#like alcohol propaganda

[andro-dino]

Toby beyblade :crowd cheers:

[knifeslidez]

some of you mfs would support the prohibition if they let you smoke cheap weed occasionally

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

Oh, for God's sake. There is going to be more.

Yeah, no. Absolutely not. Fuck you very much more, Shuster.

[cyberstabbing]

it's been nearly two years and i'm still mad about the time my grandmother forced me to debate lgbt rights at a family reunion lunch with her, her catholic husband and a catholic priest. i was just now in the shower and i kept imagining all the snarky comebacks i could have said. if i had chosen that moment to come out to my family (i don't know a single soul on that family tree who is out) it would have been a disaster but also such a fucking power move

[cultpastorkevin]

Andrew Minyard propaganda

🤲🏻 short, beefy, hates you, blonde, hides knives in his clothes and likes to fuck stupid exy boys in his very expensive maserati

oh and he killed his mom so that’s neat

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Andrew Minyard- All for the game by Nora Sakavic

Ben De Backer- I Wish You All The Best by Mason Deaver

Harold Hutchins- Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey

Alec Lightwood- The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

[themultifanshipper]

nobody gets me when i say daniel x oscar x reader but i need it desperately

“What's an Aussie kiss?” 

Or, the story of how Mark Webber’s existence led to a series of very fortunate events. 

Warnings: smut, threesome, mention of alcohol, oral, brief anal play, the sloppiest two person blowjobs, just pure filth, anti FIA propaganda lmao, also bad dirty talk? 

Being Daniel's ex-teammate, and current best friend, you knew a lot of Aussie slang. 

And you'd learned even more upon becoming Oscar's teammate. 

You were in a club, and for some godforsaken reason, you were squashed in between Mark and Oscar, with Daniel on the other side of the table in the small booth. 

And then you'd met Oscar's manager Mark, and, well… whenever the three of them found themselves together, your head would start pounding within minutes of them starting a conversation. 

“F1 has gone soft!” Mark slurred, already halfway into a coma. “And it wasn't even that long ago that we could swear freely and make dirty jokes without FIA cunts breathing down our necks!” 

His drink sloshed around his glass as he spoke, and you managed to dodge the spills despite being in the splash zone. 

Daniel laughed and added “Yeah, you couldn't talk about Aussie kisses nowadays without being fined!” 

The three of them laughed freely, taking sips of their drinks. 

Everyone had seen the famous clip of Mark. 

Unfortunately, you had not. And that delightful little nugget had never come up in conversation before. 

So you turned to Mark, and drunkenly asked “What's an Aussie kiss?”, much to the delight of your two fellow drivers. 

“You'll find out when you're older, kid” he smirked and you scoffed. 

When he tried to get up to order more drinks, he swayed so badly that Daniel had to catch him to avoid him falling onto the table. 

“Okay old man” he chuckled “let's get you an uber while you're still conscious” 

He led Mark through the crowd towards the exit, leaving you and Oscar to laugh at their retreating figures. 

“He's such a lightweight” Oscar giggled. 

"You're one to talk!” you slapped him on the shoulder “Your cheeks are redder than a fucking Ferrari” 

“Oh yeah?” he smiled at you, “At least I know what an Aussie kiss is” he bit his lip teasingly. 

The way he said it made a shiver run down your spine. Despite not knowing what it meant, you felt the urge to ask him to show you. 

You were suddenly very aware of how close you were, and the heat of his thigh against yours made your stomach clench. 

You cleared your throat, breaking the awkward tension and took a shy sip of your drink. 

“Don't suppose you’re going to tell me, are you?” 

He chuckled and bumped his knee against yours under the table. 

“Like the old man said, you'll find out when you're older” he teased. 

Even though there was only a year between you two, you always felt like he was the mature one of the team. The older and wiser teammate. 

You found that quite attractive, if you were fully honest. And with the amount of alcohol in you system, you definitely wouldn't hesitate to say so if asked the question. 

“Fine, I'll just ask Daniel, I'm sure he would be happy to show me” 

Oscar rolled his eyes dismissively, absolutely hating the idea of you going to someone else, just as Daniel stepped back into the booth and sat down where Mark had been a few minutes before. 

His thigh was now firmly pressed against you, and you suddenly felt very overwhelmed by their presence. 

“Dannyyy” you whined “Oscar won't tell me what an Aussie kiss is!” 

Daniel just laughed. 

“That's because he probably doesn't have much experience in that domain. I on the other hand-“ 

“Uh, actually I have more than you think!” Oscar interrupted and Daniel grinned at him. 

“Sure you do Piastri, but I’ve had at least a decade of practice more than you so-“ 

Oscar scoffed and gave him the finger. 

“Guys!” You slapped the table to grab their attention. “Just tell me and I’ll be the judge!” 

Oscar hesitated. He was slipping into dangerous territory right now. 

He was very attracted to you, and would love nothing better than to spend the night showing you his uhh… kissing abilities. 

But you were all far too drunk to make any rational decision making, and Daniel's presence was making him uneasy. 

Not to mention you were his teammate and friend. 

Daniel was thinking along the same lines. You were his drunk best friend, and the last thing he wanted to do was take advantage of you. 

“I'll tell you what” he piped up. “If you ask again when you're sober, we'll show you” 

They nodded at each other. They both wanted you, but they needed you to be clear headed. 

There was absolutely no chance you would remember this tomorrow, so this was their safest bet. 

You warily agreed, and the subject was quickly changed. 

What they didn't know, is that that night, before you went to bed completely hammered, you set a reminder on your phone. 

“lok up Ausie Kiiis on gogle” 

Well, at least it was readable to you the next day. 

And you did look it up. And found the video of Mark, which made you laugh. 

But as the night before came flooding back in your mind, you remembered Daniel's offer. 

They wanted you. They wanted to do that to you.  

Butterflies erupted in your stomach as the thought of the two of them between your legs made you gasp. Yep, it had to happen. 

Daniel and Oscar really thought they were out of the woods when they didn't hear from you all day. But then, in the evening came a text from a group chat you'd created with the two of them. 

There was a screenshot of the urban dictionary result, and few simple words that made both men twitch in their pants. 

“Instructions unclear, demonstration necessary. Room 312” 

Oscar being only a few rooms away in the same hotel meant that he got there within two minutes of his phone buzzing. 

As soon as you opened the door your were lifted by your thighs and carried over to your bed. 

He crawled over you, not giving you so much as a hello before he captured your lips in a bruising kiss. 

He was going to make the most of Daniel’s delay. 

You couldn’t help but gasp into it when you felt his hands wandering over your body teasingly, making quick work of your outer layers. 

“Jesus Osc” you panted as his lips travelled downwards, sucking and nipping at the skin of your neck. “If you were this desperate to touch me you could have just asked” 

He grunted into your skin, continuing his descent and leaving soft kisses over your barely covered breasts. 

“Didn't know you'd be into it too.” He mumbled “I didn't want to make anything awkward” 

Any response you had quickly died on your tongue when you felt a fingers brush against your clothed cunt. 

“Soaked through your panties already?” he chuckled darkly, rubbing against you with more pressure.  

You blushed, hips bucking against his hand. 

“Please, Oscar” you whimpered into your hands that were covering your face. 

“Please what?” he teased, sliding a finger under the fabric and ghosting it over your sensitive skin. 

“Fuck me, please” you whined. 

He laughed softly. “But darling, that's not why you invited me here, is it? And in any case I think we should wait for Daniel, don't you?” 

You huffed impatiently. 

“If you're that wound up, why don't you come here and let me use that pretty mouth of yours, hmm? It'll give you something to do while we wait…” 

Daniel almost broke his neck by tripping in the stairs while running as fast as he could to get to you. 

When he wrenched the door to your room open he scoffed at the sight of you on your knees at the foot of the bed. 

“Couldn't even wait for me, could you. Bastards…” 

He ripped his shirt off and made his way over to the bed. 

“I had to shut her up somehow, she's so fucking needy” Oscar pulled you off his cock and helped you to your feet. 

Daniel cooed and leaned down to kiss you, and expertly unclasped your bra while Oscar dragged your underwear down your legs. 

The kiss with Daniel quickly turned filthy, and he walked you slowly towards the bed and pushed you down on it. 

“So who gets first dibs?” Oscar asked, eyeing your body and smirking at the goosebumps appearing on your flesh as you gazed up at the two men. 

“How about Oscar first, since he was gentlemanly enough to wait till you got here?” you offered and they shrugged in agreement. 

“Works for me, that way I'll get to prove I'm better afterwards” 

You and Oscar both rolled your eyes at Daniel's statement, and the younger man quickly spread your legs and kneeled in between them. 

You were dripping already, and at the first swipe of his tongue through your folds, Oscar thought he'd died and gone to heaven.  

He groaned, lapping up your juices, and then alternated between fucking you with his tongue and circling it around your sensitive clit. 

You were moaning freely, gasping at every change of pace and pressure.  

There was definitely no denying it, he knew what he was doing. 

When he sucked on your clit your back arched, letting out whiny little moans as he made your legs tremble in no time, your thighs trying to close around his head. 

Daniel, despite not touching you, was having the time of his life. 

He was sitting next to you on the bed, and from this angle he could see every tremor, every micro-expression as you writhed under Oscar's undeniably skilled mouth. 

You were exquisite in his opinion, and he hungrily watched your breasts heaving as you tried to catch your breath after Oscar made you come all over his face. 

The younger man licked his lips hungrily as he stared up at Daniel, eyes challenging him to do better. 

You barely got any reprieve before Daniel was pushing Oscar out of the way and bending your legs at the knees. 

“Hold yourself open for me, darling” 

You did as you were told, and looked down at him while he nosed along the crease of your inner thigh. 

He pushed his tongue inside you, and you let out a gasp when his nose brushed against your clit as he moved. 

The tip of his nose was quite cold, and the difference in temperature was surprisingly pleasurable. 

But Daniel didn't plan on staying there for long, he'd come to win, even if that meant playing dirty. 

He gave your clit a teasing suck before releasing it with a pop, and slowly, his tongue made its way lower, exploring your taint, and eventually making contact with your tight rim. 

The new feeling made you shudder, and he brought a hand up to thumb at your clit in a steady rhythm while he worked his tongue against your ass. 

Your nails were digging into your own thighs where you were holding them open, and a quick glance at Oscar's expression told you he was not happy, despite being obviously turned on. 

Once Daniel could feel you loosening, he prodded his tongue inside you a little, and the sensation was so foreign to you it forced a shaky moan from your throat. 

You felt Daniels smirk against your skin and he quickly retracted his tongue, and slowly made his way back up. 

You were rapidly approaching the edge now. And the renewed attack of his mouth on your cunt was promising a spectacular finish. 

Then you felt a slight pressure lower down. 

He was rubbing his thumb against your asshole, aided by your dripping juices. 

He applied some pressure, and his thumb easily slipped inside, carefully massaging your walls while his tongue lapped at your clit hungrily. 

It took you seconds. 

You came with a loud cry as you arched your back, riding out the waves of your intense orgasm, through which Daniel helped you gently by slowing down his movements until you were shaking under him. 

He sat up and grinned at you from above. 

“So? Who was better?” 

“That's not fair, you cheated!” Oscar huffed indignantly. 

“I did not! It isn't specified how low we're allowed to go”  

“But you used your fingers! I didn't”  

“Well yeah, you gotta make use of all your assets” he wiggled his brows. 

They looked at you expectantly. 

“If one of you isn't inside me in the next 30 seconds I am kicking you both out” you muttered at the ceiling. 

They chuckled and shuffled around the bed. 

You ended up on top of Oscar, sinking down on his surprisingly thick cock while Daniel sat next to Oscar's head. 

You leaned down to take him into your mouth and he grabbed your hair in his fist in a makeshift ponytail. 

“So eager to please, isn't she Oscar? I think we’ve struck gold with this one” 

Oscar started thrusting into you slowly, and your deep groan around the cock in your mouth made Daniel mad with need as he watched you take him down eagerly. 

He then noticed Oscar was eyeing his cock with something akin to hunger in his eyes. 

“You look jealous, Oscar” he teased. “Fancy a taste?” 

He pulled you off him, and Oscar licked at his tip teasingly. 

You didn't feel like stopping though, so soon Daniel had two mouths on his cock, licking and sucking at his shaft. 

“Jesus Christ, you two are so fucking hot, what the fuck” 

You and Oscar worked in tandem, lips making brief contact as you made out with the cock between you. 

It was truly a porn worthy performance and Daniel could feel his composure slipping. 

“Fuck- stop, I'm gonna come too soon” 

He pulled you off and shuffled backwards, taking a quick breather, and Oscar laughed meanly. 

“The old man's gonna come first, that's funny” 

He was obviously just goading Daniel, but the evil glint that suddenly appeared in the older man's eyes as he got an idea made his stomach churn. 

“Wanna swap then?” he grinned, and Oscar nodded eagerly. 

Daniel lay down so you could climb on top of him, rolling your hips slowly to get used to the slightly lengthier cock, and Oscar kneeled next to him, mirroring the position from before. 

You took him down to the base first, the taste of your own slick making your eyes roll back in your head, and Oscar couldn't resist thrusting into your mouth a few times. 

“Fuckin’ hell, why were we arguing over who's better when her mouth is clearly superior”  

He gasped when you swallowed around him and used your tongue to trace the underside of his cock. 

Then you let him go with a pop, and looked at Daniel with a smirk. 

The two of you got to work, worshipping Oscar's cock with your mouths and he marveled at the sight. 

But then Daniel decided he needed to prove his superiority. 

He licked down the vein on the underside, slowly inching towards Oscar's balls. 

He licked over them, and took one into his mouth, gently sucking on it just to make Oscar lose his mind. 

“Jesus, Daniel… fuck-“ 

With Daniel working wonders down there, and you making your way up his body, currently scraping your teeth over one of his nipples, he was scared of coming before he'd even had a chance to savour the experience. 

Daniel huffed under him, drawing his attention.  

Apparently his tongue could just about reach behind Oscar's balls, but the position didn't allow him to go any further. 

“Sit on my face”  Daniel panted. 

“What?” Oscar squeaked, sure he'd misheard. 

“You heard me, come here”  he slapped Oscar's thigh to get him to move. 

Oscar didn't hesitate for long, he swung a leg over Daniel's head and hovered, facing you as he bit his lip to hide just how aroused he was at the idea. 

