#needs must

[lilyrizzy]

continuation of this silly little fic...have more silly maxiel hunger games au fic bc I recently read the new book and got obsessed again, oops. cw: everything you'd expect with a hunger games au, death, torture & forced prostitution mentions.

Alex stares down at his meal. Lumpy porridge sprinkled with what District Thirteen likes to call ‘nutritional powder,’ orange juice, and an apple that looks far too green to have been grown underground. In three weeks, he hasn’t seen sunshine, real or otherwise.

“You aren’t going to get anything else,” George reminds him, and in front of where he’s shovelling food into his mouth at an alarming pace, his tray is already three-quarters empty. Gone is the good boy routine, vanished along with the Capitol cameras the moment Charles blew up the dome sky of the arena with a good shot and the reel of wire Seb spent all games carrying around.

Alex hasn’t seen either of them since that moment, Charles dead the moment the sky lit up, and Seb still in District Thirteen’s medical wing. There are rumours he’ll never walk again.

Max, who fought off the Capitol mutts in an attempt to keep the rest of them alive that night is their only other living ally. Right now he’s sat at the next table alone, his food tray also full. He’s drawing patterns in the sludge with his spoon, and mumbling to himself the way he used to, in the games. Talking to ghosts, or talking to his- To Daniel, maybe. By now, that probably means the same thing.

“Are you going to-“ George interrupts his thoughts, gesturing to Alex’s tray. He shoves it towards him, standing as he does.

“Go wild, Georgie,” he half mutters, meaning to walk back to his room, or to Toto’s to beg for something, anything to do to help him stop thinking.

Instead, he finds himself standing over Max, only with no real plan of what to say. Hello, I’m sorry your boyfriend is probably dead, but so is my girlfriend. Want to talk rebellion strategy? Yeah, right. Alex has a feeling that Max is as much an unwilling participant in this uprising as he is, or at the very least an accidental one.

You fucking promised me, you- You swore he’d be okay, that you’d protect him, you promised.

Alex had watched Max howl it all at Horner in the hovercraft as it took them thousands of miles away from the remains of the arena. Right before Max punched Horner in the face and ended up sedated for the remainder of the journey. The yellow-orange traces of the shiner Max gave him still give Alex a strange sense of satisfaction to see every time Horner calls him to the command room to ask him to star in more propaganda videos.

“Hi,” is all he says to Max now, shifting from foot to foot in front of him, as Max continues to mumble into his food.

“I’d need a gun for that, or at least a knife. Of course, these are too blunt, and-“

“Max,” Alex tries again, and that gets his head snapping up, as though woken from a trance. His eyes dart around before settling all the way on Alex.

“Oh,” he says like he’s assessing a threat and finding there to be none, “it’s you. What do you want, twelve?”

In the arena, Max had called him Alex. Maybe, like George’s gentlemen act, it had been something designed to please the cameras, or more likely, to forge allies. Allies they apparently needed to get this show on the road. Toto had explained this to him, that it was important to have as many districts as possible represented in the uprising victors. That way, their homes would have a reason to believe that they too can rebel.

“Nothing,” Alex says hastily, putting up his hands. “Nothing, I- I wondered if you wanted some company.”

Max glances from Alex to the side, where he can no doubt see George still filling his belly with Alex’s unfinished meal.

“Pretty boy is winding you up already?” Max asks, something almost teasing on his lips.

Alex flushes. There was no way Max could know about the night before, George’s warm body slipping into his bed, and his warmer hands finding Alex’s skin under the scratchy, military issue blankets. Clinging onto each other, the only piece of home they’d likely see again. Except, maybe Max can know all about it, maybe that was how he’d found his way to Daniel.

Max raises his eyebrows, and Alex choses to believe he’s just expecting an answer rather than recognising Alex's guilt. Even though Lily was likely killed right after his unconscious body was airlifted from the arena as a warning to any who sympathises or dares to love a rebel, there was still a small voice in him that warned that if she had survived, he would always have betrayed her.

“A little,” he says, half the truth and half a total lie. If he didn’t have George, he’d be like Max. Alone, and half mad.

Max smirks, but gestures to the bench opposite him. Alex sits, trying to think of something else to say.

“What, uh. What are you talking about?” It’s all he can come up with, and internally he groans. He doesn’t need to get roped into Max’s crazy. He cocks his head at Alex, like he doesn’t know what he is talking about, only affirming Alex’s belief that he's securely in cuckoo land, but it’s too late to go back now. “The guns, or the- The knife?”

“Oh,” Max says, nodding like this is perfectly sane. “I am trying to think of some way to the Capitol.”

“The Capitol?” Alex repeats, dumbfounded, because that is where they’ve just been rescued from. But- Realisation dawns on him, slow and then all at once, like the sun he used to get to see every morning.

“It’s where Daniel will be, probably,” Max confirms.

Alex tries to nod earnestly like this isn’t the worst idea he’s ever heard.

