#just be in the background scheming or whatever
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protect-namine · 2 days ago
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you don't understand how much I felt the slow saline drip of gaining interest in a character, and instead of going, "oooh. interesting. new blorbo?" I instead went, "...really. that guy? oh. oh no."
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<- guy with a li tianchen icon ends up blorbofying liu xiao. alas, I have played myself 😔
#mine musings#but he won't eclipse cxs. cxs is still my lc blorbo of all time#but i was so surprised how much lx snuck up on me#bc i'm writing a shiguang fic right. i can tell it's gonna be a long one and it's primarily about shiguang facing The Horrors™ (of course)#and it's non-linear (of course) and i write non-linearly anyway and it's just the kind of story where i *have* to write the endings first#so i was like. okay. i'll write the endings. they'll be my north star. roadmap to shiguang#and then my brain decided: wait. i want to write xiaochen epilogues to this#me (eyes squinting at lx and ltc): ?????????? this fic is not about you???? stop. go away#like it makes *sense* for them to be there. they have roles in the story. but it's like#you know how in the yingdu op lx hijacks the screen to print his english name in red letters#that's literally how it feels writing this fic. lx is hijacking it to have the last word even though he's supposed to#just be in the background scheming or whatever#like. what in the metanarrative experience...! why are you hijacking my fic lx!! this is not about you!!#and yet it kinda does naturally circle back to you in the end?? fuck#and i am!!! so mad!!! like truly!!!! i'm getting so heated just writing these tags lmao#i literally cared about you the least when i checked the hothh pvs so whyyyy are you. climbing the faves list. stop. go away#if i get annoying about lx in the future i apologize in advance#especially next friday#omg i feel like i'll be annoying about it actually bc he's so (gestures hands) vague about everything and i'll be like:#[standing emoji] viewers are gonna misinterpret you lx. and you're letting them#I'M probably misinterpreting you#is this fun for you? i bet you're having fun#ughhh. hell character. shaking him in a glass jar. putting him in the washing machine#microwaving him microwaving him microwaving him
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moffymoth · 6 months ago
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Hear me out..Skoodge and Gaz friendship/reluctant comradery. No, acquaintances who occasionally chat whenever they walk into eachother and neither feel negatively about the exchange. I just think their conversations could be really funny.
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heavencasteel420 · 1 year ago
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Why did it take approximately seventeen years to write about Jonathan going through security at Pennhurst (much of which I cut anyway) but two hours to write about [redacted exciting weird thing] happening?
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an-absolute-trainwreck · 8 months ago
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Ex: I love the color green. My room is green, my hair is green, my phone background is green, etc.. If I can get an item in green, I will. I don’t wear a lot of green, but it’s like “my color” yk?
Black is separated specifically because I have a feeling a lot of tumblr users will align with that
Just curious :)
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trianglegoddess · 7 months ago
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Feral McGee™
It starts with the Joker. 
His goons picked up Tim Drake. Not specifically because it was Tim Drake, he just so happened to be in the Joker’s neighborhood, and we'll, he can't pass up that opportunity now can he? 
Except Tim Drake is watching, along with the rest of Gotham, at the Batcomputer. He’s nursing a broken foot and has been put on monitor duty until he's cleared for field work again. 
The guy looks enough like him, though. Black hair, blue eyes, and bags under his eyes for days. He's also got the same lean sort of build like he does. 
It happens like this. 
The Joker is doing his monologue thing where he explains whatever twisted game he's come up with this time. He takes up the majority of the screen, so nobody can see Not-Tim behind him, not until the big reveal. Then he covers the screen again, getting up close and personal, before stepping back. In those quick few seconds, Not-Tim is no longer sitting there tied to the chair. 
Someone off camera lets the Joker know, and he whirls around, confused as the rest of Gotham. 
And then Not-Tim comes in with the steel chair. 
Or, well, a crowbar, but the reference holds up. 
He takes out one of Joker’s knees before punching him in the face. The Joker drops like a bag of stones, out cold. 
Then he looks towards the camera. 
“Hey there. I'm not really sure where I am, but also if he was after Tim Drake, he got the wrong guy. I'm not him, I'm just some dude. Anyway, I'll just-yep-” he carefully steps over the unconscious Joker, gives the camera a little wave, and then leaves. 
Batman and Nightwing enter shortly after, with the Joker and his goons out cold and tied up. The knots were complicated enough where, in the end, the police resorted to cutting the ties off of them so they could be properly cuffed and taken to Arkham. 
“A constrictor knot,” Batman tells Nightwing as they watch the villain be taken away. “Often used by sailors to temporarily tie things together to keep something in a bag, or to hold something to glue it back together.”
“Huh,” Nightwing says, scratching the back of his head. “Go figure.”
The next time it happens, it’s the Riddler. 
He’s laughing, giving his riddles to the Bats and recording himself to all of Gotham while his victim, one of the Wayne brats, hangs over a vat of something. From a distance, he looks like Tim Drake, or maybe a lankier Dick Grayson. And he’s not the only victim, they’re all scattered across the city, but he thought an important figure such as a Wayne should be under the Riddler’s direct supervision while he enacts his schemes. 
While the Riddler cackles and plots and waves his cane around, in the background all of Gotham can see the figure escape. Several Gothamites recognize him as the kid from before, who clocked the Joker. They all watch with bated breath as he sort of wiggles his way out of the ropes holding him up. Once he’s free, he climbs the rope and gets himself down safely. 
Gotham holds their breath as the kid casually walks up to the Riddler, who’s mid-rant. He politely taps him on the shoulder, and as the Riddler is turning around, the kid clocks him just as brutally as he had the Joker. He’s down with one punch. 
They think he’s going to say another sort of awkward goodbye, but instead he pats the Riddler down until he finds a piece of paper tucked into the inside pocket of his jacket. 
“Right,” the kid says, looking at the list. There’s a lot more static overlay now, and several wonder if it’s damage to the cameras. “Uh, the Clocktower, the Docks, and-” he squints at the page for a moment-”Mama Nacaroni’s? What the fuck is that? Anyway, uh. See you later, I guess. Oh! And we’re at the Gotham Arena. Have fun with him, I guess.”
The kid tosses the paper off to the side before the camera cuts to black. 
Just like last time, everyone is out cold and tied up. The Riddler himself is sporting a pretty bad shiner, but well deserved nonetheless. 
“Stop it,” Red Hood tells him. Batman just looks at him, and though Hood can’t see the top half of his face, he can tell that his eyebrow is raised. “You know exactly what I mean, B. Put the adoption papers away.”
“Hn.”
After that, it sorta becomes a game. The rogues of Gotham are no longer after a Wayne, or after anybody who holds any kind of social status like usual. They’re all going after this one kid, all determined to be the one to hold him. And each one is televised. 
Mr. Freeze freezes him in a block of ice, but due to the cameras glitching out, nobody can really see how he got free. They do, however, see the kid suplex Mr. Freeze. It should seem impossible, given his lanky figure, but he evidently has more muscle than he’s originally let on. 
Two-Face gets a hold of him, using chains and some power-dampening cuffs just on the off-chance that he’s a meta. They all watch as the kid leans down, pulls a bobby pin out of his hair, and picks the locks on his cuffs. One punch, and Two-Face is down. 
Gothamites are going wild for the kid. They’ve dubbed him Feral McGee™ (an online poll, of course), because every time he goes in for the punch he gets this feral look in his eyes. Also, just the fact that he casually goes up to these rogues and takes them out with all the casualness of doing something incredibly mundane? Incredible. The Gothamites are eating it up. However, despite the video evidence, nobody has been able to properly identify the kid. They know he has black hair and bright eyes, but any time he gets near a camera, it’s like there’s this weird, sort of warped quality the camera takes on. It doesn’t usually calm down until the fight is done-as one sided as they usually are-before he awkwardly skedaddles away.  
He gets kidnapped by the Penguin, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy (though that was more just a friendly chat than anything), Mad Hatter, and the Riddler again. 
And then the Joker escapes. 
It’s no surprise as to who he’s going to go after. 
Due to one too many careless goons, they manage to find their way to the Joker’s hideout pretty quickly. This time, it’s all Bats on deck, and they all hide away in the rafters as Feral McGee™ is hung over a vat of acid. His whole body is tied up, hardly a single inch of exposed skin to be seen except for the neck up. 
They watch the goons, they watch the Joker, and they watch Feral McGee™. 
The Joker is monologuing, practically begging the bats to come find him before the timer runs out. When it does, the kid gets dumped into the vat of acid. 
Despite these stakes, the kid seems to be only mildly annoyed. 
“Fuck this, I have homework I still need to finish,” they hear him say. 
They all watch, amazed and confused, as the kid starts gnawing through the ropes. Human teeth shouldn’t be able to do that so easily, but one bit after the other, and soon enough the kid’s got himself freed enough to just climb up the rest of the rope. When he’s at the top of the crane holding him up, Batman lets down a rope and pulls the kid up and out of danger. 
“Oh, cool, you’re all here,” the kid says casually, as if meeting the entire Bat Clan is just a normal Tuesday. And then he pulls out a notepad and pen and hands it to Red Hood. 
“Can I get an autograph? You’re dope as fuck, dude.”
Red Hood has to look away and hide his face in his arms for a few moments to not give away their location with his laughter before signing. And then, one by one, the others do as well. They pass along the kid’s notebook with shit-eating grins and barely contained snickers despite the fact that the Joker is still right below them. Even Batman signs it, after his children don’t stop hounding him about it. 
In their distraction, they didn’t see the kid sneak away. He’s far away from them now, nearly right over the Joker. Danny waits, though, until the Joker has turned around as the timer almost runs out. They watch as he snickers at Joker’s flabbergasted look. The Joker comically looks back and forth and under objects the kid obviously isn’t under. However, before he can do or say anything else, the kid drops from the rafters and right on top of the Joker. He crumples to the ground, unconscious. The kid, however, just brushes the dust off of himself. Despite the fall he took, there isn’t a scratch on him. 
When the bats join him, they give his notepad back to him, barely able to contain their laughter at the absurdity of it all. The kid, too, joins in the camaraderie, laughing and joking along with them as Batman secures the Joker. 
“Okay, okay, but I gotta ask, dude,” Red Hood says at one point, looking at the kid. “How do you keep getting kidnapped?”
The kid just shrugs. “I get distracted easily. And I’m sleep deprived, so you know. Social awareness is kind of at an all time low right now.”
“Why are you sleep deprived?” Nightwing asks, barely hidden concern in his voice. 
 “Finals are kinda kicking my ass right now. Especially this dumb English homework I have. You guys wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“Oh, lucky for you,” Red Hood says, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders as he walks them out of the warehouse, “I happen to know a lot about English. So, it is Shakespeare?”
“Yeah, Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
As they walk off, Batman calmly watches, though the rest of the bats can see his jaw twitching. Nightwing comes up behind him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. 
“If you don’t adopt him, I will.”
“Hn.”
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witchywithwhiskey · 6 months ago
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first and last
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pairing: childhood best friend!steve rogers x female reader
summary: after more than a decade away from your home town—and your childhood best friend—you return. everything is exactly the same, but also, entirely different.
warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), fluff, angst, smut, drunken antics, some arguing, drunk masturbation (f) with an audience, semi-public, choking, dirty talk, praise kink, begging, boundaries, very light bdsm vibes, references to past sexual intimacy (piv sex, oral sex [f receiving]), nicknames (buttercup, baby), aftercare
word count: 8.8k
a/n: this is my entry in @the-slumberparty's Sundae Bar Challenge, and i've been working on it since june so i'm very excited to post it!!! i wanted to make a sundae i'd actually eat so i used the prompts Butterscotch (childhood friends) and Caramel (drunk/delirious/not in their right mind). it also might be a bit literal to have Steve working at an ice cream shop but whatever!!
i mentioned when i teased this fic that i'd thought about turning it into a much longer story/potentially saving it for a novel, but honestly i just don't know when or if i'll ever have time to do that. but these scenes don't necessarily follow right after each other, so if they feel disconnected, that's why. they're just the ones i wanted to write 😅
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The sidewalk of Brambleberry Cove was warm from a full day under the August sun, the concrete gritty with sand beneath your bare feet as you walked the rest of the short distance to Seaside Scoops from your rental house a few blocks away. 
The sun dipped low on the western horizon, casting long shadows over the coastal town like stretching fingers reaching for the Atlantic Ocean. You could hear the steady sound of the crashing waves over the near distant sand dunes, their rhythm a background to your walk. 
It could’ve been a peaceful moment—you were back in your home town, surrounded by familiar sights and sounds and smells. But you were in a wretched mood, and all you could focus on was everything wrong with the world and your current place in it.
There was, of course, the throbbing pain in your big toe from when you’d stubbed it moments ago on the cursed, charming sidewalk, as well as the slight sting on the sides of your foot where your flip flop straps had torn. Your ruined shoes dangled from your fingers because Brambleberry Cove didn’t have a trash can on every street corner like the city you were accustomed to living in. 
In addition to those grievances, the straps of your bathing suit—which you hadn’t worn in far too long and hadn’t realized had become too small—were digging into your shoulders and hips uncomfortably. And, though you’d only been walking for five minutes from the little bungalow you were renting, your thighs were already beginning to chafe beneath the simple dress you’d thrown on. 
All told, you were not in the mood to appreciate the simple beauty of Brambleberry Cove. Instead of admiring the sun-bleached cottages that gave way to the small coastal shops lining main street, and letting yourself sink into the comfort of being back in your tiny beachside home town, you were fixated on everything wrong in your life—both in that moment and the larger scheme of things.
In your defense, though, there was a lot wrong in your life. There’d had to be to get you back to your home town after so long away. 
There was the dream job you’d lost, the ex who’d left you for someone else, and the friends who’d all promised to be there for you, but then vanished when you actually needed help. The only people who’d come through for you were your parents, who’d had a friend willing to rent a little Brambleberry Cove bungalow to you for a fraction of its normal summer price since it was already August and they weren’t going to make much more money anyway. 
You’d had to pack up and leave the city where you’d built your life for 15 years, and move back to your home town, which you hadn’t seen in nearly that long since your parents had moved out west shortly after you’d graduated high school. Being back home made you feel like you weren’t only taking a single step backward, but moving leaps and bounds in the wrong direction. It made you feel like a failure. 
But you tried not to think about all that on your short walk to Seaside Scoops, instead focusing on the pain in your toe and the digging ache of your bathing suit. 
By the time you saw the familiar neon sign for the ice cream shop, it felt like finding an oasis in the desert. You picked up your pace, ignoring the way your body protested, the soles of your feet no longer used to walking on the sandy sidewalk like you’d done countless times growing up in Brambleberry Cove. 
You could see through the window that there was a short line in Seaside Scoops, and you hurriedly pushed through the door of the shop. Once inside, you breathed in the familiar scent of sugar and hot fudge and reveled in the feel of the air conditioner ghosting over your sun-warmed shoulders. 
Surreptitiously, you shoved your ruined flip flops into the garbage just inside the door and got in line behind the couple with their two small children. You glanced around the shop, not really taking it in, and hoped whoever was working behind the counter was still lax on the ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ rule that had theoretically been in place since before you were born—but had never been enforced in practice. 
Finally looking to the counter, wondering idly if you’d recognize who was working or if it’d be some local teen that had been a baby the last time you’d been to Brambleberry Cove, you were shocked to see who was working at Seaside Scoops. Your belly swooped like you were standing on a boat on the choppy sea, your heart racing when you recognized the man behind the counter. At one time, he’d been the boy you’d shared so much of your childhood with, so many of your summers with. 
