#me when the seatbelt seizes up

[spookyrea]

You Can Wrap Me 'Round Your Finger...

You’re having a crisis trying to pick the perfect moment to tell Loki you love him. Loki is having a crisis, too, except his is decidedly way more embarrassing. Also, your pillows keep disappearing.

(aka - frost giant biology is weird and Loki has to suffer the consequences.)

a companion to Love at First Sight (or should I walk by again?) - can be read on its own!

Chapter 1 / 2 -- read it on AO3 here

Word count: ~5k

Warnings: fem reader; Loki is CLINGY

You could just make out the rosy hue of a late-season snowfall from your vantage point behind the cockpit; it blanketed the city, turning the streets a pale orange where streetlamp light reflected off of a crisp, white coat. For a city that never slept it was strangely quiet; at just past three o’clock in the morning, not even the snow plows were out yet.

Your team was returning from a four day long deployment to San Francisco – a retrieval mission where you were tasked with tracking down and seizing off-world cargo. It had gone over surprisingly well - zero casualties, a handful of actual combat incidents, and a scant few million dollars worth of petty property damage. It did require a proper cargo plane, though, which meant that the team had to rely on a local airplane hangar to get back home. 

(Despite his truly unparalleled complaining, Tony’s choice to put the Avengers tower in the centre of a busy New York metropolitan block meant that there were certain restrictions - namely, the laws of physics - that limited the size of plane they could have on-site).

An unfortunate consequence of it all was that you were freezing. You made a face and folded your arms over your chest; you were dressed for a late February chill, in tac-pants and a knit sweater, not a snowstorm. As romantic as the snow looked, the cold was settling over you like an ache and, coupled with the early-hour and a tender bruise on your left side, your mood was only souring. You cast your eyes to the ceiling and prayed that a car was already waiting for you on the tarmac.

The quin-jet touched down a little roughly; you felt Wanda’s wince without looking at her, but Tony immediately came to her defense. “No, that was because of the snow. Poor visibility. Out of your control. Definitely. I’m passing you with flying colours - hey, get it?”

The loading ramp slid open with a pop and a hiss; your ears felt funny now that you were on solid ground, like they were full of cotton. Natasha tugged on her earlobes, then reached over and tugged on Steve’s too to be a pest. He swatted her away with a scowl. 

Moments later, attendants began to climb the loading ramp in groups of two. You scowled. They were at least dressed for the weather.

You pulled your hands from between your thighs, trying to focus on anything other than the way your core muscles were tensed against the chill, and thanked whatever powers-that-be that you could finally go home. You were half way through unbuckling your seatbelt when an automated voice warned you from overhead not to leave your seats.

“Sorry, everyone,” Tony called. “Safety or whatever. All cargo has to be removed before we can get up. Just a few minutes. You’ll be warm and in bed in no time.”

You sank low in your seat, arms crossed, and focused very hard on glaring a hole in the quid-jet floor. Who knows -- maybe you could spontaneously develop heat-vision. It would look good on your resume.

“I was beginning to think I’d have to go collect you myself.”

Crossing the jet in long strides, tall enough to peer over most attendants' heads, was Loki. Your boyfriend.  

Dressed in civilian clothing, Loki was something resplendent. His pale skin, warmed by the cool twilight haze outside, was a stark relief against his mop of riotous dark curls, and his green eyes caught the light in a mysterious way. A pair of neatly-polished shoes rattled the grated floor as he approached, weaving in between attendants, until he came to a stop at your side. With a wave of his hand, Loki manifested a fine wool cloak to drape over your shoulders. His long fingers drew the golden hook at the collar through its eye and smoothed it flat against your sternum.

“Can’t have you freezing to death,” he murmured.

You thumbed the stitching along the hem of the cloak; the thread was such a dark green that it almost blended in with the black fabric. “I would have been fine.”

“Well, if you’re too warm, I can certainly help cool you down.” Loki slid into the seat next to you and blew an icy breath across your neck, making you shriek. The grin he shot you was lecherous - truly vile , you mumbled - and sent a hot thrill from your nape to the pit of your belly.

“You are evil.”

“You should have me locked up.”

You pulled the collar of his cloak up to your face, pressing the velvety edge to your mouth. “I’m putting in a request immediately.”

Loki offered you his wrists, that sticky grin growing even wider. “Why wait?”

A flash of green seidr crackled suggestively, implying where a set of handcuffs might bind him. Your eyes snapped to the whirlwind of snow outside, cheeks hot. 

Tony gagged obnoxiously from the pilot’s seat. The comms system crackled to life overhead. “Get a room, you two.”

Loki scoffed, mock affront dripping from his lazy posture, and poured himself over your shoulders, even though the armrest was in the way and was without a doubt digging into his side. He plucked your hand from your lap, lacing his fingers through yours and drawing it up to his mouth. His lips idly traced the edge of his signet ring on your thumb while you watched the cargo roll by, box by painstaking box. 

You had only been dating for a few months, having finally confessed your mutual attraction after a tumultuous, alcohol-fueled evening together. It turned out that the entire time that you had been harbouring a monumental crush on Loki, he’d been just as gone on you - a fact you hadn’t known, since his idea of showing interest was to give you shiny rocks and hand feed you foods, and yours was whatever Tinder had going on.

Once the two of you had gotten over your - admittedly pretty embarrassing - communication barrier, you fell into a nice routine. You found that you were more confident without the weight of an unrequited crush looming over you, and Loki was eons more likely to finish his paperwork as long as you were there to play footsie with him under the table and let him ramble every fifteen minutes. He still flirted with everything that moved, but you recognized the nuances of his affection now. He never touched anyone, but he hung off of you like a limpet; he might smile and schmooze at parties, all lecherous grins and innuendo, but his eyes always sought your approval out after every punchline; and he only ever called you pet.

(And on one occasion, master. But that was a different story.)

Once the attendants had unloaded the last crate into a van, Tony gave everyone the OK to exit the plane without worrying about being trampled. Steve was the first out, blinking sleep out of his eyes. Natasha, Bruce and Tony were quick to follow, all stumbling into the first car they saw, while Wanda stayed and fiddled with a few switches from the co-pilot’s seat. Under Natasha’s suggestion, she was trying to get a proper license to fly - mostly for paperwork-related reasons, because the insurance company charged a fortune every time an Avenger ‘borrowed’ a vehicle without permission.

Before you could protest, Loki scooped up the duffle bag at your feet and started down the loading ramp into the storm, leaving you and Wanda as the last on the plane. You rapped your knuckles against the ceiling and sent her a questioning look. Decked out in her oversized headset and a fuzzy quarter-zip sweater Tony had commissioned for the team, she looked right at home behind the quinjet control panel. She shot you a thumbs up, gesturing for you to go on ahead. You blew her a quick kiss and then hurried after Loki, fighting to keep the cloak shut against the blustering wind. 

Wet snow crept under your pant legs, clinging unpleasantly to the strip of skin left exposed by your socks. Loki had already packed your belongings away in the farthest van and was waiting by the back door, held open for you. You jogged - as best you could given the weather - the last couple of feet and slid into the backseat.

Loki hauled himself through the other door a moment later. The driver - a bored looking man with a dark beard and greying temples - pushed the stick shift into gear and turned off the runway. 

You shivered, brushing clumps of snow off your ankles. Dark stains were climbing up your shins where the it bled through. Loki leaned across the seat to help you, running a shimmering hand over your shoulders to dry you off. 

Mostly satisfied, you sank back and watched the city roll by, the empty streets cast in shades of neon as the snow reflected billboards and store displays. It was a beautiful sight, the kind of morning you would normally want to commit to memory for the postcard-ness of it all – except you were exhausted and a little cranky, so you turned your eyes to stare at your boyfriend instead. 

(You made it a full three minutes without looking at him - a new personal record.)

You admired him the way an owner might creep up on a beloved pet in a sunbeam; you didn’t want him to know you were looking, in case he spooked and moved, so you kept your cheek turned and watched from the corner of your eye. He was deep in thought, luckily, which gave you some leeway to admire his profile. There was something decidedly boyish about him when he was relaxed, a softness you so rarely got to see; it made you want to kiss every inch of him just for the sake of kissing.

He drew an aimless pattern with his thumb across your upper thigh. His pinky finger was stretched comically far from the rest of his fingers, as if willing your hand to reach out and intertwine but too stubborn to ask. For a silly, love-sick moment you were overwhelmed by the need to tell him you loved him - and then your brain caught up with your heart and bludgeoned it into submission.

The knowledge that you were in love with him and the nebulous un-knowledge of how he felt about you was starting to wear on your nerves. You understood logically that he liked you - enough to court you, under different circumstances - but what you felt when you looked at him was a hurricane of emotions, a self-sustaining cycle of hot air up and cold air down, whipping the sea so hard that it formed storm clouds unbidden by the laws of nature. You knew that he felt things differently, had lived a dozen of your lifetimes no doubt filled with pretty things. Would this change your relationship? Would you breaking that last barrier make yourself less desirable somehow?

You wanted to tell him. To share the inherent joy of being in love.

It just scared you to death, was all. No big deal.

His mouth twitched; his eyes caught yours in the window’s reflection as the car entered the dark parking garage. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing,” you squeaked. “Just tired. Sorry.”

The car dropped you off in the underground parking of the Avengers’ tower. Yours was the last of the convoy, so you and Loki slipped out of the car into an empty lot where only a few strangler attendants were unloading and taking inventory. You held one corner of the cloak in your hand, worried it would drag through the slush puddles tracked in by the cars. Loki’s hand came to rest on the small of your back while he hoisted your bag over his shoulder.

“After you, pet.”

You led him to the elevators, where you leaned against the railing and let your eyes slip shut. Loki selected a floor and then joined you, draping one arm around your shoulders to draw you into his chest.

You leaned your cheek against him. Now that you were home, the full weight of your exhaustion was bearing down on you. The pattern of knots Loki was drawing across the back of your neck wasn’t helping. You were suddenly grateful for the support of Loki’s body under you, solid and steady; you slid your hands under his jacket to hug him… then paused.

Something was… off.

You pulled back and gave him a once-over. Nothing outwardly betrayed him as different. He wore a pair of simple, straight-leg tac-pants and a white t-shirt under a brown vintage-style bomber he’d no doubt swiped from Bucky or Steve; the cut of each item flattered his narrow build exceedingly, a fact you knew he was aware of by the way he kept glancing at you during your drive home. His hair was wild and unstyled in a hopelessly endearing way - a look he’d taken to wearing often after you made a passing comment about liking it that way.

The jacket though… 

He filled it out well. Too well.

“You’re bigger,” you blurted out.

Loki raised one eyebrow in a perfect, mocking arch. “Excuse me?”

“You’re,” you waved your hand up and down his body, “bigger. Like, broader. Have you been working out more?”

Loki glanced down at his chest. “No?”

You pushed the jacket off his shoulders to get a better look at him. The white cotton of his t-shirt puckered across his chest, wrinkling under the strain of an extra inch or so of muscle, and the side seams were pulled so taut that you could see the thread. You poked him right over his heart, admiring a new, plush firmness.

The tips of Loki’s fingers wormed under your shirt. His smile took on a wicked edge as he soaked in the sight of you in front of him. When you shot him a look, he screwed his face up into something resembling innocence. “If you’re going to ogle me like a piece of meat, I think it’s only fair that I get to admire you, too.”

You hummed and slipped his jacket back into place, smoothing your palms down his chest to rest just above his waistband. Loki’s evilness washed away to something sticky sweet; he slid his hand up between your shoulder blades, his fingers splayed wide to admire the shift of your muscles under your skin. His other hand twined with yours to lift your knuckles to his mouth.

The doors slid open on his floor. With a flourish and a fleeting kiss, Loki stooped to collect your bag. His free hand trailed behind him, outstretched for you to take, but you lingered with a smile and a shake of your head.

He came to an abrupt stop under the threshold, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion. He wiggled his fingers, as if you were refusing because you’d missed his offer to hold your hand. “What are you doing?”

You pressed the button for your floor. “I’m going back to my room.”

“No,” Loki whined, his hand still outstretched. “Please, darling.”

You rolled your eyes and attempted to pull your bag from his hands. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Loki.”

“But you’ll miss out on my new, broader body. Your bed will seem extra empty now in comparison. You should just skip the trouble.”

“Loki, I’m tired. And all my stuff is in my apartment.”

“You can wear something of mine.” Loki, exasperated, threw your duffle down in front of the elevator door and cornered you against the railing.

“Just for the night, Loki.” You pressed a chaste kiss to his mouth, one he didn’t return… and then seemed to regret, because only a heartbeat after you pulled away he was on you, cupping your face between both his hands and swiping his tongue across your bottom lip. You huffed out a sigh and pushed on his stomach; he managed to get two more kisses in before you finally won and put some distance between the two of you.

In a perfectly Loki-fashion, Loki sulked. He stomped out of the elevator and then turned to you, his hands firmly on his hips. “You vex me. Understand that I will be taking you out for breakfast tomorrow, no exceptions.”

You hooked a finger through your bag strap, dragging it back into the elevator. “Make it a late lunch. If you wake me before noon there will be punishments.”

Loki’s eyes twitched with the briefest hint of a smirk. His voice dropped an octave. “Promise?”

The elevator doors slid shut on his leering expression. You spent the rest of the ride valiantly trying not to fall asleep. The low hum of its engine was terribly soothing.

When the elevator opened to your floor, you weren’t surprised to find PAL - Tony’s Paperwork Assistant Lite robot, who usually helped organize and retrieve files in the office downstairs - waiting by your door. Measuring just under two feet tall, PAL could navigate the halls and elevator just fine as long as FRIDAY was willing to unlock the doors for him, but your manual lock-and-key front door was an insurmountable obstacle for him.

“How long have you been here, buddy?”

As soon as he recognized you, PAL trilled with delight. His metal chassis vibrated with the effort of waiting by the door. He rounded your feet while you dug through your pants pockets for your keys, narrating the week to you in his language of whistles and beeps, and raised his tiny paper tray, straining to try and take over the weight of your duffle bag. You huffed out a laugh, leaning ever-so-slightly to the side to set it on him but not to smother; the LED display on his face narrowed, as if he was concentrating very hard on not dropping your belongings.

As soon as you were through the door, you threw your bag by your shoe rack and toed off your sneakers, leaving them in a pile on the floor. PAL set to straightening them, sweeping them to the wall with his tray ahead like a snowplow. He tried to do the same to your bag, but his treads could only pinwheel against the weight. 

You stood in the living room for a moment and folded Loki’s cloak over the back of your couch, contemplating skipping your whole routine and going straight to bed. You settled on missing a shower but washing your face - everything else could be dealt with in the morning. You made your way to your bedroom in search of clean pyjamas, then continued to the bathroom to brush your teeth, PAL close on your heels.

You had just exited the bathroom when someone knocked on your door. You tossed your washcloth into a bin on top of your washing machine and rounded the hallway to answer it.

Loki stood on the other side, dressed in a pair of black sweatpants and an oversized AVENGERS TACTICAL UNIT t-shirt. “Please, darling.”

“You have your own bed.”

“It’s too big without you.”

“You’re even bigger now. You’ll fill it out just fine.”

Loki stepped into your personal space; he hadn’t even bothered putting on shoes, wearing only a pair of grey wool socks. His hands curled around your hips as if to steady himself. “I’m afraid of the dark?”

“Try again.”

“My room was taken over by starving wolves while you were away and I only narrowly escaped.”

You sighed. You had to admit that it felt nice to have him in your arms like this, even if you knew giving in would only encourage him to lord over more of your time. “Absolutely no funny business, Loki.”

An incandescent grin split his face in two. He swooped in to kiss your cheek, then sauntered off toward your bedroom. You locked the door, made sure PAL was settled into his charging dock for the night, and then followed after your boyfriend.

You found him curled up on the side of your bed closest to the door, facing you, and holding one of your pillows hostage. He buried his nose in the fabric, a pleased sound rumbling through his chest, and watched you approach.

You swatted at him, not even bothering to round the bed, opting to crawl over his body to reach your side. Loki unfolded, abandoning the pillow to gather you up instead; his arms circled your waist and tugged you into his chest in an awkward collision of limbs, legs tangling in the comforter. You squirmed while he maneuvered you to his liking, tucking the length of his body around you tightly and nosing at the junction of your throat and jaw.

“Loki,” you chided. “I said no funny business.”

“This is a perfectly serious matter.” Loki untangled himself from you just long enough to pull the comforter over your body before sliding in beside you. One hand returned to your neck, tipping your chin back so he could press a loud kiss to your pulse point. “You don’t have enough blankets.

