#the collapse of too many markets is coming
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dreamertf · 2 days ago
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/hello! Hope you enjoy this one, im gonna start tagging ai as #ai tf so if you dont want to see any ai images in your tfs you can block that tag. Ill also be putting a disclaimer at the top of each post that has ai.
/contains ai images & video
/includes; muscle growth, suggestion tf, straight to gay tf
"Yeah, Im feeling fine!"
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Jason was tired of how weak and scrawny his best friend Max stayed throughout their time in high school and now, college. So he had given Max a new black market roid that promised to "make him a bro." He crushed up a few of the pills without looking at the instructions and baked it into a cookie he gave Max.
Jason wasn't so bad himself, 6'4" and muscular, with a charming face. Little did he know that his height that he had since he was a sophmore in highschool would be changing.
Jason stared at Max as his skin started to ripple and shift.
"Are you sure?"
"Never better, bro."
Max ripped his shirt off as his muscles swelled. A deep canyon of rippling abs leading up to two giant slabs of muscle. He flexed and stretched as his biceps filled out.
"Sorry, im feeling a little hot." Max said non chalantly. His muscles continued to grow as he flexed them.
"Oh my god it worked"
"What worked?"
"Oh nothing, dont worry about it."
"Ok brah"
Their surrounds changed from school as it turned into a living room, a living room Jason had been in so many times before, Max's living room. All of a sudden, Jason felt a pull towards Max. He couldn't stop looking at him, like literally. He traced Max's outline as each muscle became more prominent. He stared at the giant as he grew taller and taller, but something wasn't right. It was like everything around Jason was getting taller too.
Unfortunately, Jason hadn't looked into how the roid actually worked. On the back of the small blue box, it read ;
Are you tired of being weak and nerdy? We got you covered. We believe the human mind is a powerful tool, and our Bro Pill helps you to use it to your full potential! Not only does it shift your mindset to be more focused on sports and the bros, but it also changes various other aspects of your life in order to fit your new you! We recommend taking one pill weekly until desired affects.
WARNING: taking more than one pill a week may intensify the effect you have on other people
Jason panicked as he felt himself losing muscle and height. His features softened as he turned from a rugged man into a young 20 something twink. It looks like the god of Jason's creation has type cast him as his twinky boyfriend. Making Max a jock apparently didn't override his sexuality.
"What are you doing to me?"
His voice was still deep, too deep for someone like him.
"Make that voice a little higher, and can you please quit being so worried brah? Be like me, stop thinkin as much little guy huhuhu."
A wave of relief came over Jason as he collapsed onto the couch. His body continued to shrink as he lost his height, becoming about 5'6" compared to Max's new 6'8". His musculature toned down more, not as defined anymore.
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"Whatever you say babe" Jason giggled, his voice much higher and more flamboyant.
"Thats my pretty boy." Conversely, Max's voice became much deeper and demanding. Jason felt himself starting to get hornier.
"I'm so happy i couldfind you. Your ass was like made for my dick huhuhu" Max said as he spread his legs wide as his pouch grew bigger. He had one more explosive growth as his shoulder broadened and his pecs filled out more. Jason shifted in his seat as his ass grew more plump and muscular.
"What do you mean?" Jason feigned innocence, turning the ditziness all the way up.
"Come here and I'll show you, slut."
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tteokdoroki · 1 month ago
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✎ᝰ. OCT 1ST ★ BONDAGE - satoru gojo .ᐟ
[CHAPTER ONE RAPUNZEL] satoru gojo as flynn rider + bondage. once upon a time, a girl trapped in a tower with nothing but her extremely lavish, long hair as company decides
fuck it and sleeps with a handsome stranger to get what she wants ( 9.1K ).
✧ chapter contents - minors, blank and ageless blogs do not interact ! nsfw, heavy smut, rapunzel!au, strangers to lovers, role reversal & switching, orgasm control, sensory deprivation, edging, thigh riding, spit kink, outer-course, begging, handjobs (m!recieving), reader's hair has blonde streaks but colour remains ambigous, rapunzel + fem!reader, flynn rider!satoru gojo.
✧ fairy godmother's note - yippieee!! kickstarting spooky season with this hefty boy. we have our glorious blue eyed king welcoming you all to our fourth annual tteokdoroki kinktober - i hope you all like what's planned this year and enjoy this piece to start with !! kissies hehe <3 - m.list ⋆ kinktober m.list ⋆ taglist ☆
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“you’re going to take me to see the floating lights. or else.” 
“or else, what, honey?” 
ever since satoru gojo climbed the wooden lattice sewn to your tower by blooming, overgrown weeds and winding vines effectively invading the safest space in the world ( according to mother ), he’s been a pain in your fucking ass. when he’d first arrived, a towering and unfamiliar figure creeping about the main floor — your heart had dropped to the base of your stomach, pulsing rapidly with fear while he scoped the scene. you’d never come across a man before, mother had made sure of that, warning you of their cruelty and ugliness both inside and out. except satoru looked nothing like the descriptions your mother had left you with, you’d say that the man was stunning. not that you had much to compare him to.
his hair was a crisp white, appearing soft to the touch much like the snowfall that came in the winter months (something about playing in it. contrastingly, his eyes were a beautiful shade of baby blue — eerily similar to that of a summer sky free of cloudiness. he was too good looking to be human, for it to be natural, almost as if satoru had strolled straight out of one of the many fairytale books mother purchased for you from the markets. although, over the years you’ve probably read each book cover to cover a million times and not one fictional prince could even match this stranger’s sheer beauty.
though for now, this handsome stranger’s looks would get him nowhere with you. strangers always came with dangers, and since all you’d known throughout your years of living were these four walls, you weren’t going to take any chances with satoru and whatever problems he’d have brought with him.  initially and out of an unfamiliar fear, you’d  taken the nearest weapon to you (a frying pan) and cracked it right over his skull — watching the hunk of a human collapse to his knees and eventually black right out. if mother were around, she would have been proud. you’d tried not to feel any guilt trying to stuff his limp, lengthy limbs in your closet or under your bed because
 well, what business does this stranger have with you? what the fuck is a man doing here? how did he get here? why is he here? 
your whole life you’ve been convinced that the outside word was treacherous and that you had to stay inside, where it was safe, because people were horrible and selfish — intent on hunting you down for the powers that lay intertwined in the coils of your hair. those specific streaks that glow a valuable gold between the usual  colour of your locks whenever you sang. mother would style them the way you liked every night — so long as you sung for her. you weren’t about to let mother down, nor risk the little life you built here together.
but, as it turns out, satoru wasn’t looking for the magic sprouting from your crown and entangled in your hair. it almost seemed like he had no idea about them either. rather, the moonlit haired man was looking for a place to lay low and hide after being chased through the forest for his satchel that seemingly carries something valuable. a crown
 jewels that have a weight familiar to your head and sparkle like something you’ve seen before in a distant memory. 
“come to think of it, honey, where is my satchel?” cocking his head to the side, sky blue eyes peer up at you with a charm that sends a foreign swarm of butterflies ripping through your stomach.
you frown, accusingly pointing your weapon of choice at gojo’s head and puffing out your chest to appear as intimidating as possible while giving him your name. “i’ve hidden it in a secure location—“ 
“it’s in that pot
isn’t it?” 
as best as he can in the handcuffs he can call locks of your hair, the tower’s newfound infiltrator gestures towards a colourful pot in the corner of tne room. what? all you could think of in the moment is restraining him against the chair and why waste perfectly good rope when you’ve got such length to your own hair? the pot was the closest spot too.you knock him out swiftly after his guess, not giving gojo the satisfaction of finding his precious purse.
now, with the satchel hidden once more, satoru gojo semi-concussed and conscious once again — you realise that for the first time in your life, you have some kind of leverage to bargain with. you need someone to take you to see the floating lights that illuminate the sky on your birthday, every year. satoru needs his
 crown? that so obviously doesn’t belong to him. of course, he would have stolen it, mother always said men were no good and always take what isn’t theirs (oh the irony). nonetheless, it  was the perfect match of desires.
this way, you could prove to mother that you weren’t weak like she said you were. that you could cope by yourself and go explore the outside world. it wouldn’t be how it usually is with mother — where you ask for something and instantly get denied because she believes you to be too naive to function in a world outside of her. not this time. this time you have a bargaining chip. a satchel containing a valuable so rare that satoru was willing to risk his life for.
your captive wriggles against the restraints of your hair, woven around the chair like tough knots of a rope to keep him at bay. while the silver haired fox may not have canines like your mother suggested, you have no idea how powerful he could be. contrastingly, gojo finds your hair to be soft against his skin, ticklish along the veins of his arms despite how secure it has him strapped down. he’s forced to listen and to follow your every move across the floor plan, guided by the strength of your hair tugging him about.
“i have a proposition for you. come, look.” drawing back a curtain to reveal a painting from earlier — you recite your plan to your intruder. tomorrow evening, he will take you to see the floating lights 
 ahem
lanterns that drift across the sky on your birthday every year and then, return you safely to the tower before mother returns. it’s an easy deal.  “i won’t give your satchel back until then,” you stutter out fiercely, adjusting your height and the grip you have on the cool metal frying pan. “you won’t get it back until you’ve taken me to see the lights.” 
“oh whatever, i can just take it back, honey,” satoru goads, cockily ripping his head back in patronising laughter. even though the melodious sound makes irritation bubble hot underneath your skin, you can’t help the way your eyes are immediately drawn to the man’s Adam’s apple as it bobs delectably along with his chuckles. “as soon as i get out of this
hair? hair.” pale blue eyes flicker up to your face when gojo fixes himself in the seat he’s fixed to. they bore deeply into your soul, reading you with as much ease as you have flicking through the same three books that you own. you feel the weight of your hair shift around satoru’s shoulders as he gestures down to it nearly wrapped around his bulging forearms (not that you’d been paying attention). “this is kinda freaky, hon. don’cha think?” a slow sexy smirk tugs at the corners of gojo’s plush, glossy lips, or rather, he smoulders attempting to woo you into giving him what he wants. “you don’t seem like the freaky type, sweetheart.”
once more, a frustrated flame flares up in the middle of your chest — you’d feel offended for sure if you know what gojo meant. “freaky?” 
“as in like
 dubious?” he grins in response, running the pink tip of his tongue over his straight, perfectly white teeth. “this is basically bondage, yanno?”
you blink once. confused.
“improper?” 
nothing, not one of these synonyms or explanations from the smiling idiot makes any more sense to you — bringing you to tilt your head to the side, innocently like a puppy that makes satoru laugh once more. this time it actually does something to you. sends weird butterflies fluttering in your tummy.
with a shake of snow white locks and an inhale that sounds amused as it goes, your hostage clicks his tongue — letting those cooling blue eyes slink up and down your virtuous frame . the swell of his lower lip trapped between pretty perfect teeth. “as in sexy, sweet thing.” satoru’s sickly sweet and powdered sugar coo slips through one ear and out of the other like hot, viscous molasses, you immediately shudder — flustered down to the meat on your bones, curling in on yourself as your faux intimidation tactics melt from your body and slip between the floorboards beneath your bare feet. “gosh! you’re so innocent,” his gaze rips away from you, and you fight back an unexpected whimper, missing the intruder’s gaze on you. “guess that’s what being trapped in a place like this does to a darlin’ thing like you. you wouldn’t last a day out there.” 
he’s patronising you. speaking to you as though you’re no more than a child. however, being talked over and down on is all you’ve ever known, especially from your mother
 but the way he acts reminds you of all of the advice she’s bestowed upon you over the years. mother tells you all the time, how naive and silly you are. how people will try and take advantage of your looks and your kindness. and so you decide to use your mother’s advice — if all humans, act like dogs, you’ll throw one a bone and wait for them to come back for more. 
steeling yourself, you use a loop of your hair to drag gojo’s chair toward you — positioning him like a puppet beneath your cold, hard stare. he man spreads on the chair as best as he can in his restraints, leaning back while his seat tilts backwards on a forty-five degree angle — drawing your eyes from his face to his thick thighs momentarily. “you are going to take me to see the lights. it’s a promise, not a threat,” you whisper into the air that buzzes with tension between you both, leaning down and pinning gojo in place. you’re so close, so little proximity between your faces, that you can practically feel his warm breath lingering on the damp skin of your lips. “and i promise, i’ll make this worth your while.” 
your voice lowers an octave, smooth and buttery and just right. like a snare for a wild white rabbit or bait on a hook — it peaks satoru’s interest, illicit thoughts and desires flashing behind his pupils like lightbulb ideas. “oh, honey. i can make you see stars alright,” he looks up at you then, with an expression of heat and thirst, dragging you into a pool of shining blue eyes that you barely manage to free yourself from. drowning in his attention once more. you stand over him proudly, between his legs smugly and all he wants to do is wipe the winning smile from your face and show you a real good time. 
if he could, gojo would reach up and grab at your hips possessively, if he could he’d cup your neck and let his fingers toy with your baby hairs to pull you into a sloppy kiss. he can’t help the way white hot desire spreads through his system like throwing gasoline on an open fire and pile of wood. he grins mischievously, and in response, a brand new sensation stirs within your lower tummy — blistering hot as it zips between your chest and your core.
you sense the change in the atmosphere and gojo does too. both of you dying to scratch the itch on the part of your brain that is the control centre for lust. but you remind yourself what this is truly about, tell yourself not to get lost in the haze of it all, and will yourself to throw a loop of your hair over daring blue eyes like a blindfold — acting fast to secure a seat in an unsuspecting satoru gojo’s vacant lap.
he grunts in surprise, flinches when he realises one out of five of his senses are down. “what the fuck—?” gojo spits, cocky smirk melting away. 
“shhh,” you taunt the man under your breath, leaning forward so that your voice coasts over the shell of his ear like a summery breeze. it invokes a sense of pride within your chest when your hostage tilts his head to follow your voice — his own breathing erratic and increasingly shallow with how he begins to struggle against your restraint on him. “you won’t get a chance to make me see those lights. not if i get you to see them first.” 
in truth, you've got nothing planned. you’ve never been in the same room as a man, let alone pleasure them the way that you’ve read in books you’d borrowed from your mother. 
the reality of the scene before you is daunting, giving up part of your virtue just to prove a point and get to see the floating lights like you’ve always wanted
but at the same time — it’s your one chance at freedom that’s at stake here. “you don’t sound so sure about that, sweetheart,” satoru taunts you with the peaks in his voice coltishly high. he continues to wrestle against the restraints of your hair — he’s strong and with a little more force he could escape but it’s like he senses your hesitancy. 
like he knows for certain you won’t make good on your promise. just like mother. 
that much is evident in the way his smooth, glossy lips tick upwards into an arrogant smirk. 
your determination to prove him wrong grows more and more by the second, so before you succumb to your nerves again, you let your free hand claw with way over gojo’s right shoulder — steadying him, forcing him to sit still as you make a comfortable seat out of his widespread lap. he tenses at first, unable to see you move, but his grin remains, you have no idea if it’s because he’s proud of you or doubting you — but the expression only serves to piss you off even more.
“what’s next, sweetheart?” 
a strangled growl is your only reply, the most menacing sound you can muster as you lift head upwards and his pool of loose silver-moon locks fall out of place. with a shuddering breath and a hold of gojo’s restraints, you press your lips to his in a shaky kiss — still unsure of where your lips go and what to do with your teeth and how to move your tongue. the captive beneath you knows it and takes advantage of your weakness, nipping at the swell of your lower lip gently — hardly enough to draw blood. satoru is testing you, telling you to be brave and take from him. prove to him that you’re willing to do whatever you want for him to make your silly childhood dream come true.
he allows you to fight back, despite this being your idea, lets you forcefully grab his angular jaw and capture him in a proper spit-swapping kiss. if he really wanted to, he’d find a way to escape from the tight bounds of your lengthy hair. but he doesn’t. gojo lets you swallow him down; push your tongue exploratively into his mouth and lap at his foreign flavour. he wants your tongue to take dominance from his, pink appendages sloppily rolling over one another, slipping and sliding as you take and take from satoru.
the kiss, already uncoordinated from your lack of experience, becomes hurried and hungry and wet the more you steal from satoru. you take and take and take until his glass his half full and his brain slowly becomes devoid of all logical thought. he comes the prey to your predatory mouth, missing the way your hand frees his pale cheek and fingers fluidly traverse down his broad shoulders, over his marble sculpted body to find purchase in the belt loops of his bothersome pants. now curious, you feel your way down the front of the fabric and grin into the hot and heavy kiss when satoru’s lets out a breathy, staggered moan into your open mouth. 
his swelling erection twitches in response to your inquisitive hand, slender hips involuntarily jumping upwards.
“fuuuck,” satoru chuckles airily, words featherlight as they breeze along your lips. his head keens upwards too, chasing the weight of your hot sticky tongue in his mouth — desperate to be closer, craving the feeling of your nose knocking against his and your breath on his cheek from just how pressed up against each other you are. “fuck baby that’s it. kiss me more, touch me harder
” he’s addicted before he even knows what you have to offer, what he’s getting himself into. if you could see his eyes from under his binding, you’d bare witness to pleading blue pools swirling with a painful desire as he twitches beneath you, wriggling his wrists to get free. “c’mon, touch me.” he adds between sloppy pecks.
backing your face out of satoru’s reach, you break the drooly lip lock — letting your lungs fill with oxygen it had once missed, while your heaving chest syncs up with the intruder you have strapped  to a chair. you pull away, connected to the man by not just your hair, but a string of saliva glazed across your lips — cautiously, your tongue dart out to break the the between your eager mouths, two sets of uneven panting filling the quiet air. 
the two of you remain unmoving and unwilling to back down while you catch your breath; but your hand remains in the centre of gojo’s lap — rocking it back and forth, back and forth over his growing bulge. you stare at him, observing the reactions that he tries so hard to control. little twitches to his pink swollen lips and the flare of his nostrils whenever your palm makes contact with a sensitive spot. all this waiting is agony, the white haired captive might die if he doesn’t get more from you soon. 
satoru whines impatiently as a result, knowing full well what you want and you won’t ask him again — not when you’re tauntingly squeezing his cock for a second, third, fourth, fifth time. he doesn’t fucking know — overwhelmed by waves of lust-infested blood rushes to its blistering hot tip. “fuck! okay, okay fine. i’ll take you! just—“ the chair rattles from the force of gojo’s struggle against your restraints, which hardly covers the low moan that escapes from between his plush glossy lips while his length pulses against the inside of his pants. “just fuck me. touch me. anything.”
something about his tone being all desperate and high activates a part of you that you never even knew existed. a part of you that knows what to do next
 even if you haven’t acted it out, you’ve enough books to remember what the erotic ones say.
only then, after he pleads, do you use your shaky hands to tug down the garment — pulling them towards his knees as best as you can against your hair until the button pops free. the zipper follows easily and the waistband falls away from starlight skin and slender hips. everything gets hotter; any fresh air between your bodies becoming tinged with the need for sex as the scorching ghost of your fingertips leaves burn marks against satoru’s pelvis, and sends heatwaves of ardour from the base of his spine to the top of his skull.
satoru’s squirming pauses while he waits with uneven breathing for your next move — tongue pressing up against the barricade of his white teeth to prevent himself from taunting you further or perhaps to stop himself from belting out another pathetic set of whimpers. he wishes he could see you, those sweet innocent eyes looking down at him as you peel back the last layer of fabric stopping you from accessing his painfully hard erection. his underwear. 
when you gasp in shock, pride weaves itself between the bones that protect his heart and lungs like an uninvited weed, he knows that he’s decent. longer than he is thick, bright red at his mushroomed tip and leaky from just how turned on he is. there’s a trail of silver moon hair that leads you down a path from his belly button to the thickest part of his dick too. but oh, how satoru gojo wishes he could see.. the way you lick your lips as drool drowns your tongue, mouth watering at the sight of his length slapping against his clothed stomach while he manspreads for you. the way your pupils dilate, the colour in your eyes swallowed by a dark veil of carnality. 
this is a hunger you’ve never experienced before, a type of starvation that makes your hand lurch forward before your brain can control it, gripping satoru at the base of his milky, slender shaft. it’s the first time you’ve ever seen a cock; let alone held one between your tiny fingers — it’s much warmer than you anticipated, tacky to the touch from dribbles of precum running down from his untouched tip, but you like it. the weight, the wet sound it makes when you slightly flick your wrist around satoru. not to mention the stuttered groan he lets out, his head falling against the support of the chair and yanking slightly on the blindfold made of hair that covers his eyes.
if you weren’t sitting in his lap, you’d want him in your drooling mouth. you’d sink down to your knees like the girls in your naughty books and take him down your virgin throat, just so you could look up at satoru and watch the sweat bead down his jawline and run a track over his bobbing adam’s apple. but you’re not and you’ve got a point to prove, so you loop your hair around your other wrist to tighten his restraints and extend a thumb upward from his base to his seedy tip, jamming the pad of it through the slit where he pre forms in thick, creamy pearls. as white as those that come from an oyster.
“that’s it gorgeous, just like that
” satoru leers up at you huskily, voice tinged with neediness that he fails to mask. he seems to like the way you touch him and you’re sure to use a delicate hand when you smooth the supple pad of your thumb over the pad of his sensitive tip, rubbing his opaque precum into it sweetly. “touch me s’more? you can do it
 i know you’re shy, can hear your breathing ‘n how heavy it is. shit, you’re new at this.” saliva slows down satoru’s salacious words as he rambles to you with swollen lips and rosy cheeks, angling his head in whatever direction your breath seems to be coming from. 
he’s in tatters, destroyed by a few simple touches with his hard on smearing white across the front of his clothes. you roll your palm over his mushroomed cockhead next to test the waters and take pleasure in admiring the way he trembles, grasping at the arms of the chair you have him strapped to in order to ground himself. it’s torture for satoru to be this patient, killing him slowly from the inside out like a virus spreading across his brain and other vital organs — but it doesn’t mean you’re in any better state. practically dripping in his lap with your panties dampening more and more every time satoru so much as whimpers. past the point of being turned on by the sight of a strong, powerful man weak and blindfolded underneath you.
satoru bucks upward at your command, sucking in a breath as his sensitive, seedy slit bumps your palm once more. “s-shit
 please.”
the improper ness of the entire situation sends a zap of electricity to your swelling clit. you’ve only ever imagined being with someone like this as you have seeing the floating lights — touching yourself beneath your skirts and under your painted ceilings whenever you were brave enough. now you’re here, spread over the thick thighs of a possible thief who begs you to jerk him off. “s-shut up,” you hiss as embarrassment and  inexperience begins to shine through the deal you’ve struck with gojo, the fact that he can tell as much and still wants this has you soaked all the way through and aching for friction as well. 
you’ve never been in possession of so much power in your life. mother never let you have it. but right now, you can taste it sparking between you and gojo, smell it in the air teeming mixed with a cocktail of your arousals. in the moment you realise that the silver haired man would cling onto every one of your sugar-coated words (no matter how nervous) if it meant he got the fuck he wanted in the end. and you would get to see your lights too.
