#these are my boyfriends as well
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wolverteen · 5 months ago
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oh yeah happy pride
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hinamie · 3 months ago
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morning glory
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livelovecaliforniadreams · 1 year ago
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Concerned Carmy™
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cynicallyneutral · 4 months ago
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bro...are we gay..?
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spoopdeedoop · 5 months ago
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world’s worst polycule
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tagidearte · 2 months ago
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My internship has started and I'm overloaded with doing historical illustration + writing a whole ass roman history of the region book for children, so... No time for finished stuff any time soon (except one I've already started and will probs post within the next few days). Take this quick messy shippy little concept.
If they ever got separate bodies, I know they would be touchy. Trying to get as close as they once were.
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inklessletter · 1 year ago
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"Let's run away. Let me take you to the beach. Let me give you the summer as a birthday present. I swear, you won't ever forget it."
☀️
Thank you so much for trusting the process with me again today.
I am honestly so proud of this piece. It took me a thousand hours omg, but... but the fabric, and the skin, and the tattoos, and... and his aura, god. I'm turning this shady, metalhead all time dressed in black, lover of the night and dark things sweetheart into a sun lover. A happy little thing.
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volkihar · 9 months ago
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eddie diaz + text posts
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yuwuta · 4 months ago
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JJK OLYMPICS OHHH YOURE A GENIUS
head spinning w sooooooo many athlete aus rn….. 
satoru honestly isn’t half as cocky as the media makes him out to be but he could be because you bring up world champion men’s freestyle swim times and it’s his name on the scoreboard ten times before someone else shows up. he’s faster than himself by fifteen seconds all around, he’s earned a bit of cockiness. mentioned in the last post that whenever he’s at a competition and he finishes a race, he looks at the camera and signs a little infinity sign and then blows a kiss to you. some bitter old coach always calls him out on it, and gets him fined for unsportsmanlike conduct, and he’s happy to pay the fees if it means getting a message home to you, but eventually you two come up with a new code; and at his next race, he places gold, turns to the camera, crosses his middle finger over his pointer finger and smiles. when he’s in his post-race interview, he makes sure to explain that he does it for you with the widest smile on his face.
megumi nepotism baby but not in the same sport. toji was a multi gold medalist back in his heyday for shooting, so it’s not really a surprise to anybody that megumi has scary good aim, but he takes to archery instead of shooting. actually the idea of megumi being an emo little kid and throwing rocks at a tree when his dad pissed him off his hilarious, and even funnier is toji watching him, slightly amused and a little scared because megumi is maybe six and hitting the exact same spot every single time. he grows to be very blase about it—it’s more of a release/hobby for him that he happens to be really good at, and well, now good enough to earn a few olympic medals. megumi is not a fan of having his dad ruffle his hair on international television after he’s won, but he supposes it can’t be helped.
i don’t know where to put yuuta…. tennis…. tempting….. him in his little white shorts…. little grunts after he serves…. cries….. a complete 180 in his personality when he’s playing vs doing anything else. so charming and sweet and kinda shy when he’s being interviewed, and the second he steps on the court his eyes are so cold it’s scary…. need him… extremely nerdy about his rackets, and shoes, and clothes, and rambles to you about aerodynamics and posture and torque whenever you ask him to teach you, and you always have to shutup him up with a kiss and remind him that yeah you sort of want to learn to play tennis for him, but mostly you came bc he looks hot doing it. once he got asked in an interview if he ever thinks about you while he’s playing and his response was very concise, “no, never. it would be a big distraction,” and did not realize the implications of his heavily televised words. 
also…. not to make this post 40% yuuta but we could pull from canon a bit and make his sport fencing. he doesn’t excel because he’s the strongest, it’s because he’s learned to treat the sword as an extension of himself and a good strategist… also because i like the image of him pulling the helmet/mask off and shaking his hair out………..
