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writtnbyhan · 1 year ago

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NFWMB.

PAIRING: bang chan x female!reader

TAGS: protective chan, idol!chan, non-idol!reader, established relationship.

WORD COUNT: 1945

PROMPT: person a gets into a heated argument with someone. person b starts threatening them, so person a picks up person b and carries/drags them out of the room before anyone gets hurt.

warnings: what the prompt says, lol — arguments (not between chan and reader). very very minor violence (arm grabbed), bruising, swearing. Let me know if I missed a warning.

author's note: well, baby's first post. I really hope someone likes this ? my goal is to participate in nanowrimo in my own way so expect weekly posts from yours truly. I was nervous about what to write about bc of it being my first post but I needed to write something or I'd never do it. starting with chan feels right, though I wish I can get to write more fluff soon 😭 this was fun tho! I really like protective and possessive chan<3

You didn’t intend for him to hear. Mostly, because you thought you could handle things on your own, but also because you knew it would somehow end up like this.

You have been visiting the building where the boys work for as long as you remember being in their lives. It’s not your fault, given that they spend almost every waking moment there, working. And the one whose time was taken the most by it happened to be your boyfriend. It was a Saturday and he was working, which wasn’t uncommon, but it also wasn’t healthy. You let it slide sometimes, when you knew time was pressing on him and he needed to be there, for his own peace of mind. But everything was ready for the comeback, there was absolutely no reason for him to spend his weekend locked up in that so-familiar room.

So, you did the only logical thing: went there to drag him out, knowing only you where capable of doing so. No amount of puppy eyes from his kids could do what you could with just asking — you were his girlfriend, after all, it was expected that he’d have a soft spot for you.

You felt the problems creeping on you as soon as you stepped foot in the building. There were new people there, new workers. You hated when new staff started working, because they were still too nosy, and because they would ask too many question, some of which you wouldn’t be able to answer without one of the boys by your side to prove your credibility. It was okay, though, you could only imagine how many girls could go to the front desk and claim what was your truth — “I’m looking for my boyfriend”.

Luckily, the girl at the front desk, Sun Hee, already knew you. She only smiled at you when she saw you enter the building, and her tired smile should’ve been warning enough. You walked to her with a matching smile of your own, she knew you were there to pick up a overworking boyfriend, but you still needed to sign your name in the records.

“hi, lovely! what’s got you tired today?” you asked, curiosity so strong you couldn’t help asking.

“new staff’s first weekend. sometimes I wonder how they got hired in the first place”, she answers truthfully, sighing. She sends you a look you know it’s a warning — beware, idiots walking around feeling entitled!

You sigh, too. That’s going to be troublesome, especially today.

“hope I don’t get to met them today, at least until I find Chan. The boys didn’t warn me, or I would have brought one of them with me”

She showed a sympathetic smile, nodding.

“Prince charming is on studio 3, same as always”, she rolls her eyes playfully.

It says something about your overachieving boyfriend that not only the staff knows where he is all the time, but also that you have almost made friends with said staff. God, you needed to convince him to spend less time working.

After thaking Sun Hee and promising to chat more later, you walked to the elevator, setting to find Chan. You could amost picture him — black hoodie, black beanie hiding his messy curls, and headphones in. You smiled at the image in your head, a much too familiar one, one you loved so much.

Smile still present in your face, you stepped out of the elevator on the corresponding floor, checking different doors that had lights on. You were here to pick up Chan, yes, but you didn’t rule out finding Hyunjin or Felix overworking themselves too. The blondes were quick to follow their leader to the building any day, claiming they always “needed” the extra practice. Jeongin would be just as annoying as they were to you, if it wasn’t for his baby status, which meant everyone took a little more care of him (Minho more than anyone, checking that the boy didn’t overwork himself regularly).

Of course, checking every room as if you didn’t know where you were going to may have looked suspicious, you will give the man that. You were glad he was doing his job, just — well, maybe you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe he was.

“Excuse me, miss, who are you and where are you going?” He was at least 30 cm taller than you, and he was almost as buff as Changbin. You weren’t intimidated at first, you knew your presence had been cleared for, you had a right to be there, and you had got through the entrance desk, so he must know you were allowed there, right? Maybe he was just trying to help.

“Oh, hi! I’m Y/N. I’m looking for my boyfriend and checking to see if one of his friends is here as well”, you explained.

He stepped closer, almost invading your personal space. You took two steps back.

“Who are you looking for?”, he was eyeing you as if you were suspicious, a threat even. You, who was dressed in a skirt and probably looked like a mouse next to him.

“My boyfriend”, you repeated, “Christopher Bang Chan. He is in one of those studio rooms”, you added matter-of-factly.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to escort you outside. You shouldn’t be here.” The man said, loudly, like he wanted to be heard. Ah, you thought, he is one of the new ones. It was common, you have seen it happen one too many times — new staff is always trying to prove themselves as good.

You smiled, though you were a little intimidated now. After all, you were alone in a hallway with the man who kept getting closer.

“Why is that? I am allowed here”, you tried to keep calm.

“Look, I don’t know how you passed the front desk, but fans should not be inside the building!”, the man yelled at you, his arm reaching out until he could take you by the wrist, his hold tight enough to bruise.

“Hey! You’re hurting me, stop it. Let me go!” You started struggling, trying to force your arm out of the man’s hold.

“Stop fighting or I’ll call security”, he threatened. You were about to tell him to do so, you’d wait by him until security came there and showed the man that your info was in the system and you were, actually, allowed there. You didn’t get a chance, though, for your boyfriend’s voice reached your ears as soon as the man stopped talking.

“You let her go or I’ll call security myself”, Chan’s voice showed his anger, and as he got closer you saw the determined look in his eyes that made you worry a little. You didn’t doubt Chan was capable of hitting the man if he didn’t let you go right now.

The man, apparently, didn’t notice that, for he did not let go of your wrist.

“I’m so sorry, sir, I’ll have her removed from the building immediately, I don’t know how she got inside.” He was tugging at your wrist, to which you kept quiet. If you expressed how much it hurt, the situation could escalate more than you wanted it to.

“She got inside because she’s allowed to. Now, I said: let her go.” Chan’s voice was ice cold, almost spitting the words at the man’s face. Finally, your arm was free, and you rushed to take your own wrist so as to cover the red marks, evidence of the strong hold the man had on you.

“Why doesn’t she have a pass, then?”

“She doesn’t need one because she’s not a guest. Did you even care to ask about that or check the system? You know, that type of irresponsible behaviour could get you fired — you can’t just go around the building threatening and grabbing people by force!” Chan’s voice got louder near the end.

“It’s okay”, you quipped, putting a hand in Chan’s chest as an attempt to calm him down. He was protective, you knew as much, but he was also a lovely person who you knew didn’t want to get anyone fired. Still, you knew he’d do something like that for you if you asked for it.

That was a wrong move, apparently, because it meant letting him see the marks on your arm.

“what the fuck?” his words were whispered, but it was obvious the anger that came with them. “Man, what is wrong with you? You should have checked before bruising her arm like that! What gives you the right to decide who is and isn’t allowed here?! That’s the front desk’s job, if she’s on the fucking third floor, then I think it’s fucking obvious she passed security. I need your name for I will have to file a complaint about this, grabbing someone like this is violent and no excuse of security can make it right because you are not supposed to even touch here — if you think she is not allowed here, you call security, you do not bruise my girlfriend’s arm.”

Chan’s voice is loud, and he is so close to the man you could tell it is some kind of threat, or maybe show of strenght. The man’s jaw was tense, as if he was ready to argue with the idol himself. You looked around the hallway, not knowing what to do or how to stop this. The man that had grabbed your arm clearly felt too entitled for his own good, and you worried that he might try to turn things physical.

Lucky for you, he didn’t even get a chance to answer before you heard a door open and close quickly, someone rushing out of one of the practice rooms.

You think you have never been happier of seeing the freckles in Felix’s face.

“Chan, everything okay?” sunshine boy asked, putting his arm around you as soon as he was close enough. His voice seemed to get Chan out of whatever state he was in, for he took a few steps back, still not breaking eye contact with the other man.

“Yeah, this dude just grabbed y/n’s arm and bruised her wrist because it’s apparently his first week here and he already feels too entitled.”

Felix looks at you, looking for something in your eyes, before getting closer to his friend.

“Okay, let’s go grab our things and go home to see if she needs to put some ice on her wrist”. He doesn’t let Chan answer before taking his hand with his smaller one, intertwining his fingers and almost dragging him out of there. You’re quick behind them, taking Chan’s other hand to give him some peace of mind.

Felix looks back at you and you smile in thanks. You know your boyfriend is way too protective, but a situation like this had never happened before. It’s good to know he’d do anything to defend you, but you still didn’t want him to get in a physical fight in his workplace.

“Don’t you dare think this gets any of you out of the hook for working on one of your free days, boys.” You reprimand them, hands still intertwined while entering the studio. Chan’s calmer now, his cheeks blushed with what you guess is something akin to embarrassement; you know he doesn’t like getting like this, but sometimes his emotions overpower him. You kiss his cheek, deciding to not comment on the subject until he does so himself. After all, you achieved what you came here to do — collect whichever stray kid had wandered their way to work on a weekend and get them home.

#✿ . . cami writes #skz x reader #skz imagines #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagines #stray kids x y/n #stray kids x you #stray kids scenarios #bang chan #bang chan x reader #bang chan x y/n #bang chan x female reader

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anghraine · 3 months ago

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There's this weird genre of post I've periodically seen that's like "It bothers me that autistic people come onto this site and vent about the pressure to accommodate mainstream social norms that seem unnatural to them, and these people just don't seem to get that mainstream social norms serve a function that makes them right and good, so 'help' consisting of pressuring autistic people into unnatural 24/7 performance is actually great. Really, autistic people need to meet the allistics halfway and accommodate us as well!"

Obviously, these posts aren't phrased this way—the style is usually more patronizingly helpful with a hint of chiding autistic strangers for venting on their own blogs about one of the most basic diagnostic criteria of autism. But the thing that always strikes me about these "helpful" explanations is how incredibly sheltered they seem.

I can't speak for all autistic people. But a lot of treatment for autism has historically been rooted in teaching autistic people to mimic "normal" behavior as much as possible. Success has often been understood less in terms of the strain of this mimicry on autistic people or how viscerally unpleasant it is for an autistic person to perform this way, and more in terms of the comfort of people around us. The less perceptible our symptoms are to other people, the greater the perception of success in most cases, although research increasingly suggests that "social camouflaging" is actively harmful to autistic people no matter how good we seem at it.

Yes, there's a reason for social norms. I know. Many of us know. We have been incessantly told this our entire lives and live under extreme pressure to adapt to the allistic world. We are under vastly more pressure to accommodate the social norms of our communities than most allistic people seem to even remotely grasp. All this "don't label yourself, it's all just a social construction" and "you're high-functioning, though, so-" and "WELL ACTUALLY it is morally incumbent on you to imitate our social norms" only makes this absolute abyss of ignorance seem all the deeper. It feels rather like Protestant proselytizers in the USA who walk up and are like "have you heard about Jesus?!" as if it is remotely possible to live in this country without hearing about Jesus.

Secondly, the idea that the weight of accommodating these different experiences should rest equally on allistic and autistic people is actually pretty grotesque—yes, even if you're talking about autistic people without specifically intellectual disabilities. Where is all this endless understanding and patience for the allistic world we're expected to develop when it comes to accommodating us? Usually completely absent, and even when we do receive some degree of empathy, it still seems incredibly unequal to the demand on us.

But even if that were not the case, the idea that ethically, the people with, you know, autism are under some moral onus to equally accommodate allistic people (especially allistic people who do not have any similar disabilities themselves, which is most of them!) is absurd. Most allistic people are more able to adapt to changing circumstances than autistic people and experience less strain from doing it, they are better and faster at correctly interpreting social situations and emotional cues, and social performance is easier and more natural for them, and they overwhelmingly outnumber autistic people. The logic here just seems absurd.

And thirdly this scary danger of "high functioning" autistic people not trying to accommodate the norms and comfort of allistic people on some broad scale is not happening. Here's one fairly clear discussion that isn't paywalled:

In fact, high-functioning ASD individuals were reported to be more aware of their communication difficulties and were more likely make considerable efforts to adjust their behavior to conventional rules of non-autistic individuals, learning to imitate other non-ASD individuals. Moreover, females reported a higher frequency of camouflaging strategies, suggesting a role of camouflaging in the gender gap of the ASD diagnosis. Although camouflaging strategies can sometimes grant a better level of adjustment, even resulting in a hyper-adaptive behavior, they are also often correlated with negative mental health consequences due to the long-term stress associated with continuous attempts to adapt in day-to-day life.

Seriously, the world being just too easy on autistic people and letting them actually show signs of being autistic (God forbid) without sufficient chiding is not a thing. It's not real in any significant large-scale way; the exact reverse is vastly more common. Annoying autistic people on Tumblr dot com are not a social problem.

#anghraine rants #long post #rare breed of attack unicorn #autism #etc

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haunted-xander · 10 months ago

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Sometimes I think about Urianger's role in and feelings on the Thancred-Ryne dynamic and I think watching it kills him a bit inside. For several reasons.

Like, to begin with there's the guilt he's been carrying with him since he ushered Minfilia to the first, how he effectively killed the person Thancred cared about the most in the world and who's "death" ended up causing Ryne's entire Situation. He looks at what's happening between them and can only think "I caused this" even though that's not really true. No one person is responsible for this outcome, it's a culmination of several circumstances and the consequences of them. Logically, Urianger knows this. But it doesn't matter, because his guilt is overpowering his logic.

And also, like. What Thancred is doing here, the way he's knowingly letting Ryne be and stay hurt because he literally cannot bring himself to tell her his feelings, is the exact same mistake Urianger made with Moenbryda. Of course, the circumstances are vastly different, and the potential consequences to Thancred telling Ryne the wrong things or her misinterperating it is far greater (being a matter of literal life or death), it's still the same sort of paralysis they are trapped in.

And he knows it. He sees it. But he can't say or do anything about it, he doesn't have the right to. He acknowledges the mistake, but he hasn't really improved upon it yet. He still doesn't voice his thoughts and feelings as he should. He's also non-confrontational by nature, he doesn't argue or try to change peoples minds, he probably doesn't think he has any place to.

So, he tries to help in what little ways he can. Because he doesn't want it to become Monebryda again, he doesn't want to know he stole not one but two people from Thancred. So he does what he can. He tells Ryne little tidbits about Thancred, things that help her understand him but are safe to share. Nothing too deep, nothing too personal. Just small things, things that are purely factual, because he can't afford to give her a false image of who Thancred is. He teacher her fun and interesting things, because Thancred isn't in the mindset to provide her with non-essential skills.

I like to think Urianger has brought it up with Thancred at least once, during one of his stays. But nothing would've come of it. Not really. Unlike Y'shtola, Urianger isn't pushy, he'll bring it up once or twice and when he sees this won't go anywhere, he gives up. He wants to help, but he knows that persistance only does do much, and he is not the person who has the resiliance needed to push and push until Thancred finally budges (because he won't budge, it won't help anything but to sour things further by adding aditional stress to an already strained dynamic).

And like. Urianger gets it. He gets it because he's been the same way- not saying what he should to someone he loves more than anything else because she was meant to figure her life out herself, and 'steering' her in any direction by telling her his feelings (regardless of if the 'steering' is intention or not) will go against that. He gets it. He gets it and it's all the more painful for it. He knows it can't just be fixed by acknowledging it or with encouragement, something needs to happen to break the stasis.

I think this is probably why he stayed behind while they went off to Nabaath Areng. This is the very last chance they have to say what they want to, and he can't afford to be the anchor anymore. This is about them, not him, he can't let their resolution be buffed by his presence, so he stays behind. Which was probably for the best. Ryne got nervous when Urianger said he's staying behind, probably not too excited about being alone with Thancred (well, not alone, but WoL doesn't count) so soon after she had ran away crying. But she needs to be nervous. For anything positive to come out of this Thancred and Ryne both can't afford to be too relaxed. As sad as it is, the stress is necessary for anything to happen. He knows it. Does he like it? Absolutely not, but nor does he like his other plots. At least no one dies this time if it goes right.

