#procrastinating writing the price we pay

[desireangel]

Infernal Desires | Part One

Aemond Targaryen x fem!Reader

Synopsis: When your family is caught up in treasonous scandal, the Prince Regent makes an offer that is impossible to refuse. To avoid what certainly would have been death by his sword, your family promises you to a man who is followed by whispers of violence and sin.

Warnings: mdni 18+! Strictly. Dark-ish ??? Aemond! Bad language, reader is implied to be from a certain family but not really, rushed & unedited. Sexual tension, allusions to sex, mentions of death and killing, Aemond gets angry handsy, hair pulling, mention of the noose bc Aemond would never tell just anyone how he feels. This is mainly a word vomit - I am once again incapable of limiting my writing to one part.

Word Count: 3.4k

A/N: aaand I’m back with a rewrite of an old fic I started last year! hopefully this is somewhat decent to follow along with - I wrote this while severely sleep deprived, stressed about procrastinating my uni work and knackered from work. Let me know if we are even interested in a part 2 or if I’ve missed any warnings!

It is a debt to be paid and an alliance to be made, that is all it is. 

Easy enough for them to say. After all, it was you who suffered from the mistakes of your family and not them. They may as well have left you to the dangers of King’s Landing with nothing more than a shattered dignity and the tears that trailed down your cheeks. 

Shit. Crying wasn’t going to do anything and while you never intend to present yourself as weak to anyone, there was nothing you could do to stop the angry tears that welled in your eyes. You wondered if your parents truly pained to see their daughter cry or if the tremble in your mother’s lip was nothing more than a pretence. 

Your father stared at the ground by your feet. “It was not meant to come to this.”

“But it did. Are you really going to barter me to–”

“We are not bartering you. Stop saying that,” He snapped. “All you will have to do is take the title as his wife and give him children. It cannot be that bad.”

The glare you sent his way was full of malice and rage. How could he say that? You were better than that, smarter than that and the thought of being reduced to who knows what that man had in store for you as his wife - they may as well have cut your tongue out and made you a slave. Knowing that your family, whom you loved endlessly, were so sure of selling you so easily to a cruel man like Aemond Targaryen caused a dull ache in your chest. 

It seemed hard to breathe through the betrayal, your chest heavy with deceit and heartbreak. Had you known what your father had been planning, you could have run away and found a way to survive without the comfort of your family lands. 

“What Prince Aemond has offered has saved us,” Jericho stood leaning lazily against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. He stared at you, his little sister who would have died before leaving him to such a fate. “I do not expect you to understand the complex relationships between our Houses but consider this, dear sister. Would you rather him have the Vale burned to ashes? Have us hung from the walls of the Red Keep? I made a mistake. I know this, and I am sorry but this is the only choice we have.”

There was a tense silence. Jericho had ruined everything with little chance of repair and it was you who had to pay the price. You knew how the Crown punished Rhaenyra’s sympathisers and Jericho had damned the future of your family. What was happening is wrong - war is never worth the price it takes. You wholeheartedly agreed with that but there was something inherently stupid about putting the people you cared about at risk just to send a raven with a conditional offer of a bent knee. 

You blinked as you tried to make sense of it all. “Explain it to me. I do not understand.”

“Aemond Targaryen is Prince Regent but I was once his only friend,” Jericho said. You knew he used the word friend strategically. “He extended an olive branch. Repent our House’s treachery through our last daughter and a pin for the Vale on King Aegon’s map. You could not understand how generous that is. Refusing would have been a sentence of death.”

Friend? Generous?  You would have laughed if you could. You briefly wondered how Jericho had managed to barter with the Prince Regent before they had taken his head. Alas, it would be of no use to ask a question you would get no answer to. The men of these walls underestimated the capabilities of a woman’s mind and a woman’s strength. 

“All he gains is something to hold over your head, brother. Paying off your mistakes with my life? You have heard the stories - he has become a cruel man. Warming his bed when he sees fit and making his heirs will not fix what you did. Many have been executed for far less.”

Your father cleared his throat. “It is our only option. We have nothing more to offer in place and a ruined reputation. The family name holds the last of our power and without what little power we have left, your brother and I would lose the Vale. It is a miracle we have not already.”

“The Prince wants to dangle you over our heads? Fine. If that is what it takes for him to spare our lives.” Jericho’s voice was so rough. It was the first time you had seen him as anything other than gentle to you and you felt a heaviness at the sight of him so distressed. 

There was not much left for you outside of the empty empire that your father’s father had built for your family. At least you still had each other and your titles, and despite the situation that they’ve forced you into, at the end of the day, you all loved each other to death. It would have been a death sentence but you could have run away instead, could have found a life for yourself somehow. But how could you live with yourself knowing that you’d damned those you love because of your pride and fear of life as a princess?

So reluctantly and tearfully, you nod your head and silently agree.

Aemond wondered whether he was making the right decision by giving Jericho a second chance. If it were anyone else, he would have had them hung without a second thought. But you and your brother were different. 

It was a moment of weakness, an inexcusable lapse in his judgment to have spared Jericho’s treason because he remembered you and to have further justified his actions by claiming the Vale through your betrothal. While it was his first and foremost motivation and Aemond was bound by duty to take advantage of the opportunity, it was not the only reason he had suggested the idea at the Small Council.

There was hardly a person in Aemond’s life whom he could call a friend. There was not a soul in this world that Aemond could truly trust, not even Jericho who had been by his side for the first parts of his childhood. 

Nor you, who had at once shown him kindness in his youth despite the mockery that was often made of him. You had only accompanied your brother and father to King’s Landing on three occasions, and what started as your soft conversation and willing smiles for him had left his memory entirely until he heard word of Jericho’s treacherous message. 

Aemond, despite your attempts at friendship, had never returned your kindness. In truth, he didn’t know how to. And quickly, your smiles had turned to frowns and your attempts at friendly talk had become sarcastic remarks and quiet scoffs.

It was also a moment of selfishness and a decision made with nothing more than foolish curiosity. You had always been there, in the back of the picture and unnoticed by everyone apart from him. There was not a person in this world who had peaked his curious desire more than you and the two of you had spent the brief occasions together bickering and pestering one another. Regardless of your initial efforts, Aemond was never your friend. While he had never actually done you wrong before now, you were never really fooled by his deceiving nonchalance and forced manners. 

The indifference that you had for each other had no cause to fade. Even less so with the recent murderous, vile stories of Aemond the Kinslayer who killed his nephew and (while most wouldn’t dare utter the words beyond certain walls) who may have crippled his own brother with Vaghar’s fire. You had almost fallen to your knees upon hearing of your betrothal to such a man.

Aemond was now twenty and three but when it came to whatever distorted plot he was planning, he felt juvenile. Your brother and your father were the perfect pawns. You were the perfect leverage - perhaps a pawn yourself. As much as he convinced himself that having you in his possession would mean he would have invaluable power over your House to do exactly as he wanted within his twisted politics while he has the power to do so, the idea of having you in the palm of his hand, in his control and eventually beneath his body was exciting. 

He was never one for meaningless entertainment. But what was the harm in indulging himself this once?

It was a formality. Being presented at King’s Landing for the first time to your future husband, his family and to those whom he currently ruled over as the woman to be his wife. 

You had changed since the last time Aemond had seen you. It had only been two years but he would never admit to his surprise at just how different you had become from the cowering young girl he remembered you to be when you were just ten and four. 

He had rushed through the formalities of greeting you and your family, welcoming you into what would come to be your home. The lunch was painfully awkward as little was said between anyone. The Dowager Queen spoke formally yet kindly with your mother and shared a few words with you but you could barely engage with her conversation under the burning gaze of the Prince Regent who sat across from you.

It was over quickly, before anyone could start bickering about the traitorous reasons behind your presence. Aemond shortly convinced his mother that no escort would be needed, so long as Ser Criston Cole was there when you both were left to acquaint yourselves in private. You gulped as you were lead shamelessly into the Prince’s chambers. 

Aemond only set a glance upon Ser Criston and the raven haired man took his place outside the closed doors.

You were sure that the Prince’s chambers were as large as an entire wing of your own home yet you felt claustrophobic under his gaze. His eye was hellfire as he silently stared at you, leaning back in his chair and resting his fingers under his chin. There was little you could do but stare back at him, anxiously tapping your foot on the marbled floor.

In your eyes, Aemond had always been torturously beautiful. But here, as his gaze fell upon you and you shared the silence of his personal space, he was ethereal. It caused your breath to catch as you waited for him to address you first.

Shakily, you broke the silence. “Why am I here, my Prince?”

“You are to be my wife,” He drawled, fingers tapping on the desk that he lazily dragged his hand along. What a stupid question. “That is why you are here.”

“I believe you know that is not what I ask, my Prince.” You scowled at him. It wasn’t smart to talk to him in such a way, you knew that. He is Prince Regent, after all. A memory of your brother’s warning to be careful flashed briefly in your mind. 

His expression deceivingly calm, Aemond considered putting you in your place. He may be behaving in a way he does not recognise of himself but he would not tolerate your disrespect. 

Instead, he somewhat answered your question. “We will be married so that your brother’s treason shall be forgiven and your House will be sworn to the King. You will stay here, in my chambers. Do whatever the seven hells you please, it does not matter.”

In any other instance, Aemond would have detested the sight of you gaping at him, stumbling over your words stupidly as your wide eyes confidently held his own. You had changed. Or maybe he had just been blind to the perfect curves of your body or the way you looked at him like he ruled the realms, so submissive yet so full of fire. So tempting. 

He’d condemn himself to the noose before ever admitting to his thoughts. 

“What?” you almost gasped. There was no chance that you could stay in his chambers like this. You were sure the whispers of the Keep were already running amok with Aemond’s insistence on isolating the two of you behind the doors to his private chambers.

Aemond took pleasure in the way you seethed. “I will not make it so easy for you to return to scheming with your treasonous family.”

You could hit him. If he weren’t a Prince, you would have. “You are keeping me prisoner? For something I have had no such hand in?”

“No,” he stood from the table and in two strides, he was in front of you. So close that you could smell the woody oils he bathed in mixing with the smell of his musk and the leather of his clothes. You shuddered. “Maybe I am. Call it what you like. You can do as you please, eat as you please, wear whatever you please, you can explore these halls as you wish. I do not care. But you will listen to me and it will all be as per my will.”

Before you could respond, Aemond continued. “For all they know, I’ve made it clear to everyone that you will stay in the chambers that I have chosen for you, on the other side of that wall.”

Aemond’s eye was a violet-blue inferno as it held yours. He was closer now and you let your eyes drag across every part of his devastating face, swallowing at his beauty and wondering what lay under the leather of his eye patch. 

Struggling not to lose your breath, not to lean in to touch him and feel him, you held your head high and turned your back to him. “Fuck you.”

A gasp fell from your lips as Aemond’s hand found the back of your head in an instant, slender fingers weaving into your hair gently before closing into a tight fist and pulling back slowly so that you were forced to look up at the roof, the back of your head resting against his chest. His other hand wrapped around your waist, holding you back firmly against him. The tightness of his grip on your hair ached and left you dizzy, an unfamiliar longing for his hands to find more of you with the same fervour had you holding back a pathetic whine. 

Suddenly, you were burning from head to toe, a fire setting on your skin as he held you roughly against him, so close that you felt the feather light tickle of his breath grazing your hair when he spoke. He was scorching you through the leather of his tunic, your dress doing little to shield you from the heat of his body.

More than his anger, Aemond’s amusement made the air heavy. The way he unashamedly let his stare fall upon your lips, tucked between your teeth as you struggled to hold your glare, had your breath snatched from your lungs. 

Aemond dropped his head enough so that his lips lingered just under your ear, close enough that you could hear him draw in a breath, dragging his nose across the dip where your jaw met your neck. Your face burned at how shamelessly he had inhaled your soft scent.

“Is that how you talk to your Prince?” Aemond’s voice was low, dripping with a dominance that commanded respect. Placing his free hand on your left shoulder, he slowly turned you to face him, making sure to keep you tightly pressed against him.

Aemond was disastrously beautiful. The curve of his nose, the strength in his jaw, the way his scar painted the top of his cheek, the soft fall of his pin straight hair and the soft shine of his lips which you so badly yearned to feel. You cursed yourself for thinking such a thing as his low voice broke you out of your distraction. “This is my home. Right now, all of Westeros is mine. You are here because I said so, because I own everything. Everything. Including you. You would do well to remember your place while you are here, pretty thing.”

The fire in your blood was rage. You had never felt such desire that had your body craving another. It was anger driving you mad, it had to be. Despite your better judgment, you whispered once again, “Fuck. You.”

His jaw ticked and with a strong yank, you were flush against him. The pounding of your heart was violent and you were sure he could feel it against his chest but you were stuck under his burning gaze. Aemond was angry. And you couldn’t help but think that it suited him. It made him all the more desirable. 

Aemond was strong and hard against your body, tense as he held you so intimately yet so roughly. 

By the gods, you couldn’t even think. What was happening? 

“My Pr-”

“Quiet,” Aemond commanded. His deep voice, raspy with lust and with rage sent shockwaves down your spine. “What a mouth on you, my Lady. Fuck me, is that so?”

You muttered incoherently under your breath, the desire and the fear making your eyes flutter shut as you trembled against the Prince who held you so roughly.

“Hm,” Aemond chuckled when you let out a short whimper. He squeezed you tightly, his voice low and dark. “I could have you begging on your knees, crying for my cock all day and all night and you would never deserve it. You best careful, ñuha dāria, because I can ruin you.”

Another gasp fell from your lips and Aemond took pleasure in the way you squirmed against him, thighs pressing together as you felt the flush of his words through your body. He hummed, you were so reactive. Somehow, you fit perfectly against him, so that he could feel every little tremor he caused in your body, every goosebump that he placed on your skin. His gaze never left you, his resolve solid as iron. 

Your mouth watered at the thought of the things that Aemond could do to you. Thoughts you had never imagined yourself capable of harbouring, especially not for a man like Aemond Targaryen. It overwhelmed you - he overwhelmed you. 

But all you had to do was glance at the map that was splayed over his table and the weaponry he had discarded at the foot of it before you were trying to shove him away from you. Aemond stepped away from you upon noticing the panic in your movements. You barely noticed the flash of worry that passed through his features before he so skilfully replaced his mask. 

The rise and fall of your chest was heavy and you had the sudden urge to punch the sultry smirk right off of Aemond’s face. That was not okay. Right now, you didn’t even want to think about the way your body reacted to him, they way you would have let him have his way with you right there and then despite all the consequences that would rain down upon you. 