don’t even know where to put yuuji…. volleyball? basketball? track and field??? the irony of him easily being the most athletic but canonically does not want to play sports 😭 but i can see him playing a sport because someone scouts him and it turns out to be a way to make steady money to support himself and his grandpa :( by the time he’s qualified and made it to the olympics, wasuke is doing much better (thanks to yuuji having landed some preemptive sponsorships and being able to afford better medical care), but not so well enough that he can travel across the world to watch yuuji play. wasuke tells you that you should travel and be with yuuji, but yuuji is so touched by the idea that you would stay with his grandpa and be by his side when he’s away :(( he wins gold, of course, and he doesn’t even wait until the closing ceremony—which, he’d mentioned in all of his interviews, so nobody can be too upset. he’s on record saying, “i’m excited to play, but i’m even happier to be going home. my girlfriend and my grandpa are watching me and i miss them!” several times— he’s on the first flight home with flowers, and tears in his eyes. puts his gold medal on his grandpa’s neck as a thank you, and spends probably thirty minutes straight hugging you and kissing you and honestly don’t put it past him to propose now that he’s got nike ambassador money 
nanami started judo as a way to relieve the stress of his overbearing job, and someone at the gym/training center notices he seems to be a natural despite being a beginner. he starts to draw a crowd, which annoys him at first because the point of judo was discipline and release from having to deal with too many people at his office job, but nanami supposes he can’t be too mad when you introduce yourself as a talent scout and offer him professional training. there’s irony in him accepting your offer, because it was definitely not based in professionalism at all… quitting his job as a salaryman to become a professional athlete in his mid-twenties was not on his bingo chart, but if it means he will have met you, then so be it. you’re with him all the way, through his training, competitions, world championships, qualifiers, all the way until he’s on the podium. you’re the first to congratulate him, but he interjects by telling you he’s quitting. you ask him why—he just won at the olympics for crying out loud, but nanami just shakes his head, puts down his flowers and his medal so his hands are free to hold your face and tell you, “it would be unethical to kiss my manager, so i am quitting.” (later, when everything is said and done, and you two are cuddling, you mention to him that he could just hire a new manager, and not quit his new career, to which he blushes because yeah… that’s probably more rational, but rational was not in his train of thought at the time)
#anonymous#nanami kento.......................................... god#also yuuji :((((( just a kid who wanted to do something nice for his grandpa I will CRY#immediate proposal when he gets home to you who does he think he is? yuuta?#speaking of yuuta he's like the best player his age and he's always asked to attend events or parties or whatever#and he's always like ah no thank you I am going home to my girlfriend#every fucking interview it's like yeah I love tennis but I love my girlfriend more for supporting and encouraging me#my girlfriend my girlfriend my girlfriend#one day he actually seems Excited to be doing his press conference and a journalist picks up on it to which yuuta happily raises his hand#and lets everyone know that he's now engaged. and very very grateful for his wife#he does the same shit a few years later like randomly during a press conference he's like#'I am kinda nervous. my baby didn't sleep well last night so I was up with him pretty late' and everyone's like BABY?#and yuutas like yeah! he's almost 14 months now do u wanna see him!#let me stop bringing kids into this bc w/ satoru and kento I could go on for hours....#jjk x reader#jujutsu kaisen x reader#jujutsu kaisen fluff#jujutsu kaisen smut#gojo x reader#gojo smut#yuuta x reader#yuuji x reader#megumi x reader#nanami kento x reader#once u asked megumi what he thinks about when he's practicing and he's so deadpan as he reloads and arrow#and right before he lets it go he's like 'ur ex boyfriend' and then hits the target dead in the center LMFAO#olympics au
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gemharvest · 4 months ago
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Hey Karl you think whenever BF or GF just hit Pico with a random hug no matter the circumstance his face just crumbles into the most vulnerable and yearning look and suddenly the hug lasts for 20 minutes because they don't have the heart to pull away when Pico lays his arms around their backs in the most gentle way possible
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(id in alt - do not repost, please ask before using as icon/ banner etc.)
yeag..
