#lemme try and get back into this whole art thing

[hammer-draws]

It’s been FOREVER since I drew anything so I decided to redraw Shocked Quartz cause I love him

[toxicanonymity]

midnight tow (slasher!Joel)

3.6k / slasher!Joel x fem!reader / master

Slasher masterlist | art by @bonezone44 💙

WARNINGS: 18+ Horror, DARK!Joel, near murder by strangulation, manhandling, dubious consent, choking, unsafe PIV sex, reader can sit on Joel's lap. unedited. Reader survives ♥️

Inspired by this ask from @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog

Your breath hitches when you see the bright lights, then relief floods your chest as the tow truck comes into view. The driver parks his unmarked truck, hops down out of it, and walks to your car.  He gets just a couple of feet away before he stops to face you and spreads his boots, crunching the loose asphalt beneath them. The truck lights illuminate him. He's wearing a blue working man’s jumpsuit that stretches over his biceps as he crosses his arms.  The name on his uniform is Joel.  

Joel's dark eyes scan you, then he scratches one side of his salt-and-pepper beard. “Got anyone to come get ya, sweetheart?” He rubs the back of his neck, exposing a dark patch of sweat under his arm.  "Real dangerous out here at night. . . Nothin' good happens this late.” 

His voice has a calming effect, despite his unnerving words.  For a moment, you admire his nice head of hair instead of facing the reality of his question. 

Your car broke down in the worst possible area.  Nothing within walking distance. You drained your phone battery trying to get a signal and finally managed to call for a tow, but you weren’t able to reach anyone to help you get home. Waiting for the tow felt like forever, especially without a phone or watch. It felt like something or someone was going to pop out at any minute. It's a humid night, and even the clouds have refused to cooperate, dimming the light of the nearly-full moon. 

This is not the guy you talked to on the phone. His voice would’ve made an impression on you.

You tell him you weren’t able to get a hold of anyone. 

“Anyone know you’re out here, might see the missed call and come lookin’?” 

Maybe, but you don’t think so. 

“Hmmm,” he says. “Well, lemme load your car up, then we’ll figure it out.  Sit tight for me, sugar,” he says with a wink. He has a disarming energy.  "Gonna take me a minute."  The clouds begin to clear away from the moon, affording more light.    You begin to feel better all around. 

You carefully sit down on the grass near the cab of the tow truck with your knees to the side and behind you since you’re wearing a short dress.   Not a single car has passed by the whole time you’ve been broken down, at least an hour. You wait as he uses some wire to secure a loose part on your car, then loads it up onto the bed.   

His biceps and quads stretch his uniform as he crouches on the bed of the truck and secures the straps around your car’s wheels.  He gets hot and unzips his jumpsuit for air,  exposing a dirty t-shirt.  Then he opens the passenger door to the cab of his truck and it's piled high with scrap.  No seat. He reaches behind the driver's seat and grabs an enormous wrench.  His forearm flexes as he carries it off to tighten something on the back of the towing platform.  When he’s done, he comes to talk to you again. 

-

“Whew. Been a looong day," he says as he wipes his brow with a rag then throws it over his shoulder. "How ‘bout you, sweetheart? Couldn’ta been that good."

You agree as he takes off the sleeves of his jumpsuit and ties them loosely around his waist. When you follow his large, veiny hands to his waist, it's impossible not to notice the crotch of his uniform is tight enough to see he's well-endowed. You yank your eyes back up and he crosses his arms again. His muscles are hard and he has the slightest paunch. The way his biceps and pecs stretch his t-shirt is a welcome distraction from the rock bottom situation. Looks like a guy who works with his hands, lifting very heavy things, and enjoys a few beers at the end of the day. Or night. It feels like a miracle you could get a truck at this hour, especially in this desolate area.  

His phone doesn’t have service for you to call anyone.  Since the service is so bad, he just has a radio to receive dispatch instructions.  Since he doesn’t have a passenger seat, and that space is instead occupied by scrap, the only thing he can offer is for you to sit in his lap. Unless he leaves you by the side of the road. 

You choose his lap.  

He gets in first, puts the big wrench in the back, and empties his pockets.  He puts a switchblade near the gear shifter and hangs some spare wire around the rearview mirror before he sits down.  Then he settles in and unties his sleeves, letting them hang off the seat.   He extends his massive hand to you. His bicep flexes as he helps you into the cab of the truck.  You sit down on him ass-first, but it’s a precarious position and you could get hurt. You jostle around trying a few different things. You get butterflies from being so close to him, touching him, smelling him, feeling his body against yours. 

“Alright, let’s try this,” he says.  “Turn around an’ face me, then hug me like we're on a motorcycle.  Safer.” 

-

Hard to believe this is happening, especially in your short dress. Of all the nights to wear one.  You hesitantly straddle him, and when you’re face to face a few inches away, his features are even more striking.  He has a perfect nose. His brow is furled and casts a shadow over his eyes like he has a sexy secret.  He has a dimple perfectly nestled in a patch of skin within his beard. Looking him in the eye is too intense at this distance.  

You tug pointlessly at your dress but there’s no way to be modest in this situation. He reads your mind.  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he reassures you. "Don't worry 'bout it."  He pulls you in closer so your crotch meets his and your heart skips a beat when you feel his warm, ample package.  “Hang on tight, now.”  You put your head over his shoulder, facing the back of the truck .  

The smell of his sweat is intoxicating. He starts the engine and pulls back onto the road. It’s not long before you feel him hardening under you.  He lifts his hips, sending a rush of arousal through your body.  

You shift shyly and he pulls you back into him, then lifts his hips again and clears his throat.  “Can’t help it, sugar.  Sexy little thing like you wrapped around me.  Damn.” 

Your face burns.   There’s a long silence and his arousal is digging into your panties the whole time.  He turns his head ever so slightly to inhale your hair.  The next thing you know, his lips are pressed against your neck.  Lightly enough to be accidental at first.  But then they drag an inch without him pulling away.  He opens his mouth against your dewy skin then closes it, like he’s eating something invisible off you. A chill goes down your spine and your nipples harden.  

“Bother you?” he asks, subtly thrusting his hips up again. No, it doesn't. You’re hot for him. It bothers you a little that it doesn't bother you.  Like you know it should.  But what could you say anyway?  You’re at his mercy.  You might be dead on the side of the road without him.  

“Guess not." 

“Good girl.”  He adds his tongue and full on kisses the crook of your neck as he drives, then gives it a nibble and a suck.  You’re so wet.  With the pathetic thong you're wearing, it must be no secret from him.   

His voice gets horny and low.  “Good thing you're down,” he says, “or this wouldn’t be any fun.”  He drags his nose up  your neck to your ear and adds "Yeah, you're into it. . .I can feel it."

-

By the time he pulls into a gated property, he's turned you alllll the way on.  Between his voice, and his mouth on your neck, and his clothed arousal against you, you’re a wet mess. You're trying desperately not to hump him as he slowly traverses what seems to be a gravel yard of cars. 

When the truck slows way down, he rests a hand on your ass and gives it a squeeze as he says, "What a ride. . ." with an upward thrust.  "Ain't over yet, though." Your cunt flutters at those words.  Then he clears his throat and adds, "We're goin' through the back gate to another lot." You scold yourself for being disappointed in what he meant, but you can't imagine he'd deny you if you made a move right now. 

You wait, though.  You'd rather figure out how you're going to get home first. 

-

Joel drives deeper into the lot.  It's dark, but you try to look around. There's no back gate or other lot that you can see.  All you see are the skeletons of cars that have been picked over for scraps. A pit forms in your stomach.  You start to scoot back from his crotch.  He notices and parks the truck.  There’s a look in his eyes, and something makes you reach for the door.  His large, veiny hand gently covers yours before you can open it.  

“Whoa, sugar. Where ya goin'?" Your heart rate quickens and your gut feeling intensifies.  You try to get out of his lap, lunging for the door. 

"What the hell are ya doin, sweetheart?" He firmly grabs your arm. You stare at him, your chest heaving, heart racing.  He glances at your neck and you imagine he must see your jugular vein pulsing a mile a minute.

"Too dark out there, sugar.”  You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself.  “Lotta sharp stuff.”  He looks at you skeptically.  “Lemme turn on some lights first.” 

You exhale in relief. He was just protecting you.  

He hits a button on his dashboard and it illuminates the surrounding area with the yellow siren lights on the top of his truck. He gazes at you through wounded eyes, looks down between you, where you're no longer covering his hard, swollen package with your crotch.  He must feel so cold. He swallows.  

"Damnit," he says.  His eyes glisten.  "Thought we were havin' fun."  He sighs solemnly. "Wait here a sec." You feel bad.  He’s gone above and beyond to help you.  Maybe he deserves the benefit of the doubt.    

So you wait in the truck, catching glimpses of vehicular carcasses as the amber light dances over them.  Nothing drivable.  

Then it hits you like a punch in the gut that you still can't see a back gate, even with the added light.  It's just a fence. That’s all there is to it.  There’s nowhere a gate would even be.  No other lot in sight.  Your heart races even faster than it was a moment ago.  

You jump in your seat as a machine rumbles to life, followed by the sound of metal in distress. You look in the direction of the noise and the yellow lights pour over a big, industrial dumpster.  Your stomach turns.  

You're still processing your fear when the truck door opens, making you jump again.  Joel climbs up into the cab and nudges you up so he can get under you.  You freeze and do it in a daze. Then he starts the truck and coaxes you back into straddling him.  You feel like you have no control, you have no idea what’s going to happen, no idea what to do. 

-

Joel reaches behind you to the rearview mirror and sighs lazily like he's about to do a chore. 

“Been a while since I shredded a car this new.  Damn shame, wasn't plannin' on it tonight."  

Your heart drops through your feet. “What? –why are you-” 

A cool, thin wire presses against the top of your spine, then he wraps it around your neck like a scarf. His face goes dark and serious, and his voice goes flat.  

“Real dangerous out here, sweetheart.”  

He takes a deep breath and his cock swells harder against you.  He holds the wire in one hand and tightens his other arm around your back.  He slowly begins to twist the wire against itself.  You grab at it and beg him to stop.  To your surprise, he pauses.  

You try to slow your breathing.  You can’t get out, you can’t fight.  He just looks at you with dead eyes, waiting for you to say something else.  It hits you there's only one thing left to do to buy you some time. And you need to make him forget you tried to leave the truck. 

“Wait,” you say as calmly as you can. "Weren’t we in the middle of something?" You reach down and grab the hard bulge in his jumpsuit. To your horror, a stab of desire slices through your clit. You spread your palm and press it into him, massaging his cock.  You're throbbing for him.  You're genuinely dying to fuck this sicko.  He makes you sweat out a long moment of silence.

“Now that might get ya somewhere,” he says, low and gravely, thrusting into your hand.  He lets the wire hang from your neck. One strong arm tilts you up against him while he urgently pulls his jumpsuit's zipper down more. He grunts as he frees himself from his boxers. The next thing you feel is his stiff, warm, naked cock against your inner thigh.  He slips a finger into your thong and sucks in a sharp breath when he feels how wet you are.  

He murmurs, “Damn, you really do want it.” He looks you in the eyes hornily, then seductively as though to say he likes where this is going.  Like he didn't just loop a ligature around your neck. 

He takes a deep breath.  "Maybe I took it the wrong way," he says in self-reflection.

"What?"

"When you tried to open the door. . ." 

He's nuts. 

"I was . . . embarrassed I was getting you wet." 

"That's the least of your worries."

He pushes your thong aside, then the large head of his cock finds your warm, wet little hole.  He wraps both arms around you and pulls you down with a low grunt that turns into a sigh as he impales you on his shaft.  You don't suppress your moan as his girth parts your core and you sink down on his cock.  He fills you to the brim and stretches you wide, making you grateful for how wet you are. 

"God damn, you're tight." He pulls you down even more with a lift of his hips and a vocal sigh. "This what you wanted?"

You nod and try to move your hips, but he holds you still. "Use your words."

"Yes," you say.  "God, yes." 

He still doesn't let you move. "What did you want?"

"Your cock"

"Yeah,” he nods.  “And what do you want now?"

It feels like a trick question. "Whatever you'll give me."

You're sitting there for a moment and he studies your face like he's wondering if it's a trick. The car shredding machine roars menacingly. 

Your cunt twitches and he inhales sharply.  

You break the silence.  "Fuck me, Joel.”  He wants to be wanted.  “You feel how much I want you."  Then you rock your hips gently - very gently.  He must want to be in control.  And you don't want him to come too fast before you’ve decided what to do next.  

"Please," you beg.  “Fuck me,” you mouth silently with the horniest eyes you can muster. 

"There she is."  He lifts his hips in return. 

"Please, Joel."  He pulls back, then plunges into you again, holding your hips down on him.  He retreats, filling his chest with air, then lifts his hips slowly again, bottoming out deep inside you with a sigh. He fills you all the way up.  And when your bodies are flush, the pressure on your clit is just right.  The noise of the car shredder becomes part of the background. 

He gets into a rhythm, and this man knows how to fuck. He's so smooth, and your cunt squeezes his cock so tight, there are brief moments you forget what you’re supposed to be thinking about.  Instead you’re just marveling at the motion of his hips and the sounds of his breath and the perfect shape of his cock dragging against your walls. 

You need to access whatever part of him doesn’t want to kill you.  But god, it’s hard to think with his cock inside you and your life on the line.  His lower belly grinds into your mound, and his massive hands scan your back.  The wire bounces around your neck. 

"God, you feel good," you gush.  "So good."  As you ride him, you weigh the options. You could seduce him into the idea of fucking you again later then run when he's asleep, or you could fight for your life right now.  Your lips graze his neck and you consider biting his jugular as hard as you can.  A powerful thrust upward shakes you out of the thought and nudges your g-spot. He grunts each time your warmth sheathes him. 

The window is completely fogged over.  You moan, then say, "you knew it would turn me on, didn’t you?" You lightly touch the wire around your neck without removing it.  You caress it.  "You could tell I wanted it."  You roll your hips harder into him and feel a climax building.  He breathes heavily as your cunt pulls him back in each time. 

"Shit," he pants.  "Little sex kitten like you?" His cock twitches deep inside you and he slows down. "Course you wanted it." 

"Yeah," you breathe, rolling your hips into him slowly.  "Oh god," you pant.  He holds your hips and gradually speeds up again, moaning and sighing. 

"Lucky you're so fuckin' hot," he snarls. 

"It's hot you had the balls to scare me like that," you say.  "just to turn me on even more."��

There’s no doubt in your mind this man is a killer, but you need him to believe you don't think he is.  It’s the only way he can let you live. 

"Musta worked," he pants. He fingers the cord around your neck and the rough pads of his large digits brush your delicate skin.

"Do it," you tell him. "Choke me." 

He grunts "Mm" with an emphatic thrust.  

You cover his hand on your neck with yours.  "God I love these hands," you gush truthfully, tracing the veins as you ride him and feel something building more and more in your gut.  

His hand wraps more than halfway around your throat as you bob up and down in his lap and he tightens his grip. His thumb digs into your jaw.  Your hips buck into him hard as your head fills with pressure and your throat croaks. He loosens his grip enough for you to moan. 

"God I wanna suck your cock," you tell him, knowing he'll come too soon before you can.  

“Maybe later, sugar.”  You try to suppress your excitement.  You might get out of this alive.  “If you’re good.” 

He bites his lip, and his thrusts intensify.  He wraps both arms around you and firmly cradles the back of your head with one hand, his beard prickling your cheek.  He pistons into you and you let yourself come, choking his cock with your climax.  You don’t hold back at all, you let it all out, almost crying as you convulse in his lap.  Then he holds you down and groans, powerfully shoving his cock into you as he erupts.  He empties his balls into you with a long sigh. 

He rests his head back and breathes. Your climax wanes, and the next few moments feel like an eternity.  The car shredder sounds louder than ever at the forefront of your mind.  You have no idea whether he’s more or less likely to kill you now that he’s come.  If it brings him clarity, is it going to be clear that you have to die now or clear that he never should have thought about it? 

-

Finally, he reaches his hand to your neck and your heart skips a beat.  He takes the wire and puts it back around the rearview mirror.   

“Just a minute, sugar.”  He nudges you up and tucks himself away in his jumpsuit.  He gets out, and you stay put, his cum trickling out of you and onto the chair.  It’s a delicate moment, not worth the risk of trying to run.  Where would you run, anyway? 

The car shredder turns off, and you relax back into the seat, ready to cry tears of joy.  

Joel comes back and opens the door to the truck.  He stands there for a second, looks you up and down.  You must be a hot mess, and he seems to like it. 

He moves his tongue in his cheek like he’s thinking.  Then he says, “You really wanna suck my cock, don’t you?” 

You smile.  “After that? Fuck, yes.  What a rush.” 

He looks proud, like that really was his intent all along. 

“Alright.” He climbs back into the truck with you and you get out of his way while he sits.   “You’re comin’ home with me tonight.” His hands slide over your thighs, looking at you with new admiration as he pulls you in to straddle him again. “Figure out your car in the mornin’.” 

-

If you want another one mention it in the RBs or comments. Thank you all so much for your support and engagement. Your reblogs and comments mean so much for me. Best readers out there!!

-

[johnwickb1tsch]

The Girl Next Door - IX

A Constantine x FemVampire!Reader (feat John Wick!) fic based on this imagine. all chapters warnings: nsfw, blood, biting, violence divider by animatedglittergraphics gif from pinterest, wick art from pinterest, prtty sure its AI, OPs unknown lemme kno

9. and be saved

You are left starstruck and gaping, slack-jawed and weak-kneed, when Constantine finally pulls back from the absolute claiming of your mouth, his dark gaze boring into you like he either wants to fuck you, or strangle you. 

Maybe both, considering. 

“After all this, that’s what you think?” he snarls. 

A low growl reminds you both of the danger not far enough away. “And why wouldn’t she, after the way you’ve treated her, you stupid boy?” snarls Wick, his accent thickening in his anger. “Stop touching her.”

You jab a finger in the dhampir’s direction, putting yourself between them again. “This doesn’t mean you own me, buster, don’t get comfortable.” 

The dhampir grumbles deep in his chest at this, glaring blue daggers at Constantine, but he stops his stalking advance. He seems to have enough self-control to weigh the consequences of breaking his promise not to hurt the man you obviously care about (for whatever reason he cannot understand), over the rewards of the deal you made. If he is patient, he will get what he wants. That should concern you, but at the moment you have one thing on your mind. You dare to turn back to your first beau, far from happy. 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you snap. 