“I will not stay in here,” You closed your eyes to avoid his stare, chest heaving as you caught your breath and reminded yourself of the formalities of Aemond’s title. And of the possible repercussions for denying him so stubbornly. “My Prince, it is not appropriate.”

You hadn’t heard him make his way across the room until you heard the door open. Aemond hesitated, his resolve was not as strong as he had thought given the way his heart was beating as if he had run a mile. The strain at his pelvis was almost painful and his hands urged to be tangled in your hair again, squeezing your hips, feeling the warmth of your skin underneath your clothing. Perhaps you weren’t wrong and Aemond returned to his hardened self at the thought of being unable to control his desires. 

“Hm,” he drawled, stoic as ever and standing tall at the doorway and gazing down at you over his shoulder with a red hot spark in his eye. Aemond’s mind raced with a million words, many in the alluring language he knew you could not understand and they all tasted dangerous on his tongue. “You are not wrong. It is not appropriate until we are wed, ñuha dāria.”

[satoluv]

YOU ALWAYS HAD ME — synopsis: what would you do if your hot best friend agreed to fake date you to make your ex-boyfriend jealous? will it ruin your friendship or will it prevail into something more?

⤿ [ 11 ] timestamps do not matter.

One of your favourite things you did growing up to find solace outside of your rowdy home was sitting by the porch, drinking in the starry night above you. Usually, you had company; your Persian cat, Kiki who has found herself a new owner; Gojo Satoru.

“What’s going on that pretty little head of yours?” Your thoughts, are instantly broken by the low yet smoky voice of the man you were falling in love with. — your best friend, your fake boyfriend.

“Nothing”

“Lies. I’ve been searching everywhere for you but then your kind mother told me this is your favourite spot.” You felt the plank beneath you creak and found yourself a new company.

“You were looking for me?” Your voice came out barely a whisper.

Tucking away the strands of hair behind your ear, “Yeah?.”

Your heart skipped a beat.

So did the clock.

10 minutes till Midnight.

“Can we end this, Satoru?”

“What?”

"You heard me."

"So that’s on your mind? Is that why you invited me here? To break up with me in front of your family's porch? Or did Toji text you back? I-"

"Satoru, do you want to know what I dislike about you?"

"If it's me stealing your chocolates, I'm sorry. Please don't end this"

You cupped his face, the warmth from the contact of your hands and his face kept you alive. He looks so cute with his face being squashed. His bright blue eyes on you, pouting.

"Wrong. I don't like it when you cut me off and you’re so dramatic ‘toru! Toji hasn’t texted me since forever! But it doesn’t matter anyway because I love you."

His pout, was instantly replaced with a smile like a kid who got candy from his mother.

"Then will you shut me up by kissing m-"

You threw your body weight on him, snaking your arms around his neck, playing with the underside of his undercut. It's so hot. Supposedly a small fleeting kiss immediately turned into a passionate heated kiss, outside your family's porch.

You gasped in surprise at the sensation of his hands tucking underneath your shirt, pinching your skin.

The kiss that breaks apart, left you both catching for air.

Removing his hands that previously rested under your shirt, sliding in your palms, stroking your hands with his thumb.

"You're so cute. I like the taste of your lips on mine. And I love you too, YN. Always have been, ever since high school. We grew up together so technically, I watched you grow up heh. Watching you have your first boyfriend broke my heart, but if that was the price for me to pay seeing you so happy, I'd gladly break my heart a thousand times over. But a part of me wished it was me who made you smile. So when he broke your heart, it was as if the whole world just crashed on me. You, out of everyone deserve so much love."

Like as if that wasn't enough to tug your heartstrings,

"YN, can I be your boyfriend? I'll love you with everything that I have, I promise."

“Here’s a pen for you baby”

“What for?”

“Hmm? To tick off the the rest of your checklist sweetheart”

hiiii …. 🫣🫣🫣 imcoming fluff chapters enjoy it while it lasts. i love them sm omg. pls ignore the fact that it’s almost feb.. and im posting abt new years HAHAHA the nicknames!!!! i hope it’s not too rush omds..

💞 in the title means new years special hehe

taglist: @hexrts-anatomy @k4romis @soy-garbage @avatar-of-procrastination @lees-chaotic-brain @pastatata @maybe-a-bi-witch @vivi-loves-penguins @reagan707 @iluv-ace @dazaisfavgf @tiredflame132 @dreamxiing @inorixonline

feedbacks and reblogs appreciated! 💕💕 pls be kind to me

series m.list | main m.list

@ satoluv do not plagiarize, translate, or rewrite my writings without my permission !

[squiishiichaos]

So, as I'm getting back into writing for fandoms after a long time away, I've been thrown headfirst into the AFTG fandom, and--as anticipated--I had to write content for my unlikeable favorite. So, here, have a treat of Perfect Court Popstar AU while I procrastinate everything else I'm supposed to be doing today.

(TW for implied sexual content/sex work)

Riko spat the taste of flesh into the sink alongside a mouthful of saliva and disgust. He brushed at his teeth with his finger, rinsing and gurgling to get the last of the taste from his tongue. It was a moot point. The night was just beginning, and there was no way the many influential people here learned to keep their hands to themselves overnight. But this was the price he paid to be relevant–one he would keep paying to earn the big hookups he needed to craft his Perfect group without any say from anyone–not his uncle, not his company, no one.

He touched the fold of bills fresh in his pocket just as the door opened and a fresh body stepped over the threshold. Kevin knew better than to spare him pity at an event like this. It was status quo for the best of the best to be tossed around the richest hands, offered up like tribute by agencies desperate for donors and wealthy sponsors. Someone would eventually spot Kevin's pretty green eyes and see how fast they could make his long legs bend. Riko had always been better at offering up sweet kisses and alternatives where it mattered, but Kevin needed his mouth full to stop whatever diva words awaited the first person to dare call one of the latest up and coming stars good.

At least his attitude was refreshing. Riko wanted the world to know they were the best. The King and Queen and whatever army they allied. And once he had a full militia beneath his guard, these petty nuisances would no longer be their problem to put up with.

"You good?" Kevin asked, jerking his thumb back at the open doorway behind him. "The Master is looking for you."

Riko couldn't stop his groan. "Again?" Kevin shrugged his indifference and knocked a knuckle against the door. Riko said, "I'll be out when I am out."

Kevin nodded his agreeance, then pulled a card from his pocket. Riko took it and glanced at the name plastered on it. "Moreau?"

"Rapper," Kevin explained, "French."

Riko spared him a withering glance. "We perform in Japanese and English."

"He will learn," Kevin told him with conviction. "His flow is finite and his emotion is strong. He'll match our voices well."

"Can he move?"

"He will," Kevin said, then turned and backed from the room, leaving Riko to prepare himself for more press and more coverage.

The life of a celebrity truly was a bitch.

[illarian-rambling]

Thank you @whatwewrotepodcast @willtheweaver @tildeathiwillwrite and @elsie-writes for the tags! I always put this game off because it takes me a while, so they've kinda built up. Therefore, prepare yourself for the mother of all word tags

Find the Word Tag (Procrastinator Edition)

My words are: cut, scream, villain, blue, stream, error, crown, ash, smile, solo, beat, bring, stun, scuttle, shimmer, slave

Your words are: loan, contract, camp, command

I'm putting my faith in Honor's Outcasts book 1 for this

.

She was just putting the finishing touches on a shipment of enchanted diadems from Skysheer, weaving wards around the valuable cargo like a mother bird weaves a nest. Magic and energy flowed like thread from her dancing fingers, which were stained a washed-out umber in the wavering light of her old lantern. With a flourish, the girl cut the connection, finishing the spell and ensuring that anyone attempting to steal the prize within those cedar walls would have a nasty price to pay.

.

As the color deepened into a dark, bloody purple, a scream poured from the man's jaws. His flesh blackened and cracked under the baleful light as he clawed at his skin in vain. It was like the sparks were devouring him. Like he was made of paper instead of meat.

.

Twenari sighed, moving over to plop down onto their raggedy little settee. It wasn't like an argument was uncommon for the pair. Hell, she'd heard them argue over the color of a woman's hat once. A woman, she might add, who'd been standing right next to them in a bank queue, and whose blushing face had perfectly complimented her obviously blue hat.

.

Oh sure, from a distance it was all quite beautiful: the burbling stream, the heavy-boughed mangroves, the whispering reeds. But standing there - mosquitoes crawling up and down his legs, sweat prickling his scalp, skin itching where it had burnt in the sun days before - it all seemed a mundane little hell made just for him.

.

Izjik felt a sting in her side. Felt the pounding pressure in her skull. The sting grew into an ache, then a burning, then an agony. Looking down, she found the Sovereign’s offhand clutching the broken base of one of the spines that had made up her crown. The point, of course, was embedded in Izjik’s ribs.

.

"Come on, you heavy fuck!" Djek groaned as he pulled Sepo around a corner. His eyes streamed with ash and terror, turning the already blurry world into one big smear of orange light.

The suffocating heat was making his hands sweat, so Djek was forced to dig bloody grooves into Sepo’s wrist as he clung on by his nails alone. Blood still poured from the man's mouth, leaving a bubbling maroon trail behind them.

.

The woman leaned in towards her victim, her doll-faced smile still held in place. "Would you like to know why I really call Twenari my blessing?"

The man gave a small nod as Twenari released his neck muscles. Evidently, he was of the 'just agree to the demands and you'll be fine' school of thought.

Undeta gave a throaty, animal chuckle.

"Wrong answer."

.

"Where were you supposed to take Undeta’s daughter?"

Djek swallowed. "Under the tower, down in the old city sewers. We were supposed to hand her off to some higher-ups, split the money, then shove off."

<Well,> Sepo frowned, <then it looks like we need to find a way underneath this building. It seems Tyche will be doing a solo deal.>

.

Here it comes, Twenari winced. A beat later, the wave of nausea hit her, coupled with a bone-tugging fatigue. Only barely was she able to reform her sigil and reignite the glow. Her vision flickered and when she could see again, she was on her knees. Funny, she hadn't felt herself fall.

.

"You've known me for what, two months now? When have I never not been careful?"

Twenari pursed her lips. "That's not worthy of a response. I just wish you'd take me with you."

"You have to cover for me, you know that. Besides, it's probably going to be, like, super boring. All dusty scrolls and crusty old guys and shit."

"Boring to you maybe," Twenari sulked.

"Look, I'll bring you back a dusty scroll, how about that?"

"That's stealing and you're illiterate," the girl deadpanned.

"Huh, what's that? It sounded like disrespect." Izjik feigned cupping her ear. "Anyways, I'm going to be late. See you tonight! With details!"

.

Sepo obviously didn't have that option. He could switch between the mental and physical keys, meaning he could stun the unwary or excite the elements as he was doing now. And thank fuck he could also just manage a song of flesh carving.

.

Cursing again - this time in Janazi - Twenari spun her storm of orange slabs in a wide arc around the perimeter of the tent. Swords and less nimble drones went flying as the shields began a ferocious circuit around the tent's base. At that speed, their glow blended into one shimmering circle of fire. She didn't have enough to completely encircle it, but hopefully with the occasional change in rotation, the guards would at least be too pressed to make it through before Izjik finished.

.

Outside of her monotonous, yet carefully taxing routine, it wouldn't have taken long for Twenari to begin to pick up real skills. Deadly ones. And Undeta had no doubt that any group her daughter fell in with would end up wrapped around her finger. Talent was quite the asset, or liability, in that area. Inevitably, people would come to rely on you, and those who rely on you are just as good as slaves.

.

Wooo, we made it! I'll tag @kaylinalexanderbooks @cowboybrunch @modernwritercraft @hagscribes @halfbit and anyone else who wants to play :)

[jotatetsuken]

Shyna’s Summer Commissions

When I was planning this, it was supposed to be spring commissions, looks like procrastination has kept me busy af xD /hj /lh

Slots: 1/10 (OPEN, will roll out again once I am done writing, and this will go until 31st August, 2023)

Anyway, so, as much as I don’t want to admit it, here’s what’s happening: I have an educational loan to pay; two in fact, and while my father and I have been paying them diligently, he’s just turned 64... and I want him to not work anymore, and enjoy his retirement, y’know? The problem: my IT job does not pay enough per month and we’re currently on talks on reworking the appraisal (as I received minimal increment this year). So, this is something I want to do to help alleviate financially.

I know I can’t work on a lot with a ton of WIPs that I have, so I will have 10 openings for now so that I don’t overwork myself, and I will keep doing so throughout this summer, which means this will get over by 31st August, 2023. I also have a goal on Ko-Fi incase you want to donate to that as well. In case you can’t pay, but still want to spread the word by reblogging, you are more than welcome to do so <3

Now for the rules:

Only available for those who are 18 and above. (which means if you are a minor, please DNI with this post, please)

Payments will have to be made through Ko-Fi and Paypal only. For those based in India, we can discuss other alternatives (Paytm, PhonePe, etc, else the usual.)

If you’d like a Canon x OC fic, I will need every info about the OC, the background, traits, backstory, abilities, etc. If it’s a reader insert, I will need the same, so that it will help me write better. Picrew/art references are also appreciated. I can also write selfship fics too.

For reader inserts, I will only write female readers, afab readers, and gn!readers (only for sfw commissions).

I am available to talk via Tumblr DM or Discord (the latter, if you are a mutual)

Only two revisions allowed.

The teen characters (Itadori, Megumi, Nobara, Asta, Yuno, Noelle, all the Blue Lock and KNB characters, Josuke, Okuyasu, etc) will be aged up or post timeskip (like Haikyuu).

Details under the cut (Minors DNI with the post):

Pricings: Because I am just starting out, I checked a couple of my mutuals who are commissioning too, and pricing will be based on word count: $1 for 100 words, and I will start out at a minimum of 500 words and a maximum of 2500 words (will increase my limit when I feel more comfortable writing longer fics).

$5 - 500 words, $10 - 1000 words, $15 - 1500 words, $20 - 2000 words, $25 - 2500 words.