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Close-ups of my personal favorite shots LOL. I also really like how Boyf came out here but he's already Huge in the piece so he doesn't need a close-up.
Do you ever think BF and GF get super emotional when he's soft with them? This guy, known for his fuckin' Bite with an attitude developed partially for self-defense, melting at their touch and allowing them to see his more gentle side? Something that nobody else will ever get to see?
The demon and the rapper are nice by default. Boyf can be a bit of a menace and Girlf is not afraid to show her demonic side when necessary, but they're kind to others as a default, maybe even to a fault. Not that Pico doesn't ever show kindness to others, but he's usually prickly and standoffish; his kindness could come off in ways that read almost as passive aggression. And yet, around the two idiots (used affectionately lol) he's like putty in their hands.
Anyways idk what I'm on abt really I just think if you gave him the choice he would literally melt into their embraces. Safe, and protected in their arms; for once, he isn't the one who has to do the protecting. I think the worst part of a hug to him would be having to let go.
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soriastrider · 9 months ago
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this has almost certainly been done before, but i think it's funny so i did it anyway
original:
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gazkamurocho · 6 months ago
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This came to me in a dream??
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xy-is-i · 5 months ago
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Just thinking about Dick freaking out over losing his title of best uncle to Jason.
Dick showing up to take Lian out and give Roy a break only to hear she's having a fun day with Jason
Dick walking into the room with the toy he knows Lian really wanted, only to find out Jason got it for her first.
Dick showing up to game night at Roy's only to find Jason already there.
Just Dick getting increasingly frustrated and his rival Jason having no clue well the the rest watch on in humor and exasperation. Roy finds the who thing hilarious.
Picturing it all coming to a head when Dick is babysitting Lian and she shows him a new photo they put up. Dick all dejectivly being like, "look, it's you and your favorite uncle."
The pure shock and joy he feels when Lian tells him he wrong and her favorite uncle is "you uncle Dickie, duh!"
The door opening and Lian shouting "Papa!" As dick turns to excitedly tell Roy what Lian said only to see it's Jason who's holding Lian.
Dick just bluescreening.
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v10l3tz-thmblr · 5 days ago
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Hey gang.. so about that one doodle I made in my other post...
Look, a lot of people and my friends liked it so I was like "welp, why not finish it!" And I ended up overdoing it. 😃
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Also we don't get enough Super! Silver and Espio interacting, so I did it myself!
*I swear I'm working on a proper Halloween art special-*
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cynicallyneutral · 2 years ago
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Go accla!!!!
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blindmagdalena · 21 days ago
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Center Stage in a Gilded Cage (chapter six)
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18+ 4.6k. homelander x f!reader. stalking, kidnapping, imprisonment, abuse, forced relationship, slow burn, eventual smut. chapter 6/8. gif credit | fic directory | AO3.
“You must never run from anything immortal. It attracts their attention. Walk slowly, and pretend to be thinking of something else. Sing a song, say a poem, do your tricks, but walk slowly.” ― The Last Unicorn
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When he first moved into it, Homelander loved everything about his penthouse. He’d given extensive feedback to the interior design team, even going so far as to offer crude sketches of what he wanted.
He’d always had a specific vision for his home: spacious and open, but not vacant. Rich colors that wouldn’t strain his eyes. Windows and mirrors that gave and reflected as much light and space as possible. 
No white walls. 
Not a single blank space. 
He wanted art on the walls, but not just any art. He wanted historic portraits and moments of history. A face on every wall, the same way that the people on TV had pictures of people on their walls.
Pictures of their family.
He doesn’t have a family, so familiar figures from his studies would have to do instead.
His favorite place was his bedroom. The mirrors give not only the illusion of space, but company.
To this day the bed is as plush as it was then. It’s stacked with fluffy pillows, and the sheets are made of soft cotton. They’re always vibrant, always colorful. The staff washes them in gentle detergent instead of bleach.