Daniel wrapped his arms around Oscar's thighs and slammed him down onto his eagerly waiting mouth. 

Oscar let out a high pitched moan and had to stabilise himself with a hand on Daniel's chest. 

You grabbed his hair and pulled him in for a rough kiss. 

Daniel somehow had the dexterity to pound into you from below while eating Oscar out like his life depended on it, and all the two of you could do was pant into each other's mouths as Oscar came untouched all over Daniel's chest and his own hand. 

He crawled away, and Daniel grabbed your waist to pull you down onto his cock while he rolled his hips up into you. 

“You close, beautiful? You gonna come all over my cock?” 

You nodded desperately, the new angle and speed was making you cry out in pleasure as it built up rapidly inside you. 

“Do it then, show Oscar what a good girl you are and come right now, baby” 

How you managed to stay upright will always be a mystery. The force with which your orgasm washed over you was enough to make your voice crack and your vision go momentarily dark while you rode out the most intense pleasure you'd ever felt before. 

While you waited for the feeling in your legs to come back, Oscar went to grab a washcloth to clean you all up. 

You were lying on the bed, limbs akimbo while Daniel’s cum dribbled out of you. 

“Remind me to thank Mark Webber” you said and the other two guffawed in disbelief. 

“You want to thank him? What about us, we actually fucked you!” 

You laughed. “You're right! Maybe I should ask Mark to fuck me!” 

The other two groaned. 

“Never say that again” 

You all got into bed, you in the middle, facing Oscar while Daniel spooned you from behind. 

“Well at least now I know” Daniel muttered. 

“Know what?” you asked. 

“That Piastri likes getting his ass ate” he chuckled and you burst out in a fit of giggles. 

“Fuck you” Oscar groaned. 

“In your dreams Piastri” Daniel chuckled. 

“Next time, I'm fucking you” 

“Ha!” Daniel laughed “As if !” 

But you saw the defiant look in Oscar’s eyes. 

You knew him in and out, he was not going to back down from a challenge. 

[kiefbowl]

wait ok genuinely kind of interested in your opinion on porn now......... if only because those big 3 you mentioned are always the reasons i see people throwing out so id love to hear a deeper take than that

I'm genuinely surprised anyone could follow me and not know my stance on porn, but that's okay. simplified and in no particular order and in no means exhaustive:

porn creates perverse incentives

porn normalizes the purchase of women as sexual objects for men to use

porn is often called "rape on tape" by feminists, which I mostly agree with in the sense that if a woman would otherwise not have had sex except that she is being paid, then she is not consenting. you cannot purchase consent, the consent is not meaningful then.

additionally, you can not verify if you are watching people be raped in any other way. porn sites are filled with stolen videos, coerced videos, actual minors, aggressive rape that was filmed with or without the victim's knowledge, and other videos of this nature. there is no way to verify this at all from videos that are somehow not these things. things like "amateur" are often just marketing by the porn company or pimp, or they're stolen videos.

porn creates a social script for sex. this social script is least of all - boring and predictable. it also reinforces the long standing conservative gender understanding (see 2). porn also reinforces ideas of homophobia and racism under the guise of "taboo." porn is literally so conservative, but because it's considered "shocking" to "puritans" (religious men watch porn all the time), people talk like it's this liberal fantasy. porn is constantly reestablishing the status quo in the most perverse ways.

it's been demonstrated that people who are porn addicts very quickly escalate to more violent porn, and that this plays out in their sex lives with their (often vulnerable) sex partners.

the violence that happens in porn is real. the idea that it's a "fantasy" is marketing by porn website and pimps. if a man slaps a woman across the face, that really happened. why does it matter if she says "yes" to it - that's her "job" so how can she say no? (see 3 and also 4).

there is so much evidence and testimony by porn stars of the absolutely awful and terrifying conditions in which they work, even in the quote unquote "real" industry. drugs, alcohol, violence, coercion, exposure to STIs, homelessness, pimping, prostitution, mental illness, suicide, lack of benefits. It's bananas that anyone would be surprised by this when it's pointed out, we're talking about an industry that films sex on video. The majority of people in the sex industry want out. It ruins their lives, and once in it's very hard to leave and lead a normal life. The idea that the industry needs regulation to be "fixed" is bizarre and just seems like pimp and porn industry marketing to get people to look the other way.

Poverty creates porn. Social welfare for the poorest of our women would prevent them from entering the industry in the first place. Women go into porn out of need, not desire. social media pushes that porn stars loooove their jobs is 1. porn site and pimp propaganda 2. literally marketing because men want to believe this.

I am not religious, I don't believe in god. I love sex and masturbation. it's the most natural thing in the world and people don't actually need to "learn" how to do it - it's innate within us. Porn is just one more way to humiliate women in a misogynist society that requires women to be fearful of sex and rape constantly, and uneducated in their own sexual desires and boundaries.

[paarthursass]

I am still baffled that people think Beer Bad is the worst episode of Buffy when episodes like Wild At Heart, Into the Woods, and As You Were exist. Like really??? You hate the silly Caveman Buffy episode when those OOC nightmare episodes exist??? At least Beer Bad is funny. "It's government propaganda" It's not even GOOD government propaganda (didn't get the funding), it's the most lukewarm messaging ever ("be careful around alcohol!" is, as far as propaganda goes, fairly tame), and most importantly IT'S FUNNY!!! IT'S FUNNY!!!! It has Willow verbally ripping Parker a new one and then it ends with Buffy smacking him on the head!! Do you not like that??? Do you not enjoy hijinks??? Have some whimsy in your life goddamn. In this house we love the campy silly stupid buffy episodes.

[bratisland]

Soldier Boy x Male Reader frotting h/c’s

wc: 1.3k

warnings: (1) slur lol, not proofread

a/n: i havent written in MONTHS bc of my uni exams and english isnt my first language but i really wanna promote my homosexual soldier boy propaganda so, sorry if its not good lol, my request ''rules" are on my pinned

*

He has been with men before, well, it was at the first Herogasm so, to him; it doesn’t count. He was high on drugs, alcohol and sex, he isn’t a homo, he really isn’t.

So why in the fucking hell you just looking at him makes him feel some type of way? He won’t say how he feels, not in a million fucking years, he isn’t a fucking faggot it’s just- you look good for a man, that’s all there’s to it.

He’s most likely just pent up after being revived, his dick is just looking for anything to cum into. So he seeks out women, not like its ever been hard for him. It does relax him somewhat physically but his dick always stays so fucking hard, he bites his lower lip in frustration as he fists cock to completion; with how you would look on your knees, your mouth full of his cock…and that actually helps hell of a lot more than actually fucking a woman. He is so fucked.

It doesn’t really help how much you fucking look at him, normally he would just call out your bullshit but just looking at you makes his chest feel heavy, his cock stiffen and his face distorts into a scowl. Anyone looking from outside thinks that he fucking hates you so much, Butcher says to not concern yourself with it, the fucker’s old and you being queer is probably what’s got him like this. You’d wanted to stand up for yourself but you really don’t want to be torn apart by a supe who hates your fucking guts according to everyone.

It happens so fucking randomly, you’re left to babysit his old ass as the rest of the boys go out to do something– you couldn’t care less. Right now, you had more pressing matters. Like how his gaze doesn’t feel so… cold anymore. He’s been eyefucking you all day! You let out a big sigh as your clammy hands reacher for your glass, “Hey kid,” soldier boy starts and you’re so startled that he adressed you directly for the first time since you’ve met; you spill the water over yourself.

You expect a chuckle, some snarky remark or even a slur, you don’t expect his eyes drawn to your sweatpants then back to your face again, “How do you…” he clicks his tongue in annoyance with himself and the way you’re looking at him- seriously stop- “How do you… people have sex?” you let out a snort despite yourself, what the fuck is this moment you’re having?

“Like, gay sex?” He huffs in annoyance as he leans more onto the table, his relaxed demeanor gone, “obviously you fucking idiot, what else?” you roll your eyes, getting up to grab some napkins to at least dry yourself off a little, you don’t miss the way his eyes drift to your ass, you don’t point it out, “depends, some couples have strict top and bottom roles, who gets dicked down and who does it,” You don’t hear how he gets up from his chair, “some couples like to switch it up, some don’t care and do what they want to, penetration isn’t the only way t…” you’re cut off by the feel of hands caressing the sides of your thighs, your head snaps to look behind you, too look at him.

He raises his eyesbrows as if you’re the one that’s groping his thighs and ass, “dude, what the fuck are you doi…” you’re cut off as he groans (in annoyance, obviously) and turns you around, caging you between him and the kitchen counter. “What the fuck does it look like i’m doing? You’re gonna get us off, so shut the fuck up and–” his hand slides down your damp sweatpants, “stroke and touch it while you can.” 

You want to say something, do something, you really do, but look, he’s a supe and he can break you in half with one hand and he’s hot. Plus you have not gotten any action since you joined the boys, also, being soldier boy’s first proper gay awakening? That is fucking hilarious. So you do as he says and stay still and let your sweatpants drop down, of course he pulls this shit when you’re going commando.

You hear the way his breath hitches at the sight of your cock and fuck it gives you such an ego boost, yeah you’ve got a pretty dick that’s also getting harder by the minute just because he’s giving it an ounce of attention. Your eyes widen slightly when you see the infamous soldier boy’s dick, standing up in attention just because of a “fruit bowl” (his words) of a man, which in this case, is you.

He looks at you, irritation clear in his eyes as you gawk at his cock, yes it’s big and yes your reaction gets him even harder but fuck he just wants to get off at this point, “you gonna help both of us out or stand there with your mouth agape, tinkerbell?” that snaps you out of your surprise and you swallow thickly as you take his and your cock in your hand (it’s hard to- but you make do) and start to slowly strone the tips, which earns you a hiss from soldier boy. You focus your eyes on his face, hands on both of your cock’s. 

You bite your lip at how much he’s reacting to just…frotting, he must’ve been waiting for this, his hips are thrusting upwards, his hips rolling as he moans with relief everytime you stroke. 

He’s never been this horny in his damn life, the way your cock feels against his is indescribable, feels so fucking delicious is all his mush brain can muster. He groans out a fuck as your thumb ghosts over the tip, gathering the precum to get both of you slick. You would say something but you’re honestly too horny to, there’s silence besides moans and groans as you work your cock’s to finish. You feel his dick twitch against your own, his hands grip the sides of your thighs and he pulls you closer; earning a high pitches whine from you. He looks at you once, his pupils dilated with lust and want as he smashes your lips together; your cocks grinding against each other as he rolls his hips non-stop, your hands now steadying you on the counter as soldier boy grinds and rolls his hips. 

The kiss is all tongue and teeth, there’s nothing affectionate about it, just pure animalistic want. Makes you moan like a bitch into it as he overpowers you easily, his hands gripping your ass now, his tongue inside your mouth as he gives one final roll of his hips and cums with a loud ‘fuck, yes’, his voice is the thing that tips you over the edge as you cum with a low pitched whine, both of your hips spasming and stuttering as you grind onto each other and the kiss gets even deeper; refusing to part with you even when both of your t-shirts are now stained with each other’s cum. 

You sigh shakily as he finally lets you go, rudely might i add, as he pushes his hair back and gives you a look you don’t really understand, shoves you off, making you curse under your breath as the counter digs into your lower back. You watch as he just… pulls his sweats back on and takes off his t-shirt, finds cigarettes on one of the cupboards and goes outside to smoke…

“What… the fuck was that?” is all that leaves you, your dick still out and your heart beating so rapidly you think it’s gonna burst through your chest. What a mess of a man, huh.  

[hotvintagepoll]

Peter Falk (The Great Race, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World)—JUST A SILLY MAN!! Sabotages four different cars (including his own, oopsie daisy) in the film The Great Race. Not film but TV, however, he is also known as the lovably silly little man Detective Columbo. Nobody knows what he's doing or where he's going at any time (even him).

Jack Lemmon (The Great Race, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot)—He's the everyman, he's clumsy, he's strange, in nearly every movie he finds himself in the oddest of circumstances because he's taken advantage of or because of... bad luck? You empathize with him, he's really a little guy. And yet... Why is he so hot? Why does he have this charm, this hidden fire, this weird kind of... elegance? You can't help but sense this magnetism he radiates. There is power in his charming eccentricity and clumsiness. He just really draws you in and you want to explore what it is that makes him so scrungly and so attractive at once.

This is round 3 of the contest. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. If you’re confused on what a scrungle is, or any of the rules of the contest, click here.

[additional submitted propaganda + scrungly videos under the cut]

Peter Falk:

He's a man who looks unshaven even when he's shaven. His soul is unshaven. The perpetual squint, the way his eyes don't always go in the same direction due to one being glass, the disheveled hair... I can only hope to look as scrungly as him someday.

Just look at him. Seriously. Just look at him. He's the scrungliest little guy. He out-scrungles them all.

Jack Lemmon:

his chemistry with judy holliday in their two movies together is ZOINKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but i couldn't find any clips of that so watch him have mad chemistry with peter falk instead in my favorite campiest film of all time instead

His character in Glengary Glen Ross is literally the archetype Pathetic Guy. Even if you haven't seen this film I PROMISE you have seen iterations of Jack Lemmon's character from it. His character in Days of Wine and Roses will break your heart and show what an amazing range he has. [editor's note: I haven't seen either of these films so don't consider them recs from me. Also please keep your propaganda within the 1910-1970 range. tw for alcoholism in the clip below.]

[gemmahale]

Okay, I'm home, I've been on the road for the better part of 4 hours today due to a miscommunication and a cancelled event, and I've had this rant brewing.

Being Anti-Military and Pro-Veteran are stances that can mutually exist.

Games like CoD and whatever other FPS/Military Simulation game is out there is propaganda. It’s meant to make you want to sign up or support military action.

The military (I’m speaking specifically to the US, as I am most familiar with them by proxy) uses some incredibly underhanded techniques to ensure they have the warm bodies soldiers they need to keep the system working as intended.

This includes but is not limited to: promises of paying for education, aspirations of “seeing the world”, provision of job security, access to healthcare, a stable job and housing, etc. They use things like “patriotism” and “glory” and “security” to lure people in.

And then, when that person is wholly and completely reliant on the military - for a paycheck, housing, healthcare, you name it - they spit them back out into the world with a "thanks a lot and good fucking luck."

