#makes me wonder if it was slipped in under the radar for whatever reason

[bananonbinary]

stargate sg1 is so weird cause like. there's definitely definitely a moses allegory going on with teal'c. the goa'uld appropriate a lot of ancient religions, but are mostly egyptian, the jaffa are their slaves who almost certainly built the fucking pyramids, teal'c was the second in command that ran away to lead the rebel army. his weapon is a fucking staff. he might as well be shouting "let my people go."

i just watched an episode where christopher judge's real life brother played a jaffa named A'ron. also in the episode teal'c obliquely references that his son will need to be circumcised (as an adult, it's performed after marriage for some reason, but still). like this isnt just a loose "freeing your people is always about moses" thing anymore it's a clear attempt to depict space jews.

but? i've never seen this discussed anywhere? i can't find any analysis online, or who behind the scenes is responsible for this. I suspect Judge himself had a lot of input here, but i was hoping to read more about it. it just doesn't seem to be a thing people picked up on.

[dsaf-confessions]

I’m going to start this post by saying that I’m genuinely very confused by the entire situation.

I’m aware this wasn’t the best blog in the past, and that the screenshots provided were old, and things I’d already apologised for and learned from.

But in all honestly, I’m mainly confused about the fact that the person im posting about that I won’t name because I’d hate to start drama has already been blocked from this blog an unidentifiable amount of time ago for posting about us on their twitter page, and I don’t like drama, so I blocked them so it wouldn’t escalate

But it still has. Somehow. Because it also seems like they’ve been reblogging posts from this account since they were blocked, which I have no idea how.

That’s just my way of starting this post, though. Because I’m still really confused, accidental blocking bypass aside.

A call out post has been made about this blog, me more specifically, for posting confessions that intentionally start drama.

And I’ve read the post that was sent to me by my friends, and i actually don’t know how to respond to that.

I’m not providing screenshots, because you know, I’m making a response here, I’m not trying to start more drama (and the person has already blocked me, as they’ve said I believe. So they wouldn’t be seeing this post anyway)

but they posted some really old screenshots from this blog back before there were anons and a discord server, who I now essentially treat as a council (this post will be being read by them before I post. Because I don’t actually trust my own thoughts, especially not when I’m stressed out, shaky, and tired because it’s late at night and I planned to sleep an hour ago)

If you weren’t here back then, I admit this blog was chaotic. I made a mistake pretty much. Not by posting any confessions specifically (even though I admit I didn’t have the council back then so a lot of stuff slipped under the radar and caused drama). I made a mistake by making the blog to begin with.

(Note: I have no regrets. This situation is stressful and scary but I’ve made so many friends here, I wouldn’t trade it for the world!! Let’s hold hands and look into the sunset guys)

And yeah. I admit it was a shitshow. And I admit I posted a lot of confessions that shouldn’t have been posted because I didnt know if I would start more drama by just deleting them and having people ask why. And I apologise for that, I’m genuinely sorry. I really wish I had just kind of purged this blog’s posts past a certain point because god it sucked, but it’s not something I can actually do right now.

But the thing is, I’m pretty sure I’ve apologised for this before. And I won’t hesitate to apologise more however times people need, because some really shitty confessions were posted since I hadn’t ran one of these things in A WHILE.

And I took people’s advice. And I made this blog into a place that I thought was chill and drama free. And it was, i think, at least. But everything goes wrong eventually.

When I made the pinned post, I thought my stance on drama was clear. I said that I would delete the confessions that weren’t just ragebait, but would clearly start drama.

But I don’t think people got the memo.

There was also the mini-fandom thing. But I posted that I was very uncomfortable with it because it could backfire, and it was over.

Unfortunately, saying that I didn’t want there to be a fandom probably didn’t even delay the inevitable. Because now there’s a call out post. And this isn’t a response to the person who made the initial post, this is a response and an apology to everyone else who’s probably wondering what the fuck is actually going on right now.

I hope the person who made the post doesn’t see this, actually. Because they’ve already blocked everyone who’s associated with the blog, and if they do see it then it means that they’ve deliberately unblocked us for whatever reason, and that would only show to me that they want to start drama.

This all could’ve been solved in DMs, or better yet, a simple post that said “hey, I really don’t like this blog. I will be blocking everyone associated with it because I do not like it”. Not a callout post. You never DM’d me, or tried to communicate with me. You saw this blog, talked badly about it for a little bit, then made a call out post on the mod without even exchanging a single word of conversation with me about it.

What’s the fate of this blog? I don’t know. I might go on break. I really don’t want to leave the blog, but for the most part I’ve already left this fandom. I don’t really post stuff on main about it anymore. I still like it, but I don’t engage with it anymore for reasons unrelated. Just interests coming and going. However, I might leave. MIGHT.

if it was just this situation that I was dealing with, then I’d certainly stay. Tumblr call out posts don’t matter much in the long run anyway. But I’ve also got a very stressful personal life and this is the last thing I need.

But I don’t know.

What I hope you took away from this post, though, is this:

1) you can block this blog or blacklist this tag at anytime

2) you can dm me at any time if you have any advice or criticism that you think I can use to improve this blog and make it better

3) I don’t tolerate people starting drama, and I certainly don’t enjoy it either.

[heres-to-all-that-is-mine]

zor and pheonix swap bodies. what happens?

(for a possibly less chaotic choice, its handler and zor)

I assume a race to dismantle their respective operations from inside either via wanton violence and arson, clever thought out strategies or just exposing each other's organisations, or some other equally devastating course of action.

(Okay this turned longer than I expected so I'm just gonna put the rest under a cut here.)

And I mean like depending on if it's long term or short term body swap there's a lotta stuff that could happen differently? The good doctor could certainly set up some... clever plan to unravel all of the Agency without risking their own exposure or whatever, but it would take time and resources to set up, so possibly they just collect vital intel for later use? Actually you could probably make an intriguing story out of "Phoenix and Zor wake up in each others' body - and they are forced to act as each other to avoid exposure" and whatnot. Like. Stepping into your greatest enemy's shoes...

Of course the fun part isn't that, like, they "learn how hard the other one has it" and "grow a new appreciation for each other" no those two would absolutely kill each other with Zero hesitation given the means motive and opportunity. Like yes Dr. Zor tends to not directly kill Phoenix, just. Death traps. I'm somewhat sure they even banned Juni from taking the Agent out while he had them unconscious? Don't quote me on that I have terrible memory abilities anyway what I was saying was they might prefer to toy with Phoenix but they still want them dead and if the Agent was right in front of them they would pull that trigger no hesitation, especially because the Agent would very likely be gunning for them, too. So. No hesitation there's no fondness between them. Or at least nothing to outweigh the desire to see the other dead.

Okay that ramble out of the way - the only reason they don't walk that borrowed body off a cliff is 1. It would kill them too, 2. They have the opportunity to royally screw the other's life up, annnd 3. The other guy (presumably) has their body and can royally screw them up, too. Which is a problem that they need to deal with. So what do they do? Consider it undercover work, I suppose. Plus, no better way to get to know your enemy than being your enemy, right?

Oh the wonderful chaos of "infamous secret agent forced to act as an evil mastermind" and vice versa. They might get a little lucky in that I assume the Doc has things set up to mostly flow smoothly without them, and Phoenix is already so strange that Zor being a lil weird might slip under the radar... problems arise in that Reg knows Phoenix, and Zor is still needed for resolving the petty conflicts and snags in the plans, of course - nothing can just be that easy...

Also, Zor and Reg swapping wouldn't necessarily be less chaotic. The Handler has just as much of a grudge against Zoraxis as Phoenix does, was definitely about as chaotic as them in his field days, and probably definitely wouldn't pass up the opportunity to tear Zoraxis down entirely from the very core. Then there's the issue of Reggie being a decently important Agency employee as we know, which means he might have some sway in the organisation - you think Zor wouldn't abuse the hell out of that?

Hmm. Might add more later I need to collect my thoughts,, I woke up not even two hours ago

[bacon-sandwich-of-dionysus]

Bloodhound. (A Ghost x AFAB!Reader fic)

Act One, Chapter Six: Reluctant Admittance

Omg! Who is this?! I'm back and I'm bringing home the bacon! Exams are over and I have about of month of aimless wandering so… yeah :D. I'm currently in the process of decompressing and the effects of stress are finally manifesting after being dormant during exam season... yay.

I hope you all enjoy! I'm trying to get back into the groove so apologies for the lack of eventfulness. I'm also going to apologise for the fact that I very much got into my feelings writing this so brace yourselves.

We all know English is my mortal enemy (despite being my first language) so sorry for grammatical mishaps, I did do me best but things do slip under the radar.

Warnings: Heavy discussions surrounding trauma (particularly surrounding men- I know! I'm sorry!), heightened emotions, threats of violence and strong language.

You were staring at her like she had three heads. It was a tough decision to make: whether to push to continue this conversation or let Laswell be. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you rifled through the various outcomes you had predicted to the different things you could say. You hoped you could be sensitive enough to allow her to open up. She was the only one who understood what you had gone through and vice versa, and you prayed to find something else out of that other than the comradery that came with mutual suffering.

She looked right back at you, knowing full well you wanted to say something, the words dancing on the tip of your tongue, itching to be spoken but chained down by your desperate need to interact correctly. Sighing, she folded her arms and waited for whatever you had cocked and ready to fire her way. 

“Kate,” you began, nervously fiddling with your fingers, praying you had rehearsed this enough times in your head for you not to falter over your words, “have you ever wanted closure? To just, maybe, talk it through with someone?”

Her face softened. She hadn’t expected that… Laswell had anticipated a lecture, a cliche roundabout diatribe which overstayed its welcome, a bout of preaching that was just the other person’s way of saying ‘get over it’. Sometimes things in your head are too heavy for others to handle, too sensitive, they can gross your mates out, and years of that had made Laswell feel like a freak, made her feel disgusting. Occasionally, she’d wondered if what she had gone through had ‘built character’, made her strong, and was the reason for her competence. She had cherry-picked what she liked about her time in the Foundation, the skills it had given her, and had repressed the rest. See enough people pale, enough people grimace, enough people stare at you with their mouths hung open, unsure of what to say, and it makes you feel awfully discouraged to be an open book. If Price knew what she had gone through as a teen, she was afraid he might see her no longer as a colleague but as something else. Something weak. 

She drew in a sharp breath at the thought. 

Men had an awful tendency to want to save, to protect, and seldom listen. Yes, it was a sweeping generalisation, but it was for her own protection. She was genuinely afraid things could change between them. All of them, in fact. 141, most people in her life, were best kept at a friendly but reasonably far distance. 

Closure had been off the table for a while now. 

“Y/N, these things are… difficult to navigate. Right now, it’s all fresh to you. You’re currently running about, hoping anyone, anyone, might hear you out, sit down, and listen to all your pains. You’re craving hope, praying that some guy out there can put your faith back into them…” She let out a shaky sigh. “No one out there ever sat down and listened to me. What we’ve been through is horrific, too much for people to bear. If you find that someone, I’ll be amazed and immensely happy for you but… let’s be realistic, Y/N. We’ll never get closure.”

She put her arm around you and drew you close to her, walking you both back to your beds. Mild anger bubbled away inside you, her infantilising, drab words leaving behind a sour aftertaste.

“We keep practical, and we keep vigilant. Remember that.”

“I get where you’re coming from, Kate.” You turned to face her. “But I don’t entirely agree with you. You and I both know that we’d kill for a confidante, and you could have one! You could have several if you wanted to! I bet you haven’t even tried having a conversation with these guys about your past.”

She sighed and shook her head, removing her arm from you, as you both entered the murky dark of the barracks.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Y/N.”

“Good night, Kate.”

With a slight pout and furrowed brow, you watched her make her way to her bed and fall into it, completely shattered. 

***

You idly prodded at your porridge with your spoon as you did your best to avoid Laswell’s eyes. Soap and Ghost had taken you hostage, placing you firmly between the two of them, across from the CIA Station Chief, with the hopes that you’d start opening your mouth and agreeing with them and that would then lead to Laswell opening up. However, at the end of the day, it was two ordinary men up against an experienced lamia, and what they hadn’t quite caught onto yet was Laswell barraging your mind with messages of strong encouragement to keep quiet. It was extremely tiring, but Laswell thought it was the right thing to do and that was sufficient justification to keep going.

You swallowed hard, continuing to move your food around your bowl, watching blueberries you had once buried under the slop of oatmeal and milk resurface and sit atop their stodgy sea. The silence was so loud, your brain unable to think coherent thoughts as the buzz of underlying aggression filled your skull with apprehensive static. No one was explicitly angry, and that irked you. There was a conversation sitting here that was dying to be had, all someone at this godforsaken table had to do was spit a few words out and get the ball rolling.

Eventually, you found yourself glancing at Price, hoping that maybe the captain could put his authority to good use. The old man wasn’t an idiot, he knew something had happened last night which had yielded breakfast’s… painfully awkward results. Gaz could tell too, but, seeing as yesterday had been a bit rocky, decided it was best to not fan the already hot embers and bring about flames. Price brought his thermos to his lips, eyes narrowing as he watched Soap bore holes into Laswell’s skull. She was returning the favour, of course, sternly looking at the Scotsman, her lip turning upwards at the sight of him bringing you closer to his side.

Ghost was there too and was most certainly a presence that wasn’t overlooked. One could tell that he was positively fuming under that mask, taking a large bite out of his apple as he continued to try and out-stare Kate. The echo of his crunch reverberated throughout the canteen. Despite the backdrop of friendly chatter and clattering cutlery, any sound that came from 141’s table seemed to be thrice the expected volume. Perhaps it was the silence amplifying noise’s presence when she’d occasionally grace the group, or perhaps it was because they were exaggerating the volume of their actions to prove a petty point. Either way, Laswell was not going to go down. Period. She was going to ensure they’d stop their little investigation before it had even started. They didn’t need to know anything about her, bar that she was on their side and that was that. Anyways, it was not like she knew much about them! Especially Ghost. There was a double standard here. He could go about his business being all mysterious and alluring but as soon as he found out that there may be more to her than meets the eye… he felt betrayed like he was Caesar on the Ides of March, and Laswell’s newfound information was nothing but a poorly concealed dagger in his eyes.

���Right.” Price suddenly broke the silence, setting his thermos on the table. “What happened?”

No one spoke a word.

He chewed on his lip, taking a deep breath through his nose.

He looked at Soap.

“MacTavish, speak.”

Soap looked at Kate with a sneer.

“Laswell may be able to provide more information than meself.”

“Fine.” Price nodded, swivelling around to face the woman sitting beside him. “Kate, what happened?”

She shrugged.

“Ghost’s usually the most reliable reporter.”

Price muttered an exasperated curse under his breath, before turning to meet Ghost’s menacing glare.

“Lieutenant, you’re up. Tell me what happened.”

“I left halfway through; I think you should redirect your inquiry back to Laswell.”

Price grumbled to himself, stroking his mutton chops as he slowly looked back at Kate. Her lips were tightly sealed. The silence returned and Price allowed for it as he briefly contemplated on what to do. He could feel Gaz staring at him, awaiting his response to all this as he took a loud slurp of his tea.

“Okay,” the captain announced, “I’m not having any of this. Someone here is going to tell me exactly what is going on and that someone is…”

Like a turret spinning around to select its target, Price’s gaze shifted from Soap, to Laswell, to Ghost and then to you.

“Y/N, why are Soap, Ghost and Laswell eyeing each other like they’re in a Mexican standoff?”

You gulped, looking at all three of them for help on what to do next. Soap sighed and kept his eyes on the floor while Kate was shaking her head, hoping you would keep quiet.

And then, there was Ghost.

You couldn’t even bring yourself to make eye contact with him, knowing full well that he was staring into your soul. He cast a dark shadow over you, his company hovering ominously above as he, whether consciously or not, taunted you with his intimidating presence.

Oh, what do I do?

You chewed on your lip, covering your nervous gesture with your hand as you looked at Price for some form of encouragement.

The urge to spill the beans was building inside you, like a rising scream, making its way up your throat. From a logical perspective, it seemed like the right thing to do, for the benefit of everyone, seeing as 141 needed to be as together as possible in order to remain under the radar and you needed to not surround yourself with bloodthirsty lunatics coming for each other’s throats… for once.

You sighed, setting your spoon down, not even bothering to give it a parting gaze as it sunk into your porridge.

“Basically,” you began, much to Laswell’s chagrin, “Ghost and Soap found some of my, uh, things and it told them some stuff about myself that I wasn’t quite ready to share. It also told some stuff about Kate, here, that she also isn’t quite ready to… share.”

“But it is stuff we need to know,” Ghost added, folding his arms.

“Kate,” Price turned to her, softening his voice a little, “should you and I have a private chat over a cuppa?”

“It’s nothing, John.” She moved away from him.

Price looked at both Ghost and Soap.

“Did you boys have a scrap with just her or also Y/N about whatever happened last night?”

Ghost and Soap exchanged looks before Soap volunteered to speak for the both of them.

“We didn’t have a scrap, sir, we-”

“Was this just between you and Kate?” Price’s voice was harsh, and it took both Soap and Ghost aback.

Was… was he scolding them?

“Pretty much, sir.”

“Okay.” Price nodded to himself. “Suppose this gives me all the more reason to iron whatever the fuck happened last night out.”

That announcement was met with tense silence. Great. Just great. The captain was frustrated by everyone’s reluctance to cooperate, but he couldn’t deny that he was also surprised… particularly surprised by Kate. This was out of character for her, to be stubborn, slightly petty and begrudging: undeniably soldier-like. He turned to face her.

“Kate, if this is something serious enough to make my boys distrust you, we need to hear it. I can’t be having any infighting, especially given our situation.”

Was it that serious? You pondered on that question as you watched Price attempt to have a conversation with her. What had Kate said last night about them… about Soap and Ghost’s reactions?

“They’re just upset that I’m not satiating their curiosity. Anything and everything about me is ‘need-to-know’. And right now, they don’t need to know.”

Regaling her life’s story to them would be indulging them… and that was the last thing an ex-lamia would want to do, indulge them, especially men.

You understood that anger, the resistance burning away in her eyes: she was trying to cover an old wound that had just reopened.

They wouldn’t understand. How could they?

But you could.

“Kate,” you suddenly said, “I can tell them who I am. You don’t have to.”

Her face softened.  “No, you don’t have to. I know you don’t want to. Y/N-”

You smiled.

“Kate. I… I can do it. I want to. If it’ll ease the tension, I’m happy to be an open book. I don’t want my baggage to jeopardise your pack- I mean, group.”

You could tell she disagreed with your diplomatic approach, because, though you had dressed up this action to be something which you were doing on your own terms… in reality, it wasn’t. It didn’t matter to you; however, this was what your life had been, this was pretty much all you had known. You had been bought and bred to be everything and anything the Foundation wanted.

She’d let you off this time, seeing as it was clear you were still shaking off your shackles.

Price was… pleasantly surprised to say the least. He gestured for you to begin. 

Your heart was beating away in your chest at a rate of knots. All eyes were on you. How would you begin? How detailed should you go? 

This could be your chance to prove to Kate that conversation about this worked. You could already feel, despite your slightly unsteady nerves, a part of that weight pressing down on you was being lifted. You weren’t some desperate little child, running around for someone to be your therapist like she had suggested you were last night. You were just brave enough to do something Kate was still working up the courage to commit. 

You exhaled quietly and then opened your mouth to speak. 

“I’m from a place that I can’t exactly disclose… Ugh! Fuck it! I’m from the Foundation. It’s a private facility that houses mercenaries and hires out soldiers like me. I’m what you would call a ‘lamia’. Lamias are an all-female class of soldiers. I have been in the Red Room programme for… over a decade. I’m equipped with the latest standard hepta-plate armour that enables me to stay indefinitely camouflaged… when in working condition.”

You chuckled nervously as you beheld a crowd of blank faces. 

Oh no… They looked like they were expecting more. What else could you say?!

“My blood-source is from the… Kraus line. And, um… Oh! I’m the most recent model of lamia.”

You smiled, hoping that would be sufficient information. Soon, however, that proud grin on your face would fade as the faces before you looked either confused, horrified or simply both. 

“Model?” Soap raised an eyebrow. “That makes you sound awfully like a machine.”

He pointed his spoon at you with curiosity.

“Err…” Your voice got a little shaky. “Well, that’s what I am. I don’t really… I guess I could say I’m the latest version?”

You could tell that wasn’t the response he wanted. 

Price exhaled through his nose, the air whistling a little out of his nostrils. 

“Y/N, you’re an escapee from this ‘Foundation’. Are the people there after you?”

“Most likely.”

“Will they be after us, too?”

“No,” was your blunt reply, “You’re regular military folks, they could care less about you provided you stay out of their way. But I can’t guarantee that which is why I’m not staying here for too long.”

It stung a little but, to Price, in a weird way, that was music to his ears. If the Foundation was feeling like it, like they didn’t give a shit about him and his boys and did not bother them, he could live with that. Although, something felt off about the way you had spoken, like you were an android, reciting a sales pitch to get a customer to buy you. He couldn’t deny the fact that didn’t sit well with him. 

“So,” Gaz tilted his head to one side, “I’m guessing you’ve been at the Foundation since you were a kid?”

“Yep, ever since I was a kid.”

“Have you been… a soldier since you were a kid?” Ghost sounded uncharacteristically tender like he was almost reluctant to ask this question. 

You nodded. 

A shudder ran through him. 

“I’ve been hired out since I was about… I want to say fifteen?”

That shudder ran through him again and looped back. 

You smiled weakly, a little unnerved by the way he gawked at you.

“I’m assuming Laswell was in a similar position to you, now,” Soap remarked, hoping you’d confirm his assumption.

You looked over to Kate. She had a desperate plea written all over her face for you to neither confirm nor deny. Your eyes returned to Soap, who was clearly expecting some form of response.

“Err…” Your lip wibbled a little. “I… mean… You know what? I don’t know if Kate’s story is exactly the same as mine and I’m not going to speak for her. She can… she doesn’t have to… Um… She’s a good person and she’s on your side! Yeah! I…”

You were floundering! You were floundering big time!

Shit! Shit! SHIT!

“I don’t think it’s right for me to say.”

They all watched with puzzled expressions as you shrunk away a little. It was like speaking about a taboo at the family dinner table, you couldn’t bring yourself to speak for her, lest you’d vomit.

Soap shrugged.

“You mentioned lamias being only female,” Ghost muttered, before turning to look at you again, “Are there any male soldiers?”

Murmurings of approval from the group suggested that this was apparently an astute question. To you, however, it made you incredibly sick to your stomach for some reason.

“Oh God!” you blurted out, warranting a few chuckles from 141.

You smiled with them, finding some form of relief in the way they had taken that as a joke. Soon, although, curious silence would return and the burden of having to answer that question had wrapped its fingers around your head; beginning to slowly crush your skull, the pressure building with every passing second you left that question unanswered.

“Yes, there are male soldiers… Um…”

For some reason, you found tears pricking your eyes.

One rolled down your cheek.

You chuckled nervously, wiping it away. However, more trickled down. It was strange. You weren’t exactly feeling anything that was strong enough to bring about tears. And yet, here you were… embarrassing yourself.

“I’m sorry.” You did your best to keep smiling, catching as many tears as you could and swiping them away.

What’s wrong with me?

“Y/N,” Laswell began, reaching from across the table, “you don’t have to say any-”

“Kate, I’m-”

In the blink of an eye, Laswell got up and promptly whisked you away and out of there. Ghost watched your figure shrinking into the distance before you vanished round a corner.

Kate sighed and muttered to herself, shoulders slumping.

You were just like her. A tragic, shattered reflection which, if pieced together, would form her portrait. Every lamia was the same in that regard: the same story, the same stupid story. Enduring the same stupid things, doing all they could to avoid them, but still somehow, being unfortunate enough to end up hurt.

Price’s face screamed concern.

Soap looked over to Ghost, who just stared blankly at the table, feeling immensely guilty.

He had been selfish. Before she had left, he had caught Kate’s eye briefly and quickly avoided her gaze. What if she had been through something similar? He should have known better. He had thrown a pathetic temper tantrum, rolling around in his own trust issues when there was clearly something bigger going on here.

Eventually, everyone had left the breakfast table, the awkward silence growing too much. Everyone but Ghost. He sat there with his head in his hands. He had been there for a while, scolding himself for being an idiot.

“Simon.”

Ghost looked up to see MacTavish was back. He took a seat beside him.

“You alright?”

The lieutenant remained silent, shaking his head, sighing into his hands.

“Simon, you didn’t know. We all didn’t know. Gaz is proper beating himself up about this in the barracks.”

Once more, silence.

Soap bit down on his lip, peering around, hoping to catch a glimpse of Simon’s masked face through his hands.

“Mate, we’ve all been there. Asked the wrong question. It was just a mistake. I’ve done the same with you.”

