#so i went ''FUCK'' realizing i AM a main source and decided to make more i guess

[micamone]

where makin this hapen man

[stepfordgoth]

As if I don't have enough stupid bozo the clown type shit weighing on me right now, I am (probably unnecessarily) feeling so incredibly guilty about something that just happened in the garden oh my god

Back story: I've been afraid of flying insects, ESPECIALLY butterflies and moths, for my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are of nightmares I had when I was very young about butterflies chasing me, about butterflies flying out of my dead relatives' caskets and landing on my face, stuff like that. As an avid gardener over the last few years, I've been consciously working on that fear and I'm at a spot now where I can observe butterflies, moths, bees, etc in my garden with fascination and gratitude, and I rarely get startled by fluttering/flying near me now (as long as it's, like, not right in my face and I'm already aware that they're there. I do still get startled sometimes but I feel like it's not really because I'm so afraid anymore, it's like I've trained myself over the years to be easily startled. But I'm working on it)! In fact there are a few butterflies that I see every single day in my garden, and I watch them from a distance and think about how cool it is that I've created a garden with so much life in it.

Anyway this morning I was in my garden doing my little tasks, and lately I've noticed that something has been munching on my broccoli leaves. I didn't mind it too much though because I knew I've already made the main broccoli harvest of the year and that anything else that grows from the plants is extra and won't be nearly as much as the main harvest anyway, so let some garden residents have a munch, whatever. Today though, is the day that I make the final small harvest! So I was doing my thing, picking broccoli stalks, and I decided that after this final harvest I'd just pull up the plants and be done with them, until I plant seeds for the fall broccoli crops in a few weeks.

Well, under one of the broccoli leaves, I noticed two large caterpillars curled up together. "Cute but gross," I thought, "I bet they're the ones munching these leaves." I'd read about caterpillars being pests on broccoli so I pulled that leaf off and tossed it in my brush/green discard pile without thinking too much about it. After the harvest was complete I pulled up the two plants and set them on the ground near my garden. Then I thanked my garden (I always do!) and went inside to wash the broccoli. While picking I'd noticed a bunch of black spots in the nooks and crannies of the branches but I figured it was either dirt of aphids, and either way they'd easily wash off.

So inside, I was washing and inspecting the broccoli and I found a few of the clusters had this weird sticky goo in the center.....? And I found a few more caterpillars. And I was immediately like "Oh FUCK THAT, I am NOT bringing this shit in my house" and took them back outside, with a bowl of ice water, and continued the washing out there. But 3/7 of the stalks I harvested had so much goo and gunk (as well as caterpillars) that I was like "nope, into the discard pile with ye". And I walked those stalks back over to the pile near my garden..... Where I noticed one of the white butterflies that I see every day in my garden fluttering around the pulled up broccoli plants on the ground. I stood there and watched for a second, not really understanding why that butterfly cared so much about the pulled up plants when there are so many flowers in bloom elsewhere in the garden but then I realized........ Oh my god I bet those caterpillars were her babies. And I just destroyed their food source and their home in one fell swoop by pulling up those plants. Why didn't I think of that at the time???? Now I just feel so guilty. I'm trying to do LESS harm! I'm trying to be kind to pollinators and create a healthy mini ecosystem! And I just killed what is perhaps a whole generation of butterflies who were delighted to be in my garden. [Muppet voice: GUILT.]

Not gonna lie I stood there for a second and watched this butterfly and I cried a little. I'm so sorry I killed your babies and their home and food! I thought they were bad guys! I'm still learning!!!!

[dollslayer]

Botanical Interest - Thorns

Soft!Mob!Steve Rogers x reader

Summary: After dating the notable mobster Steve Rogers for a couple months you think you’ve got him figured out. An altercation in an alley leaves you questioning whether or not that’s true. 

W/C: 1995

Warnings: Violence, angst, fluff, swearing

A/N: Holy smokes! I am completely overwhelmed by the love that the first part to this story has received. Obviously, I couldn’t help myself so I wrote a part 2 also as an entry for @stargazingfangirl18 ‘s 5k soft dark challenge! Using the Mob!Au and the dialogue prompt “Oh, Honey, you weren’t supposed to see that”.

If you want you can check out part one here and my other mob fic here! Cheers!

Botanical Interest Masterlist I Main Masterlist

______________________________ 6pm was fast approaching as you began to close up shop for the day. Steve was here to pick you up for dinner and much to your embarrassment walked in on you having a very difficult conversation argument with a very difficult customer over pricing and promotion. Having run your small business on your own for years you knew how to hold your own but you completely froze when you saw Steve enter the shop out of the corner of your eye. 

“I- listen Mr. Andersen, I appreciate all the business that your venues have given me but I can’t afford a raise in advertising prices right now. I’ve been reliable and trustworthy and I’ve always treated your venues with respect. I’ve never been an issue for you, please don’t raise the rate. Wedding season is coming up and I need the exposure.” 

You tried to bargain with him quietly, hoping the music overhead would prevent Steve from hearing but it was a low volume and a small shop. You’ve only been dating for a couple months. You didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of him, especially not at work. 

Mr. Andersen exhaled sharply. You could tell he was annoyed at you for the pushback. “Look, I’m sorry but we can’t be making exceptions every time a business owner comes groveling.” 

Tears stung your eyes, you really did generate a lot of business through Andersen’s venues. They listed you as one of their recommended vendors to their clients, it’s been huge for you. Knowing that Steve was there made this even worse. “If I’d have known you were going to cry like this I would’ve just done it over email I mean really-”

“That’s enough.” Steve cut him off before he could humiliate you any further. He sent a quick text and shoved his phone back in his pocket before pulling himself to his gull height and squaring his shoulders. “You’ve done enough, now get out.”

A scoff from Andersen and a harsh glare directed towards you and he was on his way out of the building. Steve’s phone vibrated but he didn’t check it. Instead he walked over to you and extended his arm to rub your back. 

“Are you okay? That guy was a total fucking prick to you, you don’t deserve that.” Steve consoled you. He seemed calmer than you expected for having just witnessed something like that. You’ve seen him agitated but never upset. Maybe he was restraining himself for you but it didn’t matter, you appreciate him being there for you. 

“I’m fine, I just need to finish closing up shop and we can get to dinner. Just give me a minute” you said as you began to sweep up. 

“Alright, sweetheart. I’m double parked so I’m gonna go to the car and try to find a space.” You nodded as hummed along to the music. 

____________________________

As Steve left the shop he pulled his phone out and checked his text from Thor ‘we got him’. When Steve heard that man talk to you like that he knew you didn’t want him to threaten Andersen and make the situation worse. You were already on the verge of tears so he decided to ask one of his men to hold Andersen out back where he could have a few words with him. 

Stepping around the corner into the alley behind your shop he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He needed to be quick so you wouldn’t find out. He didn’t want to upset you further, he just wanted this guy to know that you can’t treat his girl like that. And maybe he could be talked into giving her the advertising for free.

“So you think you can talk to my girl like that huh?” He questioned. Andersen looked like Thor had already punched him once in the process of restraining him. Thor’s hold on Andersen’s arms tightened. 

Andersen was scared, but not scared enough to Steve’s liking. Before Andersen had the opportunity to answer Steve cocked his fist back and launched it directly to Andersen’s jaw. “Shit! I’m sorry, I didn’t know. We’re expanding and we need the money so I have to raise-”

Before the excuse could be finished Steve hit him again. “Stop! Please!” Andersen begged.

Steve chuckled. “No I don’t think I will. I can’t just let people go every time they grovel to me. They’d never learn.” Another punch landed. 

“You’re not gonna raise your prices for her. In fact, you’re gonna call her up in a couple days and apologize by offering her advertising free of charge for all of your venues. Do you understand?” Steve asked coolly. 

Andersen coughed up some blood. “I- I can offer her half price but I can’t just waive the cost like that!”

“Not good enough.” Steve punched him even harder, Andersen was nearly knocked out. Steve thought about the tears that slipped from his girl’s eye and couldn’t stop himself. He struck Andersen one more time with a growl and his head hung limp between his shoulders. Just then he heard the sound of shattering glass behind him and froze, hand still in a fist. 

_____________________________________

Finally done with most of your tasks all you had to do was take out the garbage and empty the vase of leftover stems from bouquets into the dumpster. You opened the back door just in time to see Steve land a brutal punch to Mr. Andersen’s cheekbone. Mr. Andersen’s head fell and it was clear he had been knocked out cold. 

You hadn’t even realized you’d dropped the vase until you felt the shards fall around your feet. You couldn’t look away when Steve looked up at you with wild eyes, you’d never seen him so angry. You felt the way you did the day you met him. Nervous and frozen in place.

His face instantly fell and through his heavy breathing said “Oh, honey, you weren’t supposed to see that.” He was trying to relax his features as he approached you but you could only take steps back and into the shop like a scared animal being cornered. 

Your heart was hammering in your chest and you couldn’t tell if you were more angry or scared. You held your hands out in front of you and stammered “I’d better.. I need to lock up shop I’ll um, I’ll go”. “Sweetheart wait!” Too late. You shut the back door and locked it behind you. 

You went to your back office and sat down, not even sure where to go from here with this. You two had talked about his work a bit, it wasn’t like it could be avoided forever, you just didn’t think he’d bring it into yours. You weren’t scared of Steve doing something like that to you, you were scared of that look in his eyes. His capability of doing something like that with little thought.

Oh, God, what does this mean for the shop? Mr. Andersen will have you blacklisted. He’ll tell every wedding planner in Brooklyn. Now your heart was hammering for a whole other set of reasons. Too busy spiraling as you thought about it all you didn’t hear the bell of the front door ring. 

A knock on your open office door pulled you out of it and you looked up to find Steve. He wore what looked like a truly regretful expression on his face. You fought the urge to yell at him. You’re an adult, you’re going to talk about this like adults. Let him say his piece. 

He had straightened up, his hands were clean and his jacket was back on. He gave a heavy sigh. “Sweetheart, I don’t even know where to begin. I’m sorry you had to see that side of me, but I want you to know I would never ever do anything like that to you or anyone close to you. I only want what’s best for you.”

“And that’s punching one of my main sources of income?” You snapped. You appreciated the apology but you were getting too worked up in anger thinking about the future of the shop.

He was a little miffed at the outburst and became defensive. “That man disrespected you, disrespected your work. No one talks like that to my girl. That’s how we settle things in my world!” 

“Well you’re not in your mob world right now you’re in mine! And things don’t get handled like that! Do you have any idea the toll that could take on my business? He’s gonna have me blacklisted by the end of the day if he wakes up.” The last words came out a bit broken as you felt more tears build. You were more worried about the business than anything. 

Steve walked around the desk to console you just like he had not twenty minutes ago. He gently put a hand on your forearm. “You’re right. It’s not my world, it wasn’t my call to make and I had no right to react like that. I didn’t even think about that. The way he was talking to you, I just.. I got so mad. You work so hard and you don’t deserve that. Sometimes I forget there’s more than one way to handle things.”

Okay, that went better than expected. This is what made Steve so interesting to you. Steve was funny and sweet and charming as hell, but beyond all that there was this tender heart. He was dangerous but he was also fiercely loyal. He was more than a mobster and he was better than the brute force he used. It’s why you were able to accept that part of him, because it wasn’t his entire life, it didn’t consume him.

“Thank you for saying that,” You said quietly. You looked up to him and could tell that he really did feel bad. “I accept your apology and I appreciate it. But you have to make things right with Mr. Andersen. I’ll pay the new rate but you have to apologize before it’s too late.”

_________________________

Steve was beginning to harbor resentment towards himself for fucking this up for you. Andersen just made him see red, he has such a hard time shutting that part of himself down. You work so hard and care so much there’s just no way he could let that stand. He just hoped to work through it and move on. He really didn’t wanna screw it up.

Steve was much more at ease knowing you accepted his apology. “I won’t like it but I can do that. It’s only fair. Can I make it up to you over dinner? We’ll make a quick stop to the hospital to set things straight with Andersen.” When you shut the door in his face in the alley he had Thor take him to the hospital. He’d call another town car to get home. 

He’ll apologize to Andersen and pay the hospital bill, but you’re not paying the increased rate. No way. Steve will pay him off enough that he won’t be telling anyone about the altercation, either. Win-win in his eyes.

You leaned your head against his shoulder in slight exhaustion and nodded. “Can we forget the reservation? I really want breakfast food right now.”

A soft chuckle escaped his lips. “Of course sweetheart, you wanna get takeout and go back to mine?” He felt you nod. “Yes, please”. 

“Let me just order a car and we’ll be on our way. I’m sorry again, sweetheart, I promise I’m gonna make it right even if that guy’s a douche.” You laughed a little bit and wiped the few tears that stayed in your eyes.

“So.... your girl, huh? Is that like some mob slang term I don’t know about? Are we official?”

A smile graced his lips. “I’d like to be, if you would.” 

You smiled back at him. “I might be persuaded with waffles.” 

[a-drewid]

It’s 2 am and I have aftg social media headcanons

Enjoy whatever train wreck this becomes

So during Neil’s second year at Palmetto State, Wymack decides its in the team’s best interest to participate more online and with their fans on different social media platforms. Originally, this was just having a team-shared YouTube account and a team-shared Twitter account.

But because it’s the foxes, things went downhill pretty quickly.

First off, the only person trusted with the login info for both the YouTube and Twitter accounts was Dan, because Wymack thought (rightly) that if any of the other foxes got their hands on the public accounts, everything would go to shit. But Wymack underestimated the fox’s power to get what they want.

One night, after a good game that they won, the foxes are all sufficiently drunk, and Matt and Allison manage to wheedle the login information out of a very tipsy Dan.

The next day, all the foxes have access to the accounts, and things start going sideways from there.

It starts off small at first. A tweet roasting the Raven’s (Neil’s doing), a YouTube compilation of different fox’s eating it during games played over It’s a Hard Knock Life from Annie (courtesy of Nicky and Matt). Wymack doesn’t think much of it, just happy that his foxes are actually listening to him for once.

But soon enough it’s tweets that just say Jeremy Knox <3 (Kevin was drunk) and YouTube compilations titled Andrew Minyard and Neil Josten staring at each other for ten minutes and thirteen seconds (Andrew thought Nicky was behind it, but it was actually Renee the whole time).

Then, somehow, it gets worse.

After a particularly rough argument, Aaron goes dark on his personal twitter. Fans are, understandably, confused. But their confusion only grows when they go to check his alt and find twenty new posts. They’re all just baby pictures of Andrew.

Then a Vine account pops up (cause Vine was still alive back then). At first, people aren’t sure if it’s real or not, but after a particularly… worrying video (the camera starts on a very drunk Matt talking about how pretty Dan is before panning to the side, showing a clock that reads 3:29 am) fans are convinced that it’s actually being run by the foxes.

Then the betting starts.

The first bet is started by the upperclassmen, and it’s simply how long it will take before Neil activates his personal Twitter and replies to one of Kevin’s tweets. In the end, it only takes a week. The tweet was about exy (obviously). Neil responded simply with ‘You tell ‘em Queen.’

After Neil has established himself as a salty shit on Twitter, the bets continue.

How long until Andrew and Neil start fake arguing under one of Neil’s tweets. Two days.

How long before the Minyard-Josten rivalry comes to a head among fans. Three days, right after Neil calls Andrew a midget on his main an Andrew blocks him.

Things also happening on the side: Instagram accounts have been made. Dan posts mostly pictures of her and Matt, or her and the other girls. Matt only ever posts pictures of Dan. Instagram is abandoned shortly afterwards, however, when the app proclaims Aaron’s death for the third time (like what happened with Jack Manifold lmao). Sources vary on whether or not Andrew had anything to do with this.

Neil sometimes forgets he has Twitter, and he’ll open the app after weeks of ignoring it, post some cryptic shit, and leave the fans to scramble for a meaning to the most random sentences.

Neil Josten @/n.a.josten

What the fuck does ‘lit’ mean.

Neil Josten @/n.a.josten

I’m gonna start breaking shit.

Neil Josten @/n.a.josten

Guys please. What is a twink. Nicky won’t stop calling me it.

The foxes quickly become, if possible, even more well liked by there fans, simply for the amazing content they make on the regular. A YouTube video that’s just twenty minutes of Allison doing Renee’s makeup and them talking about women’s rights? Amazing. A vine that’s simply Andrew throwing an exy ball at the back of Kevin’s head and looking into the camera like he’s in the office? Fantastic.

It’s really far too late when Wymack realizes that his foxes have taken social media and ran with it, but he can’t really be mad at them, cause they just seem to be having so much fun with it. 10/10 for team bonding :)

[writing-in-april]

A hair’s breadth

Javier Peña x Female Reader

Summary: Javier and Reader can’t help but be at each others throats. Javier gets fed up with the teasing one night.

A/N: Hey everyone! Here’s my nineteenth fic for my 30 fics in 30 days!!! Sorry this is out late- I had a job interview!! (I got the job! 🥳) This is based off of this and this request! There’s not as much Spanish in this one- though one day soon I want to try to write all the dialogue for Javier in Spanish- (I am trying to learn how to be better at it im just very nervous I’ll get it all wrong 🙃) Please feel free to drop me a message in my inbox here (I promise I don’t bite) Thank you for reading and hope y’all enjoy!

Warnings: 18+, Smut, Protected Sex (wrap it up especially with Javier lol), Fingering, Hate fucking, Public sex (who’s surprised), Hair pulling, Choking, Mirror sex

Main Masterlist Word Count: 1.9k

“Do that again I dare you.” Javier had you pushed up against the wall of his apartment, with his hand around your throat. How you had gotten in this position was as a result of one of your regular fights you often had with him.

This time it had been over something even more petty than the last time. You honestly couldn’t remember exactly what had started it. It had been something to do with some obscure line in the paperwork you were filling out while over at his apartment late at night past embassy hours. What had been a small issue then turned into a full blown argument, snapping and yelling at each other until it reached its peak.

Javier knew that he shouldn’t have said that just by the look on his face while he had a hand around your throat. You had slapped him after a misogynistic comment, which then had him slamming you up against the wall.

“Fuck you!” You yelled, but did not move to get out of his grip. He was about to respond with probably another biting comment when you were both interrupted.

You both looked over to his front door when there was incessant knocking, which was probably only from one person. “Hey Javi! Do you or Y/N want to go out for a drink tonight?” Steve’s voice being shouted through the walls confirmed the source of the knocks. You were glad his door was closed, otherwise this would've been an awkward situation to explain to your coworker.

Javier looked back at you one last time with a hard look on his face; it was a normal occurrence for you to receive that type of look from him. You smiled despite his hand around your throat as you had gotten what you had wanted, you had succeeded in riling him up.

Steve knocked again, this time a little harsher. He didn’t look away this time, eyes narrowing in on you further, like he was trying to decide if he should release you from his clutches. Though, it wasn’t that you were completely helpless, you could force him off of you if you wanted. But, you wanted to see what he would do.

“Are you going to answer him?” You goaded, biting your lip when you finished speaking, eagerly waiting for his response. No verbal comment came from him, instead he released the hold he had on your neck. You slumped a little, not out of pain as his hold hadn’t been that tight, you had just been surprised when he released you so quickly.

“Lo siento…” Was mumbled under Javier’s breath. You wondered if he meant for you to hear it or if he said it only to ease his conscience.

Javier walked over to the door to swing it open with you in tow, luckily already recovered somewhat from his hand around your throat. Steve jumped slightly when Javier opened it forcefully, then smiling when you both responded to his question, albeit gruffly, “Yeah, sure.”

—-

Javier clenched his fist hard while you took a drink, smirking into the glass was the only indication that you knew exactly what you were doing. You had spruced yourself up a bit to go to the bar, slipping on a dress you had just bought recently and putting on a pair of high heels. As soon as you had appeared back downstairs where Steve and Javier had been waiting for you his jaw had clenched hard, just like his fist was doing right now.

You were sat at the edge of the booth you had all congregated in, Javier was right across from me and Steve was by the window absentmindedly drinking a beer. He didn’t notice how you were sat slightly to the side, inching the dress you wore higher just to see Javier’s fist clench more.

“I’m surprised you guys were actually working together without me there.” Steve scratched at his jaw. We both pretended to partially focus back on him for a moment, Javier’s fist dropped much to my disappointment.

You glanced over at him then giving him one of the biggest lies you’ve ever told, “We’ve found a way to- resolve our differences.”

Javier took an angry gulp of whiskey, somehow it was possible that he was now even more pissed off at you then before. He opened his mouth to probably say something backhanded as usual, but Steve steamrolled him unintentionally, “Well- I’m glad, the office is kinda painful to be in when y’all are having one of your arguments.”

“Well hopefully we won’t bother you anymore.” Javier finally got a word in and it was just as snippy as expected.

You then downed the rest of your drink in one gulp, a little tipsy now from the few drinks you’d had so far. A dull thud from you setting the glass down on the table was swallowed by the noises of the other customers and employees around you. You got up, fed up with getting only little responses from him, “I’m going to the bathroom.”

—-

“Javier what are you doing?” You asked incredulously when he entered the women’s restroom, but weren’t given an answer. You didn’t pull away when he pulled you close, dipping his head to suck a hickey on the underside of your jaw. You only keened into his touch, you may have hated him, but it did feel amazing. Your teasing had worked

“I told Steve I was going to the bathroom too.” Giving a quick summary before continuing his assault on your skin, “You drive me absolutely crazy.” He spitefully said into your skin in between sucking and biting your collarbone. You didn’t care enough to respond, he knew you felt the same. In a flash he pulled your dress off of your head, exposing all of you except what was covered by your bra and underwear.

When he then gripped his fingers around the fabric of your panties and ripped them off, you gasped in anger. He then ran his fingers through your folds, stopping at your clit to run small circles into it. You were still angry about the ruined panties on the floor, and the fact that with just a few touches he was proving why everyone fell at his feet after they slept with them. “I liked those!”

“You seem to like this too.” His fingers sped up their movements, alternating between hard and light pressure. Your orgasm was building embarrassingly quickly, you almost wanted to hold it back so Javier didn’t get a big head. It felt too good though, and you didn’t have a lot of time.

You were both a hair’s breadth away from getting caught, Javier’s fingers continued their movements with no thought. Steve was drunk, he might even be asleep right now. But, one wrong move and he’d hear Javier fucking you in the bathroom.

“Javier!” You shouted, not thinking about the volume, when he pulled his fingers away from you just as you were about to fall off the edge. He then brought his wet fingers to his lips, sucking off any evidence of your arousal. It was hard to be mad when he looked so hot doing that, even though your clit was throbbing now.

“Need to fuck you now- this’ll take too long if we wait for you.” You wanted to snap at him again, his comment flippant and somewhat rude. That was until he pulled his cock out of his pants, already hard just for you. Your mind switched gears after that.

“Condom?” He grunted in response to your question, then pulled one out of his wallet. You were about to ask how long it had been in there, but with the rate he fucks, you doubted it had been there for long.

Once he slipped it on he commanded, “Bend over.” You scoffed, about to retort that you’d never bend over for him. But, Javier beat you to the punch, “I won’t ask again, I’ll leave you here naked and dripping.” You shuddered at that, your arousal was too much to ignore. So, you let him have one victory, hopping off the counter to bend over.

You caught sight of your disheveled state in the mirror, your legs buckling a little because of it. You already looked completely ruined by him, and he hadn’t done much besides fingering you. Javier must have caught you staring at yourself, and him if you were being honest, wrapping his hand around your hair to push you closer to the mirror. “¿Que? You like watching yourself? You like getting fucked while Steve and everybody else could hear you?”

You tried to nod your head, but with his firm grip on your hair while he began to sink into you, all you could do was moan. Once you realized that you were most definitely being too loud you stopped yourself making any noise by biting your lip hard. When the front of Javier’s thighs hit the back of yours he leaned forward to whisper angrily in your ear, “Yeah- you do like this.”