#urianger had an integral part in the thancred-ryne situation and i think its very important to remember that #like i think he served as a very important buffer that prevented the dynamic from becoming even more strained than it already was #but also like. ryne NEEDED to have at least someone she can be comfortable around without the stress of her circumstances souring it #urianger is uniquely suited to play that role. even with his guilt regarding minfilia he never showed anything but genuine kindness for her #it helps that she didnt know about his hand in the situation existing to begin with (as shes surprised when he tells her in ahm areang)#THATS ALSO IMPORTANT BTW. like this man had a DIRECT hand in making this happen (even if it isnt fully his fault. minfilia made her choice)#AND LIKE. the parallels between uri-moen and thancred-ryne. they both love these girls so so much but cant bring themselves to say anything #urianger has been through the pain before. he knows. but he hasnt improved much himself. what right does he have to scold thancred?#silent support is all he can give. pushing thancred would make him a hypocrite and risk making it worse. hes not suited for confrontation #y'shtola and uriangers approaches to helping both have their merits but it needs a balance #too much pushing and the dynamic just gets worse but too forgiving and nothing will ever change #and yes i know im just repeating myself but ITS IMPORTANT OK #GOD #urianger augurelt #thancred waters #ryne waters #final fantasy #final fantasy 14 #final fantasy xiv #ff14 #ffxiv #xander rambles #xander being insane about ryne #urianger actually this time but. its related to ryne so. it gets the tag

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blueishspace · 24 days ago

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Scott says Pearl's memory is selective so I rewatched her DL pov.

And he's kinda right? But also is doing much of the same thing.

Part 1/3

Episode 1 p.1 Communication and Strategy.

Let's start from the basic thing everyone even non fans with friends that are into the series know. Scott abandoning Pearl.

...

Which is something he doesn't do, not really at least, that would imply that they were allied in some way and he left. He might be her soulmate but that does not mean he has to team with her. By all counts It's simply a game mechanic and nothing more, she isn't entitled to an alliance with him. Sure there's an expectation for it to happen but it is not a rule, you can't abandon something you never had.

What about Last Life? It doesn't matter, not when it comes to Pearl, alliances almost never stick trough different seasons. It matters to Cleo and Scott: One of the reasons Scott and Cleo teamed up was because in Last Life they didn't have the chance to be in the alliance for as much as they wanted since Cleo had died and gone to red and then Scott went to red soon after Cleo went back to yellow. It was an alliance decided and agreed upon based on the fact they both felt robbed by the previous season. But the same doesn't apply to Pearl, it could have had she met them and talked to them about it but she didn't and so they likely interpreted it as her not caring about it.

Pearl interprets it as abandonment because ahe came in late, she doesn't understand the way the life series works yet. She expected the alliance and friendship to last from the previous season, it is not her fault either. It is entitlement born not out of selfishness but by a lack of communication.

Pearl THINKS Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss has value because she sees Scott and Cleo together but she lacks the context for that and ends up using it as a reason fro Scott to not reject her, at the same time Scott feels that Pearl doesn't care and is expecting his loyalty because of a game mechanic neither has control over and even worse, at least by his standards, an old alliance. He has a very weird definition of what loyalty is but it's something he cares about strongly and it something vital to his character.

And Scott is definitely is hurt by Pearl's actions and It's really really obvious: Scott is a man of logic, he is rational, he sees he only has a life left and decides not to do a boogie kill because he might just die and go to red anyway, he sacrifices himself again and again to give his teammates better chances, ge does not care... But there he does something strategically stupid, not teaming with the person who's health he shares. He is emotionally hurt by what he percieves to be Pearl's lack of care, this is the first time since third life he acts out of emotion over logic. From Cleo's pov we see how much he panic when he realizes he's bonded to Pearl and that she is in the nether.

And even when Scott comes back to say something extra he doesn't target Pearl, he uses the horn to annoy Martyn. From his pov it is Pearl that betrayed him but he decides to be mean to Martyn instead of her. I think this says a lot more then words van about how he viewed this thing.

Episode 1 p.2 Cleo and Martyn are assholes.

Oh boy, those two on the other hand made everything much worse for Pearl.

Martyn ACTUALLY betrayed and abandoned Pearl, unlike Scott he wa working together with her. She had reason to expect him to stick with her especially after they were both refused by their soulmate partners. But he doesn't, despite everything, despite knowing she didn't take Scott's rejection well he still leaves her alone. Pearl does not actually begin to spiral when Cleo and Scott choose eachother over their soulmates, she begins to spiral only once Martyn decides that's it better to leave, when he decides being alone is better then being with her.

And Cleo... she eggs them both Scott and Pearl on so much. Like at least Scott tries to be civil and explain himself at the start but Cleo... well she is ruder during the entire conversation.

Even worse, most of the escalation is done by Cleo and Martyn getting louder at eachother and drowning out Scott's and Pearl's arguments. If the previous part was about how Scott's and Pearl's situation happened because of miscommunication then this is to say that it happened because Cleo and Martyn made it virtually impossible for communication to actually happen.

Episode 2 p.1: Snow and Scar(s)

I think everyone knows how it wasn't Pearl that came up with the powdered snow bit, it was started by Scar as a way to mess with Grian...

And not only that. Everyone usually thinks about the homewreckers during Double Life but Scar during the season does a lot of things towards making other soulmates pair distrust eachother, he's the one that makes the chicken games and I think he knows full well what he's doing. He knows what happened to Pearl and gives her a way to make it worse knowing that she is going to use it. And she does.

It does take a bit for Scott to notice, after at first he assumes she's just walking into powdered snow by accident... it takes a bit for him to suspect but what sticks with is so much she damages him. Also Scar actively searches for him to give him the snow too which makes things way worse.

And she does a lot of damage. First 4 hearts, then another 6 hearts. She does not eat to spite Scott but this only justifies him in his mind. She justifies herself saying that he has been taking damage so It's fair. Yet when she takes a bunch of damage getting goat horns and he steps in powdered snow using THE SAME EXACT LOGIC as her she takes it personally... And that It's because It's not actually logic, It's both them justifying their actions to themselves over admitting their mistakes and doing so in the same way...

Episode 2 p.2 How it could have been resolved and yet wasn't.

Still when Scott approaches Pearl soon after he's...civil. They aren't mean to eachother, sure Pearl says she's broken hearted but she's the only one that is antagonistic about it Scott actually feels bad about Tilly dying and he tries to explain himself and tries to make small talk... And he manages it, they talk and both of them still think they are in the right but things are fixable at this point in time. Scott explains the damage he's taken and while Pearl doesn't fully believe him It's a start.

And especially Scott says that he and Cleo had bonded the last session and when Pearl says that he can bond more he says that's It's going to take time. This means Pearl still wants a chance to be on a team with Scott and Scott still doesn't hate such an idea. They are still stuck blinded in their own head but in another timeline they are on a team already from the next session.

Except Scott accidentally says "Mine and Pearl's" instead of "Mine and Cleo's" when talking about his base. And Pearl starts manically claiming their base as her own... And CLEO is the one to first say that she's insane. (Cleo: I think she's lost it. Scott: I don't think she ever had it.) And this insane thing is going to stick with Pearl for the rest of the series.

Cleo is a big part because of how she deals with both Scott's and Pearl. She is probably the person Scott trusts the most other then himself and she completely supports him, she completely agrees with him on everything he says. Scott is functionally in an echo chamber in this season. A very sassy one considering their personalities.

Cleo also worsens Pearl this session...surprisingly while trying to help. She genuinely seems to be trying, she's careful and deliberate, subtly implies she should less alone and then states that just because they aren't on the same team doesn't mean Pearl can't be with someone else. She lacks the sarcasm that's usually in her voice and she seems to be genuinely trying to get Pearl to find allies for herself and not be alone...Since her and Scott chose eachother outside the bonds she too could choose to be with who she wanted. But Pearl doesn't listen and all she gets from it is convincing herself to be even more isolated.

The last nail in the coffin has to be Ren and BigB though, they die and immediately accuse her of being a villain a demoness and sorrounded by misfortune. Scott was defensive and Martyn was evasive and Cleo was sarcastic and Scar was manipulative but out of my entire rewatch of Pearl's pov this far it was the worst moment from Pearl's perspective. The most damage done to Pearl in Double Life was given by Ren.

Episode 3 Why is it Scar again, doesn't he have better things to do?

So we have found that Pearl's spiral was started by Martyn and worsened by Scar and then cleo and then Ren and bow It's Scar's turn again. Because session 2 ends with Pearl saying she was just wanting to help and session 3 starts with Scar convincing her to be actively a threat. He manipulated her into ruining the relationship with Scott once and now he's making her become what Ren said she was. So he can sell her stuff.

Now she meets again with Cleo and Scott and well... Nothing of particular importance happens in this one. Except one thing that Scott's says. (Scott's very infamous line "It's hard but once you widdle him down to nothing it works" about Jimmy is given It's actual context and it seems to not refer to Jimmy's self esteem at all so I don't know where that came from. ) Which gives Pearl the idea to annoy Scott even more.

Also important thing that happens soon is Scott saying sorry to Pearl without any sarcasm for taking damage as an olive branch and then suddenly shutting up as he processes that Pearl just created a dirt hut on his bridge. Even he doesn't tell her to take it down but suggests talking to Cleo about it since they build it. Pearl then suggests killing Cleo and even then Scott tries to calm her down by saying she can't because she is green. Pearl actually in canon comments that Scott is really nice to her and then Ren and Martyn fake burning down her base to get her attention.

#trafficblr #traffic smp #pearlescentmoon #scott smajor #goodtimeswithscar #martyn inthelittlewood #zombiecleo #rendog #bigbst4tz2

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profoundlyconfusedbeing · 10 days ago

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I think the PJO fandom does not talk enough about the fact that Luke wanted to leave Kronos. He wanted to leave Kronos while he still could. Possibly before he got the curse of Achilles. He quite literally begged Annabeth to run away with her. I hate that I barely see this scene brought up outside of the claim that it proofs that Luke was trying to manipulate/hurt/groom Annabeth or as proof that he was actually in love with her. Like it is freaking non of these things. Its a scared 20-21 year old realising what´s happening to him (cough grooming by Kronos cough) and trying to find a way out, by reaching out to the only person left in the world that he still trusts so much to possibly see the good in him. His little sister. The girl he basically adopted. Annabeth. And Annabeth who didn´t think she could trust him anymore. Not really. While she despratly wanted to, her logic and reasoning was her ultimate failiur. Because she could have saved him. But she was a scared 13-14 year old who felt deeply betrayed by one of the only people she ever trusted and her mind told her that distrust was the safer option for her survival.

Also just to make this clear. I am not blaming Annabeth for not trusting him. Lukes fall and no one being able to save him is a tragedy for a reason. It could have tecnically been prevented but it would have required for characters to behave in a way that wasn´t possible for them. (Slightly referencing this post here, but a bit more broader.)

#I didn´t think this would end up in a longerish post about Annabeth and Lukes perspectives #I had thoughts while writing a Luke fic #luke castellan #annabeth chase #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #my stuff pjo edition

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tokyo-debunker-idk · 4 months ago

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Crushed | 03

Summary: He's tried to convince Leo that you're a cool person, to which the former just scoffs and accuses Sho of having a crush. Honestly, the reaction is obnoxious – people of the opposite sex are perfectly able to have platonic friendships. Just because Sho's taken to bringing an extra lunch for you on training days so you can eat together after, and he enjoys spending time with you, and you're pretty and smell good even after an hour of sparring, doesn't mean he has a crush.

Pairing: Haizono Sho x Reader x Kurosagi Leo

Genre: Humor, romantic comedy, slowish burn, no real plot, Leo bullying

18+, minors DNI

~~~~~

"Besides, what are a few nobodies compared to the shit you've been dealing with anyway? You can handle it."

You finally realize what's been bothering you since you confronted Leo at the Vagastrom dorms (outside of the usual annoyance of Leo's general existence).

His response, despite his condescending tone… had been worded suspiciously like a compliment. Which, since it's Leo, means it probably wasn't.

"YoU cAn hAndLe iT," you mutter quietly to yourself, imitating the TikTok asshole's haughty tone. "Fuck off."

It makes you even more annoyed about the stupid sympathy that flared up when Leo mentioned death threats. He doesn't deserve your consideration, but your empathetic ass doesn't care about logical little details like that.

Sure, you've seen horrible comments and exchanges online in fan wars, but it's always been as a spectator. Receiving such disturbing messages personally, ranging from unhinged fans who call you ugly (whatever) to those that wish vile things upon you (less whatever) to others that send inappropriate pictures you wish you could unsee (your eyes, your poor non-quite-virgin eyes)… it's affected you much more than you would have expected.

For you it's mostly a weird blip in your life, and you can just deactivate an account you rarely used in the first place. Since you're stuck at Darkwick, it's not like your social life in the "real" world is exactly popping off, anyway. Despite logically knowing that nothing will happen to you, that the vitriol is being spewed by complete strangers who don't know you at all, you still feel shaken at the reminder that regular humans can be even worse than many of the anomalies you've experienced.

Even the sparse comments about you being cute together (which are repulsive in their own way, for obvious reasons) feel weird and invasive, as if you're their friend. It's like they think they know you, and that their opinion matters enough for you to hear it.

Leo deals with all of that constantly? Sure, he basically signed up for it and is apparently completely fine, but it still just… doesn't feel right.

Yeah, you dislike him, but he's not exactly evil. He's a douche who cares more about himself than anyone else, which is not a rare trait in the world. He just also happens to have brains and guts, without the morals that would keep him from using those around him.

So, a shitty guy, but not the absolute worst. At least, not evil enough for the insane hostility you received firsthand.

Then again, he's gotten those types of messages and was more than willing to put you in the line of fire. So maybe he is a little evil.

Why did he even post you to his TikTok as his girlfriend, anyway? For all his apparent dismissiveness of your capabilities, the guy is definitely way too vain to choose any random passerby, even if he later reveals it to be a joke. In its own fucked up little way, it's almost a compliment that he seems to think you're objectively attractive enough to be a believable partner to his audience.

Not that you're flattered.

Well… a small, petty part of you kind of is, because while Leo acts like a steaming pile of garbage, he's a steaming pile of garbage with taste.

Huh, then maybe he did actually mean what he said about you being able to handle it?

Nah, that can't be right.

Whatever. You have more important things to worry about than a toxic, twink-shaped gremlin. Like your new assignment with the Jabberwock ghouls. That should be your current number-one priority. You should probably go over the investigation notes right now, actually.

SHOulders: Hey Y/N, u free?

You're a strong independent woman who can prioritize important, life-altering tasks over silly crushes. You are, you can resist–

You: Yeah! What's up?

~~~~~

"So? What do you think of the sign?"

"It's amazing! It's even more impressive than it was in the photo."

Sho grins at your compliments, though he tries not to show just how pleased he is about your heartfelt praise.

"Didn't I say flattery'll get you nowhere?"

He's lying, of course. Flattery from you is always welcome, because he can tell you mean it. It's also why he's asked you to look at his menu and signboard before officializing the food truck – you'll give him your honest thoughts. Leo would have opinions on things that are trending, but Sho doesn't really want to rely on gimmicks. For all his irritation with the restrictions at Darkwick (and having to deal with his annoying ass brother), this food truck is something he's actually excited about.

Sho doesn't tend to take most things seriously… he's naturally intelligent and athletic, so he's never really had to try hard to get by. Not wanting anything badly means he'll never be disappointed if something doesn't pan out. Besides, Leo's the type of best friend to make fun of any endeavor or interest he doesn't deem worthy.

But you're different.

You work so hard every day to make up for the qualities you believe you lack, from struggling through workouts to staying up late to catch up on the classwork you miss due to being sent on missions. Maybe once he would have scoffed at your efforts, but instead, it gives him the courage to try something new.

