#or that i wasted two hours on it because my computer failed the first time
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Oh? My fucking god??
THIS WAS THE CONTROLLER FOR THE SUBMARINE THAT WENT MISSING???
The Logitech F710??
Like, okay, apparently the U.S. military* uses Xbox 360 controllers. I get that. It's cheap. It's technology already familiar to many young adults. I get it, I do.
*(fuck 'em)
But still. STILL.
I don't know anything about gamepads, but I do know the Logitech F710 came out thirteen years ago. I just found it on Ebay for $16 including shipping.
But surely that means that through the test of time, the Logitech F710 has proven itself to be the best around, right? A work of video game engineering so flawless, even a relatively sane individual might agree to trust it with their life....right?
Oh. Oh. Jesus Horatio Christ.
Imagine your joystick drifts and your buttons get stuck and your controller lags...while you're steering a submarine...13,000 FEET UNDERWATER.
(That's about 4,000 meters, or just under 2.5 miles. And yes, I know it's actually a submersible, not a submarine.)
Oh my god. Oh my god.
For context, according to Naval Post:
A submarine specifically built to rescue people from subs sunk deep in the sea has a maximum depth of 7,500 to 10,000 feet (2,250 to 3,000 meters). But no, with the Titan, we're talking 13,000 FEET.
So if the pressure at approximately that depth is 5,775 psi, which means 5,775 lbs (2,619 kg)—or ALMOST THREE TONS—per square inch...
...and the atmospheric pressure where I live is sitting at 14.5 psi today...
That means the sheer pressure of the ocean at that depth is, like, 400 times that of the air we breathe. So if your fucking 13-year-old video game controller drifts you into the wreckage of the goddamn Titanic, the moment your hull sustains a little damage, even the tiniest leak, you're gonezo. The sub implodes and you're pulverized. Instantly.
(Plus I hear the compression rate is so extreme, the molecules so fast-moving, that everything heats to combustion in the split second before the water puts it out. So really, you'd be incinerated before you'd be crushed. Ain't that a treat?)
But hey, maybe the pressure hull remains intact and you just lose power. Or get entangled in the wreckage of, again, THE GODDAMN TITANIC.
Then it's just you and your four rich buddies crammed into a metal tube, waiting for your 96 hours of oxygen to run out.
Navigational computers on the fucking floor. No backrests. No seats. No padding. Nothing. Just one small toilet sat in front of one tiny window.
So when the power dies and the lights go out, it's just a claustrophic sardine tin of the wealthy, alone in the suffocating pitch-dark at the bottom of the ocean, choking on the smell of their own shit.
All this, for a quarter of a million dollars per head.
Which they paid even though Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate himself, said that SAFETY IS A WASTE. OH MY FUCKING—
A sadly unshocking thing to hear from the CEO of a company that's engendered safety concerns! For! YEARS!
Also unshocking: the waiver apparently mentions death three times on the first page.
You know.
In case it didn't get through to you after the first two times. Or after reading that the sub is experimental and hasn't been approved or regulated in any remotely meaningful way.
But it's okay if the MacGyvered fucking submarine crumbles like a Saltine cracker, because IT DOESN'T MATTER IF EVERYTHING FAILS! AS LONG AS THE PRESSURE HULL'S INTACT, IT'S OKAY IF YOU'RE STUCK 13,000 FEET UNDER THE SEA WITH A RAPIDLY DWINDLING SUPPLY OF OXYGEN! THE CEO OF OCEANGATE SAID SO!!!
HAHA! HA! YES, THE TOTALLY SUCCESSFUL MACGYVERED SUB WITH A COMPLETELY INTACT PRESSURE HULL!!!!
Oh my god. Oh my GOOOOOOOOD.
But hey! Remember! :) If the Juulpod-sized, Atari-run hunk of hubris doesn't literally fucking implode with you inside it, it's okay that there are 18 bolts locking you in that can't be undone without external assistance! Because Stockton Rush said you're safe as long as the (definitely pristine) hull is still intact!
So if you're bobbing on the surface of the ocean, watching seagulls cross blue sky through your single tiny porthole, listening to the pulse of white-crested waves ruffled by the cool sea breeze, drowning above water because you can't escape the slow ceaseless hourglass that is your stagnant air supply without a rescue crew—a rescue crew that can't even find you because you're mired in a vast expanse of savage ocean and oh, by the way, your communications going down is what started all this in the FIRST PLACE...
...well, don't worry! Titan's many, many, MANY successful past voyages should give you comfort! :)
But, on the very off chance this could be a dangerous and likely deadly situation, tell me: which would be the worst way to go?
Incinerating in the abrupt birth of a terrible, crushing singularity?
Asphyxiating in the lightless abyss that lurks like some arcane hell at the bottom of the ocean?
Or suffocating just as slowly above the water, with air so close you can see the misty breeze yet still...just...out...of reach?
God, I hope we save these dumbass idiots. Especially since one of them's just a 19-year-old kid. I don't even care how rich and stupid they are. I just can't imagine dying like that.
#titanic#oceangate#titanic submarine#titan submarine#titan#ocean gate#missing submarine#submarine#thalassophobia#death#long post#long post cw#june 2023#current events#caps#caps tw
253 notes
·
View notes
Text
Morning Routine Before & After Prison // Kevin Khatchadourian HC
Important Tags! : Brief mentions of online gore, Porn and violent fantasies, male masturbation ig? Not in a sexy sex way, In a canon to the book way.
Requested by @witch-ren
English is not my first language so please forgive any spelling/grammar mistakes. Always appreciate feedback.
Before prison
Kevin doesn't have a strict routine to his mornings, He's quite impulsive, really, Does whatever he wants whenever he wants. The only thing he does everyday with no fail is clean his face.
His wake patterns are inconsistent but usually go between 5am-7am.
The days he wakes up at 7 are the rare days his mom is responsible for driving him to school, He likes making Eva stressed by being ready at the last minute or just straight up taking his sweet time, Making her late for work and other affairs. He doesn't really care if he's late for school it's usually a bonus for him to spend less time in that cesspool.
He likes to alternate between the two to add to her anxiety of not knowing if she should let her workers know she's going to be behind schedule that day.
On the much more common days when his dad gets him to school he likes to have some alone time before he has to put on the mask for the rest of the day.
He sets a morning alarm for 5am, (Sometimes if he's exceptionally tired that morning he snoozes it to 5:30 or 6) It takes him around 5-10 minutes to fully wake up.
Once he gets out of bed he either goes to wash his face and sit on his computer until his parents call him down for breakfast or immediately grabs his archery gear to practice in the back yard, Still in his pajamas.
He could train from 10 minutes to a full hour, De-stressing before he has to play the irritating game of pretend with Franklin, He often imagines people like his family or classmates in place of the target, Sometimes his teachers if he has a test that day or if they were particularly annoying recently.
Once he's finished his morning training he feels like he can finally truly start the day, He like to take a cold shower to cool off from the session (even in the winter).
I feel like he'd be kind of lazy with his hygiene but not to a disgusting degree, Things that wouldn't really be noticeable. Like sometimes not even bothering to shampoo his hair or only using soap on his armpits or not brushing his teeth, Because his hair isn't oily, He doesn't smell bad and he's going to eat before he goes out anyway so what's the point?
Two things he does bother to do is bare minimum skincare and shave his face.
He does both not just to stick to the uncomfortably not age appropriate look he's got going on with the little T-shirts and all, But also because he just really hates the texture of his face when it isn't smooth.
When he started puberty and the hair and zits came onto his face he went crazy picking at his skin and only made it breakout even worse, So he began taking Accutane and shaving his face. The Accutane made it dry and a little flaky which irritated him to no end too so he started using Eva's face cleanser and moisturizer and it solved the problem right up.
He uses her personal moisturizer and cleanser just to be an asshole and make her have to waste her money and buy it more frequently, But he does have a secret stash of one or two containers just in case she stops.
He does everything in the shower, Piss, Brush his teeth (if he bothers to), Jack off, Shaving and skincare.
Sometimes he likes to leave the door open, lower the water pressure of the shower head so it goes quiet and beat his meat really loud just to bother Eva, Every time he hears her slam the bathroom door shut when he does that he can't help but laugh his ass off.
He takes 5-30 minutes to shower depending on how lazy he is that day, When he finishes he takes a peek outside of the door and if his mom's in view he just walks out butt ass naked to irk her even more.
He doesn't care about what he's gonna wear that day, Not like he has much choice between his like 7 T-shirts he's been wearing since forever and 3 pairs of skinny jeans.
If he has some time left before breakfast he goes online to look at stuff, Usually gore or a news report about this school shooter or that serial killer.
When he's done he goes down for breakfast, He's a picky eater, Usually a plain strawberry jelly sandwich or plain cereal, He adds milk to the cereal if he's feeling adventurous that day.
Sometimes he gets caught up with his computer and misses the time window for breakfast or just doesn't feel like dealing with his family in the kitchen and stays in his room, If he didn't brush his teeth that morning he pops a mint or two and goes down the stairs when his parents call him to get in the car.
After Prison
After 7 years of prison Kevin develops a strict routine, Not out of need or compulsiveness, Rather out of being accustomed with it. He becomes very punctual but still wouldn't really mind if his routine gets thrown off schedule.
He wakes up at 5am sharp, He is no longer allowed to practice archery so he exercises in his room until 5:30, He often reminisces about the early mornings he would train in the backyard, Exhilarated by violent fantasies and the wind cooling down his body. In particularly vulnerable moments he closes his eyes and pretends like he's back to that Thursday, Shooting his crossbow in the gymnasium.
When he's finished he heads to the shower, His personal hygiene has gotten better and more thorough in his method. He uses body soap, shampoo and conditioner everyday and brushes his teeth well.
Although while he was incarcerated he was quick with his showers, When he gets out Kevin takes his time and savors every single minute of it, He hated showering next to other disgusting naked people and he hated having such a short time limit for it.
He doesn't use any of Eva's skincare products anymore, He became even more possessive of his belongings after prison and can't even bare the thought of another person using the same soap as he does.
He doesn't leave the door open anymore either, He always checks that it's indeed locked before he gets in the shower.
Kevin still does everything in the shower with the added task of dressing himself, He stopped prancing around naked as it reminds him of prison like previously mentioned, Sometimes Kevin thinks that it might be karma for what he used to do to his mom in his teen years.
He has a timer set for 6:30am, Plenty of time to wash, Dry and dress himself, He almost always finishes putting his shirt on right as the timer dings, He wishes he could wear the T-shirts to his office job but he also doesn't want to get fired after someone finally agreed to hire him.
He heads back to his room to make his bed, Sits on his desk chair and opens his computer.
Having no internet access for 7 years means he finally has more new content than time to view all of it, He catches up on all of the shiny new viruses, Gore, Porn, True crime and other shock sites and videos he can consume. If he finds something particularly good he saves it as wanking material for later, Some things just never change.
At 7am Kevin goes down to eat breakfast with Eva, His mind is usually preoccupied with his online findings from earlier and prefers to keep quite while eating, Sometimes he does entertain his mother with a one or two word answer to her small talk, And even though he is living at her house, He still feels like every interaction in a closed room with her is like a prison visitation.
He's not as picky with his food anymore, Usually eating whatever his mom has cooked for both of them, Not because he thinks it tastes good or even decent, Rather out of being used to eating whatever is served and not wanting to waste time by cooking for himself.
By 7:30 Kevin and his mom are in the car, Eva is driving him to an office job she helped him score, Some kind of salesperson job. The drives are also quiet, Not as heavy as the silence they usually have at home, but it still feels somewhat loaded.
And every day when Eva drops him off in front of the office building he can hear her say:
"Have a good day Kev, I love you."
And every day Kevin's face darkens as he clenches his fists, Because he knows that no matter what;
He could never bring himself to lie and say it back.
#kevin khatchadourian#wnttak#we need to talk about kevin#dead dove do not eat#fanfic#ao3#fanfiction#archive of our own#headcanon#headcannons#ezra miller#ezramiller#Spotify
42 notes
·
View notes
Text
18+ MINORS AND THOSE WITHOUT AGE IN BIO DNI
warnings: swearing, existential crisis
tags: @illiana-mystery
AN: hello. Yes it’s me. I’m the one having an existential crisis about this.
I groaned as I pushed back from the laptop on the desk. Burying my hands in my hair, I tried to take a deep breath. Failing to do so, I tugged on my hair and sat up.
“fuck me.” I muttered. The sound of a tea tray drew me back out of whatever it was I was trying to look at on the screen. “Oops. Sorry Jenkins.”
“I’m assuming it was uttered with reason so I’m going to let that one slide.” Jenkins set the tray down next to me before kissing my head. “Ready to take a break?” I shook my head as I typed something out. "You've been at it for three hours." I froze.
"Three hours?" I asked, slowly dragging my gaze off the screen and to the Caretaker before me. He nodded. "Damn. I didn't realize..." Jenkins brushed some hair off my forehead before leaning down to kiss my head again.
"It's alright. Nothing has come up. Well a small problem but Jones took care of it." He shrugged before sitting down in the chair next to mine. "Nothing major. It was just a mix up with the doors. Wiring or something. I tend to zone out when they prattle on like they do." I nodded and took the offered tea cup.
"I do too." I admitted. Jenkins looked over at my computer.
"Schoolwork?" He asked. I nodded. "I thought you were done with that." I shook my head as I took a sip.
"Nope. I'm working on my next degree. A masters in library science." I muttered. "At this rate, I'll have just as many degrees as Jake. Although, not PhDs." I shrugged. Jenkins nodded slowly as he looked at me. "Kind of driving me nuts though."
"Want to talk about it?" I shrugged again, focusing on the cup in my hands. Giving the laptop a weary glance, Jenkins reached over to close it. "That's not due soon right?" I shook my head. Closing the lid, Jenkins stood up and offered me his hand. I took it and let him pull me up. We walked out of the Annex and through the Library. Jenkins moved my hand from his to being wrapped around his arm. I kept staring at some of the artifacts as we passed, still in awe of them despite the time I had already spent at the Library.
"Where are we headed?" I asked after we passed the stone where Excalibur had sat.
"Your favorite part of the Library." Jenkins said with a smile. I smiled back at him mischievously. Jenkins gave me a look.
"So we're going to your bedroom?" I asked with a laugh. Jenkins rolled his eyes and sighed.
"No." He grumbled. "We're going to the stables." I perked up and smiled at him.
"The unicorn?" I asked excitedly. Jenkins nodded. As we rounded the corner, I let go of his arm to run over to the animal. Petting its nose softly, I cooed as it rubbed against my arm.
"Want to tell me what's bothering you now?" I looked up at Jenkins as he leaned against the wall. I sighed and leaned over the stable door to pick up the hay to feed my four legged friend.
"Everyone has so many degrees here. And I just feel like I'm wasting my potential. Either in not having enough degrees," I trailed off. Jenkins made a noise and I looked over at him. "Or being my age and working on a third degree. Not too long after I finished my first two."
"You do know you don't need another degree to work here. The Library wouldn't have chose you if you weren't perfect for the job." I nodded. "You are working on the degree because you want to be a better Librarian. There's nothing wrong with that."
"Everyone else has a bunch! Jake has at least 8, that he's telling us about. Flynn has, what, 29? 30? You don't even know what you have. Eve is working on her first." Jenkins stepped forward as I dropped the bucket of hay back into the stable. I turned to walk back through the Library when he grabbed my hand.
"And what about Cassie? Or Jones?" He asked. "You conveniently left them out. Hmm?" I sighed and hung my head.
"They don't have any." I mumbled. "But that damn tumor makes Cassie a god damn genius!" I tried to throw my hands up while still holding Jenkins'. "I feel out of place here!"
"You are only out of place because you want to be." Jenkins wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly. "Remember what you said to me? That first night we spent together?" I shrugged.
"Our conversations that night are a little blotted out by a different memory Jenkins." I teased. He chuckled and leaned down to kiss me. "What did I say?" My voice went small and he leaned forward to kiss my head.
"You said that you felt at home with the Library but like an outsider with the people." I nodded slowly. "You also called Flynn Carson your big brother for the first time. That's not an outsider or someone who feels out of place."
"No it's not." I agreed. "Flynn is my big brother. And Jones is the little brother no one asked for. Jury's still out on Cassie and Jake though." Jenkins laughed.
"What does that make Colonel Baird?" He asked.
"My brother's girlfriend." I said. "And you're my boyfriend." Jenkins smiled at me.
"See? You fit in just fine. Two degrees, three degrees, it doesn't matter." He said softly. "You feel better about continuing that degree now?" He asked after a while. I nodded.
"I still feel like I'm behind everyone else, but I feel less like I need to rush this to catch up." I explained. "I'll get my degrees when I get them. And if I match Jake then great. If I don't," I shrugged. "It's no big deal."
"And Flynn?" Jenkins asked with a smile. "Or me?" I shook my head.
"Let's face it. The two of you are overachievers. No one could catch up to the two of you." I kissed him before turning to head back through the Library. "Now come on. I do believe there is something we can do to give me a little break from all that learning." Jenkins laughed and followed me.
#jenkins the librarians#jenkins#jenkins x reader#jenkins fanfic#jenkins fanfiction#jenkins imagine#john larroquette#john larroquette imagine#john larroquette fanfic#john larroquette fanfiction#john larroquette x reader
18 notes
·
View notes
Note
U have oc's? Can we hear about them? 👀
-pin3-vin3
MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA YOU FELL INTO MY TRAP!!!!!!! YES ABSOLUTELY YOU CAN HEAR ABOUT THEM OKOKOKOKOKP
So!!!!!!! Y’all need context. Game Grumps. Y’all know of them, remember them? It doesn’t matter if you actually do, all that does matter is that you know I’ve loved them since I was a kid. I mean, I don’t watch their shit a lot nowadays but if there’s one series I almost Always try to keep up with its their horse girl games. The genre of horse girl games are Fascinating to me. I’ve never seen a play through that actually made it to the end of one, because the end is Never the point of a horse girl game. The point is making your dream horse, riding through open maps, grooming your dream horse, completing useless side quests, bonding with your dream horse!!!!! And Game Grumps is especially great at recognizing that because improv just tends to go off the rails in those games. And everytime I watch a horse girl game they play, and listen to the silly voices they do, I think about my own fictional horse girl universe.
So, introducing!!!!!!!!!
Camila
Lemme break down the character.
At this phase, Camila is ≈12 years old, a prime time of the horse girl phase
In fact, she’s the main protag of a horse girl game (assuming I ever made this into a playable game lol)!!!
What’s the catch? She actually had her horse phase a Wayyyyyyyyyyy long time ago. Horses are for babies. Now she’s knee-deep in her emo emo phase. Gerard Way is her boyfriend and you can’t tell her otherwise. She writes bad FanFiction.net fanfics instead of doing her homework (A/N: n her 30 followurz LUV it!! >w<) . She even dyed her “scene kid” hair with Koolaid in secret…. Until it didn’t wash off in the sink 30 minutes later. It wasn’t so secret then.
All of this “rebellion” leads Camila’s mom to enroll her in a summer camp for horse riders. Does the mom actually enroll her because she doesn’t know how to connect to her kid and her new interests? Was this actually a camp the family saved up for years for Camila to go to, and aren’t going to let the money go to waste? Is the mom just looking for a way to get rid of her kid for the summer? …I have no clue yet.
But yes, as you’d imagine, Camila goes to this horse rider’s camp for the summer and meets generic friends and she kind of hates them all at first but slowly grows to realize they’re ok. And she does end up still loving her horse and having a lot of knowledge on them (even though it turns out she’s Really bad at riding them). And there’s a Nancy Drew-ass, save-the-animals plot that happens along the way because it’s a fucking horse girl game godammit!!!!
Point is that Camila is my humorous take of a horse girl game protag that I’d actually want to play as (because I hate self-inserts, sorry). She’s a fucking snot because she’s a 12 year old who thinks she knows how the world works.
Fashion note: she tries to have the emo fashion but she fails spectacularly. Honestly she shouldn’t even have the Paramore shirt, but the pink not-matching-at-all hoodie is accurate. Maybe she got the one band tee for Christmas from her cool aunt, and it's become a bit of a comfort item
So, my horse girl game takes place in 2006, ironically the summer right before the Wii launches (which is where a lot of these games are born). Camila has, and frequently uses, AOL (before it dies in late 2008ish). And there's one, single, archaic computer at the local library outside of the horse camp that she visits every week for her free hours.
So every week she talks to her online BFF…..
Journee
Yes folks, that is indeed “Journey” with two ‘e’s. I think the name is cringe too, but I've kept it ever since I made them back in 2017, which is an extremely rare case for me, and I treasure that. Journee's actually part of an independent story from Camila (who was made in 2022). The intention with Journee has always been an emo who couldn’t actually look emo because their parents would kill them if they did.
But that gimmick is what makes Journee's inclusion in the horse girl game the crossover of a lifetime. Because Camila and Journee both need a friend who was also into emo shit, to fuel each other's obsession with it. Journee especially needs it because they canonically grow up to fulfill their emo fantasies (I haven't decided if Camila does the same). So the two work great for each other's individual stories.
Here’s how Journee's adapted into the Horse Girl Game AU:
In the original story, Journey is a whopping 14.5 years old, a freshman in high school. In this story, they're ≈12 years old. Older than Camila but honestly not by much, maybe 4 months!
A BIG fan of emo shit but their parents (obviously) won’t let them do anything. They think, "Camila’s lucky; at least Camila’s dad actually buys her Koolaid". Journee doesn't know Camila's dad actually bought it for her younger brother, and she stole it. But still, it's the principle! All Journee has is this gross tea their mom always makes to “promote more collagen” or whatever
Speaking of, Journee is one of those kids who got acne immediately as puberty started, and is absolutely going to gain acne scars as they grow up because they keep scratching at it.
Camila and Journee are online friends exclusively for an extremely long time; they met through a fanfic site a few months before the events of the horse girl game. Years later, they realize they actually lived embarrassingly close the whole time. They hang out a lot in-person in late high school, and then become mostly online friends again as they enter the adult world.
Note on the pronouns: I use they/them exclusively for Journee because Journee has always been one when I've written them. We're at a tricky spot in Journee's timeline because they are 12, nearly three years before their gender crisis-- meaning, they wouldn't be using they/them pronouns at this age. But I don't know what Journee's agab is; all I know is that when Camila befriends them, they pretend to be the opposite gender for a while. Just, tl;dr-- If I were ever to make the game, Journee's name wouldn't be Journee and they wouldn't be using they/them yet, but it absolutely still is Journee.
And in case you were interested, here's a rough idea of what they look like grown up (around 20s?). Camila I'm still questioning what route I wanna take with her, but I have a Very specific design for Journee and this piccrew does NOT do it justice. But I still need you to understand their dynamic is exactly the fucking same as it was when they were twelve and it's Hilarious.
These are not my first OCs by far but they're the ones I've cared about most recently (this crossover idea only happened maybe... a month ago? So the hype is still fresh). If you're interested in them, their stories, or any other characters I've made, lemme know! None of my characters/stories are particularly deep or insightful, but I still love them.
And here's the piccrews I used because I hate when people don't include links for that shit.
The solos
The group
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
⛪️~ okay i just KNOW gojo is the type of mf to fake moan out of fuckin nowhere while you’re on a call with someone else. like this bitch is just that annoying.
regular college au?? gojo is an upperclassman but everyone else is the same age👍🏾
sfw-ish? just crack basically 😭
“I have no fucking clue what’s going on.”
You, Nobara, Itadori, and Megumi were on a video call with one another via computers, working on a very long geometry packet that your professor had assigned the day before. You and Megumi were the only ones getting anywhere, but admittedly, it was mildly difficult for you to understand as well- so Nobara and Itadori were beyond lost.
“Me neither,” Itadori whined hopelessly, and you saw his head fall out of the camera frame as he dropped it on his desk forlornly. “I’m just gonna have to fail. I’m totally finished.”
You sighed exaggeratedly, rolling your eyes to the ceiling before looking back at the grainy images of the pitiful Itadori, the exasperated Nobara and the perpetually disinterested Megumi. “Oh, my god. Guys. Seriously, try and stay with me here?” You gestured to your notes spread out in front of the camera for your friends to reference. ��An attempt at anything on this assignment would be nice.”
“Yeah, no, we’re past that point,” Nobara deadpanned. “Do these teachers get a kick out of torturing us or what?”
“No, they don’t,” Megumi answered swiftly, his voice somehow more apathetic-sounding over his microphone. “Now if you’d just listen to my or Y/N’s explanation instead of whining about how hard this is, I’d appreciate it. You both know the formula for the midpoint, right?”
Only feedback from either student’s mics. You resisted the urge to slap yourself in the forehead. Megumi, however, seemed unfazed.
“Right. It’s xm, ym equals x1 plus x2-“
“Are you trying to kill me?” Itadori finally sat up, pink hair tangled all over his head.
“I… didn’t even finish telling you what the formula is.”
“Um… nah.” Nobara waved a hand dismissively at the camera, and Megumi rolled his dark eyes. “Anyways, gonna go play in traffic. Anyone down to join me?”
You blinked and made a face at Nobara. “Wha- you’re not even giving it a chance?”
“Nope. My brain clocked out hours ago.”
You blew out some air and were about to say something else before you heard the door open behind you, and you noticed Gojo Satoru, your roommate, walk into the frame of your video. “Oh, hey, Gojo,” you greeted him, a little absently.
