#like he doesn’t know that the point of the trip is to help Strange wake up

[daydreamerdrew]

The Defenders (1972) #60

[mistiell]

Let me put my Lips to Something

Pairing: Spencer x Fem! Reader

Summary: After learning about his aversion to touch, you tone down the physical affection. Spencer finds himself missing your touch, and after weeks of yearning, he’s had enough. He decides it’s time to fix this.

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: Fluff, it gets pretty steamy towards the end but nothing graphic so I don't think this needs age restricting lmao

A/N: Part 2 to “I’m Starvin’, Darlin’”. The feedback on the last part motivated me to finish this in like, a single sitting lmao. Hope y’all enjoy! :)

P.S. My requests are open so if you wanna send something in for Spence, I'll do my best to get to it quickly!

Part 1 - Current - Part 3

Spencer hadn’t realised how much he wanted — how much he needed — your touch until you stopped. Where there was once that warm, tingly anticipation whenever he made you laugh, there‘s now a strange absence left in its wake. Where there used to have been a bump or a squeeze, there are awkward smiles and nervous glances. Like a line of dialogue without end quotations, left to hang in the balance while the author considers what should be said next.

It’s killing him.

He’s come to realise that this want extends beyond the bounds of anything that could ever be considered platonic. He wants more than your touch. He wants you.

He craves you, finds himself remembering the way your arms felt around him the last time you hugged him. Finds himself fantasising about how it would feel to be the one to take you in his arms. How it would feel to be the one to hold you; to cradle your face between his palms and lose himself in your kiss; to let go of his inhibitions and drown himself in the depths of your affections.

He wants your time and energy. He wants your attention and praise. He wants to be the one to make you smile and laugh so hard your stomach hurts. He wants to be yours, and he wants everyone to know it.

It’s only been three weeks since that night at the bar, but even so, he feels like if he doesn’t figure out how to tell you how he feels, he might very well lose his mind. You’re right across from him all day, five days a week. It’s torture. Perhaps he’s being dramatic, but at this point, he’s well beyond caring.

The problem is, how on earth is he supposed to go about confessing to you? He’s never been suave or charismatic. He’s awkward and dorky and breaks a sweat every time anyone even remotely attractive looks his way. He’s never felt this intensely about anyone before, never desired anyone this way before. Sometimes, late at night when he’s finally tucked himself into bed, he attempts to calculate the probability of you ever wanting him in the way he wants you.

In his pessimistic mind, that number is despairingly low.

“Spence?” He startles at the sound of your voice, snapping his head up to look at you.

You’ve worn a different lipstick today. It’s a little darker than your usual colour, a rather glossy, rosier shade of mauve. He thinks he’s seen it somewhere before, and the name pops up from somewhere in his memory.

“Rum raisin.” He mumbles, staring intently at your lips and wondering briefly if it would transfer if he kissed you.

“What?” You cock your head at him with an amused sort of confusion.

He blinks once before clearly his throat, “Oh, um, your lipstick.”

You raise your hand so your fingertips hover over your bottom lip as you smile at him, “How’d you know?”

“I saw it in a drugstore once.”

You chuckle and shake your head, “Your memory never ceases to amaze me, Spence.”

His heart swells as he smiles sheepishly, “Thanks.”

You hum before gesturing to two big boxes of files that are sitting on your desk, “Could you help me run these down to records?”

“Oh, yeah.” He’s quick to cross the short distance to your desk and purposely picks the heavier of the two boxes.

The trip down to records is a rather tedious one as of today. The elevator is out of order so you have to take the stairs from the sixth floor to the third.

“Do you like rain?” You ask, and it takes him a moment to realise you’re looking out water speckled windows at the stormy street below.

“Yeah.” He leaves out the part that the possibility of power outages and the darkness that accompanies them unnerves him greatly.

You turn your head to smile at him as you reach the records room, “Me too.”

He opens the door for you before you have the chance and lets you go in first, letting the door shut behind him. He follows you into the room, weaving between shelves and stepping over boxes that have yet to find their places. He watches you skim over the yellowed labels, your lips twitching as you read them off in your head.

You find the spot you’re looking for and make a sound of satisfaction before bending at the waist to slide the box into place, your skirt sliding a little further up to press against the plush flesh of the backs of your thighs. His gaze wanders up the length of your body and stops at your chest. From this angle, he’s able to see the curve of your breast and he swallows hard. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shakes his head, feeling ashamed for ogling you like that.

Behind the darkness of his eyelids, he sees the lights flicker and when he opens them, he finds he’s not able to see much more than when he had them closed.

Shit.

“Damnit, the power’s out.” You curse, taking the box from him and slotting it in next to the other.

He takes a deep breath. The dark isn’t as frightening with you there in front of him, but that familiar anxiety pricks his chest and settles heavy in his gut.

“Spence?”

He wonders when the emergency lights will come on. Maybe they’re already on in the hall. He feels along the wall and shuffles back over to the door. When he tries the knob, he finds it locked. Now he’s panicking a little.

Well, maybe a lot.

There’s a clap of thunder outside that’s so powerful that he feels it in his chest and he jumps, breath catching in his chest as he screws his eyes shut as if it’ll make a difference.

“Spence?” You call again softly, “Are you okay?

“Y-Yeah.” He stutters.

“You don’t like storms?”

He shakes his head before realising you can’t see him, “No, not really.”

“Me neither.” You whisper, and he hears the shuffling of your clothes as you shift your weight between your feet and huff a breathy puff of nervous laughter, “I don’t like the dark either.”

“Me neither.” He echoes, wetting his lips briefly as he considers how to comfort you despite how anxious he is himself.

Carefully, tentatively, he reaches for you in the dark and takes your hand, just barely brushing his thumb over your knuckles. Your skin is soft and warm, and he attempts to find your face in the dark as he murmurs ever so softly, “Is this okay?”

“Yeah.” You reply just as softly, squeezing his hand.

It’s a little unsettling not being able to see you. He can hear you breathing, and having your hand in his feels so nice, but he wants you closer.

“Can I…” He trails off, but tugs at your hand so you’ll step a little closer. He swallows his nerves, “Can I distract you?”

It’s a lame excuse, but it’s all he can come up with on the spot.

“Distract me how?” He can hear the smile in your voice and it encourages his steadily growing confidence.

He pulls you closer, and you step further into his space. He places a hand on your waist, and you don’t recoil. In fact, you come a little closer and set a hand on his chest. You slide it along the length of his shoulder and up the back of his neck to thread your fingers in the hairs at the base of his skull and he shudders, lips parting to sigh softly. Your thumb settles just behind his ear and strokes the skin there tenderly and he can’t stop himself from leaning down to gently bump your nose with his, giving you plenty of time to pull away, to tell him you don’t want this.

“Can I kiss you?” You ask so innocently, breath fanning over his lips in a steady rhythm as his eyelids flutter shut.

“Please.” He breathes, leaning in to meet you halfway.

Your lips meet his timidly and his heart stutters in his chest. There’s a second where you pull back to let him breathe, let him get used to the feeling. His eyes open a sliver, just enough to make out the edges of you in the dark as his brain catches up with his body. And then the shock passes.

And he devours you.

The hand that was on your waist comes up to cradle your cheek as he brushes his tongue against your bottom lip in a silent request. You grant it, opening up to him to let him roll his tongue against yours. You stand on your tiptoes and lean further into him, returning the kiss with a fervour he wasn’t expecting but welcomes happily. He can taste your lipstick and is pleasantly surprised to find it tastes a little like vanilla.

There’s a push and pull of tongues and teeth and soft little sighs as he dares to slip his hands down and pull you flush against him by your hips, revelling in the breathy moan that slips from your throat and meets his mouth. He pulls away only to kiss sloppily at the corner of your mouth and down your jaw. He nips at the juncture between your neck and shoulder, smiling against your skin when you gasp and tug at his hair. Mouthing at your skin, he searches until you whine and shudder after he drags his teeth over a particular spot and focuses his attention there.

He sucks a nice bruise into the spot, some primal part of him driving him to mark you up and claim you as his while he has you here. He bites a little too hard and you hiss, making him pull back and search for your face in the dark.

“Sorry, did I hurt you?”

“Mm-mm.” You hum before immediately capturing his lips again, slipping your tongue into his mouth and swallowing the moan that escapes him.

He guides you by your hips until he has you pressed against the door, sliding a hand down the length of your thigh before slipping it up past the hem of your skirt to grab greedily at your flesh. He hikes your leg up by his hip and you hook your knee around it to pull him impossibly close.

His touch is tender even as he practically swallows you whole, thumb stroking the side of your thigh where your skirt has ridden up. He rolls his hips up against your experimentally and you whine, urging him to do it again. This is what he’s wanted — craved — for so long. You’re warm and soft in ways that his imagination could have never replicated. He’s dizzy, drunk on your kiss, on your touch, on you.

He’s attached himself to your neck again — the other side this time — when the lights flicker on, startling you both into looking up at the ceiling.

The room is filled with nothing but the sound of your combined laboured breathing, and when he looks back at you, he finds your face flushed and your lipstick smudged. You look back at him and he notices your pupils are blown wide as you suddenly smile and start giggling.

“What?” He chuckles, letting go of your thigh so that you can stand on your own two feet again.

“Rum raisin looks good on you, doctor.” You laugh, thumbing the remnants of your kisses off of his bottom lip.

He kisses you once again, smiling against your lips.

You tug him back and laugh again, “You’re making it worse!”

He does it again, and again, and then peppers kisses over the side of your neck until you’re giggling something awful and have to scrunch your shoulder to your ear to keep him from tickling you.

“Spencer!” You squeak as quietly as you can and he pulls away laughing.

Your giggles die down, and then you’re both left in a silence that isn’t awkward, but isn’t quite comfortable either. He has to say something, but what?

“Hey, would you, um,” You start, glancing down at his lips and biting at yours nervously, “Would you like to go out with me sometime? Just us?”

He blinks, wanting to pinch himself to make sure this is actually happening, “Like, a date?”

You nod. He blinks again before practically beaming at you.

“Yeah.” He nods, attempting to correct the smudged edge of your lipstick with his thumb, “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

“Saturday? Five o’ clock? We can do whatever you want.”

He nods again, “Sounds good.”

“Good.” You smile, leaning up to kiss him, your touch so saccharine and gentle that his legs feel like jello beneath him.

The doorknob jiggles suddenly and he instinctively reaches to help you button up your blouse a little more while you fiddle with the collar until it covers the rather obvious hickey on your neck.

“Hey, are you two still in there?” Derek calls from the other side as you attempt to help Spencer fix his hair to no avail.

“Uh, yeah!” He calls, clearing his throat after his voice cracks up an octave, “We accidentally locked ourselves in.”

“Here.” You bend to slide the key under the door, and this time, he stares unabashedly, “That’s the key.”

The knob jiggles a little more before the door opens, and when it does, Derek eyes the two of you suspiciously, “You guys okay?” He locks eyes with Spencer and smirks, “You seem a little winded.”

“Yeah, we’re okay.” You smile, hastily walking out, “The boxes were just heavy. Plus, we had to walk all the way down here.”

“Yeah, okay.” Derek says, though it’s clear he isn't convinced. When you get a little further ahead of them, he claps Spencer on the back with a bright grin, “About time, loverboy!”

“Shut up.” Spencer shoots back, though he can’t help the smile that creeps up on his face.

This is not how he expected his confession to go, but — as he watches you walk down the hall a little ways ahead of him with a renewed pep in your step and your hair a little dishevelled — he is so glad it went the way it did.

———————————————————————

Edit: I had a couple people request a part 3 (Possibly smutty, but we shall see), and I'm curious about whether or not y'all would want that? Just let me know in the replies/reblogs. :)

Update: Part 3 is posted and linked at the top of this post :)

Taglist:

@louderfortheback @theblaxkbird @marimorena06 @special-forces7 @lolilkkk

[grandline-fics]

hi! i just read all of your oneshots and they’re perfect, i’m in love. hoping it is okay to request something with zoro having a soft spot towards reader? he doesn’t even realize it a first, but since reader is somehow quiet and gentle (not weak though!) he starts to take note of small things to do/don’t do or notice their actions (ex: taking care o the crew) a lot more than others. thank you. <3

DESCRIPTION: Who knew you were Zoro’s soft spot? Apparently both of you are the last to know 

WARNINGS: none, just pure fluff

CHARACTERS: Zoro

WORDS: 856

A/N:  Thank you for your kind words and for this request! I hope it's to your liking. I've been feeling a little under the weather these past couple of days so some fluff was needed <3

MASTERLIST

*REQUESTS ARE OPEN*

It’s tiny things; little, practically meaningless things that are so easy to miss but they’re there. When you first joined the crew, your presence fell into the likes of his and Robin’s; strong but relatively quiet and easily looked passed if you wanted. You didn’t see the point in wasting energy needlessly and knew the value in waiting until letting yourself be known. Zoro unknowingly enjoyed that kind of calm you naturally brought and found himself gravitating towards it because it seemed even when he was in his own space you were still in his eye-line. In the beginning he found it a little strange that it kept happening, he knew you weren’t following him. Hell most of the times you were on the other side of the ship or talking with someone else so he cleared it as coincidence and thought nothing of it. As time went on, there was a lot he was putting down to mere coincidence. 

When you were all exploring new islands it was purely happenstance that you two walked side by side. Neither of you were the type to bound about and race ahead without a cause for urgency. He found he didn’t get lost as easily when you were close. You always seemed to know the way to go. On one trip Brook had commented to Zoro how lucky he had been that you were there to talk to him at the right moment otherwise he would have kept walking towards a path that would have taken him towards a ravine. Because of your voice suddenly pulling him into conversation he’d kept the right track and avoided possibly injuring himself and getting a lecture from the others. Lucky right?

It was also luck of the draw that when eating or drinking off the ship, Zoro was sat at the table in such a way that his back blocked you mostly from view from any unwanted stares. It was never in a subconscious way to keep you from interacting with others but it was like another sense he had that he was able to tell when you just wanted to sit with the crew and enjoy your meal. It seemed to go both ways too in that regard. If women tried to approach and flirt with him you effortlessly had a way of making a joke to dissuade them and steer them in Sanji’s direction. Was any of it done out of jealousy, possessiveness of the other’s attention, or an overwhelming need to protect? Not in the least, it was just doing what needed to be done to help out a friend and fellow crew-mate.

On the Sunny it’s no different. It’s not even a second thought, his body just reacts without thinking. In the early, barely waking hours when he’s finished his night watch and is about to grab a quick snack before training he always pulls out a specific mug from the cabinet and sets it on the counter. It’s never for him and like clockwork you appear just as he’s finished drinking a glass of water. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes and stifling a small yawn you always offer him a small smile and greeting that is returned. You both pass each other, your only motivation is caffeine to see you through the last of the watch before everyone else is awake while he goes to the crow’s nest to train. 

After all this time it’s never occurred to you to question why your mug is waiting for you when you rise. You don’t know why but it’s something that immediately makes your morning a little bit brighter. It’s also routine now that an hour or so after breakfast, you and Zoro both nap; him to rest between his training sessions and you to grab another couple hours after your night watch. Nami occasionally glances up from her charts to shake her head at your sleeping forms. Robin finds it adorable while Brook chuckles, nostalgic over youth and love’s first stages. 

“Jeez they’re both so clueless.” Sanji grumbles, he’s accepted long ago that he doesn’t have a chance with you but is so infuriated that nothing has actually happened. He lost you to the swordsman who hasn’t even thought to make a move. Usopp grins and watches as you stir slightly in your sleep which in turn makes Zoro react before his body relaxes again. Currently he’s lying on his back with one hand tucked behind his head. While the other that’s draped over his chest, his fingers almost touching yours that are curled by your head as you sleep on your side. 

From his spot on Sunny’s head, Luffy grins. “I don’t know. I think they do know, in their own way.” It’s the little, insignificant things that you both do for each other that are easy to miss and while a lot of little things add up into something bigger, none of it compares to the way that you and Zoro unknowingly look at each other at any given chance. Because that is something so big that no one else can ignore. 

[c0ld0utside]

May i please request a merman (that has legs on land) that adopts a raccoon/possum hybrid kid

Went with the raccoon hybrid. I am so sorry these are taking me long.

Warnings: Mentions of family death, poaching(?, would people hunting mers count as that or??), mentions of dysfunctional family dynamics/abuse (not too in depth), technically kidnapping...all the fun yandere stuff.

Let's get into it.

-

Jupiter was a lonely, broken mess since he lost his pod. His mate, his parents, his siblings, his pup…gone. His tail was wounded terribly as well- to the point where using it felt like getting stabbed and cut all over again. He mostly just hid in a small hidden cove, eating the little fish that wandered in and the small hermit crabs he could snatch off the beach. It was his routine for days. Wake up, lie in the spot for hours, eat a little to get rid of the hunger pangs, lie back down, fall asleep. 

That is until one day he wakes up to the scene of a runty little racoon hybrid trying to catch a hermit crab. It’s a mess- the younger scrambling around and tripping over themself in the sand, pausing to look over at Jupiter to make sure he’s asleep. He quickly shuts his eyes, keeping them relaxed and letting out a deep sigh. Don’t mind me, fast asleep. Snoozing away…

He feels some sand land on him and flinches, but forces out a snort and shifts. Jupiter hears the little rascal giggle softly, then fall silent. Opening up and eye and peeking over his shoulder, he can see the crab making its way over to him. He doesn’t want to scare the pup- cub- but he doesn’t want them to starve, either.

Quick as a flash, he rolls over and snatches the hermit crab, ripping it out of it’s shell and offering it to the younger.

