to stop by the pet store first and get as many supplies as he could. The next stop he made was to the animal shelter, and he really shouldn't have, but the first kitten he saw he fell in love with. Her black fur was curled like a sheep's and she only had one green eye. She was curled up in the back and looking weary.

"No one wants her. They always walk past her when they come through the store, which is a shame because she's a beautiful cat. I'd take her, but my husband says I can't keep adopting every animal that comes through here," the clerk said. "I think they pass her by because she's black."

"Well, that's racist," Steve scoffed.

"Yeah," the clerk agreed. "Superstitious assholes."

"She's the one," Steve declared.

"Okay, be careful. She's a little skiddish," she warned Steve.

Steve held out her hand and let her come to him. She didn't at first, still looking at him in an untrustworthy way.

"I won't hurt you. I promise. I just want to give you a home," Steve said.

She understood him because a few seconds later, she was crawling into his hands. Steve smiled and held her to his chest, scratching behind her ear.

"Meow," Yeah, I'm going with you, but I'm also keeping an eye out.

Steve snorted.

"I think that I'll call you Raven," Steve said. "Raven Harrington?"

"Meow." It'll do.

When Steve came home with the kitten in the carrier, Eddie was waiting outside of his apartment door. He had forgotten they were supposed to hang out tonight. Steve blushed. He was wearing an open vest and nothing underneath with his usual pair of black ripped jeans. His hair was in a loose bun, which always drove Steve mad. Heart thumping in his chest, he approached him. He had yet to tell the metalhead how he felt, and he really needed to. Everything about Eddie drove him crazy. Eddie grinned and spread his arms wide. Oh God. He got his nipples pierced.

"Well, what do you think?" Eddie asked.

"They're, uh, nice, Eddie," Steve said, swallowing thickly. "I got a cat. Shit, my hands are full. Uh, is Robin not home?"

"Nope. Do I need to fish your keys out of your pocket for you, big boy?' Eddie asked.

"Y-yes, please," Steve said.

Eddie stepped right into his space, his nose practically touching Steve’s. He fingers slid into the front of Steve’s pocket. Eddie's eyes furrowed. The keys weren't there. He checked the other pocket but still no keys. Eddie grinned and slid both hands into the back pockets of Steve’s jeans. Steve’s mind was completely blank, his face red.

"Oh, keys, where art thou?" Eddie asked.

"Oh! Uh, yeah, they're in my jacket pocket," Steve realized.

Eddie cackled and fished them out of his jacket pocket. He dangled them in front of them before going to unlock the door.

"You know, you could have put the kennel down," Eddie pointed out.

"Yeah," Steve said and scoffed.

"Meeeeooww!" Okay, enough of this bullshit.

Eddie unlocked the door, grabbed the bags from Steve’s hands, and followed him into the apartment. Steve set the kennel down and opened the door. Raven looked weary again and was curled up in the back.

"It's okay, Raven. This is your home now, if you want it to be," Steve cooed, holding out his hand again.

Raven walked out, unsure, and curled up into Steve’s hand. Raven sniffed the air, glancing around the apartment.

"Meow." Better than the shelter, anyway.

"Thanks," Steve scoffed.

Raven glanced over at Eddie, apprasing him. Raven glanced at Steve.

"Meow." This is the man you wish to mate with?

"Why do you have to say it like that?" Steve sighed.

"Uh, Steve, watchya doing?" Eddie asked.

"Oh, you know, just chatting with the cat," Steve said with a shrug and watched with a grin as Raven curled up against his stomach. "Aww, look, she knows her mommy."

"You don't mind being called mommy? I thought that was a joke," Eddie said.

"Mommy, Daddy, you know, whatever I'm in the mood for," Steve shrugged.

"You're just full of surprises, Stevie," Eddie grinned.

"Meow." I am NOT calling you mommy or daddy.

"What if I give you all of the belly scratches and treats you want? Hmm?" Steve cooed.

"Meow." I'm listening. . .mother.

"Good girl," Steve smiled and rubbed her belly.

"Meow." You know, a cat needs a father too.

Raven glanced at Eddie. Steve snorted, blushing. He tucked her under his chin and looked at Eddie, pouting.

"Can you believe that people at the shelter didn't want her because of the way she looks?" Steve said, looking at Eddie.

"Assholes. She looks like a cute little black sheep," Eddie said, kneeling on the floor with Steve. "Although she's not nearly as cute as her mother."

"Meow." Smooth.

"You know, Raven says she needs a Daddy too," Steve said.

"Are you asking me to raise this precious kitten with you, Steve Harrington?" Eddie asked.

"Yes," Steve said.

"Hmm, I guess we can split time evenly between my place and yours," Eddie said.

"I mean, we could, but I think it might work better if you moved in here," Steve said.

"Where would I sleep?" Eddie asked.

"Meow." Wow, slow. Are you sure you want this guy to be my father?

"Okay, I'm so tired of dating. I spent a lot of time looking for the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I don't need to look any further because he's right in front of me," Steve said. "I know we're skipping a lot of steps here, but you're it for me, Eddie."

"You're it for me too, Stevie," Eddie said. "And yes, yes to everything."

Steve and Eddie moved at the same time, their lips meeting in the middle. Eddie smiled against his lips, wrapping his arms around the both of them. It was soft and sweet but also short. Eddie broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against Steve’s.

"Is Robin going to be alright with me moving in?" Eddie asked.

"Yeah, I didn't even tell her that I wanted you to move in. She automatically made space for you in the hall closet and the bathroom. She's also made a key for you. She's just been waiting for me to get my head out of my ass," Steve blushed.

"I'm glad you did," Eddie said.

"By the way, the nipple piercings are totally hot. You should never wear a shirt ever again," Steve said, and Eddie laughed.

"I knew you were only into me for my tits," Eddie said.

"MeeeOW!" I do NOT want to hear this.

Steve grinned and handed the kitten over to Eddie. He got up and started digging around in the stand by the door. He pulled out a key and knelt by Eddie, holding it out to him. Eddie grinned, taking it, and gave him a hard kiss on the lips.

"I love you," Steve said fondly.

"I love you too," Eddie said.

"There's something you should know before we enter into this relationship," Steve said and took in a breath before exhaling. "About me."

"Okay. . .lay it on me," Eddie said.

"I can talk to animals. You know, understand what they're saying and everything. I've always been that way. It's why my parents never let me have any pets. They thought it was weird," Steve shrugged. "I get it if you don't believe me."

"After everything we've been through, of course I believe you," Eddie said. "I think it's the coolest thing ever."

"Meow." This man is a walking doodle.

Raven was looking at Eddie's tattoos. Steve snorted.

"What did she say?" He asked.

"Oh, she called you a walking doodle," Steve said.

"Our daughter is so mean, I love her," Eddie grinned.

With the help of Wayne, Robin, and Vickie, they managed to move Eddie in over the next couple of days. Once Eddie was all settled in, they invited the kids over to hang out and introduce them to Raven. It was date night with Vickie, so Robin wouldn't be there.

"Alright, kids, gather around. Your mother and I have something we want to tell you," Eddie said.

"You know, Steve is not actually our mother," Max said. "It's just a joke."

Steve burst out of the kitchen wearing a frilly apron and carrying a plate of brownies.

"I made brownies!" Steve exclaimed.

"Yeah, a joke based on a lot of evidence," Dustin scoffed.

"Yeah, I got nothing," Max frowned.

Eddie snickered and watched Steve fondly as he set them on the coffee table.

