#or I feel like he would give Flippy one of these guys. man needs a guard dog bad

[curi0uscreature]

* He still visits these little guys me thinks

[rararazaquato]

chapter 2 is coming. here's makoto and kurumi.

a lot of design notes under the cut, both about these guys and the nda detectives

yuma was specifically given a little facial hair because, in the canon of the fic, he's been too busy to actually shave. however, the out-of-canon reason is that my art style is so chibi cutesit that it makes everyone look a bajillion years younger than they actually are. yuma's design is already a little young-looking despite most evidence in-canon pointing to him being an adult, so i wanted to give him that extra signifier of being a grown ass man.

the longer hair is also there for the same reasons - he hasn't gotten it cut for a while, and the bowl cut made him look childish.

because i have chronic same-face-syndrome, i put yuma and makoto in the same pose to emphasize that they are, genetically, the same person.

honestly, makoto's design versus yuma's in-game really makes it clear just how much a haircut and outfit change can make a character look older. with makoto wearing a suit and having hair that isn't in the perfect shape of a bowling ball, he looks a lot more like a young adult with a babyface. because i feel like he doesn't need the extra age signifiers (and because i feel like he'd want to differentiate himself from yuma more), i didn't give him the facial hair.

the "looking less like yuma" angle is also why he still bleaches and grows out his hair.

i like to think makoto starts taking better care of himself postgame, so i made his hair a bit fluffier and softer-looking to show he's actually been brushing and washing it. i mean, come on. canon makoto ily but you look like a greased-up yorkshire terrier.

i also gave makoto curtain bangs because girl... you have a forehead the size of the moon. i'm also a member of large forehead gang so i understand you pain but still.

makoto's outfit is actually loosely based on an outfit i own irl! i have a hawaiian shirt with similar colors (albeit a different pattern) and blue swim trunks with red lobsters on them.

makoto probably sunburns really easily, both as a result of being pale as fuck (yuma also has this issue) and being a homunculus (he won't die in the sun, but it does result in a mild allergy). so just imagine he's always lathered in sunscreen.\

mentally, makoto is the same age as yuma (so 20 when this fic takes place) and kurumi is 19 (i headcanon she's only a year younger than yuma). chronologically, they are both about four years old. #justhomunculusthings

i changed kurumi's hairstyle because her canon one is stupid. like why does she have two skinny ass braids hidden in her coat. give her those long luscious locks.

she's wearing disposable gloves to protect her hands, and almost all of her clothing is specifically designed to reflect uv rays.

you'll notice the inside of kurumi's mouth is actually a different color than any of the master detectives. that's the homunculus baby!!!

i gave her an ahoge because i hope she gets the protag treatment for the next game. also i hope she and shinigami become girlbesties and also that shinigami gets the fuck over herself. um ok now time for design notes abt the other people. artwork here if u didn't see the og one.

desuhiko actually does turn 20 in the timeframe of the fic. his birthday party is a future chapter.

he gets knockoff heelys in the upcoming chapter bcuz i think he'd enjoy them. but he got them flippy floppys in the meantime.

fubuki got a new hairstyle because i think she would be a bit more loose and silly as she starts going on more adventures.

her and vivia actually have two birthdays between the time i headcanon raincode to take place (march 2XXX) and the fic (july 2XXX+1). so while yuma is 19 in mdarc and 20 in usf, fubuki is 21 in mdarc and 23 in usf (and vivia is 25-27)

yes, that is ibuki mioda on her shirt.

i'm actually scared of needles so halara's earrings get a redesign. they get new ones in the upcoming chapter as well.

their outfit might be mostly long sleeves, but the jacket is lightweight and breezy and the jeans have wide legs, so it's actually nice and cool.

just realized this outfit is primarily yellow with some red and blue acccents. i can't believe i reinvented sollux homestuck. i'm sorry halara baby i didn't mean to compare you to an ugly bitch like that (this is a joke i actually like sollux)

vivia's outfit is inspired by the stupid shit i would make in the sims before i discovered custom content. i feel like he'd be a sims girly.

your guess for why yuma got facial hair due to never shaving while vivia, who is infamously too executive-dysfunction-riddled to leave the fireplace much less shave, has the skin of a newborn baby is up to you to interpret. possible options include (un)fortunate genetics on either/both of them, he is trans and hasn't started/doesn't intend to start t, or he just pays halara to do it for him.

actually i do think he pays halara to help him out with things when the chronic fatigue/executive dysfunction gets too much to deal with. fubuki will do it for free but also she is kind of bad at being helpful as a result of being fubuki.

aaand time for the general headcanons section

every single one of these characters is some flavor of neurodivergent. halara and kurumi are autistic, desuhiko has adhd, and yuma, makoto, fubuki, and vivia have both. i'm sure some of them also have other neurodivergencies but those are the two i'm most familiar with so those are the two that worm their way into my headcanons.

not a single one of these characters doesn't have ptsd. like i'm sorry but you cannot live through chapters 4 and 5 of rain code and not be mentally ill afterwards. most of em also have a few other mental illnesses because i love projecting on fictional characters <3

vivia's also got some sort of chronic physical illness (my personal headcanon is pots), and makoto sometimes uses a cane. yuma should sometimes use a cane but he has the bodily awareness of a fucking peanut and thinks it hurts everyone to walk.

yuma's gonna realize he's any pronouns nonbinary someday, but that won't be for a hot minute. makoto is the same, but he's a lot closer to that realization than yuma is. both are also bi, as is kurumi.

desuhiko is the resident kodakaverse problematic bicon. there's always one of em!

fubuki is a lesbian. "oh but she confesses to yuma in her final gumshoe gab!" well as i said before yuma isn't a man. it's a bit confusing to her because she doesn't know that yet but turns out she's just got that Sense where she can tell that yuma isn't exactly cis.

halara is nonbinary (obviously, that's basically canon) and pan

vivia is somewhere on the aroace spectrum (both out of general lack of interest and because sex and romance are physically/mentally straining) but he's generally gay-aligned.

[katoodlez]

i tried to be productive this morning but i dont think my brain will let me until i do this, so sam and bucky show episode 4 letS GO

i would like to preface this post by saying that I literally got spoilers (before i watched the episode) from liTERALLY EVERYTHING from youtube to gOOGLE CHROME when i was trying to read the nEWS so in order to avoid spoiling it for anyone that hasnt seen it, STOP READING because this episode is inSANE and you don’t want it ruined for you.

Okay with that being said, let’s get started.

1. the first scene in wakanda absolutely deSTROYED ME. ayo helping bucky clear the winter soldier programming from his mind and then the silent shift of emotions on his face as the flashbacks happened and then when he realized he was free was just-- KDSFKSD the aCTING WAS SO GOOD thank you mr sebastian stan

2. bucky telling ayo that Zemo was a means to an end, especially in Wakandan, gave me chills bc it’s a direct parallel of Zemo telling Bucky that he was a means to an end. this show is just so carefully crafted omg

3. karli morgenthau got so much more screentime and development in this episode and i am hERE FOR IT. it’s really intriguing to get a deeper look into the Flag Smasher’s motivations and see a more personal side of their cause as well, especially in the memorial scene.

4. can we just take a moment. we need to take a moment. to just appreciate sam. hIS DIALOGUE IN THIS EPISODE. actually, in the whole show, but eSPECially in this episode just absolutely POPPED OFF. after this episode, I’m fully convinced that sam is 100% without a doubt the best character in this show. whoever wrote his lines is a genius. i love the scene where he talks to Karli, and I hope that they can have another chance to talk without *couGH* jOhn waLKER *coUGH* butting his head in because that conversation was just amazing. i loved how they discussed things they had in common, and a mutual understanding and how sam said “i agree with your fight, but not the way you’re fighting it.” this line was so good. and literally every other part of that conversation. the entire plot would have fallen to shambles by now if it wasn’t for sam so let’s give this man a round of applause please.

5. while we’re talking about sam, I might as well mention that i was very happy to see him in the falcon suit/wings again. he didn’t fly in episode 3 and i missed the action scenes with the wings. i think I gotta give Sam the most creativity points for the fight scenes in this show because he can fight both in the air and on the ground with a set of wings and weaponize them either way and that’s really cool

6. the dora milaje. I LOVE THEM. omg. i was so happy to see Ayo at the end of episode 3 and they just aSSERTED DOMINANCE in this episode and i loved it. their fighting style and weapons and clothing/armor design is just so elegant and mesmerizing to watch. “the dora milaje have jurisdiction wherever the dora milaje find themselves to be” omg. they took no crap from john walker and it was sO SATISFYING

7. on that note, watching walker get his butt kicked by the Dora Milaje while sam, bucky, and zemo just stood there was hilarious and probably one of my favorite scenes in this entire show so far.

8. WHEN AYO DISARMED BUCKY’s VIBRANIUM ARM. OMG. bucky was *surprised pikachu face* and so was I. I really, really hope they run into the wakandans again because there’s definitely a broken trust between them and i want that relationship to be more fully fleshed out and brought to closure too

9. there’s no way i’m making this list without talking about zemo singing to the kids and giving them candy at the beginning of the episode. that kinda gave me “creepy guy who kidnaps kids at the park” kinda vibes but it was also hilarious since Zemo was the only one making any progress on getting info in that scene xd

10. zemo getting away had the same energy as Loki yeeting with the tessaract in Endgame lmao

11. BUCKY WITH A KNIFE. when he caught the knife askdjfk i’ve been waiting for a bucky knife fight this enTIRE SHOW and i finally got it and me very happy  : >>>> (i’m determined to learn how he does the flippy trick w the pocketknife in Winter Soldier)

12. when Karli called Sarah Wilson i got chills. first of all sarah is an absolute fearless qUEEN but also the fact that Karli threatened Sam’s nephews akdfjaksdj pls dont hurt them Marvel

13. the parallel discussions between Zemo and Sam, Lemar and Walker about taking the super soldier serum were really neat. they both hark back to the conversation between Steve Rogers and Dr. Erskine in First Avenger, and i think that was the key turning point in revealing/completely clarifying both Sam and Walker’s true colors, which will now directly contradict each other for the rest of the show. 

14. people say that sam is the character who always tries to reason things out until he has absolutely no options left. i think that really shows through in this episode, and it’s also a good reference point/marker of the other characters’ development. Sam’s determination to talk things through with Karli actually brought them closer together (until sOMEONE decided to intervene coUGH) but his equal determination to keep peace/negotiate with Walker only drove them further apart, which makes me feel that even though karli and the flag smashers are the “villains” in this story, they are definitely not the antagonists (that would be walker, who’s directly trying to work against Sam and Bucky, the protagonists)

15. bucky’s “i know crazy when i see it cuz i am crazy” sent me LOL

16. when lemar died i think everyone just went 0 _ 0. i don’t think Karli intended to kill him when she kicked him into that wall, judging by the way they all ran off after they realized he was dead. tbh i’ve been netural towards lemar this entire time, tho i do appreciate his more pacifist attitude to walker’s explosive impulsiveness. he’s sort of like sam to bucky. but his death really felt like an accidental cross-fire casualty that cause walker to reach his breaking point

17. and lastly the scene with the bloody shield. 0 _ 0. the whole world was watching indeed

alright that’s it for this week. i can’t believe there’s only two episodes left 0 _ 0. to be honest, from our current point of view as fans i feel like this show needs another season, maybe 2. the reason being, I can’t really see a space that Sam and Bucky would fit into in the future of the MCU. Sam, maybe, if he resolves the deal with the Captain America mantle at the end of this show, but I feel like Bucky’s end goal is just to like, retire lmao. but also, the future of the MCU is gonna be really focused on like the more magicky characters like Wanda, Loki and Doctor Strange, and ofc Spiderman, Thor/Guardians and Captain Marvel, and then ppl are saying something abt the young avengers or something. But yeah, as near as i can figure this show seems like it should bring closure for Bucky at least, except i have no clue how they’re going to wrap all this stuff up in 2 episodes. in addition to the mess with Zemo and Walker and Sharon’s whole deal in Madripoor, I hope they also get back to America to bring their issues there full circle, like Bucky’s issue with Nakajima, Sam’s family and their home, and Isaiah Bradley. guess we’ll see, can’t wait for next week already ahhhh

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The Mile High Job

leverage 1.08

Nate: We need a key card.

Eliot: And I hate to say it, but you know who we could really use --

Nate: Don't even say his name. I don't want it spoken aloud

eliot begrudgingly admitting they could use hardison because although they may bicker all the time, he knows to appreciate him

- - - - - 

[Leverage Headquarters]

(Hardison is watching a microwave, which dings)

Hardison: Yeah, buddy!

(he tries to pick up the pizza pocket but it is too hot and he drops it)

Hardison: Damn it!

(he blows on it and picks it up to eat it, then takes a watering can and heads out of the kitchen)

why do we (and parker and eliot) love this fucking idiot so damn much ???

- - - - - 

(Hardison walks through the offices watering plants)

he’s such a nester + he’s probably watering parker’s plant too which is adorable

- - - - - 

Eliot: All right.

(open the door to the hall to find Parker waiting)

Parker: So, what are we waiting for?

Eliot: How does she do this?

Nate: I don't even ask anymore.

Hardison: Don't bother with the stairs. I got you a ride down.

(elevator dings and they enter)

we love to see parker defying all laws of physics and logic and the team being baffled by it e v e r y time

- - - - - 

(Nate, Parker and Eliot run into the lobby, headed for the door)

Nate: No, it’s right behind us, it’s right behind us!

(guards put their hands on their guns)

Parker: It’s furry, it’s big, it’s chasing us, get down now!

(they grab Sophie on the way out the door, leaving the guards confused)

Nate: Come on, we need to get to the airport, now!

that’s actually a really clever way to escape a situation ??? it was very effective to distract the guards ???

- - - - - 

Hardison: What I.D.s have you got on you?

[LAX Airport]

Nate: Let's see...

(team begins looking through their pockets)

Nate: We got, Peter Davison, Sylvester McCoy, and I have a Tom Baker. Yeah.

Sophie: Ooh, yeah, I have a Baker. Sarah Jane.

[Leverage Headquarters]

Hardison: Perfect. I now pronounce you man and wife. (typing on keyboard) Now go on and kiss that bride.

[LAX Airport]

(Sophie hands Nate a ring that he places on her finger)

hardison bases their ids on doctor who characters, what a fucking nerd

also, we gonna talk about how sophie carries a bunch of different wedding rings with her at all times or ???

- - - - - 

Sophie: How did you both know there'd be an extra uniform in the bag?

Nate: Everyone knows flight attendants are required to carry extra uniforms in case they get called to work unexpectedly.

Eliot: Or if something happens to the one that they're already wearing.

Sophie: How does "everyone" know that?

Nate: Worked airport security.

Eliot: Slept with a flight attendant

sophie being exhausted + eliot never mentioned the gender of the flight attendant so let my bi heart dream okay

- - - - - 

(security guard opens Nate’s luggage to find many BSDM items inside. Nate gives Sophie a look)

Sophie: What? We needed luggage. Lost and found.

Nate: You didn't check the bag first?

Sophie: We were in a bit of a hurry. (to guard) Yeah. Cuffs are his. Whip's mine. (slaps Nate’s butt) Second honeymoon.

Eliot (picking up his bag): Idiots.

me watching this scene: part horrified part secondhand embarrassed 

- - - - - 

Hardison (on computer): Let's see what we can learn about Nathan Ford today. Online poker? Online chess? Sudoku. Crossword. What... Damn. Somebody needs to get laid.

y i k e s

- - - - - 

[Coach]

(Parker on P.A. while another stewardess demonstrates)

Parker: Place the mask over your mouth and nose and breathe normally. In the event of a water landing, your seat cushion can be used as a flotation device. But let's face it, if this thing goes down in the water, more than likely the impact will kill you. 

(Eliot grabs the bridge of his nose while the other passengers get alarmed)

Parker: Please take a moment to locate the nearest emergency exits, because if this plane's on fire, you're gonna want to get out quick. Jet fuel burns at over 1,000 degrees. That's hot, folks.

Eliot: All right, Nate. We're here. Now what?

eliot looks exhausted like 300 different times during this episode

+ bless the other flight attendant that just carried on with the crazy white chick being crazy over the speaker 

- - - - - 

poor eliot with the guy sleeping on him, he’s so exhausted already lmao

- - - - - 

Steve: Nothing. It’s just... I could've sworn I saw a maintenance guy get in that elevator.

Hardison: A- A maintenance guy? Wow. Real nice. I bet you think we all look alike.

Steve: That's not what I meant.

Hardison: You know what -- If I have to go to one more of those damn sensitivity seminars, I know who I’m blaming.

Steve: No, no, no.

Hardison: I know who I’m blaming.

Steve: It's not what I meant.

Hardison: I blame you! You! (walks away)

hardison using societal tendencies of racism is iconic every (every) time

- - - - - 

(Eliot gets up and begins going through luggage in the overhead racks. One of the passengers watches him suspiciously)

Eliot (to passenger): Can I help you with something? Watch the movie.

what would you even do in this situation ???

- - - - - 

Marissa: I know. It's just -- It's like a placebo effect. It's not really working, but it makes you feel better anyway.

Parker: Yeah? So, when's that supposed to kick in? (she moves forward) Look. Flying isn't really all that scary when you think about it. I mean, there are a lot more likely ways to die than on a plane. Car crash, house fire, electrocution, drowning, autoerotic asphyxiation. I mean, the fact is, death haunts us every day. No matter where we are.

(Parker smiles and moves away)

Y I K E S

- - - - - 

Hardison: You kidding? Did you get the new expansion pack? Woman, I was up all night. Now, look, I mean “Burning Crusade" was great, but this new one is mind-blowing.

Nate: Hardison…

[First Class]

Nate: …you bailed on the job because you were up all night playing a game?

[Genogrow Break Room]

(Hardison turns aside and opens a cabinet door to hide his face)

Hardison: First off, "game" is hardly adequate, okay

hardison is DONE with them not taking his “games” seriously ,,, also LMFAO that’s why he was late 

- - - - - 

Hardison (opens door): The meeting's starting, sir. (closes door)

Haldeman: What meeting? (sighs and puts on his jacket)

that is such an effective tactic tho ???

- - - - - 

Parker: Hatbox full of Euros, pouch of uncut diamonds, and a stolen Stradivarius. Now, I’ve never lifted one of those.

Nate: Parker..

let! her! steal! it!

- - - - - 

Eliot: Ms. Devins, those payments were not made in error. They were bribes. He was trying to pay off the researchers so they would not testify.

Marissa: What are you talking about? What the hell is going on here?

(Parker sits down next to Marissa)

Parker: The guy in 1D wants to kill you. Ginger ale?

Eliot: Just – sh-she--

that poor lady is NOT having a good time

also eliot looks sO DONE WITH PARKER LMFAO

- - - - - 

Eliot: Erlick's a pro. He had a ceramic knife. If anything was going down, he'd sniff 'em out when he saw them coming.

Nate: How would they do it?

Eliot: Easiest way? Take 'em out in transit.

Sophie: You mean bring down the plane they're on?

(everyone looks at her pointedly)

Sophie: You mean bring down the plane we're on?

Nate: Yeah

that’s interesting meta to know but we hate to see it

- - - - - 

Nate: Okay, Parker, I -- Parker, I need you – (to Eliot) All right, we got to talk to Erlick now.

[Plane Bathroom]

(Dan is still unconscious on the toilet as Eliot and Nate come in)

Nate: Geez!

Eliot (patting Dan on the face): Hey!

(Dan does not stir, Eliot sighs)

Eliot: When I knock people out, they tend to stay knocked out.

Nate: Hey!

(Nate taps the guy on the face)

Nate: Luggage tags.

(they search Dan’s clothes and take his luggage tags. Eliot grabs the ceramic knife before they leave the bathroom)

eliot doesn’t fuck around lmao

also he did the flippy thing with the knife

- - - - - 

Hardison: Parker, the device you found -- is it anywhere near an orange box?

Parker: Yeah.

[Haldeman’s Office]

Hardison: Oh, god. They tapped into the black box.

[Cargo Hold]

Parker: No, no, it's not black. It's orange.

[Haldeman’s Office]

Hardison: Yeah, the black boxes, they're orange.

[Cargo Hold]

Hardison: Makes them easier to find in the debris.

Parker: Oh. Oh…

[Haldeman’s Office]

Hardison: They've hacked into the flight's computer, which means they have access to the system, which means they can spoof the black-Box data all at the same time.

[Cargo Hold]

Parker: Crash the plane without anyone knowing it was sabotaged.

[Haldeman’s Office]

Hardison: Exactly

that’s terrifying

- - - - - 

Nate: Listen to me!

[Haldeman’s Office]

Nate: You can do this! I trust you!

(Hardison looking very unsure of himself)

[Cockpit]

Nate: No matter how many times you goof off or screw up, you always come through in the clutch.

[Haldeman’s Office]

Nate: You're the only guy I can count on in a situation like this.

Hardison (cracks his neck): You know what? I-I-you... You're right. 

You're right. I got this.

[Cockpit]

Nate: Yes! Yes! Yes, you can!

Hardison: You're right. You're -- I'm the man.

[Cargo Hold]

Hardison: I'm the man. I got this. I'm gonna do this.

hardison is amazing and they need to appreciate him more

- - - - - 

[First Class]

(Nate and Eliot stumble into seats and belt up)

Nate: Sophie?

[Coach]

Sophie: Yes?

[First Class]

Nate: You okay?

[Coach]

Sophie: Yeah. You?

[First Class]

Nate: Ask me again in 10 minutes.

[Coach]

Sophie: You're gonna remember this one, aren't you?

[First Class]

Nate: Oh yeah.

everyone else on the comms: ,,, y’all have to flirt right this second ???

- - - - - 

[Haldeman’s Office]

(Hardison watching footage on the Internet of the plane landing)

Announcer (on monitor): …emergency landing on the seven mile bridge…

Hardison: Whoa! (gets up and dances) Baby! Unh! Age of the geek! Smooth! Too smooth! Lord, I was so scared, I wanted to cry, call my mama. Y'all cool? Y’all cool?

Nate: Yes, cool.

Hardison: Family. All right.

hardison is baby + HE CALLED THEM HIS FAMILY !!!

[pineapple-qween]

Super Twins!

Relationship: Batfam x Reader

Summary: Twins with strangely incompatible powers are spotted in Gotham and we all know what happens with Bruce and orphans.

Key: Y/N= your name, N/N= nickname

—————————————-

So there I was, minding my own business, flying through the lovely night air when a flipping boy ran into me. Or I guess flipped into me.

I can most defiantly say that he was just as surprised as I was as expressed in his eloquent, “What the hell,” as he returned to the world below me.

As much as I wanted to float there and laugh at the flipping boy, who was effectively getting himself back on course on the roof tops below, Clayton was waiting for me at the park and I couldn’t let him down again.

I guess I should tell you about myself.

Clayton is my twin brother, older only by 3 minutes which he loves to hold over me. And if you couldn’t tell, me and my brother have superpowers. I got the cooler power, I can control the air, but Clayton probably got the more practical power, he can control the ground. Our mother quickly abandoned us when she figured that out, because a baby that can float and one that can disappear into the ground? Yeah, easy to put us up for adoption. After six years of foster homes and orphanages, everyone got sick of the two of us and they planned on separating us, so we tunneled out. Clayton took me and we began roaming from city to city, staying alive and staying together for the past 10 years.

By the time I got to the park, I saw Clayton waiting next to one of those statues that I guess is modern art, but looks like a hockey stick with picture frames hot glued on, I digress.

“Y/N! I was starting to get worried about your dumbass.” Clayton grabbed my arm as I finished my descent and pulled me towards the middle of the park. “Gotham isn’t Central City, it’s way more dangerous! You could get shot or something.”

“As I fly through the air?” I gave him a snarky smile and he slapped my arm.

“Remember what I told you about Batman before we left? I heard that he flies and so do his partners. They could catch you and do who knows what.” He started to open the tunnel to the cavern where we would be staying before we moved to our next destination.

“I think I scared them more than they could scare me,” I scoffed thinking back to the flipping boy.

Clayton halted in his tracks, spun around and grabbed my shoulders. “You SAW one?”

Slightly uncomfortable I said, “Yeah, there was a guy who flipped into me and as he fell onto a roof top he said something like ‘That damn’, but I guess that could’ve been ‘Batman’,” I shrugged. “He couldn’t have gotten a good look at me and there’s no way he could’ve followed me.”

I was wrong.

Clayton and I heard the sound of a car screeching to a halt, as we turned to look at the source, a small boy, with what I guessed were katanas, flipped in front of us with swords pointed in our faces.

“Identify yourselves,” he yelled.

Before I could ask if his mom knew he was out past his bedtime, I recognized the taller boy behind him.

“Flippy boy? How did you find me?”

Clayton looked at me then to flippy boy and smacked his forehead. “You idiot...That’s Nightwing.”

“Who?”

The little boy scoffed. With a devious smirk on his face, he asked, “You don’t know Nightwing? Ha! Did you hear that Red Hood?”

A voice from behind me let out a low, but loud chuckle. “Yeah, I heard, demon.” The man walked around us to join the other two. “How’s that feel flippy boy?”

Flippy boy, or I guess Nightwing, let out an annoyed groan, “Come on man! B will be here in a minute. Can you just let it go until we get home?”