///

You let out a startled squeak at the movement, stumbling backward as the mer offers you the poor tiny crushed crab in his hand. In all honesty, you were just after it’s shell; A beautiful Murex that wasn’t too large or small. The mer frowns, red-brown fins lowering against the side of his head slightly. His scales reminded you of the dunes at sunrise and sunset- warm tones of red, orange and yellow with some brown. The mer chirps at you, starting to pull himself closer before freezing and backing into the water. …Okay. Strange. 

Confused hazel eyes stare at you, and he offers you the crab one more time. You shake your head, looking over at the shell instead. He seems to understand then and sinks deeper into the water. There’s a beat. Two. Then he moves forward again and offers you the shell. He’s like a wave- not knowing where he’s going or what he’s doing. Back and forth. Unsteady. 

“Thank you,” you say, the words coming out eager. You turn the shell around in your hands, thumb rubbing against the dull points and the rings. It’s a little yellow and pink from the sand and the salt. “It’s beautiful.”

The mer chirps at you again, expression softening in awe. Your ears flatten on your head and your tail twitches. “Can I help you?” Yes. You absolutely can. He just needs to get himself together first. 

His frills flare when you step away and he lets out a pleading sound, fingers digging into the wet sand. At first you think he’s hissing. Then he finally gets the words out. “Sssssstay,” he rasps, voice weak from lack of use. The actions have you retreating further when you finally notice the still-healing and scarring cuts on his tail.

Oh.

Maybe he’s asking for help? Well in that case, you just so happened to know about a certain coastal market that should have some ointments. “Wait here,” You tell the mer. “I’ll go get something that can help.” You scamper off to the markets and try to ignore the clicks the mer makes. 

The fastest way to the market is also the way that leaves you with the most scrapes and bruises. …You cut straight through the woods on a forgotten path and tumbled down a few short slopes, rolling right into the market. Ignoring the raised brows and looks you’re getting, you slip into the crowd and at least forty-five minutes later manage to lose the angry shopkeep with some ointment and a towel in hand. There was an awkward moment where you thought you got busted and played dead for a few seconds though you shove it into the back of your mind and press on. Right. Strange merman is more important. 

The trek back was exhausting to the point where you collapsed in the sand. Sand which was burning hot already…for some reason. You quickly scrambled back up with a yelp, running into the water to cool off your legs. Mere seconds later, the mer resurfaced, chirping urgently at you. “Agh-! Yeah, yeah, hi again.” You mutter as the mer moves closer to you. “I got you some stuff for your tail.” He takes the ointment you offer him and tilts his head at you before snatching the towel as well. “Hey! That was for me-”

You trail off as the mer crawls out of the water, quickly wrapping the towel around himself as he stands on wounded legs. Since when could merfolk do that? You had no idea. 

[...]

Months have passed since then and you find yourself returning to the cove, giving the mer (who’s name you’ve learned is Jupiter) some company. Most days it’s boring- helping him regain his voice and bringing him necessities. “Little one, please, you shouldn’t have to be doing this for me,” Jupiter murmurs as you set some clothes down on the beach. “And I already have clothes! This is too much.” He insists. “You can’t wear the same thing over and over again,” you point out. “And you need to practice walking. Now hurry up and get yourself dry so you can try those on.” Huffing a laugh at your bossiness, Jupiter drags himself onto the sand and grabs the towel. “[Name,]” he calls as he wraps it around his waist, “Do you have a family of your own?” You pause. You and your family had a complicated relationship. You all loved each other to some degree but physical and verbal disagreements along with weak, unstable bonds with your parents and siblings pushed you into leaving way earlier than most hybrids of your kind. You still had a nasty bite scar from your eldest sister. 

“Yeah. We don’t get along much, though.” You say, deciding on telling him everything and nothing. The sound of shifting fabric mixes with the lapping of the waves and the breeze in the trees. While you wait, you decide to look for shells again. “So you left?” He asks in disbelief. “Yeah. Shocking, am I right?” You reply, tail twitching in slight irritation. “But you’re so young,” Jupiter comments sadly, finishing getting dressed and pulling a shirt over his head.  “I’m not that young.” You scoff. “Then why are you so tiny?” He asks, tone so sweet it’s condescending. “Because hybrids of my species are small. Why are you so large underwater?” Jupiter hums. “Fair point. You can turn around now.” You shake your head. “Can’t, I think I just found a shell.” You pull a whelk out of the sand. “Scratch that. Definitely found a shell.”

“Oooh, that one’s nice.” Jupiter comments, peeking over your shoulder. He falls silent again. “Where did you put all of the other ones you found?” He asks. “There’s a harpy that I trade some of them to. I kept the ones I liked the most in a hollow but someone stole them.” You answer, making him frown. “It’s okay. I’m used to it.” You reassure, though he catches the smallest hint of bitterness in your tone. Which brings an idea into his head.

“I know a safe place for you to put them,” he offers, knowing exactly where to go. Jupiter had found a nice cave on the cliffside, one that was hard to leave unless you were a merfolk or an avian. That certainly caught your attention. “Show me.” Pleased by your eagerness, Jupiter helped you onto his back and swam off to the littoral cave. He didn’t mention that you would be staying there no matter what you said. It was a hard decision, yes, but you’ll understand in the end. Call him paranoid, but this world was so dangerous! Especially for a small thing like you. But it’ll be okay now, and he’s already made it all comfy and cozy. And it’s not like you’ll be staying there all day. That’d be cruel! No, no. He’ll take you out to go swimming and hiking and beach combing. Jupiter will even bring you back some books! Getting the hang of walking on land was the best thing he ever did in his opinion.

Now he can make his own little stall at the market. Now he can sell the shells you don’t want to keep for actual money, buy himself some fishing nets, and go on from there. What would you need the money for? No need to worry. Papa will take care of it all. He’ll buy you all the comforts you’d ever want.

[janitorhutcherson]

Groceries, Taxes, & Laundry (MSchmidt Fluff)

hey guys, it's me. i'm finally back. did y'all miss me? the writing of this is a lil diff, sooooo please enjoy and lmk what you think!

content: pure fluff yall.

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

Grocery shopping with Mike Schmidt is… special, to say the least. He absolutely despises it. The dreaded time comes around at the end of every week, your vegetables in the fridge starting to wilt, the meat from the previous trip used up, and all of your snacks have been devoured from late night munchie runs to the pantry (xoxo i love gardening!!!). He knows it has to happen. He knows you’ll wake him up early on Sunday morning like always, because apparently it’s “better to get it out of the way,” which he thinks is, well, to put it lightly, utter bullcrap.

You’ll drag him and Abby out to your local grocery store, her drowsy and jittery all at the same time with the promise of pancakes from a local diner after. Once you arrive, you’ll pull out all of the far-too-expensive reusable bags out of the trunk of Mike’s dingy car, ready to fill them with the necessities. Why get those for 3 bucks when you can get the plastic ones for free? He’ll never understand your logic, something about saving the environment, but it’s okay, he loves you enough not to complain, at least out loud.

The fluorescent lights of the room filled with half asleep employees hits Mike’s eyes like he’s looking directly into the sun. He lets out a small grumbled sigh as he takes in the scent of sterile cleaning supplies and produce mixed in one, with the strange almost play doh like smell of the bakery. Your eyes cut over to him, eyebrows raised, Abby’s hand in yours as she rubs her droopy eyes. Mike can’t help but to crack a small smirk, his lips pursed together. “What?” he’ll question innocently, letting out a small snicker as you go deeper into the dreary establishment. 

At the produce aisle, Mike shivers a little as the water from the misting sprinkler on the shelves hits his bare skin. He should’ve worn his jacket today, he usually does, and he’s regretting the one time he hasn’t. Your eyes are glancing over carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, and squash, all that are somehow both too ripe and too.. What's the word... unripe? Sure, he’ll go with that. His hand reaches out to grip yours in a gentle grasp as Abby points to a particularly fluffy bushel of broccoli. “I want that one! It looks like pretty trees,” she giggles out, finally starting to wake with the day. You let out a giggle of your own and Mike smiles because of how pretty your laugh is.

Next, you’re in the snack aisle, filling the cart with doritos, barbeque chips, pringles, salt and vinegar chips (mike gags when you eat them too close to him), peanut butter filled pretzels, whatever can go in Abby’s lunch box and whatever is tastiest. Mike insists on buying the cheap queso, his nose scrunching up at the price of the name brand one. He knows it doesn’t taste any different.

Now you’re looking at meats, finding chicken breasts and filets, steaks, pork, whatever was on your list from meal prepping. Yes, meal prepping, Mike did that now. Apparently stable people with stable lives who had stable relationships did that. He’d grown fond of sitting over a recipe book with you on Saturday nights, really, shoulder to shoulder, pressed up on the couch well after Abby had gone to bed. Something about it felt safe, a kind of domestic feeling he wasn’t used to.

You’re basically done now, and he couldn’t be more relieved as you make your way towards the dairy section. He grabs a few things, string cheese, yogurt, cream cheese, cheese slices for sandwiches for work. Oh, did he mention he works in construction now? It’s stable, makes good money, and he’s home on time to see you, to be a husband-not-yet-husband (he plans to propose soon, but that’s another story), a brother-more-like-a-father, a person with a regular schedule. He looks over at you, watching as you and Abby skim over the different selections of chocolate and strawberry milk, finally settling on a carton of strawberry. He once again scrunches his nose, smiling all at once. “Nasty,” he mumbles out. Abby playfully hits his arm and you lean in for a kiss.

Finally, thank god, you push the cart towards the bakery section, grabbing bread and a sweet treat or two for the week. Cookies, a birthday cake for no particular reason, cheese danishes, whatever his little family was feeling for the week, that’s what it’d be. This week, it was a huge box of chocolate chip cookies and some kind of cherry pastry he’d never had before. You three finally head to checkout, where everything is stuck in those stupid reusable bags and the price of everything you got feels obscenely huge for what’s in your cart, but he pays it anyway. Walking to the car, in the trunk the groceries go as you all climb in one by one, ready to head for pancakes.

As he reverses the car out of his good (only because it was so goddamn early) parking spot, he can’t help but sigh, this time with contentment as Abby rambles on about a new imaginary (hopefully) friend, your own grin wide as you ask questions, making sure she feels heard. “I love you guys, love doing things with you guys,” Mike mumbles out, reaching his hand over to your thigh as he glances back at Abby too. And it was true, he’d do anything with you two. Hell, if all his life consisted of grocery shopping, taxes, and laundry? Yeah, he’d be ok with that too.

[magicalbats]

Oh, Captain (Luffy x reader)

Rating: R-18+

Word Count: 5222

Warnings: Afab!reader, gendered language, noncon, physical coercion, outdoor sex, inappropriate use of 5th Gear

A/N: My second ever commission and the lovely donor was kind enough to give me permission to post it for everyone else to read. Thank you for a great experience, @avidbroswer!! 🩷🩷🩷

⭐

Let’s help Luffy, they’d said.  

We’re a crew, they’d said. Family. 

You don’t feel very much like family when you’re running for your life from the very captain you’d sworn loyalty to. Or at least, you’re pretty sure that the strange figure with white nimbus cloud hair is your captain. You’d watched it happen from a (questionably) safe distance, when he suddenly transformed in a surge of sparking static electricity that made your skin crawl like it was trying to escape from your bones but it’s still hard to believe that it was really him. Even having seen the reality of it with your own two eyes doesn’t make it any easier to accept. 

Luffy was supposed to be a dark haired, dark eyed youth in the prime of his life. Not this uncanny version of him that giddily laughs with boisterous amusement while he ping pongs about so violently within the craggy mess of scorched earth in the wake of his battle with Kaido that you can feel the massive chunks of rock slamming into the ground as much as you can hear it. One after another, from the left and then the right, they just keep falling in an almost continuous rain of rubble and ruin. The resulting shockwaves very nearly take you off your feet more than once but you force yourself to keep running even when your sore legs scream in protest, aching from the exertion. It was the only choice you really had at this point. 

And it’s not lost on you that this is technically your own fault for getting so close to the fight but you’d wanted to help. All that talk of family and crew, and unwavering allegiance to the Straw Hats had clearly infected your brain because you’d rushed straight into the danger zone despite knowing good and well that you were the only one close enough to make it in time. Now you were the one who needed help and it wasn’t going to arrive soon enough to do you any good. 

What an idyllic fool you’d been. 

“Ah!” You suddenly get tripped up in all the rocky debris laying across the ground and fall to your knees with a seething hiss. Your palms come back scraped where they’d shot out to catch you but you’ve managed to avoid taking the brunt of it to the face. Thank the stars for life’s smallest miracles. 

Panting heavily, you just sit there amongst the broken wreckage and detritus for a harrowingly long beat, trying to catch your breath. You can still hear the chaotic destruction of Luffy — or the man who had once been Luffy — bouncing around like a rubber ball behind you, completely unimpeded by the laws of gravity or common sense. It sounded like he was having a blast. 

Maybe that was good. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed you yet, so lost within the mess of demolished land and too tiny a speck to even draw his attention. You had a chance to escape then, if that was the case. 

Any such hopes quickly fizzle out when his uproarious hooting and hollering abruptly rushes towards you, getting louder and louder until your eardrums start to vibrate. You suck in a sharp, nauseated gasp and slap your hands over your ears as you twist around to look behind you. Just in time to watch Luffy sail overhead like a shooting white comet. The kickback from his high velocity speed hits you seconds later, tearing a shriek from your mouth when the wind hits you full force and as solid as any wall. 

Too busy ducking down with your head between your knees to protect yourself from the sting of flying rocks, you don’t get to see how he manages to pivot his momentum mid air and land a couple hundred yards away. You hear it though. You feel the shock of impact too, when it races through the ground to make the rubble underneath you tremble. It goes quiet then, and unnaturally still. Suddenly all you can hear are your own labored gasps. 

You hesitate to do it but, realizing you have no other option, you slowly lift your face to peer out over all the fallen debris. Standing at a distance, Luffy just looks at you with a fiercely manic edge in his now golden-yellow eyes that makes your veins ice up. You’re more certain than ever that this cannot be your captain. He should have been giving you the usual bright faced, happy go lucky grin he always did when he inexplicably came out on top against all the odds that were stacked against him. Not this — viscous leer of victory. 

But if this wasn’t Luffy then who in the seven seas was it? 

“Have you come to celebrate with me?” 

His voice isn’t quite the same either. More raspy, like the weight of immense power flowing through him was putting strain even on his vocal cords. You don’t think you like that any more than you like the way he’s eyeing you up as if you were a stuffed pig on a roasting spit. Even for his bottomless pit of an appetite, you’d never seen him look at another person quite like that. 

Cautiously slow, you straighten up out of your defensive huddle. Work to get your feet under you without taking your attention off him for even a moment and then stand so you can prepare to … what, run again? A lot of good that had clearly done you. 

“I don’t think it’s time to celebrate just yet.” You tell him softly. “We need to find the other Straw Hats. Make sure they’re all okay. You still remember them … don’t you, Luffy?” 

Your emotional plea only succeeds in giving him a momentary pause. “But I have so much energy left. I just want to dance and shout, and jump into the air! You’ll join me, won’t you?” 

He takes a step towards you, a rather aggressive one at that, and you quickly back up. Something told you if you didn’t agree to go along with this he was going to try and force you into joining in on whatever constituted his idea of merrymaking. Unfortunately you weren’t sure if you’d survive that, given the state of all the crumbled boulders littering the ground on this now desolate stretch of land. 

“No, Luffy. Not right now. We have to - -“ 

With an abrupt jerk, he lurches forward as if to launch himself at you. His rubbery legs momentarily struggle for traction on the ground, as if they couldn’t quite decide what consistency they wanted to be, but you don’t plan on sticking around long enough to find out. Feeling like you’ve forgotten how to breathe, you spin around and make a mad dash for it, barreling straight into a dead sprint. 

It’s a resounding effort in futility. 

You don’t even make it three whole steps before he slams into your back hard enough to take you right off your feet. 

There’s a split second moment of shock at how fast he’d managed to close the distance, and then the ground is rushing up at your face again. 

That dizzying blur of vertigo inducing free fall coupled with the way your vision tilts on its axis very nearly has you spewing your guts right then and there. But if Luffy picks up on the dire, sickened tinge coloring your wounded grunt he certainly doesn’t act it. He just flings his arms around your middle, alarming in their fleshy elasticity and yet still familiar to you, then hauls you up against his front before you can slam into the rocks. 

Everything happens much too fast for you to keep up with any of it. Your brain is reeling, still trying to recover from the impact of his body colliding with yours and the subsequent head rush that followed. So stunned you can’t even find the wherewithal to protest his treatment of you let alone try to fight your way free. Unable to do anything else, you simply allow your limbs to bonelessly flail when he takes a handful of eager steps forward with you in his arms. 

In the next moment Luffy spins you out away from him, snagging your wrist to stop your momentum and make you jerk to another abrupt standstill. The yank on your shoulder causes it to pop, splintering pain racing up your arm as you cry out. He doesn’t care though. He either doesn’t care or he doesn’t notice, because he just pulls you right back into him again, hard enough to make you collapse with a teeth rattling jolt against his chest. 

“Come on!” He laughs, loud and frenzied, his hold on you much too tight where it’s shackled around your wrist. “Dance with me! Aren’t you having fun?” 

Teeth gnashing to fight back the nausea, you bring your uncaptured hand up and brace it against his shuddering frame. You’re more than just a little surprised to find his heartbeat hammering out a sharp, almost violent staccato against his ribcage, so powerful you can feel it thrumming through his skin. It reminds you of an endless procession of war drums. Too many to count and impossibly loud, their ferocity equally intimidating and awe inspiring. 