“I know, Soap. I know.”

MacTavish moved to place a hand on Ghost’s hunched back.

“Have you seen Y/N? Are they okay?” Riley shyly asked, his voice muffled a little by his hands.

Soap shrugged. “I don’t know. I heard crying but…”

Ghost let out a heavy sigh, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Simon! It’s okay! I’m sure they’ll be fine. They probably know you didn’t mean anything by it. I heard Kate having a long convo with Price and it sounded fairly casual. We haven’t done anything bad. Just then or last night.”

“I feel like an idiot.”

Soap laughed.

“That’s a first!”

Ghost turned to him, batting the man away playfully. However, that melancholy feeling returned promptly.

MacTavish sighed quietly.

“I’m gonna go and check up on Gaz. See you in the barracks in a bit?”

“Yeah.” Ghost nodded, “See ya.”

***

“23, you can’t even balance the camera properly!” 72 chuckled, folding her arms as she watched the younger lamia attempt to precariously sit her trusty camcorder on a makeshift tripod of twigs.

“Trust me! It’ll work! Plus, if I make this throw, I’ll have a record…” 23 looked about before lowering her voice to a whisper. “… 89 said that she can keep the SD card safe from them.”

“You serious?”

She nodded, feeling rather smug. However, 72’s face grew dark, a gnawing doubt creeping in.

“What if you get caught?”

23’s smile was quick to fade. She looked to the ground.

“I hadn’t thought about that.”

72 shook her head. “You and I are so lucky we’re not in Unit 4. This shit wouldn’t fly. At all.”

“I count my lucky stars every day.”

“You better be.”

72 sighed to herself, flicking a couple of braids over her shoulder. 23 chewed on her lip as she returned her attention back to her camera set up, quickly jumping to steady the camera as it began to wobble again.

The older lamia caught the eye of Phillip as he was grabbing a blood canister from a duffel bag. They acknowledged each other and the large distance between them. After a few moments of slightly uncomfortable silence, 72 took her leave, crawling back into her tent.

Under the cover of her shelter, she let out a shaky sigh. The girl had forgotten that there was a monster under there, a ravenous, destructive monster. A monster which had almost taken off her younger colleague’s leg.

Phillip felt around for the dip in his mask and slotted the canister in place. Immediately, sweet, sweet vaporous placidity filled his lungs. The man had begun to get a little antsy and knew it wasn’t wise to face Valeria with a hair-trigger temper. He didn’t need to be killing their asset, after all.

He didn’t need to be confronted with a botched job. Not after this second chance. Graves rose from his knelt position on the ground and marched up to Valeria.

“So,” he began, kneeling before her, “any ideas on how we’re going to infect our target?”

“Well, if I’m administering this through a bite, I need to get close and I also need the virus if you want me to-”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.” He looked down to the ground, shuddering.

“What?” Valeria asked.

“Why’d you have to… you know? I didn’t get that when they made me… this.”

She giggled to herself.

“My dear,” Valeria spoke with a condescending tone, “the Foundation clearly wants this man to turn quickly. I’ve seen it all before. My blood, combined with the filth running through your veins will… ensure their victory.”

Phillip nodded to himself, feeling absolutely revolted inside. And so, he was quick to change the topic to his initial intention for this conversation.

“Didn’t you mention that the Vaqueros are aware of you breaking out of jail?”

Valeria grinned. Her jailbreak was incredible. It was always exhilarating, to be the one with the power. Unlike now.

That had been beautifully done, well planned and really allowed her to have some fun. She had even managed to use those gifts from the Foundation, stopping a poor guard’s heart with her mind, though it did take a lot out of her. As Valeria reminisced, she realised something: lamias were extremely powerful. A mind was at the mercy of her. Think the right thought and someone could be seeing their throat closing up, their own body betraying them, pledging allegiance to her.

She could bend him to her will.

As Valeria looked at him, at that blank mask whose polished surface beheld her reflection, she saw herself pale. That damn uniform made every single one of them look exactly the same. If she looked hard enough, through the layers of armour, she could perhaps make out his face and those eyes.

Had they changed colour yet?

Had they lost their humanity? Lined with black? Had his irises expanded, leaving only slivers of sclera?

Was he fantasising about tearing out her throat right now?

Valeria’s lips thinned into a resigned grin.

No. She wouldn’t be able to get into his head. It was too risky. Press on the wrong part of the brain, induce the wrong impulse and she would find herself torn apart by a very angry wolf.

That was the problem with Arcadian Sons. They were always, somehow stronger.

Fuck you.

“Do you think you’d be up to… provoking them?”

“How so?” Valeria raised an eyebrow.

“We know 141 are obviously hiding out with the Mexican Special Forces. Get Alejandro to put you where you can reach Ghost.”

She couldn’t help but sigh.

“So, you want me to get captured?”

“We’ll get you back out, don’t you-”

SLAM!

A knife went flying and lodged itself in the bark, merely centimetres away from Valeria’s face. They both halted in their tracks, staring at the weapon, shivers of shock taking their time to subside.

Following the course it had taken with his eyes, Phillip’s gaze landed on the figure of 23. Her hand was over her face.

Shit!

Phillip sighed and got up. He reached for the knife, pulled it out of the bark with disturbing ease and then began to make his way to the girl.

23’s eyes grew wider and wider, her heart in her mouth. She wanted to run but was petrified in place. Phillip grew nearer and nearer, his armoured body looking bigger and more intimidating than ever. That knife was in a sure grip, and she watched, breaths growing shallow, as it swung in time with his stride. She shrunk away under his shadow, scrunching her eyes shut. The girl raised her arms in a helpless flinch.

“I’m sorry! I wasn’t aiming for you or the asset, I swear! I-”

“Here.”

Huh?

She looked up at him, confused.

He groaned at the sight of her looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Begrudgingly, Phillip took her hand and placed the knife in it.

“Don’t do that again. Go back in the tent, please.”

His voice was incredibly stern.

She nodded, taking the knife and dashing to grab her camera.

“23!”

The lamia froze, slowly turning around at the sound of his voice.

“Those aren’t made for throwin’. You gotta be an expert in order to get those to land where you want ‘em.”

She nodded.

“Go in the tent. I’ll call you and 72 out when I need y’all and when the boys are back.”

Holy shit.

Valeria watched him walk back towards her, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

What was his ploy?

***

You sighed, staring at the bowl of porridge you had left behind from breakfast. Sitting on the doorstep, the view of the woods just beyond the base directly in front of you, you took a spoonful of your food and tipped it back into the bowl. Tired eyes watched the viscous mixture of milk, oatmeal, newly added honey, and berries drip back into its container. You never thought it’d be so exhausting having to comfort someone, it made you feel guilty how fatiguing it had been to ease Laswell’s tears. 

It hadn’t even been an hour since breakfast, but it had felt like aeons had gone by.

You didn’t even bother to acknowledge who had come down to sit beside you.

“Hey,” Ghost greeted, awkwardly placing his hands in his lap, hoping you’d notice that.

He did his best to make himself as small as possible, slouching a little on his perch on the concrete step. You smiled politely before bringing a spoonful of porridge to your mouth, hopeful that your stuffed face would give him a reason not to talk to you. It wasn’t that you were angry with him or anything, it was just that you weren’t really in the mood for conversation. You felt a little delicate right now and knew that you’d very well be crying again like you did yesterday. Shame sloshed around inside your skull. It was stupid to cry. You weren’t a little kid anymore.

Adults don’t cry. Lamias don’t cry.

You kept your eyes ahead, staring into the abyss of wood and leaves, wondering if the howling you had heard last night was anything to be worried about.

Ghost looked over at you before sighing to himself.

Then, he decided to just bite the bullet, put the words into his mouth and speak.

“I’m sorry, Y/N.” He began, consciously trying not to sound as gruff as he usually would. “I should’ve seen you were getting uncomfortable and not pressed further.”

Shyly, he looked over to see what you made of his apology.

“It’s okay,” you said, still staring ahead, “It’s not that I was reluctant to answer, I just… I don’t know.”

Ghost nodded, studying you closely. You looked tired, very, very tired, as if you had never experienced a proper rest before. He dreaded to know what you had gone through. However, he also could tell you wanted to say something and get the words out properly, on your own terms.

“Do you…” He did his best to be as tentative as possible. “Do you want to talk about something?”

You nodded.

“I feel like I should talk about stuff. Kate thinks it’s useless, and I think maybe even embarrassing, but it’s not embarrassing, is it? Opening up about past baggage?”

“No,” Ghost replied, “I mean, when it comes to my past, I find it difficult myself, but that’s because I struggle with, um… articulating how I feel about it.”

“Maybe Kate’s the same…” You speculated, scratching your chin in thought.

“Could be. Could not be.” Ghost shrugged. “Everyone’s different.”

You set your bowl aside and leaned forward, cupping your face in your hands.

“I just feel like Kate’s the only person I can talk to, but now it’s like she doesn’t want to talk to me about lamia stuff, about the Foundation.”

Ghost understood the pain you were feeling. Everyone needs that one person to vent to and he had that in Soap and maybe… maybe you could have that in him?

Worth a try.

Yes, you wouldn’t be here for very long, but he knew it would help you big time regardless. He wasn’t a monster and sure, he may be a little cold and stoic at times but if Ghost would want something to be remembered by it was that, despite it all, he was kind. He was good at his fucking job, he was efficient and he was a good man.

“You could talk to me if you like. I know I already offered before but I’m serious, you can talk to me.”

“What if you don’t get it? What if it’s too heavy for you?”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

You sighed, drawing your knees up to under your chin.

“Some parts I may not understand. But I think you’ll find; I may be able to relate to quite a few things.”

You tilted your head to one side.

“Really?”

“We’re both humans, after all. There’s got to be something we both can understand about one another.”

Human.

‘Human’ made you sound like you and Ghost were alike, were one in the same kind. It was weird. You had always been taught that there were men and everyone else. The default and the other.‘Human’ was a word that was advertised as an umbrella term but was really only reserved to describe a select few; and you had been told time and time again, either outright or from what you learned and what you read, be it through diagrams in biology textbooks, language, literature and more. Proper humans, studied humans, humans who could be understood and cared for were not who your kind were.

A shy smile crept onto your face and you watched Ghost’s eyes crease, suggesting he too was smiling under that balaclava.

[letstalktea]

Content: M!OC x M!OC, Vampires x Mortal, fluff, not smut

He always came and went like a warm midnight breeze in the Texan summer; knocking on the door to come into his home and leaving him just as quickly. Marcus knew it was a transactional relationship that rarely lasted a few hours at a time, but his door was always open for him anyway; his door and his bed.

"You got thinner," he said as his long, graceful fingers trailed over Marcus' hip bone peeking out of the bedsheets. "Are you eating enough?"

He was one to talk. He was so thin and small that Marcus thought his bones would break if a strong enough breeze blew through. Although, all that thin and small was put together in an appealing way so he wasn't complaining.

Marcus took a drag of his cigarette, holding the smoke in his lungs before releasing it up into the air above their heads. "Yeah." Even though that meant he was living on fast food and convenience store garbage. Hey, at least he was eating.

He chuckled low under his breath as he plucked the cigarette from Marcus' hand. "Liar. You probably taste like shit." He put the cigarette to his soft lips and seemed to just hold it there without breathing in the smoke or even trying.

"You would know better than anyone." Marcus plucked the cigarette out of his mouth before taking another drag of it himself. "Don't start. You're too young to pick up this shitty habit."

He really was young. About 10 years too young to even be on Marcus' radar, but the man had a charm about him that made that seem like a non-issue; a silver-tongue that somehow convinced him that he was older than he looked. Plus, he was pretty as fuck and sometimes the lower head thought a hell of a lot louder than the upper one.

"If I'm young, what does that make you?"

"Old and tired." And in desperate need of a fucking break. 

"Oh? Good thing I didn't need you for a job, then. I would hate to have you fall asleep on me." He slipped out from the bed and started picking his clothes from the floor. "Get some sleep and a real meal, Mr. Tired Old Man."

Marcus stamped out the cigarette in the bowl beside his bed. "Pretty sure I've only got breakfast shit. Eggs, bread, maybe bacon…" it was easy to whip up, which is the only reason he even had that much.

He was already dressing himself. "Sure. Eat that in the morning."

"I've got enough for a couple meals, at least…"

"Wonderful! You can make a few meals then." 

He wasn't sure if his man was dense or willfully ignorant. That was a lie. He knew. He just didn't like the answer. "Ya want any?"

"Can't." 

That was always his answer. He could never stay the night because he had other plans and obligations. And Marcus wanted to punch that obligation in his old, creepy face.

He placed a hand against Marcus' cheek. "You'll eat for me, won't you? I'd hate to see you starve."

Oh, fuck his life and his stupid pounding heart.

"Sure." And it would be the best damn eggs and toast he'd ever had in his life.

"Good." He leaned in to kiss Marcus on the cheek. "Don't get up. I know my way out." 

"Yeah, but ya can't lock the door." He hadn't quite gotten to offering him a house key just yet. Plus, it gave him an excuse to see him out rather than opening his eyes to find him gone.

"Worrywart." He giggled. "I have my ways."

"Whatever you say, Dread." He stood from the bed and walked toward the front door so he could spend just those few extra minutes looking at his lovable face.

[sofasoap]

several parts of your body are neatly wrapped in surprisingly clean bandages, reminding you of the incident that led to your capture.

*eyebrows raised* OHhh... wonder who made the decision to bandage petra up... Makarov? to give him leverage / manipulate petra thinking he is " nice enough " to help her with her injury?

soap and gaz may not be here. they could be lying dead in the sand, either killed by their wounds or by the enemy.

*sob* I would be panicking like hell if my closest friend/team mate is possibly dead...

do whatever is necessary to make it out alive.

by all necessary means.. listen to the expert...

. "my men found you in quite an... unfortunate state. i must admit that i'm impressed. surviving a direct missile strike is no small feat."

luck is always on their side. Taskforce 141.

"i never said that," he replies, shaking his head in a low-effort attempt to placate you. "whether your teammates still live is not my concern. my men left them to their own fates."

hum. playing with words and minds here Makarov? they might be alive or not alive? schrodinger's cat.

( Please be alive boys... )

"petra," he addresses you suddenly, drawing your attention. "tell me, do you consider yourself a good person?"

he clicks his tongue, making a 'tsk' sound at your reply. "you cannot claim to be fighting for a good cause, if said cause considers civilians another price of war."

Ah, trying to manipulate her eh? But I guess IRL, truth is, its not all black and white.

"the men you encountered were not mercenaries. they worked for a ...... ...he's enjoying making you beg for information. "the american general. shepherd, was it?"

what's that saying? we are all enemies, but once we have common enemy... we are now... ally!

practically burning with rage; at shepherd or makarov, you're not sure.

oh, Petra, you are burning with rage for Shepherd, but burning with DESIRE for Makarov later...

makarov has a small army that somehow slipped under your radars. you're well aware of konni and his affiliation with other powerful groups

Oh, never underestimate him alright. he is the most wanted, deadliest terrorist in the world for a reason. wouldn't be a good one if the govt military find out all the stuff he is up to , right?

the warning is a low growl next to your ear, his voice dripping with such an intense venom that it makes your skin crawl.

mmmmm , you know, I wonder, if many ppl get on his nerve or makes him lose his cool so easily like that??

"if he can prove his worth, he can find forgiveness for his crimes. he'll try to use his position to pin it on the one-four-one, too."

hmmm. if this is true, then 141 will be the one in deep shit then. ( well i remember one of the OG 141 did get blamed for something?? )

"go fuck yourself–!" you snap, fighting the guards in a last-ditch effort to free yourself. as they drag you down the hall, back to the prison cell you had already grown to hate, he keeps his gaze on you. "i look forward to getting better acquainted with you, lieutenant."

Ah Petra, you shouldn't have think this will end so easily. I am sure Makarov IS interested to get to know you more.. personally and also see if he can manipulate you to do things for him eh?

thank you so much for the update!! sorry for late review... can't wait to see what is coming up!

bloodsport – I

prologue

characters: vladimir makarov

summary: day one of your imprisonment brings you face-to-face with the enemy.

genre: angst, slowburn, enemies to ?, fem!reader (callsign: petra, no desc.)

warnings: semi-proofread, cursing, canon-typical violence, minor descriptions of blood/injuries, light manipulation?, makarov fucks w/ reader's head (╯д╰)

word count: 3.3k

note: listened to makarov’s voice reveal while writing this and felt my brain chemistry change immediately <3

the first thing you notice after waking up is how uncomfortable the bed you're sleeping on is. the mattress is thin and bare, sitting low to the ground on a wrought iron frame that had seen better days. your body aches, muscles burning and begging for reprieve as you pull yourself up to sit. you carefully swing your legs over the edge of the bed and wince from the effort.

you're not in a hospital, not even a temporary clinic set up for emergency treatment. the walls are made up of weathered stone and brick, akin to an old prison built to withstand a siege, and the iron bars across the room confirm your suspicions.

you've been captured.

the air surrounding you seems to grow thicker, heavier, threatening to steal the oxygen straight from your lungs. during your career, you've dealt with a great number of challenges: being shot, stabbed, abandoned, betrayed, and even nearly killed. you've been captured as well, but only for planned operations. torture was never a threat.

several parts of your body are neatly wrapped in surprisingly clean bandages, reminding you of the incident that led to your capture. the missile, konni's presence in the city, makarov. did he take the sergeants captive, as well? are they here with you?

you force yourself to stand and try to ignore your knees almost buckling as you cross the room, heading towards the door. a glance through the bars provides little information - the cell across from yours is empty, and the only sound you can make out is meaningless chatter between the guards patrolling the hall. they're speaking in russian, preventing you from eavesdropping on their conversations. it's probably nothing important, anyway. while searching, you start to consider the worst case scenario.

soap and gaz may not be here. they could be lying dead in the sand, either killed by their wounds or by the enemy.

you shake your head and step back into the middle of the room, not even daring to entertain that train of thought any longer. you can't afford to doubt your team at a time like this. they're alive, either in cells of their own or recovering somewhere else.

the voices in the hall suddenly go quiet. they're soon replaced by footsteps, languid yet purposeful, expensive shoes padding against the stone floor and steadily drawing closer. your eyes stay glued to the door, unmoving from it despite your instincts telling you to run. you have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. your only option is to face the person approaching directly.

advice from your team swims through your mind. although the sergeants have never been locked up and tortured, price and ghost have. you can remember price's stories clear as day, as if he told them only yesterday. ghost was more private about his experiences, but after las almas, he slowly began to open up about his past. the two echoed the same advice to the sergeants and yourself.

do whatever is necessary to make it out alive.

you squeeze your eyes shut and inhale deeply, attempting to calm your buzzing nerves and racing heart. panic will do you no good in this situation. when you open your eyes, you're immediately greeted by one of the guards - a man in black clothing and gear, his face obscured, unlocking the door at the far end of the room. he steps away a second later, leaving you staring at the man you dreaded meeting through the bars.

his gaze is trained on you, dark eyes burning holes into your skin, rendering you immobile. you try to maintain a confident demeanor nonetheless, refusing to give him the satisfaction of intimidating you.

"turn around," he says, his voice flat as he gives you the simple command. "hands on the wall."

you hesitate, pride briefly overtaking your rational senses. after a short-lived staring contest, however, you silently concede and turn to face the wall. you press your palms to the cold stone and listen as the door creaks open and shut. gloved hands wrap around your wrists shortly thereafter and pull your arms backwards, forcing them behind your back. cold metal replaces his touch and binds your wrists.

"seems a bit excessive, don't you think?" you ask. your voice wavers just slightly, hoarse from lack of use. "i'm already out of commission, thanks to these injuries."

he gives you no response, though you catch a glimpse of his apathetic expression when he reaches past you to grab a metal chair that rests in the corner of the room. it scrapes across the floor as he drags it away, and you turn once more to watch as he sets it down a few feet from the side of the bed.

"sit down." he looks at you and motions to the bed. you wordlessly follow the order and stumble forward before settling on the edge of the mattress, hands clenched into tight fists. he sits on the chair across from you and leans back, looking completely at ease while taking in your current appearance.

"do you know who i am?" he speaks again, eyes flicking back up to meet yours. you feel like a prey animal locking eyes with a predator, waiting for them to tear you apart. you don't dare to look away.

"makarov." the name leaves your lips in a low murmur. "leader of the ultranationalists. konni's commander. the 'world's biggest threat,' according to some. i've heard plenty about you." you stiffen as the edge of his mouth twitches, an eerie smile playing on his lips.

"i'm sure captain price had a great deal to say, lieutenant." he folds his hands in his lap, nodding towards your bandaged body. you're still in your uniform, albeit without your dirty and damaged outer layers, and your gear is long gone. you feel vulnerable under his gaze. "my men found you in quite an... unfortunate state. i must admit that i'm impressed. surviving a direct missile strike is no small feat."

"where is my team?" you demand, fighting against the restraints. they don't loosen in the slightest, of course, and makarov merely tilts his head to the side at your struggle. "there were two men with me. where are they? what did you do with them?"

he blinks at you, refusing to respond. you open your mouth to repeat the question, before he interrupts you. "they didn't put up much of a fight. it was disappointing, really." his hands unfold and he shifts in the chair, chuckling to himself. "i expected more from price's so-called 'elite task force.'"

his comment pulls an involuntary gasp from you, a stuttering breath falling from your lips. "they didn't... you killed them?" you ask, voice dropping to a near-whisper. it can't be true. soap, gaz– surely they're still alive. they have to be.

"i never said that," he replies, shaking his head in a low-effort attempt to placate you. "whether your teammates still live is not my concern. my men left them to their own fates."

your eyes narrow, though your shoulders slump just a little at his answer. they could still be alive. "what is your concern, then? i doubt you've taken me captive just to talk." you remark, racking your brain for any reason why he'd take you over the rest of the team. convenience, perhaps? you were defenseless, and of the options readily available, you held the highest rank.

"nothing gets past you, does it, lieutenant?" makarov leans forward, prompting you to sit up straighter in order to keep a comfortable distance. his voice lowers, as if he was hiding his next words from any curious souls just outside the room. "i think we can help each other. i have information that you need, and your allies have the resources to take care of a constant thorn in my side."

"are you saying we have a common enemy?"

he nods, reaching into his pocket. "it appears we do." he pauses, pulling out a cellphone and scrolling for a moment before turning it towards you. you lean closer, studying the image on the screen as he continues. "this should look familiar to you."

you furrow your brow at the blurry picture, but the subject still stands out. it was a man laying dead on the ground, wearing combat fatigues that looked out-of-date, surrounded by several corpses dressed in similar, yet mismatched uniforms. their bodies have no visible identification, reminding you of the americans you encountered working with konni and al-qatala.

"i remember them. we thought they were random mercenaries hired by your men," you say, shifting your focus back to makarov. "i take it they're not working for you?"

"the men you encountered were not mercenaries. they worked for a man, not a company. your team knows their employer well." he pauses long enough for you to nod your head, urging him to speak. the satisfied smile that briefly crosses his face is enough to make your blood boil beneath your skin - he's enjoying making you beg for information. "the american general. shepherd, was it?"

"what?"

"did you really believe that you could trust him, petra?" he asks with a quirked brow. hearing him utter your callsign in such a casual tone only serves to make you feel hotter, practically burning with rage; at shepherd or makarov, you're not sure.

the situation doesn't make any sense. why would shadow company launch a war with konni, only to ally with them in secret? based on the intel that laswell gathered during your time in las almas, about shadow company losing the missiles to the group, shepherd should want to burn the organization, not assist it. you frantically search for an answer, but come up with nothing. grudgingly, you look to the man sitting in front of you.

"tell me more." you mutter, managing to subdue your anger for the time being.

instead of elaborating, he stands from the chair. you watch him cross the room and stop in front of the door, casting a glance in your direction. "we can discuss the details in due time. for now, come."

you stare at him, confused, before rising to your feet and following him. he leaves the cell and starts down the hallway with you in tow, doing your best to keep pace as the momentarily forgotten pain quickly settles in again. a pair of guards follow the two of you from a small distance, close enough to intervene in an emergency but far enough to not indulge in your discussion.

if you can even call this a "discussion." a madman and his captive audience is a more accurate description.

you try to take in your surroundings. the corridors greatly resemble the cell you were in, dark stone and brick walls that looked in dire need of repairs. the barred windows you pass look out onto different fields, courtyards turned into vehicle and weapon storage. you have to restrain yourself from gawking when you see a small collection of tanks in one area, accompanied by smaller APCs scattered about.

makarov has a small army that somehow slipped under your radars. you're well aware of konni and his affiliation with other powerful groups, but you've always assumed they were disorganized, using guerilla tactics and thrifted gear. this is something else entirely, you think. he's preparing for war.

you hear a soft rumbling in the distance. at first, you mistake it for one of the vehicles, until the sound disappears. it reappears seconds later, and you quickly realize that it's thunder.