“just
 tell me what to do,” you say without realising how husky your own voice has gotten. “i promised you your crown, to make you feel good if you took me to see the lights. and i never go back on a promise. s-so tell me.” talking yourself into it and building up some more confidence, you circle over satoru’s bulbous cockhead again — gaze laser focused on the burning bright red colour as it oozes. you know that he likes it and it makes his head spin so much that he starts to fight against the restraint of your hair again. “i won’t let you go, not until this is over. so tell me what i can do to make you cum.” 
despite not being able to see his entire face, gojo’s smug smile says it all — his perfect teeth cheerily on display, contrasting with the flustered pink tint to his cheeks. “cup it, make a fist around my cock so you can jerk me off’a little bit,” a haughty moan scratches at the walls of your captive’s throat when you follow his guidance and finally grip him fully, soft and supple hands easily dwarfed by the size of him. satoru’s shaft may be a little thinner, but he’s thick enough to fill your own throat and cause a stretch to your quivering hole with his balls being round, plump and full of white hot seed saved up just for you. “christ, squeeze my base a lil’ before you get movin’,” at first contact, satoru’s thighs tremble deliciously against your mound, blood rushing to your clit and through the forked veins that spiral down his length. 
your senses are overwhelmed, he smells so good — of peppermint and a musky twang of sex act like dangerous smelling salts or fumes. you could get addicted if you weren’t careful. you’re super aware of each ridge and firm vein that decorates him and as you start to palm satoru steadily, you notice just how sticky your hand is — movements guided by the wet cream of his cock. slipping and sliding as your closed fist moves up and down, up and down, occasionally squeezing the base of him just like he asked. your knuckles brushing the soft bush of pubic hair at his pelvis. you can only imagine how everything feels for him, not being able to see at all.
the thought just barely crosses your mind — too focused on speeding up your soiled hand around gojo just to hear more of his angelic gripes and groans that rise and fall from his heaving chest. how good all of this must feel for the man without being able to see. every touch must make him tick and drip and throb achingly. he must feel weak too, completely vulnerable to anything you might do to him while blindfolded and unable to touch you because of bonds formed by your hair. 
once you set a steady rhythm to your closed fist to jerk him off with, gojo takes a breather to announce his next command — head shaking side to side with moonlight locks sticking to his forehead in an attempt to alleviate the inferno of desire spreading through of his limbs. “now spit on it,” he states bluntly, an obvious dip to the octave in his voice. you can’t possibly imagine why he’d need spit; your hand is already glossed with a shiny layer of precum, tainting your knuckles from the viscosity. 
you swallow thickly, but don’t dare stop pleasuring your captive stranger. “w-what?” 
“are you kidding me just—“ leaning forward as best as he can while held back by the strong locks of your hair, like rope around his wrists. dopamine crackles over your brain like fireworks in an enclosed space at the scene that unfolds next, satoru pursing his lips to spit onto his own milky dick — letting the frothy mix from mouth join the mess that lubes the both of you up where connected. “just spit on it, honey. thought you wanted me to feel it.”  
licking your lips, you rub down satoru’s girth far enough to drag the glob of spit down to his tender weighty balls, that pulse at your gentle touch. the feeling makes satoru’s entire body jolt like an electric shock — a gargled groan clambering out from the depths of his panting chest as his jaw goes slack and mouth falls open. “please. please spit on it, honey. god please.. need you to wet my cock. i need it so bad, promise i’ll be fucking good.” blind but with his remaining senses in tact, gojo remains largely vulnerable to your touch, his entire world tilting on one axis when you grip his dick a little harder at his request. causing a ring of white to gather where the circle of your wrist envelopes him.
at his begging. which you swear makes you gush like a small, erotic stream — your juices sloshing about in the gusset of your panties while your sex goes unattended.
so you nod obediently, tilting your head forward and parting your swollen lips to let a thick, syrupy string of your own spit ooze onto his plump and sore balls, stroking him rapidly to spread it over his creamy tip as well. your spit is contrastingly cool in comparison to the natural lubricant smeared all over your captive’s palpitating dick — causing it to grow impossibly harder. it slickens up your hand, evidence of the silver haired man’s arousal seeping through the fabric of his crumpled shirt and coils of your restrictive hair. neither of you can bring yourselves to care in the moment — all you can think to do is relish in gojo’s size.
he’s so big, you’d be lying if you said you hadn’t wondered how satoru fit entirely inside your tight hole, stretching you out in the new future — earning yourself a fresh wave of liquid lava hot essence to your ruined panties. you dare to dream onwards, picturing the azure eyed stranger fucking you against the walls of the tower in every way the man knew possible
 you have no idea what he’s capable of when untied. but the sight of him lazily thrusting into your filthied fist like it’s instinct, following it like a moth to a candle flame, is enough dream fuel to last you a lifetime. even after the deal is complete and the lights are just a distant memory. 
eventually, you decide to pull off of satoru to give your wrist a break — walking your fingers up the broad expanse of his built chest to tweak his nipples between your tingling bodies. his entire frame is wracked with a case of shivers, mouth parting in a high-pitched, whiny whimper with strings of saliva connecting its roof to his tongue. you’re so pathetically turned on, drool pooling on your tongue like a hot flash flood. 
it’s why you tighten your grip on your hair and thus his restraints, resulting in satoru staggering forward. closer, panting like a damn dog in rut. drawing your free hand up towards your lips and away from his pecs, the proximity between you becomes so little that satoru can practically smell the musky evidence of sex that you lick from your hand. “oh
 you taste so good,” you lament in a dulcet tone, failing to miss the way gojo’s dangerous azure eyes dart about beneath his makeshift blindfold, probably dying to see you get a taste of him.
“d-don’t say that, you’ll make me fuckin’ cum, honey.” he gulps, involuntarily pumping his hips into the air, chasing your hand which he needs so desperately to feel good. “please don’t stop.” while begging you — satoru is the perfect picture of a ruined man, though you’re sure he would say the same about you if you hadn’t strapped your hair over his line of vision. his milky skin glistens as though it’s the very source of light for the silvery moon — illuminated by droplets of sweat from the exertion off fucking your fist like a squelching, welcoming pussy. his cheeks glow warmly with a dusty shade of pink and there’s a red ring forming around his lips from where he’s bitten them to control his wails of ecstasy.
succumbing to the obscenity of it all,  you reach forward and lick a stripe into his hellfire hot mouth. effectively sharing the saltine flavour of gojo’s own precum with him while he languidly sucks all the tang from your pink appendage. his angel white lashes flutter shut at the heaviness of your tongue against his own. the kiss is messy and mismatched, saliva seeps from the corners of your mouth and drags a sticky train down your chin. parting briefly, you spit it into the middle of your palm — happily taking satoru’s cock back into your talented hold and providing a solace to soothe its passionate ache. 
“ngh
 i can feel you. f-fuck. feel you tryin’ not to grind against me, sweetheart.” somehow, gojo finds pockets of air to taunt you in — his voice an arousing mix of a raspy whine and cocky tone. “so wet, i can smell you too. so sweet. dripping all over your panties while you jerk me off. do you need that needy pussy taken care of?”
everything he’s said is true, while the man with the sweaty silver locks fought to escape the prison of your hair — desperate to see how you pleased him, you fought the growing pit in your stomach. the urge to use satoru for release. you’d never hit your peak with another person before, only your smaller-than-his fingers whenever mother left for more than a day or two. 
you admit to nothing, continuing to stroke satoru to his own high — his panted moans accompanied by the sound of skin slapping skin from your hand fisting him to the high heavens.  “please baby, i wanna help get you off. feel that wet little cunt. let me go, i’ll be so good to you if you let me touch your sweet c—“ 
“n-no! we had a deal. my rules.” you stutter, denying yourself. denying him.
“c’mon sweetheart,” a strained and petulant whine echoes throughout the tower — satoru thrusting shallowly through your closed hand in order to match his rhythm to the flick of your wrist. “please, god, baby. if you won’t let me touch you, or at least see you, then can you put that pretty pussy on my thigh? ride it real good? wanna know how you sound when you’re being pleasured
when you give into it all. please honey, give me somethin’ to work with. anythin’
”
gojo presses, like a disciple begging their god for mercy. begging you for mercy. there’s never been this much power in your reach, the ability to control a man who could easily over power you with your sex makes your mind feel egotistically weighty. your resolve crumbles just a tad, satoru’s neediness  chipping away at its foundation until your hips instinctively position themselves perfectly over the swell of his right thigh. how bad could it be? giving him an inch when you’ve taken a mile from him. mother says you’ve never been good at lying and right now, you can no longer pretend like your hips aren’t dying to slide back and forth over your capture like a desperate whore. 
like you don’t want to use him for more than just the floating lights, but to soothe the fire lit in your lower stomach — trailblazing down to your throbbing clit.
something clicks in your mind, all of your inhibitions are dashed from the tower as you briefly release satoru’s pathetically wet cock and restraints to pull up the skirts of your silk purple dress, exposing a slither of supple fat at your thighs. hurried movements deliver the same treatment to satoru’s pants. “this
 this doesn’t change anything. doesn’t mean i’m letting you go just yet. it won’t affect our deal.” you warn the intruder but all sense of venom and authority is lost, evaporating into the temperate air and ending up as a piteous, meek mewl when your exposed mound makes first contact with man’s naked thigh.
if the sound of ruffling fabric hadn’t caught your hostage’s attention; the heat of your sopping sex against his moonlit skin definitely did. “fuck
that’s it. there we go, honey. put it on me,” a tinge of amusement lays evident in his gravelly voice, sets of slender digits peeking out of their hairy restraints to map out your doughy thighs and crawl their way up to the source of your essence. “i just knew you were wet for me, can feel how turned on you are.” as best as he can, gojo shifts until his knee is able to bump your clit — cooing in satisfaction when you ooze against him in response. you almost despise the way he laughs up at you condescendingly, as if he’s the one in control irregardless or the fact that you’re on top. 
maybe it’s the dopamine rush that makes your dynamic unclear — neither of you wanting to give up or take the lead. the lust fizzing in the cracks and crevices of your brain make you cute and pliant for gojo but hair woven over his body keeps him subdued and thirsty for you. 
like a gravitational pull, you buck downwards on the silver haired stranger’s toned thigh and smear the beginnings of your arousal all over him. you’ve barely been touched, oozing in viscous waves as you lose control over your body, rutting harder and faster. “watch your mouth.” you cry out, volume barely above a whisper, bottom lip trembling because it feels so good to use someone this way. 
resuming your hold on his dripping cock again as you rock your hips — you rearrange the loop of hair keeping gojo in place, covering his eyes just as your hair begins  to glow gold in time with your symphony of moans. “right, right, sorry. this doesn’t change things,” he flexes his thigh underneath your syrupy sex, strawberry tongue slipping out to wet his lips while your words fade away into a pretty little sigh. “but you wanna smack that messy clit all over my thigh, don’cha wanna make it creamy
 even messier?” satoru all but jeers, the wisps of a smirk rising on the horizon of his lips now that your hips have formed their own rhythm over his leg.
they speed up their passionate dance on him, beads of glistening essence pearling between your two fat pussy lips. the slick smack of your naked cunt against his muscular thigh caused his dick to twitch in your hand — gojo thrusting up when you thrust down. he tilts his head down, catching a whiff of your heavenly scent in the air between you both. you hate that he’s right just as much as he hates not being able to see you and touch you properly — only catching glimpses of the golden light sparkling within your hair like a halo from underneath his makeshift blindfold.
you feel like you might be going insane, trapped underneath a non existent touch. like being pulled under waves of euphoria with aching lungs that don’t get enough air. near angelic screams of delight rip through the base of your throat contrast with the way you sinfully hump satoru and jerk him off to the point of his dick forming a creaminess in your hand. he bounces his thigh faster the higher you moan, rewarding you for all the hard work you put in to make this deal worth it.
“you’re no better
 you’re filthy,” 
“that’s right honey, so dirty. all cause of you. messy with you, why won’t you let me see?”  the captive rambles, torn between fighting to break out of the bondage and listening to the lewd sticky noises your mound makes when gliding smoothly over his paled skin. satoru growls at how roughly your body moves above his own, face contorting lecherously, cheeks red and lips puffy — a mess from how long he’s been holding out for you. he’s a mess. it’s true. he won’t even deny it. “now fuckin’ stroke it baby, stroke me to the rhythm of your pussy bouncing up and down for me
please
” 
simpering slightly, gojo’s fingers twitch against the arm of the chair — itching to grab at your ass and slam you down against his shaky thigh. if you palm him more, grip him tighter
 he can better imagine the warmth of your cunt if he got the chance to slip inside. for now, you oblige his request, pulling tighter on the bindings of your hair while you them use as leverage — throwing yourself down on satoru as the lewd pap of your drooling pussy fills the musky tower air. “that’s it honey, up ‘n down. uppp ‘n  down. keep goin’ just like that.” 
you don’t have the energy to chide him, jostling about in satoru’s lap with wet whimpers bubbling up on the seams of your lips. pleasure begins to twist nice and tightly in your tummy, scalding you from the inside out and burning any logical thought from your brain. head beginning to roll to the side, you think about fully submitting to your capture. letting go entirely — you’d be satisfied. you’d get to cum. your deal might fall through but at least you’d get to see a different kind of light. 
easily, you could just give up. it wouldn’t be hard to, not  when gojo firmly plants his feet into the tiled floor and the power from his hips has hip rutting upwards to chase your fleshlight-like fist. a beefy cry battles its way out of his broad chest, vibrating through you as his quivering thigh juts your pretty, syrupy cunt every time you lift off of him. 
it’s the perfect cycle; the ideal push and pull. you squeal in ecstasy, the hood of your clit dragged back so that your sensitive bundle of nerves is exposed to the blistering heat of satoru’s cool toned skin — taking you closer and closer to your high. streaks of your hair glow brighter than before, more intensely the louder you moan and just like they would if you were singing to help mother or while she brushed your hair. despite the strength in the light of your hair, everything else about you weakens, your grip on your hair, the pace of your hand as you palm satoru to the high heavens. you can’t think to care about any of it when you’re this close. 
if mother could see you now, you don’t think you’d mind if she was disappointed in you. 
but then you’re ripped away from the edge of cloud nine. satoru stops just short of the dam threatening to break. his thigh completely still with your juices splattering against him once your own hips come to a hault. a petulant howl echoes through the flower, frustrated tears stinging in your waterline as you feel your orgasm slip away from you cruelly. “what the fuck satoru?” 
“sorry honey
.” he laughs heartily, a slight rasp coating each syllable from each word that leaves his mouth. “don’t think i like this deal very much. just ‘cause you feel good doesn’t mean you can forget about me,” gesturing to the way you gush on and stain his thigh, the captive with the silver moon hair shrugs. “you don’t get to cum or see the lights unless i get to see you.”
gojo’s been good so far, hardly challenging you this whole time and instead, goading you into a world of pleasure you would have never experienced under mother’s watchful eye. instead, he was content to have his cock touched and his name wailed a hundred different ways — he’d shown no indication of breaking your deal aside from this. so in turn, you halfheartedly let go of the loop of hair that kept his sapphire stained eyes away from the world and held his wrists down to the arms of his chair.  the restraints loosen just enough to please him and do what he needs to do. not enough to give him complete freedom. 
“fuck the deal.” you cast it all to the side, relentlessly resuming grinding all over gojo — pushing your hips back as far as his knee to smother your swollen pleasure against it.
this time, satoru is able witness the way your bambi doe eyes roll back into your emptying skull. 
with newfound motivation, the intruder begins quickly blinking away any darkness that caused a fuzz at the edge of his vision, gojo’s gaze immediately trickles down to your clenching hole, a treasure kept safe between your nectar glossed thighs; watching you ride him. “god, if i had my hands on you i’d rub that clit until you were squirting
 i bet you’d like that, if i ruined that pussy. made her mine — you'd like that.” gojo’s stare returns to your eyes, flashing you his pearly whites through a condescending smile. his rushed and rambled teasing words make your creamy cunt wetter; body betraying you to violently shake above him. 
though you find strength to keep up your end of the bargain. you’d sworn to make satoru see stars, encapsulating his rigid, sloppy dick between your nimble fingers once more. you even spit on it, earning a haughty bleat from between the man’s pretty (yet chatty) mouth. his sturdy body seizes underneath your touch as you take a firmer grip on him, palming him faster and faster — seedy, hot precum webbing over your knuckles once more. that’s when you finally get to see it. how murky and dark your captive’s vibrant eyes grow, like a pond, swimming with desire for you and only you.
the rapture that had once melted away from you like butter in a pan begins to blossom within you once again — willing you to beg for a chance at a real orgasm. “yes satoru! oh, yes please!” you squeak, short of breath and not entirely sure or what you’re even begging for. the golden light emitting from strands of your hair flare up again and your pussy throbs with an aching need to hit release. “please
”
a self congratulatory thread of cobalt lust weaves its way between the darkening midnight flecks in this eyes. “now look who’s begging,” clicking his tongue, gojo cocks his head to the side, relishing in his ability to finally look at you. drink in the way your chest bounces beneath the bodice of your lace orchid gown. it’s completely fucked, darkened by a crude mix of your arousals but it’s the most beautiful thing satoru has ever seen — only serving to rial him up even more
 his own orgasm coming up over the hill. it burns at his internal organs, the lining of his stomach and the only way to alleviate this almost painful yet delectable twinge to his system is through you. “bet you’re only being nice ‘cause you’re close. well guess what? me too, be a good girl, honey, and cum for me.” he says, voice rising in both pitch and breathiness through his gritted teeth. 
he’s going to cum. 
and you’re too far gone to form a response with words just yet. you stop your own ministrations, payback for edging you earlier. his own cock dribbles pitifully as you rip his high away from him like pulling a rug from beneath his feet. gojo thrashes in his hair in response, azure eyes wild and almost wet with a sheen of tears — just as desperate to cum ad you are. “wh-what the fuck was that for?” he winges as though he’s a child on punishment, slender hips rising up to chase your soiled hand and perfect grip — shaft standing needily at attention. “honey
”
“you don’t get to cum until i get to cum. so either you work with me, satoru, or we’ll go all day.” you snap, slowly working your drenched cunt over the meat of his thigh once again, your puffy folds spread either side of it — squelching with the way you salaciously wind your hips all over him. 
satoru basks in the sight, tongue poking out tauntingly between his teeth as he decides to test the waters. “fine, but at least let me help,” he suggests, watching eagerly as you throw your head back in the purest form of pleasure and grind on him harder. it’s clear as day that you need just as much of a push to cum as he does and he plans on giving it to you in just one condition. “untie me.”
“deal.” chewing on your lower lip, you let more of your hair unwind your glowing hair from all points that keep gojo strapped to the chair. enough for more of his hands to escape. then, he’s on you within a flash, hot tongue swirling its way over your clothed bosom and biting at your peaked nipples while his hands shoot to the globes of your ass so that he can drag you in harsh circles across his lap. he’s ravenous, out of control, as if he’s been waiting for this moment the entire time. 
somewhere along the way, in one final burst of passion, your mouths find each other again — swapping streams of saliva as you lose yourselves to sex crazed minds teaming with lust hormones. with your lips smacking and bodies moving against each other in a delicious bump and grind — satoru forces a large hand between you both, fumbling against your cotton panties. the sound he lets out when he finally, finally gets his hands on your puffy clit is glutoral and animalistic, the simple touch sending a shock wave of electricity across every one of your synapses. dazing you for good. 
you bear witness to the silver haired stranger losing his mind, falling from grace like an angel with blackened wings. and for you, he does the same, commiting the sight of your glowing halo-like strands of hair to memory — the coils that shine brighter the more you sing and sin for him.
he can’t stop gabbling, gargling on the spit you pour into one another — followed by howls and screams of pleasure. “oh you like that, hm? i bet that feels so good
 so sweet ‘n wet under my touch.” hot fingers belonging to satoru pick up the pace between your sticky folds, flicking your clit feverishly and writing his claim against your cunt at the same time that you jam a thumb into the tricking slit of his dirty red cockhead. the pair of you jolt in one another’s arms, taking one too many steps towards the edge of cloud nine before you’re even ready for you.  
“oh sweetheart, listen to you, sound so good. wish i could have you on my fat cock instead of my thigh. next time yeah? you’re gonna cum like this, aren’t you? gonna get my thigh nice and wet?” gojo growls, voice hoarse and layering perfectly over your whistle tone whines. his digits slow and start their greedy assault on your sex, edging you further and further as you wriggle and writhe at his words. 
the world escapes you, the knot of lust that had been warping within you finally coming undone. “gods
 s-satoru! please!” you shriek as though your voice is a  gust of stormy wind — reverberating off of painted cobblestone walls. your free hand (no longer trapped by loops of your own hair) darts out to grab the intruder’s wrist, thighs locking around the hand that works you through an earth shattering high. the dam finally bursts, forcing open floodgates as your pussy releases streams of clear arousal in small spurts that soaks his entire lap and clothes.
gojo has no idea where to look, the smallest glimpse of your orgasm sending him hurtling over the edge as well — he doesn’t relent, viciously circling your precious pleasure mug and drawing out your release to match his own. his thick length spasms in your tiny hand, plump balls no longer able to contain the viscous, hot seed he has saved up all for you. just for you. he cums with a shout, abdomen contracting under your never-ending supple touch, ropes of white hot endlessly shoot from his overstimulated tip almost as though he’s a faucet that’s never been turned off.
he swears he almost blacks out, a white and sweaty mop of hair collapsing onto your shoulder as you slump in gojo’s lap — exhausted. as the air in the room cools, your hair no longer glowing and your chests syncing up to heave in an even rise and fall — you bring a lazy hand to the back of satoru’s head, toying with coils of his baby hair to help you both calm down.
a moment of quiet passes before you find the energy to whisper. “will you take me to see those floating lights now?” 
your innocent question causes satoru to snort sleepily, pressing a wet chaste kiss to your sweaty cheek as the sound breaks free from his cherry-bitten lips. “a deal’s a deal, honey. as soon as you untie me
 we’ll hit the road.” 
neither of you move a muscle, however, still recovering from the sinful act you had just shared. 
you use the time to reflect, a sense of excitement dawning on you. you were going to leave the tower. you were going to see the floating lights on your birthday. and most importantly, you were directly disobeying your mother to prove your capableness. and all you had to do to get your fairytale happy ending was give a handjob to a very handsome, very willing stranger. 
the end.
