#my main blog now feels empty

[neo-shitty]

🤺.

[diegogtratty]

suggestive sideblog has been created

[resetting37]

today is simon's birthday and also the first day of oc_tober, in which the first prompt is favorite oc. So I get to draw both simon and morgan todayyyyy

[thankskenpenders]

The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings review

The day has finally come. Many, understandably, thought we'd never get here. Maybe we shouldn't have gotten here. We've been through so much. Lawsuits, reboots, redesigns, unreleased NFTs, empty legal threats over the fact that movie Knuckles has a dad, an attempt to license out Scourge the Hedgehog to fans that immediately got canceled (in both meanings of the term), and many, MANY idiotic Twitter controversies. But now, here we are.

Thirteen years after first announcing it in the middle of his legal battles with Archie and Sega that changed the American Sonic comics forever, former writer Ken Penders has released the first part of his new series: The Lara-Su Chronicles.

Yes. I had to buy the book. I had to take one for the team. Look at the fucking URL of this blog, a blog I've been using to talk about the American Sonic comics for nearly a decade while the specter of this book loomed in the distance. The one time I've actually been paid to write an article about anything in any professional capacity, it was an article about the Penders lawsuits. I'm cited on his Wikipedia page. There was no way I was going to skip reviewing this, and there was no guarantee that scans would ever turn up online given the incredibly small audience for this trash. (Only 166 people preordered this, and even that number feels way higher than it should be.) No, I had to preorder it to ensure I could get a copy and cover it for the blog... even if that meant my name would be forever immortalized in the list of "supporters" in the back of the book. These are the sacrifices I must make as a woman who stumbled ass backwards into being an amateur Archie Sonic historian.

So, what exactly is in this book? How much of it is new? How bad is it? How did we even get here in the first place? How can this exist without Sega pursuing legal action? What happens next? And, most importantly... why are there multiple depictions of an Archie Sonic character breastfeeding in this book?

I'm here to answer those questions as best I can, and in agonizing detail.

First, for those just tuning in to this decades-long saga or those who maybe don't know the full story, here's a refresher on the background info.

"What the hell is this?"

The Lara-Su Chronicles is Ken Penders' long-dreaded long-awaited continuation of his 1994-2006 run on Archie Sonic, ignoring everything written after he left by other writers like Ian Flynn. In particular, it picks up from the cliffhanger ending of the 2003-2004 arc "Mobius: 25 Years Later," which was set in what Ken considers the definitive canonical future of the series. It stars Knuckles' daughter from that future era, Lara-Su, among other new and returning characters. The project was first announced near the start of Ken's legal battle with Archie in 2011, and he's been posting WIP previews online for about a decade. Now, after all this time, a Lara-Su Chronicles book finally exists.

We'll get to the actual contents of that book in a bit.

"He can do that without getting in trouble with Sega?"

Believe it or not, yes, he can.

Thanks to the outcome of Archie Comics' woefully mismanaged lawsuits against Ken (yes, they sued him after he started filing for copyrights, not the other way around), he now has full legal ownership of every story he wrote for Archie Sonic and every character he created for the series. This was explicitly granted to him in the terms of the settlement between him and Archie (acting on behalf of Sega). He can even reprint his old Sonic material as-is to his heart's content. The main catch is just that he can't write new stories featuring Sega characters or trademarks, and his new stories also have to be distinct from Sonic at a glance to avoid confusing readers. As such, reprints can't use Sonic iconography on the cover, a few Sega characters (mainly Knuckles) have been renamed and slightly redesigned in the new stories, and the art style has been changed to less closely resemble Sonic. But otherwise, he can do whatever he wants with his own characters.

All of this is because Archie lost the original copy of Ken's work-for-hire contract that signed over the rights to his work. Without that (or any alternative that was considered permissible in court), his comics and characters are the property of their creator by default. Yes, those old comics are full of Sega stuff, but Sega doesn't automatically own the copyright for every drawing of Sonic in existence. And Sega put their stamp of approval all over those comics and let them get sold at retail for decades, even though (in the eyes of the court) there was no legal paperwork granting them ownership of any of it. It's almost like they were unwittingly distributing a fan comic for years and declaring it a fair use of their property, and now there's no takesies backsies. It's a strange and unique copyright situation. Again, they worked all this out in the settlement. And, yes, fans have long speculated that Ken stole and destroyed his own contract to regain the rights to his work, but frankly Archie was so incompetent throughout the lawsuit (it went so bad that they had to fire and replace their lawyers midway through) that I completely buy the idea of them just losing important legal documents.

Also, in case it needs to be spelled out: while Ken's a weirdo, it's ultimately a good thing for creatives everywhere that Archie lost their lawsuit against Ken. We do not want to live in a world where corporations can claim ownership of peoples' work without the contracts to back it up. That would be an incredibly dangerous legal precedent to set. And more comic creators, and artists in general, should own their own work! Corporations are not your friend! They'll delete your work for a tax write-off in a heartbeat! It's just bewildering that this guy, of all people, was the creator who ended up successfully getting his shit back, and that this is what he's doing with it.

"What about his old collaborators? Are they involved? Is he paying them?"

Ken is mostly doing The Lara-Su Chronicles solo, though he has, in fact, talked about compensating the artists involved in any material he's reprinting. The ones who give enough of a shit to get paid for a small scale reprint of something they did 20 years ago, anyway.

On the subject of his collaborators, it's also worth pointing out that Ken's wasn't the only contract that was lost. Most of the early Archie Sonic writers from before Ian Flynn's time seem to be in the same boat as Ken, with the ownership of their stories and characters defaulting back to them. Again, Archie fucked up big time. But like I said, most of them don't really seem to give a shit. For most of them, Sonic was just a random temporary gig they took to pay the bills while Marvel was busy going bankrupt in the '90s, not the thing that defined their entire careers.

The only other Archie Sonic contributor who's tried to do anything on the level of what Ken is doing was writer and editor Scott Fulop. In 2016 he attempted to sue Archie for the unauthorized use of what are now retroactively considered his copyrighted characters and stories, and he even announced a standalone comic about his most famous Sonic character, the recurring villain Mammoth Mogul (sort of a pastiche of DC's Vandal Savage and Marvel's Kingpin, with wizard powers added for spice). However, Fulop lost his lawsuit because he didn't put together a particularly compelling case. Since then he seems to have wiped all traces of his ill-advised Mammoth Mogul comic and his company, Narrative Ark Entertainment, from the internet. For now, this leaves The Lara-Su Chronicles the only project of its kind.

"What about those other Archie Sonic reprints he just announced?"

At the time of writing, Ken is once again claiming that he's trying to get the band back together to reprint all of Archie Sonic, now under the bad new banner "Floating Island Productions: MOBIAN LINE" that I can't imagine he consulted literally anyone else on.

So, like, look. As we've established, Ken can reprint his own stories. And if he can work something out with the other contributors whose contracts were lost, he can print their work, too. But there is no fucking way he's getting his hands on Ian Flynn's run, which Sega undoubtedly holds the copyright for. Even if they don't, Ian needs to maintain a good working relationship with both Sega and IDW if he's to keep his job, so he'd never go for this. Not to mention that Ian and Ken just... don't get along! Ken's whole plan here seems to be predicated on IDW going out of business (a thing he REALLY wants to happen) and freeing up the Sonic comic license, after which he knocks on Sega's door and goes "hey I've still got dirt on you guys," blackmailing them into giving him the Sonic license back so that he can reprint the later comics. Every step of this plan is ludicrous. It's never gonna happen.

He's been saying he wants to reprint the whole series for a few years now, though. This isn't really anything new. And despite his lofty plans that set Sonic Twitter ablaze, he quickly backpedaled. The only specific things in the works right now are a "two-volume omnibus" of all of his Knuckles stories and a collection of artist Scott Shaw's work on the very early Archie Sonic issues, since they're on good terms with each other. I have no idea how Ken plans on packaging these when he can't put any Sega characters or the Freedom Fighters on the covers, but these projects are small enough in scale that there's a decent chance they'll see the light of day. Scott Shaw only did like five issues. But anything beyond that? I'll believe it when I see it.

Or, y'know, this could've all just been a publicity stunt for his new book. I wouldn't put it past him. Let's just focus on the book that actually exists.

"So he finally did it? He made a whole Lara-Su book? It's out? He finished it??"

Yes and no.

The book that's out now is The Lara-Su Chronicles: Beginnings, a prologue for the series of seven graphic novels Ken somehow plans on making, even though it's taken him 13 years to put out literally anything new. I don't know whether or not this counts as book one of seven, because it only features 30 pages of new comics. 30.5 if I'm being generous.

Most of the book is actually just a reprint of his infamous Archie Sonic storyline "Mobius: 25 Years Later", which ran from issue #131 to #144 in 2003-2004. (Again, yes, he can reprint this, he just can't put Sonic on the cover.) Why's it infamous? Well, Ken had been building anticipation for this future era of the series for basically his entire run. We kept seeing King Sonic and Queen Sally from the future. Knuckles' entire backstory hinges on his dad having a vision of this future. Several years before Silver the Hedgehog was created, it was Lara-Su who was Sonic's equivalent to Future Trunks, the cool-looking child of one of the main characters who traveled back in time to try and prevent a dark future. Believe it or not, yes, there was hype for Lara-Su. And then we finally got M25YL, and none of that cool stuff happened. Instead it really ended up being about how unbearably boring the middle aged Sonic, Knuckles, Sally, and co. are in this peaceful future where Robotnik is dead and they're all married with kids, forced into traditional nuclear family gender roles. Lara-Su is present, but she mostly just does generic teen girl stuff and complains about how Knuckles won't let her do anything even though she REALLY wants to be the new Guardian of Angel Island, like, super bad! Come on, dad!!!

In its original printing, this meandering arc ended on an abrupt time travel cliffhanger that Ken was never able to follow up on before he left Archie in 2006. This new printing slightly changes that ending, using the unresolved timey-wimey shenanigans as a convenient excuse to alter the entire timeline. This creates the slightly different world of The Lara-Su Chronicles, where the few relevant Sega-owned characters have been replaced and everyone is ten times uglier.

After this, we finally get two short new stories picking up where M25YL left off: "The Storm," starring Acorn Kingdom super-spy and known creep Geoffrey St. John, and an early release of the first chapter of The Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows, the first full TLSC graphic novel.

And now that we're all on the same page about what we're looking at, let's actually talk about the book!

The cover

Let's start by beating a dead horse. The cover art: it's still bad! But why is it bad?

The cover is, of course, based on Patrick Spaziante's cover from Archie Sonic #131, the start of the "Mobius: 25 Years Later" arc. (Ken did the layout for that cover, though, so in the eyes of the law he's the original creator who owns that cover.) That cover was, itself, a tribute to the iconic cover of Giant-Size X-Men #1 by Gil Kane and Dave Cockrum, the issue that introduced the version of the team with Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler, etc.

Ken seems to have forgotten that the point of both these covers was to hype up the arrival of a new cast of characters. The new guys are supposed to make a dramatic entrance front and center. That's the focal point. Meanwhile, the cover for Beginnings has the old timeline versions of the cast from Archie Sonic dramatically bursting out of a shattered crystal ball, while their new counterparts look on in mild bemusement - if they're even bothering to look at all, since most of the characters here are just copied and pasted from their profile pages. That's just not how you do this particular homage! The point is supposed to be "out with the old, in with the new." And why are they using a crystal ball to view the past? Hell, why are they even using a crystal ball at all? The original arc was presented as a magical vision of the future courtesy of Tails' uncle Merlin (don't ask), but the new story leans all the way into being futuristic sci-fi.

Of course, there is no real artistic intent at play here. The old versions of the characters are placed front and center in the crystal ball simply because Ken traced over Spaziante's original art of Lara-Su and Julie-Su (the only two characters on the Sonic cover he owns) and threw out the rest, ruining the composition in the process. Look at the awkward empty space where Sonic, Sally, and Rotor once were, and the new drawing of The Character Formerly Known As Knuckles who's no longer properly centered between his wife and daughter. Even if Ken can claim ownership of the cover because he did the original layout, this all just feels scummy and lame.

And, yeah, if it needs to be said, the new characters and Ken's new rendering style look like absolute fucking dogshit. Putting new Lara-Su directly next to old Lara-Su does her no favors. The shattered glass effect looks absolutely atrocious. I could go on, but we'll have plenty of time to talk about the art style when we see how bad the stories inside look.

Changes to "Mobius: 25 Years Later"

Overall, 99% of M25YL is presented identically to its original printing. Sonic, Sally, Knuckles, et al. are still present with no changes to their names and no tweaks to the art. Even the original cover for issue #131 is included only a few pages into this book with its Archie, Sonic, and Sega logos still intact and everything. Again, because of the weird copyright situation described above, these preexisting comics can be released without any changes.

There is exactly one bizarre change to the art, though, where a hand drawn shot of Angel Island is replaced with an unfitting photo background and the ugly Floating Island photobash that Ken has been using as his personal logo for decades. I think he only did this as part of a test for his motion comic app that nobody asked for. I don't know why this had to make it into the print version. It's like the book is firing a warning shot for what's to come if you keep reading.

The new content begins on the final page of M25YL. In the original wet fart of a cliffhanger ending, Sonic and co. accidentally alter the timeline with an old time machine of Robotnik's and Lara-Su begins to fade away. Then, after everything goes white, we just cut to the present day heroes going "gee, you ever think about the future?" In this new printing, that last bit has been cut, and the rest of the page has been awkwardly shrunk down so that Ken can fit in a new panel. We now see the hands of an off-screen villain, seemingly named "Override," proclaiming that "the Praetorian" (Knuckles) has messed up the timeline again and that they'll finally get their revenge.

Who is this Override? I have no fucking clue. The new stories in this book make no mention of them. You have to buy the next book to find out.

My confusion over the identity of this villain overlaps with another big problem: name changes. So many names and nouns have been arbitrarily changed in The Lara-Su Chronicles, even ones Ken didn't have to change for copyright reasons, and I only know what half of them are replacing because Ken's been tweeting about this shit for years.

The echidnas are now a totally original alien race called "the Echyd'nya." Even in flashbacks to events from M25YL attempting to mimic the old art style, if it's on a new comic page, they're gonna call themselves "Echyd'nya." Evil echidna faction the Dark Legion is now the "Cyberdark Dominion," hailing from the "Cyberdark Colony." The Brotherhood of Guardians is still the Brotherhood of Guardians, but now the main guardian is called "The Praetorian." Angel Island is still called "The Floating Island," like it was in the older Archie comics, but it's ALSO sometimes called "Avion"? When I read this I wasn't sure if he had randomly renamed Albion, the other echidna city from the Archie comics. But no. Now we have an Albion AND an Avion. Sally is mentioned simply as "Princess Acorn," while Sonic is referenced once as an unnamed "blue-spined Erinaceinae," using the scientific name for hedgehog to make it sound more sci-fi. In an incredibly ballsy move, Ken even mentions Robotnik as "the Insurrectionist Kintobor," retaining his original surname from the Archie comics that's just "Robotnik" backwards. Guess Sega never trademarked that one.

Aside from every name change being a downgrade, this leads to confusion when you're not sure if something is supposed to be new, or if it's just an Archie thing you're supposed to recognize despite having a new name and design. Is "Override" someone I'm supposed to know already? Am I just supposed to have read a fucking tweet from Ken where he said he changed the name of some existing villain to "Override"? The answer is no, but I had to term search his Twitter just to verify this.

Moving on!

New story #1: "The Storm"

If you've been following the WIPs, this is that story about Geoffrey St. John that Ken's been posting previews of for almost a decade. The title page copyright dates it to 2015, and that absurdly long gestation is probably why the art is so inconsistent here. Even the style of speech bubbles and the font change between pages two and three.

This is a problem when there's supposed to be a deliberate and noticeable change in art style here signaling the moment where the time travel stuff alters the timeline, replacing the Archie Sonic world with the Lara-Su Chronicles world. If you don't already know that's what's going on, the idea isn't conveyed clearly at all. It just goes from one hideous art style to a slightly different one with no explanation.

The main problem here is that Ken has hitched his wagon to a franchise about anthropomorphic animals when he can't draw furries to save his life. (Though a bit later in the book we'll also begin to wonder if he can even still draw humans.) He's shifted away from the cartooniness of the original designs and given them more human proportions and facial features, but this just ends up making them look incredibly uncanny and lumpy and gross. With some designs he's trying to lean into more of a Star Trek alien vibe, but then he still insists upon retaining the giant Sonic eyes on most characters even though he has no idea how to make them emote.

The rendering of these godawful designs doesn't do them any favors, either. Ken's going for more of a painterly look now, but it almost seems as though he's shading everything with Photoshop's burn and dodge tools that are designed to darken and lighten select areas of a photo. The result is a muddy, smudgy look that makes it feel like the color layer has been smeared in vaseline. And it only looks worse after coming off of 14 chapters of M25YL that have way more palatable art.

The backgrounds, too, are a complete mess, a jumble of low res jpeg photo elements (sometimes with extremely noticeable pixelation), stock textures, and smooth digital gradients. There's no real sense of place here, and it gives everything a surreal, dreamlike quality when you can't really tell where anything is supposed to take place. This first story is seemingly set in a high-tech stronghold below Castle Acorn called "the Bunker," but it could just as easily be confused for the bridge of a spaceship. This whole story features characters speaking to each other over floating video displays and hologram projectors from three different locations, but without a hologram effect and without a clear sense of where the characters are it often feels like they're just in the same room as each other. Characters will be in one location on one photo background, and then the camera angle changes and they're in a completely different place, because Ken just uses mismatched photos off of the internet. It's been like 25 years since he first tried using photo backgrounds in the Archie comics and he hasn't gotten any better at it.

When I had my boyfriend read the book to see if it made literally any sense to him (it didn't), Anthony said this: "This is the kind of shit I'd see linked on a Second Life world that hasn't been touched since 2004." I think he really hit the nail on the head. Now, there's actually a contrarian part of me that thinks that might theoretically almost be kind of cool, in sort of a messy counterculture way. I love weird indie shit. I was a Homestuck reader! But this isn't a scrappy mixed media zine, or experimental outsider art from someone just messing around with Photoshop, or a loving throwback to weird old internet art, or even something intentionally bizarre and offputting like Xavier: Renegade Angel or a PilotRedSun video or whatever where the fact that it's weird and ugly is part of the humor. This is supposed to be a sincere sci-fi epic drawing on Star Trek and Jack Kirby comics, made by a guy who's been drawing comics professionally since the '80s. This is supposed to look good. This is supposed to compete with mainstream comics that are on sale right now. He thinks any day now IDW's gonna go out of business and Sega will come crawling back to him so that he can stamp the Sonic logo on shit like this. It just doesn't work.

But, okay. It's ugly. We knew it would be ugly. But that ugliness would be much easier to accept if it was in service of an otherwise genuinely good story. So what about the writing? After all this time, how does Ken choose to kick off this new saga? Well, credit where credit's due. "The Storm" feels like a proper continuation of Ken's writing style from M25YL.

Because it's eleven pages of characters standing around and talking while nothing fucking happens.

Here's the synopsis: A dog woman named Brownie, an ensign in the Royal Secret Service fresh out of training and the only character who's almost cute, walks up to Geoffrey to deliver a report. He's immediately suspicious of her, asking who let her in and if she's a spy for Elias (Sally's brother, if you're new here) or Alicia (Sally's mom). The art style suddenly shifts when the timeline is altered, but the scene continues uninterrupted. Geoffrey points a gun at Brownie when she won't say whose spy she is. Geoffrey is distracted by a call and proceeds to have a conversation via a mix of holograms and video screens with Remington (head of Echidnaopolis security), Spectre (Knuckles' great great great great great grandpa, the one with the helmet who always looks evil), and a new scientist character named Dr. Zephyr/Zephur. (The spelling of this character's name changes multiple times throughout the 11-page story, because I guess nine years wasn't enough time to spellcheck this shit.) They say a bunch of made up technobabble nonsense about how it looks like the timeline was just altered and Knuckles and co. seem to be involved. It's complete drivel that I'm not even going to try to make sense of. Everyone decides to investigate further, and the conversation ends. Brownie tells Geoffrey she's his spy, then walks out and implies she's actually Alicia's spy in her inner monologue.

To be continued!!!

Yes, that's it. It's really just a bunch of technobabble where some characters talk about how it seems like the timeline has been fucked with. That's it. The whole time Geoffrey doesn't even get up out of his damn chair, which he's of course sitting in backwards to show how cool he is. It's just 11 pages of Geoffrey sitting in a chair and talking to people and looking uglier than he's ever looked. Nothing happens. Nine years for this.

I'm also struck by how meaningless all of this is to anyone who hasn't read Archie Sonic. The added context from M25YL may help a little, but "The Storm" focuses on characters who weren't in that arc, and the story does very little to introduce who any of them are. Brownie could've been super useful as an inexperienced point of view character who's only meeting the others for the first time here, but instead she's really just a passive observer who's here as part of some kind of 4D chess game between Geoffrey and Alicia, an off-screen character whose motivations in this era of the story are completely unknown to even returning readers. Who are the good guys and bad guys here? What are the conflicts and the stakes of the story moving forward? What do these characters want? Basic questions like this aren't really answered. I can't imagine a new reader being able to make heads or tails of this. Hell, I can't really imagine a returning reader who hasn't been following the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets about this story making heads or tails of it, either.

...Maybe more will happen in the next story?

New story #2: Shattered Tomorrows preview chapter

After another message from Ken, the story of The Lara-Su Chronicles proper begins with the redesigned Lara-Su walking along a jpeg photograph beach at sunset and crying while thinking about how Knuckles - sorry, his name is K'Nox now - is dead.

Yep! Straight into the dad stuff!

Look, I'm the last person to complain about writers getting super personal and drawing from their own baggage in their writing, but Ken's just no fucking good at it. There's no nuance, nothing interesting to say. He just keeps writing mediocre-to-horrible dads whose misdeeds are always justified by their "good intentions," and then sometimes they die and their kids are like "we may have fought but actually you were the bestest dad ever and I'll miss you forever, I'll never be able to fill your shoes!"

This is the only part of the new material here that feels like it has any heart behind it, because I know how much his complex relationship with his late deadbeat father means to Ken (there's an author's note in this outright saying as much). But the guy died 42 years ago, and it doesn't feel like Ken has had any new thoughts about this part of his life in those four decades. He's just not an introspective or self-aware enough artist to actually mine his personal baggage for anything beyond "father knows best."

Anyway, so then it jumps forward in time(?) and now we're following this human guy who looks like this.

Previously, Ken got a lot of shit for literally just using the likeness of Anthony Mackie for this guy, based on his IMDB profile photo. Ken has thus redesigned the character... and by that I mean I think he looks more like Ernie Hudson now? Ken's clearly just working off of photo references (if not straight up tracing), given his face is the most detailed and realistic-looking thing on any page where he's present.

But you may be wondering: who is this, and why is he here? Well, for one, he's here to run around in front of some low res space photos while making trite references to things like Planet of the Apes and Star Trek. Haha, he makes a joke about red shirts! Original!! But beyond that, Commander Mykhal Taelor (yes, that's really how he chose to spell it) is a human... from Earth! Archie Sonic readers are probably confused, because in those comics Mobius is Earth in the distant post-apocalyptic future. Well, despite being a Planet of the Apes fan, Ken always hated that particular worldbuilding decision from Karl Bollers, always preferring to think of Mobius as a separate alien planet. And now he gets to make that canon in his own stories and throw out Karl's ideas. So Mobius is basically just, like, a Star Trek planet now, with its own alien creatures that sometimes just so happen to look like anthropomorphic Earth animals.

Also, at one point Taelor wonders if the inhabitants of the dead Mobius might have been human, and the alien ally he's talking to over the radio says it's unlikely. "I don't understand why your kind has a problem understanding you're a minority within a minority." Perhaps poor wording for a line said to the only Black character in the story.

