#there's so many fucking problems‚ I have anger issues already‚ so all of this is getting to point where nothings fucking worth it anymore

[squid--inc]

......

[netherfeildren]

Pink : Part I : Humanist Seeking Person in Love

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Humanism: an outlook or system of thought attaching prime importance to human rather than divine or supernatural matters. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings, emphasize common human needs, and seek solely rational ways of solving human problems.

The story of a son who won’t love you, and his father, who will.

-OR-

the father-in-law AU

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No outbreak AU; Fix-it-fic but the thing that needs fixing is a person; Daddy issues; Daddy kink; Divorce; Welcome to the father-in-law suck and fuck extravaganza; Possessive behavior; Jealousy; Slow burn but like not really; DD/lg dynamics; Older man/Younger woman; Self esteem issues; Discussions of emotional and mental abuse; Unhealthy coping mechanisms

A/N: Check the tags on the masterlist, as well!

Word Count: 7.4K

Read on AO3

Ko-fi

1. Humanist Seeking Person in Love

The video you’d watched had said that the differences between a jamb nut and a coupling nut should have been obvious. A jamb nut, which was what you were currently looking for, was typically half as tall as a standard nut, or a coupling nut, and would be of a small, stouter shape compared to the other options. As you stare at the wall of overwhelming stock, the incomprehensible mess of steel, PVC, aluminum and plastic hardware you feel, a little bit, like you’d like to start screaming as loud as you possibly can, for as long as you possibly can. Just a rip roaring and rageful, top of your lungs, screech. Maybe it’d scare the leering men around you. Maybe they’d desist from the ogling of your ass in the tight confines of your ratty leggings, or the mildly pitying glances as your frustration and confusion becomes more and more obvious.

You try and take a deep breath, glancing down at your phone again and the screenshots you’d taken of the parts you need to fix your leaky kitchen sink. Zooming in, you hold the picture up next to the pipeware currently gripped in your sweaty hand and wonder again if what you’ve chosen is the right piece. You don’t understand why the hardware store, a local business, isn’t as neatly and efficiently organized as the larger chains, and why they make it so damn hard for someone without experience to come in and shop. You don’t want to buy the wrong thing and waste the money you already don’t have, you don’t want to have to make the trek back to this God awful fucking place. You hate the hardware store, you hate the way it smells, dusty and wooden, the cavernous hollow echo of it, the leering gazes of the men shopping, looking at you as if you’re some helpless child, something soft and easy to snap up and eat. You hate the memory of following your father around on many a Sunday morning after he’d forced you to come with him in some false attempt at bonding, at spending time together when really all it was, was another instance of you cowering behind him, trying to make yourself as silent and small as possible so as to avoid his anger and irritation. 

You look back down at the piece of PVC in your clutch, at the picture of what you’re supposed to be buying again, back at the other option, a copper bolt you think might look right but can’t really tell the difference, and you feel the backs of your eyes pinch and go hot and achy. A sharp, throbbing pain starting up behind your left eye and spiraling out like a stain to cover your forehead. You want to go home. You want your kitchen sink to stop leaking. You want the past year to never have happened. For your marriage to not have so irrevocably unraveled that the husband you’d so desperately fought to keep had left you out in the cold, divorced, very nearly penniless in a new apartment that you couldn’t make feel like home no matter how many fall scented candles and throw pillows you stuffed into every nook and cranny. You want to not have to make decisions like these and take care of things like this. You want very, very badly for someone else to come and take care of you, help you, make the choices that seem very hard in the moment but that, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t really so difficult, but that still sometimes call for a second opinion, wiser, more experienced hands. 

And in that next blink, in a soft, deep voice that should not be as easily recognizable in your mind as it is given the handful of times you’ve actually heard it, your name, being murmured from behind you. The lilt of a question, the gruff of shock coating the syllables as it pushes against your bare nape. Soft as a sledgehammer, like ice water down your naked back, your shoulders hitch up to your ears, going tense and frightened, a hot flush of shame spilling through you, the keenest desire to run away from that soft voice as fast as your stupidly October flip flopped feet’ll take you. You hiccup the half sound of his name, not turning around, lashes fluttering quickly to prevent the dry heat of your eyes from spilling over, nerveless fingers going listless around the plastic nut. You don’t want to turn around. This is a cursed place, this hardware store, and you should never have come, and you really do hate it here. Deep breath, deep breath. Be polite, be succinct. You don’t need to talk to him. You don’t need to think about the past. Fuck the sink, fuck the pipes. You’ll just move apartments. You let a long stream of air out of your mouth, and then turn on the ball of your foot to face him. 

“Mr. Miller,” you breathe with a limp smile you know isn’t going to fool anyone. 

He frowns, the line of his mouth wavering as he tries to contain his displeasure. “We really back to that?” You shake your head, looking away from him as the last shopper in the aisle you’re inhabiting walks away, leaving the two of you alone. The store suddenly seems to exist in a vacuum echo, all other patrons seeming to disappear, all sound going out. You even feel the imitation of a hollow pop in your ear drums. When you look back at him, he’s really scowling now. His strong brow pulled down over those too pretty, thickly lashed hazel eyes that you know so well on another man, a younger version of him. 

It was the first thing you’d noticed about him, the first time Sam had introduced you to his father, they have the same eyes. The same but different. There was a coldness to Sam’s gaze that you hadn’t recognized until it was too late for you, but you recognized it now, with a painful sort of awareness, recognized the lack thereof in his father’s eyes, how different they were even in their similarity. 

He raises his brows at you, a pressing gesture, “Joel.” His name feels like salt on an open sore in your mouth. “What are you doing here?” And he looks at you, just a little bit, like you’re an idiot, or maybe that’s only you, for his voice is gentle when he says, “Pickin’ up supplies with some of the boys on my crew. What’re you doin’ here, sweetheart? Sam with you?” Your heart beats like that of a small and hunted creature, pounding painfully against the confines of your ribs while a hot, humiliated flush washes through your entire body, heat suffusing your face so intensely there’s probably steam rising off the surface of your skin. You shake your head quickly, a barely there jerk. You’re suddenly trembling so hard your throat aches as if it’s been pierced by a lancet straight through. Another sharp jerk, and he steps forward a concerned look marring his face. 

“You haven’t spoken to him.” It isn’t a question. 

“He’s been feildin’ my calls for months. Assumed I’d done something– something else, last time to piss him off again. What’s wrong? Everything okay?” He pauses, head tilting, and you can’t look him in the face as you say it, gaze falling to your fingers twisted around the nut. 

“We’re not together anymore. He– he left me. We got divorced six months ago.”

Shocked into silence he takes another step towards you, the toe of his heavy boot coming into your eye line. The ends are thick and rounded, and you wonder if there’s a casing of steel within, how much a kick in the ribs would hurt delivered by a boot like that, and the violent thought startles you, your eyes going wide, shooting up to his face as if worried he could read your thoughts. Ashamed that something like that in reference to him would even cross your mind, for looking at him, the gentleness in his gaze, the utter concern, a man like this would never hurt a creature softer than him, you know that. 

It’s funny, or strange, or a phenomena not easily understandable or explainable unless you’d had a certain type of experience with a certain type of man, but there was a sort of sixth sense instilled in a person who’d dealt with cruel men that made it easy to recognize when one had the capacity to hurt you and when he didn’t. There were, of course, those who were good at masking it, but there was always something, a way they held themselves or moved around others, the cadence of their voices, clues that spoke of the sort of man he was. And from the first moment you’d met him, you’d thought Joel had something that spoke only of gentleness. Despite his size and seemingly rough aspect, there was something about his voice, and the way he carried himself, the way he moved around those who were smaller or weaker or less, less alive, less potent than him, that was always careful and always aware. 

“What?” He moves as if he’s going to reach for you, and you flinch back, the curve of your spine bumping into the framing of the shelves behind you, face turning away quickly. He goes tense, forcing himself into stillness, the white of his teeth flashing in a grimace, but he puts his palms up in a staying gesture, it’s alright, easy, he murmurs, I won’t touch you, hands lowering to fist in the pockets of his jeans into tight balls of false restraint. As if he’s afraid of what they might do of their own volition otherwise. “What do you mean he left you? What happened? He–”

“I don’t want to discuss this with you. Call him again or– or I don’t know. It’s not my business anymore. He was never happy with me,” you stupidly add, finally braving a look back at his eyes again, a bitter laugh scratching up your throat, “You know this. Call your son, Joel.”

You move to leave, to get away from him, but he shifts, blocking your escape, sending your heart up into your throat. “Honey, wait–” but you’re spinning on your heel the other way, stumbling in your flip flops, and you think he says something about the wrong way, but you’re rushing, blindly trying to get away from him down the aisle as fast as you can. You’re going to cry, you can feel it, any second now. You weren’t expecting to see him, the reminder of everything that had happened, your marriage and its failure and the part Joel had played in it. A painful and jarring shock to your nervous system that you’d not been prepared to receive. You blindly scramble through the aisles of the hardware store, losing yourself to the gloom of the dimly lit back rows where plywood and carpeting are stocked, that detested dusty hollow smell intensifying. You take another blind turn, another, until the sounds of the store have gone faint and then a frightening pressurized silence. Bracing your palms against one of the eye level shelves you let your head fall between your shoulders, your bag sliding down your arm to hang and sway at the bend of your elbow. You watch the slow back and forth pendulous movement, eyes wide and blurred. If you don’t blink, you won’t cry, and you’re so fucking tired of crying over this. 

“If you were tryn’a get away from me, exit was in the opposite direction,” comes his voice again. Your eyes flutter shut, a single tear drips from the line of your lashes onto the dusty concrete floor. 

“Please, go away,” you croak.

“Tell me what happened.”

“What do you think happened? Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“He– he’s a fuckin’ idiot, sweetheart–”

Your stomach lurches, “Don’t call me that.”

But he doesn’t listen, continues on unheeded. “There’s gotta be something we can do. I’ll– I’ll talk to him. I’ll make him see that–” You let your head fall back the opposite way now, looking up at the high, cavernous ceiling of the store, another bitter laugh. It’s the only kind left to you now. 

“I don’t want him back, Joel. Be serious.”

“He needs you–” And oh, that makes you angry. 

“Fuck you.” You spin around to spit the words at him, rushing forward to shove at his rock solid chest. He doesn’t budge even half an inch. You shove again, again, a humiliating sob making its way up your chest. You blink then, you can’t help it, the tears fall unrestrained. It’s a specific type of humiliating, facing the estranged father of the man who you’d been married to, who’d been unable to love you, who’d abandoned you. 

Sam and Joel had been unaware of each other’s existence for almost twenty eight years, but two years ago, Sam’s mother had finally told him about his father, his name, where he lived, how they’d gotten together when they were too young, and how she’d split, scared and vulnerable, without telling him a thing. The two of you’d gone looking for the man, and you’d both been varying degrees of shocked at what you’d found. Sam, faced with a man so unlike himself he’d immediately resented him more than he already had for the fact of his absence his entire life. You, as well, faced with a man so unlike your husband that it had made you resent your marriage even more. Immediately welcoming, loving, patient, gracious and generous and forgiving of the fact that a son had been kept from him for almost three decades. Despite the severity of his character, his serious reservedness, he’d done everything in his power to open himself to this long lost son. Not once had the news been met with cruel anger or outrage. Joel had accepted his son immediately and without question, listening to his mother’s reasoning, accepting the fact that a mistake had been made, forgiving, willing to move on and embrace Sam in all the ways he’d been denied for so long. Sam hadn’t been able to fathom it. He’d been mistrustful, hostile, angry, all the things he always was but compounded and heightened to a terrible degree he eventually started taking out on you. 

And it was funny because the fraught, or lack thereof, relationships with your fathers had been the thing that had initially bonded the two of you. Too young and alone and without direction, you’d met him in your last year of college. The relationship had immediately developed without boundaries or reason, you’d been obsessed, a little desperate, unquestioning, and then married a few short months later. Two too young, too lost people, burdened with daddy issues. A terribly sad cliche. You’d never had a chance. You never should have been. And there’s a part of you now, looking up at this man, your ex-husband’s father, that wants to feel angry at him, that wants to spit in his face and say this is all your fault, everything that happened to me, everything that was done to me was in your name, and I blame you for all of it, but you know it’s without reason or countenance. And worst of all, anger, blame, resentment, it’s not anything near to the things you feel when you look at him. The memory of a small, dark restroom flashes in your mind’s eye, his eyes gleaming above your face, the thick slope of his shoulder, the patterned wallpaper behind him, sickening comfort. 

You go still and frozen, fingers twisting in the front of his shirt, jerking with a painful shiver from the top of your head, down the length of your vertebrae, to the tips of your toes that cramp and spasm. Looking up at his face, you can feel a pulse throbbing in the muscle beneath your right eye, and the way he looks down at you, as if he’s never felt as sorry for any other creature in his entire life as he does for you in this moment, so embarrassing. You let your head fall forward again, landing with a soft thump against his chest, an uncontrollable tremble moving like fire through your frame. “Fuck you,” you say again, whispered, soft and weak and without any sort of force behind it. “How dare you say that to me,” another tear. “He’s always needed you. It was never me he wanted, never me he needed. It was always you.” You watch as one hand withdraws from its pocket cage, lifting to push a soft tendril of hair back behind your ear. And there’s fire left in the wake of the brush of his skin at the hollow there. Another shiver of a worse kind, one of desire, one of lust, moves through you. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it – I’m sorry, honey.” Stupid southern charm and their stupid pet names. You clutch at his shirtfront more tightly, press your forehead harder into his sternum, and he brings his hand to your shoulder, tucking you into himself more securely. He’s huge and warm and smells faintly of salt and sweat and laundry detergent. Something clean and fresh and masculine. He smells alive. His other hand comes up to the back of your head, moving through your hair. Fucking, Sam, he murmurs above you, and you’re sure he’s shaking his head in that disappointed fatherly way. “Tell me what you were looking for. What had you lookin’ so confused and irritated in the plumbing aisle?” You’d laugh if you could, a non bitter sort, but you don’t have the ability anymore, and that makes you so angry. Angry and irrational.