It's safe to show you how much the food truck actually means to him. You're the one who constantly raves about his food, whose encouragement and support has helped his tiny idea grow into an actual dream. He trusts you.

"Do you have a date?"

Huh? A date for what? Why do you want to know about his love life? Or is this your way of asking him to –

You hand back the menu you were looking at, and Sho realizes you mean for his food truck opening.

Right. Thank goodness, because you guys have a good friendship that does not need to be complicated by anything like that.

"By next week, I guess? So long as no one gets in my way."

"I'm really looking forward to it!"

Yeah, the sensation in his chest is most definitely relief, not disappointment.

~~~~~

"What are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too, Kurokawa," you reply drily as you put down your heavy bag, unsurprised by Leo's unwelcoming greeting. He's lounging on a couch in the common area, and you suppress an internal sigh.

It's not surprising to run into him at the Vagastrom dorm, but you had hoped he was out turning princes into frogs, forcing poor parents to exchange their firstborn for vegetables, or whatever it is he does for fun.

"It's Kurosagi."

You ignore his correction, because you know it pisses him off.

You sometimes wonder why Sho bothers with Leo when you've never seen Leo do anything nice for his so-called best friend, but it's not your place to judge. You're mature enough to understand that there's a history there you're not aware of, and that you've only known them for a very short period of time.

"Maybe I'm here to see my darling influencer boyfriend," you say sarcastically, giving him the fakest smile you can manage as you plop down next to him. You know he doesn't like you, so it's another easy way to annoy him (if at your own expense). "How could I go a day without seeing that pretty face?"

You're mature enough to understand. That doesn't mean you're mature enough to not hate it. If you can't avoid Leo, you're going to do your best to be as annoying as possible when you do have to interact with him.

"Ugh, don't sit so close," Leo grumbles, despite not making a single move to move away like the lazy little princess he is. He does smell nice though, probably some trendy cologne that he uses to cover up the stench of his rotten personality. "Have you even showered today?"

Wow. You know you smell nice because you did, in fact, shower today. Right before coming here, to be exact, because despite Sho's knowledge of your sweaty form after training sessions, you want his memories to be of you fresh and perfumed.

There is really no need for Leo to be so fucking rude all the fucking time. Especially when you've done nothing to deserve it but apparently have the audacity to exist in his presence. If anything, you've been downright charitable in never bringing up "the incident" at the Pit. Though if you're being honest, it's also something you don't want to remember, because the knowledge that you willingly ground up against his dick – even if it was out of spite – is too embarrassing to think about.

Sure, he's pretty, but you have your standards.

Why are you even thinking about this right now? Clearly you have been spending way too much time either studying, doing odd jobs for the ghouls, and daydreaming about Sho if you're even thinking of Leo in any sexual-adjacent light. You don't even really want to think about him at all.

You know that being ignored is one of the things that bothers him most of all (an attention-seeking diva, truly), so you grab a textbook out of your bag and begin to read.

~~~~~

Leo knows he's an asshole.

He's perfectly fine with it. Sometimes, it even sparks joy.

Such as now, when you're scowling at him in a way that makes him want to antagonize you even further. You're always so nice and friendly to everyone that it's satisfying to be the one to elicit a different reaction out of you. It's a matter of pride that he's the only one that can make you lose your temper.

Besides, it's not his fault you look so cute when you're pissed off.

Leo freezes when he realizes what just crossed his mind, but before he can figure out exactly where that ridiculous thought came from, you're pulling a textbook out of your bag.

… Are you seriously about to study while sitting so close to Leo he can smell your flowery shampoo?

"Can I help you, Kurohagi?"

His eyebrow twitches, and he realizes he's been staring at you. And that you fucked up his last name, again.

"You're getting very comfortable, aren't you?" he replies in a scornfully, wondering why exactly you're even visiting when Leo's the only one here.

Unless… you came to see him. Maybe you're just playing it off as if you weren't, to save face. Why else would you even sit so close to him, anyway?

"I'm just waiting for Sho to get back, he said he'd be here soon," you reply with a shrug that annoys Leo for reasons he can't explain. Your answer makes far more sense, and yet that just pisses him off even more. So he does what he does best.

"It's cute how you're being such a good little gofer for Sho," he says mildly, pretending not to care one way or the other. "He's always been good at getting people to do things for him."

You stiffen, and uncertainty flits across your face before you straighten your expression. Though you're obviously trying to hide it, the way you shift away from him reveals that he hit a nerve.

It was exactly what he was going for, but the usual satisfaction feels hollow, as if the words have left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. You don't snap back with your usual fire the way he expected. Instead you just look back at your book, and the sour feeling magnifies.

An oppressive silence blankets the two of you while unfamiliar pressure weighs down his chest, and Leo is almost relieved when the tell-tale sound of a rumbling engine signals Sho's arrival.

His friend's face brightens instantly when his eyes land on you, which irritates Leo in a way he can't explain. You smile back, though it's more subdued than usual.

"I brought the rest of the stuff from the diner," you call out, and the way Sho jogs to greet you seems to restore some of the sparkle in your eyes. It does not alleviate some of the heaviness Leo is feeling.

"Awesome, thanks," Sho replies with a grin. "You know you didn't have to, right?"

"Yeah, but I wanted to."

Barf. Are you guys fucking serious? It's nauseating, the way Sho is smiling at you like a lovesick puppy. Does he have no pride at all?

"Oh, Leo," Sho calls. Great, he's finally been noticed.

"What?" Leo replies a little petulantly, crossing his arms. Everything about this situation is pissing him off, and he doesn't even understand why.

"Stop pouting and help me out, I was able to pick up some liquor when I went on my grocery run."

"Ugh, fine," he grumbles, mollified by the promise of a night of drinking. It's sadly the closest they can get to clubbing when Darkwick watches their every move.

Leo stands to help grab some of Sho's bags and notices that you're hanging back with an uncertain look on your face. Are you stupid enough to actually take Leo's words to heart when it's obvious you have his best friend wrapped around your pretty little finger?

"Are you coming or not?" he asks testily, shoving a few bags in your direction. "We're not sharing if you don't help."

Your eyes widen at the implied invitation, and even Sho makes a sound of surprise.

"I… uh… yeah," you stammer, hurrying up from the couch to take the bag Leo is holding out. "Thanks?"

You still look and sound confused, but the smile you give him is genuine. It's the first time he's been on the receiving end of that particular expression of yours, and sunlight eases the uncomfortable feeling in his chest. It's similarly disconcerting, and Leo has no idea what to make of it.