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꒰ end. — all rights reserved © tteokdoroki 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.
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elysianightsss · 2 months ago
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John, he’d been waiting for this moment, been waiting for you to come through the door with tired eyes, an ache in your bones and your head pounding so much you were disappointed that your instincts had kicked in when you slipped on some ice outside and caught yourself instead of letting yourself get knocked the fuck out. So disappointed.
And after a long train ride into the beautiful countryside, a taxi ride to the rustic cabin that always looked more like a cottage to you, you weren’t even bothered about special greetings anymore.
You practically collapsed on John’s lap, curling up there. Your sleeves pulled over your fists because you once again forgot a coat on the way out of your flat. Rubbing your tired eyes with said sleeve covered fist, you mumbled out a sleepy ‘hello’ to which he chuckled pulling your hand away from your now red eye.
“Hello to you too love.” You snuggled further into his neck, thankful that he had trimmed his mutton chops and beard down so they weren’t massively bushy and tickling at your nose like last time. “Long day?”
“The longest.” At this he grinned. John had been waiting for you to have a bad day at work so he could convince you to quit and live off of his money. He’d mentioned it so many times before but unfortunately you always thought he was joking and when he had rasped it into your ear while he was buried deep inside you, you thought that he was just being his usual possessive self.
Not fucking true. Okay it’s partly true, but John was serious. He wanted to put you up in his well polished cabin. Wanted to marry you so you couldn’t argue against him when he said ‘what’s mine is yours’. Wanted to come back from missions to find his cute little wife in his bed. He wanted to spend his free time gardening and baking with you. Going to the farmers market with you and he always wanted to try his hand at painting.
John Price wanted nothing more than to come home to you swollen with his child. Couldn’t wait to take leave so he could take care of you properly. Desperately wanted nothing more than to be there when you bore his child, holding your hand and telling you ‘you’re doing so well, my brave girl’. Wanted to see the sweet little baby that you made together on your hip while you told him all about the new curtain samples you got because ‘the ones in the den are ghastly’ as you so eloquently put it.
And now this was his chance to broach the subject seriously with you. If you agreed, which was a big chance because of how dishevelled you looked and how exhausted you must have been feeling. Then that was brilliant.
If you said no? Maybe he would have to resort to the old ways. Getting you fired. Getting you evicted. Taking all the fight out of you until you truly are broken and begging him for help. It’s not nice but it’s necessary.
“I have something I want to discuss with you sweet’art.” . . .
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caffeinewitchcraft · 12 days ago
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They Didn't
Once there was a town far removed from the capitol. Its citizens lived according to the seasons and held that all things would fall as they should. So when the regime came under fire, they were not alarmed. They did not lock their doors nor did they send their strong ones to go fight. They knew there were good people out there who held their interests and fought for their country in their stead.
And, of course, they were right. The Monarch fell and a new Monarch bloomed in their place. Not a scrap of the war came to the town's doorstep. Of course their crops were less than they should be - seed trade had screeched to a halt two years ago - but they were alive and still citizens of their country which had always looked out for their interests before.
So when the new Monarch sent a representative to their village, they were curious. They had neither rebelled nor contributed. What could the Monarch have to say to them?
"Resources are scarce after two years of war," the representative said. "We have come to see what is needed."
The citizens nodded for this was to be expected. The war had hollowed out their winter stores and delayed major repairs to roads and roofs. They needed much.
They were glad for the representative's arrival, but there was much work to do. They set up their stalls for market and did not pay him much mind. There was not much fare to lay out on their tables. They spent their time arranging each vegetable to hide its bruising and to showcase the best side of handicrafts made with amateur hands.
"By show of hands," he said, "who needs new tools to work their fields?"
Such a silly question! The representative had to have seen their fields while riding into town. He knew the barren state of them.
(They did not see he rode in a covered carriage, so sick by the motion of the wheels that he could not open his eyes.)
Seeing no hands, the representative moved on. "Who needs grain to see them through winter?"
Again so silly! Their storage gaped open and empty at the other end of the square. Surely he knew they needed grain.
(The representative thought it charming to have an empty barn as a communal gathering place and made a note to bring the idea to his own hometown.)
"Very good," the representative praised. Not a single hand! He had been to 40 towns already. What a relief to have one not on the verge of collapse! "And your roads? Your bridge?"
At this, some of the villagers rolled their eyes. The last storm had wiped away their bridge. The representative had to take the long way to come into their town square because of it.
(The representative asked to take the long way into town as his report claimed the village had a rope bridge which would make him even more violently motion sick.)
"And shelter?" the representative asked, checking No on every box. He would have said they needed new roads, but what did he know? Not a single one raised their hand. They must be used to traversing such pitted and rutted roads. "Do you have adequate shelter for the long winter ahead?"
Villagers chuckled for they did not have adequate shelter now. The autumn leaves blew through their eaves and their thatched roofs were gray with age. They had no materials to repair them, nor talent. Did the representative not see that their carpenter's booth at the market sat empty?
(Next year, the representative will do a survey of the town himself. He will count the artisans and craftsmen for his census. He will sleep under their roof to judge their condition for himself. He will eat their food to judge its quality. This year...well. Too many needs in too many places.)
"Thank you for an easy visit," he said. He turned back to his carriage. "See you in the summer."
The villagers watched him go in shock. To think he would leave so quickly! Well, it was fine. He had seen their roads and roofs, their storage and fields, their empty market stalls and slim market fare. They didn't need to worry.
They didn't.
The representative hummed to himself as a distraction while the carriage dipped and rolled away from the town. He thought that it was very good that they needed no craftsmen or grain or tools. This village lay in a valley that would become impossible to traverse in the winter months. He would have to act very quickly if they needed help.
But good! They didn't.
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ceilidho · 1 year ago
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prompt: price/reader bear shifter fic. PART 2. (part 1 here)
-
The urge sits right under his skin.
It’s a month out from hibernation, the torpor not quite sunk in all the way just yet. Plenty of time still to stockpile supplies, train the new rangers before his leave of absence, and chop all the firewood needed for the winter months. Plenty of time on the surface, that is—with only a month left to go, John quietly acknowledges to himself that maybe he bit off more than he could chew this time around. 
It’s exhausting work though. The new batch of recruits are fresh-faced, hardly experienced enough yet to last the season without him, but he hadn’t had much choice with Gaz taking the year off to go back to school. He’s been regularly putting in sixty to seventy hour weeks, hardly leaving him any time to cook or clean or prep for hibernation. Time goes by in a flash. He hasn’t even done a quarter of the repairs around the house that he’d wanted to finish before slipping into the winter torpor.
Hard to figure it out. He’s been putting it off without a real reason, getting lost in the forest for long swaths of time, trudging through the new snow up high in the mountains. Hardly ever in his bear form, conscious of not totally giving over to the animal, but occasionally he can’t help slipping into like tumbling down a snowbank, just losing his footing for a moment and sliding, sliding, sliding until hours have passed and he finally hears his own chuffs and feels branches crack under the weight of his paws.
He winces when he turns back, bones creaking and cracking back into place. 
John has been smelling something around town for weeks now, something sweet and delicate like sap over a branch, but work has left him too busy to start anything. Instead he stops by the grocers every other day, where the scent is strongest, to pick up miscellaneous items. Canned soup here, steaks there. He stockpiles canned and tinned goods in his den, preparing for the long winter when he’s lulled into sleep for extended periods of time, but every time he enters his den, it feels oddly bereft. Empty. Missing something.
The month or so before hibernation always leaves him feeling groggy and laconic; it makes his eyes go half-lidded and his speech descend into grunts and one-worded answers. He spends so many weeks hoarding food and blankets and firewood for the brief moments when he wakes that he can’t stop himself from eyeing even the pretty cashier like another thing to hoard.
He holds himself back, but just.
John wakes up on the couch after a particularly rough shift, groggy and out of sorts. Flecks of sleep stuck in the corners of his eyes still. He’d run into another bear (a real one) on the trail hassling a couple hikers during his shift and it’d taken a couple stressful minutes to gently guide the hikers away before dealing with the bear himself. It’s easier to deal with them in his bear skin, but he generally avoids shifting in the month leading up to hibernation for a reason. It settles him deeper into his bear, draws the sleep closer.
He’s full of cuts and bruises, his side covered in a barely healed, particularly nasty gash, the flesh knitting itself together slowly. His stomach growls. He hadn’t had a chance to cook himself any supper when he got home before collapsing on the couch—had barely eaten lunch as well. That’s part and parcel of his way of life; even during the summer, the days had been long, extending well into the twilight hours. 
And bears need food. John burns calories faster than most, an enormous amount of energy expended when shifting into his other form. He’s a familiar face at every restaurant, grocery store, and market in town for a reason, even if that reason isn’t widely known. In the summer, there was at least some time during the day to gorge himself on berries or fish from a nearby stream, but the berries and fish have long disappeared with the coming of winter. It shouldn’t come as a surprise—hunger dominates his mind during the months leading up to winter—but it’s somehow caught him off guard this year. 
His head perks up when the doorbell rings. 
It doesn’t ring again, but he can hear someone on the other side of his front door, shifting from foot to foot. John isn’t expecting anyone and doesn’t remember inviting anyone over, but he gets up anyway to answer the door. 
There’s a pretty little thing waiting for him on his front porch with a bowl of stew and homemade sourdough bread. He recognizes her from the grocery store, the sweet smelling thing always looking over at him from the till. 
“Sorry to trouble you,” she says, peeking around him. Probably trying to be inconspicuous. 
It slots something in his chest into the right place. He shifts slightly to let her peer over his shoulder into the empty house; no wife or kids scurrying behind him. It eases some of the tension in her shoulders.
“No trouble,” John says. “What’s got you on my doorstep after hours bringing over supper?”
She’s exquisitely shy, almost nervous when she steps from foot to foot before holding the food out closer to him. He takes it, if only to avoid watching her strain. In his hands, it smells entirely too good; makes his mouth water. His bear huffs in his head. John can’t remember the last time he had a home-cooked meal. Certainly not since well before his mother passed. 
“You seemed like—I saw you come home. You looked dead on your feet, so I thought
well, I’d already made soup, so it wasn’t much trouble.”
“You saw me come home?” he repeats.
“Oh, I, uh—I live next door.”
“That so?”
She flushes prettily, just the slightest deepening of the colour over her cheekbones. “Yeah. Six months now. Moved in just before the summer. Anyway, I, well
sorry if you were in the middle of supper, I wasn’t sure if—I heard from Kate that you’ve been busy, so I thought you might appreciate not having to cook.”
“That’s mighty kind of you,” he says. There’s a pause where neither of them say anything. “Can I—I have, uh, a bowl in the kitchen if you want—”
She holds up her hands at that, taking a step back. “Oh no, sorry, I don’t want to
I don’t mean to intrude. I just thought I’d
you know
friendly neighbour and all.”
“It’s no trouble, really. Come inside.”
“No, I—I really have to get going,” she insists, finally turning away from him and descending back down the stairs. “Enjoy your supper!”
He watches her turn and scurry off back to her house, glancing down back once only to give a little start when she catches him still watching her. His nose twitches when he notices that even with the tupperware stacked in his hands, the distinct sweetness that had been hovering outside his door gradually dissipates in his neighbour’s absence. 
His bear rumbles inside his chest. 
In the mountains, he ruminates on his neighbour’s small kindness. It builds in his chest like a slow burning fire when he stands in the brisk cold and stares down into the valley below. The snow squeaks under his boots on the hike back down. The ache of hunger echoes through him again; he thinks of tupperware offered to him in two soft hands. Next time, he’ll invite her in. 
He’s pleasantly surprised when she comes by again not a few days later, this time bringing along with her a pan filled with berry cobbler, tinfoil crinkling under her fingers when she hands him the entire pan. The next day, she stops by with a jar of homemade apple cider. 
It takes awhile for John to coax her inside. She brushes off his invitations to join him for supper for days before he notices the cracks in her resolve. She lingers on the porch for longer than she should, body oriented towards his house even when she says that she has to go. John considers for all of a few seconds just dragging her inside, but there’s something immensely rewarding in reeling her in slowly. A slow hunt and the promise of a meal so decadent that it leaves his tongue heavy in his mouth.
When she finally concedes, his blood roars hot, the beast in his chest thickly nuzzled under his skin, satisfied. 
She’s skittish in his house. Hardly stays for more than ten minutes the first time he succeeds in getting her in. Just long enough to take a couple bites out of the gingerbread loaf that she’d brought over and he’d cut a few slices off before retracing her steps back to the front door. John holds back the instinctive urge to follow her and trap her in with a hand flat on the door when she tries to open it. It’s better to earn her trust. 
His interest just goes up and up as she continues feeding him throughout the week. Perfect mate keeping his belly full, keeping him nourished after a hard day’s work. She keeps him company on the couch when he invites her over on the weekend, dragging her little socked feet over the carpet and snuggling up on the other side of the couch like he might reach out and grab her. He might.
Part of John can’t believe that he’s been living beside this girl for going on six months and never scented her before. It permeates his house now, baked into the walls and carpet. He wishes sometimes she’d stop by and use his bed for a nap, if only so that he could come home to a bed smelling of her; he’d wrap a firm hand around his cock with the scent of her under his nose and tug himself off with his face pressed to his pillow, imagining her trapped under him, the plush pillows of her ass turned up to let him rut between her thighs. 
Her feeding him and spending time with him is confusing though. It confuses his bear, who associates all those things with mate. It’s nature to want to keep the thing feeding him. 
So he can’t help the way his bear expects her now. When he wakes up in his bed without a smaller body tucked away in his arms, it leaves him foul-tempered, short with his men. Picking up groceries becomes more difficult than ever when he instinctively beelines to her when he walks through the automatic doors, pleasure coiling in his chest at the sight of her staring wide-eyed at him. Always a bit shy, even as it slowly melts from her like old snow. Timidity from a season ago, still frosted over but shrinking. 
He doesn’t stop himself from dragging her into his lap before passing out on the couch after a long day at work, leaving her befuddled and uncertain. His arms don’t let her up though; they keep her pinned to his chest until he wakes back up an hour later, nuzzling the bristles of his beard over the soft skin of her neck and dragging a big palm up the inside of her thigh, seeking out the warmth between her legs even half-asleep.
His hand pauses its upward trajectory when she shifts. He’s slow to come back to consciousness, but far slower to move his hand. Mate, his bear rumbles in his chest when his fingers dig into the clutch of her thighs and John hears her muffle a yip. She should be soft and pliable for him, should let him drag his hand up into the space between her legs that she’s kept hot and tender for his touch. 
John lets her pretend at sleep until he finally moves his hand away, moving to sit up and leaving her curled up on the couch. He goes off to the kitchen to put on the kettle and comes back to find her awake, stammering out an apology for falling asleep. 
“None of that,” he grumbles, setting two mugs down on the coffee table. He sits beside her before she gets the bright idea to get up and leave. 
“Sorry, I didn’t plan on staying this long. I should get back—”
“Someone waiting for you at home?” John interrupts, curt despite himself. 
The idea of her going home to someone instantly aggravates him. Even knowing for a fact that there isn’t a man living in her house doesn’t tamp down the anger. He’s scented the exterior of her house once or twice; John would’ve caught the smell of another man by now if there had ever been one living in her house. He’s held off marking her house with come or piss, but that might have to change if she keeps dangling the possibility of there being another man over his head.
It’s his fault for not marking her yet. The trees in the mountains have been marked up over the years that he’s lived in this town, deep gouges in the bark marking the forest as his territory, but he hasn’t yet rubbed his scent into his mate’s skin. It’s his fault she’s still acting like an unattached sow. 
She hesitates; risks lying to him. He can see it plain on her face. “
No.”
His face softens, eyebrows pulling together sympathetically. “I’m not such bad company, am I? Stay for a little longer—all that food’s gonna go to waste otherwise.”
“I—I guess I can.”
“Brilliant. Drink your tea, honey.”
She picks up her mug and sips it quietly while John shifts her feet into his lap and digs his thumbs into her right sole. He shushes her when she jolts and tries to sit up, digging this thumb harder into the arch of her foot. 
“Enough of that. Back down,” he scolds.
“You, but you shouldn’t—you don’t have to do that,” she stammers, trying to pull her foot away and moaning inadvertently when he digs into a sore spot. Her hand clamps down on her mouth.
“Don’t give me that, aren’t you on your feet all day? And then baking for me after a long shift? It’s the least I can do, honey.”
She’s reluctant at first, but then squeaks again he rubs his thumb over the ball of her foot. Hardly able to deny the truth. It isn’t long until her little squeaks and moans start coming out unbidden, exhaustion opening her up. He can smell her sex leaking if he breathes in deep enough. 
“Promise to stay here and wait until I fix up supper?” he murmurs, keeping his voice low. 
She hums, eyes having slid shut. Without even really moving her lips, she mumbles, “Promise.”
“Good girl.”
Sleep warm, she finally settles into his house like she belongs, like she’ll be spending the long winter here as well. Her scent is as imbued in the couch as his. It’s cinnamon sweet. 
“Why do you even
buy so much food if you aren’t gonna use it?” she asks, drowsy enough that even if he were to respond, there’s a chance she wouldn’t hear it. “You hibernating or something?”
John smiles. “Something like that.”
3K notes · View notes
olsenmyolsen · 11 months ago
Text
Ever Since Natasha Saw You (18+)
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master list
dark master list
Post Black Widow Dark!Natasha Romanoff (Female Reader X Natasha Romanoff)
Summary: She was a hero. But to her, YOU were so much more.
Word Count: 6.1K
Content: Dub-Con, Obsession, Kidnapping, Stalking, Blood, Knife, Knifeplay, Mommy Kink, Feelings, Trauma, Death,
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The Black Widow hid a secret.
She was in love with you. Sounds pretty innocent... right?
"Night Y/N!" Your coworker Daisy called out as you were still typing at your computer. It was Friday night, and everyone but you was already leaving. Leaving to be free of the thoughts of work for at least the weekend.
You had a marketing job in downtown Manhattan. Skyscraper. Cubicle. Long nights. That kind of job.
You liked it, honestly.
Sure, New York and the surrounding areas were dangerous. Hell, at times. But you had heroes and vigilantes to save you. You had first-hand experience in 2012 when you and your Dad were saved while out at your "I made it through University without killing myself" lunch.
Now, here you were 4 years later. Still in the city while your Dad left. But that was fine. Being on your own has been exemplary. Sure, you have some friends... coworkers, really. You went on dates! I mean, they didn't lead to much more. But you were going through life.
A cat! You have a cat. An orange tabby who only loves you for food...
Anyways! You were fine and finishing up work on your computer when a pop-up of World News showed up in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
What's New 3 Weeks After The Fall Of A Secret Organization Hiding In The Sky? Russia and the U.S. Remain Quiet.
You heard about the debris and strange things found over on that side of the world earlier this month. With that came the theories.
You rolled your eyes at most. But some were fun. Like aliens was a popular one. People online said it was a crashed group of green-shape-shifting aliens. Your coworker Lindsey swore by another that claimed it was a giant purple guy who crashed on Earth.
Yeah, that'll be the day.
You even had a friend of a friend named Darcy who said an Avenger was present to what happened, leaving you curious.
The Avengers, as far as you were concerned, were in trouble. Rumblings, sightings, and videos of two sides of the superhero group fighting at a German airport left many to speculate that this was the end. Plus, this coming weeks after what happened in Lagos and the murder of King T'Chaka made it all the more plausible.
So, if the rumor was confirmed that an Avenger was at the collapse of what many were confused about, it was... interesting.
But you couldn't dwell on that. You shook your head and closed out of the news to finish up your projected cost for the next wave of Roxxon Marketing.
_
As you walked out of your office building, you were unaware you were being followed.
It wasn't the first time you had been followed. Fuck it wasn't even the fiftieth time it had happened, but still you remained clueless. She thought it was cute at first how unaware of your surroundings you were. It always made her smile.
Because in one second, an innocent and pretty thing like you could be gone.
But she wouldn't let that happen.
Not by anyone else, at least.
You have to understand. She was your protector. Yeah.. Yeah, that's right! The one to make sure you got home safe. The one to take care of threats no matter how minuscule they might be. She also made sure no one got too close or even dared to ask you out.
You couldn't date. That would be unfair and very hurtful to the one who... watched over you...
I mean, you never wondered why suddenly Dennis never showed back up to work after asking you out to lunch, now did you?
Rumor was his family got sick, and he had to skip town. But we know about rumors now, don't we? I.E., purple aliens. Green shapeshifting ones. You get it.
Oh. Also. What happened to Dennis, you may ask?
I'll let you know when his body turns up.
However, all of this is to say that you were lucky Natasha Romanoff picked you.
She was back after being gone, having to deal with some family business. But she was back! For you! Natasha thought you should be grateful. She could be- SHOULD BE on the run right now, but here she was twenty feet behind you.
After tonight, you were going to know precisely who she was.
Natasha smiled as she followed you. She laughed as she saw how cautious you were of people even when you're on your phone like you are right now.
However, as cautious as you may be, it leaves you vulnerable. Sweet. Easy.
Natasha thinks you're too nice for your own good sometimes. Like you always see the best in people. It drives Natasha crazy the amount times she has had to stop because you stopped to help someone. A drunk. A homeless man. A- you get it.
As you and Natasha head down into the subway, she appreciates how your route hasn't changed at all since your first day of work many years ago. Yet she can't help but snicker at how you've never noticed her taking that walk with you. But then again, even with how cautious you are, you don't notice things.
You still haven't noticed the tiny cameras Natasha installed in your place. Or the amount of panties she's stolen. Or even the amount of times you've slept with her arms around your body. In addition to the hushed whispers and stolen kisses, she's left on your lips.