When you got a good look at him, you were almost surprised you recognized him so fast. He was no longer the scrawny teenager you’d left behind when you’d gone off to college and never looked back. He looked so different from the boy you’d known well enough you could recall his face in perfect detail, but, in so many ways, exactly the same.
On the whole, it was a shock to see the man Steve Rogers had become. 
Sandy brown hair fell on either side of his handsome, suntanned face, swept back like he had a habit of running his hands through it countless times a day. A short, well-kept beard decorated his strong jaw, bracketing a set of soft pink lips that were curved in a devastating grin. His bright blue eyes sparkled beneath the fluorescent lights of the shop, and when he spoke to the family in front of you in line, his voice rumbled like the distant roar of the ocean.
Seeing Steve Rogers for the first time in over 15 years made something loosen in your chest, anxiety uncoiling from around your heart and shaking free for the first time in a long time. A sense of safety and comfort washed over you, and you had the sudden thought that this was how you were supposed to feel about coming home. 
But you shoved that thought aside and continued your perusal of your childhood best friend, making note of all the ways he’d changed from the boy you’d known.
Thick, golden biceps were bare and bulging beneath the edge of his white t-shirt, and dense, brown hair covered corded forearms as Steve folded his arms on top of the ice cream case. He was tall—tall enough to lean over the case to talk to the kids with the couple in front of you, asking them about their favorite ice cream flavors and if they’d like to try anything new.
The kids, a boy and a girl, both stared up at him with wide eyes, shyness and wonder clear in their twin expressions. They looked to their parents for permission before shyly revealing what flavors they’d like to try. Steve gave a deep, hearty chuckle at their timidness, and complimented them on their choices, which seemed to make them both loosen up a bit.
Inexplicable heat flushed through your body at the sound of Steve’s deep laughter, and the easiness with which he interacted with the kids. You’d never been particularly good with children, mainly because you’d never had much of a chance to interact with any, and you’d never felt any particular desire to be around them. But seeing Steve looking like he did talking to those kids made your belly swoop again and something inside you pulse with a need you didn’t want to fully unpack.
Shoving those thoughts into a box in the back corner of your mind, you forced yourself to look away from your childhood friend and up at the menu that listed all the ice cream flavors. You’d been to Seaside Scoops hundreds of times in your life, if not thousands, and, at one time, you’d had the list memorized. 
Hopefully you still had that knowledge tucked away somewhere in your brain, because you weren’t taking in anything you were reading as you not-so-patiently waited for Steve to finish up with the customers in front of you.
It felt like forever, and by the time the family took their cups and cones of ice cream toward the side door that opened up into an outdoor seating area, you’d already cycled through three rounds of the same argument with yourself about why you should leave Seaside Scoops without talking to Steve. You couldn’t imagine your first conversation in 15 years going well.
But you couldn’t leave without talking to him. Not when he was right there and it had been so long and you were dying to know everything that he’d done in the last 15 years since you saw him last. 
Still, it took you a few extra seconds to gather the courage to lower your eyes from the menu board and finally look at your childhood friend. When you did, your gaze caught immediately on Steve’s, and your heart gave a little flip at the devastatingly charming smile on his impossibly handsome face.
“Hey there, buttercup,” Steve rumbled, his tone as friendly and familiar as it had always been. All of a sudden, it felt like no time had passed at all. 
“Hi, Steve,” you said, trying for the same casualness he’d achieved, but your voice sounded faint and faraway in your ears. The corners of your mouth flickered in a tremulous smile.
You couldn’t understand the surge of emotion filling your chest and rising in your throat, pricking at the backs of your eyes like you wanted to throw yourself into your oldest friend’s arms and sob about everything wrong in your life. 
The same deluge of emotion had hit you when you’d stubbed your toe on your walk to Seaside Scoops and you’d had to stand there by yourself, sucking in deep breaths of salty Brambleberry Cove air, nails biting into the flesh of your palms to keep yourself from breaking down. 
Just as you’d done then, you beat back the emotion, blinking your eyes rapidly to rid them of tears. Still, a thought needled you as you stood across the counter from Steve—the knowledge that if you did let yourself break down and cry, he wouldn’t hesitate to fold you into that broad chest of his, wrapping you up in his thick arms and holding you so securely, the world might not seem so grim anymore. 
You chalked it up to nostalgia and the rough time you were having, forcing yourself to take a deep breath and paste on a bright smile. Casting your eyes around Seaside Scoops, you pretended to give the place a real look, though you didn’t really notice much as you continued to blink back tears. 
“You work here now?” you asked lightly, looking at the new standee in the corner.
It was a cartoon shark holding up a sign advertising Seaside Scoops and their many ice cream flavors. But what caught your eye was that it looked a bit like the shark Steve had drawn for you when you’d gotten a bad grade sophomore year and wanted to cheer you up. It even had the same little sailor hat sitting perched on top of his head—which only made sense because sharks didn’t have blowholes, he’d told you at the time.
You’d smiled then, and you smiled again remembering it.
“Uhh,” Steve started, and you turned tear-free eyes back on your old friend, your gaze drawn to the way his bicep bulged against the sleeve of his t-shirt as he scuffed the back of his neck. There was a little bit of a sheepish tinge to his smile. “I actually own Scoops now,” he said in a rush, like he was confessing to something, though you couldn’t imagine what. “I bought it when Mr. Wallace retired down to Florida.”
“Oh,” was all you could think to say, glancing around the ice cream shop with a keener eye.
The shark standee wasn’t the only new thing in the place. Everything, from the tables and chairs to the menu board and counter, looked slightly newer than you remembered. Nothing was wildly different, which was why you hadn’t noticed it when you first looked around. Everything just looked better than it should if it had aged a decade since you’d last stepped into the shop.
Something about it made you think Seaside Scoops looked exactly like your memory of it—but the polished, perfect version in your head, instead of the place as it had been. Yellowed with age and a lack of upkeep. It was genuinely astounding what Steve had done with the place and it took you a few moments to find the right words, though they still felt pale in comparison to the bittersweet nostalgia in your heart.
“The place looks great,” you said with a half smile as you turned back to Steve. A small thread of pride wormed through your heart at seeing what your oldest friend had accomplished and your smile widened when he brightened under your praise. “I like the shark,” you said, hooking a thumb over your shoulder at the standee. 
A bit of pink tinted Steve’s cheeks above his beard, and he cleared his throat. 
“Is a dipped twist still your favorite?” he asked, clearly trying to change the subject and your smile dimmed just a little. The Steve you’d known had been shy about showing his art to anyone but you, and it seemed that you’d been gone long enough to be lumped in with everyone else. 
You swallowed back a lump in your throat and nodded. “Yeah, that’s still my favorite,” you answered, more than a little surprised Steve remembered your order.
Sure, you’d gone to Seaside Scoops together countless times as kids. It had been your hangout spot for most of your childhood, and even into your teen years. You’d study together over a cup of cookie dough with sprinkles for Steve and a cone of vanilla and chocolate softserve dipped in chocolate sauce for you. But that was more than a decade ago.
Your heart gave a heavy squeeze when you remembered the night before you’d left Brambleberry Cove, the way Steve reminded you of the promise you’d made as children—that you’d always be friends. Your stomach twisted into knots as you were confronted with the reality that you hadn’t kept up your end of the deal. You’d left, and you’d allowed your oldest friend to become a stranger. 
You wondered if Steve remembered the promise you’d made, the reminder he’d given you as a parting gift, or if he’d forgotten. You wondered if he’d ever want to be friends again.
Steve’s back was to you, his wrist flicking expertly beneath the softserve machine as he filled up a sugar cone with the twist of chocolate and vanilla. You forced yourself to push aside the memories of the past, blinking back more tears before Steve could catch them in your eyes. 
You and Steve weren’t friends anymore, and you needed to accept that. It was unreasonable to hold him to a promise he’d made more than two decades ago, especially when you were the one who’d left and had barely tried to stay in touch between college classes and exploring your new city.
With a great amount of effort, you kept your mind blissfully blank as you let your gaze trail idly over Steve’s broad back, unable to stop yourself from noticing just how wide his shoulders were, or the way they moved beneath the soft, worn cotton of his t-shirt. He really did fill out the shirt well, his sides tapering down to a thin waist. And his ass looked particularly good in the curve-hugging denim of his jeans. 
As Steve turned around, you raised your eyes quickly and arranged your expression into one of innocence. Steve paused, giving you a shrewd look like he would’ve done when you were teenagers and you were hiding something from him, but then he just shook his head and laughed under his breath, turning to the chocolate sauce where he’d dip your ice cream cone. 
“So, what brings you back to Brambleberry Cove, buttercup?” Steve asked, his gaze focusing on dipping your ice cream just right, a look of determination on his face that was endlessly endearing. 
You grimaced at the exact moment he glanced up at you, and he chuckled at the face you made. The sound was smooth as warm caramel and sent a new wave of heat rolling down your spine. 
“That bad, huh?” he asked, genuine interest in his tone.
Although there was a point in your life when you could’ve told Steve anything, and the urge to do so still lingered deep in your bones, you knew your relationship was different. You couldn’t dump all your problems on your childhood friend after not talking to him for 15 years. You didn’t even know if you were still friends anymore. 
Plus, there was a small crowd gathering behind you as the late dinner rush started to filter into Seaside Scoops. Even if you’d wanted to tell Steve everything that had happened to you in the 15 years since you’d last seen him, it wasn’t the time. 
So you just gave him a sad smile and accepted the ice cream cone from Steve’s hand, ignoring the butterflies and ticklish warmth that fluttered through your body at his touch. You gripped the sugar cone tight—but not too tight—so you didn’t fumble it. 
“Yeah,” you whispered in answer to his question, leaving it at that. There was an awkward beat, and your eyes dropped to the ice cream that was already beginning to melt despite the air conditioning in the shop. Thankfully, you had an easy way to move past Steve’s questions. 
You pulled some cash from the wristlet where you’d also stashed your phone and I.D., asking, “What do I owe you?” because you figured it must’ve been more expensive than what you remembered. And you didn’t want to risk looking up at the menu and catching Steve’s eye, not wanting any of the emotions or heat that seemed to flood you whenever you looked at him.
But a large, warm, golden hand closed over your fumbling fingers, startling you enough to look up into the sky blue eyes of your childhood friend. Your lips fell open in surprise as tingling warmth worked its way up your arm from your hand, wrapping around your heart and making it beat harder. 
For a long moment, you simply stared at each other. Steve really had grown up and changed so much, the evidence in the weathered grooves of his forehead and the lines between his brows, but his eyes still looked the same—soft as clouds, warm as the summer sun. 
“It’s on the house,” he murmured, his voice low and earnest, the thrum of some emotion you couldn’t identify laced through his words. “It was nice to see an old friend,” he said, giving your hand a squeeze before he pulled his away.
It wasn’t until Steve straightened up to his full height that you realized he’d been leaning over the counter, and your faces had been very close together. Heat crept into your cheeks at the realization that Steve had been in your personal space, and all you’d thought about was his eyes. 
Shoving all the money in your hand into the tip jar, you muttered, “Thanks, Steve.” As you zipped up your wristlet, you noticed that some of your ice cream was in danger of dripping onto your hand.
Without thinking, you licked quickly around the edge of the sugar cone, a soft moan slipping free when the cool sweetness of the ice cream hit your brain.
Steve made a strangled sound that dragged your attention away from your treat, finding your childhood best friend looking away and coughing into his fist, a deeper pink flushing his cheeks. You quirked your eyebrow in confusion when he looked back at you, but his expression gave nothing away and you had to wonder if you’d imagined the noise. It had almost sounded…aroused.
Shaking that thought clear from your mind, you gave Steve a smile and began to step away from the counter so he could help the next customer.
Steve’s eyes lingered on you, and he offered you one last charming, friendly smile, raising his hand in a wave. “Don’t be a stranger, buttercup,” he rumbled, his low words managing to reach your ears over the chatter in the shop. He gave you a long look, emotion swirling in those familiar eyes of his, and your breath caught in your throat.
The intensity of his gaze and the warmth in his parting words hit you straight in the gut, and you stood stunned in front of the register while Steve turned and walked to the other end of the ice cream case to help the next people in line. 
For a long moment, you couldn’t get over the way Steve had been able to read your mind, to pluck the thought that you were strangers to each other out of your brain and then tell you he didn’t want that to be the case. Your mind raced with questions. Did he still think of you as friends? Did he remember the promise you’d made all those years ago to always be friends? How did he know the exact right thing to say? 
But then the rational side of your brain resurfaced from wherever your heart had momentarily buried it, and you remembered his farewell was a normal thing for people to say to each other. Especially people who hadn’t seen each other in a while and likely would again because they both lived in a very small town. That’s all it was, just a normal goodbye. 
Not Steve Rogers somehow reading your mind because he knew you so well. 
With those rationalities ringing in your head, you dashed out of Seaside Scoops and it wasn’t until your feet had carried you to the next block that you remembered your broken shoes and stubbed toe and chafed thighs. 
But those problems didn’t seem quite so bad anymore. Not with the delicious ice cream cone in your hand, and the sunset casting Brambleberry Cove in gorgeous, golden light—and especially not with Steve’s warm, honeyed voice ringing in your head, calling you buttercup. 
It had felt so normal to hear the nickname roll off Steve’s tongue that you hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t realized how long it had been since you’d last heard it. But, just as it had when you were younger, it filled your chest with a bright, golden warmth. You grinned to yourself as you strolled back to your little bungalow, licking up the melting ice cream as fast as you could.
Your mood was decidedly better, and you enjoyed the walk home, refusing to think too much about why exactly you felt lighter and happier and less miserable about being home in Brambleberry Cove than you had before going to Seaside Scoops. It was just the ice cream, obviously. There was no other reason.
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“You’re staring.” Steve’s voice was low, the undercurrent of laughter in it almost mixing with the sounds of the distant waves. You could hear them through the open windows of his truck as he eased the vehicle down the winding road leading away from the docks on the north side of Brambleberry Cove. 
His comment dragged you out of your drunken haze, and you took a deep breath to get your bearings. Your lungs filled with the salty nighttime air of the sea and the earthy leather interior of your childhood best friend’s truck, a small smile curling the corners of your lips and your eyes sliding closed. When you forced them back open, you realized he was right.
Huh, you really were staring at Steve. 
Your head was swiveled to the side, your cheek pressed to the brown leather of the seat back, your eyes fixed on the profile of his face that was highlighted in the glossy silver of the moon and warmed by the golden light of the town’s street lamps. 
You couldn’t find it in yourself to feel embarrassed or ashamed for staring at Steve, though. And it was at that moment you realized you were drunk. 
It didn’t surprise you. After all, you were the one who’d thrown on some jean shorts and a cute top and then took yourself to Shanty’s, the only place in Brambleberry Cove to go if you were a local looking to avoid tourists. 
You’d been happy to see Bucky Barnes, your other oldest friend after Steve, manning the bar. But you’d been much less happy with him when he’d insisted on calling Steve to take you home after you’d downed more than your fair share of liquor. 
It was probably for the best, though. You were drunk and horny and if you weren’t careful, you would’ve gone home with Brock Rumlow. Just thinking about it made you grimace at yourself and your poor almost-decisions. 
Focusing back on Steve, you couldn’t fault Bucky too much for calling your old friend to pick you up—not when it had ended with you able to watch his side profile while he kept his eyes on the road. It felt practically shameful to indulge yourself so much. That is, if you’d had any shame left, but you’d drowned it all in alcohol.