"Whatever, just hurry up."

~~~~~

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#tokyo debunker #tokyo debunker fanfic #tdbk #haizono sho #tokyo debunker fanfiction #leo kurosagi #kurosagi leo #sho haizono #sho x reader #leo x reader

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mangoshorthand · 2 years ago

Note

heyy could i maybe request a oneshot where sub five gets marked up by the reader like hickeys and bite marks all over his throught and collarbone as well as his lower torso😻 and as the reader progresses he whimpers and is whiny the whole time and at the end he looks himself in the mirror and hes just so inlove with it? 😩

sorry if its a bit messy😭 have a great night/day :))

Great prompt. Hope you enjoy :). I promise the next ask prompt I answer will be non smut.

Your Desperate Man | Five Hargreeves/ GN Reader 2.8k words, Rated E

There were no two ways about it: Five was hot.

If you were to set him beside Diego, you definitely wouldn’t notice Five first, but he would be the one you'd leave the conversation thinking about. All Diego’s leather-bound muscles may as well not exist beside Five’s acerbic tongue, quiet good looks and the firm self-assurance in his intelligent green eyes.

So you could hardly resent it when others noticed. Why would you hate someone for sharing your good taste? Whenever you noticed him turning heads, your first instinct was one of fellow-feeling. You almost wanted to say, ‘I know, right?!’ and share a high-five.

So, no, you didn’t get jealous easily.

…But that bitch was getting on your last nerve.

It started a few months ago. She was a friend of Sloane’s who hung around the Academy like a bad smell. Ever since she met him, she latched onto him like a tick and, as soon as she could feasibly describe him as her friend, she came to spend time with him as much as possible, looking for his insight on some problem or another.

She was a mathematician, meaning that she could follow most of his logic when he talked about his latest projects. She could flatter him by learning from him and coming back a few days later with an improvement to her own work.

If you were jealous of anything, you were jealous of that.

Despite how he might look, Five was not perfect: he had an ego, and Alex knew exactly how to stroke it. And that was fine, in your opinion- so long as his ego was the only thing he let her stroke.

She nodded along and acted impressed and asked all the right questions and subtly flattered him and laughed at his jokes and made absolutely any excuse she could to touch his arm or his knee; to hug him hello and goodbye and she did it ALL while you were right there.

Fuck her!

But you trusted Five. He could see right through her, of course, but that didn’t stop him enjoying the attention. He rebuffed her with a perfect mix of politeness and friendliness, but he’d still leave most of his conversations with her with a swagger in his walk and an ironic smile directed at you.

‘Old dog’s still got it,’ that smile said.

You trusted that he had it under control, and he did actually like her as a person for some unknown reason, so you contented yourself with telling him your concerns. He agreed that they weren’t unfounded and reassured you that her feelings were definitely not reciprocated.

So, when you walked past the door of his father’s study one afternoon when she was over, you weren’t intending to listen outside the door, but the snatch of conversation you heard as you passed made you stop dead.

“I had a dream about you last night.”

“Something about invariant theory, I bet.”

“No,” she said, coyly.

There was a moment of silence in which she was clearly trying to get him to enquire what it was about, but he didn’t give her the satisfaction.

“Right. So this stuff is child’s play,” he said, returning to the math as if she hadn’t spoken, “it’s pretty much Hilbert’s thirteenth, which I’m sure you’re familiar with. We’ve got to think about whether these functions can be written as a composite-”

“Don’t you want to know what happened in my dream?” she interrupted him.

There was a moment or two of silence before he replied.

“Not particularly. Now, would you like me to go on with the math or do you have somewhere to be?”

Satisfied, you continued on your path elsewhere.

Apparently, she did have somewhere to be, because she passed you on her way to the front door only a few minutes later. Five did not follow her to say goodbye.

Smut below cut

***

That evening, you entered the bedroom to find him preparing for sleep. Unusually for Five, he was clad in a t-shirt and sweats rather than pajamas. His towel-dried hair hung messily in his eyes. He smiled when he saw you, wrinkling his face momentarily into the lines he should by all rights have except for a certain time-travel accident.

“Hey.”

“Hi,” you said.

You closed the door and crossed to the comfortable reading chair, raising your legs onto the arm. Five, trying to neaten his hair in the mirror, spoke casually.

“I don’t think Alex will be coming over again.”

“How come?” you asked, wanting to hear the rest of what happened.

“Hmph,” he said, disinterestedly, “she came onto me and I told her to fuck off.”

“What happened,” you said, interested.

“She came on flirty, like she does, but this time she tried to kiss me.”

He inspected a patch of dry skin on his neck.

“What?” you ask, enraged.

“Don’t worry,” he said, placatingly, “she was told precisely where to go. It was pretty pathetic, actually,” he remarked.

“I think I heard some of it,” you admit, “she was talking about having a dream about you and you made it clear you weren’t interested.”

“Yup, that was right before,” he said, darkly.

“Bitch.” you grumbled, “I knew she’d try something.”

“Well, you were right,” Five continued, applying a layer of moisturizer to his face, “but she won’t be trying anything again.”

You watched his face in the mirror, absorbed in his pre-bedtime routine. He was a creature of habit, you discovered: a man of little quirks and rituals, particularly when it came to personal grooming. As it had been so long denied him, he reveled in the luxury of even the tiniest routines: trimming his nails weekly, shaving his face daily and looking after his hair and skin.

The more intimately you got to know him, the less cool and caustic he seemed. Underneath it all, there was just a sweet old-young man crying out to be loved and needed.

…And occasionally fucked.

“Don’t tell me you weren’t just a little bit tempted,” you smiled, standing up and approaching him from behind.

“Of course I wasn’t,” he said, mildly offended, “I’m yours.”

He said it casually, as if he hadn’t quite thought through what he was saying. He caught your eye in the mirror as you appeared over his shoulder. He smiled slightly sheepishly at the familiar gleam in your eye.

Your arms slithered around his waist. Beneath his shirt your hands traveled over the warm muscle and flat stomach. His skin felt like silk. As the very tips of your fingers breached the elastic of his waistband, your chin came to rest on his shoulder, your lips brushing his ear as you whispered.

“What was that?”

A fine blush appeared in his cheek, like a delicate drop of watercolor.

“I said, I’m yours.”

Your lips played about his neck, your eyes holding his captive through the medium of the mirror.

He looked at you, expression open and anticipatory. He swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing attractively. You ghosted your lips further down, towards the hollow between his neck and his shoulder. Mouth poised there, you spoke again, voice husky.

“Say it again.”

He shuddered with the knowledge of what was coming, and breathed:

“I’m yours.”

And you sucked a bruise onto his skin. Long, lingering and sudden. He let out a shaky breath as you did so, eyes drifting into a haze of pleasure. You pulled away and admired the mark, a port-wine stain spread on that delicate silk. His eyes were similarly engaged, looking at the new hickey in the mirror as if he’d never seen one before.

Taking the opportunity of his preoccupation, you looked at his face: the sweet, parted lips, the heavy brow and the jaw that could have been sculpted by Michelangelo. By the time his eyes returned to yours, the look within them made the slow, crawling sensation below his waistband redouble.

“Do you want more?”

He nodded slowly, but as you moved to mark him again, he abruptly turned his head towards you so that your lips met his instead. It was as if he couldn’t resist anymore, like a man dying of thirst finding a clear mountain stream. Leaning backwards into you, he sighed into your mouth and let your tongue roam.

He was so sweet in this mood; uncharacteristically compliant. Every time it came upon him, you never failed to be enchanted by him. Everyone always looked to him for direction and authority and this was one way he could take a break from all the responsibility. You were more than happy to give him that, especially when it left him looking all undone and pretty like this.

When you broke away from him, your hands were playing beneath his shirt, fingers stroking up and down the soft line of hair disappearing into his sweats. He closed his eyes as you again pinged the elastic on his pants, but they shot open again as your teeth nipped at the flesh of his neck.

He whined as you bit and sucked, the mild pain only adding spice to the pleasure: the prickle of fired up nerve-endings and needful ache in the lowest part of his stomach. As you dug your teeth in fraction more, you compensated by cupping his crotch through his sweatpants and holding him where he was hard.

When you let the skin go and turned back to the mirror, his eyes didn’t even meet yours: he only had eyes for the deep red mark you’d made and the white, crescent-shaped teeth marks disappearing before his eyes.

“You like that, baby,” you murmured, comforting his aching package with firm, circular rubbing motions.

“Yes,” he said, voice slightly higher than usual.

“Do you want more? Wanna be covered in them?”

He nodded enthusiastically, like a shy child offered his favorite candy.

“Arms over your head then.”

He complied, letting you peel off his t-shirt and discard it over your shoulder. You hummed appreciatively at the range of flesh now on display: at the pale, unspoiled skin you were about to pepper with burst capillaries. You weren’t a violent person, but you couldn’t deny the little squirm of sadistic glee at the idea of him covered with your marks.

The hand not engaged with his groin flitted up his stomach to stimulate the close bud of one nipple, making him buck automatically into your hand. The small noise he made went straight to the center of your own arousal; he was just so fucking aborable like this, all needy and pathetic.

So you sucked at him again, hungrily, leaning over to mark his collarbone. This time, you couldn’t resist giving him more than a nip with your teeth, biting him enough to abruptly stop his little whimpers and cause him to suck in air over his teeth. Despite this, he still watched, transfixed, as you worked at him with his arousal aching in your hand.

You eased up, letting his skin go and kissing the deeper teeth marks, as if you might undo the pain with each kiss.

“Too much?” you asked.

“A little,” he whispered, eyes nevertheless devouring the sight of his third mark.

You gave a little pout in sympathy with his plight and kissed his cheek.

“Shall I go easy on you?”

“For a little while.” he replied, that sheepish, coy smile on his lips. You knew what it meant: wind me up tighter first.

You were more than happy to oblige.

He moved as if towards the bed as you stepped back from him, but your hands on his shoulders kept him in place.

“You stay there.” you said, “I want you to be able to see yourself.”

“Okay,” he whispered, facing the mirror again as you came to stand in front of him.

His whines were music to your ears as you attacked your next target, sucking complementary bruises onto each pectoral. Then, bending to allow him to admire the new hickies, you moved further south. You grazed and suckled again and again at his subtly toned abdominals, his flank, and at the softer flesh of his stomach. As you did so, your hands explored the body they had explored so well, yet could never tire of exploring. You rubbed at his chest, hips, ass and thighs.

Each time you withdrew, he surveyed himself hazily, reveling with slavish pleasure in the cumulative effect of your claim on him: your flags planted on his body. The thought ratcheted his arousal to a higher pitch, and he felt his knees tremble as his heartbeat became evident in his groin.

When you sucked at the v-shaped furrow running invitingly towards his pubis, his whimpers redoubled. One of his hands came to your hair, fingers massaging your scalp. His hips pulled forward, as if your face attracted them like a magnet. Wordlessly, he begged with more pathetic little sounds.

You ignored his little ‘suggestion’ and rose to your feet from the spot you’d been kneeling.

Thwarted, Five let out a frustrated, high moan. His left hand immediately disappeared beneath his waistband, attending to his own need in a move of desperation. It made you smirk to see it, so you allowed him a few moments to pleasure himself while you admired his face:

His hair, starting to dry, was beginning to stick up at odd angles while the rest clung to his brow. His forehead was held a tight pinch with the intensity of his arousal and his lips were curled around gritted teeth, bringing the slight hook in his nose into greater prominence. Still in front of the mirror, his eyes were closed, his head tilted back. Muscles jumped in the neck beneath his thrust-forward chin.

As gladly as you could have watched him beating himself off beneath those sweatpants, it would have to be something to file away for another day. Today was about reminding him (as if he needed reminding), who he belonged to.

So, with this in mind, you licked one of his nipples with a deliberate, preparatory tongue.

“Oh,” he said, speaking half in exhale, “f-feels good.”

You sucked the nipple hard into your mouth, continuing to swipe your tongue over the hard bead between your lips. He panted, and then jerked as you closed your teeth around him.

“Oh shit!”

Experimentally, you tightened your bite around him and the speed of his strokes increased. Clearly, this was doing something quite profound to him. He let out a squeak that made your own nipples harden.

All of time could be at the mercy of Five Hargreeves, if he so chose, yet you could make him mewl like a newborn kitten.

“Yeah,” he breathed, “bite me. Fucking bite me.”

He whined again as your tongue continued to stimulate him, as you sucked his areola into your mouth and clamped your teeth down, marking him again.

“Ah shit! Harder!”

But you didn’t want to hurt him, so you released his swollen nipple and took his wrist, stopping him touching himself. He huffed needily, but didn’t resist.

You came to stand behind him again, pulling his wrists gently behind his back and tugging on them so that his body was completely on display in the mirror. You kissed from his shoulder to his cheek, trying not to smile at his obvious discomfort; at the stretched fabric of the sweatpants around his perfectly-imprinted cock, sticking firmly out from his body.

“What do you see, Five?” you whispered, once more into his ear.

“Please,” he whimpered, shifting slightly.

“What do you see in the mirror?” you repeated, more firmly.

He considered in a feverish sort of way.

“A desperate man,” he said, trying to nuzzle beseechingly into you, but unable to turn his head with his arms held that way.

“Whose desperate man?”

“Yours,” he said tripping over himself to satisfy you, “I’m yours, okay?”

“Look at yourself,” you pushed.

He did, lust-clouded eyes eating up the sight.

Marks. All over him. Fuck.

Seeing himself this way made him shiver. He reveled in the feeling of safe powerlessness, here at your mercy. He was definitely yours. Yours to do with as you pleased: your bruises and bite marks all over him were proof. He knew at least one that would be visible above his shirt collar tomorrow, and the idea filled him with a whorish sense of satisfaction. His cock ached harder at the idea that everyone would know he was yours. Your man.

Your devotee.

Your toy.

And he would submit willingly to whatever you chose to do next.

Tag list: (please comment to be added or removed): @thebearmage

Megalist

Request info + rules

NOTE:

I take Five requests, I'm fairly versatile in what I write (fluff, smut, angst, psychological character study- I'll try it all) but I will consider them on a case by case basis. See request info + rules for request status and more.

#check out his ear in that gif. It's hypnotic.#the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy imagine #umbrella academy x reader #the umbrella academy smut #the umbrella academy five #umbrella academy number five #umbrella academy five x reader #umbrella academy five x you #five hargreaves x you #five hargreaves x reader #number five imagine #five hargreeves imagine #number 5 imagine #number 5 x reader #number five x you #five hargreeves x gn reader

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dreamescapeswriting · 10 months ago

Text

The Heart Wants What It Wants ~ BC

WORD COUNT: 2.3K

GENRE: established relationships, song au/song inspired, non-idol au, angsty, TOXIC relationship, no

happy ending,(no part two)

PAIRING: Chan x Fem!Reader

⤜Copyright: © DreamEscapesWriting - January 2024

⤜MASTERLIST

It didn't matter how many times people told you that someone was bad for you, if you were attracted to that person then no logic or reason was going to dissuade you, or anyone for that matter. It was something that happened inside of us that made us attracted to that person and you aren't going to change unless given no choice.

"All I'm saying is, when was the last time the two of you actually went out on a date?" Your best friend - JJ - asked as she sat across from you in the living room of your home that you shared with your boyfriend, though it didn't feel that way just lately.

Just as you opened your mouth to tell her she shook her head, waving her finger at you to stop you from coming up with some excuse that she knew you had at the ready. You wanted to say that this was the first time the two of you had this conversation but it couldn't have been further from the truth and it seemed these "pep talks" were becoming more and more frequent as time went on.

"I don't mean when he comes by randomly for food or a quick shag before leaving." She told you bluntly making your mouth shut and you swallowed the lump in your throat. You knew it had been a long time since you and Chan had gone out on a date, or even had just gone out together but you knew he was a busy guy and you never wanted to push him into doing anything if he was too tired.

You and Chan had been in an on and off again relationship for almost two years, things were bad between you sure but when they were good they were brilliant. The good times always seemed to outdo the bad whenever you thought back on them and you knew you wanted Chan, you knew deep down in your heart and soul you did.

"He said he missed me," You told her, jumping straight into defence as she stared at you and waited for anything else. A way to show he missed you,

"Did he plan to come and see you? Did he tell you he'll be free soon and ask if you were free?" She questioned, arching a brow at you as you bit down on your lip,

"No, but he told me he can't wait to sleep next to me again."

"Sleep NEXT to you or sleep with you?" She exaggerated the words a little,

"What's the difference?"

"The difference is the first one he actually wants to see you and the second he's using you for your body. So, which was it?" You stared back at her before looking down at your empty cup and swallowing again.

"He said he missed me," You whispered, you didn't know if you were trying to convince yourself or her at this point and JJ sighed a little looking at you. As harsh as it might have seemed what she was doing she needed you to see the truth about everything.

"What's the saying we live by now?" JJ challenged, flipping her hair over her shoulder and staring at you.

Tough love was JJ's act with you, she'd known you almost all of your life and she hated seeing you get pushed around like you were worth nothing when in fact, you were worth the world and if some man didn't see that then he wasn't worth it in the first place. The fact that you were letting Chan walk all over you tore her to pieces and all she wanted to do was shake some sense into you,

"If he wanted to he would," You grumbled the saying to her and she smirked, it was something she was trying to get into your head. Something she'd been trying to do for months now, treating you how Chan was supposed to since he never did,

"And has he?" She narrowed her eyes at you, you wanted to lie to her and tell her Chan had changed but you knew he hadn't, not by a long shot.

