#stands that require knowledge of the space around you and fuck with physics and work in straight lines [mostly]

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

Rametto dressed as the [English] Beat's logo 'The Beat Girl'. His and then the original's colour pallet's.

just a quick doodle bc i finalized his stand power and when i realised it was all about reflections i knew i had to call it 'mirror in the bathroom' after the song by the [english] Beat of the same name. i have now been listening to the song on loop for hours.

a lot of details on their stand under the cut:

'Mirror in the Bathroom' doesn't have a humanoid physical form, instead showing as a blue glow/tint on objects affected by its stand power, and in its 'Gems'.

Mirror works through reflections and light, with three skills:

Perception: the user can 'perceive' [see and hear] through a reflective object, as if he was in the same place as the object, as long as that object is in line of sight, This ability can extend its range by 'bouncing' off other reflective objects, allowing him to 'perceive' further away, in exchange for using more stand power & having a worse 'connection'.

E.g. In a restaurant, using the reflections of wine glasses to 'perceive' right next to an important conversation, from the other side of the room. another use is seeing multiple angles of a fight, spreading perception over a large amount of reflective surface to be aware of what you opponent[s] are doing

Recording: if a reflective object has been imbued with stand power, it can record and later replay what it has seen/heard.

E.g. imbuing the shiny metal of a tin of cookies with stand power then replaying it hours later to find out who's been eating them.

Reflection: if a reflective object is damaged, it can reflect that damage back at the person/object showing in its reflection

E.g. if someone is walking in front of a store window, damaging the window where the reflected hand is to hurt the person.

'Gems' look like blue shiny gemstones backed in silver [his earrings], and can be used as power amplifiers or as remote reflective surfaces. they can be created from any reflective object, but work best at a small size.

E.g. placing a gem then moving several blocks away, the user can still 'perceive' through it. Instead of having to stay 'connected' through reflections/physical contact with an object set to record, a gem can be placed next to it and used to power the recording.

i haven't solidified exact ranges/strength/limitations bc that takes brain power, but there is a limit of stand power, and 'gems' can work as stores of it/amplifiers. bc the level of perception/recording/damage can be varied its hard to give a solid or even rough number for all the options.

only sound/only vision can be chosen, and the perceived sound/images can either be very strong, if they are in a safe place, or there but not overwhelming, for when moving or fighting and awareness around the body is nessasery.

if power runs out or concentration is broken [normally relevant when recording] the object/gem will crack and dull, becoming unusable again.

while the reflect damage ability is fairly powerful, its definitely a how you use it power. in a straight up fight he would struggle to stand on his own against a more combat oriented stand, but if able to think and given a little time he can outsmart a lot of users.

main uses: eavesdropping, snooping around, recording conversations & actions, doing untraceable damage, being aware over a large distance, tracking people.

[edited in] my trying to fucking figure out its stats:

Power: C/B [i haven't solidified the level of damage reflect does]

Speed: A [stand ability transmits sound/images to the user near the speed of light]

Range: None[the actual stand bc its an ability] or B [the average range of its ability ~50 meter's, but this can be extended]

Durability: None [ability] [D durability for the Gems]

Precision: A [its performs constant calculations based on the speed of light and angle of refraction, it needs some aim but can largely do it itself]

Development potential: B/C [he has learned a lot about his stand, but it also has a lot of ways he can use it]

[huntershowl-moving]

[ STAKE ]  for one muse to protectively and/or possessively stand behind the other to intimidate a third party.  *kuna behind them ~

jealous, fiercely protective & territorial prompts | ACCEPTING

BY SOME STRANGE MAGIC, they have gotten to know each other down to the most minute cues. persephone has gotten much better at their flightiness undercover since warming up to sukuna — one thing, at least from their bosses' point of view, that this partnership has succeeded at. it has taken far too much time ( and unexpected closeness, and a takeover plot ) to get here, but the unseen & the cursed souls' attack dogs are finally a seamless unit.

he's across the room, making his own rounds with the reluctant small talk. persephone has a difficult task, a very belated make-up assignment for fucking up with satoru gojo at the beginning of their partnership. it's no huge gala this time — on the contrary, it's an arms deal that is about to go south very fast.

THERE'S A MOLE IN THE CURSED SOULS. someone has been skimming, tipping off enemies, fucking with manifests and organizing third parties to crash deals. rooting them out has been tricky, requiring aid from their new partners in the unseen to guarantee the most insular knowledge circle possible. no leaks.

kenjaku, fletch, sukuna, persephone.

six people. twelve guns. one bomb. what could go wrong?

the plan is simple. just keep him distracted for long enough to let sukuna set the charges, then politely excuse yourself from the room. this time — unlike her fuckup before — she stands her ground, even as the target tucks an errant black strand behind her ear and lets his hand linger there for a moment too long.

on sukuna's end, it seems to be going off without a hitch. seph keeps him in their periphery as they murmur halfhearted replies to the blue flames lieutenant overseeing the deal — one who, along with the rest of the guards and liaisons in the room, will be dead within the next ten minutes. persephone and sukuna are here to snip an attached string. their man in the flames already talked under mahito's practiced hand; now that they've figured out who the leak is, the flames are no longer necessary. if one man in the gang was working to undermine the cursed souls, who's to say how many more are?

that's what fletch told kenjaku, at least. those two truly were made for each other.

while the lieutenant steps further into persephone's space, the rest of his guys are crowded around a poker table at the other end of the room. the air is a haze of tobacco smoke and heady cologne; the lieutenant is drunk, high on the thrill of cornering the unseen's dog for some action. not that he ever could. uncomfortable as she is, nauseous and increasingly panicked, persephone wouldn't let someone back her into a wall that easily.

and thank fuck she doesn't. just when it's becoming too much, when they think they might strike like a snake and tear the man's throat out with their teeth, a familiar scent catches her sensory periphery, a familiar set of footsteps behind her, a familiar — safe — hand on her lower back. perhaps what surprises her most is that she doesn't flinch. he telegraphed the movement without telegraphing the movement; if he didn't want her to know he was about to touch her, she wouldn't know.

it's — this isn't right. sukuna isn't supposed to engage with her side of things. he's supposed to leave a couple minutes before she does, to minimize suspicion that they want to get the fuck out of dodge before the bomb goes off. despite that, seph finds their body subconsciously leaning into him, just a bit ( an infuriating, infuriating physical reaction ) and flitting her gaze back down to meet the eyes of the man in front of her.

he's white as a sheet. whatever face sukuna is giving him, it seems to be scaring the ever-loving shit out of this guy. this guy. a fucking gang leader. "you know what?" he says, a little too fast despite his valiant attempt to maintain composure. "think i'll go join the game. looks like it's getting good."

❝ you do that. ❞ seph's voice has lost the restraint she was desperately keeping caged. there are some men who, no matter who she becomes, no matter how tall and dark and mean she is, will never take her seriously until she puts her hands on them and makes them regret being born. they think they can be the one to do what others couldn't — that they can take what cannot be taken, charm what cannot charmed.

whatever. he'll be dead soon anyway.

sukuna's risk pays off, but it wasn't guaranteed that it would. they weren't supposed to notice either of them leaving, but now they stalk off in stony silence — it's a good thing they have a genuine reason, the blue flames lieutenant red-faced and enduring a ribbing from his underlings. still. still.

... still, the gratitude bubbling deep within her chest quenches any fear or fury over the job. they're half-jogging by the time they get down the block to the waiting car. the sky was clear only a half-hour ago, but now the darkening blue-purple of dusk has grown grayer with increasing cloud cover. she can feel that sharp petrichor chill in the air that threatens rain.

they have five minutes before the explosion. seph pauses for a moment, letting her back lean against the wall of the closest building while sukuna settles carefully beside her. mercifully, he doesn't say anything. there's not much that can be said, really. they may not have told him everything that has happened to them, but he has seen the way she reacts to sudden touches; he's seen the nausea that overtakes her after needing to stand still while distracting a target. they'd be surprised if he hasn't guessed.

❝ ... ❞ all at once, the mask of stoic fury falls away, revealing a much softer, more exhausted sort of sadness underneath. seph lets their shoulders brush, lets her neck crane to the side and hair shift over her face so that she can lean her head atop his shoulder. ❝ idiot. you could've compromised everything. ❞ then, quieter: ❝ ... thank you. ❞

[bunglegaydogs]

This!!!

I will defend this with my life.

Chuuya is an intelligent character. It's just that compared to literal geniuses in the series, people think he's dumb by comparison. As the original poster said, he is quick to aggression, meaning that everyone judges that as him not knowing anything and resolving to sort the issue with violence. Yes, he is a hot-headed guy, but this doesn't immediately state in blaring lights that he's not smart.

One thing I'd like to mention that the creators literally said, is that Chuuya is the only person capable of understanding and knowing Dazai's true motives. That's not a feat many are capable of, and it goes to show not only their trust, but Chuuya's intelligence that he can easily keep up with Dazai, despite how much it annoys him.

Daza and Chuuya's partnership isn't just the brains and the brawn, despite how easy it is to slap that label on them. Their relationship with each other is much more intrinsic than that, they compliment each other. They adhere to each other's abilities perfectly, which is how they work together so flawlessly. It isn't as simple as "Dazai smart Chuuya strong". Whilst, yes, they are correct statements, it's also exactly right to say "Chuuya smart Dazai strong", because I think that what some people like to do in this fandom is simplify people's roles and abilities and partnerships. Nothing is that simple, and once you look deeper, you'll see that :)

Another thing is that Chuuya is a gravity manipulator, which requires a certain level of knowledge about physics and others of the like. He has to have a deep rooted understanding of sciences and it's effect on the space and area around him, which is why he's able to use his ability to the degree that he can. Not only is it basic understanding, it's a complex comprehension of the effects of gravity on the world around him, even the knowledge of black holes and singularities, etc etc.

All of these points that I've made showcase Chuuya's range of abilities in combat and intelligence. Just because he can't meticulously plan months in advance for his plans does not automatically make him the stupid one. Dazai, Fyodor, Ranpo, they're all skilled primarily in the knowledge department, and are literal geniuses. They're on a whole other level, you can't compare other characters to that, because by comparison they will automatically seem less capable.

However, it's the same the other way around; Dazai. Because he's surrounded by characters such as Fukuzawa, Oda, Chuuya, Kunikida, it seems that he is completely incapable of defending himself to some people; Dazai can hold his own. He is by no means weak, not by any stretch of the imagination. You don't become the youngest Port Mafia Executive in history by intelligence alone; he's surrounded by violence and bloodshed every day, he's going to know how to fight. We've seen him hold his own before, we've seen him fight before. It's just that, once again, when compared to Chuuya, he seems less capable. But Chuuya is the best martial artist in the Port Mafia, of course Dazai doesn't stand a chance. Yes, Chuuya relies on his strength and yes, Dazai relies on his mind and strategising, but they both utilise their skills in the other department expertly and deftly. We have seen the both of them use both violence and intelligence to their advantage on multiple occassions. This is why they compliment each other as partners perfectly, because not only do they make up for each lack, they understand the other.

Sorry, this turned into a rant lmao.

STOP CALLING CHUUYA STUPID, HE'S LITERALLY ONE OF THE MORE INTELLIGENT CHARACTERS. HE'S A FUCKING PORT MAFIA EXECUTIVE. YOU DON'T GET THAT POSITION BY VIOLENCE ALONE, AS BOTH MORI AND DAZAI HAVE SAID. <3

have a lovely day/night lmao <3

I think people who are mad at Fyodor and saying he underestimates Chuuya forget something though - Chuuya's capable of all these impressive physical feats and stuff, but at the end of the day, he's not particularly smart. He's always easily manipulated by Dazai, Ranpo was able to trap him in a book by simply goading him, Mori is able to keep him in line despite Chuuya being way more powerful, etc. Idk I think the fandom put Chuuya on a pedestal for some reason but he has weaknesses too.

"people who say he underestimates Chuuya" as if... I am not one of those people...? I made a whole analysis on this anon??? I'm a bit confused why you sent this to me...

I'm going to assume this was sent in good faith and that you haven't read the light novels, because it becomes very clear from those that Chuuya is actually perfectly intelligent. I'd say probably above average, if I'm being honest - he picks up new skills very quickly with no formal education and he's really quite intuitive. It's just that the poor guy is constantly surrounded by strategic geniuses, and due to his hot-headedness, he comes across as less intelligent by comparison.

If he's so smart, why then is he always tricked by Dazai? Well, everyone is tricked by Dazai. It's kind of Dazai's whole thing. He runs circles around most people. He pranks and torments Kunikida, Atsushi, Sigma, and the list goes on. This has little bearing on Chuuya's intelligence, and is much more to do with Dazai's intelligence. Besides, this kind of becomes a moot point when their plans are very much a team effort, made and carried out with barely any verbal communication whatsoever. When it's time to get serious, Dazai is far from leading Chuuya - they're in step with each other. Chuuya keeps up with Dazai, and is capable of challenging him. That's why the partnership works.

Why was Ranpo able to trap him in Poe's book? Let's take a step back and think to the build up of that. Firstly, this is during Cannibalism arc, where each side had two days to save the lives of their respective leaders. Chuuya's family is under threat, and so he's already under a lot of stress. Second, Ranpo is well-known for being an intentionally irritating little toad and he knew just what to say to make Chuuya lose it - ordinarily, Chuuya is actually capable of keeping it together, but Dazai makes him angry enough to explode. Finally, I sincerely doubt Chuuya expected to get sucked into a book. There's no way he didn't think the goading was a trap, but really? He couldn't have known that and likely assumed his ability was strong enough to handle anything Ranpo threw at him.

So, there's a weakness of sorts, and it's actually highlighted by Hirotsu in Fifteen. Chuuya tends to jump into things because he expects he will just be able to "handle things", which is a consequence of growing up with a powerful ability. Hirotsu warns that people who overly rely on their abilities end up in trouble. This scene was likely a form of payoff for that warning. Either way, I'd expect he won't make that same mistake twice.

Why is Mori able to keep him in line? He isn't, because he doesn't have to. Chuuya serves under Mori because he sees Mori as the successful leader that he wasn't. To Chuuya, Mori has what he doesn't - he respects him and thinks he can learn from him. Chuuya sees the Sheep's betrayal as his own personal failure as their leader. This has nothing to do with intelligence, one way or the other.

Moreover, I think it needs to be said that Chuuya is often well aware when he's being manipulated. He's not oblivious, it's just that there's often nothing he can really do about it. For instance, he is very aware that Fyodor's intention in Cannibalism is to make the agency and mafia fight each other, but as they only have two days before Mori dies and that isn't enough time, he opts for the most direct and immediate course of action.

So, there's another weakness - Chuuya's really not a long-term strategist. He doesn't play the long game like Mori, Dazai or Fyodor - he prefers to sort things out as quickly as possible. However, I need to stress that this does not make him unintelligent or never strategic in the short term.

And that is all that is needed to turn the tables on Fyodor - Fyodor devalues everything about Chuuya other than his ability, but it is always Chuuya who wields that ability, not Dazai. I don't think anyone expects Chuuya to come up with a master plan to completely destroy Fyodor's plans for good... but I fully expect Chuuya to clothesline the guy after the way he continues to refer to him like he's little more than a tool. He's done it before.

Actually, I think I'm just going to wrap this up with a quick list of moments I can think of off the top of my head that demonstrate Chuuya's intelligence.

Every piece of media: Chuuya near immediately pieces Dazai's manipulations together in retrospect, from start to finish.

Main manga: Chuuya is sent to negotiate with the Agency, implying he learned negotiation well from Kouyou.

Fifteen: Chuuya awkwardly tries to shift the investigative focus away from Arahabaki and onto the Old Boss. While this doesn't change Dazai's focus, Dazai ends up entirely unsuspicious of him because he thinks Chuuya just wants to beat people up.

Fifteen: Chuuya expressly warned the Sheep against venturing into Mafia territory to avoid extra aggression.

Fifteen: Chuuya knew the entire time that Randou was the culprit and was gauging how much Dazai knew about his own connection to the Arahabaki situation.

Fifteen: Chuuya goes back to investigate the arcade, suspecting Dazai of having tampered with the game, and was correct in his assumption.

Stormbringer: Chuuya escapes Adam by entering a dark tunnel then hiding to give the illusion that he ran all the way through it. It works and Adam runs right past him.

Stormbringer: Chuuya fakes out Verlaine into thinking he's going to attack N while gearing up to attack Verlaine instead.

Stormbringer: Chuuya fakes out Verlaine again so Adam can launch a surprise attack with an anesthetic.

Dead Apple prologue: Chuuya pieces together Dazai's clue from a single piece of dialogue.

Dead Apple: Chuuya near instantly predicts the course of an incoming grenade while on his motorcycle in motion to ride the shockwave and avoid getting hit.

Also, I think it's important to note that Chuuya's ability is gravity manipulation, not telekinesis. He's not moving whatever he touches - he's manipulating one of the forces acting on it. This means he needs to adjust in the moment to other forces acting on the objects in his surroundings, which can and do change - my first thought was of wind affecting resistance. Either way, he's actually having to juggle a lot of sensory information in the heat of a single moment and that's very difficult to do.

If anyone wants to add any "Chuuya is not dumb" moments that I have missed, please feel free to in the tags or the comments.

Anyways, I hope this answered the initial question, anon!

[animeniac-writings]

Titan!Eren x reader (sort of) Ain’t SFW

This fic is in part dedicated to @ererokii​ who wrote about that titan tongue and sent my mind into making this. You are responsible. 

Anime: Shingeki no Kyojin

“WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO FUCK EREN’S TITAN?” 

It was still barely the crack of dawn, before the sun was visible in the sky, before you had finished fastening the straps on your uniform, before the birds had even fully woken up.

Yet your door was flung open slamming back against the wall with enough force to wake up anyone who was still smart enough to be unconscious. 

“Good morning Commander Hanji, how are you this morning Commander Hanji?” You calmly continued buttoning your shirt while she waved off your snark with a look of undampened enthusiasm across her face.

Something that would surely put fear into some unlucky souls today, and it seems you should be the first one of them.

“Yes, yes, good morning, it’s morning?” She walked in the room past you to pace in the center of the room, mumbling in thought with gears almost visibly turning in her head. 

“Doesn’t matter! This is important, it could be a breakthrough in understanding titan shifters and priceless knowledge to use against them.”

You had slipped on your jacket and tried to brace yourself when she turns back to you, eyes shining with glee. 

“So will you do it? Will you fuck his titan? I would gladly participate in this experiment myself but Moblit says “That would be inappropriate” and “honestly rather disturbing” and “an invasion of privacy on the highest levels.” She rolled her eyes mocking Moblit’s words with air quotes. 

“Well, Commander, no disrespect but as his titan form has no genitals and his tongue’s as thick as a pig, no.” 

She deadpanned, face falling flat and starring at you sharply. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never done anything nasty with those 15 meters.”

“I-” 

“Exactly! So you’ll do it?” There was no arguing with her plans, there never was. 

“You know, some of the stuff you come up with is really intrusive Commander.” 

“I’ve been told that many times!” She grabbed your wrist and was tugged you along with her down the hallway.

_____

You stood beside the Commander in a small clearing, 3DMG prepped and ready, staring up at Eren’s titan form that awaited “A fantastic new experiment!” as far as he knew.

“So you want me to slice open his neck, crawl inside, and start jacking him off?”

Hanji was practically vibrating in excitement, gripping her notes clipboard tight enough you think it would break soon. 

Moblit was called to help transcribe the coming events but was standing off to the side looking like he’d rather Eren step on him.

The titan looked down towards you and huffed through his nose in question.

“Yes! That way we’ll know how disrupting the body inside the titan effects it’s actions!”

You’re rather impressed at how professional she can appear while telling you to give your boyfriend, her no. 1 specimen, a handjob.

Moblit seemed to have steeled his nerves and stomach walking back towards you both, you acknowledge and give him a curt nod. “Since all of history was black lined, I hope everything we do gets put into history books so people will read it and wonder what the fuck was wrong with us.” 

You take a deep breath and angle your gear ready to launch. “And molesting him would give better results than say, one of those tiny knee hammers? Poking him with a fork?”

She shakes her head as if you’re the ridiculous one. 

“Not enough physical stimulation for a definitive reaction.” She mulls over her thoughts for a short moment. “But you could cut off his leg while you’re in there?’

“Honestly, I’d rather not.” Your face scrunches at the sensation whiplash your poor boyfriend would get. “And the reason for not telling him what I’m going to do it because?”

She ignores your question, only briefly having said something before about the "element of surprise."

“You never know! This could be the perfect way to bring a titan shifter to its knees without killing them!” 

You cock your gear’s angle “...if this works I get a front row seat to you telling Connie and Jean this new, required protocol.”

In the blink of an eye your gear first hooks into the flesh of his hip, to his shoulder, then into each cheek with you safely perched on the bridge of his nose.

“It’s just me, okay baby? Hold tight.” His eyes focus on you and gives a an affirmative little growl. You pat the side of his nose and are off. 

You remove one of your blades after landing on his shoulder, taking a deep breath before carefully cutting into the flesh of his neck where Hanji had showed you on a diagram before.

Steam poured from the large slit but when you pushed the side you could see there was indeed as you were told, a small cavern sort of area around Eren, nearly in awe looking at how the tendons attached to his arms, his face, cocooning him only where it needed to attach.

“Just stay still Eren!” Hanji’s far away shout make you shake from the stupor, sheathing your blade and crawling in towards his body. 

The cut steamed and resealed shut after you had crawled inside, it was strange enclosed inside the titan, small but with enough space to move around. The dry heat was stifling but nothing like what poured out out of incisions. 

Eren’s leg moved slightly, you wonder if his titan had readjusted its’ stance? 

The space is cramped and strange in the way it surrounds your suspended boyfriend, but you move to be sat directly in front of his waist, observing how the tendons keep hold on him.

You can see his eyes, standing against the flesh to peek over the tissue, how they flit bored, his body poised that you know he’s waiting for something to be done. He has worked on endurance in his form, but still. He hates just waiting.

You trail your fingertips down his jawline, a ghost of a touch, and his head tilts. The titan’s head tilts. 

As you unbutton his pants you can tell he fells something happening, his mouth turns downward into a frown, his legs shift and you would bet his eyebrows are furrowed.

You unzip his pants and push down his underwear and you can tell he can feel exactly when you grip his cock in your hand. His posture straightens and you can feel the titan shift in copy of it. 

He’s hard in seconds of you freeing him, the most predictable trick he has and you run your hand up and down his length a few times, squeezing firmly near his base. Precum leaks generously from his tip and drips down for you to use.

His thighs clench and you place your free hand running over the tense muscle.

Your hand speeds up, fist spreading the precum across him and rubbing your thumb in circles below the head of his cock, you can tell he’s having trouble staying upright, a shaky breath and legs begin to tremble.

You leave him lacking for a moment and reach your hand below, slicked fingers rubbing slow and decisive massaging and pushing firmly against each of his balls and the whole being around you shakes as much as the one directly at your mercy.

A simple squeeze at the top of his balls and he breaks, falling to his knees and there’s a short weightlessness as the titan slams down to follow suit. 

You can’t seem to find it in you to care but the movement knocks you back against the wall of flesh and your grip on his dick yanks him harshly, a moan, a whine, from Eren above you and a growl resonating from the titan. 

You wonder if the titan’s eyes have rolled back the way you know Eren��s have.

It takes a second to re-steady yourself and Eren whines from the lack of attention, your hand goes around him again, barely touching around him before deciding to run your nails along the bottom of his shaft.

A moan spills out of him that makes the whole titan seem to shake with a growl and you quickly go back to jerking you grip up and down his length, precum slick and fast and you know he’s close, finally you can hear his mindless begging between breathless pants asking for more, please, wanting anything and everything you would give him.

Tightening your grip to squeeze around him every time you pull forward and he tries to follow but it stuck in place when his hips try to jut closer. 

His beautiful moans filling your senses and the distant sounds from the titan echoing his cries spur you on to make him finish. To watch how his jaw clenches from below and how be bites his lip enough to pierce the skin as his orgasm finally hits, your nails of one hand digging harshly into his thigh and making him see stars with the other. 

Your thumb presses directly over his whole while he cums, white pouring out around it and giving just too much stimulation rubbing in short, fast circles that makes him cry out to you with his whole body quaking in pleasure even while he’s held up securely.

With Eren truly spent, you watch in delicious satisfaction how his chest heaves with each breath, thighs still shaking and panting heavily. 

You almost can’t help it. This was to “test” him after all, right? You move your hand, still covered with cum and stick two fingers in his open mouth, his entire body goes rigid and you can feel the titan around you freeze as you drag down the expanse of his tongue and pull them out.

You’re not sure if he can hear you, he can from the outside but you rest a hand on the tendon holding his arm, lean close to his ear and praise. “Good boy.”

A shiver visibly runs down his spine and you grin. Moving your attention back to his pants, tucking him back into his underwear which are still soiled with cum anyway and buttoning him shut. But pulling the waist band forward so it lightly snaps back against taught pelvis for good measure. It’s still enough to make him jolt and the titan quake.

With a quick wipe of your hand down your thigh to get clean off what Eren would usually be up for taking care of, and your job here is done. 

Taking out your blade you start cutting approximately where you had entered, knowing you wont accidentally cut Eren makes it easier. 

Crawling back out is trickier, the angry steam hindering your vision making it hard to see where to grapple even with the titan still as stone. 

But you can hear Hanji shouting with excitement before you’re out of the cut, something about how amazing that was, incredible research, you’re sure if you tried you could hear Moblit moaning about what his life has become.

Once you’re safely on the ground you look at the damage you did from the outside. 

Eren’s titan is on it’s knees, craters in the ground from how hard he dropped. Arms limp and his head hanging down, mouth open and hair shielding his face much how Eren is inside. 

You never thought you’d see a titan be “disheveled” but that’s the only word that could truly describe how wrecked he looks. 

“Oh, YOU CAN COME OUT NOW EREN!” Hanji finally pauses her joyous dance to inform him, but the titan stays still. “Eren?”

You don’t think he’ll me moving on his own for another few minutes. 

[thundergunexpresss]

Something Like Seduction

This is a request I got a few days ago which I had loads of fun writing. I hope you like it anon! I took it upon myself to make it smutty, because I don’t think I’m physically capable of not writing something smutty. I miss my boyfriend, quarantine is NOT it, chief

Anyway. Enjoy my lovelies. Leave me a kinky request, they keep me young

MASTERLIST

The first time you nearly kiss Spencer Reid, it’s with a gun in your hand.

“Have you ever done this before?”

You blink up at Spencer, and you can feel your cheeks redden as your eyes meet his.

“Of course, I’m not a complete idiot.”

He gives you a quick reassuring smile, passing the gun back over to you where you sat beside him at your desk. To tell you complete truth, you really didn’t have much of a clue of what you were doing. You hadn’t worked the streets before moving to the BAU, and none of your previous roles had required you to be carrying. But he didn’t know that, and reloading the gun couldn’t be that hard. Hotch had noticed that you didn’t seem the most comfortable around firearms and had told you that a member of the team would swing by your desk to help.

It’s just- you hadn’t imagined that it would be Spence showing up at your desk, sleeves rolled up and tie loosened as he pulled a seat up beside you, his knee bumping yours as he sits. It’s not like you couldn’t handle a crush, you’re not 15 anymore and he’s a colleague, but there’s just something about the way he acts around you. That feeling of excited-almost-dread you get in the pit of your stomach you feel when he shoots you a wink, or refers to you as angel as he so often does.

You’re broken from your train of thought by Spencer’s hand patting your knee to regain your attention. It doesn’t do much to help with the blushing situation, and honestly if he wanted you to focus that was the last thing he should’ve done.

“So, I’m reloading it. Gotta make sure the safety is on first though?” you try to sound brazen, but your statement comes out as more of a question. It must be clear from look baffled look on your face that you’re lost, a smirk forming on his lips as he raises an eyebrow at you.

“You haven’t got any idea what you’re doing, do you angel?”

“Um, no. Not really. But if you teach me now then it’ll be just like I knew all along though, right?” he laughs, shaking his head at your response.

“Well I couldn’t have you getting in trouble, could I?”

He’s flirting. He’s definitely flirting. Or is he just being nice? Jesus, it’s like running in circles, this little game the two of you have come to be familiar with. Flirty comments, suggestive looks, the nicknames. He drives you fucking crazy – part of you wants to just jump him when nobody is around, pin him against a wall and focus all this pent up frustration on getting him to fuck you as hard as you imagine he would.

“So, you treat every gun like it’s loaded,” he explains, reaching over and placing his hand over yours on the handle of the pistol, and if he notices you shudder then he doesn’t say anything. He pulls your finger away from the trigger, “you never know when it’s going to go off, and you’ve got to make sure you’re ready for the consequences of getting so close to such a…,” his voice is quiet, almost a mumble, and he glances at you before finishing, “dangerous weapon.”

It’s like the air thickens as you swallow, turning to face him. There energy shifts between you and you’re acutely aware of how hot his skin is on yours, hands still wrapped over yours as you hold the gun.

Dangerous weapon. It sounds like a tacky line from an 80’s porno, but for some reason coming from his mouth it makes your heart race.