Anyway, Commander Taelor here seems to have discovered the uninhabited husk of Mobius after the vague time-space cataclysm everyone was worried about in M25YL has come to pass, and he finds an audio log from Lara-Su that I presume will explain what happened. I guess those are the titular Lara-Su Chronicles. In theory this flash forward establishes some sense of pressing danger, but when the threat to the planet is so unclear and technobabble-y it just kind of lands with a thud.

It doesn't take long before we get back to Lara-Su being sad about her dad. A good little chunk of the chapter is spent with this new timeline's Lara-Su recalling moments in her life, including echoes of the original Lara-Su's memories from M25YL, which feels redundant coming hot off the heels of a straight reprint of that entire arc. And boy, for anyone who read the later Archie Sonic comics, the protagonist having vague memories of the old version of the series from before a lawsuit-related timeline reboot sure does sound familiar, huh?

The art inconsistency somehow becomes even worse in this story, with Ken flip-flopping on whether or not he wants to use outlines, with the no-outline art managing to look even worse by relying entirely on Ken's awful rendering. By this point in the book, readers are also likely to start noticing how often Ken reuses art from previous panels. This is a shortcut that tons of comic artists use, of course. Invincible famously did a joke about this. It's often understandable. But, again... it sure does stand out in a book that took 13 years to make with only 30 pages of new art. Amusingly, Ken even manages to combine his inconsistency and recycling problems by reusing the same art with and without outlines. And, of course, any time Ken tries to draw the Archie era designs it's just... the worst.

And, yes, it's in this dreamlike montage sequence of Lara-Su's life that we get...

The uncomfortable family nudity scene, followed by the dual timeline Julie-Su breastfeeding scene.

Yeah, you might have heard about this one already. If this incredibly eerie presentation of Lara-Su's hazy memories of the two different timelines make it hard to tell what's going on, don't worry. There's another, clearer version later in the book as part of Julie-Su's character profile, because I guess Ken was just so proud of it.

(I censored these myself because I'm not playing Russian roulette with Tumblr's inconsistent nudity rules and risking getting banned lmao)

Like, okay. Is a mother breastfeeding her child really that shocking of a thing to see in a story? No, not at all. But, like... when it's two characters who you previously created for an officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comic for 7-year-olds... and some of those officially licensed Sonic the Hedgehog comics for 7-year-olds are reprinted in the same book... and when it's drawn like this... yeah, it's kind of a shocker.

It just looks so unnatural. Julie-Su is posed very deliberately so that you'll see both of her breasts, and in the new timeline version she's barely even holding Lara-Su so you can really get a good look at her supermodel body, showing zero physical signs that she just gave birth. Most people will immediately jump to this being Ken putting his fetishes in his work (a type of criticism that I'm incredibly tired of - it's 2024, all the cool artists are blatantly putting their fetishes in their work now). And my immediate response is that, no, this is probably just Ken trying to come off as really mature on a surface level, a thing he's been obsessed with since the Archie days. Free from the shackles of writing a licensed children's comic, of course he's going to jump immediately into depicting some nonsexual, artistic nudity to try and prove he's A Real Mature Artist For Grown-Ups who just thinks the human body is beautiful and breastfeeding shouldn't be a taboo etc. etc.

But then, like. You look at some of the other character designs. Like Espio's daughter Salma, who's now this horrifying alien lizard person who's always nude, and her scale pattern puts scales exactly where her nipples should be. Or you look at his comments about the Echyd'nya age of consent. Or you look at how he keeps drawing Lara-Su in this. Like, does the shuttle really need this, like... reverse chaise lounge thing in the cockpit? So that we can keep getting these shots of the 16-year-old Lara-Su lying on her stomach and posing with one of her legs kicked up, her naked ass in plain view?

The vibe isn't great, is what I'm saying!

I'm not going to try to ascribe authorial intent here. I don't know. I'm not a psychic. Given his very blatant reliance on photo references elsewhere in the book, it's entirely possible he just referenced some figure drawing photos that were maybe just a little too sexy. And also, he's an American comic book artist, and a boomer one at that. Those guys tend to draw women a certain way, even when it's not supposed to be sexual. I don't fucking know. It just sucks. I'm not gonna make some hyperbolic statement about how this makes him a literal pedophile who should be in jail, but it is deeply offputting and objectifying.

But if you already knew about the nursing scenes and were hoping there was some other really shocking stuff in there for me to talk about in this review, sorry to disappoint, but nope. That's the only shockingly weird new thing in here. Once again, not a lot happens in this story, and what does happen is pretty boring.

Once we get past the recap stuff and the human guy, the plot developments boil down to this: The timeline was altered at the end of M25YL... but not as much as you might think. In the new timeline, Knuckles ("K'Nox"), Cobar (now looking significantly younger), and Rotor (now a rhino just called "The Emissary") still traveled via shuttle to go find a time machine in the Badlands and fix the time-space continuum, like in the climax of the original arc. This time, though, Sonic wasn't there, and Lara-Su came along without having to stow away. Lara-Su watches the ship while the grown ups go deal with the time machine, and then after a couple panels Not Rotor comes back with Cobar and is like "Hey, Cobar got hurt, we gotta leave. Dunno what happened to your dad." And then they just, like. Presume that Knuckles must have died. Even though we have no idea what happened to him. And then they just fly away. And then Lara-Su is sad that her dad died.

And that's pretty much it!

This is supposed to be a really emotional sequence - it's literally the scene where Lara-Su learns that Knuckles is dead - but instead it comes off as unintentionally funny because of how poorly it's portrayed. Not showing Knuckles' actual disappearance is a huge misstep, for one, making his uncertain fate more confusing and anticlimactic than dramatic. But also, Ken keeps just using the same two drawings of Rotor for two pages, so he doesn't really seem to be emoting at all, and he's in this spacey hazmat suit that honestly just makes him look like fucking Moltar from Space Ghost. So the whole time I'm just reading his dialogue in Moltar's deadpan voice as he's like "I dunno. We did what we could. Anyway, let's leave."

After this, we get a two-page spread previewing the rest of the story from Shattered Tomorrows. It's basically like a trailer in comic form. It has one of the most mystifying layouts I've ever seen in a comic book. I have no idea what order I'm supposed to read this in.

Yeah, I kinda have a feeling this is the full extent of what Ken has drawn for the rest of that book. I'd love to be wrong, but I fear that I'm right.

Bonus material: Data files

These are mostly very dull, recapping a lot of events shared between Ken's Archie run and the new Lara-Su Chronicles timeline. It seems like almost his entire run is still considered canon to the backstory of the new timeline, just with some names changed, and things only really diverge at the climax of M25YL. But I'll share the interesting stuff here.

Lara-Su

The main thing you'll notice in Lara-Su's profile is the massive, unreadable wall of text where Ken felt the need to list the entire Knuckles family tree, split across both pages.

This is literally so long that Lara-Su's personal history has to awkwardly cut off mid-sentence and be continued on the final page of the book, after the rest of the data files.

Also, please note that this list gives Julie-Su's mom's full name as Mari-Su of the House of Atrades. Incredible on all levels.

There's also a reference to the dark timeline Lara-Su was originally supposed to come from. You know, the one where Julie-Su is the leader of a rebel movement fighting against a Knuckles who had gone mad with power? The timeline that would have been way more interesting than the one in M25YL? Here it seems to have been written off as the result of another "timeline disruption." Lara-Su allegedly has vague memories of this timeline, in the same way that she has vague memories of the M25YL timeline.

Geoffrey

Geoffrey's bio mostly recaps events from the Archie comics, which means the Sonic/Sally/Geoffrey love triangle has to be alluded to. His rivalry with Sonic is described like this:

"He would later resurface when Kintobor was transporting his latest hi-tech weapon, the Dynamac-3000. It was during that mission he discovered a rival for the Princess' affections. Whereas the Princess would be one of a line of conquests where St. John was concerned, the blue-spined Erinaceinae who protested doth a bit too much regarding his affections for the Princess for St. John's taste would prove to be a source of great sport and amusement."

Yes. It's gross. Saying that Geoffrey saw Sally as "one of a line of conquests" is gross. Ken writing this and then still treating Geoffrey as the coolest badass ever is gross. The "Princess Acorn" is also first on the list of Geoffrey's "female relationships" elsewhere in his bio, though I suppose how much of a "relationship" they had is left vague. Honestly, at this point the fact that Ken didn't explicitly confirm that Geoffrey took the underage Sally's virginity in the book comes off as a display of restraint. The bar couldn't be any lower, I know.

Remington

His bio is, frankly, shockingly long for such a minor character, though I guess he does get a large portion of the word salad dialogue in "The Storm." There's a lot of stuff here about how the identities of his biological parents are shrouded in mystery, a plot point that fans have long speculated Ken just straight up forgot about in his time at Archie. (Ian confirmed that Kragok from the Dark Legion was Remington's dad, though, so this isn't really much of a mystery.)

Lien-Da

She gets a bio even though she's not present in the two new stories, just so we get to look at her awful new design and compare it to how Steven Butler drew her earlier in the book:

Commander Taelor

We get to see two drawings of him with the same exact Ernie Hudson face side by side! That's fun.

Julie-Su

She gets a list of "known friends," but the only character listed is Knuckles' mom. Poor Julie-Su.

Also, Ken feels the need to reiterate that Knuckles and Julie-Su are still distant cousins. He made a whole new timeline where he can change whatever details he wants, but THAT had to remain canon. Thanks, Ken.

And then after the data files we get the special thanks page, listing everyone who preordered the book and/or bought TLSC merch from Ken.

With my name on the list. Because I had to buy a copy to cover it for the blog.

My name is on the very next page right after the breastfeeding panel in Julie-Su's data file.

Yep. He got me.

Is it at least a well put together book? Like, in terms of manufacturing quality?

Its physical quality is... fine. It's a nice, sturdy hardcover. The print quality seems fine, though mine does have a bit of smudging from some sort of printing error on one page. The pages don't seem like they'll fall out on me. The image quality is crisp. The colors are vibrant. This is a low bar, but this is one of the few places where I'm able to give this book anything resembling praise.

The formatting and graphic design work, on the other hand...

(I didn't crumple those page corners, it came like that.)

For one, the placement and sizes of the M25YL pages is inconsistent, largely due to the fact that the book doesn't actually match the proportions of a comic. A lot of pages aren't properly centered vertically. Some pages go all the way up to the top edge of the paper, while others leave a visible gap of about half a centimeter. Every page has a 1cm gap to its left and right, which is sometimes filled in with a solid color or gradient that doesn't quite match the page it's surrounding. I have to assume Ken didn't have any sort of source files or original artwork to work off of, as those ideally would've had more generous bleed to account for slight shifts in printing. It kind of seems like he just got the highest resolution versions he could find of the digital releases online and printed those. The colors are a dead ringer for the digital versions, which have always looked slightly more saturated and pastel than they did in print.

I can't say this bodes well for his further plans for Archie Sonic reprints - sorry, Mobian Line reprints. If they ever come out, please, for the love of god, do not buy those. I don't care how much you love Archie Sonic, they aren't going to be good reprints. For comparison, IDW's similarly priced hardcover Sonic collections have none of these formatting problems, because they're made by people who know what they're doing with access to the actual source files.

The book also has its fair share of text-focused pages, split between the data files and messages directly from Ken about the history of his career and this project, and these are formatted in the most amateurish way possible. Just massive walls of Arial text over either plain white backgrounds, simple gradients, or faded photos. I've seen school yearbooks with better graphic design. Even ignoring my subjective feelings about the art and stories within, this book does not feel like it's worth $36 USD.

It's frankly shocking how shabby he let this thing look considering it's supposed to be his baby. And doesn't that really sum it all up?

Closing thoughts

Obviously, I did not expect this to be any good. But I'm still left kind of dumbfounded by it.

I think what really strikes me about it is that Ken had a blank check to do whatever he wanted here. He got an opportunity many writers would kill for when he gained complete ownership of his most famous work. He's free from the limitations of a monthly licensed comic book for children, free to make whatever creative decisions he wants without editors or other writers or Sega to worry about, free to completely reinvent the series to his heart's content and finally tell the story of his dreams. And with that opportunity and 13 years of his time, he made... this. A direct continuation of "Mobius: 25 Years Later" that barely changes anything about the characters or world beyond their awful new designs, even though much of the word count is spent rambling about how the timeline has changed. A story that makes zero concessions for new readers, or even returning readers who don't already have the last decade's worth of Ken's tweets explaining his creative decisions burned into their memory. 30 pages where nothing really happens and the story barely moves forward an inch despite the decades-long wait - but maybe something will happen if you buy the next book!

Who is this for? Maybe this really is a project for no one but Ken. Maybe he just really, really wants to finish the story he started, a story that's personal to him due to the family history it evokes, and the number of people who enjoy it or buy it beyond that is irrelevant. I think that many of the best artists are incredibly self-indulgent ones working with that exact mindset, artists whose enthusiasm for their own work jumps off the page or screen. So, if that's the case, then why the fuck isn't he telling the damn story? What's stopping him? Why is he still spinning his wheels? Where is that passion for his own work? Because it sure as hell isn't there on the page. There's a huge part of me that really wishes I could say "Man, what a weirdo, but you do you, Ken. You tell your weird little story." But there's barely any story here. It's like he loves styling himself as a storyteller, but he's terrified of finally having to actually tell a story after all this time. He's still stuck in the exact same mode of writing he was in almost 30 years ago when he was doing 6-page backup stories about Knuckles, just killing time and stringing readers along until he's eventually able to truly realize his vision. If not now, then when, Ken?

Even the back cover blurb is mostly just a dry recap of the history of this thing. It was a Sonic comic, the original arc was published in these issues, it went unfinished, Ken left Archie, the lawsuits happened, now he's continuing the story. There's nothing about why anyone should give a shit about this as its own story, even though Ken has spent years trying in vain to convince people TLSC is its own beast that shouldn't be judged as a Sonic story. I think deep down he knows that there's no pitch for this beyond the novelty of it originating from Sonic. And that's why, despite declaring that he'd leave the site, he's still on Twitter riling up Sonic fans. It's the only attention he gets at this point.

Maybe this is too harsh when those 30 pages of new comics are just intended as a preview for the "real" book. But the elephant in the room is that we have no idea if that "real" book will ever actually come out, let alone the entire series of seven graphic novels that will supposedly complete this saga.

Ken is undeniably a complete jackass and all around unpleasant, vindictive person who's rightly become an industry pariah. He's a self-proclaimed paragon of progressive values who'll send Comicsgaters after his successors for the crime of not worshiping the ground he walks on, and then turn around and announce he's going to reprint their work without even consulting them. He's a sore winner who already won his copyright battle on a level most comic writers would never dare to dream of, and yet still won't truly be satisfied until he sees an entire major comic publisher go out of business, putting god knows how many people out of work, because he thinks this would get him back the license to a video game franchise he doesn't even like.

But I still have to pity him.

As an artist, the trajectory of his life is my nightmare. I think all of us fear dying before we can tell all the stories we want to tell. There's simply never enough time to do everything. And here's Ken in his 60s, talking about how he's still planning on making his magnum opus all by himself out of stubbornness and pride, despite demonstrably proving he can't handle the workload, and also talking about how if he dies before the project can be finished he'll have to pass the torch on to his kids and get them to finish it for him. It's so grim. Even just typing that sends a shiver down my spine. It took nine years of his limited time on Earth to finish and release an 11-page comic about Geoffrey St. John sitting backwards in a chair.

This is a purgatory of his own creation. And yet... I'm not sure he's ever been prouder. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

I guess if I want people to take anything away from this review, it's this:

Lesson one: If you're an artist or writer of some kind, or an aspiring creator, don't wait around. No one else is going to tell your story for you. Start writing that novel. Start drawing that webcomic. Start making that game. If Penders can put out this damn book that no one asked for after 13 years of work, then proudly proclaim that he's still going to make six or seven more books and also reprint hundreds of comics he doesn't have all of the rights to, then show up to cons with that foul Lara-Su Chronicles: Shattered Tomorrows banner and sit in front of it beaming with pride, fully aware of his critics but saying "fuck 'em, I know I'm hot shit," then you can do fucking anything. Tell the weird, sincere, cringe story of your dreams. If Ken Penders doesn't have imposter syndrome, then nobody should.

And lesson two: Don't buy Ken's books.

[eddieslunchbox]

desire

summary: you've never been kissed and eddie has been crushing on you since the day you met

18+ [bestfriend!eddie x female!reader]

contains: hurt/comfort, mutual pining, fluff, friends to lovers, kissing, brief mention of alcohol, swearing

word count: 4k

a/n: this is my first time writing for eddie and I'm excited to share him with you! this is very self-indulgent but I hope you like it. please consider reblogging/commenting if you do, my blog is brand new! enjoy ❤

There’s a romantic comedy playing on the television, something you picked up from Family Video for your bi-weekly movie night with Eddie. It was your turn to pick, and after sitting through a terrible slasher film he claimed to love, you wanted to get him back with a movie you didn’t necessarily have interest in, but knew would make him squirm in his seat. 

He grabbed the snacks while you got the movie, and you met up at his trailer after Wayne left for work, the sun setting beyond the horizon and leaving a cold autumn breeze in its place. A routine that had been kept for almost six-months straight.

A bowl of popcorn sat between the two of you, an open bag of sour patch kids resting against your thigh and a half-empty bottle of beer was clasped in Eddie’s hand, resting lazily on his knee where he sat on the opposite side of the sofa. 

You always looked forward to these nights, but today you felt particularly resentful about your choice of film, the two main characters falling in love mere days after meeting. It’s cheesy and cliche, and not all that realistic. You know that. But it makes your chest ache with longing for something you’ve never had. 

And now, unbeknownst to you, you’ve been watching the movie play out with a pout sitting on your face while Eddie has to bite back his smile each time the male protagonist kisses the girl that looks a little like you if he squints hard enough. 

The two of you had been best friends since high school and now you were spending most of your time in college while Eddie worked at an auto shop, which left your get-togethers pushed to the weekends unless one of you showed up at the other's place without warning after a long day. You’d also been crushing on him practically since the day you met, but had kept your feelings to yourself, ignorant to the fact that Eddie also had eyes for you for longer than he was willing to admit to himself. 

You’ve watched him go through a handful of relationships in the time you’ve known him. 

From hearing the disbelief in his voice when he scored a date with Chrissy Cunningham and seeing her hanging off of his arm around school for four months, before you all graduated and she broke it off with a voicemail left on Wayne’s home phone and headed off to university in Indianapolis; to random hookups from his evenings spent at The Hideout that you encountered in awkward meetings when you showed up at his trailer to spend the day with him, finding girls in his clothes sipping coffee that they helped themselves to while Eddie snoozed for another hour. 

Eddie has been your best friend for five years. Six in only a couple of months. And he has been with a total of nine different women. 

Not that you’re counting or anything. 

His relationships never bother you. Not really. But the nagging thought in the back of your mind every time you think about him, was that you haven’t been with anyone. 

You’ve had nothing more than a brief conversation with boys in required discussion groups in college. And other than the frequent hugs you receive from Eddie, the furthest you’ve ever gone with someone was a kiss on the cheek from one of your girlfriends that was slightly too close to the corner of your mouth, and left your body erupting in tingles. 

But Eddie had game. He knew how to make a girl swoon. How to wrap them around his finger and kiss them until they were weak in the knees and red in the face.

You had seen him kiss a handful of times and were ashamed to admit to yourself that you had crawled into your bed with your hand between your thighs more than once, wishing it was you he was kissing and touching and making crumble with one particularly smitten look on his face.

He glances at you when you haven't said a word in over an hour, seeing the frown on your face and the crease between your brows that he desperately wants to smooth over with his thumb. You never had a great poker face, unintentionally putting most of your emotions on display, and he knows you have no idea you’re pouting. 

“Did you run out of candy?” He asks suddenly, making you turn to him, the wrinkle in your forehead deepening in confusion. “You’re grumpy.” 

“I’m not grumpy,” you huff, plucking your aforementioned candy off the sofa and popping one into your mouth. 

Your knees are pulled up to your chest, body leaning away from Eddie with your legs resting against the arm of the sofa. He knows something is up when your eyes don’t return to the movie, lips pursing as you suck on the candy in your mouth and stare at the bag in your hands, pretending to read the ingredients. 

He quietly sets his beer down on the coffee table, moving the barely touched popcorn off of the sofa and clicking pause on the remote, filling the room with silence. You look up at him and he rests his arm on the back of the sofa, the palm of his hand pressing into his cheek. 

“Are you going to keep pouting for the rest of the night, or tell me what’s wrong?” He asks, brow arching in question and you fight the urge to roll your eyes. 

“I’m fine,” you mutter, dropping your candy onto the table and bundling your hands together in your lap. 

“You’re a liar, is what you are,” he accuses. 

You sigh, slumping further down into the sofa with your cheek resting on the cushion as you turn to meet his gaze. 

His brown eyes sparkle in the dim light of the room, his usually untamed hair pulled back with a bun at the base of his skull, stray pieces falling softly to frame the sides of his face. He looks pretty. He always does, but your current state of mind has you looking away as your heart skips a beat, gaze falling to his chest which is covered with a well-worn Dio shirt. 

“I want that,” you admit quietly, voice barely audible to yourself. 

“You want what?” He questions, brows furrowing. 

You flicker your eyes over to the television and he turns his head to look at the screen, the film paused on a scene of a girl lounging beside a pool with a fluffy dog in her lap, sipping on a bright purple cocktail. 

“A dog? A pool- or do you want a drink? I can try and make you something but I don’t know what we have…” He trails off in confusion and you sigh, rubbing your hands over your face. 

“Just forget it,” you mumble into your palms before crossing your arms over your stomach and tilting your eyes up to the ceiling. 

Eddie feels clueless as he tries to work out your unspoken desire in his head, gaze shifting around the room until he spots the fictional couple on the cover of the rented VHS tape. 

A lightbulb flicks on in his head. 

“You want someone?” 

Your eyes dart to him quickly enough that he knows he’s right before you give him a subtle nod of your head, pulling the sleeves of your sweater over your hands as you feel your face grow hot. 

“You will one day,” he assures you but you just shake your head, that being the last thing you want to hear. 

Eddie knows about your relationship history, or rather, lack thereof, but you never talk about it. So he’s surprised with your next statement, his heart leaping into his throat and the energy in the room shifting. 

“No one has ever found me attractive… or at least not enough to do something about it. It’s hopeless.” 

He keeps a straight face but curls his fingers into a fist at his side, silently cursing himself for never telling you how pretty you really are. He thinks you’re the prettiest and most attractive person he’s ever known, but has never said a word out of fear that you’ll stop being his best friend. 

“It’s not hopeless,” he says quietly. “The guys who haven’t made a move on you are pussies.” 

His partially self-degrading comment was meant to make you laugh, but you don’t. Not even giving him a pitying laugh or a half-forced smile. 

“No one has ever even glanced in my direction,” you say and he frowns. 

“That you’ve seen.” 

“Eddie…” you sigh, unsure of why you start to feel emotion welling up in your chest. 

"Sorry."

“I just… I grew up surrounded by friends who had boyfriends, or flings, or were flirted with- kissed stupid outside of bars or on the bench behind school. And no one-” your words get caught in your chest and you swallow down the lump forming in your throat. “No one has ever even looked at me. Do you know how that feels?”

You look up at him but he doesn’t reply, his eyebrows threading together as he watches you bare your heart to him like this for the first time. 

“To have guys look at everyone around you, but never you? To never have anyone like you enough to say something about it? To… to have maybe had three guy friends who never saw you as anything more, that you haven’t even spoken to in years?” 

You know he doesn’t get it. Not at all. But it doesn’t matter. 

“God, Eddie.” You scrub at your eyes when tears gloss over your vision. “I’ve never even kissed someone,” your voice cracks and falls into a whisper. 