What in the world had happened to him? 

You don’t have the privilege of lingering on that question for very long. Couldn’t afford to, as you try to get your tired legs situated under you again so you can stand on your own. “You’re hurting me, Luffy. We don’t have time for this right now. Just let me go. Please.” 

But he doesn’t even seem to register what you’re saying as a plea at all. 

A snickering, raspy laugh rattles up out of him, and you vehemently push at his narrow chest with your uncaptured hand. Shove him as hard as you can. He still doesn't budge though, simply reaching up to snag that wrist too so he can forcefully spin you around in his arms. You feel sick with the rush of motion coupled with the fatigue and throbbing pain in your body but there’s nothing you can do to stop it. He’s too strong, too wild, too lost in whatever manic high he’s slipped into after his fight with Kaido. 

Tightening his grip to lock you against his front, Luffy moulds himself to the line of your back with such an unnatural, rubbery motion that you find yourself fighting not to wretch even as his mouth finds your neck. He nuzzles at you for a brief moment, just brushing his lips over your jackhammering pulse before angling his nose towards the spot just behind your ear. The breath he draws is slow and savory, and he seems to hold it in his lungs for an unnecessarily long time. 

When he at last sighs out, displacing some of the loose flyaways in your hair, an unmistakable rumble low in his chest accompanies it. “Mmm, you smell good. Like victory.” 

What the hell was that supposed to mean? “Luffy, just listen to me … don’t do this. I - I don’t really understand what's happened to you but we can figure it out together. We’ll fix it. I promise. But you need to let me go or - -“

“Let you go? But we’re having so much fun. I want to have even more fun with you but you’re not a fighter, not like he was. And you don’t want to dance with me either.”

He sounds dangerously close to pouting when he says that last bit and you give a halfhearted twist in his hold, testing for any slack. It’s no good though. For as little effort as he seemed to be putting into it, his arms were like iron shackles where they’re criss crossed over your body. Dammit. 

“Why?” You seethe in frustration and fast mounting panic. “Why won’t you just go back to normal, Luffy? This isn’t like you!” 

His frame shakes behind you with the giggles that rise within him, making his whole body vibrate like a mercilessly shaken soda bottle. It quickly grows, rapidly multiplying and expanding until he at last throws his head back with a cackling peel of laughter aimed up at the sky. It’s much too close to your ear and deafeningly loud, reigniting your desperation to get away from him, but your wild thrashing just causes him to laugh even harder. Like he found it hilarious that you were scared and trapped against him. 

“I can’t!” He howls, belly laughing so ferociously it makes you jerk in his hold. “I can’t go back until I’ve used up all of this energy! It feels like I’m going crazy but it feels good too! Amazing even! I’ve never experienced anything like it before! I want to keep going but you can’t fight and you won’t dance with me … but there’s something else we can do together, isn’t there?” 

“What are you ta - -“

He releases you so suddenly you don’t even realize you’re crumpling to the ground until your butt has already hit the rocks, surprising a yelp out of you. Fresh pain immediately races up from your backside in a blinding starburst and you outright hiss as you gingerly start to angle yourself onto your hip in hopes of taking some of the pressure off of where it hurts the most. You don’t quite make it that far though. 

Luffy’s hands are suddenly on your shoulders, shoving you forward to sprawl out rather inelegantly on your front. He follows you down, pinning you to the destroyed ground with his body weight, and you immediately start to panic in earnest. Your captain didn’t look like much more than a lanky beanpole at first glance but he was so densely packed with muscle that he felt like a sack of bricks on top of you. It makes it hard to breathe and the quickened, gasping lungfuls of air you suck in don’t exactly help. Your chest constricts painfully tight as you struggle against him, forgetting all logic and reason in your blind desperation to get away from him. 

He doesn’t even seem to notice though, still just as unbudging sprawled out over top of you as he’d been when the two of you were standing. No amount of kicking your legs or bucking up underneath him even gives him pause, and his greedy hands fumble down to your waist where they squeeze tight enough to rip a hurt shriek from your throat. This doesn’t cut through the manic haze spurring him on either. He doesn’t even waver. 

“What are you — stop that! Have you lost your mind!” 

“I’m sorry.” He snickers, not sounding very sorry at all as he shoves his face into the crook of your neck again. Another deep, savory inhale. Another rumbling exhale right against your pulse. The faintest growl that trails afterward is new though and you go painfully still under him, hardly even daring the blink despite all the grimy dust kicked up in your desperate fight for freedom. 

You’d never, ever heard such a sound come out of him before. It scares you perhaps most of all, and you’d seen many a frightening and unsettling thing since stepping foot into Onigashima. Somehow this just really took the cake though. 

“I’m sorry,” He says it again. Contradicting this, his callous worn fingers dip into the hem of your pants and start to tug at them, jostling you with each insistent pull. “I’m sorry, heheee. I just can’t help myself. If I can’t have you I don’t know what I’ll do. You’ll help me calm down, won’t you?” 

Your mind struggles to process that. He was asking you to help him? Not with words or medicine, or even the endless supply of food he would have otherwise asked for had he been in his right mind. He wanted your body. 

So that’s what it was then. What it all boiled down to. 

If he couldn’t fight you and you refused to dance with him then that left only one other option. He was going to fuck it out of his system. Anything to get rid of all the excess energy running through his body, making him vibrate like a lit fuse on top of you. It made a certain amount of sense, you supposed, but that didn’t mean you had to like it. 

Curling your hands into tight fists against the rocks, numb to the abrasive sting, you draw a rattling breath to center yourself. It doesn’t do much in the way of good. “Please don’t do this.” 

It’s like he doesn’t even hear you, a grunt of victory puffing out of him when he finally manages to get your pants tugged down over the curve of your ass. 

“Please.” You gasp, the sound wet and faltering. 

Completely ignoring you now, Luffy reaches further down to fumble with something lower while his opposite hand possessively curls around your hip to keep you in place. You hiccup rather sadly at the distant sound of rustling clothes, almost completely lost under the violent pounding of blood in your ears, but there’s no missing the fleshy nudge against the back of your thigh that soon follows. It leaves a sticky smear where it touches you, inspiring an eruption of horrified goosebumps in its wake. 

You don’t have to look to know what’s touching you. The innate knowledge of what’s happening and who is responsible for this paralyzing fear that grips your aching heart in a chokehold is horrible and suffocating all at once. Stinging tears spring up and well in the backs of your eyes but you clench your teeth to try and stifle the terrified wail threatening to claw its way up your throat, knowing it would only sound hysterical. 

On one hand you almost couldn’t believe this was really happening, even though the reality of the situation was staring you right in the face. It just seemed almost too implausibly awful to be real. 

But on the other, Luffy wasn’t exactly known for his self control or restraint. You knew this. Had even found it charming at one point or another, so you brace yourself for the worst. It just might be the only thing that ends up saving you. 

“Captain - -“

“I’m sorry.” 

He’s suddenly between your legs, pressing up into you from behind. You go ramrod stiff against him, your whole body clenching in genuine distress, but it does very little to stop him. Like he’s done it a million times before, or perhaps thanks to the instinctive muscle memory bestowed upon every man with a working cock, he pushes right in on your entrance until cunt slips start to part under the pressure. A thin, tremulous groan escapes him at the first kiss of your hot guts against the tip and then he just keeps pushing. Even when your muscles tense up and try to keep him out. Even when he meets a great deal of resistance as your body tries its best to reject him. If anything he almost seems to take it as a challenge the same way he would another combatant or a roadblock standing between him and his goals. 

In this case his goal is clearly to sink himself in you right down to the hilt, and he just puts more effort into his cause the more you try to fight it. Leans his weight into you until it feels like your poor cunt is taking the full brunt of his mass. The resulting stretch of your inner sleeve is painful and drawn out, taking much longer than it otherwise would have had you been even slightly prepped for this. 

Your mouth hinges open but nothing comes out for a prolonged moment as the tears break loose to streak down your face. It feels like he’s tearing you in half! Either he was much bigger than you’d assumed he’d be or by virtue of how tightly your interior walls were squeezing him — or even some terrible combination of the two —  it was like you were being split down the middle. You couldn’t even breathe through the choking discomfort of it and a threadbare, sobbing little mewl dislodges from your throat when he at last manages to shove himself past that first barrier. 

Full penetration is much easier for him to achieve after that but it’s no less painful, and you cry out when he snaps his hips forward once, twice, and finally lodges his length the rest of the way in on the third. A pleased huff slips out of him as he settles on top of you, a fresh wave of giggles quickly following suit. It was like he’d gone mad. So wrapped up in the raving power that had turned his hair white that he can only laugh about it even while he’s buried balls deep in your body. 

That short lived pause is all the respite you get though and Luffy is soon moving, rutting into you with quick, sharp little jabs up into your guts. You shriek at the top of your lungs, clawing at the ground while you kick out behind you, but he ignores this the same as everything else. Lying prone and trapped under him, all you can do is take it. 

“Waah — why are you doing this, Luffy? It hurts! If … if the others find out about this - -“ 

“I know, hahaaa. I know. I’m sorry, but I can’t stop. You feel … this feels amazing! Almost as good as fighting Kaido did!” 

You seethe at that, trying your damndest not to get caught up on it right now but that proves to be more than a little difficult. He really didn’t see any difference between fucking and fighting? Somehow that seemed so typically him, and you think you would have probably joined him in laughing about it under better circumstances. 

But better circumstances wouldn’t have found you being roughly jostled back and forth on the ground by his eager, jack rabbit thrusts. The motion of his hips lacks any and all refinement with no technique to speak of, and yet that doesn’t stop you from seeing stars every time his cock blindly rams into your upper wall. It punches the air from your lungs and materializes out of your mouth in the form of heaving, strained bleats of distress that quickly climb to a higher and higher pitch with each second that goes by. Not for the first time today, you feel like you really might throw up. 

“Ooh, that’s …” He suddenly gasps, lets out a half strangled groan, and drives himself into you even harder. Faster. The force of his pelvis slapping against your upturned ass rapidly grows to a steady, almost constant blur of stinging swats — plap, plap, plap, plap — and you shriek at the rapidly swelling pressure on your gut. “Ooh, that’s good. That’s good! It feels so good! I - I can’t - -“ 

Without warning, your pussy abruptly floods with wet, sticky warmth. He hadn’t even given you a chance to beg for him to pull out. 

Your eyes widen to the approximate size of dinner plates but he just keeps pistoning his hips even as the rest of his shuddering frame gives a series of little jerks to thoroughly empty his balls into you. He shows no signs of slowing down or tiring any time soon though, his limitless energy evidently far outpacing his obvious lack of experience. 

It’s a hard thing to wrap your reeling head around just how quickly everything has happened and yet there’s no mistaking it for what it is. The sensation is completely foreign to you but you innately understood it for what it represented, what it could potentially mean for your future. You’re not half as relieved to have it done and over with as you are terrified of what it meant. 

Even more confounding, however, is that it doesn’t so much as make Luffy slow down let alone stop now that he’s painted your inner sleeve a thick, creamy white. Not the orgasm itself which, considering how much he fills you up, should have thoroughly drained him for the time being, nor the possible repercussions of allowing himself to shoot off inside of you like that. He just keeps going without a care in the world, like it wasn’t his problem and he still had more than enough stamina to keep up the harried pace he’d settled into for the foreseeable future. The only sign of it burning up any of his energy at all is the slightly labored quality his breathing takes on, but that’s it. 

Realizing that this ordeal is still far from over, you give your body a twist and try to angle your cunt away from the constant attack of his cock. “H - hold on a minute, what … aagghhh, what are you doing, Luffy? You - - you can’t just cum inside like that, you idiot!” 

“Can’t stop! Heheehe, I can’t, I can’t, not when you keep squeezing me like that!” 

All but wheezing at the intense pleasure of thrusting into the sticky mess he’s made of you, Luffy presses himself flush against your sweaty back and circles his arms around your middle. You brace to shove him off, or at least try to, but you don’t quite make it that far. 

Catching you completely off guard, he yanks you up against him and practically throws himself back onto the ground. The sudden lurch lodges your stomach in your throat, and you let out a frazzled scream as you land on top of him. That he cushions the impact with his rubbery body only comes as a slight relief when you were struggling just to get your bearings straight, disoriented and stunned in the aftermath of his impulsive decision when you unexpectedly find yourself blinking up at the sky. 

You start to pull yourself upright, wincing, only to quickly realize he’s still got one arm looped around your waist to keep you held in place on top of him. The other is — you gasp when you glance down to see him already fisting his cock in hand, guiding it back to your entrance where it had slipped out in that rush of movement. It’s still achingly stiff and unrelenting, like he hadn’t already spilled his seed in you only moments ago, and your heart painfully wrenches with the fresh wave of dread that comes over you. 

“W - wait, please don’t - -“

The head of him finds your cunt, pressing back up into you again, and you outright sob when he mercilessly snaps his hips to impale you on that stiff length once more. You sway unsteadily at the fresh stretch, trying to decide if it’s better or worse in this position, but gravity soon proves itself your enemy when the weight of you on top of him firmly sinks his cock even further into you than before. It feels like he’s tickling at your ribcage like this, but all you can do is give a wounded little mewl and try to steady yourself. Undaunted, he reaches up to tug your pants the rest of the way off. 

“Luffy,” Sniffling sadly, you fight him as much as you can in your physically exhausted state but it’s no use. Your bottoms come off to leave you bare and exposed from the waist down, sitting upon his cock like a whore on her rightful throne. 

The tears quickly start up again, streaking hot tracks down your flushed, sweaty face while he gets himself situated underneath you. His hips lift, nudging you just a pinch higher so he can brace his feet underneath him while his hands come around to anchor around your love handles. Then, he’s moving again. 

Completely unconcerned by your crying, Luffy flexes his legs to thrust up into you and the same fleshy slap as before quickly rises loud in the air again. Plap, plap, plap, plap. The wet squelch of your seeded cunt sucking him in deep on every upward plunge joins in, adding to the obscene cacophony of noises even as you toss your head back to sob at the sky. You can hear him grunting underneath you, clearly enjoying himself quite a bit, but you couldn’t say the same. Your body was already a sore, achy mess of bruises and scrapes, and this certainly wasn’t helping. You were just getting more and more tired by the minute. 

“Nnghhnnn, please, captain. Please don’t cum inside again, I … I’m begging you!” 

The only response he gives is a low, rumbling groan that seems to bleed into you and reverberate endlessly inside your belly, making you squeeze your thighs together as if to block him out. But of course it doesn’t work. Given the way he stutters over a raspy hiss of your name he actually seems to like the way it makes your walls tighten around him, unintentionally though it may have been. There was really nothing you could have done to dissuade or stop him once he’d set his mind to something, and it seemed he very adamantly had his sights set on using your cunt until his energy reserves finally wore out. 

Distantly, you wonder how long that will actually take. 

“You’re mine, you’re mine, you’re mine,” He chants underneath you, again and again, even when his hands tighten around your hips to guide you into bouncing right along with him. Having no other choice, you snifflingly spread your legs wide and brace your feet on the ground, moving with him despite the throbbing ache in your muscles. “Mine, mine, mine. My prize. My treasure. My woman!” 

He viciously slams his pelvis up at the end, further punctuating his claim on you, and the sharp stab of his cock rips a wild shriek from your mouth. “N - no, captain, please! I can’t — I don’t want it! Not like this! You’re not … aaghnn, you’re not Luffy! You’re not!” 

The only response he gives is a deranged little laugh that makes his cock jump where it’s wedged inside you. That push on your upper wall makes the tension running through you double and then triple, your heaving gasps coming a little quicker now even as his hands travel up your body. You can’t stop him like this when your own were propped behind you along his flexing stomach to help you maintain your balance in this precarious position. It’s not hard to figure out what his intentions are though, and you screw your eyes shut so you don’t have to watch him grab hold of your top. 

A deafening riiiip tears through the air when he shreds it, the poor cotton helpless before his far greater strength. He leaves it hanging from your shoulders in tattered pieces as your tits bounce free, the stiffened tips already aching and strained long before he greedily palms at them like a starved man clutching at a lifeline. The blinding friction of his calloused palms and fingers on your teats makes your cunt spasm around him and you wail, screaming for someone, anyone to save you from your captain. 

Unfortunately for you, help was still a long ways off and Luffy wasn’t even close to running out of steam.

⭐

Crossposted: here

[inkwolvesandcoffee]

Imagine meeting retired!Price on a group trip to Japan.

Inspired by my own upcoming trip.

CoD ML

At first you don’t know you’re part of the same group. For all you know and care, you’re simply two strangers seated next to each other on the plane to Osaka.

Few words are shared between you during the flight. However, it’s anything but awkward because the tall stranger with enchanting blue eyes shows himself quite the gentleman minutes after your shallow acquaintance.

John stands up from his seat as soon as you point out yours is by the window and blocks the pathway with his imposing frame. “Sorry,” you mumble while trying to settle in as fast as you can, self-conscious about the others waiting to get to their seat.

“Take your time, miss. I’ll wait.” There’s a silent warning in his words to the others behind him, daring them to defy him or show annoyance.

“Want me to pop that in the cubbie?” he asks when he sees you struggle with where to put your jacket.

“No. Thank you, I mean, but-“

He extends a hand, which oddly reminds you of a bear’s paw. “Don’t be silly.”

His fingers briefly brush yours when you hand him your jacket. Perhaps to calm you, to assure you he really doesn’t mind. Perhaps it’s just an accidental touch.