Into a world where:

Financial support for care has been axed and axed and axed again under "budget cuts"

Care is secured with red tape so thick you can tightrope walk across it

Care is denied for things the military caused (by saying "it didn't happen while you were serving".) *Yes, that's a direct quote from a doctor to one of Kallen's peers. When assessing a life-altering injury sustained while they were in country overseas, it was deemed as "non-service related injury”.

In comparison to civilians:

Veterans are ~40% more likely to be homeless.

Veterans are ~80% more likely to suffer from untreated mental and physical health issues - PTSD, hearing loss, nerve damage, etc.

Veterans are ~60% more likely to turn to addictive substances - alcohol, drugs, etc.

Veterans are ~70% more likely to commit suicide.

This isn’t limited to combat vets. Logistics specialists, administrative specialists, IT specialists all get screwed when they leave.

Ask just about any veteran that has served, they are incredibly likely to be staunchly anti-military.

The military causes a tremendous amount of damage to every person involved, even if they aren't aware of it at the time.

It’s a cult, it’s an abusive relationship, it’s predatory. Treat it as such.

Support veterans, advocate for their care. They made choices you may not agree with, but they made them because of what they thought the military was offering to them. Many thought they were doing the right thing for their country - that was the lie they were fed from 9/11 on (in the US). Then they were chewed up, spit out, and left for dead by the same people that made all those promises to them.

Here are some US-based, apolitical Veteran Support groups (many have International chapters/members):

22 Until None - 501-C3 that provides support to veterans by veterans. There are local chapters on Facebook that are all active and are listed on the website

Disabled American Veteran - Veteran help association; involved in legislation and local assistance, connections to VA advocates to help navigate the VA

Wounded Warrior Project - 501-C3 charity supporting disabled veterans.

Note: I am absolutely not doing the "not all servicemembers" thing here. I'm saying "veterans are living with their choices, and still deserve access to care."

[silkscream]

angel unaware

ꨄ︎ pairing: peter parker x silk!reader

ꨄ︎ synopsis: you’ve known peter since you were fifteen, shortly after you were both bitten by the same spider. it was too obvious that you’d end up loving him. as you drift apart during your first year of college, you’re not sure how much longer you can keep dancing in circles with him.

ꨄ︎ genres: best friends to lovers, angst, idiots in love, slowburn, mutual pining, hurt/comfort

ꨄ︎ tags: rated explicit/18+ (smut), alcohol usage, mention of drug usage, unprotected sex, oral sex (f receiving), characters are 19, mild violence, gun violence (there is a school shooting in the beginning but there aren't too many details)

ꨄ︎ wc: 13.8k

ꨄ︎ notes: omg. happy valentine’s day y’all. i’ve been working on this Big Bertha for literal MONTHS and i’m so happy to finish it and share it with you. thank you for being around even though i haven’t been the most active; this is a gift to you <3

ꨄ︎ listen to the playlist!

The spider bit you first.

It isn’t until you’re fifteen that someone else finds out about it.

In many ways, you should’ve known. The symptoms, the hypervigilance, the strange, gradual transition of filling out your body. You blame puberty first, but this feels more than abnormal. It's almost as if it's bursting through your skin. The only other person who seems to mirror your coming of age is Peter Parker, whose twitchy nature exacerbates the longer high school goes on.

You keep your head low because there’s no reason for you to tell anyone about your powers. Not even the boy about whom you’re positive shares the same curse as you.

But then the videos come out. Red and blue lycra flying through buildings, a blurred figure saving cats from trees, webs shooting and swaying as onlookers stare like it’s a circus act. He calls himself Spider-man and you think it’s awfully corny.

You’d be a fool to think that you were safe from the antics of Avengers propaganda, rubble, and ash blocking your way to school on more days than not. You’d be a fool to think that you could evade the classic tropes of American violence that force the president to lament about "unthinkable tragedies" multiple times a year. At this moment, you’re a fool for getting yourself locked in a janitor’s closet while there’s an active shooter at Midtown High.

Your breath hitches when the doorknob jangles in front of you. On instinct, you stick yourself to the ceiling, far in the corner with your senses on fire. You’ve never actually had to attack anyone before. You aren’t entirely sure how this would play out with a gun involved.

Peter Parker’s labored breaths fill your eardrums, and without thinking, you shoot your webs directly at him. He stumbles, clumsily tripping over an empty mop bucket. He looks up at you in confusion. He’s wearing half of his suit.

"You. You just–"

"Shut the fuck up," you hiss, covering his mouth with your palm. In the darkness, your eyes widen. Someone is near.

It’s a stupid ordeal. The crime happening, this meet-cute, the way your senses feel haywire being this close to him. Both of you are holding your breath, your heart is pounding erratically in your chest, and blood is rushing through your ears.

The day ends with you and Peter making it out of the closet through a vent and the shooter getting subdued by the police. A troubled sophomore who barely knew how to use the gun in the first place made it easy for Spider-man to intercept the weapon the moment the kid raised his arms.

Peter follows you home that afternoon like a stray cat, babbling over a game of twenty questions that you aren’t in the mood to entertain. Somehow, his presence leaves your chest feeling warm and light, and you realize that you don’t mind the company. Twenty questions become routine.

He’s the only one who gets it, of course.

He tells you about the Avengers, ignoring the way you scoff under your breath. Secretly, you’re only a little jealous. Not because you want that kind of prestige or even a fancy suit, but because at least there’s a group of freaks out there who know.  "How come you didn’t tell me?" Peter asks you. He looks small on your couch despite his sixteen-year-old sleeper build and the fact that he’s taking up more than half of your space.

"What do you mean?"

"If you knew about Spider-Man this whole time… why didn’t you say something?"

"What, like I was supposed to seek you out on the street with a mask on?"

He gives you a pointed look. "You had a feeling about me. In school. Didn’t you?"

You don’t answer, which, to Peter, is an answer in itself.

"I didn’t want to be any trouble. It’s my burden to deal with," you say slowly, blinking up at him.

Burden. Peter smooths the word over in his mind and watches the way your nimble fingers pick at the threads of your sweater. He suddenly feels guilty for pestering you with questions, especially after the trauma of today.

"It’s not a burden," he says carefully. You don’t protest, but he knows there’s a certain level of repression inside you that won't let you give this part of yourself up. As if his knowing about your powers would only be that — knowing. He keeps staring at your fingers.

"You don’t have web shooters?" He gestures to your hands.

"Comes from my fingertips."

"No fucking way. You gotta show me."

"You saw it today," you chuckle as you take a breath.

"Not really," he pouts. The amber-brown of his eyes is annoyingly irresistible, and you know it because of how hot the back of your neck suddenly feels. There’s a hint of a taunting smile on his face, as if he knows.

You take him to the fire escape outside your bedroom window. It’s barely past five and it’s already gotten dark. Luckily, your bedroom faces an empty alley.

"I’m not some circus act, just so you know," you warn him.

"Please," he tuts. "If anything, we both are. Two arachno-freaks."

"You should rebrand as that," you say with a grin.

You shoot a web to the fire escape railing above you, holding yourself up and swinging like you're in P.E. climbing a rope. You feel ridiculous, to say the least. You quickly shoot more webs after a quick scan of your surroundings to swaddle yourself in something resembling a cocoon. It hangs like a playground swing from the metal above.

"Holy shit! Does it ever… run out? Do you get web blocks? Does it come out of anywhere else–"

"I’m not answering that." Your cheeks heat up at the insinuation.

"Sorry, just curious." He holds his palms up in defense, then reaches to touch a fingertip to the silk holding you together. It feels soft like cotton candy and is much less sticky than what came out of his web shooters.

He asks you to swing with him, and for some reason, you say yes. You don’t like to swing very much, and if you do, you try to look for construction sites or abandoned scaffolding to evade attention. Tonight, however, the New York City lights look warm against the velvety backdrop of the sky, and you decide that flying through the air with someone else feels better than doing it alone.

____

He doesn’t understand your desire to stay under the radar. Whenever he brings it up, you take the opportunity to bring up the New York City disasters that have gone underway before the two of you even graduate. If anything, you’ve been a decent backup, but you refuse to be in the public eye. You don’t want to be Spider-girl.

But you don’t mind swinging around the city in your handmade suit, spun and woven together with the silk that flows straight from your fingertips. It’s one thing that Peter’s jealous of, but it helps him when he needs to patch up a wound when he’s on the go with you.

Peter comes through your window with a red gash on his thigh. You can smell him before you see him.

"Ugh, you broke the streak. Five days without a scratch. That’s a record for you, Parker," you sigh, already rummaging through your drawers for the usual first-aid kit.

"I’m fine." He winces as he crouches down carefully on the floor. You’ve gotten good at minding your business and not asking about his wounds, at least not ones that aren’t too deep into the flesh. He knows it would only hurt you if you knew.

"And yet you’re here."

"I wanted to see you. You know I always want to see you."

You open your mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. You kneel before him, pouring hydrogen peroxide onto the gash as you dab gently with a hand towel. He hisses and grabs your forearm with more force than he intends to.

"You’ll be fine," you reassure him gently.

"Yeah. I could've done it, you know," he says as he carefully holds your gaze.

"‘S’fun sometimes," you reply without looking at him. Carefully, you wrap gauze around his leg. "When I was little, my neighbor and I used to play House, but it always turned into, like… Hospital. And I’d pretend to be a nurse and take care of her, I’d tuck her into bed, and I’d give her lollipops from my Halloween stash for being a good patient."

Peter chuckles. He wobbles slightly as he stands up with your help.

"Am I a good patient?"

"Mm. A very brave boy," you say as you pat his cheek.

"What, I don’t get a treat?"

"Your treat is staying alive." You take him by the wrist towards your living room couch.

He doesn’t know what he’d do without you. It’s not right for him to think of you as an extension of himself, but he often yearns for your presence like a phantom limb whenever you aren’t on patrol with him. He realizes you're the yin to his yang.

It excites him, the images of you two that end up on the Internet. How good you look together. You, on the other hand, dread any semblance of perception by the world.

"People are catching on, you know. Ned found a subreddit on you the other day," Peter murmurs into your lap.

You snort, rolling your eyes the way you always do. You fiddle with the soft strands of his hair. It’s second nature to you. "Ned needs to reduce his screen time tenfold."

"Rabbit."

You sigh dramatically at the nickname. He’d adopted it after the many jumpscares he’d give you when he’d sneak into your room at night. You’d become so accustomed to him that your spider-sense would dull when it came to Peter. He was your source of comfort.

"What, Pete?"

"Why don’t you patrol with me?"

"You know why." It’s too stressful. Too public. Too many run-ins with death that you can anticipate.

"It’s better when you’re around."

"You’re a big boy, Peter," you murmur. Your hand slides across his scalp again, this time with your fingertips settling in the space behind his ears. You aren’t looking at him; instead, you are watching the documentary on the television at a low volume. He crumples at your touch.

"May says you’re my guardian angel. Every time something really bad has happened, it always worked out because you were there."

"I mean, it probably helps when you have another Spider-person as a backup."

"I think she’s right, though."

You don’t say anything. You’re tempted to reply with something sardonic or self-deprecating. You put too much faith in me. But you can’t – he’s looking at you with something that you can’t fathom. Something earnest and entirely too fragile. You have to look away.

He hums, sighing into a tattered copy of Hamlet. "I can’t deal with any more Shakespeare."

"You’re such a slow reader despite being a goddamn genius."

"Did you just say something nice about me?" Peter raises a brow.

"Oh my God, relax, Big Bang Theory."

He scoffs and swallows down a smart-ass remark. A grin lingers in his mouth as he settles back into the book.

____

You’re apart from Peter for the first time since age sixteen. You don’t tell him – you don’t tell anyone – but you decide on an out-of-state university because you don’t want to feel tethered to him. Your friends consider you and Peter a package deal, and yes, he’s probably the first real best friend you’ve ever had, but the gnawing inside of you telling you that distance is needed doesn’t stop.

You, the black sheep, are the antithesis of your hero of a best friend, despite being bitten by the same spider. You’ve always wondered if your story was supposed to play out like some sort of Shakespearean tragedy because of your bond with Peter, so you decide to take your mind off of it. At least it won’t be as painful as severing it completely.

It feels free to be away from all the chaos. In Rhode Island, you can focus on your art and fold your feelings away in a neat little envelope. You’d rather die than let any of that out, especially when Peter insists on such frequent FaceTime calls.

Sometimes, you fall asleep to the sound of his voice. He tells you about taking a train down to Providence in the middle of September to visit you like some kind of long distance boyfriend. The thought makes something in your stomach bloom and stagger in the same way. He doesn’t keep his promise – chem labs are already kicking his ass halfway to Thanksgiving break, not to mention the crime rate in New York City rockets beyond normal.

Thanksgiving comes, and both of you are the same. Peter is exactly as boyish as you left him three months ago, though his brown hair has grown longer and he wears blue-light readers to help with the mild headaches he gets from staring at screens.

He isn't attached to your hip like you expected. Your week off is filled with missed texts and a marathon of TV shows about broken women—the kind with dark humor and falling in love with priests.

The next time you see him, your roommate is out of town. It's not an unusual occurrence given how little she spends time in the dorm, always elsewhere with her new boyfriend.

Peter takes up so much space in your bed that you almost offer to push the two twin beds together, but the feeling of his warmth is too comforting. Propped against the wall, you’re hip-to-hip with him as you scroll through Netflix on your laptop.

You can feel him staring. It becomes routine, or maybe it’s your senses, but you can always tell when he’s merely observing you, watching you carefully like ripples on a pond. You've never really chastised him about it, but it doesn't help that you know he can tell when you're nervous. He has you memorized.

He likes the way you look when you concentrate. Sometimes, when you’re deep in thought, he likes to take his thumb and smooth out the ridges of your furrowed brows even though you end up swatting him away. When he does this now, you look up at him with wide, doe eyes.

"Still as indecisive as ever."

"I have to be, otherwise you’ll just put on Gilmore Girls," you scoff.

"You’re the one who showed me that!" Peter protests.

"And then it was the only thing you wanted to watch to the point where I genuinely considered locking you out of my Netflix account!"

He doesn’t bother to argue, instead resorting to poking you in the side. You squirm immediately, yelping as he continues. He flashes you a leering grin as you whine in dissent, flinching from the feather-like touch of his fingertips dancing across your skin.

