#like you either have to commit to running 4 guards and no 4 and being ok with the lack of rebounding

[the-physicality]

.

[stonedcoldfoxtarot]

What was your crush thinking & feeling the last time they saw you?

Pile 1 -> Pile 2

Pile 3 -> Pile 4

Pile 1

AoP, 7oP, Moon, AoW, KnoC, 59oC, 10oS, Devil, 8oS (AoC)

Pile 1, your crush feels like you're their missing puzzle piece. For several years, they’ve felt incomplete or that something was missing from their life until they met you. For some, they’ve felt this way from the moment they laid eyes on you. As cliche as it sounds, this person feels that from the moment you walked into their life it’s as if the clouds parted and an angel descended from heaven into their world. Their desire for you runs deep, Pile 1, but they may be hiding their feelings for now. They don't want to scare you away or give the impression that all they desire is a physical relationship. Nonetheless, every time they see you, it requires a great deal of self-control to refrain from expressing how they truly feel.

The last time your crush saw you, they thought about asking you out but they chickened out and missed their chance. For some, they felt that the timing or location wasn't right and didn't want to risk scaring you away. This person might have a deep fear of rejection or think that you're so attractive and out of their league that if they made a move, you would probably reject them harshly or laugh in their face. They genuinely have feelings for you, so each time they try to psych themselves up but end up getting nervous. You might notice them engaging in small talk with you or making small gestures of affection or appreciation as an attempt to get closer to you. The last time this individual saw you, it hit them hard - they realized that they are head over heels in love with you.

Channelled Song: Cherish the Day by Sade

Pile 2

7oS, 10oW, 8oW, AoC, 5oC, Judgement, 9oW, 2oW (8oS)

The last time your crush laid eyes on you, Pile 2, they had this crazy urge to throw caution to the wind and run away with you. You made them feel like taking a leap of faith, whether it's just for one night or for a lifetime together. At that moment, all their problems seemed insignificant compared to the possibility of being with you. Your crush probably has a lot on their plate and often daydreams about a different life—one where it's just the two of you without any distractions or interference from others. Maybe they're already in another relationship or simply not ready for commitment right now. But despite all that, when they saw you last time, they couldn't help but entertain the thought of confessing their love for you anyway.

The last time they saw you, despite being excited they also felt a lot of disappointment and sadness about having to push down their true emotions and use their better judgment when it comes to this connection. Deep down, this person knows that you're the one for them, but they’ve decided to stay guarded against those feelings for now. Maybe they're waiting for things in their life to clear up before making a move towards you. But right now, they're choosing to just appreciate you from afar.

Channelled Song: Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith

Pile 3

8oP, 7oP, Fool (rev), 2oC, HP, 6oW (rev), 5oC, 8oW (Hermit)

Pile 3, you and your crush could work together or you may have met while either one or both of you were on the clock. When your crush last saw you, they kept things professional despite wanting to open up and speak or act further. They may have felt that it would have been foolish or unwise at the time due to others overhearing and making assumptions about your connection.

Pile 3, your crush deeply desires to start a relationship with you but they feel they would have to keep things between you two secret for now. Not because they want to sneak around or hide you - quite the opposite! They are afraid that once people know you two are together, they will try to turn you both against each other or find ways to sabotage the connection. They don’t want anything to come between this connection, so for now when they see you, especially at work, they play it cool and pretend to be focused on the tasks at hand. Despite this, they are ready to move things forward and come together publicly as a couple once the time is right.

Channelled Song: When I’m in Your Arms by Cleo Sol

Pile 4

7oS, 9oC, 5oS, HM, 10oC, Devil, 3oS, AoW, Judgement, Fool, 2oW, 6oP (KnoC)

Pile 4, it seems like your crush has mixed and conflicting thoughts and emotions about you. For some, this could have been a past sneaky link connection or someone who was “off limits” to you in some way. For others, they may see being with you as something forbidden or taboo, which only intensifies their desire.

You're the person of their dreams, Pile 4, not just in looks but also in personality and intelligence. In their eyes, you're the whole package. The moment they last laid eyes on you, they felt a sudden ache of longing to be with you. Unfortunately, this person might be sacrificing their own happiness to please others or conform to their family's expectations. It's sad because this has led them to become almost obsessed with you and it's slowly breaking their heart that they're not making a move towards you.

When they saw you last, all they could think about was how much they desire you and how desperately they dream about running away with you and starting a life together. However, reality quickly brought them back down to earth and most likely all they could offer at that time was kind words, a smile or maybe even an invitation for a casual hangout. Your crush genuinely likes you but in order for things to progress between the two of you, they need to stop caring so much about what others think and start living life on their own terms.

Channelled Song: If It Makes You Happy by Sheryl Crow

Thanks for reading🔮✨

© 2023 stonedcoldfoxtarot. All rights reserved. Please do not copy, translate, edit or redistribute.

[adickaboutspoons]

I object to the term "whim"

In episodes 4 and 5 of the second season, there's a lot of throwing around of the word "whim." Ed and Stede both argue that they were just a whim to the other, Stede concludes they they are both "whim-prone" and that whim-prone people shouldn't run off to China together, and Ed cites their "whim-prone"ness as a reason to take things slow as they start to rebuild their relationship.

And I know we all like to joke about U-Haul failboats in love, but they aren't whim-prone. That's not what's going on here.

The first time on the show that we hear the word "whim" is in s1e4, when Izzy says "For years, I've followed your every whim, I've managed your increasingly erratic moods, I've massaged this crew when they were worried about your judgment." But from what we see of Izzy's interactions with the crew, he's not a massager, he's a sledgehammer, and the crew respect Blackbeard a hell of a lot more than they respect Izzy. Ed's moods don't read as "erratic" at all if you pay attention to what he's responding to; he's an emotional guy, for sure, but mostly even-keeled until highly provoked. And as for "following [his] every whim," Izzy can barely follow orders as given - committing insubordination at least twice that we see; not telling Stede that it was Blackbeard that wanted to meet him in s1e3, and flat-out ignoring Ed's "we're not doing this" in s1e6 when he challenges Stede to the duel. So I don't see Izzy as a reliable narrator when he suggests Ed is "whim-prone" - it might look like that to him because he doesn't try to understand Ed on his own terms, but it is v. much a construction that Izzy is imposing on Ed; not an objective character trait Ed possesses. After all, you don't get a reputation for being "history's most brilliant tactician" if you're not, at the heart of it all, a planner.

Stede is also a planner. Mary accuses Stede of abandoning his family on a whim, but that's also inaccurate. Thanks to all the hard work @nicnacsnonsense did in her marvelous 1st season timeline video, we know that SIX MONTHS elapsed between Stede proposing with his model boat that they go to sea at the anniversary debacle and the night of Mary's apology when Stede had already committed to actually leaving. That's not a whim - that's plenty of time for serious deliberation. It LOOKED like a whim from the outside because of their disastrous communication failures, but that doesn't make it true. Unabandoning his family was not a whim either - Chauncy was the catalyst, but only because he created a high-pressure situation that validated all of the insecurities we'd seen Stede struggling with all season; guilt over abandoning his family, and his crater-bottom self-esteem that the people he loved were better off without him. Even in season 2, we see more of this long-game behavior, where Stede takes his drudge job in towels and elevates it by applying scent; a move that LOOKS whim-prone from the outside, but primes him for success when it comes time to escape, because it means he knows the guards are used to deeply inhaling the scent of the fresh towels he gives them, and is thus he is able to trick them into chloroforming themselves.

There are times in the 1st season where it might LOOK like they are being whim-prone, but for the most part, those things are mostly time-critical circumstances . The impulsive decision to go to the French Party Boat? The invitation was for that night, so it's not like another opportunity like that was just going to come along. Stede's impromptu Fuckery? He'd JUST been introduced to the concept that morning, and the ships on which he wanted to try it out were three days away. If you'll recall, Ed actually tries to talk him out of going through with it with such a short turn-around time, and likely would have succeeded if Izzy hadn't interveined to further his "Kill Stede Now" agenda. The Treasure hunt? Stede was anxiously scrabbling for ANYTHING to keep Ed's attention (AFTER he confirmed there were no oranges for sale, not even for ready money) because Ed said that his plans for the day included "planning for the next adventure" and leaving. Act of Grace? Signing away ten years of your life for a man you've known for a month IS a lot, but the alternative was letting Stede be executed. Running away together? I'll give you that China was quite the absurd swing, but they WERE in jail for all intents and purposes - no sense staying longer than absolutely necessary, and there theoretically could have been time for re-working the plan once they were just away had circumstances not arisen.

So while I think it's fair to call the boys whimsical with their love of dress-up and lovely perfumed things and theatrics and tasty sugary treats, I wouldn't say whim-prone is an accurate descriptor (and the fact that they are accepting that it is makes my heart crack wide open for them, because it's evidence that they're still both uncritically absorbing the labels applied to them by people who don't really understand them at all), nor the problem they need to address.

Their real problem is actually the exact opposite of flitting from whim to whim; that, once they've committed to something, they are all in, 100% ride-or-die. It's why Ed resigned himself to going down with the ship when it turned out he'd miscalculated the date instead of trying any evasive maneuvers with the fog to give them cover. It's why, when Stede didn't show at the docks, Ed went full pillow fort until Lucius was able to talk him around into life going on without Stede. It's why Stede threw himself into trying to be all the things he thought he'd failed to be as a husband and father when he came back to his family, and was committed to staying, even though it was making him miserable, until Mary tried to murder him.

Ultimately, the solution for both these conditions is the same - slowing down. But it's not a matter of making sure this is serious and not just a whim for either of them; it's a matter of taking the time to understand exactly what it is that you're committing to. So I object to the term "whim."

[kaybreezy3000]

Bad Things (Five Hargreeves/Reader)

~Psychopathy is a neuropsychiatric disorder marked by deficient emotional responses, lack of empathy, the inability to distinguish between right and wrong, poor behavioral controls, and behaviors that contradict social norms which then commonly result in persistent antisocial deviance and criminal behavior.

Enter, Five Hargreeves, everyone's favorite little psycho.

(Chapter Three Post)

---If you need to go back to read the summary and the first two chapters first, hit the link below. Chapter 4 through seven will be added soon...

Link to Chapters 1-2

Warnings and tags: Mental disintegration, psychological trauma, effects of isolation, masturbation, non-consensual voyeurism, explicit sexual content, bondage, POV altering, touch starved, obsessive behavior, inanimate object love, and many other sexually deviant themes all mixed with a lovely twist that you will hopefully enjoy...

---In this chapter, we start the POV switches, and they will be made clearer by large page breaks in-between.

Chapter Three: Creep

Running through his options, Five makes the quick determination that after what he just did, he can’t stay here. He needs to get the girl back inside her apartment, then he will get Dolores and together they will run.

Thanks to his fake ID, nobody knows who he really is, but as soon as the girl can, she’s going to call the police and have them search the apartments across from hers. His family will figure out what he’s been doing, and Five can already hear them going on and on about how disgusting he is.

Everyone already thinks he is a psycho, and this further proves it. His siblings may not throw him under the bus because doing so would obviously tie him to them, but it’s still possible that someone could figure out that the once famous missing boy Number Five Hargreeves is not dead like the world thought and he is not at all the person he was before he disappeared.

The possibility of the whole world knowing about the monster he has become is only adding to the heartbreak that the people he has cared about and fought for his entire life will hate him more than they already do. All this has Five questioning everything. 

They were all he lived for, and he lost them, and now this.

“You really screwed yourself this time you sick asshole,” Five angrily curses as he starts hauling the unconscious girl across the parking lot towards her building.

As if all that isn’t bad enough, Five realizes that he just ensured himself a lifetime of running from the law. This means no more trying to pretend to be a part of something he’s not, but it also means that he will have no other option but to resort to other, much less legal means of surviving.

He failed at life again and there’s a big part of him that just wants to throw in the towel and let them lock him away. But the same part of him that wouldn’t give up for the last sixty years is still there in the back of his mind screaming at him to keep fighting.

Committed to his plan, Five is about to start crossing the short distance to the girl’s building when a man in a janitorial uniform comes out the back door. Being taken off guard by his sudden appearance, Five inelegantly drops to his knees behind a parked car with the girl folding down with him on the dirty cement.

As the man crosses the lot, Five does his best to calm his heavy breaths to a more manageable level. He hasn’t had the chance to let his racing heart slow down since his extremely drunk sprint down the stairs.

Not being his usual stealthy, in control self and not being able to easily blink himself out of this situation is enough to make Five’s mounting panic much worse. The fact that he just heard the door electronically lock after the guy closed it isn’t helping either. It didn’t even occur to him that her building might need an entrance code.

“God, damnit!” he quietly hisses.

He could slip in behind someone, but that’s not likely at this hour, and not with the girl passed out in his arms. Hitting random buttons in the hopes that someone will buzz him in will get the police called or it will wake the whole building, so that’s a big fat no.

As the other man pulls out of the lot, Five makes a split-second decision based on his most recent plan being blown all to hell. He does not want to leave the girl outside lying on the ground, especially in this neighborhood. He’ll have to leave her in his apartment. He’s screwed one way or the other. It really doesn’t matter where he puts her as long as it is safe. He’ll grab only what he has to, and he’ll be gone before she fully comes to.

Five pushes his back against the car, using it to help balance him as he gets them both upright again. Then swooping the girl up in his arms, the alcohol gets the best of him and Five accidentally stumbles backwards into the car before moving forward towards his own building.

“I am never drinking again,” he declares, weaving with each step he takes. Five is trying so hard to push past how dizzy he feels, but drunk is drunk and it’s getting worse.

After the girl blew him off tonight, Five had the grand plan of passing out in a super sloshed stupor. The whiskey he tried to drown his sorrows in is catching up with him by this point and he’s realizing that finishing the whole bottle was just one more bad decision to add to the many others he’s made tonight.

When Five opens the lower-level door to his complex, he can see that no one is in the shabby hallway that leads to the elevator, and it seems like his shitty luck is changing because the thing is working, and it’s already on the ground floor. 

There’s no way he would have made it up the stairs at this point. Heavy feet scuffing along across the worn tiles, Five moves inside, throwing his elbow against the button for the seventh floor.

As soon as the doors close, he woozily drops his weight back on the wall, and sets the girl down, keeping one arm around the girl’s waist to hold her upright and the other angled across her chest to keep her from tipping forward.

Five can hardly grasp how quickly he just fucked everything up. A few minutes ago, he was in the throes of personal passion, about to blow his load all over his costly dress pants, and the next he sealed the deal that he was completely ruining his already ruined life.

Five is being consumed by his deeply depressing thoughts about himself as the old elevator doors close and it groans to life. The girl’s flowery smelling hair is rubbing up against the side of his cheek, and he can feel the heat of her body pressing back against him in a very tormenting way considering his self-self-absorbed cock brain hasn’t caught up to speed yet that he is not sitting there in his kitchen with his hand on his dick about to destroy his own lap with jizz.

His partial erection from that sad whack fest is wedged right between this girl’s warm cheeks, and it’s just like he was imagining positioning himself on her Monday night. 

Now that Five has the girl’s body pressed up next to his while he’s holding her in what many would think looks like it’s a very loving embrace, the truth that he has actually been violating her by watching her and getting his rocks off is impossible to ignore. 

You can’t imagine something if it’s right in front of you physically touching you. The entire fantasy he’s been creating in his head just completely disintegrated.

Now things just got very real and it’s not in a good way.

“I am so sorry I am doing this to you,” he hotly breathes, his forehead falling even more against the girl’s shoulder as he forces down the growing sickness in his stomach.

With extreme sadness, Five thinks about the trauma he just inflicted on this girl. Five knows trauma and his own experiences with it is what resulted in him being unable to put himself out there to have anything worthwhile in his life. 

He had wanted nothing more than to know what it was like to passionately hold someone he cared about and who also cared about him, but the horror of how it’s happening right now is unbelievable. It seems like this must be happening to someone else. 

Five is so tormented by all this, and intoxicated, that he doesn’t realize he hasn’t been holding any pressure on the girls’ neck since he carried her inside. Her knuckles make unexpected contact, hitting the bridge of his nose. Five eyes instantaneously pinch shut to the intense sensation of shooting pain that makes everything in his face burn and his eyes flood with tears.

The girl’s furious screech reverberates inside the elevator. “Get off me!”

Taking Five’s momentary inability to function, her other arm wiggles free from the arm he has around her waist. She pulls away, maneuvering her fist back and down at the same time, nailing him right between the legs.

“Ff-ah-ckkk!” 

Five’s sudden high pitch yelp comes out just as loud as the girl’s cry, but unlike her, his verbal alarm ends in a very hushed groan followed by a whisper of a wheeze as he frantically fights not to double over and also maintain his hold on the back of her sweater.

Five gags down his vomit that is threatening to make this even worse, and while he is immersed in the sensations of pure agony, she comes at him again. 

Somehow, Five manages to move his head back just in time, narrowly avoiding another jab to the face. Her hand hits his upper sternum instead and just as fast, her fingers find their way around his silk tie, yanking his head forward with it.

Five instinctively retaliates by violently twisting his arm around her neck.

“St-ooo-ppp,” he splutters as they choke each other.

“Let go!” she piercingly shrieks before she’s completely deprived of the air to do so.

Dropping her weight as her fingers dig at Five’s arm doesn’t have the desired effect of getting him to let go, so she digs her heels into the floor plowing backwards instead. 

Her reverse attack makes Five’s dress shoes slip out from under him on the grimy floor. The impact of Five’s head as it swings back into the metal wall makes a cracking sound that leaves the wall vibrating.

Totally in shock and seeing the brilliant scattering of stars filling his vision, Five’s free arm swings out, searching for the railing behind him, but he misses. He starts to lose consciousness. All at once, his full body weight is hanging on the girl’s neck as darkness begins swallowing up his remaining vision.

The girl lets out a helpless sounding whimper as they start to fall. 

Beyond faint and feeling equally helpless, Five inadvertently squeezes his arm tighter, using the girl to pull himself upright again. To his relief, her fingers suddenly release the sleeve of his dress shirt and her arms flop down limply at her sides.

DING!

At the same time the doors rumble open, the girl’s legs give out and Five almost drops her.

Unable to think let alone function like he normally would, Five hoists her back up then unsteadily stumbles out of the elevator with the girl’s feet dragging between his legs.

Light-headedly glancing both ways, he is beyond grateful that no one is out there looking to see what all yelling was about. 

Beaten and bloodied, Five makes it inside his own door a few seconds later and his first move is getting them both over to the bed because he still feels like he may fall flat on his face.

Five hastily drops the girl down next to Dolores, then he moves towards his kitchen, swaying as he navigates the short distance. 