You stifled a yawn and pushed him to lie on his back, draping one leg over his. “Why’s that?”

Loki continued to rearrange the sheets with a scowl. “You’ll freeze to death under this thing.”

Already, your eyelids were heavy with exhaustion. You hummed. “I feel like I had more pillows than this. Maybe I’ve finally lost it.”

A small voice in the back of your mind whispered that you loved him, you loved him, you loved- 

You settled with tracing a heart over his collarbone, over and over until you fell asleep.

You woke to the sound of FRIDAY’s voice through the PA system. “Mr. Laufeyson, your presence is being requested on the thirty-first floor. Mission briefing in fifteen minutes.”

You peeled your eyes open. You could tell by the slant of the sun through the curtains that it was past noon - a small victory, really. Behind you, Loki burrowed deeper into the fabric of your t-shirt, nosing along the ladder of your spine while groaning his displeasure. He drew the comforter around you tightly, trapping you under one muscular arm with a vengeance.

His voice, still deep and rasping with the last threads of sleep, rumbled through his chest. “Good morning, dear heart.”

Lovesickness bloomed like a bruise in your chest. “Morning,” you said, instead of I love you. 

You half-turned and pecked the side of his mouth before sitting up. Loki made an affronted sound and reeled you back in by a fistful of your t-shirt, sending you sprawling halfway across his chest. He kissed you soundly, licking into your mouth with a low groan.

You blinked up at him once he pulled back. “Um. Good morning?”

“I was a perfect gentleman all night and you reward me with a peck. ” A scowl twisted his pretty face, petulance dripping off him in droves. His hands slid over your ass possessively, kneading the soft flesh with purpose. “I should have you flogged for that. Put over my knee.”

“Patience is a virtue,” you mumbled.

“Wrong faith, pet. Now- wait, where are you going?”

You paused, halfway through peeling yourself out of his arms (again), and pointed at the ceiling where FRIDAY’s voice reminded him that he was needed in thirteen minutes, Mr. Laufeyson . ”You have a debrief and I have a date with my coffee pot.”

“Not after you so callously rejected me. Come down here and make it up to me.”

You rolled your eyes and leaned in to kiss him again, slowly but deeply. Loki chased your mouth when you pulled away, frustration evident in the heavy way he sighed. Lifting you by the hips, Loki deposited you in his lap and held you there, digging his thumbs into the plush of your sides. Using the resulting sigh to his advantage, Loki cradled the back of your head and bullied your lips apart, pulling a sticky kind of want from your chest, leaving you dizzy and aching all at once.

When FRIDAY gave him a five minute warning, blinking the emergency strobe in the corner of your bedroom for good measure, Loki finally drew himself away and let you catch your breath. His head tipped back against the pillow, his throat on display in a long submissive line, and his shiny mouth parted in a groan. He mumbled something in his mother tongue, your name nestled right between lilting consonants.

“What was that?”

“Nothing important.” 

“One day you’ll teach me what you’re saying,” you grumbled. “And then I’ll know all your secrets.”

Loki lazily arched one brow, smothered behind a curtain of riotous curls. “Is that so? All of them?”

“Mhm. All of it. Every last one.”

You traced a finger down the line of his nose. If ever there was a moment to tell him you loved him, now was probably it. Here, on the laziest of saccharine mornings, while the city outside was muted by a thick wall of snow and you were both ignoring responsibility to enjoy the other. And yet– doubt wove its way through your ribs, tying knots in the hollow spaces in your chest; you rolled off of him and sat up, pulling the hem of your shirt down where it had ridden up. “FRIDAY is going to bring the appliances to life if you don’t leave soon.”

Loki poised himself on the edge of your bed and snagged your wrist when you rounded it. There was nothing to the gesture – no comment, no complaint to make. He held onto you for the simple joy of owning a second of your time.

As if one cue, PAL rolled through your bedroom door, his little paper tray aloft. He chirped in greeting, then ran head-long into one of the bed frame’s legs. 

You tamped down a lingering disappointment. Later. You would tell him later.

“Pest.” Loki swatted at PAL, who had taken to repeatedly bumping into Loki’s shins to convince him to get dressed. You gasped scoldingly when Loki shot a warning green spark in the robot’s direction; PAL, undeterred, narrowed the LED display on his face and wound up, knocking the god extra hard for good measure.

“PAL, go sit in the living room. You can pick something on Netflix for us to watch. And you,” you pointed a finger at Loki. “No threatening the robot.”

You left him to dig through your closet for something to wear; the far corner was steadily developing a growth of black, Loki-sized clothing. While you busied yourself with the coffee machine, PAL chirped at the TV and then parked himself in front of your window with his face pressed against the glass. Once your coffee was poured, you left out the gaudiest mug you owned – chipped, declaring you were Thor’s Number One Fan!, which Loki hated with a burning passion – and a spoon for when he joined you.

PAL beeped distractedly when you joined him by the window; there was a tender tilt to his little head as he gazed out, studying a pair of birds who had built their nest just below. His body shuddered, as if sighing, and his LED display blinked one long, slow blink.

It started as a tiny bundle of twigs a few weeks ago, trembling in the wind but shielded from the elements in the nook between a metal support beam and the windowsill. Then a few pieces of long grass were woven in, and a handful of fresh green branches, still flexible in their newness. They must have finished their home while you were away; two mates were deep under the spell of a snowy Sunday morning, bundled up under a layer of down and straw.

A solid pair of arms wound around your waist, drawing you backwards into an equally solid chest. Loki’s hair was damp where he’d run wet fingers through it, no doubt trying to contain the curling mess of bed head he woke up with every morning. It clung to your cheek a bit, the crown of his head pressed up to your face while he nosed at your shoulder. “Oh, hi– hello.” 

“I don’t want to go,” Loki whined. He rocked you gently from side to side, resting his cheek against yours. “We should feign illness. It’s dreadfully contagious. And then we can—” a kiss, just under your ear, “stay in bed all day. To recuperate, of course.”

“As lovely as that sounds, you really do have to go. You know how Steve gets when you’re late.”

“As soon as I can I’m coming right back up here to ravish you. That’s a promise.”

PAL cooed, excited by some small movement from the birds. One of them had woken to preen the other, sweetly running its beak through its feathers.

“Look at their little nest. How cozy,” you said quietly. “Maybe that’s where my pillows went.”

The longer Loki considered the birds, the deeper the furrow between his brows grew. He seemed to be having a revelation of some kind. “I… have to speak with my brother about something.”

“Something wrong?”

“No. Just a thought. Don’t worry.”

PAL rolled backwards into Loki’s shins with purpose. He chirped sternly, as if chiding Loki in his machine-speak, who, in return, toed PAL’s chassis very gently in warning. 

You laughed. “He’s coming, buddy.”

“Actually,” Loki muttered darkly. “On the contrary. My problem is that I’m not-”. You suspected the next words out of his mouth would have been incredibly inappropriate, had PAL not rolled pointedly over Loki’s foot.

You exited the elevator on the 31st floor a few hours later. A far cry from Tony’s party, the room was empty and mostly tucked away; chairs were stacked on tables and the bar was cleared of bottles; bright, unfiltered sunlight poured through the enormous lofted windows, allowing you an unobstructed view of the skyline and the meandering streets below. A couple of interns were having lunch on one of the couches in the corner. They must have been part of the newest wave of college recruits, because their eyes lingered in a starstruck kind of way that made you feel a little embarrassed. 

You shot them a playful salute. Both startled, turning away in a rush.

Oh well. You couldn’t look Steve in the eyes for your first week on the team– you got it.

You found Loki in the farthest conference room, sat at the end of a long, round table between Steve and Bucky. You watched their fingers walk across its surface, handing a piece of folded paper between the three of them. Steve wrote something while the speaker was turned, then slipped his hand surreptitiously under the desk. Bucky coughed; from your vantage point, you saw his and Loki’s fingers unravel the note so they could read it discreetly.

Some executive droned at the other end, gesturing to a dreadfully laid out powerpoint. Matching manilla folders were spread open in front of the agents; you had a sneaking suspicion that whatever the speaker was saying was also written down and could have been read in half the time this meeting took.

You tried to catch Loki’s eye through the window but his attention was aimless, lost in some faraway place. A thought came to you; you rearranged your belongings to clasp your hands in front of you. Squeezing your eyes shut, you prayed - albeit poorly - to the god sitting a few dozen feet from you.

You peeked through one eye to see if it had worked; through the glass, Loki shot you a private smile, so sweet that it was practically a kiss. You waved him over, jerking your head toward the conference room door.

You watched him interrupt the speaker, his lazy posture rolling forward until he was sitting straight. Steve and Bucky nodded sagely, immediately following whatever story Loki had spun. Bucky pointed exaggeratedly to his metal arm, rubbing it as if it was tense.

The door opened and Loki slipped out into the hallway to meet you. Your grin bordered on becoming painful. Both your hands were folded behind your back. “You didn’t have breakfast this morning.”

“Observant.” He plucked a loose thread from the collar of your shirt and flicked it aside before leaning in for a quick kiss. You decided, even if you couldn’t say you love him, to treat him no less lovingly; you chased him when he pulled away, pressing your lips to his jaw. His grin was dazed, like you’d turned him dumb with the simple act of wanting him. “You’re even lovelier than the last time I saw you.

“I brought you something. Pick a hand.”

Loki walked his fingers down your left arm and pulled; you let him have it, your palm open – and empty. “Oh, that’s too bad.”

“Hmm. Terrible luck.” His knuckles dragged down the length of your other arm. In that hand was a take-out container from your favourite coffee shop, defaced with a smiley-face and cute message from the barista, Yvonne. It was his usual order, nothing special, but when his eyes tipped up to meet yours, there was something uncharacteristically open about his expression, a shy edge to the tilt of his smile. He leaned in and kissed you, soft and sweet like honey. “Do you think they’ll notice if I’m gone much longer?”

“Absolutely.”

Loki groaned, tipping your hips until they were flush to his. He kissed you hard enough to bend you backwards.

“I’ll come by your apartment tonight and we can get dinner?”

His fingers stilled where they were kneading your sides. “Yes, about that. Let’s… Let’s stay at yours tonight. The wolves that chased me out last night haven’t been evicted yet.”

Loki's answer confused you – he’d spent the entire night complaining that you wouldn’t go back to his room, then insulting your blanket choices, and now he wanted to stay at yours? “Ok. That works. Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he said quickly. “Perfectly fine. You’re so tired though. Easier to stay where your belongings are. I won’t– won’t make you commute.”

You eyed him suspiciously. “Behave today.”

Another groan, this one pitched low; Loki traced your cheek with his nose. “I love it when you order me around.”

“Loki! Be-have.”

“Just one more, nymph. To tide me over.”

You sent him off with three more kisses. You were starting to wonder if you were too lenient with him; he delighted in taking advantage of your weakness to weasel more affection out of you. He returned to the conference room with his little box, opened in his lap under the table. When Bucky made to swipe a grape, Loki flicked his hand away with a glare.

When you returned to your room that evening, with Loki hot on your heels and his hands already halfway up your shirt, you were baffled to find your bed down one more pillow.

“PAL, did you do this?”

He shook his little head, LED screen blinking wide doe eyes up at you. It was the strangest thing, but when he thought you weren’t looking, you could have sworn that he shot Loki a pointed look.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

No Sugar Tonight 4

Character: Brock Rumlow

Summary: A regular customer becomes more than just a familiar face.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

You look around the diner uncertainly. Brock slurps down his third coffee as you wring your hands in your lap. There’s a few bites of waffle left on your plate but you can barely stomach what you managed to get down. You don’t understand what he’s doing. 

He signals for the waitress and asks, no, tells her to get the check. He has a way of commanding everyone around him. Including you. 

His dark eyes narrow in your direction. You wonder if he can see your thoughts written on your face. You drop your gaze to the table and fidget. He sighs and wipes his mouth with a napkin. He crumples it and tosses it on his plate as he leans forward. 

“That syrup is all sugar,” he flicks the glass bottle. “You should have eggs for breakfast. Good protein.” 

You wince and look at him, “I’m sorry--” You don’t understand why he didn’t say anything before. 

“Now you know. I know you can listen. You can learn. When I tell you something, I want you to remember,” his voice is grizzly and grinding. “I don’t like to repeat myself.” 

“Uh, okay,” your brows tweak in confusion. 

The waitress returns and he pays in cash. He leaves her a tip but not a very good one. You only slide off the bench as he stands at the end and huffs. 

He keeps you ahead of him as he herds you out of the diner. You come out onto the street and dawdle just along the pavement. He comes up next to you and seizes your hand. You jolt in surprise as his callouses brush your soft skin. 

“I should go home--” 

“We’re going home,” he insists and tugs your arm. “I know you remember what I said.” 

You search the city street as panic rises up your throat, “but... I don’t know you--” 

“You know me. You need me.” He curtails your argument. “I don’t like you acting like this.” 

“I’m not...” you begin and shake your head. “I was only doing my job, sir.” 

“Not your job anymore. Things are different. How they should be.” He drags you down the sidewalk, yanking you into step as your soles scuff in reluctance. You have no choice by to keep pace. “You will have everything you need.” 

Your mouth opens and you snap it shut again. What can you say or do? He’s so much stronger than you. Besides, he already called your boss and ruined everything. 

“You’re really pretty, you shouldn’t make those face,” he says. 

You wipe the frustration from your features and put your head down. He clears his throat. 

“Stand straight. Good posture is important.” He girds again. 

You make yourself stand straight and measure your steps with his. He slows and you look around, searching for the reason. He approaches a black card and opens the passenger door. 

“In.” 

That’s it. His singular order. His hand creeps up from yours and up your arm and he nudges you. You obey. 

He shuts the door and goes around the hood. He gets in the driver seat and focus on starting the engine and pulling out into the traffic crawl. You shrink down and hug yourself. 

“Where... Can I get some of my things--” 

“Got em.” He snarls. 

You swallow the last of your resistance. You’re not sure what he means but you’ll take it as a no. You look out the windshield and watch the pedestrians and the taxis. Wait, you should scream! You should cry out for help! 

You peek over at the door and your hand trails towards the handle. The door locks with a thunk. 

“Do your seatbelt up,” he orders. 

You retract and do as he bids. He grunts and taps his fingers on the ridge steering wheel. He reaches over to clasp your wrist in his thick hand and squeezes. 

“I got a buddy on the force. Several. You wanna go for a ride to a precinct, I’ll take you there myself and we’ll see how that goes. You don’t needa be like this. I’m not hurting you, I'm helping.” He raises your arm and you whimper. You don’t know what to do. He pulls your hand close and he presses a kiss to your knuckles, a gesture both unnerving yet gentle.  

He lets you go and grips the wheel again. You rub your wrist as a tingle ripples in the back of your hand. You look ahead through the window then back at him. 

He’s a big man. Thick arms, broad shoulders, tall. His dark hair has a few strands of silver that blend into the rest and his jaw is shadowed with stubble. The cleft in his chin adds to his sinister appearance and an icy determination squares his features. 

“You can turn some music on,” he nods towards the radio. “None of that girly pop.” 

You hesitate but cautiously reach to touch the buttons on the dash. You scan through the satellite radio stations and find a song you know. The White Stripes. He hums but you can’t tell if he’s annoyed or content. You sit back and hug yourself. 

“I haven’t been mean so you don’t needa be scared,” he commands. Everything he says is an order, as if you’re his soldier. 

“Yes, sir,” you gulp. 

“Brock, baby, you can call me Brock,” he insists. 

[earlysunshines]

i get misty the moment you’re near

kindergarden teacher!sana x fem!reader (remastered) ; part one ; fluff

summary: it’s normal to get all bittersweet watching the girl you’ve helped raise step into her first day of kindergarten, but is it normal to find her teacher so captivating at first sight? is it normal for her teacher to find you just as cute?

wc: 2.8k

warnings: none!

a/n: rewrite of the series that started it all :P, enjoy!!!

opening the door, you watch your little one unbuckle her seatbelt. the smile on her face is everything to you and more, shining even brighter than the sun even with that missing canine of hers.

she slips herself out of the car and onto the concrete of the parking lot, eager to get out there and into the world (it's a bittersweet moment, watching her grow up before your eyes, tumbling away from your grasp so soon at the ripe age of five). yet, her small gesture of grabbing your pointer and middle finger instead of holding your hand in the traditional way brings a smile to your face. it's a unique quirk of hers, a subtle reminder that she’s still your little girl no matter what.

as you and your niece hana make your way into her elementary school, she’s much better at navigating this foreign territory than you are, leading the way confidently and pulling you with every step. you follow closely behind, admiring her determination and poise, the smile on your face growing with each hall you pass. 

as you approach her classroom, you notice parents bidding their goodbyes and waving to their children inside the cheery, chat-filled room. it's a heartwarming scene, filled with families sending their little ones off to the place that’ll start it all.

when you look down at hana, it seems as if her excitement had been erased in a matter of seconds. she stands there, peering into the classroom door nervously, looking hesitant to even enter.

you crease your brows, looking at her with concern. “is everything okay?”