“Of course, Christian promises me that they are going to rescue them, but only when it is safe,” Max is continuing, hands suddenly animated in front of him. It’s the liveliest Alex has seen him since the games. “I cannot wait until it is safe, because what if it never is? What if they are- I can’t leave him there. I need to get to him.”

Alex tries to listen, but his brain stalls on one word, making the rest almost obsolete.

Them.

“Who else are the Capitol holding?” He asks, knowing as he does that the spark of hope Max’s answer lights might be the thing to tip him over the deep end too. Max’s answering look tells Alex that he thinks his question is very stupid.

“Well,” he says with a bitter laugh, “I did not exactly get the list, but I would imagine it includes yours and Georgie’s families-“ He waves his spoon in George’s direction- “along with maybe the rest of the victors. Your girlfriend, your childhood best friend. Fuck, maybe someone you sat next to in math class, Alex. Anyone they think they can use against you.”

Alex's head begins to spin. Of all the propaganda videos from the Capitol that had made their way to them here in Thirteen, Daniel and Lily hadn’t been mentioned or seen once. Alex had assumed this meant they were long gone, but what if they were only waiting for the right time to reveal their captives? Max is right, after all, they’d be more use to the Capitol alive. As bait, or maybe just to torture them with the idea of ‘what if.’

He thinks back to Daniel’s screams in the arena, calling for Max over and over to help him. Max curled on the ground like a child, his fingers stuffed into his ears.

“What about your family?” Alex asks, stomach turning at the thought of how much blood he would have on his hands at the end of all this. “What-“

“Daniel is my family,” Max interrupts him bluntly. Then, maybe because he senses the cold coil of fear his words help to settle in Alex’s stomach, he continues. “I had a sister when this all- But I told her to run. She had two small babies, and I couldn’t- There was nothing I could do to protect them if they stayed.”

Alex’s eyes widen. Running was almost unheard of. Growing up, he’d only known two people to try it, the wife and child of a rebel who had been hanged the day before. Peacekeepers put a round of bullets into their bodies just five miles past the fence.

“Did they-“ He asks, and Max shakes his head.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I like to think that because I never heard, it means-“ He shrugs.

Alex would want to think that as well, but the chances of Max’s sister running around the wilderness of Panem with two little kids, not only undetected but thriving, is- It’s hard to believe. To be kind, he nods like it’s not.

“I wish I’d told Lily to run,” he practically whispers because even though he doesn’t think she’d have made it either, it would likely be a quicker death than whatever the Capitol have in store for her now. Like Max, he doesn’t have much faith in Horner’s plans to rescue whoever they may still have, and unlike Max, there’s no way he has faith in himself either to make up for that shortcoming.

Max nods, his mouth a wonky line that in any other circumstances might be considered a smile. He reaches across the table and shocks Alex by touching his shoulder gently.

“If I make it there, to Daniel-“ He looks to the side, like his mind is still halfway elsewhere, formulating his plan- “I promise I will look for her, also.”

Alex closes his eyes, startled by the sudden compassion in Max’s voice.

“Thank you,” he whispers, but to be honest, Max’s words do very little to bring him any comfort.

Toto had made Alex promises too, like Horner to Max. It seemed this war was built upon the breaking of them.

—

“Tell me something about Daniel.”

Max looks up at Alex from where he’d been staring down at the same photograph Alex has seen stuck on his bunkroom wall. Something he must have grabbed when the bombing siren started to sound, before they all filed down into the shelter. In it, Alex can see Daniel’s curly hair, his well fitted suit. A Capitol propaganda photo, likely, that Max had swipped from some magazine.

The moment Horner and Toto called them into the control room to detail their scheme- sneak a craft out during the next air strike on Thirteen, when the Capitol is distracted to retrieve the hostages- the fight Alex was used to seeing in Max had almost completely diminished. Looking at him now, he looks- Well, a little pathetic.

Come on, Max, he thinks but doesn’t say, weren’t you supposed to be some bloody murderer?

Max is the deadliest victor in Panem’s history, a reputation that had followed him into his post-games life as a victor. Seb had told Alex stories in the arena, of how the people of the Capitol requested for Max to sit in cages at the edges of their dinner parties, the ultimate display of power.

“Why?” Is all that same man asks now, and it’s as if he’s too weak to even seem guarded anymore.

Alex sits down on the bed beside him. Around them, the metal frames shake, clanging together in the dimly lit bunker. Dust and dirt fall from the ceiling. Maybe the mission will succeed, only for Daniel and Lily to arrive at District 13 and find them all dead and buried under rubble.

“Because it seems like a better plan than waiting in miserable silence?” Alex offers, tucking his legs up to rest his chin on his knees. “Come on,” he prompts, when Max still seems hesitant, “there must be one thing you love about him that you’re not too stoic to share.”

Max laughs, despite their situation, and mouthes the word, stoic, shaking his head a little. Then-

“Everybody loves his big smile,” Max offers, finger tracing over the shape of Daniel’s lips on the photo, “the tributes we would mentor, the other victors. The people of the Capitol, who paid enough to have it, and much more, thrown in their direction, but- But I like it better when it is smaller. Softer. Just-”

Just for you, Alex thinks, but Max doesn’t finish his sentence.