"Anyway, we have something we want to tell you," Eddie said.

"Finally!" Mike said and swallowed his brownie. "Have you two idiots finally stopped dancing around each other?"

"It was getting painful to watch," El said seriously.

"Were we being that obvious?" Steve asked.

"YES!" They exclaimed.

"Okay, yes, we are together. I did move in here, and we did have another baby," Eddie said.

"What was that last part?" Will asked.

"Oh, we had another baby!" Eddie exclaimed with a grin. "She's probably up from her nap by now. I'm going to go get her."

They all watched as Eddie disappeared down the hall, and they turned to look at Steve.

"Is your boyfriend on something?" Erica asked.

"No!" Steve scoffed.

Eddie grinned as he walked back into the living room with Raven in his arms.

"Meow." Father is lucky that I was already awake.

"Introducing Raven Metallica Harrington," Eddie said proudly. "I came up with the middle name."

"Aww," everyone said, and crowded around Eddie.

Raven sniffed Max and jumped into her arms.

"Meow." I have a feeling that this one is going to be my favorite sibling.

Steve whispered what Raven said in his ear, and they giggled as they watched the kids sit on the couch, taking turns with the cat. Every family looks a little weird and a little different to everyone. There's not a single one that's the same, and as long as they make you happy, it's the only thing that matters. Steve was very happy with the family that he had now.

"Hey, Steve, can we babysit when you and Eddie go out on a date?!" Dustin asked.

"Oh, how the tables have turned," Eddie cackled.

[austinslounge]

To that Anon you better relax before you bust a nerve, you keep saying the lies deuxmoi spread about Austin is not that deep but yet 95% of the chats here are most Austin stans complaining bitterly about deuxmoi and their fake narratives against Austin, in the grand scheme of things it's not that deep but if you Austin stans keep complaining about it then there is actually a solution because if no one was bothered I won't see complaints everyday here, nobody said you should fight trolls or spend all your time defending Austin, we all have jobs here and some of us are studying, I only said once in a while call deuxmoi on their bullshit and lies if the lies they spread about Austin triggers you people that you complain bitterly about it almost everyday

Anon, I understand what you're saying, and I get it, we're all frustrated about it. Why do you think I keep broadcasting her very obvious bias and hidden agenda on my blog?🥴 It's so that people open up their eyes and realize that she is not a reliable source of information, or even celeb gossip!

My issue with you, as well as other fans like you, is that you assume that Austin fans aren't doing anything, and haven't been fighting trolls online in defense of Austin, and the truth of the matter is, we have been.

Most of us have full-time jobs, school work, or even just full personal lives, so it's not like we can be online every single day trying to fight against everything and everyone.

Unfortunately, as a celebrity, it's a reality that you will get rumors (true or false) spread about you. Even celebrities themselves don't answer every single fake allegation made about them because then they'd be fighting every single day. Sometimes, you really do have to pick and choose your battles.

If DeuxMoi wants to claim that Austin is hooking up with Emily or Kendall, with zero proof, then, oh well. We've already posted our thoughts on those rumors on here, on Twitter, etc. Even a rumor like Austin went to see Kaia's play (again, with zero real proof or basis) is still very minor compared to some of the things that some celebs out here are getting rumors about.

I'm not saying we should turn a blind eye (not at all!), all I'm saying is that sometimes, you have to pick and choose your battles.

Sometimes, silly stupid rumors get debunked on their own simply by time. The Emily/Kendall rumors have already been debunked by simply just waiting.

Fans of Austin do fight for him. I see them on Twitter all the time.

We can't control which posts DeuxMoi actually posts on her feed that allow comments that we can comment on.

Lately, if you notice, she hasn't even been putting Kaustin gossip on her feed. (Probably because she doesn't want to have to deal with the fandom lol). She's just been posting gossip on her articles at DeuxMoi World, or just putting info on her stories. So, we aren't even able to comment on the comments section.

To me, it's obvious that DeuxMoi was either a Kaustin shipper, or someone who is just trying to protect Kaia (maybe both!), because tell me how she posted on her main feed a double date night with Kaustin and Camila and her bf, but never posted on her feed about Kaia and Lewis' debut date night on his birthday? 🤨🤔

[stevie-petey]

speaking of jon, can we get a blurb of how he was feeling when bug fell at the house and almost died by the demogorgon? i know that guy was close to tears

YES YES YES I CAN ABSOLUTELY DO THIS BLURB ANON

enjoy <3

"bug-" one second you're beside jonathan, the next you're on the ground, clutching your ankle. when jonathan realizes this, he feels the world stop. "bug!"

he starts to scream, tries to go and help you up, but a hand grabs at his jacket, stopping him. jonathan, blind with fear and rage, screams at the person holding him back. "no, let go of me! i have to help her, nancy!"

the monster stalks closer to you, and jonathan watches as you try to stand up but only fall back down. youre in pain. he can see it all over your face, the way you scrunch your eyebrows together as your lips quiver.

he has to help you.

jonathan cannot let you die.

youre the only person who puts up with his bullshit, who can take his shitty days and make them into his favorite days. youre his best friend, the first person who ever paid any attention to him. hes based everything about himself around you. his kindness is an extension of yours, his intellect is a result of yours, his humor a connection of you.

but youre on the ground in pain and nancy is holding jonathan back and the monster is inches away from your face.

even if jonathan breaks free from nancys grasp now, he'll never make it in time. you seem to know this too, and jonathan watches as you nod at nancy, accepting your fate as if this makes any of this okay, and jonathan just wants you back in his arms where nothing can ever hurt you ever again.

he loses his voice, screaming your name repeatedly. he cant do anything. he cant fucking do anything.

all jonathan can do is watch as you brace for your own death, the death that he caused. jonathan byers, the boy born from selfishness and greed, is what kills y/n henderson in the end.

the monster bends down, gets ready to lunge, and jonathan forces himself to look away. he cant watch. sobs wrack his body, he thinks hes about to die alongside you.

then, in a flash, steve harrington has his arms wrapped around you and carries you towards jonathan and nancy.

the second he sets you down, jonathans body collides against yours. his hands are everywhere. they sprawl all over your back, your sides, your head, your arms. every part of you that he can touch, jonathan does.

youre alive.

youre alive.

"bug." the nickname falls like a prayer from his lips. jonathan has never believed in a god, but he does believe in threads attaching everyone to each other.

and his thread connecting to you hasnt been severed yet.

your fingers find their way to jonathans hair and you tell him its okay. you soothe him and jonathan only then realizes that hes shaking. your body heat presses against him, a reminder that youre alive, and jonathans head buzzes with concern.

"did it hurt you, are you bleeding?" jonathans hands continue to run all over your body, if he misses any sign of injury then he'll never forgive himself. "there should be a first aid kit-"

you grab his hands and kiss jonathans knuckles. your lips, so familiar against his skin after years of being soothed this way, settle something within jonathan. the kiss seep into his bones, spreading throughout his body, and slowly hes able to breathe again.

"im fine, just twisted my ankle. if you help me up, im sure i'll be able to stand again."

jonathan helps you up in a heartbeat. you lean against him and he wraps an arm around your waist. youre still here. he has to remind himself of this. youre alive and thats all that matters.

but you almost died tonight.

jonathan had just almost lost you.

your hair is a mess, your shirt us torn and stained with your blood from earlier, and your ankle is the size of a balloon and yet jonathan thinks youve never looked more beautiful.

jonathan doesnt realize hes staring at you until you turn away, your cheeks flushed, and he hates the way his stomach drops. hes made you uncomfortable again, crossed some invisible line, but jonathan is so fucking tired of lines.

what matters is that youre alive.

your hand is in his, and jonathan knows that no matter what happens next, hes never letting go of you ever again.

youre his and hes yours. threads and lines and strings in all.