"petra," he addresses you suddenly, drawing your attention. "tell me, do you consider yourself a good person?"

your brows knit together at the question. it feels out of place, and you wonder for a moment if you misheard him. your step falters, causing one of the guards to grumble something about "keeping up" until you catch up again. "i, uh– i guess i do, yeah. what are you getting at?"

there's a storm approaching, the thunder sounding closer now. the sky grows dark as grey clouds begin to form and block out the sun, casting shadows across the exterior grounds. it's a melancholic scene, although fitting considering your circumstances. you reach a set of doors that another pair of guards pull open, allowing you to step outside.

a cold breeze sweeps past you almost instantly, forcing a shiver down your spine as goosebumps rise to the surface of your exposed skin. makarov says something to the guards that you don't quite catch and the doors shut behind you, leaving you alone with him. you're standing on a small balcony overlooking a bustling area full of soldiers and mercenaries alike, training and organizing their forces.

"you consider yourself good, even though you're responsible for innocent lives being lost?" he remarks, stepping towards the balcony's edge and placing his hands atop the stone ledge.

"innocent lives– you are the one responsible for that!" you exclaim, striding across the balcony and glaring daggers at his profile. "my job is to save people, and that's what i do. i've spent years hunting down threats just like you with the sole purpose of making the world safer for the innocents!"

he turns to face you with the same apathetic expression as earlier, when he first entered your cell. he doesn't look at all affected by your words, dark eyes staring straight through you. if you didn't know better, you'd think he was seeing into your very soul. his response - or rather, the lack thereof - is enough to make you go quiet. a beat of silence passes between you, only broken by the encroaching thunder and sounds of his soldiers training in the field below.

"what of the missiles used by your allies? the ones that they lost." he mutters, earning an exasperated sigh from you.

"you mean the missiles that your men killed them for?" you flex your hands in the restraints and shake your head. "i'm not allied with the shadows or their commander, but even if i was, those missiles were going to a good cause."

"and, where were they going?"

your eyes flit from his own, focusing on the distant horizon. you can tell exactly where he's going with this line of questioning, but the frustration continues to build up inside of you.

"if i had to guess, they were probably heading straight for your doorstep." you grumble, shifting from one foot to the other. standing for so long is nothing short of agonizing, given your current state.

he clicks his tongue, making a 'tsk' sound at your reply. "you cannot claim to be fighting for a good cause, if said cause considers civilians another price of war." makarov huffs. from the corner of your eye, you can see his gaze still firmly locked on you. "the lives that you save will never outweigh the damage you've done. they'll never cleanse your hands of the blood that stains them. every time your allies fire off a missile to kill someone like me, so, too, are they killing innocent–"

"you're one to fucking talk–"

the words tumble from your lips as your back is slammed into the wall, your skull knocking against the stone from the force. you wince, eyes temporarily falling out of focus and head spinning from yet another injury. makarov leans in dangerously close, one of his hands wrapped around your throat uncomfortably tight, restricting your airflow. you could still breathe, but just barely, sucking in short gasps of air.

"watch your mouth."

the warning is a low growl next to your ear, his voice dripping with such an intense venom that it makes your skin crawl. you try to nod your head despite his hold, finding it impossible to form any words with your lack of oxygen. your brain is firing off warning signals, desperate pleas to eliminate or escape the threat in front of you.

after a couple seconds, his grip loosens, allowing you to fully inhale and exhale, chest heaving with each ragged breath. he's still standing unbearably close, enough that you can feel the heat radiating off his body. it's an unwelcomed reprieve from the damp breeze that makes your weary bones ache.

finally, he releases you and steps back, giving you space to come down from your brief adrenaline rush. you blink away any remaining disorientation and fix your gaze on him, sinking down on your heels and slumping against the wall.

he looks completely calm - a stark contrast to his demeanor from just moments ago. an uneasy feeling settles in your stomach as you watch him collect himself, fixing the rolled cuffs of his dress shirt and straightening his suit jacket.

"you wanted to know more about general shepherd." he mutters, eyes finding yours and holding your gaze. you worry the inside of your cheek and nod in return.

"the men working for him are not mercenaries, nor are they from any private military group. they're ex-soldiers." he begins, crossing his arms behind his back. "operatives from the CIA, to be precise. he has attempted to send several men undercover, and he's failed every single time. once discovered, they are... taken care of."

you lower your head and squint, struggling to follow. "i understand sending one man undercover, but why more? what is he trying to accomplish?"

"come on, you can figure that one out."

you want to sneer at the condescending tone, but instead you close your eyes and try to think. shepherd is still in the wind after las almas, and the only person that has a chance of knowing his location is graves. judging by the latter's cooperation with urzikstan, however, you can safely assume that shepherd is lacking in resources.

"he's attempting to start a war. reestablish himself and shadow company as an invaluable military asset," you mumble to yourself, suddenly feeling apprehensive about revealing this to the man in front of you. "if he can prove his worth, he can find forgiveness for his crimes. he'll try to use his position to pin it on the one-four-one, too."

"very clever, petra. i'm impressed." he chuckles at the glare you shoot his way, clearly annoyed with his praise.

you bite your tongue and push yourself off the wall. "i need to relay this to my team as soon as possible. shepherd can't be left to his own devices." you roll your shoulders back and mentally prepare for the uphill battle that the you'll be facing. the one-four-one's relationship with shadow company is already fragile, and you're left to ponder if graves knows about this plan. he could very well be involved.

"no need to fret over that. i have people for matters such as this."

makarov saunters across the balcony and places his hand on the door handle. you narrow your eyes at him, confusion plainly written on your expression.

"i thought you said we could help each other."

"haven't we?" he asks, swinging the door open. "ah, i can see what that pretty little mind of yours is struggling to understand. you believed i was going to let you go, didn't you?"

a bright flash emerges from the storm clouds blanketing the sky, illuminating the crooked grin on his face. you stumble towards him, fatigued body threatening to collapse under its own weight. you should have known better, you shouldn't have trusted that the situation would end in your favor.

"you– you fucking asshole–"

before you can lunge at him, use the last of your strength to do something, the guards from before appear in the doorway and restrain you. their hands dig into your skin, aggravating fresh wounds and setting your sensitive nerves ablaze, ripping a pathetic pained whimper from your lips.

"as much as i would love to stay and indulge myself," makarov starts, stepping aside to allow the guards to force you back inside the stronghold. "i have somewhere i need to be. as do you."

"go fuck yourself–!" you snap, fighting the guards in a last-ditch effort to free yourself. as they drag you down the hall, back to the prison cell you had already grown to hate, he keeps his gaze on you.

"i look forward to getting better acquainted with you, lieutenant."

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[s-brant]

Cherry Bowl (3/8)

(gif: @kiekiecarrera) (PART TWO) (PART FOUR) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: When Kie cancels their plans together, Y/N asks JJ on a date to the Cherry Bowl Drive-In. Unsure of how to navigate his first ever date, JJ seeks out advice. Unfortunately, the night doesn’t go as planned, and both parties are left shaken by miscommunication.

Word Count: 10.6k

Warnings: Smut, public sex/exhibitionism, sexual choking, angst, depictions of mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and implied/referenced abuse.

A/N: Welcome back to Tokens! Slight trouble in paradise is brewing for these two lovers, so buckle up and read because it’s gonna be a rollercoster for a little while after what happens in this chapter. I hope you all like it, and if you did, feedback is very appreciated. Have fun!

"I'm just saying that oatmeal raisin is superior to chocolate chip, why is that such an egregious crime, Kie?"

The lunch room is filled to the brim with students going to town on questionably cooked frozen foods, soggy tater tots, and sugary drinks from the vending machines despite the Obama-era posters on the walls advocating for healthier school lunches that never seemed to make their way to Kildare County High. The extent of their healthy lunches extended to a serving of overcooked canned green beans served with the worst slice of doughy pizza known to human kind, so it was sort of contradictory.

Y/N sits across the table from Pope and JJ, the latter of which being the one who launched into a full-fledged debate with Kiara about which type of cookie was better.

The clear cling wrap sits, unfolded, on the table with one of her stickers neatly placed on the back of it. As consolation for his epic loss yesterday at the beach, she paid an extra .75 cents to get him it when she arrived first to their shared lunch period—one of only two class periods they have together, the other being gym. He was still in line when she peeled a surfboard sticker off of her sheet and placed it at the center of the wrapped up cookie as if to remind him of her triumph over him in the waves.

"Thanks, hot stuff," he said, voice somewhat quieter despite the fact that hardly anyone was in the cafeteria with them. Then his smile dropped into an deadpan expression as soon as he saw her choice of sticker and looked back up at her. "You're never gonna let me live that one down, are you?"

"Never in a million years. I'll be gloating about it until I'm elderly."

"That's my girl."

The sound of the constant chatter surrounding them from at least two hundred other people drowns out the memories of yesterday that threaten to haunt her when she watches him debate with Kie. The mere recollection of their night in the back of the van has her reaching to pull the collar of her cropped tee up to assure that the hickeys remain hidden on instinct, and he catches the action out of the corner of his eye. It has him fighting a smile.

Kie quips, "Maybe on another planet, but, here, I think we can all agree chocolate chip is better, right Y/N?"

Y/N's eyes widen around a forkful of mushy "green beans" at the sound of her name being said bringing her from the depths of her memories.

Usually, she's quick to jump in and give her two cents on whatever stupid back and forth they're all having, but her mind was elsewhere. Unbeknownst to Kie and Pope, she was mentally reliving every second of getting fucked in the van last night, so her attention to detail when it comes to the Chocolate Chip vs Oatmeal Raisin case isn't all too sharp.

"Uhhh," she stops for a second, looking at the half eaten chocolate chip cookie in Kie's hand, "If I say chocolate chip is better, can I get a piece of it?"

Kie's face lights up at her words, and she's already pulling off a generous chunk of the baked good to hand off to her. The sound of a certain someone whose lap Y/N's legs are outstretched onto from beneath the table scoffing distracts her from the first bite.

"I know you prefer oatmeal raisin, you traitor," JJ says.

Their brunette friend's brows scrunch.

"Why is she a traitor?"

They try to keep from making any faces or giving anything away, but Y/N has to stifle the sound of her choking on her mouthful of cookie at the question. You'd think one of them came out and asked if they were dating or something with how she reacts, and she feels JJ squeeze her ankle in a non-verbal way of telling her to hold it together. It was her idea in the first place, yet he's a lot smoother with keeping it under the radar.

Under it all, the aspect of keeping it a secret does unnerve him to a degree. He doesn't think he'd be brave enough to communicate it, especially not when their relationship remains undefined, but the darker side of his mind wonders...

He shrugs, saying, "Cause we were friends first. Duh. Other than John B, I've known her the longest."

None of them stop to acknowledge the identical aches in their hearts at the mentioning of his name. They skip right over it like it never happened. After the funeral a few days ago, they've filled their quota on mushy-gushy sad talk for the next week and a half.

The real reason is something far more complicated than him having a claim staked on her loyalty through having the longest friendship. It's something tied up in days of slowly getting pulled into one another's worlds like the tug of gravity itself, in how he has to refrain from slipping his arm around her waist in the hallway or kissing her goodbye after a sleepover at the Chateau. But until she gives him the go-ahead, he won't let it slip to anyone.

Pope speaks up from beside him, "You literally met her twenty minutes before we did."

"Still counts. Technically, I did meet her first, so her betraying Team Oatmeal Raisin is enough to be tried for treason in Pogue Court."

"Pogue Court isn't a thing."

He crosses his arms after he pops the rest of the cookie into his mouth.

"It is now. You can be tried for treason for breaking the rules. Rule number one is that all Pogues have to admit oatmeal raisin is superior."

He's about to ball up the cling wrap to throw away later when the surfboard sticker catches his attention again. It's the same color as his board, which he'd like to think is a result of her being an evil mastermind that went out to get this sticker sheet for the sole purpose of teasing him, but he's the one who got her the sheet as a gift for her birthday, so he knows it was pure coincidence.

Last second, he peels the sticker away from the cling wrap and looks down to place it over the top of her yellow converse that were once a vibrant, paler color when Big John got them for her, but have since turned into an ugly mustard/dirt-dusted color they heckle her over.

"What are the other rules?" Y/N asks.

One of the hands holding onto where her feet are casually planted in his lap, something that they've done long enough that their friends won't see it as anything odd, slides down to caress the stretch of skin beneath the frayed hem of her dark jeans. Something she didn't know about him before whatever it is they have together started was that he constantly needs to be touching her. She can't say she doesn't love it though.

Pope answers, "The oatmeal raisin rule is not official"—a pointed glance at JJ—"But I'd assume the rest of the rules of Pogue Court would be no lying and no macking."

"So, basically you two break almost every rule except the oatmeal raisin one, and I lie," JJ says and turns to look at her, "How does it feel to be better than everyone, Y/N?"

"Pretty good, not gonna lie."

He keeps caressing little circles and tracing up and down her skin beneath the flared out pant leg of her jeans while he swipes his phone off of the table top without attracting the attention of their friends, who continue on to a new topic. She isn't too focused on what it is. She only picks up that it has something to do with a class they're in that's more advanced that hers, so she promptly checks out of the conversation.

Ever since John B died, she hasn't been performing too well in school. She tries, truly tries, but her mind outright refuses to absorb any of the information. When she reads her assigned reading, she hovers over the same paragraphs over and over until she shuts the book in a huff and hides it in her backpack again. Losing someone you love has a surprising amount of side effects.

Her phone buzzing in her hand brings her away from the impending cloud of doom that often accompanies any thoughts of John B, and when she taps in her passcode, her brother's birthday, a message bubble appears with a banner displaying JJ's contact name.

JJ (Derogatory) ur a good liar. prob could've fooled me if i weren't the one macking on u

Their eyes meet for a second across the table, then he watches her thumbs move to type a response.

Kief Princess Little do they know I break every rule now that I've switched sides on the cookie debate. Kinda impressive ngl.

JJ (Derogatory) triple threat, baby

JJ (Derogatory) thanks for the cookie btw

She smiles to herself, so wrapped up in their own world that she doesn't notice everyone in the room starting to pack up their stuff in anticipation of the bell that is due to ring any second now.

Kief Princess Had to repay you for last night somehow ;)

When she glances up to see his reaction, she watches his chest rise with a particularly large inhale, and he chews on the inside of his lip in thought.

JJ (Derogatory) strategically bringing up last night so i'm turned on in physics? ur an evil mastermind

Kief Princess I try.

Kief Princess Apparently whooping your sorry ass at surfing isn't the only thing I'm good at.

She hears him scoff.

JJ (Derogatory) first of all, ouch. second, u barely beat me

Kief Princess I'm happy to challenge you to a rematch. I have plans with Kie tonight, so I can't till this weekend. All it'll prove is that I am the rightful winner, but we knew that already.

JJ (Derogatory) what r the stakes this time

Kief Princess No sexual favors. If you beat me (fat chance) I'll formally rejoin team oatmeal raisin.

JJ (Derogatory) :( sex makes it more fun but i still accept those conditions

JJ (Derogatory) team oatmeal raisin needs u, even if ur a traitor

Kief Princess Why bet sexual favors if you're just gonna fuck me after anyway?

JJ (Derogatory) good point

The sound of the bell ringing echoes through the cafeteria, and they both pop their heads up from their phone screens to see everyone, including Pope and Kie, already packed up and raising from their seats to scurry off in the direction of their next classes. Meanwhile, their stuff is all bestrewn across the table, particularly JJ's belongings.

The sight of Kie walking away makes Y/N ask after her, "We're still on for tonight, right?

She stops with Pope's hand interwoven in hers. The look on her face when she turns would make you think she got caught doing something she wasn't meant to. Something like forgetting about the plans they made last week to watch Fear Street together. The Cherry Bowl Drive-In is premiering the first two movies as a double feature for the horror movie buffs of Kildare, so they decided to get tickets. Kiara shares a fondness of horror movies with her. Since gory movies make the boys squirm, though JJ pretends they don't, it's their own thing.

"Actually, Pope and I were gonna go to the beach. I'm sorry."

JJ knows she's more upset about it than she lets on, but Y/N simply gives the pair a smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

The sound of JJ behind her makes them laugh on their way out, diffusing the minor tension lingering in the air from the awkward encounter, "Use protection!"

After their friends offer them a goodbye, they gather their stuff quite leisurely, not really caring about being late.

It's something they've talked about before here or there: her feelings surrounding Kiara and Pope's sudden relationship. It's not as if she harbors any ill feelings for them, she doesn't, but the ripple effects of their pairing on the group, and more importantly the girls' own friendship, couldn't be clearer from her perspective. Between the missed hangouts, forgotten plans, and the convenient way she never seems to have time to hang out with her and JJ unless Pope is there too, it's been building up for a month now.

What makes it sting the most is how close her and Kie used to be. They didn't hit it off immediately the way she and JJ did as children until her thirteenth birthday when no one she invited showed up to the party Big John helped her set up in the yard of the Chateau.

She was the one who rallied the boys together to walk to ask their school friends from the year above to come hang out for an hour or two, promising a slice of the wonky-looking but delicious strawberry cake her and John B spent the morning crafting together. She can remember the sound of their high-pitched laughs and the cloud of flour that hung in the kitchen when they high-fived over the finished product like it was yesterday. In her heart, it was yesterday.

That night was when she fell in love with her friends, and that was when she first knew Kiara was her best friend. They wove friendship bracelets on each other that night and wore them for years until they withered away. No one had ever done something like that for her before. Not even JJ.

"You okay?"

Feeling his hand on her arm, slipping down to take her hand for a moment in the seclusion of the empty cafeteria, makes her glance up at him with a distinct sorrow washed over her features.

You know what? Screw this. Why should she be torn up over Kie and let it ruin her excitement for the double feature tonight? There's no way in hell she's letting her best friend ditching her for her boyfriend get in the way of her plans.

"Do you wanna go on a date tonight?" she asks him abruptly, then adds, "To the Cherry Bowl with me instead of Kie?"

The question sparks a pause in his mind, a halt of hesitation in which he worries about her avoiding having to answer what he asked, but he attempts to play it cool and not fuss over her outwardly. There have been times where being treated like that has made her feel suffocated, so he doesn't want to risk it. When she's ready, she'll talk about it, and if she takes too long and buries her feelings, then he'll intervene. For now, he tries to keep his face neutral despite the frown tempting his lips at her disappointment.

JJ looks around once more before throwing his arm around her shoulder to walk her out.

"You bet your ass I do."

What is a person supposed to act like on their first date that's not actually a date cause everything between them is the same, but kinda is a date because they called it one? If you ever find out, please find JJ and tell him because he has no clue.

Pope wasn't too much help in the Instagram group chat he made for it seeing as his and Kie's relationship is too fresh, John B isn't even alive, so he's out of service for advice unless there's Ouija Board he can borrow, and, thankfully, Kiara was his savior.

Their phones began blowing up as soon as he reached his class after lunch period ended. He couldn't under any circumstances let it be known that this mystery girl he had a date with was their friend, but thankfully Y/N already had the alibi of going to the Drive-In alone. All he had to do was make up a fake date scenario and get basic advice.

danknugstickiestickies added kiara-c and popeheyward to the groupchat

danknugstickiestickies named the group HELP ME

danknugstickiestickies i have a date with this chick i met on the beach when i was out with y/n last week. i need ur advice

His phone screen lit up with the notification that both of his friends were typing, signified with the three dot symbol bouncing in the bottom left corner as he thought it through. They couldn't possibly figure it out, right? They'd been careful, he'd been respectful of her wishes, and they'd been too busy together to notice anything new with them. He figured it would work. It was a risk, sure, but it was worth it to him. He didn't want to fuck this up with her.

Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t even treat it differently than any of their other hang outs. It's not like they haven't been romantic or sexual with each other. They've done everything but go out on an actual date, so why was he nervous?

kiara-c ummmm

popeheyward Yeah, I'm gonna need you to ELABORATE!!

kiara-c did hell freeze over? since when does jj maybank go out on dates??

danknugstickiestickies renamed the group hell froze over

kiara-c very funny, I'm laughing so hard 😐

popeheyward Do we know her?

danknugstickiestickies don't think u do. she moved here last week and hasn't enrolled in school yet. her name's steph

popeheyward What about Y/N though?

kiara-c ^^

JJ's chest muscles tightened with the question prompting a rush of anxiety that made his breathing feel slightly harder. He glanced up at his Physics teacher, who was essentially dozing off behind his desk with his hand in a bag of chips and an educational video on the projector as an excuse to not teach, and looked back down at his phone without the added stress of possibly getting his phone confiscated.

Pope's message might as well have been a sucker punch. Forget butterflies, he set a wasp’s nest loose inside of his stomach to tie it into knots and flip it every which way. His neglected textbook served as a prop for his phone to lean on as he set it down to think.

Did they know? As far as he was aware, they were getting away with it. No evidence, concrete or circumstantial, was there to prove it. At least the stress of the situation killed any chance of him being turned on by her reminder of last night in their messages. This shit was boner repellant of the highest degree.

He played stupid. Better to let them volunteer whatever information they had before he went in saying anything incriminating that they didn't already know. If anything would sour the experience of their first date, it would be him accidentally making their strange in-between relationship public behind her back.

danknugstickiestickies ?? what do u mean

Three dots bounced in the bottom left corner of his slightly cracked phone screen.

popeheyward ...

kiara-c I mean, you don't see it?

danknugstickiestickies see what

popeheyward I guess we were wrong, but all of us always thought you two had some feelings going on.

"You don't say?" JJ murmured sarcastically to himself under his breath. "Never crossed my mind, Pope."

danknugstickiestickies bro that's jb's little sister

kiara-c so?

danknugstickiestickies forbidden fruit? making john b roll over in his grave? do those ring a bell or am i speaking in tongues

He was already a proficient liar in real life, but, fuck, it was easy in text messages. There's no chance at deciphering facial expression or tone, just a plain message with no room to budge. Thank God he didn't do this in person with them. He could've survived, but it wouldn't have been as quick and painless as the group chat was.

kiara-c jeez, sorry

Pope didn't voice it, but he noticed something.

He looked up from his phone and stared off at the wall in thought in his AP European History class. It piqued his interest that JJ simply said she was off limits, forbidden fruit as he put it, but did not outright deny having feelings for her. In fact, he didn't even address the question. He made excuses for why he shouldn't have feelings for her, but he never said he didn't have feelings for her.

Kie did not notice. Not because she wasn't smart enough to either, but because she was too busy hiding her phone behind her backpack to think too deeply about it. Her teacher was one of those teachers that would flip shit if they saw a cell phone turned off and faced down on the desk, let alone being used by a student during a lesson.

In his classroom across the hallway, JJ bounced his leg up and down beneath his desk in an absentminded urge to release the built up energy the anxiety produced in an over abundance.

popeheyward Our bad then. Even John B thought y'all were sus lmao.

Since when was that a known fact? Could he tell? Did he talk to Pope about him and Y/N before he died? Either way, it wasn't the time to pry about it.

kiara-c yeah you guys honestly could've fooled me if you wanted to

danknugstickiestickies well thank u, glad ur invested in our friendship but

danknugstickiestickies please help, i have no fucking clue how to act on a date and this girl is too cool for me to screw this up

That was when they finally dropped the interrogation session and started offering up tips. The best ones came from Kie, which made sense to him since women are more likely to know what other women like than two dudes who share one collective brain cell and never had real relationships.

Rule One: Be ready to pick her up five minutes early.

He wasn't ready to pick her up five minutes early. His bike broke down by the time he made it halfway down his street, so he had to push it back up the road and into the yard before setting off on foot to reach the Chateau quickly enough. And by quickly enough, it means he got there five minutes late, not early.

Rule Two: Compliment her after you get in the car.

She tossed him the keys to the Twinkie from across the hood, not giving him the chance to open the door for her, and it wasn't until they were setting off down the road that he remembered the next piece of advice he was given.

Side-eyeing her in his peripheral vision, he tried to find something to compliment her on specifically rather than the general compliments about her being pretty that she never fully believes when he says them. He was intending to say something about the skirt she had on, but when he chanced a glance over at her, she caught him and asked—

"What is it?"

Sent into panic mode, JJ blurted out instead, "I like your shoes."

He could've bashed his face against the steering wheel twenty times right then and there at the utter absence of reaction on her part for the next few uncomfortable seconds. It wasn't that it was a bad compliment. She appreciates any compliments at all...but her shoes were hidden from his view. Not to mention, they were the dirty, mustard yellow converse that the Pogues bash on a daily basis.

She laughed, lifting her leg to expose the sneaker on her right foot, and asked, "These? Dude, you roast me for these all the time. You and John B said they look like Big Bird shit on them."