When the three began to bicker, I noticed Clayton giving me that sideways glance, the same one he gave me when we had to ditch the Flash a year or two ago. I grabbed his hand and slowly we began to slip into the earth.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a deep, gravely voice advised.

Barely shin deep in the ground, my brother quickly shot us back to the top and we tensed up, afraid to turn and find the one person we knew wouldn’t let us go so easy.

Batman, THE Batman, walked between us and, with one look, stopped the bickering match those boys had gotten into. “Now,” he faced us and his look made my hairs stand on end, “Who are you two? And no lies. I don’t have the patience for it.”

Clayton looked at me and I nodded.

“I’m David and this is my sister Ellen, we’re just passing through. We’re on our way to visit our aunt in Maine.” The lie was easy. Clayton had said it only a million times, but this time...he almost seemed unsure.

The look on Batman’s face didn’t change. I couldn’t help but feel like he was reading our entire lives while we just stood there. Then finally, “I said no lies.”

Clayton began, “I’m not-”

“My name’s Y/N and this is my brother Clayton. We’re orphans. We’ll be out of Gotham by Friday,” Clayton smacked my arm and looked at me incredulously, “What! He wasn’t gonna just let it go. Right?”

Red Hood laughed, “She’s right.”

“Orphan’s, huh,” Nightwing shifted uncomfortably, “B shouldn’t we, you know... help them?”

Batman seemed to ignore him. “And you two have superpowers?”

Clayton sighed dejectedly, “Yeah. She’s air. I’m earth.”

The smaller boy sneered, “Air? Earth? Tt-tt That sounds stupid.”

I scoffed, “It’s not like you have any superpowers. Do you, kid?”

I watched as a blush quickly spread across his face as Red Hood began cracking up. “No! But...but....”

“That’s what I thought,” I stuck my tongue out at him and turned back to Batman, which sort of ruined my moment. “How did you find us anyway?”

“Nightwing called out his location after his encounter with you in the sky, he tailed you best he could until we could catch up in the Batmobile. Then we just projected your trajectory to the park and found the fastest route.”

“Oh.” I was still confused.

“They followed you until they realized you were going to the park,” Clayton simplified.

“Ah.”

Batman return to his silent staring. Clayton’s grip on my hand tightened. I knew what he wanted me to do, but I was afraid. I was afraid of what Batman might do to us, but I couldn’t let my brother down. In that moment, I could feel every particle in the air that surrounded us and I told them to spin, fast. As we stood there, the wind picked up speed.

Nightwing gasped, “What’s happening!”

Before anyone could answer, the wind became a miniature tornado and I could feel the familiar sensation in my gut as I was losing energy, I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it much longer. Clayton started to drag us under, knowing I would only be able to keep up the storm while I was surrounded by the air, he made quick work of getting us under the earth.

Once we made it to our hide out, Clayton let me collapse onto the ground. He slipped off his shoes and took a minute to feel the vibrations of the surface world. “They’re still up there. I think the kid is stabbing the ground where we sank.”

I tried to catch my breath, “Buh-Batman. He won’t just let us...go.”

“I know.”

“We can’t stay under...forever.”

“I know.” I could hear the exasperation in his voice.

“What...are we gonna...do?”

“I don’t know yet! Let me think.” Clayton’s face scrunched up the way it always did when he was planning his underground adventures. I could see how aggressively he was processing the information he was getting from the surface through his feet. “They got in the Batmobile, I can feel the way the car is going, but not for long. We should follow it.”

“What! Why in the world would we do that?”

“Stay right under their noses, and then I’d always be able to keep tabs on them. Come on. You know what we need to do.”

I groaned and got to my feet. “Yeah, yeah. Hop on.” Clayton got onto my back. “Damn, you way a ton.”

“Shut up and let’s go!” He opened the tunnel and I began to speed us along the path of the Batmobile.

After at least a solid day underground, I got hungry. 

“Clayyyy! Come on! I’m starving, let’s surface, please!”

“N/N, stop it! If you ask one more time, I will fight you.”

“But...CLAYTON! I’m hungry!” I dramatically clutched my stomach and flopped onto the ground, writhing around for a minute before:

“FINE! Let me check the surface before we just waltz up into where ever Batman goes when he’s not in the city.” Clayton took off his shoes and began to sense the surface.

“Wait, we aren’t in the city anymore? Where are we?”

“Shh!” He stood there for a moment. “We’re under some kind of cave, which you know messes with my senses. I can sense bats, but I don’t know if any people are above us.”

I shoved him aside and grabbed his hand, “I do not care. I’m hungry and I will begin to eat you if I don’t get food in the next minute. So let’s go!”

Clayton sighed and we began our ascent to the surface.

And where we appeared, I think everyone was confused.

Clayton and I suddenly appeared in what I would have thought to be a meeting. Only the things was...this wasn’t any ordinary cave and they weren’t any ordinary people. Also who holds meetings in caves?

There sat a middle aged man with black hair and striking blues eyes, but his eyes weren’t what I was focused on. It was the Batman suit he was wearing that looked way too real. He sprung to his feet the minute we were fully surfaced. “How did you get in here?” Even his voice was too perfect to be an imitation.

The way Clayton’s hand went slack in mine clued me into the fact that I’d be the one doing the talking. So I started with the perfect opening, “Buh-Buh-Batman?”

“You two!” The words came from the young boy who had a liking for swords as he was holding one currently, and it was aimed at my face. His green eyes held this horrible hardness that a kid should never have.

“Uh, yeah. It’s us...again.” I shifted awkwardly, squeezing my brother’s hand in hopes he’d regain his words. “So...this is a nice cave you got here.” Which wasn’t wrong, it really was a cool cave, and I had stayed in a lot of caves so I should know. “Got a real nice...uh...ambiance to it.”

The cave looked less like a cave and more like a basement, if you had to make a comparison. It had a computer the size of a projector screen on one side and an entire armory on the other. Stairs wrapped into the rock and led up to an unknown location. There was a giant penny and even a T-Rex, if you could believe that! Sat at the table in front of us was the middle age man, the boy, two other younger men, a teenage boy, two teenage girls, a young woman, and an older gentleman in a nice suit. (It was a big table.) Beside the older man and the young woman, they all were in some sort of dark costume.

The teenage boy spoke to the man in the Batman suit, “Uh, do you know these guys?”

“We followed Y/N to the park the other day when she was meeting up with Clayton,” he nodded to my brother who was still limply staring at them.

The young woman took out a tablet. “The ones with the powers, right. Uh...here’s the body cam shots!” She showed what I assumed was a video to the rest of the table.

“You did that?” The blonde girl stared at me wide-eyed. “You created a tornado?”

I felt myself begin to blush. “Uh, yeah...I did.”

“Awesome...” She leaned back in her chair with a wonder filled expression on her face.

Batman marched over to where we were standing. “You never answered my question.”

“Right, how we got in here. Well...” I glanced at Clayton who seemed to finally be coming to his senses. “He’s probably the better one to tell you.”

Clayton basically explained how his powers work and how we tracked the Batmobile to the Batcave, what the rest of them called it, and how we were hiding out underground to hopefully avoid a confrontation like this.

“So...are you gonna kill us?” Clay pulled me closer, he always did that when he got protective.

Batman stared at us in shock for a minute before regaining his composure. “Kill you? God, no. We don��t kill.”

“Well...” the young man with a white streak in his hair began.

Batman sent him a glare. “We don’t kill.”

“Alright,” the man conceded.

“Oh thank god.” Clayton relaxed his grip on my arm. “So, what are you going to do with us?”

My stomach made a sound like a dying whale.

The older gentleman stood and walked over to us. “First,” he said with a British accent, “we will feed the both of you.”

The food was better then anything I have ever had in my life. Fresh pizza, bread sticks, and clean water. Clayton and I scarfed it down until we were full, something we hadn’t been in years.

“You’d think they’d never have eaten,” Damian, the green-eyed boy, scoffed.

“Well, we don’t really have money and places notice if more than a little food goes missing,” Clayton said as he ate his fifth bread stick.

Dick Grayson, or I guess Nightwing, asked,“So you two really go from city to city, doing what exactly?”

I took a break from chugging my water. “Running from social services. Two more years until they’re off our tail and we don’t have to worry about being separated anymore.” I started on my fourth slice of pizza.

Dick looked at Batman, who is none other than Bruce Wayne, with a weird sort of sad expression.

“But don’t worry! We got it under control, we’ve been doing this for ten years.” I gave him a lopsided smile. Dick’s sad expression deepened.

“Well, I understand what it’s like on the streets.” Jason, the man with the white streak, rustled my brother’s hair and sat down next to him.

Clayton flattened his hair, “You do?”

“I was on the street before Bruce took me under his wing to be Robin. He caught me stealing the wheels off the Batmobile.”

I busted out laughing. “You stole the Batmobile’s wheels! That’s amazing.”

Bruce was smirking, “Yes, but he didn’t get very far.”

They began telling us stories about themselves. How Dick became the first Robin. How Tim figured out who Batman was. The time when Stephanie basically forced herself into Batman vigilante gang. Why Jason calls Damian demon. Barbara’s stint as Batgirl and now her job as Oracle. The boys worked together to explain Casandra’s story, but she would just shake her head and laugh to herself. Alfred told stories about a younger Bruce.

Clayton and I sat and listened and laughed and, for the first time, I knew we both felt safe. Clayton made no effort to disappear and I didn’t want to fly away. 

By the time they seemed to run out of stories, I could feel the way my eye lids grew heavy and the yawns came more frequently. Bruce offered one of the rooms in his home for Clayton and I to stay in for the night. We hesitantly accepted, after ten years of sleeping on dirt and rocks, I almost was afraid to sleep on a real bed and enjoy it’s comforts, but Clayton was more accepting of the idea. Alfred lead us up the stairs that disappeared within the rocks and through a hole covered by a grandfather clock.

The house was not a house, but a gigantic mansion. Each room seemed to be bigger than the last and the hallways look like they went on for miles. The first floor of the manor was larger than any orphanage my brother and I had ever been in, and that wasn’t including the movie room and the kitchen. I would peak into rooms we passed, each one making me more in awe than the last. Once we reached the second floor, Alfred took us to an unoccupied bedroom.

“My apologies, this is the only room currently available. If you wish to stay longer with us, I will gladly empty out one of the rooms being used for storage.” Alfred gestured for us to enter. “If you need anything else, please let me know. The bathroom is the first door on the right, the closet is the second one and has spare blankets if you need them. Have a good night.” He closed the door behind him, but we didn’t move.

The room was probably three times bigger than any room we’ve ever stayed in and we’ve always been forced to share a room so they always felt smaller, but this room was amazing. The far wall was just windows over looking an enormous garden. The bed was queen sized at least and covered in the softest looking comforter I had ever seen. Clayton was the first one of us to move, and he made his way to the bathroom.

“Y/N, there’s a full sized bathtub and a shower in here.”

I made my way over to the bed, sat down, and stared out the window. The mattress’s softness welcomed me to lay down. “This bed is so comfortable.”

Clayton joined me on the bed. “Did you hear what Alfred said?”

“About staying longer? Yeah.” I thought about it for a moment. “It’s too good to be true, right?”

“Gotta be.”

“No way a man like Bruce Wayne would want two super powered street rats, right?”

Clayton yawned, “No way.”

I listen to him turn and settle into a comfortable position. “This is too good to last, isn’t it?”

“Mhmm...”

I heard Clayton’s breathing settle into a rhythm and I knew he was asleep. I tried to get comfortable too, but the worries filled my head. I laid there and stared out over the garden, afraid that when I woke up, we would be back underground and this was all a dream.

I wandered out of the room and down the stairs. I made my way to the back of the house and found myself in the gardens. I walked around before I found a nice bench in front of a fountain. Lost in thought while staring into the water, I didn’t hear the footsteps approaching where I was sitting.

“May I join you?”

I jumped three feet high, literally, but then returned to the ground when I realized it was Bruce.

A blush radiated across my face, “Mr. Wayne, sorry. You startled me.”

He chuckled then gestured to the bench, “Care to sit?”

I nodded and we sat together. We sat in a comfortable silence for what felt like forever before he spoke up again. “Can I ask why you’re sitting out here and not asleep?”

“Uh...I don’t know. Not tired, I guess.” I felt the skeptical stare burn into my skin. I sighed, “It’s too good to be true.”

“What is?”

I gestured to the manor behind me then the garden around me. “All of this,” I limply gestured to Bruce, “You. Your kindness.” I could feel my throat getting tighter and the burning behind my eyes. I let my head fall and my hair cover my face, so he couldn’t see my weakness. First lesson you learn as a street kid, show no weakness.

Again we sat in silence until Bruce broke it. “I can say I don’t know what it is like to live day to day. Without someone who cares about your well being-”

“Clayton cares about me,” I snapped. The tears spilled down my cheeks as I glare at him.

“Right, sorry. I meant an adult who can actively provide for both of you.”

I scoffed, “Adults don’t know how to care, all they want is the government paycheck they can get by doing nothing.” I saw his expression, a mix of hurt and sadness. I felt my own face soften, “I’m sorry Mr. Wayne. I don’t mean to take this out on you.”

He gave me a sad smile, “Please, call me Bruce. And I understand. While I’ve never been in your situation, you’ve heard the stories my kids told you. I want to help.”

“You wouldn’t want Clayton and me. We aren’t worth the trouble, especially since we’ll be on our own in two years anyway. We can take care of ourselves until then.”

“But what if you didn’t have too?”

“What do you mean?”

Bruce chuckled softly then looked me in the eyes, “I would like for you to join our family. It’s not perfect by any means, but we all look out for one another. You wouldn’t have to keep moving around and you and your brother wouldn’t have to worry about being separated.”

I stared deadpanned at him. Bruce Wayne had asked me if I wanted to join his family. I waited for the “just kidding!” or the “I can’t believe you fell for that!” but it never came.

“You- you’re serious?”

“Absolutely.”

“No strings?”

“Only that you occasionally help out on patrols, your guys’ powers could be really helpful.”

“I’ll- I’ll have to ask Clay...”

Bruce patted me on the shoulder, “No need to make a decision tonight. Go get some rest, we’ll talk more tomorrow.” And with that he stood up, gave me a soft smile, and walked back towards the manor.

[random-crappypasta-qoutes]

This will probably be my longest post ever lol. Well, get ready for this behemoth of a story called Happy Tree Friends: The Funeral.

nscript

(the movie begins in the hospital showing Lumpy as a doctor, he comes across Buzz Lightyear, who has broken his arm off)

Lumpy: Hello, do you need fixing up?

Buzz Lightyear: Don't talk to me!

(Lumpy comes over to a bruised and bloodied Cuddles' hospital bed)

Lumpy: So, you were beaten up by Scoutmaster Lumpus?

Cuddles: (coughing up blood) Y-yes....

Lumpy: Hmmmmmmmm…..don't worry, I can make you better! (rubs two defibrillator paddles together) CLEAR! (electrocutes Cuddles, which burns him until his heart explodes)

(everyone shrieks)

Lumpy: Whoops, sorry....

Toothy: He's not the only one you know, Russell died of lung cancer, Flaky had of a heart attack from entering a chick farm, Cub was shot by a black guy because Pop wasn't there to protect him, Mime was shot by Cleveland Brown, and Splendid puked his organs out after swallowing the Kryptonut.

Nutty: Oh, why would we lose them too?!

Petunia: This is just terrible!

(later, at the funeral)

(The Intermezzo of Cavalleria Rusticana starts playing as the remaining Happy Tree Friends mourn for Cuddles, Russell, Flaky, Cub, Mime, and Splendid)

Reverend Lovejoy: Here lies Cuddles the bunny, Russell the pirate otter, Flaky the porcupine, Cub the baby bear, Mime the mime deer, and Splendid the super squirrel. We shall never forget the times we had with them.

PhantomStrider: (blows a horn) YAY!!!! 6 OF THE HAPPY TREE FRIENDS ARE DEAD!!!!

Happy Tree Friends Hater #1: LET'S CELEBRATE!!!!

PhantomStrider: (starts playing the Chicken Song by J.Geco)

Flippy: You evil disrespectors! I swear I'll cut you in your sleep!

Reverend Lovejoy: Question, how did Cuddles die?

Sniffles: Lumpy shocked him to death after he got beaten by Scoutmaster Lumpus.

Reverend Lovejoy: Oh, okay.

Diesel: Alright people, LET'S TEAR THIS PLACE DOWN!!!

PhantomStrider: I’m full of surprises, they ought to say of me, I bring some razzle dazzle to the yard, I’m full of surprises, as you can plainly, I don’t find being surprising all that hard. Some would probably say, I’m only up to my old tricks, but I’d say I’m a problem solver, looking for a nice quick fix. I’m full of surprises, they ought to say of me, I bring some razzle dazzle to the rail, I’m full of surprises, as you can plainly see, I’m trusting my surprises to prevail, I hope this time being surprising doesn’t fail! They used to call me devious, because I had a pit of previous, but please you must believious, I’m not that bad… Well maybe just a tad.

Crowd of Characters: (applause)

Russell Ferguson: That's what that pirate otter gets for stealing my name!

PhantomStrider: Come here, Happy Tree Friends haters!

Happy Tree Friends Haters: Coming!

PhantomStrider: Are you a real villain?

Hater #1: Well, uhhh….technically not

PhantomStrider: Have you ever caught a good guy like a real superhero?

Hater #1: Nah!

(Hater #2 shakes his head)

PhantomStrider: Have you ever tried a disguise?

Hater #1: Nah, nah....

PhantomStrider: Alright! I can see that I will have to teach you how to be villains!

Happy Tree Friends Haters: Hey! We are number one! Hey! We are number one!

PhantomStrider: Now listen closely. Here’s a little lesson in trickery. This is going down in history, If you wanna be a villain number one, You’ll have to chase a superhero on the run. Just follow my moves and sneak around be careful not to make a sound. (Happy Tree Friends Hater #1 steps on a branch) No! Don’t touch that! Ha, ha, ha! Now look at this net I just found. When I say “Go!”, be ready to throw! Go! Throw it at him, not me! Ugh! Let’s try something else. Now watch and learn, here’s the deal, you’ll slip and slide on these banana peel, (Happy Tree Friends haters slip on the Banana peels) What are you doing?! We are number one Hey! Hey! 

Crowd of Characters: (applause)

Handy: Hmph!

Lumpy: I kinda like it!

PhantomStrider: And for you guys, I have something to say to you.

Giggles: Oh, great.....

PhantomStrider: A man has fallen into the river in LEGO City! Start the new rescue helicopter.

Crowd of Characters: HEY!!

PhantomStrider: Build the helicopter, and off to the rescue. Prepare the lifeline, lower the stretcher, and make the rescue. The new emergency collection from LEGO City!

Pop: My son is dead and you're telling us songs and quotes that make no sense?!

Flippy: (flips out) THAT IS IT!!!! WE WILL KILL YOU!!!!

(Silence breaks for 10 seconds)

PhantomStrider, the Happy Tree Friends Haters, and Crowd of Characters: (booing and throwing things at them)

Duck: Dingus!

Oliver: You shut up!

Smudger: Preachy!

Lammy: We’re not being preachy.

Yong Bao: (throws a jar of macaroni and cheese at Disco Bear)

Happy Tree Friends Hater #1: I thought they touched on a vital issue.

PhantomStrider: I beg to differ, hi-yah! (throws a rock)

Flippy: Okay! Okay! Uncle! We give up! Can we please call this a truce?

(Meanwhile…)

Frankie: (recording) Theo, this is not safe at all.

Theo: Shut up, Frankie! Just keep filming, Okay. I’m Theo, and I am The Greatest American Hero, my special power is being somehow memorable after a very short run on TV.

(Merlin, Hurricane and Lexi set off)

Theo: (singing) Believe it or not, I’m walking on air, I never thought I would be so free…

(Hurricane, Lexi and Merlin let go of Theo)

Theo: (still singing) Flyin’ away on a wing and a pray’r, who could it be? (could it be) believe it or not, it’s just… (crashes into a tree and falls into the lake at PhantomStrider’s concert, everyone stops booing and starts laughing at Theo)

Reverend Lovejoy: In many ways Cuddles, Russell, Flaky, Cub, Mime, and Splendid were supporting characters in our lives, they didn't grab out our attention with memorable catchphrases or comical accents.

Nutty: Awwwwwwwwwwww..........

PhantomStrider and Haters: (Singing) These guys are not use at all; Thinks they’re very clever. Says that they can manage us; that’s the best joke ever! When they order us about, with the greatest folly, we just kill them! Pop Goes Old Dummies! (PhantomStrider and the haters laugh and then run up to the Happy Tree Friends with spears, torches, pitchforks, katanas, battering rams, axes, pistols, chainsaws, whips, bazookas, tasers, pepper spray, medieval flails, maces, shis, staffs, nunchucks, rolling pins, shurikens, broken glass bottles, and plasma cannons making battle cries and kill them)

(later, they all respawn back in a different timeline)

Cuddles: Well, of course we'd all be back. It's Happy Tree Friends, for goodness sake! Next time I'll stay away from Scoutmaster Lumpus. Hmmm....that's funny, I feel hungry for some cat all of a sudden. (sees a cat on the floor, pupils dialate) Come here, after-death snack! (iris closes up on the cat as Cuddles eats it offscreen)

(after-credits scene, July 19, 2069…)

Hater #1: Uuuuuuuuuuh, PhantomStrider? I don't think we should be here again.

PhantomStrider: Come on, the Happy Tree Friends are all dead now.

Hater #2: But you know they can respawn, right?

PhantomStrider: I know, but they'll respawn in a different timeline, so there's nothing here to be afraid of.

(a hand grabs PhantomStrider and throws him off a bridge)

PhantomStrider: (screams)

(the Happy Tree Friends haters watch PhantomStrider fall to his death, now more scared than before, they turn around and see Jack Skellington heading towards them)

Jack Skellington: GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!

(cuts to static)

(after-credits scene second part, Cuddles is fast asleep with Giggles in their bed together, when their room is intruded by PhantomStrider's ghost, just as PhantomStrider raises his arm to attack them, Cuddles wakes up and finds that the room is empty. Assuming PhantomStrider's ghost to be a dream, Cuddles goes back to sleep, oblivious to the presence of PhantomStrider's shirt on the floor)

This is... *inhales* *exhales*

What does PhantomStrider has to do with Happy Tree Friends!?!

You do know the characters don't talk right?

WTF!?!

How is this supposed to be scary?

[kayleebreanne09]

I’m on a boat

Topper x Reader

Cutesy imagine about you being a pogue, in love with a kook. Scared of making the fued worse, your relationship is a secret. Until topper decides, he wants to go public with the kooks. I LOVED writing about this💜

Pogues vs kooks. Much like the montague’s & the capulets, it’s a battle that never ends. “It’ll be fine baby, they will end up loving you almost as much as I do” topper said, stopping to kiss me on the forehead as we walked hand in hand to ward Cameron’s big ass boat. Topper & I were the Romeo & Juliet of outer banks. We were crazily in love & almost no one knew about us. I was forced to admit the truth to Kie after a very embarrassing incident where she walked in on us trying to find a moment alone inside an unoccupied pantry at the wreck. “Not on the food!” She had cried while rolling her eyes. Aside from her, no one knew. Of course I didn’t enjoy being a secret, I’d love to be able to bring topper to the chateau & cuddle in the hammock with him while listening to John B tell us the newest insane adventure he’d been on. I wanted him there with me at the boneyard parties where JJ & I were constantly battling it out to see who could drink the most. I wanted Topper to pull me close, wrapping his arms around me while we danced at midsummers. But I was more terrified of losing him. I was afraid of my friends reacting badly & making me choose sides. I was afraid of his friends bailing on him, leaving him alone after all their years of friendship. I’d go to hell & back for Topper but could I give up my best friends? They were the closest thing to family that I had. Could I ask him to give up his? Toppers friends were terrifying, sure. My only run ins with Rafe had been when he was beating the hell out of one or more of my friends. Kelce was always on the side lines, encouraging Rafe or whoever else to start a fight with anyone resembling a pogue. But all that aside, they were still his friends. Because of that, they had to have some good inside them. Topper had his flaws too, everyone does. All I know is that Topper would fight to the death for me. He laid in the sand with me looking at the stars & telling me his dreams. When I was mad, he’d stroke my hair & ask me who’s ass he needed to beat. He’d lay in bed with me nose to nose cuddling & list every single thing he loved about me until I blushed tomato red & hid my face in his pillow which just made him burst out laughing. He had my heart. Which is why, against my better judgement, he was leading me right onto Ward Cameron’s boat. My nerves hit an all time high as we neared his group of friends. Everyone was drinking, dancing, smoking joints & some were scattered about partaking in some harder drugs. This was a full out kook party & one of the things was poorer than the other, ya know? Topper felt my hand clinch & slightly leaned down to where I could feel his breath on my ear. “It will be fine sweetheart. Breathe!” My body shivered, reacting to him even in a room full of people. I pushed away the unholy thoughts about what I wanted to do to him right then & took his advice, taking a deep breath. He kept our fingers intertwined as we walked up to his friends. “Whoa Top, I didn’t think you’d be into banging a lowlife pogue.” Before I even had a chance to shoot Rafe a go to hell look, Topper was face to face with the boy, only inches away. Anger was radiating off of him in waves. “Do. Not. Ever. I mean ever, talk about (Y/N) like that. If I see even a dirty look given her way, your ass is grass. Ya hear me? That goes for all of you. You’re supposed to be my friends. I love her! Can’t you be happy for me?” He asked his anger finally giving way to sadness. Kelce just stared. Rafe started to speak but I took a step forward. I stuck my hand out in his direction. “Hi Rafe, I’m (Y/N) it’s nice to meet you.” He looked at me & walked off. I turned to Topper to see him staring off into the water looking upset. “Babe, it’s okay. I’ll get them to warm up to me. I’m never going to let you lose your friends” I said standing on tip toes to kiss his cheek. “I love you so damn much. Drinks?” He questioned. I nodded my head vigorously.