"You’re so annoying," you huff, curling your body toward the wall.

"And you love it."

More than you’d ever know.

You pause, rolling your eyes at him. You contemplate kicking him again just to get a rise out of him, anything other than the short silence between you that feels more present than it should be. Your stomach feels warm at his proximity, but then again, Peter’s built like a human furnace anyway.

When you attempt to playfully shove him, he catches your wrist with quick reflexes until the two of you are tangled together. It’s easy to fight with him when you’re both running off the same biological fuel. When he ends up on top of you, you forget how to breathe.

The two of you stare at each other like this, as if frozen in time. It’s you who looks away first, then back to his big brown eyes, settling a palm to his cheek. You can feel how hard he is. You wonder if he knows.

It’s something you’ve only thought about in your subconscious, in dreams, or in moments when you’re bandaging his wounds. How would it feel to have his skin all over yours? It’s a selfish thought, but it rings in your brain without warning at times like these, times of such closeness. The spider bit the two of you for a reason. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

It’s a curious thing for sure, but there are doors you don’t want to open yet.  

"One episode and then I pick a movie," you mumble.

____

You don’t tell him about transferring when you come back for Christmas break. It feels embarrassing, despite knowing that he’d be ecstatic about the news. RISD proved to be too difficult for your one-track mind as you found yourself sleeping in more and more, flaking on the most rigorous of classes due to your mood. You’d successfully gotten into Pratt for the next semester and were fully moved out, thankfully. But when you see Peter in the arms of another, you wish you hadn't left.

You should’ve expected it, maybe. Peter had always had a thing for Michelle Jones but could never quite get past the friend zone. It seems as though your absence has nudged him further.

No, that feels too selfish to say.

But it’s still too difficult to bear in the loneliness of December, knowing that when the New Year’s parties hit, you’re still the black sheep. Even in a shiny little dress.

You don’t see him much over winter break, but he gets you a silver necklace for Christmas with a spider pendant hanging on it. It’s more sentimental than you expect, and it’s the nicest gift you’ve ever received. It certainly beats the Lego set you’d gotten for him.

Now, in your black cocktail dress, you smile dopily at Ned Leeds as the rest of the room counts down at the television, waiting for the ball to drop. It’s bittersweet when you remember last year’s countdown, in which Peter insisted the two of you swung out to Manhattan to watch the ball drop in person. You remember how much you wanted to kiss him then, but you didn’t. Thank God for his hero's anonymity and the impediment of his suit.

"Five, four, three, two, one – Happy New Year!"

Makeshift confetti falls to the ground as you watch him and MJ kiss. There’s enough champagne in your system for your heart to grow warm at the sight of it.  

____

January is cold. Desolate. Even if you have your friends around you in New York, the place that feels most like home, you’ve come to realize. But there’s still something missing, something lacking. Like you’re inside a familiar place inside a dream.

You ignore the itch, learning to numb it with champagne. It worked on New Year’s, and now it’s been working for several weeks. You don’t leave your apartment.

Even though Peter Parker is a text or phone call away, you fade into the background of his life, watching him through newsreels and YouTube videos. You’re on his mind more than you’d expect. He doesn’t know why, though he does realize that your absence bothers him in small ways.

Sometimes, when he’s on patrol, he’s frustrated by his loneliness, especially in the dead of winter. You were never one to play the hero – he knew that – but it was still comforting to have someone to patch up his wounds or soften his fall. The webs that flow from your fingertips have always been strong, enough to form hammocks in between the corners of his bedroom or a makeshift suit.

And then there are the dreams. They feel real, vivid, and much too physical for something that his mind could conjure in his unconscious. You had only kissed him once before (in real life, that is), at a stupid basement party in the ninth grade, before the two of you were friends, but shortly after the initial spider bite. Although it’s something that’s only been brought up as a joke these past few years, Peter remembers vividly how hard his heart was pounding when the glass bottle landed on you after what felt like an excruciatingly long spin. He could never forget the feeling. He wonders if you feel the same.

It’s not something he should be thinking about right now. Especially when you’re not his girlfriend. He’d rather die a thousand deaths than have you know what you do to him in his dreams when you’re nothing but a reverie of your own silk-spun webs and soft, bare skin. You treat him like prey. He loves it.

Peter can nearly smell you, that sandalwood-citrus shampoo of yours, and your warm breath over his face. Your little whispers of praise, your tiny whimpers. The image of your eyes struggling to stay open while you’re underneath him is burned into his brain.

"I missed you," you say breathlessly. "Missed you so much."

God, how is this a dream? He can feel you so clearly. Until he doesn't, and he wakes up with a groan, an exhale, and an excess of sweat on his brow. Not to mention a dampness below him.

"Fucking Christ," he curses under his breath.

The ghost of you is on his bedroom ceiling, in the corner of his room. Something nearby smells like you, even though you haven’t been in his room in ages. This makes something in his chest hurt until he decides to get out of bed.

He wants to see you, but he feels guilty knowing what he's just dreamt about. He can’t help that the person that makes him feel the most human is the only other one who shares the venom in his blood.

Sometimes he follows you. It feels almost meditative for him to sit on a rooftop and watch you from the window of your favorite cafe, reading and writing and breathing. The brightness of his phone screen illuminates his face as his eyes scan over your contact. Your face smiles back at him, but there’s a distance considering the lack of texts between the two of you over the past month. He sighs as he zooms in on your location – the two of you had shared each others’ years ago and only found it convenient to keep.

Peter doesn’t know why he’s feeling all this yearning all of a sudden – sometimes he recognizes the feeling in his body and he thinks of you and he thinks of safety. Other times, like now, he knows that it only breeds guilt.

But he misses being quiet with you, misses the mundane intimacies of him poking you and you fixing his hair. All the small expressions you make with your face that only he notices. There’s something empty in the space he usually holds for you in his heart, and he doesn’t know why.

He has to see you. Maybe then, something in his brain will click, or he’ll see you as the old friend you’ve always been, and he can blame the heat in his body on his subconscious.

You’re predictable with your routine, because this afternoon, he finds you in your usual spot by the window at your favorite cafe again. You’re writing in your journal with your noise-canceling headphones on, so Peter’s presence is completely unknown to you. After he gets his coffee, he watches you from afar, just for a little bit.

As if on cue, you already know. The moment you skip a song and a millisecond of silence fills the space in your head, you feel him immediately. You always know when he’s around.

"Peter," you murmur without thinking. Your gaze is soft but carries the surprise of a deer caught in headlights.

"Hey," he smiles. "Mind if I sit here?"

He gestures to the armchair across from you, and you nod.

Peter knows how to coax your warmth from you, because within minutes, he has you talking about school, what’s on your mind, and why it feels better to be holed up in a cafe than sit miserably at home. You do the same for him, though you notice he’s more reserved for some reason – he’s tight-lipped about MJ, and doesn’t delve into the details of his hero work. He prefers to bombard you with questions instead, listening intently to your most recent fixations or the newest movie you saw alone in theaters.

"You replaced me yet, Rabbit?" he teases you.

"Never," you scoff, tipping your coffee cup to hide any embarrassment on your face. You haven’t heard him call you that in so long. "You know me. I’m a lone wolf."

"Pratt seems like your crowd though, no? No one at Midtown High was a match for you. You were way too cool."

"Mmm, true, yet you’re my best friend."

"Hey!"

Your laugh is like a song to him; he can’t help but smile ear to ear when he hears it.

"The only person who talks to me at school is this guy Cam from my ceramics class. He’s actually from Brooklyn so we took the train together to get home and he’s around for break, which is cool."

Peter’s face nearly goes cold at the sound of someone else’s name, though he stays composed.

"Fun. Are you two…" He gestures vaguely.

"We hooked up like, once, but I don’t really know where it’s going." You say it so nonchalantly like it’s an afterthought. You’re not even looking at Peter.

"If he fucks anything up, you know where to find me."

You smile, rolling your eyes in that bashful way you do when you shrug things off, and it’s more apparent to Peter now how much he adores all your little quirks and mannerisms. He realizes that he might have them all memorized.

"We’re actually going to a party tonight if you want to come. A friend of a friend’s birthday party in Manhattan, I think? I think her name was Anna?"

"Oh, my friend Gwen knows her and invited me!"

"Small world." You swallow down the image of Peter at the party with an ESU girl for a second, and it feels rough in your throat. But you’ll manage. You always do. "Is MJ coming?"

Peter shakes his head. "Ah, she’s in Philly visiting family. I’ll probably go with Gwen and her boyfriend Harry, though."

You feel shame in your relief. It’s sickening how much you have to bury your desire and your tenderness because you know better. You know that even though the two of you were bitten by the same spider, it doesn’t mean you’re necessarily compatible. Sometimes you think your attraction to Peter is some biological fluke determined by the cells in both of your bodies. And then you think, God, how can anyone look into his brown eyes and not feel a thing?

You're both warm in your chests as you part ways, waiting for your next meeting.

____

The night of the party, Peter revels in the sight of you wearing your spider necklace, which sparkles under the flashing lights of the penthouse apartment you’re both in. His mood dampens when he notices the tall boy attached to your hip like a guard dog.

It’s a stupid game and he knows it. The way he pretends not to see you or acknowledge your presence is cruel, but it feels safe for now. He doesn’t feel ready. He’s high off some gummy that Harry had given him an hour earlier, and it’s still fogging his senses, and even though he can be cloudy and nonchalant at this party, his paranoia precedes him. It feels like you’re everywhere.

He shouldn’t feel this way. Why does he feel this way? You’re his best friend and you have your own life that’s separate from his – he knew this would happen the moment he found out you were going to different colleges. Despite that, there’s a piece of you tethered to him that he can’t bear to cut off. It makes him feel sane, the parts of you that you’ve given him.

But now, he sees you laughing and swaying your hips with someone else’s hands resting on your waist and it makes his face burn.

"Dude," Gwen snaps her fingers in front of his face. Peter blinks back at her. "Are you good?"

"Yeah, sorry."

"Harry wanted to do a shot, you want to join?"

Peter nods numbly, following the blonde to the kitchen. He watches everyone else in the kitchen pour shots and drinks like they are rehearsed marionettes. Harry snaps him out of his daze once he slams down a shot glass full of vodka in front of him.

"Drink up, Parker!" Harry cheers.

The alcohol burns Peter’s throat, but he feels the head rush and the warmth. It feels good, makes him feel looser. Malleable. Invincible, maybe, if he took two or three more. But he knows he has to pace himself. He hates that his default setting is to look for you no matter where he is. But when he scans the room this time, you’re downing a glass of champagne alone.

Your body feels heavy at the moment, so you don’t register him plopping down on the couch next to you. You wake up to the sound of his voice as you always do.

"Hey, you."

"Hey."

Your glass of champagne is empty, so you take the beer bottle out of Peter’s hand without saying a word, and he lets you. He watches you gulp a bit of it down. Maybe you’re a little too drunk. Maybe you’re imagining the way his eyes scan your body.

You’re drunk enough to feel social, but truthfully, you’re deathly afraid of being alone with anyone right now. Being alone with someone would make you feel much too raw and vulnerable, so you convince Peter to introduce you to his friends that you’ve never met, and you try to cope with the fact that they look like they were cut straight out of a magazine.

"Peter talks about you all the time," Gwen gushes, sipping from her champagne flute.

"He does?" you ask, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course," she nods incessantly.

"Only incredible reviews all around," Harry nods, drunkenly slinging an arm around Peter’s shoulders. The brunette smiles sheepishly, bashfully. You raise an eyebrow at him along with a coy smile.

"Should hope so," you tease. "He wouldn’t have gotten through high school without me."

It’s mostly a lie considering Peter was the star student and you were barely second to him. Maybe fifth or sixth. In a way, your words are true, because Peter’s agreeing with you.

You zone out as he starts a story from junior year and you have half the mind to chime in when needed. Harry suddenly puts a whisky coke in your hand and you don’t want to refuse out of politeness, but you know the mix of different alcohol will have your head banging in the morning. Peter downs half of his within a millisecond.

"What?" he asks when he notices you making a face.

"Since when do you drink so much?"

"It’s a party," he shrugs.

"Peter, when I brought you to your first party, you refused to drink anything that wasn’t a fruity canned cocktail. You won’t go near wine let alone whiskey."

"A semester at ESU changes you," Harry interjects. "He’s still a little fruity, though."

Peter chastises him as you and Gwen laugh. As the boys bicker, Gwen gets your attention. She asks you mundane questions, like your major, your zodiac sign, and what you thought of the season finale of White Lotus. You’re grateful when she beckons you to follow her to the kitchen to make another whiskey coke.

Her glossed lips twist to the side, eyes bright with a teasing glance. She has the ability to make you feel calm, almost excited to be there.

"He is obsessed with you," she sneers.

"What do you mean?"

"He just talked about you so much when we met him that I had to stalk your Insta, and I was like Jesus Christ, that makes so much sense. If I wasn’t with Harry I’d snatch you up myself. And then when I met his girlfriend and I was confused that it wasn’t you. Unless you’re doing that, like, exes-that-are-still-best-friends thing."

You blush and nearly choke on your drink. "Peter and I never dated."

"Seriously?"

You say nothing, only forcing an amused smile. You don’t know where to put her assumptions, but you sure as hell can’t keep them.

"I’m actually, uh, here with someone," you mutter, pretending to look around. Briefly, you lock eyes with Peter on the couch, who’s pretending to listen to Harry's rambling. Your eyes flit away quickly. "I think I might step outside for a smoke and look for him."

You don’t have to turn around to know that Peter’s eyes are following you. Or maybe you’re just drunk and projecting. Gwen’s bubbly nature makes her seem like the type to gossip, and just because your best friend happened to talk about you doesn’t mean that there was anything under the surface. But then you notice his slightly nervous energy tonight, the silver necklace around your neck, and the last time he visited you months before, when his body was so close to yours.

A pair of hands situate themselves on your waist and it makes you jump. The warmth feels different, as does the sudden smell of sharp cologne, and then you feel your heart drop the slightest bit when you hear his voice.

"Was looking for you," Cam slurs. You can smell the beer breath as he exhales on your neck, making you shiver.

"You sure? Because you’ve been MIA for like forty-five minutes."

You try to keep your voice even, sighing when he plants a kiss on your neck. Any animosity in your tone is completely ignored.