“I told you that I like you!” 

“Are we in third grade?”

“It sure fucking feels like it!” he snarls, then starts coughing uncontrollably; horrible, racking hacks that convulse his whole body. 

You see the flash of blood on his sleeve. He is literally coughing up his lungs, and your heart breaks all over again. You try to help brace him, and he tries to hold you away. Finally fed up with his nonsense, you use your superior strength to best him, supporting him while trying to send energy to him through the bond to soothe him. 

Naturally, you find that goddammed brick wall erected between you again. You are so frustrated this time that you pound a metaphysical fist against it. At last it gives, and you push all that wonderful strength you went out in the first place to collect down the line to John. Life, for lack of a better word, and he closes his eyes as it washes through him, leaning on you heavily. 

It almost feels too good, and his relief naturally mixes with his native suspicion. He realizes he doesn’t actually remember what it feels like, to experience even the vaguest semblance of true health.   

“Shit,” he rasps, leaning against you, his face buried in your hair. 

You know they say that still waters run deep, but you still don’t understand the point of him hiding from you. Maybe there is no good reason, and maybe you’ll never truly understand. Even with your arms full of Constantine, you remain painfully aware of the lurking dhampir watching you, too close for comfort. 

What have you done?

When you draw back to look at John, the only word you can think to describe his expression is agony. In turn, you somehow feel relieved and wretched and angry, all at once. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” you whisper desperately. “Why couldn't you just tell me?”

“I did,” he answers, and maybe he thinks that's true, but he'd practically spoken in code and it's not your fault that you didn't understand. 

You should just tell him your side too, you reason. You've wasted so much time, and he's dying, and did you really hold back just because you were afraid he would laugh at you? You open your mouth, intending to get it out no matter what the cost, when Wick interrupts coldly, “This is very touching. But I didn’t come here to watch you two canoodle.” 

“I don’t give a fu—” 

You cut Constantine off before he can enrage the dhampir again. “He came here to help us,” you insist. “Come upstairs.”

“This asshole only knows how to help himself,” grouses the man in your arms, and you know he is glaring at Wick over your head. “I don’t trust him.” 

“Fine. Come talk to the vampire he brought us, then we can kick him out.” 

Wick snorts at that. “He can try.”

“You promised me,” you dare to remind the vampire hunter, even if there is a quaver in your voice. 

“As you promised me,” Wick counters right back, offering a mocking little bow with his hand over his heart and a heat in his eyes that involuntarily curls your toes.

Dear God. What have you gotten yourself into?

Constatine’s grip on your hip tightens to the point of bruising, had you still been human. You can hear him grinding his teeth, and you have to stop yourself from laughing or crying with exasperation. This man. Maybe you do have a screw loose. You should kick him in the balls for the way he’d treated you, but all you really want to do is wrap him up in your arms, and cloister yourselves away from the world for a very long time. 

Unfortunately, time is not something you have right now.

♰♰♰

Does the Geneva Convention apply to vampires? 

You're sure what Wick did to the vamp he’d captured is at least immoral, if not downright illegal. And yet, you know this sycophant of don Juan’s was no innocent. You find it hard to feel sorry for him.

It doesn’t take much persuasion to get the injured vamp to spill the beans. He’s already scared shitless of Wick, and adding Constantine only makes him talk faster in hope of some mercy. You doubt he’s going to get it, or maybe but only in the form of a quick death. 

He tells you all that don Juan has had a bone to pick with the High Table for years. Squabbles over power, jurisdiction, and of course, money, resenting the steep tithe he’s had to pay as a matter of course. He formulated a plan to overthrow them, by somehow involving the Son of Satan to wipe the slate clean with a new reign of Hell on Earth. With the exception, of course, that Juan continues to rule in L.A.

Constantine keeps shaking his head in disbelief, now seated at the head of the kitchen table. Wick has taken the seat at the opposite end, and you lean with your arms crossed against the sink, lowkey ready to intervene if they go after each other again. Maybe you’re not the brightest crayon in the box, but you sense the peace between them is tenuous at best no matter what Wick promised you.  

“It’s like going after a roach problem in your house with a nuclear bomb,” gripes Constantine. “What the fuck is he thinking?”

Wick shrugs. “I will kill him. You kill the demons. Problem solved.”

Constantine snorts at that. “Yeah. Easy peasy.”

“Is it not?”

“It never is with these assholes. When I deport them they return to their realm, but they don’t die. They could just keep trying, unless we really figure out what they're up to.”

“How do we do that?”

John lights a cigarette, ignoring you as you glare at him, the big idiot. He blows a cloud of smoke into the air, staring at the cracked plaster of the ceiling like it holds the answer key. 

“I gotta use the chair.”

“At Midnite’s?” 

You have no idea what John’s talking about, but Wick seems to. 

“Yeah.” 

“Can you use it to find where Juan’s hiding? He’s gone to ground like the rat he is. It would save me time.” 

“Maybe. It’s…unpredictable.” 

“I might be able to find him,” you admit reluctantly, staring down at your bare feet. 

Both pairs of dark eyes turn towards you. “How?” they echo each other, almost eerily similar in that moment. 

“The last time you fed me…” you say to John, your cheeks warming with the memory. “Afterwards, I kind of…surfed around the city, while you slept. In my head, I mean. But not…” 

Wick is impressed by this, an eyebrow lifting, the corner of his mouth pulling slightly. John, however, gives you a hard look. “You just…went frolicking around on the astral plane, huh? Do you know how dangerous that can be?”

You laugh, for once more amused than miffed by John’s irritation with you. It helps, that now you’re starting to suspect it comes from a place of caring, rather than contempt. Not that you can tell through the bond now. He’s re-built his walls between you, twice as high and twice as thick as they were before. You know he has more experience with this psychic stuff than you do, but it seems unfair. 

“Well, I did it, and I found Juan. He felt it too. He hit me with something. It woke you up.”

“Yeah. I remember that.” 

You shrug. “I could probably do it again.”

John ashes his cigarette with a flick into an overflowing dish, staring at the reflection in the green glass. “It took a little more than blood to invoke power like that.” Your ears feel like they’re on fire, and how ridiculous is it, that even undead you still can blush?

You dare to meet his eyes, and find a matching warmth therein. It’s his only tell.

“I can give you blood, malyshka,” offers Wick, breaking the heavy silence in the kitchen. “And whatever else you need.” You hate it, that just the thought makes a spear of warmth shoot straight to your loins. 

Constantine narrows his eyes at the vampire hunter, pointing with the smoldering cigarette. “You can keep your cursed blood to yourself, dhampir.”    

“I am not cursed.” 

“No, but you’re a helluva traitor.” 

“Pot, kettle, wizard boy. You think you’re the only one with a bone to pick with God?” 

“Yeah, but you don’t see me skipping off to work for the other side because of it.” 

“The other side,” Wick scoffs. “Two sides, same coin, Constantine.” 

John snorts in answer. “Not exactly.” 

“Oh? Was it not God who gave you this gift you resent so? Was it not God’s priests who fed my pregnant mother to a hungry vampire to create me, God’s weapon against the darkness? My poor mother died in agony after my birth. The priests called her suffering God’s will. That’s what they said when my Yelena and my little Irinushka died too. I finally told them all to go to Hell.”

“So now you get your revenge on God by working for the Underworld?”

“I was made to kill vampires. So it is what I do.” 

Constantine barks with bitter laughter. “This is what you’re getting with this guy, y/n. He doesn't kill vampires to help people. He does it to scare the other vamps into line, so they don’t defy the High Table, and so the most powerful among them can go on exploiting human kind with ease. Trafficking, drugs, you name it, they’ve got their dirty fingers in it. When you said you would rob a drug cartel? He’s the one they would send after you for it.” 

It’s not like you thought Wick was a good man, but for some reason hearing all this hurts your heart. Shocked, you turn to Wick. “Is this true?” you ask hushedly. 

He actually looks regretful, not meeting your eyes. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I made a bargain, a long time ago. It is the only thing that matters to me now. I must honor it.”

You’re not sure why hearing all this has made you feel sick. You don’t really get stomach upset anymore, but you do not feel well. 

“Milaya…” says Wick pleadingly, willing you to look at him. 

But you just shake your head, staring at the floor. Maybe deep down, there was a part of you that thought maybe, maybe, you wouldn’t have to be so completely alone as the long years went by. But now you know this was a very stupid thought indeed. 

“Ask me,” prompts Wick quietly. “Ask me what the bargain was for.” 

“She doesn’t care,” says Constantine, at the same time you ask: 

“What was it for?” 

Ignoring John, his dark eyes bore into you. “I made a deal with a powerful witch of the High Table, that I would serve until the day I found my Yelena again. I was told that if I waited long enough, someday she would be reborn to me.”

You don’t know why you feel dizzy in that moment, like the floor of the whole world has dropped out from under you. You close your eyes against it, screwing them shut tight as your fingers–claws–dig into the countertop behind you. 

This man has done terrible things–for centuries, it sounds like. But he did them for love. Does that excuse them? No. Does it soften you to him? You hate to admit it, but the truth is…a little. 

You entertain the possibility for a second–you only allow yourself a second–that maybe you are this woman the dhampir thinks you are. A reincarnated soul, searching for her long lost mate, like in the deliciously trashy romances you love to read. Shouldn’t you have some sort of past life memories or dreams? Isn’t that how it always goes in the stories?

You think about how you’ve always felt adrift in this life. Not really interested or committed to anything. How it’s all always seemed kind of silly to you, meaningless even, and the only thing you’ve ever been certain was truly important, was to be kind to others. It’s ironic, maybe, that only after becoming a vampire that you truly gained a sense of purpose in your life, helping those who couldn’t help themselves, and removing evil doers from the population at large. 

You think about how you came to L.A. You practically moved here on a whim, because you were tired and off a bad breakup and you wanted to go somewhere exciting and new. Did fate guide that choice you made for yourself? Was it the unconscious searching for your soul’s true mate? 

If that’s true, then why didn’t you go to New York instead? 

You think about the day you moved into your apartment. Wrestling with your numerous boxes of stuff. Not much, really. Just what you fit into your compact hatchback car, which has since died an inglorious death on the 405. Some jerk had bumped into you on the stairs, nearly making you drop your heavy load of books, only to belatedly steady the box before it spilled, and maybe as an afterthought, you. You remember how you’d looked up, up, up because Jesus he was tall, to find the man now pulling on the addictive smoke that will prove to be his doom. He’d looked down at you with bemused annoyance in those lovely dark eyes. Told you to “Watch it,” and went on his way down the stairs, two at a time on those long legs, clearly in a hurry. 

Rushing off to save the world, or a little precious part of it, you know now. 

You remember how you’d felt like you’d been hit with a frying pan, the first time you saw him. How your heart had seemed to stop then start again, racing doubletime.  

If this was a movie, John Constantine would be your soulmate, the man you were meant to find, the one who fate seemed to be driving you towards. Because since the first time you set eyes on him, you haven’t been able to look away. And if this was a movie…it would be a tragedy, because the man you love is dying, and there is no magic that can truly save him, only delay the inevitable. 

You look between the two men seated at either head of the table. Both formidable, in their own ways, they could have been mistaken for brothers in their appearances. You wish you could deny that you felt a certain something for Wick too. It would be much simpler that way. You don’t really like the idea that things are preordained. You want to believe that you have the power to make choices about life, be they good or bad. But there is something in this dilapidated kitchen, the warm night air whispering through the broken windows, that feels unmistakably like fate. 

“I hope you find her someday,” you tell the dhampir, and you mean it, holding your hands wide in a gesture of peace. “But I don’t really think that I’m the answer you’re looking for.” 

The too-long sleeve of your shirt–John’s shirt–flops as you gesture, and you roll up the sleeve again, feeling more than a little ridiculous despite the looks both men have been paying you. As you crease the fabric up your forearm Wick zeroes in on something peeking out of your sleeve. 

“What is that?” he demands, with way more force than the situation demands. 

You look at him quizzically. “A tattoo?” 

“Let me see.” 

Constantine frowns as he watches this exchange. You feel a little uneasy too, as you pull back the sleeve to reveal the black and white flowers emblazoned on your underarm. “It’s just…something I thought was pretty on the flash wall, when I turned 18.” It had called to you, for whatever reason, on that rebellious expedition with a friend who had also just crossed the threshold into adulthood. Luckily, you still liked it. Lord knows dumber late night decisions had been made in that tattoo parlor in your little town. 

Wick, however, sits back in the chair, laughing to himself like you have told him an inside joke. “Margaritka. What do you call this flower in English?”

“Daisies?” 

Then you remember what he’d said, about the little white flower his late wife had loved to pick near their cabin. 

Oh fuck.

[ghostgirl-22]

18+ !NSFW!

Pair: Artrick (mostly) Patashi mentioned

Patrick is a brat actually. So Art edges him relentlessly.

—-

Something, something. Art gets recognized at a gala and brings Tashi and Patrick as his plus ones to pick up the award. The world just thinks it’s his wife and best friend and they’re supposed to act accordingly. But Patrick is tired and horny and annoyingly bratty the whole night. He spends all night teasing them and trying to provoke them, pushing all of their buttons in public where they can’t do anything. He’s relentless, begs Art to fuck him in the bathroom before his speech, gives him blue balls whispering dirty things and then laughing about it.

He flirts with half the waitresses and a couple of waiters. Tashi wants to get back at him but she tends to lose control so easily when it comes to him. They just end up fucking in a random office one floor below before the galas even over. She comes back flushed, hair looser, makeup slightly smudged and he shows up a few minutes after, suit jacket wrinkled, buttons mismatched. The ruby of her lipstick still visible on his throat.

Art grabs him by the shoulders and fixes his tie. “You’re so sloppy. I hope you’re having fun,” he says quietly.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he grins.

—-

“I don’t see what the problem is,” Patrick shrugs in the limo on the ride back to their Brooklyn townhouse. “I mean it worked… I got what I wanted anyway.” He grins at Tashi.

Tashi glares at him and then whispers in Art's ear. “He’s so fucking annoying. Can you punish him?”

Art smiles, nodding as he gazes at Patrick. He doesn’t do it that night. Not even that week. It’s a random afternoon when Tashi’s away at a gymnastics meet with Lily and Art’s got all day.

“I’m not being mean. I just want you to say sorry,” Art says softly. They’re in the guest bedroom where Patrick pretends to sleep when they have company. He’s teasing himself along Patrick’s entrance. He’s been doing it for nearly an hour now. He slowly starts jerking himself off and Patrick looks up at him, flushed all over, he’s covered in a sheen of sweat, his muscles are taut, his cock is upright resting against his stomach, it’s swollen purplepink, and leaking. Patrick can't look away from him, fists clenching, he ends up thrusting against the air probably just out of habit as he tries to grab for him.

“Mm, I didn’t say you could touch,” Art breathes. Patrick pulls back, he’s desperate, but not desperate enough to misbehave. Not right now at least. He’s so frustrated though, Art can see it in his eyes how fucking bad he wants him and it’s so hot he ends up coming all over Patrick for the third time (accidentally of course).

“Fuck,” Patrick says breathlessly watching him.

“Mm, it feels so good,” Art moans making sure his come spills on new and different parts of Patrick’s body… he’s got so much near his entrance already.

“Fuck, I said I was sorry sweetheart. Come on, please,” Patrick begs, mindlessly.

“But Patrick, you don’t sound sorry.” Art says softly. “Honestly, you sound like you’re just saying it because you want me to fuck you. sweetheart.”

Patrick groans.

Art smirks, watching him try to focus when he’s clearly so overwhelmed with need. “Or is it that…” He moves, crawling over Patrick so he’s straddling his thighs. “You just want to fuck me.”

“Fuck, yes,” Patrick groans. He bucks his hips right away, eager for the friction.

Art grins, and shoves him back down. Patrick pulls his knees up behind him, trying to get Art to settle on his lap but Art keeps away, pressing down on Patrick’s hips so the only contact is brief and very slight.

“You’re such a slut.” Art sighs, looking over him. “Dick so big you don’t know what to do with it, huh?”

“Yes I do… I promise please, please lemme fuck you,” Patrick whines.

“It’s okay,” Art continues as if he didn’t say anything. “I know you can’t help yourself… it’s so big and so sensitive you’re hard all the time, need to be coming all the time. Can’t sit still. Can’t stop flirting. Teasing. Anything to get off.” He’s ghosting his fingers idly along the base of Patrick’s swollen cock. Patrick’s thighs are quivering behind him. Art feels himself beginning to get aroused again.

“Art please,” Patrick whimpers. “Tashi is… Tashi’s a liar. She was the one teasing me… and it’s not like we… like we got caught. ”

“Mm calling my wife a liar? Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Fuck, Art I— I’ll do anything—please, please I just need to come... it hurts….“

“But isn’t this what you wanted? Didn’t you say you wanted me to fuck you till you couldn’t think, hm? Doesn’t it feel good…when I fuck you?”

“Mm, not like this,” Patrick groans.

Art rubs his cheek where he’s got that scruffy beard that Art actually really likes. His fingers are still wet with jizz and Patrick turns to lick them. Art smirks letting it slide. ”Say you promise you’ll behave next time we’re in public and maybe I’ll let you come.”

“I’ll behave, you know I will.” He lies. “I’ll do whatever you fucking want. Please. You’re so fucking pretty. God, look at you. I just—I wanted you and I couldn’t wait. Please, please, is that so bad?”

Art bites his lip. “Okay Patrick, you can stop whining now. Put this in your mouth till I get really hard again, okay?”

“Can’t I just…can’t I just fuck you?” Patrick says weakly.

“Aww It’s almost like you’re not sorry and you want me to start this all over…” Art says gently. “Is that what you want?”

“No, no, I—okay,” Patrick says eagerly. He sits up and moves between Art's legs, switching their positions.

Art lays back on the bed revelling in the feeling of Patrick taking him in so greedy and desperate. He runs his fingers through Patrick’s hair and smiles.