On top of that, you haven't noticed her feelings for you.
Natasha moves closer to you as you both are nearing your stop. With a plan in motion, The Black Widow can't help but smile.
Natasha takes another step forward and grabs onto the metal pole in front of herself to stop her movement when you look up and around the car. You stop when your eyes reach Natasha's green ones in a hoodie and jeans. You smile quickly before putting your head down, focusing back on your phone.
What you did just now was polite. You looked from your phone to stretch your neck and smiled at a cute blonde who just so happened to be looking your way.
That's what you thought.
To Natasha, you signaled her out.
With your eyes, you noticed her. After all this time, you did it! On tonight of all nights. It was a sign. It was meant to be!
Natasha smiled and stared at you, unaware.
When you finally got up to get off at your stop, you felt your arm being yanked back. When you stumbled back and turned your head to find a bald man older than your father looking at you like he won a prize, you pulled as hard as possible. But his grip was tight. "Where are you going, sweetheart?" He looked over your body, making you pull again.
How was no one stopping this man? Was no one seeing it? Did no one care?
The train car beeped, signaling the doors were going to be closing, and the man had yet to remove you from his grip. You were about to scream when the blonde woman from before grabbed your other arm, making you shriek in surprise. The woman acted fast and kicked the man in the knee hard enough to break it before rushing the two of you out of the train car just as the doors closed on three other men hitting their first against the door.
You wanted to wave them bye and flick them off, but your arm hurt. Not the one the man held.. But... but your other one. The one the woman held as she saved you.
"You, alright?" The blonde had a raspy voice as she spoke. It sounded familiar, but as you quickly scanned her face, you declared she must have that kind of face. (as if) But her eyes. Her eyes were one of a kind. Beautiful and a shimmering green you wanted to get lost in.
So lost that you almost forgot about the arm pain and the dizziness you were starting to feel...
"Yeah." You nodded to the blonde who had yet to release your arm. "I'm fine."
This was a lie, and Natasha, of course, knew that. I mean, she was the one wearing the ring that, with one turn of the gemstone, revealed a tiny needle. One that the blonde used to inject your arm with a sleeping agent.
"Are you sure?" The woman smiled as she asked you. Why was she smiling? You went to nod that you were indeed fine but found yourself more tired. Weaker even. "Oh, honey, you don't look so good."
Natasha smiled as she felt your body losing the fight. Natasha quickly looked around before wrapping your arm around her shoulder to make it appear as if you were a drunk friend who needed help getting home.
"Oh, Y/N, it looks like that guy must have really done something, huh?"
The guy in the group of men that she paid off.
Your mind was becoming black as your body went limp, and before you could ask her how she knew your name or who the hell she was, you took one last look at the blonde.
This time, you recognized who she was.
You went to speak but slurred your words as you closed your eyes, passing out in Natasha Romanoff's arms.
_
Getting you home was easy.
As Natasha unlocked your front door, she smiled, pulling you closer as you entered through the threshold between the hallway and your apartment. Natasha smiled wider as she looked around at what would become her place with you before looking at your limp, unconscious body. "We're home!"
Home was with you.
With a kick to the door, it closed behind you two as she hurried you to your room.
Once inside, Natasha was happy to find that not much, if anything, had changed since she last visited. She said hi to your cat, who purred at the sight of the blonde.
Natasha loved your cat and couldn't wait to be a good cat mom.
Natasha took you and gently placed you on the bed before looking around the room. She was looking for something. Natasha closed the bedroom door and went back, kicking the floorboard to the right of your end table, and up it flipped. She bent down and pulled out a small black backpack she stored two years ago.
Opening it up to make sure everything was still there. She knew you probably didn't even know that it existed. (You hadn't.) But Natasha had to be sure.
Dumping out the bag's contents, she was happy to see that nothing was missing. But she still took inventory. 5 Widow Bites. 1 Pistol. 12 Bullets. 1 Set of Handcuffs. 1 Knife. 3 Needles of the Sleeping Agent. 1 Burner Phone.
Finally, 2 very dry Nutri-Grain Bar.
Natasha kept the loaded gun, knife, and handcuffs out of the bag and placed it on the desk in the corner of your room. The bag moved to the edge of the bed—no point in hiding it now.
"Oh, Y/N!" Natasha sat next to your upper body, passed out on the bed. She spoke as her soft hand ran through your hair. It calmed Natasha. "You're so pretty, Y/N."
Natasha looked over your still-covered body before moving her hand down your back. "Here. Come on." She flipped you over onto your back and pulled you more onto the bed.
Natasha's eyes found your face. "Baby, I can't wait for the rest of our lives." Natasha bit her lip as she spoke to you. Hopefully, and giddy for the future. "We're going to be so happy." Natasha leaned down and planted a kiss at the top of your head. "You still smell like coconut. I still don't really like that shampoo, but I know how much you do." Natasha smiled as if this was a normal conversation before giving you another kiss. Just as one of her hands began to snake its way across your stomach before landing at your hip.
"I love you."
Natasha couldn't help herself. She smiled brightly as she said those words out loud to you for the first time.
Natasha's lips found the side of your face again and again. She always loved how soft you felt against her. Delicate. Like something Natasha wanted to cherish. Keep perfect. Forever.
But there was also that part inside of her. The side of Natasha that wanted to own you. Take that softness and fuck it out of you. Damage you. Hurt you.
Both were fighting for control.
Regardless, Natasha slid down the zipper of your unbuttoned jeans and slipped her hand over your black cotton panties. Moaning as her stomach flipped in the joys of touching you, feeling your heat on her fingers. Letting excitement wave over her, she cupped your pussy before dragging her index finger up over your growing wet-covered folds. "Oh fuck, baby!" Natasha moaned before looking at the side of your face.
Natasha smiles to herself. She leans over and kisses your cheek, and quickly removes her hand from your recently shaved pussy.
Natasha licks the little slick on her fingers off.
Natasha savored the taste before she laid flat on her back. Lifting her ass as she tore off the black jeans she was wearing along with her red panties. Choosing to keep her slightly raised pullover hoodie on, Natasha grabbed your left wrist. "I want you to feel me..." Natasha looked over and spoke to you. "I want you to feel how wet you make me, Y/N! How tight I am for you. I've been waiting."
With that, Natasha kept her eyes on your left hand as she moved it down her toned stomach. The tips of your fingers brushing over her skin, making her squirm in anticipation for what's to come.
Moving them further down, Natasha gasps as your hand gets pushed down onto the top of Natasha's bare pussy. "This is for you." She moans as she pushed your hand further down. Directing your middle and ring finger to her clit. "Oh fuck!" She moans and grows wetter at your unconscious touch.
"Keep going. Keep going!" Natasha directs your fingers to move in a circular motion. Before her mouth drops as your fingers get pushed over The Black Widows dripping pussy. She moans and grips your hand. "Right there." Natasha moves your fingers around her opening for you.
"It's for you, baby. Come on. I want you to fuck me!" She gives your hand one more push and bucks when your fingers easily slide into her. Natasha loudly moans while her left hand grips the comforter of the bed.
Your fingers feel perfect inside of her.
Natasha can't get over that.
She thinks you were made for her.
Slowly, Natasha starts to move herself against your fingers. Her hips working overtime. Only using her right hand to position your hand better. "Oh my God!" Natasha smiles as a shaky breath comes out. You're doing this to her. You're making her feel this good. You're fucking her right.
Natasha is rocking her hips up and down your slick fingers. You're pushing her closer and closer. "Oh god!" She grunts as she slams the back of your hand to feel you deeper, indirectly slapping her pussy and clit that, sends a wave of pain that morphs into pleasure. "Oh yes!"
Natasha does it repeatedly while her left-hand works on her clit. Her middle fingers pushes the bud of it up as she continues her circular motion. "That's it, baby! Make me cum! Make me fucking cum!" She turns her head to you and stares at your unconscious body. "You're doing so well, baby."
If you were awake right now, you'd feel Natasha's wetness run down your fingers. Into your palms. And down your wrist. You'd hear her moans and screams of pleasure as she makes herself cum with your fingers. "Oh my God!" Natasha Romanoff jolts up. "Y/N, I'm cumming! I'm cumming! Oh fuck! Oh, fuck, baby.."
Natasha rides her orgasm out and smiles when she falls back onto the bed. She turns and looks at your body. "You made me feel so good."
You're perfect.
As she catches her breath, Natasha gently pulls your fingers out and brings them up to her mouth. She marvels at the sight of you now covered in her before she takes her tongue and runs it over your fingers. Enjoying the taste of herself. "I can't wait to taste you." Now that we're together, she forgot to add.
Natasha insets your finger back into her mouth. Loudly sucking on them and moaning before shoving your fingers to the back of her throat, making herself gag on them. She repeats the action.
"Will you let me do that to you?" Natasha says after she's pulled them out and caught her breath. "Hmm?" She licks them again. "Will you gag for me?" She kisses your ring finger and twirls it around. "I wonder..."
Natasha kisses you one more time as she gently places your hand down and moves her body to lay half of it on you. "I wonder what you won't do now that you're mine." She takes your chin in her hand and moves it in her direction. "I can't wait for you to be awake. For us." Natasha deeply kisses your lips as her hand quickly pushes your boobs up. "But first." Natasha releases you and gets up from the bed. She takes off the rest of her clothes and tosses them into your now-shared laundry basket before moving to the desk where her belongings are located.
"I need to take care of a few things."
_
Slowly, your body starts to stir awake.
You go to move to your side but wince when you land on your arm. You are unsure why it hurts, but you are too stiff and tired to worry about that right now. But for some reason, since you're awakening, your body isn't going back to sleep.
Silent bells are ringing in your head, but you don't know they're there.
You groan and manage to flip your body onto its stomach. This position feels terrific, especially since you feel the coolness of the bedsheet against your body. You snuggle your face into your pillow- your eyes shoot open.
You don't remember coming home...
You open your eyes wider and take a look around the room. It's your room. You're relieved to see that but grow more worried at your nonexistent memory of getting home.
Plus, it looks like things around the room are off... you turn your tired back against the mattress and find yourself surprised to have another person in the room.
A blonde-haired woman wearing one of your college sweatshirts looking through one of your old journals... Once again, the alarm in your head is not alerting you. It's distant and faded.
"That's my shirt..?" Your groggy voice makes the woman look up with a smile.
To you, the woman's smile looks like a kid on Christmas morning.
To Natasha, she's testing out how you're gonna act.
"Hi!" The woman gets up with a glass of water from the chair at your desk. The action reveals to you that it looks like she's not wearing any bottoms, but you can't tell because of the length of her- your sweatshirt. The blonde rounds the bed and carefully gets on her knees before you on the floor. She looks kindly at you as your eyes quickly scan her face and exposed legs. "Nice to see you up." She says to you. Innocently enough. "How are you feeling?" She sweetly asks as she hands you the glass of water.
"I don't- I don't remember..." You say, making the blonde smile wider. "I was walking..." You struggle to come up with anything after that. It's like your mind went blank.
Why couldn't you remember?
You shake your head and take a few sips from the glass before the blonde takes it from you to place on your bedside table—a kind gesture on the outside. But the less you know about the pheromonal powder agent you just ingested, the better.
"Oh, honey..." The blonde lifts and places her hand on yours. The soft contact makes you feel warmer. However, the feeling of this being wrong is still unreachable to you. Natasha smiles when you don't pull away. The drugs from before and now are working. "Those men really did a number on you, huh?"
Men? You think as Natasha watches your face.
"You know you're lucky I was there," Natasha says as she rises from her kneeling position to stand in front of you. Now she towers you, and you feel her legs brush past your own. You don't stop her as she moves closer to you. She raises a hand and pushes some of your hair back. "A man grabbed you and wanted to hurt you, but I was there to stop them. But honey, I think they drugged you..."
Her touch and voice were soothing. She felt and smelled wonderful. You even did your best to not react to the pet name she gave you. "Dru-drugged me?" Once again, the bells should be going off, but Natasha knows exactly what she's doing. "Yeah, I got you off the train, but as we were walking, you started to walk funny. Your face got sleepy." She says this while looking into your eyes. She has her gaze fixated on you, and it pulls you in. "But you were smart." The blonde smiles down at you. "You made sure to tell me where you lived so I could get you home safe." Her raspy voice makes you smile, but her words are making you question if that happened... but you don't remember...
"Are you okay?" She asks as you're thinking. You look back up at her concerned face. "Yeah.. I- I was just trying to remember..." Natasha nods and moves her body in between your legs. Spreading them further apart. "What did you say your name was again?" You ask, making Natasha laugh. "I didn't. Good try, though." She places her hands on your shoulders. She's bold. "What's the matter? You don't trust me?" Something about the way she says it makes you feel sick and guilty for even thinking that you didn't trust her.
Natasha, of course, knows this.
"No- no, I trust you! I'm sorry!" You reach your hands out and place them on Natasha's covered hips. Natasha smiles at your action while faking a sad sniffle. "My name is Natasha." You look over the blonde and smile.
That's when it clicks.
"Natasha Romanoff." Natasha's frown turns into a smile. "Wow, you know who I am?" She fakes surprise and turns on the innocence. You nod with your mind, unable to think about anything else but her. "Wow! I got saved by The Black Widow."
Natasha watches as you process this faux information. Gosh, you look so cute. "I guess I was lucky, huh?" You look at her, earning a chuckle. "I just didn't want anything to happen to you," Natasha says, warming your heart. "You're too perfect." She adds in a low whisper. Something you catch that makes your brain fuzzy.
However, before you can do or say anything else, Natasha pushes her body closer to you. Carefully, she watches your eyes as she lifts one leg over yours. Placing one knee on the bed next to your hips before doing the same with the other. She smiles down at you as her bare ass finds itself sitting in your lap.
You feel her wet pussy on your tight black bike shorts.
"Is this okay?" She whispers as she brings her face close enough to yours to feel her breath on your ear. You inhale her scent and feel the butterflies in your stomach.
"More than okay, Natasha..." You find yourself saying. The alarms in your head have officially been silenced. You should be asking why she's doing this, why she's still here. You shouldn't be accepting her advances. But yet you aren't questioning her. You accept her actions with a smile.
She smiles back.
"You know..." Natasha leans down and kisses your cheek. "I'll always protect you." You feel a blush on your face when her soft lips touch your skin again. "I've loved you for so long, and now I get to show you." Natasha lifts her face away from you to look at your eyes flutter.
Natasha sees how defenseless you are now.
The drugs have all worked.
"You love me?" You question as you move your hands down from Natasha's hips to her thighs. The touch of her feels cool to your warm hands. You peer into her green eyes and see them sparkle. "For years, I've loved you." She unwraps her arms from around you and places them on your hands. She moves them up from her thighs to under what used to be your shirt. You feel the bend of her hips and the softness of the sides of her body as your fingertips brush past their way to her nipples.
She pushes your hand to grope her boobs.
"For years, I've wanted you, and now I have you. Don't I?"
Natasha slowly moves her hips back and forth, sending a wave of pleasure through her body as her wet clit brushes up and down the end seam of your bike shorts. She moans and whimpers while looking at you, waiting for an answer. "Don't I, Y/N?!" You push and pull her boobs as you look at Natasha Romanoff acting like a slut for you. "Yes. Yes, Natasha! You have me!"
"I'm yours!" You wanted to scream.
"Good girl." She whispers as she leans down and kisses you again and again. Her tongue pushing its way into your mouth. The taste of her is salvia is electrifying. The pleasure you feel makes you moan into her mouth. Natasha smirks as you push yourself deeper and closer to The Black Widow.
Natasha reaches down as you two fall onto the bed to places her hand in the middle of your bike shorts. She begins rubbing your core up and down as her hand pushes your legs open. "Come on, baby. Open up for me."
You nod with your eyes closed and feel Natasha's fingers slow down in speed as she now gently brushes her fingers past your wet clit seeping through the shorts.
Each time she touches it, you jump.
And then. Natasha pulls her hands away from you: nothing but the cool air touching the wet spot on your shorts. You feel needy and frustrated. You open your eyes to see Natasha on her knees, lifting her shirt off her body. Her blonde hair falls back into place right above her shoulder.
She smiles at you and watches as you take her in.
You feel your mouth become dry as you look up at Natasha's toned stomach. A set of abs staring at you. You move from her perfect breast and hard pink nipples to her shoulders and biceps. The definition in her arms makes you close your mouth to hold in a noise that would've been embarrassing.
You look up at her neck—a smile when you see a cute mole that was previously hidden. Finally, you bring your eyes to her face and the smirk on her lips.
"Can I take these off?" Natasha points down to your bike shorts. You nod, making Natasha internally laugh. The shorts were coming off no matter what your answer was.
You pull your head from Natasaba's gaze and watch as Natasha's left hand goes to the bottom seam of your shorts and lifts them up from your body.
Once again, her touch makes your skin flush with pleasure. It's as if you're addicted to her and her touch.
Natasha pulls her right arm from behind herself, and that's when you drop your mouth. "Na-natasha, what's that?"
"Did I say you can speak?"
You sit stunned as the knife in her hand comes closer to your body. You weren't aware that you couldn't speak unless spoken to, but... di- did Natasha expect that of you? Did she tell you, and you just forgot?
"Look at me." She sternly asks of you. "Not at the knife but at me." The movement of the knife doesn't stop when you pull your eyes to Natasha and her beautiful green ones. "What did I say earlier?" She asks. "Think real hard and then answer me, okay." Her eyes leave you as she focuses on the blade, meeting the bottom seam of your shorts. You keep your eyes on Natasha's face and hear the ripping sound of your shorts as she goes further and further up.
She stops at your hip close to the top seam when you decide to speak up.
"That you'll always protect me." Natasha smiles wide. You listened and answered her perfectly. Natasha smiles and can't help herself when she leans in and kisses you. "Good job." She says with care dripping from her lips. "What else did I say?"
"That you love me."
Natasha nods. "I do love you." She leans in and, with the knife still in her left hand, drags up the rest of the way. Her lips touch yours at the same time the blade cuts through your shorts.
Immediately, Natasha tosses the knife off the bed. It clatters on the floor, making you jump into Natasha's lips again. "Sorry." You say when she backs away. "It's okay." The blonde tells you. "As long as you know that I would never hurt you, right?"
"Right." You agree easily.
Natasha smiles as she pulls at the fabric resting on your pussy. The coating sticks to you as she pulls it further away until the string of wetness breaks mid-air. Falling back onto your thigh. "Did Mommy make you feel this way?"
She knows that she did.
But she wants to hear you say it.
"Yes." Natasha brings her fingers back to where they belong. "Yes, what?" She glides her middle finger over your pink mound. You moan and shudder.
"Yes, Mommy."
_
Natasha should've left soon after that night. But she couldn't bring herself to do it.
She knew her friends needed her help, but she couldn't leave you. She finally had you, and you had her. Why would she want to jeopardize that?
So as, the days turned into weeks to months to years. Natasha felt the pressure to run continue to build.
In contrast, as the days turned into weeks to months to years. You felt yourself falling deeper and deeper in love with the one who saved you. The Black Widow. The cute blonde hero who made you breakfast in bed. The woman who stayed with you. The one who whispered sweet nothings into your ear every night as you drifted asleep. The woman who saved the world repeatedly could now be there for you.
Natasha even let it be known that you didn't have to work anymore. She had an array of offshore accounts and wanted to spoil you, and you, in turn, let her.
You blushed when she looked your way and never got tired of seeing her smile. A goddess herself sculpted her body, and Natasha happily made sure you came for her. Only her.
"Hey, what's going on?"
You walked out of your and Natasha's bedroom after finding the bed empty to see her in the living room going over her weaponry. Something you didn't like, but you trusted Natasha with them. Knowing she would never harm you.
It was early afternoon, and after your morning trip to the farmers market, followed by some light grocery shopping, you came home to Natasha, waiting with some brunch and a board game.
You took a nap after that, and while you slept, Natasha made her decision.
"They need me."
You knew who Natasha was talking about. It wasn't a secret that you were dating Natasha Romanoff. Well, it was a secret to everyone else. But you get my point. You were dating a fugitive labeled that by the United Nations on account of the Sokovian Accords—an ex-Avenger who still wanted to help.
"What if I don't want you to go." You asked with hurt in your voice. You finally had the love of your life. Someone you weren't even looking for, and now she wanted to go?
"Baby..." She put her gun on the coffee table and made her way to you. Wrapping her arms around you as you wrapped around her body. "I don't want to go..." A white lie, considering her little weekend-avenging trips from time to time weren't enough. "But I have to. To protect us. To protect you." The truth.
"Rogers needs me. Plus, with Vision and Wanda running around trying to be a normal couple again. He really needs the help."
You nodded into Natasha's shoulder. You hated that she was right. "How long?" Natasha sighed. She really didn't know how long it would be.
"Give me two weeks, and I'll be back."
You deflated, and your heart formed cracks. You didn't want her to leave, and you didn't want her to go for that long!
Natasha started kissing your head and rubbing your back, and you didn't understand why until you felt the tears leaving your eyes. You were crying.
Natasha hated it. She hated hearing how heartbroken you were. But at the same time, she loved it. You were hers. And she was yours.
"I love you Y/N. I'll be back before you know it."
"I love you, Natty. Please be careful."
_
Natasha wasn't even gone for two weeks. In fact, her time with Captain and Birdboy lasted a mere pair of days.
On day 3, Vision turned off his transponder.
Within 48 hours, half of everything was dust.
When Natasha found the others at the corpse of the synthezoid. Two people ran through Natasha's mind.
Yelena.
And you.
_
"Y/N!"
Natasha screamed as she busted open the door to your shared space. She threw her useless phone onto the counter as she ran through the living room, still in her uniform. Passing by the TV that sat on the emergency broadcast. "Y/N!" She called out again as she stopped at the bedroom door. "Please be here. Please be alive.."
Natasha had tears in her eyes as she slowly opened the bedroom door. Her breath left her lips in a gasp before she blinked away tears that were escaping. She carefully made her way to the bed and sat down.
You turned over as you felt the bed shift. Then you opened your eyes when you felt Natasha's presence. "Natasha? Natasha!" You sprung up from the bed and collided into her body.
You both wept as the relief flooded your combined emotions. "You're alive..." Natasha whispered into your head before inhaling.
She grew to love your shampoo.