He immediately reaches forward to wrap his hands around your ankles and pull you towards him, swiftly maneuvering you to sit with your legs thrown over his lap and your head buried in his neck. 

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, running his hand over your waist. You sniffle sadly. “Fuck, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” 

He knows that all of the potentially comforting words forming in his brain won’t make you feel better. Because he doesn’t understand what it’s like to be your age and never kissed. 

You don’t want to hear that it’ll happen one day. You don’t know what you want. 

Maybe comfort isn’t something that words would necessarily give you right now. 

“I know that it’ll probably happen one day but… what if it doesn’t?” You whimper, curling into him as your vulnerability takes over. He holds you tighter to him, shaking his head. “I don’t even know what it feels like to be wanted. I can’t even imagine anyone wanting me. No one ever has.” 

His heart feels like it’s going to crumble into pieces in his chest as he lets you talk out your feelings, his hand gripping your thigh tightly. You’re almost completely perched in his lap, but he can’t focus on how you feel against him when your tears are wetting the collar of his shirt. 

“God I feel fucking pathetic,” you mumble, wiping your hand over your eyes and sitting up. “Sorry.” 

“You’re not pathetic,” he says, making you scoff quietly as you dab at your cheeks with your sleeves, staring down at your lap. “You’re human. It’s pretty human to want to feel desired.” 

“Yeah,” you whisper, sniffling back the remainder of your tears and lifting your eyes to find his pretty brown ones staring back at you. 

There’s something different in his gaze now. Something you’ve only seen a few times. Something loving and soft, and so sweet that it makes your breath hitch in your throat. 

Eddie figures that now is as good a time as any to potentially make a complete fool out of himself in an attempt to make you feel better. To make you feel like you’re worthy of being desired. Because god knows he’s been desiring you since the day you accidentally fell into his lap in the cafeteria after being shoved out of the way with a harsh shoulder by some prissy cheerleader on the second day of school.

“You’re beautiful,” he says so quietly that you almost don’t hear him. 

“Eddie…” you mumble, shutting your eyes and moving to climb off of his lap. 

His hand on your thigh tightens and you pause, his eyes tracing delicately over your features. 

“You want someone to look at you,” he says, the corners of his lips quivering in a small smile. “So I’m looking, sweetheart.” 

His eyes flicker down to your lips and you want to say something. To pull away and turn the movie back on, get off of his lap and pretend like you were never there in the first place. But the way he’s looking at you is something you’ve only ever seen him do with his past girlfriends or someone he’s crushing on. Never to you. 

Your cheeks feel warm as he looks at you and you can almost feel his eyes as they trace over your hairline and down the bridge of your nose, past your lips and dropping down to your chest before meeting yours again. Your stomach twists with nerves as his hand leaves your thigh to rest on the side of your neck, his thumb smoothing across the skin of your cheek. 

“Eddie,” your voice is a whisper, heart pounding in your chest. “Stop.” 

He can feel the nerves radiating off of you but he doesn’t move, one of his brows quirking up in question. “What’s wrong?” 

“I-I don’t… I-” you stumble for a reason why you want him to stop looking at you like that. 

You wrack your brain while he sits patiently for an answer, but you quickly understand that you don’t want him to stop. You’re just terrified. 

You don’t have to speak to understand what could happen, with how he’s gazing at you and touching you so softly as if you’ll break under his palms at any second. Holding you in a way he never has before. 

“Please don’t be making one of your stupid jokes right now,” you say, a plea that has his face softening and his thumb brushing across your bottom lip. 

“I’m not joking, baby,” he murmurs, the pet name making your heart stammer in your chest. “You’re gorgeous. And I was too afraid to say anything in case you didn’t feel the same and left because you were uncomfortable around me.” 

You suddenly feel like crying again, a wave of disbelief washing over you as you realize that your best friend and the person you’ve been silently wanting for almost six years wants to give you everything you were just begging for. 

“I could never be uncomfortable around you,” you say and he smiles, hooking his arm around your waist and twisting you so that you’re facing him, your knees pressing into the sofa on either side of his hips. 

“I mean it,” he said and all you can do is nod. 

The position you’ve found yourself in is foreign in more ways than one, but especially with it being Eddie who has put you there. You feel slightly overwhelmed with your shorts riding up on your thighs and your skin cold where the metal of the chain on his belt presses against you. Rough denim scratching softly at your legs and a subtle heat radiating through the fabric that makes you slightly dizzy as you get a whiff of his cologne. 

Your hands are clenched into fists around the fabric of his t-shirt and he can feel your heart racing where his palm is still pressing against the side of your neck. 

“It’s just me, yeah?” He says and you swallow the sudden dryness in your throat. “There’s nothing to be scared of.” 

He knows you need him to make all of the moves right now and he’s okay with it, even despite the way his heartbeat is quickening to catch up with yours. 

“Can I kiss you?” 

His question makes your head spin and your stomach tightens. “I… I’ve never-” 

“I know.” The gentle reassurance that falls from his lips soothes you and you give him another quick nod. 

There’s still a hint of a smile on his face when he leans forward to brush his lips against yours.

He doesn’t kiss you right away, the tip of his nose nudging yours as he pulls back just enough to gauge your reaction. Your eyes are closed and your lips part slightly with a shaky sigh, hands unknowingly pulling the neckline of his shirt down to grasp for any semblance of reality as you sit in his lap. 

He slides his hand to the back of your neck, guiding you forward an inch to meet his mouth, lips slotting against yours. His lips are soft and slightly chapped, and when a strand of his hair brushes against your cheek, you don’t bother to pull away even when it tickles your skin. 

The hand on your neck is a grounding touch and you think you’ve never felt so safe and comfortable in Eddie’s arms before.

He can feel the way you relax into his kiss, your body slumping just enough to rest your chest against his and fingers untangling from his shirt to drop into his lap. You’re not breathing so he pulls away after just a few seconds, lips parting from yours with a quiet click and you immediately take a deep breath through your nose, your eyes fluttering open. 

You think if your brain was working properly, you’d be worried that this was all a ploy for him to get your first kiss out of the way so you’d stop crying, but the only thing floating through your mind is how nice it felt to have his lips on yours. 

His face is close to yours, lashes brushing his cheekbones as he sits with his eyes closed, the hand on your waist sliding down to rest on the top of your thigh. The tip of his tongue pokes out as he wets his lips before exhaling a long breath through his nose, a tiny smirk tugging at his mouth. 

“Shit,” he breathes, squeezing your thigh before tipping his head back to rest on the sofa cushion. “I really can’t believe it took me this long to kiss you.” 

“You mean that?” You fight the urge to bring your hand up to feel your lips, wondering how long you might have to wait to feel his again. 

He peels his eyes open and looks down at you. “You have no idea.”

You feel a smile begin to form on your face and you duck your chin to hide against his chest, fingers still trembling from clutching his shirt so tightly as you lift your arms to slink around his neck. He chuckles and curls his arms around you, tilting his head down and burying his nose in your hair. 

“Don’t get all shy on me now, sweetheart,” he says, a shiver running down his spine as you slide your fingers into his hair, loosening the elastic holding it back. 

He doesn’t care about his hair as your nose presses into his neck and your breath warms the skin beneath his shirt. “Did I do alright for your first time?” 

Your face goes flush at his choice of words and he fights back a moan when you press a quick kiss to his neck before lifting your head, unable to hold back the coy grin that sits on your lips. 

You nod and he smiles, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on your lower back. 

“Yeah? Think it’d be okay if I did it again?” 

“Please,” you say and he wastes no time in kissing you again. 

Your hands blindly tug the elastic band out of his hair, sliding it onto your wrist and tangling your fingers into the mess of curls at his neck. His lips drag over yours in lingering kisses that make your stomach twist with heat, tasting a hint of the candy he was munching on earlier in the evening. 

You’re consumed by the new sensation of his lips moving against yours and the frizzy curls hooked around your fingers, the thick of your thighs resting on his own with a silent invitation to scooch your hips a little closer to his if you wanted to. 

Eddie is kissing you. Keeping his advances small but addicting, pushing back a smile each time he feels you chase his lips when he pulls back. You can’t get enough. 

So you don’t really notice when he relaxes back against the sofa, resting his hands on your soft thighs with his fingers dipping just below the edge of your shorts. You let out a quiet noise against his lips as your chest comes to rest on his, your arm getting trapped beneath his shoulder and the cushion. His nails press softly into your skin at how pleased you sound, his arms erupting in goosebumps when you unintentionally tug at his hair. 

You’ve been letting out quiet gasps between every kiss he plants on your mouth, your lungs stinging in your chest, yet reluctant to pull away. It’s only when you feel the tip of his tongue nudge against your bottom lip that you pull back, resting your forehead on his and panting to catch your breath. 

“Too much?” He mumbles, sliding his hands over your skin. 

“Not at all,” you breathe, swallowing hard and letting out a soft laugh. “I just couldn’t breathe.” 

Eddie smiles, tilting his chin forward to press his lips to the corner of your mouth. You lift your head and your eyes instantly fall to his lips, now slightly swollen and a darker shade of pink. 

It’s hard for you to think straight, to wrap your head around the fact that you just had your first kiss, and second, and third, and fourth… all with Eddie who is looking at you now like you hung the moon just for him. 

As much as your insecurity is wanting to take you away from this moment, you know that he isn’t that good of a liar, and if he really didn’t want you like this in at least some capacity, you’d be able to see it in his eyes. But all you can see is the sweet, loving gaze of your best friend as he lets you settle, no matter that all he can think about now is kissing you stupid for the rest of the night. 

You’ve gotten further than you ever thought you’d get and you mindlessly pull the tangles in his hair apart, wetting your lips and taking a deep breath. “I like you, Eds. A lot.” 

You figured he might make a teasing comment at your admission, but he just smirks and lets his eyes fall closed as you play with his hair. “I like you too, sweetheart. Have for way too long.” 

You sink your teeth into your bottom lip and slide your hands from his hair to drag down his chest, his stomach twitching beneath your innocent touch. 

“Do you want to keep watching your movie?” He asks, glancing at you and you shake your head. “You sure?” 

You think this is the happiest you’ve ever been, and Eddie feels the same- just happy that he could be the one to make you feel truly wanted for the first time. He wishes you would’ve confided in him about your lack of romance earlier in your friendship so you wouldn’t have missed out on so many years silently pining for one another. But he thinks this will do just fine.

“I want to keep doing this,” you quietly admit and he lets out a soft groan as he brings his hands up to his face. 

“You’re gonna be the death of me…” He drops his hands to his sides. “Wanna get comfy in my room then?”

He chuckles at your eager nod, patting your thighs and moving to sit up. “Hop up then, baby. We can clean up later.” 

You get up and he follows suit, grabbing your hand and interlacing your fingers to drag you down the hallway with an urgency that makes you laugh the entire way into his bedroom.

[pinescent-and-gingerbread]

✧Night Moths

✦ Pairing: Arthur Morgan x Fem!Reader ✦ Summary: Arthur has a simple task to do, searching for any lead possible at the Mayor's party. Only problem? You also have a job of your own. Based on “The Gilded Cage” ✦ Warnings/tags: guns, strangers to…sinners?, SMUT 18+, reader is part of a St Denis gang, cover names used at first, smoking, Arthur is extremely horny and a little rough with you (you pushed his limits), cursing, outdoor sex, fingering, tits play, multiple orgasms, unprotected p in v ✦ Words: 9,8k ✦ a/n: YES. I KNOW. This is super long. I have absolutely zero excuse. I feel like this is my best piece yet, but I'm so nervous about posting it! Once again, a big thank you to the incredible @zae-heeyyy, my jedi master, my confidence-booster and patience Queen, who beta-read this big baby and helped me so much with so many things, as always. (Go check her blog I'm begging you)

Glasses are twinkling and clinking all around you. Words are spoken, laughs are let out, champagne drank.

You're leaning against one of the stoned garden walls, fancy decor of the Mayor's house, the perfectly cut bushes looking just as fresh and neat as every guest at this party. You can hear the distinguished music coming from a quartet playing under a gazebo a few meters away from you, and smell the fresh air of the night blending with aromas of flowers, expensive alcohol, hint of vanilla and sweet scents hiding a stronger note of sweat and cologne. Around you, all the richest, wealthiest, and noteworthiest of people in St Denis. You can hear them talk; their conversation as dull and superficial as an empty chrysalid, an abandoned cocoon emptied from all substance, from all interest and life.

You hated those kinds of discussions. Hated those kinds of people, the ones that have the easiest and simplest life one could ever have; being fed, being cared for, even being told what to think and do. You almost envied them in a way, they didn't have to worry about a single thing apart from losing their power. It seemed comfortable somehow, worry-free. The exact opposite of what you had always known.

And yet, you had to bear with them. A very specific task had been assigned to you by your gang. A simple job, one you were often sent off to as you had grown by the years into a great thief and a terribly efficient shapeshifter; blending into any type of party, or gathering, always making a good impression, putting people at ease. You were now an expert at this little game, especially with rich men. They were all the same, always wanting more, demanding the same thing from you. You had learned how to play with their greediness and lust to turn it into your advantage, saloons becoming your jungle as you sneaked easily between your prey to rob them, a deadly and redoubtable leopard in a world of apes.

You needed to steal some important documents from the mayor's office. The main informer of your gang had specified it was a pretty strong lead, and that you could gain a lot from it; something to do with Leviticus Cornwall's dirty deeds with the mayor, a blackmail opportunity. 

Your boss had decided to send you, knowing you would easily integrate the party, and even more easily steal the documents. So here you were, feline eyes looking all around you, scanning, observing, evaluating. You couldn't just come, steal the papers, and go; it would have been too suspicious. All the contrary, you needed to be seen and leave a good impression like you always did, maybe stay for a couple of hours, and then smoothly retrieve your goal before disappearing in the secrecy of the dark night. A flamboyant, harmless butterfly… on the surface.

You sighed, trying to pay attention to what was being said to you. Right in front of you, a middle-aged man was talking, explaining something about how he had acquired his incredible wealth. His speech was sadly boring, his eyes glum, his clothes basic, his face awfully bland.

The empty chrysalis in all its gloomy glory.

You forced yourself to nod and give the man a charming smile. This was your job. You had to at least do it properly. Why was tonight a lot harder than the others? Were you frightened to be right under the Mayor's nose, fooling him into his own home? Were you tired, or sick? 

In a way, you were. Sick of this life, of this constant pretending, of being here listening to the literal hollow vessel bragging about himself, sick of needing to appear actually interested, charmed even. 

Suddenly, the music coming from the quartet is too loud, sharp violin blending with his words, making you even less focused. You were here for too long already, you needed a break and to finish your mission.

You politely interrupted the stranger, placing a gentle hand on his forearm, a gesture that you had noticed was prompt to soften most men. Along with your most charming smile, you excused yourself from him and quickly walked to a less crowded area, praying that no one would interrupt you.

You made your way up to the exterior stairs of the luxurious mansion just before the patio door and windows, and stopped on top of them, placing your hands on the central low wall, between two Greek columns. Another fancy facade, the house itself was just an imitation from another culture. Did any of these fools have any personal identity at all?

From here, you had a good view of the whole party. Countless fake smiles, masks, a literal scene of a play that could have its place at the Théâtre Râleur. A play of pale phantom shells.

You reached for your purse, taking a cigarette out, mindlessly putting it between your lips. Maybe smoking would help. You searched for a match, silently cursing realizing you hadn't any left.

"Ya need some fire, Ma’am?"

A deep voice said behind you, making you turn, surprised. It was unusual for people to startle you, your ears had been trained to notice the faintest of footsteps in order to survive.

You got even more surprised considering who had talked. A man was standing before you. He was taller, and largely wider than you, his black suit struggling to contain what looked like a well-built body; which made you wonder how could he have been so quiet. His shoulders especially looked way broader than the men you had the habit of running into at those sorts of gatherings. A very classical white bow looked like it was strangling him. His black tailcoat and white jacket looked larger too, making you wonder how much did he had to pay for the tailor to sew them custom-made.

His hair had a soft indescribable color, somewhere between a light brown and a sandy blond. His face, the work of a brutal draftsman, rough edges and strong squared jaw gratified with some scars. One on his chin, another on his nose, nose that seemed broken now that you were thinking about it. It looked like the artist that had drawn this man had sharpened his pencils too much and traced lines in a hurry, piercing through the canvas, his features ending up rugged and scared, some trace of graphite shrapnel that would have damaged the portrait.

What disturbed you the most were his eyes. They looked out of place considering how robust his features were. One could have expected them to be dark, black even. But they were the exact opposite, their bright and soft indigo color leaving you disarmed, two sapphires locked on your own pupils.

He was handing you a match, and you slowly took it, your fingers slightly discovering how his palm felt under them. Firm, calloused.  Another stone-like feature of him.

He looked like those Greek statues carved by artists. His beauty so singular and yet enticing. So different.

"Why, thank you, kind sir." You showed your gratitude to him with a grin, lighting the match by simply rubbing it against the cold stone of the fence, a little flame appearing instantly. You brought it to your mouth, the cigarette finally catching fire, and you breathed in.

"Ya don't smoke much?" He questioned, voice deep. You hadn't noticed how deep it was the first time, nor how pronounced his accent was, dragging and drawling every word, a slow melody of his own.

"Not too often, indeed." You informed him. It was the truth, you were basically just smoking during jobs to blend in more easily, most people doing it. It was an easy way to start a conversation with anyone. Just like he had done with you, you noted.

"Needed a break from high society?" He inquired, a sarcastic tone in his voice.

"I guess you could say that." You answered, exhaling a long drag of smoke. 

You were now completely turned to face him, your cigarette making back and forth from your mouth to the air where you tossed the burned ashes with a little movement from your thumb to the cigarette’s end. Your motions were elegant, distinguished but looked natural. It caught his interest.

"What's your name, sir?" You spoke again, curious about this uncommon newcomer.

"Tacitus Kilgore. What is yours, Ma'am?" He asked you back before placing himself on your left, both of you leaning on the low fence of the patio. 

You contained a chuckle. There was no way in the World this man was named like this. You knew something was odd about him. The scars, his knuckles redden and subtly wounded as if had fought recently.  His strong stature, miles away from a lazy bourgeois being served, his wild hair longer than the actual trendy haircut, his stubble fitting more a countryman than an actual St Denis gentleman. 

Years of playing with people and observing them had made your eyes alert and expert, and you could see when someone was pretending.

When someone was playing a role just like you were, not belonging into this World.

"Rose Schultz." Of course, it wasn't your real name either. You had to be a really poor thief to give him your actual one. He didn't react to it though, his face impassible just like the start of your whole conversation.

Apart from this vague feeling you had about him not being a rich gentleman, you found trouble in reading his emotions. His facial features were closed, impenetrable, mysterious. This also disturbed you as you had the habits of figuring men out right away; he on the other hand was a whole challenge by himself, his intentions hidden behind an emotionless face. This man probably was a champion at poker.

"Nice t' meet ya, Missus Schultz. Are you, erm, hidin' from someone here? Or jus' judgin' everyone from your perch?" He went on with a more amused voice.

"Just know that I'm not the type to hide from someone, Mister." You replied, a little grin curling up your lips.

"Yeah, you sure don't look like it..."

"You wanna know what I think you look like, Mister?"

"Go ahead."

"A wild horse who's trapped, and can't wait to be freed again."

Silence. His eyes stared deeply into yours, stabbing you in sharp blue flashes of Apatite, as keen as the blade of a knife. After just a few seconds, you finally see his mouth moving, his cold expression changing as a slight grin made his way between the stillness of his features.

"You sort of a witch or somethin' ?" He asked you, amused once again. His little smile is even more evident in his eyes, his lower eyelids crinkling slightly in amusement.

"Maybe." You answered cockily, feeling more at ease with him now that he was slightly more open. 

Still, there was something that was making you feel weak in the knees; maybe it was his tall stature, his strong build, or the palpable tension you could feel beaming out from him, as if he was ready to jump on someone who would have crossed him at any second.

In a way, you liked it. It was almost exciting.

"I better not mess wi’chu then. Don't wanna end up cursed or somethin'." He joked, features relaxing, body leaning slightly more against the low wall in a more comfortable position.

"Oh, I wouldn't dare. You also look like the type of man you don't wanna mess with..."

"I'm surprised how well you already know me, darlin'." He admitted, internally enjoying your conversation more and more.

Your heart swelled at the surname. It felt so good in your ears, it sounded better than from any person who ever said it to you. You wanted to hear it again. You wanted to hear him say it just to you.

"I'm kinda talented at figuring people out." You simply replied, before taking another drag at your cigarette.

"I too. And I also think you're not here to jus' play nice with everyone and enjoy yourself." He suddenly confessed to you with a knowing gaze, eyebrows raising as if he was trying to make you understand something.

He knew too. You both knew you weren't from this world, like two predators from the same species, recognizing themselves, circling, judging, from one individual to another. Your breath stopped for a very short time, nobody could have noticed it, but somehow you were sure he did.

"Don't ya worry little "rose", I won't tell no one..." 

You didn't miss how he was playing with your false name. On top of being astonishingly handsome, he had some spirit…

He's still looking intensely into your eyes. "In return, I expect you to do the same...", he added in a low voice, his tone firmer and even more resonant than earlier.

A threat. His presence only intimidates you, and it's working so well that you're almost sure he must be an expert in terrorizing too. He must be one hell of a weapon all by himself.

You slowly nodded your head, trying to swallow as naturally as possible to look unphased. 

"Guess we have a deal here, "Tacitus"." You emphasized his name, making it clear you're more than doubtful about it being real too.

It made him laugh, and you almost lost it at the sound of it. It was as deep, raw, and genuine as his entire being seemed to be. You loved it. You loved it too much.

Exhaling some smoke, you noticed he had pulled out a cigarette too and had joined your smoking, holding it between his thumb and index finger. You had mixed feelings for this man. He was just as intimidating as he was enticing, and you let your curiosity win the best of you as you carried on your conversation with him.

"I hate it here." You suddenly confessed.

 There was no point in playing anymore, and even if you didn’t really know why you had told him that, a part of you felt like maybe, just maybe, he could have understood you.

"Yeah, I get what ya mean. Sometimes I think that those people are jus'… reptiles in fancy clothin'."

You had seen right. Your chest felt light, as if he had lifted a weight in you with just those simple words.

"I just want to be anywhere else but here. Somewhere nicer, more authentic. Like in Big Valley..." You went on with your regrets.

"You too know about this place uh? Yeah, I can picture ya picking flowers in Lil’ Creek..."

This time it was your turn to chuckle, your laugh creating a little puff of smoke in the air. Was he being serious or just teasing you? You didn’t really care. Now, you felt like something special was linking you both as you knew exactly where this spot was, a happy memory brought back in your mind thanks to his words. The wild and fresh river, the meadows covered in thousands of violet flowers, the snowy mountains in the background.

Your cristal-clear laugh made him smile back at you.

"So... What does a woman like you is actually doing here, then?" He asked you, his eyes roaming all along your body while he did. 

You were glad you had put on the prettiest dress you had, its dark burgundy color matching perfectly the tone of your skin, and its generous cleavage showing a delicious amount of your chest, underlined by a black translucent shawl covering your shoulders and twirling around your arms. You were offering a tempting sight for every man. You knew he had looked at it, his eyes lingering there had almost burned your skin, sent a warm feeling between your tights, and made your hand hold your cigarette tighter.

"You really thought it would be that easy, Mister?" You answered with another cheeky grin, looking at him with a sensual gaze, your words let out in a languorous whisper, knowing damn well he was trying to gain information, probably to probe if he could get something out of it for himself. "You really thought I would just confess everything to you about myself and what I'm doing here, just because you've got a firm tone and pretty face?"

He let out a dry single chuckle, his cigarette hanging in the air, smirking some more. This damn smirk, it was making you have more and more inappropriate thoughts about this man. The wildness, the dangerousness he was emitting should have made every girl flee, but you, all the contrary, were attracted by it like a moth to a flame.