About 4 shots of fireball, things were a lot less tense. I kept Topper laughing as we danced around & I did my best attempt at moonwalking & the sprinkler. I thought he might actually kill over once I started doing the stanky leg. Toppers loud laughter brought Kelce over. He joined us on our make shift dance floor & proceeded to do the YMCA. Topper busted out with the chicken dance. I smiled at him & Kelce, as we all looked like idiots pulling out our best dance moves. “Shots!” I said running & grabbing 3 shot glasses of tequila & bringing them back.

“Guys! I have the perfect song!” I shouted, maybe a little too loudly in my drunken state. I ran to the aux cord connecting to the boats huge sound system. Kelce followed & chuckled while watching me scroll through my music as I cussed my blurry vision. “Yes!” I cried in victory as I ran towards topper. He caught me, spinning us around as he pulled me too his chest. “Oooh very smooth Romeo” I giggled staring up into his beautiful eyes. He silenced me with a passionate kiss. His hand was on my cheek & his other on my lower back, pulling me as close as two people can be. Alcohol just tripled my love & attraction to my sexy ass kook boyfriend. “You keep that up, we are going to have to sneak out of here and-“ I was cut off by the first notes of my song starting so I shot to the front of the boat, spreading my arms out, & letting the wind blow through my hair, chilling my warm skin. “Oh shit, get your towels ready, it’s about to go down!” I yelled along with the song. “I got my swim trunks & my flippy floppy’s, I’m flippin burgers, you at kinko’s straight flippin copies!” I laughed as I sang along dancing wildly. I saw Rafe watching from the side of the boat. His mouth started to slightly turn up in the beginnings of a smile. I took that opening & danced up to him, taking his hands in mine dancing backwards, dragging him to the middle of the boat with me. “Believe me when I say...I fucked a mermai-ai-ai-aid!” My smile took up my whole face as he sang along with me during my favorite part. Topper ran up & put his arms around both of us, singing along. Then came Kelce. We were all in this makeshift circle huddle singing out hearts out. Some of the other random kooks even joined in on our little karaoke party.

Finally, once the sun had sank completely down & everyone had went their separate ways...Topper, Rafe, & I were laying on the highest part of the boat. We were laid on our backs, looking up at the stars. Rafe passed the blunt to me. I inhaled deeply, held it, then gently blew the smoke into the night sky. “Topper, I’m happy for you man” Rafe said resting his hand on toppers shoulder. “(Y/N) I apologize for being so rude earlier. It’s just, my whole life, I’ve been taught that the only way to be respected in life is through money & power. I was told that a mans worth is measured by his millions so I’ve resented the lower class. If the other pogues are anything like you...I mean, maybe I could rethink my stance.” He said quietly. “It’s all forgiven Rafe, I’m really glad we can be friends!” I said grinning over at him. Topper felt for my hand in the dark & gently squeezed it. “Thank you” he whispered in my ear. “Anything for you. Always.” I said bringing my lips to his then quickly laying back down, completely at ease under the light of the bright moon. Topper pulled my body closer to his as I rested my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way this pogues vs kooks war could be ended. If anyone could it, Topper & I could. Together, we’d take on the world.

[stronghours]

CUSTOMER SERVICE

E T S Y

Darling Fallon    Sep 3, 2013

Sensational (sin-sational!). i write on behalf of myself (S) and my lover (m). we have been ripped off by bulk-produced molded hoods before and i can only say HAND CUT LATEX ONLY never look back!! worth the money and will eventually pay for itself. neck fit like loving glove and adds dynamic intensifier to breathplay. Lovely proprietor replied prompt when “m” had questions re: breathability (she added extra breathing hole at no extra cost). class acts all around (and not just in our dungeon!) will return for more but “m” needs a break first if u get the drift lol1!! thanks to lady j!

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Latex Chrysalis Hood (translucent…

3 Helpful

  myMister   Aug 24, 2013

this one writes on behalf and with permission of MISTER. this one quaked with bliss when package arrived. truly awful to behold in the wise hands of MISTER. this one’s neck is small and delicate For His Pleasure and all item adjustments were made to order and did not affect shipping time. if this one could be so efficient For His Pleasure this one would be in heaven on earth. instead, this one is less than a hole. item truly enhanced <O sensation. without a doubt will be used over and over in this household for due punishments of this very worthless one. discrete pgk’ing. thanks to designer J for deepening this one’s service to MISTER.

(NOTE FROM MISTER – WILL PROPRIETER PLEASE PRIVATELY EMAIL TO DISCLOSE IF YOU ARE MALE/FEMALE/OTHER SO “myMister” (this one) WILL BE ABLE TO PROPERLY ADDRESS YOU IN ACCORDANCE WITH ITS FORMAL ROLE)

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Throttle Collar w/ attached Gas…

1 Helpful

  JulieJuice   August 3, 2013

LOL rip-off!!! cant believe all u ppl sucking this guys dick. says everywhere in product descript. (and you guys reviews!!) that custom sizing is no additl. cost but mine cost more!! only small alteration to titty holes cause of my cleave situation. bullshit. not buying from him again.

Response from J

Hi again Julie. If you check our many enlightening inbox conversations from 7/5-7/16 you will be reminded the additional cost was due to your request of more ring hinge insertions as the standard amount in pattern block “was not bling enough”. Cleavage was irrelevant. Sizing related alterations are always no added cost. Custom alterations requiring additional materials/effort and adjusted pricing will always be discussed and approved on client end before any exchange of payment.

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Hexagon Restrictor Harness…

HELPFUL?

  HannahCakes!    Jun 1, 2013

Hey Whats Up I’m Caleb (obviously don’t have an etsy) and using my lady’s account. She got the catsuit for my birthday and she looked so sexy like J-Lo or someone. Didn’t want her doin the latex stuff because I thought shed have to shave off all her pubes and personally i like that kind of thing a lot but no harm done. Anyway she was super sexy and the suit thing looked good and stayed together even when we started rockin. To other full bush guys out there if youre girl wants to wear the latex stuff SHE CAN KEEP HER BUSH she just has to use lube to oil up the bush that she has.

Purchased item: DeMarco FetishWear – Domina Catsuit w/ Pussycat Zipper (red…

7 Helpful

  HannahCakes!   3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Caleb Review

Hi J,

Saw my boyfriend’s 6/1 review and I was like uh ohhh. I asked him to leave one because he went gaga over the catsuit, but I wasn’t expecting all the bush stuff. If you don’t want to be associated with that and want to delete, that’s ok on my end. A little embarrassing! – Hannah!

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Hannah. Please don’t worry about it, any positive review is welcome. His feedback has apparently hit a chord with some specific hesitations and concerns buyers have been experiencing but not confiding with me, so I plan on keeping it up for the time being. Enjoy your garment.

  JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Moo-cow snout muzzle thing – (idea i had)

Hi. Is this idea good

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend   Ignore

Hi Joey. Are you interested in a custom cow muzzle/mask, like the pup play masks on my page or are you just brainstorming for personal reasons?

Reply from JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

idk it’s just an idea i had

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

It’s a cool idea

Reply from JoeyoftheHerd    3 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Thanks man i thought so 2

1234Brett10093456    3 months ago   Friend   Ignore

I REMEMBER YOU FROM RAWHIDE

JULES yes I know who you are and I know your name are you scared yet?? I remember when you used to hang with Roscoe out at Rawhide because Roscoe pretended to hire you because he secretly wanted to fuck and suck you till you cried and I saw all that. I have brown flippy hair, blue eyes and am tall/cut versatile but lean TOP. I know you faked being gay. You heard of bi-now-gay-later but have you heard of gay-then-straight-betrayer (you)? That is fucked up that you still sell stuff but pretend to be a gay guy because that makes your stuff sell better because the gay guys want to fuck you. I know you are faking because my muscle bud Tomas (latino) saw you making out with a ginger chick at the wet bar in Entrance last week. He said it was probably a joke but I know it wasn’t because he said he saw tongue. I wont let you be a breeder without a fight. I am willing to tell EVERYBODY YOURE SECRET. But I wont if you prove to me YOU CAN STILL BE GAY. Im attaching a pic of my cock so you know im not lying and can follow through. I will only believe YOU ARE GAY if we can see each other face/face (i can host only on fri- I have two roommates) and our cocks have to touch and you have to stay hard for at least five minutes while I suck and jack your cock and tongue your balls (shave or dont i will leave that up to you). condoms ok but if you want to be a breeder so bad maybe I will just breed your ass but if youre actually a gay guy you’ll like it and cum thick ropes as I fuck your dirty little slut hole and youll tell me youre a hole while I fuck it with the shiny precum head of my cut fucking cock (7inches erect). you will smell my hole and BECOME GAY again IT WILL HAPPEN  - Brett Costino

  TheSteelyDanMan   2 months ago   Friend   Ignore

Latex & Breastfeeding Concerns

Good morning, J I hope you are well. Returning customer, here. My kajira/wife and I are splinter Gor lifestylers (NOT KAOTIANS) [link] but are currently isolated due to our deviation from standard kajira beautification ideals and the arrival of our first child (girl - Gemma) two months ago. My wife’s submission has usually been expressed fashion-wise in various strict latex outfits, a few of which you have kindly provided us over the past couple of years. Naturally, the arrival of a mini-me results in some changes! My wife, insecure after birth, wants to return to strict full-coverage latex, but this desire is at odds with her physical situation of actively nursing Gemma and we both have worries. Does the constriction of latex effect or otherwise harm milk production, or could secondhand latex exposure harm our baby? I imagine you have catered to many lifestyle situations where this might be relevant so I thought I would ask. Thanks very much. LEO

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    2 months ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Leo. While I have catered to many lifestyles, I’m afraid I must exercise discretion in this situation, as it would be on par with giving medical advice. I will say any allergy is a possibility and one should exercise undue care with a very young infant, not just in matters of latex. I highly encourage you and your wife to discuss this with her doctor as frankly as possible. In the long run it might be worth reevaluating aspects of your wife’s submission and temporarily making do with latex pieces that do not restrict the breasts, while nursing is a part of her daily reality (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you examples are available on my page). Best of luck and congratulations on the new addition to your family.

  NoraBarnacle    2 months ago   Friend   Ignore

A sincere offer…

Several months ago, I bought a pair of latex gauntlet gloves from your shop. Since then, astonishing changes have come over me. I used to be high-powered, highly controlled, a formidable woman (natural ash blond, green eyes, 45”-40”-44”) I was determined to keep these feelings to myself, but I can no longer resist, as I wholeheartedly believe your Dominating spirit, imbued in the gauntlets, is leading me forcefully but masterfully into your care. If it pleases you, know I have not touched my aching slit for one month total as I am uncertain whether you desire me to feel pleasure that is not approved by you. There are no images of you on your site, but I have drawn an accurate picture of you in my mind and I know you are the Man that I never knew I was waiting for, the Man who will lead me, the Man who will hold my neck and strike my forehead to his knee in his insistence that I allow myself to be led. When I wear the gauntlets, they are your own gallant hands restricting my weak bones. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I can no longer resist. I do not desire to resist. Please message back so I can properly present my acquiescence, body and soul, unto you. I squat disgracefully on my plump thighs, full of whorish tremor that makes me unworthy, but still I desire. I will service your home with my ardent hands and service your thick and striving cock with my wet tongue. Respond to this small soul. I submit to your gallant wisdom – A Secret Admirer

  RicoMetals   1 month ago   Friend   Ignore

Redhead Modle in Pic for Serve Her Serrated Corselette

Hey man-to-man who is she. I love redheads. Does she modle for other people/would she modle for my pieces? there’s no head in the pick – what’s her nose situation? we could all do collab and I think it would be hot. Let me kno - RICO

Reply from DeMarco FetishWear    1 month ago    Friend    Ignore

Hi Rico. I have not blocked you (yet) because said model wanted me to reply to you first and inform you, she’s already an established performer in her own right and does not want to model for a guy who “thinks I need some sissy seamstress to pimp me out to shitty welders online”. As I only have basic welding experience, I can offer no further comment or defense on your behalf.

  DerryBerry454   1 month ago   Friend   Ignore

Inquiry re: standard leather sleep-sack dimensions

Hello Miss J, quick question:

I will buy this item no hesitation no delay if you tell me right now about your vagina. Questions I prioritize:

1.     Color labia (outer)

2.     Color labia (inner – aroused)

3.     Clit length in centimeters or whatever measurement is most flattering to you

4.     Range of clit engorgement

5.     Depth of vaginal canal (I will allow ballpark figure as I know not everyone has graded speculums lying around)

6.     Percentage of clit orgasms v. vaginal orgasms – bonus points if you describe uterine orgasm, if that is your experience (no pressure to answer last part, as I understand it is not necessarily vagina-adjacent)

7.     Are you hairy? What color?

8.     When you wash your vagina do you douche or do you use fingers to rub through labia folds and that is it?

9.     Color of menstrual blood

10.  If you wear panties, do you find the crotch of your panties degrades due to PH of your vaginal discharge? (give me the qualities and I will calculate this for you)

While a picture of your vagina is welcome (and will only be for my private use) I really do like gathering these stats (I’m kind of a nerd) and would appreciate as much openness on your behalf as possible and you will benefit too because I’ll give you money for your lovely product. Talk to you soon! 😊

  B O A R D

[RUBBERVALLEY FIENDS THREAD 3/3 2006-PRESENT] TOPICS: 850 POSTS: 10,356

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Hey people, we’ve reached the end of the summer and you know what that means – Ivan himself of the halls of Rubber Valley presents inaugural post of their annual sweeps week filming extravaganza – first photoset already up and we’ve got the goddamn brilliant LYDIA SUCKS sons! The greatest bitch on the face of the planet almost psyched us out but she’s here she’s low and she’s ready to blow. Vid upload will probably take till tomorrow to render but we’ve got some great pic galleries already. Ivan really spoiling us pigs lmfao. Seeing lots of setup and dress-up and behind scenes stuff for yall candid pervs. We’ve got full body latex and face coverage hoods and I see a breathing tube and the barn inversion setup. Possible inverted ceiling fuck? The boys can dream. Links to download pics results in PERMABAN – only official links to Rubber Valley site allowed, don’t know how often I have to say it. You want to pass ripped screenshots you do that through email *casts pearls before swine*

GOBgobGOB: no pic of lyds upside down yet ☹

LordJim: Not interested until I see Ivan haul out the FuckRacers from two years ago – wonder why he doesn’t bring those around more often? Great view stats on current vids and who doesn’t like a fat ass getting auto-fucked while she steers the go-cart supine?

SUCKPUNTER: lmfao all views are you bro

GOBgobGOB: D I R E C T H I T

SUCKPUNTER: hey lordjim where’d you learn the word supine

LordJim: Yeah “laugh out loud” very funny guys.

SUCKPUNTER: did you learn it at college

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Lydia looks gr8 folks. Queen pristine and ready to cream. SUCKPUNTER – chill out because I’ve got my eye on you. Don’t take the bait Jim. You’re like thirty.

SUCKPUNTER: at least I don’t get off on bitches doing the pinewood derby

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: LYDIA!

GOBgobGOB: LYDIA!!!

McLovin: LYDIA LYDIA LYDIA

TheWorldofMartinAmis: Goddess. Wish she’d get her boobs done though.

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: same! I’ve been waiting for years for her to get into xtreme body mod. Right up her alley. If she’s at EXXXOTICA EXPO next year I’m going to try to get her meet and greet and ask. I know tattoo guys who’d pay HER to give her first tat.

McLovin: Lydia wouldn’t go. She’s like indie transgressive.

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): nice to see you again lockSTOCK. I see your POV but Lydia has several interviews where she says most of her viewers see her bod as a clean palate in the art of pain – as in, wounds have to go away in order for us to appreciate a fresh ruining ; ) tats and huge implants are a little tougher to work around. Anyway in my mind you can fix bad tits but you can’t fix bad attitude

ThatOneFootGuy: id suck her feet

McLovin: woah fuck 4th latex pic in dressing series with her mouth open and her eyes shut – who the lube guy with his arm right down her front?

SUCKPUNTER: lol hand clear to her pussy and hes not even hard faggot

McLovin: scope the ginger amazon in the background with camera – new girl? Don’t recognize. Didn’t know Ivan was bringing new people around this year’s sweeps.

LordJim: I wondered too when I saw. I’m sure DungeonMaster mod understands if I copy/paste following from Ivan (no pics, text w/actress info):

Newcomers are always welcome in RUBBER VALLEY (especially if they’re lovely, and especially if they’re ladies!) and this old goat is pleased to welcome DOMME LUX, our friendly neighbor down south in that little town called Chicago. Mysterious as she is alluring, you’ll see her shining light sampling tidbits of delight off our Valley Girls throughout the uploads this month (or even taking a crack at a couple!) We’re just getting to know her, but I have a feeling she’s a generous gal at heart as she kindly offered us the services of her Personal Valet, Jules DeMarco, who himself spoiled us all year with devious latex devices for our steadfast daring dollies after the unfortunate 2012 passing of our beloved torture designer Merrick Marvel (memoriam post 03/04/2012). Check out Jules’s Half-Bag Breast Mummifier in scheduled post 7/22 (Heather Bunny in the inverted Wench Wrench) the diabolical Arachnae-Hood (Lacey Jane, spinning in our trusty Landscape(her) Rolling Pin 7/16) and the Double-Fuck Full Body Boa Binder with eerie inflatable bubble hood (Lydia Sucks, finale post 7/31, don’t miss it, SUBSCRIBE). I must confess, we took advantage - the poor fella ran himself ragged helping us with film prep all week. So as an apology we let him get up close and personal with Rubber Valley’s reigning heroine LYDIA SUCKS fitting her in a custom four-limb black latex catsuit with half-face hood, made especially for her brave beautiful bod. He takes a good long time greasing her up before Ivan and Barry get her hoisted and joisted and in her best bitch-bat position among the rafters of the exalted Rubber Valley barn, where we leave her to squirm in terror! (but let’s get real – what scares Lydia? We’re wracking our brains!) Uh-oh, is Domme Lux looking jealous in the background? Is she plotting a little comeuppance for our Lovely Lady Lydia? Only one way to find out – SUBSCRIBE!

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): Np lordjim, if you hadn’t posted I was going to. Looks like we’ve got fresh meat in the valley.

TheWorldofMartinAmis: very pretty girl, but always bummed when a new one turns out to be top. Call me old fashioned, I come to the Valley for slaves.

SUCKPUNTER: firecrotch

GOBgobGOB: brb too busy crankin it. milky gingerbread titties come to daddy

McLovin: @TheWorldofMartinAmis, Ivan always has at least one femdom around. Room for everybody in the valley

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: holy shit I know that guy.

SUCKPUNTER: lmfao faggots know faggots

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: no for real. His real name is Jules Marinelli. I worked with him one summer lifeguarding beaches for the park’s district. Our boss found his website where he sells his sex stuff, and it was this whole big thing. Found the kink club Entrance through that (check it out if you’re in my hood ever – huge, clean, not too much gay shit, great ladies of all stripes hanging around, but limits on drinking if you’re trying to access certain levels). He’s bi. He’s either secretly Domme Lux’s slave or Domme Lux is his slave and it’s mega on the DL because it’d hurt her career if it got out she could ‘verse. There’s all this gossip.

SUCKPUNTER: bi guys r fags

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): SUCKPUNTER – that’s strike one. lockstock – not deleting your post because from what I can see JDM doesn’t/isn’t acting in explicit scenes, but let’s cool it with doxxing info. Looks like he’s had an experience with that before, and as a small business owner myself, I know how it can suck. We aren’t gossiping high school girls. Settle back and enjoy what Ivan gives us.

GOBgobGOB: *sees dudes in the chat and stops jacking off*

LockSTOCK2FUCKINGBARRELS: NP mod, feel free to delete it later before it causes problems.

TheWorldofMartinAmis: going back to previous discussion – don’t think a breast job automatically constitutes body modification

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): think about it martinamis, it’s a slippery slope – you want to see some swollen battered fish get destroyed, or a fresh natural girl get destroyed?

SUCKPUNTER: i am not a faggot and a whore’s a whore and im here to see whores fucking destroyed

GOBgobGOB: *tony soprano voice* she was a HOOOOER

SUCKPUNTER: fag or cunt all whores get fucked

LordJim: Mod, step up. This isn’t going to get better. With all due respect

SUCKPUNTER: fag or cunt ALL WHORES GET FUCKED

DungeonMaster (MOD 2): yeah, already done. That should be the last of him. Don’t know why I expected that situation to turn out differently.

  FROM: lydias-verified@terrorproductions.com

TO: JulesDM86@gmail.com

Subject: Debrief – valley week

Jules,

As discussed, attached is current info for my old webmaster service from when I had to run my own fansite. Decent price and decent vendor system. Can only be an improvement on what you have now. That is not an insult, but I know it sounds like one. Stay with me.

[link] [link] [link]

And above, the top three most trafficked boards I’ve found following my own career and the rubber valley gang. We’ve caused quite a stir already and its only July 15th. I wouldn’t count on this causing an uptick in your business, but I think you know that. The standard gentleman at home spending twenty bucks a month for guaranteed links to a woman being fucked inside out while wearing a sensory deprivation hood simply doesn’t translate him to spending 100-200 dollars, contacting a seller, taking measurements, and going through the effort to order he and his special girly the hood itself. But I know you believe you’ve chosen your life the same way I believe I’ve chosen my life and won’t whine. I will say, if your ego is bruised, that your clothes are wonderful. They feel maybe half like death. I’ll wear them again and again.

On a funnier note: I have accounts myself on all the above message boards and post semi-regularly. It might amuse you to do the same thing, but you need to be careful regarding your identity. Feedback from viewers is never relevant, but it needs to be pure (don’t ask me why – my brains are fucked out). I won’t tell you who I am, and you won’t tell me who you are. Maybe we’ll find each other.

I wouldn’t tell your Cathy, since some sensitive (if inaccurate) information is flying around. Your instinct towards privacy, while cute and old fashioned, is an apt instinct. Looks like the good people of Chicago can’t keep their fucking mouths shut. Will you be able to find a straight job if your work now goes up like a dead dog’s gut? Don’t despair. Your nice long cock dropped so well down my throat while your Cathy beat my clit with the edge of your belt (nice touch – whose idea was that?) so while you might not get another chance to perch in a lifeguard’s throne, you might very well have a future in film. You’re vigorous, discrete, disciplined, clean, and a cutie-pie. Have your Cathy make some films of you alone or you two together. It’ll excite her, so you have no choice but to be excited yourself. You’re excited reading this. You believe you chose this.

Anyway – Cathy! Don’t be insulted on her behalf. I loved playing with you both. She’s kind and a lot of fun, which are virtues I still let myself appreciate in others. Let her know I appreciate how she let me use you. She’s a good girl and has a good future in store, especially with her personal valet running her life. Pick her outfits, pick her makeup, pick her clients, pick her laundry soap – is it already like that? I want to be buried alive, but you want to be buried in chores. Please dream big, Jules.

Rubber valley is where I have the most fun out of all the shoots I have in a year, but I really was lucky that you two showed up. Poor old Merrick Marvel (not even that old – colon cancer). But out with him and in with you. I enjoyed our river talk and I felt very safe in the car with you at the wheel, though I know I tormented you a little (but I’m pretty sure Cathy helped you out later with that – will you write back to me what she did to you, and if she let you come?) At one point you were with Ivan in the garage, and I tried to have a little talk with her about oblivion, but she either understood my point and got scared, or simply didn’t understand. It’s unfortunate, kind of soul-sucking, how our dominant “loved ones” transform into necessary evils. Adjust the tube. Grasp the handle. Move the thigh. Use the vocal cord to form the order. But what do they know? I never knew how to explain.

I’ve attached some personal pictures of me. I like knowing that you have them. I won’t contact you again except under strict business purposes, so let me sum up. Serve Cathy well. Don’t let her get bullied. Flourish creatively. Keep that belt. Fuck as often as your body commands you to fuck (if I suspect that sometimes your body is Cathy’s body by proxy, then this number will double, perhaps triple, but the choice is out of your hands because she owns your cock). You have a lot of growing up to do. Don’t despair. More to come.

We won’t see each other soon, but we’ll see each other again. Ciao! 

I expect improvements.