"I was catching up with some people that I wanted to introduce you to," he says, tugging you along by the wrist like a child. You pull up a chair to a firepit surrounded by a group of strangers, and the charade of icebreakers returns. There’s no point in remembering anyone’s name.

You think about returning inside to look for Peter or maybe Gwen and Harry, but being on Cam’s lap is distracting you. At some point, a joint a passed around, and the feeling of the boy’s arms around you makes it easy to melt into nothing.

____

You’re right. You always are. Peter Parker doesn’t drink, and he’s never drunk this much in his entire life. He’s been sitting in the bathtub for… how long? He doesn’t know. All he knows is that his senses were dulled to the point of detachment and he needed to get alone to ground himself.

He’s so out of it that he doesn’t realize someone’s knocking on the door of the bathroom, and his reaction time is too slow before Harry barges in.

"Are you hiding in the bathtub?" Harry squints.

"No, I’m just… hangin’ out," Peter stammers.

Harry snaps out of the facade of a confused daze and shrugs, unbuckling his belt with nonchalance in front of the toilet.

"Dude!"

"What? I’m turned around!"

Sighing, Peter looks around his surroundings. Generic brand shampoo and conditioner. A deformed bar of soap. A red solo cup with clear liquid. He remembers suddenly – he’d filled an empty cup he found with sink water before getting in the tub.

His brain swims with dizziness and mild nausea that mix up his stomach. Gulping down the water, his throat burns immediately, only to realize that it isn’t water at all. It’s fucking vodka and seltzer. Harry’s turned around again, cackling before washing his hands.

"Idiot."

"Fuckingshitjesusfuckingchrist," Peter groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You should just drink straight vodka at this point, man."

"Oh, I do," Harry agrees. He crouches down, squatting to meet Peter at eye level. A warm palm taps Peter’s cheek. "You good, bro?"

"Mmm," Peter nods. His breathing turns shallow as he hunches over, pulling his knees into his chest.

"Jesus, you need to get home, don’t you?"

"‘m fine. You go home."

"Gwen’s been nagging me to for the past ten minutes, so I might. I’d let you crash on the couch, but we’re getting up early to go upstate. How are you getting home, bro?"

Harry frowns when he realizes Peter is barely listening. "Pete!"

He grimaces at Harry’s constant fidgeting. With an annoyed sigh, he shoos the other boy away with flailing arms.

"Heard you," he slurs. "I’ll– I’ll share an Uber with Y/N."

Harry sighs with exasperation, pulling Peter’s arm forcefully to get him out of the tub and down to the living room of the house. Peter is dizzy in his vision, clumsy in his movements, but finds clarity when he glances towards the couch and sees you sitting there with furrowed brows.

"Peter? Are you okay?" you ask.

"Yeah, absolutely not," Harry says. "Gwen and I gotta head home and we’re leaving early tomorrow so he can’t crash. You guys are like, neighbors, right?"

You swallow a lump in your throat, briefly turning your head to glance back at Cam, then back at Peter. He looks at you with a guilty cadence, though his eyes lull with a tiredness that is unusual for him. He’s corpse-like, still hanging onto Harry’s shoulder like a lifeline. It makes the pit of your stomach stir.

It’s unlike him, to be this drunk. The only other time Peter has been this drunk was once in high school, when he was slurring his words all night and determined to clutch you like a teddy bear in his twin-sized bed. You recall his warmth and how his post-puberty figure appeared gargantuan to your body. Foreign, but warm. Comforting. When you think about taking Peter home tonight, you feel like you aren’t allowed to lay next to a body that doesn’t belong to you.

"Yeah, I’ll take him home."

____

"Coulda swung home myself," the boy mumbles. You hit him on the arm and give him a chastising look. Thankfully, your current Uber driver speaks a limited amount of English, not to mention the radio is on blast.

"You couldn’t have. You’re so fucking drunk, you’d kill yourself," you hiss in a low tone.

"Not if you were with me."

"Well, I wouldn’t be. I wasn’t even gonna go home tonight."

"Ah. Of course. Cam,” he exasperates. “Is he your boyfriend?"

You sigh. "No, he’s not."

"Right, you don’t… you don’t do boyfriends," Peter murmurs, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

The car stops in front of Peter’s apartment building.

"Thank you," you say stiffly to the Uber driver as you drag Peter out of the car. The elevator ride is awkward and quiet, as is the fumbling of keys when Peter tries to unlock the door.

He leans on your body as you coerce him into his bedroom, with him thumping onto his bottom bunk.

"Jesus. I feel like if Richie Rich called you an Uber himself you could’ve easily made it up the elevator by yourself. Right, Pete?"

"Mhmm. He’s such. A worry wart. For some rea–" Peter makes a gulping sound that makes your face pale. Immediately, you grab his trash bin and place it between his feet.

"‘m not gonna puke."

"I think you might, Peter."

He pauses and examines you as you kneel in front of him. He’s so drunk, so awfully drunk, but he has enough sense in him to take the caution that the anxious voice in the back of his head commands. But fuck, you look so pretty. He doesn’t know what to do about it.

Peter takes a strand of your hair in his hands and curls it around his finger. His shallow breaths feel louder than they should be. Or maybe they’re yours. He can’t really tell.

"What?"

"Nothing," he shrugs. "I won’t vomit. I promise."

You sigh.

"I should get going–"

"Can you stay for a little?"

Swallowing, you nod. You get into bed with him, because, quite frankly, you’ve had your fair share of alcohol tonight, and laying down in Peter’s warm bed makes you want to melt off the bone.

"I'm sorry for fucking up your night." Peter turns to lie on his side and drapes an arm carefully around you. His hand is feather-bare on your hip.

"You didn’t."

"You were gonna go home with Cam."

"It’s fine, Peter. I wanted to make sure you were safe."

"Like a chore."

"Not like a chore."

"Yeah, okay."

He does that thing again – holds a strand of your hair in his hands. He runs his fingertips nimbly across your scalp as if he’s handling an injured bird. As if he’s afraid you’d bite.

Your eyes are huge, like flying saucers. He used to say that all the time, especially whenever you came to his apartment after experimenting with any new drugs. You only felt safe with him – you had told him that – and he took care of you and your big eyes and your tendencies toward erratic behavior. He always knew how to calm you down. And now, in your adult lives, you were doing it for him.

You let him keep his hands in your hair and he doesn’t know why. There’s a theory he wants to test – one that he dreams about even when he knows he shouldn’t. He thinks about it in vulnerable moments. He considers that maybe this is a vulnerable moment.

His fingertips trace your face between the edge of your eyebrow and the baby hairs on your hairline. He taps along your temple gently, smoothing across the softness of your skin until he sculpts down your cheek and jaw. He blinks once, then twice. And then he rests the pad of his thumb on the corner of your mouth.

Almost automatically, you part your lips. Your mouth is pink, dusted with a purplish-red in the center from the merlot you’d drank hours before, and he wants to lick it off you.

He feels your heart beating, too, and you can hear his. It's a loud bang that resonates in between your eardrums. It’s that shared venom that makes your bodies so acquainted with one another. You briefly consider whether a human body can overheat and burn away simply by being touched by another. You wonder how human the two of you can really be.

You close your eyes.

"What are you doing?" you whisper. Your voice is gossamer-thin, barely there, but you’re so close to him that he hears it so clearly.

"Whatever you want." His voice is dripping honey.

You shake your head, still with your eyes closed. Peter’s hand descends to your jaw, thumb on your bone, with the rest of his fingers warming up your neck. You feel like you might just choke on the feeling of it.

"No, that’s not fair. That’s not… okay."

"What?"

"You’re drunk, Peter. Don’t do that to me. Please."

"What am I doing?"

Your face scrunches up as your eyes open to look at him with a pained expression. You have to close them again. You don’t want to look at him. You want his hands off of you, so you push them away.

"You’re with MJ."

"I… I know."

Your face is crumpled as you inch out of his bed. You’re back to kneeling on the floor in front of him.

"Please don’t leave," Peter whispers.

"I’m tired. I’ll sleep on the top bunk," you mumble. You try not to let him catch you sniffling.

"Goodnight.” You don’t respond.

He falls asleep shortly after and smells your perfume even in his dreams. When he wakes up, he smells you. But you’re nowhere to be found. There’s only the cold air coming from a crack of his window left slightly open.

____

It’s not your fault, but you’ve broken his heart a million times. The night of the party was the most recent one. To be fair, he had also broken your heart. He was just too fucking drunk to remember most of it.

You’ve become a ghost, barely texting Peter back, and when you do, your responses are short and clipped. You don’t have much time to hang out, and he realizes he doesn’t either, not when he has MJ to spend time with along with his Spider-Man duties.

But he would make time for you if you wanted it. He wonders if you know that. He feels too ashamed to tell you that himself.

It’s been like this before, and he’s been able to cope. The way you’re on his brain and won’t leave —stuck on him like a parasite. It’s his fault, he decides, not yours. He knows he’s not being fair. Not to you, not to MJ, not to himself. But he keeps it all in and hopes it doesn’t boil over.

Truthfully, Peter wants to avoid everyone. He understands now why you abhor winter to the degree that you always have. The desolation is too much to bear when there’s not much sunlight in January to activate dopamine receptors, so Peter sleeps in longer than he should. Late enough for Aunt May to get on his case about it.

"Something’s up with you," MJ accuses him on a Thursday evening. It’s one of their ritual movie nights with pizza and wine.

"Huh? Nothing’s up," Peter shrugs.

"No, I know you. Something’s wrong."

"I’m fine, Em." A lie.

It’s a miracle that Michelle Jones sees through Peter’s bullshit because it means that she has the incentive to protect herself from any future bullshit that may break her later on. Peter is too numb to process any of it. There was the refusal of admission, the attempt to keep up the wall of his emotions, which crashed down soon enough by the time MJ was out of the door.

He thinks he should call you, but he doesn’t.

____

Peter is used to scrapes and bruises. He’s seen more than enough charred flesh than a nineteen-year-old should. You had never asked to be his caretaker, but over the course of years, that was what you became. His guardian angel.

He used to make excuses to come over after patrol, trying to coax you out of your nest of a room for just an evening. He'd always known you were far more talented than you gave yourself credit for when it came to spider abilities, but it felt more like a curse than a gift for you to bear.

Some nights, he dreams of you falling stories beneath him. Your face is covered in rubble and ash, and although his nightmares often start with this, he knows that somehow, it’s his fault. It feels visceral, the burning in his calloused hands. Torn lycra to show the dirt underneath his fingernails. Hot tears dripping.

He starts taking that Ambien you gave him years ago.

After that, each day passes like he’s trapped in a nightmarish purgatory. No, that’s an exaggeration. He’s just a victim of a New York winter, and he misses you more than he wants to admit to himself or anyone else.

"I can take care of myself." And with that, the image of you disappears.

"I know," he murmurs softly. He’s always known. It is insignificant in comparison to how badly he wants to take care of you if you let him. Your voice echoes in the cavern of his room. You get farther away by the second until you disappear completely, and he evidently wakes up.

Even in your worst state, he’s obsessed with your honeyed skin. It doesn’t matter the number of bruises or cuts – he caresses them all with his nimble fingertips, and he’s ready to kiss them until they heal. He thinks about this sometimes, how much he cares for you and your body. What he'd do if you just let him in, let him devour you however he pleases, and it disgusts him.

In his dreams where you’re hurt, he’s willing to sacrifice whatever he can so that you can revert to your clean, unbothered state. I’d never let anyone break you. It’s a prayer for him. One that he whispers in your ear whenever he can, at least in these dreams. In reality, he knows that he has to let you go because he knows you. Knows how much you want to be free and alone. How you can take care of yourself. You’re not a damsel in distress – you never have been. But Peter feels like he was made to care for you. It would gut him all the same regardless of whether you loved him or not, and he was willing.

When it’s real, he doesn’t know what to do. He didn’t ever think the two of you would be in this position.

He’s been in enough battles to know how these things end. Mr. Stark had walked him through it all and been by his side while the rest of the Avengers repaired the other broken bits of the universe.

Right now is one of those unique times, the quiet and wretched ones, where Peter is contemplating breath after breath before imagining the full picture. Shambles of the street he’s in. The ache of his bruised body and the blood that he sees from yours, that he shouldn’t have seen, because you said it yourself. You’re not a fucking hero. So why is your blood streaked on the palm of his hands?

The distance between you and Peter doesn’t matter – it never does. The moment you’d felt a dread stirring in your stomach, there was a sharp pain in your head that refused to leave unless the working adrenaline in your body was satiated. It wasn’t the same adrenaline that circulated within you from a night of debauchery – instead, it felt like poison. A compulsory kind of pain, a sharp jolt to your senses. Tonight, you’d felt Peter in danger, and it would’ve killed you if you couldn’t get to him. He'd been the destination you'd been dead set on by the end of the night because of your spider instincts.

The police broadcast was too muffled for you to understand much of it, but you picked out the parts where Spider-Man was mentioned and followed through on them. Although you didn’t fall into the shadow of his hero work, you still kept enough tabs on Peter to know where he would usually be on patrol. It wasn’t like he knew, or that you’d ever told him, but when he was starting out as another guard dog for the Avengers in high school, you needed to at least know his approximate location in the event that something went terribly wrong.

An explosion blasts in the center of a park, where the two of you would meet in the middle between Queens and Stark Tower. This is where you lay your courage down. This is where you find Spider-Man’s mangled body before anyone else does.

"Peter," you huff. "S’gonna be okay. You with me? I’m gonna make sure you’re okay."

He’s just less than conscious, the stretch of his animated eyes limited by his weakness. When he sees your face, however, his face glows – not that you can see it through his mask.

He says your name with a fervor that surprises you. His voice is raspy.

"‘m fine. I have to stay," he grunts, his pain palpable. You know that he’s telling the truth, but you don’t want to leave him alone in his misery.

"Peter. You’re hurt."

"You go home. I’ll come find you later. Just let me–"

"You’re fucking limping."

You had always carried yourself like a feather-like, lithe ghost. Quiet, whereas Peter was bold, despite the fact that his anxious nature had rendered him a boyish thing all these years. This is why he’s surprised that you carry him easily with your supernatural strength. He forgets that you have the same abilities as him. If anything, he’d think you were stronger than him in every way.