Or maybe he was the Moth. Maybe he was the beautiful, singular, and ephemeral Moth in the world of chrysalides you were searching for all along.

"Oh trust me, I could make you spit out everythin' I want, Miss." He replied to your taunting words with the serious threatening tone he had used before. "Could make this pretty mouth behave..." He added, looking right into your soul, bending slightly towards you.

You felt like the tension was about to make your whole body burst. There was something between you two, you were sure he could feel it too. A sinuous, dark creature swimming and circling incessantly under the surface of a frozen lake; waiting, craving to be unleashed, to break the thin layer of ice that was keeping it caged.

He was inviting you to measure yourself to him. Bent towards you, wanting you to close the other half of the space between you both. A challenge, or a mark of respect, the case you didn’t want to venture into this territory.

But truth was, you wanted to. You wanted to break the ice yourself, you wanted to just kiss him, right here, right now.

Of course, it was a bad idea. And you were a professional, on a mission.

Instead, you put your hand on his bicep and brought your head inches away from his, not closing the space between your mouths. You’re accepting this silent fight, excited to show him what you’re capable of. You’re enveloped by his strong scent; your lips so close to his. You can see by his widening smirk how delighted he is you didn’t change your mind nor lost your guts. Responding to your bold move, he slowly snaked an arm around your waist. His hand landed on your lower back, just on the verge of being offensive.

Both of you stayed like this for a moment, your breath mixing, merging in a dangerous and exciting cocktail, but neither of you actually crossing the limit.

He could sense just how close he was to though, his muscles were tensed under your fingers, his forehead almost resting on yours with a light frown on it. You could see in his impassive handsome face a whole new emotion. 

Pure, raw lust.

"You're such a temptatious, thorny rose..." He mumbled in a hot whisper against your lips, the warmth between your legs now burning like a wildfire. Your pussy was aching for him, and you couldn't hold it anymore.

You felt his body twitching as he was going to finally do it, finally break the ice of the frozen lake, finally let his impulses and needs break free, his unholy, deep, atrociously torturous desires-

"Ah, Arthur !" A relieved voice interrupted both of you and he immediately let go of you, his head snapping to look at the man who had talked, eyes widening.

A tall gentleman with a perfectly cut mustache as black as his long curly hair and hat was looking at your companion with a contained,  amused smile.

"Will you excuse us, Miss?" He said unctuously to you, his voice polite and charming.

It was more of a statement than a question. He quickly took one of your hands and put a polite kiss on it before bending slightly towards you, as a gentleman would, and looked at your opponent with an insistent gaze.

Arthur was fulminating. He wasn't actually showing it, his face had come back to its usual cold, emotionless expression. But you could feel from where you were the unbearable tension and frustration that was dripping from his body language, almost as a halo of warmth you could physically touch with your hands. He took a last look at you, eyes expressing a mix of regret and bitterness.

"Goodnight, Miss." He coldly greeted you, walking next to you to follow his friend and go down the stairs, his shoulder brushing against yours while doing it.

"Goodnight, Arthur..." You answered him emphasizing his name once again, making it really clear that you remembered it was not the one he had given you and that you were pretty proud you had seen right. A playful, teasing grin on your face, you look one last time at him before he vanished in the ocean of guests.

Your Butterfly had disappeared just as quickly as he had materialized; leaving you alone with the empty cocoons once more. It was more than time for you to do your job and get out of here. Your cigarette finished, now feeling cold between your fingers, you tossed it away and headed into the mansion, feeling just as frustrated as so-called Arthur.

Arthur was pissed. He had never felt so frustrated in ages, and it was making his thoughts even less easy to discipline. His cigarette was on the verge of being smoked all at once from how intense he was getting and how heavy his breath had turned, the end of it constantly burning in a red shining little point as he was walking. 

This whole year he had felt like he didn't have any control over anything anymore and he hated it.

He was already feeling embittered in his everyday life, Dutch listening less and less to his opinion, Micah sneaking around him more and more, Mary coming back to him just to ask him to help her goddamn father who had always treated him like shit. 

On top of that, Dutch had made him look like an idiot using his actual name in front of you, making him wonder what was even the whole point of having a cover if he wasn't capable of sticking to it; which he had bitterly pointed out to him, but his superior had shrugged it off, seemingly happy to be here amongst the important people, looking as careless as ever.

Yes, Arthur was feeling frustrated, frustrated and tired of this. Tonight, instead of giving of himself, he wanted to take, for once. He needed to, even. He was about to before being interrupted, and this thought was gnawing at him from the inside. 

He was barely paying attention to what Dutch was saying to him and the others once Hosea and Bill had joined them. All he could see was your insanely beautiful face, your inviting lips, the perfect outline of your breasts from your cleavage, like engraved into his pupils.

The way you were talking, charming and teasing, the way you were smoking, all of this dreadfully turning him on during all your conversation. He had made an enormous amount of effort in order not to just kiss you.

He had joked about you being a witch, but it was the only explanation: you had bewitched him, threw your darkest, most sinful curse on him. Never in his life he had felt so attracted to someone after having talked with them for only such a short amount of time. What an insane fool he was.

On top of it, he was raging about the fact he probably wouldn't have the occasion to see you ever again. He had understood you clearly weren't just another rich man's wife, and he was certain you had given him a false name. His cock was throbbing terribly hurtfully in his pants, making his jaw clench, his brows frowning even more than usual. It was begging to be buried in you, between your legs, in your mouth, or your hands, even your breasts or your ass, anything but the cold feeling of nothingness he was feeling right now around it.

The sudden explosive sound and colorful lighting of fireworks had pulled him out of his blasphemous thoughts. 

He understood Dutch was ordering him something about following one of the Mayor's domestic, and gladly obliged, relieved to have another thing to focus on. Something about Cornwall sending an important letter to Lemieux, which he had to steal. Nothing difficult, he had done those sorts of things countless times. 

Nothing new. 

Nothing puzzling, like you had been.

As he followed the man, eyes locked on his white suit from afar, he quickly took a glance at the patio to see if you were still there. You weren't. His dick ached as he let out a deep exhale. Damn it.

Arthur rapidly found himself inside the Mayor's house. His servant had entered what looked like an office. He waited a few seconds after the room had felt silent, behind the corner of the walls, just to be sure, and entered it.

The room was indeed an office, a little desk with an armchair on his left, bookcases covering every wall, simply illuminated by a flickering orange lamp. Everything looked normal, except for the dark figure of a person in the middle of the place.

You.

He recognized your sensual dress immediately and witnessed you shoving some papers in what looked like a leathered little pocket held around your right thigh by leathered straps, just like a holster would be. His mind raced, a million reflections flying under his eyes. 

You were some sort of professional thief. And he didn’t have to be a genius to understand you had just taken the precise thing he was there for.

"That's why you were here, lil' rose?!" He asked you almost in disbelief, closing the door behind him.

You looked at him with a bold grin, looking almost amused by the situation. He, on the other hand, felt nothing but amusement. Anger, to have been fooled so easily, and that you had got ahead of him, losing the quiet game that had been played out between you. Envy, as you were now possessing two things he wanted to take away from you. Arousal, as his eyes were glued to the thigh that was now visible to his greedy eyes as you had pulled up your dress to put the sheets in your hidden pocket. Need, as his member felt hard again just by the sight of you doing it.

"Yeah, and you can only dream for me to give them to you if those papers were your target too, Arthur."

Damn, that teasing, cheeky mouth of yours. His fantasies came back in full force, and his gaze darkened. As temptatious as you were, he needed those documents. And he would do anything he had to to have them back.

"Give ‘em to me." He lowly ordered you, voice so severe you could have melted right into the carpeted floor of this damn office. But you didn't.

"Hell no."

"Give ‘em t’me, woman. I won't ask nicely a third time."

"If you want them, you'll have to catch me, pretty boy."

Lord, why was everyone so prompt to call him this way lately? He almost grunted at the way you had said it, and he would have lied if this time he didn't like it when it fell from your lips. He wanted to reply with something witty and even more threatening, but in a flash, you had opened the window, and easily jumped outside.

This Goddamn woman. What was she exactly? Some sort of feline? Yeah, probably a panther, agile, impressive, dangerous like one.

He instantly ran after you, jumping through the window too, landing in a loud thud. He quickly spotted your dress running away, escaping by the entry’s portal, then in the nearest street, disappearing behind St Denis's myriad of flashing lights. 

How could he had missed it? His mind was filled with images of it.

He had the common decency of grabbing back his gun from the butler at the party's entry, making him almost fall on the ground as he hadn't slowed but had grabbed them while running, the poor man wondering what the Hell made both of these people in such a hurry.

He was now flying at full speed around the luxurious streets, following the faint glimpse of your dress's color at the corner of every turn. He felt like he could follow your scent like a hunting dog, your sweet and peachy perfume confirming him you had passed there before.

He had enough, feeling his restrain and manners crackling more and more into little pieces. You were making him feel like a damn animal, reducing his whole being to primal needs and functions. He should have been disgusted with himself for that. But all he could do right now was thinking about the damn documents hidden against your damn alluring thigh.

"Stop now, you Goddamn... Evil woman!" He tried to call you out, but you just wouldn't stop. He started firing at you, getting angrier and more fed up by the second, a bullet exploding a piece of the bricked wall right next to your head, some splinters cutting slightly the top of your ear.

You bent over to dodge his bullets one more time and you heard him cursing again loudly behind you. On top of being big, strong and clever, he was fast. In a quick movement of your feet, shaking them, you removed your shoes, unable to run at your fastest speed with heels. You continued your frenzied course, way more at ease.

Arthur rushed in where you were just mere seconds after you, noticing the shoes abandoned on the floor. What the Hell was even this woman, he asked himself for the second time this evening. Some sort of temptatious, dark retelling of Cinderella?

He almost made himself laugh at the thought, understanding your move because his own polished shoes were frankly a pain to run with, making him slip with every shift as if he was walking on soap and regret his good old boots, before acknowledging he had lost your trace.

Shit!

He looked all around him, his eyes scanning every inch, his breath rapid and sharp, his forehead and neck a pool of sweat. No signs of you, unless... 

Something fell right on his face, but gently, as a caress from a fresh breeze. Your perfume filled up his nostrils and lungs and it made his heart race. He took it in his hands, the sensations pleasant under his fingerprints. 

It was your black shawl.

Tilting his head up, he found you.

You were making your way up to the roof of the town by climbing on a thin ladder.

Arthur exhaled deeply through his nose like a buffalo. He was used to this kind of high-speed chase, but this was a whole new thing, which made him regret his lasso too, his hand searching for it on his belt out of habit but closing on nothing. 

Damned party, damned suit, damned you. 

He climbed after you, refusing to give up, enraged like a wild beast. 

He would catch you, dead or alive.

In a way, this was making him even more aroused than any work-girl show he had ever seen.

"I'm going to kill ya, that's a promise!"

You could hear just how furious his voice was now, and you were starting to pray you would flee successfully from him, cause you knew he would eat you alive if he could get his hands on you.

Arriving on top of the building, you caught your breath for a microsecond, before searching for a way out, gaze frantic, heart beating out of your chest. You were considering climbing to another roof, but the deep, breathless sounds of your pursuer prevented you from doing more thinking.

Arthur had reached the top of the roof too, and was already aiming his gun at you. This time he didn't even bother to say anything, shooting at you again while getting up. He was so seething you wouldn’t have been surprised to see saliva bubbling from his mouth.

By divine intervention, you dodged again, and without any thinking, you ran all the way to the edge of the roof, and jumped.

You stayed in the air for a few seconds.

You felt like time had stopped, the air brushing against your skin, your heart hanging somewhere between the sky and the total void.

You landed on a fancy and illuminated balcony a few meters away. You hurt your feet and legs with the shock, but smiled proudly to yourself. You were out of reach, he was way bigger and way heavier than you, there was no way he coul-

A gigantic mass fell on you, as Arthur had proved you wrong and jumped from the roof you had just left and was crashing directly into you. 

Both of you fell on the ground and struggled for a few seconds; you tried to resist him but it was a fight already lost, this literal force of nature easily handling you like he wanted. 

You ended up lying on your back, Arthur sitting on you, towering over you with all his might, quickly grabbing your wrists to prevent you from fighting, his legs parted around your hips stopping you from escaping. You were trapped.

"You're a pain in the ass girl, you know that?!" He shouted at you, breathless, raging mad. You were both panting, sweating heavily. His face was entirely red, and your cheeks even more crimson.

You both looked at each other, eyes locked, and you stayed silent. The dark creature prowling under the thin floe had returned and it was getting bigger, stronger, out of control with each passing second. There was something extremely erotic in the way he was almost lying on top of you, both of you out of breath, sweaty, and burning red, both your hearts beating at full speed in the same erratic rhythm.

Just like before at the reception, you knew he could feel it too. You knew it from the dark gaze he was looking at you with, the shady swirls of the murky leviathan reflecting in the depths of his pupils, from the deepest well of his urges, forbidden territory to which no man ever had access.

A simple touch of his hand, that's all it took.

He put both of your hands into a single one of his, using his other one to pull up your dress, fingers roaming on your thigh.

You couldn't hold it anymore, you bent toward him and slammed your lips against his in the most powerful and decadent kiss you had ever shared with someone, almost biting him.

The moment you did, Arthur's mind exploded, and every poor drop of restrain he had evaporated as quickly as if it was on the Sun's surface. The beast had won, finally shattering the weak layer of ice into a million pieces; your two souls blending in what could have felt like a fevered dream.

The grunt he let out onto your kiss was animalistic, and the tension in his body just as powerful as a waterfall with a brutal, unstoppable current. The hand that was holding your wrist let go of it and slipped under your head, fingers in your hair, as his tongue licked against your lips, searching for a way in. You let him in, eagerly, wondering if he would have forced the way if you didn’t. 

He tasted strong, as if to match his whole being, a powerful flavor of tobacco, merged with a faint trace of sweetness and bitterness from the champagne he had drank. Like if you were smoking the finest and strongest of cigars. It made you love it even more.

Abandoning all your restraints too, your hands wrapped around his neck and your hips started pushing up against his, even if you couldn't move much, his two muscular thighs keeping you grounded to the balcony's paved floor. It felt so cold against your back, contrasting with the heat Arthur was burning with, consuming, devastating, raging.

He growled again when he felt your movement under him. He needed more of you, right now. This whole seduction game, the adrenaline rose by the chase, your bold charming attitude, your insanely insolent beauty, it was making him insane. He roughly ripped off his bowtie with one hand, needing some air; it felt like you two were under the desert’s scorching sun, stifling, dazing. 

The right hand he had on your thigh traveled even higher under your dress, devouring every inch of flesh it could, and his appetite was only getting worse the more he discovered you. He smoothly moved his legs from around yours to put himself between them, and you instantly, almost from instinct, hooked them around his hips.

The sudden contact of your blazing core against his equally hot bulge made you sigh in pleasure, and he loved it. Breaking your kiss for the first time since you had initiated it, he pulled back to look at you, his deep gaze devouring you, undressing you just by its stare. 

“What’s your real name?” He asked you, voice hoarser than ever, demanding it from you.

You told him your name, limbs feeling like mush under his intense eyes. He repeated it quietly, like a prayer he would recite on his own. You felt less and less like the panther you thought you were, and more and more like he was the predator alone. In a shaking tone, you questioned back to know his full, real name, needing to know what words you’d have to whisper in gratitude when he would finally take what he wanted from you. To whisper, or shout to the Heavens.

“Arthur Morgan.” He let out, his lips quickly returning to their current addiction, your skin. The way they were attacking your neck didn’t have an ounce of control now, his mouth opening widely to almost take a whole bite of your flesh there, letting kisses everywhere it could.

“Tell me if you don’t want this.” He added against your skin, between two greedy open-mouth kisses.

A way to escape. The predator stilling, letting a way out. But you didn't wanted it. Not at all. Not now that he had surrendered to you, trusting you with the intimacy of his real name, that would be stuck in your mind for God knows how long.

“I want it.” You asserted, voice almost cracking with the weight of your need.

He moaned a relieved sound in answer, his nose exhaling some air that tickled your neck.

You weren’t even sure he could stop himself if you had said no. He was consuming you, and he felt completely drunk, as if you were coated with a powerful whiskey. Strong alcohol that his tongue was now licking all the way from your shoulder, up to your ear.

You moaned, the feeling of his hungriness so good and perfect on you.

"Gonna take care of ya now." He growled in a rumbling whisper, making your legs feel weak. Another one of his promises, but this one was going to give you salvation, and you were thanking him for keeping it. 

The bold hand he had under your dress took another step towards insanity by landing on your undergarments, his thick fingers searching for a way in. You were trembling with anticipation. You couldn't even register the fact that you were really doing this, right now, with a complete stranger you had met only a few hours ago, and who wanted to kill you minutes before, on the balcony of what looked like a habited place.

The obscenity, the depravation, the boldness of it was only matched by his relentless thirst for you.

His fingers had finally pulled your underwear to the side, and you sighed seeing him on top of you, eyes drawn to your bare pussy, carnal features empathized by the obscurity of the night. The tip of his fingers traveled amongst your folds, wolves into the forest, a territory they were now claiming as theirs.

You almost begged for him, for the wolves to eat you up all and let nothing behind them, please Arthur, and he offered you this damnation, the desperate call of his name igniting another fire in his already infernal mind. A single, calloused finger pushed into your folds, making you spread your legs even more to grant it better access. It was stretching you pleasantly, his skin rough and firm inside. You started letting out sweet, quiet moans, showing him just how much you were enjoying this.

Your two hands now gripping his back, holding on for something, anything, his dark jacket suddenly feeling way too smooth to grab onto; you were wondering how touching his naked back could feel.

Arthur was doing everything in his power not to burst once more, grunting in response to your loving sound. Slowly, he pushed another one, thriving in how wet and hot your cunt felt around his fingers, craving for the moment he would finally be able to feel this downright perfection around his cock. He felt like he was ruining you, throwing you to these wolves, and you were thanking him for it.

For now, he focused on you, blue eyes glued on your face when he started curling his digits inside of you, searching for this so special, so delightful spot within your walls. He was observant, noticing every sound you were making, every muscle tensing, to know if it was the place you liked that he was brushing right now. Wanting it to be the place you liked most.

By adding his thumb on your clit and pushing a little deeper his index and middle finger in your desperate pussy, he realized he finally had found the Graill as your back arched against the ground, your own hands gripping harder on him, eyes shutting in pure pleasure.

"Oh, God! Yes, right there..." You rewarded him, voice high-pitched and filled with delight, a tingling sensation spreading on your legs and shoulders.

He exhaled deeply, your words making his own member gorging, pressing against the fabric of his suit that felt too small to contain him. He started pushing in and out, pulling a whine out of your throat with every movement, as the thick tip of his fingers rubbed against your sweet spot every time, wolves once again in a world of sweetness and honey, lapping your delight, feasting on your pleasure.

“Told ya I would make this pretty mouth behave…” He said cockily after one of your moans. He was enjoying this all too much, finally feeling in control again, being the one and only responsible for your ecstasy. 

The distance between his mouth and you seemed to be unacceptable for him as he had succumbed once more to his needs, his lips finding your skin again, tongue tasting, teasing your chest this time, everywhere he could on the cleavage he had desired since the first time he had laid eyes on you tonight. Bent over to you, looking like a curved beast feasting on its prey.

You were feeling your pleasure building, Arthur’s face hungrily searching for one of your nipples under the neckline of your dress, and sucking it once he had finally found it. His teeth and nose had pulled your dress, freeing your entire left breast, bare, defenseless in front of him. 

Maybe he was the wolf himself. He sure looked like it, his face a maw fed by your soft flesh.

Every nerve of your pussy screamed for deliverance, this familiar sensation taking form in your lower stomach. Your moans were becoming even more high-pitched, breathless, almost obscene, much to the outlaw's delight.

You had thought of him before being a terribly efficient and multi-functional weapon. You couldn’t have known just how right you had been, your hardening nipple still chewed by his mouth while his right hand was sending you to your edge, thumb skillfully circling on your clit faster and faster, the two other fingers tearing apart your sweet spot, in and out, in and out, again and again, until…

“A-Arthur, don’t stop, please!” Your voice slit the night open, tone pleading as if you were begging for your life.

“I won’t girl, it’s all okay… Give it t’me…” He encouraged you, even his breath feeling rough against the skin of your chest before he sucked hard on the skin of one of your breasts, accompanying you to your salvation.

It was enough to send you over your limit, your pussy clenching, throbbing, entirely consumed. You moaned so loudly it could have turned into a scream, hips jerking against his palm, his other hand quickly grabbing your hip to steady you and carry you through it as his fingers were dragging every last drop of your pleasure out of you. 

“Yeahhh, that’s it gorgeous, just like that…”

He was frowning, the sinful sensations of your wet cunt coating his fingers in a warm slick and tensing around them making his eyebrow and jaw just as tensed, his face just a hint of how fucking riled up he was because of it.

Your head was still spinning and your breath uneven when he finally pulled his digits out of your walls, the fresh air replacing them. Lost in your haze, you weren't capable of doing anything else but looking at him through lidded, heavy eyes.

He was absolutely beautiful, even more than at the start of the night. His true nature out at last, his white fancy shirt disheveled now that he had removed his bowtie and soaked from efforts. Cheeks and throat as red as a sanguine sunset. Pearls of sweat sparkling on his burning skin with the Ocean of street lights of St Denis, reminding you of a night sky, making his sandy hair stick to his forehead in the hottest way possible. 

You didn't knew how could all this had escalated so quickly, but at that moment, you felt like this man before you was your whole universe, his deep ultramarine eyes completing the stellar work of art he was, shining, shimmering, more than any star in the sky, as if the Gods had capture the entire Milky Way and imprisoned it in his being.

Arthur had ultimately pulled his cock out of his black suit pants, only piece of flesh out of his clothes, and your thoughts were immediately contradicted; there was no way any virtuous God could have made a man so depraved. He was the work of the Other Side, Lust and Temptation personified. King of the wolves, he could have had all the Hounds of Hell kneeling before him.

He pumped himself a few times, unable to resist the call his member had been screaming for hours, reinforced by the way his fingers had tasted your wet cavern. Some precum had already leaked from his big pinkish head when he was fingering you and was now glistening in the night, making you think about the stars again. Your breath got caught at this sight and you couldn't stop yourself from letting out a praise.

"Perfect..." You simply stated in a whisper, eyes glued to his throbbing, veiny member, relieved he had already pulled an orgasm out of you because there was no way he could have fit in you otherwise. Your eyes followed the dark path of his hair, from the glimpse you had on his chest between the open collar of his shirt, all the way down to his pelvis and at the base of his shaft. 

You could only imagine what it looked like without any clothes on, and you were dying to know.

"Trust me, you're the perfect one, darlin'." He asserted, firm tone leaving little to contradiction. 

He positioned himself in front of your entrance.

You weren't even completely back from the world your first relief had brought you to, and he was already at your door again. But this time, Arthur couldn’t stop himself.

He had given once again, just like always. Now he wanted to take. He needed to take. The starving, depraved wolf. Slowly pushing, teasing himself, making his cock’s head sink into your dripping territory, creating wet and soggy sounds, a hardened spear into honey. 

He couldn't hold back a baritone moan, the feeling was even better than what he remembered. He hadn't taken the time or allowed himself to lay with a woman in ages, and God, what a return to this primal bliss.

He slowly moved some more, his hands spreading your legs a bit wider from around his waist to allow him to penetrate you more easily. Once you had entirely enveloped him, his tip deep inside, he let out another deep throaty grunt, the feeling making it hard for him to keep his thoughts clear. 

"Ahh... Shit, darlin’... So tight…"

Considering how his length was stretching you, you bet he felt your pussy tight. The first word that came into your mind was “complete”. So complete with his huge cock inside of you; you felt like you could have died happily like this. One of your hands slipped from the top of his back to the lower part of it, just above his ass, pressing there, showing him just how much you wanted him to move, to let go. 