After getting the shit beat out of him, he is quickly processing the fact that he needs to adjust his original plan to drop her and go. He is going to need to shake at least some of his drunken and concussed brain fog before he can walk even remotely straight. If he doesn’t, he may pass out in the street or his own hallway with his face smacked down in a pile of his own puke.

The idea of the cops finding him like that, with the addition of Dolores lying next to him, is enough to push along Five’s new approach to make this all still work out in both their favor. The most important thing he figures right now is that he needs to keep this girl quiet for a little while before he is functioning enough to leave.

Five throws open the utility cabinet, his unfocused eyes landing on the hook with the wound-up nylon rope hanging on it. The apartment’s previous other weirdo occupant had left many things behind, but unlike the loads of old stuffed animals, this was one thing that Five didn’t throw away being it had many practical uses. In this case, tying someone up.

“They are right, you are a psycho,” Five mutters to himself as he digs around finding nothing else useful.

Next, opening the first drawer next to the refrigerator, he grabs his switchblade and his revolver. It had been Five’s norm to always carry both these weapons, but he stopped when he figured out that there were no field operatives from The Commission coming after him in this new world because there was no more Commission.

Klaus was right, he thinks. He was better when he had an evil taskmaster to keep him in line.

Staggering a little as he turns around, he sets the gun on the kitchen table and tucks the knife into the waistband of his pants. Next, making it back over to the bed with what he figures will be enough to keep the girl safely detained till he is more composed, Five is surprised to see that she isn’t waking up yet.

He says her name.

Nothing.

Five throws the rope on the bed, then picks up her wrist, checking her pulse. He doesn’t feel one, so his trembling fingers move to her neck, pressing against her throat instead. The girl doesn’t react to him touching her, and Five still can’t feel anything.

“Oh, no, no, NO, NO !” He says the girl’s name a few more times, and again he gets nothing. “Dolores, I didn’t mean to- Shit, shit, fucking SHIT!"

Feeling like he’s losing what’s left of his mind, Five doesn’t know what to say, and even though Dolores is right there, she doesn’t respond to his terrified ramblings.

Even though his mind is spinning out of control, Five’s years of training kick in. He jumps on the bed, rolling the girl on her side. Then he lifts her chin, putting her in the recovery position that you are supposed to do for someone when trying to revive them after being fully choked out. The maneuver makes the girl’s mouth fall open and Five checks to make sure that her airway is not blocked, or that her own tongue didn’t slip back in her throat.

Everything is normal. She should be able to breathe, but for some reason she is not, and she is not waking up.

Kneeling over her, one hand on her back, Five starts rubbing. “Come on, breathe! You’re strong, you just showed me how strong you are. Breathe damn it!”

He knows very well how this works, and giving her CPR will do nothing because this is not happening to her because of cardiac arrest.

Lifting her legs so that more blood moves to her brain is not that effective at helping to revive someone in this condition, and it’s sure as hell not going to work if she’s already gone. Five could stand her on her head and no amount of blood running to her brain will bring her back if she is dead.

“Come on! NO! You can’t die!” he angrily pleads, even as both his hands keep at it, one now methodically trying to massage life into her cold legs.

Counting the minutes in his head, Five can’t really say how long he would have been squeezing tight enough to fully deprive her of oxygen. He knows that all it takes is a matter of a minute like that and someone can face permanent brain damage or death. 

They were in the parking lot for only a minute or so after she swung the bat at him. He knows he let up on her throat enough during that time because she woke up a little when they were crouched behind that car. She was moving in his lap, and he heard soft moaning sounds coming out of her. Then as soon as the car pulled out of the lot, he carried her in, not choking her at all.

In the elevator, he fucked-up big time and he let her wake up completely. Five is sure that she was never completely out more than twice and for no more than about thirty seconds at a time. 

Right?

From where Five has himself positioned next to the girl, one of his knees is pressing against Dolores’s hip and with glistening eyes he looks from the girl to her. 

“I didn’t mean to do this,” he insists.

Again, Dolores says nothing to calm Five or reassure him like she normally would. His watery eyes plead with her, but he gets nothing.

“Oh my God, thank you,” Five cries, with his head swinging back to the girl. His hand on her back slowly begins to rise and fall as she comes back to life. “That’s it. Keep breathing, it’s going to be okay.”

The girl slowly begins to move her legs and Five puts his hands under her side, sliding her small body up closer to the headboard. She makes a small sound of complaint at being handled, but he still needs to restrain her hands, or she’ll be trying to fight him again the second she’s aware of what is happening.

Mechanically, Five flips open his long switchblade so he can quickly cut the correct lengths of rope with it. Then just as fast, he makes tight loops around both of her wrists. Seeing that he’s at least not totally fucking that up that lesson he learned over and over as a child, and that her arms are snuggly secured above her head to his headboard, he risks looking over at Dolores again.

“I think she’s okay. I know how this looks, but you know that I didn’t mean to do this. I was never going to go near her. It was only supposed to be just me waahh-"

Five can’t finish that one, and that is because saying that it was only supposed to be him watching the girl doesn’t make it okay. None of this is okay. His eyelids lower and he rubs the area between his eyes.

“Please talk to me, sweetheart. I don’t know what to do. I think something is very, very wrong with me. I need you,” he pleads, winching in pain as the trickle of blood from his nose continues to drip down over his upper lip.

Five gets nothing back, and right now, he needs his trusted voice of reason more than ever. In his head, he can only imagine that Dolores is not acknowledging him because she is questioning why he is tying this poor girl up like this if he supposedly didn’t mean to do this. 

To him, she is probably thinking that he is going to hurt her even more than he already has and that makes Five spiral even worse.

“Please don’t hate me. The only reason she’s tied up is because I need to stay here long enough to make sure she’s going to make it, and I can’t leave like this. I need time to clean up,” he tries to explain. “I will get us out of here. We can start over,” he promises. 

His blurring eyes dart from Dolores to the girl, then back again.

With tears starting to run down his face, Five gasps out a devastated sob, “Dolores, I need help. Please, talk to me!” Again, she doesn’t react, and his reddened eyes fearfully widen. “Dolores!” The quiver in his voice matches the quiver in his bloodied hands.

Nothing.

Five just drug in the near lifeless body of the very real girl from across the alley, placing her in the bed next to his beloved. Now, having them both laying there opposite each other, all he can see in the mannequin’s normally devoted expression of limitless acceptance is the actual lifeless object she is. 

Just like in the elevator with the girl right there with him, now Five is finding that he can’t pretend anymore.

Dolores’s face stares out blankly, the matte finished paint of her sky-blue eyes will not meet his. 

In Five’s entire time with her, this has never happened.

As Five moves himself down the girl’s legs, snaking the nylon around her ankles, he does so with the shock of knowing that Dolores finally left him.

Now he really has nothing to live for.

Feeling totally out of it, liquid dribbles from your slack mouth. You feel the softest tickle as the hair that’s stuck to your cheek pulls away.

“Wha thhh-ah," you start to mumble, but you are so groggy that at first you can’t even complete a thought let alone string two measly words together.

It feels like you are in bed, but you don’t remember going to bed.

In your jumbled thoughts, you recall going on a blind date with a guy from a stupid dating website. That obviously turned out to be a very bad decision. You should have known this guy was bad news when he showed up early and he somehow snuck inside your building instead waiting down in the parking lot. 

At the end of the night, the douche monger insisted on walking you to your door, and then he really upped his creep factor when he jumped on you.

You remember feeling extremely unhinged and completely repulsed by what he did. As such, you figured that it was a excellent idea to educate the prick on what would happen if he ever tried that date rape shit on anyone again.

As this all comes back to you, your eyes start to flutter open, but the room is dim, and your vision is badly distorted. 

More liquid slips inside your parted lips.

“Please, wake up,” the softest male voice worriedly whispers.

Hearing that, you immediately try to move, but like the voice, everything feels wrong. It feels like your arms and legs aren’t working right.

You feel a warm hand on your back slowly moving back and forth.

That’s when you remember that strange man in the parking lot.

“No,” you croak out, as you remember the unmistakable shape of his firm manhood pressing up against your ass as he cut off your air supply with the constriction of his arm around your already bruised throat.

It feels like something is still wrapped around your neck but whatever it is, it’s not painful and tight, it’s cold.

This doesn’t make sense.

Your mouth quickly shuts, your eyes flying open, as you try to sit up. Adding to your horror, you find that you can’t. Your arms flex and pull but they won’t give in to your request. Your chest and bottom rise off the bed only to immediately get pulled back down.

As your vision clears, you realize that someone is sitting next to you. 

Dark hair dangles over pale green colored eyes. 

The expression on his face is empty, not at all the way it was when you first laid eyes on it. Then, this lunatic appeared harmless. He even looked greatly concerned for your well-being. His eyes were conveying such open sorrow that it threw you off enough to let him approach.

He was acting like he knew you. He called you by name.

You open your mouth to scream but he quickly covers the sound with a thick fold of fabric that a second ago must have been around the cold pack that is now on his lap. His eyes narrow as his hand firmly presses the towel against your face.

As air wheezes through your partially blocked nose, he says, “Don’t. Do. That. Again.”

Every word out of his mouth is filled with warning.

Even if you weren’t already completely scared stiff, just the look in his eyes has the sound of your own blood thrumming in your ears and your heart feeling like it’s going to burst out of your chest.  

This can’t be the same voice you just heard speaking so compassionately.

Looking for help, your eyes try to take in the room behind him, but you don’t see anyone else.

Angling your chin backwards, you see someone illuminated by the small bedside lamp, but your own eyes grow even wider when you realize that the woman lying there next to you is not alive.

It’s an old, full body mannequin like you would normally see at a dump or in a second-hand clothing store.

You try to scream again but he pushes his hand down harder, completely muffling it.

“I said, DON’T!” he growls as you yank at the ropes binding your wrists. They won’t budge and that’s because you are tied to a very heavy-looking wooden headboard. 

Trying to move your legs again, you realize that each ankle is tied much like your hands, then fastened by extended lines of rope to opposite bed posts at the foot of the bed.

It dawns on you that this is his bed.

This perverted asshole saw what your douchebag date did to you. He has been watching you for who knows how long, and now he has abducted you. Your legs are spread wide, and your skirt is pushed up so high from your floundering that you know he can see right under it from where he’s sitting.

You can’t believe this is happening, but it is.

Again, you remember feeling this fucker pressing himself on you. He was hard.

This guy was turned on by squeezing the life out of you, and he has a plastic woman in his bed!

Oh, shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!

This is so bad.

As you mentally lose your shit, his eyes never leave yours. One of his thighs is pressing against your side and he’s still holding the bottle he must have been feeding you with, but from the way he is sitting at the edge of the bed, you can’t tell if he is still aroused.

You want to scream at him to let you go but you can do nothing. You are entirely at his mercy.

The only reasons you can come up with for why he is doing this aren’t good, but you force yourself not to go there. You have to focus.

Since he’s not actually touching, touching you yet, you try to concentrate on the rest of your surroundings, looking for some way out of this.

There is an old looking electric stove in a small kitchen area across the room, with an equally old looking refrigerator next to it. A small beat-up looking table sits under one of the only two windows and it has an empty liquor bottle on it and something black that looks like a revolver of some kind.

Great.

You remember smelling the strong scent of booze on his breath in the elevator. He is clearly shit faced. Your eyes flit back to his. He hasn’t moved at all.

Oh my God, you are going to die.

Looking out again, you see that in front of the bed, there’s a very battered looking recliner. Other than the basics, there is nothing someone would have that would give signs that they lived there. There are no pictures on the walls. No TV, no shelves full of personal belongings. Next to the recliner, on the floor, you can just make out that there is a stack of books, but that is it.

You see what must be the door to get out, and one that is narrower and has slatted vents in it, meaning it’s a closet. Behind you, when you tilted your head back to look at what was holding you from moving your arms, you saw what appeared to be a tiny bathroom.

At first glance, you see nothing that can help you. It’s just some psycho guy’s shitty shoe box sized apartment.

His indifferent reaction as you look around his home is jarring. The flawlessly smooth skin on his face gives the impression of youthful innocence, but what he’s doing proves he is far from it.

You’re betting this fancy dressing Ted Bundy has got piles of bodies under his bed and body parts galore in his freezer. Now you see it; he’s totally the type!

SHIT!

His expensive looking three-piece suit didn’t make sense in this neighborhood. Now splatters of blood stain the sleeves of his white dress shirt. He clearly used the cuffs to wipe his nose based on the numerous red smears. 

You wish so badly that you’d hit him hard enough to break his whole stupid face.

You risk looking at more of him, and you see that he is missing the tie he had on before, and you can only assume that is because the first chance you had, you latched on to it and tried to strangle him with it.

He is clearly not taking any chances of that happening again.

Uselessly trying to wriggle away from him, your arms pull down on the ropes and the heels of your bare feet slide across his rumpled bedding.

He took off your shoes!

Your stomach sickens with the realization that he has already been touching you when you were unconscious. 

Again, you notice how high your skirt is, but he isn’t looking there, his cold eyes remain fixed on yours.

You can’t help it when you scream under his hand, but that only makes him even more scary looking. His features contort ominously.

“This is not what I wanted. I-” He suddenly pauses, a line forms between his eyes as they run over your face, down your body and back up again. “You never should have lifted that bat.”

You try to tell him that you don’t care what he wants or that he didn’t want his head bashed in, but your words are totally stifled by the persistent pressure of his hand.

“You kept fighting me. I had no choice but to do what I did,” he scolds, like this is your fault rather than his.

He reaches over to the bedside table, setting the bottle of water down, then he picks up another length of rope off of it. The moment he removes his hand from your mouth, he forces your lips apart, jabbing the cloth inside. His other hand is already behind your head, pushing it forward as he works the rope between your lips.

As he ties the ends at the nape of your neck you realize it’s to keep the gag in. Your mouth is so full of fabric that not even the roaring animalist growls coming out of you are even remotely loud enough to get anyone’s attention.

Your teeth bare down on the nylon fibers as you glare at him in blind hatred.

Eyes darting away from yours, he slowly starts to sit up, but he abruptly stops when you let out a pathetic mewing sound. Those green eyes of his give the faintest hint of something as he watches the burning hot tears rolling back into your hairline.

His hand comes up brushing his dark chocolate colored hair out of his eyes before tucking it behind his ears. His eyes close so sluggishly it is like it pains him to take in the very deep breaths he is all of a sudden taking. 

The heavy fringe of his lashes sweeps his cheeks covering the dark hued skin under his eyes. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days, but the faint bruising that is starting to form is also from when you hit him, and it only seems to be showing at all because of how fair his skin is.

First, sexual assault and now you are finishing your fabulous Friday night off being this crazy prick’s new and improved sex doll. 

Is this really going to be your final fate? Live a subpar existence scratching to get by, working meaningless jobs to pay the rent, then die because some crazy asshole across the alley from you decided to remove you from the world for his own sick satisfaction?

You would laugh at your ridiculously bad luck if you weren’t crying and if you could actually laugh.

He’s going to kill you. There’s no other way out of this.

“Just let me go,” you beg him. It comes out of you, but with hardly any sound though saying it makes his eyes dart back to yours anyway.

His face is one of those that you’ve seen that can express the most heart wrenching emotion if he lets it. Right now, it seems it’s more of failing to hide it than intentionally showing that he’s not as cold as he is pretending to be. 

His prominent jaw line seems even more dramatic as you notice him clenching his teeth. It makes the dimple on his cheek stand out even more. He looks so sad, and that reaction is baffling because a moment before he looked like he felt nothing and didn’t even have the tiniest amount of remorse or humanity in him.

You swear you see his hand closest to you trembling.

That has to mean something.

You try to plead with him again, but hearing it, he steels his expression to nothingness again, he stands, preparing to walk away from you.

Christ! Even crazy vagrants on the street don’t have the gift to emotionally turn off and on as quickly as this guy can, and that’s no matter how long gone their minds are.

If you could just get through to him somehow, then maybe you’d have a chance, but how can you do that if he is mentally all over the place.

As he moves, you can see his entire body more clearly. He has straight shoulders, but he is hunching them forward in an odd way that doesn’t match his young age. His chin is angled down to the floor like he simply can’t stand looking at anything else.

His trim waist is defined even more by his tailored vest. He’s one of those guys who has that V-shaped torso that comes from having zero body fat. He’s all lean muscle and bone. Add the fitted black dress pants enhancing the slim look of him and you’d think he’s nobody to worry about, but you know already that he is not weak. Under this misleading appearance is hiding the very dangerous man that just took you.

Your eyes follow his every move as he travels over to the other side of the bed. Again, you swear you see the look of pure agony in his face as he lifts the mannequin and sets her down a few feet away over by the window on what has to be a stand because the thing is standing there dressed all pretty like she belongs in a 90's department store not this freak job’s apartment.

He goes ghostly still with one of his hands resting on the form of its narrow waist.

You hear him softly talking to it and it’s almost exactly the way you heard him speaking when you were coming to.

“Dolores, please… I love you,” he pleads. He is looking at the dummy like he is expecting it to answer him.

When you look to the window beyond him over there having this extremely bizarre moment with his plastic girlfriend, you see the flowers dangling from your own flower box blowing in the wind.

He was right across from you the whole time.

You look over again at the single chair pulled up at the small table next to the window. You can just imagine him sitting there in the dark, finishing off that bottle, watching you.

Being an opportunistic perv that gets turned on by peeping on others is one thing, but this guy was getting off by watching you get attacked and he was clearly also turned on by attacking you.

He’s a sexual sadist and while he rapes you, he is going to do his best to make you suffer even more!

Animalistic sounds of pure desperation erupt from your chest, and they get even louder when he abruptly turns away from his one-sided conversation with the mannequin and comes back towards the bed.

You see his expression change to something fierce and dangerous. His entire body seems to thrum like a bowstring drawn taut. You can almost feel the carefully restrained violence about to explode all over you.

His gaze is so intense that your whole body shudders and his voice comes out so achingly low that he sounds like a different person. “If you have already done the worst things a human could do, would it matter if you sealed it that the devil owns you?”

You do not like where this is going. You shake your head side to side, denying him. You refuse to draw the parallels he is trying to make in justifying what he’s going to do.

“I lost everything. There is no point in fighting anymore,” he whispers.

Even though you don’t want to give them to him, tears trickle down your cheeks again. Seeing them, the faintest trace of a sound comes from somewhere deep inside his chest.

There is something. Something inside all that coldness. He looks sad. You are the one tied to his bed, and he looks sad…

What?

After another minute of him seeming to consider something, he begins to hungrily study you, or at least it appears that way to you in that slow, languid way his eyes roamed over your body. When they hover over your chest, your breath hitches, and you think you hear his hitch too.

“Go fuck yourself, asshole!” you frantically cry, adding every curse word you know and even adding some new ones specially invented just for him. It comes out garbled, but you are sure he is getting the gist.