[jeannereames]

Do you see memes and shitposts about Alexander and his time? If yes, do you like them, you hate them? Would you change something about these memes?

I’m sorry. I’m just really curious about what a professor thinks about this. Do you perhaps have a favorite Alexander meme?

Well, for me there’s a big difference between memes and shitposts. The former can be rather entertaining, the latter are just trolling. Don’t feed the trolls. I realize I’m perhaps defining shitposting more narrowly than some, but there’s enough of the narrow sort out there I don’t want to confuse it with memes.

Meme are great. I have two favorites, although not about Alexander, ironically. I’ve shared them below. Both show up in my class Power-points, btw! Many of my colleagues also enjoy clever memes. My buddy Borja Antela was trying to collect some on Alexander last year. For a while, I followed Alexandergoatmemes on Instagram, but finally left because about 85/90% of them seemed to be about Alexander naming cities after himself. Sure, it’s funny maybe the first 20 times, but at 100+?

So memes are great. Shitposting and ignorant-posting, however, are annoying.

I’m deliberately creating that third category. Shitposters know they’re posting shit; ignorant-posters (usually) don’t. The latter put up videos, tweets, or blog entries about (in this case) Alexander that perpetuate a lie, a false quote, or an oversimplified-and-mostly-wrong factoid. Some ignorant-posters are just reposting what they heard because they don’t know any better and may receive correction well enough—especially if offered politely. Yet others get upset (sometimes disproportionately so) when their errors or distortions are pointed out.

This can be about controversial matters, such as Alexander’s putative “sexuality” or it can be something surprising. I once had a fellow fly off the handle when he posted that Alexander was left-handed and I (gently) corrected him.* You’d have thought I’d called his mother a whore. It seemed quite silly…except that left-handedness used to be considered a Very Bad Thing. So being able to claim famous people as lefties was apparently more for him than just leftie pride.

Aside from oddities, most of the ignorant-posting I’ve seen comes in three main types.

First, we have the religious/spiritual/life-coach sorts who usurp Alexander for a moral lesson—not unlike the orators of the (Roman-era) Second Sophistic, or both Muslims and Christians in some of the Alexander Romances. Alexander has ALWAYS been a malleable figure for lecturing. Ergo, he pops up in homilies/sermons as a parable, like his supposed Last Three Wishes. It is, of course, total bullshit, but there’s quite a lot of stuff like it out there. People read it, go “Aww,” and reblog without bothering to check if it’s correct. It has “the authority of hearsay.” These can be either Alexander-positive or Alexander-negative parables, btw.

See also: quotes attributed to famous celebrities that they never, in fact, said. Alexander gets these too. The ¡Inspirational! “Army of Sheep Led by a Lion” is especially egregious, as it’s a general proverb that appeared well after Alexander (no, he didn’t say it). It seems to be currently popular, along with, “There is nothing impossible to him who will try” (also not ATG). Yet these make great quotes for those damn “Inspirational Posters.” Here’s a whole page of them, lion quote right at the top, suitable for a Power-point!...with no attempt to verify their authenticity or say where they got them. But the image with the quote below is especially funny as they even put a date on their fictional quote. If it has a date, it must be true! Netflix, btw, used that bloody quote even though I told them not to; it was fake. Didn’t matter.

Second, we have the alt-right/white supremacist groups, or hangers-on who might reject the label (coyly or not) but embrace much of its Eurocentric thinking. These folks present Alexander as spreading good [white] Western values to the poor benighted East [brown people]. It’s essentially warmed-over Plutarch with a dash of Curtius and some Arrian. Their Alexander even sometimes has longish flowing (blond) locks and is oddly tall.** Like Thor. I stay the hell away from them but have occasionally stumbled over them on Tik-Tok.

Anyway, the alt-right crowd may have read some about Alexander, written by other alt-right guys who take material from a carefully curated set of “accepted” histories: Arrian and Plutarch, and not just Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, but his double-essay from the Moralia, “On the Fate or Fortune of Alexander.” They tend to be war/conquest-approving and see the Greco-Roman past as some pure Aryan utopia from which we’ve fallen into our “wretched age of iron.”*** Of late, a lot of their associated images are AI generated, btw. A couple examples below.

Last, and on the opposite end of the spectrum are the Alexander-was-Queer-AND-Wonderful, and oh, boy, some of them also don’t want a single bad thing said about their hero. They may know relatively little about his life aside from his putative gayness, but are just as resistant to/resentful of being corrected in their errors and romantic oversimplifications.

And that is what all of these categories share: oversimplification for the sake of a particular social and/or political agenda.****

Isn’t it, then, also shitposting? No. Because shitposters intend to stir the pot. They may or may not believe what they say, but they’re saying it TO get a reaction. Like the Tweet Heard Round the Alexander-verse after the Netflix thing (below). THAT was a shitpost. His entire goal was to go viral, and he succeeded.

By contrast, ignorant-posters usually aim for a particular audience and rarely expect to go viral outside their circle. Nor do they expect to be corrected. When they are, they react with surprise and anger. (Again, there are exceptions.)

I tend to observe these things, but rarely engage—although I did engage more when I was a young grad student. Now if I reply, it’s general (as here), not to the original post/tweet itself. TBH, I have books and articles to write, classes to teach, and papers to grade. 😉 I don’t have time for flamewars.

-----------------------

* Yes, I made Alexander left-handed in Dancing with the Lion, partly for the hell of it. But there’s zero evidence one way or the other—which I point out in my Author’s Note at the end of book 2, Rise.

** BTW, there’s a Whole Thing out there online about Alexander as tall, even Super Tall, claiming evidence which they don’t actually cite (correctly). Note the “many stories suggest….” Oh, really? These are? Anyway, I don’t think the author of that blog entry is alt-right—which is why I put it as a footnote—but dig the wacko AI white-haired Nordic Alexander at the top! And I’m still chuckling at a 7-foot-tall Alexander. Good Lord, how tall would that make Hephaistion?

*** Yeah, that’s a little bow to Hesiod’s theory of the Ages of Man.

**** Note that I didn’t include Greek Nationalists. While some of them also swing right (Golden Dawn, Front Line, National Reform Party, etc.), many are more moderate. Alexander is a Greek hero, and if what’s presented about him by some is also oversimplified to fit a national narrative, it doesn’t spring from ignorance so much as deliberate choice and what they learned in school/at home. Think about what the average (white) American knows about George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or for that matter, the average native person about Tecumseh or Crazy Horse.

[madsworld15]

I Am Still Here Part 1

This fic is something that I came up with during conversations with @winderlylandchime about AU fic ideas. I am still working on Heal Me, Hold Me, Make Me, Know Me but I needed a break for a tick.

So, instead, I am writing an AU fic where Justin is 21 and Brian is 33, and they meet when their support groups have to combine one night due to a lack of group leaders. Justin has PTSD from a bashing 6 months prior. And Brian's cancer diagnosis isn't so cut and dry, so he is depressed about his odds. Anyway, here is part 1.

Word Count: 3,372

“So, what are you in for?” A bored yet sultry voice whispered from Justin’s left as he sat a bit back from the circle of people. 