“y/n,” she begins, almost frowning. “what if no one wants to be my friend?” 

her words catch you off guard, and a look of surprise crosses your face. she avoids your gaze, her eyes fixated on her beige velcro sneakers. you squat down to her eye level, sensing her discomfort.

your features soften. “hana… why would you think that?”

“i don’t know… i’m just scared, i don’t want to be the only one alone.” she says, her frown deepening.

“hana, sweetheart,” you start, holding both her hands in between your palms. “trust me, at least one person will talk to you. even if it isn’t today, someone amazing like you will make a friend, i mean, who wouldn’t want to be your friend? i made a lot of friends when i was your age.” you pause, putting your hands on her shoulders as you make eye contact. 

she looks at you with a slight pout, your heart cracks a bit.

“you and i, we’re alike, your dad and grandma think so too.” you begin, hands moving over to fix the white shirt under her denim overalls. “and be glad that we’re alike.” a mischievous smirk tugs at your lips. “your dad isn’t as cool as me, as us – trust me. be glad you got some of your auntie’s genes, you’ll be the coolest in the room since you’re like me.”

“you sure?” 

“of course i am. one hundred percent, no questions asked.” you assure her, standing up. “now, come on, let’s go inside, your dad said your teacher was nice!” you beam, smiling at the little girl. “now , you lead me, to be honest i’m starting to get a little scared… i might get lost– i mean, this isn’t my classroom.”

hana’s worried expression is replaced by a grin after hearing your last remark, and then she teases you with that cheeky, high-pitched voice of hers, “you’re so silly y/n, you’re old and scared? i thought you said you were the coolest!” 

“hey! i am the coolest! and i'm not old! you should see your dad! so many wrinkles on his head when he snores…”

hana's laughter rings out, her newfound confidence sparked by the playful banter between the two of you. without hesitation, she seizes your hand and practically pulls you into the classroom, her excitement palpable as if she were alice venturing into wonderland.

(they grow up too fast)

as you step into the classroom, a pleasant aroma envelops you, carrying hints of vanilla intermingled with subtle undertones of peaches and pears. the scent isn’t overpowering, you think it’s perfect and adds to the ambiance of the slightly chaotic yet meticulously arranged classroom. in an oddly comforting way, it reminds you of the cozy atmosphere of the café where you work.

as you scan the classroom, you observe children engrossed in various activities—some coloring at their desks, others darting around with more energy than you have after four shots of espresso, and a few kids posing for pictures taken by their parents. 

hana excitedly tugs at your hand, leading you to the vibrant cubbies where students store their completed work and lunchboxes. with a proud grin, she points out the sticker adorning her cubby: a little shark sticker, hammerhead. the sight of the sticker brings a warm smile to your face, knowing how much hana and her dad adore these creatures.

"hana, sweetie, stand next to your cubby. i want to take a picture to show your dad," you suggest, gesturing towards the spot where you'd like her to pose. hana eagerly complies, flashing a wide smile that lights up her face and reveals her adorable gums. her infectious grin brings a smile to your own lips as you swiftly capture the moment with a quick snapshot. without hesitation, you send the picture to the group chat shared with your brother, mom, and dad before taking a little selfie with her yourself.

as you and hana make your way towards the area where the backpacks are hung, your gaze runs wanders around the room, taking in the environment. amidst the flurry of activity, your attention is drawn to a striking woman across the room, her warm smile immediately catching your attention. 

you watch as she interacts with another parent, her friendly demeanor evident as she crouches down to the level of a young boy, pointing to – which you assume – his seat before returning to her full height. a moment later, her eyes meet yours, catching you off guard.

she’s unreal, she’s so unbelievably beautiful.

her flowing dark brown hair cascades gracefully around her, framing her face elegantly. you're struck by the perfection of her nose, it’s perfect. its gentle angle and graceful slope draws your admiration and it surprises you how much you appreciate such a seemingly small detail, but there's an undeniable allure to it, how could a nose be so perfect? was it weird to think that? 

your gaze then drifts downward, drawn to her peach-colored lips, which appear soft and lush and  inviting, and wow, impossibly alluring; in fact, they look really kissable and–

you stop your thoughts there because this is a woman you’ve just seen for the first time, you shouldn’t be thinking this – you can’t be (one part of your brain is telling you to stop, the other continues to daydream in the back of your mind).

her outfit is almost as cute and pretty as she is. the beige cardigan and loose white skirt she has on compliment her slender figure beautifully, emanating effortless grace. the delicate silver necklace sitting on her fair skin catches your eye a little more than small bracelet adorning her wrist and the tiny gold earrings that glint softly in the light.

hana feels your hand loosen up around hers, and then she looks up at you to see you staring across the room at the familiar woman she had met a week ago, ears tinted a shade of light pink. feeling hana's gentle tug on your sleeve, you snap out of your trance and return your attention to her with a soft smile. 

“that’s my teacher, she’s really nice,” hana says, smiling, “last time, she gave me an extra sticker! dad says she reminds him of you.”

“me?”

“he says that she’s… warm like you? no, something about you and her having the same warmth or something,” hana explains, trying to recollect her memory. “i don’t know how people can be warm in the same way, i think dad is just saying things. that doesn’t make any sense, same warmth– oh! he also said the way she talks to me reminds him of you.” hana adds. 

without warning, your niece walks you over to the woman and she smiles at your niece. you try to regain your composure during those few steps taken.

“this is ms. minatozaki.” hana introduces her to you shyly, tugging at your hand. 

"hello, hana. it’s lovely to see you again." the woman greets, gently patting her head. her voice is sweet like honey, soft like a breeze, and the way she speaks is welcoming, easing you immediately. it even makes your cheeks warm up a bit.

her smile nearly knocks you off balance, as if you were a sturdy tree getting hit by a sudden gust of wind. the genuine joy reflected in the curve of her lips as she greeted your niece made your knees go weak. meeting her gaze, you find yourself captivated by her eyes—those big, beautiful, brown eyes. she's a few inches shorter, so her head tilts up ever so slightly, and you struggle to resist falling into another trance as you take in her alluring features up close.

you try to compose yourself as you put your hand out to greet the beautiful woman.

“hello ms, i’m y/n.”

with that voice, gosh, her wonderful voice, she responds, “it’s nice to meet you, y/n.” 

sana is stunned by the woman in front of her, taking a moment to take in your presence. your face is almost intimidating with its sharp features, but there’s those subtle similarities – dimples, faint beauty mark in the corner of your eyes, and akin smile – that you have with hana. she's trying not to swoon over you in the moment, especially since you're in the middle of introducing yourselves, and it would be a bit (very) unprofessional to do that in front of the kids’ mother.

her smaller hand fits perfectly in yours as she shakes it. the world seems to pause for a moment as you realize this beautiful woman is shaking your hand – yours. it feels like you're in a romance drama of some sort with everything seeming to slow down around you. she puts another hand on the outside of yours, welcoming you into her precious workplace with both hands.

hana looks between the two women, a small smile tugging at her lips. she senses the spark that forms from the small interaction, and observes how her aunt's usually stoic and confident facade disappears in that moment.

so much for having the “cool” genes, you seem like putty in hana’s eyes.

you notice that your hands are still connected, her soft skin still touching, ms. minatozaki is still holding your hand. 

in an attempt to hide your nerves, to conceal the fact that you’re still thinking of her smooth skin on yours – you pull away to run a hand through your hair.

(hana sees right through you.)

“well,” you begin, shifting your gaze to your niece as you squat down to meet her eye level. a loose strand of hair that escaped her braided locks is gently tucked behind her ear with your slender finger. placing a thumb on her cheek, you rub it lightly. "i'll let you be off on your own now. go have fun and be good, okay? i'll be here in the afternoon."

the corners of sana's lips curl upwards as she witnesses the tender interaction between you and hana, her smile growing wider at the evident care and love in your voice.

“okay!” hana gives you a toothy grin. you laugh out softly and give her an almost identical grin back, squishing one of her cheeks in between two knuckles. 

in your heart, a faint trace of worry lingers, subtly etching a furrow in your brow despite your smile. you genuinely hope for the best for your niece; she's your only niece, and your deepest desire is for her to simply be happy. 

“if ms. minatozaki says you were being good today, we can go to the cafe and i can make you your favorite hot chocolate, how about that? ms. dahyun also said she made a special croissant for you~”

“please! please! i’ll be good, i promise.” hana almost shouts, practically jumping up and down.

laughing at her enthusiasm, you then respond, “alright, be good to ms. minatozaki lovely, i’ll see you later.” 

the two of you exchange a nice, warm hug, your head burying in the small of her neck and staying there for a few seconds more. after you pull away, you push away her bangs and press one last kiss to her forehead, lingering for a little longer. 

“you’re growing up too fast for me, i don’t know how i’ll catch up.” you mutter under your breath, quiet enough for only you to hear.

you stand back up and watch the little girl run off on her own to an empty desk, so eager to get out there and pick up some coloring pages – she’s already aching to get to work.

“she’s very enthusiastic,” sana begins. you turn her head back to meet her gaze, humming in agreement. “she’s a wonderful little girl from what i’ve observed so far. she’s seriously adorable!” 

“yeah, she’s a curious little girl – very bright.” you agree, “i just hope she doesn’t too much trouble. she’s pretty shy with new people, but she’s very energetic when she warms up and, well- you know how kids are.”

ms. minatozaki giggles and the little scrunch of her nose catches you off guard, prompting a spontaneous laugh to escape your own lips. your neck tingles and there’s a flutter in your stomach, the moment overwhelms you, and you find yourself smiling and giggling along with her, your ears undoubtedly turning a shade of pink that you don't even bother to acknowledge in the moment. 

there’s really nothing else you can acknowledge other than the wonderful woman in front of you, all attention deserves to be on her, especially when she’s so lovely to the eyes and her voice is like a gentle melody with each word uttered.

“i’ll be going now ms-”

“it’s sana, you can call me sana.” she cuts you off, “i mean, you’re not my student.” she adds, giggling again.

"definitely not," you quip, savoring the opportunity to keep the banter light and the laughter flowing. the thought of stalling this moment, making her smile and witnessing the way her face lights up with each shared joke makes your heart warm. you want to joke and joke forever if it means hearing and seeing her like this.

sana watches you adjust your dark brown jacket, a little cue that you have to depart soon (much to her dismay).

a hue of pink dusts her cheeks as you flash that charming smile of yours, she probably won’t get over the sight or the feeling she gets when you do so – ever. 

you seem entirely unaware of the effect you have on her, she mentally punches herself for feeling a flutter in her chest over – who she assumes is – her student's mother. the young teacher wonders how she'll manage to get through the year if she finds herself encountering you more often.

“well,” you check your watch, “ i have to get going now. please let me know if anything happens with hana.”

sana nods. “of course, i’ll make sure hana has a great day.” 

as you and sana exchange sweet smiles once more, a familiar warmth spreads through the two of you as you say your last goodbyes.

before heading out the door, you wave to your niece again, both of you grinning sweetly at each other. you also sneak one last glance at your niece's beautiful teacher before you head out and navigate your way back to the car.

leaving the building, the sun seemed to shine a little brighter, and there was a new warmth in your chest knowing that hana is in the caring hands of such a beautiful, sweet, and charming teacher: ms. minatozaki.

as you get into the car, you lean back into the seat and sigh, closing your eyes like a stupid idiot in love (that’s what you are, honestly).

you were definitely going to convince your brother to let you take hana to school more often, and even pick her up regularly too. it works pretty well with your schedule anyway, considering how flexible it is.

and little did you know, sana would secretly hope to see you more often as well. the image of you, your captivating smile, and the memory of your sweet tone of voice would linger in her mind throughout the entire school day.

[toxicanonymity]

Uber

1.1k / stepdad!Joel x f!reader

#3 in stepdad AU | joel master SUMMARY: When you're drunk, you call Joel instead of a ride share to pick you up, and you try to tempt him on the way home. WARNINGS: I8+ Reader kinda softdom, girthy age gap, brief degradation, stepcest, drunkenness, groping while driving, panty gagging, fingering, mutual masturbation, panty stealing.  

A/N: @megangovier20 inspired his glasses look, and the original post. This is #3 in the AU. Read alone or after Instagram and Snapchat. NEXT after Uber: All Recipes.

---

“God, you’re a mess," he says with his arm around you, helping you walk straight.  "How much have you had to drink?” 

“I dunno,” you shrug. “Few shots.”  It was at least your third when you had the bright idea to text him instead of a ride share.

He grits his teeth then adds,  “And why are you dressed like a fuckin’ hooker?”

He looks like a whore himself. Well-fitting joggers, tight white T-shirt, muscles bulging out everywhere, glasses, bed head.  God, he looks hot. Ugh.

You're falling all over Joel as he opens the door to his truck and has to physically help you into the seat.  You’re playing it up with the hope that Joel feels bolder with you drunk off your ass and away from the house.  You’re home for Thanksgiving. It's a tradition to stay over for the week even though you don't live that far. He's been obnoxiously well behaved and smug about it.  The tension is killing you at every meal.

As he gets you situated, he pushes your legs in to close the door and his hand lingers on your thigh.  You flash your eyebrows and bite your lip.

“I think you like it,” you say, looking him up and down.  How is he so hot?  “and at least you know I’m not takin' anyone home,” you mumble and he walks around to the driver’s side to get in.  Meanwhile, you fold up the center console and slide over into the middle seat.  

-

“Fuck me,” he mutters when he sees you moved. 

"Yes sir," you say, reaching under your skirt to roll down your slutty stockings and take them off entirely.

"C'mon now. . ." He says, then looks you up and down as he buckles his seatbelt. "Christ, you're tryin' to kill me."

He pulls out of your friend's neighborhood and takes a dark backroad. He takes a sharp turn and you fall over him. He shrugs you off. "Put your seatbelt on.” 

You don't. 

"Damnit." He reaches over to grab the lap belt and you seize his big, veiny hand while it's close to where you need it. He resists but just barely.  Far, far less than his strength would allow. You hold his hand on your thigh.

"Not like you haven't touched me," you say. 

"For two seconds," he justifies to himself.

"You want it as bad as I do." You slide his hand between your legs. Then you you rub your balled up stockings into his nose and add, "I know you've been thinking about it."

He takes a deep breath and his eyes darken, then you put the stockings away.

He says, "You're filthy. You know that?" He cant help himself now. Reluctantly, he cups your bare, wet pussy and begins stroking you up and down. 

Your hips rock into his practiced hand and you counter, "what does that make you?" 

He plunges his middle and ring finger inside you, stroking you gently. Just enough for him to feel it. Not trying to get you off.  Probably trying to memorize the inside of your cunt for the next time he jacks off to your Instagram. 

You ride in silence for a minute while he fingers you.

Then his head falls back against the headrest and his mouth falls open.   He curls his fingers and moans as he really starts fucking you with his thick digits. 

You lean over and grab the thick, rock-hard bulge in his joggers, and he groans. His hips lift into your palm and you push back.  His hardness gives you a shock of arousal.  You turn your whole body toward him and slip your hand into his joggers, massaging him through his boxers.  You feel a sliver of his smooth shaft and reach into the hole, finding his tip where precum is beading. It's the first time you've touched his cock and having it in your hand gives you a desperate need to have it other places.

You begin to lower your head to his lap and he shakes his head, "No, uh-huh sweetheart." He takes his hand out from between your legs.  His wet fingers grab your wrist and take your hand out of his pants.  He throws your hand back into your lap as he turns into the neighborhood.  "Not goin' there."  You can't help but think it's a matter of time.  His boundaries started out with hesitancy to jerk off in front of you. Then quickly crumbled to no touching.  Now you're at hands only? With a brief backtrack into no touching. Out of guilt, you imagine. 

-

After parking at the house, he doesn't open the door for you or help you out of the truck. He walks toward the house alone, irritated and determined to stay strong.  

Then you stumble out of the truck and fall on the driveway. 

"Damnit," he says under his breath.  He comes back and helps you inside and upstairs to your room.  You can't help but reach for his cock again on the stairs and he whispers "I swear to god."