“What about you?” He asks instead, offering Alex a small smile of his own, “What makes Lily so special?”

Alex laughs, because what doesn’t make her special?

“She’s like, the smartest person ever,” he says, because throughout all this he has wondered over and over what she would do in his place, and tried to follow that course of action. “I keep thinking how she’d have the Districts liberated by now if she was here.”

Max nods, lips quirking upwards again.

“Let’s hope she makes it then,” is all he offers, eyes back on his picture. It’s then Alex notices the expression Daniel is wearing, the soft smile Max was talking about. Maybe not a Capitol promo photo after all.

“Did you two-“ He starts, but stops himself, aware he is treading on shaky ground now. Another explosion sounds somewhere above ground, with the vibration taking a few beats longer to travel to them. Somewhere near them, a baby begins to wail, as the ground both above and beneath their feet trembles.

“Did we what?” Max asks, looking at Alex again.

“Did you, uh. Did you fall in love before or after your games?” It isn’t what he was going to ask.

“That is not what you were going to ask,” Max says. Alex flushes, but Max answers anyway. “For me, yes. For Daniel, he says it was after.” Alex nods. Max’s answer is the only clear confirmation he’s gotten since hearing the jabberjays wail that Daniel and Max are lovers. “Now ask me what you were really going to ask.”

Alex hesitates, but another shockwave of the bombing has him throwing caution to the wind. By morning, they might be dead anyway.

“Did you like, live together and stuff?” He finally asks, and it’s a watered down version, and Max sees through that too.

“You mean, why did we not hide it better, from the Capitol?” He asks, head tilted to one side in a gesture that Alex has since learned means he’s considering how to dumb down a very easy concept to someone he thinks is very stupid.

It’s half of what Alex had wondered, along with how they worked, given the entire country knew the rumours of how Daniel spent his time when he was in the Capitol, how he got so many of the jewels he seemed to proudly wear at every year’s games coverage.

He shrugs.

“We tried,” Max says, “for a while. Of course, people do not like- Well.” Alex feels himself flush again. “But it got very hard.”

“The logistics?” Alex asks, surprised by the flimsy sounding excuse, but Max shakes his head.

“No, the-“ He breaks off to chew his lip, clearly debating how honest he wants to be. One of the cats Max told him Thirteen only had to keep the mice away appears as though from nowhere, winding itself around Max’s legs. Max hunches over with a cautious hand to pet it, and it lets him, where with Alex it would show its teeth and claws. Eventually, he continues.

“My sister, when I came back from the games, she did not look at me the same way,” he explains, tucking the photograph of Daniel carefully back into his pocket. “The Capitol paraded me around like one of their muts, like I was some kind of bedtime terror meant to scare their naughty children, as well as the people from my own home.”

You used to terrify me, Alex agrees internally, but he knows better than to say anything. The cat between Max’s feet begins to pur.

“The only time I really felt like a person anymore was with Daniel,” Max says, like it explains everything and in a way, it does. “It was too hard, to go for such long times feeling like a monster, too easy to start to believe that you are. When we are together, we can just- I can just-“

Max breaks off, putting his head into his hands. As his shoulders start to shake, Alex realises that Max is doing something Alex has never seen him do before.

He’s starting to cry.

[ask-ethari-anything]

*Eats the gemstone.*

....

*stares.*

No, put that d--

*stares dumbfounded*

But I was going to use that in my next commission... *sigh* I'll go get the activated charcoal.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

Well, I was gonna take longer on this post, but I went to reblog something today and came to the frankly startling realization that some of you clowns already have me blocked? Babes, I haven’t done anything yet. At least let me do something first. 

Anyways, here’s why there isn’t any moral greyness in the Avatar franchise villains, you guys are just horny:

I know I said it a bajillion times on this blog, but the point of Avatar is to make a direct statement on colonialism, genocide, and ecological harm. It touches all these interconnected themes; militarism, imperialism, racism, colorism, and it comes at them in a way that is supposed to give you an unbiased view of this. We are not watching a movie about Earth and about the genocide of our indigenous peoples because a lot of people already have preconceived notions about these topics. Please see my lovely studious deracination post for more detail, but essentially; Sometimes it’s easier to approach these issues when you (white people) don’t feel like they are targeting you (white people).

You are supposed to sympathize with the Na’vi. You are supposed to see things from their perspective, and maybe gain the ability to understand the complexity and harm that caused by all these big themes I mentioned above. A prevalent theme in The Way of Water is this long lasting trauma felt in these communities, especially displayed in Neytiri and her subsequent treatment of Spider. You are supposed to See, understand? That is moral greyness, something you the viewer knows that is wrong in a protagonist character, but you understand why and how they ended up there. You are torn. 

And sometimes, the way you read or view a narrative that employs studious deracination allows you to look at yourself and your own biases more. Basically what I’m saying is sympathizing more with the recoms and Quaritch is more of a you thing, guys. 