He reaches for the bottle of water on the nightstand, his eyes roll back in his head, and he almost falls down as he proceeds to pound it. 

After stumbling and then tossing the empty bottle on the floor, he moves across the bed, crawling on hands and knees towards you. The mattress sags beneath his weight as he bends down on top of you.

His weight hovers over you, and your fingers curl into fists. Your arms pulled down but to no avail. 

Reactively, when his hand comes towards your face, you pull back as much as you can. He stops for a second, dark brows furrowing like he doesn’t understand your reaction. 

“Sweetheart, no, please. You know I'd never hurt you,” he slurs, then his long fingers gently run across your skin to wipe your tears away. 

You shudder. 

He still has that look. You know it even though you don’t know him. It’s the look of misery.

He brushes your tangled hair back and the frown on his face deepens. Those pale cheeks of his suddenly flush with…

Arousal? Shame? Murderous rage? You have no idea until you look between your bodies, and you see that his crotch region is definitely tenting in a way it wasn't a few minutes ago. 

Very slowly, he traces the bruises your date left on your neck with a finger. The sensation makes you shiver in fear, and you see him shiver too. You are sure he’s about to lower himself on you but then he rolls off, staggers to the bathroom, and then slams the door behind him.

Entering his bathroom, Five’s body falls forward over the small counter. He clings to the edge holding himself steady, while hoping he will be able to think clearer now that he is away from the girl.

Five is completely overwhelmed with unimaginable levels of sorrow and gross intoxication, but the worst of it is the very demanding reaction his body is having over seeing the girl laying under him on his bed. As bad of shape as he is in, Five can’t even link together any coherent thoughts other than that when he looked at the girl, he was seeing Dolores.

“Dolores, no,” he breathlessly cries in pure unfiltered agony over the gut-wrenching loss he feels.

Wanting to stop the pain and unable to operate on anything but pure brainless need, rather than hurt the girl because he has completely lost his mind, Five desperately begins to hurt himself.

He lowers his head even more, panting out panicked gasps for air as one of his trembling hands starts to rub the front of his pants.

“Please. Fuck. Help me,” he moans, meaning much more than the words can convey as his other hand fumbles to get his zipper down. 

Once he has himself free, Five is quick to start jerking himself with an intensity and cruelty that only makes his head spin even more than it already is. 

“Nahhhh-nnnn-” His instant moans of pleasure are followed by the top of his head accidentally banging up against the oval mirror hanging above the sink.  

Pumping his hips, Five rams the hand he is using to grope his tight balls, jamming it abusively right up against the edge of the counter. His angry touches feel so damn good despite the punishment that the combination only makes him moan even louder.

His knees bang over and over against the cabinet as he finds every way possible to inflict pain on himself while also giving in to that heady desire trying to consume him.

Five winces as his knuckles begin to split after making contact too many times with the hard surface, but he doesn’t stop doing it. He wants this sweet torture to drown out the rest of his unbearable suffering. 

Hair falling in his eyes and his skin feeling like it’s on fire, Five’s other hand continues taking care of the rest of his shaft. His fingers are circled around the end of the hard length, and they are moving up and down so fast that when he peers down at himself, all he sees is a violent blur.

“Yessssssss!”

Mouth hanging open, Five’s come begins to spurt out of him. The near iridescence of his release is somewhere between a milky white and a purely clear watery fluid, allowing it to blend in almost seamlessly into the fake chalky colored marble of his chipped counter. With a dazed expression, Five’s body twitches repeatedly as he watches it drip down into the bowl of his sink. 

As the waves of ecstasy all too quickly abandon him, Five’s bloodshot eyes turn up to the monster in the mirror. 

All at once, his fist slams into the face staring back at him. The glass shatters, raining down sharp blades of Five’s reflection, scattering his hatred at his feet and all over the counter.

As if what just happened when he was suspending his body over you isn't appalling enough, the sounds coming from the bathroom are making you really lose your mind. You yank at your constraints hard enough to make your quickly abrading skin begin to bleed.

It's very clear what he is doing in there; you don't need to see him to know that he took your advice and is actively fucking himself. The only good thing about this is that he is not trying to fuck you and he is in there and you are out here.

When the sound of glass breaking and things hitting the floor abruptly comes after a another one of his guttural groans, you are pulling so hard on the headboard to break free that it's banging against the wall behind it.

Not more than a minute later, the bathroom door swings open and he's back at the side of the bed looking down at you with those empty eyes. 

“I need you to be quiet a little longer." His words don't sound mad or even scary even though he just busted you trying to break free. He sounds very meek but that makes sense considering what he did in there.

You can't help your eyes from moving right from his to his fly, and sure enough, Mr. Psycho's Mr. Happy seems to be momentarily tamed.

Just when you are thinking you might be safe, he shifts himself over on the mattress where the mannequin was.

Just the act of laying down looks like it hurts him. His moist looking eyes open and shut like he can hardly hold them open as he lets out a very pained moan that makes him sound like a child that needs his mommy very badly.

You can see his hand is freshly bleeding but not bad. He doesn't even seem to notice.

“I am going to let you go. I just need to clear my head for a few minutes, and I am cutting you loose and leaving. This will all be over soon,” he hushes when the bed moves from you trying to wriggle away from him.

As he settles into the blankets and his eyes droop closed, his black vest pulls up as he stretches out and you immediately notice that he has some kind of knife tucked under his waistband. 

After a minute or two of laying like that, eyes closed still, he rolls over and his arm flops down over your chest, his hand landing way to close to your neck again. You try to shake him off, but you have nowhere to go, and he remains as is. 

This guy can say what he wants about letting you go, but him lying next to you, hand on your throat, with this fuck mannequin watching him resting up enough so that he can brutally rape you doesn’t have you feeling any less terrified. 

The only reason you are not screaming anymore is because you don’t want to set him off now that he is this close.

Less than a minute later of you laying there thinking this is it, his chin slides down the arm he has folded under his head, and as it happens, the choppy looking fringe of his hair falls over his face.

Holy shit… You cannot believe it, but he just passed out. 

His heavy breathing immediately starts to relax.

Whether he was lying or not when he said he wasn’t going to hurt you and that he was also going to let you go, you have no idea, but it doesn’t matter. Seeing your chance, your arms begin pulling again. You twist and torque your wrists, working the ropes.

The sound of loud vibration startles you and you go stark still, your eyes darting to the kitchen table as your heartrate flies through the roof. 

You can’t be sure, because it’s so dark, but you think there is a cell phone lying there next to the gun. Just as you start to wriggle your wrists again, the phone vibrates again and at the same time, he lets out an annoyed sounding grumble. “Leave me alone, Klaus.”

Klaus?

The third time the phone buzzes, his upper leg moves over, locking down over one of yours.

You close your eyes, willing your mind to take you anywhere but here.

Stupid phone and fuck you Klaus person whoever you are.

“Don’t wake up the psycho, I am about to shiv his ass! ” your mind yells at the offending electronic device.

Not long later, the hand at your throat begins to move away, but as it retreats, your crazy cuddle buddy snuggles his body even closer to yours. This new intrusion on your personal space seems to make him happy enough at first, but then all of a sudden, he must decide that he is not warm enough. He reaches back and flips the bed spread over you both and in doing so, the cuff on his right arm pulls up and something catches your eye.

He has a tattoo on the underside of his wrist. It’s the silhouette of a black umbrella with a circle around it.

What the hell?

You’ve seen that symbol before. You were a little too young when the superhero kids that belonged to the infamous money mogul Sir Reginal Hargreeves were all the rage, but you have heard of them. They all supposedly disbanded when they came of age, and from what you remember hearing, one or two may have even died before that.

They all were born with different unimaginable powers and were often seen in public as children stepping in here or there during major emergencies to show off their extraordinary skills. 

You’ve seen old posters with them, but none of their faces are coming back to you except the girl named Allison, and that is because she has been in the news over the years for different movies that she has been in. 

They were all exactly the same age, and this guy looks like he could be ten years younger than her.

He can’t be one of them…

Can he?

Whether he’s one of them or not, just like with your date tonight, as soon as you get free, you are going to show this sorry sack that he may think he knows you and you are just going to lay here and let him treat you like his little play thing, but he got it all wrong. 

He picked the wrong girl to fuck with.

If this loser was one of the Umbrella Academy kids, you haven’t seen any signs of his powers, which might be because you recall hearing that they all lost them at some point. If he is one of them, it appears he lost even more than that, and he is in luck because you are about to help him lose even more.

The rope painfully digs into your skin. You are so close. A few more twists and the ligaments holding your thumb together will slide, letting your bones pop out of place. Then you can grab his knife and it’s go time fucker.

Someone is getting a knife through the dick and it’s one hundred percent Mr. Umbrella Academy Tattoo!

The phone lets out another long buzzing sound then stops. He doesn’t say anything this time, but the disturbance must have disturbed him again because you feel his hand slowly start surveying your upper leg, his fingers gently tracing a line northward.

You begin to struggle. Your nasally whines of protest have him swiftly changing course, instead clamping that same hand at your waist. He pulls you closer as he presses his face against your neck.

“I am sorry, Dolores…” he whispers.

He is so close. Everything suddenly feels very hot.

His lips part then they start feather lightly, sweep along the coating of moisture he’s creating on your skin. When the heat of his pelvis moves tight against your hip, you are shocked that he isn’t hard again over violating you. 

This guy doesn’t make any sense. You thought that was part of the whole thing he was into, but when he popped a woody from touching your face and neck, as soon as he noticed it was happening, he took off like he was scared shitless.

Maybe right now he is just not recovered enough from his last weirdo whack session or...

Is it possible that he really doesn't want to hurt you. Maybe he wasn’t planning on it when he reached out like he did in the parking lot? 

Maybe you had it all wrong in thinking that he was enjoying watching you nearly getting raped. He had clearly been doing something by way of enjoying himself prior to sprinting out into the parking lot, but…

All of a sudden, it dawns on you that he actually looked very upset by what he saw happen. He sounded very upset by it. It was like he was so distressed by it that he ran down there planning to do something about it. 

He looked like he wasn’t expecting you to be there. He actually seemed very confused by it.

Was he coming after your date?

At the moment, you didn’t see all that, but now…

Well…

What the fuck?

He is obviously very messed up, but maybe not in messed-up in the ‘I’m going to violently rape you and murder you’ kind of way.

He did abduct you, but he just said he was going to let you go. He said that he was going to leave.

For some bizarre reason, he seems to be very in love with his mannequin and you are almost certain that right now he thinks you are her. He is so delusional; he probably can’t even tell the difference.

Again, your feet dig down into his mattress as he nuzzles your neck and makes one of those super soft whimpering noises.

This does not feel like he’s trying to hurt you. It feels like he is trying to do something else entirely.

Something is not adding up other than he is most certainly off his rocker.

He said that he has done the worst things a human can do, and you have no idea what he meant by that, but when he could have raped you while you were out or even now, he didn’t. Besides tying you up, the things he was doing before taking off to take care of his boner problem were all in an effort to help you. 

Add all this up and what he said about letting the devil own him, may not have been implying what you originally thought. The more you think about it, it seems like he could have been talking about killing himself, not giving in to raping and killing you.

You can’t see his entire face, but you can tell that his eyes are still pinched shut and it’s in such a way that looks so miserable.

You have no idea what is going on with the guy but it’s clear that something is very wrong with him, and it’s not just that he is mega wasted.

As your mind is putting all this together, he lets out a throaty sound that almost sounds like a sob before he begins placing soft kisses along your bruised neck while vibrating his next words across your skin. “Please don’t leave me.”  

His hand at the narrowest part of your waist slips under you, tenderly massaging circles against your lower back. His warm fingers very subtly dig in as if he’s trying to comfort you.

You can’t help it when a similar sounding whine comes out of you as your heels dig in across the bedding again. 

He is all over you and not in the hurtful kind of way. 

This is not what you’d expect from a sexual sadist who gets their jollies off torturing people.

As he kisses just below your ear in that very sensitive space that makes your toes curl, he does so like he has done this maneuver about a million times, and he lets out the most contented sounding sigh when your body involuntarily shudders from it. This has got you starting to think that you may have read this crazy perv all wrong.

He’s a perv but maybe not the type you thought.

What he’s doing is so unbelievably tender and loving that it has you trembling from head to toe and incidentally not just from fear.

“Dolores, please forgive me.”

Again, he’s not talking to you, that much is very clear.

After saying that, he stops with the kisses, his body motionless as he clings to you like his life depends on it.

After a few minutes of nothing but the sound of his steady breathing, you know that he is fully out again. 

To the feel of his chest rising and falling against your side, you start to work your wrists free again.

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

Thanks for reading.

(Chapter four, coming soon...)

If you are hungry for more, faster than I post it here, find this and my other Five stories at the first link below or visit my Blog to see all my Tumblr posts:

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KayBreezy | Archive of Our Own

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Na’vi!Quaritch SFW Alphabet

Requested by @adharadotcom

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?):

Miles is very affectionate. He always has his arms wrapped around your tiny figure. He nuzzles his face into the side of your head and lays kisses against your temple. It is so adorable that you can’t help but blush anytime he does it.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?):

You first met Miles when you started working as a secretary for a member of the RDA. Whenever he would stop by, he would chat with you about various things. Over time, his visits became more frequent and a beautiful friendship started to form.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?):

He loves cuddling. He prefers to be the big spoon whenever you both lay down for bed. His warm, even breaths on the back of your neck are always very comforting; that’s how you always know he’ll protect you.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?):

He has had many thoughts about settling down. When it comes to cooking and cleaning, he is not always great it. But with a little help from you, he soon becomes a natural at it.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?):

If he had to break up with you, he would do so far away from anyone. He would reassure you that he would always love you, but he wants to keep you safe. If he must break your heart in order to keep you protected, he will do whatever it takes.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?):

When he first had Spider, he wasn’t too big on committing to a relationship due to his line of work. When he met you, that completely changed. Within a year, he is already ready to put a ring on your finger.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?):

He is incredibly gentle with you. Since you are smaller than he is, he takes into account how careful he must be when hugging or cuddling you. Emotionally, he is an absolute angel. You sometimes find tears rolling down your face due to his devotion and passion for you.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?):

He loves your hugs. Even though he has to crouch down to reach your height, he wouldn’t have it any other way. He hugs you quite often, sometimes when you least expect it. His hugs are gentle, warm, and full of his unending love for you.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?):

Around 3-4 months into your dating, he dropped the l-bomb. It took you completely off guard, but it didn’t deter you from him at all. The love you both shared only grew stronger from there.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?):

He doesn’t get jealous unless someone is obviously flirting with you. When he sees someone trying to flirt, he will show up right behind you. He’ll kneel, wrap his arms around your body, kiss the side of your head, and ask you if you are being bothered. The person will back off immediately afterwards.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?):

His kisses are very sweet and passionate. His lips tend to engulf yours because of your size, but that has never stopped you. He likes to kiss your neck and your hands more than anything. He likes to be kissed on his forehead and cheek whenever he isn’t feeling particularly happy.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?):

Around children, he is such a sweetheart. He’ll play games with them and pull all sorts of silly little faces in order to make them laugh. You begin to fantasize what your children would look like someday; a little mini you or Miles running around.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?):

The mornings are tender. He’ll wake up by either stroking your hair or placing kisses all round your face. When you wake up, he’ll place a kiss in your lips. Even though you complain you have morning breath, he doesn’t care.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?):

Nights spent with him are incredibly intimate. You’ll both cuddle facing each other, legs intertwined. He’ll rub your hips and thighs in a soothing manner while you both talk about your day. It’s these moments that keep you grounded.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?):

He would start revealing things to you around half a year into the relationship. He starts off slow as not to startle you with new information. This helped build your trust as your relationship grew.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?):

Miles is only easily angered if you are at risk of getting hurt or somebody is trying to put the moves on you. His protective side shows up and will stay the way until the person gets the message.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?):

He remembers a lot about things you have told him. Your favorite color, your favorite food or your favorite movie. He remembers the details of things like how you mentioned a promise ring. He would get you one, a temporary solution for a permanent ring later.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?):

His favorite moment in the relationship was when he go sick. He seemed so vulnerable and small that you found adorable. Feeding him soup, running your fingers along his queue, you did whatever you could to make him feel better. He has cherished that memory ever since.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?):

He is very protective. He will hiss, bare his fangs, and whip his tail back and forth at anyone who tries to harm you. To protect him, you cover up what you can of his body with yours.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?):

He puts a lot of effort into the dates, gifts, etc. He always takes you flying on the back of his Ikran, enjoying the breeze brushing along your skin. Whenever you need help reaching something, he is always there to get it for you. The little things mean more to you than anything else.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?):

A bad habit of his would be the constant coffee drinking. You’ll taste it on his mouth sometimes and it is rather strong. It’s rather jarring and you have been showing him alternatives such as sweet tea.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?):

He always makes sure he looks as good as he can be for you. In the end, he knows you love him for him.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?):

He would definitely feel incomplete without you. You are his better half and he would be lost if you weren’t by his side.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them):

He loves when you lay your head on his stomach or his on yours. The slow breathing will often lull the both of you to sleep.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?):

In a partner, he would not like if they had an ugly personality. If they were rude or mean in any way, that would be it.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habit of theirs?):

When he sleeps spooning you, you’ll feel a purring sensation against your back. Those purrs are nothing short of cute. He softly snores, warm puffs of air hitting your ear and neck, a soothing sensation which sends you immediately to sleep.

[buffinbonkers]

I’m so sick of veil guard defenders main rebuke to any critique being “tHeY dIdn’T eVeN pLaY tHe gAmE”.

Let’s say that’s true, and???? Let’s say they quit 8 hours in, 10 hours, 15, like how long do you require someone to not have a good time before they can say “yeah it was bad imo”. Like your main defense is honestly that they didn’t play long enough? As if it’s their fault? As if it’s the gamers responsibility to force themselves to play a game they’re not liking and not the producers to make an enjoyable game? Idk maybe apply that thinking to any other game and maybe you’ll realize the crazy and break free?

I wrote my review of not recommended at 8 hours in, and most of the reasons why I still agree at 60 hours.

Some of my reasons:

1. I played as a mage and I can only have three attacks, three spells at any given time. And the list of spells i can select from is pathetic it’s like 9 maybe? CONSOLE exclusive games give you more options with R2 and L2. It’s just bewilders me that this is the level of decision making I get.

2. You don’t really make decisions, not like in the past three games. I’m 60 hours in and I recall making two decisions, killing some guy - who to my knowledge doesn’t pop back up, and saving 1 of two cities. Which again to my knowledge hasn’t TRULEY affected anything really besides a grumpy companion and a missing faction. (I know the city was destroyed what I mean is either way - a city was destroyed)

3. Speaking of factions (which I hate but I’ll concede that’s maybe a more me thing) you have to run around to every shop to upgrade specific gear, like found gear, gear, which you can’t craft or dye, you just level it up, hope you find the obscure shop that sells the upgrade (there’s so many fucking shops) or google it I guess.