XOXOXOXOXOXOX

Lydia S

[deepdisireslonging]

Ricochet Headcanons

Prompt: “Hi! I love your writing about WWE! ❤ I saw that you have open requests. If it's not too much to ask, can you write two things about Ricochet? Dating with Ricochet would including / Sex with Ricochet would including / Thanks! ❤”

In-Between conversation

Cont: “Awwww thank you so much for writing! ❤️ I love your ideas for the request! I don't see much writing about Ricochet, and I like your writing, and I'm sure you will rock! I can't wait to read! And once again I'm sorry for anything, and thanks for answering me! 🥰” {You have nothing to be sorry about. You are so amazing, love!}

Pairing: Ricochet x Reader (Y/N)

Warnings/Promises: Fluff, food mention, smut

Word Count: 490

Note: Thank you for being so patient, dear. And so kind when I had to give up the other requests. I did remember that I had been looking forward to writing this one, and some memories popped up. So here it is, all written in about a 45 minute inspiration-tornado but still sweet as hell. Though not as sweet as you were to me during this whole ordeal. Thank you so much. Enjoy.

Dating Ricochet Would Include:

He’s a sweetheart. You a flower’s person? He knows your favorite kinds and colors. Chocolate? How dark do you want it? Knowing when you’re having a bad day? Silent hug or game plan?

And a fuckin’ tease

Glancing touches. Steamy gazes across crowded rooms or arenas. And your personal favorite: gentle kisses in your most sensitive places.

Ricochet’s cure for a bad day (for either of you) is your favorite take-out and a movie. Maybe a hard workout session if it’s been really rough

Forget the world. Forget the reasons for feeling this way. Forget anything but the warmth of each other’s touch

He’s warm all the time.

Perfect to hold and be held by

If some other guy eyes you? Ricochet isn’t the guy to attack him. Oh no.

Instead, he looks at you. You smile at him. And he entwines your fingers together, holding your combined hands up to show the creep. And it makes your heart glow to be so gently claimed.

Dinner dates can be fancy for special occasions, or a simple meal at home

Simple because as flippy as he can be in the ring… ya boy can’t cook. Not that you care when you get lost in his eyes so easily. You could be eating charcoal and it you wouldn’t taste it.

Then he takes your hand and thumbs across your knuckles. This can go one of two ways:

Option 1: you move to the couch and cuddle all night until you fall asleep

Option 2: that tiny bit of movement doesn’t calm you down… it heats you up…

Which brings us to…

Sex With Ricochet Would Include:

He likes for you to be on top

Don’t get me wrong, the man can be flexible as hell and will contort you into any position required

But he’s also a giver. And he wants to give you the praise and adoration that you deserve.

Ricochet loves watching you bounce on his cock from any angle

Whether he can see your face and how it contorts when he tugs you down just. Like. That.

Or he has your whole back that he can feel up. That he can drag his nails down and leave welts all over, to be covered up by your clothes and ring gear later.

Our boy is also a mixture of loud and breathtakingly quiet. It all depends on the location

Home: loud AF. Moans. Cursing under his breath. Yelling your name to the ceiling. Oh yeah

Backstage: sweetie you better hope you can be quiet. Because ya boy knows how to control himself. Usually by biting his lip almost bloody, but also by covering your mouth with his.

Full. He fills you so freaking perfectly. In every way that wrecks you.

Aftercare = 3 words: Full. Body. Massage.

Think about it: all the strength he needs in those hands to do what he does? All for you, honey.

***

Masterlist

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 78: Conversations and Revelations

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

Katsumi was absolutely not tired.  And she was definitely not worn out and exhausted from pushing her body and her Quirk all day.  She was definitely not spent from using her explosive Quirk on bigger and bigger objects, infusing the liquid she generated into greater and greater objects.   And she really wasn’t already sick of Windbag and his high and mighty friends from his fancy-pants Hero school.  She absolutely wasn’t going to end up beating the shit out of the muscle girl by the end of things.  

Which, for some reason, Izzy had tried to warn her off of doing.  Izzy was typically very direct and this had been no exception.  She’d been extremely explicit that Katsumi stood a very good chance of getting her ass beat if she tried to fight her.  Of course, Izzy had couched it in slightly politer terms, worrying that she might get hurt and emphasizing the damage to her pride if she lost.  Izzy, of course, had expressed every confidence in her abilities, but still didn’t want her to get hurt.

Even with Izzy’s direction suggestion that she not fight the Shiketsu girl, there was something more going on there.  Katsumi didn’t like that, not at all.  And Izzy hadn’t been more forthcoming beyond that.  

It wasn’t damn frustrating, not at all.

As if she’d ever lose a fight.  Not counting her hard-fought loss against Izzy during the Sports Festival.  Which wasn’t going to happen the next time.  The bigger they were, the harder they were going to fall.

At least her old man seemed happy.  Dad was always happy when he was yelling at people, and he’d gotten to do a lot of that today.  Apparently, he’d even lit into Toshi for being predictable and unimaginative with his Quirk.  Good.  It was about time someone tried pounding some sense into his green-haired head.  The guy was a damn good fighter when he put his mind to it, but there was considerable distance in how he fought with his Quirk and without it.

“Okay people,” she heard Katsuma—Bioshock, she had think of him and Mahoro by their Hero names when they were in teacher mode—call out.  “You’ve all had a long day and tomorrow’s going to be even longer.  You’ll be rising at 0500 and we’re going to be spending the whole day putting you through your paces.”

“And we aren’t going to listen to any whining about you being tired!” Mahoro—Vanish Veil—added.  “So if you’re sluggish, it’ll be your own damn fault!”

Bioshock sighed.  “Thank you for that,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“But she is right!  You’ve got twenty minutes before lights out.  Make the most of them, then get a good night’s rest!  Sleep is vital to a growing body!”

“Stop talking like a health class video! Why are you such a dork?!”

Katsumi just shook her head, getting up to head to the barracks.   A voice from behind stopped her.

“Pardon me, but you and I have unfinished business.”

***

She’d been expecting, maybe even anticipating, a confrontation with Tatsuma, the overgrown Shiketsu girl.  So Katsumi hadn’t strictly been paying attention to who the voice had belonged to.  When she spun to face her attacker, her punch went high.  A good blow to the face or throat would disable most people very quickly.  

In fact, if she hadn't been so sure Tatsuma was going to be the one picking a fight, she'd have registered that the voice came from about a foot lower. As things were, her blow sailed right over Monoma’s head.  She’d given him a little credit though.  He only barely flinched.

A smug grin spread across his lips.  “Quite the hair trigger you’ve got there, Kirishima-Bakugo,” he said.  He eyed the extended arm as if to say, “Really?”  She let it fall to her side, then crossed her arms.

“You want something, Monoma?” she asked.  Of all the things she needed today, he was way down on the list.  He’d mostly been leaving her alone lately, but his audible smugness was more than making up for it.  “I’ve probably got enough time to deliver an ass-kicking if that’s what you’re looking for.”

He chuckled at that, gesturing dramatically.  "Oh I'll happily offer you the chance to try," he commented with a smirk, "but I don't think this is the time.  I do want to make time for your gauntlet throwing, though, at some point in the near future.”

“Delayed ass-kicking, got it,” she said.  She cracked her knuckles noisily in a show of intimidation.  This time, to his credit, he didn’t flinch.

He frowned, eyes narrowing as his shoulders relaxed.  “Look…  May I speak plainly?” 

She narrowed her own eyes, setting her mouth in a hard line.  “Get on with it.”

“I was… very broken, after the Sports Festival,” he told her.  There was an earnestness in his eyes that surprised her.  A raw level of emotion she hadn’t expected of him.  “I wanted to succeed so badly, to show you that I was worthy and to show the world that my class was worthy.  But I screwed it all up. I focused too much on showboating and spectacle.  Midoriya and the rest of your class… you had it figured out.”

He looked down.  “I gave as good an accounting of myself as could be expected against Kocho.  It was simply a bad match-up for my skillset.  And I am glad to see the Hero course recognized her abilities.”

Monoma pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes flickering downward and flashing a shade of displeasure before he continued.  “And then there was my failed confession.  I’m not sorry I did that—don’thitme—and I think you may have said some things I needed to hear, although your delivery may need some work.  And then, during my Internship with your father and Uncle Tetsutetsu… I froze up when the Nomu attacked.  My Quirk isn't something I can turn off, and... Everything I was seeing of the creature was just so profoundly wrong that I couldn't take it. I shut down.  I had to be carried away by Shoji, like a child.”

Okay, that one she hadn’t heard about.  Papa definitely hadn’t mentioned it.  Of course, gossip about anyone like that wouldn’t have been manly, so it was not a surprise.  

“And from there, I just fell apart,” Monoma said.  He wasn’t looking at her now.  Instead, he was looking into the distance.  “I can admit that now.  I was certain I had a weak, worthless Quirk and that I had no place in the Hero course.”

“Now wait just a damn minute,” she snapped, pointing aggressively at him.  “You’re a bastard, but your fancy pants flippy Quirk is still useful.  No reason you couldn’t kick a moderate amount of ass.”

Dammit, she was not feeling sorry for the Copycat Bastard.  But she remembered her own Internship, how useless she’d felt watching that man die right in front of her, while her Quirk, even her muscles, couldn’t do anything…   Aunt Ochaco and Izzy had talked her back from that edge.  She didn’t think about it too often.  Hadn’t had the nightmares in a while.

“I’ve come around to that line of thinking,” Monoma said.  “But I appreciate the vote of confidence.  Especially from you.  But I was ready to quit after the Final Exam.  Just long enough not to leave my class in the lurch.  But Midoriya said some things about success and helping each other that stuck with me.  And we passed.”

He stopped, actually smiling and looking more than a little proud.  She’d give him some credit.  If 1-B’s exam had been anywhere near as challenging as theirs—and Kana assured her it was—then he deserved a little pride.

“And then for reasons I’m still not entirely sure I understand, I ended up speaking with Kaminari and she got me looking at my Quirk in a bit of a different way.  Trying to string my moves together better, weaving a whole song out of them, rather than single shots to be fired and discarded.  So I stayed.”

“Is that why you’ve been making goo-goo eyes at her?”

He sputtered, turning red and avoiding her gaze.  “I thought we were being more discreet than that.”

“Oh, please.  Your dramatic ass wouldn’t know discreet if it bit it,” she told him.  She tapped her wrist, as though checking a watch, giving him a glare.  He got the hint.

“Regardless of mine and Kaminari’s situation,” he said, quickly, as though eager to move away from discussing it, “I want you to know I still want to prove myself against you.  Not for any romantic pursuits anymore or even in some attempt to prove I’m better than you.” 

Monoma shook his head.  “I want to prove I’m your equal.  That I deserve my place here.  You’re one of the fiercest, most skilled fighters in our school.  We’ve had an adversarial relationship since we were big enough for you to put me in a headlock.  You’re the mark I need to challenge myself against.”

Okay.  She definitely hadn’t been expecting that.  But for all she could erupt at a moment’s notice, Katsumi could occasionally control her expressions enough not to show surprise.  She knew she was tough and talented, but hearing him admit it, not in some kind of lovey-dovey star-eyed sort of way, but in actual respect, with none of his usual barbs, well, to say it was a surprise was putting it mildly.  

“So, what do you actually want?” she demanded.  “Get to the point already.”

Monoma looked her straight in the eye, a steely determination there she hadn’t seen before.  “When the camp is over, when we’re back at school, I want to fight a match against you.    A true test against one another. Bring whatever support items you like, and, as the challenged, the right to choose time and place is yours. I'll make the arrangements with our respective homeroom teachers that it will be a sanctioned training exercise. May the better person win."

It was a more respectful challenge than she would have expected out of him, all things considered.  It looked like Monoma had found his spine after all.  And besides, she could go for bouncing him around the ring like a basketball for a few rounds.  “You know what, Monoma?” she said.  “You’re on.”

***

Akaya had the distinct impression that she was being watched.  Not maliciously, she didn’t think.  She certainly didn’t feel like she was threatened, but she was also fairly certain that someone was paying more attention to her than usual.  Over in one corner of the room, she could see Kaminari, Mika, and Anime whispering together in a fashion that seemed almost conspiratorial.  

Her opinion of the matter did not improve when she saw Ojiro go over and join the group.  But even with counting several of the girls among that group as dear friends, she certain, somehow, that they were discussing her. She wasn’t completely unused to being talked about behind her back, the girl with the strange religion and stone-skin, but she would not have expected it of her friends.

“They’re talking about you.”

Akaya looked over to her left, where Chiasa Kamakiri, her vaguely mantis-like friend from 1-B, was standing by her bunk.  Chiasa held up a hand, showing that she was missing two joints from her smallest finger on her left hand. Her Quirk allowed her to split apart her body segments and transform them into tiny duplicates of herself that shared a hive mind.  Very useful for espionage.

Chiasa’s face split into a grin.  “Do you want to know what they’re saying?” she asked, playfully.  

“I do not traffic in gossip,” Akaya said simply, though she was also feeling a little hurt.  Why were her friends talking about her?  She didn’t think they had any ill intent, but…

Chiasa continued as though she hadn’t spoken.  “They’re trying to set you up with Aoyama!”  She giggled with delight, clapping her hands.

Ah, of course.  Their usual romantic pursuits.  She wasn’t surprised, especially now that Ojiro was involved.  The invisible girl was nothing if not committed to the idea of “shipping” people she knew.  It had only become worse since she and Anime had become friends.  Still, she hadn’t thought that Mika particularly liked Aoyama, so why was she…

Wait.

Akaya mentally replayed that sentence again.

“What?”

Chiasa nodded rapidly. “Mineta is leading the pack. Sounds like it might be her idea. They haven’t noticed my mini-me’s yet.”

She was clearly missing something here.  Akaya frowned in confusion.  “I must have heard you wrong.”

“Nope,” Chiasa said. “They’re gonna set you and Aoyama up. They don’t have a plan yet. Fukidashi and Ojiro are fighting over which tropes to use.  Mineta’s encouraging all of it.  Kaminari is telling them they’re all insane.”

None of this made any sense. Aoyama had certainly never displayed any kind of interest in her.  Oh, of course, he did seem far more civil with her than almost any of their other classmates.  And he never had any cross words for her like he did for almost anyone else.  So what if he always made an effort to speak to her? What difference did it make that he always seemed to respect her opinion, even if he didn’t listen to anyone else?  And, of course, he had reacted more violently than everyone else when he’d found out she’d been the target of Quirk discrimination…

But certainly none of that meant he was interested in her!  Not when he was traditionally good looking, prettier than even some of the other girls, and could have easily had his pick of anyone, if he’d just let his guard down around them the way he often did around her…

“Akaya?” Chiasa asked, mouthparts clicking together.  “You okay? You kind of zoned out on me while I was talking.”

She managed a nod. “I’m all right,” she said.  “Just taken by surprise.”  She looked over to a corner of the room that had been partitioned off with a curtain.  Petal Princess had told her that they’d set it up so that she could have a private place to pray, if she so desired, being unsure if she was comfortable praying in front of others.  Akaya appreciated the consideration.   “Though I do need to say my prayers before I turn in.”

It would give her a moment to think, at the very least.

***

As Akaya entered the small, privacy curtained space, she realized that it was already occupied. It was one of the Shiketsu girls, the one whom she had overhead a few times speaking to Tatsuma in a foriegn language that she couldn’t properly identify.  

“Oh,” she said, “my apologies.  I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”  Though it varied from individual to individual, the average person in Japan was not especially religious or deeply spiritual.  And the number of people who were any variety of Christian was smaller still.  

The girl though, seemed as surprised to see Akaya as Akaya was to see her.

"It is no trouble," the girl assured her, her Japanese flawless. "I was finishing up anyway." As she stood up, a necklace with a familiar cross could be seen hanging around the girl's neck.

Well, that was indeed surprising.  She had heard there had been some additional friction between some of the Shiketsu students and her classmates and the others.  Perhaps she could help ease that by finding some common ground with one of them?

“Please forgive my forwardness,” Akaya said.  “But you are Christian?  I rarely encounter anyone who shares a faith with me.”

That seemed to surprise the girl for a moment, before she looked at her necklace as if remembering it was there.

"My parents are practicing Presbyterians," she answered, somewhat shyly. "I would not go so far as to say I am, but there is much about Christianity I admire. It's comforting to know there's an all-powerful being that actually gives a damn about you out there."

“My mother’s family is Catholic,” Akaya explained, “as am I.”  Her father and little brother, Rikido, were not, but it had never been an issue in their family.  Both she and her brother had been allowed to explore faith options and choose for themselves.

“It is reassuring.  It is often a troubling world.  Having somewhere to turn to often helps me to ground myself.”  She offered the other girl a small smile.  “I am Akaya Koda.”

The other girl seemed to think a bit, as if wondering if she should say anything. Her face softened as she appeared to make a decision.  "My name is Seung Park. It is...nice to meet you." She tensed a bit after saying her name.

The same sounded Korean to Akaya’s ears, though she couldn’t say for certain.  Though Park was not Japanese, that much was apparent.  She knew that foreigners didn’t always have easy lives in Japan, but given how flawless her Japanese was, Park had to be at least second generation.  Which did come with its own issues, of course…

“It is nice to meet you as well,” she said.  “How are you finding the camp so far?”

"So far I do not see what can be done here that we can't do elsewhere," Park admitted with a stern frown. "I can only assume the teachers are likely going to make us do something to pit us against each other for some ‘clever’ reason. Why else would Shiketsu be invited, given the asinine rivalries that are encouraged."

“Not an impossibility,” Akaya agreed.  Park, it seemed, was not afraid to be a bit bold in her declarations. Would that she had such confidence. “But I have been told that the Rookies are among some of the best trainers in the country, so I trust in our teachers’ judgements. Perhaps they simply mean to push us all. A little bit of rivalry can be healthy… though there are those among my fellow students who take it to an extreme.”

Shiro, for example, had already declared that the rivalry between Class 1-A and 1-B was in a temporary state of truce, until they had proven U.A. to be better than Shiketsu. She wasn’t certain if that was a sign of maturity on his part or not, but at least he was trying to channel his energies in semi-positive directions.

"I have considerably more faith in Our Lord than I do in "Hero instructors.’" Park stopped, took a deep breath, said something in Korean, and then let it out. "I apologize. I am not as good a Christian as I would like to be."

There was a sore point there, Akaya was certain.  For a Hero student, Park did not seem to have much faith in Heroes themselves.  Or at least, not the ones running the camp, she wasn’t sure.  That seemed to be a bit of a paradox, but she did not wish to deny the truth of whatever experiences Park had lived.

She shook her head and held up her hands in an apologetic gesture.  “No apologies necessary.  Even if I don’t agree, I won’t deny you your feelings.”

Park looked surprised at Akaya's response. Clearly, she was not used to people giving her point of view any kind of credence. "I appreciate that." Her eyes seemed to be looking elsewhere, as if she were looking at a place completely different from where they were. She shook her head, actually forming a small smile. "I do not wish to hold up your talk with God. I hope you don't aggravate him as much as I likely do.”

Akaya offered the girl another smile as she left, before kneeling down to begin her own prayers. She would need much of His grace and guidance to get through this camp.

***

Takiyo tapped a few keys on the control panel built into his sleeping pod, causing the hatch to open with a slight hiss.  Inside, it looked comfortably padded and had a control panel built into the other side of the hatch as well, so that he could open it when needed.  It would be one hundred percent light proof.  It was good of the Rookies to provide it, though he would have expected nothing less.  U.A. had been very good at meeting his unique needs to far.  

His cursed, cursed needs. His damn Quirk that caused him to absorb light constantly, necessitating that he discharge it in regular intervals, that he keep himself covered to minimize absorption, that his dorm room and his room at home be equipped with blackout curtains and more.  It required him to be aware of his state of being every second he was awake.

His damn Quirk that had caused him too…

No.

His Quirk that he was going to use to be a Hero.  To make up for…  what had been done.  No matter the costs to him.  It was suited for it, where unleashing dazzling light, pushing back the darkness, or projecting devastating lasers.  He would make it a Hero’s Quirk.

He had actually exhausted his light-stores under the Rookies’ training today, focusing on both his output and control.  It was rare situation.  Usually, he had to purposefully discharge it by the end of the day, just for the sake of discharging it.  He had started to absorb more light immediately afterwards, but for the moment, he was just barely glowing, a faint sparkle outlining his skin.

“Ahem.”  A voice shook him from his introspection and he looked up to see Monoma standing next to the sleeping pod.

He’d barely spoken two words to Monoma that he could recall, in his entire time at U.A.  The other boy was vain, arrogant, obsessed with his looks, and not especially self-aware.  He was, somehow, friends with Koda, which confused Takiyo greatly. Mineta, he could understand, but he thought Koda was better than that.

“Yes?” Takiyo asked.

“<Can we speak French?>” Monoma asked.  Takiyo had been vaguely aware that the Monoma family had some French ancestry, much like his papa also did.  He himself was only culturally French to some extent, but the language came easily enough.  Monoma cast a significant glance over in the direction of Sero, Sato, and Tsuchikawa.

“Oui,” he replied.  The secrecy was puzzling, he had to admit.  What could be so important that Monoma did not want anyone overhearing?

Monoma nodded. “<Let’s be clear,>” he said, pointing.  “<I don’t like you and you don’t like me.  That’s fine.  But no one deserves what’s headed your way.”>

Takiyo raised an eyebrow at that.  “<Pardon?>” he asked.  A threat to his person?  Was that insufferable Tsuchikawa planning something?  But why would Monoma warn him about that?

“<Mika, Yoarashi, and Fukidashi are planning to set you and Akaya up.  Kaminari knows about it to.  I don’t think she can stop it.>”

They were going to… what?

Monoma went on. “<Mika claims that it’s obvious you two are very sweet on each other, but that neither one of you would be willing to make the first move.  I don’t know if that’s true, but with Mika and Fukidashi teaming up, it’s bound to be a ‘zany scheme.’>”

Koda… who was always kind to him, even when he let his anger and irritation get the better of him. And who forced him to be civil and interact with others, even when he wasn’t doing a particularly good job of it. Koda, who was a sweet, kind girl, who did not deserve the cruelties she had recently endured and seemed to still carry with her.

“<So as someone who has been pulled into many of Mika’s well-meaning, but disastrous schemes, I felt you deserved a warning,>” Monoma added.  But his expression turned hard as steel.  “<But rest assured, should you still chose to pursue a relationship with Akaya… You will treat her properly, or I will break every bone in your body.>”

With that, Monoma turned on his heels to walk to his own bunk, leaving Takiyo standing there, still trying to process what had been said.

“Hey!  Aoyama!”  He turned and saw Sero giving him a wave.  “Didja loose the blond pretty boy contest or something?  Looked pretty serious there!”

Takiyo’s lip pulled back in a snarl.  “SHUT UP!”

***

While the barracks for the kids had been relatively Spartan, the facilities in the main compound of the Rookies’ complex were surprisingly nicely appointed.  Most of them had gone to bed already.  Lady Luminous and Bezoar were in charge of waking the kids up for the next morning’s training session, but they’d all have to be up fairly early. It was late, eleven p.m., long past when Katsuki usually went to bed.  At least he’d been able to slip away earlier and call Eijiro and Tai. It’d been a long time since he hadn’t at least called to say goodnight to his son.  He wasn’t going to allow himself to miss it for a ‘good’ reason. Because he if he missed it for a ‘good’ reason, then it was a short trip to missing it for a bad reason.

And he was never going to be that kind of parent.  His parents had never been truly neglectful—though it had taken a lot of therapy to overcome and course correct his sometimes-toxic relationship with his mother and his enabling father—but they had often been gone.   He’d been left in the care of babysitters or ‘Auntie’ Inko as a child more often than he cared to remember, including one particularly disastrous time when he’d been ten and left in the care of his then-teenage shitty cousin Yu, and later to his own devices, when they’d been gone on some photo shoot or modeling expo.

Katsuki had been in a lot of fights over his life.  But his toughest fight was the one he fought every day to be a better parent than his own had been.  Thank whatever gods existed for Eijro.  It was easier to be the better person when you had someone who believed in you that much.

The damned hobo had already gone to bed, but Katsuma, Mahoro, a Rookie he didn’t recognize, and Fujii were still up in floor’s kitchen.  And damn did it make him feel old to see people he’d known when they were children as fully-fledged adults and Heroes in their own right.  They’d both done good, he admitted, with Katsuma working with Deku for a time and Mahoro training with Camie and even working as one of his Sidekicks for a time.  And sure, he hasn’t that much older than either of them.  He had less than ten on Katsuma and only five on Mahoro…

But even with their own experiences with that bastard, Nine, he’d had a lot more years of hard living than them.  It added up. He certainly felt older than his forty-one years.  Now, more than ever.

“So,” he said as he entered the kitchen, “one of you want to tell me why we’ve got Shiketsu students here? Was the Hobo right?  Are they dropping their problem kids on us?”

The Rookie he didn’t recognize spoke up.  He was a dark-skinned man with his hair in tight cornrows and seemed a bit younger than the rest.  He had a red and yellow uniform, with a key-shaped insignia on his chest. “They’re a little rough around the edges, but they don’t seem like problems to me.”

“You haven’t been doing this as long as the rest of us, Takagi,” Katsuma told him. “And you haven’t seen the complete files.”

Mahoro let out a laugh. “You say problem children like your kid isn’t one, Katsuki.”