"I miss you." You said. "Don't worry, Detka. I'm here. I'm here." Natasha kissed the side of your head before leaning back and kissing your mouth.
God, she missed your lips and the softness of your cheeks as you tried to hide your blush.
"I miss you." You repeated, confusing Natasha.
"Babe?" She pulled back and held your head in her hands. Her green eyes scanned your beautiful face and saw nothing wrong until a speck of dust flew off your nose. "No.." Natasha whispered with pain. "Y/N." She kept your face in her hands as little by little. You ceased to exist. "Y/N!" Her hands started to be covered.
"I miss you."
"Y/N, please no! No! Please!"
"I miss-" "Stop it!" "Nata-"
"No!" She screamed and screamed as you vanished until she woke up thrashing in her bed at the compound. Alone. Gun drawn and ready...
"Whatever it takes..." Whispered by you... Is this the last thing Natasha always heard when she woke up from her nightmares..
Natasha looks around the room with bags under her red, dried eyes and chapped lips. She struggles every day to live. She hates herself for leaving.
She hates that the last thing you told her was, "be careful."
She is hurt. Alone. Scared.
She misses you.
Every day, she tries and uses her resources to find a way to bring everyone back. But so far, she's always coming up empty-handed.
The worst part is, is that even after three years of you being gone. Natasha never told anyone. You were a secret to everyone else.
But to Natasha, you were everything.
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dividers by @/benkeibear & @/firefly-graphics
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starrystella85 · 6 months ago
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Home Sweet Home Au (image and Au by: @MissMio)
Since the day you left that hell scape of a toy factory known as Playtime Co. you may have brought some stowaways with you, specifically Dogday, Catnap, Kissy, Huggy, Poppy, you get the idea. The human toy experiments that Playtime Co. created from their insane and sadistic imagination, honestly what were they thinking when they did this, anyways you took them home with you to your giant mansion in the woods, that your family owned thanks to not only the money you had made at Playtime Co. while it was still in operation, but because your family owned a huge marketing company that made millions. What was it named? Safe Heaven Toys LLC, funny really that your life revolved around toys.
On the drive home cause you had to make multiple trips during the night so no one would see the monstrosities that were once human in the back of your truck, you pulled into the driveway with the last of the toys, and as soon as you step inside Dogday and Catnap are the first to greet you.
"Welcome home Angel!" The orange stuffed dog said as his tail wagged violently through the air, his tone upbeat and energetic.
"Savior. . .welcome." The purple cat said in a more sleepy tone, but nonetheless excited to see you as his tail snaked it's way around your hips.
"hey guys. . .ugh. . ." You said to them before almost collapsing from the amount of sleep and sustenance you were deprived of, you were lucky that Carnap still had his tail wrapped around your hips to make sure you wouldn't fall face first.
"You need. . .rest now. . .Savior." Catnap stated and honestly you couldn't have agreed more. And so you were brought upstairs to the master bedroom, your room and placed on your king sized bed. As soon as you hit the mattress you pass out immediately, out like a damn light. It would take at least a week before you can recover from all the bullshit that you when through or so the toys thought. Apparently you only need like three days of sleep and a large portion of food, but other than that you were good.
Everyday for the next three days the toys would check on you, making sure that you were alright and well provided for, then just like that you were back on your feet ready to start the day. You've never felt *this* peaceful before, actually you've never felt *this* peaceful a day in your life since you were always moving and on the go, but it felt nice and finally having some company thanks to the living toys you didn't feel as lonely as you originally did before they came into your life.
"Angel how are you feeling now?" Dogday asks you know he's just doing it out of concern for you, he was always a sweet one, possessive? Maybe, but definitely sweet.
"I'm alright Dogday, I've just been doing one to many things that I crashed." You replied back to him, easing his worries, still there's a small glint in his eyes that say otherwise. "I'm being honest Dogday I'm fine." You told him as you began to scratch behind his ears making his foot do the weird moving thing. It was adorable to see and you couldn't help but scratch harder and harder which caused his tail to start thumping against the floor, causing a giggle to come out of your lips. Hearing your soft voice and fits of laughter caused a deep crimson blush to spread across Dogday's face. If he was given the chance he could listen to you all day, cause something about your voice just makes his heart flutter. Unfortunately the moment was short lived cause Catnap having a long ass tail like he does managed to snatch you up and drag you away from the loving pup that was Dogday.
"CATNAP!!! 💱" Yup Dogday was pissed as soon as you were stolen away from him. He tried searching all of the mansion but the mansion was to big and had one too many rooms that Catnap could use to hide, so the poor angry orange puppy gave up, but he swore if he saw that cat again he was going to teach him a lesson about stealing *HIS* angel away from him. Meanwhile Catnap and taken you to the more quiet areas of the house, mainly the ones you didn't have any use for and was just kinda sitting there gathering dust, except for a room that Catnap made to be his nesting spot. The room had a bunch of mattresses, blankets, pillows, and other soft plush-like materials he could find, half of them belonging to you, and the other half you don't know where in gods name he got it from. Probably stole it or something.
"hi Catnap." You said to the large purple cat as he looked at you while holding you within his arms. A faint purr came from his throat as his ears flicked, indicating that he acknowledges you.
"Savior. . ." He says. Ever since you saved him from, what would have been an unfortunate accident if you didn't intervene, was his near death encounter with 1006, and while he knows that he'll always be somewhat loyal to the prototype, he'll mostly be loyal to you just like, if more, the prototype.
Later you were wondering around aimlessly tell someone hugged you from behind. When you looked up you saw the blue huggable monster himself, Huggy Waggy. He'd changed since he and the other toys left the factory with you, and like Dogday, he was extremely clingy. It also didn't help that fact that whenever he looked at you he gave you this innocent little face as if saying "love me."
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d0llcuries · 10 days ago
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ICE-CREAM FOR TWO
pairing(s): reiner braun x fem! reader
summary: you hated him for dragging you to marley, for every stolen chance at freedom. you expected the feeling to be mutual as you rented him for four long years but it wasn't. what better way to address this than ice-cream!
author's note: uh, i guess i write for aot now. blame my cousin and her insistence on getting me addicted to this stupid show for the possibility of inaccurate writing. i love reiner pls send requests for aot đŸ€ČđŸœ
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the market cradled you today in a way almost cruel, with its heat and grit pressing close, air thick with burnt coffee, iron on the breeze, syrupy traces of cotton candy and caramel inviting you into the hic et nunc, although you didn’t want to be. you hated this noise, this heat, the whole crowded mess of voices folding together like waves. you hated how it almost felt like home. you hated how you could almost trick yourself into calling it that if you tried hard enough. a mirror showing something soft, distant, something that could’ve been yours in some other life. no matter how warm the market held you, the truth settled somewhere beneath it all. this land is borrowed, marley is not home, and no amount of rose-tinted glass could change that.
under a washed-out sky, baskets burst with flowers like muted fireworks, children racing in loops, dogs tangled and nipping at their heels. you thought about reiner before you saw him. he was sitting across the square, shoulders hunched as if he were carrying every brick and stone of marley on his back, the same as he’d carried those in paradis. he looked like he was far away, somewhere only he knew how to reach. you still saw that ghost of the soldier you thought he was back then, before everything came apart.
you’d told yourself you wouldn’t go near him, wouldn’t let him know that, after all this time, you’d never quite stopped noticing him. you wonder why you think of him so much, why he takes up all this space in your mind even when he's not near. it was strange how close you were and weren’t, your lives spooled together and then split, moth-eaten like old twine.
but then gabi’s voice broke into your thoughts.
“hey, yn! can you buy us ice cream, please? come on, it’s not far! the ice-cream stand's like.. right around the corner, and i haven’t had any in soooooo long!” gabi stretched out the ‘so long’ ensuring that you felt every inch of the ache that came from a whole season without the taste of frozen sugar. she practically sang, her sticky hand finding yours and pulling before you’d had a chance to respond.
before you knew it, you were standing at the old ice-cream stand, faded to a dull blue, the wood bleached and splintering under too many hot days. the vendor, an older man with sunburned skin and tired eyes, barely lifted his gaze as he rattled off the list of flavors available.
while you hadn’t chosen this home, you chose these people, or maybe they chose you in some inexplciable way. the days of resentment, the times you’d longed to be anywhere but marley, softened over time. gabi, falco, and udo, each of them with their bright, trusting faces had managed to bring out a warmth in you that you’d forgotten was there. you hadn’t planned to love them, but they’d worked their way into the little cracks between loneliness and anger, without effort or warning. it felt like love. you loved them.
“please, please, please?” gabi’s voice tumbled out, each please more insistent than the last. you pressed your lips together, trying to chase away the smile that wanted to break free, but there was no stopping it. the vendor cleared his throat, glancing at the line of customers that was growing behind you, and that pressure paired with gabiÊŒs nagging commenced the immediate collapse of any resolve you’d held and any remaining choice you had.
“alright, alright,” you murmured. “three, please,” you said, “two caramel swirls
 and a chocolate.”
you pull the coins from your purse, and slide them across the vendor’s counter, a quick glance past the crowd where you know reiner’s somewhere out there, not close but close enough. you dig back into your purse, pull out enough for an extra ice cream, and place it on the wood. “and one more, vanilla.”
the vendor didn't blink. he handed you the cones with a practiced indifference, the soft edges already drooping in the heat, melting faster than they should. gabi snatched hers right away, giving a quick “thanks!” but not really looking at you. she didn’t need to, her appreciation was in her wide-eyed grin and the way she immediately started devouring the cone as if she’d waited years for it. udo took his with a quiet “thank you,” glancing at the cone like it was the first good thing he’d seen all day. falco gave a small nod, not meeting your eyes, as if the simple gesture was too much kindness to take all at once.
you glance at the extra cone in your hand, and you think about the boy—no, man—you had brought it for.
your gaze flickered to the square, and there he was, his silhouette made of pale, ghostly gold and all the fragments that cling to it. the blond of his hair catches and curls like a match struck in silence as he rests on the bench with moss staining its feet in a green kiss. “stay close. don't wander off,” you murmur to gabi and the boys, a mother’s instinct in a stranger’s affection. the market seems to swell as faces blur into patches of color and shadow.
usually heÊŒd be the one buying them the sweets, trailing behind like he belonged to the children, not the other way around. he’d slip coins to the vendor, barely seen, to make sure the kids stayed kids, get them something sweet to carry home sticky on their fingers. his presence made the kids feel safe. that was his gift to them.
he didn’t see you, not at first, lost in whatever he’d wrapped around himself, his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes focused on something far off, his expression pulled into that mask of solemnity that’s so familiar it hurts. there’s a ghost of a frown in his brow from spending too much time thinking about things he didn’t want to think about. it was only when you were close enough that he looked up, startled, it was clear he wasn't expecting to see you. there was a tension in him, he sort of resembled an animal caught between choices, wanting to flee but rooted to the spot.
“i thought you’d want one,” you said, holding the cone out. it wasn’t often that you spoke to him this way, or at all. not about something as simple as ice-cream.
he stared at it first, then up at you. for a heartbeat you thought he might actually refuse it, let the ice-cream coat your hand with melted stickiness just to spite you for they way you resented him for the past four years.
“they give that to you for free?” he said, his eyes drifted somewhere just beyond the market stalls, like he was only half-invested in the jab.
something in his tone snagged, left a thin, invisible cut. he had every reason to say it, you supposed, but it still bruised in a way it shouldn’t. “no,” you shot back, trying not to let his offhand remark knock too hard against the satisfaction you’d felt just moments ago. “i bought it for you.”
with a breath soft as surrender, he looked up at you, and you could feel it, the way he saw you, had always seen you, from the days you were both cadets stumbling through ranks and routines. he’d always thought you were pretty, even when thought you didn't interact often.
the word devil was supposed to define you. reiner was trained to see you that way, to let a thick wall of prejudice stand between you both, forged over years of lessons and oaths. in marley, they pressed that word into people like you, used it to shape you into something repulsive. it was easy to believe it as a child, to see you through the war-stained images they painted, to think of you as something marley’s soldiers had been trained to conquer and devastate. but somehow, that wall never felt as solid with you. he tried to keep it up, you could tell from the way his gaze would shift from warm to cold so quickly, his jaw setting hard as if he was gripping some old lesson, forcing himself to remember why he wasn’t supposed to care. and you hated him for it as much as you didn’t. it was like he had stolen every sense of belonging from you, yet kept a fragile piece of it alive in himself, offering it back in little moments you refused to trust.
he’d always figured he’d have to wait, maybe forever for that forgiveness, if it came at all. for four years, he’d held onto the hope that one day you might look at him without that burning hatred in your eyes. over time, he’d let that hope slip through his fingers, learning to live in the shadow of what he thought he’d ruined.
but now, standing here, he felt something he hadn’t dared to let himself feel in a long time. the way you looked at him was different—not hardened or distant, but softened, like there was warmth in you meant just for him. it was subtle, but it caught him completely off guard, a look that lingered a little too long, the edges softening just enough for him to see something he’d once believed was lost.
he wanted to say something, anything, to reach out, but he found himself rooted, afraid to break whatever delicate understanding hung between you. he’s always been so careful with you, so mindful of your boundaries. your gaze didn’t waver, and he felt it like a quiet ache, as if, finally, there was a chance your view of him had changed.
he took the cone with hands that were larger than you remembered, rough and scarred and cracked in places. in his grasp, the small offering looked absurdly delicate.
“thanks.”
you settle on the edge of the bench beside him, close enough to feel the warmth radiating from his skin, but not quite touching.
“you didn’t have to do this,” he said, his voice subdued, as if he was suppressing emotions that he couldn’t articulate.
“i wanted to,” you reply simply, the words soft but steady, a quiet confession hidden in plain sight. it’s not much, just a simple act of kindness, but it feels like more than that, like a tentative step toward something new, something neither of you quite knows how to name.
“i’m not good at this,” he admits after a long pause, the unexpected confession falling between you. he doesn’t look at you, eyes locked on the melting drip tracing a path down his knuckle.
you let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. “good at what?”
he’s quiet for a moment, so quiet that the hum of the market seems louder, pressing in from all sides. when he finally speaks, his voice is low, almost hesitant. “being close. to anyone.”
you shift slightly, your knee brushing against his leg. it’s so slight it could be an accident, but it’s not. “well, you’re here now.”
he looks up at you then with an unconcealed reverence that makes your heart lurch in your chest, eyes softening around the edges, holding that mix of confusion and hope that makes him look almost boyish. “yeah, i am.”
the silence stretches, but this time it’s warm, inviting. you can see him wrestling with something, the way his jaw tightens, loosens, the way his thumb traces a line across the wood of the bench as if trying to ground himself.
“it’s strange,” he starts, eyes flickering to yours before darting away again, “this..” he nods to the space inbetween you, “feels like more than i deserve.”
your gaze lingers on him, and you swallow back the pool of savila resting on your tongue. “maybe we’re both not good at this,” you whisper, a shy honesty threading through your voice. “but i think we could be.”
he blinks. “you think so?”
“yeah,” you say, the word barely more than a breath but heavy with everything you mean. “i do.”
and for the first time in years, he lets himself believe it.
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pedroshotwifey · 11 months ago
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To the Flame Chapter 1
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Series masterlist
Pairing: Dark!Javier Peña x afab!reader
Word count: 2.5k
Chapter tags/warnings: not much yet, age gap, fluff, reader being horny (c'mon y'all it's me what do you expect), Javier being gorgeous, erotic novels honorable mention, mentions of cheating, stuff I'm probably forgetting
Chapter summary: You meet a beautiful stranger at the farmer's market. Is he what you need to get back on your feet?
A/N: Hey, y'all!! I'm so very excited about starting this series! I have so many plans, and I can't wait to share them with you! Please keep in mind that this story will get darker the more it progresses. Thank you for reading!
***
You’ve been back in your hometown for about three months now. Three miserable and exhausting months. 
You’ve been working on the family farm four days a week, ten hours a day, every week since you got back. You figure it wouldn’t be so bad if you got to have the other three days off, but no. Those days are spent at the local farmer’s market, sitting in a stiff plastic chair in the sticky Texan heat. 
It doesn’t even matter that you wear a tank top and shorts to the market, you feel like you’re going to melt every damn time you have to go. The same goes for working on the farm, only you’re less fortunate in that situation. You know it’s smarter to wear jeans out there, so most of the time you do.
You’re trying to be grateful to your parents, you really are. They just make it so damn hard sometimes. Sure, they gave you a job when you needed one, but they never stop talking about how they were right. And they were, as much as you didn’t want to admit it. 
Your mom and dad never approved of your boyfriend, and had told you as much. You chose to ignore that fact considering they said that about every boyfriend you ever had. How the hell were you supposed to know if they were actually concerned, or if they just didn’t want you to date?
They had warned you about him. Told you that he wasn’t genuine, that you need to be careful. They told you the same about your so-called “best friend”, who was the person you found your boyfriend balls deep inside of three months ago.
But, of course, despite their protest, you had moved out with him anyway. Spent your savings on renting an apartment that he put practically nothing into. In retrospect, you really should have known; there were so many signs. You were just too damn stubborn to see them. You never would have guessed that he would go as far as to cheat on you.
Your own poor choices are what ultimately landed you back here, getting out of your dad’s old truck to unload a creaky table to set up the stand at the farmer’s market. Again. You roll your eyes and pop your earbuds in, putting on your favorite playlist. 
You open the back of the truck and start to drag the plastic table out. It slides across the bed effortlessly thanks to the morning dew it’s been sitting out in. Unfortunately, that detail is another pain in the ass more than anything, because you end up getting half-soaked as you haul it into the giant tent that makes up the market.
You get it set up in an empty booth, smacking the rusted hinges to get it to stand without risk of collapse. After you lean on it to make sure it won’t fall, you return to the truck to start the endless trips of carrying produce to the stand. You usually make your younger sister help you with this part since she often tags along, but, being a senior in highschool, she couldn’t make it today. 
Once you have everything put together and displayed on various shelves, you take a seat in the foldable chair you had brought with you. You expect it will be a slow day, as Mondays usually are, so you brought a book to pass the time. 
You rarely sell anything on weekdays, you have no idea why your parents are so adamant about you coming all the way out here every monday since you got here. Maybe it’s just to get you out of the house—you wouldn’t put it past them.
You take one more look around the market to make sure there’s nobody approaching your stand before you open your book to the first page. It’s a newer, trashy romance. It’s a little embarrassing, sure, but you like what you like. 
Sometimes you swear your love life is awful or boring enough for you to actually wish to be in the place of the girls in your books. At least the fictional men seem genuine. Less likely to cheat on you with your best friend, you think bitterly. 
Less likely to manipulate into moving into an expensive apartment without helping, Less likely to treat you like shit. Plus, you probably wouldn’t mind the fact that they all seem to be absolute hunks and amazing in bed.
The sound of someone clearing their throat startles you from your spiraling thoughts, your cheeks reddening once you realize you have been staring blankly at the same page for a good few minutes. 
You have to steady yourself so you don’t drop your book on the dirt below you, which has you almost falling out of your chair in the process. 
You glance up at the stranger as you situate yourself, which doesn’t do much to help. The man is drop-dead fucking gorgeous. He’s staring down at you, clearly amused. His full lips are tugged up into a half-smirk. You think for a second that he looks familiar, but you would for sure remember seeing a man like this.
His hair is dark, a bit long and shaggy, but in the way that makes you want to run your fingers through it. He wears sunglasses, you notice with disappointment. You don’t know why you have such a strong urge to see what’s hidden under there. You’re guessing they’re brown. He seems to carry a kind aura, it’s a fitting idea that his eyes would be warm.
Even though you sense such a kindness emanating from him, there’s an annoying nagging from the back of your head that makes you uneasy. His stare is almost imposing, the way he carries himself adding so much to the effect. Your stomach bunches up in a frustrating way that signifies both anxiety and lust. You don’t really care much to figure out which is dominant at the moment. 
All you know is that you’re drawn to this man like a moth to a flame, and that after all you’ve been through, you deserve to admire him at the very least. It’s not often you come across such a good looking man. A fictional looking man. 
He cocks his head after you stare for what could probably be considered a second too long. Your face must be about the shade of a tomato at this point. The weight of an object in your hand quickly reminds you of the task at hand. 
This is a potential customer. You need to stop staring like a schoolgirl. Besides, he must be what
 ten, fifteen years older than you? God, you can’t even tell. He looks mature, but somehow ageless at the same time. He has strong, masculine features, but a sort of boyish quality, too. If someone told you he was some kind of a god himself, you would have no trouble believing them.
“I-I’m so sorry, let me just put this down,” you say to the god, trying not to stumble over your own words after getting caught ogling. 
“No problem at all, sweetheart,” he says, clearly unbothered. Fuck, his voice. It’s deep and rich, and he has some sort of accent,  like he grew up speaking another language. Spanish? Probably spanish. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Down, girl.
You take a breath in through your nose, willing yourself to relax as you set your book down on the table in front of you. You resist the urge to shut your eyes out of embarrassment as he looks down at the erotic cover, and then back at you with an arched brow and an amused smile. You move quickly as you snatch the book back to flip it back-side-up.
“What can I get for you, sir?” you quietly attempt to move on from that interaction, trying to reign in some of your composure. He’s standing with one hand on his hip, which is jutted out just slightly. He licks his plush lips and stands up mostly straight before he speaks. He pulls a piece of paper out of his snug back pocket and starts to read off of it. 
Your face keeps a nice flush as he reads off of his list. Your core throbs every now and again as he talks, making it a bit hard for you to concentrate, but you’re pretty sure you got everything. 
You nod at him to let him know as much before you get up to collect everything. Who knows if your voice even works right now. You do your best to ignore the weight of his stare on your back as you move around.
“Haven’t seen you around before,” he says, obviously wanting to start a conversation. “You been here long?”
“No, not really,” you say, trying to level your voice as you place produce into bags. “Well, kind of. I grew up here but I moved away a few years ago. Only been back for a couple months now. I’m staying to help my parents for a bit before I can get back onto my feet,” you finish as you secure the last bag. 
You look up as you place the goods on the table, this time meeting the man’s uncovered eyes. Brown and expressive, just as you imagined. You smile absentmindedly, and he mirrors your action, making your stomach twist once again. What a fucking smile. 
“Well, welcome back, then,” he says. “I’m Javier. Prefer it if you would call me Javi, though.” 
“Javi it is,” you say, liking the feel of his name on your tongue. You tell him your name and he nods. 