John’s travel outfit of choice is a pair of baggy cargo pants, army green jacket, and grey teddy fabric hoodie.

John reads most of the flight away, oblivious to how his glasses make you feel. Like, seriously, how do they make him even more distractingly handsome than he already is?!

As the hours pass by, slipping into the night, you decide to try and catch some shut eye. The stranger next to you has already accomplished your ultimate goal, slouched a little in his seat and vast asleep. He’s pulled his hood up, face half-hidden by the fabric, and crossed his arms. Such a lucky bastard.

He doesn’t mind you lean on him after falling asleep yourself after the necessary struggles. In fact, unbeknownst to you, John manoeuvred your head to rest on his shoulder. He even considered draping his jacket over you, strangely affected by the way he briefly saw you shiver.

When one of the flight attendants kindly wakes John up for breakfast, it takes every ounce of self-control to not let instinct take over and kiss you on the temple to wake you up. However, where he manages to restrain himself, he looses control otherwise.

One hand on your arm, he tries to wake you. “Sweetheart, wake up. Breakfast’s ready.”

You only curl up more into him, clutching his arm like your favourite stuffed animal. So he uses a little force and gently shakes you. “C’mon, darling. Ya need to eat.”

It shouldn’t affect him this much. You shouldn’t have this effect on him. Yet, there’s a prideful warmth in his chest when your drowsy eyes fall on him, delighted he’s the first thing you see as you regain consciousness. But the tender sentiment mingles with the inklings of lust he hasn’t been able to shake off, manifest in the painful hardness in his pants. Fortunately, the blanket in his lap hides it well.

It’s only at Kansai Airport you each discover the other’s identity.

“Wait, you’re part of the group?” Gobsmacked, you gawk at him. The last thing you had expected was to be ‘stuck’ with the stranger for the coming two weeks. Such a cruel fate.

“So it seems,” the man mumbles before he takes your hand, raises it to his lips, and kisses your knuckles. “John Price, miss. At your service.”

Naturally assumes the role of your guardian. Of course he allows you your freedom to go and do your own thing. After all, he’s only a travel companion, a vague acquaintance, to you. Someone you only see when the whole group is together. And despite his natural confidence, John isn’t so sure you’d want him with you.

But the uncertainty proves unnecessary soon.

You go from holding his arm to holding his hand fairly quickly, standing closer to him every day. What also helps the growing craving for his presence is how he always sits next to you on the Shinkansen. During the journey, you share the food you bought before boarding (which you later buy together for a planned lunch on the train). Or you go over the photos you made or hidden gems you found in absence of the other.

Or you sit in silence, leaning on each other while reading.

You two more often than not go off by yourselves. The first few days you share stories over group dinner, but soon go adventuring together.

When you do, of course there are compromises when it comes to what to do and see. Fortunately, John is willing to pop into every Pokémon Center you come across. He knows nothing about the franchise, but your enthusiasm and the nostalgia you harbour for it melts his heart. And despite forgetting the creature’s names as soon as you mention them, he makes a mental note you seem to have a special affinity for something called an ‘Eevee’, an ‘Arcanine’, and two wolves. One carries a sword around, firmly wedged between its maws (Zacian). The other is decked out in shields (Zamazenta).

John finds it adorable how you snuggle with an Eevee plushie at one of the big Pokémon centers. However, he’s seen how much you’ve bought already. “That still gonna fit in your suitcase, sweetheart?”

“Surely with a bit of rearranging it will.”

He sighs, not believing what he’s about to do. Damn those feelings he can’t seem to suppress despite his best efforts. “I’ll pay. And if it doesn’t fit, there’ll be plenty space in my suitcase.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes,” he answers matter of fact, already counting the yen in his wallet. “How much is it?”

In return for his many kindnesses, you accompany him on the hunt for as many Eki stamps as possible. Whereas you expected a bit of a wild goose chase, John has actually meticulously planned out a route so you don’t haphazardly go to and fro across the country.

He insists on paying for any food and drink on the way. After all, he’s the one low-key dragging you along so he might as well make it beneficial to you.

Little does he know you don’t mind.

That his company is plenty reason to go with him.

John is a foodie and loves exploring the Japanese food scene with you. Bakeries, cafés, sushi restaurants, food stalls. You name it, he’s in.

Loves buying a bunch of food you can try in the privacy of either of your hotel rooms. He’ll brew a cup of tea to have with it and if the food doesn’t make too much of a mess, you snuggle up on the bed to enjoy it while watching a show or movie on Netflix (either on his laptop or your tablet).

Loves the occasional midnight ramen moment with you.

Though he mostly loves the mornings after your visits, which has ended yet again by sleeping in each other’s beds or futons (depending on where you’re staying). Every time the both of you tell yourselves you’ll leave, go back to your own room to hit the hay.

But what better way to wake up than in sturdy warm arms?

Have someone snuggled up to you instead of opening your eyes to an empty space?

Seems those Liverpool nights have finally come to an end.

Although John’s a bit hesitant, you manage to convince him to start an Instagram together to document the trip. It doesn’t take long for people to start commenting on the photos of you two together or react to John’s captions on the photos he posts of you. And those are a lot in comparison to those you post of him.

You make such a cute couple!

Are you two together?

Relationship goals!

Ugh, would love me a man like that.

Handsome!😍

But there are also the negative comments, which mostly concerns the age gap between you two. He deletes them as soon as he can, but you know he’s read them and that simple repeated act has made them eat away at him. It’s hard, dealing with online hate, and John honestly wonders how you do it. You’re flattered he gets angry, furious even, on your behalf when there’s any negativity aimed at you. However, you know it’s pointless, spending energy on the opinion of others. So whenever he’s on the verge of going ballistic, you put your hand on his arm and pluck his phone out of his bear paw. “Let’s put that away for now, hm?”

Words can’t describe how grateful John is whenever you do that. But they can explain his growing affection for you.

Perhaps, at long last, he’s falling in love.

One night, at about two in the morning, he shows up at the door of your hotel room. Your drowsiness fades into concern when you notice his sickly complexion, it’s paleness highlighted by the shimmer of sweat coating his skin. “Thank God you’re still alive.”

“John, you alright?” The dullness in his otherwise sparkling blue eyes is haunting, more worrisome as the dusk makes them look emptier.

“You can rely on me, okay?” His voice cracks. “That’s an order.”

“Okay.”

“So don’t go bloody wandering off by yourself. We’re a team. One unit.”

“Okay,” you repeat. “Come inside.”

He doesn’t budge as you lightly tug his arm. “It’s safe.”

“Right.”

He lets you lead him to the bed, where you plop him down. Judging by how light he feels, easy to guide, you can tell he’s not here entirely. “Stay here tonight.”

“I have to save him.”

“Who?”

“Soap. I- I have… have… had… couldn’t. I couldn’t fucking save him.”

“John, I’m sure you did what you could.” In spite of not knowing what he’s on about, you wrap him in your arms to console him. His fingers dig painfully into your skin, clinging to you for dear life. “I’m a failure. We should’ve made it out alive. The whole unit. Not just-“

“Shh, you did what you could.”

“I- I should’ve- What if I can’t do the same for you?”

“It’s alright. I’m here, alive. As are you.”

“Yeah… alive.” His breathing starts to even out. “With me. Together.”

You manoeuvre yourself beneath the sheets, careful to not escape his touch and thus take away his comfort. After a bit of a hassle, you end up with John snuggled up to you and your fingers in his hair. Finally you feel him relax and settle. Into the bed, your embrace.

Your presence.

His anchor.

Come morning, the tables have turned and now it’s you snuggled up to him and his warm sturdy arms wrapped around your body.

Neither of you thinks it strange. After all, you’ve grown accustomed to each other’s company. So it’s nothing but natural to feel his fingers caress your cheek. Perhaps to wake you, perhaps a gesture of tender admiration. Whatever the case, it’s a nice way to wake up.

“Hey,” John murmurs.

“Hey,” you repeat, equally as drowsy. “Sleep well?”

He rests his forehead against yours. “Thanks to you.”

“You snore, though.”

“Do I?”

“Like a grizzly bear.”

“Well, you ain’t wrong. Then again, I’m your beartleman.”

You groan. “No puns this early, please.”

“Sorry.” Tracing your features, he gathers the courage to start the conversation he loathes having. He is a capable man, a leader, level-headed and determined.

Most of the time.

Because he also knows he’s damaged goods. The fact he’s here in bed with you tells him he wasn’t lucid dreaming or, rather, hallucinating. He showed up at your door.

Holding out his broken pieces to you, wilfully ignorant of the fact you don’t know how to put them together.

“Y/N, about last night…”

“John, don’t apologise. It’s alright.”

“I was a bit much, wasn’t I?” He remarks, trying to play it off.

“Do you get those types of attacks often?”

“Not a lot. Thought I was over them, but apparently not.”

“Were you in the army?”

“I was. SAS. Captain Price.” A dark chuckle leaves his lips, full of the stories he won’t tell. Not yet. “Once upon a time.”

“Got dismissed?”

“Of my own volition. Officially I’m retired, earlier than I thought or would’ve liked.“

“But?”

“But there are only so many ghosts a man can allow himself to be haunted by. So much he can bear before he goes insane.”

But fortunately you are here now, to dispel the worst of his ghosts.

And he’ll dispel the yokai hiding around you.

[luimagines]

Mirror Mirror

Another commission!

They asked for an expansion on Legend’s section on the Fairytale au, which you can read right here!

Masterlsit

Content under the cut!

You were telling him a story from your homeworld. A small princess who had to flee from her home because the evil queen was jealous of her beauty. After finding refuge with seven little men the queen attacked her and left her in a death like sleep with a poisoned apple. Legend fell asleep before he could hear the end of the story but he had hoped that it had a happy ending.

When Legend woke up in rags and was told to get to work, he was too shocked to question anything. He took the bucket and the mop and went into the courtyard.

Sure it was hard work but he was willing to lay low until he figured out how to get out of this place.

And then something stranger happens.

Warrior calls him over and calls him Prince and leads him away from the castle. Maybe this is a rescue mission? Surely they had the wrong guy from the get go. But how can he be confused for a menial servant and a prince at the same time?

When they’re far enough away, Legend feels as if he can let his guard down. With a stretch, he keeps walking forward, not aware that Warrior has stopped walking as well.  “Boy, am I glad that you came along! I had no idea what I was doing but I figured one of you would come help me. Do you know what place this is? I have no idea how I ended up like that compared to everything else. I can’t wait to see the others though. Maybe we can-”

Something metal hits the ground.

Legend turns around with a small jump. “Captain?”

“I can’t do it.” Warrior sits on the ground on his knees with his face held in his hands. His sword is unsheathed and pointed toward Legend.

Legend feels his blood run cold as he takes a few steps back. “I don’t… What happened? What is the meaning of this?”

Warrior gasps and stands, shaking his head. “She’s gone mad. Absolutely mad.”

“Who?”

“You have to run.” Warrior grabs his shoulder and turns him around. He starts to push him forward, into the direction of the forest “You have to run. Never return. She wants you dead! Dead!”

“Wait! Who!” Legend digs his heels into the dirt. “Who wants me dead?”

“The queen!”

“The queen?”

“Yes! You must run! Run boy! Never look back!”

Primal fear overtakes him. He has no weapons, no supplies and someone who he’d trust with his life is telling him to run for his life. So he does so.

Something about this is familiar to him. Being on the run. Being hunted. Needed to look for help. His uncle would know what to do in this situation, his brain supplies despite his better judgment. It’s added salt onto the wound.

Legend trips, falling down what he can only explain as a cliff with lowered consequences. He doesn’t know where he is. None of this is familiar. Where are the others? Why is this happening to him?

He finds a small house in the middle of the woods after he’s run the better part of the morning. There’s smoke coming out of the chimney top. Someone has to be home. 

Legend runs to the door and bangs on it with all his might. He’s out of breath and tired but he needs to get his bearings first.

The door opens.

“Help me!” He says before he can see who answered. He’s panting too hard to look up. “Please! They’re going to kill me!”

“Easy, young man. Who’s trying to hurt you?”

Legend gasps and looks up. Time blinks back at him, leaning down to meet his level. “Take a deep breath. I doubt they’ve followed you this far.”

Legend coughs, heaving too hard for his body to handle. Just how far did he run? “Help… Help me… Please...”

“Who’s at the door, Old Man?” Legend hears Wild asks from the inside.

He allows himself to relax. He’s found the group. He’s ok. They won’t let anything happen to him.

He blacks out.

He wakes up again but this time in a harder bed and a more modest setting. He still has no idea where he is.

“He’s awake!” A young boy shouts. Wind, Legend relaxes again. Friendly faces. People he knows. What a strange nightmare.

“Well hello.” Time enters the room again. He has a steaming bowl in his hand when he sits by Legend’s side. “We were hoping to get some answers out of you.”

“I had a really bad dream.” He rubs his forehead. “I dreamt that I was being chased out of a castle and that I was being hunted for sport. That’s the last time that I let them tell me a bedtime story-”

“Castle? Are you from the castle?” Hyrule asks as he comes into the room as well. “I checked over your body and managed to heal up some of your more major injuries. For someone who was running from the castle’s forces, you’re not as hurt as I expected you to be.”

Legend squints. Hold the phone. No one corrected him. “Where are we?”

“You’re in our cabin.” Time hands him the bowl. It smells delicious. “We go out and forage around in the forest before we’re called to menial jobs around multiple countries. This is unclaimed land. They can’t get you here. You’re safe.”

Legend feels his stomach drop. They don’t recognize him. Why don’t they recognise him? “...Good. I’m glad. Thank you.”

“Of course, we can’t let you stay for free anyway.” Twilight pipes up from the doorway. When did he get there? “But I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

Legend winces. He misses his items already. “I can’t pay you any money-”

“We’re not asking for money.” He hears from beyond the door. It sounds like Sky. “Just take care of the house while we’re out for the day. Nothing major.”

“House sitting?”

“Yes.” Time smiles gently. “You gave us quite a scare. But if it’s work, then it’s work. Do you agree?”

Legend has to think about it. Where else can he go? It’s not like he knows what’s going on or why they don’t seem to know who he is. He’s the only one who remembers them but they’re the ones that see him as the stranger. They clearly know each other.

There has to be a way to fix this somehow. Legend nods. “I can do that. Thank you.”

“Steal anything and we’ll find you.” Twilight points a finger in his direction.

Time turns to him with a disapproving look. “Pup.”

“I mean it. We don’t know this guy.”

“He’s clearly just been through a lot. Kindness shouldn’t be held overhead.”

“Yeah, yeah Old Man.” Twilight waves him off. “Welcome to our humble home, stranger. I have to get to work.”

“We all do.” Time stands up. He looks to Legend with a look that hurts more than it comforts. “We’ll be back soon. By nightfall if we’re lucky. Don’t be afraid to get yourself acquainted with the house.”

Legend nods and watches them all leave.

This becomes commonplace very quickly. Legend counts himself lucky that he knows how to take care of a home as he does. Granted, the group is messier than he is, but he supposes that’s what happens when you work all the time and with six other people. No one is willing to pick up after other people. But then again, that’s his job now.

He gets used to the quiet fairly quickly. And he gets used to the noise just as quickly when they return. It’s a cycle. One that he finds that he can live with relatively easily. Unfortunately, he’s no close to figuring out where he is or what happened to him.

He tries to snoop through belongings and items but there’s no weapons. There’s no maps. There’s no markers or hints about anything that he wants to know. At least not in a way that he would be able to piece together. Even stranger still, there’s not a single trace of you. You’ve seemed to have vanished into thin air, just like the group’s memories of him.

Paranoid, he makes the excuse of doing a deep clean throughout the house on the off chance that he’s ever questioned about his whereabouts through the day. Twilight seems to be able to sniff him out more than he’d like but with evidence of cleaning, he’s left alone for the most part.

It’s only a few days afterwards that he starts to think that this sounds more like the story you were telling than he realized. 

As he falls into a routine of cleaning, cooking and investigating, he gets a knock at the door.

“That’s weird. They usually just walk right in.” Legend puts the broom on the side, walking towards the door.

He opens it and his blood freezes in its place. “...Zelda…?...”

“Hello.” She smiles sweetly. “I heard you were in trouble so I came to see if you wanted help.”

“How did you get here?” Legend runs a hand over his hair. “What are you doing here?”

Elated he hugs her, not thinking about the consequences. He pulls back, allowing her to enter the house. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Likewise.” She giggles, putting a basket on the table. It’s full of apples.

Legend realizes the truth too late.

He remembers the apples. He remembers what they meant. He was waiting for them. It’s time.

“...You brought food.” He tries to say normally but the words get stuck in his throat.

Zelda doesn’t seem to notice his instant turmoil and picks one off of the top of the bunch. “Of course! I didn’t know what else to bring you but I wanted to help in at least some way.”

She tosses it to him and he catches it with ease. Zelda looks at him expectantly, that ever sweet smile on her face.

Legend thinks that he’s never going to face her again after this. If he makes it out alive that is.

He looks down to examine the apple. It looks normal. Not a bruise in sight. It’s bright red and inviting. What happened in your story again? The princess bit the apple and fell asleep. Did she ever wake up? He doesn’t remember.

Legend wipes the apple against his shirt. Zelda seems to be waiting for him to bite into it. He may not know the ending to your story, but he’s been playing along as it is right? The story has to continue.

He takes a bite.

It tastes just fine at first. He can’t register that there’s anything wrong with it. But then he gets dizzy and falls to his knees. His throat feels like it’s burning and his head feels a hundred times heavier. He blacks out for the second time.