“My sink’s leaking, and I can’t afford a plumber because your son divorced me and left me with no money and no house and nothing for myself, and I hate this stupid place. I hate the way it smells, and I hate that nothing’s labeled clearly, and I hate the way you men,” you shove at his chest a little bit again, “look at me like I’m some dumb little girl who doesn’t know left from right.” Even if that’s what you kind of feel like, a dumb little girl who doesn’t know left from right anymore. Slightly out of breath, you go limp and exhausted against him. His palm flattens at the center of your spine, supporting you, and it’s so fucking inappropriate. You should move away. You don’t know him well enough for this, he’s your ex-father-in-law, you shouldn't let him touch you, but should and should not and right and wrong and inappropriate or not has never really mattered to you where Joel Miller is concerned. “This is the worst place in the whole world,” you mumble, voice muffled from where your face is squished against the annoyingly hard and delicious muscles of his chest. You feel, keenly, like you’re being a little bit ridiculous, a little bit embarrassing, but his big hand is slowly moving up and down the length of your spine, soothing and comforting, and you can’t bring yourself to care. He’d been kind from the first second you’d met him, and then, at the worst moment, he’d been understanding, and you’d never really stood a chance against him either. 

You’d never had a chance with the son, you’d never stood a chance against the father, there had never really been much choice or possibility for you as a whole where either of them were concerned.

I was such a little person. Tiny in my insignificance, naivety, hope. Desperate to be as good as I could be, and pathetic in my failure to make myself into what I thought the world wanted of me. 

“You can’t afford–” He breathes out roughly through his nose, stopping himself from continuing. “Do y’know what it is you’re looking for? What part?” And you nod your head, still buried against him, unable or unwilling to pull away. “Let me help you,” and he says it so, so gently that it makes you want to stomp your foot and cry and throw a fit at the unfairness of it all. 

“Don’t want your help,” you can’t help the muffled whine it comes out as. All you want is for someone to help you. 

“Of course you don’t, sweetheart,” he soothes. “But let me anyway. S’the least I can do for talkin’ out of my ass.” You finally pull back, looking up at him, and he brings his thumb up to catch the wetness at the fine skin beneath your eye. “Please, don’t cry,” he whispers like it hurts him. 

And even though he’s currently catching the salt of your eyes with his fingers, you lie obstinately, “I’m not,” whispered back just as quiet. 

After he helps you find the correct piece for your sink, finally, which ends up being neither of the options you’d been previously weighing, a fact that almost sends you over the deep end again, and paying for it at his aggravating and overbearing insistence, he walks you to your car. 

“Is he still in Austin?” He asks as he holds your door open for you, your shopping bag still clutched in his hand. One of the guys on his crew had come to find him while you were checking out, but he’d sent him away with a shake of his head, said he had something to take care of. 

“I don’t know, but he sold our house.”

“Fuck– Where’re you living?” The sound of his spit curse has a wet flutter moving through you, shame following bitterly in its wake. 

“I got an apartment in the East Side.”

“And he just left you to fend for yourself? Took your fucking house?” He’s getting angry, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him get angry. Something foreign like excitement jumps within you. 

“Well, that’s the point of divorce, Joel. You separate and are left to your own devices.” You reach for the little plastic bag, but he jerks it out of your reach. 

“He has a responsibility to you. He–”

“Again… the point of divorce.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, that boy,” he mutters, shaking his head. And that’s the thing of it, you think, that’s always been the crux of the issue. Sam was always a boy, has always been just a boy… there had never been any chance. “Let me come help you with the sink. Let me fix it for you.” Something to take care of, that’s what he’d said, that’s what he’d called you, what he sees you as. 

You’re shaking your head before he can even finish getting the words out, full of regret, and a wish that it could have all been different from the very start. “You know that isn’t a good idea,” and he goes silent because he does, he does know, he’d known since the first time probably. It had been obvious in the way that a secret thing can only be between the two people involved in the unsaid. “I can do it myself. Don’t worry. I’ll find a way.”

“You still got the same number?” He asks.

“Please, don’t call me. Call Sam. He’s the one that needs you. He’s the one that–”

“And who’s taking care of you? Who’s gonna take care of you, sweetheart? You need someone too, we all do.”

A flash of that earlier anger again, and you reach forward to rip the bag out of his clutch now, angry because he’s right. Because he’d always seemed to have a grossly misplaced ability to read you exactly as you are. He’d read you for what you were from the first second he’d laid eyes on you, naive and hopeful and falsely in love with a son who’d never loved either of you in return. “Maybe,” you tell him, “But that can’t be you.” He looks away from you, gruff sound of irritation passing through his clenched teeth, and he drags a heavy palm down his bearded mouth. Fuck, again that provoking spit curse. The wallpaper in that dark restroom had been covered in little blue motifs, butter yellow details sparsed throughout. It had surprised you, the pretty and delicate design in the home of a, for all intents and purposes, bachelor. It spoke of intention and attention to detail, to his space, to care of his home. That dim moment was, strangely, sickly, the brightest memory of the entire two years of your marriage. 

“You still got my number?” He presses anyways. Unheeded or uncaring of you trying to push him away, and there’s something about that, that’s pleasurable, his inability to let a thing go where you’re concerned, his unwillingness to allow you to hold him at arms length. Like he doesnt care to be kept away from you, and so he won’t. You nod your head once, face burning, molars grinding to keep yourself still and in place. You’d felt, for two years, trapped, running in place, and now left limp and exhausted and colorless, and you hope that he can’t read that exhaustion in you. For some reason, that would be more embarrassing than everything else, for him to see just how defeated you’d been left. He gives you one of those looks, those direct, piercing, aggravating looks that you’ve seen from him before, aggravating in a way that is inciting, like a relentless tongue against a slick swollen cunt, God. Your hands are shaking, and he bends his head down to your level to look at your directly, “You promise me that if you need anything, anything at all, doesn’t matter what it is – that you’ll call me. No matter the hour, no matter what it is. Promise me.” Another sharp jerk of your chin, if you talk you’ll scream or make a sound not wholly belonging to the body of a girl, woman, whatever you are. Another nod, the mute shape of an okay passing through your lips. And his face is so concerned, his hand almost lifted in the imitation of what you have to tell yourself, as a form of self preservation, is an ill intentioned caress or hug, but that you know he’d mean as nothing more than genuine comfort. You deflate in relief when he doesn’t touch you, right here, out in the open for the whole world to bear witness to. Things like that, after all, are only meant for dark, wallpapered bathrooms. He’d already taught you this. 

-

The relationship had not been what either of them had expected, Sam and Joel, from the get go. There was a smallness to his son, a pettiness and a cruelty and a spoiled rotten vein through the core of him that was incongruous with who Joel was as a man, something that was glaringly obvious to all involved. And try as he might, in those early days, they could not overcome the disparity in their personalities. The attempts from Joel at closeness had been fraught with tension and unsaid resentments, and eventually Sam had given up, stopped answering his father’s calls, evading his attempts to connect. Your marriage had spiraled into dissolution shortly after that. As if the failure to find whatever it was he’d for so long hoped for in a relationship with his father had highlighted all of the things you yourself lacked, all the ways in which you were so specifically dissatisfying to him and always would be. 

The marriage had not ended up being what either of you had hoped for, the honeymoon phase quashed and dead early on, no brightly lit halcyon. Reality had set in quickly when confronted with the disjointedness of your pairing, a bone out of place, your specific inability to please him in the ways he’d thought you would when he’d first met you. There was something about you that had always been a little bit lacking, something ascetic and cold natured about your personality at times. Since you were a child, trying to appease an unappeasable father, to emulate a singular mother. Always impossible, always falling just short of utter failure. Not so terrible that you were outwardly obvious in your mediocrity, but never everything you could be. Painfully, succinctly average. Sam had come to realize this quickly. Perhaps, unaware prior to tying himself to you because the only thing you’d ever been not average at, was being a little bit of a liar, of being placatingly complacent when the moment necessitated, manipulative in a way that you found protecting. But you see, that’s what happened when you had a cruel father who always needed appeasing, something Sam, in his abject fatherlessness, couldn't understand. Funny, you’d said that to him once, near the end, called him abjectly fatherless, his weakness a consequence of his lack of a paternal role model, and oh, how he’d hated that. Endings could bring out such cruelty in people, you’d found. 

But the manipulation of a moment had become, in some ways, your only talent. The art of superficial gratification at a moment's notice as a way to keep the people around you falsely happy and calm. Like all small and frightened creatures, you’d learned your strengths well, but as all truths do, yours had eventually surfaced. The fact that you weren’t really so appeasing in the ways he desired, not so nice, not so perfect, not so subservient. That the persona was all just a way to keep him happy as a means of getting someone to love you, to stay because you didn’t know how else to be. 

Your mother always said you could’ve been nicer to him. She was a kind, soft, patient thing. Quiet and easy and always, always, above everything else, understanding. It was the worst thing about her. A detriment, a weakness, and she resented you for your resentment, for seeing her as such, but you could never help it. Always asking you why you couldn’t just be a nice girl, a good girl. 

You didn’t think you had not been nice, not been good. You had only been yourself.

Your father had always hated that about you, you being yourself. The man you’d chosen to marry didn’t seem to like it very much either. And she’d tried to instill her better qualities in you, your mother, so you weren’t all bad all the time. There could be a brightness and a lightness and a sweetness to you sometimes, it’s true. You weren’t always all bad. But there was – is still – also a bitterness and a resentment and an anger, a screaming that you could not quell no matter how hard you tried. And so you’d attepted to give him everything you could, your husband, everything you had at your disposal in all ways, to do and be all he could have ever asked of you during those two small years of marriage. Because truly, they had felt so very small, made you even smaller. 

Everything except for sex. You’d never been able to give him that the way he’d wanted. 

At first, it had been normal, sweet, soft missionary in the darkness, tepid insinuations of orgasms, always hushed, always exactly how he wanted it. But eventually, when the other parts of you began to fail, he got mean and callous and casually cruel. And as you pulled away physically, he called you frigid, a prude, boring, cold, bad in bed, didn't know how to make a man hard. And it had made you so agonizingly insecure, already a sensitive and anxious thing when it came to your physical form, he’d beaten you down, embarrassed you, belittled you.

With time, you’d realized the truth of it which had been nothing more than that you’d never really wanted him. He had never made you desperate, he had never made you wet. It was his character, his attitude, yes, but it was also him. He just wasn’t it for you, and it wasnt that you were a prude or frigid at all, only that you needed patience and understanding and care, gentleness. Things he possessed none of. 

You just needed a little time to warm up and someone who wanted to give you that time. 

The reality that your life had not been full of varied and foolish adventures, and that time had seemed to simply slip away like an echo in the brain from one moment to the next was duly painful. A handful of months of wan and false lust, two years of cold, bitter marriage, and now, six months of barren aloneness. Too many mistakes had been made, too many regrets, three big ones that could be held like stones scorched to burn by the sun in the palm of your hand so that even if you let them go eventually, their imprint would still be scarred into your flesh afterwards forever.

So, perhaps the divorce had been painful in the moment. Or not perhaps, there was nothing uncertain about it, you’d fought tooth and nail to make it work, to keep him with you. Prostrated and humiliated and debased yourself. But with time, it became obvious that it was a fantasy you decided you should finally cast aside, as all children do childish things at a certain age. And then, it had been the easiest thing in the world. After all, and let’s be honest now for a moment, the reckoning had come in the shape of his father. That is, at the end of it, the reason you’re really here. 

Sat now, before the open cabinet below your kitchen sink, leaky pipe drip, drip, dripping monotonously in front of your glazed over eyes, you think of him. He’s a large man, intimidating and dark and stoic. Taller and broader than his son. Lush, mahogany curls streaked with silver that speak of age and experience like the smile lines around his eyes. Deeply grooved when he laughs that beautiful laugh of his. He looks exactly like the opposite of whatever his son is, like he’d have the ability to make the opposite of you, to pull out of you whatever the antithesis is of what his son was able to. It had been immediate, the nature of your thoughts towards him. The desire, the desire, the desire, you had wanted like you’d never wanted before — like an illness, like dying. 

Your marriage had been circling the drain, and then you’d met him, and it should have been innocuous. He’d been kind and polite and welcoming, but also, aloof. Holding himself at a distance, something afraid that he carried within himself, like he didn't want to hope, like he was just a little bit scared of what it meant now to have a son, something to lose. You knew a little bit about that, the worst part of it all is never the cruelty, it’s the hopelessness. Everything had become so much worse after meeting him. An unbearable sort of awareness of something that your listless, frigid self recognized as man, man, man, something like hunger. Something slanted about the desire, wrong, sure, for he was your husband's father, and yet, you wanted him. You wanted to know what he smelled and tasted like, and what the weight of his cock on your tongue would feel like. If it was bigger than his sons, you were almost positive of that, if it would stretch the corners of your mouth to near splitting, the hinges of your jaw to aching. 

You’d met your husband's father, and had realized, painfully, with uncompromising clarity, all that your husband could be, all that he was not, all that he would never be. There was no comparison between the boy and the man, and it made you hurt. 

Your eyes flit back to the screen of your open laptop and the instructional video there, popping another fuzzy peach gummy onto the flat of your tongue, mouth full of sucking sugar. You’re going to fix this sink if it’s the last thing you do, and you’re not going to think about him again. But tomorrow, you’ll start not thinking about him tomorrow. The talent of a liar never really wanes.

The apartment is quiet, nothing but the cheerful crackling of your sweet pumpkin candle and the mocking splish splash of the drain pipe. You had, in recent weeks, come to think of your abandonment as something of an accomplishment. Perhaps, your loneliness is a good thing, you’ll tell yourself as a comfort, a sort of friend; you can’t be used against yourself again in this solitude, and oh, how you’d been used. That anemia in your character, the ascetic thread of your personality had been weaponized and wielded against you until you couldn’t tell up from down and left from right. You were certain there’d been cheating, even if you’d never had any proof to confirm it, merely grateful you’d never gotten sick as way of evidence. But you knew. And it could've been so much worse for you, of course, of course it could have. But he’d left your mind so off kilter, broken and confused and not yourself. Utterly damaged in a way that was humiliating and devastating when you thought of the way you’d been, such a little person. So often, not a woman, just a little girl. 

And then his father. Joel. Seeing him today – you had never felt the way you should have felt towards him. Like your eyes were open, awake for the first time in your entire life. A man like that – he was changing. And you wanted, needed very much to be changed. Seeing him today, being presented with that reminder of what he was, how he made you feel, how he’d always made you feel. There’s something ghoulish about you concerning him – about this desire. That ascetic or anemic or under-grown, illformed thing about you, exterminated in the thrum of how alive he is. How unlike his son. You’d never known what it specifically was, never been able to categorize it, and then there had been that moment, brought so low, six feet beneath the ground sort of debased, and he’d been there and you had been – unburdened from the weight of his own son, by him, and you’re not even sure he knew the extent of it. The power he’d wielded over you in that moment in the dark. And you can’t say it out loud, what it is you’d want from him, you can’t even say out loud what it is about him that changes you as it does – not a woman, just a little girl – but you think that if you could just see him, then you’d know, or maybe you could be brave. You don’t know what it is, but you’d know it then, with him in front of you, you’d have the answer to this question that’s plagued you for so long – how to be yourself in a way that is good.