The skin on the apples of his cheeks scorched hot with embarrassment, and he was never so glad that the overhead lights in the van were burnt out until that moment. He would've died on the spot if she saw him blush like that, face flushed pinker than sunburn. All he could do to save himself was murmur something about the color growing on him and keep driving in the direction of the theater with his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel he fantasized about banging his face into.

Rule Three: Insist on picking up the check.

In this case, it meant insist on buying the popcorn and drinks, and he miraculously managed to drop his wallet somewhere along the way when he ran over to the Chateau, so when he stepped up to the makeshift concession stand with her standing at his side, he felt around for his wallet in his jeans to no avail.

His thoughts echoed back to him, You gotta be fucking kidding me. Seriously? Is this actually happening right now?

"JJ, it's honestly fine," she said softly as he leaned over to search back of the Twinkie for the wallet. "We can look for it on your street right now if you want. It has your ID and stuff, you don't want a stranger to have that. We don't need to stay—"

It took all of his control to not shout it in reaction when he said, "No way. You've been waiting for this, and Kie ditched you, so I ain't ditching you too. We're staying."

His wallet could go kick rocks.

He came too far to be dragged down by the old leathery piece of shit anyway. Would he go out and search for it tirelessly the second the date ended? Hell yeah, that fucker had twenty dollars and his debit card in it, but he couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her or ruining her anticipated movie night by taking her out to search the streets with their phone flashlights for a wallet they might not find. He'd wait till the movies ended, take her home, then haul ass around the Cut searching for it after.

Thankfully, he found a couple bucks crumbled up in his front pocket while she scavenged for coins in the glove compartment, and they came up with enough to buy a water bottle and small popcorn to share together.

Rule Four: Don't have sex on the first date.

And it may sound easy enough to not act like a complete Neanderthal for the length of two movies, but the girl makes it pretty damn difficult if he's to say so himself.

That's what led him here, laying in the back of the sideways-parked Twinkie in the farthest corner of the outdoor theater with her practically on top of him. In any other instance, he wouldn't be opposed in the slightest, but with the cursed fourth rule in mind, he isn't too thrilled with the feeling of her hand rubbing up and down his thigh.

It isn't even meant to be sexual. They're constantly touching one another this way. She'll even slip her hands up under his shirt just to feel the warmth of his skin or when he asks her if she can get an itch on a part of his back he can't reach, but for some reason his brain is short circuiting right now.

The thing is, when Kie and Pope said he shouldn't do it on the first date, they meant it for his and Steph's made up circumstances, not his and Y/N's full-blown relationship without labels. When you've had sex with someone as many times as they have with each other, the hesitancy on the "first date" is nonexistent. It doesn't matter. But JJ, trying to follow the advice given to him to the letter for the sake of being the date she deserves, doesn't think about it that way.

It shouldn't be this nerve-wracking. They've been best friends since they were children, they've been flirting since they found out what basic attraction was in the first place, and they've been forming this relationship ever since John B died. Why can't he relax? Why is this so different compared to how easy it felt between them yesterday on the beach or today at lunch?

Rule Five: Be yourself.

It takes him another few moments of laying here with her before he realizes quite abruptly what went wrong in a quick flash of a thought that brings the fifth rule back to him. The problem wasn't the bike, or the weird compliment about her Big Bird sneakers, or the lost wallet.

The problem is him. The problem is that he's trying way too hard to make this something it isn't. The part about them that he adores so dearly is how they never have to try when they're together. With any other girl or guy, they'd have to fake something or act a certain way, yet when they're together, they can simply exist and everything is runs smoothly. That's not to say they don't disagree or bump heads, they do, but short of those outlier moments, it's easier than anything else they do in life.

His eyes flicker away from the screen for the first time since the movie began, which, by the way, is gruesome enough at times that he had to divert his eyes to prevent himself from seeing it happen. They land on where she lays, completely content with the night in spite of its mishaps, with her head propped up on the pillows they brought from the Chateau.

He wonders if she can tell he's acting differently. Surely she must notice. She's the type of person that typically never misses a thing, perfect for the gold hunt they went on in the summer with picking up the clues and helping her brother unravel the mystery, so maybe she noticed how flustered this date has him. Does it bother her? Does he bother her?

With a confirming glance back up at the movie to see nothing important happening, he can't fight the urge to speak anymore.

"Can I tell you something?"

His voice appearing through the darkness of the shut off van after spending the past half hour in complete silence makes her jolt at first before realizing who it was. Though she loves horror movies, she can't claim to not be affected by them. The night she falls asleep after watching one, she often finds herself compelled to turn a light on and keep her feet from dangling off the edge of the bed. It's worth the fear, though.

When she turns to look at JJ, there's a warm smile on her face. She's cuddled into his side with a hand placed casually atop his thigh, caressing with no purpose or intent, and her movement halts when the light from the movie on the projector allows her to see the expression on his face.

Anxiety has become an increasingly significant presence in his life with the recent events in mind; John B and Sarah, the four-hundred million dollars they lost out on, and dodging his father whenever he sneaks home to switch out the backpack of clothes and personal belongings he keeps at the Routledge house.

It manifests itself in jittery nerves, stomach pains, shortness of breath, and, at worst, panic attacks striking either at random or in response to a specific trigger. It's one of the few things he still tries to hide from her, and she tries not to push him too hard with opening up about it.

She abandons the movie for the time being and rolls onto her side to face him, upper body propped up on her elbow as she examines his face with downturned features.

"Of course," she says.

The words left unsaid are, "You can tell me anything. Whenever you need someone to listen, or to talk to about shit, you can tell me." He's heard her say it enough that he doesn't need to hear it now to know it's true.

There's a pause, then—

"I feel like I fucked this entire date up," he starts to ramble and cuts her off before she can think about saying what she wants to, "and I know it's okay to you. You have way too high of a tolerance for my bullshit, and I've been trying so hard to make this perfect, but all that did was screw it up."

She's left quiet for a second, taking it all in.

Maybe if he hadn't been so anxious about it, he would've realized what was wrong with his bike when he rode it home from school, or he would've noticed his wallet fall out of his pocket. The point is, he wishes he hadn't let the label attached to this freak him out so much. He isn't sure why it does, but it does.

But she doesn't do what he expects. She isn't drowning him in reassurances and, "It's okay's" because she knows he doesn't care for them much. When he, the most stubborn person she knows, apologizes for something he did, he doesn't want it to turn into the person accepting the apology coddling him.

Y/N sighs.

"Is that why you've been acting so different all night? I scared you with the whole ‘date’ thing, didn't I? It doesn't have to be a date if you don't want it to be."

What she doesn't know is that he wants it to be a date. He wants it to be a date so badly, he risked Pope and Kie finding them out for the sake of getting some proper advice on it, and now he's caught up in the same game of tug and war in his mind that always occurs when he wants to tell her the truth about his feelings for her.

Part of him doesn't understand why he doesn't outright say it. With every other girl he once showed interest in, he had no issues in letting them know he wanted them, but this is different. This isn't simply wanting someone, he thinks he's fallen for her. But whenever he says he's gonna grow a pair and tell her after all this time, he chokes. Involuntarily, he's reminded of his parents. Other than his friends saying it platonically, the only people to tell him they loved him were them, and with how they treated him, he sure as hell doesn't think that is love.

From his dad's brutal physical abuse to his mom's abandonment, he's too timid to tell her he loves her because of what could happen if she loves him back. Everyone else that has said that to him has either hurt him, died like John B did, or abandoned him.

He won't let that happen with him and Y/N. What they have, albeit undefined and codependent, is safe. It's the only thing he has left. Maybe it isn't right, and maybe he should open up about it to communicate the correct way, but somewhere in the misshapen logic of his mind, he correlates love to abandonment. And he doesn't want that to happen with her.

There are two sides of him at battle inside his mind. One side, the side that wants to do right by their relationship and actually communicate his feelings for once in his life, wants him to tell her everything. The other side, the side that responds based on the history of his past, wants him to hide it all.

"Will you be mad at me if we don't call it a date?" he asks.

She shakes her head.

The heavy sensation inside of JJ's chest nears a point of vitriolic violence against him as he starts to realize what he's doing to her, clearly letting her down, but he can't stop himself. Like a passive witness watching himself from outside of his body, the instantaneous trauma response to the sudden confrontation of his true feelings for her guides his actions without his permission. It shuts down any protest he has.

The sound of the movie fills the gap of silence between them the entire time. It’s a variety of bloodcurdling screams and disgusting sounds that would've made him gag if he weren't as distracted.

They can make out each other's faces through the darkness, but barely. It takes a flash of bright color from the film or a nearby car's lights turning on for them to fully see one another. Without the other knowing, they both put masks of calm and collected coolness on their faces despite the feelings raging beneath the surface—more so on his part than hers.

"Maybe," he says, pausing, "we should just keep things the way they've been."

As soon as the words leave his mouth, a soul-crushing amount of disappointment weighs her down. She said it was fine if he doesn't want it to be a date—and it is, she would never hold it against him—but that doesn't mean it can't hurt her. Things have been going so well, she almost thought...If tonight went well, she was thinking about no longer keeping it a secret, but if he said he wants things to stay the same, then maybe he isn't as ready for it as she is?

Meanwhile, JJ is on another page entirely.

She's embarrassed of being with you, a familiar voice in the back of his head croons. She's gonna leave just like everyone else does. If she doesn't even wanna tell your friends, why should you pretend you're dating?

The internal comments are the type that cause him to physically grimace when he's alone. Intrusive thoughts are just that: intrusive.

Sneaking into the guarded sanctuary of a person's mind, they set out to convince them the opposite of their reality. The only thing is, where most people's minds are guarded sanctuaries with walls of impregnable defense, his mind is the equivalent of a fortress blown to smithereens. The castle walls lay in rubble, the guards no where to be seen, and the path for these thoughts to slip past and straight to the vulnerability of his mind is left wide open.

In the privacy of his room, these thoughts attack him the most at night when he tries to fall asleep—when things get too quiet. With nobody around, when they get this bad there's nothing he can do except break down. It builds from the mere anxiety of attempting to force the thoughts away to full-blown panic attack mode. The more he resists them, the more aggressive they become. He'll gasp for air with tears streaming down his face, hitting his head with the heel of his hand as if that'd do something to stop his relentless mind.

But he can't afford to react in front of her, so the extent of his reaction is a subtle twitch of his face that she cannot see in the momentary darkness before the movie switches to another scene a second later. In a way, it does make the thoughts go away to have her here preventing him from spiraling alone. Having to focus on her keeps his mind away for moments at a time until the thoughts ease their grip on him.

When she hasn't answered for a while, he asks, terrified that he did something bad, "Are we good?"

The question seems to wake her up, snapping her out of the lonely direction her thoughts went into when he "rejected" her. It takes every bit of common sense she has left to force herself to understand that this doesn't mean he doesn't want her. He does, and not calling this a date doesn't mean they won't be together in the way they have been since John B's death, but she isn't perfect. She gets as unsure and insecure as he does.

As if the cloud of doom was lifted off of her, she makes her face lighten where she lays on her side next to him. Seeing this expression makes his chest feel less heavy, and he could let out a sigh of relief at the realization that he didn't break her heart and stomp on it. He should've known. Y/N is the sweetest person he knows, so she never would've flipped shit over him not wanting to label this as a date. That's not how she is.

And he's partly right. It isn't how she is. She would never hold it against him if he didn't want something further with her since she got herself into this position by pursuing him with his reputation with girls in mind, but she can't ignore it. Whether she wants it to or not, it had its affect on her as soon as he said it.

She leans in to kiss him, their lips meeting in the middle with the faint taste of popcorn salt mingling at the soft peck.

When she pulls away, she brushes the hair back from his face and says, "Don't worry. Nothing can change how I feel about you."

She has no clue what it feels like to hear that from her.

Despite the turmoil they unknowingly share beneath the surface due to this conversation, he could cry hearing her say it. It doesn't feel real to him that she feels the same way he does about her, because nothing could change how he feels about her either. That’s why he manages to work up the courage to repeat it back to her, and, for now, this is the closest he's physically capable of coming to telling her the truth.

"Ditto," he says.

It isn't what she wanted, but it's close enough, and if she dwells on this any longer, she might start getting too emotional and let the urge to tear up become too strong. Why does she have to be this sensitive? It's no secret that it's remarkably easy to make her cry, but this is insane to her. When all of this began with him, she didn't give a shit about him not wanting a label. She understood him, and she understood that he doesn't do this kind of thing, so why has it changed? Why doesn't she want to keep it a secret anymore? Why does she want this to be a date when she knows he doesn't want it to be?

Pulled by an invisible string back to him to silence her mind, she leans in to kiss him again with a hand cupping the back of his neck to guide him the rest of the way to her.

It shouldn't be laced with any sexual intention. She should be kissing him simply because she wants to, and, in a way, she is. Their kisses and touches are never lacking the motivation that is their underlying connection and mutual feelings for one another, but this is not the same. As he kisses her back with as much confidence and passion as always, she is reeling from the conversation that reminded her too much of a breakup.

It takes another minute of this for the kiss to heat up, their breathing becoming shallower in the moments they part to inhale, and she is undeniably the one instigating when she officially crosses the line between casual and sexual by crawling onto his lap. It's not hard for him to pick up on when their innocent moments take a turn. She's easy to read in that regard, and this has happened a multitude of times with them, so the shift of a mini make out session turning into something more is nothing out of the ordinary for them.

If he knew how shaken she is on the inside, he'd never want this. And the same would go for her if she knew what he was thinking before this. Neither of them wants to admit what they're feeling.

With her legs seated on either side of his hips, she kisses him like it's the last time she'll ever get the opportunity to. Her hands wander wherever they can, pulling at his shirt and feeling him up as his hands guide her hips to move against his in a steady grinding that she has no issue partaking in. It's an eagerness he hasn't seen from her in weeks. She's never un-excited when it comes to being physical with him either, but this is another level. The last time a girl was all over him like this, it was desperate touron at a party a few months ago.

In the span of time it takes her to glance over her shoulder to see if anyone could see them and reach to pull her skirt up until it bunches around her hips—no one can see them, by the way, since they got here late and were forced to cram the van into the back corner of the lot with no street lights illuminating the path—his brows raise at her presumptuous behavior. Not that he's one to complain, however, seeing as he's typically the one doing what she is.

Their next kiss clashes their teeth hard enough to make them wince, but he loves it. It makes him smirk into her parted mouth, alive with both the feeling her reassurance provided and the fuzzy-headed high that often finds him when they're together in this way. Incomparable to past flings or the high related to any drugs, she is the peak of everything to him. It's no contest.

His chest stutters against hers with a bout of amused laughter, asking within a brief pause in what feels like the most JJ thing he's said this awkward night, "Two for two in the Twinkie. What's gotten into you?"

Y/N's hand dips between where their bodies move together to unclasp the closed buckle of his belt in one smooth motion that has it falling apart with a clinking noise.

Her features are set with a look that tells him she means business. Whatever it is that sparked this, he wonders how the fuck to make it happen again another time. She's begged for it before, but never taken control so dominantly, and he can't deny what the role reversal does to him. The evidence is obvious in the distinct hardness she feels pressing up against the hand undoing his jeans.

"I was hoping it'd be you," she says, voice breathless and airy from the constant contact in a way that makes it ten times hotter for him.

If there were any chance of him not being in the mood prior to this, which wasn't the case anyway, it's gone now. He never wants to hear her say she doesn't deliberately try to tease him ever again.

He doesn't need to be told twice.

JJ surges forward to capture her mouth with his, this time with no intention of pulling away to breathe or speak again. No, he'll let himself get lightheaded and dizzy if it means he can stay with her for as long as possible.

With the circumstances of it all, them being visible to someone if they happened to pass by the open door of the van, they move at a pace quicker than usual. She's immediately helping him shimmy his jeans and underwear far enough down his hips to free his dick from the confines of his clothes, making him sigh out a breath of relief when her hand brushes against him in the process.

There's no opportunity to slow down, it has exploded into a full-throttle speed race that neither of them can halt.

His hand blindly flies out beside him to grope the floor of the van for the set of keys he tossed carelessly to the side once the movie started, eyes shut in the midst of the hot, messy kiss they share. His fingers find the fabric of one of the blankets they brought in case they got cold, then drifts again and lands on her Big Bird sneakers until he feels the sharp metal of her keys meet his calloused palm.

After the events of last summer, she bought a switch blade to keep on her key ring alongside the keys to the van, HMS Pogue, and Chateau. She may not like violence or weapons, seeing as she was a skeptic of JJ keeping the gun alongside her friends, but she saw it necessary. Between Rafe, Topper, and Kelce, how could she leave the safety of her and her friends up to chance knowing what some of the kooks did to them not long ago? What happened to Pope on the golf course alone was enough to make her skin crawl.

Right now, though, the knife flips out from the pressure of his thumb pushing the button to release it. He holds it out away from her at first to assure it doesn't nick her in the process, then uses his other hand to tug the side of her panties that hugs her hip far out enough to press the sharp side of the blade onto the inside of it.

She can hardly believe what she's watching as JJ cuts the delicate maroon underthings from her body as if he were doing something so normal, like it's something he's done before. Her forehead is pressed against his, her mouth parted both in shock and in a need to pant for oxygen, and she watches the knife ruin her favorite panties. The stitches come apart with a satisfying ripping noise that can hardly be heard over the sound of people reacting to the movie in the background.

Other customers of the Cherry Bowl Drive-In are too glued to the screen as a beloved character is chased down, reacting in shouts when she's seized by the killer and shoved onto the table of an industrial bread slicer, so they remain wholly unnoticed.

The lace, now ripped in half, dangles on the tip of the knife when he lifts it away from her, tosses it aside, and presses the button once more to retract the blade. It clatters to the floor, but is in no way forgotten with them resuming in a desperation to keep going until they both satisfy the need clawing at them from the inside. But her sense of need is different from his, and even with the fresh memory of him with the switch blade in mind, she's still somewhere else the whole time.

Her mind is faraway, muted through layers of sadness, anger, and disappointment as he reaches between them to line himself up to her entrance. The sensation of him running his cock, hard and messy with a few drops of precome, through her dripping pussy to coat it in her slick arousal is enough to make her moan pathetically. Yet when he's about to guide himself inside of her, she stops him.

"Wait, wait, wait," she breathes out rapidly, heart pounding so hard she can feel herself pulsating between her thighs, "Condom."

They were so antsy to get to it, they almost forgot.

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, and his eyes flicker from where they were trained between their bodies to glance back and forth around the van before it hits him. "I lost my wallet..."

But right when he thinks their public rendezvous in the back of the Drive-In is over due to his unfortunate mistake, she shakes her head and slips away from her perch astride his lap to crawl over to her bag.

She fumbles with the old tote bag and plunges her arm in to sift through the hodge podge of things that are purely Y/N in nature—stickers, glitter pens, a half-eaten bag of candy, etc—for the square foil package she decided to toss in before she left just in case. She usually doesn't keep them on her because he never fails to have one, but, thankfully, she had the random instinct to bring it tonight.

The only thing to bring her out of her cloudy, malevolent storm of feelings when she settles back onto his lap with the condom wrapper ripped open for him is him saying, "So you planned this, huh?" with his mouth tipped in a familiar self-satisfied grin.

She didn't plan it. In fact, she threw herself at him the second she sensed him withdrawing from her and can't stop herself despite the fact that she constantly feels two seconds away from letting a tear slip down her cheek. If that counts as "planning it", then sure.

"Maybe so," she answers, cool, calm, and collected—the antithesis of the truth.

They usually don't lie to each other.

They're thrown right back into it without any other hiccups once he rolls the condom on, and he takes in a shaky breath at her hand wrapping around him to align their bodies up. Before she can do anything, though, he takes chance to swipe the blanket he found a moment ago and wrap it around her back to keep her covered in case they get caught.

Y/N sinks down onto his cock with her lip caught between her teeth to stifle the sound that threatens to escape. JJ, on the other hand, doesn't bother concealing the sound of the groan he makes at the sensation of having her wrapped around him like this. The tension in her entire body from the anticipation and the looming threat of being seen by someone has her squeezing him so tightly, he can't help but be a little louder than he should.

Her soft palm slaps over his mouth with enough pressure to force his groan to quiet itself, and she watches his pretty blue eyes widen in reaction to the dominant action. Who is this girl and what has she done with his sweet, submissive Y/N? Don't get him wrong, he is very turned on by it, but it's unlike her to take the lead this way. He can't figure it out.

"What's wrong, angel?" she asks in a whisper into his ear, her hand over his mouth and her hips starting to slowly rock against him, "Watch the movie."

Once the words leave her mouth, she drops her hand, just in case he wants to stop and can't say anything because she had his mouth covered, and JJ is pretty sure he's died and gone to heaven.

He doesn't watch the movie, not at all, because he's too busy watching her. For someone losing their mind internally, she does not let it show, nor does she let it distract her from what's happening. If anything, the distraction in this situation is the sex, not what's going on inside of her head.

There's a moment of adjustment and going as slowly and gently as possible while waiting for the dull pressure of feeling him inside of her to fade away, but, for the most part, she doesn't waste any time. As soon as she feels comfortable enough with the ache between her thighs giving way to a spark of pleasure when she grinds her clit down on his pubic bone, she starts to ride him at a better pace than the initial slow movements of her hips.

She raises herself up and takes him again inch by inch, enjoying the sense of fullness she gets from having to fit him in spite of the slight discomfort at first, and she could swear that he'll leave bruises in the shape of his handprints with how tightly he clutches her hips. It's all he can do to prevent himself from moaning or saying something, ever the vocal lover she's come to know.

Unless his mouth is preoccupied like it was on the beach yesterday afternoon, JJ is usually impossible to shut up, especially in this context. With him always whispering dirty things to her, whether it be praises, pet names, or plans on what he wants to do to her, she has come to find it breathtakingly hot. He could likely get away with saying something if he wanted to, but he isn't sure he wants to risk it. If he opens his mouth to spew something filthy to her, he won't trust himself not to make a louder, different kind of noise that won't fit in the with background audio the other moviegoers are listening to.

The wet sound of their bodies colliding that fills the space of the van is drowned out by the loud and violent sequence occurring on the screen far ahead of them, and hearing it makes her bounce herself on him a little harder. She's fueled on by it all, and, strangely, what happened before she practically pounced on him is the main contributor.

Similarly to the nature of his intrusive thoughts, the harder she resists the memory of how it felt when he told her he didn't want this to be a date, the more forceful it is in its return. Her eyes trail down to watch where they connect with her forehead pressed to his, then she's thrown back into the feeling of helpless disappointment and insecurity. His head tips back against the window with his bottom lip dropped open and his brows furrowed just enough to create a crease on his forehead, and she's bombarded with the look of relief on his face when he realized he didn't have to be tied down to her with a label.

It makes her want to get rougher, harder, and she doesn't even care if it'll make her sore later on. She presses herself down so far every time she slides down on his cock, her teeth draw blood on her lip with how hard she must bite it to remain quiet. The pain of her hipbones rubbing against his doesn't even matter to either of them at this point. They're both too lost in the pleasure that has begun to take control of them to care about something as minuscule as that, or the burn in her thighs from the repetitive physical strain.

She grabs his wrist and brings his hand between them, flattening hers overtop of it and pressing down on the base of her abdomen in the midst of the increasingly feverish thrusts.

"Feel you here," she murmurs to him through a quiet moan, hoping he can hear it over the movie, and pushes down on his hand for emphasis. And if the way he reacts by cursing under his breath tells her anything, it's that he picked up on it. "JJ..."

He reaches out to grab her by the throat with his free hand and tug her forward to kiss him, as if something inside of him snapped in response to her doing that. The motions of her jolting up and down throws the already messy and uncoordinated kiss off-kilter, but they don't mind. It has them separating every time she lifts up, producing this heady little head rush from from them breathing in each other's air without actually letting their mouths meet in the middle.

Though they're trying their hardest not to alert anyone outside of what's happening, it didn't occur to him until now, when his eyes catch John B's old bandana swinging back and forth where it's secured around the rear view mirror.

They're worried about moaning while the entire fucking Twinkie is rocking with their movements. Well, at least it makes good use of the corny sticker he gifted John B last year as a gag gift. He tried to peel it off after JJ snuck it onto the side window to no avail. So, now Y/N is stuck with a sticker on her car reading, "If the van's a-rockin', come on in, we like orgies," rather than the more common phrase.

It almost makes him start laughing, and he prays no one takes that shit seriously, 'cause he is never intent on sharing this breathtaking girl. Ever.

Y/N isn't anywhere near laughing like he is, in fact, she's finding it difficult to keep herself together. She feels her eyes sting with the promise of tears, and she's never felt so pathetic before. Is she seriously about to cry during sex? Is she really that girl that is so ill-equipped to handle rejection, she can't get through it without tears?