4. Companions (which you only have two of at a time now - again a personal thing prob) don’t have health, so every fight could hypothetically be cheesed by just running around (which is actually more effective then the terrible dodging system) while they kill the enemy.

THESE THINGS ARE BIZARRE? I think that’s what irks me the most, is that the things that are bad are unique, like they took a perfectly good way of doing things, and just threw it out the window for some reason. I’ve played so many games and I’ve just never seen a degradation from a prior game to a new one like this. And y’all can dislike inquisition all you want, but it won game of the year, and it won it for a reason, even if you personally didn’t like it.

The one thing that I was like okay it’s improved, is the dialogue, but even then there’s some problems:

1. Someone else pointed out that while there may be multiple options there’s too many instances where they all are nice placating. Not ACTUAL options in difference responses.

2. Personal but I hate that they went away with the like pick and choose what you talk about with this person. Like I’ve mentioned OPTIONS?

Another point someone made was that some backgrounds should be limited to race, no historical instance of quanari warden/non-mage dwarf in all mage mourn watch which I think is valid af.

Misc REALLY PERSONAL complaint that isn’t that important:

Most of the adamant defenders I see mention the improved like life like quality of the companions, but I would like to point out that, you can romance them right up to “do you commit” and then when you don’t it’s never mentioned again, they move on to whoever is matched with them. If you’re in the middle of romancing one and then commit to another it also just completely disappears. Doesn’t seem very life like to me - they had dialogue about it since origins. Even in inquisition at least if you decided last minute not to go with Dorian at least he wouldn’t ask you for gift advice for bull??? Again I know this is petty, but like I don’t want to help Lucanis woo neve just cus Emmerich wooed me. WHICH I COULD AVOID IF I COULD CHOOSE. IN A DRAGON AGE GAME?

Ofc I still will be finishing the game and reading the fanfics but that because I’m obsessed with the series it self. But I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s not a diehard fan, I’d just steer them toward inq, and then just watch the what happened after on YouTube.

[givemethesleep]

and 3, 4, 12, and 23 for Daz 💚

DARANAAAAAA my like. Sequel Earth Wizard. My DARLING. Lets GO.

3 - What is your OC's fatal flaw? Are they aware of this flaw?

I dunno if it's fatal, but Darana is so, so ridiculously obnoxious. They have friends, sure, but they take every joke too far. Which can, and sometimes does, wind up being hurtful to the people around them. They're vaguely aware of it, of why people find them mildly off putting if around them for long, but its easier to make jokes and dick around, playing up their personality, than playing it down and trying to be palatable.

4 - When scared, does your OC fight, flee, freeze or fawn?

Generally speaking, Darana is a flee type of guy. They know when to protect themselves, and even in non threatening situations, they're super jumpy and easy to catch off guard. The only exception to this is when Darana and their friend Brecken are attacked by Schismists. Rather than running away, Darana goes absolutely apeshit in an effort to save Brecken. They wind up killing one Schismist and severely injuring another. They're more concerned with this than the damage they sustained, and is WILDLY out of it for weeks after, mad with guilt. Needless to say, they stay the fleeing sort.

12 - Is your OC self-destructive? In what ways?

Kinda!! Nothing horrible, but again - refusal to take literally anything seriously. Maybe there's reason (they're good at conjuration, but don't care about grades because they are HORRIFICALLY dyslexic and don't want to suffer through it, they don't think too hard about their life on earth because anything heavier than a joke scares them, ect) But their lack of care for themself does make everything so much harder for them, and the people around them. Because committing to the bit is more important than like basic self care.

23 - What emotion is the hardest for your OC to process? How about express?

Can you see the running theme here? Grief is the biggest one here. This kid has not had it easy. Dead dad, MIA mother. Taken to a strange new world by a woman he met three months after coming home to find their grandfather dead. On top of being attacked on school grounds, nearly losing their best friend, trying to find a way to exist in the Spiral! And rather than like. Actually face and process loss after loss after loss, they just.... laugh it off. Go back to pestering their professors. Don't think about it too hard and either commit too hard to a shitty joke or start snapping when someone brings it up. There's a couple of instances where it all drops, but it not frequent. darana my unserious little bastard. get therapy.

[intuitively-her]

How do people view you in the bedroom? 18+

Pile 1-(Knight of swords, 9 of pentacles, 4 of pentacles, The High Priestess, The Devil, The Hanged Man rx, 2 of cups, 7 of cups, The Hierophant)

You like to get straight to the point. A lot of people feel like you're detached in the bedroom. You may be into random hookups or you like quickies with your sexual partner. You could like to dress up in lingerie or sexy outfits for roleplay. You could like to be spanked or you love pain in general. Some of you might like to dance for your partner as well. You could like to tease. People love the way you ride! Your ass is amazing. Sex with you feels so freeing. I heard "sweet release". You might like to try new things in the bedroom often. You could be into threesomes/group sex as well. People become obsessed with your sex! Your 🐱/🍆 makes people become possessive over you. You always know exactly what people want and where to touch. Your hands feel amazing. Many people consider a deeper commitment with you. Many wish that they could keep you. You awaken people's darkest fantasies.

*channeled song: sex with me by rihanna

Pile 2-(4 of swords, 9 of swords rx, 8 of wands rx, 5 of swords rx, 4 of cups, 6 of cups, Queen of swords rx, The Empress)

You like to let your partners take the lead. I heard "pillow princess". Sex with you feels so healing. You may be really into oral with your partners. You could like to seduce your partner before the act. You like to have slow sex or more meaningful sex. However, you also know how to let your hair down and have fun. You let your fantasies run wild! You really let your guard down in the bedroom, so this allows your partners to feel more comfortable with you. Overall, your partners view you as divine in the bedroom.

Pile 3-(Justice, 5 of pentacles rx, Knight of swords rx, Queen of swords rx, The Moon, 10 of swords rx)

Sex with you feels so liberating! People feel like they've accomplished something by having sex with you. Your sexual energy is very abundant. You could like to manifest through sex or masturbation. You attract a lot of stalkers. A lot of people feel like you're too good to be true. They feel like they're being led into a trap with you. I heard "siren". You're very visually appealing. People feel lucky to be able to get with you. You're unpredictable in bed! People wouldn't expect you to be such a freak, because your outward appearance looks so innocent. Your partners love watching you in the act. People love when you wrap your legs around them. You could like for people to watch you have sex or you like to do it in risky places. Overall, your sexual energy is very powerful and beneficial to others. So be mindful of who you give it to.

Pile 4-(The Devil, 8 of swords, Strength, Knight of cups rx, Queen of cups, 8 of cups rx, 8 of pentacles, King of swords rx)

You're very confident with your body and moves. You're dominating in the bedroom. You could either be a dominatrix or you're into heavy bdsm. You awaken kinks in people that they didn't know they had. You're very attentive in the bedroom. You hit all the right spots. You could like to play with your partners' balls. I heard "worship that dick" lol. You could like to do the 69 position. You could also like do do reverse cowgirl. People love your ass! You're very skilled at anything you do. People can't handle how detached you are after sex. You could ghost people after sex. Many people cling onto you and your energy, even if it was just a one night stand.

[dresden-syndrome]

@the-agency-archives

Hey! Always glad to see someone asking! I apologize, I couldn't manage to explain every question. Hope this will help!

First, i'm pissed at tumblr for disabling editing for asks. I've wrote it in draft a couple times just until I couldn't write in it anymore.

How offender class promotion and demotion works? First, it happens to class 1-3 only. Once class 4, forever class 4. Sometimes it does hide an inability to investigate a crime properly enough to rule out class 4 offences and grant an appropriate sentence but the main reason is keeping image for the public.

In the official guidance, the penalty for class 4 offenders is "maximum measure of social security"; translated to the general population of EESU as "death penalty. Aside from State Security personnel with needed clearance level to work with "class 4 biological material", everyone believes class 4 is death penalty. When a person gets arrested as class 4, it's annouced to the community they've either gone missing or been sentenced to death. When low-ranking newbie State Security workers see class 4 offenders in a black uniform dragged outside into a van or a train, they think the poor offenders are going deep into the forest to be executed by firing squad. By mid-1960s, even the democratic West has been talking of "thousands and thousands of people executed" there.

EESU might be the only country of that time who says it has death penalty when it actually doesn't. No unqualified person should get to know what "maximum measure of social security" actually means; therefore no class 4 subject should be brought into daylight to tell that.

The second reason is usefulness - there will always be a region with not enough lab rats for ASR, not enough punching bags for training or a massive top secret tech project with a big need for test dummies, waiting for new class 4 subjects to be designated to. There have been a few cases when people with a class 1-2 crime have been sorted as class 3 or 4 due to a rare health condition ASR was desperate to research on. Obviously, they were told they're political extremists, capitalist agitators or Western spies - it's not like they have a proof of the opposite anyway.

On the promotions and demotions of class 1-3:

Promotions at detention: when a more thorough investigation concludes the person didn't commit all the crimes they've been convicted of. Mostly happen to class 1 (with good odds of freeing from any charges) and class 2 with initially milder sentences. Very rarely used for class 3 due to offender's potential of more efficient use in a labor camp.

Promotions after sentencing: used as a reward for a convict's hard work combined with political loyalty, a way to sort a convict to an easier job/place they'll be more efficient on, or both. Mostly used for class 3 convicts near or after their release from a labor camp into a class 3 labor commune. Being locked in a tiny labor village for life is scary but rarely happening; most of the class 3 convicts get promoted to class 2 communes and then going free as class 2 (or even class 1 if worked really hard to turn into a good communist) ex-offenders.

Demotions in detention: happen from time to time if more crimes or aggravating circumstances found during investigation; despite it not being common, they're one of the most feared threats an officer can pull on an interrogated convict. Some people don't even need torture to confess - a couple of "we could move you to class 2/3/4 if you keep hiding it so much" and they're already asking for a pen and a confession form.

Demotions after sentencing: two ways to get demoted after - committing another political crime while sentenced or attempting escape. The second option is mainly for labor commune or camp escapes; class 1 community service or class 2 relocation evasions usually result in a bit higher sentence of the same class. For the eurogulag EESU labor camp guards the first rule is to maim a running prisoner but leave them alive and well - they may even treat them a bit before shipping off to a local detention prison, now as class 4. Labor communes aren't physically guarded much - most runaways are caught via bureaucracy: either by random ID checks, registration checks or government database searches.

Class 1 sentences:

Many class 1 detainees don't get a sentence at all - more like a stern warning about leaning away from ideologically approved behavior. In more serious cases, however, they get sentenced to a few months of community services - a boring low-pay job forced on them near the place they live in. If a convict is a Communist Party member, they may get a disciplinary note to the Party - or even get demoted from member to candidate. If they're in the military or government service - a bit of rank demotion guaranteed. Every class 1 convict must complete political literacy courses (basically an evening school when you listen to lectures about why EESU regime is good) after detention; after that, a person is labeled a law-abiding communist again.

Class 2 sentences:

In general, class 2 means moving time - to a boring remote town in milder cases or to a labor commune in more severe ones. Relocation includes some community services time within a new living place; both of them include political literacy courses at the end. Any class 2 conviction is a restriction to move: they're not allowed to register (read as "live somewhere for more than few days", since finding a place to live without permission from the gov is also punishable) in republic capital cities, important towns for government projects and most places near the border. In some cases they're forbidden from leaving their republic (region) as well. Ah, also they're very likely to be thrown away from the Communist Party. Class 2-3 also come with a lot of life restrictions but this post is already of unreadable length so I could talk on them later.

I really hope I provided enough answer without boring you to sleep - after all, you've been asking for lore dump more than once! I'm so happy to see you interested!!! 🥰

[roses-adventures]

Okay two things one In that first photo immediately I went to posture and facial expression etc. He's sitting rigid which implies he's got a vest, his feet are in a position to be able to move at any second, his cup wasn't held comfortably and even the way he's holding his phone shows he's recording. His face also says fuck I'm caught.

Now I actually am really good at reading people so is My boyfriend, as a kid/young adult I wanted to be an fbi profiler (until I realized thats a joke) or international spy (I'm disabled) or a lawyer (i have 4 years of political science and Hispanic studies degrees focused on law, prisons, Healthcare and immigration so thats still an option when i have money) and I find human psychology fascinating that was my first choice major but my disability prevented a psych degree, and my boyfriend worked military and then in the police department in the csi lab (both non US). It's also worth mentioning that certain times we have zero filter, so we just say things sometimes 🤣. we run a kik group together and this guy comes in the group, I own it so I verify the guy, get his age and location all that. Then he starts talking and something just seems ....off. now I also lived in the hood on and off for 12 years and I recognized the way he spoke. Literally the tone he texted in and the words he used, even his pfp just the photo of him screamed cop. finally after a couple hrs of him being there I was like, "are you a cop?" And he was like......radio silence.... my boyfriend whos on a call with me is dying laughing saying "babes you can't just ask people if they're cops 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣" I'm like "well I just did, if he's from the US directly asked they're legally required to tell us especially if he's trying to collect info" so we wait finally dude goes, "yeah..I am" I was like "I knew it" my boyfriend smokes weed legally and dude would manage to come on during the times he was, we messed with him for a bit too, nothing mean just talked as we normally do about me being a prison abolitionist and some of the other members would joke about committing low level crime or them being angels, our trauma, smexual experiences etc, all of which im sure was way more than this guy signed up for, a couple of the members like me and my boyfriend have bad experiences with cops (I was never arrested and never committed a crime i am very often, harrassed, stalked, made fun of and lied to by police that it makes it difficult to be comfortable with them) (my partner just has problems with authority), so we were more on guard. He left a few days later, either because we bore him or he found out we're all clean there legally speaking, and he couldn't buy drugs (though he did ask at one point whether joking or not thats sus).

Anyway, pigs love sheep clothing. Make sure you know how to spot them, your rights, local laws, basic federal laws and by all means DO NOT EXPECT THEY KNOW THE LAW, THEY DON'T. I've had more than 3 lie or blatantly not know the law and its always put me in a bad position. Remind them of the law, correct them, they hate it but it's entirely necessary.

I tend to also get harassed because I'm not light enough for them (I'm mixed race) so another tip a very very strange one at that. If you go out and are asking question or directions some place but you don't look like your only ancestors stepped off the mayflower but your friend does, have them ask the question or directions. I've tested it, they got rude with me acted like I was gonna steal cars and condescendingly said "maybe next time remember where you parked it" (it was 10pm in Seattle everything's dark we got there at 5pm when it was sunny of course we lost the car) anyway they turned to My friend who looks like a lighter version of the lucky charms mascot Character and kindly told him exactly how to get there.

Losing my mind remembering that pic chelsea manning posted of the extremely undercover and not at all obvious fbi agent who was tailing her after her release

[daveout]

Butterflyz- Alicia Keys

3:31 pm

4/14/24

Prison reform/being grateful.

In the last few weeks i've been listening to  Ian Bick at work (prison podcast) and listening to the prison stories of the people that have done 5-10 years has just reinstilled in me to stay out of trouble which I do anyway. I’ll be avoiding conflict as much as possible because besides a few, people don't go to prison on purpose, its always described as the lifestyle being lived leading to a pivotal moment, of split second actions causing them to go to prison and especially when not only your blood is pumping but a group or someone else's. The stories of how when someone has a life sentence, they're regard for committing more acts of harm is way less because they're already home, they have nowhere else to be, and the mentality that is needed to survive in a system that's run by the guards on paper and the inmates in reality. I'd rather not have to shower with dudes and learn prison politics such as on the west coast, they’re self segregated by race. You must bunk with your race, eat with them, and the system is enforced by people who have no other reasoning besides thats just how it is. The concept of respect is law and as someone just trying to do your time you can end up in situations where it's not just “let it go” its fight or have the rest of your time go slow because you've been socially emasculated and now you have people stealing your commissary or potentially looking to court you. 

I think it takes hearing a shitty story like someone whos become accustomed to that life because it really makes you, or in this case me, appreciate the little things like being able to go outside when i feel like it, or not have to work on a schedule dictated by either guards or other inmates with more social power than me. But it also is eye opening to hear the stories of stabbings, sexual malpractice (for lack of any other  appropriate word), and overall how the behavior of people sentenced to do the time for their crime are pretty much thrown into ironically the worst place possible for good habits to manifest besides working out and reading books. Daveout

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“PENITENTIARY MATTERS,” Kingston Whig-Standard. November 21, 1932. Page 4. ---- To the Editor of The Whig-Standard 

Sir— I am sure lt Is disgusting to the officers and guards of our penItentlary to read recommendations and suggestions of the Social Reform League and other old maid organisations regarding the handling and reforming of convicts. Do you think that old experienced guards and officers are much longer going to risk their health and lives because people who have never seen a penitentiary or came In contact with a real convict are suggesting such reform and conditions that are making the convicts the bosses of the Institution? That it exactly what is happening today. How long from now will it be before every convict in the pen will know exactly what the Social Reform League is advocating and when they do the guards will feel their power of control slipping. 

Let some of our dear reformers husbands be shot down as happened in Toronto not long ago or some of their daughters or sisters have their lives ruined by contact with these men, or have their husbands placed in the positions of many of the guards during the riots and I am very sure that they will ask that these ruffians be punished instead of being granted more privileges.

The convicts are simply being upheld when these reforms are suggested immediately after the riots. If the officials at Ottawa do not soon give the officers and guards at the Institution full power and authority, they will find discipline gradually slipping sway. A penitentiary is surely not a place of confinement for convicts, where pleasure and amusement abound, and where the convicts demand certain privileges that outsiders suggest. It is a means to keep bad men and women out of societym and if they cannot obey the rules they must be made to. The food and living conditions are fine— better than thousands of people on the outside are enjoying, who never committed a crime in their lives. 

I would say that the ringleaders of these riots should be punished and until they are, discipline and order cannot be maintained by the guards. It may not be long until some one suggests radios, football, dances, etc. and in due course, another riot If they are not forthcoming. 

One bad feature on the administration of the penitentiaries is the appointing of the warden. Can any man successfully manage an Institution like our penitentiary, who has never had the slightest bit of experience? I have not any fault to find with the new warden but I believe we have guards right here in the institution who have twenty or thirty years’ experience, who could handle the convicts far better than one who knows nothing about them. 

Thanking you for this valuable space, I am 

AN OUTSIDER.

[AL: Bog standard reactionary response to penal reform or suggestions that prisons are not run properly and are too ‘harsh’ on criminals - you’d probably find a similar letter in spirit in a newspaper today. Ironically, the experienced guards this ‘outsider’ claims could run the prison HAD been running the penitentiary up until the October 1932 riots, and had failed to either predict or contain the rioting. Almost all the reforms, even sports and radio, this letter writer worries about would be introduced in the next decade.]