“Then you press the eject button, right here,” his hand wraps around yours as he places your finger over the button, pressing it in with slight force, “and then the magazine comes out. It means storage space in French, which is why you store the ammunition in there.”

“Good fact, brain boy.” You tease, but the cheeky tone is gone, your words coming out timid and wobbly. You’re hoping that he assumes it’s the nerves of holding a gun, rather than the fact that you can feel how wet you are as you squeeze your thighs together beneath the desk.

“Then you fill it up.”

He’s talking about the gun. He’s talking about the gun.

He slots the bullets in with ease, and it gives you a chance to focus on his fingers. They’re long and weathered despite his young age, his knuckles prominent, the veins in his hands bulging as he grips the handful of metal.

“Then, once it’s full, you just line it up,” he slots the magazine into the hand grip, pressing your palm to the bottom and cupping your hand with his own, “and slide it in.” his hand shoves firmly against yours, lingering after you hear the click confirming the mag is locked in place.

There is no way that he’s not doing this on purpose.

“Then, just turn off the safety,” he gestures to the top of the gun, “and shoot the bad guys.”

“Seems tricky. Can’t you just do it for me?” you ask, facing to turn him, recoiling slightly as you find him already looking at you, faces inches apart. He smiles, and for a second it feels like he’s going to kiss you. Your breath hitches in your throat, and you swipe your tongue over your bottom lip nervously. The movement seems to snap Spencer back to reality, because he pulls back and coughs, dropping his hands from your own and the gun.

“You know I’ll always take care of you, angel.”

You smile and look down to the floor as he stands up, forcing a laugh at the nickname.

“You better, Reid. What would you do without me?”

He doesn’t respond, just shoots you a wink as he turns to leave, heading back to the other side of the office to continue with his day. Completely unaware of the affect his every action has on you – or worse – aware and uninterested.

You sink into your chair and glare at the gun on the desk in front of you as if it were the weapons fault that you’d had to endure the past 10 minutes without crying. The worst part was, even when you tried to spill to JJ she barely believed you. He didn’t make it obvious; it was subtle and hidden in moments when nobody else was around. When he asked a favour of you, or when you were making a drink and he happened to catch sight of you alone by the coffee machine. That was perhaps the worst bit about it – as if he was doing it on purpose to drive you mad. If that was the plan, it was working. But what else would you expect from a genius?

*

The second time you nearly kiss Spencer Reid, it’s with your hand down your pants.

Halloween. It had been your favourite holiday growing up, you loved to dress up. As you got older, you loved getting absolutely wrecked while dressed up, but this year you were on duty. It was an unlucky pick, only two members of the team having to work the evening shift on the night of the festivities to assist with the increased demand on law enforcement over the course of the night.

You arrive early, everyone else already having gone home by the time you get to your desk. It’s quiet in the office, only a janitor finishing up across the room. It’s eerie, a distinct silence in the usually bustling workspace, and you scan the rest of the room as you drop your bag onto your chair. First in order is caffeine, working through the night was never easy, and recently you’d been losing more sleep than you could afford thinking about him. His unruly hair that curls around his cheek bones, framing his slender features and wide eyes perfectly. His cardigans, the way he rolls up the sleeves and tucks in his tie like some kind of sexy hipster agent. The beat-up satchel bag he wore everywhere.

The beat-up satchel bag.

You almost choke as your eyes fall on the bag, sitting atop his workspace in the empty room. Not this again. Not another night of slightly too inappropriate for work banter and semi-serious wandering if masturbating in the toilet stalls was going too far or not. Your brain tells you yes, but the way his eyebrows furrow as he concentrates says it’s your only option.

You stomach flips as you hurry past his desk, just the knowledge that you’d soon be in his company enough to make your head spin. It was a constant battle of either discretely avoiding him, or giving yourself meaningless tasks to bring yourself over to his desk. Taking the longer route to the coffee machine and keeping your eyes down, praying he was watching as you made your way past him.

“Who’s got you in a hurry, sweetheart?”

You body slams on the breaks, plastering on a smile as you turn to face him as if he’d appeared from nowhere, shoving your intrusive thoughts of getting in your knees for him into a box in the back of your head.

“Caffeine, sweetheart,” he grins at you as you mock him, “the great love of my life.”

He feigns hurt at your choosing a love other than him, his hand raising to his chest as he leans crosses his legs and leans against the wall. He’s not wearing his usual work get up, instead wearing a chunky sweater which was much too big for him and a pair of worn converse. It was unlike him, he rarely shared details of his life outside of work, wardrobe included. He’s wearing his glasses, another sight you rarely got to enjoy, and it only makes your job harder.

Job. That’s right. Keep professional, and it’ll all go smoothly. It’s bullshit and you know it, but at least it’s something to focus on which doesn’t lead you right back to the thought of riding him in his desk chair with his glasses still on.

Except, here you are anyway, thinking about riding him in his desk chair with his glasses still on.

“So, the Halloween shift. Someone hates us.”

“You got that right,” you mutter under your breath, placing your mug into the holder of the machine, watching as it begins to fill, “I’m going to get started on some paper work, maybe it’ll make it go faster.” You say, louder this time, turning your head to look at him as he stands up, adjusting his glasses. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say he seemed disappointed in your plans, but if you stayed to chat you couldn’t be sure of what you’d say.

“Okay, angel,” he steps aside as you pick up your mug and move past him, “don’t be a stranger.”

“I won’t, Spence.”

You don’t look back at him as you make your way back to your desk, setting down your drink and grabbing your bag as you slump down into your chair. This was impossible. He had to feel the electricity that sparked when you were together. It wasn’t something that could just be ignored. You’ve had long term relationships that haven’t made you feel as excited as the way you feel when he smiles at you as you catch eyes across the room – as excited as you feel when you hear ‘that’s my girl’ as you make a step forward in a case, or do something as simple as get him a cup of coffee as you get your own.

That’s my girl. What you would give to hear him say that as he pushes his cock down your throat, fingers curled in the hair at the back of your head as he completely controls you. His hand wrapping around your throat so he can feel how far down you can take it, how filthy the sounds falling from his lips would be, how his praise would only make you want it more, make you want to show him how good you can be for him.

Jesus Christ. You raise your eyes cautiously to check on his whereabouts, seeing him face down in a book on the other side of the office. Its barely even a conscious decision, your hand snaking its way between your legs as apply the slightest amount of pressure to your crotch, seeking a moment of relief. It’s not a good idea, and you know that – but it just feels too good.

Only a select few lights are on in the office to save on energy, and the dim bulbs provide you some sense of cover as you pull at the button of your trousers, pushing your hand below the waistband of your panties to feel how wet you are. You run your fingers over your hole, pursing your lips as you feel the wet heat surround them. Your eyes raise again to glance at Spencer, and its like a shock runs through your body directly to your clit on sight.

It’s so dangerous, but you like it. The concept of being fired goes out the window as you begin to move your fingers in little circles around the oversensitive bundle of nerves, your other hand rising to the laptop in front of you, lifting the screen to provide a little more shelter should Spencer glance over. You inhale shakily, keeping your eyes on the empty screen in-front of you. You want nothing more than to watch him as you get yourself off, to watch the way his long fingers wrap around the cover of his book as you feel yourself clench around your own fingers, but this is Spencer. He’d sense your eyes on him too soon, and you’d have to stop - and potentially get caught. So you stick to the screen, focusing on keeping your mouth shut and movements minimal as you feel a familiar heat pooling in your stomach, your toes curling inside your shoes as you dare to speed up, doing your best to keep your arm still as your fingers do all the work.

It's almost too much, it never feels this good when you do it at home. It’s the adrenaline junkie in you, it’s why you picked your current career – the danger turns you on, sexually and mentally. Your breath is coming out of your nose in short huffs, too scared to open your mouth to breathe despite what your lungs are telling you.

“Hey, can you sign off these files for me, angel?”

You freeze, startled, almost jumping back in your chair as his voice echoes in the empty room. He’s close to your desk – too close. You hadn’t even noticed him move from where he was sat.

“Are you alright?” he asks, and you must look like a deer in headlights. You cough slightly, plastering a smile over your face as you shuffle forward in your seat. If you remove your hands now, it will be way too fucking obvious that they’re down your pants, so you push your body into the desk in the hopes that he thinks you’re just sat with your hand on your lap. It’s not great, but it’ll have to do.

“Yeah, of course. You just scared me,” he doesn’t look all that convinced, “I thought you’d forgotten about me.” You pout, your heart isn’t in it, but he bites back regardless.

“How could I forget about you, sweetheart.”

You can’t help it, your fingers twitch against your clit at the nickname, and you whimper. It’s quiet, but Spencer hears, frowning as he brings the files over to your desk, getting even closer. He doesn’t stop until he’s practically bent over your desk, and he takes your chin in his hand, moving your head side to side. It’s a lot to unpack – you can smell him, his hands are you on you, he’s staring at your face. It’s almost torture.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he asks again, inspecting your face as you sit beneath him.

“Just tired. The Halloween shift you know, fun!” he nods, understanding, still only inches from your face. Why does this keep happening? He’s looking at you directly again, eyes slightly narrowed as he watches you. He takes in a sharp breath, eyes glancing down to your mouth so quickly that if you hadn’t been watching him so intently, you might have missed it.

“Okay, well, don’t have too much fun,” he winks, pushing himself off the desk and turning to leave almost as soon as the words had left his mouth.

He can’t- does he know!?

You yank your hand from your trousers, and you can feel the heat spread across your cheeks as you watch him walk away. If he knows what you were doing, then he didn’t do anything about it, which means he either doesn’t like you or doesn’t want you. The thought of either makes your stomach drop, and you look down to the files on your desk.

There’s a sticky note atop the first in the pile, scrawled out in Spencers handwriting.

‘There are cameras in here, angel.’

Your eyes widen as you snap your head up to his desk, but he’s not there, having left to go to the evidence room or make a coffee, most likely.

Inhaling slowly through your nose and out through your mouth in a desperate attempt to get some control over your body, you peel off the note, crumpling it and throwing in the trash. You pull your headphones from your bag, placing them in your ears and pressing shuffle, cutting off the outside world, or in this case, any further interaction with Spencer.

It’s going to be a long night.

*

The third time you nearly kiss Spencer Reid, you actually kiss Spencer Reid.

“You’ve got to loosen up, have another drink.” JJ says, reaching over to pour some more of her stow away vodka in your cup. You look down at the liquid and sigh. You’re half-way drunk at a leaving party for someone that, if you’re being honest, you don’t even recognise. It’s an office thing, so naturally the whole team is here at the bar, Spencer included, though you were yet to see him.

“He’s had plenty of opportunities. He’s not flirting it’s just friendly banter – he’s bored.” You say, and JJ rolls her eyes. She doesn’t mention the fact that she never asked, just wraps an arm around your shoulders.

“He’s not like that with anybody else. I still find it hard to believe, our Spence flirting,” she pulls you up so you’re standing in front of her, “but you look fucking spectacular. Get drunk, have fun, if he fucks you then he fucks you. If not, his loss.” She shrugs, pushing your cup to your mouth and you don’t argue, drinking a mouthful and cringing at how strong it is.

“Classy,” you laugh, taking another swig of your drink before she’s pulling you out of the bathroom and back onto the dance floor. She’s right – who cares. He clearly saw what you were doing on Halloween, and he did nothing. He barely spoke a word to you after the sticky note, so fuck him. If he doesn’t want you at your horny office stage then he doesn’t deserve you at your horny drunk stage.

It doesn’t make much sense, but you don’t care. The alcohol is starting to set in, your vision hazy as you dance, arms in the air and hips grinding to the music. You don’t think twice when you feel a pair of hands on your hips, pushing yourself against the body behind you, desperate to let off some steam.

Spencer. Spencers hands wrapping around your waist. Spencers lips on your neck. Spencers hard on pressing against your ass as you grind to the music, head spinning as he pulls you closer.

You turn around clumsily, staggering in your heels as you look up at the man you’ve been dancing with, and who the fuck is this!? You push your hands against his chest, mumbling an apology into the suddenly much too loud music as you stumble backwards. How drunk are you? You make your way to the bar, squinting your eyes in a bid to make the room stop spinning as you fall into a bar stool, putting your drink down and shutting your eyes, trying to block out the sound and work out what the fuck you’re doing.

“Looks like I’m not your only admirer, angel.”

His voice is loud in your ear, hot breath hitting your skin as he leans in close to ensure that you can hear him. You don’t need to open your eyes to recognise his voice, it’s been haunting you for months.

You blink your eyes open, accustoming yourself back to the flashing lights as you look up, and there he is. His shirt is unbuttoned down his chest, his skin slick with sweat from the humid air in the room. He’s got his tie loosened, still around his neck, and he must have come straight from work, because even in your drunken state you know that even Spencer wouldn’t wear a tie to the bar.

“Yeah, well, at least that one wants to touch me.” You slur, picking your drink back up as you look away from him. You don’t see his face, but you can imagine how his brow would furrow in confusion, mouth opening and shutting again in wait of finding the right words to say.

“What? I-“

“I don’t even care,” you cut him off, almost shouting to be heard above the pumping music, “I’m going to have some fun, enjoy your night, ‘angel’” you mock, standing up and taking a second to find your balance before making off into the crowd of writhing bodies in front of you. You push your way through them, drink spilling out of your cup as you try to find an exit. It’s getting too much, the room begins to spin again, and it feels like there isn’t enough oxygen to go around. It’s suffocating, and suddenly you feel light headed. There isn’t enough time to find the toilet before your vision darkens, and your body starts to feel like jelly.

The last thing you hear before you drop to the floor is someone shouting your name, and then everything goes black.

*

You slowly blink your eyes open, recoiling at the bright light in the room as you come to. It takes a second to come to your bearings, and you push yourself to sit upright as you take in your surroundings.

“What happened?” your voice is hoarse, and you cough to clear your throat. Spencer is sat next to you, his hand is over yours, his thumb rubbing small circles over the soft skin there.

“You can’t hold your alcohol very well, can you, pretty girl.”

Pretty girl, that’s new. It makes your stomach flutter, and suddenly you realise how awful you must look in front of him. You grip the chair as you try to push yourself up, only for Spencer to pull you back down, concern etched on his features.

“I’ve got an Uber coming to pick us up.” His voice is soothing as he speaks, and you sit back down, frowning at him.

“Us?”

“Us. You’re coming back to my apartment,” he explains, and alarm bells ring in your head. His apartment, which contains his things. Because he lives there… Spencers apartment.

“I have my own place, you know.” You mumble, feeling your pockets for your phone, relaxing as you feel it in your jeans.

“I didn’t want you to go home alone, angel,” he leans forward to catch your eye, “I need to keep you safe.”

“I don’t even feel drunk anymore,” and it’s not a lie. You feel grounded, aware of yourself. Maybe a little tipsy, but the head rush has gone.

“Drunk or not, the Ubers here.”

He grabs your hand to help you up, and you take it, despite feeling steady on your feet. His hand engulfs yours, much bigger than your own hand as he pulls you towards the door of the back room you’ve been sat in. It leads straight out onto the street, the bitter cold hitting you as you step out of the building.

The Uber is right outside, Spencer must have given the driver strict directions so that you wouldn’t have to walk back through the bar. It should make your heart swell, but instead your stomach drops, heat pooling in your stomach. Your body is almost too predictable at this point, getting turned on at Spencer doing something as simple as booking a ride. But it’s the care he puts into it, the extra mile he seems to go whenever you’re involved. It can’t just be in your mind.

The ride back is painfully quiet. Neither of you speak, sitting in the back with your hands in your respective laps, and he seems nervous. It’s not unlike Spencer to be quiet, but he’s fidgeting, playing with his hands, and it’s almost annoying. What does he have to be nervous about? You’re the one in an Uber at midnight on your way to the apartment of the man you’ve been borderline obsessed with for months.

Saying it like that makes you sound crazy, but you just can’t get him out of your head. It’s like your body is magnetically attached to his, you get this pull to be near him. You fall asleep at night thinking of ways you can touch him without it appearing unnatural. Maybe you are crazy.

You don’t get the time to dwell on it either way, because the car halts to a stop outside an apartment building just a few minutes from the bar.

You thank the driver, exiting the vehicle and following Spencer to the door of his apartment building as the car pulls away behind you, leaving the two of you submerged in the darkness.

It takes a second to unlock the door, but soon you’re inside, the warmth of the lobby easing your tense muscles and relaxing you a little as he leads you towards his place.

“It’s not much,” he says quietly, sliding the key into the lock and pushing the door open, “but at least you won’t be on your own.”

He flips a switch and light floods the room. The first thing you notice is books. Lots of books. It’s like a library, shelves lining the walls of the small space, covering almost every piece of available wall.

Spencer leads you to a room on the other side of the apartment, opening a door to reveal his bedroom. It’s not dissimilar to what you’ve already seen of the apartment, books stacked on furniture and on the floor beside his bed. It’s so Spencer. It’s perfect.

He clears his throat, snapping you back into reality as you cross your arms over your chest, offering him a nervous smile.

“I’ll find you something to change into,” he turns to a closet opposite the bed and grabs a folded t-shirt and sweats, “I’ll let you change, angel.”

He hands the clothes to you, brushing past you as he exits the room. As the door shuts behind him, you sit down on the bed, clothes in hand. Of course they’re ridiculously soft, and they smell like home. How is that even possible?

What the fuck was even going on. You’re sat on Spencers bed. His bed! You try not to freak out, but the gravity of the situation hits you hard as you begin to take off your clothes, this is not how you envisioned getting naked in Spencers room would pan out. Not with him taking you home out of pity because you got so drunk you passed out.

You sigh as you pull the t-shirt over your head, your lips turning upwards into a smile as you run your fingers over the Cal Tech logo. The embarrassment of this evening is something which you’d need to unpack tomorrow once you got home – potentially over a bottle of wine, and a very self-pitying phone call to JJ.

A knock on the door breaks your train of thought, Spencers head appearing round the door as he enters hesitantly.

“I’m done changing, Spence,” you assure him as he steps into the room, still in his shirt and messy tie from earlier. The knot in your stomach tightens, and you dig your fingertips into the side of your leg as a reminder to control yourself – now is not the time to get horny, but fuck, how could you not be.

He walks over and sits down next to you on the bed, his arm brushing against yours as he settles.

“So,” he begins, “do you want to talk about it?”

You stare at him, staying perfectly still as you try read his facial expressions.

“Talk about… what?” you ask, almost dreading the answer. You have no idea what he’s talking about, and nothing good ever comes from ‘do you want to talk about it.’

“What you said at the bar.”

And suddenly it rushes back to you. You groan, dropping your head into your hands to hide your face. ‘At least that one wants to touch me.’

Your own voice echoes in your mind and it makes you sick to your stomach. What the fuck were you thinking? What are you supposed to say to him now?

“Spence, I was drunk,” you start, but you’re cut off before you get to hear what thrown together excuse your brain would muster.

“I do want to touch you.”

The words fall from his mouth like he wasn’t expecting them himself, and you lift your head to look at him.

“What?”

“I do,” he shifts so he’s facing you, “I do want to touch you. I’ve been going crazy, watching you from my desk, calling you angel to try and flirt, which just seemed stupid coming from me.”

It’s like you’re in a dream. The room begins to spin again, but this time it’s not the alcohol.

“And then on Halloween,” his eyes drop to the floor, and a new wave of embarrassment hits you, “I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to, you know, but I didn’t know what to do – what to say. You’re so beautiful.” He sounds ashamed at his lack of action, and you reach your hand out to rest on his leg. He looks up, almost in shock, and you don’t know what to do either, so you do the only thing that you can think of. The only thing you ever think of.

You don’t give yourself time to second guess, you just lean forward and press your lips to his, so gentle they barely touch. He takes in a sharp breath, and you begin to pull away, worried that you’ve fucked up, but then his hand is wrapping into your hair and pulling you back, and he’s kissing you.

Spencer Reid is kissing you.

It’s like something clicks inside of you, something animalistic that screams horny and all your rational thoughts are out of the window. You push back into the kiss, hands moving to his waist as you open your mouth to press your tongue against his bottom lip. He parts his lips to meet your tongue, his hand gripping your hair slightly tighter, the burning sensation on your scalp only urging you to deepen the kiss.

You gasp as he pulls your head back, kissing the side of your mouth and slowly pressing kisses down your face until his lips attach to your neck, sucking and kissing the sensitive skin there. It’s messy and it’s desperate, and his hand wraps around your neck to keep you in place as you writhe under his touch.

“Spence,” your voice is low under your laboured breathing, eyes fluttering shut as he closes his teeth over your skin in response to hearing his name, biting down gently before pulling away to look at you. He looks manic, eyes wide and lips swollen, chest heaving as he tries to take the image of you in all at once.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and you don’t respond, instead pushing his shoulders until his back hits the bed, swinging a leg over him to straddle his waist.

His hands find your waist immediately, pushing under the old t-shirt to touch your skin as your lips find his again. It’s everything you’ve imagined. His stubble brushes against your chin as you kiss him, and you revel in the control of being above him.

Grinding your hips down, you feel how hard he is against your hip, catching his moan with your lips at the friction. Pushing yourself up, he watches you as you lift the t-shirt over your head, exposing your breasts as you begin to grind down onto the erection beneath his trousers. His eyes flutter shut, his mouth falling open into a silent moan as you move above him.

“I was so angry,” his eyes open to hold contact with yours as his hands find your hips, fingers digging in as he guides your movements, “watching you dance for that man,” his hips thrust up to meet yours, the outline of his cock in his trousers presses against your clit, “you were all over him. My pretty girl, you made me so jealous.” He hisses, his hips pushing up particularly hard, and that name. My pretty girl. Fuck.

You lift your hips up, whimpering at the loss of contact as you remove yourself from his body to pull off the sweat pants he had given you. He doesn’t waste any time following suit, his eyes scanning over your body as he pushes down his pants, and pulls off his shirt. You would normally be self conscious, but it’s almost as you’re high right now, you care so little about anything except your drug of choice, Spencer.

He finishes removing his clothes, and for a second the two of you are still, taking in the sight of each other naked, and wow. It’s always the tall skinny ones, but Jesus. He’s big - big big - kind of scary when you really think about it big. He reaches a hand down and wraps his hand around himself, slowly stroking as he watches you stood in front of him.

It makes your legs feel like jelly, watching him touch himself, getting hard because of you. You sit down on the bed next to him, and gently push his hand away.

Leaning forward, you ignore the uncomfortable angle as you let spit fall from your mouth onto his cock. He exhales shakily, watching you as you reach a hand up and begin to stroke, spreading the saliva until he’s wet. He’s mumbling something, you can’t hear what exactly but you’re sure it’s good as you crane your neck down and take him into your mouth, sinking down until you realise you’re not breathing. Coming up for air, you look up at him as you begin to bob your head up and down, the flat of your tongue pressing against the underside of his cock, hand matching your rhythm on the areas your mouth can’t reach.

He looks wrecked, his hair is messy and his bottom lip is caught firmly between his teeth catching the steady stream of moans he lets out as he watches you. You take your mouth off of him, replacing it with your hand, working over the head of his cock dangerously fast.

“Angel, I’m not going to last if you keep that up.”

You slow your hand down, nodding as you push yourself onto your knees. Climbing back to your original position, you straddle him, leaning down to reconnect your lips.

Most men would shy away from kissing after you’ve had your mouth on them, but Spencer seems to thrive on it. He’s kissing you like he’s starved, like if he can’t get enough of you right now you’ll disappear. His hands are everywhere, cupping your ass, pinching your nipples between his fingers, holding your jaw to keep your head in place as he bites over your neck, no doubt leaving a trail of angry red bruises in his wake.

You lift your hips up, reaching down between your bodies and lining him up with your enterance. You don’t break the kiss as you sink down slowly onto him, open mouths pressing against each other’s as you take it, a guttural moan ripping from your throat as you feel how full you are.

It takes a second for your body to adjust, you lift your hips slowly, feeling the drag as you raise yourself up. You find a rhythm, slow at first, and Spencer’s eyes are shut as you slowly rise and then sink back down, as if he’s concentrating on not cumming. The thought of him being so strung out because of you makes you lose it, and you start to bounce on him, thighs beginning to burn as you speed up.

It feels fucking incredible. Every subtle shift of your hips pushes him in deeper, and it’s like fire shooting up your spine. Spencer’s voice is low as he mumbles praise, a string of ‘yes, ah, fuck’ escaping his lips below you.

“Yes,” he hisses as you drop down onto him particularly hard, “such a good girl.”

It’s all the encouragement you need, his words echoing around your head as you leans back instead of moving up, your hands resting on his thighs keeping you steady. It’s like your brain glitches as his cock presses into you just right, and your body chases the feeling, hips rutting franticly, unable to keep quiet as the tight feeling begins to build in the pit of your stomach.

You’re so far gone that when you lift yourself a little too high, the sudden empty feeling makes you sob. Spencer doesn’t hesitate, reaching down to slide back in, this time raising his knees to gain the leverage required to begin thrusting up into you, the only noise in the room skin slapping on skin as he slams into you so quick it feels as though you’re winded.

You’re both sweaty, his thrusts becoming uncoordinated as your bodies move together. His cock slips again, and you fall forward, your face pressing into his neck as a desperate whine, almost unrecognisable comes out of you.

He doesn’t waste any time, pushing his hips up until you’re full again, his arms crossing behind your back to keep you in place as he fucks up into you, brutal and hard and exactly what you needed after months of teasing and flirting and wanting.

And then, it’s gone again. This time it’s not an accident, and you squeal as he flips you over so you’re on your back, and he’s on top of you. His hair falls onto your cheeks as he leans down to press a chaste kiss to your lips, before he’s thrusting into you, deep and hard and rough.

You’re getting close, you can feel how wet you are and you can’t slow down the fast approaching release you need so badly. You can tell Spencer is close too, his face bunched up in concentration as he grits his teeth, using all his energy to keep the pace fast.

Suddenly, he’s leaning forward, pushing your legs back to your chest and bending you in half. Your lips clash as you reach a hand between your bodies to rub your clit, chasing that feeling as Spencer’s hips slam into you.

“Fuck, angel,” he struggles to speak as his hip movements stutter, and it’s either the nickname, his weight on you meaning you can’t breathe, or just him that sends you over the edge.

It’s like your whole body is on fire as you come, your vision going white as you shake beneath him, clawing at his back as he thrusts in deep and holds it there. You can feel the warmth spread inside you as he comes, and you cling to him.

It feels a long time that the two of you stay like that, sweaty and heaving and completely spent, but in reality it’s probably no more than thirty seconds before he’s slowly pulling out, hissing at the sensation.

He disappears for a moment, leaving you lying in his bed, eyes closed as your body twitches, the aftershocks of your orgasm still making its way throughout your body.

He returns not long after with a towel, and you take it gratefully, doing a quick clean up before shuffling up the bed to lay beside him.

He lifts a hand to brush his thumb across your cheek, leaning in and kissing you softly, gentle and loving and in such stark contrast to the way he had been kissing you minutes ago.

“Thank you,” you whisper as your lips part, your head dropping to the pillow, “for taking care of me.”

He smiles, one arm snaking beneath your neck and the other around your waist as he pulls you closer, kissing your forehead.

“I told you I always would, angel.”

You feel safe, finally falling asleep in his arms after so long. It feels right, familiar. As if it had never been any other way.

Spencer’s thumb caressing little circles into the small of your back is the last thing you feel before falling asleep. It’s the best sleep you’ve had in months.

You’re home.

/

taglist: @blushingspencer @disney-dreams-world

[gagmebucky]

my first steve fic... don’t drag me about the characterization please i did my BEST and that’s all the matters, really 😌

[boxer!steve. size kink. doll.] 

His jaw ticks. “It’s not a challenge, doll,” he bites out. “It’s a warning. If I tried to get inside you, I’d split you in half in the process.” His eyes flicker down, and your nipples are pebbles against the thin, easily-rippable fabric—you’re testing him, and he’s failing. “Goddamn it,” he hisses underneath his breath. “That - that shouldn’t turn you on.” Bristling, he drops his hand and pedals backward—he’s on his last thread, and it’s his sole chance to make a clear-headed decision. 

in which steve can’t resist what he feels for you. (includes boxer!steve x coach’s-daughter!reader, steve’s pov, dirty talk, mild choking, size kink, grinding, unprotected sex, creampie kink, overstimulation.)

—

Steve Rogers has impeccable self control. He knows how to control his emotions, to maintain a clear head amid the mist of commotion, to command his body to follow his head and not the violent, primal instincts that prickle underneath his skin. 

And despite the lifelong effort required to uphold this principle, he’s found great fortune in the endeavor. Most don’t realize it, but in his occupation, there’s a certain level of restraint necessary in order to be successful. He has experienced it on both ends so he’s aware of just how important it is. 

Growing up, he hadn’t known better. In the numerous instances where he’d been provoked and pushed, he gave in; consequently, suffering gravelly. Knuckles split, bones broken and face bloodied, his anger got the better of him, and his opponents always got the benefit. 

But that’s where your father came in, and showed him the way to fight back and win every time, to redirect his mania into his fists and funnel them in tactful blows that resulted in trophy after trophy. Once Steve learned how to do that, everything became a breeze. It’s more than a combat style but a way of living. 