“Hey, Y/N! On a call?” He leaned way down over your shoulder, prompting you to grimace and move to the side some while he shoved his entire face into the camera. “Hi, guys! What’re you doing?”
Itadori lifted his head from his arms to reply in an agonized tone, “Dying,” before dropping back down with an alarmingly loud thud on his desk.
Megumi pursed his lips in annoyance before acknowledging Gojo. “We’re trying to finish some math homework. Unfortunately, Y/N and I are the only ones putting in an ounce of effort.”
“I refuse to waste my effort on this bullshit,” Nobara added nonchalantly, and you saw her fly in and out of the frame on her swivel chair.
“Yeah, okay, Nobara. I suppose this is pretty self-explanatory,” you sighed, limply gesturing to your computer screen. “We’re getting nowhere and it’s been like, two hours.”
Gojo smirked in amusement before backing up from your screen. “Sucks to suck. See ya!” And with that, he disappeared to the back of the dorm.
“Well, that was a waste of time,” you muttered, propping your forehead up on your fingers. “Maybe we should just-“
And then you heard it.
A muffled but not muffled enough sound from the bathroom- and a very explicit one at that. It was a long, continuous sound at first, and then it was a breathless series of the same noise. Your eyes flew wide open the second you heard it- mostly because it sounded so forced and fake that you knew exactly what the cause of it was. Unfortunately, you reacted too late, and you only realized it when the video call went dead silent.
Nobara had reappeared in front of the camera, her eyes the size of frying pans and a manicured hand cupped over her mouth. Itadori had his head lifted from his arms only so you could see his wide eyes, and Megumi looked way more annoyed than usual.
Meanwhile, your jaw was dropped and a furious blush spread across your cheeks, and as if expecting to see something horrible, you slowly turned your head to stare at the direction from which the sound had come from.
It was silent for a second before explosive laughter erupted from your dorm bathroom, undoubtedly from Gojo, who thought his little joke had been absolutely hilarious. You abruptly snapped out of your trance, yelling furiously at him, but his laughter only grew louder with every word you said.
“I am logging off right this second.” Megumi’s image vanished from the screen with a low notification sound, and Itadori started laughing as well while Nobara was still in the exact same stance as she had been before.
“Tell me he’s faking.” Nobara’s voice was muted behind her hand.
“Fuck. He is. I swear he is,” you replied hurriedly, eyes darting from the door to the bathroom in hopes that nobody else had just heard that obnoxiously loud fake moan. “Gojo! Are you fucking kidding? What the hell- okay, no way we can save this video call, guys.” You dropped your head into your palms, shaking it slowly in disgust. All you’d wanted to do was work on the damn math homework. “Really. Just hang up or something- while I kill Gojo.”
#anime#gojo satoru x you#gojo x reader smut#gojo x reader#satoru x reader#megumi x reader#megumi fushiguro x reader#satoru gojo x reader#jjk headcanons#gojo satoru smut#gojo satoru x reader#gojou satoru x reader#itadori x you#megumi fushiguro
351 notes
·
View notes
Text
Every Little Thing
Pairing: Colin Shea x fem!Reader
Words: ~4.3k
Summary: You and Colin are two slutty pea in a pod neighbors, but maybe you could be more?
Warnings: explicit language, explicit sexual content (fingering, f receiving oral sex, unprotected vaginal sex), idiots in love, excessive alcohol consumption, SMUT!!! 18+ ONLY!!!!
A/N: Ugh, I love Colin and I can’t believe it took me so long to write him. Before I get a bunch of notes about it, they’re gonna realize their feelings eventually but it might take a couple fics because they’re both morons, but they’re pretty morons so it’s fine 😉
Check out my masterlist and join my taglist if you want!!!
Divider by @firefly-graphics
Oh god, what the fuck was that noise? Why was your phone ringing at 8 AM on a fucking Sunday?
You picked up the offensive object and growled when you got a look at the caller ID.
“Colin, it’s Sunday morning, this had better be really good. I didn’t get home until 4 AM.”
“She won’t fucking leave.” He hissed over the line. “She wants to go out for waffles.”
“I fail to see how this is my problem.” You grumbled, rolling over onto your back and flinging your arm over your eyes. “Just ditch her at the fucking waffle place.”
“C’mon, Y/N, that’s like a second date. What about our deal?” That fucking deal, he definitely benefitted more from it than you did.
“You’re an asshole.” You mumbled, sitting up with an exhausted groan. “Gimme 5 minutes.”
“You’re the best!” You could hear the fucking grin in his voice and rolled your eyes at him.
“Yeah, I fucking know.” You didn’t wait for him to confirm before you hung up on him, stretching your whole body as you moved to put on some clothes.
It only took you a few minutes to pull on some old jeans and a sweatshirt and then you were stomping across the hall to Colin’s apartment, determined to make this as uncomfortable as possible for him.
“Colin Shea!” You pounded on the door viciously. “This is your wife! I found your little love nest! What hooker do you have in there now?”
You couldn’t help but grin to yourself as you heard a commotion from inside, someone was cursing up a storm and you were pretty sure you heard a couple of slaps.
“I can hear you in there.” You tried to make it sound like you were on the verge of tears. “What about Colin Junior? I’m not raising that baby on my own, you bastard!”
The door slammed open and a very angry looking woman stormed out, shooting a glare over her shoulder and calling Colin a motherfucker as she scurried down the stairs. He came rushing after her with a frustrated look on his face, rubbing the side of his jaw and scowling when he got a look at the shit eating grin on your face.
“My wife?” He asked incredulously, grabbing his hoodie and pulling it over his naked torso as you just continued laughing at him. “That was kinda mean.”
“8 AM on a Sunday, Shea.” You booped his nose with your finger and winked at him before turning to head back to your place. “You wake me up before 10 AM on a weekend and you take what you can get. I’m going back to bed.”
“Wait, Y/N, don’t you wanna have breakfast or something?” He jogged after you, ignoring the glower you shot him as you opened your door. “I’ll make you my famous eggs.”
“Did you not hear me when I said I got in at 4 AM?” You frowned at him when he kept you from closing your front door. “Colin, quit being so clingy. If I wanted to have breakfast with some annoying dude I would’ve actually brought that lawyer from last night home.”
“A lawyer, huh?” He was giving you one of those stupid looks that he typically reserved for girls he was trying to bang but that he definitely knew didn’t work on you. “And that didn’t even do it for you.”
“I mean, I still rode that beard for a good hour, but he was super depressing.” You kept knocking your door against his foot with an annoyed air. “Which is why I need to sleep, so get out of my fucking doorway.”
“Fine, we’re hanging out later though!” He called as you slammed the door in his face.
You just ripped off your clothes and crawled back into bed, burying your face in your pillows and cursing the sun as you did your best to fall back asleep.
It must have happened at some point, because you woke up six hours later with a mouth full of cotton and absolutely drenched in sweat. Why was it so fucking hot?
The pillow case tried to come with your face when you rolled out of the bed and you threw it away from you with a huff as you padded to inspect your air conditioner.
It wasn’t on. You knelt in front of it and whined as you tried flicking it off and on and nothing happened. This could not be happening, not with summer just about to start. It was supposed to be in the 90s today. No matter what you tried, it didn’t turn on. Granted, all you tried was unplugging it and plugging it back in, but that always worked with your computer.
The call to the repair company was no luck, they were closed for the weekend. This was going to suck, you fucking hated being hot. You moved to your kitchen to try to find some way to cool off after opening every damn window in your place to hopefully get some kind of air circulation going.
That’s when you spotted it.
The frozen margarita machine you had bought on an absinthe fueled online shopping spree and never gotten around to returning. It was like a little miracle right there in your kitchen, designed to help you cool off and get drunk so you could forget about how fucking hot it was while you did the week’s worth of chores you had been procrastinating.
You hummed happily when that first gulp of frozen tequila goodness slid down your throat, and maybe you shouldn’t have chugged the whole thing but who fucking cared, it was hot. Time flew by as you downed those things like it was your fucking job, scrubbing your pots and pans and singing little songs to yourself.
Music started drifting through your open windows but you barely registered it even as you started singing along because it was Queen and how could you not.
It was the third time you had filled that margarita machine and you were feeling fantastic, dancing around your kitchen as you continued cleaning your dishes. Whoever was playing music was still going strong and you began belting when they started doing Seven Seas of Rhye.
“You are mine, I possess you, I belong to you foreveeeEEER!”
“Hey, Y/N!”
Your badass high note devolved into a shriek and you turned to chuck the cup you were holding at the intruder on the fire escape, cursing when you saw it was Colin. He managed to duck out of the way at the last second with a muttered fuck and you sighed as you watched your mug sail over his shoulder.
“Fuck, Shea, that was my favorite mug!” You pouted, stamping your foot a little and taking another gulp of your margarita. “What the fuck are you doing on my fire escape?”
He gave you a stupid cocky grin as he watched to try to lean on one hand on your counter and almost go down when you missed it at the last second.
“Are you drunk, honey?” Fuck him for calling you honey, that wiley asshole. “We could hear you singing from the roof.”
“I’m just a little buzzed.” You hiccupped. “Who’s we?”
“My band.” He crawled into your apartment and caught you when you tripped over your own feet again, still grinning at you like an idiot. “The ones you were singing along with.”
“That was your band?” You had never realized how blue his eyes were. “You guys sound great!”
“Yeah, you sound pretty good yourself.” He grabbed the cup you were holding and gave it a sniff, coughing a little before he set it on the counter. “Maybe you should come hang out with us instead of drinking what I think is blended jet fuel and ice all by yourself.”
“If I’m gonna hang out with you guys I think I should bring a pitcher of margs.” He was really fucking pretty, had you noticed that before? “Don’t wanna be a bad hostess.”
“Oh, baby, you’re wasted.” He tucked a stray lock of hair behind your ear and you felt your chest flutter a little bit. “No more margs for you. Come sing with us while you sober up. No, no.” He pulled you back when you tried to crawl out the window and started dragging you towards your door. “Ladder doesn’t really seem like a good idea right now, let’s take the stairs.”
You tossed your head back as you laughed, slapping his chest while you leaned heavily on him and let him guide you through the hall and to the stairs to the roof. Those were some firm pecs, you were a little marvelled at the way your palm just bounced right off so you slapped it again.
“Wow.” It was like your hand was moving independently from your brain as you gave him a pretty brazen squeeze. “Your tits are fantastic, Colin.”
“Holy shit, Y/N!” He was laughing hysterically when he shoved the door to the roof open. “Your drunk game is on point sweetie. Guys, this is Y/N, the killer vocals you heard from downstairs. She’s a little tipsy.”
They introduced themselves and you promptly forgot all of their names, your hand trailing down Colin’s chest until you could press it against his abs. This was getting weird, it’s not like you hadn’t seen him naked before. But seeing and touching were apparently two very different things.
“We still doing Queen, boys?” You said, finally tearing your eyes away from Colin after poking him in the bellybutton and grinning when he made a noise like the Pillsbury doughboy. “Cos I’m good with whatever.”
“What about some Journey?” He slung his SG over his shoulder and watched you carefully as you grabbed the mike one of his bandmates was handing you. “You wanna sit down, hon?”
“Don’t call me hon, sweetheart.” You teased, giving him a wink and tapping the mike a couple of times. “I’ll be fine. Journey feels a little basic but ok. Faithfully or Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’?”
That grin he gave you should not have been affecting you like this, maybe you did have too many margaritas. The bassist started playing the opening riff to Lovin’ Touchin’ Squeezin’ and your grin got even wider, your hips moving to the beat as you kept your eyes on Colin. You laughed happily when he joined in with the guitar part, joining in after the piano had done its thing and losing yourself in the music.
He could not take his eyes off of you, he was pretty sure you’d never been this fucking cheerful around him before. Not that you were especially grumpy or anything, or that your typical dry wit didn’t immediately endear you to him. But seeing you with that goofy grin as you sang every fucking Journey song they had in their roster until the sun set was not helping the already prodigious crush he had on you.
Now the two of you were sitting on the couch he had dragged up there months ago and watching his bandmates pack up their gear, saying goodbye to each of them as they headed down the stairs and left you two to lean against each other and sigh happily. You had your legs flung over his lap as he plucked at his guitar strings lazily, kicking your feet slowly and leaning back on the sofa as you watched him closely and sipped on a bottle of water.
“You ever do any actual performing, honey?” He asked, his fingers running over your calf absentmindedly. “Cos with that voice you could probably line up some gigs.”
“Just karaoke.” You murmured. You were definitely sobering up now, but you were still hyper aware of his hands on your skin and it was giving you some feelings you weren’t totally sure about. “Lemme see that thing.”
“What?” He gave a little huff when you grabbed the neck of his guitar and pulled it into your lap. “Baby, do not tell me you play.”
“I mean, it’s been a little while, but I think I remember a couple chords.” You gave him another grin and his chest started to hurt.
“Jesus, a couple chords?” He laughed to cover the absolutely filthy sound he almost made when you started playing, it was like he had made you on a computer. “Honey, that’s Led Zeppelin.”
“Yeah, but it’s easy Zeppelin.” You teased, turning your body so you could lean against his chest and not missing the low rumble you felt when you tucked your head against his shoulder. “It’s Coda.”
“Uh-huh.” Being this close to you was doing something to him, he suddenly had the overwhelming urge to smell your hair.
“Why haven’t we slept together, Col?” Fuck it, you might as well do this.
He choked on the water he was drinking, turning his face so he didn’t spit it all over you as you stopped your playing and grinned at him.
“I seem to remember giving it a good try when you moved in.” He managed to get himself under control and turned his face back to you. “But you said you had a rule about not fucking people who live in the same building as you. Something about not shitting where you eat.”
“That’s about sex with coworkers.” You said, scrunching your face up as you tried to remember what your exact justification had been.
“Which is what I told you.” He tried to scoot away from you but you followed after him. “To which you replied, ‘doesn’t matter, not gonna happen’.”
“Huh, that seems awful short-sighted of me.” You scooted closer again and this time he let you. “C’mon, we’ve fucked almost everyone else in this city, we’d have gotten to each other eventually anyways.”
“Jesus, what a romantic sentiment.” He was trying to focus real hard on his softeners, but they weren’t working with you squirming against him like that. “You really want to do this?”
“I mean, I think we’d enjoy it.” You set his guitar aside and turned so your chest was pressed to his. “It’s not like we’re gonna catch feels, or anything. Just gonna see what all the fuss is about.”
“Right.” Maybe this would get his little crush out of his system. “Let’s not do it on the roof, though.”
“God, no. My place?” You stood up and started heading towards the fire escape.
“Yeah, ok.” He watched you climb down to your apartment before sliding down the ladder after you like the damn frat boy he was.
As soon as he climbed in the window you were dragging him towards you, swallowing his tiny cry of surprise when you pulled his mouth to yours. His lips were unbelievably soft against your own, and when he opened up and stroked your tongue with his?
Fuck.
“Shit, Colin.” You purred when he started trailing his lips down your throat. “I feel like maybe we should’ve done this sooner.”
“Yeah, maybe.” His voice was muffled as his mouth moved to your chest, one hand moving to hook under the neckline of your camisole and pulling on it until your breasts popped out. “Well fuck me. No wonder you know so much about fantastic tits.”
You laughed at that, arching into his face and grinning down at him as he buried his face between your tits and gazed at you through his lashes. Those stupid, long as all fuck lashes that were brushing against your skin as he mouthed at your soft curves.
“Jesus, fuck.” You wound your fingers through his hair when he dragged his tongue over your nipple, tugging on it softly and guiding him further into your apartment. “God, you really know how to use that mouth of yours, sweetie.”
“Oh, honey, you don’t even know.” He teased, moving his face back to yours and lifting you to wrap your legs around his waist as he started carrying you towards your bedroom. “You wanna find out, though?”
“You tease all the girls you fuck this much?” You nipped at his lips and grinned when he moaned into your mouth, reaching behind you to open the door to your bedroom.
“Nah, that’s just for you, baby.” He cooed, giving you a quick peck on the lips before dropping you on the bed with a huff.
Every place his fingers touched sent a jolt of heat through your body straight to your core, your eyes never leaving his as he started kissing and nipping his way down your torso after pulling your cami over your head. He grinned against your thigh when you moaned after he yanked your shorts down your legs, sucking a soft bruise into your flesh before rubbing his face over your clothed core and inhaling deeply.
You throbbed under his lips as he pressed gentle kisses over the fabric that covered your mound, hooking your legs over his shoulders and trying to grind into him when he tugged at your panties with his teeth and let them snap back into place teasingly. His fingers skimmed up your legs until he could hook them under the band of your panties and drag them off you, sighing heavily when he settled back between your thighs and got a good look at you.
“Fuck, you’re so pretty.” He spread you apart with his fingers and flicked his tongue out to run over your slit softly, moaning when he finally tasted you.
“I bet you say that to all the girls.” You ran your fingers through his hair and beamed at him, rolling your hips against his face when he sucked your pussy lips into his mouth with a low hum.
Colin chuckled into your cunt at that, pressing gentle kisses all over your soft folds before dragging his tongue over you in a heavy stripe. Your body reacted immediately when he reached your clit, your back arching off the bed and your legs curling around his neck as he repeated the same process but at a much slower pace.
Two of his fingers slid inside you as he wrapped his lips around your clit and you keened, gripping his hair by the roots and tugging hard when he started stretching you open while his lips drove you wild. The rhythm of his suction and release matched the curling of his fingers inside you and made you want to scream, your free hand reaching above your head and digging hard into your pillow as your body tried to rise off the bed when he brought you right to the edge of your peak right away.
“Col, Colin, oh fuck.” He felt like your thighs were gonna suffocate him but those sounds you were making for him had him past the point of caring about a silly thing like oxygen. “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come.”
Your whole body seized against his face as you let out a gorgeous fluttering moan, soaking his lips and chin in your release as he hummed with satisfaction into your pussy. He sat up when you finally released him, removing his clothes in a rush as he watched you pant underneath him and run your tongue over your lips. God, you were fucking beautiful, he couldn’t believe he’d waited so long to do this.
Before you had a chance to say anything he was hooking your knee over his elbow and thrusting into you, sheathing himself to the hilt in one smooth motion and releasing his breath in a thin hiss when he felt your satiny walls flutter around him.
“Ah, fuck, you feel amazing.” He ducked his face to catch your lips with his before pulling back with a groan. “Shit, I forgot a condom. Uh, I’m clean, just got tested last week.”
“God, you’re fine sweetie.” You brought a hand up to cup his jaw and ran a thumb over his cheek in a soothing gesture. “Also clean and I have an IUD, so we’re peachy. I am a little mad at you though.”
“Yeah, why?” He wasn’t too worried, you were still grinning at him as he started moving his hips slowly.
“Well, Jesus, fuck, you’re big.” You almost lost your train of thought when he tilted your hips just a bit and his cock hit you deep. “I usually like to reciprocate oral, sweetie. I barely even got a look at what you’re packing down there.”
“You’ve seen it before.” He groaned when you wrapped your free leg around his hips and rolled your body against his.
“Just glances though.” You gripped his biceps and dug your nails in, biting your lip as he continued dragging his length over every inch of you at an agonizing pace. “And never hard.”
“Honey, there’s no way I’m pulling out for you to take a good look so you’re gonna have to make due.” He teased, grinding against your clit and grinning when your eyes fluttered closed.
“Fine.” You huffed, frowning a little before winking at him. “We’re switching then.”
“What?”
You didn’t answer, just giving him a cocky grin and gripping his hips with your thighs. One quick move and he was under you, a small sound of surprise leaving his lips when you were suddenly straddling his hips and grinning down at him.
“Oh yeah, that’s better.” You placed one palm on the center of his chest and curled your fingers through his chest hair as you rose up on your knees before sinking down again nice and slow, loving the low groan you felt reverberate in his chest when you clenched around him. “Good for you, Col?”
“Yes, yeah, s’ good.” He was completely mesmerized by you, his eyes trailing over your body as you arched your back and continued to ride him.
The way he was reacting to you was making it hard for you to focus on what you were doing, his eyes soft and relaxed on yours and his bottom lip tucked between his teeth as he slowly moved his hips to meet your own. You could’ve lost yourself in those eyes if you really wanted to.
Shit, none of that.
His fingers started trailing up your sides when he fucked up into you suddenly and he lost it at the way your tits bounced for him, sitting up with a whine and nuzzling into your chest before wrapping his lips around your nipple as he started bucking wildly.
“Shit, fuck, Colin.” He was hitting your cervix with each punch of his hips and it was taking all your self control to not pass out from how hard he was railing you, wrapping your legs around him and dragging your lips over his jaw. “Baby, you’re gonna make me come again.”
“Yeah? Good.” He cupped your jaw and brought your face back to his, tugging at your lips with his teeth while he gazed into your eyes. “I wanna watch your face while you come.”
You kept your eyes open and trained on his, worrying his bottom lip with your teeth and resting your forehead against his as you felt a warm coil gathering in the pit of your stomach. It was like you were falling into those lust blown pools as he took you apart, your lips crashing against his as the coil snapped and you gasped his name into his mouth.
The feeling of your entire body fluttering around him was too much, and he followed you with a low growl. He muttered your name under his breath as he spilled his cum inside you, holding you close to his chest and rubbing his nose against yours.
You fell on top of him when he collapsed back against the bed, the two of you laughing breathlessly as you tangled your limbs and molded your lips together before pulling back and gazing at each other some more. Both of you lost yourselves for just a beat, your chests heaving against each other’s before disconnecting and rolling off the bed in two opposite directions as you did your best to compose yourselves.
“I’d say you definitely earned all those screams I’ve heard coming from your apartment, Shea.” You teased, trying your best to lighten the mood and not dwell on the desire you had to ask him to spend the night.
“Yeah, well I’ve always thought so.” He was avoiding looking at you as much as possible, searching the room for his clothes and fighting the urge to pull you back into the bed and snuggle with you. “Have you seen my converse?”
“Yeah, here.” You shoved his shoes at him after pulling an oversized tee over your head. “Well, I’ve got work in the morning, so…”
“Right, I’ll, um, I’ll talk to you later, I guess.” He shuffled towards your front door and pulled it open before leaning back to look at you one more time. “You can join us for band practice any time, by the way.”
“That would be great.” That smile you were giving him made him feel like his heart was going to break. “I promise not to be sloppy drunk next time.”
“Aww, drunk Y/N was pretty fun, but ok.” He winked at you then left in a hurry, slamming the door behind him.
You fell back on your bed and ran your hands over your face in frustration, hating yourself for coming up with this stupid idea because now all you wanted was to have breakfast with that beautiful idiot tomorrow after sleeping on top of his chest.
“Goddamn it.”
Colin grabbed himself a beer when he got back to his apartment and chugged it, sinking into one of his barstools and considering the fact that he was absolutely not over his crush after everything the two of you had just done.
“Shit.”
TAGS!!!! (If your name is scored it won’t let me tag you, check your privacy settings!!)
@slothspaghettiwrites@captain-asguard@starlightcrystalline@harrysthiccthighss@bonkywobble@chubbybuckydumpling@blackestpinkworld@egcdeath@wanderinglunarnights@wandering-spiritash@bval-1@chris-butt@badbleep88@shutupstevie@muzzyandbusy@sizzie9@isysen@babyb3ar@wanderingalice00@whxre4cevans@kaleeelizabeth58@angrybirdcr@unsaltedalmonds@amerikakapitanyy@lizette50@patzammit@dwights-new-plague@tenaciousperfectionunknown@daughterofthenight117@obsessivereaderchick@before-we-get-started@missmintyross@mariaenchanted@Marvel-baby@iwanttobekilledtwice@banditmarkymark@wayward-blonde@travistheaussie@thiskindahotkindamusic@stan-all-the-things@roleplaytaboo@jnkyrds@oops-aquarius@riemasonline@superoopuniverse @ethereal-beaut-y@Lex-Is-Up-All-Night-To-Get-Bucky@ambthegamer@tapouttt34@hobbitingryffindor@gudenuph@hevans-angel@rose-m22@jennmurawski13@dumb-ass-writer@kristopbishta@haleemah@yippikaiyaymotherfucker@violet-amxthyst@Thatzolagirl@misshale21@Chamorritaluv@ellefran@pinkdiamond1016@nonamenatalia@katexrichardson@aliceforbes@hornyhoursonly@tvckerlance@xoxabs88xox@phantompogues@ke1084299@ghotifishreads@chloehn@sherlocksmanwatson@partiesandblurrypolaroids@bwbatta@cherrychris@acceptyourselfloveyourself@itstaylorcale@miriamkb@needleandhammer@xoxonotme@Sunny223456@moments-tattoos-on-my-mind@thatsthewrongwallcraig@l-sofiamia-l@lemarvelsimpette@old-enough-to-know-better73@smokeandnailz@loverofaccents@inactivewhore@sohoseb@NINJA Q-TIP@amelia-song-pond@everything-is-all-clear@weasleytwins-41@avada-kedavra-bitch-187@girlwhofans@littlezombie666@xmusictodiebyx@moony-is-bae@mogaruke@nymariel@inmoix@sebastianstanswifey@jeremyrennermakesmesmile@jbreenr@glassesandthunderthighs@aerialclouds@mrs-kcathrb@rosalynshields@littlezombie666@malloryknoxx@hoseokmylovesworld@shynerdystudent@lharrietg@chrisevanseditsworld@dreck-t@Lisafrers@kaitieskidmore1@jane-doe6@vintagepigeon@cece5@brxttybottom@ntthuyy25@sweetcupcakegirl@nathalienight@lululuci-allonsy@umadirectioner@ice-dtae@chrisjaay@drabblewithfrannybarnes @stargazingfangirl18@jack-skellingtons-stuff@chrissquares@msmarvelwrites@sweeterthanthis@gotnofucks@ozarkthedog@thefallenbibliophilequote@a-little-counter-esperanto@afriendlyblackhottie@cockslut-padalecki@gracechristo@ghotifishreads@tossacoin2yourwitcher@angry-angelic@grumpyashhh@fckdeusername@toni9@girlfriday007@starrybrock@simpcitylolz@weasleytwins-41@millennial-teenybopper@mochionly@archy3001@madbaddic7ed@yeolliedokai@I-lie-here-charmed
#natalie writes#colin shea#colin shea x reader#colin shea x fem!reader#colin shea x you#colin shea x y/n#colin shea smut#what's your number#chris evans#chris evans smut#chris evans character#smut#eighteen plus#eighteen and over#do not interact if you are a minor
779 notes
·
View notes
Text
Electricity
Inspired by @ledzeppelinmixtape 's emoji prompt: ⛈
Read on ao3 or below / 2.3k words
It's 11pm and storming biblically when Dean and Cas's apartment goes dark.