[wacknroll]

Ya like glitter glue?! PT 3

(Yandere Sun/Moon x reader)

Hello, here is the third chapter to this fanfic!

PT 1, PT 2, PT 4

AO3 link

Word count: 2554

Driving back to your workplace, you think to yourself that maybe going back to potentially confront the same robot that just manhandled you earlier today might not be the smartest of ideas. Especially since they’re malfunction. Hell, he might not even be responsible for the loss of your keys. For all you know, your dumbass dropped them in either the ball pit or even in the staff break room. But your gut told you that it was him, the only thing backing up that belief being that you swore your pant’s side pocket was buttoned up, meaning someone at some point had to have been close enough to unbutton and take them without your notice.

Before you knew it, you were already in front of the Pizzaplex, taking no real time to get there. The only benefit of living so close to a local attraction. You would have just paid for a night in a motel, but the prices were way too ridiculous, and your stubborn ass would prefer to be in the comfort of your own home if you had to choose. You sigh, deciding to commit to this half-baked plan. You exit the car and look at your phone. 11:15, it says, hopefully enough time to search before the place is properly locked up for the night.

Quickly entering the building, you make your way to the staff room first. Better check just in case, you thought to yourself.

---

Looking under the couch while on your hands and knees, you groan in frustration. The keys were nowhere in sight in the break room, meaning you had to look in the play area in the day-care now. You pick yourself up from the floor and head towards the door, only for it to be slammed opened and to have a light temporarily blind you.

“Y/n? What are you doing here?” The voice asks, the light now moved away from your face.

You shake your head and rub at your eyes, the white dots finally leaving your face just to be met with the gaze of the security guard, Vanessa.

“I, uh, forgot my keys somewhere,” you explain.

She cocks an eyebrow at that.

“And you didn’t bother to ring in and report your missing keys?” She questions.

“Yeah, I didn’t really give it much thought. I figured I could just try and find myself, seeing as I know what they look like,” you say sheepish.

“There’s another 30 minutes ‘til midnight. If you don’t find them in time, you’ll have to look tomorrow. Unless you want to spend the next 6 hours in here.”

“Uh, no.”

“Good. If I don’t hear from you after midnight, I’m going to just assume you left. If you’re still here after everything is locked up, just head to one of the security offices and radio me. I’m going to leave you to it now, I have other duties to attend to now.” With that, she walks out of the room and continues her patrol.

“Uh, thanks?” You say to her retreating form, leaning out of the room. Vanessa doesn’t give you a reply, as she either didn’t hear you or doesn’t care enough to say anything else.

One of those types of employees, you think. Walking out of the area, you make your way back to the main hall where the entrance to the day-care is. You would eat closer to the day-care, but you went to the other break room simply because it was your usual spot and where the employees you were more familiar with hanged out in. Besides, James would probably kick your ass if he had to walk all the way from the Arcade to the day-care just to talk to you. It was way easier when you were working in Monty Golf.

“I kind of miss that goofy alligator,” you say to yourself.

The day-care centre was still lit up, which you were grateful for as you’d rather your chances of running into Sun than with Moon. In fact, you actually haven’t seen Moon since your first day. Opening the door to the play area, you see that everything is there except for the animatronic himself. You reason that he’s probably in the basement for maintenance tomorrow.

Your keys appear to be no where on the surface of the front desk, so you decide to start looking through the cabinet drawers in search of the keys in hope that Tim might have found them and put them away. The drawer that usually contains small items found in the day-care don’t have any keys in them, meaning you’d have to check the ball pit next. You look over to the other side of the play area and then up at the entrance of Sun’s room, practically willing the animatronic to stay away. Walking at a fast pace, you make your way to the ball pit try to figure out where exactly you might’ve landed.

“Please be in here,” you say, begging whatever entity to make your keys magically appear. After looking for a moment, you decide that it’s best to give up looking in here for now and probably coming in tomorrow during the day to check. You check your phone to see that it’s now 11:50. Sighing, you decide to just give up for now and exit the ball pit, walking towards the large wooden doors of the play area. As you reach the doors, you notice a small box on the middle of the floor.

“What the...?” You look around you in hope of catching whatever might have left the box. Seeing that you were still alone, you slowly walk up to the box and gently open the top of the lid. The content within the box consists of a few pieces of paper and your keys, Freddy Fazbear keychain and all. This development both surprises and fills you with a sort of dread. Double checking your surrounds, you decide to just pick up the box and take it back with you to the car. Making your way out of the day-care, you quicken your pace towards the front entrance of the building, happy that your time spend here was basically boring.

Once you were in your car, you decided to drive straight home before looking through the box. As you turned the car around and away from the Pizzaplex, you swore you saw a tall lanky figure at the entrance doors.

---

Using your rediscovered keys to open the door to your flat, you enter, holding the box under one arm as you lock the door and sit at the kitchen table. Opening the box, you pick up one of the three pieces of paper within.

The first one you pick up is the finger painting that Sun shoved in your face on your first day in the day-care. The painting was different though, as it was obviously ripped apart and then sticky taped back together, as if someone tore it in anger and then quickly regretted their actions. Definitely not creepy in anyway that so ever, you think to yourself. You put the drawing to the side and proceed to pick up another one. This one was a letter, written in red crayon and having a smiling face at the top right corner.

“Sorry for taking your keys,” you read out loud. “I put some sunnydrops in the box just for you. Please don’t be mad, I just wanted to see you again but realised you might be angry with me about taking the keys. Yours truly, your super best friend, Sun.”

You give a small frown at this, unsure about if you’re still angry with the animatronic now. You look in the box and see that there is in fact a large hand full of sunnydrops at the bottom of it. There isn’t any point in eating them now though, seeing as you won’t be able to sleep tonight if you do. With this, you place Dun’s apology letter on top of his painting and reach for the last one left.

This one was in black crayon and written in all capital letters, only contain the word ‘LIAR’ over and over again. Flipping the page over, you see that it was written on both sides of the piece of paper. The letters were written so hard on the paper, that there was scratches and dents from the pressure of the crayon.

“What the fuck?” You say to yourself. This was definitely creeper than the torn-up painting. Was this about earlier when Sun asked you what Tim and you were talking about? Did he realise afterwards that you were lying or knew straight away? These questions kept running through your head until you realised something. How did Sun place that box in the day-care if he was supposed to be in maintenance?

These questions were left unanswered as you packed it all away back in the box and went to bed.

---

You slept in that night, seeing as you weren’t going to be working today anyways. When you finally got up, you decided that you should ring up Brenton about that maintenance report on Sun. Getting your phone and ringing up, the phone is quickly answered.

“This is the working manager at Freddy Fazbear’s Mega Pizzaplex. How may I help you?”

“Hi, Brenton. It’s Y/n, I was wondering if Sun’s maintenance report has come in yet?”

“No one filed a report to have him checked.”

This response wasn’t what you expected.

“What do you mean by that? Didn’t Tim hand one in yesterday?”

“Tim didn’t send in a maintenance request yesterday. What he did hand in was his resignation letter.”

“What do you mean he quit?” You ask, completely baffled from the news.

“He sent me an email with his reason last night,” Brenton replied.

“Just an email? Didn’t you see him at all?”

“Look, Y/n, I’m very busy. I don’t watch every employee that comes in and out of the premises. I’m actually still dealing with all the paperwork from when the day-care attendant snapped a child’s arm like a twig.”

“Well, didn’t you take him to maintenance for that at least?”

“Look, it’s just easier having naptimes taken off of the daily rooster than it is to fix the damn robot. Do you know how expensive it is to repair or replace an animatronic that can switch between two personas? Hell, he’s probably the most expensive robot we have, right behind Monty and that giant list of damage control that follows him!” Brenton’s voice becomes more heated as he speaks, making you wince a little at the growing volume.

You hear a long sigh on the other end of the phone.

“Sorry about that,” he finally says, calmer than before. “I just have a never-ending stack of Monty related incidents that gets bigger each time I look at it. But look, there isn’t much I can do, as I have bigger priorities at the moment.”

“Okay, but what about my shift for the rest of the week? Did you tell me that Tim was the only other qualified worker to take on afternoon shifts at the day-care? Who is going to work with me tomorrow?”

Another sigh comes from Brenton.

“I’ll have it sorted. I might even have to hire someone a step down from what we usually have working in there. It’ll be sorted beforehand, I assure you. I’ll be going now; I have a mandatory meeting to get to.”

Before you even have the chance to say goodbye, he hangs up.

“Goodbye to you too, then.” With that, you drop onto your couch and scroll through your phone. You decide that you should try to text Tim, seeing as he gave you his number in case you had any questions related to working in the day-care.

‘Hi, it’s Y/n. I just heard that you quit yesterday, what’s that all about?’ You type. Placing the screen onto your chest, you wait for a response text.

After a few minutes, your phone vibrates. You quickly lift the screen up and see that Tim replied.

‘Yeah, family related. Sorry.’

That’s a good enough as to why he quit, you reason. You then text back.

‘Sorry to hear, dude! Hopefully it’ll go well!” You then add a little smile emoji to the end of the text.

The second reply he sends is nearly instant this time.

‘Thanks. I got to go now. Busy. Bye!’

You send a bye back in response. Now a bit more at ease than before, you decide to get some stuff done in the house while you can. Cleaning your many work shirts, tidying the place, and then watching some movies. By the end of the day, you are exhausted and decide to go to bed a little earlier than normal.

---

Sun stares down at the phone in his hand, reading your messages over and over again. He was excited to finally have a way to talk to you outside of your working hours but was a little annoyed that he had to pretend to be someone else. Even though you and Tim were on the other end of the play area, his hearing could pick up everything the both of you heard as if he was right next to you. Maintenance? Why would he need maintenance? He didn’t even do anything wrong! You were perfectly fine when you landed in the ball pit, though a bit shaken up. The screen of the phone he holds cracks a bit, snapping him out of his thoughts. Sun quickly turns the phone back on to see if it is still functioning and is happy when it is.

When you left work, not even saying goodbye to Sun, Tim went back to dealing with the angry parents who calmed down once one of the managers showed up. By the time basically everyone but Tim was gone, Sun was practically livid. The fact that you went to Tim to get him to take Sun away made him furious by the second. The animatronic had never felt this way before and felt confused as to how to react. So, he did the only thing he could think to do in that moment. When Tim had his back to Sun, he turned off the lights.

Once the lights were back on, Sun was sitting in his room, no evidence of Tim anywhere to be found. All but the phone he now held. Not wanting to think about what he had done, you decided to put something together for you. Grabbing a box, he put in some sunnydrops and wrote an apology letter along with placing his finger painting of the both of you. Then he placed your keys on the top. He felt bad about taking your keys, even though he thought you would realise they were gone and come back straight away.

At some point, the lights go off again and Moon decides to also write his own letter to you, expressing his anger about what you did earlier in the only none physically violent way he could. Moon contemplates crushing your keys just to be petty but reframes from the action.

“No, no, no. We can punish Y/n for being a naughty little liar another day.”

[sunflowerhotline]

ASTRO OBSERVATIONS PT. 4

🪁gemini venus gets a lot of flack for having non-commital tendencies when really, they avoid committing to the wrong person. i’ve noticed that when they get into relationships they’re quite steady and remain with their partner for a long while, especially if their venus is aspected by saturn or pluto.

- i’ve also never met a non-committal aquarius venus. idk maybe y’all are just coming across the wrong people

🪁people with taurus moon, cancer moon and cancer/taurus/libra on 5th house cusp are very natural with children. children usually like these people

🪁composite saturn in 4th and 7th indicates a couple that stays together forever

🪁fire moons have a habit of falling in love with air venuses.

🪁scorpio and taurus moons tend to be very loyal and possessive in love, regardless of their venus sign/placement. they usually are committed to their partners and have a laser-focus on them and only them.

🪁leo and libra rising guys are the guys that everyone kinda just falls in love with because of their charm. they are usually so charming, clever and attractive that it’s hard for those around these guys not to be drawn in. leo rising men are usually just really handsome so they especially can just attract lots of female attention.

🪁depending on the signs, people with moon opposite venus can be either very clingy or very detached. i’ve never seen a middle ground with these people. their affection nature is so polarised.

🪁virgo venuses are soooo hard on themselves and usually look for (and find) a million reasons why they’re undeserving of love. they can really project their own low feelings about themselves onto others to almost try to convince themselves that others see them through the lens of meanness and criticism that they see themselves through.

🪁moon-uranus (hard aspect) people usually had a childhood/adolescent conflict involving their mother. they either had a problem with their mother or endured circumstantial hardships with their mother which challenged (uranus) their emotional security (moon). the house uranus is in will show the type of conflict.

EX: if you had your uranus in an earth house (2H, 6H, 10H), you could have endured financial hardship with your mom during your childhood/upbringing. she may not have been able to keep a stable job which was why you may have faced financial instability. in your childhood, you may have moved a lot for financial reasons or may have had to go without certain material comforts for the same reason.

🪁taurus moons usually wanna become parents and libra moons usually wanna get married at some point

🪁libra women and sagittarius men are so similar it’s actually crazy. they both also kinda...dislike each other usually??? yet they’re so ??? similar??? it’s pure comedy honestly

🪁people with cancer venus and cancer in 7th are usually attracted to people after they see them interact (lovingly or gently) with kids.

🪁 4th house ruler in 10th and 10th house ruler in 4th can indicate fame - the native can be a household (4th house) name.

EG: Billie Eilish - 4th house ruler (mercury) in her 10th house. she is known for (10th house) her songs (mercury).

🪁people with mars conjunct mercury have a tendency to talk over people

🪁people with venus-saturn aspects, capricorn venus and venus in 10th tend to fall in love with people who make them laugh. they love people who can make them feel young and free. in their relationships, they like to feel like they have a place or a person with whom they don’t have to be so heavy and responsible - someone they can just let their guard down with and just enjoy themselves.

🪁 “high cheekbones...defined bone structure....thin” etc are generally used to describe capricorn risings. HOWEVER lots of cap risings don’t fit that description because lots of (younger) cap risings have neptune and/or uranus in the 1st house. these planets change, distort and soften whatever they touch. if it comes into the 1st house of self, cap risings are likely to look different than their traditional interpretations. especially in the case of neptune being in the 1st, the natives may look younger and have rounder, softer features.

🪁no matter the venus sign, jupiter in 7th and uranus in 7th natives NEEEEEEEEDDD freedom in their relationships. these people are the types to not get [legally] married and might opt for other options like domestic partnerships or civil unions because they are the kinds of people who think “if you leave the door open, i’ll never walk out of it”. they want to feel like they have other options...this IS NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING!! don’t feel like these people can’t commit - they commit when they want, to who they want, when they want to...it has to be on their own terms though!

🪁cancer moons give the warmest, most tender hugs i’ve ever received.

🪁i’ve never met an aries mars who wasn’t competitive as fuck and hated losing. these people always wanna be the best at whatever they are doing and can take it to heart when they come in 2nd but they’re the types to dust themselves off and try again instead of stewing in the pain of their own failure forever

🪁people with moon-uranus hard aspects may like dating air venus people because air venus people could keep them entertained and give them the space they need. bonus points if the native has sag, aqua, cap or gemini placements.

🪁pisces venus people love love but tend to run away from it when it comes close

🪁mercury retrograde people are always so fucking late all the damn time

🪁for scorpio moon, scorpio venus, moon-pluto and venus-pluto people, heartbreak is literally the end of the world. we are not joking when we say it feels like death.

🪁sun opposite pluto people often try to fight their plutonic tendencies and have a particularly gnarly disdain for their father while other sun-pluto placements tend to accept their plutonic nature and allow themselves to overcome their father-related trauma.

🪁sun-pluto people (especially conjunction, opposition, square) tend to go through phases in life where they stop talking to their fathers.

🪁aquarius and pisces risings have an affinity for changing up their hair. they love wigs and dying their hair a different colour is like one of their favourite past times. they always make the different colours and styles look good though - they’re just blessed that way.

🪁saturn in 9th people don’t like going to church lol.

🪁saturn in 9th people may want to move to a different country but may have responsibilities in their hometown/home country that prevents them from doing so. they may also have a hard time trying to figure out what they want to study in college

🪁 2H uranus and 2H saturn people are very smart with money but the 2h uranus person is quicker to spend it than the 2h saturn person.

🪁 sagittarius moons 🤝 aquarius moons

being literal fucking soulmates

🪁ALL fixed venuses (taurus, leo, scorpio, aquarius) display the same level of devotion, commitment, loyalty and fixation on a chosen partner. it is literally in their venusian nature ... hence it being FIXED!! once they have their heart set on someone, it’s a done deal. they want that person forever which is why it takes them forever to move on from a former partner

🪁4th house synastry is so cute. my venus and mars falls into one of my closest friends 4th house and we always hang out at her house like literally every time we hang out, it’s at her house. we wear pajamas and eat a whole lotta food while watching animé in bed lol

🪁 cap venus 🤝 aqua venus

“i’m so in love with you, please go away though”

[drabbles-of-writing]

A Little Kindness: Chapter Eight

AO3 Explanation of AU

Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11

Summary:  In which Raine meets Hunter years before canon, and decides that a kid like him could use all the help he could get with an uncle like Belos. Even if they couldn't go much, they could try something, couldn't they? Years down the line, Raine is exposed as a traitor to the Emperor's Coven, and they are bound by the brand on their own wrist. Hunter notices. And as to be expected, he has more than a few complaints. It's not a big surprise on who he goes to for help.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Hunter woke up with his face smooshed against the floor and a dozen or so puddles across his room, soaking into his bones. He swore sometimes the world got a kick out of inconveniencing him.

Were it not for that, or glyphs he still had, or the lingering ache in his back, he almost would’ve thought the whole thing had been a crazy dream. How he wished.

He sat up, ignored the flare of pain, grabbed his uniform, and was promptly put out with the guards without any fanfare. Like clockwork, he got to ordering them to search the streets, to send calls to stations outside of Bonesborough, in search of Lilith and the missing Head Bard. It was an overall rather typical day.

His body was sore, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week. This was fairly normal, but considering how much work he’d gone through in the last few days, the lack of sleep he’d been getting was not helping his current state.

As much as he wanted to drop everything and run back to that shack in the woods, he knew he was on thin ice. Normally, Belos would leave him alone for a few days after he messed up as bad as this, to make him think about his actions, he supposed. But he was no fool, and he knew that Belos would be checking in with scouts and their captains if he was doing his work. He couldn’t leave. He had work to do.

It was easy, really, to throw himself into work and forget about everything else. He could almost pretend that he wasn’t committing multiple acts of treason for someone he’d barely had a conversation with. He’d gone this long without questioning himself on why he was so quick to risk everything for someone who'd only shown him kindness through notes and gifts, and he wasn’t about to now.