“Pretty name for a pretty girl.” 
Fuck this man, he has to know what he’s doing. 
“Thank you,” you say, trying to control the pitch of your voice. 
He watches you as you place his bags on the table in front of you, now full of his requested items. As you catch his gaze, everything around you seems to fade to black. No sounds, no movement. All you can focus on is the sudden electric current that is born between the two of you. 
A nervous flutter starts in your stomach, but you just can’t bring yourself to look away, as if the attraction would be broken and gone forever if you did. The two of you hold eye contact for what could be a minute or ten before someone walks past your stand, drawing your attention back to reality.
You both let out a breath you’ve been holding, yours probably more shaky than his. You shake your head and start to add up his total after wiping your sweaty palms on your shorts. He stands back on his heels, his hands shoved into his pockets as he watches you work.
It only takes a moment. You tell him his total and he slides his wallet out, handing you the exact cash. You both thank each other at the same time, making you giggle. He smiles wider at the sound. 
“You’ve got a nice laugh, sweetheart,” he complements warmly. 
“Thank you. I made it myself,” you joke. Javi chuckles to himself, almost like he’s surprised to hear you make a joke. “Sorry,” you say, laughter in your own voice. “That was kind of lame.” 
“No, that was pretty clever, actually,” he says through his smile. 
You let yourself get one more good look as you reciprocate the gesture, fully expecting him to part ways. He doesn’t though, instead he asks you the one question you had hoped that nobody would ask you. 
“What brought you back here?” 
Your smile drops slightly and you consider lying to him, telling him that your parents wanted your help and that’s all. You know you can’t, though. There’s no point in trying to hide the truth. Nothing stays hidden in this small town. 
So you don’t. You sum up every stupid, unfair thing that made you return home. There’s a flash of sympathy in his gaze that makes you want to shut up, but some sick part of you craves that sympathy at the same time. 
It only takes you a couple minutes to have everything out, but he stays quiet and patient the entire time. Never interrupting you once and nodding along at all the right parts to let you know he’s listening. 
You haven’t felt this seen in a long time, It feels good. It makes you want to wrap yourself up in this total stranger’s arms and beg him to hold you. Fuck, now you’re picturing that. You need to not picture that. Luckily you don’t have much of a chance to, because he’s responding to you only a few seconds after you finish. 
“Well, that’s a damn shame. Fuckin’ boys don’t even know how to treat a sweet girl anymore.” Javi says, making you blush once again. 
The attention he gives you feels the same as jumping into a cool pool after being in the sun all day. It’s unbelievably refreshing to hear something like that instead of the usual scolding and ‘I told you so’s.  
He seems to put thought into what comes out of his mouth, and it genuinely makes you feel like he cares. Like he wants to make sure you hear what you deserve to hear.
“What makes you so sure I’m sweet?” you ask playfully, trying to change the topic to ignore the craving for more kind words. Might as well flirt a little while you’re at it, you figure. What can it hurt?
“Just a hunch,” he says, his tone the same as yours as his smile crinkled eyes bore into yours. You nod a little, your adoring smile never wavering.
 You both notice the small line of people beginning to form behind Javi at the same time. He almost looks disappointed at the sight, like he doesn’t want to leave just yet. 
“Just one second, honey,” he says, digging the scrap of paper from before out of his pocket again. Once he has that laid against the table in front of him, he supplies a pen from the front pocket of his shirt. He uses it to scribble something down onto the paper. 
You crane your neck slightly to try to catch a peak, but you can’t tell with how fast he’s writing. When he’s done, he folds it once, slides it your way, and gives a singular nod. 
“See you around, sweetheart,” he says as he starts to leave. 
“Yeah. See you,” you mumble under your breath as you watch him stride away, bags of produce in hand.
A woman walks up to the table, and you quickly turn to her. 
“So sorry about that. How can I help you?” you ask quickly, eyeing the paper Javi left behind.
It only takes you a little while to get everyone who was in line checked out, but it feels like it could have been hours. As soon as the last customer starts to walk away, your hands are on the note, shakily unfolding it to reveal Javi’s (suitably) scratchy handwriting. 
You see what you can only assume to be his phone number, and above it, there’s a note. 
“I would love to see you again, sweet girl. Give me a call?” 
Your heart flutters as you bite your lip and read the note over again. There’s no way you’re not taking up that offer. 
***
Thank you so much for reading!! I would absolutely love any kind of feedback so I know where everyone's at on this!! I have a tag list open for this series if anybody would like to join <3
Series taglist: @corazondebeskar @yorksgirl @nerdieforpedro @axshadows @survivingandenduring @kewwrites (pls lmk if these tags worked!)
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dragonridernoobie · 3 months ago
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Hello! I don't know if you're still staring intensely at your inbox bored... but! I can give you something to do for a little while if you'd like . It's my first asking, so I'll try to be simple.
How about a one-shot of Ganondorf x reader, where they both used to know each other well romantically before ganondorf became the god of power. (When he was still the king of gerudo), the reader could've been a simple traveler who traveled through the desert (they could be injured due to battles against monsters on the way there) and found themselves in the gerudo town or something where they met him in the market in disguise cause he try sometime to find peace away from all the responsibilities once in a while and they bond over thing they both like.
Some time passes, and their feelings to each other grow more and more until the reader has to leave because of an emergency at their hometown (idk a family member is sick and they need special treatment that is very hard to get) so they leave while promising to ganondorf to come back once the situation is over. But they never do.
Heartbroken and angry ganondorf becomes the god of power, and after some times the reader goes back only to find out by the new ruler of gerudo that he became the man that brought hyrule to ruins.
Idk maybe something with a little bit of hope at the end? The reader could meet link and help him get to the palace. Like they see the man they fall in love with still inside the corrupted being in front of them. And tries to bring him back?
It's a long ask, and it's totally fine if you don't want to write it or have the time to do it (I know it's a lot energy to write) But if it gave you ideas for a new story or inspired you little than that's all that matter 😉. Anyways! Have a wonderful day or night.
A ask is never too long, I'm sorry if this took so long. I was trying to think of a way to make this a good way of writing it. Since I write in so many ways. So, I decided to make it seem like a story. I hope you like it or love it, I'm fine with either. Thank you for being Paitent!!!! (Also, i changed the story a bit since I've never seen or played BOTW2, and I rather not spoile it for my self.)
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The story of the human and the Gerudo King
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Long ago, when life was still new and people were still new to the land. Lived 6 different races that rule these lands.
The first hylians came to the land from the goddess Hylia. They created the Hylians as the first race of Hyrule.
And from that race, came all 5 other races.
Rito, hyilans who became one with the sky. Zoras, hyains who became one with the water. Gorons, hyians who became one with the ground. Gerudos, hyians who have split off and became one of their own.
They are a unique species since they only live in the desert. Where they first became is unknown hut they are known for being made of woman and woman only.
But every 100 years, a male is born from a Gerudo, and it becomes the new king of the Gerudo.
The six species are unknown. No one rarely sees them, no one knows about them, but we only know one thing.
They are wise. They have ways to cure the most evil sickness. They know how to survive in places that shouldn't be possible, and they are hard to kill.
Sadly, at one point in time, a king who was ruler of Hyrule found where these humans were and declared war on them. He slaughtered all of them. Their species were lost in time, and no one them about them.
And this is where our legend begins
Before calamity himself became, to be, there used to be a simple king of his lands of the Gerudo. His name was Ganondorf.
His people lived in the desert. They struggled but were happy. Ganondorf traded with people across the land. People always wanted to trade with the Gerudos.
So this is where ganondorf met his love.
He was on his way to a city when the bridge he rode on collapsed. He fell great distance and fell in the river below.
Ganondorf disappeared for weeks and his kingdom feared the worst. Intel Ganondorf arrived and even more unexpectedly that he had a few people with him.
Word spread around in the city that the king was alive and the city was happy.
The humans showed the Gerudos their ways, showed them how to get food in unique ways, showed them how to fight aginst sickness and even showed them how to plant foods in the desert.
While the humans showed them their ways, a human named (Y/N) and ganondorf grown feelings for each other. They were happy, and for years, the humans lived with the Gerudos. Even the human males.
Sadly, (Y/N) had to leave. They had to cross the land to reach another human settlement that are in need of help. They told ganondorf they will return and set corse.
Weeks past and ganondorf waited, and waited, and waited, he waited for days, weeks, and months. After so long, ganondorf became angry and hurt. Angry since (Y/N) has left and that the hyilans have caused trouble.
Hurt because he believes (Y/N) abandoned him. So he decided to declare war on the hyilans and kick out the humans.
This is where calamity came to be. When (Y/N) found out what has happened, they were stuck with grief and hurt.
When link awakened and they met (Y/N), they both agreed to defeat calamity. When link was able to defeat calamity (The first BOTW) (Y/N), talked to him before he was slayed by the light bow.
"I promise to keep fighting for you love. Please do the same...."
Once he was slayed, they fled away. Zelda and Link never saw them again. Though, they wernt gone forever. They where just praying and helping their remaining village survive.
Though (Y/N) hopes to have her love once more.
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r3leee · 11 months ago
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right where you left me
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this fic is for @liseytopia and i’s lovely fic exchange. hope you like it, tysm for putting the extra time into making two i seriously don’t deserve you đŸ˜­đŸ«¶đŸ» hope you like it <3
pairing: finnick odair x fem!reader
summary: you haven’t seen finnick since the games; at least the true finnick. ever since he got whisked away to the capitol, you haven’t seen his old self. but, one day, things change
warnings: angst angst angst, hurt/comfort, sad little finnick, cursing, friends to strangers to lovers
word count: 1,392, should take about ten and a half minutes to read (longest to date đŸ€­)
listen to: right where you left me - bonus track by taylor swift
IN THEORY, IT wasn’t a long time since finnick’s games. only six years. in the long run, that means nothing. you could waste six years at any other point in your life easily. but not these six years.
you and finnick had a bond. close friends, you were. you looked out for each other, came to the other’s rescue. whether it was for a bad dream, bad day, bad family, or anything else, you’d always come running for each other.
you’d patch the other’s wounds, wipe away the other’s tears. whenever somebody needed a shoulder to lean on, the other was there.
you should’ve been there for finnick when he got reaped, but you weren’t. you already dodged a bullet by not getting picked, so you were just trying to rid yourself of anxiety after the female tribute was called. but, it all came back when you heard the familiar name roll off the capitol member’s tongue. “finnick odair.”
your heart stopped. nothing could've prepared you for that. your head immediately shot to where he was standing. his face dropped. he looked like a figure made of wax; unmoving, unalive.
it took a jab in his back by the peacekeepers to get him to move, but his eyes immediately found you when he did.
"no," you whispered. "no, no, no, no." tears welled in his eyes as he mouthed "sorry," and that was it. you were expecting the world to collapse or something, anything, but nothing happened. everyone just went home.
it might've been better if the world ended right then and there, you thought, because finnick was gone forever, and hell, he was starting to be your world. you didn't even watch him on tv. you avoided the situation as much as possible by sleeping.
you almost went to you two's favorite spot, a creek near his house, every once in a while, but you couldn't bring yourself to. too many memories.
that was until it was announced finnick won. news of the century, it was to you. you remember waiting on his porch with a bouquet of flowers you snagged from the meadow earlier. but he never showed up.
maybe the train was late. but that train was late for a day, then two, then a week, and at that point, you'd far given up. you had to admit you'd maybe never see finnick again.
when he did finally show up, it had been a month since his victory. you were out grabbing some food at the market when you saw his face; beautiful blonde hair, tousled as always, and green eyes that looked like emeralds in the daylight. you could recognize it anywhere.
"finnick!" you yelled, completely dropping what you were doing. his head turned to see you, a soft smile on his face.
you almost cried seeing him. you immediately engulfed him in a hug, but he didn't really wrap his arms around your back. he didn't enjoy the hug; he just tolerated it. you didn't seem to notice or care at the moment, though. "oh my god, finnick, where have you been?" you asked, excitement pouring through your eyes.
"needed to take a victory tour for the capitol. did you not watch on tv?" he asked, chuckling slightly. the question almost set you back. why would you? who actually watched anything after the games?
"no. didn't know there was one. glad to see you're okay, though. god, i haven't seen you in ages," you practically beamed. he didn't seem to care, though. what was wrong with him?
"happy you care," he smiled before turning back to what he was doing. any conversation you had after that seemed like you two were just meeting. like you were complete strangers.
that’s how it remained for a while. finnick and you rarely talked, only when you were next to each other. you still waved hello to his parents, and they still asked if you'd like to come to dinner, but you had to refuse. you couldn't face the man you once called your friend. most times he was doing things for the capitol anyway, so it's not like it was hard to avoid him. he wasn't even in 4 half the time!
and that's how it stayed, this near-constant torture, for six years of your life. you made other friends to cope and nearly forgot about the boy you used to hang out with at fourteen. his presence was just a distant memory to you. you almost despised him for leaving you as suddenly as he did.
you thought you'd never come to his aid again. until one random day.
it wasn't much different than any other. you got a house for yourself and you, so far, didn't have any complaints. finnick's house was relatively close to the heart of 4, so you often passed by it while running your errands.
the sight of his house brought unease to you. you couldn't even look at it without feeling sad. even if you didn't want to admit it, you really missed finnick and you'd rather cut out every aspect of him than think about him.
that was until you heard something. it sounded almost like a cry. the sound was so faint you could almost barely hear it. you walked a bit closer to your ex-friend's house, and sure enough, the sound got louder.
it couldn't be from the house; his walls weren't that thin. the only place you could think of was behind the house. you checked to make sure nobody was around before sneaking around to the back side of his house.
the sight before your eyes you surely weren't expecting. poor finnick, the boy you used to know so long ago, was hugging his knees into his chest, all but sobbing.
suddenly, your sadness and guilt hit you like a brick. you ignored everything between you two at the moment and gently knelt down next to him. you weren't sure if he heard you, so you tried your best not to startle him. "you okay?" you asked.
he jumped slightly, not expecting anyone to be at his aid. especially not you. his eyes suddenly filled with a kind of comfort. "i can't lie, no," he admitted. you got down to his level, sitting beside him against the house.
"what's up?" he sniffled, drying his eyes with his hand.
"just...life. i have to go back to the capitol soon and i don't know if i can do it." you wrapped an arm around his shoulder.
"you don't like it there?"
"no, not at all." he threw his head back, letting in a big gulp of fresh air. "they’ve done things to me. ever since the games, i've just been...i don't know, different."
you thought back to the month of his arrival. the sudden loss of all emotion from him. “ya, i can tell.”
“shit, i’m sorry,” he cupped his face in his hands again.
“wait, no, don’t apologize, hon.” you weren’t even sure why the nickname slipped out. It happened without you thinking. he looked up with his eyebrows furrowed. “it’s not your fault.”
“did you call me hon?”
“not important right now, what i’m trying to say is i forgive you. for everything. none of it was your fault. the games do things to people and i understand that, so don’t feel bad. i just want you to feel happy.”
he barely paid attention to your words. he just smiled, slowly realizing the best part of his life was back. finnick didn’t mean to leave you like he did, but he didn’t want to hurt himself; get too attached to you just to get ripped apart.
when you noticed his grin, you almost damn near melted. you hadn’t seen him like this since you were kids. you sighed, tears threatening to spill out your eyes. “you look so pretty,” you said, cupping his cheek with your hand.
“you do too.” without thinking, his eyes darted to your lips. you sniffled before leaning in and closing the gap between you two.
the kiss was possibly the best of your life. it was filled with remorse and passion and “i’m sorry”s, and “i love you”s.
once you pulled away, you rested your forehead with his. “don’t ever leave me again,” he mumbled, tone soft.
“i don’t know how i could.”
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sunsetconcert · 7 months ago
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In 1994, the Muppets made one of their most bizarre films to date.
An adaptation of Goncharov, a cult classic that languished in obscurity until the 2020s. While the film was referred to internally and in public reviews of the film as "The Muppets of Naples", the actual marketing of the movie instead titled it after its main lead: "Gonzorov". This was one of many enigmatic choices made by the production crew, and has never been elaborated on by the cast or crew. The film was a gigantic flop for multiple reasons, but most agree that the source of the troubles stems from the nature of Goncharov as a tragedy and a generally depressing movie to watch.
Reportedly, conflicts among the writing staff began almost immediately due to being unable to decide on which cut of Goncharov to base the film on. Eventually, however, director Brian Henson put his foot down and forced the writers to adapt the Ambrosini Cut. Generally agreed to be a less depressing movie than the Morelli Cut, it was expected that "Gonzorov" should have been a much more entertaining and narratively adept movie than it was. As the Muppets proved just two years later in "Muppet Treasure Island", they are very capable of handling otherwise dramatic material with aplomb. This leaves the question of why this movie was such a flop.
To quote Kermit the Frog during the interviews after the cinema debut, the movie was allegedly emotionally draining for the crew to adapt. "You know, we have a script. Mostly. But we do a lot of improv too. I'd wager it's about 60% script, 40% improv on a good day of filming. But, uh
 We just weren't feeling it with this one, you know? We watched the original, and
 Boy, it's really sad. Goncharov's just kind of a lonely guy trying to make himself a life. And it's not a good life, but it's his to own, and it ultimately kinda falls apart. Gonzo tried to make the role his own, but I think we all realised that we couldn't really make a joke out of the movie in the way that we wanted to."
The Muppets were skillful enough to change the genre to an absurdist tragicomedy, a film where the tragic and meaningless cycle of violence is paradoxically played for laughter. However, despite this, the film is well-known for its bizarrely melancholy air and almost hopeless atmosphere. Everybody seems thoroughly certain that their improv will have little to no impact on the film as a whole, creating a strange and compelling meta-narrative where not even the actors themselves can escape the almost gravitational pull of the ticking clock. Their characters will die, and any attempts to joke their way out of it comes off as desperate, almost deluded in a sense.
The original Goncharov held a deep fascination with inevitability. Clocks are the primary theme, though it appears in other forms. It is this same inevitability that strangles the Muppets, their impressive comedic skills held captive by their own belief that the narrative is inescapable.
Of particular note is the bridge scene, wherein Gonzorov and Katya (played by the dazzling Miss Piggy) discuss the slow collapse of the Italian mafia. The original Goncharov scene had Goncharov desperately trying to hold things together, even as they slipped through his fingers, but here
 Gonzorov realises that it's pointless. He can't fix it, but at the same time he can't let it go. He begs Katya to shoot him. Cut to the chase. She's going to shoot him anyway, that's how the movie ends, right? Might as well go out on his own terms. But this horrifies Katya, and she throws her gun away, accidentally saving Gonzorov in the process.
This adds a new layer to the themes of inevitability that Goncharov is wrapped up in, and it's this: Inevitability goes both ways. You're going to die, but only when you're meant to. You don't get lucky. You don't have accidents. Inevitability is a ticking clock, but that countdown is a safety net. As long as you can still hear that clock ticking down, it means you've stitll got time to burn. When a bomb is counting down, just five minutes until it detonates, you do everything you can to buy yourself more time on the clock. Even if all your effort only gains you an extra second, that's what you have to do, right? A single second is worth the blood of innocent men.
But again, inevitability. That second you earned cost you minutes, cost hours days weeks months years. The clock WILL run out.
[read more]
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fredwkong · 11 months ago
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Genie: Javier's Wishes
Click here to see the genie’s first master.
Click here to see the genie's previous master.
When the club finally closed at 3 AM, Javier breathed a sigh of relief. Sure, now he had to clean the whole place after a night of metalhead raving, but after that, he could go home and get some blessed sleep before his shift at the grocery store in the morning.
Javier was putting himself through college. On paper, the job at the club was great, way better than his other stocking and retail jobs. For most of his shift, he could do his readings while making sure that the patrons didn’t get too randy in the bathroom every 20 minutes or so. Even so, the constant cycle of work, sleep, class, repeat was draining. More than anything, Javier wanted some time off to travel.
While tossing a bag of garbage out into the alley, a glimmer of light in the dimness caught Javier’s eye. Just to one side of the door, as if it had been dropped carelessly, was an antique lamp.
Javier picked it up and stuck it in his hoodie pocket. If nothing else, it seemed to be real brass. He could probably sell it. With heavy, tired feet, Javier finished with clean-up and headed home. Before he could even think to unpack his things, he collapsed on his bed.
It wasn’t until the next day, after a shift at the grocery store, afternoon classes, and an evening at his tutoring job, that Javier slumped at the desk in his studio apartment and took out the lamp.
The thing was definitely real brass. There was just one discoloured spot on the side. Javier grabbed a washcloth, but he had barely begun to rub it when a stream of rainbow smoke erupted from the spout. Seconds later, a buff genie in a pair of form-fitting satin pants and a billowy white shirt was hovering in the middle of Javier’s room.
“You know how this goes, right babe?” the genie said, grinning down at Javier. “You make a wish each day, and I make it come true.”
Javier barely had to think. He knew what he needed in his life. “I wish I could travel,” he told the genie.
“Perf,” replied the genie, and clapped his big hands. A burst of dark blue smoke shot from between his hands and then thickened, filling Javier’s vision. In particular, it centred on his old flip phone, the cheapest thing that he had been able to buy.
When the smoke cleared, Javier looked down at himself and was shocked to see that he was in a sharp business suit, holding a briefcase. Instead of his old apartment, he was standing in a hotel room. On the desk, a sleek new Samsung flip phone was open, an appointment blinking. Javier had to get to the airport to fly to London.
In the taxi, Javier took a few work calls. He found that the information he needed for his new job as a marketing professional appeared in his mind as he reached for it. But, by the time he boarded the plane, he realised that he had to create a presentation and do hours of research before he landed at Heathrow. Thankfully, the company paid for his business class seat and in-flight wifi.
After the meeting in London, it was only a few hours until Javier was on his way to a meeting in Lagos. From there, he flew to Kuala Lumpur, and then Hong Kong. It was three days before Javier was sitting on a plane without any pressing work tasks to complete. After so many flights, he wasn’t sure where he was flying to. He went into the airplane toilet and rubbed the lamp.
The genie appeared in the mirror, disdaining to diminish his bulk in the cramped quarters. “You got another wish?” he purred, grinning out at Javier.
“I wish I didn’t have to work,” Javier said, his voice slurring from tiredness.