He spent his first night in that bed with his face buried in the pillow just smelling it.
It smelled like home.
However, the longer he’s lived in his penthouse, the more the spaciousness of it began to feel like absence. The distinct lack of something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on right away.
It eased on the odd occasion that he had company, but as soon as they were gone, it was as though their presence had carved out holes in his home that he couldn’t fill.
He added statues. More portraits. He left the television running because the silence of his own isolation had become deafening. He started spending more time away. His home had gradually morphed from a place of freedom into a finely decorated version of the same horrible fluorescent box he spent his childhood in.
At least in the box he’d known there were people watching him. With him.
How he’d hated it back then. He hated how he could always hear the camera lenses adjusting as they monitored him from somewhere else.
It makes him sick to have missed it even a bit.
Thanks to you, he no longer has to.
There’s an inherent thrill to coming home that had been lost before you. Excitement starts to prickle up his spine as soon as he steps into the elevator and hits his floor. He can’t remember the last time he’s been so excited to go home.
Every day this week you’ve cooked for him, sat with him, laid in his arms, lived with him. In the last three days you’ve come a long way from the timid thing you started as, no longer jumping at his every move. You still tense at his touch, but he’s willing to bet a few more of those massages will remedy that.
Your presence can be felt even when he’s at work. He recently connected the hidden security camera on his balcony to his phone, ensuring he gets pinged any time you open that door. He isn’t worried about you going off unattended that way, given that it’s a hundred story drop.
It makes him smile to see you getting braver, occasionally stepping out onto the concrete to stare out across the cityscape. Soon he’s going to have to take you for that flight he promised. 
While he’s spent these evenings with you blessedly free of obligations, tonight will be different. He has to leave, and he won’t be able to bring you with him. At least not yet. You aren’t ready for that kind of exposure, nor what being revealed as his beloved would entail.
The media would eat you alive. He won’t subject you to them without proper preparation.
He isn’t cruel.
Vought’s hosting a gala that will serve as the early foundation of their campaign to move supes into the military, and as such, the U.S. Secretary of Defense will be in attendance, and it’s Homelander’s job to convince the man of the innumerable benefits of the operation. 
Ridiculous. He might as well try and argue the benefits of a smartphone to a fish.
If these people can’t understand why having honest to god superheroes in their military is a good idea, he doubts anything shy of a hand delivered miracle from God would sway the morons.
It’s just common sense, for fuck’s sake. War has only ever been a matter of who could bring the biggest gun. They will never find a greater weapon than him, much less a weapon that chooses to protect them.
However undeserving of it they may be.
He lets out a rough breath and shakes his head to knock loose the talking points that have been bashed into his skull over the course of the week, determined to leave work at the door. 
“I’m hoooome,” he sings as he steps in through the doorway, the mechanism locking behind him with a soft beep.
It feels good to know you’re safe here. While he doesn’t have enemies, per se, there’s no telling what some lunatic could be driven to do if they knew about you.
“Living room,” you call.
The familiarity of it makes him smile.
This is what coming home was always supposed to feel like.
He hums a little tune to himself as he walks, a slight bounce to his steps.
“Something smells good,” he says as he rounds the corner, finding you curled up on the couch under a blanket.
Cute.
On the table across from you is a neat little stack of glass containers full of food. He cocks his head, pausing to pick one up for inspection. “You meal planning out here or something?”
You slip out from under the throw and stand. Something is… off. He hears you picking your nails before he even looks at you, and when he does meet your gaze, there’s a subtle apprehension you’re clearly trying to mask with a cordial smile.
“It’s just leftovers from lunch,” you say, eyes flickering from the container of food back to him. “How was work?”
“The usual,” he says a little curtly. Due to your unusual demeanor, he’s forgotten the laundry list of complaints he’d saved up at work with the intention of sharing with you. 
In his experience, it’s rarely a good thing when people suddenly start behaving differently.