Arthur didn't need much more as he pulled back slowly only to snap his hips back against yours, his cock pushing again all the way through your cunt in one hard single time, giving you another wave of pleasure as you both moaned together, unable to resist the intense sensation he was creating for both of you.

Hearing you whine, finally feeling your perfectly tight and warm pussy around him, it was making him lose all sense of restraint, and as your other hand ran through his hair, your angelic voice whispering his name as if he was your Lord and savior, he lost it. 

He started to pull in and out of you faster, harder, your bodies colliding in a delicious way, obscene noises echoing through the silence of the darkness. His increase in pace made your body scream in pleasure and you buried your face into the crook of his neck under the collar of his shirt, biting his skin there.

It made him grunt loudly, and one of his hands roamed from your hips to your rear, grabbing a fistful of your ass in an instinctive response. His other hand was on the ground next to you, keeping him from crushing you against it. It made your head blank with pleasure.

"Shit, Arthur! M-more!" You begged, feeling like you could die if he stopped, your voice turning into high squeals.

"Anhh- God... More? Don’t worry girl, I'll g-give you more...-Mmh!" 

His voice was heavy with pleasure, words cut off by moans and grunts you were delighted to hear, the most unholy and arousing music you had ever had the honor to listen to.

True to his words, he obliged, hips thrusting endlessly, member empaling you with each move. You could feel the flesh of his pelvis against yours with how deep he dived into you, and around it the stiffness of his suit, rubbing again the breast he had pulled out of your dress before, nipple sensitive after his previous treatment. 

If what was between you was once a frozen lake, it had now turned into an Ocean of lava, magma exploding, engulfing both of you in the most burning and devastating passion you'd ever experienced, a volcanic explosion of desires.

The hand he had on your asscheek reluctantly let go of it, but you ended up thanking him for it, cause he was now using it to put your left leg above his shoulder, grabbing under your knee, allowing him to fuck you in an even better angle than before. He was ruining you once again, but this time felt like the pack of starving enraged wolves had taken him with you to consume him entirely.

You leaned against the floor, back of your head feeling the paved coldness, only hint that everything was actually real. Arthur's eyes locked with yours as he kept on fucking you hard and fast, this intimate contact making his member twitch.

You felt so goddamn good around him, and looked so goddamn gorgeous like this, your cheeky grin long gone, replaced by a delightful frown of pleasure, mouth open in a quiet scream. Arthur felt his peak coming dangerously close, but his pace hadn't slowed, his fat cock thrusting in and out of you. In and out, like a furious, sacred metronome. In an out, like a blessed psalm you'd both be reciting together.

“Come on girl, I know you have another, -Damn it!-, another one in ya. Give it to me, come on, jus’ for me…”

Words and voice drowned in a flood of pleasure and curses, of deep grunts and growls, his possessiveness sending you over the edge once again, your inside closing its trap around him, squeezing just how he needed to.

His eyes shut close, eyebrows furrowing in utter pleasure as he sank so hard and deeply you could have felt him splitting your guts in half, his dick throbbing and harder than ever. It reached a spot so deep and good inside of you, burning it, your pleasure bursting as you felt your orgasm coming for the second time.

"A-Arthur!" You cried out as you came around him, creaming him, walls clenching in a delicious sensation that made him reach the stars.

"God, damn it!" He shouted, voice deeper and rougher on the curse word before quickly removing himself from you in a flash of lucidity, finishing messily, cum spilling from his red sensitive member in white spurts that ended up right on your belly as a feral, powerful growl escaped his chest and his head tilted backward, letting you see his throat covered in sweat and veins.

For a moment, both of you had turned into beasts, shattered all the limits, broke all the shackles, diminishing you into your more primitive instincts. The Wolves of Lust had devoured your being into the very last delicious bone.

And that’s how you felt. Boneless.

Now, stillness. A cold breeze enveloped the pair of you, the only sounds now being the distant agitation of the city and your pantless breaths. He slowly brought his chin back down and opened his eyes, mesmerized by the sight of you returning from the realm of pure pleasure he had provided for you for the second time.

He felt powerful. He felt good. Better than he had for months, finally satisfied. Like a God, a King. King of all the Wolves, Cerberus, the only guardian of your unholy realm.

He wanted to do this again with you, as soon as possible.

He carefully put his softening dick back in its clothed cage, fingers fumbling with the buttons of his pants as he felt completely spent, his hands shaking slightly. He wanted to help you get cleaned up, but you had already brushed what you could of his release off your dress. 

It would probably leave stains on your clothing nevertheless. 

A twisted, dark part of him, the part that came from the same pit as the dark creature and the Wolves, felt almost aroused and proud at the thought you would keep an imprint of him on it. This part was relishing noticing the big ruby mark it had left on your breast as you were putting it back under your neckline; he grinned to himself knowing it would make your memories of him more difficult to forget. 

He didn't want you to forget.

He slowly got up, offering you his hand to help you stand. You quickly put back your dress in its usual state, and wiped the sweat off your forehead. A silence settled between you two, thousands of questions floating in the air, but none of you ready to ask them out loud yet.

Finally, as you started shivering, only realizing now how cold this night was without Arthur's burning hot body on top of you, he spoke, voice even hoarser from having pushed on it too much, accent making every world sound heavy when they fell from his mouth.

"When can I see you again?" More than a demand, a promise. An order even. Cerberus needs his territory.

You already knew he kept them; his promises. Except for the one he had made to kill you. But in a way, he did, because you felt like you wouldn’t be able to ever feel so alive again without him. 

Like a condemnation.

"You won't." 

Certainty in your voice. But he didn't mind it. He had already broken you before.

"Oh, but I think I will, darlin'." Was all he said before stepping over the fence of the balcony, ready to jump off it. Before doing it, he pulled something out of his jacket and waved it at you.

The fucking papers.

A lightning of understanding and panic struck you; what you had thought was a lustful touch on your thigh, the one that had set everything on fire between the both of you, that had unleashed the Wolves, was in reality his sneaky hand retrieving the document from your hidden pocket.

Shit!

He gave you his cocky grin, blue gaze sparkling with mischief, greeting you with a two finger’s salute then jumped, disappearing in the night, away from you once again. You could have gone after him, as much as your weak and spent body would have allowed you to, but somehow, after all that he had done to you tonight, you felt like he had well deserved those damned letters.

tagging: @a-court-of-valkyries credits: Arthur's pic is not mine, belongs to fv8tt on Pinterest. Dividers and little moths doodle by me.

I reall hope you liked this one! I'm thinking about writing another part where the reader could confront Arthur again... Tell me if you'd like that! -Pine 🌱

[emiphemeral]

like sexy dynamite — a.donaldson

pairings; 2019 art donaldson x fem!reader

warnings; 18+ smut, mean!art, dom!art, sub!reader, semi-public sex, p in v

a/n; twas feeling festive... everyone thank @martiansodas-blog for convincing me to write this

you were, by some peoples standards, art donaldson's "controversially young" girlfriend. of course, you didn't find it controversial at all. clearly neither did he, since he was the one who approached you first anyway. the main perk of having a wealthy older boyfriend however, was access to his big beautiful house.

art had asked you to move in with him months prior, so it wasn't difficult to get him to throw a fourth of july party. it wasn't difficult to get anything with art, not when it's you. you simply had to bat your eyes and he would melt.

so there you were, sipping on some probably spiked punch and giggling with a few friends. trashy pop music played over a speaker, provided by some shitty college dj you had hired. it wasn't meant to be a good party, it was meant to be a fun party.

you and your friends names get called from across the room;

"guys, come on, they're setting off fireworks soon!"

your group starts to eagerly head to the backyard, until a grip on your arm stops you.

"hey baby. mind if i steal you for a minute?" art mutters in your ear.

he begins to pull you away before you can respond, barely having time to mouth 'ill be there soon' before you get dragged around the corner. he brings you to a stop in the luckily empty kitchen.

"are you oka-"

art interrupts you with a sloppy and desperate kiss, hands tightly gripping your waist.

"do you have any idea what you've been doing to me all night? running around in that whoreish dress?" he growls pressing you against the countertop.

"shit- art- someone could see-" you pant as he mouths at your neck.

"everyone's out watching the fireworks. like we would be, if you weren't such a fucking tease."

you gasp as art flips you around, pressing your torso into the cold marble countertop. he reaches under your dress, lightly rubbing your soaking wet cunt.

"this is what you wanted, isn't it? for me to bend you over where anyone could see? so wet over the thought of being seen as what you are, a slut."

you whimper as the blonde pushes your dress up, just enough for him to get a good look at your pussy. he curses under his breath at the sight, unzipping his pants and pulling out his already leaking cock as fast as possible.

he rubs his tip through your folds for just a moment before slamming into you. you let out a loud moan, muffled by his hand clamping over your mouth.

"c'mon baby, wouldn't want to ruin their party with your trampiness, would you?" art grunts, not letting up for a second.

the hand thats not covering your mouth is on your waist, holding you firmly against the countertop. your eyes roll back into your head as he hits the perfect spot inside of you, drooling like a mutt all over him. you can't help but let out pathetic whimpers and whines, so overwhelmed that you couldn't keep your mouth shut.

as if it was planned, the fireworks go off. its a loud show, just loud enough that art can take his hand off your face. he uses his now free hand to reach in between the two of you, rubbing fast circles onto your clit.

without support from art, your face slumps against the cool marble. you're putty in his arms, him fucking you so good you can't even think. with a particularly rough snap of his hips, you come undone, cunt spilling all over his cock.

"fuck- almost there baby- you can take it like the whore you are-"

art's rambles have practically turned mindless, now only chasing his own orgasm. he releases his hot load into you when you turn to face him, looking up at him through your eyelashes. like a hypocrite, he lets out his own vulgar groan as he finishes.

"fuck.." art mutters pulling out and smoothing your dress back down.

"go on. see your friends, knowing you're dripping with my cum", he grins cockily, giving your ass a playful slap. you push off the counter to walk outside, but your legs immediately give out.

"oops." art shrugs, with the most unapologetic smirk known to man.

[astralis-ortus]

gummy bears

✱ college student!hj x gn!reader

— art school is hard—at least having a muse makes it a little easier.

w.count → 1.8k genre → fluff...? warning → mild cussing, as per usual♡ a.n → hi!! i'm back with a new face addition to the page! hahah honestly i thought it would be either minho or seungmin first but ngl hyunnie has been tugging on my hearstrings lately he's such a silly little mandu i love him sm :( hope you guys find the story as enjoyable as chris' side of the blog, and also if anyone is interested for a commission there are slots available still♡ ⋆ see masterlist

has it always been this… weird?

your attention should’ve been sealed at the projected slides once the professor started the countdown on his infamous ‘how-long-can-i-yap-before-my-students-fall-asleep’ course, but holy smokes—even breathing seemed like a major task when you could barely peel your thoughts off the boy sitting a few rows in front of you.

hyunjin has always been the main attention-grabber wherever he went—and that includes yours.

it’s not like you denying it either. he is gorgeous, and even the heavens know you couldn’t help but glance in his direction whenever he’s in the room. hell, even a few of your initial sketches for last semester’s projects were inspired by hyunjin. it’s as if he had slowly solidified his spot as your muse—but what is this odd feeling gently fluttering between the rows of your ribcage?

a buzz from the pocket of your pants startled you out of your trance, and while you thanked the gods for sending you down here with a habit of putting your phone on constant silent, you peeked at the notification patiently perched on the screen of your phone—one nearly causing you a minor heart attack on the spot.

hyunjin: spot next to me is empty, you know

right—you forgot your position from a mere classmate-slash-secret-admirer has been upgraded to an actual acquaintance-slash-almost-friend of hyunjin’s, all thanks to that one final project from art history 101 class last semester.

you: being at the back is peaceful, thanks hyunjin: says the one who rushed for a front spot for literally any other class lol hyunjin: cmon, saved the spot for you

lord—now you’re genuinely glad you decided to wear that crusty baseball cap of yours today, or literally everyone would’ve noticed the way your cheeks had burned up into a bright shade of crimson.

you: geez hyunjin: cmoooon hyunjin: or i’ll literally ask mr. kang to move you here

the way your head snapped to find hyunjin’s playful yet determined gaze headed straight at you was not something you would’ve ever thought to add to your bingo board.

ever.

you: no you won’t hyunjin: try me

your eyes nearly doubled in size when you returned your line of sight in hyunjin’s direction, only to see the slow, comical way the long-haired guy is raising his hand while keeping his eyes on you, lips tipped up into a masked grin.

“yes, mr. hwang?”

fuck.

you scrambled on your phone while mr. kang—as well as the rest of the attendees of the class, fixed their eyes on hyunjin, quietly wondering what would come out of those lips of his.

“oh, i’m just wondering if—"

you: FINE I’M MOVING you: JUST SHUT UP you: PLEASE

And you swore you could see the way his lips turned into a victorious grin through the back of his head.

“if?” mr. kang repeated, seemingly a little impatient at hyunjin’s antics. to be fair, you actually felt the same way.

“if you have any movie or documentaries related to the topics you will be teaching this semester,” hyunjin’s voice rang loud and clear—as if the question had been his initial motive all along, and you’re simply a victim of his little magic trick.

“personally i do learn better through those mediums, mr. kang,” hyunjin perfected his question, smile as innocent as a puppy, and as he looked around the hall, scanning the dozens of nodding heads to his statement,

hyunjin made sure to lock eyes with you for a second longer.

“and i think my friends agree with me.”

“you’re an ass,” you hissed as soon as you secured the seat next to hyunjin, shooting daggers out of your eyes while the latter chuckled. given, hyunjin’s question did made your move less suspicious since mr. kang actually took a liking to the idea and decided to substitute one of the assignments into this movie presentation group project, but still—you were so close to losing your dignity in front of dozens of your peers, on the first day of the new semester.

“would’ve been easier had you listened the first time,” he playfully retorted, remnants of victory still glimmered in his eyes, “and now you know i’m a man of my words. win-win situation for both of us.”

“as if,” you groaned in annoyance despite failing to even make a dent to hyunjin’s victorious grin. “you are the only one benefiting from this, mr. hwang. i’m merely a victim in this scheme of yours.”

“ouch—mr. hwang? really now?” hyunjin placed a hand over his heart, pretending as if he has been shot despite the wicked smile plastered across his face, “do you really want to hurt me like that?”

if you were to be honest, you do enjoy your playful bickers with hyunjin. it made him less of a muse and more of a… human. a regular college boy, who just so happened to be blessed by the goddess of beauty herself and sent here with an exceptional heart of gold.

like he’s just a boy.

“seemed fair enough,” instead, you replied with a mischievous grin while greeting a couple of hyunjin’s friends joining your little group.

“1-1, mr. hwang.”

the massive numbers displayed on your phone screen further validates the exhaustion you felt looming over your shoulders. it’s only the first week of the new semester and you’re already held up on campus way past your classes—how are you supposed to survive the rest of the school year?

to be fair, you really do love what you’re studying right now. it’s what you’ve always wanted to be since you were a child, and to be able to live out your inner child’s dream is one of your prides—but god, it did not make things easier to actually do.

just as you slipped your screen away, sparing yourself from a bunch of exhausting thoughts as your footsteps led you to your bus stop, a pack of gummy bear suddenly popped out of thin air in front of your eyes, causing you to stumble backwards onto the—

warm surface?

“i’m not a gummy sharing type of person, but i think you need this more than i do.”

pushing yourself off the other’s figure, you didn’t need to turn around to figure out the person’s identity—but you did anyway.

“gee, thanks mr. hwang,” you playfully snickered, snatching the bag of gummy and popped one unfortunate strawberry flavored bear in your mouth, “didn’t know you’re so kind.”

over the past week, you found out that you surprisingly have quite a lot of classes together with hyunjin and a few of his friends. you’re thankful he dropped the ‘i saved you a seat’ act by the third class you shared and let you actually sit amongst your friends, but in ways you don’t even understand, you somehow kept getting sorted in the same groups as hyunjin. well, at least now you no longer freeze up while hyunjin’s around.

“oh, can you drop that already,” hyunjin groaned, lips pursing into a subtle pout, “the others are starting to call me mr. hwang too thanks to you, you know.”

you couldn’t help but let a chuckle slip past your lips to hyunjin’s protest, already with a picture in your head about the whining he would’ve done once his closest friends started to pick up hyunjin’s objection to the nickname and used the name against him. how adorable he would’ve—

wait.

adorable?

hyunjin’s supposed to be simply your muse—maybe a friend at best! you don’t call your friends adorable, do you?

“you started it!” shaking your head in an attempt to rid the word from the nooks and crannies of your brain, you instead defended yourself while offering hyunjin the pack of gummies at the same time.

“what do you mean i started it!” hyunjin groaned, still popping a gummy in his mouth in the process, “i was just simply requesting your presence at the spot I have reserved for you!”

“and threatened to embarrass me if i didn’t move!” you deflected, playfully glaring at the latter. “don’t you dare omit that part, you sneaky weasel! i thought I was going to have to drop the class due to embarrassment!”

the crease between hyunjin’s brows grew thicker when he realized he couldn’t counter your protest, resulting in another pout to form on his lips, now clearer than before. it made you feel a little guilty—did you go a little too far? was he offended by the—

“i just wanted to get closer to you.”

…wait.

wait—what?

“i know it’s a lame excuse,” hyunjin’s groans turn muffled as he hid his face behind the palms of his hands, “it’s just—i don’t know, i find you fun? i know we just started talking after that group project but i like talking about stuff with you and even after the group project ended i just kept finding myself wanting to talk to you? i just—”

“whoa whoa—slow down!” you instinctively grabbed hyunjin’s shoulders; not too hard to shake him off, just enough to gently ground him back from his rambles. “breathe, you don’t need to explain anything to me, hyunjin. just breathe.”

well, frankly you do need an explanation—just… not from this adorably frantic hyunjin.

no, scratch that—just frantic.

not adorably.

just frantic.

hyunjin’s face was nearly the shade of the gummy bear packet you still had on your hand, and as much as you didn’t want to embarrass him more than he’s already feeling, your lips seemed to have their own plans when they curled up into a grin.

“don’t even say anything,” he warned, fingers now pointing at the rapidly growing grin on your face. “just don’t.”

you would honestly love to comply to hyunjin’s wishes, really—after all, you’re the type to honor and respect your friend’s wishes…

but is he just a friend?

“I’m not!” you stated, but despite throwing your hands up in a sign of defeat, hyunjin knew better when he noticed the constant degree of smile etched across your face,

“I just never would have thought that the campus crush,” you emphasized, trails of laughter already slipping past your lips in harmony to hyunjin’s exasperated sigh, “the mr. hwang hyunjin himself, is quite clumsy at making new friends.”

hyunjin was genuinely dumbfounded at your accusation.

“no i’m not!” he protested, subconsciously following your footstep as you got ready to catch your nearing bus, “it’s not that i’m bad at making friends, i just—”

hyunjin’s explanation were cut short when your bus finally arrived, prompting another frown to appear on his face when you hopped on without sparing him another glance. dejected, hyunjin turned around and—

“hyunjin!”

the speed at how quickly hyunjin turned on his heels at your voice nearly made you giggle. from one of the opened windows from the back of the bus, you locked eyes with hyunjin and smiled.

“text me your excuses and we’ll see if you’re actually good at making friends!” you shouted as the bus began to drove away, only allowing you to witness a faint ‘okay!’ along with an excited wave before hyunjin disappeared behind the curve of the crossroad.

well, maybe hyunjin is adorable after all.

©️ astralisortus, 2024. | likes and reblogs are highly appreciated♡

[starrydragoness]

Pairing: Blade x Fem!Reader

Content: soft cockwarming, minors/ageless blogs DO NOT INTERACT

A/N: wrote this for a friend like last year, so may not be that good like my new writing. Hope you enjoy this regardless!

◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ Mellow sighs of the wind washed over your bare back while your chest was kept warm, pressed up against his own. His bandaged hand had rubbed up and down your back countless times in the last hour or so that you two decided to use for a more intimate reprieve. This would be the first mission the two of you were sent on that was just the two of you, and having completed the main objective and the overall mission, the two of you found that you had quite some time left to indulge in more selfish desires.  It was that period of time where Blade was at the peak of pure exhaustion, barely standing atop his own feet as he rounded up the mission and concluded that the mission was over with and Elio's script was left empty until the next "play". You could see it in his eyes and the way his tone was like a rusted knife, yet none of its harshness was directed towards you.

Why would it? You are the only thing helping him live through this day, and the next, and the next after that. He had no way of thanking you for all of it, even if the reprieve of it all was always short lived. So he tries to remain in the moment of the current time, with you so warmly pressed up against him, his cock buried in your warm, welcoming cunt and his mind at an ease. He'd occasionally grind up against you, only to send a warm buzz of pleasure up both of you before going still again.

The static buzz of pain still remained in his mind but it was so distant and far away that he barely even took notice of it as he relished in the hands that brushed through his locks. His head was tilted back, neck supported by the cushions and pillows that made him feel warm for once. You have kissed his neck repeatedly over the span of the last hour, showering him in the soft and gentle kisses that he could drown in. His hand would cramp every now and then, causing his motions to halt and for him to wince - prompting you to ask each and every time whether he was okay. And he was, he told you that. His lashes fluttering open to greet you in the warmth they still managed to retain over the years of hell he survived in. Then after another moment he’d bring his hand up to your nape, bandaged fingers gently massaging before applying more pressure so you’d lean in closer, close until your lips could press softly against one another. The kiss lingers, and he repeats the motions languidly a few more times until he feels like your worries got quelled for the time being, and then his hand returns to your body, massaging your hip and sliding up and down your back in slow circles. 

And when you'd buck against him he'd make it a point to keep you still, wishing, needing to hear you whine and plead and scold him to let you move to chase your high.

It was only a matter of time until he lost his senses and pounded you into the mattress.

[revelboo]

You works are awesome, but i also wanna remind you not to overwork yourself! :) Have a nice day/night! ;3

Honestly, considering this blog is only 24 days old, it’s you guys I’m a bit worried about. Y’all good? Cause holy crow…

The Weakends Pt 5

TFP Ratchet x Reader- argument

• Putting a tool away, Ratchet glances over at the empty counter, the medbay quiet around him. Who’d have thought he’d miss your questions and companionable chatter? Need it to work. That silence drives home the fact that you’re avoiding him. Have been for days now and it’s worming under his plating, a disquiet that sparks through him, because you belong here. Your loss making him snap at everyone, because it’d be one thing if you were just skulking about the base, but no. Since you got upset with him, you’ve kept far away. Sulking like a sparkling.

• Setting the little trowel aside, you drag one of the mums you’d bought closer and wiggle it free of its little plastic pot. It’s warmer today, sweat slicking your skin as you work. Really, you’re just keeping busy. Trying to distract yourself, because you’re so frustrated you want to scream. Mostly at a certain white and red moron. And yourself. You know you’re both too proud to bend now. Neither one of you willing to back down no matter how silly the argument actually was. Even if staying away feels like you’re punishing yourself more than him.

• The sound of gravel popping under tires lifts your head and you squint in the sun. Bumblebee and the kids back again to pester you into coming in? Lips pressing into a thin line when you spot the ambulance, you yank off your gloves. Surely, he isn’t going to actually apologize? Blowing out a breath, you stand and stretch the kinks out of your back. Your little house is far enough from town and the main road that Ratchet can transform without worrying about being spotted and he does, walking the rest of the way over with a scowl like he tastes something foul. Cocking a hip, you cross your arms and wait for the apology. “Well, you’re not dead or dying,” he growls, optics narrowing at you.