He turned and almost lost his breath at the sight before him. At 21 Justin had been around the block a time or two when it came to dating men. He’d discovered his sexuality while still in high school and had run the gambit of one-night stands, quick, anonymous fucks, and boyfriends – both casual and serious. But, never before had he seen a man as gorgeous as the one speaking to him now. With a sharp jawline, a lean but still fit body, and bedroom eyes that could make even a monk forget his religious vows of celibacy, this man was the literal definition of sex on a stick.

“I’m sorry?” Justin asked, his brain had short-circuited and thus been unable to process what had been said.

“This,” The man motioned his arm to the room before them. “What brings you here? You don’t look like you have cancer. So it’s either grief or whatever the fuck the other one was they decided to throw into the pot today.”

Justin sucked his lips between his teeth to hide the chuckle that threatened to come out. He could already tell he was going to like this man. He had a laissez-faire attitude that harbored a level of no-bullshit Justin could get behind.

“PTSD.” Justin quirked his eyebrow. “Guess I’m lucky number three. I wondered why I hadn’t seen you here before. Then again, it’s only my second time coming.”

“And already you have decided to stay away from the class.” The man smirked, which somehow made him even hotter. 

Justin finally took stock of his well-styled brunette hair. It was styled to look like the man actually didn’t give a shit about it, which left some strands at the front spiked up while the rest lay flat. Judging by his designer, albeit casual, attire, this man never let anyone see him without first spending an hour in the bathroom on his appearance.

Justin shrugged, “I don’t like groups.”

“I tried to say that to Lindsay. I told her, ‘Fuck Groups!’ and she replied with a quip about how she thought I did.” the man slid down in his chair, spreading his legs out in front of him. “Do you think they’ll notice if we just duck out?”

Justin silently wondered who Lindsay was. At first, he thought maybe the man was married to her or something, but then he made a sex joke about groups. Now, Justin was even more confused.

“Jessica is the group leader for my typical support group, and she has eyes like a hawk. If she feels you are itching to leave, she will force you to talk.” Justin whispered out of the side of his mouth, having noticed that Jessica’s eyes were now on him.

“Justin. You didn’t share much with us last week. Why not try again?” Jessica’s voice was that fake sweet that made Justin angry.

“What makes you think adding more people to the mix will make me more willing to share? Yes, more eyes to stare at the poor fag who got his ass beat so bad he’s scared of his own shadow.” Justin hadn’t realized he had clenched his hands into fists or that he was breathing heavily until the brunette man’s hand landed on top of his left fist.

Without a word, the brunette rubbed Justin’s knuckles until he released his grip. Then, shocking those in the group who must typically spend an hour once a week with the brunette, he decided to speak.

“I’m Brian. Today was my third dose of radiation. The doctor told me it wouldn’t be a picnic, but did he really have to act like he enjoyed it? I mean fuck, my balls are on fire, and my stomach makes me vomit almost every thirty minutes. And don’t get me started on how much my body just hurts.”

“Thank you for sharing, Brian.” Jessica’s saccharin voice floated out, causing Justin to look up. “Would anyone like to share words of encouragement with Brian?”

Brian coughed and abruptly stood up, dragging Justin up with him. “Yeah, nope. I’m out. I came, and not in the way I’d prefer. I shared. And now I’m leaving.”

Without another glance toward the rest of the people in attendance, Brian dragged Justin toward the door and out into the cool night air. The minute the doors were closed, Brian dropped Justin’s hand, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one up. He inhaled and then handed it over to Justin, who shook his head.

“Don’t you have cancer?” Justin looked at the man incredulously.

“Yeah, but it’s in my balls, not my lungs.” Brian took another deep inhale as if to prove a point. Justin shook his head. He could already feel his heart falling for the older man named Brian.

“If you didn’t want support from others, then why do you go to a support group?” Justin stared at the man before him. There was an air of mystery about him. He was definitely older than Justin, but beyond that and his looks, Justin needed more.

“Trust me, it was the tidier of my two options.” Brian licked his lips and offered the cigarette to Justin once more. This time, he took it.

“According to my best friends and Debbie, I could either seek ‘help’ or face their unrelenting wrath.” Brian put quotations around the word help, further convincing Justin that he didn’t believe in therapy.

“If they are anything like my mother, I can completely understand why you’d opt to go somewhere you despise,” Justin commented, handing back the cigarette.

“You want to get out of here?” Brian stubbed out the cigarette and quirked his eyebrow at Justin. “I could use a drink.”

Justin knew he should hesitate; to not allow this perfect stranger to lead him to one of his unsafe spaces, but Brian’s eyes were convincing. So, instead, he motioned as if giving Brian permission to lead the way. As they walked, he pulled out his flip phone and saw a text message from Daphne.

From: Daphne 7:45 pm

Your mom told me about group. I’m proud of you. Come by after, we can drink and talk.

Justin shook his head and rolled his eyes. He would not be going by Daphne’s “after this” because it would be just like going to his goddamn psychiatrist. Daphne was studying psychiatry and felt the need to constantly practice on him. Or at least, she had for the past six months since that night. 

Brian must’ve noticed him pull out his phone because he slowed down his pace to get in line with him. Once they were side by side, the older man gently nudged Justin’s shoulder with his own.

“You have somewhere else you need to be?” Brian lifted an eyebrow in question.

Justin shoved his phone back into his pocket. “No. Daphne just wants to psychoanalyze me.”

Brian didn’t reply, but he did fix Justin with a questioning look. Justin went back and forth in his head for a bit before he decided he felt comfortable enough sharing with this man he barely knew.

“My best friend. She’s currently studying to be a psychiatrist. She offered for me to come over for drinks and a chat, but I know it’ll end up sounding more like therapy.” Justin stared at his feet as he scuffed them along the pavement, kicking a pebble of cement that had broken free.

Brian simply nodded and let the matter drop. Justin greatly appreciated that about him. They continued to walk. Justin didn’t realize where they were going until it was almost right upon them. One glance toward the bars of Liberty Avenue and Justin’s breath caught in his lungs. He leaned over, unable to take in anything more than short, shallow breaths. His vision started to swim when a firm hand landed gently on his shoulder.

Through the fog, sounding like he was underwater, a feeling Justin was extremely familiar with at this point, he heard Brian trying to talk to him.

“Justin. Take a deep breath. Can you walk?” 

Justin felt his chest tighten even more, and he shook his head. Or at least he thought he did. Based on the panic in Brian’s voice, he must not have moved at all.

“Justin. Please, just breathe. Close your eyes and think of your safe space. Once you are ready, we can leave.”

Justin’s brain felt like it had sand in it, but he could still hear each time Brian started his litany of reassurances over again. They must’ve stood there, with Brian’s hand barely on his shoulder, grounding him, for a good ten minutes before the panic in his chest subsided. Justin’s vision came back, and the first thing he noticed was the surly appearance of Brian had switched into one more vulnerable and freaked out.

“I’m sorry.” Justin stood up completely and shook out his limbs. After a panic attack, they always felt like lead for a few minutes after.

“Apologies are bullshit.” Brian shrugged, putting a wall back up. His face was stony once more, which oddly enough soothed Justin further. This man wasn’t about to baby him, and for that, he was grateful.

“I could really use a drink.” Justin released a breathy chuckle as he made eye contact with Brian.

“I know a place that is a little less scary than Liberty Avenue,” Brian suggested.

“Is it public?” Justin’s voice came out small and timid, which he could beat himself for, but with his body still recovering from his panic attack, he didn’t have the strength for it.