You’re pushing yourself to your feet, fueled by the thought, fingers gripped over the ledge of the counter to pull yourself up, sink forgotten, stumbling to your front door, shoving your feet into your shoes and fumbling for your keys. How to be yourself in a way that is good. 

When you were seventeen, your father had been at his angriest. Angry in that way that all angry father’s are. Loud and brutish – an anger that is cowing, a sign of true weakness. Brute force in the shape of the man who gave you life. When you think of it now, even as a grown woman, you still feel that phantom limb of fear, and you know that it isn’t normal for a grown woman to be afraid of her father, and yet you are. And then to think that you’d gone from your parents home directly to the bed of the same sort of man, one even crueler, if possible. You’re forced to laugh your singular terrible, self deprecating laugh at the irony of it – even worse, if possible. For what’s worse than a person who constantly needs to be soothed into kindness and patience and calm? 

Once, in that terrible seventeenth year, funny and strange and unknowingly perfect, you’d been gifted the Farmer’s Almanac by your elderly neighbor. She’d said that she’d read it since she was a girl, liked the peace in knowing that the year had been predicted by experts and put down on paper. It made life seem more secure, more in control in a small way. You’d needed that during that turbulent time, locked in your teenage bedroom, lulled to sleep by the sound of your father’s anger and the year’s long-range weather predictions before your blurry eyes. It was so comforting to be able to read the future in text, catastrophe or sunshine, at least it was there. You still read it to this day. And there’s no congruity to the thought now, as you crawl into your car, a ghoul in the night, banging your knee on the hastily opened car door, sprouting gooseflesh in the cold; this desire, desire, desire that is the worst thing you’ve ever felt in your whole life, and yet, you can’t bring yourself to stop because there is something about control in this moment also. Control like knowing what the future will be like on paper, control like a man who is entirely grown into himself, who knows who he is and who he is not and is not uncertain, who will not yell, who will not hurt you. He has this – your husband’s father – you know he does. There is something about control, there is something about knowing how a thing will be, there is something about being yourself in a way that is good. 

-

You’d picked up the wrong wine on your way here. Rushing, trying to fix your makeup in the car, you’d gotten confused, chosen the one he didn’t want instead of the one he did. And it was nothing, or an accident, surely nothing to incite his ire, but he’s so fucking angry hovering in front of you. He looks at you, now sometimes, like he hates you, like you’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to him. He said you’d humiliated him in front of his father. That he was going to think he didn’t have good taste, couldn’t afford a decent bottle of wine. And you don’t know Joel very well, but he doesn’t seem like the type of man to care about such things. Calling you an idiot in that poisoned shrill tone he takes on when he’s delivering a set down, and you’re trying to tell him to please, please keep your voice down, Sam, your father is going to hear you. You’d heard someone say once that a truly powerful man never feels the need to raise his voice, it simply isn’t necessary for him, and you’re reminded, terribly, of your father, with the sight of your shrill and seething husband in front of you.  And then a low toned that’s enough, son from the mouth of the kitchen, and it’s so much worse, entirely catastrophic in a way, and you’re rushing away so humiliated, face on fire, tear caught over the trough of your lower lid, trying the doors in the hallway for the nearest restroom. You hear the murmur of voices, one struggling to maintain composure, the other, cool and steady, then the slam of the front door, and finally, the silent din of his house settling around the two of you as you find a restroom to hide in. Your heart beats so fast it makes you nauseous, knees strangely aching, listening to the heavy steps of Joel’s boots, as if he’s trying to warn you with those measured, weighted thuds that he’s coming, coming, coming for you. Turning to face the far corner of the restroom, you press your palm over your mouth, face slippery and burning and so stupid, the soft swoosh of the opening door, a paused breath as he takes in your form huddled into the wallpaper, and then the muted snick of the door closing behind him, shutting the two of you away together.

Part II

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog!

[pinkykats-place]

BakuDeku ft. Midoriya-Sensei

Some include the new hero suit

AO3 Fanfic Recommendations

Disclaimers!

None of the stories below are mine.

Some contain mature content.

Read tags. Check Ratings.

@kyuriart gave permission to use art.

Note: If you read any of these stories and like them please let the author know with a kudos and/or comment!

Midoriya-sensei's boyfriend by @silverynight

Summary: "Midoriya-sensei?"

"Yes?"

"Is pro hero Dynamight your boyfriend?"

Izuku wishes he didn't blush that often because it makes it look like he's lying. He gets those questions a lot, but hasn't gotten used to them.

"No."

"Are you dating a pro hero?"

"No."

"Is he your husband then?"

"No." Izuku holds himself back from covering his red face with both arms like he did in high-school when he was too flustered. "Ka–I mean, Dynamight-san and I are friends. There's nothing else to it."

{One Shot}

Rated - Teen & Up

Eight years and counting by @silverynight

Summary: "For young Midoriya?"

All Might already knows it's for Izuku, but the question is not exactly about that and Katsuki is perfectly aware of it; he can see it in the soft smile of Izuku's mentor, he can see it in the way his blue eyes shine with knowledge.

Katsuki blushes, but he doesn't look away from the former symbol of peace. He's not that middle schooler hot-heated kid anymore. He's done hiding his feelings behind anger and he's not ashamed about what he feels for Izuku. He's pretty sure All Might knows about that, he's probably waiting for a confirmation.

Katsuki nods, blush spreading down his neck.

"It'll take years to make something like that."

"I'm aware."

{One Shot}

Rated - Teen & Up

how i long for our trysts by nikkiRA

Summary: Most nights the only thing he has the energy for is crawling into bed beside Izuku and falling immediately to sleep. It’s why they’re taking such a risk and doing this here.

That and because it’s hot. Sneaking away to fuck like they were teenagers again. That and Izuku’s suit. Katsuki has a Thing for Izuku’s suit, how nicely it contours to his body, how strong he looks in it. Anytime Izuku got dressed up, all Katsuki could focus on was how much he wanted to undress him.

{One Shot}

Rated - Explicit

all my emotions feel like explosions (when you are around) by tiffaniesblews

Summary: He really could not think of a time in his life that didn’t include Midoriya Izuku.

OR: Bakugou pines for 4200 words.

{One Shot}

Rated - Teen & Up

see you at home by marsbarrss

Summary: “Deku, you dumbass, you forgot your lunch again,” he grumbles, pushing the wrapped lunch box into his hands. The floral print flashes up at him.

“Ah, Kacchan, you don’t have to make me lunch, seriously!” Izuku flounders, but he accepts the offering anyway. He sort of has to, or else Katsuki will flip his shit. “I can just eat at home…”

The class immediately erupts in chatter, jumping to question both men about their relationship.

Five times Katsuki disrupted Izuku at work, and one time Izuku disrupts Katsuki at work.

{One Shot}

Rated - Teen & Up

have you heard about the rumors? by DetectiveKirigiri

Summary: Everyone assumes pro hero Dynamight and infamous UA-teacher-slash-pro-hero Deku have been together for the longest time, but the thing is, they aren’t even dating, and Katsuki hasn’t even grown the balls to confess yet.

So what do their ever supportive and encouraging classmates do? Help Katsuki plan out the perfect confession to Izuku.

The only problem? So many rumors are starting to spread all at once. Also, they barely have any free time, and Izuku has papers to grade.

WIP | 14/? Chapters

Rated - Teen & Up

love is a gentle thing by tenthuser

Summary: Izuku takes pride in knowing Kacchan better than anyone else, but as they grow older, he realizes there are still things left to learn.

{One Shot}

Rated - Teen & Up

Happy with that? by polkahdotti

Summary: The first issue was that he and Midoriya hadn’t spoken in seven years, and likely the stupid brat didn’t even want to be a hero anymore, and had completely moved on from Bakugou for good.

The second issue was that the suit was nearly finished.

And Midoriya didn’t know a damn thing about it.

— — —

Or: Bakugou manages to be a pining loser and oblivious about his own feelings and Midoriya isn't much help. They'll figure it out.

Complete | 2 Chapters

Rated - General Audiences

wreck my plans (that's my man) by Icantthinkofagoodusername7

Summary: One of the students raises her hand and upon being called on asks, “Dynamight, sir? Is Mr. Midoriya your husband? Your rings match,” She points toward the chain around his neck.

With that assumption, the other students also start to whisper about how right this student likely is.

”Wait, that’s so right. Plus they seem so close, Dynamight’s always hanging around here.”

”Oh also a couple weeks ago when Yui, Haruko, Mizuko, and I came here for lunch, Mr. Midoriya was on the phone with his husband and called him Kacchan, which could be a play off of Dynamight’s given name.”

“Oh my gosh that’s so cute, y’know if they aren’t married I wanna figure out who goes by Kacchan, that’s so cute.”

”Also, remember when Dynamight showed up like a month ago or something and then after he left, Mr. Midoriya was wearing his wedding rings?”

”I’m just seeing evidence after evidence.”

*

OR 5 times Midoriya and Bakugou nearly reveal their relationship to Midoriya’s students + the 1 time they actually do

{One Shot}

Rated - Teen & Up

Recharge by @silverynight

Summary: "Your childhood friend is taking too many extra shifts; he'll pass out soon at this rate."

Aizawa does that a lot lately; he casually walks into Izuku's classroom or his office, only to drop random information about Katsuki. It's usually something Aizawa disapproves of.

Izuku sighs, looking up at the window from all the essays he has to grade. Lately, Katsuki is making him worry too much.

The funny thing is that Aizawa believes he has some secret power to make pro hero Katsuki stop or change his mind; sure, they're friends, and he often listens to Izuku (yes, he also pays him a lot of visits) but it's not like the young teacher can work miracles.

***

A glimpse into their lives during those eight years.

{One Shot}

Rated - Teen & Up

"Midoriya Izuku to the help center (your students are looking for you)" by Gyrotoes

Summary: Izuku Midoriya and Bakugo Katsuki and their cycle of behavior on field trips.

— — —

or Deku and Bakugo goofing off on a field trip when they're supposed to be in charge of 20 teenagers

Complete | 2 Chapters

Rated - General Audiences

You Gave Me Purpose, Kacchan by wowschreave

Summary: UA Teacher Izuku x Pro Hero Katsuki; basically a fic about the eight-year gap!

This is a journey about two heroes as they navigate their paths post-war and fall in love.

Complete | 22 Chapters

Rated - Teen & Up

Oblivious heart by @silverynight

Summary: "You're amazing!" The young man says after a while; listing all the things he likes about Izuku the most, his courage, his determination and his selflessness until he makes the teacher blush to the tip of his ears. "Can I get you something? A coffee? Something to eat? Maybe we can go somewhere else–"

Katsuki, who just got back with their food, places Izuku's latte and the croissant in front of him, as well as his own breakfast on the table. He sits quite aggressively next to the teacher and puts an arm around his shoulders.

"Who the fuck are you?" He hisses, clearly irritated at the fan still standing next to their table.

{One Shot}

Rated - Teen & Up

Busy by annasmith80

Summary: Izuku can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. His best friend has been distant lately, and no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t figure out why. Did he do something wrong? Is Bakugo mad at him? Did Bakugo get bored of him? All he knows is that Bakugo was suddenly busy and he won't tell him why.

Meanwhile, Bakugo is determined to do anything it takes to make Izuku happy. And what he thinks will make Izuku the happiest is the chance to be a hero again. So, he sets out to make that happen—no matter the cost.

Bakugo decides to fund a project to create a custom power suit for Izuku, but the expenses quickly spiral out of control. To make ends meet, Bakugo takes on a series of odd jobs on top of his pro-hero work: spinning signs on street corners, valet driving, appearing on a bizarre game show, and even modeling. It’s humiliating, exhausting, and leaves him busier than ever, but he’ll do whatever it takes to make Izuku happy.

Complete | 22 Chapters

[lovingdynamight]

✦ He can be nice ✦

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦

Background: Bakugo x f!reader, established relationship, period comfort, fluff, Bakugo being nice

Summary: you had never had to many issues with your period you know, always had mild cramps and usually were able to function pretty normally; but this time it was different cramps were horrible plus you had somehow contracted a head ache.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦

The common room was peaceful, the steady hum of a movie playing in the background as you dozed on the couch. You had just got your period and Mina thought that it would be a good tides to watch your guy’s favorite movie. The cramps were relentless, and your headache made it impossible to focus on anything, but at least the warmth of the blanket and Mina’s quiet presence beside you helped.

That peace, however, didn’t last.

The door burst open with a loud bang, followed by the unmistakable voices of Kirishima, Denki, and, of course, Bakugo.

“Man, I’m telling you, I almost had it!” Denki groaned dramatically.

Kirishima laughed. “Bro, you were so far off, you nearly face-planted into the ground.”

“Tch, because he’s a damn idiot,” Bakugo scoffed, voice sharp and far too loud.

Mina shot them all a glare. “Guys, shh! Y/N’s sleeping.”

“Ok cool, but like if Kirishima hadn’t pulled me off I would’ve nailed it,” Denki mumbled, but none of them actually quieted down.

“If I wouldn’t have pulled you off you would’ve died,” Kirishima replied a little loudly.

“Either way he’s a damn idiot you should’ve let him fall,” Bakugo says with his usual gruff, loud voice.

Their voices kept rising, their laughter echoing off the walls, and despite Mina’s best efforts to shush them, they just wouldn’t listen.

The noise pulled you from your restless sleep, and before you were even fully awake, a fresh wave of pain surged through your body. Your head throbbed, your stomach twisted, and as you forced your eyes open, Bakugo’s voice cut through everything.

“The hell are you sleeping for in the middle of the day?”

That was it.

“Shut up, Bakugo!” you snapped, sitting up so fast your head spun.

The room went silent.

Bakugo blinked at you, clearly not expecting you to bite back like that. His brows furrowed. “Oi, what’s your problem?”

“My problem is you barging in here, yelling for absolutely no reason, so for once shut up,” you snapped, your voice sharp with irritation.

The anger in your voice caught him off guard, but you didn’t stick around to see his reaction. With a frustrated huff, you threw off the blanket and pushed yourself off the couch, ignoring the way your legs felt unsteady beneath you.

“Y/N, wait—” Mina reached for you, but you were already walking away.

“Whatever,” you muttered, storming off toward your dorm room without looking back.

The second your door shut behind you, you exhaled sharply, pressing a hand against your aching forehead. All you wanted was some peace. Was that too much to ask?

“Trouble in paradise,” Denki said raising an eyebrow.

“Shit the fuck up!” Bakugo yelled “Pinky what’s wrong with her?”