If you respect this boundary it might give him the reassurance he needs to push it further next time. 

He helps you into your room and you shut the door behind him. 

"Okay fine, no touching," you relent in a whisper, adding, "sorry, I'm wasted." You're not sorry, you just need his trust.

You lay on your bed and get out your vibrator. "Let's just finish real quick," you tell him.  He sits down at your desk and takes his cock out in silence. He strokes himself and wets his lips as he watches you. When his lips part you worry about his moaning. 

"And keep quiet for once," you say. You get up and stuff the stockings in his mouth and his face looks painfully aroused. 

You turn on your toy and lock eyes with him as he jerks himself off. You want to edge yourself but there's no way you'll last long unless you close your eyes.  You can't physically pry your eyes away from him in his glasses with your stockings in his mouth. 

His nostrils flare as his breathing gets heavier.  His masculine knuckles hypnotize you as his hand moves up and down his length.  His eyelids droop. His neck flexes. His t-shirt stretches. He moans into your stockings and you begin to come. You close your eyes, then as you're riding your orgasm and soaking your comforter, you open open your eyes just in time to see him get up from the chair and cross the room.  You turn off your toy.  He pumps himself just twice more, then aims at your cleavage and comes all over you with a muffled groan.  

When he's finished, he takes the stockings out of his mouth and pockets them.  Then he grabs a tissue from your nightstand and throws it at you. 

On his way out, he says, "get an Uber next time."  

-

This is the third of the series, scroll to the top for links. Fourth coming some time between 5/2-5/7. No tag list for this Joel sorry

Glasses look from @megangovier20 who also caused the original stepdad story (Instagram) with an ask.

-

All joel: @ethanhoewke @silkiers @eiviea @evyiione @xdaddysprincessxx @queerly-anxious @chernayawidow @ambassadortotrilliusprime @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @jasminespringtime @romanarose @fandomsfallnomore @djarinxore @lokanda @blackvelveteen1339  @manazo @wolvesandvampires 

[chlobliviate]

Wolfstar Microfic - Rings

Words: 993

@wolfstarmicrofic

🌙✨🌙✨🌙

Prongs

Moony you need to come get your man, he’s so drunk.

They won’t serve him anymore.

😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩

Moony

🙄🙄 Not my man, Prongs.

On my way. 😘😘

Remus, in his soft pyjama bottoms and one of Sirius’ hoodies, drove into town to the bar the others were at. He had a ridiculous amount of student work to mark so, ignoring Sirius’ protests, he’d opted for a night in. It turned out that marking in an empty house went a lot quicker than marking in a house where Sirius kept interrupting him.

Outside the bar, Sirius was propped up between James and Pete. They eased him into the passenger seat, giggling as he got his bearings.

“Moons!” He looked over at Remus and his whole face lit up. “James, Moony’s here!”

“I see him, Pads.” James smirked, “He’s going to take you home.”

“Oh,” Sirius paused, “Well that sounds lovely.”

Remus glanced back over at James who mouthed. “Tequila.”

“Oh, Pads, not tequila.” He opened the glove compartment and pulled out a plastic bag and a pack of baby wipes, just in case.

“So fucking cute,” Sirius mumbled to himself as he accepted the bag.

“You alright? Need a lift?”

“Nah, Pete and this girl have hit it off so I’m gonna stay and wingman.” James grinned at Pete who looked very smug.

“Can’t wait to hear about it tomorrow.” Remus smiled at them as they waved and headed back inside.

“Wait, are they going back in?” Sirius tried to undo his seatbelt. Remus pulled his hand away before he could figure it out.

“Yeah, but we’re going home.” He said kindly, but firmly. “You had too much, mate.”

Sirius pouted as Remus covered the seatbelt clip with his hand. “Can we go to McDonalds?” He huffed after a few attempts at moving it before Remus laced their fingers together to distract him. “I’ll go home if we can go to McDonalds.”

“You’ve got yourself a deal.” If Sirius regularly looked at him the way he did when he took his drunk ass to McDonalds, his life would be in danger. “But you’re buying me a McFlurry.”

🌙✨🌙✨🌙

Once they got home and finished eating. Remus put the kettle on as Sirius settled on the sofa. When he returned, carrying two mugs, he stopped to look at Sirius.

“You good, Moons?” He opened one eye. Remus shook himself out of it and nodded, handing him a mug. “Thanks. I think I’m quite drunk.”

“Quite?” Remus chuckled, sitting down next to him. “You couldn’t walk up the stairs.”

“That seems like the stairs’ problem.” Sirius waved his hand towards the stairs. He opened his eyes and looked at Remus. He sat cross-legged, facing him. He looked so soft in the glow from the lamp. He crossed his legs and turned fully so they were knee to knee. “I should tell you something, right?”

Remus hesitated. “Well, that’s up to you.”

Sirius tilted his head slightly, regarding him, “Nah, I should tell you.” He took a deep breath. “Moony. Remus.” The hair on Remus’ arms stood on end. “You are… the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen.” Remus tried to interrupt but Sirius just put a hand on his knee and shook his head, “There’ll be time for questions at the end. You’re… you’re just so Moony! Fuck, I just love you.” He smiled at Remus, eyes slightly out of focus.

“You’re drunk.” Remus hated himself for wanting to pretend this was real. “You should go to bed.”

“Would you come with me?” Sirius looked at him from under his lashes and Remus had to close his eyes to maintain any semblance of self-control. Seizing the moment, Sirius pressed his lips to Remus’, startling him.

“Pads, what the fuck?” Remus put a hand on Sirius’ shoulder as he tried to lean in again. “Hey, stop!”

Sirius just stared at him, looking like a kicked puppy. “But I— I thought…” He mumbled.

“I need you to hear me. You’re drunk. I’m not drunk. And I’m not the kind of person who’d take advantage of you or any other drunken idiot. If you want to talk about this tomorrow when you’re sober, then we can talk about it. But for now, let’s get you to bed.”

Sirius nodded sadly and let Remus help him off the sofa, before grabbing their tea and heading for the stairs. He helped Sirius take off his shirt and jeans and stopped him before he tried to slide his boxers down.

Sirius sat on the edge of the bed as Remus turned to leave. “Moons.” He said softly, twirling one of his rings, before slipping it off. “Put this on, I want you to know that I’m serious. I might be wankered, but I’m so serious.”

“You’re always Sirius.” Remus chuckled as he crouched down in front of him. Sirius slid the twisted gold ring onto the fourth finger on Remus’ left hand and pressed a kiss to his knuckle. “Thank you. Now will you please get into bed?”

Sirius nodded and slipped under the duvet without further protest. Remus watched him toss and turn for a moment before he got comfortable, and then he was asleep. Remus was never jealous of Sirius’ confidence, good looks or money, but the way he could fall asleep instantly had Remus positively green sometimes.

He slipped off Sirius’ hoodie once he was in his room and got into bed. He twisted the ring around his finger for what felt like hours until he fell asleep.

🌙✨🌙✨🌙

When he woke up, the first thing he saw was Sirius’ face, inches from his own.

“Morning!” He smiled at Remus, “I made tea.”

Remus sat up slowly, with a groan, “Thanks.”

“So… it’s tomorrow. Well, no, it’s today, but—”

“You remember?” Remus’ heart was pounding in his head as Sirius nodded. “You want to talk about it?”

He nodded again, nervously, as he looked down at Remus’ hand. “Yeah, I think it’s time.”

[mcflymemes]

THE GREATEST MOVIE QUOTES OF ALL TIME *  assorted dialogue from famous films, adjust as necessary

[name], i think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

frankly, my dear, i don't give a damn.

i'll have what she's having.

i have a feeling we're not in kansas anymore.

i'm as mad as hell, and i'm not going to take this anymore!

you're gonna need a bigger boat.

nobody puts baby in a corner.

well. nobody's perfect.

you can't fight in here! this is the war room!

get away from her, you bitch!

houston, we have a problem.

when someone asks you if you're a god, you say yes!

i am no man!

i love the smell of napalm in the morning.

you had me at "hello."

i'm also just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.

don't call me shirley.

i feel the need... the need for speed!

i'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.

i know it was you, [name]. you broke my heart.

just when i thought i was out, they pull me back in.

you can't handle the truth!

i can do this all day.

the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

snakes. why did it have to be snakes?

clever girl.

what, like it's hard?

you shall not pass.

that's my secret, [name]. i'm always angry.

i wish i knew how to quit you.

get busy living, or get busy dying.

ugh, as if!

i'll be back.

there's no crying in baseball!

some men just want to watch the world burn.

take your stinking paws off me!

screws fall out all the time. the world's an imperfect place.

life moves pretty fast. you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

i'm sorry, [name]. i'm afraid i can't do that.

a strange game. the only winning move is not to play.

are you crazy? the fall will probably kill you!

i see dead people.

if you build it, he will come.

with great power comes great responsibility.

roads? where we're going, we don't need roads.

go ahead. make my day.

say hello to my little friend!

are you not entertained?

i'm not bad. i'm just drawn that way.

i've seen things you people wouldn't believe.

i have a bad feeling about this.

you talkin' to me?

what's in the box?

your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!

that rug really tied the room together, did it not?

you cut the turkey without me?

i'm not even supposed to be here today.

you'll shoot your eye out, kid.

boy, that escalated quickly.

you don't wanna get mixed up with a guy like me.

i know kung-fu.

now i have a machine gun.

what is your damage, [name]?

what we've got here is failure to communicate.

here's looking at you, kid.

fasten your seatbelts. it's going to be a bumpy night.

love means never having to say you're sorry.

there's no place like home.

why don't you come up sometime and see me?

i'm walkin' here!

i want to be alone.

round up the usual suspects.

you know how to whistle, don't you, [name]?

we rob banks.

we'll always have paris.

well, nobody's perfect.

a boy's best friend is his mother.

keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.

what a dump?

[name], you're trying to seduce me. aren't you?

is it safe?

i have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

hello, gorgeous.

a martini. shaken, not stirred.

seize the day. make your lives extraordinary.

snap out of it!

[unhinged-summer-fun]

common grounds (oshamir) - chapter 8

Pairing: Osha Aniseya x Qimir "The Stranger"

A/N: Dividers by @firefly-graphics

series masterlist

chapter 8: ...it pours

A beat-to-hell silver sedan rolled to a stop on the corner of Third and Hansen. Even if he hadn’t just told her I’m here, Osha would have known instantly that this clunky piece of shit belonged to her stranger.

Sure enough, the man himself burst out of the driver’s side, leaving the car running with the door open at a red light while he dashed to her. “Osha,” he said breathlessly, hands hovering above her shoulders as he looked her over.

She realized she still had her phone held up to her ear and quickly shoved it in her pocket. “Hi,” she said.

He didn’t smile at her like she wanted him to. Instead, he frowned at her leg propped up on the low planter she was sitting on, as if he could just glare away her pain. “Can I touch you?” he asked.

It was the easiest yeah she ever said.

“I’m going to touch your leg. I’m not going to touch your knee or your ankle. Alright?”

“Just do it, man.”

His lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t sugarcoat it, bringing his hands down to squeeze around and prod over her pants. She hissed through her teeth at the bright, wailing pain it brought, but his hand moved quickly. “Does anything feel broken to you? What happened?”

She shook her head. “Just hit me all at once.” She held her breath and spiraled into anxious, self-loathing thoughts at the speed of light. Thoughts of don’t make a face; it’s not that bad; pretend it’s not that bad seized her until he said—

“Osha.” His voice came much closer than before, breaking through her fog of self-pity. “Talk to me.”

She took in a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.”

The frown fell from his face, and a soft smile took its place. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. I told you I wanted to help, didn’t I? Let me help.”

The guilt and shame that threatened to bury Osha alive was now totally overridden. She nodded and looked up at the falling snow, blinking her tears away at the sudden cocktail of pain and emotional relief.

A warm hand filled her periphery. Ever so softly, he cupped the side of her face, searing her down to her soul. She closed her eyes, helplessly leaning into the touch. His thumb brushed away a tear so gently she almost flinched.

“I’ve got you,” her stranger whispered. His hand left her face but slid to her shoulders, around her ribs. “Put your arms around me. Attagirl.”

Osha shivered, not remotely related to the weather. She was fucked.

He carried her to his car so swiftly that she almost couldn’t process it. The shock stalled her brain for a good three seconds, but then he settled her into his passenger seat and buckled her up.

He tugged on the belt, securing her further before he closed the door and walked around. Fuck. Was that meant to be hot? Because if it wasn’t, her body certainly thought it was.

The stranger got in the driver’s seat, uncaring toward the honking cars he’d cut off in the road behind him. “Are you comfortable? Warm enough?” he said, buckling his seatbelt but never looking away from her. Locks of inky black hair fell into his eyes, but they didn’t sway his focus.

She nodded dumbly. Speaking had suddenly become a skill far beyond her reach. She still felt the ghosts of his touch: his arms beneath and behind her, the tickle of his hair against her hand, and the soft puff of his breath that blessed her forehead.

He drove carefully, taking each turn slow and sure so she didn’t jar her leg too much. A sharp and prickly feeling began to return in the backs of her thighs, but the brief rest in the cold had done wonders for her current pain tolerance.

She saw his cell phone in his cup holder, still open to their call.

:) OSHA :)

There was also a little blue star by her name—had he made her contact one of his favorites? Instead of asking, she ended the call and elected not to think about the warm and fuzzy feeling in her chest.

He didn’t bother hunting for a parking spot when he pulled into the apartment complex. He drove straight to building 8 and left his car idling out front while he helped her out of the passenger seat. “I think I can limp myself to the elevator,” Osha said, that old instinct to downplay her pain rearing its head.

He looked conflicted, torn between pulling her back into his arms and letting her walk on her own. Her stranger always seemed so sure of himself, but since the moment he pulled up, he’d become a ball of mild panic. It didn’t sit right to see him like that.

“—Actually, I’d appreciate some help walking,” she said quickly. He immediately offered his hands, helping her loop an arm around his shoulders.

“You lean on me as much as you need to,” he said, practically purring into her ear.

Together, they made it to his apartment. The hall that led to his door looked identical to the one in her building, but nearly everything was different behind that door.

For almost all of Osha’s life, she’d lived in the company of other people—the crowded compound where her mothers raised her and her sister, then later, sharing a room in Sol’s apartment, and most recently, a two-bedroom apartment with Mae downstairs from him. It felt impossible to imagine something like independence or solitude here, yet here her stranger was, living alone.

“Let me get you set up here before I go park,” he said, all business—or trying to be, considering the circumstances. All business was more wishful thinking than reality. He had literally carried her like a princess after coming to rescue her from her pain. Once she was lying on his couch with her foot propped on the arm, he said, “Stay here.”

“Shit, I guess I’ll have to snoop another time,” she joked.

“I’ve got nothing to keep from you, Osha. You just have to ask.” He left her with that.

How the fuck did she manage to earn—let alone deserve—this stranger’s trust in so short a time?

And why did she trust him just the same?

When the door swung shut behind him, silence swept in. The noise in the studio apartment was absorbed mainly by his large bed and the blackout curtains drawn shut over the kitchen windows. What light accompanied the silence also seemed still and hushed—a few floor lamps angled toward the walls and streaking strange shadows above her head.

But she still wanted to snoop. He didn’t have any kind of entertainment system, so she couldn’t determine anything from that. A black laptop bag swung on a hook by the door, still moving from their whirlwind entrance to the apartment. But she suspected it was only used for work. She reached out and touched the comforter on his bed—unexpectedly soft.

He came back in from outside, all flushed cheeks and snow-dusted black hair. Her hand flinched back from the bed like she’d been burned. He didn’t notice while he locked up and put his keys on a hook by the door. “Good. You didn’t go anywhere.”

“Clearly.”

He sat on the edge of his bed by the couch. They were close but facing opposite directions. “I should’ve asked if I needed to take you to the hospital,” he said softly, almost chiding himself.

“You didn’t, and you don’t. Typically, I only go once I start throwing up from pain.”

He sighed, and she realized she shouldn’t have been so proud of her declaration. “Your pain shouldn’t get to that point for you to pay attention to it, Osha. It’s your body telling you something’s wrong or needs attention.”

“I know what’s wrong,” she huffed, gesturing to her leg. “It’s been wrong.”

He shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Osha. I won’t change my mind about that.” He held her gaze for a second, an almost tender look in his eyes. What was he thinking, she wondered. He blinked, and the look was gone. 

Osha changed the subject. “I don’t know much about you. You’re a paid fighter; you’re a sports scientist. What is it you do for a living?” The fat stack of cash Mr. Wise had dropped off on fight night didn’t seem like a reliable source of income.