I’ll say this again, there is nothing wrong with finding them hot, villains are fun. I am a huge fan of Quaritch in the first movie, especially the scenes where he holds his breath to shoot at Trudy’s Sampson. He’s a great villain! But he is not redeemable. Quaritch not only is our main representation for all the genocide, colonialism, imperialism, and racism present in the themes and inspiration behind the script, but he also doesn’t do anything to deserve redemption? 

For real world issues such as the ones Quaritch represents, there should be direct addresses and attempts to unlearn behaviors and make amends in order to redeem that character without presenting those issues as non-issues. Think Zuko in A:TLA. Direct amends, directly addressed, and no one has ever excuses his actions because he is the first to condemn them. What people think makes Quartich redeemable is being (questionably) nice to his son. That is entirely unrelated to what he needs to be redeemed for, and is therefore not relevant. Not to mention the mountains of Stockholm Syndrome, trauma, damage, and harm he actually did to that kid, but oh well. Don’t get me started on Quartich’s Lima Syndrome. 

He still kidnaps and tries to kill many innocent children (even unrelated children, he didn’t know who the Sully’s were at first just random Na’vi kids and a human that he also kidnaps before knowing him, and he takes Tsireya captive at the end too) just to get to their dad, kidnaps Spider and takes him to be tortured (yes that’s his fault), manipulates Spider into helping the recoms (telling him he can stay and be tortured or come with them is not a choice, that is a manipulation tactic), kills the ilu to torture the Ta’unui, has the tulkun killed and displayed specifically to bait Jake and the Metkayina into a war, burns down the Ta’unui village, and tries to kill the Tsahík of the Ta’unui (important to note he had to have learned what a Tsahík was likely from Spider to have used to term, knew what she was to the clan and how important she was and choose her to target) and only didn’t because Spider begged for her life. I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but guys. If he doesn’t kill a defenseless and random unrelated woman just because his own kid asks him not to, thats actually not good! It’s not a good reason! That’s not developing a moral compass actually! We can say all we want that old human Quaritch wouldn’t have stopped because of Spider: you don’t fucking know! Dude could have loved his kid so much and that was his whole driving reason to burn Hometree to the ground, so he could make it all nice for his kid. It actually just doesn’t make it okay or redeemable. It’s not morally grey, his morals are clear. He does not feel bad for what he’s done, that’s clear. Bad people can also like their kids, and also have slutty waists. 

For the other recoms, I hope I do not have to explain that not a single one of them does a single thing to even suggest they could be redeemed. The fact that they were brought back does not bode well for their records. Lyle Wainfleet has now killed two named Avatar characters, he killed Seze in Avatar as well as Neteyam. Dude was pissed when Trudy didn’t let him help shoot at Hometree lol. The military industrial complex doesn’t need ur help with their image lol. 

Again, go crazy go stupid for them all. But let’s remember the point of this whole thing here. The military genocide boys are not getting redeemed in Avatar, guys, and they are certainly not raising that kid. 

[peppermint-whiskers]

Raguel time (again) uwu

He's actually blind in his actual eyes in this form and can only see from the one in his mouth. It's purely for Judgment purposes and can only see one's identity, sin (of the deadly sins; only if applicable), offense (what got them into hell) or good deed(s), and basically everything that could ever make you you

Only to be used in the most dire cases

[chirp-a-chirp]

Needs must.

Voltage—give us Tino! It’s been…literally half a year since Tino had an event.

[burnsopale]

"He raised his pistol, ready to fire. But already Sir Percy Blakeney was on him, and with a swift movement, which the other was too weak to resist, he wrenched the weapon from his enemy's grasp."

When you're a little snake of a man and your nemesis is huge.

"So you are coming with us, my dear M. Chambertin," he continued, and, with force which was quite irresistible, he began to drag his enemy after him towards the door."

O-okay, okay, huge and strong, I get it, that's pretty hot-

"Chauvelin's whole nervous system was writhing with the feeling of impotence."

Calm down, Baroness, jeezus!

"The boy Etienne was up on the box next to [Sir Percy Blakeney], whose broad back appeared to Chauvelin like a rock on which all his hopes and dreams must for ever be shattered."

I need to lie down.

From The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy

[bluebellhairpin]

felt like i needed to visually convey what i've been doing the last few days now that it's turning into summer.

[quietwingsinthesky]

why does my snake erotica have so much buildup.

[captainstressed]

the flashback/garvez date scene was garbage, pass it on.

[kaisenkalogathia]

Gojo x Deadpool 😫😫😫

Art by: akutawah

[obsessingoverthem]

New alphabet dropped: Alpha, Beta, Cuck

[freakrenaissance]

I love when he comes to the rescue! Poor kid never stood a chance...& they're so devoted to each other, & the sexy butt stuff. Oooh, I loved this!

Mine

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader Rating: Explicit, 18+ Word Count: 4k Content Warnings: anal, ass play, rimming and oral (f-receiving), spit as lube, threatened violence against the reader (not by Joel), canon-typical violence Notes: Endless gratitude to both @frannyzooey and @oscarseyebrow for the help, literally would not have finished this without you two gems xx

He wants it—has wanted it. 