Especially when they try to hide it.
“Something wrong?” He asks, giving the penthouse a cursory sweep. Everything looks to be in order.
Your eyes widen a fraction, but you catch yourself from looking overly surprised at being caught.
Got’cha, he thinks. He’s spent his entire life reading the subtleties in people’s body language, seeking out ways to understand the things they say when they’re not speaking. The things they won’t say. Particularly to him.
“No, no, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to… I want to ask you for something,” you say, hands falling to your sides, your spine straightening.
His brows lift, his curiosity piqued. “Sure. Fire away.”
You’ve been here for days, but you haven’t made any requests of him despite his numerous offers. There isn’t a thing in this world he couldn’t obtain for you. Hell, he doesn’t even care if it’s legal. It’s about time you took him up on a little self-indulgence.
“Do you remember my friend John?”
His head gives a sharp little tic of a turn, his brows furrowing.
John.
He hates the effect hearing you say that name continues to have on him. It isn’t as though he has a meltdown every time he hears the name John. That would be pathetic. It’s the most common name in America, for fucks sake. 
However, there’s something particularly vile about hearing you say it with such gentleness.
“What about him?” He asks flatly, hackles rising. He was hoping you’d ask for something fun.
“I’m worried about him,” you say, clearly fighting to keep your tone even. Your fingers curl into the fabric of your pants. 
He doesn’t understand why you’re so nervous. It makes him suspicious.  “And I don’t want him to worry about me. We’ve had a routine for months. So I thought–”
“Oh,” Homelander interrupts, setting the container of food back down as understanding dawns. 
They’re scraps for your stray pet. 
“No problem, I’ll have someone take this to him,” he says, gesturing encompassingly towards the food. 
“No,” you say, the firmness in your voice catching him off guard. “I want you to take me, and I want to give it to him myself.”
He bristles, needles of suspicion creeping further up his spine. “Why?”
Though you’re quick to swallow it back, he doesn’t miss the flash of frustration in your eyes.
“You said you’d take me anywhere I wanted to go. Were you lying?”
He lifts his hand sharply enough to make you flinch, his index finger pointing only inches from your face.
“Don’t you ever call me a liar,” he says slowly, fist curled so tightly that the leather of his gloves groans in protest. “I didn’t say no, I asked you why.”
Your eyes are wide, your heart drumming loudly in his ears. He hates that look of fear, the look that tells him you’re waiting for him to hurt you when he’s never done anything of the sort.
You have no right to look at him like that.
“Because I want to. I want to see him, and make sure he’s okay, and because… because I want–” You stop mid sentence and break eye contact, pressing the back of your hand to your opposite cheek. You take in a slow breath to compose yourself. 
With a start, he realizes your eyes are welling with tears.
“I want to say goodbye.”
At a loss, Homelander stares for a long moment. For the life of him, he cannot fathom how this little charity schtick could possibly be so important to you. Isn’t he enough for you?
You’ve been spending your days carefree in domestic bliss, yet here you are crying because you aren’t taking a box of food to some bum. It’s baffling enough to give him a migraine.
On the other hand, it was that persistent nurturing that drew his eye to you. If not for your diligent care, he may not have seen the same potential in you. He likes that you care. He just wants you to care for him.
He lets out a long-suffering sigh.
“Don’t cry,” he says, voice full of his exasperated bewilderment. He lifts both hands in a placating show of surrender. “Fine, fine, I’ll take you, and you can do whatever it is you need to do.”
“Thank you,” you practically sigh. Your hand drops from your face and you look at him with palpable relief, your lips spreading into a faint smile. He likes your smiles. He likes being the reason for your smiles. That, at least, comes as a slight boon.
He clicks his tongue, observing you for a moment before he blows out a raspberry. He cups either side of your face, stepping in close to you.
“I hate it when you make me take a tone with you, you know,” he says, brushing the tip of your nose with his. Your breath catches. “You should know by now that I can’t say no to you.”