Mina sighed shaking her head “you know what figure it out Bakugo because I told you to keep it down but you didn’t want to listen,” she walked over pulling Kirishima out the room with her to hang out and get at him for being loud when she said not to.

The moment you shut your door, you let out a long sigh, curling up beneath your blankets. Your body ached, your head pounded, and the lingering frustration from earlier made it impossible to relax.

You knew Bakugo hadn’t meant to piss you off. But between the cramps, the exhaustion, and the loud voices that had jolted you awake, it had been too much.

A little while later there was a knock at your door.

You sighed. “Go away.”

The door creaked open anyway.

You didn’t have to look to know who it was. Heavy footsteps, the rustle of his hoodie, the scent of caramel and smoke—Bakugo.

The bed dipped as he sat down beside you, but he didn’t say anything at first. He just sat there, arms crossed, knee bouncing slightly.

“…Still mad?” he muttered.

You sighed again, rolling onto your back to look at him. He wasn’t meeting your eyes, staring at a spot on the floor instead. His shoulders were tense, his jaw tight.

“No,” you admitted. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, well… I was bein’ an ass.”

You let out a small, tired laugh. “Yeah, you were.”

Bakugo exhaled sharply, finally glancing at you. His gaze flickered over your face, lingering on the crease in your brow, the exhaustion in your eyes.

“…You still feel like shit?” He said cautiously moving a little bit of hair out your face resting the waters.

You huffed. “Like I got hit by a bus.”

For a second, he didn’t say anything. Then, wordlessly, he shifted—kicking off his shoes before climbing into bed beside you. He tugged you against his chest, one strong arm wrapping around your waist. His other hand slipped beneath your hoodie, resting warm and firm against your lower stomach.

You inhaled sharply, but not from pain this time. His warmth seeped into your skin, soothing the worst of your cramps almost instantly.

“…Bakugo?”

“Shut up,” he muttered, his lips brushing the top of your head. “Go to sleep.”

You rested your head against his chest, your fingers brushing over the fabric of his shirt. You could feel the steady beat of his heart beneath it, and the sensation was calming. The anger and frustration from earlier seemed so distant now, replaced by the quiet comfort of his embrace.

You tilted your head up, catching his gaze, and despite how much you wanted to thank him, the words escaped you. Instead, you pressed a soft kiss to his jaw.

He froze for a moment, surprised, but when his gaze softened, he leaned in, capturing your lips in a kiss. It wasn’t rushed or frantic—just slow, tender, like he was giving you the space to feel safe. His hand moved gently to the back of your neck, keeping you close.

When the kiss broke, he muttered, “Better now?”

You nodded, your lips curling into a small smile. “Yeah.”

He kissed the top of your head again, his fingers tracing soft circles against your skin. “Good.”

The pain didn’t vanish completely, but between his warmth, his steady breathing, and the comfort of his arms, it was a hell of a lot easier to ignore.

You closed your eyes, feeling your body relax into him. This time, when sleep came, it was peaceful.

“Love you y/n” he grumbled like he was being forced to say it.

“Love you too kats”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ ✦

Thanks for reading. All works done by me. Reblogs comments and likes are encouraged and appreciated

[levi-ackerman-ds]

Valentine’s Day Disaster

Levi X Reader

Approx: 1.8k words. TW: Road Rage. Not proof read.

You knew you had plans tonight. Well, Levi did all the planning. That morning, you went to work with a smile on your face and on cloud nine, knowing that Levi would sweep you off your feet in his own way after work. Nothing could ruin your mood.

Everything ruined your mood.

The moment you sit at your desk, your co-worker just had to start with the problems they have in their life. In the beginning, you were patient and nice. You tried to listen to them, give them advice, and provide support. It didn’t take long for you to realize it was one-sided. The one time you shared something personal, somehow everyone knew about it the next day.

But for right now, in your small office, you are trapped listening to whatever relatively minor issue is absolutely world-ending. You hide your irritation with “Mmhmms” and “Oh, I’m sorry’s,” wishing they would just return to work and leave you alone. Great. Now you’re annoyed.

After lunch, you let out an audible groan as the number of one of your most demanding clients flashes across your office phone. You wanted to fire this customer so much, but money talks and your boss wants you to handle her. The phone wasn’t even to your ear yet but you could hear the speaker crackle and strain, trying to give clear audio through the screaming on the other end. Of course, her order being held up by customs is your fault. Of course, you are an idiot who doesn’t know how to do your job. You keep that fake fucking smile as you speak to her, trying to calmly explain that you have already told her the issue with customs many times.

No, you didn’t. You never told her anything!

Feeling the anger bubble up, you never wanted to “as per my last e-mail” someone so badly. But you can’t. You can’t insult this client, so you sit there and take whatever personal attack she decides to degrade you with. Great. Now you are annoyed and angry.

You try to keep your mind on the plans Levi has for you tonight. Grand gestures weren’t his forte, but for you, he would do it even if he’d grumble about it. The night will start with limousine services.

“You must get the best one! Reeeally make her feel important!” It was Hange’s idea. They seem to have an affinity for anything oversized.

Cliche, maybe, but neither of you had ever ridden in one, so why not? You had thought about that little divider that would close off the driver from whatever you were doing back there. Extremely tinted windows that no one could see into...

Levi had managed to put a deposit on a Rolls Royce Phantom 300 stretch. It was stupidly expensive. You remember his under-his-breath curses and grimaces on his face as he filled out the online form, securing it for your night. But you are his world; tonight, he wants you to feel special.

Booking the restaurant took six months in advance. It is already the hottest spot in town, but they are doing a once-in-a-lifetime Valentine’s Day event for the lucky couples who reserve a spot. Even this required a deposit to reserve seating. Dinner and a Show. You will eat the finest cuisine while enjoying an adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet.” It’s not exactly Shakespeare’s version and it should be a little spicy. Okay, very spicy.

Critics at the pre-screening left surprisingly positive reviews. “One would expect an erotic rendition of such an iconic classic that “Romeo and Juliet” is would be disastrous. I fully expected a banal show with overused tropes, actors that lack chemistry, and over-the-top “performances” that would make the most open-minded squirm in embarrassment. I can say with perfect alacrity that this show delivers in all categories. The allure and attraction between characters can best be described as a steamy passion with a deep connection. It definitely gives couples something to think about on the way home.”

Why do critics always sound that way?

“I was pleasantly surprised.” Wrote another. “It gave me tingles.” Short and to the point, at least. The ride in the limo back home might be a new stage for reenactment.

Still, you couldn’t get your client out of your head. No matter how much you tried to focus on the night’s events, that shrilling voice rang in your head. You don’t know how many times she called you an idiot while berating you for ten minutes. She got personal, insulting your intelligence, your appearance, any nit-picky thing to get a reaction out of you. You held your pleasant, apologetic tone the whole time, but as soon as you set the receiver down, you wanted nothing more than to scream your indignation to the world. You are good at your job. You know that. Right?

…Right? Are you?…

Could this day get any worse? Well, you know what happens when you ask that.

You thought you were in the clear when you finally clocked out for the day. Still angry and upset but holding on. Getting into your car, you set the stereo to play your favorite playlist. Maybe this will help your mood. Not even on the road for five minutes, and there is some asshole flying down the street behind you. He thinks you’re going too slow, but you are speeding slightly already. The entire hood of his car disappears in your rearview mirror as he rides the ass of yours. The blaring horn of his car startles you while he speeds up and slams on his brakes, suggesting he’s going to hit you if you don’t get out of his way. But there is nowhere to go. It’s a one-lane street.

When it opens to two lanes, you would think this jackass would just pass you and move on. But no. You really drew his ire. Passing you on the wrong side, he gets in front of you only to slam on his breaks. You slam yours in time, but you almost hit him. The deranged behavior coming from the other driver is nonstop. You can see him shouting in the cabin of his car even though you can’t hear it. Anger turns to terror as you realize this guy is actually trying to hurt you. He wants you to crash for having the audacity of making him arrive at his destination a couple of minutes later.

Moving lanes and pulling alongside you, he swerves his car into your lane, causing you to move into the oncoming road. Your heart races like a wild bird trapped in a small cage, desperately trying to escape. As you glance over, you can see him. Everyone thinks road rage is caused by some bug-eyed, wild-haired lunatic, but he was a perfectly normal-looking guy. Furious, yes, but completely ordinary. What could drive someone to do something like this?

Finally, he lets you back on the right side of the road, giving you the obligatory finger before speeding off. It took a few minutes for you to realize you were sucking in air like someone just rescued you from the bottom of a pool. The world was in sharp focus but felt so far away. You pushed yourself to drive home with your shaking hands and trembling muscles. You never want to be on the road again after this.

God, what are you going to do with your hair? Usually, this wouldn’t even be a problem, but you can’t focus. How dare that client suggest you were terrible at your job. You know how to do it, damn it. Should you paint your nails? One already has a chip in it. What the hell was that guy's problem anyway? You were already speeding. Why won’t that two-faced co-worker leave you alone? You know they talk about everyone behind their backs. You could have died today.

Now you are annoyed, angry, and very scared.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” Levi’s dulcet tone greets you as you walk through the door.

“What’s so fucking happy about it, Levi?” You snap sharply.

You’ll regret speaking to him like that later, but for right now, you're hanging by a thread. Like a cartoon, the last strands of the last thread are snapping one by one. Thread of a thread. After everything that’s happened today, from annoyance to anger to terror. Your mind is just a flurried mess of thoughts. The co-worker, the client, the road rage mixed with the forced thoughts of your hair, your nails… Fuck, how can you even think about going out like this? And who can blame you?

Levi didn’t. Even when you snapped at him, he didn’t say a word. He could see the look in your eyes, how tense you were like a set mousetrap creaking under stress, the flush on your face, and the fact that you still hadn’t caught your breath.

You think of all the money he spent on deposits and reservations, all the time filling out forms and making sure the night would be perfect, all the effort to pull off something Levi doesn’t normally do. But you couldn’t. You just couldn’t do it. Just the thought of being on the road again made your heart twist.

Instead, he held you in his arms on the couch while some cheesy rom-com was playing on the television. Neither of you paid attention to it. You were too upset, and he was too focused on you. Levi did precisely what you needed him to. He spoke gently when you needed to and stayed silent when you didn’t. He never once mentioned the plans he made.

You run through every emotion we have names for. And probably some we don’t. Your hair was so soft between his fingers, and your cheeks were wet under the pads of his thumbs. The rapid beat of your heart was so hard even he could feel it on his chest. The wracking sobs made the top of your head bump under his chin.

You eventually relaxed, the tenseness in your muscles and the tone of your voice melting into the warmth of his arms. A little chuckle as you caught a bad line from the movie you weren’t watching.

He even saw you smile.

The next day, you felt horrible. You treated Levi terribly from the moment you walked in the door. How could you? Levi did so much so that you would feel special and you ruined it. All that money is wasted. He can’t get it back. The once-in-a-lifetime performance you made him skip out on. All because you had a bad day?

“I’m sorry, Levi. I ruined your Valentine’s.”

There was so much more you wanted to apologize for. You didn’t even know where to start. Even the apology sounded arrogant. How can you sit here and apologize after what you did?

He didn't even have to think about his answer. “What the hell are you talking about? I did exactly what I wanted to do for Valentine’s Day.”

[until-the-house-shakes]

Adoption Fight

Wolfstar raising Regulus / Werewolf! Regulus

-

Remus should have known this was going to happen. It’s only been a few months of him and Sirius taking care of Regulus, and each day ended in some terrible blow out- the brothers screaming at each other, doors slamming, and hatred easily being thrown about.

Why did he think this topic would be easy sailing?

For some brilliant reason, Sirius decided to legally get Regulus’ last name changed to mirror their own and get the adoption process started as well. The name changing process was easy enough seeing as Regulus’ parents legally gave up all parental rights of the werewolf, but they still needed a few signatures from the kid himself.

Getting his signature and trying to even discuss adoption was not going as easy as they hoped.

It started off as an easy conversation, asking if Regulus enjoyed living with them, and if he wanted to make his stay more permanent.

“Won’t maman have an issue with me staying here permanently? I thought this was just for the summer?” Regulus asked, looking through the papers his brother handed him. It looked innocent enough, but he wasn’t stupid. He read the words ‘adoption’ and ‘legal guardianship’. He knew what these two men are planning.

“We already talked to her. She thinks this is a better place for you to live.” Sirius lied. Regulus knew he was lying. He was awful at it.

“You’re lying. This isn’t what she wants. She’ll get mad and punish me! You know that.” The young werewolf was now on his feet, getting louder with each passing second.

One issue the married couple have yet to get a grasp on was the younger’s temper. He easily went from the sweetest kid anyone has met to meaner than both his parents combined. Remus should have known this would happen, as it was a very common symptom many werewolves dealt with, but adding in the ‘Black Madness’? He felt woefully unprepared.

“She won’t punish you, Regulus.” Sirius started, getting closer to his brother.

“How do you know? You know nothing! You haven’t been home in ye-“

“Because she fucking abandoned you! You left you! She made me and Remus take care of you because she couldn’t be bothered. She fucking hates you, told me herself.”

The world seemed to freeze once that comment left Sirius’ mouth. It was obvious to even an outside eye that the youngest Black was no longer ‘mama’s precious boy’ but to say she hated him? That she abandoned him and gave parental rights to his brother of all people?

And for what reason?

Because he was turned? Because one of their shitty friends made him a monster? That wasn’t even his fault, so why is he getting abandoned for it!

He could do better. He could be better. He could be the perfect son his maman was raising him to be, even with his stupid furry little problem.

“She doesn’t hate me.” Regulus mumbled, running straight to the kitchen. Looking for something to destroy. Something to get his anger out.

Glass plates.

Perfect.

“Hey, Reg. Let’s not do anything cr-“ Remus tried to calm the boy down, but to no avail. Before he could finish his statement, one of their wedding plates was thrown at the wall- effectively shattering it.

“I’m not fucking crazy!” Regulus screamed, throwing yet another plate. This time aiming for his lying brother.

“Regulus please stop! Being a Lupin isn’t a bad thing! I think it’s much better than being a Black.” Sirius flinched from his spot, much too scared to get closer to his brother- not wanting to make the situation any worse.

“I’m a Black. Not a fucking Lupin.” Regulus growled, throwing yet another plate at his brother, watching as it shattered.

Hearing and seeing all the tiny pieces of glass hit the floor, was the only comfort Regulus got during this conversation.

The only peace.

His mother hated him. His dad saw him as a monster. He was stuck with his brother who left when he was four, and another monster.

Regulus didn’t know what peace was. Until he saw the plate shatter against the wall.

-

The tantrum only lasted another two minutes until Remus was able to get his wand and move the plates far away from the angry ten year old.