“You’re still staring, buttercup,” Steve rumbled, the humor clearer in his tone. The edges of his mouth were flickering beneath the silvery golden light of Brambleberry Cove at night and you knew he was trying to suppress a smile. It was fascinating to watch, but then Steve rubbed his hand across his mouth, scrubbing through his beard, and it broke you free of your drunken trance.
“I just can’t get over how different you look,” you huffed, raising your arms and flopping them back against the seat in your best approximation of a shrug. “And how exactly the same.” 
Steve barked a laugh, the sharp sound bringing a smile instantly to your face. You’d never heard him laugh like that, and you couldn’t help but love that you were still discovering new things about him, even after knowing him all your life. 
He glanced over at you, his expression bemused like he was sure you were drunker than he’d thought. You probably were, but that didn’t stop you from being right, and you tried to convey that in the brief moment he looked at you. 
Steve’s gaze slid quickly down your body, not like he was checking you out—more like he was checking to make sure your seatbelt was still buckled and you weren’t in danger of doing anything ridiculous. You were only in danger of saying ridiculous things, at least, according to him apparently. He shook his head after he’d turned back to watching the road.
“You’re gonna have to explain that one to me, buttercup,” Steve said, a little bit of gruffness in his tone. He cleared his throat before he went on. “Usually when someone we went to high school with comes back, they tell me they never woulda recognized me.” 
You gave an unladylike snort, drawing another surprised laugh out of Steve before he bit off the sound to let you speak.
“Well those people should have their eyes checked,” you muttered scornfully, pushing yourself up from where you’d been slumped against the warm leather seat. You twisted your body in your seat so you were facing Steve, your eyes tracing the lines of his face from across the cab. “You still have the same eyes,” you pointed out vehemently, as if Steve was arguing with you, even though he wasn’t. “And your nose still has that little bump in it, and your lips are still so soft and full…”
You trailed off, realizing far too late that you were saying your inside thoughts out loud. Sinking your teeth into your bottom lip, you watched Steve as he processed what you’d said—the way his fingers scratched a little nervously at his beard, those twin lines forming between his brows. Your gazed traced every curve and line and divot in his face, examining his expression, wanting to memorize it and save it for the rest of your life. 
“I don’t think any of those people noticed those things,” Steve murmured, his voice so quiet you almost didn’t hear it over the slight breeze drifting through the windows while he drove through town. 
Your heart lurched at the implication of Steve’s words, but you couldn’t bring yourself to take them back, even if they were dangerously close to revealing something you hadn’t even had the courage to admit to yourself yet. 
Instead, you focused on your anger at the hypothetical people who weren’t recognizing Steve just because he’d grown up, gotten tall, gotten buff, grown out his hair and his beard and looked altogether very different to the skinny teenager he’d been.
“If they didn’t see those things, they didn’t really see you,” you muttered to yourself, indignant on Steve’s behalf, but trying to keep it to yourself. Apparently, you weren’t good at moderating the volume of your voice, because Steve snorted at your remark. 
“No, no one ever saw me as well as you did, buttercup,” Steve said, his voice low and warm, and your heart promptly rioted in your chest. 
There was something so dizzyingly wonderful about hearing Steve say such intimate words to you in that deep, caramel voice of his, genuine affection shining through his tone. It took your breath away for a moment, and your brain short-circuited. 
It was on the tip of your tongue to tell him…something. The thing you hadn’t admitted to yourself yet. But you were still you, and your brain tripped at the last moment, and instead you blurted, “Do you ever think about our first time?”
Steve choked on a snort, his eyes darting to you with honest surprise. You couldn’t blame him. You’d had no idea those words were gonna spill from your mouth until they were out, but you supposed they weren’t as bad as what you’d almost confessed, so you didn’t try to take them back or change the topic of conversation. You waited with bated breath for Steve’s response, and whether he remembered your night together when you were both 18.
When he saw you were anticipating his answer, he spluttered, “You mean when I came three seconds after getting inside you?” 
You began to smile, because he remembered, but then Steve continued talking.
“Y’know, I told Bucky about that once,” he said, his eyes fixed so fully on the road that you got the impression he didn’t want to meet your gaze and your stomach plummeted. “I was drunk, and didn’t know if it really counted as sex. Bucky was no help, of course—he said he didn’t know either since it was so quick.” 
Something new was swirling in your gut, and for long moments you could only sit there on the warm leather of the truck and stew in that hot, feral feeling. It must’ve showed on your face because, when Steve finally looked over at you after you’d been quiet for so long, the truck lurched forward, his foot pressing too hard to the gas.
“Don’t worry,” he rushed to say, guessing at what was upsetting you and guessing wrong. “I didn’t tell him it was with you.”
“Don’t you dare,” you snarled, the words bursting out of you with a ferocity you’d never used in your life, let alone when talking to Steve. But you were furious all of a sudden, and it wasn’t until the words were spilling from your mouth that you understood why you were so angry. “Don’t you dare try to take this away from me, Steven Grant Rogers.” Your voice was seething and barely recognizable, but you couldn’t stop. “You were my first, and it was perfect—because it was you.” 
Steve glanced over at you, something like shock written across his face, but when he looked back at the road, his brows settled low over his eyes. The muscle in his jaw popped and you knew he was grinding his teeth together, taking his time to gather his thoughts before he spoke. It took him a long moment to respond.
“You deserved better.”
The noise of your scoff was loud, even to your ears, and you strained against the seatbelt still buckling you into the passenger seat as you leaned toward your childhood friend.
“You ate me out until I came three times, Steve!” you cried, holding up three fingers as if the adult man your friend had grown into somehow didn’t know how many three was. “No man has ever made me come so many times in one night as you did then.” 
When Steve still didn’t look at you, just kept driving with his hands gripping the wheel and the muscle in his jaw popping, you huffed an exasperated sound and flopped back into your seat. Your back was to the leather as you crossed your arms over your chest and stared out at Brambleberry Cove through the open passenger side window. 
The silence grew until it was suffocating, and you needed to break it. So you said the first thing that came to mind. Again.
“You’re who I think about when I touch myself, Steve.” Your words drifted from your side of the truck to the other, carried on the light breeze floating through the cab. “I think about you and that night, and it gets me off every single time.”
Steve made a strangled kind of sound, like a growl that was torn free from his throat against his will. Then he was quiet, and he was quiet for so long, you thought that was the only reaction you’d get to admitting the truth. Until…
“I think about you, too, buttercup.”
The confession hung in the air between you, settling heavily onto the leather bench seat in Steve’s truck, the air rushing in through the open windows buffetting around it. 
You didn’t feel Steve’s admission sink into you. There was simply a before and an after. And in the after, you were moving. You were unbuckling your seatbelt and scooting across the seat toward Steve until your bare knee brushed against the denim of his jeans. 
He shot a startled look in your direction—which, in a distant part of your brain, you registered as completely adorable—before quickly pulling over to the side of the road. He was just throwing the truck into park when you slid into his lap, straddling his thighs and pressing your chest to his. 
“We should do it again,” you purred, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and leaning close. When Steve didn’t respond right away, just kept giving you that surprised look, you thought he might not have understood you, so you explained, “Have sex.”
Steve closed his eyes and a light tremor shuddered through his body as his hands settled respectfully on your waist, a few of his fingers brushing the skin where the edge of your tank top didn’t quite meet the waist of your shorts. Then, it was your turn to shudder, the feeling of his warm, calloused hands against your bare skin making heat flood between your thighs, your core warming and your body melting into your old friend’s hands.
“Please, Steve,” you whispered, tipping your head forward until your lips were a hairsbreadth from his, so close you could taste mint chocolate chip ice cream on his tongue and it took everything in you not to lick into his mouth desperately. Your voice was practically a whine as you went on, “Let’s see if we can do better this time.” 
Steve’s hands shifted to your hips, his fingers digging into your soft flesh hard enough to almost hurt, and you thought he was going to give in. But then he swallowed audibly, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat, and he pushed you gently away, his head tilting back against the leather seat so your lips no longer teased him with an almost-kiss.
“You’re drunk, buttercup.”
Steve’s voice was a delicious rasp, and you couldn’t help but shiver at the sound of it even as the meaning of his words settled into your drunken mind. You pouted at your childhood friend, hoping the fact that he hadn’t pushed you off his lap entirely meant he wasn’t saying no.
“And horny,” you said, the words slipping from your lips on another whine. Of their own volition, your hips squirmed on your oldest friend’s lap, trying to get closer, trying to find some kind of friction to work against the aching heat pulsing between your thighs. But Steve’s firm grip held you in place. “Stevie.” His name was nothing but a pathetic whimper. 
A low growl rumbled in Steve’s chest, and then one of his hands was abandoning your hip to cup your face, tilting it up so he could loom over you. The lines of his face were hard, stubborn, and the look in his eyes left no room for argument. 
“You know I won’t touch you when you’re drunk,” he bit out, his voice soft, but as firm as his hold on your body.
A memory slammed into you—you and Steve planning your first time together. You’d made a deal at the start of high school that if neither of you lost your virginity through all four years, then before going off to college, you’d lose it together. 
When the time came, you’d been a little nervous, even though it was Steve, and you’d joked that you could take some wine coolers to the beach and get it over with, just like all the other kids in your school. Even then, Steve had looked at you stubbornly, and said, without a shred of willingness to waver, that he wouldn’t touch you if you were drunk.
Back then, it had sent a shiver down your spine, and it had much the same effect more than a decade later in his truck. Your body trembled with arousal, and you pushed feebly against Steve’s hold—not really trying to break it, just enjoying the feeling that came from realizing how strong he was. Those biceps and corded forearms of his weren’t just for show.
“What about just the tip?” you murmured, the words tumbling past your lips before you could think better of them, knowing there was no use trying to argue with Steve when he’d made a decision. But you were clearly thinking with something other than your brain, because the words kept coming. “That’s not sex, just the tip—please, Steve.” You were begging shamelessly, but your shame and embarrassment were still nowhere to be found since you were still definitely drunk.
Steve’s jaw ticked so hard, you could’ve sworn you heard the muscle pop in the quiet of his truck as he ground his teeth together. 
“Buttercup,” he growled, a warning in his tone. “That’s not happening.”
Your fists gathered in the front of Steve’s t-shirt and you yanked on it restlessly, not trying to do anything more than annoy him. “Whyyy,” you whined, drawing out the word until it was nearly a wail. Unslaked heat burned in your blood and, while you knew why he was refusing to have sex with you, in the moment, you couldn’t understand why your oldest friend was torturing you.
Steve’s hand slid down from your cheek to wrap around the front of your throat, and you stilled immediately, something about the possessive, dominant gesture making you calm. That was new, Steve hadn’t done anything like that when you’d first been together, but you liked it more than you would’ve expected. Your lips were still parted, your panting breaths gusting out of them, your heart racing, and you were finally calm and quiet.
Your oldest friend’s eyes roamed over you, taking in your reaction. At first he seemed surprised, but then a glint of something you’d never seen before sparked to life in the depths of his blue eyes. You watched his gaze drop to your mouth, and nearly whimpered at the way the corner of his lips flickered in the ghost of a smirk. But then he fixed his gaze back on yours, pinning you in place with that stubborn look in his eye, though it was slightly dimmed in favor of that new, hungry glimmer. 
“I won’t fuck you only to wake up tomorrow and find out you regret it,” Steve said, enunciating all his words clearly despite the fact that his teeth were grinding together “That you only wanted it because you needed to scratch an itch.” 
Your lungs dragged in a soundless gasp and you finally understood his reticence, even if you couldn’t imagine ever regretting doing anything with Steve. But when you opened your mouth to protest, Steve’s fingers squeezed the sides of your throat. 
Your words died on your tongue, and your mouth went slack, your eyes going hazy with pleasure. You couldn’t have been more obvious that you liked the way Steve choked you if you tried. And he read your enjoyment easily from the expression on your face, that look of hunger sparking brighter in Steve’s eyes before he went on.
“When I fuck you again,” he growled, his words a promise. “I don’t want you drunk on anything but my cock.”
“Stevie,” you whined his nickname again, the name only you were allowed to call him, your lips forming into a pout. It hadn’t escaped your notice that he’d said ‘when’, and not ‘if’, about having sex with you again, but you didn’t want to push your luck. And besides, unslaked need was still burning brightly through your body, consuming most of your focus. “I need…something, please.” You let out a little whimper and squirmed in his lap again, unable to stop yourself.
Steve huffed a laugh, his thumb stroking down the side of your neck, over your thrumming pulsepoint, while the fingers of his other hand slipped half an inch into the waist of your shorts, only far enough to dig harder into your soft curves.  
“I’m not going to touch you more than this, buttercup,” Steve began, his voice a low, delicious rumble that you swore you could feel in the clenching of your core. “But I didn’t say anything about stopping you from touching yourself.”
Your eyes widened in excitement, and you wasted no time in acting on the implication in Steve’s words. Holding his gaze, one of your hands slipped free from his shirt and trailed down your body. When you reached between your thighs, the backs of your fingers brushed against a thick bulge in the front of Steve’s jeans. 
It twitched against your soft touch, and you gasped in delight, loving the proof that Steve’s body recognized you just as much as his mind.
But when you twisted your hand, intent on giving Steve’s bulge a friendly squeeze, his hand darted down from your hips to your wrist, his fingers circling around you and stilling your hand. “Buttercup,” he rumbled, another warning. 
A shiver raced down your spine and you reveled in the way it made you feel to hear Steve say your nickname like that. It occurred to you that it was new—you’d never heard him say it quite like that before, with frustration and arousal flooding his tone. 
You wanted to hear every flavor of your nickname on Steve’s tongue. You wanted to hear him whisper it like a prayer, and groan it into your lips while he kissed you. You wanted to hear Steve shout your nickname while he came with you. 
But the look in Steve’s eyes was stubborn again, and you knew you’d have to wait to hear all the ways he could say your nickname. 
“OK, Steve, ‘m sorry,” you mumbled, twisting your hand in his hold and pressing the tips of your fingers to the seam of your shorts, your hips jerking forward to seek more of the friction you offered yourself. 
Steve’s hold loosened, but he didn’t let go of you entirely, like he didn’t trust you just yet. But you didn’t care, your fingers were pressing into your clit through the thin denim of your shorts, and you were rocking your hips to grind against them, your wetness soaking through your panties almost immediately.
The moment when your fingers found just the right spot, you sucked in a sharp breath, your spine arching and your hips pressing down hard against your hand. Your head tipped back, your eyes narrowing into slits as you held Steve’s gaze. You moaned while you rubbed tight circles against your clit through your shorts.
“I’m going to come embarrassingly fast,” you huffed in warning, your chest heaving already with labored breaths. 
But Steve only smirked, a touch of smugness in the curve of his lips.
“Don’t worry, buttercup, I remember exactly how sensitive your sweet little clit is,” he rumbled, and you moaned loudly. His fingers flexed against your throat, digging in enough to quiet your sounds and making your eyes widen as your hips lurched in their rhythm. He chuckled at your reaction before continuing on.
“I remember sucking on your puffy little pearl, your thighs squeezing my head, my fingers buried deep in your tight, warm hole,” Steve purred, seemingly knowing exactly what to say to drive your pleasure higher. “I remember the exact way your pussy gripped my fingers when you came, like you wanted me deeper—deep enough that you could feel me in your belly.” 
“God, Steve,” you groaned, your head falling back listlessly on your shoulders, too heavy to keep it up. But Steve’s fingers dug into the back of your neck, and you understood the wordless command immediately. You lifted your head and caught your oldest friend’s eye while you kept rubbing your clit, pushing yourself closer to coming apart in his lap. 