His thumb strokes your cheek. He’s been gentlemanly in your time here, accepting of your hand in his, your lips on his cheek. When he wakes up hard as a rock with your body pressed to his, he’s taken care of himself in the bathroom. Frankly he’s been more than a gentleman; he’s been a fucking saint.
“I’m downright pussy whipped, and I haven’t even gotten any yet,” he huffs through a little laugh, almost close enough to taste your lips. 
He hasn’t felt your lips on his since that night in your apartment. He wants them exactly as they had been. Pliant and without tension or fear, yet still you tense as he holds you close. You place your hands on his chest and though you don’t push him away, they’re braced to prevent him moving closer.
There’s a faint tremble running through you.
“Don’t tell me you’re still scared of me,” he says, offering you the sharp edge of a smile. He means for the words to sound playful, but even he can’t deny that there’s an underlying ache. Insecurity and impatience in equal measure.
Can’t you see how good he’s been for you? He’s had enough of having to beg for and pry every scrap of affection in his life from reluctant hands. All he wants is–for once in his life–to be freely offered tenderness.
“Your strength scares me,” you eventually admit, palms flat against his chest, stare focused on the backs of your hands.
He tips your head back, coaxing your downcast gaze up to meet his. The closeness of you makes your eyes look large and deer-like: a prey animal that recognizes its hunter. 
“It’s unreal, I feel like I’m not…I feel like I’m made of glass when you touch me.”
As a boy he snapped bones as easily as other children snapped twigs. He cradles your skull knowing exactly how much force it would take to crack it. 
You’re right to feel the extent of your own fragility in his hands.
“I won’t break you,” he says, the words little more than a breath.
“Do you promise?” you ask, your own voice barely a whisper.
“I promise.”  
All those that have come before you have taught him his limitations. And yours.
With that, the tension in your arms softens a fraction. He takes a mile from the inch you give, moving to encircle you in his arms. You slide your hands up his chest in turn, moving over his shoulders, around his neck. The way your fingertips settle on the nape of his neck feels like heaven.
Pressing his forehead to yours, he closes his eyes. He listens to the tempo of your heart gradually slow, settling like the wings of a bird finally accepting the safety and kindness of its cage.
Just then, ever so slightly, you tilt your head and lightly press your petal-soft lips to his. The shock of it knocks the wind from his lungs. Joy hits swiftly afterwards, sweeping through his body from his head to his toes. He kisses you in kind, his lips spread in a smile against yours. 
This–more than any kill or record breaking profit for Vought–feels like a victory.
He cups the back of your head as he savors you, branding the memory of your yielding lips against his into his mind. You move to pull back, but his yearning is a beast he cannot tame, and it’s the beast in him that holds you still, intent to relish the kiss just a second more, which becomes just a moment more.
Trapped, you slide your fingers up into his hairline, combing through his sheared undercut into the longer blonde locks. You send a jolt through him when your fingers tighten suddenly, pulling his hair taut between them. 
The sensation shoots through him like a bolt of lightning. His stomach flips, suddenly aflutter with butterflies. He makes a noise against your mouth, which regrettably makes you stop, your fingers going slack in his hair.
It doesn’t hurt–you don’t have the strength necessary to hurt him–but he can still feel it, and it feeds a gnawing hunger in him to be made to feel anything at all. 
“Do that again,” he says between fervent presses of his lips. “Feels good.”
To his delight you slip both hands into his hair and grip it, eliciting a low moan.
Fuck.
He could get lost in this. In you.
Your pulse has kicked back up, but so has his. Your heartbeats dance with one another as you kiss, drowning out the rest of the world. He moves from your lips to your jaw, your throat, peppering hungry kisses down your neck, ignoring the tension he can feel building back up in you.
He could make your whole body sing if you’d just let him.
Your hands move from his hair, pressing once more to his chest. With how weak you are, it takes him a beat to realize you’re actually pushing against him.