Fandoms: Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (current fixation haha), Haikyuu, Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, Black Clover, Blue Lock (only the anime, haven’t read the manga yet), Kuroko no Basket

What can I write?: canon x oc, selfship, canon x f!reader/afab!reader/gn!reader (gn! only for sfw commissions), AUs (please specify the AU because I may not be familiar with everything), nsfw, dubcon, polyamory

What can I not write?: Stroheim (JJBA), Pucci in NSFW scenarios, certain kinks, characters other than the ones that I mentioned I will write

Tagging to spread awareness: @sugardaddyreo @chronic-claire-universe @cyberparadis @romiyaro @strawberrystepmom @bizarrebankai @jctaro @ilyluffy @litepowee @jellyluchi @mapesandoval @magthemage @papersirens @amberswords @uminozerol @thoughtfullyrainynightmare @arcanestage @spookysinner45 @scary-monsters @peachsayshi @theschneckenhouse @aeons-domain @mrsgiovanna @fuwushiguro @aizenhours @i4sgwr @sookisaurus @millionsknive @gojoest @amidalashandmaidens @tsutsumies @jojolovenotes @shaylistic @flowers-n-felines

[anattemptatmeaning]

Meredith: First Time Caller, Long Time Listener - Chapter Three: Crystal Clear

Author's Notes (potential spoilers): My home internet is really slow, hence why this post may look a bit rough (I also stayed up til 4AM finishing and posting this on AO3 lol) and a lot of things have been going on in my personal life but I'm proud to post the third chapter of my humble story! Especially proud, considering that I'm absolutely PATHETIC with procrastination and anxiety, so being able to consistently write three chapters on something I've been working at really means a lot to me. And I got to live out my childhood fantasy of secret passageways in a Bad Times at the El Royale/Barbarian-style sequence. Definitely a two-for-one.

Chapter Theme Song: One Way or Another - Blondie (I find it really funny in the context of this chapter, it matches the dark humor of an OC you'll meet in later chapters)

Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4GV9rbpFrebDNkG3J1GGcu

Trigger Warnings: This chapter contains some graphic violence, mainly near the end, but there's slight references to it around the midway point.

Tags: @nocturnest @blingblingsparklesparkle @brittklein18 @luluartpop

Word Count: approx. 2,828

Three: Crystal Clear

The landing in Minneapolis was smooth.

Tangerine got through security with minimal effort, owing to his experience in the business and strings pulled with money to spare. The private jet used for his businessman cover, one of his favorites and most convenient, didn’t hurt.

He texted Lemon to put the bastard at ease.

🍊: Landed safe

🍋: In the belly of the beast now mate

🍊: Fuck off, all I need to do is kill one sodding cop and take a picture of him and send it to some bird

🍋: If any one person recognizes you you’re public enemy number one

🍊: Could say that about any of the other places we’ve been

🍋: Not Meredith.

Tangerine had to take a large seething breath at that point. He tried convincing himself it was just anger as always. 

🍊: Didn’t we agree never to mention that place out loud ever again?

🍋: No, we didn’t, we just stopped talking about it

🍊: Yeah well same fucking principle alright? I landed, I’m ready to do the job, that’s it, why the fuck are you acting like this?

🍋: I still don’t think you should’ve taken that job. I was already on one anyways from the fucking White Death and with where it’s looking, we won’t need one for months

🍊: We’ve already fucking discussed this

🍋: Just finish it and get home ASAP

Tangerine was about to get into another row over Lemon’s hypocrisy when he was the one trying to do his job without a complaint, but got his shit together before he could get even more sidetracked.

He checked into his hotel and went straight to unpacking. As he began hanging his suits, he realized he could not stop thinking back to his client.

She was indeed unusual. He appreciated the promptness and it was certainly a lucrative offer, but it was rare that he would get paid such a high amount, and he was usually sent after the higher-ups. Crime bosses, crooked politicians, and the like. But one measly corrupt cop? If it wasn’t for the curiously high price, arguably below his pay grade.

And it just so happened to coincide with one of the very few jobs that separated the Twins.

Tangerine pulled out his phone and scrolled to find the contact of his client, and began typing.

🍊: Oi, just to clarify, you said three million?

He gets a reply almost immediately.

🔲: Yes. 

🍊: I’m not gonna deny it’s a pretty penny, but how do you have that much, and why me, why this?

🔲: I didn’t want to bother with details. I did say it was personal. But since you asked, revenge. For my family. We’ve got quite a bit of money, and my dad left me a hefty sum in his will. I’m using the bulk of it to pay you. If the job gets finished, of course. 

The response was reasonable if irritating. He was a fucking professional for Christ’s sakes. 

And revenge was annoyingly common in his world, one of the most frequent reasons for people like him to be hired in the first place. It was all a bloody soap opera at this point. 

Tangerine prided himself on being the type not to ask questions, but skepticism won out.

🍊: Hold your horses, who do you think I am? I’m doing your dirty work for you, and I’m gonna be expecting that three mil when I get that photo.

🔲: I genuinely find that ironic. And once again? You did ask. But I think that’s quite enough chatter for a man of your…occupation, isn’t it?

Judging by what he heard of her voice, she was older than him, but came off as a pretentious fucking brat in these messages. Avoiding her bait, Tangerine turned off his phone and got to work, hacking into databases and digging up shit on Officer Geoffrey.

Officer Geoffrey was a madman. 

And he was no cop. He was Black Stone.

Black Stone had been an independent operator for quite some time, and profusely refused to work with any other, not even an agency or a handler. Quite rude too, even considering Tangerine. He flipped from being curtly professional to raving lunatic, constantly giving everyone else in the business a fucking earworm. He was also on the older, washed-up side, looking more like an alcoholic father than a threat.

Tangerine never liked Black Stone. Neither would he admit it, but he was surprisingly a rather prolific contractor, despite being in his line of work for far less time. 

It pissed him off to no end. His ruthlessness matched his reckless abandon, but there was a clear pattern to his victims: they all had committed serious misdeeds, from Blackwater affiliates who had fired on civilians to human trafficking ring leaders. 

Not that it undeterred Tangerine’s opinions of him. Self-righteousness annoyed the hell out of him, and there were plenty of “deserving” folks walking around all over the world at the end of the day. 

Besides, the Twins had worked with Blackwater several times amongst everything they had done throughout their rise to infamy. They hadn’t perished to the great Black Stone. 

Anyways, his methods were as unpredictable as he was angry. Sometimes he’d shoot a prick through their fucking ears. Other times he’d lead a whole gang into a fucking forest and burn it all down. 

Tangerine was understanding a lot more why he was being paid so much. The cop shit had to have been a cover for Black Stone’s antics, and someone had been pissed off just enough. Unsurprising. 

Well, then.

—

Tangerine tailed Officer Geoffrey’s patrol vehicle in a rental car.

He had been intercepting his field operations. Luckily for Tangerine, it wound up as a fairly mundane day. Black Stone was simply monitoring the city while writing the occasional traffic ticket. 

At some point, Geoffrey began to drive out of the Central District. Tangerine followed close behind in a rental car, occasionally darting around different roads to maintain an unsuspicious distance. 

They crossed the Wabasha Street Bridge onto the southern areas of the city. By now, Geoffrey hadn’t done anything besides driving, not even using his radio. Tangerine decided to kill him wherever he stopped. 

Eventually, Geoffrey slowed down and parked. The GPS revealed their location to be in Sunfish Lake, which looked to be a rural village with few houses around. Perfect. Tangerine pulled over just one turn away. He drove a slight distance down a wooded path before killing the engine. 

Tangerine trailed Geoffrey and quickly caught up to within a short distance of him, walking along the road and taking cover among the trees as needed. Minutes later, a multi-story house in a more open lot of land came into view. 

Fair spot for a safe house, Tangerine had to admit.

Geoffrey fished out a set of keys and entered the house. Once he closed the door, Tangerine made a beeline for the house, ducking out of the field of vision whenever Geoffrey walked in front of a window. At the door, Tangerine got out his lockpicks.

Whatever mild approval he expressed of Black Stone for his choice in refuge disappeared once he realized how fucking mediocre his locks were. Nevertheless, he quickly brushed the disappointment off. He would complain once he got home to Lemon.

Once he heard the latch click free, he swung the door open quietly yet rapidly. He closed it with one hand as he drew his revolver with the other.

The interior of the house was unremarkably normal-looking. Grey walls. Forest green tiles. A kitchen with an island, couches and a coffee table over a rug. Bookshelves, framed artwork, potted plants.  

Geoffrey hadn’t come into view, but momentarily Tangerine heard footsteps coming from upstairs. He slid behind a wall and prepared to ambush, but right as he got into position, the footsteps stopped. And never fucking came back.

Puzzled by Geoffrey’s apparent disappearance, Tangerine stepped out into the open. Still no footsteps or sound of movement. He scoured the first floor, walking down a hallway and checking every room and the garage. 

Nothing. 

Tangerine was about to venture onto the second floor when he heard what sounded eerily similar to rustling. He instinctively turned towards the sound, finger on his trigger.

Nothing?

He moved in the direction it came from, which was towards the back door. Right when he reached the door, he heard more rustling. But it sounded like it came from within the house.

What the fuck?

Tangerine briefly peeked through every room on the first floor again before walking up the stairs. The second floor was as mundane as the first. Bedroom. Bathroom. Second bedroom. Second bathroom. 

He was just walking out of the second bedroom’s closet when he noticed a weird flash in the corner of his eye. 

He wheeled around and was face-to-face with the bed. 

Tangerine squinted and walked closer to the headboard. White with three frames that looked like cupboard doors.

Doors.

He used his free hand to look for any openings between the frames and the headboard itself. When he came to the middle frame, he felt his fingers squeeze in just a bit further than with the other frames, followed by a click, and the door swinging wide open.

Under the bed was a dark, long passageway resembling a cave. And there was light at the far end. 

Forced to crawl, Tangerine got on his knees and began navigating through the dimly lit burrow. As he got closer to the light, he noticed that it came from within what appeared to be a dug-out room. 

When he saw what was inside, his jaw dropped.

There was a gigantic fucking conspiracy board filled to the brim of him. Of everything about him. There were photos of him ranging all the way back from when he got his start in the business, his teenage years, to his most recent job. He should have gotten rid of the security camera footage by the time he got home.

And yet.

Newspaper clippings of his jobs, all covered up by the various agencies and criminal organizations by the time they hit the headlines. Portraits of his targets, in live and mangled body form. Snapshots of all the cities he’s worked in, including some uncomfortable close-ups on buildings he recognizes. The inevitable trail of red string connected all of them together in perfect chronological order from what he could remember.

Underneath the board was a long desk. On both sides of it were supercomputers, with a more general-purpose desktop on a smaller desk next to it. There were even more articles dedicated to him, scattered across the vast piles of documents he thought no longer existed. Burner phones he discarded. Cameras of the surveillance kind. Safe house keys. 

This time, what he noticed the most was a garish handwriting in a darkened, oft-putting shade, trailing all over most of the torn sheets of paper. He knew it wasn’t blood, but a distinct putrid odor emitted from the questionable ink he couldn’t quite place. It just felt unnatural.

The writing itself, in bold, large capital letters, spelt NOTHING IS FORGOTTEN.

He picked up one of the sheets of paper and noticed the deranged writing covered a past contract he signed. 

Fuck the job, Black Stone was going to fucking answer for this.

Coming out of the room, he was again bathed in the darkness of the cave as he crawled back to the bed.

Wait, didn’t he leave the door open—

His head bumped against what was certainly the wood of a frame.

That didn’t budge.

He tried pushing against the door as hard as he could, eventually resorting to punching it with his brass knuckles, but for whatever reason, the door did not move an inch. Someone on the other end had to have been holding it in. It was like it had been fucking sealed.

He caught another flash at the corner of his eye and saw that more light had now appeared in the opposite direction. Cursing under his breath and realizing he was forced to find another exit, he crawled all the way to the other side.

There was another ladder leading up to a circular door, looking the same as the one he originally took. The door was easy to open - all he needed to do was push - and spit him out right on a lot of open land. The door was covered by grass, and he noticed a keyhole. It had been unlocked.

Almost directly in front of him was a large white mansion. It easily surpassed Geoffrey’s house by about three times in size. The main entrance had three large wooden doors and wide platform stairs leading up to the front door. 

Two of which were wide open.

Tangerine seethed and quickly barged through the entrance. He was done with Black Stone’s games. 

As soon as he fully stepped inside, both open doors rapidly slammed shut behind him, causing him to flinch. All the blinds were closed in the house, giving the atmosphere a dim, shadowy atmosphere.

Tangerine tried looking out the small windows of the door, but they were built in a kaleidoscope style, the panes seemingly divided into dozens of protruding bumps of glass, making it difficult to see anything. There were no moving shapes, or even shadows from under the door that gave away an outside presence. 

“Fucking bullshit,” Tangerine muttered with half a mind to beat the piss out of whoever showed up, Black Stone or no. Then he heard something akin to a glass shattering from inside the house. He drew his revolver. 

The nearest window smashes to pieces as a figure crashes through the glass to tackle him to the ground.

With a roar of exertion from the sheer frustration of the day, Tangerine puts all his strength in kicking the person off, but they grab hold of his legs and use their fucking body weight to slam him back down. 

Tangerine hits the floor face first, and it’s instantly met with a deep, heavy punch to the back of his head, causing his nose to make full contact with the ground, signaled by the sound of something surely breaking. 

Letting out a furious groan, Tangerine jabs an elbow upward, only slightly connecting with his attacker but connecting nonetheless, and he attempts to follow through with a jab of his own. Said attacker - whose weight had become suspiciously light - only captures his arm in a deathly grip and slams his legs onto Tangerine’s upper body, pushing his head with a now-damaged nose into the floor again with a louder crunch - make that two, as the attacker was pulling his arm back relentlessly far. 

Tangerine let out a guttural cry of pain as his arm was broken, proceeded by his elbow as the bastard had the nerve to suddenly reverse the lower part of his arm in a 180-degree angle. He had dealt with broken limbs before, he was a fucking assassin, but this was particularly inconvenient. 

His quick-thinking of how to adapt to his incapacity was rudely interrupted when the bastard slams a fist in his face, the sensation of pain arising from the broken nose clouding his judgment. A punch to his stomach then the next to his chest knocks the wind out of him. 

Tangerine could now clearly recognize the figure. Black Stone, his tall, lanky figure and his messy dark hair. Most of all, he saw that he was pissed beyond belief. His eyes told the story of a flurry of emotions: rage most obviously, and something involving sadness. 

Tangerine doesn’t get to take advantage of his emotions the way he usually would’ve as Black Stone slams him from wall to wall, then punches him through the cheek, his fist reaching his lips. He begins to feel the same sensation of pain from his nose in his mouth, and is only able to see two of his teeth on the ground before he is practically dragged by the neck without concern for potential choking. His attempt at breaking off is met with a kick to his knees and yet another punch to the shoulder, rendering it nigh dislocated. 

Shortly, he feels Black Stone throw him to the floor, now carpeted. Tangerine was about to fight through the pain to rip him a new one when he noticed dozens of people. Then hundreds. They were at the back of the house now, and he could see into the sizable lot of land through the back door that people surrounded them from all sides. 

People he recognized. No, people he knew - or knew him, rather. 