She won't cry. Perhaps if he sees how glossy her eyes have become in a rare moment of good lighting, she can blame it on the hand around her throat putting pressure on the sides of her neck.

The worst part about her being near to crying is the timing of it.

The emotion of what she feels mentally mixes with the swirling, building sensation she feels in the pit of her stomach that tells her she's close to going over the edge, and it's so overwhelming. Was she imagining that their friendship had changed? More importantly, is this all she'll ever be to him? Sex is the only thing she's sure of with him, it's the only thing that doesn't require deeper emotions, and when the ground beneath their fragile relationship felt shaky...

He can feel her starting to unravel, and he knows that he'll come before she does if he doesn't do anything now, so he decides to take control.

JJ pulls the hand he had resting on her abdomen away as though he were burned by it, wrapping his arm around her waist to steady her body against his and using the hand around her neck for leverage to thrust up into her, effectively reducing her to a teary-eyed, moaning mess atop him. They both stopped caring about making noise the second he began to fuck her like this.

She cries out in ecstasy at the sudden change in pace and depth that has him hitting all the right places. Every time he thrusts up into her, just as rough as she wished for, the tip of his cock nudges into that perfect spot inside of her that makes her incapable of silencing her moans. This time, it's JJ that puts his hand over her mouth, letting the one he had around her neck move away to keep her from alerting everyone around them of what's happening.

There's nothing she can do to stop her climax as it barrels through her in its initial sweeping wave of bliss to contrast the venomous doubts in her mind. She's never felt such conflicting, yet powerful feelings before—the intensity of the physical pleasure that makes her whine into the palm of his hand, then the part of her mind replaying every word he said in their conversation before this.

Her body is rigid and tense through it all, squeezing down around his cock with the involuntary spasms of her orgasm, and he can't help himself anymore. All it takes are a few more frantic thrusts for him to bury himself inside of her one last time and spill into the condom, uncovering her mouth so he can drown out his own groans into a kiss.

Their skin sticks to their clothes on the inside with sweat from the exertion of their actions, and he can feel her stomach tremble where it presses up against his with each undulation of her hips that meet his as he rides it out.

But even with the added distraction of the sex, she can't rid herself of the feeling that started plaguing her as soon as things went awry. That was why he was acting weird all night. He must have been so worried about her thinking this was anything more than their typical hangouts that he couldn't bring himself to act normally.

She forces herself to look happy when they pull away from the kiss, panting, and JJ, unaware of what she's been thinking, doesn't notice the small deception.

Tag list: @gabiatthedisco

[voiceless-terror]

I mean, I don’t believe in the predictive power of dreams, obviously, but still, it’s a deeply unsettling thing to find. I had Tim look into it, as I don’t entirely trust the others not to have written it as a practical joke and slipped it into the archives. - Episode 11, Dreamer

Jon stares down at the paper in his hands.

He’s had many an unkind thought towards Gertrude, his predecessor, the woman responsible for this mess and the current bane of his existence. She’s been the topic of most of his grumbling as he sorts through piles of nonsense and decaying cardboard boxes. He’s got no love lost for her, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy she’s dead. Or, specifically, to have a statement apparently predicting it through the medium of some prophetic dream. Ridiculous. He wants to feel detached, unaffected, but he can’t help the sickly sense of dread that creeps up his spine and lingers in his throat. 

It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city.

Jon doesn’t know Antonio Blake and has no reason to believe him. But he’s known something’s wrong for a long time now.

He’s never admitted it aloud, never within his assistant’s hearing range, but he can feel it, as foolish as that sounds. This miasma of wrong, of being watched, of becoming...something else, that happens every time he records a statement. Despite the academic detachment he aspires to, he does attempt to empathize with each statement-giver and get into their mindset. But what he’s doing here...it’s different. He can visualize it so perfectly, the terror in their words sticking in his throat and setting his own heart pounding, as if he were the one experiencing it and not just regurgitating it to an ancient recorder. He’s always had an ‘overactive imagination,’ as his grandmother would say, but this is relentless in its manifestation. The fear is real, not imagined. Each statement draws him further and further away from the safety he used to cling to, where the only real cases were few and far between and the most sinister things lurking out there in the world were books and the monsters within them.

And as much as he wants to linger on the false accounts and take comfort in tearing them apart, his hands automatically seek the real ones, the right ones. It’s frightening, the ease with which he finds them nowadays. Perhaps he’s a better archivist than he thinks. 

She died and you’ll be next, something whispers to him. He’s being dramatic, as he’s wont to do, but it feels true. Every statement that doesn’t record correctly, every follow-up he has to qualify with an ‘I would dismiss this, but-’ is starting to add up. His nights have become restless. He often lies awake regretting that he ever took this job, that he left the relative safety of research for a position he’s not sure how to fill, his only reassurance Elias’s occasional emails that he’s ‘moving in the right direction,’ whatever that means.

Jon assumed he’d be more removed from the dangerous aspects of the job that research entailed- following up, going to locations, field work. And it’s true, he has assistants to do that for him now. Dependable, for the most part. And while he should feel safe in his tiny office with nothing but dust and paper and cobwebs (good lord, the cobwebs) he feels more unsettled and exposed than ever. He once joked he’d die of old age before getting the archives in order. But now a stroke sounds much more pleasant than whatever happened to Gertrude. If it’s true.

Perhaps it’s a joke, he thinks. Planted by one of the others, designed specifically to unsettle him. Well, it worked. 

It wouldn’t be surprising. He’s...not had the best start. The promotion was a surprise, but not wholly unexpected; he knew he’d been on Elias’s radar, though he wasn’t expecting it quite so soon. He’s young and unfortunately, it shows. The way he stutters through department meetings, talking about digitization while the others, all of whom have at least a decade on him, shoot pitying looks. He stays later and later, the desire to show some sort of progress even as he discovers more mess by the day. The permanent scowl that now graces his features becomes his armor as he walks the halls and feels himself becoming the uptight, unlikable curmudgeon everyone believes him to be. The one time I measure up to expectations, he can’t help thinking.

A joke. There’s a comfort in that. At least it’s familiar.

But it didn’t record to the laptop, his traitorous mind supplies. It's a bit sad he would prefer it to be a mundane attempt at bullying rather than a real expression of the supernatural, but he supposes it’s par for the course. There were many nights as a child he wished for the same thing, for that boy to go back to taking his lunch money and the occasional beating or two instead of…still, he dismisses it from his mind. You don’t know there’s a correlation. Follow up. Disprove it. 

He’s interrupted from his musings by a knock on the door and the vague outline of Martin through the frosted glass. “Come in,” he calls, attempting to inject some irritation in his voice to cover up the shakiness. “Did you need something?”

“Ah, I finished my write up for the Herbert case, was wondering if you had anything else for me?”

His hand hovers over the statement on his desk. He opens his mouth but then closes it, thinking better.

“Can you send Tim in, actually?”

______

“Sorry boss, I couldn’t find anything on this Antonio Blake fellow- well, at least with the details he provided, which were next to none. Proper spooky, though.”

Of his assistants, he trusts Tim the most with this sort of thing. 

On a surface level, it wouldn’t make sense to some. Tim can be loud and gregarious: the typical, charming extrovert. But he’s not unkind and he’s a hell of a researcher, especially when something grabs his interest. He digs into statements and doesn’t let go- not unlike Sasha, though he’s a bit better at empathizing and handling things...sensitively. Easily attuned to Jon’s moods, Tim’s always been willing to lend an ear whenever he gets too in his head about cases, helping him talk things through or on several memorable occasions, go down the rabbit hole with him. He’d taken the statement from his hands with an easy smile, though his face grew serious with the nervous look Jon shot him.

And if Tim couldn’t find anything, well. Maybe it was a prank after all.

He sort of wanted it to be true, frightening as the implications were. Because then it would mean this terrible, heavy feeling on his shoulders was real, and not just the byproduct of his own mediocrity. He doesn’t want to be scared, he doesn’t want to be in danger, but at least it would provide a real reason for panic, and not just his own inability to measure up.  He doesn’t want to prove them all right, collapsing under the stress of a job poorly done and so easily crumbling at a stupid, made-up statement, targeted as it may be. 

“A joke, then.” Jon says, rubbing a hand at his temples, trying not to let the hurt seep into his voice. Tim makes a commiserating noise.

“You know how people are, the institute isn’t exactly popular. You remember last Halloween, when-”

“Yes, I don’t need a reminder.” Jon sighs. He’d rather not relive that day, stressful as it was. “But that wasn’t quite what I was thinking.”

Tim stares at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Jon continues, attempting to make his hands busy as he pointlessly shuffles papers.

“It’s rather pointed, isn’t it? I doubt someone off the street would create such a detailed account of the death of an...archivist as opposed to the usual ghostly drivel.”

A look of pity flickers in Tim’s eyes and Jon has to turn away. “I don’t really think anyone here would-”

“Really? You don’t?” Jon lets out a mirthless laugh, rubbing a hand across his face as he stares down at his desk. “I’m not blind. Or deaf.” The derisive snorts if he goes off on ‘needless tangents,’ how Rosie pretends to be busy whenever he approaches Elias’s office, the way his name badge still reads ‘researcher’ after months of asking for a new one. He’s basically become a pariah.

“Jon, did someone say something to you?” The words are carefully chosen and he’s leaning forward now, making as if to stand up and god forbid, do something comforting. It’s not that Jon doesn’t want the comfort; he craves it more than anything. But he’s gone without for so long he doesn’t trust himself not to break at the gentlest of touches. Being on the receiving end of Tim’s protective streak is nothing new, but he shouldn’t need his assistant looking out for him like he’s some sort of helpless infant. 

He snorts derisively instead, covering up the insecurity and hurt with a sardonic, self-effacing smile. The kind he knows Tim hates. “They don’t need to. I’ve walked in on conversations, I’ve seen the way people go quiet, the looks they give me-”

“Hey,” Tim’s voice is low, like he’s dealing with a frightened animal. Jon wonders how he looks, if Tim’s going this soft. “Don’t listen to them, alright? You inherited a mess, we all did- but we’re doing our best, yeah? Study and record, like Elias said.” Jon doesn’t dodge the hand that finally lands on shoulder, and he’ll deny to anyone that he leaned into it. 

“Study and record.” He repeats listlessly, slumping back down into his seat. He’s let himself get too worked up, acting like a child instead of a boss. He’s not sure when he started wearing his heart on his sleeve, but Tim’s always been good at reading him. Though he’d rather people think him an arrogant ass than the seething mess of insecurity he truly is. 

“Atta boy.” The pat to his shoulder is purposefully light, devoid of Tim’s usually friendly force that sends him stumbling forward. “Now get out of here at a normal time, alright? We can grab lunch tomorrow. Just the two of us, if you like.”

Jon makes a noncommittal grunt, though the thought is nice.  He entertains the idea for just a moment, remembering their occasional outings back in research. Tomorrow he’ll make his excuses. He hasn’t been much of a friend as of late, and he’s not sure he deserves the kindness of company.

“And if there’s anyone that needs a stern talking to from me, I-” Tim wags a finger and Jon rolls his eyes, ignoring the pang of warmth the words send through his chest.

“Don’t, please. It’s fine.” It isn’t. “But...thank you, Tim.”

“Course.” A wink and a sloppy salute to lighten the mood, and Jon feels the tension in his posture ease minutely as Tim shuts the door behind him. 

He lets out a breath and reaches for the tape recorder. He’s wasted too much time already.  

Be careful. There is something coming for you and I don’t know what it is, but it is so much worse than anything I can imagine. At the very least, you should look into appointing a successor.

Good luck.

He fights a shiver as the man’s voice leaves him and the last vestiges of that twilight world fade back to his dimly-lit office. In his follow up, he tries to play it off as a joke. A bit of hazing for the new boss. And yet the uneasiness still creeps into his voice, and he ends another tape on a stilted, half-believed note.

If this is genuine…

Jon prays that it isn’t. 

And like most of his prayers, it goes unheard and unanswered.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32165071

reblogs > likes

[britishassistant]

I wonder what the supervillains (the dorm leaders) would do if they get switched with their other self in Twisted Wonderland.

They'll meet a younger Yuu calls them senpai and probably get shivers when they hear someone shout Prefect but then realize its Yuu's role in that world.

Bonus would be if Yuuken's there too, sharing the dorm with Yuu.

Thank you for the ask, dear anon!

I decided to take a little inspo from my Villainous Paranoiac series for this one! Not a whole lot, but the idea of Twisted Wonderland Yuu being put in the infirmary after the events of Chapter Five!

(Also consider it non-canon, since it kinda involves everyone’s identities being exposed!)

Basically imagine that the supervillains find themselves in what looks like a private school infirmary, late at night. The air is buzzing with a strange energy, almost like the powers back in their home world, but...different, somehow.

The room nearly empty, save for one occupant in a cot close to the door.

Poison Queen and King immediately begin bickering over whose fault this mess is, while Royal Flush tries to get them to keep their voices down or else they’ll be detected. Charon is half a minute from going to curl up in a corner, clutching his freeze ray like a lifeline, while Octo Dealer and Snake Charmer are busy inspecting their surroundings for anything of value or that can be requisitioned into a weapon on short notice.

Tsunotaro has wandered over to inspect the sole other living being in the room with them.

He is pleasantly surprised to see what looks like a younger version of the reporter he’s so fond of, fast asleep in the infirmary cot. Their cheeks still retain the last bit of baby fat from childhood, and there’s some acne left that will fade with age. He may give one cheek a gentle poke, just to satisfy his curiosity. The sleepy mumble they let out is a little more high pitched than normal, but that’s the reporter’s voice alright.

He is less pleased to see dark circles under their eyes, or the bandages around their throat that stink of medicinal salves. If this truly is a younger version of his child of man, then why do they look so worried, even in sleep? Why are they injured and sleeping in this place of healing in the first place? They’re a mere child, barely old enough to operate a vehicle or live alone. Their only worries should be trivial things, not whatever is causing this furrow in their brow and hunch in their shoulders.

The other supervillains have begun to migrate over to where Tsunotaro is crouching in silent contemplation. King flips his eyepatch up to get a better look, whistling lowly. Octo Dealer busies himself with refilling their water glass, sneaking glances at them as he places it within easy reach. Snake Charmer pulls their pillow more under their head from where it’s almost slipped off. Poison Queen straightens the arrangement of the very tasteful bouquet on the bedside table, so the flowers’ best angle is shown to the bed’s occupant. Royal Flush carefully tucks their covers in over them.

Charon takes a picture with his tablet.

He forgot to turn off his flash.

Yuu cracks their eyes open...

To see seven adults looming over their bed in masks that resemble the ink from the overblots that haunt the Prefect’s nightmares.

Cue terrified screaming.

Snake Charmer lunges forward instinctively to cover Yuu’s mouth—

It’s only thanks to Poison Queen yanking him back that he doesn’t end up with an arrow in the shoulder.

Several more follow the first one through the window above the prefect’s cot, cold iron sharp and perfectly aimed to seriously maim if the supervillains don’t immediately get away from the screaming teenager. Rook was lax in protecting the Trickster after VDC ended, assuming there was no more danger after Roi du Poison’s overblot was saved. He will not make that mistake again.

The infirmary doors burst open, a younger Yuuken in a sleep-rumpled uniform barging in from where he decided to sleep outside because Ramshackle felt too empty and quiet to bear, but was forbidden from staying in the infirmary himself. He only has a pillow, but he brandishes it at the strange adults, fully willing to defend his dorm mate in whatever way he can.

The vanguard appears in a flurry of bats though, too many to fight off, small and vicious and furious. Their commander materializes in the center if the swarm, hovering over the head of Yuu’s cot, pink eyes brimming with a cold rage that makes his small and cute form look like it’s bursting at the seams holding something much older and angrier back. He opens his mouth, fangs long and glistening—

Only to stop short at the sight of one of the supervillains. “Malleus? Malleus Draconia?”

Tsunotaro nods warily.

“Wh-What in Twisted Wonderland are you wearing??”

Tsunotaro ducks his head like a chastened child. “I could say the same thing.” He mutters sullenly.

From there the lights get turned on, and the seven supervillains are made to explain themselves to the sleep-deprived students and staff who trickle in to see what’s going on. All six dorm leaders and one vice dorm leader vanished from their beds, setting everyone on high alert until news of these...alternate versions spread.

It is very weird for the supervillains to see all their minions as teenagers (again in some cases). It is only surpassed by how weird it is for everyone else to see their dorm heads and vice head all grown up and adult, even if they are dressed weird.

Ortho still wants to shoot them with a beam until they bring back his nii-san. Luckily Charon is able to convince him that Idia should be fine if he’s in Charon’s lair—he’s got plenty of the latest games, manga and tech for him to play with, so that should keep him occupied for a while.

Sebek is in a state of Malleus awe. He has shut down and will not restart. Silver has taken to pinching himself just to make sure this isn’t a Lilia’s cooking induced fever dream, while Lilia himself scolds Tsunotaro that he raised him better than to go around watching people sleep like that! Tsunotaro tries to use the “but I’m a supervillain” excuse, only for Lilia to shoot back “and I’m a war criminal in some nations, what’s your point?”

King is enjoying watching the overgrown lizard get scolded. Now if only the tiny Ruggie would stop asking him what injury the eyepatch is for, and making remarks about how embarrassing it would be if it were totally pointless—King does not pay his adult self so much to put up with this shit. The baby Jack also needs to stop demanding to know if his adult minion self can pull a sled faster than a moose or something...

Jade and Floyd are attempting to wind up the adult Octo Dealer, trying to see how much they can get away with compared with the normal Azul. Octo Dealer is legitimately at a loss as to how this world’s Azul doesn’t keep them in line without letting them turn to a crime or two. Then he learns about Azul’s contract business and feels a pang of commiseration and understanding.

Poison Queen, Royal Flush, and Snake Charmer are unpleasantly shocked when their dorms address them by their respective secret identities in front of their fellow supervillains out of the blue.

Poison Queen has to put up with King’s uncontrolled laughter as he finally understands the full extent of the incident with White Neige so long ago, while Tsunotaro tries to tell him he liked Schoenheit in his role as the evil dragon prince in the GaoGao dramatization. Royal Flush is about two seconds away from throttling Octo Dealer if the bastard doesn’t stop trying to make a deal to guarantee his mother doesn’t learn about her son’s private activities. Snake Charmer’s just glad his civilian identity flies under the radar enough that Charon has to try and look him up to understand who he is (and fails because he’s not on school wifi and his cellular data is bust).

Poison Queen is also getting a headache from Rook rhapsodizing about how his villain form is another, enhanced mode of beauty he is fortunate to lay eyes upon, as if he hadn’t been willing to skewer Poison Queen along with the rest of the supervillains five minutes ago. He’s at least able to amuse himself by letting Epel run away with his speculations about how he’s the buff hyper-masculine muscle for Poison Queen.

Kalim is crying that Jamil had to resort to becoming a villain in his home world! He must be so sad if he has to do that! He’s mildly cheered up when Snake Charmer tells him they work together on schemes, and that Snake Charmer is actually reasonably happy with his chosen vocation—and then he begins panicking that Jamil will like that world so much, he won’t want to come back.

Royal Flush is glad his counterpart at least has good people around to look after him, even if it is odd to have young versions of Trey and Cater trying to mother hen him despite the fact that he’s the older one now. At least Ace and Deuce acting up seems more fitting now considering their age than it ever did on their adult selves.

Ace huffs a sigh and leans on Yuu’s shoulder. “This is a mess, huh Prefect?”

“You said it.” Yuu replies. “I just wanna sleep forever.”

The supervillains go still.

“I’m sorry,” Snake Charmer says carefully. “But isn’t Enma-san the Prefect?”

“No?” Yuuken replies, confused. “Yuu’s the prefect of Ramshackle Dorm. I’m their vice— or would be, if we had any other students apart from them, me, and Grim.”

Octo Dealer laughs, sounding slightly strained. “Ah, apologies, but you see, that isn’t possible. It can’t be. Yuu isn’t—”

“But I am the prefect, Azul-senpai.” Yuu the Prefect says. “I’ve–I’ve always been the prefect.”

There’s a stunned silence.

Royal Flush places his head in his hands. “What the fuck.”

Back in the Supervillain AU universe, Yuu the Reporter sneezes sharply while trying to wrangle five frightened teenagers, one frightened-but-playing-tough twenty year old, and one confused however-old-he-is-but-younger-than-Tsunotaro fae.

They wonder what the chill down their spine is.

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: A Hoarding Problem.

Pairing: Pro-Hero!Yandere!Touya/Reader (Boku No Hero Academia).

Word Count: 2.5k

Synopsis: Todoroki Touya has a problem, and he’s not sure he wants to fix it.

TW: Hero AU, Minor Spoilers, Kidnapping, Mutual Extortion, Emotional Manipulation, Slight Gaslighting, Bondage, Implied Infantilization, Mention of Sedatives (No Actual Use), and Themes of Poverty. 

Todoroki Touya had a problem.

He had a lot of problems, technically. His secretary always managed to schedule the most important meetings at the least convenient times, his coffee never seemed hot enough but always burnt his tongue, and despite his fame and wealth and strange, cult-like popularity, the only thing journalists ever seemed to want to talk about was his father, why Touya didn’t inherit the ‘Endeavour’ title, how long it’d take him to live up to all those stacking, swelling expectations. He had a lot of problems, dozens, hundreds. He had a lot. Everyone did, but Touya didn’t have to deal with everyone else’s.

He just had to deal with you.

You were one of those concentrated types, your smile always a little too personal and your stare always a little too intense, like you were trying to see how much his organs would go for on the black-market before you bothered to cut him open. You were put together, too, and if he hadn’t taken the liberty of following you home so many times, he never would’ve guessed you were staying at some cheap, back-alley motel, the kind meant for people who just wanted to be anywhere but the place they used to be. A run-away, he’d guessed, at first, but you were too old for that, and you were too good at pretending you weren’t living out of the suitcase Touya was starting to get tired of rummaging through. Maybe you were a petty criminal, a villain too minor to be on his radar - he didn’t know, and he really wasn’t interested in finding out. All that mattered to him was that he’d met you, decided he liked you, and hadn’t been able to think about much else since. It was an issue, really, and it was starting to get in the way of his work. It was starting to get in the way of everything.

But, he’d had this kind of problem before. He knew what to do. He knew how to handle it.

You seemed to want to be handled, too.

You were laughing, again, but he wasn’t really sure why. It might’ve been something he said, your own little joke, but he didn’t mind the sound, all bells and wind chimes and a practiced ease that threatened to divert his focus, as he tried to keep his eyes on the road. You were slumped in the passenger seat, and if he checked, he was sure you’d be looking out the window, counting turns, memorizing street names, doing what little you could to track the convoluted, darkened route he’d been sure to plan out days ago. You’d come willingly, but you wanted to make sure you’d be able to find your way back without his help. For his own sake, Touya pretended you were just being cautious. 

“I didn’t expect a Hero to live so far from the city.” Your voice was just as light, just a notch more confident than it had been at the convenience store you both frequented, the one you’d been working at when he stumbled in, closer to sunrise than sunset and ready to fall in love with the first person who smiled at him. The job hadn’t lasted, but Touya couldn’t think of a reason to mourn the loss. You wouldn’t have been desperate enough to take him up on his offer, if you still had a steady income. “Didn’t mark you down as one of those ‘cabin in the woods’ types, either. I’m not going to find, like, a box of dismembered body parts or anything, right?” 

“Obviously,” He scoffed, his tone just playful enough to be disarming. “I try to keep my victims in one piece. Hackjobs aren’t as satisfying as you’d think.”

That earned a jab to his side, an offended ‘my hackjob would be’, but you lost interest in the exchange as soon as he reached the driveway, coming to a stop in front of that sprawling, climbing villa, three stories of concrete and glass, a stark contrast from the forest that surrounded it. You took a moment to take it in, scanning over the building, a predator evaluating its docile prey. When you turned towards Touya, your smile was just a little wider, your expression just a little brighter. “I really can’t thank you enough,” You went on, your tone so sentimental, Touya could almost ignore the hollowness behind it. “You sure you’re alright with this? My last place fell through, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find somewhere else to--”

“Don’t worry about that. All this is curtesy of the Hero Commission, and they don’t keep track of who comes ang goes.” Touya didn’t wait for you to finish, he didn’t have to, even if he did let himself enjoy your faux-gratitude as he undid his seatbelt. “Besides, it’s my job, right? I wouldn't want to find out you went and got yourself hurt because I couldn’t be bothered to clean out my guest room.” There was a slight pause, a short hesitation. You flinched when he raised his hand, but you didn’t pull away as he cupped your cheek, only learning into his warm palm. “Besides, I can’t say I’d mind a little company, all alone out here.”