Katsuki shot her a glare. Katsumi…  He was proud of his daughter, loved her more than almost anything in the entire world.  She’d gotten some of the best of him.  But she’d also gotten some of his worst too.  Her anger, her reluctance to properly grapple with her feelings or complex emotions.  She might have finally resolved her long-standing hang-ups around Izumi, and she definitely had a better relationship with Toshi than he’d had with Deku, but he still saw some of his school-age self in her.  “You take that back, brat.”   But he also wasn’t going to let anyone else point it out.

“You going to make me?” She gave him a glare of her own, as though challenging him.

“How have you not matured any in twenty-five years?” he shot back.

“Should… should we be stopping this?” Fujii asked, looking vaguely panicked.  The rubber-bodied Hero looked over at Katsuma as though to say ‘please, stop this.’

Katsuma pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Mahoro, please stop antagonizing Katsuki.  If you two wreck the kitchen, it’ll take forever to get it repaired. And Hiyori will pitch a fit if she can’t have her waffles.”

He pushed back from the table and stood up.  “I already had conversations with All Might and Aizawa about this, but you’re not far off, Katsuki.  It’s not a random delegation of students.  We were asked to take them on specifically.”

Katsuki just rolled his eyes.  “Of fucking course.”

“Hey,” Katsuma said. “No need for that kind of language!”

“Yeah, you better listen to him, dammit,” Mahoro said.  “We’ve got a swear jar and everything.”

Katsuki wanted to yell, to pop off a few explosions that would rattle Katsuma into realizing what a mistake he’d made in not telling him this immediately.  But instead, he sucked in a breath and shook his head, grinding his teeth. He didn’t like being blindsided like this, but anger wouldn’t do him any good.  Keeping track of the thirty-three U.A. students was enough of a challenge, even if he hadn’t known some of them since they were in diapers.  (He’d changed so many diapers.  His shitty-haired husband had a bad habit of offering to babysit for their friends without consulting him first.) He didn’t need any surprises, especially not in his first few days on the job.

What could be so bad that Shiketsu was dumping their kids on U.A.?  Sure, the dragon kid was angry, but he’d been worse. And that didn’t explain the rest, especially Windbag’s kid.

“Tell me everything.”

***

Katsuki took a seat at the table, as did Fujii, and Katsuma sat back down.  Takagi remained standing, leaning against the kitchen counter.  He crossed his arms and set his face in a scowl. To their credit, neither Katsuma nor Mahoro flinched.  Mahoro even copied his gesture and expression, the scowl looking only slightly silly on her face.  Takagi, though, definitely flinched at the scowl and impending sense of doom both he and Mahoro were giving off.

Good.  It was good to see that even hobbled as he was, he could still be intimidating.  Still, he felt a little bad.  The guy probably didn’t deserve it.  

“Okay,” Katsuma said, “so where do you want to start?”

“Tatsuma,” Katsuki said. “I can already tell she’s walking around with a hell of a chip on her shoulder.  What’s up?”

“Chie Tatsuma,” Katsuma went on, “daughter of the Dragoon Hero: Ryukyu.  Her Quirk allows her to transform into a humanoid dragon form.  Class Representative, winner of their first year Sports Festival.  Scary strong Quirk.  I’ve looked at her file and her scores in the Shiketsu entrance exam were off the charts.  They had to recalibrate their threshold because she scored so many points everyone else in her testing area was below the cutoff.”

“Kind of reminds me of you, Blasty,” Mahoro said, jabbing him in the side with her elbow.  Katsuki had to admit, she wasn’t wrong.  Not that he’d let her have the satisfaction of knowing that.  

“Okay,” Katsuki said. “She’s powerful, she’s arrogant. I can work with that.  What else?”

Katsuma frowned. “She’s also got a small but building disciplinary record.  She’s extremely dissatisfied with the Hero Rankings and the whole ranking system in general.  Of which she tends to me very vocal about.  Not a lot of respect for most of the top ranked Heroes.”  

Fujii tapped a finger against his chin.  “Didn’t Ryukyu drop in the rankings really quickly?  I remember when I was a kid, just after All Might retired, that she dropped a spot…”

That was putting it mildly. Once a young and rising star, Ryukyu had never been the same after the incident with the Shie Hassaikai.  Round Face had said it was like she’d suffered a crisis of faith, lost a step somewhere.  She’d slipped pretty steadily, year after year, ranking after ranking.  And so people had stopped believing in her.  You hear that kind of bullshit enough, you internalize it, and it just feeds a vicious cycle.

“And, of course, she’s got the kids of a shit ton of high ranked Heroes with her here,” Katsuki growled. “Wonderful.  Let me guess… wants to make a name for herself and redeem her mom, but hates the system that’d make that happen?”

“Got it,” Katsuma said. “Think maybe you can help direct her anger some?”

“I’m the Number Four Hero,” Katsuki snapped.  At least until the next Billboard Chart ranking.  Not something he was looking forward to.  It was only a “leave of absence.”  Best Jeanist had been the same ranking as he was when he’d suffered a nearly career ending injury too.  That had turned out all right for his old mentor, but he wondered if he’d be able to say the same.  He was going to file that under things he wasn’t going to think about.  “She won’t listen to me.”

“Aizawa said he’d talk to her,” Mahoro said.  “Underground Heroes don’t get ranked at all.  Maybe he’ll get through.  And besides, he managed to focus you.”

Katsuki let her have that one.

“Let’s see,” Katsuma went on.  “I assume you’re familiar with Shinji Yoarashi?”

“You really want to ask stupid questions?” he shot back.  “I’ve known Windbag’s kid for ages.  I’m guessing his being here has something to do with his unauthorized rescue mission back during the Nomu mess?”

The kid had likely saved Katsumi’s life, Round Face’s too, with that stunt.  Even if it’d been technically illegal and on extremely dubious grounds, Katsuki couldn’t blame him too much for that.  Sure, he was as annoying and loud as his dad, but his heart had been in the right place.  Sometimes, intent mattered more than the rules.

“Pretty much,” Katsuma said with a nod.  “His teachers want us to focus in on following the rules and proper procedures.”

“Does that include knowing when to break them?”

“No,” Katsuma said.

“Yes,” Mahoro said at the same time.  The two exchanged glances.

“Got it,” Katsuki said.

“Good,” Fujii added. “…Explain it to me?”

Katsuki did not dignify that with a response.

“Okay,” he said, “what about Tsuchikawa?”  He still couldn’t believe Pixie-Bob had a kid.  Apparently, she adopted him after stopping his villainous parent.  Word around the rumor mill, or wherever Pikachu got his nonsense from, was that she was still just as promiscuous and flirtatious as ever, having made the complete transformation into a full on cougar. She was supposed to have a daughter too, he recalled, though the father wasn’t known.  

He shuddered at the memory of the woman at Class 3-A’s graduation, sitting front row, giving him, Deku, IcyHot, and Glasses looks he never wanted to see again.

“Ego and lack of teamwork skills mostly,” Mahoro told him.  She gave him a pointed look.  “Definitely your department.”

“Ooooh, she’s got you pegged,” Fujii said.  The rubber-bodied man grinned for a second, before wilting under Katsuki’s glare.

“How has Aizawa not killed you yet, you glorified gacha prize?”  His former teacher didn’t suffer fools gladly and neither did Katsuki. And yes, while he was relatively young, Fujii did have an impressive career as a Pro-Hero behind him already. Never more than a “friendly neighborhood Hero”, he was nevertheless liked by many and had saved a lot of lives. And very popular with children to boot. Tai had an action figure of him that actually bounced.

He was just damned annoying.

“I’m pretty much indestructible!”

Katsuki growled.  “You want to put that to the test?”

“…No.”

“What about Park?” he asked, rather than get drawn into anything else with his fellow teacher.  “Korean, right?”  Something tugged at his memory and he frowned as he tried to place it.

“Another one with a lot of anger,” Katsuma admitted.  “And even more distrust for Heroes than Tatsuma.  Tatsuma, at least, only disagrees with the ranking of Heroes and the spectator sport part of that.  Park isn’t entirely convinced in the Hero system at all.  Impressive Quirk though… uses bioenergy to enhance her physical attributes.  Short bursts of power or speed.  She’ll make a good Hero if she can get past her issues.”

He looked a little defeated by the prospect of it.  Katsuki remembered what he’d been like on Nobu Island, a lot like Deku had been at the same age.  So full of love for Heroes and faith that they could solve everything.  He’d even admit he’d been like that at one time, before he’d been kidnapped and forced to reckon with his own limitations.  Before he’d seen so much of the seedier side of the world, and the problems that punching something or unleashing an explosion in its face couldn’t solve.

“Any idea what caused it?” Fujii asked.  “Everybody likes Heroes.  It’s kind of Japan’s thing.”

“The Ignition Incident,” Katsuki said, as the memory floated itself up into his mind.  Up until Endeavor’s public confession, it had been the biggest scandal in Hero history.  

“The what now?” Fujii asked. His rubberized features twisted up in confusion.  “I don’t remember any Ignition Incident.”

“Then you either weren’t paying attention or had a crappy Hero History teacher,” Katsuki growled. What the hell were they teaching in schools these days?  That American idiot, Skyline, taught Hero History at U.A.  He’d maybe he’d have to sit in on a few classes to make sure they were getting it right.

“Wait,” Takagi said. His eyes went wide. “I know about that one.  Shit.”

“Anybody going to clue me in here?” Fujii asked, looking furtively from face to face.  “I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So this was about twenty years ago,” Katsuma explained.  “Ignition was Suguru Dian, a U.A. grad from the class behind Deku and his friends, with a powerful flame Quirk that basically let him set anything on fire.  He went from Sidekick to full on Pro in almost no time at all.  People called him the second coming of Endeavor.”

Katsuki remembered the guy, having worked with him a few times, both professionally and when they’d been students and the then Class 2-A had done joint training with the new 1-A. Arrogant as all get out, but with the talent to back it up.  Of course, Aizawa and Deku had ended up having to pry him and Katsuki apart…

“So Ignition is half-Chinese and a rising star,” Mahoro said, taking over from her brother.  “And being a rising star like that, the HPSC, in its infinite wisdom, thinks it’s got an “in” to help better police some of the Chinatown communities, especially with the Rising Sons Triad starting to fill the void the Shie Hassaikai left behind.  Unfortunately, he’s got daddy issues, on account of his Chinese dad abusing him and his mom.  Which boils over into some pretty self-hating racist stuff too.”

“Okay,” Fujii said. “I’m getting some ideas here, but Park’s Korean, not Chinese.”

“We’re getting to it,” Katsuma said.  “So Ignition is made a part of an anti-Triad taskforce, and ends up investigating a Triad owned restaurant.  The community there is already pretty involved in self-policing, so there’s a lot of resistance, insults, pretty much all his buttons getting pushed.  But something inside him snaps, total breakdown. He thinks he’s taking down Triad agents, and instead he’s fighting innocent civilians with an extremely dangerous Quirk.”

“People died, man,” Takagi said.  “Dozens more injured, massive property damage, the works.  Public relations nightmare and international scandal.  Global news for months.”

“There was a big show trial,” Katsuma added.  “Ignition was stripped of his license.  As far as I know, he’s still locked away somewhere.  The HPSC made a big show of providing additional sensitivity training for Heroes, better psych screening, community outreach, all the kinds of things that would reassure the public.”

Katsuki remembered it all well.  He’d only been solo a year or two at that point, not long after a stint sidekicking under Beast Jeanist.  His late mentor had been appalled by what had happened.  He’d been disgusted too.  Especially by the way the HPSC reacted.  

“It was all smoke,” he snarled.  “They didn’t prohibit it, but they did stop specifically assigned Heroes to “ethnic” neighborhoods. And sure, plenty of Heroes still went in and did their damn jobs.  But it broke a lot of trust.  They left a lot of people to fend for themselves, instead of cleaning up their own act.”

Even Deku had wanted to do more, but he’d been too new still, too hamstrung by the rules and regulations.  He’d done more than any of them though.  Deku was one of the few Heroes pretty much beloved across all communities in Japan.

“Things got better, eventually,” Katsuma said.  “Political winds shifted, Commission members turned over, policies got reversed, and we started working with people better.  But there’s still a lot of people out there who remember or who felt the effects of being abandoned.  The general consensus in a lot of those communities is still not to trust Heroes or have any faith in us being able to get the job done.”

“Well… shit,” Fujii said. “How did I not know about this?”

“Because you’re an idiot?” Katsuki suggested, but his heart wasn’t in the barb.  The man seemed genuinely shocked by the news and even a bit sobered by it.

“That’s really only about half of it,” Katsuma said.  “She was born here, but her parents were immigrants, seeking to escape the anti-Mutant Humanist groups in Korea.  Of course…”

Right, Katsuki thought. That was a whole mess of politics and cultural issues he didn’t even feel remotely qualified to untangle.  But the government tended to lump all members of an ethnic group together, in this case not sparing much distinction between new immigrants and culturally assimilated Zainicihi Koreans.  With crime and politics and all that… it didn’t leave a lot of faith in the supposed chosen protectors.  And when you’d seen the government turn on you once…

“So we’ve got to undo generational trauma,” he groaned.  “Great. They came here, expecting the same protection from heroes Japanese citizens get, and instead they arrive into a hornet's nest due to uncaring bureaucrats desperately trying to save face while not rocking the boat.”

He let out a frustrated noise.  What about the last one?  Shida? The spider-girl.  What’s her damage?”

“Oh, her,” Mahoro laughed. “She just wanted to be with her friends, apparently.  And no one told her why the others were being sent.”

That was…  that was…  pretty par for the course for absurdity, where things in his life were concerned.  Katsuki let out a laugh, long and loud.

“Make it stop!” Fujii wailed.  “He’s scaring me!”

[wrestlingisfake]

G1 Climax 30 preview

This is New Japan Pro Wrestling’s annual heavyweight singles tournament, scheduled for 19 shows between September 19 and October 18.  The winner receives a trophy and a contract for an IWGP heavyweight championship match at Wrestle Kingdom on January 4.  Whoever holds the contract is expected to defend it in singles matches, sort of like a championship.  If the IWGP heavyweight champion himself holds the contract, he may name his own challenger for January 4.

The G1 is a 20-man round-robin tournament, split into two blocks of ten men.  Each participant has a match against every other man in his block.  That works out to 45 matches in A Block and 45 matches in B Block.  Points are awarded for each block match, and whoever has the highest score wins the block.  The A Block winner then meets the B Block winner in the final on October 18, to determine the winner of the entire tournament.

Each match is worth 2 points--the winner gets 2 and the loser gets 0.  A 30-minute time limit draw awards 1 point to each participant.  I could do a deep dive into scoring and potentially complicated tiebreaker scenarios.  But through the magic of pro wrestling, scoring is mostly straightforward, and usually each block comes down to two guys who just happen to face each other in the deciding match in the last round.  So I’ll go over the three final shows (October 16-18) in more detail when we get there.

Western wrestling fans are more accustomed to single-elimination tournaments, so newcomers might find the G1 Climax a little confusing and arduous.  It’s nineteen shows, all in one month, with ninety-one tournament matches.  The story is mostly told in the ring, with few if any angles.  And it’s fairly predictable, so a cynic could just skip to the last few shows without missing a lot of bracket-busting surprises.  The actual point, though, is match quality.  Every participant wants to deliver their personal best performances of the year, so you’re kinda guaranteed about a dozen four-star matches.  Besides, it’s perfect entertainment for staying at home binging TV--I have been going nuts waiting for this since the pandemic started.

Let’s take a look at the participants...

A Block

Jay White - The leader of Bullet Club and a former IWGP heavyweight champion.  White has been the de facto top foreigner since Kenny Omega left.  Prior to that New Japan kind of had a “Big Four” (Okada, Tanahashi, Naito, and Omega) that would be heavily favored in big events like this.  Now it’s more of a “Big Five” (Okada, Naito, Tanahashi, Ibushi, and White), and I would argue White just barely makes the cut by virtue of being the top heel and the biggest dick in the company.

Other than a couple of matches for New Japan’s LA-based show, White has been out of action since February.  I actually almost miss the bastard.  Before he left it felt like questions were brewing about KENTA eclipsing him as the biggest dick in Bullet Club.  While they were both away, Bullet Club reorganized around EVIL as the dickiest dick that ever dicked.  I smell a very slow burn storyline.  Since White’s not in the same block as the others, we probably won’t see him meet Evil or Kenta during this tour.  But I expect it will be very interesting which of the posts the best performance.

White’s style is to counter offense, often by going limp on the mat to prevent an opponent from hitting a signature move.  He’s honed this into some very solid chickenshit heel work that gets massive heat from the crowd, but I’ve found it incredibly tedious to sit through.  His matches with Okada, Ibushi, and Ishii will probably be heavily promoted as main events, but I’m more curious to see how his shenanigans will mesh with Taichi, Will Ospreay, and Minoru Suzuki.

Jeff Cobb - He’s a free agent, although it’s been strongly rumored that he’s about to sign with somebody and it’s probably going to be New Japan.  Because of the pandemic, there are a lot of hurdles for non-Japanese wrestlers to come in for a tour, so I’m pretty glad this absolute unit made it in.

Cobb was in last year’s G1, but many of his opponents this year weren’t in his block last time, so he’s got a lot of fresh matchups.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen Cobb vs. Okada, Cobb vs. Ibushi, or Cobb vs. Suzuki.

The big issue for Cobb is that he ought to do better than his 8-point performance in last year’s tournament.  To get to 10 he’s probably going to have to score a big upset.  A victory over White is plausible but probably not in the cards.  Okada, maybe?

Kazuchika Okada - The leader of CHAOS and a five-time former IWGP heavyweight champion.  This seems to be a rebuilding year for Okada, as he takes a break from the limelight to give Naito a chance to shine.  That could mean he’s set to come roaring back in 2021, which could mean he’s booked to win this tournament.  On paper he’s a clear favorite, so I suppose he’s my pick to win A Block.  But as far as winning the whole tournament...I’m not feeling it, for some reason.

Ordinarily, Okada is either the defending champion or a top contender, so he loses very few tournament matches, which makes it a big deal for someone to actually beat him.  This year, though, Okada has been feuding with the likes of Taichi and Yujiro Takahashi, and getting pinned by Toru Yano.  So maybe they figure Okada won’t be back in title contention for a while, so it’s okay to make weaker opposition look stronger against him.  If he fails to win at least 10 points, that would be a very ballsy storyline.  At the very least, they might tease the possibility with an early slump.

Okada’s match with Will Ospreay on October 16 is probably going to decide the entire block, so I expect that to be a centerpiece for the tournament.  Okada vs. Ibushi is a rematch from Wrestle Kingdom and should also be excellent.  I’m personally most interested in Okada vs. Shingo Takagi, since I can’t recall them ever meeting one-on-one before.

Kota Ibushi - The 2019 G1 Climax winner, and a former IWGP intercontinental champion.  He represents Hontai, the default “home team” faction for all the purest babyfaces.  Ibushi has been a fan favorite for years, but New Japan never went all the way with him because he was a free agent.  That changed last year when he signed a long-term deal, although I was surprised they still had him choke at Wrestle Kingdom.  Nobody has won the G1 Climax two years in a row since Hiroyoshi Tenzan in 2003-2004, but I could see Ibushi doing it.

The story for Ibushi this year is that he needed to recover from going 0-2 in the Double Gold Dash series at Wrestle Kingdom, and he found new purpose in a tag team with his idol Hiroshi Tanahashi.  But the new Golden Ace team lost the tag title to Zack Sabre Jr. and Taichi, and it quickly became apparent that Tana is the weak link in the team.  So there’s intrigue about whether Tanahahi should pack it in, and whether Ibushi should leave him behind to pursue a top singles title.  An Ibushi-Tanahashi match in the finals would be a really easy story to tell.  Or they might be saving that for a non-title match at Wrestle Kingdom, which would mean neither of them are winning this tournament.

Ibushi has two modes--daredevil flippy guy or stiff strong-style mean guy.  So his matches with Will Ospreay and Tomohiro Ishii are always scary and nuts, for wildly different reasons.  I personally get a kick out of Ibushi vs. Suzuki, because Suzuki is all >:( and Ibushi is all :D

Minoru Suzuki - The leader of Suzuki-gun and current NEVER openweight champion.  Last year’s G1 was so stacked that Suzuki didn’t even make the cut, but he’s back with a vengeance.  The cool thing about Suzuki is that he’s old as balls, but he’s scary as fuck, but he’s not invincible.  So it’s sort of like having the Undertaker in the G1, except he can do four or five jobs and maintain credibility so he doesn’t have to squash everyone.

There are plenty of fresh matches for Suzuki in this field, but I’m particularly interested in Suzuki vs. Taichi, since they’re in the same faction.  Suzuki-gun vs. Suzuki-gun matches tend to be wild, vicious brawls, and I don’t remember these two ever meeting one-on-one before.  This is probably the year to do it, since Suzuki is only getting older and Taichi’s career is at an all-time high right now.

Anyone who beats Suzuki during the G1 should be in line for a future title match, although big-name guys like Okada, White, and Ibushi may pass on it to pursue bigger opportunities.  In terms of setting up future challengers, though, I think Ospreay, Cobb, or Takagi would all make sense.

Shingo Takagi - A member of Los Ingobernables de Japon and a former NEVER openweight champion.  Shingo is big and mean and tough and I like him a lot.  I’d like to think he’s being set up for bigger and better things down the road.  But for now he’s a middle-of-the-pack guy, and middle-of-the-pack guys don’t win the G1.  It’ll be a moral victory if he finishes in third or forth place for the block.

I’m kinda looking forward to all of Shingo’s block matches.  He’ll demolish Yujiro, he’ll give Taichi and Jay White the fight of their lives, and he’ll hang with big mean guys like Ishii, Cobb, and Suzuki.  Takagi vs. Ospreay might have been my favorite match in 2019, so that should be treat this year.

Taichi - One of the IWGP heavyweight tag team champions, and a member of Suzuki-gun.  The tag champs have not appeared in the G1 in recent years, but Taichi is a full-time regular, and he was in the tournament last year, so it’s not like being a tag champ was going to be held against him or anything.

I’m not expecting Taichi to do particularly well, but he needs some wins or else way too many guys will be in line for tag title shots.  It’ll be interesting to see which guys they’re willing to feed to him, because it’s hard to imagine most of the field jobbing to him.

Tomohiro Ishii - Basically the #2 guy in CHAOS and one of the NEVER trios champions.  Ishii is always an imposing obstacle in the G1 but he never actually strings together enough wins to really matter in the endgame.  So I think they’ll make a big deal about the threat he represents to guys like Ospreay, White, and Ibushi, but then they’ll just beat him like it’s no big deal.

Oddly, the one Ishii match I’m really interested in is with Taichi, because they were doing a program last year where Ishii brought out the best in Taichi and motivated him to fight honorably.  I’m interested in how they revisit that.

Will Ospreay - A member of CHAOS and the RPW British heavyweight champion.  Last I heard, Ospreay planned to live in Japan, but he got stuck in the UK when the pandemic travel bans went down. 

I heard a lot about how Will’s mental health was suffering from being away from wrestling.  Then he was distraught about Hana Kimura’s suicide.  Then he got called out amid the #SpeakingOut movement.  If I understand correctly, he was accused of helping to blackball a woman from the BritWres scene because she claimed a friend of his sexually abused her.  So there’s a lot going on here, and I’m not sure how it all will affect his career or relationship with the industry and fans.

In light of the allegations against him, I expect some Western fans will not be happy to see him back in New Japan.  I get the feeling New Japan will ignore the controversy, which may frustrate fans agitating for Ospreay to face consequences.  Speaking personally, I considered Ospreay a sentimental favorite last year, and I’m not sure the things he apparently did rise to the level of “kick him out of the business,” but it feels weird bringing him back like nothing happened.  I’m not sure how he can repair the damage to his reputation, and I don’t think I want New Japan to give him a free pass on doing that.

Dave Meltzer has suggested that, before the pandemic, New Japan planned to start pushing Ospreay hard as a heavyweight, with a lot of key wins in the G1.  If that really was the plan, could the pandemic have changed all that?  I guess we’ll find out.

Yujiro Takahashi - Bullet Club’s resident prelim guy.  This is his first G1 in five years, and even back when he regularly appeared he didn’t score very well.  I strongly doubt he’d be in this thing if they’d been able to fly in more foreigners.  But someone has to lose a lot for the big names to rack up points, and he’s suited to the role.

The most interesting thing about Yujiro is that he’s accompanied by PIETER, who is hot.  Unfortunately, Pieter is not exactly what you’d call an essential worker, which is probably why she hasn’t appeared at all since the pandemic.  Watching a Yujiro singles match without Pieter is kinda like just reading Playboy for the table of contents.  Actually, the most compelling thing Yujiro could do here is a match with Taichi, and that’d mainly be to see Pieter interact with Miho Abe, who probably also won’t be on this tour.

B Block

EVIL - The turncoat who betrayed Los Ingobernables de Japon to join Bullet Club.  Evil captured both the IWGP heavyweight title and IWGP intercontinental title from Tetsuya Naito earlier this year, but lost them back to Naito a few weeks ago.  Everybody was kinda “Really?  You’re pushing Evil?  Really?”  So it’s fair to say he’s got a lot to prove.