"No, but-" You didn't even have anything to say back to her, did you? As much as Chan could tell you he missed you he never actively did anything to change that. It was as though all of the effort in the relationship was sucked out from his side and was only coming from you,

When the two of you first started to flirt with one another it was non-stop dates, he'd take you out multiple times a week but as soon as he got you all of that stopped. There were no more late-night drives or dates to the arcade, it was just the two of you were together and he no longer cared to make it look as though he cared.

"I don't want to hear some bullshit excuse about how he's a nonchalant dude or how he's busy. Yn, he treats you like fucking shit." You swallowed down the lies you were thinking of and shook your head.

A part of you knew that she was right, that somehow you were supposed to realise how bad you were for one another and leave Chan in the past but it was hard when he'd become a part of you.

"Where is he this weekend? Another work trip?" Chan worked ungodly hours at the office and even more ungodly hours when his business decided he needed a work trip.

"No, he erm..." You stopped yourself, getting up and busying yourself by going to make another drink. You knew as soon as you told this information to JJ it was going to be the final nail in the coffin for Chan and she'd demand you to leave him,

"He what?" She urged, following after you and watching as you made you both some warm tea. You flicked on the kettle hoping the sound of the boiling water would drown out your voice but JJ inched closer to you, so close you thought she might have been able to hear you sweating.

"He had the weekend off so he went to go and see Felix." The air went silent, nothing but the sound of boiling water and the flick of the switch on the kettle could be heard as she stared at you.

"So, he misses you so much that the first weekend he has OFF work, he goes and sees his friends?" You stared down at the kitchen counter, tears threatening to spill as you sniffled a little.

"Babe-"

"I know! Okay?! I know but-" You couldn't even finish before the sob broke out and you began to cry into your hands, whimpering as your knees gave out and you slowly sank down onto the floor.

"I love him," You choked out as JJ held you in her arms, smoothing her hand over your lower back as you continued to sob into her chest.

There were a million reasons for you to give Chan up but you couldn't help what your heart wanted, no matter how much it hurt to think about he was everything to you.

"I'm home!" A familiar voice sounded from down the stairs and you stared at JJ who was staring back at you with a pained expression on her face. The whole weekend you'd been planning on walking away from Chan and everything that this life had created for you, all of the pain but two words from him and you were ready to jump back into his arms.

"He's not right for you."

"I know..." You whispered to her, she might have been right but you didn't care. Chan was everything you'd ever known and it was going to be hard to just walk away from it all.

"Babe, I had the best time. Felix was-" Chan's voice trailed to a stop as he made it to the bedroom to see all of your things were packed up into boxes and bags waiting for you to take.

"You going on a girl's trip?" He laughed nervously and JJ gave you a kiss on the cheek,

"I'll wait in the car for you," She whispered before leaving without saying goodbye to Chan, looking back at you and giving you a small smile of encouragement hoping you'll be strong enough to do this all on your own.

"Not a girl's trip," He whispered as he looked at you,

"I'm leaving you," You bit out, doing your best to remember why you were doing this. That things were going to get better once you were out of the shitty situation and somewhere better,

"What?"

"We're not good for each other," You swallowed the lump in your throat but your mouth was so dry it felt as though you were swallowing sandpaper.

"You're not thinking straight, JJ got into your head baby." He reached out for your hand but you moved away from him and shook your head.

"Don't try that shit, it won't work." You spat out harshly and started to move some of the bags out onto the landing so you wouldn't have to stay still for too long.

"I love you Yn, please don't do this." He begged, tears building inside of his eyes as he watched you,

"Chan, I love you too but we're not meant to be together."

"How can you say that?" His voice cracked a little as you shook your head. You had to remember that while he was upset now you were upset every single second he wasn't around you.

"Because it's true. God, we have the best times and then you're just suddenly fucking gone and it's like someone whacked the air out of my lungs." You whimpered at him, tears running down your cheeks in silence as you stared at him,

"I can't depend my happiness on you because I find myself just staying there until you come back. I was not alive until you decided I'm suddenly worthy of your time again." You waited for him to say something to defend you, that he was going to take time off and whisk you away but he never would.

"You know I'm busy." The excuse that always came after he never spent time with you. As if someone could be busy 24 hours a day and seven days a week, not even checking his phone to let you know he was okay or giving you a quick heads up that he wouldn't talk because he couldn't.

"I know but then you tell me you miss me and disappear all fucking weekend to someone else." You referenced the weekend away he took and he scoffed at you, something on his face changing as he stared back at you. It was anger, something you rarely saw on your boyfriend's face.

"So I can't spend time with friends?"

"I never said that." You mumbled moving your bags down the stairs, coming back up for more of them. The more he talked the more you began to realise he was only going to double down on his own view of things and no one was going to win in this.

This wasn't some fairytale where he was going to realise the consequences of his actions and come in with a happy ending, changing everything just so he could win you over. This was real life and real life didn't end with happily ever after.

"I can't imagine a life without you Yn." He called out as you began to take the bags out of the door, handing them to JJ who was smiling proudly of you. Part of her had expected you to go back inside and forgive Chan but she could see it on your face everything was changing now.

"I can't either Chan but the moments were shared together just make me break down." You turned around to look at him, there were no tears on his face - no fresh ones at least so you took the keys from your pocket and handed them to him.

"Yn...Please,

"Don't make this harder than it needs to be Chan," You whispered, placing a final kiss on his cheek before moving to go and get into JJ's car wanting her to get away from here as quickly as possible.

~Three Months later~

"I'm telling you, you're going to love it," Your date - Victor - said as he held the door open for you, smiling at you as you smiled back at him. It was your first date in months and it was safe to say that you were more than a little nervous,

"You say that, but I've never been into sci-fi movies," You laughed a little as he shook his head and went to the snack counter buying you something of everything so that the two of you had something you would both enjoy.

"Yn?" The voice you'd dreaded hearing for three months sounded and you glanced over your shoulder to see Chan looking better than ever. Your mouth ran dry as you stared back at him,

"Victor this is Chan, Chan this is Victor, my date." You tried to drop it in that you were moving on, you'd already heard that Chan had been on dates so you figured it was time for you to try to.

"This is Nella, my date," Chan said as a woman stepped out from the bathrooms behind him and made her way over to you. She was stunning, dressed in a tight black dress looking like she'd rather be at a restaurant than a movie theatre.

"Good luck getting her to sit through the movie, she always hated sci-fi's whenever we watched them together," You looked at Victor who smiled down at you, shaking his head as he rearranged all his plans for the night.

"Then we'll pick another movie, your choice." He told you, taking you and leading you away from Chan.

"But you planned this,"

"It's whatever we both want, not just what I want, okay babe?" You nodded at him and you could feel your cheeks burning as you went to see what else was playing in the cinema leaving a very moody-looking Chan staring off after you but for the first time in forever you didn't care.

#skz #skz x reader #skz imagine #skz imagines #stray kids #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagine #stray kids imagines #bang chan #bang chan x reader #bang chan imagine #bang chan imagines #chan #chan x reader #chan imagine #chan imagines #dreamescapeswriting

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kheta · 4 months ago

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Soul-Swapped...Again?

I don't know how to make this coherent so just take this premise and all the chaotic associated sentences lol *Might be a bit confusing. But due to the time period, I'm refering to them as Cale and Rok Soo. No like Og!.... Cale is Cale, even if he was Rok Soo and Rok Soo is Rok Soo, even if he was Cale. Make sense?

Premise: Rok Soo and Cale swap souls with one another (temporarily) for whatever reason buuut. This happens after they have both already reconciled with living their lives as different people. And because neither one know how the other is leading their former lives, they just. Decide to revert to their original personas. Until things can be sorted out.

-They are both found out almost instantly.

-Raon is the only one who KNOWS who is in his humans body and even though he doesn't love it, he decides to help this human hide and find out a way to his original body.

-KRS, on account of also being a dad, takes to not babying or spoiling either On or Hong, because that's how he treats his niece. Unfortunately this unwillingness to spoil them (monetarily) and his compulsive need to make sure they are in reach of him clue the siblings on to him straight away.

-On and Hong decide its best to trust their little brothers judgement and don't tell anyone his secret. They also kinda like his head pats and the way he like to stroke and groom them for soooo long and that he'll actually play outside with them. (But they still miss their Cale, even if this new human is kinda fun)

-By the end of the week everyone from Bud to Hans and the Blue Wolf Tribe kids know that someone else is in Cale's body. Unfortunately they don't know who and they are unwilling to cross Raon to find out. Raon and his siblings meanwhile are viciously protective of the KRS, because he's nice and funny and is in Cale's body, they can't dislike him.

-Ron is instantly on guard and sends out so many bad vibes and thinly veiled threats. Choi Han needs to physically walk away, because he knows he'll do something bad if left with this stranger. Alberu actually does stop in to threaten this stranger. Lock is standoffish but non-confrontational and Rosalyn is purposely nice to uncover the strangers secrets. Vicross makes sure not to appear, because the kids will know his intent instantly. He also wants to hurt this imposter.

-KRS meanwhile is pretty nonchalant about the threats. He is a bit bewildered that they picked him so quickly though. It's kinda. Maybe. A little offensive? Like okay, the heroes and the Prince, fine. They never knew KRS when he was Cale. But Ron, Vicross and his dad? Knowing KRS isn't Cale after a week, meanwhile KRS has only been KRS for two years. What the fuck kinda logic is that? Oh well, not like KRS minds anyways. He needs to study with Raon Miru and Rosalyn. Things to do first. Not like he has times for stupid, pointless things anyways

-It takes Cale a little longer to be spotted. At first his team think maybe he's having a bad week. Even his niece thinks that, because he's not as thoughtlessly affectionate as usual.

-But a week turns to two and some of his team are mad because? Seriously? Near death attempts and two years of bonding and suddenly he regresses? Kim Min Ah and Jung So Hoon are a bit more sceptical. Because this coldness is just weird. The barriers that exist feel both alien and familiar.

-By Week two they've come to a weird, crazy conclusion that KRS has multiple personalities. Because anything else is just too weird and crazy. When they confront the 'Protector' with this knowledge, Cale figures it's easier to tell the truth. He likes to keep his cards close, so he just says he's close to KRS but he's not him and for whatever reason he woke up stuck in his body. He doesn't want to hurt the bonds KRS had created, he was just acting like the KRS he knew.

-Which brings me to: The vague way KRS and Cale talk makes their respective Found Family's have completely different ideas about the others identity.

-Everyone in LCF come to the conclusion that KRS is a child Cale picks up in the future, because he talks about being so close to Cale at one point in his life. And that he's just acting like how he thought Cale would act, based on stories. And he's just. Weirdly knowledgable about the Molans and the Henituse family and even the heroes, even if his knowledge is a bit skewed. And kinda paints them as scarier than they are? (The only other possibility based on his comfort level with Cale and the people who surround him is a future lover and they all point blank refuse to accept that) But it's nice to see Cale('s body) eating well and exercising and having a good sleep routine. If they weren't still immediately suspicious, they might think this kid would be a good, healthy influence on Cale. Privately, they wonder if the grounded, active way this man acted would help to make Cale more solid, more present and less likely to jump into danger. -On Earth, their whole Team thinks that Cale is some sort of jilted childhood friend who lost contact with KRS as he became apart of the Survival Forces. They are actually advocating for Cale to refriend KRS because KRS desperately needs a friend (or more~~❣️) outside of their team. And there's no way this smart, but truly lazy man could be anything but a good friend for KRS. He could convince their team lead to slow down and relax and actually indulge in things! Maybe then their Team Lead would be less of a freakin' pain.

-Niece!Jour (I can't find a name for her and I'm not gonna make one up) likes her Not-Uncle! He's super smart and he gets her presents just cause and only buys them the yummiest food. And he never tries to cook, which is good because Actual-Uncle is maybe. sorta. Not great at cooking? Like he can cook two dishes really well and he bakes one really nice biscuit but everything else is just kinda. Okay. So it's nice to have really, really yummy food in the house. And to have someone who likes sitting with her while she reads or watches tv, instead of trying to plan elaborate days out. Because she does like those day! But sometimes she just wants to watch her movies without pauses or finish a really good chapter without going to park.

-Raon likes to play 'tag' with his Not!Human and to receive actual smiles, not the scammer smile. He also loves being able to fly around with his Not!Human watching his cool new tricks and patting his head all the time and the Not!Human bakes really, really good jam and butter cookies and he's even teaching him and his older siblings how to make them. It's really cool.

-Rosalyn hates how smart this punk is, he knows things he shouldn't and he's obviously got some plan to get back to his proper body, if the journeys to different temples mean anything, but she can't tell what. He's evasive and infuriating because he doesn't lie. He just. Speaks weirdly around all topics. The only time he's sincere and talkative is around the kids. And he's never allowed near the kids alone after they figure him out, so it's not like he's just honest to only the kids. It's just. They're the only ones who can get a straight answer out of him and none of the kids want to interrogate him.

-I want some angsty scene where their true identities are revealed but also can't see the point? Because the only reason an identity reveal would happen would be to cause more drama/angst. And trying to get back to their own world after a truth reveal feels a bit?Futile and cruel? Like 'Oh you KNEW me, but idrc, I have a life I prefer that you are not welcome to and it's also in another world, bye ✨✨✨'

-A more satisfying ending would be them accepting that they are definitely not who they were and no matter how much they might enjoy some aspects of their old life (Cale the convenience and KRS the bonds he has/had) they ultimately have no role to play in each other's lives anymore. Maybe they write a letter to each other before the swap back? Where they both tell each other to cherish their family and either be more involved/take a step back from all the action so they can actually treasure their found family?

-I think it'd also be beautiful for maybe some people to reach a bit of a conclusion (looking @ u Molans/Henituses) on the identity of KRS, but ultimately doing nothing (like always 🙄) because the person they love and bonded with is not KRS. Not anymore. And they have not and will never force any version of Cale to stay somewhere he is unhappy. Because even if they didn't always love him in a way he could relate to, they had always and will always love him. But also, this end doesn't feel like it fits with the ending letter ting.

-Also while I'm adding random thoughts. Both found families are wrong. Cale and Rok Soo would be the worst influence for each other. They're both different flavours of neurotic control freak meets push over enablers. Like both are used to manipulating people for their own gain, they just go about it differently. And if they ever decide to fully trust each other? Chaos. Un. Mitigated. Chaos. I feel like they'd have the similar plans that they tell people about, all except for the last step since they both just randomly decide they are the acceptable casualty. And Cale will leisurely, with feigned reluctance, walk his way up to the sacrificial alter. And Rok Soo will be there already, determined and unrepentant. Cue spiderman meme.

#og cale #cale henituse #kim rok soo #raon miru #lcf #tcf #on lcf #hong lcf #messy ideas #og kim rok soo

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eekitseve · 4 months ago

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Chapter one of my charpim fanfic below the cut :) just in time for Christmas in July! will upload to ao3 in a few days once I get my account

Charlie was definitely more of a New Year’s guy.

The “new year, new me” leaves a length of time between Christmas and the beginning of the following year to act out, to be someone else, and to do stupid shit. It’s right between needing to be good for Santa and having the slate cleaned for the new year.

New Year’s Eve was a blast for Charlie (almost) every time. Charlie, for one thing, knew how to have a good time. He knew enough people who hosted annual parties. He knew enough people who knew how to get into the big ones, the exclusive ones, the absolutely nuts ones. He never had to worry about New Year’s Eve plans— it was a reliable holiday where he could lose his shit and be forgiven the next morning by the world. Alongside Saint Patty’s day, he could get black out drunk and not be seen as a loser for a day. He could be a blunt, wreckless version of himself that night and have no repercussions from it save for a monumental hangover the following day.

Of course, none of this logic was true. You get false confidence to send a few stupid texts, fight a few people, maybe kiss a stranger or two-- but once the night’s over, you’re the same person who did all those things. It was you the whole time, and it never changed. You might say you’ll be better the next day (or next year), but it being a new year doesn’t change you. Once that year long timer comes back to the last few hours, you do it all again.

Pim was more favorable of Christmas.

Instead of living in the moment, he thought of his future. He reminisced on his past to what might be an unhealthy amount. He was a Romantic; he felt nostalgic for a time he remembers differently than how it happened, and he daydreams for a life he will likely only partially succeed in achieving. His goals are always slightly askew; trying to relive a past that didn’t actually happen a certain way, or trying to work towards something that he’s only seen in several tacky romance movies.