His pace was rough, but not sloppy, quick thrusts that had your ass rippling from the force. This was going to be a quick and dirty fuck, Steve would soon come looking for us if we didn’t get our orgasms over and done with. Besides, all you were looking for was a release, being with Javier for more time than was necessary just sounded like a punishment. Despite the pace he was keeping up, he still managed to keep your head right where he wanted it, looking directly in the mirror.

Your orgasm was building up again, even faster than before since you were already sensitive. At one point when your eyes began to roll back as you got closer Javier snapped that you should keep your eyes open.

“Come on, cum.” He growled out once he noticed how close you were, “Cum while Steve is out there- wondering where we went.”

Your eyes rolled into the back of your head at that, your orgasm crashing over you. Javier reached his own peak while you were riding out your own, filling the condom, gripping your hair and hip hard as he did.

Once your highs had abated he pulled out of you with a groan, quickly tying off the condom while you were still bent over and recovering with gasped breaths.

“Hey Javier?” You asked right as he began to turn around to go, letting you put your clothes back on and clean up in peace.

“¿Sì?” He turned around to face you again, looking much more put back together than you were with your makeup still smudged. You had the remnants of the panties he had ripped off of you dangling on your finger.

You wrapped your other hand around his belt he put back on, pulling him back closer to you so you were both chest to chest. You then stuffed the scrap of torn fabric into the front pocket of his jeans until they were completely hidden.

“Now you get to sit right next to Steve while they’re in your pocket.” He gulped a little and you gave one last remark before turning back to clean up your makeup, “And, you’ve got to pay for a new pair, I liked those.”

Though he boiled your blood as you walked back to the table where he had joined Steve back at you realized you were only a hairs breadth away from not hating him.

Ask Me Anything

—-

Tag lists (fill out this form to join):

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All Works: @shotarosleftpinky @90spumkin @kyra-morningstar @spenxerslut @boxofsparklingmuses @katexrichardson @takeyourleap-of-faith

Javier Peña/Narcos: @pascalesque

[bbugyu]

daddy’s little monster + lee seokmin & yoon jeonghan

the story of your side hustle, that both pays well and had some very lovely benefits.

prelude | part one | part two | part three | epilogue

wc.5195 | SMUT, like DIRTY SMUT, threesome, sugar daddy!jeonghan and musician!seokmin, aka my worst nightmare, hard dom vs service sub vs service dom, aka my other worst nightmare, fem reader, daddy kink, marking, cream pie, please use condoms, lk cucking? happy halloween!

i was gonna say this is porn without plot but in reality idk how to not make smut way too personal. and i have not stopped thinking about my seokhan sandwicch fantasies and desperately needed to get it out, so take my shame and run with it. gif literally does not match this at all but DONT WORRY ABOUT IT

~

seokmin knew that jeonghan, the prolific and sought after architect whom he considered a close friend, had a less than conventional relationship with a young woman, but he had never met her. didn't know what the two did beyond appear at fancy industry dinner parties together, or the occasional sleepovers that had been offhandedly mentioned when seokmin and him get drinks and grilled meat. he believed she was real - he had been told she was real, by a mutual friend who had attended said parties - but had never seen a picture of her. never been introduced. he dropped architecture, afterall, deciding instead to get a teaching degree while jeonghan continued his artistic engineering. he had no reason to attend the parties that jeonghan paid her to accompany him to.

so when he was slightly drunk at a halloween party being held at the architect's beautiful home, he thought nothing about the pretty girl giving him attention, other than the fact that she looked incredible in her cheerleading outfit and that she was sitting far too close to him to not be flirting.

"how do you know jeonghan?" you asked, perched on the sofa next to seokmin, fingers mindlessly fiddling with the zipper on his red and blue bomber jacket.

his arm was over the back of the sofa, and you were comfortably sitting in the negative space, your feet tucked beneath your baby blue pleated skirt. "we went to college together," he said.

your eyebrow quirked. "are you also an architect? i've never seen you around."

he smiled and shook his head, wondering why a pretty girl like you was wasting your time getting to know a guy like him if you frequented industry parties. "no, i dropped the program. too much math. i'm a music teacher."

he watched your eyes light up. "what kind of music?"

"piano and guitar, mostly," he said, shifting beside you when your knees brushed over his thigh. "i do some vocal coaching, also."

you gazed at his profile as he looked anywhere but at you, eyes briefly focusing on the little black heart drawn under his eye. "you do have a lovely voice."

"thanks," he said, smiling when he turned to look at you, almost faltering when he realized you were leaning into him. "but you haven't heard me sing."

you paused, staring at his lips. "i'd like to," you breathed, and seokmin's hand dropped from the couch to find the small of your back, a shiver running up your spine when his fingers ran over the waistband of your skirt.

"y/n."

with great difficulty, you looked away from his lips to the source of your name being called, smiling lightly when you saw who had summoned you. you put a hand on seokmin's chest.

"i'll be right back, okay?" he kept watching your lips as you spoke. "promise me you won't go anywhere?"

seokmin gave you a lopsided smile, fingers brushing over your skin still. "promise."

you pulled yourself off the couch, purposefully giving him a bit of a view as you leaned over to slip your feet back into your sneakers, walking over to the man that had called your name. seokmin watched you swing your hips side to side, then cursed under his breath when jeonghan's hand snaked around your waist only a few meters in front of him, putting the pieces together in his mind.

"i see you like my friend," jeonghan muttered, handing you the drink you had asked him for. he was dressed as a man in black, which was wholly unoriginal considering he wore many suits regularly, but you figured your cheerleading costume wasn't leaving much more to the imagination than any of the dresses he usually picked out for you.

"you never told me you were friends with a musician," you teased. "afraid i wouldn't call you?"

he laughed, sneakily pulling up the hem of your skirt and watching over your shoulder as seokmin tried not to stare. "you'll always call me."

you bit at your lip, smiling. "yes, daddy."

"are you sure about him?"

you peeked over your shoulder, giggling when seokmin looked away from you and tugged at the knees of his black pleather pants. "isn't he perfect?"

"i like seokmin," jeonghan said, drawing your attention by taking off his sunglasses, hooking them in his lapel pocket. "he's one of my closest friends. i want you to be absolutely sure."

you paused, considering his tone and looking into his amber eyes. "i'm positive."

jeonghan smiled, pulling you into him for a quick kiss. "go tell him the good news, sweetheart."

you grinned, pulling away from him as he put his sunglasses back on and teasingly clicked his prop neuralizer at you. you giggled and sauntering back to the couch that seated the most adorable harley quinn you had ever seen.

"i'm back," you said, sipping at your drink as you settled back into seokmin's side. "sorry, you know how sugar daddies are. so demanding."

he choked out a laugh, still unsure despite your joking tone. "so, you and, uh, jeonghan-"

"yeah," you sighed, setting your drink down on the table beside the sofa and adjusting your posture, putting your knees on his thigh but keeping your shoes off the couch. "he likes my company, i like not paying for tuition."

"what are you studying?" seokmin asked, jumping at the opportunity to change the subject.

you smiled, tugging at his arm until he took the hint to put it back where it was before you were interrupted. "musical theory and recording arts."

he almost laughed. "you're unreal."

"i could say the same," you said, fingers fiddling with the opposite collar of his jacket. "can i ask you something? no pressure."

his eyebrows quirked upwards. "there's a little pressure."

you giggled, tugging at the collar lightly and smiling when he shifted to face you better. "genuinely, don't say yes just because i want you to, okay?" you only continued when he nodded, taking a deep breath. "so, jeonghan and i have been wanting to try something for a while, and he asked me to find someone tonight."

seokmin swallowed. "am i someone?"

you bit your lip. "yes."

his finger scratched at his cheek. "and he approves?"

your eyes flickered to where you and jeonghan had been standing, but the older was nowhere to be found. "yes."

"i-" he cleared his throat suddenly. "i just haven't- i don't know what i'm trying to say." he paused to collect himself. "i've never even considered doing anything like… that."

you giggled sweetly, and seokmin tried to not notice the way your hand ran over his chest. "i haven't done anything like this either," you assured him. "jeonghan's a little bossy, but he'll only be that way to me if you don't ask for it, i promise. and you don't have to do anything you're uncomfortable with, seriously, we can stop whenever, i just-" you bit at your lip briefly. "i just really want to make you feel good."

despite you telling him to not just say yes just for your sake, he had a hard time saying no after hearing your dark tone. any idea of saying no slipped his mind completely when you kissed him, slow and deliberate, your tongue tasting like cola and whiskey against his. he even went as far as pulling you into his lap, forgetting the context of the party surrounding him, his only thoughts about the way your thighs split over his lap and how soft your skin felt when his hands ran under your skirt.

"is this a yes?" you asked breathlessly, trying not to grind down on his pleather covered thighs.

he nodded at you with blown out eyes. "i'll try anything with you."

you grinned, finger brushing over the purposefully smeared lipstick across his cheek. "you're so cute."

he smiled at you, a hand running up your side as you leaned into him again. "not all the time," he muttered, and you couldn't help but gasp lightly when he bounced his leg under you. "want me to prove it?"

you kissed him again, unable to form any words to say yes but desperately needing to. when a hand landed on the back of your neck, you moaned into his mouth and pulled away, trying to catch your breath.

seokmin's hand pulled you into him again, and you whimpered lightly against his lips. "we need to go."

his lips barely left yours when he asked "where to?" and your fingers intertwined with his as you stood, pulling him off the couch to follow you.

you spotted jeonghan in the next room, and despite not knowing for sure if he noticed you two, you spun around playfully and pulled seokmin into you again, letting him kiss you deeply with his hands exploring your bare waist before you pulled away again to continue leading him away, the lopsided grin on his face never leaving.

the noise of the party dissipated as you pulled him up a flight of stairs and down a hall, stopping a few times to kiss against banisters in areas of jeonghan's home he had never been in.

"is this-" seokmin stopped himself as you closed the bedroom door, looking around at the grand but minimally decorated room - the main focal point being the large canopy bed against the far wall.

"jeonghan's," you said, pulling seokmin into you and resuming your feverish kisses. "it's the only bedroom i'm allowed in."

he briefly wondered what other rules the two of you had, but all but forgot about them when you were pushing his jacket off his shoulders, hands running over his chest. you tried to catch your breath as seokmin's mouth worked its way down your neck, but you couldn't stop whining.

"fuck, do you work out?" you asked breathlessly as he backed you up against the door, your hands not so subtly gripping at a bicep.

he chuckled against your neck. "i tune pianos, sometimes."

you briefly thought about him moving an upright to access the strings, and how you had to recruit the help of three friends to move the one jeonghan had bought for you. "you should come to my place, i've been meaning to get mine tuned for a while."

"you can just say you want to see me again," he said, a teasing smile on his lips as he pulled you off the door.

"you're sure about this, right?" you asked between kisses. "he'll notice we're missing and come looking. i don't want you to be surprised."

seokmin considered the concept of jeonghan walking in on his friend between your thighs, laid out on his bed, and the way his length flinched in his pants assured you that it was the best idea he had heard in a while. "i'm sure, i promise."

you bit at your lip again as you grinned, letting him overtake you with kisses as the back of your legs hit the bed.

"this little skirt, i swear to god," seokmin groaned, large hands squeezing at your ass through the fabric.

you gasped, your open mouth making seokmin groan deeper as he pulled you against his tented crotch. "jeonghan picked it out."

"i can tell," he said, staring down at the supposed team name you were meant to be cheering for. "angel, huh? does he call you that?"

"sometimes," you breathed, lips nipping at his neck. "he calls me the name on your chest more, though."

seokmin chuckled, almost completely forgetting about his own costume that he had mostly only picked because the shirt was so easy to find. he brought your lips back to his, kissing you deeply before pushing you down onto the soft mattress. "i want you to get comfortable."

you nodded excitedly, kicking off your shoes and watching him unbuckle his belt as you backed yourself up against the pillows. he kneed his way onto the bed, pants unzipped and shirt discarded, but stopped his undressing to crawl towards you, hands running over your split thighs. you groaned, hips rolling towards him just at the sight of him between your legs, and he gazed up at you sweetly.

"you're soaking through your panties."

you took a heaving breath. "you're super hot."

his lips skated over your inner thigh, and you gripped at the duvet as you tried to stifle a moan. his hands went under your thighs, squeezing at your ass before hooking under your panties, and you bit your lip to keep yourself from whining as he slowly pulled them off you, your skirt falling over your waist when you lifted your hips for him.

"oh, baby, look at you," he cooed, tongue darting out between his lips as he took in the sight. "is that all for me?"

you moaned, rolling your hips off the mattress again, staring at his shoulders as he settled. "fuck, seokmin, please-"

your pleas were interrupted by your own garbled moan as he put his tongue against your inner thigh, biting down on the soft flesh. your hand found his scalp, gripping as he sucked a sweet red rose into your thigh, kissing it gently before moving to repeat the action a little closer to your core.

"oh, god, s-seokmin-" you whined, bucking your hips against him. he gently held your wily hips down as he continued until he was satisfied with the marks, hoping they would stay a while. remind you of him when he wasn't around. his breath hit your core and you keened, desperately asking for his lips, but he only barely teased his tongue over your clit before planting his lips on your other thigh, drawing a shaky moan from you as you gripped his hair.

"fuck, please," you begged, wishing you could move your hips more freely, but his strong grip on you held you in place.

when seokmin decided he was happy with the delicate roses between your legs, he looked up to you, observing the way your chest heaved and you panted, your eyes blown to all hell. your fingers tightened in his hair when he rolled out his tongue, slowly dragging it through your folds.

you moaned, your voice sounding choppy and desperate even to you as your neck stretched out in pleasure. "g-god!"

he hummed against you, his lips kissing at your clit and tongue running over you alternately. you shook as he lapped at you, and he pulled his hands out from under your ridden up skirt in order to push your thighs back, allowing him more comfortable access as you groaned, blue stained fingers leaving his hair to grip at the duvet.

"fuck, seokmin, i'm already so close-"

he hummed again, pulling away but putting two fingers over your core instead, spreading your arousal through your folds and over your clit as he licked his lips. "is my mouth that good to you?"

you arched your back as he continued running his fingers over you. "it's so good."

he lapped at you again, making you let out a high pitched whine as he slowly slipped his fingers into your sweet, tight hole. your eyes shut and you moaned, squeezing his fingers as your arousal seeped out from around them. "your pussy is so cute," he muttered, eyes darting up to your face as you panted. he slowly began to curl his lean, long, instrument trained fingers in your core, pulling more pleas from your lips. "i bet it's cuter when you cum."

"fuck, please," you begged. "please make me cum."

seokmin groaned lightly as he sucked at your clit, rolling his hips against the mattress to relieve some of the pressure he felt from your fingers digging against his scalp, your taste on his lips, your whining moans in his ears.

you noticed the sound of the door, almost processing the meaning before your pleasure interrupted your own thought. "fuck, baby, right there!"

he groaned, digging his fingers further into you to spur your squealing as he flicked his tongue against you, and you practically thrashed against him as you came undone, your thighs pushing into his shoulders as your back arched against the mattress.

you whined dully when he pulled his mouth away from you, your fingers loosening their grip in his spray dyed hair. he never pulled his fingers out of you, not even as he crawled slowly over you, continuing to gently curl into you as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, pulling him into your chest.

"you started without me," jeonghan said finally, and seokmin smiled into your neck as you watched your sugar daddy pull off his tie, still whining lightly at the fingers in your cunt. "that wasn't what we agreed on."

"i- ah-" you gasped, thigh pressing against seokmin's arm when his thumb pushed against your clit. "i couldn't wait," you said, hooded eyes watching jeonghan approach.

"found yourself a cute toy, huh?" he quirked his eyebrow at the younger, noticing the way his shoulders rippled under your desperate fingers as he stood at the end of the bed. "are you gonna treat him nice, sweetheart?"

you nodded quickly, fingers finding seokmin's scalp again as you kissed him, loving the way you tasted on his lips. you gasped when he slowly pulled his fingers out of you, his hand running up your waist to hold you stay as he rut his clothed bulge into you, the feeling of cool pleather against your hot core making you moan against him.

"what do you want to do, sweetheart?" jeonghan prompted you, gently leaning against a bedpost as he adjusted himself in his pants

"i wanna ride," you said, breath fanning over seokmin's face as he blushed slightly. his red ears just made you move your hips again desperately. "fuck, seokmin, i need to ride you."

his movements stopped for a second, mind whirling with the idea of you bouncing on him. his thoughts were only interrupted by a voice.

"you heard her, seokmin."

he snapped into action, kissing you again as he shoved his slightly too tight pants down his hips, and you pushed him until he allowed you to roll him into his back. you tugged his pants down his legs, gulping at the bulge in his underwear.

"jesus, seokmin, you never said you were packing," jeonghan chuckled, observing the way you faltered when you noticed his length.

seokmin sucked in a labored breath when you ran your hands over his hips, teasing a thumb over his erection. "you never asked."

you tugged his underwear down over his hips, taking care to pull him gently out to avoid harm. you rolled your tongue out to draw a wet line up the underside of his heavy cock, enjoying the way it flinched up against you. 

"he likes tits," jeonghan said, shrugging off his blazer and walking to the side of the bed to toss it onto a chair. "lose the top, angel."

you smirked up at seokmin, suddenly extremely happy that the only one that interested you at this party was someone jeonghan knew. you slinked up his body to straddle his lap, the hem of your skirt teasing the head of his cock as it peeked out from under it. you kissed him first, and his hands ran up your thighs as he bucked his hips up to meet your bare core, but you hovered just out of reach. you sat up again, pulling the cheer top over your head and tossing it to the side.

seokmin groaned, hands finding your waist and running up your sides to squeeze gently at your breasts with his thumbs. "fuck, you're gorgeous."

"and you're huge," you said, finally grinding down against his length, pulling a deep groan from his chest. you backed up to stand his cock on end, pulling it against your stomach and practically choking when you saw how tall it stood, the tip far past the waistband of your skirt.

jeonghan whistled. "how are you gonna stuff all that in your tight little pussy, sweetheart?"

saliva gathered in your mouth at the thought. "like a good girl."

seokmin groaned again, hips bucking up to fuck into your hands. "stop teasing and take it, baby."

you got on your knees, positioning yourself over the head of his thick cock, and he practically bucked up into you when he felt your wetness at his tip. you gasped, sinking slowly, eyes watering slightly at the stretch and seokmin moaned, hands on your waist in support. you looked at jeonghan briefly, and he smiled, cock in hand, watching you as you sank slowly.

"stop," seokmin said, grip tightening on your waist. he panted as he held you in place, and you had an idea as to why he stopped you as you felt him pressing against your cervix. "i don't wanna hurt you."

his gentleness was a welcomed juxtaposition from jeonghan's usual intensity. you nodded, hands on his chest, then leaned forward to kiss him, gently fucking yourself on as much of his length as you could manage, readying yourself. his grip on your waist tightened, and he let out a beautiful whine when you dipped a little further onto him.

"careful," he breathed, and you sat up. your hands ran down his chest and over his stomach, then up your own body to gently coerce his fingers out of the deathgrip on your waist. he took the hint, running his hands up your torso and running his thumbs over your hardened nipples.

you groaned, your hips inching closer to his every time you bounced on his lap. it took everything in him to not take control, your pussy squeezing and pulling him further into you, the only sound in his ears your musical moans as you started to get desperate.

"fuck, you're so big," you said dumbly, unable to think of anything else. 

"you're so tight," seokmin said back. he hooked a thumb under your skirt, tugging it up to reveal how tightly your cunt hugged him. "fuck, you look so good filled up like that."

your hands found his thighs, leaning back as you rolled your hips over his. you choked out a moan, the angle nearly making you fold an instant. "d-daddy, can i cum?"

seokmin groaned and almost responded before jeonghan did. "go right ahead, angel. let him feel how good you are."

you sank down, your hips meeting seokmin's and a whining moan leaving you lips as he choked slightly. you fell forward onto his chest, giving him desperate, open mouthed kisses as you rolled your hips, your sensitive nub rubbing against his pelvis. you gasped, clutching at his hair as he pushed his hips up into yours, the coil in you snapping in you all while he muttered how good of a girl you were against your lips. his grip around you tightened as your grip around him did the same, the feeling of your tight cunt pulsating around him almost enough to get him off despite him steadying his hips as you shuddered on his chest.

"beautiful," jeonghan commented. "she looks good when you fuck her."

seokmin tried not to groan, but the involuntary movement of his hips triggered an unhidable moan from you. "never thought i'd enjoy being watched."

"i always knew you were a freak," the older said, continuing to pump himself. "you okay if i take a little control?"

seokmin finally looked over to his friend, eyes dropping to his cock as he gulped. "y-yeah."

"alright. sweetheart, time to get up. i want that skirt off."

you whined, grinding down on seokmin. he choked, and you dug your face into his neck.

"three..."

you whined again, louder this time, gripping a bicep as you took in a breath. "please, he feels so good-"

"two..."

you curled your toes in protest, and seokmin had the least control when you rolled your hips on his again, both of you letting out shaky moans. you heard your name as a warning, and you practically started crying from how badly you didn't want to remove yourself from him.

"y/n. one."

you caved finally, not wanting jeonghan to punish you in front of a guest, sitting yourself up suddenly and gasping at the feeling, seokmin's hands gripping your hips. you looked over to jeonghan, who had a smile on his face as he bit his lip gently.

"off, angel. you can have him again in a second."

you slowly pulled yourself off of seokmin's hard cock, and he had one hand keeping your skirt out of view, the other kneading reassuring circles in your thighs as you did. you both groaned when you managed to lift yourself off of him completely, and jeonghan watched your arousal drip from you onto seokmin's flushed cock.

"c'mere, sweetheart," jeonghan said, gesturing for you to come to the side of the bed where he stood.

you unzipped your skirt and let it fall to the mattress as you weakly kneed yourself over to him, thighs shaking. seokmin tucked one hand behind his head and wrapped the other around his cock, watching you intently as you came up to the eldest. he gripped your chin first, opening your mouth before him, and you rubbed your thighs together as you vocalised.

"embarrassed?" jeonghan asked, chuckling darkly when you nodded lightly. he spat in your mouth anyways. "don't let me make it to one next time."

you heard a groan behind you as you swallowed, then gasped when jeonghan's free hand found your ass, pulling you against him. he kissed you, and you had almost forgotten how his lips felt against yours, how his nimble tongue brushed against the back of your teeth in a way that made your knees wobble on the edge of the bed.

"i want him to ruin you," he muttered against your lips, grip tight on your jaw. "i want to see you fucked out on his fat cock, choking on my cum."

you nodded fervently, and felt the bed shift as seokmin sat up behind you. jeonghan smiled as he let you go, and you quickly backed up against the younger, gasping when his cock slipped between your thighs and his fingers pinched at your nipples, kneading your breasts tightly.

"fuck, she's incredible," he said, against your neck, and you couldn't help the sustained whine you let out. "i can't believe you never told me, han."

he chuckled, rolling up the sleeves of his dress shirt. "i knew she'd like you too much. but you'll always call me, right, sweetheart?"

you whined again, watching as jeonghan gently kneed onto the bed, just to brush his lips against yours.

"answer me."

you quivered, grinding down on seokmin's cock and feeling his lips on your neck, but still focusing on the face before you. "yes, daddy."

he smiled, placing a gentle kiss on your nose before backing up again. "hands and knees. give us a minute, okay, minnie?"

the younger nodded, but groaned when you dropped forward, watching the way his cock fit snugly between your thighs. "tell me when."

you stared up at jeonghan as he put a hand on his cock, another in your hair, and slowly guided himself towards your lips. you puckered your lips to meet him, then opened your mouth and rolled out your tongue, lapping at the tip of his cock, tongue gliding under it as you desperately tried to suck him into your waiting mouth.