“I remember how big your cock felt inside me,” you confessed, spurred on by Steve’s own filthy words. “I remember how long it took for you to sink your thick, fat cock into my tight pussy.” You paused only to take a quick, hitching breath. “I was already so close when you came, and I remember, I thought, maybe if you hadn’t been wearing a condom, maybe I would’ve come, too.” 
The lines of Steve’s face shifted, hardening, his jaw ticking wildly and his eyes going molten fierce, like the blue at the center a campfire that burns too hot to sit near. 
“Don’t fucking say that, buttercup,” Steve growled, his voice gravelly like he was chewing on seashells. “If I hadn’t been wearing a condom, I would’ve come so much faster—I never woulda made it all the way inside you. Woulda been coming with just my tip inside your warm, wet pussy, baby—woulda been too risky, buttercup.” 
Your eyes wanted to fall closed as you moaned, but you didn’t let them. You couldn’t tear your gaze away from Steve, not with that furious and ferocious hunger in his eyes, his desire for you etched into every single line and curve of his face. 
You were so close. You just needed a little more to push you over the edge.
“Fuck, Steve, I know I shouldn’t, but I love the thought of you coming inside me, filling me up, making me yours,” you confessed, the words bubbling up from the very depths of your soul. It was on the tip of your tongue again, that thing you hadn’t admitted to yourself. Instead of letting it free, you moaned, long and loud, your fingers rubbing faster against your clit and your hips grinding against your hand. 
“Christ, baby,” Steve gritted through tightly clenched teeth. His fingers were digging into your hip again, diving further beneath the waist of your shorts, nearly skimming the edge of your panties. His other hand tightened around your throat and dragged you into him, until your face was right in front of his and he could watch every twitch and change in your expression as you pleasured yourself. 
“Come on, baby,” he said, his voice urgent with need. “Come before I do something we’ll both regret.” 
The hand that wasn’t wedged between your thighs pressed to the center of Steve’s chest, just above his heart, and a moment later, you felt his warm palm cover it. He was still holding your throat, his fingers digging into the sides hard enough that you knew he could feel your fluttering pulse beneath his touch. And you could feel his heart pounding beneath your palm, the rapid pace nearly matching the frantic one in your chest.
“Come, buttercup, come for me,” Steve commanded, his eyes holding yours. For a moment, it felt like he could see straight into your soul. It was a scorching intimacy you hadn’t felt since that night you’d first been with Steve, and you were helpless to it.
“Stevie,” you cried his name as your pleasure rose up and consumed you, sending you over the edge into a earth-quaking orgasm. Your body writhed in Steve’s lap, your hips grinding gracelessly against your hand as you collapsed forward, leaning into the grip of his hand around your throat. You sobbed your pleasure, the waves of your release wracking your body for long moments.
Eventually, the final swell ebbed and the last of your energy receded with it. Your damp forehead fell against Steve’s cool, dry one and you struggled to catch your breath. His hand slipped from the front of your throat around to the back of your neck and he smoothed it down your spine. 
He held you close, whispering in your ear, “Such a good girl, buttercup, you did so good.”
Once you finally settled, Steve shifted, his beard grazing your lips as he pressed a kiss to your cheek. 
“Can I take you home now?” he asked.
You huffed a laugh and slumped against his chest, laying your head sleepily on his shoulder. “I don’t think I can move yet,” you said, slurring your words with tiredness. And drunkenness.
Steve chuckled, but made no attempt to move you. You only felt him lifting his arms around you, though his hands didn’t settle on your body. 
“If you see Sam while you’re back in town, don’t tell him I did this,” Steve murmured in your ear. Then you felt the truck rumbling to life and getting back onto the road and you realized where your oldest friend’s hands were. He was driving you home, with you still sitting boneless in his lap.
When Steve arrived at your rental house, not too long after, he helped you down from his truck and looped an arm around your waist, getting you into the bungalow. Thankfully, you were sated from your release in his truck so you didn’t try to proposition him again, just dutifully did as he said, changing into your pajamas in your bedroom while he waited outside the closed door. 
Then he let you lean against his broad chest while you brushed your teeth and washed your face, before guiding you back to your room and tucking you into bed. Last, he pressed a sweet kiss to your forehead that was so comforting, and made you feel so safe, your eyes fluttered closed and a soft smile curled your lips.
Before he could leave, your hand darted out and grabbed Steve’s wrist with surprising precision given your state and the fact that your eyes were closed. You dragged them open again, blinking away the bleariness until your childhood friend’s face came into focus. 
“I don’t regret anything we’ve done together, Stevie,” you mumbled, the side of your mouth hitching up in a lopsided smile. “I’m glad you were my first.” You lost the battle with your eyes and they fell closed. You also, apparently, lost the fight against biting back your feelings, murmuring sleepily, “I want you to be my last.”  
For a long moment, Steve was quiet. He seemed to wait until you were just on the edge of sleep before responding to your drunken confession. 
“Tell me that again when you’re not drunk, and I’ll believe you, buttercup,” Steve murmured, ducking down to press a kiss to your hand, still wrapped loosely around his wrist, before carefully extricating himself. 
You were snoring before Steve closed and locked the front door of your bungalow behind him. He walked down the short path to his truck, which sat at the curb, a subtle smile on his lips and a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
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dcxdpdabbles · 25 days ago
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DCxDP Fic Idea: Lex Luther's annoyance
Vlad Masters is....a pain. Not in the usual elite way Lex is used to. Not the empty-headedness of wealthy men like Bruce Wayne or annoyingly humanitarian like Oliver Queen.
Masters was annoying in the confusing kind. He was new money who danced around Lex's manipulations as if they were mere flies. He never gives Lex a reason to take him out but always leaves the bald man feeling weary.
Unsettled. Unsure.
The effect Masters had on him was irritating. Lex Luthor doesn't get unsure.
Luthor's family money came from his father, but it was Lex who turned the moderate company into one of the biggest powerhouses in the world. He was ruthless, always three steps ahead of his peers, using his clever mind to his every advantage.
Lex prides himself in being the danger in plain sight. He charmed kings and politicians alike, carefully placing a controlling hand on the back of their necks with each casual joke or helpful investment. Wherever Lex went, it wouldn't be long before he gained control of the floor and moved his pieces on the board to his liking.
That was if Vlad Masters wasn't in attendance.
Masters rarely join in high-class events- why should he? He was wealthy, of course, but nowhere near Lex's level. He just didn't run in the same circles- but whenever he did, it was like a rock being thrown in Lex's clam river. No matter where he was, Lex found his eyes tracing the underwhelming cut of Masters's suit (Easily one of the cheapest ones there) or catching the man's gaze that hid barely concealed amusement.
That was another thing. All social rules and etiquette indicated that Masters should be chasing after Lex's attention and approval or, at the very least, feel nervous in his presence. Masters acted like Lex was a part of the background, never impolite but never dazed or impressed.
Equals in a way that made Lex's stomach lurch in anxiety.
He has met some people who thought themselves better than Lex through arrogance, but none have taken one look at him and deemed him unimportant. It was as if Lex were just another man walking down the street who was only worthy of getting a passing greeting.
As if the man had a presence at all. Lex was often the man of the hour, and Masters was the guy nursing a drink by the wall, watching the crowd with a calm, nearly detached expression.
Masters was known for being a rather dull wealthy man, only seemingly interested in conversations if it was about his precious football team or random scientific discoveries. Seeing as he made his wealth through scientific discoveries, it was understandable that he knew an awful lot about them.
However, besides being a fantastic investor and stock buyer, Masters didn't have a single social bone in his body.
Lex had witnessed him flout through galas, parties, art galleries, and political rallies without a hint of displeasure or pleasure. Always engaged in conversations, but only if someone approached him first. He would often be seen admiring the decor, as though he was visiting a museum rather than networking or losing himself in a vice-like alcohol or bed partners.
It was almost as if these grand events that others killed to get an invitation were mere walks in a lovely garden for him. A break from whatever hectic life he lived.
Except that after having his people look into it, Masters didn't have a hectic life. He barely had one. No matter how much Lex dug into his background, besides that one accident that landed him in a hospital in college, Masters's life had been a pretty average rise from rags to riches through his hard work and intelligent mind.
A wealth that would likely only be passed down two generations with no hints of wanting to raise it like Lex had. No hints of ambition for something greater. No hints of nefarious schemes or back-alley deals. No hints of any sort of crime.
Just a man who wasn't amazed by Lex's world of wealth.
Lex hated how utterly boring he found the man and yet, how his eyes always followed him through the room, fascinated by how Masters didn't make any sesne. It was irritating how Masters didn't even have to do anything to grab Lex's attention; just walking by had him nearly tripping over his own two feet to watch him.
He didn't even know why he wanted to watch Masters. He wasn't even that handsome! His long silvery hair tied in a perfect tail, his slightly dry-looking skin, the dark circles under his eyes, and that teeth-gritting accent of his.
He didn't even know why Masters sounded like an upper-class British man. He was born in Wisconsin!
What did he take voice acting lessons to craft an accent? (Lex's checked. He didn't. Masters is just like that. It made his heart beat like Superman was about to burst into his office. He called his doctor to check if he's developed a heart condition)
The worst part was the way Master lingered in his mind, sitting at the back of it with inane questions like: What was he doing? Does he like chocolate or vanilla more? Why has he tried to buy the Parkers from Green Bay ninety-five times?
It made him look like a fool. No one made Lex Luthor look like a fool.
In a fit of madness, Lex had ordered Mercy to blacklist Masters from any parties they would host. He could not stand to have that man throw him off his game a second longer.
It worked for about three months, and Lex did not have to suffer from stomach twisting or heart hurting due to the sudden increase in heart rate. Then he ran into Masters at a Wayne Gala of all places where the man was dressed like an idiot with his pure black-on-black outfit only to throw on a Packer's scarf.
It looked so stupid that Lex had to hide in the men's bathroom for an hour after spotting the man chatting quietly with Wayne's butler. He could not describe why that stupid green and gold scarf had nearly brought him to his knees.
According to Mercy, who had eavesdropped, Masters' mother was from England, which explains his odd accent. She didn't quite judge him openly, but Lex could read the subtext of her stare as she reported everything Masters did at the gala.
He danced to one song with Bruce Wayne. Lex had nearly broken his hand when he punched the way to the bathroom.
The night after Waynes' gala, Lex lifted Masters' ban because he missed the rather dull man's presence. This gala had been the season's highlight, and compared to the other various parties, Lex had found himself feeling something besides boredom or contempt.
The next time Lex saw Masters was at a charity five months later. Once again, Masters was wearing his black suit, but this time, he had a silver undershirt and a ridiculous red bowtie. Lex had spent five hours changing outfit after outfit, trying to find the most flattering one, and Masters had the audacity to wear a red bowtie.
"He looks good," Lena says, eyes drinking in Masters, leaning on a wall with a blue drink in hand and gazing over the dancers. Lex felt like hurling up when Masters' lips twitch up into a grin as a man stumbles by with his unimpressed dance partner. "You should ask him to dance."
"No," Lex bites out, feeling sick. "Why would you even say?"
Lena shares a look with Mercy before muttering, " It's almost pathetic how he doesn't know how to handle his feelings."
"What was that?"
"You're pathetic," She says with an eye roll. She grabs Mercy's hand and drags her to the dance floor, though his bodyguard sends him a look, asking for permission. He waves his hand, knowing his sister would bite his head off if he stopped her from dancing with her girlfriend, even if she was currently on the clock.
" I'm not pathetic. I can make a living clone with my own DNA." He grouches, glaring at her as she twirls under Mercy's arm.
"You can?" The familiar accent has Lex jumping a foot in the air. He spins around only to look down into Master's blue eyes. Lex had always noticed that he was a head taller than the other man, but it was one thing to know on paper and another to see in person.
He felt like Masters' blue gaze had grabbed him by the throat. "What?"
"You make clones?" Masters repeat, eyes alight with delight. "I've dabbled in that technology myself. I have a daughter, thanks to it."
Lex stares, feeling off-footed. "You're married?"
"Oh no, no." Masters laughs, though Lex can pick up a hint of anger from the curve of his jaw. "I'm a single father. My daughter happens to have some characteristics of her DNA donors, but she's mine entirely."
"I see." Lex suddenly feels like every social skill he's ever developed has evaporated. Or, at the very least, all of his brain cells because why else would he have blurted out, "I have a son. He's my clone with another man."
"Oh, congratulations. You and your husband-"
"No! I'm single. I mean, I'm not married. I was never married. In fact, it's been a long time since I've been in a relationship. So long I think I forgot how they are supposed to go." Lex cuts in, nearly spilling his drink as he shakes his hand. Masters' fae clouds with amusement, and Lex realizes he's been talking for too long.
"Well, it's hard to date while being a single parent." Masters hums before smiling, and Lex feels like Superman has just punched him through a wall without wearing his power suit. "Science is a wonderful thing, isn't it? To allow us to have our children."
"I suppose"
Masters ponders something before he holds out a card. "My daughter has always wanted to meet others like her. Would you and your son care to join us for dinner if it's not too much trouble?"
Lex thinks he makes a sound of confirmation, and just as he appears, Masters vanishes. He walks into the crowd, disappearing from sight, taking his mind-numbing, amused eyes and his stupid bow tie.
It takes him a moment to realize the card has Masters' phone number. Lex stares at the seven digits, feeling like he's freefalling and he's seconds away from being sick. He stumbles to a chair, falling into it without his usual grace.
Mercy is at his side in seconds, eyeing him wearily as Lena touches his shoulder. "Lex? You okay?"
"I have...to make a call." He hears himself say, stumbling for his phone. With shaking hands, he taps on a contact, bringing the device to his ear and listening to it ring. It takes five rings before it's picked up, and a voice bites out.
"What?"
"Conner." He starts, hands still shaking slightly. "Are you free this Friday?"
914 notes · View notes
pearlywritings · 6 months ago
Text
Surprisingly
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synopsis: for the public eye, the head of the Oak Family and his wife are a loving couple. In private they are astonishingly content with each other too.
pairing: Sunday x fem!reader
tw: fluff, arranged marriage, reader is halovian, established some time before the game quest on Penacony.
word count: 2.8k+ words
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Nothing supports the man’s prestige and public image more than a proper marriage with a proper woman. So, I want you to meet this very woman, my child…
Two months, fifteen days and one hour. That’s exactly how long ago Sunday became a husband. A role he didn’t imagine himself playing, not with the role assigned to him from above. But, it was Gopher Wood - his adoptive parent basically, who brought you to him and announced his grand plan. And even if the head of the Oak Family had his doubts initially, a thorough conversation held with and without the Dreammaster, plus your immaculate background and some more specific matters proved to him that you were indeed chosen rightfully. He wasn’t sure if it was Mr Wood’s way of helping him, offering you as an aid at handling some of the work-related matters but with the seemingly perfect image of being wed - the elder gave no answers, however Sunday knew better than to question some of his schemes.
And so, your union was sealed. The ceremony wasn’t something exceptionally huge, none of you wanted that, but it was public enough for everyone and their mother to be talking about it. A couple of perfectly sterile interviews, some joint photos and three or four public appearances together, and people have been fooled enough to believe that.
That was enough.
Something as shocking as a wedding would avert the public eye and serve a great purpose in deceiving the people. After all, newlyweds are far too busy for one of them to be plotting something, right?
Right. So right, that Sunday himself was in a somewhat daze for the first week. But it’s understandable - on top of his regular responsibilities he had to prepare for the wedding and get to know the person he was about to spend life with better. Surprisingly, you turned out to be very understanding and supporting from day one, actively participating in whatever additional activity served on the man’s plate. It was weird, new and confusing, but above all he caught himself considering it not unwelcome.