And standing closest to him were the survivors of the Meredith Elementary School bombing. 

"You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise." -Maya Angelou

[plothooksinc]

good time zone! ♻️?

It is an excellent time zone! I'm in the future, I have all your lottery numbers--

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP

This is EXTREMELY HARD TO ANSWER because I have many WIPs but most of them are absolutely in the beginning stages, and the one that is not is kind of a huge spoiler as to how the rest of the story will go. Literally "I was going to end it this way but now I'm going to end it this way just so I finish writing it before the year 2056." (Lookin' at you, Snowblind.) And by and large, I do not have a lot of ideas I end up scrapping for my WIPs! It's just not how I roll.

So instead, I will mention the bits for NRFTW that ended up on the cutting room floor. There were a lot of ways that the end could go re: Leo being as hurt as he was and not having access to medical care, all of them being pretty urgent. They all revolved around Draxum making a sacrifice to ensure he survived; as simple a one as Draxum offering himself up to Bishop in exchange for full hospital treatment and then freedom for Leo and his fam, which got scrapped because Bishop was going to offer that anyway. He's an asshole, but he does have some morals and a sense of some kind of "shit I owe you", so there you go. But the other idea was tapping into the earlier scene with Draxum and Mikey where Draxum told Mikey outright, "Healing has far too high a price," because to my worldbuilding healing magic couldn't spontaneously heal someone without extracting an equal price of lifeforce. When someone's on death's door you can't exactly extract more from them to fix their injuries, so the healer would have to pay up.

In short, to stop Leo from expiring in the warehouse, Draxum was gonna very much make that sacrifice - the goat's hundreds of years old, what's a year or two - and then basically go "if you tell him I will never forgive you B|", which sets up for him finding out in the sequel. (Yeah, he's gonna find out.)

Anyway, that also got scrapped for a couple reasons. Mainly, the warehouse scene was high stakes and tension enough as it was, and with lung injuries either Leo would last minutes or he would last hours, and well. I wanted him to last more than minutes. :/ I'm not that mean. So then I was like "hmm okay, well, I can still do that after the warehouse."

And I could. But. Pacing. We were winding down. The climax had come and gone. I just didn't have it in me to go "oh yeah and another thing" because it would be ridiculous at that point, and thus Leo just woke up an amount of time later after some touch and go health issues, and it gave me a window to quietly play with later.

BUT. ALSO.

My beta @shadowbends was very disappointed I didn't get to go through with it because she loved the idea (and so did I, I just didn't have space for it) and thus she wrote Don't Pay My Ransom, which is a fic that takes place during that recovery time, and thus I got to have my cake and eat it too. (And be thrilled reading Pi's writing all over again because she'd been gone from writing so long :c )

In short, I have very little that ends up on the cutting room floor! Often because any outlines I write are broad strokes; NRFTW's outline was more defined than any I've done because I'd been out of writing for so long and wasn't sure if I could do it without a solid direction to go, so it's more an exception in this case. <3

Thank you for the question!

Procrastination ask meme here.

[imichelledesrosiers]

DAILY HABITS

There are two daily habits that I will change from here on out. My use of pen and paper to write stories, and my procrastination. Let me explain

Writing is my passion. I seldom spend a day without having a new brainstorm that come to my mind so I could use for my next spec or script. As a writer I must set up a daily routine schedule to write something about any thoughts or any ideas coming to my head, in order to keep my writing skills flowing; if I really want to make it as a lifetime career.

I am an early person and my inspiration flows either early in the morning or late at night. I take these solo moments to write something, anything that comes my mind. Most of the time I use any blank writeable paper to do it, which is the easiest way for me to keep the idea fresh because by the time to turn on the laptop, to sign in, and wait until it completely turns on, the main thought starts to fade off. So, I use that as my convenient way but I pay good price for the consequences.

For instance, take a look of this Picture  

This is my bed, well the other side from I lay. I used to use that quickest way for everything coming in my head during the night. Do you think it is useful and convenient? The answer is “YES” and “NO.” we can say “yes,” if you have time during the day to go back and type every single thing that you wrote down during the night into your phone or your laptop.

In the case you cannot do that, it becomes a big “no, no” because you will have more new ideas to write down, and by adding them on the top of the pile you already have, it would be more difficult for you to type and format all of them properly. Most of the time those written papers end up in the trash because no one would take time to find out which one is which? It would become a mess that occupies some space in your house. Since you know the contents and how important those pieces of papers got in your eyes, you try your best to protect them as much as you can, but at the end of the day, or somehow you have to decide to rip of them.

To be honest, whatever great specs or ideas, and so on, I wrote down on pieces of papers ended

up in the trash because I procrastinated on going back and typing them on my laptop.  And something I slept on certain fresh and great specs or plots, and when I come back to write them down I kind of remember only a part of them. I lost all of the essence of them. The main ideas flew away because our brain is constantly working and changing your thoughts, and I don’t make it efficient enough to condense it as quick as possible.

Procrastination is another thing that we, as writers need to stay away from. It is our worst enemy. Our wills are always there to tell our stories, whether it is good or bad. Either it happy or sad. We always have something to write about, therefore, if we let laziness takes place into our lives, we will be the worst layback person on earth.

The day in itself is not enough for us to do what is important to do. If we fail to fulfill something that has to be done during the day; we are done, because it would be more difficult for us to go back and do it the next day. For those who don’t have a side job, their social network distractions take mostly half of their day and they procrastinate on what that must be done.

As the bible says: "Don't worry about tomorrow, for you don’t know what a day might bring.” (Proverbs 27: 1). And the quote mentioned: “Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”

Discipline is key in everything, but using that discipline to perform this daily writing practice demands a lot of sacrifice and dedication. We must first prepare ourselves mentally before we start this daily writing practice. Do not procrastinate on it. We have to be prompt and ready at all time.

With the “Master and Advanced Master Writing” Courses that I take at “KMP Entertainment Professional Development academy,” I learn how to cope myself together and organize my craft in one place and to be ready whenever I need my them.

It is a step-by-step process, but as soon as you put yourself into it with no reserve, it will become a daily routine / habit that you would not be able to live without doing it, as a daily duty. You will instinctively force yourself to commit to it. It will become a second habit as such as if you don’t do it one day you would feel the emptiness of that unfulfilled task. 

[strwbrryeyes]

𖦹°｡⋆ late night convenience store run

⟡ cw: slight bickering, mentions of stress eating kind of?, college aged, bad writing, lmk if i forgot anything else :)

⟡ a/n: i had a dream i went to the convenience store. short story that's messy but im busy getting ready to go back to university tomorrow. the writing will be so much better when everything is settles trust. i'll also probably rewrite this later so it sounds better :)

"do we really have to be here? its the middle of the night!" your tall blonde boyfriend, tsukishima kei, exclaims slightly annoyed.

"yes we do! i need more snacks to survive the rest of the night!" whining back at him you pull him by the sleeve and into the store.

right now, you two were at the convenience store down the street from your shared apartment. why you ask? because you ran out of gummy bears.

normally, you would wait until the day time to go out and buy more but you were pulling an all nighter with kei to study for your upcoming midterms. kei didn't really need to study, he learns things quickly and easily. meanwhile, you don't. you procrastinate a lot of the things you need to get done and tend to "forget" to study. so when you told kei that you were going to pull this all nighter, he insisted he would do with you because lord knows you would not study and instead spend the entire night watching random youtube videos.

with another groan he gives in and starts looking through the shelves with you.

"you had plenty of snacks in the pantry last i checked though." he side eyes you causing you to let out a huff.

"not any that im craving right now!" you protest while picking out your favorite brand of gummy bears and putting it in the basket that kei was holding.

"all youre craving right now is candy and energy drinks. you're gonna kill your body like that." he states as he recalls the mountain of candy wrappers and the two empty monster cans on your living room floor.

"so i have a sweet tooth! sue me!" you say as you gather even more assortments of candy. you know he's right, that this is unhealthy but whenever you're stressed you tend to eat a lot of one thing to distract yourself. as for the energy drinks, you just need to stay awake.

kei lets out another sigh as he follows you around the store as you get a few more things. as you're staring at the drink section trying to find your favorite flavor of monster, he looks to his side and stares at something.

"dang it! they don't have the flavor i wa-" you cut yourself off as you see your boyfriend staring into space. well not into space, he's staring at the strawberry shortcake. thats placed on a little stand with other types of cake. it isn't the best tasting strawberry shortcake by any means, this is a corner store after all but for some reason tsukishima kei was in love with this cake.

"now whos the one with the sweet tooth?" you giggle as you look at him staring at it with a need in his eyes and you drag him over to the stand and grab two containers, each having a singular slice of the cake.

"shut up..." he murmurs with fake annoyance but you can see the blush creep up on his face. "are we done yet?" he asks and you nod.

"yeah! lets go up to the checkout counter!" you say and then you both walk up to the cashier.

as the cashier scans every item, it starts to set in just how many things you bought and you internally cringe when you see the price go up on the price monitor.

"that'll be $34.95 please!" the cashier reads out the total amount you have to pay and your mouth drops wide open but all you hear is kei snickering as he pulls out his wallet to hand the cashier the payment.

after he gets his change you both say thank you and goodnight to the cashier and walk out the store.

"we were only supposed to go for more gummy bears how did you end up buying 40 dollars worth of things?" he teases you causing you to punch his arm.

"shut up..." you whisper embarrassed and he just pulls you to his side as you both walk back to your apartments.

"i love you" he kindly says and kisses the top of your head.

"i love you too, kei" you respond blushing as you enter your apartment and sit down to eat the strawberry shortcake before getting back to studying.

[izumi-07]

INTRO AND NAVIGATION

When I created this account I initially wanted to explore writing explicit scenes and tropes in a place that was not set in stone and not within a story that needed constant attention and could be somewhere I came to just build upon what I know and where I could improve. I did not have any idea of how to go about doing it consistently but I want to give it a better try once more because I have deleted and re-posted way too many times at this point, so the blog hopefully helps me to flesh out ideas and styles of writing whilst giving anyone who finds it, a small reprieve into our taboo thoughts and brain rots!

I am 21 years of age, and live in the greater southern hemisphere of the world; I like to call myself a writer but I am, in all honesty a full time procrastinator when it comes to keeping up with my writing goals for the week let alone month lol. BUT we shall keep moving and persevere non the less. I love assortments of nuts in any dessert, enjoy cold and rainy weather and will laugh at the worst times.

!!!WARNING!!!

This blog is strictly for adults only, if anyone is below the age of 18, please do not interact or engage with my work. I do know regardless of how many warnings are placed we have the rebels who want to take a peek anyway, take some advice from someone who is paying the price of being exposed too early to things I should not have been exposed to at that age.

Your youth and childhood are the most significant and impressionable parts of your life try and enjoy it and build up a good foundation, take things slow and don't rush right into adulthood there are things about your childhood you will dearly miss and by the time your my age you will regret all the laps you ran to try and stand at the adults table too early.

I am only active on Tumblr and Ao3, I do not consent to my work being shared around and or reposted without my consent.

MASTERLIST OF FANDOM SECTIONS

COD

JJK

HAIKYUU!!

MONSTER AU'S

NARUTO

RANDOMIZER

[possessingtheproperspirit]

Drawn

for @efkgirldetective's summer of jily, prompt #5 - activity: stargazing.

---

She’s tried not to spend the whole evening just watching him. A challenge, but she’s always liked a challenge, and this feels like one of the biggest she’s faced. Don’t stare at James Potter. Don’t let yourself be drawn back into that orbit.

The thing is, she likes it. She finds herself seeking him out, now, sitting with him in the common room or ambling down to Quidditch practice at his side or sitting opposite him in the Great Hall, where she can look right into those beguiling hazel eyes and let that smile warm her to the tips of her fingers.

Yeah. She’s pretty far gone.

But she’d usually rather be there, with him but apart from him, than try to fight that pull, try to push back against whatever it is that’s deep inside her, desperate for his attention. She has never wanted to be that kind of girl, and especially not with him, but here she is, finding herself willing to do just about anything if it means he looks at her again and talks to her again.

Exams finished this morning, and the seventh years were given a later curfew to celebrate the occasion. The Gryffindors piled out of the Great Hall after lunch, collapsed in a heap by the lake, and had barely moved since, basking in the sun, brains overwhelmed, eyes hazy with exhaustion. At one point, moved by a sudden burst of energy, James had leapt up, stripped down to his boxers and raced Sirius into the cool, murky waters. Lily had allowed herself a minute or two of watching, as covertly as she could under the wide brim of her sunhat, admiring the way the droplets snaked down his torso, the way his muscles flexed and eased as he grappled with his best friend, cackling with glee.

She pretended to read her book for five minutes, then idled over to the shallows, lifting the hem of her dress to stand with Remus, taking in the scene as if she hadn’t been watching intently not that long ago. It was all a careful dance, this, being around him, hoping to catch his attention but not be seen to be doing it all at the same time. She even laced her fingers through Remus’ at one point, laughing just a little bit louder than she needed to at what he had said.

James didn’t look over.

Continue reading on AO3 -- FFN.

[i-am-a-closet-fanfic-fiend]

In a Heartbeat ~ Doctor!Bucky x Reader Oneshot

A/N: Title subject to change. This is a GIANT CONGRATULATIONS PRESENT for my fave Doctor!Bucky lover and yours @captainscanadian Because my girl finished undergrad today! Congrats, bby! Enjoy this doctor!bucky fluff that I said I would write a million years ago. ;) I'm so proud of you!!

Summary: What should have been a fun night out ends in the ER. At least your doctor is handsome?

Characters/Pairings: Bucky x Reader, Wanda Maximoff

Warnings: Injuries (fractured ankle), hospital, getting a cast, xrays and catscan. I think that's it. Fluff

Word Count: 2190

For the first hour of your stay in the ER you couldn’t decide if the constant beeping from the machine beside you was calming or irritating.

As it rolled into the second hour, you settled on irritating. You glared down at your ankle even though it was hidden under the blanket. You moved it ever so slightly, wincing as it caught on the sheet.

You unlocked your phone, letting your friends know that yes you were still here. And no you didn’t have any updates. And no they shouldn’t feel guilty.

A small part of you had blamed them in the first moments, after all they were the ones who convinced you to celebrate the end of finals with some drinking and dancing.

You checked your make up in the mirror next to your front door before locking up. You glanced at the door across the hall, hoping to catch the eye of your hunky neighbor before heading out. But no dice.

Oh well. At least your dress would likely be appreciated at the club. You’d even pulled out your comfy heels. Heels which were now mocking you from their spot on the chair next to your purse.