"oh sweetheart," he said, watching you with hooded lids. "you really want this, don't you?"

you whined, pushing back against seokmin, making his breath hitch. jeonghan finally pushed his hips forward, fucking once into your wet mouth, and you moaned on his cock as it hit the back of your throat. seokmin couldn't help but buck into your thighs, slightly desperate for friction as he watched you drip all over him. he tested his voice once, then quietly asked if he could finger you.

you moaned again, and jeonghan smiled as he fucked your mouth. "sounds like she wants it."

you let out a muffled whine when seokmin slotted two fingers into your pussy, your mouth too full to properly vocalise how good it felt. when he added another finger, you almost collapsed, and likely would have if jeonghan hadn't been holding you up by your hair.

"fuck her," he commanded, holding you on his cock and watching the way you looked up at him as you realized what that meant.

seokmin pulled his fingers out of you and placed himself at your entrance in their stead, sinking into you slowly. your eyes rolled back, drool dripping from either side of jeonghan's cock as seokmin filled you out.

"fuck," he said, gripping your hips and trying to stop himself from pushing all the way in. "fuck, you're so wet."

you let out another muffled noise, pushing back onto him as he choked. jeonghan watched the tears well up in your eyes, mouth stretched around his cock.

"angel," he paused, pulling from you slightly. "are we still green?"

you nodded, rolling your tongue around him to prove it. he smiled at you, then quietly told seokmin to fuck you full.

and he did. you whined and babbled, every thrust of seokmin's hips pushing you onto jeonghan's cock until he hit your throat. you didn't know how long it continued. you heard a honey voice you were familiar with, but you couldn't tell if the teasing words were directed towards you or the man behind you. you couldn't even register fully what was happening when you felt fingers circling your clit, and you wailed as you came, thighs quaking and throat full.

"oh, fuck, i'm gonna cum," seokmin said quickly. he gasped. "fuck, can i cum?"

jeonghan grinned, one eye closing more than the other as he huffed, feeling close to his own release. "fill her up."

seokmin jerked into you three more times before he steadied his hips and let out a deep, melodic groan, buried deep in you as his cum leaked out around his thick cock. you were still moaning, unsure if you could ever stop making noises, but quickly pulled yourself together as jeonghan came down your throat.

you choked once, but swallowed around him, and he gripped his fingers against your scalp as you did. when he finally removed himself from your mouth, you panted and collapsed onto the bed, unable to catch your breath with seokmin still hilt deep in you.

"what a perfect girl," jeonghan muttered, brushing his damp hair off his forehead, gazing down at you. "smart, funny, and an angel in bed. and you-" he said, smirking at seokmin when he finally lifted his head from your spine, even if it was only for a moment. "you surprised me. if you're down, i'd like to do this again."

he tried to catch his breath, but couldn't help the way his hips involuntarily pushed into yours, fucking his cum deeper into you. he just nodded against your spine as you moaned, feeling his cum drip down your thighs.

jeonghan tsked. "you got your hair dye all over my white sheets."

[crescentsteel]

Keeping a Secret - Part 2

pairing: Tsukishima x f!manager of Sendai Frogs genre: sexual tension/crack/fluff/slow burn warnings: lots of swear words, tsukki being a a closet softie wc: 6k (lol no chill as always)

[a/n]

Sorry for the delayed update. I added almost 1k words just to solidify the characters to give depth even more to the story. Feel free to reread. (It's totally not because I started a different series altogether.)

When I say this is slow burn, I meant sloooooooowww burn. 

Let me know if you want to be part of the taglist. :)

AO3 

Part 1 || Part 3 || masterlist

What were you even thinking? Actually,  why weren’t you? Had you used at least two brain cells of yours, you wouldn’t have momentarily lost your mind and kissed Tsukishima. You could’ve justified your actions if you were drunk, but you ingested not even an ounce of alcohol that night.

History will remember yesterday as the day a a sober you and a very displeased Tsukishima who found yourselves smooching publicly in the middle of a club. You’re just glad that no other member of the team goes to the same university you both go to. Else, you'd run the risk of getting seen.

Were so touch-deprived that you couldn’t resist even Tsukishima? And what about him? Why did he get along with it? You don’t think he actually hates you. Hate is such a strong word. He just exceedingly dislikes you. So why would he make out with you? Maybe he thought of it as a way of finally standing up to you?

Ugh.

You’re thankful that you didn’t have training yesterday. You were a mess the whole day trying to make sense of what happened. Not that you’re any better today; you’re still baffled as fuck. But you’re glad you had that day off so you wouldn’t have to face him immediately. 

For the first time ever, you’re dreading going to the gym. Even if you’re tired or you lack sleep, you’ve never felt distressed as the manager of the Sendai Frogs. All this because of Tsukishima. But can you really put the blame on him when it was you who initiated it?

“Good morning, y/n,” Eiji, the captain of the team greets you.

“Morning, Eiji,” you say back. Even though he’s older than you, you dropped the salutations already, same with everybody else. 

“You okay?” he asks worriedly. 

“Oh! Yeah, absolutely! When am I ever not okay?” You toughen it up and erase the troublesome kiss in your head. You are their ever shining manager, first and foremost. Anything outside of that has no place in this gym. 

“Never. It’s almost scary actually,” he answers with jest.

“Right? ‘Cause I’m a freaking goddess.”

He gives you a noble bow. “Indeed, you are, my lady.”

You giggle softly. Your players really are the best on and off the court (except for Tsukishima). “Go do your drills instead of buttering me up, ‘captain.’” He gives you a mock salute then jogs off towards the net. 

“Y/n!”

You saunter off to your coach after you were called. “Yes, Coach?”

“Can you help tape the blockers?” You nod willingly, quickly discarding unnecessary thoughts of Tsukishima. 

“Tsukishima’s free. Go start with him.”

You almost flinch upon hearing his name.

‘Great,’ you groan internally as you get the wrap from your kit and drag your feet toward the source of your uneasiness. But what did you expect? Of course, you’d have to deal with him sooner or later.

“Morning, Tsukishima,” you greet him with forced normalcy, acting like nothing’s wrong. As you take his left hand and you’re instantly reminded of what happened the other night -- how this hand gripped your waist while his mouth moved against yours… how his skin felt against the palm of your hand as he towered over you, body against body in a dance so dangerous and so hypnotizing that you lost yourself in the moment.

You tried your best to calm down yesterday, but seeing him right now makes you want to smack yourself from your momentary insanity that led you to kiss him.

Instead, you give him the nicest, brightest smile to channel your frustrations as you start taping his fingers. You just hope and pray that he doesn’t bring it up.

“Morning,  manager .” It was an indirect jab at you. Even when he says it with a dead tone, you know he’s taunting you by addressing you as manager - a tortuous reminder that what happened last Saturday night wasn’t forgotten.

Instead of yielding to the provocation, you respond with your own. You might have messed up, but you’re not letting him get the upper hand. “How was your weekend, Tsukki?” 

“Horrible,” he quickly answers without even thinking.

“Ditto. What happened to yours?” you ask with fake curiosity, already knowing why. Even if you didn’t kiss him then, he was already acting up like an angsty teen forced by his mom to attend a children’s party within the neighborhood.

“Went to a disgusting party.”

You nod pretentiously. “Mine’s horrible too. I got g-”

“I didn’t ask,” he interrupts.

“Well, you’re still going to hear it,” you respond just as distastefully as he cut you off. “I got groped by some perv, but I kinda punched some good manners unto him.” You release his left hand and take his right one to tape it as well. 

“And?” He asks.

You shrug your shoulders. “That’s it. After that, I just went home from how  horrible  the experience was.”

You look up to him, meeting his sardonic gaze paired with a raised eyebrow from what you just said. You know that he understood that you were referring to something else other than the perv incident as horrible.

“How about you? What happened to that disgusting party of yours?” you press on.

“I bumped into someone I didn’t really want to see.”

“And?”

“Do you really wanna know how horrible it was for me?” A smirk creeps up on the corner of his mouth as he asks. There were many times before that you’ve wanted a taste of Tsukishima’s vile sarcasm, just to know what he’d say to you. Today is not one of those times. You don’t want him using that reckless kiss against you. 

“Actually, no. I don’t really care.” You let go of his hand you just finished working with and look around to look for anyone you could use as a distraction from Tsukishima’s attempt to retell the kiss from his perspective.

“Kogane!” you brightly call the setter as you bounce cheerfully towards him. 

Even if you don’t show it, Tsukishima knows he’s gotten under your previously impenetrable thick skin. He detests what happened last Saturday. The more he remembers it, the more he abhors it. The only reason he’s not totally hating himself for getting swept along with your shit is because he knows you hated it too, probably more than he does since it was you who kissed him first.

His smug grin only spreads when you march to Kogane with that cutesy act you only show to players from opposing teams to unsettle them before matches. You take both Kogane’s hands and beam at him. “Do you want me to tape your fingers?”

“Y-you don’t have to, y/n. I can do it myself!” Kogane blurts out, panicking at your sudden closeness and physical touch.

“But I love taking care of you guys,” you pout at Kogane, which only makes the setter blush a shade almost close to red.

Tsukishima follows you to help his babbling, flustered teammate.

“You’re going to kill him, y/n,” he says as he passes by you and Kogane who now looks like he stopped functioning.

You blink at Kogane, realizing what you’re doing to the poor guy.

You must have been really bothered by Tsukishima and unknowingly projected it to someone else.

Tsukishima sneers as he sees you try to ease Kogane from his severe fluster but only make it worse by rubbing his shoulders. 

A dash of pride and satisfaction swells on Tsukishima’s chest as he watches you get agitated with the situation you, yourself caused. Getting back at you feels even better than he imagined it would be. 

--

Even though you and Tsukishima are in the same class, you don’t really notice his presence. Sometimes you’d even forget you’re classmates. Now, though, you are more aware of the fact that he’s actually there than you ever have.

“Alright, class. For your main project this semester, I’m going to have you partnered up. You need to come up with a comprehensive report on mating behavior of reptiles. I’ll randomly generate your assigned reptile.”

You groan. Another collaborative work in the same subject. You don’t like working with others because you don’t want to adapt to anyone’s schedule. You like to get things done ahead of time. You hate procrastinating because you don’t want your uni requirements getting mixed up with potential tasks from your managerial job, especially whenever tournament seasons come. 

The last collaborative work you worked on is a group project where you did most of the work yourself. You wouldn’t have minded if you didn’t have fucking freeloaders as groupmates.  The little shits made you do 90% of the project because you wanted it done early.

You just pray that this time, you get to be paired with someone responsible. You tap your pen on your desk while you wait for your name to be called.

“L/n and Tsukishima.”

You drop your pen at your professor’s announcement. It bounces twice on your desk before rolling to the floor, but you don’t move to pick it up. Your gaze immediately flies to where Tsukishima is seated and find him glaring at you already. You almost want to laugh at how ridiculous this entire situation is.

Seriously? Were you a serial killer in your previous life or something? Did some higher power decide to punish you for your grave sins like this? 

Whatever. You’re not having any of this shit. 

You wait until the class is over and approach your professor. “Sir. I’d like to do this project alone.” Or at least with someone else. 

He continues to type something on his laptop, not bothering to look up at you, as he asks, “Why is that?”

“I just feel more comfortable doing things on my own, Sir. Please.” You try to give him your nice student smile but his eyes don't leave his screen.

“Then what? Have you increase my workload?”

Shit. You forgot that this particular professor of yours is known to not budge to anyone. You scramble your brain for another excuse.

“Sir. Can I do this project alone?” you suddenly hear Tsukihima’s voice behind you.

Finally, your professor closes his laptop and eyes you two unenthusiastically. “My answer is no to miss Y/n, so my answer to you, Mr. Tsukishima, is also no. I don’t know what the deal is between you two, but you’re doing this together.”

You can’t help but scowl despite being right in front of your professor. If it wasn’t for that darn kiss, you would’ve loved working with Tsukishima. Even though you don’t have the same classes, his schedule won’t be that hard to match up with because you two have the same training days. Secondly, he’s smart. You won’t have to carry the whole weight of the project. 

“You know what, I’ll reconsider.” A glimmer of hope lights up in your chest as you hear your professor’s words. “I’ll allow you two to work individually — but with an automatic ten point deduction for this project.”

“No,” you and Tsukishima respond at the same time. 

“Great! You’re already getting along swimmingly.” Your professor picks up his stuff and stands up. “Enjoy,” he waves a dismissive goodbye and leaves.

You slowly turn around to face Tsukishima and find that you share the same lour that he has. You cross your arms and lean on your professor’s desk. “Guess we’re together, Tsukishima.” 

--

You allowed yourself one week to compose yourself before you agreed to start the project with Tsukishima. You still saw him at training days, and even then, you tried to have the least amount of interaction with him so the ‘incident’ wouldn’t be brought up again. Meeting him for a project where it’s just you two is different and you needed time.

As much as you don’t want to be with him, you told yourself that it’ll be over soon. You just pushed the kiss in the back of your head and convinced yourself that it was just a stupid kiss. It didn’t mean anything. He probably just went along with it out of spite, so it’s best you think of it as a spur of the moment madness. That way, you won’t be bothered if he sordidly brings it up again. At least now, you can go back to your usual, cheeky self around him.

You’re about to text Tsukishima that you’ve arrived at the station you agreed to meet up at but you already see him there standing while he’s scrolling his phone with his usual white headphones on.

Unfortunately for you and him, the reptile assigned to you two are crocodiles. It’s the worst possible assignment you could get among the roster of reptiles assigned. You need to travel all the way to Wakabayashi for a legitimate crocodile farm to observe, compared to other reptiles which are easily accessible with nearby zoos in Miyagi. You just pray that you’ll only need this one trip to get all the data you need for your report.

You walk towards him and instantly regard how he looks. Despite being in the same university, you don’t see him around much. Even in your sole class together, you’re seated way too apart from each other to even look at each other’s direction. Not that being seated beside each other would’ve made a difference. You’re not friends. There’s no need to talk to him since everything that’s volleyball-related is relayed through line. To you, he’s just one of your players. As far as you’re concerned, the only Tsukishima you’re aware of is the one sweating his white shirt and training shorts during practice. 

To have this much involvement with him outside the gym is throwing you out of your usual loop. You continue studying him at a distance. Today he’s wearing white plaid pants, black turtleneck (probably long sleeves) with a lighter shade of black coat on top, and a brown wool scarf. He also has a gray bonnet that makes his blonde locks frame his face nicely. 

What the heck? Did he always dress like this even in class? How come you never noticed? 

He finally notices you. He puts down his phone and removes his headphones. “How long have you been there?”

“Wow, Tsukishima. You look kinda hot,” you blurt out without thinking.

His eyes expand at your statement that came out of nowhere. “Huh?!”

“Oh, sorry. That must’ve been random. But you look really good though. I kinda feel like I’m meeting a date,” you say with objective candor as you continue to stare at him. 

That catches him completely off guard. The other day you’re on the edge around him. You weren’t even paying much attention to him during training, but now you’re back to being a headache whose mouth knows no bounds as you faze him with your unfiltered thoughts. Now, it’s him who is uncomfortable again with your thorough eyes scanning him approvingly. 

“As if I’d ever date you,” he snaps back at your remark to which you scoff at.

“I didn’t say you would. Maybe you’re forgetting, I’d never go out with a member of the team.”

“Right. But kissing one is totally fine, huh?” he retaliates in an instant with a condescending look. He waits for your reaction, eager to see you distraught and bothered by it. To his dissatisfaction, you don’t behave in such a way. Instead, you sigh defeatedly.

“Yeah. Sorry about that. I got a little crazy that night,” you say casually to a degree that you sounded like it was just a petty accident. “You kissed me back, so I’m sure you were too. Right?” 

The last word is conniving, and he can tell why you phrased it that way. You’re leaving him no choice but to disregard what happened or else it’s going to seem like it meant something to him. The hell it does. It simply resurfaces back on his mind sometimes because of how unpleasant the memory is. 

‘Devious woman,’ he snarls in his head.

It should be okay. Your reason for what you did can also be his excuse for how responded to it. What he didn’t like is that he hasn’t even managed to make the most out of that incident, while you immediately found a way to undo the grave you dug for him to bury you into.

Plus, the only advantage he sees out of partnering with you for this project is the possibility of being able to pester you the way you pester him during practice. Obviously, that’s already thrown off the window. Now, there’s nothing in it for him for the duration of the project. He is left with nothing but the fact that he has to endure your company. To think that he’s already so miserable when this afternoon has barely even started.

“Yeah,” he answers with contained resentment. “Can we go on the bus now?” He asks to deviate away from the topic already. He was hoping he could still use the incident to unnerve you, but it’s for naught now. 

He enters the bus first and assumes you’ll follow him, which you do as you take your seat beside him. You get your shoulder bag and take out a notebook.

“Can you take a look at this outline I made for our report?” you ask while you hand him your notebook opened at a certain page.

“I can’t read while the bus is moving,” he says then waits for a lame comeback from you. But you don’t comment about it. Why must you keep on being such a wildcard?

“Ah, okay. I’ll just tell it to you then,” you smile at him. “This trip is going to take long. It’d be a waste of time to not make use of it, right?”

He groans internally. Why must you be right all the fucking time?

He also made an outline last night, but he didn’t tell you because he thought it’d be better if he just did the data-gathering himself and let you take the pictures the report should have. He forgot that you’re not as irresponsible and carefree as you present yourself to be.

He listens to you explain your outline, looking for flaws in it for the sake of his grade and also for his self-satisfaction. And he does find a few.

“You should have separate discussion points for mating characteristics for male and females. I’m sure they have distinct traits. Also, I think we should include more than just one species, preferably three if the farm has it.” He continues, “Maybe we can note certain unique behaviors per species. It would be inconclusive, but it would still be nice to include it as a commentary.”

He hopes to extract even just a tiny hint of embarrassment from you for he’s thought of it better than you did. But you just stare at him for a good few seconds before you break into a dazzled smile.

“Oh my God. Yeah, you’re absolutely right!”

You open your notebook and scribble the changes in your drafted outline. “Is there anything else?” You consult him genuinely. You accept his criticisms with an open mind, which vexes him even more. 

“Nothing,” he grumbles.

“Alright. Let’s just revise it again once we see what’s on the farm.”

He doesn’t bother replying anymore since you’re once again right.

He puts on his headphones again to drown out whatever chatter you plan to have with him since you’re done discussing the project for now. Instead of bugging him, you take out a bunch of readings and focus on them intently, completely ignoring him. 

With nothing to entertain him aside from the music on his ears, his peripheral keeps going back to you and how hard you’re concentrating with the papers in your one hand and a pen in the other. 

He removes one muff of his headphone from his ear and asks you, “Don’t you get motion sickness?”

You really must be into what you’re studying because you flinch when he speaks, causing you to drop your pen. 

He feels responsible for it so he leans down to pick it up, but you also do the same. As you both reach down to grab your pen, your temple collides with his. 

“Ow,” your fingers go to massage the spot, failing to notice as he does that your faces are too close for comfort. He watches you wince for a quick while before looking at him, finally realizing that he’s within a proximity familiar to you both. 

It’s reminiscent of that night except this time, the natural light affirms that it wasn’t just the ambiance of the club that made you attractive enough to pull him in and share that heinous kiss. With your well-lit features, he can see that you’re thinking about the same thing he is.

Your eyes fall on his lips and for some illogical reason, he does the same.

Like last time, you’re the first to act on it. The major difference is, instead of leaning in, you retreat. You sit up straight with your fingers still on the side of your head and smile graciously at him. “It’s fine, Tsukishima. I’ll get it,” you say, which he finds half-witted because he’s still bent down and he can already grasp the pen.

He sits back up and hands you your pen. You use the hand on your temple to get it.

“Oh, thanks.” You stare at the pen for a second, then tuck it in your pocket. “Anyways, yeah. I don’t have problems reading in a moving vehicle.”

You dive back to his question and disregard what just happened. It works for him. He’d rather not think about it as well. 

“Have you not seen me scrambling paperwork on our bus rides to and from tournaments?”

“No.” He prefers not to pay attention to you. Hell, he pretends you don’t exist when he can. So naturally, he doesn’t know what it is you do when you’re not being your pestering self. It pains him to admit it, but you do get shit done -- efficiently, too. He should be glad because at least, you won’t be like his previous groupmates.

Still, just you being … you, ticks him off.

You laugh out of nowhere. “For someone who doesn’t speak much, you’re so fucking transparent.”

He frowns, not being able to grasp what you meant.

“Okay, look. I like pissing you off. I really do. And you, you don’t like me a lot. But for this project. Can we pretend that I’m not your annoying manager and you’re not the nasty Tsukishima I know?” 

“How the fuck can I do that when we see each other almost everyday as such?”

You roll your eyes and smirk. “Right. What was I even thinking? Go ahead and be emo with your music over there while I study here, yeah?” You pat him on the shoulders twice with that patronizing grin you always give him before pulling your pen back from your pocket and focusing once more on your readings, completely paying no attention to him for the rest of the trip.

—

As soon as you reach the crocodile farm, Tsukishima suggests that you two roam the area separately to cover more ground. In reality, he just wanted to get rid of you even for just a few minutes. He needed a break from you.

He does so by taking his time strolling around the place, observing how the area is situated. It looks like a park with its vast lush green environment and man-made waters to habituate the crocodiles. There are four main areas: the museum, the hatchling house, the zoo, and the breeding pens. He first goes to the museum, looking at the skeletal structure of some crocodiles. It isn’t really significant to the project but he can’t help admire it.

When he realizes that he’s taking longer than he initially thought, he starts looking for you. He sends you a text, but you don’t reply. You had gone to the zoo’s direction so he assumes you’re somewhere around that area. 

When he does find you, you’re not alone.

There you are near a crocodile pen, getting friendly with a guy he’s sure you just met.

It’s so familiar. The only difference is that you’re not wearing the Frogs’ jacket and you’re not in the Sendai gymnasium. He walks towards your direction, not caring if he’s going to cut off your little chat. You’re there for the project, not to snag some random bozo.

As he closes in behind you, he hears your conversation.

“Actually, birds are more closely related to dinosaurs than crocodiles. You couldn’t tell, right?” you explain with zeal. 

Tsukishima stops in his tracks at the foreign feeling in his chest. Wait a minute. Is he actually impressed? Moreover, what the heck is he impressed for? You should know that. You are both in a higher herpetology class. Even though it hasn’t been discussed during lectures, it’s natural that you know that. However, the guy you’re talking with isn't as enthusiastic. 

“Can’t blame you though. Crocs and dinos share the same sexy vibe with those chill eyes and scaly skin. Also, look at those smokin webbed feet. Fucking work of art, dude. You feel me?” you press on fanatically.

The stranger looks at you with a forced smile, obviously weirded out by your ‘passionate’ description of the reptile. “Yeah, sure. I have to go now. Bye,” the guy bows and storms away from you. 

You turn your attention back to the lowered pen in front of you with a satisfied smile and shudder when you see Tsukishima already there beside you. 

“Gah! You scared me. Why didn’t you say anything?” you ask with your hand still on your chest.

“I didn’t want to interrupt you creeping out that stranger.”

You tither at his answer. “Glad you didn���t. It was fun seeing him all freaked out.” 

He finds it weird. He thought you just had an aversion towards athletes. That’s why you keep driving away anyone who’d approach you during matches. Apparently, that’s not the case.

“He looked like he’d follow you back to Miyagi if you didn’t go all freaky nerdy on him.” 

You jeer at his comment. “He could follow me to the ends of the Earth and I still wouldn’t give him my number. I’d rather date Mr. Crocodylus siamensis over here than boring dum dums blinded by how hot I am.” 

“Then why do you entertain them?” he follows up.

“Caaaauuusse it’s fun to see them squirm,” you declare cheerfully as you veer your gaze at him. “Why the sudden interest with the way I handle men, Tsukishima?”

You raise an eyebrow, the corner of your lips tugging up to form a playful smirk. “Don’t tell me you suddenly find me interesting?”

You really do know how to push the right buttons to provoke him. He grits his teeth from your audacity.

“I’m joking for fuck’s sake! My god. I already know that even if it’s just the two of us on this planet, and we’d have to procreate to restart the world population, you’d rather choose to doom humanity than have anything to do with me.”