When he wakes up again, you’re over him and weeping.

He grunts. Was this a part of the story? He doesn’t know. What happened after he fell asleep? “...Good morning.”

With a gasp, you shoot up, teary eyed and all and kiss him.

Legend’s eyes pop open. He suddenly feels more awake than he did just a second ago.

You pull back and cry. “Oh thank goodness that you’re alive!”

“I’m alive.” Legend agrees.

You hug him and tuck yourself into the crook of his neck. “I was so scared that I would be too late.”

“Just like your story, you would win in the end.” Legend pats your hair, sitting up. Looking around, he’s back at the campsite, but everyone else looks like they’re still sleeping. Strange.

You shake your head, catching his attention again. “You fell asleep before the end. You missed the hardest part.”

“I knew about the apple though.” Legend whispers. “I hoped you were still around. The story had to go on.”

“Legend, you’re an idiot. Never again.”

[inkyvendingmachine]

Moving Pieces Season 4, Episode 2

💀 Call of Cthulhu: Haunted Hijinx Masterpost 💀 Call of Cthulhu Season Four Masterpost (Coming Soon)

Warning: This campaign is an edited version of  a Call of Cthulhu scenario from the Tales of the Crescent City book. While a lot has been changed, there IS spoilers for it throughout these posts.

The boys are going through a normal one.

Can you tell I recently played Betrayal for the first time,

Art Credit: @inkdemonapologist : sketching + inking @inkyvendingmachine : concept + colouring

Joey wakes up to Sammy bursting into his office and demanding an explanation of why he didn’t come home last night. Bendy happily lets Sammy know that Joey tried to do a dream spell, which just sets him off more. They go back and forth some, Joey confirming that yes, he did that, but he was just trying to see what the general feel of Y was right now… and he doesn’t seem to be like Moonlight had been before. It seems like he’s just… doing his thing, discussing possible options with some dream-version of his sister, and not that he’s specifically scheming or anything. 

While they’re doing their usual arguing dance, Sammy is suddenly interrupted by Prophet… urging him not to submit to the call of the yellow king. This is when they both notice that Sammy had actually been going for the ink faucet in Joey's office???

Joey takes this opportunity to turn the argument around on Sammy, asking if Prophet isn’t going for the ink, then why is he being called towards it? IS THE INK GOING BAD?? DID SOMEONE MESS WITH IT AGAIN!?!??

Bendy clarifies that the ink isn’t tainted, but it does seem to be resonating with something nearby… and that Sammy is sensitive to it. Sammy calls Prophet out to confirm this, as well as confirming it’s def yellow king stuff, before fading again. With that as solved as it could be, Sammy heads to Music to catch Jack up on these developments, while Joey goes and info dumps all the same info on Henry. During this he kinda talks himself thru realizing that maybe Y’s sister is not as dead as they expected… since they don’t really know what sorts of immortal properties come from making yourself an ink body.

Joey goes back to his office and gets in contact with Peter to make sure he’s still alive, gives him a command to check in at the end of day and immediately hangs up as Peter is trying to complete a response. Sammy and Jack try to find Norman to get him up to speed, but find he's called out for the day. And of course, he gave some outlandish excuse, so nobody really knows why he’s staying home. Joey calls Norman and, surprisingly, he actually picks up?? Norman admits part of the reason he’s staying home is because he’s noticed some weird shit is happening again. Joey gives him an update, which is cut off by him asking, “So when’s the trip to New Orleans? That’s where it started, right?”

That’s… a good point. 

Joey hangs up on Norman and calls Grace Fowler. He plays off the reasoning as wanting to thank her for the holiday gift, and catch up with her daughter Estelle, who’s also interested in catching up with him.

Especially because between an odd dream Estelle had, where her father showed up and told her to both be careful and stay away from New York, and that night of yellow mist, she thinks Joey’s calling because there’s something weird happening. Joey confirms this, he’s not gonna lie to a child that he likes, and manages to learn from her that a strange man had also been asking her about odd happenings recently. Joey asks if he looks like how he remembers Avedon, and Estelle is extremely impressed that he’s exactly right. 

So maybe this is why Norman is waiting at home for a call…

Joey promises to send her a present and tells her to keep up the good detective work, along with reinforcing not to worry her mother and stay safe and all that stuff. (the present is going to be a very good quality notebook that he gets Henry’s help to doodle Bendys and Friends on the page margins throughout it, and an engraved pen to go with it.)

Their strongest lead, at least as far as Sammy's concerned, is that weird performance of Sammy's old improv last night -- so with half a day of work done, Jack, Sammy and Susie head out to one of the clubs they remember some of that band from the charity event tends to frequent. They manage to easily get in, being recognized from their speakeasy days and Jack and Susie being their usual charming, talkative selves. People probably tried to talk to Sammy too, but he’s just interested in chatting with the Jumps after their set. Until then, they get to grab some drinks, sit back and actually enjoy the music for a while. It’s actually… kind of nice? No terrible haunted songs being played, no ink spread throughout the city gnawing in the back of Sammy’s head, no gun fire.

When they do get to talk with the band after the show, it’s immediately apparent that the clarinetist from the charity event is not there. That’s… interesting, since Prophet’s prophecy mentioned a “black wood” and Jack has noted that could be slang for a clarinet instead of a forest… Jack does remember some of these fine folks though, and starts off the conversation, only for Sammy to interject during a lull and ask where they got the music from the other night.

Everyone laughs and agrees that Sammy is still Sammy - A whole hecking gunshot weird cultist nonsense goes down and Sam’s here asking about where they sourced their music. Well, to answer that question, yes it came from a guest they were playing with that night, and yes it was the guy playing a mean reed. His name is Alan Leroy, and they’ve got a lot of nice things to say about him that can also be taken in an extremely concerning way, like how he can make sounds come out of his instrument they’ve never heard before.

Yay! That’s exactly the kind of descriptions of musicians we love to hear about!!!

Jack manages to get the information for where Alan lives, along with some of his friends. Sammy is content with this and attempts to head to the door (in entirely the wrong direction) while Jack winds down the conversation… finding out that also they haven’t been able to contact Al since the other night. He’s probably at home??? But he seemed so shaken up by that guy yelling nonsense at him…

Jack and Susie catch up to Sammy to lead him to the right door, but when Sammy opens it, it… IS the right door? Susie thinks so at least, but it seems odd to Jack, who thinks that they definitely entered through a different door, and Sammy isn’t sure what to think. Things like this haven't been reliable for him for an exceedingly long time, and he can't tell if this door is any different. Something might really be wrong if Prophet’s navigational skills are working with him and not against him…………

But outside, everything seems chill. Normal… Susie even thinks this is the same door, but Jack is very sure they were not on this block earlier. And when he turns to head back to the car, he notices a certain unmoving, pale face in a different car passing down the road. And it’s looking right at him.

Joey and Henry do a tour to check in with people after work, starting with Peter. He’s gotten in contact with his old paper and confirms the weird mist was down in NOLA. He also talked with the police and got confirmation that the shot was fired by some gangster named Johnny Nero, and some places they could look into to find out more about him.

Oh and also there was this weird guy. Peter saw him across the street during lunch, unnaturally pale, dark suit… but he didn’t get to see much more before he just up and vanished. Just a wee bit odd fella, that’s all.

Neither Joey nor Henry are feeling good about this info.

Maybe it’s time to install the buddy system again.

Joey also ends up just calling Norman instead of stopping by, from Peter’s phone of course, and updating him on what’s been going on, as well as asking him if HE knows what’s Avedon up to. Norman says he hasn’t been able to get ahold of him, but it’s good to know he’s out and about. 

The other three meet up with them at Peter’s place late that night and updates are had all around. We keep splitting up so you’re gonna hear that sentence a lot this season I feel. This is what happens when our DM has given us multiple NPCs we enjoy so we keep forcing her to take them along with us. c:

Anyways, between all these comparisons, Joey is starting to think that maybe their previous experiences in Carcosa-like situations in NOLA is perhaps giving them a different view of events than say, Susie, who’s very sure that the door they left out of was the same they went in. With this information in hand and a pretty good inkling that apparently things are moving around and there’s a weird pale guy following them, the boys decide they want to go and try to talk with that Alan guy tonight.

Arriving at a pretty nice house in a pretty nice neighborhood, the boys all shuffle out of their new fancy red Mercedes to go wake Mr. Leroy up in the middle of the night. Instead they get his… butler? Who is not too happy about our middle of the night bothering. After some standard Joeying Up, he admits that Alan hasn’t been home for a few days, but also that’s not unusual. He can give us some information of friends Al usually stays with and stuff, and Joey hands over a number to be called if he returns home soon. (A number for a second phone line he got installed over the last year. It goes directly to his office and is listed under an alias, specifically for situations like this where maybe he doesn’t want to lead every gangster and cultist back to JDS right away.) 

While Joey is doing his Joey thing, the others start hearing a lady around the side of the house chatting excitedly. Perhaps in a conversation with a beloved? But it seems to be just one side of it… like, WEIRDLY seems to be just one side of a conversation.

The group heads out from the house, around the corner and finds… the car isn’t there. However, there is another Mercedes up the street. Almost the same exact car, just parked somewhere different and now a stunning new colour!

It’s brown.

(well i guess they were out of blue ones.)

After closer inspection, they confirm that it is indeed their car. This is just a wee bit disorienting, and while four boys puzzle over this, Henry tiredly notices that apparently a lady has wandered up to him in the meanwhile. She takes his arm and starts talking about how she’s looking forward to when he gets his own ship, and when they sail away to spend their life together.

Henry just mumbles back “I’m married..?”

Jack and Sammy recognize her as the lady they heard earlier. Joey feels like he’s on the edge of remembering something about her, but none of them actually know who she is so. Uh.

TIME TO LEAVE.

Everyone awkwardly shuffles into the car, since it seems about as safe as anything else around them now, and drive off as the lady continues to monologue and wave Henry into the distance. 

Joey asks Jack to drive directly away from the water, and watches the car as they move out of the mist.

It’s still brown.

(also Joey is still taking the middle seat as he usually does, he’s just leaning over Sammy to stare out the window.)

While they could head out to the other addresses in the middle of the night, it’s starting to feel not very safe to be split up and looking for clues with these sorts of changes happening. They pull over and Henry makes a phone call to Linda, telling her he’s not heading home tonight since it feels like eldritch nonsense may or may not be following them, and they’re gonna stay in the studio tonight. He also sees… a familiar pale face in a black suit… reflected in the glass of the phone booth… but of course, when he turns, it’s gone. The group makes their way to Norman’s, wanting to check on him and Susie in case they’re actually getting Carcosa’d.

When they get there though, Norman and Susie seem to be perfectly fine, and don’t understand why Joey is insisting on them looking at the car. It seems to Norman a very odd midnight activity, to have him look at their new paint job.

Susie’s confused. Paint job? It’s always been brown.

Welp. That seems to confirm the suspicions. Whatever’s going on, it seems only those who touched Carcosa in some way have been able to tell that things are different. Anyone else is seeing these changes as if that reality had been true from the start. Susie isn’t pleased about being kicked out of the Oddly Affected Club (or the Oddly Unaffected Club?), but it is nice to have someone they can get reality checks from. Joey states they’re gonna go back to the studio for the night, but Norman declines the invitation. He’s still waiting for a call.

Alrighty, good luck with that.

The group gets back to the studio and starts pulling some cots out of storage, Jack sits down with Lurks and chats some, while Joey goes and starts to prepare a dream spell. When Henry questions him on this, he talks about wanting to try and reach out to Fowler?? Like… up until now, they had been running with the idea that Fowler wasn’t able to be communicated with at all. But if he reached out to his family through their dreams… then maybe Joey can reach out to him in his?

Henry offers to help, because he’s actually had dreams and communication with Fowler in the past, and they both have a sort of understanding with each other. Joey can’t deny that it’d probably work better than him trying on his own, so he sets up the spell for Henry.

And Henry finds himself in a very misty dream. There’s really nothing to see, except three lit corridors going off in different directions… Henry calls out to Fowler, and sort of hears someone in the distance call back? So instead of walking into any of the lit areas, he follows the voice into the fog, and calls out once again, letting Fowler know it’s Henry…

And suddenly, from all around, a very loud booming voice shakes Henry to the core, telling him to get his family out of New York, before it’s too late.

Henry sits up from Joey’s lap and immediately goes for the phone, saying he’s sorry, he didn’t get much information but he needs to call Linda. Telling Joey what he heard as he dials, a freshly awoken Linda gets an exceedingly serious sounding Henry telling her to get the kids packed up and get out of New York ASAP. of course, her first question is about whether or not he’s coming too. 

“No.”

“How do you know you’re going to be safe then?”

“I’m not.”

JOEY SNATCHES THE PHONE FROM HENRY,

and gives her an actual explanation of the situation. Something’s following them, tied to Henry, they’re trying to get it untied from them but the longer Linda and the kids stay in New York the more likely they might also get wrapped up in it which will be worse for everyone, Henry included. He’s not doing any dumb sacrificial bullshit, and Joey promises he will do everything in his power to keep Henry safe.

She knows he wouldn’t let anything happen to Henry if he could prevent it.

With that all actually said, Joey hands Henry the phone back, and he’s able to apologize for being dramatic instead of informative. With a soft I love you exchange, Henry hangs up.

And he goes and gives Joey a hug.

[Next Episode] (not yet released)

[al-astakbar]

☆ The Gift -- Thrawn x reader ☆

> title ☆ The Gift ☆part 7/?

> summary ☆ As congratulations for his recent promotion to Grand Admiral, Emperor Palpatine gives Thrawn a gift -- a young woman who has been trained as a pleasure companion.

> pairing ☆  Thrawn x reader ☆ word count [2.2k] ☆ warnings for this part ☆ sex, mentions of bondage > series warnings ☆ dubious consent; sexual slavery; concubine/ sex slave AU; will add more warnings as more parts are posted

>series navigation ☆ part 1 ☆ part 2 ☆ part 3 ☆ part 4 ☆ part 5 ☆ part 6 ☆ part 7 ☆ part 8 ☆ part 9 ☆ part 10

> posted on ao3

author note!! To be very clear, in this story reader is a concubine against her will and is gifted to Thrawn, but there is at no point any noncon between Thrawn and reader. Reader is never noncon with anyone, either referenced or explicitly, and there is never any explicit noncon. However, this is a darker take on Thrawn and he doesn't really have many hangups about putting his gift to use...

When you get back to his quarters, he puts you over his desk and gives you a slow, thorough fucking. Compounded with how you had denied yourself the night before, he leaves you tender and aching with need. 

It need not be like this every time. 

He cleans you up again. Gentle attention that you think the schedule of a Grand Admiral should not have time for. He does it as intently as you’ve seen him do everything else, a lingering touch as he wipes his spend from your thighs. You can’t help a quiet moan nor the quiver that goes through you when he runs the cloth over your labia.

“Would you like to be alone?” His voice is low, soft, his expression knowing. 

Damn him, you almost--almost-- say yes. “No.”

/////

For you, the rest of the day is quiet. You stay in the small sitting area, reading on the datapad, or else looking at the art or out the viewport at the blue stream of hyperspace.

If this is a template for how your days will be aboard the Chimaera, you suppose you will have to get used to monotony and loneliness. In the time Thrawn is at his desk, he hardly acknowledges you. After a lunch without conversation (he eats nothing), he goes into another room of the suite that is locked to you and does not come out for several hours.

By dinner you are restless, and almost glad for his company.

Two serving droids bring the meal and lay out two place settings at the small dining area next to the huge viewport in his main cabin. 

When the meal is cleared away, Thrawn’s plate again untouched, he tells you that you may spend the rest of the evening reading. That is better, you suppose, than what was permitted during your training in the cloister on Coruscant, where you couldn’t access the holonet. Still, you miss having embroidery to work on, and nameless, faceless friends to whisper to while doing chores.

Several times, you glance up from the datapad to find Thrawn looking at you appraisingly, as if trying to decide what to do with you. 

/////

The rest of the trip to the Outer Rim passes in much the same way. You were expecting the passage of time in space to feel strange, after so long planet-side, but for the most part it doesn’t. The ship maintains its own day/night rhythm. The lights cycle on and off. The crew work in shifts, though there isn’t much to do yet, this early in a deployment. 

Thrawn wakes you at the same time every morning, you go to the bridge with him and observe silently from a corner. Ronan, to your frustration, continues to pretend like you don’t exist. 

You find little ways to annoy your new master: leaving your clothes all over the floor, blowing bubbles in your drinks, persistently asking him questions while he’s trying to work. More than once you push him too far and he strips you naked, ties you kneeling beside his desk. Sometimes a gag if he particularly wants quiet. Every time he does, you sit there fuming, petulant and humiliated, but you never fight him on it. Not really. You’d never admit it to him, or to anyone, but the restraint is almost calming.

Thoughts of your time on Coruscant linger in your mind most days, especially with little else to occupy you. The datapad, you’ve found after more searching and testing, has limited accesses, so you can’t get much new to read or watch. Thrawn’s art collection, while interesting at first, becomes familiar and mundane. By this point you think you could name each piece in order with your eyes closed. 

“I miss my friends,” you say aloud one evening. You don’t even really mean to say it to him, he’s just there, as always, reading quietly. 

He looks up. “Your friends on the city planet?”

You nod, suddenly a little shy. He actually sounds interested.

“The two who were with you at the ceremony did not seem friendly.” 

“Not the ones you saw. Mirri and Solis. They weren’t-- they weren’t nice. They were always there, they made sure we didn’t misbehave.”