In his defense, he wasn’t going to kiss you. Really, he wasn’t that mean, but he didn’t have a chance to refuse, not before your lips were on his, your hands in his hair, all sudden passion and over-eager excitement. He was stunned, at first, but Touya recovered quickly. Biting back a smirk, he leaned into the gesture, slinging an arm around your hip, tilting your head back and doing whatever he could to bring you close, to keep you close, just like he’d been dying to for months, now. He could feel you stifle a laugh, moving to pull away, but Touya only drifted to your neck, nipping at the edge of your jaw before he found your jugular, aiming for the sensitive area just above it. You only chuckled, blunt nails running over his scalp. “And I thought I was the needy one,” You chided, half-hearted pushing at his chest. “It’s cold out here, Todoroki. At least take me inside first.” 

Right. Of course. He got carried away.

He almost forgot why you were actually here.

He didn’t let you go. He didn’t want to, so he didn’t bother trying, pulling you over the center console in one swift motion, leaving you in his lap, his face buried in the crook of your shoulder and an arm under your thighs, supporting your weight as he jerkily kicked open the door, letting you duck your head and giggle, always giggling, always trying to pretend to be meek and harmless and innocent. He wondered if you’d stop, eventually, if you’d drop the act once he decided both of you should show your true colors. He’d be lying if he said he hated the idea of choking it out of you. 

The front door wasn’t locked. He didn’t bother, not with his profession, not when he knew he’d be coming home with you, tonight. If you noticed, you didn’t seem to mind, focusing on locking your ankles behind his back, on swallowing down that small, pained groan as he slammed your back into the nearest wall of his darkened villa just a little too hard, pretending not to notice as your smile wavered in the minimal light. “I don’t think this counts as protecting the--” 

You were cut off by a loud thud, metallic and hollow, like someone hitting drywall with a baseball bat. You paused, for a second, your gaze flickering to the space behind him, but he was quick to kiss your cheek, to bring your attention back to where it should be, on him. “‘s just my roommate,” He mumbled, hoping you’d be too used to the excuse to linger on it. “Don’t pay it too much mind. He’s probably just fucking around.” 

This time, your smile dropped completely. “The Hero Commission... lets you have a roommate?” 

He caught his mistake a second too late. He opened his mouth, ready to explain, but another noise interrupted him, a rattling this time, followed by another deafening, irritating thud. He grit his teeth, but you only stiffened, your next shove to his chest a little more insistent than the last. “He might be hurt,” You started, the concern in your voice more genuine than it’d been all night. “We should check on him, that sounds--” 

“It’ll be fine.” He spoke a little too quickly, a little too aggressively. Instantly, your eyes widened, your entire body going tense against his, and Touya had to fight not to lose his composure completely. It was too soon. It was too early. He wanted to be sweet. He didn’t want to be mean, not with you. “Just ignore it, sweetheart, it’s not important. You’re here for me, right? The brat shouldn’t--” 

It was a slip-up. A petname so common, he hardly noticed he’d said it until you were scrambling, writhing, digging your nails into his biceps deep enough to break the skin, forcing him to let you go out reflex alone. You barely managed to catch yourself, but you stayed on your feet, shoving past Touya while he was still hissing out curses, clutching at bleeding wounds and broken scars. There was another thud, and you moved to sprint in the direction it’d come from, but he was a Hero, he was trained for this. You were on the ground before you could take a step, Touya straddling your stomach, his hands around your neck. He didn’t squeeze, though, he didn’t want to strangle you. He was going to be patient. This was going to be different. “Just behave,” He growled, fighting to hold onto the last threads of his restraint. “It’s not important. I’m important, and that’s all you have to care about. That’s all you’re ever going to care about, from now on.”

You didn’t hesitate. As soon as he finished, you were jerking forward, your forehead colliding with his and forcing a ragged scream from both of you. He’d give you credit for that. Villains and Heroes fought with quirks, specialized weapons, tactics and strategies and purpose. This was blunt. This was thoughtless. It was impulsive, and it was stupid, and it worked, letting you push him away as he recoiled, suddenly too focused on his pounding skull to care about what you might find. It wouldn’t matter, anyway. None of your little tantrums would.

He’d find you, eventually. After that, the results would be the same.

That might’ve been why Touya took his time, pushing himself to his feet slowly, following the sound of your footsteps before they abruptly stopped. He tried not to be bothered by it, even if there was a familiar pang of anxiety when he saw you, your mouth agape and your body slack, leaning against a door that should not be open. He might’ve walked a little faster, out of habit, but if you noticed him, you were too distracted to care. He couldn’t blame you. Not when he knew what you were looking at. 

He got a little carried away, with the girls’ room. Pale pink paint coated on every surface, fairy-lights strung along the ceiling, and a white, circular rug, fluffy and stainless and just small enough to stop before it reached the three cots, settled along each of the walls, each with its own frilly sheets and plush mattress and bare, metallic frame, something Touya might’ve considered swapping out if their opponents were a little more grateful. Two were empty, the first a spare if he needed room for a future ‘guest’ and the second a reminder to check on the bitch in his basement, and the third was on its side. That was what you were focusing on, what he couldn’t seem to pull you away from as he slotted himself against your back, wrapping an arm loosely around your waist. 

That, and the girl sitting in front of it, a ball-gag stuffed in her mouth and a collar around her neck, thick and leathery and attached to a chain, keeping her tethered to the nearest wall. There were a few noticeable dents in the plaster around her bracket, but Touya had better things to worry about. 

There was a garbled scream, something that might’ve been a warning, but Touya silenced her off with a glare sharp enough cut glass. “Shut it,” He barked, all pretense of patience gone. “Shut up, or you’re going to spend the next week in a muzzle. I’ll deal with you later.”

“You kidnapped her.” At least you waited your turn, even if the delay did little too soften the disgust in your voice. “You’re a monster. You’re supposed to be--” 

“A hero?” You tried to shove him away, to pry him off of you, but he only tightened his grip. “And you’re supposed to be an innocent civilian, aren’t you? Something soft and appreciative I can feel good about helping, fuck, and forget about the next day, right?” 

“Don’t try to--” 

“Where do you keep the bottle, sweetheart?” Now, it was your turn to go tense, to know he saw something he shouldn’t have seen. “Don’t lie to me. It won’t be pretty, if we start off this relationship on a bad foot.” 

You hesitated, for a moment. He saw your swallow, watched your eyes dart towards anything that could’ve been considered a weapon, but his fingers slipped under your shirt and you bowed your head, giving in at the slightest threat of something worse. He liked that about you. Such a simple thing, too afraid of pain to take the risk. “My jacket. There are pockets on the inside - it’s on the right.” 

He’d give you credit. It looked realistic, if nothing else, a translucent orange bottle with a white lid, the label scratched off in a way that could’ve been mistaken for nervous fidgeting, if Touya didn’t know better. With one hand, he popped off the lid, barely glancing at the unmarked pills inside before letting out a pleased hum. 

Sedatives. Not lethal, but effective. The type you could get from any low-ranking Villain with a surplus supply and a greater need for clients than most. 

The type that could be slipped into wine glasses, mixed into water. The type that’d keep your trusting, unsuspecting host nice and unconscious while you helped yourself to anything that wasn’t nailed down. While you robbed him blind, stowed yourself away in another cheap motel room two towns over, and scouted for the next poor guy who’d be too embarrassed to say anything.

Touya couldn’t help himself. He laughed, loudly and shamelessly, watching as you withered, glaring at the tiled floor. He couldn’t tell if it was fear of loathing, half-suspended terror or that deep, ingrained hatred any good predator should feel when it’s caught in a trap, but your voice couldn’t have made it more clear. “What’s your plan?” You spat, all humiliation, all spirited, adorable anger. His grin widened, the lasting tension in his shoulders dissolving, but if you noticed how much he enjoyed your little show, you didn’t bother trying to keep your mouth shut. “Arrest me? Hand me over to the police and let me tell them all about your creepy, fucked-up dollhouse?” You never looked up. You never so much as tried to meet his eyes, let alone glance at the ‘victim’ you’d been so intent on saving a few minutes ago. “Let me go. You don’t have another choice, unless you’re willing to get your hands dirty.” 

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I’m not gonna kill you.” It wasn’t a lie, but you didn’t seem to believe him, going rigid as his lips brushed against the nape of your neck. It was a fleeting gesture, but he didn’t let himself linger. He’d have plenty of time for that once he got you used to your new role, under his care. Once you got used to him. “I’m not gonna hand you over, either. That’d just be a waste.”

He might’ve been a little mean, after all. If he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have given you so much time to answer, so much time to tremble. At least you didn’t try to get away, this time. You were already learning. “I… I don’t--” 

“I’m going to take care of you, angel. Just like I’m taking care of her.”

There was a moment of stillness, a small, ragged sob, but Touya couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty. He couldn’t bring himself to feel anything but satisfied. 

Because Todoroki Touya had a problem. Because he was awful and hungry and greedy, and he had a problem.

And he wasn’t sure he wanted to fix it.

[archaneanscribe]

Name

"Helana, behind you."

"It's alright, Helena."

"Helena."  

"Helena-"

"Ya know, Q," Helena began, easily ducking away from a punch thrown by a third rate goon, "You're pretty cavalier with my real name, for a paranoid guy like you."

The thug seemed enraged by her nonchalance, but that barely pinged on her radar as her boyfriend responded, "I'll make sure no one finds out your identity," his voice was distracted as he downloaded the file, like her concern was not a concern at all, "So it doesn't matter."

"Constantly making sure it stays secret seems like a waste of time and effort," she retorted, growing tired of playing with her adversary and delivering a hook right under his jaw that knocked him flat. Now that all the hired muscle was out of her way, she cracked her knuckles as she approached Question.

He pulled the drive out of the computer, slipping it into his pocket. Before he spoke, he paused thoughtfully, and lifted his leg to kick the computer screen in.

"It's a trifle for me."

"Q, you're really-"

Wait. Q didn't brag about stuff like that. And he had better things to focus on than constantly monitoring his, uh, network(?) to make sure her true identity didn't reach the wrong ears. He must have a reason... oh. 

Oh, baby doll.

Quick as a flash, she fired a bolt from his crossbow that whizzed past his head to catch his attention.

"Any reason for the failed assassination attempt? You normally don't miss."

She hooked the weapon back on her belt, approaching her boyfriend with the kind of conviction in her eye that led to men being dead in every sense but the legal one, and he was smart enough to back up. Eventually, the back of his knees hit the office chair that he had risen from earlier, and he fell into sitting in it with a soft thump.

"I have a theory, Q. Humor me for a minute."

He swallowed thickly at her low tone, and nodded, clearly thankful for the impassivity of expression inherent to his mask.

She reached his spot and boxed him in by putting both hands on each arm of the chair, "I was wondering why you'd go through all the trouble of tempting fate with my identity. You don't take unnecessary risks, right? Except you do. In one circumstance."

Leaning in, her black hair framed her face like a dark halo, the effect accentuated by the flickering overhead light that had been broken by a stray bullet in the earlier brawl. His avenging angel. His heart rate increased at a concerning pace, "When you want to impress me, you can get a little reckless, huh baby doll? You get off on the thrill of protecting me. That's why you do it- you make a situation where you create and solve the problem."

She pulled his tie loose from his vest, yanking it forward so her unmasked nose bumped into his masked one, "I unraveled one of your little mysteries. How's that make you feel, baby?"

"Do you want the long answer or the short one?"

She laughed, nearly low purr, "Let's make it quick."

"Good. Very."

She let go of his tie, but not before hooking a finger under the knot and loosening it just a bit, "As much as I like putting on a show, let's head back before these idiots wake up so you can do whatever it is you need to with that data, and then I can give you your reward for being honest," her smirk grew as she whispered, "Vic."

For the first time, he found that being bested at his own game wasn't so bad at all.•

[circusoftrash]

I would like to see your huggability rating for Trowa or Quatre. They're equal favorites for me, so I'd be happy with either. Also, please feel free to post your Gundam Wing headcanons! It is your blog, after all.

Don't worry, my GW headcanons will almost inevitably appear as crack comics made when something else in my life goes wrong.

Also they're both my favs to, so hey

If you pick this one out of a lineup for a hug, then congratulations--you've got an eye for the ones that slip under the radar. I know what you're thinking: you walk up to this kid and go "oh crap, he's like all shoulder. This is going to be like hugging an old cat and getting impalled on every bony joint". But then you get your arms around him, and your hugging your family sofa that has long since memorized your body print to cup you just right. And you wonder how, HOW, this kid has like no body fat.

But there is no answer. This is just one of nature's great mysteries. This is the squid they find at the bottom of the ocean that looks like a chubby little elephant when everything else is a Bloodborne boss. I don't know how he exists, I don't know how he carved that niche out of a cold and uncaring world, and I am not questioning it. Sometimes, you just have to submit to the basic awe of the universe.

But like any mystery, there's something emphemiral about him, and that's not what you'll always want in a hug. A hug is supposed to give us warmth and security, but these are the deep waters of the primeval unknown. This is someone who is not ready to be found, not yet. Are we just not ready to understand? Perhaps. Be cautious when hugging this one. You may not be ready to where the journey takes you.

Also his hair really sucks, tbh. Kind of don't want my face near that.

FINAL SCORE: 7.5/10

Aaah, now that's a gold standard pick you've got there. Beloved by the hugologist beginner and master alike, you really cannot go wrong with this guy. Whether you like warm hugs, firm hugs, comforting hugs, the hug you didn't know would brighten your day, this is the swiss army knife you need for any occassion. And yes, I mean that in the sense that you can also use him to stab your enemies and bathe in their blood.

It’s really difficult to find something wrong with a hug from this guy. He’s just smol enough to make it cute in a not weird way, but he’s class act enough to make you feel like you’re in good hands. It’s pure art what he does, expertly turning a thousands wheels that you don't even notice, beyond the surface thought of "man, that was really nice." Some people are just born to give hugs. Honestly, if he hadn’t offered you at least two by the time you’ve finished reading this, you must be catching him on a really, really bad day. 

But for whatever reason, this hug will not be perfect, and that can be honestly frustrating. There’s a certain je ne sais quoi that someone needs to be able to deliver a truly transcendent hug. It’s certainly there to some extent--I mean take a look at this cornball. But it’s not complete, not one hundred percent. Weep not friends, it’s the journey, not the destination. Stay this path, and a higher school will surely come. Just after therapy. Lots of therapy. Please. Please?

FINAL SCORE: 9/10

[maddiewritesstucky]

IT’S SOMEONE’S BIRTHDAY!! 😆💕🎉

How do I possibly sum up how loved you are, how special you are, how deeply appreciated and important you are @howdoyousleep3?!

I thought long and hard about what I could give you, what I could do for you from such a great distance, and I could think of no greater show of love than to take the very two things I said I would never do, and use them both to create something extra special smutty for you 💜

😘 So K, angel, light of my life...I give to you the most esoteric thing I will ever write, my first (and likely only) reader insert, definitely my only RPF, I give you...

Rating: Explicit (18+)

Pairing: female reader x douchebag CEvans character we coined ‘Jersey Boy’

Tags: Public sex, fingering, mild degradation / humiliation, dirty talk, hypothetical girl-on-girl, gratuitous use of the word ‘fuck’, not a condom in sight

Based on a dangerously horny WhatsApp conversation that will live rent free in the spank bank for the rest of eternity. Beta credits to @buckyandthejets - thank you for holding my hand on this one 😂

***

“Your eyes better be open,” he rumbles, tequila-slick lips hard up against your ear. 

You’d laugh if you had the breath to do it, if you weren’t strung bow-taut trying to stay off the bouncer’s radar. He’s kicked the two of you out before, more times than you’d admit to, and he’ll do it again if you give him reason enough. 

You’re not going to give him a reason, tonight. 

You’re gonna sit there, tucked away in your favorite corner booth with your mouth shut and your eyes on the stage; perched in your boyfriend’s lap with your back against his chest and his hand stuffed between your thighs, and you’re not gonna make a fucking scene about the fact that he’s knuckle deep in your pussy. 

“She’s good, tonight,” he sighs, all false nonchalance like he doesn’t know how that particular set of curves up on the pole always makes your blood run a little hotter.

‘Roxi’ she goes by on stage, but you can call me whatever the hell you want, when she’s in your lap with her tits in your face.

“She’s always good.”

You stare, transfixed, at the sensuous shift of her body; that sinful rhythm that rolls through her limbs and makes every movement seem like something you should have no right to see.

He hums a noncommittal sound behind you, stroking languid at that spot inside that’d get you in trouble if he went any harder with it. That’s why you know he won’t - he’s not about to risk getting kicked out when it’s so much sweeter to send you spiraling like this, subtle and silent.

“You should learn to dance for me,” his breath falls warm over your shoulder, his lips nestled into the crook of your neck, “put on a show, get me all worked up…”

“You don’t need any fuckin’ help getting worked up.”

The sharp flick he deals to the peaked bud of your nipple makes your breath hitch, even through the barrier of your shirt. 

His hand is working slow and lazy between your thighs, but you know his body is winding tighter for this, too. It’s there in the vague shudder at the top of his inhales, the twitch of his cock inside his jeans. 

“Bet she could teach you some moves,” he hums, squeezing at your hip and your waist; tracing the curve of your rib cage. 

She could teach me a lot of things, you think, swallowing hard for the endless stretch of her legs and the curve of her ass.

You lift your eyes to her face and she’s looking right at you, her gaze flickering familiarity before it drops to the hand buried under your skirt. She smirks so goddamn knowing, and it’s your saving grace that the lighting is already washing your skin in shades of red. 

“Aw, look at that,” that voice at your back coos, “is the pretty stripper smilin’ at you?”

“Shut up.” 

It comes out breathy and insipid, and you feel more than hear the soft, mocking laugh that rumbles through his chest. 

He tucks his chin over your shoulder, presses his smirk right against your cheek as his hand snakes up under your shirt.

“What’s the matter, baby? Don’t you wanna be her friend? I bet you girls would get on real well…”

Your skin flushes hot under his lips, under the maddeningly chaste kisses he’s leaving there like he’s not fingerfucking you in public. 

“That’d be nice, huh? The two of you, gettin’ close...maybe she’d let you touch that body you can’t stop staring at.” 

“Jesus...”

He’s kneading slow and hard at your tits, drawing mindless circles around your nipples and flexing his thighs beneath you, just enough to keep you a little off balance. 

You can almost taste blood for how deep your teeth are sunk into your bottom lip.

“You think about it, don’t you?” he whispers, “You wonder what it’d be like, getting your hands on those curves, maybe getting your lips on hers...That what you want, baby? You wanna give her a little kiss?” 

...Fuck, but you hate how he does this. 

You do wanna kiss her. 

You wanna get on your knees and swap spit with her around the dick currently pressed up against your ass, but you’re not about to tell him that.

“Maybe...” 

“‘Maybe’?” He slips his fingers out of you just to push them back in slower, shallow this time because he’s an asshole. “‘Maybe’ don’t drip like this, sweetheart.”

“Fuck,” you press back against his chest; tip your head back against his shoulder as you suck a shuddering breath in.  

“Yeah, I know this ain’t for me,” he draws his fingertips up through the warm, wet center of you; sweeping figure-8 strokes that kiss your clit and dip shallow inside you. “Maybe I should call her over here, tell her she went and got my girl’s pussy all wet...maybe she’d help you out with it.”

You almost crack, then; barely catching the hoarse cry that’s shocked out of you as he smacks those soaked, taunting fingers down in a tight swat against your pussy. 

Your whole body lights up for it, your cheeks flooding hot and your pulse throbbing to rival the bass from the speakers. 

“Jesus, you can’t just—”

“I can’t what?” His other hand slips up to curl around the front of your throat, gripping you tight under the line of your jaw. “What can’t I do with this pussy, huh?” 

God, your body’s screaming. 

There’s nothing he couldn’t do, nothing you wouldn’t want, and you both know it. Fuck, does he know it...

You cuss under your breath, splitting your thighs wider over the spread of his lap, and he huffs a laugh that catches in your hair. 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Fuck you.” 

You roll your hips forward against that broad palm cupped between your legs and the grip on your neck tightens; his face tucking in close against yours as he growls right up against your cheekbone.

“Watch your fuckin’ mouth.”

He’s so hard beneath you, nudging his hips up to rub the denim-clad line of his cock against your ass; toying with your clit and pulsing his fingers inside you. 

The cigarette he had before you came out tonight is still clinging to him, making the amber notes in his cologne sing sweeter, and every time you squirm you can feel the chain around his neck rubbing cool against the back of your shoulder.  

“You gonna fuck me?” 

You already know the answer, just like you know you might not even make it home before he’s getting it in you. You might not make it to his car, and you’re nowhere near as ashamed as you should be that it wouldn’t be the first time he’s fucked you in the alley behind the club.

...It might be the first time for something else though, you realize, as he squeezes your hip and tells you to lift up.

“Here?” you hiss, “Are you fucking kidding me?” 

Your eyes frantically sweep the room, your entire body flooding hot as he pulls his hand from between your legs and slips it under you to get at his zipper.

“What, you wanna wait ‘til we get home?” he scoffs like the notion is ridiculous. “You want some fuckin’ rose petals, some jazz playin’? Should we do it missionary?!” 

“God, you’re an asshole.”

You try to put some venom in it, but it’s lost to the fact that you’re pulling your panties to the side; trapping a gasp behind your teeth as the blunt head of him nudges up against you. 

“And you’re about to get fucked in a strip club,” he hums, “so what does that make you?” 

Another place, another time, and you might bite back. You might get up and walk away entirely, just to hear him hit you with that ‘aww come on, baby, don’t be like that!’ 

But right now you’re here, and his hands are on your hips and his cock is pushing into you bare, and you know exactly what this makes you.

Your fingers dig an iron grip into his thighs as you sink down on the length of him, grinding against the heavy stretch of him inside you. It takes your breath away every goddamn time, makes you spread your legs wider like it’ll make a lick of difference to the way he fills you up; immense and overwhelming and so fucking good. 

“Oh my god,” you whimper, circling your hips as you settle your whole weight down onto him, “oh my god.”

“Hey, you take this quiet,” he chides, his arm wrapping tight around your waist. “You start makin’ a scene, I’m gonna pull out.”  

Fuck, if he pulls out you’re gonna put him in his grave. 

There’s no move you can make here that doesn’t send you reeling, no shift of your body or swivel of your hips that doesn’t wind you further up the spiral; not with the way he takes up every last inch of space inside you and then some. 

His voice is a constant rumbling bass in your ear, and it doesn’t fucking help, those coos of that’s it, baby, and find the spot, and make it feel good. 

It doesn’t help when he starts rocking up into you in tiny pulses, when he uses his grip on your hips to angle you just perfect so his cock strokes you right fucking there.

It definitely doesn’t help when his fingertips find their way back between your thighs to drum a soft staccato against your clit.   

“Gonna come?” He curls his body closer around you as you start to shake; as your breath leaves you on a reedy exhale.

You can only nod, screwing your eyes shut and sinking into that building surge of heat. You are gonna come, right here in this room full of people. And he’s never gonna fucking let you forget it. 

“Open,” he commands, low and rough.  

You’re about to open your eyes, but then his fingers are pressing at your lips, and you’re swallowing a soft groan as he stuffs them into your mouth.

“Not a fuckin’ sound, you hear me?” 

You barely have time to nod before he’s jacking his hips up into you faster, rubbing tight circles around your clit to send you careening over the edge.  

You can’t moan, so you suck. Your eyes water, and your thighs twitch, and you shake apart right there in his lap, in front of god and everyone. 

Silently. 

Like the good girl you are.

“Jesus,” he buries his face in the crook of your neck, gasping a weak strangled sound as your body clenches around him. 

His muscles are drawing taut, his thighs and his  stomach tensing. He’s breathing shaky and shallow, and you want him to break; want him to lose it so you can call him a slut later and goad him into giving it to you all over again. 

So you let yourself go boneless in his lap. You tip your head back against his shoulder, and you make damn sure he hears it when you choke out “do it, Daddy,” around the gag of his fingers.

And he does. He comes inside you with his teeth sunk into the flesh of your shoulder and his hand white-knuckling a grip on your thigh. 

It’s objectively disgusting, the half-hour drive home you’re gonna be facing with his come dripping out of you. But you’d put good money on him pulling you into the backseat and licking you clean before you even start the car, so you can’t bring yourself to give a shit.

“Christ,” he shakes his head softly, slipping his fingers from your mouth and wiping them on your skirt. “Can’t fuckin’ take you anywhere.” 

“You could take me home.”

There’s too many clothes on you, too many eyes and ears around you for the way your skin’s buzzing; the way you’ve barely scratched the surface of that rippling need inside you. 

He hums at your back, pulling out of you slow and tugging your ruined panties back into place. “Just you? Or you wanna invite your friend?” 