Among all the correct things that came out of your mouth, that was the only thing he could verbally agree with. “Good you know,” he retorts. 

You don’t seem to take offense though. You still keep your unwavering smile as you get your phone out and take a picture of the Borneo crocodile. 

“Should we go see the breeding pens now?” you ask nonchalantly, dismissing the previous conversation like it was nothing. 

--

You both decide to hire a designated tour guide to assist you while you observe the crocodiles, particularly the ones for breeding. 

“Hi, Ms. l/n. I’m Sara and I will be your guide for today,” she introduced herself with a dedicated smile.

“I’m so thrilled that you and your boyfriend decided to learn more about crocodiles for your date,” she adds. 

You and Tsukishima glance at each other before turning back to her. 

“She’s not my girlfriend.” “He’s not my boyfriend.”

You both say simultaneously, except yours sounded like a friendly correction while his sounded like a dead announcement. 

“We’re just classmates for a project,” you correct her.

She bows apologetically with embarrassment and worry. “I’m so sorry for assuming that.”

“No worries, Sara,” you reassure her before Tsukishima says something unnecessary. “Can you lead us on the breeding pens? We’d like to observe the whole thing.” 

“Of course. Right this way.”

Aside from the mishap earlier, you find Sara competent at her job as she fills you in with details not included in the sign boards in the pens. She gives you information about the mating process that you didn’t find when you researched about the subject. You assume Tsukishima’s thinking the same because he doesn’t say anything out of the blue.

“By any chance, will we see a pair mating today?” he asks after a while.

“I’m not really sure, Mr. Tsukishima. It’s really up to the animals.”

You tug on Tsukishima’s sleeve when you catch sight of one crocodile latching himself on top of another.

“What?” he asks irritatedly, but follows your line of sight. 

“Oh, lucky. There you go.” Sara announces with a pleasant smile.

You get your phone and your notes. You multitask listening to Sara, taking photos, and scribbling notes on your paper pad. 

On the other hand, Tsukishima multitasks observing the crocodiles in action and observing you. 

You’re asking important questions to the guide while juggling other tasks. Yes, he doesn’t like you and loathes being partnered with you. However, that doesn't mean he won’t cooperate with you. He won’t mind if you ask him for help, but you seem to have even forgotten that he’s there. 

He grabs your phone from your hand, garnering a confused look from you.

“I’ll take the photos. You take down notes.”

You flash him an honest, grateful smile. “Thanks, Tsukishima.”

Then, you proceed with the things you’re doing more at ease. 

He can’t tell who he’s more pissed at, you or himself. Something about that display of productivity and wit unnerves him. It’s as if it’s telling him that his chagrin over you is unreasonable because you’re actually reliable when it counts. What’s worse is you’re completely oblivious to it. In fact, you’re almost ignoring him.

Goddamn it. What’s he doing? He’s completely distracted now from the project and is solely focused on you. He quickly shakes it off and calms himself down. His attention should be on the reptiles, not you.

He turns his attention back to the crocodiles, but the mating act only lasted a few minutes. After that, you both barrage Sara with an array of questions that she looked too overwhelmed by the end of your tour. 

You’ve covered almost everything for the day and it’s already around 6 in the evening when you get on a bus on the way back to Miyagi.

“That was fun!” you comment ardently with an abnormal shine on your face when you sit down on the bus on the way back. He wears his headphones on before you start a conversation he’s not willing to have. From his peripheral, he sees you turning to him and as he predicted, your mouth begins moving while you animatedly narrate words he could not hear. 

He’s already acting as if he can’t hear nor see you, but you still don’t stop. Knowing you, you will not stop until you make sure he notices you. He wearily removes his headphones only to see you not saying anything and only mouthing words with hand gestures. 

“Seriously?” He scowls at you. He’s already exhausted at having to deal with you even for just half a day, but you still have the energy to mess with him. 

You cover your mouth with your hand as you snicker but it erupts into a hoot of laughter shortly. You gasp ridiculously after you ride out your stupid amusement from poking at his patience. “Tsukki, I swear to God. You make the best faces,” you say while wiping away your joyous tears.

“Were you even going to say something worth listening to?” he questions sourly.

You study him then shake your head. “I think you’re tired, so let’s just discuss what we gathered next time. You can go ignore me now,” you tell him with an understanding smile despite the slight banter.

You tilt your body in his direction and hoist yourself up a bit to put his headphones back yourself like it’s no big deal.

You settle back into your seat while he stills on his seat, stunned with what you just did while you get your readings again and shrink to your own bubble. You don’t seem to make anything of it, so he doesn’t as well. It was very you to mindlessly get on anyone’s —  particularly his — personal space anyways.

He increases the volume of his headphones and tries to relax. Yet, his attention keeps swerving back at you every now and then. You’re really concentrating hard with your brows burrowed while you stare at your hand-outs. After a while, he notices you bobbing your head from the corners of his eyes.

He can tell you’re as tired as he is and trying hard to fight the sleep that’s taking over you. The bunch of papers you previously held are now clutched on your lap.

On the last bob of your head, you snap out of it. You blink repeatedly and return your eyes to your readings again. To no avail, you’re shutting down with your eyes fluttering when you try again. You look like you decided to give it a rest and put your papers back in your bag. You cross your arms and lean back to your seat. 

He feels relieved that you finally yield to your physical exhaustion. He doesn’t need an additional bullet point to his list of why he can’t fully hate you. Also, you won’t run your mouth at him if you’re asleep.

He feels the soft thump of your head on his shoulder. You probably did too as you suddenly bolt up and tell him ‘sorry' which he only understands based on how you mouthed the word. You lean back again and try to settle back to sleep. But when you start dozing off, you sway to the other side of your seat which is the aisle of the bus.

He grabs your shoulder to prevent you from tumbling down to the aisle. Your disoriented self looks around, alarmed at his sudden touch.

“Just fucking lean on me,” he spits out, irked that he has to say it out loud. It’s not like he pushed you away. You could’ve just stayed as you were and he would’ve turned a blind eye at it out of recognition of the effort you put in today. He’d just consider it one of those times that you do something annoying and he just ignores you as a response.

You regard him with dazed eyes. You open your mouth as if you’re about to say something but decide against it as you shut your eyes again and you let your head rest on his shoulder. But even then, your head still falls forward from time to time. He puts a hand on your forehead to settle you back on his shoulder and slides a bit downward on his seat to accommodate you. 

Jesus Christ, you can study in a moving vehicle but can’t even do a simple thing like sleep properly on it. Why does he even have to adjust for you?

He heaves furiously in contrast to your steady breathing, letting him know that you’re easing deeper to your sleep. 

He distracts himself by looking at the window, witnessing the unmoving dark sky and the changing scenery below. He lets out a sigh.

Maybe he should’ve just accepted the ten point deduction.

Part 1 || Part 3 || masterlist

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[savrenim]

Wowww your Ao3 is high key fire 🙌 . Do you have any current fic plans, and what fandoms inspire your creativity?

Also- double WOWWW for your Seer Aaron Burr fic I went in knowing any character other than Hamilton and am now obsessed with James Madison of all people. why didn’t I pay attention in us history :0 If ya don’t mind me asking, how much effort went into writing these historical type fics?

Aaaah I'm very glad you enjoy my writing!

To answer the second question first, (a) yeah me too buddy me too, he wasn't meant to be a big character in the fic at all, and then round 2 happened and I had to go through and change my outline for everything because oops James Madison was now another main character, and (b) so. much. effort. I too paid enough attention in high school to get a 5 in APUSH and then promptly decided I was done with history, thank you very much, because I was going to be (am going to be still) a mathematician and physicist. So I had to research every. little. thing. from. scratch. through a variety of hodgepodge sources, be they books, original documents, wikipedia rabbit holes, I tried so hard to get everything that I wanted as a historical trivia detail right, which also just kind of.... creates this really weird setting that is part musical fanfiction and is meant to capture the vibes portrayed in the musical, and part is attempting to take every single other background detail from real history. I'm pretty sure that I managed to stick to "literally every character who appears by name was a real person", or if I do break that, I only break it once. But it also kind of meant that sometimes I learned facts after I'd written things without them included and had to stare at my prior work and go "well fuck, um, guess we're really in alternate history" (the biggest example being I got Burr's grandparents' deaths wrong time-wise because I just assumed re the lyrics of Wait For It that he'd be old enough to know them.) I tried to put a works cited document together once and I think it was at least 12 pages and only covered the first quarter of the fic before I gave up and stopped? so yeah, I'd say at least as much if not more research went into that fic than writing it just because I was starting from scratch, and that is one of the reasons that it somewhat ended up on hiatus-- the sheer amount of time it took to research before being able to write anything was just too much for me to handle with grad school life.

funnily enough, those research instincts have followed me everywhere else I've been trying to write. for my Magnus Archives fic, I put the exact same historical detail obsession into one thing in particular: making sure that none of my language was anachronistic, AKA, that any meme that I wanted to use existed in the actual timeline of when the show was set. you have no idea how much it hurt when I very specifically wanted a character to say "your vibes are rancid" but it was 2016. finally it got to the point where I couldn't give the line up so I gave [redacted] time traveling powers just so that it would not be anachronistic for someone to reference a meme from the future. I'm pretty sure if I hadn't written ifmlam I would have used "your vibes are rancid" as a line and wouldn't have cared or even realized that technically I shouldn't have but nooooo, I had to go write two novels' length worth of historical fanfic and suddenly now care about all of my fic set in the real world being ~historically accurate~

as for fic I'm writing, my current plans are to try to finish at least some of my unfinished fic and possibly publish a single one-shot for Hadestown that is. two full years late at this point and then maybe everyone's least favorite answer from someone who primarily writes fanfic, which is that I'm taking the time to concentrate on my original writing. on the other hand, I'm planning on self-publishing online for free same as I would on ao3 as this remains a side project hobby and not ~me trying to break into the publishing business~, I am now just effectively writing fanfic for fandoms that exist only in my head. a non-comprehensive list but of the biggest and most likely to be done soonest ones include:

Opus: aka trash novel (affectionate). I've been working on this book/series for... five years now? the first book, Saes Iminrin, is in the editing stage and probably going to be released in 2022? this series is my magnum opus. it's got everything. seers. political intrigue. everyone is a gay mess. did I mention seers? enemies to ride or die best friends slow burn. fun high fantasy magic. space opera style tech. (if it sticks to my outline in, like, ten books it'll actually properly become a space opera but let's not get ahead of ourselves.) seers engaging in spy-on-spy except seer-on-seer drama and also punching things. it's, like, ten ideas that all might be one actual good book on their own all brawling it out for supremacy which makes both a terrible book and a very, very fun book. I love this book so much. it is not good literature, it was written with the intention that at any given point the most amusing or satisfying thing or thing that would make me the happiest that could happen would happen. it will probably be the first of my original writing that I release into the world and I guess we'll see where it goes from there.

The Numanok Files: a series of stand alone ~20k novellas that I can release whenever I'm done with one that is about a bounty hunter who takes paranormal cases, except ghosts are real and you can fight them with electromagnetic brass knuckles, except most people don't believe that ghosts are real, except also, like, half the time you call in a ghost job and it's your space carbon monoxide detector being bad or solar flares or an alien fungus. so just a bunch of connected short stories about a ghost hunting bounty hunter who half the time deals with ghosts and half the time is acting as a home inspector for whatever space station or lunar colony she's been called to exorcise.

Strangeside7: also entitled 'spacerace'. I got tired of so many fiction works having end-of-the-world/galaxy/universe stakes and went "what if I wrote a book where there were no stakes. there's just this cool race in space that our secondary main character, Sasha, who is 13 and fears nothing, has decided to enter and win. not because she's ~desperate for money~ or ~desperate for fame~ or literally anything, her life is fine, she's just a 13-year-old being a chaos gremlin who wants to race because she (correctly) thinks that she's a great pilot and can and no one can stop her because that's what 13-year-olds are like. the main character, June, takes one look at this 13-year-old entering an Incredibly Dangerous Spacerace and goes "is no responsible adult going to??? stop this????" and realizes oh gods he's the responsible adult who now has to enter this race to try to make sure that the 13-year-old is fine. that's all. no other stakes." it has some of the coolest setting details that I've come up with (weird fae space wilds for one, but I also really like the outer reaches vs core worlds culture, and some of the takes on future tech).

Memoirs: you know The Enchanted Forest Chronicles? This is a series of four short stories of exactly that tone, except surrounding the Dread Necromancer Mordechai Malus who quasi-accidentally took over a kingdom when he politely asked the queen of the kingdom if she would like to marry him and they could be gay beards for each other to circumvent the prophecy that he would take over the kingdom and hence all of her other suiters being super warmongering and wanting to attack his tower when he really just wanted to be left alone to do mad necromancy science, except oops, that means he needs to run a kingdom now. and is solving all of his fantasy kingdom problems with weird necromancy solutions while his personal assistant (a holy paladin on a mission to Murder Him who was supposed to be undercover to get close to him what do you mean she's his actual PA now) just sighs long-sufferingly the whole time.

there are a couple more: Strangeside7 will almost certainly get a companion novel Operation Swansong; there is in my heart Invading Hell For The Pomegranates which is a weird heist crew incredibly self-indulgent bc starring basically one of my DnD characters book; then maybe a weird collection of short stories in second person that I haven't even named yet. there are some collab projects like a horror recipe blog also maybe in the works. But I want to get Opus out there, and then maybe something short and easy like Memoirs, and if it works out for me and people are willing to read my original fiction I will proceed with all of the ideas and half-drafts listed above and more, and if No One Reads It I will.... either not care and keep writing for myself, return to fandom writing, or end up with a new hobby, who knows.

what usually draws me to fandom and to want to write in a fandom is either I love a specific character, a specific character dynamic, or just the world overall/specific setting details/the vibes I guess? except at this point what I've started to do when I am in love with a thing that before I would have written fanfic for is that I isolate the specific vibe I love, transplant it into characters that are very different or settings that are very different, and then things will start to develop in their own way so removed from the fandom it would have been for that ideally someone won't even be able to ping that as inspiration but also I get my kick writing the emotion that I want to write. I've noticed when I write in fandom it tends to be either "I'm re-writing canon, but with this one particular twist that frames everything slightly differently" or "CHARACTERS HAVE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT THE CANON IS GOING TO BE AND ARE UNLEASHED TO CHANGE THE FUTURE, GO" which both require me to like the characters, their dynamic, the plot, and the world, because usually I'm writing for a fandom because I'm hyperfixated on it and that's one of the easiest ways to immerse myself fully. but, like, on my list above, there are flat-out at least three things that started out as me wanting to write fanfic in my head and if no one is ever able to clock them I will have succeeded as a writer. subscribe to my patreon I guess if you ever want to know the deep secret confessions of what is what.

[guardianofthepeanutwrites]

Skirts and dresses Part 4

Part1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 5

Tag list: @purplefreakwolffish  @mayucerise​

This chapter is for @sarcastich​​ and @starkeraddictbaby​

Thanks to Gypsywoman13 for beta-reading!

CW: genderfluid Loki, Kinda asshole Thor

PeterParkerBingo2021: square Pet Names (card below)

Thor & Loki

Because Peter had been fairly young when he moved inside the compound, they had put his room next to Tony’s quarters since he was the one in charge of their youngest member. Then one day a door appeared in the middle of his room, connecting it to the Stark’s private quarters. They had a long discussion about boundaries: “Ask before putting doors in my bedroom” and “don’t threaten people because they hurt me” etc. Tony had argued it was easier (it was, but that was not the question) because they spend more and more time together. Which was true. 

Tony and Pepper had started to teach Peter some things about business practice. They took him to smaller meetings and introduced him as Tony’s intern; it suited Peter very much. That, plus his patrols, as well as other Avenger business, like training, and his new business classes...Peter was now even busier than he already was.

Except on Sundays. Sundays were days Peter could rest, sleep, visit his aunt May, hang with Ned and MJ, and watch movies with Bucky the other Avengers.

Every Sunday morning, before leaving their quarters, Peter and Tony would eat the most decadent brunch that Peter would let Tony buy him. From all the changes that happened in his life since he got adopted by Tony Stark, Sunday brunches were certainly Peter’s favorites. He loved those calm moments with the man that he admired so much. He also loved that he could put on whatever clothes he wanted because FRIDAY would only let people in the know enter.

That Sunday, they were finishing their meal when Steve entered. He briefly stopped at the soft pink hoodie, gray and pink plaid skirt, and long white socks Peter was wearing before dismissing it and greeting the two men.

“So, Steve, what can we do for you?” Tony asked, forgoing the pleasantries. Peter knew Tony hated being interrupted during Sunday brunches, and saw that Steve started to move from one leg to the other, a bit nervous. Peter frowned.

“Oh, I-I mean, I wanted to apologize for-” Peter tried to interrupt Steve, he had told him many times that Steve was forgiven, but the man was stubborn and didn’t let him talk. “I know, you already told me, but I- I made this for you.” Steve gave Peter a piece of paper. 

On the paper was a beautiful drawing of Peter in the purple dress that he had been wearing when Steve had discovered his secret. Peter was startled out of his stunned silence when his dad gently took the paper from his hands.

Tony simply whistled when he saw the drawing. “Aunt Peggy had told me you could draw, Rogers, but this is something else.” Steve looked at Tony, in shock.

“Au-Aunt Peggy? But you-you weren’t-” 

Tony snorted, irked. “I went to her grave later, Rogers, because there was an emergency, and if there was something Aunt Peggy could understand, it was emergencies. She was Howard’s friend, and my godmother.” Peter, who had been told the story, silently stroked his dad’s back in support as he continued. “We also fought a lot when you came back.” Steve opened his mouth to speak, but Tony didn’t let him. “Not that it’s any of your business, Capsicle, but who do you think covered the truth about Howard’s death? Who do you think had enough power for that? Peggy Carter. She let me think my father killed my mom because he was a fucking alcoholic.”

Steve looked as if he had swallowed a lemon, grimacing. “I didn’t know. I am sorry, Tony.”

Tony lifted his hand. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” He lifted the paper with Steve’s drawing on it, looking at it pensively. “You’re very talented. We should make you an art studio. There is an empty room with great lighting.” Tony turned to Peter to watch him. “What d’you think kid? Wanna design it?” 

Peter felt excited to be offered this opportunity; he nodded with way too much enthusiasm. It made Tony smile, proud.

“You’re gonna make some blueprints, and we will see with the Captain what he needs and likes. No, Cap, don’t argue, it will be good training for the kid. Now, Steve, if you don’t mind, I was having brunch with my kid.”

Peter only had 30 seconds to thank Steve for the drawing and promise him he would make the best art studio there was before Steve left. After Brunch, Peter framed the drawing and put it on his shelf with the piece of his first skirt and the picture of his dad in a dress.

--

Later that day, while Peter and Tony were looking at a movie, before heading out for a diner with Aunt May, someone crashed into their quarters through the window.

Tony was ready to fight in seconds; his watch changed into a piece of armor around his right fist, while his left arm pushed Peter behind him, only to find that it was Thor, son of Odin, that had crashed on the ground. Peter couldn’t help but find it kind of cute that his dad would try to protect Peter with his body when Peter could take the most damage.

“For fuck’s sake, Point Break, what the ever-loving fuck?” Tony let the gauntlet recede back into his watch and put his hand on his heart. “I have a heart condition, you know? And we have doors. FRI, baby, tell everyone in the compound there is no immediate emergency. Put the compound in code orange until further notice,” Tony turned to look at Peter, seeing the pink skirt, the hoodie, and the panicked glances his kid was giving, then added, “Tell them there is no need to come and lock the quarters immediately.” 

Peter relaxed some and started to play with the hem of his skirt. 

“I apologize, Man of Iron. It seems like I missed the door.” Thor stood up from where he had crashed, and he opened his arms to hug Tony. “It has been too long my friend. How are you doing?” Tony frowned, but he let the god hug him. 

After they separated, Tony started to give instructions to FRIDAY for the reparations while Thor turned to look at Peter. There were a few seconds where Thor paused to take in how Peter was dressed before he widened his eyes.

Before Peter could react, Thor bowed deeply before speaking. “Good day, Lady Peter.” 

Peter winced. Why would he be a lady? Just because he was wearing a skirt?

“I-I, no, Thor. I-I am a man.” Peter hated how his voice shivered. 

Thor righted himself, beaming at Peter as if nothing had just happened. “Good, how are you doing Man of Spiders?” 

Peter looked at the god, completely lost by what had just happened. “I-I am fine? Thank you, mister Thor,” Peter said with a small voice. 

The god nodded happily. “I am happy to hear that.” Thor promptly turned to Tony. “Man of Iron, I am in great need of a favor.” 

Tony scowled looking at the damage. “Is it more important than repairing the hole in my wall?” 

Thor’s face became serious in a blink, making Peter shiver. “I am afraid it is really important, my friend,” Thor said in a deep voice. 

--

The meeting had been going on for hours, and Peter was exhausted. 

Thor wanted their help to get some information out of his brother Loki. The Asgardians had a reason to think that Loki hadn’t been the one behind the invasion and could even have been a victim of the scepter like Barton and the others, but Loki wouldn’t talk. Thor hoped that maybe someone on Earth could help them because they had tried everything.

The news was welcomed by an uproar, led by Hawkeye and Fury, and had calmed down after Thor had explained that if his fears were correct, there was something worse coming to Earth. He also promised that they wouldn’t need to bring Loki for them to interrogate him and that there was a magic mirror they could use to talk to him.

It was decided the mirror would be locked in Tony’s lab, the most secure room at the compound.

However, they all forgot Peter had unlimited access to the room.

--

The first time Peter saw Loki, Peter was walking along the glass walls of the main lab. He could see Natasha and Maria Hill looking frustrated at a mirror. In the mirror, there was a gorgeous woman with long, raven black hair; she had piercing green eyes, green lipstick, and she was wearing a stunning, black leather dress. 

If Peter hadn’t been gay, and stupidly in love attracted to Bucky, he knew that he could have fallen for this beautiful lady.

Then his brain started to work again and realization clicked: The woman was Loki. Loki was wearing (and rocking) a dress. He looked like a woman, but how? When she/he/the God of Mischief saw Peter, they winked. Peter startled and simply walked faster to the B-Lab where Bruce was waiting for him.

--

Peter couldn’t get Loki out of his mind. The God didn’t look uncomfortable wearing a dress or looking like a woman in front of his enemies. 

After some days, Peter decided to go to the main source of information about Loki: Thor.

“Oh, yes, Loki sometimes, uhm, switches? Mother always said to respect the gender he looks like, but you know that Loki is my brother, so it was difficult at first.” Thor massaged his neck, uneasy. “But then, Loki started to play vicious pranks on the people who would call him a man when he was dressed like a woman. So, I learned to, uh, call Loki a lady when he wears a dress.”

And then Peter understood. “That's why you called me a lady the other day!” 

Thor nodded. “But luckily you don’t ask me to call you a woman.” 

Peter frowned. “Why do you say luckily? I mean, I don’t think there is anything wrong with asking someone to call you a woman if… you feel like a woman?” Thor, confused, looked at Peter and was about to reply, but Tony (since when had he been in the room?) answered first, making Peter and Thor startle.

“No, there is nothing wrong, Peter. Loki is genderfluid, which means that they don’t identify themself as having a fixed gender.” Tony, who was at the door, walked into the room and up to Peter. “We asked Loki and he said you could use the pronouns depending on what he looks like. It’s easier because Loki is a shifter, and can change depending on his moods. But if you ever meet another genderfluid person, you can just ask them what gender they identify with at that moment.” 

Peter nodded. It made sense. 

Thor looked a bit crushed when he started to speak again. “So, it’s not only Loki?” Tony simply shook his head. “Oh. I think I need to talk to my br-Loki.” With those words, the god left the room.

--

Peter did some research about genders - Tony helped - and he concluded that he was a man that liked to cross-dress and that there was nothing wrong with that. Peter had felt very loved that his dad, who was always so busy, had taken the time to explain all of those terms to Peter until they found the ones that felt right.