He wants the claim. The utter possession.

Whenever he puts you on your hands and knees, Joel settles a splayed hand on your lower back, and it always slips down, his rough palm sliding further and further the more he loses himself in the pleasure. It drops along with the register of his groans and the steady slap of his hips. He lets his hand shift until his thumb is tucked between your cheeks. And when he’s grunting low and deep, about to pull out so he can come—so he can paint himself in warm streaks across your skin—he’ll press the pad of that finger firmly against your asshole. 

Not inside, not yet. He doesn’t go further than that.

He’s waiting for you to say it. He wants to hear those words, begged so pretty and desperate in your breathy whine. He wants you to plead for it when you can’t wait any more.

He wants you to tell him to fill you in the way he can’t—won’t—risk with your pussy.

He wants you to ask him to make you his.

He dreams about it.

Please, Joel.

*** You’ve been waiting for him to say something—to act on it. You know he wants it.

You’re used to Joel taking what he wants. Never forcefully, not with you. You revel in the privilege of being a singular exception in that way—in being the one type of relationship left for him that isn’t ruled by violence. When he wants something from you, he doesn’t hesitate or hedge or waver. He just says it, lays it out.

Like that first time so many months ago when he fixed those serious brown eyes on you—on you—and said, “Come home with me.”

A statement, not a question. An invitation for you to take or leave. 

Take.

This, for some reason, seems different though.

He’s waiting on you to ask for it.

It’s not some groundbreaking thing that precipitates it. What happens is wearily commonplace in the QZ.

A stupid kid, some nineteen year old with the power trip of a pistol in his hand, gets the jump on you. You’re alone, and he sneaks up behind you in an alley.

The cold barrel is pressed to your temple before you can react.

“Stay quiet,” he breathes, his hot breath reeking of alcohol next to your ear. It has the heady bite of too much ethanol, something he made cheap and easy.

You do mental calculations as he walks you to a brick wall, crowding you up against it until your cheek is pressed to the cool, rough surface. A groping hand reaches into your jacket pocket. He just wants your ration cards, and it’s probably easiest to let him take them and turn tail.

But then he steps back, the steel of the gun moving to press between your shoulder blades, and you can feel the rake of his eyes down your body.

“Well, you’re pretty, aren’t you?”

Your gut fills with lead. The air in your lungs tightens as his intentions shift. You’re about to move, to reach for the switchblade in your inner pocket when there’s a yelp—the pressure of the gun disappearing from your back—the scuffling feet on asphalt and a low grunt—

You turn, and Joel has the guy hauled up against a half-collapsed chain-link fence, his cheek pressed into a tangled coil of barbed wire. He disarmed him in the same movement, the butt of the pistol visible over the waistband of Joel’s jeans, holstered at his lower back.

Joel, who had come looking for you when you ran late.

He seems perfectly calm when he meets your gaze, but you know the tightness in his shoulders, that muted threat in his blown pupils. He’s agitated. Uneasy. Mad at himself that you were alone. You catch it when his eyes flick down and up again, surveying your body for injury.

“Yes or no?” he asks.

You consider for a moment, appreciating the raw fear in the young guy’s eyes—how quickly Joel turned him from a predator to a shifty-eyed, skittery little rabbit. His breathing is a shallow, frantic pant.

“No,” you decide.

Joel nods and shoves him away, and the kid stumbles. When he glances back over his shoulder, you can see fat tears of blood oozing from the shallow cuts below his eye. He’s too shocked to speak, to do anything. He just staggers into a run and disappears.

Your eyes slide back to Joel, and something clicks into place as you watch each other—you realize just how utterly and completely he has you. That he’d burn the world for you if you asked. And you’d do the same for him.

He approaches you with quiet steps. A warm hand settles on your waist.

“Alright?” he asks, looking down at you, his thumb stroking the cotton of your shirt. 

Tension is a precarious, taut thing between you, like a spring-loaded trap ready to bite.

You nod and say, “Take me home.”

*** His apartment is flooded with afternoon sun. Golden beams of light streaming in between the half-closed curtains are shot with suspended motes of dust. Everything always feels still within these walls, like he really can shut out the rest of the world when he closes the heavy door behind him.

He’s on you as soon as he does, his hand coming up to cup your cheek and his mouth on yours as he guides you backward toward the bed.

You both need the reassurance of touch.

You need more than that: you want him to accept the control you're offering with willing hands and take.

As you move together, you let the lingering hum of adrenaline in your bloodstream pull the words—the ones that might have otherwise gotten stuck in your throat—out of your mouth. 

You whisper against his lips: “I want you to fuck my ass.”

He goes rigid for a moment, his breath a pant against your lips, and then he dips his head to your ear. 

His voice is something else entirely now—no more veiled fear behind his rasp, just a honeyed growl of pure desire: “Say it again.”

You bury your face against the hollow of his throat and smile.

“Go on, I want to hear it.”