“I work at the college. I’m on the rehab staff for the athletics department, but I sometimes do practical demonstrations for the History of Martial Combat course. That’s how I met your sister.” One semester, followed by two years of lies. She shook off her bitterness.

“You’re a PT? Like an actual PT?”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “You wanna see my degree?”

“Maybe later,” she said. “Between all that and fighting, it sounds like a lot of commitment.”

“It keeps me occupied. You know the platitude about idle hands.” 

“What about training others?”

He hummed, leaning forward to unlace his boots. “I have a few licenses—personal training, massage therapy, occupational therapy—but never really used it outside of that until I met Mae. She was a good student even though she didn’t have an end goal training with me. She learned many skills over those two years, but I knew she lacked the conviction to use any of them practically.”

“You mean in the fights at Unknown Planet.”

He nodded, standing and shedding his outer layers. She took note of his button-down shirt, slacks, and college-logoed windbreaker. Had he come to her from the college? She didn’t have time to ask before he came to stand at the end of the couch by her feet.

“I think Mae was only in it for the thrill of being caught. I wouldn’t say I liked it; I’m a private person. Regardless, I didn’t take it personally. I couldn’t; she paid me to train her, not to be her friend. Not that I wanted her in there, but she would have done fine in the cage.”

“I’m glad she never saw it,” Osha declared. She tried convincing herself that it was said out of concern for her sister’s safety. The spiteful, jealous part of her heart, which she had only recently started listening to, said otherwise. This is mine, it said. You cannot have this side of him. And I don’t have to share him with you.

He set a hand on the arm of the couch near her boot. She jumped, shaken free of her reverie. “May I?”

“I thought it was best to keep a boot over an inflamed ankle.”

“For a while, yes. Compression is only one aspect of treating injuries, however. And if you rely on just one type of treatment, your injury will outsmart you. I will leave your knee brace on for now—smart move to grab that. Now, I can work with your foot how it is if that’s what you’re comfortable with, but I’d be more effective if I took off your shoes and rolled up your pant leg.”

“Okay. But… take it off quick.”

“I’ll do it safely, which means I’ll do it correctly,” he said with conviction. His voice turned a little snarky, and she wondered if that was how he spoke to his college athletes. “It’s going to suck no matter which way you slice it. But I’m not trying to prolong it by doing things incorrectly.”

She nodded tightly and looked up at the ceiling so she wouldn’t agonize over the coming discomfort. Happy thoughts, Osha. Like biceps. Dark eyes. The way he says attagirl. 

The stranger plucked off her right boot and quickly undid the laces on the left as much as he could. “Alright, deep breath in… out. In—” The pain wasn’t as bad as she thought it’d be, but it was still annoying and uncomfortable. The boot slid off, and she heard it drop to the floor with a heavy clunk. “Breathe out, Osha.”

Her breath left her in a whistle through her gritted teeth. “Shit,” she wheezed. “I don’t think I could’ve done that by myself.”

“You could have. Can you move your toes for me?” She did as he asked but gave a low groan in the back of her throat at the throbbing ache in her leg. “I’m going to roll up your pants and take your sock off.”

His voice and touch were polite, perfunctory, and professional. As much as her horny little fantasies might have wanted otherwise, he took the time to inform her he wouldn’t take advantage of her like this.

It was, ironically, extremely fucking sexy.

“Just need to check for fractures, then I’ll—”

“It’s not fractured. I’d know.”

“Better than a doctor?” he said, meeting her eyes and tilting his head. The confident air about him made him the dictionary definition of unfuckwithable.

And he knew it. Bastard.

“Fine.”

He ran through a comprehensive set of tests, prodding and tapping at her foot, ankle, and shin until he deemed her “most likely” fracture-free. Most of her pain was from inflammation and overuse, which he explained in a matter-of-fact way backed up by knowledge and experience. As he rotated her ankle in gentle circles, working out the stiffness, he spoke to distract her from the discomfort.

“You had class today. Did you stretch out afterward?”

“I was called into Vernestra’s office to get yelled at between class and my shift. They butt right up against each other.”

He frowned. “If you have to keep training there…”

Oh. The memory of her terrible fucking day tapped on her shoulder. “I don’t. I, uh. I kind of told Vernestra to go fuck herself today.”

His frown disappeared instantly, replaced by a look of fond amusement and a soft chuckle. “As deeply satisfying as that is to hear, how did it come to that?”

She sighed. “She wanted to limit which and how many classes I could attend. I was at four a week, and she wanted me down at two—and public classes only. That’s, like, the membership level the fucking Groupon motherfuckers get. I told her, fuck two a week, let’s make it zero.”

His hair fell into his eyes when he tilted his head to hide his smile. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought he said, that’s my girl.

She needed a new doctor. This one was making things actively worse.

“I still have my job at the cafe, but I don’t count on that being around long, either. The bottom line is I’m pretty much off the hook with any other training commitments now. Yayyy.”

“How do you feel about that?” he said, bringing his thumbs back to massage the sides of her Achilles. Whatever he was doing felt divine, and she never wanted him to stop.

It’s why she felt so comfortable answering, “I’m glad it’s done. I don’t regret it, but it makes me sad to have my fears confirmed.”

“What fears?”

She looked back up at the ceiling, tracing how the shadows stretched from the lamp in the corner, getting blurrier the further they were from the light. She winced, but he’d stilled his hands on her leg. This wasn’t a pain he could fix with his touch. “That I was useless. Unwanted. Burdensome.”

His hands squeezed her leg, almost involuntarily. “You are none of those things.”

A sad smile flickered over Osha’s lips. “To them, I am. I’m pretty sure that was true even before I got hurt.”

The stranger took a deep breath and held it briefly before slowly exhaling. “If they can’t see the extraordinary being you are, they don’t deserve such high regard from you.” His hand resumed its path up to her calf, keeping a firm, even pressure as he traced his thumb along the edge of her muscles, even through her pants. “Do you see a massage therapist?” he asked.

“Yeah, right in front of me.”

He gave her a flat look, which she smirked at.

“No. Well. Not anymore. Used to.”

“How long ago?”

“Shit, like two years ago? Two and a half? That sounds right.”

“Hm,” he said. “Why’d you stop?”

Osha was very aware that regardless of her answers about her physical health, he wouldn’t judge her—so long as she was honest with him. It was so different than having to hide and downplay her pain around the Temple, around her family.

There’s nothing wrong with you, Osha. I won’t change my mind about that. 

So she was honest. “The more I committed to rehabbing and PT, the more it required time I usually spent at the Temple. I got the feeling after a while that going to the appointments kept reminding everyone that I was injured. My dad would look at me with… this face whenever I’d leave for appointments, whenever I would tape my ankle before class; Mae would change the subject whenever I brought up doing PT, like my injury made her uncomfortable. On top of all that, weakness isn’t a sin easily forgiven in the Temple.”

He took another deep, controlled breath, this time with his eyes closed. “That, I do know.”

She wanted to ask. She wanted to ask so badly. He told her he’d tell her whatever she wanted to know. Mae didn’t ask a single thing about him for two years, and every time she remembered that, she was appalled—so why was it so hard to ask—

Fuck it.

“How?”

Their eyes met, and the air suddenly felt like a live wire. His throat bobbed quickly, and his eyes scanned her face from feature to feature—checking that she really wanted to know. Osha stayed very still, resolute. After some tense, quiet seconds, he slipped onto the couch beneath her feet, still massaging her calf’s upset, cramping muscles. Before he spoke, he licked his lips—she almost missed the first part of what he said next.

“It’s not a happy story.”

“The Temple isn’t a happy place.”

He nodded, steadying himself. “I had my first back surgery when I was six years old—I was born with a bad back; it curved to one side. They put these magnetic rods next to my spine, and they’d lengthen as I grew. When I was thirteen, the rods were removed, and the doctors at the spine clinic said I should join this… outreach program that was starting at the Temple. I needed to exercise and strengthen the muscles in my back, where they had become too reliant on the rods to control my posture.

“It made sense. It still makes sense. It’s probably the same advice I would have given myself then if I’d been asked now. It worked. I got stronger and healthier. And I was good at fighting—boxing.”

He didn’t speak with nostalgia. He spoke like a man walking on the edge of a cliff, like just glancing at the drop would pull him down. Osha’s heart raced as he told her these things. Whatever he was going to say after, it wouldn’t be pleasant.

Several seconds passed, during which the stranger didn’t speak, instead staring silently into the middle distance, lost in whatever memory had surfaced. She reached out to him, touching his hand. “Hey,” she said, dragging his attention to her, to the present. “You don’t have to tell me.”

His eyes were full of pain when he looked at her. “I want to,” he whispered.

Perhaps a bit boldly, Osha pressed her hand into his, lacing their fingers together and squeezing once. “Okay, then.”

He looked at their hands in wonderment, like he never thought they could configure themselves like that until now. It hooked a clawed breed of tenderness into her heart—the urge to protect.

It seemed to steady her stranger. By the way his shoulders dropped a little, he must have felt anchored by her touch. Gently, appreciatively, his thumb came up to rub across the back of her hand.

“I was good at it. Eventually, Vernestra mentored me personally and got me ready for competition and tournaments. I was in the ring with her every single day. And I had this… restlessness in me. I had to prove to her that I was worthy of her instruction. Some people feel like gods to a child. And you can worship and worship them, but their judgment will still leave scars deeper than anybody else.

“I wasn’t resting. Growing up, I’d been honest about my pain, my struggles—Vernestra wouldn’t hear it. Over the four years I trained with her, she managed to convince me that my pain wasn’t real; it was ignorable. But I was in pain.

“I had a truly horrific amount of stress-induced injuries on top of the typical ones that came from boxing seven days a week. The Temple saw it. They saw the seventeen-year-old killing himself for scraps of triumph that never belonged to him. The victory, the glory, belonged to her. But the consequences belonged to me.

“And when she—”

He cut himself off abruptly, swallowing around a sudden thickness in his voice. He averted his gaze, but not before she saw the shine in his eyes. He cleared his throat, blinking rapidly. His hand tightened around hers.

“I’m sorry, I haven’t talked to anyone about this before.”

Her heart ached. “It’s different. Telling someone versus having them know before they met you.”

He nodded, a little sharp and jittery. He leaned back, going still and quiet. He was doing something with his breathing. She could feel through the press of his pulse against her hand that his heart rate was slowing from the rabbity clip it’d been at a moment ago. It took less than a minute, but he calmed himself down from the riptide of emotions he’d been nearly drowned in.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, squeezing his hand back. This was a stranger—she didn’t even know his name—but she knew him. She wanted to comfort him and protect him—like how he wanted to do the same for her.

He practically slumped against the back of the couch. Sighing, he looked at her with something heavy on his shoulders. “Yeah,” he said. “Long story short, she was responsible for a completely avoidable mistake. It went down as an accident, and she slipped any blame, but under her watch, a spar went very wrong, and my spine was fractured in four places. T6, T7, T12, L1. Few ribs were broken—”

Osha couldn’t help the ragged gasp that ripped past her lips. He looked surprised and confused for a moment; then, he remembered she had no prior knowledge of his history. She took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m sorry. That’s—that’s fucking awful.” She rubbed at her chest, trying to conceal just how much his story affected her.

“You’re allowed to react to upsetting things, Osha.”

“I know,” she said, laughing bitterly. “Don’t worry about me. It’s not—don’t worry about me.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” she emphasized. “I just… this is all my own baggage, but I got so tired of comforting Sol, comforting other people when I was the one injured. It feels like I’m the only one that wants me to move on, but they can’t see me as anything but—but—”

“Broken.”

They said it simultaneously, and the following silence felt as loud as thunder. Osha nodded.

Her stranger squeezed her hand, offering to be her anchor. “Believe it or not, Osha, you’ll never be someone I tire of comforting.”

She gave a small smile, then remained quiet, as it’d keep her from saying anything else embarrassing. She encouraged him to finish saying his piece. He nodded back at her and took a deep breath.

“They didn’t know if I’d walk again. And then they didn’t know if I’d run again. My PTs and the spine clinic were the only people there for me. I didn’t hear from Vernestra or any of the other trainers at the Temple once. When I got out of surgery, I’d been erased from the face of the fucking earth.”

Anger replaced her despair and discomfort, and she didn’t know her hand was squeezing the fuck out of his until he brought their linked hands up to his mouth. A gentle kiss brushed over the back of her hand, just across her knuckles, and it stopped the whole fucking world.

His lips were soft. His eyes were dark. His hands were warm. And if he had asked, she would have done whatever he wanted.

“So… yes. I know the unforgivable sin of weakness. Intimately. But I learned an extremely valuable lesson from it.”

“What?” Osha asked, mind still caught on his lips.

“When you lose everything—and I did lose everything—that’s when you’re finally free. Free of exploitation, free of expectation. Free of delusions about the world that never served you.”

“Delusions?”

His eyes flickered down, emotions flashing in their depths. “I’d been misled to believe falsehoods about love. I loved fiercely. I had nothing but that devotion. Worship for unworthy idols. But all the people that put me in that operating theater never loved me beyond what I could do for them. It’s why none of them came to see me, to help me. Eventually, I accepted that loving them didn’t serve me, so I made a promise.”

She waited, almost holding her breath.

He made sure he looked at her to say, “I promised myself I would never love someone who wasn’t willing to go as deep as I can. And that fragile hope in my heart has been protected by that promise for over fifteen years.”

He shifted gears, changing the subject to something lighter. Osha stayed at his apartment for about three hours, long after her leg felt well enough to walk on. Still sore but functional. 

When her stranger walked her home, night had entirely enveloped the sky. The waning crescent moon glowed alone through the light pollution, lighting their path back to building 10. The stranger insisted she continue leaning on him, and she… let him persuade her.

Initially, Osha thought it was a bad idea for him to be anywhere near her front door. If Mae saw the stranger within throwing distance of their apartment, she would likely have a conniption. And if Sol saw him…

I didn’t hear from Vernestra or any of the other trainers at the Temple once.

Osha’s anger had settled in her chest like a pilot light, ready to burn anything on the word go. She didn’t know who would possibly win that fight: her wrathful father, railing against any man who got near his daughters, or the stranger, who had quite the bone to pick with the chip on his shoulder.

It was entirely possible that someone wouldn’t walk away from that fight.

A small noise from around waist height alerts her to this fact. She turns, face frozen in a grimace, to face her neighbor.

If her luck wasn’t already completely fucked for the day…

“Bazil! Hi…!” Osha didn’t rip herself from the stranger’s shoulder, but it was a near thing. She winced, stepping around him to greet possibly the strangest old man in existence.

Bazil stood a bit over four feet tall and had the thickest, fullest beard Osha had ever seen on a senior citizen. His eyes always looked at her and Mae with squinting reproach, like he disapproved of the youthful for being young—though Mae received quite a bit more of his ire than Osha, for whatever reason. Osha wasn’t sure what language he was speaking whenever he scolded them for the crime of existing nearby, but whatever it was, it surely wasn’t nice.

He muttered something, pointing a gnarled hand between her and the stranger.

The world came to a screeching halt when the stranger bowed his head and said something in that language to the old man in return.

Bazil’s eyes widened considerably and straightened to almost four and a half feet tall when he heard the stranger speak. Osha’s expression matched Bazil’s but with far less delight.

“What’s going on?” she whispered to the stranger.

“Just saying hello.”

“Do you know him?”

“Of course not.”

Bazil said something, his beard falling into a smirk shape atop his mouth. The stranger shook his head, speaking to him and gesturing between himself and Osha. He pointed up at the ceiling at one point, and Bazil nodded sagely.

Bazil then (presumably) wished them goodnight and returned to his apartment. She stared at the stranger.

“Doctor, fighter, trainer… and you speak Bazil.”

“It’s Tynnan,” he said, amused by her awe.

“And why do you know Tynnan?”

“I grew up around it.” He looked at her door. “Do you need help inside?”

She shook her head, unlocking the front and taking a step half-inside. While his curiosity sparkled in his eyes, he was only looking at her, not into the apartment. “I’ll see you tomorrow night if you’re up for it. You better rest up that leg. I’ll be able to tell if you haven’t.” He started backing away, walking backward so he could look at her longer.

Osha felt a surge of… something. She wanted to keep him here a little longer and keep their conversation going. But they’d exhausted all polite conversation, so what she ended up saying was, “Do your parents speak Tynnan or something?”

He halted, not coming closer but not walking away. His hands pushed into his jacket pockets, and he looked down at the doormat beneath Osha’s foot. “I don’t know.”