You can hear the smirk in his voice and you know he’s fucking with you when he cocks his head toward the stage. But you chance a look up there and she winks right at you, and it’s not the worst idea he’s ever had.

“Two girls at once, huh?” You arch a brow at him, incredulous. “You think you got the stamina for that?” 

He holds your stare as he downs the rest of his drink, sweeps his tongue out over his slick bottom lip. 

“Well her shift ends in ten minutes,” he rumbles, “...why don’t we find out?”

***

And there you have it, the beginning and end of my het-writing career. Goodnight and good luck everyone, and the happiest of birthdays to you my beautiful soul sister 😘

[angelicyoongie]

desolate (5)

— summary: you just wanted a cute little normal cat to keep you company. so, you're not really sure how you ended up with the grumpiest hybrid on earth that seems hellbent on making your life difficult.

— pairing: cat hybrid yoongi x human reader

— genre: angst, fluff, eventual smut

— word count: 2.8k

— tag list: @mrcleanheichou​​ @ladymidnightt​​ @cheese123344​ @xanny91​ @dinorahrodriguez​​ @best-space-boy​​ @dulcaet​ @moccahobi​​ @keijaycreates​ @staytrillswag​ @xsmilebitesx​ @serendipityoreuphoria​ @jiminot7​ @beyond-the-swag​ @nananaum1​ @faithsummers11​ @twomilkmen-gocomedy​ @theonewholovestoread​ @karissassirak​ @veryuniquenamegoeshere​ @yourlipssoirresistible​ @ayoo-bangtan​ @murderyoursoul​ @btsxdoll​ @see3milyblog​ @gukiyi​ @officialcarly9701 @mtgforall​ @narcissism-iskey​ @sp3ak-yours3lf​ @cesthoney​ @imluckybitches​ @hd-junglebook​ @sugarrimajins​ @multifandomgirl29​ @beach-bitch-bitch-beach​ @bangtansleftnut​ @theresa-nam-nam-me​

Part one Part two Part three Part four Part six Part seven Part eight Part nine Part ten (M) Part eleven Part twelve Part thirteen Part fourteen (M)

You feel like your brain has short-circuited as you stare at the hybrid in front of you. The first thought that hits you is how badly you’ll have to grovel at Jihyo and Sana’s feet for not believing the dog hybrid.

“How?” Your legs are shaking as you lean heavily against the front door, every muscle in your body still on high alert.

“What do you mean, how?” Yoongi tilts his head. The narrowed gaze that peaks out from between his long bangs makes it seem like he wonders if you’re a little dumb for not comprehending what’s in front of you immediately.

“But you’re a cat! Not a human,” You squeak.

“Yes, I’m a cat. But, I’m also human. I believe the correct term you’re looking for is a hybrid,” Yoongi quirks his eyebrows. It’s hard to make out his face properly in the low-lit hallway, but there’s no denying the pure smugness that seems to be radiating off him.

Your mind clings to the familiarity of the sassy attitude you’re used to getting from your cat, and you try to force down the building panic as you narrow your eyes right back at him.

“Well I can see that,” You reach up to gently flick against his fluffy cat ear, your annoyance temporarily winning over your anxiety. Yoongi drops his hands from your shoulders with a disgruntled sound. A threatening hiss slips past his lips at the audacity you have to touch his ear as he reaches up to cover it from any further assault.

“What I don’t understand is why my cat is a hybrid, when that’s not what I adopted,” Yoongi’s cool demeanour cracks for a second as you see a flash of unease pass through his expression. You aren’t sure if he’s embarrassed on being called out for lying to you, or if it’s something .. else.

“Does it matter?” Yoongi takes a step back as he crosses his arms, his posture tense and defensive.

“Does it matter?!” You echo, a bubble of hysteria forcing its way up your throat.

“Of course it matters, Yoongi! I adopted a cat for a reason. I can’t take care of a hybrid,” The reality of the situation sets in as the words leave your lips. You can’t take care of a hybrid. You can’t take care of Yoongi.

Yoongi tsk’s at your words. “You’ve been taking care of me just fine,” He shrugs, but even you can see that he looks too thin and pale. His way too prominent collarbones are peeking out of the dark sweater he’s wearing, and your sweatpants look too loose on him.

Wait–

“Are you wearing my clothes?” You surge forward on shaking legs to grip at the material of Yoongi’s sweater, your sweater, and the hybrid only rolls his eyes.

“Why? Would you prefer it if I was naked? Because I can make that happen,” Yoongi smirks; eyes looking down at you with such cockiness you can only gape at him in return.

You’ve never encountered someone so brazen before, and you don’t have the quick comebacks Yoongi seems to have an endless supply of. You feel a little out of your depth, in more ways than one.

Yoongi unfurls his arms to grip the hem of the sweater when you stay quiet, and it’s only when you start to see a sliver of pale skin that you jump into action.

“Don’t take off your clothes!” You forcefully tug the material back down, embarrassment staining your cheeks red as you avoid meeting his gaze.

“You’re giving me mixed messages here,” You see Yoongi roll his eyes out in your peripheral vision. You wonder if that’s his default reaction.

“I just asked if they were mine, I didn’t tell you to take them off!” You rub your temple tiredly, the exhaustion of the long day at work finally starting to catch up with you.

“Of course I’m wearing your clothes, it’s not like I have my own,” Yoongi sneers, lips pulled back in distaste as he watches you.

You ignore the bad feeling you get in your stomach at his words. You didn’t know he was human – how were you supposed to provide it for him? You can’t believe you’re essentially fighting your cat about clothes. This for sure wasn’t how you expected the day to end.

“Let’s just move to the living room,” You gesture weakly down the hallway. Yoongi studies you for another second before he spins around and leaves, giving you a few seconds alone to wrap your head around what has happened.

You shrug off your coat, taking a deep breath before you follow after him. There are a million thoughts and questions racing around in your head, but there’s really only one person that can give you the answers to them.

Yoongi is sat on the couch, back leaning against one of the sides, and one leg crossed under the other. His eyes are glued to your form until you take a seat on the other side of the couch, your posture painfully straight and tense.

“Relax. I’m not going to hurt you,” Yoongi huffs, reaching up with a pale hand to run it through his bangs. He needs a haircut, you think.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” You mumble, but you can see his cat ears twitch, and you don’t doubt he heard you perfectly.

“Then why are you so tense?” Yoongi grumbles as he grabs one of the pillows on the couch, squeezing it to his chest. He really isn’t that much taller than you, but his attitude was so confident that you felt tiny out in the hallway. When you see him like this however – he seems smaller than he did before. He seems .. vulnerable.

“I told you Yoongi,” The fluffy tail laying down the side of the couch gives a lazy twitch as you say his name.

“I can’t take care of you. You’ve been staying in your cat form for way too long and it isn’t healthy. Look at how thin you are,” You give him a pained expression, guilt brewing in your stomach as he winces.

“The food you eat when you’re a cat obviously isn’t enough to actually feed you, and I don’t think I earn enough money to feed two mouths,” Actually, you know you don’t earn enough to provide for the both of you, but it feels terrible to say it. It feels like you’re letting him down.

Yoongi’s shoulders slump, ears flattening against his head as he looks out into the room.

“So you’re kicking me out?” His voice is emotionless, but you notice how his hands are curled into tight fists around the hem of your sweater.

Yes, yes, yes. You can’t take care of somebody else when you barely have the means to care for yourself.  It’s unrealistic. It’s plain stupid. But ..

“I don’t know,” You sigh. “You don’t need to leave right away, okay? You can continue to live here until I can figure something out.”

Yoongi nods, eyes still not meeting yours. The force behind his grip has lessened however, and his hands don’t look so deadly white anymore.

“Let me get some dinner ready, and then we’ll talk. You have some explaining to do,” You feel Yoongi’s eyes track you until your slip around the corner. You didn’t expect him to answer, but you’re pretty sure you hear a soft okayjust as you disappear from his sight.

.

You both eat in silence. You thought it would be awkward, but it feels strangely familiar. Of course, you’re technically still eating dinner with the same creature, but cat Yoongi and human Yoongi are two very different forms.

“So ..” You being as Yoongi sets down his plate on the coffee table. “Explain. How did you end up at the shelter as a cat?”

Yoongi narrows his eyes at you, and for the first time you’re stricken with how pretty they look, how nicely his eyelashes frame his dark gaze.

“It’s not that hard,” He scoffs.

“I just made sure I acted like I couldn’t understand what they were saying, and didn’t react to any of the normal tests they do. It’s pretty easy to fly under the radar when you know what reactions they’re looking for,” Yoongi shrugs. You want to ask how he knows how to avoid it, but you bite your tongue.

“I just didn’t shift, and after a week they didn’t even think twice about me being a hybrid. Humans really aren’t that smart,” He gaze is pointedly locked at you as he wrinkles his nose in distain.

You let out a harsh breath through your nose, trying your best not to give in and start a fight. It’s pretty obvious that it’s what he’s after as he stares you down, chin slightly upturned.

“So Yeonjun doesn’t know?” You ask.

“Yeonjun doesn’t know. Nobody knows. And nobody can,” Yoongi bites, the raw panic flashing in his eyes making you feel uneasy. Why is he so adamant about hiding who he is?

“.. O-okay,” You stammer, as you realize he’s waiting for you to give him a verbal confirmation you won’t tell anyone else about him.

“But why all the secrecy Yoongi? Wouldn’t it have been better to go to the shelter as a hybrid and get properly adopted by someone who can actually care for you?” He shakes his head.

“I can’t.” You’re about to ask why when he shoots you a glare, your mouth snapping shut so fast it makes your jaw ache.

Yoongi’s tail is swishing back and forth, and the little snap the end of his tail does at every turn makes you realize how annoyed he really is. You’ve seen him do the same motion a few times when you pet him past what he wanted you to. From experience you know he’s not far away from hissing at you to make you stop doing whatever you’re doing, whether that’s petting or asking too many questions.

“Alright,” You finally relax against the couch, too tired to keep interrogating him. He’s not off the hook, but you can tell he isn’t willing to talk about it right now – whatever it is that he’s keeping from you.

“How long were you planning on keeping me in the dark?” You ask.

Yoongi’s jaw clenches.

“You weren’t supposed to find out either,” His voice is monotone as he stares down at his hands, fingers picking at the skin around his thumb.

“I wasn’t ..” You still against the couch, the breath you’ve sucked in refusing to expel out again. If he didn’t mean to reveal it, then it means he was planning on staying in his cat form .. forever?

Even you know how harmful it would be for him to stay shifted for at least two thirds of the day, and not to mention the fact that he would never actually get enough food. Your stomach lurches.

“Yoongi, you would’ve ended up killing yourself,” You whisper, voice breaking as you realize the slow torture he must’ve been putting himself through these last weeks, or maybe even months, considering all the time he spent at the shelter before you picked him up.

Yoongi rests his eyes on you again, the cold indifference boring straight through your soul.

“Maybe.”

You turn your head away, desperate to look away from the indifference he seems to have in regards to his own life. You stare at the wall in front of you until the burning in your eyes goes away. At this rate, it feels like Yoongi could’ve scoffed at you if you cried.

“Then why did you reveal yourself? If you weren’t planning on letting me find out,” You try to steer the topic back on something you hope is less heavy, something you hope you’ll be able to stomach better on low sleep and with a building headache.

“Lapse in judgment. I thought you weren’t coming back,” You wonder if Yoongi woke up with the need to kick your heart with every word today, because that’s surely what it feels like.

“Why would you think that?” You itch to reach out and comfort him, but you know him well enough to know that it will do more harm than good.

“It’s Sunday. You never leave home at the weekends, and suddenly you were gone when I woke up, and you didn’t come home until almost midnight. I figure you had just left,” Yoongi lips are in a thin line as he shrugs, the two actions such a contrast you aren’t really sure if he’s really that indifferent or not.

“I’m so sorry Yoongi, if I had known I would’ve told you,” You mutter. A lot of things would have been different if you had known. But you didn’t. And sadly, you can’t change anything about it.  

Yoongi doesn’t say anything else, and you’re not sure what else to do. Your chest hurts, and you feel like you haven’t slept in a week. You can’t remember the last time you had a day that was so emotionally draining as this. You throw a glance at the phone you’ve placed on the coffee table, your eyes feeling heavier by the second as you realize how late it has become.

“Let’s talk more about this later, okay? I have work again tomorrow,” You give him what you hope is a soft smile, but everything just feels so forced and terribly off that you’re not sure if it’s a smile or a twisted grimace.

“Sure,” Yoongi agrees.

Your sleep depraved brain picks up on the almost soundless footsteps trailing behind you to your room, but you don’t realize Yoongi has been following you until you turn around to close the door, and find yourself face to face with pink lips.

“Uh Yoongi? Why are you following me?” “To go to sleep?” He accentuates the words, an eyebrow raised as he cocks his head at you. His pupils look slightly bigger with the darkness spilling from your room, and you feel a shiver travel down your spine as he locks eyes with you. The ears and tail aside, it never stops catching you off guard just how much he actually acts like a cat. The mannerisms are almost a little eerily when he looks so human.

“Yeah, I’m going to sleep in my bed. You’re not. I was just getting some blankets for the couch,” You pray the low light hides the awkward flush on your face. Did he really think he was still sleeping with you tonight?

“Oh,” Yoongi’s face falls blank. You swear you see hurt flash through his eyes, but you hope it’s just a trick of the light.

“Right, that’s why I’m here. To get the blankets,” He scowls. Yoongi’s expression is sour as he looks down at you with challenging eyes, as if he’s waiting for you to call him out and expose him.

“Right,” You echo, quickly stumbling over to your closet to find some bedding for the cat hybrid. You feel a little bad that you’re making him sleep outside in the living room where it’s much colder, but it’s not like he can sleep with you. It was different when he was just a cat, but this Yoongi? You don’t know him. Frankly, you’re not sure if you should really trust him.

Yoongi snatches the blankets from your hands as soon as you reach him, turning on his heels to stalk back to the living room. You close the bedroom door with a sigh, leaning your forehead against the cool wood. You have a feeling you won’t get much sleep tonight.

.

You don’t waste any time getting into bed. Despite the exhaustion in your bones, you end up tossing and turning for way too long. You don’t know what to do about Yoongi. Should you give him back, should you let someone else care for him, can you care for him? Do you even want to?

You think you must’ve fallen asleep at one point, because when you groggily wake up to turn to the other side, you find a mass of black fur next to you. Your mind slowly registers that Yoongi is back in your bed, the cat curled up into a little ball on top of your comforter. You should probably throw him out, but he just looks so small and soft, tiny snores escaping his mouth at each exhale.

You tell yourself you’ll just deal with it in the morning instead, and that you’re too tired to get up now. That it has absolutely nothing to do with the rush of affection you feel in your body as he hugs his tail underneath his paw, or the twinge of sadness in your chest as you realize Yoongi has been alone for so long.

You burrow down deeper into your sheets, eyes lulling closed as you watch Yoongi sleep peacefully. You’re totally unaffected, you promise yourself.

Too bad you’ve never been a good liar.

- - - -

Hello! Hope you enjoyed the fifth chapter of desolate! Poor kitty yoongles :( P.s. In case you haven't seen it yet, I've posted the first chapter of Abundance, which is the ot7 version of this fic, and you can read it here!

My inbox is always open if you want to chat about the story or just fics or life in general! See you all soon!

[novelconcepts]

fic: heading into the dark (and we’ve got to hang on to each other)

Life, as Dani Clayton sees it, is full of darkness. Little darknesses, like a mother who draws away even as she continues to draw breath, and big darknesses, like loss that comes out of absolutely nowhere, and all the variations in between. Life is unpredictable. It’s ugly. It’s cruel. 

Life also grants the laughter of small children, and wonderful dinners prepared by good friends, and Jamie’s hand in hers. 

There is, certainly, no shortage of lights in the dark. 

***

“Teach me,” she says one day, a month or two into the great experiment that is Moving to America with Jamie. “Come on.”

“Teach you,” Jamie repeats dryly. “To incur lung cancer?”

“You do it,” Dani points out, aware that she sounds rather petulant and not particularly caring. Jamie’s smiling the half-smile she gets whenever she’s about to let herself get talked over the edge of something. “Come on, I want to see what all the fuss is about.”

Jamie shakes her head, but she’s already lost this battle, and she knows it. Her foot braced behind her on the wall outside their apartment, she turns her head toward the setting sun and exhales a long stream of blue smoke. “Fine, sure. But when you love it, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I hardly think I’m in danger of--”

“Shut up and c’mere.” She cups her hand around the half-smoked cigarette, holding it up for Dani’s assessment. It’s awkward, the pass-off between her hand and Dani’s more of a fumble than anything else, and Dani nearly drops the damn thing. Jamie laughs. “Easy, now, don’t go wasting it. Now. Put it--”

“I know where to put it,” Dani laughs. Jamie raises her brows teasingly. 

“I’ll just bet you do. Okay, right, here’s the thing. When you inhale, you’re gonna want to take it slow. Nice and easy, but make sure you’re pulling the smoke deep into your lungs, or it’ll defeat the whole--”

Dani’s already sucking in a breath, and she’s just realized Jamie’s eyes have gone wide when her body recoils from the invasive swirl sweeping into her lungs like a hurricane. 

“Easy, I said!” Jamie pries the cigarette from Dani’s suddenly-limp grasp as she doubles over on a gagging cough. Her lungs burn, her hand groping for Jamie’s sleeve, and even though it feels fucking awful, there’s something so wonderfully steadying about Jamie’s hand rubbing circles between her shoulder blades. 

“Now’s not the time for an old-fashioned I-told-you-so, is it?”

Eyes streaming, Dani tries to fix her with a glare, but Jamie’s outlined in the red-gold of a setting sun, her lips pursed around the cigarette once more, and she can’t find it within herself to do anything but laugh. 

***

“You really don’t know how?”

“Don’t laugh,” Jamie grumbles. “Never got around to it, is all.”

Dani’s leaning forward, practically falling off the beach chair in her excitement. Jamie, she has learned over these past few months together, is not the sort of person who doesn’t know things. She may not be good at everything she tries--she’s a rotten cook, for example, though a passable baker--but it sometimes feels like Jamie’s lived more in thirty years than Dani will if granted twice that time. Sometimes, when Jamie is sweeping a billiards table, or fixing a door hinge, or replacing a bit of questionable wiring in the bathroom without managing to electrocute either of them, Dani catches herself thinking there’s nothing Jamie doesn’t know. 

She can never decide if this is more overwhelming or reassuring, truthfully. 

But this. This is just too damn good. 

“You have to let me teach you,” Dani says. “You have to, come on.”

“I think you’ll find I don’t,” Jamie says, arms crossed over her chest. Dani slides from her chair, darting a glance around. It’s unseasonably chilly for June in California, the sky a mottled blue-gray that suggests a storm could strike at any moment. The beach is blessedly clear, and she takes the opportunity to slip into Jamie’s lap.

“Please? It’ll make me so happy, to get to teach you something, for once.”

She can see Jamie doing the calculations, brow furrowed over uncertain eyes. On the one hand, if learning how to swim had been on her radar, she likely would have picked it up ages ago; on the other, Dani’s arms are around her neck, nails tracing lightly under the tousle of her hair, and this is not the sort of conversation starter that often leads to Jamie saying the word “no.”

“Right,” she says grumpily at last. Dani isn’t quite sure whether it’s the batting of her eyelashes or the scrape of short nails across the nape of Jamie’s neck that gets the job done, but Jamie is hoisting them both out of the white plastic chair. “Fine, then, Poppins. Lead me to the slaughter.”

The rain holds off all afternoon, long enough for Jamie’s uneasy flapping in shallow waves to transition into clumsy-yet-useful buoyancy. When Dani places a hand lightly beneath her back and eases her into a calm float, her brow creases. 

“Hey,” Dani says quietly. Her free hand cups Jamie’s cheek, smoothing salty water into her skin. “Look at me. You trust me?”

“Always,” Jamie replies, the word coming almost before Dani’s question is complete. She opens her eyes, and Dani smiles. 

“I’d never let you drown, Jamie. Promise. And who knows? This might come in handy someday.”

***

“It’s...big,” Dani says, a bit nervously. Laughter explodes out of Jamie like a firecracker. 

“It’s not! It’s wee as all hell, Poppins.”

“Bigger than I thought,” Dani amends. “You sure we can keep a place like this afloat?”

The idea of running a business still seems like something out of an extended fever, if she’s honest with herself. At first, it had been a laugh--a conversation held over an empty pizza box and two spent bottles of wine, with her head in Jamie’s lap and her legs all twisted under a blanket. She’d told Jamie she felt weird about getting back into teaching, about the idea of subjecting any kids to whatever mad road her mind might lead her down. 

“They’ll need to be able to rely on me,” she’d said, a little too drunk to really feel the weight of the sentiment. Jamie’s fingers drifted through her hair, her thumb catching on the shell of her ear. “Can’t do that if your teacher’s in the middle of losing her marbles.”

“You’re not,” Jamie had said, with that soft resolution Dani loved so much in her. “But s’all right. You don’t have to go back just yet--ever, if you don’t want to. We can do something else for an honest buck.”

It was a conversation, a way to make herself feel better about the imminent future and all its secrets...and then, seemingly all at once, it was real. A real little shop, just down the block from their apartment, with a real counter and real shelves and a real back room for custom arrangements. Jamie could grow here, anything she liked. And Dani could bask in the peculiar sensation of having a purpose again, even if not the one she’d expected. 

It’s a lot those first few days--weeks--months, but a year in, Dani finds she’s taken to the shop like almost nothing else in her life. She loves talking to the people who bustle in looking for arrangements for mothers and wives and graduation events. She loves the way Jamie tends to the flowers with a gentle hand, always willing to pop off a fact or insight about any given type. She especially loves the way Jamie looks at closing time each night, the way she combs her shaggy hair back from her eyes and leans over each bud in turn to murmur reassurances. Back in the morning. You all get on, best behavior, until we meet again. 

She slips up behind Jamie, arms around her middle, and rests her chin on Jamie’s shoulder. “I like that you do that. Talk to them.”

Jamie favors her with a soft, tired smile. “Nothin’ ever blossomed without good communication, Poppins.”

***

Dani starts saying I love you so much faster than either of them is prepared for. The first time the words slip from her mouth, they’re standing in the devastation of what once qualified as their kitchen. Batter drips down the side of the refrigerator. There’s flour caked in Jamie’s hair, giving the effect of a grumpy old witch woman whose magic potion rebelled in the most cataclysmic sense. 

“Swear to Christ,” she says gruffly. “I had the damn mixer in the damn bowl.”

The way Dani sees it, there are two ways to respond to this: with scolding, or with hysterical laughter. She settles on the latter almost without conscious decision, scooping up a handful of flour and tossing it into the air like confetti. Jamie’s mouth opens and closes, words not quite enough for the moment. 

“You,” she says, “are irreverent.”

“And you,” Dani replies, skating across the slippery tile until she has Jamie backed up against the postcard-bedazzled front of the fridge. “You’re wonderful.”

Jamie looks like she wants to contradict this statement, perhaps thinking of the cake that now decorates the walls. “This was going to be for your birthday, you--”

Dani is kissing her, hands gripping Jamie’s collar. She hasn’t felt this relaxed in weeks, melting against Jamie when hands settle around her waist like Jamie’s been looking for a reason to give in all afternoon. 

“I--could still--” Jamie’s mouth moves down her neck, more than half distracted from her own words. “--fix it--”

“You’re right where you’re supposed to be,” Dani tells her, or thinks she does; it’s a bit hard to focus with Jamie’s hand sliding around and down that way, with Jamie’s hips bucking lightly against her. 

“It’s like you don’t even want a birthday cake,” Jamie murmurs, biting her shoulder gently through the thin fabric of a co-opted Blondie shirt. “Did I say you could borrow this?”

“Take it back, then,” Dani breathes. 

Later, tucked together against the cabinets, she turns her face against Jamie’s neck. Her hand is trapped between the tile and Jamie’s back, going steadily numb. Moving isn’t even a concept. 

“I love you,” she says. It comes out a little slurred, a little sleepy, but entirely true. Jamie raises her head, shifting to look her in the face. 

“It’s all to do with my grade-A baking talents, isn’t it?”

***

Jamie doesn’t say it back right away. Most of the time, Dani gets it. Doesn’t want to push. There was so much of that in her old life, in what she sometimes thinks of as the Era of Danielle--every step of the way with Edmund felt like someone was standing behind her, hands pressed into her back, shoving her along. Into a man, yes, but more than that: into a preconceived notion. Be somebody’s wife. Be somebody’s answer to the question of who they want to be in the world. Be small, be quiet, be the person who says yes and yes and yes, absolutely, even when you want to scream. 