[strongheartneteyam]

[ all credits of the Neteyam pic go to the incredibly talented @cinetrix ♡]

Champagne Problems

Part 2

Pairing: Neteyam Sully x female!human!reader

CW: neteyam is a simp for reader, black cat gf/golden retriever bf "trope", a whole lot of angst, beach party, use of alcohol, some romantic comedy vibes, neteyam acting a bit cocky lol, reader is a tiny bit of a meanie towards neteyam, sexual language, sexual content, reader is a bit antisocial, flirting, emotionally unavailable bc of trauma reader, unrequited love (neteyam is the one having the unrequited feelings), sexual tension, commitment issues, exophilia, size kink, interspecies relationship, bad words. Hit me up to lemme know if I forgot something ahaha

Synopsis: Neteyam has had his eye on you for long but you always kept him away, at a safe distance. You have no feelings for him after all, you only think he's really attractive... right? What happens when he starts flirting with you at a Metkayina beach party and he just won't give it up? Will you finally give him a chance to show you how he feels or will you keep hiding behind the armor that you have for a heart? Neteyam is known among the na'vi as persistent and everybody knows he doesn't back off from a challenge. And you're his favorite one.

Reader is slightly older than Neteyam, for only 2 years.

Neteyam and Reader (AI Art)

Do you guys remember the story inspired by Champagne Problems by Taylor Swift that I promised like ages ago? Well... The first part is here? 🤓 A lot of people seemed to be excited to read this when I posted that sneak peak. Hope you guys like it! kiss kiss 💗

Slightly proofread.

Part 1 : Say Yes to Heaven

𓇼

If you dance, I'll dance

And if you don't, I'll dance anyway

Give peace a chance

Let the fear you have fall away

I've got my eye on you

(...)

Say yes to Heaven, say yes to me

Say Yes To Heaven (Lana Del Rey)

𓇼

"It's not like you're not gonna break me in half if we try to get down and dirty." You laugh a bit too much, the alcohol invading your brain slowly, making you care less and less about behaving in a "socially acceptable" way. Though you wondered if your not-a-bit-elegant-honesty mattered at all to Neteyam Sully, the na'vi boy sitting in the maroon leather couch, by your side, his huge size making the couch look ridiculously small. He was na'vi, after all. Totally different culture. The na'vi were way more upfront about their real thoughts and feelings.

Neteyam had been talking loudly, almost yelling, at your ear for the past 40 minutes, trying to make his voice sound louder than the party's music, so you could hear him try to convince you to hook up with him. As if the loud uplifting songs that echoed in the salty air of that Metkayina beach were not enough to bug your tired head, now you had Neteyam helping your headache get worse.

"That doesn't mean you can't let me take you home. Or even let me make you my mate, eventually, if we end up falling in love while we fuck under the starry sky. You might like laying with me in my hammock and letting me pleasure you more than you think. Maybe you'll want to be my girl once you get a taste of this na'vi spice" He was joking around with you while flirting.

His thick, muscular but still fleshy thighs were spread on the sofa way too much to your liking. It was almost like he was trying to show you how masculine or desirable - some bullshit like that - he was. You know, that kind of thing a lot of guys usually do when trying to seduce you.

You knew Neteyam was aware he was handsome, that his body was attractive. He had always had girls - na'vi and human - all over him since he was a teen, drooling over his beauty.

But if he thought his loverboy flirting that must have worked so easily with just way too many girls before was gonna work that easily with you, he was mistaken.

Okay, you had to admit he was being pretty insistent, though. Neteyam had been there for almost an hour already. You did not understand what was making him insist that much on you if you had an armor as impenetrable as the one of a human warrior of the Middle Ages, back on Earth. And those armors were really hard to get under.

"Listen" you took a last big sip of your champagne and put the glass cup on the wooden table next to the sofa "When you gonna give up, honey? It's not gonna work. I'm not hooking up with you." You looked him in the eyes.

Goddamn, were his orbs big compared to the ones of a human. 

They were beautiful, though.

Damn, (y/n)! Focus, girl!

"I'm known among my people for being disciplined, focused and getting what I want because I fight hard for it. You're my focus now, tawtute." (human) I'm not giving up on you. You're like my Ikran. You're wild and hard to get but I'll conquer you, sevin tawtute." (pretty human) "On the first try."

"Cocky much?" You smirked and shook your head in disapproval "No, but, seriously, Neteyam, are you out of your mind? Have you forgotten about tsaheylu? I don't have a neurological queue, babe. I know I have many braids in my hair," You pointed out your hairstyle "but they're all regular human braids. None of them have little tendrils on its tip. Sorry, Neteyam. We're Romeo and Juliet. And Juliet doesn't even love Romeo in this story. You're deemed to heartbreak." You said, like you could not care less about his attempts to win you over, sipping on your sparkling champagne, that went down your throat comfortably, making you feel cozy and safe. It wasn't gonna work, anyway.

You liked champagne a bit too much... you had to admit it was very possible that you had a bit of a drinking problem. Alcohol made you feel warm inside. In an emotional way too. It felt like someone was hugging you, when you would not let many real people hug you because you just were not exactly enthusiastic about having physical contact with just anyone. You only let your closest friends and some family members, like your little sister, hug you. 

Some people would often call you "cold" and say that you acted "like a queen, above everyone else", behind your back, but that could not be further from the truth. You actually hated how low your actual self steem was.

"Why don't you look at Munì?" You mentioned the curvy, tall, blue eyed Metkayina girl who clearly had a mad crush on Neteyam. She was incredibly pretty. Nobody could deny that. "She has been drooling over you ever since you got here. Give the poor girl a chance. She's such a cutie. If I liked girls, I'd easily do her. Look at those beautiful, long, toned legs. Look at her wide hips. Damn, she's yummy!" you were drinking too much, your honesty getting way too out there.

"I don't want her. I want you." He spoke, like he really meant it. "My hammock will be hanged between those two big trees you like to collect fruits from. I'll be waiting for you, if you want to meet me."

With that last line being said, Neteyam got up from the sofa and walked away, swiftly finding his younger brother Lo'ak and tapping on his back, like men usually do. Both brothers started what looked like an interesting conversation.

You were left alone wondering how Neteyam could say those words and walk away so nonchalantly. 

"Phew! I thought he'd never leave, girlie." Adeline screamed, coming closer to you.

She was your best friend. You guys knew way too much about each other, but that only drove you closer and made you two have a beautiful bond that felt unbreakable. She was one of the few people in the world you trusted with many of your secrets. But not even she knew everything about you. Yes, talk about trust issues…

"God, I was about to call his sister to take him away! Kiri is much more chill and quiet compared to her siblings. She's a sweetheart." You said, finally letting your guard down and being able to relax your body language, laying back on the couch and resting your bare feet on the wooden dark brown table in front of you

𓇼

You cursed yourself while you walked towards Neteyam's big light brown hammock, hanged between two big beautiful trees that reminded you of the Palm Trees that used to exist on Planet Earth.

Why were you doing that, anyway?

"Tawtute! You came." Neteyam smiled, relief all over his face 

You sighed.

"Yeah, but I'm still wondering why I did."

"Ouch!" He put his huge four fingered hand on his chest and frowned, like he was in pain

You rolled your eyes at him.

"Stop that, silly." Crossing your arms, you walked towards the big tropical tree in front of his hammock but still a little far

"Hey! Where are you going?" Neteyam almost screamed as you were already further away from him than you should be if you were actually gonna have sex with him

It was like you were running away from and showing up to the "job" at the same time. Go figure out.

You rested your back against that large tree, feeling the rough edges of the wood harassing your skin.

Neteyam was already almost there where you were. His long na'vi legs helped him walk faster than you anticipated.

Neteyam got next to you. You felt a little fear but a bit of excitement, simultaneously, when you realized your head only reached his hip.

Fuck, he was a giant next to you… why the hell did that turn you on?

"Are you afraid of me, yawntutsyìp?" (little loved one) Neteyam said in a lewd, low voice as you looked at him, feeling like a pathetic little ant looking up at a human

Was that how ants felt?

"No, silly, I'm not." You looked away from him and tried to focus on the way the eclipse had beautiful violet and blue tones

That almost worked. If it wasn't for Neteyam using his huge alien hand to stroke your hair softly.

"You're so pretty, tawtute." You could feel his gaze directed at you, you could feel his heat burning your skin. The desire he felt for you was almost freaking tangible. 

You kept your eyes on the stars.

"You're not gonna look at me, yawntutsyìp? Lemme see those pretty eyes, hmm?" Fuck, he was turning you on so much, your pussy felt good already and there was a tight knot forming in your lower belly. How did he do that to you with so little effort?

You looked up at Neteyam's face, your neck hurting. You did not expect to see a big bulge under his navy blue loincloth, though. Neteyam was so huge you could not help staring and your face totally betrayed your surprise.

"C'mon, I wanna feel your tiny body on mine." He paused and his big blue hand traced your collarbone and your shoulders "You're so small, tawtute… Hmmm…" he let out something between a moan and a growl "So soft too." Neteyam squeezed your arm, feeling your soft human flesh against his slender fingers "I love how different from na'vi girls you are. I'm so lucky to have you all to myself tonight."

Your breath was now labored and your pussy was soaked. Your poor panties were all wet.

"I'm dying to squeeze those titties. They look incredibly soft. But I won't do anything that intimate before you say "yes" first, yawntutsyìp."

•

Taglist:

@yeosxxx (u asked to be tagged in all my writings so I'm tagging u here hehe)

Comments are very welcome. I love all of you who take time to read my writings ♡ Thank you all so much from the bottom of my heart. If you wanna be added to the taglist, just leave a comment down below <3

[eatyourmaker]

How about some burningholysacrilege if you have time ^^

I am definitely not the person that came up with that ship trust /silly

I just had to do this one, but I didn't know how to tackle it, so I just drew a snippit of a long going rp I have going on.

I'm glad you started publicly shipping these 3, bc I've been privately shipping them for around the same time I've shipped FieryFaith, but I was too anxious to even draw them let alone share any art 👉🏾👈🏾

While I'm here lemme share some hcs I've accumulated throughout the duration of these 3 living in my head rent-free

Hcs under the cut

(TWO OF THE HCS ARE SUGGESTIVE, I will mark them so you can skip them)

1. Ignacio and Skiddad were a thing before Ignacio got together with Gregor. They were always an open relationship though, so both parties were free to explore and experiment with others. At the end of the day though they'd do their own independent things, they knew they would always be together. They belong together. They're soulmates. Bonded for eternity, and it didn't matter what would happen, they would always find their way back eachother.

2. The aforementioned point is why Gregor entering the picture was really confusing for Ignacio at first. Skiddad is the one. So how could there ever be another? In my hc Skiddad died for a brief period of time and then was resurrected. This period of time is when Ignacio got together with Gregor. After the whole enemies to lovers type shit happened, he was confused by how well he was treated— how at home he felt with Gregor. It was the same feeling of safety he got from being by Skiddad's side. Very confusing, especially during his time of grief. Eventually he caved to loneliness and fell into Gregor's warm embrace.

3. When Skiddad came back Ignacio felt overwhelming anxiety about the two meeting. You know what the cult does to priests. But Skiddad is much more composed as calculating than lower ranking members. He wouldn't kill Gregor, especially if his soul mate has feelings for him. He'd simply convert him instead. It may seem crazy, but indoctrination is a slow process to begin with, and I hc that Skiddad also has a Christian background before the cult. With coming from the same systems of beliefs, and having the same interest in Ignacio's health and safety, conversion would be a cinch. He doesn't mind Gregor being a permanent addition to the relationship if it makes Ignacio happy.

okay now onto some some lighter hcs

4. Ignacio gets smothered with affection from both Skiddad and Gregor.

5. Gregor is probably the only person who could ever fluster Skiddad. Unprompted and genuine kindness is not something he's used to. Skiddad slowly becomes aware of why Ignacio likes his priest so much.

6. (SUGGESTIVE) Skiddad has definitely gotten a kick out of teasingly calling Gregor "father". Gregor praying that he don't go to hell good lord.

7. (SUGGESTIVE) Skiddad- Top | Ignacio- Switch | Gregor- Bottom/Service Top, and that's that on that ✋🏾

8. Skiddad tries to relate to Gregor a lot under the guise of "being a pastor too," which he's trying to use to desensitize him to the idea of the cult.

9. Skiddad and Gregor were both raised in a chruch

10. Skiddad and Gregor both speak Latin

11. Skiddad and Ignacio both speak Spanish

12. English is Skiddad's third language

13. Skiddad calls Ignacio "starlight" and Gregor "Amate" (love). Gregor calls Ignacio "Spitfire" and Skiddad "angel eyes". Ignacio is too embarrassed to call either anything besides basic terms of endearment NDNDNDN

Ok lemme end there, there's more but I've written literally so much.

[quoththemaiden]

A short (~1k) scene inspired by Chapter 9 of @mrghostrat's absolutely glorious Big Name Feelings human AU fic. Hope you like arms?

"C'mon, angel, not even gonna crack a smile at that one? Whales, get it? Whales."

Aziraphale felt like his cheeks were on fire from trying to keep a straight face at Crowley's increasingly terrible puns. "I would hate to tacitly encourage this behavior."

"Pfft, you love it." Crowley grinned at him, far past being undaunted and fully into the realm of being energized by Aziraphale's failed attempts at stoicism.

"You're utterly ridiculous." Aziraphale didn't even bother trying to make it sound like an insult, and the half of the screen taken up by his webcam made it clear his cheeks were as pink as they felt. "And I can't help but feel like you're stalling. Hadn't we agreed to be actually productive today?" Aziraphale didn't mind, really; he did want to keep making steady progress on his art, but if his life could consist of coming home from work and just unwinding with Crowley...

...but, well, that wasn't the purpose of this call.

Crowley groaned. "Yeah, yeah. What a taskmaster."

"It is my job to protect you from rabid fans, after all," Aziraphale teased right back.

"O Brave Guardian, protect me from procrastination!"

"That sounds rather harder than a dragon, I'm afraid. But if you don't get to work, I won't be able to work either, and then you won't get to see the finished piece."

"Urk—" Crowley made a strangled noise and finally reached for his mouse. "You'll actually be working on it?"

Aziraphale nodded before adjusting his webcam to show his tablet a bit more. "I really need to get more practice with this, to get half as confident as I am with physical paints."

"I've seen the drawings you've done! They're fucking brilliant."

Aziraphale laughed. "You've said that about everything I've shown you. I'm starting to think I should send you some stick figures as a test."

"Those would be the most adorable fucking stick figures ever. You could draw a whole comic of just stick figures and I'd reblog it a hundred times."

"That's about what I'd expect you to say, yes." Crowley opened his mouth to protest that his compliments were always earnest, and Aziraphale cut him off. "Weren't you going to start writing?"

"Ngghh, right, yeah. Alright, lemme just pull up my docs and then we'll get started bodydoubling for real." Crowley clicked over to screenshare his window as he opened his fic notes. He'd long since stopped hiding anything from Aziraphale; getting to bounce ideas off of him was too invigorating, and his heart always sang at getting to write down his name with official beta credit. (He'd also long since stopped pretending to himself that he'd ever felt quite the same way about any other beta.)

"Good lord." Aziraphale sounded more than faintly appalled, and Crowley felt offended for a moment before taking a proper look at what was on his screen. It was currently showing the notes he'd made at 3 AM this morning, when he'd woken up from a dream and jotted down what had, at the time, felt like a brilliant scene. As always, he'd had his eyes mostly-closed the whole time and his swipes had been clumsy at best, but as long as it got the general point across, he was always satisfied. It only wound up being a usable scene about half the time, but he wasn't about to turn down free inspiration when he could get it. He quickly read through the imagery he'd written down.

They switch rolled over and opened their eyes. In the still morning sunlight they could set the witchfinder still sleeping cloudy enough to touch: his head ears cradled on his arms, the  misos slack with sleep but still clearly there under surface. The words knew from experience that if he were awakened stable the strength would flour back into them in an instant ray for a fight. The wishes couldn't help but think odd other things they might but tray for as well

Crowley paled. "I— that—"

"I mean, it's. Well. It's rather avant-garde."

Crowley froze. "I, uh—"

"'The misos?' And 'flour?'"

Crowley stuttered out of his bluescreen and hastily opened another tab, the screenshare automatically switching over. Aziraphale had read it, but he clearly hadn't actually understood it. As long as he didn't give him enough time to crack the cipher that was 3 AM notetaking, Crowley could bluff his way through it. "Zuh. Yeah. Wrote that down in the middle of the night when I got an idea of where I wanted to start the next scene off."

"And you could recognize any of that?" The camera jostled a little as Aziraphale shook his head. "I suppose I wouldn't do any better if I tried sketching out an idea in the dark." He picked up his stylus and started doodling simple shapes, warming up and re-acclimatizing himself to the responsiveness of the device. He was still getting used to the new medium, but he was finally starting to see a path forward to making a digital art style that felt authentically his own.

"Yessss." Crowley bit his tongue to cut off the guilty hissing. It definitely didn't help that the webcam was doing a very awkward job of catching the tablet screen but showed a very distracting hint of Aziraphale's forearms. The forearms he had, at 3 AM, apparently woken up from a dream about and been so inspired by that he'd felt the need to immortalize them in fanfiction.

"Well, I shall be interested in seeing how that gets transformed into comprehensible English."

"Right, definitely." Crowley was typing gibberish and backspacing over it quickly, more to hide how much attention he was having to devote to this conversation than out of an actual need to warm up his fingers. "Right, definitely focusing on writing now!"

Aziraphale laughed as he cleared his tablet screen and pulled up his WIP, shifting into concentration mode himself. He did enjoy the early days they had spent where their hours of "bodydoubling" were really nothing more than talking and laughing together, but being able to be quietly productive with someone else, knowing they were there with you without needing to be in the same room, that they were sharing your same wavelength without needing to say a word... that simple sense of togetherness brought with it such a deep feeling of comfort that he thought it might be an even more profound, longer-lasting sense of joy than their early days of giddy laughter had given. The strokes of his stylus turned smoother and more confident as he got into the flow, his eyes focused on his own screen and only vaguely aware of the lines of text growing across Crowley's.

Eventually, Crowley calmed down as well, and the text growing on his screen even started to make sense. And he made sure it had absolutely nothing to do with forearms.

--

Translation of the deleted 3 AM scene:

The witch rolled over and opened their eyes. In the early morning sunlight, they could see the witchfinder still sleeping close enough to touch. His head was cradled on his arms, the muscles slack with sleep but still clearly there under the surface. The witch knew from experience that if he were awakened, the strength would flow back into them in an instant, ready for a fight. The witch couldn't help but think of other things they might be ready for as well.