You are astonishingly easy to work with. Well-versed in the matters of Family (but he shouldn't be all too surprised, given who brought you to him), soft, yet - when needed - firm spoken, not afraid to face the crowd in your husband's place for a public announcement and taking a portion of his responsibilities without any questions asked. If not for your interactions outside of all of that, Sunday would've thought you were his secretary and not a wife (but even a secretary wouldn't have known as much as you are aware of).
You are…comfortable. Sunday should really reproach himself for giving in so quickly, but it’s so hard not to. Maybe his vigilance is lulled with security of his patron’s choice or maybe it’s his own longing for normal civil interaction with someone close, but it didn’t take much time to start entertaining your sparks of curiosity.
Oh, how curious you are. Despite being trapped in a loveless marriage, you’ve been willing to learn about him from day one, trying to unfurl at least one tiny secret of his every day. He knows that because you are methodical, because you write it down (and you don’t hide the fact - when he, alarmed, asked or rather demanded you to show him that little notepad of yours, you just did so, with an explanation of your reasoning.)
Speaking of getting to know each other better… It’s still half an hour before your recently established tea time, but… But maybe he could summon you earlier? 
I hope, my child, this woman will become your reprieve. You are not obligated to love her, see her as just a companion, but feel free to treat her as a continuation of yourself. I educated her to match you specifically, after all.
As a continuation of himself… Isn’t it cruel to speak such things of a sentient being? Isn’t it putting one into the position of submission? 
Somehow it feels bitter on the tongue when he thinks of you.
His hand reaches for the bell, but promptly stops before the fingertips can touch the polished metal. Ah, of course, he asked to not be disturbed today. So, let him not violate his own order. He can find you on his own, not to mention, a small walk around the building might help clearing up his mind. Lately, he’s been thinking too much.
Spacious halls of the Dewlight Pavilion are empty, he knows as much, yet he hopes he won’t have to roam for too long, as the gloved hands push the doors of the meeting room. Today you two decided to work from the main Family residence in need of some materials here, and since no congregations were scheduled for the day, the building was all yours.
Each step of his is muffled by the carpet, lining the exactly 39 stairs, every next one lifting some of the weight from his shoulders and smoothing the deep frown of light gray brows. When his heels click on the small podium with the additional three steps, Sunday feels like his head is cleared. 
Stepping on the carpet again, he finally ends up in the big hall with the 5 Lineages symbols and a big City Sandpit in the middle. Quickly fishing his phone out of the pocket, he swiftly unlocks the screen and finds your name in the recent calls, dialing it.
When did it happen that conversations with you outnumbered ones with his sister?
You pick up the phone after just two seconds.
“Hello? What is it, Sunday?”
Ah, straight to the point, he admires that. And the calmness of your tone is surprisingly grounding.
“I was wondering if you’d join me earlier,” he speaks softly, barely holding off from calling you ‘dear’. It’s not wrong for the spouses, but how would you react? He asks strange questions lately. “Tell me where you are, I’ll come fetch you.”
“To answer your first question, I’d love to,” the young man might lie to himself, but he swears he heard your voice sweeten just a little. It makes the little wings behind his ears flutter, which he is quick to still. “As for your second one, however, you might want to look down.”
Sunday follows your instruction without much thought, looking right at the red carpet covering the marble floor.
“...I don’t believe I understand.”
He hears you chuckle, a tinkling sound, lacking any malice. His left wing slightly jerks as the favorable noise fills his left ear through the phone.
“The City Sandpit, beautiful. I am not far from the origami birds’ nest.”
As he moves to round the table, your husband’s heart skips a beat. You called him beautiful, you have done so on multiple occasions already. You praised his intellect, you gently clapped for the perfect choice of the clothes for the day he made, you agreed with him on the most mundane things incorporated into your daily lives. And not once it felt forced or fake. You were surprisingly sincere with him - he would’ve thought that with the Dreammaster’s upbringing you’d have been all mastered flashy smiles and sickly sweet polished words.
But here you’ve been, admiring him in your own quite blunt kind of way.
He immediately spots your tiny figure among the fake buildings on the city’s layout. You are waving at him with a smile.
“Found me,” he hears again in the speaker, but now also from you as well.
“Found you,” Sunday echoes, reaching his free hand to you. When he curls his fingers, you understand and, clutching the strap of the bag hanging from your shoulder, carefully climb onto his open palm.
Your husband is careful, finishing the call and putting the phone aside, before cupping the other hand under the one holding your sitting figure. Bringing you closer to his eyes he can see all the little details on the pretty pale blue dress you left home in this morning, with your second pair of clipped wings wrapped around the waist like another skirt. Then his gaze skims along your neck, adorned in one of the pendants he gifted you and then up to the first pair of wings, bigger than his when you are your normal size. 
He doesn’t have an opportunity to marvel over your intricate halo, because your eyes capture his in a vice, looking at him inquiringly.
“Didn’t expect you to take a break earlier. I thought you liked to stick to your routine.”
This was probably the first thing you learned about your back then betrothed.
“I do,” a tiny smile adorns his pale lips, “however, today I managed to wrap the most attention-requiring matters up earlier. Now only the mundane cases are left.”
“Good to hear that,” you hum, swinging your stocking-clad legs a little. His golden eyes look over your form once more, capturing the image of surprising comfortability in the hands of a bigger being, one that could crash your body so easily at the moment.
“I do wonder however about the reason behind your current predicament,” the male tilts his head in an inquiring way. “I believe I’ve never seen you enter the City Sandpit.”
Well, not to count the very first time he was giving you a tour.
“Oh, as I said, I know your routine, so I usually leave it before our meetings. I actually enter it quite often when we stay here,” is your answer that makes Sunday’s eyes widen in surprise.
“Pardon?”
“It’s easier to do paperwork this way,” motioning to the bag still on your shoulder, you then huff in annoyance. “If only you knew how eager your subordinates to bother me whenever you are unavailable. I am well-informed of my seeming position as the “lady-of-the-house”, but I’ve never signed up to be a link element between you and them, let alone a pawn in someone’s game of becoming first to seek your favor. Pardon me for my straightforwardness, but I much prefer interactions without actual feedback from the interlocutor if the situation doesn’t require otherwise. Except for you, of course.”
Except for him.
“You are my equal. You can always order them not to bother you,” drawing his hands closer to the chest, Sunday turns and starts walking closer to the table’s side where the gates are located.
“As if,” he glances down and catches just the end of your eye roll. “Mister Wood would have had my head if I ruined your picture as little as being distant from your inner circle. I’d much rather prefer just to hide away when needed and return to my secondary duties once I’m done with the primary.”
With the Dreammaker’s upbringing you would think a person can’t be as open-minded. Sunday is sure that it was no different from his - after all you have the clipped wings to match his. But, it seems, you found a way to temporarily escape from the suffocating clutches. Today he learnt a new thing about you, and, surprisingly it warms his soul instead of feeling repulsed.
He carefully puts you down just in front of the gates from the city’s side. Almost knocking off  a little ”DO NOT TOUCH” card near it, your husband moves to the right to let you step out. And in a couple of seconds of blinding light you stand before him in all your tall glory.
“Thank you for making the trip across the city so much shorter,” you grin, shaking the bag’s strap down your shoulder and rolling it, before unwrapping the wings from around your waist and spreading them in a stretch.
“It was my pleasure,” his tone is even, yet the gaze with which he watches you move gives him out. To this day and probably for a long while the levels of intimacy that used to be unknown to him yet which you display are going to surprise him. Sunday almost feels an annoying twinge of upsetness when you rewrap your wings around the dress’s skirt. Though it lets him see a couple of ruffled feathers and he has to suppress the urge of his hand to reach and fix them for you.
Yes, there is some intimacy between you lately, but not close enough.
“If you give me a moment to drop off my papers, I’ll be swift in joining you,” your voice breaks the man out of his self-restraining thoughts, and he lifts his eyes from your waist back to your face.
“Ah, it won’t be necessary. I’d like to have our tea time back at the meeting room, I have some things to discuss with you.”
“So official,” you smile, taking a step to join his side. “Alright then, let us be on our way up. Would you like to fill me in on the agenda of our ‘meeting’?”
“Sure,” Sunday chooses to ignore your teasing, but habitually offers you his elbow to hook your arm in it. “My sister is going to visit soon and she seems to be quite pissed at me.”
“Miss Robin?” Your question is laced with puzzlement. “I assumed from your stories of her that she is hardly in a sour mood.”
“It is true, yes,” your husband sighs, leading you up the first set of stairs. “But I would’ve been mad too if my sibling had gotten married and I did not know a thing.”
“She does not know about us?”
The man nearly halts in his ascending. If he didn’t know better and where your thoughts and loyalties stood in this marriage, he would’ve believed you are offended that he kept such an important fact a secret from his only family member. Nevertheless, he continues his walking.
“I sent her an invitation, you know that. But it seems the planet she’s been on is pretty far away and she’s gotten my message only recently, on her way back. I loathe to admit it, but now I feel very bad and the situation itself is iunjust. I am aware we were in a rush, all because of the- you know why,” he sees you nod from the corner of his eye and feels your fingers carefully dig into his arm, “but Robin has always wanted to be a maid of honor at my wedding. And I ripped this opportunity from her.”
And I am not going to get married the second time. This he did not voice out loud.
For a moment you both fall silent. You get lost in thought, Sunday does so too, analyzing his own words, wondering if this speech of his was too personal, if it was painting him as weak in your eyes.
And his own.
You speak only when he reaches for the knob and twists in to swing the door open and lead you two inside.
“So, how much time do we have before she gets here?”
“Maybe a couple of days,” he breaks the lock of your arms and gets a hold on the strap, sliding the bag down your shoulder and turning to put it aside for the time being. “Why asking?”
“You are a good brother, I can see that, “ ah, here you are, praising him again. “And it’s obvious you care for your sister and wish to give her the world. I suggest organizing a small party for her. This way she could experience what she missed and get familiar enough with me. I can negotiate with Mister Wood, I am sure I can convince him - he has some sort of a soft spot for you, Sunday.”
Surprisingly, it twists something uncomfortable in the halovian’s stomach.
“It sounds… delightful. However, are you certain you’d like to go to such lengths for Robin?”
“Well, she is your sister,” you chose the table farthest from the one your husband has been working at and grab the back of the chair to move it so you could sit, “and I am your wife. I’d love her to believe in us too. If I am not overstepping, of course.”
That’s actually not a bad idea. If almost four months ago someone - even you - suggested he let his sister and future wife meet, he’d be hesitant. He knows his little sister, he knows how perceptive she is - he is not so sure he wouldn’t have cracked under her inquisitive questions about whether he was happy with the arrangement or not. Plus leaving her sad and aching for brother if he let her know of the unjustness of the situation and still chose to proceed with the wedding is just too much for him.
Now he, at least, will not be lying that he is content if being asked.
“I accept your offer and thank you profusely for it,” Sunday slightly bows his head, to which you shake yours, reaching your hand out to beckon him to join you.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. You’ll have time to thank me later, once we’ve already done something, alright?”
Surprisingly… It is indeed alright.
986 notes · View notes
beenbaanbuun · 1 year ago
Text
cock warming w/jongho
words - 🫣
genre - fluff, nsfw
warnings - cockwarming, dom!jongho, sub!reader, kind of non-sexual intimacy (cockwarming but not necessarily horny), a single spank, praise, guidance, it’s just very cute
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you cant convince me that jongho doesn’t absolutely love cockwarming. like there’s just something about the intimacy of it that really gets him going. mix that with the casual dominance of it all - him pinning you down with a strong arm, spanking your thigh if you begin to grow restless, mumbling sweet nothings into your ear as you lay your chest against his in a dizzy haze - and he’s going practically insane.
it’s movie night, just you and him, and for some unknown reason he decided to use that feature of netflix that picks a random film for you
of course, after 4 or 5 tries, it lands on nothing good (because it never does) and the two of you decide to settle for whatever random film it decided on
it starts off with you two making fun of the poor editing and direction of the film, picking at all the plot holes until you were both giggling incessantly
that little game lasted a while, but it didn’t take long for it to become boring and the two of you were plunged into a comfortable silence once more
until, of course, a sex scene!
in the grand scheme of things, it had no relation to the film whatsoever and was quite frankly incredibly poorly made
like you don’t know who those moans were coming from, but they didn’t match up with the mouths of either of the actors
but just as you were about to make fun of it to jongho, you noticed a little something of his lap
well, more like a big something, and you couldn’t help but gasp
“this is making you hard?” you scrutinise, eyes narrowing as you pull them away from the tent in his pants to instead look at his face
you expected him to be embarrassed or ashamed, but he wore a stoic expression as he shushed you
again, you gasped and sat up from the position you were in, leant up against him
“first you get hard to the worst sex scene i’ve ever seen, then you shush me?” you scoffed, “just say you hate me, next time.”
you watched as he rolled his eyes, finally tearing his gaze away from the screen to look at you
“i’ve been hard for the last 20 minutes,” he grumbled, “you just didn’t notice so i didn’t say anything.”
oh… that’s weird
it’s not like you’d been doing anything to try and make him hard, and it’s not like the film had even been remotely sexy in any way shape or form
like you’d understand if you were lay there in lingerie, but you were in what you described as your ‘grannie nightie’, curled up against him like you would be on any other night
you frowned
“well, why are you hard?” you asked
“am i not allowed to be?” he replied
it was a fair response, but you still wanted answers
“well there has to be a reason…” you mumbled
“i’m sorry, why don’t you just call the erection police?” his voice was dripping in sarcasm, “hello? 911? yeah, i was being cute around my boyfriend and now he’s hard. come arrest him please!”
at this point the film was just background noise as the two of you went back and forth bickering about his penis of all things…
“wait, your erection is because of me?” you cock your head to the side in confusion
again, your pyjamas were hardly the sexiest thing in the world, unless you’re an 80 year old man and this is the most thigh you’ve seen in years
but jongho wasn’t 80, and he saw your thighs on a daily basis
fuck, he saw a lot more than thigh on most days
“well who else would’ve caused it?” he glanced between you and the screen, “you can’t seriously believe this shit show made me hard?”
“oh,” you mumbled
“yeah, oh…” he rolled his eyes
and you thought that was it for a moment before his hands were on you and you were being tugged onto his lap like you were nothing more than a rag doll
you squeaked in surprise as his strong arms pinned you to his lap, erection digging into your thigh
you squirmed, but the look he gave you quickly stopped you in your tracks
“you want to know why i’m hard?” he mumbled into your ear, a soft smile gracing his lips
he looked so innocent, and you would’ve believed it if it weren’t for the obvious
you nodded
“you’re just too cute, baby,” he chuckled deeply into your ear, the sound heading immediately south, slicking you up a little, “in your cute little nightie, making your cute little comments. sue me for being attracted to you…”
“but that’s not…” you trailed off, “i’m not being sexy, am i?”
“you don’t have to be, baby,” he cooed, “you don’t have to make yourself sexy for me to want you. i want you just as much now as i would any other day.”