“Not exactly.” Brian drew out his words but immediately reassured Justin, “It’s my friend Emmett’s place. He hosts private parties there most nights, but he takes Thursdays off. I can always count on him for alcohol and a judgment-free zone.”

“If he takes Thursdays off, how do you know he will be there?” Justin questioned, still not entirely sure this option sounded any more safe.

Brian pulled out his phone, one of those fancy ones people with money had, and pushed a few buttons.

“Hey, Em. I need a drink. Can I swing by tonight?” Brian spoke into his device.

He must’ve heard what he wanted because a moment later, he pushed a button to end the call and looked at Justin with a smile on his face.

“We’re good. Let’s go.” Brian gently grabbed the lapel of Justin’s jacket and pulled him toward one of the side streets, away from Liberty Avenue.

A few minutes later, they arrived at a brick building. The lights of the first floor were all on and a sign over the door read: Milk and Honey. Justin glanced over at Brian, his eyebrow lifted in question. Brian smirked and shook his head. 

“Emmett is one of my closest friends and Pittsburgh’s greatest party planner.” Brian knocked on the door without any further preamble or explanation.

“Bri!” A tall, overly skinny man with auburn hair styled wildly opened the door with a grin that lit up the night street. “I was just about to close up when you called. Inventory day is no joke.”

“Hey, Em. This is Justin. We met at support group and then bailed on support group.” Brian shrugged and wrapped his friend up in a moment of intimacy Justin never would’ve expected based on what he’d learned about this man.

“I promise not to tell the mother hens.” Emmett kissed Brian on the cheek with a wink.

 “Hello, I’m Emmett Honeycutt.” the man turned toward Justin and put out his hand.

Justin bit his lip and gave a forced smile but didn’t take Emmett’s hand. He was still shaken from his panic attack, and his brain couldn’t handle even the slightest human touch right now unless it came from Brian, which was something he would need to unpack at a later time.

“Don’t take it personal, Honeycutt.” Brian cut in and wrapped his arm around Emmett’s shoulders. “He has PTSD and doesn’t let hardly anyone touch him.”

Emmett gave Justin a reassuring smile and then wrestled out of Brian’s embrace with a “Don’t call me Honeycutt!” that had no bite behind it. 

“I’m sorry.” Justin rubbed his hands together and gave Emmett a deeply apologetic look. “I just haven’t been the same since it happened.”

“Hey, what did I tell you? Apologies are bullshit.” Brian, who had somehow ended up across the room already, pulled out some glasses and held up the half-empty bottle of whiskey. “Who wants a shot?”

 Justin didn’t respond just moved closer to the bar setup and put his hand out for a tumbler. Emmett, on the other hand, squealed excitedly and clapped his hands as he bounced over to join the two.

Justin hugged his tumbler tight in the grip of his two hands and remained silent while Emmett and Brian started up a conversation. He sat on a stool and let his eyes observe the two best friends in their natural ease.

“So, support group still not your thing?” Emmett raised an eyebrow at Brian. “I don’t know why you go if you hate it so much.”

“It keeps Lindsay, Michael, and Debbie off my back.” Brian shrugged as he threw back the shot and hissed as it went down.

“You’ve never let them walk all over you before.” Emmett reached out to place his hand on Brian’s, which sat on the counter. Just as the man’s hand made contact though, Brian pulled away as if the touch was fire.

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly Brian anymore, am I?” Brian licked his lips and closed his eyes, leaning his weight onto his elbows on the counter.

Justin observed as the closed-off, staunch man he’d met at the support group not an hour prior suddenly wrapped in on himself and became a shell of a person. It kind of reminded Justin of what he was like when his depression really took hold.

“You know I don’t judge.” Emmett started to say, walking around the counter to stand directly next to Brian, who glared up at him. “However, I think you’re giving this too much power.”

Emmett didn’t say what this implied, but Justin could easily figure it out. Much like Brian, Emmett seemed to avoid putting the word to what Brian had: cancer. It was as if the two felt without labeling it they could pretend it wasn’t potentially life-threatening. Justin watched as Emmett silently ran his fingers through Brian’s hair, and Brian subtly leaned into the touch. Then, just as quickly, the moment was ruined by Brian cupping his hand in front of his mouth and rushing to the nearby sink. 

The sounds of vomiting permeated the room, but Justin ducked his head as if to show Brian he wasn’t paying attention to it. After he was done, the older man didn’t return to the counter right away. Instead, Justin heard a door behind him open and close, leaving him alone with Emmett.

“Sorry about that. The radiation really kicks his butt even if he tries to pretend it doesn’t.” Emmett smiled and shrugged, grabbing the glasses and putting them to the side to be washed later.

“If you knew it was going to make him sick, why’d you let him drink?” Justin was truly curious about this friendship dynamic.

“You just met him so you might not realize, but Brian doesn’t take too kindly to being told he can’t do something.” Emmett raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Besides, sometimes you just need a fucking drink.”

Justin raised his glass in agreement, “Amen.”

A silence fell between them. Justin took another sip of the whiskey and winched at the burn. He didn’t drink much, not because he wasn’t legally able to, but because he wasn’t really keen on the taste. For Justin, drinking had always been a social thing. He worried his bottom lip as his thoughts swam with visions of his attack and the support group and Brian rescuing him. Even six months out, Justin still had nightmares and day scares about the person who attacked him for kissing his boyfriend. The young man was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of Emmett speaking once again.

“You don’t have to tell me, but I’m a curious Kathy so what caused your PTSD?” Emmett’s spark was back and he animatedly leaned forward to cut the distance between him and Justin in half.

Justin bit down hard on the lip he’d been nervously worrying for the past ten minutes. He didn’t know Emmett, but he also didn’t want to seem like a weakling who couldn’t even talk about what had happened to him. He took a deep breath and was about to respond when the door behind him opened once more, and he heard Brian’s footsteps approach.

“I was bashed outside my boyfriend’s concert six months ago. We were kissing, and this guy jumped us. He had a bat.” Justin mumbled, his voice barely audible.

Brian stopped in his tracks, his presence evident despite still being behind Justin.

“Fuck.” Brian breathed out as Emmett’s hand flew to his mouth in shock.

“Just drop it. Okay.” Justin took the last swig of his whiskey and stood up. He needed to leave. This was getting too personal, and he wasn’t comfortable anymore.

“I should go.” He walked past Emmett and Brian, still frozen where they stood, and out the door onto the street.

Twenty minutes later, Justin paid the cab driver and walked up the driveway of his parents' home. They’d been fighting a lot lately, and he hoped tonight wasn’t one of them. It was bad enough that he was 21 and had to move back in with his parents because he couldn’t hack it in the dorms with his PTSD, but to also have to basically hide who he was from his dad was even worse.

Sure, his dad knew, in theory, that he’d been bashed for kissing another man. However, once Justin had been released and realized that even approaching PIFA’s campus gave him extreme anxiety, his father allowed him to move back in. Not another word was spoken about his sexuality, and considering Justin couldn’t stand being around other people right now, it hadn’t been an issue. Justin reached the front door and was about to turn the key when it flung open, and his angry father’s face greeted him.

“Where the fuck have you been? When you moved back in, I told you that you had to be back by 9. It is 9:30.” Criag’s voice was menacing, but Justin didn’t even flinch. He wasn’t afraid of his father, not anymore.

“Relax. I went to support group and then hung out with Brian for a few minutes after. Then I had to wait for a cab.” Justin shrugged and pushed past the elder man.