I don’t expect Evil to win the block.  But as a recent former champion, he needs a strong showing, if only to sell the idea that anyone who could win the title is a serious threat.  You don’t want to Jinder Mahal this guy, and I think New Japan knows better than to do that.

I think everyone in this block has had a singles match with Evil, but few have worked with him since the heel turn, which freshens up those matchups.  I’m curious how he’ll interact with Yano or Sabre, for example.  There’s obviously a grudge match in Evil vs. Naito, but Evil and SANADA were tag team partners for years, and we’ve conveniently avoided getting Sanada’s take on the Evil turn. 

The big deal, though, will probably be the match with KENTA.  I’d rather see Jay White have to face Kenta or Evil, but this will have to do.  Every Bullet Club vs. Bullet Club match in the G1 kinda plays out the same, but every year I put on my clown wig and hope we’ll see a real rift form in the group.

Hirooki Goto - One of the NEVER trios champions, representing CHAOS.  Last year they made a big deal about Goto reinventing himself at the LA Dojo, but it’s a year later and he’s pretty much the same Goto.  I just don’t have any confidence in him to score a win that’s going to move him up the ranks.  He’s easy to take for granted.

I’m all for seeing Goto pleasantly surprise me with a hot run, but how would he even do that at this point?  I guess he could pin Naito to set up a title match, but that wouldn’t get me to believe he could actually win said title match.  A victory over Evil or Tanahashi would be more doable, but does that really get him anywhere?  Maybe he could beat Sabre to set up a tag title program, but I’m so bored with matching the six-man tag champions against the regular tag champions.

Hiroshi Tanahashi - The eight-time former IWGP heavyweight champion and leader of Hontai.  He’s already won this tournament three times, a stat that puts him up there with legends from the 1990s and early 2000s.  But New Japan has been increasingly playing up the idea that age is catching up with him.  At 43, he’s not the oldest guy in this tournament, but the idea is that his knees are shot and he’s only hanging in at this level through sheer god-given talent.

In principle, you can always do a “living legend proves he’s still got it” story with Tana defying age and the odds to win one more G1.  The problem is, they already did that story in 2018, and there’s no good reason to rehash it so soon.  So I figure he’ll probably get beaten down a lot in the early going, to build sympathy for him having a bad run, and then he’ll rebound to give fans hope, and then he’ll come up short in the very end.

The biggest marquee match in this block is Tanahashi vs. Naito (they’ve been kept apart for a few years now).  But I’m more interested in seeing him battle fellow white-meat babyface Juice Robinson, or mega-dicks like Kenta or Evil that he hasn’t worked with much since they turned.  Of course, the strongest grudge match for Tana is against Sabre, playing off the recent Golden Ace/Dangerous Tekkers feud.  That one’s set for the last day of B Block, and I get the feeling it’s because Sabre is finally going to put Tana’s knees out of their misery.

Juice Robinson - Joliet, Illinois’s favorite son is finally back in Japan.  Juice had a memorable feud with Jay White in 2018 to win the IWGP US championship and take a big leap forward, but unfortunately it’s been choppy sailing since then.  He benefited from feuding with Jon Moxley and the Guerillas of Destiny, but he also lost those feuds.  At the same time, Will Ospreay has kinda leapfrogged him as the top babyface foreigner.  We’ll never know how he might have recovered from all that if not for the pandemic.  But the road back starts here.

Even as a Juice fan I don’t think he has any business winning the block.  But he’s one of those guys that is in striking distance of finishing a G1 with 10 points, and I think that would be a big milestone at this stage of his career.  Trouble is, I don’t even see four matches where he’d be the favorite, let alone five.  To get that 5-4 record he’s going to have to shock someone like Sabre or Kenta, and that’s pretty hard to imagine.

KENTA - Kenta came to New Japan for last year’s G1, and then turned heel and joined Bullet Club at the end of the tour.  Since then he’s held the NEVER openweight title, but he’s probably more infamous for beating up the retired Katsuyori Shibata, and ruining Tetsuya Naito’s celebration in the Tokyo Dome.  In a faction of dickasses, Kenta is the dickest, assest one of them all.  It’s almost admirable, in a dickish sort of way.

Before the pandemic, Kenta’s heel heat was so hot that it seemed like he was a potential rival for Jay White’s leadership of Bullet Club.  Then most of Bullet Club was unavailable this summer, and what was left kind of reorganized around Evil.  So does Kenta just accept being the #3 guy in the faction?  Or does he remind people he’s still in the “who should lead Bullet Club” conversation?  The answer is probably somehwere in the middle.  But his performance in this tournament might give us a clue.

SANADA - The dark horse of Los Ingobernables de Japon, and maybe the whole promotion.  At the end of 2019 I was dead-certain that Evil and Sanada were stuck as the two guys just below the Big Five, with no hope of upward advancement, so they’d just keep winning World Tag League forever and ever.  Now Evil’s been the champ, and Sanada fandom is heating up.  Pretty sure I saw some betting site give Sanada the best odds of winning the whole tournament.  It seems kinda crazy to me, because I’ve been watching him fade into the background for years.  But I sure wouldn’t mind if he just went and won the big one.

There’s not really anyone in this block that Sanada can’t beat.  I don’t think he ever has beaten Naito or Evil, but I certainly believe he could.  Really, the only guy that consistently makes Sanada look like a chump is Okada, who is conveniently in the other block.  Sanada having to beat Okada to win the G1 would be a really good story.  So I don’t know, maybe it really could happen.

Sanada vs. Naito and Sanada vs. Evil are clearly the big things here, but for my money you can’t go wrong with Sanada against Yano or Sabre.  Those matches always go down smooth, for incredibly different reasons.

Tetsuya Naito - The leader of Los Ingobernables de Japon and the reigning IWGP heavyweight champion and IWGP intercontinental champion.  Neither of Naito’s belts are on the line in this tournament, but anyone who beats him during the tournament is practically guaranteed a title shot by the end of the year.  To that end, he will probably lose very few block matches.  But since the point of the tournament is to name a challenger for January 4, it doesn’t do much good for the champion to win.  So watch for him to finish at like 7-2, but still come up short.

The usual pattern for a champion in the G1 is that he loses a couple of matches to set up main events on the Destruction and Power Struggle tours in September, October, and November.  That’s tricky this time because the G1 is so much later in the year, so there will be fewer big shows between now and January 4 to book Naito title matches.  In addition, Naito is a double champion, and has expressed a preference to defend each title separately.  So maybe they could do a thing where he loses G1 matches against, say, Goto and Kenta, and then they book Naito vs. Goto for one belt and Naito vs. Kenta for the other on the same tour.  But it’s pretty clear New Japan is kinda playing 2020 by ear, so they may not even be sure where they’re going with this stuff.

For several years now there’s been a lot of concern about Naito’s body being “thrashed,” and whether he can keep up with the physical demands of a top champion.  In New Japan, working the G1 is the most demanding of those physical demands.  He had a few months in the spring to heal up, but that was a couple of tours ago.  Now the real grind begins, so if he’s still having problems, that probably doesn’t bode well for his long-term career.

Toru Yano - The first KOPW titleholder, representing CHAOS.  Yano’s gimmick is that he seems like a prelim comedy guy, but he’s so good at cheating and misdirection that you have to take him seriously.  He’s not going to win the block, but he can definitely hang in long enough to play spoiler.  Last year he notably handed Jon Moxley his first New Japan loss--it was by count-out, but two points is two points.  You underestimate Yano at your own peril.

Yano’s matches are often pretty short, and don’t involve a lot of hard work for the wrestlers.  It’s sort of like each of the other guys gets a “night off” by playing his game.  Some fans think he shouldn’t even be in there, but I’ve come to look forward to all the different ways he’ll try to steal wins.  For fans expecting “sports entertainment” in the G1, this is your guy.

YOSHI-HASHI - One of the NEVER trios champions, along with Goto and Ishii, from CHAOS.  Yoshi is a journeyman, who just won his first NJPW title after 12 years with the company.  There’s a “lovable loser” quality to the guy, and he has his fan following.  But in terms of the G1, he’s a jobber.  He hasn’t been in the tournament since 2017, and that year he went 2-7.  I’m not expecting much better this time around.

Zack Sabre Jr. - A member of Suzuki-gun and Taichi’s partner in the IWGP heavyweight tag team champions, Dangerous Tekkers.  Sabre’s emphasis on chain wrestling, grappling, and submissions causes the style of his matches to stand out from the rest.  Where other heavyweights train for size and strength, he stays lean and noodle-y to wriggle out of holds.  He’s completely different, which is vital to avoid the feeling that every G1 match is just, like, two strong style dudes slapping the shit out of each other.

Sabre has always impressed me but that doesn’t translate into big pushes for him.  They’ve given him some key feuds over the RPW British title, but it never feels like he’s really truly in the mix with the top guys.  I’d like to see that change, and maybe get him back into the 10-point range.  But in a way he’s kinda like Ishii and Sanada, where they talk like he’s a big deal but then he loses a lot to make other guys look better for beating a “big deal.”

Like I said before, Sabre vs. Tanahashi is a natural grudge match and will probably be the main focus of this tour for Zack.  But I think it’ll be interesting to see how he handles Evil and Kenta now that they’re heels.  And Sabre vs. Sanada is always a treat.

Predictions

I think I’ve talked myself into an Okada vs. SANADA final, but I could see New Japan going in other directions.  Ibushi vs. Tanahashi would be a rehash of 2018’s tournament, but that was a great match so I don’t know if anybody would mind.  The biggest match they could do might be another Okada vs. Tanahashi match, but I don’t know if this is the right year to go there again.

Of course, the G1 final doesn’t have to be a dream match.  You can put the guy who’s going to win in there with someone that nobody thinks can win.  Kenny Omega vs. Hirooki Goto in 2017 and Kota Ibushi vs. Jay White in 2019 were foregone conclusions, but they made you believe that maybe there’ll be an upset when you kinda knew there would never be.  I could see them doing something like that with Ospreay, Takagi, Kenta, or Sanada.  Actually, an Ospreay-Sanada final might be hot because they’d both feel like underdogs, so you wouldn’t feel like one of them definitely has to win.

If that was like picking a Royal Rumble winner, I’d think WWE wants to pick a new guy to push as a top babyface challenger, and Sanada would make sense.  But I’ve seen so many years where New Japan stuck with what works that I’m reluctant to pick anybody outside the Big Five.  So I guess I’m going to pick Okada to win the G1, and then kinda hope I am pleasantly surprised.

[berkmansimagines]

Break In (Barry Berkman Imagine)

A/N: I want to give a special thanks to my friend @fangirl-imagines​ for inspiring me with this awesome idea! These teen daughter fics have been so much fun to write and I want to thank everyone who reads my stuff!

Gif credit goes to @whiteelephantssittingducks​

tw: violence, language, attempted kidnapping

“Are you ready to go, Barry?”

“Yeah, Sally, right behind you. Y/n, do you want to come with us?”

Barry and Sally are at the front door of your apartment, getting ready to pick up the take out for tonight.

“I can’t. I need to stay here and wait for Steve,” you explain to your father, remaining seated on the couch.

Steve is your classmate and Chemistry lab partner. You started out as friends but you quickly developed a crush on him. He developed feelings for you as well. After you told each other how you felt, you started dating. He’s your first boyfriend and you’re really happy right now. Steve’s coming over tonight to have take out and watch a movie with you, your father and Sally.

When it came to Steve, Barry communicated in grunts and quiet passive aggressive comments. You liked Steve a lot and really wanted your dad to get along with your new boyfriend. Steve’s a great guy and so good to you, you hope that he will be around for a while. Getting your father’s approval would make things a lot easier going forward. You planned this night in hopes that Barry would get to know Steve more.

“Just leave the door unlocked, dad. Steve’s going to be here any minute,” you tell Barry.

“Hmmmm,” Barry sighs.

The thought of leaving the door unlocked made him uneasy. A few weeks ago, you and Barry found a manilla envelope slipped underneath the door, filled with surveillance photos of the two of you. He’s been extra cautious and looking over his shoulder ever since.

“Come on, Bar, we’ll be back in like fifteen minutes,” Sally tries.

“I’ll be fine, dad! I’ve got a baseball bat in my room and I can totally take on anybody who dares to break in,” your face lights up.

“Y/n, honey, we’ve already been over this. You can’t take on an intruder with your bat,” Barry shakes his head.

Sally takes Barry’s hand and leads him out the front door, “Be back soon!”

Barry closes the door behind him, locking it. Sally shrugs and shakes her head. She doesn’t know the real reason Barry wanted to keep the door locked and just assumes he doesn’t want Steve to come over.

“I think you should lighten up on Steve a bit,” Sally tells Barry as they start walking towards the stairs.

“What?”

Barry snaps back to reality. He then decides to go along with Sally rather than tell her the truth.

“Why? He’s dating my kid and it’s my job to look out for her. I won’t let her get hurt.”

“Oh please! He’s harmless. Trust me, there were signs with Sam in high school that I completely overlooked but now I know what to look for. Steve is not like that at all,” Sally nods, “He’s just a sweet kid who looks after his single mom, plays D&D with his little brother and is crazy about your daughter… but not in like a creepy Fear sort of way.”

“How do you know so much about Steve?” Barry raises an eyebrow.

“Y/n told me! And she’d tell you too if you weren’t so weird about it all the time,” Sally answers.

While your father and Sally are out picking up the food, Steve texts you to tell you he’s on his way. You run up to the front door and unlock it once again before going to your bedroom to change into a cuter top. You want to look nice for Steve. You look yourself over in the mirror when you hear the front door open. It must be Steve! Excited, you rush out to greet your boyfriend.

“Hey St-” you stop mid-sentence and gasp. It’s not Steve.

An older, scary looking man stands before you. You’ve never seen him before, you’d remember if you had. You quickly go back to your bedroom and grab the baseball bat you keep by the door.

“Get out of here!” you swing your bat at the man, taking a step forward to get out of your bedroom.

The man takes a step back and narrowly misses getting hit. You take another step forward and swing at the bat. The man steps backwards once again, but doesn’t avoid the bat. You hit him in the arm and he yelps in pain. You swiftly swing your bat a third time, but this time the man grabs the other end and stops your swing mid-air.

“Shit!” you mutter to yourself.

The stranger takes hold of the bat and roughly yanks it out of your hands, causing you to fall down. The man throws the bat on the ground towards the door as you stand to your feet. He slowly approaches you and you nervously back away from him. The man had a smirk on his face, you could tell he was enjoying this.

“Who are you? What do you want?” you ask, protectively crossing your arms over your chest.

You back into the wall. The man stops a few feet away from you, but he’s so much larger than you that there’s no way you could get around him. You’re out of moves. He has you cornered now.

“Your father took something from me… someone. In my own home. So I figured I’d go over to his place and return the favor. Take something from him,” the man explains, “I’ve been watching Barry for weeks and you’re the most important thing to him.”

“So you’re the one… who left the pictures under the door?” you gulp. Your heart is racing right now, you’re terrified.

The man nods, “Your father is going to pay for what he did.”

He pulls out a switchblade from his back pocket. You gasp.

“No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no….” you plead, “Please don’t kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you...yet. You’re coming with me,” the man reaches out to grab you.

“HEY!”

Suddenly Steve jumps in front of you, bat in hand. He swings the bat at the intruder’s hand, causing him to drop the switchblade.

“STEVE!”

He takes a step forward and another swing at the bat and hits the intruder in the chest. Steve confidently flips the bat in his hands and takes another swing at the intruder, striking him in the arm. He’s pushing the intruder away from you.

“Stay away from her!” Steve yells.

Steve takes another swing at the bat and the intruder grabs onto the other end, just like he did with you. The man then sucker punches Steve in the face, causing him to drop the bat. He falls back and almost hits the coffee table.

“No!” you scream.

The intruder starts charging for you. Steve rises to his feet, picking up a remote off the coffee table and flipping it from one hand to another. He impulsively punches the intruder in the face. The man falls to the floor. A breathless Steve runs his fingers through his hair, drops the remote and picks up the bat. He looks down at the intruder - making sure he doesn’t get up again. Your attacker is knocked out cold.

“Steve!” you run up to your boyfriend, “Are you okay?”

“Sorry I was late! My mom had to work a double shift… I needed to make my brother dinner….”  Steve tries to catch his breath, “Are you okay?”

You and Steve wrap your arms around each other. You give him a small kiss but you’re both breathless. You look each other over to make sure you were both okay. You had no idea Steve had that type of fight in him.

“How did you know how to do that bat flippy spin thing? That was awesome!” you brush some hair out of his face.

“I don’t even know! It just happened,” Steve shakes his head, “Who the fuck was that guy? Did he hurt you?”

“I…..” you have no idea what to say or where to begin.

The front door creaks open, startling you. Steve instinctively puts himself in front of you and gets the bat ready, protecting you from whatever is about to come through the door.

“What the hell happened here?”

You and your boyfriend sigh in relief and put your guard down when you see Barry and Sally walk in. They just got back from picking up the take out. Steve puts the bat down at his side.

“Dad!”

You and Barry rush towards each other. He pulls you into a big hug, then puts his hand on your shoulders and looks you up and down for any injuries.

“What happened?” Barry asks in a low, serious voice.

“This guy came in and… and Steve…he saved me,” you tell your father.

Barry’s eyes widen as he looks down at the unconscious intruder and then back at you. You give him a small nod. Barry quickly puts the pieces together and figures out who this man actually is.

“What?” Barry is stunned.

“Oh my God! I’m so happy you’re okay,” Sally approaches you.

Sally wraps her arm around your shoulder. You pull away from your father and give Sally a hug. Barry stares at Steve, not sure how to react.

“When I got here this dude was coming at y/n with a knife. I fought him off,” Steve explains, “I think he wanted to kidnap her or something. What kind of psycho does something like that?”

Barry’s face drops. He knows the intruder’s motive. The only reason this man was after you was because he was trying to get to Barry. He looks at you and Sally.

“Is that true?” he asks you.

You nod and look down at your feet. Barry takes a deep breath and coldly stares at the unconscious man on his floor. He’s so mad that this guy went after you. All Barry wants to do is kill him right now, but he can’t. He’ll deal with this piece of shit later.

Barry looks up at his girlfriend, she always had a way of calming him down. Sally gives Barry the ‘I told you so’ look. She was right, Steve’s a good guy.

“Thank you, Steve,” Sally nods.

Barry sighs and turns back to Steve.

“Thank you for, uh, saving my daughter,” Barry says sincerely.

[let-it-raines]

Hi! Can I request a secret relationship prompt where Emma and Killian have kept their relationship from David? Angst with a happy ending please 😘

So @initiala left tags on this prompt story of mine about Emma leaving a hickey on Killian and him getting written up by his officers for it, and I loved it so much that I thought I should include it in a story. It just happened to be in this one. So thanks for that, lovely! I hope you guys enjoy this one! I’m rather fond of it💙

-/-

“There’s not a day will go by I won’t think of you,” he’d said before he boarded a bus with a bright smile on his face, one that she loves and one that she knows was to reassure her for all of the time that he’d be gone.

-/-

Her leg shakes as she sits on the ground of Logan International, her skin practically vibrating to the point where she’s no longer chilled from the outside temperature. It’s December and Boston is covered in snow flurries and deep winds that have her wearing far more than her usual light sweater and leather jacket. She pretty much looks like a snowman or burrito at all times, and that’s fine until she’s trying to do a honey trap and has to wear a short dress. Not surprisingly, creepy men are not attracted to the puffer jacket.

Being a bail bondsperson is weird, but it’s not like she has a lot of job options. It pays well, it can be interesting, and she’s damn good at it. That’s all that really matters.

Last night she’d been out late on a stakeout trying to find this guy who skipped out on his court date, and even though her tip said he’d be at O’Grady’s, he wasn’t. She swears she’s never going to find him, which kind of sucks since the payoff would be fantastic, especially since she has a few last-minute Christmas gifts to buy. But it’s fine. She’ll find him eventually, and really the only inconvenience that Matthew Tooker has caused her is the fact that she hasn’t slept in a solid twenty-two hours.

And she’s really hyped up on coffee.

Like, a lot of coffee.

Which is usually fine, but she’s anxious, could throw up right here anxious, and instead of being a normal human being and showing up right when the flight is landing, she showed up a solid two hours ahead of time like she’s the one boarding a flight or something.

It’s been a long two hours.

Really, it’s been the longest thirteen months of her life, but it’s almost over. The entire thing is almost over, and that’s all that matters. She made it. They made it. Nothing else matters.

Except maybe the fact that she’s about to vibrate out of her skin for how anxious she is.

Anxious. Excited. Same thing.

Her fingers are constantly sliding across her phone, checking to see if a message has popped up, and when one doesn’t, she checks the flight’s tracker to see that its landed. But she knew that. His plane has been on the ground for at least thirty minutes now, and she has no idea where he is.

She’s not going to freak out. She’s simply not.

She’s going to wait for Killian to show up, kiss the holy hell out of him, and then absolutely never let him go until she has to. Or until she falls asleep. She’s really ready to fall asleep. He probably is too. The poor man is most likely exhausted.

(And she knows that her never letting him go doesn’t mean he’ll never have to leave again, but she’s hopeful enough to wish for that.)

She looks down to check her phone again, the messages still empty except for a text from David about where she is and one from Ruby talking about her date last night, and disappointment settles in her stomach even as a flux of new people come through the baggage claim gates.

Please be there, please be there, please be there.

Rising from her spot on the ground, she brushes her leggings off and stuffs her phone in her waistband before picking up her jacket and looping it over her forearm. It’s kind of a mess with all of the harried people looking for their bags or trying to get ahold of their children, so her moving through it isn’t helping the madness at all. But she doesn’t care. No part of her cares because her boyfriend is coming home, and she needs to feel the strength of his arms and the warmth of his skin around her. It’s been far too long, and she’s scared that she’s forgotten just how comforting his embrace can be and just how much she loves the smell of him.

How could she forget such a wonderful thing?

Her eyes scan the room looking for the dark hair that’s going to be a little shorter than what she’s used to and the skin that’s going to be a bit more tan. She should not have watched those videos of soldiers reuniting with their families because now that’s all she can think about as her heart beats so quickly that it may very well have moved from her chest to her stomach to her freaking right calf, which is funny because she seems to only hear it – feel it– beating between her ears like a drum that’s sound has been amplified.

“Swan!”

Her head whips so quickly before she even realizes which direction his voice was coming from. She heard him, heard the deep vibration of her last name rolling off of his tongue, but she can’t find him.

“Emma,” Kilian repeats.

She turns to her right, and suddenly he’s there.

He’s here.

She takes exactly six steps forward until her arms are wrapping around his neck, his arms wrapping around her back, and the warmth and strength that she remembered is exactly the same. Her memories don’t compare to the reality, though, and she buries her nose in his neck, breathing him in. He mostly smells like that awful stale scent of an airplane, but she can detect the smallest whiff of his cologne, the one she sent to him a few months ago along with a bottle of her perfume, and she nearly chokes on her sob at the smell of it.

“Did you miss me?” Killian jokes while his hand runs up and down the length of her back, every inch of her skin turning into gooseflesh that has her hair on edge and her stomach doing that weird flippy thing again.

“You know I did. That’s a mean question,” she huffs against his skin. Her hand slaps the back of his neck before she threads her fingers through his hair as much as she can. She absolutely cannot wait until he gets to grow it back out.

She has a bit of an obsession with his hair.

It’s wonderful. And so damn soft.

“I missed you, love,” he whispers into her ear, squeezing her a little bit tighter before pulling back and running his hands up her body, every touch just as electric as earlier, before he’s cupping her cheeks, rough fingers holding onto her while soft, affectionate blue eyes stare down at her. They’re so much better in person than in a video. “You look tired.”

“That’s a really sucky thing to say to me right now.”

“I’m simply trying to check my chances of getting lucky later.”

“Oh my God,” she laughs, slamming her lips forward until Killian’s are pressing against hers. She thought that his embrace was just the same, that it was warm and welcoming and felt like home, but it doesn’t compare to this. It doesn’t compare to the softness of his lips and his clean-shaven skin or the way that his hands inch back to settle themselves in her hair so that he can guide her head, tilting it to the side while his tongue runs across the seam of her lips and sends pleasure all the way down her spine.

This is like coming home.

He’s home.

No part of her cares that they’re in a very public place right now, so she holds on a little more tightly, kisses him a little more deeply, and revels in the feeling of every inch of her body pressed up against his until there’s an obnoxious wolf whistle in the background that has them breaking apart for air, foreheads resting against each other while Killian keeps lightly brushing his lips over hers as she laughs and groans all at once.

“You want to go home, sailor?”

“You have absolutely no idea much I want that.”

The drive to her apartment is possibly the longest car ride of her entire life. Because of course there’s construction and a road closure and traffic backed up for at least a mile. And she’s an awful human being for griping and complaining about traffic being backed up because there’s probably an accident and all she really wants is to get back to her apartment to fuck her boyfriend.

Priorities and all.

But they do get to her apartment, an hour after leaving the airport, and Killian crowds her against the door before she can even get the key out to unlock it. His body is warm even through her jacket, and she gulps as his hands snake up underneath it to play with the skin above her waistband while his lips brush against the shell of her ear, his warm breath hitting against her cool skin. She already feels like she’s on fire, and it’s got to be below freezing outside.