Something flashes in Thrawn’s eyes-- perhaps he has something to say about the ineffectiveness of their methods when it comes to your own behavior. But instead he just asks more about what it was like, and you find no reason not to tell him. You were not supposed to use your own name, or anyone else’s. Your face was nearly always covered, so you had never really known what any of the others being trained looked like-- only brief glimpses. Shadowy impressions, a beautiful girl with light hair and eyes, a boy younger than you with curly brown hair and full lips, countless others.

None of you were supposed to acknowledge each other in any way that could remind you of your individuality, but you had still talked to them. Learned who they were by their voices and brief glimpses of exposed hands. You could tell a lot from that. From the skin tones and length and number of fingers. Not all were humans. You had seen other skin tones, like blue and green and yellow and orange, and some you could tell had to be Twi’leks from the way the hoods draped over their heads and lekku. Some wanted to be there, thought it would raise their social standing. Some were like you, unwilling and defiant. Some were broken, with no voice. 

They were all strangers, essentially. You had traded stories in hushed whispers, of others who had come before you, and their fates with cruel or kind masters. But most who left the cloister just disappeared. You would have no way of finding them again. 

“They were still my friends,” you add, a little defensive.

Until now, Thrawn has listened intently as you tell him all this, but offered no comment or reassurance. “I have no doubt,” he says softly.  

In his quarters, he fucks you efficiently and regularly, driving you closer to madness and relief every time. He knows what he is doing to you. He tells you he can feel how slick and tight you are, how good you feel, your lovely cunt takes my cock so well. He knows how his voice affects you, he feels you push your hips back to meet his when he murmurs obscene praise against your neck. He knows you still deny yourself pleasure, even as you moan his name and spread your legs to take him deeper.

At meals, you eat methodically while he watches you and eats nothing. Not even a sip of water, caf, nor the emerald wine served with supper, which is delicious. It makes you lightheaded, since you haven’t had alcohol since before arriving on Coruscant, over a year ago. The food is much richer than you’re used to as well. You mention both of these things to him one evening, instead of accusing him of being a creep for just sitting there staring at you. 

“It’s the standard meal served in the galley,” he explains. “Breakfast and lunch, too. Other than these accommodations and my pay, I claim few privileges. I eat the same as my crew does.”

You snort, taking a pointed sip of wine. Was that pronouncement supposed to win you over? “I’m sure the crew appreciates your humility and all the sacrifices you’ve made.”

“Perhaps.” 

“I’m willing to bet they don’t get a wine ration either.”

“They don’t,” he confirms. 

You have a moment to feel smug, having gotten him to admit some small hypocrisy. 

“You speak as if you’ve been in their position,” he says. “Have you served aboard a starship before? Prior military, perhaps? Or mercenary work.”

You freeze, glass halfway to your lips. For a moment, you consider denying it, but he misses nothing. Your reaction has already given it away. But if he guesses anything more specific-- it’s something you’d really rather not admit, especially to a Grand Admiral. “How’d you get that from wine rations and humility?” 

“You aren’t particularly… cordial… with officers. You know enough about ships to be impressed with the Chimaera-- on the approach the other day,” he specifies. 

“Anyone would be.”

“You have a sense of how ships function, how information flows among the crew-- “ he pauses with a slight frown. “My apologies. There is a word for it in my native tongue. I do not know its equivalent in Basic.”

“Gossip?” 

He shakes his head. “It is slang for the spread of rumors among the junior enlisted, as both an information network and a pastime.”

“How do you say it in your language?”

Thrawn hesitates. You think you might see some odd reluctance in his expression, but he masks it quickly, and answers. “Csarrob.” 

You try repeating it, but can’t quite form your lips and tongue to mimic the sounds. “The ships I was on called it the underground. Or the mafia, depending on what ship and what part of the galaxy.”

Thrawn goes quiet for a moment, the type of quiet you’ve come to recognize as the times he is thinking, and about to say something inconveniently perceptive. He sits back in his chair, one arm crossed over his chest, his other hand touching his chin. You’ve seen the same pose on the bridge-- with a dangerous edge to his usual even tone, he says one word that makes your heart drop. “Rebel.” 

There’s no way he could have known, nobody could have told him-- coming to the cloister, everyone’s identity was wiped clean. No one there had known, there were no records. You’d been given a new name, a new chain code. 

“You served on Rebel ships,” he presses.

You swallow a large gulp of wine and nod. 

His eyes seem to glow brighter. “And your position? Not very high, I would imagine, given that you’re here.”

Your mouth feels too dry. “Yeah, I was-- I was nothing, really. I was nobody. I served meals and mended uniforms. Fixed radios, cleaned blasters. Anything that needed to be done.” And though you’re loathe to admit it, your time so far with Thrawn has been luxurious compared to your short stint in the Rebellion. You had barely thought about it for so long, you’d almost forgotten. It had been buried, deep, and you’d never even thought to worry someone might find out.

“And you believed you needed to conceal this from me,” he says. “Explain your reasoning.”

“Other than…” you gesture at him. At his uniform. His rank. He gives you a level stare, as if to say ‘continue.’  “Fine. Well, I wasn’t trying to hide anything. It’s not a very exciting story. I was captured. Eventually sent through the ISB system. They interrogated me and then recommended me for the training.”

“So. You’ve been… domesticated.” He puts a sly twist on the word, suggestive in a way that makes arousal knife through you.

Your instinct is to glare at him, but you only manage to sound petulant. “Should I be kneeling at your feet during meals?”

“Perhaps. You might find that you enjoy it.”   

This sets your mind spinning, and it’s all you can think about the rest of the evening as you try to read on the datapad. He has unbalanced you so easily. The incisive deductions about your past -- ‘Rebel’ in his smooth, modulated voice replays in your mind over and over-- though he does not seem angry about it, or hateful, like you would expect of an Imperial. Only intrigued. 

As for the idea he’d put in your head… kneeling at his feet. During meals, or maybe while he’s working. He already makes you do it while restrained, but to settle there at his side by your own choice… Somehow the thought of it is calming, almost a fantasy. Sitting on the couch, you steal a glance at Thrawn, who is engrossed with something at his desk. You take a deep, slow breath. He might let you lean your head against his leg. Stroke your hair idly as he occasionally reads aloud from whatever he’s working on, his voice cool and soft. He seems to like your hair. He often touches it when he has you over his desk, brushing it off your face or combing his fingers through it as he fucks you and fills you over and over. 

Later, through the night and the following days and weeks, you try to keep yourself at a distance from him. It doesn’t really help. You find yourself unable to keep your eyes off him. Even in the privacy of your own thoughts, he holds this power over you.

You sit up attentively when you hear the hatch opening which signals his return. You listen when he speaks, though that isn’t often. He rarely chooses to share with you, and it only makes you more curious for information about him, his thoughts-- anything. In the meantime, you watch him, observing carefully, entranced by his quiet manner and his utter command over himself and his ship. 

Noticing that he was attractive before that was different, you rationalize. Anyone could see that. Just as anyone could pass a particularly attractive person on the street and notice them, but not spend the next month falling under their thrall. And each time you spread your legs for him, you tell yourself it’s because you agreed, because he convinced you that all the alternatives were worse. Not because you might, just a little, like his attention.

☆ link to part 8 ☆

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[ijustwanttoreadfanfiction]

Friendly Sex - Chapter 9 - The Calm

We're back baby! Chapter 10 will definitely be up at some point this week but I'm not going to put a time limit on it in case I get bogged down with life etc. Thank you once again to everyone who has liked, reblogged, commented, and messaged you are all actual 'sweethearts'.

Chapter warnings: MDI (18+ only), explicit language, explicit sexual content, p in v sex, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), overstimulation, multiple orgasms, over use of pet names, sex without a condom (reader is on the pill), creampie.

_______________________________________________

Your dad picks you up from Indianapolis Airport just after 6am the following morning, holding you tightly for a good 20 minutes before you both could pull yourselves together, and get back on the road. 

“I didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye to the twins.” You mumble tearfully, forehead resting against the passenger window.

“That’s not your fault sprout. That goddamn Philip, if I'd have been there I'd have laid his ass out.” Your dad seethes, and you can't help but smile, your dad is a good ten years older than Philip, slightly overweight with a heart condition, but you’d still bet money on him. “First thing I’m going to do when we get home is call your mother and give her a piece of my mind.”

“Dad, it’s not worth it.” You say tiredly. “She’s made her choice, and it’s not me.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t pick you a better person to be your mom, kiddo.” He sighs sadly, patting you on the cheek.

You drift off for a while, the gentle rocking of the car soothing along with the quiet radio, it's not until you're 20 minutes outside of town that you wake up properly, stretching as best you can in the cramped car. Your dad is whistling quietly along to John Denver, as you pass the sign for Forest Hills Trailer Park, you wonder what Eddie is up to, thinking about how he talked you down last night.

You told him you missed him, it was a brutally honest moment, never expecting him to return the sentiment. You supposed it was natural to miss someone when you had spent just over a month with them, but you knew it ran deeper than that, you could have called anyone last night but you needed Eddie.

You finally pull onto the drive, the weight of yesterday feeling stronger again, you’re exhausted from all the tears, the pain of your mother’s rejection, the sleepless night in the airport.

Your dad takes your bag out of the trunk, unlocking the door, you toe off your sneakers and notice a fishing rod and tackle box to the side, suddenly remembering your Dad’s plans for the long weekend; fishing at Patoka Lake with his buddies.

“Oh Dad, I'm sorry, you were supposed to be on your fishing trip!" You cry feeling awful.

"Hey, don't worry about it sprout, there'll be plenty of other trips over the summer." He reasons, dumping your bag down. "Besides, you're more important right now."

"But you've been looking forward to it for months. Why don’t you call Dale? You can still make it up there. I’ll be ok on my own.” You say earnestly,

“I dunno kiddo.” He says scratching his head. “You being on your own after last night doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Well how about I call Robin? See if she wants to stay over?” Knowing damn well Robin wouldn’t be the person you were going to actually call. You could see the turmoil in your Dad’s eyes, you sigh hugging him round the middle.

“Dad please go fishing, I just need a girl’s night, ice cream, crying, watching Grease.” That did it, and you couldn’t help but smile as he tensed in your hold, your dad hated Grease.

“You sure sprout?” He asks, hands practically itching for the fishing pole.

“Positive.”

____________________________________________________

You do feel a small twinge of guilt at your white lie as you wave your dad off, but it quickly evaporates into a strange sense of excitement and anticipation at the idea of having Eddie in your house. You rush to the phone in the kitchen, hopping up onto the counter as you listen to the rings, cord twirled tight about your hand.

“Hello?” A gruff much older voice than Eddie’s answers, this must be the illusive Wayne, or rather the Wayne you’ve been tactically avoiding.

“Oh - uh - hi Mr Munson, my name is Y/n, I’m a - friend of Eddie’s, is he around?” You don’t know why you’re stammering so much, although it might be because the inappropriate part of your brain is screaming ‘Hi Mr Munson, I’m booty calling your nephew, also we’ve banged on your couch - sorry.’

“You wanna speak to Eddie and you’re a girl?” He asks, sounding surprised and it throws you for a loop.

“Um - last time I checked, yes Sir.” You mumble, laughing awkwardly.

“You’re a girl and you’re calling for Eddie?” He clarifies again. “Alright - he’s outside, let me get him.”

The line goes silent for a moment but then you can hear Wayne call something out and Eddie’s voice getting closer.

“- jeez Wayne, why you gotta be so - Sweetheart?” He’s out of breath.

“Hi.” You say simply.

“You ok? You home? Are you safe?” He asks rapidly and you wonder if he’s been worrying about you all night, it made your heart do a funny flip.

“I’m fine Ed’s, I crashed at the airport and caught a flight out just before 4am, I got home about an hour ago.” You reassure him, hearing him exhale heavily.

“You had me so scared last night.” He mutters.

“Yeah, it was intense.” You agree, wiping your clammy palms on your jeans, now feeling nervous. “So, uh I was wondering and you can say no, but my dad has gone fishing for the weekend, did you maybe wanna come over and -” 

“- yes.” Eddie jumps in before you can finish. “Uh, sorry, yeah I’d love to come over, if that’s cool?”

“Yeah it’s cool.” You say smiling, swinging your legs slightly against the counter.

“What time do you want me?” He asks. A loaded question.

Whilst your urge to see Eddie is strong you look like shit, desperately needing to sleep, shower and get groceries.

“Dinnertime? Does six work?”

“It works, see you then princess.”

___________________________________________________

You had briefly called Robin in between your nap and going to the store, filling her in on the events in Chicago, and that Eddie was coming round for the evening. But it seemed you weren’t the only one who went through some shit last night.

“-come again?” You ask, ears ringing slightly.

“Steve and Nancy had a big fight yesterday.” She sighs, and you can hear her pacing in the background.

“What about?” You ask, biting at your thumb.

“He didn’t really say, well more he wasn’t in a fit state to say, he was hammered by

the time I got to him. But if I deciphered his slurs correctly, Nancy had booked plane tickets to go and see Jonathon next weekend without telling Steve.”

“Shit.” You breathe, sitting down on your bed. “I mean maybe she just forgot to tell him?” You offer weakly.

“Doubtful. Either way it sounds like they both said some pretty hurtful things to each other, I think they might be on a break.” She says seriously.

You felt dizzy, you had left Hawkins for all of 24 hours, everything was bright and breezy, you came back and Steve and Nancy are on a break?

“So, Eddie was a lifeline yesterday huh?” She asks, snapping you back to the present.

“Yeah.” You say quietly, mind reeling. “He was really sweet.”

“What’s your plan for tonight?”

“Uh, spaghetti.” You mumble, shaking your head slightly to clear Steve’s image from your head.

“- and?” She presses.

“And spaghetti, Rob.” You laugh wryly.

“Well, whatever you crazy kids are calling it, be safe!” Robin teases, and you flush.

“Ok, bye, Robin, hanging up now!”

“No - wait! Call me tomor-” You put the phone down, running your hand across your face, Steve could be single. Could be, but his track record said otherwise, and his voice from last month was clear as a bell ‘-me and Nance, we always find our way back to each other. I can be myself around her, you know? No bullshit, it’s easy.’ 

“It’s a blip.” You mutter aloud. “Not worth thinking about.”

_______________________________________________________

You should have ordered pizza, good god why didn’t you just order pizza?! You had to go to three different grocery stores in order to get everything you needed for Bolognese, which took up an extra hour of your time. The tried and trusted recipe of your Nana’s inexplicably failing you after 9 years of flawless service, maybe she didn’t approve of your dinner guest. The pasta had clumped together in the water, leaving a stodgy mass, the sauce was weirdly acidic and salty having caught on the hob, and you’d slopped red wine down your white t-shirt when the cork shot out. At this rate the garlic bread would be the only thing edible.

Ding-dong.  The doorbell sounded more akin to a death knell.

You glance at yourself in the hallway mirror as you run for the door and groan, your hair frizzy from the cooking steam, face flushed, the large wine stain looking like you’d thrown up blood.

So why, when you open the door, is Eddie looking at you like you’re the best thing he’s ever seen?

“Hi.” He grins, leaning against the porch, he’s trying to affect a pose of nonchalance but you notice his left leg is bouncing slightly.

“Hi.” You say breathlessly, attempting to smooth down your hair. “Where’s your van?” You ask, peering past him to the empty driveway.

“Oh, I parked it up at Gareth’s, didn’t want your neighbours to give you a hard time, tell your dad or something.” He answers sheepishly.

“You didn’t have to, Mrs Roberts is blind as a bat.” You laugh, thumbing to the house on your right. “You wanna come in?” You ask, awkwardly jumping to one side, realizing you’re barring the doorway.

“Thanks.”

You watch him take in the lower part of the house from the hall, consciously slipping his battered Reeboks off onto the doormat, hanging his jacket up carefully on the coat hook.

“Nice place.” He says, smiling widely as he looks at a picture of you on the wall, taken when you were in kindergarten, bright yellow dress and bows in your pigtails to match. “Very cute.”

“Shut up.” You laugh, shoving him lightly, he catches your arm and brings you in for a bone breaking hug. You wrap your arms about him instinctively, his head pressing to the top of yours, rocking you slightly.

A lot of unsaid things pass through, it's a hug of comfort about what happened with your mom, it’s a hug of missing each other, it’s a hug that’s needed by both parties and you find yourself burrowing a little closer. He pulls back after a minute or so to look at you properly.

“You good?” He asks gently, thumbs rubbing across your cheeks.

“'M good.” You mumble, smiling softly. He leans down to kiss you when he stops just shy of your lips, to sniff the air.

“Do I smell burning?”

“SHIT!” You shout, pelting towards the kitchen, smoke billowing from the oven. You grab some mitts, and extract a heavily cremated loaf of garlic bread, coughing as you heave it into the sink.

“Aw honey, you baked.” Eddie croons, wrapping his arms about your waist from behind, you can feel his chest vibrating with barely held in chuckles.

“It’s a disaster.” You whine, leaning back into his embrace.

“What was it supposed to be?” He asks gingerly, lifting a saucepan lid to examine the spaghetti log.

“Spaghetti Bolognese.” You sigh.

“Well, points for effort princess.” He laughs openly, spinning you in his arms. “Do you have ramen noodles?”

You grab two packets of ramen from the pantry as Eddie pulls on an apron with a flourish tasting the sauce, wincing slightly. “You got any sugar?” He asks.

You dutifully pass him the sugar bag, watching as he eyeballs a small amount of sugar into the pan.