“Who the fuck is Brian. He’s not a pervert like the boy who caused you to become confused and then be attacked, is he?” Justin looked up at his father, finally seeing the man for who he was.

It hadn’t been that his father didn’t realize he was gay. It was he thought that by letting Justin move back in, he was saving his son from being manipulated and brainwashed. With a deep breath, Justin stood strong and addressed his father.

“I wasn’t confused. That ‘boy,’ as you stated, was my boyfriend. We were in love. I’m gay. Nothing can change that, not you and not some assholes with a bat.” Justin inhaled and then continued, “As for Brian, he’s just someone I connected with at the support group. He has cancer, and we got to talking. That’s it, not that it's any business of yours.”

Craig slapped Justin across the face without hesitation, “I won’t tolerate any smart-mouthing or sexual deviance in my house.”

Justin rubbed his cheek gingerly and then smirked, “Okay. I’ll be gone by tomorrow.”

With that he turned on his heel and walked up the stairs to his bedroom and shut the door.

[youre-ackermine]

i'm here requesting drabble 21 of the drunk drabbles vol 2, my eVal!! take all the time you need, please and thank you ♥️🤗 can't wait to read more stuff from you 👏🏻

Hey Sunshine ☀️❤️

Thank you for requesting a drabble & sorry for the late reply!!

I had fun writing this, even if I made it more difficult for me: i'm trying to write a whole story with this Drunk Drabbles challenge.

I hope this silly work is worth the wait & that you'll enjoy it 🫶

Kith 😘

*****

English is not my usual language

*****

This drabble is the 3rd part of a story. Links to part 1 Dumbstruck & part 2 Night Out.

Drabble prompt 21 "Shut up, you're drunk!"

Flushing

Characters: Levi Ackerman / Hange Zoe / Nanaba

Wordcount: 1920 approx.

Modern AU / sfw / non-binary Hange / cussing / alcohol / drunkenness / vomiting

"How come you haven't tripped & died under a pile of shit yet?"

Levi was winding his way to Hange's bathroom while they searched the wobbling shelf next to their desk. 

He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

The room was filled with stale air. The tiling had obviously not seen a mop in ages judging by how sticky it was. Dirty dishes had been left in the sink and stained clothes were slung all over the place. Countless books were randomly piled up on the floor and on the coffee table next to what had once been food - or so he hoped.

Hange's tiny apartment was an absolute nightmare and he wondered how they could live in such a pigsty. He broke into a cold sweat thinking about using their toilet but he couldn't wait any longer. Fucking beer always made him pee like crazy.

"Did you know that when we wee, we wee enough wee every month to fill a bath?! Awesome! Right, Shorty?"

Hange's boisterous voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Oh and, spread across their lifetime, most people spend an average of one whole year sitting on the toilet!"

He rolled his eyes as expected of him, but he couldn't help but smirk at the silly science facts they never failed to slip into the conversation.

"Pipe down, Four-Eyes! I'm gonna pee my pants listening to your stupid bullshit!"

He hurried to the bathroom, pushed and closed the door in a brisk movement, but suddenly froze and let out an annoyed grunt realizing he couldn't lock it.

He glanced around only to find his worst fears come true: the bathroom set out an advanced stage of filthiness and the toilet bowl was covered in brown stains, not to mention the traces of black mold on the walls. Yuck! Calling it revolting was an understatement at this point.

Shit! No time to delay now, he had to settle for that. He unbuckled his belt in a hurry and pulled his pants and underwear down in one motion.

Nothing could compare to the relief he felt right now, his eyelids half-closed with satisfaction.

The job was almost done when the clatter broke next door. Someone wasn't careful enough not to stumble over Hange's junk heap it seemed.

A high-pitched voice suddenly cut through the uproar.

"Hans! Bestie! You heeere? Wh-why? Whot happen't wizch the s-seggzy sh-short stufff? Wh-where'z he iz?"

Hange's neighbour, Nanaba.

"Holy Walls, Nans! Shut up, you're drunk!" Hange replied in a voice tinged with panic. They hoped Levi didn't hear their friend's ramblings. "Don't go to the bathroom, it's…"

"Need a con-" the blonde yelled. "How d'ya say it? Sh-sh-shit!" she mumbled. "A condom!" she resumed yelling more intelligibly. "I need a fucking condom right now!"

"...occupied!" Hange finished their sentence.

A bit too late though: Nanaba just opened the bathroom door.

"Oh!" Her eyes widened in shock. "He…he'zz heere Hans, ya know?" she squealed over her shoulder, one hand still on the doorknob, the other gripping the doorframe to prevent herself from falling down.

Levi was looking back at her, his hands covered in foaming soap over the washbasin and a smug plastered on his handsome face.

"Good evening to you too, Nana!" he sneered. "Big one tonight, huh? Looks like you dished booze out large, didn't you?"

"Hi Munchkin!" she cooed, "ya alone in heere? Yer sssooo prrre-tty, ya know zzatt?"

She tried to wink at him but closed both eyes instead.

"Never thought you were the flirty type of drunk, Nana."

"Don-don't be ridi-ridiculush! 'm not that drunk, ya know! 'lways found ya prett-tty face sssooo cute, ya know, but Hans, well, ya know right?"

"Holy shit you're so hammered, Nana!" Levi rinsed the soap off his hands and looked around for a towel to wipe his dripping hands. To his dismay, there was none. 

Nanaba's legs suddenly gave way beneath her and two strong - but still wet - hands pulled her to safety on the toilet seat. She bobbed her head and started to sob.

"Oh Levi, 'm sssooo sssooorrry! I ruined your da-date wizzss Hans! Ooooh my head!" 

Tears welled up in her eyes and she clung on to Levi for dear life. Fuck! 

"Come over here, Four-Eyes!" he shouted. "Need your help for fuck's sake!"

He kneeled in front of the poor girl, wiping the tears that rolled down her cheeks and swept her blonde bang from her sweaty face. His eyebrows furrowed in worry.

"Please don't move Nana, ok?" he said softly.

He got up, making sure to keep a hand on her shoulder, and groped for some painkillers in the cupboard.

"Bring a clean glass too, Four-Eyes!" he yelled. "Well, if you can find one in this shithole I mean!"

Nanaba burst into tears and uttered in between sobs: "ya know they 've a crrrush, right? 'lways had, ya know? 'm speak'n' of years 'n years!"

Shit! Levi was confused and a little bit angry to hear that. He started to review all possible candidates in his head and his disappointment gradually showed on his sad face.

Nanaba instantly figured out what was on his mind and added in a breath "I meant ya, Sweetie! Hans'z got a crrrush 'n ya!"

She giggled.

Levi felt a sudden heat rushing up to his face and ears, his heart skipping a beat and then pounding loudly in his chest, his mouth drying as he tried to gulp.

He took a deep breath to try and regain composure.

"Yer zzze cu-test cutie pie, all flust'ed 'n' shiiitt!" she said with a gentle smile that was soon covered by her hand, her eyes widened in silent panic. "Gonna puke!" she blurted out as she slightly leaned forward to try and get up.

Unfortunately, she had not time enough to turn to the toilet and painted Levi's clothes with a foul greenish liquid before he could escape the vomit trajectory.

That's when Hange finally hurried into the bathroom, a glass of water in one hand, the fingers of the other hand folded on what looked like a tiny piece of plastic.

"Nooo! I'm so so sorry Shorty! Nanaba threw up all over you!" they apologized.

"No shit, Four-Eyes!" Levi deadpanned, rolling his eyes in irritation. "Pass Nana the glass of water and try and find a fucking mop!"