"Great," Dean mutters under his breath. "Fan-freaking-tastic."
From somewhere else in the apartment, his roommate asks "did the power go out?"
"What do you think, sunshine?" Dean replies sarcastically.
He has a half-written essay in front of him, but he knows his old-ass computer won't last long unplugged, so he saves the document before shutting it off. He leans back in his chair, stretching for the first time in an hour and running a hand down his face. He actually needed a break from the screen, he realizes, feeling his eyes relax as he rubs them.
The steady rain and strong winds outside make an overwhelming white noise track, interrupted only by thunder that goes from faint and distant to deafening in volume. If Dean wasn't stressed out of his mind and completely exhausted right now, he might actually find this kind of nice.
"It's raining cats and mice out there," he hears Cas say, his voice now in the room.
Dean smiles, still rubbing his eyes with the backs of both his hands. "Cats and dogs, Cas."
"Right. Cats and dogs."
It’s really no use correcting him; the entire animal kingdom could be falling from the sky right now and there wouldn't be much of a difference. The winds are definitely knocking things over, and the streets will certainly be flooded come morning. Dean wonders for how long the university will cancel classes after this (if at all, the heartless bloodsuckers).
A particularly loud clap of thunder startles Dean. He drops his hands from his face and opens his eyes, expecting to see pitch black nothingness, but the room is faintly lit by the flashlight Cas is holding as he rummages through their kitchen drawers. He approaches a minute later and sets a candle down on the small table.
"Smart."
"Thank you, Dean," Cas says, sitting down opposite him. Dean smiles again, this time shaking his head.
If anyone ever asked him to mention one thing he likes about Cas, just one, he'd probably say how genuine Cas is, how he takes everything to heart and speaks from it as well. Dean said just one word, smart, a simple comment on the fact that it occurred to Cas to light a candle instead of wasting the battery of their one flashlight, and Cas genuinely thanked him for the compliment. He's just ridiculously cute in his earnestness.
Cas is trying to light the candle now, but their lighter is tricky. Despite living together in that apartment for a year and a half now Cas has never really gotten the hang of it.
"Here, let me."
Dean means to take the lighter from Cas and do it himself, he really does. That is 100% his intention as he reaches across the table. Except he sees an opportunity, and Dean Michael Winchester is nothing if not smooth.
He wraps his hand around Cas's, gently guiding his fingers until they’re placed just right, and the lighter clicks on with ease. Cas meets his eyes, smiling, and Dean can feel the slightest brush of Cas’s thumb against his hand. It’s a small gesture, but clearly deliberate, and it sends Dean’s heart into overdrive. Cas leans away, puts the lighter aside, and starts leafing through a book he brought. Dean’s heart is still racing as he watches him.
Scratch that first thing. If anyone ever asked him what’s one thing he likes about Cas? His hands. God. Neat nails, slightly calloused palms, and overall larger hands than you’d expect. Cas is an environmental science major and he wants to get a Ph.D. in botany, so of course, there’s a small garden on their fire escape. He tends to those plants every day with more gentleness and care than Dean has ever seen, and Dean loves to watch him, even though he has no idea what Cas is doing with them half the time. He just knows that not a single one of their plants have died under Cas’s care. He names them too.
His attentiveness. That’s another thing Dean might say if anyone ever asked. Cas left to visit his sister Anna last winter break. He left Dean in charge of the plants, three of which died inside the week. (For Dean’s birthday a couple of months later, Cas got him a book. How Not to Kill Your Houseplant. Dean keeps it on his nightstand.) Dean went out and bought new ones, but he knew Cas would notice the difference, and he did. He wasn’t mad at Dean though, and he appreciated the effort, and as Dean apologized profusely over and over again, Cas looked at him in the eyes oh-so-softly and told him he was forgiven.
How could Dean possibly forget? If anyone ever asked, he’d say that Cas’s eyes are one of his favorite things about him. One of his favorite things, period. Dean is absolutely mesmerized whenever Cas looks him in the eye, and the guy loves making eye contact, which means that Dean lives in a perpetual smitten daze. He has never seen that shade of blue anywhere else on this earth. Or maybe he just hasn’t been looking, content to get his fill of that blue by staring into Cas’s eyes as much as he gets to on a daily basis.
“Are you alright, Dean?”
Dean blinks himself back to reality. “Hm?”
“You seem… spaced.”
Dean is staring. He’s been staring this whole time. Shit. Crap.
“Yeah, um. Just tired.”
Mr. Smooth, everybody.
“Maybe you should go get some rest. I doubt the power will be back anytime soon.”
Castiel Milton, always looking out for you. It makes Dean melt.
“Yeah, maybe.” I wanna stay here with you, though, he thinks. Instead, because he’s pathetic, he asks “what’re you reading?”
Cas shows him the cover. How Not to Kill Your Houseplant. Dean breaks out in laughter.
“So you’re going into my room and stealing my shit now?”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t touch your Vonneguts.” Cas puts the book aside, an easy smile on his face. “Just wanted something light to pass the time.”
“You done with your homework?”
A soft yawn escapes Cas. “For now.”
“Dude, why not just go to sleep? You look exhausted.”
“Look who’s talking.”
Dean tries to deadpan him. He fails, because around Cas, it’s near impossible for him to not smile.
“Besides, I might be done but you weren’t.”
“And you wanted to keep me company.”
Cas shrugs as if to say I guess, but he does it with a knowing smile. The smile doesn’t falter as he meets Dean’s eyes, and he doesn’t look away when silence settles between them, the only sound being the stormy white noise.
Dean is sure he could drown in that blue and die happy.
Before that train of thought gets away from him again, Dean tears his gaze away and stretches. “We should really go to bed though, I’m not getting any more done tonight,” he says as he stands.
“Of course,” Cas says, but he grabs the book again.
“You not going?”
“I want to finish this chapter.”
The seriousness in his tone makes Dean smile. Again.
“Well, g’night, Cas.”
“Good night, Dean.”
Dean thinks he detects a bit of shakiness in Cas’s voice but decides that he’s probably just tired.
He gets to his room and changes into something comfortable, the first t-shirt and sweatpants he finds as he rummages in the dark. He goes to set his phone on his nightstand and crawl into bed, but in place of the book he keeps there and puts his phone on top of– the book Cas has at the moment– he finds something else.
It’s paper. It’s folded into the form of a book, like one of those youtube craft tutorials with bad music, and it's no bigger than his own palm. The cover is handwritten, and Dean immediately recognizes it as Cas's. He smiles, expecting a prank or joke of some sort, Cas knows how stressed Dean can get with the start of the semester. However, his smile falters as he reads the cover:
How to tell your best friend you’re in love with him.
With a shaky hand, Dean opens the small book. The first page is the only one with any more writing on it, and it reads:
You leave him a note and hope it’s enough.
Dean is storming out of his bedroom (no pun intended) before he knows it. He barely even feels his feet moving, too focused on the pounding in his ears and the dryness in his mouth. He doesn’t go into the living room, not yet; his feet stop at the end of the short hallway and he braces himself against the wall. The room is spinning and he can barely breathe.
“Cas?” He chokes out.
Cas puts the book back down on the table in front of him and interlocks his fingers in front of him. He doesn’t look at Dean– Cas, who makes too much eye contact – and takes a deep breath before saying “yes?”
He’s nervous.
Dean takes a step forward, still keeping one hand on the wall just in case, and holds up the note. “What is this?” he asks, because his brain is just not there with him yet.
Cas stands, still not facing Dean. “Dean, do you know what day it is?”
He’s asking this now???
“September firs–”
Oh. Oh shit.
“Cas isn’t today the–”
“The night we met. Two years ago.”
Dean feels his brain catching up now as the memory starts coming back to him. Cas helps, starting to recount that night.
“Two years ago tonight, I was leaving my night course at the university, and it was raining. Not as bad as this,” –Cas looks out the window and lightning strikes, as if on cue– “but pretty badly, and I was an inexperienced freshman without an umbrella.”
Dean remembers. He was walking Charlie to her dorm when it started drizzling, and it was pouring by the time he made it back to his car. Dean had a night shift at the gas station and was about to head there.
“Two years ago tonight,” Cas continues, “you invited me into your car to shelter me from the rain.”
Dean saw this guy running in the direction of the men’s dorms, which were on the other side of campus. He felt bad, and he had a car, so he opened the passenger door and let him in.
Turned out to be the most gorgeous guy he’d ever laid eyes on. He was a bit awkward, but he had no filter, which made him weirdly funny. He asked about the music playing in the car and listened intently to Dean's rambling. He laughed at his jokes too.
At the end of the five-minute drive, he said his name was Castiel, and Dean asked for his number and saved it as Cas with a thunderstorm emoji. Because even if he didn’t know it yet, Dean was already whipped.
“Two years ago,” Cas says, finally looking up at Dean. His eyes are wide and vulnerable and he looks terrified and Dean can barely stand it. “Two years ago tonight, I started to fall in love with you.”
Dean can’t breathe. His ears are hot and he can’t stop fidgeting with the note in his hand and he can’t breathe.
But his feet start moving again, out of their own volition. They move toward Cas.
“If you don’t feel–” Cas starts, but Dean swallows his words.
Again, Dean’s brain isn’t all there yet, and he doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he’s already in it. He’s grabbing Cas’s face, digging his fingertips into the back of his hair, and the note is forgotten on the table, and thunder rumbles not that far away. He’s darting out his tongue, begging to explore Cas’s mouth as he’s wanted to do since forever, and Cas lets him. He tastes like toothpaste and coffee and honey and Dean never wants to taste anyone else ever again.
Cas is wrapping his arms around Dean’s waist and pressing his entire body against him. It’s making Dean weak in the knees but it’s okay because Cas is almost holding him upright at this point. There’s another clap of thunder, much closer this time, and the lightning probably illuminated the apartment, but it wasn’t enough to make them part. They’re moving and grasping and exploring frantically, and Dean is afraid Cas is going to disappear, or that he’s going to wake up and this will all have been another dream. But no, it’s real, and they’re playing catchup on two years worth of desire and longing and love.
They eventually pull away, breathless and giddy. The only sounds are the rain and the wind. Dean opens his eyes first, needing to see Cas and make sure this is completely, definitely, unequivocally real. Cas is smiling and taking deep breaths, and a weight seems to be lifted off his shoulders. He opens his eyes a second later, and even in the darkness, even with just the faint candlelight, the blue in them seems to shine. And even though there's no power, it feels as if there's electricity crackling in the air around them. It might be the storm.
No. It's the moment. This moment with Cas is what feels electric.
“Come to bed?” Dean asks, feeling brave and going out on a limb. The only way Cas responds is by interlocking his hand into Dean’s and kissing him again.
And after tonight, for the rest of his life, if anyone ever asks him “what’s one thing you love about Cas?” Dean won’t be able to narrow down an answer.
He’ll just say: “Everything.”
#gen.fics#spncreatorsdaily#creativecaviar#userjennmish#userdorksinlove#userstarry#tuserari#plantdadcas#offbeattraxx#slipper007#thisisapaige#lyntracks#deancas#destiel#college au#fic#spn#gen creates
380 notes
·
View notes
Text
𝐀 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐑𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑
pairing: andy barber x fem!reader
summary: in which the night was supposed to be special. however, it seems as if something is always going wrong. on this specific night, you and andy have convinced yourselves that everything will finally go according to plan, but it isn’t long until things go awry. you’re not ready to call it quits on it just yet, though.
warnings: defending jacob au (no mentions of laurie or jacob), fluff, slight angst, explicit language
word count: 2.3k words
author’s note: first andy imagine! hope you guys enjoy<333
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
“Whatever excuse you’re about to say, save it,” You said when you answered Andy’s call, and it connected to your car’s Bluetooth. “We are going to this restaurant, Barber. We’ve rescheduled so many times that I’m pretty sure at least two of the hostesses know my number by heart at this point.”
Your statement was a thousand percent true, and you were actually surprised that the restaurant hadn’t blocked your number and banned both you and Andy from coming yet because of how much you had called to reschedule. The last time was only three days ago when you and Andy were completely exhausted from the days you had at work and couldn’t bear to do anything more than deliver a pizza to your home and eat it in bed. The number of crumbs that you noticed in the bed in the morning was horrible, but overall it was worth it.
This night was different, though, at least it was supposed to be. That morning before you headed to the environmental law firm you worked at and Andy went to the DA’s office, you said that you would be done earlier than usual because you would only be doing the beginning preparations for a new case you had. Andy told you that he would be done at his office by seven, giving you both enough time to get to your eight o’clock reservation at the restaurant.
When you left your office not even fifteen minutes ago and hadn’t received any calls from Andy, you actually believed that things were finally going to go exactly how you both planned it. But, of course, you could only get but so lucky.
“I’m really sorry, honey,” Andy told you, and you could hear how sincere those words were. “This Jefferson case has been kicking my ass these past couple of days, and I can just tell I’m finally close to a breakthrough with it.”
You didn’t want to smile; you were supposed to feel at least a little bit mad that this dinner was once again on its way to getting canceled. But, you couldn’t muster up even a hint of a frown; instead, you genuinely felt happy for Andy. You didn’t know much about the case, but you did know how much of a pain it had been for him thus far, so you knew that you couldn’t make him stop working on it right then when things were finally about to turn around. Especially because you knew that if the tables were turned, he wouldn’t make you stop, and you wouldn’t want him to.
These heavily work-oriented sides of the both of you were what caused you two to meet in the first place. You were both in the local bar that pretty much all of the lawyers in Boston would frequent, celebrating wins on your recent cases. You chalked it up to the alcohol running through your veins and the pure happiness you were feeling, because that case was such a big win for you, as the reason why you so easily fell for Andy that night. Because you had always sworn to yourself that you would never get romantically involved with another lawyer. But Andy was different.
“How much longer do you need?” You asked him, already thinking of ways that you could rearrange things so that maybe, hopefully, the night wouldn’t be a total flop.
It was quiet on Andy’s end for a moment, and you could tell that he was really thinking about his response. “No more than an hour. I promise.”
You glanced at the time displayed in your car; 7:14 pm. “Okay, I’ll call the restaurant and see if they can push our eight o’clock reservation to nine. And I’m on my way to your office now, so I can make sure that your hour is actually an hour.”
Most of the time, actually all of the time, an hour was never really an hour; it was always, always more. And you knew that for a fact because you were guilty of it too. Your respective workaholic natures were something that you both simultaneously loved and hated about each other.
“I love you,” Andy’s voice was soft and comforting.
Although those three words were pretty much second nature to hear after seven years of knowing Andy and five years of marriage, they never, ever failed to make your heart warm.
“Love you too,” You said and smiled to no one but yourself. “I should be there in twenty.”
• • •
The drive to Andy’s office was shorter than expected, which you were surprised about. However, you were unsurprised to only see Andy’s car in the parking lot when you pulled in; you swore that no one at that office worked harder than he did.
“Hi,” You said as you lightly rapped your knuckles against the open door of Andy’s office to grab his attention. His gaze was solely focused on his computer, and his eyebrows were knit together in a concentrated look that you had always found endearing.
When his blue eyes pulled away from his computer and landed on you, a smile found its way on his face. “Hi.”
You walked over to him, and he stood up from his desk, opening his arms which you wasted no time going into. As you wrapped your arms around Andy, the flooding sense of comfort that you felt made you sigh in contentment. Being in his arms always felt like being home.
“The reservation has been changed to nine,” You said, your words slightly muffled due to the way your face was pressed into his chest, but Andy still heard you.
“I’ll be done soon,” He told you, his voice getting lost in your hair.
When you pulled away from the embrace– it was reluctant at first, but then you remembered that there were actually things that needed to get done– you went to sit at the chair that was on the other side of the desk, shrugging your jacket off and placing it on the back of the chair. You nodded your head at Andy’s previous words, knowing that the definition of “soon” that you two had become accustomed to was different than what most people perceived it as.
As Andy went back to working on the case and you mindlessly watched him, a sudden wave of tiredness washed over you. Although your own day at work hadn’t been too chaotic, it was still pretty exhausting. A small yawn escaped your lips, and your eyes settled on the small-sized couch in the corner.
Your gaze was still trained on the grey couch when you heard the sound of a drawer opening, and when you looked at Andy, you saw that he was holding out a folded-up throw blanket for you to take. You grabbed it, and the familiar forest green color and softness stood out to you; it was the one you would usually keep in you guys’ living room.
“When did you start keeping this here?” You were already letting the blanket unfold and wrapping it around yourself.
“After the last time you came here and slept on the couch, and my suit jacket was horrible at keeping you warm.”
You smiled at the thoughtfulness behind the gesture. “Goddamnit, I love you.”
“And I love you,” Andy smiled back. “Now go take a quick nap, and I’ll wake you up in fifty minutes when I’m done with this, and we can finally make it to the reservation.”
You easily found comfort on the couch as you had done a few times before when you decided to join Andy during his late work nights. The couch was weirdly cozy, and you never knew if it was because of how tired you were that made it feel so nice or if it genuinely felt that way. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for you to drift off to sleep.
• • •
“Hey,” A soft voice slowly pulled you from the unconscious state you were in. “Honey, wake up.”
You mumbled a slight protest, pulling the blanket draped over you higher so that it shielded your face. Then, you remembered where you were.
You pulled the blanket back down, and when you opened your eyes, you saw Andy’s face; he was kneeling down next to you.
“What time is it?”
He evaded the question and instead said, “I’m sorry.”
“Andy,” You sighed as you sat up from the couch. You felt around for your phone and grabbed it, almost immediately checking the time; 10:03 pm. “Andy.”
“I fucked up,” His voice was quiet, and you pulled your eyes away from your phone and looked at him.
“What happened?” You asked as you tried to rub the remaining sleepiness out of your eyes. Even though you had apparently taken an almost two-hour nap, you still felt extremely tired.
“It was eight, and I wasn’t finished with what I needed for the case, but at that point, I didn’t even care and just wanted to go to dinner with you,” Andy took a seat down next to you on the small couch as he began to launch into his explanation. You watched him with intent eyes. “But, then I saw you sleeping, and you looked so peaceful and tired, and I didn’t wanna wake you. So, I kept working, and I was gonna wake you by eight-thirty, but the time got away from me, and the next thing I knew, it was nine.”
You didn’t say anything in response at first. Instead, you leaned back against the couch, closing your eyes and once again pulling the blanket over your head because there was nothing else you really wanted to do.
“I’m sorry. I know that you really wanted to go to the restaurant tonight.”
You finally decided to say something. “It’s okay.”
You felt the blanket shift, and you opened your eyes to see Andy coming underneath it and pulling some over him– luckily, it was long enough– so that the two of you were cocooned inside of it. “It’s not. You deserve to be mad.”
You considered his words and knew he was right, but you weren’t mad. Honestly, if you were a thousand percent truthful with yourself, you didn’t give a fuck about the dinner and the restaurant. More so, you cared about what it represented, or at least what your mind had warped it into representing.
It had been so long since you and Andy had spent a night together that was solely romantic and didn’t involve the two of you lounging about in your home eating takeout or being completely exhausted from work. You had desperately wanted something that resembled how it used to be between you two before things became so domesticated. For reasons you couldn’t decipher, you wanted a glimpse back into the beginning, almost honeymoon-like, stages of your relationship with him. And it seemed as if it was something that was entirely out of reach at this point.
“But, the night’s not a complete bust.” Andy’s words pulled you out of your scattered thoughts. However, they did nothing but confuse you.
Before you could ask him what he meant by his statement, he pulled off the blanket that was draped over you both, and it was then that you noticed the set up of Chinese food takeout on Andy’s desk. The food was plated nicely on disposable plates that you were sure were from the office’s break room, and there was even a lit candle in the middle of the desk. You noticed that the candle was the one you had gotten Andy for Christmas with the sole purpose of him having it in his office; apparently, the scent was supposed to be very calming.
Looking at the setup made you finally fully realize that the restaurant and dinner did not matter. In fact, this was far better than being in a fancy restaurant surrounded by other people and trying new food that you probably wouldn’t like anyway. This was much more romantic, and you loved every aspect of it.
It made you feel slightly frustrated at yourself that you had been making such a big deal out of it all in the first place. It wasn’t the restaurant that would make you feel reminded of the early aspects of your relationship. It was simply being with Andy that would, and always did, make you feel that way and more.
You did not know why you were on the verge of tears, but you did know that they were nothing but joyous. You looked over at Andy and noticed that he was staring at you so that he could gauge your reaction to everything. You smiled at him and wrapped your arms around his neck. “This is great. So great. Fuck, I can barely even form words right now.”
A breath of a laugh fell from your lips, and when you pulled back from the embrace, you placed a kiss on his cheek, his beard grazing your chin in a way that you had always loved.
“I’m glad and relieved,” Andy said as the two of you made your way over to his desk. “It’s definitely not high-end restaurant quality, but it is from our favorite place on Bleeker Street.”
You settled in your chair, your mouth watering at the food in front of you. You hadn’t realized how hungry you were until then. “Maybe we’re not meant to go to fancy restaurants anymore. We’re just takeout people now. And I think I’m okay with that.”
Andy’s lips upturned in a small smile. “Me too.”
“Now tell me everything about this godforsaken case,” You said and then took a bite from your egg roll. You always enjoyed hearing about his cases; it was a contrast from the work that you did that you always found refreshing, although most of the cases were more bleak if anything.
As Andy launched into an in-depth telling about what the case was about and the issues arising with it, you looked at him adoringly and listened intently as you both ate your food.
There was no grand dinner, but everything was still romantic, actually even more so. To you and him both, it was still a night to remember.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
let me know your thoughts<3
#andy barber imagine#andy barber x reader#andy barber x female reader#andy barber x fem!reader#andy barber x y/n#andy barber x oc#andy barber x wife reader#andy barber fluff#andy barber angst
166 notes
·
View notes
Note
Can you expand on that topic of Harry buying that island for Y/N to conserve like you touched upon on the 73 questions thing you wrote please?
oooh yes!! i didn’t think this would be something that people would bring up but i’m excited to talk about it!! enjoy;
oli - 4, felix - 3, belle - 3 weeks
“What about this one?”
The same question Anne and Harry had been repeating for the last two hours. Neither Anne or Harry could decide on an island that they both thought you would absolutely love - an island that Harry would buy somewhere new for you to conserve and protect, for future family vacations and eventually potentially even retire to, whenever that day may come.
He had originally thought about purchasing a large plot of land along the coastline of Italy, because it had always captured a special place in Harrys heart. He loved the people, the culture, the weather, the food and he loved you when you’re bathing in the Italian sun. The boot-shaped country was the one in which you and Harry had spent your first holiday together. It was where you’d had your honeymoon. It was where, you’re pretty sure, that Oli was conceived. It held so many precious memories, so you both thought it time to make the country more permanent in your lives and purchase a house over there.
Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, Harry wasn’t able to physically go anywhere and house, or island, hunt - especially with a 3 week old baby. Belle had been born on October 2nd and she was an absolute angel - as happy as can be. Oli and Fix were currently looking after her, whilst Anne and Harry sorted through the mess of trying to organise the gift of a lifetime for you. Luckily you were out with a friend, shopping for baby clothes and a little something for yourself, for the day so Harry could complete his surprise in secret. Harry already held property in Malibu, New York, Japan, London and Manchester. He, until recently, had an apartment in San Fransisco, but he never used it and so the money that he got from selling that was going to be spent buying an island for you.
He always remembers one of the first conversations that he ever had with you and it was about how you wanted to change the world. You’d answered “I think i’d buy my own island and start conserving the planet one bit of land at a time, until I save it all!” Now obviously you were being very optimistic and silly with your dreams, but that’s all you thought they’d be - dreams. Harry was willing to make them a reality though. Okay, perhaps not world domination but he could start small and give you the thing you’d dreamt of even as a little girl.