You squirm and slip a hand into the back pocket of his jeans.

“Be a good girl and say it for me,” he prods, dragging the tip of his nose up your cheek. He slips his hand down your back and over the swell of your ass, pulling your hips forward into his, and squeezes. 

You give him what he wants, what you both want: “I want you to fuck my ass.”

He hums his approval and takes a long, slow inhale to savor the thought of it. He’s just as pleased as you’d hoped he’d be. More, maybe.

He moves his hand inward, tracing the middle seam of your jeans with a light touch.

“That right? You gonna let me in here?” 

His voice is smug, a cocky drawl, but when you look up into his eyes, there’s a hint of desperation skulking behind his dilated pupils, like he’s not quite sure what he’d do if you said no. Like he needs you to want it. 

“I know you want it,” he says, his breath hitching. He tries to convince you, even though you are already won—were won, long ago. “I feel the way you press back against me, just begging for it—I see how quick you come on my cock when I touch you right here.” 

You press a kiss to the taut lines of his neck. He’s right.

He slips his hand down the back of your thigh and hitches your leg up, rolling his hips against you. Once.

“You gonna let me come inside your tight little ass?”

Twice.

You lean away to brush a hand over his crotch, over his fly where you can feel the thick roll of him straining against the denim, and nod up at him. Joel’s gaze is barbed with desire, with a heat so tangible it burns.

*** He lays you out on his bed, strips you bare, and kneels over you. His shirt is quickly discarded on the floor, his belt buckle left open. His lips pull to the side in a casual smile as he looks down at you—surveying the luxurious lines of your body on display for him—but there’s a feral glint of need in his dark eyes as he settles into a familiar position over you, his hips caught between your spread thighs. 

You reach up to run a hand through his silver-flecked hair. 

Joel sucks two of his fingers into his mouth, and when he pulls them out, he leans down to kiss you just as he slips those two shiny, spit-soaked fingers down between your thighs, past where he usually settles them, until he finds that tight ring of muscle. He groans at first contact, pressing lightly, testing the resistance. 

He’s eager. Getting right to it. Your body is tense with the newness of it—with anticipation, with want—but you know he won’t rush it. You trust him to set the pace.

“Relax for me, honey,” he murmurs against your lips. 

The low, husky twang in his command is like a sedative. In and outside his bedroom. It’s easy to surrender to someone who never lets you down—to someone who protects you with bared teeth, white knuckles, and no quarter.

His mouth claims yours again, his tongue dipping past your teeth. Joel asks for a lot when he kisses you—always has. He takes a lot. It’s deep and needy. Possessive. The scratch of his facial hair against your skin is familiar, the smell of him overwhelming when he’s so close.

Clean laundry, warm sun, a light hint of sweat from working outside. Joel.

He kisses down your neck with an open mouth, cloying and distracting, as he massages his wet fingers over your asshole. 

He teases. Pets. Coaxes. All the while, his mouth does the same—on your throat, your chest, your breasts. Hungry and wanting. Joel moves at a leisurely pace, dropping himself down to nip at your ear lobe, pinching and rolling your nipple with his other fingers. 

He’s working you up, making you ask for it, and it’s effective.

When you start to writhe and whine, he finally shuffles down your body and takes up his rightful place with his head between your splayed thighs.  

Joel watches you when he goes down on you, his eyes flicking up to your face and back down to where you’re aching for him—constantly. Always assessing. Studying. Devouring. Gauging how hard or how easy to push you.

He spreads you open and dips his head to lick your clit with the broad sweep of his tongue, taking you apart as he works you open. He’s well-practiced in the art of dismantling you.

He gradually increases the pressure—of  his tongue and his finger—ratcheting up the pleasure, until your legs are shaking around his ears. Until one of your hands is fisted in his short, thick hair. Until you’re canting your hips up and up and up to fuck yourself against his face.

You drag your arm over your eyes, overcome—

Joel looks up—his hot mouth leaving you cold—and tsks, pulling your arm away from your face. “Let me see you.”

His lips shine with your arousal.

Your stalled pleasure has your mouth dropped open, but Joel resumes the steady sweep of his tongue and the firm press of his nose against your mound right away, catching you midair and dragging you right back to the brink of an orgasm. Your heels slip down the sheets, your head pressing back into the pillow as you moan and ride it out.

Joel grunts when he feels it, when it spreads through your veins like lightning.

You meet his eyes as you pant through the aftermath—his brow is creased deeply, his lips parted just a little when he pulls away, his breath barely audible—and while you’re mellow and unwound, he presses his finger inside. He squeezes his eyes shut against the pleasure, reveling in the warm pull of your body, and you arch. A heavy hand settles on your chest.

“Easy,” he says, his voice low, “easy now.”

He waits for your muscles to relax, for you to give him an encouraging nod, and he works that finger a little deeper in your ass, thrusting it shallowly. He can feel your body responding to it—acclimating to, asking for it.

“Turn over for me,” he says, his voice even gruffer than normal. “Get on your hands and knees so I can see it.”