Even with his thick skin, he melts into something malleable, comfortable. The solace of your arms makes him feel better already.

A pang of small guilt rots away within him, knowing the circumstances of your last meeting. You’re too good. He didn’t deserve to be saved by you, to be patched up with your nimble fingers like he had been treated when he was younger and more naive.

"I can make it to my place, it’s okay," he rasps gently.

You don’t have to say anything, because bullshit radiates through the stern expression of your eyes, your mouth in a grimace. You had always been stubborn and today isn’t an exception. With your webs, you crochet a path for him toward your home, lifting and catching the boy effortlessly as you swing.

A gentle sigh escapes his mouth when the two of you crawl into the safety of your fire escape. The night is quiet behind you. When he looks at you, you have to look away, fixing your hair nervously or occupying your gaze anywhere but in his direction. His eyes are poignant in their longing, though you’re unsure of what he could be thinking. If he’s sorry about before. If he’s ashamed.

Your wispy webs wrap around the parts of him that hurt, but you wince when you check on him to see that the white fibers are slowly saturated with the dark crimson of his open wounds.

"Peter, you have to wash up," you whisper. "Shit’s gonna get infected. I can put some gauze on you after you shower."

He nods wordlessly when you ask him if he can manage the shower on his own. He feels vulnerable, and although your presence is always desired by him, he finds relief in the hot steam of your shower, alone with his thoughts. He’s still shaken from the explosion. Not completely catatonic, but tense. As if he isn’t in his body at all.

When Peter emerges from the bathroom, he looks like a stranger. Scars adorn his sides. Your face crumples at the sight of his fresh wounds.

"C’mere."

It doesn’t take you long to fix him up, cleaning his cuts and wrapping gauze around his stomach and chest. His quiet grunts startle you, as if he's a wild animal. Eyes screwed shut, brows cinched in pain. A heavy exhale and a mumbled apology followed.

You forgive him with a soft touch and a hushed whisper. He wishes the ache would stop. He wishes he could lie on your bed and have you whisper in his ear all night until the sound of your voice lulls him to sleep.

There aren’t many words exchanged, and you want to ask him why. If you did something. But then you think about the images on the news and his withered face, and you decide not to probe the sphere of trauma surrounding him. Peter has probably gone through more in the last twelve hours than you have in a week.

You stop him before he tries to make it out of your bedroom door and towards the living room.

"I don’t mind sleeping on the couch, I’ve done it before."

"It’s like sleeping on a rock, Parker. You just gone through God knows what," you chide. "Just… get in here."

As he breathes in and out, he nestles in your shoulder, his clean hair tickling your bare skin. There’s a nasty guilt that lurches from your sternum. As if you were the reason for his pain. For the state of his body. And you think back to the desperate look in Peter’s eyes the night you took him home from the party. Were you too cruel, then?

It’s like he steals the words from your mouth. He beats you to it.

"I’m sorry," Peter murmurs. His amber eyes blink up at you, unfathomable. You flash him a downturned grin.

"For what?"

"I feel like… there’s been a distance between us lately. And I don’t want that, because you’re my best friend. And now you’re taking care of me when you don’t have to. I just wanted you to know that I really appreciate it. That I, um, lo–," he stammers. He chews on his bottom lip. "You’re really good."

"‘m not all that good, Peter."

But of course, you are, he protests in his head. You are the moon and the stars and everything in between.

"I’m sorry for not being around."

"Not just your fault," you shrug. "Phone works both ways."

He knows you better than you think because, within seconds, his palm rests softly on your cheek, where he feels a hot tear.

"What’s up, Spidey?" he asks you. It makes you laugh.

"Shut up." You shake your head, trying to hide your face. The feeling of his thumb rubbing your cheek makes the tears flow even more. "I wouldn’t know what I’d do if something bad happened to you. If I couldn’t get to you. Or if you – if you were gone."

"I’m okay, Rabbit. We’re okay."

"Yeah," you chuckle, trying to hide your tears.

"Couldn’t get rid of me if you tried."

You feel warmer in his grasp. His small breaths fall on your arm as his body curls up next to you. He’s bigger than he’d been before back when you were teenagers. The jaw is chiseled and sharp. Not as soft and boyish as you once knew. With your senses, you can discern the steadiness of his heartbeat as his chest rises and falls into slumber. You fall asleep soon after, dreamless but full of warmth.

____

Waking up next to him is nothing new, but it’s been years. You never thought anything of it when the two of you were sixteen, staying up all night reading creepypastas and watching movies until you’d fall asleep on top of each other by four in the morning.

After a night’s sleep, Peter's sullen face is a bit brighter despite his dark circles. His limbs are entangled in yours, bodies fused together. Yin and yang. You can only assume that this is how it will always be.

You keep mental notes of him like trinkets. The uneven slant in his left eyebrow. The faint freckles dotted along his nose, the one near the corner of his mouth. The faint shadow of hollowed-out cheeks. Peter is still half-boy to you, and half-man, but you didn’t want to come to terms with it. Maybe he was something else. Half-ghost. Half-angel.

Slowly, over the course of a few weeks, he comes back to you again. Sitting together and reading at a cafe. The occasional 3 am swing. Walking around high at the 7-11.

"Did you like Rhode Island?" he asks over a joint one night.

You hum for a second, trying to come up with an acceptable answer. It wasn’t that you hated being in Rhode Island. It was that you hated being away from him.

So instead, you shrug. "It was nice to get away from everything. Providence is still a city, but it isn't as large as all this–”

You trail off, making a vague gesture with your hands. Chaos, Peter presumes.

"Less overwhelming?"

"Sure," you say, nodding. "I missed being home, though."

I missed you.

Peter passes you the joint. His brain feels fuzzy. Warm. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He massages your ankle absentmindedly.

"I get it," he says, breaking the silence.

"You get what?"

"Wanting to leave. I've been thinking about it," Peter shrugs, his eyes squinting in the late afternoon sun. "Sometimes I wish we could pack our bags and go to the countryside. See some cows and shit."

We. We. We.

"There are cows upstate," you snort.

"You know what I mean."

"We can do a road trip."

"You can’t drive."

"I am aware and perfectly fine with being a passenger princess. In fact, I’m looking forward to it," you grin.

He yanks your ankle this time, causing you to slip from where you’re sitting on the pavement. Giggling, you swat away his hands, but he’s too quick, untying your shoelaces as you kick and thrash.

"Honestly, it’s probably better for society if you never get behind the wheel," Peter teases. He dodges you when you try to kick him in the shin.

"Oh, but you can be? You get so distracted so easily! Whenever you’d practice driving, you’d miss so many exits or be too anxious to merge on the highway."

"Okay, well, you’re just a force of distraction," he shrugs, throwing his hands up in defeat. "You have that effect on people."

You look at him quizzically, your eyes narrowing. If there’s anything behind his statement, he doesn’t show it on his face. Peter knows his cheeks are burning, however.

There are more moments like these. Ever since you’d rescued Peter that night, he’s grown accustomed to spending hours of his day idly looking for you, learning your class schedule, and following you home like a pet when it’s time to unwind. He stays for hours like he used to when you were kids, and although he always thinks he’s overstaying his welcome, you don’t seem affected.

You curl into him more these days, like a sunflower stretching toward the morning glow. There are more lingering touches, here and there. You have to remind yourself not to get too comfortable, but God, he makes it so easy.

So the burning question pops out during a marathon of Chainsaw Man.

"Does MJ care that we hang out so much?" you blurt out. He looks at you like you have three heads. Also, his mouth is full.

"Um, webrobrup," he mumbles. He frowns as he looks down. Hot Cheeto fingers.

You mock him, of course.

"English, yeah?"

He chuckles as he finishes scarfing it all down. He shyly licks his fingertips, and you have to stop yourself from staring at the way his fingers enter his mouth. Ugh, gross. This is hardly supposed to be hot.

"We broke up."

You keep a straight face. It’s not like you’re excited or anything. You realize you shouldn’t be surprised because… why else would he be so available to you lately?

"Shit. You really fumbled, then."

"Shut up," he laughs.

"Seriously. Who else is gonna wanna put up with you?" You both know the answer to that.

"It was mutual," he says, shrugging. "I’ve got all my Spider-man shit, she’s getting into a bunch of extracurriculars and even a research internship even though we’re literally first years."

"Classic MJ."

"Yeah."

"We’ll get you back on the market, buddy," you tease, patting his head like a dog. A coy smile lights up your features. It makes something inside him melt.

"I’m not a piece of meat."’

You click your tongue.

"Oh, right, you’re an insect."

"Hey, so are you!"

____

You used to think it was a kind of twin telepathy, the magnetism to Peter that you felt. Bitten by the same spider and entangled in the same web. You realize as you grow older that it’s more than a platonic bond. It feels like wanting to share the same skin.

Or maybe it’s the wine talking.

It’s not your job to keep Peter afloat at the party right now, but both of you remember too well how the last party went. He continually sips water in between gulps of whiskey like a paranoid freak, which you tease him about. Maybe it’s just the darkness of his eyes under this light, but his pupils look wide and dilated.

It’s almost March. You’d both endured a proper New York winter, which usually extends until April if you’re lucky, but global warming has other plans. It's warm enough for you to pair one of your favorite dresses with an oversized Carhartt jacket that used to belong to Peter before the bite bulked him up significantly. You fiddle with the black velvet wrapped around your body as you pretend to listen to banal conversations, leaning your head into Peter’s bicep.

You keep picking at loose threads obsessively. You think about your fingertips and their webs. You think that maybe you should take up crocheting to distract your hands from their restlessness.

Peter grabs your hand away from you, squeezing it slightly, not even looking at you. His flushed palm rests against yours. Gently rubbing your thumb between your finger divots

If you were a cat, Peter would imagine you purring right about now. He wants to take you into his lap, stroke your hair while the alcohol subsides in both of your systems. The thought of you on top of him causes his cock to twitch slightly. His rose-colored cheeks are from the whiskey, he reassures himself. An affirmation. He lets go of your hand.

He knows that this isn't the time or place for such thoughts, so he makes an effort to push the desires down. He knows they'll come up again when the whiskey leaves his veins, but at least he'll be of sober mind.

Christ, he feels like he's at a middle school dance. Especially when you run off with a spring in your step to socialize with some girls you recognize from school. The smell of your hair lingers next to him. It's sweet and slightly floral, a scent that makes him think of when you were kids.

His ears perk up like a dog's when you call his name, reaching out to him so that you can introduce your best friend. He has the right mind to be polite, even funny at times, but he knows he pales in comparison to your current charisma, which contrasts with your usual wallflower nature.

Peter likes watching you talk, and you like that he watches you so intently. When you know he's watching, it's easy to deadpan some drunken jokes and elaborate superfluous tall tales from your high school days. His eyes are bright, and his bottom lip is chewed in between his teeth.

Suddenly, he gets to be alone with you in the kitchen. Your scent permeates the air. He could drown in it.

“Rabbit," you whine petulantly. "Swing me home."

"How drunk are you?" he chuckles with adoration.

"Not very. Just tired, s'all," you respond with a yawn. You scrunch your nose. "Can I sleep at yours?"

Peter looks at you with a soft gaze. "Of course, angel."

Angel. He's never called you that before. You decide that you like the sound of it.

By the time midnight comes around, you're barefoot in his bedroom, black velvet spinning loosely around your figure. In Peter's blurred vision, you look like a friendly apparition, one that particularly favors "Champagne Coast" by Blood Orange.

"Come into my bedroom, come into my bedroom," you quietly sing along as you sway your hips.

"You're already in my room."

Your smile beams at him, huge and illuminating, and impossible to look away from. Peter wishes that he could bottle up this moment to revisit it, or maybe live in it for the rest of his life. The sweetest way to exist.

Your body sinks to his level -- no, collapses -- as you roll over his heavy frame and rest yourself on your back. Your hair fans out like you're underwater. Your lips are red and wine-colored, freshly bitten. When you turn your head toward Peter, his hand plays with the exposed nape of your neck, fingertips grazing the creases of your skin.

"You used to be so gangly, you know," you murmur. Your voice is lower than usual.

"Okay, well, I'm not anymore."

"I could totally still take you in a fight." Still refers to the times when the two of you would attempt something along the lines of combat training, if combat training was just you unleashing your hotheadedness with your mutant powers instead of with your fists. If you weren't so agile, maybe Peter would've had a chance of winning.

"I'd like to see you try, angel."

It's decided -- you are on top of him, knees bent around his waist as you wrestle. The fabric of your dress pools around your waist in a way that feels sacrilegious. Peter has his hand on your thighs, and his touch feels white-hot to both of you, so he closes his eyes, tries to focus on swatting you away like a bat instead. When he opens his eyes, he meets your devilish ones, gleeful that you've managed to pin his arms above his head.

It would take two inches to break this spell of separation. He keeps trying to keep this bubble intact because the last time he tried to pop it, the look on your face made him want to dig a hole and lay in it forever.

Peter feels sorry for many things. He feels sorry for the times he's intruded, when he's made Mr. Stark angry, for the times he couldn't be there for you. He feels sorry that you had to take care of him when he wanted to do that for you.

Right now, however, Peter doesn't feel sorry at all. The slight twitch of your pulse, the way you smell, the curve of your bare shoulders -- it's all too tempting for him to feel sorry for. So he kisses you.

He's surprised when you nearly bite him back. You inhale sharply, pressing your body against him as you let go of his wrists and rest your palms on his jaw instead. Your kiss is fervent, desperate.

His brow cinches in confusion when you pull away.

"Wha--"

"Fuck."

"What is it?" He frowns.

"I owe Ned twenty bucks."

"What?"

"I just remembered. At graduation, he was like, teasing me that we were gonna get together, and we bet on who would make the first move. I was just entertaining him, but you know how that kid gets about twenty dollars."

"So you thought you were going to make the first move, then?”

“I mean, yeah. How was I supposed to know that MJ was going to cuff you before I did?”

“You snooze, you lose, I guess,” he deadpans.

“You don’t even fucking deserve me, you little freak,” you taunt, tickling his exposed midriff.

“God, I know. I’ve known that for a while. Too bad I want you regardless.”

He smiles as he captures your lips again, tasting sweet and smoky at the same time. He coaxes you onto your back and you revel in his body heat and the way his large hands grab the plush of your thighs, pushing and pulling your skin taut. It’s so erotic that it almost feels dirty.