But Peter was a curious person, and it was what led him to be bitten by a radioactive spider in the first place... Peter wanted to talk to Loki. He wanted to talk about the dress, and about being genderfluid. He knew that the god was not a good being, but Loki was already in prison. What could go wrong?

--

“The mighty Avengers are sending me a child, now? Interesting.” Loki’s bitter words made Peter flinch. Peter silently closed the door behind him, before he entered the lab.

“No. I- I mean, I am an Avenger, but they didn’t send me.” Peter nervously played with the plaid shirt he was wearing that day.

“Then why are you here?” 

Peter lifted his head and looked directly at Loki for the first time. He noted that Loki was in a male form. 

“I learned that you are genderfluid. I- I just wanted to talk.” 

Loki’s face softened a little bit. “Oh, yes. People of Midgard have been strangely open-minded about it.” His face then hardened again. “What do you want? Do you want to see the shift? Do you want me to become a female?” 

Peter winced. 

“What? No! Only if it’s what you want. But, no, who would want you to do that? You’re not some kind of animal.” Peter was horrified, just thinking about it. Loki huffed but said nothing, watching Peter with piercing eyes. Peter took a deep breath and gathered his courage. “I-I like to wear dresses. It is called cross-dressing here.” 

Loki looked at Peter like he was analyzing Peter’s very soul. “Why are you telling me this, human?” he seemed perplexed.

“I saw you in that dress the last time, and you were gorgeous. I mean, that dress, it looked like it had been made just for you.” Peter couldn’t contain the excitement in his voice. Loki raised an eyebrow, but Peter could see that he was fighting a smile.

“That would be because it was crafted for me. I am a prince of Asgard, little one.” The reply was unexpected, and Peter felt his eyes open with shock that was rapidly replaced by glee.

“Oh yes, my da- Mr. Stark let a tailor come to the tower, and he wanted to tailor some things, but I wasn't ready yet. Mr. Stark said that the man could come back later. ” 

Loki didn’t fight his smile this time.

“And why weren’t you ready, yet, dear?”

--

Peter and Loki talked a big part of the night until Peter started to yawn too much, then Loki sent him to his room. As days went on, after his patrol and doing some homework, Peter visited every night to talk about stuff with Loki.

--

“By the Norns! Dear Spider, why would you not simply tell the man that you want him?” Loki asked, sitting against the wall of his prison.

“What? No! He doesn’t feel that way about me,” Peter answered stubbornly while painting his nails with a green nail polish that had been approved by Loki.

“You won’t know until you try, dear.” Peter shrugged and changed the subject.

--

Of course, after a visit one night, they were discovered. While Tony and Natasha (and Bucky) hadn’t been really happy about it, there was nothing they could do or say to change Peter’s mind.

--

“You what?” Peter asked, dumbfounded.

“I stabbed the mongrel,” Loki answered, way too smugly if you asked Peter.

“Because he slapped your ass? Isn’t that a bit extreme?”

“Oh my sweet, sweet, little Spider. If you let men get away with unwanted touching, they will think it is alright to do it again and again. No one should dare touch a lady like that without consequences.” Loki played with the knife that had been in his hand since they started to talk that day.

“Yes, but still, Thor is your brother.” Peter never had had a sibling, but if he had, he wouldn’t have stabbed them, for sure.

“After that, neither Thor, nor any of the savages he called ‘friends’, ever touched me without my consent.” The smile Loki sent his way made Peter shiver.

“Yeah, ok, fair.” The god did heal fast, so Peter guessed that it was okay-ish.

--

Peter had been surprised when a raven had given Peter two identical letters one morning after breakfast. He was even more surprised when the letters ended up being Loki’s complete confession. One had been addressed to ‘The Mighty Avengers’ and the other to ‘Sweet Spider’. 

Loki explained how he had fallen into Thanos’ lap after the destruction of the rainbow bridge; he mentioned the torture, the scepter, and how the beating that the Hulk gave him had helped him evade his conditioning. He also laid out Thanos' strengths and weaknesses, including how and when to beat him.

At the end, Loki wrote that he would never have written his confession if it weren’t for Peter. 

Peter then took the last page, where Loki had drawn them both and had it framed to be placed on his beloved shelf.

[legionofpotatoes]

I love your art, it is very detailed in a neat way. Was wondering how you got started making it as a source of income? How did you get your first paid work, I'd love some advice on how to get started, if that's ok

Thank you. Of course it's okay, although I doubt I have enough work experience in art to really delve into this. I only went full freelance this year, and had been juggling art as a side hobby until then. If you're still interested in my somewhat narrow perspective, and are okay with my long-winded rambles, I'll give it a shot:

So to answer your question fully, I'll describe how I started and move into personal advice and learnings later on. As a disclaimer, I am a white cishet dude in my late twenties with a moderate cocktail of mental illnesses, but overall I can pass for a functioning adult so a lot I have to say may come laced with privilege I cannot fully identify.

So uhh I began drawing in around 2012? I think? Maybe halfway through 2011? And I mostly made fanart for things I enjoyed and tried to branch out in communities that felt nourishing to my style and interests (I caught a bug for alt posters and enjoyed mainstream movies so I spent a long time on posterspy early on). There were a handful of opportunities that came from there but I could only accept a couple because of primary workplace commitments. Still, it showed that networking in a focused community was definitely a good place to start; I myself have huge trouble committing to social networks and really staying socially active, but I knew it was an essential ingredient in succeeding so I tried to make myself be involved in challenges and art support trains etc. as much as I could.

In parallel to all that I also ran a few third party online stores (redbubble, teepublic) for disposable income and would sometimes, if rarely, hit around $100-150 a month from those sources combined. It is a sort of thing that requires helper accounts on other social media sites to promote it on, because the stores themselves have a huge volume of content that translates into low organic discoverability. Obviously it was never gonna be the way towards financial independence through art, and with community projects being few and far between, I opened private commissions in around uhhh 2017 I think, focusing on offering a few styles I knew I could do well, and sometimes operating in individual fandoms (it was mostly a bioware thing to be frank). But I had to close them back down after a year or so, again because of work-life conflict and how badly it was burning me out. The reason I kept trying to monetize this hobby is because I honestly hated what I did for my main job and wanted to see a way out in some shape or form in the future.

And then in 2020 I had to quit my main job altogether because of *gestures at pandemic* and deal with a mental breakdown from all the wonderful things it did to us and me specifically. I took a short break and decided to give art a shot full-time, and that was around May this year. I was planning on opening up commissions again (and I still am), but a few sudden opportunities that fell in my lap moved that timetable down and now I'm grateful to even be doing something I am getting adequately paid for.

So, with that somewhat limited perspective, here's what I've learned that I'd tell myself if I was just starting out:

1. Being a fan of something can be a shortcut towards effective networking kickoffs. Which are important evidently. If you love something and enjoy making content for it, join communities, settle into a combination of social media websites that feel right for those interests + your body of work + your inner rhythm, and try to play to content discovery as much as your mental health allows you to. Like I said, I know that I myself am incredibly bad at self-motivating to talk to people, so I found that synergizing common interests into fanart - which I enjoyed making anyway - could be a way to give myself a gentle nudge forward and build those bridges leading to community activities, which then net experience and coverage. Sometimes even freelance projects from official avenues. Again; picking the right spaces for what you're after is key. Companies roam twitter, concept art recruiters scour artstation or linkedin etc, instagram can land you private commissions and collab opportunities, so on and so forth. Find your niche and try to kick up dust. However...

2. I do not believe that any social profile can replace a good portfolio. The thing that made an immediate difference to me this year was building a coherent, simple website with my best work front and center and a contact form on top. Every single opportunity I got came from that form (maybe via twitter or instagram initially, but always sealing the decision after going through the website), so I firmly believe that showcasing your skills and portfolio in a visually arresting and user-friendly way is a big priority. I had some reservations about tackling that task but fortunately I had help from a savvy life partner and we slapped it together via wordpress in less than a day. Twitter/whatever social media is prevalent in your target groups is definitely important to get the right eyes on your shit, yes, but those eyes will then look for a second stop where your work and rates are more clear and concise. Simplicity is key imo, I cannot overstate this. So make a cute, simple portfolio!

3. Your skills and rates will grow and change as you do. Let them. Over the years I built several lasting professional relationships from my obsession over mass effect and kept getting opportunities both from bioware and their partner companies, some small and some a bit bigger. A one-off job earlier this year opened an unexpected door to another much larger commitment, and then the work I did there brought some attention from small businesses looking for commercial commissions. These were all incredibly different projects in terms of scope and budget, and I've been tackling them all on a case-by-case basis and slowly coming into my own irt my needs, rates, and SOW thresholds. It is still a work in progress (and a LOT of literal work as well), and very much a thing I struggle with in publicly marketing, which is why I felt a tad underqualified to answer your question in the first place (obviously I did not let that stop me). But what it means for me now is that I am rapidly developing into whatever my "version" of a functioning freelance artist is, and when the conditions for that guy are met, I need to be able to confidently plant myself and operate from that space despite past precedents. Do not let anyone bully you into downpricing what you yourself perceive as legitimate products of personal growth and development. Speaking of which...

4. The shitty challenge of turning envy into inspiration, and paddling outside your comfort zones in full riot gear. it is hard, but realizing that being a miserable, self-hating artist in my early days got me nothing but more misery back was the first real step I took and what truly blew the hinges off. I was just not pleasant to be around, I would badmouth my work all the time, and it all somehow made sense in my broken mind because the validation I sought was purely external and the way I sought it was through eliciting sympathy via self-victimization (even when I made something objectively nice). It all led fucking nowhere. Except perhaps to my own narcissism that I one day managed to identify and start managing. So I started looking at things that made me seethe with envy and calmly deconstruct and figure out their inner workings instead, do studies, and find nuggets of inspiration or discover new ways to approach rendering or building up specific elements. It was an application of analytical diligence to what I wanted to be a purely emotional, esoteric workflow, but that I deep down knew wasn't. Art is a discipline and a skill, and maybe it isn't a straight line, but you gotta find some line to thread nevertheless. Being self-hating was almost an identity I had to break out of, and despite it still being like, 4-5% there? I realize its cause and effect on me, my work, and those around me, so it is with a conscious choice that I gently set it aside when I work and especially when I learn. It won't always stay quiet, but the effort is the difference. Your doors towards accepting true growth and venturing into uncharted territories, art styles, and networking will really open from there. But there's a huge caveat...

5. Toolsets, accessibility, privilege, and all the good things that enable artistic expression and profitability are not given equal to all. you might do all the mental work I mentioned to be ready to rock and roll and learn and draw your way out of anything, but digital art is a fucking money pit that asks almost too much at times. I don't got a good case study here but identifying and ensuring accessibility to the tools you need to do your best work is, like, super important. The ergonomics can improve as you make money and settle into the job, but the basics have to be made available to you. And some of that might not even be under your direct control. That can be anything from pen tablets to software subscriptions to opportunities in hiring sullied by sexism or what have you. You gotta navigate all that through careful networking and money/time management. I don't do a good job of devoting specific slices of time to work/study, and my primary clutch is iPad software which went from a good deal to a nightmare scenario over the years. So all I can say here is do what I didn't; network, invest in a PC/tablet, and pick a software you'll learn that won't burn a hole in your pocket.

6. Be nice to work with? This one is hard to articulate and has landed my own ass in hot water in my early years because of how socially inept I am, but nothing is more worthwhile than being.. like. a good person to work with. That can be anything like meeting deadlines, or sometimes missing them but eloquently articulating why, being generous in early stages, being communicable and not too wordy in your emails, having a good grasp on abstract artistic concepts and how to describe them in simple terms, having a clear, laid out framework of your working rates in commercial and non-commercial projects and sticking to those guns with grace, understanding when you need to say no and saying it well, the works. Just being nice. Sometimes that might mean going headstrong with something you believe in, or simmering down and sucking up to the big man, all relative and adaptive. Part and parcel of the service provision dance that we all have to do in order to make bank. Know your lines here, obviously, and don't like. work for nazis. or uh.. *shudders* exposure. but be nice and empathetic and communicable and word will travel eventually. Skill may be in abundance these days, but good people are most certainly not, and capitalism has a way of bubbling up scarcity. Grim, but uh, them's the breaks.

I know I'm ultimately telling you to like. Have a body of work, make a portfolio, grow, and network. But that's really how I see it for now. And being nice can be a cherry on top that sets you apart, along with the inherent irreplaceable voice of your artwork. I think I rambled on enough, but if there is something specific you need my help with, even if you want to come off anon and talk in private, please feel free.

[mono-dot-jpeg]

dynamite - b. katsuki

summary; life is sweet as honey, or maybe they’re as sweet as caramel!

genre; fluff, comedy, soft bakugou, best friend! mina, fluff moments w/ bakugou, tsundere! bakugou is what i live for, 3rd year! bakugou

pairing; bakugou katsuki x reader

word count; 2.8k (if you count the lyrics)

a/n: tbh the song doesn’t really fit the theme but the song is cute and i wanted to use it in a fanfic at some point. this is my longest written one shot i think [._.]

ALSO IT’S MY BIRTHDAY! LET’S FUCKIN GO, GAMERS

the song is “dynamite” by BTS, if you haven’t listened to it, please do, it slaps. i didn’t do the entire song bc im too lazy and that’s too long to write ksdjfksdjf i have a limit :monkaW:

‘Cause I, I, I’m in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight

You were one of the energetic people in class. You had got along with everyone except the explosive blonde that was Bakugou. You hung out with Mina the most which was how you got initiated into the Bakusquad. With your Quirk, Boombox, it seemed almost perfect that you were in the Bakusquad. You converted sound into explosions though there were drawbacks (that you didn’t wanna get into) of course. 

Your classmates wondered if you had known Bakugou before you joined UA. On the first day, you challenged the male after you found out about his Quirk. Of course he had accepted the challenge and during Quirk Assessment, he had won. Ever since you had become another rival for him, but at least it was more of a healthy rivalry compared to him vs Midoriya (but I mean that rivalry got better overtime).

Thought there were several times where it seemed to be more than a friendly rivalry.

Shoes on, get up in the morn’

Cup of milk, let’s rock and roll

King Kong, kick the drum

Rolling on like a Rolling Stone

It was another normal day for you, except you were going to train with your Quirk. Music was blasting in your headphones as you mutter the lyrics, small explosions popping on your hands.

Before you could leave, Bakugou stopped you. “Oi, dumbass.” You looked up at him, sending him a smile. “You going to train?” You nodded at the male.

“Mhm! You wanna come with? I wanna practice working with my quirk! Let me practice with you!” You said eagerly.

“Ugh, you’re like an annoying puppy, you dumbass. I shouldn’t be inviting you to your own practice.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course, I’m coming with you.” He bonked your head before you rubbed the spot he had hit.

“Hey! You’re like an angry Pomeranian! You’re not any different from me! Come on! Let’s go! I’ll beat you this time!” You said, starting to pull him by the arm as he quickly protested to the physical contact but made no move to tug his arm away.

“Like you’ll beat me. I’m still gonna win.” He scoffed. “And who you callin’ Pomeranian?! You fuckin’ dumbass!” You smiled at him in reply as you btoh made your way to the training areas in UA.

“Can I play some music?” He grumbles as you take it as a sign of agreement. You smile brightly, playing your favorite music. You were experimenting if you had to be the one to make the sound of if you could use sound from other sources. You had always assumed that you had you make the sound yourself.

And so the training started. Within seconds, the sound of explosions and yells ringed in the room. Neither of you went easy on each other. It almost felt like a match in the UA Sports Festival. You and Bakugou never went against each other during it due to the fact you lost when you went against Tokoyami. You couldn’t use anything to fight against Dark Shadow well enough.

As the fight between you and Bakugou continued, you had used your quirk with the loud beat of the music. So, I can use my quirk with music! You had thought. Soon the fight ended with Bakugou winning, much to your disappointment. “I almost got you there!” You said as Bakugou sees the determined glint in your eyes, ready to go against him once again. 

He chuckled, moving his hand on the top of your head and started to ruffle your hair which earned your surprise. It wasn’t until he playfully shoved you, yelling at you, “Come on! You weren’t even close, dumbass!” You swore you saw pink on his face, maybe it was from the heat in the room (from the fight) but you weren’t sure…

Sing song when I'm walking home

Jump up to the top, LeBron

It was a day off in the dorms. You had been in your room all day pretty much. This was usually normal behavior as you played video games in your free time when you weren't studying or gaming. But more often than not, you forgot that you had to care of yourself during off days. Kirishima had went out with the rest of the Bakusquad, leaving you and Bakugou in the dorms with whoever else was there.

You were ending a comp game with some friends who you often six-stacked with. “Yeah, I’ll see you guys later.” They left the group, leaving you to play a few quick play games. You were still in queue until loud knocks echoed in your room, effectively shocking you. “Who is it?” You asked, after getting over your shock.

“Open up idiot!” Bakugou said. You feel like if he bashed any harder on your door, it might just break. You stop the queue and open the door, revealing the blonde male. “How long have you been in your room? You look like shit.”

“Well...how honest do I have to be to answer your question?” The answer you gave him was enough as he soon put you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “W-what are you doing?!” 

Ding-dong, call me on my phone

Ice tea and a game of ping pong

“You haven’t eaten have you?”

“W-well, do small snacks count?”

“No, you fucking idiot.” He took you to the kitchen, putting you down onto a seat as you huffed at him, “Actually fucking eat a meal!”

“Aw, you care about me!”

“W-what? SHUT UP DUMBASS! IF YOU WANNA BEAT ME, DO IT WHEN YOU’RE AT YOUR BEST!” You nodded, laughing a bit at his reaction. He had made some curry with rice, handing a plate over to you while he grumbled about you not eating all day and staying in your room.

“I’ll still beat you! No matter what!” You smiled before you ate. You had realized that this was one of the few times that Bakugou did this on the weekends. “But still, thanks for worrying about me!”

“Shut up! I wasn’t worrying!” His face was red. You wondered if it was from the anger or something else.

This is getting heavy, can you hear the bass boom? I'm ready (Woo-hoo)

Life is sweet as honey, yeah, this beat cha-ching like money, huh

You were at the mall with the Bakusquad (Bakugou included of course). You and Mina were gossiping and talking most of the time. You had suggested to go to the arcade but Mina insisted on dressing you up in some cute clothes before you did. But maybe Mina just wanted to buy clothes for herself as well. You didn’t mind catering to your best friend for a while. 

The boys of the squad didn’t go off too far from you and Mina as they decided to go into a video game store for a bit while you and Mina indulged yourself in the cute clothes.

“You’ll look great in it, y/n! Trust me!” Mina encouraged. You smiled nervously at the female before moving into the changing rooms to change. Unknown to you, a certain blonde had been glancing over at you from the video game store window.

“It’s pretty cute!” You stepped out and Bakugou almost choked on air. The waistband of the skirt hugged your waist comfortably as the black graphic tee was loosely tucked in. Now if you were someone else, Bakugou probably would’ve called you some dumb shit like a basic e-girl or something like that. But you pulled it off. 

“You need to buy it!” Now, Bakugou couldn’t hear you from how far the stores were. Mina took this chance. “I think Bakugou likes it.” Mina glanced over to the video game store, tilting her head to gesture you to look at Bakugou. You glanced over for a second, locking eyes with the male as you feel your face heat up.

Disco overload, I'm into that, I'm good to go

I'm diamond, you know I glow up

Hey, so let's go

You did buy the outfit. And you made your way to the boys. You couldn’t muster up too much courage, suddenly hyper aware about the blonde’s actions. You all eventually arrived at the arcade, your hyper awareness wiped away as you saw the DDR machines.

“Hey Mina! Let’s go! You think you could beat me this time?” You joked as you accidentally bumped shoulders with Bakugou, trying to call out to Mina. Mina was too busy with Kiri and Sero, making you pout. “Damn, meanie. Hey Bakugou?” You dragged out his name, earning a huff from him.

 “I don’t dance.”

“Well, it’s not really dancing! Are you scared that I’m gonna beat you?” You can feel his competitiveness flare up at the question.

“No way in hell am I scared!” He grabbed your wrist, dragging you to one of the DDR machines. “I’ll beat you, dumbass!” You laughed as you let him drag you. 

“Okay!” You stood on the colorful arrows as you picked a song. “I’ll win against you, Bakugou! This is my main game!” You said, fully confident in your skills. He ‘tched’ before the song started. As the song went on, Bakugou seemed to care less about winning and more about the bright smile on your face.

'Cause I, I, I'm in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight (Hey)

Shining through the city with a little funk and soul

So I'ma light it up like dynamite, woah-oh-oh

You weren’t one to have bad days but today just really seemed like a bad day. Hero training was more draining than usual, one of your friends from general studies seemed to be avoiding you for some reason, and you got in trouble with Aizawa today. Nothing could be worse. It was a stressful day and you weren’t happy at all.

The whole Bakusquad seemed to notice this. “Hey Bakugou, you should go talk to y/n!” Kiri suggested as the squad watched you do house work as per the punishment Aizawa had granted you with.

Bring a friend, join the crowd

Whoever wanna come along

“Why me?!”

“Well, you and y/n seem really close. Plus I’m scared that they might just snap at me. They’ve been having a bad day lately. Maybe you could help them out.”

“Aren’t you guys their friends?!”

“Just go do it, bro!” Kiri encouraged, pushing the blonde towards you. 

Bakugou went up to you. “Hey, dumbass, let’s, uh, talk after you’re done with cleaning. Meet me at my room, idiot.” He spat out at you. He seemed oddly nervous. He hated that feeling. How you made him feel like that like it was nothing. You looked at Bakugou, confused for a moment before nodding.

You arrived at the door to his room, knocking softly on it. “What did you wanna talk about, Bakugou?” Before you could react, you were pulled into his room and right into his arms. Your face was forced to rest on his shoulder as you can feel his warmth radiating on you.

Word up, talk the talk

Just move like we Off The Wall

“Y-you looked fuckin’ stressed today. You don’t need to tell me what’s wrong. You can let it out.” There was just something about his words that started to make you cry. You could feel your stress leave you as Bakugou stays silent, comforting you without words. After you finished crying, he starts to speak again, “I’m not good with words, you know this, but I’m, uh, here for you. But don’t get any ideas, dumbass!”

You looked up at him, seeing pink dusted on his face. You start to giggle. “Why are you laughing, idiot!?” He asked as you start to laugh more, your Quirk accidentally activating as it make little sparks in the air. 

“You’re-you’re just really cute!” You said honestly with that bright smile of yours. Bakugou can feel blood rush up to his cheeks.

“I’M NOT CUTE!” The blonde growled, making you laugh more. Eventually, he got over his anger. “Don’t call me cute!” But he was glad that you were happier now after you finished crying. He didn’t know if it was the sparks from your Quirk or the light from his room but you seemed to shine brighter than the sun when you smiled.

Day or night the sky's alight

So we dance to the break of dawn

You fumbled with your outfit as Mina continued to do your makeup. It was a special night. Prom night. You, of course, were going with the Bakusquad. You sort of wished Bakugou asked you out but he would never really do something like that. 

“Are you sure I look good?” You asked Mina.

“You look great! I’m sure Bakugou will like it!” She teased, sending a red flush to your cheeks. You stood up, dusting yourself off. “Ahh! You look so amazing! All the boys and girls will want ya!” You laughed at Mina’s words, tucking some of your hair back. 

You and Mina soon gathered with the others in the living room. Once you entered the room, Bakugou was pretty sure he lost his breath at the sight of you. You were so damn beautiful.

Ladies and gentlemen, I got the medicine

So you should keep ya eyes on the ball, huh

This is getting heavy

Can you hear the bass boom? I'm ready (woo hoo)

“Hey guys! You ready?” You asked, walking over to the squad with Mina having an arm wrapped around your own. You looked at Bakugou and how shocked he was, you simply smiled as you looked up at the male. He can feel blood rush to his face, soon turning away to cover his face.