“Alright, I think that’s enough. Go to your room, and calm down. Once you’re willing to talk calmly to us, we can resume this conversation.” Remus pointed at Regulus’ room, up the stairs. This was not the first time he had to intervene in an argument between the two brothers, and he was starting to get very sick of it.

He loved having Regulus live with them, but after watching this shit show and having his wedding plates- which were a family heirloom from his late ma- shattered all over his living room floor, Remus wasn’t too sure where he stood on the ‘adopting regulus’ matter.

“I fucking hate it here.” Regulus grumbled, stomping his way up the stairs and slamming his door shut.

The two men spared each other a fleeting look before starting to pick up the mess left by the youngest member of the house.

Sirius opened his mouth to say something, likely a pitiful excuse on why he lost his temper, but Remus was quick to raise his hand and shake his head, “not right now. I want to hear nothing from you.” It was clear the brunette was close to tears, and it broke Sirius’ heart.

Remus always had to deal with the brother’s bullshit, and now he was the only one negatively affected by one of their regular blowouts. Sirius looked at the pile of glass that surrounded their feet, and felt even worse once he realized that no amount of magic could fix the million pieces of glass. Nothing he did could bring the plates back to how they used to be.

Nothing could make Remus not mad at him.

-

Two hours later, Sirius was hunched over a pile of glass in his office. He tried every single spell he knew and nothing brought the plates back to their former glory. In a moment of weakness, Sirius thought about apperating to Wales to buy a set identical to the broken plates, but then remembered that it was a ‘one-of-a-kind’ set that Hope had received from her mother, who received it from her mother, who received it from her mother.. and that pattern seemed to never stop. Needless to say, the plates were irreplaceable and the last thing Remus received from his mother before she passed.

And now a majority of them were broken in a pile in front of Sirius.

What was he going to do?

Sirius’ self wallowing was cut short by a soft knock at the door.

“Come in.” He answered, hoping to see Remus walk in, but was instead greeted by a much smaller werewolf.

“Hey Reg, feeling any better?” Sirius asked, opening his arms for his little brother to take comfort. Yes, he was still very upset with the younger boy for reacting how he did, but he would never take away any comfort Regulus might seek out. He was not his parents, and would never act like them. No matter how mad he was. He was going to drill it in Regulus’ mind, that he was always safe and welcome in his arms.

“I’m sorry.” Regulus whispered, shoving his face in his older brother’s chest. Trying to hide from his mistakes.

“Do you really hate it here?” Sirius asked, petting the short black curls.

“I don’t. I promise. I… I was so upset. I was hurt that mom didn’t want me anymore and… it stung when you said she hated me. So I freaked out. I wanted to hurt you too. I’m sorry.”

Sirius sighed. Of course this traumatized kid was hurt and wanted to even the playing field out. It made sense. That’s exactly what Sirius used to do until he spent a few years with a mind healer and in a healthy relationship. When he was hurt he wanted others to hurt just like him or worse. Being hurt meant he was vulnerable, so if he made others vulnerable, he had nothing to worry about. It sucked that his poor baby brother had the same idea.

“I’m sorry too. I lost my temper and said things I should not have said. If it makes you feel any better, mother hates me too and disowned me long before she did you.” Sirius laughed, hoping it would make Regulus laugh as well.

It did not.

“I don’t hate you though. Neither does Remus. We love having you here, which is why we want to adopt you. We want you to legally be our kid, our family. That’s why we want you to share our last name. To really seal the deal.”

Regulus looked at his older brother with wide eyes. Was he being honest? Did he really want Regulus to be a part of his family? For the last two months, all Regulus did was cause fights, scream at Sirius, insult Remus, and make everyone’s life difficult. His own birth parents didn’t want him. So why did his brother want him?

What was so special about him?

“You promise you actually want me?” Regulus whispered. Too scared to speak any louder. Too scared to burst this bubble of safety his brother carefully created.

“I pinky promise Mon Ètoile. I want you here more than anything.”

The small promise filled Regulus with such a warm feeling. Much warmer than any feelings his maman could make him feel. It was almost too much.

Actually. It was too much.

Far too much emotion.

Like he couldn’t control it at all. He couldn’t hold it in. All his emotions had to escape. It had to leave his heart and mind and become physical.

It was terrifying, and hurt just a little bit.

But then in a flash. It was over. His emotions felt normal yet again.

Odd.

“What just happened?” Regulus asked, looking around the room as if one of the inanimate objects would answer him.

“I think you had some accidental magic happen, Reg. Nothing to worry about! You were feeling some big emotions and they had to come out. No big… no fucking way.” Sirius cut himself off, looking at some plates on the desk next to him.

Wait. Those were the plates Regulus broke. Or at least, he thought he broke them.

“Did I just fix the plates?” Regulus asked, awestruck at what he just did.

“I think you did mon ètoile. Why don’t you go grab Remus and bring him here so he can see? I’m sure he’ll be very happy.” Sirius smiled, ushering his brother out of the room to grab his other guardian.

In the few minutes he had by himself, Sirius tried to wrap his head around what just happened. He spent two hours trying to fix these plates and had no luck, but his brother managed to fix them with a rush of accidental magic?

It made no sense.

Oh well. It didn’t really matter as long as they stayed fixed.

-

Later that night, the three boys were all cuddled together on the couch, watching a muggle movie on a ‘telly’ as Remus called it. Regulus really liked all the muggle inventions Remus showed him. They were always so interesting!

“… Can I still change my name?” Regulus asked once there was a pause in the movie. The two adults haven’t said anything else about the adoption or his last name changing since he apologized for his outburst, and he was worried that they were going to take back their offer.

He didn’t want them to take away their offer. He wanted to be a Lupin. He wanted to be wanted by someone.

“Of course you can, cub. We can continue the process tomorrow, but I can’t promise it will happen anytime soon. Stuff like this tends to take a while.” Remus answered, bringing Regulus closer to his side. It warmed the older werewolf’s heart to know the kid genuinely wanted to be a part of their family, even if they fought.

“I would love nothing more than to share my last name with you again, mon ètoile.” Sirius ruffled his brother's hair, laughing as the younger complained about it.

Sirius looked over at his husband cuddling with his brother, and felt his heart swell. Sure, these past two months haven’t been an easy adjustment with Regulus living with them, but they’re making it work, and soon they’ll legally be a family of their own.

A happy little family

Hopefully.

[ratofthenest]

i despise the idea that Tim Drake's character has some sort of huge "problem" arrrgehebeh

for starts, when it comes to Tim the title "Robin" was never a regression or a starting point. unlike Dick and Jason, Tim's character wasn't written to just be "Batman's sidekick" like they were. the whole point is Tim was... perfect. everything Batman could ever need and more on the field.

Dick quit being Robin once he start university, picking up the mantle of Nightwing. Dick started out as Robin REALLY young, and the whole thing was a nickname from his parents. he became Robin to avenge them, and then stayed afterwards to continue to help people. he was a really good Robin, too! there's a reason so many people like him. he's like, what every sidekick dreams of becoming, yk?

similar situation with Jason (but not really?). he starts off a completely different person from how he is portrayed today, and especially after his death? there was no way he could go back to being Robin after all that. Either way, Jason started out with that same REALLY strong sense of justice Dick had (although, let's be honest, Jason has always been a little violent with his delivery of it)

[Side note: these are brief, 2 paragraph overviews and obviously their characters are so much more convoluted than this, but this post aint about them!!]

Tim? Tim doesn't come from a broken background, which sets him apart from the first two Robin's immediately. he starts off with both his parents alive and well, and he's a white rich kid. He didn't have an incentive to become Robin, yet he did it anyway, completely for the sake of "saving" Batman. after Jason flopped with the readers, the writers went ahead and did a 180° with Tim. he was created with the idea of someone who was nearly perfect for the position. someone smart, adaptable, charismatic, and likeable. and hey, it worked really well when he came out, too!

this really makes Tim standout from the other Robins, though. sure, being Robin was definitely a learning process, and it's not like he immediately knew how to do everything right off the bat, but he learned quick! like, really quick! there wasn't necessarily an urgent need for him to take up a new title as a way to show he's "grown up" because he's already mature as hell as is. what's there to progress to when he was literally molded for this?

now, the issue of Red Robin. Tim took up that title in a time of pure crisis. the mantle was born out of grief, anger, and the desperation to bring Bruce back home, no matter what. Anyone who's read the Red Robin comics can tell you how he was crashing out throughout it. through my eyes, if he's ever to drop the Robin mantle, it certainly shouldn't be to go back to Red Robin. Does that mean I think he should stay Robin forever? No! Course not!! but I also think the writers need to pause and actually think about the kind of character his is before deciding to make a mantle that's purely Tim, if that makes any sense.

all that aside, it's important to acknowledge that Tim started off as a narrative tool. a support character ready to go at any given moment through other people's stories, not just Batman. countless times we see DC utilizing Tim just to progress the plot, which isnt inherently a bad thing, but it does explain why he's such a wild card in the comics lol

his character changed a LOT from the 90s to the 00s, and he's gone from a character at Batman's side 24/7 to a character who gets sidelined more often than not. and with everything else going on in DC rn, im not surprised he hasn't been in the spotlight for a hot second. but hey, i heard there's some possible content coming out for him this and the upcoming years so yay?

final thoughts: it'd be pretty fucking hard for a writer to properly write a good transition for Tim from Robin to something new. he can't be Robin forever, obviously, but there's no reason to put such a rush on it, especially when DC seems to forget his portrayal 90% of the time lmao. anyway i love tim sm

I hope this ramble made the slightest sense it's the middle of the goddamn night and the words are starting to blur together

[fan-goddess]

I need for kinktober aemond with daddy kink x innocent!reader so badddddd :((

my birthday’s on the 10th and I would love to see it there :))

Authors Note: Happy Birthday! Please do take this as my present to you I hope you have a nice day! Also, I changed daddy to kepa, just as I thought the Valyrian word would suit him better.

Warnings: P in v smut, corruption, daddy kink, innocent reader, power imbalance, (if I miss any let me know)

Taglist: @mochi-rose, @valeskafics, @humanpurposes, @watercolorskyy, @sofiyathecunt, @marvelgirl123, @sylasthegrim, @blue-serendipity, @omgbrcat

The newest maid was nice to look at, Aemond thought. You were nice in general too. You’d always make eye contact with him and never stare at his eye with disgust. Whenever you knew he was sad, you would always sneak an extra lemon tart to him at dinner. He could never dare tell you how he found the dessert a little too sweet on his tongue.

Yet there’s other things he could never dare tell you. He couldn’t tell you how he dreams of taking you in the middle of the night, when he could not sleep and only had his hand for company. He could not dare to venture to the silk street. Not after what happened those many years ago…

“My prince? I’ve brought you those books that you requested.” You say, bringing him from his inner turmoil.

“Ah yes thank you dōna ri��a. I appreciate the effort.” He says, turning his head to look at you as you place the heavy looking books on his desk.

“It is no problem my prince! Besides, I will soon not be doing these tasks so I’ve decided to take as much joy as I can in doing them as of late.”

“What do you mean you won’t be doing these tasks soon?” The statement makes his head jerk to stare intently. The grip of his chair has tighten and Aemond already knows his face has turned stern to hide his shock.

“Well, my parents back home have decreed that it is time I marry. So they have found a nice man for me and have decided in a months notice I’ll return to them and he’ll take me as his bride.”

The anger Aemond feels at that moment is greater than anything he’s felt in his life. Even more than when he lost his eye. His fists force themselves clench at his side to stop himself from taking ahold of you and keeping you here by his side.

As there’s another, more satisfactory way of doing that, which’ll no doubt be better for the both of you.

“Do you like this man byka mēre?”

“I cannot say my prince. For I have never met him. All I have been told is his name, and what it is I should do for him as his wife. Although, I must say I was confused as I read them.”

“Oh? Why were the words so confusing?”

“Because they told me of giving him pleasure, and about how I should lie on my wedding bed and allow him to ‘take me’. But the thing is my prince, I have no idea what it is my family is saying to me…”

Any words Aemond had thought of using to reply to your confession does the minute he attempts to speak them. His fists, which once clenched as his side with anger, now clench with self restraint. How could this, creature made by the mother herself, be married to some old fuck of a lord who will show you an unfulfilled life?

Maybe that will be his reason when he claims you tonight for himself…

For whilst he has always fulfilled his duty as a second son, he has been making his worth known his whole life, and it is time he indulges on it with someone of his choosing.

Aemond rises from his chair for a moment before leaning to you and carefully brushes a strand of hair from your face. He feels the urge to grin when he sees the way your face has changed to a light pink.

“What if I was to show you these acts? Then you can be sure to know what to do on your wedding night?”

“A-are you sure? I’m not sure-“

“Do you not trust your prince byka mēre? Is that it?”

“No no no my prince it is not-“

“Then I do not see the issue. So be a good girl byka mēre and get on that bed, and lay on your back for me.”

“Yes my prince…”

“No. Do not call me that. I have heard your lips say that title long enough to commit it to memory. I think I’d like to hear something new spring from your lips byka mēre. Call me kepa.”

“O-okay kepa…” The words make all the blood rush to his cock, and it only worsens when he sees you laid out for him, looking at him with hooded eyes.

“Good girl…” He mutters, as he stalks towards you.

When he gets close enough, his hands travel up the length of your naked legs, and stops at the skin of your upper thigh.

“I’m going to pull up the length of your dress now byka mēre. I need to reveal your cunt to me for me to help you.” Maybe he should feel bad about how he’s effectively taking advantage of you. But it being bad felt this good, how could he ever resist?

His mouth kisses slightly the soft skin of your upper thigh, just a little below where your smallclothes are, sucking small bruises to hear the whimpers you seem to be unable to contain.

Aemond has to try to contain his satisfied grin when he swiftly tears your smallcothes clean off. Yet even he cannot contain his groan of arousal when he feels the slight wet patch that had formed there.

“Such a good girl…” He groans, leaning in to lick a thick stripe of your cunt and practically moaning at the taste. It’s sweet to the tongue, possibly due to the strawberries he sees you consume at least three times a day. But it’s easily one of the best things he’s had in his entire life.

It gets even better when he hears your broken moans above him, and the feeling of your hands gripping desperately at his hair and the sheets. When your legs try to close around his head, his hands grip at your naked thighs tightly to keep you still.

“Kepa please! S-somethings happening!” He hears you whine. The sound of you begging for him makes him want to grind against the bedding for any sort of available friction, but he can’t risk cumming already and wasting his load. Not when it needs to be taking root inside of you…

“You want kepa to pleasure you more huh?” Aemond grins, relishing in the sad noise you make when he takes his mouth away from your glistening heat to lazily suck at the skin of your thighs.