She frowned. “You said you grew up around it, though.”

“Osha…” he said, so soft it was like he hadn’t meant to say it. His body swayed forward an inch or two. His center of gravity wanted him to cross those last few steps to her and continue this conversation in whispers instead of across this distance. He met her eyes, uncertainty in their depths despite all they spoke of that evening. “One of the custodians at the orphanage spoke Tynnan. That’s where I learned it.”

He breathed in through his nose, straightening up again the way he did when things got a little uncomfortable.

Information, implications, inferences—they all hit Osha like a fucking firehose.

And still, all she asked was, “Were they nice?”

He gave a startled laugh, just as surprised as she was by her question. He blinked, and the guarded look disappeared from his eyes. A shaky smile spread across his face, relief, joy, and gratitude in one.

“He was.”

“I’m glad.”

The silence held for another beat, and he tilted his shoulder back, turning to leave at last. “Good night, Osha.”

“Good night.”

CHAPTER 9

[fox-bright]

nice ask!!! what's a nice kendo memory you have, if you feel like sharing?

This is lovely, thank you!

A favorite memory...hmm. This might not be precisely what you're looking for? But here's a non-traditional one.

I was standing watching a match at the US Nationals, trying to keep my legs from getting too cooled down before my next fight. There was one of those sort of wide ribbon dividers, you know the type, like a pole strung with something like seatbelt material, that wind themselves up like a measuring tape when not in use? The kind that connect to each other with little dongles. I was running my hand across the ribbon as I walked, not really thinking about it, when suddenly I felt a tap tap tap on my palm, like someone's fingers brushing past mine to gently touch me. I looked up, startled, and realized that thirty feet or so away, one of the Sensei who was also watching the match had idly reached down and was drumming his fingers on the ribbon.

He was paying me no attention at all, but it felt weirdly like he was holding my hand. I wasn't attracted to this man (though he was very handsome, and quick as a whip), but I admired him. Feeling the ghost of his hand in mine, all at once I was seized by this sort of...overwhelming sense of philia, this swooping tumble of love for everyone in the room, all of us there to struggle and sharpen ourselves against each other, and uplift each other. The moms who were supporting their children in the youth brackets, and the sensei-mothers whose husbands were sitting in the stands, dandling toddlers, and the college boys who had been practicing since they were eight or nine, and the middle-aged women who started in their thirties, just...this incredible press of blue-clad, hollering humanity. It took my breath away. I loved them all so much.

[cinebration]

Hardly Believe It (Tuck x Reader) [Request]

Hello! How are you? Thankyou for this selfless social service you do here lol. I absolutely love your writing.

Can I request a friends to lovers drabble for Eames or Tuck where they hold hands with their friend so as to not loose them in a big crowd?

Thankyou so much💜—Requested by anon

Enjoy this Christmas fluff!

Warnings: crowds, anxiety

Gif Source: dilfgifs

“This is a terrible idea,” you groaned as Tuck finally found an empty parking space. “I should’ve just ordered stuff online.”

“The last things you ordered were nicked,” he countered, killing the engine and unclipping his seatbelt. “This isn’t ideal, but there are no alternatives.”

“Yes there are.”

“Really? Enlighten me.”

Resisting the urge to smack the back of his head, you grumbled, “I could just not get anything.”

“And disappoint your family?” He snickered. “What would your aunt say?”

Lips twisting in displeasure, you folded your arms over your chest, the seatbelt still firmly attached to its anchor. “What if I give you my credit card and you can just buy it all?”

Tuck eyed you, then arched both eyebrows. “Fine. I will go and buy the most inappropriate things in the place for your loved ones.” He pulled the keys from the ignition.

“You wouldn’t dare!”

“Serves you right for being stingy.”

“You wouldn’t,” you insisted. “You’re British!”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Stiff upper lip and all that crap, you know!”

Snorting, Tuck opened the car door and stepped out, letting it fall shut behind him. He slipped out of view.

“You forgot the credit card,” you shouted through the glass, groaning again. With the engine off, the winter chill began leeching the heat out of the car.

Your door opened, Tuck leaning down and across to unclick your seatbelt before you could protest. Yanking you to your feet, he hip-checked the door shut and began herding you through the parking lot and into the mall.

“Bastard,” you hissed.

“This is payback for the bowling incident.”

“My God, aren’t you ever going to let that go?”

“Bowling!”

Rolling your eyes, you managed to quip before Tuck pulled open the department store door, “FDR had a great time.”

“Yes, well, he’s American.”

A wall of heat hit you as you entered the store. The heating unit had been working overtime to combat the winter cold, and the sheer number of people milling around inside for last-minute Christmas shopping added a stuffy layer of humidity you immediately wanted to escape from.

“Please,” you whispered, seizing Tuck’s elbow. “This is almost as bad as Black Friday.”

Anxiety flooded through you as you recalled the Black Friday from two years before. Crushed in a mass of bodies, elbows digging into ribs and hips, you had suffered a bruised collarbone and a twisted ankle when some man yanked the box from your hands hard enough to send you flying into someone else’s shopping cart.

“I’m here this time,” Tuck assured you. “And it isn’t as bad, see?”

You swept your gaze around the mall. All you could see were the last-minute shoppers milling the aisles, the space filled with a sea of bodies.

“They’re less rabid,” you conceded—but just barely, anxiety buzzing painfully beneath your skin.

Tuck started forward, weaving his way through the crowd. You hesitated to follow, and the crowd swallowed him up.

“Tuck!”

You scanned the crowd, struggling to distinguish his head from everyone else. Panic clawed up your throat, raking icy fingers along your spine as your breath grew ragged, heart thundering in your chest. There was nothing but people, a crushing onslaught of bodies you couldn’t get through. They shot you strange glances, lips curling into sneers, jeers of laughter ringing in your ears.

“Tuck!”

“I’m right here,” Tuck said, appearing beside you.

Tears filled your vision. Furiously blinking them away, you breathed a sigh of relief, a trembling hand pressing to your forehead as you caught your breath.

“Come on, then.”

“I can’t do this,” you muttered, your fingertips coated with cold sweat.

Tuck’s hand pressed reassuringly on your shoulder. Glancing at him, you met his comforting gaze.

“I’m right here,” he repeated. “You won’t get hurt.”

Still unconvinced, you managed a jerky nod.

Tuck’s hand slid down your shoulder and closed around yours, fingers intertwining. Frowning, you stared at them as Tuck led you through the crowd, weaving easily among the shoppers with no incident. His hand was warm, palm dry and rough, scraping deliciously against yours. You found yourself focusing on the sensation, distracting you from the chaos around you.

“Where’s your list?” Tuck asked.

“What?”

“What are you buying for your family?”

“Oh.” With your free hand, you fished around in your pockets until you found the unevenly folded list written on a paper towel. Tuck took it wordlessly, but a chuff of amusement slipped past his full lips.

“Most of these are found in the same section,” he noted. “We’ll finish in no time. And the queue isn’t too long.”

“Sure,” you mumbled.

To your surprise, Tuck wasn’t wrong. The little basket he picked up on the way inside filled with gifts in twenty minutes, and then you were both in a medium-length line for the cashier. Tuck held onto your hand the entire time, even all the way out to the car.

When you had to let go, you felt the loss of his touch keenly in a way you never had before.

The drive back to your home was quiet, your thoughts a confusing whirlwind. Tuck helped you carry the gifts inside.

“Now, then,” he declared, having deposited them on the kitchen table. “Where is your gear?”

“What?”

“To wrap the gifts, love.”

Heart tripping in your chest, you retrieved the gift-wrapping supplies from above the linen closet and dumped them onto the table. “You don’t have to help.”

“Why not? I don’t mind.”

After a few minutes of silent wrapping—though the work itself wasn’t quiet, the bags and wrapping paper and tissue paper crinkling in a comforting cacophony—you said, “Thank you, Tuck.”

He flashed a warm smile in your direction. “It’s no bother.”

“No, I mean…thank you for helping me at the store. I…I wouldn’t have been able to do it without you.”

The smile softened a fraction. “It’s no bother,” he repeated.

Nodding, you slapped some tape onto the gift you were wrapping, your eyes glued to the festive pattern on the paper. The words moved through your thick throat. “How long have we been friends, Tuck?”

“Three or four years now, I imagine.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“Do you think…maybe we should try something else?”

The silence threatened to suffocate you. You refused to look up, anxiety breaking out in painful gooseflesh along your arms and the back of your neck.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Quailing, you shook your head. “Nevermind. I’m talking shit, that’s all. Blah blah blah.”

Gathering up the packages that had already been wrapped, you hurried from the room to deposit them in your room. Face burning, you fought the emotions roiling in your chest.

“Stupid,” you hissed to yourself. “Stupid stupid stupid!”

Footsteps followed after you. Heart leaping into your throat, you steeled yourself.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tuck repeated, trying to catch your eye.

“Forget it. It’s just the leftover anxiety talking. I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

You tried to step past him. His hand closed gently over your wrist, stopping you in your tracks. The proximity of his body to yours sent a shiver down to your toes.

“Are you saying you want to be more than friends?”

“Look,” you backpedaled, “I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t want to ruin things, okay? You were just so nice to me today, I got confused, that’s all.”

“I know you,” he insisted, preventing you from stepping around him again. “You don’t say anything without meaning it. So answer the question.”

Panic thickened your tongue. “What was the question again?”

The words slipped over his lips in a low whisper. “Are you saying you want to be more than friends?”

Blood rushed through your ears. You risked a glance at him, unable to avoid his gaze any longer. His guarded expression confused you.

“Y-yes,” you stuttered.

Tuck’s lips parted in surprise. You tugged on his grip, desperate to flee, to escape the riot of emotions burning beneath your skin.

“I was worried,” he said.

You shot him a confused frown. “W-worried?”

“I was worried you didn’t feel the same. I was too…scared to ask.”

“Wait…are you saying…?”

His lips pulled into a sweet smile, making your heart ache. Nodding, he lifted your hand up to his chest, pressed it against his heart.

Disbelief disoriented you. “I’m dreaming, right? This isn’t really happening?”

“It is happening,” he assured you, pressing his forehead against yours. “I can hardly believe it either.”

“You’ve…you’ve wanted this? For how long?”

“Months now.”

“And you didn’t say anything…”

“Because I was afraid of losing you if I was wrong.”

“So we could’ve been together months ago?” A spark of annoyance flared. “All that wasted time!”

“Patience is a virtue, love.”

You choked on a laugh. “Sure, now the Britishness comes out.”

He grinned. “It’s my best weapon.”

You laughed, overwhelmed with it all, still confused and not quite believing it. A sense of unreality flooded you.

Tuck closed the distance and swept you up into a kiss, knocking aside all your doubts.

[shih-coulda-had-it]

6 kink nanahiko!

6. car sex || wc: ~700 || continuation of this ficlet! (so, a fuller entry into the nana lives!AU... hm)

//

“What happened to not having sex inside the car?” Sorahiko demands, as Nana takes advantage of Float to leave the driver’s seat and hover over him in the passenger’s, pinning him with one hand while reaching down to crank the lever with the other. He lets out a startled huff when the chair--previously lowered--forces him to sit upright.

Nana hadn’t had many opinions about the construction of the supercar, but she was very insistent about two things: a roomy footwell for long legs, and the capability to polarize the windows.

“You looked like you were having a good time,” she says breezily. There is a click as Sorahiko releases the seatbelt lock, and Nana withdraws her hand before it snags on the retracting line. She shrugs off her jacket and slings it to the backseat.

“Your eyes weren’t on the road?”

“I’m a great multitasker.” For example, first Nana unzips the upper half of her top, and then while Sorahiko struggles to piece together a good response, she seizes the waistband of his underwear and yanks it down to join his jeans where they’ve been left at mid-thigh. 

“You are a romantic,” Sorahiko says, unfairly, because he draws her in for a kiss, cupping her face with both hands. It is soft for the occasion, sweet and chaste despite Nana’s intentions to make the supercar a site of raunchy memories. Nana feels herself melt into it and valiantly keeps to her plan.

She’s Floating and the windows are polarized. Nana grasps Sorahiko’s thin wrists, breaks the kiss but keeps her mouth near his ears, and as she guides his hands to her own jeans, she whispers, “Help me take ‘em off.”

He acknowledges the order with a groaned, “Yes,” and deftly unbuckles the belt, undoes the button and the zipper. Her jeans and underwear are dragged down. They make it past her knees, but Nana’s forgotten to unlace her boots. Shit. 

Ah, it’s fine. The position Nana has in mind works without her being able to kick Sorahiko’s ass.

“You Floatin’ for this?” he asks.

“One second.” Nana spins around. She tucks her legs in and point her boots to the footwell, braces her hands at the ceiling and the safety handle, fits herself against Sorahiko. His erection is very present against her rear; Sorahiko clutches everything but Nana and hisses a curse. “Should I re-tie my hair?”

“It’s in my mouth,” he reports miserably. “I’ll do it.”

And he does. From the half up-do, Sorahiko tugs the band free and collects her long hair into one unbroken stream. He sweeps it up into a low ponytail, then kisses the sensitive space behind her ear to signal a job well done. She shivers. She drops Float and sits heavily in his lap, eliciting a louder, clearer, “Holy fuck--”

“This is cozy,” she says, smug. Nana snatches one white-knuckled hand and flattens it against her abdomen. She slides it down, down, until Sorahiko’s touching the core of her blind. 

“You forgot the condom,” Sorahiko rasps. “You’re gonna ride me and put me away wet?”

“Hey, we’ve got several hours before Toshinori’s plane lands. We can ventilate the car and get a quick shower before parking in Narita.”

He grinds the heel of his palm against her clit, tests her readiness to take him without fingering. They haven’t had time or space to have full penetrative sex for a bit, but Nana’s dreamed about fucking Sorahiko in this car since the Commission’s techs entrusted her with the key. She whines out loud when he sinks two inside, straightaway, and his other hand gropes at her chest, holding Nana closer.

“Yeah,” she breathes, bearing down on the fingers, breasts heaving against the restraint. “Yeah, Sorahiko, that’s exactly it. Come on. Give it to me.”

“How are you this wet,” he says. He sounds dazed with the wanting. “You weren’t even the one touching yourself for the past fifteen minutes.” (Yeah, so she probably broke a speeding law getting to this secluded parking point, but they’re off the expressway. When Sorahiko tells her to hurry the fuck up, Nana puts her foot on the gas pedal. Sue her.)

“Multitasking,” Nana answers, and she laughs when he grumbles.

[nyxrev]

Tsukuyomi Trilogy

Chapter II: Icarus

A boy who flew too close to the sun

………….————- *Moon Craters Highway radio,

Welcome back. Last time we left off at eugenics and esp tricks. Buckle your seatbelts folks we're about to go downhill. Full throttle ahead with an Eastward turbulence.

“From our surveillance data…” *!!!* **red flag**

…eh? we could't even grasp the battle situation (much less catch any data) on our end though?

With the sisters held hostage, our moon agent releases Demon level monsters from the floor below. Now, exactly how much he knows about the HA floor plan idk, but the extent to which he is familiar with mechanisms of what we can see should already draw concern, if earlier mention of their “data” did not already perk up our ears.

Unfortunately, though execs felt brief confusion they brush off their uneasy sentiment, and soon forget about it as the agent thanks them for the valuable “specimen” and their focus is drawn to money matters.

The fact they don't immediately feel suspicious, nor try to discreetly ask an outsider about how they acquired such extensive data on what was supposed to be so secretive an operation, even their own people could not get data, and are so gullibly unwary of the outsider with undisclosed data to proceed “trades”, not only exposes how desperate for funds they are, it also exposes their catastrophic lack of critical awareness. Smb boutta get caught for gross negligence, except them execs will prolly get let off easy.

See, the world runs on money most luxurious of which often acquired through nefarious means. Sure, money can buy you comfort and security, but comes with an equally expensive cost. Well, you could buy comfort, but you might soon find out you pay for it… For example, perhaps we are already *quite very* familiar with circumstances of compromised critical security… You see…we can't let you have both at once now, can we…

The agent prepares to make his grand exit, and as he juggles the psychic sisters he declares all smug, “nobody would question the de*th of the witch sisters anytime soon, now would they?”

Excuse me young man I wholly disagree. In fact everyone who knows them would question their de* th more than anyone else's for no one would believe they'd go down so easily to some caged monsters. You should know better by now, what with Tatsumaki as an indispensable pillar of HA, and Fubuki an influential figure.