“Haven’t heard that one before.” The genie winked, and the vent in the bathroom issued a cloud of dark blue smoke. Instead of a suit, Javier found himself in perfectly fitted loungewear as the tiny commercial toilet expanded into a luxurious bathroom. Stepping out of the door, Javier stood in the bedroom of a private jet decorated in a classy, understated style.
A cute young man in a steward uniform stepped into the room. “Can I help with anything, sir?”
“Please, just call me Javi,” Javi said, the words seeming to fall from his lips unbidden in a smooth, laid-back tone. “And no, I’ll call if I need anything.” The full-size bed and fresh satin sheets were calling to him.
After a nap, Javi felt refreshed. The plane was coming in to land in some exotic locale or another. As a trust fund baby with several million dollars in the bank, Javi loved to fly from place to place around the world as the mood took him. He would just stay at a local resort until he got bored and flew out again.
And yet, all the days of partying and living it up felt strangely empty. Javi found himself remembering his life before the genie. All his classmates, friends, and coworkers still living from paycheque to paycheque while Javi ate off of plates worth more than they made in a year. Still, even his indescribable wealth wasn’t enough to support all of them for the rest of their lives. Not if Javi wanted to live as he was becoming accustomed to. So he summoned the genie.
“I wish I could help my friends.”
“Finally, something I can work with,” the genie groaned dramatically, and snapped his fingers.
Instantly, Javi’s vision filled with dark blue smoke. There was a wrenching sensation as he seemed to be pulled across a great distance. When his vision cleared, Javi found himself seated in a well-appointed lounge. He was in a perfectly tailored, fashionable suit, and looked over the rims of his round sunglasses as another young suited man entered.
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“Your Highness,” the man said, making Javi’s head spin, “announcing tonight’s young lords.”
Behind him, two more men, some of Javi’s old coworkers from the grocery store, entered. They had fresh haircuts and were wearing perfectly tailored suits that left nothing about their trim bodies to the imagination. Javi found his mouth watering.
The memories rushed in. In order to help the most people in his circle, Javi had used his trust fund to establish a sort of feudal fraternity. He was the Prince, and beneath him were a selection of Dukes who invested in Counts, Viscounts, and Barons. This way, the money went farther, and there was a sense of decorum among Prince Javi’s modern “nobility.”
Of course, judging by the way the two Barons being presented before him tonight were undressing him with their eyes, appearances could only be kept up so long. The Prince was owed his due from those sworn to his service, and Javi could feel his cock hardening in his wool slacks. “Take this to the vault,” he told the steward, one of the rotating Dukes, handing him the lamp. “My lords, with me.” Javi crooked a finger at his Barons and led them to the adjoining playroom.
The Duke handed the lamp off to the nearest non-noble staff member, who took the next exit out of Prince Javi’s court/club. He had been planning to steal some silverware before leaving, but this was a much better haul.
Click here to see all the genie’s adventures.
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isthemedia · 2 months ago
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Poolverine-Yoink! (2/2)
Part 2 is now done.
Here's Part 1. And here's the Ao3 link.
@manicpixxiedreambitch
@ineffablestardust
@saspas-corner
@angelbonezs
Since ya'll wanted to be tagged when part 2 was done.
=============================================
‘Not today
not tomorrow
not now,’ Wade’s groggy mind repeated. His joints ached. He could hear a ringing that wasn’t typical tinnitus. He grabbed at the back of his neck, the skin feeling too tight. ‘Really laying it on thick there ain’tcha madam/sir author? Is this whump? I feel like this can be classified as whump.’
(Whump is more hurt than comfort. So no, not really.)
‘Well I’m calling it whump, even if it’s not tagged that.’
(You can go ahead and do that, even though it’s wrong.)
Wade sighed as he curled up a bit tighter. Skin felt like it was prickling if exposed to air. That staticky feeling of just too many eyes watching. He could hear the door of Al’s room creak open. The shuffling of her feet

“Yer too damn quiet right now,” Al complained. “An’ I know yer still here,” she added, her cane smacking alongside the bed. She stopped when she hit the pile of blankets. “Oh lord this again?”
She didn’t get an answer. No witty reply or snide retort. Heaving a sigh, Al continued on. “I’m headin’ ta bingo, and I’m gonna call Vanessa-she can explain this nonsense ta Logan.” It may have sounded like complaining, but the tone in her voice was clear. It was that ‘don’t worry, help is gonna be on the way deary’ tone. 
And really? Bingo at what
this early in the morning?
‘What time is it even?’
(Early enough.)
‘Lazy establishing setup.’
Wade shifted somewhat, the bed frame of the pull-out creaking as he did. Right, how was Logan going to take this? He should handle this. Maybe? 
Well, Vanessa should be able to handle it, she had no fear with the somewhat feral wolverine he brought home. She did tease him about how he went full ‘White Woman’ and took a wild animal home under the guise of ‘you’re mine now’. He guessed she wasn’t entirely wrong. 
But he also wasn’t expecting Logan to stay as long as he did. He’s read the comics-and sure even though this Logan is from a different universe it almost seemed ingrained in all of them to just-leave some day.  
It wasn’t a bad thing that he stayed. Hell no! If he could he would strap Logan down and make sure he’d never leave. He loved having him around. Al did too. And how could he deprive dearest little miss Mary-Puppins from her other papa? 
The frame of the pull-out creaked again. Oh, speak of the devil. Wade could feel how the pull-out shifted, the weight of the other occupant being removed. But made sense when they’re-what 200-300 plus pounds thanks to a metal skeleton. 
Really no logical way for a shitty pull-out to hold the both of them without collapsing or even warping the frame, yet it still stood.
He wondered if they could use that as sort of a marketing ploy, maybe convince Logan into some centerfold-esque poses just for added effect. Well, effect and future spank-bank material, but he wouldn’t need to know the latter. 
“Come on!” Wade felt the kick given to the pull-out, it jostled the whole thing. Welp, good luck with the Peanut, cause he wasn’t moving. Threaten him with a good time all you want. 
Snikt.
‘And out comes the steak knives. Would stabbing me reset this? Haven’t been stabbed during any of these moods.’
(Pretty sure stabbing would just make you feel worse.)
‘So gonna be a fic with no stabby-stab? And am I even gonna talk? How can you have a Deadpool fanfic where I don’t talk?’
(It’s character introspection.)
‘Sounds like you just don’t wanna come up with quips for me.’
The mattress creaked slightly. Oh, that’s Vanessa. Al really did call her. Such a sweet old blind bat she is. 
Wade could hear them-somewhat over the ringing in his ears that changed to something more akin to the old dial-up sound of the internet. Logan sounded less growly now too.
 Ah Vanessa, the one who can soothe the savage Logan.  
It was weird what his ears would pick up when he was like this. Full conversations happening just outside his makeshift fort of blankets? Nah, that wasn’t important enough. The sound of something being slid across the sheets though? Yeah, could hear that. 
‘And yoink!’ Wade snatched whatever Vanessa slid over to him. Hey! He didn’t have this one! Of course she’d know that. ‘And another for the collection. Ya know I don’t think anyone is gonna get the reference. You’re dating yourself.’
(At least someone is dating me.)
‘Ooof self burn. Ya sure you don’t need the hurt/comfort tag?’
Vanessa just knew what to get-she still remembered. Sure it didn’t work out between them. It stung for a long time. Longer than Wade wanted to admit, but it wasn’t like Vanessa wanted him out of her life. She had to drill it into his head that even if they weren’t romantically involved anymore, didn’t mean she didn’t love him. It was just a different love. 
He sorta got that. He was feeling that too. Feeling it during the Time Ripper thing. During the time in the Void. 
Felt it when he came across Logan. Oh, that was something he still needed to unpack
too bad he was a lazy asshole after a vacation. Eh, it’ll eventually get unpacked-granted, he’ll probably wait until the last minute
like always. 
Vanessa was always going to be special. He would drop everything if she needed him, and vice versa it seemed. But Logan
Logan was something else. He wasn’t sure what he was yet. Sure, he knew what he wanted Logan to be-at least he was pretty sure what he wanted him to be. But that wasn’t gonna fly with Disney and Marvel-or the legion of dudebros who think he and Logan are total and complete masculine heterosexuals. They really need to pick up a comic.
Ah, something else was being pushed towards him. ‘And yoink again!’ Hey, weren't these things discontinued? Sheets were gonna need to be changed after this. At least this time around it would be a more common reason than needing to change them cause they tried to reenact the bed scene from ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’. Maybe they should just buy red sheets. Same logic should apply to them like his suit.
Almost on instinct, Wade felt something shift in the bed. ‘Yoink!’
Only this time, there came a high pitched, noticeable yelp. Oh! Oh sweet baby little angel Mary-Puppins! 
“Shhh shhh. Oh baby girl I’m sorry,” he cooed as he cuddled the shaking pup. He could hear Logan laughing-the asshole! Some other papa he was! Frightening their little baby. His free hand sneaking out of the mess of blankets to flip him off. 
OH! And THAT just made him laugh more? Asshole! When this whole mood thing is done he’s demanding a divorce and child support!
--
Everything was quiet in the apartment. Slowly Wade peaked out from the blankets. Logan was asleep. Al’s door was closed. Mary-Puppins was having little Dogpool dreams.
The apartment was dark, saved for the stray glow of the streetlights filtering in through the busted blinds. 
Carefully, silently Wade slipped out from the mound. Not the worst start to this, though he was tempted to give Logan a smack for making him scare poor, sweet, little Mary-Puppins earlier. The prick-and he laughed the whole time! The super mega prick! 
Wade sighed as he looked over. Logan looked peaceful, or well as peaceful as he could be. Brows were still furrowed, muscles twitching as if ready to go all fight-or-flight. But he wasn’t having a nightmare, so to Wade it meant it was peaceful.
He could save the smacking for another time. He’ll even drop the divorce threat. Cuddles and kisses from Mary were always a plus for him anyway-so it kinda worked out.
Right, he got up for a reason. Treading with light footsteps across the apartment, as to not make a single floorboard creak, he made his way to the bathroom. Hey maybe the merc with the mouth, but he knew how to move quietly . Kinda needed too in that line of work. 
He brushed his teeth, and washed his face. “Ya know, the static feeling from being watched, doesn’t help when there’s like actual readers for this.”
(Semantics, se-mahn-tics. Sides, like you’d let me just keep you as an unmoving lump of blankets for another 3k words.)
“Eh true.”
Wade made his way back, trying to figure out what was the best way to climb back in without waking Logan. He didn’t need to wake him by accident. Even if he wasn’t having a nightmare, it was a bad idea ta just wake up a sleeping wolverine. 
He didn’t wanna get a gut full of adamantium claws again, thank you very much. It wasn’t like Logan meant to do it on purpose. Logan’s mind is always somewhere else when he’s suddenly and rudely woken up like that. So Wade couldn’t blame the guy. Hell, he WOULDN’T blame the guy. 
‘I’ll just blame you.’
(Again no stabbing is happening in this one.)
‘But you are making allusions to it happening before.’
(Oh just go back to your musings and pining.)
‘Fine, I will,’ Wade huffed before looking back over to the sleeping form taking up the other half of the pull-out.
Logan looked better these days-not that he didn’t look good ‘cause goddamn Hugh was still working it even after all this time. It was more of how relaxed he was now. Had a bit of weight put back on him too-‘happy weight’, that was the term right? Or something like that. 
Urban dictionary would help him. Just needed to steer clear of the raunchy side of it. At least this time around.
Wade took it as a sign that Logan was happy here. Maybe if he stayed happy enough he wouldn’t want to leave. He really didn’t want Logan to leave. 
Logan matched his crazy in a way Vanessa did and in ways she didn’t. In ways she just couldn’t. 
Logan didn’t need to change anything about himself. Didn’t need to be a ‘good guy’-he was plenty good enough so shut up Jean. 
Al loved him too. She might not have said it aloud, but Wade can tell she does. 
Sure he was a little feral. Sure he would rather have booze than an actual meal some days. Sure there were times Wade would wake up with a set or two of claws in his chest. But that was fine. Normalcy was for losers anyway. 
What was normal about two slightly fucked up mutants with regenerative powers, a coke addicted blind elderly woman, and the world’s ugliest yet sweetest dog? Who needed normal in a home like this?
Logan didn’t need to be tamed. All Wade wanted was for Logan to just, feel like he belonged. That Logan had his own little Logan-shaped hole carved out here, Junji Ito style but without the horrific implications.
He was certain if Logan did try to leave, he would follow him-funny sitcom stalker style, and drag him back home. Cause even though Logan wouldn’t want to admit it, this shitty little one bedroom apartment was his home now. Al, Mary-Puppins, and him were family now. 
How Logan has his own toothbrush, coffee mug, he got a cupboard just for his booze, and everything. 
There was definitely some codependency between them. Wade was pretty sure of that. That time in the Void-being almost torn apart by the Time Ripper-the fact that he turned around when Wade called him.
But hey, a little codependency never hurt anyone. Besides,  that would just be another thing to add to the ever growing list of things wrong with one Wade W. Wilson.. He’s pretty sure Logan doesn’t mind it either.
The pull-out didn’t even creak as Wade climbed back in. Not a single sound when he settled back under the blankets.
‘That is some lazy writing there.’
(Hey, be thankful I decided to be nice and not wake the sleeping Logan.)
Wade peaked out again, just to make sure Logan was still sound asleep. Fingers itched to just trace down his sleeping face, through the coarse facial hair and sideburns. Though last time he tried that Logan literally bit off two fingers off. Really didn’t wanna go through that again either. 
Hopefully Logan doesn’t get fed up with this whole thing. Just walk out and leave. To be fair it is kind of a golden opportunity for him if he decided too. Wade hoped this wasn’t going to last much longer. 
--
So, Logan did leave. Well not leave-leave. Jerk decided to head out and restock since they managed to empty the bag Vanessa brought. Dammit, he could be a sweet guy. Why does nobody pay attention to that? Honestly. 
Logan said Al was off to the laundromat-they both knew what that was code for. He also warned Wade that he was setting Mary by him so there wasn’t a repeat from yesterday. Alright, all is forgiven now. 
He didn’t pull Mary under the blankets this time, but he did reach out to give her pets. She seemed content with the arrangement as well, licking all along his hand to his wrist. Seemed she forgave or just forgot the scare from before. 
He slipped his hand back under the blankets. He was thinking-dangerous thing he knows-but he was trying to come up with an idea. A plan to convince Logan that there was no reason to leave. He had a few brewing, but was pretty sure he would end up skewered, or beaten down, or torn apart if he tried any of those.
So his new plan? Well it was a bit crazy. Crazy and yet so simple. Simply just tell Logan. It worked before. It worked quite a few times before. 
So his chances were pretty high about it working again. Just a simple ‘you can stay here as long as you like’. Hmm but that made it seem like he could still leave. 
Maybe a ‘hey, surprise I think I love you
so don’t leave.’ Nah that kinda sounded desperate.
‘You got everything you need right here, besides the housing market is shit right now.’ Eh, that made it sound like this thing was an obligation. 
Wade’s thoughts were cut off when he heard the sound of something being slid across the sheets. ‘And yoink,’ he snatched the offering. ‘Awww Peanut went all the way to that corner store that sold the weird flavor chips. He spoils me.’
Another sound. 
Oh

Wade felt himself smile as he reached out again, and placed his hand over Logan’s. Damn the guy was hot. Well, not just hot like that, but like he was a furnace. Wade’s thumb rubbed small circles over Logan’s knuckles, feeling the lone scars his body had-where those claws would poke out from. He could feel a knot just behind those knuckles. 
Maybe a good ole massage was in order for him. Would be the least Wade could do as a thanks for him. 
“Yer gonna need to let go or I’m gonna need ta stop pettin’ Mary if you need somethin’ else,” Logan’s voice rumbled. Well, Wade couldn’t let that happen. Couldn’t let the attention Mary was getting from her other papa just stop. He gave Logan’s hand a pat before giving an ‘okay’ gesture, before slipping back under the blankets. “You get so damn spoiled,” he heard Logan say under his breath.
Yeah, maybe just telling him was the best plan. He just needed to find the right words now. 
--
‘Captain’s log, Star date
.I dunno the author didn’t give me one.’
(Dates are pointless for fanfics.)
‘It appears the author wishes to deflect from criticism of their laziness in doing a proper establishing setup.’
It’s been four days into this little funk of Wade’s. He was pretty sure he was ready for it to be over. The only issue was that once this was done, then he’d need to figure the next thing. The asking Logan to stay thing.
He wasn’t sure if he was quite ready for that yet. That familiar sound broke his train of thoughts again. ‘Aaaaand yoink!’
“Jesus!” 
Oh Laura came by too. Awww he didn’t mean to startle the baby wolverine. Logan and Vanessa were laughing-they could be real assholes sometimes. Loving assholes but still assholes all the same.  
The creaking of the bed frame, the dip in the mattress. Logan was potentially putting himself into yoinking-range. If that happened, well, there would be no way Wade could resist if he did. 
“You miss him talking, don’t you?” Wade could hear the smirk in Laura’s voice. She’s such a cheeky kid. He’ll take blame for that. Bad influence and all.
“Dunno what yer talkin’ about,” Logan grumbled. 
“Suuuure you don’t.” 
Logan huffed and shifted slightly. Oh? Just a bit more Wolvie. He felt the mattress dip a bit more-BINGO! “SHIT! I forgot!” 
Both hands shot out and grabbed an arm. Logan absolutely let his guard down, cause there was no way Wade could have pulled this off if he didn’t.
And if Logan had his guard down, that meant he was truly relaxed here. More than that, he felt safe here. And why wouldn’t he? He had the one and only Deadpool here to keep an eye on him. Well okay, the one and only that mattered. None of those variants to worry about. 
Man, that shocked look on his face was definitely doing things. Wondered if he could see it more. He felt himself smiling. He knew it was that dumb lovestruck smile he’d give Vanessa when they were together-only slightly different. Cause this one wasn’t for her, this smile was for Logan. “Got too close there Peanut.” Dear fuck was that his voice? ‘Hey next time, write something where I’m not nearly silent for four days. It’s murder on the vocal cords.’
“Yeah, figured,” Logan said softly. “Better?”
“Hmm
a bit,” Wade murmured. Fuck it, he’s in for it now. “Gonna talk your ear off, cause I had a lotta thoughts goin’ through my head during all this.” Wade dragged two fingers along Logan’s jaw, carding through the cause hair of his beard. This time without worrying about losing them this time.
“Yeah?” 
“Yeah,” Wade leaned down. Not exactly the Spider-man kiss, but it was close enough. He felt Logan’s breath hitch.  ‘Please, stay here? Don’t feel like you need to run away. There’s space just for you.’
“...ready ta come out? Say hi ta Laura and Vanessa?” Logan asked as they pulled apart. Wade almost wanted to say no. He wanted to kiss him again. 
But he’d be lying if said he didn’t want to see them. Four days of next to no social interaction was killer. He was gonna need to call Peter and Dopinder too. Maybe make Logan walk with him to the X-Mansion so he could see Yukio and bother Ellie. Maybe watch an episode or two of the Great British Bake-off with Colossus.  “Yeah, ‘m pretty sure I’m good,” Wade nodded. 
Logan shifted and pulled the blankets back and off of himself as he sat up right. Wade pulled them back just enough to uncover his head. He shifted and shimmied across the mattress till he could comfortably lean against Logan-and he wasn’t pushed off. Score!
“Hey,” Vanessa greeted softly. 
“Hey,” Wade gave her a soft smile. Definitely a different smile than before. He could feel it, and she could definitely see it. 
“Missed ya. Seems like Logan did a good job at taking care of ya.” 
“Hmmm he did,” he laid his head on his shoulder. “Thanks Peanut, I owe ya.” 
“Nah,” Logan shrugged slightly, jostling Wade slightly-almost like he was teasing him. Or maybe Wade was getting his hopes up. “ Deal enough with my shit, the least I can do.” 
Wade hummed, then straightened up some when he felt something shift under the blankets. No way, was Logan
okay yeah-yeah maybe this was gonna work out. “yoink,” Wade said softly as he took Logan’s hand, threading their fingers together. 
Logan had a perfect spot, right next to Wade. 
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hyperactively-me · 1 year ago
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on the run
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“Ah, it's fine, I’ll just need some bacta patches and it’ll be fine. Besides, it's just a bruise” you say quietly, your face flushing. “I’m going to kill him” Din rasped, taking your hands in a movement to pull you to standing. 
just wanted to ask you guys to please read this
(asks are open)
happy reading
warnings: canon typical violence
You were uneasy about this job from when it was first proposed. You felt a pit in the depths of your stomach that signaled that something did not feel right. Although you understood why Din was so eager about accepting the job. He wanted more credits to upgrade parts of his ship and armor. You tried everything you could to push these feelings of doubt away but to no avail. Approaching Din about the job only turned into a heated argument about how it was necessary to ensure a few weeks worth of credits. 
Things got a little dicey. Okay, more than a little dicey. You were currently fending for yourself against two cronies employed by a prominent spice lord on Nar Shaddaa. Nar Shaddaa, of all places. Din could have picked any other planet, but no, there’s too many commissions on Nar Shaddaa to turn this down, besides, with this mission, I could earn a lot of credits. I’ll be fine, I’ve probably encountered worse before. 
Nar Shaddaa is a cosmopolitan planet practically owned by the Hutts, crime and lawlessness was bursting from every sidewalk, market, and building. An overabundance of illegal activity permeated the streets, every nook and cranny of the metropolitan planet corrupt. 
Din took on a job hunting down the leader of a high profile crime ring in the heart of the city. He took on the assignment knowing the risks and dangers, but, who was Din if he ever turned down an opportunity like this? An opportunity to return to the company after taking down a criminal that no one else could take down. Coming back to the guild and earning an even higher degree of respect? Oh, he said it was just too good to turn down, we’ll be fine, I can handle it. You decided to help him on his mission because the more muscle he had, the higher his chances of success were.
So of course, he managed to infiltrate the ring and blow it up from the inside out, creating pandemonium in the streets.
In the midst of the chaos that arose from the raid, you both managed to get separated, desperately fighting for each of your survival, focused on coming out alive. 
So here we are now, you’re shaken to your core as you play a lethal game of tag. Your heart threatens to beat out of its chest as you snap your head backwards only to see how hot on your tail the two bounty hunters were to you.
You touch your earpiece connecting you to Din and cry out “Din! I’m being tailed by two guys, where the kriff are you?”