“Mum—” Harry sighed, knowing he would reject it just like all the other ones she’d picked out for being either, too small, too big, too dangerous, too humanised. He didn’t care about price, he just wanted to get it right. He looked over to her computer, seeing what she’d found and brought up on her screen. “Shit, wait…”
This was it.
“Mhm?” Anne smiled knowingly.
“Give me details.” Harry asked her, pulling over his notepad and pen to jot down key information. He wasn’t planning on buying today, but he was planning on making inquiries so if he thought something needed negotiating then at least he’d have the information to hand.
“Okay, um,” she looked over the screen. Harry had only seen glimpses of the the island from the photos but even now he was fully invested in it, “it’s in Phuket, Thailand. Minimally developed on. 110 acres, but you know…”
“Could lessen due to climate change, yeah.” Harry noted and looked to his mum to see if she was continuing or not.
“They are allowing an income potential so you could build and make profit from it. Then again the island itself is $160 million so it’s going to be 7018 before you even start making a profit.” Anne joked, but Harry sighed. “What, love?”
“$160 million.” Harry pondered, thinking whether this is all worth it. It’s a huge investment and potential waste of money, but it was for you.
“You’re a near billionaire Harry. What else are you going to do with all your money? You could build back half of that money just from releasing a new album with no promotion. Imagine if you released a documentary or something too. You work hard, Harry, and you will continue to, so is it so wrong to treat yourself to something nice?”
“It’s not for me, though.”
“Well then, there’s the question you to need to ask yourself.” Harry looked at his mum quizzically before she responded. “Is Y/N worth it?”
Well that was a stupid question.
“Looks like Y/Ns getting her island after all.” Harry grinned so wide, feeling so happy that he was doing this for you. You deserved this so much. Yes it was a bloody huge investment and risk, if Harry was being honest with himself, but you were ridiculously worth it. So much so that he would have bought the island even if it were double that price. Harry sighed in relief and slouched back on the chair, thinking about how happy you’re going to be when you find out. Obviously there was so much paperwork and calls that needed to be made, so it was going to take some time, but to see your face at the end of this was going to be so worth it.
“Cuppa tea then?” Anne asked, slinking out of the chair and standing up.
“Yeah, go on—” The sounds of rattling keys and the front door opening broke Harry’s sentence, making him look up at his mum in panic. Time had flew by so quickly that he’d not even realised you could’ve actually been home anytime now.
Shit, you were home.
“Quick mum, help me hide all this. Wait mum, you’re going to have to sneak out the back because Y/Ns going to have too many questions otherwise!” Harry shot up from the kitchen table and started to gather bits of paper and close the laptops down. Luckily Harry was using his work laptop and Anne had brought her own so they didn’t have to worry about clearing browser history.
“What and you can’t just say you were hanging out with your ol’ mum?” Anne asked, laughing as she packed up her stuff because she knew just how demanding and stubborn her son was.
“I love you and call me when you get home safely okay?” Harry asked, chivying her out of the back door quietly and pecking her cheeks in thanks for everything she’s done for him today.
“Alright. Love you!”
Okay, act normal Harry.
“Mummy!” You heard Oli shout from the other room. You furrowed your eyebrows as you entered the house, dropping off your shoes and bags at the door before heading into the living room, where you knew you’d find the kids.
“What’s wrong?” You asked, looking around the room to see everything was in order. In fact, your heart melted at the sight of the siblings. Oli was sat upright against the sofa and had his baby sister laying on top of his stomach with hers, and Fix was sat just to the side of them - patting his sisters back rhythmically. It was a sight for sore eyes.
“Baby Belle just smiled.” Oli beamed brightly and you smiled back at him. Even though it was slightly irrelevant of him to shout for you because of this, you couldn’t help but awe over the fact the siblings were so loving for one another.
“Did she now?” You took out your phone to take a few pictures of them. “Smile again for mummy then, all of you.” You giggled as Fix pulled the cheesiest smile and Oli did his signature smile too - no teeth and raised eyebrows so high to the sky. You even caught a golden photo where Belle was slightly smiling too. “Are you okay in here still?”
You didn’t want to feel like you were abandoning your kids, because you would never, but you needed just a day to yourself to rejuvenate and help overcome the post-natal depression slowly. As much as you so very much loved them, it was hard for you sometimes. Belle was going to be sleeping for at least another hour, so you weren’t too worried about her. Oli and Fix were ever so sensible too, simply watching Teen Titans on Cartoon Network whilst they babysat their sister. You were only a shout away if something were to happen, which made you wonder where Harry was.
“Yes mummy.” Fix nodded his head whilst keeping his eyes glued to the TV.
“Everything all right in here?” Harry’s voice came from behind you, but you’r felt his presence a lot sooner before that. He stood behind you, peering into the room to check everything was in order.
God, you’d missed him today.
“Yeah, Oli tell daddy why you called me.”
“Baby Belle smiled daddy!” Oli retold the story just as animatedly as the first time, but keeping as still as he could so not to disturb his sister.
“Did she now? You must’ve made her happy then.” Harry slunk one of his hands around your waist and squeezed the pudge that had situated there. He absolutely loved the way you’d become curvier after giving birth. He said it gave him a bit extra of you to love on, to which you always cried at the words because he never failed to make you feel so beautiful.
“I try daddy.”
“I try too.” Felix added, obviously wanting his dad to know he wasn’t not helping in taking care of Belle.
“Good boys. Proud of you both.” They both smiled after their dads words, “Now you both behave and look after Baby Belle whilst I go make mummy a cup of tea okay?”
“But come back, daddy.” They both replied and you gave them a final warm smile, before making your way to the kitchen to make a warm, milky, beverage.
“Nice day?” Harry asked, following you into the kitchen. His hand was placed lowly on your back and guided you into the room.
“Lovely, thanks. Just missed you all.” You sighed and turned around to kiss him in the middle of the kitchen. Your lips moulded to his perfectly and he tasted so sweet, you probably so sour from your lemonade you’d had earlier.
“Miss you always.” Harry murmured against your lips and then pulled away, not before giving you and extra peck though.
You walked over to the kettle and switched it on, whilst Harry collected the mugs from the cupboard you were too small to reach. He picked out one with the letter H on and one with the letter of your first name on, knowing that you’d drink from each others letters as always.
“Been busy today?” You asked, dropping teabags into the cups and leaning against the counter side as you waited for the kettle to take its’ boil.
“Kinda.” He smirked to himself, trying to dodge that question and any others you might have about the day. “Glad you’re back home though.” He walked to you and cupped the back of your head lightly, guiding your face up to his.
“Thank you for being my home.” You smiled at your cheesy comment and then lead your lips to his again.
“You are a dream, my love.” Harry said, looking deep into the eyes he could fall in love with all over again.
Just as you were about to touch lips with his you heard the wails of your tiny daughter and sighed in sync. You chuckled as you flopped your head onto Harry’s chest. As much as you wanted to stay and soak up all the love he was about to give you, your children were a priority - especially a crying baby.
“Well, your dream will have to wait hun.” You patted his chest before walking out of the room, Harry watching you go before whispering ever-so-carefully under his breath.
“But yours won’t.”
#harry styles#harry styles x reader#harry styles fanfic#harry styles x y/n#harry styles fanfiction#finelinevogue#finelinevogue harry styles#harry blurb#harry oneshot#harry styles concept#ask finelinevogue#ask harry styles#anon response#anon#harry styles little moments#little moments masterlist finelinevogue#little moments oliver#little moments island#little moments finelinevogue#little moments#harry styles fluff#harry styles dad
148 notes
·
View notes
Text
Phone Call Anxiety
Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)
Warnings: None
Genre: FLUFF, RPF (Real Person Fic)
Summary: When wanting to make quality merch, one needs a quality team there to produce and work on quality ideas. Great minds think alike. Great eyes see alike and great hands make alike - the three keys to the formula of creating a clothing line that will be fashionable and up to his brand. Luckily, Corpse knows just who to call.
Requested by Anon. Hi hun! Thank you so much for your wonderful request, I absolutely loved the idea! Sorry you’ve had to wait for it to be turned into a fic for so long, but I still hope you come across it and give it a read in which case I hope you enjoy it! Love, Vy ❤
He’s not a fan of phone calls. Anyone who knows him even remotely is very well informed on Corpse’s distaste for phone calls and upholding a conversation over the phone. He’d even go as far as to say talking to a person face to face is less stressful for him than that previous option.
But still, seeing as how the person he’s trying to reach lives in a different state and is rather busy all the time, arranging an IRL meeting is basically impossible at the moment, and sending her a text results in running the risk of having the text overlooked or completely lost in the sea of notifications she probably gets on the daily.
Therefore, a phone call was his only proper way of reaching her. And it’s what’s got him pacing the room with his nervousness peaking. He doesn’t know anything about this girl, nothing concrete at least. He was referred to her by Jack who brought her up in their passing conversation when Corpse mentioned how paranoid he was regarding his upcoming merch project. He specifically stated he doesn’t want anything basic and he wants the clothes to be fashionable, suitable for anyone no matter the age or gender and to be endurable. With all the love he has for his fans, he doesn’t want to give them anything less than what they deserve - the best.
“My friend’s the person you’re looking for.“ Jack said enthusiastically and confidently, “She helped me design the latest merch line I put out and I’ve never been more satisfied with my own merch. I’m planning on offering her a position in Cloak for her birthday. Make sure not to let that one slip out if you give her a call though.“ He warned half-jokingly.
Bottom line, with that kind of intro, Corpse couldn’t help but let his interest be piqued. And so, he asked for this girl - Y/N’s contact info from Jack before he went to surf through her social media where she thankfully posted plenty of pictures of her creations, never failing to mention specifications in the caption of each picture so the viewers would get the perfect and most detailed idea of how high the standard for her work is.
And so he’s finally managed to talk himself into dialing her number that’s been sitting in his phone for weeks now. As he paces his living room, his nerves chewing him out like a dog would with a toy, listening to the ear piercing ring of the dial waiting to get picked up by the girl he’s trying to reach.
Just then, Corpse’s head turns so that his eyes meet the glowing red numbers on his digital clock on his desk and he damn near hangs up the call right away - it’s half an hour past midnight. Fast as lightning, he removes the phone from his ear, his thumb flying over to press the red ‘end call’ button. Just then, a faint ‘hello’ reaches his ears, coming from the phone’s speaker. She’s answered the call.
He hurries to put the phone back up to his ear.
“Hey, sorry for taking so long to pick up, I ought to clean my desk eventually cause my phone was literally BURIED under a pile of papers.“ A cheerful sing-song voice rattles his stale and sleep deprived consciousness, as if awakening him from a half-dream state. “You’re either a wrong number caller or a last minute client, aren’t you? Need something done urgently?“
Corpse is taken the hell aback by her strong and downright awing first impression. Not to mention her energy at an hour unsuitable for calls. Lord knows he wouldn’t have picked up if her were in her spot. With the intention of not wasting any more of her time than necessary, he hurries to explain his situation. “Y/N, right? Um no, I’m neither actually. I was told about you by a friend, he said you were a real miracle-doer with fashion design.” He trails off for a second, not completely sure of how to hold this conversation, “Uh, sorry for the odd timed call, I lost track of time. I’ve been meaning to call you for hours now but I...I was nervous.” He cringes the second the word leaves his lips, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. He doesn’t know why he wants to leave her with a great, better than realistic impression of himself but he does and as of now he deems his attempts as ultimate failures.
He hears her giggle from her end, rifling through what sounds to be papers, “Yeah, I’m her. And boy is it refreshing to get someone who’s calling with an actual purpose.” She sighs as if a weight’s been lifted off her shoulders, “And don’t worry about the phone call anxiety. Makes two of us, to be honest.”
This catches him off-guard. The last thing he’d expect is for this girl to have phone call anxiety. In fact, she appears to be a natural, God-given talent at carrying conversations and upholding chit-chat with people. Maybe he’s a little too quick to judge - probably, considering he’s ‘known’ her for less than five minutes and knows nothing but her occupation, her name and the state she lives in - but that bubbly persona she greeted him with gave off the impression that it’s immune to any and all kinds of social anxiety - or anxiety in general. To hear such an honest and counter-to-assumptions confession on her part rattles him a tiny bit. In a good way though.
“How does that work for you? Isn’t your whole job depending on your phone conversational skills?“ He doesn’t mind that he didn’t phrase that too perfectly or that he straight up blurted it out. He knows he’ll be understood. She’s obviously a person who understands. Not just something specific, but everything. She simply understands. How he drew this conclusion and how accurate it is, he may not know until further notice.
“Well...“ she sighs as if genuinely looking to give him a proper answer, “You see, after doing it for so long and having been caught off guard quite a few times with some absolutely absurd orders, I’ve grown prepared of literally ANYTHING and I have a line prepared for anything the caller has to say. I just no longer let them catch me off guard and it’s fine. Helps avoid any possible awkward silences.“
Corpse’s eyebrows shoot up, her explanation only raising more questions rather than providing answers. But he’s not gonna be the annoying dumbass asking those questions at close to 1AM and bugging her. After all, if she agrees to this partnership, they’ll be hearing and potentially seeing a lot more of each other soon. “Impressive, honestly. You’re gonna need to teach me sometime.“ He’s unaware he’s smiling until he catches his reflection in the window. However, he doesn’t bother hiding it. This conversation is actually making him feel good, serving as a reminder that he’s not the only one who periodically goes through turmoil over small things.
She giggles again, this time the sound manages to draw a blush out of him, coating his cheeks, “I’d typically stray for revealing my secrets to professional success, but I’m willing to make an exception for you...” she pauses for a second as though she’s just now remembered something, “Oh shoot, I don’t even know your name.”
He wheezes out a nervous laugh, realizing he never introduced him, “Oh yeah, sorry, that’s my bad. My name’s Corpse, nice to meet ya.”
“Nice to meet you too, Corpse.“ Y/N replies, sounding pleased but teasing simultaneously, “Now tell me, you didn’t call me about my phone call secrets, did you? What may be the real purpose of your call?“
Oh shoot, he himself almost forgot what he was calling for. Luckily, the reference designs displayed on his computer screen remind him. “Right, well, I’ve been thinking of launching a new merch line either this month or the next, depending on how long the procedure will take, and I needed someone great on my team to make some merch actually worth the money people are paying for it. And, as I said, I was told you were in that ‘someone great’ category.”
“Told by who, if you don’t mind me asking?“ She briefly cuts him off, her voice now giving away the fact that she’s half-absent-minded in this conversation, added evidence be the ruffling of more papers on her end.
“Jack. I mean, Sean. You know, Jacksepticeye.“ Corpse explains, contemplating whether he should’ve ratted Jack out like that. Hearing the sound of delight Y/N lets out eases his worries ASAP though.
“Oh Gosh, I haven’t seen that cutie in so long! He’s like a brother to me so a friend of Jack’s is a friend of min-“ this time she cuts herself off so abruptly Corpse thought the line was cut or she hung up on him. She doesn’t let him wonder for long though, “Wait, wait, wait....Merch? And you’re friends with Jack?“ She pauses for a second once again, once again not a long enough second for Corpse to speak up. “You’re a famous YouTuber, aren’t you?“
He was completely unaware of the fact Y/N hadn’t realized he was someone famous yet. In fact, he didn’t think of it because he thought it wouldn’t be a big deal to her considering she’s friends with Jack-fucking-septiceye! In his mind, his ranking is far lower than Jack’s - despite that mindset being absurd - so the last thing he expected was for her to have some sort of impressed reaction to have been talking to him on the phone this whole time. Hell, she doesn’t even know his full YouTube name or what kind of content he produces.
“WAIT!“ She shouts urgently, startling him a tiny bit, “You’re Corpse Husband, aren’t you? Oh my God, yes you are, how didn’t I put it together sooner? Ah crap, I really need more coffee for this.“
“No! No, you need more sleep.“ Corpse hurries to correct her but is very clearly ignored or overlapped with the many sounds that are coming from her end, “What are you doing?“
“You’re getting the first rough sketch of a design by tomorrow morning.“ She says, taking a sip of whatever beverage she’s acquired for the purpose of keeping her awake, “You go ahead and get some sleep, I know exactly what I’m doing. Don’t worry about it.“
“I’m not worried about the design.“ He hurries to say before she, God forbid, hangs up on him, “It’s 1AM, woman, you need sleep! I don’t need those designs done by tomorrow. Hell, I don’t even need them this week!“
“You don’t, but I do.“ Y/N says, sounding almost breathless because of what seems to be overwhelming excitement, “You don’t get it - I’m designing merch for Corpse fucking Husband! You have any idea how crazy that is?“
“I personally would say it’s underwhelming. I mean, I’m no Pewdiepie, after all.“ He says, now sat at his desk with his free hand rubbing his temple as he stares at the designs he’s pulled up on his screen, ones he probably won’t need given that he’s now working with a professional.
“Oh, shut it.“ She chuckles, “Shut it and get some sleep, ok? I’ll talk to you in the morning.“
“Noooo...“ He leisurely stretches the word, “Tell me, Y/N, do you have Discord?” She clicks her tongue instantly, giving him a signal that the question he’s asked is bordering into the territory of ridiculous. He playfully rolls his eyes, “Alright then, lemme find you. If we’re partnering up on this, we’re both staying up.”
“You know you can just straight up tell me you don’t fully trust me with this? Like, I won’t be offended, I get it.“ She murmurs in-thought, the sound of clicking evident on her end.
“You know you can just straight up tell me you don’t want me bothering you and want me to leave you alone?“ He mimics her statement, smirking to himself as he pulls up Discord, knowing he’s already won.
She huffs and tells him her Discord info, quickly adding a small comment, “...but only because great minds think alike. I know we’ll be getting along on this design pretty nicely.”
“Yeah, yeah, right, sure, whatever you say.“ He laughs, “Accept my friend request and let’s drop this phone call.“
“Hey! - um, before we do that, I just wanna say a quick thank you.“ Y/N murmurs quietly, as if half-hoping he doesn’t hear her.
“For what?“ Corpse asks, his brows furrowing, unsure if they’re on the same page about this gratitude.
“For never once triggering my phone call anxiety.“ She admits, “I mean, I know I said I have lines prepared for every conversation scenario possible, but you totally caught me off-guard.“ She giggles a tiny bit, now sounding dangerously close to nervous, “But, not in a bad way, if that makes sense. Sorry if it doesn’t, I need more coffee.“
“No, no, it does!“ He hurries to reassure her, “It really does. And thank you too. Thank you for, you know, tolerating my BS at this hour. God knows I would’ve ignored your call if our roles were reversed.“
He hears her scoff and can’t help but laugh, “Huh ok, I see.“ She says, sounding greatly triggered and mock-pissed at his confession, “I’ll make sure to think of that next time you call me after midnight. Or at all, ever.“
Laughing his butt off, the only thing Corpse can think of in this moment is:
Damn, this girl and I are gonna get along
@maat-the-prescriptive @simonsbluee @save-the-sky @itsminniekat @hacker-ghost @bi-andready-tocry @imtiredaffff @jazzkaurtheglorious @hereforbeebo @fandomgirl17 @chrysanthykios @maehemscorpyus @loraleiix @letsloveimagines @annshit @i-cant-choose-a-username-help @enigmaticmaze @divine-artemis @waterlilypat @idontknowwhatthisisfam @evi-ka @classyandfabulous00 @redperson58 @lilysdaydreams @solowheein @mythicalamphitrite @axen-gers @luckygirl144 @nj01 @buddyemily @the-albino-lioness @stardream14 @gdhdkfnn @nomadicgypsyy @preciousskye @fluffysuicideunicornsworld @o-kaelin @manacharlotte @awkward-youtube-trash @lolalee24 @bonky-beerns @meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian @strawbrinkofdeath @teenloves @tams0527 @browneyespinkhair @starstruckllamapuppy @daisychains012 @y0ulooked @tinytacosuitcaseflap @supernatural-is-my-only-life @jula-pauline @melodykitty @just-that-bi-girl @crazybutconfidentaf @lowellshade @alphakees @bellero @weallneednamjesus @starryhanji @boiled-onionrings @husherstan @fockingwhore @melaningoddessthings @prettypastelpetals @haleypearce @godwhyamiawkward @y-napotat @daisychainyoonmin @little-miss-rebel3 @free-wheelin-bi-sexual @redmoon261 @darkacademic2 @wiseflamingoqueen @into-the-end @namikhai-i @nastiablr @thelittleplantlover @mirktuan @dont-hyuck @jjk-bunny @vintagegothlover @easygoingtheatre @itsrandombooklover @miiaivi @emmybaybee @befourgolden @jjk-is-my-shit @eternalteaaars @spacebadgerx @princesslunalight @acequinn14 @samm48 @misselsbells06 @simp-lykawa @fo-love @marishimomura-blog @therealglenncoco @cinnamonbun332 @killtherandomness @sanshinexxxsan @fee-btheweeb @press-lay @cathleenpotgieter16 @jazzydoesstuff @moonlxghtbay @forestrain2000 @hyunjinhugs @blood-of-fandoms @lovellylies @ukiyolixx @simpforhpcharacters @chrisdylan17 @parkerjisung @pedernille @theodonyous @wineandionysus @malfoystilinskii05 @morbid-x @coryisagee @jessewa26 @scoobydooluver97 @mindintheskies365 @raeanneinwonderland @indecisive-empanada @gluttonypalace @loriane2503 @btsiguess-kpop @khaoticbunny @lucidlycactus @smiithys @rottenroyalebooks @kpopgirlbtssvt @fangirl-tc27 @fr0z3n-1 @notmesimpingfortechno @shotarosleftpinky @kunoi-chan @idk-whats-wrong-with-me @yikeroonie @goldenstarofthunderclan @poetry-and-tea @ama-do-writing-stuff @wishbonewolf @emeraldxhope @t0xick1tty @kusuinko @speakyourselfloveyourself @sophia902103 @lo-manburg @classsykittykat @dmgama @depressedpuppythatneedscoffee @btsiguess-kpop @akaashi-baby @gun-jong-simp @geschichtenfee @yerapotato-wp @browneyedgirl365 @thysagclub @sparklycloudnight @helloatomicshadow @queentorresstuff @vtte @val-gal @lucy-bunny17 @aaliyahh0 @katluckybear @boyleanti @straybids @franchesca-791 @cosmicstorm19 @averyisbackinthetrashcan @aomi-nabi @xlanawriter @allensimpsforcorpse
#corpse husband#corpse#corpse fanfic#corpse fluff#corpse fic#corpse fanfiction#corpse fandom#corpse x you#corpse x y/n#corpse x reader#corpse imagines#corpse imagine#corpse husband fanficiton#corpse husband x y/n#corpse husband x reader#corpse husband fanfic#corpse husband fluff#corpse husband fic#corpse husband fanfiction#corpse husband imagine#corpse simp#fic#fanfic#fandom#fluff#corpse merch#fanfiction#requests open#request#x reader
291 notes
·
View notes
Text
Agent Y/N Escapes
Members: all BTS.
Genre: mafia!AU, reaction.
Premise: you are a police agent who was captured by one of the most influential members of the criminal organization you have been investigating for weeks. After days, you finally find a way and escapes, which really bothers the mafia member.
TW: (S) = Safe for reading.
Mafia Series Masterlist
Mafia Series Plot
A shorter reaction for you, guys. Tell me if you prefer the shorter or the more detailed ones. I hope you enjoy it! ♡
"Where are you, my dear?"
Namjoon:
He wouldn't stop thinking for even a second, trying to figure out in which part of the plan he failed.
At the same time, he would be impressed by your strategy skills, given that you have overcome all the obstacles he had put in your way.
The abandoned factory in which he had arrested you was scary, but you were not afraid at any time, which he noticed when watching the recording from the security cameras after the escape.
Obviously, he couldn't let the imbeciles who were in charge of preventing you from escaping go unpunished.
After all, they had wasted the golden opportunity to find out more about the current police investigation, and to question an expert agent like you.
In half an hour, he had already managed the harsh punishment of his subordinates. They would never forget to keep an eye out.
The moment he discovered that you had disappeared, through one of his "employees", he went into a mixture of fury and shock.
He promised himself that he would try harder next time. And that he would never underestimate you again.
Seokjin:
At first, he was scared.
He thought that he would have problems with his boss later.
But then he stopped and raised his eyebrows when he realized how smart you had been.
He spent the night in front of the computer, trying to find a way to discover your whereabouts.
Not only because his boss ordered, but also because he felt he should find you. It was a matter of honor.
He sighed when he couldn't find anything.
Hacking was difficult sometimes. He would need to abandon the virtual world and act in a more practical way this time.
But it was worth it.
Yoongi:
When he found out that you used the drugs he himself had offered you to escape, he laughed.
The situation was ironic, but strangely amusing at the same time.
You had an interesting sense of humor, which even brightened up the boring day he was having.
Of course, now he would have all the trouble of finding you again, which would delay sending the monthly load of cocaine to the governor's house.
Even if he was going to delay his appointments, he didn't feel angry.
Finally something attractive had appeared in his life.
Hoseok:
He was divided between panic and anger when he discovered that you had escaped.
After all, he had imprisoned you on the 11th floor of a building, and he had no idea what you had done to get away.
Did you take too much risks or put yourself in danger?
He knew he should be more concerned with himself and the punishment he was likely to receive from the boss.
However, you had such a beautiful smile on your face every time you lied sweetly to him that he just couldn't get you out of his head.