Ultimately, he gets what he wants because he can make logic-based decisions and utilize his visceral drive in executing them. And a wallet fat with unmatched winnings, a house for his family and a luxurious apartment of his own, his name on the lips of the masses, it’s a fucking amazing life—for the most part, anyway. 

Except for the one part: you.

The problem with self control, he has come to realize, is that when he truly desires something, he sees the cons of that thing. Usually, if it outweighs the pros, he’ll stop it before it begins. However, in the case of you, that formula isn’t working like it’s supposed to. 

You see, he knows he can’t have you, and he knows why. You are the daughter of his mentor, the only child of the single reason that he’s evolved into the East Coast’s Golden Glove Champion three times in a row, and pursuing you is beyond disrespectful. 

So why the fuck can’t he get you out of his head? 

That’s what he keeps asking himself. Another glorious win, and it won’t stop rattling inside his skull like a hammer on a gong. The crowd is chanting his name but yours is beating a tattoo inside his rib cage. The post-win rush surges through his veins and hits harder than any blows he’s ever received but spotting the proud tilt of your lips amongst the masses is like punch from God themself.

His clean-shaven jaw locks as the referee lifts his right arm and everyone goes wild, losing your face in the fanfare. This is the part where he basks in it, where he loses himself in the victory of sweat and blood slick across his skin; money and recognition, a reminder of the advantages of self-discipline; his reward of what he gets when he uses his brain and not the urges that prickle underneath his skin. 

This time, however, it’s not as gratifying as it’s supposed to be. No, it’s fucking agitating because instead of being the thing that gets him what he wants, it’s the obstacle in his way. 

He can’t pin-point exactly why the desire is striking him this intensely but he suspects it has something to do with the fact that you’ve just returned after a while, and your father is still gone—which means you’ll be upstairs in the gym’s apartment, alone, when he comes to see you (and he will come and see you, what’s the quote about looking and not touching?). 

The tension in his muscles advises his better judgement not to. The wild thump thump thump of his heart to the tune of your name dictates he find some other not-forbidden girl to release the mania coiled inside him before he does; that, it’s not like you’d mind he greet you in the morning—in fact, you’d understand. 

Except, he feels like a live wire right now, and there’s a pull inside him that feels like you’re the only thing that can fray his edges back into stability. 

You’re on the counter when he walks in. Barefoot, you’re kneeling on the flat surface to reach a high shelf in one of the kitchen’s cabinets. One arm stretched above your head, you blindly search for the contents for a cup, palm slapping against wood as you do. After seconds of failure, a cutely disgruntled noise leaves your throat, and you shuffle up to your toes. 

For a moment, he’s entranced by the display. A smile quirks the corner of his lips, running his gaze down the outline of your figure. Adorned in a tank top and ass-hugging jeans, there’s not a flaw in sight; other than his hands not on you, exploring every inch, crushing your body against his. Oh, that and you’re about to fall. 

“Oomph!” expels in a feminine grunt when you flail backwards and collide with the cushion of his embrace. His forearm hooks around your waist like an anchor and packs you against his chest before gently sliding you down his body to the safety of the ground. In doing so, momentarily, he’s caught up in how you feel against him, your back huddled into his front like puzzle pieces.

Everything about him is big, and it occurs to him that everything about you is small. His herculean stature dwarfs yours: six-foot of towering strength versus your soft, shorter frame. You barely require an ounce of strength to be lifted, and his blood rushes to his lower region with what he can do with that knowledge. 

Subconsciously, he tightens his hold until you tilt your head back to blink up at him with those enamoring big eyes. With that, he snaps out of his daze and relinquishes you with a quiet, “Sorry.” Before you can respond, he reaches beyond to grab the item of your desire and hands it over.

Your lashes flutter. “Thanks, killer,” you breathe cheekily as you accept it, the delayed rise and fall of your decolletage slowly regulating. You step out of his space. leaving him cold in your wake, and pad over to the sink with your back to him. “You did good out there, by the way.”

At the praise, his smile restores, and he inches toward you. “Just good?” he echoes after you’ve turned the faucet on and off and crosses his arms in faux offense.

Lips curled around a drink of water, you whirl around and finish a swig. Droplets glisten on your Cupid’s bow, and he swears you’re doing this on purpose when your pink tongue licks the liquid clean. “Do you really need little ‘ole me feeding your ego?” you tease and lean against the counter. 

“You are little,” he agrees with a perfunctory nod. 

You roll your eyes playfully and set the half-full cup down. “No. You - you’re just huge.” You gesture pointedly at his broad, muscle-laden build; dragging your stare down his squared shoulders to his defined abdomen to the tree trunks he has for thighs. An airy quality lingers in your voice, almost high pitched, as you add, “I don’t understand how your competitors don’t go running for the hills when they see you.” 

Taking another stride forth, head cocking, he observes you. There’s something in your expression he can’t quite explain but it pumps confidence into his blood. He glances at himself, white under armor t-shirt and gray sweats, but there’s no downplaying the physical strength he possesses. “You think I’m intimidating?”

You scoff and shake your head vehemently. “To other people, yeah. Me? Not so much.” A devious grin curves into those alluring lips of yours, and you straighten against the counter (not that it helped any with the height difference). “I could take you better than any of those losers you’ve gone against.” 

He laughs, husky and genuine. “Oh? Is that what you think?”

You stand your ground and encroach upon him, stabbing a finger into his chest. “It’s what I said, isn’t it?” 

Alarm bells ring between his ears, but he’s too lost in the beautiful arrogance on your face to listen. “Okay,” he says then backs up to the middle of the room where space is more ample and beckons you over with both hands. “C’mon then.” 

As he expected, you don’t back down. You smooth your hand through your hair and kick off the bottom cupboard. Rolling your shoulder, you enter his orbit; a friendly competitiveness gleams in your dilated pupils, darkening enough for him to notice beneath the kitchen’s warm-toned luminences. 

Your stance is nothing less than perfection (much like the rest of you). Orthodox, you project your right side but spread your weight evenly through both legs; a smidge wider than your shoulders, you bounce on the balls of your feet. Hands in a loose fist, your elbows are drawn together, and your chin tucks, looking up at him through your knitted eyebrows. 

There’s no question about your combative ability but his just more developed—given this is what he does for a living—so while you’re fast and your punches twist like it comes straight out of the textbook, he has the upper hand. 

In a half-hearted demeanor, he humors you. For a moment, the both of you encircle each other, him with a suppressed smile, you with concentrated brows. Like lightning, you advance on him and push through a superlative jab. But as quick as you are, he’s quicker. 

Deftly dodging your knuckles, he catches your dainty wrist. A squeal escapes your throat as he wrenches it behind your lower back. The swift action draws your body against his once again; the dull ridges of your back molds so close to his front that he knows you can feel the hammer of his heart beating an imprint between your shoulder blades. 

You wiggle briefly, and he has to bite down on a groan at the faint jean vibrations against his sweats, but you eventually relax with a long whine of, “No fair!” 

“You said—”

“Not what I meant,” you interject breathlessly, a salacious underlying in the words that he can no longer play oblivious to—dawning on him in a gut-clenching heat. “When I said I could take you, Rogers, I wasn’t talking about in a fight. Though, I won’t mind if we got a little violent. . .”

His breathing hitches. “I knew it.” A truth he long-buried—the strike of realization he avoided confronting in an attempt to hinder his own feelings—hurtles in his rib cage as he unwillingly accepts the reality you want him in the perverse idiosyncrasy he wants you. That beastly part of him roars in ravenous elation while his practiced erudition advises you in a low and pained plead, almost a groan, “You gotta stop.” 

With a breezy laugh, a twinkling song of laughter, you repeat a doubtful, “Stop?” and do the exact opposite. Your body careens into him, specifically your ass grinding encouragement against the hardening bulge in his pants. “Doesn’t feel like you want me to.” 

You’re right. “I don’t.” The reply rumbles through his chest and wrenches out strangled. The grip on your wrist increases before vanishing altogether. “But you’re Coach’s daughter, and out of all the things not to do, you’re number one on that list.” 

Freed, you twirl around and retain the lack of distance. You look up at him with unwavering seduction. “When you’re looking at me like that, does that really matter anymore?” 

Again, you’re right. But that’s not the issue—not the prevailing one, that is. “I’ve thought about you a million different ways but in reality, I’d break you,” he admits in a ragged exhale and licks his bottom lip. Another analytical once-over confirms his deduction; your danity frame clashing with his would be something beastly. “How would your daddy react knowing I ruined his pretty little girl?”

To his pleasure and displeasure, it doesn’t dissuade your attraction. No, it seems to have heightened it instead. “Is that a promise?” you ask, lust scintillating in your eyes like moonlight on the ocean, and he has to recoil away because you’ve got too much power over him with a look like that. “Steve—” 

Your hand grapples his before he can get far, an earnest strength he doesn’t have to bat an eyelash at. But it’s that—another reminder of your size differences and how easily he could bend and fold you to his liking—that has a carnal current torrenting from the depths of his soul, demanding an innate action. 

On impulse, he lurches forward with an inhuman growl and herds you backward until his hips are trapping yours against the counter edge. His hand wraps around the column of your neck, partially spanning your jaw to tilt upwards. 

“In every one of those fantasies, I use you like a rag doll—fast and rough, never gentle. And you wanna know why? ‘Cause you’re fuckin’ small and it’s the only possible way for me to fuck you,” he rasps, strained and serious, imploring you to understand the gravity of his words. “That’s in the case, that I can even fit inside you in the first place. So, you may say you can handle me but the truth is, you wouldn’t be able to take just one of my fingers.”

The speech is to deter you; invoke some common sense in that intelligent brain of yours because all of his is withering by the second. In lieu of his intention, it excites you further. Your pulse races against his palm but the flames in your gaze tell him it isn’t from fear. “You seem so sure about that but. . . but I don’t think so,” you purposely goad that volatile and competitive aspect of him. “Why don’t we try and see who’s right?”

His jaw ticks. “It’s not a challenge, doll,” he bites out. “It’s a warning. If I tried to get inside you, I’d split you in half in the process.” His eyes flicker down, and your nipples are pebbles against the thin, easily-rippable fabric—you’re testing him, and he’s failing. “Goddamn it,” he hisses underneath his breath. “That - that shouldn’t turn you on.” Bristling, he drops his hand and pedals backward—he’s on his last thread, and it’s his sole chance to make a clear-headed decision. 

“No,” you state simply, following after him. “I - I think you’re scared. I think you don’t want to admit that someone as small as me could take you so easily—and I mean easy—where everyone else fell to their knees.” A coy smirk upturns the corner of your lips. “Though I also wouldn’t be opposed to getting on mine right now.” 

That’s it. The last shred of ascetic lessons from the past six years bursts into ash. The fire ignites an unhinged frenzy, tunneling into his veins and coursing through his blood like the water of a previously dammed river now freed of placating obstruction. 

With unrestricted strength, Steve hauls you into his arms, cording underneath your ass and hoisting you high around his abdomen. In a gnashing kiss, he crushes his lips against yours. There’s no delay in your response, returning his passion in a rivaling degree. 

That formerly-leashed, hedonistic entity within him preens from its shackles and livens with unhinged reign. Electricity crackles underneath his skin and tingles violently in feral need. Every filthy imagining he’s conjured of you strobes through his mind, and he feels like a man who hasn’t eaten in years, and you’re the delectable T-bone steak he gets to devour. 

You moan into his mouth, a pretty vibration he swallows, as he laps up your taste. The musical sound, the way you explode on his tongue, it all goes to his head like a hit off a drug and slithers down his spine to the ache in his cock. 

His hips snap forward, and his grasp on you intensifies; clutching your ass, he’s rocking your center into his cotton-clad erection roughly. Shards of pleasure ricochet through him, but it’s not enough—he needs more, needs more of your titillating sounds, more of your body on his, of you coming undone because of him, you making him fall apart. 

As you writhe against him with breathy sounds, he sets you on the counter and goes for your pants. Logic evades him at this point—like the fact it’d be the same amount of time with less effort it’d be if he slipped off—and his hands tear the denim material down the middle. Using little effort, he continues to remove what separates you, doing away with your panties next. All the while, you’re gasping in surprise and possibly outrage but he can’t focus on that right now. 

“You don’t understand,” he speaks laboredly, shoving his sweats to his knees to reveal he’s gone commando. “How bad I’ve wanted you. How hard it was—how hard you make me—to keep from myself taking you in every disgusting way I dreamed about.” 

Slicked with precum, his veined manhood is just as thick as it is long; past lovers have gawked at the formidable steel, shying away immediately after, and he’s always understood that. But you, you look at him starry-eyed, licking your bottom lip like you want him exploding on your tongue. 

And as much as he’d marvel at the sight of your cheeks stuffed like chipmunk with his cock— has thought how hot it’d sound when you’re gagging relentlessly around him—he’s got his attention lasered on that tiny prize between your thighs. 

A teasing triangle of perfection, daring him to completely abuse and batter as he pleases. You’re glistening like diamonds in the sunlight, effectively blinding him in a bind of corporeal desire—there’s no thinking, only action; no right or wrong, just what he wants.

His hands pinch underneath your knees and slide you to the edge. In tandem, he slots himself flat against your weeping heat, squishing the length of his cock between the split of your slit, burrowing himself there as if it’s his new home. 

Mutual moans and shivers expel through you both. It’s better than he’s ever imagined; mentally-created experience has nothing on the raw reality. Soft like silk, the honeyed aperture of your sex is eclipsed by his tanned thickness, barely shrouding a third of him, his tip twitching at your navel, and it’s a snapshot to behold. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he rasps, jaw locking before he reels you tighter and snaps his hips forward, rutting against your throbbing clit. It’s the match that starts the fire, a million sparks prickling all over that has him taking you like a madman. 

“S - Steve!” you cry, music to his ears, as he hooks his elbows under your knees, bending them over his shoulders, and works your divided folds up and down the length of his translucent-white dribbling cock. Your arms shoot around his neck desperately while you bury your face in his neck, mewling into his collarbone; the vibration unmistakably his name. 

“I am going to fuck you, doll,” he promises through gritted teeth, using his hands palming your ass to grind your little pussy into him harshly, at the same time his hips rock into the assault. “I am going to shove every inch of my cock inside you, make it fit if you can’t. But first—first, you’re going to cum on my cock then you’re going cum around it.” 

Your weight is nothing to his hulking strength, bouncing you in undulation like you’re his own personal fuck-toy (somewhere in that darker, aggressive facet of him chides that’s exactly what you are; a wanton toy to use to his desire). 

Every upward thrust is grating over your bundle of nerves, coaxing gush and gush of your essence. Mixed with his own liquid arousal, it further lubricates his slippery anatomy and empowers quicker ministrations—filling the room with your crescendos of whimpers and moans. 

“Y’like it when I make your pretty lil’ pussy grind against my cock? When the tip rubs over your soft clit?” he says, winded, in your ear as you shake like a leaf in the steel cage that is him. “Or d’you like knowing despite how bad I need to be balls-deep inside you I have to wait ‘cause your tiny pussy won’t be able to take it yet?” 

“Oh. God. Steve—” you moan, raking your nails into his flexing back muscles, and he revels in the faint sting. “I - I—it feels good. Fuck, it feels so good.”

Shocks needle down his spine and gnaw in his lower stomach while static nibbles at his limbs; a prelude to a knee-buckling reckoning. “Y’gonna cum for me, beautiful?” He can feel the tautness constricting in your body, the crook of your calves as your toes curl. “Want you to. Wanna know what’s gonna happen when you do?” He doesn’t wait for a response, especially when you’re borderline incoherent. “It’s gonna loosen you up for me. Get your pussy prepared to take all of my big, fat cock. And, you fuckin’ will. Y’hear me?” 

At that point, he’s unsure whether you nodded or not because your head does bob, but so does the rest of you. His neck muffles your cry as you buck wildly against him, and if that isn’t telling enough, he can feel your engorged nub pulsating with euphoria. 

And he can’t resist it. The threat of his violent upcoming orgasm; the fact that he knows your channel is clamping down hallowly; the earlier declaration of being able to handle him easily, it all overwhelms him. 

In a millisecond, before his mind comprehends what his instincts are doing, his hands slip from underneath your bottom to either side of your slit, and his thumbs spread your opening. He heaves you up, and when gravity brings you down, his well-endowed cock drives into your spasming insides. 

With an audible wet slush and slap of skin, he powers through your channel harshly until he’s seated to the hilt. In the throes of your orgasm—before he could stretch you first like he intended—inches that outwardly reached your belly button, width that dwarfed your mound  invades your walls in one blunt movement. 

The orgasm is still flooding you but it’s combined with the convulsions of vanquished hollowness and encompassing fullness. To be perfectly fucking honest, it’s heaven: snug, fervid heaven. And he wastes no time losing himself in you, fucking you through your stimulation while you’re rendered to a babbling mess.

“Oh - oh, my—Steve!” you squeal as your rubber-band-like resistance desperately tries to accommodate the intrusion of his size. “Big—you’re big—I didn’t realize you were so b - big—” 

“But you’re going to take it, aren’t you? Said you could, swore you’d handle me like no other before, right?” he croons and continues to decimate your swollen valley. “I told you you’d cum on my cock and around it, and that’s what you’re gonna do.” The order has your strangling heat fluttering in delight. “Unless you aren’t as big and bad as you claimed to be.” 

You gasp and cling tighter. “I can - I can,” you whimper, and it’s so cute—he can’t wait to fuck you until you pass out. “Just a minute. I can’t cum yet—n - not yet.” 

He laughs huskily because he knows he’s gonna to make you do exactly that. “Yeah, we’ll see about that, doll,” he practically purrs and cinches you closer so with each pass of his hips, your sensitive clit is chafing against his pubic bone; it has the intended effect of forcing your swollen walls to quiver around him.

“Shit,” you choke. “I can’t - I can’t—”

Motivated by your disbelieving insistence, he reaffirms his grip and pistons through your folds quicker. He ebbs deeper and deeper with the combination of his hips ramming in and his hands controlling your body so your channel swallows him all the way. 

Rising sensations pulse within him at an alarming rate, numbness climbing up his toes to cover him completely, encasing his nerves with an escalating bliss. In a minute, he’s going to blow and empty the contents of his balls into your never ending, clamping depths—and he can’t wait to see your reaction when he does, what it’ll look like to have his thick white dribbling out of you. 

That thought spurs him on, and he abruptly props you on the kitchen counter. There’s no break for your used pussy as he slithers a free hand to fist your throat, laying you flat against the cold granite.

“You are gonna cum for me,” he growls, voice unrecognizable with animalistic carnality. The sheening and flushed exertion on your face, the moans vibrating up your esophagus and the wriggle of your body is mesmerizing and provoking. “And you’re going to make me cum while you do it. Your tiny pussy is gonna milk my big cock until I’m flooding you full of me.”

He ruffles your shirt up and out of the way, giving him a glimpse of the single hottest thing he’s ever laid his eyes on. As his hips jut back and forth, the indent of his bulbous tip prods visibly from your stomach; he can see himself bulging low in your belly. 

He releases the unholiest of groans as lightning zaps through him, tactfully shocking his pressure points while his blood pumps to his dick, and he swells bigger inside you. The temperature is boiling to the top, and when your warbling voice breaks into his haze, “Steve—Steve—Steve—!” his eyes snap open. 

His gaze drags further down, he’s greeted with the eyeful of your exploited mound: puffy and swollen from his unyielding, punishing onslaught, your clit peaking through faintly as if beckoning for his touch. Of course, he obliges you—he has zero idea how he managed to deny himself of you in the past. 

The second he thumbs at the little nubbin, you’re sobbing his name and squelching around his cock. In a domino effect, the lava blasts from the bottom of his gut to your enveloping convulsions; sheathed to the hilt, a visual ingrained in his memory of his cockhead pushing up inside your stomach, he pours all the mania he’s kept locked away into you. 

Riding out the wave, he watches how you cream around him when he retreats from you. A ring of clear white contrasts against your bruised sex and his tanned length, the mix of your essences oozing down his balls and onto the floor. 

“Fuck,” he says hoarsely. “That’s hot.” 

There’s a periodic twitch of you, and he glances up to see you staring at him, glossy-eyed but undoubtedly satisfied. “You. . . that was. . . God,” is all you manage, and pride blooms in his chest—at the fact that you kept up, and at the fact he did you good. “You’re amazing.” 

“You did good, doll,” he speaks roughly, the hand around your throat tracing your pulse. “I couldn’t have thought of a better way for this to have gone. . .” Despite his recent orgasm, there’s a hunger clawing back to the surface as he observes the way you’re splayed out like an offering, fucked to the point of limpness. “Or, to be going. . .” 

“S - Steve,” you whimper but it isn’t a protest, far from it, he can tell. 

So he continues to trail his hand to your clit, encircling it while you give a half-hearted bleat. He rakes his teeth over his bottom lip and maneuvers his hips until his growing semi is teasing your cum-dripping entrance. “Y’said you could handle me, doll,” he murmurs and promptly glides right back into you, and a wanton cry tears from your lips. “Let’s see how true that is.” 

[masterlist / feedback]

[brokenjardaantech]

the invisible price

for @nock-and-bolt.

summary:

earth is under attack. everyone is giving everything they can to defend the only home they have against an alien race called the collectors. but sometimes, the price we pay isn't easily seen or heard.

no knowledge on mass effect required to understand this fic.

part of the groom lake aftermath series.

also on ao3

---

[Josh, do you have a moment?]

Josh tears his eyes and mind away from the tactical map when he hears Rupert’s voice in his head. Rupert communicating with him is a common occurrence given Josh’s responsibility as the codex compiler and Rupert as one of their most efficient spies, but the other android wanting to talk to him directly is something rare and few in between, partly because there is no need, partly because Rupert isn’t exactly the most social person. Josh knows that his responsibility has been growing since Markus and North departed North America and started sailing across the Pacific to secure an alliance with the resistance in Hong Kong, but he looks at his growing to-do list and decides that he can afford a few moments with Rupert; talking to the people working for him and getting to know them better is the leader’s job, and now that Josh himself became the leader, the task falls onto him. {I’ll come to you,} he replies. {Stay where you are.}

[I’m not going anywhere.]

Josh takes note of the unusually harsh tone and calculates the probabilities while he ascends the stairs to the rookery on the topmost floor of the building they have occupied as their base of operations. While most humans have gone underground so that the Collectors can’t get to them as easily, the androids step forward to defend earth, taking advantage of the fact that the aliens don’t target synthetics, and now the surface is theirs. It will be a pain to negotiate with the humans once this is over - if they win the war against the Collectors, that is, the chance diminishing with every single moment Ryder needs to take to find out where exactly their enemies come from - but for now, as he steps foot into the vast space that is now a rookery, he is assaulted by the wind howling and sweeping through the unglazed windows, and he basks in the knowledge that everything within his sight belongs to androids and androids alone. Sitting on one of the windowsills with one of his legs dangling outside and surrounded by pigeons is Rupert, and somehow his hat hasn’t been blown off his head yet. It will be an interesting study if there isn’t a war affecting the entire globe going on, how it manages to stay on the other android’s head, and the puzzles and mazes covering the space from floor to ceiling will be good mind games as well.

Rupert speaks before Josh can ask him what this conversation is for. ‘Be honest, Josh,’ a pigeon lands on his open palm and he strokes its head. ‘Is my intel useful?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Josh doesn’t hesitate to answer. ‘You help us stay in touch with resistance forces from all around the world and collect intel from our allies and enemies. You even help us contact one another on mundane things unrelated to the resistance. Thanks to you, lives are saved and our morale is high. You’re important to us, Rupert,’ he doesn’t know how often Markus visits the android nor does he know how close the two of them are, but just in case Markus didn’t say it enough… ‘We won’t be standing here without your effort.’

Rupert’s snort surprises him. ‘“My” effort?’ he withdraws his leg from outside the window and turns until he is facing Josh with his back against the outside world. ‘I just sit here and wait for my birds to come back. I take off whatever is tied to their legs, dump the data to you, and I’m done.’

‘Still -’

‘You don’t understand!’ the sudden sharpness in his voice makes Josh’s thirium pump skip a bit. ‘I -’ Rupert claws at his head through his cap. ‘You don’t -’ he hops off the ledge. ‘Fuck!’

And suddenly he is standing in front of Josh holding out a skinless hand, a telltale sign that he wants to interface with him, but they aren’t close and interfaces are intimate things, one that is only shared between close friends or lovers, and they certainly aren’t familiar with each other enough to qualify -

‘I don’t know how I can tell you otherwise,’ Rupert grits. His voice is laced with static and his eyes are wet. ‘I know we’re talking about humanity’s survival here but…’ he turns away from Josh as suddenly as he closed the distance between them and squeezes his eyes shut. A tear slips through, evaporating quickly due to the strong wind, but a pale blue track remains on his face. ‘Forget it,’ he cradles his skinless hand close to his chest. ‘Everyone’s sacrificed something for this war. I’m not… I’m not. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed this on you.’

‘You aren’t,’ Josh reassures him. ‘Is there a problem?’

Rupert’s skin reactivates over his hand. ‘Not as big as yours, I’d imagine.’

‘It seems to affect you a lot. If it’s big for you, it’s big enough for me considering how important you are to the resistance.’

He even extends his own hand in encouragement, and after a few seconds of hesitation Rupert grasps it, and Josh is pulled under.

Aliens. Aliens are supposed to be fictional. Not entirely impossible, but the universe is so big, so empty, and physics so slow and constraining, so the chances are low, but they’re here anyway with their bugs and lasers and gas, dragging humans off the streets and shooting anyone who dares to fight back. He runs, he doesn’t want to be shot, his birds need him. He runs and runs and runs until he receives a signal. A rendezvous point. A temporary sanctuary. A base of operations. A chance to fight back. 

An opportunity no one can afford to waste.

rA9 is there so everything will be okay. Simon is missing from his side. He doesn’t want to think about what happened to Simon. He doesn’t want to think about all the missing faces.

rA9 says they are fighting a war. 

rA9 says they need everything they want to give.

rA9 says they need to make sure that there is a humanity for ‘the alliance’ to return to, whoever they are.

So he offers his birds. His birds like him. His birds trust him. His birds are strong. His birds are healthy. His birds are smart. His birds know their way home. He read human books. He knows how useful his birds can be. 

rA9 is generous. 

rA9 gives him enough space to house his birds.

rA9 gives him everything he needs to train them to carry messages.

But rA9 doesn’t need to know how his birds use to fill the entire floor. rA9 doesn’t need to know they now barely cover half the space they have. rA9 doesn’t need to know most of his birds fall asleep forever after delivering a message from far, far away.

He stops taking care of his birds because he likes them. He stops feeding them because he wants to feed them. He stops naming them because he doesn’t want to know who died and who didn’t. Instead, he starts researching, he starts training his birds instead of letting them live their own lives, he starts breeding them when he realises that he needs more, he needs to fill the floor again, he needs all the birds he can get to help people fight the war. They can’t lose the war. They can’t die. They can’t lose everyone and everything. Not after fighting so hard for their freedom. Not after fighting so hard to be recognised as sentient beings.

He hates it. Everyone hates it. He knows because he reads the written messages. He knows it’s bad. He knows everyone is making their sacrifices, sacrifices much bigger than a few dozen birds, sacrifices much more painful than seeing some easily replaceable animals die. 

He doesn’t deserve to complain. 

He cannot complain. 

He will not complain. 

He will not burden rA9.

He needs to win.

He needs to live.

He hates the Collectors.

He hates what he is doing.

He hates himself.

He hates.

He hates.

HE HATES -

Rupert jerks away from Josh harshly and nearly steps on one of the pigeons on the floor. He refuses to look at Josh, and reaching out only causes the WB200 to recoil even further so Josh doesn’t push him. He dares not push him. Markus would know what to say, but Josh is no Markus, and he can only say, ‘You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. We’ll understand.’

‘I know you do,’ Rupert retreats towards the window and sits on the ledge with one leg dangling outside once more. This time, when a pigeon lands on his knee, he doesn’t even touch it, and he turns his gaze towards the city outside. ‘I just wouldn’t know how to deal with myself if I’m not sitting here.’ When Josh doesn’t move, he adds, ‘Go on. I’m sure you have a resistance to lead. I’ll send you everything I’ve got whenever there’s an update.’

Josh has no choice but to leave, and as he returns to his usual post in front of the tactical map among his people, among the brave souls who are giving all they can to hold the line on the only home they have, he wonders what they have given up to be here, why exactly they are volunteering themselves, how they feel about this whole defending earth business. He may never know.

He isn’t sure if he wants to know.

[sisislair]

Be me: swole half-orc bard. Party also includes a conflicted human fighter, and for a brief period of time, a human paladin.

Me and Fighter are hired by a resistance group (we are mercenaries) to take down their local tyrant. Our first job is to take out some marauding goblins that the King has set loose. (My mentality is very much mine vs not mine, and Fighter's is deeper and about furthering the connection between races.) We are ambushed, and we both kill many. The two elves that where previously part of the group sacrifice themselves for Fighter. The goblin who hired us, Balrog, kills the last one. Fighter is upset because we could have used him for information, but Balrog waves it off.