If he’s lucky, when all of this is over, he’d never have to think about any of it ever again. 

 ,

 So he didn’t visit for that first day, or the second, or the third. He waited, and worked.

They found one other hideout of the BATs, but all that was left in it were layouts of plans that had long since gone through and old, broken supplies. They had yet to find where Lilith had gone off to. Either she was better at hiding than they thought, or she’d found someone who knew what they were doing. Course, she could’ve left the cities altogether, but Hunter knew from personal experience that Lilith would rather keel over than rough it outside the main cities.

On the fourth day, patrols ended just an hour before dusk. Other preparations were being made for the Day of Unity, and the Golden Guard was dismissed from conversation. He would not be needed till morning. On any other day, this might have insulted him.

That night, he loosely wore his under armor, his back still somewhat stinging from the burns, and one of his dirtier cloaks without any shoulder armor. He kept his mask tucked tightly away, and debated on if he should bring his staff at all.

He settled on yes, just in case. He used that staff to fly out of his window in the dimming sky, keeping as low as he dared. The route to the Owl House could be entirely through the woods if you wanted, so that's what he decided on. It was good practice anyway, weaving between the trees and dodging stray branches. Relying on his teleportation was a bad habit to make.

When he did break free from the tree line, eyes immediately landing on the Owl House and forcing him to screech to a halt, he got the feeling it was all too late and much too soon.

He really didn’t want to deal with the door demon, but he figured they probably wouldn’t take too kindly to him breaking in through a window. So instead he squared his shoulders, shared a glance with his palisman atop his shoulder, and hopped off his staff and onto the ground at the edge of the clearing.

His and Belos’s staffs both had a mechanism that retrated the rod, making transport of them much easier, though he rarely used his. He tucked it away now, into the pocket lining of his cloak as he approached the house, ears pressed back.

“Alright, this won’t be that hard.” He reasoned, more to himself than anything. His palisman chirped from his shoulder all the same. “Just pop in, check on Raine, give them all some warnings, and leave. Simple four-step stuff. And if they want to make it more complicated, then--”

Something suddenly shot towards him out of the corner of his eye, and he whirled around with a growl and raised hands for barely half a second before he had something wrapped around his body, limbs pinned to his sides and constricting air out of him. It pressed against the burns across his back, causing him to hiss and try to wriggle away, but it only clung tighter.

“Oh. there you are!” A shrieky voice said.

Hunter glared towards the voice, already having figured it out pretty quickly from that alone. Hooty smiled down at him, cheery as ever, despite a fair portion of his weird worm body being wrapped around Hunter.

“Put me down.” He growled, baring fangs.

“Mmm, see that kind of depends,” Hooty said, turning his head this way and that, and in turn also shaking Hunter around like a bad rattle. “I know Eda let you in last time, but she also said not to let anyone from the Emperor’s Coven in, so!” Hooty then brought his face uncomfortably close to Hunter’s, and he jerked his head back with a low, warning growl. “Why are you here, then?”

“I’m here,” Hunter gritted out, aware of his palisman chittering madly somewhere, likely wrapped up elsewhere in the tangle. “To see Raine. Now put me down or I’ll bite that beak off!”

“Oooh, you’re mean.” Hooty said, almost sounding a little delighted, and definitely contemplative. “I think you’d get along with Amity. She’s mean, too. But Luz likes her and made her promise not to beat me up anymore. Oh, oh! I should introduce you!” Hooty perked up, and Hunter nearly went upside down. “Good friends do that, right? They introduce people they think would get along? I should ask Lilith about that.” He hummed thoughtfully.

“Did you say Lilith?” Hunter tilted his head, right before he heard the sound of the door opening.

“Hooty,” A tired voice said. “What did I say about yammering on to trespassers? You do it away from the house.”

Hunter tried to crane his head back towards the front door, only resulting in further scratching his back along Hooty’s long body and flinching with a drawn-out hiss.

“Oh, Eda, Eda!” Hooty said, turning his head around and, in turn, Hunter. “I found the sad, angsty kid!”

Hunter felt like his brain was rattled around for a moment from the sudden shift, shaking his head to clear it as the front door came into focus. Sure enough, the Owl Lady stood in the doorway, looking either like she had just woken up, or was about to go to sleep, either was entirely possible for this woman.

She blinked in surprise, one ear flicked up when she realized who Hooty had wrapped up.

“So, you did decide to turn up again.” Eda said, leaning on the doorway. “We were starting to think you ditched us halfway through.”

“I just might.” Hunter huffed, sending a glare towards Hooty. “Tell him to put me down or I’m putting a dent in him.”

“Good luck,” Eda raised a brow. “Hooty, put the kid down. Just let me know whenever he shows up before you let him in next time.”

Hooty promptly dropped Hunter, who landed face-first on the ground.

“I never should have come back.” He groaned into the dirt, feeling a familiar bird land by his arm and press at it.

“Well, we’re happy to hear you did, anyway.” Eda shrugged, waving off Hooty trying to add more to the conversation. “Hey, kids! Blondie made it back alive.” She called somewhere behind her, and Hunter looked up in time to see a familiar fluffy black tail disappear behind the doorway to the kitchen, and an offered hand in his face.

“Back burns wouldn’t have killed me.” Hunter said, eyeing the hand and then looking up to Eda’s face, who looked...well, very worn, but still smiling.

“No, but it sure looked like you were about to burst all your blood vessels.” Eda shrugged. “You gonna get up or what?”

Hunter looked over her hand for another moment, twitching his hand, then hesitantly reaching out to take it. Eda only smiled, pulling him to his feet as he brushed himself off before the dirt and grass could stain his attire.

“I think that’s just an occupational hazard of being around you people for too long.” He muttered, his cardinal fluttering up onto his uninjured shoulder, where the scabbing from Belos’s punishment was still fresh. He tugged his cloak closer around himself, tightly wound around him like a shield.

“You’ve got a terrible tolerance for people, you know that?” Eda hummed, stepping aside as Hunter pushed his way in.

And almost immediately, his eyes snapped to the couch. Sure enough, Raine was still there.

They were laid on their back, arms folded across their abdomen in a way that gave him a disturbing feeling of looking at a corpse.

He got the impression they’d ransacked another old BATs base, because what Raine was dressed in looked mildly similar to what they’d previously been wearing, but significantly cleaner, less torn.

Amber and Derwin were there, he realized only moments later. Amber was sitting on her knees by the arm of the couch where Raine’s head was, with Derwin stood by Raine’s side. Both looked a little startled, staring right at him with wildly contradicting expressions of distrust and curiosity, respectfully.

“Did you find anything?” Hunter asked, immediately gravitating towards them.

“Nothing of much use,” Derwin shrugged, taking a small step aside as Hunter approached. “Raine hasn’t responded to anything. We had some ideas but...we didn’t want to accidentally make anything worse if you knew something.” He admitted.

“If he knows anything.” Amber grumbled.

Hunter’s ears flicked down, and his palisman side eyed him. Alright, so maybe he should’ve waited an extra day to gather more intel. Should’ve asked more questions about Raine when his uncle wasn’t in such a sour mood. For once, his dedication to work and only work came back to bite him in the ass.

“Where’s Luz?” He asked instead, because he could at least rely on using her to change the conversation, should things start going south.

“Off at the library with her friends and Katya.” Eda said, leaning against the wall. “They were hoping to find anything on Raine there. For a second time.”

“Well, that was pointless,” Hunter snorted, eyes darting to the windows. Alright, no Luz, but he’d worked in trickier spots. “Belos has purged hundreds of books from those libraries he didn’t want the public knowing about.”

Eda gave him a bit of an odd look, a frown crossing her face before she pushed herself off the wall, expression turning to one of simply anxious concern, like nobody had seen what it’d previously been. He noted that down for later.

“Did you find anything, then?” Eda asked.

“I, well,” Hunter fumbled slightly, ears pressed down and sharing a glance with his palisman.

“I knew it, I told you he wouldn’t have anything.” Amber muttered, her ears falling back as Derwin gave her a glare.

“Hey, he had his back flayed off!” Derwin defended. “Give him a break.”

“And he couldn’t find anything in three days? But still find the time to come back here?” Amber gestured to a bristling Hunter. “He’s the Coven Head!”

“Alright, cool your jets, kid.” Eda said, stopping at the other end of the couch and giving her a slightly scolding look. “I’m worried, too. But him not having anything now doesn’t mean he won’t ever have anything.”

He chose not to focus on the way her hand was gripping the arm of the couch, nails near puncturing holes in it. Or Derwin’s worried hold on Raine’s arm. This is fine, he still had some useful information, they wouldn’t kick him out just yet.

“Well, are,” He started instead, because Titan-forbid an awkward silence. “Is Raine stabilized?”

“For now,” Derwin nodded, looking down at them. “They...I don’t know if Raine was fed at all, to be honest.”

Flashes of rib cages jutting through skin went through Hunter’s mind, and he was grateful then that it’d only been a week. Raine was always thin, but now he wondered if the bony knobs on their wrists and fingers were always there or not.

“Can’t get them to chew anything, either.” Eda added, gazing down worriedly at them. “So we’ve had to get by with soup. King ate your candy bar when we realized they couldn’t eat it.” She said, fixating a glare somewhere behind Hunter.

“Well, he wasn’t going to eat it!” 

Hunter looked back over his shoulder, spotting King in the doorway to the kitchen, currently cramming a cookie in his mouth, glaring right back at Eda.

“Whatever, I don’t care,” Hunter waved a hand. “The important part is that Raine is alive, and we can keep them that way.”

He felt a little bad when he saw Eda and the others tense at bit at his words, mood visibly souring. Right, tact, he had to work on his tact.

“And anyway,” He said, gazing down at Raine before deciding better of it. The sight of them was unnerving enough, and he already almost felt like he was at some shabby funeral. “I may not know much right now, but I know someone who might.”

That caught their attention fast, a sort of cautious hopefulness. It was an odd feeling, being looked at like that, and he raised a hand to draw it through his cardinal's feathers, aware of King hurrying in somewhere behind him.

“And, let me just preface this by saying,” He started slowly, giving Eda a wary look. “That I’m not happy about this option, either.”

“Is it Warden Wrath?” Amber grimaced, face scrunching up.

“Worse,” Hunter grumbled, beginning to hunch his shoulders before a dull pain spiked through it and he aborted the movement halfway through. He sighed then, turning fully to face Eda with a tired, resigned expression. “Do you, by chance, happen to know where Lilith is?”

Eda blinked at him for a moment. Then she raised a brow, glancing around like she thought this was some poor joke.

“Yeah? Why? How could Lily know any of this, if you don’t? She had the same job as you.”

“For far longer than me,” Hunter reminded. “While discussing Raine’s escape, Belos told me to send out guards to search for Lilith, or at the very least, dissuade her from showing her face or going anywhere near here. Which probably means she knows something.”

“The Covens hunting down Lily?” Eda exclaimed, suddenly standing bolt upright and startling the other.

“I wouldn’t say hunting down,” Hunter tried slowly, confusedly eyeing the witch. “More of…keeping an eye out. Honestly, considering how long it's taking to find her, I doubt we ever will.”

“And you think she can help?” Derwin reiterated as Eda hurriedly strode to the other side of the room, pulling out her scroll from her pocket.

“Not to ruin this, but,” King raised a paw, pulling himself onto the coffee table. “How do we know you're not just telling us this so we’ll find Lilith for you?” 

Eda paused then, not turning around, but one ear pricked up, listening. Hunter didn’t look at her out of politeness more than anything. These people had to work on their subtlety. 

“For one thing, if it weren’t for the attempted murder, I’d hate Lilith more than Kiki.” Hunter said calmly. “I’d happily sabotage search missions for her if it meant I never had to see her again, but I’m already on thin ice. For another, I’m not stupid enough to trick you all in this maner and expect to come out unscathed.”

“That implies you’re tricking us in other ways.” 

“Well aren’t you paranoid?” Hunter gave Amber a mildly annoyed glance. “Are we getting Lilith or not? I’m willing to make the sacrifice to interact with her again if it means she can help Raine.” He gestured with a hand towards the witch on the couch, who he still couldn’t really look in the face.

“We’ve got defense measures, anyway.” Eda said, still not turning around as she dialed a number on her scroll. “Kid can just sit tight till Lilith arrives.”

“You have her phone number?” Hunter raised a brow.

“Don’t tell Hooty, otherwise he’ll steal it.” Eda warned, waving a hand behind her as she brought the scroll to her ear. “And, again, why wouldn’t I?”

Hunter raised a brow, looking to King, who still seemed a little suspicious, but mostly unconcerned as he sat down on the coffee table, legs dangling off. He didn’t get why they just allowed demons on the table, but he figured this was the least of his problems.

“Don’t you hate her?” He squinted over at Eda.

“...is this about the curse thing?” Eda narrowed her eyes back at him.

“Yes?” Hunter glanced around, meeting Derwin’s eyes for a moment before he shrugged and turned away. “Practically the whole Emperor’s Coven saw your fight on the bridge, it was all the scouts talked about for weeks.”

Eda cringed a bit at that, turning her head slightly towards him as her scroll continued to ring.

“Yeah that was...a thing. We’re alright now, though.” Eda said, shrugging like it was the most normal thing in the word to still be in contact with your sister who cursed you.

Hunter gave the others incredulous looks, of which Amber and Derwin were no help and King just stared blankly back.

“How the hell are you--”

“Lily!” Eda suddenly said, far too cheerful to be normal, the call finally connecting through. “Hey, so, sorry to cut the bonding time with Mom short, but we need you to visit. No, it doesn’t involve Hooty.”

“Should I ask?” Hunter pointed with a thumb over to Eda as she spoke, keeping his voice quiet so as not to interrupt. 

“It’s a whole thing.” King said simply. “Which, actually, I’ve been meaning to ask,” King began swinging his legs over the edge of the table. “How come you and Lilith hate each other so much? She mentioned you once and got really mad that you were promoted.”

“I’m only sad that I missed it.” Hunter said, a small grin forming on his face, picturing the sight of Lilith seeing him on the posters, knowing that he’d taken her prized spot. “But, to answer your question, it’s more of a rivalry type thing. Lilith couldn’t stand someone threatening her rank, and she knew how close I was to Belos. Though, to be honest, I much rather preferred her passive-aggressive attempts to get under my skin than Kikimora’s murder attempts.” He shrugged.

“She’s tried to murder you before?” Derwin paled.

“What, are you like, Emperor Belos’ pet?” Amber said at the same time.

“Throughout basically my entire life, and no.” Hunter answered, sending a glare Amber’s way. “I was the prodigy of the Coven, and he greatly appreciated my work.” He said. Belos kept the fact he had a nephew well within the confines of the few in the Coven for a reason, thank you very much.

“Your parents gotta be rich off your Golden Guard job, huh?” Amber scoffed, raising a brow.

“No to the parents, and to the payment.” Hunter brushed off, leaning against the arm of the couch and ignoring the very surprised looks he received. “Anyway, on Lilith, it was mostly a rivalry on her part. She felt threatened by my general existence and would try to prove herself doubly hard if I was ever around. It was pathetic, really, but I got into the rivalry anyway. It was one of my biggest sources of entertainment.” He chuckled, only now looking over at them.

Derwin and Amber shared a look, and Derwin absently brushed Raine’s messy hair to the side. He noticed they were still wearing their earring, and was a little miffed they hadn’t taken that off. What if it got caught on something?

“Do you...live in the Coven?” Derwin asked slowly, giving him an odd look.

“Why are we circling back to this?” Hunter sighed, rolling his eyes. “Yes, I live in the Coven. It’s not a new concept, some witches live in the Coven as well. Easy commutes to work and less tax pay will do that to you.”

“You still have to pay taxes in the Coven?”

“I don’t,” Hunter corrected King. “The others do. Again, I’m not paid.”

“That...is that technically child labor if he’s not paid?” Amber asked Derwin, squinting.

“It’s not child labor--”

“Yeah, and hurry it up, will you?” Eda’s scroll conversation drifted back in as she wandered back towards the kids. “Heard that the Emperor’s Coven is looking for you. Don’t want you getting captured on your way over.”

There was a sudden spike in worry shouting through the scroll, but Eda only calmly moved it away from her ear and hung up, shoving it back into her pocket.

“Alright, she’ll show up sometime tonight. Think you’ll survive the wait?” Eda asked, one hand on her hip as she looked down.

“Unless Lilith lives five cities over, I think I will.” Hunter drawled. “I just need to be back before dawn.”

“Fantastic. Have you eaten?” Eda asked, clapping her hands together as she turned on her heel, off towards the kitchen.

“Why is that what we’re changing the topic to?” Hunter raised a brow.

“Because you’ve refused food before, and I plan to rectify that.” Eda said over her shoulder, already turning the corner into the kitchen. “It’s a yes or no question, blondie.”

“Don’t call me that,” He muttered, one ear flicking. “I don’t need your charity food.”

“I’m giving you chips.”

“I do not want your chips, they’re probably moldy.” Hunter scrunched up his face.

“You’ll live.”

“All the moldy ones are at the back, anyway.” Amber said breezily, and Hunter whirled his head to her.

“I–she actually has moldy–?”

Something soft hit him in the head, and Hunter jolted, his palisman squawking and fluttering down onto the coffee table as he fumbled for whatever hit him. He paused, lifting it up and realizing it was a small bag of chips.

“Feast,” Eda snarked from the doorway to the kitchen, a lazy smile on her face.

Hunter glared at her for a moment, then sighed, slowly sitting down on crossed legs and leaning against the couch. He figured that if they were moldy, he’d feed them to King. Or throw them back at Eda.

“We’ve tried a couple ideas while you were gone,” Derwin filled the silence as Hunter tore open the bag, pleased to see the chips were not, in fact, moldy. “We tried poking at the vines with some sharp objects to see if we could cut at them.”

“Are they impenetrable?” Hunter asked, not looking up as he hesitantly took a nibble of the chip, ignoring the judging look King was giving him.

“No, but they are pretty tough.” Derwin said. “And they bled when pierced.”

Hunter paused at that, halfway through shoving the chip in his mouth. He turned to Derwin, and his concern must’ve been evident, because Derwin only thinned his mouth.

“Yeah, we’re pretty sure they’re intertwined with Raine’s veins.” He said. “So we decided not to cut them out.”

“...good call,” Hunter said cautiously, deciding it was safe to eat the chip.

“They’re completely unresponsive,” Eda added, and Hunter looked up as she leaned on the wall beside the couch, just behind Amber, face pinched. “No matter what we try, not a twitch. Even the whole hitting the knee trick doesn’t cause them to react.”

“Definitely connected to the nervous system, then.” Hunter hummed thoughtfully. “Likely affecting the brain, too. Have we tried giving them any commands like Kikimora?” He asked, looking up.

“Haven’t done a thing,” Amber shook her head. 