You kiss him back like he’s your last meal while you roam your hands under his shirt, then to his protruding collarbones, then experimentally, to the tufts of his chestnut hair. You pull a bit too hard due to your eagerness and he lets out a mewl that you never could’ve imagined to come out of him.

“You like that, don’t you?” you taunt darkly. “Is that why you always want me to scratch your head when we watch movies?”

“I don’t care what you do as long as you’re touching me,” he breathes out, like a confession. “Don’t care how you touch me, s’long as it’s you.”

A tepid blush soaks your face. You shut him up with another kiss. He licks at your bottom lip, groaning softly at the feeling of your soft body against his.

“You’re so pretty, Peter,” you whisper.

“You are.”

Before you can react, you hitch a breath in surprise when you find that his hands have fully reached above the hem of your dress and onto the bare skin of your hip, toying with the elastic of your underwear. You part your legs, bending your knees so that you can pull the fabric off.

He sighs as his fingers tease the slot of your cunt, which grows wetter and wetter with every touch. Your sensitivity makes you squirm a little. He can tell so easily that you’re falling apart for him. He loves it.

You nearly whine when he takes away his fingers from you. Instead, he towers over your body, pulling your legs toward him as he pulls up the hem of your velvet dress and cascades kisses on your knees. He slowly works his way up to your thighs, biting gently, then hard. Meanwhile, his hands roam the perimeter of your chest and your ribs, all soft and pliable for him. You’ll be delighted when you wake up to a bruise on your thigh stuck in the shape of Peter Parker’s mouth.

A shiver lacerates your lower body all the way up to your neck – you feel it, viscerally. All from his mouth. He slots his tongue onto the bud of your clit going slowly just to watch you squirm.

“Please,” you beg.

“Please what?” His eyes are as dark as the sky. As dark as your dress.

“Your– your mouth. I need it. Please. More.”

Peter’s grip on your thighs tightens as his face moves closer to your center, licking incessantly as you cry out. You attempt to muffle your sounds with your hand covering your mouth, biting the skin on your palm. Your blood is hot, pumping hard, all the way down to your swollen clit, and he treats you like a man starved.

“Oh my God,” you gasp. “More, please. Pleasepleaseplease.”

He listens to you, forcing his ring and middle finger into your cunt and curling upward. Your legs shake involuntarily when he does this and it takes everything in him to not stop just so he can see the look on your face head-on. You look so beautiful right now.

“Gonna cum, Pete. Fuck.”

He closes his eyes as he savors your sweet taste. He feels it when you cum as if it’s happening in his body, too. A jolt to the sense. A vivacious rumble. Your mouth is slack, jaw falling open with your eyes screwed shut as you finish, and Peter towers over you to watch. He’s never seen you like this. He wants to keep the image of it forever.

You thank him with a messy kiss, not caring about the remnants of your lipstick. Your hands attack him, teeth nipping at his earlobe as you help him undress. Soon enough, the two of you are naked together, limbs entangled and kissing without paying any mind to oxygen.

You take his jaw in your hand as if he’s a delicate thing. Easy to break. It’s your turn to tease, now.

“What do you wanna do?”

“You’re such a little shit,” he mumbles, but he can’t help but grin.

“Tell me about it, Spidey.”

“Want you, Rabbit, want to make you feel good.”

“And how exactly will you do that?”

“Gonna fuck you. I’ll make you cry if you keep being a little shit like this, too.”

There’s no time for a reaction. He’s on top of you, pinning you down, and he licks your collarbone up to your jaw as you whine like a newborn kitten. He spanks your ass and you have to your bottom lip to keep from being too loud.

“You want it that bad, huh?”

“Yeah,” you respond breathlessly. He melts at the sound of your voice, cooing softly as he playfully bites the skin of your cheek.

You love him like this, a burst of passionate energy focused on you and you only. His little angel. You remember your rabbit heart caged in your sternum fragile and thumping like an earthquake for him.

He pauses to give you another kiss, this time sweet as he licks up the bottom of your lip. You can feel him at the crux of your legs and you can feel the want pumping in your veins. Patience. Patience. Patience.

“You want me to go slow?”

“Of course not.”

You’re so relaxed in his grasp. Gooey with your desire that it might disgust you if you weren’t so enamored. You keep your eyes on him when he enters you – you want to see the look in his eyes.

Peter feels selfish wanting to tease you like this. He’s slow when he enters you, listening to your sweet exhales.

“Easy,” he warns. “‘m gonna take care of you, don’t worry."

Please floods your entire body like a heat stroke. You bend your knees upward and rake the smooth terrain of his back, lifting your hips up at the same time. He thrusts once, then twice, and already, he feels like he’s ready to unfurl completely.

“Fuck,” he groans. You’re so goddamn wet. Soft. Velvety.

“Don’t be shy, Peter,” you murmur. “C’mere.”

You keen into the way he buries his nose into your shoulder, shallow breaths uneven and erratic as he continues, losing control bit by bit as he goes on. His pleasure is the knife you twist inside yourself.

You gasp at the way he can carve you out, the way he knows exactly where to put his hands as he grasps for your body, like he’d molding you from clay. He drinks down your moans with his mouth, eyes fluttering at the impact of your cunt clenching him.

Peter props himself up now, moving his body backward so he’s perpendicular to your core. He holds you by your hips a little too hard, but you’d always liked it rough. You liked it when he would cuddle you or play with you or put his entire body weight on you. To smother was to be encased in something akin to love.

“Fuck,” he hisses, getting the hang of a constant rhythm. His hips slot with yours as his cock thrusts deeper into you, until he can feel the slight tremble of your thighs.

“You okay?” he asks, chest heaving.

“Yes, keep going. Keep going.”

You underestimate how fragile you are. A rough thrust almost has you there, until he pulls out of you like a stolen breath, and it leaves you whining.

“Pete.”

“Shh, I’m just trying to pace myself,” he breathes, jaw slack and glistening with sweat. “You feel too fucking good.”

“Come back or I’ll break your wrists.”

He chuckles, but you’re dead serious. You lift your body to him so you can pull his down, kissing him with a ragged hunger that’s all teeth and lust. He’s quick to match your vigor but with more tenderness than desperation. It makes you melt, how natural it is, how this is how it might’ve felt in a past life. Your bodies entwined in a way that’s proverbial.

He listens to you. Fucks you much rougher than before, giving in to what he wants, because he’s not sorry about how much he wants you. Your broken moans curl out of your throat and into his mouth and the feeling of him deep in you makes you feel like a balloon ready to burst from the pressure.

It’s like Peter reads your mind, because suddenly, his hand is around your throat. You’ve never looked more angelic to him than you do now, eyes half-lidded and your reddish mouth all lax.

“So fucking beautiful, I love you,” he mumbles against his mouth.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

All of Peter’s muscles are tense from holding back. Fuck, he doesn’t want to cum until you do.

Luckily, the way his cock stretches you out has you nearly drooling underneath him. He touches the deepest parts of your insides like he belongs there, like he was meant to be there, as if the way he turns his hips toward you is a vow in itself. You whimper at the feeling of it all and he nearly loses it.

“I’m so close,” you pants. Thank fucking God.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Cum for me,” he coos. “You’re doing so good. Fuck.”

Your gaze lingers on the shape of his mouth. You think about how his voice sounds when he calls you angel.

Your orgasm comes like a flower blooming, like a beam of light in the darkness. He feels it, too, so vividly like he shares your body. It feels strange how much he feels that he hasn’t felt before, and it makes him come undone right after you.

He pulls out of you and spills onto your stomach unceremoniously with something in between a grunt and a whimper. He’s all over you. You want to bury your body into his.

“Peter,” you whisper, your gaze languishing.

“Yes, angel?”

“I think I owe Ned fifty bucks now.”

He looks at you incredulously but you can’t keep the facade, bursting into laughter as he groans in annoyance and flops his body on top of yours.

“Ew, clean me up, at least,” you complain.

“Right,” he says, nodding. And he does, with a spare t-shirt from his floor absentmindedly while he shares a grin with you. “You serious, though?”

“Of course not,” you scoff. “Ned Leeds will never get anything over twenty bucks from me.”

He laughs and it sounds like heaven.

“You said you loved me,” you tell him.

“I do love you. I’ve always loved you.”

You could cry right now. Surely the influx of endorphins in your body is breaking the rest of your brain.

“I love you, too.”

You kiss him again, open-mouthed, teeth sucking slightly as his lips. He takes a fistful of your hair while his other hand caresses your jaw. It excites you when he breaks the kiss by pulling your hair. His cheeks dimple the slightest bit when he smiles at you.

“Don’t do that, you’re gonna get me hard again.”

“You have the stamina,” you shrug, hugging one of his oversized pillows to your chest.

“You’re cute.”

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“How come you call me angel now?”

Peter shrugs. He rubs his hands on your calves.

“You’re my guardian angel. Always have been. And you’re not allowed to complain about it being corny because it’s true.”

Peter is shy all of sudden as if he hadn’t just fucked you. His brown hair is tousled to bedhead perfection, messy and slightly frizzy, and the warmth of his skin radiates from the way his whole body seems to blush in front of you.

“I have a proposition.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Come on!” You nudge him, kicking him with your feet. You get off of his bed to rummage through his dresser drawers for an oversized t-shirt, just dodging his attempts to grab you by the waist.

“Okay. What is it?”

“We should use our webs next time.”

He blinks, smirking, indulging you for a second.

“Deal.”

tagging mutuals: @meliapis​ @cutetomholland​ @userholland​ @sparklingsin​ @tomdutch​ @userholland​ @vendettaparker​ @selfcarecap @simplykenni​ @uhlxis​ @cordiformity​ @sapphicsoie​ @seolaseoul​ @honeyspidey​ @logangarfield​ @justapurrcat​ @arachine​ @cocoamoonmalfoy​ @ohcaptains​ @aniqua

[honeyhonest]

No but being in Yuu's shoes and being in a relationship with Eric can be fun to torture Vil, of course depending on the relationship between you and Vil. Vil is your ex-boyfriend who treated you badly? Fuck his dad. Vil is being a little shit to you and your friends? Fuck his dad. Vil is your enemy? I think you know what to do. He'll hate you more. Also, you can break his heart if he has a crush on you. It seems like all those scenarios are the same but they have those little differences that make them all unique in their own way. Well, the only thing that remains is that Vil has to put up with seeing you at school while you're with his dad.

Also, can we have a sugar daddy fight? I think Eric has the potential to be one of the best sugar daddies. A great rival would be Crewel. He seems to appreciate Vil too.

(By the way, I love Vil. So this isn't hate propaganda against him.)

warning for intoxication in this post lolz minors dni etc

I love vil also but sometime you have to torture the blond man a little yk

orz the possibilities... I love revenge sex in stories, I love drama, etc, my favorite of these is definitely the first except this: vil was a really good (perfect) boyfriend, but he dumped you right before/after graduating NRC so he could focus on his career. he told you he just couldn't imagine finding the time for a relationship with his schedule, and school was one thing, but now he's an ~adult~ and he needs to get serious about his career. it wouldn't be fair to stress and burden you with his work, after all

and you let him because, well, it's vil. once his mind is made up on something, it's almost impossible to dissuade him. you have friends, and you try to talk to them, but nothing really helps. not even rook can cheer you up

and one night you're really feeling it, the sadness, the loneliness, the rejection, maybe you're scrolling through vil's magicam and looking at his perfect life, how your absence meant nothing to him, and you're desperate for his comfort but you can't have that, so you have the next best thing. next thing you know, your ex's middle-aged father is taking you out for a drink and a talk to ease your worries. in the blur of alcohol and laughter, you think he almost looks like vil, but not so strict, not so stressed

he's very charming, too. how have you never noticed? before tonight he was always so cordial, friendly but distant. perhaps it's only the alcohol, perhaps you had just been so wrapped up in vil's glamor you never gave erik a second thought. but he's really quite funny, isn't he? he keeps making jokes, teasing you, it's almost friendly. and he's a flatterer, too, you're sure he's never complimented you so much in your life

but he's only trying to cheer you up, right? this was the man who was going to be your father-in-law, you thought

...but now he's just a man, and one who happens to be buying you plenty of drinks and complimenting your smile, at that

you both end up a little more tipsy than you'd meant to, but you're having fun, and for the first time in weeks, you're not thinking about... what was his name, again? you can't even bring yourself to mope, everything is a little blurry, isn't it?

and you both end up in his house, somehow, and he tells you that vil is doing a shoot in fleur city this weekend, so don't worry too much about waking him, you can make as much noise as you want, it's just you and erik

and it's you that ends up on your back, or on your hands and knees, or bent over the marble counter in the stupidly expensive kitchen, or, more likely, all three over the course of the night, getting stretched out on his cock, his grunts in your ear and his breath on your neck, telling you how good and beautiful you are, how long he's wanted this-

I think he'd like to see you, your stomach or thighs or back, covered in his cum when he's done. such a lewd position you never should have been in

and you tell yourself, in the morning, that it was just a spur of the moment thing. you were just emotional, you were both drunk, and alone, and it won't happen again

it will. it does. vil is going to have a queen-sized meltdown when he finds out, of course, but for now, y'know, being a sugar baby isn't that bad

you still find it a little ironic how erik, who is just as, if not more career-oriented than vil, still has time in his busy schedule to see you >_>

[nightdivinity]

Drink Responsibly! Prologue

ABO!Vampire!Batfam x reader

Minors! Do! Not! Engage! +18 only.

Platonic! Alfred, Bruce x reader, Possessive! Batboys x reader

Warnings: Alcohol, bad choices, stupid choices, possessive behavior, a/b/o fic, there is slight blood and gore, it's a vampire au, age gaps, because they're all significantly older, it's going to get suggestive from here on out, reverse harem, slight proofreading

Writer's Note: I want to thank @sophiethewitch1 for inspiring me and talking me through posting my writing. I hope it doesn't let you down! This is also my first time posting my writing on Tumblr, please be gentle. English is not my first language. Also, this is a why choose fic. So, it's Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian x reader. Maybe even Duke. I think four is a lot. Got to draw the line somewhere. Chapter 2 will be posted tomorrow.