We loot the bodies, I make some goblin meat, and we head on to their encampment. It is in a church basement, and we meet another party member briefly as we are fully inducted and given our rooms. They require complicated passcodes. We both fail to remember how to get out the next morning (my intelligence is not great, practical and people skills, yes, memory + reasoning? No) We are then asked with our new party member, paladin, to go sabatoge one of the barracks. We go in through the stables, I free the horses while they set it on fire. I then cast thunder shock to blow in the wall. Fighter goes into a room, is briefly turned into a goblin because magic, and proceeds to massacre everyone. I finish freeing the horses, and then help him clear out the base by sneaking around, burning food storage, not stealing their very pitiful armory, and just slaughtering them in general. We leave, and count it a mission well done.

We then go back to base, rest up, heal, and prepare for our next mission. We are going to be infiltrating the castle to pose as new staff members and assassinate the tyrant. Me as the new head cook, and Fighter as the new court Jester. Upon introduction I am allowed to drop off my stuff, and then put to work making lunch. I immediately start building up a rapport with the guard in charge of me and the kitchen staff, made all the easier by the fact that I genuinely like people and wish to help them. I whip out an amazing stew which pleases the tyrant very much, and stay to clean up and practice my cooking skills.

Switch to Fighter, who is allowed to rest before being taken before the tyrant. His entrance is mediocre, but he turns into a goblin for his trick, he can do that, and starts juggling. He then fumbles the knife and slices his arm with it. He gets a surprised laugh out of the tyrant, who sends him back to his room to be bandaged up and rest.

Switch to me, who makes an awesome fish dinner, and once again chats away and cleans up. Radiating all the mom vibes. The staff are warming up to me, but still seem hesitant about something. I stress bake that night and make pot brownie equivalents, placing a plate outside my room and inviting the guards and staff to have some if they like. My rapport is pretty good by this point.

Fighter is taken back, bandaged himself, and fails to figure out the guard patterns because he remembers the guard who kicked him upon welcoming and punches a wall. He is checked on then yells fuck very loudly when they leave. (It is only at this point that one of us finally thinks to ask if we where ever told what exactly the King has been done to be labeled a tyrant. Cue DM being exasperated that we only chose to use our critical thinking skills on the last day.)

Cue me in the morning, who tells the other staff that they can take a break the first couple of minutes while I get things started. They seem surprised and hesitant about this. I assume that it's because they haven't been treated this nicely before. One of the servant girls stays behind to clean with me, a new occurance, and seems to want to talk to me. But she keeps glancing towards the door, and I invite her to come bake some non edible pastries that night. We finish, and upon return to the servant quarters I pull out my drum and begin practicing, I draw out an audience, and achieve yet more familiarity.

I make lunch, and we cue Fighter again. He is called upon to entertain, and purposefully stumbles when bowing to see if he is entertained by pain. However, instead of laughing, the King seems concerned. Fighter is intrigued, and when prompted to tell a story tells an incredibly well done tale about his past as a mercenary. The King is not amused, in fact he seems very solemn and contemplative, Fighter is sent away, and now the moral crises begin.

When baking with the servant girl, she tells me that the King has been beating her almost every night after taking her to his rooms, because she won't give him what he wants. I stop kneeding and then start agressively kneeding the dough. I then proceed to hug her when she is done, comfort her, and send her on her way with simmering rage and a growing conviction. I ponder the immediate expidaition of our plans.

Meanwhile, Fighter is approached that night by the King in his rooms. The King knocks, and upon entering, says that Fighter's story greatly reminded him of his youth. He tells Fighter about how his father was a mercenary, and that after being hired to liberate this kingdom they ended up in charge of it. The people, where.... Not pleased, to put it mildly. His father ended up being driven out by them, and he was left in charge. He now fears for his life and kingdom, because there is a group, several of their members being in his staff, who have been spreading horrible rumors about him. Just this last week the barracks for their new recruits where brutally pillaged and massacred. (At this point we have gone into oh fuck territory, and are looking at each other in horror.) He then continues on to say that he trusts Fighter and hopes that if he is assassinated Fighter will be able to find a new job. And that he is a good confidant. He leaves, there are no guards put around Fighter's room, and he is having a full on moral crisis. He can't kill an innocent man, and may in fact have been hired to kill several innocent men during the barracks mission. He had been suspicious of Balrog since day one, and this is all that he needed to confirm it. (Our DM has apparently been leading us up to this the whole time, and is now playing us against each other. It's glorious story building, and simultaneously agonizing. We are very, very invested by this point.)

The next morning I am not woken by the guard, and smell something cooking already. The staff has been given the day off by the King, who has locked himself away and is in a funk. Everyone came together to make breakfast for me for all that I have done for then. This cements my love for these, my people, and my conviction is strong. I am doing this.

But this conviction is about to be challenged when me and Fighter meet up to discuss things. I let him go first, and am initially sceptical. Sounds like a sob story to me. I tell him about the servant girl. He tries to reason with me.

Fighter: Only one girl came to you?

Me: I can't take that risk that he's doing that.

Fighter: Fine, but do you have to kill him? Balrog is very suspicious, and I can't take the chance that this man is innocent.

I grudgingly relent, and tell him to investigate more while I ask who wants to leave with me. Upon coming near the kitchens I hear murmering, I can tell that it is the servant girl and someone else with a familiar voice. I knock, and the voices stop. She tells me to come in. Only she is in there, and when questioned she initially denies. I press her more, and she eventually reveals that it's the guard. Why would she lie about that? She tells me that he was telling her about the horrible things the King has been doing, and I am newly suspicious of this. I ask her if she wants to leave with me, or if she wants the King dead. With no hesitation, she says that she wants him dead, now. I have a big brain moment, and ask to see the bruises so I can apply a healing paste to them. She is shifty about it, saying they are in sensitive places. I smile gently, and counter with me being a woman as well, having healing knowledge, and if so that this makes it even more important they they are taken care of. She says she needs looser clothes for me to tend to them, leaves, and returns. She has marks around her breasts and her legs, and my rage is reborn. There is no changing my mind now. My character is not smart enough to think that she might have faked them, and I cannot let this stand. I finish treating her, and allow my anger to possess me. I charge towards the throne room, rage clouding my judgement, getting faster and faster until I am barreling through the halls. Fighter sees me pass by, and knows what is happening. He cannot let this happen. He tries to stop me, and runs after me. I burst through the throne room doors and head straight for the King while pulling out my dagger. He is terrified. He sees Fighter behind me, and then gets sad. Fighter is at the mental breaking point by now, and tries to physically tackle me. I shrug him off, and he fails to hit me with his axes. I impale the King, and he dies in terror, tears in his eyes. I have just killed an innocent man.

Fighter screams you bastard at me, and tries to go for me. At that moment, Balrog enters the room along with the guard and the servant girl. They restrain and cuff Fighter all while he screams and cries. It has finally just hit my character that Fighter was right. But it is too late. Fighter is dragged away, and the King's body is disposed of. I am thanked by the staff for their freedom, but I only feel numb. What have I done?

That night at the base, I stare sleeplessly at the ceiling while tortured screams eminent from the room, now cell, that Fighter is kept in. The end.

This campaign emotionally and psychologically destroyed us, but it is also the most satisfying campaign I have ever been apart of. Never have I been so in character or emotionally invested in the story. In the space of 5 sessions, our dm built up all of the foreshadowing that we mostly missed for this, and then brought it to a whirlwind horrifying end. There where two possible endings, and we chose the bad one. I was left in awe by his skill, and in tears and anger over how the story ended for us. It was, and might always be, the best campaign I have ever done to this date.

[horsepriest]

I did this OC meme on Twitter and got “Do all 40 and ramble on” as a response.  Here is the entire questionnaire and character sheet for Warlord Gresham.  This is fairly spoiler-free for Glimpse and is a snapshot of who he is now.   Content warning for sadism, torture, and Gresham basically being a sick fuck overall. 

Warlord Gresham

Basic stats:

Name: Gresham,     AKA The TwinHorn

Serial Number: W.03-c.017

Gender/Pronouns: Cis Male He/Him

Height: Approx.     15ft at shoulder. Nearly 20ft standing.

Species: Heavily     modified Liberated Vactyr with signs of Other corruption

Size Class: Titan     (Does not meet 20,000lbs requirement for Colossus Size Class)

Sexuality: Undefined

Romance: Undefined

Birthday: Jan.     17

Age: 42

Occupation: Warlord of the Firmament-Highest rank of the Off-world Military and direct servant of Adelie.

Weapons:  Gresham is a pack hunter with a constantly rotating squad of Lost under his direct command.  He keeps a few contained within the large metal pack upon his back, some strapped with weaponry and explosives for the rare times he’s in a pinch.  He is heavily armoured and has a wide range of attack with his long sweeping horns.  Not many are willing to fight him. He is rarely taken out of battle for long- no one’s quite sure what he keeps in his medic bag. Personality: ��Overbearing, proud, and sadistic.  He is the spoiled pet of a capricious “goddess” who encouraged every depraved impulse from a young age.   For his twisted sense of loyalty to Adelie, he was gifted the title of Warlord, and thus dominion over a massive slice of the Liberated hordes.  Despite his quadrupedal stance and bestial appearance, Gresham is smarter than one would think.  This makes him a dangerous adversary as he can manage his pack with ease.

 OC Question Meme

1.       How easy is it to make them angry? Do they show their anger or hide it? It is difficult to make Gresham legitimately angry.  Disobedience would probably be the best way to anger him, except it grants him the ability to dole out punishment as he deems fit.  If anything, he gets giddy when one would expect him to be angry. If someone manages to piss him off, he would not be able to hide it and that person will have a fight on their hands.

2.       Do they believe in soulmates? The idea of soulmates is a foreign concept to him.  Love does not mean much to him due to his unique upbringing.  Of course, he has seen other Liberated pair off to be mates but the rationalizes it as purely a mutually selfish interaction that has shaky longevity at best (and he goes out of his way to ruin the relationship, if possible.).

3.       Do they have any pet peeves? Laziness, weakness, and sneakiness irritate him.  He picks on the lazy and those he views as weak through forcing them into training and hard labour.  He’ll focus intensely on subordinates that show signs of sneakiness or insubordination.

4.       Do they have a happy place?  Somewhere to go to in their heads when they need to relax? His happy place is his room and the memories of his activities there keep him relaxed and generally happy.  Gresham is also happy when around Adelie.  She showers him with attention and praise which he drinks up.  Gresham is a good boy.  In her soulless pits she calls eyes anyways.

5.       At what stage of their life were they the happiest? Right after he killed his brother in public combat and proved he was the best and strongest out of the two.  His secondary set of horns were torn from his brother’s corpse as trophies.  He could stand somewhat normally at this stage and still could see.  He looked like a normal, but exceptionally large Liberated.

6.       At what stage of their life were they the least happy? Same stage of life as “Glimpse Beyond the Illusion.”  His life is painful- trouble breathing and generally functioning as his body has mostly broken down. He relies on his pack for basic needs like getting dressed and keeping clean.  He is also suffering from the effects of █████ ██████████ which is different from Mortus’s knowledge of ██████████.  Lastly, Adelie takes frequent control of his Liberation to form him to her liking, on top of the changes from █████ ██████████.  Due to both of these, he has been barred from ever receiving a breeding permit.

7.       At a bar/tavern/pub are they more likely to buy someone a drink, or have someone buy them a drink? He would buy someone a drink, but it’s a trap. Don’t ever accept a drink from Gresham.

8.       Have they ever broken any bones?  If yes, how? Oh definitely.  The guy’s a living tank that takes joy in brutalizing beings on foreign planets and has most definitely broken more bones than your average peaceful human.  Due to his medic kit, there isn’t much sign of this on his body.  The most obvious broken bone is his docked tail, taken when he reached adulthood.

9.       Do they have any memories/experiences they’d rather forget? Not really.  Most of the painful memories are washed over by the rewards he has been given as a result of being a twisted ghoul of a being.  There are probably quiet moments where he ponders how his life would have been if he were never taken under Adelie’s wing, but they are shoved back down into the dark abyss he dares not look into.  

10.   What is their favourite memory from their childhood? Earning his first pack of Lost. Little and loyal and they tended to his needs without question.  Free friends, captive to him and too stupid to disobey.  At first, he regarded them as tools and took good care of them. Once he accidentally killed one (maybe not accidentally), it was replaced.  Now they are regarded as intelligent playthings and extensions of himself.

11.   Do they have a “type” they are usually attracted to? No explicit type.  Any form of love that Gresham is capable of experiencing is extremely toxic and sickening.  He is an abject abuser and sadist; he doesn’t understand love.  Gresham is capable of obsession and his main obsession is Adelie.

12.   Do they have any favourite possessions? His survival knife, his jar of Flow, and his pack of Lost.  

13.   Do they have any tattoos? If no, would they ever consider getting one? They are not traditional tattoos, but he has faint stripes down his back.  They are short and function like Rictus’s, just without most of Rictus’s extra abilities.  For instance, Gresham cannot rebuild objects with them.

14.   Do they have any piercings? If no, would they ever consider getting one? The thought hasn’t occurred to him, so no piercings.  He might not get one, but I could see him forcing them on others in uncomfortable places.

15.   What is their dream house like? He would live closer to Adelie with more space to be able to move around comfortably.  A space that’s easy to clean and sort his pack into their own cubbies. A much more robust torture chamber with more tools would also be nice.

16.   What is something about them that people would not expect just by looking at them? He is intelligent.  Gresham is calculated in how he handles his affairs and prepares for most situations ahead of time.  For instance, he’ll set out his Lost to lead his quarry to him-typically in a pretty narrow place to discourage retreat.

17.   How good are they at choosing gifts for others? Don’t ever take a gift from Gresham, it’s a trap.

18.   Do they have a certain skill that they’re particularly proud of? He is insanely gifted with his knife work and butchery.  He is proud that he hasn’t yet broken the “Warlord W.03-c.017 is not entitled to cull stud XXX-XXXX” part of his special permits, despite getting his “playthings” very, very, very close to that point. He is also proud of how easily he can take what he wants.

19.   How would a stranger they just met describe them? Creepy, pushy, off-putting.  They may complain of the smell of his breath and body odour.  

20.   How would a close friend they’ve known for a long time describe them? A sweet, loyal dog.  Trustworthy and cute, in an ugly way. (Adelie)

21.   Do they have any personal insecurities? Being caught in a vulnerable position by someone that can then gossip about it.  There are a few pilots that lack tongues for this reason.  Others (presumably because their mouths were too damned small) are just tortured into silence.

22.   What is their highest physical stat? (strength, stamina, defense, speed, etc.) and their highest non-physical stat? (intelligence, perception, charisma, luck, etc)? Easily strength and intelligence.  Defense and Perception are second highest. Gresham lacks Stamina or Charisma.

23.   How would they react to finding out someone lied to them, even if it was for their own safety/well-being? Gresham wouldn’t like it as it would be a form of insubordination, but insubordination also leads to punishment which is fun for him.  He’d let the person lie, then set a trap to catch them.

24.   Do they prefer cold weather or warm weather? For █████ ██████████ reasons, he isn’t too bothered by temperature extremes.  If given the option, he’d pick colder.

25.   How easy is it for them to say “I love you”? See number 2.  Any proclamation of love isn’t actual love: Gresham doesn’t understand it.  Though, he probably tells his playthings that he loves them.  

26.   How easy is it for them to tell someone about their worries? He would not be close enough to most beings to talk about his worries, but he monologues with the Lost about his thoughts. Much like number 21, those that have caught him in these monologues suffer grave consequences.

27.   Have they ever witnessed someone die? Yes, and he takes a perverse joy in it each time.

28.   Are they ticklish? No.  If he ever was, he got desensitized to it by the Lost climbing him.

29.   How high/low is their pain tolerance? Very high.  Even before he started developing chronic pain from his many augments, he is still a Vactyr in the Titan size-class.  

30.   Is there something they secretly wish they could do, but are too afraid to? Getting closer to Adelie.

31.   Are they a messy eater or a neat eater? Due to his lack of cheeks and stretched snout, he is a very messy eater.  Thankfully, the most common food available to him is the same soylent available to all Liberated.  However, when he has access to problematic meat, he eats like a T-Rex.  Large chunks swallowed whole.

32.   What moment of their life made them feel most unloved? When he’s reminded of his place in the universe.  While he is one of the few top-ranked Liberated, he is below every Hirudian.  Forgetting this disappoints Adelie who forces him back into his place through her ability to utterly control his Liberation.  She is willing to loan that control to other Hirudians, including Hivemind (but never Argiope), much to his great humiliation and shame.

33.   What moment of their made them feel most loved? The time leading up to and after getting his augments.  Yes, he lost his vision at this point, but he had Adelie’s entire attention as he was prepared for and eventually recovered from the surgery.

34.   Which of the senses would they hate to lose the most: vision, hearing, smell, taste, or touch? Gresham already cannot see, and his sense of smell is affected by his helmet.  He relies mostly on hearing and the secondary Flow-sense that is boosted by his augments and █████ ██████████ - he can sense where organic and Other beings are.

35.   Are they good at small talk? No, not really.  He’s a bit too busy to socialize and lacks the ability to fit in with the Liberated Ranks for socialization.  His off-putting personality and sadistic nature also pushed them away, many of the pilots carry some trauma from being targeted by him and thus naturally avoid him.

36.   If they could ask anyone one question and get the absolute truth, who and what would they ask? To some all-knowing being (so maybe Hivemind): “Am I good?”

37.   If they had the chance, would they prefer to travel to the past or to the future? The past.  Killing his brother again sounds fun and potentially going back to just before his augment so he can be close to Adelie again.

38.   Who had the biggest impact in their life, both positive and negative? Elite Adelie, for obvious reasons. But, Mortus comes to a close second in the next chapter of Glimpse.

39.   Would they rather life a life always surrounded by people, or always alone? He requires his Lost to live and takes a perverse joy in ruining other beings’ lives.  So, while he could potentially find happiness in a life of solitude if he ever had a chance at a normal upbringing… he would pick having others around.  

40.   Is there anyone or anything that immediately instills fear in them? He fears a loss of control to a being not worthy of his loyalty.  He is purely loyal to Adelie and enjoys his rule over others.  Gresham is aware of how easily Adelie can abandon him, he has witnessed her throwing away her other experiments for petty reasons.  In some cases, he was how she threw them away.  He eventually develops a skittishness around electricity.

[incorrectcatfacestudios]

Headcanons + Making this to replace my old headcanons post.

Disclaimer: JUST GOING TO SAY NOT EVERYTHING I GIVE THEM IS SOMETHING I AGREE WITH! like Some characters will have a headcanon that’s more because I can ACTUALLY SEE Them enjoying an activity but even if they do I DON’T their are things that these characters would do that I DON’T think anyone else should do EVER!

Asch

Has a safe space in his room where he can be himself. It’s a place where He gets to let his guard down. that is his earth room

Has a tendency to be more attracted to those with a darker tone then him. then again its not really hard to have a darker complexion then him. (Regardless of race someone could have a tan or something, or just be a bit darker than him.) He himself hasn’t noticed this and probably never will.

Mirage sleeps in his room

If Rhys somehow got really sad and mopey he’d locate that ice cream truck and angrily threaten the ice cream man to give him all of the ice cream or DIE. Or he’d just want the entire truck, & if no one stopped him then he’d throw it through Ava’s window into her apartment.  

Sometimes late at night when everyone’s sleeping & Asch can’t, he summons Rhys to his room and forces him to read him a bedtime story. Rhys used to do this when Asch was younger as well. He really likes Rhys’s voice. 

If he was a human he’d probably be some NEET gamer who spends all his time roleplaying on World of Warcraft or something and he’d always rage about bad plot points or game mechanics in Anime & Video games.

The most likely to dirty talk

He sneezes like a kitten and when he does fire comes out. 

Would be god awful at pole dancing

 He doesn’t know what to do when it comes to love and isn’t used to physical affection.   Its.....very pleasant whenever he gets it...but it also feels too comfortable for him. He’s scared of comfort, despite loving it.  

Later on once he embraces affection he becomes absolutely addicted to it and is by far the most passionate of them. Though that angry scowl never leaves unfortunately . His passion rages on like a burning flame, like....an intense RUSH of desire. It can be overwhelming at times. 

In fact he DEMANDS the affection. 

In battle he’s more brutish than the others by far. A giant barrage of flames being sent EVERYWHERE . 

One time he read a fanfiction & thought it was 100% Canon. & when anyone said otherwise He screamed angrily and shot fire balls at them; Even when they weren’t physically there. Of course since they weren’t there he just  ended up burning the phone Ava got for him, but you know, whatever.

Loves curry 

Really likes chocolate and caramel for whatever reason, but he can’t stand other sweets. he also likes strawberries 

He enjoys the video game Indivisible, & some war military tactic games. He also likes rage games for some reason too even though he hates them, its complicated but he can’t stop playing, he gets too into it and too angry. He also enjoys racing games & MARIO PARTY, Especially when he wins.   

His favorite animal is the bull  

Dhaur is his husbando 

His sin is wrath  

 Used to hate Steven Universe at first then grew....to like it. then love it. It seemed so dumb to him at first but as he watched it he came to understand it more. 

Asch trusts Rhys more than the other daemos. He’s known him the longest and believes in his judgement he doesn’t think Rhys would EVER lie to him or deceive him.  Because of this Rhys is the only person Asch is ever fully open with. He wouldn’t leave anyone else he was this open with back on daemos. He is quite FOOLISH to believe this however. :) after all Rhys is working with Lady Grandma. 

He once dared Leif to eat a cactus after getting particularly angry in a game of truth or dare 

 Him and Rhal never get along ever. They always yell it eachother, and get into arguments.

Rhal has far more Knights than Asch 

As for Lady Bish. Asch is completely indifferent towards her.  

He doesn’t know why but he keeps on sniffing Ava’s bra for reasons obvious to the rest of us. Regardless he destroys them just the same

Smell/sweat Kink bitches 

 Probably into S&M.  

 He sometimes rehearses villainous Dialogues with himself in the mirror when no one’s around. 

He also does this with Rhys on occasion...if he’s feeling particularly BRAVE that day

Holds up a lot of pent up emotions and hides it pretty well. He prefers to let them out as anger instead..but when he gets drunk it all just POURS out of him. He just sobs and cries and hugs and kisses and laughs. just...everything. ALL OF THE EMOTIONS BESIDES ANGER he expresses openly. He doesn’t become a completely different person he just becomes far more open. He compliments a lot as well.

He got drunk once and decided from that day NEVER AGAIN! 

 Though when he first got drunk he really liked it. Despite the flavor. and downed like 3. 

 That was a #Mistake 

His favorite Crystal gem is Garnet, or Sapphire? Its hard for him to choose between them. 

Rhys

 The thiccest of the daemos on earth. By that I mean he has the biggest butt 

 What I mean by that is he does a lot of squats, & Glute exercises. He also has a magic that makes all the fat he gains go to his butt but that’s not important. Its not always in affect only for emergencies.   

Would be VERY interested in science if he knew what it was

He would eat pizza with a fork

Gluttonous in any task he enjoys. When he eats he eats ALOT, sex would last a long time with him Though not many people know this about him because he takes his time. 

The  common one is Research, reading, observing, & ESPECIALLY LEARNING.

 He also adores validation give him it.. Wears a long trench coat to hide his big butt from the world well not hide but-. 

 specifically daemos since some uncultured daemos tend to be quite handsy.

 It doesn’t always work but whatever trench coats are cool. 

 has frequent discussions with Asch in his room. He’s the only one Asch is completely honest with. Asch trusts Rhys with EVERYTHING. 

If he was a human he would be a college student studying to be a scientist of some kind. 

He would also work volunteer jobs at the retirement homes. 

If he was a human he’d probably meet Asch by working as his grandmothers nanny. I don’t think Asch would live by himself.

has a tad bit more fat on him than the others. but his muscle can distract from that. Plus his fat isn’t even noticeable outside of his ass His lover would nickname him sunrise, because his smile can chase the night away, cause his face is what brightens their day, because he is the beginning of something new bright and beautiful. 

loves Rubix Cubes If he romanced Ava it wouldn’t be because he likes her it would be because he wants to use her. mostly for her nonexistent power ((magical and political)) 

Loves sweets more than the rest of them

I think I had enough for him last time. 

His mother and Asch’s were close.  

Spends waaayyyy too much time trying to over analyse tv shows he watches 

Is a big fan of Pheonix wright, Fran Bow, Gravity falls, Danganronpa, Dr. Stone, Dr. Who, Fnaf, & pretty much any other game or TV show that either gives you a lot to think about after the episodes/playthrough, is chock full of thousands of possibilities and theories, or requires a lot of thought and problem solving to play. He also likes strategy games like Fire Emblem, & Final Fantasy Tactics. OH! And Pokemon but not for the normal gameplay for the competitive scene. 

Due to having the element of water he is  usually cool calm and collected. but he also is able to flow with a situation if needed. He’s passive  

 Often reads to Asch because Asch has a harder time reading. Him and Asch went to school together when they were younger and thus have a closer bond than the others.  ((Lady grandma forced Asch to go)) 

Once asked Ava if she had any more of those porn magazines. Was pleased to find that Ava had an entire closets worth. Though not all of it was the fighting techniques he was looking for. 

He  has no fucking idea how a vagina works in the slightest. or what vagina’s even look like? Despite his extensive knowledge sex is one of the places where he knows the least. Because he has no idea what lesbian sex is he is completely oblivious to the fact that he’s been staring at 2 girls fucking it on in those magazines he’s found underneath Ava’s bed. 

 He once had to help Leif out with the creation of the Furby organ. It was incredibly difficult for him but also very insightful 

 The Furbies terrify him though.  That STARE its..just...ugh 

 The best at pole dancing. 

Is far more elegant on the battle field than the others. His attacks are more precise and careful than theirs are. 

He’s also the best at dancing...well fancy dancing. like ballet,  and slowdancing. 

Sleeps in Ava’s fridge sometimes. 

Starting teaching Noi how to read a bit more after they went to the mall. The shops are cataloged after all

 Is cold resistant to a point. I mean ice magic CAN still hurt him but like...less. I’d liken it to a Pokemon. 

His favorite crystal gem is garnet. If your talking singular gems then I’d say Ruby. But...like Garnets amazing why would you want to choose just ONE of them as your favorite when..

 Likes classical music, R & B, Soft...indie songs, Soft pop, Trap music & Bossa Nova 

If Ava did marry him she’d probably get locked into a loveless marriage for power that doesn’t exist 

If he found out about Ava’s lies he might have a fucking meltdown. :D like everything he was working towards EVERYTHING would have been for nothing. 

That is until the prospect of watching how the human world continues to function without magic...he’d realize they have TECHNOLOGY and how...amazing it is. 

Leif

The more he likes you the more he’ll want to stab you. Just how it is

The more he’s attracted to someone the more he’ll want to stab their guts out. he’s weird like that.

Big sadist I mean we already know this but like in all the ways? ya know?Like he literally gets an orgasmic feeling in his veins when he slices someone open kind of sadistic.  

If he was a human he would probably be a doctor or surgeon who only has his job because it allows him to legally cut people open.

would’ve probably been one of those school bullies who only bullies someone because he’s in love with them if he was a human

You could literally get him to do anything by being like “ I bet you couldn’t do that. “ or saying “ ____ go get the ____ for me” He makes everything into a competition.

Broke EVERYTHING when he was a child. 

Tried to eat a cactus, because Asch dared him to.  

Asch didn’t think he’d actually do it. 

 His sin is PRIDE of course, which is why he feels like he has to prove everything and lives to have his ego STROKED.

Later he tried to shove a cactus up his ass because a stranger on the internet said that only cowards don’t use cacti as dildo’s 

He had to go to the doctor many times. 

He really liked the large amount of sharp objects in the hospital room 

He may or may not be banned from that hospital

The nurse had to file a restraining order it was a sad day.  But they got the pricks out!! and that’s all that matters! PLUS Leif got a new thumb to add to his collection!

He really likes it because its a special decorated one. With PAINT on the tips. its weird and shiny. The nurse probably won’t need it anyways. 

He has a rotting placenta in his bedroom no one knows where he got it!(AND NOBODY ASKS) but it still has the umbilical cord attached no baby though :(   

He isn’t allowed outside anymore for obvious reasons

He found out what Furbies where and fell in love with them instantly . He stole 20 

He made a Furby organ. why? Because its infinitely stupider and more terrifying than a regular one. He forced Rhys to help cause Rhys is smart. It still took like 90 tries and costed Ava alot of money, and Furbies.

He keeps it in his room and he plays it constantly. Mostly to annoy Asch, Ava, and everyone else around him. He also loves the fact that its called an organ. 

He was dared to eat a jar of nails and he fucking did it. 

He obviously had to use healing magic on himself 

He’s really hot for Noi. Like...a bit too much no one notices though.

 A bit hotter for Ava than Noi though, That’s why he keeps wanting to penetrate her with his knife. The more he threatens to do this the more he likes you. 

His element is Life, or earth. Mostly life which is why he’s so vigorous and excited. 

This is also the reason why he’s so obsessed with killing things. when you live your ALWAYS killing, every move you make you end thousands of lives just like that!  Daemos of the life element seem to want to enjoy life to the fullest and never look back. EVER 

As such he’s also good at cultivating life, weather it be a plant or an animal. Everyones always surprised by this

Back on Daemos before his snap he’d actually be alot kinder to Noi, ((IN the first 4 episodes whenever Noi got hurt he was the only one to ever show any concern. I find that interesting in contrast to how he threw that out in some of the later ones. )) He’d often be the one that consoles noi or talks things out with him. 