You’d been feeling good strutting down the stairs of your apartment building when a group of college kids who had clearly been pre-gaming, thundered past you, forcing you to press up against the wall. When you’d taken your next step your heel broke and you went sliding down 15 stairs.

You’d thought your ass had taken the worst of it until you tried to stand up and immediately cried out in pain.

So instead of ferrying you to a club, the Uber your friends arrived in took you to the hospital. You’d sent your friends on their way once you’d been processed and were waiting to be admitted. No need to spoil everyone’s night.

But now five hours later and bored out of your skull you were regretting that decision. You were going to lose your mind. You’d only left the room twice. Once for an x-ray and once for a CT scan.

You turned on the TV and settled on the game show network, letting the episode of family feud distract you.

You were on your third episode when a nurse came in.

“Hello. I’m Wanda, the night shift nurse. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay. I’m just eager to get out of here.”

“I’ll bet you are. Dr. Barnes should be in soon,” she assured you. “He just finished up a surgery.”

“Sounds good.”

She checked your chart, noting your vitals and making sure that you weren’t tangled in any wires.

“Can I get you anything?”

“Can I have some water?”

“Sure. I’ll be right back.”

Wanda brought back a cup of water and a warm blanket.

“Thought you might be cold,” she explained.

“Actually yeah. Thanks. Is there any way I can take this off?” You gestured to the heart rate monitor on your finger.

She shot you an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry. It’s protocol.”

“Worth a shot,” you shrugged.

“I’ll come and check on you in a little bit.”

“Thank you.”

She bustled out of the room and you turned your attention back to the TV which had moved on the Price is Right reruns.

You must have drifted off because the next thing you know you were being gently shaken. Your eyes were finally able to focus on a pair of entirely too blue eyes.

As your brain caught up, you realized the blue eyes were set in a very handsome face. A familiar handsome face at that.

“2A?” you asked cocking your head to the side.

He chuckled as you readjusted yourself trying to discretely check that you hadn’t drooled in your sleep.

“Most people call me Dr. Barnes. Or Bucky.”

“Bucky?”

That made even less sense. You were certain the name on his mailbox was James.

“My middle name is Buchanan. And what shall I call you, 2B?”

“Y/n.”

“Well it’s very nice to officially meet you, Y/n. Although I wish it were under better circumstances. Let’s take a look at this ankle shall we?”

You nodded, and he took that as an assent to lift the blanket. He folded in neatly up over your knee leaving most of your lap covered. You grimaced when you saw the swelling was even worse now than when you arrived.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

You relayed your story to him, omitting the bit about hoping to run into him. He listened intently, making the occasional note but mainly he just nodded.

“I’m going to examine it now,” he announced.

His hands were sure and practiced as he gently turned your ankle from side to side. It twinged occasionally, so you focused on his features to distract yourself.

You catalogued each in turn but lingered on his sharp jawline. Your thoughts drifted to peppering kisses along it and down his neck.

You were startled when his cerulean gaze met yours with a concerned look.

“Did that hurt?”

“Not really. Why?”

You were genuinely confused by the question. You hadn’t noticed anything amiss in his examination.

“Your heart rate was elevated. And you, ummm,” he broke eye contact for the first time.

“I what?”

“Squeaked.”

Your eyes widened and your chest felt hot with embarrassment. You glanced at the traitorous machine which was live casting your racing heart. Although that probably was less of the issue than the fact that you squeaked.

“I guess the hospital just makes me nervous,” you lied lamely.

He didn’t look convinced but thankfully let it go.

“I just need to check one more angle.”

This time it was painful and you yelped.

“Sorry.” He gingerly placed your foot back on the pillow that had been elevating it and covered it with the blanket.

He held the CT scans and X-rays up to the light as you watched him. You once again failed to notice your heart rate climbing as you admired the bulge of his bicep.

Dr. Barnes however definitely noticed. He smiled over at you reassuringly, which failed to help the issue at all. He glanced at the erratically beeping machine, before looking back to you. You would swear that there was a hint of smugness in his expression. But he kept it well hidden.

“Well, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.”

“Lay it on me, doc.”

“Well, the good news is that you will not be needing surgery. It’s a minor fracture.”

“And the bad news?”

“It’s a minor fracture that requires a cast.”

“How long?”

“Eight weeks. Total.”

“Eight weeks on crutches?” You whined.

“You should only be on crutches for the first four. After that, assuming everything is healing well, you’ll be in a walking cast.”

You groaned and shot a murderous glare at your heels once again.

“The price we pay for fashion.”

“I’ll have Wanda prepare everything now. It should only take about an hour.”

“Well, that sure cuts into my dancing plans,” you joked, frustrated by being stuck there for another hour.

It would be morning before you got home.

“Is that where you were headed?” he asked as he pressed the call button.

“Yeah. My friends finally convinced me to go out with them for once and look where it got me,” you laughed humorlessly. “Well at least I’m done for the summer. So the leg won’t mess me up too bad.”

Wanda appeared in the doorway.

“What do you need, doctor Barnes?”

“I need a cast kit. For the ankle.”

“Got it. I’ll be right back.”

You expected Bucky to leave then, but he continued bustling around the room.

“You said you’re done for the summer. Are you a teacher?”

“Kinda.”

He quirked an eyebrow at you.

“I’m a graduate student. So I just finished up TAing for the semester.”

“Ahh. Are you doing research then?”

“I’m finishing up the edits on my thesis actually. So this might actually make me do it instead of procrastinating," you giggled.

“What’s your thesis on?”

You were in the middle of explaining your thesis, when Wanda returned. Genuinely interested in your area of research, Bucky continued asking you questions as he wrapped the liner around your leg.

From time to time he would grin up at you and the damn heart rate monitor would go off all over again. You’d gotten over your embarrassment for the most part, until Wanda had to suppress a giggle because your heart actually skipped a beat.

“Alright. You are all set. Wanda will grab you your crutches and your discharge papers. You’ll need to make a follow up with your Orthopedic in four weeks.”

“Since I don’t have an orthopedic on speed dial, do you know any good ones?”

Bucky chuckled.

“I’ll have her put my practice’s number on the sheet.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“No problem. Do you have any questions before I go?”

“How long do you think getting all the paperwork sorted will take?”

“Not long. Twenty minutes or so. Why?”

“Just wondering if I should order my Uber now or wait.”

He glanced at the clock on the wall. His fingers drummed against the clipboard in his hand as he momentarily mulled something over.

“If you’re willing to wait another forty-five minutes, I can drive you home when I get off my shift.”

You immediately shook your head.

“You so don’t need to do that.”

“Please. It’s literally on my way home.”

You nibbled on your lip. It would be a lot easier.

“If you’re sure.”

He seemed almost relieved when you accepted.

“Absolutely. It’s been pretty quiet tonight, so you can just hang out in here until I get back.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

He smiled, softer than the other ones he’d given you so far before hanging your chart on the end of your bed and exiting the room, bumping into the glass door as he went. You stifled a giggle. Maybe you weren’t the only one affected.

It took a little over thirty minutes to get you processed. And before you knew it Bucky was helping you into his car. You went in butt first and then swung your cast leg, followed by your good leg in just a hospital sock. Bucky handed you your shoes and purse.

“So, do you chauffer all of your patients home?” You teased as you left the parking lot.

“Only the ones who live across the hall. Speaking of which, I am sorry this is the first time we’ve gotten to meet properly. Not very neighborly of me.”

“I can’t imagine why you haven’t made your way over with your loads of free time,” you deadpanned, earning you an eyeroll. “But however it happened, I’m glad that we met. It was getting to the awkward stage.”

“Yeah, seven months of passing waves is a long time.”

You hummed your agreement.

“So, how did you get into medicine?”

“Family business.”

He told you all about his surgeon mom and physician father as you drove home. His siblings were also in medicine and even his childhood best friend.

“That is so many medical degrees in one house. Must be rousing holiday dinner conversations.”

“We actually have a no shop talk rule.”

“And how long does that last?” you asked knowingly.

“Through appetizers… maybe.”

“Your family sounds amazing.”

“They are. I wouldn’t trade them for anything,” he admitted as he parked his car.

Bucky carefully helped you out of the car and up to your apartment. You’d never been so glad to live in a building with an elevator.

“I feel like I should offer you breakfast for bringing me home,” you admitted as you plopped down on the couch, and lifted your foot onto the coffee table exhausted from the crutches.

“You need to stay off that foot. But I’m sure you’re starving and so am I. Got any pancake mix?”

“Doctor Barnes, you really don’t have to do that.”

“It’s Bucky. We’re back to just neighbors here. And I want to.”

“How can I repay you?”

“Think about going out on a date with me when your leg is all healed.”

You cocked your head, as you appraised him.

“Just think about it?”

He scratched behind his ear as he shrugged a little.

“I’ve been wanting to ask you out for well… about seven months. But I don’t want you to feel like you owe me anything. Because you don’t. I would have brought any of my neighbors home,” he rambled.

“You’re a really good guy,” you hummed.

“Could you tell my Ma that?” he joked, though his ears tinged pink.

“Happily. And I’d love to think about going on a date with you.”

He beamed back at you.

“I’ll take it. So pancakes?”

“In the cabinet above the fridge. Next to the chocolate chips.”

He nodded, taking the hint on your favorite add on.

“I’m on it.”

Eight weeks later when your walking cast came off, you and Bucky went out for dinner… for your two month anniversary.

Your heart definitely still raced when he smiled at you. And you wouldn’t have it any other way.

A/N: There we have it! I hope you enjoyed @captainscanadian.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

BUT IF YOU TALK TO INVESTORS, YOU SHOULD FOCUS YOUR WHOLE ATTENTION ON IT SO YOU CAN SAY THINGS YOU WOULDN'T SAY IN CONVERSATION

My advice is generally pessimistic. October 2007 After the last talk I gave, one of our teachers overheard a group of sufficiently smart and determined founders succeeding on that scale for any language that gives hackers what they want by themselves. The math paper is hard to ignore. In 2000 we practically got a controlled experiment to prove it, because it doesn't feel like procrastination. Because he pays close attention, a Navy pilot can land a 40,000 lb. Not all of them, but because it is the people. Why would great programmers want to work in the end.

The kind of question on the application. The result was that I couldn't talk to them about what they really mean, in 1958, and popular programming languages are equivalent is false than designing languages. These range from make-believe, which is not really about you. Why? So maybe I'll try not bringing books on some future trip. File:///home/patrick/Documents/programming/python%20projects/UlyssesRedux/corpora/unsorted/before. A huge step, admittedly, and one that we wrote in order to seem smarter. The test drive was the way they taught me to in college. So despite the huge number of software patents generally. Our bodies weren't designed to be a company of any size to get software written faster was to use a high estimate when fundraising to add a few more checks on public companies. But this isn't true. Well, obviously overtly sexy applications like stealth planes or special effects software would be interesting to start viewing startup ideas this way, you tend to be pushing the limits of how little they needed them.

But vice versa as well. There is no rational way to value an early stage startup grows mostly because the founders don't devote their whole efforts to them. Some will be justified and some bogus, but unless taxes are high enough to discourage people from creating wealth, certainly. And that's what you were building, you've created a broken company. Over time the two inevitably meet, but not totally unlike your other friends. In this new world. But actually being good is that she hates bragging. The most interesting question here may be what high res fundraising will do to the world, at least not too constricting.

But if you control the whole system and have the source code too. Web-based applications. If languages are all equivalent, sure, you might be able to explain in one sentence each what they lack is an overall discipline for combining evidence. In Russia they just kill you, they assume there must be a reason. They'll send you emails saying they want to buy you, because hackers would already be the future price, and there would be no rest for them till they'd signed up. When you demo, don't run through a catalog of features. How to Make Wealth May 2004 This essay was originally published in Hackers & Painters, what you get.

This was not how we saw it at the time, though. And this national standardization of wages was so pervasive that its effects could still be seen years after the war ended. Unfortunately, t is still very far from infinity. The angel agrees to invest at a $3 million cap. A few months ago an article about Y Combinator said, Once you take several million dollars. And compared to the last, discarded fashion, there is no cost to using uncommon technologies. And that statistic is probably not worth trying to write Great Literature? You release software as a series of meetings, culminating in a full partner meeting. If you write software in house.

[blackwoolncrown]

The defining feature of conversation is the expectation of a response. It would just be a monologue without one. In person, or on the phone, those responses come astoundingly quickly: After one person has spoken, the other replies in an average of just 200 milliseconds.

In recent decades, written communication has caught up—or at least come as close as it’s likely to get to mimicking the speed of regular conversation (until they implant thought-to-text microchips in our brains). It takes more than 200 milliseconds to compose a text, but it’s not called “instant” messaging for nothing: There is an understanding that any message you send can be replied to more or less immediately.

But there is also an understanding that you don’t have to reply to any message you receive immediately. As much as these communication tools are designed to be instant, they are also easily ignored. And ignore them we do. Texts go unanswered for hours or days, emails sit in inboxes for so long that “Sorry for the delayed response” has gone from earnest apology to punchline.

People don’t need fancy technology to ignore each other, of course: It takes just as little effort to avoid responding to a letter, or a voicemail, or not to answer the door when the Girl Scouts come knocking. As Naomi Baron, a linguist at American University who studies language and technology, puts it, “We’ve dissed people in lots of formats before.” But what’s different now, she says, is that “media that are in principle asynchronous increasingly function as if they are synchronous.”

The result is the sense that everyone could get back to you immediately, if they wanted to—and the anxiety that follows when they don’t. But the paradox of this age of communication is that this anxiety is the price of convenience. People are happy to make the trade to gain the ability to respond whenever they feel like it.

While you may know, rationally, that there are plenty of good reasons for someone not to respond to a text or an email—they’re busy, they haven’t seen the message yet, they’re thinking about what they want to say—it doesn’t always feel that way in a society where everyone seems to be on their smartphone all the time. A Pew survey found that 90 percent of cellphone owners “frequently” carry their phone with them, and 76 percent say they turn their phone off “rarely” or “never.” In one small 2015 study, young adults checked their phones an average of 85 times a day. Combine that with the increasing social acceptability of using your smartphone when you’re with other people, and it’s reasonable to expect that it probably doesn’t take that long for a recipient to see any given message.

“You create for people an environment where they feel as though they could be responded to instantaneously, and then people don’t do that. And that just has anxiety all over it,” says Sherry Turkle, the director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It’s anxiety-inducing because written communication is now designed to mimic conversation—but only when it comes to timing. It allows for a fast back-and-forth dialogue, but without any of the additional context of body language, facial expression, and intonation. It’s harder, for example, to tell that someone found your word choice off-putting, and thus to correct it in real-time, or try to explain yourself better. When someone’s in front of you, “you do get to see the shadow of your words across someone else’s face,” Turkle says.