It was midnight when you finally stumbled out of the latest club. Your heels were long gone, as you had taken them off the first time they got stuck in a grate. You’re pretty sure you handed them to a nice girl in the bathroom while her friend held your hair as you threw up copious amounts of alcohol and bar food. She had been super nice, you liked the way her short black hair was spiked, and her blonde friend’s eyeliner was superb. Anyways, now you are shoeless and desperately looking for the next bar on your crawl.

Gin’s. Ooh, that’ll do. You reach out and grab your friend’s bicep, point at the neon sign, and do vague gestures. Of course, your friend is not as well off as you are, so it takes a while to get your point across. Only they start crying again over their bullshit bar fling, and the fact you have no shoes.

It didn’t matter, none of it truly mattered. Not a single thing. This was your one night off after weeks of back-to-back grueling shifts at a job that doesn’t care whether you live or die. Yesterday you even took a quick unintentional power nap on the toilet. All of this resulted in you being slightly crazed and a little deranged as your night progressed.

But hey, Gotham just brings that out in people. In your job's defense, no one could take any more sick or inclement weather days thanks to all the random villain attacks next to or at your office. You blame the monthly rut.

At least you didn’t get stuck on the subway taped to a bench by the Riddler this week as he awkwardly rifled through a notebook of pickup lines. Life was certainly looking up.

See, unfortunately, or fortunately depending on the propaganda you consumed, you were born an Omega. Which had never truly been an issue. Except for the fact that thanks to a few foul choices from the government, it was getting harder and harder to get access to affordable pheromone blockers. You wouldn’t have even chanced this outing if you hadn’t found that one pill that rolled a little under your cabinet. Hey, you were desperate for a night out.

“I’m going there”, you slur.

Yes, this was asinine, but you still managed to wheel yourself and your friend to Gin’s. You hardly noticed the dark shadows following you as your friends from the bathroom quietly herded you. As you and your friend jaywalked across the street, you didn’t notice the red-headed woman standing in the middle of the road, blocking traffic from actually hitting you. It also barely registered when the nice boy with flashing gold eyes took your hand and led you past the line and directly to the front. This. Was. Your. Night. Out.

“Hey man, she can’t come in here with no shoes”, the bouncer at the door complains.

He was going to say more until he looked at the man holding your hand so nicely. You could hear the slight choking noise, and in your drunken stupor, you stumbled a little into your guide.

“He’s going to shit himself”, you stage-whisper. Or what you think was whispering. You were screaming over the pounding bass spilling out of the door.

                “Shhh, Jackson, she’s with me”, your guide replies.

                “She can come in, her friend can’t. Sorry Duke, they’re way too fucked up”, the bouncer swears.

                You gasp and let go of Duke’s hand, instead reaching for your friend and pulling them tight into your embrace. While smashing their face into your chest. Even though you were the most drunk you’ve ever been, you didn’t miss the spike in pissed-off Alpha vibes that happened around you. Still, you smacked a hand against your friend’s ear in an effort to protect them from what was said. Then you got sidetracked by their hair. It reminded you that you wanted a pet. Although with your work and class schedule, it would probably die in a week. Three days tops. At least you had your emotional support friend.

                “I can’t leave them alone”, you say.

                “Hun, how about I call them an Uber, they look like they’re ready to pass out. They definitely can’t handle it anymore”, Duke replies.

                He gestures towards your friend, and you notice how they’re slowly swaying on their feet. Eyes half closed. Shit. It would be shitty if you left them passed out somewhere in the bar as you danced and drank. They were already on their fourth wind and fading fast.

                “Look, you see this nice car”, Duke continues.

                He turns you three, and suddenly you notice the nice black town car next to the road. You vaguely register the fact that it’s one of those high-roller cars. Ones that only the richest in Gotham could afford.

                “See, this is Killian, he works for Wayne Enterprises. He’ll make sure your friend makes it home. I’ll even have him text you when they get there. Won’t that be nice? You don’t have to worry at all (y/n).”, he tells you.

                You nod, and it all makes sense somehow in your drunken brain. He knows your name, so obviously you know him. He also knows your friend, since he rattles off their address and gently pries them from your clutches before handing them off to Killian.

You pay no mind to the mention of a name that would have sent shivers down your spine normally. Wayne. Mysterious and dangerous to all who get involved.

                “I need them back, don’t sell their organs”, you warn.

                Then he gives you a tight brisk smile as he turns away from you. A persistent thought is starting to nag its way through the cotton in your head. The slightest unsettling feeling. Maybe there was something wrong with that blocker pill you found on the floor of your kitchen. You were certainly feeling as though there were a lot of pissed-off Alphas near you. The undercurrent of anger was a tang you couldn’t escape. More and more you felt the need to run somewhere dark and quiet to hide.

                You ignore the persistent tugging by Duke as you watch your friend get loaded into the car and driven away. Well. That ends that.

                The next time Duke tugs on your hand, it causes you to slightly stagger. He easily catches you and spins you around and through the door before you can protest.

                “Can I have a Rum and Coke?”, you shout over the music.

                “Yeah totally”, Duke shouts back.

                It’s only until you are tugged past the bar that you realize that everything is not all sunshine and daisies. No. No. This is wrong. You want to go back.

                You put your heels in. Duke was not ready for resistance as your hand slid out of his grasp on the way to the V.I.P. section. He turns around to get a better hold of you, only to watch you slip into the crowd and get lost in the sea of swaying bodies. Fuck. He was told to bring you to them. You still had to be here, there’s no way you could have bumbled off far. Shit. One job.

                Duke ran a palm over his face as he scanned the crowd. There’s no doubt in his mind. Bruce was going to be pissed. He wasn’t supposed to know about your little excursion out. Everyone had agreed, they would watch over you as the day turned. You still weren’t used to Gotham; you didn’t know the sort of creatures that came out during the night. While the rest of the world was happy and filled with normal and meta shifters, Gotham was overflowing with the less-than-stable. All more than happy to take a bite out of the innocent. The only thing that kept it in check was the unspoken King and his disgraced hellions.

If you had been sober, you would have noticed the people slowly disappearing from the crowd. You would have noticed that tonight was absolutely not a good night to be out. One by one, shrieks of fear and pain were mistaken for fun. Jostling in the crowd was hardly registered as the violence spread. The whole night, you were in a sea of sharks feeding. Now you had finally ditched what you didn’t know was your only protection.

                 Not to worry, fear splashes hot and cold against your nerves as sharp claws grip your arm, your back slamming into the bar as a distended jaw hisses open in front of you.

                Yeah. Maybe you should have been drinking responsibly.

[romaine-arts]

categorizations for mudokons, through the skewed perspective of industrialist society. a collaboration between me and @lair-of-the-white-worm

SCRUBS Nicknames: Workforce (formal), Cattle (derogatory) Scrubs are Mudokon workers that have been industrially bred for factory labour. Due to the artificial breeding process that is preformed on enslaved queens, Scrubs are usually inbred and suffer many deficiencies and mutations as a result, most commonly a lack of feathers. Scrubs are raised to never know of their mothers, nor their enslavement, and are forced into manual labour the moment they are capable of lifting. A diet of processed foods, lack of vitamins, and horrible working conditions usually results in incredibly poor posture, joint pains, breathing problems, oral health issues, etcetera. Scrubs are fed propaganda to believe these health problems are entirely normal for their species. A Scrub's lifespan is approximately 40 years due to poor health and addictions to alcohol and nicotine products. Scrubs are considered "rude and stupid" by Mudokons that grow up in more urban environments. Scrubs are mass-produced and typically undergo artificial de-sexing processes to ensure that they remain workers (i.e. won't immediately undergo drone development if exposed to sexuality) while under "employment". Scrubs make up an uncomfortable majority of the Mudokon population in midwest Mudos.

CRIMPS Nicknames: Show-muds (offensive) Crimps are Mudokon workers that have been cosmetically altered by Vykkers to be more aesthetically pleasing. Mostly found in the servitude of high-class industrial elites, Crimps are likely to be seen taking on the role of butlers, maids, or other forms of personal servant. While Scrubs may undergo a de-sexing process, Crimps undergo complete chemical castration and are completely incapable of ever developing further. This castration process also ensures Crimps remain youthful and will never be able to develop beyond their worker physique, even if exposed directly to sexuality. Due to Glukkons finding Mudokon pinky fingers and pinky toes unsightly, Crimps have them surgically removed to appear more kempt and clean to their masters and mistresses. They will also have their two remaining toes grafted together in order to fit their feet into more fashionable shoes, or simply to walk more elegantly. Other plastic surgeries Crimps can be seen with are lip fillers, face-lifts, brow-lifts, chin augmentations, and boob jobs (Mudokon workers cannot grow breasts naturally unless they are future queens. As Crimps are completely castrated, any seen with breasts have had them applied surgically or chemically). Crimps will commonly get their natural feathers plucked (if they have any) and undergo transplants to have a fuller, thicker, artificial head of unnaturally coloured feathers. In more urban areas, modelling photos of Mudokon Crimps will be put on posters to serve as an example of what a "high class" Mudokon looks like.

CORRECTIVES Nicknames: Rekties (informal) Mudokon workers born in the wild and captured for enslavement are known as Correctives. Corrective workers are seen as feral, wild animals that need to be tamed and trained in order to serve, hence the necessity of 'Corrective Facilities' from which they get their name. Correctives are captured during military Slig raids on Mudokon villages, from tribes that refuse to relocate or comply to industrial developments. Mudokon workers captured and sent to Corrective facilities seldom ever undergo any form of de-sexing. Also, due to being hatched in the wild naturally, Correctives are not born with pre-existing medical conditions, and only risk developing them overtime if exposed to harmful environments. These factors are advertised by the sales representatives of Corrective facilities. They do, however, undergo immense abuses such as whipping, branding, beating, and degradation in order to "correct" things such as their posture and attitude in order to appear more "proper". Their use of the Mudokon language, culture and traditions is beaten out of them. It's commonplace for enslaved Mudokon queens to be sourced from these Corrective facilities, as the captured Mudokons are not de-sexed and are left intact. Due to this, female Correctives are highly desirable and go for a high price. Correctives in these facilities are brainwashed into a distaste for the native Mudokon tribes and a warped hatred for Mudokon Scrubs in factory environments. Correctives that comply with orders will be forced into whipping and beating other Mudokon Correctives. Despite the grueling process of "civilizing" Mudokon correctives, aside from the underground trade of developing Mudokon queens, purchasing a Corrective otherwise is seen purely as a status symbol. The sheer amount of resources that go into training a 'decent' servant from a corrective is often seen as a waste of moolah, with the advent of industrial queen programs. Very few Corrective Facilities still exist, as their products and services are seen as obsolete.

NATIVES Nicknames: Bush-Muds (offensive/derogatory), wild (informal) Native Mudokon workers in their natural environment are living in their element. In Mudokon tribes, workers serve as the main providers of all those within them. While Drones live to closely protect and breed with their Queen, the native Worker Mudokons act as farmers, fishermen, builders, shamans, and soldiers. In the wild, Mudokons live off a natural diet of fruits, vegetables, insects, fish, and occasionally Meep, though fruits make up the vast majority of their diet. They give the natives the nutrients they need to serve their tribes. Mudokon worker feathers are naturally quite beautiful. While not as dense as Drone feathers or Queen feathers, native worker feathers are a sight to behold and even serve to accessorize various regalia that they wear during ceremonies. Queens/”female” Mudokons have dull grey feathers, while developing drones will have more vibrant feathers in order to put on displays for their queens. Native Mudokons are very spiritual and connected with the land. They have immense respect for the world around them and live incredibly humbly, usually near rivers or dense forests depending on the tribe. Due to industrial development and oppression, most Mudokon tribes in the east and Midwest of Mudos live in hiding. In the wild, Mudokon workers can live up to 100 years (or longer if they choose to become a Shaman). Mudokon Workers that become Shamans take a vow of celibacy, and will not develop into drones or queens.

[miriani-lavellan]

Some interesting little tidbits about the world that are gleaned from Mementos found: It looks like there's already an almost full list here.

After the Exalted March against the Dalish, the Antivan crows signed some kind of treaty or agreement promising to take action if another march against the elves was going to take place. It seems they did 'stand with the Dales' in some form.

The Crow mementos in general seem to indicate when they realised the influence they had, they also began to discuss how they should use that influence, and the responsibilities they had.

When an archdemon is slain, the Grey Wardens recover a fang to keep as a trophy.

The Wardens keep a record called The Book of Ashes to record not the dead, but the Wardens who survived the Blights.

Scrying exists to tell the contents of certain containers or the function of certain magical items.

The Shadow Dragons disguise their manifestos and propaganda as spellbooks, in the hope the Venatori will pick them up and read them without realising what they are, and thus have their mind changed.

The Wardens wear blue because it's a local dye available in the Anderfels - I think we can probably say 'Anderfels Azure' is derived from Brona's Bloom. Poetic, as it's one of 'the first to fade when blight emerges' and that they mell of warm honey and rainy spring mornings—things the blight forgets.' The uniform is a reminder of what the Blight takes, and a hope for its return all the same.

Antivans typically have coffee (with or without an alcoholic addition) after dinner.

The Antivan Crows might once have been the Antivan Ravens. Both birds appear in early motifs, until finally crows won out.

Somehow, Blackwall's carved rocking griffon (or one of them) found its way into the Dellamorte estate.

Early post-Veil writings are found in a source called 'The Days of Death,' in which an ordinary elf records the realities of mortality, and grapples with the new need for food and shelter. Other early writings indicate they were attempting to map their new home.

One of the ways Kal-Sharok survived the Blight was by abandoning the caste system.

There's a scandalous... hit piece? book on the Inquisition, called 'Inquisition Exposed.' It's illustrated. Edit: My bad, it's smut. It's just smut.

In Nevarra, it's popular to give children coming of age a gift of necromantic, allegorical illustrations.

During the Storm Age in Nevarra, there was a trend of artists mixing their own blood into the paints. They were discouraged by the Watches as it kept leading to works of art getting possessed.

There's an undead thief making troubled around Nevarra City known as the 'half-made bandit'. He escaped from an anatomy class.

A Cassandra mention when considering the funeral of a Nevarran prelate.

Some spirits prefer possessing inanimate objects over the living.

Emphasising the Mourn Watch and the Mortalitasi in general's complex relationship with the Chantry, once a (probably possessed) Chasind shaman ended up sheltering with them.

Ancient Qunari did not have horses.

There seems to be, or have been, an element of ancestor worship in Qunari religion.