Leif is more aggressive, energetic and far more cruel in more docile environments. He becomes much more empathetic, & Calm in hostile ones. ((Like that time where he actually got on Rhys’s case for being too hard on Asch, or the times when he was like “Hey are we actually going to let Noi die” and offering to heal Noi when he was writhing in pain when they came to earth.  ))  

He’s actually more perceptive then he seems, he cares about those around him NORMALLY its just going this long without killing anything is maddening for him. HE NEEDS TO KILL. to let it all out, once he does he’ll act as he normally does.  

He was the only one even remotely kind to Noi back on daemos, that changed when they got to earth. (besides Pierce. ) 

 Though due to his normal lack of empathy in a world where he’s human he’d probably be one of those people who just don’t care about how what they say affects those around them. Doing and saying whatever he wants regardless of how others may interpret that. 

He LOVES Skullgirls. He really likes the character designs and the fact that double always has organs or something hanging out. 

 He also loves all horror movies and video games where he gets to cause mayhem; Like Saints Row, or Grand Theft Auto!  

 He’d be the only one of the daemos that is fully accepting of the weird side of the internet. You know the WEIRD side. He’d be into all of the bizar kinky fetishes you’d find on Furraffinity you just know it.  

 He doesn’t actually like Ava he more-so see’s her as a trophy? I mean well he DOES but he’s mostly in the whole fight for her thing to win a prize. And she’s the prize.   ((Well at least before the newest episode)) 

Pierce

The most Physically affectionate of the daemos even more so than Noi

Big buff bara man. LIKE BY FAR THE BUFFEST 

Would probably run an animal shelter or something if he could

Would be running an animal shelter or something if he was human

Likes….fluffy. waayyy too much 

He’s by far the most empathetic of the daemos. Yes even Noi then again Noi isn’t very empathetic. 

 Very tired 24/7 needs coffee to sustain himself. 

 Often by himself in the quiet. sometimes while alone with his thoughts they spiral out of control, Regret, Doubt, Despair, Uncertainty, Fear, Insecurity.  All at once. Does he cry not at all. He suffers as he stands Silent. ultimately its impossible to tell when he’s having one of these moments as he doesn’t show it on his face.    

 Big PP 

He is very loyal but his loyalty isn’t...friendship. He doesn’t really like Asch very much, but he does trust his judgement and follow his orders. He’s a knight after all, besides he appears to have some connection to one of Asches family members ((The daemos in that Flashback had a crown on their horn)

He likes standing because when he stands theirs no threat of getting too comfortable, no chance of falling asleep and drifting away, no chance of drifting into sleep and deciding to never wake up again, no chance of getting lost in the comforts of the object beneath him. 

He is the one that cares for Ava the most  

 Doesn’t really care about the cultural norms on daemos. he flows free like the wind and accepts any new and sudden changes. 

Heavyish sleeper, gets grumpy when woken up.  Like if your trying to kill him his instincts will kick in and he will wake up but otherwise he’ll just stay asleep. LIKE THROUGH EVERYTHING 

Though while he is the most empathetic of the Daemos he’s also prone to intense levels of apathy, where he just shuts down silent lost in his thoughts unable to be disturbed. these are only momentary  

His element is air. Because of this he’s mostly just free and flowing.  

 Sometimes gives Ava Piggy Back rides to make her feel tall 

 Potentially one of the only one of the Daemos that genuinely care about Ava. 

But also potentially only see’s Ava as a cute pet to love on rather than a person in and of herself. But ultimately he does also care about her feelings, and her opinion on things.

 I prefer to think the latter rather than the former. 

one time he accidentally befriended a large swarm of bee’s and they followed him to Ava’s house. 

 Gives Ava piggy back rides 

Out of the Daemos he’s the one who Ava is closest to. The others have yet to even notice this. 

 One time the boys found porn on the phone and just gathered around the phone looking at it confused all bug eyed. Pierce saw the filth on the screen and made the executive decision to yeet it out the window. 

Ava had to buy a new phone 

 Has a rough yet gentle touch. he takes care and caution when dealing with life. 

because of the above him and Leif have an impossibly hard time cooperating when its just them. 

The best with animals. 

 When not caught up in apathy he is the exact opposite. He becomes far too 

Noi

He would enjoy fortnight if he played it

Would thrive off of old memes 

If he was human he would be that one friend you wouldn’t want to hang out with because he fortnight dances, dabs, uses outdated memes, rick rolls people, and everything unironically.

 The least muscular & Thicc by far. he doesn’t have any meat on his bones, unlike the other 4. Flat boney ass. 

He’d probably be some sort of social media icon or a street performer if he was human. He thrives off of validation. Though because he’s a clumsy fuck street preforming wouldn’t be the best gig for him.

Likes music the most

Would probably be the first of the Daemos to watch and enjoy Steven Universe. ((Though I’d bet the others would come around. They always come around))

 He Rick Rolled Rhys one time. 

 His sin is Envy, he often feels insecure about himself, and he looks up to everyone else seeing how “Cool” or great they are. ALWAYS saying “GOOD JOB ____” whenever they do something cool, he’s always excited but with that excitement comes the thoughts...Why can’t I do things like that? I wish I COULD BE STRONG LIKE PIERCE, I wish I COULD BE SMART LIKE RHYS, I wish I could be PAMPERED LIKE ASCH, I wish I COULD BE HANDSOME LIKE LEIF. That’s why he’s so focused on being better than everyone else. I wanna try! Let me see it! LET ME TRY FOR ONCE. that comes from not only desire but ENVY. he just channels this envy in a much healthier way than most would. *Cough* Leif *Cough* 

 He has EXTREME insecurity problems and longs more than anything to be better than the others. 

After he found out what breakdancing was he dedicated SO MUCH of his time trying to learn how to do it. 

He may or may not be obsessed with that 

 He also really likes Ava. But he’s moreso in love with the idea of her? He doesn’t really listen to much of what she says due to the fact that he’s so scatterbrained and spacey. He just likes when she talks. He mostly fell in love with Ava because she was the first person to present themselves towards him as an option. back on Daemos he was relatively low class. Thus he was viewed as unmarriageable, worthless, dumb, WEAK, & Poor, So trying to enter a relationship with ANYONE was out of the question. The boy thought he would die without finding love.

 He thought Ava was actually GENUINELY interested in romancing him and because of that it excited him. NO ONE HAD EVER actually wanted to romance him. Back at home NO ONE liked him, no one was ever kind to him. Well Leif sometimes was pierce would show some kind of a...paternal affection rarely. But Leif also treated him cruelly and insulted him like the others.

Due to how loving and compassionate he is he was kicked  out of his household. 

 Despite this Noi isn’t exactly empathetic. He doesn’t pay attention to the emotions of others he’s far too caught up in himself.  

In the first 2 days on Earth He & Leif would shit talk Asch behind his back. Mostly talking about how they didn’t really like this plan and just vent their frustrations out at eachother 

Starting on episode 5 him and Leif just kinda. He became too scared of Leif to even approach him as much and thus he kinda grew apart from him. thus causing him to latch more onto Ava. AVA likes him, unlike them. HE HAS PROOF after all. 

 He’s also far too stuck up in the idea of a powerful princess loving him a lowly peasant a low ranking knight someone who.....who wouldn’t be worth anything to her.

If they were to find out about ALL of Ava’s lies he’d take it the 2nd hardest. Asch would be the first, Rhys the 3rd. Leif the 4th, & Pierce the 5th. 

 Mostly because the only reason why she chose him, the only reason why they went on a date wasn’t because she was interested in him but because she didn’t want her cover blown. He thought she actually loved him not to say she doesn’t care for him but-...he thought she WANTED him you know? 

She wouldn’t be a powerful princess, she wouldn’t be a cool sorceress, she wouldn’t be this big thing that he wanted so much she’d just be herself and then Noi’s fantasy would crumble. 

Its the dream the fantasy that someone so powerful so strong would set aside their time and pay attention to him take him out in hopes of COURTING him that he fell in love with. Not ava herself. 

That being said he does like Ava and even prefer spending time with her to half of the main cast.   

Ava

Has to take Prescription drugs

Ate cat food once when she was five

Probably into pet play

Really likes collars

One time she went to some bitch in her high schools  Quinceañera to release a box of 4000 angry bees upon it and run

Greedy  

 Spends alot of her time watching Anime when not with the Daemos

 Her favorite Crystal Gem is Amethyst because god damn

 No where NEAR as thick as Aphmau is. She’s alot more twiggy. 

Would totally do the WEED if her dads weren’t hovering around her 24/7 

 Has a lot of Girl on girl porn in her room. Specif under her bed and in her closet.

[occasionalfics]

Not Such A Long Shot

main masterlist | thor masterlist | taglist | ko-fi | ao3

For: Me. But also all of you, because I feel weird not having posted something in what’s probably weeks but feels like months.

Pairing: Alpha!Thor x Omega!Reader

A/N: You absolutely did read that pairing tag right. I almost never write a/b/o because it’s just not really my thing but I felt like alpha!Thor was vastly underrated (except by @spacelabrathor​ who’s a god damn MASTER at it) and wanted to remedy the issue. 

I’ve been working on this for at least two weeks. Probably more. It’s not edited, probably not my best work, definitely not really finished. It was meant to go on longer than it currently is but I’ve forgotten the direction I was going to go in and decided to just post this and write more later if I remember. 

I don’t have a beta reader and didn’t want to read through 25 pages of this before I posted it. I’m sorry about that. I hope you like it anyway.

Honestly I’m so tired today I couldn’t even be bothered to fix the italics formatting throughout this whole thing in one sitting. Maybe I’ll fix it later, maybe I won’t. Does it make that much of a difference when you read it? (I legit would love responses!)

Warnings: SMUTTY SMUT (just one section, but still), NSFW/18+ CONTENT AHEAD. Not a super confident Reader, but she knows what she wants. 

Words: 10,177 (like I said, 25 pages)

You feel like one of the most pathetic Omegas to have ever lived.

Most Omegas find their Alphas and go straight into bonding, but you? You had always made things more complicated for yourself.

And the walking embodiment of such a reminder has absolutely no idea that you exist.

You don’t blame him. The last five or so years have been extremely difficult for him, and for most of that time, you were nothing but a tiny, run of the mill SHIELD Agent. Even now, as just...an Avengers Agent, you still blend in with the crowd.

It’s...kind of the job of a spy to do so.

But for an unbonded Omega? One who, at some point over the last five or so years, imprinted on an untouchable and uninterested Alpha?

It’s torture.

--

Thor comes back to Midgard and tells his friends about Ragnarok. He and Bruce relate all of the relevant details, and they somehow trickle down the chain of command to you. Your ears perk up when you’re notified that Thor’s back, and without thinking, you head for the residential floors.

You’ve memorized where Thor’s apartment is. You’ve never gone in, knowing what kind of boundary that breaks, but you’ve gone to the floor, stood in the hallway, and nearly cried yourself dry on particularly bad nights of your last few heats.

You can’t help it.

Your body decided, long ago, that Thor was the one. The Big One. Your heart and mind haven’t really caught up to your biology and it fucking sucks, but it’s the reason why you’ve abandoned your work station and head upstairs.

Remain calm, you remind yourself. He doesn’t even know who you are.

You think of the countless times you’ve tried to mate with another Alpha before. And each time since you imprinted, every one of those Alphas have told you how terrible you smell. So you’ve gone home alone too many times, unable to even see the man you’ve been physically pining over for years, knowing he has no idea who you are, feeling like the scummiest, most useless Omega in the entire universe.

You don’t deserve him. He works so hard to keep everyone save, pulls so much of the weight of the team when he is around that you wonder how they ever manage to work without him. You just keep quiet, fill out paperwork, and go on the occasional mission when your skills are required and relevant.

But he doesn’t make you feel so bad about your job when you find him in the common area. The Valkyrie is sitting next to him, drinking beers from glass bottles, feet up on the table in front of them while they watch the local news.

When Thor sees you, he smiles. “Hello there,” he calls, raising his beer.

You give a small wave. He nods to one of the seats beside the couch. “Come, join us!”

He doesn’t even know you, but he’s acting like he does.

The Valkyrie looks at you, her expression unreadable. You’d say your jealous of her, but she’s an Alpha, too. You can smell it on her, feel the guarded and dominant energy flowing off of her. She’s not competition, though. That much you can tell right away.

You do as Thor had offered, taking the chair right next to him.

“Waiting for Stark?” he asks.

You shake your head, unable to look at anything else but him now that you’re so close.

You wonder if he can feel what you feel: the sun falls over his glorious face in waves that make your stomach churn; his smile is bright and makes your chest tight and fluttery; his one remaining eye - that you’d just noticed - is a deep, earnest blue that might cause slick to pool between your legs if you were in heat.

At least the Gods had mercy on you there. For now.

“I, uh,” you say. Instinct wins over, despite the logical parts of you screaming not to say what you say next: “I heard you were back.”

If he did feel what you were feeling, his smile wouldn’t be falling like it is. He must not be imprinted like you are. It’s unfortunate, but you know it happens sometimes.

You don’t like what people have said about the Omegas with unrequited imprints. This isn’t faring well.

“Just wanted to say hi,” you say. You remember that he doesn’t know you, despite you having been in the background of his story for the last few years. You try not to hold that against him while you hold a hand out toward him, attempting a softer smile because you don’t want to scare him away. You don’t want to be one of those Omegas. “I’m (Y/N).”

You don’t deserve him. He’s too kind. His smile comes back as he leans toward you and shakes your outstretched hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, (Y/N),” he says.

And if he feels anything more than what one normally feels upon first introduction, he doesn’t show it.

“This is my friend,” Thor says, pointing now at the Valkyrie. “We call her Val.”

She nods. “My friends call me Val,” she corrects. “Everyone else calls me Valkyrie.”

You know it’s meant for you. Clearly it is, since neither of them know you. Gods you plead in your head why did I come up here?

“Don’t mind her,” Thor says, maybe, just possibly picking up on your anxious energy. “Her bark’s much worse than her bite.”

“My bite is plenty horrifying, thank you,” she jokes, and Thor laughs with her.

You want that. To laugh and be at ease around him. To know him. 

But since you’ve known of him, your crush has been exclusively on the sidelines. You imprinted on him from across a room, when he hadn’t even been looking at you. Your schoolgirl feelings for him had just...mounted and climaxed, and then you were suddenly attached to him chemically, without his permission or knowledge.

Sometimes - actually, make that most of the time, you hate being an Omega. This kind of shit only happens to Omegas who don’t settle down and pick a good mate that they’re realistically worthy of before it’s too late.

This is ridiculous. This was always ridiculous. Why did I come here?

You go to stand, but before you can, Thor clears his throat and turns the television off. You can’t tell if you’re relieved that he’s leaving the room or not.

“We were just about to head out for karaoke night,” he says. “Would you like to join?”

For just a moment, you wonder how he has time for karaoke when his entire kingdom lives in your backyard now, but you don’t question it.

Your crush dictates that you simply smile gratefully at the offer and accept.

--

At three more beers in, the Valkyrie ran off with a Beta she’d met ten minutes prior. Thor’s other friends - the Avengers, the team you’d worked under for years and barely ever met personally - are sprawled around the bar, some dancing, some drinking, some talking. Bruce is letting loose with a wildly off-key rendition of “I Think We’re Alone Now.”

But you haven’t left Thor’s side all night. You’ve got a respectable distance between you, and you refuse to drink more than you should. Closing that space seems...wrong. He doesn’t know you, doesn’t know how you feel. Doesn’t know that you physically cannot help but be drawn to him.

You swirl around your second drink, the ice long melted intentionally to dilute the alcohol. You watch Bruce with a smile, trying your hardest to ignore the suffocating heat of the Alpha beside you. He smells like...rain and wind, like the beach and a forest all at once. You want to lean back into him, let him hold you and touch you and smell you, but you know that wouldn’t be right. Or fair.

So you slump forward and focus harder on Bruce’s shoddy footwork.

“Not having fun?” he asks from behind.

You can’t tell if he knows you’re holding back or if he genuinely just thinks you’re a depressed drunk.

“I am,” you say, attempting your best smile and convincing voice. And acting is a huge part of what you do when you go on missions, so you think you’re pretty successful now.

Except that Thor’s smile turns somewhat sad. “C’mon,” he says, and then one of his hands is placed at the small of your back.

Your eyes widen as you ask, “Where?!”

He nods at the dance floor. It seems weird that there’s a dance floor for karaoke night, but you doubt anyone drunk enough truly cares.

“Let’s go dance!” he says, and he sounds so light hearted and genuine that you find you can’t deny him. You can’t even question him anymore.

You slide out of the booth, then wait for him. Thor follows you out, and when he turns back to face you, he takes one of your hands in his.

Something in his face twitches, but you swear you imagined it. In no time at all, he’s back to smiling and pulling you out onto the floor behind him. He finds a place he likes, between two other couples and a handful of single women dancing with their glasses raised. Some of them look back at Thor, but his eyes never leave you.

You don’t see that much, though. All you focus on is his one hand on your hip, the other holding your hand out beside you. Your free hand grips his shoulder as he sways you out of time to the music, neither of you appearing to care.

There’s something electric between you. You know you feel that, but can only hope that he feels it, too. It’s more than imprinting. It’s more than a crush. It’s...connection, you think. He smiles down at you and you smile back and follow his lead through the dance because it’s all that you can think to do. You never want this moment to end.

But then it does, with the song, of course.

Thor lets go of you, except for your hand. You try not to laugh giddily at the thought that, if he didn’t want to be holding onto you, he wouldn’t be. Somehow, you’ve been blessed by the Gods.

He brings you to the bar, orders two more drinks, and then makes sure you’re comfortable on your stool before he sits on his own. You’re not sure you want to keep drinking, but then Thor doesn’t even seem to care about the glasses placed in front of you when they do come. He holds his in his free hand, sure, but his eye is zeroed in on your reaction to him and nothing else.

“I don’t want this to sound weird,” he starts, “but you smell...so familiar.”

You shrug. It’s not that weird, you know. Scents are how everyone distinguishes themselves.

“I’ve been...around. In the background, I guess.”

“What- the whole time?” he asks.

You nod, picking up the drink to take little sips. It’s not too bad that way, thankfully. A simple drink, with plenty of tropical flavoring to make it bearable.

“Well somebody’s gotta keep an eye on day-to-day stuff around the city,” you tease, flashing a smile at him because you really can’t make your face do anything else. Even when you drink again, your cheese are still puffed into a rather gleeful expression, because just being in his presence is enough to light you up.

The feeling leaves you thinking about how pathetic of an Omega you are. But it also...makes you think about how close he is. How he chose to invite you, to dance with you, to drink with you. He could have any Beta or Omega he wants...and he’s looking at you.

He keeps looking at you. The whole night, actually. The only time he’s not really looking is when, four drinks later each, you’re straddling his waist in a corner booth and his hands are roaming the curve of your hips. His one eye is shut, but you can only tell because there’s no flutter of eyelashes on your cheek.

You don’t care, though, because your tongue is tangled with his, and he noises he’s making fill you with warmth and electricity that makes the hairs on the back of your neck and along your arms stand up. The sheer Alpha energy wafting off of him is consuming you beyond comprehension, pushing you closer and closer to a point of no return, but you don’t care.

Five years of pining and it only took introducing yourself to get him in your clutches. You laugh at the thought.

He pulls back, dipping his head to the side because your lips drag to follow his. His eye barely opens, but you’re so close that it doesn’t matter. He can easily see you right where you are.

“What’s so funny, Little One?” he asks, using a name he’s just taken to calling you moments ago.

You bite your bottom lip lazily and shake your head. “Absolutely nothing,” you tell him, breath heavy as it falls across his face.

You’re just about to dive right back in when someone clears their throat. Your body wants you to ignore them, but your mind, as gone as it is, knows better. The authority in the person’s voice screams Alpha, and despite them not being your Alpha, you still heed their warning.

Looking over your shoulder, you find the Valkyrie standing, watching, arms crossed. Possession in her eyes like a bright fire.

You’d thought she wasn’t competition, but maybe you were wrong.

“What happened to your friend?” Thor asks from below you.

“Sent her on her way,” the Valkyrie says. “You should, too.”

Your face drops. Your heart skips a painful beat as you realize...he’s going to listen to her. She is competition, despite being an Alpha herself and despite having had her own source of fun earlier in the night.

Without hesitating any longer, you slide off of Thor’s lap, twisting to sit before pushing yourself out of the booth. He calls your name, and you can’t help but stop, but you don’t turn to face him. You look at the Valkyrie, see the fire still burning in her irises, and scurry away. Out of the bar, onto the street and down a block without thinking twice.

You’re lucky that you’re able to hail a cab without a hitch. You know how lucky you are, but you don’t really feel lucky.

Really, you feel even more pathetic now. Thor had brought you up so high over the course of one night, but a single glower from the Valkyrie and you were reduced to embers, the dying bits of a fire burned long into the night.

You manage to keep it together until you reach your apartment. The second your door is locked, the tears come. You slip out of your shoes and tear your work clothes from your body before shakily managing to get in bed. The covers come up over your head, and only then do you let out a room-shaking sob.

How you could have read the room any differently than to know the Valkyrie would never let you have him, you can’t say. Something about the whole situation didn’t make sense, but the feelings of shame and embarrassment wash over you so strongly that you don’t care to think the night through.

Your little crush would be the end of you. Unrequited Imprinted Omegas, more often than not, became old maids, never mating, suffering through heat after heat until, one day, their bodies aged and decided they no longer needed to bear babes. Then, they were useless to anyone.

Everything hurt as you acknowledged your future.

--

You don’t cry beyond that night. Knowing that your crush is entirely one-sided meant acknowledging that you couldn’t just imagine yourself into mating. You wouldn’t let yourself get lost in the fantasy of being Thor’s Omega anymore.

So, you avoid him. It’s not too hard, since your department is well below the residential floors and no one really comes to visit much. You have work to keep you busy, and plenty of books and television to catch up on at home.

You hate that your biological systems have decided that, if you can’t have Thor, you won’t have anyone. But until you know whether or not this Imprint will fade, you have to accept the possibility that you may end up alone. It wasn’t ideal, but it happened, and you know it does.

A week after karaoke night, you see a doctor. You tell them, reluctantly, about your Imprint. You tell them that you’re certain the feeling is unrequited, that there’s no possible way he formed as quick a connection as you had. You ask to be put on suppressants, so that you won’t have to suffer as much pain during your heats, since you’ve convinced yourself you’ll be the only one getting you through them until you don’t get them anymore.

They give you a higher dose than they normally would for someone who’s never been on suppressants before. But they tell you that they want to help with the emotional impact of an unmatched Imprint. They say the medication will dull the ache, will cloud the thoughts and memories of the person you’re imprinted on. This specific dose and brand of suppressant will make it easier for you to function on a daily basis without falling into depressive spirals.

Within days, you can tell there’s a difference. You’re not anxious about going into work, not constantly thinking about running into Thor again. The image of the Valkyrie’s smoldering eyes doesn’t haunt your dreams as much.

You feel...almost normal. Still a little pathetic, but you’re getting there.

--

On occasion, when the rest of the team is already on mission, you’re recruited for your special abilities.

One of those abilities is flight. Meaning that you have your pilot’s license, so sometimes Tony Stark himself asks if you’ll captain a jet for some of his friends. You almost never turn him down - you can’t remember the last time didn’t eventually regret turning Tony Stark down for anything.

You wish you had this time. You’re stuck on a ship with Bruce Banner, the Valkyrie, and Thor. Their camaraderie distracts you as you attempt to fly the jet, but more than that, Thor’s scent completely engulfs you and doesn’t let you go for a second.

Not even when you’ve landed the jet and let them off to fight whatever Hydra group they’ve found this time.

The longer the smell of him lingers, the more frustrated you become. You try to hold it together, remember that you’re on suppressants and nothing is supposed to happen to you. If you hold your breath and close your eyes, you can actually calm down a little, you think.

But then you take in a deeper breath and you’re filled with him all over again.

“Fuck,” you mutter, shutting your eyes as hard as you can. But that proves to be a bad idea, too, because the second you rest your head against your seat, all you can see is him. You can practically taste his tongue on yours, as if you’d only been kissing him the night before and not nearly a month ago.

You whimper, and it’s the single most lamentable noise you’ve ever heard.

Heat settles in your belly. Slick gathers between your thighs. Blood rushes in your veins so hot and heavy and fast you’re sure you can hear it.

You need release. It doesn’t make sense because you’re not due to be in heat for a week and it shouldn’t feel this intense while you’re on these suppressants, but you don’t think about that right now or, really, even care.

You look over the back of your seat. There’s no noise coming in from the dropped walkway at the opening at the back of the ship. The three of them only left a little while ago, so they won’t be back for some time.

Reaching forward to your control panel, you turn up the volume on your comm, just in case, but also shut off your mic. You can hear them if they call you, but they can’t hear you.

The zipper to your tac pants is too easy to slide down. You roll up your sleeve, reach below the fabric of the pants, and find your folds already drenched. You gather slick on your fingers and reach your clit, rubbing in slow circles at first.

Your eyes shut and all you can see is Thor. All you can smell and feel and taste is Thor.

Your mind wanders. You dream of Thor touching you like this, teasing and pleasing you, beaming when he knows how wet you are for him. You hear imaginary praises that set butterflies free in your stomach, and the taste of your name on his tongue is so real and glorious that you whine as loudly as possible. Your back arches against the metal chair uncomfortably, but you keep going.

Two of your own fingers reach down and enter you, but you almost convince yourself that they’re his. That he wants to see you beneath him, stretching for him, preening and keening for him. You know he’d be bigger than you are, but you are all you have to work with.

You move quickly, hitting your spot before long, pushing against your chair and moaning out into the world as if you’re in your own bed. You clamp your free hand over your mouth, just in case you hit a button or someone comes back without announcing themselves.

The last thing you need - the last thing you could even handle - is being caught in this act.

You clench around your fingers and come messily, but thankfully, entirely alone. It’s the first time, maybe ever, that you’re glad to not have any company.

After giving yourself ample time to calm down, you rush off to the restroom to clean yourself up. Now that you’ve taken care of yourself, you don’t need two Alphas and a Beta to board the ship and immediately know what you’ve done in their absence.

--

It rains for three days straight after that mission. It wasn’t a hard or taxing mission in particular - or so Bruce had explained upon returning to the jet - but something about it had affected Thor enough for him to keep a continuous storm hanging over the city.

You don’t dare ask him about it, though. It’s not any of your business how he feels and what he does.

But then, on a late night after work, he shows up at your apartment. He has the decency to knock, and even more to ask for permission to enter your space.

An Omega’s home is a sacred place. A safe space. So many parts of being an Omega in a large city are dangerous, and a home is meant to be somewhere to escape all of that.

So when an Omega lets an Alpha in after that Alpha has submitted to their will? It’s… huge.

You and Thor both know that. The remarkably surprised look on his face when you allow him into your living room tells you that much.

He looks around as he enters, taking in the picture frames of you and work friends, you and childhood friends, and you and your parents. His mouth hangs open, even and especially when you tell him to get comfortable and take a seat wherever.

You immediately think you shouldn’t give him so much power in your space, but you actually don’t regret it. You offer him a drink and try not to take it personally when he declines politely.

He seems pleased when you set your own glass of water on the coffee table in front of the couch. You sit with one leg bent so you can face him, and you smile without even having to think about it.

“So. What’s up?” you ask him.

He sighs and wrings his hands out. “I think I owe you an apology.”

You wish that were true, but you can’t, for the life of you, figure out what it is he should be sorry for. You’ve gone over everything in your head since that karaoke night and you’ve never once found anything to blame Thor for.

It wasn’t like he knew you. Wasn’t like he owed you an explanation or anything.

You shake your head. “No, Thor, it’s okay-”

“But it’s not. I have so much to say and...I don’t think I know where to begin.”

In the silence that follows, you think about how weird this is. Your feelings for Thor are intense - or were - but you still don’t really know one another. One night of drunken making out does not make a solid foundation for any kind of relationship. He shouldn’t feel like he has anything to apologize for.

You’ve been keeping yourself in check with reality this whole time, you realize. And it’s been helping and hurting - more of the former, thankfully. 

But it doesn’t change the fact that he is in your space, working up to some kind of apology for...what, abandoning you? It’s not really like he did that, either, and it was long enough ago that he shouldn’t still feel so sorry.

He’s an Alpha. An extremely good looking Alpha with the appeal of a pirate and the gentle touch of an Angel (which you know from first hand experience now). He could have any Omega or Beta he wants - and you know that’s not the first time you’ve thought so.

More than anything, you kind of want an explanation. But who are you to demand such a thing from him?

He laughs at himself, bringing you back to reality for you. “You’d think in my quest to find you, I would’ve thought of what to say.” He shakes his head and looks down at his lap. “It’s just… Since that night, I haven’t...stopped thinking about you?”

Despite ending the statement as a question, Thor still can’t bring himself to look at you.