You all chatted for a while until you arrived at UA. They had (conveniently) set up a ballroom like room for all the 3rd year students. It was pretty loud and crowded. It felt a fairy tale if you were being honest. It was such a magical feeling though. You loved it.

Though you didn’t join Mina and the others on the floor to dance, you were perfectly content with seeing everyone enjoy themselves as you stood on the sidelines.

“So, why are you with the damn idiots dancing?” Bakugou’s voice pierces right through your thoughts.

“I like to see them enjoy themselves. Plus I can’t dance unless I’m playing DDR.” You joked with a small smile as you sipped on your drink.

“You think they care if you’re good at dancing, look at Pikachu and his dumbass.” Bakugou slightly gestured to said male who was terribly dancing, making you laugh a bit. 

“Well, why aren’t you dancing?”

Because I wanted to just look at you.. is what he wanted to say but didn’t. “You think I dance?”

“Maybe your mom taught you a thing or two.” You teased slightly. “I would pay to see you dance.” 

Life is sweet as honey

Yeah, this beat cha-ching like money

“Then dance with me.” You looked at him, your e/c eyes glinted with surprise. “Pay to see me dance by dancing with me.” It felt everything slowed down for a moment and slowly faded. It felt like it was just you and Bakugou. Your heart is beating loudly with the music as Bakugou offers you his hand. “Come on idiot, I’m not gonna wait forever.” You can see the smirk on his face but it’s so teasing and his crimson eyes are glinted with confidence and playfulness.

Disco overload, I'm into that, I'm good to go

I'm diamond, you know I glow up

You take his hand. He leads you onto the dance floor, the rest of squad cheering you guys on. It takes you a bit but you start to get into it as much as Bakugou does. Everyone in your class and the other 3rd year classes are joining you but it only feels like it’s just you and Bakugou. 

Both of you seem to be in sync with each other and it’s like the song playing was only made for you two. 

Let's go

'Cause I-I-I'm in the stars tonight

So watch me bring the fire and set the night alight (hey)

The song soon starts to end and your hands are intertwined with his as you’re only looking at each other. You can smell burnt caramel as he tugs you closer to his chest. It’s like everything stopped when you both stand there while the song is getting closer to the end. Before you both knew it, your lips are connecting with his.

Shining through the city with a little funk and soul

So I'ma light it up like dynamite!

[dreaming-of-brawlstars]

Credits: to @brawlships for the name Cameron!

Ring a Belle?

Desc:

“To: Belle Starr, a loved one has taken up an incredible job offer at Starr Corp. Please accept this as compensation, and do not contact us, or them.”

Belle had read this message twice. A note with a check for a fair amount of money. She didn’t question it the first time, knowing Byron wasn’t one to talk.

However, the second time, she’s decided to confront this ‘Starr Corp’. There was no way this was a coincidence.

Warnings:

Byron and Belle argue and it gets intense, fridge horror. At the end, there’s some suffocation. Unhappy open ending.

Belle bit her tongue, looking up at the chain link fence. Just on the other side was Starr Park, a theme park filled with rides and wonder and whatever bullcrap came with that shtick. But Belle was sure there was something more beyond the fence and their claims.

She looked at the check she held in her hand, grimacing. She looked at the logo on it, comparing it, and her eyes drifted to the handwritten note on the envelope it was tucked in.

“Everything is fine. Love, Cameron.” She scoffed as she read it aloud. “You lie about as well as your old man. Don’t lie to your Ma.”

Her eyes darted to the chain link fence again, and she huffed, stashing the envelope into her pants pocket. With one arm, she picked up a pair of garden clippers she took along with her, caught one handle in her elbow, and grabbing the other with her hand. She tested it slightly, making sure she could use the clippers comfortably enough, then put the clippers to the fence.

She grinned when she heard it clip through the metal, it always sounded satisfying to her, but she had a job to do. Moving the clippers to a link slightly to the right, she used her body for more leverage to clip it open. After a few more times, she started clipping downwards.

She didn’t notice sweat starting to bead on her forehead, and when she went to wipe it off, she dipped the clippers. She cursed to herself, and cursed her one arm.

“Goddamit.” She pinched the bridge of her nose before looking at her progress, seeing that she could push herself through the gap she made if she just bent the fence slightly. “Good enough.” She mumbled under her breath, pushing her weight forward, getting through the hole. She grit her teeth as she felt the cut metal scratch her cheek and clothing, but she kept going.

She paused, slightly struggling to pry the chain link more open, and reached her arm to grab the fence and pull herself through. She heard clothing rip and the metal cut her exposed skin, but she was fine. She fell through with a thud, and she pushed herself up with a knee.

She had broken in.

A quick glance around showed no one else nearby. Not that she minded; no one else had seen her go in anyway. She wasn’t sure what she had expected - she hadn’t gone too far into the park yet - but the atmosphere felt… off. She shook her head.

She sniffed the air, smelling something off. It wasn’t strong, but it reminded her of air freshener from how it smelled. Vaguely musty, absorbed into something which made it radiate the scent. It seemed absolutely everywhere.

“Focus, Belle.” She grumbled to herself, now reaching for her belt, where she kept a flashlight. “Remember what you’re here for.”

She shook it before turning it on, and held it with her shoulder and head. She pulled out a map she managed to get of the place, looking down at it, and seeing the plan she drew on it earlier. Her eyes skimmed over the notes.

She was to the right of the main entrance, up ahead near the center, she could feasibly have access to all the districts in the park. It wasn’t the best plan, but she didn’t want to waste time trying to get any more in-depth maps. She did call Byron a couple of times for one since he worked here… he didn’t answer. Prick.

He never picked up anyway. She wasn’t sure why she thought her calling him more would change that.

“Thanks a whole fuckin’ lot,” She muttered, walking slowly down the path towards the center of the park. “I’m going to kick your ass.”

She walked ahead, holding the light she brought more securely against her neck, and it flickered as she moved through. As she got closer, she noticed how quiet it was. There were no rides and games, no people. The only sounds coming from the wind blowing through the trees.

She noticed speakers around, but they weren’t playing anything. She wasn’t sure if she’d be more comfortable if they were, though, maybe it was for the best. Maybe it’d make it easier to hear someone approaching. Or maybe it would make it easier for her to be heard. Either way, Belle wasn’t about to take chances.

As she neared the central area of the park, she started hearing something. She stopped, cocking an eyebrow as she listened harder. What it was was hard to tell at first, so she slowed down, taking a couple steps back, and tilted her head, listening intently. It sounded like water running somewhere behind her, she assumed. A waterfall.

Water. She didn’t think this place had a water attraction. Thinking about it now, she would’ve assumed the opposite: there was the faint smell of something burnt in the air. It was old and distant, but as she look a closer glance at things, she noticed light soot and ash everywhere.

He tucked the map into her pocket, and grabbed the flashlight, going to a wall of a building. She scratched it lightly, noticing the ash didn’t leave that easily. It must’ve sat there for some time and settled in, for a while, months, maybe. Something in the back of her mind nagged at her, telling her that this was wrong.

“Ain’t this some health hazard?” She whispered, sniffing it and smelling something musty and burnt, then she shook her head. “I’d hate to be a janitor here.”

She stood up, turning back to the sidewalk and shaking the flashlight again to power it. Then she noticed another source of light, and looking ahead, she noticed a shoppe with its lights on. After a few moments of squinting, she instantly recognized it as Byron’s shop.

She sighed in relief, and started to approach it casually. Getting closer, she could hear a voice talking, which she could easily tell as her brother. She couldn’t quite hear another voice, so she assumed he was on the phone. She tested the door to see if it was locked.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it already!” Byron said sharply after a moment. Belle raised an eyebrow and listened. He groaned loudly and slammed the phone into its receiver. His gaze immediately shifted to Belle at the sound of the door opening with a small jingle.

She froze for a moment at opening the door. Her face scrunched up at various scents, some potent. She coughed, squinting and seeing several bottles and vials on shelves. Presumably for sale. She saw Byron, who stared wide-eyed at her, holding the phone. An angry voice rambled from it.

For a second she thought about saying something or doing something that might be rude, but instead she let herself in, putting up an annoyed grin. Byron remained frozen, then the phone rang again. He quickly picked it up, eyes still fixated on Belle.

“The reptiles are growing restless, I apologize.” He quickly hung up before placing the phone in the receiver, his eye twitched. “Belle-!”

“You seemed to answer that awfully fast.” Her glare narrowed, and approached, placing her flashlight on the counter, “And I’m no reptile.”

“I know, I know,” Byron waved his hand as if to get her to stop, “What are you doing here?”

“Broke in.” As soon as she saw Byron begin to ask why, she took out the envelope and tossed it on the desk Byron leaned on, “What the hell is this?”

Byron looked at the envelope, not picking it up. Belle noticed his face pale slightly as he read the note on it.

“That’s none of your business. Leave.” He snapped, sounding tired.

“It does matter, Byron.” Her voice turned stern, and she rose, staring him down. “I know it ain’t a coincidence that you work here an’ my kid vanishes after some stunt, and I get some check tellin’ me to fuck off.”

“Well,” Byron said calmly, crossing his arms in front of his chest, but clearly still stressed, “What if he’s fine? Like the note says?”

“Then I wouldn’t need to be breaking into your fucking store! Why am I breaking in, Byron?!” She yelled in exasperation. “I was fine with you doin’ that, I know you, y’don’t like to talk much. I also know my kid, and he wouldn’t up and vanish like you.”

“You don’t even call me-“ Byron was about to scoff, then Belle slammed her fist on the desk, knocking over some bottles.

“I’ve called you every hour, every day, this goddamn week!” She raised her voice, hearing it crack, “Every single goddamned day!” She continued, raising her voice higher with each word, “In the beginning, I called you once a week, then once a month, once a year, and you never, ever picked up!”

Byron stared wide-eyed at her outburst, and blinked, looking at the phone he had. He looked like he just realized something as his breath stopped. His jaw tightened, his eyes widening. He looked at her and she glared.

“Don’t act dumb, Byron! I swear if you don’t answer in the next minute, I will break this goddamn phone,” Belle growled. “Now answer the damn question. What happened to Cameron!?”

Byron flinched, attempting to make sense of everything. He stammered, holding his hands up.

“Belle, could you call my phone? I think-“

“I don’t have my phone!” She snapped, “I didn’t bring it in case it pings off of any cellphone towers. You think I want to be caught?”

“Cellphone towers, cell-“ Byron began to to look for something, checking the phone anxiously.

“Answer me!” Belle yelled, making Byron jump. She clenched her fist angrily.

“Alright, alright!” Byron held up his hands defensively. “I won’t answer the question, alright? Can we please talk about this later?” He asked pleadingly. “We can go somewhere else, okay?”

Belle glared, her hand shaking in rage. Wordlessly, she picked up her flashlight and slammed it against the phone on the desk, causing it to crack loudly. Byron winced, but it only made Belle angry more as her breathing quickened.

“You should’a told me when you had the chance.” She shook her head, stepping closer to him, “Why the fuck would you keep somethin’ like this from me?! Where’s my kid!?”

“Belle, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.” Byron tried to keep his voice steady, biting back fear. “You’re going to get us both in trouble.”

“Trouble’s an old friend o’ mine.” She said dryly, “I’m not ‘fraid o’ arrangin’ a meetin’.”

“Belle, please,” Byron breathed heavily, rubbing his eyes roughly. He was obviously exhausted, but he kept himself together. “Just go home now.”

His words were firm yet soft, pleading with her. His expression changed. The fear he showed a moment ago was gone, replaced by desperation. Belle felt anger and hurt flare up within her. She grit her teeth for a moment, wresting with her emotions.

“The hell you’d gotten yourself into, huh?” She asked coldly, stepping forward menacingly and grabbing his shirt in one hand, lifting him up. “If you ain’t gonna tell me where my kid is, I’ll find out myself.”

“Belle, please!” Byron shouted, struggling.

“I will find out.” She stated harshly, “If you want to avoid trouble, you’ll tell me where my son is. If not, well…” She lifted him up another inch, her face inches away from his. “You’re gonna have a pretty bad time.”

“Belle, please,” Byron begged, tears forming in his eyes. “Please, just go home.”

“No.” Belle said firmly, dropping him. He fell to the ground, landing hard on his knees. She stepped back, glaring at him, and sitting on his desk. “I ain’t goin’ home.”

“Belle, please, I beg of you.” Byron pleaded quietly.

“I’m stayin’.” Belle replied bluntly.

“No, you can’t. Please.”

“Yes, I can.” Belle replied simply. “You don’t like it, kick me out yourself.” She dared, smiling angrily.

He stood shakily, moving around the desk to the other side. She stayed there, watching as he moved. He paused and glanced over his shoulder at her, his face paling significantly.

“You’re going to get caught-“

“I. Don’t. CARE.” Belle cut him off, closing her eyes briefly.

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into!” Byron insisted, pointing a finger at her, “Get yourself out of here before it’s too late.”

“Is it too late for you?” She mused, then she noticed that Byron didn’t look… annoyed. Still serious. His words started to sink in. “Byron?”

He sighed, running his fingers through his hair again, “Fine. But I expect you to take this seriously. This is serious. It affects both of our lives. And Colt’s.”

“Cameron.” Belle corrected before sitting up, “Now, enlighten me.” She crossed her legs.

Byron nodded, facing her. His shoulders slumped in defeat, but his gaze never faltered from hers. Belle watched him with curiosity. He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“It’s a long story…” He trailed off, “It’s a confusing one too.”

She leaned back, gesturing him to continue, waiting impatiently for him to speak. Byron sat for a moment, considering, before looking back up at Belle. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“So, uh… They hired me a while back because of my passion for chemistry, as you know.” Belle nodded, and Byron continued, “I’ve made a variety of mixes, they have a variety of effects, I do everything from the basics to the big things, all that stuff. So, they got me to work a couple projects, testing chemicals for them, mixing them.” He explained, looking down, sighing deeply.

He took a moment to choose his next words, shying away from Belle’s glare.

“Of course, you have to test that sort of thing. So I got to making contracts.” He looked back up at Belle. “First they were simple disclaimers, but people didn’t want to sign, so I had to get creative. Learned how to play with words.”

“You were always good with that.” Belle muttered, rolling her eyes. “Go on.”

“Well, eventually I got some investors interested, which meant I had more money than I thought possible, so I got a bigger budget. Which meant more resources and equipment needed, as well as more people involved.” He explained quickly. “Starr Corp gave me everything, and in turn I gave them my talents.”

“Everything sounds great for you.” Belle commented sarcastically. “So, when’s the other show going to drop?”

“I believe it already did.” Byron looked at the broken phone on the desk. “When did you try to call me?”

“Pardon?” She blinked, “Ever since you first got the job. Once a week at first. An’ a lot more this week.”

Byron was silent, nodding slightly as he huffed.

“That’s it. That’s the other shoe. Cutting off my contact with you.” He looked around the shop, nervous, “That makes me wonder what else they did without me noticing.”

Suddenly, the world felt a lot less free.

“…that ain’t alarming.” Belle muttered sarcastically, also following his gaze to the broken phone. “Byron?”

“…this is all my fault. If I didn’t accept the job here, if I’d just didn’t agree to write their contracts or make those-“ He put his head in his hands, “…I helped them so much, and in turn they’ve let me continue by work. But recently I haven’t been getting orders or requests.” He looked up, terrified. “I don’t know how much freedom I have left here.”

“Then leave.” Byron looked at Belle incredulously. “Before it’s too late… or did you get yourself in some hot water?”

Byron seemed fixated on a bottle on his desk, knocked over on it’s side, but since it was plugged with a cork, nothing spilled out. Nonetheless, he seemed scared of it. Like he dreaded it. Like he knew something horrific was in it.

“…get out. Now.” It wasn’t above a whisper, but the words sounded like death itself, sending shivers down Belle’s spine. She couldn’t bring herself to move. Instead, she simply looked at Byron, silently, and watched the color drain from his face.

Silence settled over the room once again, heavy and tense. Byron seemed frozen in place, then he moved, grabbing Belle by the arm.

“Hey!” She pulled back, “It’s my job to manhandle you!”

“Belle, you have to get out of here, NOW.” He repeated, pulling her toward the door.

Belle struggled against him, fighting his hold, “What’s the matter with you?” She asked, pushing against him, “Are you outta your mind?”

“No! But you are, you’re being reckless. You’re being targeted!” He swung open the door, attention to shove Belle out. “You said it yourself, it’s not a coincidence!”

“I ain’t leaving!” She protested, trying to push him aside, “I said I ain’t leaving until you tell me!”

“You need to leave!”

“Not without you! You promised me we’d talk about everything, and I’m not leavin’ until we have!”

“Get OUT!!” Byron attempted to jab her waist to catch her off guard, but instead she picked him up by the collar of his jacket. “Belle! Go! Save yourself!”

“I came here for answers! And all I got are more questions and figurin’ out that the two people I have a damn about are in danger!”

“You’re in danger!” Byron retorted, throwing his arms into the air in exasperation, “And you won’t even listen!”

“You’re right! I won’t! Because you’ve been avoiding the question this whole time!!” Belle exclaimed, her voice rising dramatically, “Where’s my kid? The hell have you gotten yourself into!?”

A pause. A tense silence filled their shop, thick as tar. Their breath hitched in unison. Silence, yet another deafening silence between the two people in front of each other, neither willing to break it for fear that they were done arguing, they were done speaking, but their argument still raged on in their minds.

“Trust me.” Byron rasped. “Please, trust me for one last time: go home and hide.”

“Tell me what happened.” Belle demanded quietly, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. “I want to know…” She paused, struggling to find the strength to speak, “I want to hear what the fuck’s going on here. From you.”

“I can’t-“

“Tell me.”

“I can’t. I just can’t right now. Please.” He replied quietly.

A tear rolled down Belle’s cheek, dripping onto the floor below. Suddenly, she hugged Byron, holding him tight with her one arm. After a few seconds he returned the hug, his hands finding her back, gripping it tightly, as if afraid she’d disappear if he let go.

After a minute or so they pulled apart, Byron reaching out for her arm, but hesitated after a second, his expression conflicted. Belle seemed conflicted too.

“Please, go.”

“I ain’t leavin’ without my family. Or answers.” Belle noticed Byron’s hesitation. “If you don’t give me those… I guess I’ll just have to figure it out myself.” She stated, her tone firm but calm. “Just… tell me. If nothing else.”

“…Colt’s alive.” Byron answered quietly. “If he’s like anyone else here, he’s fine. In a way.”

“But I haven’t seen anyone here.” Belle paused as Byron wordlessly pointed to an area, and when she turned, she barely recognized it as the Wild West area she saw on the map. “…is he there?”

“If not, it’s the golf ball shaped building.” Byron clarified, gesturing vaguely to what Belle assumed must be the building, but wasn’t sure.

“The ‘ball shaped building’?”

Byron smiled a little bit at her confusion. “Headquarters, in a way. ‘Where dreams are made’, they say.” He seemed to chuckle remorsefully at that. “Dreams.”

“…why are you suddenly an open book now?” Belle suspiciously eyed him, her tone sounding annoyed. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“Because of what’s coming.” Byron sighed sadly. “I have a lot of reasons to believe that we’re not getting out of here, in fact, I think they were finished with me and they were…” He paused. “Everything is stacked against us, it’s rigged, so, might as well try to give them hell.”

“That’s a quitter’s attitude,” Belle ruffled his hair, snapping Byron out of his saddened mood, She grinned, “Y’said it yerself, you helped them. They asked you fer whatever you’ve got, so why not give it your all?”

Byron didn’t quite smile, but there was a glint in his eyes. He took Belle’s hand in his own. “…Thank you. For listening.”

“You’re welcome.” Belle gave his hands a gentle squeeze before stepping away from him, turning around. “Now, c’mon. Let’s see where they’ve got Cameron.”

Byron grabbed her sleeve, and Belle glanced back. He didn’t look angry anymore, he seemed pensive. Stressed. However, he blinked himself out of it and focused on the empty sleeve.

“…I hope you know I was waiting for you to call me, I made a gift for you. Two, actually. With Pam, if you remember her.” He smiled weakly. “That was a few years ago, but I think it should fit. And the other… well, I think you’d really like it now.”

“What’re you on about now?” Belle snorted, but she notice Byron genuinely, happily, smile at her for the first time, “You seem awful proud of it already, it better be awesome.”

“Oh, it is. Very much so.” Byron’s smile broadened. “Stay here, I’ll be right back. It should be in the back. And I should probably get something for finding Colt.”

“Col-ton.” Belle corrected, rolling her eyes. She laughed slightly as Byron mocked her, rolling his eyes before turning around to the shop and disappearing into the back.

Even though things seemed to lighten up, she felt a deep pit of dread in her gut. She had a feeling that something bad was about to happen.

Belle glanced around the park, noticing that she was the only one out. And looking around, she noticed her footprints from earlier from the ash on the ground. Along the sidewalk, to Byron’s shoppe. Just hers - save for Byron’s from his stepping out.

“…Byron? Where’s everyone else that’s supposed to be here? Aren’t there guests?” She called out, hearing her voice slightly echo in the empty area. “I get that it’s nighttime, but ain’t this ash old? Even if people are sleeping, shouldn’t they be walkin’ ‘round at daytime?”

No response, and she felt a lump in her throat. She felt anxiety welling up, and she bit her lip as she thought back on what Byron said. He said he didn’t notice when the other shoe dropped.

She had a feeling that she didn’t either. But she couldn’t let herself think of that. She couldn’t think of anything that could be the reason behind it. Nothing made sense to her.

“Byron?” She called out again, but again there was no answer.

Her eyes wandered around in search for something, anything she could use. Something she could hold onto, to keep her mind off of the possibilities her brain conjured up with every step she took. There weren’t many choices available at all, so she looked down at the ash.

…it was sticky. Ash wasn’t sticky - it clung - but it wasn’t sticky from what she experienced. She knelt down, scratching it off the ground and sniffing it. She reeled her head back, nearly gagging at the potent scent. She wheezed, shaking her hand as she coughed.

‘Well, there’s the smell from before.’ She thought, rubbing it off on her pants. ‘The hell is that?’

Her first thought went to something to clean up the ash, but it didn’t make sense. It didn’t smell like any cleaning detergent or solution she knew. And it was sticky, which seemed to be the opposite of a cleaning solution. Whatever it was, it was everywhere.

Was it pesticide? No, that didn’t make sense. Why would there pesticide sprayed everywhere even without any plants? It didn’t smell good, so it couldn’t be a perfume either. Her mind drifted to what Byron said - he made things for Starr Prk. Chemicals. And this reeked of chemicals. A chemical compound perhaps. A chemical weapon?

‘Or something like that.’ She thought as she rubbed the residue off her clothes again.

As she wiped it off the rest of her pants, her mind raced. Maybe she was on edge about this place, maybe it was a setup to trap them. Maybe she hadn’t been told everything. Well, she knew Byron didn’t tell her everything.

For some reason the smell was stronger, which didn’t make sense. She wasn’t closer to the ground. For some reason, her eyes stung and her lungs burned. For some reason, her vision started to blur as she stood up. For some reason, her knees buckled beneath her and collapsed in the sidewalk. For some reason… her head hurt.

Did she breathe in something?

She forced herself up, pushing herself up on a knee. She staggered to the door, slamming her fist against it before grabbing the knob, falling onto the floor as it swung open under her weight, with the bell jingling. She scrambled for it, pulling herself up by the handle, stumbling inside. The lights, however dim, flickered on as soon as she walked in and she stumbled further into the store, coughing.

She didn’t even know that she was calling out for Byron, the pain from screaming was covered from the burning in her throat. She could barely even hear herself over the ringing in her ears. She slammed the door behind her, screaming again. It echoed loudly in the otherwise silent building.

Her legs gave out underneath her, causing the collapse unceremoniously into a heap. She curled up, hugging herself tightly with her back against the door and groaned.