• “Yeah, doing great,” you say, tone tight with anger as your fingers dig into your upper arms. “So, I don’t need a medic.” The ‘I don’t need you’ coming across loud and clear. That open hostility in your stare ramping up his own irritation that you’re so petty you’d made him drive all the way out to retrieve you. And you turn your back to him, bending to roughly seize a potted plant. Ignoring him. After he came to get you? His servos close around your middle, hearing your startled gasp as he lifts you. And then you whip around, chucking that plant at his head. It bounces off, scattering dirt all over him as you glare at each other. “Put me down. Right now.”

• Your heart’s racing, the adrenaline souring inside you as you realize you just hit him with a mum. And he’s not just going to let that slide. His optics shutter, jaw clenching as he vents angrily and you tense for the yelling. The fury. Instead, one of his servos slides over your torso as he adjusts his grip. That servo settling against your breast where your frantic heart is pounding away. Grabbing that servo, you mean to shove at it, but just hold on. Slowly his venting evens out.

• He can feel your heart thumping against his servo, frantic with fear. Of him. He can’t move, snared by that rhythm, knowing he’s causing it. As he remains still, that too quick beat slows. Calming. Your little hands shift on his servo. “There’s work to do. I need my assistant,” he says. Can’t make himself apologize, but isn’t leaving without you either, even if he has to just take you. You’re coming home. And you whisper okay so low he almost misses it, that tension winding through him just unraveling.

Previous

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[superblysubpar]

<- part five | part seven -> | series masterlist

chapter summary: Is the game over?

the song: Pretty Please by Dua Lipa

also for your listening pleasure: Need You Tonight by INXS, Drive by The Cars, and...any guesses?

4,377 words | please see masterlist for gen warnings / brief descriptions of scars / brief mentions of alcohol-being sober / SPICE/SMUT - fingering (reader receiving), hand job (reader performing), semi-public but not “caught” or visible | my blog is 18+

Hawkins, Indiana - the past

  “Hey,” he greeted you.

  Like it was normal. 

  Like he’d done it hundreds of times before.

  Steve Harrington stood on the sidewalk in front of The Hawk, smiling at you. A timid, tight lipped one, with hands shoved into the front pocket of his Levi’s. 

  You nodded your head, trying and failing to look anywhere but him, scuffing the toe of your sneaker against the sidewalk. His hair much longer than the last you spoke, curled around his ears and neck, a few pieces falling over his forehead. Broad shoulders and long legs, scruff dotting his jaw. 

  He leaned against the brick building now, hand removing his keys from his pocket so he could throw them and catch them, loop the ring around his finger and spin it. He looked at you and raised his eyebrows, “They’re late.”

  You mistook it as a question, answering agitated with a glare down the empty main street, “Yeah, they’re always late,” you sighed, then clarified,

“I’m meeting some friends.”

  Steve blinked at you, and then laughed, but covered it with a cough, rubbing at his jaw. “Yeah, me too.”

  Your shoulders rose at the thought, snarky Tommy and bitchy Carol who were sure to say something nasty to you and ruin your whole night. The awful pair showing up, while you were alone with Steve Harrington was not how your Friday night was supposed to go. 

  “Not Tommy and Carol,” Steve spoke softly to the tension filled shoulders in front of him, swallowing thickly, “Not friends with them anymore.”

  “Wow,” you crossed your arms, shielding yourself from memories and any possible outcome of this conversation, “Must have done something really high on the asshole meter for them to drop you.”

  Steve’s lips twitched when you looked at him, a slight smirk, a shoulder shrug before he admitted, “You could say that.”

  Your shoulders relaxed but your arms stayed wrapped around you, squeezing yourself when Steve’s tongue slipped out over his top lip before he gestured to you, gaze unwavering from your face. “Ya know, I don’t think we’ve talked since-“

  “Sorry! Sorrysorrysorry!” Robin was running down the sidewalk, waving her hands and panting. Eddie was a few steps behind her, looking at you worried and with his hands in his leather jacket’s pockets. 

  “Eddie would like it known that he was not late, and that it was entirely my fault. But I could not find a pair of socks for the life of me and then the pair I found I couldn’t wear with my shoes and-“

  “Robin,” you laughed, interrupting the explanation that had no end in sight, “I told you the movie started a half hour before it did, you’re right on time.”

  She gasped, and pointed an accusatory finger at you but then frowned, turning to the boy still leaning against the brick. “But Dingus told me the same time.”

  Steve stood up straight and walked over slowly, explaining, “I did the same thing. Great minds think a like, I guess.”

  You stared at him. He stared at you. Your mouth parted to say absolutely not, hell no, over your dead body or some form of: you are not going to a movie with Steve Harrington, but Robin clapped and said, “Well, that popcorn’s not gonna eat itself!”

  She smiled at you nervously and then spun, grabbing Steve’s arm and pushing him towards the line in front of the ticket booth. 

  Leaving Eddie to face your wrath alone. His cheek pulled between his teeth and big, sorry eyes blinked at you as he leaned in with an offered hand, “You can squeeze it every time you feel like punching him.”

  You laced your fingers with his and squeezed as hard as you could until Eddie was shrieking, “Sweetheart! I have to play tomorrow, don’t break the money makers.” 

  Steve looked over his shoulder to see you laughing, holding Eddie Munson’s hand. 

    Family Video - Friday

  Steve Harrington kisses like you thought he would.

  Not that you’d thought about kissing him. 

  He’s confident and practiced, as his lips slip over yours, slotting together like you’d done it before. He’s a little eager, messy, hands squeezing at your hips as his tongue begs you to open for him. He’s unable to shut up, even when his mouth is preoccupied, a groan from his throat, a sigh from his nose against your cheek, a gasped pant of your name against your lips. 

  You kiss him like he didn’t expect. 

  You’re a little mean, which, okay, maybe he should have guessed that. Fingers tugging his hair in a way you couldn’t possibly know he likes but do as your teeth nip at his bottom lip. You’re needy with it, desperate, maybe frantic is the right word - mouth opening for him eagerly, hands slipping from his hair and tugging on his shirt collar, noses squished together when you kiss him with more power. 

  Both of you stumble backwards, Steve’s hands roaming so one can support your back and the other drifts lower, grazing over your thigh, past the hem of your dress to your knee, lifting your leg so it’s hitched on his hip as you fall backwards on top of the table. 

  He wishes he could have recorded the sound you made when the new position has you feeling how hard he is pressed up between your spread legs. His hand lays flat on the table, slipping on scattered papers as yours cling to his neck so you can roll your hips against the bulge of his Levi’s. 

  “We-fuck,” Steve speaks into your mouth, breath hitching when your back arches and you sigh underneath him again, “We should-“

  “Stop talking, Harrington,” you breathe into his mouth, fingers drifting to between the buttons of his polo. 

  He kisses you with increased urgency, a clash of lips and tongue and teeth while the fingers on your knee squeeze. A large hand skates up your thigh, taking the red cotton with it. You whimper when it stops at your hip, thumb swiping over the exposed skin, brushing at lace. He’s seeing stars behind his closed lids, mixed with images of pink lace beneath his sweatshirt. He needs to breathe, to wave the white flag, to talk about this. 

His thumb drags over the lace, following the crease of your thigh, as you gasp into his mouth the word please.

  He’ll breathe later. 

  Steve’s thumb finds wet lace and travels higher with precision and care that has your stomach dropping, flipping, and filling with warmth. Like you’re about to face a big fear, about to do something really stupid but exhilarating.

  About to feel Steve Harrington’s fingers on you where you’ve always wanted them but would never admit. 

  And then the door chimes and someone is calling out about a deliver from somewhere that feels far away and also incredibly too close.

  Steve jumps off of you, gasping for air as you shove at his shoulders. 

  His hair is messier than usual, and all you can think about is how good it felt beneath and between your fingers. Cheeks pink and pupils blown have pride shooting through your veins like a drug. Lips kiss slick and swollen and your stomach aches that they’re not on you anymore. A noticeably tight crotch of his jeans that has your chest sparking and fizzing and your legs clamping closed when his hand rubs at it. 

  You jump off of the table, and Steve’s cock twitches when you seem a little wobbly, a little dazed. A strap of cherry red fallen from your shoulder, chest heaving and begging for his lips and teeth to devour it. Lips glossy and eyes glassy reminding him of the word please.

  “I,” you gasp, “I have…”

  You’re gone, without finishing the thought, racing out of the back room, and only pausing long enough to grab your bag.

  Steve races past a delivery guy who blinks at him, bored, when he flashes a one second finger at him. 

  He follows you right out of the store and into the parking lot, calling your name and begging you to stop. 

  You do, facing him timidly, hands shaking. 

  Steve takes a step closer to you, forehead furrowed and looking like a kicked puppy as you avoid eye contact and gesture to the store.

  “I’ll…I’ll do the shipment unloading tomorrow morning. You can lock up and go home, I’ll-“

  “Where are you going? We need to talk about-“

  “No,” you close your eyes when he takes another step towards you, holding up your hand. 

  “Yes,” Steve says strongly, fingers slipping around your wrist when your palm meets his chest.

  Your eyes open to find your fingers close to the polo’s buttons you just undid, the bob of his adams apple and jaw clenched, the stare coming from honey eyes intent on trapping you and keeping you stuck there. 

  “No,” you say more confidently than you feel, “I’m going home and you’re going home and we’re going to forget about what just happened.”

  “What just happened?” Steve asks quietly.

  “Exactly,” you nod.

  “No,” Steve laughs, his thumb brushing over the inside of your wrist, “What just happened?”

  The summer sunset is beginning, golden and tangerine light casting him in unfairly flattering light. It’s making the green stand out in the gold and brown of his eyes. Making freckles along his nose and next to those eyes beg to be brushed by your lips. Making his pink lips even more kissable. It’s making you pretty sure you hear Peter Gabriel singing and Huey Lewis and that one song Steve’s always whistling playing like the soundtrack to a movie. 

  “Nothing,” you whisper, finger touching the button on the polo, “Nothing just happened and we’re gonna forget the nothing.”

  Steve’s fingers slip from your wrist into your palm, curling around your fingers as he lifts it to his lips and presses a gentle kiss there. 

  “As you wish.”

  With one last precise blow to your defenses, you stumble backwards, blinking at him. 

  Nothing stands between Steve Harrington and his conquest anymore.

  Neither of you is sure who’s more afraid of the thought.

  You’re certain you don’t want to stick around and find out, spinning away from him and not daring to look over your shoulder to find him watching you walk away with real, genuine, hope in his eyes. 

    A house on Cornwallis Street - Saturday

  “How is it?” 

  Your tongue slips out over your bottom lip, catching stray cherry slurpee.

  “Mm it’s okay, something’s different though…” you note the street name as you round the corner, the long line of cars already parked along the curb. 

  Eddie swallows in the driver’s seat, “Oh?”

  You indulge him, frowning as you take another long sip, “Yeah…cherry…mixed with…” you smack your lips, “Bribery?”

  He purses his, “Weird.”

  “Eddie,” you sigh as he pulls up to an open spot near a house that a party is clearly happening at. “I’m not dressed for this.”

  “What are you talking about,” Eddie gestures to your red tank top, your shorts and sneakers, “You look like a million bucks.”

  A frown deepens around the slurpee straw.

  He raises his hands in surrender, “Listen, a Munson is always prepared for the worst, and it’s becoming a real possibility that I’ll be needing that million bucks when you sleep with the enemy.”

  Your body heats up at the insinuation, at the flashes of Steve’s lips on yours, but you dryly say, “Ha-ha.”

  When you worked your shift this morning after a sleepless night, you’d arrived at Family Video early only to find Steve had done all of the work last night, after you left. You’d spent your entire shift watching and re-watching The Princess Bride glaring at Westley and cursing Steve Harrington for existing. 

  Eddie hops out of the van, rounding the hood while you sit in the passenger seat and pout. He comes over to the open window and mimics your jutted out lips. “An hour. Two tops.”

  Which is how you find yourself, two hours later, in the quiet basement of a stranger’s house, still Munson-less, with no end in sight.

  The music from the main floor vibrates the ceiling, stomping of peoples shoes competing for the loudest volume. Splashes from a pool and giggles in the pitch of flirting float in through a sliding door. You sip a lemonade out of a solo cup and fiddle with the eight ball on the pool table under the dim lighting. The ball falls to the floor and rolls between two Nike’s when his voice scares you.

  “New top?”

  Steve bends to pick up the ball, looking up at you as he stands and you whisper, “No.”

  He swallows as he takes a step closer, then another slowly, waiting to see if you’ll run like a scared animal as he approaches, but you just back up with each step, till your butt hits the edge of the pool table. 

  Each step makes the three words ringing in both of your heads louder and louder.

  As you wish. As you wish. As you wish. As you-

  “What are you doing here?” 

  Steve’s lips twist and he sighs, “Funny,” another step and he’s almost right in front of you, “Was just about to ask you the same thing.”

  Your heart thuds louder than the beat of the INXS song playing above you both and you’re certain being in a dimly lit basement with Steve Harrington twice in one week is not good for your health. 

  “I-“

  Steve presses a finger to your lips, adams apple bobbing as he shakes his head no and rasps, “I have a proposition.”

  When you don’t say anything he removes his finger, unable to help himself and let’s the pad of it drag your bottom lip so he can watch it bounce back into place. 

  “Big brain word,” you murmur, “Want a prize?”

  Steve nods and you’re certain the house is on fire, you’re not sure how your lungs are working, or how your brain communicates to your mouth to say, “What’re you proposing?”

  He takes the last step, your legs falling apart without even thinking about it so he can stand between them. He lets the ball go on the green felt, hands pressed to the wood on either side of your hips.

  “I wanna play a game,” he says it so quietly, you find yourself leaning in, noses almost touching as he nods to the pool table. He smirks, continuing to whisper, “Might even let you win.”

  Steve grabs the solo cup between your hands, setting it out of the way and making you wonder what hands are for other than to grab collars of shirts to tug lips closer while he keeps talking, “If I win, we’re gonna talk about what we’re supposed to forget.”

  To avoid the temptation, you press your hands to the pool table behind you, scratchy felt scraped by your fingers as you resist touching him when you ask, “And when I win, what do I get?”

  He grabs your hips, he tilts his head, tip of his nose tapping yours, as his heartbeat throbs in his ears, muffling The Cars playing above him. He’s not sure how he manages to ask, “What do you want?”

  “I’ll tell you,” your bottom lip brushes his as you talk, “When I think of something.”

  Steve says your name so softly, so tenderly, if there was any wall surrounding yourself, it’d have crumbled into dust. He shakes his head no, lip skimming yours, breath exhaled against your cheek, “Need to hear what you want.”

  “Why? Afraid you’re gonna lose and you won’t like my prize?” You tease, hand dragging across felt as you do, temptation beginning to pull ahead in the war. 

  The two of you are fighting for and against the same things, and it doesn’t matter anymore, you both just want to win - whatever that means. All Steve wants is for you to know the bet means nothing to him, and all you want is him to know how much you want him to kiss you again, the consequences of toying with your heart be damned. 

  Your hand grabs his bicep, squeezing before roaming higher as your lips remain close, but not kissing as he groans, “I can’t…” Steve’s eyelashes flutter, “I can’t think straight when you wear this color.”

  A smile bumps your lips together again as your hand curls around the back of his neck, murmuring against his mouth, “Sounds like a poor excuse from a guy who knows he’s already lost.”

  Steve nods, noses bumping together as he does. His chest rises and falls with each heavy breath as his hands adjust on your waist, stepping closer and pushing you up onto the pool table.

  “You win,” he agrees, “Gonna tell me what you want, now?”

  Your fingers curl into the hair at the nape of his neck and you nod, tugging your body closer to his.

  “A kiss.”

  Steve exhales a sigh, hands roaming back down to your hips as he tsks, “Ask me nicely.”

  You laugh quietly, your free hand grabbing at his belt loops as you add on sweetly, “A kiss, please.”

  He ducks his head, lips skimming over your jaw and pressing a kiss lightly to the hinge. 

  You squeeze the back of his neck, “Stop messing around.”

  His smile can’t be hidden when it’s pressed to your skin, voice muffled against your throat, “Ask me nicer.”

  “More nicely,” you correct quietly, awarded with a scrape of his teeth just below your ear making it hard to focus. But somehow you manage, “Harrington please kiss me.”

  He kisses the spot his teeth just were, dragging his lips down your throat and pressing another there, then another on your shoulder, another in the center of your chest, memorizing every sigh he gets, every squeeze of your fingers on his neck. He stands up straight again, nose to nose, looking like he’s just woken up from a deep dream. 

  His iris’ are taken over by dark pupils, yours blink at him under fluttering eyelids. The dim light above you both sways from the bouncing floor above it, casting shadows over freckles and laugh lines, scars old and new in almost identical spots. Chests heave in time with anticipation. Nervous fingers slip against skin, tongues wet lips, breaths are inhaled then exhaled between closer than ever mouths.  

   It all happens quickly after that, and yet, each moment lingers, like it’s making sure you’re both committing it all to memory.

  There’s one, where you softly, sweetly, genuinely, sincerely, ask:

  “Steve, please kiss me.”

  Several that feel like he’s moving through jello, or that his body is made of jello and doesn’t know how to work like a normal human body without immense concentration. Hands on your hips leaving so he can cup your jaw and support the back of your head, then leans the smallest bit forward, closing the centimeters of space between your lips. 

  One where he stops, just before they meet, where he glances down at your lips and you nod and nothing can be heard except an inhale in and thunderous hearts threatening to crack out of chests. 

  Then, Steve Harrington is kissing you.

  And you’re kissing him back. 

  This kiss, is different. This kiss is like Summer. 

  It's softer, slower - but not lazy. His hand cupping your cheeks adjusts purposefully, spread fingers over your jaw to tilt it how he wants you. So he can savor the taste of cherries and lemonade on your lower lip when his tongue traces it. 

  He holds your top lip between his, breathing into your mouth as it parts for him, tongues sweeping together as he adjusts his head. His nose nudges your cheek as you kiss each other deeply, fingers sliding back on your jaw, thumb brushing your ear and down your neck. He feels like someone has set his entire body on fire, bones cracking from his lungs fighting for air when you relax against him, sighing. 

  There's a warmth radiating and spreading from both of you, slow building but all consuming. It makes you want to lay and bask in the glow but also shield yourself from the burn that’s sure to come when your fingers tug on the strands of caramel locks and your name slips past his lips against yours.

  It’s not unlike a sudden summer storm, the way it changes quickly.

  Kissing that’s warm and sweet turning a little balmy, sticky, almost unbearably hot. 

  Your fingers push at the back of his head, needing him closer, his roam lower to your hips once more, tugging on belt loops. One can’t help but go up again, pulling fabric with it so the pads of his fingers can touch the bare skin of your ribs. 

  Steve can’t breathe when your legs wrap around his waist and you gasp into his mouth, “More.”

  He pants into your mouth, fingers squeezing at bare skin and brushing lace, “Ask nicely.”

  You nip at his bottom lip and he laughs into your mouth, both of you feeling drunk despite being one hundred percent sober. 

  Steve thinks someone cruel developed lungs and he settles for kissing your neck and shoulders as he tries to catch his breath, hand toying with the button of your shorts. He thinks he’s been transported to space when your back arches and you grip his biceps as his mouth latches onto the juncture between your neck and shoulder. His tongue swipes over the skin a little sloppy as you stutter out the word please. 

  He removes himself from your neck, breathing heavily as you stare at each other. His grin cocky and somehow endearing now as he asks breathlessly, “See, was that so hard honey?”

  Honey.

  Steve swallows when blink up at him dazed at the endearment. You swallow from the way he looks when he says it.

  Like he means it. Like you’re his.

  Then, the music upstairs changes, the melody familiar, tugging on something in your brain as Steve works on the button and zipper of your shorts. 

  He leans over you, supporting himself with a flat palm to the table as he looks down at the small space between your bodies. His fingers skim the black lace band, traveling back and forth over the skin and watching goosebumps rise to the surface. 

  As Steve’s fingers move beneath the band of your underwear you gasp, your hands grab at his shoulders. Two fingers slip past your clit, spreading your folds and teasing at your entrance then back up. His nose nudges your cheek, kissing your jaw as he practically growls, “You’re so wet, baby.”

  He circles your clit with soaked fingers, making you roll against his wrist, your head turn so you can catch his lips. 

  It’s the heart of the storm now, messy and unpredictable as he swirls precisely over your nerves with his thumb and slowly pushes his finger then a second one quickly inside of you. He pumps them in and out as his mouth works over you in time with his thumb. He memorizes every hitch of your breath against his lips, cataloging every sound so he remembers what you like. He removes his mouth from yours as you tug at the back of his head, his name leaving your lips in a way he’d only every dreamed of hearing. 

  He kisses along your jaw as your head falls backwards, doubling down on his finger’s movements in the same spots. His mouth moves against your ear, “You gonna come for me?”

   The storm swallows you whole, all defenses crumbled long ago so there’s nothing to ease the damage anymore. Your stomach tightens as Steve keeps talking, his words making your eyelids flutter as your orgasm crashes over you. 

  “Come on, trouble, I win. Gonna give me what I want?”

  You clench around his fingers, and he captures your mouth with his again as you begin to yell his name. 

  Steve’s fingers eventually slow, then slip out of you. Your lips part, noses and foreheads touching. You keep your eyes closed, not sure if you can face the storms destruction if you open them.

  His hands run up and down your thighs, making you shiver as he murmurs, “Told you I was back.”

  Your hands are still wrapped around his neck, nose bumping his as you open your eyes. Words lost in your laugh as you say, “Shut up, Harrington.”

  Steve smirks, eyes flashing with something dangerous. 

  “Make me.”

  Your hands fall to his waist, fingers on his belt and a smile fit for a winner on your lips when he bites his and moans as your palm presses over denim, relieving only a fraction of the tension. 

  “This what we did, Steve?” You quietly ask as the sound of his belt clicking together and the drag of his zipper bring you one step closer to confirming it’s not a rumor.

  “Wh-what?” He asks, voice desperate as your hand grabs him through the black Calvins and you grin.

  Not rumors. 

  “In your dreams,” you remind him of something he told you that feels like years ago but was in fact this same week. 

  You press a kiss to his jaw as it opens in a gasp when your hand slips beneath his boxers. Unable to help noting you’ve gotten the upper hand again. You murmur in his ear as you tug on his length once. 

  “It’s what we do in mine.”

  Your name is a whimper, along with the word, “More.”

  You grin against his neck.

  “Ask me nicely.”

  Steve laughs with a groan, forehead pressed to your shoulder in defeat.

  “Ple-“

  The call of your name from the top of the stairs cuts him off. Eddie’s voice calling down into the dimly lit space, “You down here?”

  “Coming!” You call up loudly as you let go of Steve.

  Gently, you push him away, hopping off of the table and righting your shorts. 

  You kiss his cheek and whisper, “Thanks for the game, Steve.”

  Your heartbeat is erratic as he catches your wrist and he asks, just as quiet, “Do…can we…is the game over?”

  The way he genuinely, sincerely asks you has that spark in your chest sputtering, frayed wire live and dangerous as you dare to admit,

  “I hope so.”

 

BICFTF TAGLIST: Sorry for the delay in posting today, and thank you for your continued support 💛

@ash5monster01 @madaboutjoe @foreverinwanderlust @the-fairy-anon @scarletwitchgf

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[mokulule]

Almanac - Chapter 4

DP x DC Dead on Main First | Masterpost Note: I made a new masterpost to subscribe to over on my new blog where I organize my writing @mokus-invenstory. Links on the other chapters have been updated, I will still notify on the old post with updates.

Chapter 4 - October 21-22nd, Orinoids Meteor Shower

Training with Fright Knight was an experience.

Jason was no stranger to harsh training regimes, but it seemed like Fright Knight truly had no other duties to attend to. And maybe that was what ghosts did? Find the one thing they were good at and then do it for all eternity? It was exhausting, unrelenting.