You had beautiful eyes too...
He groaned and spread his hand on the desk in front of him. He would need to find a quick way to get you back.
Otherwise, he didn't know what he was going to do. In many ways.
Jimin:
You were much stronger than you looked, which had surprised him in a charmingly new way.
You even managed to tie with him when you fought, which showed how skillful you were in combat.
After all, it wasn't just anyone who had a chance to remain standing after a hand-to-hand fight with him.
Or to remain entire and still call him a bastard.
Your body movements were charming too, as was it's shape, he had to admit.
He would look for you outside, considering that you had used a moment of distraction from him to get away.
You played dirty by running away while he took care of his injuries, which meant that a rematch was needed.
Taehyung:
In the blink of an eye, you had tricked him and ran away, saving your entire team.
In the blink of an eye, you stole your own gun from his pocket and aimed it at his head, preventing him from moving.
Even though he had two more pistols loaded at hand and knew he was agile enough to win that dispute, he didn't want to shoot.
He didn't want to see you hurt or worse, even if you were more dangerous than he thought at first.
He preferred to keep his hands up and watch you escape, running out of time to save your teammates and deciding to spare his life.
He would have to find you again, of course.
The shooting hole that was right next to his head, on the wall behind him, was too interesting to not be analyzed.
He wanted to find out what shooting techniques you had used.
Jungkook:
You had managed to escape from a damn bunker and carry your injured colleague with you towards the rescue.
This was bitterly impressive.
With a surprised and somewhat displeased gasp, he realized that he started to admire you.
You had been very brave to point a knife at his neck. Even though in the end he managed to free himself from your grip with a movement of his arms, it was still a smart plan.
He lowered his head, sinking deeper into the shade that the brimmed hat provided.
What the hell. Now he was curious about you.
He would have to find you quickly.
Don't forget to send me your requests!
Kisses from the Goblin Kingdom! :)
#fanfiction#writing#bts#bts mafia au#bts mafia fic#kpop imagines#kpop mafia#imagines#books and libraries#kim namjoon#kim seokjin#min yoongi#jung hoseok#park jimin#kim taehyung#jeon jungkook#bts x reader#mafia!bts#goblin king#bts reactions
191 notes
·
View notes
Text
“It’s going to be okay.”
I just did a couple of my comfort characters for this one. Send in requests if you want to see specific characters, I’d love to write for y’all’s comfort characters too 🤍
Haikyū!! Masterlist
Pairing(s): Suna Rintarō x Gender Neutral! Reader, Miya Atsumu x Gender Neutral! Reader, Tsukishima Kei x Gender Neutral! Reader, Bokuto Kōtarō x Gender Neutral! Reader, Oikawa Tōru x Gender Neutral! Reader
Warnings: Fluff/Comfort, Reader is stressed out because of jobs/midterms/college in general, reader cries
Suna Rintarō:
It had been a rough week.
It felt like everything was going wrong. Day in and day out.
It felt like the universe was hell bent on making you break, this past week.
You worked as a barista, while you got yourself through college.
Not an easy job, despite what some people liked to believe.
And with each day came a new promise.
Monday? A trip to the ER with second and third degree burns on your arms, when an angry customer had taken out their anger on you.
Tuesday? Your boss had yelled at you - humiliated you in front of the rest of your coworkers.
Wednesday? You ended up not realizing that yo were decorated in chocolate syrup, when you slumped on your bed, having to wash the sheets and most of you laundry, after.
Thursday? You’d tripped while at work and gotten to go home early, with your face burning in embarrassment at the snickers of other college students.
Friday? A pop quiz that you were 50% sure you failed.
Now it was Saturday, your studying? Done. Your assignments? Completed.
But you still felt the stress of the past week weighing on you.
So when you started tearing up, Suna couldn’t say he was surprised. He wished he could have made this past week easier for you.
Midterms were coming up, as well, just adding to the stress you were already feeling.
So, your boyfriend just does what comes natural to him, when it comes to you.
Rintarō doesn’t waste a moment when he returns from practice, spotting you slumped over on the couch, glaring at the floor while you tried not to let any tears fall from your eyes. With your choice comfort movie playing on the screen, he knew he had to do something.
Even if you had been pushing him away out of frustration, for the duration of this entire week.
Rintarō walks over to you and gently scoops you up in his arms, before sitting on the couch with you in his lap. Well-manicured nails begin to softly and affectionately run over your scalp, bringing a comfort to you that you could no longer deny you needed. Desperately.
He tugs you gently so you’re comfortable in his lap before he brings a calloused hand to your cheek, his thumb rubbing your cheekbone softly. He can’t help his sweet, soft smile as he sees the first tears trickle down your cheeks. He normally hated to see you cry, but he knew that you needed to get this out.
Sometimes, people just needed to scream and cry to get pent up emotion out. So when you started sobbing, completely collapsing against your boyfriend’s chest, he pulls you as close to him as you can possibly get, rocking you as he cradles your body against his own.
“There’s my baby, let it out...” His tone is soft as his hand holds your head against his chest. “Let it all out. It’s going to be okay. I’m here and I’ve got you.”
He doesn’t quite know how long it is until your sobs quiet down, the crying wearing you out, but it doesn’t matter to him. He snatches the remote up to restart the movie that you’d failed to get through, earlier, before tossing that same remote across the couch so he could readjust your bodies.
Leaning his shoulders and head against the pillow and armrest, he reclines himself, allowing you to get comfortable on top of him. As you rest on him, he brings a hand to your cheek once again, wiping away any remnants of the tears that had previously decorated your cheeks.
“It’s going to be okay, baby. I promise.”
Miya Atsumu:
Being stressed around your boyfriend?
Unheard of.
Atsumu is a perceptive little shit who picks up on the smallest changes in your mood.
And he will do everything in his power to reassure you, or cheer you up, whatever you need.
So, it’s not built up stress that gets you.
No, it’s the phone call you get in the middle of the night, while you’re resting in Atsumu’s arms.
You and Atsumu put your phones on do not disturb/bedtime mode every night.
Very few people are set up so that your phone will ring, when they call.
So, you end up waking up pretty quickly at the sound of a familiar ringtone, Atsumu sleepily sitting up beside you as you sit up to take the call.
Your best friend.
Who had just been admitted to the hospital after a car crash.
They were most likely going to make it, but they were still undergoing surgery and you knew that anything could happen.
You were her emergency contact so they called you from the ambulance.
Not too long after, you found out that the other person was undergoing surgery and probably wouldn’t make it.
The realization that that could have been your best friend made you feel like you couldn’t breath.
Atsumu had been watching your frantic pacing for the past ten minutes, watching you work yourself up more and more. You were shaking, though you hadn’t turned to him yet, like you always did, when you needed comfort. And he was too scared to make it worse.
Until he heard how your breath caught in your throat, once again, nearly sounding like you were about to start hyperventilating. Standing, the tall volleyball player comes to stop in front of you, gently grasping your wrists in his hands to make you look at him. He doesn’t say anything as you let out a shaky breath and crumble against him, just falling into his open arms.
Cradling you against him with his large palm at the back of your head, he lets you get out the emotions that were pent up, soft sobs being let out against his shoulder. Pressing a kiss to your temple, he whispers soft words of encouragement. “They’re going to be okay, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay, I promise. And have I ever broken my promises to you?”
With a shake of your head, your sobs quiet and all that’s left escaping you are quiet sniffles. If anyone was able to calm you, it’d be your Tsumu. There wasn’t a bad day you could remember that he hadn’t made things better. Your boyfriend always knew what to say... When it came to you, at least.
It wasn’t ten minutes later when a doctor came out to let you know that the surgery had been a success and that your friend was okay.
They’d be asleep for a few hours, allowing you to go home and change from your pajamas, if you would like. You didn’t catch that bit with the immediate relief that flooded through you.
You both did end up going home to shower and change, wanting to get you both and your friend some food on your way back. As soon as you were in the comfort of your own home, Atsumu took your face in his hands, cradling your cheeks and gently stroking your cheeks with his thumbs.
“As long as I’m around, I am going to make sure that everything works out in the end. I don’t like seeing you cry and I don’t like seeing you stressed out. You’re my significant other and I’m going to take care of you.” He reassures you earnestly. “It’s all going to be okay, I promise.”
And as his arms wrap around you, pulling you into his chest, you know that it is, in fact, all going to be okay. You had Atsumu and he had you.
Tsukishima Kei:
Mid-terms aren’t shit.
Not only are the tests long, and hard, and stressful,
But both you and Kei had them.
And both you and Kei had attitudes - especially when it came to either of you getting stressed out.
So, you both decided to stay and study on your own for the most part, until exams were over.
It was only a week, after all, how much harm could a single week do to the two of your mental states?
A lot, apparently.
It was Kei who caved first, surprisingly, needing to see you.
It was actually pretty unsurprising, boy is whipped for you.
Grabbing his keys, he tugs on the hoodie you’d gotten him for his birthday, along with grabbing you matching one that you’d left at his place.
Then he leaves, his usual preference to wear pants rather than sweatpants, when he left his home, being overpowered by his craving to see you.
And he knew you needed to see him too.
But if anyone was more stubborn than he was about things, it was you and he knew you weren’t going to cave anytime soon.
What he didn’t expect when he entered your home was to find you crying into your hands, in a pile of your own notes, with your computer in front of you.
He furrowed his brows - you had overwhelmed yourself...
Because he hadn’t been here to prevent you from it.
Kei sighs as he listens to the clanking of keys together, his attempts to unlock the door to your apartment failing multiple times, before finally ending in success. At least he knew no one would ever break into your apartment. They wouldn’t be able to get in.
Look at him, he’d been over here a dozen times and it still took him about three minutes to manage your locks open. You must know how much he loved you with the fact he still put up with it. He enters the home, near silently, placing the strawberry shortcakes and milkshakes down on the counter, his keys being hung beside yours. Walking past your kitchen, he freezes in the doorway, hearing your quieted sobs before he sees you.
He had never, not even in his years of playing volleyball, moved as quickly as he did in that moment. He moved to kneel in front of where you were seated on the couch, taking your laptop and shutting it.
Kei knew you hadn’t opened your eyes, or moved your hands from shielding your face to see him, but you knew it was him with the way you slid off of the spot on the couch to kneel on the floor, your face finding familiar purchase in his neck.
“I’m not around for a few days and you manage to overwork yourself like this. God damn it, Y/N, don’t do this again.” His words, no matter if they should have sounded angry, just came out worried.
You knew that the only person he was mad at was himself for even suggesting the idea of you both spending time studying individually.
“I’m right here, okay? I’m not going to be going anywhere,” placing a large hand on the back of your head, he gently kisses the crown of your head. “It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
“It’s all going to be okay,” his soothing voice calms you quite a bit, making your body slump against his in relaxation. “There’s my shortcake. Just relax, alright. We’ll study more later. In the meantime, we’re going to watch a movie and eat the sweets I brought. I don’t want you to think about those god damn exams.” Your nod in confirmation is all he needs to get you both comfortable on the couch so he can take care of his partner... Like he should have been going this entire time.
Bokuto Kōtarō:
Kōtarō, despite people thinking he’s not the smartest, is a very intelligent person.
Especially when it comes to emotional intelligence.
Which is why he figured out about your family issues, within a month.
Poor boy wished he could do something, though other than the constant sleepovers in high school, there wasn’t much else he could do. It broke his heart.
But that changed, when you both graduated high school together.
He didn’t allow you to stay any longer in that house. You’d dealt with the constant yelling and the lack of care for your feelings, long enough.
Though, that didn’t mean you’d escaped it when you went to reunions or to visit them on holidays.
They always managed to drag you into going.
And they always managed to drag you into their bullshit.
Kōtarō hadn’t been able to go to this year’s reunion - a practice game held him up.
His presence usually encouraged your family member to back the fuck off and not drag you into things.
But, this time...
He was just glad he’d gotten there when he did.
Pulling up in the driveway of the designated home of this particular family reunion, he could hear the yelling, as soon as he stepped out of his car. The volleyball player tensed up as he quickly walked towards the home, throwing the door open without care.
Kōtarō wished you wouldn’t put yourself through this. You didn’t deserve it. He enters the living room, most of the arguing falling silent at his presence, already knowing that he wouldn’t hesitate to get on them for their bullshit. Walking over to you, where you sat, slumped at the dinner table, your head in your hands, he frowns.
He wasn’t surprised when he found tears in your eyes as he gently picked your head up to look at him. A frown befalls him, once again and he guides you to stand, pulling you into his embrace, his hand holding your head against him, practically cradling you.
He holds you for a few long moments to let you calm down, before he turns towards your family, letting you go so he can take your hand. “We’re leaving. They’re tired.”
No one argues. They’d seen how angry Kōtarō got when it came to you and they didn’t want to face the wrath of the angry volleyball player.
Without another word from you both, or spoken to you both, Kōtarō escorts you out of the house. As soon as you’re out, you can hear the yelling ensue, once again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” he whispers as he pulls you into him, once again. “It’s going to be okay.” He whispers to you, pressing his lips to the crown of your head.
“I promise. We’ll go home and take a long bath... We can make some cookies and relax. We can even watch some Disney movies and make a pillow fort. How’s that sound, my sweet owl?” Kōtarō cooes as he begins to walk you to the car, smiling at you as he noticed how relaxed you seemed to be out, away from them and with your fiancé.
No matter if he could help your family’s constant fighting, he’d always be here to whisper soft reassurances to you and make sure that everything was okay.
Oikawa Tōru:
Dating Tōru isn’t easy.
Living over 18,000 kilometers from one another was no easy feat.
Somedays are easier than others.
And this wasn’t one of those ‘easier’ days.
No, not at all.
Instead, today is one of those days that you tug on Tōru’s old volleyball jacket and bury your nose in the collar, hopping it’ll smell somewhat like him.
One of those days that you watch his dazzling face appear on the screen of your television and pretend he’s here with you.
It’s one of those days that you shoot him an ‘I miss you’ text and he’s unable to reply.
You both make it work because you love one another and want to watch the other succeed and do what they love.
But sometimes, it would be so much easier if you both lived on the same continent.
What you didn’t realize was that he hadn’t been to reply to you, because he was caught up getting his stuff off of the plane and into a car.
He was exhausted, but excited to see you.
He wasn’t expecting to come home and find you asleep on your couch, wrapped up in his jacket with dried tears on your cheeks.
Tōru dropped his bags at the door - he could worry about them later, right now he needed to get to you. With his signature grin, he walks through the kitchen, “Cutie,” he cooes through the apartment, before halting as he enters your living room, head tilting like a confused puppy’s would as he spotted you.
His brows furrow and a frown crosses his lips, walking over to you and dropping to his knees in front of your sleeping form on the couch. He brings his hand up to gently stroke your cold cheek. “Y/N...” He cooes as he caresses your face, waiting for you to stir. Once you begin to open your eyes, a smile returns to his face, seeing your excitement overpower the sleepiness in your features.
“You’re here...” You whisper, pushing yourself forward to hug your fiancé, no matter how unconventional this position was for you both. “I missed you,” you mumble into the soft cloth of his shirt, inhaling deeply. Peppermint. He always smelled like peppermint and it was a scent you had immensely missed.
“I missed you too, cutie... But it’s okay. I’m here, now.” Tōru reassures, shifting so that he can scoop you up into his arms while you curl up into him.
Not hesitating to want to fall asleep with you in his arms, once again, he brings you to the bedroom, dropping you onto the bed and pulling out comfier clothes for the both of you. Unpacking could wait later. Explanations of the vacation he was taking could wait. You being comfortable and in his arms was all he wanted.
He undresses you, putting one of his shirts on you, before he undresses, as well, pulling on a pair of sweatpants, before he pulls back the covers and slides under them with you.
Long, toned arms come to wrap themselves securely around you, pulling you into a tanned chest. “I missed you so much... But I’m here now, alright?” He whispers to you, kissing your head with a tenderness that only you got to see from the Argentinian volleyball player.
“Go to sleep, we’ll talk when you wake up.”
It was safe to say you fell asleep peacefully in his arms, finding peace in the fact that you’d soon be happily waking up in his arms.
General Taglist:
@thathoneybee3 @bratkugo
#🤍.suna#saffron's works#suna rintarō x reader#suna rintarō comfort#suna comfort#atsumu miya x reader#atsumu miya comfort#atsumu comfort#tsukishima comfort#tsukishima kei comfort#tsukishima kei x reader#bokuto kōtarō x reader#bokuto kōtarō comfort#bokuto comfort#oikawa tōru comfort#oikawa tōru x reader#oikawa comfort#haikyū!! comfort#haikyū!! x reader#haikyū!! fluff
253 notes
·
View notes
Text
subdued
— good boy joon on his bday x fem reader
summary; He could so easily take you over in the bedroom, push you down and ram himself inside until you cried. But it’s the other way around, and he likes it that way. tags; birthday boy joon, solo rapper joon, college student reader (unspecified year/age lol), this entire fic is based off THIS joon everyone look and never forget him warnings; kissing, blowjobs, grinding, unprotected, birthday sex, sub!joon word count; 5k
notes; hoooo boy, if you think my other fics were self-indulgent, this one is straight from my 3 am thoughts... anyway. i actually have the same birthday as joon so this fantasy plays off very different in daydream universe no. 794 lol but i understand not everyone is as lucky as us sept 12 babies so i adjusted it 😌
The stoplight down the street from his building takes the longest. He had warned you of its faulty mechanics the very first time you visited. It lingered on red a beat too long, wasted precious seconds you could be spending with him. It’s been the sole challenger to your patience this past year. Every time you wanted to visit him, it was this same stoplight that held you up— made the sugar in his coffee cup settle, the food in its container go cold. It absolutely dampened your mood.
Today, it’s from the back of an Uber that you watch the red glow of the light, gaze fading in and out of focus. It’s raining, the rhythmic pattering of raindrops against the wind shield hypnotizing you. There’s a styrofoam box of takeout beside you falling into the same fate as all its predecessors, tucked inside a plastic bag. It’s his favorite today, the black bean noodles down the street from your university paired with a sickeningly sweet fizzy drink. (There’s a cheap bottle of wine too, but he was never one for getting shitfaced so it had a slim chance of consumption.)
The longer the light stalls, the more nervous you become. One glance at your phone tells you it’s nearing eleven forty-nine, your last message to him just a few minutes before. It was a slew of sad faces as you apologized for the fifth time that night. Another minute ticks by and you’re suddenly hit with the overwhelming fear that you won’t make it on time.
It was Namjoon’s birthday.
At least it would be for the next ten minutes.
You hadn’t seen him all day, your usual Saturday morning brunch postponed by your conflicting schedules. You had a huge group project coming up, and the other students in your group all had lives of their own, jobs, sports, dates, that made their schedules hard to work around. Namjoon, too, was busy gearing up for the release of his mixtape, a collection of songs he had worked hard on for the better half of the year.
He had been planning for this since you first met, around this time the previous year. It was all he ever spoke about these days, which was both endearing and worrisome. Regardless of how you felt about his avid dedication towards his mixtape, you would continue to support him through it all.
You were supposed to drop by after your last class, but one thing led to another and suddenly you were babysitting your neighbor’s kids as she ran off to the hospital. You had felt bad for her, something about a relative in an accident, and had said yes without thinking through what exactly that meant. Two overexcited children and a kitchen lined in cake batter, is what it meant. Your neighbor had returned a little before eleven, and by then you were really cutting it close.
The order you placed had been ready when you got to the little restaurant, and, deciding to forgo bus stop waiting times, the Uber came quickly enough. Because things can never go your way, there was a small accident on one of the major streets that set you back, leading to your driver taking an abrupt detour that you doubt was helpful, and now you were here.
You bite down on your lower lip for probably the umpteenth time, flipping your phone around to check the time. 11:52.
The light changes a second later, your chauffeur for the evening slowly easing his foot off the break and sending the two of you one step closer to your boyfriend. The movement doesn’t ease your nerves in the slightest, foot tapping wildly against the carpeted flooring of the backseat as you think of that creaky elevator. Will it be on your side today? Or will it force you to run four flights of stairs up to his floor?
You won’t know until you get there, absentmindedly tipping the poor soul who bore witness to the rolling waves of tension that had swamped your body tonight. You can only hope it’s an appropriate bill, taking off toward the front doors of his building. The water on the sidewalk splashes beneath your frantic footsteps, tickling your bare ankles. The black boots you wore that day did nothing to save you, a small gust of cold air trying to sweep up beneath the thin material of your dress, luckily to no avail.
The front area is as empty as it usually is, though you doubt the late hour would change that. Knuckle jammed harshly against the flickering elevator button, you wait impatiently for it to descend. His small label takes up the entirety of the fourth floor, studios squeezed beside meeting rooms and offices. It was by no means a monster record label, but it had gained enough fame from the quality soloists it produced over the years; Namjoon was quickly becoming one of those. The carriage is on the fifth floor, right above his, the digital panel beside you says. It passes his floor, passes the fourth, and then… nothing.
You curse every deity in the universe as you watch it freeze on the second floor. You had been so close, you groan, kicking the tip of your shoe against the metal doors. It does nothing to fix the broken elevator, and with one heavy sigh, you turn to the flight of stairs. It was 11:54 now.
The stairway is silent, off-grey concrete walls mocking you as the time continues to tick down. Holding the plastic bag to your chest, you start up the stairs in a hurry. The rustling of the bag grows annoying quickly, your thighs aching half way up. The platforms between floors provide nearly no reprieve before you ascend the next level of stairs, heaving for air as you turn onto the final platform before his floor. Your hair sticks uncomfortably to the back of your neck.
You can’t fling the door open fast enough, heart hammering between your rib cage. The hallway is filled with blissful air conditioning, nothing like the stuffy air of the staircase. You relish in it for a second before taking down the winding halls, torpedoing straight into the room your boyfriend’s in.
“Happy birthday,” you gasp, only hoping you made it in on time. Your sudden appearance has him whirling around in surprise, dark eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets at his surprise intruder. The digital clock above one of his speakers blinks back at you. 11:59.
The surprise wears off soon enough. Namjoon melts back into his puffy chair, easy going smile taking over his features as he regards your ruffled appearance. “Jesus, what’ve you been up to?” he teases playfully, standing up to relieve you of the bag in your hand, still warm against your chest.
He brushes a kiss against your forehead, placing the plastic bag somewhere off behind him before enveloping you in your arms. “Thank you, baby,” he hums, strong arms wrapped around your shoulders. Almost immediately the tension in your body melts away, oozes out of your skin as you bury yourself against his chest. It feels good to be there, the faint cologne from that morning clinging to his white zip-up.
“Sorry I’m so late,” you murmur. Feeling comforted enough, you pull away from your hiding spot against his chest. The arms hanging loosely around your waist don’t let you get too far, low-lidded eyes staring down at you over the straight angle of his nose. “So much happened today— I’m sorry.”
Namjoon waves your apologies off as he guides you towards his computer chair. He plops down first, pulling you over to sit on his thigh. The clock ticks by, and suddenly his birthday is over. The scent of the noodles fills his dark studio, and you become acutely aware of the soft melody drifting from his speakers. Nothing too developed yet, just a simple piano with a bass drum kicking in.
“Another year, another grey hair,” he sighs, leaning back against his seat. You laugh at his dramatics, running a finger through the head full of silver hairs he’s rocking this time around.
“I fail to see the issue,” you muse, shifting about until you can loop your arms around his neck, pulling his face close enough to yours to kiss. He lets you, opening his mouth when your tongue prods against his plush, doll lips. He tastes of that energy drink you know is bad for him, the one that keeps him up way past his nonexistent bedtime. You should scold him for it, but there’s something about the way he molds his mouth against yours that makes it difficult to pull away and do so. You kiss him for a few minutes, lips casually molding against each other.
The enticing scent of the food you brought over has you pulling away with a soft smack of your lips, lazily grinning down at him. “You should eat,” you encourage, attempting to move out of his grip. If anything, the hands on the small of your back stiffen, keeping you comfortably pressed against him.
“Don’t want to,” he whines, half-lidded eyes gazing at you with that tender look. He leans back in, nudges his nose against yours until you’re moving to accommodate him again. His lips catch yours a second time, a soft sigh released on his end. His body feels like a furnace, swaddled up in that nice white tracksuit, some fancy brand he’s an ambassador for. There’s something about him that’s different today, cherry lips catching you in a daze. He seems totally aware of the pull he has over you, moving his mouth against yours like he knows he’s won you over and was now ready to dedicate the rest of the night to you.
You weren’t having any of that, at least not tonight.
Knitting your hands in his hair, you tug. You tug and tug until he’s releasing you with a whine, swollen red lips shiny from your lip gloss. It’s certainly a look on him, and as he pants beneath you, you’re left wondering why he’s chosen to be an elusive rapper when his doll-like face could easily blend into the idol world.
Another mystery you’ll never solve.
“Missed you today,” he admits bashfully, lips pulling into a shy smile he tries to hide from you. You reward his confession with a soft peck against his cheek, hands cupping his soft cheeks between your palms. Despite how easily you’d been forgiven before, there’s a tinge of a whine curling around his next words. “Who blows someone off on their birthday?” he mumbles, eyes fluttering shut.
You chuckle, tracing your thumbs over his skin. They just barely brush against the corners of his mouth, the soft flesh begging to be touched. “Who spends their birthday cooped up in a tiny room?” you reply teasingly, leaning in to kiss the mole beneath his plump lips.