She was dizzy. Her vision blurred. She could hardly breathe and the pain in her chest was growing unbearable. She could feel a migraine beginning, and she groaned softly. Sounds felt underwater. She groaned loudly, trying to focus on something. Anything, just… something.

Footsteps. Then another footstep. Someone was walking towards her. She reached her arm out, attempting pull herself towards the footsteps. She cleared her throat, trying to speak as loud as manage.

“Byron!” The footsteps paused, and she heard a concerned muffled question. A familiar voice. That voice… “Help…”

She felt a prick in her arm, and heard talking as her shoulder was shook. She tried to lift her eyelids again but struggled, feeling a pressure in her chest. More pressure, and the world began to swirl and darken. The voice grew more concerned.

“Belle,” This time her head snapped up. “Are you alright? Can you speak? Say something.”

Belle managed to raise her heavy lids slowly, blinking several times before trying to clear her vision, trying to see through the growing dark spots. She noticed Byron kneeling down in front of her, looking scared. She felt too tired to think about it, her head was swimming.

“Belle,” The voice seemed to clear up, but it still sounded distant. “Can you hear me? Belle?”

“Byron,” She rasped, and he looked relieved, but still worried, “Byron, I was callin’ you.”

Byron almost spoke, but was interrupted by jingling of the door swinging open. As the bell rang, Byron turned his head quickly toward the entrance. Belle closed her eyes, letting her head drop.

She had a feeling that it was too late.

[shimmershae]

My thoughts on Episode 6--On the Inside

Very appropriate title by the way.  Works in a multitude of ways.  

As always, my randomness is going beneath a cut again to spare the eyeballs of those of you that don’t want to see it at all and also?  Help those of you that have somehow stayed spoiler-free in this brand-new age of early release episodes.  It is still so wild to me that I’m a full episode ahead of half the fandom.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when we get to the final episode and they decide to make us all suffer together--because somehow I do feel they will do exactly that after spoiling us for the first 23 episodes.  It is going to be agonizing.  

Anyway.  Without further ado, Shae’s stream of consciousness review (of sorts).  

Not fair, Angela.  Opening the episode with that shot of that big ass spider.  I hate those suckers.  So naturally, they’re an easy sell for setting the horror scene to me, lol.  

Okay. ��Who the hell’s chasing Virgil and Connie?  Walker No-See-Ums?

Barely a minute in and the atmosphere for this episode is moody AF.  

What is this?  Tara Jr. The Walking Dead?  LOL.  Where’s the Scarlett for this mini plantation house?  Anyway.  First three minutes of this episode?  Just as attention grabbing as the first five episode openings this season.  I don’t think people out there are giving our writers enough love for that.  Every episode so far has opened like a mini movie.  

With the way the Walking Dead logo keeps crumbling away with each successive episode, somehow it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Carol and Daryl spinoff was eventually titled The Living and had flowers growing out of each letter, lol.  I mean, there would be a certain sort of life-affirming symmetry in a show that’s been promised to be much lighter in tone doing just that.  

More Carol and Aaron?  Yes, please.  I don’t necessarily like Carol staying at home and sitting the sidelines like a figurative happy little homemaker in the B story while the rest of the mains are trying like hell to sell the A story, but if she’s going to be totally prohibited from the main storyline until it’s time to blow shit up?  I’m going to continue enjoy getting to see her do what she should have been doing for seasons--interacting with others in the community, especially Aaron and the ladies.  

Truly.  I really am loving my girl getting some quality Aaron and Rosita time.  It’s so long overdue.  

Bless sweet Kelly.  Riding off to her sister’s rescue.  

Why isn’t Lydia shown as part of these plans?  For someone that could barely read last season, I doubt that big ass map was a piece of cake for her and it’s all just guesswork anyway without her guidance.  I mean, why does it feel like they are cutting some of this stuff that might not seem like much plot-wise but would go a long way toward establishing different character beats?  Personally, I would have loved to see her involved in the search and sharing scenes again with Carol and bonding with Kelly. 

Virgil be having that “I always feel like somebody’s watching me” feeling.  Don’t you hate that, lol?  

“You haven’t slept in days.”  But how many days, Virgil?  I’m going to need a number because I’m confused AF about this timeline at this point.  What we’re seeing and what different pieces of dialogue is telling us is not exactly lining up.  I’m going to find it awful hilarious if it hasn’t even been two weeks since the cave in.  For reasons.  

Connie’s spidey senses are clearly tingling.  

Alrighty, then.  She’s clearly got PTSD.  Understandable.  They’ve all had it.  Some have been treated more sympathetically than others, though.  

I mean, it never seems to cross anybody’s mind how Carol probably sees Henry’s head on that pike, Mika’s pale and bloody body, Lizzie crumpled face down in a bed of yellow flowers, Sophia with a smoking bullet hole through her undead head whenever she closes her eyes but whatever.  

Okay though.  But what if Connie had really shitty, impossible to read handwriting?  AKA doctor’s  handwriting.  What then?  

Leah’s face honestly twists my insides whenever I see it, lol.  It’s quiet a visceral thing.  No, that does not make me a horrible person.  Not everybody wants or has to drink the awesome, great, redeemable villainess Kool-Aid.  IMHO, she’s got a face meant for a Walker.  Perfect makeover idea.  Eh.  Mostly it’s her expression and the deadness of her eyes.  

Anyway.  Why is it always the fingers?  Eff that.  

Listen.  If ya’ll can’t tell Daryl’s conflicted AF with the situation he’s landed in, you don’t know how to read NR’s face and eyes.  He’s not a masterclass like MMB but he’s pretty darn good when he wants to be.  

I honestly feel sorry for Redshirt Frost.  

“You do what you gotta do.”  Frost knows what’s what and he’s willing to walk the walk for Maggie.  Impressive loyalty.  I’m left wondering how the current, colder incarnation of Maggie inspired it because I’m still struggling to see it.  Anywho.  My point is the dude knows the score and just gave Daryl the okay.  

Daryl taking off his angel vest before stepping into the role of torturer/interrogator=him shedding the persona/the man Judith and RJ and Lydia and Carol know him to be.  Pushing away his man of honor status so he can just survive somehow.  

Pope never quits chewing whatever the hell he’s got in his mouth.  It’s kind of distracting.  

Ohhh.  We’re back to the Haunted Mansion.  I mean house.  Where are the Hitchhiking Ghosts?  

All the eyes scratched out of those creepy pictures=spooky.  

The good old fogged up bathroom mirror shot.  Somebody’s been watching and studying their horror movies, lol.  Not gonna lie though.  I’m legit bracing myself for the jump scares I know have to be coming.  

I’m loving the music/score in these scenes.  

Truthfully, I could care less about these Reapers.  But they are hella attractive, lol.  Listen.  Angela knows what she’s doing.  

Kelly’s horse is so pretty.  Prayer chain for that baby.  

More dead horses?  Why?  

Connie’s slingshot?  Sorry.  I maintain, no matter how much I like these two, that they have the lamest weapons ever.  Endless supply of Virginia rocks or not.  

So.  Did Virgil and Connie enjoy a little equine for dinner?  Did they kill it before the Walkers fed?  What monsters!  Yeah, no.  Not if they were starving even if I personally could not have.  The more probable story is they fled the camp in a panic and left the horse behind and then it went down.  Sorry.  I didn’t exactly study the wounds on the poor animal because it is so traumatizing to me to continue to see them meet such dastardly ends on this show.  I don’t know who the hell has such a score to settle with horses but stop it.  

Days.  It’s only been days.  Not weeks.  So many times with all that Daryl and Company have had to contend with since the cave in?  Those do not exist, lol.  They’re just a convenient, appeasing piece of dialogue thrown at a fanbase primed and ready to read everything into not much of anything.  There’s just not been enough time for it to happen unless Daryl has literally been up 24/7 for all of them.  You know, strategizing how to attack the remainders of Alpha’s horde, figuring out how to defend Hilltop before it fell, healing from the wound he sustained at Alpha’s hand, sitting on that log all damn night with Negan waiting on Carol to come home, having a lover’s quarrel with his best damn everything, taking care of the Grimes babies and Lydia, being the reluctant leader.  Kang, why you playing them like that?  Daryl’s a super guy but he’s not a superhuman with clones.  So many times my ass.  

Seriously.  Who been watching Connie and Virgil?  The MIA Oceansiders?  Beta’s Fee Fi Fo Fum Ghost?  

Nice.  A Michonne mention.  Maybe the truth will start to trickle out.  

LMAO at Connie’s “I’m not staying here.”  Me neither, girl.  I would be outta that house so fast.  

They really “Quiet Placing” this episode.  Honestly?  I’m kinda loving it.  

WTF was that?  I know she can’t hear but you telling me all the little hairs on her arms, legs, and neck didn’t stand the fuck up and say fuck this shit, I’m gone?  Pardon my language, lovelies, but that moment had my heart kicking up several beats.  

Okay, okay.  To be fair to Connie, every hair on her body been doing that since the front door closed.  Maybe they’re desensitized.  

Gollum’s chasing Connie!!!  He/She wants their Precious!!!

The knee jerk reactions about this episode sight unseen are OTT, honestly.  And I mean no disrespect by saying that.  I can understand completely where they’re coming from because we’ve been burned so long in this fandom.  But it’s obvious the spoiler source has their particular biases and reads into things in such a way that don’t line up with what’s actually being shown onscreen.  Daryl’s loyalty in this episode and all along quite clearly lies with his family and his community.  He’s been playing Leah since the start and is truly just trying to survive somehow.  

Awful thought.  The Reaper that’s so suspish of Daryl--haven’t quite caught his name or really cared to.  I feel like he might try to get to Daryl somehow.  When he realizes that Daryl cares no more for Leah than any human would care for somebody (they thought) they used to know?  He’s going after Dog.  Or Carol should she finally join this story. 

I refuse to believe Carol isn’t going to be a part of this story.  Because they messing with her mans, lol.  

“You’re ever with us or you’re not.”  Now where have I heard those words before?  I wish I could find that Daryl gif because that had to be one of the funniest things ever, lol.  

Unrealistic suggestion to Daryl, Leah?  Breathing oxygen seems to piss off Carver.  Oh look.  He finally has a name for me, lol.  

I love how all three of the ladies--Carol, Magna, and Rosita--look at Kelly with such indulgent, adoring “little sis, you alright?” eyes.  

They are seriously the most beautiful quartet of characters.  I mean all of them are lovely but Carol and Rosita this season?  Ugh.  The unfairness of the pretty.  

Human bones.  Terminus callback, lovelies.  How it all would have eventually gone down if Gareth and Co. hadn’t met the business end of Rick’s red machete.  

So many horror movie homages in this one.  

Virgil’s like “let’s leave this Texas Chainsaw Massacre behind.”  

Connie and Virgil have obviously bonded, ya’ll.  I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying their scenes together when the character mostly got on my nerves with Michonne.  He’s a good actor and the core of his character is sympathetic, but I’m not going to lie.  I wasn’t super enthused when he was the one that rescued Connie because I didn’t know how their scenes would play out. But there’s a nice synergy there.  

Okay.  Does Carver want Leah for himself?  Because I’m sure Daryl at this point would love to scream “take her, I know where I fucking belong!”  

Daryl’s digging in deep because Carver has shown him Leah’s potential weak spot.  Nuance is truly lost on some people, LMAO.  He cares about Leah as a human being probably.  He’s Daryl, after all.  The sweet one.  But he sees her as his way outta this and he’s going to exploit it.  

It’s nice to have a silent Negan for once, lol.  I can pretend he didn’t take my baby Glenn away from me and enjoy JDM’s pretty.  

So.  These cannibal people were the watchers?  Hmm.  

I’m really digging Virgil 2.0.  Yeah.  Nobody’s surprised more than me.  

Sweet, sweet scene between Virgil and Connie.  His determination to reunite her with her family brings back the sympathy I felt for him when he told Michonne “I promised her flowers.  Every day.”  

Damn.  How many of those creepy crawly cannibals are there?  

How brave of Connie to confront her fears to save someone she’s obviously grown to care about.  

The Kelly/Connie reunion gave me chills and made me cry.  Thank fuck Angela didn’t cheapen that moment by having it focus on literally anybody else.  Kelly is the most important person in the whole world to Connie and vice versa.  Just like Carol is the most important person in the whole world to Daryl and vice versa.  Angela fucking knows.  Everybody does.  Except the people busy building castles out of sand while the waves of Carol’s and Daryl’s converging stories keep crashing closer and closer to shore.  

Such a beautiful moment given to us by Angel Theory and Lauren Ridloff.  So authentic and sweet.  Kelly and Connie are home to each other.  

Poor Frost.  That’s all I gotta say about that.  

WTF, though.  Was Mel just not available or what?  I want to see more of the ASZ characters that I care about, not the Reapers.  Like I’d be fine with the story if all the characters not named Maggie, Negan, or Daryl weren’t surviving on crumbs during it.  Especially the 2nd billed actress on the entire show.  Angela.  Please.  Fix this.  

One last WTF.  Seriously.  WTF has Maggie done to inspire Pope’s obsession?  It better be juicy after all this shit.  

Overall impression of the episode--

One of my favorites of the season so far.  The horror aspects were fantastic, IMHO. I truly didn’t expect to like Connie and Virgil’s scenes as much together so that was a nice surprise.  She got the reunion that felt most true and earned for the character and her story and I thank Angela from the bottom of my heart for that.  

I would have loved more Carol but I always want more Carol.  I’m okay with her taking a backseat because ultimately?  This was Kelly’s moment with her sister.  Carol and Connie will eventually have their time to sit down and talk.  And pick back up their blossoming friendship because I truly do not feel Connie blames Carol at all.  

I do wish Lydia had been included with the girl group.  Last episode felt like it was leading up to that.  

The Reaper storyline continues to be the weakest link because every time we see them the dialogue and interactions feel totally recycled from the time previous.  I feel like it would have totally been helped by a tighter focus and less stretching out because 8 episodes of this is really diluting what I feel like Angela and Co. are going for.  I’m not here for Leah being redeemed or being a bigger focus in any of the episodes because she does nothing of interest for me.  I’m just peeking in on that story for the Daryl of it all.  

Speaking of the Daryl? You lovelies out there gotta stop taking that spoiler source’s recaps at face value because it’s obvious to me at least that there’ some bias at work.  Every action and word coming from Daryl is coming from a place of loyalty to his family and wanting to protect them, no matter how he has to dirty his hands.  Leah is just a means to his ultimate end.  She’s not his future.  She never was.  His future’s already spoken for and 2023 can’t get  here soon enough.  But like Daryl, we have to just survive somehow.  

Oh goodie.  More Maggie and Negan next episode and looks like no real follow up on Connie and the ASZ reunions.  Hopefully, this is yet another instance of the previews being deceiving but I’m not holding my breath.  

Until later, lovelies.  

Hope my word vomit didn’t bore you too much.  

[beldroxramscal]

Sway ~ part 1

Javier Pena x female!OC

Word count: 2.690

Summary: One of Javier’s former informants came back to Bogotá. On his way to find out why, he encounters some unexpected trouble.

Warnings: guns, strippers, mentions of sex, language

A/N: No one asked for this and I doubt many people will read this, but I was so proud of myself for writing more than a few sentences, I decided to post this. My first fic in maybe 3 years? This is also my first time not writing for a ship and my first time posting something with my OC (very exciting and terrifying). I have a little more in mind with this, but we’ll see.

English is not my first language and I have no one to beta for me. That is just a very long way to say: sorry, my English sucks.

Part 1//Part 2//Part 3//

However he thought, or God forbid hoped, this night would go, this was not even in his top ten. Sweat rolled down his back, as the barrel of a gun dug under his chin. The mixture of gunpowder, iron, and raspberries hitting his nose while a pair of green eyes looked up at him. All he saw were flames. It was hard to connect her to the woman he saw just 5 minutes ago dancing with soft blue lights reflecting off of the glitter on her body. Along with the soft smiles and white bodice, she looked almost angelic. It was a stupid thought back then, and it’s even more stupid now.

“Layla! I don’t think this is a very good idea,” a shaky voice of reason came from the most unexpected source. Sweet Valentina hasn’t moved from the door since she brought him here, and he almost forgot she was standing there.

“Yeah? You know what’s not a very good idea? Bringing strange men backstage! How many fucking times have I told you?” Layla barked back without taking her eyes off of him. Her voice was angry and annoyed, but she was a complete picture of calmness.

“Look, my name is Javier Pena–”

“And you are looking for Izzy. I heard you. Where is your badge?”

Oh, so she knew who he was. He just hoped that was a good thing.

“Jeans. Back pocket.”

Layla moved to stand by his side as she blindly reached to his pocket. Instead, her hand landed on the small of his back, and she pulled out a gun from the back of his jeans. Without giving it a look, she threw it on the small couch behind her. Finally, she pulled out his badge, and her eyes left his for the first time since he came into her dressing room.

“What the fuck am I supposed to find out from this?” She closed her eyes forcefully, scrunching her nose in frustration.

“I am a DEA agent,” he answered a bit confused. No one ever questioned his badge before.

“So fucking what? Is there only one DEA agent? Anyone can fucking have this. Where’s some kind of picture, name… something. Jesus. Where’s your ID?”

Before he could tell her that it was in the inside pocket of his jacket Valentina started slurring words in a panic. By the look on Layla’s face, she wasn’t sure of what was said either, but it didn’t take much guessing when her last words were, “HE IS THE POLICE?”

“Why the hell are you still here, Val? Just get out.” Layla sounded as tired of all of this as he felt. He had some actual fucking work to do and instead he was here. Trying to figure out why one of his former informants came back to Bogotá and make sure she got out safe again.

“I’m not leaving you alone with him. What if he does something to you?”

“And how exactly would you help me?” There was a silence for a few moments, and then he heard Valentina move. Judging by the sound, she moved very slowly. Layla’s eyebrows raised in question and then her lips turned into an amused smile. “Good girl,” she said finally. Javier tried to turn his head and see what was going on, but Layla dug the gun even deeper into his skin making him hiss. It didn’t matter much either way because Valentina stopped in front of him. His own gun pointing at his chest.

“Now, where’s your ID?” Layla turned her attention back to him.

“Jacket.”

He felt her patting the side pockets and finally find her way to his wallet and ID. She studied it for a moment, looking up at him and back down to the piece of plastic and then, finally, lowering the gun.

“Give him back his gun, Val,” she nodded at her. Valentina almost threw it at him before Layla even finished her sentence. He caught it and put it back into the back of his jeans.

Layla took a few steps back and took Valentina’s hand into her own, giving it a kiss. “Go home, love,” her voice was full of tenderness and warmth as she spoke to the younger woman. Such simple gestures and somehow it felt too intimate for him to witness. “I’m sure Agent Pena will gladly pay for any emotional distress he caused you tonight.” Layla looked up from the woman up to him again with one of the fakest sweetest smiles he’s ever seen.

God, he hated strip clubs. You always pay way more than necessary for much less fun than a fucking brothel. Still, he took out a few bills from his wallet and reluctantly gave them to her. Valentina shoved them into her bra and, with a promise of a call from Layla, left.

“Unbelievable,” he let out, the bizarre nature of the situation finally hitting him.“Can’t say I’ve ever been held at gunpoint by a stripper.”

“I believe that,” she shot him a cold look. “Considering,” she gestured vaguely at him, “your whole deal. I mean, most strippers don’t have the inside information you want and very few of them fuck for money.”

He felt her words burn in his chest as he lit a cigarette to avoid her stare. He pondered if he should defend himself, but it seemed like she only wanted him to know that she knew what went down between him and Izzy. “Where is she?” he asked instead, trying to get to the point of this whole night.

“Safe. Her grandma got sick, so she came to visit her. She leaves tomorrow afternoon.”

“I would like to see her and make sure she’s alright,” he pressed. He didn’t come all the way down here and got his head almost blown off for words of reassurance.

She studied his face, lighting a cigarette of her own. Javier wasn’t sure of what she found out, but after a few moments, she turned her back to him and started packing her things into a bag. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll meet you outside.”

———-

The second she heard the door close behind him her hands tore away at the robe draped around her body. The material was light, but it felt like she was caught in a vice. Letting the flimsy material pool around her feet, she was finally able to take a deep breath. It still did not seem like enough. It did not matter though, she had no time to panic and wouldn’t have until Izzy and David were safely out of Colombia.

Taking one more deep breath she took off the silver bra and thongs and exchanged them for the more comfortable cotton pair she came to work in. She hastily stuffed all the costumes she used that night into her bag and then swept all the trinkets on the table on top of them with one broad sweep of her hand. She was already annoyed at the mess she’d have to go through later.

In her own clothes, she made her way through the back door outside the club. It took a little longer to get to the main street, but still better than being stopped by patrons asking for a private show.

Agent Pena was leaning on the hood of, what she thought had to be, his car. He was just finishing another cigarette, his eyes already on her as she stepped from around the corner of the building and into the street.

“That was more than five minutes,” he commented when she was within the earshot. Pushing off the hood of the car, he walked to the driver’s side without giving her a second look.

“I was hoping you’d fuck off,” she muttered to herself before sliding into the passenger seat.

He started the car and looked at her impatiently, waiting for instructions. She reluctantly told him their destination, not exactly ecstatic that she was about to take him to her flat.

Silence fell over the car when they hit the streets he was familiar with, and she didn’t have to navigate him anymore. Her head rested on the window, and she watched him drive. He seemed tired. Bags under his eyes and even his hands on the wheel kept sliding down now and then. She smiled to herself when his nose scrunched up as if something tickled it.

Pena turned his head as he stopped at an intersection and did a little double-take when he noticed her watching him. “What?” he asked seeming almost self-conscious. It made her laugh.

“Nothing,” she shrugged and kept her eyes unashamedly on him.

He looked at her again, holding her gaze for a few moments as if he was testing her, averting his eyes back to the road when she didn’t flinch. “I thought you wanted me to ‘fuck off’.”

“Oh, I do,” she agreed, completely serious. “I’m also kinda intrigued. I mean, Izzy risked everything for you. I’m just trying to figure out what it is about you that was worth it.”

He seemed to be caught off guard by her honesty. His fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and he shifted in his seat. This was obviously not a very comfortable topic for him. “I think you are giving me more credit than it’s due. I just offered her a safe way from Colombia with her son.”

“Sure,” she nodded, “seems reasonable enough.” The sarcasm in her voice did not escape him, but she just did not want to talk about that anymore. Both of them knew Izzy liked him more than she should have. She didn’t risk only her life, but also the life of her son and her grandmother. It didn’t matter now anyway.

“Is Layla your real name?”

She let out a laugh because the question was simply ridiculous. Especially after that little exchange they just had. The corner of his lip quirked up just a little. He seemed happy she wanted to move on from the conversation as well. “You are the big DEA agent here. What do you think?”

“So, what is your real name?” he looked at her again. The streetlights reflected in his eyes, and she realized that they were not as dark as she previously thought.

“Why? So you can go back to work tomorrow and try to look me up in one of your files?” she kept her tone light, teasing. He seemed more responsive to that, and it was nice to see him relax a little. Plus, she felt she owed him after holding a gun to his head.

“Of course not,” he shook his head, “I’m going back to the office right after I’m done with this.”

She laughed again, and he joined in with his reserved chuckle. “Well, I’m tempted to see how good you are and what you come up with only my address and a stage name.”

“So,” he turned his head to her and slowed down the car when she motioned to the apartment complex she lived in and parked right in front of it. “You think we will see each other again.”

“I think you like a challenge, agent Pena,” she winked at him as she got out of the car.

She closed her eyes in the cool air, mentally banging her head against a wall. Why did she always have to flirt? Barely, but still. It was like a curse she couldn’t get rid of, and it always came up in the most inappropriate of places. Like with a fucking DEA agent who fucked one of her best friends.

Pena closed the car door and caught up with her on the steps into the building. She led him to the second-floor terrace when he tried his luck one last time. “So you won’t tell me your name?”

“No,” she answered simply as she unlocked the door to her flat. “Izzy!” she called out into the apartment, but instead of Izzy, little David came running from one of the rooms.