“In that case,” Hunter said, popping another chip in his mouth. “I’m willing to bet that Kikimora is the only one who can give commands that Raine would obey. I’m not even sure if Emperor Belos would be able to, she’s not stupid enough to give up the one thing that makes her irreplaceable to the Coven.”

Eda visibly paled at that, ears pressed tightly against her head. Amber and Derwin didn’t look much too pleased either, Amber slowly settling a hand on Raine’s shoulder, leaning her head against the arm of the couch. He didn’t check to see what King’s reaction was.

He wondered if it was a good thing or not that his appetite didn’t falter, when he realized what this could imply for the future.

“So, basically,” Hunter said, glancing away. “Kikimora’s going to be pretty pissed off if she finds any of you guys. Regardless of the situation, she has the most power over Raine, and Raine was kidnapped under her watch. The Emperor was already displeased at the escape, I can only imagine what he’s done to her for her failure.”

“I should call Luz,” Eda said abruptly, pushing herself off the wall. 

“I’m sure they’re alright,” Derwin soothed, though his shoulders seemed a little tense. “She took on the Emperor and won, didn’t she?”

“You mean when Belos was trying to petrify Eda?” Hunter asked, one ear pricked. “She didn’t win against him, in fact, didn’t she lose? Isn’t that the entire reason she destroyed the portal?”

“What, were you there?” Amber huffed.

“Were you?” Hunter shot back.

“Luz says she kicked his ass,” King volunteered.

“Luz thinks she kicked my ass.” Hunter deadpanned, rolling his head to the side to give the demon a blank look. “She’s an unreliable narrator.”

“Mmm, no, I think she kicked your ass.” Amber said, flashing a sharp-toothed grin.

“Oh, now who wasn’t there?” Hunter hissed, giving her a seething glare. “When did she even tell you about that?”

“While you were off brooding at the castle.”

“I was not brooding–”

The front door opened.

Hunter jumped to his feet in barely a second, hand reaching inside his cloak for his staff. The others, meanwhile, simply turned their heads to the doorway.

“Thank you for helping, guys!” A familiar voice called, and Hunter saw Katya walk in a second later, though she wasn’t the one talking. “I’ll tell you if there’s an update.”

Hunter only noticed then he hadn’t paid attention to where Eda had moved off to. He saw her now, at the corner of his eye, scroll in hand, ready to dial. He saw her hastily put it away.

Luz walked in through the door a moment later, looking rather worn, kicking the door shut with her foot as Hooty started talking. The demon still kept talking, even with the door shut, though it was muffled, now.

“No luck,” Luz sighed as she walked in, stretching her back. “Please tell me you guys have good–Hunter!” She exclaimed, straightening with wide eyes the movement she spotted him.

“Took you long enough,” Hunter huffed, slowly letting himself untense, doing his best to not show his dismay when he realized he’d dropped his chips on the floor, half the contents spilling onto the most likely very filthy carpet.

“When did he get here?” Katya asked, brow raised as Luz hurried over, grinning.

“Just a bit ago, told us some things he knew.” Eda said, placing a hand on Katya’s shoulder, giving her a once-over before guiding her to where everyone was gathered at the couch. “Didn’t want to interrupt you guys in case you found anything important.”

“How's your back feeling?” Luz asked, plopping herself on the other side of the coffee table, arms resting on it.

“Oh, uh, fine,” Hunter said, glancing away as he sat down again, a bit less cautious. Good, now he had a middle-man to mediate things better. He was starting to grow anxious with all the eyes on him. “It’ll scar, but I’ve had worse.”

“That is…hm,” Luz frowned, eyeing him. “You know that's not a good thing, right?”

“Would you rather I say this is the worst injury I’ve had in my life?” Hunter raised a brow.

“Well, it’d be marginally less concerning than the other option.”

“Goldie says that Lily might know something about Raine’s condition.” Eda said, one hand resting on Luz’s head as she came up behind her, and Hunter twitched at the sight of crooked, sharp-nailed fingers on her scalp. “I invited her over while you were away. Kid also says that unless Kikimora issues a command, Raine might not…move at all.” She said, voice slowly becoming duller as she spoke.

“Oh,” Luz said, deflating a bit. “Do you know what kind of spell this is?” Luz asked him, turning her head back to him, and Eda removed her hand to lean against the other end of the couch, by Raine’s feet, seeing as Katya took residence by Raine’s head alongside Amber.

“I’m looking into it,” Hunter promised, thumb brushing over the back of his gloved hand under the table.

“But not in the last three days,” Amber said, before Derwin sharply elbowed her in the sides

“I kind of had appearances to keep up, you know.” Hunter grumbled. “I didn’t get this job by doing whatever I wanted.” He muttered, reaching for a chip on the floor to pick up, before King suddenly leaned off the coffee table and snatched it up, shoving it in his mouth. Hunter stared at him in open disgust for a moment before shaking his head and leaning back, letting King hop onto the floor and eat all that remained.

“Did you get good grades in school, then?” Katya teased, though more light-hearted.

“I was home-schooled.” Hunter said curtly, and it was technically the truth. 

“‘Was?’” Luz repeated, though she became momentarily distracted when his cardinal hopped onto the coffee table, cheeping up at her until she started scratching its head. 

“Why are we interrogating me again?” Hunter demanded, harshly turning his head to look over Raine, avoiding looking at all of them. The sight still made him uneasy. “If we’re going to just keep interrogating me, then we could just communicate through letters, it’d still be effective. Actually, you know what,” Hunter sat up, beginning to push himself to his feet. “Why didn’t I think of that? I should’ve just done that, I should go do that–”

“Sit down, you drama queen.” Amber puffed.

“Hunter, come on,” Luz sighed, though a tiny smile was on her face that Hunter could only muster a halfhearted glare at. He found he didn’t mean it as much as he thought he would.

“Hey, if we’re all going to be asking me questions, I ought to be doing the same.” He said, turning on his heel in the middle of the room, palms raised. “The list just keeps growing on you people. Especially you.” He added, side-ways glancing at Eda, who’s mouth thinned. “Which, now that we’re here, how exactly–”

“Lulu!”

Hunter paused, one ear pricked as he slowly looked towards the door, and heads turned that way, as well. Hooty’s shrieking voice was easily heard through the wood, plus a much quieter one. Hunter narrowed his eyes at the door for a moment, jumping when Eda breezed right by him, arm almost ghosting his side.

Eda opened the front door, just in time for Hunter, and everyone else inside, to see Hooty wrap his long tube body around a…weirdly cheerful Lilith Clawthorne.

“Hello, Hooty.” Lilith smiled, though her voice sounded a bit strained, patting the demon on his head as he chatted her ear off.

“Oh, I have so much to tell you!” Hooty was saying, probably constricting tighter if Lilith’s slightly pained expression was anything to go off of. “Did you get my last letter? The one about–”

“About the beetle in the puddle? Yes, I did.” Lilith said,. “I was just about to send you a reply until Eda called me.”

“Eda called you?” Hooty exclaimed, whirling his head towards the door, a bright smile on his face. “Aw, Eda, you shouldn’t have!”

“It’s for business, Hooty.” Eda said, and though her back was to him, Hunter could hear the smile in her voice. “Lily can talk to you after we’re done, alright?”

“Aww, but Eda!” Hooty whined, drawing out her name.

“No buts, Hooty.” Eda said, stepping aside. “Let Lily go, we’ve got some things to talk about.”

“I guess,” Hooty huffed, abruptly dropping Lilith, almost causing her to fall over as she took in a deep breath. “But I wanna hear, too.”

“You can stay by the window,” Eda relented, offering a hand as Lilith stumbled over, helping her inside, and Lilith flashed her a quick smile. Despite Eda insisting they were alright, Hunter still found the interaction familiar, a bit too much so, compared to what he’d seen on the bridge. “Thanks for coming.” Eda said as Lilith stepped in.

“Of course, I was already considering visiting from what you told me about Raine.” Lilith said, and her weary smile dropped as she said so. “I can’t imagine what–” She paused, gaze landing on Hunter, standing in the center of the room. Almost instantly, he glared right back at her.

She looked…different. Her attire had lost the formality it once had, instead taking on a homemade, lazy-day wear. She’d acquired a gray streak through her hair, and her right eye was an odd gray. It matched almost perfectly with Eda’s, he realized. The roots of her hair were turning a dark ginger, and he vaguely remembered once hearing guards placing bets on if she dyed her hair or not.

“I’m not gonna ask,” Lilith said, shaking her head with a sigh.

“Hi, Lilith!” Luz waved, and Lilith looked over then, a slight fondness to the smile she gave, also thoroughly confusing Hunter. Partially because he’d witnessed Lilith try to murder Luz not all that long ago, partially because the last thing he’d ever expect to see on the ex-Coven Leader’s face was fondness.

“Hello, Luz–is that Raine?” Lilith startled, eyes widening as they shifted to just behind Luz, to the couch.

“Ah,” Eda deflated a bit, ears flicking back as the three remaining BATs all gave tense smiles or waves, and Hunter felt a little better for not being the only one clearly out of depth. “Yeah, told you they were…in a bit of a rough shape.”

“This is more than rough shape, Eda!” Lilith exclaimed, hurrying to the couch, Derwin shuffling a bit as King climbed back up onto the coffee table. “Oh, Raine,” Lilith murmured, reaching out and brushing the tendrils curled around Raine’s forearm.

Hunter narrowed his eyes, taking a couple steps forward. Eda giving two shits about Raine’s wellbeing was one thing. Lilith apparently caring was a whole different matter. Since when, in all the time he’d been in the Emperor’s Coven, had Lilith known Raine? He’s pretty certain he would have picked up on it if Lilith was friendly with anyone in that place, considering she talked to all of zero people in a non-professional manner. 

Lilith was staring at him now, he realized, giving him an odd, guarded look. The others were staring at him, too.

Took him another second to notice the faint, grating growl emitting from his throat.

Fuck.

Hunter jerked his head back, swallowing the noise back. He turned his head to the side, but nothing more. His glare stayed fixed firmly on the wall over Lilith’s shoulder, above the couch.

“My apologies,” Lilith started, slowly standing back to her full height. “Are you one of the BATs Eda told me about?”

It was almost accusatory. He didn’t resist his eye roll, and was more than a little smug to see Luz give Lilith a reprimanding look. 

“To everyone’s relief, no.” He muttered, one ear flicking. It was odd to be facing Lilith without his mask. He was uncomfortably aware of every expression he made, something he’d been trying to work on schooling when in his uncle's presence.

Lilith’s eyes narrowed, contemplative. She opened her mouth, closed it, slowly raised her hand, pointing a finger at him.

“You sound familiar,” Lilith said cautiously. 

“He's got a rather distinctly annoying voice, doesn't he?” Eda teased, and Hunter barely resisted the urge to jump as she appeared at his side, and though her teasing grin was back, it seemed halfway forced, now. 

“My voice is fine,” Hunter near-snapped, one hand raising to his throat and rubbing a thumb over it. “Pick something better to complain about.” 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Eda chuckled, patting his shoulder, of which he did tense up, “I’ve got a list.”

“Of course you do,” Hunter grumbled, watching as Eda strode back to the little group that formed, shaking himself off from the touch.

“You…” Lilith stared, eyes still squinted, raking her gaze over him. He saw the moment the idea came to her, a twinge of horror flashing in her eyes. It made him grin, all sharpened teeth and taunting.

“Me,” He agreed, and he saw the realization hit, her face morphing into that of shock. “Been a while, huh?”

“You–” Lilith took a step back, the backs of her knees brushing the couch. “You’re a child.”

“Teenager,” Hunter corrected easily. “But that wouldn’t really make a difference to you, would it?” He taunted.

Lilith whirled to Eda, as though searching for answers. Eda only gave her a shrug, though he noted her expression was a little unreadable. Was it amused, or thoughtful?

“Are they gonna fight?” He heard King whisper to Luz.

“Why–” Lilith started, turning back to stare at him. “Why are you–you’re a child.”

“Teenager, and we established this.” Hunter said, the smugness fading, just a bit. “Have you lost that intelligence you never shut up about in your time on the run?”

“I need to sit down,” Lilith pressed a hand to her face, and Luz simply patted the space on the floor next to her, to which Lilith quickly migrated.

“Wait, does the Emperor’s Coven not know you’re a kid?” Katya asked, frowning.

“Why would they?” Hunter scoffed, pricking an ear. “It’d make it impossibly difficult to control any of them if they thought someone beneath them was their superior.”

“It’s true,” Luz piped up, King patting Lilith’s back in confusion. The witch in question had drawn her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her hands. “They all bullied him when he tried to tell them he was the Golden Guard.”

“They were confused,” Hunter hissed through gritted teeth.

“No, they seemed entirely confident that you were a troublesome teen.” Luz said matter-of-factly, irritatingly self-satisfied.

“Regardless,” Hunter sniped, “once Lilith gets over what I imagine is her fifth midlife crisis, we’ve got some questions to ask her.” He said, crossing his arms. “So, we best start writing it down.”

“He’s a child,” Lilith groaned into her hands.

“Can we move past that already?” Hunter muttered, a bit annoyed, now. “As much as I’d love to mock you, we have more important matters here.” 

“Aw, it’s okay, Lulu,” Hooty cooed, and Hunter had completely forgotten he was there, watching as the demon slithered in through the window to poke his face at her feet. “I didn’t tell Hunter any of the things you said about him.”

“She was still shit-talking me?” Hunter asked, and his smirk was back. “Yeesh, someone's got problems.”

“Hunter?” Lilith raised her head then, looking Hunter up and down. “Your name is Hunter?”

“Don’t go yelling it around,” Hunter muttered, though there was a warning laced within it. “There’s already far too many people that know it.”

“Titan, okay,” Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose, taking in a deep breath. “Give me a moment, I’m remembering a lot of things I deeply regret saying, now.”

“Hey, at least now we know you’re getting character development.” Eda said with a shrug. “Sure, you argued, fought, and tried to kill some teenagers, but at least you feel bad about it.” She teased, and Lilith gave a quiet hiss.

“Oh, she did far more than fight me.” Hunter said, lifting his hand and beginning to count off his fingers. “Threats, defamation, sabotage, indirect insubordination–”

“Please stop talking,” Lilith groaned, face falling back into her hands.

“What are you willing to do to ensure I will?” Hunter leveled back. “I’m not normally one to be bribed, but I’ll make an acception.”

“As amusing as this is,” Derwin spoke up. “We still have Raine here.”

“Right,” Hunter shook his head, snapping it out of the revenge-filled glee it was in. “Lilith, as much as I hate to admit it, we need your information from your time as Coven Leader.”

Lilith sighed, running her hands down her face before looking up, looking far more exhausted than she had before as she turned around, facing the couch that Raine was laying on. Even in her time away from the Coven, Hunter recognized the formal expression she slowly slipped on, the one she often wore when she was trying not to freak out on some guards.

“I take it it’s about the mind-control Raine is under?” Lilith sighed.

“So you know what it is, then?” Amber perked up, and the others' attention was instantly grabbed.

“Vaguely,” Lilith said, giving Raine a sad, defeated expression that looked far too out of place on her face, and Hunter looked away from it. “I’ve only ever seen it used once before, and even then, it was incredibly briefly. I’m afraid I don’t know much about it.”

“Well, we’ve got nothing, so we’ll take what we can get.” Eda said, jaw set. “What is it, Lilith?”

“It’s…” Lilith shook her head. “It’s a very, very old spell,” She said, “and an incredibly tricky one, at that. It’s one of the most effective, but also most dangerous, forms of mind-control, a blend of illusion, abomination, and plant magic. As you can imagine, it’s impossible to use unless you have the Emperor Coven’s ability to possess all forms of magic.

“Back in my early days in the Coven, one of the guard captains was revealed to be a traitor, and planned to stage an attack on the castle. Kikimora was eager to try out new spells she had learned, and I believe it was this kind. I only saw the guard captain once, when Emperor Belos wanted to make him to be an example, summoning much of the Coven to witness what they’d done. It certainly got me to look over my shoulder more often.” Lilith shuttered.

“The guard captain was later used in an ambush to capture the remaining witches and demons from his rebellion. After that, the guard captain was planned to have been kept around, to see what else they could do. I heard rumors that, after about a month, the spell had begun to take some sort of toll on Kikimora, so they decided to cut their losses and only use the spell in special situations.” She paused here, swallowing before her shoulders slumped. “The plan was to see if they could get any more information out of the guard captain on the off-chance they missed something but…there were complications. I don’t know what kind, I never asked, but they hadn’t been…the same.” She murmured. 

Hunter could practically feel the tension in the room shift, and he leaned forward, if only slightly. His cardinal wiggled free of Luz’s hand, fluttering over to his shoulder and pressing up against his neck. The weight was almost grounding.

“Everyone said different things. Some said that they had trouble grasping the concept of moving without being told, or that they could barely speak, or that their vision had been heavily impaired, and a million other things. I don’t know what they did with the guard captain afterwards, but I can only assume the usual. Never heard from him again, and any attempts for more information from them were deemed too much effort. That’s the last I ever heard of this kind of spell.”

A silence enveloped the room, Lilith not looking anyone in the eyes, and that formality on her face dropped when her gaze turned to Raine, a remorseful expression forming. Hunter slowly lifted a hand to his neck, pressing his hand against his cardinal, who warbled softly.

“Well, fuck.” Amber said, and Katya promptly smacked the back of her head.

Eda slumped against the wall, one hand pressed to her face, hiding her eyes. King and Luz shared horrified expressions, and Derwin ran his thumb over the thorns along Raine’s arm. Despite Katya’s previous reaction, she seemed visibly disturbed, crossing her arms.

“Shit, okay,” Hunter said, clearing his throat as he pushed himself to his feet. “Okay, that’s–I can work with that.”

“What do you mean you can work with it?” Amber echoed, aghast.

“I can ask questions, search records, find senior members of the Coven to talk to,” Hunter said, hands moving as he spoke. “You’ve been keeping Raine fed and hydrated, and they haven’t been under control all too long, so if we act fast, we can probably halt any permanent damages.”

“I imagine it would be a closely guarded secret,” Lilith warned, frowning. “Kikimora wouldn’t leave this kind of spell in the open, I’ve never heard of anyone else who knows it. How do you expect to find it before the month is up?”

“I’ll figure something out,” Hunter said, because what else could he say? “Belos trusts me, if he knows anything, I may be able to get it out of him. And if not, then we have every confiscated book in the Isles in our library,” He said, running a hand through his hair and resisting the urge to yank on it. “There’s no way Kikimora came across that spell on her own, so it has to be in there somewhere. Do you know the name of the spell?” He asked, and he was not begging, thank you.

“I don’t,” Lilith shook her head. “Believe me, I wish I did.”