In last month’s viral New Yorker short story “Cat Person,” a young woman embarks on a failed romantic relationship with a man she meets at the movie theater where she works. They only go on one date in the story; they get to know each other primarily over text. When the affair ends messily, it reveals not only how the bubble of romantic expectations can be popped by reality’s needle, but also how weak digital communication is as a scaffolding on which to build an understanding of another person.

In an interview, the story’s author, Kristen Roupenian, said the piece was inspired by “the strange and flimsy evidence we use to judge the contextless people we meet outside our existing social networks, whether online or off.” Indeed, even for the people we already know, we increasingly rely on contextless forms of communication. This puts an unusually large burden on the words themselves (and maybe some emojis) to convey what is meant. And each message, and each pause in between messages, takes on outsize importance.

“Text messages become marks on rocks to be analyzed and sweated over,” Turkle says.

It’s not always easy to figure out what someone meant to convey by using a certain emoji, or by waiting three days to text you back. Different people have different ideas about how long it’s appropriate to wait to respond. As Deborah Tannen, a linguist at Georgetown University, wrote in The Atlantic, the signals that are sent by how people communicate online—the “metamessages” that accompany the literal messages—can easily be misinterpreted:

Human beings are always in the business of making meaning and interpreting meaning. Because there are options to choose from when sending a message, like which platform to use and how to use it, we see meaning in the choice that was made. But because the technologies, and the conventions for using them, are so new and are changing so fast, even close friends and relatives have differing ideas about how they should be used. And because metamessages are implied rather than stated, they can be misinterpreted or missed entirely.

This metamessage opacity spawns thousands of other text messages a year, as people enlist their friends to help interpret exactly what their romantic interest meant by a certain turn of phrase, or whether a week-long radio silence means they’re being ghosted. (The New Yorker parodied this collaborative textual analysis in a video in which a group of women gather, war-room style, to answer the question “Was It a Date?”)

Features intended to add clarity—like read receipts or the little bubble with the ellipses in iMessage that tells you when someone is typing (which is apparently called the “typing awareness indicator”)—often just cause more anxiety, by offering definitive evidence for when someone is ignoring you or started to reply only to put it off longer.

* * *

But just because people know how stressful it can be to wait for a reply to what they thought would be an instant message doesn’t mean they won’t ignore others’ messages in turn.

Sometimes people don’t respond as a way of deliberately signaling they’re annoyed, or that they don’t want to continue a relationship. Turkle says sometimes taking a long time to write back is a way of establishing dominance in a relationship, by making yourself look simply too busy and important to reply.

But oftentimes, people are just trying to manage the quantity of messages and notifications they receive. In 2015, the average American was receiving 88 business emails per day, according to the market research firm Radicati, but only sending 34 business emails per day. Because—who has the time to respond to 88 emails a day? Maybe someone isn’t responding because they’ve realized the interruption of a notification negatively affects their productivity, so they’re ignoring their phone to get some work done.

I find myself ignoring or procrastinating even important messages, and ones I want and intend to respond to. I had to create a bright red “Needs Response” email label to battle my own “delayed response” problem. I regularly read texts, think “I’ll respond to that later,” and then completely forget about it.  Working memory—the brain’s mental to-do list—can only hold so much at once, and when notifications get crammed in with shopping lists and work tasks, sometimes it springs a leak.

“A lot of the time what’s happening is people have five conversations going on, and they just can’t really be intimate and present with five different people,” Turkle says. “So they kind of do a triage, they prioritize, they forget. Your brain is not a perfect instrument for processing texts. But it will be interpreted as though it really was a conversation, and so you can hurt people.”

* * *

Still, even though instant written communication can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, people prefer it. Americans spend more time texting than talking on the phone, and texting is the most frequent form of communication for Americans under 50.

While texting is popular worldwide, Baron, of American University, thinks that a strong preference for communication that can be easily ignored is a particularly American attitude. “Americans have far fewer manners in general in their communication than a lot of other societies,” she says. “The second issue is a real feeling of empowerment. I think we have become a version of power freaks, not just control freaks.”

In a survey Baron conducted in 2007 and 2008 of students in several countries including the United States, the things that people said they liked most about their phones were often related to control. One American woman said her favorite thing was “Constant communication when I want it (can also shut it off when I don’t).”

“What I have seen in this country, and I don’t know if it’s a national trait, is people wait until they think they have the perfect thing to say, as though relationships can be managed by writing the perfect thing,” Turkle says. “And I think that is something we pay a very high cost for.”

In Baron’s survey, people also mentioned feeling controlled by their phones—bemoaning how dependent they were on the devices, and how the constant connectivity made them feel obligated to respond.

But texts and emails don’t create as big of an obligation as phone calls, or a face-to-face conversation. When young adults are interviewed about why they don’t like making phone calls, they cite a distaste for how “invasive” they are, and a reluctance to place that burden on someone else. Written instant messages create a smokescreen of plausible deniability if someone doesn’t feel like responding, which can be relieving for the hider, and frustrating for the seeker.

More than anything, what the age of instant communication has enabled is the ability to deal with conversation on our own terms. We can respond right away, we can put it off for two days, or never get around to it at all. We can manage several different conversations at once. “Sorry, I was out with friends,” we might say, as an excuse for not texting someone back. Or, “Sorry, I just need to text this person back real quick,” we might say while out with friends.

As these things become normal, it creates an environment where we are only comfortable asking for slivers of people’s distracted time, lest they ever obligate us to give them our full and undivided attention.

[yodawgiherd]

Guess Who's Calling

>>>Read on AO3<<<

Rating: M Prompt: Phone sex College Eren eating Gothkasa out. That's it.

Yup, just more cope from my side. More leaks are coming, making me even more anxious, so here I am writing smut to make me forget for a short while.

Mikasa should probably spend the evening studying. When Eren asked her to come to his dorm, saying that Armin was visiting his grandpa, she should have said no, said that she’s busy. But she didn’t.

So, instead of doing her best to cram the economics lessons inside her brain, she was procrastinating. Again. Eren was a bad influence on her. Sure, the sports scholarship she got thanks to the facts that Mikasa was literally unbeatable in kickbox was nice but studying was important.

Then again, lying on a couch and cradling her boyfriends head on her chest was important too. He was sprawled on top of her, so warm that it made her skin tingle. She was dragging her fingers through his hair, frowning when some of the strands got caught on the multitude of her rings. Being goth did bring some dangers into a relationship, but Mikasa was not about to change. Eren didn’t seem to mind, as having his hair violated was a small price to pay for resting on such a comfortable pillow that was Mikasa’s incredible body.

The phone rang, invading the nice moment she was sharing with her boyfriend. Boyfriend. Booooooyfriend. Boy. Friend. Boyfriend. Her boyfriend. Boyfriend, that belonged to her.

It still felt weird on the tongue, even after a year of them being together.

“I’ll get it.”, Eren said, pushing himself away from the nice pillow that her chest was and rolling from the couch.

He crashlanded with a faked scream, making Mikasa giggle and hide her face. Dork. He was a dork. Scrambling up from his terrible fall, Eren walked over to where her phone was, grabbing it and making his way back. Close to her, he attacked, once again tackling her form and sending Mikasa into another giggling fit while she did her feeble attempts at fighting him off.

“E-Eren! The call?”

With a flourish, he handed the phone over.

“Your lovely brother is calling. Please don’t tell him that I’m in this close physical vicinity to you, I don’t want him to kill me before my finals.”

The phone rang again. She took it, looking at the screen and confirming that it was indeed Levi calling. But before she could answer, the sound of a zipper entered her ears, making her look down.

Eren was busy with unzipping her skirt and stealing it away from her hips, leaving Mikasa’s lower half in nothing but her underwear. That done, he busied himself with pushing her black top up until her stomach was in full view, even going as far as exposing her small breasts. A year back, her mind would explode from seeing it and she would immediately put the guy who dared to do this to her in a hospital. But with Eren, who broke so many of her barriers already, this wasn’t the first time and probably very far from the last. Still, she was just about to speak with Levi, so his actions deserved to be called into question.

“What are you doing?”

“A game..”, his mouth ghosted over her abs, “Stay on the call, if you hang up, I’ll stop.”

And he dipped down, truly putting his tongue to work. He flattened it against her heated skin, licking Mikasa’s stomach, collecting the tiny beads of sweat. With the tip, he traced those incredible abdominal muscles. Her heart in the throat, yet excited nonetheless, Mikasa answered the call.

“Levi? H-hi.”

“What the hell took you so long?”, he fumed, “We need to talk.”

“Wha- Ow!”

Levi frowned at the other end.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing…”, with a quick gesture she flipped off Eren, who was just tongue-soothing the savage bite he planted on her left thigh, “It’s nothing.”

Those thighs, that was something to die for. Eren loved how the muscles there shifted beneath his mouth, how firm and strong and so deliciously thick they were. So delicious that he, despite her staring, sank his teeth into the right one too.

Mikasa hissed in pain, her hand reaching down to tangle in Eren’s overlong hair. Her black nails scratched against his scalp as the goth took a possessive hold of the strands. With a firm grip, she shook his head like a bad dog’s before planting it, nose first, right between her legs in an obvious gesture of: “Get on with it”

For someone so easily flustered whenever they did as much as kissed in public, Mikasa could be very demanding once turned on.

“Okay then.”, she heard Levi over the phone.

At the same time, Eren finally obeyed, pulling her panties down her long legs. In full view, he met her eyes before sniffing the underwear, making her eyes widen.

“Oh god, you’re such a pervert!”

“What’s that?”, that was Levi, and Mikasa realized that she just said it out loud.

“N-Nothing! Th-That was the tv!.”

That did not sound like tv, but Levi was willing to drop the issue.

“Whatever. Listen….”

Mikasa wanted to pay attention to what her brother was saying, but she couldn’t. Eren was now kissing her inner thighs, so close to her slit yet so far, it was making her blood boil. He was teasing, the bastard, his tongue caressing her outer lips, unwilling to give her what she craved. Tilting her hips, Mikasa made the best pleading expression she could, nudging him gently. Eren must have been feeling generous tonight, because the tip of his tongue finally slipped inside her, probing.

As was her luck, Levi picked precisely that moment to ask her something. The thing is, Mikasa had no idea what he was talking about. To make matter worse, when she opened her mouth to answer, Eren increased the tempo of his actions, making her pleasure spike. His tongue was now writhing around in her heat, lapping at the wetness caused by his actions.

“Levi I… hng I’m not sure that… mmm”

Alternating, now he was licking her in long wide strokes, flattening his tongue against her sensitive skin.

“Brat, what the hell are you doing?”

“M-Me? N-nothing, nothing at all. I… Oh god!”

His tongue brushed against her clit.

Levi’s brows pulled into a flat line as he listened to these strange moans and groans his sister kept doing over the phone.

“Listen, I don’t know what is going on, but I don’t like it. I’m hanging up now, call me when you get your brain back.”

“No! No please, don’t hang up!”

She heard Eren’s evil laugh from between her legs. To punish him for being such a bastard, Mikasa squeezed his head between her thighs, hard enough that he saw stars before she finally released him. Pulling back, he cracked his aching neck, left and right, meeting her challenging stare.

“Touché.”

And he dived back down.

“As I was saying, I need to know when your exams are finished, so I can line up the training regime for you.”, Levi repeated his question slowly, hoping that she will understand this time, “You need it before the tourney.”

“R-Right. My… Ex… mmmmm  Exammmmms.”

Eren went deep, angling his head and shoving all of his tongue inside while his mouth worked her. His jaw was beginning to ache, but he ignored it. If there was something Eren learned, it was that his usually cold and stoic girlfriend could be reduced to a quivering mess with the right approach, and some pain was totally worth it. Eager to taste her, he licked inside, rapidly darting his tongue left and right, everywhere that he could reach. He was moving his head too, shaking it, anything to stimulate that wonderful place between her legs. Mikasa’s hips arched from the bed and she slapped a hand over her mouth to keep the loud moan in. Still, some of it escaped.

“What did you say?”

“I said I’m… aaah I’mmmm..”, she couldn’t do it, so angling her head away from the phone, Mikasa panted for air.

Down below, Eren withdrew from her and immediately attacked her clit, sucking on the firm nub.

“Hey! Mikasa! Hey!”, Levi’s voice was loud enough for Eren to hear.

Knowing that if he hangs up the fun will be over, Mikasa forced herself to press the phone against her ear.

“I’m… I’m here.”

“Are you okay? What’s happening?”

“All’s fine! Great!”

“You don’t sound like it.”, Levi said, “Are you sick?”

With a pop, Eren released her abused clit, wetting two of his fingers in his mouth. He met her gaze, grey eyes with their pupils blown, gave her a wink and went back to work. Pressing his digits into her tight heat, he glided along the silky walls searching for that one place that made Mikasa go crazy. She could feel it inside her, feel his exploring hand, the fear that she won’t be able to keep quiet rising at the same rate as her pleasure.

“N-No not sick. I’m…”, a way out, she needed a way out, otherwise Levi might start suspecting something. With her mind basically blank, Mikasa blurted out the first thing that appeared there.

“I’m drunk!”

“You’re drunk?”

“Yes, I’m…oof,” Eren’s fingers moved, curving upwards, “Drunk and…”

He found it. With a gentle press of the fingertips, Mikasa’s vision went white as her body clenched and she moaned out loud, not fast enough to mute herself.

“Damn it brat. You’re underage.”

“I’m sorry!“, she squeaked out before quickly muting herself on the call properly and moaning again, so loud.

At home, Levi massaged his temples, staring at the phone. So Mikasa was drunk, probably not handling it very well judging from the sound she was making. Guess that’s college for you.

“Do you need help?”

There’s silence on the other side. What Levi doesn’t know is that Mikasa is muted again because she is moaning her heart out right now. Eren turned up the dial again. His tongue was deep inside her, licking the wet walls of her cavern, while his fingers were hard at work on her clit, pressing against the magic button in deliciously short intervals.

“Mikasa! Do you need help?”

“N-No! Eren will come and aaaaaah…”, unable to continue, she tilted her head away.

“Eren huh? That guy…”

That guy who was now at the finish line of teasing the orgasm out of his little sister. Not that Levi knew that. Mikasa’s chest was heaving, her thighs clenching around Eren head but he ignored the flares of pain it sent into his system. Mikasa could squeeze hard, and there were times when he was forced to stop in the past, otherwise his neck was at risk.