That might be why he likes Christmas so much; every Christmas was recorded on awful home video VHS’s, and sure, there would be arguing, but he’d be right there on camera, smiling and enjoying Christmas like he should. He would watch them sometimes when he came home. Who cared if his dad was cursing out his mom in the back of the video? He’d just skip those parts and reminisce on how cool he thought the nerf gun set he got that year was. He’d skip past the part where he shot his older brother in the eye and they started brawling on the floor. He’d skip past the parts on the tape where it was him in highschool, despondent, confused, and scared with the added touch of his new baby sister screaming the whole tape. He would usually go until he hit the Christmas before he moved out. He always stopped the fast forward when he recognized the scene-- blue tinsel on the tree, their old house in Adelaide, Australia, and probably the last time he was as close with his family as he was. For a while after that, the tapes weren’t as charming. First off, he wouldn’t be there until a few years later when his family moved to the US. Not to mention, he could remember the rest of them vaguely.

Maybe Pim and Charlie’s preferred holidays showed some deep facet of their personalities, maybe not.

Regardless of what holiday they liked better for whatever unspoken reason, both critters were excited to leave the office once their clocks struck 5. They didn’t have a timeclock, no, but Mr. Boss remained on company grounds until the shift officially ended; he was dedicated, and he ensured his workers were, too. This meant skipping out early was unlikely. Very unlikely.

Especially on the last shift right before their holiday vacation started.

Of course, the concept of holiday vacation was something new. Since a certain OSHA non-compliant fatal workplace incident two years ago, Mister Boss began rolling the ball on mandatory holiday PTO. He made an effort to prioritize the health of his workers over a few smiles made during the holidays. Charlie wasn’t gonna deny free PTO, but he did question the logistics of having no one working during the roughest time of the year. He was reassured that they as workers were to be prioritized; if the people making others smile are dead, then how can people smile? It seemed like kind of a half-baked response for the trouble he’d have had to go through to support such a decision, but again, Charlie didn’t want to argue against free PTO.

Allan, Glep, Pim and Charlie all are relaxing in the breakroom now. The hum of the lights are louder and it seems like even the heater is ready for a vacation as it runs colder than it has the past month. Charlie and Pim only had two clients today; one old man who wanted to visit the moon before he died (he was on his deathbed and they staged a quirky performance dressed as aliens to convince him he was there, which only worked because he was high out of his mind on various medications-- he died immediately afterwards), and a super rich guy that needed help picking out a gift for his family that would make them smile and, by association, him too. They went through a classic montage styled time of trying out different gifts, but ultimately giving them each 3.8 million dollars in cheque worked. He gave Charlie and Pim each a lonesome penny to fund their Christmas’s. Pim was endeared. Charlie was not.

They got back with an hour to spare and have hung out since.

Allan squeaks the break room sink faucet on and off a few times. He grumbles.

“The hot wat-err is off againn.” He begins futilely washing his used coffee mug with cold water and a firm sponge.

“Awww, what?! I thought we just got that fixed!” Pim whines.

Glep tunes in and adds context— “aekajjsxhcah ptotuckcakc jvvjwalc cakscjs wjejrw cjcjde totij fusj xockd fjfjs.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Pim responds, surrendering his frustration.

“Yea-hh. I guess Mister Boss is already on it.” Allan replies and continues washing the dish; Pim watches inattentively.

Glep is on his iPad doing important work. “Scouting for frowning faces online” was his excuse on his last self evaluation once it was brought up a third time by Allan.

Charlie was on his computer playing Rust.

Pim sat there, waiting.

Pim was extra excited for the holidays this year. He rarely got to spend time with his family. He felt very lucky that he could spend upwards of a week with them now, even if it was at the expense of Charlie’s life (sort of).

Pim looks over at Charlie. He seems very in his element; he’s a self proclaimed pro-gamer, why wouldn’t he be? Pim wonders if he’s gonna play Rust for the entirety of their break. Charlie mutters a quiet “shit,” and spams his mouse. It’s not enough, apparently, and he groans, releasing himself from the clutches of the computer and leaning back in the chair. Pim looks away.

It’s about seven minutes now until they’re free.

The door opens and Mr. Boss walks in. He sees Charlie gaming and watches for a second silently, only saying “oh, nice” when he gets a good item. Mr. Boss looks up at everyone. “Before you guys go, I’ve got a little somethin’ for ya.”

Mr. Boss pulls out a manilla folder and slaps it down on the breakroom table.

“What is that?” Charlie asks cautiously.

“Oh, just some homework for your vacation!”

They collectively groan.

“Don’t worry, guys!” Mr. Boss pulls thin packets out of the folder and passes them out. “I just want to make sure we get in the holiday spirit! I want everyone to make one person smile before the year ends, heehee!”

Charlie looks at the packet and thumbs through the pages.

“This is like, 7 pages dude. Double sided. This is more than we do for regular clients.”

“Yeeerrrp. It’s actually a paper version of our remote position client completion form.”

“There’s a remote position?” Allan asks— the dish is no longer important.

“Oh, yeah, sillies! We have 372 smiling friends workers working remote around the clock to make people smile! They get to work from wherever they want, choose their own hours, and they even make more than you guys do!”

There’s a moment of silence before everyone seemingly opens their mouth to speak. Mr. Boss is quicker, though.

“Aaaaanyway, I hope you guys have a good vacation! And make sure to fill out the entire packet! Remember, you only have to make one person smile, but you do have to fill out the registration form on the back of page 4 and the release form on page 3 and also the customer satisfaction form on the back for them confirming that they smiled. It’s really not that much!”

Mr. Boss was in the doorway about to leave.

“Wait wait wait wait, Mr. Boss,” Charlie is desperate, “about the remote position--”

“Byeeee guys! Merry Christmas!”

He closes the door.

“And happy new year!” He yells to them, muffled through the door.

Charlie groans and melts into his chair a little.

“I never knew there was a remote position,” Allan confesses.

“Me neither,” Pim mutters a little despondent.

“I… how much more do you think they make?” Allan asks, setting his dish down to dry.

“I dunno. I mean… probably… a good bit more.” Pim answers.

“Well,” Charlie closes his laptop and stands up, “I’m heading out. We have nothing else going on and I haven’t eaten anything all day. Anyone want to go to Spaghetti Disco?”

“That’s fancy,” Pim comments as he scratches at some crud on the table with his finger.

Charlie starts packing his laptop away in its case. “I’m just craving spaghetti, man. Are you in?”

“Yeah, I guess. What about you, Allan and Glep?”

“I guess, sure-uh.”

“jwkewjekjwefsdjkfskdhe.”

“Oh, that’s right, Glep, we were going to go on that movie double date. How could I forget-uh?”

“Oh! What movie?”

“Bimblar Seven. Kickolas Nagé is in it.” Allan rubs at a water droplet mark on his tie.

“Oh, wow! The pro footy player slash pro swimmer slash pro actor?”

“Yeah. I would invite you but I think the tickets are sold out-uh. And it’s a double date.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” Pim’s definitely a little bummed out-- “I’ll be getting spaghetti with Charlie, anyway.”

“Okay, well,” Charlie claps, “you ready to go, Pim?”

“Yep!”

“Cool. Uhhhh, see you guys next year then?”

“See ya.”

“Jwejwejkwesdfj.”

“Aight. C’mon, Pim.”

///

Of course spaghetti disco had a bar— and of course the main course Charlie aimed for was some special holiday drink he saw them posting about on social media. He took a seat at the bar before Pim could suggest a booth or maybe a table somewhere.

It’s fine, Pim thinks. Really not the end of the world.

Pim struggles to work his way up on top of the bar stool. When he finally makes it, he’s just a little bit out of breath. Charlie looks over just in time to say, “oh, dude, I could have helped you.”

Pim waves it off with a smile. His shirt is wrestled out from so tightly tucked in his pants. It’s fine, he’s gonna be eating (and presumably drinking the way Charlie wants to take this night) so he may as well leave himself a smidge disheveled.

“You know, Charlie,” Pim tries three or four times to perch his chin on his balled fist comfortably, “I didn’t ask what you’re doing for Christmas. You celebrate, right?”

Their spaghetti arrives and they thank the waitress. It’s in the same cup they use for their drinks; a trademark of Spaghetti Disco. It almost looks like worms, and Pim scrunches his face at it a little.

“Well yeah, I’m Catholic,” Charlie adds pointedly. The bartender slides an Iron City to each of their spots in addtion to Charlie’s Christmas themed drink. They both thank him subtly.

“Well— I wasn’t sure, I mean.. I know a lot of people that are Catholic that don’t practice.”

Charlie throws back a hefty swig of the beer. He grimaces and sets it down. Some of it dribbles down his lip. He steals a sip of the Christmas drink and cringes worse.

“Yeah, but like— here’s the thing, Pim. Christmas is like, not even a holiday anymore dude. It’s like…” Charlie takes off his hat, runs his hand through his hair, and replaces the hat, “it’s just a thing to get people to buy shit now. You know? Like-like I haven’t had, like, a magical—or whatever— Christmas since I was a kid.”

“Oh, Charlie! That’s not fair,” Pim frowns. “You deserve to have a good Christmas again. That’s so sad!”

“No no, Pim, you’re missing the point. I’m saying no one has them anymore once you’re older. Like it’s all just fuckin… matching Christmas pjs at Walmart that you wear like, once… and stuff that kinda just goes on sale and-and they throw away after Christmas because no one fuckin-“ he burps— “Excuse me. No one fuckin wants, like… a fuckin “Ho Ho Ho I’m- there’s a baby on the way!” shirt after, like, Christmas morning. Like it all just gets thrown away.”

He takes a big sip of his drink and a heaping bite of spaghetti, commenting under his breath that it’s hitting the spot. Pim takes the minute to really hear what he has to say.

“Hmm.” Is all he has to reply with at first. Charlie is still chewing, so Pim articulates a better response as he winds up a fork of spaghetti. “You know, I think-I think it’s situational. I think it’s really wonderful in the right situation. Like, the-“

“Like the… Pj’s? And shit?”

“The- yeah. Like, if it’s with the right people.”

Charlie shoots him a suspicious look as he says this.

“What, are you talking about your family? Because-“

And they both talk at once,

“Yeah! I mean, they’re not perfect, but— oh.“

“Because they seemed horrible last time— oh.”

A quiet moment passes. Charlie looks away awkwardly.

“Sorry, Pim.”

“You thought they were horrible?”

“I mean, yeah, man. They were like… fully fucking shooting at each other. With guns. Like that’s…. That’s abnormal. I’d honestly avoid people like that. And try to get the, um, kids out of that situation.”

“Well, yeah, they shouldn’t— I mean I’m not disagreeing with you, but they’re still my family, and it’s not that bad if you just go away when they do it.”

“Pim. That’s not normal. Like- like genuinely, I’d avoid them. That sounds awful. You get to go away, they don’t.”

“But, I still love them, you know? Like, I can’t just… and you know, the kids, too. Like they need to talk to someone, um, normal. Like I think coming by is good for them.”

“Just call, like, CPS.”

“Oh, um- Mister Frog actually got rid of CPS a few months ago.”

“What?” Charlie stops mid bite. “Like- like really?”

“Yeah, he- it was kind of sudden. Um. I think I told you when it happened, like at the office, I guess you didn’t hear me…”

“Yeah, no, I definitely didn’t. That’s awful. I hope those kids’ll be alright.”

With the conversation becoming a bit heavier, they both take a minute to eat. Pim looks at Charlie a lot. At some point, Pim opens his mouth to talk, then closes it. Then,

“So, you’ve got no plans then?” Pim asks.

“I’m gonna get wasted and I’m gonna play some Rust. The patch they just put out should make these idiots running the server I’m on lose everything. It’s gonna be great.”

“Oh. Well, anything else?”

Charlie finishes his beer and it’s replaced with a new one when the bartender passes by. The Christmas drink is being ignored.

“That’s pretty much it.”

“No holiday stuff? At all?”

“Probably gonna find a new years party.”

“Nothing for Christmas. then?”

“Nah, I guess not.”

They both take long gulps of their drink.

“So.” Pim says. He doesn’t make eye contact. “Charlie…”

“Yeah?” Charlie has spaghetti taking up his entire mouth and face. He suffers from late stage spaghetti kid syndrome, evidently.

“Would… so, you don’t have to, and I know you just kind of made your stance clear, but I thought I’d ask…” Pim takes a big breath. “I’m supposed to stay a little over a week at my family’s house for Christmas and I can do it alone, I do every year, but I thought I’d ask because-”

“Pim. No.”

“Oh please, Charlie! Come with me! I promise we can make it fun, it will be a grand adventureee!” He throws his arms up for emphasis.

Charlie crosses his arms.

“No, dude. I’m firm about this. There are a million other things I’d rather do. I’d have to, like, lose my apartment or something.”

Pim frowns and leaves it.

If it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be, Pim thinks. No use forcing it.

“Alright. But if you feel super sad and lonely and in need of Christmas cheer text me-“ “I won’t.“ “-because I’m leaving around lunchtime.” “Okay, man.”

They eat the rest of their spaghetti, have a few more drinks, and talk about remote work. They talk a lot about remote work. They both leave for their separate apartments by the end of the night.

Charlie, cranky,sits in Pim’s car the next morning, his overnight bag in the back and his snarkiness in full swing. Pim is practically bubbling over in excitement at the wheel.

“I just can’t believe both your power and electricity went out as soon as you got home,” Pim can’t hold back his excitement in his voice. “What are the odds?!”

It was true-- Charlie was only home for a few minutes before everything fizzled out. He’d got a call a few minutes later that the power to his apartment building went out (duh) due to the generator being crushed by a wrecking ball used in nearby construction, so there would be no heating or electricity at his place for at least a week. They didn’t even say sorry-- it was an automated call.

His first move would be to couch surf until then, but his options seemed exhausted before he even began looking. Zoey was in California for a highschool friend’s wedding and Christmas with her family, and her roommates definitely wouldn’t want him staying there alone. His uncle lived all the way over past Pittsburgh, so that was a no. Tyler moved to Pittsburgh too a few months ago after getting let off. He claimed the music scene there was “just better”. Fuck Pittsburgh, Charlie thought more than a few times after getting the news. Everyone’s moving to fuckin’ Pittsburgh.

He could get a motel or hotel or Airbnb or Vrbo or whatever, but with the cost of that he might as well go to Brazil and back all over again. He called Pim and he came to pick him up. He crashed at his place and got hardly any sleep.

Pim’s excitement alongside all of this rubbed him the wrong way.

“Pim, can you not treat this as some awesome thing? For one thing, I had to throw out my groceries this week ‘cause of all this. I had, like, really good leftovers I was looking forward to eating.”

“Oh, Charlie, don’t be like that… we can go to the place it’s from when we get back if that’ll make you feel better. My family’s probably gonna cook food all week for us, too, and maybe you can take home some leftovers if you’d like!”

Charlie groans.

“That’s not the point though, man. I just wanted to go home and relax. This year has been nothing but chaos and I think I deserve to just do what I want for a little.”

Especially when the only reason we have this break is because I literally died, he nearly adds, but he bites his tongue.

Pim is quiet. He would hardly call playing Rust relaxing the way he’s seen Charlie react to it, but to each their own he supposes. He tries to think of solutions.

“Well, I mean, you could just take whatever time we have left outside of activities to play video games, or watch your shows or whatever it is you do to relax.”

“Yeah but Pim, that’s the thing, I want to do that and only that. Not that and- and activities, I just wanna relax man.”

“Oh, it will be fun, Charlie!” Pim nudges Charlie with his elbow. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I would and I am.”

They drive for about an hour, stopping for coffee at Wawa on the way. It helps, but the annoyance of the whole situation still grates on Charlie, and the looping track of “Dooty Da” on the radio doesn’t help. Charlie decides that it has lost its charm and he turns down the dial.

“If I’m forced to go along with all this, then I’m choosing the music. ‘Kay?”

“Yeah, sure, I can listen to whatever.”

Charlie pulls out the filthy old phone adapter cord for the company car (the end where it plugs into the phone is bent and worn so bad the wire is exposed) and he sloppily plugs his phone into the AUX.

“Alright, uhhhhhh… how much longer do we have on the drive?”

“Hmm? Oh, um… another half hour, I’d say.”

“Okay, Pim, you gotta listen to this. Like really listen. It’s like a yearly tradition for me to listen to this album.”

Pim’s interested now.

“And you haven’t shown me this before?” He fiddles with the seam of the leather steering wheel.

“Nah, it’s like- you gotta listen to the whole thing if you’re gonna listen...”

“Yeah, alright! Put it on, yeah.”

Charlie sits through around 12 seconds of two different Youtube ads, skipping as soon as he could.

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…”

“Oh, it’s Christmas music! This sounds pleasant!”

“This is the most recent one that came out last year. Every year he writes a new one and adds it to the album. I’m waiting on this year’s.”

“Who is this?”

“Uhh, Mac Demarco. His stuff is amazing, man. Seriously, he’s like, an idol of mine.”

Pim’s happy to see Charlie a little happier. The next song comes on and Pim subtly bops his head to it.

“This one’s a little creepy, haha.”

Charlie takes a big sip of his coffee. “Yea, he’s got range.”

They listen to the music some more and comment on a dog they see in a passing car. Some flurries start up as they take the exit off the highway and ease into the suburbs. House after house is decorated in elaborate Christmas decorations that Pim excitedly gawks at and points to, to which Charlie feels his blood pressure heighten. The further they go outbound, the less fancy the light displays are. There are more of those silly inflatable yard decorations, now. Then, it eases into maybe a few strings on a hedge, or maybe a partially driven over blow mold decoration arrangement, glowing Santas beaming at Charlie and Pim as they drive by.

The album lasts them the rest of the car ride. They talk over some songs and Charlie shushes him for others. When they reach the familiar apartment complex, Charlie seems to be in a better mood overall. Pim makes a mental note to let Charlie DJ in the future.

They pull into the back and see Pim’s mother smoking on the back porch. The flurries have calmed entirely to a flake here and there and there’s a thin layer of snow over everything, replenishing what melted the previous day.

The two get out of the car and she sees them.

“PIMOTHY!”

Pim’s mother snubs her cigarette quickly and rushes over in her pink slippers. She wraps Pim in a big hug, swaying him a little. Charlie goes to grab their bags, and when he comes back, they’re talking about so many different things so quickly Charlie has trouble keeping up. He accidentally makes eye contact with Pim’s mom, who, almost as if she were waiting for a cue, swoops Charlie into a hug.

“Oh, uh,” Charlie doesn’t hug back. He’s visibly uncomfortable.

“How are you, sweetheart? Are you keeping Pim under control?”

Charlie pauses. He realizes he has an opportunity to be very funny and also get revenge on Pim.

“Oh, you know. He’s all mixed up in trouble at the office,” he deadpans.

“What?!”

“Oh he didn’t tell you? Yeah, Pim’s been really into getting up to unprofessional scandalous stuff at work. He brings women in all the time--”

Pim’s contented expression watching the family bonding unfold quickly morphs into one of confusion, then horror.

“HAH! Charlie’s joking,” and he pushes at Charlie’s belly to separate the two. He looks at Charlie desperately. “Right, Charlie?”