[34saveme34]

me when I read a fanfic and it isn't the not being able to keep one tense going through the fic that puts me off for a second but the idea that 3 doesn't know he has feelings for 4

I honestly think he knows he likes 4 since about

hm. I'll say when he was exiled

I think he had time to think

yknow, despite all that happened before, you'd think that he would hold more against 4 but he doessnnn'tttttttttt

and I knoooow the meme life cicle but I think he was still very casual about it despite that

I think he realised then and overtime like thought it went away

and then 4 appeared again and thought he was fine, he was good

but then he gets to figure out he's basically 4's soulmate and it least now a lot of things start to make sense but not others and he's all over it again

for 4 it's IGBP 100% but only after a while

like he's throught he shock

maybe after all the annoyance with his living situation and he finally lives in his fuckin- don't remember the name of it but he settles down in the back to relax and his mind drifts back, thinks about 3 a little too much, the words he said still burning on his mind and it makes him so giddy and then it hits him like oh- oh huh, guess a lot of things make sense now. better repress!

I mean just- just think about it

neither of these idiots are brave enough to say anything like that, they're both scared of being vulnerable but 3 is more so. BUT 4 is way way more scared of rejection than 3 is. I mean they're basically the same amount of scared but from different perspectives. Like they see themselves this way is why I'm phrasing it this way, 4 is scared to be vulnerable like that too but he specifically thinks about the idea of 3 forever rejecting him and losing him all over this.

3 is also heavy scared of rejection but he's more scared of the idea that if he doesn't keep up his tough persona and tells 4 how he feels he'll be made fun of forever and no one will take him seriously ever again, not even as little as they already do, at least in his eyes.

then again I do absolutely think wotfi23 was a step forward from this

with 4 not trying to snoop around so hard to find out what 3 thinks, and 3 having less of a high wall up around 4, especially since 3 was drawing them not only in that specific art style but also with like.... the expressions are so specific. I do think 4 brings 3 a lot of joy, something that should be explored more

because got theough.... yknow what fuck it I'm overanalyizing that drawing, lemme put it here first

so like this piece of shit drawing <3

one thing first and this is gonna sound insane first but 4 takes up more place

and also has a more complex albeit not by that much pose

also his pose exudes energy, also with the face he makes as well

I think this is how 3 truly sees 4, like a bundle of sunshine who is full of unneeded energy

another interesting thing you might notice is 3's corner of his mouth

that little line by his beard.... he's cringing a little bit, almost like he's trying to mask enjoying 4's company. And in general, his eyes too and once again back to his posture and how he takes up less space than 4 it feels like he's holding back. Once again back to him being kind of intimacy. And when he tries to reach out it hurts him, he cringes and he's like fuming and crazy about it

WHILE he views 4 as being more open, more fun than him, more jolly than he'll ever be

it's crazy how jealously he is in love still despite everything

and we didn't quite see development from this

he loves him so much and still envies what he has with his whole soul

maybe one day the love will overtake the jealousy, especially with how 4 is like, slowly and slowly being more open (and a lil gay) about caring about 3

unless it's a one step forward one step backward type of thing

like imagine first episode of the year and we witness them step backward from a better and more truthful relationship they could have

because honestly, it isn't only about love. It's about communication issues, greatest example of that being Trash Friends of course (oh trash friends, how I miss watching you for the first time)

and it would be genuinely so genius if they, with 4's development about dropping more hints about just how much he thinks about 3

like being vulnerable

and if it was used against him OOOOOOH it would the BIGGEST step backward

if 3 let jealousy win while 4 is trying to be vulnerable with him

imagine the fall out. imagine 3 breaking, being like maybe 4 was right, maybe I really only think of myself

while 4 fully closing off, hurt

their relationship is SO conflict prone. which is why it's so fun to talk about, like why I've been rambling here for a long while now oops

I was reading a fanfic before I almost forgot 💀 anyways I do believe in 4 realising his feelings for 3 later than 3 does for 4, I think that's probably the more popular opinion in the fandom

might make a poll aboutt ittttt :3

[fatallucidity]

I’ve been wanting to rant about this scene for a whiiiile chat. So here goes. This is from chapter 85. I’m a Loki simp so I just gotta.

I cannot get over the adorable art style change here!! He just looks so cute and playful. Yes, he’s always playful and laid back, but with Hilde, he just seems more…. Genuine. Like this is him actually trying to be friendly and make her smile. He often smiles maliciously when being snide or passive aggressive with Odin, especially when poking fun at him. Here, his smile just looks so much different. He looks pretty different from the start of the series, but it’s a very pleasant change. He still got those hips plus those amazing arms.

Hilde looks so pretty in that panel. Like my girl is just so gorgeous. I also love how Loki seems to want to actually help her. Gotta love his goofy poses.

The height difference is silly-

Also Loki trying convince her some more.

I CANNOT WITH THIS HILDE FRAME. She looks so beautiful. Whatever artist is drawing these oh so slayful lips on Beel and Hilde, I thank you.

Loki looks more sly here like he’s planning on doing more than just saving her. He just looks so smug, he thinks he’s convincing her. I just love when he floats around. He looks so cute and hot at the same time. THOSE HIIIIIIIPS THAT BACK CUUUURVE.

I’m still not quite sure how to interpret his little jig here lmao. Like Loki baby what’re you doing there??? It’s interesting how he claims to be better at convincing Odin than most, then asks her for a special favor.

I’m not surprised she interpreted this as being a transaction. He did certainly insinuate something, but given his reaction, he wasn’t trying to get her to hand over her body. His reaction is kind of adorable. He looks so flustered like “what did you just say-“ Possible Loki respecting women? Not confirmed really, given the whole doll thi-

Hilde my beloved. Straight up doesn’t care if she dies, since she knows that’s how Ragnarok works. Loki just looks so frustrated.

Here we get a glimpse of how petty Loki really is. He knew Siegfried is a sensitive spot for Hilde, he knew saying that would piss her off, that’s why he did it. In the exact moment she refused, he panicked and just reacted with pettiness to try and convince her to go along with his plan to save her. This shows us he really isn’t that mature. While he’s extremely intelligent and cunning, very sharp witted and analytical, he’s just immature in the long run. Loki deep down is petty and cunning in ways that gets people to do what he wants. Lemme remind y’all of season two of the anime when he’s fighting Buddha, Kondou, Sasaki, and Okita.

“Things don’t just go our way. We make it happen.”

This scene also perplexes me. He’s seems excited to learn about this, but probably because he’s planning something malicious. He knows Siegfried is her lover, and he’s filing that away for evil plans to get at her, maybe even to try and kill Siegfried. If he takes out her lover, he might think she feels all alone and will be more inclined to go to him for help. The art here is just amazing too. That panel of him looking stunned mid smile is mwahhh.

Once again. Her LIIIPS. MWAHS. she looks amazing as ever. Her cold response is expected. She sees Loki as the enemy given he’s a god who’s against saving humanity. My goodness his reaction is so sad. Like he’s just stunned at how unfeeling she is towards him. Once again Loki, immaturity won’t do shit.

Anyways, there’s my rant. I’ve used up the mobile image limit lmaoooo. I might talk about this more, but this just got me thinking, especially with the sad panel of Loki from the new chapter. Hope yall enjoyed, thanks for coming to me Ted talk

[nevermorgue]

Hello Hayley! I've been binge reading your Nevermore headcanons and I LOVE every single one. If you're taking requests, may I ask for some Montresor and Morella friendship headcanons please? I feel like they would tease each other, but be able to bond over a shared love of food. Thank you for all of your work :D

YES!!! I was so inspired by pluto’s morella and monty platonic art in the server. i love the idea of them getting along. but to start, i’m gonna be evil

- Obviously things wouldn’t go so great. Morella doesn’t like him and actively stands up against his nonsense. Montresor probably only sees her spectre, really. He understands that her defense skills are necessary. Probably thinks she’s too kind hearted. Probably also thinks she’s stupid to some degree, but not entirely because of how she stood up to him.

- I can only imagine their relationship changing if Morella just kinda forced herself to tolerate him to keep the peace as much as possible. She doesn’t want unnecessary problems to arise (like the wall thing) nor does she want to feed into what he wants (her to snap/react)

- So her method is to attempt to treat him the way she treats everyone else. Montresor finds it amusing, using her kindness against her and purposely being worse to get her to break.

- That backfires. He’s trying to put her on a Will/Ada level, but Morella is too headstrong to be fooled. She’s kind to be kind, and his pleasantries don’t work on her. If anything, she’s more responsive when he drops the whole charisma thing- because he’s being REAL.

- With this dynamic established. Imagine. She’s a great cook. She ends up making a big meal for the misfits and is oh so kind enough to save a bowl for him. She knows damn well he doesn’t deserve it, but her continuing to be nice to him despite how horrible he is…it’s kinda like a game between them now. She’s trying to say she’s better than him with every kind act. And he’s not only entertained/mildly pissed, but he’s stubborn and wants her to snap and drop the act so he plays along.

- “Lemme guess, doll. Poison’s in here. Naw…maybe dirt.”

“Just spices and care, Montresor. Try it!”

And of course, it tastes fantastic. He says it tastes like shit and slams the door in her face. He eats the entire bowl.

- As time goes on, Montresor doesn’t realize it but he’s starting to see her as less of a game like his lackeys and more of a neutral company that he doesn’t really necessarily hate. And he can tell that their ‘game’ goes more and more stagnant as Morella becomes less faux-kind, allowing herself to pout or scold him. It’s become less of a “try to get the other to back off” and more of a natural sort of interaction.

- She genuinely asks him if he’s ever brushed his hair in his life. He proceeds to answer by running his fingers through his hair, only to cuss when he hits a particularly nasty knot.

- She just kinda tosses a spare hair brush at him. She’s not willing enough to touch him/comb his greasy ass hair for him, but at least gives him the means to do it himself.

- I do agree that they bond over food. They have big stomachs and Morella is just so good at cooking.

- Ada invites Morella to sit with her and Monty in the common area once. She was hesitant, but agrees after she’s encouraged by the misfits to go for some strange reason.

- But once the interaction starts, Morella can tell that Ada doesn’t really want her there. She keeps glaring and tugging Montresor’s sleeve, as she always does.

- It doesn’t dawn on her why she was invited until Ada spills it.

“Why did you want her here so bad, dear? I wanted my alone time with you…” Ada would whine. Ada doesn’t HATE Morella, but she’s still not very happy about their argument in the cellar.

Morella can’t believe what she’s hearing. It wasn’t Ada that wanted her here- but Montresor

- She grins. She has no idea what their relationship really is or if it can be anything other than a okayish neutral, but perhaps this moment right here is proof that Monty can feel something that isn’t cruel or unnecessary.

- And Montresor? Refuses to look her in the eye. She’s not terrible. But don’t get him wrong, it’s only because she’s in the middle. Not smart enough to be on Annabel or Prospero’s strategy levels, but not pushover-y enough to be of any use to him. That’s it.

[netherfeildren]

FEAR OF GOD : Chapter II : Although a monster [Joel] could be charming in company

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x OFC

Content Warnings: Angst, possessive behavior, unprotected sex (there are no condoms in the apocalypse, only vibes), oral sex (f!receiving), squirting, brief non-graphic descriptions of medical procedures / illness,  brief discussion of avoiding meals (no reference to any sort of ED), stupid! Joel ™️

Summary: Joel gets a little stupid and a little jealous.

Rating: Explicit 18+

A/N: I wanted to mention that that I've altered the timeline a smidge to benefit my own whims. So the Joel we find here is about 50-51 and our reader is in her mid to late 20's (cw: age gap 🤓) Everything else in the timeline is the same up until Joel and Ellie return to Jackson.

Another thing, I hella make shit up in this chapter. I talk about a surgical device and there’s discussions of like mechanical/electrical engineering? which I know fuck all about. So if it reads as nonsense I sincerely apologize. There’s a fair bit of character/world building in this ch. so I hope you all can bear with me for a smidge. There is the gift of porn at the end though >:) 

Chapter title is from Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red (my favorite book in the whole world which everyone should read). Art is Intimacy by Angelica Alzona

Word count: a whopping 9.6k (I'm so sorry 😭)

Read on AO3

CHAPTER II: Although a monster [Joel] could be charming in company

What it looked like?

Like fucking the forest for once birdless, beastless.

Like measuring the distance between all that’s lost

and everything else that, even now, waved at 

hard enough sometimes,

will sometimes wave back.

But it felt like swallowing the sea– 

being forced to, ships and all. 

Then a silence as vast as it was particular.

The like holding a mirror up to Apollo

and expecting his face there, when Apollo’s always been

faceless, obviously, being a god.

And the hand still holding the mirror up anyway.

And the face not showing.

-Carl Phillips, Star Map with Action Figures

“I mean, yeah, I’d fuckin’ like to think so. I’m not sure. She told me –”

“Ellie, you’re overthinking the hell out of it.”

“I am not,” she grumbles.

“You’re a dumbass,” you deadpan.

That riles her up. “Me?! You!”

“What’ve I done? It’s pretty obvious what’s happening here – Dina wants you to ask her out – you’re too chicken shit to step up.”

“Okay, genius. Y’don’t know what you’re talking about, first of all.” The sass on this girl, honestly. The two of you sit together at the picnic tables that’d been set out in the town center for the monthly barbecue. “You think you’re so damn smart. Well lemme just ask you this, what’s going on with Joel? You two’ve been weird as fuck lately.” That shuts you up quick.

“Don’t even start with that. The answer is nothing.”

She gives you that knowing look of hers, but let’s it go. Silently says: I know this hurts, so I won’t push. Out loud: “You started it, motherfucker.” You yank on her bangs, and she swats you away. “Maybe I should call you a fatherfucker instead,” she cackles. 

“Oh my god, I actually hate you.” You try and swat her back, yank on her bangs again. 

“What’re you two schemin’ about?” Joel’s voice comes from behind you.

“Speak’a the devil,” she says under her breath, starting to gather up her empty plate.“Nothing–” She shoots up, and brushes past, “Gotta go. We’ll talk later,” not even sparing him a glance. You look between the two of them wishing there was anything you could do to help them bridge this cold distance between them. She turns before walking off, gives you the finger behind his back. 

“Ellie, hold on a sec,” you call after her, but she’s off.

“It’s fine,” Joel says. “Leave it.”

“I’m sorry,” shielding your eyes from the bright sun, you look up into his serious face.

He shakes his head. “Nothin’ for you to be sorry about. Ain’t got nothin’ to do with you.” And that stings. Off-handedly as it’s said, it stings that he thinks their rift doesn’t affect you, make you hurt for the two of them.

How could he ever think that after everything he’d told you about Sarah –  a night that’d made you feel closer to him than ever before, while you two lay in bed, still damp and trembling – that you’d not worry about his relationship now with Ellie? Who you knew he loved like a daughter, even if he was incapable of saying it out loud. How could he think it had nothing to do with you now? After what he’d told you about himself in the aftermath of Sarah. That moment, his confession, could sustain you for a lifetime of this push and pull if necessary. With trust like that, what else mattered? Very little, you thought. 

“You get everything done you needed to?” he threads his fingers through the hair at the nape of your neck, and bends to press a soft kiss to your temple. 

You sigh, basking in this small tenderness he offers you after his casual hurt. “Yeah, we finished.” Sometimes you wonder if there’s something wrong with you, taking all this in stride. Luxuriating in his offerings of tenderness and vulnerability one second, swallowing the way he casually brushes you off another. Surely there must be something wrong with you. Especially because, when it comes down to it, you don’t really care as much as you think you should . 

“How’d it go?” You’d had to debride some areas from Mr. Schwartz’s diabetic foot this morning – super fun for the both of you . The foot was famous in Jackson. A great source of shrieks and giggles when the old man decided to pull it out in front of the kids as his so-called ‘party trick’. We all gotta bring something fun to the table, honey, he’d tell you when you tried to put on your false tone of admonishment with him. 

“Long – I had to take more than I’d initially thought I’d need to.”

“He alright?”

“Resting now… Just means it’ll be harder for him later on – take longer to recover, as best he can, in any case. And ideally, what he really needs is a boot – which we have – one… but it’s not in great condition. I don’t even know if it’ll fit him – or a wheelchair, and both of them are being used right now. So, seems my only other option is to order him into bed until I can figure something else out. And of course Connie’s all, this is on you, honey. I trust your judgment, honey. ” You deepen your tone and scrunch your brow trying to inflect Connie’s baritone. “As if that’s helpful.” 

He grips your chin, forcing you to take a breath, brushes his thumb across your bottom lip, and your eyes flutter shut, pressing a tiny kiss to the pad of his thumb. He hums a little, and you catch the flare of heat in his eyes. “You’ll worry yourself half to death, little bird. Take a breath.” You huff a small laugh. He was right about that, worry was heavy on your mind recently. About lots of different things. 

“I fixed you a plate,” you divert. 

“You didn’t have to do that, sweetheart. Thank you.” He swings his long leg over the bench to sit astride it, legs open to pull you between his thighs.

“S’alright. I was getting Connie’s anyway.” He digs in, and you card your fingers through his thick hair – overly long now, it brushes the collar of his shirt in the back, you’ll need to cut it for him soon – and watch the thick column of his throat ripple as he swallows. You press your thighs together – the sun is so strong today. You think it might be making you a little delirious. 

“You’re not eating.” It isn’t a question, posed more like an admonishment, paired with the severe crook of his brow. 

“Nah, I’m alright. Can’t have anything just yet after staring at that foot all morning,” you joke.

“You telling me you’re not as entertained by it as the kids are?” 

You roll your eyes at him. “Shocking, I know.”

He turns to give you an assessing glance now, “You sure you’re alright?”

“Just tired.” You lay your head in the cool, dark crook of his neck, breathe him in. “Birdie …” voice laced with concern – he tries to gently tug you back by your ponytail, but you burrow in further – press your lips to the pulsing vein in his neck. “I’m fine, Joel. Just tired, really.” He huffs. Grouchy man. 

“Hi, honey,” Connie shuffles up to the table. “Joel–” he nods, “You two alright ? That go a long time with Mr. Shwartz?” he asks. 

You’re grateful for the distraction from Joel’s fifth degree. “It was fine. Our handy dandy Bovie is so good.” You’d done your best recently to fashion an electrocautery device, like the ones they’d used before in surgery. The two of you had gathered the different parts over time and much voracious scavenging, to put the system together. “You’ve gotta try it next. We should be real proud of that.”

“You should be proud. You’ve got a nice mechanical mind in you, as well. You know, Joel, the body is just a machine of flesh and blood.” Connie turns his blue eyes, gone slightly milky now, on Joel, ready to impart his slice of wisdom – part lecture, part proud tirade for your benefit, as the younger man continues to work through his plate of barbecue. “She looks at the two the same way; it’s very impressive.” 