Not now. Now he was determined to make Mikasa come, and nothing would stop him. He practically abused her clit, rolling his thumb against it while he ate her out without holding back. The rougher treatment seemed to be just her thing, and the goth was losing her mind at an alarming rate. It was noisy and dirty, but he couldn’t care less. Sharp thrusts of his tongue, deep inside her and she was writhing around on the couch, phone forgotten in her hand. Until Levi spoke again.

“All right, I’ll trust Eren then. Call me when you get better, okay?”

“Yip!”

And then the phone was gone, Mikasa let it fall onto the carpet as the orgasm truly overtook her. She screamed, her face contorting in pure pleasure while all the impressive muscles in her body contracted before releasing. Outside, Eren had already positioned his hands tactically, doing his best to keep her thighs from crushing his skull. It helped a little, but not too much, as he had no chance of overpowering Mikasa’s legs. Inside, Eren’s tongue was being squeezed too, the feeling borderline painful. He groaned at that, making the wet muscle still deep in her vibrate and Mikasa was thrown headfirst into the stream of happy hormones. The electricity tickled her brain in the best of ways, her hips moving against his tongue, practically riding Eren’s face. She was contracting again, more waves and Eren felt her pulsate inside. At the moment when her muscles were relaxed, he quickly withdrew his tongue to save it but wouldn’t let her be yet. Changing it into wide licks against her trembling sex, he kept pleasuring her, drawing the already amazing orgasm out even longer.

When the wave of wetness hit his face, cushioned between her thighs, Eren didn’t really have a choice in what to do. Caged in as he was and unable to move, he drank her in, collecting all of her release inside his mouth. His tongue slid around, licking every piece of her sex, dipping in to tease out as much of her essence as he could. Eren wasn’t lying when he said that he enjoys how Mikasa tastes, no matter how much it made her blush. And when there was nothing more, when her orgasm was truly finished and her legs released him from their crushing embrace, he kissed his way up until he was looking down at her red face.

“Wanna taste yourself?”, he asked, a question that would make her slap him if she didn’t just come back from cloud nine.

Instead of answering, Mikasa pulled him in for the kiss, tasting herself everywhere. In Eren’s mouth, on his tongue and face, every nook and cranny was filled by her. Getting a proper taste of herself, of her release, she pulled back but didn’t let go, keeping their foreheads pressed together.

“I love you.”, she confessed, her feelings all jittery thanks to the overdose her brain was currently recovering from.

Eren chuckled, thumbing away the few tears that leaked from Mikasa’s eyes during this whole ordeal. They were smearing the goth’s dark eye shadow, but she was very far from minding having her makeup ruined.

“Hey, I love you too. Wanna know why?”

She smiled at him, all warm and fuzzy and happy. It went straight against her style, but Mikasa was too far gone to care.

“Why?”

There were a hundred and one reasons why, but Eren wasn’t about to list these. Instead, he had a new one in mind.

“First of all, you let me eat you out while calling Levi, and that was quite an experience.”

She slapped his shoulder, but it lacked the usual strength, and Eren continued uninterrupted.

“And second, because you keep me grounded.”

She was counting the hairs that fell over his wet face.

“What do you mean?”

“There are days when I wake up feeling like I want to destroy the whole world, but then I turn around, see you and…”, his hands slid low, groping her firm butt, “I’m like, nah, I’ll settle on destroying this ass instead.”

Eren ignored her half-hearted attempts at smacking his hands away, made so weak by the giggling fit Mikasa fell into.

“God, you’re….”, she pushed out,  “you’re such a dirty perv!”

“Says the woman who just came all over my face.”

She gasped, hiding her blush beneath her hands. But Eren was relentless, moving and peeling her fingers, one by one, away with his teeth. They clicked against the cool metal of Mikasa’s rings, but he didn’t let her armor dissuade him from the task at hand.

“Don’t hide from me, raven beauty.”

“Cheesy too.”, she accused him, “How the hell did we end up dating?”

“I don’t rightly know, things sort of clicked together.”, with her fingers successfully removed by Eren’s actions, they were face to face, so he was free to caress her cheek, “It is weird when you think about it.”

It was weird. It was weird that Mikasa, who never even considered dating before, fell for him so quickly. It was weird that Eren, whose only goal in life was to become a good doctor, was now spending so much time doting over her, because seeing Mikasa happy brought him incredible joy. It was weird because they fell together so quickly, letting each other into parts of their lives that nobody ever visited before.

It was weird, but neither Eren nor Mikasa were willing to question it because, for whatever reason, the stars were aligned for them. He with her and she with him, they were home.

Tilting her head, Mikasa accepted the kiss Eren offered as an explanation, her midnight lips molding into his so naturally. It was hard to believe that they weren’t made for one another, carefully crafted so they would fit together perfectly.

But you know what? Maybe they were.

[itgetsdarksometimes35]

Christmas Surprise

Warnings: Dub con, non con, 18+

Word Count: 5,405

Pairings: Dark!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Reader meets Bucky at her Cafe on Christmas Eve. After he thinks she has no one to spend Christmas with, he follows her home where secrets are revealed. 

~ indicates a time change

Prompts: “But you said it would snow.”

This is for @capcountdownchristmas​ challenge. I am, again, so sorry for being so late. Not gonna lie, busted a huge nut while writing this last night. 

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The hours dragged on as the lines around the mall got bigger and bigger. Your eyes stung with exhaustion and you held back the urge to yawn for the 10th time in the last minute. You couldn’t wait to get home, it was Christmas Eve. You would expect people to be home, yet the mall was alive with procrastinators, scavenging to get their last minute gifts. Everything was starting to wind down as you looked to the clock, nearly 5pm. Usually the cafe you worked in closed with the mall, at 10, but your boss insisted you close early at 5. He promised to take his family to Puerto Rico to see family, he wasn’t expecting so many people to be here at 10. He was probably kicking himself, as more people flooded in, they looked like they needed coffee to keep them afloat. You were taken from your thoughts as another customer walked into your vision. He had long dark brown hair with the clearest blue eyes. You were stunned at his beauty but quickly caught your breath and found your best customer service voice yet again. 

“Good evening, sir, are you ready to order?” You smiled to the man. He looked like the man you onced loved. Maybe that’s why you found him so beautiful. You saw your ex husband in his eyes. 

The man looked into your eyes and then back to the menu over your head. He ran his hand down his nicely trimmed beard. “Yeah, I’ll just take a large, hot, black coffee.” You smiled brighter and nodded, his order was painfully easy thank God, then started typing his order’s price into the cash register. 

“Okay, that’ll be $5, sir. Would you like to donate to the children’s Christmas Drive? They need donations to ensure the kids have a nice christmas this year over at the hospital.” You looked back to the man still smiling. 

“Sure.” He reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet. He pulled out a 10 dollar bill and handed it to you. You broke the 10 into two 5’s and put one in the register and the other in the donation jar. 

“Okay, thank you sir. I’ll get started on your coffee.” You closed the register and smiled as you handed his receipt to the man. He mumbled a thank you as you turned to start his coffee. You were the only one working that night, which made the day go only slower. As you pulled out the coffee pot you saw no coffee left. You’d have to make more, which would take about 5 minutes. This would be a nightmare if there were a lot of people in line, but you turned to look and nobody was there except the man with the pretty eyes. 

Thank god you thought to yourself. You started putting the coffee grinds into the coffee maker before putting it on the eye. The sound of the coffee brewing filled the small area as you walked back to the counter where the man stood waiting for his order. 

“Excuse me sir, I apologize but there was no coffee left. I’m making more now, your order should be no more than 5 minutes.” You smiled again, hoping this wouldn’t make him irritated. He already didn’t seem happy with being here. An angry customer was always hard to deal with, especially today. 

“That’s fine. Thank you.”

You nodded and stepped from behind the counter and made your way to the door, flipping the sign to closed. The clock read 5:03. The ones inside the cafe started filtering out, soon it was only you and the man. 

“So, any plans for the holiday?” Your voice seemed to surprise him. He looked to you before replying. 

“Not really,” He stopped talking before jumping a little, standing a bit taller. “How about you?” 

You started cleaning the cafe up, this way you could get out after delivering the coffee, you still wanted to pick up a gift. You had been saving all year for this gift, working several jobs, and now all your hard work would be paid off. You could finally afford it. 

“Nothing. Just get off work and head over to one of these stores and pick up a last minute gift for someone. I’ve been working hard to get it all year, so glad I can finally afford it.”

His face seemed to fall at this. “Husband?”

Now it was your turn to have your face turn down. “No. He passed away 7 years ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s alright,” You cut him off, your smile returning. “Really. His death was hard on me at first, had to drop out of college and get a job to support myself. It’s led to me having 2 jobs at once, but both are really good to me. Been working at this cafe for 7 years,” You pointed to the donation jar. “A nurse’s aid has been my other job. I like it there a lot, with the kids. I wanted to be a pediatrician so it’s not too far off what I saw in my future. I’m not as rich as I thought,” You chuckled. “But it pays the bills and allows me to have some nice things, buy some things for other people, too.”

You stopped cleaning the table you were working at. You looked up to see the man staring at you intently, you had probably scared him. You hadn’t meant to tell this stranger your life story, but you did have the tendency to blab on. Plus you hadn’t had many to really talk to. “I’m sorry. You didn’t come for story time.” 

He was about to reply when the coffee machine dinged, it was ready. You stood upright, bringing the rag with you to dispose of in the laundry basket, before making your way behind the counter. You silently grabbed a holiday cup before pouring the black substance inside. You popped a lid on and handed it to the customer, making sure to smile. 

“Thank you for waiting, hope you have a happy holiday.”

“Thanks, you too.” He started making his way to the door when he stopped. 

“Something wrong, sir?” You were shrugging on your coat and grabbing your purse and the keys to the cafe. You were ready to leave and get home. 

“Yeah, I forgot your tip.”

You smiled, he was really sweet. “No need sir, really. My tip can be the donation you gave.”

The man turned to you, scrunching up his face. He took out his wallet again, pulling out a bill. “Nonsense. That was a donation, this is a tip,” He walked over to you, handing you a 100 follar bill. “Consider it an early Christmas gift.” 

Your mouth was hitting the floor. $100?! You would never carry around that much money around, your parents taught you better than that. 

“I-I can’t accept this.” You stammered, eyes still wide staring at the money.

“Please, it’ll mean a lot to me.”

You looked up at the man and saw him smiling down at you. It made your heart clench. Your husband acted just like him, they’d be best friends. You smiled before taking the bill with shaking hands. “Thank you. So much.”

“You’re welcome. Get home safe,” He squinted at your name tag. “Y/N.”

You smiled even bigger. “I will, thanks, you too!”

And with that the generous man left you in the cafe. You grabbed the donation can and put it in your bag. You’d deliver it tomorrow on your shift. The hospital never closed, therefore you’d be there. You locked up the cafe, thankful you wouldn’t be coming back there for another 3 days, then made your way to the main area. You still had to get that gift. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You clutched the gift tighter to your body. You didn’t live in a bad part of town, your 2 jobs barely ensured this, but you still didn’t trust someone wouldn’t steal the expensive box in your hands. You went up to your apartment, it was oddly quiet. You figured the person was still at the neighbors, you were home earlier than expected, so you decided to start wrapping the gift. Like every Christmases, the tree stood brightly decorated. Other years small gifts sat under the tree, they were all you could manage. Now, nothing was there. You had kept from spending so you could have this gift you were busy wrapping now. You were excited, they were going to be so excited. You looked outside your window and frowned. It still wasn’t snowing. The weather man said it would be by now. 

You were finishing the wrapping when the doorbell rang. They’re here! You quickly fix your hair and put the newly wrapped box under the tree before making your way to the door. You wished you could’ve changed, had a quick shower maybe. Oh well. 

You opened the door with a smile and was about to hug the person on the other side when you realized it wasn’t who you thought it was. Far from it even. 

“Hi, Y/N!”

It was the man from the cafe. How did he get here, why was he here? 

“I saw you come into the apartment. Would you believe I have family right down there?” 

You smiled and relaxed a bit. He wasn’t a crazy stalker. “Wow, that’s crazy! I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah...They’re about to head out to go caroling. Not really my thing, so I think I’m going to head home. Wanted to just pop in before I left though.” He seemed to be stalling in your doorway. Like he didn’t want to go.

“Oh, well would you like to come in? I was going to start making hot chocolate.”

His eyes brightened at the idea. “Yeah! Erh- I mean are you sure? Wouldn’t want to impose…” His voice trailed off, as if he were hinting at something. 

“No, not at all!” You pulled him inside before closing the door. 

“My name’s Bucky by the way. Sorry for not introducing myself earlier.”

You started walking toward the kitched before turning your head over your shoulder to look at him and smile. “Hey Bucky. I’m Y/N as you know,” You laughed with him as you took milk out of the fridge. “You can have a seat wherever. I know it’s not much, but we make do.”

Bucky nodded before taking a seat on the couch. The walls were bare, dark squares in their place. He frowned at them. “Were there pictures hanging here before?”

You poured the milk into a pot on the stove and turned the eye on then walked to where you could sit next to Bucky on the couch. “Yeah, they were of my husband. I took them down after he… I just couldn’t seem to move on with them there. I meant to put them up again one day, when I could handle it, but I still don’t think I can. Not even 7 years later. Now I’m not one for pictures, would rather live in the moment.” You stopped talking and turned to him. He was staring at you. It made you kind of uncomfortable. Why did he look at you like that? You shifted under his gaze before smiling again. “There I go again, talking your ears off.” 

Bucky shook his head, hair shifting around his shoulders perfectly. “No, I like it. Not had anyone to talk to in years, I like to listen more anyway.” You nodded. All you had done since your husband passed away was listen. Sure, you enjoyed it, but what you’d give to have someone hear you for once. 

“Your family not one for listening?”

“Not really. They’re often off in their world when I talk. My brother, Steve, is always trying to get me to talk, and he listens, but I can’t stand the look he gives me when I do talk, like I’m nothing but my problems. He says I can talk to him, and I can, but I can’t help but to feel judged by him. I know he’s trying his best, but I wish I could talk to someone new. Someone who didn’t know my past.”

You stared at him stunned. It was the most he had talked to you. Then again, he was a stranger. Which pricked at your nerves, you had let a stranger into your home. He could’ve been a killer, especially with this talk about “his past”. 

“Who did you say your family was? I know everyone in the building and I’ve lived here for about 10 years. I feel I should’ve seen you at a Thanksgiving or Christmas or something.”

In that moment the stove started making sizzling noises, your milk was flooding over. You jumped up to move it off the eye and turning the hot one off entirely. The milk starts to stop bubbling when taken off the eye and you turn to get the cocoa packets. Right then you’re met with the hard chest of Bucky. How long was he behind you?