"On it, Shorty! I think I have one somewhere…" they replied.

Hange ran out of the bathroom. Levi and Nanaba could hear them searching the main room, cursing every once in a while as they bumped into a piece of furniture or dropped something from their messy shit.

Unbelievable.

Levi stepped back and started to take off his wet shirt, wrinkling his nose at the stomach-churning smell. Luckily his pants had been spared but the shirt was definitely ruined. He let out a long sigh as he crumpled it into a ball and looked at Nanaba.

She was drinking water slowly not to gag, her eyes and nose reddened, tiredness showing on her pale face. She looked back at him and smiled faintly.

"Thank you so much for taking care of me, Levi," she said, almost in a whisper.

Getting rid of her stomach contents had brought her usual elocution back. "You're so sweet, Shortcakes, you know that? No wonder Hange's so in lo-".

All messy hair and sweaty face, Hange loudly barged into the bathroom before Nanaba could finish her sentence, brandishing a broom and a sullied floor cloth.

"Got it!" they beamed.

Stopped in their tracks by the awkward atmosphere filling the narrow place, their look went back and forth from Nanaba's dazed expression to Levi's flushed face a few times before their eyes lingered on Levi's bare chest, making him flush even harder and avert his gaze.

Nanaba cleared her throat.

"Ahem, well, this is not what you…" she started.

Hange didn't let her finish.

"Sorry to interrupt but here's stuff to clean the mess or whatever…" she said, handing said stuff over to Levi with a grin. "I still didn't find all of my lab notes, I have to rummage in my drawers a little more I'm afraid!" 

Grasping the mop and bucket from them, he stammered: "whe-wher-...my…my sh-shirt's soaking wet and stinks like hell's butt…d'you…do…do you…where…"

Fucking hell! He felt so stupid!

"Plastic bags in the drawer over there, Shorty!" They gestured casually towards the washbasin.

"Come on with me, Nans! We're putting you to bed, you must be exhausted Bestie, right?"

They gently took Nanaba's hand and dragged her out of the bathroom.

"You take my bed for the night! No no no don't argue with me! We planned that I sleep over at Levi's anyway, I must be at my lab early in the morning!" they added in a falsely cheerful tone that fooled no one.

Nanaba knew better than to protest and followed her best friend to their tiny, cluttered bedroom. She jumped on the mattress and slid under sullied sheets that had not seen the inside of a washing machine for some time. But she was too tired to even care.

As Hange leaned down to tuck her in and gently graze her forehead, Nanaba wrapped her fingers around their wrist to catch their attention.

"Hey, Hans!" she whispered. "You mad? Your smile shouts 'fake' so loud it's ridiculous and you look like shit!"

"Well…I'm not mad, not really… rather…sad I guess…"

They sat on the edge of the bed, bowed their head in a dejected manner, their joined hands resting on their lap. 

"But don't even think about me, you must take some rest!" they insisted.

"Ok, something's wrong here, you must listen to me! Nothing happened over there between us, ya know?! Shortcakes just took care of me and got rid of his stinky shirt after that, that's all!" she stated lively.

Hange looked up at her, their eyes lit up with a hint of hope.

After a pause, their roommate bowed her head and tentatively went on: "I…I may have screwed up…I'm…I'm sorry, I…I may have told Levi you like him."

"Holy shit, Nans! You what??" Hange blurted out. "Why did you do that? I thought we were friends, I trusted you! You were not supposed to tell him! Or anyone else by the way!"

They grazed their hand over their face, pinched the bridge of their nose and let out a long sigh.

"How am I supposed to spend the rest of the evening with Shorty as if nothing weird is hanging over us? Fuck! I'm so fucked!"

"Please, Hans, forgive me! I didn't intend to tell him! It just slipped out! Come on, Hans! It's not like he had been disgusted by the idea, ya know!"

"What do you mean?" Hange asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I'm pretty sure he blushed like a teenager! I bet he likes you back!" Nanaba clapped her hands in excitement. "I think you'll find a good way to use this latex thingy that's in your hand!" she added with a wink.

"Holy Walls! What do you mean?" Hange quickly shoved the infamous item in their pocket.

"Doesn't make things any less weird, Nans!" They frowned as they paused to think for a while.

"Well, I'll try to figure out how to behave around him. Maybe he didn't believe you?" they replied, their voice full of a deceptive hope. "You were practically dead drunk after all!"

"What? I was not that drunk! I still have pants on, you see?" She defended herself.

"Oh Sweetie…" Hange said gently.

"What?"

"Those are not your pants!"

*****

Thank you so much Terra my Darling @dont-f-with-moogles for beta reading & for your support 😘

[beansprouts]

lil reaction / theory / criticism thought dump because i just finally finished The Calling; spoilers

Right away, the first and most glaring thing for me: in the DA novels, Ga*der is unable to write badass women without tying their agency to a man and then domesticating them, and it drives me insane. It's been a while since I read The Stolen Throne, and I remember Rowan primarily as a badass knight, but here, only a few years later, Maric believes she enjoyed being a wife and mother more than she ever enjoyed fighting (and she died of Padmé Amidala syndrome before the events of this novel of course). Genevieve is a nuanced character, but one of her defining motivators her whole life was becoming a Grey Warden warrior (and then the fierce commander she is in this novel) and yet we're supposed to believe in her lotus eater dream she's perfectly content as a placid housewife? Fiona is an excellent heroine, but even she ends up tragically producing a noble baby, blond and human of course (not even going to touch the bullshit racism of "the child of an elf and a human is a human"), whose future is given more framing in the last chapter than novel protagonist Fiona herself.

I hope I don't need to explain how frustrating it is to read books set in a world that claims to treat men and women equally, but then only frames women in the narrative when they happen to be wives, mothers, or sisters of important men.

On the topic of Fiona's future: I knew from Inquisition that she was the only person ever cured of the Calling, and I was curious about HOW and hoping for at least a bit of discussion of such a lore-significant detail. We get precious little, though.

But I wanted to share my thoughts since I saw discussion of it on my dash. I am pretty confident that the taint was somehow passed onto baby Alistair for the following reasons:

- It doesn't make sense for the Architect's magic to have cured the taint, since we never see such an effect with Utha, who experienced this magic for much longer (from the time of The Calling to Awakening). Besides, it's implied that the magic accelerated a magical transformation to a darkspawn-like state; Fiona lost the taint entirely and never reached darkspawn status like Bregan, Utha, or Genevieve.

- Given how Maric is framed in these books, I was also wary of a narrative that he magically cured her Grey Wardenism with his Royal Purity Dick. But the timing for that theory doesn't work. Fiona continues to see more corruption spreading across her body after they have slept together.

- Weird shit happening to corrupted souls because of sex (and particularly sex as conception) echoes the Dark Ritual in Dragon Age: Origins. There's a thematic juxtaposition between both prequels and Origins of sex in places of battle, darkspawn, death, birth, and magic not fully understood. I think the intention is partially to set a Dark Fantasy For Adults With Violence and Sex! atmosphere that subsequent installments have moved away from.

- It's a bit messy (why was Morrigan's capturing of the dark god's soul instant versus the loss of Fiona's taint only happening later?) but I think it's the theory that makes the most sense both in-universe and thematically.

Speaking of the taint and the power of the Architect, do we ever learn how Duncan's dagger works, supposedly made of the same magic as the Architect's? Is it the same dagger you can retrieve in Return to Ostagar (which does bonus damage to dragons for some reason)?