An impatient little growl escapes him. He holds you in place, too deep into it to let you go now.
You suck in a shuddering breath, pushing harder. “Homelander–”
His teeth graze your pulse point, and his tongue presses in to taste the rapid flutter of it. The taste of you is intoxicating, your skin salty-sweet.
Do you know his taste yet? Do you crave it the way he craves yours?
There’s fear in you but there’s desire there, too. He can feel it in the way your skin warms under his touch, hear it in the quiver of your breath, and smell it in the heat between your legs. 
“Wait, wait, just–would you just wait–” 
He exhales roughly and pulls sharply back, leveling you with a harsh stare.
“What? What! You kissed me, remember? So which is it; do you want me, or do you just want to be a fucking tease?”
He feels his desire like a longstanding hunger he’s only just become aware of. A painful, gnawing thing that demands he sink in his claws and rip, devour, relish. He’s been so good in all of this that one little taste was all it took for the feel of it to come crashing down on him.
For as badly as he wants you, he wants so fucking badly for you to want him, too.
The look of you is one for the history books. Flushed and wide-eyed, you’ve taken his words with a shock like you’ve been slapped. Your hair is mussed from his hand pushing against it, into it. Your lips are kiss bitten and shiny, plump with all that blood rushing to the surface.
It makes him want to bite them, bruise them, claim them. 
Those same lips open and close as you struggle to form a response before eventually settling on one.
“I’m sorry.”
He recoils from that, features twisting up in displeasure. 
No, no, no.
“I’m sorry, I just–”
“Shut up,” he snaps, letting go of you. He screws his eyes shut, not understanding how he got from where he was a moment ago to where he is now. 
All that sweet delicious heat is fading away, leaving him feeling emptier by the second, his skin prickling uncomfortably under his suit. 
He would be clawing at it if he could.
“I don’t want you to be sorry,” he says, hitting the word like a hiss. “I want you to–I want you–”
I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you.I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you. I want you.
He pushes his hands into his hair, gripping the short strands tight enough to ache, digging for pain so that it might bring him clarity and stop the terrible repetition his mind has latched onto. He can imagine so clearly how things should be, what you should be saying, feeling, and I’m sorry is nowhere in that vision.
He hates that word. It echoes in his psyche like a curse, dragging him back by the throat to the only stretch of time in his life he ever felt weak enough to say it.
Back then, in his days in the lab, Vought was always testing the boundaries of how human he really was. At one point, when he was still a boy–maybe eleven or twelve–they began to reduce his sleep by an hour every few nights.
Each day they would repeat the same grueling tests to see at what point the lack began to affect not only his cognitive abilities, but his powers. Given the sheer amount of Compound V in his system, there were some who wondered if he really needed to sleep at all.
It would have been miraculous if he didn’t. It would be one more aspect of his perfect design that they could pat themselves on the back for. 
Unfortunately for both him and them, it was not so.
When they realized the deprivation did affect him, they wanted to understand how badly. They continued to deprive him until they had reduced his sleep to nothing at all, keeping him awake by any means necessary for days. He begged for sleep. 
It’s a marathon, John, Vogelbaum told him. Eleven days. That’s the record for a human. You can beat that, can’t’cha, tiger?
Tiger. It always made him feel stronger when Jonah called him that.
Ultimately it was less about his perseverance and more about his endurance. He didn’t have much choice in the matter of whether or not he would fall asleep. 
Every time he started to doze off, an alarm would blare in his room, startling him back awake. 
I’m sorry, he would sob, riddled with guilt for the failure.
There was never any answer.
When it was over and neither he nor the scientists had anything to show for it–nothing but misery and a newfound insomnia–he decided he would never be sorry for anything ever again.
His temples are throbbing, his skull aching from the pressure of his own strength. 
Though his eyes are tightly shut, he can feel the searing heat of his laser vision pressing against his eyelids. 
It makes him want to scream, to run, to fly, to break apart everything around him, but he can’t. He’s too powerful to ever allow himself a physical outlet.