Leaning back into him, she lets his fingers tap against her stomach while his lips keep moving against her neck, lulling her into such a state of hazy arousal that she forgets that they’re outside until he speaks. He’s really good at kissing her neck. Damn.

“Darling, as much as I’d like to take you against this door, I do believe it’s highly illegal if we’re in your hallway instead of your apartment.”

“I can’t reach my key with you like this.”

Killian grunts in response before he backs up, the loss of heat immediate even though he doesn’t let go of his hands on her hips as he still digs his fingers into her hip bones. She can barely think when he’s touching her like this. It’s been so damn long, and a part of her was seriously considering letting the two of them get arrested for public indecency if it meant that she got to be with him again. But she’s not going to do that, so with shaky hands, she finally gets her key out of her purse and unlocks the door, pushing it open as she walks inside with Killian right behind her.

He doesn’t give her a chance to do or say anything before he’s caging her in against the inside of the door, murmuring a pretty loud and desperate “finally” as his one hand grabs onto her ass and the other her face while his lips devour hers once more. She really can’t think when he’s kissing her like this, all hunger and lost patience and heat, so she tries not to as her hands run the length of his arms over and over again while his tongue plunges into her mouth and makes her gasp with pleasure. Eventually her hands find underneath his shirt, pushing up beneath the material to feel muscles and soft curled hair that she knew she missed but not quite so badly until it was between her fingers again.

“Take off your shirt,” she mumbles as her head tilts back against the doorframe while Killian works at her collarbone, running his tongue against the dip while she aches for his beard to grow back.

“So demanding.”

“The faster you take of your shirt the faster we can get down to business.”

“Technically, love, I believe you should want me to take off my pants then.”

“That – ah –  ” He nips at her skin, and she practically melts right there against her door. “ – too. That too. Take it all off.”

“As you wish.”

It takes far longer for them to get to her bedroom than it ever should, but Killian seems to be determined to take his time to work at every inch of her skin that’s exposed as they shed their clothes. There’s a particular delay when she takes her bra off, and he spends a solid ten minutes talking and, well, not talking about how much he’s missed her breasts. But they do eventually get to the bedroom, all of their clothes littering the apartment, and she gets to take the time to show him just how much she’s missed every inch of his skin, her lips tracing a path down his chest and on his hip so her tongue can mark the ink that’s tattooed there. And when she finally wraps her lips around his length, the groan that passes through Killian’s lips is nearly enough to make her fall apart right then and there.

She never wants him to leave again.

“God, Emma, fuck, love, I – ”

She looks up at him from between his legs and hums around him at the same time that she winks, and the way his lips part in bliss nearly kills her. He’s so beautiful, and if she’s reducing him to sputtered words, he must be close.

No part of her is ready for this to be over. Not yet.

Releasing him, she presses her lips against his shaking inner thighs as he curses at her. She giggles in response, climbing up his body and resting her core against his length so that they can both get a little friction as she works the beginnings of a mark into his neck like she’s a teenager.

It’s not her fault, really. She simply can’t help herself.

“You’re driving me mad, woman,” Killian grunts as he grabs a handful of her ass, squeezing it then gently slapping the skin there. “You bring me to the edge only to pull back.”

“Didn’t want you to have all of the fun without me.”

“You looked like you were having fun.”

She rolls her eyes before pushing up to kiss the corner of his lips as he squeezes her ass again, the hair on the back of her neck rising with that. “I love you, Lieutenant Jones.”

“I love when you use my ranking like that.”

Emma laughs as she presses her nose into his cheek, rolling her hips at the same time so that Killian’s tip brushes her folds and fills her with just enough warmth to be a tease.

“And I love you,” he promises as his hands travel up the length of her body, holding onto her hips and she sits down on his lap, rising on her knees and slowly guiding Killian into her until he’s fully enveloped within her.

Every part of her knows that it was this good before, but it’s hard to think of any of that when she can feel the warm stretch of having him inside of her once more. Her eyes slam shut as she rocks a bit, testing the limits of their time apart while Killian’s grip on her waist tightens enough to leave red marks. This is absolutely everything she’s wanted, dreamed about, and she wouldn’t change a damn thing.

“Oh fuck that’s good,” she gasps as she rocks a little more, her fingers curling into his chest hair while Killian looks at her with hooded eyes, the blue a little darker than usual. He seems to be watching where they’re joined, the in and out of his cock with her body, and she smiles to herself as heat continues to curl between her legs.

She’ll never get over how Killian is with her at any time, but how he is when they’re being intimate reaches a whole new level of closeness. And maybe it’s kind of hot for him to run his tongue over his bottom lip while he watches her sink down on him.

Her rocks are slow until she needs something different, leaning forward and propping herself further onto her knees as she moves a little more quickly, letting Killian use his hips to trust up into her as much as he can. Her lips find his neck again, working at that same spot, and she gets lost in it all until Killian’s hand finds where they’re joined and begins rubbing hard circles against the slick flesh. She forgot how close he was to falling over the edge earlier, and from the way he’s working her and making the coil in her stomach tighten and her breaths shorten as sweat rolls down her back, she knows that he’s nearly there again.

She moves her lips from his neck to his own soft lips, capturing his breath and his words with her mouth so that they can be connected in every way possible. His hand not driving her into madness settles at her hip, holding her steady all the while she bunches her hands into the sheets above Killian’s head, holding on so tightly that she could probably rip the material. But then her skin is tingling, pleasure and pain all mixed into one, and she has to stop moving her lips against Killian’s as she falls, her legs no longer able to keep moving.

In her hazy state she can feel Killian continuing to keep pumping inside of her, and it’s not long until she feels the warmth of him falling too, everything dulling around her until she focuses on the steady beat of his heart underneath her ear that she’s been waiting on hearing for an entire year. There are a lot of things you can share over letters and facetime, but there’s nothing quite like being able to feel and hear Killian’s heartbeat under the warmth of his chest.

It’s an entirely different ballgame than simply seeing him smile over a blurry screen.

She’ll take those blurry smiles every day of the week too.

She’ll take it all.

But she doesn’t have to because he’s here. She can see the real, clear ones, the smiles where he’s looking at her like she was the one to hang the stars in the sky that guide him home at night.

After a few minutes of sitting in silence with Killian rubbing his hand up and down her back and intermittently brushing his lips against her temple, Killian gently rolls her over onto her back before he rises from the bed. She whistles at the view of his ass, and she can tell that he gives her an extra bit of swagger as he makes his way to the bathroom, coming back with a wet washcloth and wiping down her thighs while she simply lays there and stares up at him with what she’s sure is a dopey smile on her face.

No part of her cares.

(She’s also got to get up to go to the bathroom but whatever.)

Killian tosses the cloth in her hamper before crawling back in bed with her, peppering kisses on her ankle and up her leg until he’s resting his head on her stomach, cheek squished into her skin. She smiles down at him while her hand reaches to brush through his hair, moving the sweaty strands back. He must have not had his hair shaved recently with how much there is despite there being less than usual.

She loves him a ridiculous amount. The eye crinkles kill her.

“The view of your breasts is really rather fantastic from down here.”

“It’s better from up here.”

He hums at the same time that he nudges his nose against the underside of her boob, seemingly content to keep teasing her. “Have I told you that I love you yet today?”

“Mhm.”

“Or that I’ve missed you?”

“You’ve said that too.”

“Or that not a day went by where I didn’t think of you.”

“Oh you didn’t say that one.”

“Not a day went by where I didn’t think of you.”

She hums as the sweat begins to dry on her forehead and a chill runs over her body from the ceiling fan running at full speed above them. “I’d say the same thing, but there was this one day where I slept the whole time so I’m not sure quite what happened there.”

“You were probably dreaming of me.”

“Sure. Let’s go with that,” she laughs while her fingers leave his hair and trail down the side of his neck where the beginnings of a bruise are forming. “I think I may have teased your skin a bit too much here.”

Killian’s eyes close as he chuckles, his chest rumbling with laughter, and she watches as his lips form into a bright smile that show her all of his white teeth while the corners of his eyes crinkle.

“Why are you laughing?”

“Swan, you’ve got this nasty habit of giving me hickeys despite the fact that we’re two grown adults.”

“I do not do that.” He raises a brow and doesn’t say anything else. “What?”

“Emma, my love, right before I was deployed, we had several rather frantic lovemaking sessions, and I swear to you that I was covered in hickeys all across my skin.”

She shrugs. “Just giving you a reminder of me to hold onto.”

He laughs again as his hand fumbles around the mattress until he finds her free one, interlocking their fingers and bringing her knuckles to his mouth, kissing each one individually. “And while I appreciate that, I had to try every bloody method in the book to get rid of them before we deployed. But I couldn’t, and I got written up for a solid three days in a row. Will and Robin are still talking about it.”

“Wait. What?”

“Swan, I’m not supposed to have damn hickeys. At least visible ones. It’s against uniform code, which is fine. I’m mostly arsed about it because my mates took the piss out of me for it. Do you know how many jokes can be made about hickeys?”

“Not a clue.”

“A hell of a lot.”

Emma hums, her cheeks heating with flush, and runs her hand down from his hair to his neck so that her fingers can press against the red mark that’s forming. “So Will and Robin were assholes over it then?”

“Yep, but between you and me I believe it’s because they’re jealous they don’t have girlfriends like you to give them rather teenager-ish love bites.”

“Obviously. I am quite a catch.”

“I tend to think so.” He brings their knuckles to his lips to kiss again, and she sighs in contentment over this. She still can’t believe that he’s here, that he’s home, and she never wants to let go. She still kind of thinks that this is all a dream, but she knows that it’s real. “Did you happen to go buy groceries before I got here, or do we need to order take out?”

“What do you think?”

“I’ll call Mr. Wong’s.”

While Killian orders their food, she gets up to go to the bathroom and wash her face, spending some time to work through the mess that is her hair. She can feel the chill from outside finally beginning to seep through the walls, but instead of completely getting dressed, she simply puts on a new pair of underwear and one of her oversized sweaters that falls to her upper thighs. Her apartment isn’t big, just the bedroom and bathroom cornered off to the end while everything else fills the room in the entryway, and since she doesn’t really feel like moving too far, she settles back down in bed, clicking on the remote and scrolling through Netflix to try to find something for she and Killian to watch while they eat. She promised not to watch approximately ten different shows without him, and she spectacularly failed at that promise.

It’s fine. It’s all fine.

“Lunch is ordered, love,” Killian says as he shuffles through his bag until he finds a pair of plaid pajama pants that hang low on his hips, showing off the muscles that are a little more defined than usual, not that she’s complaining. “Should be here in about thirty minutes. They’re backed up apparently.”

“That’s fine. I need to – ” Her phone starts ringing on the bedside table and she reaches over to grab it. “It’s David,” she tells Killian before answering. “Hey.”

“Hey,” David greets, his voice far too loud. How is he so chipper right now? How is he so chipper all of the time? “Are you working today?”

“Um, just doing research. Why?”

“Because Killian is coming home tonight, and I thought we’d all take him out to dinner.”

Killian’s brow raises at the sound of his name, and she shrugs her shoulders as she keeps listening to David talk about dinner plans. Killian settles down on the bed, and just as she thinks he’s about to lean closer so that he can hear more of her conversation, he grabs her ankle and begins pressing slow kisses against her skin as he works his way up the inside of her leg. It sends vibrations throughout her entire body, especially because his eyes never leave hers (the bastard), and she knows that he’s doing this on purpose. She really knows when he starts working at her inner thigh while his fingers brush over her center, and she has to bite down on her bottom lip so hard that she can taste iron filling her mouth.

“What was that?” her brother asks.

“Nothing,” she squeaks, raising her hips up to Killian’s touch as he slides her underwear to the side. She should have never answered this phone call. “So w-what about dinner? You don’t think maybe we should let Killian rest?”

“I think he’ll be excited to see all of us,” David explains while Killian very pointedly drags his tongue up between her folds, making her entire body heat and squirm all the while she has to hold back her gasp on the phone to her brother. “So where are you thinking he’ll like?”

“I don’t,” she gasps, reaching with her free hand down to Killian to grab onto his hair and hold him still even though that’s the absolute last thing that she wants right now, “know. He’s your best friend.”

David sighs on the other end of the line. “I’ll ask Mary Margaret. Do you – ”

“I have to go,” she practically yells as Killian circles her clit. “Work call.”

“Okay well – ”

She hangs up the phone and throws it down on the bed, slamming her eyes shut as waves of pleasure crest through her. Damn. She really is glad to have him home.

Even if she can’t tell anyone else that he’s currently in her apartment driving her mad with his tongue and his teeth and his lips. They’ve been together for two years, even if he was away for over half of that time, and during all of those months she hasn’t told a single soul that she and Killian are dating. It’s stupid if she thinks about it too much, but she only really knows Killian because he’s been her brother’s best friend for about five years now. And David has always been obnoxiously weird about her dating his friends.

She’s pretty much dated all of his friends.

It’s difficult to meet people, okay?

When she was a teenager she was with Neal. It was all kinds of puppy love until it was decidedly not puppy love with him framing her for stealing watches and sending her to jail for eleven months. She despises the ground he walks on, and the amount of therapy she’s gone through to get to where she is today would absolutely blow most people’s mind. She doesn’t know what she’d do if her mom hadn’t had the resources to help her out. She doesn’t know what she’d have done if she hadn’t accepted the help. She was bitter for a long time, deservedly so she thinks, and there are still times when she has nightmares about the injustice that was done to her.

No part of her thinks that she was this innocent flower child in high school, but she wasn’t a criminal. She should have never gone to jail.

She should have never trusted Neal.

And she has a hard time trusting people, which is probably why she’s had a tendency to date people David is friends with. For awhile, she didn’t want anything more than to scratch an itch, but then she moved to Boston and slept on David’s couch and began dating his roommate Graham.

Graham, who was as sweet as can be and who she was emotionally unavailable to for the longest time. But he still kept trying, was still kind to her, but at some point they both realized it simply wasn’t going to work. And if they realized it through a series of awful fights that still make her cringe, that’s another matter. Graham had to move out of the apartment – even if he didn’t technically have to– and that made work for David incredibly awkward. It made her relationship with David awkward too, and he pretty much forbid her from dating his friends.

As if he could tell her what to do.

That’s probably what upset her most of all. She’s an adult. She can make her own choices, and her older brother doesn’t get to make them for her. And while their relationship is back to normal now, they did go through some difficult times. So when she and Killian happened to get drunk on a night out in September of two years ago and sleep together, they both agreed that no matter what, they weren’t telling David. And it was going to be fine. It was just supposed to be a one time thing. But then it happened again…and again…and again, and eventually they decided to move on from sleeping together to actually dating. It was terrifying, but it works.

Plus, the thrill of it all kind of made things all the better.

She was happy and in love and laughed more than she’d ever laughed in her entire life, but then Killian told her he was deploying to South Korea and even though he wasn’t in real danger, her heart absolutely fell to pieces. She told herself that it would be fine, that she would be fine, that they would be fine. She doesn’t mind being on her own, and she wouldn’t miss Killian that much.

She missed him every damn day.

It was an entirely new world for her, one she’d never experienced with anyone before, and her respect for those with significant others in the military increased tenfold. She missed him, plain and simple, and she still can’t quite believe that he’s home.

And eating her out like a man starved.

She definitely approves of that.

It doesn’t take much longer before she falls apart, her orgasm rolling through her in short waves, and just as Killian is nuzzling his nose into her thigh, the doorbell rings with their lunch. The two of them lounge around in bed as they eat their food, handing over the containers to each other to share, and let episodes of Elementary play in the background. It’s nice, more than nice, and she absolutely never wants to move from this bed, especially as Killian makes her laugh so much that her stomach is absolutely convulsing in joy.

“You’re ridiculous,” she sputters, twisting around on the mattress and resting her temple against the headboard. “How in the world do you know all of the lyrics to every Spice Girls’ song?”

“It’s part of a requirement to living in England.”

“Is that why you had to move to America? Your Posh Spice impersonation wasn’t up to snuff?”

Killian reaches over and pinches her thigh while she kicks out at his leg. “You know why I moved here, and it wasn’t because my bloody Posh Spice impersonation wasn’t enough.”

Her eyes roll. Ridiculous, she thinks again. Ridiculous man.

“I’ll tell you what I want what I really, really want,” she teases before standing on the bed, moving down toward the end and hoping down to the floor. “I want to take a shower because we have to get ready to go to dinner with my brother.”

“Do you think I can lie and say my flight is delayed?”

“Probably.”

Killian clicks his tongue behind her, and before she can fully strip out of her sweater, he’s wrapping his arms around her waist, fingers splayed against his stomach, and nuzzling his chin into her shoulder. “You don’t think that makes me the worst person?”

“Oh no, it does, but I’m encouraging it.”

“Good.” He starts walking the two of them backwards until they fall back onto her bed. “I plan on not letting you go until I absolutely have to.”

-/-

“I cannot believe you chickened out and are making us go out to dinner,” she huffs as they walk through downtown on the way to David and Mary Margaret’s apartment later that night. “Like, I didn’t even get a chance to take a real shower because you had some kind of brain aneurism and felt guilty about skipping dinner when it was your idea in the first place.”

Killian chuckles beside her, his breath turning white in the air, before his arm wraps around her waist and tugs her closer, warming her with the continual movement of his hand and the press of his lips against her temple. Their ears are going to fall off even with these beanies covering them, and all she wants is to be inside David’s apartment eating the pizza she knows he ordered for them.

At least she hopes that David ordered. When Mary Margaret orders sometimes things get a little dicey. At least they’re not going out to eat since Killian told her brother he was a bit too knackered to do anything other than sit on the couch and eat at home. Of course, he could have done that in her apartment, but apparently, he too good of a person to completely cancel on David and Mary Margaret.

They finally get to the apartment building, her fingers nearly frozen off, and instead of letting her finish typing in the code to get in, Killian pulls her to the side and presses her up against the gated fence, cold iron digging into her back while somehow still warm lips press into hers, reigniting the sparks that she never wants to extinguish as Killian nips at her lips, a gasp escaping her as she melts into the kiss.

Well, freezes. She’s freezing, but she’s melting into the kiss. She’s always been an enigma. At least, that’s what Killian tells her.

Killian could tell her that he thinks she’d look better with a third boob if he keeps kissing her like this. And she definitely wouldn’t care.

(Okay, she totally would. That’d be weird.)

“What was that for?” she murmurs as her hands run down his arms until they’re tucking inside of his coat, exploring firm lines and muscles until they find their place in the back pockets of his jeans. Is it to keep her hands warm or feel his ass? No one has to know but her.

(It’s both.)

He doesn’t answer at first, his lips still softly gliding over hers while his hands inch a little higher on her shoulders, fingers landing at her neck while he drags his nail against her skin, a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold running through her.

“I can’t kiss you when we go inside, and I realized that I desperately needed to kiss you once more.”

“Charmer.”

He clicks his tongue, pulling back so that she can see the blue of his eyes. Seriously. How are his eyes so blue? Is that even genetically possible?

“You like my charming ways, love.”

“At least a solid seventy two percent of the time, yeah.”

Killian taps his fingers against her neck before holding onto a bit of her hair, running it through his fingers. She’s missed how he did that. “That’s a passing percentage, so that’s good with me. You ready to go upstairs?”

She nods. “Absolutely.”

Her head is still a little dizzy, her mind a bit jumbled from the feeling of Killian pressed up against her, but she manages to type in the code and open the gate so that they can go inside and take the stairs the three floors up to David and Mary Margaret’s apartment. Mary Margaret opens the door, and the moment her eyes land on Killian, a bright smile breaks out onto her face and she’s very literally shoving Emma aside to hug Killian so tightly that his eyes very well may pop out of his head.

She’d never put that past Mary Margaret.

At least her own brother hugs her first, even if it is a quick little thing before he moves onto her boyfriend. To be fair, she did pretty much smother Killian when he got home, but she’s also very much in love with him. She can do things like that.

“I ordered some pizza from Rose’s,” David explains when all of the hugging is over and they’re settled into the warmth of the apartment, jackets and hats shed and hung on the back of the door. “And we have water, beer, rum.”

“And lemonade,” Mary Margaret pipes in.

“And lemonade,” David continues, waiting behind the kitchen island.

“Water is fine. I still feel a bit parched from traveling. Swan?”

“Water. You’re really going all out if you bought rum and pizza for Killian.”

“Mary Margaret wanted to do so much more, so I promise you this is tame.”

“Just throw me under the bus, why don’t you, sweetie?” Mary Margaret huffs.

“She also tried to order pineapple pizza.”

Mary Margaret chunks an empty plastic water bottle at David, hitting him in the back of the head, and he barely even acknowledges it, continuing to open pizza boxes and get out paper plates and full water bottles.

True love and all that.

“So how happy are you to be home?” Mary Margaret asks.

They’ve all settled down into the living room, David and Mary Margaret sitting on one couch while she and Killian take the loveseat, two separate blankets pulled over their laps since she’s still freezing, the apartment suddenly not as warm as she thought it was when they walked in. The warm pizza, though, is pretty much the greatest thing she’s ever eaten, and she could probably go through an entire box. By the speed that Killian is going, he could go through two.

“Words can’t express how happy I am,” he laughs, the joy in his voice obvious as he holds his slice of pizza in his hand. His happiness means everything to her. “I mean, I can sleep. I can eat my favorite foods. I can catch up on some of my shows. My God, I have so many shows to catch up on.”

His eyes dart toward her, and she knows that he is aware of the fact that she didn’t wait for him.

Oops.

“So you’re more excited to watch TV than to see your friends?”

“Absolutely, Dave. Though I did miss that handsome face of yours.”

“Ba – oh my gosh,” she stutters, nearly calling Killian babe, “you guys are ridiculous.”

“Don’t be jealous that he didn’t miss your face.”

She sticks out her tongue at David because that’s obviously the mature thing to do.

“To be fair,” Killian sighs, “I mostly missed Emma’s ass.” It’s Killian’s turn to get a water bottle chunked at him, from David this time, but he catches it, the plastic crunching under his grip as she and Mary Margaret try to contain their laughter. “What? Your sister has a fantastic ass.”

“It’s true,” she shrugs, hoping too much of her face isn’t as red as the pizza sauce. “To be fair, I missed Killian’s ass too.”

They’re probably pushing it a bit too far, especially with the way that David is glaring at her, but then he turns back to the television and asks what show Killian wants to catch up on, telling him that it’s his night and he can watch whatever he wants. He picks Stranger Things, which doesn’t surprise her at all, and she gives up pretending that she doesn’t know what’s going to happen by the second episode when Killian’s hand ends up on her thigh under the blankets, a comforting presence even when he inches a little too high and causes her breathing to be a little shallow.

In her long list of reasons why she missed Killian – and it’s getting longer every minute – the little things that he does are definitely inching their way to the top. Whenever they sit together or drive somewhere together, his hand is always resting on the inside of her thigh. Sometimes it’s because he’s trying to rile her up, but most of the time it’s because he wants that connection, the one she wants too. This easy intimacy is quite possibly her favorite thing in the entire world, and she never wants to give it up.

Ever.

Even if she knows that Killian is going to complain about her having watched every single show that she told him she’d wait for him for.

Shit happens. She likes TV. Killian was gone for a long time.

He’ll forgive her.

Probably.

“You have new freckles on your nose,” he whispers into her ear, his breath hot on her skin. “And your hair is longer.”

“That tends to happen when I don’t get it cut.”

“Aye, I know.” He squeezes her thigh, and she wonders if it would be too obvious if she kissed Killian right now. Probably. No, definitely. “I’m simply categorizing all of the things that have changed since I left.”

“That might take you awhile.”

“I think I have the time.”

“Hey, Jones,” David calls, and she and Killian both turn their heads to look at her brother, his face hidden in the shadows of the dark room so that it’s only illuminated by the television light, “next time you’re trying to keep a relationship with my sister secret, maybe don’t make out right by the security camera in front of our apartment. And, well, maybe have the balls to ask her out on a date.”

Oh.

No.

Shit.

“Swan?” Killian questions, raising a brow while his lips curve up to the side into that playful smirk she likes all the while her heart feels like it’s definitely mixing in with her small intestine over the fact that David apparently knows about them and sat through this entire dinner and binge watching session pretending he didn’t like a freaking psychopath.

“Yeah?”

“You want to go on a date? Or do you want to go back to your place and give me one of those Navy and David disapproved hickeys?”

“Eh,” she laughs, suddenly feeling much lighter than she thought she would when this moment came to fruition, not that she ever really could have imagined how it could. It certainly wasn’t going to be like this. “We’ve been on lots of dates. Let’s go home and talk about those hickeys and the freckles on my nose.”

Two years later when Killian deploys, Emma doesn’t leave him with a hickey on his neck. Instead she leaves him with a ring on his left hand.

And a hickey on his thigh where no one but her can see.

Killian returns to favor when he comes home.

David approves.

Of the relationship. Not the hickey. That would be weird.

[at-the-exd-of-everythixg]

][Valentine's Day Alphabet for Mahogany][ A || B || E || F || G || H || I || J || K || L || P || Q || R || T || U || X || Y

@blind-mutant

A   :   AFFECTION.   how does your muse show affection?

Maggi Moo is rather physical with their affection for the most part, by slumping against Rhys and gentle headbutts. To them, relaxing your body around someone and trusting them with yourself is the highest form of affection.