“More?” You whisper. Your eyes a glazed mess as the look at him.

“Yes byka mēre. I can make you feel even greater pleasure than the small fraction you felt now. Would you like that?”

“Yes…”

“Yes what byka mēre?”

“Yes kepa…”

“What a good fucking girl I have in my bed…” Aemond groans, smiling at the sight of you preening at his words before striping himself nude in front of you. His ego certainly swells when he sees you can’t take your eyes of his erect cock.

“W-will it even fit kepa?” You murmur as you eye him in anxiousness.

“Even if it doesn’t at first. I’ll make it fit…” He says, taking his cock in his hand and positioning himself at your entrance.

He slides himself in slowly. Taking the time to make sure you were comfortable and not in pain. Though by the amount you were leaking when he was licking you, he guessed you were wet enough for what he was about to do.

When Aemond got halfway in, his impatience took over and made him thrust the rest of his cock in. And as soon as you gave him the nod of approval, he was officially a man possessed.

He couldn’t stop himself from thrusting as hard and deep as he could inside you. The sounds of your moans seemed to spur him on as-well, the high pitched whines ringing all throughout the room for him to hear. He almost wishes he could put a hand over your mouth to make sure only he can hear you. But then that would push you away, and he can’t have that not at all…

“O-oh Aemond! S-somethings happening!” You shout, digging your nails into the skin of his back and tilting your head back so much he gets the temptation to place a bite on your neck.

Which he does with a grin as he pinches at your clit with his pointer and index fingers. The sound of your surprise as it blended into a sound of pleasure was one Aemond doesn’t think he could ever forget.

“Don’t worry about it byka mēre… it’s just your peak.” He says, pinching your pearl harder as you clench more and more around his cock as it throbs at the feel of you.

As you do peak, he can feel the warmth that surrounded his cock get tighter, and its what brings him to his peak to. He can feel the warmth of his cum entering you, and when he pulls out finally, he can see his cum dripping out of you in thick drools. It almost makes him want to fuck your all over again.

Yet he doesn’t for your sake. The sake of his pretty little maid who has no idea what they’ve done. Still, he sits beside you still naked as the day he’s born and moves you to rest your head on his chest. Your hand caresses his chest, and he intertwines it and with his own.

[veliseraptor]

the doppelganger thing makes me think about binghe w bingge and how that all shaped up. makes me wonder what would occur in a similar situation with xue yang, for example if his 'better' was the if living could be this xue yang. can you IMAGINE canon xue yang's anger when he sees a version of himself that got to have what as far as hes concerned *he* deserved? can you imagine ilcbt xue yang seeing himself at his most broken down and vulnerable and animal and going Ohh I Have Got To Fucking Kill This Guy Before He Starts Causing Problems (mental and physical in nature). can you imagine ilcbt XINGCHEN being spectator to this encounter. it would be crazy. could there even be any version of this scenario where they dont both end up dead

oh this is actually exactly what I was imagining, pretty much. like, take a Xue Yang post-Xiao Xingchen's death, already maximally unhinged. drop him into the ilcbt!verse, this wild mirror universe where not only is Xiao Xingchen alive (his singular goal for the last however many years it's been, preferably several) but actually cares about him still, and sure there's a Song Lan there for some reason but that's livable, the only problem is. there's another Xue Yang here.

(also the Song Lan problem, but I think Xue Yang has at least imagined making compromises on that front when running alternate universe scenarios of what's acceptable as conditions for Xiao Xingchen being alive, although when he was picturing that alternate universe Song Lan was probably, uh, not totally conscious or under his own control. he can work with it if he has to. or he can kidnap Xiao Xingchen out of this mirror universe and take him back to the other one where Song Lan isn't. there's options.)

but the Xue Yang problem is more of an issue, because if Xue Yang knows one thing about Xue Yang it's that he doesn't let go of things that are his. one of them's gotta die and it's not going to be him.

and meanwhile yeah then there's ilcbt!Xue Yang who would take one look at other!Xue Yang and (a) be horrified by the prospect of this broken thing being a possible version of himself, because ilcbt!Xue Yang has never been really confronted with the reality of what it would feel like to lose something he cares about and doesn't, on a conscious level, understand what that would be like, and (b) immediately recognize himself as an active threat to be destroyed. no existential hesitation here over killing himself! he's not thinking about that as something that would or could be troubling or upsetting.

I do not think either of the daoshi would be quite so blasé about it. like. recognize that a Xue Yang as unhinged as canon!Xue Yang clearly is is bad news and dangerous, but it is still a Xue Yang, and there's definitely something disturbing to them about their Xue Yang actively killing himself.

I feel a little like it would activate Xiao Xingchen to be like "I could fix him." he made it work with one Xue Yang, surely another one can't be that hard. even if he is well aware of how well that won't work.

honestly I think canon!Xue Yang loses this one because ultimately the daoshi would step in on the side of theirs, and also canon!Xue Yang is kind of running on fumes and desperation while ilcbt!Xue Yang is running on a solid time of fairly good and stable living. Xue Yang isn't crying about it. I bet Xiao Xingchen does, though.

[harmless-variety-of-garden-snake]

I know I've sent you so many already but I started thinking about salxbobby and now I need someone else to else well. Maybe 45?? If they don't vibe for you loustat would also be great!!!!!

(...out of anger)

Six fucking weeks.

Six weeks of sitting on his ass, something Sal hasn't done since he got his first job working in Zia Aurora's restaurant when he was 13.

He's a hard fucking worker, he's damn good at his job, it's not his fault that Nash wants to measure dicks instead of trust that his crew knows what they're doing.

Sal's two beers and a half a pizza deep into organizing his record collection when he hears the doorbell ring. He sticks a random mailer in the spot he's going to have to come back to, unfolds himself from the floor, grimaces at the way his lower back protests, and staggers toward the door.

Like any respectable firefighter, Sal Deluca is a betting man, but he would've put his money on just about anyone else showing up at his door before Bobby Nash. Yet here the man is with a six pack of Boylan's Black Cherry.

"You here to grovel?" Sal asks, gripping the doorjamb so he doesn't reach through and hit the man.

"Nope," Nash says, all Midwestern cheerfulness and affability. "But I do want to apologize, and I have a proposal."

Sal considers slamming the door, rethinks it, steps back, and allows him in.

"Nice place," Nash comments.

"Yeah, it'll be good until I get kicked to the curb," Sal mutters, letting the door swing shut a little too hard. He snatches the offered soda. "What, you too cheap for a real six pack?"

"I don't drink," Nash says, which confirms a couple of suspicions Sal's had about the guy. Nothing bad, he'd never knock a man for dealing with a drinking problem, but it adds to his list of questions of what the hell brought this guy halfway across the country with seemingly no ties to the area. "Also, that fancy Pennsylvania shit costs more than a six pack of Bud."

"Fair enough," Sal concedes, grabbing his bottle opener off the fridge and popping the caps off two. He hands one to Nash, who takes it with a smile. "So what's this proposal?"

"You don't want the apology first?"

"You gonna un-fire me?" he snarks, and Nash shakes his head. "Then I don't really give a shit about it right now. Assume I won't accept it."

"Fair enough." He leans his hip against the counter by the sink, even though the kitchen in Sal's apartment is somewhat claustrophobic and he should offer him a spot in the living room. He won't. "I spoke to the chief, and there's a spot at the 122 for you if you're willing to take it. He's going to call you about it in a few days. I advise you take it."

Sal blanches. "The 122 barely even has a fucking captain right now."

"Yeah," Nash agrees. "They've had an interim for about four months. They're about to get another in a couple days."

"Look, I don't think you understand what my issue with you was. You're a decent captain, but--"

"Yeah, and I think you could be a great one," Nash interrupts. "At the 122. One day. Maybe not that long from now. You got fired for insubordination, Deluca, and for calling me a 'mook,' which I'm not and also maybe update your insults. You sounded like something out of a gangster movie, I had to look that one--"

Sal's pissed, has been for days, still is, and it's building in some kind of weird miasma of gratitude and rage behind his chest. And that makes him more angry, because how fucking dare this Viking bastard swoop in and throw Sal a line after shoving him overboard in the first place?

That and the beer is really the only excuse he has for cutting Nash off with a slam of his lips. It was going to be that or his fist, and his ma would've hopped on a plane to tan his hide if she knew he hit a firefighter captain.

Except Nash has something boiling under the surface, too, and Sal's clocked it more than once, because he's got a hand twisted in the back of Sal's shirt and he's biting back. Literally, they're in some kind of twisted competition to make each other bleed or something.

He has to breathe at some point, so he pulls back enough to do just that, and the fucker is smiling.

"You're such a prick," Sal mutters.

"You're one to talk," Nash counters, which...fair.

"I have good instincts."

"Yeah, but not everyone does. And they're not infallible, you're not God," Nash points out. "You got lucky. I was pissed because I didn't want to pull two bodies out of that place, especially not yours."

Sal smirks. "Didn't know you cared, Cap."

Nash's grip on his shirt tightens. "You're one of mine, Deluca, of course I care."

And that tempers the heat in Sal's chest, turns it into something warm and a little gooey. "You fired me."

"Still mine," Nash says before kissing him again.

Bonus Loustat below the cut:

"You wrote an album about our divorce!"

"You wrote a book about it!" Lestat roars, throwing said book at the wall next to Louis' head.

"Daniel wrote a book about my life and included our divorce," Louis counters.

Lestat throws his hands up and starts ranting in French, cursing every other word. Louis approaches him like he would a wild animal--actually, he's less cautious around wild animals.

"Can we both agree that we said some hurtful shit and move on?" Louis tries, and Lestat snarls, shoving him against the armoire. "Baby--"

The kiss is biting and harsh, and Louis twines his fingers in Lestat's hair, yanking his head back with a growl. Lestat grins, fangs half-dropped.

"You're such a fucking brat," Louis says, flipping their positions easily and pinning Lestat against the armoire with a worrying crack. "I missed you so much, cher."

"And I you, mon mari," Lestat murmurs before yanking him into another kiss, wrapping a leg around Louis and grinding shamelessly. "Now fuck me."

"Until you cry." Louis hauls him up with a grin at Lestat's delighted laugh. "Until you scream."

Claws bite through his shirt and dig into his skin, and Louis feels his fangs drop, a thrill going up his spine.

He's missed Lestat so much.

[hkthatgffan]

Do u have any criticism of the owl house?

Well, I've never made it that big a secret I'm not personally the biggest fan of The Owl House. I mean, back in 2018 when it was greenlit, I was actually more excited for it than I was for Amphibia, but in the end, I came to love Amphibia more so. That's not to say I dislike TOH. Compared to SVTFOE, I love it. But it never really was my cup of tea.

I mean, I never personally to begin with was a big fan of the whole magic, witches and wizard stuff. No prizes therefore for guessing that I never grew up watching Harry Potter as a kid. I mean, I never even finished watching all the HP movies till years after they came out. I just never have been a fan of that kind of stuff (and quite frankly these days with Harry Potter at least, that's probably a bullet fucking dodged so, thank you 8 year old me for being more into planes, Top Gear and Phineas and Ferb instead of anything JK Rowling made).

But seriously, I can love and appreciate TOH for the show it was and all it did. Plus, there's no denying it was a beyond important show for what it did with Lumity and LGBTQ+ rep in Disney cartoons. No matter what else, to have gone from Alex Hirsch being told he couldn't have a lesbian couple in Gravity Falls to Luz and Amity dancing in Grom and becoming girlfriends is a massive achievement and something that no one can ever take away from TOH, Dana Terrace or her crew (though, also credit to SVTFOE for being the first DTVA cartoon for having a same sex couple kiss, Jackie having a girlfriend by the end of S4 and Star even once being implied as bi, as well as Gravity Falls for Wendy who is technically also bi as we now know and Mabel too as it's been theorized)!

That said, looking back, I find some of the episodes to be somewhat forgettable and boring. In fairness, Amphibia had some like that too, but whereas I've found rewatching Amphibia episodes from season 1 for example to be pretty fun, I don't as much see so with TOH. But that's just my personal nitpicks and quite frankly, the overall show is solid...even if season 3 and the ending felt super rushed, though that was more so the fault of the show being cut short than maybe problems the writers didn't address.

And speaking of the cut, the way it was handled is quite possibly, my single greatest piece of critique for The Owl House. In case you don't remember, the very same day the trailer for season 2 was released, Dana and other news sources revealed TOH was greenlit for season 3 and it was a shorter order due to the show being cut short.

Now, I get that Dana announcing it the way she did was partly out of frustration and tbh, I'm sure I'd think the same if it was my show on the chopping block, but the choice to say that so early on before season 2 had even started opened a sorta pandora's box that TOH fandom still suffers from today.

Suddenly the focus was not as much on season 2 and what would happen in it and more on the cut and anger at Disney about it. I mean, we had TOH fans bombarding the comments section of DTVA posts about it, changing their pfp's to be anti DTVA, etc. It was crazy. And I mean, I get it. I was frustrated too when this was revealed. I still am. But I wish they had announced this not before season 2 had begun, but closer to season 3 starting.

It was like all anyone ever talked about after that in relation to TOH was always in the shadow of this. Even as season 2 improved in quality more and more and I too found myself being interested in TOH again after taking a break from it to focus on the end of Amphibia the following year, this was still a huge chunk of the conversation. Hell, in some ways the cut even became a good scapegoat for a lot of shortfalls with season 2, even though S2 probably had already been in production before the cut and many issues or plot holes in it may have been resolved with a full season 3.

What I'm trying to get at basically is that announcing The Owl House was ending before season 2 had even begun, when the fandom was as mainstream and popular as it was, just caused a shift in tone with fans not as much seeming to enjoy, theorize and watch the show and instead be left with the impending knowledge that it was nearing the end.

Comparably, Alex Hirsch did not reveal that Gravity Falls would be ending until November 2015; when there were just 2 episodes left. I go on about this in my video back in February about Alex's Tumblr post but I said basically that compared to TOH, it was a better way of announcing the show was ending.

Announcing Gravity Falls was ending when only 2 episodes were left meant fans had time to accept the end was coming, while also being made clear that there was nothing that could be done to reverse this. And even if fans before hand had assumed GF was nearing the end, they couldn't say so with assurance as Alex had not said anything confirming or denying it. Simply put, GF fans until the very last second, watched the show as if it was ongoing and not nearing a close. There was no worry about how many episodes were left or begging for season 3 to the same extent, given fans didn't know if this was it or more was to come. They just enjoyed the show and not worried. At most, if there was a season 3, it would be a longer wait. I mean, that was the mentality I had with DuckTales season 3 and thinking season 4 may be a longer wait until they finally revealed S3 was the last just a few episodes before the end.