Joel finishes chewing: “Our girl is nothin’ if not impressive,” he says, giving you an impish little smirk. You pinch the inside of his thigh over the thick denim, not imparting nearly enough punishment as you’d like to. 

“Shut up,” you grouch at him. “Anyways, the lines were pretty sharp, the cauterization clean. A bit slow, though. I felt a bit held back – but not too bad, considering.”

“Considering…” Connie muses. He starts to eat as well, and the sight of the slick, sauce covered meat is slightly revolting. The sun is way too hot with the change of season into fall just on the cusp, and after staring at poor Mr. Schwartz’s mangled foot all day…  “I’m thinking with a little more juice it’ll be perfect. We just have to find a way to feed it more power without frying the whole system.”

“Yes…  it’s delicate,” he says slowly.”You should ask Noah for advice.” Joel is silent beside you, but you feel the tensing of his thigh beneath your palm at the mention of Noah’s name. “He’s always been very keen to help us in any way we need.”

“Oh, has he?” Joel drawls, in that monotone he loves to use when cutting people down. He can’t fucking stand Noah; it’s quite funny to you, actually. You nudge his knee with your own, still cradled between his spread legs, and drag your nails slowly up and down his thigh, only responding with a non-committal hum. He shifts his jaw in that way he’s wont to do when he’s especially aggravated, cocks his eyebrow at you. You give him a tiny little mocking tilt of your head. You’re sure he can see the laughter at his expense in your eyes. 

“Yes,” Connie continues, completely oblivious to the silent conversation going on between the two of you, “He’s very adept at anything electrical or mechanical. Although, you are, as well, Joel. Perhaps you could advise us too. Any help would be greatly appreciated.”

“I wouldn’t say that, but I can take a look. Offer what I can.” 

You change the subject: “Teddy’s been in again this week.” One of the single mother’s in Jackson, Susanna’s son, Teddy, had been continuously ill the past few months. Coming down with different, seemingly unrelated afflictions on and off. His mother was beside herself with worry, and you and Connie were reaching your limits on what you could do to help him. Much less actually provide a clear answer as to a diagnosis. 

“Yes, I spoke to his mother last night. Some sort of ague again, undoubtedly.”

You roll your eyes at him affectionately. Connie loved to condemn undiagnosable patients with ‘the ague’. “Connie, the ague is absolutely not a valid form of diagnosis,” you laugh. That launches him into a tirade about the conundrum the boys posed to the both of you these past few weeks. And ague is a perfectly valid explanation, honey. Neither of you are certain what’s causing his bouts of illness. Though you’re reluctantly leaning towards something that won’t pose anything good for any of you; you’re trying to remain optimistic, but the uncertainty is taking a toll on the both of you, as well as his mother. 

As Connie goes on, there’s a hazy buzz rumbling around in your brain. Your temples throb, and you press the tender spot into the hard mass of Joel’s shoulder. He’s finished eating now, and you nuzzle into him, breathe in the warm scent of his skin and sweat, grip the hard swell of his bicep – the thick muscle has the most inappropriate arousal pooling low in your belly, but your stomach churns at the same time, and the sun is so damn bright. Too many opposing sensations going on within you all at once, you’re sure you’re on the verge of sun poisoning – dramatic – and it’s making you needy. Infecting you with ideas of crawling into his lap and having him cradle you. He stiffens beneath your attentions suddenly. The soothing large palm he’d been dragging up and down your spine goes still, pausing with his fingertips tucked just below the waistband of your jeans – as if he’s just now realizing how openly affectionate the two of you are being – his muscles go rigid at your display, and then that’s it. He’s pulling away. 

Your gut twists again, your head is really spinning now – you straighten in your seat, scoot back and out of the cradle of his thighs, as far as the bench allows you. Always fucking pulling away. He’s stiff and uncomfortable, but at your retreat he clicks his tongue at you, frowns a little, and you want to snap at his subtle admonishment – you started it, what are you frowning at me for?

Connie is still going on about Teddy. “You sure you’re alright, dear?” he interrupts himself. “You look a bit peaky.”

“I’m fine.” You stand abruptly, “I’ve got to head back, actually.” Joel turns to reach for you, but you step back and away from his fingers. The heat is definitely making you grouchy, sick; you’re not acting yourself. “I promised Mr. Schwartz I’d be back to check on him within the hour.” You don’t want to look at Joel anymore – you’re used to his sudden bouts of tension – discomfort – but something is setting you on edge today. 

“You should eat something before you go, honey,” Connie says – looking up at you with concern.

“I had something before I came. I’m okay.” You turn to look at Joel now, as the lie passes your lips, a provocation held in your eyes and tone.

He frowns, “You said –” 

“I’ll see you two later.”

“Birdie –” But you’ve turned from him before he can continue, walking away quickly. Your head is spinning, gut cramping and turning over on itself. The sun feels like it’s two feet away from you, bearing down on the crown of your head, and you know you’re about to be sick. Always fucking pulling away, always. It embarrasses you a little that you still chafe at it, the back of your eyes pinching and saliva pooling heavy on your tongue. You know the way he is. 

You make it back to the clinic just in time to vomit behind the bushes on the side of the house. 

Jesus. 

-

Susanna brings Teddy into the clinic late in the evening. You’ve just finished writing up your operative note for the ‘famous foot’ (Mr. Schwartz’s words, not yours) when she flies in, frantic, with the listless child in her arms. She tells you he’d been lethargic and without an appetite all day, but she’d chalked it up to fatigue and melancholy from being ill and bedridden so often, recently. His fever had crept up out of nowhere, and now Teddy was almost unconscious, burning hot and delirious – words slurring, eyes glassy. 

It’d been hours since then. Teddy was now resting quietly with cool compresses and ice bags tucked under his arms and against his neck which seemed to be helping. Susanna had retired to the back of the house to rest for a bit, and you now sat between Mr. Schwartz and the boy, quietly reading over a text both you and Connie had already gone over multiple times – hoping to find anything that’d inspire an explanation. Most concerningly of all, you’d noticed a smattering of purple-yellowish, sickly looking bruises along Teddy’s spine. It pushed you in the direction your mind had previously taken concerning what could potentially be the cause of all of this. And even though it was the first you’d seen of any bruising on him, it didn’t reassure you at all. 

-

“Joel’s here,” Nancy, the nurse that worked with you and Connie, says quietly from the doorway. You stand from your bedside vigil, sighing. It’s late, and you don’t want to do this now. A little embarrassed from your earlier fit. A lot tired from the long day and throwing up and the heat. 

“Can you come out and get me in two minutes, please? Interrupt us.” 

She gives you an assessing look. “Sure.”

You walk out to the office to find him leaning against your cluttered desk, bulging arms crossed against his chest, straining the sleeves of his button down. There’s a far off look in his eyes, scowl marring his brow, but when he looks up at you all the tightness in his countenance seems to melt away at the sight of you. “You alright?” His gaze is assessing – sweeping up and down your frame, taking everything in like always. The man sees entirely too much. 

“I’m fine. I need to stay here tonight, though.” You jerk your thumb back towards the exam room. “They need me.”

“You said you were tired.”

“It passed – just the sun.” He looks at you like he doesn’t really believe you. 

“About earlier—”

“It’s fine, Joel.” You feel too tired, too strung out, to give him an out by pretending to ignore that he’d hurt you, pissed you off. Let it be what it was – you had a sick child to care for – couldn’t think about all the distance that would seemingly exist forever between the two of you, not right now, at least. 

“You lied about eating.”

Oh, now he wanted to be fucking honest. You roll your eyes at him, watch his jaw clench. “What?” Tone bratty and antagonistic, “No I didn’t – you misunderstood.”

“You told me you didn’t want to eat, and then you told Connie, not fifteen minutes later, that you’d already eaten.” 

“Well then I misspoke – that’s not what I meant.” You turn away from him towards the desk, busy your hands with the papers littered across its surface to avoid his eyes. You feel like fighting – like baring your teeth at him, and you hate it. You don’t want to fight with him, ever. You want, need, things to be okay between the two of you. “Why are we arguing about this? I have to get back.” The bite in your voice startles you for a second, and your hands pause their shuffling. Turning back to face him, wide eyed and shocked at the way you practically spit the words at him, but, fuck it, you decide to just go with it. 

He doesn’t let you, though – doesn’t take your bait. You watch the muscle in his jaw feather rapidly as he grinds his teeth, fists curled into knots at his sides like he’s trying to restrain himself from throttling you – and you think you’d kind of like him to do it. You’ve gotta be PMSing or something because where is all this sudden desire for violence coming from? You definitely need to sleep soon. 

He exhales a slow breath through his nose.  “Not try’na argue, baby… just figure out what’s wrong.” Your heart twists painfully, the back of your eyes pinching and hot, and you will not cry right now. His words make you even more angry because if he cares so much about such seemingly small things like this, why can’t he just let everything else fall into place between you as well?

Nancy pops her head through the open door, calling your name, “Need you when you’ve got a second.”

“Be right there, Nance.” You throw her a grateful look. 

Turning back to Joel you rub your forehead, trying to press the ache that’s taking root in your brain out with your fingertips. “Nothing… nothing’s wrong. I’m just…” you sigh, suddenly very sad, very tired. You take in his weathered face, his brow pulled down into a scowl anyone who knew him less would take for anger, but you see it for what it is: concern, discomfort, frustration at the tension that’s held constant between the two of you all day. The both of you pulling away and then yanking each other back. You can see he wants to move past this, avoid whatever fight is brewing – too much for him to handle. You know he hates it when you’re angry and annoyed with him, and doesn’t that have to mean something? Please, please it must mean something more. But you’re too tired for this now, your body overwrought from its brief bout of sickness earlier, from your long day. You’d like to go to bed with him and not wake up for a year. Lay on his chest and feel the movement of his breathing rock you to sleep, count the spaces between his ribs, make a home for yourself within them. A great jealousy for his heart, the organ itself, writhes in you, that it gets to live inside him. You’re feeling melancholy and exhausted and overly emotional . Sad that even when he’s the source of your turmoil, your hurt, he’s still the only one you want to go to for comfort. You clear your throat, “I’m fine, Joel. Really.” You try and give him a small smile. “I was in a mood earlier, but I’m okay now.”

“I need us to be okay, Birdie. I– I know…” he looks away, hisses through his teeth in frustration. “I know I don’t always act like it, but–”

You hold up a hand to stop him. You don’t want to, can’t, listen to him try and make excuses. Explain to you things you’ve always understood about what this thing is between the two of you. “We don’t need to do this. I promise everything’s fine. I need to get back.” You step forward to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw, to appease the both of you, but also if only because you can’t help but touch him when he’s near, hands snaking up his belly and chest to fist in the collar of his shirt. He hums low in his throat and grips the back of your neck, other hand low on your back to press you to him, and everything inside you goes liquid hot and wanting, just at the feel of him, the scent of him.

“Try and rest.” He breathes you in at the crown of your head, and you nod against his chest.

“I will. Don’t worry.” But you know he’ll do that anyways, and that alone is a comfort.

-

Connie meanders in about midnight, nocturnal creature that he is, to check on you all. You’d pulled the armchair from the office into the corner of the infirmary while you read in the corner. An all night vigil wasn’t exactly necessary – Teddy’s fever had broken about an hour ago, his vitals were stable, and Mr. Schwartz had been snoring the night away for hours. Nancy lived on the second floor of the house, and was always near and available if necessary, but you were peaceful here. Tucked away in your corner with your book and a throw draped over your folded knees. The anxiety you’d carried heavy in your belly all day had dissipated. Thoughts of Joel settled now, compared to the frenzied hysterical swarm they’d been all day. Sometimes this need for him scared you. That your mood, your physical self, could so easily be altered by him, by his own mood, his words, his touch. The tether he held you by was so strong, it felt unbreakable, permanent. It scared you to think what would become of you if one day he decided to break it.

Connie passes a hand over the boy’s forehead, murmuring to himself as he examines him, pops his stethoscope in to take a listen. His movements are slow and practiced, methodical. You’d always loved watching him work. You’ve passed so far into the realms of exhaustion, you’re a little delirious now, your mind and vision hazy, and you rest your head against the wingback and watch. “He’s settled now. Vitals are steady.” You hum in agreement.

He turns to look at you then, his gaze contemplative as he takes a seat on the bench along the end of the bed directly in front of you. His tired groan makes you smile a little, old man. The fondness for him squeezes your heart. He has something to say, you can tell. “I know your father was an exacting man,” he starts. You nod, still quiet. You know that now is a time for listening. “I think of him often. I know I never met him, but he wanders into my mind quite frequently. I think of the things you’ve told me about him, about your mother and sister–” When you’d first become close, it’d been hard for you to speak of your family, of Beth and her death, but eventually you’d forced yourself to. For no other reason than that the thought of you being the only person left in the world that remembered their names, that knew their stories, wrought a grief in you so profound, it was impossible to keep it all inside. You were scared if you didn’t share, if you carried all that alone, you’d lose yourself in their memories forever. “I think that after all that, after living their deaths in such a gruesome way, it could have been very easy for you to lose yourself in all that. Do you agree?” Another small tilt of your chin. The precision with which he’d always read you, understood you, was the greatest comfort in the world. That sometimes it wasn’t even necessary to tell him out loud what it was you were feeling or needed for him to pick up on it. 

“But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” you finally say.

“No…” his eyes take on the thoughtful look he gets, the one that makes you wish you could read his mind sometimes, read the wonderings of that brilliant mind like one of your textbooks. “Instead, you became a splendid and thoughtful physician. A seemingly impossible thing, no? Now, with the state of the world for you to have pieced together a vocation such as this…” his milky blue eyes glint with humor, pride, “Well, it’s all very impressive, my dear.”

“Thank you,” you acknowledge. 

“And even more impressive, considering the fact, that had you been given a choice in the matter, you would never have chosen this for yourself… had the world been different, normal.” And there it is again, that keen sense of knowing.

“Yes.” There is nothing more to say. It is, after all, your most painful, most honest, most shameful truth. Painful, not in the sense that you carried any regret now, when you cared for your patients, when you put the knowledge your father and Connie had given you into practice. But painful in the sense that it chafed at your skin, that desire for other . That small seed that had the great potential of growth within you, to spread like ivy around a house, and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, until all you were left with were thoughts of what could have been. 

“But like I said… your father was an exacting man, and this is what he chose for you. And then, perhaps, even I played a part in that same theft of choice from you.” You try to interrupt him then, to vehemently deny it, but he continues unheeded. “You got here and you seemed to be a sort of benediction to me. A vessel for all the knowledge I could impart on you. A shepherd I could leave this flock to.” He slips his glasses off the bridge of his nose and wipes them slowly with the hem of his sweater. “I know you’ll take good care of them when I’m no longer here. That they could not have ended up in better, more caring hands.” You hate when he talks about his dying, fills you with a premonitory dread you don’t know how you’ll cope with when it becomes actuality. “But alas, you did what was set upon you, took it all in stride.” He pauses, as if contemplating what he’s about to say next, and you know the point of all this has arrived. You even know where it is he’s going with this. 

“I say all this, my dear, not to dredge up old painful memories, or reminders of what could have been… But because I would not like to see your choices taken from you once again.” And there it is. He levels his gaze at you, quiet for several moments, and it’s like he is here in the room with you now, his presence, his unsaid name heavy and poignant.

“Joel’s a good man, honey, but he’s a hurt man. Hurt in a way I don’t think even you could cure.” 

Your instinct to defend him is immediate. “He’s not— he’s not a hurt man.” You shake your head, brow furrowed, “He’s been hurt before, but it doesn’t define him, Connie. It’s not the sole contributor to who he is.” And that’s true, you know it is. Believe it to your very core. You, who knows Joel better than few others, you know the pains of his past don’t define him.  Perhaps before, they did. A pain so acute it molded him into a creature focused only on survival, or perhaps, he let it get the better of him at times. But he is so much more than all that. Has the strength and the will to set it aside when he so chooses to. Ellie being the perfect example of that. 

Choices, choices, those were the things that defined a person.

“Isn’t it? You can’t live off the potential you see in someone forever.”

“I hate it when you say that.” You sit up, let your feet drop to the floor, and lean forward to stress your point. “What are we all, if not vessels of untapped potential? We’re all just walking around with the possibility of something more inside of us. Of course, of course I value the potential I see in him! I know he has the possibility of so, so much inside of him – that’s what makes me… That’s why I –” You cut yourself off before you can make that confession, a choked sound leaving your throat. You look out the nearby window at the dark street, press your thumb hard into the center of your forehead, will the tension and frustration out of the skin and bone. 

“I know… I know,” he says gently, offering you his hands, palms up – a sign of concession. “But it’s not enough to hang all your hopes and dreams on just that. I want more for you than just that . I want you to have choices. To be able to have what you truly want, what you truly need. I would not like to know that something unfulfilling has been forced upon you once again by the circumstances of this world.” And he says it so sadly, with a look of such tenderness in his eyes, it makes embarrassment burn hot and red in your cheeks. The back of your eyes pinch. What must they all think of me when they see us together? The part that perhaps does, or should, make you the most embarrassed, is that you don’t really care at all. Not in any substantial way that would make a real difference, make you act differently. “I’m not unfulfilled, Connie. I love what we do here,” you say softly.

“I know that, I know. But still…I just–”

You rest your aching head in your cupped palms, bent elbows propped on your knees. You’re so fucking tired. “Connie, please, I know…” you whisper. “Just, please, no more tonight… I’m exhausted. You can tell me all this another time – tomorrow. Just no more tonight.”

“Alright, alright, dear. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to give you grief.” He stands, comes towards you to rest a gentle palm on your shoulder.

“I know… and you’re not… It’s me.”

“I only want good things for you, darling girl.” You press your hand over his on your shoulder, give a short nod. 

“Go home – you need rest. Nancy will stay with them.”

“I can sit for a few more hours. Teddy likes to know I’m here.”

“No, no,” his voice takes on that stern fatherly tone he likes to whip you into shape with sometimes. “Enough for tonight. They’ll both be fine. You’ll see them tomorrow.”

You scrunch your nose at him, “Bossy.” But you stand to go, draping the blanket over the back of the chair. He pulls you in for a hug then, envelops you in the comfort and steadiness he’s always offered you, from the very start. He always smells faintly of peppermint and mothballs and old paper. “It’ll all work itself out, my dear. You’ll find a way. You always do. I’m not worried about that.”