Cosmic Mad Hatter and the Oreo Hoops Boy

…A new party emerges from the suited group…and leaves the fray. Eyelashes shouts, enraged, “so You're the bastard…” who dr—gged Fubuki. Outrageous. Traitor. I mean, can you really call him traitor when he'd always been a spy?

It'd do well for Blizzard regulars to stay together get to know each other well so they can discern who (among them & out) is trustworthy.

Furious, they attack n I realized it's the first time I've seen Eyelashes' we.*pon, I always wondered how he'd fight with a pair of eyelash curlers. Not so benign a cosmetic tool now, eh?

But they're no match for psychic retaliation…Oh and doesn't Mad Hatter look like Choze there? Eyes of eugenic superiority complex.

Fubuki cares about her subordinates and I hope she cares about them as people and not assets, as I'm sure they each can learn and grow strong enough to hold their own, to truly help her grow as a person as well.

At the critical moment, Saitama crashes out of the monster den with his usual punch, shock on every face present, but distraction is fatal for an agent on mission and Tatsumaki seizes an open defence to strike. As expected, she would never let herself be compromised for naught.

“Found it” she reclaims autonomy…and oh how the tables have turned. All while she was bound, she located the p!ll. Smart.

silent agent panic “the capsule won't react…!?” Of course not, once Tatsumaki has control, you will never be able to reclaim control over it. Behold her power and precision, amateur.

What happens next, we all know. He gets gently poked 3x by 1 lil p!ll n-—-dle.

Excellent now your brilliant plan backfired most disastrously, you*&*your cult is humiliated, and I'm stuck here with you for the next 24hr as you try to rush to a psychic hospital if it even exists.

Why did he turn two shades darker as he teeter-totters two steps away from de*th, oh pois0ned bl*-*d mb. Tbh, at first I thought mb the p!ll was just sleep, and he said it had poison to bluff, but his pitiful state now, doesn't look too well. Hope you not allergic or got antidote for whatever it is

“Look I'll have you spit out all you know about Tsukuyomi later, you hear me” Now you rly see and feel the terror of tornado, right next to you.

I, too, want to t0rment you gently, for you made the most careless mistakes and lost your prizes.

Fly next to the Sun too keen and get burnt.

As Tatsumaki, at full threat, makes our poor fool of an agent spill the beans I can't help but recall an uncanny similarity between Apollo and Amai when he got poked by Do-S. Look at him, vessels emerged, almost monstrous.

Makes you wonder what they did to them, what happened under the kn!fe to get their artificially activated psychic power and how they maintain or strengthen it, right? I wouldn't be surprised if they did contact God on the Moon to get power or try to anyway. Maybe some of them, artificial psychics, are even monsterized for their hunger for power. Just a stray thought but I do wonder.

Now Apollo's mission to the Moon is honourably jeopardized, his failure might get him fired who knows, but Tatsumaki rightly spares no pity nor mercy and not only keeps enemy compromised but gets the job done thorough and through, all the way to the last precautionary step.

The spy, he manages to slip out of house arrest, but gets no pass and is thrown on the wall most gracefully as he makes meagre attempt to run.

My humour is broken as Garou's hut but I found it funny he just went “Bu-” … if you squint extra hard his knocked out form might even look a lil bit like the shape of ぶッ bahaha

On a serious note, I didn't expect Tsukuyomi to get their prizes or even escape unscathed, but I did wish they proved trickier to defeat, not* bc I want to see Tatsumaki suffer (MA was :'|) but bc I want to see her be decently challenged, not to traumatic extent, but by what challenges her to problem solve and use her smarts as well as but more than brute strength. To see her grow from catalytic challenges or experiences, so she is no longer so stubborn to fend for herself, her sister & co. alone, but can learn to work with and trust others, like we saw with Genos.

Let's stop here for now. Next chapter will be the last. It is short, but I should like to address what will prompt more questions than answers.

…^^^vroom vroom zoomies on highway to hell*

Pardon my weird amount of text censors. It got flagged or whatever it's called last time n idk what triggers the algorithm so. I had to crop out the first two panels of the scene where he got backfired literally cuz idk if photos also trigger the system. But the first two were most obvious similarity to Amai's broken mask so ifykyk

[coldresolve]

Moneymakers, pt.xi // Lazarus

Previous / AO3 / Masterlist / Next

The wipers are switched to their highest setting, yet still struggle to hectically sweep at the rain pouring down on the Clio’s windshield. Renee ashes his cigarette out the slit in the window, then holds the butt loosely between his teeth as he turns onto a supermarket parking lot, eyes scanning for the green vehicle he knows is waiting for him. Empty as the lot is - as this whole area of town seems to be this time of year – it doesn’t take long before he spots it, parked in the furthest corner under the half-cover canopy of a couple of trees.

Renee parks his car next to it, cringing a little at how easily the handle of the handbrake moves into its farthest notch. He leaves the car in first gear before he kills the engine. The parking lot doesn’t slope, but he doesn’t want to risk the Clio going on any adventures while he’s here. Not least because it’d be embarrassing.

He spots Lazarus through the windows, seemingly so lost in his phone that he hasn’t noticed Renee arriving at all. That has to be a charade – usually, nothing gets past that man.

Renee clicks himself free of his seatbelt, haphazardly discarding the cigarette butt in a half-full takeaway cup, and grabs his phone from the dashboard, pausing briefly before he opens the door to look past the tree crowns to the dark clouds which don’t show even a sliver of a hint that they intend to seize their downpour. Counting to three, he gets out. Immediately, his sweatshirt is dotted with dark circles where the cold rain hits him. Cursing, Renee pulls open the passenger door of Lazarus’ car and shimmies through, shutting the door hard the moment he has pulled his feet inside.

Lazarus’ car, apart being a class bigger than his own, is also considerably cleaner. Here, months’ worth of dirt and gravel hasn’t built up on the floor mats, and fast-food bags and tissues don’t lie discarded in the seats.

As Renee brushes the dampness from his hair, Lazarus looks up at him. “Long time no see,” he says, and his crooked smile is genuine.

As if seeing the man for the first time, Renee is once again taken aback by just how good he looks, with his hair parted down the middle, framing his face in warm brown; his criminally long lashes; that jawline of his that looks like it could cut stone.

Reasonably satisfied his hair will no longer drip, Renee leans across the center console and presses his lips to Lazarus’, cupping his hand in the nape of his neck to pull him closer. He feels the stiffness of surprise in the other melt away into willingness, a call answered.

“Too fuckin’ long,” Renee breathes, leaning his forehead against Lazarus’, “if you ask me.” He kisses him again and then trails down, about ready to bury himself in his neck when a hand runs down his chest to gently push him away.

“Business first,” Lazarus murmurs in his ear.

Humming his displeasure, Renee sinks back into the passenger seat.

Lazarus laughs a little. “You’ve shown up with empty pockets before, Renee. I’m not here just to waste my time.”

Renee grimaces. “Way to ruin the mood,” he mutters. “It happened once, man.”

“And I don’t forget.” Although the tone is stern, there is nothing judgmental to find in Lazarus’ smile. “C’mon,” he says. “Tell me what you’re in the market for.”

Renee pouts, absentmindedly pulling out his phone to log onto his wallet. “The usual,” he grumbles.

Lazarus laughs again at his tone, planting a quick kiss on his cheek before he turns to climb over the center console to the back seat. “Don’t be so grim, big guy,” he calls back. Even if Renee hadn’t seen it, the grin in Lazarus’ voice would be unmistakable.

Damn him. He’s one of those people it’s hard to stay mad at.

Renee twists in his seat, looping an arm around the headrest to watch Lazarus unlocking one of the back seats and laying it down, giving him access to the trunk.

As Lazarus fishes for the stash hidden in the compartment that’s supposed to house a spare tire, Renee can’t help but let his eyes wander uninhibited down the man’s body, noting the way the black shirt hitches up to expose a sliver of skin, the way his jeans fit around his hips.

Renee clears his throat. “Do you, uh, have acid?”

Lazarus looks back at him and shakes his head. “Not currently, no. I know where to get it, though.”

“Molly?”

“That, I have in stock.”

Lazarus raises an eyebrow, and Renee nods in confirmation to the unspoken question.

“Sixty milligrams enough for you?” Lazarus asks. “I don’t have one-twenty.”

“Sixty will have to do, then. Ah, give me twenty or something.”

Lazarus nods and ducks back into the trunk.

The rain hits the roof of the car in staccato taps, rushes down the windows in shallow streams. Renee watches as a car drives by on the road outside, tires trailing up misty sprays of water that has collected on the roads.

Lazarus emerges from the trunk, dragging out a small precision scale and a steel box locked with a padlock on the front. He lays both out on the back seat, pulls a key from his pocket, and opens it. Lazarus filters through its contents, largely obscured by a mess of zip-lock bags, until he pulls out one that’s full of chunky pills, in a variety of shapes and colors. He carefully counts the pills into one hand and then lets them spill into an empty bag.

Closing the bag, he catches Renee’s eye and hands it to him. “I think I miscounted,” he says ruefully.

Renee grins back at him as he pockets the pills. “Aw, shucks.”

As Lazarus pulls out a zip-lock bag of white powder, Renee feels how his eyes become hungry.

“How much?” Lazarus asks.

Renee rubs the back of his neck, feeling a smile creep up on the corner of his mouth. “Give me thirty grams.”

Lazarus pauses, eyeing Renee with mild incredulity. “Got a job, did you?”

Renee grins at him. “Sure did.”

Lazarus snorts. Placing the precision scale on the lid of a steel box, he sets to work measuring out a cut of the product. “What kind of job, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ah.” Renee drums a bit on the back of the seat, hands flat against the corduroy. He can’t quite keep the restlessness out of his voice. “I moderate a stream, actually.”

Lazarus glances up at him. “Like a Twitch stream?”

“Yeah, exactly.” Renee purses his lips. “It’s all kind of hush-hush. The guy I work for is paranoid as shit.”

“I didn’t know there was money in that. Modding, I mean.”

Renee grins. “You’d be surprised.”

It takes a while to calculate the price in dollars, and another to calculate the corresponding price with the current exchange rate of Lazarus’ preferred coin, but eventually, Renee can show him the transaction code, finalizing the deal. He hates how formal the whole thing feels, but Lazarus prefers doing it this way.

Once Renee can feel the weight and rustling of the product in his jacket pocket, Lazarus packs down the scale and steel boxes again, meticulously arranging the black mat, and Renee is nearly bursting at the seams with impatience. “I fuckin’ missed our meetings,” he says, a little too enthusiastically.

Lazarus chuckles, lifting the back seat up until it clicks into place. He nonchalantly slides down against the seat, not hiding his amusement at seeing Renee’s eager expression. “That so?”

“Yeah.”

Lazarus cocks his head to the side, a sly smile playing on his lips. “Come get it, then.”

He doesn’t have to ask twice.

💵

It’s still raining when Renee pulls back up to his parents’ vacation home, to the point where the gutter right next to the driveway is flooded as evidently, even the sewers are struggling to keep up. Renee parks on the road and gets out, walking briskly to get under the half-roof by the front door. Sheltered from the rain, he smokes a cigarette, tripping the entire time as the coldness of the air seeps through his clothes, chilling him to the bone. There’s a comfortable soreness in him, though, a satisfaction that can’t be wiped away as easily as with mere weather.

He doesn’t bother snuffing out the butt before he throws it into a pot of his mother’s withered petchoas and heads inside. Be it now or later, they’ll burn all the same.

At the dining table, Davin looks up from his laptop as Renee enters, hand frozen in the middle of writing something in a notebook. “Where’ve you been?”

“Out,” Renee answers as he shrugs off his jacket.

Davin seems to wait for an elaboration, but when it doesn’t come, he shrugs and returns to his work.

Eyes meandering to a wall clock, Renee wonders briefly if it’s too early in the day to start drinking. Concludes it’s definitely five o’clock somewhere.

Equipped with all the essentials of bourgeois leisure, the kitchen also features a small wine cooler built into the island. Renee, deciding he’s had enough of rum and coke, scours that cooler for any leftovers from summer, and is pleased to find two bottles of rosé scattered in among the reds. Although Renee isn’t usually a fan of wine, rosé has always been his exception – the sweeter blends, at least.

He pours a serving for himself in a normal glass, switching it around to watch the liquid stick to the sides, trailing down in streaks. One of the expensive ones, then. Nonchalantly, he walks over to stand behind Davin, looking over the man’s shoulder.

Half of the laptop screen is taken up by code, and the other – by the site Davin built to host the livestreams. Its design is so bare-bones, it might as well pass for another market or some whistleblower’s safe confessions. It features no art or images, only white and red text on a black background. Not even the font is particularly eye-catching. But that’s the standard for sites built in this field – here, practicality and security is valued above aesthetics.

“You redoing things?” Renee asks.

“Just ah… looking over things. Again.” Davin gestures at the notebook.

“Mhm.” Renee takes a sip of the rosé, then has to grit his teeth to keep from coughing at its dryness. He eyes the glass with newfound disgust. When he sits down next to Davin he places it a little too far out of reach on the table. “How are we doing?”

“Uh,” Davin says. “We hit over five hundred views at the peak of things,” Davin mutters, pointing to the screen.

Renee whistles. “That’s pretty good.”

Davin hesitates. “I hoped things would roll off a little faster,” he says.

“Nah, man,” Renee chuckles, “you worry too much. You said it yourself: once the story hits the mainstream, that’s a catalyst. It’ll work, man. It’s fucking crazy, but it’s gonna work.”

He laughs, then feels a smidgeon of uncertainty when Davin doesn’t respond to it in kind.

“Or am I stupid for having faith in it?”

Davin grimaces but makes no attempt at answering him. Renee drums a little on the table to egg him on.

“It’s just,” Davin says eventually, a little carefully, “that the moment the story hits the mainstream, the FBI will already have a team assembled to crack the site, yeah? And by then, it’s just a matter of time.”

“Before what?”

“Before we slip up,” Davin says, matter-of-factly.

Renee pauses at that. Drums on the table for a bit before he decides the dry rosé deserves another go. He takes a large gulp, closing his nose to the taste as he feels the alcohol bite in his throat. “Let’s not count on slipping up,” he says on the exhale.

Davin snorts, but nods solemnly, eyes trailing down the code scribbles in his notebook. “Why’d you think I keep checking our code? Same reason we’re torching this place when we’re done here. I don’t like taking chances.”

“Alright.” Sitting in an atmosphere that threatens to turn too heavy with the weight of what they just discussed, Renee tries not to fidget too much as he changes the subject. “I actually had some ideas I wanted to throw your way,” he says. “For the streams, I mean.”

The sigh Davin lets out is hard to not interpret as overbearing. “Shoot,” he says.

“First off – I want to be able to see chat during the stream.”

Davin nods, half-shrugging his shoulder. “Easy enough.”

“Secondly,” Renee says, and pauses, struggling to phrase it right. “We have to get rid of the gag, man.”

Davin’s nonchalant composure falters at that. “You want to let Conrad speak…?”

Renee nods.

“…during the stream,” Davin finishes. He lets the statement hang in the air for a moment. “Did you not hear what I just said?”

Renee shakes his head, holding his finger up for pause. “He can beg, I’m telling you. We’re letting all his eloquence go to waste.”

Davin blinks. “You’re clinically insane.”

“See, that’s the good part,” Renee grins. “I actually thought of a way to do it, and it’s very fucking clever.”

Davin leans back in his seat, folding his hands across his stomach. “Pray tell,” he says sarcastically.

“A delay,” Renee says.

Davin blinks.

“A delay in the stream,” Renee elaborates.

Davin blinks again.

Rolling his eyes, Renee pulls his chair closer to Davin’s and leans in as if confiding a secret. “Here’s how it looks in my head, alright? We let Conrad speak, but the stream runs on a delay of, say, thirty seconds. So in case he does decide to say my name, or say where we are, or anything like that, all you have to do is edit the feed in real time by cutting out that section of video. Maybe I beat him up a bit for ruining a perfectly good stream – problem solved, no harm done.”

For a long moment, there’s a furrow to Davin’s brow as he thinks over the possibility. Renee watches the man’s expression carefully, until finally, their eyes meet again. “That’s actually not a bad idea,” Davin says.

“Yeah!” Renee exclaims, grinning wide. “Admit it. I’m the smartest person in this house.”

Davin laughs. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself,” he says.

Previous / Masterlist / Next

[supercantaloupe]

contextless wip be upon ye. thank you to the people who left writing prompts in my inbox. this isn't for one of those so sorry. but at least i got something written today

The car tears forward. They both stare ahead, blankly, Ethan panting to catch his breath and still his heartbeat. “John, pull over,” he wheezes. John doesn’t answer; his grip on the wheel is white-knuckled. “John, stop the car,” Ethan repeats, panicked. “Or I’m gonna hurl on your leather seats.”