Of course, I'm saying this all from what limited knowledge I got from GF fans who were there and my personal experience with DuckTales and TOH, but comparably, TOH fandom knowing it was ending so early on left them a lot more angry and upset. Now anything that happened in S2 was overshadowed by the impending end. And while much of what I said here is based on what I saw in my experience, it got tiresome real fast to see TOH fans complaining about the show ending and yelling in the comments of DTVA posts about it, as if any executive at DTVA who really could reverse that choice would see that.

Should be clear, I'm not saying I have issues with Dana telling TOH fans the show was ending and being upfront about it or her critique of Disney and how they treated the show. Nor am I saying I dislike that fans were angry about it. Both had every right to be so and I would probably be as upset myself if it was Amphibia instead that got this treatment.

But IMO, it should've been revealed AFTER season 2 ended or just before the season finale. Maybe there was a hope the fan reaction would make Disney change course. Maybe it was just a case of announce and get it over with. I feel personally that TOH fandom would have benefitted from learning season 3 was the last season a lot later than when they found out.

For me, it made the fandom experience less enjoyable and made me not as interested in TOH probably in turn. After my bad experiences in the Star fandom, I had a feeling TOH fandom would have similar issues once the show began to get more popular post Grom. So, I jumped ship off it and chose to be more a fan on the sidelines and enjoy it on my own. And I have no regrets about doing that. I'm a GF fan first and foremost and I ended up having fun being able to work on my GF projects more so without having to commit to another show's fandom and instead enjoy it at my own pace. But I always heard stuff and what I did see was what I've mentioned here.

Maybe you disagree and your TOH fandom experience was better and not as full of this type of stuff. I've heard this was more so a TOH fandom on Twitter and Instagram issue than say, Reddit TOH fandom. But IDK enough to make a firm answer so, I'll just say what I know from my own experience.

Long story short, Alex Hirsch made the right call announcing Gravity Falls was ending 2 episodes before the end instead of just before Scary-Oke even began. I mean, imagine going into GF S2 in 2014 knowing you had just this season and no more after that. Easier as a post finale fan but maybe a shocker if it was back in the day.

Then there's Matt Braly who did the best of both worlds and announced Amphibia would end after season 3 in 2021 too on his Reddit AMA but with fans knowing it always was gonna end that way.

Long story short, of all the criticism I have for TOH, that's probably my main issue that I feel I can at least explain. Anything else is just personal preference I have for Amphibia more so over it.

Still, all this to say, The Owl House deserved better. Fans should've gotten a full final season just like Amphibia got.

Also, I miss Hooty!

[jeff-rees-jones]

Have a happy, healthy new year...

My older brother only made it to 38 and he would have been 65 now. None of us know how long we have left and most of us are waiting until the time is 'right' for us to do whatever it is we think we'll enjoy doing in the future, and then we're gone.

Over the years I've taken many courses, from various modes of counselling to all kinds of therapeutic work as both a student and a tutor and one thing I have discovered to be true is that each and every one of us has issues, some large, some small, we are all a little fucked-up in one way or another and more importantly, it's all about how we deal with those issues that will decide how we function in life.

Find someone to chat with, share your feelings, but after that you have to be prepared to make some changes, otherwise the same old behaviours will bring about the same old problems, and it isn't always other people, sometimes it's you.

Here are a few tried and tested small things that have helped me along the way, things you can do to improve your days and the quality of your life and your relationships, small steps but they work very quickly if you can stick with them.

So far I've failed at every single one of these more than once but hey, let's not make it all about me! This stuff works...

Happiness is a choice every single day.

You are perfectly free to be who you are and to love who you love.

Whatever age you reach, you will never feel grown up.

Learn to be alone and learn to love, or at least like who you are.

Try and feel gratitude for even the smallest stuff in your life.

Lower your expectations of people, no one can live up to your ideals.

Set your boundaries from the start in any kind of relationship.

Judge Love and friendship by what people do and not what they say.

Don't take shit from anyone, speak up and let them know how you feel, but do it kindly.

Try and choose being kind over being right.

Do not... Repeat: Do Not let anyone bully you.

No response is a response.

If they wanted to, they would.

Let them go.

Be good with your word.

Be consistent.

You don't need to be skinny to be attractive or to be loved.

ALWAYS keep secrets that a friend has shared in confidence, even if they turn out to be a *shit-bag.

*(Other words are available)

Never make someone a priority if they only think of you as an option.

Sometimes chocolate and wine can be the perfect food choice.

Don't ignore red flags in someone's behaviour, they're showing you who they are.

When someone shows you who they are...believe them, don't make excuses on their behalf.

The best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. (read that again)

Sometimes punching someone in the throat is an option.

Don't carry the past with you, it's too heavy and you're not going in that direction.

You are never too old and it's never too late.

Holding onto anger only hurts you.

You are already good enough.

You deserve love and respect.

Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to include someone.

Everything changes, everything.

It eventually gets better.

Stay hopeful.

[mushroomerchant]

hey, so guess who just wrote a bunch of angst about claire finding out that evie had been feeding on knight only to find out that SHE ALREADY KNOWS.

oh well, i’m still proud of it so here you go :)

The rage that pumped through Claire's veins when she first saw the marks, left her heaving. Vampire bite marks on her sibling. They were a few weeks old but still unhealed, pink and scabbed. Someone had hurt them, she’d find them. She’d kill them. How could Knight be walking around the Den so calm, like nothing ever happened? This explained the shirts they’d been wearing, purposely covering their shoulders to hide the wound. Who did this to them? She’d kill them.

Stepping into a side room for some space, Claire gave herself a moment to think. Sure, Knight had issues admitting to injury but this was too extreme for that. If they had been bitten or, god forbid, turned, they’d have gone to her to hunt down who did it. They’d want revenge too.

Another thought occurred to her, Evie. Fuck, of course. She had bitten them. It was common for people with vampire partners to let them feed on them. God, she felt so stupid. They were just taking care of their mate. It was normal. But… were they being safe? Were they sure they could handle this kind of—intimacy?—No.—Risk?

Claire deepened her breathing, pacing in a circle and focusing on one foot in front of another. Her sibling was responsible. Genevieve and them had been dating for many years. She’d trust both of them with her life. She had to trust that they were being safe. It’s just… seeing those marks of them, adding to the collection that was scattered across their body, another testament to pain… She hated it.

More time. She needed more time to process this and, then, she’d talk to them.

The subject was breached a few weeks later after a game night. Genevieve hadn’t been feeling well, so she stayed at home and everyone had left or gone to bed by late night. Claire and Knight had been chatting, Claire stalling them from going home, waiting for the right time to bring it up.

”Hey, can I talk to you about something?”

There was a noticeable change in their posturing, correctly assuming that the discussion was serious. Their spine straightened, muscles tightening, and fingers fidgeted against the hem of their shirt. The look in their eyes was anxious but prepared. “Yes, of course. What is it?”

“I’m going to say this as plainly as I can; the foreplay is pointless. Evie’s been feeding on you, hasn’t she?” Their eyes widened slightly, not hiding the reaction. Knight’s poker face was almost as flawless as hers, meaning they let her know she had guessed correctly. A moment of silence sat between them.

“Yes.”

“I noticed the marks on your shoulder.”

“Yes.” They were treating her as their Alpha, an authority figure, not a sibling or a friend. She knew this would happen but it still stung that their positions in the pack continued to affect their dynamic.

“I was upset, but I know that you two are responsible and I know you’re being safe. I know that Evie has Miss Celine as a mentor to make sure she’s in control of her blood lust.”

“We’ve talked with her at length about how much to take, how to heal the bites properly; We covered all our bases,” Knight assured her.

“Good. And I know you’d never consider being turned. You know better.” She expected a reply as immediate as the last but it was only silence. They looked away, deciding how best to phrase their answer and leaving Claire taken aback. They would never think about being turned.

A deep breath. “Genevieve and Celine and I have been talking and we agree that me being turned is the right choice.”

“What?” Was she hurt? Angry? She wasn’t sure.

“We’re waiting for a while, giving ourselves time to think it over and decide when the right time is but… we’ve decided.”

“So you’d be… a vampire.” The hint of disgust—anger? fear?—that leaked into her tone caused a twinge in their stomach. She hadn’t had a problem with Evie’s turning, why was this an issue now? “Genevieve’s progeny?”

“Or Celine’s,” they corrected, “or Silas’; Evie doesn’t want that power over me. It’d complicate the dynamic with the trancing, the thrall, the memory manipulation, everything. But if it comes down to it, she’ll turn me.”

“You’d give up your wolf?” Claire’s desperation was apparent, far more than she was intending. She wanted to make sure they were certain about this kind of decision, that they knew the risks. “Never be able to shift again, go on a pack run again? You-”

“I can’t lose her, Claire. I love her, you do too. With every drawback, every con of becoming… I’d rather lose my magic all together than put her through the pain of losing me. She’d be alone. I can’t do that to her. She’s been through so much that I couldn’t stop, that I couldn’t protect her from.” Their gaze was trained firmly on the carpet, Claire sure that they were replaying every moment of their life they blamed themself for. A deep breath. “But that small exchange of blood is all it would take to keep me by her side. I could keep her safe for eternity.”

“It’s not your job to keep her safe.”

“It’s my decision. I hope you can understand.” They rose to leave. This was final. Knight would give her some time to think and, hopefully, see their perspective. They were halfway to the door when Claire spoke up.

“Knight!” They turned to face her. She took a moment to collect herself, finding the words to apologize for the confusion and hurt she’d caused. “I—… What you choose to do is you and Genevieve’s decision. If that’s what you want to do with your life, then that’s what you’ll do.” Claire stepped closer, placing a hand on their shoulder, firm and comforting. “I want you to know that, even if you lose your wolf, if my sibling is now a vampire and part of Celine’s clan, you’ll always be a member of the pack.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, always.”

[sweetbunpura]

No. 1: RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK (Word count: 857)

Search Party | Panic Attack | "If only we could hold on.” (Icysami x Renegaderr, Strangers.)

“What do you mean you can’t find her?”

Crowley sweats as he’s met with the various glares of the dorm leaders. He had called to give them all important information, which turned out to be the fact that Yuu was missing.

“Y-you see.” Crowley clears his throat. “After a talk with our dear prefect, she left my office and disappeared. I have no idea what could’ve caused it.”

Leona’s eyes take in the office, Crowley hadn’t had much of a chance to clean up given that there were things thrown all over his office in what looked to the beastman to be in a fit of anger. A chair was missing and judging by the splintered wood and hole in the wall, Leona could piece together what happened.

“It’s unlike Yuu to do something as dangerous as this.” Riddle spoke. “What did you tell her, Headmage?”

“I was just handing her the weekly allowance I allotted her with.” The fae speaks as he nervously clicks his metal finger accessories together. “It was-”

“Listen.” Leona interrupted him as all of their attention turned to him. “Stop dancing around the subject and tell these guys what you’ve been doing to Herbivore.”

“W-Why, Mr. Kingscholar, I have no idea-”

He let out a low growl. “I ain’t got time for you to be pussyfooting around the issue of starving her right now.” Leona turned on his heel and marched out of the room just as it exploded to demands to tell them the truth.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, his ears were pinned to his head and his tail lashed angrily behind him. Leona already knew for a fact that Yuu wouldn’t have stayed anywhere in NRC if she ran... but he had a clue as to where she might be going. Wordlessly, he started on the path towards the front gate, where he opened it and departed from the school grounds. The woods surrounding the base of the school were massive, birds and other animals fled upon seeing a very angry lion making tracks through everything.

“She wouldn’t be in the woods, even if she does love nature...” Leona grumbled as he flicked a piece of foliage off his tail. “Too many places to hide and she ain’t one to turn tail.” He paused as he heard the sound of a river flowing nearby. “By the water maybe...” 

Leona followed the river to where it led out of the dense thicket and sloped down to a medium sized lake nearby. He stood at the top of the slope, his eyes scanning the ground until they locked onto someone sitting at the edge of the water. Quietly, he approached them and lowered himself to sit down next to them.

“This is fucking bullshit.” Yuu speaks as she glares at the water. “He cuts the money every time someone new joins Ramshackle. He did it with Rollo and then he did it again with Fellow and Gidel.”

“What excuse did he give?”

“He said they had money to pay and thus I didn’t need a full check anymore.” Yuu’s hands dig into the grass and she tears out clumps of them. “Rokudenashi Tori.”

Leona glanced over at her as she started muttering in her native language, his eyes shifted to her bloody knuckles that had splinters in them. The beastman gently took her hand and started to pry the slivers out.

“Don’t do this to your hands.”

She viscously tugged her hand back. “Fuck off.”

“Can’t do that.” He pulled her hand back and continued. “You’re too proud of what you can do and you’re letting someone tell you what you can’t.”

“Leona, I don’t have any money to feed Grim, or Rollo, or Fellow and Gidel.” Her voice is soft. “Anytime I ask him for anything, he skirts around the subject. And then I’m supposed to help everyone out with their problems, I don’t have time to myself. I can’t say no, or he holds Ramshackle over me, reminding me of the fact that he so “graciously” let me stay.”

Yuu starts sobbing. “I’m so tired, I want to go home, I don’t want to be his worker ant anymore. I want to rest for once and not worry if part of Ramshackle is going to break while I sleep. That I won’t have to be called on to fix another one of Grim or Ace’s mistakes. I’m tired of spending a majority of my money on a bottomless pit of cat who only way of thanking me is getting into more fucking trouble!”

She suddenly stands up. “Overblot after overblot, scar after scar. When is it going to be e-fucking-nough? Is this going to be the rest of my life here at this shitty excuse of a school?! Cause if this is what I was handed, then take it the fuck back!”

Leona gets up and silently watches her, Yuu digs her hands into her hair and sobs out. His heart tightens as he wraps her in a tight hug, they both fall to their knees as Yuu clutches onto Leona’s vest and sobs into his shoulder. 

[borderline-culture-is]

God. Ok, I might regret this when I'm actually not going though a meltdown but I need to vent. No anon, no lying.

I personally believe this is about my mental issues, which includes my BPD traits. This is why I'm posting this here. Also it's a cry for help, it's a cry for validation.

Hi, my name is Cat (on the internet, 🍬🐈‍⬛, candy cat, referring to my main username) this blog was supposed to be about gaming, but my life went downhill (around other good stuff that happened) and I already posted vents on TS4 so I thought I might as well keep it as my main Tumblr account.

I never showed myself with no fear cause people always saw me as the edgy one who did for attention, like, an NT. Who. Romanticized shit like this. I post and comment stuff referring to that, I feel like a stereotype, my parents and other adults in my life made me feel like that.