“Yeah, I’m joking,” he cheeses and looks back at Pim. Mischief lingers in his voice. “Except the last part. He’s one hundred percent a total ladies man. He picks up chicks on the job all the time, honest.”

“PIM! Is this true?! I thought this job was going to keep you honest!” When the pressure was on Pim, Charlie didn’t mind it at all.

“Agh- Charlie! No, it’s not true, mum…” He facepalms.

“What about Jennifer, man?”

“Who?”

“Jennifer, with all the- from the Shrimp adventure.”

Pim looks away quickly, his face heating up. His hands fidget with each other.

“Well…that was different.”

“I thought you would have grown out of that, Pim.” She sighs, and starts walking back to the duplex. “Come inside, get out of this cold. Your siblings have been talking about you all day.”

Pim turns to the car to start carrying bags, and Charlie already has them all in his hands as he shuts the door.

“Oh-- do you want help? That looks heavy…”

“I’m good, man. Just get the door. And do the talking.”

“Okay, sure.”

They follow a little distance behind his mom. Charlie leans a little towards Pim and asks, “so, what’d you grow out of?”

Pim can hear the smile in his voice and he hides his face in his hands. He blushes in embarrassment.

“Argh. I didn’t think she would bring that up…” Pim sighs, “Alright. I dated a ton of girls in highschool-- that’s it.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, she kind of focuses on it a lot, I don’t know why, maybe its a mum thing--”

“Nah, not that. I’m shocked that you- that you had game in highschool.”

“What? Oh, well. I didn’t really know what I was doing,” he confesses. “I was definitely… doing it wrong, looking back.”

“Clearly not, man. You said it, I mean, you dated a ton of girls. And your parents are still mad about it, that’s gotta count for something.”

Pim laughs a little as they get to the patio door.

“You’re funny, Charlie.”

They go inside, wipe their shoes, and are greeted with chaos. If the kids had the capabilities to bounce off the walls, they would be. When Pim walks in, they swarm him. They dogpile him with a hug and before Charlie can get a firm count of how many there are, they’re off again, crawling through the walls and running up the stairs and chasing each other from room to room to room. Pim looks overjoyed and very frazzled down on the floor. Charlie wordlessly helps him up.

“Let’s go set our stuff down upstairs, Charlie.”

They pass through the front room (the holiday tinsel is up and Pim cups his hands to his cheek in adoration) and Charlie hears the TV on in the living room as he follows Pim up the stairs. His dad must be watching something. The occasional shout or laugh from the kids running around keeps Charlie a little on edge.

As they ascend the dark, carpeted staircase, Charlie squints at all the photos, trying to scrape up any blackmail against Pim. At some point, he sets down a bag on the stairs awkwardly and he puts his hand on Pim’s shoulder to stop him.

“Hm? Yes Charlie?”

“Looking pretty dapper here, buddy.”

He points to a photo of Pim wearing a tux, bow tie, and corsage— not to mention the girl on his arm. His smile is massive and his glasses are apparent. The girl looks a little uncomfortable.

Pim laughs-- “Oh no, I thought mum took this down a while ago,” and he reaches for it, only for Charlie to grab it off the wall first.

“Charlie! What are you doing?”

“I need a picture of this, man.”

“NO! What do you need that for? That’s horrible!” He tries unsuccessfully to grab it from Charlie’s hand. Charlie just holds it higher.

“You owe me for dragging me along. This totally counts as part of it.”

“No way. Charlie!” He tries to reach it again, and he accidentally encroaches on Charlie’s personal space. He bumps into Charlie’s stomach and puts a hand on his belly to brace himself. He looks up at him.

“It’s this or something worse.” Charlie threatens casually.

Pim goes quiet.

“Like what?”

“I ‘unno, I’ll think of something.”

They look at each other.

Charlie knows Pim will accept the conditions just looking at his expression, so he sets the other bags down precariously and grabs his phone from his pocket.

“Ugh, fine.” Pim resigns as Charlie takes the photo. He then takes a selfie with it with a fake horrified expression in reaction to it. “Why that one?!”

“I dunno,” he laughs, “thought it might be funny.”

Charlie grabs the stuff again and they continue upstairs.

“Alright. I better not see these in the work Slack, though.”

“No, no, of course not,” Charlie replies, having already sent it to the work Slack.

The rest of the photos on the walls are all pretty innocuous; it all is very domestic. Charlie feels like he shouldn’t be allowed here in this bubble of domesticity before the storm of reality that is Pim’s family hits. He kind of wishes that something will just ruin the moment already so he doesn’t have to look around the corner for something horrible, metaphorically.

Non-metaphorically, Amy pokes her head out from around the corner at the top of the stairs.

“Ew— Pim? I thought you weren’t coming to Christmas this year.”

“What? Who said that?”

“Oh. No one, I made it up. But I was still excited for you to not show up.”

Pim laughs nervously.

“Well, here we are! I brought my coworker Charlie to stay with us. You remember Charlie, right?”

Charlie does a peace sign. “Yo.”

Amy stares blankly at them.

“Anyway, Brad’s over, soooo… don’t bother us.”

She goes back to her room and slams the door.

“She was nicer to me that time, I think.”

They make it to the once-Pim’s-room-now-game-room-slash-guest-room and drop their stuff inside. There’s one kid idling in there and playing Roblox on his Kindle. Pim shoos him out of the room and closes the door behind Charlie and himself.

“Here we are!” Pim says whimsically. “Oh, so many wonderful memories in here…”

Charlie looks around— it’s a mess of toys, AC units, and other child memorabilia that wasn’t deemed important enough to have out. Crazy messy.

“So we’re staying in your family’s storage room? Why don’t they just get like, a storage unit somewhere?”

“I don’t think it’s enough to warrant a storage unit, do you?”

“Maybe, man. You might get cockroaches or something if you leave it all on the floor like this.”

“Hmm. Maybe you’re right.” Pim thinks to every other issue in this house that he’d like to resolve first and shakes away the tidiness mission for later. “Anyway, there’s an air mattress around here, I just have to find it,” Pim starts looking under stacks of various clutter.

“Yeah. I was gonna say...”

They both eye the single twin bed.

“I’ll find that as soon as possible if you want to start unpacking…” Pim starts checking the closet. “Agh. It’s just board games in here, and… oh wait! Yes! Epic!” He pulls out a crumpled air mattress with an air pump still plugged into it. He starts clearing out an area for it on the floor. “I’ll take the air mattress since I’m not sure how reliable it is. Would you mind taking my old bed? It’ll be much comfier than this.”

“Yeah man, I don’t care.” Charlie starts grabbing handfuls of toys and cramming them into the already crammed space under the bed. There’s some semblance of bedding, but years of crumbs, dust and dead bugs have accumulated. “Uhhh… got any different bedding?”

“Oh, sorry, yeah. I’ll get that for you now.”

While Pim’s gone, Charlie goes on his phone. He has a few missed snaps— two from Zoey, one from Tyler. Zoey’s is at the beach. She’s smiling and having fun with her friends— they’re all drinking zany colored drinks. Charlie wishes he was too. Tyler’s snap is of a house party where he’s made it behind the DJ’s stand, absolutely destroying the crowd with his stuff. It’s short, but Charlie can tell he’s having a blast. He replies to each of them with a photo of a dead spider on the bed. He captions it, “me rn”. Pim gets back and he puts his phone away.

“Oh, geez man, you got all that?”

Pim holds a tower of bedding— two sets of comforters, pillowcases, blankets, and sheets. “Can you take the bedding off your bed really quickly?” There’s a frantic element to his request and Charlie does as told. He tosses it by the door and Pim drops the bedding on the bed with an exaggerated exhale. He starts on making the mattress.

They spend maybe twenty minutes setting everything up. Charlie settles for a sheet and a blanket, but Pim insists on making it for him if he wouldn’t. The air mattress is only a foot away parallel to Charlie’s bed.

“Alright, it’s 6:30. What do you want to do next, Charlie? I think my family wanted to go out for dinner.”

“You know, I’d really like to but I’m feeling pretty tired, man. I might sit that one out and catch up on some sleep here.”

“Aww, alright. Did you want me to get you anything?”

“Uhhhh, yeah. You know what I like,” and Charlie kicks his shoes off as he sits on the side of his bed. Pim heads over to the doorway. “Lights off?” He asks, to which Charlie politely says, “yes please.”

“Okay, well… sleep well.” Pim smiles sweetly at Charlie and closes the door behind him.

Now it’s time for Charlie to do what he wanted to do from the start.

Rust time.

The second Pim’s footsteps hit the stairs, Charlie speeds over and locks the door. Going back to his bed, he sits down and roots through his bag. He pulls out his laptop, mouse, charger, and headphones, and sets everything up. He’s all ready until he realizes he needs wifi.

He checks everywhere. It’s nowhere he’d expect it to be. He considers texting Pim for a minute, but his cover would be blown. Out of options, he returns to his bed and lies down. He groans and sets his stuff on the floor.

He’s pissed— the only thing he wanted to do was check this update. He’ll ask Pim as soon as he gets back. Maybe he can squeeze in an hour or two tonight when they get back. He hopes Pim won’t have an issue with him staying up late to play.

He drifts off, missing his apartment and what he could have had for the next week. He doesn’t expect himself to actually fall asleep.

Charlie wakes up to Pim opening the door. The excess light that comes through the door behind Pim’s silhouette is enough to make Charlie squint.

“Agh.”

“Oh! Charlie! Sorry— I didn’t know you were awake!”

Pim takes a step in. He isn’t wearing what he had on before— it’s some navy blue crew neck and sweats.

“How long was I out?” Charlie asks as he sniffles hard and rubs his eyes.

“Well, it’s 11 something…”

“What?” Charlie sits up incredulously. “Why didn’t you wake me up when you got back?!”

“You looked so cozy, I couldn’t! Plus, the dinner was, uh… weird. I assumed you’d want to sleep through the aftermath of that, so.”

Charlie checks his phone and doesn’t respond to Pim. He didn’t have any new texts. Maybe the notifications didn’t register— he opens Snapchat and checks it anyway.

“So…” Pim continues, “I mean, I just got ready for bed, I was gonna go to sleep now.” His sentence fizzles out. Then he throws on, “I don’t know if you want to go back to sleep, or…?”

He eases back down. “I guess,” he says with no confidence in his voice. Pim closes the door behind him and it goes dark. Charlie only now notices the glow in the dark stars that littered the ceiling over by the window. Pim climbs in bed.

“Your food’s in the fridge, by the way. It’s labeled.”

Charlie shoots back up.

“Oh- okay. No, I’m doing that definitely, yeah. I’ll be right back.”

Charlie doesn’t care to put his shoes on as he sneaks downstairs. The lights are all out, and the television is still on. Upon further inspection, Pim’s dad is asleep on the couch. He snores loudly.

Charlie finds the styrofoam box with “Charlie :-)” written on it. He spares no time in putting it in the microwave. He grabs a fork (he goes through all the drawers and of course it’s the last one) and a napkin. While it cooks, he roots around for something to drink. There’s some orange juice left in the bottom of a jug. He grabs the entire thing and, as his food finishes up, carries everything he foraged with him upstairs.

He sneaks into the room, closes the door quietly, tiptoes over to his bed, and sits down. It’s fries and what looks like a Buffalo chicken wrap. He takes a massive bite and it all feels worth it for a second.

“Charlie, are you eating in here?” Pim’s voice is meek.

“Oh shit. I thought you were asleep already.”

Pim laughs sleepily.

“Almost. That smells really good though.”

“You want a fry?”

“I already brushed my teeth,” Pim says dismally. Charlie shrugs and Pim can’t see.

“You can always rebrush ‘em.”

Pim stretches in his bed and makes a noise Charlie ignores. “Mmm. Maybe.” After a few seconds of thinking about it, he says “yeah, pass me one.”

“Alright!” He hands it to Pim and fist bumps him before he takes his hand away. Pim’s fist is limp and unexpecting. “You know, if it helps, Pim, I’m not brushing my teeth. I forgot my toothbrush at home.”

“Charlie! You could have told me, we could have stopped somewhere…” Pim sits up and scoots over to the edge of his mattress to grab more fries from the box in Charlie’s lap.

“We can get one tomorrow and I’ll brush twice as long or something tomorrow night to make up.”

“That’s not how that works,” and Charlie hears the smirk in Pim’s words.

“Yeah it is. I’ll just scrub off what I didn’t scrub off tonight, it’s not like it’s keeping count or whatever. And— besides, people from like, the 1700’s were making laws or whatever for our country and they didn’t even brush their teeth, they didn’t have this shit, so… yeah.”

“Is that true?”

“I dunno, probably. But it’s not gonna kill me if I skip one night.”

“I’m googling it.”

Their hands touch as they both reach for a fry. Nothing is said.

“It says-“

“What says? What’s your source?”

“Uhh, Reddit. They say-“

“Dude. Get a different source. Go to Wikipedia or something.”

“What? This is fine, they probably took their answer from Wikipedia anyway. They say that people have been brushing their teeth since ancient times with sticks and such, but the added sugars in our diet today make our teeth rot. And something about our teeth being closer together now too.” Pim looks up. “So you should definitely get a toothbrush tomorrow.”

“I wasn’t gonna argue with you, I’m just saying one night is fine.”

“Well, let me look that up-“

“It’s not gonna change what I do. I don’t have a toothbrush right now, I don’t really have any options, man.”

Pim clicks his tongue. “Right.”

“Yeah.”

Charlie finishes his wrap and pim finishes off the fries that Charlie couldn’t force down. Pim goes to brush his teeth again and Charlie lays back down. He’s not really tired, but that’s never stopped him from sleeping.

Charlie can’t help but to thank god for the short day. At least there was good food, good music, and good sleep.

Now they just had to do that for a week.

#sf #my art #smiling friends #charpim #my writing #smiling friends but it’s a hallmark movie #long post

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afurtivecake · 6 months ago

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My hot take on AFTG? At first glance, the original series appears to be amateurishly written, but actually it's like that because it's in an autistic POV.

Ok look, anyone who has read AFTG will notice the language is fairly simple, the vocabulary not particularly varied, the phrasing is repetitive, there's a lot of detail about small, seemingly pointless actions, a ton of exposition and hardly any detail on many of the characters or their emotional states. I'm not denying that. I'm saying it's intentional because all of that is how Neil thinks.

Firstly, Neil isn't particularly well-educated. The longest he's stayed in one place is that one year in Millport. I don't know what kind of an education he's gotten on the road, but it surely could not have been consistent. He also doesn't have Andrew's memory so he's not going to be spouting big words and fanciful adjectives where simpler ones will suffice. (Also, Andrew is an intellectual and considers himself as such, which is why he talks the way he does, but that's a whole other tangent) It would be a wildly different character or a different style of POV altogether if it was written in a more literary style.

As for why it feels specifically autistic, it's hard to explain because for me, it's very intuitive and largely based on personal experience and exposure. But I can say that the books read like what some of my autistic friends (and I) have going through their heads. It's the methodical thought processes, the meticulous observation, the internal exposition, the logical reasoning that gets applied to every small thing, the conscious decisions that go into every action. It's also how there's an absence of descriptions of people and their personalities and how sometimes it seems like it suddenly shifts to a complete non sequitur. It reads like we're inside Neil's head and the inside of Neil's head feels really familiar.

Now, I'm not sure how much of it is the author herself and how much of it is just Neil, or if it's a case of Neil being exactly the sort of character Nora Sakavic's natural writing style (at the time) just happened to fit precisely. But my point is that having the kind of flaws English teachers would wag their fingers at doesn't make it a less effective piece of writing. Not all characters and not all humans are going to tell their stories in a way that sounds like what we think of as 'literature' but that doesn't make their story less meaningful or significant or less well told.

EDIT: I should say, there are literary authors who also have a very sparse, simple style, who nonetheless, manage to convey so much sentiment and emotion in simple, short sentences. AFTG has, by no means, the simplest or sparsest writing I've seen. You don't need complex words or sentences to tell a good story effectively!

#aftg #all for the game #the sunshine court #i do not think this story could have been told as effectively if it had been written in a different style #it's not a style that is going to resonate with every reader and that's ok #i assure you there are novels written in very literary styles that are still 10 times trashier than aftg

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anomaliex · 6 days ago

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I like to think that Riz is autistic (and maybe has adhd?), which greatly contributes to his social struggles pre Highschool, and him developing serious social competence later on kind of makes me think so even more? Words. This headcanon is very precious to me, for some reason.

Riz is initially presented as the socially awkward dorky briefcase kid, and though he grows into being more suave like his father (Brennan's words) and has really high insight and persuasion by the end of junior year he's still kind of a "weirdo", he's just gotten better at reading people and adjusting accordingly. And, like, understanding social structures and how to exploit them ("we don't need cool people. We just need a lot of dorks.")

My experience with autism and empathy and social interaction or whatever has been that allistic people, for some reason, seem to "just know" how to approach others and whether they're well received. It's like some kind of secret language that you're not in on, an instinctual knowledge that you for some reason lack, making you an outcast for reasons you genuinely don't really get. ("I don't have many friends even though I'm pretty social, which is weird.")

The way I've rationalised this is that they read tone, body language etc subconsciously, leading to them clocking things without really thinking about them too hard, whereas I can only do so with a conscious effort. I'm good at people reading, at picking up on non-verbal cues and remembering previous behaviour and breaks from patterns and analysing what they might mean and all that, but I had to actively teach myself that? It's something you have to learn if it doesn't come to you naturally, and I think as Riz mechanically levels up and increases his proficiency bonus and gains expertise and stuff, he's just gradually observing and memorising all these things in a very logical and objective way.

Additionally, he figures out how to adjust his own behaviour in ways that are appeasing to others. This means masking but it also means, like, learning how to suck up to people. He learns where to look so people think he's making normal eye contact, at what volume to keep his voice, which forms of stimming pass as "normal guy being bored" and which are "what a freak", and even to just not info dump at all unless he's in the right company no matter how bad he wants to (he doesn't shut up about his cases around his friends, though). This isn't necessarily a good thing, it's just a thing. I think that's part of growing up for a lot of autistic teenagers. This is how I interpret his persuasion, kinda, and it's notable that he's worse at this than insight. It's one thing to analyse and know what people think and want, it's another to actually get yourself to do it when it really goes against your nature.

There's also something to be said about his violent anger towards the rat grinders, and Kipperlilly specifically. Autistic teenager when someone drags his special interest (which is connected not only to his truest form of growth but also his personal view on justice) (in this case adventuring. I think it's gen just adventuring and investigating) through the mud:

(Why he doesn't like it is more nuanced than this expresses but I'm referring to like. How strong his emotional reaction is compared to how he usually acts lol. Also rigid morals and stuff are a symptom tm but hey.)

Ohhh I also think Fabian is autistic, but he happens to be more easily digestible for others because he's athletic and rich and stuff but gods does he also suck at people-ling initially (and honestly he never gets particularly good at it, he just happens to be charming and a good performer but that doesn't necessarily mean he knows what he's doing), especially with other teenagers (it probably doesn't help that he canonically went on adventures with his father for a while which is why he got into school a year later. This kid doesn't have any experience with people his age at the beginning) and oh god I got off track this sentence is really long. But, like, something something, neurodivergent (especially autistic) people tend to kinda flock together automatically? Which is why I think Riz decides Fabian is his best friend so quickly. They're very special to me.

#rambling into the void #dimension 20 #fantasy high #riz gukgak #fabian aramais seacaster #headcanons

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misfit-mccoward · 2 months ago

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wait okay more on my "big tiddy deidara released into a non-porn world" AU (contains both an outline and some nsfw writing under the cut)

the gist:

big tiddy deidara falls into another AU and her boobs are so powerful that she infects it with porn world logic

this big tiddy deidara is NOT the same as "...and titted downward" deidara. "...and titted downward" deidara is ridiculous, but THIS big tiddy deidara runs 1000% on porn world logic.

deidara immediately fucks dudedara

she doesn't actually want to have anything to do with the akatsuki, but she DOES want a mold of dudedara's dick. for personal reasons. so they go back to sasori together to see if he can help them out

somehow deidara ends up with the akatsuki despite hating them as a concept, and fucks her way through all of them

the AU deidara falls into is, unless i decide i need to split this into two separate stories, a "minato and kushina live" AU, so i guess itachi is not akatsuki. in fact, he can't be akatsuki, because i ship itadei too hard and she wouldn't fuck anyone else with him around

konan upon meeting her: i'm straight

konan later:

*****

The thing about “straight” women and Deidara is that they always end up in a public bath or a hot spring together. And, given Deidara has a habit of sitting around at those with the back of her hand laying out on the seat next to her, they always end up accidentally sitting on her hand. It’s happened to Deidara at least eight times.

So, when the hot water at the Akatsuki base breaks, Deidara figures it’s only a matter of time before it happens again. She puts on a full face of makeup and heads to the public baths.

Because the universe caters to Deidara, all the people in the bath when she arrives are attractive ladies in their twenties and thirties, plus one smoking hot woman in her fifties who’s probably unappreciated by husband and hasn’t actually orgasmed in years. Deidara makes sure everyone gets to see her bend over in her thong as she undresses, and spends a very long time rubbing soap suds over her breasts as she bathes. Everyone’s eyes are on her, and she figures her chances of getting laid are high. She happily breasts boobily over the to the baths to soak.

She only has to wait a few minutes before Konan to also show up. Deidara’s breath hitches. No way will ice queen Konan go for this.

There’s a handful of other women in the bath, and Konan eyes them briefly before stepping into the bath and heading toward Deidara. She drops her towel at the side of the bath. Deidara is excited to see that Konan’s belly button is pierced, and that her neatly trimmed pubes are the exact same indigo blue as her hair. Her stomach is toned around the pretty piercings, although her hips are round and soft looking. Deidara watches, entranced, and the water line raises up around Konan’s thighs as she steps into the bath and walks across it to Deidara.

Deidara holds her breath, and Konan sits next to her. Like all straight girls, Konan manages to accidentally sit vag first on Deidara’s hand. Deidara’s hand tongue has been lolling out, drifting in the water of the bath, and it slides in between Konan’s folds without Deidara having to do anything.

Usually, the girl’s eyes will widen in surprise, and she’ll make some cute little squeaky noise. Konan’s gaze just lowers thoughtfully in the direction of her lap. Deidara is too wound up in anticipation of Konan’s reaction to actually move her tongue.

“Hmm,” Konan says. Deidara stares at her, frozen.

The seats in the bath are benches, detached from the sides of the bath. Konan rotates to the side, wedging one leg between the wall of the bath and the bench as she faces Deidara, straddling her hand. Her cunt is fully against the hand mouth now, and Konan shifts her hips slightly, grinding herself against Deidara.

“There are people watching us,” Konan murmurs, but her face is challenging. She reaches forward, taking Deidara’s free hand in hers, and guides it under the water between her legs. “Don’t be loud.”

****

MEANWHILE, as the direct result of deidara infecting the universe with porn logic, minato is the one sane man as everyone around him starts acting bizarre. oh, and he now has a special porn disease which gives him a huge dick and requires him to have sex all the time or else his dick explodes

kushina has been wanting a third for a threesome for a while, and now minato is like "oh no maybe i do have to take finding one seriously"

eventually, deidara has some falling out with the akatsuki, and leaves them, resulting in her being captured by Konoha

this happens:

Minato is summoned urgently in the middle of the night, so he ends up talking to a T&I agent outside the holding cell in his pajamas, which consist of a hole-filled old t-shirt and his boxers.

The T&I agent is squirming nervously, and Minato politely doesn’t look downward at the obvious reason for his discomfort. Sometimes shinobi get called up in the middle of doing… intimate things… and it’s not the first time he’s seen an agent show up to work with a boner. As long as the agent can do his job, there’s no reason to comment or acknowledge it.

“Just so you know,” the agent says. “We, uh… well, she’s an explosives user. Her shirt caught fire during the battle.”

“She’s injured?” Minato asks. He’s of course not concerned for a missing-nin out of the goodness of his heart, but it will be inconvenient if an injury delays interrogation or progresses into an infection, and burns can be pretty bad.

“Er, no,” the agent says. “The fire left her completely unharmed, but burned off her shirt.”

Minato raises his eyebrows. “So get her a new one then.”

“We… we couldn’t find any that fit, sir.”

The agent squirms some more, clearly having feelings just by the thought of her. Minato frowns. This is highly unprofessional, and they can’t even figure out a replacement shirt? The prison uniforms go all the way up to sizes that could fit an Akimichi. There’s no way there was just no shirt available.

“Call in your next in command to replace you for this assignment,” Minato says firmly. “Then go home and prepare yourself for a more detailed formal reprimand tomorrow.”

“But, sir,” the agent says, eyes widening in evident anxiety. “I’m trying to warn you– her pants–”

“Dismissed,” Minato says, then walks into the holding cell.

Deidara is restrained in the way typical for highly dangerous ninja. She’s seated in a chair at the center of the room, the legs of which are welded to the floor. Her ankles are in shackles and bolted to the floor and her legs are tied against each chair's leg to prevent movement; one leg is bare form where her pants leg has also been burned off. Against regulation, her hands are tied behind the back of the chair, her shoulders pulled back. She is indeed not wearing a shirt, her top only covered by a black sports bra. Four ANBU agents are stationed around the room, weapons trained on her.

It might look ridiculous to an outsider, to treat such a small young woman with so much fear, but Minato has seen her file. This is lax compared to what someone like her needs to be held safely.

Her hands should be tied apart, Minato observes. Tied together risks her managing to form hand signs. He raises his hands to make the command to fix this error, but then something truly horrifying happens.

Deidara inhales deeply. Her chest rises. Minato abruptly realizes that her breasts are truly massive, bigger than Tsunade’s, bigger than the Icha Icha Miniseries lead actress’s. Jiraiya’s own prose would struggle to express how huge they are, how much sheer space they consume. It’s like they have their own gravitational pull, every set of eyes in the room is drawn to them as they rise.

And then, as they reach their peak of Deidara’s inhale, Minato realizes to his own terror that their size is so impressive that not even Deidara’s own bra can contain them. The band of the bra sits not on her comparatively tiny rib cage where it belongs, but instead hovers inches away. As her breasts rise with her breath, Minato can see the bottoms of them from under the band. With her arms pulled back, Minato can see how the bra can’t even cover the sides of her breasts properly, and he can see the full curve of her soft flesh on either side.

Fuck me, Minato’s dick thinks, and it’s suddenly completely hard in his boxers, pushing against the thing fabric with all its might.

Not now, Minato thinks, fighting back the sting of humiliation in his mind. After he’d just told someone off for doing this, too! To his dick he thinks, Why can’t you behave for just a few minutes?

Deidara exhales, and Minato watches her breasts lower. As they descend, he notices the straps of her bra don’t even touch her shoulders, hovering around them. Her breasts are so big that her bra is completely taut over them, but the straps are too large for her narrow shoulders, slipping off the the side. He can fully see the tops of her breasts, shiny with sweat and smeared with soot and dirt and blood.

“Excited to see me?” Deidara asks, smirking at him. Her eyes are clearly focused on his groin, dark with something he might identify as pure horny lustful hunger if he didn’t know better.

“Hardly,” Minato replies. He’s stunned that he succeeds in making his voice sound calm.

He can’t believe no one gave her a shirt, even if his dick is thrilled to see her like this. Konoha should be better than this.

“Guards,” he calls. “Her hands are tied improperly. I’m going to put a shirt on her while you fix it.”

He steps toward her and realizes that the way her legs are tied mean her knees have been forced apart. Her pants are baggy, but the entire leg of one has been burnt off, all the way up to her hip. He can see a hint of her blue underwear between her legs.

Hrrgh!! goes Minato dick, and Minato feels the cool air of the room as his tip somehow pokes out from his fly.

Deidara’s smirk widens, and her eyes stay on him and his embarrassing erection as one ANBU holds a kunai to her neck. She looks excited, somehow, and Minato chooses not to think about what that means for the moment.

Minato pulls off his own shirt, and Deidara’s eyes seem to actually sparkle as she very blatantly looks him up and down. Her arms are untied, and Minato feeds them through the arms of his shirt one by one. Something wet hits his wrist as one of her infamous hand tongues lolls out, and Deidara smirks knowingly up at him as if she too can feel how this makes his dicks simply ache with longing. He has to pull the shirt wide and then yank to get it over her chest, and it will definitely be stretched out forever, pulled as tight as it, but the shirt definitely fits. Just… really tightly, so the holes it are pulled into wide shapes, and hole holes are definitely already bigger. He can still see chunks of her black bra through them.

Somehow, the baggy shirt has completely formed itself to Deidara’s body, so impossibly tight over her chest that it gives the impression of holding her in place and compressing her despite the thinness of the fabric, and then denying the way baggy t-shirts work to cling to her waist to show off the exact shape of her.

“Congratulations on being the first to cop a feel and live,” Deidara drawls when Minato steps back. Her lips quirk upwards. “Unless you’re about to join the many victims of little deaths I’ve caused.”

“You needed a shirt,” Minato tells her. “Unlike Iwa, Konoha believes in human dignity.”

Even though the shirt… did that…? Also, why the hell had his first instinct been to give her his shirt?

I’m being a gentleman, Minato thinks, sounding desperate for an excuse even in his own head.

Deidara yawns. “Right. Sure. That’s why I’m tied up like this, yeah.”

“You’re tied up because you’re highly dangerous and highly volatile,” Minato says, “and because we want you to tell us about Akatsuki.”

Deidara regards him for a moment, her eyes studying his face, then his bare chest, then eventually landing on his dick. Her lips twitch upward in a nearly manic smile, something clearly occurring to her.

“Tell you what,” she says. “Fuck me, and I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

Uh, Minato thinks. What?

YES, his dick screams.

“I’m being completely honest,” Deidara continues. “I hate Akatsuki, so I’ll sell them out for very little, and I can see how much you want me, yeah.”

“You’re…” Minato stumbles over his words, distracted by how annoying the hardness of his dick is, then clears his throat. “Surely you have something more worthwhile to bargain for.”

Her freedom, for example. He’d come in here with the idea they’d be negotiating that.

“Nope,” Deidara tells him. “You’re hot as fuck, and I’ve been imagining you inside me since I saw the outline of that huge dick. I want you so bad right now it hurts, yeah.” She shifts in her chair, pushing her hips up. “If you come over here and touch me, you’ll see I’m not lying.”

It turns out the ties on her legs are too loose to stop her from swinging her knees further apart, and the motion pulls the torn fabric of her pants back, so Minato can fully see the strips of her panties over her slit. She is indeed, uh, wet.

His dick twitches hard, desperate for her. He ignores it.

“You’re insane,” Minato decides, stunned.

“No, I’m…” Deidara squirms, glaring at him. “Look, don’t make me beg for it, yeah. I’ll give you what you want, just give me what I want first. I know how these things go. Why aren’t you on top of me already?”

“Guards,” Minato says, turning to the closest one. “I’m done for tonight. She’s clearly unstable.”

“No!” Deidara objects loudly. “Oh my god, you can’t just tease me with the most perfect cock and your stupid abs–”

Minato ignores her.

“Let her sleep, but have her prepped by eight o’clock for a chakra sealing,” Minato continues. He eyes her. “We’ll do the permanent one.”

“Fuck you,” Deidara snaps. She bares her teeth at him. “I didn’t want you, anyway. I can just see that you’re such a disgusting pervert that one good lay would make you do whatever I want, yeah. I bet your wife hasn’t touched you in years, you disgusting old man, and you don’t want her to because she’s got old saggy tits–”

The guards move forward, holding her down to change her restraints for transport. Deidara continues to rant about how bad she thinks Minato would be in bed, and he can feel his dick finally starting to calm down. A common side effect of his condition is that he can’t just let erections fade on their own, but his dick seems to have at least stopped demanding to wiggle its way inside any and every part of Deidara possible.

“FUCK YOU!” Deidara shrieks, and then somehow manages wrestle herself free, body slamming one guard.

Minato is on her without really thinking about it, pinning her down to the floor.

“Asshole,” she spits at him, struggling against him. He’s got on her back with both hands over her head, and her wrists are small in his hands. “Fuck you, I bet you’re enjoying this. You’re a coward for not fucking me.”

“Hokage do not fuck their prisoners,” Minato tells her seriously.

“That’s stupid,” Deidara tells him, she’s still struggling against him, and his dick perks up aggravatingly. The thin shirt Minato put on her holds her breasts in place better than just the too small bra, but he notes several of the holes across her chest have grown in size as the shirt struggles to contain her. “If I had me under my control, I’d control me by fucking me until I couldn’t walk any more– oh!”

Deidara’s eyes widen in genuine surprise. The holes in Minato's shirt join together, the meager fabric between them snapping all at once. The multiple small holes are, suddenly, one big hole, right over Deidara’s chest. Her breasts in their ill fitting bra burst forward in one explosive moment, bouncing on her chest like they obey a completely different type of gravity from the rest of her.

Minato dick hitches, and he finally loses control over it. He comes all over her, ropes of cum splattering all over her chest.

Deidara blinks up at him, wide-eyed and amazed, like he’s something she’s never seen before. He thinks about fleeing her, but teleporting away means leaving her unrestrained to attack her guards again, and turning and shooting cum all over the cell and maybe his guards also seems like a bad idea. Deidara’s face turns to absolutely wicked delight as he just sits there, having one of his exaggerated orgasms all over her.

“I knew it, yeah!” she cries, pleased and cruel at the same time. “God, fuck, look at you–”

“Guards,” Minato calls, now done. “Come re-restrain her. Properly this time.”

He tells them to let her shower and find her real clothes, then watches them march her off down the hall. She smirks over her shoulder at him.

xXx

“You took your shirt off?” Kushina asks, covering her mouth with one hand while the other jerks him off. She’s not up for sex this morning, not when they have to do a joint sealing on Deidara in an hour and a half, and she goes at it with the mild attention she might give a chore. “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Minato replies, mortified. “I wanted… I wanted to be a gentlemen, I guess.”

“So you came on her?” Kushina proceeds to laugh so hard she has to stop pumping him for a bit. She wipes tears from her eyes.

“It’s not really funny,” Minato says, pouting. “That’s a disgusting way to treat a prisoner.”

“Eh, I think she was into it,” Kushina says, waving her hand dismissively. She turns back to her handjob. “Actually, if we’re doing a permanent seal, that’s a fully body one. Are you going to be okay?”

“Well, I can’t be worse,” Minato reasons.

“I’ll take lead,” Kushina offers. “I can at least hide it when I get turned on.”

“You’re not going to get turned on,” Minato protests. “This is a totally standard, nonsexual sealing of a dangerous criminal. It embarrassing and unacceptable that I lost control, and I have a condition as an excuse–”

“I don’t know,” Kushina says, tapping her lip with her free hand in thought. “I feel like it might be kind of hot. The most complicated part of the seal goes over the heart, so I’ll have to paint all over her boobs, moving them around, making sure the brush doesn’t tickle and make her squirm too much…”

Minato bans himself from thinking about Kushina touching Deidara’s boobs specifically, making sure his brain considers her description completely divorced from Deidara. The result is his mind zooms in on the image of his wife’s beautiful hands playing with a pair of huge, soft breasts, rolling them over to test how they’d move, squeezing them to test their firmness.

His breath hitches and he comes in her hand. Kushina cackles with laughter.

****

i'm not sure where it goes from here??? i want to write big tiddy deidara hooking up with minakushi, but also then what. THEN WHAT

we DO need minato realizing the source of everyone acting strange is just deidara's boobs and staring at them in horror

i do want to have the porn logic progressively getting more and more ridiculous. like, IDK, one day deidara is like "yeah i have a g-spot in my throat. who doesn't?" and minato is like WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT

i'm kind of thinking about an ItaDei end game? like deidara is SO READY to be minakushi's live-in sex doll but they're too nice to her. itachi? itachi is an asshole. she hates him. she wants him so bad

idk if i gave minato a porn disease maybe itachi has one too. "itachi has forcefem disease but the difference between masc!itachi and fem!itachi is so negligible no one notices"

deidara, about to put itachi's entire perky little tit in her mouth: no the difference is so important

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