When the average man throws a punch to blow off steam, at worst they’ll put a hole in the wall.
Homelander could punch through to the core of the planet. 
Maybe he could split the whole damn thing in half. He’s never been allowed to find out.
Instead, he focuses it all inward. He swallows the feelings like bile and fights not to choke on it, on the tension of his own impossible power straining his muscles. He can’t hear your heartbeat anymore, it’s drowned out by his own blood rushing in his ears.
Or it’s not there at all.
You’ve fled, he realizes. His stomach churns, and still his mind is on a punishing loop of all the things he has ever wanted that he cannot accept he’ll never have. 
I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want. I want.
Anger surges through him and the heat of it is painful, twisting all his already tautly wrung innards and flushing them with fiery rage.
She’s not sorry. She has no idea the fucking meaning of it. If she wants to know what it’s like to be sorry, then we’ll–
Arms slip around his neck, and suddenly his mind hits a deafening quiet.
What?
The feeling is so alien to him that it takes several seconds to understand that it’s you. That you’re here. That you’re… holding him.
Faintly he feels the tug of your meager strength, and he leans into it, his cheek coming to rest on your chest, head tucked under your chin.
He opens his eyes, the world still awash in the crimson glow of his lasers, and he feels you flinch at the sheer heat of them. He works to blink the light away, his hands resting on your hips, gripping at the fabric of your pants.
“You’re still here,” he says, voice frayed with confusion and steadily ebbing tension. 
“Yes.”
“I thought I was alone.”
“You’re not.”
Gently, you comb your fingers through his hair. He doesn’t need his super senses to know your heart is pounding. He can feel the hammering pulse of it against his cheek.
Your fear is so tangible he can practically taste it, but he wouldn’t know it existed at all if he went only on the way you’re holding him.
How is it you can be so afraid and yet feel so firm against him?
“It’s okay,” you whisper, a faint tremble in your otherwise firm voice. “You’re not alone.”
Tears sting his eyes. He moves his grip from your hip to the fabric at your back, your shoulder, his hands climbing your clothes with a clawing desperation to ensure every bit of you is real and within his reach. He envelops you in his arms and nuzzles you, exhaling another breath of the terrible miasma that had built up like sulfur in his lungs.
You move your other hand in soothing patterns between his shoulder blades–just as you had before–and with every repetition of the pattern he feels the rage, the pain, the fear, the misery of it all drip away, like a wet cloth being wrung dry.
The two of you stand like that for a long while, focused only on the sound and feel of the other. The burn in the back of his throat and in his eyes fades. By the end of it, he feels heavy with the exhaustion of holding back the weight of his own might.
Slowly, he lifts his head to meet your gaze. You’re somehow even more beautiful than you had been. Your edges are frayed, and though there is lingering fear, it doesn’t repulse him to see it.
Because you stayed.
Your fingers slip from his hair, moving to his face. It isn’t until your thumb moves through the wetness on his cheek that he realizes a tear had escaped the burn of his lasers and streaked down his face.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” you tell him, and to his own pleasure, he believes you.
“Hey, hey, it’s alright. I know you didn’t,” he says, cupping your face in turn. He brings you forward and presses a firm lingering kiss to your forehead. 
He’s in control again, and he speaks as if that were always true.
“Just like I know you’ll make it up to me.”
He draws away with a crooked smile, the episode fading to a distant corner of his mind as he puts the fractured pieces of himself back into something cohesive. He strokes your cheek, admiring your features. Your eyes.
In hindsight, it’s strange to think that he’s always thought of you as the sweet, doting little rabbit to his wolf. 
Staring at you now, he’s sure he’s looking into the eyes of a fox. 
“C’mon,” he says, siding his hands down your shoulders so that he can take hold of your wrists, guiding you towards the balcony. “It’s about time I take you for that flight I promised.”
Wouldn’t want to keep John waiting for his meal any longer.
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