“so you want to fuck me because i’m not sexy?”
he scoffed, “i want to be close to you, baby. it’s not the same.”
it sounded the same to you, but still you nodded as if you understood
“want me to take a seat?” you grounded down once and he groaned
his eyes rolled back into his head in pleasure, but just as you were about to do it again he stopped you
“not if you’re not going to be a good girl and sit still for me,” you barely registered the sound of the slap until the stinging sensation spread though your thigh a moment later, “i said i didn’t want to fuck you, and here you are grinding on my dick like you can’t understand basic instructions!”
you stilled at his comment, a frown forming on your face
now you really didn’t get it…
he seemed to notice your sudden change in demeanour and sighed
“i don’t want to fuck you, but that doesn’t mean i don’t want to be inside of you,” he explained slowly, desperate to make you understand, “i just want you to be around me, sweetheart. no expectations, i just want to be close to you.”
oh…
you supposed that made a little sense
with a slightly less confused look, you nodded
you didn’t move though
you misunderstood him before, now you wanted him to guide you through it so you didn’t get it wrong again
luckily for you, jongho took more than a little pride in telling you what to do
it boosted his ego, and he couldn’t deny how sweet you looked when you followed his every instruction
so he gave you a sweet smile before setting his hands on your waist
“straddle me, baby.”
his hands never left your sides as you followed his directions
“good girl,” he praised, making you puff your chest out a little with pride, “now i need you to pull my bottoms down, hm?”
and you did it, because jongho was right - you were his good girl!
you reached your hands down and shuffled back a little to give his dick enough room to spring free
and when it did spring free, you couldn’t help but sit in awe of how pretty it was
you’d seen it before, but you were still shocked at how perfect it was every time you saw it
a decent size lengthwise, but thicker than most
a pretty pink tip that leaked pearlescent precum in little droplets
jongho chuckled
“you done staring, or do you want to take a picture?” your eyes widened and your gaze shot up to his face again.
he wore a wide smirk as you mumbled an apology
“it’s okay, sweetheart,” his thumbs rubbed circles over your sides, “now, can you slip your panties to the side for me? i want you to sit on me…”
and again, you did as he asked because you were good and you wanted to behave for him
so your fingers slid south and pushed the thin cotton to the side (ignoring the way you had to peel them away from your gooey wetness) and you shuffled forwards until your core was hovering above his cock
you slid down slowly, the stretch almost painful but not quite
it took a moment for you to bottom out, his tip snug against your cervix and your thighs resting against his own
the temptation to start bouncing was certainly there, but at the risk of no longer being his good girl, you decided not to
not that you could anyway, not when he brought his arms around you, pinning you to his chest and holding you there like it was just any regular cuddle on any regular day
like his dick wasn’t resting heavily inside of you
like you weren’t so close to disobeying and seeking out your own pleasure
a big hand came up to the back of your head to hold it against his shoulder, fingers lacing themselves in your hair and giving it gentle, rhythmic tugs like he always did when you needed to chill a little
his fingernails scratched against your scalp in a way that was so soothing, it seemed to turn your whole body to jelly
and suddenly, the horny tension that laced itself up within you dissipated like it was never there
well, it wasn’t completely gone - you still had your boyfriends dick in you, after all - but it was duller, more manageable
you moaned as you relaxed into his warmth that surrounded you from every angle possible, and he couldn’t help but let out a chuckle
“do you get it now, honey?” he whispered into your ear, “do you understand what i mean when i say i want you close?”
you just nod
“oh, you’re so precious, baby,” he gave you a particularly tight squeeze with his thick arms, “so good for me, hm? letting me hold you close like this. i expected it to take you longer to settle down, but you’re such a good girl, right? shouldn’t have doubted you, baby…”
his words made your mind cloud over as you sank into the praise that he spoon fed to you
you just lay there with your head on his shoulder, staring up at him like he was your entire universe, eating up every single word he said to you
“love you, bear,” you mumble into his neck
he chuckled
“love you too, honey.”
1K notes · View notes
typing-catastrophe · 4 months ago
Note
could you write a stanford pines x reader headcanon where the reader is an artist and always draws him and draws in his journals when he isnt looking? maybe he talks to the reader about the drawings and they get really flustered i dunno!!! <3
oohhh! yeesss, that's a great idea! thank you anon ^^ hope this is okay, enjoy!
1.2k words, no warnings --------------------------------------------------
Your little habit started out even before Stanford came back. Dipper saw you sketching in your notebook from time to time, and asked you to draw something for him in the journal. He handed it to you and pointed next to a text he'd written about some anomaly (maybe a Manotaur or the Pterodactyl). First you were unsure, how would you feel if someone randomly decided to draw in your sketchbook? But it actually seemed really fun, and you didn't want to disappoint Dipper. Also it was in the spirit of research and preserving observations. And honestly, what were the odds the mysterious author would ever show up again?
With that attitude you began, whenever you got the chance to, to doodle yours and the twins encounters with the countless strange phenomena in gravity falls into the journal.
Well, oops? Seemed like the universe decided that not long after you started doing so, it was the right time for the author to come back.
It wasn't a big deal really, Dipper kept the journal for most of the time and Ford told him that he liked the additions he made. You weren't sure if he only meant the notes Dipper added, or if he even knew that someone else drew the newly added creatures.
It didn't take long for you and Ford to get to know each other better and spend more time together. Literally everything about him was just so fascinating. From the way he talked about his dimensional travels, anomaly hunts and research, his interest in a shared hobby of yours (dd&md), to the way he held himself. And, even if you were a bit embarrassed to admit it, his looks.
You couldn't help it, he was captivating. So to no surprise, one day you found yourself sitting on the shack's porch, looking over at Ford standing in the yard, working away at something that was too bulky for the basement. You didn't even realise what you were doing until something startled you out of your thoughts and you looked down at your sketchbook, seeing a familiar figure on the open page.
And then it happened again, in the lab. He was explaining away, deeply invested in whatever topic he was rambling about, not really taking in his surroundings. You had started out just sketching his study, but somehow he turned out to be the main focus of it.
One evening you found yourself in the living room of the shack. Ford was sitting on the floor, which was almost entirely covered in graph paper. You had joined him while he prepared the next campaign session, the tv quietly proving some background noise. While he was franticly scribbling away sheet after sheet, you propped open your notebook and began sketching some of the characters that came to your mind. Ford's, Dipper's and your characters and some npcs you encountered on your travels. But looming over all of them, half hidden behind the dm-screen, the scheming face of the man before you took his shape.
The end of the evening was rather blurry, you remembered falling asleep on the floor and being carried to bed, half asleep in someone's arms.
"hmm thank you", is all you could mumble when you felt the soft pillow under your head.
"No problem, dear", you heard a deep voice chuckle.
-
When you thought about it the next morning, a smile crept unto your face and you kinda wished, you would've been more awake, so you could've enjoyed the moment properly.
The smile was quickly wiped off though, when you realised that you must've left your sketchbook in the living room, given that Ford probably didn't bring it with him last night. You panicked and jumped out of bed, stumbling to the door when your gaze was caught by something. Your sketchbook, laying on your desk. You exhaled, glad it didn't lay around for anyone to see. You took it into your hands and opened it to the last page you were working on. But instead of the drawing from yesterday evening, only the one before that stared back at you. Confused, you turned the pages a few times, examined it, maybe someone ripped it out? No, no remnants of a torn out page....
Then, it dawned on you. You left your notebook in your room yesterday. You didn't plan on staying or even going to the living room. God knows how you ended up there, but it definitely was without your sketchbook. Which could only mean one thing...
In record time you were out the door, down the hall and in the living room. Right in time to take in the scenery of Ford staring down at his campaign notebook, opened to the page of your drawing.
"Ahh!! No no don't look!", you jumped forward and put your hands over the drawing. Ford furrowed his eyebrows, looking quite puzzled.
"This? Oh I already saw it last night after getting you to bed. It is incredible!"
Your cheeks heated up. "Oh" was all you could utter.
"It was also you who added the depictions of the twin's adventures, right?"
"Uhmm" You didn't keep your passion for drawing a secret, but you also didn't make a big deal out of it. And honestly, the way Ford was always so indulged in his own mind, you didn't think he was paying much attention to what you were doing. Now you felt a bit stupid for believing he wouldn't connect the - admittedly - obvious dots.
"They really are marvellous. And this?", he gestured to yesterdays page "Truly phenomenal!"
You didn't know what to say. You weren't even sure if you could say anything at all. All you felt was blood rushing to the tips of your ears and a flaming hot sensation in your cheeks.
"I- well uhm, thank you", you managed to stutter "I uh, I actually didn't mean to- uhm, use your campaign book. It was a mistake, I'm sorry."
"You've got to be joking! It's the perfect addition!" Ford exclaimed. "Do you mind if I keep it?"
"Oh", his enthusiasm caught you off guard. "I-, I guess not. Actually, that would mean a lot to me." you admitted sheepishly.
"Very well then! Thank you, dear." He looked at you with a fond expression.
You were about to retreat back to your room, turning around ready to leave, when Ford spoke up again, the smile apparent in his voice. "I also liked your artistic rendition of the twins adventures. Anything else you want to show me?" You froze.
Your heart started beating ridiculously fast. Did he knew? Did he notice you staring at him while drawing? Your thoughts started racing, but came to a sudden halt when he leaned down. His lips were almost touching your ear when he started to whisper.
"Maybe another time." And with that he walked by you, leaving you to yourself.
-------------------------------------------------- thank you for reading <3 reblogs are appreciated
a/n: if you want a second part with romance and/or where ford discovers the drawings of him, let me know! Have a nice day/night!
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vaadazen-codes · 7 months ago
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How To Get Started Making Visual Novels
Wanna make a visual novel? Or maybe you've seen games like Our Life, Blooming Panic, Doki Doki Literature Club, etc. and wanna make something like that? Good news, here's a very basic beginners guide on how to get started in renpy and what you need to know going in! Before you start, I highly recommend looking at my last post about writing a script for renpy just to make it easier on you!
LONG POST AHEAD
Obviously, our first step is downloading it from their website
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thankfully, its right on the home page of their site. Follow basica program installation steps and run the program. I highly recommend pinning it to your task bar to make it easier to access.
From there, you're met with the renpy app, it's a little daunting at first but let's talk about what all these buttons are for.
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Projects
This part is simple, it just lists the current projects in the chosen directory. You probably won't have any in there of your own. You should still see Tutorial and The Question!
Both of those default projects are super helpful in their own ways, i highly recommend testing out the tutorial and playing around with it just to get comfortable with some of the basics.
Create New Project
The first step to actually making your game into a game!
You'll be met with a prompt letting you know that the project is being made in English and that you can change it. You can click Continue.
From here, you'll be asked to input a project name! Put in your games title, or even a placeholder title since this Information can be changed later! (this is also the title the folder will be in your file browser, be sure to name it something you won't overlook)
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Now we get to choose our resolution!
If you have no idea what to choose, go for 1920x1080! This is the standard size for most computer monitors and laptops, but it will still display with moderately decent quality on 4k monitors too!
You can choose 3840x2160 as well. This is 2x the measurements of the default, with the same ration. These dimensions are considered 4k. Keep in mind, your image files will be bigger and can cause the game to have a larger size to download.
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Now we get to choose our color scheme!
Renpy has some simple default options with the 'light mode' colors being the bottom two rows, and the 'dark mode' colors being the toop two rows.
You can pick anything here, but I like to choose something that matches my projects vibes/colors better. Mostly because depending on how in depth you go with the ui, it minimizes the amount of changes I need to make later.
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Click continue and give it a minute. Note: If it says "not responding" wait a moment without clicking anything. It can sometimes freeze briefly during the process.
Now we should be back at our home screen, with our new project showing. Let's talk about allll that stuff on the right now.
Open Directory
This just opens that particular folder in your local file explorer!
game - is all the game files, so your folders for images, audio, saves, and your game files like your script, screens, and more.
base - this is the folder that the game folder is inside of. You can also find the errors and log txt files in here.
images - takes you to your main images folder. This is where you wanna put all of your NON gui images, like your sprites, backgrounds, and CGs. You can create folders inside of this and still call them in the script later. EX: a folder for backgrounds , a folder for sprites for character a, a seperate folder for spirtes for character b, etc.
audio - Takes you to the default audio folder. This is empty, but you can put all your music and sound effects here!
gui - brings up the folder containing all of the default renpy gui. It's a good place to start/ reference for sizes if you want to hand draw your UI pieces like your text box!
Edit File
Simple enough, this is just where you can open your code files in whatever text/code editor you have installed.
Script.rpy - where all of your story and characters live. This is the file you'll spend most of your time in at first
Options.rpy - Contains mostly simple information, like project name and version. There aren't a ton of things in here you need to look at. There is also some lines of code that help 'archive' certain files by file type so that they can't be seen by players digging in code however. Fun if you want to hide some images in there for later or if you just dont want someone seeing how messy your files are. We've all been there
Gui.rpy - where all of the easy customization happens. Here you can change font colors, hover colors, fonts, font sizes, and then the alignment and placement of all of your text! Like your dialogue and names, the height of text buttons, etc. It more or less sets the defaults for a lot of these unless you choose to change them later.
Screens.rpy - undeniably my favorite, this is where all of the UI is laid out for the different screens in your game, like the main menu, game menu, quick menu, choice menu, etc. You can add custom screens too if you want, but I always make my own seperate file for these.
Open Project - this just opens all of those files at once in the code editor. Super handy if you make extra files like I do for certain things.
Actions
last but not least, our actions.
Navigate Script - This feature is underrated in my honest opinion, it's super handy for help debugging! In renpy you can comment with # before a line. However, if you do #TODO and type something after it, it saves it as a note! You can view these TODO's here as well as easily navigate to when certain screens are called, where different labels are (super great if your game is long, and more. It saves some scrolling.
Check Script (Lint) - also super duper handy for debugging some basic things. It also tells you your word count! But its handy for letting you know about some errors that might throw up. I like using it to look for sprites I may or may not have mispelled, because they show up in there too.
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Change/Update GUI - Nifty, though once you start customizing GUI on your own, it isn't as useful. You can reset the project at any point and regenerate the image files here. This updates all those defaults we talked about earlier.
Delete Persistent - this just helps you delete any persistent data between play throughs on your end. I like to use it when making a lot of changes while testing the game, so that I can reboot the game fresh.
Force Recompile - Full disclosure, as many games as I've made and as long as I've been using Renpy, i have never used this feature. I searched to see what it does and this is the general consesus: Normally renpy tries to be smart about compiling code (creating .rpyc files) and only compiles .rpy files with changes. This is to speed up the process since compiling takes time. Sometimes you can make changes that renpy don't pick up on and therefore won't recompile. In these cases you can run force recompile to force it. Another solution (if you know what file is affected) is to delete that specific. rpyc file.
The rest of your options on this right hand side are how you make executable builds for your game that people can download to extract and play later!
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Sorry gang! that was a whole lot of text obviously the last button "Launch Project" launches an uncompiled version of the project for you to play and test as you go! Hang in tight because my next post is about how to utilize github for renpy, so you can collaborate easier!
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bogleech · 7 months ago
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Even fairly progressive people keep demonstrating a conspiracy theorist mentality where every government or corporate policy that hurts people is part of a constant background effort to exterminate the poor and marginalized, but its important to remind yourself that really a lot of people are JUST that deeply selfish and greedy, they just don't care (or even refuse to believe) if they're doing harm, and they're in a societal position that brute forces their success.
It's dangerous to suspect secret, widespread, organized, conscious malice, no matter the political direction you're leaning. That kind of thinking can lead even the most "liberal" people to get suckered into shit like "Jews are controlling Hollywood at Israel's behest" or "doctors keep us sick so we're more profitable." These things are also just logistically unrealistic, schemes of that scale would require more long term loyalty and dedication from thousands of people than can even be expected of even a couple dozen people.
And when CEO's or politicians do want other people to suffer and die, they don't have to hide it. We know which ones feel that way because they get away with saying whatever the fuck they want anyway.