-

Joel watches you leave the clinic from his spot in the shadows across the road. He’s been posted here, obstinate and pissed off with himself, for hours. Especially because he’s certain this must be a new low for him, sulking in the dark, watching for you like a creep. But he just wanted to be close to you. He knows you lied to put him off earlier. Your conversation had left him unsatisfied, restless. He knows you’re pulling away because he’s pulling away. Because he’s putting you off, and he tells himself he’ll give you space, tells himself that’s what’s best, but knows it’s a lie as he thinks it. 

The thing is, despite his obstinance, Joel was not a man who lacked self awareness. He was, in fact, very good at recognizing a thing within himself, and yet still able to make a conscious decision to feign ignorance towards it to the outside world. This set up worked well for him – sometimes … on occasion… But this was different, and he knew it. Feigning ignorance would not work between the two of you for much longer. You were getting tired and sad and frustrated with him and he could see it and hated himself for being the cause of it. And if he was being honest with himself, which in this moment, he was trying to be, he was getting tired of it too, tired of himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in this position with a woman. On the verge of … something. Something he couldn’t confess, even to himself, yet. But to allow himself that, to allow himself the simple act of even admitting what he knew was the truth of his feelings for you – there was a part of him, a very broken part that had not been used in a long, long time, that couldn’t even imagine it. To allow himself that sort of vulnerability. To allow himself the truth of there existing another person in this world, in what this world had become, a partner – a woman he cared for, needed . It was too vulnerable, too precious a thing to allow himself. Perhaps before, perhaps in a world not overrun by death and disease and violence – by loss. 

But what did that even look like anymore? A world bereft of monstrousness? Wiped clean of the beasts that had overtaken it, human or infected. Could Joel even remember such a thing – even imagine it, if only in his dreams? He couldn’t even discern which of the two was worse anymore. Part of him knew it didn’t really matter. Not in the end. It was all conjecture when it came down to losing your life – losing the person you loved. Whether it was fungus or a bullet – dead was dead.

Sometimes he didn't even feel like a person anymore. Just this thing that existed at the periphery of the world. In the moments when he pushed you away, when he turned from the loving look in your face, forced himself to brush off your words and your affection, to hold you at arms length – to protect the vulnerable, scarred mass of his heart – those were the moments in which he was most like a creature, least like a man. 

He thought of a world where he felt safe enough to go to the woman he loved, his Birdie, hold you in his arms and say: here is everything I have for you, I’m begging you, please take it . 

Such a world didn’t exist in Joel’s mind. Couldn’t fit. He’d been stripped of the ability. To have something so vulnerable and new. A type of fragile he’d not held since his twelve year old daughter lay bleeding and broken in his arms, and have the ability to say I am strong enough to endure the possible loss of this. I need you this badly. So badly I am willing to risk even my own heart. 

It looked like trying to swallow the sea. 

He follows you home in the darkness. 

-

“You get that fixed alright?” Joel’s voice barks from the mouth of the garage. You startle, your knee slamming into the underside of the workbench. Deciding to follow through on Connie’s suggestion from yesterday, you’d come to see Noah, knocking on his door bright and early this morning, Bovie clutched in your hands. He’d been more than happy to give it a look for you. The two of you had been sitting here for about an hour now, and in that time you’d seen Joel’s form stalk by at least three times, from out of the corner of your eye. Absurd man that he was, you knew he’d been psyching himself up to barge in here and interrupt the two of you. Seemed he’d brought his attitude with him.

“Jesus, man–” Noah’s hand grips your smarting knee, rubbing it gently, “We didn’t hear you come up.” Joel’s left eye twitches at the we, his gaze zeroed in on the hand on your knee, his teeth bared in the perpetuation of a ridiculous growl as he takes a threatening step forward. You lift your brows at him – all your fire and fight from yesterday put to rest now after some much needed sleep. He cocks his brow back at you, shifts his jaw side to side in annoyance.

“Absorbed in your work?” he drawls sardonically.

“We’ve made some good progress actually! Come see,” Noah says, completely missing Joel’s mocking tone, the poor thing. He gives your knee another gentle pat, and you think you might just see steam come out of Joel’s ears. He steps up behind you, chest pressed close to your back and passes a hand over your hair, presses a kiss to the crown of your head. This fucking guy. Now he feels like getting handsy. You scrunch your nose at him, turning back to face Noah and the Bovie, your shoulder pressing into Joel’s belly. Noah takes in your positions, the possessive hand now curled around your neck – looks back down at the knee he’d just grabbed and then back to Joel’s broad intimidating form and scowling face. You see a slow swallow move through his throat. As he starts to explain the changes the two of you had made to the electrocautery generator, you consider the differences between the two of them. The contrast is stark. Noah isn’t small by any means, average height, a nice build – but there’s something about Joel. Some sort of warning in the air around him, in the space he takes up in a room, that makes him larger than life – something that says don’t fuck with me or mine. Heat pools low in your belly and you press your thighs together tightly. Fucked up, you’re fucked up – you try to brush his hand off your neck – suddenly feeling overwhelmed, your skin overly sensitized. “Quit –” he says low in your ear and you almost whimper. He’s jealous, and it’s turning you on. There’s definitely something wrong with you. 

You try to shake him off again,“ Let go.”

“No.” His voice is steel. Noah is heedlessly going on about the Bovie, about how it only took a slight rewiring from the generator into the hand-piece without overwhelming the system; giving it the little bump of power it was missing. Joel’s thumb brushes a slow, warning path up and down your neck. Down, down, to the top notch of your vertebrae, slowly kneading the fine muscles surrounding the prominence of your bone and then up and pushing into the base of your skull. His hands are warm and dry – the rough calluses abrading your sensitive skin. You feel the flush in your cheeks traveling down over your chest, the tips of your breasts tightening to painful points. You see Joel’s eyes flicker down, taking you in, and he gives a contemplative hum low in his throat.

“I’m so glad you let me help,” Noah says with a warm smile. He’s sweet and so genuine and as you take him in, how completely unaware he is of the silent struggle going on between you and Joel right in front of him, you’re struck by how easy loving a man like that would be. And how unfulfilling for a woman like you. What is it about some people, that they can’t appreciate a good thing unless it hurts a little?

“Connie and I are real grateful that you could help. You let us know if there’s anything we can do for you.” Joel gives him a short nod as you leave.

And then, soft and threatening into the shell of your ear as the two of you walk away from the nice, sweet, uncomplicated boy: we’re goin’ home, and I’m gonna lick that cunt until you’re cryin’, little bird. 

Your steps speed up, trying to outrun the clutch of his hands on your skin, trying to escape – even if just a little. 

You never stood a chance of that. 

-

He follows, menacingly on your heels, as you dart into your house. A rabbit trying to outrun the big bad wolf. You make for the stairs and you feel the tips of his fingers ghost lightly in the ends of your long hair, one foot on the first step, but then his finger is catching in your belt loop, yanking you hard into his chest. Your back thumps against him with a small oof and then his hands are skating along your curves, big palms squeezing your breasts, pinching your nipples through the cotton of your t-shirt.. 

“Bad Birdie, try’na run from me.” He nuzzles, gentle, gentle into the nape of your neck, the line of your hair, presses his mouth to the top notch of your spine. You feel his hot, wet tongue slide over the jut of your vertebrae, small peppered kisses to your nape and your entire body flushes hot – arousal pulling low and tight in your belly. Your clit throbs in time with his panting breath in your ear. His soft mouth is totally at odds with the tension he’s holding himself with right now, the harsh way he presses his fingers into the skin of your hips. 

You can feel the thick length of him pressing into your ass; he’s hard as stone and throbbing – turned on by the chase. You moan, deep and wanton, slick pooling in your panties, ready for him now , just at the feel of his hands on you. “You want it, baby?”

“Y– yes,” you stutter, pressing yourself harder into him. 

“Want me to fuck that needy little cunt?”

His voice is so deep you feel it vibrate through his chest and into your back, down, down your body all the way to the tips of your toes. “Please, Joel,” you whimper. You try to turn in his arms, but he clicks his tongue at you, wrapping his arms more tightly around your waist, half dragging, half carrying you up the stairs to your bedroom.

“I always give my Birdie what she needs, don’t I?”

-

“Settle now. Stay still so I can eat you how I like.” He hitches his hands higher up the backs of your thighs, beneath your knees – spreads you further apart, up and back to press into your breasts, making more space for the broad valley of his naked shoulders. He’d gotten you naked and into bed, quick as a viper. His desperation, evident in the wild look in his eyes. He was unsettled, either by the tension between the two of you yesterday or you around another man, but he was trying to prove some unspoken point to the two of you in the ferocity of his grip on your skin.

He settles his face deep into your sex now and eats. “Who’s all this wet for, huh? Were you thinkin’ about me while that boy tried to get in your good graces?”

“It’s too much. Please, please, please,” you sob. Tears making a slow, steady journey back into your hairline, dripping into your ears. You yank hard on his hair, try to direct his movements. You can’t tell if you’re trying to push him away or pull him closer. 

“Want me to stop?” He laps at your clit.

“I– I dont– I don’t know–” It felt like he’d been at this for hours. “I–”

“It’s okay.” Soft, whispered kisses to the puffy lips of your sex, your slippery inner thighs. You’re so wet, and you’d have burns from his beard and bruises from his teeth tomorrow. “I know, I know you’re just a little bird,” his teeth sharp and mean to the softest part of you, then the broad flat of his tongue to soothe – a sharp, quick suck to your swollen clit. His volley between rough and tender on your vulnerable sex setting you further on edge than anything else he was doing. “But you can take it for me.You can be so, so good for me. My good girl.”

Your cunt pulls tight – throbs like a wound. Hurts in a way you’re desperate for. You love him, you love him, you love him. Goddamn the things he does to you, makes you feel. You need him so much and he gives it all to you exactly in the way that’s the most perfect, just for you. You feel fucking delirious, on the brink of insanity. 

He pushes two thick fingers into you, cunt spasming and clinging. He scissors the digits inside of you, stretches your hole. The squelch is lewd and obscene and messy. You can feel your cheeks burning red and hot, and you throw an arm over your eyes as you feel your slick leak down between your ass to pool on the sheets beneath you – hiding yourself from your own obscenity. 

“Pussy s’fuckin’ good, baby. Tastes like candy.” He pulls out his fingers, slaps your cunt, twice, quick and sharp. The sound you let out shames you, high pitched and whining. “Fuckin’ red ‘nd gaping for me. God, Birdie –” he moans so deep it makes your heart race, brings his mouth back to you – licks a broad stripe from hole to clit with the flat of his tongue. His mouth latches to the aching swollen bud and sucks. “You need me so much dont you? Fuckin’ come in my mouth – wanna taste it.” And he’s right, he’s right, you do, you need him so much. In that instant, you feel so grateful that he knows it.  

Your back arches, everything liquid within you pooling low in your pelvis, pulling tight, and it feels like the world is about to end around you; a catastrophe even greater than anything the cordyceps could have ever wrought. This is what he brings out of you with his mouth and his fingers and his words, and you gush onto his face. He almost fucking whines at the splash of your orgasm on his tongue – slurping down everything you have to give him, you feel your wetness cover his face and beard. This is what you give to each other. 

He gentles his fingers and tongue. Letting your orgasm coast along into echoes and throbs. You try to push him away with your foot on the thick mass of his shoulder, on the brink of overstimulation, but quick as a viper, he circles his entire large palm around the fine bones of your ankle and squeezes. Quit – presses a tiny kiss to the protrusion of your bone there.

“ Mine,” he growls. “Mine, no one touches you but me–” His hands open you wider for him, fileting you for his eyes only. You feel hot and flush, your skin tight, to the point of bursting, like an overripe plum in the sun. Skin fragile and thin, insides viscous, ready to spill your flesh for him, blood burning hot as it churns in your veins. “Not fuckin’ done yet, Birdie. Not done with this perfect pussy.” Tears make a slow path down your temples, your fingers tangled in his hair, wanting to hurt– just a little. Like the delicious hurt of holding him within yourself. The way it feels like an old aching bruise inside of you when he stuffs you full of his cock. And then he’s up, up, up – quick as a whip – his fingers shoving into the tangle of your hair at the nape of your neck, captured in a tight fist like prey in a snare, and he’s shoving your own taste deep into you with his tongue. The kiss, open and savage – he’s fucking your mouth like he was just fucking your pussy. Your heart pushes against the bones of your chest, and you desperately clutch at his shoulders for some sort of countenance. He unmoors you . You have been unmoored by this man. And you want – need – more. 

He kneels between your open legs, thick thighs anchoring you wider and fists his cock, the head gleaming and painfully red. He pulls your thighs over his own thicker ones, and presses the fat tip hard to your sensitive clit, making you jolt and whimper pathetically. “Cock drunk, that’s what you are.” All you can do is nod dumbly, eyes glassy and wet. His voice is so deep. He drags the head down to your entrance, presses just a little, only the fat tip held inside you. He fucks you short and shallow like that, his hips moving in tiny, slow jerks. 

“Please,” you sigh, your eyes fluttering shut at the subtle pressure, at the promise of what’s about to come, “Please, Joel.”

“Please what? Please what?” he mocks, just a little mean, and then he’s surging inside in one brutal thrust. Fucking into you without warning and he’s huge — almost too much to take, even after your orgasms. “Fucking tight,” he grits out. He hoists you up, arms wrapped around your waist and starts fucking up and into you, hard. Not giving you a moment to adjust. Letting go of the restraint he’d held while he ate you out. Cock battering into something deep and sensitive inside you, all you can do is take it. Let him have you as he pleases. 

-

He can feel your slick pooling at the base of his cock and sliding down his balls. He wraps his hand around the fine bones of your jaw, “Who’s pussy is this?” he growls over the wet slap, “Wanna hear it out loud.”

Yours, yours, yours. 

Your face is flushed and sweaty, cheeks red as an apple, eyes glazed, dark, wet lashes clumped together. The fucked out look in your eyes doing more for him than anything else. This is what he does to you, only him . He picks up the pace of his hips, fucks you harder, harder and your tits bounce against his chest. He slaps one of them gently, appreciating the soft jiggle it gives, the small gasp you let out. His other hand snakes low on your tummy and presses down into your pelvis so he can feel the battering of his cock inside of your cunt and shit he’s gonna come soon. Gonna come with his hand feeling himself fuck you from the outside. “Too much, too much, Joel ,” you whine. “Oh god, I– I’m gonna–” You’re soaked, sweat and slick sliding between your two bodies, and clutching him hot and tight as a fist. He can’t get deep enough, can’t give it to you hard enough. He never wants to stop, will never be able to stop. 

“You’re taking my cock so good, so fucking good. Jesus fuck, I can’t, I can’t–” He slates his mouth over your open panting one, licks into the sweet, red gleam of you. Your arms wrap around his neck, and he drags his teeth along your full bottom lip, lets it go with a little wet pop. You moan, head falling back on your neck, beyond words. He bends his head, hand wrapped around the fullness of your tit to bring it to his mouth, bites gently down on the tight, aching bud, laves his tongue around it and sucks it into his mouth. Then he’s pushing you back, letting you fall and bounce onto the mattress, legs splayed. When he pulls out abruptly you whimper – he can’t let himself come yet, not yet, just a little more – and he leaves a hot trail of open mouth kisses down your neck, over your shoulder, sucking the peak of your breast into his mouth again, over the swell of your belly, until he’s between your thighs again and bends his head to devour your slick. His tongue licking deep inside where his cock just was. He’s frantic. There’s no reason to the sense of urgency he feels, the urgency he’s taking you with right now. It’s something subconscious – something primal telling him to mark you, lay his claim. 

He can’t stop taking and taking, always taking.

He pulls up again from between your legs, the abruptness of his movements confusing you, leaving you to deliriously allow him to do with you what he will. “Taste us,” he says as he licks into your mouth, fucking his aching cock back into your spent cunt, so fucking tight always. “One more, baby. Gimme one more, lemme feel you milk me.” And like his own personal little marionette on a string, you do. Pussy fluttering and then pulling tight, a little furl of a knot, squeezing his own orgasm out of him. He feels his balls pull up tight and he’s painting you inside, teeth latched tightly to the delicate muscle that connects your neck and shoulder. The sound from your throat is high and keening, supplicant. He licks the hurt he’s just left. Grinds his spitting cock deep, right into the mouth of your womb. 

Mine, mine, fucking mine. It is a mantra of reassurance for the both of you. 

-

He cradles you in his embrace afterwards, his body wrapped around you as if he were a vine grown from your very heart. He sighs, the sound deep from his chest, and you want to tell yourself you can hear a yearning desperate enough to match your own in the cadence of it. His head drops to your shoulder, nuzzles the vulnerable space beneath your jaw, now riddled with his bites and bruises. You know you’ll enjoy inspecting them in the mirror tomorrow, feeling the warm pull of your belly at the reminder. And the moment is so achingly tender, even more intimate in a way, than your sex. The feel of him surrounding you, soft and quiet. Your eyes feel hot, pinching threateningly. 

“I have to go,” he murmurs, spent cock still buried inside of you. He presses kisses to your hair, your lips, over your closed eyelids. He can’t stop, God, he’s tried – is trying – but he can’t go, can’t part from you. Fighting is so fucking hard when you’ve got no will behind it. When what you’re trying to fight against is the thing you’ve wanted more than anything else in your whole life, and the only thing standing in your way is yourself, your own inadequacy. Perhaps he could endure the agony, the filth of life, the loss, the loss, the loss, with you held in his arms like this. 

His patrol shift started almost an hour ago. The guys were going to ream the hell out of him, he’d been here with you for hours, and still, still he couldn’t stop, couldn’t pull himself away. His lack of will, lack of restraint, of self control – his body and heart’s inability to do what his mind told him to, makes him so angry. At himself, and maybe – not at you, never you – but perhaps, at what you represented. All he wanted but couldn’t let himself have in full. He needed to go. He had responsibilities. He had truths to confess to himself. 

He was in love with you. He was. He was.

Joel was an obstinate man, but he did not lack self awareness. Now was the moment for this truth, if only confessed to himself. So, angry, and in love with you, and tremendously sorry, he turns away. Pulls out of your tight wet clutch with a wince, your breathy gasp making his cock twitch slightly, even so soon after he’s just come. You roll over, burrow into the pillows, and he grips the swell of your ass, pulls you apart to feast on the sight of his come leaking out of you. Obscene. Wet and messy and swollen, marked by his spend. He wants to bend for a taste but knows if he does, he won’t stop, will be likely to start all over again. “I gotta go, Birdie. M’already late.” He bends to nip a gentle bite to your ass cheek, one small last taste, then the press of a kiss. He hopes you can feel all he cannot say with that touch. The soft sound of acquiescence you hum as you burrow further into the sheets has his teeth clenching as he reaches for his clothes, heart turning over in his chest. He’s sure every sound out of you has a direct connection to his cock at this point. 