You sigh a little sadly and tell him, “It’s been weeks since that night. And we were just on a mission together-”

And he nods, effectively cutting your thoughts off at the root. “I know I’ve disappointed you. I could tell on the jet. I hesitated to come out here, to you, because I know I’ve done wrong by you.”

Something inside you yells out to take his hand and comfort him, but you fight the impulse. It wouldn’t be appropriate, despite your nature telling you otherwise.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been granted the leisure to have thoughts of this nature, (Y/N). That’s no excuse to mistreat any unbonded Omega, but it’s true in any case.” He smooths out the denim of his jeans, but doesn’t say more.

So you grip the back of your couch for a little grounding of courage before asking him, “If you’re so concerned with treating unbonded Omegas right, why did you buy me drinks? Invite me to dance? Let me…” Despite your best efforts, a lump forms in your throat. You try to push past it by clearing your throat, but can’t manage to finish the last question. You go on with, “Why let all of that night happen the way it did if you were already taken?”

At that, he finally turns back to you, his brow arched in a question over his one eye. “What do you mean, taken?”

“Why hide it, Thor? The Valkyrie is clearly better suited to your needs.” You think only of preparedness for battle when you say it. “Who am I to keep you away from her?”

“What are you talking about?” he asks, as if he hasn’t a clue.

Anger bubbles in your stomach, but you try to keep it contained when you say, “She’s the one that came over and separated us. She told you to get rid of me. What other explanation is there for that?”

“(Y/N),” he says softly. So softly that you can’t not look up at him again. “Val and I are not bonded. We’re not together. Neither one of us is taken by each other, or anyone else for that matter.”

“But she-”

“Was looking out for you. I don’t know if you remember much about our...tryst, but I was far too close to...well, to be frank, taking you right there in that booth.”

You are...stunned. This is not what you expected at all. And you have nothing to say - your mind is, inconveniently, blank as you try to process his explanation.

“Val is hard to read. I can see where you might’ve come from to think otherwise. She only wanted me to release you to keep you safe, in a very public setting, with Alphas all over the place.”

“And I ran-”

“I regret not going after you, at least to make sure you made it home safely.”

The sincerity in his voice is echoed in his eye. You now feel a little bad, since you’re still keeping a huge secret from him when he’s given you every explanation you could need. But...how do you tell an Alpha like Thor that you’ve only recently been suppressing your longstanding feelings for him, and that those longstanding feelings are more than just feelings?

You decide you won’t. Or can’t. Not yet. His thinking of you, of seeking you out, is not equal to being Imprinted. Telling him now will not help anything.

Besides, your meds are helping. Even with him so close you could touch now, you still don’t feel the same dread you had before you’d approached him the first time - dread caused by anxiety over a possible rejection.

You can’t set yourself up for that so early on.

“Is...that all you wanted to say?” you ask. If he gets up and leaves now, then you know it’s done and over. You’ll do what you have to in order to move on.

But if he stays…

You wait, and eventually, he shakes his head. 

“It’s not.” He shifts to face you like you’ve been facing him and clears his throat. “I’d regret leaving you now if I didn’t ask if you would like to show me around town one night. My friends are sometimes helpful but mostly have their own haunts, so I’ve mostly only seen a handful of the same bars.”

--

You take him to Times Square, just for the hell of it. You take him to see Wicked and he cries through intermission, drawing the wary eyes of more than a few other Alphas. But he hardly seems to care.

You take him to a 24-hour diner after the show and down coffee and hashbrowns and pancakes galore, and you laugh and talk and enjoy his presence like you had at karaoke night. He’s cordial and kind, not like many other Alphas you know. You’re more surprised that you’re the only Omega you know that’s Imprinted on him than the fact that you are still Imprinted on him.

How are you the only Omega not willing to let this moment pass?

When he brings you back to your apartment, you don’t want him to leave. You try to invite him in, but he shakes his head, though he doesn’t appear to be able to stop smiling at you.

“I won’t repeat my mistakes from the bar,” he says, only moving through the motions of attempting to pull his hand from yours. But there’s no real effort there. No muscle behind his actions.

You know if he really wanted to leave, he’d have no problem pulling you off of him.

“Just come in. We can talk, that’s all. I just don’t want this to end.”

“And neither do I-”

“Then come in,” you say, really, truly trying to get him to budge.

He doesn’t. But he does smile, even laugh at your attempt. “I’m not going to move this too quickly. I told you I don’t believe in mistreating Omegas.”

“You’d be mistreating me more by leaving now.”

He seems to pause at that, and you take the opportunity to tug on his hand in yours. You must take him by surprise, because he’s jostled over your threshold and into your living room. He laughs at that, too. You shut the door and lock it - but the lock is simple and on the inside of the door, so you both know he’d be able to unlatch it if he truly wants to leave.

When he doesn’t do anything other than stand up straight again, you move closer to him.

“We can just...watch a movie. Have some popcorn or something,” you say.

“It’s so late,” he tries. And it is, but there’s a distinct lack of emphasis behind his words.

“All the more reason for you to not be wandering the streets of New York, all alone and unfamiliar with the grid system, as you are.” You smirk up at him, knowing that, since he’s already here, you’re going to win this debate. “Nothing has to happen. And...if it does-”

“Which it won’t,” he says, eyebrows raising nearly up to his hairline.

“We just won’t let it ruin this.”

“But nothing is going to happen. I’m only going to stay if you agree to that.”

He drives a hard bargain, you think. And while half of you wants something to happen so badly, the more logical part that’s been bringing you back to reality over the last five years reminds you that his worry is legitimate. That just because nothing is going to happen tonight, that does not mean something won’t happen eventually.

“Okay, okay,” you say. “I accept your terms.” And then, before you can convince yourself otherwise, you stretch up on your tiptoes to press a small kiss to the soft hairs of his beard, right along his cheek. When you set back on your heels again, you smile and tell him to get comfortable. “My movies are in the rack next to the TV. Pick one and I’ll be right back with a snack.”

--

It nearly breaks your heart when he tells you he won’t spend your next heat with you.

You waste five whole days in bed, rolling back and forth, eating ice cream and cold pizza when you’re not weighed down by an entire wholesale-sized pack of Icy Hot wraps around your abdomen. It’s honestly not your worst heat, so you’re finally glad you’re taking suppressants.

All you really want, though, is Thor with you. Holding you, caring for you in every way an Alpha is meant to during heats. Sometimes you dream about him so viscerally that you search for him when you first wake up, but quickly remember his gentle but firm rejection when you’d asked him to stay.

At the end of the fifth day, you clean everything. Every surface in your apartment shines and sparkles and has no trace of a heat whatsoever before you even dare to call him.

He comes over for breakfast the next morning. You’ve got two more days off from work - a preliminary statute to all Omega contracts under Stark Industries - and since you’re sure your heat is over, you and Thor both agree it’s safe for him to come over.

But you’re quiet. Unusually so. From the moment he shows up, you’re not yourself. He’s so used to holding your hand now, to you cuddling up against him, and he knows something is wrong.

When he asks as you’re preparing eggs, you let out a deep sigh.

“I just… I really wanted your help over the last couple of days. That’s it.” You know there’s no use in lying to him, especially not on top of the secret you’re still keeping.

No, you still haven’t told him about your Imprint. It’s too embarrassing to think about now. Maybe there will be a good time to talk about it, but you don’t think it’s now.

He doesn’t say anything until you finish with the eggs. When you bring them to the table and immediately turn around to continue cooking, he stands up and gently grips your hand. You try to keep going, but he calls your name so softly, you nearly melt back into him. But you stop yourself before you fall too far.

“I have one strict rule for myself and many, many smaller, more specific rules follow it. First and foremost, I protect those who cannot protect themselves.” He tugs on you gently, clearly wanting you to face him, but you stand your ground.

“It wasn’t your protection I needed, Thor.”

“No, you’re right. You needed to be protected from me.”

He must’ve known that would get you to look at him. He seems to be anticipating the incredulous, offended glare you send at him.

“One of those more specific rules I’ve set for myself is that I do not share a bed with an unbonded Omega, for the first time, during their heat. I will not stoop to the level of the majority of Alphas, who only seek out their own pleasure.”

“So you’d rather let me writhe in pain for days instead.”

He sighs, practically growls from deep in his chest, but he doesn’t look or smell or feel angry to you. Frustrated, perhaps, but to be fair, you are too.

“Of course I don’t want that. Of course I wanted to be there for you. But what kind of man - what kind of Alpha would I be if I took advantage of that pain? What happens to this-” he holds your intertwined hands up in front of your face - “if I act selfishly on your discomfort?”

On the one hand, you want to tell him that it isn’t as if you weren’t begging for his company. But...on the other, you kind of get it. And you’ve known Thor long enough now to really hear what he’s saying: that this isn’t just about his comfort, but yours. That he wants to take this courtship at your comfort speed, not his.

You don’t think you were wrong to ask him to help you. But at least now, you’re not really upset with him for turning you down, either.

--

You have a lot of important, heavy conversations in succession. You draw lines and create boundaries, come to compromises and agreements over a series of weeks and long, drawn-out dates.

And after each one of these dates, you feel so much better than you have since he’d come back from Asgard. Or with what was left of Asgard.

Thor doesn’t think you’re a pathetic Omega. He thinks you’re attentive and sweet, affectionate and maybe a little over eager. But he likes that. He’s told you, often, that he likes seeing you light up when something excites you. He reminds you how long it’s been since he’s been able to focus on taking moments like those in, and he appreciates every one of them.

You know pushing off telling him the Big Secret will only complicated things later on. And with how open you’ve become with one another, you don’t really want to continue keeping it from him.

You wait until after a movie ends, then turn to face him, practically curled into his side on your couch. You tell him that you have something to say, something important. He bends the arm across the back of the couch and rests his forehead against his fist, one of his clear signs that he’s listening.

“So...that day, when I just showed up in the common area?”

“Yes?”

You want to get the words out. They struggle to fight against the lump in your throat, because saying this is…weird and you know it. You manage to get out, “Well, I didn’t just show up.”

He laughs at that. “I assumed as much, (Y/N). I never took you as one gifted with teleportation.”

And you know it’s a joke, but it doesn’t sit well in your tumultuous stomach. You try to brush off the sick feeling that threatens to take over, knowing it’ll only get worse the longer you drag this out.

“Before you left after Sokovia, I was hanging around the tower. I think...I think it happened at that party, before Ultron showed up.”

You can’t meet his eye. He must feel the nervous energy flowing from you now, because he pushes hair behind your ear, then lets his hand make a slow trail down your arm until he can hook his fingers between yours.

The warmth of his palm reminds you that this is necessary. That, for this courtship to work the way you want it to, you have to be honest with Thor. Ask for forgiveness for not being open about it before, but don’t keep keeping it from him.

“I...don’t know. I saw you at the bar at some point, talking to Steve and Natasha. I guess you looked over at me or just...in my direction or something, but the second you glanced my way, I felt it.”

His lack of response, lack of question, makes you wonder if he’s following. If he is, and he’s this quiet, you think that can’t be a good thing.

But you have to get it out. The exact words, feelings.

“It was like I’d gone fishing and my hook caught in you but you wouldn’t come when I pulled or let the line go. Like every light in the room shone on you and you alone. And- Gods, this all sounds crazy, I know.” You force yourself to look at him again. His expression is blank, but attentive. “But I did- I Imprinted that night. And I- I hoped it would go away. I’ve read about Imprints that fade over time. And you left Earth for two years, so I waited, day after day, for that...tethered feeling to just go away.”

“It didn’t,” he says.

Slowly, you shake your head and smile sadly at him. “So that night, I thought I might try to do something about it, you know? See if I could, I don’t know, get it to go away if I looked at you or something. Never actually heard or read anything about that working before, but I thought Hey, why the hell not? But, Thor, I just wanted you to know that, through it all, I never once let myself believe it was mutual. I-”

“Why?” he asks.

You’re stunned for a moment. You stare at him, dumbfounded and confused. “Wh-why?” you ask back.

“Why would you convince yourself it wasn’t mutual?”

You blink. And blink. And blink again.

“I-I mean. You’re...Thor. And I-”

“You’re (Y/N),” he says as simply as it is true.

“Well, did you Imprint that night too?” you ask him, eyes widening in curiosity and possibility. You even lean a little further into him, hoping for a specific answer but knowing it’s probably not what you’re going to get. The Gods don’t like you that much...do they?

Thor sighs, but his smile returns. “It’s not...quite the same for Alphas, I believe. If what Stark says about him and Pepper is anything to go off of, of course.”

You don’t really know that much about an Alpha Imprinting, now that you think about it. So you wait for him to explain with bated breath, heart stopping every few seconds to skip an anxious beat.

“From what I know, it’s less of a tethering on our end and more of...being tethered. We feel the pull, but more so as a need to protect. A desire to provide for the Omega who’s chosen us. The whole...system, I think, is meant to pull two people together. Sometimes it’s not perfect, but sometimes,” he drifts, bringing the back of your hand to his lips. He kisses the soft skin there, never breaking eye contact with you. “Sometimes it works out.”

“But what about all that time between when I Imprinted and karaoke night? There’s no way I was on your mind for...years like that.” You didn’t mention that he’d famously courted another Omega before you, and that sometimes, even now, Stark employees asked about her when he was around.

“I told you, it’s been so long since I could even consider this.” His hand squeezes yours gently. “I always felt a calling to return to Midgard. Maybe after that night, you were a part of that call. When you found me and Val that day, it was like...like I’d been given answers to questions I didn’t even know I had to ask. Your presence made sense. And that need to protect you only got stronger after you ran that night.”

“Did you know then?” you ask him. “You’d said you hadn’t stopped thinking about me after that night. Was it because you knew I’d Imprinted?”

He takes a second to think, then shrugs. “Maybe. I think I had an inkling, but more than that, I was just following my instincts. Waiting for that tug to come, to help me find you and see you again.”

The more you think on it, the more you realize that this is just...how Thor functions. He’s not a normal Alpha, so why would anything about your relationship with him be normal? He’s told you many times how lonely he’s been the last few years, how unavailable he’d been to Omegas like you before now. How being back on Earth, back with the Avengers, is really what’s given him the time and energy to focus on things outside of the care and safekeeping of his kingdom.

Because, really, they’re not a Kingdom anymore. It’s a whole complicated mess full of legal and international political jargon that you don’t like bringing into your home, so for now, you put that thought to the back of your mind, knowing you’ll come back to it later.

“So, to be clear,” you finally say to him, relaxing against his side again. “You’re...not mad at me for keeping this from you for so long?”

He chuckles. “Why would I be mad? Honestly, I’m rather flattered.”

You’d turn to face him fully, only you’re far too comfortable where you are now. The validation of your feelings blooms a new affection for Thor deep within you, and you silently thank the Gods for giving him to you.

Bashfully, you tell him, “Some Alphas think Imprinting is just a myth. A lie Omegas use to tie them down and force them into bonding.” You know that’s not how Thor operates, but he asked. “I didn’t think you’d be one of those Alphas, but I was still nervous and, honestly, kind of embarrassed to admit it. It’s not...easy to admit that I didn’t really get a say in picking you.”

Without letting go of your hand, he wraps you up entirely in his arms. Thor is warm and huge and so fucking comfortable. He smells, frankly, to die for, and he’s...all yours. Somehow. At least for this moment.

“You don’t regret it, do you?” he asks softly, lips in your hair now.

“Of course not. I just, really, didn’t want you to think I was making it up, using Imprinting as a trap or something.”

“I’d never.”

“I know. If I regret anything, it’s not telling you sooner.” You tuck your face into the safe, inviting little nook between his shoulder and jaw.

The two of you are just a tangle of limbs and two steady heartbeats. The only other words spoken between you for some time are a whispered, tiny, “I forgive you,” from Thor, but you can tell from the scent he gives off and the kisses against your hair that he doesn’t really think there was anything to forgive in the first place.

--

Thor is the single most patient Alpha you’ve ever met, let alone been with. He waits for you to come around, to ask for things other Alphas might just demand of their Omegas. But he’s different, and you know it’s because of the whole not having been able to think about romance in a while thing he constantly brings up.

You like this little transition of power. It’s nothing, really, not in the grand scheme of things. But in your home, it’s kind of...everything at the same time.

By Thor letting you make the moves, he’s consistently telling you that you make the rules. You decide when you’re comfortable letting him in, staying the night. He trusts that you’ll respect his status as the Alpha, and in that trust, he gives you something you didn’t even really know you were missing.

Freedom.

It’s almost chilling to know that. But instead of running from something so gigantic, you run toward it.

You woo him by ordering his favorite food one night, ply him with just a little bit of the ale he likes from the corner store (not like it can get him drunk anyway), and sit far too close to eat when there’s a perfectly good chair across the table from him. Neither of you care, though.

Normally, you two sit on the couch and watch movies after dinner.

Not tonight.

You lead him by the hand to your room, ignoring the couch and the television and everything in between because none of it is important. When he asks where you’re taking him, you don’t answer other than to giggle and open the door to your bedroom without a second thought.

You have no doubts. No second guesses. You are absolutely certain you want this.

So you don’t hesitate to pull him into your room. Thor stops short after you’ve shut the door, but he just looks around your space. Wonder and curiosity line his eyes, and his hand loosens around yours as he takes everything in.

If an Omega’s home is sacred, their bedroom is the most protected place in the home. It’s a place only those an Omega trusts fully get to see. So you let Thor take in everything - the dark blue-gray walls, the golden star stickers placed in cascading patterns all around the room, the matching blue and gold bedding, your desk against the far wall with just a stack of papers, your computer, and a lamp on it - and feel proud that he seems to be in awe.

You might never know if you moved closer to his side or if he pulled you against him, but suddenly, you’re practically clinging to his torso. He looks down at you and smiles, baby blues shining like an afternoon storm.

“This all…” he gestures to the room at large, “feels very you.”

“You like it?” you ask, chin against his shoulder as you look up at him.

He shakes his head, but it’s his unwavering smile that keeps you from worrying. “Love it,” he whispers, lowering his face so his lips barely touch yours.

Your mind wraps itself around the true meaning of his words. The energy he’s giving off is electric - excited and relaxed and warm and a little frantic - and you melt into it. You press your lips up to his, and he breathes you in deep.

In what feels like an instant, he hooks his hands under your knees and lifts you until your knees are at his sides. He walks you both to the bed and turns to sit on the edge of your mattress with you in his lap, calves against the sides of his thighs.

You start to pull back and take in the position he has you in because...it’s so...not Alpha behavior. Everyone Alpha you’ve been with before has pinned you down and taken you their way, and you’ve been just fine with that. There’s nothing wrong with following one’s nature, you know, as long as everyone involved consents.

But this...you on top…

You almost move to lay on the mattress yourself, because the idea of being nearly crushed by Thor’s weight is so enticing.

But then his hands slide up and around you. He pulls you closer, until your chests are pressed to one another with no space between them. His fingers dig into your back a bit, just to be as close to you as possible, and your breath gets caught in your throat.

The feeling you get when you’re beneath an Alpha - a feeling of trust and comfort and being protected - fills you. It deepens when you, slowly, reach out and wrap your arms around Thor’s broad shoulders. His scent clogs your brain, and you whine needily because of it.

“You okay?” he asks breathily, eyes heavy-lidded as he watches you carefully.

You nod. “Just...not used to this, I guess.”

“You want me to-”

“No,” you whisper. Your hips stutter to make your point. “No, I like it.”

His smile broadens somehow. “Good,” he responds. “Me too.”

You let yourself think that he’s unlike other Alphas one more time. And then you lose yourself in the best fathomable way.

Your clothes are gone in a flash - before you can even recognize how - and your skin gets hot, almost like you’re in heat when you’re not. You know you’re not because there isn’t an inherent, desperate desire for Thor within you that springs forth painfully. Every sensation of lust and want and admiration is totally normal, coming from a place of trust, knowing you’ve both earned it from one another.

He was right to want to wait for this. There’s no pain at all, actually. No annoying nagging of your internal clock reminding you that you’re of ripe reproducing age.

There’s just you and Thor and heat and fun and freedom. And that combination makes his touch all the more sweet, all the more intense against your back.

Maybe you’re not in heat, but you’re still positively drenched for him. He’s long and wide, but still presses into you without much resistance. Your walls are tight around him, and you feel every inch of his cock stretch you out, delicious seconds of tension fading until you’re seated fully on him.

When you’re able to look him in the eye again, all you see reflected in his one shiny orb is a culmination of all the things you’re feeling, too. Words you can’t say yet, only partially because you’re out of breath. Things you’re saving for another day, because right now, all that matters is Thor’s hands on your hips, raising you up off his lap and back down again.

You like being in control of the position, you realize, but you also like when he takes the lead and pounds into you, rendering most of your body useless and totally at his mercy. He’s rough without being aggressive, just tight fingers and loud moaning and tense teeth against your own. He’s, truly, not like any other Alpha you know or have ever known.

Pressure builds within you, increases when one of his hands slides down your body until his fingers find your clit. He rubs small circles into your wet, sensitive skin, and you pull your mouth from his because kissing is nearly impossible when your chest feels this tight. Breathing isn’t coming easily, but you’re not complaining because you’re positive that you’re ascending to another plane of existence.

A gate breaks open. Pleasure - hot, enormous waves of it - washes over you, engulfing you like Thor’s arms do. Everything is him and this lovely, dirty, star-shattering feeling inside of you. You cry out his name. His teeth find your shoulder and dig in - not too far from where he might leave a mark one day, you briefly think - and the pain adds to the lofty, intense sensations rolling through you.

Your walls squeezing him bring Thor over - his knot swells, despite not being in a rut. He fills you with his cum, which you know won’t do anything until you’re off the blockers. For now, for once, you’re kind of grateful for them.

He goes into Total Alpha mode when you both calm down. Thor turns you both, lays you on your comforter, and kisses you tenderly to distract you before he pulls out. The distraction only works so much, but you only whine because you already miss the feeling of him inside you. You relax beneath the satisfactory gleam in his eye, one that seems to promise that he’s not going anywhere, that that feeling will return soon enough.

You whine again when he backs off the bed, but he only chuckles at the sound, shaking his head as he heads to your bathroom. You listen as he rummages around, turns the sink on and off, and finally returns with one wet washcloth and one dry one.

“Is this you calling it a night?” you ask, a little weakly because your body’s more exhausted than you’d like to admit.

He gently presses the wet washcloth to the spots along your thighs were your release has mixed with his and spread. “We have work in the morning,” is his response.

You don’t really like it, but he’s right. If you’d had the next...day or two off, you’d keep going, never leave the bed if that was what Thor wanted. It’s absolutely what you want.

But it’s already kind of late, and indulging on a work night doesn’t entirely seem smart.

“But, just for the record,” you try again, unconsciously spreading your legs further for him, “we could go again if we wanted to, right?” You bite your bottom lip, but that doesn’t hide the downright smirk you’re giving him.

His matches yours. “Of course.”

You let him clean you up in relative silence, satisfied with that answer. You almost...wish you were in heat - the both of you could call out of work and stay here, go as many times as your body required. But you know his rule - his only rule - and you don’t regret sticking to it.

When he gets in bed beside you, you realize that you won’t be needing the comforter below you. His skin his scalding, and he insists on holding you as close as he can get you. You’re still sticky from earlier sweat, and you know more is to come if he’s going to be so close all night, but you somehow don’t seem to mind.

A little while later, before your eyes start to feel too heavy, you sigh and finally tell Thor, “I’m on suppressants, you know.”

He nods. “I do.” When you give him a questioning, confused look, he shrugs. “I found them on the counter one night. I wanted to ask about them, but…”

You face him and scratch the tip of his chin with a single pointer finger. “But?”

“You have every right to choose to be on them or not, (Y/N). And I couldn’t fathom a way of bringing up the subject with you that didn’t innately make me sound controlling.”

“So you’re okay with me taking them then?”

“I…” He takes a second, but seems to fight a war with himself. You can’t stop your heart from sinking in the stretch of his silence. “I’m an Alpha. I try not to think of medications like that in this way, but it does almost feel as though you take them to keep me at arm’s length.”

Maybe at first you think. But not for the reasons you’re considering. 

“No,” you whisper instead. “No, I started taking them when I thought Val was your mate. When I thought I was just some dumb Omega with a biological crush on you but had no chance of ever getting- well, where I am now, I guess.”

“And now?”

You can’t help but frown because your answer is...not as meaningful as you’d wish it was. “Now I just-” You sigh. “They’re just a habit now. And I have to say, they were kind of a godsend during my last heat.”

You know you didn’t say that to make Thor feel worse, but his own frown deepens anyway. You shake your head.

“I just mean that fighting the pain alone was nearly impossible before. But last time, it was bearable. Doesn’t mean it has to be that way every time, though.”

“What do you mean?” he asks.

You give him a small, hopeful smile. “I can be persuaded to stop taking them. They were just a way to protect myself when I thought you were already taken.”

Something stirs in him so quickly, you nearly miss it. But it’s not fleeting, and you can tell by the slow buildup of something against your leg. His smile returns, stretching out across his glorious face at the same pace.

“Funny how those things work themselves out, isn’t it?” he asks.

[smuttymess]

bts astro soulmate reading | for binta

sign: aries sun | capricorn moon | taurus rising

lover: park jimin | soulmate: kim seokjin

This reading is for Binta, a Minimoni double bias with a terrible case of Jungkook fever which she’ll likely never recover from. I really hope to be able to meet you post-COVID/general world mayhem. Please enjoy <3

Intelligent, strong-willed, perceptive - is there anything you can’t do when you put your mind to it, dear Aries? You are a force to be reckoned with, and there is no doubt that you make an impact in all areas of your life from work, friendships, and romance. It is this fire that draws people to you, and it is pretty common to find you in the center of attention in your social world, attracting friends and lovers alike. With your rising in Taurus, you are known to be practical, valuing a slow and steady approach to life that others see and appreciate. This level-headedness when paired with your ambition, means that you are trustworthy and able to see things through to completion. Valuing constancy in your life, you are able to achieve a nice balance given your ability to stick to your guns in all matters and rarely get distracted with frivolity. While you have your insecurities like anyone else, you are able to push these aside and focus on what is in front of you, which is the entire world at your feet. Your signature Aries assertiveness and Taurus practicality are nicely complimented by your Capricorn moon, which hides a softer, more sensual side which you know how to use wisely. It is not that you are disingenuous, but rather your gentler demeanor is somewhat of an persona that you can - and do - use to your advantage. Your most powerful self exists as a strong flame simmering beneath a calm, kind exterior that is both magnetic and enigmatic to those in your orbit. 

You, miss, are an opportunist. Not that this is a bad thing - its just that you know exactly what steps to take to get what you want. When you hear from a friend that Park Jimin will be in your city play at a secret show, you know at once that he is what you want. After all, you’ve been keeping tabs on him on social media and so why not shoot your shot? After all, despite your occasional self-doubt, you have an extremely high success rate. Equally alluring but seemingly aloof, it is not surprising when Jimin locks eyes with you from the stage during a particularly sexy section of the show. As with every time he is on stage, Jimin is is full Libra seduction mode, his fingers gently gripping the mic stand while fully immersed in the song. Occasionally lifting his eyes above the mic to stare at you before flashing a sly smile, you are fully aware that he is toying with you. Will you play?

In the game of flirtation, you are notoriously hard-to-get and he enjoys the chase. It is not until almost an hour after he converses with the numbers of fans that he saunters over to you, immediately disarming you with his signature irresistible charm. Your outer self wants to take things slowly, but your inner world wants to fuck him right then and there as he undresses you with his eyes. In talking to him, however, you sense an emotional depth to him that is hidden under the sultry stage persona - he is sweet, and even a little shy when met with your powerful gaze. It is this sweetness that you explore together in the hours, and eventually months, that follow this initial meeting. 

Jimin, the unattainable Libra celebrity that can have literally anyone he wants, is essentially putty in your hands as you start hooking up. His ability to lean back and happily let you take the ropes further enhancing the spectrum of your Aries confidence, allowing you to really shine. You two are polar opposite signs, with you drawn to his expressive, romantic and optimistic approach to life (thanks to Jupiter in Sagittarius) and he to your passionate, determined and fiery nature. While anyone could stimulate him physically, you turn him on with mental challenges and intellect. He is mystified by you and wants to do nothing more than please you. Sex with Jimin is light, energetic, fun - a lovely escape from the intensity of your daily life. There is no such thing as a quickie with him, as he wants to enjoy every moment with you, drawing out every bit of your orgasm before licking it all up. Jimin’s teasing nature does not end on stage, and it is unlikely you will ever meet someone else more skilled with foreplay than him. His goal is to make you shed your walls and make you entirely his, if only for the moment, before engulfing you in his arms and holding you close.

Ultimately, Jimin’s popularity and flirtatious tendencies along with your equally chaotic schedules prove to be too much for your romantic relationship to withstand as you are both prone to extreme jealousy. He adores you when he is with you, but cannot give you the full commitment that your sensitive heart desires (though you may never admit it.)  You find that your small arguments turn to larger ones more regularly, leaving you both unsettled and uncertain - with his Gemini moon much more sensitive to moods and irritability. When he is away, you find you spend more time worrying about his faithfulness than other areas of life, which you cannot afford to do when there is so much you want to explore and accomplish. However painful, it becomes necessary for you two to part ways - though not before fucking several more times.