I actually loved the character arcs of Genevieve and Bregan. I loved learning slowly about the dynamics of their complicated sibling relationship over the course of the novel, culminating in several twists.

...although Genevieve and Clarel in Inquisition, I can't help noticing, are very similar.

Really the more Ga*der I read the more I realize his novels just use the same few tropes over and over. It's not quite as bad as Alex*s Kennedy but it does become tiresome.

Take a shot every time he uses the word "swoop" or a character heroically jumps on top of a monster.

More positively: I love Loghain as a character. One could frame the two books and Origins as a character study of Loghain specifically: what kind of experiences shape a man with both the strengths and prejudices that lead him to be a badass here but the tyrant we see in Origins? I found it especially juicy that he was able to save Maric, Duncan, and Fiona here due to his suspicion of the Orlesians manipulating the Grey Wardens being correct- the very suspicion that becomes a self-destructive paranoia in Origins.

I was able to identify Julien and Nicholas as lovers almost instantly (I suspect this is true for many queer readers, though it's framed as a shocking revelation) and their outcome is beautifully heartbreaking. Knowing Ga*der is gay himself, I don't really see it as an instance of Bury Your Gays (although such a criticism would be valid I think, since they're the only gay characters in these two books and they do die first). To me the message feels like: gay love like this, however beautiful, is doomed by a hateful society and can only survive in dreams. And that's fucking tragic... but also extremely Gen X of an LGBT take.

Because, let's be real, Maric and Loghain were at least a little bit married all along.

Aside: Duncan's little accidental hookup with the random circle mage was very cute.

I tried to ship Maric and Fiona, I really did, but their romance felt so bland to me that I was more invested in Duncan's aforementioned one-page tryst. I'm not sure why. Maric and Fiona grew to trust each other naturally enough. But Fiona kissing him felt less like romance and more like an outburst of exhaustion and loneliness; all of her subsequent longing to be with him just felt out of character.

Duncan and Fiona's friendship was delightful, though.

I went into this book excited to get more Duncan (I have a Grey Warden OC who is Duncan's bastard daughter lol. so much for women not related to powerful men :P) and I found his backstory compelling as I'd hoped. My only issue is that a supposed Orlesian speaks with an American accent in-game, because if Duncan had a French accent Loghain's anti-Orlesian fearmongering would make more sense to newcomers to the world, but that's a DAO problem really, and if I'm to start pointing out linguistics issues we'd be here all summer.

Utha's signing I found surprisingly well done (from my perspective, though I'm not in a signing nor nonverbal community).

Shout out to the Fereldan Circle for apparently attracting evil megalomaniacs like Kirkwall attracts blood mages. I wonder if young mages had evil mage takeover drills like I had growing up for bomb threats in public school.

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on the script *seeming to* confirm Mike’s monologue was genuine/helpful etc. as a byler I know it’s shit but I worry the duffers don’t.

I refuse to get my hopes up bc of how the actors talk + Vol.2, even though I adore pro-byler analyses, and stuff like this and Millie saying a few months ago that she (and presumably the other cast members) were told not to ‘spread rumours’ that Byler is ‘going to happen’ make me sadly, strongly suspect it won’t. I know you’re one of the more cautious fandom members, so I was wondering what your take is on the script, and on what Millie said.

It feels disingenuous to me, to be honest. It just didn't seem to match what we saw on screen, which showed El continuing to succumb (you can see the vines continuing to tighten) until she looked over at Max. That was what seemed to spur El on to fight, not anything Mike was saying. Mike's speech may have helped pull her out of the despair to some extent, but it was her determination to save Max that really did the trick.

I put very little onto what the actors say about the show. They are coached on how to respond to things. They wouldn't say anything indicative about Byler because it's still yet to be fully realized on-screen. Having her, of all people, be the one to say that was the strangest thing of all considering when has she ever spread rumors in that regard? When have any of them, really?

I think what we're seeing here is damage control, but that doesn't mean it's because Byler isn't happening. It's just as, if not more, likely that it's because it's meant to be a big final season arc that they don't want ruined.

I may be one of the more cautious members of the community here, but even I can see that Byler simply makes sense. If Mike and El are destined to end up together, then they have perhaps the worst written relationship I've ever seen. Their entire relationship is based on the same "what I'm supposed to do" bullshit that resulted in Mike's own mother being completely miserable.

Personally, I can't see the "fuck conformity, be who you are" Duffer Bros basically serving an entree of Mike and El together, despite their myriad problems (which are never resolved), along with a side of series-long slowburn gay rejection.

[loudmouthedllama]

I would just like to mention this here for a lack of having anywhere else to more directly share this: There's a couple of unpublished female OC writers who frequent the one popular confessions blog every so often (I will refrain from naming any names because the intention isn't to create a witch hunt or a callout, but simply to let you and any other readers of this blog know one of the more direct causes for why certain fandoms have gone to shit), and their only engagement with the blog is either to be catty in the replies with regards to the subjects of certain confessions, and/or virtue signal about their own conduct as if they're some kind of "better" person in the RPC while also attempting to garner pity for themselves for their own supposed struggles in the RPC. The catch is, both people have fairly extensive histories of being total hypocrites of the virtues they extol and the things they criticize others for. Both have been known to harass people and run them off the site. At least one has been known to sow discontent, mistrust, and conflict among fandoms while they try to cajole others into writing questionable material with them, then gaslighting them and guilt-tripping them about it later. They've been caught out on these behaviors before and caused a whole lot of drama, and yet they always just disappear and come back later seemingly to pull it all over again. And if you dare to even insinuate what they've done before (like I'm doing right now), and if they even suspect your identity, they'll stalk you, spread rumors and lies about you behind your back, and sometimes occasionally get someone to attack you, all the while continuing to act like they have any ground to stand on and preach to others about the RPC. This is the real truth they don't want you to hear in the RPC. I'm only speaking of two examples, but there are plenty of people just like them among the RPC, among different fandoms, and these are the people who will keep you silent. Who will silence others, foster discord, and burn any fandom down around the ground even if they burn themselves out of a fandom in the process. And they're like cockroaches, because no matter how much they get called out, no matter how much comes out against them, they'll always just "reset" their presence, come back later, sometimes even under the same names that people previously knew them by, and pretend like it never happened. And it always works, every single time, because even if you do bring up their past, they gaslight others into thinking that it either doesn't involve them or they've "changed" since then despite doing all the same damn things that have made them a problem in the first place. These are the people killing your RPC. And so are the people who flock to their defense and get up in arms for them, because maybe they're just as complicit as they are in their bullshit. What's most unfortunate is that they also fall under the banner of "unpublished female OC writers" that you often tout, and they'd probably try to co-op such defenses as a defense and self-justification for themselves as well.

Ya make ALL the justifications ya want to me. Actively ignoring other PEOPLE and ISOLATING them from the fandoms, is NOT acceptable. I don't give a flying fuck anymore what yas excuses are for DEHUMANIZING people for simply writing as a character they know for a fact they can write as. The sooner we realize that this shit is happening the sooner SHIT CAN AND WILL GET FIXED.

I do appreciate the rather in-length 'education' that I already am aware of (just hadn't touched it yet, sincerely thank you and this is not to you specifically). But it's fucking CRUEL to make people feel like they don't exist, all because they write as an unpublished female oc. I WAS ONE OF YAS OR ARE YA NOT READING MY SHIT SWEETUMS?? I ALREADY FUCKING KNOW YAS BULLSHIT. YA AIN'T FUCKING MY MIND ANYMORE.