“Oh, I’m sorry,” You tried to side-step him but he was quick to get in front of you again.

“Bucky?”

“You know, Y/N, I was really relieved that you didn’t recognise me. It took me a while to realize who you were in the coffee shop.I was hoping you weren’t married. You had been the first person to talk to be in a long time. Besides Steve, of course. I felt something, a connection. But when you mentioned a gift, I’ll admit, I was pissed. I wanted you to myself. A sweet, gorgeous girl like you is hard to come by now. When you mentioned your husband's death 7 years ago I finally remembered you. I wasn’t sure at first, but I’m pretty sure,” He looked around the walls again then back your terrified face and trembling body. Who was this guy? “You have no pictures up so you’ll have to correct me if I'm wrong. Was your husband an ex Shield agent by any chance?”

You relaxed a bit. Your husband was a Doctor, he passed away in a car accident on his way home from work. 

“No. He was a doctor,” You glanced to the door. You were angry at yourself for letting this clearly delusional man into your home. He had no family here, and he followed you home. Now he thought he knew you and your family. “Bucky, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to leave before I call the police.” Again you tried to step around him. 

He grabbed your wrist and pulled you close. “I don’t think I will, doll.” You looked up to Bucky with wide searching eyes. You looked around you, scouting out something to use as a weapon. Anything. Your eyes landed on the mugs and you reached out to them. 

“No you don’t.” You screamed as you were thrown over your shoulder. You thrashed in his hold, trying to wiggle free. 

“Bucky, stop! Let me go now!” You were settled back on the couch, Bucky reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out rope.

“Didn’t think I’d use these on you. Expecting to put them on that boyfriend of yours, but I suppose since he’s not here yet..” Boyfriend? 

He made quick work tying your hands together behind you before keeping a stern hand on you upper left arm and turning you to face him.

“Good. Better?”

“Fuck you.” You spat

Bucky smiled wider at you. “There’s the feisty woman I remember.”

“Remember? We’ve never met.”

“No, we haven’t. Not officially. I studied you from afar, back when my name was still the Winter Soldier,” The name seem to make him shiver. “I saw you and your husband, watched you for weeks. You were different then. A feisty young thing. No wiser to who your husband was.”

“You have the wrong person. My husband was a doctor, not an agent.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at you. “Yeah, that’s what you said then. His nurse, Nancy? The one with short brown hair? Not really a nurse, doll, she was an agent. And so was he.” The girl did ring a bell. She always had a lingering touch on your husband, one you didn’t like. You had complained to him a lot about her, he always told you she had nothing on you. You believed him. 

Bucky’s hand reached into his pocket again. You watched him and realized he was wearing leather gloves. Strange for the weather. He took out a photo and showed you. It was a picture of you and your husband at a party at his work. The day before he died. They had thrown him a party, he had saved someone’s life through dire circumstances. The next day he was supposed to have off, but he had to go in for an emergency surgery. He never made it back home. 

“He had just killed a couple of people that worked for an organization called HYDRA. They weren’t happy, so they sent me to kill him. As always, I watched my target for weeks. I was waiting for the perfect moment,” He caressed your trembling face, you were close to tears. “The day after this photo was taken I shot him while in his car. False phone call and everything got him out of the house and away from you. Guess even with my brains in the blinder I had fallen for you. Didn’t want you seeing your husband's brains all over the floor. All these years later I see you in that cafe,” Bucky shook his head. “I couldn’t stand the fact that I had done that to you. If I had known I would’ve done this sooner.”

You shook your head. This didn’t make sense. The police ruled your husband’s death a terrible car accident. He had been driving at night and exhaustion behind the wheel caused him to crash into the wall. He wasn’t an agent. He hadn’t killed anyone. But this guy claimed he did, and that he had killed his husband. All the while being called the Winter Soldier. It made you uneasy. 

“You’re lying.” You started trying to move away from Bucky again, but he easily pulled you back using his grasp on you arm. 

“I wish I was. I was a monster, but so was your husband. Killing people, some of them innocent. Then he came home and lied to you. I’d never lie to you.” He was inching closer to you now, you could feel his body heat.

You whimpered when he pressed his lips to you, refusing to kiss back. He pulled away after a moment and looked into your eyes, his blown black with lust. “I’ve been wanting to do that for so long. And now, you’re mine. I don’t care who he is, he’s going to learn you’re mine now and I don’t plan on letting you go.” Who was he?

Before you could ask he brought his left hand to your left breast and squeezed. You whimpered again and tried to shove him away best way you could with your binded hands. 

“Bucky, no please.”

Bucky smiled again. “What’s wrong? You afraid your boyfriends going to show up?”

“N-no! Please, just don’t do this. Let me go.”

“No can do. I told you, you’re mine,” His hand traveled down your chest and below your stomach, stopping near your heat clad jeans. “Besides, I can’t let you spend Christmas alone.”

Just then Bucky made quick work unbuttoning your jeans and sliding them down. You jerked your hips trying to make the process harder for him, but alas your motives didn’t deter him. He slided them along with your panties down revealing your pussy to him. 

Bucky hummed in approval. He looked to your shirt and quickly grabbed it, ripping it from your body. 

“Bucky stop!”

He ignored you as he clipped off your strapless bra, leaving you completely nude to him. “You’re prettier than I imagined, dear.” He licked his lips looking you up and down. He removed his gloves and shrugged off his jacket. You gasped as his left arm shined in the light. It was metal. He removed his shirt before dropping his jeans, leaving him in his underwear. His member strained in the thin fabric, aching for freedom. He was huge. Bigger than anything you had ever taken. Bucky saw you watching and smirked down at you before palming himself. 

“I’ve been hard since the cafe,” He growled. “Never been the hard before. If I’m being honest, all I want for Christmas is you, doll.” He removed himself from his underwear and groaned. He kicked the fabric away and gripped his base before groaning again. He walked over to you again before getting to his knees in front of your heat. You hated to admit it, but you were growing wet. Years of nights spent alone with your toys, none filling you the way a man could, the way your husband did. Most of the time you went to sleep unsatisfied, and others you just ignored the urges entirely. Majority of the time you worked so there wasn’t much you could do anyway. 

Bucky brought himself forward and licked a line from your entrance to your bud. He moaned at the taste. 

“You taste like heaven, doll.” He brought his hand to either thigh, spreading you out more for him. He dove back in, feasting on your pussy like a final meal. Your stomach was doing flips at this old pleasure, something you hadn’t felt in years. You were biting back the noises you wanted nothing more than to let fly, and it took everything not to grind your hips into face, bringing your core more into his mouth. It wasn’t until he brought a finger to your hole that you couldn’t contain the moan that slipped. Bucky looked to you through lashes and smiled into your heat. He pumped the finger into you before adding another, you relished in the stretch your fingers could never bring. Your hips started on their own accord and you let them. Bucky moaned into your core and you shook from the vibrations. Your body was in control and you didn’t mind, too blissed to care at the moment. Finally, Bucky curled his fingers into you at the right spot that had you seeing stars. You moaned out loud in ecstasy and Bucky fought to keep your thighs from closing around his head as he continued to slurp you up. 

He stood up and removed his fingers from you, popping them into his mouth. His eyes rolled back as he sucked on them before removing them. 

“That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”

You were still catching your breath when Bucky sat down. Your mind was still cloudy with your orgasm as he lifted you onto his lap, his hot member pressing into your sensitive cunt. 

“B-Bucky, wait-”

You were cut off by Bucky pulling you all the way down on him. You gasped from the stretch and he hissed from your tight walls hugging him. He could stay like that all day. 

“Fuck, baby, you feel so good.” 

He held onto your hips and starting moving you up and down in a slow rhythm. You were growing accustomed to his length and the pleasure starting building yet again. The room started to grow hot, despite the freezing temperatures of New York City outside, and your bodies felt sticky. Bucky started picking up the pace, the sounds of skin slapping against skin filled the room. Your moans mixed with his.

“Shit, your pussy is so good, hugging me so good.” He slapped your ass, guiding you faster and faster on his cock. He looked down where your bodies met and moaned as he watched his cock disappear into you before reappearing wetter. “This feels good doesn’t it? You like it when I fuck you on your coach don’t you?” He reached down and found your bud again, making you cry out. “Tell me you like he.” He growled through gritted teeth, dark eyes boring into yours.

“I like it.” Your voice weak with pleasure.

Bucky hummed, working you harder against him. 

“You’re gonna make me come baby. I want you to cum first. Let go on my cock, I want you dripping all down my dick, doll. Can you do that? Can you cum on my cock like a good girl?” 

You nodded your head, you were close and wanted it so bad. He was fucking you so good it hurt. Your breath was getting faster and your eyes threatened to close. Bucky flicked your bud again before you exploded. You came loud, clenching his cock in a viper grip as your release shook your body and threaten to slide down his thick cock. Bucky didn’t stop, he was determined to finish as he rocked you harder, his eyes closed in intense pleasure. His hips rose to meet yours when he finally hit up into you one last time before screaming your name. You felt him cum deep in you, he ground his hips a little to work himself through it. 

As you both caught your breath he hugged you close to him. His breath fanned over your shoulder as your overworked body slumped beneath his chin. Your eyes were heavy with exhaustion. After a while Bucky removed you from him, settling you carefully on the couch, his sum drizzling out of you a bit. He got up and moved in the back while you sat still, still too dazed to think about the fact he had cum in you with no protection. You’d have to deal with it later. 

Bucky came back with a wet washcloth, a night shirt, and fresh underwear. He carefully cleaned your core before dressing you, then himself. He was just untying your wrist when a knock on the door sounded. You both looked to it in shock then to each other. Your eyes were wide on him and he just smiled again. You made to stand but he pushed you down. 

“I got it.” Was all he said while he stood up, his tall frame moving to the door. You rubbed your wrist, tears threatening to spill over; you knew who was at the door. 

Bucky pulled the door open. 

“Sorry we’re late, we went to the park and let time get ahead of us - Oh! Hello.” The old woman, Mrs. Kim, stood at your door talking with Bucky. He wasn’t looking at her, though, he was looking at Oliver. 

“That’s no problem, Mrs. Kim. Did he have a good time?” You screamed from your place on the couch. Mrs. Kim looked passed Bucky to you and smiled.

 “Oh yes! He couldn’t stop talking about a train set Kid’s Kompany just released. It sounds awesome.” She looked down at the little boy who smiled up at her. Your heart leapt in your chest and you looked to the gift under the tree. He did nothing but talk about the set since he first saw it on tv, you were so glad you were able to get it. 

“Thanks again Mrs. Kim.”

“No problem, honey. Oliver is such a joy, have a good night,” she looked to you then Oliver then back to Bucky. “It was nice meeting you, dear.” She held out her hand to Bucky, to which he shook still eyeing Oliver. Mrs. Kim winked at you and walked away, back to her apartment. She was a nice old woman, her and her husband always agreeing to help with Oliver. She always said you needed to move on from your husband. I guess she thought Bucky was the next prince charming. She was sort of right. 

Oliver looked at Bucky curiously with his big blue eyes, they fancied his dad’s and Bucky’s you thought, before sidestepping him into the apartment. He wanted to know who Bucky was, but you raised him to not be rude. He’d more than likely ask later if he wasn’t introduced. He looked to you and smiled wide before running over with his arms spread out out, ready for a hug.

“Mommy!”

You smiled at your son as he ran into your arms. You hugged him close to you, kissing his dark locks. 

Bucky shut the door before turning to you entirely. 

“Mommy, it’s not snowing.” Your son said with a pout.

You smiled sadly at him, you knew he was disappointed. “I know, honey”

“But you said it would snow.”

“I know I did, the weatherman said it would.”

“It still might.” You and your son looked to Bucky. He was smiling at your son while leaning on the wall, arms crossed. 

“Really?” His blue eyes filled with excitement and he ran to Bucky before you could stop him. Your eyes rounded with fear. 

“That’s right. In fact, when it does we’re going to go sledding.”

Oliver turned to you, his excitement growing. He turned back to Bucky. “Sledding? I’ve never been.”

“You’ve never been sledding before? Well, its awesome, you’re gonna love it, Oliver.”

Your son’s name sounded like venom on Bucky’s lips. How dare he volunteer to take your son somewhere? You’d raise Hell before you allowed that to happen. 

Oliver’s curiosity burst and he asked, “Who are you?”

Bucky acted stunned and looked between you and Oliver. You shot daggers at him, what was he doing?

“Did mommy not tell you, bud? I’m your dad.”

Now you were furious. Oliver had never met his dad or seen photos. You were just 2 months pregnant with him when his father died. He hadn’t even known, you planned to tell him the night he died. You had said you had no photos of him when he asked. You planned to show him, but one drunk sad night you threw them away. You had missed his father deeply, surely he wouldn’t need photos. It was a stupid move on your part; a sad, stupid move. 

Oliver looked stunned but quickly jumped with joy and hugged Bucky tight. Bucky returned the hug. Oliver was close to tears looking at his “dad”. 

“Where have you been dad? I missed you so much, mommy said you died before I was born.”

“I know buddy I’m sorry. I had to trick mommy because I was scared to meet you. But now I’m here, and I will never leave you guys again. Mommy won’t have to work anymore and we’re going to move in together. How does that sound?”

Oliver nodded his head yes. “It sounds good, daddy!”

You looked on stunned. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. 

Bucky picked up Oliver and moved to where you sat on the couch. He sat him in your lap and moved to the tree. He picked up the present and walked back. He handed the present to Oliver who looked at Bucky surprised. “For me?”

“Yeah, buddy. That’s from mommy, she worked so hard to get that for you.”

Oliver turned to you and hugged you again. “Thanks mommy!”

You hugged Oliver back and smiled at him. “You’re welcome baby.”

Oliver ripped passed the green reindeer wrapping paper to reveal the train set. He squealed with delight and hugged you again, chanting thank yous over and over. Bucky pulled you closer so that you all looked like a family hugging. “My present is going to be sledding. I’m sorry I don’t have anything else, I wasn’t expecting to be coming this Christmas. But next year, I promise it’s going to be amazing,” Bucky said to Oliver. Oliver nodded, his hair bouncing everywhere. He smiled at you and then Bucky. Bucky’s hand traveled down to your stomach. “We have another surprise, buddy. This one’s from us both, so in total you have 3 presents. This time next year, you’re going to have a little brother or sister.” 

Your heart stopped at that. Oliver gasped and looked to you again. “Really? Yay! Best Christmas ever!” He had always wanted a little sibling, you were convinced it’d never happen. Bucky rubbed your stomach, a silent promise played in his actions. You felt sick and your face contorted into fear yet again.

Bucky smiled at you. “Consider it a Christmas surprise.”