It is likely that after the end of this unexpected relationship with Jimin that you seek solace in work projects, throwing yourself fully into your career. You enjoy environments where there are clear paths to growth, and the workplace is one space in which you truly excel, with an ability to work hard, accomplish tasks, and foster beneficial relationships along the way. This innate combination of intelligence and perceptiveness is what makes you one of the most successful signs of the zodiac.

This natural charisma is exactly what draws Kim Seokjin to you when you are both attending a company fundraising event at which he is a keynote speaker. Immediately upon laying eyes on him, you are drawn to his energy and charm (his Mercury in Scorpio in the spotlight.) The man knows how to work a room, in a genuine, strategic and precise manner that deeply appeals to your driven, passionate nature. Also, yes, he’s fucking gorgeous and you can’t help but imagine how he would look between your thighs. In that moment, you decide you must meet him and - in true Aries form - place yourself perfectly in his direct line of vision, effectively making sure he has no choice but to see you as he finishes shaking hands with benefactors and all the important executives. You can feel your hear race as his eyes move steadily from your eyes down the curves highlighted by your chosen dress for the evening.

Aries and Sagittarius are notoriously known for being fickle in terms of your relationships as you can quickly become bored, despite your deep desire for commitment. Soon into the dating process you realize your fiery signs may have found their match - keeping each other toes with your ability to juggle and hop between your vast interests and knowledge of everything from philosophy to travel to food, which you enjoy to the fullest. You appreciate his strength, confidence and his insatiable lust for life, which allows this less inhibited and spontaneous side of you to flourish as well, despite your initial stubbornness in wanting to follow the standard rules of dating and adhere to your rational "good girl” persona that you’ve built up over the years.

Jin takes your whole slow-and-steady, protocol-oriented mask and wholeheartedly rejects it, promptly throwing you into a whirlwind romance. Jin’s ethos is that life is meant to be experienced, savored and devoured - and he does that quite well. You’re pleasantly surprised to find yourself, on the third date, sky high in the passenger seat of a helicopter with Jin’s lips on your neck and fingers against your clit. Jin’s uninhibited spontaneity naturally extends into your sex life, which is intense, dynamic and fiery (of course). You two have no shortage of joint business events, on the way home from which you tear each others clothes off in a frenzy while he plants kisses all over your body. There is nothing that he enjoys more than hearing you moan his name into his ear, and no he does not care if it is in the back of his valet or against the floor-to-ceiling windows of whatever hotel he’s booked for the two of you that night. Jin’s range is extensive, moving from dominating and in control in the literal driver’s seat to completely submissive to your touch as your lips wrap around his cock while on your knees in front of the fireplace.  While not for public eyes whatsoever, he believes sex, like everything else, is meant to be enjoyed in all ways, in all forms, and all places, and he makes you feel secure in exploring this life accordingly with him by your side - or behind, or on top.

Ultimately, as a couple, you are able to achieve great things while as co-pilots. You are a great match matched in that both of you need to be moving at all times, either towards adventure or a new goal, and require independence on a deeper, more profound level than any other sign combo in the zodiac. You approach each others’ chaotic schedules with complete understanding, knowing that soon enough you’ll be met with a black car ready to take you to the jet to meet him at whatever location he has (spontaneously!) chosen on the map and for a proper reunion. Your Taurus rising can make you prone to stubbornness, preferring to stick to your guns over taking too much risk, and Jin is able to get your out of your own way and remind you of how amazing you are - even when you are feeling less than perfect. While he can be overly blunt and brash in his approach to communication, with patience you are able to access his more romantic, serious, passionate nature of his Venus in Capricorn which gives your emotional Capricorn the tenderness and care that it craves. You see through each others’ confident exteriors into your more sensitive sides, which you are able to reveal only to those you really trust. It is important for you to live authentically and without restriction, and in each other you find someone that is equally imperfect but also constantly strives for excellence in their everyday lives. Together, you build a harmonious life with equal parts adventure, friendship, spontaneity, comfort, and unbreakable trust. 

[damienthepious]

yo pretend that it’s still fucking tuesday in my time zone. i only missed it by like fifteen minutes just be cool 

Toss and Turn In Undertow

[ao3] [companion piece to Keep Your Head Above The Blue]

[Fandom: The Penumbra Podcast (Second Citadel)

Relationship: Lord Arum/Sir Damien/Rilla

Characters: Lord Arum, Sir Damien, Rilla, The Keep

Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Anxiety, Panic Attacks

Summary:  Sir Damien has a bit of a rough day. His flowers do their best to help.

Notes: Whoops, here I go projecting my mental health onto rad bouquet again! Sorry, Damien. Extra content warnings for some very… aggressively self-hating language. I will admit that this was at times unpleasant to write. Hope the stress is worth it <3<3 Name from a lyric in the song In Undertow, by Alvvays.]</small>

***

Sometimes the thrumming panic buries Damien. Sometimes, despite his best efforts, despite his prayers and the knowledge of a love buffeting him from two sides, he is consumed in the bleak, bitter echoes of his own mind. Mistakes in the past, mistakes he might make in the future, actions he should or should not have taken, opportunities he is missing and failures he is committing at this very moment, a thousand catastrophized possibilities of his own making-

Rilla knows the signs, even when Damien manages to keep from babbling his head off through the spiral. She knows the particular shallowness of his breathing and distance in his eyes when the worst parts of his mind take the reigns, knows how to take his hand and talk him down, or if the talking doesn’t work, how to sing and stroke his hair until his breathing comes easier, until he can hum along as well.

Arum is less practiced, but he’s almost better at recognizing when Damien is coming close to danger than Rilla is, which feels odd at first. Arum can hear his heartbeat from a short distance, and that is interesting for a number of unrelated reasons, but it also means that he can tell quickly if Damien is working himself up too fast. He also recognizes early on that he can’t just duel Damien every time he needs to pull him down from his dangerous highs of distress, though sparring is still enjoyable on occasion. The most effective method Arum lands on is to simply wrap all four arms and his tail around Damien, lift him into the air and squeeze. Just enough so that Damien can’t wriggle his way out, just enough so that the pressure feels- feels like something safe. That’s what makes it likely to work, Damien thinks. The physicality of it. An anchor in the world outside his own head, giving him no choice but to hang in the air and just breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he says, panting from the pressure and the panic and closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to see whatever expression of annoyance Arum might be wearing. “I am sorry I persist in- I am sorry to trouble you so.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Arum mutters, close by Damien’s ear. “No apologies.”

He is only saying that to assuage Damien’s feelings, certainly. Damien can feel Arum’s heart beating from this close, a slow, sweet drumbeat he does not feel worthy to hear. “I know that my weakness of the mind must be frustrating, Lord Arum; you need not honey over your words for my sake-”

Arum squeezes him tighter for a moment, his tail coiling behind him as a low ticking growl rises in his chest. “Are you accusing me of deceit, honeysuckle?”

“No, no I merely-”

“Then you should trust when I say you need not apologize.”

“I know,” Damien says, ducking his head. “I know.” He pauses, biting his lip. “Yet I worry that I have caused you some irritation, and if so you could not be blamed for feeling-”

The growl in Arum’s chest pitches lower and louder for a moment and then he adjusts his grip on Damien, swinging his legs up until he’s carrying him in a way Damien can only think of as bridal style, which is entirely unhelpful to the roiling confused mess of his thoughts as he squeaks in protest. “I’ve had quite enough of that,” Arum says roughly as he starts a quick walk. “Keep, open the way to Amaryllis’ home, if you would.”

The portal opens ahead of them and Arum doesn’t even need to break stride until they’re through to Rilla’s front room, the wide flowerpot in the corner behind them curling with the Keep’s vines for a moment or two longer before they recede back into the dirt.

“Lord Arum,” Damien says breathlessly, “I must insist-”

“Amaryllis, I require your assistance,” Arum interrupts flatly.

Rilla steps out from the kitchen with a confused look, then darts across the space to pull the curtains closed. “Saints, Arum, you have to have the Keep warn me before you come through-”

“The poet is being unreasonable and you know better than I how to deal with him.”

“Excuse me-”

“Oh,” Rilla says, brow furrowing sympathetically. “Hard day, Damien?”

“No, of course not my love, it is really not so large an issue as-”

“What must I do,” Arum interrupts again, some of his worry bleeding through the edges of his flat tone, “to convince him that he is not some burden that needs be begged pardon for?”

“Oof,” Rilla says, stepping closer. “Hey, if you figure that one out, make sure you tell me about it first, because I’ve been trying to get that through his thick knightly skull for years now and it doesn’t seem to want to stick.”

Damien writhes in Arum’s arms, anxiety on every line of his face. “I don’t- it isn’t as if- I never said-”

His words dry up and he stills again when Rilla reaches out to cup the back of his head in her hand, drawing her fingers through his hair. “Damien. It’s okay.”

The combination- Arum steady and surrounding him with his arms and chest, Rilla on the other side with her hands gentle upon him, it’s soothing and pleasant and loving and Damien doesn’t deserve any of it. He has been nothing but an annoyance to the both of them lately, with his chaotic mind and his fears, and he is sure, so sure that he is damaging this relationship merely by being a part of it.

“S-stop,” he gasps, “oh, tranquility oh please, please- please put me- put me down, I can’t-”

Arum blinks at him in surprise and immediately, gently reorients Damien’s legs beneath him and sets him down, brow furrowed. “I apologize, I did not intend-”

“Don’t- don’t apologize,” Damien says, shaking his head viciously as he stumbles back, out of range of their gentle hands. “I am the one who- who keeps doing this-”

“Damien,” Arum says, concerned and confused, and Damien flinches and takes another large step away, fisting his hands at the sides of his head.

“I don’t know how the both of you tolerate me,” Damien hisses through clenched teeth, the hard thud of his heart making his chest feel tight and close and horrifying. “You are both brilliant and brave and you fit together with such glorious ease, with familiarity and humor and I am l-little more than a leech, a drain of affection and attention, and when you look at me like that- like that, with such unearned compassion, I know that I have manipulated you into feeling so softly towards me with my persistent, pathetic, pitiful writhing-”

“You think so little of us, honeysuckle?” Arum says, his head ducked and his expression so openly raw that Damien has to close his eyes against it for a moment.

“No,” Rilla says gently, reaching out to grip Arum’s wrist. “No, it’s not like that. Damien, Damien you need to breathe, okay?”

Damien shakes his head, but he still sucks in a quick sharp breath automatically. “See? Don’t you see?” He laughs in a shuddering, wild sort of way. “Your comfort is- it shows the compassion and beauty of your heart, my flower, but it is a grace of which I am entirely undeserving-”

“Breathe,” she says again, and Damien stops to gasp. “You aren’t being fair to yourself, Damien. Even if any of that were true, I love you because of who you are and how we are together, not because of anything to do with deserving. That’s not how love works.”

Arum watches this exchange, wary eyes darting between the pair of them as Damien shakes his head in denial.

“But you deserve so much better than myself, you deserve each other, such luminous beings as you are, and you certainly deserve better than me-”

“I deserve to love who I love, Damien,” she interrupts, “and I love you. I deserve to have a say in this relationship, and I say that I love you. And I’m gonna keep saying it, Damien. I’m gonna say it again and again until you believe me. I love you.”

“Why?” Damien cries, swinging his fists down from his head, leaving his arms to shake at his sides as he gives Rilla a tearful, horrified look. “Why? Why would you possibly love me? You are the most brilliant person I have ever known, and I am little more than a miserable-”

“If I started rattling off a list of reasons why I love you right this instant, Damien – and I do have an actual list, by the way - I know for a fact that it would just freak you out more, with the state you’re in.” Rilla raises her hands at her sides in a helpless gesture. “I want to help you. It hurts to see you like this, but I don’t know what to do, or where to start if you won’t believe the things I say.”

“But the two of you- your minds are as quick and sharp as knives which sharpen each other, and all I can be to you is a distraction, a desperate whining thing aching at your heels for affection and comfort. My own mind cannot match yours, it is little more than a nest of nettles within which my demons rest between their campaigns to devour me-

“Enough of- stop that.” Arum shakes his head, his frill flared partway in distress. “I cannot stand- I cannot abide you speaking of yourself so cruelly.”

Damien squeezes his fists, nails digging into his palms. “You, Lord Arum, have- have even less reason to give me your affection. I was nearly your murderer again and again-”

“And I yours,” Arum barks. “Are we not past that? Have those mistakes not long since been forgiven?” He sneers, but the expression slips away too quickly to be believable. “Or have you been harboring a secret grudge against me for my actions?”

“Of- of course I haven’t,” Damien nearly yelps, shaking his head again.

“Arum,” Rilla warns, squeezing his wrist. “I don’t think-”

“If he believes that I would care less for him because of the mistakes that we both made,” Arum says, “how can I not draw the conclusion that he expects this because it is how he feels about me?”

“Because that reasoning requires some if-then style logic and Damien and logic aren’t even in the same room right now, Arum.”

Arum blinks, then glances at Damien, whose breaths are growing worryingly quick, whose body language is screaming danger as clearly as a blaring horn. Arum slips his hand down slightly, gripping the hand Rilla had wrapped around his wrist, and presses another hand over his own mouth. “Ah… have- have I made things worse?” he hisses low, eyes flicking between his humans again.

“Hard to say,” Rilla murmurs, but the wry tilt of her mouth says, it certainly didn’t help, and Arum winces.

“I-” Damien presses a hand hard against his collarbone, clenching the other tight at his side. “I know that this- that I am- that I am only making things worse, I know that, so I don’t understand why- why you- why you even want to keep me beside you-”

“Breathe,” Arum says at the same moment Rilla says the same, and she squeezes his hand as he continues, “honeysuckle, you are not thinking clearly.”

“I am thinking without sentimentality,” Damien snarls, “for once. The two of you- this relationship would be better without my presence stunting and frustrating and causing strife-”

“You think our relationship would be better without you?” Arum wrinkles his snout, stiffening in horror. “The balance we strike is the three of us together, honeysuckle. I fit between you, as you fit between us, as she fits between you and I. This relationship would not exist without you.”

“Wretched whining thing,” Damien mutters, apparently to himself. “See how you distress them? See the ills you cause?”

Rilla exhales, brow furrowed in worry, and Arum’s heart lurches for the both of them. He takes a shaky breath of his own and Damien continues to mutter abuse at himself, arms wrapped around his own chest in a parody of a hug.

“I love you,” Arum says at last, quietly, and Damien startles like a deer, going dead-still and looking at the monster with wide eyes.

This is not the first time Arum has said this, to Damien or to Rilla, but it is still new enough that it feels like something precious, something to be handled with care. Arum has so far reserved such words for moments of safety, moments in embrace, in the darkness of a shared bed and the warmth of their arms. So for him to offer them now, in the daylight, standing and facing Damien from across the whole distance of Rilla’s front room, after Damien himself has spoken in such wildness and despair-

“I love you, Damien,” Arum says again, just as soft, “and I will not allow you to push me- push us away out of an urge towards self-destruction.”

The words sink down through the churning mire of his mind, and Damien is incredibly aware, for one sharp, bright moment, of how spectacularly he had ruined this, of his own utter lack of control, of his inability to draw breath, and then tears overflow the corners of his eyes as the familiar and unwelcome headrush finally pushes him down, folding him into a childlike crouch as he presses his hands to the sides of his head with a choked-off moan, every single thought in his mind whiting out in an incomprehensible tangle of horror, strong as certain death.

Then, it’s over.

Damien is shaking, hollow and exhausted and wet-cheeked, but the overwhelming panic is spent and gone. He feels suspended in the empty calm for a long moment before he straightens up with a shuddering inhale, clumsily brushing his tears away.

“What…” Arum stares at Damien, worry rolling off of him in waves as he whispers to Rilla. “What was that?”

“Panic attack,” she says, matching his volume with a tense smile. “A pretty rough one, too, I think. C’mon.” She steps a little closer to Damien, then, pulling an alarmed Arum behind her by the hand. “Hey,” she says gently, still leaving a bit of space between the two of them and the knight, “you think the worst of it is past, now?”

Damien nods, still rubbing his face and not looking at either of them.

“Okay.” Her voice is steady, calm, and Arum thinks for what must be the thousandth time that she is the cleverest being he has ever known. “Are you okay for a hug? Or would that be too much just now?”

Damien presses a hand over his eyes, his lip curving miserably, and then he nods again and reaches his other hand towards them.

Rilla sags in relief and closes the gap, wrapping her arm around Damien’s shaking shoulder. She can’t kiss him with his hand covering his face like that, so she kisses the hand instead as he shudders against her. Arum doesn’t know what to do with himself despite Rilla pulling him close as well. When he picked Damien up last, it seemed to catalyze this- this attack, and now he’s frightened of making things worse again with his touch.

Rilla notices his hesitation, and her brow furrows for a moment before she moves, readjusting their positions. She gently spins Damien so he’s in front of her with her arms wrapped around his waist from behind, and she pulls Arum closer on the other side until Damien is pressed up against Arum’s chest, between the two of them. She gives Arum an encouraging smile over Damien’s head, and he tries to swallow his worry, wrapping two arms all the way around Amaryllis and slipping the other two between them to scratch softly down Damien’s back.

“Is this okay?” she says, barely louder than a whisper, and Damien nods a third time, bumping his forehead against Arum’s chest as his breaths slowly even out from their hitching, as the salt Arum can taste on the air subsides.

“I’m sorry, honeysuckle,” Arum says softly, tucking Damien’s head beneath his chin. “I should not have pushed you so when you were in distress.”

“No, it- it wasn’t your fault, it-” Damien finally drops his hand from his face so he can press his palms against Arum’s chest, as if he is gleaning stability from his physical presence alone. “These thoughts have been- haunting me as of late. They would have outed eventually, I’m sure.”

“Nevertheless. I should have been more gentle with you.”

“I know- I fear that my persistent worries are irritating, and then I become terrified of that irritation driving the both of you away, and then the worry over irritating you becomes an annoyance itself, and it recurses and recurses until it becomes an endlessly deep oubliette into which I am cast, and I cannot see either the way to climb out, or the bottom to which I must fall. And-” he sighs through a laugh, “and I know that it is happening, and I cannot seem to control my mind. Even when I know I am being unreasonable. I can know that, but I cannot make myself believe it, or make myself stop.”

“You’re feeling more rational now, though?” Rilla asks, and Damien laughs again.

“I am tranquil, at least, and as rational as I ever am, my love. Which, when compared to yourself-”

She squeezes her arms around him, nuzzling her face into the back of his neck. “Perfect. Then that means I can start the list.”

“The- the list?”

“You asked, Damien, so you can’t complain about this now. So! Reasons why I, Amaryllis of Exile, am deeply in love with Sir Damien the Pious, version siiiiiix- no, seventeen, revised edition, with additional contributions from Lord Arum.”

Arum laughs in surprise, and Amaryllis grins behind Damien as he goes stiff. Then the knight looks up at Arum in alarm, his cheeks already tinging dark.

“You did ask, honeysuckle,” Arum says through a smile, his fingers drifting in soothing circles across Damien’s back.

“I love you, Damien,” Rilla starts, “because you are the most sincerely compassionate person I’ve ever known. You’re patient, you’re thoughtful, and you’re selfless to a fault.”

She pauses, raising an eyebrow over Damien’s shoulder, and Arum realizes it’s his turn to offer his contributions. “You are… fiercely loyal,” he says, and he smiles when Damien buries his face in Arum’s chest rather than look him in the eye. He understands the urge; it is more difficult than he expected, to put words to all the facets of Damien that cleave together to make Arum’s heart swell and race while Damien is here to hear them directly. “You are spectacularly beautiful,” he says, and then he quickly continues before the teasing gleam in Rilla’s eyes can fluster him, “you are a warrior with such skill that you make your movements as effortless as a dance when you fight, and you are the cleverest wordsmith I’ve ever known.”

“Just a brilliant storyteller,” Rilla agrees warmly. “I didn’t even like poetry before I met you, you know. You can put words together like- like you know how they’re meant to go, and you do it with so much joy that it’s impossible not to get caught up in your stories.”

“I will deny this if ever I am asked, honeysuckle,” Arum murmurs, conspiratorial, “but your poetry is far and away superior to every scrap of monster poetry I have ever read.” Damien chokes on a laugh against Arum’s scales, and Arum can’t help but nuzzle close to his ear. “And your voice, honeysuckle- it rings like music. I love the sound of it. I love you.”

“You care so deeply,” Rilla continues, “and you try so hard at everything you do. I love you because you make me laugh, and I love you because you are so completely different from me. I love that you and I don’t see the world in the same way, and I love that being with you makes the world seem that much wider and richer because of that. I love that you’re so damn tenacious about everything you set your mind to, and I love how you-”

“Alright,” Damien cries, lips pursed to try to keep his embarrassed smile from growing out of control, “alright my flower I believe you have made your point abundantly clear-”

“You sure, Damien? Because we can keep going for as long as this takes.”

“Quite sure,” he says, and he slips his arms around Arum to hug him properly. “I would prefer to be finished with weeping for today, my loves, and if you continue I will not be able to control myself on that particular front. Tears of happiness, I’m afraid, are still tears.”

Arum tries not to noticeably react to the sound of Damien’s voice now that it sounds more like him, steady and lilting instead of desperate and sharp, but he’s unsure how well he manages to hide his relief.

They stand in embrace for a few long minutes, breathing slowly, with Rilla humming lightly against Damien’s shoulder.

“I… I am not so experienced in… relationships,” Arum says quietly, breaking the silence. “We are… we are still- you have not changed your mind,” he settles on, wincing. “About… about us, have you, honeysuckle?”

“No,” Damien says emphatically, squeezing his arms tighter around Arum’s midsection. “Saints no, absolutely not. You are- the both of you are the best part of my life. That is… part of why it is so hard for me to believe it can last. It feels too good to be true, at times.”

“Alright,” Arum breathes through his relieved sigh. “And… and you do know…” he huffs out a breath of discomfort. “You know that when I say… when we are speaking, and I say that you are foolish or ridiculous- you do know that I- that-”

“I know you do not mean it,” Damien murmurs into Arum’s steady chest, closing his eyes, the gentle scritch of Arum’s claws drifting up and down his back between him and Rilla’s steady heat. “Or- that you only mean them affectionately.”

“If I cross into cruelty, honeysuckle-”

“It is comforting, actually,” Damien says, and Arum can feel the curve of his smile against his scales, “when you are willing to tease me. It is better that way, than if you treated me always as if I were fragile. It feels more honest. It’s easier to make myself believe you, that way.” He laughs, very slightly. “And, if you ever did overstep, I am certain our Rilla would make you aware of your mistake before I would even have the chance.”

“Yep,” Rilla agrees from behind the knight, looking at Arum over his shoulder with sharp, steady eyes. “No worries there.”

Arum, surprisingly, does feel less worried at that. “Good. Would you step back for me, Amaryllis?”

Rilla raises an eyebrow, but she does as he asks. Damien gives a look of confusion for only a moment before Arum’s hands all move in concert to lift him back up into Arum’s arms, just as he had been before.

“There,” he says, satisfied. “You are quite easy to carry, honeysuckle.”

“Of course it’s easy for you,” Rilla says. “You have extra arms to work with.”

“You will find that I am simply stronger than you soft mammals,” he says, preening, and then he glances down towards Damien, checking his expression carefully. “If you don’t mind terribly, little knight, I believe I enjoy having you in my clutches.”

Damien is breathless, face flushed, but the tension from earlier is nowhere to be seen. He lifts an arm to curl around Arum’s shoulder, readjusting in the lizard’s grip to make himself more comfortable. “If- if you insist, Lord Arum,” he says primly. “If you are sure I shall not strain you-”

“Don’t make me laugh. You weigh about as much as you would if you were truly made of flowers.” He grins at the knight, but the eye contact drags out until something earnest slips into his expression. “I could never tire of having you in my arms, honeysuckle.”

“Oh, stoppit,” Rilla complains, swatting a hand through the air. “Stop being so damn cute. You’re making me want to play hooky and I have tons of work to do. Get back to the Keep already and stop teasing me.”

“Of course, Amaryllis,” Arum says, bending in a mock bow and smirking as Damien laughs in his arms at the swooping motion. “A thousand apologies. Keep?”

Rilla scowls, eyes sparkling as the portal opens. “Oh, wait- before you leave.” She comes closer, and presses something into Damien’s hand with a sly smile and Arum gives a pleased rattling laugh when he recognizes it.

“What- wait, your recorder?” He furrows his brow, puzzled, and then tilts his head at her. “Why?”

“It’s more of a player than a recorder, actually, but it’s what’s on it I want you to hang on to for me, okay?”

He blinks, then brushes his thumb over the play button but does not push. “What is it, love?”

“Yes,” Arum says smugly above him, and Rilla laughs.

“Arum and I have been working on this for a little while. Something for you to play when we aren’t around to do what we just did, or for when you’re feeling anxious about bothering us but you still need a bit of a boost.”

“It is why our list was so well prepared,” Arum adds.

Damien presses his thumb down, and Rilla’s voice chimes from the device.

Damien comfort log, version sixte-

It is not a log, Amaryllis, this is why we keep needing to start over-

Shush. Fine. List of ways Sir Damien has charmed the literal pants off of both of us, is that better for you?

There is a short hissing rattle that devolves into a laugh.

Yes, actually. That is much better.

If you wanna go totally informal we can do that too, Arum. So, Damien, we both love you pretty ridiculously and we know you get in your own head about it sometimes, so we thought it might help if you had something permanent that you could pull out when you’re feeling unsteady, you know?

Amaryllis insisted I write out notes beforehand, if you care to know how seriously she took this, honeysuckle.

Notes are useful. They reminded me just now to start with this- Damien, you are the most sincerely compassionate person that I’ve ever known, you are patient, you-

Damien firmly presses the stop button, his eyes shining, and Rilla shrugs. “I started with the same one earlier because I kind of memorized the notes I made for this. I just- we thought this could help, maybe.”

“It’s lovely,” Damien says, swiping at his eyes as Rilla and Arum politely pretend not to notice. “I am- I am not used to receiving the gift of words, oh Saint Damien above, my loves are so full of surprises-”

The Keep sings through the portal, its voice mingling exasperation, confusion, and fondness, and Arum starts slightly, having forgotten that he had already opened the way. “Ah. Apologies, Keep. Will we- see you tonight, Amaryllis?”

“If the experiment goes really well or really poorly I should be done before nine, otherwise midnight at the latest, I think,” she says with a shrug, and then she comes close enough to give each of them a kiss on the cheek. “Behave until then, okay?”

Arum rolls his eyes through a grin, and Damien squeezes Rilla’s hand for an extra moment and kisses her knuckles before he releases her.

“Thank you, both of you, for-” Damien clutches the device, clutches his other arm tighter around Arum’s shoulder. “Just- thank you.”

“Would you believe that we have rendered the little poet near-speechless, Amaryllis?” Arum says, nudging his nose into Damien’s cheek in an almost-kiss. “Impressive work, love.”

She grins, then lightly pushes the monster towards the portal. “Go home already, will you? It’s rude to leave the Keep waiting like that.”

Arum grins wider. “Until tonight,” he says, and then he steps back through to his home.

Damien’s nerves try to rally against him again when Rilla is no longer with them, but the reality of Arum’s textured scales against his own skin anchors him to reality, and the weight of Rilla and Arum’s gift in his hand feels talismanic, magical. He sighs, letting his head sink to rest against the crook of Arum’s neck, and he feels the lizard laugh gently.

True to his word, Arum does not tire of Damien’s weight in his arms. Arum does not tire of him even as Damien himself tires, eyelids sinking under the weight of his exhausting day, nor even as Damien succumbs entirely to sleep, with his cheek against Arum’s shoulder.

He does not even tire of him in the in-between, and when Damien wakes again he is still carefully entwined in Arum’s arms, safe and beloved in their shared bed.

[ogygia]

What the fuck is the LBRP?: A guide

Your Reddit occultist friends have mentioned it, it’s popping up on all these Tumblr posts about banishing and stuff, but you still haven’t the foggiest clue: what the fuck is the LBRP? 

Fret not: here’s a handy guide. Warning: long post ahead!

Disclaimer: This guide represents the sum total of roughly thirteen years of on-and-off experience with the ritual and my own study and understanding of the Kabbalah and the Golden Dawn system, but emphasis is on the words my own. There will be points that I’m sure other occultists will disagree on, but I’m of the conviction that the principles underlying my understanding of the ritual are unlikely to be controversial among most ceremonial magicians.

So:

What the fuck is the LBRP?

‘LBRP’ stands for the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, and is a classic ritual that almost every occultist will come across at some point after they have grown out of their early Silver RavenWolf years. 80s and 90s kids are likely to have first encountered it in that seminal classic Modern Magick, probably in the earlier blue edition that had that ridiculous illustration of a fantastically-robed man drawing a massive blue pentagram before him. 

What the fuck is a pentagram?

It’s a five-pointed star as it would look if you drew it with five straight lines (rather than going around the edges and leaving the insides empty). 

It’s a symbol commonly associated with modern witchcraft, but it was already important in early Greek thought.

Most occultists are likely to have been introduced to the LBRP as a ‘banishing ritual’ (mainly because that is literally what it is called), or been told that it is the first thing they should learn if they want to learn magick. It is my opinion that this is completely bullshit.

So how the fuck do you do the LBRP?