“Great,” Hunter grumbled, and barely stopped himself short of kicking something. “Okay, that’s fine, I can still find it. It’s a big library, but it's sorted, I just–need to look for a few particular sections. Hardly anyone goes in there, anyway.”

“We could all sneak in,” Luz suggested, also standing. “We’d all cover more ground if we–”

“Absolutely not,” Hunter shut it down, already feeling a spike in his gut at the thought of them going back into the castle. “The guards have tripled since we rescued Raine, and we are not risking any of you getting captured while sorting through that library. I can handle it just fine on my own.”

“Katya?” Eda said, and he looked her way, then, and he could’ve sworn Eda had pinpricks on her arms, and she could’ve almost been shaking, though he didn’t focus enough on that to confirm it. She moved her hand down her face, covering the bottom half of her face, but her eyes were visible. He swore her scalera looked darker than normal. “Did any of you keep in contact with the wild witches you rescued?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Katya said, sparing a glance with Derwin and Amber. “Not all of them, but we know some of the villages we told them they could hide at.”

“Good, you’re gonna want to start making maps.” Eda said, pinching the bridge of her nose and taking in a deep breath, and Hunter could see a ‘don’t freak out right now’ expression from a mile away. It surprised him how similar it looked to Lilith’s, just with less sharp edges. “We can’t waste any opportunities in case they might know something.”

“Oh, Amber,” King raised a claw. “Do you remember where Luz’s pens–”

“On it,” Amber said, leaving Raine’s side for the first time since Hunter arrived, darting around the others and off to the stairs.

He saw Lilith’s eyes flicker to him at the mention of the wild witches, and he met her eyes, unwavering. Her gaze only narrowed, and she looked away, back to Eda. 

“We have a plan, then.” Hunter said, clasping his hands together. “I search the castle’s libraries and ask around, and you lot go talk to the wild witches. Should be simple enough.”

“Don’t jinx us,” Derwin mumbled.

“Shouldn’t we at least have a way to get into the Emperor Coven’s library in case something goes wrong, or you can’t get there?” Luz persisted. “You just said you had to keep up appearances, what if–”

“I know how to handle Emperor Belos,” Hunter gruffed, feeling a light nip to his ear from his cardinal and ignoring it. “And I know you’ll just use that information to break in during the worst possible times, anyway.”

“I have a little self control.” Luz muttered, crossing her arms.

“No, no you do not.” Hunter said, turning away. “What time is it?”

“Oh, oh, I know!” Hooty poked his head up from the floor, seemingly the only one who wasn’t put off. “The time is, uh,” Hooty drew out his humming, turning his head around in a circular rotation. “The one-hundred twenty degrees time! That was it, I remember.” He said cheerfully.

“What the hell does that even mean?” Hunter stared.

“He means it’s four.” King said, as if this was common knowledge that people just had, apparently.

“Titan, you people are weird–whatever, that means dawn will be here soon.” Hunter said, throwing up his hands. “And I have work to do. Unless someone wants to share some shattering information at this time, I’m going back to the castle to get at least a little bit of rest. My sleep schedule is bad enough as it is.”

“To be fair,” Luz said as others began standing, moving to grab papers, shuffling around the room. “From one look at you, I don’t think it can get worse.”

“Hilarious,” Hunter drawled, flicking her forehead before he could stop himself. “Don’t follow me.” He warned, adding more force to his voice.

“I was not going to follow you–”

“You were thinking about it.”

“I was not–”

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Katya called after him, a fanged grin on her face. “Or whatever it is you keep telling us.”

“Good thing I don’t make a habit of it.” Hunter snarked back.

“Debatable.”

Hunter gave Luz a tired, exasperated look. She only snickered, and he supposed it was nice that someone could still derive amusement from this situation. Could probably still find optimism when in the maw of a basilisk.

He almost smiled back, if only at his own thoughts.

Then he saw Luz’s eyes flicker slightly, just a little down from his face. 

“What happened to your neck?” She asked, a confused frown coming to her face, hand reaching out.

Hunter jerked away, clapping a hand over what he knew was showing through the faint dip in his cloak, no longer wound tightly around his frame, the nasty scabbing he chose not to bother bandaging anymore practically on display to anyone who looked. Luz startled a bit at his reaction, blinking a bit owlishly as he took another step back.

“Nothing,” He said, turning his head away, his injured side facing away from Luz. “It’s–there was just a re–accident, I’m fine.”

The word reminder sat on his tongue. It was true, he’d normally call it as such, but then they’d ask what the reminder was for. Luz would follow him back without hesitation if she knew Belos was suspicious of him, if any of them knew just how close he was to being caught. No way in hell would they trust him with more risky work like this, and then they’d all be doomed.

He could feel eyes on him. He didn’t look over to see who was watching them, now.

“...if you’re sure.” Luz said, cautiously.

“Course I am. I was there, wasn’t I?” Hunter scoffed, turning on his heel and towards the front door. “Don’t do anything overly reckless, yeah?” He called over his shoulder, grabbing the door handle.

“Same to you,” He heard Eda call after, a slight strain to her voice that hadn’t quite left.

“What do you think I am, new?” Hunter muttered, pushing open the door.

Hooty’s body startled with the movement, still somewhere in the house behind him. He silently ducked under Hooty’s body, withdrawing his staff. There was a chirping in his ear, and he ignored it in favor of extending his staff.

He didn’t look back at the eyes still searing holes into him as he shot into the sky. What a way to make an exit.

 ,

 The fly back to the castle was silent, which was a little odd, especially for his palisman. He was almost grateful for it as he slipped back in through his window, tossing his staff aside as he flopped down on his bed, face in his pillow. 

He’d have to write down a list, soon. Of hours he could sneak into the library, of guards that would’ve been around way back when Lilith was new, though he knew they would be few and far between. He’d have to write down a real possibility of the spell being somewhere in Kikimora’s room, and he’d have to consider finding a way to sneak in, and–

And his palisman was settling down by his head, and he was so tired. Of work, of people, of emotions, of all this running around, and just in general. If he keeps this up, he’s going to wind up passing out one day, and that’s just going to be all kinds of humiliating.

He sighed, moving his head to the side as he stared at the wall, one hand coming up to his palisman and petting a finger down its back as it chittered contently. He didn’t bother to try removing his under armor, or changing out of his old cloak. He'd ended the exact way he started. Sore, tired, and with a stinging sensation in his back.

If he was lucky, he’d wake up with memory loss. Couldn’t have ten different problems at once if you didn’t know what they were now, could you?

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, sunlight was streaming in through the window.

[sei-hoe]

manager pt. 5

hello all! as always thank you for your love on this story.  i hope you like this new chapter! leave me a comment, i love reading your thirsty thoughts! also i recently remembered that shiratorizawa is a dorm school lol, so from now on i will write it as such oopsie. also!! i got all official and made a banner for this series, im so official!

Fem Reader X Tendou Satori & Fem Reader x Ushijima Wakatoshi

CW: blowjob, angst, jealous themes, manipulative reader, language, implied sex, spit kink

WC: 2.6k

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Clingy. That was the word you would use to describe Tendou as of late.  During school he was walking with you in the hallways, during practice he was standing next to you, after practice he was walking you to your room.  It wasn’t necessarily annoying, just strange.  His change in behavior was sudden and unprompted, at least in your mind.  

You had been the Shiratorizawa volleyball club manager for about a month now and your outlook had changed drastically.  What used to feel awkward was now second nature.  You used to flinch at what now was commonplace.  Being “used” wasn’t what it used to be.  Now it was something you looked forward to at the end of practice and you had actually become...dare you say it...friends with these guys.  Friends with extreme benefits that is.

But still, Tendou was different.  You’d catch him staring at you in a way that was different from the other guys.  You’d catch him staring as Ushijima would carry you out of the gym on his back and straight to the locker room.  He’d have a look that you used to not be able to identify in his eyes, you knew now it was jealousy.  It was the same look that you’d found on Ushijima’s face about a month ago.  

From Tendou’s perspective, it seemed as though Ushijima was hogging you, whisking you away after practice day in and day out.  You would always walk out of the locker room with wet hair and another one of Ushijima’s shirts on.  It was infuriating and just wasn’t fair.  Tendou had barely been able to talk to you recently, hence his rather clingy behavior.  But you were in heaven.  You were in Ushijima’s presence daily and were able to care for him how he deserved.  However, he had made it very clear that you were not his girlfriend as he didn’t have the time for such a commitment.  Another price you were willing to pay.

  _____

Another grueling practice ended a little bit later than usual, you noted the dark sky through the windows towards the top of the gym walls.  You were working on a bit of homework when the final whistle was blown signifying the official end of practice.  You stood up and began packing up your bag as the team approached the bench for a meeting.  Tendou was the first to arrive by the bench, coming up behind you for a hug, wrapping his arms around your upper stomach and resting his chin on your head.  His chest felt hot and sweaty against your back, instantly raising your body temperature.  You giggled, knowing exactly which sweaty athlete this was.  You and Tendou had become quite close, despite spending less time with him sexually, at least, during the last month.  It seemed as though you were never really alone anymore and Tendou was always around you.  It was nice, he had become a great friend to you.  The two of you were always flirting back and forth and unlike Ushijima, it seemed as though Tendou really cared about you, both emotionally and physically.  He always made sure you came before him and that you were alright after one of your umm...managerial obligations, whereas Ushijima didn’t care if you came at all.  Long story short, you always enjoyed the time you spent with Tendou.  

A few words were said per the usual by the captain and practice was dismissed.  Tendou, still holding onto you from behind, moved his hand further down to your lower stomach, began rubbing gently, and craned his neck down to whisper in your ear, “ya wanna get outta here?”.  You could hear the smirk behind his words as his hot breath blew against your ear.

“Mhm”, you murmured eagerly, missing your time with Tendou.

“Good”, he hummed in response, “because there’s something I’d like to give ya,” He accentuated his dirty talk by moving his hand even lower, “right here.” To say you had butterflies was an understatement.  It was crazy what a couple of words could reduce you to, but here you were.  

You walked back over to the bench to pick up your bag, but was intercepted by Ushijima who had a proposition.  

“Come back with me to my room”, he offered, stepping close enough to make you crane your neck up.  You looked behind you at Tendou, he was laughing with Semi, unaware that you were about to ruin his night.  It’s not that you didn’t want to fuck Tendou, you did, very much actually.  That’s just how whipped you are for Ushijima.  

“But I already told Tendou that I’d-”, you started.

“Go make up some excuse and then wait for me outside of the locker room.” he interrupted while he started for the gym doors. Ushijima was hardly in the mood to share you tonight, or ever really.  You watched him leave while standing and staring, awkwardly contemplating what to say to Tendou.  You mustered up the courage to walk over to him, smiling and saying goodnight to Semi as you passed him on his way out.  

“Hey, umm, I just remembered that I’ve got a ton of homework that’s due tomorrow and I just think I should probably-”

“What did Ushijima just say to you?” he caught you off guard with his question, although you should have been expecting it.  

“Nothing, I just have a lot of homework.” you quickly replied.

Tendou rolled his eyes, “Come on, we’re closer than that, you don’t have to lie to me.” His hands were placed on his hips in an annoyed fashion.  

You remained silent, thinking of anything you could say to ease the tension.  

“Ok, I’ll say something then.  Are you dating Ushijima or something?”

You shook your head.

“Ok...so then last I checked you were still the team manager, would that be correct?  Meaning you’re not just Ushijima’s to play with? Cuz there are other guys on the team that are stressed out too, if that’s what we’re even calling it anymore.”

You blushed at this choice of words.  “You don’t understand, I-” you started again.

“I think I do understand actually.  And just so you know, he’s never going to give you what you want.  You think you’re the first girl to fall for him?” He scoffed.  “I mean, fuck,” he ran his taped up fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.  “It just gets old, ya know?” Tendou looked so hurt and angry.  He opened his mouth to speak but closed it promptly and turned on his heel to leave.  You reached to grab his arm before he could slip out of your grasp.

“Wait, Tendou...please.” you whispered into his sleeve, despite being the only two left in the vast gymnasium.  “I don’t want things to be like this either.  You,” you paused to collect your thoughts. “You’re my friend and I love all the time that we get to spend together.  I always have the best time with you. But I can’t help liking Ushijima.  So please don’t be mad at me,” you prayed into his arm, still gripping at his sleeve.  

He finally turned around to face you, taking a deep inhale, he looked down into your wide, pleading eyes while exhaling through his nose.  

“Fuck, don’t look at me like that.” he looked away from you.  

“Look at you, how?” You prodded, widening your eyes and moving closer to him.  

“You know exactly how.” he smirked, bringing his hands to rest at your sides, lightly rubbing his thumbs in soothing circular motions.  Beginning at the bottom of his abdomen you begin running your hands up his stomach, to his chest, shoulders, and finally around his neck.  Standing on your tippy toes you pull him down to your level.  

“Can I tell you a secret?” you breathed in his ear.  

“Please,” he replied, his hands making their way down to your ass.  

“You’re the one that I think about. It’s your hands that I imagine are touching me when I’m touching myself. You always make me feel so good, Tendou.”

“Ughh why are you doing this to me?” He whined, tipping his head back.  It was then that you noticed the prominent tent in his pants, poking you in the stomach.  

You’d never seen Tendou so flustered in the short time that you’d known him.  He was usually the one making you flustered, not the other way around.  It was a nice change of pace.   It was also refreshing to know you had a kind of power over him, the kind to make him lose his mind.  

“You sure you can’t bail on him?” He asked, hope gleaming in his red eyes.   It made you pause to think about your options, a wicked idea popped into your head.

“Come wait with me?” you began pulling his arm towards the gym doors.  He looked confused, but followed you anyway.  Maybe you needed to give Ushijima a little push, it’s only a bonus that you get to makeout with Tendou too.

_____

The concrete bricks felt cold against the backs of your legs as Tendou shoved you against the locker room corridor hallway, the entrance to the room just around the corner.   One of his hands cradled the back of your head, protecting it from the hard brick while the other pressed bruises into your waist.  His chapped lips scraped against yours in a heated kiss, tongues fighting for dominance, his eventually winning as you whined into his mouth.  He broke the kiss to stroke his own ego, his hands trailing down your sides to play with the waistband of your shorts.  

“So you really think about my hands touching you when you play with that cute little cunt?”

“Please Tendou”, you moaned in response.  

“I think you’ve had enough attention for today, fucking teasing me for the last fifteen minutes. Hell, the last couple weeks actually.  You fucking rile me up just to go fuck some other dude.  You like being a little slut? Hmm?”  

You were at a loss for words.  As much as his words were turning you on, you knew there was some truth behind them.  He was onto your antics and done with them.  

“You think I don’t know why we’re making out right by the locker rooms?  Are you trying to make Ushijima feel like he’s missing out or something?  Being all cute with me to show him how good of a girlfriend you’d be? Well fuck that shit. Get on your knees slut.”

He removed his hand from your waistband and brought them to your shoulders guiding you down to your knees. You couldn’t even rest on your calves, you had to stand up as tall as you could on your knees to be eye level with the imprint in his shorts.  

“Fuck, it doesn’t take much, does it?” He scoffed as he pulled his shorts down to reveal his hard, heavy cock.

“Aw you didn’t think we’d take it this far, didja?  Better make this quick if you don’t want your boyfriend to catch us!” Tendou tilted his head to the side, a smirk plastered on his face while he caressed the top of your head.  

You opened your mouth to lap up the precum on his tip, swirling your tongue along the soft skin on the head of his cock.  

“Nah, I don’t feel like being teased anymore today.” Tendou spoke as he readjusted his grip on your head, scooting you back until you were trapped between the painted brick wall and his body.  You didn’t have a moment to adjust before his cock was plugging up your throat, making you gag around him.  The pace started brutally, shoving in and out of your mouth.  It was all you could do to keep up, running your tongue against the engorged vein on the underside of his cock.  He never eased up until you tapped his thigh signifying you had enough.  

“Too much?” he condescended.  You looked back up at him with watery eyes, swallowing as many breaths as you could before it all started over again.  

“This would have been much nicer for both of us if you hadn’t ditched me,  I would’ve made you feel so good, baby.”  He paused to take in your appearance, you looked so pretty like this.  Your hair was a mess, eyes watery, lips so fucking swollen, drool dripping down the sides of your mouth, your chest heaving, and he had a great view down your shirt.  Is this what his captain got to see everyday?  The thought filled him with rage.  If he had known he’d come to feel this way about you, he would’ve just asked you out, not asked you to be the manager.  Ushijima wouldn’t have ever noticed you had it not been for him!  Fuck, that’s annoying.

“Ya ready for a little more?”

You smiled at him through bated breaths, nodding your head.  Things hadn’t gone exactly to plan, but you were still having a good time.  You opened your mouth, closed your eyes, and stuck out your tongue, ready for whatever he had to give you.  Tendou bent down into a squat until his mouth hovered just above yours.  You felt something warm and sticky hit your tongue, you opened your eyes only to find a thin line of spit connecting Tendou’s lips with the liquid pooling in your mouth. Did he just spit in your mouth?  Before you could say anything he was back on his feet, cock in his hand, rolling it in the spit laying on your tongue.  He inched his way back into your throat, watching your eyes water with every thrust of his hips.  

“Fuck you’re gonnna make me cum if you keep looking at me like that.” He continued thrusting, your throat convulsing around his cock.  

“You’re gonna leave here with a tummy full of cum, ok sweetie?” His breaths and thrusts were becoming stuttered, he was close.  

“You’re gonna fuck Ushijima with my cum swirling around in your stomach.”  He whimpered, talking himself into an orgasm. With his hips giving one final thrust, you felt the back of your throat flood with cum.  Tendou held his hips flush to your mouth for a few seconds, emptying himself completely into your stomach.  He hissed as he pulled your head off of his now oversensitive cock.  

“Lemme see.” he sighed.   You stuck out your tongue, displaying your empty mouth to him.  

“Mmm good girl.”  He offered you his hand to help you up off of your knees.  He tucked himself back into his pants as the locker room door creaked open.  

“That’s my queue!” Tendou pulled you in for one final kiss, moaning as the taste of his cum hit his tongue.  And with that, he shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders and took off walking down the hallway.  

_____

You walked face first into a warm chest when you rounded the corner leading to the locker room door, looking for Ushijima.  Looks like you had found him.  His hair was still damp from the shower, his body was warm and humid through his clothes.  

“Are you ready to go?” He asked.  

“Yea-” you cleared your throat.  “Yeah!” That’s better.  Your voice was horse and your throat was sore.  

Ushijima noted your appearance.  Your hair was messy and your makeup was smudged.  Your lips were bright red and your chin was glistening.  He took your hand in his to begin the quiet walk to his dorm room.  He heard footsteps in the opposite direction, only to turn around to see Tendou walking away from the two of you, a slight pep in his step and unknownst to Ushijima a smug look on his face.