Namjoon inhales softly, head lolling backwards as you kiss down his chin, over his pulse point. “Was inspired,” he weakly defends, the grip around your waist growing tight. “There was a pretty girl in my dreams last night.”
“Oh?” You hum, slithering off his lap. The floor mat he has beneath his rolling chair to protect his hardwood floors is cold. There’s ridges on it that press uncomfortably into your knees. But all that is forgotten when you roll your hands over his shoulders, kiss his neck tenderly, and he groans. “How pretty?”
Your back is straining from being awkwardly stretched over him in a desperate attempt to kiss the entire column of his neck. He doesn’t make it easier, hips wiggling before you as you nip against the side of his neck. “Joon?” you coo, sliding your hands down his chest. The muscles jump beneath his zip-up, one shuddering exhale escaping him.
“R-Real fuckin’ gorgeous,” he mumbles, hands circling your shoulders. He wants to pull you close like he always does, but you can tell he’s equally as conflicted by the need to push you down onto his cock.
The front zip of his sweater gives with one tug, the clicks of the teeth coming apart following your hand down. He’s wearing a plain white shirt underneath, the beginnings of sweat clinging to the flimsy material. You place your hands around his waist, let the fabric catch over your knuckles as you glide them upwards. The sinewy muscle quivers under your touch, Namjoon’s breath catching in your throat.
When you reach his pecs, he barely contains the whimper in his throat, hands releasing you in favor of clutching at the armrest. “Please,” he huffs, the white zip-up halting you from pushing any further. “Off.”
“Of course,” you purr, pushing it over his deltoids. He doesn’t shake the sweater off completely, the sleeves catching over each other in his haste to feel you closer against his body. The t-shirt remains tugged up to his chest, held up by your wandering hands. “Relax for me, okay?” you croon, leaning forward to nip at his lower lip. The plush skin bounces back, redder than ever. He nods shakily, chest rising and falling.
You place a kiss directly on his sternum, his heart fluttering wildly just a few inches away. You feel it beneath your palm, the way it beats wildly out of rhythm for you. The music loops back around, the same melodious tune mixing with his airy sounds. You trail your mouth lower, letting it mold against the faint ridges over his abdomen.
He’s been putting on muscle these last few months. It’s a sight you only get to appreciate in moments like these. Namjoon wasn’t a flashy performer; he was too shy to wear revealing outfits, not that they particularly fit his onstage aesthetic anyway. He liked it simple and dark, wanting his words to capture people more than his looks.
It was a humble approach, really, because you don’t doubt for a second someone with looks of his caliber couldn’t pull fans with that alone. But as you said before, Namjoon didn’t like that sort of thing, and you suppose that’s why he’s declined invitations to join rookie boy groups time and again. He had worked hard to make himself known on his own, frequenting various hip hop scenes until he picked up steam. By the time you’d met him, he had his own contract, with this same company you’re currently in.
Now he was freshly twenty-six, on the cusp of releasing his first full mixtape, completely of his own creativity. His first mini-album had done extraordinarily well, but there had been a lot of outside partners and producers that pushed it along. This mixtape was one hundred percent him, a fact you couldn’t be more proud of.
What better way to treat him than to shower him in attention like this?
You press a soft kiss to his belly button, glancing up just in time to see those plush lips pull into a smile, pearly white teeth appearing in between, eyes fluttered shut. The waistband of his matching bottoms stretches easily enough, giving you a brief view of the dark underwear he’s got underneath. You let it snap back into place, relishing in the tiny gasp he gives. “You’re acting extra sweet for me today, aren’t you?” you smirk, running a palm over the bulge beneath his pants. His knuckles tighten dangerously against his armrests.
“I’m the same,” he chokes out, eyes rolling to the back of his head when you give his outline a teasing squeeze. “Just… lower please.”
His statement is followed with one hand on the back of your head, tentatively urging you closer to his stiff member just an inch. He’s so polite and shy tonight, cheeks tinted a nice rosy color as he looks away from your lewd expression practically salivating over the prize hidden beneath his clothes. His bottoms come down around his thighs, throbbing cock bouncing up to tap his stomach.
“Oooh,” you say appreciatively, taking him in your hand. Namjoon flinches, a groan catching in his throat as you trail your fingers over his cock. They end at the tip, swollen and red; you can’t help yourself as you duck down, kissing the tip softly. Namjoon full on shivers, hips bucking against your touch.
“Please, just... touch,” he begs, wiggling around underneath you.
You nod, pulling away to plant your hands against his hips. “Have to sit still for me, big boy,” you remind him, pushing down until his bottom glues itself firmly to the leather padding of his chair again. He does so with a huff. Clouded eyes meet yours, so beautifully framed by the blood that rushes to his face.
Despite calming him just moments before, the first kiss against his tip makes him squirm and buck like a wild stallion, your name falling from his lips like a mantra. Eventually he calms down, labored breath fanning across his chest as he watches you lower your mouth down around his cock. It twitches in your hand, one perfect pearl of cum oozing from the tip. It’s barely rolled down past his head when you strike, the tip of your tongue scooping it up quickly.
A little on the salty side, but it still makes you shudder. Above you, Namjoon isn't faring that well either. He groans, hands clenched over the armrest as he tries his best to be good for you. “More,” he says hoarsely, silver hair dangling over his eyes. It creates a curtain between you two, his beautiful expression hidden from your view.
You ease his cock down your mouth. It feels just as good as you remembered. Your knees ache from being on the ground, but you wouldn’t trade places with anyone in the world right now. An inaudible moan resonates from above you, his back going stiff the further down you swallow him. You could practically feel yourself drooling, excess saliva making his entrance into your mouth so much easier. You get about two thirds down before it becomes difficult, lips pulled taut around his swollen member. The tip is reaching dangerous territory now, nudging against the soft spot in the back of your throat.
You could gag, but that would only startle him away, make him worry about you. You don’t want that, not when he’s melting into his seat with every inch you swallow. So you push the discomfort away, focus on feeling the entirety of his cock in your mouth.
“Fuck,” he whines, shaking his silvery locks away from his eyes when he leans forward to look at you. You take extra care to bat your lashes up at him; he obviously likes the sight, his lower lip catching between his teeth for the umpteenth time that night.
When you finally surpass that initial discomfort, his cock wonderfully resting in your mouth and throat, everything becomes so much better. The drag against your lips feels almost heavenly, never mind the fact it would certainly leave the skin around there soft and tender tomorrow. It’s something you’re willing to overlook, running the flat length of your tongue against the underside of his cock to distract him.
You make one hand busy, reaching down to cup his balls. The skin is soft, but tight, like it’s taking everything in him not to bust right now. The other situates itself loosely against his hip, thumb drawing slow circles against the skin. He’s grown hotter since you’ve gotten here, like your own personal furnace.
He’s a good boy, through and through.
It had admittedly taken a while to tame his wildness; there had been a time where he would push your head down his cock the second your lips touched his mouth. Now, he fared pretty well against his own carnal instincts, blunt nails digging into the armrests in order to stop himself. Thanks to this, you’re able to pick up a comfortable pace against his cock, bobbing up and down between his thighs.
“M-More,” he pants, muscles trembling from the exertion it takes for him to hold himself back. “Please,” he throws in.
You appease him, letting go of his balls to grip the base of his cock. He hisses at the touch, hips unconsciously jumping. You hold him tight, squeezing his cock between your palm until his thighs are quivering too. The descent down his cock is easier too, no longer trying to swallow him up whole every time.
It only calms him for so long before that same plea is falling from his lips again. This time, you pull off completely, lazily jerking him off as you rest an elbow on his thigh, chin falling into your open palm as you analyze his figure. “Always need more,” you sigh, the slippery sound of your hand mingling with his little moans.
Namjoon’s jaw tightens, head falling forward until his chin touches his chest. “Would like to fuck now,” he seethes, his t-shirt growing damp at the collar from all the sweating he’s been doing.
“Is that so?” You smile. As you say this, you loosen your grip, letting your hand fall away much to his dismay. “Your clothes, Joon,” you explain, using his thighs as leverage to push yourself to your feet again. There’s creases on the skin over your knees, skin and joints tender from the position. That gets pushed to the back burner as you watch Namjoon finally fight his way out of his clothing, hands stuck in the sleeves of his zip-up.
“Off, off,” he huffs, eventually tugging it off all inside out. The shirt is next, neck hole stretched huge as he peels it away from his body.
You muffle a giggle behind your palm, placing a hand on his bare shoulder when he’s done. He’s looking at you with those same, desperate eyes, stealing your heart without even realizing. “Adorable,” you tease only to watch the blood crawl over his ears and down his neck. You throw a leg over him, his thigh pressing against yours. Before you can mount him you’re tugging off the thin jacket you’d worn that day, pawing it off until only the thin barrier of your dress is between the two of you.
With both knees pressed to either side of him, you finally show him what he wants to see. The sundress you’d worn that day makes everything so accessible. The flimsy material stretches over your ass, sits pretty around your waist to reveal your sheer panties. The sight makes Namjoon groan, eyes downcast as he fights to see your pussy. You return his gaze with a hand against his jaw. “Look at me, sweetheart,” you murmur, looping your hands around his head, finding their place on the nape of his neck first. Your fingers instinctively run through his locks, drawing an airy gasp from him.
“Yes,” he breathes, lower lip brushing against yours from such close proximity. You smile down at him, easing your core down on him. His cock pressed against your clothed panties, leaving a wet trail against the exterior side of them.
He fits snugly between your folds, hesitant hands resting at your hips like he wants to grind you down but knows better than to attempt such a bold move. You reward his behavior with a faint kiss against his cheek. “Good boy, Joonie,” you praise, barely containing your own gasp as you wiggle over his cock. “Being so nice for me today,” you sigh, grinding down against him.
Namjoon shivers, cock throbbing against your soiled panties. “Always good for you,” he groans, a trail of sweat running down from his hairline.
Another kiss is pressed against his face, this time against his cheekbone as you begin grinding back and forth. “That’s right,” you confirm, hugging him tight to your chest, until his face is practically buried between your breasts. “Even on your birthday,” you sigh, stretching a hand behind you to tug your panties to the side. The first glide of his cock against your folds has him bucking against you, a choked gasp escaping both your lips.
“I-Yes,” he cries, hands wrapped tight around you.
You bite down a whimper, his length running over every inch of your folds. It makes your toes curl when he stimulates your clit. Your attention had been solely on making him feel good tonight, that the barest amounts of pleasure to your own body was enough to make you shake. “Tell me,” you pant, moving back to grab him by the shoulders as you run against his length. “What you would do if you weren’t my good boy.”
Namjoon cries at your sudden pace, head lolling back as he fights every instinct in his body telling him to just fuck right into your inviting heat. “Can’t,” he sobs, eyes squeezed shut.
“Joon,” you growl, snapping your hips forward roughly. “Tell me.”
He shakes his head with another whimper, thigh muscles jolting beneath you. It makes you shift forward, clit running hard along his cock. “No, you’ll—“ he wheezes, fingers digging deep into your sides now. “You’ll… think I’m bad. Dirty.”
You lean forward, shove your tongue into his mouth with no warning. He moans, letting you push his tongue around until yours is halfway down his throat, licking and slurping every inch of him you can reach. You yank his head back by the hair, catching those watery eyes. “Tell me all your dirty thoughts,” you croon, lips trailing down his jaw. “Tell me them and maybe we’ll make them come true.”
Namjoon moans. “You,” he hesitates. While he does that, you reach down to align his cock with your hole, throbbing to be filled. His tip brushes along the tightened lips surrounding your entrance, reducing him to a stuttering mess. “You tell me I’m dirty,” he cries, “dirty and messy, and-and you make me beg for forgiveness just to cum, s-sometimes you don’t like it and make me d-do it again,” he babbles. “I-if you’re feeling mean y-you just edge me. Until I cry.”
You sink down on his cock, your shared arousal making the glide slippery and so wet. It’s almost too easy how he fits inside of you, your back arching as the head of his cock runs deliciously against your walls. The sensation of your cunt wrapped tightly around his cock has him gasping for air.
“Until you cry?” You repeat through clenched teeth. “Like you are now?”
Namjoon trembles, hips and thighs twitching every few minutes. He nods his head, but he’s become overwhelmed by his thoughts and your touches, so the movement ends up looking more dazed. There’s a couple tears that escaped and painted pretty trails down his cheeks, one catching on the corner of that pout of his. The rest pool in the corner of his eyes, glassy just like his sweat-soaked skin.
“Happy birthday,” you mumble, brushing his hair away from his face to press a kiss against his forehead. Namjoon groans. “Fuck me, baby,” you purr, wrapping your hands around his neck again. “You deserve it.”
Namjoon lets out a loud cry at your permission, hands tightening around your hips. He wastes no time, bucking into you like a wild animal that’s desperate to cum. You don’t blame him; he’d been close to cumming down your throat, and recounting his demeaning fantasies while stuffed deep inside you certainly didn’t help.
You let him jostle you to and fro, dick slipping in and out of your pussy with an unreal amount of force. He was grunting all kinds of sounds against your shoulder, biting down on the skin like it would calm him. It doesn’t, and you already know there will be a big bruise to attend to tomorrow.
With every thrust, the head of his cock rubs against that sensitive spot in your pussy, back arching at the angle he pushes in at. It makes every hair on your body stand, the animalistic sounds he’s releasing reaching deep into your core.
It’s a brief reminder of what this man was truly capable of, buff arms and thick thighs lifting you around like you’re nothing. He could so easily take you over in the bedroom, push you down and ram himself inside until you cried. But it’s the other way around, and he likes it that way.
Well, you liked it that way too, especially if it meant having this big strong man so pliant under your touch.
“Fuck,” you moan, holding the back of his head closer to where he’s seemingly set on bruising your entire shoulder. “Just like that.”
Your walls clench around his length, squeezing him so tight that it becomes difficult for him to move. A wail catches in his throat, his body beginning to burn out from the initial burst of energy he’d received when you gave him the go ahead. “I-I,” he pants, weakly and unevenly bucking into you. You know he’s close from the cute wavering of his speech, his usual eloquent speaking style reduced to a stuttering mess. You take pity on him, gearing your muscles up again to see him to completion.
It doesn’t take long. A few slow rolls of your hips later and he’s spasming beneath you, your name rolling off his tongue in a series of soft whimpers. He continues groaning even afterwards, hands falling limply to his sides as you finish yourself off.
The thing about this big strong body was that it burned out extremely fast, his head rolling back to give you a clear view of his fucked out features. He was tired, absolutely drained from your little moment, and such was exhibited on his lax frame. Your orgasm rolls around right after, stomach clenching. Despite the shock of pleasure that swallows you up, you can’t help the endeared smile that takes over your features at the sight beneath you as you cum.
“So proud of you,” you murmur afterwards, cupping his face in your hands to deliver a brigade of kisses against his skin. He groans in faux annoyance, letting you turn him this way and that as you shower him in affection. “My baby did so well today.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he huffs, though the ghost of a smile tugs at his lips. “What’s there to eat?”
You snort, pushing yourself off of him. You wiggle your panties and dress back into place, tossing him his discarded shirt as you make toward the noodles. They’ve probably gone cold by now, neglected in favor of fucking like two bunnies in heat. Still, you give them a poke. Just as you’d predicted, they’re way too cold to be edible, a fact which greatly saddens Namjoon.
You weren’t having any of that, especially not on his birthday (it was 12:49 now, but technically, it’s still his birthday until he goes to sleep), which is why you make him pack everything up right away. “I’ll heat them up at my place,” you assure him, patting his bum as he whines at the sudden relocation. He’s tugging his zip-up on, the collar tugged all the way up for him to hide the lower half of his face behind.
It doesn’t stop you from pressing a kiss over where you know his mouth is.
“Come on,” you grin, waiting for him to lock up his studio. He falls into step beside you, grudgingly throwing a hand around your shoulders. You beam up at him, leaning onto your toes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll make you cry at my place,” you promise, relishing in the dark flush that floods the apples of his cheeks.
Copyright © July 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.
#ksmutclub#networkbangtan#kim namjoon smut#namjoon smut#namjoon fic#rm smut#bts smut#kim namjoon fic#mine
1K notes
·
View notes
Text
The Hit on the Groom and What Became of It - Chapter 3/Leaps in logic (and over the edge of the rooftop)
Chapter 1 -|- Previous -|- Next
---------
Adrien’s day wasn’t good at first. Okay, it was straight-up terrible. For most, their wedding is supposed to be a happy day. Or at least a reason for celebrations. Adrien? He couldn’t even hope for a cake since it would ruin his model body.
For the last several months, his father was working him into an early grave. The extra photo sessions, harder classes, new exercise regime… and Lila. The last one was terrifying.
Adrien tried to hold onto hope that his father would in the end cancel the whole affair. That he would drop the ridiculous notion of wedding or at least push it back. The young model wasn’t sure exactly why was his father so insistent on pushing for the wedding. He repeatedly asked himself if Lila was blackmailing his father, but it was hard to think of anything that his father possibly could be blackmailed with. Adrien spent countless hours wondering if his father had some dark secret, but it didn’t fit the man.
Did the designer have an affair with Nathalie? No… he already got angry about the suggestion once. And even if so, it wasn’t something that he would be so ashamed about.
Was his father doing some illegal business dealings? It was somewhat possible, but what? It would need to be something big. Something extremely big.
Thinking rationally, he had no idea what could it be…
What could be so big that it was worth more than the happiness of his only son?
--------
When one looks at all that, being kidnapped right at the altar was almost… nice. Sure, Adrien had been dragged by a sentient pile of mud into the sewers and then carried to some unknown location. Sure, his beautiful suit was ruined and all the hard work Marinette put into her work was irreversibly wasted.
But, he was not married to Lila.
The pile of mud dragged him deep into the sewers until they found a ladder leading up. It appeared to be grievously damaged, with several steps in the row removed. Adrien didn’t protest much when he was lifted up and into the place above.
The place turned out to be a quite comfy flat. It was overall smaller than Adrien’s room back in Paris, but it felt more welcoming. It only had one big room, divided in half with a plywood panel. In the first ‘room’, there was a couch, a small table with three chairs, a tv on a cabinet, and two armchairs. It all appeared to be old and worn out. The second part held two beds (one without any mattress), a desk with an old computer, and a kitchen annex. It was… nice. Adrien almost liked it better than the big, sterile manor.
The pile of mud seated him on one of the chairs before condensing into humanoid form. Slowly, his body turned human and in the end, he looked almost exactly like the wedding officiator. The man pulled his phone and sent some text before turning to Adrien.
“Do you want something to eat?” He asked, walking over to the kitchen annex.
“Um… anything would do.” Adrien hesitantly spoke up. He was only slightly scared. Honestly, first, he is saved from the wedding and now he is given free food? Yes, purr-lease!
“Vegan or non-vegan?”
“I would kill for a fat, juicy steak…” Adrien remembered his last photo session, which was advertising the summer collection. One of the photos had him standing over the BBQ grill. The smell of the food being prepared almost made him salivate back then.
“Ah… The actor’s diet?” His kidnapper/savior asked, giving him a knowing look at the same time.
“Yeah… I’m a model, but I heard it’s the same” Adrien corrected.
“I’ll get you something. We need to wait anyway.”
Adrien chose not to speak to the man while he was cooking. It was still a bit awkward. He was being kidnapped.
It didn’t matter. The meal was too good to complain. Who cares about kidnapping when one is given some meat. It was a light meal, probably not to upset his stomach, but it was still more than he hoped for that day.
Of course, it couldn’t be that pretty.
The moment Adrien finished with the first piece of meat and was reaching for another, the doors were violently kicked and a man entered. He was dressed in a red bodysuit with silverly metallic elements. His helmet had one eye replaced with a red… monocle?
The explosion was quickly followed by a single gunshot. The moment it sounded, Clayface (because that was the name of the ‘pile of mud’) became frozen in place. Literally. He was covered head to toes in ice.
“My steak!” Adrien cried as he was being dragged away by the newcomer.
They were already away when Clayface managed to break through the ice. He wanted to pursue them, but his phone rang suddenly, giving him a pause.
“Who is this?!” He snarled, irritated at the interruption.
“I was led to believe you have what I wanted.” The voice on the other side growled and Clayface paused. It sent shivers down his figurative spine. His employer sounded dangerous.
“Ah… Yes… There’s been a… complication.” He stuttered, hoping it wasn’t too apparent. Whoever was on the other side made a terrifying first impression.
“What do you mean ‘complication’?” They hissed. Clayface stumbled and almost dropped the phone. He knew the employer was someone powerful, but it was a whole new level of scary. Sure, he was technically a mercenary, but until today his biggest job was some light security gig. This was supposed to be his way of reinventing himself into part of the major league. But this was being much more overwhelming.
He quickly got to the point where his employer should’ve been somewhat satisfied and hanged up quickly. He had to get the boy before he became the target himself.
----------
Elsewhere, Adrien was starring into a pair of curious sea-green eyes.
When his new kidnapper brought him to the apartment and tied him to the chair, Adrien was still bemoaning the loss of his steak. He disliked the lack of freedom, but he was still feeling safer than with Lila and his father. Objectively looking at it, he knew it was wrong, but he preferred to be kidnapped.
To his surprise, the kidnapped tossed him and the chair into some spare room of the flat they were in when the doorbell rang. There were also some curse words, but Adrien chose to disregard them.
It took a very energetic girl (about two years younger than him) all five minutes to figure out he was in that room. Not that the man made it particularly hard, leaving the doors half-open and all that.
She leveled her head so that they were on an equal level and stared into his face with an inquisitive glare.
“Daddy! You promised not to work on our day together!” She turned to the man and complained. “You clearly kidnapped him!”
“I’m really sorry, cupcake. I didn’t plan it. The time zone changes can really mess up with the calendar.”
“If it helps, this is better than the alternative.” Adrien smiled shyly.
“How is being tied to the chair good?”
“It’s better than being forced to get married.” The boy deadpanned.
“Fine.” She then turned to her father “But you will untie him. He can join us in our board game evening.” She declared imperatively.
“You won’t try anything, right?” The man glared at Adrien, who shrugged (as much as the binds allowed him).
“I quite like it here. I could do with some water, but it’s really better than how the day was supposed to go.”
The man sighed and walked over to the boy. The rope fell to the floor and Adrien could move freely. Yet, he didn’t immediately move. He did try to get up, but the world swirled and blackness consumed his consciousness.
----------
When he woke up, he was once again faced with a set of sea-green eyes. The girl apparently liked to stare at faces in close quarters. Not that Adrien complained much as long as she didn’t actually touch him. He was used to the attention.
“You must’ve been really tired. Daddy said he almost wanted to get you to a hospital.” That woke Adrien very quickly.
“No hospital!” He launched himself to sit straight up and almost crashed with the girl. Luckily, she moved out of the way. Otherwise, her father might’ve actually sent him to the hospital. Probably in pieces too.
“Don’t worry.” Speaking of the devil, the man entered the room with a platter full of fast food and a glass of water. There was a hamburger there!
“Zoe. Please leave us alone for a moment. I need to discuss some things with Mr. Agreste.”
“Sure. But remember you promised not to hurt him. And we promised him board games.” She reminded her father before happily skipping out of the room.
Once she was out, the man handed him the platter and Adrien practically leaped to devour the food.
“So…” His kidnapper/temporary caretaker started awkwardly. “If it’s any help, I’m sorry for kidnapping you.”
“Dot wowwy” Adrien dismissed him with a mouth full of burger. His father would lock him up for months if he saw him, but the boy was way past caring about it. He gulped before continuing though, as it was a shame to waste anything of the tasty goodies. “Seriously, you guys are making me a favor.”
“Huh?” The man raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah! If not for this,” he gestured vaguely around the room, albeit it was clear he meant kidnapping, “I would’ve probably been married already.”
“Ah… And I guess the wedding wasn’t your idea.” It wasn’t a question. Deadshot (because he was the kidnapper if it wasn’t yet obvious) had some experience with runaway brides. Grooms escaping arranged marriage were rarer, but not unheard of. He used to take those tasks without remorse. At least until one time, when he tracked the bride, instead of an adult woman like usual, he found a pre-teenage girl. She couldn’t have been older than his own daughter at the time.
Let’s just say that he failed to deliver that contract. Or any similar in the future.
“Sir?” Adrien asked once he finished the meal.
“Yeah?”
“Could I get some more?”
“In a moment. Let what you ate settle down first.” He scolded him lightly, his parental instincts kicking in. “So, do you have any idea who might’ve wanted you kidnapped?”
“Not really… Only Marinette and Gerard cared about my opinion on this matter. And neither is the kind that would arrange a kidnapping.” He did his best not to think about his past as Chat Noir. No one but Ladybug knew, but his Lady wasn’t someone that would get involved with criminals. And even then, he doubted she could afford mercenaries. He always thought they were expensive. Could someone else figure out he used to be Chat Noir?
“Hm…” Lawton focused for a moment. “And what about The Seamstress? She is a completely new player that came out of nowhere. I suspected she might’ve had a personal connection to you. What about your father? Could someone want to get back at him? Especially someone with that name?”
“You do know what my dad does for the living?” Adrien deadpanned.
“Yes, but did he anger someone? Enough that they would want to ruin him?” The man pressed.