You flip for him, situating yourself on your elbows. The bed creaks as he slips off it behind you. There’s the metal sound of a zipper and the rustle of denim, and then the mattress dips again as he settles behind you.

He leans down to purse his lips and spit. It drips, warm and wet as it slides between your cheeks, and he catches it with two fingers, smearing it over where he’s started working you open, where you feel warm and ready for him, inviting—where you glisten with it. You expect him to press one inside you again, but instead, he leans down and his tongue takes it place.

Your hips jerk forward reflexively at the foreign feeling, at the press of the wet muscle against sensitive skin, but as soon as your mind catches up, you shift back to chase the sensation, that warm, slick slide—the welcoming heat of his mouth. A series of sloppy kisses, wet and open.

Joel’s hands spread you as he tastes you. He licks and laps, his tongue exploring every inch of your puckered rim, and the feeling unfurls over your skin slowly—hot and syrupy and decadent—dispatching a delayed shiver down your spine. The pleasure crackles and spits, your nerves a circuit of live wires.

You moan into the feeling, letting your body arch, and shove yourself against the fervor of his mouth. You wonder why you didn’t ask him—beg him—for this sooner. 

It’s brief. He wants to stay there—you can tell by the low sound he makes against your body, the sound that deepens when you push back against his mouth, so deep it vibrates—but he’s impatient.

Impatient to be inside you.

He spits again, another rush of warmth, and pulls away to say: “Touch yourself, honey.”

You obey, settling a cheek on his pillow, one hand between your legs. His first finger returns. A second one joins it, and you whine at the stretch when he edges them inside.

“I know—I know it’s tight, baby.”

He soothes you with a heavy hand on your back, rubbing it up and down your spine reassuringly.

“I got you.”

He spits one more time, a generous, wet lubricant for his thrusting fingers. He collects the moisture and presses them deep.

You can feel his lips on the back of your thigh, his tongue and the scrape of his teeth. He moves up, working his mouth gently over the curve of your cheek. His hand smooths over your hip, the other working his fingers deeper in a slow rhythm, the movements careful and fluid. He won’t give you more than you can handle. 

You feel full with just his fingers moving inside you, but when you start to move your own fingers over your clit, you find that the fullness feels good.

He answers your pleased sounds: curling and stroking you from the inside out. His fingers scissor and stretch.

His other hand leaves your body, and you can hear him fisting his cock behind you—pausing to spit into his waiting palm and slick it over himself. You know exactly what that looks like, the storm of desire brewing in his dark eyes and the roll of his muscular shoulder as he pumps himself. A pearl of precum likely glistens along his slit, disappearing as his shaft is swallowed by the circle of his fist.

The image of him, one you’ve seen countless times, never fails to arouse you.

The command, the intention—the intoxicating need. 

In the beginning, you had to look away from it. It was too naked, too vulnerable—it was the only time Joel would drop the front and let himself be more than just leashed rage. The only time he’d cut the tether and let himself want what he wants—let it show on his face, stark as day.

Now, you live for it. You recognize it for the rare, precious gift it is.

You can’t help but peer over your shoulder to catch a glimpse of that furrowed brow and taut neck. That is the Joel who loves with his whole chest. Who loves with teeth.

He looks up from where his hand is moving to meet your gaze. He eases those two fingers out of you, and you whimper at the loss.

He moves closer behind you, his broad frame looming tall over you, and settles. Your legs are spread as wide as they go in this position, his bracketed between them.

“I’ll go slow, yeah?” 

You press your cheek back into the pillow and breathe. 

You can feel the fat head of him notched against you, the heat and the slickness, where you’re drenched and shiny. He drops his hips and rubs the tip up and down, once and again. The anticipation—the knowledge of his size—has you tensing, but he pets your hips and talks you through it.

“Relax and let me in.”

Joel eases his hips forward, and as much as he’s prepared you, as much as he’s coaxed your body open to accommodate his fingers, the stretch of him still burns. He’s been so careful, taken such good care of you, but the size of him aches. You can’t help but squirm, a whine spilling from your lips, as he enters you.

He reacts to your hesitation right away.

“Drop your hips for me,” he says, a heavy hand on your lower back.

He guides you down, and you all but collapse, almost prone on the mattress. He blankets your body with his own, his warm chest and the softness of his belly flush against your back, and reaches around you, snaking a hand into the few inches of space between your hips and the bed, to massage your clit with the pacifying rock of one finger—to where your hand had been a second ago, before it dropped away to fist in the sheets. 

He’s heavy draped over you, his body a grounding weight. If it weren’t him—if you didn’t have that steel-cast trust between you, it might feel smothering. This prostrate position, vulnerable.

Instead, safe. 

He breathes hot and slow down the side of your neck then sets his teeth against your shoulder, a blunt bite—not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to mute all other sensation, just a little. 

He’s giving you something to hold on to. 

He murmurs praise between light, plush kisses and little nips, as the blunt tip of his cock slowly—so slowly—breaches the tight ring of your ass.