A tall and burly Trandoshan was gaining on you whilst an orange-skinned Twi’lek dodged the crowded street. Deep and heavy breaths escape your dry throat as you focus all your brain power on formulating a plan and escaping without getting yourself killed, or worse, taken.  
“Din, I don’t know if you can hear me, but so help me Maker, I need a little assistance right now so it would be wonderful if you showed up.” You tried to make yourself sound angry and demanding, but in truth, you were scared for your life. 
Continuously dodging innocent bystanders and merchant stands take a toll on your stamina, slowing you down as you concentrate on where your feet are landing. The ringing noise of blaster shots rang out from behind you, causing you to duck your head in an attempt to protect yourself, just for precaution. You start heaving, trying to gulp air into your lungs like it's the last thing you can do to save yourself from collapsing from exhaustion. You look back once more and let out a loud yelp as the Trandoshan’s grubby hands were barely grazing the back of your shirt. You felt your blood run cold and your heart stopped beating for a split second, the adrenaline pumping through you fading. 
It was too late before you realized you lost sight of the Twi’lek when an orange blur came hurtling into your side, effectively ending the pursuit and toppling you over onto the uneven stones. 
Your vision goes hazy and you realize you can’t breathe. Your breaths are shallow and labored and your eyes struggle to focus. 
No no no please no I can’t stop now you panic, trying to set your brain straight after the impact.
A haze of orange and a mass of an alien face clouds your vision before you feel rough hands yanking your arms up in an attempt to set you up straight. Your head lurches forward and you screw your eyes shut in an attempt to focus your vision. The Trandoshan is manhandling you, and as a final attempt to break free, you resort to a classic self-defense trick. You knee him right in the groin.
He drops your arms quickly and doubles over, groaning in pain, and before he can stop you, you take off running. Or at least you think you’re running. Your head is pounding and your vision is streaked with black dots. You only get so far before the Twi’lek tackles you again, this time effectively taking you down. 
Everything is too much, the scene around you is too much. Everything hurts. Everything is too bright, too loud, too rough. The Twi’lek lets out a cruel snicker and slaps binders on your wrists before dragging you standing upwards. You falter, not capable of standing on your feet after the two collisions by two men who are much larger in stature than you. 
“Well well, you thought you could do that and just get away with it?” the Trandoshan sneers as he stalks over to you and the Twi’lek. As your vision begins to clear, you take note of the large, shiny knife in his possession. Your face pales a bit as you look up at the angry Trandoshan’s face. 
He raises his hand, and without hesitation, slaps you straight across the face. You falter from the contact as the Twi’lek catches you before you crumple over completely. He laughs maniacally before throwing your body over his shoulder. Tears flood your vision, your face stinging like a million wasps stung your face. 
Well that’s gonna leave a lovely mark. You winced at the thought of Din seeing the hand print on your face, not because you were scared of him, but because you were scared for the well-being of the Trandoshan. 
Your world bobs up and down as your two captors navigate back to their base. You catch bits of the mens’ conversation, trying your best to piece together any useful information you could. You send out a silent prayer that Din is alright, and that he’ll show up and you’ll both be fine, because right now, you were panicking. Usually you both had each other's backs in strenuous situations like this, and more often than not, you were both able to withstand more hits and blows. But being carried back to a now dead crime lord’s haven led by Maker knows who was a new low for you. 
You start to thrash in your captor’s grip, smacking your bound wrists against his stiff back with all your might. 
“What the- hey, cut that out” he grumbles, not amused with your poor attempts to stop him. 
“Kriff you” you bite out angrily, upset that you’re now their hostage, upset that you weren’t capable enough of defending yourself in this situation, and torn over the fact that you haven’t heard anything from Din in a while. You hadn’t heard anything from him in a while

Maybe he was captured? you thought. Yeah, a guy like Din, a man notorious for his elusiveness and strategic logic is definitely captured right now. But he wouldn’t leave me, right? Right? Unless
he probably did leave you, like how everyone else you cared about in the past did. Maker, I really thought we had something. You hold back a sob as it builds up in your throat. You had hope that Din saw you as something more, after everything you’ve been through. Or maybe he was captured. Or even worse
don't even think about that. 
The side of your cheek where you were slapped begins to throb, swelling from the harsh impact of the greasy slimeball’s burly hand. A bruise was bound to erupt from the site of damage. 
All of a sudden you hear the Trandoshan scream out, followed by a crunch and a thud. The Twi’lek becomes rigid, fingernails digging harshly into the back of your knees as he slowly backs away from whatever or whoever attacked the Trandoshan. You tense under his grip, unaware of what is presenting the danger, and you begin to squirm under his grip. 
Next thing you know, the Twi’lek body slams you onto the cold ground, knocking the wind out of your lungs, leaving you dizzy and disoriented from the sudden aggression. He digs his steel-toed boot deep into your chest, pressing against your abdomen with enough force to cause potential bruising. You glance upward at the Twi’lek hovering over you and a glint of metal catches your eye. He has a blaster pointed right at your chest. Your breath catches in your throat and your mouth dries. 
“I suggest you don’t take another step towards me, otherwise I’ll shoot her” the Twi’lek calls out to the mystery person in front of you. 
Your heart halts in your chest, breath slows as you realize the gravity of the situation. You were practically helpless, incapable of making any move without potentially ending your life. You still under his boot, attempting to assess the situation. 
The air around you stills, a chill runs up your spine. 
“I think you’ve got someone that doesn’t belong to you. If you return her to me unharmed, I might just let you live” a gravelly and husky voice calls out lazily. That voice. Din’s voice. 
He came you practically cried out of desperation and relief. You strain your neck backwards to look at him. As soon as you make eye contact with his visor you flash him a weak smile to let him know that you’re relieved and glad to see him.
His form relaxes slightly as you hope you make eye contact with him through the dark visor of his helmet. Something seems to flash over his demeanor, but the moment is gone within a second. He turns back to the Twi’lek, who still has the blaster trained at your chest.
“Oh, you might just let me live. How wonderful. But I’m afraid I can’t let that happen, so either let me get through or the girl dies” the Twi’lek shouts out as he shoves the blaster closer to your chest. 
“Alright, fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you” Din calls out quickly before whipping out his own blaster. Before the Twi’lek can even register what’s happening, Din shoots the man straight in the chest. 
The Twi’lek crumples, folding in on himself before falling over onto his side, lifeless. You scramble on the stones, pushing yourself away from the body as fast as you can while still restrained.
You hear Din call out your name as he rushes to your side, dropping to his knees without hesitation.
“Are you hurt?” his hands roam up and down your body, assessing it for any damage before sighing with relief that there were no broken bones or blood. 
You let your head rest on the ground, taking gulps of air as your anxiety lessened. 
“I- I guess I’m fine. Just shaken up a bit” you croak out, pulling at the metal cuffs rubbing away at the skin around your wrists.
He gently grabs hold of your wrists, his eyes narrowing as he inspects the cuffs. 
“Give me a sec” he says distractedly, rummaging through his utility belt for a tool that could free you from your confinements. A moment goes by before he whips out a lock-picker of some sort. He slots the gadget into the small keyhole on your cuffs, jiggling it around before a small click rang through the air. The cuffs dropped to the ground and you let out a hiss at the raw skin. 
“Thanks” you whisper before gently sitting up, grimacing as you go.
“Your face
” Din points out, his voice hushed and severe. “What did they do to you?” He sounds ready to pounce, prepared to tear apart anyone who hurt you. 
His hand reaches up to touch the mark that’s now flourishing into a bruise on your cheek, and you wince as he applies a slight pressure to the mark. 
“Ah, it's fine, I’ll just need some bacta patches and it’ll be fine. Besides, it's just a bruise” you say  quietly, your face flushing.
“I’m going to kill him” Din rasped, taking your hands in a movement to pull you to standing. 
“I think you already did
” you grimace as you look over to the Trandoshan laying face down lifeless on the ground.
“Oh
less work for me then” he huffed out. 
You slightly falter when he pulls you completely up, head still spinning from the hits you took while trying to fight them off. Din catches you with a quick inhale, wrapping his strong arms around your back and under your arm to support you as you both walk back to the ship. 
As you continue to walk in silence, you can almost feel the anger rolling off Din, his helmet set straight ahead. 
As your adrenaline wears off from the scuffle, you remember how you even got in this situation to begin with: Din was nowhere to be found and unresponsive.
“Din, where the kriff were you? I needed you back there” you implored, your mind was racing and hot tears began to prick the corners of your eyes.
“I was-” he starts quietly before you relentlessly cut him off.
“Where? I really needed you back there, I was so scared and I thought you died! What happened?” you cry out, a wave of emotion crashing down on you. You try to pull yourself away from his grip, slightly thrashing in his arms. 
“Stop, you’re only going to worsen your injuries” he says slowly, eyes looking everywhere but yours. 
“No, I thought you left me. I really thought you felt nothing between us, thought you were using me for your own benefit! Don’t you understand?” you successfully free yourself from his stronghold on you and you begin hitting his chest with your hands fisted. 
Din stares you down, unmoving from his position. He sighs as he grabs hold of your fists, pulling them away and holding them to stop your attacks.
“Listen, I did what I had to do back there. If I hadn’t diverged from where you were going, neither of us would be alive” his jaw ticked as he seethed. 
You stopped and gazed up into the darkness of his visor, the strong grip he had on your fists loosen until he dropped them completely.
“Okay
but don’t pull stupid stunts like that without telling me first. I really thought you left me” a watery voice replaces your anger like whiplash.
Din relaxes, and pulls you tight against his chest in a reassuring hug.
“I would never leave you. Ever. I have a responsibility to protect you, and I didn’t fulfill that responsibility. I’m sorry” he reassured, arms tightening around your torso. 
Your arms wrap around his own torso, and you turn your un-bruised cheek against his chest, eyes overflowing with tears. 
His right hand comes up to rest in your hair, pressing his chest more firmly into it.
“You swear?” you question through a sniffle.
“I promise.”
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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months ago
Text
FTC vs surveillance pricing
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Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!
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In the mystical cosmology of economics, "prices" are of transcendental significance, the means by which the living market knows and adapts itself, giving rise to "efficient" production and consumption.
At its most basic level, the metaphysics of pricing goes like this: if there is less of something for sale than people want to buy, the seller will raise the price until enough buyers drop out and demand equals supply. If the disappointed would-be buyers are sufficiently vocal about their plight, other sellers will enter the market (bankrolled by investors who sense an opportunity), causing supplies to increase and prices to fall until the system is in "equilibrium" – producing things as cheaply as possible in precisely the right quantities to meet demand. In the parlance of neoclassical economists, prices aren't "set": they are discovered.
In antitrust law, there are many sins, but they often boil down to "price setting." That is, if a company has enough "market power" that they can dictate prices to their customers, they are committing a crime and should be punished. This is such a bedrock of neoclassical economics that it's a tautology "market power" exists where companies can "set prices"; and to "set prices," you need "market power."
Prices are the blood cells of the market, shuttling nutrients (in the form of "information") around the sprawling colony organism composed of all the buyers, sellers, producers, consumers, intermediaries and other actors. Together, the components of this colony organism all act on the information contained in the "price signals" to pursue their own self-interest. Each self-interested action puts more information into the system, triggering more action. Together, price signals and the actions they evince eventually "discover" the price, an abstraction that is yanked out of the immaterial plane of pure ideas and into our grubby, physical world, causing mines to re-open, shipping containers and pipelines to spark to life, factories to retool, trucks to fan out across the nation, retailers to place ads and hoist SALE banners over their premises, and consumers to race to those displays and open their wallets.
When prices are "distorted," all of this comes to naught. During the notorious "socialist calculation debate" of 1920s Austria, right-wing archdukes of religious market fundamentalism, like Von Hayek and Von Mises, trounced their leftist opponents, arguing that the market was the only computational system capable of calculating how much of each thing should be made, where it should be sent, and how much it should be sold for.
Attempts to "plan" the economy – say, by subsidizing industries or limiting prices – may be well-intentioned, but they broke the market's computations and produced haywire swings of both over- and underproduction. Later, the USSR's planned economy did encounter these swings. These were sometimes very grave (famines that killed millions) and sometimes silly (periods when the only goods available in regional shops were forks, say, creating local bubbles in folk art made from forks).
Unplanned markets do this too. Most notoriously, capitalism has produced a vast oversupply of carbon-intensive goods and processes, and a huge undersupply of low-carbon alternatives, bringing the human civilization to the brink of collapse. Not only have capitalism's price signals failed to address this existential crisis to humans, it has also sown the seeds of its own ruin – the market computer's not going to be getting any "price signals" from people as they drown in floods or roast to death on sidewalks that deliver second-degree burns to anyone who touches them:
https://www.fastcompany.com/91151209/extreme-heat-southwest-phoenix-surface-burns-scorching-pavement-sidewalks-pets
For market true believers, these failures are just evidence that regulation is distorting markets, and that the answer is more unregulated markets to infuse the computer with more price signals. When it comes to carbon, the problem is that producers are "producing negative externalities" (that is, polluting and sticking us with the bill). If we can just get them to "internalize" those costs, they will become "economically rational" and switch to low-carbon alternatives.
That's the theory behind the creation and sale of carbon credits. Rather than ordering companies to stop risking civilizational collapse and mass extinction, we can incentivize them to do so by creating markets that reward clean tech and punish dirty practices. The buying and selling of carbon credits is supposed to create price signals reflecting the existential risk to the human race and the only habitable planet known to our species, which the market will then "bring into equilibrium."
Unfortunately, reality has a distinct and unfair leftist bias. Carbon credits are a market for lemons. The carbon credits you buy to "offset" your car or flight are apt to come from a forest that has already burned down, or that had already been put in a perpetual trust as a wildlife preserve and could never be logged:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/18/greshams-carbon-law/#papal-indulgences
Carbon credits produce the most perverse outcomes imaginable. For example, much of Tesla's profitability has been derived from the sale of carbon credits to the manufacturers of the dirtiest, most polluting SUVs on Earth; without those Tesla credits, those SUVs would have been too expensive to sell, and would not have existed:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat
What's more, carbon credits aren't part of an "all of the above" strategy that incorporates direct action to prevent our species downfall. These market solutions are incompatible with muscular direct action, and if we do credits, we can't do other stuff that would actually work:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/31/carbon-upsets/#big-tradeoff
Even though price signals have repeatedly proven themselves to be an insufficient mechanism for producing "efficient" or even "survivable," they remain the uppermost spiritual value in the capitalist pantheon. Even through the last 40 years of unrelenting assaults on antitrust and competition law, the one form of corporate power that has remained both formally and practically prohibited is "pricing power."
That's why the DoJ was able to block tech companies and major movie studios from secretly colluding to suppress their employees' wages, and why those employees were able to get huge sums out of their employers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation
It's also why the Big Six (now Big Five) publishers and Apple got into so much trouble for colluding to set a floor on the price of ebooks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Apple_(2012)
When it comes to monopoly, even the most Bork-pilled, Manne-poisoned federal judges and agencies have taken a hard line on price-fixing, because "distortions" of prices make the market computer crash.
But despite this horror of price distortions, America's monopolists have found so many ways to manipulate prices. Last month, The American Prospect devoted an entire issue to the many ways that monopolies and cartels have rigged the prices we pay, pushing them higher and higher, even as our wages stagnated and credit became more expensive:
https://prospect.org/pricing
For example, there's the plague of junk fees (AKA "drip pricing," or, if you're competing to be first up against the wall come the revolution, "ancillary revenue"), everything from baggage fees from airlines to resort fees at hotels to the fee your landlord charges if you pay your rent by check, or by card, or in cash:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/07/drip-drip-drip/#drip-off
There's the fake transparency gambit, so beloved of America's hospitals:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled
The "greedflation" that saw grocery prices skyrocketing, which billionaire grocery plutes blamed on covid stimulus checks, even as they boasted to their shareholders about their pricing power:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-12-war-in-the-aisles/
There's the the tens of billions the banks rake in with usurious interest rates, far in excess of the hikes to the central banks' prime rates (which are, in turn, justified in light of the supposed excesses of covid relief checks):
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-11-what-we-owe/
There are the scams that companies like Amazon pull with their user interfaces, tricking you into signing up for subscriptions or upsells, which they grandiosely term "dark patterns," but which are really just open fraud:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-10-one-click-economy/
There are "surge fees," which are supposed to tempt more producers (e.g. Uber drivers) into the market when demand is high, but which are really just an excuse to gouge you – like when Wendy's threatens to surge-price its hamburgers:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-06-07-urge-to-surge/
And then there's surveillance pricing, the most insidious and profitable way to jack up prices. At its core, surveillance pricing uses nonconsensually harvested private information to inform an algorithm that reprices the things you buy – from lattes to rent – in real-time:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/05/your-price-named/#privacy-first-again
Companies like Plexure – partially owned by McDonald's – boasts that it can use surveillance data to figure out what your payday is and then hike the price of the breakfast sandwich or after-work soda you buy every day.
Like every bad pricing practice, surveillance pricing has its origins in the aviation industry, which invested early on and heavily in spying on fliers to figure out how much they could each afford for their plane tickets and jacking up prices accordingly. Architects of these systems then went on to found companies like Realpage, a data-brokerage that helps landlords illegally collude to rig rent prices.
Algorithmic middlemen like Realpage and ATPCO – which coordinates price-fixing among the airlines – are what Dan Davies calls "accountability sinks." A cartel sends all its data to a separate third party, which then compares those prices and tells everyone how much to jack them up in order to screw us all:
https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/
These price-fixing middlemen are everywhere, and they predate the boom in commercial surveillance. For example, Agri-Stats has been helping meatpackers rig the price of meat for 40 years:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy
But when you add commercial surveillance to algorithmic pricing, you get a hybrid more terrifying than any cocaine-sharks (or, indeed, meth-gators):
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/tennessee-police-warn-locals-not-flush-drugs-fear-meth-gators-n1030291
Apologists for these meth-gators insist that surveillance pricing's true purpose is to let companies offer discounts. A streaming service can't afford to offer $0.99 subscriptions to the poor because then all the rich people would stop paying $19.99. But with surveillance pricing, every customer gets a different price, titrated to their capacity to pay, and everyone wins.
But that's not how it cashes out in the real world. In the real world, rich people who get ripped off have the wherewithal to shop around, complain effectively to a state AG, or punish companies by taking their business elsewhere. Meanwhile, poor people aren't just cash-poor, they're also time-poor and political influence-poor.
When the dollar store duopoly forces all the mom-and-pop grocers in your town out of business with predatory pricing, and creating food deserts that only they serve, no one cares, because state AGs and politicians don't care about people who shop at dollar stores. Then, the dollar stores can collude with manufacturers to get shrunken "cheater sized" products that sell for a dollar, but cost double or triple the grocery store price by weight or quantity:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes
Yes, fliers who seem to be flying on business (last-minute purchasers who don't have a Saturday stay) get charged more than people whose purchase makes them seem to be someone flying away for a vacation. But that's only because aviation prices haven't yet fully transitioned to surveillance pricing. If an airline can correctly calculate that you are taking a trip because you're a grad student who must attend a conference in order to secure a job, and if they know precisely how much room you have left on your credit card, they can charge you everything you can afford, to the cent.
Your ability to resist pricing power isn't merely a function of a company's market power – it's also a function of your political power. Poor people may have less to steal, but no one cares when they get robbed:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/19/martha-wright-reed/#capitalists-hate-capitalism
So surveillance pricing, supercharged by algorithms, represent a serious threat to "prices," which is the one thing that the econo-religious fundamentalists of the capitalist class value above all else. That makes surveillance pricing low-hanging fruit for regulatory enforcement: a bipartisan crime that has few champions on either side of the aisle.
Cannily, the FTC has just declared war on surveillance pricing, ordering eight key players in the industry (including capitalism's arch-villains, McKinsey and Jpmorgan Chase) to turn over data that can be used to prosecute them for price-fixing within 45 days:
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/07/ftc-issues-orders-eight-companies-seeking-information-surveillance-pricing
As American Prospect editor-in-chief David Dayen notes in his article on the order, the FTC is doing what he and his journalistic partners couldn't: forcing these companies to cough up internal data:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-07-24-ftc-opens-surveillance-pricing-inquiry/
This is important, and not just because of the wriggly critters the FTC will reveal as they use their powers to turn over this rock. Administrative agencies can't just do whatever they want. Long before the agencies were neutered by the Supreme Court, they had strict rules requiring them to gather evidence, solicit comment and counter-comment, and so on, before enacting any rules:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff
Doubtless, the Supreme Court's Loper decision (which overturned "Chevron deference" and cut off the agencies' power to take actions that they don't have detailed, specific authorization to take) will embolden the surveillance pricing industry to take the FTC to court on this. It's hard to say whether the courts will find in the FTC's favor. Section 6(b) of the FTC Act clearly lets the FTC compel these disclosures as part of an enforcement action, but they can't start an enforcement action until they have evidence, and through the whole history of the FTC, these kinds of orders have been a common prelude to enforcement.
One thing this has going for it is that it is bipartisan: all five FTC commissioners, including both Republicans (including the Republican who votes against everything) voted in favor of it. Price gouging is the kind of easy-to-grasp corporate crime that everyone hates, irrespective of political tendency.
In the Prospect piece on Ticketmaster's pricing scam, Dayen and Groundwork's Lindsay Owens called this the "Age of Recoupment":
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/03/aoi-aoi-oh/#concentrated-gains-vast-diffused-losses
For 40 years, neoclassical economics' focus on "consumer welfare" meant that companies could cheat and squeeze their workers and suppliers as hard as they wanted, so long as prices didn't go up. But after 40 years, there's nothing more to squeeze out of workers or suppliers, so it's time for the cartels to recoup by turning on us, their customers.
They believe – perhaps correctly – that they have amassed so much market power through mergers and lobbying that they can cross the single bright line in neoliberal economics' theory of antitrust: price-gouging. No matter how sincere the economics profession's worship of prices might be, it still might not trump companies that are too big to fail and thus too big to jail.
The FTC just took an important step in defense of all of our economic wellbeing, and it's a step that even the most right-wing economist should applaud. They're calling the question: "Do you really think that price-distortion is a cardinal sin? If so, you must back our play." Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!
https://clarionwriteathon.com/members/profile.php?writerid=293388
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/07/24/gouging-the-all-seeing-eye/#i-spy
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