“My old man is a shitty person but he always knew how to make a mean pasta sauce.” He notices your curious expression, holding the spoon out to you, the sugar has managed to balance out the acidity and salt. 

“Salvageable.” You nod impressed.

Eddie dumps the dead spaghetti into the sink on top of the still smouldering bread, putting fresh water into the pan along with the ramen noodles as you pour the rest of the wine, handing him a glass.

“It’s supposed to have tasting notes of cherries, chocolate and cinnamon.” You read off the bottle label, sniffing yours.

“Tastes -” He takes a healthy gulp “-like wine, so - fucking gross.”

 You laugh, passing him the colander for the noodles, and grabbing some pasta bowls and cutlery.

It’s a sickeningly domesticated scene, the two of you sat at the breakfast bar, knee to knee, slurping away at the strange dish.

“Well sweetheart, we’ve managed to insult two great nations at the same time, cheers to Japan and Italy.” He grins lifting his glass of wine in a toast.

“Or we’ve created some kind of new fusion that will take the world by storm and we’ll be rich.” You counter argue.

“Oh yeah, this is some Michelin Man shit right here.” He says, taking another huge forkful.

“Michelin star.” You correct, laughing, feeling lighter than you have in hours.

You wash up the dishes together, Eddie constantly finding excuses to touch you, until you flick dishwater at him.

“Ah, now princess, play nice.” He warns, wiping his sudsy face with a smirk, pinching your side. You cup a large handful of bubbles, advancing on him menacingly.

“You wouldn’t.” He challenges, eyes narrowing.

“Try me Munson.” You dare.

“Truce?” He asks carefully, hands raised in peace.

You nod, letting him get close again before shoving your wet hand up his back.

“Oh you’ve done it now.” He laughs loudly, grabbing the dish cloth aiming a whip towards your ass.

“Eddie no!” You screech, rounding the breakfast bar, chucking an orange at his head.

“It’s war Y/n!” He yells, chasing you, you race out of the kitchen pounding up the stairs to your room, giggling wildly, you’re just in the door when he seizes you about the waist, lifting you off the floor.

“Ed’s put me down!” You gasp, laughing so hard it hurts your ribs.

He pretends to suplex you into the bed, but he’s gentle as he lowers you, protecting your head from the bounce hovering above you.

“Do you submit?” He asks breathlessly, hair mussed up, t-shirt slightly wet.

“Never.” You say defiantly, the effect somewhat lost as you trace your hands up his arms.

He presses his lips to yours, the last of your breath leaving you in a pleased gasp as he deepens the kiss, hands stroking idly up your slides and across your stomach.

“Missed you sweetheart.” He murmurs against your lips, your heart pounding like you’ve run up the stairs again. 

“Missed you too.” You mumble quietly, fingers scratching gently through his hair. “Wasn’t gone for that long though.” You remind him.

“Doesn’t matter, you weren’t close by, I didn’t like it.” He says, brown eyes staring intensely into yours, your mouth feels dry, filled with a jumble of words that don’t quite make it out. You settle for bringing him in for another kiss. Time seems to stand still, as you both lay there, absorbed in each other’s mouths, hands wandering, squeezing, stroking, until he suddenly stops a confused expression on his face.

“Ed’s?” You whisper, chest heaving.

“Who - do we have here?” He asks with a smirk, you feel your eyes widen in embarrassment as he extracts your childhood teddy bear from under your back, having forgotten to put him in the closet earlier. “This is a very respectable looking teddy bear princess, does he have a name?” He teases, making the bear wave.

You glare at him, making a snatch for it.

“His name is Bearington Bear the Third and he’s very old, so gimmie.” You pout, blushing.

“Bearington Bear the Third?” Eddie repeats with unbridled joy. “That is one hell of a name.” He laughs but relents in passing you the bear which you quickly kiss before unceremoniously throwing it across the room.

“That is no way to treat an elderly person.” Eddie gasps scandalized, you’re about to punch him when your phone rings making you jump, you roll away quickly grabbing the receiver.

  “Hello?”

“Hey kiddo, just thought I’d check in.” Your dad says, sounding very cheerful.

“Hey Dad, yeah everything’s all good here.” You say, trying to ignore Eddie who has decided to place kiss after kiss to the side of your neck. “Uh- how’s the fish?” You ask, elbowing him away but it just spurs him on, nipping at the soft skin.

“They’re biting pretty good, got a couple cooking up now. Gordon and Dale say hello.” You snag your lip on your teeth, as Eddie sucks on a particularly sensitive spot, attempting to lean away from his touch. “Sprout, you still there?” 

“Yeah I'm here dad, just uh - got distracted by the film.” You mumble shakily, a kiss pressed dangerously close to your mouth.

“That Travolta boy shaking his ass about again?” He asks with a laugh.

“Um - s-something like that.” You stammer, Eddie’s fingers splayed across your naval, threatening to move lower beneath the band of your leggings.

“Alright kiddo, I'll let you get back to it. Have a good night with Robin, love you.”

“Love you too Dad.” You slam the phone down as Eddie slips his fingers into your panties, lightly circling your clit.

“That was fucking mean Eddie.” You gasp, back arching into his chest. 

“Sorry baby, I just couldn’t help myself.” He groans, sinking a finger into your tight heat.

“Fuck.” You whimper, bringing an arm back to curl around his neck.

“This fucking pussy, jesus.” He growls next to your ear, nipping at your lobe, another finger pressing past the wetness gathered between your thighs.

He pulls you backwards so he’s resting against the headboard, your back pressed to his chest, legs cradling you as he pumps in and out, turning his head to kiss you, tongue fucking your mouth in the same rhythm. It’s maddening, his free hand cupping your breast, thumbing over the nipple, his hardness rutting against your spine.

“Ed’s.” You whine, hips rolling to meet his movements. 

“Let me get you there baby.” He huffs. “Wanna make you feel good.”

He slips from your cunt to rub rapidly at your swollen clit, the warmth moves slowly from your belly, washing across you in a gentle wave. You mewl into his mouth, Eddie swallowing every sound with his own.

He shifts out from under you, letting you fall back against the pillows, hands pulling at your leggings and panties, hooking your legs over his shoulders, tongue flicking straight at your sensitive bud. It’s like he’s making out with your pussy, wet, sinful, decadent. 

“Oh - god.” You stutter, hands gripping at hair.

“Feel good sweetheart?” He asks needlessly, fingers re-entering your cunt, crooking them to rub against the spongy spot that has you immediately cresting again, hips canting against his mouth.

“Eddie, fuck me please.” You beg.

“Your wish is my command.” He grins, stripping in record time, you pull your wine ruined top off, both of you bare and wanting. Eddie’s face falls suddenly.

“Shit! I forgot to bring condoms.” The poor boy looks devastated and you can’t help but giggle.

“Ed’s c’mere.” You beckon, he does as he’s told, crawling back between your plush thighs. “I’m on the pill, I have been for years.” You soothe, hands running over his back.

“You - you are?” He stammers, ears bright red and burning. “And you don’t mind me -” He trails off looking at you pointedly.  “ - I mean I'm clean, I've had the checks.”

“I’m clean too, and no I don’t mind.” You grin bashfully, he looks like a kid at Christmas.

“Oh holy shit this is hot.” He breathes, cock braced in his hand, sliding through your slick, you nod vigorously, the skin to skin feeling electrified.

He pushes in and you both gasp, you can feel every vein, bump and ridge as he drags along your walls. 

“Fuck baby, you’re so warm.” He moans, head dropping into your neck, kissing at your pulse point.

“Eddie.” Is all you can say like a record stuck on repeat, each thrust and snap intensified, the wet slapping of your bodies meeting in a delicious slide.

“Wanna ride you.” You murmur, sucking on his bottom lip.

“Jesus H Christ you’re gonna kill me.” He groans, rolling you both so you’re on top, you brace your hands on his chest, helping you to bounce, Eddie holds your hips so tightly you can feel bruises blooming and it sends you to dizzying heights.

“Baby, baby, baby.” He chants, grabbing the back of your hair, smashing your lips together, his hips pounding up into you. You rub at your clit, whimpering as the coil winds tighter and tighter.

“You gonna cum sweetheart?” He asks moving faster, and you can only nod, writhing on top as the band snaps.

“Oh god, I can feel you.” He whines, head pressed back as he ruts up harder. “Where - where can I cum princess?” He asks desperately, looking like he’s barely clinging onto sanity.

“Inside. Eddie, please cum inside me.” You cry, nails digging into his shoulders.

Eddie makes a choking noise, the veins in his neck strained tight, strong hands working your slick cunt over him continuously as he pumps into you. It sends you over for a fourth and final time, the warmth of him spilling out and around, both of you clinging to each other like life preservers.

“Sweetheart, I -” You wait for the rest of the sentence, heart pounding so hard you can hear it in your ears but he just gathers you impossibly tighter, pressing a hard burning kiss to your swollen lips. “ - I have a great time with you.” He breathes fiercely.

“I have a great time with you too, Eds.” You whisper, kissing him back.

Taglist:

@avalon-wolf @mystars123 @lolalanaie @eddiemunsonsgf2@eddieslildarling@bakugouswh0r3@sidthedollface2@81rain@blueberrylemontea-fanfic@winchester-angel@bimbobaggins69@tuskjohnny@fckyeahlames@thecomfortgoth@alanamarie@miarosso@ghosttownwherenoonegoes@somespicystuff@eddiethesexy @unfocused81 @1paire2vans @take-everything-you-can @mynameismothra @kingaa101

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

WOOO! 129 for time loop.

Tagging @steadfastsaturnsrings

---

“Yeah, sure,” Buck replies. He feels like he’s been seeing a lot of sea otters lately. He saw them yesterday. Didn’t he? “They’re cute.”

“I know they’re cute,” Eddie nods. “I’m excited to see both of your reactions.”

Buck thinks his reaction today might not live up to expectations. But he follows the script he remembers anyway. 

“Well, then let’s get going,” he says, rolling out of bed. “Wake up Christopher.”

Eddie nods, expression tight. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s do that.”

When Buck stands, stretching his arms above his head, he finds himself staring at the old analog clock on the wall. Hideous thing, really. Still not telling the right time. It reads 12:03. Buck turns to look at the digital clock. 8:03 AM. There’s something about that. He just doesn’t know what. 

➰➰➰➰

Half an hour later, they’re sitting on a big patio eating a complimentary hotel breakfast. Chris looks mildly zombified. Eddie and Buck are both trying to watch each other while they eat, but not look at the other person watching them. It’s strange and tense, and if Chris was any less tired, he’d probably ask them why they’re being weird. 

“View is nice right?” Eddie asks at one point, after taking a small sip of black coffee. 

Buck nods. “Same nice view as yesterday.” 

Eddie’s lip twitches. He looks unhappy, like Buck has said the wrong thing. Buck can’t tell if it’s because he’s being sort of bitchy, or if it’s because he went off the script he can feel playing out in his head. Does Eddie want him to stick to a script? Why would he? Unless he knows. 

Buck narrows his eyes. He needs to see what Eddie knows. 

“We should come back here again,” Buck says, following his sense of what he should say next. But his heart isn’t really in it.. “Some other time. A long weekend wasn’t enough.”

Eddie blinks, like he is surprised by the sudden swerve back onto course. Then, he smiles. And Buck knows that exact smile. Knows it because he knows Eddie. He knows all of Eddie’s smiles like a dream that stays with you forever. He works hard to make them appear, when he needs to. Finds it effortless, other times.

Eddie’s smile is relieved. 

“Anytime you want,” he says. 

Buck could cry. Why is Eddie lying to him? What is Eddie hiding from him? What is going on?

Never, not once since they’ve met, has Buck felt like he can’t trust Eddie. So why can’t he trust him now? 

➰➰➰➰

Buck is very quiet during the entire guided kayaking tour of the estuary.

He’s frustrated and he’s scared. He’s also uncertain. He can’t know for sure, right? He doesn’t know that Eddie is lying to him or keeping things from him. He just suspects. So he watches. He gathers information. He builds his case. 

“When have you kayaked before?” Buck asks Eddie as he teaches Christopher how to paddle, just a little too deftly. He knows he’s heard this answer before. Knows Eddie has told him. How many times can he tell the same tale?

“Huh? Oh, uh… El Paso.” Eddie shrugs.

“El Paso? In the desert?” Buck challenges. 

“There was a lake near my house growing up. Like, the only lake around,” Eddie says. “Had to find things to do.” 

“Okay, so… Over a decade ago?” Buck presses. 

‘

“Well, yeah,” Eddie says. “Wasn’t coming home from Afghanistan for kayaking trips.”

Christopher and their tour guide, Brittany, watch this exchange awkwardly. 

“Don’t you think you’re a little sharp for a decade of not using that skill?” Buck accuses.

Eddie’s mouth parts with surprise at Buck’s tone. 

“It’s muscle memory,” he says. “You don’t forget.”

“No,” Buck says. “I guess you don’t.”

Eddie’s expression tenses. “Buck-”

“Can we go already?” Chris interrupts. “I want to see the otters!”

So they go. And Buck hardly says a word. He hardly looks at the wildlife. All of it just serves to annoy him. 

➰➰➰➰

He and Eddie help Brittany load the kayaks from the beach onto a rack. 

“Thank you!” She exclaims as they’re halting them. “Most visitors don’t stick around to help.”

“Of course,” Buck replies quietly. 

“They’re firefighters,” Chris says. “They lift heavy stuff all the time.”

“It’s true,” Eddie says, sliding a kayak onto the rack.

As soon as Buck puts the last kayak on the rack, he takes several large steps away from the rack. Eddie watches him, eyes bugging out, as he does. 

“Something wrong, Eddie?” Buck asks. 

“No,” Eddie replies. “Why would anything be wrong?”

Brittany frowns. “Well, uh, thanks again for the help, guys.”

They’re making total asses of themselves, and Buck knows it. Yet he can’t quite bring himself to care. Somehow, he thinks he may have the chance to redo this interaction tomorrow. 

Seemingly out of nowhere, but right out of Buck’s gut feeling, there’s  a strange metallic creaking sound, followed by a loud crack. The kayak rack lurches as a leg breaks, sending the top kayak sliding out, fast and hard onto the sand.

“Oh my god!” Brittany exclaims.

“Wow,” Buck says flatly. “That totally could have hit me in the back of the head.”

Eddie won’t look at him. 

[gabessquishytum]

🍃 anon your mind!!

Hob finds himself in The Dreaming. He’s been there before maybe a handful of times now, a privilege he doesn’t realize he has as one of the few who know Dream for what He Is, but this is the first time Hob passes the gates.

Hob flows through the library as if he’s on a conveyor belt, shelves and titles passing by just slowly enough to read but too quick to pick up. Hob reaches one in particular ‘His Name: Jim’, but is whisked all the way to set of doors similar to the gate but so much more… delicate, responsive? Hob means to push through but the doors open with barely a touch.

The throne room - it is clearly the throne room. It’s the centerpiece of the entire chamber - is grand, no doubt: the ceiling is nearly too high to see, the stained glass windows loop and swirl settling and reforming, and the stairs… at once a serene bend and then impossibly, dauntingly long, leading to a single seat.

Striking, Hob thinks. Artistic. Impressive.

Lonely.

And there. On that grand, imposing, unapproachable pedestal, there was his Dream. Somehow as frigid as a statue yet pouring over the arms, liquid and resting his hand upon his

Belly?

Hob blinked twice. There was no doubt, Hob had lived several centuries, seen his mother heavy with two of his sisters, and he’d had a wife and a child (…’children’ he corrected. Always corrected.)

Point being, he knew what pregnancy looked like.

So here was his Stranger, eyes closed, rubbing slow circles over his stomach, seemingly lost to the world. If you could call this a ‘world’? And here was Hob watching, with not a clue what to do or how he was here or

Why he wasn’t the one holding Dream instead of that fucking chair.

Hob takes the first steps in a while since that strange conveyor through the castle, deliberately setting his foot on the stairway. He begins to ascend

‘Hob Gadling?’

He can’t see Dream from his current place on the stairs, but he would recognize that voice anywhere even if he and Dream *weren’t* the only beings in this vast hall (Hob isn’t positive on this, but he and Dream were the only beings Hob gave a damn about at the moment even if not).

His eyes snap up and he takes the stairs two at a time, breath somehow remaining steady despite the exertion, and just as he rounds this turn to catch a glimpse of Dream again, this time leaning forward on one slim arm the other cradling his rounded belly, Hob says

He blinks awake, legs twisted so thoroughly into his blankets he would have tripped if he’d tried to get up.

‘Running…’ Hob breathes out. He unwraps the sheet and blankets around him, sighs and lies back on his pillow. He’s not sure what his subconscious is pulling on him, but he knows it’s trouble. Dream is barely his friend now - after centuries! - Hob can’t afford to get distracted.

He absolutely can’t afford to be horny about the whole thing.

But his brain can’t stop rewinding to that first impression: Dream, serene, rubbing soothing circles over his full belly. So prominent on his boney frame.

Hob closes his eyes and wills himself to sleep.

What he actually does is spend an hour Not Thinking about Dream and eventually having a cold shower just in time to leave for his first class.

This is nothing.

It’s fine.

- 🎱 anon

(I have …more help)

Omg yes!! Here's the link to 🍃's original ask for those who missed it. I'm definitely excited to talk more about this!! If you have more my dear anon, I'm always delighted to hear it!

I always love the idea of Hob accidentally dreaming himself into Dream’s personal space, either because he's just thinking about him so much or because the dreaming subconsciously recognises him as an Important Person and lets him get through the usual walls that sheild Dream from normal people. I particularly love this idea of Hob seeing Dream in this truly intimate moment... the two of them staring at each other, both lost for words.