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my-castles-crumbling · 2 months ago
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Sirius's Amortentia
Hey guys! Someone requested I do some writing exploring the ways Amortentia can smell (that it doesn't always reflect romantic love) so I decided to so a series of microfics about it! I'm hoping to get a few of them done today.
Thirteen
They snuck the potion the first time when they were thirteen, determined to use it in some crazy truth-or-dare scheme. Sirius knew enough about love potions to know the rules behind the smell: whatever he smelled was what he loved.
So he almost had a panic attack in the middle of the Common Room when he sniffed the mall vial only to realize that the overwhelming scent of his Dorm Room was accosting his nostrils.
He wasn't sure what to make of it. Was he gay? Did he love all of his friends? What did it mean?
He thought and thought and overthought himself into a spiral until James found him and talked some sense into him. "Pads, we're thirteen. And love can mean like...friend love, you know? Like I smell my mum's cooking in my Amortentia," he calmly said, not at all shocked that Sirius could smell James's cheap muggle cologne in the potion.
Sirius breathed a sigh of relief after that.
Fifteen
By fifteen, he was intimately aware of the scent of his Amortentia, having almost been dosed a few times himself. He could pick out the smells of James's more-expensive cologne, Regulus's pretentious quill ink, and Peter's peanut butter bars that he constantly loved to snack on.
But Remus's favorite chocolates seemed to overpower all of it.
As he grew, it became more and more obvious. The other scenes were merely background to the overwhelming aroma of chocolate and the woods. And he couldn't deny that when he saw Remus, his body reacted as differently as his potion smelled.
He was fucked.
Sixteen
"Remember when we were thirteen and I panicked because I smelled you in my Amortentia?" Sirius asked James after learning about the potion in class.
James just laughed. "Yeah mate. You were terrified."
"Right," Sirius gulped. "And you said there's a difference between friend-love and being in-love."
"Yeah."
"What if I still smell one of you in it...but I don't think it's friend-love?" Sirius asked, blushing and not meeting James's eyes.
There was a moment of silence before James replied, "I think Moony feels the same way you do, Pads."
Sirius didn't ask James how he knew which one of them he was referring to.
Seventeen
They'd fought for the millionth time, the tension and Sirius's inability to express his emotions causing both of them to lash out. It was as he cried on top of the Astronomy Tower, cursing himself for not being able to just say how he felt, that he got the idea.
"Smell it," Sirius demanded, shoving a vial in front of a frowning Remus's face.
"What?"
"Smell it. Does it smell like me?" he asked, heart thundering.
"I-"
"Because mine smells like chocolate and the forest. Other things too, but mostly that. Has for ages now," Sirius breathed, staring at Remus's widening eyes.
The vial clattered to the ground as their lips collided.
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reverie-starlight · 8 months ago
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nia, you’ve inspired me to write this with that sleepover question you asked abt me n atsumu a while ago 🫶🏻🫶🏻 I live soley to bug him. it’s my favourite hobby. @luvring
gn!reader, no physical descriptions. fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff fluff.
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the faint humming of the television as it played whatever movie had been reduced to background noise is the only sound in your apartment’s tiny living room.
you’re laying on top of atsumu, who’s holding you so tightly against him to make sure you don’t roll off and hit the floor. it had been a lovely day together, going out for lunch and then spending the day at your place playing video games and watching movies. you had even attempted to cook dinner together (a task neither of you are particularly good at, but the simple Italian recipe you found seemed to work out well). you’ve been “sleeping” on his chest for the past half hour, but if you’re being honest, you’re slightly more awake than you’re pretending to be.
according to the clock on your wall, it’s 9:30. which means atsumu has to start heading home soon. it’s the time he set for himself and he’s always so good at keeping his schedule, but you don’t want him to go just yet.
…or at all.
you stay perfectly still on top of him without tensing up too much to avoid suspicion, hoping he’ll just forget and stay the night. with the way he’s gently rubbing one of his hands up and down the skin of your back, you almost fall asleep in his arms for real. but then you feel him slow to a stop.
he pulls his hand out from under your shirt, slowly, you assume it’s so he doesn’t ‘wake you up’, and sighs. you can just picture him checking his phone and realizing, so you do what any scheming partner would- you pretend to wrap your arms around him tighter and nuzzle into him in your sleep.
but atsumu’s observant. he knows you’re not actually sleeping (your breathing hadn’t quite evened out yet) but you are getting there, so he dares to disrupt the serene environment and kisses your forehead to soften the blow.
“baby,” he says, and you immediately shake your head in protest. “ya gotta move, sweetheart. it’s time for me to go.”
“noooo,” you whine, and he thinks it’s the cutest sound he’s ever heard.
he knows you don’t want him to leave just as much as he doesn’t want to leave either, but even though he hates the very idea of it, he has to be up early for practice and you live a bit further away than he’s willing to accommodate for on such short notice.
you nuzzle into his neck a bit more and he sighs again. “angel, please?”
you tilt your head up to look at him and he worries about the angle your neck is twisting at. he brings a hand up to cup the back of your head to keep you from moving it any more.
“‘tsum, please stay?”
turns out you were closer to falling asleep than he anticipated. your voice is so soft and clearly riddled with sleep that he almost caves.
but then he remembers last time this happened and how he had to wake up at 4:30 to make it back to his own apartment to shower, change and pack his gym bag.
and he shudders.
“lovebug, ya know I wish I could, but I really can’t this time. can ya let me up?”
you grumble a bit at the nickname, peering up to glare at him, and he thinks you’re really going to give in, but instead you just lock your legs tight around his.
of course you’re not making this easy for him. when do you ever?
“baby!” he can’t help but laugh, because he absolutely adores you for it.
“you can’t leave if you can’t move,” is what he thinks he hears muffled against his chest.
“that a challenge?”
you shrug and he just scoffs.
“cause if it is… I think we both know how quickly you’d be proven wrong.”
it’s true and you do in fact know it, but you’re just desperate enough to delude yourself into thinking you could keep him down with sheer determination alone.
so when you hold your ground and get defeated in milliseconds by him manhandling you and carrying you to your room, it’s a good thing you have a backup plan ready.
“okay, okay! you win, so your prize is taking me home with you for a sleepover at your place!”
he freezes just as he’s about to dump you on your bed (and presumably tuck you in so you don’t try and jump him on his way out like you have many times before).
atsumu wonders why he hadn’t thought of that as he breaks out into a wide grin. he curls you closer towards him and presses kisses all over your face and neck. “you and your beautiful brain! Oh I love ya so much,” and then he drops you onto the bed. “pack a bag, you’re comin’ over.”
ten minutes later, you’re out the door and no longer tired. it’s a struggle to lock your door when you’re still slung over his shoulder and trying not to laugh so loud that you wake up your neighbours, but like most other situations, he’s there to keep you steady.
“take your time babe, not like we’re in a rush,” he teases while swaying back and forth to make things harder.
you feel delirious, from love or being held upside down you’re not quite sure, but you giggle some more and smack his back. “‘atsumu, come on.”
he relents and soon enough you’re in his bed, playing with his hair. the roles seem to have reversed, because now he’s the sleepy one and you’re admiring the view.
you feel his breath tickle your neck and the goosebumps that follow. he nuzzles into you further and you can feel the movement of his lips when he says “we should have a forever sleepover.”
you turn into a puddle of goo. “yeah? you want to spend every night together?”
he nods and grumbles when you move your hand away from his hair. “wan’ ya with me every night. wanna come home to ya. and I wanna be the first thing ya see when you get home too.”
you coo at your sleepy golden retriever of a boyfriend and he hides his face against your shoulder. “you’re adorable when you’re tired, baby.”
“not as cute as you were earlier, that’s for sure.”
you smile and press a kiss to his scalp before forming a response for his unofficial proposal to move in together.
it’s not as though you haven’t thought about it. it’s constantly on your mind, especially since staying at his place has started to feel less like being a guest and more like an extension of your own home.
if he were to ask you properly, you would most definitely say yes, but since he’s half asleep and most likely doesn’t realize what he’s insinuating…
“we’ll talk about it more tomorrow after you get back from practice. sleep, angel, it’s late. I love you,” you whisper.
he nods a little and repeats the sentiment in a soft, slurred murmur before nodding off for the night.
you’re sure to hug him a little tighter as you drift off soon after and dream of him.
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cheesy ending, but I’m feeling soft for him :( so can you really blame me??
tagging some more lovely people :3 @emmyrosee @dira333
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leftneb · 3 months ago
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There is Something Seriously Wrong with this Logo..... Chapter Two
So. Lots of you have seen this post by my dear partner ( @lailau7904 ) in which the Williams F1 design team get absolutely torn to bits. In the case you haven't read it yet I highly recommend you do because a) it's really fucking funny and b) it makes what I'm about to tell you even funnier. Though you don't have to, this post touches on entirely different things still regarding this one goddamn logo.
The original post starts like this:
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Innocent enough, we made an assumption in good faith that the logo displayed on the Wikipedia page would be the same one as the official version used by Williams. Buckle the fuck up because I'm about to tell you why that was the worst mistake we could have made.
Please. Please I beg of you keep reading this took YEARS off our lifespans. Like the original post was fun and all but it was merely the top of the iceberg. If this were an hbomberguy video this would be the part where he reveals that the background was a greenscreen the whole time. More below the cut!!! :333
The Truth
Already after only a few hours after hitting "post" on the dissection, people started pointing out to us that we'd missed an absolutely crucial detail on the Wikimedia page we got the logo from, pay careful attention:
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See THIS?
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Yeah this means that that image is not, and never was, the official logo of Williams. All along it had been the work of a Wikipedia user by the name of Juanchocarbonero. Here you can even see the (admittedly painful) history of the file as provided by Wikimedia, this image was uploaded all the way back in 2016, it even underwent an update when the team changed their colour scheme to a lighter blue without getting fucking fixed.
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But to me the absolutely most painful part about this page is the "File Usage" section. Which gives you a quick preview of just how deep the goddamn disease that is this piece of graphic design sin really spreads.
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And just to clarify: the official version of the logo used by Williams on merch etc is perfectly fine. It's a nice piece of graphic design. I still quite like it. But the story doesn't end there. Not even close.
Consequences
When you look up "williams logo" on Google the image provided by Wikimedia the very first result that pops up, if you're looking for a high-quality .png of this logo that, logically, is what you'll end up using. And I mean, why wouldn't you? What reason do you have not to use it? As long as you don't look to close (oops) it's a perfectly fine, high-definition, clean and transparent image of the logo! No shit people are going to use it!
But this raises a question: Why IS it the most widespread version of the logo? That's fucking weird isn't it? Surely if the actual logo used on ex.: the official Williams F1 website (which, again, is perfectly fucking fine) was available they would've just used that, right?
Now. Small problem. If you want you can go ahead and open whatever search engine you use, if you do that I'm gonna need you to type in "Williams logo" into the search bar, and just try finding a picture that is
of the actual official logo (you can tell the bootleg from the real thing by checking if the middle segment of the W has spiky ends or flat ones. We're looking for flat ones here)
high quality (no pixels or blurring visible to the naked eye)
a transparent png (none of that chequered background bullshit)
NOT a logo with any words (such as: Williams or Racing) visible in it. those don't count.
If you didn't feel like doing any of that, I'll just tell you the answer: you fucking can't. Nothing like that EXISTS. The closest I could get are these two, both of which are mid to ass quality, so they don't count either.
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No sensible individual is going to scroll google search results for 5 minutes straight just so they can use a 200x200 image, especially when they think a perfect alternative is right there.
I even found several recoloured versions of the diseased logo, including one as a sticker on Redbubble! Fuck me that's a horrible sight!
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The Search
Because I wrote the previous paragrahps after we'd figured out exactly what had happened, you might be under the impression that by this point in trying to answer the question "Why the fuck is that image on Wikipedia instead of, idk, the real fucking thing?" we'd at least established the existence of said "real Williams F1 logo". You'd be wrong, because for somewhere around 24 hours after we'd made the initial, horrifying discovery of just how fucked the Wikipedia version is, we genuinely could not tell if that was the official logo or not.
The ones displayed on their website weren't at all downloadable or even copyable, a non-ass quality of the damn thing just didn't seem to exist anywhere, so we didn't dare draw any conclusions. And we were still foolishly operating on the assumption that Wikipedia wouldn't just lie to us. (this is why your teachers hate it when you use it a source btw. like this is the ONE time it's actually been reasonable)
So, in the hopes of finding the offical Williams Racing logo, the non-scuffed one because clearly it exists, somewhere, we consulted an expert on Intellectual Property: my mother!
What this "consultation" actually roughly looked like was: we went on a walk and I started rambling about the Situation from Last Night before she cut me off and pulled up the website of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, aka the place they store all the Copyright information of like, everything.
BEHOLD:
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(pictured; THE ACTUAL FUCKING LOGO I CANNOT BELIEVE IT'S EXISTED THIS WHOLE TIME)
Link to the actual real official legal document because goddamn this rabbithole just kept getting deeper so I like, have that now.
For refence, here is the official copyrighted version and the Wikimedia file overlayed on top of each other. As you can tell, it's disgusting. It's a poor, eyeballed imitation at best.
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The copyrighted logo is horrifically low quality because, guess what, that image also isn't downloadable or copyable from the page. I really really cannot blame Juanchocarbonero for uploading his own version to Wikimedia because there legitimately does not exist a version of this logo that is freely available to the public. Like that goddamn abomiation is all we have. It's the effort that counts I guess.
My mother suggested that a possible reason for this could be avoiding the production of knockoff merch, or at least making it recognisable in case it is sold. Think about it, when your logo Doesn't Exist online, no one can use it without a license! It's kind of genius! I'm also about 99% sure they didn't orchestrate it so, it was good luck I guess?
interlude: How the FUCK does Copyright even work
I did immediately think to myself "we should REALLY fix the wikipedia version, like, stat" because I cannot in good conscience have this information available to me and not do anything with it, for the good of the people. However, this poses an issue: was the logo really not scuffed on purpose? Could it be that that version uploaded to Wikipedia isn't a 1:1 of the official logo because of copyrighting issues? To find out I had to look deeper, by comparing the official, website-available logos of various other F1 teams I came to conclusion that: [........................]
Yeah so I wrote that paragraph before actually checking for refences, but even after probably an hour of trying very hard to make sense of the copyright documents and copyright law in general we could not make sense of any of it. According to my mother (again, the closest we have to an expert, like she actually works with copyright in the context of companies but she's not specifically an IP expert. just to clarify) it's actually a lot worse for Wikipedia to have a falsified version of the Williams logo, than it would be to use the copyrighted version. This is because they're spreading misinformation by pretending that's the actual logo. And yet.
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According to the Copyright Tag (the one on the top) in the Licensing section of the Wikimedia page for the thing pretending to be the Williams F1 logo, it's fine to use it because just a bunch of shapes. The thing is however, that it says that for pretty much every F1 team's logo, most of which are sourced straight from the official website. So this doesn't really mean anything tbh. According to our local expert (still my mother) it's fucking confusing. So I've decided to leave that at that.
update October 20th: as far as the Wikimedia pages on copyrighting tell me, uploading the official logo could, potentially, get me into serious legal trouble with Williams because of copyright laws. Which is still confusing because as said, every other team's logo is sitting uncontested on their respective Wikipedia pages. So basically we still don't know.
Okay. Backtrack. We forgot to ask something very important:
HOW?
HOW does one fuck up a perfectly fine logo THAT BAD.
WHY does one make their own scuffed tracejob and HOW does it end up like THAT. Clearly something must have gone horrifically wrong for it to end up like that.