“It would be easier to list people he didn’t anger. My father is not… not the easiest to be around.” The light that was in the boy’s eyes just moments ago dimmed slightly. “Why are you asking all this?” He suddenly perked up and met the gaze of the mercenary.
“Honestly, I really dislike the jobs involving kids. I thought that you were just another bratty teenage star that got his way with the wedding. A kid wanting to be treated like an adult. Now… now I can’t with clear conscience return you or deliver you.”
Adrien held back any witty remarks about hired gun having a conscience. “So… I’m living with you?”
“Sadly, no. I’m not around often enough and there is still a price on your head.” Lawton pulled out his phone and carefully read through something. “The more I think of it, the more it looks like you are not the most important part.”
That got Adrien’s attention. His own brain started to work overtime to get the meaning. “What?”
“The wording of the contract. ‘Grab from the wedding’, ‘possibility of further assignments’, ‘very public’… and the price is unreasonably high for such a simple task. It appears as if whoever The Seamstress is wanted a show. Like she wanted to recruit whoever brought you in. It appears as if she was setting up some sort of competition over who brings you to her.”
“But why me?” Adrien ran through ideas, but only him being Chat Noir would make sense in the long run.
“Publicity. Your old man made sure the wedding was the event of the decade.” The merc simply shrugged. “If they wanted to announce their entrance to the big league, they would pick the biggest, most prominent target.”
“Figured father is to blame…” Adrien grumbled before reaching into his pocket. “I… would like to call a friend of mine. To reassure her I’m safe.”
“She won’t run to the police?” Lawton was hesitant to allow it but also didn’t have the heart to tell him no. The kid was emotional wreck. And if his appetite was anything to go by, it was possible physical abuse was also there.
“Marinette wouldn’t do anything dangerous. She… I think she was trying to stop the wedding. Or delay it.”
“The girl that stood up shortly before the panic?”
“Yeah… She used… She’s a friend of mine. Probably the last true friend I have left.”
“I see… Okay, call her. But make sure not to mention anything about me. Just in case.”
There was a moment of tense silence while Adrien waited for his friend to pick up. Finally, after the fifth signal, there was a rustle on the other side.
“Marinette Dupain-Cheng speaking. Who do I have the pleasure with?” She spoke almost mechanically. To someone who never met her before, it might’ve sounded sincere. To Adrien, it sounded like she was exhausted both physically and emotionally. He almost blamed himself, but at the last second shifted it all onto Lila and his Father.
“Marinette!? Are you okay?” He asked, wanting to make sure there was nothing truly wrong.
“Adrien!? Adrien!” She immediately seemed to cheer up. “Where are you!? Are you okay? What happened? Did they hurt you? Are you safe?” She finally paused to take a breath.
“I’m okay, Marinette. I might’ve sorta gotten myself kidnapped,” he realized how bad that sounded as the words left his mouth, “but it’s all okay! It’s better than it was!” He rushed to reassure her, albeit his method was not a hundred percent successful.
“Are you safe?” Was the question she repeated. It sounded almost… guilty. To Adrien’s tired brain though, such subtle details were second to the question.
“I’m probably good. Someone put a bounty on me, but it’s all about me being alive. It’s like whoever did it accidentally saved me from the wedding.” He chuckled a bit darkly, thinking about how much of a temper tantrum Lila must’ve been throwing since his disappearance.
“Call me back later, okay?” There was a sudden urgency that Adrien did pick on. “I have something that needs to be sorted out.”
“What’s happening?”
“Just my Maman is coming. She is knocking right now.” With that, she hanged up. Adrien relaxed. There was no danger. And even if there was, it probably just ran away to hide as Sabine Cheng came to town.
“Kid, you done?” Deadshot walked back into the room with another hamburger.
“Yeah. I feel much better now. Thanks for the opportunity.”
“Don’t sweat it. Listen… I can’t just keep you, but I called some friends of mine. They’re willing to help you. Well, she is. Her girlfriend is just going with it for her sake.”
Lawton carefully studied Adrien to see his reaction to mentioning the couple, but there was no visible reaction. He just watched the hamburger with a hungry gaze.
-------
Elsewhere, an exhausted kwami flew out of the jewel. Hawkmoth was one step from tossing the jewel at the wall.
“I don’t understand! He should be terrified by now! He was kidnapped! They wouldn’t kill him after going so long to kidnap him!”
“Maybe your powers aren’t as good as you’ve thought?” another voice spoke from the shadows. Lex Luthor walked into the center to join Gabriel Agreste.
“They didn’t have time to move him out of the city before I started the search. Not without magic and he said there was no magical travel to or from Gotham so far.” Gabriel paced around the room.
“While you were playing with your precious jewels, I actually used some of my contacts. It appears that someone ordered a hit on your son. They wanted him kidnapped from the wedding.”
“What?!” Gabriel paused and glared at the other man.
“While I can’t stop it or even try to outbid them, I do know of one person I can convince to take this task. And she just happened to be coming to Gotham this very moment.”
“Fine. I want my son back, or our deal is off, Luthor.”
“Don’t worry. He will see the Light soon.”
#maribat#fanfic#fanfiction#miraculous#miraculous ladybug#marinette dupain cheng#adrien agreste#villain marinette#batman#DC comics#dcu#MLB#mlb x dc
94 notes
·
View notes
Text
Maybe Forever
I did two remixes this year, and for @rnmremix I took on @daughterofelros and her story Maybe Someday which is about Michael plantsitting Alex’s plants. I turned it around, and this has Alex plantsitting Michael’s plants. I angsted in this, but the ending is still happy. Happy reading!
Ao3
It takes him by surprise when he gets the question, as it’s something he never thought Michael would ever be a fan of. Not because it’s wrong, immoral, strange or anything like that. He just didn’t expect it. Because, you know, it’s... Plants. Green things with foliage and sometimes flowers in all different shapes and sizes. Michael is rough, wild curly hair, motor oil, science and sass. Plants don't seem like something he would enjoy or care about. But here he is, down in Michael’s bunker where plants really shouldn’t thrive. But they are. Thriving, that is. Growing wild and beautiful in what is seemingly organized chaos around Michael’s science equipment and feats of mechanical engineering.
“This is what you want me to watch for you? Plants?” he asks incredulously as he looks around.
“Yeah? Something wrong with plants?”
He can hear the defensiveness in Michael’s tone of voice, and he flinches minutely. “That’s not what I meant, Guerin. I’m just surprised. I didn’t know you had them, especially down here.”
“There's nothing wrong with keeping plants down here you know.”
“I know that,” Alex says, his own tone becoming more defensive. “I’m surprised you have plants, I didn’t know that would interest you. That’s all.”
“I can have hobbies you know,” Michael replies, looking like he’s already regretting asking Alex to water them while he’s gone for a week.
Alex just looks at him, eyebrows lifting at the way Michael is acting, wondering if they can ever be close again without bickering. Michael seems to realize it too, as his posture relaxes with a deep sigh. He’s visibly calming himself down, and Alex can’t help but admire how easily he does it. Especially since he knows it isn’t easy at all for Michael, so used to keeping the charade that keeps him and his family safe up at all times.
“Sorry. I’m being defensive for no damn reason over here.” Michael sighs again, impossibly deeper this time. Like sighing takes deep stress away from him. Maybe it does, for all Alex knows. “My mom kept plants, and could grow them with her powers. I… I wanted to try it too.”
“You’re doing a great job,” Alex says, smiling at him. It’s tentative, but honest. Real. “And I’m sorry too, I was honestly just surprised, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad about it.”
“It’s okay.” Michael smiles in return. “So. You think you could be up for it?”
“Yeah, I’ll watch over them. No promises they’ll be alive when you get back though.”
“Nah, you’re Alex Manes. You can do anything.”
The smile on Alex’s face turns wry, probably a bit unsure. It’s not true, in so many ways. But he appreciates what Michael is trying to do. The confidence he’s trying to instill in the face of a task Alex has never had before. Michael knows how uneasy he is when it comes to situations like this. But he’ll power through like he always does. Especially for Michael. And it’s plants. It can’t be that hard.
-----
He quickly finds that he’s wrong. So damned wrong. He has no idea how Michael created a thriving garden in the dark bunker but it quickly becomes apparent that Alex cannot do the same thing. He can water them and trim them if needed but three days into Michael’s week away from Roswell and they’re starting to droop. Sad, missing Michael, drooping. The worst part is he knows how they feel. And his life has officially turned even weirder now that he’s sympathizing with plants. But he can’t help but feel for them, as the flowers lose a little of their shine the longer Michael is away, how the leaves aren’t quite as green. Their person isn’t there anymore. Maybe they’ve given up on Michael coming back.
Kind of like Alex has. Oh, he knows Michael is coming back to town, he’s only in Albuquerque for a week with Isobel. But as the days grow longer the plants still turn sadder.
If he can’t do this one thing for Michael, how can he ever hope to get him back. In the way he wants, in the way it matters. Back in his arms, his life, preferably one day his, or even their, house. After Maria, after Forrest, after his dad.
Realizing he wanted Michael officially back, out, proud and completely took a long time. The knowledge of it not so hard, the need and want harder. They’ve wasted time, so much damn time. And here he is, surrounded by green and yellow and blue, things so important to Michael because his mom was supposedly good at it. And Alex is having the hardest time keeping them alive and well. It’s making him feel like his dad, trapping aliens behind glass walls and torturing them for kicks.
He just wants to do this right. Then maybe, just maybe, he can find the courage within to tell Michael his hopes. But it’s not looking too good. He’s tried everything, watering, giving them lots of light, talking to them, hanging out in the bunker in case it’ll help. But so far it’s not working and the plants just droop more by the hour. Michael coming home is still three days away, they’ll end up being dead if he can’t fix this. And he fears whatever progress they’ve made will die with them.
He’s out of options though, he doesn't know what to try next. He’s not an alien, he doesn’t have powers nor gifts with anything besides guns and computers. Neither which will be handy here. He looks around desperate to find something that can help.
He doesn’t expect to spot a guitar. The same guitar he tried gifting to Michael which failed desperately. The same guitar he regifted him later, after Maria, after Forrest. When death of loved ones and broken hearts weren’t between them. When they could actually call each other friends. Regardless if that friendship was still fraught with tension, a will they or won’t they that still weighs heavily on them. Even when they try to push past it and just be.
But the guitar means much to them. Music in general means much to them. Maybe it’ll help.
He picks it up gently, taking it out of its case with great care before running his hand over it and smiles. The strings have just been changed, Michael has been taking good care of it. Something eases inside of him when he sees that, though he doesn’t quite understand why. The guitar isn’t a symbol of their relationship, Michael making sure the guitar is in tip top shape doesn’t really mean anything. It just means he likes playing. It still brings a tingle to the pit of his stomach which he crushes swiftly and surely. There’s no point in useless hope.
He brings it over to the chair by Michael’s drawing board and sits down, settling it gently on his legs and making sure no pressure is on his prosthesis as he sits with the guitar. He takes a few deep breaths before he strums. Of course the guitar is finely tuned.
He still checks everything before softly starting to play. He’s played Wonderwall a thousand times, he’s sick as hell of it but he still plays it first every time he picks up a guitar. Old habits are hard to break. He plays bits of the melody to warm up, humming alongside it as he does. Five minutes in, he’s relaxed, he’s more settled, he feels good.
He drifts from Wonderwall, eyes closing as he moves over to various songs from Breaking Benjamin, stripped down versions of My Chemical Romance, seamlessly switching to Blink 182, Placebo, Snow Patrol and The Strokes. He loses himself in A Perfect Circle, in Third Eye Blind and The Cranberries, resurfacing after he’s hit Linkin Park, Gavin Degraw, Panic! At the Disco and the odd Spice Girls song just to switch it up.
He lets the last note fall as he breathes out, smiling at the peace he feels just from the instrument in his hands, his voice slightly raspy from singing and the contentment of being wanted and free in Michael’s space. He smiles to himself, taking another deep breath as he opens his eyes again, looking at his watch to find that almost three hours has passed since he started playing. He’s not surprised though, music has always been the place he felt the most free, the most able to be himself.
He takes another deep breath, briefly closing his eyes again as he centers himself before he looks up at the plants. They look the same, but no worse either, so he figures he’s done all he can for the day. He decides to go home for the night, he’ll come back tomorrow and continue trying his best to keep them alive. He doesn’t want to fail now.
———
The shock comes when he gets down the ladder the next evening after a gruelling day at the base. He comes down expecting the plants to be their usual droopy selves but instead he finds them perked up, their foliage nice and green, the flowers shining and pretty. He almost calls out Michael’s name to check if he’s there, but he knows he’s not, having talked to him just an hour earlier. He’s still in Albuquerque, still there for a couple days with Isobel and the newly arrived Max. Just three aliens in the big city, he’d joked, Max hissing at him to keep his voice down in the background while Isobel laughed. They deserve the time away to just be siblings, after everything. But the thrill of Michael calling him still sits in his brain, making him smile.
But there’s still the mystery of the plants. Happier plants. Plants who don’t look like they’re on the brink of giving up. And the only thing he did differently was playing guitar and singing. Maybe that’s how Michael keeps them happy. He decides not to mistrust his instincts the way he usually does and after checking the soil and making sure everything else is okay he gets out the guitar again. He still starts with Wonderwall, still hates it, still can’t break the habit. But he moves along faster than yesterday, switching to other songs of Oasis, moving along to Death Cab for Cutie, The White Stripes, Stereophonics and HIM, before jumping over to Shinedown, Muse, Journey and Creed. He plays for hours like yesterday, loves every minute of it, and feels more relaxed when he opens his eyes again at the end and sees the plants visibly better in front of his eyes.
He laughs to himself, a laugh filled with more desperation and relief than he wants to admit. But it’s okay. Maybe he can do this.
———
He spends hours down in the bunker the next two days, playing everything and anything he has in his repertoire, rediscovering the love he has for the music he grew up with and feeling the thrill of just his hands, his voice and the guitar, surrounded by Michael’s space, Michael’s plants, Michael’s mechanics. He’s surrounded in every way by Michael Guerin, and his own wants, hopes and dreams for the man and what he longs for them to become. He’s spent years away from Roswell and Michael before but now, after one week of him gone, after one week of his voice in his ears as they talk and laugh on the phone until Isobel or Max drags him away, he misses him. Misses everything that they were, everything that they are, everything that they’re heading for. And Alex knows where they’re headed, now. Knows where he wants them to head.
He’s there when he hears Michael’s truck, still playing guitar, strumming along on notes shaping up to be another song, the melody forming underneath his fingers as words form in his head. He doesn’t stop playing, but instead listens as the truck stops and Michael gets out, as his heavy steps move towards the bunker and down the ladder. He opens his eyes as Michael stops, watches him with a smile forming as Michael stares at him and the plants in awe.
“Damn Alex, I’d have stayed home if I knew listening to you play was on the menu.”
Alex snorts, stopping his strumming and placing the guitar back in the case before he gets up on his feet. “It was the only thing I could think of to keep them alive. We had a few dicey days before I started playing, and apparently they liked it.”
“You’re a good player, Alex, no wonder they liked it.”
Alex smiles, taking a step closer to Michael. “Maybe. I’m just glad I got to be here, it’s been fun.”
Michael tilts his head in that inquisitive way of his, but Alex just shakes his head. His revelations and discoveries are too heavy for this moment, he’ll get to them eventually. Michael nods, understanding without needing words that this is something to be left for now. They’re good at that, easy, silent communication. Too bad they kind of suck at the harder communication, but that’s all fixable.
“Hey. Thanks for doing this.”
“Any time, Michael.” Alex looks down for a second. “I’m happy you trusted me with this.”
“I had no doubts you could do it. The doubts were all yours.”
Alex can’t deny that’s true. But here, in the bunker, surrounded by plants and Michael smiling at him in his carefree and relaxed way, Alex feels another doubt snap. And before he lets himself second guess it, he steps forward and cradles Michael’s face in his hands. He sees the look of shock, but also the hope that blooms in Michael’s eyes and pulls him softly towards him in case Michael pulls back. But he doesn’t have to worry, Michael pushes forward as easily as Alex pulls and their lips meet softly. It’s a sweet kiss, a familiar one, but no less exciting with no small amount of fireworks firing in the pit of Alex’s belly as Michael puts his arms around his waist and pulls him closer still. It’s everything Alex wanted, everything he needs, the appreciation and love for Michael flaring as their first kiss in a long time keeps on going.
It turns from sweet to needy, to wanting, to unbelievably hot quickly, but that’s always the way it is with them. They can’t help but want each other in all ways. They both break apart at the same time, moving away from the kiss but not from each other, leaning their foreheads together as they smile and laugh at each other, their happiness bubbling between them. It’s never a question if both of them want it, they already know that. Maybe this time they can have it too.
“So,” Michael says after a while. “My plants decided to try and die on you and you got them back by singing and playing to them? How’s you figure that out?”
“Well.” Alex sneaks another kiss just because he can, a thrill going through him as Michael hums in a happy tone. “I figured you sang to them. You know, since your guitar was down here.”
Michael pulls back and gives him a puzzled look. “Alex, I live in an old airstream in the middle of a junkyard. I keep it down here so it won’t be stolen.”
“Oh,” Alex says. “I didn’t even think of that.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” Michael kisses him again. “I’m glad you can afford not to.”
“Guerin-”
“No, Alex. Your life has been shitty enough, be happy you don’t have to worry about that too.”
“How about...” Alex pauses, gathering his courage. “How about you keep it at my place? It’ll be safe there too.”
“Oh yeah?” The smile Michael gives him is blinding, beautiful. Happy. “You wouldn’t mind having me in your space?”
Alex smiles in return. He leans in, kissing Michael dirty and hot, the way both of them want it. ”I definitely wouldn’t. I’ll even take the plants, if you want to.”
He smiles wider as Michael laughs, head thrown back with unruly curls bouncing as he does. They need to talk, figure them out and take it day by day. But he’s so gorgeous, and Alex wants to keep him forever. Him and the green things who are perking up even more in Michael’s presence. And here he thought they were bonding.
“The guitar first. The plants we can talk about down the line,” Michael replies when he finally stops laughing. He tilts his head forward, looking at Alex through long lashes. Alex feels the same want bubbling in his stomach as always. He wants Michael in his bed, in his kitchen, in his living room. He wants him close, he wants them to be good. Together. They have a long way to go still, but it feels like a beginning. It feels like hope.
“I’d like that.”
#roswell new mexico#malex#malex fic#rnmremix2021#my fic#that feeling when you forget the name of your fic#and give it the incorrect title
50 notes
·
View notes
Text
A Setting: The City of Sethennai
Because I’ve spent long enough tinkering on this that I might as well share it with a population of more than a half-dozen potential players. Also it could almost certainly use an editing pass, and I don’t want to lose it all next time my computer dies.
So, a collection of densely packed plot hooks in the shape of a city
City History
The City of Sethennai is quite possibly the oldest city in the world, or at least the oldest still inhabited. When the first Dwarfs and Goliaths fled the Titans for the coast, they found ziggurats already rising from the water and tunnels dug beneath their feet, ruined by some already ancient cataclysm. Supported by fertile soil and full waters, they built their own city over it, and welcomed their own gods to it, a center of resistance to the Titanomarchy that became an empire in its own right.
Centuries passed and power drifted inland, to the mountain palaces of the Titans’ Giant heirs and the divinely appointed heroes who sometimes overthrew them. The City was rich, but peaceful, its soldiers only raised when one princess or another took it as a capital during a civil war. Such was the case when the first ships appeared from the East.
The adventurers from the League of Free Cities had been spurred across the sea by visions of fortune and glory, overwhelming the defenders with armies of goblin slaves and the ability to evoke demons far beyond what they could deal with. Their leader Sethennai proclaimed himself Emperor and renamed the city in his honour, taking it as his capital. After his assassination some years later the ‘empire’ fell into an anarchy it has never quite recovered from, but the name has stuck, and for the two hundred years since wonders and riches have flowed across the eastern ocean while mercenaries and adventurers have poured west in ever greater numbers.
The city’s ruler for the last fifteen years has been Prince Cael, an adventurer universally believed to be supported by the League’s political rivals back East. If so, they got what they paid for – experts and financiers have been imported and sponsored, and trade opened to anyone capable of paying the reasonable import duties.
Until two years ago, he had been the picture of brutal decadence, rousing himself from luxurious hedonism only to brutally deal with any threats to his power. Recently though, he changed – sponsoring vast expeditions into the ancient palaces of the interior and the ruins buried on the city’s outskirts, and installing a self-proclaimed Hierophant whose heresies had earned her a death warrant back East in the city’s grandest temples (violently banishing the cults which had held them since the Conquest in the process).
One week ago, at exactly noon, the sun vanished from the sky for one minute, and the entire city was filled with a deafening scream. Since then, the Prince’s grand palace has been sealed tight, with ingeniously horrifying magical defences ensuring that anyone who tries to force a door or window isn’t around to try again. Everything’s very rapidly falling apart, and the city’s traditional power brokers are reacting like so many rabid weasels in too small a cage.
It is, then, a perfect opportunity for people with the will to seize it.
Districts
The Palantine
If Sethennai is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, the vast palace complex which crowns its central hill is probably likewise the oldest building still in use. Its foundation is burrowed deep into the hill on which it stands, to the point that some delvers and historians have theorized that it was once a truly massive pyramid now mostly buried by the ages. Rising out of it are two great peaks - impressive ziggurats in their own right - of obvious dwarven make, fashioned to house their ancient Ancestors-Kings and gods in suitable splendor, and since renovated and built over to house the city’s rulers and most favored priesthoods. Surrounding them are a dozen smaller peaks, each the estate of one of the city’s foremost patrician families, teeming with retainers and servants. The land around them is pristine and perfectly manicured, full of wondrous botanical gardens and menageries for the amusement of Sethennai’s greatest citizens.
Location of Interest: The Throne
A palace built on the ruins of a palace built on the ruins of a palace. The grand ziggurat which the city’s rulers have called home since time immemorial is built into and sits at the peak of its highest hill, the highest point in the sky for dozens of miles in every direction. Its labyrinthine apartments, kitchens, vaults, galleries and corridors house the Prince and his family, dozens of favorites and notables, and hundreds of guards, servants, retainers and entertainers.
Or, well, housed.
One week ago, the sun vanished from the sky, and a scream echoed through the city. Since then, the palace complex has proven impenetrable. Every door and window is closed, and attempts to open them by force have fared...poorly. In a ‘never going to walk again’ sort of way. Scrying and other means of magical surveillance so far attempted have simply failed. No one has tried to escape, and no noises have been heard - the whole complex is simply silent.
Of course, that means that all its secrets and riches are there for the taking. Or that’s the growing consensus - at least three separate groups have camped out near various gates and major entrances, each preparing their own scheme to break in and seize everything within. There’s no fighting between them. Yet.
Faction of Note: The Hierophant
Yri Cenred is many things. A self-proclaimed ‘experimental theologian’. One of shockingly few mortal humans to piss off the Illyrin clergy enough to be specifically declared Anathema. A member of the Commonwealth’s very exclusive list of ‘Enemies of Reason’. Empirically immune to thunderbolts from cloudless skies and most other signs of divine disfavor. Easily one of the most powerful mages in the city. And, for most of the last two years, its High Priestess and Hierophant.
No one knows quite how her first meeting with Prince Cael went, and whether she was responsible for her change in personality or if he sought her out because of it. All anyone knows is that shortly after she arrived in the city a few days ahead of Imperial Witch-Hunters looking for her head on a pike, Cael forcibly expelled the Khasali cults which had occupied the Palantine’s grand temples since the Conquest, and installed her in their place with the newly minted title of Hierophant for the city. Since then she and her growing coterie of acolytes (bright-eyed, motivated and young, though you can flip a coin as to whether their hands are stained with ink or blood) have been extremely busy, though no one can say exactly what with. Certainly they haven’t held any public rituals or services. Despite the costs - both political and monetary - in protecting and sponsoring her, Cael never seemed to question whether it was worthwhile.
The general opinion on the streets is that she’s probably to blame for anything and everything worth complaining about. The only real divide is between those who think she bewitched the Prince and turned him into her puppet, those who think she’s the one who killed him, and the moderates who think the correct answer is probably ‘both’.
Foundrytown
The New World is absolutely full of exotic reagents, fuel sources, and materials to craft and invent with. It is also absolutely full of people who will pay in your currency of choice for finished goods, armor, weaponry, and whatever nasty alchemical tricks you can keep from blowing up in their face until they want them to. Foundrytown is the sprawling mass of smokestacks, workshops, factories and markets that has spilled to the north of Sethennai’s walls, exploiting both opportunities to the fullest while limiting the chance that some idiot will burn half the city down (again). Robber barons, militant workers, loose fraternities of tinkerers and half-trainer artificers, and the occasional rogue clockwork or alchemical monstrosity all jostle for space and control of the beating heart of Sethennai’s economy.
Faction of Note: The Grand Bazaar
Official Imperial theology accords true dragons a place of honour - the Princes of the Earth, entrusted by Heaven with containing the fury of the elements within themselves so as to render the world peaceful enough for cultivation by the younger races - and forbids very few things to wyrms willing to play the part. (Principally, do not become undead, a god in your own right, or an archdemon of the elements. Though some justification can usually be found for how any sufficiently problematic dragon is actually doing one of those).