Every day he went to the kitchen to find a plate of breakfast ready, thankfully it wasn’t the same thing every day. He wondered if it was courtesy of the Lunch Lady, but he never saw anyone else and the cupboards and pantry were empty.

The mystery of who and how human food came to be here itched at him but as long as the magical castle felt reluctant to even let him get to the kitchen in the first place (he’d yet to walk a path quite the same there) it was something he would have to leave unexplored.

He ate and then as he was done as if summoned Fright Knight would collect him and drill him until he dropped.

The knight treated Jason as if he’d never held a sword before starting basic at stance and simple attacks repeated ad nauseum, with the occasional cardio and strength building exercises. While Jason preferred guns, hand to hand combat and occasionally knives, it wasn’t the first time he’d fought with a longer bladed weapon. His general training meant he could pick up most weapons and use them successfully so he thought it was rather unfair - not that he was fool enough to raise that opinion, this wasn’t the first stern training master he’d served under.

And arguably he didn’t have much experience with medieval style broadswords. So he sucked it up and did as ordered.

There were no breaks throughout the day, no more food. You’d think it was a form of torture that he didn’t get to eat more than breakfast, but Jason, while he got tired, never got hungry throughout the day. Apparently he got the rest of his needs covered through energy diffusion or some shit - assuming he’d understood the king correctly.

His waking moments were repetitive, but he was not bored as such. Not that he was enjoying himself either, but he was busy, occupied. Training and learning new skills were never a waste - he had to tell himself that. But when he laid in the barren room, which he still considered his prison, in those short moments before exhausted sleep claimed him, horror creeped in; horror that this would be the rest of his life.

Another day another drill.

The weight of the practice sword in his hand felt as familiar as breathing after 9 days of non stop practice.

“You are becoming complacent,” Fright Knights voice boomed as always from everywhere at once despite him clearly looming right in from of him.

Jason tilted his head regarding the knight for a moment. He wondered how much sass he could get away with.

“Well you could give me a challenge instead of this,” he returned evenly.

Somehow Jason had the distinct feeling the knight was smiling unseen in the darkness under the helmet.

“Very well,” his voice rumbled like a storm in the distance, setting all of Jason senses alert at the coming threat. His grip tightened on the practice sword.

The knight turned and flew over to set aside the neon green sword he carried at his side in favor of a practice sword in the weapons rack by the wall. For the first time since Jason had seen the knight kneel before his king, his feet touched ground.

He stalked towards Jason, a weight and realness to him now as the armored shoes clanged against the cobblestone. The hair at the back of Jason’s neck stood on end as the air charged with his approach. Every instinct in his body told him to be afraid. Someone with less combat experience might have frozen, Jason picked his guard up and turned so he made a smaller target.

The cobblestone knocked his breath out and his sword clattered across the stones. His ears rang and he could already feel his left eye swelling from where it had met an armored fist. Above him a couple of shooting stars shot across the clear sky in rapid succession before the Knight stepped close. He loomed above Jason and for one horrifying moment Jason thought he would ram the practice sword through him, blunt tip and all.

Instead the knight held out a hand.

Jason wet his dry lips and took the hand. He was pulled unceremoniously to his feet.

“Did you notice what I did?”

Not only did Jason notice that twist Fright Knight had done that had sent his sword flying, he very much felt the way he socked him in the face.

“Yes.” Jason had not expected he’d be dueling something like a fucking Kryptonian, nobody that size had the right to be so fast. The trick to fighting Kryptonians and people of that speed class was more in anticipating their moves rather than reacting to them, and more importantly coming prepared with something to incapacitate them with. Jason had no clue what might be Fright Knight’s weakness, probably wouldn’t be so easy as to laugh at him.

The knight nodded at his response.

“Good, now to counter.”

He then walked Jason through no less than five possible counters, to what was apparently a rather risky move he’d done - had he been alive at least. The counters were well and good, but as long as Jason had no way to counter the speed, the knight could repeat the move at his leisure.

Not that Jason pointed that out. No, Jason practiced dutifully and found himself seeing the stars multiple times that day. He got very well acquainted with the cobblestone. On the seventh meeting with the ground, he thought he saw a glimpse of light from a window high above the courtyard. He could have sworn it was the king watching, but as he got back to his feet and looked back up the light was gone. Maybe it had just been a reflection, a trick of the light from one of the many shooting stars.

Still, reminded of why he was here, his mood soured. Yes, Jason had put himself in this situation, but he’d expected to die for his sacrifice - and maybe that would have been too easy an out, but he’d certainly not expected to be discarded, like the unwanted possession he apparently was.

Resentment curled in his gut. Poor little king never wanting to have been summoned having to take Jason as payment. It was clearly such an ordeal.

Jason snarled getting back to his feet and for the first time he went on the attack. Fright Knight seemed amused, which only egged him on. Jason reached for the All-Blades but of course they didn’t manifest, because in this stupid place not even someone named fucking Fright Knight counted as true evil.

He let Jason wear himself out, disarmed him again, and punched him hilt first in the stomach. Jason crumpled over the practice sword and slid down to his knees, gasping for breath.

The knight considered him for a moment, waiting to see if he would get up again. When he didn’t, he made a minute shake of his head.

“You have spirit, but your mortal trappings do you no favors.”

Jason couldn’t help laughing at that. What was he supposed to do? Apologize for being alive?

“Blame your king.”

Oo o oO

That night Jason dreamt of Gotham, or more specifically of Crime Alley. Dick was patrolling in Jason’s absence, but he didn’t know the Alley like Jason did. He didn’t know of the small shadowed nook in that building that made for a perfect hidey hole. He didn’t see the gun pointed at him, didn’t move until the shot rent the air.

Jason sat up in bed gasping and shaking.

It was a dream, it was a stupid dream. He fumbled automatically for his phone, before he remembered, there was no way to make sure. He was stuck in the realm of the dead. It was a dream, he firmly reminded himself.

Still he shook and couldn’t bring himself to go back to sleep. Dick’s shocked face haunted him whenever he closed his eyes.

Gingerly he stepped out of bed. Clearly the order to keep Jason alive hadn’t kept the knight from beating him to hell and back. A particularly spectacular bruise mottled the side of his torso in purples and blues. From the twinging pain with every breath there was probably a few bent or broken ribs underneath that.

He walked to the bathroom, where he’d hung his clothes to dry after washing them in the sink. He reached out to touch them to find them cold and damp, a testament to how little sleep he’d managed. He shivered at just the thought of pulling them on, but he didn’t exactly have anything else to wear.

He couldn’t go back to sleep. He needed to move. That gun had been aimed for Dick’s head. It was just a dream, he reminded himself sternly. He needed to pull himself together.

Taking a deep breath he reached for his underwear first, pulling it on with a grimace. Disgusting was not a strong enough word, he thought grimly. He was cold and miserable by the time he’d finished dressing and trapped his damp socks in his boots and tied them.

Dressed, he left the room for the hallways, expecting the castle to give him a good walk around as usual - expect he’d barely walked down two hallways until a door revealed the kitchen. There was a cup sitting on the table in front of his usual place. Curious he walked over to pick up the steaming mug, he put it up to his nose and sniffed it. His eyebrows rose in surprise - hot cocoa.

He glanced around and like always saw no sign of the presence of anyone but himself. He took a sip and amended his earlier assessment with a hum of pleasure, this rich taste could only be hot chocolate. It sat warm in his belly and he found some of the restless energy leaving him. He sat down and allowed himself to relax. He held the cup with both hands and let the warmth seep into his fingers with a sigh.

Maybe the castle didn’t entirely hate him after all.

He sipped slowly, savoring the treat. The hot chocolate was good, it wasn’t quite Alfred’s but-

A wave of homesickness overtook him and he slumped forward in grief. Maybe Jason would manage to escape some day, but Alfred was not exactly young anymore. People died suddenly sometimes, even when they seemed healthy.

Jason wasn’t there anymore. He couldn’t check on his family. Not Alfred, not Dick (it was just a nightmare!) or anyone. A mocking laughter haunted him as if from a distance, a memory wanting to drown him. He clenched his fits tight, he wasn’t back there. He was here, property of the ghost king, safe.

Unlike everyone else.

The Joker was still in Gotham. Still alive despite everything, a threat to everyone and Jason was useless.

He was a fucking idiot. He’d sacrificed himself willingly, but he hadn’t expected to have to live with the choice.

Did that make him a coward too? On top of everything?

He stood. He couldn’t sit here. He had to move. Before he knew it he was walking through hallways, uncaring where they took him. Left, right, nothing mattered. He just had to move. He didn’t know how long it he walked until he found himself, breathing heavily, in front of a stairwell. There was something familiar about it. His eyes were drawn to the path down. He’d never chosen to go down before. There was something down there. He took a step forward.

“Jason.”

He froze and spun around at the echoey voice. It felt like all the breath left his body, sucked into the gravity of the king.

Toxic green eyes flicked from Jason to the stairwell. Dark brows drew together in a frown, and the shadows suddenly seemed darker, deeper, like places you could fall into and disappear never to be seen again.

He floated closer. The pressure increased. Jason locked his knees to keep standing. There was a siren blaring in his mind, a scream lasting an eternity. Cold fingers touched his swollen eye soothingly and Jason gasped, a quiet little intake of breath into his burning lungs.

He wanted to move away. He wanted to lean into it. He wanted- He did nothing.

The gloved tips of fingers became the flat of a palm cradling the side of his face oh so gentle. Jason felt wetness in his eyes and blinked. He couldn’t handle gentle right now. His skin tingled and the swelling fell. The king looked at him, green eyes sad.

“Are you okay?”

Was he okay!? Jason ripped away, fury finally breaking the spell.

“The Hell I am!” In his mind Dick’s shocked face, a second from being shot flashed, “my family could be hurt right now, dying-“ a crowbar dragged across a concrete floor, a terrible laughter skittered across his senses, and every hair stood on end- “tortured.”

Jason took a step forward into the king’s space, snarled, “and I can do nothing!” into his shocked face. Playing at innocence, as if Jason’s words were a surprise. As if he didn’t know exactly what he’d done. He had changed the wording, acting like he’d done Jason a great favor. He chose to keep him here, useless, powerless.

He stepped back. Looked at the king with anger gone cold. “Killing me would have been a mercy.”

Jason braced himself for the worst. He’d said his piece. He expected an explosion, a onesided fight, for his brain to melt out his ears, something other than the hollow eyed gaze only vaguely looking in his direction.

The lights flickered and finally the king seemed somewhat present in his body. He looked at Jason with the most neutral face in existence.

“I shall relieve you of my presence, goodnight.”

He flew casually over to the staircase and went up. It was only then Jason snapped out of it.

No! How dare he!

He ran after him, but of course he was gone. The cursed castle made sure of it. Jason wanted a fight and he would not even give him that! He punched the wall with a frustrated scream that cut off into a sob.

“Shit.” He rubbed angrily at his eyes. He was fucking pathetic. Couldn’t even pick a fight right.

Oo o oO

Fright Knight found him in the practice yard, doing drills, sweaty and shaking from exhaustion.

“You are pathetic human, sit down before you fall down.”

Jason glared. “No.”

The knight promptly pushed him down on his ass. “Do not test me. I was tasked to keep you alive. Drink.”

A bottle of water was shoved into his hands.

Mulishly Jason did as he was told. It was only when he’d taken the first sip he realized just how thirsty he was and he had to force himself not to just chug the entire bottle in one go.

Fright Knight watched him with that detached disgust he had for mortal weaknesses, like the need for sleep or in this case sustenance. He was a fucking annoying, stuck up bastard, but-

“Why are you not evil?” Jason asked in frustration, too emotionally worn to consider whether that was a smart question to ask. If he had been evil, Jason could give him a proper fight. Let the knight try to phase through the All-blades.

When no response of any kind came, he looked up. It seemed he had rendered the knight speechless.

Slowly hesitantly the knight finally spoke, “You speak as if you’d prefer that I was evil, yet I was led to believe you are aligned with so called heroes.”

Jason scoffed and looked away. “Not a hero.”

Fright Knight floated down to sit crosslegged in front of Jason, his glowing green sword drawn and resting across his knees.

“I am the spirit of fear itself, I am neither good nor evil, I just am.”

Jason barked a short chuckle, of fucking course. Then, he explained the concept of the All-Blades to the knight; flaming magical blades fueled by the soul and blood of the wielder, only able to be summoned in the presence of true evil. The knight in turn looked very intrigued.

“I would have liked to match my Soul-Shredder to your All-Blades. A glorious bout that would have been…” the knight said wistfully.

“Soul-Shredder is the name of your sword?”

“Indeed,” Fright Knight chuckled maliciously in a way that ran cold down Jason’s back, an effect that was done on purpose judging by the greedy glow in his gaze. Jason felt fairly certain he feed on fear.

The knight raised the green blade between them and turned it to let Jason see every facet with obvious passion. “One cut from Soul-Shredder will land you in a dimension of your worst nightmare.”

Jason’s breath caught in his throat. No. He refused to think about it. He forced a half choked laugh, “and you claim not to be evil.”

The knight looked thoughtful for a moment. “Maybe if we had met in the previous king’s rule, we could have had a proper match.”

Jason frowned in confusion. “Why would who the King is matter to your nature?”

“Because human,” Fright Knight began, green eyes boring into Jason, “the King is the most important soul in the Realms. His nature affects the very air from which we get our energy.”

“Pariah’s reign was a dark time,” there was an almost nostalgic tone to his voice as he continued, “he sought to conquer, control and enslave and I was his loyal servant, as is my duty as a knight. But Pariah was so bad that having no king at all was a better option than him, and he was sealed away by the Ancients, even if it left the Realms stagnant and disconnected.”

He paused for a moment to let that knowledge sink in.

“Our Phantom is a king who never wanted to rule, and has actively avoided it. It has been amusing to see him grow into the role.”

“And as long a he doesn’t grow into a power hungry despot he will always be better than the last?” Jason asked bitterly.

The knight barked out delighted laughter at that.

“Make no mistake, mortal, Phantom is a good king now, but he is young, still changeable by nature. These years are crucial. But should the worst happen and my king become a despot, as you put it?”

Fright Knight shrugged carelessly. “I will merely do as I have always done and that is to serve my king. I am the spirit of fear after all. It is only my concern now because my king wishes to avoid that fate.”

Leather creaked as the knight tightened the hold on his blade. He looked straight at Jason. Despite no mouth being visible, Jason had the distinct feeling the knight was grinning.

“We may yet have our bout someday.”

-

And that was chapter 4... nobody is really in a good place here? Except Fright Knight, he's having fun.

Comments are much appreciated <3

Next

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[elitadream]

Hi guys~! ⛅👋

Long time no see! Much longer than I ever intended, in fact. Truth be told, I wanted to make a public post sooner, but I've had a lot to catch up on in terms of notifications and messages since logging back in a few days ago. I've also made some changes that I will address shortly, but first of all I wanted to thank those of you who have reached out with so much care and understanding during my absence. Adjusting has been a slow and fragile process for me -still is-, and I sadly haven't responded directly to everyone yet because of it, but I wanted to say how much I appreciate your patience and support nonetheless. 🥹 🙏

Long story short, I was gone for five months due to a huge burnout, then progressively found my spark again somewhere along the way and have since mostly recovered. It was my wonderful friend @drones-of-innocence who reached out to me outside of Tumblr, and her sense of initiative is largely the reason why I managed to make this post in a somewhat reasonable delay. 😅💖 With that said however, I must also mention that I've deleted a lot of stuff from my page and have removed most of my work from the public eye as well. This may seem quite drastic and frankly a little unsettling, but I assure you that it was a thoroughly considered and reasoned decision! The thing is that I was still getting lots of notes on these drawings everyday and… To put it simply, I didn't want that anymore. 🙇‍♀️ Experiencing popularity was very detrimental to me in the long run and I needed to put an end to it for the sake of my own wellbeing; at least for now.

Which brings me to my next point.

After mulling it over for a while, I've decided that I would not be returning as an active creator in the Mario community this time around. 👐 Making fanart for this franchise (with such a high and continuously maintained degree of involvement) had a lot to do with my health's decline and I've come to realize that I wanted to direct my focus elsewhere going forward. For that reason, there are things which I know will never be repeated again in the future, both in regards to my art and online presence in general, but that's alright. Things change, as they do and should. I'm looking forward to reuniting with folks and would be very happy to stay in touch with those of you who wish to message me privately. Like my lovely pal @istadris said, what matters most about any fandom are the friends you make in it. ☺️

And speaking of which-

@ody-and-fanatu That's so sweet of you, thank you! 💗 I'm glad you've enjoyed my contribution to the fandom. It was fun while it lasted! 💫 My visual ideas may be gone from my page, but most of my written posts and replies are still there for anyone who wants to revisit those at least, so there's that! And I'd also like to answer some of the asks I still have in my inbox at some point. Knowing that you hold my art in such high regard makes really happy! 🥰 Unfortunately, the other account that I have is reserved for my professional work and I prefer to keep them separate from one other, but the good thing is that I intend to go back to this blog occasionally. Hoping to see you around! Cheers! 🥂

@heiressofdoodles Thanks, I appreciate that! ✨ I'm honestly doing much better than I was earlier this Spring. Back then, I was running on empty and on the verge of crashing without even knowing it. Being in constant physical pain was one thing, but feeling mentally and emotionally drained on a daily basis was another entirely, and something had to be done. It took me a moment to really figure out what was wrong, but thankfully I realized very quickly what was causing it and applied the breaks with all my might. One of my main priorities now is to be more alert and respect my own boundaries to make sure that this never happens again. 🥲

@keakruiser Thank you. 🙏💐 I'm just glad to have found my footing again. Feels good to be able to create freely.^^ Hope you're doing well too!

Special thanks also to @pianokantzart, @jelly-fish-wishes, @katlyntheartist, @triniji and @wahooitsamee for their kind words. 🫂 Your graciousness and consideration means a lot to me. 💝

As for all the nice people who sent me anon comments and well wishes, I tried to summarize my thoughts as best I could in this update, but if there's anything else you'd like to say or know, don't hesitate to ask me anytime! Now that I feel like myself again, I think I'm gonna hang out on Tumblr for a little bit. I'll be excited to see what you guys have been up to in the meantime! 🤗 Wishing you all a very good day and pleasant Fall. 🍂

-elita 🌸

[back2bluesidex]

Where Do Broken Hearts Go - Chapter 4 (18+)

Pairing: Model, ex-boyfriend!Jungkook X Child psychologist, Fem!Reader X Lawyer, Single Dad!Hoseok. 

Summary: Jungkook stripped your emotions naked, left you bare in the chilly wind of despair and self-doubt with an unending heartache. You tried your hardest to move on from him, to live for yourself but failed miserably. Each night you had to come back to your empty home where memories and broken dreams were scattered all around the floor, until one day a little angel and her unbelievably beautiful father came into your life. Finally, when you find yourself healing, maybe falling too, Jungkook had to show up! Again!

Theme: Angst, pining, heartbreak, break-up, implied smut

Warnings: Mentions of school bullying, multiple pov changes, the budding tension is everything.

Word count: 3.2k

Taglist requests are closed.

Minors and karens are not allowed in this blog

A/N: sorry for being so late and still coming up with a shorter chapter. but we progressed a lot in this!!

Main Masterlist

Chapters:- 

Prologue/Masterpost || Chapter 1 || Chapter 2 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Chapter 6 || Chapter 7 - Finale

A wave of nausea hits your gut as soon as you step into the elevator. 

Your eyes are full to the brim but you are determined not to let a single tear slip, not for the man who invalidated you and your feelings by falling for someone else. So you laugh instead. 

A sarcastic, loud laugh escapes your throat as you realize you have spent the better part of your day trying not to run into him but you failed. Just like you failed the relationship and just like Jungkook failed your love. 

Shutting your eyes tight, you take in deep breaths.. One, two, three. 

You have a session, Y/N.You can’t let your personal issues unsettle you now. You tell yourself again and again until the elevator touches the ground. 

And then your eyes fall on him as soon as you exit the building. 

Hoseok looks beautiful today. He is sporting a purple floral shirt, which might have looked bizarre on anyone else, with baggy jeans and a cute bucket hat. He regards you with his signature heart shaped smile and a wave upon seeing you. 

Right then and there, you feel your heart being repaired. You feel as if your fresh wounds have been cleaned and stitched. 

Your heart thumps in your chest as you realize, all your distress just vanished with just one smile from Hoseok. One look at him and you completely overcame the negative feelings that you had been suffering from since coming across Jungkook. 

You also realize that Jung Hoseok is most definitely different from the other guardians of your counselees. He is more, much more than you are proud of admitting. 

“Hey” Hoseok chimes in. His eyes fall on yours and they gradually dip down to your collarbones and then to your cleavage. 

Heat settles on your face. You hope you are not appearing to be too flushed. 

“Hi.” you reply when you find his eyes locking into yours again. But he doesn’t smile this time, rather there is a tinge of darkness inside his brown orbs. The tension is palpable. So much so that you had to divert your eyes and look at the car. 

“Let’s go.” Hoseok murmurs, you nod. 

And then he places his hand on the small of your back, guiding you towards his car. Goosebumps travel all around your body. God! Were you always this sensitive? Or is it because you have been touched deprived for so long now? 

Or is it because of the man himself? 

You try not to show any difference in your posture. Walking steadily you reach the car and settle on the passenger seat. 

Sua breaks into a big smile seeing you and greets you with her usual cheery voice. When you greet her back and take her in you realize that this father-daughter duo is twinning.  

“Oh my- You guys look adorable!” you giggle reaching out to pat Sua’s head through the small-sized bucket hat she is wearing. 

“You are twinning too! Your dress has flowers just like ours!” Sua exclaims and her voice is a pure serotonin boost, you can’t help laughing out loud. 

“Well” you take a look at your dress, “I guess you are not wrong.” 

Feeling a pair of eyes on your figure again, you look up and you find Hoseok staring down at you again. Even though he diverts his eyes, you still feel the weight of his gaze on your chest. 

“The audition though.. Is in the US” Jungkook sighs. His face finds the hollow space created by his palms. His shoulders drop and he feels as if his career is approaching an end. 

“And?” You place your question carefully. 

He sighs again, “You know, Y/N. I can’t afford flying all the way to the states!” 

“But we can.” there is a small smile lingering on your lips. 

“What do you-” 

“What I mean is, Jungkook, you pay as much as you can, I can take care of the rest.” leaning towards him, you place a sweet kiss on his cheek. 

“But, Y/N, I- I don’t wanna be a burden on you.” the words choke on his throat but his mind eases as he looks into your eyes. 

“Kook” you hold both of his hands with both of yours, “It’s okay to ask for help, especially from the people you love and who love you back. I am a part of your life now, we have a long way to go together, so you can pay me back anytime you want. Okay?” 

Jungkook’s heart soars and soars and soars in his chest. His emotions spill through his eyes and you wipe those ever so gently. 

When he locks his lips with yours, you taste like forever. 

He is such a traitor. He left the person who was with him through thick and thin. 

When you got three different offers from three different clinics, he only got rejected in auditions. When you started sending money to your parents every month, his agency got bankrupt. When you reached new heights everyday, jungkook only fell lower and lower. 

But you never once looked down on him, never once treated him like the inferior one he was. Rather you are the reason why he is at his current position. But he couldn’t pay you back. 

He failed. 

He fell.. For someone else. 

And it’s only justified for you to hate him but still the thought only stings him, it angers him, unsettles him. 

But more than everything… It hurts him. And he doesn’t know if he is brave enough to find out the reasons. 

“Jungkook! Jeon Jungkook! Are you even listening to me?” Jimin’s scream brings Jungkook back to reality. 

“Yes? Yes. Yes I am listening.” He tries to overview the situation, trying to find out what the elder has been talking about. 

“No you are not. This is the third time I have asked you if you want me to pack some kimchi or not.” Jimin fusses standing on the opposite side of the kitchen counter. His eyes suggest the fact that he has a very clear idea about what’s going on inside Jungkook’s head. “You are thinking of her, aren’t you?” 