I’m tempted to link you to Let Me Google That For You, but I’m feeling charitable so I’ll quote the ritual instructions in full from the First Knowledge Lecture, the secret (ooooh) material given to Neophytes in the Golden Dawn system—

Wait, the Golden Dawn?

Yes, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Late Victorian magical organisation based on the Freemasons, did fancy rituals and wore ridiculous Egyptian-inspired headgear and shit. Also a bunch of massive nerds who were obsessed with astrology, the Tarot and the Kabbalah and trying to find ways of corresponding all these different symbol systems with each other to create one gigantic, hopefully organised matrix of magical ideas and symbols that would allow them to explain – and magically manipulate – existence and the cosmos.

We’re not talking science here, of course: we’re talking spirituality. Not that they’re mutually exclusive.

Anyway, you interrupted me. Here’s the ritual, according to these folks:

The Qabalistic Cross And Lesser Ritual Of The Pentagram 1. Touching the forehead, say Ateh (Thou art)   2. Touching the breast, say Malkuth (The Kingdom)   4. Touching the right shoulder, say ve-Geburah. (And The Power)   5. Touching the left shoulder, say ve-Gedulah. (And the Glory)   6. Place the two palms of the hands together upon the breast, and say le-Olahm (Forever). 7. Fingers pointing up, say Amen.   8. Advance to the East, trace the Pentagram with the proper weapon (Wand to invoke, Dagger to banish). Say (i.e., vibrate) Yod He Vau He - imagining that your voice carried forward to the East of the Universe.   9. Turning to the South, the same, but say Adonai 10. Turning to the West, the same, but say Eheieh 11. Turning to the North, the same, but say Agla 12. Return to the East, completing the Circle, extend the arms in the form of a Cross, and say:   13. Before me Raphael;   14. Behind me Gabriel; 15. On my right hand, Michael; 16. On my left hand, Auriel; 17. Before me flames the Pentagram,   18. And in the Column shines the Six-rayed Star.   19-24. Repeat 1 through 6, the Qabalistic Cross.

What in the actual fuck—

Yeah. Riveting. 

But this will help me banish stuff, right?

Uh, yes, and no. 

The problem with the LBRP is that it’s become a victim of its own success. Before the LBRP there was no single ritual that had instructions as clearly given as this one (or so it appeared, anyway), or one that had such a clear, universal purpose as ‘banishing’. When Israel Regardie published this material it took off in a way that I’m not even sure the Golden Dawn themselves would’ve expected. 

A number of things, I suspect, make the LBRP immediately appealing to many newcomers: the safety aspect, which targets the fear a lot of people coming to the occult bring with them; the Judeo-Christian names, which while putting a lot of people off, offers a way in for those who still fear that magick might be ‘Satanic’; and also its simplicity, in that it merely requires the memorising of words and gestures and no major preparation, either in the way of extensive fasts, elaborate tools or space that no one, especially not avocado-toting millennials like me, could possibly afford.

But this is where the problem lies: the dissemination of the LBRP beyond its Golden Dawn context means a lot of people are doing the ritual without realising they’re tapping into a specific current. When you employ a specific symbol set, you enter into the current – the wider symbol set – represented by that system. The LBRP is steeped in the Golden Dawn current, and it is the nexus of important Hermetic and Kabbalistic principles. To describe it merely as a ‘banishing’ ritual – and to use it as such – is like saying that flying to the moon on a rocket is just a form of transport. There’s a lot more going on here.

So what the fuck does the LBRP actually do?

It ‘banishes’, yes. But more specifically, it’s a ritual that tunes into your most fundamental level of existence, and then creates what is essentially a magical vacuum, a kind of ‘empty space’, within it. It also aligns you within a very specific tradition of thought known as Hermeticism, which finds its origins in late antique philosophy and a fusion of Greco-Egyptian thought.

Fundamental to Hermeticism is the notion of ‘As above, so below’ (you’ve probably heard of this). I’m not paid enough to teach you Neoplatonic philosophy here (you can Google that shit), but essentially this is the idea that there is a greater spiritual plane (the macrocosm) that ‘mirrors’ the lesser, more tangible realm of existence (microcosm), and vice versa. The LBRP, performed correctly, will situate you neatly at the point of interaction between the macrocosm and the microcosm.

This is why the LBRP isn’t just a banishing ritual. I quote Crowley:

Those who regard this ritual as a mere device to invoke or banish spirits, are unworthy to possess it. Properly understood, it is the Medicine of Metals and the Stone of the Wise.

How the hell does all that work?

Where am I getting all of this from? This is where analysing the ritual itself, especially in Golden Dawn terms, can help.

To begin with, you’ll notice that the Knowledge Lecture provides two options for how to draw the Pentagram (that’ll be a five-pointed star in case you’re wondering) in Step 8:

Invoking Pentagram

Banishing Pentagram

The commonly described LBRP utilises the second pentagram – because it is the banishing one, duh. But where do these pentagrams come from?

For that, we turn to Aleister Crowley, that shit-head every pearl-clutching witchblr person likes to hate. Don’t get me wrong, Aleister Crowley was a shit-head. But he was also well-travelled (he had a lot of money) and well-read (he probably read more widely than most occultists on this website ever will) and, as his diaries show, an incredibly hard-working magician (though I suppose you’ll have time to do that if Daddy’s paying for everything else).

In Liber O, his treatise on basic practical work for a Probationer of the A.’.A.’., his magical teaching order, Crowley outlines the instructions for performing the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram, an advanced version of the Lesser ritual. Like Regardie, he gave no fucks about his oaths to secrecy, and republished a lot of material that was secret to the Golden Dawn. We see diagrams showing how the pentagrams are to be drawn in the GRP – and, aha, they’re drawn differently depending on which element you’re manipulating!

As you can see, the pentagrams used in the LBRP are the Earth pentagrams (ignore the Hebrew God name in this instance: that’s a can of worms I’m not opening right now). 

In the Golden Dawn scheme of things the elements are hierarchically arranged from highest to lowest as follows: Fire, Air, Water and Earth. This isn’t necessarily a hierarchy of superiority or value; in fact, they don’t in a sense correspond literally to fire, air, water and earth. Instead, think of them as broad labels for levels of spiritual manifestation. Fire is spirit in its “purest” form (think of how fire flashes and shines but has no real ‘bodily’ presence); Air ‘exists’, but you can only vaguely feel its body; Water is tangible, but it flows and moves and fills; while Earth is the most solid of these. In the same sense, we exist across these levels, too, from our highest spiritual selves to our solid existence in the physical realm. 

The Kabbalists call these four levels Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah and Assiah, but I’m guessing you’re not here for the fancy words.

Anyway, what the LBRP does is to tune into our most basic level of existence – the Earth level, where our body and our ego resides – and clear it of any extraneous influences. Traditionally, after the pentagram is traced in each quarter, you don’t just say the name; you project it through the pentagram using what is called the Sign of the Enterer, followed by what is called the Sign of Silence. The Knowledge Lecture itself recommends that

the Banishing Ritual can be used to get rid of obsessing or disturbing thoughts. Give a mental image to your obsession and imagine it formulated before you. Project it out of your aura with the Saluting Sign of a Neophyte, and when it is away about three feet prevent its return with the Sign of Silence.

Thus at each quarter you are essentially opening up a portal to an elemental realm, and then casting the sum total of that element’s influence in your life back into the infinite. The Sign of Silence seals off the process and ensures those influences don’t return.

After having completely cleared off every element’s influence at your fundamental level of existence, you invoke the archangels at each quarter not just to ‘protect’ the space you’ve cleared, but also to ensure that you don’t suffocate in the vacuum. Having got rid of everything, you now restore balance in your sphere by summoning the positive and pure elemental energies of the archangels.

Tangibly, this can manifest itself in many ways: a lot of occultists have found that performing the ritual regularly initiates some serious shifts in their everyday life. Unhealthy excesses begin to make their negative effects shown, imbalances dramatically correct themselves and magicians often find themselves forced to make decisions about key aspects of their lives. Remember: the ritual primarily functions at the most basic level of manifestation – and that includes your everyday life.

Following the invocation of the archangels, you then proclaim yourself at the point of interaction between the macrocosm and the microcosm. This is signified by Steps 17-18, when you say, ‘Before me flames the Pentagram, and in the Column shines the Six-rayed Star.’ The Pentagram signifies the microcosm, with its five points corresponding to the five basic elements (the four classical ones plus Spirit); the Hexagram signifies the macrocosm, with its six points corresponding to the planets apart from the Sun, which is at its centre (that’s another can of worms I’m not opening now).

This is magically significant, because it is a declaration of your spiritual independence and power, and positions you to receive and activate the higher energies of the cosmos.

That sounds pretty intense.

It is. But my point is that by performing this ritual, you superimpose the Hermetic / Golden Dawn view of the world onto yourself, which is why anyone who tells you the LBRP is just a banishing ritual is completely missing the point. And anyone who tells you that the LBRP is the first thing every magician should learn is ignoring the fact that you may not even be interested in Hermeticism (even if it is the foundation of modern Western occultism). 

What I’m saying is, you do not need to waste your time with this ritual if you have no interest in the Golden Dawn system, or occultism as it is espoused by old dead white men. No point introducing its energies into your life if you want nothing to do with the rest of it.

On the other hand, if you’re keen on taking a splash into magick and don’t know where to start, and you’re willing to go where the magick takes you, the LBRP is, frankly speaking, not a bad place to begin.

Happy Pentagramming.

Wait, I’ve got some more questions—

I have a few other things I’d like to address re: the LBRP, but I’ll do that in an appendix to this post. This guide is long enough as it is, and God knows you Tumblr slobs have the attention span of a dead goldfish.

Before you @ me, I count myself among you lot. Why the hell do you think I’m still here?

[master-sass-blast]

Strong as Stone --Part Forty-Two.

Welcome back! Sorry for the brief hiatus; depression was kicking my ass (still is, but I’m determined to move forward), but now I’m back and

GOOD LORD I HAVE MADE SOME ANGST. WOW.

So, uh, last time we learned that M’Baku and Okoye are going to have a baby! Yay! How wonderful!

This time, we get to see the pre-stages of Dewani’s trial --and it gets angsty. Whooooo boy.

This chapter is rated T for the following: heavy angst, discussions of death, and angst. Angst angst angst.

Pairings: Okoye x M’Baku and Shuri x OC.

Yupp. Angst heavy update. You’ve been warned.

(Side note: I had to edit the title twice because I got the wrong number. The fuck is wrong with me?)

@the-last-hair-bender, @skysynclair19

Not every fight you face will be one you can control. There are times when you are the game master, and there are times where you are merely a piece on the board.

It’s hard to be a piece on the board when you know the stakes are high, because doing your best will never feel like enough --especially if you lose.

There is no magic answer, my dears, for avoiding the fear or the loss. All you can do is put one foot in front of the other.

Sometimes, moving forward is the only answer.

“This will be so much easier once the rail system is finished.”

Okoye couldn’t help but smile as she carefully --expertely--piloted her ship through the mountain range that led to the Jabari lands. “Is that so?”

“Don’t act like it won’t be!” Shuri said with a laugh, momentarily pausing her pacing around the cabin of the craft. “Just sit back and ride. It’ll be shorter, too.”

“Shortest distance between two places is a straight line,” T’Challa agreed without looking up from the book he was reading.

They were headed to the Jabari lands so that they could prepped for Dewani’s impending trial; they’d all have to give testimony in defense of the Chief’s sister --which they were all willing to do, no questions asked--and were flying out a week early so they could get a sense of what would be required of them and how the trial would proceed.

As far as Okoye was concerned --as far as they all were concerned--it was a sham. As soon as the trial started, F’Tendi’s history of abuse would come out, and that’d be the end of it. The curmudgeon would hang himself on his own rope, and Dewani would be freed from her uncle’s looming, oppressive presence.

Shuri, however, was nervous. She’d started pacing the perimeter of the cabin as soon as they’d taken off and hadn’t stopped for almost an hour.

Okoye knew the princess was young, and that youth could lend itself to restlessness and worry, but she also knew that Shuri was remarkably level-headed --and that if there was anyone who would have an inside eye on how the trial was shaping up, it was Shuri; she was Dewani’s girlfriend and confident, after all.

So, if Shuri was nervous, there had to be a reason for it… right?

You’ll find out one way or another, Okoye told herself as she steered her ship through a narrow pass. For now, focus on making it to the Jabari lands in one piece.

There was, in fact, a reason for Shuri’s nervous energy.

A very large, very --figuratively--sticky one.

According to the elder representing Dewani’s case --since M’Baku was the chief of the tribe he couldn’t present her case himself, so it had been delegated to a trusted advisor--most of F’Tendi’s charges were superfluous. Homosexuality wasn’t a crime under Hanuman’s tenaments, and F’Tendi’s abuse towards Dewani over her orientation was grounds for his own expulsion from the tribe.

Rescuing Adesina from the cult territory, however, was more than enough to land Dewani in hot water.

“She was dying!” Shuri snapped once she’d processed the information. “I’ve got more than enough medical records to prove--”

“And we will definitely be relying on those records as physical evidence, your Highness,” the elder said evenly, “but the point still remains: entering the cult territory is expressly forbidden. And, given that Sister Dewani ventured there many times and interacted with a member of the cult, she can be tried for expulsion.”

“Adesina was a victim --is a survivor--of heinous, horrific physical abuse!”

“Again, the physical evidence you have will be very handy in proving that.”

“So what’s the issue, then? Why are we even worried about Dewani’s rescue mission?” Shuri exclaimed with a scowl. “It was a goodwill mission! She risked her own life and standing to save someone else --someone that she didn’t know, that by all means should’ve been inconsequential to her. Why isn’t her compassion--”

T’Challa placed a hand on his younger sister’s shoulder. “I think the elder is trying to get to that point, but they do need the opportunity to get a word in edgewise.”

“Your Highness, you were present when Dewani asked Adesina to aid in the battle against Thanos, correct?”

Shuri’s narrowed. “What does the battle have anything to do with… anything? Thanos was trying to destroy half the world. Dewani was trying to help save it.”

“According to certain testimonies, Dewani had prior knowledge of Adesina’s powers and asked her to use them against Thanos.”

Okoye felt her heart sink. Shit.

Rescuing Adesina could easily be spun as a goodwill mission --primarily because that’s exactly what it had been. But encouraging Adesina to use her powers?

You don’t have to belong to the tribe to see where encouraging a demon to use their powers might come across as blasphemous.

“Well, we all saw Adesina use her powers when HYDRA attacked the palace,” Shuri reasoned. “Technically, there’s no legitimate way to establish that Dewani had any prior knowledge of Adesina’s powers before then. And, given the severity of the fight we were facing with Thanos, we needed all the help we could get; Adesina’s inclusion is practically in consequential.”

“Perhaps in the logistical scheme of things, but inciting a person to use dark magics is still considered an act of blasphemy,” the elder said with a small, somewhat amused smile. “Though, I might ask you to help present the case. You seem to have all the arguments formulated already.”

“Given that asking for Adesina’s help was an act of blasphemy regardless of how we look at things, what does that mean for Dewani?” T’Challa asked.

“The context of the situation might be enough to sway the council into pardoning her, especially of Adesina is truly repentant of her upbringing.”

“And if it’s not?” Okoye asked.

“She’d just be banished,” Shuri interjected. “Right?”

The elder grimaced. “Given that Adesina is a legitimate conduit of Ravana, no. Inciting the use of dark magics on that scale is ground for execution.”

Okoye’s eyes widened as Shuri let out a horrified “What?” “Isn’t that a little severe? She was heinously abused by her uncle for years and lost her brother in the fight with Thanos only a handful of weeks ago. And she only asked for Adesina’s help to try and save the world!”

“The law is the law. We can only hope that the council will be merciful and see Dewani’s choice as an act of youthful foolishness, rather than act of malicious defiance.”

T’Challa grabbed Shuri’s hand, effectively cutting the teen off before she could go on a tirade. “How can we help ensure that outcome?”

“Attesting to Dewani’s character and commitment to her tribe will be important --and providing testimony about F’Tendi’s mistreatment towards her. He’ll be presenting the case against her, and the worse of a light we can paint him in, the better Dewani’s chances are.”

Shuri stood up abruptly and darted out of the room. “I need to see Dewani.”

“It’s alright,” the elder said when T’Challa got up to go after her. “We have all week to prepare, and trying to cram everything in now isn’t going to help.”

Okoye nodded, then stood when T’Challa did. I need to speak with M’Baku.

M’Baku and Dewani were out in one of the gardens, sitting together on one of the many benches that dotted the green space. Dewani was curled up in her brother’s lap --as much as she could be, she was almost T’Challa’s height now and almost the King’s size as well--and had her face buried in his neck. M’Baku had his arms wrapped around his sister, and he looked like he’d just seen the face of death.

They know, Okoye realized. They know she could die.

Dewani popped out of her brother’s lap as soon as she saw Shuri, and then she was slumping against her girlfriend, heaving ragged sobs.

Okoye slipped past them to get to M’Baku. She held him as tightly as he held her, pressing kisses against his chest. “I’m so sorry, my love.”

“I’ve worked so hard to protect her--”

“I know.”

“--and her good intentions could get her killed.”

Okoye grimaced as she felt her throat constrict with emotion. “I know.”

M’Baku let her go and looked off to the side, away from everyone else, as he blinked rapidly. “If I-- if I had adopted her sooner, there might’ve not even been a trial. I would’ve known about her orientation sooner, handled things myself, and all this could’ve been handled quietly. She’d be safe.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Okoye insisted quietly as she rubbed her hands up and down his arms.

“Chief M’Baku,” T’Challa said as he walked up to them. “I’m so sorry.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Is there--” T’Challa paused, grimaced, then continued. “Is there anything I can do to help? Anything that might… prevent an execution order?”

Can he use his status as King to interfere so that Dewani’s guaranteed to stay safe, one way or another, Okoye translated mentally.

M’Baku smiled bitterly and shook his head. “I’m afraid not. It’s out of both our hands. We can only hope that the council judging her is lenient.”

Okoye clenched her teeth together as she watched Dewani and Shuri hold each other. Bast, please let it be so.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.” M’Baku was sitting on the edge of his bed, head in his hands. “If it was just F’Tendi’s abuse and her orientation in question, I wouldn’t be worried--”

“Things have changed,” Okoye said softly as she knelt in front of him. “I get it.”

“The elder presenting Dewani’s case is worried that F’Tendi will use her relationship with Shuri to prove her lack of devotion to Jabari tradition and that she encouraged Adesina to use her powers to bring about the apocalypse.”

“That’s a load of bullshit. Anyone will be able to see through that.”

M’Baku shook his head. “My people are terrified of the cultists. Different beliefs and practices aside, there’s a long history of hatred and hurt there. I’m scared it won’t take much for them to transfer that to Dewani, misplaced as it is.”

“M’Baku, look at me.” Okoye cupped his face in her hands when he did. “Dewani’s going to make it out of this. She will. As soon as the elder representing her case starts talking about F’Tendi’s history of abuse, he won’t have a leg to stand on. He’ll be laughed out of the room.”

M’Baku sighed heavily before drawing her into his arms. “I wish I could have your faith.”

“Things will work out. They will.” They have to.

M’Baku pressed his lips against her forehead, then pressed one of his hands against her stomach. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired, but alright. I’ve already had to cut back on my coffee intake.”

“Horrors. Have you thought about any name choices?”

Okoye chuckled. “Isn’t it a bit early for that? We’ve only known we’re having a baby for a couple weeks now.”

M’Baku was silent for a moment, then said in a trembling voice, “I was thinking… if we had a girl --if Dewani doesn’t--”

Okoye wrapped her arms around his neck and held him as he buried his face into her shoulder and sobbed. “It won’t come to that. We aren’t going to have to do that.” She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt her own tears start their escape. Bast, please don’t make us do that.

[thebicanary]

seriously big spoilers, don’t read on if you haven’t seen or don’t want to know about endgame

i’m pleased with endgame, i really loved it and i didn’t realise that is apparently an unpopular opinion until i got onto old tungle dot com here. everyone i know who was also at a midnight launch was happy with it, people came out of it extremely satisfied so... idk. but here’s why i loved it:

- it was funny. and i have issues with the comedy and comedic timing of a lot of marvel movies not giving time for dramatic moments to fucking breathe before going into a joke or a wise crack but both infinity war and endgame balanced the comedy and drama well imo

- let’s not lie to ourselves, it was complete fanservice for a good chunk of the movie. but it was the best kind of fanservice. there were so many moments people fucking CHEERED AND CLAPPED in the cinema when i saw it, like cap wielding mjolnir against thanos, when the avengers and the armies of wakanda and so many systems thanos destroyed came to help fuck him up, on your left, pepper in the rescue armour, the mcu ladies gathering for a big showdown while carol is transporting the stones etc.

- tony’s death is utterly heartbreaking, especially in light of him and pepper having a child and tony trying to forge a life with a family in the wake of the snap. but it was a satisfying and fitting end for his time in the mcu. this all began with iron man in 2008, this all began with tony and rdj, it would not have felt right for anyone else to defeat thanos in the end, and i think we all knew defeating thanos would require the sacrifice or a life or two. most expected it to be steve, but tony fits better imo. his decision to use the stones to save the world while knowing his body would not be physically capable of handling it was heroic, and heartbreaking, and he got a beautiful send off. It was a great way of honoring tony and rdj’s contributions to the franchise and i was sobbing.

- i’m actually glad carol was not the big weapon to be used to defeat thanos in the movie like was teased in promo material. the fact that the majority of fighting against thanos was from the big three original tentpoles of the mcu (tony, steve, thor) working together was exhilarating, satisfying, and ultimately how it should have gone. i also like that they’ve established carol as not just a defender of earth - that the snap affected many other planets and she is choosing to help all of them as best she can, not just earth. she only properly comes back to earth when thanos arrives with his army to help with the fight. would i have liked more of her present after enjoying her so much in her solo outing? yeah, but this was the end of 22 movies, a lot of characters deserved and needed time, and she is the newest addition. it’s fair that she didn’t get too much focus when this was essentially a love letter and goodbye to characters who have been around in the mcu (NOT THE COMICS, OK. YOU GOTTA TREAT THE MCU AS OBJECTIVELY SEPARATE BECAUSE A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE WATCHING THESE MOVIES WITH LITTLE TO NO COMIC KNOWLEDGE, THEY’RE ATTACHED TO THE MCU, NOT NECESSARILY MARVEL COMICS). also the new haircut is big sexy and i hope they keep it.

- BIG UNPOPULAR OPINION TIME: i liked steve’s ending, fucking sue me. people saying he abandoned bucky, bucky clearly knew he as at least CONSIDERING remaining in the past, if he had not outright told bucky that was his plan. steve choosing to retire from the fight makes sense for his arc. people hating him for going back and not doing anything with hydra/shield/bucky/etc. did not pay attention to the (admittedly flimsy) laws of time travel established. steve could not go back and change their pasts to directly affect the present, it would simply create an alternate timeline. THIS IS WHY THEY HAD TO DO A SECOND SNAP IN THE FIRST PLACE. STOPPING THANOS FROM DOING THE ORIGINAL SNAP WOULD NOT CHANGE ANYTHING IN THE TIMELINE THEY RETURNED TO, BECAUSE IT WOULD JUST BE A BRANCH FROM THAT MOMENT. the whole reason the stones had to go back in the first place was so those extra timelines weren’t created. it’s not hard to theorise and imagine steve actually did save bucky and stop hydra if you want to, but by the laws established in the movie, it would not directly impact the timeline of the already established movies. feel free to imagine that old steve was from another timeline where he did all that - but he unfortunately can’t save the bucky standing next to sam and bruce there. him going back to live out the rest of his life in peace with the woman he loves does not erase what he has done in all previous movies. it gives him a fucking break and allows him to do one thing for himself and his happiness that largely has little consequence, and means we get to see an end to steve as cap without him dying. i’m ignoring the icky sharon situation simply because it hasn’t been acknowledged anyway since civil war and it wasn’t properly built up to before then anyway so fuck it. and peggy gets to be happy too - whether she would have been happy or not without steve, does it really matter? there’s a timeline where she gets to be happy with him like she did want at least at one point, so fuck it.

- on that note as well the ancient one didn’t say changing the past would doom the alternate timelines, she said taking the time stone from them would doom them in that timeline, because they wouldn’t have the time stone anymore, it would never be given to strange and he would never be able to defeat dormammu. which is WHY. THE AVENGERS WERE GONNA TAKE ALL THE STONES BACK TO THOSE POINTS IN TIME, SO THAT THINGS CONTINUE ON THE COURSE THEY ORIGINALLY DID

- as with anything involving this much time travel PLOTHOLES ABOUND but i can largely ignore them just for the fun the movie had with it, and i don’t care enough to really see them resolved. nebula killed her past self but is still around? the thanos dusted at the end is actually past thanos as are all his lackies and so won’t be around to create infinity war which is required for endgame to happen? fuck it, i guess it’s just another branching timeline. idc, love karen gillan as nebula can’t wait to see her as a permanent gotg. thanos getting dusted was a nice satisfying fu. loki just up and disappeared with the space stone when they failed to get it from the avengers point in time (LITERALLY Y’ALL TWISTING YOUR NICKERS ABOUT STEVE AND IGNORING THAT THIS WOULD ERASE LOKI BEING THERE FOR DARK WORLD BECAUSE HE WOULDN’T BE THERE FOR THOR TO TAKE HIM HOME, AND SUBSEQUENTLY THEN NOT BE THERE FOR RAGNAROK.) but again, this is a movie that is largely serving as fan service/a love letter, so i’m electing to ignore it. this is a superhero movie, for gods sake, i don’t need it to make sense 100% of the time. we don’t question a lot of the other rules this universe has established in the past, and also in this movie (like y’all they just up and survived thanos bombing the avengers compound til it was dust. CLINT SURVIVED THAT. HE’S A HUMAN HE HAS NO SUPERSUIT OR POWERS. HE SHOULD’VE DIED. BUT AGAIN. DO YOU GIVE A FUCK THAT THAT IS IGNORED? NO. BUT YOU WANNA GET PISSED ABOUT STEVE GETTING A HAPPY ENDING).

- clint finally having plot relevance and a good storyline in an avengers movie hell yes. he opens the movie and it’s a great way to frame just how fucked the world was thanks to thanos after infinity war. his decision to go on a killing spree is kinda understandable - thanos’ snap didn’t differentiate between good and bad, he’s bitter that his entire family was wiped out but asshole murderers and drug dealers still exist? it’s an approach to vigilantism that i enjoy unpicking in superhero stuff, it’s why i like heroes like red hood.

- it’s a shame nat had to die, and that her and gamora won’t be coming back from the soul stone sacrifices (unless they pull a “actually they got brought back too” thing later. star lord was running a search for gamora at the end after all). but makes sense narratively that she was the one to go rather than clint. he had his family, it would just be one more depressing thing to have his family come back with him not there and nat the one to break it. seeing her go is sad, for a character that largely unfortunately hasn’t got much focus or (well written) development in the avengers movies, but it was a fitting end to her whole “wanting to wipe the red from her ledger” deal, and her and clint’s friendship was beautiful.

- i love hulk!bruce. i love bruce embracing the hulk, not being afraid of him, or his nature as the hulk anymore. it was a nice way to end his arc too.

- ‘nother unpopular opinion, i don’t hate how thor’s arc went either. i would love him to be the leader of asgard, and maybe that can be his future. i’m disappointed it’s not him now, but i think it’s a reaction to the unexpected popularity ragnarok got, and as a consequence that his mcu character got where previously his solo outings had been considered some of the weaker instalments. there’s not much big superhero action to be had in him ruling new asgard, but the potential for another thor outing, or a stint with the guardians, offers more chance for marvel to rake in some more millions with his popularity. doesn’t mean he can’t become ruler of asgard later, and i hope that will be his fate eventuality. but it also nicely rounds out the core three passing down legacies - steve leaves his legacy as captain america with sam, tony leaves his legacy as iron man with the ironfam and peter, thor leaves his legacy as ruler of asgard with valkyrie. we know peter continues on as spidey in his next movie, rhodey will likely at least have a supporting role in future avengers stuff/other heroes’ movies going forward, sam will likely be captain america in the sam/bucky tv show, and valkyrie was a popular side character with potential for stuff going forward (that rumoured lady sif show could be about new asgard or involve valkyrie in some form?). thor probably got the least out of the core three, but i think it’s because they now want to keep the potential for more thor in the future.

- the final fight was epic, and it put into context the line up for the future of the mcu we have and how exciting it is (spidey, captain marvel, black panther, doctor strange (never thought i’d say that but infinity war and endgame really made me like him and the mystic arts element of the mcu more), potential legacy characters like sam, rhodey/pepper, valkyrie, wanda, because i don’t think her story is done yet, the guardians, scott and hope).

- the final credits with the original 6 avengers getting special sliders with the actors signatures was a real nice touch i got goosebumps.

- it was a good way to wipe the slate semi-clean for a next generation of the mcu, without completely killing off and erasing all that came before. the mcu isn’t like comics where it can just perpetually exist in an undefined era where characters don’t age for years on end, there do need to be definitive ends to some of these characters and their arcs unless you just wanna recast them every 5 years so they can remain ageless.