He won’t shower, won’t wash your drying come from his body. He’ll take you with him, wear you on his skin. Anyways, what did it matter, really, when he already wore you on his heart, his soul? What was one more conquering of his self? Perhaps this was, ultimately, what swallowing the sea looked like.

Chapter III

Netherfeildren Masterlist

[thesmpisonfire]

Alright guys. It's me again with a new theory <3

Okay, so.

Today's main Big Thing was Richas' apparently possession and diaries and his art. At surface level, it seems like just a small little arc to give a nudge towards Cellbit's RPG, more specifically the spin-off O Segredo Na Ilha (The Secret Within the Island). But, this wasn't the only thing that happened today...

Leonarda had a nightmare today, one that caused her to stay up the entire night and even write a whole book to tell Foolish about it

And i think both events are connected

Follow me on this, oki?

First, lemme show y'all Leo's notes + signs again

Breaking down the nightmare, Leo talks about how she was trapped in a weird room, not being able to escape and feeling very afraid, while he was still trapped in the room, she heard weird sounds starting, and he couldn't see anything.

Leo finishes the topic saying that, sometimes, she knows things without knowing.

Now, to Richas' diary. If you want to read the entire translation, here's the link to a post, I'll be focusing on 2 pages out of the 7

At first, it all seems like a big salute to the spin off, a direct reference with an enigma to keep the Brazilians (more specifically Cellbit and Forever) hooked. But...

These pages. Richa talks about a metallic sound that reverberated like a bell, and how it made him feel deeply tormented and scared, doubting his own existence. He says he claimed to the skies as a prayer, he asks for an exit

So. Okay. What I'm trying to say?

Leo and Richas are talking about the same thing.

Both of them talk about how they saw themselves trapped somewhere, tormented by a sound and feeling deeply afraid. There was no way out no matter what they did

Both refer to how they know things at the same time as they don't. Something tipped for Leo that she wants to be immortal and a robot in order to protect his family, Richarlyson suddenly went into a whole Jekyll and Hyde arc

Richa's way of explaining was through enigmas and nods towards Cellbit's rpg because Cellbit has been integrating his RPG's mythos within the server (the ritual room, explaining it all to richa, his whole castle theme). Leo is approaching as if she's the haunted kid from a horror movie

The past of these eggs is suddenly coming back into their minds, and, as far as we can theorize, the possibility that these eggs used to be human before is getting stronger by the day

[jades-typurriter]

Cherry Pops Under The Hood

This piece was my half of an art trade with @ricecreamart back in November 2023, starring her cast of OCs. She also did all the illustrations for this after the fact—if you're as much of a fan of plushie and mechanical stuff as I am (which, if you're one of my followers, there's a good chance), you should have a look at her work!!

The apartment was filled with all its usual signs of activity. The air inside was chilly—this deep into fall, the leaves had long since fallen and winter was beginning to butt in early. Ada hadn’t actually had to run her cooling fans in a long while, since it was cold enough even inside that her processors could be passively cooled, but she set them on low anyway. Her employers, Cherry and Nutmeg, appreciated any little bit of heat they could get, even the paltry amount that her system kicked out when she was just going about her business.

The two of them were seated at the kitchen table, snouts basking in the rising steam above their drinks. Ada relished in the mingling scents of Nutmeg’s tea and Cherry’s hot chocolate, and listened as the two of them bickered and bantered. Also as usual, Cherry was on the back foot in their flirty little playfight. Ada glanced over and saw all the tells that she was gonna be the first to get flustered: her eyes narrowed to help keep her face steady, her stubborn smile as though she was taking all of Nutmeg’s pokes and innuendos in good humor.

She smiled to herself and continued through the room, carrying a fresh load of laundry (and trying her best not to bury her face in the warm, soft fabric, another favorite new sensation of hers). She walked carefully—some component in her leg had failed recently, and the bundle of clothes was obscuring the ground in front of her feet. Though she tried to keep her gait straight, she could hear her own footsteps falling unevenly, heavy under her metal frame in spite of her padded exterior: thump-pmfsshh, thump-pmfsshh, thump-pmfsshh. One of Cherry’s ears flicked toward her and, grateful for the opportunity to retreat from Nutmeg’s teasing, she piped up.

“Hey, are you good, Ada? It sounds like one of your legs is dragging.”

“Yeah, uh…” she mumbled, her brows furrowing. “That’s a bit worse than I thought it was, actually… Here, lemme just set this down.” She dumped the clothes onto a nearby chair and, once again watching her step, ambled over to the table.

“‘ve you been having this problem long?” Cherry asked, resting her arm over the back of her chair to better face the housekeeper.

“You didn’t have to come in if you weren’t feeling well, you know,” Nutmeg added, setting her drink aside.

“Oh, I know, I just,” Ada hemmed, “I already have an appointment with the engineers that built this body for me, and y’know, they’re pretty busy… I figured, as long as I could watch where I was going, it wouldn’t be that much of a problem in the meantime.”

“Do you mind if I ask what’s wrong?” Cherry tilted her head. Ada had seen the expression before, on the number of occasions where she’d watched her fixing things up for other people—there was concern layered over it, but her interest was piqued.

“I think it’s a severed cable, the one that leads from my central nervous system to my knee. Or, maybe disconnected. I hope it’s not severed, uh. It could always be replaced, but it’d be much more of a hassle to have the whole cord unfastened and removed, and, y’know, it’s better to just not get damaged in the first place. Uh—”

“Do you want me to take a look at that for you?”

“Um.” Ada hesitated. Her fans, subtly, spun up. She hadn’t been examined by anybody besides the doctors and mechanics that had put her in her new body. For how many times they checked and double-checked her, from tip to tail and from paw to prow, that she’d be used to having someone poking around in her body, but… The last check-up had been months and months ago, before they were confident they could let her live on her own after the transition.

Plus, they were doctors, and it would feel… it would feel very different to have her friend get so close to her. Other than a doctor, it would actually be the first time anyone had gotten so close. But she had spent a good deal of time with Cherry since moving here, and she’d seen firsthand how good she was with her tools… Her fans spun yet faster; it occurred to her that they were becoming audible. Nutmeg’s eyes flicked between the two of them, which Cherry didn’t notice, but made Ada realize how long she’d been trying to think of what to say.

“Sure?” Okay, maybe she should have spent longer thinking about it. Nutmeg’s eyebrow jumped a full inch. “BUT, uh, c-ould we maybe? Do that in private? It feels a little… I don’t know, embarrassing. To have to strip and everything.”

“Oh, well, yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t ask you to get naked in the middle of the living room! C’mon, we can just do it in the den, you already know where my setup is.” She hopped out of her chair and, casually as anything, sauntered over to the den to wait for Ada to strip down to bare metal for her. Ada glanced back at Nutmeg; the wry smile she wore when she’d been pushing Cherry’s buttons was halfway back on her face—or maybe just half-concealed.

“You’ll be in good paws, sweetie,” she assured Ada, doing absolutely nothing to settle her nerves. Her wires. Whatever. “Do you need me to help you walk over there?”

“N-no, that’ll be—I’ll be fine, I just have to be careful. But thank you! Thank you, um,” she stuttered, eventually opting to just follow Cherry after realizing she wasn’t going to get any less awkward under the tanuki’s gaze. When she walked into the den, Cherry glanced over her shoulder.

“Just go ahead and get comfortable up here,” she said, patting a spot on the table. As she went back to rooting through toolboxes, she continued. “You said it was your knee, right? So you shouldn’t actually have to strip down. I promise I’m not gonna, like, look up your skirt.”

“Well, no, but—It’s not the c-clothes I’m worried about—well, I guess I’m worried about the clothes, too, um. Okay, just, you’ll see.” She turned away from Cherry—not that she was even looking. Gosh, why did this worry her so much?—and bent down to reach under her skirt. She fumbled for a moment before her paw found a zipper; she pulled gently, working it around the circumference of her hip joint, and began to roll down the now-freed fabric casing that sat over her metal frame. When it was about halfway down her calf, leaving her thigh and knee bare, she padded over next to Cherry and sat down on the table.

“Alright, are you—oh,” Cherry interrupted herself, finally looking over from her tools and seeing the exposed mechanisms. “Ohhh, I see, okay. My bad,” she apologized, rubbing the back of her neck. “When you said you had to strip, I thought you meant… your clothes. I forgot the fuzzy bits are separate, haha.”

“Oh, t-thats, totally fine,” Ada managed, unable to look Cherry in the eyes.

“I think I just, consider it… like, it’s your face, right? It’s like if you were trying to think of my skin as a separate entity from the rest of me. When I think of ‘Ada’, that’s just, what you look like.” Ada finally turned her head, just about at eye level with Cherry from her seated position. Their eyes lingered on each other for a moment; Cherry’s expression was still somewhat sheepish after the little misunderstanding, and something flickered behind Ada’s eyes that approached doubtfulness. Disbelief. Then a little smile broke on her face, and there was something very soft in them instead, softer even than her plush exterior. 

“That… means a lot to hear, actually,” she half-whispered, her eyes drifting downward. “Sometimes I still have to remind myself of it, but you’re right. This is me. It’s just, it’s almost a pleasant surprise every time I re-realize it, y’know? Like it’s too good to be true.”

“Oh, god, do I understand that,” Cherry chuckled, shoulders relaxing in the mercifully-broken tension. But hey,” she said, drawing their eyes back together. “you kinda get used to it after a while. Not in a way where it stops being fun, though!. Like, you still wake up some days, and it’s like it’s Christmas, but it doesn’t shock you like you’d lost track of the date, right? You still get to be you—it’s still awesome every time you remember ‘dude, this is your life now’—but you don’t forget that you’re you in the meantime. Y’know?”

“I can imagine. I get closer every day, I think. Physical… snags, like this one, remind me a lot of how things were before, but… I guess I have you for that now, right?”

“Right!” Cherry slapped a fist down into her open palm. “We’re gonna get you good as new in no time. You ready?”

“I-I think I am! Uh—” she stammered, pressing down her skirt between her legs. “Okay, now I’m ready!” Cherry giggled, then looked at her lap and back up at her.

“...Do your clothes even come off?”

“Sure! If. You take the rest of me off, too.” They stared at each other for another half a breath and cracked up again. That’s bedside fuckin’ manner, babey!! Cherry was doing a kickass job at this robot doctor thing already. She kneeled down, still giggling, to get a closer look at the laggy limb.

“Woooahh,” she mused, face-to-face with Ada’s bare knee. Her eyes were wide and sparkling like the robot had shone a little red laser dot on the floor in front of her. “Oh my god, Ada. I know we were just talking about how cool it is to be you, like, with a capital B and Y, but you really are an amazing piece of work!” She gushed for a minute straight about the suspension, a thick spring coiled around Ada’s stand-in for a tibia and fibula, which Cherry could see extending down the remainder of her leg underneath the metal sheath and the remaining fabric cover; that was to say nothing of the hydraulic struts that extended behind and above her knee, powering her locomotion.

“I kind of don’t want to touch anything there… at least, not if we can help it. I’m not gonna say I couldn’t do it—I’m pretty good, y’know,” she added with a flicked ear and a raised eyebrow. “Buuut, it’d definitely be more complicated to fix than a connection issue would, so let’s look around for that first, right?”

“Sure, sure. It should be higher up in my thigh. Thhhhhhat panel,” she recalled after some deliberation, pointing to a plate of metal on the inside of her leg, “should come off.” Cherry produced a screwdriver from her pool of tools and dutifully levered the compartment open, finding… well, it was much cleaner than she’d expected.

“Huh. I guess I gotta give ‘em points for wire management? I can see a couple other big cables running through here, but they’re all on the other side. This one seems to be the only one that runs to the upper leg. Kinda seems like putting all your eggs in one basket, though… If something happens with this wire, poof! There goes your whole thigh.”

“Just like now,” Ada sighed.

“Why would they do it like that?”

“It’s supposed to be like the femoral artery,” she huffed. “If you ask me, the human body is the last thing to be taking design inspiration from, but the engineers liked how tidy it was, and the doctors thought I was complicated enough as it was. They agreed that mirroring the bigger anatomical landmarks would make it so a non-specialist doctor could at least try to treat me.”

“Who the hell studies medicine and engineering?” Cherry muttered, peering further down into Ada’s chassis. “I can see it all the way to the end, though. Like, with a plug and everything still attached. It must’ve just come loose, so all I gotta do is—”

“NyaaAAAA—” Ada squealed. Her paws flew to her mouth; her fans revved full-force. Cherry’s claw had barely grazed the cable, but it felt like she had just rubbed her paw all the way along the inside of her thigh.

“Ah!! Did that hurt? Are you okay?” She looked up at Ada and saw the flustered expression half-hidden behind her paws. She felt a rush of air from the opening to the inside of Ada’s furry casing and realized that she was burning up. “...Oh.”

“I-I’m. Yeah, f-fine,” the mortified android managed, squeezing her eyes shut. “It was just, um. Sensitive. Sorry.”

“Oh, no, it’s no problem!! I should’ve looked a little bit more before leaping, I guess. I’m just,” she finished, bowing her own head again to hide the blush spreading across her own cheeks, “glad you’re alright. Lemme try it with some pliers instead—I’ll be more gentle this time.” She fished out a needle-nosed pair and, gripping the bundle of wire just beneath the plug, slowly finagled it into the socket.

Cherry instructed Ada to flex her knee; she could, just fine. She asked her to extend it, and she did, no problem! She rolled her ankle around next, even though it wasn’t originally the problem, just to make sure Cherry hadn’t accidentally knocked anything else loose while she was down there. She slowly snapped the panel back into place—this time, Ada had braced herself, and though she couldn’t look Cherry in the eye while she was working down there, she barely made a peep this time. They finally emerged from the den, Cherry holding the door open so Ada could make sure she could get around without difficulty again, and were met with Nutmeg eyeing the two of them over her mug.

“Did something go wrong?” She asked, voice full of exaggerated concern—after all, Ada was walking just fine.

“In my workshop?" Cherry gloated. "C'mon. It was just a loose cable. You’ll make sure not to flex your leg too far in the future, right, Ada?”

“Right!”

“Oh, good!” Nutmeg continued. “So, if you didn’t make a mistake in there, I assume you meant to make her squeak like that?” she asked, taking a slow sip of her tea and staring Cherry dead in the eye.

“Y’know,” she forced out, putting her best poker face back on. “I think I’m gonna take Ada to the park, just to put her through her paces. Doesn’t that sound nice, Ada?”

“Huh? I wasn’t done cleani—”

“Awesome! We’ll be back in a bit, Meg,” she growled, nearly shoving the girl out the door in front of her.

It wasn’t long before Cherry realized that she’d escaped from Nutmeg’s coolheaded quips without thinking to take a sweater—she’d jumped out of the fridge and into the freezer, with the way the weather had been recently. Ada offered to turn her fans up, and Cherry stayed nice and close to her (which was very, very easy, with how soft her exterior was). While the two of them walked laps to keep their servos warm and their blood circulating, they talked about all kinds of things. A simple “you mentioned ‘how things were before’” turned into swapping backstories: how Cherry got into tinkering with machines, how Ada got into a machine.

Of course, they had plenty of common ground, from the realization that things could be different, and the freedom that came with it, to the malaise that it had freed them from. Cherry managed to keep things light; like she’d said earlier, things only went uphill from the start of journies like theirs, and she was rarely without a crack that would break the gloom of a bad memory. It got dark faster than they expected, but it had more to do with how much fun they were having together than the shortening days. When it got too cold for Cherry to stand staying out any longer, the two of them walked back to the front door of her apartment building.

“Y’know,” she said when they arrived, “you didn’t have to walk me all the way home. It’s almost like the end of a date, or something.”

“What, with how much you and Nutmeg flirt while I’m around? It couldn’t be!” She froze; and Cherry felt the air around her begin to thaw. “Wait, could it be? Cherry, was this supposed to be a date??”

“I was just kidding, bestie, you don’t have to go critical on me. Usually, you get up under a girl’s skirt at the end of a date, right?”

“C-c’mon!” she cried, screwing her eyes shut again. “It wasn’t like that!!”

“I know, I know!” Cherry laughed. “Hey, c’mon. I promise it’s not like it’s gonna be weird or anything. Doctor-patient confidentiality, or whatever, right? But hey,” she said more softly, reaching for Ada’s paw. She paused before touching her, waiting for her to nod in confirmation before just going and grabbing things, this time. “We could make it a date, next time! If you want, anyway.”

“U-um. Yeah. Yeah!” There was a growing, fully snow-free circle spreading from Ada’s feet, at this point. “T-that would be, it’d be awesome! I would love that!!”

“Great! You know the door’s always open for you, bestie. See you soon?”

“I’m already scheduled to come over again in a few days!!”

“Sooner? I’m on my way to face the music. I was definitely losing to Nutmeg earlier. If you bail me out before she literally pushes me up against the wall, we can call it even for helping you out today.” Ada’s brow furrowed, a little concerned.

“She’s not… literally pushing you around, right?”

“Oh, no! I’m constantly asking for it. Literally, most of the time. I wouldn’t even complain if she did it tonight, but like… it’s the principle. I gotta save face after getting dressed-down in front of a guess like that, y’know?”

“Well, that makes two of us getting exposed in front of our friends, right? At least you aren’t alone.”

“Ha! Sorry again about that. But hey, maybe we can do that on purpose next time too, right?” She could see Ada freezing up again, and blew her a kiss goodbye to save her the trouble of finding her words again, ducking back inside; she could hear the air whooshing around outside all the way until she got back to the elevator.

plus a little bit of an epilogue for you =^w^=

I hope you enjoyed!! The transgender plushie robot catgirl is very near and dear to my heart. I know, I know, total shock. If you're interested in more of my writing you can have a look here and here. And please check Robin out too!! She's crazy talented and is the one who came up with Ada in the first place so

[pumpkinsy0]

Hcs for uhh uhh papercut and uhh ummm uhh umm... papercut.... uhhh going uhhhhhbh PONGBOY COMING HOMEFROM NYC WITH CURLG AND uhhh wait hold on lemme cook... lemme... hold on.... PONY REALIZING HOW MUCH HE'S GROWN FROM WHEN HE LIVED IN TULSA like uhhh hmm uhhh HE DRAWS AND PAINTS EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE HE SEES AND INSTEAD OF KEEPING THEM TO HIMSELF HE ACTUALLY GIVES THEM TO THE PEOPLE HE CARES ABOUT (SPECIFICALLY DARRY.) AND REALIZING HOW HE'S HEALED THAT RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS BIG BROTHER AND HIS HOMETOWN IN A WAY or smth like that I guess uhhh also curly beefing w/ everyone cause he is so silly ‼️

NYC MENTIONED WOOOO🗽🗽🗽🗽

•now dont get it twisted, curly ISSSS ponys muse and he draws him the most out of anyone else, but in nyc pony also takes to just drawing strangers!! in a cafe, subway, park, wherever!! he always has a paper and pen so its pretty easy to do, and sometimes he just gives it to em to keep!!!