And Tyramara the Magnificent, the Fire of the Deeps has not technically done any of those things. Still, the ancient wyrm has little interest in allowing the wasting disease which has crippled her continue to spread, and her solution is unorthodox enough that she thought it prudent to abandon her palace-lair in Imir and relocate to the New World, six treasure galleons worth of her hoard in tow.
One of the city’s wealthiest residents from the moment she landed, she has bought a plaza in Foundrytown and offered her sponsorship to nearly every tinker and engineer who cares to set up shop there, provided they help sustain and improve the mechanical and hydraulic prosthetics that supplement and replace her dying organs. She has promised a full half of her hoard to any who can permanently deal with her condition, a fortune men have killed for in the past, and certainly will again.
Faction of Note: The Hellworks
They’re not officially called the Hellworks - there are, in fact, absolutely no devils involved. Still, between the billowing clouds of soot and steam pouring from their chimneys at all hours of the day, the severe architecture, and the bound spirits who keep the looms running at all hours of the day and eagerly take any opportunity to leave anyone who gets too close crippled or maimed to vent their anger - well, the name stuck.
One of the most obvious consequences of Prince Cael’s turn towards the esoteric these last years, the ' ‘Royal Sethennai Weaver’s Trust” is the brainchild and absolute domain of the Lady Binder Katerine sol Dalme sol Telrin ir’Paimon. An Illyrin magister with heterodox opinions on the proper uses of magic, popular opinion is divided on whether it’s more accurate to say Cael invited her to reside in the city, or just offered her asylum before her elders had a chance to properly condemn her.
Regardless, after six months of operation she - and her half-dozen strictly bound and extremely unhappy ifrit, and several hundred eminently replaceable more mundane workers - are already well on their way to supplying all the clothing and textiles Sethennai’s teeming masses require single-handedly, produced at a scale and speed far beyond what any traditional artisans guild could hope to compete with.
Crossroads
Dominating the Old City - synonymous with it, really - that the district is called the ‘Crossroads’ is often considered something of a cruel joke by new arrivals. The ‘Labyrinth’ is usually offered instead. Ancient stone tenements and storehouses are basic facts of geography, surviving through conquest and fire, and over and around and through them are generations of newer building - mansions of imported oak and marble, shantytowns of cannibalized carts and derelict ships built on rooftops, and nondescript inns and stores conveniently built on top of trap doors and tunnels leading to much more exciting locales. Natives of a neighborhood who know all the secret passages and blind alleys can quickly get to anywhere they like. New arrivals are strongly advised to pay well for a reliable guide.
Faction of Note: The Dreamers
There’s something under the harbor. There always has been. There probably always will be. Most people can go their whole lives without noticing it, but a certain few find living in the Old City a haunting experience, their nights spent dreaming of drowned palaces and impossible angles, their days spent lost in alleys and markets that have never existed. Inevitably, they come out of a daze and find themselves perched on the waters edge, staring into the filthy, polluted depths with an intense sense of longing.
Called the Dreamers, they’re an eclectic and informal fraternity, living in makeshift houseboats or the cheapest tenements that press against the water. Quite a few simply sleep on the streets. They’re something like a religion, and something like a guild - the most personable and talkative are merchants, selling the fish that others catch, the strange relics and minor treasures that their divers retrieve from the harbor, and the often beautiful - if always uncanny - art they produce. They take care of each other and, though no one has ever seen a dreamer raise a hand in anger, every attempt by syndicates or rival cults to extort or expel them has ended with their opponents going mad, screaming and clawing at their flesh in the middle of the night, or found poised in some elaborate and improbable suicide. After the third time, everyone more or less got the idea.
No one knows who leads them - if anyone does. Insofar as they have a public face, Zoe Alvane is it - a street urchin who ‘found the sea’ before she had hit puberty, for the last few years she has been the one who spends seemingly every hour of the day ensuring her ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ have food and shelter, and looking after the other beggars and poor in the neighborhood while she can as well. She’s also the one outsiders deal with when they come looking to buy information - it’s a disquieting fact of life in Sethennai that the Dreamers’ know almost everything there is to know about almost everyone. They are generally content to be left alone, and Zoe is very sympathetic and willing to offer personal advice and play the part of fortune teller to anyone desperate and willing to trade or do a favor - but it’s generally agreed that trying to force information from them is a bad idea.
Faction of Note: Ironfang Mercenary Company
When Prince Cael seized the throne, he didn’t do so single handedly. He needed trained, disciplined soldiers to seize the Palantine and coastal forts, ensure no one escaped the palace, and keep order on the streets while the messy business of extinguishing the previous dynasty was carried out. For all this and more, he relied on the professional expertise of the Ironfang Company.
Formed around a core of hardened hobgoblin veterans of various border wars and colonial filibusters in the Free Cities, the Company has for the last fifteen years been the Prince’s favorite tool for securing his interests, keeping order, and bloodily making examples of any threats to his rule. For their trouble, they’ve grown fat and happy - a steady paycheck and yearly bonuses have left every officer with a townhouse, and most common soldiers with coin for families and apartments for them to live in.
Despite the lack of real combat - and the need to take on locals as new recruits, as more and more soldiers retire or die over the years - Captain Azaersi is a leathery old warehouse who has never let her troops grow soft. Even week the grand parade ground in Crossroads echoes with screaming drill sergeants and the crack of muskets, and it’s an open secret that the Prince paid to import stocks of grenades and munitions from Quepta for her arsenal. No one knows quite how she plans to deal with the sudden disappearance of her patron and employer, but for the moment the Ironfang seem content to keep order in the corner of Crossroads around the arsenal and parade ground that they call home.
The Ruins
The ruins are not, legally, part of Sethanni, and absolutely no one with anything resembling sense would ever actually choose to live there. No one actually knows where the eponymous ruins come from - or at least, no one can agree which section is from where. Shantytowns of the most despised and desperate and built on top of their predecessors, which are built on top of battered and broken pre-Conquest ziggurats and homes, which are built on top of - well, some of it is just a natural cave system, and no one is sure about the rest. Or ever found just how deep it goes. Aside from the casualties of the Prince’s attempts to map it, the Ruins are inhabited exclusively by those that would be strung up or burned alive if they tried to live anywhere else, or those sufficiently dedicated to their greed or ambition that they’re absolutely certain they alone can unlock the secrets and find whatever wonders are buried beneath all the traps and monsters. Not great company, either way.
Faction of Note: The Weavers’ Masquerade
Sethennai never really followed its ‘sister cities’ in the League in religion, with a sort of tolerant anarchy of different gods and sects almost always predominating over the gleefully blasphemously sublime demon-cults that the conquerors originally brought with them. But the small cultists that did exist at least enjoyed a luxurious, privileged irrelevance, with sanctums in the city’s grand temple. That finally changed when Cael seized the temples for his new Hierophant - and every relic and sacred text in them, as bloodily as necessary. Which with demon worshippers meant a massacre - letting one escape and beseech their patron for aid in crafting some horrible vengeance being generally agreed to be a terrible idea.
Not that that actually worked, of course. One acolyte managed to escape - no one’s quite sure how, but then, probably best not to ask unless you’ve got a particularly strong stomach. Well, that’s one of her stories, anyway - she goes by Maia Dayal, Beloved of the Architect, Wearer of Ten Thousand Faces, and sometimes she prefers to say she’s a recently arrived priestess from Celmy, or a street urchin who found enlightenment entirely on her own. As might be expected by the self-proclaimed title, she also changes her face (and build, age, species…) about as often as everyone else bathes.
While she has shown no interest in actually taking bloody revenge on the Prince, Dayal has done plenty to earn the price on her head. The Masquerade that has grown around her is a carnival of wonders and horrors, where all manner of temptations are offered to the truly desperate, debauched and vile. Skinweavers and facetakers always need raw material, and secrets and deaths can both be easily bought for the right price - though in keeping with their patron, the Masquerade is hardly a safe or stable place to do business, and offending the wrong cultist can easily lead to a shift from ‘visitor’ to ‘canvas for artistic expression’.
Faction of Note: The Keendream Expedition
Over the last two centuries, the actual facts about the pre-Conquest city has (with few exceptions) been buried under the weight of legends, rumors and (when necessary) several tons of rock. Despite this (or because of it) whenever things get bad (...worse) for the original population of goliaths and dwarves who can trace their lineage back to that time, stories about some hidden savior or buried relic that will free them spread like wildfire. This is just such a time.
Ilidak Keendream Kathu-Viano is an explorer from a family with some grounds for its claim of being pre-conquest nobility. For the last year he has worked on commission for the Prince, leading a large and incredibly well-armed expedition into the ruins across the water from the Old City, digging into them in search of..something. No one who knows the goal has been willing to talk, but certainly it has involved hiring every historian and scholar with anything like knowledge of the city before it was Sethennai (not to mention half the charlatans and rumor mongers who might know something).
Once news of the Prince’s disappearance reached Kathu-Viano, work shifted from its previous sedate pace to something much more determined. Certain paranoid minds have said it’s almost like he was waiting for this. Other, moderately less paranoid ones have pointed out it’s a bit odd that the government-sponsored expedition is so short on patricians and city notables and so high on mercenaries form the interior and goliath clans with far more reason to listen to Kathu-Viano than the Prince, should some conflict break out.
The Stacks
Museums, exhibitions, satellite campuses, mystical archives, storehouses of eldritch knowledge, and one actual wizard tower - if the faint taste of ozone in the air doesn’t warn you what you’re getting in for leaving the city’s eastern gates, then the architecture certainly will. Wedged between variously reputable bookstores and inquisitives, different formalized and longstanding campuses are dedicated to the arts of conjuration, enchantment, sparkcraft, and practical cosmology. Competition for new discoveries and to fully unlock ancient secrets are good natured and nonviolent - at least, that’s all you can get out of anyone left standing once the smoke clears.
Faction of Note: The Bookhounds
The Bookhounds aren’t any sort of formal organization - and at least half of them would roll their eyes at the name - but rather a loose network of gutter mages, disreputable academics, private inquisitives and researchers for hire, and people with a little talent or cash to burn and far too much curiosity for their own good. They act as a sort of volunteer police force in the Stacks, passing each other clues and leads and doing each other favors to track down stolen (or escaped) relics and curses, stop idiots from unleashing anything really dramatic, and generally help people and save the day. Not to mention accumulate really impressive bags of tricks and rare books themselves in the process.
While they don’t have anything like a real leader, the group’s beating heart is Nikos Roth, an Esheri academic who arrived in the city as a fresh-faced student on a three month expedition a decade back and who never intends to leave. Running a small, incredibly ramshackle-looking secondhand book store wedged between two tenements, he nonetheless has one of the more impressive collections of occult lore in the city, and is more than happy to trade for more of it, or connect anyone in need with a specialist who can help them. As more than one would-be thief has discovered, he’s also a fairly talented mage, and for all that being entirely self-taught has left him with some obvious holes in his training, it’s also left him with some tricks that basically no one comes prepared to counter.
Redgate
Once, Redgate Prison stood alone, a fearsome warning of the Prince’s power to anyone looking south from the city center. Eighty-some years of steady urban sprawl later, most of its inmates would probably just need a running start from the prison walls to land back home. Filled mostly with those whose dreams of a new world fell flat, but with too little cash or too many enemies to get home, the slums of Redgate are a natural habitat for street gangs, drug peddlers, flesh traders, and everyone else looking to take advantage of the desperate and vulnerable. The prison itself - and its infamous and heavily armed wardens - has stumbled into being the center of law writ large, dealing out summary justice for criminals that are (correctly) assumed to be beneath the Prince’s notice.
Faction of Note: Regate Prison
Sitting on a steep hill across the water from the Old City, Redgate prison was at one point a fortress, but for generations has been put to use housing the city’s worst, most dangerous, and most profitable criminals. Given the sprawling, crime-ridden slums that now surround it, its wardens also work as a sort of brutal police force, keeping the pretence of order on the street and preserving the Prince’s Peace. Usually.
The problems with discipline start at the top, really. The Prison’s infamously brutal First Warden is also its oldest and most dangerous prisoner. Before the Conquest, Vrocdruk was one of the city’s lesser gods, enthroned in one of the Palantine’s grand temples. When Sethennai - the man - defeated him, he chose to pull his demons away before they could tear the god into so much bloody aether. Instead he was crippled, lessened, and bound to a new home in the fortress and a new purpose; defending the city and its rulers. Later, less skillful, princes altered the binding, making him responsible for most crime and punishment and hoping that his sacred nature would make the native dwarves and goliaths more obedient.
Vrocdruk is still crippled, still bound to the prison, still forced to obey the orders of the city’s acclaimed ruler, and still extremely unhappy about it. He takes any excuse to work out his unhappiness on criminals or troublemakers with the incredible bad luck to catch his direct attention. His wardens largely follow his example, often acting less like agents of justice and more like a particularly well armed gang - to the point of semi-officially collecting fees for ‘security’ from nearby businesses, supplementing the cash extorted from prisoners and their families for both necessities and luxuries while incarcerated.
Sootcliff
Trailing south of Foundrytown, on and under the steep slope beneath the city’s western walls, the densely packed tenements of Sootcliff are certainly stained grey enough to earn the name. Existing primarily as a source of blood and sweat to feed into the ever-hungry foundries and assembly lines to the north, The buildings are cheap, massive, and constructed at the lowest possible cost, with all the consequences you would expect from that. With easy access to weapons and alchemical supplies from Foundrytown and (literally) beneath the notice of the Old City, Sootcliff is famous as the home of militant bands, revolutionary conspiracies, disgraced artificers, and generally anyone who has a dream for a new world and a plan that will require a lot of explosions to get there.
Faction of Note: The Painted Doctors
Less a single organization and more an extraordinarily loose confederation of - often feuding - crimelords, the Painted Doctors are a fraternity of (largely half- or self-) taught alchemists who have over the last year grown to be the dominant criminal guild in Sootcliff. The name sometimes refers to the incredibly distinctive tattoos each ‘Doctor’ has covering much of their body, universally agreed to be somehow enchanted or cursed. Otherwise it refers to the incredibly alien and vibrant skin tones that their test subjects and muscle develop after repeatedly ingesting their ‘miraculous’ potions and tonics.
While possessing remarkably little actual magical talent among them, the Doctors have perfected the recipes for several extremely useful potions - several incredibly addictive drugs, a half dozen forms of acids and grenades, and a dizzying variety of enhancing tonics to improve themselves and distribute to their thugs - and have managed to keep both the recipes and their sources for the necessary reagents entirely secret. This has left them in the enviable position of being able to promise anyone signing on with them that they’ll be able to more or less become a regenerating ogre for an hour whenever they need to fight, while their opposition has had to settle with advising their men to stock up on fire and acid.
The leading light of the Doctors is one ‘Dr’ Fadre - almost certainly not his real name - an alchemical savant whose ‘miracle cures’ are bought and resold across the city. A flashy and well dressed sort whose patronage has turned several of Sootcliff’s most prominent dens of vice into something close to palaces for those who can afford it, he’s said to be far less interested in the nuts and bolts of running a criminal empire than enjoying its fruits and indulging his passion for the Sciences. It doesn’t hurt his reputation that he doesn’t look a day over thirty, and has for as long as anyone has known him.
Chance
Facing Oldport from across the river’s mouth, the docks of Chance are significantly new, cheaper, and altogether more ramshackle. Not really a part of any conscious design, Chance grew organically as the city sprawled beyond its original walls, essentially smuggling docks so successful it was easier to legitimize and start taxing them than it was to hang everyone involved. They now provide the city with a constant infusion of nerdowells and fortune seekers, and the district around them takes great pride in fleecing new arrivals of every penny to their name by the end of their first night on land. Hostels and boarding houses are usually safe, traditional vice dealers less so, and anyone selling treasure maps or magical amulets not at all. Still, they’re probably more harmless than the various mercenary recruiters and ‘exiled princes’ promising to give new arrivals exactly the thrill and fortune they came searching for.
Faction of Note: The Red Ocean Trading Company
What is now the Red Ocean Trading Company has gone through several dramatic changes over it’s eighty years of existence. First a privateer fleet hired by the Free City of Celmy during the First Armada War. Then eventually growing strong enough to seize several islands as an independent pirate state, before being crushed by the Esheri Navy during the Second Armada War. It’s remnants learned a bit of humility from that, and it is now seemingly content with its existence as either (depending on who you ask) a obscenely profitable shipping firm, or one of the most widespread criminal syndicates in the world.
The Company’s significant interests in Sethennai - nearly half the docks in Chance, guides and guards for anyone heading into the Interior, and fingers in quite a few less legitimate pies as well - are ably represented by Captain Arun Prem, a(n in)famous adventurer and scoundrel in his own right, apparently enjoying his semi-retirement behind a desk by getting outrageously drunk with his favorite mercenaries and criminals every night and swapping incredible (and implausible) old war stories.
There’s plenty of rumors, of course - that he’s here in de facto exile after angering the Company’s mysterious senior leadership. That he’s a thousand-year-old vampire and is the Company’s mysterious senior leadership. That he ate a kraken’s heart, and is immortal as long as he doesn’t lose sight of the water. That he’s biding his time to prepare an army before heading inland to carve a new kingdom for himself. That he’s only in the city for as long as it takes to carry out some truly spectacular heist. That he killed Prince Cael in a secret duel and trapped his soul in the pocketwatch he wears at all times. And so on. Of course, other rumours say that he started all of those himself to preserve his mystique as he grows fat in his old age.
Oldport
Facing out to the harbour but safely ensconced within the city walls, Oldpot is, as the name implies, one of the oldest ports in the new world - and certainly one of the busiest. Fully loaded merchant ships arrive daily, their cargoes emptied and replaced with the plunder of the New World almost overnight so they can return home on the next turn of the wind. Beyond the grand ports themselves, this district is home to all the most respectable shipping companies, merchant banks, hotels, and townhouses and apartments, as well as all the official consulates and embassies that Sethennai plays host to.
Faction of Note: First Bank of Sethennai
Despite only being as old as Prince Cael’s reign, the Bank already feels like an eternal and irreplaceable part of Sethennai. This isn’t something people are necessarily happy about, but its leadership had done a truly amazing job at keeping dissent to grumbling and resentment of the inevitable, and not actual resistance. They’re good at that sort of thing, even when they used Prince Cael’s (and, thus, the City’s) massive debts to his foreign benefactors as justification for taking control of the city’s tariffs and tolls, and began rigorously enforcing them, possibly for the first time ever.
Combined with a legal monopoly on the ability to mint coins, this has of course made the Bank incredibly wealthy. But not to the degree that might be assumed - the riches collected are to a large degree shipped back east to foreign creditors. Of the remaining, quite a bit is invested with as much an eye for politics as strict profit.
Executive Director Salman Ticaret, like most of his staff, is a Sethennai native who sought education in the Commonwealth (like most, he took a new name on gaining citizenship). Along with modern accounting and investing techniques, he came home with a firm grasp of political economy - and so for the last decade and a half has been more than happy to offer favorable rates to well positioned patrician and merchant houses, in exchange for their own favors and consideration in turn. The result is that the bank’s marble halls and adamant vaults house information as much as money. And Ticaret is perfectly willing to invest both, if the opportunity is promising enough.
Foreign Interests
The League of Free Cities
The League of Free Cities is not so much a single power as a collection of fiercely independent deomcratic city-states held together by the intertwined private empires of their leading citizens, deep and interdependent trading relationships, and a common religion that the rest of the world calls demon-worship - they view this as deeply offensive. Also they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years and they’re not all dead yet, so clearly everyone else is just doing demonology wrong. Politics are a mess of knives in the dark and openly bribing the voting populace with feasts and spectacles, with glory and riches to anyone who can hold the mob’s favor for long.
Demonic evocation - and the arts learned as a result of it, like fleshweaving, orienomarchy , breaking reality down into elemental chaos and shaping it to your whims, and so on - are in the rest of the world generally met with very thorough execution, making the freethinkers of the League the world’s bleeding edge in magical innovation. The entire culture of the League is also nearly custom-made to produce bold idiots willing to do what it takes to get rich or die trying, and the various Free City’s Adventurers Guilds are (in)famous the world over.
Until recently, the Free Cities considered Sethennai, if not one of them, then at least a younger sibling or benevolent dependency. Prince Cael’s coup has been taken as something of a wound, and the merchant interests who have lost out as he opened trade have made sure that in the decades since his name has become synonymous with bloody-handed tyranny. The first broadsheets celebrating his death will sell out in moments, and the acclaimed merchant adventurer Vyas Asraya, said to be en route to the city, is said to be very optimistic about future trading opportunities.
Holy Illyric Empire
Technically speaking a vast and sprawling feudal state unified only in the person of the Sovereign (Empress of Illyrin, Queen of Belthaya, Defender of the Hierophant of Imir, Grand Duchess of Abhari, etc, and so on, and so forth), the Empire dominates the better part of two continents, and in terms of size and prestige is unquestionably the foremost state on the globe. It is also a bureaucrat’s nightmare, its aristocracy distracted from their internal feuds only when they need to defend their ancestral rights from central overreach.
Ancient controls and long established relationships make Imperial binders the most fearsome conjurers and thaumaturges in the known world, a process not at all hurt by the wholesale incorporation of any powerful spirits or terrestrial god who will sign on the dotted line into the official pantheon. Illyrin Paladins are also easily the most storied heavy cavalry the world has ever seen, and Abharic necromancers are generally held to be the heirs (or direct pupils) of the inventors of the craft.
Illyric interests have prospered under Prince Cael’s reign, but the last years have seen Sethennai become a haven for heretical priests and radical binders, something Ambassador Konrad Reingard has been rumored to be increasingly frustrated with, though no one heard a word from his Oldport estate since the chaos began.
The Sublime Esheri Commonwealth
A thoroughly modern and enlightened state, the Commonwealth is history’s gift to the cartographer, an empire with firmly delineated borders and clear, rationally determined administrative divisions. Governed by a Janissary Corps educated and conditioned from childhood to put principle above self interest and the good of the Commonwealth above friends or (nonexistent) family, the Esheri control far less land than the Illyrin Empire, but has been able to fight it to a standstill and even force it to abandon certain far flung dependencies over a series of wars across the last century.
Beyond a ruthlessly efficient system for taxation and conscription, the Commonwealth’s military might is credited to two sources - on the one hand, its marines are the finest and most disciplined line infantry anyone is likely to ever see, experts in the use of gas and artillery and famously cool under fire. One the other, their heavy automata are an answer to any conjured devil or bound beast, enlightened clockwork providing enough force to cleave through scales and enchanted plate without missing a beat. But the Janissaries are as happy as their enemies to admit that they prefer unfair fights - though they credit their infamous spy network to the fruits of their scientific studies of society and history, while their enemies instead blame the corrupting effects of gold, blackmail, and a complete indifference to the morals of those they work with.
While the Commonwealth does have an embassy in the city, it mostly exists as an appendage of the First Sethennai Bank, the private institution responsible for printing and guarding the solvency of the city’s currency, its entire upper rung staffed by experts trained in the Commonwealth and generally considered Prince Cael’s way of paying back their support for his coup. More recently, it has been rumored that the Secretariat has taken an interest in the struggles in the interior. Coincidentally, an ‘Academic’ has been seen floating around various less than reputable bars in Chance, ostensibly as part of a project to record the city’s myths and folklore.
The Warlord States
For the last two hundred years, the interior has been an evershifting patchwork of successor kingdoms, native revolts, monstrous empires, released horrors, and stranger things besides, the unending tide of weapons and adventurers ensuring that no single player was ever able to secure dominance (and the various rulers of Sethennai have certainly played their part in keeping things that way). At the moment the foremost powers are a giantblooded kingdom led by a messaniac priest-king claiming to be the reincarnation of a Titan, a personal union enforced at sword point between a Khasli pirate queen and a goliath ‘emperor’, a red dragon who has claimed an old giant palace and forced the dwarves living in the mountains around it to provide tribute and worship, and several dozen more minor principalities. It should go without saying that war is the natural state of being, and soldiers are sucked up like ships in a whirlpool.
Adventurers are the lifeblood of Sethennai, and they don’t only flow one way. A constant stream of veterans - either enriched or embittered - skulk, limp or run back once they’ve had their fill of the wonders of the new world, usually missing something important or carrying something priceless - sometimes both. The courts and inner circles of every powerful warlord are composed exclusively of this sort of hard, tricky and generally insufferable type of rogue, and they’re often the only agents trusted enough to be dispatched on delicate missions. The line between warlord and criminal kingpin or pirate magnate is also extremely thin - sometimes nonexistent - as smuggling, sabotage and assassinations are simply basic tools of statecraft in the ruthless arena of the interior. More than once, an ambitious Prince of Sethennai has attempted to recreate their ancestor’s short lived empire, only to be found butchered in their bed but the agents of one warlord or another.
The Warlord States view Sethennai as a vital artery for supplies and funding, and for manpower to refill their armies with disposable bodies for their constant border wars. On a grander scale, those with ambition view it as either a crown jewel and future capital, or a bleeding ulcer on the land which needs to be razed to its foundations. In either case, few are interested in a strong, stable government for it. Regardless of their opinions, sending emissaries and embassies to the city is the first (and often only) diplomatic initiative of every new warlord state - though in truth their role is often closer to mercenary recruiter and fundraiser.
45 notes
·
View notes