You key into the words—honey, baby, sweetheart—and the hot trail of his mouth. And breathe, slow and steady, to let your body welcome him deep.

When his hips are cradling your cheeks, he stills.

You’re full; you’re so fucking full. 

It’s almost unbearable in sensation. The thick, rigid length of him is throbbing inside you. You need—you need something—

Your thoughts are slow, eddying and pinwheeling like curls of smoke that refuse to coalesce into something tangible. 

His finger is still pressed tight to your clit, and as you settle together, you adjust. A realization creeps up the back of your neck, shy. Move, you think, the link between your brain and your mouth suddenly faulty. You need him to move.

You arch and start to shift back into him, to encourage him to fuck you.

Joel growls in your ear, the hand between your legs jumping to your throat. “Stay still for me. Just—stay still, alright? Let me—” 

You tense with the effort of it, all of your muscles tightening, contracting around the thick intrusion of him, and his words are cut short by a low groan and the subtle flex of his hips forward. The movement draws a whimper from your throat—a pleased sound.

It’s taking all his control not to move, not to thrust into the tight, molten clench of your body. 

“Let me—let me just feel you like this for a minute,” he finishes. His voice cracks with the effort of staying still. The hand caught around your throat trembles and tightens. 

He’s savoring it. Savoring you.

And trying not to let the exquisite grip of your body undo him too soon. It’s dizzying, knowing that.

He shifts back a bit, braced on a locked elbow by your side, so he can see where he’s splitting you open, and runs a reverent hand along your curves, up your thigh and over your hip—a rough, calloused palm turned tender in the moment. His breathing is labored.

You peer at him over your shoulder, your neck straining. His mouth is dropped open, his tongue peeking out between his lips, and his eyes are hooded. They flick down to meet yours. 

Understanding passes between you.

He drops himself over you again, and his hand finds a home on your shoulder, holding fast. Then he eases his hips back, gently withdrawing before starting up a slow cadence. Testing.

You moan when he thrusts forward, and his own low sound matches yours. His hips start to move faster, his thighs colliding with the backs of yours.

“You gonna come with my cock in your ass?”

You nod against the fabric of his pillow case, your hand returning to the apex of your thighs. It doesn’t take much—a few moments of gentle fingers passing over your aching clit, and all of your muscles are tightening.

“Fuck, yes,” he growls. “Let me feel it.”

His rhythm kicks up to a rapid slap slap slap of skin against skin, as you spasm and quiver against the bed, your open, panting mouth leaving a wet spot on the cotton. You clench around the crowded feeling of him until your brain is fuzzy with a haze of pleasure. Until your limbs go completely slack.

“You’re taking it so good for me. So fuckin’ tight.”

You feel sated and warm in the aftermath, your body fucked out and sluggish. You can tell Joel is close by the uneven staccato of his thrusts and the tightness in his voice.

“Oh fuck, baby,” he pants. “You’re gonna make me come—make me fill this tight little ass.”

You moan—waiting for it, wanting it. 

But he wants to hear it first.

“Is that what you want? Hmm? Say it,” he demands, his words punctuated by the surge of his hips and the press of his thighs. “Tell me where you want me to come.”

You barely manage to get the words out, twisted in your raw throat—

“Please, Joel—inside.”

—before he does.

The sound he makes is low and feral, a gasp and a growl clawing their way out of his chest. He grinds himself deep into the tight heat of your body, his hips stuttering in sheer relief, and his cock twitches as he spills inside you. A flood of warmth, pulses of pearly cum fucked deep.

Again and again, until he’s spent.

He pulls out, leaving you empty. You know he wants to see it.

Sure enough, he thumbs between your cheeks, admiring the place where he’s marked you—feeling the sticky warmth of himself in your body. Like he’s always wanted to.

After a long moment, he collapses next to you on the bed and pulls you into his side. 

“Come here,” he says, gathering you up in his arms. He presses a kiss to your forehead and swipes soft fingers over your cheek. You’re boneless in his hands.

He doesn’t say it, but you know. 

Mine.

[muppetsnoopy]

they need to invent magic.spell that flosses and brushes my teeth for me and also tuckes me into bed soso cozy

[ronearoundblindly]

i wish I could participate in the ask game for Steve and the mermaid. Because they are so cute and weird, and I know deep down he is feeling SOME KINDA WAY about her. I think that would be kinda difficult but I guess I could settle for ever single letter for It had to be you Steve. lol

I'm going to opt in for both, but those will be split up because I'm not sure two universes could be more different. 🤭

You'll have W - Water for Sun, Salt, and Shield Steve x mermaid!reader (in which I'll be able to just headcanon that smut I've not been able to figure out how to write any other way) and C - Crying for CEO!Steve (for an earworm that just now burrowed in and started reeking havoc) to look forward to!

Perhaps....not within the next day or so though. Sorry.

Thank you for asking!

[highoncatfood]

not a single brain cell on this ship

[marxistgnome]

Memes shared by kids who grew up on starships I think they should have sea scout/land scout beef with kids that grew up on Starbases