•if anyone gives pony shit while hes trynna draw em, he would totally get into a fight over it, curlys always told pony he cant b nice to every one and give em a chance but pony nevverrr pays attention to him so atp instead of stopping him curlys just took to looking over for ponys safety and happiness

•SO when they visit tulsa, pony doesnt rlly have that drive to draw others for some reason, but he still WANTS to draw and so he just does it for the whole gang!! everyone always gets a drawing from him and its usually of them just during their everyday life!!

•but if the gang allll came together and rlly compared who pony drew the most, darrys winning (if ur wondering, sodas second, then two, srry steve</33) and pony couldnt tell u y, darry just inspired him that way

•curly loves being dramatic and says that darrys replacing him btw, and the gang didnt even KNOW how many times ponys drawn curly till curly said it, and pony had to hit him to get him to shut the hell up

•ANYWHO if u looked even deepperrrr into em, u would see that w everyone elses picture, theres a while background and stuff, yknow makes it seem more full, but w darrys pics the only thing in em WAS darry, no background no nothing

•and thats bc,,,,hold my hand here everyone,,,,he was starting to see darry just for himself, woaahhhhh :00000!!!! but honestly, pony couldnt tell u Y he was only drawing darry, he just assumed he was too lazy or something bc he soent most of his time just trying to get darry right

•howeverrrr ponys realized that hes more open to talking to darry, like having full blown convos w him about his interest n stuff how he feels, and dare pony says it, darrys actually pretty funny,,,like wow,,,they talked about his art first and that just opened the flood gates for other things, like darrys interest!! one of them being gardening (remember that for later,,,)

•the gang have also definitely noticed and they will purposely leave them alone so they could catch up, for the time pony spent in nyc and for his childhood, sometimes the gang doesnt even HAVE to do that, darry and pony would just dip and u can find them in the backyard or in the lot away from everyone else!!

•id like to think that curly would poke his head in like “fuck yall out here for” only to get lulled back inside VERY quickly so he doesnt fuck up the mood, BUTTTT BUT BUT BUT, there comes a time where darry actually jokes w curly and ponys thinking “wait a god damn minute hes never done that before,,,” and THATTSSSS when pony starts realizing hes getting closer w darry

•u might b wondering, y is THAT the moment pony realizes that?? and for that i tell u, to pony, darry joking w curly shows that darrys rlly trying to b apart of ponys life!!! even the parts hes not particularly understanding of w the ppl hes not rlly close to and thats all pony has truly ever wanted from the guy as he grew up

•pony gets soooo sad when they get closer and closer to the day they have to go back to ny, so every chance he gets to hang w darry, pony takes and DONT THINK DARRY DOESNT NOTICE IT!!! HE DOES!!! and he thinks its cute, never telling pony that bc he knows pony would b embarrassed but he knows!!

•now remember when i said pony loses that spark to wanna draw other ppl/places when he gets to tulsa,,,bc its ALSOOOO around this time where he genuinely tries drawing the places around him so its etched in his mind, most importantly tho, he draws the lot!!!

•ponys only drawn the lot like ONCE and that was before johnny died, now the lot looks different, completely different!!! theres more grass, noticeably theres a few fucked up looking flowers, nobodyyyy knows how the flowers got there, but PONY does,,,bc darry grew them!!

•one of the more deeper talks they had together, was that after pony left, darry couldnt stop thinking about the lot, it was a place where the gang went to hang out but after everything happened, nobody rlly went there anymore so w his new interest in gardening he took that as his first place to start, as a way of correcting his wrongs and changing the look of it in hopes that in the future the place would b a place to admire!!! and to lowkey mourn johnny

•that got pony out of his artistic rut SO fast, and when pony left, darry went to his room and he found a drawing of him in the lot, the first drawing pony made of him w a background!!! yahoooooo

[lqtraintracks]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you @maesterchill @danpuff-ao3 and @nv-md for the tag! <333

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

314

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,295,054

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Harry Potter is the big one. I've also written some Captive Prince, Locked Tomb, and one Call Me By Your Name fic

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Right Hand Red; Hung Like a Horntail; Slip Into My Lover's Hands; Weeds or Wildflowers (written with the very talented @unmistakablyoatmeal); and check this hand 'cause I'm marvelous

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try. I'm seriously behind. The truth is, I'll never get around to replying to them all. I will someday die with a thousand unanswered comments. But I do try. And I read each and every one and they touch my heart. I'm so very grateful for all the wonderful comments I've received and continue to receive!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oof. I hardly ever end things badly. But there was one wee ficlet; lemme go hunt it down. (*plays elevator music*) Ah, here it is: Not-Forever Is Still Forever. It's not MCD or anything. Draco just leaves for Argentina for two years. *shrug emoji* But I like to think I've gotten pretty good at baking some realistic angst into the middle of things, if not writing angty endings. I prefer it that way.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All of them except for Burning the Ground, which is an open ending. I'll be honest, I don't like the word fluff. I'm never trying to write fluff, which, to me, denotes a level of uncomplicated sweetness. Maybe others define it differently. But I don't think happy endings are necessarily fluffy. I want my happy endings to put tears in your eyes, to move you. I want to evoke different things with different sorts of happiness for different phases of life. RHR's ending is about a feeling of freedom mostly, of getting to face the next part of their lives without dread. Take You Home has a similar vibe but with them a bit older; they've experienced the painful and mundane disappointments you have to weather in this life that have nothing to do with fighting a dark wizard and everything to do with existential questions about who we are, how we go on, what do you do when it doesn't work out, when you've changed and you don't know who you are anymore. I loved ending it with all their friends, at a march for trans rights. Heart Like Neon has an ending that makes *me* the most happy. I modeled it after an episode of Grey's Anatomy where you find out at the end of the ep that two important characters got married. The whole ep, none of their friends know, then at the end they play 'Bones' by Josh Record, and you go back in time by a few weeks and you see it. When I wrote the end of HLN, I had that song playing in my head from the end of the party at the Weasley's, to jumping three months earlier, to Harry and Draco in Paris. That's a pretty goddamned happy ending. It makes me cry. <3 (Also the art that @bluebutter-art made for it makes me bawl happy tears!!!)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I was going to say hardly ever but then I *just* got some last week! LOL. Still, I'm very lucky that it's not even once in a blue moon. That stuff is so arbitrary too. I'm going to quote my good friend @elrhiarhodan: People... they're fuckin nuts. :D

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

LOL yes. A lot of different kinds? I want to try a little of everything as a writer.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

No. I mean, I probably have a couple times over the course of my literal decades in some fandom or other, but they're not worth noting.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, several, and into multiple languages. I think that's so cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Definitely! In HP I've written with sdk, @the-starryknight and @nv-md, plus I once did a wild round robin with a big group of people. I'm not good at round robins, I've realized. Too much of a control freak.

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Drarry, totally. But right up there is Harry/Teddy and Harry/Teddy/Draco. Then Ginny/Pansy, Charlie/Teddy, James Sirius/Albus Severus (with Teddy too sometimes). In CaPri, I love Damen/Laurent, but @linecrosser had totally made me ship when Damen lends Laurent out to Nikandros for a threesome and also Auguste/Laurent. I also hardcore ship my own original characters from my novel. <3

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I don't do WiPs really.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Oof, this is tough. Pacing? Interpersonal relationships? Smut, for sure. LOL. I think I do well writing things that are transgressive or maybe even filthy with a lot of tenderness and compassion and deep, deep love mixed in. And I think I'm getting really good at making people cry when I want them to. Readers, that is. :D

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Convoluted plots. Can't do them. I wish I could. I can't write a mystery to save my life. I'm also pretty bad at heavy angst. I also wish I could write something nonlinear, but my brain just doesn't work that way.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

It's interesting that this is a question because it's meaningful to me not because of fic but because of my novel. I have a Spanish-speaking character, fluent in English, but sometimes he says things in Spanish. I'm very VERY lucky that @capiturecs read my novel both as a sensitivity reader for Latinx/Latine/Latino aspects but also to correct my Spanish and make it realistic and conversational! I'll be forever grateful! I also now really REALLY want to learn Spanish! <3

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Sorry, I don't share this publicly.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Oh this is mean. This is cruel. I can't possibly answer this! RHR has got to be in there. Heart Like Neon. Blood and Fire. Phoenix in the Fire. Take You Home. Wonderful Electric (cover me in you). A Pain of Our Choosing. My Name in Your Mouth. Bloom. collarbones like a bow, skin an arrow to the heart. I'll stop there!

Okay, this was fun! I'll tag @corvuscrowned @ruinsplume @floydig @sweet-s0rr0w @lettersbyelise @magpiefngrl @skeptiquewrites and Elr! <3

[llitchilitchi]

oooookay, I'm not super versed in dsmp lore and I don't even really know the whole events in chronological order. but!!!! I love your monarchy restoration au. your art is so gorgeous. and the emotions there ... man

can you please give me some guideline of what should I know from the og lore to understand your au? or maybe some summary of your au?

just talk about it I really want to interact!!! :D

hi, editing Li here, the summary ended up being over 2k words. then I realised you asked for a summary to the AU, which is part of the masterpost. I went over the lore in brief, I promise it's just brief despite the length and doesn't tackle All there is to the SMP

okay, lemme try and speedrun the lore of the dream smp - given that the story of monarchy restoration centers around the Dream Team, or at least the parts that I shared, I'll be focusing on them. this will get long and I'm really sorry jghdfjd

the core ideas you should know is that: Dream, George and Sapnap were close friends, but they drifted apart as time went on due to conflicts on the server. Dream crowned George as King, but then due to George doing badly as a king and this position putting him in danger made him dethrone George, which made the rift between them grow. they were once inseparable, and now George and Sapnap thought of Dream as obsessed maniac who no longer cared for them as people. after Dream got put in prison and tortured, he broke out, and this is where the lore of Monarchy Restoration diverges from the original story of the SMP and becomes an AU, as instead of reuniting with Punz as intended, Dream is too weak and injured to do much and runs into George, who takes him in.

now for the Actual Lore Recap:

at the very beginning of it all, there were two friends - Dream and George. they found a little piece of the world for themselves, and everything was fine. then a third came, Sapnap, and then more people joined, and they lived in the same house in the middle of the lake and things were okay.

months passed, and fights turned into splits in the community and a community turned to factions, and the conflicts of factions were intertwined with interpersonal fights. (the interpersonal conflicts? the disc saga, aptly named over 2 music discs that were used as a bartering chip and have a pretty good significance in the overall story. put a pin into that.)

the two factions at play were the (retroactively named) Greater SMP and L'Manburg which declared independence from the Greater SMP on basis of xenophobia. they lost the war against the Greater SMP, the final fight being a duel between Dream and the original owner of the discs (Tommy). a deal was struck after, where Tommy offered his discs in exchange for independence (or independance, if you want to stick to the original text)

an important aspect of this war is to note that Dream offered one of the people on L'Manburg's side a deal - they betray the faction and get to become the King of the Greater SMP. this establishes monarchy in the story. they accepted, betrayed their allies, got the role of a King with the promise of 'staying neutral and uninvolved in further conflicts'.

I'll breeze through the Manberg era for the most part (despite being the most interesting one, imo). L'Manburg ran a presidental election, the original leader (who wanted to take power by scamming the whole thing) lost, and the new leader of L'Manburg (renamed to Manberg, because they're not taking any L's anymore) exiled the OG president and his right hand man Tommy, things went bad. the two exiled men started a new faction (Pogtopia) that they hoped to use to take back their "rightful place" and were given support from Dream because the new Manberg was a little too expansive. (he ended up siding with Manberg last minute for Yet Unknown Reasons, we will get to them, again, put a pin in it)

the King of the SMP very vocally sided wih Pogtopia, which was a betrayal to the core principles of their position as King. the King was dethroned, and Dream put his best friend George on the throne, with him and Sapnap serving as his knights.

upon the defeat of Manberg by Pogtopia (since Manberg's authoritarian regime ended up driving people out and most joined Pogtopia, Dream and his people fought for Manberg only as mercenaries), one of the core allies of Pogtopia - an anarchist, the blood god himself, Technoblade - turned on his former allies because they told him it was about defeating a tyrant, but all they wanted was to kill one tyrant and put their own people in his place. Techno then fled into exile.

next chapter begins after the rebuild of L'Manberg, yet the L' is back, under a new rule given that the OG president uhhh Blew Up The Country with several megatons of TNT and then persuaded his father into killing him.

King George is vibing. he is unaware of all faction wars, builds himself a holiday house far away from everything, enjoys time with new friends, all while Dream grows more and more distant due to trying to keep what is left of his old life together.

the reason the home is important to mention is that, once peace has settled over the world, Tommy decided that the discs that he traded for independence are His, in fact, and he needs to steal them - or barter for them in any shitty way possible. he still had tons of grudges against Dream, and in one of these half-grudge fueled fuckeries, he and one other character set fire to George's holiday home.

Dream found it in ruin and still burning when he came see his friend with a bouquet of flowers. there are several interpretations to this, and since Dream himself never really specified, there's a speculation that he thought that this event maybe killed his best friend, and given that George is the King of the Greater SMP, an attack by the right hand man of the current L'Manberg president on the physical property of the King of a rival faction is de-facto a war declaration.

so we are presented with an ultimatum, where Tommy is either exiled or a war starts. (exile won. it was voted on by the fans we wanted that bitch Out. this is not quite as important but the dynamics shaping up between Tommy and Dream had a massive impact on the plot.)

while Tommy is in exile, George becomes rather friendly with a new budding faction on the server. his involvement with them means that his neutrality vow was broken, and given how frequently he got harassed by L'Manberg, Dream decided to dethrone George, and put the previous King back in power. this dethronement caused a huge rift to form between George and Dream (and Sapnap, who sided with George) and the three of them fell apart with the parting words from George to Dream being "Just say you hate me."

I'm sure this won't have any lasting effects on the man who was tearing himself apart to make the world the same as it was when it was just the two of them

now in brief: the L'Manberg cabinet decided to take revenge on Techno after he turned on them after they tricked him into helping them against Manberg. the punishment? execution. how did they achieve that? they hunted him down, threatened to kill his animals, told him he will get a court process but just set him up in a guillotine. Dream intervened and saved him, thus earning a favour from Techno because both of them are traumatized warriors with trust issues that rather treat kindness as currency. Tommy runs away from the place he was restricted to in his exile, moves in with the anarchist-in-retirement-gone-pacifist Techno, the two of them end up teaming up for the time being as Techno protects him from Dream. L'Manberg in the meantime decides to host a festival to show that they are peaceful now, and nothing bad will happen again :) it takes place a week after they unlawfully tried to execute Techno, and the festival is meant to serve as public execution of Dream. However, the festival is cut short when Dream storms in because the original house where he and his friends lived - known as the Community House - got blown up. he blames L'Manberg and Tommy, and after a short conflict that happens then he declares that L'Manberg has a day to evacuate and him and Techno agree to blow up the country. a second time. and completely now.

so L'Manberg is gone now and the members of the faction scatter. within days, Tommy receives an invitation from Dream to come get his discs (I didn't know how to include it, but after the whole 'setting George's house on fire' Tommy tried to barter for the discs and for Dream to ignore him setting the house on fire, all while trying to leverage things that Dream held dear. attachment to objects and people is a running theme in here. Dream then proceeded to give his "I don't give a fuck about Spirit, I don't give a fuck about anything actually" speech, basically telling everyone they have nothing to leverage against him and he will destroy them if he needs to and them holding something hostage won't bother him.) This sets the stage for the Disc Finale. Tommy and his best friend Tubbo make their way to a specific location, far away, all alone, where they are to fight against Dream to win the discs back. they lose spectacularly and Dream reveals his "grand plan" where he has a vault to gather "all the precious items people own to control them" (and I wrote "grand plan" because it was a farce. it was a show, it was staged, all just to get Tommy to leave him the fuck alone and stop meddling with his greater plan. what is the greater plan? fuck if I knew.)

the whole thing is then intercepted when a large group of people, one of which is Dream's right-hand-man Punz who was running errands for him before, and more importantly, Sapnap. he's beaten and just as he is about to be killed, he reveals his secret: the reason he sided with manberg, all those months ago, is because in exchange for his services he got a book of necromancy. he can now bring people back to life. because of this, he is locked up in an inescapable prison in case anyone needs to use the book.

Sapnap and George are very much under the impression that Dream doesn't care for them. Sapnap comes visit Dream once, promises to return, never does. George doesn't even bother coming in, instead sleeping his days away and it catches the eye of a deity who wears the same face as his beloved Dream, and he loses himself to the illusion of being reunited with his best friend in a world where everything is perfect.

another important thing to note is that Sapnap stumbles upon a Book Of Death (yes, its death note, sapnap is a weeb, it even functions the exact same.) the thing about the book of death and the book of necromancy is that they are both books that were placed into the world by the deity wearing Dream's face (known as DreamXD, or XD for short, yes it's a little silly) and XD reveals to another character (a somewhat-deity, Foolish) that the books and their owners are intertwined in a way, and if one were to die the other dies with him.

so we have three friends, one locked up in prison and seen as nothing more but an object to use (Dream), the other a man who watched his friends, his parents and his lovers fall apart (Sapnap) and a man who cannot face the world falling apart and the loss of his friends so he gives into an illusion created by god in his dreams. and all of them have a strange tie to a stranger god.

this very fractured relationship the three have, along with their ties to the god, were the main driving force behind making this AU.

the last thing you should probably know is that Dream was locked in prison for 10 months, starved, tortured, with little to no social contact until Techno was locked in with him, but with the use of some fun magic Techno managed to escape and then "return the favour" from when Dream saved him from execution, and broke him out of prison.

there's a lot of little nuanced things I probably forgot about but this is the core of it all I hope it helps