But they probably pick up some stuff when they figure out what Rhys likes and Mahogany will pay more attention to getting gifts though and the most common ones are either things they have killed for their mate or little trinkets and flowers that they find.

B   :   BOUQUET.   does your muse like flowers? which ones are their favourite?

Nah, flowers mean nothing to them. Sure, they look nice sometimes but Mahogany just either munches a flower because they spotted a bug on one or they just ignore flowers. Rhys makes them notice flowers a lot more though. If they had to choose, Mahogany would simply say sky flowers or bright flowers (aka blue and yellow flowers).

E   :   EMBRACE.   does your muse like hugs? what are their hugs like?

Mahogany really enjoys hugs once it becomes clear that Rhys likes them too and it's something they can do nicely! They're very constricting in hugs, in the sense that Mahogany will wrap themselves full bodily around Rhys and tangle their limbs up with him. They're long and lanky - a human noodle - so there's a lot of them all around him. They have the type of crushing hugs where Rhys is left gasping a little if they're over excited and the soft gentle hugs are saved for when Rhys is upset or after sex.

F   :   FLIRT.   is your muse good at flirting? how do they flirt?

Mahogany is...not that good at flirting. Mostly because why play about with words when they can just tell Rhys they want his whole fist inside of them? It's so much more easier to male Rhys blush and squirm when they're brutally honest and it's even funnier to smell him getting horny when they're so close yet so far from wherever they're staying at.

But they adore it when Rhys flirts with them, it makes Mahogany feel special and happy to hear Rhys talk so sweetly to just them.

H   :   HEART.   is your muse quick or slow to give their heart away?

It's an honest fifty fifty. Mahogany wouldn't exactly trust anyone, what with their experiences of humans, but once you do win their trust? Then you're pack! Mahogany is part of you and you're part of them. They're heart is entirely devoted and Rhys is extra since he's all they have.

But admittedly they were rather quick in giving their heart to him since they assumed he was one of them when they first met anyway. Admittedly when I think about it, they probably become a bit more sensitive to Rhys's lies since they sting so badly.

I    :   I LOVE YOU.   does your muse find ‘i love you’ easy or hard to say?

Mahogany is someone who feels rather intensely (very different from their pack) but never quite has the words for how they feel? Its maddening. And once they meet Rhys, who seems to have all the words for everything in their heart? Mahogany is smitten and tries to find all the ways they can scream their love back. It's easy for them to tell Rhys that they love him. But it's also hard too in all the worst ways.

J   :   JEALOUSY.   does your muse get jealous in a relationship?

Yes. Unless Mahogany is certain that someone is theirs' as well? Definitely you can expect them to scowl and most likely do worst things if they think someone is coming near their mate. Mahogany wouldn't ever worry about Rhys cheating, it goes without saying that they would wear him as clothes, but its other people who never get the damn message, so obviously Mahogany must throughly snarl at people and fuck Rhys every night and day to make sure people can smell them on him, no matter how many showers he has.

K   :   KISS.   is your muse a good kisser? why / why not? 

Ehhhhh I don't think so? They're messy and honestly, if I want to go a bit deeper into the lore of Mahogany's body and get weird, I'd say that Mahogany doesn't have the mouth for kissing? Like, you know how animal bones are structured different from humans? That. I mean, holy shit, that would add a new level to their body horror honestly, not being able to properly smile or chew like a person? Tbh it'd be a big difference to show that Rhys is a first generation wendigo and Mahogany is a third since his bones would stay relatively unchanged.

Anyway I'm getting off topic and thinking about biology sorry. Aside from all of that, Mahogany is probably far too sloppy and rough to be a good kisser in most people's eyes but Rhys is not only blind, but a weirdo who seems like the kind of guy who would enjoy being thoat fucked by their tongue so..I guess to him they're a good kisser???

L   :   LOVE.   who does your muse love?

They know that they loved their pack, Mahogany knows that they loved their others, little bodies squirming with them under roots of big trees, waiting for a bigger to leave food behind. They know that they loved Older Alpha, who looked at them so sweetly and so sadly and took care of them, even when their jaw was torn out. Knowing that they loved all of those people just makes it all the more harder to know that they lost those people though.

But Mahogany loves Rhys because he's with them and he's the sweetest person they've ever known, how could they not adore him? He's all they need really.

Mahogany wonders sometimes about whether or not they love their mother though. They don't think she would have loved them back.

P   :   PARTNER.   what does your muse look for in a partner? looks / personality?

Mahogany wants someone who's inhuman for sure, mostly because any normal human or human looking person has a quicker chance of being devoured by them. It's more or less the chemistry they have with someone that catches Mahogany's eye than an actual personality trait really.

But still, Mahogany does like someone who isn't afraid to snarl and smile at them.

Q   :   QUESTION.   would your muse ask the big question or expect their partner to?

I mean...Mahogany basically already considers themself married to Rhys. They're pack and they're going to stay together! They're mates! It's probably gonna be a small sucker punch for Rhys when he realises that oh shit Mahogany's basically considered themself married to him since they met. Its fully up to him really if he wants to make a show about asking them or have extra special sex really. They just love their man, you know?

R   :   ROMANCE.   is your muse a romantic or a cynic?

Definitely a little romantic! If Mahogany was human, they'd definitely be the type to always put on really cheesy chick flicks during sleepovers not to mention the one who binges shape of water and writes Frankenstein fanfics. They swoon over Rhys at least once a day otherwise they'll explode.

T   :   TRUE LOVE.   does your muse believe in true love?

They do but they don't realise it. Mahogany knows that they're meant to be with Rhys and absolutely nothing can tear them apart because Mahogany will tear people apart first. No one makes them feel like Rhys does, so obviously it has to be special, right?

U   :   UNREQUITED.   has your muse had their heart broken?

No, Mahogany hasn't ever been close enough to anyone for that. Well, unless you count Rhys telling them he isn't a wendigo heartbreak, then yeah, they're pretty upset and heartbroken about that since it's basically ripping the last piece they thought they had of themselves away.

X   :   XOXO.   does your muse use / like pet names?

Mahogany loves being called sweet things form Rhys! It makes their stomach all flippy and makes their face hot and blushy! They eventually get the hang of nicknames and that's where "Bunny" comes from since he's soft like one and bunnies are very fun to catch and eat when its wintertime. They get huffy if Rhys doesn't call them a sweet name at least once a day.

Y   :   YOURS.   does your muse get protective easily?

Yes, I'd say so judging by the amount of times Mahogany has probably tried to attack people over Rhys, whether they've warranted it or not. Rhys is the only good thing they have left, of course they need to protect him!

[i-heart-danchou]

Divine

So this is for the extremely lovely @lostcauses-noregrets, who asked for a fic that was post ACWNR/pre canon, and also one which focused on the Ackerbond.  I never really thought about what the Ackerbond would feel like before, but I put myself in Levi’s shoes and imagined Erwin.  I think the Ackerbond is a feeling in one’s chest when they’re with their bonded.  A feeling bordering on painful, like love and adoration and hope all blended together.  A feeling of completeness, protectiveness, an instinctive drive to make that person happy.  Not a compulsion, but a gentle, good feeling.  I hope it comes across in this fic! ____________________ In a moment of clarity like he had never experienced before, Levi knew with total certainty that he wanted to stand beside Erwin Smith for the rest of his life.  The sun sparkling behind Erwin’s stupid gorgeous hair, his eyes bright and full of purpose, his hand still bleeding as he reached out towards Levi… Fuck.  Something changed in him that day, and he wasn’t quite sure he knew how to explain it.  Erwin’s voice had cracked something open in his heart, and he felt different now than he ever had before.  Lighter, maybe.  More certain. Levi had known a lot of shitty men in his life, and he certainly didn’t trust easily.  It wasn’t that he trusted Erwin yet either, exactly… that would take time.  It was more that he got a good feeling from him, was intrigued and enthralled by him, and just… wanted to be with him.  He remained largely silent on the muddy ride back to civilization.  He kept his eyes on Erwin’s back, watching the wings of freedom billow out around his broad shoulders.  His gaze kept drifting to the man’s right hand, a twitch of remorse curling at his heart as he saw the steady trickle of blood that was still lazing down his wrist.  In the next few days and weeks he found himself following Erwin probably more than he intended to.  Shadis wasn’t impressed, and the vast majority of the SC still didn’t trust him one little bit. Levi didn’t blame them, but he found it interesting that Erwin didn’t seem to mind.  Hell, it was almost like he’d been expecting the murder attempt.  

**

It was a rainy night; the weather had been far too miserable to allow anything productive to happen outdoors, and Erwin was busy in his office compiling the data from the last few expeditions.   Levi was making himself busy cleaning Erwin’s windows, peering at the man from the corner of his eye and trying to figure him out.

Erwin wasn’t like other men.  Erwin didn’t try to control him, didn’t question or berate him, didn’t try to suck up to him even.  Erwin just was.  He carried himself with beautiful poise and posture which Levi found enticing— he was charismatic and intelligent, he was so stupid attractive that it made Levi want to throw up.  It had mystified Levi, actually, that Erwin hadn’t wanted to talk about what had transpired in the mud on their first mission.  Not wanted to parse Levi’s feelings at losing his friends, not wanted to talk about the attempt on his life.  

“Erwin.”  Levi eventually broke the silence, and it continued to please him that the squad leader never looked angry or annoyed when he spoke.  “You know none of the other SC members want me anywhere near you?  I tried to kill you, Erwin.  Who’s to say I won’t do it again?”

Erwin looked at Levi and a small smile played on his lips.  “I don’t think you will.”  He put his paper down and seemed to consider Levi for a moment.  The man looked positively enthralled, and it made Levi’s heart speed up.  Fuck, this was pathetic— he wasn’t a damn kid anymore, he wasn’t supposed to get fucking infatuated but…

“I’ve been thinking, Levi.”  Erwin said, standing up to make them both a bit of tea.  “I’ve had a few reports of you getting into disagreements with some of the other cadets.”

Levi bristled.  “They’re all fucking disgusting.”  They didn’t clean up after themselves, they didn’t treat him with any damn respect he—

“It’s alright.”  Erwin said pleasantly, maybe he could see the storm brewing in Levi’s eyes.  “I prefer to be alone as well.  You’re welcome to use my office if you wish.  The couch is comfortable, it has a private lavatory, I’m not here all the time.”  

Levi looked incredulous.  “Why?”

“Because I value you.  Because I believe that you offer something irreplaceable to humanity’s fight.  Because I’m intrigued by you, and because I want you to be comfortable and well rested.”

Levi narrowed his eyes.  “People will talk.”

Erwin chuckled.  “Let them talk.”  He made his way to his closet and pulled out a blanket and some pillows.  “They’re wrong about us, and they’re wrong about you.  You and I are going to alter the future of humanity, Levi.  Give it time, they’ll see.”  Erwin’s eyes were sparkling, and Levi’s heart was thumping away in his chest with an excitement that was bordering on unpleasant.  

Fuck, what a man.

**

It took another two expeditions before Erwin was proven right.  Levi was an exceptional soldier; his skills fighting titans were second to none, and the majority of the SC was delighted to have him at their side.  He was strong and capable, he got things done, he saved lives.   Levi was still abrasive, disobedient, and difficult, but he commanded respect wherever he went.  

Shadis however, still struggled to accept him.  At the best of times, Keith was an unsteady hand at the helm of the SC, and it didn’t help that even now Erwin was more popular and respected amongst his recruits.  Having fucking underground Levi come out of nowhere, not listen to anyone but fucking Smith— it was infuriating, and it showed.  

Levi didn’t obey Shadis, he didn’t respond well to shouting and commands.  He listened to Erwin of course, because Erwin was smart and thoughtful, because Erwin didn’t order him around, because Erwin respected him and treated him like an equal.  

Levi had never known a leader like Erwin before, and it further cemented his loyalty and admiration.  

Keith probably worried about how it would look to the other cadets if an underground upstart didn’t obey him, favoring (like most of the cadets did) Erwin Smith and his radical ideas.  So he drew up the plans for the next mission, and intentionally kept Levi and Erwin apart.  They brought out the best in each other, they trusted each other implicitly, which wasn’t really what Shadis wanted to deal with.  

The expedition was a disaster, and Levi couldn’t even look at Shadis as they slouched back to Wall Maria.  His eyes stayed with Erwin, who was pale and gritting his teeth.  There was dried blood caked around his eye, and he was keeping his left arm close to his chest.  

Something was up, Erwin was tense in his shoulders, he didn’t look right.  Levi followed Erwin up to his office and glared at him, silver eyes sparkling with anger.  “You’re hurt.”  He observed.  “How bad is it?”

Erwin gingerly removed his jacket, and Levi’s eyes widened at how swollen and painful his wrist looked as it poked out of his shirt.  

“Take it off.”  Levi ordered.  “Let me see.”  

Erwin smiled despite himself, stripping down to his undershirt for Levi without protest.  He’d sprained his wrist badly, but fortunately it didn’t appear broken.  He didn’t complain when Levi roughly grabbed his arm to examine it, nor when Levi started cleaning out his forehead wound with some extremely stingy and unpleasant liquid procured from a first aid kit.  

“How did this happen?”  Levi grumbled, focusing on the task of cleaning the wound.  He took the matter very seriously; in the underground people died from injuries like this.  

“Jacobs had been grabbed by a titan, I jumped in as soon as I could.  The thing was abnormal, just flicked its arm out at me and sent me to the ground.  I’m lucky it wasn’t worse, honestly.”

Levi narrowed his eyes.  “The whole thing was a shitshow.  This never would have happened if you’d been leading us.”  He looked at Erwin, and his heart did that weird little flippy thing that he hated.  His eyes were so fucking gorgeous, it was probably illegal.  “You should be commander.  Shadis doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

Erwin smiled then, and Levi wondered if they’d fuck.  He’d had guys staring at him like Erwin did his whole life, and usually it culminated in him getting pinned to a wall, him getting kissed, and him slamming his knee up into a set of balls until the hands let go.  But Erwin never touched Levi without his permission… it was baffling.  The man made no sense.  

“Keith tries his best.”  Erwin reasoned, and Levi let his eyes slide along the line of his perfect jaw.  “He’s assured me he’s put me forward as a candidate for future commander, if and when the time comes.  I’ll just have to be patient.”

**

The attack on Shingashina is unexpected and unprecedented.  The worst attack in human history, and the SC was nowhere to be found.  Shadis’ resignation was abrupt and unsurprising, and Erwin Smith was proudly named the thirteenth commander of the Survey Corps.

There was hardly room for celebration… humanity had lost a third of its resources in one day, it was on the brink of starvation, drastic measures would need to be taken and it would all fall on Erwin’s shoulders.   Levi’s heart swelled with pride as Zachley placed the green bolo tie around Erwin’s neck, and nodded his approval as the newest commander marched proudly towards a new future.

He was beautiful, he was charismatic, he inspired confidence wherever he went.  This was a man who could lead humanity to victory, this was a man who could change the world.  Yet Levi could see the uncertainty in his eyes, the slight hesitation in his face.  He followed Erwin to his new office, ignoring the way people watched him linger in Erwin’s shadow.  

Levi wasn’t good at things like this.  He closed the door behind himself and admired the way Erwin stood so tall and so proud with the weight of humanity on his shoulders.  “Looks good.”  Levi said plainly, gesturing to the tie.  “I trust you.”  He added.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever said that to another human being, and he hoped the gravity of his statement wasn’t lost on the commander.

Erwin’s eyes were warm, his smile deep and genuine.  “Thank you, Levi.  That means a lot.”  

Oh, fuck it.  Levi took Erwin’s hand and brought it to his lips, delicately kissing the thick red scar which gnarled the middle of his palm.  He darted his eyes up, and Erwin looked genuinely astonished, but pleased.  

“Levi..”  Erwin started, but Levi wasn’t interested in talking.  He brought their lips together and silenced the commander.  

Levi had assumed their first fuck would be all teeth and tearing at clothes, frenzy and desperation and undignified grunting but… it wasn’t.  It was reverence, it was affection, it was bordering on the divine.   He took his time with Erwin, stripped him down and let his eyes wander.  His heart ached, and he reveled in the feeling.  

This was the man he would follow for the rest of his life.  The man he would kill and die for, the man who would save humanity and all that was good in the world.  He wanted to be at his side, he wanted to aid him, to enable him, to move mountains and see that gorgeous smile again.  

Erwin Smith was everything.  And this was only the beginning.  

[hyunsracha]

rubicund — bang chan

word count: 1.8k

summary: music production major chris really needs a place to live - and you just happen to have a few empty rooms and need a new roommate.

right.

let’s go lesbians!!

so u, lovely lil college sophomore u, lived in an apartment

fuck dorm lives

n ur roommate was ur friend n everything was SICK

until ur friend moved out - to live w his boyfriend -_-

now u were alone :(

and u didn’t have enough money to pay rent by yourself :(

so u either move out! or find another roommate

but ur apartment was way too sick to just MOVE OUT LIKE THAT

so u started advertising hey! i’m a poor college student! be my roommate if ur also in college! hey!

christopher bang, college sophomore, has been kicked out of his apartment.

his roommate, jisung, said, “hey chris? this apartment is a one bedroom n my boyfriend is moving in so …. can u go?” LIKE IT WAS THE MOST CASUAL THING EVER???

SURE JISUNG, I’LL JUST BE HOMELESS!!

chris, the angel he is, agreed.

but now he needed a place to live! hopefully w enough room to set up his recording stuff

so he started looking until- hey! he stumbled upon your ad!

the ad seemed friendly enough, so he went to check it out

u opened the door on a rainy sunday after rushing around to make sure everything looked PERFECT!!

every couch pillow was Fluffed to Perfection >:(( and every surface was Sparking >:((

honestly though?? chris thought U were sparkling

u opened the door, ur face flushed from all the rushing about, and u smiled the most gentle smile ever,

“hi! i’m y/n. you’re chris, right?”

“t-that i am!”

you started giving him a tour of the apartment, making sure to emphasize how good a roommate u were and that u usually stayed in ur room so !! no need to worry about u !!

but chris was !! worrying !!

u were so cute and ur voice was so cute n u seemed so shy and unsure of what u were doing

u were just so soft! how was he supposed to live w the biggest cutie in the world?

“um. i’m a music production major...and i make music with two of my friends, and i usually work at home. is that an issue? would it be too loud?”

“oh no not at all! we have an extra room that my old roommate used as a dance studio, so you could use it as a recording studio or whatever!”

dang it

chris was kinda hoping that his music thing would be annoying so he couldn’t live there

but the house was perfect! and u seemed like the perfect roommate!

a week later, chris was moving in

u helped him, of course, u lil angel

u didn’t really know chris that well, so u didn’t know if he was just a shy dude or if he was nervous around u

news flash: he’s nervous

u were helping him move in??? what a kind soul!!! can u get any cuter >:((

apparently.

he was organizing his stuff that night when there was a light knocking on his door.

it was u

“hey”

“hey?”

“i uh-” u were looking down at ur feet, ur hands clasped behind ur back, “was just wondering if you wanted to come watch a movie with me? i mean, we live together now so we should probably get to know each other and maybe be friends, yanno?”

“o-oh! sure! what movie?”

“i was thinking mulan…”

“ur speaking my language now”

so there u two were, all sprawled out in the living room, covering in soft blankets and chomping down on some snacks.

u two were barely focused on the movie, finding each other much more interesting.

u learned that he made music with his friends jisung and changbin, he was australian, and that the color green really spoke to his soul for some reason he could not understand

“just dye your hair green then” you had joked, to which he responded with “bet!”

and the next night, your glove-covered hands were covered in green as you rubbed them around in chris’s hair.

he told u that his friends kept calling him broccoli chan and that he thought about punching jisung for a long time but he liked it a lot

u felt a sense of pride that u did the hair that chris liked!! yes!! go u!!

as the weeks went on, you and chris only got closer and closer.

and your feelings grew and grew.

at first, you just brushed it off as spending so much time together

but when he spent a few days at changbin’s to finish a few tracks, u found yourself missing him >:(

u missed his stupid broccoli hair and his stupid smile and his stupid giggle and his stupid dad jokes that DIDN’T EVEN MAKE ANY SENSE-

oh no!

u liked chris

now what?

u pretend u don’t and just deal with it on ur own bc confessing is for PUSSIES.

like?? what if he rejected u?? y’all LIVED together- it would be so awkward.

and when he came home u pretended that u DIDN'T miss him

even when he got all up in ur grill like “did u miss me?? u lil cutie i bet u did”

yeah chris is like that

once he was comfortable with u he decided to voice the thoughts he had about u

u stumble into the kitchen after just waking up, messy hair and half-closed eyes?

“UR SO CUTE WOW!!!”

u come home from class super pissed off and pouty?

“HOW ARE U SO ADORABLE??”

well….not all of his thoughts.

he didn’t tell you that he thought about you before going to sleep.

he didn’t tell you that every night, he debated getting up and going to your room, which was just across the hall, and climbing into your bed and cuddling you to death.

he didn’t tell you that every time you were stressing about taking a test or turning in an essay, he just wanted to kiss you and make all your stress disappear.

so basically, he was #whipped

ugh, mutual pining, we love that!

so who does he tell?

no one, dummy

he tells his lyric book!

look at u, getting songs written about u and shit

but one day, jisung found said lyric book.

“oooooh!!!!! who is the target of our channie’s affections??” he had squealed, quickly reading over chris’s scribbled text.

“JISUNG YOU WHORE GIVE IT BACK.”

but jisung - that whore - wasn’t very good at listening. he started rapping what chan had written, even though they were just lyrics without a melody.

“NO you BUFFOON you’re not supposed to RAP it’s a pretty ACOUSTIC song don’t you listen to ed sheeran >:(“

“haha she ran.”

“you fool.”

after minutes of struggling, chris YANKED his lyric book back from the buffoon, shoving it deep into his backpack.

“well you write lyrics about your boyfriend so what’s so weird about THIS?”

“we know who jisung’s boyfriend is but we don’t know who you’re writing about.” changbin stated, not even looking up from his phone.

“it’s uh...my roommate-”

“how cliche-”

“jisung you literally bumped into your boyfriend in the hallway and spilled your coffee on him. you’re the king of cliches. let the man speak.”

ok

changbin snapped?

“um yeah it’s my roommate. y/n. they’re just….i dunno….really cool and nice and cute and...make me feel things i haven’t felt before yeah.”

jisung and changbin shared a look.

“like? butterflies in your stomach and your head’s in the clouds and you feel on top of the world when you’re with them?”

“yeah? and what about it?”

another look.

“interesting.”

jisung quickly delivered this information to his boyfriend, hyunjin.

who just so happened!

to be your ex-roommate.

so he, of course, told you.

“you’re kidding, right?” you asked, not even looking at your laptop screen where hyunjin’s goofy smile was.

“no! jisung had a hard time getting it all out, chris was being so romantic. he couldn’t look me in the eyes for like 20 minutes after.” hyunjin was looking down at his cuticles, his feet propped up on his desk.

since he moved out, this is how you guys talked the most

go over to his new place? no thanks!

jisung was a cool guy but .. he was a slob and you didn’t want to be around that energy

“so. he likes me back.”

“yes- WAIT BACK??? Y/N Y/LN YOU NEVER TOLD ME THIS? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN BACK-”

“sorry jinnie i think the door’s about to open. you should probably sort out that weird no eye contact thing with jisung haha love you bye!” you quickly ended the call, breathing out a sigh of relief.

the door opening was just an excuse, but then the front door opened.

(soulmate culture! thanks)

you popped your head out from around a corner, sending a smile to your roommate.

“hello, love of my life.”

“hello, Christopher.”

“ouch?”

you giggled, “i’m just kidding,” you moved from your spot and plopped down on the couch next to chris, moving your body so you were facing the broccoli-haired boy.

“sooooo…..any interesting conversations today?”

real smooth, y/n. real smooth.

“excuse me?”

“you know...any conversations about roommates that make your heart do flippy things?”

“i’m going to kill jisung.”

“please don’t. if it wasn’t for his big mouth, i might’ve never had the confidence to do this.”

“what is ‘th-’” but he was cut off

by your lips

on his

fun, right?

your hand was so soft on his cheek

and your lips were soft too

he was kind of going insane

this was pure bliss for him

but hey, people gotta breathe

and you, the non-rapper, had to pull away first

you smiled at him, and he was reminded of your first meeting

you were flushed again, and your smile was still so gentle

his heart was pounding, and he didn’t know if it would ever stop

so after giving you a few seconds to breathe, he pulled you in again

he had an inkling he would never get tired of the feeling

everything about you was so soft, so delicate

he handled you like glass

chris was always meticulous, and it was obvious in the way he kissed you.

this time, he pulled away, only to press a soft kiss to your forehead.

“so uhhh...do i like called you my boyfriend now or?”

he laughed. it was the most beautiful sound.

“yeah, i would like that a lot.”

that night, chris followed you into your bed.

and he held you and let the steady pounding of his heart lull you to sleep.

and he fell asleep to the sound of your breathing.

and the next morning, he was the first to wake.

but he used those few minutes before you woke up to just admire you.

when you woke up, he just smiled down at you, “hey.”

your sleepy smile was the prettiest thing he had ever seen.

“hey, boyfriend.”