“You should definitely pack some kimchi for me.” Jungkook ignores Jimin’s question, completely changes the topic. 

The elder only nods, deciding not to pry anymore. 

Never in a million years you would have known that a bakery can be this fancy. 

But then… you met the Jung duo. 

The sweet aroma of buttery goodness envelops your senses as you step inside.  

The vanilla scent perfectly matches with the white interior of the bakery and you are forced to think if you're underdressed for a bakery session or not. 

Sua tugs at your hand when she sees you scanning the place with utmost attention. 

"Is it your first time here?" She asks sweetly. 

"Yes. Never thought bakeries could look this fancy." You giggle a little. 

When your eyes fall ahead, you find a young waitress guiding Hoseok towards your table. 

Maybe he had reserved a table earlier. 

The table is situated at a nice cozy corner of the bakery, which is good since you're here to counsel Sua and it's better to keep things within an invisible barrier. 

Hoseok has been trying. 

He has been trying his hardest to keep his eyes away from you, to keep it on only your face when it’s needed but oh boy! 

It’s not his fault that you are looking so gorgeous today or the fact that your dress has a low neck or that it is fitting you like a glove emphasizing your body curves more than he can take in innocently. 

It’s not his fault that he caught your eyes shining when those fell onto his, or the way you smiled at him a little intimately today. He doesn’t know how his thoughts or observations make sense but here he is feeling like a giddy teenager getting to share a desk with his crush for the very first time. 

“Mr. Jung and baby Sua, how are you doing today?” It's the waitress who usually attends them during their visit. 

Hoseok smiles at her and she smiles back wider than needed. 

“We are doing fine, Ms. Shin, what about you?” he returns the courtesy. 

“Same here. You have got a friend today, I see.” she now regards you, taking a good look at you from head to toe. 

You smile at her kindly but refrain from saying anything. 

“Yeah we do. About the order please go as usual for me and Sua and” he looks at you and finds you captivating yet again, “what about you, Y/N?” 

“Just a cup of hot chocolate please with a side of marshmallows.” 

“Sure” the waitress notes down your order with another weird glance and you notice it this time. 

Sua starts giggling as soon as she leaves, when you two look at her she stifles her laugh with one of her tiny hands and says, “she thinks you are daddy’s girlfriend. She is offended. She thought she could flirt with him forever.” 

If Hoseok is seeing things right then you are blushing. Your cheeks and the tip of your ears turn red as Sua mentions you as Hoseok’s girlfriend. 

Honestly, he ain’t doing any better. Hoseok feels as if someone has uncaged ten million butterflies in his stomach. He can’t help staring at you yet again. 

“So shall we play a game till the food arrives?” You break the tension by finally starting with your session. 

“Game? Here? Right now?” Sua enquiries innocently. 

“Yeah. Let's play a word game. I will name a word and you will have to tell me the first thing or person that comes to mind. okay?” 

“Wow, that sounds fun!” Sua replies expectantly. 

“So, let’s start. I will go first and ask you five words, then you can do the same.” hoseok sees you preparing for a bit and then finally uttering the first word, “favorite” 

“Blueberry!” Sua answers immediately. 

You chuckle, “Oh! So blueberry is Sua’s favorite fruit, I see.” pausing for a bit you say, “happy” 

“Drawing” sua’s reply comes within an instant again. 

“Great. Love?” 

“Daddy” Hoseok’s heart fills at his daughter’s answer. He smiles on his own as his eyes become a little moist. 

“That’s so sweet” you coo at her. “Umm.. next is scared” 

Sua’s face dulls at this as she says “Jaemin” softly. 

“Are you scared of him because he pulls tricks on you?” you place the question carefully. Sua nods. 

“What does he do to you, Sua? Tell me so that I and Hoseok can help you.” You place a hand on top of Sua’s. 

Her head hangs even lower but she says, “he- he told the entire class that I am an illigimate child, that daddy is not my real dad and that is why I don’t have a mom. No one talks to me anymore. Not even my best friend Yoo Ri. They don’t play with me, call me an outskirt and laugh at me. Jaemin locked me in the room for a whole period and told me if I complained to the teachers he would tell them what I am and get me expelled from the school. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even daddy. I was afraid that whatever he said was true and dad is not my dad. He even threw my lunch out of the window and made me starve.” 

Hoseok sees red. 

His eyes are full of tears and he is ready to set the world on fire today. The way Sua could not even pronounce illegitimate properly yet she knew what it meant, is absolutely heartbreaking. 

He slaps the table out of anger and both of you and Sua jump out of surprise. 

You look at him, placing a hand on top of his, you whisper softly, “Calm down. I have got this. Don’t worry.” 

And he actually calms down. 

Is this what it feels like having a partner beside you through your high and low? 

Is this what it feels like having you as his partner? If yes then he would kill to have you, even if it’s unethical for him to even think of that. 

“Sua, do you trust me?” you ask the little one. 

She nods. 

“Then do you believe me if I say that you are not an illegitimate child and Hoseok is your real dad?” 

“Is that right, daddy?” Sua asks softly. 

Hoseok stands up from his table, kneels down in front of his girl, holds his little hands with his bigger ones and says “Yes baby. I am your dad. I swear you are my real daughter, I made you with my blood and flesh.”  

Sua breaks into a loud sob, as she hugs her dad tightly. 

“Y/N, we still have a word left?” Sua speaks with a mouth full of blueberry cheesecake. 

“Oh right.” You sit straight again, taking a sip from your hot chocolate. Your red lips attach to the edge of the cup, looking perfectly pouty and kissable. 

Hoseok finds it tough to breathe all of a sudden. 

“So the next word is.. Hate.” 

“Mina aunty.” 

Fuck! Sua had to mention her out of everyone. 

“Who is Mina aunty?” you ask the kid.  

“She is actu-” hoseok tries to handle the situation but his daughter is faster than him apparently. 

“She is daddy’s friend. She often comes to our home whenever I am asleep. And she sleeps there! Does she not have a home or something? Oh I hate her.” 

“Oh I see.” you divert your eyes towards hoseok with a knowing look. His face reddens and he has to avoid looking into your eyes. 

“Now it’s your turn.” Sua chimes in and Hoseok feels relieved when you stop staring at him. 

“Yeah, let’s start.” you take another sip. 

“Color?”

“White.” 

“Drink?” 

“Coke.” 

“Love?” 

“Jungko-” you pause. You seem to surprise yourself with the name you were about to take. 

“Oh? Why did you pause? Is that your boyfriend’s name?” Sua giggles. 

The tightness that Hoseok feels inside his chest is unjustified. 

You definitely have a boyfriend. Why did he even think he had a chance with someone as appealing as you. Why did he even start thinking there’s something cooking between you two? 

On the other hand, you seem to be quite uncomfortable with Sua’s question. 

“No. He is someone I used to know, someone I should not be taking the name of, anymore” you reply finally. 

Your expression turns somber and you start biting your lower lip. 

Maybe you are as broken as Hoseok is. 

And maybe.. Just maybe.. Hoseok has a chance to fix you. 

The air inside the car is heavy with tension again. 

You wanted to avoid Hoseok. You wanted to avoid this fuzzy feeling you feel inside your chest whenever you come closer to him. 

He has a girlfriend after all (or maybe a friend with benefits, not that you are keen to know) and you are not totally over your ex-boyfriend. 

But hoseok and Sua insisted on dropping you, which brings you here to the passenger seat yet again. 

Sua is asleep, which makes things between you and Hoseok even more tense. So, you keep your eyes on the window the entire time and sigh out of relief when your apartment comes into view. 

Taking in a deep breath while unbuckling the seat belt you say, “We’ve overcome the toughest part today. Sua will be fine soon.” 

“Yeah- yeah. Thanks for today.” Hoseok fumbles with his words. 

“It’s my job. Anyway, good night. Drive safe.” and you are already climbing out of the seat and shutting the door. 

Another second in the car and you may just ask him who the fuck Mina is. 

Just when you are about to take steps towards the entrance, Hoseok calls you from behind. 

You stop in your tracks as Hoseok comes to stand right before you. 

“Y/N, I- I actually wanted to clear up that Mina is just my colleague and we, you know, take care of each other at times.” He reasons. 

That’s what you thought too but you don’t know why he is even explaining this to you. 

“That's fine, Hoseok. There is no need to explain your personal matters to me. I am Sua’s therapist only.” yes that’s what you are, just a therapist of his daughter, a temporary addition to his life. You can’t want more. You should never want more. 

“I know but I felt the need to explain this to you. I don’t know why.” Hoseok takes a step towards you and you take a step back. Your back hits the car. 

The look in his eyes is absolutely dangerous. Your heart can’t decipher it. You mind can’t read what the man wants from you or what you want from him. But it’s addictive. You want more of his eyes, more of him.. Fuck.. all of him. Even if it’s a little too early. 

You are free falling… again. 

“Are you okay? You seemed to be uncomfortable with Sua’s question earlier.” Hoseok speaks again. And this time his breath hits your face. 

“I am fine. I should be fine.” you reply avoiding his eyes. 

“Correct me if I am crossing any lines but is that your ex-boyfriend?” 

You nod. 

You usually don’t like messing up personal and professional boundaries but with Hoseok things are different. With Hoseok you feel different. 

“He broke up with me recently after three years of relationship. He-” your voice chokes at the thought of that day when Jungkook confessed things you never even dreamt of, “he fell in love with someone else.” 

Hoseok lets out a low chuckle. When you look up at him, his eyes pierce through yours. 

“How can anyone even fall out of love with you?” His voice reaches a few octaves lower than usual. 

“What- what do you mean?” you murmur. 

“I mean that it’s hardly possible to leave you. Anyone would kill to have you as theirs.” Hoseok’s eyes drop on your lips. Your eyes are fixed on the mole right above his lip. 

“Anyone? Really? You too?” your voice comes out confident, mouth runs before mind can comprehend. 

“Fuck.” hoseok comes even closer, “Yes.. Yes I would too.” 

Hoseok leans down and your heart beats out of your chest in the prospect of what’s gonna happen next. 

But before your fantasies can take shape, the car window slides down and Sua peeks out and says, “Daddy, are we home yet?” while rubbing her eyes. 

You push Hoseok away lightly, he stumbles back replying to his daughter that they are at your apartment right now. 

Everything feels fuzzy and light but.. 

You are completely unaware of the pair of eyes that are watching your every movement through a sheer layer of cigarette smoke. 

Taglist:-

@phenomenalgirl9 @variety-is-the-joy-of-life @sukunabitch @chimchimmarie @coffeedepressionsoup @meowstake @vonvi-blog @nochuel @xjoonchildx @justmewondering-recs @cuteipat @miakey98 @purpleanchorcrown @chimmisbae @ane102 @junniesoleilkth @terjeonbebas @kookssecret @appleh4ad @kayleeshinee @whoa-jo @definetlythinkimanalien @lovelgirl22 @agrika

[angelflms]

Cobra Kai has a tone-deaf problem.

Now, I am a Black woman so all of my observations are through the lenses of that. You can critique my words all you want, but don't be disrespectful because I will be equally as disrespectful in the replies.

I have this phenomenon that I've noticed for a lot of shows I have watched that I call "The Leo Dooley effect," inspired by character from the Disney XD show Lab Rats, where the main character, a POC who set the tone for the whole story, is surrounded by a white ensemble cast that slowly but surely pushes that character aside to serve their purpose.

Cobra Kai does the same thing with Miguel Diaz, as he seems to be the sole reason why any of these things on the show are happening (for better or for worse) and gets one of the worst character driven storylines throughout the series post-coma (I rewrote his story on my blog. Go find it under the Miguel or Xolo hashtags) to further make the show The Robby Show (we'll get into the tone-deaf writing of his character this past season in a minute). He becomes a shell of a character, empty, boring, and in the sidelines all up until the final season, where the writers seem to remember *snaps fingers* oh shit, Miguel's one of our protagonists, and writes an okay story for him. Better than his s5 plot, but not as good as the stuff we got in s1, 2, and the last half of 3 and 4.

Now, s6 has him in his true prime (not in the way people claimed he was in the past seasons). He's got a clear mind, he's goals-oriented, you wouldn't even be able to tell that this kid was paralyzed from the waist down a year ago (in-universe time). However, he's out-performing everyone, was single-handedly saving his team, and it wasn't even enough for Johnny. It was very interesting to watch as People of Color, especially Black and Brown people, tend to have to go above and beyond to prove that we're the shit, but it'll never amount to anything if our white associates (minus Devon in this case - more on her later) aren't doing anything. But the second they do, everyone is getting praised. Miguel knocked his opponent out in forty seconds. FORTY SECONDS. But because the team wasn't doing good overall, he got no attention. I know that feeling all too well and it sucks.

As much as I thought Johnny's "Miguel is our anchor" line was powerful, it also didn't at the same time. The Magical Negro is such an annoying stereotype, as well as the Strong Black Woman/Man, and the Brown and Asian variations that come with it.

Miguel is the Brown equivalent of the Magical Negro, trying to tell the white Johnny what's right and wrong. Teaching him what's okay to say and what's not, despite Johnny being grown enough to probably understand shit on his own. He basically is teaching Johnny in a sense despite the fact that it should be the other way around. And I know that's a typical mentor/mentee thing trope but with how the show goes out of its way to show how self aware of modern problems it is, it's hella tone-deaf.

In terms of the Strong Black Man trope (or in this case Brown), Miguel isn't always strong. He breaks down and cries pretty often but it's viewed by the fandom as annoying, weak, and pathetic, as well as not manly which pisses me all the way off because every time he gets emotional, it's with valid reason. Losing his girlfriend (both times), finding out he's paralyzed, apologizing for running away, his mom possibly dying, not getting into Stanford (tho this would've had more of a punch if Stanford actually mattered but it doesn't whatever). Also, he's a 16/17 year old Brown kid in poverty who was embarrassingly bullied MULTIPLE TIMES. You're telling me you didn't cry as a kid? But when Robby cries every once in a while (which is also equally as valid because he was also a kid in poverty who was bullied), everyone holds his hand and says "it's okay."

"He's our anchor." It just sounds so off to me. Like has to be the one to help everyone else, when you have two Captains who can do the exact same thing. We as POCs have to be the ones to hold down the fort and keep things steady on our backs while white people can settle for mediocrity and not have to do to much because "hey, the POCs got us." It's just like that "if you're in danger, find a Black woman" thing. Because we're expected to be the ones to save y'all when y'all are in trouble. But when the roles reverse, we're expected to save ourselves because we're strong. Y'all don't like it when Miguel isn't emotionally or physically tough because y'all expect him to push through since he's the main character, but it also feels like he's expected to push through because he's a Brown boy in poverty so he's been through enough.

Tory's "we have to fight to get a spot in life" speech was well performed by Peyton List but it felt strange to see a white woman explain privilege to a Brown boy who has less privilege in comparison to her. I have always had a problem with that scene and I never won't have an issue with it.

Moving on to Kenny. Kenny is the only Black character of current time to be in the ensemble. Aisha was on the show but left ofc. Kenny, like Miguel was brutally picked on, primarily by white kids, especially by white rich boy Anthony LaRusso. In the fandom Anthony tends to be the more favored overall. Kenny is primarily favored on the Black side of the fandom (much like Miguel). Similar to Miguel, there was a moment in s6 part two that may have not been intentional but in my eyes, felt very racially targeted.

Hawk and Demetri were very skeptical towards Kenny because they assumed that he was working with Silver despite the fact that Kenny didn't even want to do the Sekai Tekai to begin with after he became publicly bullied again. During a round of tag-teamed fighting, the boys refused to let Kenny in, causing them to lose the round due to Robby not being prepared to be tagged in (he thought they were gonna tag Kenny). Kenny gets mad, rightfully so but the boys didn't back down on their theory (the only reason this theory was even a thing was because they say Kenny and Silver talking and assumed the worst). It took the team's "anchor" to give Robby a pep talk to lead and the others will follow (you know, something a Captain should already know) for Kenny to get the attention he deserves. And then Hawk and Demetri finally accept Kenny. All because the white guy said "hey, we should tag him in."

That sounds so off in so many ways.

It wasn't intentional, I know. But the fact that this was something that happened and the boys didn't even apologize to Kenny after for the assumptions they made only furthers my point on how tone deaf this show can get. Amanda, Miguel, and Robby are literally the only people who see Kenny as more than just a Silver puppet and it sucks because Hawk and Demetri were in the same spot as Kenny once upon a time.

And then there's Devon, the overworking, overwhelmed Asian girlie who tries her hardest to seek validation and gets overlooked. Similar to Miguel in this new part, Devon got ignored badly in the first part. It was so bad that she cheated to get into the Sekai Tekai and got her ass handed to her. And like Miguel, it takes her to have to explain to her white sensei that she's being ignored for him for her to be taken seriously. She's not the best fighter by any means but I thought we were done with this Asian stereotype years ago. And the way Sam talked to her after literally celebrating her victory with all smiles and everything in the first part??? Like it felt so fake as hell.

Finally, Robby. Robby is written well, we all know that. But this shit that they did to him in the second part pissed me off, especially since it's not gonna get addressed apparently. So Robby gets drunk at a bar and basically follows Zara back to her hotel room. Next time we see them, he's disoriented, and she's kissing him. I'm sorry, but that's sexual assault, yes? Robby was drunk and didn't remember anything. So that's her taking advantage of him, yes? Well the creator apparently doesn't think so and is saying that Robby made a mistake and that the interaction won't be talked about next part.

Bitch, Robby is a VICTIM.

Zara sexually assaulted him. Just because he's a man doesn't change the fact that the man got taken advantage of by Zara.

Like did we watch the same scene?

This show has so many problems and I feel like since it's a show about fighting no one cares. But as a Black woman, I see this shit and in between the lines, there's so many issues that won't even get fixed because the show is over.

[tofics]

TOFICS FAVORITES

Below I have listed a collection of my favorite works of fanfiction that I have read in the past year. All of the creators on this list are absolutely incredible and a gift to the writing community. Thank you for doing all that you do and sharing the results with us. 💓

All stories are listed in alphabetical order. Please heed the warnings on the respective posts. 💘 - a special favorite 💭 - extra thoughts

Dean Winchester

How Dean, Beau and Soldier Boy would act while you're in labor by @zepskies Summary: How different Jensen characters would react to you being in labor.

If You Want It To Be by @zepskies Summary: When your car breaks down after a hunt, Sam and Dean tow you back to the bunker for Christmas. This time of year gives you and Dean a little courage to be honest about what you both want. And what you want, is for him to see you.

Imagine: Dean gives you an impossible choice by @zepskies Summary: Even though you're Sam's girlfriend, Dean is in love with you.

Ladies With Experience by @hintsofhoney 💘 Summary: When Dean makes an off-handed comment about "preferring ladies with experience", you try (and fail) to not let it get under your skin. You're a virgin, but you've done just about everything else, and when you talk to Dean about it, he offers to be your first. He's your best friend, and you've been in love with him forever... who are you to deny him?

Maine Coon by @artyandink 💘 Summary: Dean initially hated your small touches. He used to feel weird with them on his skin. But now he craves them. He craves the high of feeling like a human, and you’re the best hit he’s ever had.

Smoke Eater by @zepskies 💘💘 Summary: Dean Winchester is the cocky, but well-respected Lieutenant at Firehouse 25. He leads by example, but he's also known to break a few hearts. He's starting to crave something he's never had, though. Something stable. Something real. That's when he meets you, on a truly terrible day, trapped in a rickety old elevator.

Stitches by @dewwinchester Summary: Dean texts you for help, and you drop everything for him.

Too Many Beds by @mind-empty-just-fictional-people 💘 Summary: You want nothing more than an excuse to sleep next to Dean again.

Joel Miller

A Deeper Purpose by @punkshort Summary: Living in Jackson during the apocalypse doesn't do anything to curb your desire to have a child. The problem is, most of the men in town are unavailable... except one.

Bedridden by @strang3lov3 💘 Summary: Joel is sick and refuses to rest, so you knock him out the best way you know how.

Christmas After All by @mrsmando Summary: The holiday spirit has evaded you since the world ended. Now, you have a chance to enjoy it again - in Jackson - with Joel by your side.

Crave by @razrbladekiss Summary: There's only one thing that Joel craves, and it isn't the mental fucking torture of an overly stubborn twenty-something teasing him 'til he's blue in the face. And balls.

Dark Daddy!Joel by @strang3lov3 Summary: A dark and twisted version of Joel. 💭(My personal toxic guilty pleasure.)💭

Enough by @criticallyacclaimedstranger Summary: You daydream about what your relationship with Joel could be like. 💭(This is the fic that inspired Broken!)💭

Gimme What I Want: A Fic in Texts by @atticrissfinch ⁉️ Summary: The wrong number that texts you ends up being a man much hotter than you'd ever expect... 💭(I know the author changed blogs, but I can't find them anymore. If anyone knows their current @, please let me know so I can link the story accordingly!)💭

Have A Good Night by @punkshort 💘 Summary: Every week like clockwork, the same devastatingly handsome man comes into the grocery store where you work to buy flowers. It's not until he asks you out when you realize the flowers aren't for his wife or girlfriend.

Heavenly Bound by @ozarkthedog 💘💘 Summary: The world crumbled before you could experience the touch of another. Joel does his best to keep you innocent for as long as he can. 💭(I seriously think about this fic like at least once a week.)💭

Me On You by @luxurychristmaspudding 💘💘💘 Summary: After a night out dancing and a lift home turns into something more, you learn something about your dad's buddy. Joel Miller fucks. 💭(Quite literally one of the best literary pieces of fanfiction I have ever read in my entire life.)💭

older!boyfriend Joel Miller by @cavillscurls Summary: A collection of stories/imagines about older!boyfriendJoel & younger!girlfriend reader.

Phonophilia by @ozarkthedog Summary: Joel Miller loves how responsive you are.

Seeing Red by @strang3lov3 Summary: Joel's sorry that your period sucks, but he's reached the end of his rope with your attitude.

Sensational by @sinsofsummers 💘 Summary: You've tasked Joel with teaching you about all of the things you missed.

Stay Awhile by @mrsmando 💘 Summary: You & Joel are travelling to Jackson, and make the most of a well-needed rest stop along the way.

Roommates by @punkshort 💘 Summary: Your roomate, Maria, introduces you to her boyfriend's brother. You hit it off immediately, but when you find out the true nature of his profession, you both decide to remain just friends. But once the four of you eventually move in together, things get... complicated. 💭(Favorite AU!Joel!)💭

Texas Heat by @skbeaumont Summary: You've just finished a Masters back home in England, and, with little idea of what you want to do next, decide to spend the summer in Texas, staying with your mum's cousins, the Adlers. What you didn't bank on was living next door to Joel. The two of you strike up a friendship, and then something more, as the Texan summer heats up.

Weaved Around Your Finger Like Yarn by @moonlight-prose 💘💘 Summary: He never made space in his life for love in the aftermath of destruction. The after of his life he once thought would extend past decades of gray hair, smile lines carved in around his mouth now set in frowns and sneers. But snowfall and alcohol blur the lines for both of you when winter comes to Jackson.

Bucky Barnes

All the Apple Cider and No More Haunted Houses by @witchywithwhiskey Summary: You and Bucky Barnes have a love-hate relationship - you love him and you believe he hates you - but when your friends insist on going to the scariest haunted house attraction in the area, the experience ends up forcing your real feelings for each other out into light.

Only For Him by @witchywithwhiskey 💘 Summary: When you crash your brother and his friends' beach vacation, things get a little messy, but your brother's best friend Bucky Barnes is determined to take—and keep—what's his.

Wedded Bliss by @gutsby Summary: The marriage was arranged, and the sex is deranged. Bucky is so obsessed with your pussy that he almost forgets he’s meant to be faking this whole thing—and hating it, like sworn enemies are supposed to do.