I have a theory as to what might have happened:
It was either drawn or painted by hand, for a physical paintjob it's actually sort of impressively precise, but still objectively fucked. For a while I outright refused to believe that it could have been done in a digital program with the types of mistakes that were made, but you'll see this theory (partially) disproven later on so I retract it for now.
Operating on the assumption that it wasn't done digitally, a likely theory could be one involving a picture of scan of the paintjob. If the picture was taken at an angle or the logo itself was on a curved surface that COULD potentially explain the weird sort of slide everything has to it.
From then the picture might have been inserted into a digital art program, and the area of the logo might have been automatically selected using the magic wand tool, which could explain the weird growth at the top and that odd rounded off corner.
We also drew the conclusion that the file itself had been "tampered with" (aka cropped manually) by a human, because no computer would generate a resolution of 3356x2543 (you can that this is the original resolution on the Wikimedia page)
WAIT HOLD ON IS THAT IT?
The question of how the Fuck this guy managed to mess up the logo, and even more specifically why some edges were fine and some weren't (ant colony looking thing on the top left) bothered us so much that I at one point started just looking up "WIlliams logo" with the results filtered down to pre-2017 in an attempt to find when exactly the messed up logo was created. As if that would be any help.
Now what I definitely didn't expect to find was THIS
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ENHANCE
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Yes, you're seeing it right, THAT is the original 'Williams logo with the fucked up arm angles and lenghts'. Which PROVES that, contrary to our previous belief, Juancocarbonero was NOT the origin of the mistakes. Instead it was [checks notes] a DeviantArt user by the name of Nerdkid56?
The original DeviantArt post, which as of 9:47pm CET on the 13th of October 2024 I am about 90% sure is the actual first appearanace of the scuffed logo, is from May of 2015, which lines up well with the original upload date of the fucked up logo onto Wikipedia (November 2016). At the time that DeviantArt post was almost the only source for the logo.
And in the case you needed any convincing that those two logos are the same, here they are overlayed. You may notice that it's one shape (excluding the rounded corner which isn't visible at this resolution.)
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This discovery is essential to understanding why the current scuffed version is the way it is. You might remember our confusion about the way some edges are fine while some are attempting to leave the image, the whole thing is a weird Frankensteinian amalgamation of vectors and magic wand mistakes. With this knowledge we can now assume that the mistakes happened in 2 layers:
Nerdkid56: likely just eyeballed the proportions. I'd guess he drew one arm before the other and flipped it around without really checking the angles. Also didn't give a shit about whether the arms lined up with the base or not. Legitimately bad design made in a digital program.
Juancocarbonero: why he used the scuffed W logo instead of the normal ones that were also perfectly accessible by 1 goddamn Google search is a mistery. HOW he even got access to it is another question I do not think we'll have answers to. And I've already explained some of the things we think may be responsible for the uneveness and bumps. Point is he fucked it up even more.
My theory for why Juanchocarbonero used the scuffed version instead of any other available picture goes like this: it was the only png he could find. Practically every other search result for "Williams Logo" that predates 2017 is a jpeg or absolute ass quality (sometimes both for good measure) so, despite it's flaws, Nedkid56's trace of it could have been the best option available at the time (the quality is actually very very good since it's a vector image, and I guess our friend Juanchocarbonero doesn't have an eye for design considering he didn't notice uhm, everything that is wrong with that model.)
Conclusion
The only way to right these wrongs is to go back, to the very beggining of this saga. Wikipedia. Williams I'm so sorry for what you've had to endure. I know what I have to do now. When I eventually make a proper vector image of the official logo and upload it to Wikimedia it'll all be over. And I WILL do it (but not rn this has already robbed me of like 3 whole days of my life. soon)
All of this is, admittedly inconsequental, but also absolutely fucking hilarious. Like imagine. you. one single guy, you make ONE mistake in a silly little "tracing this logo" project because you couldn't be arsed to check the angles of a silly little W. And some other guy, who you likely don't even know, over a whole ass year later, takes your flawed piece of design, makes it even worse somehow and uploads it to a site from which your little tiny innocent mistake becomes the most widespread version of a logo used by an actual real company worth over 700 Million US Dollars. HOW. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN. WHY HAS NO ONE FIXED THIS??? IT'S BEEN 9 YEARS
Just to give you a final look on just how widespread this plague is, here are some examples of media the fucked up version of the logo is featured in:
this Mr V's Garage video (the original reason we started this conversation in the first place)
the thumbnails of these two videos by Tommo, this one by FP1Will, and this one by RicksF1Addiction
such an amount of random places. likely fanmerch and fanart, and like, pretty much any place someone wanted to use the logo. it's everywhere. if you've ever had the Williams logo displayed in anything you've made I can guarantee you 99.9% chance you used the fucked version
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and late thank you to everyone ( @bumblewyn @mid-nighttiger @vro0m @lemonsgovroom @mikraas @leclerced fucking hell I kept needing to add people to this list because compiling all of this took absurdly long) who pointed out our misconception in the reblogs of the original post and contributed to us actually looking into this further. and sorry to everyone for accidentally spreading misinformation lmao (it's too funny not to have been worth it tho) (ALSO it's not really our fault is it)
and to keep the tradition of ending on a live discord reaction:
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hana-no-seiiki · 6 months ago
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BROKEN EXPECTATIONS, NEW ASPIRATIONS (I/III)
⟣┄─ ˑ 𝐈. ✧ yandere! batfam + dc heroes x yandere! alien! reader (ft. ocs of mine, and other dc characters)
synopsis: you weren’t as innocent and benevolent as they thought you were, but that just makes things all the more exciting
tw/cw: dddne, reader is yan (platonic for this part, romantic for future parts(diff people). yandere themes, general violence, torture, sadist reader, incest (one-sided/not reader n it’s a brief mention so it’s not a main part of the story oh god-). reader is half based on jingliu/jingyuan from honkai star rail + laezel from bg3 worldbuilding. and there’s also a bit of malenia/miquella inspirations. reader has a background. reader’s alieness is explored/talked about. op! reader. wish fulfillment.
in short this was an oc insert of mine that i reconfigured for you guys to read. not your thing? scroll past thenks.
[next]
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YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE KINDEST, MOST LOVING PERSON THE BAT-FAMILY EVER KNEW. You were so gracious with your benevolence that each and every vigilante took it upon themselves to take care of you at all moments lest you fall into unsafe situations or the hands of people who would ruthlessly take advantage of you.
Eventually, they forgot the fact that you were the sibling of the notoriously violent DAYBREAK, a vigilante that could be easily called a villain or terrorist instead if it weren’t for his close affiliation and friendship with the old Teen Titans crew when he was younger. He helped once in a while, but only if it meant he had free rein to cause carnage.
“This is useless, they won’t fess up.” Jason grunted as he fumbled around with his weapons, all broken after the battle just moments prior. Aliens and their abilities always made him feel so small in the grand scheme of things, and especially when they completely obliterated his entire arsenal.
Tim groaned, his back ached from the amount of times he was flung away towards whatever wall or ally the enemy wanted him to go to. He was used to being man-handled and even enjoyed that once in a while, but not in that way. “Aren’t they one of your kind? Cant you like… I don’t know…”
Your brother huffed, a pout on his pretty features. Quite similar to yours. Yet, he doesn’t spare the rest a glance. His eyes were trained solely on a restraining spell he managed to conjure as a last ditch attempt to stop the fight before it got . . . irreversible. Usually he’d just disintegrate whatever or whoever even looked at him wrong but even this titan-like intruder was proving to be a pain in the ass. “I can’t believe you, doesn’t mean we’re the same kind or whatever that means that—“
“He’ll be lucky to be even considered as one of us, filthy —“ The massive form spoke. Its metal like body clanging as it struggled in the spell’s area of effect. A soldier from your home planet, not as well trained as your brother — but he was brimming with aetherial ardor. A sort of magic source your people used.
“Okay, that’s it.” [Brother’s Name] groaned, summoning the last piece of his strength to open up a terminal. “Hey mooncake, need ya to do something for me.”
“No, we aren’t letting [Y/N] anywhere near this one. They could get seriously hurt. We were barely even able to—“ Dick held him by the shoulder, only to get burned by your brother’s leaking ardorial energy.
“Relax. Besides I’m not in your team. I don’t have to follow orders from you.”
“Daybr—“ Rachel, her cape almost completely burnt and tattered opened her mouth to admonish him.
But the sound of your sweet voice (more like hoarse, and half awake) silenced them all, “What do you need help with this time?”
“[L/N] don’t listen, go back to sleep, beloved.” Damian moved in from behind, learning from Dick’s mistake and instead using his blade to warn [Brother’s Name].
But if anything, that made the man more excited to annoy the “demonspawn”.
“Oh, mooncake you can’t believe who I stumbled upon today! Smile for the camera why don’t you?”
[Brother’s Name] flipped the terminal to show your face.
“You’re . . . General [Y/—“
And then flipped it back, showing his injured body. “He hurt me real bad. Look.”
Your face does not move nor your voice waver,
“Come back to the base.”
“No.” Black Canary, Dinah, slammed her hands on the table. She couldn’t believe this. It was already bad that they allowed you to be involved in their line of work, now they were letting you come face to face with a being that almost wiped an entire team of experience fighters? What were they thinking?
“That . . . thing is dangerous. We cannot allow this to continue!” Arthur concurred. He saw the state of your brother. A civilian like you had no business with something so dangerous.
“Unfortunately I have to say no to your refusal as well.” You calmly responded, “This situation is under the jurisdiction of the Fleet. It is only right that Daybreak and I deal with it.”
“Father you can’t possibly allow them.” Damian gripped your shoulder as he pleaded with Bruce. He had known you the longest next to Tim. You were barely able to hold your own as a normal student. Not that he was looking down on you, but if you couldn’t even fight for yourself in conversation, how could he let you be around that monster?
Bruce closed his eyes in deep contemplation. He studied your kind comprehensively. He did so for every vigilante and villain alike (Contingencies were his specialty) From how your magic system worked, to how society and customs were like. A lot of his knowledge came from Clark, who had also done his fair share of investigative work into your background.
He of all people in this line of work knew how dangerous you and [Brother’s Name] can be. He had done his calculations based off of what Daybreak could do. But curiosity drove him further.
“Fine.”
“Father!”
“But the whole league will be watching you, alongside the Young Justice and Teen Titans.”
“Sheesh, overkill much?” Daybreak, now plain [Brother’s Name] in a bunch of casts, piped up.
You nodded, quite honestly just aching to get out from this stuffy room already. “That is fine.”
Before you left, you head swiveled to take one last look at your sibling, building up whatever emotions you needed to see the job through, “Get some rest, brother.”
“Are you kidding? I gotta watch this.” Your brother laughed in earnest, almost-too-wholesome-for-him manner. You managed to understand why as his eyes scanned the people in the room.
He wanted to see them react to your true nature.
Your form finally disappeared from his sight as his eyes finally settled on another image of you glued atop a folder. “What are those?” He pouts to gesture at the objects, too injured to move his limbs.
“Files on [Y/N] and the being.” Bruce answered, opening up the screens for the cameras to the interrogation room.
[Brother’s Name] knows you’d give him a sermon for using his powers while he was already banged up but he had no choice. His arms were too broken to open up the folder after all. “You guys work quick.” He commented as the papers levitated and flipped through itself.
His eyes scanned the typewritten document swiftly, smile growing by the moment, “Pffft — kind hearted soul? Who wrote this?”
“It was compiled by me, but our sources vary from vigilante to civilians.” Clark mumbled. As one of the only other aliens, and people who could feel aetherial arbor. He felt your presence, your anger leaking earlier. It was heavy, as if the world was suddenly placed upon his shoulders. Yet he felt no fear for his own safety, only yours.
The gigantic door before you slid open revealing the enemy the vigilantes struggled to subdue earlier.
The soldier stood upright, sensing your presence. The rumors were true it would seem. Many wouldn’t be able to spot it, a testament to whatever you did to conceal your prowess, but they immediately recognized the magnitude of your ardor practically oozing around you.
He was expecting your anger. He knew of your protective nature towards your brother.
“My apologies.” But you didn’t. Instead you began nursing their injuries, repairing their armor, and even initiating casual conversation. “It must have been a long journey. I can’t help but resent whoever sent you here.”
“Your Excellency! I came of my own volition.”
“Oh? But judging from your armor you must be one of the knights.”
“Yes, 512th Squadron of the Imperial Army.”
“Of course, my eldest brother’s . . . “ Your fought to keep your hands from clenching. A gentle smile on your features remained unshaken even by the sudden revelation.
“Y-yes, your Excellency. It took many jumps for me to get here on my own.”
“Alone? What did you wish to come here for?”
“I-I wished to meet you but those Earthlings wouldn’t let me.”
“Mm. And so you fought them. As is right for one of our kind.” You brought out a handkerchief and wiped down your hands after finishing the task at hand. Then you took a seat in front of them.
“You understand! Of course.”
“Actually I came here to bid you to return. The Emperor misses you dearly and wishes to see you.”
“Do you know why he does?”
“N-no?”
You looked down. Voice soft, relaxed shoulders, a solemn tone, and a tremble to add on top. “My brother. He wishes to have a child with me. To use my powers in the form of a future heir to the throne.”
“I am not quite ready to have a child yet.” Nor were you interested with being a babymaker for that tyrant. But that wasn’t an appropriate excuse in the grand scheme of things.
“I understand! Your Excellency is quite young and even then, you have saved countless of lives. You deserve only to do as wish and nothing less.” The soldier slammed the floor in front of it. “Besides, his Majesty had already taken so many concubines I’m sure an heir wouldn’t be needed anytime soon.”
You nodded. A moment or two of silence for your mind to recollect everything that has been said before you execute what you came here for in the first place. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. “How incompetent must the new Imperial General be at the moment?”
“Pardon?”
“Information is the most valuable asset to any sort of battle. As a general I kept a tight leash on it. Lest it spilled and caused unnecessary ruckus.” My knights were drilled, put through fire and blood, wiped clean before they were thrown back into hell again. And most importantly they were taught to sew their mouth shut or die. You, you just spilled everything I needed to know the moment I showed that I cared.”
“Your Excellency, I —“
“I was only going to punish you for trespassing. A measly act of destroying your Aetherial Helix.” “But in all honesty, I might be doing that brother Emperor of mine a favor by going . . . further.”
“N-no, you wouldn’t, you’re—!” The soldier was about to defend you even in its dying moments. But as it truly recounted all that has been told about you from its peers and seniors, it realizes one truly fatal fact.
You were never known for benevolence.
“Please! I did this all for you! I only wanted you back as my General!”
“Let this be a lesson.”
“No, please ! I- I - I beg of you—“
You looked up to the ceiling, beyond it — the stars and the infinite darkness you once called your home.
“And so I’ll continue to wield your blade, until I cut the stars from sky. I will protect you even from the gods I serve.”
You chant. The blood on your hands once again becoming too visible and distracting.
“Thank you for your service, soldier.” You deeply bow your head to the disintegrating corpse beneath you. Allowing the fallen's drained life essence to cover your forehead. [Brother Name] smiles. To others it may seem to have been a sign of respect — but to your kind, you were simply absorbing the spoils of battle. Taking in the dead and disgraced's remaining imprint on this world.
“My deepest apologies for the mess and time it took. The matter has been dealt with.” You returned. The blood, having dripped down your face, had dried and turned dark.
“I hope this has not soured your view on me.”
“Not at all . . .” Tim was the first to speak at your return. His fingers unconsciously replaying the footage of your . . . execution. Millions of questions already shot across his head as he was eager to probe you on them one way or another.
If anything it only made their obsession with you worse.
“Let me be your sinner, brother. This oath I shall never forsake.”
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