The last thing she’d ever do is push Jamie, so she doesn’t make a big deal out of it. If Jamie loves her--and Dani’s fairly confident she does, at least on the days when the old ghosts aren’t cracking out of the walls to tell her otherwise--then Jamie will get around to it on her own merit. 

Still, when Jamie does, it takes her by surprise. 

“I’m pretty in love with you, it turns out,” she says, like she’s been steeling herself for this moment for weeks--and, Dani thinks, judging by the single moonflower on the counter, she probably has. Jamie, who pretends to play the game of life with such casual disinterest. Jamie, who pretends it’s all one-day-at-a-time. Jamie, who spent hours in secret cultivating this one tiny symbol that says so unbelievably much about her, just so she could tell Dani all this in the right way. 

There’s a couch in the back room, a wide squashy old beast that Dani had been adamantly opposed to when Jamie first pointed it out. “It’s ridiculous. What are we going to do with that?”

She has to admit, pulling Jamie along and latching the door behind them, that it seems like an excellent idea now. It’s only by the thinnest grace of self-preservation--she likes this shop, likes this life, would very much like not to be run out of Vermont by some old-fashioned jackass peering through their window and seeing too much--that they make it to the couch at all. 

“It’s okay, then,” Jamie says, falling backward onto overstuffed brown leather and pulling Dani with her. “This problem of ours?”

Dani kisses her, the giddiness and desire so powerful a combination, she almost feels drunk with it. Jamie laughs into her mouth, one hand already working the buttons of her blouse, that laugh turning into a low, liquid groan. Dani, fingers slipping between waistband and skin, has already beaten her to the punch. 

It’s in moments like these, she thinks. Moments like these where everything falls into place. Not just being with Jamie, but being with Jamie here, in a place they own, on their own terms. Not just being with Jamie, but being with a Jamie who has been clarifying her love for a year, doing so with hot tea and cool smiles and repairs around the house and gentle reassurances. She said it here, planned out like a proposal, and she’s saying it again and again--”love you, fuck, love you--” as Dani winds them closer together, but it wasn’t the first time. Not really. Jamie’s been saying it since the moment she took Dani by the hand and asked if she wanted company while she waited for the darkness to consume her. 

Jamie rocks under her, making a softly desperate little noise into her mouth, and Dani has never felt so understood. Never quite put it together like this before. That Jamie thought she had to say it a certain way, show it a certain way, is wonderful and absurd and silly. 

“I like this problem,” she says. “Best problem I’ve ever had.”

***

“You like it?”

Jamie’s voice is too-casual. The kind of casual that says, look, if you don’t like it, I’ll understand, but I’ll spend the next six months going slowly crazy coping with that knowledge. Jamie gets this kind of “casual” only so often, and usually, Dani likes to string it along before reassuring her. It’s a little mean, maybe, but the way Jamie always sags against the nearest bit of furniture with a hand over her eyes, groaning, “Jesus Christ, Poppins, you could just be gentle with me” does something exceptionally pleasant to her stomach. 

This time, she’s not even thinking about teasing Jamie. 

This time, she’s just staring. 

“If you don’t like it,” Jamie says, a bit more hurriedly now, “you can say so. I mean. Can’t do much about it, truth be told, but we can work through the issue. Get into some couple’s therapy, talk it out...”

“Stop talking,” Dani says through a shockingly dry mouth. “Please.”

Jamie’s mouth swings shut with a little click. Dani rises from the chair she’d been curled in, feet tucked under as she flipped through a Stephen King novel that hit just a little too close to home. She moves across the living room like a sleepwalker. 

Jamie, expression somewhere between warily anticipatory and genuinely frightened, is still holding the hem of her shirt aloft. Dani pauses, swaying slightly, a magnetism rising between them that she sometimes thinks should fade with time, should logically become less as the years become more. For a long beat, they just look at one another. 

She’s sinking to her knees before she realizes, hand sliding up Jamie’s stomach to grasp her fingers, the shirt hem, clutch both tight. Jamie drags in a breath. 

“Oh. S’like that.”

“Apparently,” Dani mutters, closing her free hand around Jamie’s hip and pressing her mouth to the line of flowers rising from the band of her jeans, coiling around the left side of Jamie’s stomach. Jamie sucks in a breath. 

“Okay, when I was sitting for the thing, I certainly wasn’t thinking, Poppins has a thing for tattoos, but can’t say I’m complaining...”

“How long?” Dani asks, the words muffled around slow, deliberate kisses. Jamie rocks back on her heels, one hand sliding down into Dani’s hair for balance. 

“I know you are not asking me detail-oriented questions while you do that.”

Dani pauses, grins, waits. Jamie groans. 

“How long did it take, or how long have I wanted a bloody tattoo?”

“The latter.” The flowers are blue and white, strung along a twisting vine. Dani is presently making it her personal life goal to kiss each and every one, licking gently upward as she goes. Jamie’s eyes flutter, grip tightening. 

“You are a truly--”

“Tread wisely,” Dani murmurs, biting at her hipbone. Jamie inhales. 

“’Bout a year. Or maybe six weeks. Or maybe my whole life, I dunno, sometimes these things just sneak up on you.”

“Tattoos sneak up on you?” Dani tilts her head back, grinning. Jamie peers down at her, hair falling messily across her forehead, expression soft. 

“Wouldn’t be the first thing.”

She gets more as the years go on--little yellow daffodils, chains of wildflowers, small, carefully rendered roses--almost always in places easily hidden. Each time, the sight of ink on pale skin, the patient way Jamie quietly explains each one in bed, letting Dani map them out beneath curious palms, sets her heart racing in a way she can’t explain.

It’s the permanence, she thinks the day Jamie comes home with a small moonflower on her inner forearm. It’s the promise of the thing. 

It’s the tomorrow of it all. 

***

“How hard can it be to put together a bedframe, Dani,” she mimics. Even to her own ears, her voice is shrill. She’s making too big a deal out of this, and she knows it. 

But for fuck’s sake, sometimes Jamie is hard-headed. 

“I’ll have it done in an hour, Dani,” she goes on, hands windmilling above her head. “I know you’ve got a busy day, so just leave it to me, Dani.”

“Okay,” Jamie says, “okay, I know you’re upset, but in what world have I ever used your name that many times in a sitting?”

Dani freezes, turning slowly on her heel. Jamie takes a step back. 

“Right, correct, this is not the moment for glib.”

“Jamie,” Dani sighs. “You promised.”

“I did,” Jamie agrees, “and I could say I tried, but we both know how I feel about lying...”

The apartment is a little bigger than their last, and everything fits all different. Dani knows it’s going to be good for them--they outgrew the last place far sooner than either had wanted to admit, and this one has a beautiful view of a park. Plenty of space for Jamie’s ever-growing plant collection. Plenty of space for stretching out and warming the cozy little world they’ve built together. 

Still, it’s different, and different has a way of setting Dani’s teeth on edge. There’s something about a new home that reminds her of moving into Bly a lifetime ago--the exhilaration mixing with trepidation mixing with shadows she doesn’t yet know the names of. They've been here a week, sleeping in a blanket fort in the living room, Dani waking most mornings with carpet marks dug deep into her skin. She wants their room situated. She wants to sleep in their bed. 

She wants Jamie to build the damn frame like she promised three days ago. 

“I sometimes have trouble telling,” Jamie says, her accent thicker as it always is when she’s reasonably sure she’s stepped in it. “Am I actually in trouble?”

Dani sighs. “Jamie...”

“Oh.” Jamie edges closer. She’s dressed for battle, Dani notes, in shorts that barely qualify as legal and her softest flannel shirt. The very shirt, if Dani looks closely enough, Dani herself slipped into after a shower about two weeks ago and sent Jamie gaping at her like she’d been hypnotized. 

“Don’t,” Dani warns, remembering all too well the way Jamie had behaved the last time this shirt saw daylight. “Don’t, Jamie. I’m trying to be mad at you.”

“I can see that,” Jamie agrees. “You might say that’s why I’m making this desperate bid for, ahh, not being in the doghouse.”

“Jamie.” Dani manages to turn the word into about eleven syllables, which usually has some effect, but Jamie’s already within the proverbial walls. Her hands are riding up Dani’s ribcage, dangerously high, her smile the kind of charming only a heart of stone could resist. 

It’s cheating, and Jamie knows it, and Dani wants to point this out, but Jamie’s got her backed up against the mattress. The mattress that should be on a nice, well-made, sturdy frame. The mattress they could both be on top of right now, if only Jamie had just--if Jamie had--

“This is incredibly unfair,” she groans. Jamie, busy kissing her throat with slow, open-mouthed abandon, says nothing. Dani grasps at her shoulders with both hands, squeezing flannel between her fists, and lets her weight fall backward. Jamie holds her up, one hand up the back of her skirt, the other testing the resistance of her sweater. 

“You,” she gasps, even as Jamie moves a leg between her thighs and rocks gently, “are still in trouble.”

“Mmhmm,” Jamie agrees, a million miles away. She’s nipping at Dani’s earlobe now, and Dani can feel her grinning. 

“You are still putting the goddamn bed together, Jamie.”

“Sure,” Jamie says, husky, and presses her harder against the mattress. “Later.”

“Honestly, how do you do this every time?”

***

“You sure about this?” 

“Yes.” The answer is kind of actually no, but curiosity is getting the best of her. Anyway, it won’t be like before, the first time she ever tried to bum a cigarette off of Jamie and wound up nearly throwing up into the street. A couple of years and an indeterminate amount of cigarettes later, she’s got the art of it down, though she’s not what she’d call a smoker, per se. 

(She’s not, but try telling Jamie that. Just because she sometimes slips the cigarette from between Jamie’s fingers in a restaurant, or when they’re lounging outside after a long day, or in bed after a particularly effective round of Jamie getting herself out of trouble. Dani finds the act soothing, but only if Jamie has already lit up and taken a puff. Then and only then does it feel like sharing part of Jamie.)

“It’s different,” Jamie warns. “Not saying you can’t handle it, mind, but--”

“Just show me how it’s done, Jamie.”

This challenge, she utters in her lowest voice, and Jamie raises an eyebrow. “I see what you’re doing, Poppins.”

“What am I doing?”

Fact of the matter is, she’s having a very specific kind of day. The kind where her mind keeps drifting. The kind where memory feels heavier than it has in years. It’s not the first time she’s had a day this heavy, nor will it be the last, but it still bothers her. 

She hasn’t told Jamie. Doesn’t feel like she needs to, not yet. This doesn’t quite feel like beast-in-the-jungle territory so much as that old twisting panic, the old sense that she’s missing a test everyone else has studied for. When her mind edges her down this path, all she ever wants--all she can ever do about quieting it--is to hold close to Jamie. 

Jamie, who is giving her a searching look now, even as nimble fingers roll a joint.  “Sure you’re sure? Only, if you’re not up for it, I’m not going to judge.”

“Jamie. Do you trust me?”

Jamie’s mouth turns up at the corners. “Always.”

“Then get it started and hand it over.” She’s laughing a little, a nervous burble laugh that makes her feel more tethered to her own body. Jamie reaches over, closing a hand over her wrist and squeezing. 

“Your wish and all that, Poppins. But do me a favor? Go easy this time.”

She takes the first hit, and then a second, leaning back against the green granite counter and exhaling slowly toward the ceiling. For a minute, it’s enough for Dani just to watch her: relaxed posture in a long-sleeved black shirt, rolled to the elbows to give her more room to make a mess of dinner an hour previously. Her hair is getting longer, shaggier, her makeup reckless in that half-attention way Jamie has of barely caring what she looks like for anyone who isn’t Dani. 

“Your turn.” 

Dani takes her at her word this time, careful to draw a small amount of smoke into her lungs and hold there. Even so, she coughs once, a slow, clean burn sliding outward through her chest. Jamie nods approvingly.

“Did you grow this yourself?” she asks after another careful hit. She hands the joint back, letting her hip press against the counter an inch from Jamie’s. There’s a comfortable heat between them this evening, slow-simmer ease that makes her think of early days. She likes the lingering way Jamie rests her hand against Dani’s on the countertop, pinky finger lightly caressing the edge of her skin, like the world’s most comfortable seduction. 

“Nah,” Jamie says, with the joint between her lips. There’s something about the way she closes her eyes on the inhale, about the way her free hand never leaves Dani’s skin. Warmth works its way through her belly, and she thinks, bad day, maybe, but a good night. 

“Would you grow it?” It’s just something to say. She’s already starting to feel the smoke coiling around her thoughts, her head growing soft, buzzing gently around the edges. She imagines she can feel Jamie’s hand all the way through her body. 

“Not in our shop, if we wanted to keep the place.” Jamie’s eyes twinkle, the joint outstretched. “More?”

Dani shakes her head. The world is very slightly fuzzy, the kitchen warm, and Jamie has never felt more real. She watches Jamie carefully put out the lit end, setting the joint in an ashtray, liking the authority with which Jamie moves. 

She’s always like this, always so focused on the little details that make up a day. On days where Dani feels like she’s coming up from the ground in one horrible jerk, Jamie is always there to root her again. It’s a good feeling, knowing Jamie is there. Knowing Jamie is only getting more there with time. 

Later, she’ll look back on this as the moment. The one where she first decided to do it. The actual question, the actual plan, the actual ring won’t be here for years yet, but this is the moment the spark takes hold. 

It would be different, she decides, as her fingers curl like vines around Jamie’s, bringing their joined hands against her chest. It would be so different than last time. No push. No expectation. Just a promise. Just us. 

She likes being high with Jamie, she decides very quickly. Likes how it makes Jamie’s already-firm confidence firmer. Likes how it makes her already-sensitive skin buzz with pleasure. Likes the way Jamie folds her against the counter, hands gentle on the back of her head, and kisses her like it’s the first time. 

She’s all exposed nerve and heavy limb and giggle as Jamie leads her to the bedroom, eases her down, cups her face between soft hands. For once, the shadows seem to work in her favor, curling around them as they move together, as cloth becomes skin, and she’s sighing, sighing, crying Jamie’s name into the darkness. 

Jamie said once, a lifetime ago, that sometimes you have to drop everything too heavy to carry in order to hang on to one another. Jamie said it with such intensity, it didn’t even cross Dani’s mind to think of it another way. That, if you’re going to march into the dark, having a hand to hold as you go can make all the difference in the world.

The lights are on, for now. The lights are on, and Jamie holds her so tight with hands so soft, and Dani knows it’s not forever. Can sense it, like you sense the return of a childhood bad dream. Can feel it, shifting below the surface. 

Maybe closer now. Maybe a little bit more awake than before. She can’t say for sure. 

What she can say is that a night like this--kissing her way down Jamie’s chest, kissing flowers and bellybutton and that spot just above her hip that makes her writhe with laughter--is a torch. A ward against the monsters. A little light to carry them through the dark. 

She’s got Jamie on her skin, in her mouth, imprinted on her soul, and she thinks it’s the best anyone can ask for. The only thing anyone can hope for. 

And when Jamie clutches her hand right back, flashes that I’m-out-of-trouble smile, drapes one of her worn flannel shirts around Dani’s bare shoulders, she thinks, as long as I can have this. As long as she’ll have me. The shadows can’t possibly swallow me whole. 

[echoghost1]

Dannymay 2021 Day 10: Shadow

The Brighter The Light, The Bigger the Shadow

Summary: It's been a month since the accident and Danny still doesn't have any control. Or anyone on his side.

Word Count: 2077

And today's fic is brought to you by the age-old "ask and you shall receive" except I can't promise that it will arrive in a timely manner.

This is part 2 to the fic I did for Phic Phight called, What You Fear The Most

You can read on AO3 or down below the cut as per usual!

also going to tag a few people because they reblogged the last one and really enjoyed it: @blueoatmeal, @another-shameless-fangirl, @ilikepensandships

Danny’s locker was stuck. Again.

He sighed and let the lock drop from his hand as he rested his forehead against the cool metal. This is not what he needed right now.

It had been almost a month since his accident and he still wasn’t in control. He wasn’t sure how he had been able to slip under the radar at home for so long. It kept him up at night knowing that eventually, they were going to catch him. They were going to find out that he was a monster.

He was terrified of what that would mean.

But he didn’t want to think about that here. Not while he was at school. He had enough to deal with here and thinking about how he had accidentally turned himself into a monster some of the time wasn’t something he needed right now.

He took a breath to center himself and then stood up fully so he could try again.

Just after he heard the satisfying click of his combination unlocking, he was shoved face-first into his locker.

“Oops, I tripped,” Dash mocked, only proving that he had done it on purpose.

Danny turned his head so he could both breathe and talk. He was thankful that the push hadn’t broken his nose, “You okay?” Danny asked with no hint of actually caring.

“Yeah, I had a dork to catch my fall.” Dash was cackling in amusement before he even finished the sentence and his fellow footballers were just as amused.

“Lovely.” Danny deadpanned as he tried not to think about how a guy twice his size was crushing the air out of his lungs and absolutely no one seemed to notice. “You mind getting off?”

“Aw, what’s the matter, Fen-total-waste-of-space? Can’t handle a little weight?”

“I think you’re more than a little weight, bricks for brains!”

Dash pulled back and spun Dany around fast enough for him to get a little dizzy, “What the hell did you call me you little jerk!?” Dash screamed as he lifted Danny up by his shirt and slammed him against his locker again.

“Did I say that out loud?” he honestly hadn’t meant to, but then again it felt kind of nice to be able to fight back. Even if it was just with words.

He meant to sound apologetic, or even honestly surprised by his slip-up. Turns out grinning was the wrong facial expression to have.

“You think this is funny? Well here’s a new joke for you,” Dash started as he pulled Danny off of his locker, opened it up, and shoved Danny inside.

When Danny saw Dash’s grip on the door he knew he had to pull his legs in or risk them getting crushed. He pulled them in as close to his body as he could just as Dash slammed the locker down shut.

“Good luck talking your way out of that one you freak.” Dash sneered before punching the locker once before he walked away with this friends.

They all just laughed.

None of them stayed behind to help.

He wanted out. Needed to get out.

Dash had no idea how right he was about how freakish Danny was.

The space in the locker grew darker. Too dark.

He glared at the darkened door before him, the otherworldly green light was all he had to illuminate the impossibly dark space.

The hallway was quiet so he figured it didn’t matter now. It was too late anyway.

His nightmare form had been unleashed; he might as well use it to free himself.

He burst from his locker with a primal scream. His claws hit the floor first as his tail slid out like a snake behind him. The door clattered to the floor beside him, his books and papers scattered out around him, but he didn’t care. He was too angry to care.

There was a gasp behind him.

He whipped around and saw his friends. When did they get there? How much had they seen?

He slowly stood up, or floated upward, to his full height. He was usually the shortest in their group, but he towered over them now.

His elongated body of shadows was almost tall enough to touch the ceiling. He could touch the ceiling if he just reached up for it. It wouldn’t take much effort at all.

That was way too tall. No person should be that tall.

But he wasn’t a person right now, was he?

“Where’s Danny?” Tucker asked in almost a whisper.

They didn’t recognize him? Was that a good thing?

He looked back to the locker, his neck snapping loudly as he had turned his head too fast. He huffed in annoyance, because of course he couldn’t do anything without being pure nightmare fuel.

He turned back to his friends, slowly this time as to not repeat the same mistake.

They still looked horrified.

Was he moving too slow now?

He wondered if maybe it was the height? He was clearly too tall. Nobody liked being towered over. But he didn’t know how to not be tall.

He shrank down on himself. Got low to the floor and hoped that they would understand that he wasn’t going to hurt them.

Maybe he should just leave?

He started to back up, he peeked behind himself to gauge where the janitor’s closet was. He knew there was one nearby.

Found it!

He skittered backward as fast as he could. Too fast.

He ended up crawling backward up the door and halfway up the ceiling.

He stopped, opened the door, and slipped inside using his tail to close the door behind himself.

Sure, shutting himself inside the closet wasn’t much better than his locker, but it was at least a little roomier. He didn’t bother going for the light even if it was within his reach.

The last time he turned on a light in this form, the lightbulbs exploded. He really didn’t want to clean up a bunch of glass again.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm back down. If he could calm down he would shift back.

At least that was his theory anyway. He still had no idea how this whole thing worked.

He felt his tail wrap around himself. It was long enough at it coiled around him more than once and the tip rested on his shoulder. He tried not to think about this form seemed to favor the tail instead of legs. Then again, in this instance, the prehensile tail made more sense than long spindly legs. It didn’t make it any less weird though.

He was so focused on himself that he didn’t notice that the door had opened.

Sam stood there, staring down at him. “Danny?”

He opened his mouth to answer her, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say. To acknowledge that she was right? To deny it?

It didn’t matter. All that came out was indistinguishable static and moans.

He snapped his mouth shut, his hands clamping over it. He didn’t want them to see him like this. He didn’t want to be like this.

Why couldn’t he just be normal? Why didn’t he just die in the portal?

She pulled him into a hug and all his thoughts just stopped.

“It’s okay! You’re okay,” she hugged him tighter but it didn’t stop him from slipping his arms out from between them and hugging her back.

“It’s not okay. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he cried his apologies into her shoulder.

She leaned back and held his face in her hands, “Why are you sorry Danny?”

He pulled away from her. He knew he had changed back, but he could still feel all that darkness just under his skin, it danced on the edges of his being, eager to come forth again. “Because I never wanted you to see me like that.” He pulled his hoodie sleeves up and over his fingers so the oversized fabric engulfed his hands completely, “I scared you.”

“Don’t be silly Danny,” Sam smiled as she reached out and touched his balled-up sleeve-covered hand, “you didn’t scare us.”

“Speak for yourself.” Tucker scoffed from his spot lingering on the edge of the doorway.

Sam snapped her attention back to Tucker, “Not helping!”

“At least he’s being honest,” Danny muttered.

She looked back at him with a slightly less annoyed glare, “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

He hadn’t meant for her to hear that, but given how close she was, he really should have expected it. He pulled his hand away from her and used both arms to hug his stomach, “Because I know I scared you both. I can tell.”

“How do you know?” she asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“I’m afraid I’d scare you more if I told you.”

“Well that certainly wasn’t ominous,” Tucker quipped nervously as he bounced on the balls of his feet. He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but right where he was.

Danny didn’t blame him for wanting to run away. It hurt, but he understood.

“If you want to go, it’s okay. I get it if you don’t want to be friends anymore.”

“Whoa there,” Tucker dropped to his knees and shuffled in closer so he could also place a hand on Danny’s shoulder, “No one said anything about not being friends. Sure I’m scared, we all are. That includes you, Dude. I’m not going to leave you alone just because you can get spooky sometimes.”

“Get Spooky?” Danny deadpanned.

“Well, what do you call it?” Tucker shrugged as he best defense.

Danny looked down and pulled his knees closer to his chest, “I don’t really call it anything.” he wrapped his arms around his legs so he could pull them even closer, “I try not to think about it.”

“Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together,” Sam said as she placed her hand on his knee again.

Danny didn’t know where she got all that confidence from. She was still scared. He could tell even in this form.

“So, I’m probably going to hate myself for asking, but,” Tucker took a breath then sat down fully, one knee tapping against the floor while the other stayed perpendicular to his body. “How did you know Sam was scared?”

Danny looked from Tucker’s nervous curiosity to Sam’s steely resolve. He bit his lip but couldn’t think of a reason not to tell them. They’d seen him at his worst and they didn’t run away.

“I can,” gosh he really hoped that this wouldn’t be the thing to push them away, “ I can smell it?”

“What does it smell like?”

“Red.”

“Red what?” Tucker asked.

“The color.”

“The color?” he repeated sounding even more confused than when he had asked his initial question.

“Yeah.”

“You smell emotions in colors?” he asked to clarify.

Danny sat up and threw his hands out for emphasis, “Look my senses have been really weird since the accident. I think all that electricity scrambled my brains or something.”

His friends just shared a look so he continued.

“Ghost stuff feels like flavors to me now. Like the portal, it felt sour. That might just be all ectoplasm though, or at least the raw stuff anyway. Oh and sometimes,” he paused mostly because his brain was going so fast and he still hadn’t found all the words to explain what he had been going through in the last several weeks. Plus this was the first time he was saying any of this out loud. “Sometimes I have trouble holding or touching things. Like I’m not really there. And when that happens my body or just parts of it, feel spicy? But if spicy was cold instead of hot.”

“Dude.”

“What?”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

Danny slumped back against the shelving unit behind him. He knew it was weird but he didn’t know how else to describe it.

“Actually I think I know.” sam said slowly as she nodded to herself.

“You do?” the boys both asked with slight variations of confusion. Tucker’s was more towards disbelief, while Danny was a little more hopeful.

“It’s like he’s trying to translate it, but there are no words for it. Not in English anyway.”

Before Danny could ask what she meant the bell rang.

“Oh gosh I exploded my locker all over the hall and we’re going to be late for class!” Danny scrambled out of the closet and passed his friends.