“Auntie, Nat! Auntie, Nat!” he almost tackled her to the ground trying to show her little cars his grandmother bought him.

“No way! These are amazing!” she yelped, trying to match little David’s energy even if he just told Pena her real name.

“Auntie, Nat,” Pena repeated after the boy with a winning smile.

Natalia just shook her head at him disapprovingly, “that’s cheating.”

“Nat! I made di–” Izzy’s words died in her throat as her eyes landed on the man next to her. “What are you doing here?”

“Izzy,” Pena walked slowly to her, “I just wanted to make sure everything was alright.”

Izzy nodded at him, her eyes blown in shock. “Why are you with Nat?”

Hearing her name, Natalia took David into her arms. “Why don’t you two have a little chat and David,” she turned her attention to the youngest one, “can tell me all about these fancy cars.” The little bugger nodded furiously and twisted his way out of her arms.

“Yes! Of course! He couldn’t wait to show you,” Izzy agreed, kissing her son on the forehead as he ran past her and into Natalia’s room. Nat followed him in silence, only squeezing Izzy’s hand as she walked past her.

Her room was a mess with bags and clothes and toys all around the place. It looked like Izzy was in the middle of a packing up. Natalia made some room on her bed and sat down with David, trying to give him her full attention. It wasn’t as hard as she thought it would. David made damn sure she wouldn’t have anything on her mind but the story of the two racing cars.

It didn’t take long before the doors to her room opened and Izzy came in. She was genuinely smiling, content. “He’s leaving, but wants to talk to you.”

Nat nodded and walked out of her room and to the living room, where Pena was standing by the door with his hands on his hips. He didn’t seem very happy with anything that just happened. “What’s going on?” She stopped closer to him than necessary, but she didn’t wanna risk David hearing anything.

“Do you know how to use that little gun of yours?” he ducked his head down, bringing him even closer.

“I-I,” she stammered. The intensity in which his eyes bore into hers scared her. “Yes… Yes I know how to use it.”

“Good. Izzy doesn’t want me to go with you tomorrow.” He handed her a little white card with his name and put it into her hand. “If there’s anything weird. If you see anyone you don’t like or even if you have just a bad feeling,” he closed her hand around the piece of paper with his hand, not letting go just yet. “I want you to immediately call me, okay?”  Somehow he was even closer now, but instead of recoiling from him, she stood motionless.

His eyes slid to her open lips that were unable to form the word to go with her nodding.

“Good,” he said slowly, dragging his eyes up to hers again. She felt as if she was under a microscope as if he could see every emotion she was feeling at that moment plainly in her face. Could he tell how scared she was?

“Good,” he repeated when his eyes landed on hers again. “Call me.”

“I will,” she finally found her voice. It was quiet and shaky and downright pathetic. She should have stuck with nodding like an idiot.

His head was tilting back and forth as if he could not bring himself to get out of her space even though he should. There was no reason for him to stay this close to her now, and she wasn’t sure if there was any need before, but neither of them was ready to make the first move.

With a quick swipe of tongue over his lower lip, he finally stood up to his height, squeezing her balled up fist in his hand as he turned to the door. “Good night, Nat.”

[hy5ter1cal]

Yourself

(THIS IS A PART 2 TO ‘WHO AM I WITHOUT YOU,’ WHICH YOU CAN READ HERE)

A/N: Hi hello guys, I finished it like I promised, not really sure if I like the ending but you know it is the way it is. I would really appreciate some feedback on this because I dont really have any idea if you like this or not :)

Summary: What would’ve happened if the others didn’t get to Tommy and Tubbo in time? 

Warnings:  Swearing, violence, major character death, manipulation, lore spoilers

Word count: 2.4k 

“Alright, now I can take you to the real discs.” Dream said as Tubbo walked towards him. “What- and why now?” His questions were ignored by Dream who simply said to follow him. 

Dream took the lead as Tubbo and Tommy slacked behind. The taller of the two carefully leaned down and whispered for the other to stay close. Tubbo nodded and looked back at Dream who was standing on the very edge of the tall mountain. The wind was howling and the only source of light was the moon and for a moment Tommy wondered if Dream would fall off, and considered giving him a nudge in the right direction. He didn’t have time to decide as Dream spoke again. “Be careful when you walk down.” As he said it, he stepped on a pressure plate neither of them had seen. The Redstone flared to life and started to move part of the ground out of the way to reveal a narrow staircase that had been carved out of the mountain wall. 

“So- do we go down first?” Tubbo looked at Dream who gave him a curt nod. Tubbo let out a breathy okay as a confirmation that he had understood and gestured for Tommy to follow him. Tommy carefully made his way down as to not fall off, he could hear how Dream had followed close behind them.

The previous silence was broken by Dream who now seemed much closer. “You two think you can just show up and fight me to try and take back your discs.” They were quickly reaching the end of the staircase. “As if I don’t have a plan. You think that I’m a fool but that’s not how it works, Dream chuckled as they all reached the end. They were back on the ground again, no moonlight reaching them with the mountain towering above.

Dream brought out a torch and lit it, “you know, I’ve always been one step ahead of you guys-” Tommy huffed, he just couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “You’re just pure fucking evil man-” 

“You know, Tubbo thought I was his friend, Tommy.” Dream took off his mask, showing off his smirk as he walked closer to Tommy, torch in hand. “What an idiot, right? You also thought I was your friend,” Dream’s dark eyes met Tommy’s before he continued, “I made sure no one showed up to your stupid party so your only friend would be me.”

Tommy was quickly looking over the beach decorations one last time, covering a creeper hole and setting up parasols. He was buzzing with excitement, he might get to see Tubbo today. Tommy looked at his clock and noticed how the guests should arrive in about five minutes. He decided to have one last look around to see if there was anything else to fix up.

When he found nothing to fix he decided to wait. 

And he waited,

and waited,

and when nobody came he decided to check his nether portal to see if anything had gone wrong. When he found nobody outside the nether he went in. After the sickening teleportation to the nether, he looked around. Everything looked normal. The bridge was still there, no ghast explosions preventing someone from entering. “Why- No one’s here..” He whispered to himself. Tommy decided to look around and followed the bridge back to the main portal which led to the Greater SMP. Nothing. He found no one. 

He begrudgingly made his way back to his portal, hoping that maybe they had taken another route or perhaps a detour. 

Tommy returned to the overworld and only found one person. Dream. He was sitting in one of the beach chairs, drinking one of the drinks Tommy had prepared. 

“Hello!” Dream greeted Tommy with a smile, no mask in sight. “Hi..” Tommy mumbled as he slowly walked towards him. “Where’s everyone else? I thought this was a party?” Dream asked, sounding innocent. “Uh- well, I don’t know..” Tommy sighed as he sat down next to Dream who turned to look at him, sympathy in his eyes. “Well, I was running a little late so I was surprised when no one was he-” 

Tommy suddenly stood up. A sinking feeling reaching him. He was wearing armor that he wasn’t supposed to have. He immediately took it off and gave it to Dream, ready for him to blow it up or burn it. “I’m sorry- I forgot.” Tommy stuttered and hoped Dream wouldn’t be mad. Dream raised his eyebrows in surprise, “no, no Tommy it’s fine.” He turned to look at Dream, “really?” He smiled kindly once more. “Of course, Tommy. This is a party after all.”

“Uh- well where is everyone?” Tommy asked as he made his way to the beach chair next to the one Dream sat in. “I don’t know,” Dream responded, dragging out the ‘I.’ “Wilbur sent out the invites, didn’t he?” Tommy continued to ask Dream questions, thinking of a way that something could’ve happened with the invites. But when Dream answered, letting him know that he had personally made sure that everyone knew, Tommy was speechless.

“So where is everyone then!?” Tommy could feel anger building. A slow-burning in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to break something, hurt someone. 

“Maybe they just don’t want to see you.”

“What- You did that-?” Tommy breathed, desperately trying to look anywhere but at Dream who was right next to him. He wheezed out a laugh, “yeah, and you trusted me like an idiot! The person who had been against you in every war until that point. But you were just so desperate for a friend, that even I was enough.” Tommy swallowed as he realized Dream was right, he shouldn’t have trusted him. It was so obvious now. 

“So yeah, I’ve been one step ahead of you since the beginning.” Dream declared one final time, making it clear that he was right. “And- Tubbo. The reason I have the disc is because I blew up the community house and framed Tommy.”

“You blew up-” Tubbo whispered. “-and you were dumb enough to give me the disc.” Dream mocked as he turned around towards the mountain wall.

“L’manburg is gone, I have the discs and you two at my mercy-” Dream grins maniacally as he placed the torch next to him. “Do you have any armor left?” Tommy whispered to Tubbo who replied with a frightened ‘no.’

“-Now, follow me.” Dream exclaimed as a hole in the wall emerged, leading them into a mostly empty room. The walls were covered in torches that prevented any hostile mob from entering, and on the ground, built-in Blackstone and Obsidian was a platform. “Is this a trap-” Tubbo whispered to Tommy who turned to Dream. “How do we know we’re not just going to die here?” He asked, followed by Dream chuckling. “You know I could just kill you right here, I suggest you do as I say.” 

Tubbo quickly followed Dream’s directions and stepped onto the platform. “Hey- man why the fuck are you doing as he says!?” Tommy shouted angrily as he turned to look at his friend. “I mean- we’re pretty much dead either way.” Tubbo exhaled, anyone with a brain could tell he was scared, incredibly so. 

Tommy eventually decided to step onto the platform with Tubbo. Dream swiftly followed and flipped a lever, making the platform descend. “Whoa-” Tubbo stumbled forward and grabbed onto Tommy as not to fall. “What the fuck is happening-” Tommy mumbled as the platform continued to go down and shake.

“Listen, Tommy,” Dream started, “ever since you came here you’ve been a headache. You’ve brought war, terrorism-” What Tommy figured was an elevator finally reached a giant room. The walls were built from Blackstone and small Redstone lights covered the walls. The air inside the room was almost musty, this room must’ve been built a good while ago.

Opposite of the elevator they were currently riding Tommy noticed a big nether portal and- their discs. Their discs were there. “-you’ve made everything bad! But- the cause of all the war, of everything, is attachment.” Dream looked at Tommy. “Right? Your attachment to the discs, your attachment to Henry, to pets and friends. To land and countries. To items” 

The elevator finally stopped and Tommy made a move to step off but was stopped by Dream. “That- that’s the one good thing that you’ve done. The one good thing you’ve done is bringing attachment,” Dream walked off the elevator and into the room. 

“So, it took me a long time to realize how important attachment was. But when I did I became more powerful, and I realized how important you were.” Dream continued to walk, “Tubbo, Tommy, come look.” He permitted them to step off the elevator and they did. “Come- come see your discs,” Dream said as he led them to the big podiums where they were. “They’re right here.”

Tommy cautiously made his way to Dream with Tubbo following close behind. “There’s an ender chest there..” Tommy pointed out cautiously. “Yeah, Dream began, “you could take the disc if you wanted to but it doesn’t matter. I mean- I wouldn’t do it if I were you because then Tubbo will die-” Tommy’s mouth opened in shock, what was happening? 

Dream led them to the other disc which waited on the other podium. “They’re just laying there…” Tubbo pointed out, sadness in his voice. 

“You know ever since attachment became important, I cut my attachments.” Dream said. “ I blew up my house, I lost my friends.” Dream started to corner Tommy against the cold wall. “I lost my items, my crossbow, my- you know- everything that was important to me. I cut everything off because I realized attachments give people power over each other.” 

Tommy tried to find anything to say, but couldn’t. “I mean- the reason you’re here right now is because I have these dumb little discs.” Tommy looked to Tubbo and then back at Dream, “how- how did that not hurt you?” He managed to ask. “Because I lost everything to gain everything.” Tommy scoffed and pushed Dream away from him. “You didn’t gain shit you’re a sick bastard!” he shouted, Tubbo soon joining him. “Yeah, you don’t seem to have a lot right now.” Tubbo scoffed as Dream started to raise his voice. 

“If I can control the things people are attached to, I can control the server again!” He shouted and made a move to point at the other two, “because this isn’t Tommy SMP or Tubbo SMP it’s Dream SMP, right!?” 

Dream started to walk towards the duo, making them back up into the middle of the room. “I’ve constructed.. a prison. It’s inescapable. You can’t get out.” Dream locked eyes with Tommy. “There are hundreds of thousands of stacks of Obsidian, there are elder guardians, there are guards.” Tommy gulped, “What… how..?” 

Dream smiled and turned to Tubbo, “You know, Tubbo’s a pawn. He’s a follower and I’ve used him as much as I can-” Tommy butted in again. “Tubbo’s not a follower! He was the last president of L’manburg- he’s not a fucking follower!” 

“And where is L’manburg now?” Dream snarkily replied as he continued. “I’ve already gone over this, Tubbo’s a follower-” Yet again Tommy objected. “Stop! Tubbo’s not a fucking follower! You need him as much as you need me!” Tommy shouted in Dream’s face. He scoffed, “I don’t need Tubbo at all.” Tommy pushed Dream away, “Yeah you do because without Tubbo, what am I?” Tommy hollered angrily. “Dickhead,” he added at the end. 

Dream sighed, “Tommy, you want to be a hero. You want to be the hero of the SMP. Do you know what a hero needs?” Dream asked, “An origin story. You have Tubbo.” 

Tommy was stunned, he had always read a lot with Techno as a child, and he knew what Dream meant. The person that matters most to the hero always-

“No! Absolutely fucking not!” Tommy retorted as he shoved Tubbo behind him. “No, no you- I won’t let you.” Dream smiled once more and grabbed Tommy. “Look, I want to give you a chance to say goodbye.”

Tommy tried to squirm out of his grasp, “No! We’ll get out of here like we always do, it always works out in the end, right Tubbo?” Tommy looked at Tubbo who remained silent. “You’ll get out of here Tommy, but Tubbo won’t.” 

“You know…” Tubbo finally spoke up, looking into Tommy’s eyes. “It’s fine.” 

“No.. no, no Tubbo don’t!” Tommy shouted, still trying to break free. 

“It’s about time I guess,” Tubbo sighed and looked at the ground once more. “No! No, don’t just accept it Tubbo!” Tommy hollered as tears started to gather in his eyes. 

“Goodbye, Tommy,” Tubbo whispered as he walked towards them. Dream finally pushed Tommy away and brought out his axe. “No! No Tubbo don’t!” Tommy sobbed as he stood up and started sprinting towards them. 

Before Tommy even saw it he heard the sickening sound of metal slicing skin, then came the blood. There was so much of it, coating the axe and dripping onto the floor. Tubbo soon lost his balance and fell, and Tommy was there-

“No- no Tommy, you have to jump!” Tubbo laughed as they stood on the tall structure. Tommy gulped, water bucket in hand. He was about to say something when Tubbo decided to push him off. Tommy’s scream rang out over the SMP as he fell, and right before he fell, he placed the water that would save him from the fall. Tommy shouted in triumph as he survived, but then he saw Tubbo jump. Tommy knew he didn’t have a water bucket but knew what to do when he heard Tubbo yell: “Catch me!” 

-to catch him once again. Tommy gently held him as he tried to compress the wound, as if that would help now. “Tubbo, please don’t die.. not now!” Tommy sobbed as he searched Tubbo’s face for anything other than signs of pain. Tubbo’s breathing was labored as he reached his hand to lay atop of Tommy’s. “Tubbo.. please. I can’t say goodbye.. not now!” Tommy cried as Tubbo tried to move his hand. “It- it will be okay.” he tried to reassure Tommy, he always hated to see him cry. “But.. Who- who am I without you?” Tommy stuttered as their eyes met one last time. “Yourself.”Tubbo said as the message rang out in chat.

<Tubbo was slain by Dream using The axe of peace>

Tommy let out a cry akin to that of a wounded animal as he buried his face in Tubbo’s chest and sobbed. He could feel Tubbo turn to dust in his arms. Every second that passed he lost more of his friend. But suddenly the silence had been broken by the swooshing noise of the nether portal.

“I’m sorry Dream, but you should’ve paid me more.”

[bre-meister]

Spiders

Thank you @over-under-through1 for the prompts!

Butch’s class had run late and for an already unusually late class to run late meant that by the time he turned his car onto his street it was already late enough that most houses were dark. An errant light could be seen behind closed curtains here and there - some even turning off as Butch drove by as if reading his mind that it was just utterly too late to be lurking about in or outside the house.

Pulling into the driveway of the small two-bedroom house he shared with his girlfriend, Butch contemplated whether he should risk opening the garage and pulling in or just leave the car outside tonight. He knew that Buttercup tended to complain that on late nights like these the sound of the garage door rattling as it opened was enough to wake a normal person let alone someone with super hearing. He could see lights flashing intermittently through the front window and assumed that Buttercup had been watching t.v on the couch trying to wait up for him. She might not be asleep but it was more likely than not - it wouldn’t be the first time she’d fallen asleep in front of the television. Butch was tired and already annoyed at being forced to be out so late because his professor’s tangents went on tangents. He wasn’t quite sure he had the patience to deal with a sleepy, pissed off Buttercup Utonium at the moment, so he turned the car off.

 Stepping out and closing the heavy door as quietly as he could, he made his way to the front door. He tried to keep his keys from clanging around too much while still trying to unlock the door. Butch expected the house to be quiet. Maybe he’d pick up on BC’s soft snores - she insisted she didn’t snore but Butch found it endearing if not a little cute - or the sounds of some random show playing from what he’d thought was the t.v. What he was not expecting, not in the slightest, were the multiple holes and char marks on the wall. 

A loud commotion in the living room caught his attention and he went into defense mode, floating above the floor to avoid making any sound. If there was an intruder - although anyone would be stupid to try to break into a Ruff or a Puff’s house - he didn’t want to alert them anymore to his presence than he already had when he opened and closed the door.

Turning the corner from the entry hallway into the main room he was shocked to see Buttercup floating above the couch, lasers firing from her eyes every few seconds.

Well, he thought, that explains the lights through the window.

“Buttercup,” he whispered. When she didn’t acknowledge his presence he repeated her name a bit louder, “Buttercup!” A bit louder turned into yelling to be heard over her war cries.

She paused and looked at him quickly before turning back to whatever she had been doing before. Without his powers aiding him in tracking her motions, he probably wouldn’t have realized she’d even acknowledged him at all. He might have been tracking her motions, but it seemed that she was tracking the movement of something else.

A quick scan of the room told him that there was no one else there but her and him.

“Buttercup,” he sounded exasperated, annoyed, confused, but also curious at the same time, “what the fuck are you doing?”

“Well,” she started to explain but her eyes were still looking around rapidly, “ I was in the kitchen because I had cooked and I wanted to leave you some food out for when you got back and I was cleaning up and then I came out here to sit on the couch and wait up but then I saw a spider and I almost had it until you distracted me and now I don’t know where it is!” her rambling had turned frantic by the end.

It Butch’s brain, tired as it was, a moment to catch up to what she had said.

“I - a spider?” Butch was dumbfounded. He knew that his girlfriend had a fear of the eight legged creatures but he never thought it would express itself in the physical act of putting holes in the wall.

“Yes a - “ something moved out of the corner of his eye and Buttercup squealed - a most dignified squeal that definitely did not sound like Bubbles thank you very much - “SPIDER, YOU GET THAT SIDE OF THE ROOM IT CAN'T RUN FROM BOTH OF US!”

Somehow, the spider was managing to evade her erratic eye beams so Buttercup changed her tactic. Another beam shot out turning those beautiful jade eyes a menacing red. Unlike its predecessors, this was not a quick, contained blast but one continuous beam. The lasers followed the spider who was, somehow, still managing to outrun the blast. Butch realized that Buttercup was either going to fry the spider or burn the house down trying. Butch rather liked their little start-up and would rather keep the damage to a minimum so he decided to step in.

“Buttercup stop! Calm down!”

The beam continued - she wasn’t listening. Thinking quickly Butch flew up behind her and covered her eyes with his hands, effectively blocking the beams. His palms burned from the intensity of the lasers. His hands being so close to the source didn’t help either. Briefly, Butch considered that he hadn’t completely thought this plan through. In the end though, it was better his X enhanced skin took the brunt of the attack rather than the already scorched walls. They wouldn’t have held up much longer from the looks of it.

“What the fuck, it’ll get away!”

“No, it won’t. It’s just sitting on the wall or, well, what’s left of it.” The last half of the sentence was mumbled but with their superpowers he was more than certain she had heard him.

“Just let me handle it ok? I’d rather not have to sleep in the cold because you burned our house down trying to get rid of a spider.”

“Whatever, just make sure it’s gone! And I mean gone. None of that, taking git outside shit just so it can come back later!I don’t want to see another spider in here ever again!”

If Butch were less mature like he’d been in his youth, he would have laughed at her for the way her tone wobbled. She was clearly shaken up by the idea of the things she feared - and that list was very small - invading her home, her safe space. But this Butch, the one who had grown and matured recognized that teasing would only cause her to clam up and when it came to Buttercup and fear, her bottling it up never boded well for the future.

So, Butch simply slung his backpack around his shoulder and opened the bag. As he made his way closer to the arachnid he pulled out one of his textbooks. Crouching down, so he was level with the spider, Butch took a moment to address it,

“Sorry little guy. I hate to do this but,” he shrugged, “the missus had spoken.” 

Standing up, Butch swung quickly using the hard textbook to end their little spider problem. He collected a tissue from another pocket in his backpack to wrap up the squashed spider.

Walking into the kitchen he saw Buttercup by the stove. The microwave was going behind her and she fidgeted as Butch leaned around her to deposit the tissue in the trashcan.

“Is it… is it over?” She asked quietly.

Butch couldn’t help the small chuckle that escaped as he answered,

“Yes, Sunshine. It’s over.” he moved in closer, hands rising to grab her hips when suddenly she was on the other side of the kitchen. 

“Uh uh. Wash your hands first!”

Butch raised his hands in front of him as he moved towards the sink. He made a show of washing and drying his hands. When he was done, he held them out in front of him, eyebrow raising,

“Good?”

“I suppose,” she hummed.

Butch spread held his arms out further and just as quickly as she’d dogged him earlier, she was in his arms. Her own wrapped around his neck as he placed his on her waist.

“Thank you. I know it’s kind of stupid but -”

“No,” he interrupted softly, “the way you feel, your fears? They’re never stupid. Not to me. I’ll gladly slay a spider for you anyday, butterfly. Especially if it means keeping the house from falling down.”

“I am sorry about that.” Buttercup looked over her shoulder at the decimated wall that used to separate the kitchen from the living room.

“Well, look on the bright side.” She said after a moment.

“And that would be?” Butch was genuinely curious as to what she was about to come up with.

“I mean, it wasn’t a load bearing wall,” she turned back to him and shrugged her shoulders, “ Now we have that open floor plan I’ve been saying I wanted.” Buttercup smiled playfully.

The laugh that escaped Butch’s moth was sudden and loud. If the neighbors hadn’t awoken by all the lasers and shouting they certainly would by the loud laughter at such a late hour.

Butch’s stomach growled reminding him that it was late and he hadn’t eaten since early afternoon. Buttercup’s light laughs joined him at the sound. Butch ignored his hunger. Instead, he leaned down to plant a soft kiss on Buttercup’s lips.

The two separated once the microwave beeped, signaling it was done heating up whatever was inside it.

“Common Mr. Hero. I put your plate in the microwave. Eat so we can go to bed. I’m tired and it’s late.”

Butch preened at the nickname knowing that it was only half a joke. Reluctantly he let her go sso she could get his food out of the microwave. He moved to the fridge to get them drinks before returning to the table where Buttercup now sat, a plate of hot food in front of his usual seat. Butch couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.

They talked as he ate. She told him about her day and he did the same. As she launched into a story about some of the characters, as she called them, that visited her bakery - a small start up but Butch just knew that, with Buttercup’s talent, it would take off - Butch couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t mind the late nights as long as he got to spend them with her.