They act as if everything I go through is. How my teacher put it yesterday, hysterical. I have a "hysterical" mindset. All my traumas, problems and disability comes from that. Nothing else. I am a normal person, an neurotypical creating problems. I feel like. People here treat me that way too. Because the only thing I'm diagnosed to is autism. I don't have a place to speak about cluster b issues. Even though. The entirety of my life, I did not only relate to, but acted as such.

I am the kid who didn't relate to others, the one people looked at and thought "she's weird" "she's a attention seeking poser". As a teenager I would look back at 5 year old me and think "my emo phase came so early and it's still going strongly' and a way to validate myself from being different from the different people. At 12 to 14 I was really aggressive. I would hurt people, choke them, break their things, almost break their arms, I'd say proudly I'd become a serial killer (and duh I liked creepypasta bc of the revenge porn.), people called me a psychopath. I'd proudly wear that label. Of course, I didn't do it for attention, I was being true to myself, really. I didn't like the system, I don't like people and yes I did cry myself to sleep almost every night, specially when I felt abandoned, when I knew something was wrong with me and I didn't know what. No one ever took my behavior seriously. I was a kid going through puberty, I was going to grow out of it. This... "Puberty" lasted 14 years. Fourteen. Years.

After 14, something changed. Everyone I knew at school moved out. I had a clean slate. I looked myself in the mirror, I thought back at how people treated me and I thought "you know what, I'm cute, I like cute things and I do not. Want to make friends. I do not need friends, I need to work on myself." And so I did. I started wearing cuter things, I embraced the childish things that was taken away from me. I expressed myself how I wanted to express, after all, people never saw me, they won't start seeing me just because of how I look. Eventually I broke my second rule, I made friends, but my initial uninterest was what made these friendships last to this day, I didn't rush to get closer to them, and that's what made it. I was a new person, but still with the impulses, the hate.

The pandemic happened. I had to deal with my parents more, all the pent up anger flared, many times, I broke things, I hurt my parents. I fucked over many friendships.

Everything, everything in my life till I was 14 came back. I was still antisocial, I still did every. Single. Edgy shit I did back then. (Besides reading creepypastas). I did not grow out of it. I was HOLDING IT BACK all this time. I'm not edgy because I want to, this is PART OF ME. I am NOT edgy, something is deeply wrong with me. I want to kill and it's not "haha this person is really annoying" I PLANNED murders countless times, I repeated the act in my head and EVERY TIME I talked myself out of it, was because I didn't want the consequences. That's all.

But no. I'm a neurotypical. I'm an autist that thinks psychopaths are cute. Because. Doesn't matter how many times I relate to pwBPD, pwASPD and pwNPD, I will NEVER be one of you, because not only I was conditioned to not believe ANYTHING bad ever happened to me, I'm just a HYSTERICAL WOMAN who needs attention from her parents that "aren't actually neglectful". The doctors said it themselves. I just have depression. That's all I have, that's all I will ever have.

My feelings are fake. I'm normal.

sending hugs if you want them

[ik33ponmakingc00ki3s]

⁽⁠⁽⁠◝⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠௰⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠◜⁠⁾⁠⁾₍⁠₍⁠◞⁠(⁠ ⁠•⁠௰⁠•⁠ ⁠)⁠◟⁠₎⁠₎┌⁠(⁠・⁠。⁠・⁠)⁽⁠⁽⁠ଘ⁠(⁠ ⁠ˊ⁠ᵕ⁠ˋ⁠ ⁠)⁠ଓ⁠⁾⁠⁾

Consequences of my actions, WHATS UP??

Scaramouche x reader

Angst no comfort / Reader and Scara are both red flags to each other ｡⁠:ﾟ⁠(⁠;⁠´⁠∩⁠`⁠;⁠)ﾟ⁠:⁠｡

Context: Reader and Scara has issues man, reader overthinks a lot and look where did that put them and the person they love in?

Scara might be too OOC I'm so sorry 😞

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For the Nth time...

For how many times, do you guys fight in a week?

Every other day, yelling, insults, explosive remarks ESPECIALLY THROUGH TEXT??

Your heart was feeling heavy as you aggressively tap your fingers through your phone's screen, letters all in caps as Scara, your moody boyfriend who easily gets pissed when you want to argue and unintentionally ruin his day, sent another text with letters all in caps.

Scara:

"ALL YOU DO IS START SHIT AND IT ALWAYS HAS TO BE ME APOLOGIZING WHEN IT'S NOT EVEN MY FAULT, WHY DO I ALWAYS HAVE TO BE THE ONE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOMETHING THAT I DIDN'T DO?? WHY SHOULD I APOLOGIZE BECAUSE YOU FELT THAT WAY TOWARDS ME?? ARE YOU MENTAL??"

Your fingers paused as guilt, shame, and anger filled you in fast, he was right and he has a point, what did you want in the first place? Why were you so pissy on him all of a sudden? What do you want him to do?

You continued to type fast, adding more fuel to the fire as you sent your text out of spite.

You: "I JUST WANTED YOU TO KNOW HOW I FEEL, I KNOW I'M TOO MUCH TO HANDLE--BUT I DON'T FEEL LIKE I'M BEING HEARD WHEN I KEEP ON EXPLAINING THINGS TO YOU, ALSO I DON'T ALWAYS ASK FOR APOLOGIES, I JUST WANT YOU TO HEAR ME OUT"

You huffed as he saw your message quick, it was quiet for a second before 3 dots started to form again and disappear, then appear again. This argument is about you getting petty because he left you on delivered for 12+ hours, this is the few times he left you on delivered, you know that he's busy with college and groupworks, but you sleeping and waking up on delivered is a different type of pain.

And so you spammed the fuck out of him because you were getting worried and bitter, EVEN when his status showed that he's online, and then offline for 8 minutes, then back online again.

You were getting overwhelmed, anxious, stressed, because he hasn't responded to you for this long the first time, there were times where he doesn't answer you for hours and you understood, but it was draining you out the more it happened so you had to talk about it. Your personal problem is that he prioritized his groupmates and his parents over you at the moment. You forced yourself to understand his situation, he lives in a boarding house with his friends, barely gets any sleep, and he's rushing deadlines.

But my goodness, you couldn't help but feel lonely, your relationship is already put to long distance so both of you barely get to meet face to face or even atleast go meet up once a month--

You even questioned yourself if you were worth the person he wants to be with, because Family and college is a top priority, but relationships? Not really....right?

At this point, you even prayed to God, you prayed so hard that tears were forming in your eyes, prayed to him if Scara isn't the guy for you, then he'd remove him from you.

You looked down your screen as he sent another heated text with insults and painful words come in, and then vice versa. It went on for hours-- you didn't even realize that it was already 3 am and your eyes were puffy with the amount of crying you let out while arguing with him.

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Scara:

"I'm tired. I can't keep up with you anymore, you said you'd understand that I'd be busy, I even update you on when I'm gonna be busy, so what more do you want?? I'm already doing my best but you can't seem to see that and your attention always focus on me answering your messages late?"

You were guilty as fuck, but you also couldn't help but want to have your feelings validated because it hurt you a lot. And you felt selfish about it, really, you just wanted to be seen that you were in pain too, to be seen and understood that your feelings also matter towards a situation. To be reassured when negative things get into your head about a small problem.

You:

"...I'm sorry, I just wanted to be understood too. I just miss you a lot that I get mad because we don't get to hangout as much like before, especially with these changes...I'm really sorry"

You sighed as things had calmed down for a bit, you knew what would happen but you let your pride get to you and kept on saying the meanest things to him, both of you were hot headed and sarcastic with each other when arguments happen. And you hated it, you hated how he would sometimes mirror your attitude towards you, bring back the stuff when you argue about different things, you hated it more when you never wanted to argue in the first place, but it always reached it at the end.

Scara:

"That's all on you. Gn"

Cold and sharp was his message before he went offline, leaving you as is. No reassurance, no "I'm sorry you feel that way" text, nothing.

You stared at your screen as tears flooded your eyes, the feeling in your chest hurting and growing heavy everytime you try to strain your cries, you didn't want anyone to know you were sobbing and crying, so you took slow breaths and tried to be as quiet as possible.

This was all too much, you can't face it but, you guys are not compatible with each other, even if you tried to force it, it would lead to worse situations.

You wiped away your tears, you were so drained out with all the crying, he left you to cry and sleep with a heavy heart again. Why can't you just let it go and let it be? You let your emotions get to you that it affected the person and the relationship.

You already have some people to listen to you, yet only a few relate to you. They're enough. But why are you having problems with the one who's in a relationship with you?

You exhaled deeply as you quietly blew your nose with tissue, you hated yourself, your flaws, your issues, ESPECIALLY the amount of issues you have with yourself, you know that not all people can be flawless, but they know what they're doing because they also fucked up at some point and looked perfect doing it after because they experienced it.

And this was your first time experiencing a relationship this bad, you reassured yourself, you really did. You were trying to find comfort within yourself but all you think about were negative and degrading thoughts that makes your eyes pour out more.

... We're you that hard to love?

Was loving you too much for him that he couldn't handle all the big emotions you have for him?

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"I like you..."

Scara mumbled as you snapped your head towards him and blushed, the both of you were at a park in the mid afternoon, he texted you this morning before classes start that he wanted to talk to you about something.

"I...wh, really? Why?"

You said happily as he scoffed, his cheeks turning pink as he nodded.

".... Because---you're fun to be with or whatever, I just can't have a rest with myself when...everytime you're near me."

He mumbled the last part as he coughed, you smiled at him, heart fluttering because you were bagged by one of the hottest guys in your class.

So you shared your feelings with him as you both became official that day, heading back as the class congratulated the both of you because they were rooting for another beautiful relationship to sail.

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Both of you were at the roof top of the school building, watching the sunset as you both claimed this spot to be your hangout spot when there's no where else to relax in.

Both chatting about past problems and making fun of each other's issues jokingly, nothing personal really.

"I never really met my dad when I was born" you said as the wind flew pass the both of you. He raised a brow at you and scoffed.

"Me neither, fucker couldn't keep his dick in his pants, atleast my mom's happy now with that skank miss Yae" he groaned annoyingly as you giggled.

This was the first time you let a man in your life spend time with you like this, your first time to let a man love you and your first actual time to genuinely love a man. You hoped that things would progress further, hoping that every future argument would be solved easily, that every obstacle should be thrown at the both of you, and not become each other's problems.

Oh how wrong you were.

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Physical contact with each other became limited as your parents decided to homeschool you instead, money is getting tight so you understood and told the situation to your boyfriend in advanced.

He was pissed but he can't do anything about it and sighed, hugging you tightly and mumbled sweet nothings in your ear, he's gonna miss the sessions you both had.

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And so there it happened, the arguments started brewing as you started to get bothered by the way he talked to people, how he would degrade other women to reassure you, but you didn't feel reassured, you felt uncomfortable.

So you talked to him about it, lightly. And he listened, but slowly went back to his old attitude. You were getting tired at how much you had to tell him the things he do that bothers you a lot, but he said he changed because other people noticed it, so why couldn't you? And that put you off, you were a bit guilty but still frustrated about it, did you put your expectations and standards too high on him about changes?

It's been affecting you a lot because you noticed the looks people give the both of you when he gets a bit too rowdy or loud, especially in quiet places like the library.

You were getting embarrassed so all you do was just glare at him to stop, but he couldn't get a hint and was confused as to why you were glaring at him

"You close on your period?"

He said as you glared harder, eyebrows furrowed, you just looked away because you couldn't handle scolding him with people around.

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"In fucking trying (Y/n), why can't you just see that?" He groaned, he was getting annoyed about you already, why do you always have to watch for him? He's not your responsibility, you always worry about what he says that might offend people, especially a friend group, so you get extra cautious about it just in case someone gets offended.

"Why can't you just let me be? I accept you for who and what you are, why can't you do the same with me?" He scoffed as you stayed silent, the points he made are valid, but you can't help but feel bothered about it too. You thought to yourself, were you overthinking over small things again? Why are you making a big deal out of this? Why can't you be fair? You're doing too much (Y/n)...

You pushed your thoughts aside, you can't help but feel selfish and invalidated at the same time, the situations that bothered you were eating at you as you kept arguing with him, telling him (the 5th time) what he's doing disturbs you, but all he did was click his tongue, angry and annoyed.

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"Look, I did everything you asked and I'm done with you. Don't come looking for me, and don't even talk to ANY of my family."

Was his last text before he blocked you, you didn't have the time to respond because you were begging him so hard, all you did was apologize, say "I'M SORRY" full caps and on repeat while desperately begging him to not leave you, and it all happened in text.

You breathed deeply, eyes sore as you cried your heart out in bed, tired and drained to fuck.

Oh you were too much for him, the more he stayed with you, the more he felt suffocated, and it was time to leave. All the late and dry response, was that a sign that he doesn't want you anymore?

Or when he gets to have a call with his groupmates and parents, but not you? Suddenly he doesn't have any time for you, but back then he would just immediately bolt to the call so you could have time together when he was playing CoD with his friends or when he rushed to your class to watch you perform your act. It was a different situation, but you get the gist.

What happened? Just what the fuck happened??

You questioned everything to yourself, we're you not that good anymore? Did you lower your self worth? Did you become so annoying that the longer he stayed, the more his feelings vanished?

You...

It's not fair...it's not fair how he made you feel so loved and important, just to be hated and become a nuisance to him in the end. You knew he was busy, you really do, but does it hurt him a bit to give you some reassurance? You felt like the 3rd option to him in his life or the bronze medal he looks at annoyingly. It's not fair, but it's also wrong to not prioritize you family and grades. And that even made you more angry, you didn't feel as prioritized as before.

You don't know what to validate anymore, you don't know how to cope with loss, you don't know how to be more logical in a situation that hurt you, you just don't know anymore, all the fights and degradation went to your head that you let your emotions think for you, and you hated yourself for that.

So now all you do is cry out the consequences, maybe if you didn't overthink about any small situation and be more secure, you'd still have him with you right now, but now, we all know that it's not possible, all your "What ifs" affected you and you lost the person who you thought you'd marry.

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(⁠ ⁠⚈̥̥̥̥̥́⁠⌢⁠⚈̥̥̥̥̥̀⁠)｡⁠:ﾟ⁠(⁠;⁠´⁠∩⁠`⁠;⁠)ﾟ⁠:⁠｡(⁠｡⁠•́⁠︿⁠•̀⁠｡⁠)

A/n: ok wow that was corny but this chapter is like, a portion of what I experienced, and why did I choose Scara? Uhm, cause he lowk fit the role ngl😞🤚

It's 2am and I tried to proof read it, might edit it later