And then Hob wakes up.

And it's not that Dream is embarrassed. He's more than a god, such things are nothing to him. But. He values his relationship with Hob Gadling, their fragile and still fresh friendship is special to him. He wouldn't want it to be spoiled. But there's nothing he can do - the dream within him is close to being born and he can't go into the waking world in this state. He'll simply have to hope that Hob forgets his dream or passes it off as nonsense.

Little does he know that Hob is spending his day desperately trying to catch a nap, even a snatch of sleep, so he can get back to the dreaming. He's concerned for his friend but there's something more than that. He can't let go of the image of Dream holding his gravid belly with tender hands. He feels this tugging sensation around his heart; a desperate and primal need. He needs to take Dream in his arms and hold him. It feels cosmically important.

The moment he drops into a brief sleep, his subconscious lands him right there in the throne room, just in time to find Dream crouching over, holding onto his throne with an iron grip. Dream’s face is twisted up, not in pain... but in pleasure.

And Hob realises that he's arrived just in time to see Dream give birth. Whoops!

[fuckmeuselessdegen]

i am once again thinking about whitney and my pc daiki together 🧎‍♂️ this time, it is how i imagine their first kiss together.

just to be very clear at first, i know that canonically whitney will try to actively fuck/kiss your pc, and it’s very easy for him to do so. however, for the sake of pc character/lore building, i like to imagine that it went completely differently :)

it starts off on a sunday night, right after drinking with whitney at the pub. daiki had gone to the pub that night to sell off some stolen goodies to landry and couldn’t help but spot whitney across the way, sitting at a table with other delinquents and staring at him. daiki is actively trying to ignore this mf but whitney doesn’t relent on the staring, so he decides to approach him anyways because he knows whitney’s gonna get on his ass about this.

he approaches the table and basically cue the pub event with whitney where he tries to get the pc shitfaced and see who can handle their liquor better. they take shots and chug so many bottles of beer that by the time they’re out of the pub, the two of them can barely keep each other up.

so daiki and whitney are drunk as all hell. regardless, whitney walks daiki back home to the orphanage, tripping over both of their feet multiple times in the process. when they walk up to the front door, whitney slurs through his words.

“where’s my thank you for walking you home, huh? you’re lucky i didn’t leave you on the street to get jumped.”

daiki sort of stands there awkwardly, swaying on his feet and rubbing the back of his neck. he looks down at the ground, almost in a submissive way.

“thanks, i guess.” he mutters, his words also slurring and voice uncharacteristically soft. he doesn’t have his usual defiant bite to his words.

and at that, something sort of snaps in whitney’s brain. the two of them have had such intense sexual tension before all of this had happened. each time they fought, all the manhandling and skin on skin contact only fueled a strange sort of lust that was brewing inside of them. and so seeing daiki suddenly so passive was simply… cute. too cute.

whitney can’t help but grab daiki by the collar of his shirt and pull him into a rough kiss. their lips smashed together, daiki is caught completely off guard and is unsure of what to do. a part of him wants to push whitney away, but an even larger part of him is REALLY into it. he decides to kiss back, letting lust and desire fill his head.

they bite at each others lips and knead their tongues together, all while pawing at each through through their clothing. after a few minutes of just making out, daiki pulls away, heavy breathing and gazing into whitney’s eyes.

“… do you want to come into my room?” an obvious proposition for more of… whatever the hell they were doing. and with a grin, whitney obviously accepts.

the two of them make it towards daiki’s small, cramped room and spend the night together in his even smaller bed, making out and groping at each other like horny teenagers. there’s no penetrative sex just yet, only just the two of them jerking each other off and kissing each other sensually, but it’s enough. by the time they both cum, daiki is slumped back in the bed, exhausted out of his mind. he slips into an easy snooze while whitney decides to take this opportunity to slip out of the orphanage while he still can.

sure, maybe at least one of them (coughdaikicough) will regret it in the morning. he’ll wake up in the morning hungover and have a very foggy idea of what actually went on last night. by the time he actually remembers, he’s flushed red with anger and embarrassment, ready to confront whitney and start another fight.

thus the cycle repeats. they fight enough to the point where the air is basically dripping with sexual tension, and they release all that lust in some way 😌

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Vicarious (Part 3)

Since it has been a while here’s the full fic.

Content Warning: Suicide Attempt. This is a rather heavy chapter so read at your desecration.

Azula loves the smell of sage incense. It has always soothed her nerves.

Strangely, she is already calm.

More than calm.

She is…relieved?

Yes, relieved. Undeniably and mercifully relieved. There is comfort in finality. Comfort in knowing that, after a few seconds of initial shock, things won’t be so painful anymore. They won’t be painful ever again. 

She closes her eyes and inhales, the incense pleasantly tickles her nose. She lays back. Part of her…most of her wishes that things could have been different. That she could just lay her head down and then wake up as someone new. 

She supposes that, that will indeed happen. 

With luck, this life will be buried very, very deep in the next one. Inaccessible to who or whatever she becomes. She isn’t all that picky. In fact, she rather hopes that her next life will be something simple and dumb. A turtle-duck, perhaps or a house pet. 

She doesn’t even need to be an animal. 

She can be a tree or a firelily. 

Just as long as she is not Azula anymore. 

She swallows hard and draws her blade. 

She takes a sharp gasping breath as cool steel graces her wrist; sn impulse, perhaps, nearly involuntary. Her body is shocked by what her hand and mind have done.  She didn’t think that she would cry but she is. She knew that it was going to be painful, but somehow…somehow it hadn’t occurred to her that the initial pain could be more than even she could handle. 

Her breaths are shaky and for a few moments, she is scared. She is absolutely terrified. Her heart races and she almost cries out. 

She can still stumble her way down the hall clutching her weeping wrist. 

They can still help her.

Maybe if they see her in such a state they will understand that she is just a girl. That she just wants to be okay. That she isn’t some creature that lives and breathes wartime propaganda. 

She doesn’t live at all. 

She reminds herself that she doesn’t want to. 

And the pain does pass. 

At the very least, she gets used to it. 

Just the way she has gotten used to feeling every horrible thing that a person can feel; anger, hatred, regret, useless, weak, hopeless. Sad. Mostly sad. And lonely. 

She won’t be lonely if she is reborn as a rabaroo. People like rabaroos. Even she likes rabaroos.

Azula cradles her arm against her chest and closes her eyes.

.oOo.

Sokka has been on many life changing trips in his life. He isn’t sure how many times his life can change before he stops being able to recognize it as his life. It certainly isn’t his life right now. He knows it upon waking. Knows by scent alone--by a gentle aroma of smoke and something floral. 

He knows it by the searing sensation in his wrist. 

Panic grips him in an instant. 

He knows that he is dying. 

And dying fast. 

The hand that had done this was expert. 

His head spins and his vision blurs. He can’t remember, where had he been? What had he been doing before he got here? Where is here? He doesn’t think that he deserves whatever he is getting. 

He closes his…someone else’s right hand over that person’s gushing left wrist. He parts their lips but he can’t make a sound. This body is so very weak, it doesn’t have much left in it. Perhaps the only thing keeping it alive is that his soul had come to reside in it.

But his soul can’t keep it around for much longer. 

He tries to get up–a waste of energy really.

Of course he can’t move. He can barely even whimper. He only managed to slump further over. With what remains of his energy he tries his best to slow the bleeding. 

He takes off one of the several plentiful layers of robes that this body is dressed in and he ties it tightly near his elbow. And then one more layer is tied directly at the wrist. At this point it is little more than a bandaid on a literally gaping wound. 

There is nobody here. 

Nobody who can help him stop the bleeding. 

His head hurts so terribly.

He can’t think clearly.

And in that lack of clarity he finds himself admiring how well manicured and filed this person’s nails are. This person has such a dainty little hand, very soft. The sort of fingers that would feel nice tracing the side of his cheeks. This person, he deduces, has to be a firebender. 

He is almost certain that he has seen this hand before. 

Right now he can’t place where. 

Sokka wonders if Katara will miss him. If Aang and Toph and Zuko will. If Suki will.

Of course they won’t.

Because he will still be there.

It just won’t be him. 

But how will they know?

He wonders if anybody will miss the person with the red and gold nails.

[nikoadari]

March 20

Dear Diary,

Ramon woke up Quiet this morning.

All of us are sitting by the little stream that runs past the house. Yasmine is sketching Ramon as he sits in the water – she’s been taking a big interest in drawing lately; seeing her be able to just sit down and focus on something she likes is such a relief – and Sol is meditating.

I have some of my library books with me and, of course, the journal I’m writing in now. It’s about time I start reading more of those books. The more I read, the more I become undecided about Sol. It doesn’t matter. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time to figure it out now that Ramon has gone Quiet.

It’s the first time it’s happened on this trip…. I really hoped time away from the city, the daycare, whatever is triggering his Quiet phases, would make it disappear entirely, but I guess that was unrealistic. It usually happens once or twice a week, after all, and the last one was actually two weeks ago. The times between his Quiet phases gets longer when Sol comes to visit, so I suppose it’s right on schedule.

God, what’s wrong with him? I wish I knew. For all his knowledge, Sol doesn’t know the reason behind Ramon’s Quiet phases, either. He’s had the best doctors examine him; we’ve taken him to all different sorts of therapies and I even had him on Ritalin for a time to try to force it to stop.

It didn’t help, and after the third dose of that I threw it away; he hated how it made him feel. I’d hoped…I really hoped that this trip would be a changing point for my baby.

I’m starting to think he’s having strokes. Why else would he just stop functioning like that? All he does is breathe and blink. All it would take is one ill-intentioned daycare provider or teacher, and he wouldn’t be able to tell me what they did; he can’t remember much of anything that happens while he’s Quiet.

If someone forgets to feed him, he won’t say anything, and he won’t be fed all day! It will be a complete nightmare once he goes to school. I don’t know what I’ll do if he comes home bleeding because some brat thought it would be funny to throw things at him while he couldn’t run away or defend himself.

God, look at him now. He’s just staring at the water. His neck is fine, I’ve checked, but…no child should have eyes so dead!

Is this how it’s going to be forever?

What if there’s an emergency and he doesn’t come when called? What if–

Sol just left. I don’t know where – somewhere only he knows in the forest. He came out of his meditation and started speaking so suddenly that I almost dropped my pencil. He told me that he thought he could do something to help Ramon come out of his Quiet phase quickly, but that he wasn’t sure if it would work.

Of course I asked him what his plan was but he wouldn’t tell me! He just said that he had to leave for a while, but he wouldn’t be too far and that I should yell if I need him for something. Specifically, yell his name twice and then pick up Ramon and Yasmine and go inside. Also, unless I yell for him or until he comes back, none of us can go inside.

I have never wanted to curse him out so much in my life! What is this; a spell!? What the hell does that even mean?

I almost started to argue, but the way he was looking at me…it was so intense and serious, and I knew he wasn’t just being dramatic. He really did mean what he said, and as strange as his instructions were, I trust him with Ramon’s health.

I agreed, and he disappeared into the trees. It’s been a couple minutes now, and I haven’t heard anything since then. The kids are still– oh.

Yasmine just…fell asleep? She just slumped over, face in her sketchpad. Aw, that’s pretty cute.

Hm, she didn’t wake up or even stir when I turned her over. That’s odd. She isn’t that heavy a sleeper.

And she didn’t seem tired a minute ago…well, it is a warm day. It could make anyone want a nap. But Lord above, she’s less concerned with Ramon’s state than anyone else who knows. It makes sense; it’s been happening since he was thirteen months; she probably doesn’t remember a time her brother didn’t go Quiet.

It’s not that I want her to be nervous about it exactly. The fact that she can continue playing by herself or tries to include him in the play without making him move is wonderful. But still, I don’t want her to be used to it. I don’t want him to have this…illness? Condition? Whatever it is, I don’t want it!

I want Ramon to be a healthy boy. Is that too much to ask? I have so many things to do every day Sol isn’t here. I have bills to sort through, and a job, and shopping to do. Cleaning the house and cooking something semi-healthy, driving the kids to school, driving them to daycare, washing and folding clothes, taking pills, and work, work, work, work, work!

Why is this added to the pile? Why can’t he just be normal? Why can’t Yasmine be normal? It isn’t fair to blame the children, no…. Sol. Why can’t just have a semi-normal family for once, chosen a man who sticks around to help me all year, instead of just a few months? He–

Oh, my God!

Ramon just woke me up. He was patting my cheeks and calling “Mama?” and calling me a sleepyhead like nothing happened! What!?

There was no way I fell asleep on my own. No way! I wasn’t even drowsy! And I never would have left Ramon in the stream if I had started to feel tired!

And Ramon’s not Quiet anymore! I checked him all over to see if he was okay. He’s still wet, but otherwise fine. He isn’t even sluggish like he normally is after coming out of a Quiet phase. Yasmine’s woken up, too. She looks sullen.

Oh. Well, apparently she wasn’t done drawing him but now he’s moved, therefore ruining her artwork. God, this child…wait.

Sol hasn’t come back.

I asked Ramon if he saw or heard anything strange before he stopped being Quiet, even though I knew it was a long shot he remembered even a fuzzy memory.

To my surprise, he said he saw a green light facing around in front of him. He heard laughter, too. He thought it was Yasmine but she fell asleep before I did, so it couldn’t have been her.

That’s just like what happened at the river…that laughter! I knew it! Something magical is going on here, and I’m going to find out what it is if it’ll be the death of me.

I was going to call Sol like he told me to, but the way he said it – so serious and almost…nervous? – makes me think that the call was only meant for emergencies. Nothing bad has happened, exactly, but it’s been a while. Like half an hour? And who knows how long we were out for.

The kids are splashing each other with the water; I made them sit down just in case they get tired again. Was that the effects of the magic? Ramon didn’t fall asleep. At least, not that I can tell.

Why did it make Yasmine and me fall asleep and not Ramon? Why would it put us to sleep in the first place? So we wouldn’t see the “green light” Ramon talked about? Lord, he’s not even concerned about it. He said he could “think again” after he heard the light and saw the laughter. God, my poor baby….

I’ve been trying to find some sort of answer in these books, but it’s useless!

The only thing I could find even remotely similar is putting some type of magic into food, and then feeding it to some naïve human. We haven’t eaten anything especially strange. We just…fell over, seemingly out of nowhere.

At least hearing tiny voices or laughter or music is common, but there’s nothing about green light right in front of you!

This has to be Sol’s doing. What did he even do?? Why isn’t he back yet?

I asked the kids if they knew, just in case, and they both shook their heads. Instead, Ramon started complaining, saying he was too hot and wanted his hat. I almost went inside the house to get it before both Ramon and Yasmine both began shouting that I couldn’t go.

I completely forgot about Sol’s warning…but wait.

I know Yasmine was close enough to hear what her father said, but Ramon never remembers much about when he’s Quiet, so he shouldn’t know. The magical stuff was probably due to it being, you know, magic. I asked him how he knew we weren’t supposed to go inside, and he looked down.

He mumbled that he just “had a feeling.” Yasmine nodded like she had a feeling, too. I don’t have this feeling, and I would have gone into the house if they hadn’t stopped me. That’s…concerning.

Okay, okay. I need to keep it together. The kids shouldn’t see their mother panicking.

I poured some of the creek water on Ramon’s head. Enough to get through his baby afro. It’s not a perfect solution, but it will have to do for now.

I asked them if they had any other “feelings” since they got here. Like the fish Yasmine had tried to chase. She said that she had “really wanted to catch it. Really, really wanted it.”

Okay, then.

“I wanted it even more than I want a horsey!” she said. “Uh, but…I still want a horsey….”

God, ever since we showed her that Black Beauty movie, she’s been begging for a horse of her own; they’ve become her new favorite animal. Where would we put said animal? She doesn’t know, but she wants one. Kids.

She said she didn’t hear anything when she saw the fish; she just knew it was “the best fish ever.” I don’t even know what to do with that.

I asked them both if they heard anything at the other river where Sol and I taught them how to swim. I’d hoped that they had heard the laughter then, too, but they hadn’t. Instead they brought up last night.

Ramon said he saw something in the fire. He saidit looked like “tiny people dancing to Daddy’s music.”

It’s not a demon. It’s not a demon, don’t go there….

Yasmine said she didn’t see anything in the fire, but that she saw someone – not something, but someone – watching them all from a tree. She said that it didn’t look like any person she’d seen before; its eyes were all black and huge, and its face was really pale, like drawing paper.

I asked her why the actual heck she hadn’t said anything, and she said the person was “just there to listen to the music.” WHAT!? When I asked her how she knew that, she got quiet, like she didn’t actually know how she knew that. She is getting such a lecture later on assuming intentions!

I had to call Sol. I had to. I yelled his name twice like he said, picked up the kids, and went straight inside the house. Thank God there’s nothing strange inside.

We’re sitting in the living room now, and I’ve covered the windows. The children don’t seem worried. They’ve been trying to calm me down like I’m the one acting crazy here! They– this is insane. This is actually insane! This can’t be real!

People are watching us?? How did I not notice? Does Sol know? He couldn’t. He would have told me! But Yasmine asked me a question. She sounded so confused, like she genuinely didn’t understand.

She asked why I’m scared of these other people when I’m not scared of Daddy.

I thought I was gonna pass out. I had to ask her what she meant by that just to make sure and she just looked at me and said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, “Daddy can do magic, too.”

I knew it.

The door! It’s…Sol.

He’s back.