The car lurches to a stop, Ethan’s stomach going with it. He shoves the door open and leans out, depositing it onto the curb. He groans. The door behind him clicks open. When the wave of nausea passes, Ethan steps out of the car into the cool night air to catch his breath. He bends over, arms on his knees. John stands in the road beside the car, looking at nothing, silent. 

“John,” Ethan heaves. John doesn’t react. “John,” he repeats.

“What,” John finally answers, barely moving his head. 

“What are we going to do?” Ethan asks, standing up. 

“What do you mean, what are we going to do,” John returns quietly. 

“We have to go back,” Ethan insists, panic creeping back in. “We have to do someth--”

“No!” John snaps, suddenly alive. He whirls around, eyes wide. “No, we can’t.”

“John, he could be--!”

“Shut up!!” John barks. Ethan watches his eyes dart around and his fingers twitch. “Let me think,” he says, quiet again.

“Is this what you wanted?” Ethan blurts out. “Are you satisfied yet? My god, first the girl, now this, is it--?”

John seizes him by the shirt collar and shoves him against the hood of the car, knocking the wind out of him. “I said shut up,” he warns, icy and sharp. “Unless you want to be next.”

“No! No,” Ethan capitulates, high pitched and fearful. “I’m shutting up! I’m shutting up.”

John lets go and backs up a step, turning away. He chews on his lip, and holds a hand to his chin to hide it. After a moment of stillness, he says, “Get back in the car. You drive.”

Ethan swallows the lump in his throat and nods, stepping into the driver’s side through the still-open door. John walks around and settles into the passenger seat. 

“Home,” John instructs. 

Ethan very deliberately clicks his seatbelt in, then shifts into drive. “Yeah, yes, yeah,” he stammers under his breath, trying to stay calm. His hands are trembling. “Let’s just go back to the apartment and sleep it off. Yeah…”

“Not the apartment,” John corrects firmly. Ethan glances at him through the corner of his eye; John is staring straight ahead, sunk down into his seat, face hard and stolid. “Home.”

Ethan draws in a breath and lets it out. “Right. Okay. Home,” he repeats, and pulls out of the neighborhood and onto the highway.

[emiarainewrites]

Imagine tagging along with Arthur & Grace during the Blood Drive race

(Gif not mine)

Sorry this took so long to put out. I’ve got another one with Jonathan Julian in mind.

Anyone who hasn’t seen this show, please check it out. It’s awesome and terrific, totally unique and was cancelled WAY TOO SOON. It needs more love.

Arthur was the first to spot you at the side of the road. Broken down car, bloody and beat up, limply waving as you clung to the open driver door.

“Grace, stop the car!”

“Why?”

Grace paid no mind to the panic in Arthur’s voice. He was a softie, after all. Which meant an incredible liability in the race. So with Grace determined to win and keep her head in the process, she couldn’t risk always listening to Arthur’s “kind hearted good boy” concerns.

“Up there!” Arthur pointed at the fast approaching vehicle and it’s clearly injured passenger. “Someone’s hurt. We need to help them.”

Grace didn’t take her eyes off the road. “No can do, Barbie. We’re finally ahead of everyone else. No way I’m slowing down now.”

“Grace, we have to do something!”

“No, we don’t,” she frowned, literally putting her foot down on the accelerator.

With the broken down car about to pass them and your body obviously slumping to the ground, Arthur quickly made up his mind.

Within seconds his seatbelt was undone and the car door was open as Arthur threw himself out of Grace’s car.

“Shit!”

Grace slammed on the brakes immediately. The sleek red car skidded and spun to a painful stop as Grace threw forward in her seat. Looking behind her she could see Arthur jump to his feet and rush over to whoever he claimed needed help.

She clenched her jaw and put Sexy Suzy in reverse. “I’m gonna kill him,” she grumbled.

Arthur checked for a pulse and was relieved to discover you were still alive. He tried gently to shake you awake, thankful when your head rose up. You were covered in blood. There had clearly been some kind of a scrap. Stuck out in the desert for god knows how long, your skin was dry and your eyes could barely stay open.

“Hey, listen to me,” Arthur said, putting his hands on your arms. “You’re gonna be alright. I’m gonna help you, okay? Can you stand?”

Despite the delirium you were experiencing and the dehydration seizing your system, you managed to nod, barely been able to make out the face of your saviour.

Arthur guided your arm around his shoulders and swooped his own across your back. Standing up was not an easy task.

Grace’s car screeched to a halt in front of Arthur, the door flying open.

“Get in, Barbie! And don’t ever do that again!”

She seemed to ignore your presence entirely.

“They need help, Grace!”

“Not interested. We don’t have to get fuel yet anyway.”

Arthur, unimpressed and still not comfortable with that notion, limped you over to the car.

“Don’t even think about it,” Grace warned. “We need to get back to the race before anyone else catches up.”

“We can’t leave them here.”

“Yes, we can.”

“Well, I can’t. What if this were you?”

“It wouldn’t be.” After all, Grace wouldn’t let herself get stranded. She was too smart for that.

But she could also see that Arthur wasn’t giving up. And the more time they spent arguing about this, the more time that gave the competition behind them.

Grace sharply rolled her eyes, relenting.

“Fine, put them in the back. But make it quick.”

The briefest smile was all the response Arthur gave her. Might have been nice had it not been for the ‘you did the right thing’ quality he gave off.

Grace huffed as Arthur hauled you into the backseat.

“If they get blood on my car, they’re going in the engine.”

As soon as Arthur was back in, Grace took off, not giving time for him to apply his seatbelt. He turned back around to you, lying across the backseat, barely conscious.

“There should be water at the finish line,” Arthur offered. “You’re gonna be okay.”

His voice and the sudden, violent movement of your surroundings brought some lucidity back to you.

“Wh…where am I?”

“You’re safe,” Arthur assured you.

“Where’s my car?”

“We had to leave it behind. What happened to you? Is that your blood?”

“No. Don’t…don’t think so. Driving. Got…jumped.”

Grace glanced at you through the rear view mirror. Well, that explained the look of you at least.

“I…put them in the engine.” You were beginning to fade. “Ran out of fuel…”

Grace found herself smiling. “My kinda hitcher.”

It was clear you were still breathing, so Arthur turned around.

Great, so…he had saved someone who needed help. But they also turned out to be another lunatic who feed people to their cars. Hopefully you were more civil about it than everyone else he’d seen.

Grace smiled from you to Arthur. She could tell exactly what he was thinking. And, alright, sure. Maybe you weren’t such a bad addition to the race after all.

[queenclaudiabrown]

I’m Not Leaving You

| Fandom: The Vampire Diaries

| Pairing Lorenzo ‘Enzo’ St. John x Bonnie Bennett

| Content warnings: mentions of canon events, blood drinking to heal

| Word Count: 571

Enzo had to remind himself not to break the steering wheel of Bonnie’s car as he drove it to her house. The witch was awake but tired in the passenger seat, her head angled to gaze at him. Her green eyes and the smile on her face were soft, tender, utterly and completely loving.

True to her word, she had used his darkest fears to pull him out of his inhuman, unemotional state. He kept replaying the moments in his mind, over and over and over again, most notably the moment where his humanity had turned itself back on. He’d stared down at her for a moment in mild surprise and cold indifference, when abruptly his emotions had come bursting through the numbness, tearing it apart like a visceral wound rent into his flesh. And then his entire being was flooded with everything he’d suppressed, a dam breaking, but the emotion that forced its way to frontmost prominence was desperation. Seized by it, he’d scooped her up off the floor and sped outside, depositing her carefully on the ground. Once he was sure she was breathing and her heart still beat, he had backed away- right into the burning cabin.

He knew he’d spend the rest of his life grateful to her for dragging him out of that headspace, even risking her own life. It was a debt he’d never be able to repay, no matter how many times he saved her. A part of him was still angry at the lengths she’d taken to do it, but he couldn’t find it in himself to stay upset.

Pulling to a stop and parking the car, Enzo turned to look at her, watching her run a fingertip carefully across the burn on her palm. “I can heal that for you, you know.” He offered. “You’ve got some lung damage from the smoke too.”

Bonnie rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Fine, but at least let me take it with something alcoholic.”

Enzo relented with a shrug. He unbuckled his seatbelt, and in a burst of vampiric speed he was on the opposite side of the car, opening her door before she’d even unbuckled her own. “Such a gentleman.” She joked. All jokes aside, she let him wrap his arm around her waist, mirroring the action on him.

She unlocked the door and led him inside, heading straight for the kitchen to pour herself a glass of something strong. She took a drink, then extended the glass toward Enzo. He bit into his hand and held it above the glass, letting an appropriate amount of blood drip into it. Bonnie made a face, but downed the glass anyway and held up her hand to watch the burn disappear. She poured herself another one and drank it as well before setting the glass down.

Enzo wrapped her in a hug, letting her rest her head on his chest. He kissed the top of her head. “What you did today was incredibly stupid.” He told her.

“It worked, didn’t it?"

“For which I will forever be grateful. But the point stands that you almost got yourself killed for me. And I don’t want you to ever do that again.”

“Don’t put yourself in a position where I might need to, and I won’t.” She replied cheekily.

Enzo smirked. “You’ve got a deal.” Abruptly, he dipped her and leaned down to kiss her. “I’m not leaving you either.”

[languageyeti1985]

 Surviving A Wild Academic Year As A Native Speaker!

Welcome, language enthusiasts and truth seekers, to a rollercoaster ride through the raw and uncensored experiences of a native speaker at the end of an academic year.

Get ready to dive into the depths of my brutally honest blog, where I'll unveil the juicy details about the highs, lows, and downright bizarre moments I've encountered.

The Curse Of Being a Native - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!

Being a native speaker means everyone expects you to have all the answers. It's like being a walking dictionary with a malfunctioning search button!

Hold onto your hats, folks, and prepare for a linguistic rollercoaster with your jaw dropping and your laughter echoing through the halls of academia!

Being a native speaker isn't all rainbows and sunshine, oh no! While we may have an innate talent for our beloved mother tongue, let me tell you, the pressure to wear the language guru cape at all times can push even the most linguistically gifted among us to the brink of insanity.

So, my dear readers, fasten your seatbelts, for I'm about to unleash a whirlwind of tales that will leave you in awe. Get ready to dive headfirst into the world of jaw-dropping proofreading requests, mind-boggling linguistic expectations, and the never-ending quest for impeccable speech. It's a thrill ride so intense you won't want to miss a single heart-pounding moment!

Trust me, folks, this linguistic adventure will make your head spin, your laughter burst forth, and your perspective on being a native speaker forever altered. So, hold on tight, take a deep breath, and let's embark on this wild, unpredictable journey together!

Yawning Through English Class - A Battle Against Boredom!

Why did the English teacher bring a ladder to class? Because they wanted to raise the bar!

Raise your hand high if you've ever found yourself trapped in an English class that felt like it was tailored for pint-sized prodigies while your mind wandered off to far more thrilling linguistic escapades.

Oh, the agony of sitting there, daydreaming of daring syntax acrobatics and leaping over lexiconic hurdles, all while enduring the torturous monotony of basic grammar drills. Let's cut through the sugar-coated pleasantries, my fellow native speakers, and confront the unspoken truth—we hunger for intellectual stimulation that ablaze our linguistic souls!

Together, let's embark on a riveting exploration of the epic battle against boredom, where we yearn for a curriculum that dares to challenge our formidable linguistic prowess. Brace yourselves for tales of mind-numbing monotony, desperate attempts to stifle yawns, and a yearning so profound it borders on the brink of linguistic rebellion. We shall traverse the treacherous path of uninspiring textbooks and unimaginative exercises, seeking the spark that ignites our innate linguistic fire.

So, my comrades in linguistic hunger, join me in this exhilarating quest for an English class that transcends the mundane, electrifies our synapses, and leaves us gasping for more. Are you ready to seize the sword of linguistic brilliance and vanquish the demon of boredom?

Then let us embark on this daring journey together, where the classroom becomes our battleground and the pursuit of intellectual thrill our holy grail!

Lost in Translation - When Languages Collide!

I once tried to order a 'pan con jamón' in a foreign country, but it ended up sounding like 'pan can jam on.' Needless to say, I got a very confused look from the waiter!

Close your eyes and let me paint a vivid scene for you. Imagine yourself tiptoeing through the linguistic minefield of a foreign language, each step laden with the weight of uncertainty. Picture the beads of sweat forming on your forehead as you stumble through conversations, fervently praying that your linguistic missteps won't trigger a catastrophic breakdown in communication. It's a humbling experience, my friends, one that forcefully reminds us that even as native speakers, we are not impervious to the trials and tribulations of language.

But fear not! In the midst of linguistic chaos, there lies an opportunity for shared laughter, cringes, and above all, empathy. Join me, fellow adventurers, as I unravel a tapestry of hilariously awkward moments, each woven from the threads of language mishaps and cultural misunderstandings. Together, we will embark on a quest to bridge the vast chasm between diverse cultures, armed with nothing but the courage to embrace our linguistic imperfections.

Prepare to snicker at the anecdotes of inadvertently ordering bizarre dishes, only to realise your blunder after the first perplexing bite. Delight in the absurdity of unintentional linguistic gymnastics, where a misplaced word or mispronunciation can turn a heartfelt compliment into an unintended insult. Feel your heart pound with empathy as we delve into the shared struggles of navigating unfamiliar idioms and local customs. 

So, my dear readers, brace yourselves for a whirlwind journey through the intricate tapestry of cross-cultural communication. Let us gather around the digital campfire, sharing stories that tickle our funny bones, broaden our horizons, and remind us of the inherent beauty of linguistic diversity.

Together, we shall learn, grow, and revel in the joyous moments when laughter becomes the universal language that transcends barriers, one linguistic mishap at a time.

Shattering Stereotypes - The Imperfect Native Speaker!

Why did the native speaker get a dictionary for their birthday? Because even they need a little help sometimes!

Strap yourselves in tight, ladies and gentlemen, because we're about to unleash a linguistic truth bomb that'll shatter every illusion you've ever had about native speakers. Brace for impact because it's time to demolish those persistent misconceptions that have held us captive for far too long. You see, my dear readers, we natives are not, I repeat, NOT walking dictionaries or grammar superheroes. Surprised?

Well, get ready for a wild revelation that will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew about our linguistic prowess. Prepare to witness the unmasking of our vulnerable side, where linguistic fumbles and moments of doubt become the skeletons in our linguistic closets. Oh yes, even the almighty natives stumble and fall, tripping over words and inadvertently mangling sentences. It's as if the language gods decided to play a cosmic prank on us, making us question our very "nativeness."

So, put your preconceived notions on hold, my dear readers, as we embark on a daring reality check that will rattle the very foundation of your beliefs. Get ready to see the natives in all our flawed glory, embracing our occasional slips of the tongue and linguistic blunders. We're not infallible beings, but rather fellow travellers on the vast terrain of language. From forgotten words to mispronunciations that raise eyebrows, we natives have our fair share of linguistic hiccups that'll leave you wondering if we truly deserve the coveted title of "native."

But fear not, for this revelation is not meant to belittle us; instead, it's an invitation to celebrate our shared humanity and acknowledge that even the masters of a language have their moments of uncertainty. So, fasten your seatbelts and prepare to witness the dismantling of stereotypes.

Together, we'll embrace the beauty of imperfection and challenge the notion that native speakers are flawless language demigods. It's time for a linguistic revolution, my friends, and it starts with this reality check that will liberate us from the chains of linguistic expectations and allow us to embrace our linguistic journeys with authenticity and humility.

So, my fellow language enthusiasts and truth seekers, join me in this revolution of redefining what it means to be a native speaker. Let us celebrate our linguistic adventures, both the triumphs and the missteps, as we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of language with curiosity and a dash of humour.

Together, we will break free from the shackles of perfection and revel in the joy of language exploration, knowing that it's okay to stumble and make mistakes along the way. We will challenge the notion that being a native speaker automatically grants us fluency and expertise, and instead, we will embrace the beauty of continuous learning and growth.

So, buckle up and get ready for a journey like no other. Let's embark on this linguistic rollercoaster together, where we share our stories, learn from one another, and celebrate the rich tapestry of languages that connect us all.

Welcome to the new era of the imperfect native speaker, where vulnerability becomes our strength and unity prevails over stereotypes. Together, let's embrace the beauty of language in all its messy, unpredictable, and awe-inspiring glory.